Here's the official "Spadge" reply. It was pretty much exactly as you suspected:
The decision was taken some time back in conjunction with our publishing partners, who are THQ.
Content is generally decided way before we get anywhere near finishing the game (for pretty bloody good reasons) and the integration and widespread testing of online does have major implications for any project, especially on Wii. It's not as simple as saying "oh delay it 3 months and it'll be ready", games are built to schedules and financed accordingly. I'd imagine that the long delays of Super Smash Bros 2 is partly due to online complications and there are many examples where online content causes huge delays - it pretty much always does. You can't really compare Nintendo 1st party titles to 3rd party ones in the main stream, it's a different league for a bunch of reasons.
The decision has little to do with actual technical feasibility (PSP, DS, 360 recent titles have all been online) and primarily more to do with where and whom the game is aimed at - to focus on social party play to a more casual marketplace that's still maturing. It was felt that online may compromise that focus and potentially long delays on a platform with little or no online titles at the time this was discussed (i.e. this isn't something that's just "dropped out" recently).
The Wii IS more casual and it IS a younger demographic, hard-core gamers might wish to argue about that, but here's a platform where they're right in the minority. The Wii is still relatively new and brings with it is a new audience - exactly who they are yet, is still not 100% clear. Given that, our title has been designed around the Wii rather than simply ported (I'm sure that would have ticked people off more - although someone always finds something to have a pop at).
As someone points out, there currently isn't a huge range of online Wii titles currently and there are fair reasons for that, especially as a 3rd party which I won't go into. I'm sure that this will be addressed in the fullness of time and I'd like to see more communication online otherwise you might as well be playing a CPU bot:-)
The Wii version is really aimed to played socially (up to 4 players) rather than online and make the most of gesture controls rather than simple gimmicks - it's not 'shovelware' by any means. Lack of online function hasn't prevented Worms titles from being either successful or popular in the past and in many cases ensures that it's a better environment to play the game than suffering online idiots who quit out when losing or abuse you whilst you're at it. It's almost a case of 'be careful what you wish for'.
I'm not sure where any comments about DLC have come about since everything that's being built for the Wii edition is being shipped with it, I'm not aware that the plan was to do anything other than that - so no one has lost anything nor are they being asked to fork out any more. We did do some DLC for 360 Worms, mostly due to the file limit being 50mb at the time (and we gave away the biggest bunch of DLC). I can't say that personally I'm a big fan of DLC although I'm currently busily availing myself of Guitar Hero & Singstar tunes... (the latter I already own for PS2).
All this certainly has nothing to do with any laziness on our part (whatever anyone might think) the Wii market is still maturing and everyone is still getting to grips with the play patterns and demographics of its users.
As for not running at 60fps (or 50fps), I'm not sure of any Worms game that has needed to do this (and few games do these days, 2d or 3d) in order to provide an entertaining experience. Talking about frame-rates is pretty hard-core when all said and done... and many people who are grumbling don't even have a wii yet:)
Worms titles have always attempted to offer good value, highly replayable entertainment wherever possible and this new Wii title is no different, with quite unique content based firml
If you purchase the Unreal Deal Pack on Steam for $39.99 you get the following:
Unreal 2: The Awakening (Reg. $9.99) Unreal Gold (Reg. $9.99) Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition (Reg. $14.99) Unreal Tournament 3 Black (Reg. $11.99) Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition (Reg. $9.99)
That's all 5 Unreal games for $16.96 less than you'd pay for them at the normal Steam price (total $56.95), which is already heavily discounted. Of course, if you just want Unreal or Unreal Tournament, you can get it for $9.99 and be happy. No monthly fees!
They're still making Worms games, you know. There's even a downloadable version on XBox Live with online multiplayer.
Of course, us Wii users got SCREWED when multiplayer was removed from Worms: A Space Oddity shortly before hitting the shelves. I was really looking forward to that game! But noooo. Yet another developer takes a dump on Wii players. And then the megacorp game companies wonder why third parties can't sell Wii games. (Here's a hint guys: It helps to make games that people want to buy.)
