I'll sneak this comment under yours as I don't really have anything to add, but wanted to echo your echo - Inkscape is really great software. I have no design or artistic talent - but Inkscape is intuitive, usable, and capable enough that I can eke together a drawing. It's the perfect choice if you're a programmer who wants to mock up (or even finish) a logo, printable item, or design element.
I say this about very few programs: I agree with pretty much all their UI decisions. Good job, Inkscape devs!
Well, it surprises me in a way. I'm all for teaching theory (as opposed to digging into specific APIs and what not) but I think going through more practical work than it sounds like you did probably makes for more effective teaching. I don't think DB courses should worry about too many specifics, but I think doing some interaction with a practical database is really going to solidify understanding.
Anyways, interviewing so many people has left me with a real bad opinion of IT/CS education. To me, the problem summed up is that I don't think you can really learn programming theory without being capable of doing some programming.
To be more specific, I'll tell you what we ask of candidates: write a function that takes an array of integers between 0 and 99, and return the most common number in the list. In the case of ties, return the smallest of the tied numbers. I help freely with any syntax questions and what not. And, to be extra clear, I make sure they understand the problem perfectly before we start by having them answer the question themselves for some sample lists.
90-95% of candidates can't do it (including people with CS degrees, and many people with >10 years experience working in programming positions). And by can't do it, I mean they just can't - they can't come up with a proper approach, and often they can't execute a proper approach when I tell them how to do it. I hope I'm just in a tight job market and I'm not seeing the best candidates.
If people don't know SQL, I don't disqualify them - it'd just really surprise me in a recent graduate (which is what we're talking about here). Again, it's not hard to teach.
But I think it's more important that a programmer in an average business environment has some understanding of how databases work than how HTML is formatted (even if it's all web applications). There's a good chance someone else is doing CSS. There's a good chance someone else is doing SQL too - but your decisions are much more closely related.
But yeah, I overstated the case for SQL. Again, I'm not saying they need to know it, it just seems like they probably "should" (in the same sense that if you roll a dice 20 times, you "should" get at least one six) if they've encountered databases at all.
I completely disagree. In fact, I'm always happy to see programming job applicants with just a math degree who maybe have just started with programming.
People who can do high level math almost always grasp programming quickly and at a high level. I can teach design principles to a smart person who understands programming. Not always the other way.
Your coding challenge sounds about right - I do something similar (though I just have them write a single function - I pass the data in instead of making them read from file so that almost no API needs referencing - I don't care about the API they may know). I help explicitly with any syntax questions (though I suppose having them read help files is a good exercise too). The challenge isn't hard.
It's depressing how many people fail. They just can't program. I don't know what they do for 4 years.
And you're right, people should know SQL. Not because it's hard to teach SQL, but because they should know basic database theory and practice - and how could they have possibly learned that without having learned SQL?
CSS or web services? Those I don't care so much about. Sure they're nice, but to me they're not core (for a programmer) - and someone who can program can figure them out (but if those are more core for you, I can see why you'd want them - as you say, it's certainly not unrealistic to expect).
Uh - Watson obviously, obviously had a speed advantage. On today's episode there were many, many obvious answers (obvious to me - to Ken Jennings or Brad Rutter, blindingly - stupidly blindingly - obvious). Watson got almost all the obvious questions, and many times you could see the little eye roll of frustration from Ken and Brad.
On questions like this, Ken and Brad would have been waiting and trying to time the ring in (they would have known the answer long before the buzzer was active).
They lost almost every time.
So while the computer may not have had an absolute advantage (ie. if Ken could have rung in within milliseconds of the buzzer being active he would have been OK) it's clear it had an effective one in that it's a bloody machine that can ring in very quickly after the buzzer is active. I mean, yeah, it's cool that the computer knows the answer that fast - but we didn't get to see anything of a comparison of who knew a greater percentage of answers.
And, again, this was absolutely, obviously clear to anyone who watched the show. I don't believe anyone could have watched the show and not realize this. Honestly, this is a problem even without the computer. Between high level contestants, buzzer speed is going to determine the winner 9 times out of 10 - the Jeopardy questions just aren't hard enough to distinguish between the best competitors. Oh, and somewhere else in this article someone said "that's part of the game". That's true. But it's a stupid part of the game - and it makes it impossible to compare competitors with different brain technologies in any interesting way.
