... is what I remember some columnist (John Dvorak, maybe?) calling the original iMac. He used basically the same arguments we've seen here
It's amazing how prone to nay-saying so many technology reporters are. Hell, I would think that people involved in technology and computers would look forward to new things and ideas. When the original iMac came out, I put together a parody page and was shortly afterward contacted by an Associated Press technology writer who wanted to ask me a few questions about the iMac. She was interviewing Mac users on the 'net and was trying to get a sense of their feelings about Apple's new direction before the iMac hit the market. (BTW, if you look at the parody site, the links will be broken--its old site is no more and I just posted that quickly on the off-chance that anyone wants to see what I'm talking about.)
Anyway, I answered her questions via email, being mostly optimistic about the iMac, and when the article came out she quoted me briefly and managed to put a very negative spin on my quote with some very bad (or selective) editing. I was pretty ticked, but it's typical and it was just one more reminder why all the nay-sayers ought to be ignored.
Part of this stems from journalistic ego. A lot of tech writers and reporters, IMO, want to look like they were ahead of the curve, and want to be able to look back a year from now and say, "See, I told you so." Journalists who keep their ego and personal image in view while doing their work are the worst of that business. Apple's designs are easy pickings for these vultures.
Nice generalizations... probably a troll, but what the hell. I'll throw my two cents in here.
Mac users are adverse to change,
Oh, you are so right. OS X is almost exactly like OS 9, in every conceivable way, interface and under the hood. It's just OS 9 all over again. And did you see the latest hardware designs--sheesh, almost identical in every way to the beige boxes Apple was making in the mid-'90s!
Adverse to change, are we? I'd say you need to brush up on recent events. Of course, a little less trolling would free up some of your time for that.
they feel as most mac people they are unique a one button mouse is a seperation from the norm somehow make them special,
You're doing an Ace Ventura here, i.e. talking out your ass. I know many, many Mac users who have ditched the one-button mouse for multi-button replacements. Those who prefer a single-button mouse (me included) don't do so out of some contrived sense of identity as you maintain, but rather because it doesn't matter to them. I've used multi-button mouses plenty and my productivity is NOT affected by it.
So, care to explain why you're so bothered by the idea of a single-button mouse? Afraid of change, possibly? Hmmm?
Yes, literally, but not nearly as well. Like all OSes, there are strengths and weaknesses. If you're doing graphic design, you would have to be pretty self-flagellating to do it on a Wintel box (been there, done that... never again.) Pick up a design industry zine and look at what the the top design houses and marketing firms are using. They aren't using Macs because of a "vibe." A vibe doesn't keep you competitive. That comes from having tools that are optimized for your work. There's more to it than a vibe.
but the Mac simply does have deficincies compared to the Windows platform.
Bollocks! This depends entirely on what you're using the machine for. For my line of work, a Windows machine increases work time by about 1 1/2 and I'm not alone in that observation either. Believe me, contextual menus and keyboard shortcuts are almost totally irrelevant. It's bigger than that, and useability is not a myth. Yeah, keyboard shortcuts are great, as long as you can remember what shortcuts do what in each program! Windows shortcuts would be useful if there was any attempt to standardize any of them. And contextual menus have become the developer's crutch on the Windows platform--often I spend ludicrous amounts of time searching for the right place to right-click to find the menu item or option I'm looking for. That's bad interface design and the way Windows works encourages that.
I've steadily been winning over my co-workers (staunch Windows users) by showing them what a Mac can really do and how it can cut our work time down considerably. What you view as "deficiencies" is simply your perception from your biases, none of which you're evidently prepared to challenge.
The flipside of that is that with such a small peripheral/hardware pool, Thing Just Work (TM) on Macs. It's a beautiful thing, my friend.
Don't waste your time. Some people simply don't want to accept that it really does just work. In fact, it's even more fantastic than that. About eight months ago, I bought a (supposedly) Windows-only USB card. I found the company had posted beta Mac drivers on their site. This "Windows-only" card has worked in my Mac beautifully, flawlessly. In fact, I had to chuckle at the instructions because the Windows install required two reboots. I only rebooted my Mac once.:^)
Similar story with my video card. Neither the USB nor the video card took more than 5 minutes to install, and they weren't even officially supported on Mac hardware. Both have performed perfectly.
