I personally think the biggest Achilles Heel with OSS is people with the mindset that just because they are used to one particular program, it is the pinnacle that everything else has to strive for, and these people are closed minded to trying something that may take a little getting used to but just might end up being superior for them.
It doesn't help that software like OpenOffice perpetuates this, parroting other software just to placate this mindset.
As others have mentioned, it probably has something to do with Internet use on cell phones. An interesting view of the rise of technology and the Internet in Japan was described in this article I read recently, which I found fascinating and relevant to this topic:
Serendipity supports Postgres and has for a long time (though I can't say for certain that it did from birth). Which is why I use it. As with other projects of this nature (Drupal comes to mind), though the core supports Postgres quite well, 3rd party plugins sometimes fall into MySQL-only habits, but that hasn't been too problematic for me.
Frankly, in this day and age, I'm leery of projects that are written to MySQL specifically. To me, it smacks of amateurdom: if you don't know enough to use an abstraction layer (of which there are jillions of options), what does that say about the quality of your code as a whole?
>Yes - it'd be great if more ISPs offered time keeping services.
They kinda do, though they don't usually advertise. Many routers have ntp services builtin so if you do a traceroute outward (for example to google.com) and then query each hop away from you, you'll probably find ntp service along the way.
For example, I'm on rr.com and 4 of the 5 hops with rr.com address (it moves to level3 after that) have ntp service.
Of course, there's no convenient DNS and you are prone to the ISP changing routes and stuff at will and the assumption is that your ISP keeps it's routers sync'd, so be mindful.
You can still have fun figuring out which orientation the USB plug should go in while you are crouched under your desk. Great design,USB guys! I owe you a punch in the face!
I bought my PSP just for this purpose and use it almost everyday on my bus ride commute. I still marvel at the gorgeousness of the screen and Sony's smoothing algorithms are *fantastic*. I encode to 368x208 using ffmpeg/h264 (I think the newer firmwares allow full screen resolution) and it's a dream to watch. I watch a lot of subtitled content, too, and reading the text is never a problem.
Uh, you do know you can switch to B-Spec at the pitstops. right?
No I didn't - thanks for the tip.
I haven't messed with B-spec mode much and had completely forgotten about it. For those not familiar: B-Spec is a "coaching" mode where you give guidance about when how hard to push it ("go slow", "push", etc), when to pass (umm... ALWAYS?), when to pit, etc. A feature until just this moment I found utterly unredeeming.
It's interesting - I have it on "push" and the driver is clocking in just a tad slower than my usual lap times, so it doesn't look like I'd lose my lead. I'll try letting it run for a bit by itself, which does dull some of the pain, but (and this is not directed at you), what does it say about gameplay when the best course of action is to walk away and just leave the computer drive itself? Even worse, I have to come back every two laps (12-13 minutes) to tell it to pit, so it's not like I can let it run over night while I sleep.
Coincidentally, I'm in the midst of playing GT4 right now on the PS2. I'm trying to complete the 24hr Nurburgring event and for those of you not familiar with the series, this really means 24 hours. You can't save and come back to it later. You *can* pause the game, so it's not like you have to sit there for 24 hours, but still. My PS2 has been on for 3 days straight and I'm only 12:32:28:250 in.
Which illustrates, I think, where the GT franchise has gone wrong. I've been a huge fan of the series since the first edition, on PSX. It's made a wannabe riceboy out of me, in particular my fascination with the beast of a car called the Skyline. I even own one now, albeit the North American domestic market version. I don't play games as much as I used to and really, my PlayStations have become Gran Turismo machines. I bought my PS2 only after GT3 came out; I bought GT4 shortly after release more than a year and half ago.
And as I sit there, circling Nurburgring over and over and over (on lap 102 now), it's clear to me that this isn't fun anymore. Polyphony Digital lost sight of the "fun" aspect in GT3, I think. Endurance races existed before then, but in GT3, they got ludicrous and now, it's just completely insane. 24 hours??? For a single race??? And this is not the only one- there's another 24h hour one, plus a bunch of 8 hours. 2-4 hours was bad enough in the earlier versions.
