It seems to me then that a subscription service penalizes heavy gamers but would be great for mid-casual gamers like me.
It also penalizes people whose gameplay style is explorational, like me. When I get a new GTA game, usually the first thing I do is spend a couple of weeks just wandering around the city looking at stuff and learning my way around.
They are not your friend. As the VB developers found out a few years ago, they'll dump you with no upgrade path if it makes financial sense to do so.
What does IBM have to do with the lack of an upgrade path for Microsoft Visual Basic? Did you just copypasta your rant and forget to adjust it to match the company name?
Re:Pound and a half and its too heavy?
on
iPad Review
·
· Score: 1
Okay, now come up with any sort of reason where an equivalent, lighter device is worse.
Boat anchor.
Re:Pound and a half and its too heavy?
on
iPad Review
·
· Score: 1
Apple is never going to like this because it isn't "friendly" enough. Just like their one-button mice and cmd clicking.
Hey, Rip Van Winkle, Apple has been shipping right-click-capable mice for several years now.
What I'm trying to tell you is that I've studied predicate calculus and prolog and various methods to achieve this. The problem isn't the system, the problem is replicating a human life (or even 18 years) of knowledge into whatever form is machine interpretable and this solution falls prey to these problems.
Exactly. This system sounds like Cyc plus Bayesian probabilities, something Cycorp have already explored.
The probabilistic rule processing engine is the easy bit; any computer science graduate could write one of those. The difficult part is getting your database of rules and probabilities to the point where it can do something useful. OpenCyc has over 300,000 rules just to support its ontology and handle problems like disambiguation, and people still complain that it's nowhere near good enough for restricted problem domains...
If you're a Metroid Prime fan, pick up the Wii Metroid Prime Trilogy *now*. It was a limited release, they've stopped pressing 'em, and the price is rapidly rising. Just FYI.
You are assuming that the entire purpose of DLC is not to obliterate the secondary market for games. There's no reason to release DLC except to ruin the used game market.
Not really true. It's also a great way to jack up the price of games without it being obvious on the sticker.
For example, you buy the latest online FPS, and find that there's a map pack ($15) and a weapons pack ($15) available as DLC. You have to buy them, or you can't find anyone else to play multiplayer with. Hey presto, the $60 sticker price is actually $90.
Then after a few months when you've moved on to the next game, you go to sell your game used. Except the Game Of The Year edition is now out, with the DLC included, for $30. Which means your used copy without any DLC is worth practically nothing, rather than $25.
I noticed this trend a while back. Ultimately, I think the game publishers are playing a very dangerous game jacking up prices this way, because there are people like me who would have paid $50-60 for a new game, but will instead wait and buy the cheap copy a year later rather than be doubly screwed over by DLC.
It's possible that the extra money they make from suckers who still buy games brand new will more than offset what they lose from people like me no longer buying anything at first release, but I'm doubtful.
Well, that's what I was getting at with my KDE 4 vs KDE 4.3 comments.
Kubuntu shipped KDE 4.0 and 3.5 in parallel; then for the next release they shipped with only KDE 4.1. Neither 4.0 nor 4.1 were usable, in my view.
KDE 4.3 is usable. I have had no trouble with it, running a multi-monitor setup with nVidia drivers, and a mixture of KDE and GTK apps.
(Going from earlier Kubuntu to 9.04 was a bitch because of the switch to GRUB 2 even though that's still in beta, but that affects GNOME Ubuntu as well, and shouldn't be an issue with a clean install from CD.)
I've always recommended Kubuntu. You might consider doing the same. It's closer to Windows in its default look-and-feel settings, which after all is what people are most likely to be used to. KDE 4 was ropey, but as of 4.3 it's fine. (Sure, there are some things that could be better, but nothing really frustrating.)
How often is it that you really need two windows visible at the same time?
All the damn time, I'm a software developer.
At a bare minimum there's my code editor, the UI of the application being debugged, and the API reference documentation.
Usually there are multiple chunks of code in multiple windows, and multiple windows of API documentation. For example, doing web development it's quite normal to have CSS, HTML and JavaScript open for editing, plus reference material for each language, plus the site being developed.
There's a reason why developers often have multiple monitor setups.
The original Silent Hill is a much better game than Silent Hill 2. More creepy atmosphere, less "oh how convenient all the windows are boarded up and the lights are all broken" with random stuff jumping out for no reason to scare you. (If you prefer the latter, go with the Resident Evil series.)
