There is also the ego part of it. Geek cred, if you will. They may not be rockstars in real life, but submit enough code, patches and bug reports and you can be the all-star of the community. If the project takes off, even better. If not, you still get the satisfaction of doing something, even if it is just for you.
These devices look great in the movies but in daily life... well, there are a LOT of people who think tablets will take the place of computers, these thoughtful posts often being written on PC's has of course no bearing on their value...
For 90% of what people normally do on PCs, I believe that they will one day replace a PC. We here are not the majority of computer users. We like programming, scientific computing, electronic design, network administration, alternative operating systems, PC gaming, and any number of other things that require horsepower, lots of memory, multiple monitors, a mouse and keyboard and other things that only a PC can provide. Most people only want to check Facebook, watch funny videos on Youtube, and play crappy "casual" games. A tablet is convenient, portable, and cheaper than a laptop (iPad not withstanding). It will never replace the PC for serious work, but for everything else, a PC is overkill.
These widgets all seem nice, as nice as when MS called it Active Desktop, which died. Then Vista something or other, which died and now in Windows 8 again, I am supposed to be looking at my desktop rather then at the program I have opened full screen obscuring it completely.
I don't know what you have against Widgets / Gadgets, but I assure you they are still alive and well. They are useful for conveying small snippets of information that should not need a full dedicated program to access. The fact that they reside on the desktop doesn't make them any less useful. They are designed to stay in the background until you need them, not constantly hovering in the foreground begging for attention. I don't know about you, I do not always need to check the weather but hitting and glancing at the applet is much more handy than opening a webpage to weather.com. There are other, more useful things than a weather applet like system monitors, RSS tickers, email notifiers, Media player remotes, etc.
I mean, a weather widget on a window? What is it going to tell me, what the weather looks like outside? I am not interested enough to pay for an expensive screen, the cost of installing it and for that matter getting up to check. I just look at the cat. sprawles on the kitchen floor (hot), on the window sill huddled up (okayish), buried with the wife in a pile of blankets on the bed (nice and brisk (ducks pillow thrown at him) sorry cold).
OK, you are really hung up on the weather widget. Listen, it is a transparent screen. It can be used for anything that a regular monitor can do, but it is transparent. Check out my transparent laptop! Now I can type on my phone and not have to worry about not watching were I am going. Why do I need large TV in the middle of my living room when I can install it on top on my window! Imagine stores with annoying animated advertisements as their windows. The new 2016 Ford Focus now with a Driver's side HUD! Use your imagination.
Not everyone can be an engineer or scientist. Most people here know that. However, there is no reason that most people can't even try to apply themselves with some sort of "intellectual" pursuit or trade. Many of the people I knew in school, who weren't the few in the "i'm going to college to be a lawyer, doctor, scientist, or engineer," clique were either of the mindset that they were going to be rich and famous as a singer, actor, or a sports star or just truly didn't care about anything. The number of girls whose plan in life was to get knocked up and become a stay at home mom was astoundingly high for this day and age.
The problem is not that we want people to all be coders and scientists, but to bring this culture out of this lazy anti-intellectual funk it is in. People seem to have this mantra of "learning is hard" and just want a super high-paying 40hr/week job that requires no work at all. Unfortunately, unless you are born a trust-fund baby, it doesn't exist.
In the case of a console game ported to PC, I agree it is either laziness or greed. However look at the PC vs Consoles as a platform and how it is used. Consoles (like the early home computers) were (nearly) always connected to a TV. It is usually in a large family room or a bedroom where people would sit comfortably, usually a distance from the screen. Consoles almost always have supported at least two players.
PC, while starting out as a more complex version of the home console (or a simplistic version of the mainframes of the day, depending on why you had the computer), became more of a personal device. They tended to be in a corner of the family room or on a desk in the bedroom or an office. Most of the experiences of PCs from the beginning have usually been solo ones. Even the less-than-solo experiences were rarely in person usually being over telnet or BBS connection. So while they started out commonly supporting gamepads and local multiplayer, it started to became less and less of a thing. By the mid-to-late 90's, the Internet started to become more commonplace in people's homes and in college dorm rooms. Enter internet multiplayer. By this time, most multiplayer experiences on computers were via an internet connection and who wanted split-screen on a 15-19" monitor?