Actually, I'd go back and change that if I could. Not the choice we made, but what I wrote up there. At the time it not only seemed like a reasonable option, it was a reasonable option - and overall it turned out quite well for us.
We switched to a completely web based system long before our competitors could, and that required implementing a lot of features quickly (such as functional document editing and printing in the browser). I don't think there was any better option than what we did back then, at least not one we could implement in time. It was really only an odd choice if you imagine that we had the choices available now back then.
And the site we made was very successful. Our market share is 5 times what it was in 2000, largely because we were able to do stuff online our competitors didn't (and it's not like we're an online company - we're a brick and mortar company that had been around long before the web). And it hasn't cost us much time to switch out techs as better things have become available. The IE only website that seems like an abomination now was, looking at the results, the most important and best tech choice we ever made.
But yeah, that still doesn't mean MS didn't bone the transition.
MS really screwed this one up, and I don't think they even really saw it coming.
For example, a lot of IE-specific web software from around 2000 used the DHTML edit control. At the time, it seemed like a reasonable option to, for example, add spellcheck into a web form and have a reasonable UI. Some of our pages used it. Yes I know it sounds dumb now, but 2000 was a long time ago and the set of options was very different. Things weren't the same. The amount of stuff you could do in a cross-browser friendly page was limited, and the amount of work to get it working was much greater.
When they decided to get rid of it (for Vista) the only notice I found was in some MS blog which pretty much read "we looked around the web and it didn't seem like many people were using this, so we're getting rid of it to have a smaller security surface area". Oh, and by the way, we'll give ourselves plenty of time to stop using it in Outlook Web Access. But yeah, no option to leave it available for trusted sites or something, just "screw you". Now, to be clear, there's replacements for that functionality in modern browsers, but nothing was a drop-in replacement and it was still a pain for a lot of users.
And it's not MS's normal MO... a lot of the reason they've done well over the years is understanding how glacially slow businesses can move and keeping software functional long after its natural expiry date. I think they just really didn't know people were using that, and they're only now starting to pay attention to people who are dealing with this - years after the mistake of not providing an easy transition.
Our internal site still uses IE custom print templates (to get well formatted boilerplate text on pages, allow interactive, persistent control of page breaks, and otherwise ensure consistent printing of HTML). These have been around and unchanged since IE 5 I think, and have been working for us since around 2000. But I know one day they'll just be gone. Again, I'm sure there will be some replacement tech - but I fully expect MS not to give a crap about how we transition.
This isn't just Canada by any stretch - it's everywhere. And scientists are just the newest people being affected.
The problem is media. Not left-wing media, not right-wing media, but scandal happy media. From my perspective (in Canada), media have lost all desire to fill people in on what's happening, all they want is a scandal - something they can sell right now. They want to catch a politician (or a scientist) making a mistake or saying anything that a significant number of people will disagree with. And it's been getting worse for decades.
Now, sure, it makes sense that - to a certain extent - the media needs to maintain a bit of an adversarial role toward government. Media is an important check on the power of government. But that needs to be balanced by a desire to be informative rather than sensational and a desire to inform people with both sides of an issue.
How it is now, we've reached the point that, to be safe, politicians just don't say anything of any interest - and the only information we'll get will be vacuous and committee-written. Nobody wins in this situation.
To me, politicians and media share the blame on this one. Politicians need to be open, but media needs to ease off the trigger a bit so that being open isn't quite so suicidal. The best summary I've seen of this is here (David Mitchell).
I think a ban is a horrible choice. Why not just add a tax on them?
That way, anyone who had some reason for wanting one could still get one - and who knows why you might want one (art/aesthetics? heat (especially in odd/cold installation environments)? plain old preference (I mean, it's not like there isn't much worse environmental choices that aren't banned)?).
Use the tax on some environmental endeavor, and set it high enough that the net outcome is environmentally positive.
There wouldn't need to be as many produced, but production could slow over time rather than stopping immediately.
Look, all I'm saying is that I believe 3dTV is here to stay, that it will be a winner.
Movie studio's motivation is irrelevant. It's a marketing gimmick. Irrelevant.