I enjoy the technical aspects of the game - finding the line, the brake points, the differences between cars. But I can't also help think about all the things I don't like about the game while mindless doing this event. Like the utter shit AI in computer controlled cars. They drive like you don't exist, ramming you from behind as if you were invisible. And they make the same mistakes over and over. The lack of balance in the races - very few are actually challenging when you take a LM Fairlady against tuned production cars, or as in this case, a Minolota Toyota race car against LM cars. You could argue that I should pick cars that are more competitive and sometimes I do, but they don't make it easy to figure out what you are up against and with the potential "penalty" to have to do another 24 fucking hours if I lose, no, I'm not going to pick a competitive car.
Polyphony's strength, obviously, is their graphics wizardry- each new version takes your breath away. But they really need to rethink gameplay. Lose the ridiculous endurance races. Pare down the total number of events - it's ungodly and without the sense of satisifaction of "completing" a game, I feel less anticipation for the next one. Do something to make races more competitive - perhaps chose the opposing field based on the car the player brings in. Make the computer controlled cars mercy to the same physics as the player. Create bigger penalties for crashing (much has been said about how the auto manufacturers won't allow damage to appear on their cars, but there are other ways). And so on.
Buying the next GT edition has always been an automatic for me, but after this, I'm not so sure. When a game is more work than fun, what's the point?
Hear hear. I've been using Sylpheed (actually, the Claws branch) for nigh 5 years now and love it. The multiple account handling is an absolute *dream*. I have about a dozen accounts configured and it just always knows what I want to do.
Oh my god, no. I hate this about Windows and I hate the Linux UIs have adopted it.
I know the name. Don't make me stop think "Hmm, is that name going to appear in the first sorted set or in the second?". Why does having "Foo" show after "Bar" make any sense just because it's a directory?
Should the phone book be sorted by sex first, then name?
This is something I've been mulling over. I use Postgres for important stuff (stuff I get paid for), and because I like it.
For less important stuff (personal small projects), I use SQLite. It's speedy and I like it. And, it comes standard with PHP5, so once webhosts upgrade from PHP4, everyone will have it[1]!
I really don't see a place for MySQL in my development. SQLite, by most measures, will spank it in terms of performance for the simple cases, and I don't think anyone will argue that Postgres is in another league as far as data integrity and advanced features.
I developed an open-source project that is somewhat compatible with all three. Initial development was in SQLite but I switched to using a database abstraction layer (PEAR::DB) in the course of about an hour. I was really pleased to see how smoothly this worked with Postgres. MySQL, was annoying. It's like some bastard stepchild and I had to leave some features out because it doesn't support some fundamental features (views come to mind).
It's depressing really. Like Microsoft, MySQL "won" in the sense that they own the webhosted space so the inertia will keep them going for a long time.
[1] This is meant as a joke- they are not upgrading. PHP5 hosts are rare.
Bluetooth doesn't have quite the bandwidth to get decent-sounding music
No, not uncompressed PCM, but there's the A2DP profile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2DP), which uses a codec to squeeze the data over Bluetooth's limited bandwidth. Devices have been showing up. I don't have any personal experience with it so I can't vouch for "decent-sounding" (it is, after all, recompressing), but if my music phone supported it, I would jump all over those Sony's in no time.
It uses the ancient and deprecated OSS audio interface instead of the modern ALSA. This means you have to buy an expensive sound card with hardware mixing, or put up with only one program being able to play/record sound at a time.
This was a personal mission of mine recently- getting in-browser flash sound to work simultaneously with my other desktop apps. There's a OSS-compatibility library for alsa and that did the trick for me (I use Galeon).
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, same here. First time Firefox3 has crashed on me (outside of a few flash related hangs).
Sprint stops you by being a CDMA network: no SIMs.
That's an interesting use of the word "forced".
I personally think the biggest Achilles Heel with OSS is people with the mindset that just because they are used to one particular program, it is the pinnacle that everything else has to strive for, and these people are closed minded to trying something that may take a little getting used to but just might end up being superior for them.
It doesn't help that software like OpenOffice perpetuates this, parroting other software just to placate this mindset.