See, if Ellison had simply said that, we'd all nod our heads in agreement. Instead, he went off into an incomprehensible rant about fighting 'the man'. (At least, I think that's what it was about. Hard to tell through the foggy and indignant prose.)
The SciFi Channel used to do some pretty good movies back when they were owned by USA. After their acquisition by NBC, all their movies turned into some of the WORST monster-of-the-week crap I have ever seen. I mean, these movies are completely unwatchable.
I wish they did more movies like the one with the house AI gone mad, or the lady who stowed away on a cargo lander headed to a mining colony, or the excellent Dune movies. Not all of the movies were great, but they were all more interesting than the garbage they show these days.
NBC Universal has decided to change the name of their Sci Fi Channel to Syfy.
That is quite possibly the stupidest network name I've ever heard. Who comes up with this stuff?
Yes, we should probably all be offended.
I should. But it's hard to feel indignant when the SciFi channel hasn't been a serious SciFi channel in damn near a decade. They used to show collections of all the great old SciFi TV shows and movies with some (often quite good) original new series and movies thrown into the mix. Unfortunately, this has been significantly pared down over the years. SciFi Channel friday nights are good, but (with the exception of Eureka) that's about it. They fill the rest of the time with crap like wrestling.
If SciFi went under, I'd dearly miss Stargate and Eureka. But that's about it.
And telling us that a crack marketing team came up with the name because that's how tech-savvy 18-to-34 year-olds would text it really doesn't help.
Marketing departments tend to be disconnected from reality. They want everyone to believe that SciFi would be texted as "SyFy" to prop up their position. The truth is that alternatives like "SF" (what you'd actually text it as) are difficult to trademark and don't roll off the tongue as nicely as "SciFi". (Gee, maybe they should have kept the name?... Nah. Then they couldn't convince everyone that wrestling is futuristic.)
The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that
Perhaps they shouldn't have reinforced the stereotype with all those Poe-style ticking clocks, suitcase cars, monsters turning into people, and other SciFi channel ads? It's not like your average movie goer is unhappy about watching a SciFi movie. Look at the Matrix for a great example. As long as you don't present the concept in too geeky of a light, the general populace can (and does) get on board.
Intel and AMD like to squabble about licensing every few years. Probably in an attempt to broker a deal that is even more favorable than the last. They usually spend some time posturing in court, bare their claws a little, then settle with a new cross-licensing agreement. If Intel gets too pushy, the feds start staring at them REALLY hard. Which tends to make Intel fall in line.
Strictly speaking, Intel's argument is pointless. Yes, their deal is with AMD. But AMD's foundry only manufactures the chips, it does not design them. (Unless I somehow misunderstood their fabless plan.) Since the fab creates the chips on behalf of AMD, the licensing is not violated.
That's my 2 cents worth, anyway. I'm not a lawyer, but I doubt one would make many more comments without viewing the legalese between the two companies.
That's a good point. I wasn't thinking about that. My only comment in that direction would be that perhaps the image quality settings are different and/or you were previously shooting at a lower resolution than your camera was capable of. I haven't seen the option much on the new cameras, but low/medium/high quality options used to be pretty standard as a way to save on space.
e.g. when I went from a 4 mega pixel camera to an 8 mega pixel camera my file sizes became 4 times larger.
This is normal. When you double the resolution, you double it in 2 dimensions. (Height and Width) This results in a four-fold increase in data size.
the compression does not seem to be getting better.
JPEG compression is JPEG compression and RAW data is RAW data. The basis of these formats has not changed in nearly a decade. It's unlikely we're going to be seeing any massive jumps in compression technology any time soon.
I dislike high mega pixel cameras because they are increasing in stored picture size faster than my hard drives are keeping up.
A good rule of thumb when building a new computer is to find the largest size hard drive that is affordable, then buy two. e.g. A 1TB drive should be more than enough space to match the lifetime of your computer and camera and won't cost an arm and a leg. (All bets are off once you start storing movies, though...)
