There are some features found in other RDBMS products that you won't find in mysql. This is the way it is between any 2 db servers. IE: There are a lot of features in mysql that you won't find in SQL Server. Personally, I haven't found mysql lacking. Apparently, neither has NASA or the US Census Bureau.
What kind of work are you and they doing? Is it truly "enterprise level"? I'll grant that MySQL can be useful for web sites, especially when they deal with a simple data set and mostly read operations. I would not write an enterprise level billing system, financial system, etc based on MySQL.
1) Views
coming next version
Not good enough. I don't want to wait until "next version". I want it now. SQL Server has had views for years and years, as have Oracle, Postgres, DB2, etc.
2) Stored Procedures Also...next version. Personally, I don't like sprocs anyway. In the MS environment, they are especially ridiculous. Why use a crippled language (TransactSQL) to write your data access when you could do it on a seperate teir with a full featured language at your hands. The performance gained by precompiled sprocs generally isn't worth it. Sprocs are too often a band-aid for a poorly designed database.
Again, same answer. I don't want to wait. But more importantly, your answer explains why you don't miss stored procedures -- you don't have any understanding at all about why they're useful. The ability to compile a stored procedure is a very small benefit, and is only really touted by people that don't understand the other benefits.
Permissions. By writing stored procedures that access your data, and then granting permissions only on the stored procs and not on the other objects, you can guarantee that tables and such will not be misused or abused. In most cases, that's not an issue as long as you're using proper constraints (foreign keys, of course, but also check constraints and sometimes triggers, though I'm not a huge fan of triggers because of the complexity they add to insert, update, or delete codepaths). However, if you need to enforce some business logic when manipulating your data, it's best to do it in a stored procedure so that you can filter all access to that data. Otherwise, you'd have to ensure that anybody that needs to access your data will always go through your middle-tier layer (not always the case, when dealing with internal admin tools and such).
Security. Stored procedure parameters are typed, and you can't use SQL injection attacks if you're using stored procedures (and calling them properly, which means not writing "exec myproc %s" in your code, but using your database access library's stored procedure interface). Yes, you still need to validate inputs, but only for business logic purposes. You no longer have to spend developer time or CPU cycles trying to prevent SQL injection. Paramterized queries protect you against this somewhat as well without having to write a stored procedure, but you don't get the other benefits of stored procedures by using a parameterized query (of course, if you write your stored procedures stupidly, and do something like take in a large string on input and exec the string, you're asking for trouble. But doing that would be dumb...)
Performance. Compiling isn't that big of a performance gain, though it is one. More importantly, though, a proper RDBMS engine will cache the execution plan for a stored procedure. Yes, your first run through the stored proc will be a bit slower as the engine determines the optimal execution plan, but subsequen calls will be much faster. Think JIT compiling, here.
Performance again. Stored procedures run on the SQL server itself, which means that you don't have to spend time transfering data between the RDBMS and middle tier. This isn't a huge issue internally,
Without getting into a db religion war, I fail to see how comparing mysql to sql server is "ludicrous." Both are enterprise level databases that have been used to some degree of success for large projects.
It's ludicrous because you're mistaking MySQL for an enterprise-level database system. It's not. It's a great, fast indexing and storage system for simple data sets, and it's been shoehorned into other roles where a better database would be more appropriate simply through propaganda (if I say "open source database", you immediately say "MySQL", and not the more featureful and robust "PostgreSQL") and ignorance. How many times have you seen the infamous MySQL errors from Slashdotted web pages? The bandwidth is obviously still there, else the pages would be giving errors about having exceeded their maximum limit or some such, but MySQL has taken a crap because it couldn't handle the load. Now, how many times have you seen a similar problem with Postgres-, Oracle-, SQL Server-backed sites? Why do you think Slashdot has had so many problems? Most of Slashdot's technical problems stem from their MySQL backend, and its inability to scale to a complex data set or large number of concurrent users (it's also the reason why most of Slashdot's pages are static pages, rather than rendered on the fly, because MySQL can't keep up with the load).
Would you trust your money to a financial institution that uses MySQL? I wouldn't, and not for any silly reason like because MySQL is open source. MySQL has problems, and the MySQL developers are arrogant enough to say that a lot of MySQL problems and deficiencies are "by design" and would slow down the system if they were implemented properly (maybe true, but if that's the case then MySQL is poorly written to begin with). MySQL is great for a hobbiest database, or for getting your feet wet with SQL (though you'd want to move to a more standards-compliant RDBMS before you get too deep, else you'll be learning MySQL-specific tricks and hacks that you'll then try to apply to other RDBMSs that don't need them), but it is not enterprise-level, regardless of what the open source zealots will tell you.
It supports the same language with minor syntax differences.
That's not exactly true, as Visual Studio.NET still obviously supports C++ (Managed and standard). However, you're confusing VS.NET the development environment with.NET the platform. VS has had hooks for a long time to be able to add support for new languages. As well, you're confusing the MS Development Environment program (the IDE you're calling "Visual Studio.NET") with Visual Studio.NET the suite of tools. As I mentioned, VS.NET Architect has a lot of other tools and capabilities than VS.NET Professional (the de-facto "just the IDE, maybe a few extra things like Crystal Reports" suite, if you can't get the more barebones Academic version). Read through those pages. Architect does everything Professional does and more (yes, they're full of marketing speak, but read between the lines). Professional may be a more accurate comparison with BOA, but not Architect.
He's rifling through WinXP, Visual Studio.NET "architect", SQL Server, MS Office...etc. And all that's going through my mind is "Wow. I already have Boa Constructor, MySQL and Open Office etc..." But sometimes it seems there's no point in getting into it over alternatives with people that have already invested years of their career to being locked to one vendor.
On the other hand, other than OO.o, the packages you mentioned as alternatives can't hold a candle to the Microsoft offerings. Comparing BOA Constructor, an IDE for Python, to Visual Studio.NET Architect (which yes, is an IDE, but for more than one language, and the "Architect" package adds a bunch more tools as well), or MySQL to SQL Server is just ludicrous. Maybe next time you could pick better examples?