Some of us know. The rest think they know. Don't waste your breath trying to convince people.
Cel Damage is coming out for gamecube with a few graphics upgrades fuckface.
What is "graphic upgrades fuckface"? Is that some new techie lingo I'm unfamiliar with?
And the x-box controller is large. Very large.
No, very, very large. (Ha, try to one-up that!)
The buttons are horrible (smooth and extremely bumpy).
This is the first time I've ever seen a button criticized for being "bumpy." Funny.
It hurts my hands after a marathon halo (hahahahah) session.
Oh c'mon... I'm sure you've used your hands for repeated motions before. It couldn't have been that bad for you.
Just the other day we were playing Halo and it refused to load. It said there was a problem with a disk and told us to reset. I've never seen that happen on any other console. Ever. And the disk was fine by the way.
Whatever. I don't give a rip about the XBox. In comparing the XBox to the GC, I'm not defending the XBox. I'm not encouraging people to buy XBoxes. I'm just saying that I wish the GC had been more capable of dealing a serious blow to XBox sales. It didn't. It's not that hard to figure out what I'm saying. Do you need Cliffs Notes or something?
Stick that in your straw and suck it.
Ooh... with discussion of this caliber, I may have to give up on Usenet forever.
Look at my posting history. Figure it out for yourself instead of posting knee-jerk reactions and failing to distinguish yourself from most of the kiddies/Anonymous Cowards who read Slashdot.
The demos in the stores are on timers (10 mins normally I think), where they are set to reset.. A subtle hint to let the next person play. That does not mean it is crashing.
I don' t think any of what I saw was a reset. The first one I saw, IIRC, was 3 or 4 minutes in and the screen totally whacked out on me, graphic anomalies, general weirdness for a second, then the reset. The other two I've seen were only a few minutes into the game and the screen went black. Nothing else... just black. These didn't seem like resets to me.
The GC controllers do look funny, but they have a good feel and are very easy to use.
Uck... I can't stand 'em.
The X-Box controllers are okay, but have a few problems.. [...] The GC and PS2 controllers are much easier, oddly enough.
Don't mistake what I meant. I'm not wild about the controllers on either the GC or the XBox. I was simply saying that, of the two, the XBox is clearly a nicer controller (to me at least) only because you can't get much worse than the rinky-dink GC controllers. I think the PS2 controller is far-and-away better designed than either of those however.
To me, the X-Box is not a true game console. It is merely a PC masked as one. MS has done almost nothing for the hardware to distinguish it otherwise.
Again, don't mistake what I'm saying. Despite the fact that my first post on this was modded as a "troll" (har-har... no pro-GC Slashdot bias, huh???) I am not encouraging people to run out and buy an XBox. I don't defend the XBox. I just wish the GC were more impressive and could put the XBox to shame. It doesn't.
Actually, from what I've seen the bias is quite the opposite. The Slashdot bias seems directed at the PS2.
I haven't seen that at all. Everything I've seen rolling across the front page seems to be drooling over the GC and knocking the XBox. The fact is that, sadly, the XBox is, by far, the better of the two. I just played Cel Damage today--amazing, probably the most fun I've had playing a console in ages. None of the GC games I've played come up to that level. It's unfortunate.
As for the GC crashes, I'd like to know in which games and where. I've had literally no problems with mine, and
I've seen Luigi's Mansion crash twice, once while I was playing and this was only a few minutes into the game. The game just blanks out and the cube resets itself. I saw the Star Wars game locked up too. Both of these were public demo machines in stores, so I know it's not necessarily something to judge the whole system by but I haven't witnessed anything that bad in any other system. It just strikes me as fishy--makes me wonder if they cut some corners to get things out in time to compete with the XBox.:^/
most of the people who have a gamecube or use mine like the feel of the controllers, yet make fun of the X-Box controllers for feeling like a pumpkin.
The GC controllers feel (and look) like little Fisher-Price toys to me. I thought the XBox controller was awkward at first, but I have to give them the edge on feel and look. They are pretty comfortable after a few minutes, and after you get over the initial reaction. BTW, my 5-year-old can play the XBox very easily. The "big as a pumpkin" argument doesn't hold water with me.