The fact that it flopped before? Well, the tech sucked before and the content sucked before. I think it's good enough this time (and will be cheap enough) that it'll win. If you disagree with me, care to bet?
And as to why the studios and TV companies are pushing it, of course it's to sell movies and TVs. But that's really not terribly relevant to the point at hand - the only reason I can see to bring it up is as a rather sad little insult to me - that I'm some sort of sheeple being led captive by big media. I don't feel the need to argue whether or not that's the case, because it's irrelevant and stupid.
When I said 3d would win, I imagined pretty much what you've said - people will end up with 3d sets, and they'll use it sporadically (with the heaviest use being for gaming, and probably children's CG animated programming).
My point was just that 3dTVs are almost certainly here to stay.
Certainly, 3d TVs won't sell tons at current price points. But the price gap will shrink and then evaporate altogether.
And yes, I don't think the uptake will be as fast as the HD transition (which, as you say, also coincided with the rise of big, flat TVs). I don't think many people will junk their old sets - it'll be more of a rolling transition. When people get new sets, they'll get 3d ones (probably they'll get them whether they really want them or not, because that's what'll be available).
Wow - your post was bizarrely personal and angry. Why do you care about this?
Honestly, my initial post was motivated more by this phenomenon - this personalization and emotionalization of a fairly trivial matter - than by the tech at hand. Why does this have any sort of emotional content?
Why do people post about this and not about meaningless, wasteful computer upgrades (do we really need 500W machines to type letters and check e-mail)? What makes 3d (and HD before it) different, that stirs up such vitriol?
Look, all I'm saying is that I think it's fairly clear that 3d will "win" - ie. fairly soon most new TVs will be 3d capable, and that within the next few years most people buying sort of a "home theatre" type setup will end up with a 3d capable setup (with glasses if required).
Think I'm wrong? Really?
And, to be clear, I have no problem with people not buying it. If someone doesn't want it that's fine. But when people get angry about it, I think "sour grapes". And when people think it's not going anywhere, I think "they don't see trends well".
OK - maybe that's the reason for the backlash: wild projection. I've never felt any negative effects from watching 3d, and I've sat through quite a few. It's not statistically convincing or something, but nobody I know has ever mentioned being bothered by 3d. I watched Avatar with a group of 20 people - nobody complained of anything. Maybe someone was secretly hurling, but all I saw was happy faces. (to be clear, I didn't think it was an amazing movie, but it was definitely good)
So yeah, I guess if you assume that everyone else is groggy like you, then I suppose it makes more sense to doomsay. But I don't think the problem is a widespread as you think.
Then you haven't looked. At all. Google "no glasses 3d".
If it were something people watched all the time at the movies and this was just the thing that finally brought it home, sure. However it is a mostly forgotten thing (you forgot about it).
I think we'll see more 3d movies over time. They're popular, and it's easy to do with CG.
And I remember previous generations of 3d. My friend had the shutter glasses for the Sega Master System. Wasn't good enough. I tried some PC shutter glasses in maybe 2002 - not good enough (despite the refresh rate on the CRT being pretty good - the biggest problem was the video card and state of graphics in general).
I tried the tech out now. I think it's good enough. Maybe you don't think it's good enough - but not everyone has to like it for it to be a success.
You may want 3D TV, I think most do, but you are confusing your want with the technology's feasibility.
Uh... no I'm not? You can try the tech right now. I have. It's pretty good.
In general, I don't know why people get so excited about the glasses as a show stopper. I think they're fine. But, again, I wouldn't be surprised if they're outmoded within a few years (by the in-the-pipe tech you've ignored, by lighter circular-polarized glasses and LCD screens that do native polarization, or by something completely new).
Polarized light projection is really the best way...but it's quite vulnerable to off-axis viewing.
Circular polarized glasses don't have nearly the problems linear polarized ones do - it surprises me linear ones are still around,
Amazing lack of foresight here... 3d will win.
on
The Joke Known As 3D TV
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· Score: 2, Insightful
We saw the same discussion here a few years ago with HD TVs. "Nobody cares about HD gaming". "Nobody can even see a difference". "Nobody will buy a $4000 TV".
This is a technology site. It really surprises me people can't see how this is going to go.