It became harder to squeeze these onto ipods.
If you're using your iPod as a photo album, you're wasting space by storing the original on the device. Use a program like ImageMagik to do a batch resize of the images before transferring them to the device. There's a good chance they'll actually look *better* on the device's screen if they're closer to the resolution of the device. Remember, the images on your camera are like negatives. They're not intended for every day use. They're intended to be processed into something usable first.
Eh? The consumer digital cameras are smaller than I've ever seen before. For example, I just picked up an Olympus FE-20 with 8MP of resolution for my wife. The thing is smaller and lighter than a deck of playing cards! In fact, finding a travel case for it was interesting because all the cases are designed for larger cameras.
So small physical size is most certainly an option. It just happens to be incompatible with the request for a telephoto lens. (Telephoto lenses are obviously bounded by the material science behind the optics more than the electronics.)
"Josh" is the kind of guy that develops Googles, Yahoo, etc.
No he's not. I've worked with this type before. The ones who never check in their code (or check it in several versions behind current), are the darlings of management, and appear to get everything done faster than everyone else.
I personally went head to head with someone like this "Josh", though he was a bit more personable and hygienic than the described individual. Management loved him because they could walk up to his desk, ask him for code, and it would get hacked out in no time flat. Of course, no one could maintain the code except him (it was a mess), the code was not scalable, it was usually the source of most of our problems, and the guy wasn't nearly as smart as he was made out to be. His "gifted abilities" were little more than a matter of controlling the situation well enough to make himself look like a miracle worker.
Don't get me wrong. Unlike the author of the article, I didn't have any personal issues with the guy. We started in different areas of the company's infrastructure and only came into collision because I was pulling off many of the same miracles, but in a team environment, with good documentation, and with strong communication. At one point our areas of responsibility started to overlap and it became clear who was and who wasn't the team player. Management still felt a lot of loyalty to him, but he began to fall out of favor as my team and I continued to open up our systems and re-architect them for scalability and maintainability.
This idiot is obviously one of those guys who is jealous of any who show better skills then themselves.
While I may not agree with your specific statements, I agree with the sentiment. The author generalizes this specific case so much that you have to wonder if he's really run into that many people like "Josh", or if he simply has a problem with people who are good at programming. I can certainly believe the latter, even if it's not intentional on the part of the author. Strong programmers are not all instances of Pigpen, but we're not exactly social mavens either. There are more than enough people who read too much into our social ineptitude and take offense where none is intended.
I can't speak for everyone in these positions, but I do my best to manage these situations and address the perceived offenses head-on. Sometimes we can come to an understanding and everyone benefits as we move forward. Sometimes we don't.
I always feel horrible about the latter. I continuously wonder if there's something more I could have done to resolve the situation. As a personal goal, I've continued looking for ways to better reach these individuals. But over time I've come to understand that there are some people who I can not reach out to. They have made up their minds and will continue to take offense, usually to their own detriment. I'm probably not responsible for their inevitable departures, but I still feel it's a personal failure when it happens.:-(
Amusingly, I never stated that ACID2 and ACID3 were standards. I stated that supporting these tests are a pragmatic approach to optimizing resources for implementing parts of the standards. (The stated purpose of the ACID tests is to promote implementation of standards with immediate applications.)
The truth is that the fine details of the CSS standards are hard for EVERYONE to support. Including Microsoft. No one except Microsoft claims 100% CSS 2.1, because it would be disingenuous to do so. I've only heard that claim (incorrectly) assigned to Microsoft.
You can push for implementation of standards, but to knock someone's products because they haven't implemented DRAFT standard recommendations is just stupid.
This would be a good argument, except for one problem: Microsoft is implementing DRAFT standards while NOT implementing the RECOMMENDED standards they're based on. Want an example? Look up to the top post. Cross Document messaging is not yet recommended, but Microsoft is bound and determined to mis-implement it.