As others have mentioned, it probably has something to do with Internet use on cell phones. An interesting view of the rise of technology and the Internet in Japan was described in this article I read recently, which I found fascinating and relevant to this topic:
http://blog.gatunka.com/2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-the-ipod/
Serendipity supports Postgres and has for a long time (though I can't say for certain that it did from birth). Which is why I use it. As with other projects of this nature (Drupal comes to mind), though the core supports Postgres quite well, 3rd party plugins sometimes fall into MySQL-only habits, but that hasn't been too problematic for me.
Frankly, in this day and age, I'm leery of projects that are written to MySQL specifically. To me, it smacks of amateurdom: if you don't know enough to use an abstraction layer (of which there are jillions of options), what does that say about the quality of your code as a whole?
And who buys games new anymore? You can get plenty of great used games at any of your mall stores these days.
Umm....
PHONE?!? Luxury! We filled in bubbles with a number 2 pencil then waited in line at Sproul.
>Yes - it'd be great if more ISPs offered time keeping services.
They kinda do, though they don't usually advertise. Many routers have ntp services builtin so if you do a traceroute outward (for example to google.com) and then query each hop away from you, you'll probably find ntp service along the way.
For example, I'm on rr.com and 4 of the 5 hops with rr.com address (it moves to level3 after that) have ntp service.
Of course, there's no convenient DNS and you are prone to the ISP changing routes and stuff at will and the assumption is that your ISP keeps it's routers sync'd, so be mindful.
You can still have fun figuring out which orientation the USB plug should go in while you are crouched under your desk. Great design,USB guys! I owe you a punch in the face!
I bought my PSP just for this purpose and use it almost everyday on my bus ride commute. I still marvel at the gorgeousness of the screen and Sony's smoothing algorithms are *fantastic*. I encode to 368x208 using ffmpeg/h264 (I think the newer firmwares allow full screen resolution) and it's a dream to watch. I watch a lot of subtitled content, too, and reading the text is never a problem.
Most operating systems designed after about 1990 have some kind of built in HTML viewer component
The web didn't really take off till 1993. I think it was much later that any OS included a built-in HTML viewer component.
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13085/53/
The W960 will come with Sony's new bluetooth headset in the box, their newly announced HBH DS220s, as well as the wired HPM-70s.
I still haven't found a bluetooth handsfree with traditional lanyard design.
Like this?
Check that - it appears to know when to pit. Still not gonna let it go while I sleep though :p
Uh, you do know you can switch to B-Spec at the pitstops. right?
No I didn't - thanks for the tip.
I haven't messed with B-spec mode much and had completely forgotten about it. For those not familiar: B-Spec is a "coaching" mode where you give guidance about when how hard to push it ("go slow", "push", etc), when to pass (umm... ALWAYS?), when to pit, etc. A feature until just this moment I found utterly unredeeming.
It's interesting - I have it on "push" and the driver is clocking in just a tad slower than my usual lap times, so it doesn't look like I'd lose my lead. I'll try letting it run for a bit by itself, which does dull some of the pain, but (and this is not directed at you), what does it say about gameplay when the best course of action is to walk away and just leave the computer drive itself? Even worse, I have to come back every two laps (12-13 minutes) to tell it to pit, so it's not like I can let it run over night while I sleep.
Coincidentally, I'm in the midst of playing GT4 right now on the PS2. I'm trying to complete the 24hr Nurburgring event and for those of you not familiar with the series, this really means 24 hours. You can't save and come back to it later. You *can* pause the game, so it's not like you have to sit there for 24 hours, but still. My PS2 has been on for 3 days straight and I'm only 12:32:28:250 in.
Which illustrates, I think, where the GT franchise has gone wrong. I've been a huge fan of the series since the first edition, on PSX. It's made a wannabe riceboy out of me, in particular my fascination with the beast of a car called the Skyline. I even own one now, albeit the North American domestic market version. I don't play games as much as I used to and really, my PlayStations have become Gran Turismo machines. I bought my PS2 only after GT3 came out; I bought GT4 shortly after release more than a year and half ago.