Now we skip to the last few years. Monitors and TVs have once again become interchangeable. People have returned to connecting their computers to their large TVs and since many games are built around the gamepad anyway, why keep using a keyboard. Basically, people are now starting to want a more console experience on their PC. Meanwhile game consoles have become networked and are now more personal devices and companies are starting to phase out local multiplayer on consoles.
Basically, local multiplayer was rarely ever a priority on the PC front. Only recently where using PCs as a home media center have started to become more mainstream is this really becoming an issue to more than a small niche. Unfortunately, developers are starting to cut it out of console games, much less wasting time porting it to PCs.
Don't forget all the remakes. Doing research for my 2012 predictions, I found remakes of Red Dawn, Judge Dredd ("Dredd"), Total Recall, and another Spider-Man reboot ("The Amazing Spider-Man") confirmed for 2012. On top of that, a shitty Three Stooges movie and a movie based on the game Battleship.
Maybe that is why movie attendance is down, shitty movies.
Seriously, Good luck. As much as I would love to see something good come of this (such as ebooks NOT being the same price if not higher than the printed version which happens in some cases, especially after the printed book goes in the "bargain bin"), I doubt anything useful will happen. Either there will be some punitive fines which will get passed to the consumer, or money will change hands and the problem will be swept under the rug or "justified" in some legal jargon that will set a bad precedent that will poorly influence cases involving price-fixing of digital goods yet to come.
As long as there is a need for performance computing, tinkering, people who build their own systems, and old-school hacking, there will be the PC. The PC has survived everything thrown at it so far and will survive well into the future. The article seems to mostly be whining about Apple turning OS X into another iDevice. If Apple is the problem, don't use Apple's products. Use a Windows machine or a Linux box. I hear tell that BSD is still alive and kicking. Solaris still has a community as well. There are other less used platforms that be switched to as well.
The problem is not that the PC is dying, the problem is that it is becoming a niche. Most people just want to check Facebook, email, and play some crappy games. They are not writing papers, presentation, or programs. They do not use SPICE, MATLAB, MAPLE, GCC, or any other in the other long list of programs and tools that many of us take for granted. A smart phone or a tablet is good enough.
For those of us who do have to do any type of creative work, the PC will still be needed. Even if Microsoft decided to take the route of Apple's locked down operating systems, there are and will be alternatives. There are dozens of hackers who do nothing but try to port Linux and BSD to other platforms just because they can. There are also people who love jail-braking these devices for the same reason. It might evolve to smaller form factors in the future but the PC will be around for a long time. As long as there is a need for power computing, PC's will live.
It doesn't matter how many other applicants there are. You can be the only one for all that matters. It a bluff. A tactic, if you will, that any company can easily pull. If you are desperate enough, are you going to say "no" on the chance that there are other people as qualified or at least more desperate than you? Unless you are some industry superstar, in this economy they dictate the terms, take it or leave it. You damn well know that it will be as one-sided as possible.
Judging by the TV-on-DVD section at Walmart, Target, KMart, most department stores, Best Buy, and the few remaining "book stores", I would say quite a few people still watch DVD. While Amazon Prime and Netflix are really tempting, I will probably stick with DVD sets for my TV show watching needs. I also like having a physical library,
nowadays you can find shitloads of entrepreneurs who actually are just guys sitting at home with no cash.
I am just a guy who sits at home with no cash. That's my problem, I'm not putting the right spin on my situation. I'm not a shiftless deadbeat, I am an entrepreneur! Yeah, that's the ticket!
I like steam. When steam has a sale, you can pick up a bunch of games for dirt cheap. However, when there isn't a sale, games take forever to go down in price. Amazon and many physical stores price PC games to sell after a few months. If you can wait 3-6 months, you can get games fairly cheap on disc as compared to the "everyday low price" on steam. Don't forget about the used market, as well.