I'm not one of these mindless MS apologists (in fact, I'm a Mac user, i.e. not a fan of MS one bit), but the GC is a misstep for Nintendo and the XBox seems to kick ass all around. IMO, the XBox is what the GC should have been.
Enough already with this pro-GC bias! Quite frankly, the GC is pretty mediocre from what I've seen and this Slashdot bias toward it is annoying. The games I've played are hokey or stiff (Luigi's mansion looks like a warmed-over N64 game; the Star Wars game is the least fluid SW game I've ever played--compare it to the PS2 SW games.) It's underpowered compared to the other two competitors. At the time of this writing I've witnessed *3* GameCube crashes (that's 2 more than I've seen the XBox do) and the controllers look and feel like cheap toys. Don't get me wrong--I love Nintendo and if I were buying a console now, I'd try to avoid MS, but this GC bias on Slashdot underscores how willfully some bask in their own bias. The GC is half-assed, a bad showing for Nintendo, and not worthy of an editorial bias. I wish they had done better. I wish Sony and Nintendo had given MS a very rude awakening, but that didn't happen. Praise should be directed at the PS2, NOT the GC. And honestly, if it were between the GC and the XBox... I'd probably grit my teeth and get an XBox.
I'm not sure how seriously I would take this given that these kinds of things can be easily slanted by rabid online fan groups. And I'm sure there are a few rabid fans of Tolkien out there. There isn't a similar online fan community for The Godfather.
I'm not trying to denigrate the film. I haven't seen it yet and have no opinion on it. Just offering yet another reason to remember that these kinds of things, unless scientifically conducted, are meaningless.
And how is the Internet supposed to draw people together when the same old language barrier still exists?
Give it time. On a Pink Floyd mailing list I subscribe to, one of the more prominent posters is an intriguing fellow from Japan who doesn't speak English and has published a book in Japan about the band. He posts through a piece of software that provides translations both ways. The software is primitive and far from perfect. Frankly, it can sometimes turn out some pretty puzzling results (I often wonder how my messages to him come out.) Despite that, I--and many others on the list--have gotten to know him and value his contribution. I can see the development of this kind of software becoming more and more worthwhile as the Internet moves east. I look forward to it actually.
I witnessed two more crashes today while playing and watching others play Luigi's Mansion on the GC at the local Toys R Us. This is really bad. I've seen this game crash previously.
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but the games on the GC are hokey or just plain bad and I've seen enough crashing in-store to scare me away for good. Given that fact and the typical marketting overkill by MS, the XBox will likely kill the GC in the long-run. (I'm not celebrating that fact, btw--it's damn sad that Nintendo appears to have stumbled at a critical moment, IMHO.) If I were buying a console (and I likely will in the next 6 months) my money will definitely go to the PS2. I'm not surprised to see it doing better than the other two.
It would have been nice to see MS get a good kick in the ass by Sony and Nintendo, however.:^/
The US movie Porky's seems to have been inspired by these flicks.
If I'm not mistaken, Porky's was a Canadian film. I have no idea why I know this, btw (one of those oddball tidbits you pick up) as I've only seen the film once and thought it was a sophomoric and unfunny waste of my time.
I bet someone at that site needs to produce a significant hit increase to the site. What a better way to do that... provoke the outrage of geeks everywhere by pulling off the publicity stunt of refusing someone a link... suddenly every courageous, rebellious, self-righteous geek on the Internet is linking to and visiting the site and emailing his friends to do the same... and look at that hit counter roll! Woohoo! Call up the marketting dept. Get some advertisers on the phone. We've got some real traffic!
Gees, hope Slashdot and its readers weren't duped.
"Now, I've never taken a mac apart or done a CPU upgrade"
I have, several times and your post is completely accurate. I don't know much about PC upgrades, and wasn't even aware of the difference with this. Apart from a horrific experience trying to install a CD-R in my nephew's Compaq, I've never had experience with non-Mac PC hardware. No Mac upgrade (CPU, PCI card, video, USB, memory, etc.) has ever taken me more than 5 minutes. I appreciate Apple's attention to detail in this regard.
I've played the GameCube twice now. The Star Wars game was horrible. I've seen similar opinions expressed here, and I fully agree. It's just boring and "stiff"--not as fluid feeling and graceful as some of the other SW games I've played.
