So a couple of mystery guys say they can bust a Mac and they have a VIDEO!!! to prove it and they are going to show it, uh, someplace. That's enough proof for me... and Ars...and the Post. In the coming days, commercial media will turn it into cold hard fact.
A better title for the article would be "Macs vulnerable to fast spreading rumor-based virus"
Won't this just be CE..I mean PocketPC...I mean Windows Mobile with a couple new bundled apps, an added API, and a hardware reference that specs a patent-safe imitation of the iPod click wheel? The tech press has latched on to this for some reason for the last few days, probably planted to take advantage of a recently weakened AAPL, but it makes no sense for M$ to alienate their phone and PDA customers by coming out with their own hardware.
But the Q1 is terrible executed. It's controls, materials, even the box it comes in shows an obsession with making a really big black iPod. Even though they had Apple to copy from, it's a hodgepodge of styles. The ports are scattered around the edge of the device, making it seem like it's a development board wrapped in a plastic shell, with no thought put into how it feels in the hand of the user. That shiny black plastic might look good when you take it out of the box, but it quickly gets nasty with fingerprints (I admit Apple have the same problem).
There's no comfortable way to hold it, always feeling a bit too big and heavy on the wrist and it's never clear how to interact with it; stylus? fingertip? left of right thumb buttons? I found that the least frustrating was to plug a mouse into it, which isn't really the point.
Worst of all is the software. When you first turn if on, Windows wants it's usual info pokes to register it, but there's an on-screen keyboard that obscures the EULA and other dialogs and the keyboard window refuses to be moved off screen. The manual tells you just to poke yes and OK without being able to read what you're agreeing to. Just terrible. I kept thinking about what a terrible out-of-box experience it would be for someone that wasn't familiar with Windows already. Not very satisfying for a new $1200 toy. PocketPC/CE would work much better on the device, just because it was designed around a smaller screen and poking at it with a stylus.
Once the thing finally comes up, the native resolution of the screen is too small for many windows dialogs and so you have to switch (obscurely) into a faked higher res mode and then the text is really small and full of drawing artifacts.
I kept thinking how well Apple would have approached the device and how it induced a total lack of device lust. I gave it back with no regret.
So you point is that when you buy Apple hardware you can run anything other than Apple software so you can wait to buy some Apple hardware and run non-Apple software?
I built one of the winning games in last year's SL contest, and several other moderately complex things as well.
The scripting language is interesting, fun, and somewhat well thought out. If you could use it to write someting that ran locally, you might be able to have something semi decent. but... After it goes thru the server system and out over the net intermixed with all that SL data using Linden Lab's lazy update protocol, you feel lucky to get things to work at all, ending up with everything a primitive compromise.
It's irritatingly flaky. The API calls are at best 80% reliable, terribly documented, and they come and go at the whim of Linden Labs with no standards a developer can rely on. Maybe object messages will work, maybe not. Maybe when a player shows up, all the parts will rez, maybe not. Maybe physics will work, usually not.
In 3 years, there's been no significant improvement in the graphics. It looks very dated, especially the avatars and what passes for a skybox. Everyone walks around like stiff zombies. It's still buggy as hell, especially if you have less than a 1MB line and a $4K PC. Get more than 10 people in the same place and it slows to a crawl for everyone. Can't complain though... Second Life zealots will tell you it's your fault because you don't have everything turned down to minimum settings.
The idea has potential, and Linden Lab has indeed solved some of the harder problems of implementing the Metaverse, but at this point, they just can't scale any further without it collapsing under it's own weight. Time to take what's been learned, pull the plug on Second Life, and build something with modern graphics, open standards, and distributed servers that anyone can run.
Although it's neat to move from sim to sim in the mainland , most "serious" players opt for a seperate island. That costs >$1200 startup and $200 a month. I'd much rather be able to host my own sim, with a coordinated method of sharing comm channels, directory service, and inventory items with other hosts and players.
Again, so much potential, but at the rate they are going, it'll be dead in less than 2 years, a blip in computer history. I think the real goal of the game, and it *is* a game, is to pump up the number of user accounts, and squeeze in a couple thousand more users "in-world" to make it look attractive for some company to buy them up so Philip "Linden" and the verture guys can cash out.
How many refrigerator owners are required to have any working knowledge of refrigerant gasses?