In any case, your argument betrays a misunderstanding of how web standards work. The current approach being used is that standards will not reach a recommended status until at least two successful implementations of the standard exist. The idea is that this will determine if the spec is actually implementable or not. (One of the primary reasons why CSS 1 & 2 are not fully implemented is because the spec was written without implementations. The spec ended up being extremely difficult to implement correctly.)
Now if Microsoft wanted to be the browser that would only implement recommended standards I would be fine with that. But they're not. They're explicitly picking and choosing, being careful to avoid the standards implemented by everyone else. ESPECIALLY the RECOMMENDED standards that would make IE compatible with other browsers.
What is the point of standards compliance if you're explicitly trying not to be compatible?
And that right there is why their standards compliance is a farce. A sick joke that's all about control for Microsoft. It's just sad that people are buying into Microsoft's friendly veiner, all while Microsoft slides the knife even deeper in their backs.
Just because they checked the box on the feature doesn't mean it works correctly. I'll grant that IE8 is better with CSS, but most of their "standards compliance" BS is just for show. Microsoft has no intention of supporting the standards that are in wide use. Instead, they focus on areas where their desktop APIs (i.e. Win32) won't be impacted. Thus the focus on complete CSS2.1 compliance. That lets them claim a commitment to standards without actually furthering the existing use of standards on the web.
Case in point: IE was the last major browser to reach ACID2 compliance (by a wide margin) and is the only upcoming major browser to score below 95 on the ACID3 test. (Around 20, if you're interested.) Most of the upcoming browsers that will directly compete with IE8 already support 100/100 on ACID3. That's a much more pragmatic test than Microsoft's checkbox fascination.
Microsoft isn't stupid. They know that the web is making their desktop lock-in obsolete. The last thing they want to do is help it along. That's why they're pushing Silverlight so hard. If they can provide Microsoft lock-in for web applications, they'll maintain the dominance of the Windows platform. In the meantime, they have to convince the public not to move to other browsers and give up their Windows/IE lock-in. Thus the box-checking on poor standards support.
I think you're missing my argument. The assumption that addEventListener should exist if postMessage exists is a good one. Why? Because postMessage relies on addEventListener. However, Microsoft decided that proper DOM support wasn't important to standards compliance, and implemented a bastardized version of the spec.
The example they gave as a solution is actually buggy. The original code checked for cross-document messaging and presumably would have fall-back logic if the feature didn't exist. Microsoft's "corrected" code does not correctly check for cross-document messaging. It simply assumes it exists and registers an event for it. Which is likely to break a lot of truly standards compliant browsers while "fixing" IE8.
This is actually a pretty good list and will allow me to encourage action on some standards-compliant bugs I know of in sites I work on. (e.g. Some programmers previously relied on getDocumentById searching "name" elements.) However, there is one bug in this list that has me both bemused and disgusted:
Object Detection
Object detection works great when used correctly. However some pages assume the existence of one feature based upon the presence of another, leading to problems when both features are not implemented in the same release. if(window.postMessage) {
window.addEventListener(
"load",
myHandler,
false
); }
SOLUTION: Perform proper object-detection for each feature used.
Hmmm... maybe that's because Microsoft didn't implement the fucking standard correctly? The standard is more or less DEPENDENT on DOM2 events. (At the very least, I doubt anyone expected someone to implement the standard with a dysfunctional DOM.) That's why you can assume that you can use addEventListener to set a postMessage event receiver. But Microsoft didn't implement DOM2 events, despite helping develop the standard 10 years ago.
IE8 standards compliance is a joke. A sick joke played out by millions of unsuspecting users everywhere.
Even if the Web had been stunted by throttling, the demand for multimedia content would have eventually driven the rise of the Web or at least a super-Gopher.
The machine plays Flash video just fine. It even compiles Firefox just fine. Seriously, what sort of crazy machines are they running that makes them think this is halfway acceptable?
Um... a modern one? Works fine on all my machines. And last I checked, Flash doesn't do Chroma-Key replacement. Or video data manipulation of any kind.