OK: first, likely there will be a successor technology that delivers 3d without glasses - and probably not that far off. But even if there isn't, what do you need to implement 3d as it is now? A fast enough refresh rate and shutter glasses. Eventually, that refresh rate will just be standard. Why wouldn't it be? Again, think back to HD. Yeah it was expensive once. Now it's just standard, whether people need or really want it or not. And shutter glasses. I predict these will be under $20 within 3 years - there's no tech in there that necessitates an expensive product. So 3d will essentially be free on a new TV.
And really, 3d is pretty good sometimes. Ever play a good racing game in 3d? It's way better - way more sense of speed. Did you see Avatar? Up? How to Train Your Dragon? Despite being essentially first generation titles, they were all great - and all better because of 3d. Content will just get better, and eventually 2d TV will start to look like it's missing something. Now sure lots of content won't benefit much - but that's the same with HD. Or color.
All of this is obvious.
The only reasons I can see behind the doomsaying are sour grapes (I don't want to buy a new TV), elitism (I enjoy films at a deeper level than visual gimmickry), or just plain lack of imagination. I want to go back sometime and dredge up some anti-HD posts... but it'd be easier to just do a text replace on this thread.
Well, it's not exactly the same - but the pirates still get a better deal. A pirate DS card can store like 40 games, meaning you don't have to carry around 40 fiddly little cartridges. Plus you can run homebrew/misc apps/watch movies.
My company is hiring now, and it's very difficult to find anyone who can program (in Edmonton, Canada - I'm the programming manager, and as part of that I evaluate applicants programming skills).
There may be places where there's a glut of good experienced programmers, but it certainly isn't universal.
And if I have any complaint it certainly has nothing to do with "an education that is out of date". I'm not interested in what technologies, techniques, or methodologies a candidate is familiar with. I can help someone pick that stuff up, and there's no way to know everything an employer might need. I just want someone who can do basic problem solving and can work through the basic logic of programming - stuff that has never changed.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll sneak this comment under yours as I don't really have anything to add, but wanted to echo your echo - Inkscape is really great software. I have no design or artistic talent - but Inkscape is intuitive, usable, and capable enough that I can eke together a drawing. It's the perfect choice if you're a programmer who wants to mock up (or even finish) a logo, printable item, or design element.
I say this about very few programs: I agree with pretty much all their UI decisions. Good job, Inkscape devs!
Well, it surprises me in a way. I'm all for teaching theory (as opposed to digging into specific APIs and what not) but I think going through more practical work than it sounds like you did probably makes for more effective teaching. I don't think DB courses should worry about too many specifics, but I think doing some interaction with a practical database is really going to solidify understanding.
Anyways, interviewing so many people has left me with a real bad opinion of IT/CS education. To me, the problem summed up is that I don't think you can really learn programming theory without being capable of doing some programming.
To be more specific, I'll tell you what we ask of candidates: write a function that takes an array of integers between 0 and 99, and return the most common number in the list. In the case of ties, return the smallest of the tied numbers. I help freely with any syntax questions and what not. And, to be extra clear, I make sure they understand the problem perfectly before we start by having them answer the question themselves for some sample lists.
90-95% of candidates can't do it (including people with CS degrees, and many people with >10 years experience working in programming positions). And by can't do it, I mean they just can't - they can't come up with a proper approach, and often they can't execute a proper approach when I tell them how to do it. I hope I'm just in a tight job market and I'm not seeing the best candidates.
If people don't know SQL, I don't disqualify them - it'd just really surprise me in a recent graduate (which is what we're talking about here). Again, it's not hard to teach.
But I think it's more important that a programmer in an average business environment has some understanding of how databases work than how HTML is formatted (even if it's all web applications). There's a good chance someone else is doing CSS. There's a good chance someone else is doing SQL too - but your decisions are much more closely related.
But yeah, I overstated the case for SQL. Again, I'm not saying they need to know it, it just seems like they probably "should" (in the same sense that if you roll a dice 20 times, you "should" get at least one six) if they've encountered databases at all.
I completely disagree. In fact, I'm always happy to see programming job applicants with just a math degree who maybe have just started with programming.
People who can do high level math almost always grasp programming quickly and at a high level. I can teach design principles to a smart person who understands programming. Not always the other way.
