Isn't The Middleware Company the same one that produced this report for SUN Microsystems and concluded that J2EE is the better of the two platforms for a variety of non-performance-related reasons? I think this report is one of the best, most coherent reports on what exactly J2EE and.NET really are and what the differences are.
So is it that The Middleware Company will just claim that the winner is the one that paid them? Or is it that.NET really is the performance winner whereas J2EE wins most of the other awards?
And why is it surprising that the performance winner is the one whose entire platform, from the operating system to the SQL server to the framework, is made by a single vendor? Of course it will perform better - they're all in the same building (or complex in this case).
The Pistols were a marketed, packaged commodity -- the punk equivalent of the Spice Girls
So how close were we to having Justin Timberlake stabbing Britney Spears to death and then overdosing in the UK? Quick! Get Christina Aguillera hooked up with a Backstreet Boy!
on eBay, Microsoft is losing a $100 sale. The KMart site is a hundred thousand dollar sale
Yeah and of course the $100K is still cheaper than the amount of money it would take to move everything over to a new system and retrain everyone on those new systems.
I guess the bottom line there is that MS doesn't care who they screw over or piss off, so long as they get their money. Then again perhaps this is SOP in the industry (as some have stated) and MS is just getting the bad PR stick again since it's trendy.
Yeah but what will wind up happening is this - Microsoft will come out with it on one of their cars (c'mon, you know there will be MS-powered cars at some point) and then they'll get sued by auto body makers for putting them out of business by making their optional feature standard and unremovable.
Mind you, after the browser wars, which completely broke how version numbering should effectively be done, this is probably no longer true
Actually I remember some older cases that rendered it somewhat moot a while back. Not surprisingly they involve Microsoft.
When Microsoft made a version of Word for Windows, they called it 1.0 and the successor 2.0. By the time they were to come out with what would have been 3.0, Word for DOS was 6.0, so they called the new Windows version 6.0 as well "so they would match". Of course the (then winning) competitor was WordPerfect, also at version 6.0 (WP's first Windows release was 5.0 or 5.1, to match their DOS version, but they started at 1.0 on platforms like Macintosh or OS/2). At one point in time a version of Microsoft Office would contain many differing versions of the programs (Word 2.0, Excel 4.0, etc.), but by Office 95 they were all set to the same version (7.0) but of course it didn't matter anymore since the year numbering scheme was in effect.
Microsoft released MS-DOS 5.0 and some time after MS-DOS 6.0. Version 6.0 was the first MS-DOS that Microsoft made after their deal with IBM was over, so when IBM released their new PC-DOS they called it Version 6.1, to "avoid confusion" with MS-DOS 6.0. Microsoft then released MS-DOS 6.2, also to "avoid confusion". IBM countered with PC-DOS 6.3, but it didn't really matter anymore since no one used PC-DOS anyway. Really at work here was the "higher version number = better" myth the public has.
Microsoft's development products aren't immune, either. Microsoft's Visual InterDev was 1.0 with Visual Studio 5.0 (I think), but when Visual Studio 97 was released, it was bumped up to 6.0 to match the other releases. InterDev has pretty much been dissolved into the ASP.NET handling features of Visual Studio.NET.
I saw this one when a COBOL program abended...
on
Gnarly Error Messages
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· Score: 2
"A catastrophic error has occured."
Not just a bad error, a catastrophic one. Bizarrely this error never happens when it really is a bad error, but every time I see it I picture Hiroshima.
It's funny - I've been having some Western Digital drives fail on me somewhat quickly, usually in their warranty period. Yet a 1.2GB Quantum Fireball I got in an Acer Aspire way back (~7 years ago) when I Didn't Know Any Better(TM) still works - I fired up Mandrake on it last week for kicks. Not that anything good would fit on it...
This is probably somewhat akin to what MS is doing with their software at Universities, including Texas A&M (where I work)
To wit, the "problem" is twofold
Students pirate software. I'm not saying piracy is unique to students, but when your class uses Excel exclusively (and some do), you blew your wad on books and the labs are full/far away, what's a little piracy between friends? The software's always been available at an academic discount, but that's still pricey.