Most people never watched the show until it went to DVD, I think most people can wait until this mini-series comes to DVD, which it probably will if only to drum up more hype for the movie. Then again, I do love watching the constant pissing matches between DRM makers and DRM crackers. It is a bit like watching the old Wile E Coyote and Road Runner cartoons.
Which is why Nintendo just released the 3DS a few months ago and are releasing the Wii U in a few more months? Don't forget the Playstation Vita coming in February. Microsoft is the only company who hasn't announced new gaming hardware and if they are smart that will becoming either next year or 2013.
I doubt it will be anything like the Wii, since its going to be more powerful than anything in the current Gen. From everything I've read; a lot of developers are getting frustrated with the aging current gens hardware bottlenecks, and might leap at the fact that they get to develop for some actual modern hardware. The current gen consoles are outdated by eons now, in computer years. My girlfriends 3 year old Dell (with a hand me down video card) is around twice as powerful as anything in the current gen. My middle of the road gaming rig can blow just about any of the current batch of consoles out of the water.
If that was the case, PC's would be the primary target with console ports only coming afterward. It is usually the lowest common denominator that is developed for. Until another next-gen system comes out it will be doubtful that any cross-platform game will be targeting it specifically. Games will most likely be developed for 360 and PS3 with Wii U controls tacked on. The only real hope it has right now is either exclusives or if the PC will come back as a primary platform so that high quality versions can be made than ported to Wii U and then ported down to the other consoles.
The original gameboy had an infrared port; did ANY game ever actually use it?
The Gameboy Color had the infrared port, not the original Gameboy. As I recall there were a few games that supported it, including: Super Mario DX, Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, Pokemon Pikachu 2, Perfect Dark, and a few others.
Slashdot Mirror
There is also the ego part of it. Geek cred, if you will. They may not be rockstars in real life, but submit enough code, patches and bug reports and you can be the all-star of the community. If the project takes off, even better. If not, you still get the satisfaction of doing something, even if it is just for you.
These devices look great in the movies but in daily life... well, there are a LOT of people who think tablets will take the place of computers, these thoughtful posts often being written on PC's has of course no bearing on their value...
For 90% of what people normally do on PCs, I believe that they will one day replace a PC. We here are not the majority of computer users. We like programming, scientific computing, electronic design, network administration, alternative operating systems, PC gaming, and any number of other things that require horsepower, lots of memory, multiple monitors, a mouse and keyboard and other things that only a PC can provide. Most people only want to check Facebook, watch funny videos on Youtube, and play crappy "casual" games. A tablet is convenient, portable, and cheaper than a laptop (iPad not withstanding). It will never replace the PC for serious work, but for everything else, a PC is overkill.
These widgets all seem nice, as nice as when MS called it Active Desktop, which died. Then Vista something or other, which died and now in Windows 8 again, I am supposed to be looking at my desktop rather then at the program I have opened full screen obscuring it completely.
I don't know what you have against Widgets / Gadgets, but I assure you they are still alive and well. They are useful for conveying small snippets of information that should not need a full dedicated program to access. The fact that they reside on the desktop doesn't make them any less useful. They are designed to stay in the background until you need them, not constantly hovering in the foreground begging for attention. I don't know about you, I do not always need to check the weather but hitting and glancing at the applet is much more handy than opening a webpage to weather.com. There are other, more useful things than a weather applet like system monitors, RSS tickers, email notifiers, Media player remotes, etc.
I mean, a weather widget on a window? What is it going to tell me, what the weather looks like outside? I am not interested enough to pay for an expensive screen, the cost of installing it and for that matter getting up to check. I just look at the cat. sprawles on the kitchen floor (hot), on the window sill huddled up (okayish), buried with the wife in a pile of blankets on the bed (nice and brisk (ducks pillow thrown at him) sorry cold).
OK, you are really hung up on the weather widget. Listen, it is a transparent screen. It can be used for anything that a regular monitor can do, but it is transparent. Check out my transparent laptop! Now I can type on my phone and not have to worry about not watching were I am going. Why do I need large TV in the middle of my living room when I can install it on top on my window! Imagine stores with annoying animated advertisements as their windows. The new 2016 Ford Focus now with a Driver's side HUD! Use your imagination.