Second experience today, playing Luigi's Mansion. Four minutes into the game, it's bombs. The screen freaked out for a second and the box automatically reset itself.:^/
Not much in the way of making a first (or second) impression. It certainly doesn't bode well, especially since all my experiences trying out PS2 were rock solid and engaging. I hope owners of GC are having better experiences than mine.
Where in any of the links is there information about what action (if any) Apple has taken or plans to take on this issue? What is it that caused this to be posted? I'm not sure I see any actual story here. Has Apple issued a press release on this or a public statement?
Maybe I'm missing something, but as far as I can see, this is a complete non-story.
Someone on Macslash commented that Apple should be financially backing these kinds of projects. I wonder what sort of effect that would have on this kind of thing.
BTW, being a long-time Mac user myself, I'm totally clueless to how these kinds of open source issues are worked out, but I am curious about it. These kinds of issues can't be new. Can any of you more acquainted with this topic offer any sort of precedent for these kinds of issues/disputes?
Bear this in mind. History is not what happened in the past, but rather how we got where we are now.
Even if Davies beat Baran and/or Kleinrock to packet-switching, it may be irrelevant (besides, I've read that Baran and Davies came up with working concepts simultaneously and independently; IIRC, there is even a quote from Davies in Where Wizards Stay Up Late that acknowledges this.)
What matters is whose ideas were used to get us to where we are now. This does not reflect on the brilliance of Davies (I know you Brits tend to get a little indignant when you feel you've been downplayed) but rather on the historical relevance of what he did. A lot of great ideas end up being historically irrelevant, for better or for worse.
People often get hung up on this concept of who did what first. What matters is how we got here, where we are now. From what I understand, little of what Davies did matters to how we got where we are, so whether he got there first is sort of a side-issue, and IMO, a bit of a waste of time to debate.
Anyone else see XP's interface and think MS got help from Fisher-Price designing it. It looks like it's made out of big, primary-colored plastic. Are they concerned someone might poke their eye out with it or something?
This isn't surprising, and I have long since bailed out on Altavista. It probably would have been wiser if the folks at Altavista had maybe concentrated more on maintaining their listings than implementing annoying pop-up windows which chased me and lots of people I know away from them. I know web sites have to profit, but annoying users is no way to go.
Some AOLer tried to scam my wife on eBay. He started to ignore my wife's emails. After a little poking around on the web, I found out that he owned a retail business in California and had his own web site. I did a quick 'whois' and found another undisclosed AOL address. Of course, he ignored our emails there too... until I whipped up a little program to email him every five minutes. >:^)
Finally got a response. Apparently, he needed a reminder.
Since then, my wife won't bother with eBay. It really is in eBay's best interests to find a fix for this kind of dealing. I think they will see a sharp decline in use if not.
Slashdot Mirror
It's amazing how prone to nay-saying so many technology reporters are. Hell, I would think that people involved in technology and computers would look forward to new things and ideas. When the original iMac came out, I put together a parody page and was shortly afterward contacted by an Associated Press technology writer who wanted to ask me a few questions about the iMac. She was interviewing Mac users on the 'net and was trying to get a sense of their feelings about Apple's new direction before the iMac hit the market. (BTW, if you look at the parody site, the links will be broken--its old site is no more and I just posted that quickly on the off-chance that anyone wants to see what I'm talking about.)
Anyway, I answered her questions via email, being mostly optimistic about the iMac, and when the article came out she quoted me briefly and managed to put a very negative spin on my quote with some very bad (or selective) editing. I was pretty ticked, but it's typical and it was just one more reminder why all the nay-sayers ought to be ignored.
Part of this stems from journalistic ego. A lot of tech writers and reporters, IMO, want to look like they were ahead of the curve, and want to be able to look back a year from now and say, "See, I told you so." Journalists who keep their ego and personal image in view while doing their work are the worst of that business. Apple's designs are easy pickings for these vultures.
--Rick
My apologies for that. I responded to your post to get to the stuff you were quoting. My goof.
--Rick
Nice generalizations... probably a troll, but what the hell. I'll throw my two cents in here.