Happily there's a remake of the original Silent Hill on the Wii which allegedly improves on it by offering Wii remote control of the flashlight, etc. You can also get the PS1 original from PSN.
There is really nothing about the OpenGL API that is in any way object-oriented. It's not just procedural, it's procedural with global state variables. So if you want to build your 3D software in OO style, your first task is going to be making object-based wrappers around the procedural OpenGL code.
So basically, you can forget about C++ and use C, Ruby, Java, or anything else you fancy while learning OpenGL from the tutorials you've already been pointed at. Then you can learn how to wrap procedural C in a C++ object-based wrapper.
Alternatively, you might look for existing OO wrappers for OpenGL; but the problem there will be that you're wedding yourself to that particular library/framework and whatever platforms it supports.
(I went through much the same process, but with Objective-C and OpenGL, 'cause C++ sucks and because my primary target was OS X.)
Then there's the third orthogonal issue of how to build Linux C++ binaries. My personal suggestion would be that until you have a compelling need for something more sophisticated, you go with a simple old-fashioned hand-written Makefile.
However, Google's added the functionality to the recent nightly builds of Chrome, so as soon as it stabilizes I'm just going to switch. Mozilla can pull their heads out of their asses and start serving users rather than advertisers, or lose their market share.
Yes, but NoScript functionality really needs to be part of the core Firefox product. Security shouldn't be something that you have to download plugins to get.
(Meanwhile, Mozilla devs are working on adding address books to the browser. Yeah, nice sense of priorities there.)
Re:Smalltalk and LISP for the History Major
on
Metaprogramming Ruby
·
· Score: 1
Ruby also seems to have some diarrhea of the programming language where it wants to mix paradigms from so many other languages.
You make it sound like that's a bad thing.
I prefer multi-paradigm languages because they let me pick the paradigm that best suits the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's my big fear too.
Quote: "Ask any European if they're not somewhat envious of the advancements of smartphone technology in the US."
And then when they've finished laughing...
It also penalizes people whose gameplay style is explorational, like me. When I get a new GTA game, usually the first thing I do is spend a couple of weeks just wandering around the city looking at stuff and learning my way around.
What does IBM have to do with the lack of an upgrade path for Microsoft Visual Basic? Did you just copypasta your rant and forget to adjust it to match the company name?
Boat anchor.
Hey, Rip Van Winkle, Apple has been shipping right-click-capable mice for several years now.
I have a Prius, and the cruise control won't activate at 35.
I know this because I've tried to cruise on empty roads with a posted 35mph speed limit.
Also, hitting the brake turns off cruise control until you explicitly re-activate it.
So unless something has gone bizarrely wrong with the cruise control system, that's not the explanation for any of these incidents.
Exactly. This system sounds like Cyc plus Bayesian probabilities, something Cycorp have already explored.
The probabilistic rule processing engine is the easy bit; any computer science graduate could write one of those. The difficult part is getting your database of rules and probabilities to the point where it can do something useful. OpenCyc has over 300,000 rules just to support its ontology and handle problems like disambiguation, and people still complain that it's nowhere near good enough for restricted problem domains...
The Mac I'm using right now is IPv6 capable and IPv4 capable. It is connecting to Slashdot, which is IPv4 only, and to my home server via IPv6.
If you're a Metroid Prime fan, pick up the Wii Metroid Prime Trilogy *now*. It was a limited release, they've stopped pressing 'em, and the price is rapidly rising. Just FYI.
Not really true. It's also a great way to jack up the price of games without it being obvious on the sticker.
For example, you buy the latest online FPS, and find that there's a map pack ($15) and a weapons pack ($15) available as DLC. You have to buy them, or you can't find anyone else to play multiplayer with. Hey presto, the $60 sticker price is actually $90.
Then after a few months when you've moved on to the next game, you go to sell your game used. Except the Game Of The Year edition is now out, with the DLC included, for $30. Which means your used copy without any DLC is worth practically nothing, rather than $25.
I noticed this trend a while back. Ultimately, I think the game publishers are playing a very dangerous game jacking up prices this way, because there are people like me who would have paid $50-60 for a new game, but will instead wait and buy the cheap copy a year later rather than be doubly screwed over by DLC.