A lot of microsofties I know are a lot like the pyramid scam investors. They don't want to hear anything that hints that they made a mistake when they invested their entire career and education in one set of technologies developed by one company.
Before you put me in that same category and ignore me, let me say that I run both Windows and Linux and can appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. And no, I don't have an MCSE.
was paying speak easy for 768/384 and they where giving me 1536/768. The bastards.
I was getting 1500/384 ADSL from Speakeasy, and they tried to charge me for a fractional T1 (or the equivalent thereof, they wanted $250/mo for a $90/mo service). The bastards.
Sure, there are warning posters above them telling people not to violate copyright; if this suffices for printed books and magazines, then why not for CD and DVD materials as well?
You can't really be that dense, can you? To photocopy a book, at an average of 250 pages by $0.10 per page and 5 seconds to copy a page, you're looking at $25 and 20 minutes. You could go out and buy your own copy of most books for that price, and even if you choose to still copy the book you'll have a loose pile of paper with a good possibility of some unreadable portions due to the copier, not a bound and printed copy of the book.
Contrast that with copying a CD (or DVD, once DVD writers become more common-place), where the cost of entry is less than $1 for a CD-R, copying takes less than 10 minutes, and you end up with a perfect copy of the CD when you're done (minus any liner notes or artwork, but the content is exactly the same and in the same format). A warning poster is good enough for books, because there's too much effort and cost to copy them for the gain. That's not the case for music or movies.
And finally, it makes sense for you to photocopy a page or three of an encyclopedia or other reference material. That's fair use, and you can freely do it. You could do the same with music as well, but I don't really see the same utility in grabbing 10 seconds of a song. I'm sure somebody out there has a need for that (music majors, perhaps?), but it's by far not the majority of people who copy music.
The important lesson from the car industry is that hand-crafted cars have all but disappeared (except for ludicrously overpriced and unreliable sports vehicles).
I'll agree with the over-priced part, but not necessarily unreliable, nor sports vehicles. Rolls Royce, Bentley, and Maybach, though being owned by BMW, VW, and M-B respectively, are still largely hand-built, and solid as a rock. Yes, they're extremely expensive, but even that has started to change. Did you ever expect to see a sub-$200,000 Bentley?
There is a balance that can be struck between handcrafting and automation. For example, Porsche's cars are a mix of the two, and have been notoriously reliable (if not exactly affordable, though the price of a 911 GT3 is a magnitude less than a comparable Ferrari) for 40 years. Maybe you can't afford a Rolex, but that doesn't mean you have to settle for a $15 watch. Seiko, for example, makes great watches at a relatively affordable price. You can argue that a $300 watch still isn't affordable, but I'd be willing to be that $300 watch will outlast the $15 example, and be just as good as a $10,000 Rolex (minus the social status given by Rolex).
Who made this list? It's terrible. I'd almost think this list is generated randomly from the list of all XBox games
I agree the list is horrible, but it gets better on the second page, listing Moto GP 2, Project: Gotham Racing 2 (Best. Game. EVAR!), KOTOR, and GTA3/VC double-pack. However, the other picks seem half-assed. Why pick EA's NHL 2004 when Sega's ESPN NHL Hockey is a better game and has Live support? They list Midnight Club II, but not NFS: Underground (a better street racing game than MC2) or Midtown Madness 3 (a better "drive around a city, doing races and checkpoints and stuff" game than MC2). The list doesn't seem to be in any special order, but Tao Feng is listed in the third slot, which would make you think it's highly recommended. That game was crap.
Out of the given list, I can only recommend:
Soul Calibur II, but only if you like fighting games.
Rainbow Six 3, but only if you're into tactical shooters. I would recommend Ghost Recon: Island Thunder as well, except that the Ghost Recon engine and interface is crap, leaving only the gameplay (which also has problems, but the hardcore enjoy it).
Burnout 2, because it's a fun arcade racer.
Counter-Strike, if you like Counter-Strike. You're probably better off going with RS3, though.
Moto GP 2. Except for PGR2, MGP2 had the best Live experience of any game. And it's a fun racer, too.
Project: Gotham Racing 2. Best. Racing. Game. EVAR. Best Live! experience, too. Enough said.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but only if you didn't play the original (not Enemy Territory) on the PC. Though RTCW:ToW is worth it for the original Wolf3D you can play once you beat the game.
Knights of the Old Republic. Best RPG on XBox.
Grand Theft Auto double-pack. Do I really need to say anything here?
There may be a few others on the list that others may enjoy, but overall most of the picks for XBox were lame.
From looking at the pictures, it seems that the wheels can rotate perpendicular to the length of the vehicle. Should make parallel parking a breeze.
Parellel parking is already a breeze, assuming you:
Are not blind
Have a minimal amount of hand-eye coordination and depth-perception.
Are not driving a Maibotsu Monstrosity
I've never had a problem parallel parking any car I've ever driven (well, with the exception of large trucks, but I don't take those where I would be parallel parking them).
But, how do you protect that screen? Something big like that just seems to be a huge scratch and scuff collector. Is this the case or am I just missing something obvious again?
The best tablets have a rotating screen. At first glance, they look just like a slim laptop, complete with keyboard. Unlock the screen, rotate it 180deg, and shut the clamshell, and now you have a tablet. There's nothing you can do about protecting the screen while you're using it, but when transporting and storing it you'd have it in the laptop configuration (screen facing the keyboard while closed).
Not all tablets are built this way, but the good ones (read: expensive ones) are.
Nice way to pick the worst Tenebrae screenshot there, eh? Why not pick something that actually shows off more than just bump mapping, like this one, this one, this one, and so on. I would argue that every one of those shots are graphically superior to Quake 3 Arena (not necessarily later games built with the Q3 engine, but close). Some of them (the first one, for instance) even look close to Doom 3's graphical level.