You can now dump the video to a Canvas for manipulation! Which means that you can now do real-time video effects in Firefox! The example above demonstrates Chroma-Key background replacement. An impressive feat for a web browser, wouldn't you say?:-)
Did I miss some sort of shift in terminology? When did virtual machines start getting referred to as "Appliances"? When I think "appliance", I usually think of toasters, microwaves, stoves, refrigerators, etc. Images for operating systems is the last thing that comes to mind.
Neutron bombs and H Bombs are not quite the same thing. Neutron Bombs are a special form of an H-Bomb with a very small yield in exchange for a much larger burst of neutron radiation. The burst of neutron radiation is EXTREMELY damaging to the surrounding area. Especially to the soft flesh of humans.
The original intent of these weapons was to create a bomb that would destroy all life without destroying the infrastructure. Later ideas included attacking armored units as the weapon would not need to penetrate the armor to be effective.
This isn't true any more---since probably mid 60's 70's.
You've got it backwards. It's been true since we dropped the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Air-burst detonations are relatively clean since the strong burst of radiation doesn't have a lot of nearby material to irradiate. The remainder of the U-238 is nowhere near as significant a problem as turning an entire area radioactive.
After WWII, the Japanese did exactly what I said. They plowed the wreckage, replaced the topsoil, and verified the drinking water. Their cities were rebuilt and are thriving today. (Though not to paint too rosy of a picture, there was a significant population that was negatively affected by the bombing. The long-term death toll of those who were affected by the original event is believed to outstrip the death toll of the explosion itself.)
If you re-read my post, you'll notice that I was careful to use "relatively" when speaking about how clean the weapons were. As I said before, classic nuclear weapons create more short-term problems, but the long-term implications look much better than the supposedly "clean" neutron bomb.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the official "Spadge" reply. It was pretty much exactly as you suspected:
If you purchase the Unreal Deal Pack on Steam for $39.99 you get the following:
Unreal 2: The Awakening (Reg. $9.99)
Unreal Gold (Reg. $9.99)
Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition (Reg. $14.99)
Unreal Tournament 3 Black (Reg. $11.99)
Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition (Reg. $9.99)
That's all 5 Unreal games for $16.96 less than you'd pay for them at the normal Steam price (total $56.95), which is already heavily discounted. Of course, if you just want Unreal or Unreal Tournament, you can get it for $9.99 and be happy. No monthly fees!
Believe it or not, you can still purchase it:
http://www.gog.com/en/search/sort/search/freespace
$5.99 for the game + expansions. Same for FreeSpace 2.
They're still making Worms games, you know. There's even a downloadable version on XBox Live with online multiplayer.
Of course, us Wii users got SCREWED when multiplayer was removed from Worms: A Space Oddity shortly before hitting the shelves. I was really looking forward to that game! But noooo. Yet another developer takes a dump on Wii players. And then the megacorp game companies wonder why third parties can't sell Wii games. (Here's a hint guys: It helps to make games that people want to buy.)
See, if Ellison had simply said that, we'd all nod our heads in agreement. Instead, he went off into an incomprehensible rant about fighting 'the man'. (At least, I think that's what it was about. Hard to tell through the foggy and indignant prose.)
You mean SG-1 and Atlantis have no new episodes. I'd be rather disappointed if Universe is somehow introduced without any new episodes! :-P
The SciFi Channel used to do some pretty good movies back when they were owned by USA. After their acquisition by NBC, all their movies turned into some of the WORST monster-of-the-week crap I have ever seen. I mean, these movies are completely unwatchable.
I wish they did more movies like the one with the house AI gone mad, or the lady who stowed away on a cargo lander headed to a mining colony, or the excellent Dune movies. Not all of the movies were great, but they were all more interesting than the garbage they show these days.
Stargate: Universe premiers this summer with Caprica to follow at some point...
That is quite possibly the stupidest network name I've ever heard. Who comes up with this stuff?