If dangerous human experimentation would cost 100 lives, but save 10,000 patients, should we do it?
Rational person says no; sociopath says yes.
Not everyone can be an engineer or scientist. Most people here know that. However, there is no reason that most people can't even try to apply themselves with some sort of "intellectual" pursuit or trade. Many of the people I knew in school, who weren't the few in the "i'm going to college to be a lawyer, doctor, scientist, or engineer," clique were either of the mindset that they were going to be rich and famous as a singer, actor, or a sports star or just truly didn't care about anything. The number of girls whose plan in life was to get knocked up and become a stay at home mom was astoundingly high for this day and age.
The problem is not that we want people to all be coders and scientists, but to bring this culture out of this lazy anti-intellectual funk it is in. People seem to have this mantra of "learning is hard" and just want a super high-paying 40hr/week job that requires no work at all. Unfortunately, unless you are born a trust-fund baby, it doesn't exist.
In the case of a console game ported to PC, I agree it is either laziness or greed. However look at the PC vs Consoles as a platform and how it is used. Consoles (like the early home computers) were (nearly) always connected to a TV. It is usually in a large family room or a bedroom where people would sit comfortably, usually a distance from the screen. Consoles almost always have supported at least two players.
PC, while starting out as a more complex version of the home console (or a simplistic version of the mainframes of the day, depending on why you had the computer), became more of a personal device. They tended to be in a corner of the family room or on a desk in the bedroom or an office. Most of the experiences of PCs from the beginning have usually been solo ones. Even the less-than-solo experiences were rarely in person usually being over telnet or BBS connection. So while they started out commonly supporting gamepads and local multiplayer, it started to became less and less of a thing. By the mid-to-late 90's, the Internet started to become more commonplace in people's homes and in college dorm rooms. Enter internet multiplayer. By this time, most multiplayer experiences on computers were via an internet connection and who wanted split-screen on a 15-19" monitor?
Now we skip to the last few years. Monitors and TVs have once again become interchangeable. People have returned to connecting their computers to their large TVs and since many games are built around the gamepad anyway, why keep using a keyboard. Basically, people are now starting to want a more console experience on their PC. Meanwhile game consoles have become networked and are now more personal devices and companies are starting to phase out local multiplayer on consoles.
Basically, local multiplayer was rarely ever a priority on the PC front. Only recently where using PCs as a home media center have started to become more mainstream is this really becoming an issue to more than a small niche. Unfortunately, developers are starting to cut it out of console games, much less wasting time porting it to PCs.
Don't forget all the remakes. Doing research for my 2012 predictions, I found remakes of Red Dawn, Judge Dredd ("Dredd"), Total Recall, and another Spider-Man reboot ("The Amazing Spider-Man") confirmed for 2012. On top of that, a shitty Three Stooges movie and a movie based on the game Battleship.
Maybe that is why movie attendance is down, shitty movies.
Why Microsoft used to be huge? Illegal and morally questionable business practices.
Fixed that for ya.
Seriously, Good luck. As much as I would love to see something good come of this (such as ebooks NOT being the same price if not higher than the printed version which happens in some cases, especially after the printed book goes in the "bargain bin"), I doubt anything useful will happen. Either there will be some punitive fines which will get passed to the consumer, or money will change hands and the problem will be swept under the rug or "justified" in some legal jargon that will set a bad precedent that will poorly influence cases involving price-fixing of digital goods yet to come.
I...uh...believe there...uh...were also...uh...also several papers ...uh...published on the topic of...uh...Chaos...uh...Chaos Theory...uh...as well.
Uh...Also check out...uh...reruns of ...uh...Law and...uh...Order Criminal...uh...Criminal Intent on...uh...uh...USA! Characters...uh...Welcome.
For certain broad definitions of "food."
As long as there is a need for performance computing, tinkering, people who build their own systems, and old-school hacking, there will be the PC. The PC has survived everything thrown at it so far and will survive well into the future. The article seems to mostly be whining about Apple turning OS X into another iDevice. If Apple is the problem, don't use Apple's products. Use a Windows machine or a Linux box. I hear tell that BSD is still alive and kicking. Solaris still has a community as well. There are other less used platforms that be switched to as well.