"Boy, the other day I was delivering a Kenmore side-by-side and they didn't know anything about HFC-134a!! There's no way they're gonna keep their food cold! Whatta n00b! Lame Kenmore users!"
No it wasn't. It was a beautiful, lean, authentic UNIX v7. The first release was not much more than s/UNIX/Xenix/g. Certainly more of a purebred than any Linux. Ran OK too. You could keep 16 users quite happy on 256K of RAM.
Heh. This guy knows that a PC is a "real computer".
Maybe he's on to something. Perhaps we just were not aware of this "Windows PC" and all of it's wonders. Share your insight! Tell us more! They sound really good. Got any links?
This is +10 insightful, especially to all the other comments in this thread. Whoever follows this model, even with it's obvious "problems", would win over iTunes. So simple, and also the easiest to implement.
...no one has essential needs.....It is a world without disease...
Interestingly, that's not really true. Many, many of the people that end up taking up long term residence in Second Life are hurting. There's a large number of residents that have emotional problems; loss of a loved one, physical or mental illness that keeps them from functioning to their fullest in the real world, a history of abuse, or some other burden that is overwhelming enough in this life that they are compelled to re-invent themselves in this synthetic world.
Unfortunately for many, Second Life often perpetuates the problem. The vulnerable, the gullible, or the trusting fall prey to parasitic or abusive residents in Second Life. One facet of this show up in the gorean Master/Slave subculture that's prominent in-world. Looking to love and acceptance, they give up their self-determination to be dominated and humiliated by others.
The tragedy is that they are so vulnerable that after they create what they think is the ideal representation of themselves; young and beautiful, and they again find themselves abused or rejected, the fall is crushing. Sad, I know, but it happens. Some would say that's "sick", but that's my point.
Linden Labs tends to the economic and technical needs of it's residents, but totally ignores the emotional needs. Sure, it's a slippery slope. Do they provide counseling or a access to an in-world suicide hot line? I realize that the legal implications are many if they do that, but the Linden's whole premise is that they are creating a country, a society...and they have needs that go unmet. It's as if it's a large city with utilities and banks and stores, but no hospitals or doctors.
This probably seems totally whacked out to those who haven't spent time in Second Life, but I'm sure that the longer term residents that are reading this thread can relate to this on some level.
Troll? I'm not trolling, I've been in-world for over a year, and this is my honest opinion.
That's the most amazing thing about Second Life; its delusional players. Heaven forbid anyone critique -anything-. The Lindens generate a Reality Distortion Field that puts Steve Jobs to shame.
Those making money are nothing but sheep farmers, harvesting from n00bs that wanna play with their paper dolls simulating getting laid. Despite the claims, it's a closed system with a very limited future, a collapsing eternal economy, and more bugs than a bait shop. The claim of "A user created community" is Linden/Rosedale just playing everyone for suckers, missing it's potential and merely focusing on profit, while wrapping themselves in a blanket of lazy, scamming altruism. There's a few interesting builds, but for the most part, it's more BigLots than Metaverse. The quality of the graphics looks like a game from 5 years ago, and they haven't improved on the look in well over a year, other than adding a water shader.
Granted, Second Life is something special. (Yes, I'm one of those 4 hour people.)
But I think the 100K number equals the total number of unique account names ever created. At night, there's always under 5,000 people in world. Looking right now, 16:30 EST, there's 3500. Many of those accounts (especially for those 4 hour users) are alt avatars, perhaps 30%.
But I have to agree with a previous poster, bugs and all, it's a quite remarkable environment. Too bad you can't host your own server....
Although it didn't make a windfall for Gateway, Dell is now selling 42" plasma TVs for $2600. How wonderful if Apple would make one with the same form and price, but with iMac internals added.
Slashdot Mirror
What a bunch of heartless bass turds.
So a couple of mystery guys say they can bust a Mac and they have a VIDEO!!! to prove it and they are going to show it, uh, someplace.
That's enough proof for me... and Ars...and the Post. In the coming days, commercial media will turn it into cold hard fact.
A better title for the article would be "Macs vulnerable to fast spreading rumor-based virus"
You're confidently ill-informed. You should get out more, or at least revise your opinions that were formed 10 years ago.
so according to you, macs are better b/c retards can't figure out how to use a mouse.