I should. But it's hard to feel indignant when the SciFi channel hasn't been a serious SciFi channel in damn near a decade. They used to show collections of all the great old SciFi TV shows and movies with some (often quite good) original new series and movies thrown into the mix. Unfortunately, this has been significantly pared down over the years. SciFi Channel friday nights are good, but (with the exception of Eureka) that's about it. They fill the rest of the time with crap like wrestling.
If SciFi went under, I'd dearly miss Stargate and Eureka. But that's about it.
Marketing departments tend to be disconnected from reality. They want everyone to believe that SciFi would be texted as "SyFy" to prop up their position. The truth is that alternatives like "SF" (what you'd actually text it as) are difficult to trademark and don't roll off the tongue as nicely as "SciFi". (Gee, maybe they should have kept the name? ... Nah. Then they couldn't convince everyone that wrestling is futuristic.)
Perhaps they shouldn't have reinforced the stereotype with all those Poe-style ticking clocks, suitcase cars, monsters turning into people, and other SciFi channel ads? It's not like your average movie goer is unhappy about watching a SciFi movie. Look at the Matrix for a great example. As long as you don't present the concept in too geeky of a light, the general populace can (and does) get on board.
Intel and AMD like to squabble about licensing every few years. Probably in an attempt to broker a deal that is even more favorable than the last. They usually spend some time posturing in court, bare their claws a little, then settle with a new cross-licensing agreement. If Intel gets too pushy, the feds start staring at them REALLY hard. Which tends to make Intel fall in line.
Strictly speaking, Intel's argument is pointless. Yes, their deal is with AMD. But AMD's foundry only manufactures the chips, it does not design them. (Unless I somehow misunderstood their fabless plan.) Since the fab creates the chips on behalf of AMD, the licensing is not violated.
That's my 2 cents worth, anyway. I'm not a lawyer, but I doubt one would make many more comments without viewing the legalese between the two companies.
That's a good point. I wasn't thinking about that. My only comment in that direction would be that perhaps the image quality settings are different and/or you were previously shooting at a lower resolution than your camera was capable of. I haven't seen the option much on the new cameras, but low/medium/high quality options used to be pretty standard as a way to save on space.
This is normal. When you double the resolution, you double it in 2 dimensions. (Height and Width) This results in a four-fold increase in data size.
JPEG compression is JPEG compression and RAW data is RAW data. The basis of these formats has not changed in nearly a decade. It's unlikely we're going to be seeing any massive jumps in compression technology any time soon.
A good rule of thumb when building a new computer is to find the largest size hard drive that is affordable, then buy two. e.g. A 1TB drive should be more than enough space to match the lifetime of your computer and camera and won't cost an arm and a leg. (All bets are off once you start storing movies, though...)
If you're using your iPod as a photo album, you're wasting space by storing the original on the device. Use a program like ImageMagik to do a batch resize of the images before transferring them to the device. There's a good chance they'll actually look *better* on the device's screen if they're closer to the resolution of the device. Remember, the images on your camera are like negatives. They're not intended for every day use. They're intended to be processed into something usable first.
Eh? The consumer digital cameras are smaller than I've ever seen before. For example, I just picked up an Olympus FE-20 with 8MP of resolution for my wife. The thing is smaller and lighter than a deck of playing cards! In fact, finding a travel case for it was interesting because all the cases are designed for larger cameras.
So small physical size is most certainly an option. It just happens to be incompatible with the request for a telephoto lens. (Telephoto lenses are obviously bounded by the material science behind the optics more than the electronics.)
No he's not. I've worked with this type before. The ones who never check in their code (or check it in several versions behind current), are the darlings of management, and appear to get everything done faster than everyone else.
I personally went head to head with someone like this "Josh", though he was a bit more personable and hygienic than the described individual. Management loved him because they could walk up to his desk, ask him for code, and it would get hacked out in no time flat. Of course, no one could maintain the code except him (it was a mess), the code was not scalable, it was usually the source of most of our problems, and the guy wasn't nearly as smart as he was made out to be. His "gifted abilities" were little more than a matter of controlling the situation well enough to make himself look like a miracle worker.