I'm not affiliated with Tenebrae in any way, but the work that's been done on it is quite breathtaking, IMHO.
It adds very nice lighting and texturing, but nothing more. The gameplay and modelling is still old and clunky.
Tenebrae was just an example, but I believe you're incorrect in saying that the modelling is still old and clunky. People around the Tenebrae object have reworked a lot of the models in the original game to have higher polygon counts and higher resolution textures. Quake 1 looks good with the new models and effects.
As far as gameplay goes, nobody play's the Quake 3 Arena standard game either anymore. Quake's gameplay could easily be on par or better than current games if people were still working on it. Breaking out the old TeamFortress is still a blast today, for example (much better than TFC for Half-Life).
For that matter why would anyone buy XP if Windows NT 4 was still under active development by an open source community that made it just as modern and up to date?
Why would anyone buy Quake 3 if Quake 1 was still under active development by an open source community that made it just as modern and up to date?
There have been many projects based on the GPLed code of Quake 1, like Quake Tenebrae which adds graphical capabilities that surpass Quake 3 and are nearly on par with Doom 3. Yet people still buy new games. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, since the single-player gameplay of Quake 1 is different than that of Quake 3, but then again the multiplayer can be extremely similar.
He was referring to the article summary, not the article itself. The summary says, "FilmForce has substantiated rumors of Farscape, widely popular TV miniseries,..." which when parsed as an English-language sentence says, "Farscape is a miniseries." It wasn't, and the poster said so. That they're making a miniseries doesn't make the original series a miniseries as well.
A miniseries is something like Band of Brothers, or Carnivale, where there is a small, set number of episodes, and when they're done, they're done. You don't have "seasons" of a miniseries, because otherwise it would be a series.
One 10-Watt halogen light with a lead-acid battery. It's lasted me for several years, but is starting to loose it's charge.
I don't get it. Isn't the point of a battery to "let go" of its charge so that you can use that to power whatever devices you choose (a light, in your case)? I'd think that a battery loosing a charge would be optimal and ideal, not a problem to complain about.
Ooooohhhh. You meant it's starting to lose its (notice, no apostrophe; interestingly enough you got it right earlier in the sentence, but not here) charge. I guess I'd be annoyed, too, in that case.
FYI: The Voodoo3 (all versions) has 16mb. BF1942 requires 32mb. And the Voodoo3 has no T&L engine and thus cannot work with BF1942 AT ALL.
And I misparsed his post, where he said (even in the subject!) that he has some GeForce4. The oldest GeForce with numbers in Tom's review was the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, pulling 55.7 fps in the same 1024x768@32/4xFSAA/etc. By my own inference, I'd guess the GeForce4 would be lucky to do a solid 30fps (and everybody knows that an average of 30fps is unplayable, because that means that half the time the frame rate falls below 30fps). So yes, my bad comparing against the V3, but the point still stands that what this guy has can't compare to the high-end cards.
I think it all comes down to whether there are enough people who don't mind paying for good content to support the creators.
The opposite is just as important. With the given examples of IGN and Fileplanet, the content simply is not compelling enough for people to subscribe. I can generally find the same info on IGN elsewhere (maybe not the same editorials or previews, but I'm not hardcore enough to care), and I can find other mirrors or torrents of Fileplanet downloads. Without excellent subscription-only content (and some way to convey what kind of content you'll get with a subscription, like a free trial month), nobody will be willing to pay.
So I suppose my question is why do people get more excited these days about +0.7fps out of a $200 card when they could just drop a bit more memory on the mainboard?
Did you even read the article? Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of Tom's Hardware, but their numbers are generally good. Using your Battlefield 1942 (not 1945, which show's you're probably not the target demographic for these cards), the GeForce 5950 does 98.7fps at 1024x768 with 4xFSAA and 8x fnisotropic filtering at 32bpp. By comparison, your Voodoo3 can't even display 32bpp, nor would it be able to pull even 10 fps at 1024x768 with 4x FSAA and so on. That doesn't sound like +0.7fps to me. Adding more RAM isn't going to magically make your Voodoo3 be able to display 32bpp color, or do 4x anti-aliasing at 1024x768 at almost 100fps.
As I mentioned before, you're apparently not the demographic at which these cards are targetted. There are always early adopters and people that like to play on the bleeding edge. This is true for almost everything from home theater hardware to kitchen appliances. These high-end cards are targetted at that portion of the market at their release. In a year or two, when another few revisions have been released and this card is down to $100 or so, you'll be in the targetted demographic. Of course, at that point in time, the 5950 Ultra will no longer be top of the line, either. Fanboys gush because this is an area in which they are passionate, and reviewers gush because they know their audience (fanboys).
Maybe sites should create a link down at the bottom of thier pages along with the contact us and privacy policy links that lists their current advertisers and some simple banners. If I decide to search for a hosting company maybe I'd like to see who is currently advertising on/. and check them out.
I've seen sites that do that, and it's great. I frequent Porsche Pete's Boxster Board, and they have a list of Board Sponsors. Those are the companies that advertise on the site, and I've bought several things from different board sponsors. I didn't wait for them to show up in the normal ad rotation, though. I went to the sponsor's page and followed the link. I think it's a great idea, but perhaps it's only doable for smaller sites with a manageable number of sponsors?
And to go off-topic a bit, if you're looking for hosting I can recommend Reflected Networks. They host my personal site, and I've been happy with them so far. Price is competitive, as well, and they'll give you ssh and sftp access upon request.
In all sincerity I ask...is there a difference? It's not as if the free market is some seperate entity whose correct answers we can ascertain by kneeling at an Oracle. The free market is, in my non-economist opinion, nothing more than the collective decsions of human beings - irrational human nature and all.