Well, you figured it out so I guess retards don't have to use a Mac.
...and a Taser.
Won't this just be CE..I mean PocketPC...I mean Windows Mobile with a couple new bundled apps, an added API, and a hardware reference that specs a patent-safe imitation of the iPod click wheel? The tech press has latched on to this for some reason for the last few days, probably planted to take advantage of a recently weakened AAPL, but it makes no sense for M$ to alienate their phone and PDA customers by coming out with their own hardware.
But the Q1 is terrible executed. It's controls, materials, even the box it comes in shows an obsession with making a really big black iPod. Even though they had Apple to copy from, it's a hodgepodge of styles. The ports are scattered around the edge of the device, making it seem like it's a development board wrapped in a plastic shell, with no thought put into how it feels in the hand of the user. That shiny black plastic might look good when you take it out of the box, but it quickly gets nasty with fingerprints (I admit Apple have the same problem).
There's no comfortable way to hold it, always feeling a bit too big and heavy on the wrist and it's never clear how to interact with it; stylus? fingertip? left of right thumb buttons? I found that the least frustrating was to plug a mouse into it, which isn't really the point.
Worst of all is the software. When you first turn if on, Windows wants it's usual info pokes to register it, but there's an on-screen keyboard that obscures the EULA and other dialogs and the keyboard window refuses to be moved off screen. The manual tells you just to poke yes and OK without being able to read what you're agreeing to. Just terrible. I kept thinking about what a terrible out-of-box experience it would be for someone that wasn't familiar with Windows already. Not very satisfying for a new $1200 toy. PocketPC/CE would work much better on the device, just because it was designed around a smaller screen and poking at it with a stylus.
Once the thing finally comes up, the native resolution of the screen is too small for many windows dialogs and so you have to switch (obscurely) into a faked higher res mode and then the text is really small and full of drawing artifacts.
I kept thinking how well Apple would have approached the device and how it induced a total lack of device lust. I gave it back with no regret.
So you point is that when you buy Apple hardware you can run anything other than Apple software so you can wait to buy some Apple hardware and run non-Apple software?
I built one of the winning games in last year's SL contest, and several other moderately complex things as well.
The scripting language is interesting, fun, and somewhat well thought out. If you could use it to write someting that ran locally, you might be able to have something semi decent. but... After it goes thru the server system and out over the net intermixed with all that SL data using Linden Lab's lazy update protocol, you feel lucky to get things to work at all, ending up with everything a primitive compromise.
It's irritatingly flaky. The API calls are at best 80% reliable, terribly documented, and they come and go at the whim of Linden Labs with no standards a developer can rely on. Maybe object messages will work, maybe not. Maybe when a player shows up, all the parts will rez, maybe not. Maybe physics will work, usually not.
In 3 years, there's been no significant improvement in the graphics. It looks very dated, especially the avatars and what passes for a skybox. Everyone walks around like stiff zombies. It's still buggy as hell, especially if you have less than a 1MB line and a $4K PC. Get more than 10 people in the same place and it slows to a crawl for everyone. Can't complain though... Second Life zealots will tell you it's your fault because you don't have everything turned down to minimum settings.
The idea has potential, and Linden Lab has indeed solved some of the harder problems of implementing the Metaverse, but at this point, they just can't scale any further without it collapsing under it's own weight. Time to take what's been learned, pull the plug on Second Life, and build something with modern graphics, open standards, and distributed servers that anyone can run.
Although it's neat to move from sim to sim in the mainland , most "serious" players opt for a seperate island. That costs >$1200 startup and $200 a month.
I'd much rather be able to host my own sim, with a coordinated method of sharing comm channels, directory service, and inventory items with other hosts and players.
Again, so much potential, but at the rate they are going, it'll be dead in less than 2 years, a blip in computer history. I think the real goal of the game, and it *is* a game, is to pump up the number of user accounts, and squeeze in a couple thousand more users "in-world" to make it look attractive for some company to buy them up so Philip "Linden" and the verture guys can cash out.
Within a year, they will implode.
Worst customer service imaginable, except when signing up.
They keep billing after the customer cancels.
They claim they never receive returned equipment and charge for it.
The Vonage business model is theft.
How many refrigerator owners are required to have any working knowledge of refrigerant gasses?