Your coding challenge sounds about right - I do something similar (though I just have them write a single function - I pass the data in instead of making them read from file so that almost no API needs referencing - I don't care about the API they may know). I help explicitly with any syntax questions (though I suppose having them read help files is a good exercise too). The challenge isn't hard.
It's depressing how many people fail. They just can't program. I don't know what they do for 4 years.
And you're right, people should know SQL. Not because it's hard to teach SQL, but because they should know basic database theory and practice - and how could they have possibly learned that without having learned SQL?
CSS or web services? Those I don't care so much about. Sure they're nice, but to me they're not core (for a programmer) - and someone who can program can figure them out (but if those are more core for you, I can see why you'd want them - as you say, it's certainly not unrealistic to expect).
Uh - Watson obviously, obviously had a speed advantage. On today's episode there were many, many obvious answers (obvious to me - to Ken Jennings or Brad Rutter, blindingly - stupidly blindingly - obvious). Watson got almost all the obvious questions, and many times you could see the little eye roll of frustration from Ken and Brad.
On questions like this, Ken and Brad would have been waiting and trying to time the ring in (they would have known the answer long before the buzzer was active).
They lost almost every time.
So while the computer may not have had an absolute advantage (ie. if Ken could have rung in within milliseconds of the buzzer being active he would have been OK) it's clear it had an effective one in that it's a bloody machine that can ring in very quickly after the buzzer is active. I mean, yeah, it's cool that the computer knows the answer that fast - but we didn't get to see anything of a comparison of who knew a greater percentage of answers.
And, again, this was absolutely, obviously clear to anyone who watched the show. I don't believe anyone could have watched the show and not realize this. Honestly, this is a problem even without the computer. Between high level contestants, buzzer speed is going to determine the winner 9 times out of 10 - the Jeopardy questions just aren't hard enough to distinguish between the best competitors. Oh, and somewhere else in this article someone said "that's part of the game". That's true. But it's a stupid part of the game - and it makes it impossible to compare competitors with different brain technologies in any interesting way.
Qatar - I remember that place. Too bad that nobody came to help when it was annexed by Iraq.
Actually, I'd go back and change that if I could. Not the choice we made, but what I wrote up there. At the time it not only seemed like a reasonable option, it was a reasonable option - and overall it turned out quite well for us.
We switched to a completely web based system long before our competitors could, and that required implementing a lot of features quickly (such as functional document editing and printing in the browser). I don't think there was any better option than what we did back then, at least not one we could implement in time. It was really only an odd choice if you imagine that we had the choices available now back then.
And the site we made was very successful. Our market share is 5 times what it was in 2000, largely because we were able to do stuff online our competitors didn't (and it's not like we're an online company - we're a brick and mortar company that had been around long before the web). And it hasn't cost us much time to switch out techs as better things have become available. The IE only website that seems like an abomination now was, looking at the results, the most important and best tech choice we ever made.
But yeah, that still doesn't mean MS didn't bone the transition.
MS really screwed this one up, and I don't think they even really saw it coming.
For example, a lot of IE-specific web software from around 2000 used the DHTML edit control. At the time, it seemed like a reasonable option to, for example, add spellcheck into a web form and have a reasonable UI. Some of our pages used it. Yes I know it sounds dumb now, but 2000 was a long time ago and the set of options was very different. Things weren't the same. The amount of stuff you could do in a cross-browser friendly page was limited, and the amount of work to get it working was much greater.
When they decided to get rid of it (for Vista) the only notice I found was in some MS blog which pretty much read "we looked around the web and it didn't seem like many people were using this, so we're getting rid of it to have a smaller security surface area". Oh, and by the way, we'll give ourselves plenty of time to stop using it in Outlook Web Access. But yeah, no option to leave it available for trusted sites or something, just "screw you". Now, to be clear, there's replacements for that functionality in modern browsers, but nothing was a drop-in replacement and it was still a pain for a lot of users.
And it's not MS's normal MO... a lot of the reason they've done well over the years is understanding how glacially slow businesses can move and keeping software functional long after its natural expiry date. I think they just really didn't know people were using that, and they're only now starting to pay attention to people who are dealing with this - years after the mistake of not providing an easy transition.