The difference is subtle. The free market is an economic system designed to work with human nature, not against it. For instance, consider pricing. If you sell something for $X, and I can sell a similar enough product that users would buy mine instead for $Y, where $Y is less than $X, why shouldn't I price mine at $Y? The "altruistic" thing to do would be to price mine at $X as well, so that I don't put you out of business. The human nature thing to do is price at $Y and steall all of your business unless you follow suit with a price reduction. All free market economic rules boil down to understanding and working with human nature.
This is a rather narrow interpretation of what is good for you. While I certainly agree that no one should force you to donate anything to any charity, there's more to a charitable act than economics. Not to mention that the economic effects may, in the long run, be beneficial to you (as a hasty example, perhaps fewer turning to crime in order to satisfy basic needs). It's just that you might never see them. Difficult to make an educated decision on unforseeable effects, certainly, but there's that irrational human nature again.
It is very true that charitable donations can have other benefits other than monetarily. However, human nature likes the short term. If I donate $50 to feed a homeless family, that's $50 less that I have to feed my own family. Will I miss it? Probably not, but then what if something happens to me? Providing economic incentives for charitable donations is one way to increase the benefits of donation above the defecits, and thus make it a better proposition. That's my point -- (the collective) you need to show me what benefit I will gain by not blocking banner ads and pop-ups that will outweigh the benefit I already get (I don't have to see the damned things, and I've already said that sites going subscription-only or going away is not a big concern of mine so the argument, "You will still be able to have free content," is non-compelling). Alternatively, you need to prove to me that the consequences are far worse than simply sites shutting down or going subscription-only. I don't really much care about that. Tell me I'll go to prison, however, and I may change.
I don't aim this last question at you, but when did the Free Market become such a religion, rather than just a way of allocating resources?
Probably right around the same time Capitalism became the biggest evil since the Devil, I'd guess.
And content providers wouldn't have had to come up with innovations like pop-unders and shoshkeles if end-users viewed regular banner ads instead of blocking them.
And users would've viewed ads if they weren't annoying and deceptive. I know that one of my major reasons for implementing an ad blocker at home was because I was tired of the flashing, jiggling, "You're visitor number ### to this site, you're a winner!" ads, or the ads that try to look like actual windows (believe it or not, there are users that actually fall for those). If you can't fit a clear, concise, subdued message that properly sells your product in the space of a banner ad, you should not be taking out such an ad in the first place. What do those "You're a winner!", "Punch the monkey!", "You have 1 new emails" ads actually sell, anyway?
Google's text ads are a huge step in the right direction. Non-flash, minimally animated, unobtrusive banner ads are acceptable. The rest are not.
In this case, nobody likes banner ads, and everyone selfishly wants to block them. If everyone did this, content on the web would be diminished, because fewer people could afford to produce web content full-time, and more content would go to subscriber-pay sites. (Or worse, the advertising will become more embedded and harder to filter out, even visually. For example, this sentence is brought to you by the good people at State Farm. Or every web comic would suddenly have a character named Cisco.) Yet if everyone co-operated by not blocking banner ads, free web content is made available to everyone.
What would you recommend, then? In reality, that is. You can be altruisitic and view ads, but that just means I can benefit more by blocking them (you pay for my content by looking at the ads, so I don't have to). If you block the ads too, then I have no incentive to be altruisitc, so I'm going to block them. Worst case is that some of the free content goes subscription-only (if the content is good enough, I'll buy), or we have deeply embedded advertisements (yet, the content is still free, so what do I care?). There's no incentive for everyone to be altruistic, because it's too easy to exploit (if everyone is being altruistic, nobody will even notice that I'm blocking popups and ads, and so I will enhance my own experience by doing so). So, how do you solve it? Like you said, this is a typical prisoner's dilemma, and the outcome is going to be the same -- I won't pick the altruistic response, because I know that if the other guy did, I wouldn't because I could benefit. Therefore, the only answer I can make is the non-altruistic one. Either the other guy picks altruistically and I win, or the other guy doesn't and I don't lose so badly as if I had picked the altruistic answer.
The problem is not with the free market. It's human nature that's at fault. We've all seen how well economic and social institutions work when they're based on a flawed assumption of human nature (communism, socialism, hippy communes, etc). You cannot force me to be altruistic, if it is not in my own best interests. The threat of subscription-only or deep-embedded advertisements is not enough of a deterrent to cause me to unblock ads. On the other hand, life in prison for murder is a good way to keep me from killing someone even if doing so may be in my own best interest. Another example, using positive reinforcement this time: you can't force me to donate to charity, and it's in my own best interest not to donate (more money for me!). However, with tax deductions and other incentives in place, donating to charities suddenly becomes a lot more appealing, and I'm willing to do it.
The moral here is that you have to provide me something more than I'm already getting, or a very strong deterrent, if you want me to look at banner ads, flash ads, interstitials, pop-ups, etc. I'm already getting the content for free, and even if the ad economy collapses I'll be willing to pay for good subscription content. What more can you give me? Or do you propose that ad-blocking technology is now illegal, and anybody who is caught using it can be imprisoned for 20 years?
Which leads me to another point: there's an appalling lack of ethical behavior on the internet. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so.
Damn straight! Those Flash ads that jump all over my page, obscuring content are terrible! Pop-unders, pages that change the size of my browser window (if I wanted it maximized, I'd maximize it, so don't you reposition it to 0,0 and stretch it out to "max" for me), noisy ads, interstitials, etc. All terrible. Sure, you can do it, but is it ethical to use those? Oh, wait, you meant end users blocking ads and pop-ups. Well, end-users wouldn't need to do that at all if the content providers were ethical in the first place. You're misplacing the blame.
While I may disagree with the quality of the XBox games upon launch, I clearly wasn't remembering the launch of the PS2 correctly. GT3 was almost good enough to make me buy a PS2 but if it wasn't available at launch, I am sure you are right about their library problems at the beginning.
Launch titles don't have to be "must have" titles a year or two after launch:) In fact, they don't even have to be "must have" titles at launch, they just need to be good. Whether or not DoA3 is a must-buy game (I feel it is, if only as a way to show off what the XBox can do, even two years into its life) doesn't matter, because it's still a good game (IMHO, of course). Compared to launch libraries of previous consoles, the XBox did damned well (also evidenced by the XBox's high attach rate from nearly day one).