Don't get me wrong. Unlike the author of the article, I didn't have any personal issues with the guy. We started in different areas of the company's infrastructure and only came into collision because I was pulling off many of the same miracles, but in a team environment, with good documentation, and with strong communication. At one point our areas of responsibility started to overlap and it became clear who was and who wasn't the team player. Management still felt a lot of loyalty to him, but he began to fall out of favor as my team and I continued to open up our systems and re-architect them for scalability and maintainability.
While I may not agree with your specific statements, I agree with the sentiment. The author generalizes this specific case so much that you have to wonder if he's really run into that many people like "Josh", or if he simply has a problem with people who are good at programming. I can certainly believe the latter, even if it's not intentional on the part of the author. Strong programmers are not all instances of Pigpen, but we're not exactly social mavens either. There are more than enough people who read too much into our social ineptitude and take offense where none is intended.
I can't speak for everyone in these positions, but I do my best to manage these situations and address the perceived offenses head-on. Sometimes we can come to an understanding and everyone benefits as we move forward. Sometimes we don't.
I always feel horrible about the latter. I continuously wonder if there's something more I could have done to resolve the situation. As a personal goal, I've continued looking for ways to better reach these individuals. But over time I've come to understand that there are some people who I can not reach out to. They have made up their minds and will continue to take offense, usually to their own detriment. I'm probably not responsible for their inevitable departures, but I still feel it's a personal failure when it happens. :-(
Amusingly, I never stated that ACID2 and ACID3 were standards. I stated that supporting these tests are a pragmatic approach to optimizing resources for implementing parts of the standards. (The stated purpose of the ACID tests is to promote implementation of standards with immediate applications.)
The truth is that the fine details of the CSS standards are hard for EVERYONE to support. Including Microsoft. No one except Microsoft claims 100% CSS 2.1, because it would be disingenuous to do so. I've only heard that claim (incorrectly) assigned to Microsoft.
This would be a good argument, except for one problem: Microsoft is implementing DRAFT standards while NOT implementing the RECOMMENDED standards they're based on. Want an example? Look up to the top post. Cross Document messaging is not yet recommended, but Microsoft is bound and determined to mis-implement it.
In any case, your argument betrays a misunderstanding of how web standards work. The current approach being used is that standards will not reach a recommended status until at least two successful implementations of the standard exist. The idea is that this will determine if the spec is actually implementable or not. (One of the primary reasons why CSS 1 & 2 are not fully implemented is because the spec was written without implementations. The spec ended up being extremely difficult to implement correctly.)
Now if Microsoft wanted to be the browser that would only implement recommended standards I would be fine with that. But they're not. They're explicitly picking and choosing, being careful to avoid the standards implemented by everyone else. ESPECIALLY the RECOMMENDED standards that would make IE compatible with other browsers.
What is the point of standards compliance if you're explicitly trying not to be compatible?
And that right there is why their standards compliance is a farce. A sick joke that's all about control for Microsoft. It's just sad that people are buying into Microsoft's friendly veiner, all while Microsoft slides the knife even deeper in their backs.
Just because they checked the box on the feature doesn't mean it works correctly. I'll grant that IE8 is better with CSS, but most of their "standards compliance" BS is just for show. Microsoft has no intention of supporting the standards that are in wide use. Instead, they focus on areas where their desktop APIs (i.e. Win32) won't be impacted. Thus the focus on complete CSS2.1 compliance. That lets them claim a commitment to standards without actually furthering the existing use of standards on the web.
Case in point: IE was the last major browser to reach ACID2 compliance (by a wide margin) and is the only upcoming major browser to score below 95 on the ACID3 test. (Around 20, if you're interested.) Most of the upcoming browsers that will directly compete with IE8 already support 100/100 on ACID3. That's a much more pragmatic test than Microsoft's checkbox fascination.