Our internal site still uses IE custom print templates (to get well formatted boilerplate text on pages, allow interactive, persistent control of page breaks, and otherwise ensure consistent printing of HTML). These have been around and unchanged since IE 5 I think, and have been working for us since around 2000. But I know one day they'll just be gone. Again, I'm sure there will be some replacement tech - but I fully expect MS not to give a crap about how we transition.
If you're wondering, there is a planar embedding for this graph (ie they could have avoided all crossing). GO MS PAINT!
But yeah, not sure whether they're dumb, or just wanted it to look more imposing.
Your reply doesn't seem to have anything to do with my post. Perhaps you missed the reply button for a lower post?
I agree.
This isn't just Canada by any stretch - it's everywhere. And scientists are just the newest people being affected.
The problem is media. Not left-wing media, not right-wing media, but scandal happy media. From my perspective (in Canada), media have lost all desire to fill people in on what's happening, all they want is a scandal - something they can sell right now. They want to catch a politician (or a scientist) making a mistake or saying anything that a significant number of people will disagree with. And it's been getting worse for decades.
Now, sure, it makes sense that - to a certain extent - the media needs to maintain a bit of an adversarial role toward government. Media is an important check on the power of government. But that needs to be balanced by a desire to be informative rather than sensational and a desire to inform people with both sides of an issue.
How it is now, we've reached the point that, to be safe, politicians just don't say anything of any interest - and the only information we'll get will be vacuous and committee-written. Nobody wins in this situation.
To me, politicians and media share the blame on this one. Politicians need to be open, but media needs to ease off the trigger a bit so that being open isn't quite so suicidal. The best summary I've seen of this is here (David Mitchell).
I think a ban is a horrible choice. Why not just add a tax on them?
That way, anyone who had some reason for wanting one could still get one - and who knows why you might want one (art/aesthetics? heat (especially in odd/cold installation environments)? plain old preference (I mean, it's not like there isn't much worse environmental choices that aren't banned)?).
Use the tax on some environmental endeavor, and set it high enough that the net outcome is environmentally positive.
There wouldn't need to be as many produced, but production could slow over time rather than stopping immediately.
Everybody wins.
Look, all I'm saying is that I believe 3dTV is here to stay, that it will be a winner.
Movie studio's motivation is irrelevant. It's a marketing gimmick. Irrelevant.
The fact that it flopped before? Well, the tech sucked before and the content sucked before. I think it's good enough this time (and will be cheap enough) that it'll win. If you disagree with me, care to bet?
And as to why the studios and TV companies are pushing it, of course it's to sell movies and TVs. But that's really not terribly relevant to the point at hand - the only reason I can see to bring it up is as a rather sad little insult to me - that I'm some sort of sheeple being led captive by big media. I don't feel the need to argue whether or not that's the case, because it's irrelevant and stupid.
I agree pretty much completely.
When I said 3d would win, I imagined pretty much what you've said - people will end up with 3d sets, and they'll use it sporadically (with the heaviest use being for gaming, and probably children's CG animated programming).
My point was just that 3dTVs are almost certainly here to stay.
I agree to an extent.
Certainly, 3d TVs won't sell tons at current price points. But the price gap will shrink and then evaporate altogether.
And yes, I don't think the uptake will be as fast as the HD transition (which, as you say, also coincided with the rise of big, flat TVs). I don't think many people will junk their old sets - it'll be more of a rolling transition. When people get new sets, they'll get 3d ones (probably they'll get them whether they really want them or not, because that's what'll be available).
Wow - your post was bizarrely personal and angry. Why do you care about this?
Honestly, my initial post was motivated more by this phenomenon - this personalization and emotionalization of a fairly trivial matter - than by the tech at hand. Why does this have any sort of emotional content?
Why do people post about this and not about meaningless, wasteful computer upgrades (do we really need 500W machines to type letters and check e-mail)? What makes 3d (and HD before it) different, that stirs up such vitriol?
Look, all I'm saying is that I think it's fairly clear that 3d will "win" - ie. fairly soon most new TVs will be 3d capable, and that within the next few years most people buying sort of a "home theatre" type setup will end up with a 3d capable setup (with glasses if required).
Think I'm wrong? Really?
And, to be clear, I have no problem with people not buying it. If someone doesn't want it that's fine. But when people get angry about it, I think "sour grapes". And when people think it's not going anywhere, I think "they don't see trends well".