Now, what I thought the XBox did really badly was to not come with DVD playback. And their DVD adapter was _expensive_ (and mine wasn't very good). The PS2 could play DVDs out of the box, no? I'm not quite sure how Microsoft justified that, coming so long after the PS2 was released.
I'm definitely not an authority here, but the story I've heard is that it was basically a monetary concern. Microsoft was already taking a loss on the XBox hardware, without factoring the cost of an MPEG2 license on every box. To at least salvage something from the situation, they chose to sell the DVD playback kit separately, and roll the MPEG2 license charge into that (I for one am glad they did this -- I don't give a crap about DVD playback on my game consoles, because my stand-alone DVD player is ten times better than any console could be). And if that doesn't do it for you, how about justifying it this way: the PS2 comes with DVD playback in the box, but no remote control. A good remote control costs around $30. The XBox doesn't come wiht DVD playback in the box, but if you spend $30 on the DVD playback kit you get a remote control. In the end, for the same price, you have either a PS2 with DVD playback and remote, or XBox with DVD playback and remote.
Of course, the XBox didn't have this stable of games (and really only has KotOR now) upon release. I don't recall what the PS2 had. If it had GT3, that was almost enough to carry the platform there and then even without PS1 compatibility.
What? It's generally accepted that XBox has had the strongest launch lineup of any recent console (perhaps of any console?). With Halo, Project: Gotham Racing, Amped, NFL Fever, Oddworld, DoA3, and a bunch of other titles, the XBox did quite well for itself. The PS2 on the other hand had a pretty weak launch library, so weak in fact that I can't even recall what titles launched with the system (probably a Madden title, maybe the first SSX?). GT3 was released a year or more after the launch of the PS2, and was eventually bundled with the PS2 for a while, but it was definitely not a system seller for the PS2 launch except by anticipation, ie "Why should I buy a Dreamcast with a bunch of great games right now when I could buy a PS2 and get Gran Turismo 3 in a year even though there's really nothing worth playing yet?"
The question really comes down to this. How many people do you know who own a PS2 and play PS1 games on it? Not a single person I know does this. That's not to say that _you_ might not know people who do, only that this does not represent the average user. Most people who buy a PS2 only want to play PS2 games on it. They are unlikely to buy a PS1 game. They may already own some PS1 games but if so, they could just use their PS1 to play them on.
I know exactly two people who have a PS2 (and thus, I'm probably not typical, but oh well), and both of them use their PS2 for PS1 games. Mostly, they play Square's PS1 games like the Final Fantasy series and re-releases (Anthologies, Chronicles, Origins). Nobody is going to buy a PS2 so that they can play the PS1 version of John Madden Football, but I could see someone buying a PS2 because they want to play Gran Turismo 2 (they'll probably also get GT3, but the hardcore will dig up copies of 1 and 2 as well). And as for just playing the PS1 games on the old PS1, why bother? Do you really want to have another box connected to your TV/home theater system? More importantly, the PS2 does smooth the graphics somewhat of PS1 games, making them look a bit better, so except for the very few games that don't work with the PS2's PSOne-on-a-chip, there's no reason you wouldn't want to play your PS1 games on your PS2.
There doesn't seem to be any direct need to have a fancy "swivel" motion. Just the presense of keys.
And where are you going to store this USB keyboard? I don't care how light it is, it's going to be bulky, which means you can't put it in your back pocket or clip it to your belt (assuming you want to go for the geek look, which most of us don't). Do you carry around a backpack everywhere you go? That may be fine in school, but in the real world that's fairly rare, even considering laptop bags (my laptop bag serves to get my laptop from home to work; while at work, I just carry the laptop and possibly the power supply, not the bag). Wouldn't you rather have a unit that's small, easy to carry, and includes a keyboard as well as tablet functionality? I know I would.
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What kind of work are you and they doing? Is it truly "enterprise level"? I'll grant that MySQL can be useful for web sites, especially when they deal with a simple data set and mostly read operations. I would not write an enterprise level billing system, financial system, etc based on MySQL.
Not good enough. I don't want to wait until "next version". I want it now. SQL Server has had views for years and years, as have Oracle, Postgres, DB2, etc.
Again, same answer. I don't want to wait. But more importantly, your answer explains why you don't miss stored procedures -- you don't have any understanding at all about why they're useful. The ability to compile a stored procedure is a very small benefit, and is only really touted by people that don't understand the other benefits.
It's ludicrous because you're mistaking MySQL for an enterprise-level database system. It's not. It's a great, fast indexing and storage system for simple data sets, and it's been shoehorned into other roles where a better database would be more appropriate simply through propaganda (if I say "open source database", you immediately say "MySQL", and not the more featureful and robust "PostgreSQL") and ignorance. How many times have you seen the infamous MySQL errors from Slashdotted web pages? The bandwidth is obviously still there, else the pages would be giving errors about having exceeded their maximum limit or some such, but MySQL has taken a crap because it couldn't handle the load. Now, how many times have you seen a similar problem with Postgres-, Oracle-, SQL Server-backed sites? Why do you think Slashdot has had so many problems? Most of Slashdot's technical problems stem from their MySQL backend, and its inability to scale to a complex data set or large number of concurrent users (it's also the reason why most of Slashdot's pages are static pages, rather than rendered on the fly, because MySQL can't keep up with the load).
Would you trust your money to a financial institution that uses MySQL? I wouldn't, and not for any silly reason like because MySQL is open source. MySQL has problems, and the MySQL developers are arrogant enough to say that a lot of MySQL problems and deficiencies are "by design" and would slow down the system if they were implemented properly (maybe true, but if that's the case then MySQL is poorly written to begin with). MySQL is great for a hobbiest database, or for getting your feet wet with SQL (though you'd want to move to a more standards-compliant RDBMS before you get too deep, else you'll be learning MySQL-specific tricks and hacks that you'll then try to apply to other RDBMSs that don't need them), but it is not enterprise-level, regardless of what the open source zealots will tell you.