Profs, keen to this, start suggesting open source or free alternatives.
So MS has to see either no money whatsoever from piracy (piracy of copies that wouldn't have been bought at all were piracy impossible) or a movement to free software.
So MS comes up with the "Educational Site License" (I think, this is from memory) wherein for about $5 a CD students can get WinXP, OfficeXP, VS.net (that one is 5 discs) for amazingly cheap. Downstairs there's been a line for some time.
Of course MS also charges $X per tuition hour, which the students themselves voted on and approved (with the exception of those who pay for school out of pocket, they don't see the bills themselves). Funny that this program rewards those who happen to only have a semester or so left. If you fail out you have to give the software back (*snicker*) but when you graduate you have to register and you can keep it.
The way this all ties in to the story? All you have to do is threaten to leave MS and they'll cut you a break.
Because while Apple was aiming for the kids (which wasn't a bad idea), IBM et al were aiming for the adults. The kids (myself included) were trained on Apple ][, Macintosh, etc., but when we got into the "real world" (or when we wanted to play DOOM), the PC became neccessary.
"Hello, welcome to your first day at work. Here's your PC."
who says there is some magic relationship between the value of the hardware and the software?
Yeah, especially given that, to some, the point of a computer is a platform to sell software on. I guess that's one of the big differences between game consoles and PC's - every manufacturer of every piece of hardware in your PC is looking to make a profit. In a console the sole manufactrer (yeah, I know it's not that simple anymore) is willing to take a loss on the hardware to sell software and make the real money.
So what's a scarier proposition - the idea that Microsoft might go the next step and make their own PC's, or the idea that they might make the XBox do this?
As a response to you and the rest who keep bagging on what a horrid game this is, and how Acclaim only releases crap, I have the following:
Shut the hell up.
You're right in the respect that one shouldn't diss a game they haven't played. Look at the number of people who dissed Daikatana without playing it (for the record, it wasn't that bad). I for one might even rent or play this game, but being married I catch enough flack that all games are "evil fucked up bloody shit", I don't need the words "with nudity!" tacked on to the end of it.
To me (and I know this will open up a big can of worms), this game is like PC Accelerator, which was a decent magazine on its own merit, but it's like they woke up one morning and said "Titties sell! Let's put them on every cover!". Don't get me wrong, I love boobies, but to me, taking something that has nothing to do with gaming and placing it on the cover to appeal to the lowest common denominator is stupid. Acclaim woke up one morning and said "man, it would sell so much more if we put titties in it....and swears! Lots of swear words!" I'm glad most retailers won't sell it - if it sold well it would just encourage this sort of thing (witness the Deer Hunter phonomena we're just starting to see the end of).
And you're right, Acclaim doesn't only release crap. Turok 2 comes to mind as one of the better games I've ever played. But Acclaim is guilty of running it into the ground (look at how bad every Turok game since has been).
they are definitely kicking ass in marketing
This is only true if you subscribe to the notion that there's no such thing as bad publicity and being unpopular is more important than being indifferent.
yeah, most of the games that would be considered "AO" don't bother to even get a rating. Memory serves that Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh, the first PC game from a major publisher (Sierra) with frontal nudity was destined to get an "AO" rating, so Sierra used the RASC (with 0-4 ratings for sex, violence and language) to rate the game instead. The game still didn't sell or make it into too many retailers. Curiously, in subsequent re-releases (boxed with Phantasmagoria) it's rated "M".
...is the greasy turd on the game industry. What with buying ad space on tombstones, to paying people to change their names to "Turok", to paying speeding tickets for people on their way to buy their racing game, they're scum (though all these promotions did originate in the U.K.). Plus, Acclaim is the "quick and dirty" game house - when you want your property made into a game qucikly and don't give a crap about the game being good (any South Park game, any of the Batman movie games), Acclaim will proudly take your money and make you some piece of crap in a record amount of time.
Acclaim is to the game industry what Troma is to the movie industry.
On a related note, does anyone know if this game will use the extremely rare "AO" (Adults Only) ESRB rating?