Mac users are adverse to change,
Oh, you are so right. OS X is almost exactly like OS 9, in every conceivable way, interface and under the hood. It's just OS 9 all over again. And did you see the latest hardware designs--sheesh, almost identical in every way to the beige boxes Apple was making in the mid-'90s!
Adverse to change, are we? I'd say you need to brush up on recent events. Of course, a little less trolling would free up some of your time for that.
they feel as most mac people they are unique a one button mouse is a seperation from the norm somehow make them special,
You're doing an Ace Ventura here, i.e. talking out your ass. I know many, many Mac users who have ditched the one-button mouse for multi-button replacements. Those who prefer a single-button mouse (me included) don't do so out of some contrived sense of identity as you maintain, but rather because it doesn't matter to them. I've used multi-button mouses plenty and my productivity is NOT affected by it.
So, care to explain why you're so bothered by the idea of a single-button mouse? Afraid of change, possibly? Hmmm?
--Rick
Anything you can do on a Mac you can do on any PC
Yes, literally, but not nearly as well. Like all OSes, there are strengths and weaknesses. If you're doing graphic design, you would have to be pretty self-flagellating to do it on a Wintel box (been there, done that... never again.) Pick up a design industry zine and look at what the the top design houses and marketing firms are using. They aren't using Macs because of a "vibe." A vibe doesn't keep you competitive. That comes from having tools that are optimized for your work. There's more to it than a vibe.
--Rick
but the Mac simply does have deficincies compared to the Windows platform.
Bollocks! This depends entirely on what you're using the machine for. For my line of work, a Windows machine increases work time by about 1 1/2 and I'm not alone in that observation either. Believe me, contextual menus and keyboard shortcuts are almost totally irrelevant. It's bigger than that, and useability is not a myth. Yeah, keyboard shortcuts are great, as long as you can remember what shortcuts do what in each program! Windows shortcuts would be useful if there was any attempt to standardize any of them. And contextual menus have become the developer's crutch on the Windows platform--often I spend ludicrous amounts of time searching for the right place to right-click to find the menu item or option I'm looking for. That's bad interface design and the way Windows works encourages that.
I've steadily been winning over my co-workers (staunch Windows users) by showing them what a Mac can really do and how it can cut our work time down considerably. What you view as "deficiencies" is simply your perception from your biases, none of which you're evidently prepared to challenge.
--Rick
The flipside of that is that with such a small peripheral/hardware pool, Thing Just Work (TM) on Macs. It's a beautiful thing, my friend.
:^)
Don't waste your time. Some people simply don't want to accept that it really does just work. In fact, it's even more fantastic than that. About eight months ago, I bought a (supposedly) Windows-only USB card. I found the company had posted beta Mac drivers on their site. This "Windows-only" card has worked in my Mac beautifully, flawlessly. In fact, I had to chuckle at the instructions because the Windows install required two reboots. I only rebooted my Mac once.
Similar story with my video card. Neither the USB nor the video card took more than 5 minutes to install, and they weren't even officially supported on Mac hardware. Both have performed perfectly.
Some of us know. The rest think they know. Don't waste your breath trying to convince people.
--Rick
Cel Damage is coming out for gamecube with a few graphics upgrades fuckface.
What is "graphic upgrades fuckface"? Is that some new techie lingo I'm unfamiliar with?
And the x-box controller is large. Very large.
No, very, very large. (Ha, try to one-up that!)
The buttons are horrible (smooth and extremely bumpy).
This is the first time I've ever seen a button criticized for being "bumpy." Funny.
It hurts my hands after a marathon halo (hahahahah) session.
Oh c'mon... I'm sure you've used your hands for repeated motions before. It couldn't have been that bad for you.
Just the other day we were playing Halo and it refused to load. It said there was a problem with a disk and told us to reset. I've never seen that happen on any other console. Ever. And the disk was fine by the way.
Whatever. I don't give a rip about the XBox. In comparing the XBox to the GC, I'm not defending the XBox. I'm not encouraging people to buy XBoxes. I'm just saying that I wish the GC had been more capable of dealing a serious blow to XBox sales. It didn't. It's not that hard to figure out what I'm saying. Do you need Cliffs Notes or something?
Stick that in your straw and suck it.
Ooh... with discussion of this caliber, I may have to give up on Usenet forever.
--Rick
I'm not one of these mindless MS apologists
Yes you are. Shut your pie hole.