"Boy, the other day I was delivering a Kenmore side-by-side and they didn't know anything about HFC-134a!!
There's no way they're gonna keep their food cold! Whatta n00b! Lame Kenmore users!"
I feel so....dirty.
I only had an SP1 XP disk. so I had to wrestle with it.
After a bunch of grunt work, gosh, it's Windows.
Gross.
No it wasn't. It was a beautiful, lean, authentic UNIX v7. The first release was not much more than s/UNIX/Xenix/g.
Certainly more of a purebred than any Linux. Ran OK too. You could keep 16 users quite happy on 256K of RAM.
You want an ADHD game?
Play one written by somebody that has it and that truly understands the ADHD mind: http://www.tqworld.com/
Heh. This guy knows that a PC is a "real computer".
Maybe he's on to something.
Perhaps we just were not aware of this "Windows PC" and all of it's wonders.
Share your insight! Tell us more! They sound really good. Got any links?
This is +10 insightful, especially to all the other comments in this thread.
Whoever follows this model, even with it's obvious "problems", would win over iTunes.
So simple, and also the easiest to implement.
...no one has essential needs.....It is a world without disease...
Interestingly, that's not really true. Many, many of the people that end up taking up long term residence in Second Life are hurting. There's a large number of residents that have emotional problems; loss of a loved one, physical or mental illness that keeps them from functioning to their fullest in the real world, a history of abuse, or some other burden that is overwhelming enough in this life that they are compelled to re-invent themselves in this synthetic world.
Unfortunately for many, Second Life often perpetuates the problem. The vulnerable, the gullible, or the trusting fall prey to parasitic or abusive residents in Second Life. One facet of this show up in the gorean Master/Slave subculture that's prominent in-world. Looking to love and acceptance, they give up their self-determination to be dominated and humiliated by others.
The tragedy is that they are so vulnerable that after they create what they think is the ideal representation of themselves; young and beautiful, and they again find themselves abused or rejected, the fall is crushing. Sad, I know, but it happens. Some would say that's "sick", but that's my point.
Linden Labs tends to the economic and technical needs of it's residents, but totally ignores the emotional needs. Sure, it's a slippery slope. Do they provide counseling or a access to an in-world suicide hot line? I realize that the legal implications are many if they do that, but the Linden's whole premise is that they are creating a country, a society...and they have needs that go unmet. It's as if it's a large city with utilities and banks and stores, but no hospitals or doctors.
This probably seems totally whacked out to those who haven't spent time in Second Life, but I'm sure that the longer term residents that are reading this thread can relate to this on some level.
Troll? I'm not trolling,
I've been in-world for over a year, and this is my honest opinion.
That's the most amazing thing about Second Life; its delusional players. Heaven forbid anyone critique -anything-.
The Lindens generate a Reality Distortion Field that puts Steve Jobs to shame.
Those making money are nothing but sheep farmers, harvesting from n00bs that wanna play with their paper dolls simulating getting laid.
Despite the claims, it's a closed system with a very limited future, a collapsing eternal economy, and more bugs than a bait shop.
The claim of "A user created community" is Linden/Rosedale just playing everyone for suckers, missing it's potential and merely focusing on profit,
while wrapping themselves in a blanket of lazy, scamming altruism. There's a few interesting builds, but for the most part, it's more BigLots than Metaverse.
The quality of the graphics looks like a game from 5 years ago, and they haven't improved on the look in well over a year, other than adding a water shader.
Can't wait for someone to do it right.
But they're talkin' 'bout Windows!
Granted, Second Life is something special. (Yes, I'm one of those 4 hour people.)
But I think the 100K number equals the total number of unique account names ever created.
At night, there's always under 5,000 people in world. Looking right now, 16:30 EST, there's 3500.
Many of those accounts (especially for those 4 hour users) are alt avatars, perhaps 30%.
But I have to agree with a previous poster, bugs and all, it's a quite remarkable environment.
Too bad you can't host your own server....
International Superstar David Hasselhof.
...and Aperture for image management.
He should get an Xserve RAID, of course.
It'll just work, it's well integrated with his G5, and it's cost effective.
Although it didn't make a windfall for Gateway, Dell is now selling 42" plasma TVs for $2600.
How wonderful if Apple would make one with the same form and price, but with iMac internals added.