Microsoft isn't stupid. They know that the web is making their desktop lock-in obsolete. The last thing they want to do is help it along. That's why they're pushing Silverlight so hard. If they can provide Microsoft lock-in for web applications, they'll maintain the dominance of the Windows platform. In the meantime, they have to convince the public not to move to other browsers and give up their Windows/IE lock-in. Thus the box-checking on poor standards support.
I think you're missing my argument. The assumption that addEventListener should exist if postMessage exists is a good one. Why? Because postMessage relies on addEventListener. However, Microsoft decided that proper DOM support wasn't important to standards compliance, and implemented a bastardized version of the spec.
The example they gave as a solution is actually buggy. The original code checked for cross-document messaging and presumably would have fall-back logic if the feature didn't exist. Microsoft's "corrected" code does not correctly check for cross-document messaging. It simply assumes it exists and registers an event for it. Which is likely to break a lot of truly standards compliant browsers while "fixing" IE8.
This is actually a pretty good list and will allow me to encourage action on some standards-compliant bugs I know of in sites I work on. (e.g. Some programmers previously relied on getDocumentById searching "name" elements.) However, there is one bug in this list that has me both bemused and disgusted:
Hmmm... maybe that's because Microsoft didn't implement the fucking standard correctly? The standard is more or less DEPENDENT on DOM2 events. (At the very least, I doubt anyone expected someone to implement the standard with a dysfunctional DOM.) That's why you can assume that you can use addEventListener to set a postMessage event receiver. But Microsoft didn't implement DOM2 events, despite helping develop the standard 10 years ago.
IE8 standards compliance is a joke. A sick joke played out by millions of unsuspecting users everywhere.
Even if the Web had been stunted by throttling, the demand for multimedia content would have eventually driven the rise of the Web or at least a super-Gopher.
Screw Redmond. 67% market share and plummeting. Let's start degrading our sites for IE and see how long their market share holds above 50%.
Um... a modern one? Works fine on all my machines. And last I checked, Flash doesn't do Chroma-Key replacement. Or video data manipulation of any kind.
Check this out:
https://developer.mozilla.org/samples/video/chroma-key/index.xhtml
You can now dump the video to a Canvas for manipulation! Which means that you can now do real-time video effects in Firefox! The example above demonstrates Chroma-Key background replacement. An impressive feat for a web browser, wouldn't you say? :-)
Source and explanation are here:
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Manipulating_video_using_canvas
Did I miss some sort of shift in terminology? When did virtual machines start getting referred to as "Appliances"? When I think "appliance", I usually think of toasters, microwaves, stoves, refrigerators, etc. Images for operating systems is the last thing that comes to mind.
Neutron bombs and H Bombs are not quite the same thing. Neutron Bombs are a special form of an H-Bomb with a very small yield in exchange for a much larger burst of neutron radiation. The burst of neutron radiation is EXTREMELY damaging to the surrounding area. Especially to the soft flesh of humans.
The original intent of these weapons was to create a bomb that would destroy all life without destroying the infrastructure. Later ideas included attacking armored units as the weapon would not need to penetrate the armor to be effective.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_Bomb
You've got it backwards. It's been true since we dropped the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Air-burst detonations are relatively clean since the strong burst of radiation doesn't have a lot of nearby material to irradiate. The remainder of the U-238 is nowhere near as significant a problem as turning an entire area radioactive.
After WWII, the Japanese did exactly what I said. They plowed the wreckage, replaced the topsoil, and verified the drinking water. Their cities were rebuilt and are thriving today. (Though not to paint too rosy of a picture, there was a significant population that was negatively affected by the bombing. The long-term death toll of those who were affected by the original event is believed to outstrip the death toll of the explosion itself.)
If you re-read my post, you'll notice that I was careful to use "relatively" when speaking about how clean the weapons were. As I said before, classic nuclear weapons create more short-term problems, but the long-term implications look much better than the supposedly "clean" neutron bomb.