That's not exactly true, as Visual Studio .NET still obviously supports C++ (Managed and standard). However, you're confusing VS.NET the development environment with .NET the platform. VS has had hooks for a long time to be able to add support for new languages. As well, you're confusing the MS Development Environment program (the IDE you're calling "Visual Studio .NET") with Visual Studio .NET the suite of tools. As I mentioned, VS.NET Architect has a lot of other tools and capabilities than VS.NET Professional (the de-facto "just the IDE, maybe a few extra things like Crystal Reports" suite, if you can't get the more barebones Academic version). Read through those pages. Architect does everything Professional does and more (yes, they're full of marketing speak, but read between the lines). Professional may be a more accurate comparison with BOA, but not Architect.
On the other hand, other than OO.o, the packages you mentioned as alternatives can't hold a candle to the Microsoft offerings. Comparing BOA Constructor, an IDE for Python, to Visual Studio.NET Architect (which yes, is an IDE, but for more than one language, and the "Architect" package adds a bunch more tools as well), or MySQL to SQL Server is just ludicrous. Maybe next time you could pick better examples?
Before you put me in that same category and ignore me, let me say that I run both Windows and Linux and can appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. And no, I don't have an MCSE.
I was getting 1500/384 ADSL from Speakeasy, and they tried to charge me for a fractional T1 (or the equivalent thereof, they wanted $250/mo for a $90/mo service). The bastards.
You can't really be that dense, can you? To photocopy a book, at an average of 250 pages by $0.10 per page and 5 seconds to copy a page, you're looking at $25 and 20 minutes. You could go out and buy your own copy of most books for that price, and even if you choose to still copy the book you'll have a loose pile of paper with a good possibility of some unreadable portions due to the copier, not a bound and printed copy of the book.
Contrast that with copying a CD (or DVD, once DVD writers become more common-place), where the cost of entry is less than $1 for a CD-R, copying takes less than 10 minutes, and you end up with a perfect copy of the CD when you're done (minus any liner notes or artwork, but the content is exactly the same and in the same format). A warning poster is good enough for books, because there's too much effort and cost to copy them for the gain. That's not the case for music or movies.
And finally, it makes sense for you to photocopy a page or three of an encyclopedia or other reference material. That's fair use, and you can freely do it. You could do the same with music as well, but I don't really see the same utility in grabbing 10 seconds of a song. I'm sure somebody out there has a need for that (music majors, perhaps?), but it's by far not the majority of people who copy music.
I'll agree with the over-priced part, but not necessarily unreliable, nor sports vehicles. Rolls Royce, Bentley, and Maybach, though being owned by BMW, VW, and M-B respectively, are still largely hand-built, and solid as a rock. Yes, they're extremely expensive, but even that has started to change. Did you ever expect to see a sub-$200,000 Bentley?
There is a balance that can be struck between handcrafting and automation. For example, Porsche's cars are a mix of the two, and have been notoriously reliable (if not exactly affordable, though the price of a 911 GT3 is a magnitude less than a comparable Ferrari) for 40 years. Maybe you can't afford a Rolex, but that doesn't mean you have to settle for a $15 watch. Seiko, for example, makes great watches at a relatively affordable price. You can argue that a $300 watch still isn't affordable, but I'd be willing to be that $300 watch will outlast the $15 example, and be just as good as a $10,000 Rolex (minus the social status given by Rolex).
I agree the list is horrible, but it gets better on the second page, listing Moto GP 2, Project: Gotham Racing 2 (Best. Game. EVAR!), KOTOR, and GTA3/VC double-pack. However, the other picks seem half-assed. Why pick EA's NHL 2004 when Sega's ESPN NHL Hockey is a better game and has Live support? They list Midnight Club II, but not NFS: Underground (a better street racing game than MC2) or Midtown Madness 3 (a better "drive around a city, doing races and checkpoints and stuff" game than MC2). The list doesn't seem to be in any special order, but Tao Feng is listed in the third slot, which would make you think it's highly recommended. That game was crap.
Out of the given list, I can only recommend:
There may be a few others on the list that others may enjoy, but overall most of the picks for XBox were lame.
Parellel parking is already a breeze, assuming you:
I've never had a problem parallel parking any car I've ever driven (well, with the exception of large trucks, but I don't take those where I would be parallel parking them).
The best tablets have a rotating screen. At first glance, they look just like a slim laptop, complete with keyboard. Unlock the screen, rotate it 180deg, and shut the clamshell, and now you have a tablet. There's nothing you can do about protecting the screen while you're using it, but when transporting and storing it you'd have it in the laptop configuration (screen facing the keyboard while closed).
Not all tablets are built this way, but the good ones (read: expensive ones) are.
Nice way to pick the worst Tenebrae screenshot there, eh? Why not pick something that actually shows off more than just bump mapping, like this one, this one, this one, and so on. I would argue that every one of those shots are graphically superior to Quake 3 Arena (not necessarily later games built with the Q3 engine, but close). Some of them (the first one, for instance) even look close to Doom 3's graphical level.
I'm not affiliated with Tenebrae in any way, but the work that's been done on it is quite breathtaking, IMHO.
And you called me harsh for saying nobody plays Q3A anymore! Not everybody that uses Microsoft software pirates it, you know.
Tenebrae was just an example, but I believe you're incorrect in saying that the modelling is still old and clunky. People around the Tenebrae object have reworked a lot of the models in the original game to have higher polygon counts and higher resolution textures. Quake 1 looks good with the new models and effects.
As far as gameplay goes, nobody play's the Quake 3 Arena standard game either anymore. Quake's gameplay could easily be on par or better than current games if people were still working on it. Breaking out the old TeamFortress is still a blast today, for example (much better than TFC for Half-Life).