His head most certainly did not fall out of the helmet - I was extremely disappointed
Well according to starwars.com, it did. I'm not sure if they made this non-obvious on purpose or if it was just inevitable that the shadow could be missed, but I didn't notice it on the theater either.
The other possibility, but I don't have a link to back it up, is that the shadows were only in some versions of the film. I read somewhere that Lucas continued to tinker with the film after its release and that, depending on when the date that the particular piece of celluloid was made, the film was that version. For example, if a theater got theirs a few months into the run or had to get a new version of the film, they got the "latest" version. This is why no one can agree on the exclusive scene for the digital version (the scene was included since there's less lead time on manufacturing - it was included in later celluloid prints, whatever it was) and part of the reason Lucas wanted the film to be a digitial exclusive - so he could issue "patches". We already know that the version of AOTC playing in hotel rooms has some differences (a few longer scenes) and given that the rumor is that there's been 50 slightly different versions of the film in theaters, it'll be interesting to see which one makes it to DVD.
am I missing something here? This guy did Lucasfilm a favor. The geeks of the world were perturbed by The Phantom Menace and a few probably vowed to never see another prequel. However, Harry "LOTR OWNZ ME" Knowles says, "nah, this is good..." and the geeks regain faith. I mean, you can't buy that kind of publicity.
Of course, at $300 million, Attack of the Clones didn't pull in nearly as much money as The Phantom Menace, nor did it do as well as Spider-Man, itself a $450 million film, but consider this: TPM was more for children (not surprising in the long run, given that the lead character was a child), so kids went to go see it en masse, dragging parents along, for multiple showings. Box office gold. AOTC, what with its violence (Boba Fett picking up Jango's helmet and with the head falling out probably didn't make parents happy), lack of Jar-Jar (kids these days don't know who Yoda is), and love story, didn't make the kids want to go see it over and over again. Spider-Man, however, did. No surprise there. Plus don't forget that Spider-Man had the bizarre "luck" of being a movie about a superhero saving NYC in a post-9/11 world. The USA decided they liked that idea quite a bit (especially with the New Yorkers bonding on the bridge against the bad guy towards the end).
I personally think the reason AOTC didn't do as well as TPM was because it was the middle film. I walked out of there thinking "great - now I want to see the ending" (episode 3). My test of this theory will be how The Two Towers fares...
you do realize of course that, walking into a library, finding a book and taking a picture of it will make you look like a wannabe spy? Hey, that could be fun - top it off with a trenchcoat, fedora and sunglasses. And go for a book like Mein Kampf or something. Hilarity will ensue...
...is that right under the article text is a BestBuy.com ad trying to sell you a $350 TiVo. Perhaps the blind logic by which those ads get placed needs some tweaking.
Or wait - maybe the funniest part is that this article is on Microsoft real estate - Microsoft who watched UltimateTV die. And isn't there something in the pipes for XBox in this respect?
Google News links to Slashdot story that links to News.com article that links to DeCSS.
And after the break:
Slashdot story updated to link to Google News story which links to Slashdot story which links to News.com story which links to DeCSS.exe
Tommorow night:
Google news story updated to link to updated Slashdot story, which was updated to link to Google News story which links to Slashdot story which links to News.com story which links to DeCSS.exe
Man, thanks to cut and paste I could go on like this forever...
commercial software and free software are not opposites
Well I was kinda dividing the world between commercial and non-commercial software. I was thinking more "Photoshop vs. GIMP" than "Windows XP vs. Red Hat Linux".
this question doesn't parse
Well, lots of people write free utilites and then give them away but keep the source. He could be thinking of making the next Renderman, giving it away, but keeping the source to himself.
I think the GNU project is asking nicely for something they rightly deserve credit for making
They are and I consider myself a very astute computer user (and a professional programmer) and until I read that FAQ I never knew Linux was just a kernel - I always thought it was an OS unto itself. The only problem I see in calling it "GNU/Linux" in conversation is that it sounds like "New Linux", which requires more explanation, so people just say "Linux" or "Mandrake" or whatever. I say people should write it a certian way for a while and then perhaps the pronouncing of it will take off. Or perhaps we should say "guh-new"...