And as I sit there, circling Nurburgring over and over and over (on lap 102 now), it's clear to me that this isn't fun anymore. Polyphony Digital lost sight of the "fun" aspect in GT3, I think. Endurance races existed before then, but in GT3, they got ludicrous and now, it's just completely insane. 24 hours??? For a single race??? And this is not the only one- there's another 24h hour one, plus a bunch of 8 hours. 2-4 hours was bad enough in the earlier versions.
I enjoy the technical aspects of the game - finding the line, the brake points, the differences between cars. But I can't also help think about all the things I don't like about the game while mindless doing this event. Like the utter shit AI in computer controlled cars. They drive like you don't exist, ramming you from behind as if you were invisible. And they make the same mistakes over and over. The lack of balance in the races - very few are actually challenging when you take a LM Fairlady against tuned production cars, or as in this case, a Minolota Toyota race car against LM cars. You could argue that I should pick cars that are more competitive and sometimes I do, but they don't make it easy to figure out what you are up against and with the potential "penalty" to have to do another 24 fucking hours if I lose, no, I'm not going to pick a competitive car.
Polyphony's strength, obviously, is their graphics wizardry- each new version takes your breath away. But they really need to rethink gameplay. Lose the ridiculous endurance races. Pare down the total number of events - it's ungodly and without the sense of satisifaction of "completing" a game, I feel less anticipation for the next one. Do something to make races more competitive - perhaps chose the opposing field based on the car the player brings in. Make the computer controlled cars mercy to the same physics as the player. Create bigger penalties for crashing (much has been said about how the auto manufacturers won't allow damage to appear on their cars, but there are other ways). And so on.
Buying the next GT edition has always been an automatic for me, but after this, I'm not so sure. When a game is more work than fun, what's the point?
Hear hear. I've been using Sylpheed (actually, the Claws branch) for nigh 5 years now and love it. The multiple account handling is an absolute *dream*. I have about a dozen accounts configured and it just always knows what I want to do.
And while they are at *that*, why not replace Bluetooth File Exchange for a Finder mount. That app sucks.
Oh my god, no. I hate this about Windows and I hate the Linux UIs have adopted it.
I know the name. Don't make me stop think "Hmm, is that name going to appear in the first sorted set or in the second?". Why does having "Foo" show after "Bar" make any sense just because it's a directory?
Should the phone book be sorted by sex first, then name?
Here's another list:
v ices
http://www.listible.com/list/disposable-email-ser
I also don't know why this 10minutemail site is getting the attention it is. I like jetable and shortmail myself (option to forward).
Seriously.
This is something I've been mulling over. I use Postgres for important stuff (stuff I get paid for), and because I like it.
For less important stuff (personal small projects), I use SQLite. It's speedy and I like it. And, it comes standard with PHP5, so once webhosts upgrade from PHP4, everyone will have it[1]!
I really don't see a place for MySQL in my development. SQLite, by most measures, will spank it in terms of performance for the simple cases, and I don't think anyone will argue that Postgres is in another league as far as data integrity and advanced features.
I developed an open-source project that is somewhat compatible with all three. Initial development was in SQLite but I switched to using a database abstraction layer (PEAR::DB) in the course of about an hour. I was really pleased to see how smoothly this worked with Postgres. MySQL, was annoying. It's like some bastard stepchild and I had to leave some features out because it doesn't support some fundamental features (views come to mind).
It's depressing really. Like Microsoft, MySQL "won" in the sense that they own the webhosted space so the inertia will keep them going for a long time.
[1] This is meant as a joke- they are not upgrading. PHP5 hosts are rare.
No, not uncompressed PCM, but there's the A2DP profile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2DP), which uses a codec to squeeze the data over Bluetooth's limited bandwidth. Devices have been showing up. I don't have any personal experience with it so I can't vouch for "decent-sounding" (it is, after all, recompressing), but if my music phone supported it, I would jump all over those Sony's in no time.
This was a personal mission of mine recently- getting in-browser flash sound to work simultaneously with my other desktop apps. There's a OSS-compatibility library for alsa and that did the trick for me (I use Galeon).
See http://www.alsa-project.org/