Look at my posting history. Figure it out for yourself instead of posting knee-jerk reactions and failing to distinguish yourself from most of the kiddies/Anonymous Cowards who read Slashdot.
--Rick
- Cel Damage is coming out for GC too.
Good. They need some better games. Fast.
The demos in the stores are on timers (10 mins normally I think), where they are set to reset.. A subtle hint to let the next person play. That does not mean it is crashing.
I don' t think any of what I saw was a reset. The first one I saw, IIRC, was 3 or 4 minutes in and the screen totally whacked out on me, graphic anomalies, general weirdness for a second, then the reset. The other two I've seen were only a few minutes into the game and the screen went black. Nothing else... just black. These didn't seem like resets to me.
The GC controllers do look funny, but they have a good feel and are very easy to use.
Uck... I can't stand 'em.
The X-Box controllers are okay, but have a few problems.. [...] The GC and PS2 controllers are much easier, oddly enough.
Don't mistake what I meant. I'm not wild about the controllers on either the GC or the XBox. I was simply saying that, of the two, the XBox is clearly a nicer controller (to me at least) only because you can't get much worse than the rinky-dink GC controllers. I think the PS2 controller is far-and-away better designed than either of those however.
To me, the X-Box is not a true game console. It is merely a PC masked as one. MS has done almost nothing for the hardware to distinguish it otherwise.
Again, don't mistake what I'm saying. Despite the fact that my first post on this was modded as a "troll" (har-har... no pro-GC Slashdot bias, huh???) I am not encouraging people to run out and buy an XBox. I don't defend the XBox. I just wish the GC were more impressive and could put the XBox to shame. It doesn't.
--Rick
Actually, from what I've seen the bias is quite the opposite. The Slashdot bias seems directed at the PS2.
:^/
I haven't seen that at all. Everything I've seen rolling across the front page seems to be drooling over the GC and knocking the XBox. The fact is that, sadly, the XBox is, by far, the better of the two. I just played Cel Damage today--amazing, probably the most fun I've had playing a console in ages. None of the GC games I've played come up to that level. It's unfortunate.
As for the GC crashes, I'd like to know in which games and where. I've had literally no problems with mine, and
I've seen Luigi's Mansion crash twice, once while I was playing and this was only a few minutes into the game. The game just blanks out and the cube resets itself. I saw the Star Wars game locked up too. Both of these were public demo machines in stores, so I know it's not necessarily something to judge the whole system by but I haven't witnessed anything that bad in any other system. It just strikes me as fishy--makes me wonder if they cut some corners to get things out in time to compete with the XBox.
most of the people who have a gamecube or use mine like the feel of the controllers, yet make fun of the X-Box controllers for feeling like a pumpkin.
The GC controllers feel (and look) like little Fisher-Price toys to me. I thought the XBox controller was awkward at first, but I have to give them the edge on feel and look. They are pretty comfortable after a few minutes, and after you get over the initial reaction. BTW, my 5-year-old can play the XBox very easily. The "big as a pumpkin" argument doesn't hold water with me.
I'm not one of these mindless MS apologists (in fact, I'm a Mac user, i.e. not a fan of MS one bit), but the GC is a misstep for Nintendo and the XBox seems to kick ass all around. IMO, the XBox is what the GC should have been.
--Rick
Enough already with this pro-GC bias! Quite frankly, the GC is pretty mediocre from what I've seen and this Slashdot bias toward it is annoying. The games I've played are hokey or stiff (Luigi's mansion looks like a warmed-over N64 game; the Star Wars game is the least fluid SW game I've ever played--compare it to the PS2 SW games.) It's underpowered compared to the other two competitors. At the time of this writing I've witnessed *3* GameCube crashes (that's 2 more than I've seen the XBox do) and the controllers look and feel like cheap toys. Don't get me wrong--I love Nintendo and if I were buying a console now, I'd try to avoid MS, but this GC bias on Slashdot underscores how willfully some bask in their own bias. The GC is half-assed, a bad showing for Nintendo, and not worthy of an editorial bias. I wish they had done better. I wish Sony and Nintendo had given MS a very rude awakening, but that didn't happen. Praise should be directed at the PS2, NOT the GC. And honestly, if it were between the GC and the XBox... I'd probably grit my teeth and get an XBox.