Why would anyone buy Quake 3 if Quake 1 was still under active development by an open source community that made it just as modern and up to date?
There have been many projects based on the GPLed code of Quake 1, like Quake Tenebrae which adds graphical capabilities that surpass Quake 3 and are nearly on par with Doom 3. Yet people still buy new games. Maybe it's an unfair comparison, since the single-player gameplay of Quake 1 is different than that of Quake 3, but then again the multiplayer can be extremely similar.
Umm, read the poster's comment...
He was referring to the article summary, not the article itself. The summary says, "FilmForce has substantiated rumors of Farscape, widely popular TV miniseries, ..." which when parsed as an English-language sentence says, "Farscape is a miniseries." It wasn't, and the poster said so. That they're making a miniseries doesn't make the original series a miniseries as well.
A miniseries is something like Band of Brothers, or Carnivale, where there is a small, set number of episodes, and when they're done, they're done. You don't have "seasons" of a miniseries, because otherwise it would be a series.
I don't get it. Isn't the point of a battery to "let go" of its charge so that you can use that to power whatever devices you choose (a light, in your case)? I'd think that a battery loosing a charge would be optimal and ideal, not a problem to complain about.
Ooooohhhh. You meant it's starting to lose its (notice, no apostrophe; interestingly enough you got it right earlier in the sentence, but not here) charge. I guess I'd be annoyed, too, in that case.
And I misparsed his post, where he said (even in the subject!) that he has some GeForce4. The oldest GeForce with numbers in Tom's review was the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, pulling 55.7 fps in the same 1024x768@32/4xFSAA/etc. By my own inference, I'd guess the GeForce4 would be lucky to do a solid 30fps (and everybody knows that an average of 30fps is unplayable, because that means that half the time the frame rate falls below 30fps). So yes, my bad comparing against the V3, but the point still stands that what this guy has can't compare to the high-end cards.
The opposite is just as important. With the given examples of IGN and Fileplanet, the content simply is not compelling enough for people to subscribe. I can generally find the same info on IGN elsewhere (maybe not the same editorials or previews, but I'm not hardcore enough to care), and I can find other mirrors or torrents of Fileplanet downloads. Without excellent subscription-only content (and some way to convey what kind of content you'll get with a subscription, like a free trial month), nobody will be willing to pay.
Did you even read the article? Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of Tom's Hardware, but their numbers are generally good. Using your Battlefield 1942 (not 1945, which show's you're probably not the target demographic for these cards), the GeForce 5950 does 98.7fps at 1024x768 with 4xFSAA and 8x fnisotropic filtering at 32bpp. By comparison, your Voodoo3 can't even display 32bpp, nor would it be able to pull even 10 fps at 1024x768 with 4x FSAA and so on. That doesn't sound like +0.7fps to me. Adding more RAM isn't going to magically make your Voodoo3 be able to display 32bpp color, or do 4x anti-aliasing at 1024x768 at almost 100fps.
As I mentioned before, you're apparently not the demographic at which these cards are targetted. There are always early adopters and people that like to play on the bleeding edge. This is true for almost everything from home theater hardware to kitchen appliances. These high-end cards are targetted at that portion of the market at their release. In a year or two, when another few revisions have been released and this card is down to $100 or so, you'll be in the targetted demographic. Of course, at that point in time, the 5950 Ultra will no longer be top of the line, either. Fanboys gush because this is an area in which they are passionate, and reviewers gush because they know their audience (fanboys).
I've seen sites that do that, and it's great. I frequent Porsche Pete's Boxster Board, and they have a list of Board Sponsors. Those are the companies that advertise on the site, and I've bought several things from different board sponsors. I didn't wait for them to show up in the normal ad rotation, though. I went to the sponsor's page and followed the link. I think it's a great idea, but perhaps it's only doable for smaller sites with a manageable number of sponsors?
And to go off-topic a bit, if you're looking for hosting I can recommend Reflected Networks. They host my personal site, and I've been happy with them so far. Price is competitive, as well, and they'll give you ssh and sftp access upon request.
The difference is subtle. The free market is an economic system designed to work with human nature, not against it. For instance, consider pricing. If you sell something for $X, and I can sell a similar enough product that users would buy mine instead for $Y, where $Y is less than $X, why shouldn't I price mine at $Y? The "altruistic" thing to do would be to price mine at $X as well, so that I don't put you out of business. The human nature thing to do is price at $Y and steall all of your business unless you follow suit with a price reduction. All free market economic rules boil down to understanding and working with human nature.
It is very true that charitable donations can have other benefits other than monetarily. However, human nature likes the short term. If I donate $50 to feed a homeless family, that's $50 less that I have to feed my own family. Will I miss it? Probably not, but then what if something happens to me? Providing economic incentives for charitable donations is one way to increase the benefits of donation above the defecits, and thus make it a better proposition. That's my point -- (the collective) you need to show me what benefit I will gain by not blocking banner ads and pop-ups that will outweigh the benefit I already get (I don't have to see the damned things, and I've already said that sites going subscription-only or going away is not a big concern of mine so the argument, "You will still be able to have free content," is non-compelling). Alternatively, you need to prove to me that the consequences are far worse than simply sites shutting down or going subscription-only. I don't really much care about that. Tell me I'll go to prison, however, and I may change.
Probably right around the same time Capitalism became the biggest evil since the Devil, I'd guess.
And users would've viewed ads if they weren't annoying and deceptive. I know that one of my major reasons for implementing an ad blocker at home was because I was tired of the flashing, jiggling, "You're visitor number ### to this site, you're a winner!" ads, or the ads that try to look like actual windows (believe it or not, there are users that actually fall for those). If you can't fit a clear, concise, subdued message that properly sells your product in the space of a banner ad, you should not be taking out such an ad in the first place. What do those "You're a winner!", "Punch the monkey!", "You have 1 new emails" ads actually sell, anyway?