Slashdot Mirror
So is it that The Middleware Company will just claim that the winner is the one that paid them? Or is it that .NET really is the performance winner whereas J2EE wins most of the other awards?
And why is it surprising that the performance winner is the one whose entire platform, from the operating system to the SQL server to the framework, is made by a single vendor? Of course it will perform better - they're all in the same building (or complex in this case).
I guess the bottom line there is that MS doesn't care who they screw over or piss off, so long as they get their money. Then again perhaps this is SOP in the industry (as some have stated) and MS is just getting the bad PR stick again since it's trendy.
When Microsoft made a version of Word for Windows, they called it 1.0 and the successor 2.0. By the time they were to come out with what would have been 3.0, Word for DOS was 6.0, so they called the new Windows version 6.0 as well "so they would match". Of course the (then winning) competitor was WordPerfect, also at version 6.0 (WP's first Windows release was 5.0 or 5.1, to match their DOS version, but they started at 1.0 on platforms like Macintosh or OS/2). At one point in time a version of Microsoft Office would contain many differing versions of the programs (Word 2.0, Excel 4.0, etc.), but by Office 95 they were all set to the same version (7.0) but of course it didn't matter anymore since the year numbering scheme was in effect.
Microsoft released MS-DOS 5.0 and some time after MS-DOS 6.0. Version 6.0 was the first MS-DOS that Microsoft made after their deal with IBM was over, so when IBM released their new PC-DOS they called it Version 6.1, to "avoid confusion" with MS-DOS 6.0. Microsoft then released MS-DOS 6.2, also to "avoid confusion". IBM countered with PC-DOS 6.3, but it didn't really matter anymore since no one used PC-DOS anyway. Really at work here was the "higher version number = better" myth the public has.
Microsoft's development products aren't immune, either. Microsoft's Visual InterDev was 1.0 with Visual Studio 5.0 (I think), but when Visual Studio 97 was released, it was bumped up to 6.0 to match the other releases. InterDev has pretty much been dissolved into the ASP.NET handling features of Visual Studio.NET.
Not just a bad error, a catastrophic one. Bizarrely this error never happens when it really is a bad error, but every time I see it I picture Hiroshima.
It's funny - I've been having some Western Digital drives fail on me somewhat quickly, usually in their warranty period. Yet a 1.2GB Quantum Fireball I got in an Acer Aspire way back (~7 years ago) when I Didn't Know Any Better(TM) still works - I fired up Mandrake on it last week for kicks. Not that anything good would fit on it...
To wit, the "problem" is twofold
- Students pirate software. I'm not saying piracy is unique to students, but when your class uses Excel exclusively (and some do), you blew your wad on books and the labs are full/far away, what's a little piracy between friends? The software's always been available at an academic discount, but that's still pricey.
- Profs, keen to this, start suggesting open source or free alternatives.
So MS has to see either no money whatsoever from piracy (piracy of copies that wouldn't have been bought at all were piracy impossible) or a movement to free software.So MS comes up with the "Educational Site License" (I think, this is from memory) wherein for about $5 a CD students can get WinXP, OfficeXP, VS.net (that one is 5 discs) for amazingly cheap. Downstairs there's been a line for some time.
Of course MS also charges $X per tuition hour, which the students themselves voted on and approved (with the exception of those who pay for school out of pocket, they don't see the bills themselves). Funny that this program rewards those who happen to only have a semester or so left. If you fail out you have to give the software back (*snicker*) but when you graduate you have to register and you can keep it.
The way this all ties in to the story? All you have to do is threaten to leave MS and they'll cut you a break.
"Hello, welcome to your first day at work. Here's your PC."
"Oh, but all I've ever used is a Mac"
"Well you better start getting used to it..."
So what's a scarier proposition - the idea that Microsoft might go the next step and make their own PC's, or the idea that they might make the XBox do this?
To me (and I know this will open up a big can of worms), this game is like PC Accelerator, which was a decent magazine on its own merit, but it's like they woke up one morning and said "Titties sell! Let's put them on every cover!". Don't get me wrong, I love boobies, but to me, taking something that has nothing to do with gaming and placing it on the cover to appeal to the lowest common denominator is stupid. Acclaim woke up one morning and said "man, it would sell so much more if we put titties in it....and swears! Lots of swear words!" I'm glad most retailers won't sell it - if it sold well it would just encourage this sort of thing (witness the Deer Hunter phonomena we're just starting to see the end of).