--Rick
I'm not sure how seriously I would take this given that these kinds of things can be easily slanted by rabid online fan groups. And I'm sure there are a few rabid fans of Tolkien out there. There isn't a similar online fan community for The Godfather.
I'm not trying to denigrate the film. I haven't seen it yet and have no opinion on it. Just offering yet another reason to remember that these kinds of things, unless scientifically conducted, are meaningless.
--Rick
Give it time. On a Pink Floyd mailing list I subscribe to, one of the more prominent posters is an intriguing fellow from Japan who doesn't speak English and has published a book in Japan about the band. He posts through a piece of software that provides translations both ways. The software is primitive and far from perfect. Frankly, it can sometimes turn out some pretty puzzling results (I often wonder how my messages to him come out.) Despite that, I--and many others on the list--have gotten to know him and value his contribution. I can see the development of this kind of software becoming more and more worthwhile as the Internet moves east. I look forward to it actually.
--Rick
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but the games on the GC are hokey or just plain bad and I've seen enough crashing in-store to scare me away for good. Given that fact and the typical marketting overkill by MS, the XBox will likely kill the GC in the long-run. (I'm not celebrating that fact, btw--it's damn sad that Nintendo appears to have stumbled at a critical moment, IMHO.) If I were buying a console (and I likely will in the next 6 months) my money will definitely go to the PS2. I'm not surprised to see it doing better than the other two.
It would have been nice to see MS get a good kick in the ass by Sony and Nintendo, however. :^/
--Rick
If I'm not mistaken, Porky's was a Canadian film. I have no idea why I know this, btw (one of those oddball tidbits you pick up) as I've only seen the film once and thought it was a sophomoric and unfunny waste of my time.
--Rick
LOL!
When I feel like I own it, I might want to contribute. Until then I'll stick to much cheaper x86 hardware.
Cheaper in more ways than one.
--Rick
Gees, hope Slashdot and its readers weren't duped.
--Rick
I have, several times and your post is completely accurate. I don't know much about PC upgrades, and wasn't even aware of the difference with this. Apart from a horrific experience trying to install a CD-R in my nephew's Compaq, I've never had experience with non-Mac PC hardware. No Mac upgrade (CPU, PCI card, video, USB, memory, etc.) has ever taken me more than 5 minutes. I appreciate Apple's attention to detail in this regard.
Second experience today, playing Luigi's Mansion. Four minutes into the game, it's bombs. The screen freaked out for a second and the box automatically reset itself. :^/
Not much in the way of making a first (or second) impression. It certainly doesn't bode well, especially since all my experiences trying out PS2 were rock solid and engaging. I hope owners of GC are having better experiences than mine.
--Rick
Maybe I'm missing something, but as far as I can see, this is a complete non-story.
--Rick
BTW, being a long-time Mac user myself, I'm totally clueless to how these kinds of open source issues are worked out, but I am curious about it. These kinds of issues can't be new. Can any of you more acquainted with this topic offer any sort of precedent for these kinds of issues/disputes?
--Rick
Even if Davies beat Baran and/or Kleinrock to packet-switching, it may be irrelevant (besides, I've read that Baran and Davies came up with working concepts simultaneously and independently; IIRC, there is even a quote from Davies in Where Wizards Stay Up Late that acknowledges this.)
What matters is whose ideas were used to get us to where we are now. This does not reflect on the brilliance of Davies (I know you Brits tend to get a little indignant when you feel you've been downplayed) but rather on the historical relevance of what he did. A lot of great ideas end up being historically irrelevant, for better or for worse.
People often get hung up on this concept of who did what first. What matters is how we got here, where we are now. From what I understand, little of what Davies did matters to how we got where we are, so whether he got there first is sort of a side-issue, and IMO, a bit of a waste of time to debate.
--Rick
Anyone else see XP's interface and think MS got help from Fisher-Price designing it. It looks like it's made out of big, primary-colored plastic. Are they concerned someone might poke their eye out with it or something?
--Rick
Finally got a response. Apparently, he needed a reminder.
Since then, my wife won't bother with eBay. It really is in eBay's best interests to find a fix for this kind of dealing. I think they will see a sharp decline in use if not.
--Rick