The rest of us emerged from the theater groggy.
OK - maybe that's the reason for the backlash: wild projection. I've never felt any negative effects from watching 3d, and I've sat through quite a few. It's not statistically convincing or something, but nobody I know has ever mentioned being bothered by 3d. I watched Avatar with a group of 20 people - nobody complained of anything. Maybe someone was secretly hurling, but all I saw was happy faces. (to be clear, I didn't think it was an amazing movie, but it was definitely good)
So yeah, I guess if you assume that everyone else is groggy like you, then I suppose it makes more sense to doomsay. But I don't think the problem is a widespread as you think.
I've seen -nothing- on the no glasses 3D front.
Then you haven't looked. At all. Google "no glasses 3d".
If it were something people watched all the time at the movies and this was just the thing that finally brought it home, sure. However it is a mostly forgotten thing (you forgot about it).
I think we'll see more 3d movies over time. They're popular, and it's easy to do with CG.
And I remember previous generations of 3d. My friend had the shutter glasses for the Sega Master System. Wasn't good enough. I tried some PC shutter glasses in maybe 2002 - not good enough (despite the refresh rate on the CRT being pretty good - the biggest problem was the video card and state of graphics in general).
I tried the tech out now. I think it's good enough. Maybe you don't think it's good enough - but not everyone has to like it for it to be a success.
You may want 3D TV, I think most do, but you are confusing your want with the technology's feasibility.
Uh... no I'm not? You can try the tech right now. I have. It's pretty good.
In general, I don't know why people get so excited about the glasses as a show stopper. I think they're fine. But, again, I wouldn't be surprised if they're outmoded within a few years (by the in-the-pipe tech you've ignored, by lighter circular-polarized glasses and LCD screens that do native polarization, or by something completely new).
Polarized light projection is really the best way...but it's quite vulnerable to off-axis viewing.
Circular polarized glasses don't have nearly the problems linear polarized ones do - it surprises me linear ones are still around,
We saw the same discussion here a few years ago with HD TVs. "Nobody cares about HD gaming". "Nobody can even see a difference". "Nobody will buy a $4000 TV".
This is a technology site. It really surprises me people can't see how this is going to go.
OK: first, likely there will be a successor technology that delivers 3d without glasses - and probably not that far off. But even if there isn't, what do you need to implement 3d as it is now? A fast enough refresh rate and shutter glasses. Eventually, that refresh rate will just be standard. Why wouldn't it be? Again, think back to HD. Yeah it was expensive once. Now it's just standard, whether people need or really want it or not. And shutter glasses. I predict these will be under $20 within 3 years - there's no tech in there that necessitates an expensive product. So 3d will essentially be free on a new TV.
And really, 3d is pretty good sometimes. Ever play a good racing game in 3d? It's way better - way more sense of speed. Did you see Avatar? Up? How to Train Your Dragon? Despite being essentially first generation titles, they were all great - and all better because of 3d. Content will just get better, and eventually 2d TV will start to look like it's missing something. Now sure lots of content won't benefit much - but that's the same with HD. Or color.
All of this is obvious.
The only reasons I can see behind the doomsaying are sour grapes (I don't want to buy a new TV), elitism (I enjoy films at a deeper level than visual gimmickry), or just plain lack of imagination. I want to go back sometime and dredge up some anti-HD posts... but it'd be easier to just do a text replace on this thread.
Even at Mach 3, you want a layer of foam to avoid burning.
Well, it's not exactly the same - but the pirates still get a better deal. A pirate DS card can store like 40 games, meaning you don't have to carry around 40 fiddly little cartridges. Plus you can run homebrew/misc apps/watch movies.
My company is hiring now, and it's very difficult to find anyone who can program (in Edmonton, Canada - I'm the programming manager, and as part of that I evaluate applicants programming skills).
There may be places where there's a glut of good experienced programmers, but it certainly isn't universal.
And if I have any complaint it certainly has nothing to do with "an education that is out of date". I'm not interested in what technologies, techniques, or methodologies a candidate is familiar with. I can help someone pick that stuff up, and there's no way to know everything an employer might need. I just want someone who can do basic problem solving and can work through the basic logic of programming - stuff that has never changed.