It's possible that the extra money they make from suckers who still buy games brand new will more than offset what they lose from people like me no longer buying anything at first release, but I'm doubtful.
Idle speculation for nerds. Stuff that's likely completely irrelevant.
Most of us did tell him that, repeatedly, right here on Slashdot.
Well, that's what I was getting at with my KDE 4 vs KDE 4.3 comments.
Kubuntu shipped KDE 4.0 and 3.5 in parallel; then for the next release they shipped with only KDE 4.1. Neither 4.0 nor 4.1 were usable, in my view.
KDE 4.3 is usable. I have had no trouble with it, running a multi-monitor setup with nVidia drivers, and a mixture of KDE and GTK apps.
(Going from earlier Kubuntu to 9.04 was a bitch because of the switch to GRUB 2 even though that's still in beta, but that affects GNOME Ubuntu as well, and shouldn't be an issue with a clean install from CD.)
I've always recommended Kubuntu. You might consider doing the same. It's closer to Windows in its default look-and-feel settings, which after all is what people are most likely to be used to. KDE 4 was ropey, but as of 4.3 it's fine. (Sure, there are some things that could be better, but nothing really frustrating.)
All the damn time, I'm a software developer.
At a bare minimum there's my code editor, the UI of the application being debugged, and the API reference documentation.
Usually there are multiple chunks of code in multiple windows, and multiple windows of API documentation. For example, doing web development it's quite normal to have CSS, HTML and JavaScript open for editing, plus reference material for each language, plus the site being developed.
There's a reason why developers often have multiple monitor setups.
A few days ago I was reading about some of the algorithms for doing this, shown at Siggraph in recent years. I think it's real.
If it's like any of the other fancy healing tools, it'll make its way into the $99 PhotoShop Elements. The existing magic healing brush did.
The original Silent Hill is a much better game than Silent Hill 2. More creepy atmosphere, less "oh how convenient all the windows are boarded up and the lights are all broken" with random stuff jumping out for no reason to scare you. (If you prefer the latter, go with the Resident Evil series.)
Happily there's a remake of the original Silent Hill on the Wii which allegedly improves on it by offering Wii remote control of the flashlight, etc. You can also get the PS1 original from PSN.
Abuse was also cool because it was written in Lisp.
There is really nothing about the OpenGL API that is in any way object-oriented. It's not just procedural, it's procedural with global state variables. So if you want to build your 3D software in OO style, your first task is going to be making object-based wrappers around the procedural OpenGL code.
So basically, you can forget about C++ and use C, Ruby, Java, or anything else you fancy while learning OpenGL from the tutorials you've already been pointed at. Then you can learn how to wrap procedural C in a C++ object-based wrapper.
Alternatively, you might look for existing OO wrappers for OpenGL; but the problem there will be that you're wedding yourself to that particular library/framework and whatever platforms it supports.
(I went through much the same process, but with Objective-C and OpenGL, 'cause C++ sucks and because my primary target was OS X.)
Then there's the third orthogonal issue of how to build Linux C++ binaries. My personal suggestion would be that until you have a compelling need for something more sophisticated, you go with a simple old-fashioned hand-written Makefile.
Yeah, I think advertisers are the real reason why the Mozilla devs are adamantly against making NoScript functionality a core part of Firefox.
However, Google's added the functionality to the recent nightly builds of Chrome, so as soon as it stabilizes I'm just going to switch. Mozilla can pull their heads out of their asses and start serving users rather than advertisers, or lose their market share.
[Opinions mine, not my employer's.]
Yes, but NoScript functionality really needs to be part of the core Firefox product. Security shouldn't be something that you have to download plugins to get.
(Meanwhile, Mozilla devs are working on adding address books to the browser. Yeah, nice sense of priorities there.)
You make it sound like that's a bad thing.
I prefer multi-paradigm languages because they let me pick the paradigm that best suits the problem.
Same here. It used to be, pay $50 at release, or wait a year and pay $20.
Now, it's pay $50 plus $20-40 for release plus DLC, or wait a year and pay $30.
Worse, the DLC reduces the resale value of the original full-price game if you want to sell it when you're finished with it.
Basically, they've massively increased the cost of buying the game when it's new.
Games I would have bought new, but won't because of the DLC, include Borderlands, Dragon Age, and probably Resident Evil 5.