Google's text ads are a huge step in the right direction. Non-flash, minimally animated, unobtrusive banner ads are acceptable. The rest are not.
What would you recommend, then? In reality, that is. You can be altruisitic and view ads, but that just means I can benefit more by blocking them (you pay for my content by looking at the ads, so I don't have to). If you block the ads too, then I have no incentive to be altruisitc, so I'm going to block them. Worst case is that some of the free content goes subscription-only (if the content is good enough, I'll buy), or we have deeply embedded advertisements (yet, the content is still free, so what do I care?). There's no incentive for everyone to be altruistic, because it's too easy to exploit (if everyone is being altruistic, nobody will even notice that I'm blocking popups and ads, and so I will enhance my own experience by doing so). So, how do you solve it? Like you said, this is a typical prisoner's dilemma, and the outcome is going to be the same -- I won't pick the altruistic response, because I know that if the other guy did, I wouldn't because I could benefit. Therefore, the only answer I can make is the non-altruistic one. Either the other guy picks altruistically and I win, or the other guy doesn't and I don't lose so badly as if I had picked the altruistic answer.
The problem is not with the free market. It's human nature that's at fault. We've all seen how well economic and social institutions work when they're based on a flawed assumption of human nature (communism, socialism, hippy communes, etc). You cannot force me to be altruistic, if it is not in my own best interests. The threat of subscription-only or deep-embedded advertisements is not enough of a deterrent to cause me to unblock ads. On the other hand, life in prison for murder is a good way to keep me from killing someone even if doing so may be in my own best interest. Another example, using positive reinforcement this time: you can't force me to donate to charity, and it's in my own best interest not to donate (more money for me!). However, with tax deductions and other incentives in place, donating to charities suddenly becomes a lot more appealing, and I'm willing to do it.
The moral here is that you have to provide me something more than I'm already getting, or a very strong deterrent, if you want me to look at banner ads, flash ads, interstitials, pop-ups, etc. I'm already getting the content for free, and even if the ad economy collapses I'll be willing to pay for good subscription content. What more can you give me? Or do you propose that ad-blocking technology is now illegal, and anybody who is caught using it can be imprisoned for 20 years?
Damn straight! Those Flash ads that jump all over my page, obscuring content are terrible! Pop-unders, pages that change the size of my browser window (if I wanted it maximized, I'd maximize it, so don't you reposition it to 0,0 and stretch it out to "max" for me), noisy ads, interstitials, etc. All terrible. Sure, you can do it, but is it ethical to use those? Oh, wait, you meant end users blocking ads and pop-ups. Well, end-users wouldn't need to do that at all if the content providers were ethical in the first place. You're misplacing the blame.
Launch titles don't have to be "must have" titles a year or two after launch :) In fact, they don't even have to be "must have" titles at launch, they just need to be good. Whether or not DoA3 is a must-buy game (I feel it is, if only as a way to show off what the XBox can do, even two years into its life) doesn't matter, because it's still a good game (IMHO, of course). Compared to launch libraries of previous consoles, the XBox did damned well (also evidenced by the XBox's high attach rate from nearly day one).
I'm definitely not an authority here, but the story I've heard is that it was basically a monetary concern. Microsoft was already taking a loss on the XBox hardware, without factoring the cost of an MPEG2 license on every box. To at least salvage something from the situation, they chose to sell the DVD playback kit separately, and roll the MPEG2 license charge into that (I for one am glad they did this -- I don't give a crap about DVD playback on my game consoles, because my stand-alone DVD player is ten times better than any console could be). And if that doesn't do it for you, how about justifying it this way: the PS2 comes with DVD playback in the box, but no remote control. A good remote control costs around $30. The XBox doesn't come wiht DVD playback in the box, but if you spend $30 on the DVD playback kit you get a remote control. In the end, for the same price, you have either a PS2 with DVD playback and remote, or XBox with DVD playback and remote.
What? It's generally accepted that XBox has had the strongest launch lineup of any recent console (perhaps of any console?). With Halo, Project: Gotham Racing, Amped, NFL Fever, Oddworld, DoA3, and a bunch of other titles, the XBox did quite well for itself. The PS2 on the other hand had a pretty weak launch library, so weak in fact that I can't even recall what titles launched with the system (probably a Madden title, maybe the first SSX?). GT3 was released a year or more after the launch of the PS2, and was eventually bundled with the PS2 for a while, but it was definitely not a system seller for the PS2 launch except by anticipation, ie "Why should I buy a Dreamcast with a bunch of great games right now when I could buy a PS2 and get Gran Turismo 3 in a year even though there's really nothing worth playing yet?"
I know exactly two people who have a PS2 (and thus, I'm probably not typical, but oh well), and both of them use their PS2 for PS1 games. Mostly, they play Square's PS1 games like the Final Fantasy series and re-releases (Anthologies, Chronicles, Origins). Nobody is going to buy a PS2 so that they can play the PS1 version of John Madden Football, but I could see someone buying a PS2 because they want to play Gran Turismo 2 (they'll probably also get GT3, but the hardcore will dig up copies of 1 and 2 as well). And as for just playing the PS1 games on the old PS1, why bother? Do you really want to have another box connected to your TV/home theater system? More importantly, the PS2 does smooth the graphics somewhat of PS1 games, making them look a bit better, so except for the very few games that don't work with the PS2's PSOne-on-a-chip, there's no reason you wouldn't want to play your PS1 games on your PS2.
And where are you going to store this USB keyboard? I don't care how light it is, it's going to be bulky, which means you can't put it in your back pocket or clip it to your belt (assuming you want to go for the geek look, which most of us don't). Do you carry around a backpack everywhere you go? That may be fine in school, but in the real world that's fairly rare, even considering laptop bags (my laptop bag serves to get my laptop from home to work; while at work, I just carry the laptop and possibly the power supply, not the bag). Wouldn't you rather have a unit that's small, easy to carry, and includes a keyboard as well as tablet functionality? I know I would.