And you're right, Acclaim doesn't only release crap. Turok 2 comes to mind as one of the better games I've ever played. But Acclaim is guilty of running it into the ground (look at how bad every Turok game since has been).
This is only true if you subscribe to the notion that there's no such thing as bad publicity and being unpopular is more important than being indifferent.yeah, most of the games that would be considered "AO" don't bother to even get a rating. Memory serves that Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh, the first PC game from a major publisher (Sierra) with frontal nudity was destined to get an "AO" rating, so Sierra used the RASC (with 0-4 ratings for sex, violence and language) to rate the game instead. The game still didn't sell or make it into too many retailers. Curiously, in subsequent re-releases (boxed with Phantasmagoria) it's rated "M".
Acclaim is to the game industry what Troma is to the movie industry.
On a related note, does anyone know if this game will use the extremely rare "AO" (Adults Only) ESRB rating?
The other possibility, but I don't have a link to back it up, is that the shadows were only in some versions of the film. I read somewhere that Lucas continued to tinker with the film after its release and that, depending on when the date that the particular piece of celluloid was made, the film was that version. For example, if a theater got theirs a few months into the run or had to get a new version of the film, they got the "latest" version. This is why no one can agree on the exclusive scene for the digital version (the scene was included since there's less lead time on manufacturing - it was included in later celluloid prints, whatever it was) and part of the reason Lucas wanted the film to be a digitial exclusive - so he could issue "patches". We already know that the version of AOTC playing in hotel rooms has some differences (a few longer scenes) and given that the rumor is that there's been 50 slightly different versions of the film in theaters, it'll be interesting to see which one makes it to DVD.
Of course, at $300 million, Attack of the Clones didn't pull in nearly as much money as The Phantom Menace, nor did it do as well as Spider-Man, itself a $450 million film, but consider this: TPM was more for children (not surprising in the long run, given that the lead character was a child), so kids went to go see it en masse, dragging parents along, for multiple showings. Box office gold. AOTC, what with its violence (Boba Fett picking up Jango's helmet and with the head falling out probably didn't make parents happy), lack of Jar-Jar (kids these days don't know who Yoda is), and love story, didn't make the kids want to go see it over and over again. Spider-Man, however, did. No surprise there. Plus don't forget that Spider-Man had the bizarre "luck" of being a movie about a superhero saving NYC in a post-9/11 world. The USA decided they liked that idea quite a bit (especially with the New Yorkers bonding on the bridge against the bad guy towards the end).
I personally think the reason AOTC didn't do as well as TPM was because it was the middle film. I walked out of there thinking "great - now I want to see the ending" (episode 3). My test of this theory will be how The Two Towers fares...
the Will Farrell SNL ad can be found here.
Actually since this is such an anticipated release, I think the site was hammered before the article was finished submitting.
you do realize of course that, walking into a library, finding a book and taking a picture of it will make you look like a wannabe spy? Hey, that could be fun - top it off with a trenchcoat, fedora and sunglasses. And go for a book like Mein Kampf or something. Hilarity will ensue...
...woohoo! I missed it!
Or wait - maybe the funniest part is that this article is on Microsoft real estate - Microsoft who watched UltimateTV die. And isn't there something in the pipes for XBox in this respect?
Wasn't that the pink stuff Clint Howard had Kirk and Spock drink in The Corbomite Maneuver?
Google News links to Slashdot story that links to News.com article that links to DeCSS.
And after the break:
Slashdot story updated to link to Google News story which links to Slashdot story which links to News.com story which links to DeCSS.exe
Tommorow night:
Google news story updated to link to updated Slashdot story, which was updated to link to Google News story which links to Slashdot story which links to News.com story which links to DeCSS.exe
Man, thanks to cut and paste I could go on like this forever...
This of course brings up a different possibility - watching your gene map on TV. Dark room, techno music, maybe a little beer - quite the show.