The problem is not that the PC is dying, the problem is that it is becoming a niche. Most people just want to check Facebook, email, and play some crappy games. They are not writing papers, presentation, or programs. They do not use SPICE, MATLAB, MAPLE, GCC, or any other in the other long list of programs and tools that many of us take for granted. A smart phone or a tablet is good enough.
For those of us who do have to do any type of creative work, the PC will still be needed. Even if Microsoft decided to take the route of Apple's locked down operating systems, there are and will be alternatives. There are dozens of hackers who do nothing but try to port Linux and BSD to other platforms just because they can. There are also people who love jail-braking these devices for the same reason. It might evolve to smaller form factors in the future but the PC will be around for a long time. As long as there is a need for power computing, PC's will live.
It doesn't matter how many other applicants there are. You can be the only one for all that matters. It a bluff. A tactic, if you will, that any company can easily pull. If you are desperate enough, are you going to say "no" on the chance that there are other people as qualified or at least more desperate than you? Unless you are some industry superstar, in this economy they dictate the terms, take it or leave it. You damn well know that it will be as one-sided as possible.
Judging by the TV-on-DVD section at Walmart, Target, KMart, most department stores, Best Buy, and the few remaining "book stores", I would say quite a few people still watch DVD. While Amazon Prime and Netflix are really tempting, I will probably stick with DVD sets for my TV show watching needs. I also like having a physical library,
nowadays you can find shitloads of entrepreneurs who actually are just guys sitting at home with no cash.
I am just a guy who sits at home with no cash. That's my problem, I'm not putting the right spin on my situation. I'm not a shiftless deadbeat, I am an entrepreneur! Yeah, that's the ticket!
No, that is a coaster ejector. You put the coaster inside, and eject it when you need it.
Hell, Windows 95 and below didn't need an optical drive either since they could come on floppies!
I like steam. When steam has a sale, you can pick up a bunch of games for dirt cheap. However, when there isn't a sale, games take forever to go down in price. Amazon and many physical stores price PC games to sell after a few months. If you can wait 3-6 months, you can get games fairly cheap on disc as compared to the "everyday low price" on steam. Don't forget about the used market, as well.
Most people never watched the show until it went to DVD, I think most people can wait until this mini-series comes to DVD, which it probably will if only to drum up more hype for the movie. Then again, I do love watching the constant pissing matches between DRM makers and DRM crackers. It is a bit like watching the old Wile E Coyote and Road Runner cartoons.
" I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man."
It is also interesting to note that the daily deal on Steam today is "Day of Defeat." Coincidence or message?
Or Dolphin, the GameCube / Wii Emulator
Which is why Nintendo just released the 3DS a few months ago and are releasing the Wii U in a few more months? Don't forget the Playstation Vita coming in February. Microsoft is the only company who hasn't announced new gaming hardware and if they are smart that will becoming either next year or 2013.
I doubt it will be anything like the Wii, since its going to be more powerful than anything in the current Gen. From everything I've read; a lot of developers are getting frustrated with the aging current gens hardware bottlenecks, and might leap at the fact that they get to develop for some actual modern hardware. The current gen consoles are outdated by eons now, in computer years. My girlfriends 3 year old Dell (with a hand me down video card) is around twice as powerful as anything in the current gen. My middle of the road gaming rig can blow just about any of the current batch of consoles out of the water.
If that was the case, PC's would be the primary target with console ports only coming afterward. It is usually the lowest common denominator that is developed for. Until another next-gen system comes out it will be doubtful that any cross-platform game will be targeting it specifically. Games will most likely be developed for 360 and PS3 with Wii U controls tacked on. The only real hope it has right now is either exclusives or if the PC will come back as a primary platform so that high quality versions can be made than ported to Wii U and then ported down to the other consoles.
Only if you are a game developer. It is the opposite for a gamer.
The original gameboy had an infrared port; did ANY game ever actually use it?
The Gameboy Color had the infrared port, not the original Gameboy. As I recall there were a few games that supported it, including: Super Mario DX, Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, Pokemon Pikachu 2, Perfect Dark, and a few others.