And this is different from Microsoft's practices... how?
Hire people in key positions from important competing projects, regardless of non-compete clauses (which go unchallenged due to Microsoft's bottomless coffers), and of course to the extreme detriment of the company they were working for (unless you consider them hiring multiple team members and instructing them not to give notice "acceptable").
So when the tables turn Microsoft cries foul. Isn't this a little hypocritical?
Frankly, I feel sorry for Crossgain, since they did little that Microsoft hadn't done thousands of times, yet due to Microsoft's draconian legal department they've had their livelihood taken away.
This is just another example of Microsoft's strangehold on the computer industry, and why they need to be broken up.
Well, there's a difference between plodding along and doing what was intended for the system, and doing what was planned but never actually implemented.
As the guy states later on in this thread, there was a web server in the system but it crashes after a few hits. Not exactly the robust system you seem to be implying. Nor did it track the kind of information you're listing, it just showed the high score table.
So what this guy has done is to implement what the development team couldn't do (but probably wanted to do at some point). Because, after all, the entire Pinball division of Williams is gone (if you can buy a unit, it's because there's stock left in the channel). Pinball2000 was a bust, even before they shipped to distribution (how much is due to ol' meglomaniacal George Lucas is debatable).
That leaves only one US pinball mfg... Stern. Last I checked they only have plans to release one each year, and certainly not the wiz-bang Pinball2K variety.
Hmm. I've heard that before, get a small loan, put it in a savings account, don't touch it, pay the bill every month, yada yada yada...
Just seemed like too much hassle, plus banks don't like making unsecured loans, even for small amounts.
Personally my method of getting good credit was buying a new car. All I had on my report were some late-paid bills that'd hit credit agencies, all run up by a %#@^@# deadbeat roomate. Thankfully in the past few years those have disappeared into obscurity... so far...
I paid an exhorbitant interest rate, then a year later bought the car I really wanted.
Not quite as bad as it sounds, the second car was roughly the same price, and that year reduced my interest rate by 8%! It was a Honda and that damn thing held it's value like you wouldn't believe... I lost $500 if you added the original downpayment to the loan payoff.
Microsoft invested $150M in Apple. That's an investment. Apple's stock was worth 8 or 9 times it's value within a couple years. Microsoft made money on the deal. The primary purpose of this was to show that there was "goodwill" between the two companies.
A seperate agreement was concerning IE and Office. In return for Apple pushing IE down the throats of every Mac user (they don'tm include Netscape anymore, and the auto-software-update mechanism includes IE and OE - the only third party software in the system), Microsoft agreed to publish a new version of Office. Which, miraculously, they'd already been working on. Gosh, imagine that.
In addition to these two points, there was an Apple and Microsoft cross-license agreement. There was an undisclosed amount paid to Apple, which goes back to Intel and Microsoft using the same developer for Video for Windows as Apple used for QuickTime for Windows. There *was* source from QTW in VfW, this came out in the court proceedings. In those same proceedings the developer, under duress, admitted that Intel & Microsoft project managers told them to use the QTW source.
It's amazing how much BS is floating around out there about the whole QTW and VfW issue. Just goes to show how much of a strangehold Intel and Microsoft have on the media, such that they can get factual stories killed and bullshit stories created and published.
Which just goes to show - Linux had better watch out. It isn't paranoia when a company has a massive strangehold on major media outlets due to marketing dollars and the ability to get "exclusive" "previews" of hardware/software. The media outlets understand this and, of their own will, kill articles that otherwise would have been published.
That's true, DVD uses MPEG2, MPEG2 is 720x480 for widescreen movies.
I'm not sure what resolution they do in "fullscreen" movies though. Certainly higher resolution than MPEG1 (352x240 & 352x2...60? 288? NTSC & PAL, respectively).
However, due to massive sleep deprivation, I can't remember if the PAL aspect ratio is 4:3 or something else... probably 4:3 and just more resolution. So either the fullscreen resolution is higher than both PAL & NTSC, then 'dithered' down in the tuner, or it stretches up NTSC the same way. Yeah, not damn likely on the latter...
Well, the District Attorney (this is a criminal act after all) would have to prove intent to commit a criminal act.
Intentionally hacking a system (notice the phrase "unauthorized access") is a criminal act.
Did they "accidentally" hack into this system and kill a few hundred characters?
Hell, just look up the somewhat-recent slashdot story on the kid who heard a site had been hacked, then sat around trying to figure out what the site had been running. For those actions his system was taken away, and probably won't be returned until the investigation is completed.
If that qualified as "unauthorized access" do you honestly believe they're going to have a hard time proving getting INTO a system and CHANGING the system to be intent?
I have some problems with your "timeline"... as someone who works in the game industry and got to work hands-on with each generation of chipsets, both for our games and for others, perhaps I have a better memory for things. But, in any case...
The other problem was that the Voodoo really only worked with Glide; most other graphics chips could work with OpenGL.
Actually when the Voodoo Graphics came out pretty much everyone had their own independent library. Glide was one among many. OpenGL wasn't anything more than a twinkle in Carmack's eye at this point as far as games were concerned. Remember, DirectX wasn't even available (we're talking Win95A era), and OpenGL wasn't supported until OSR2 in late '96. And Microsoft didn't support any way of adding it to 95A until much later.
Still, Glide was the only graphics system that it really worked with, and 3Dfx was convinced that Glide would eventually replace OpenGL.
Again you're making the weird assumption that OpenGL was the 3D architecture of choice from square one, and was being used by everyone all along (see previous point about OpenGL not even being present in first rev of Win95, which at this point in the timeline comprised the VAST majority of user systems - by my then-employer's research it was at least 90%), and Glide was some weird proprietary architecture that everybody hated to use. Again, Glide was one of many architectures, and certainly was easier to work with than Direct3D (still horribly hobbled by it's Talisman-oriented design), which is what most games in this era were using for a card-independent interface (though for the most part everyone supported Glide). OpenGL wasn't used by anyone outside of Id at this point, and even they were using that werid "miniGL" interface. (again, keep in mind I'm talking about games - just because your insert-whizbang-3D-modeler-here app used OpenGL back then doesn't mean jack)
As the Voodoo3 and TNT/TNT-Ultra waged war, gamers were slowly coming to realize that nVidia's chip was just as fast (or faster), on par with price, and didn't require the proprietary Glide.
Funny, I got a Voodoo3 within a couple weeks of it being available, and out of the box I had OpenGL, Glide, and Direct3D support. Obviously you got the BEST performance by using Glide, but that makes perfect sense if you understand what Glide is. A heavily optimized 3D interface/library that understands the silicon and only supports features that are implemented in silicon. Hence, it's fast. Implementing "features" in software introduces performance penalties, just witness NVidia's current FSAA "solution".
Personally I bought into the whole "TNT is equal to Voodoo3, and the TNT2 is out and blows the Voodoo3 away!" hype myself, and replaced that Voodoo3 with a TNT2. Know what? My framerates didn't increase, they went down. The TNT2 required a faster CPU to get those higher framerates everyone was raving about. On my box (not exactly a slouch, an Asus P2B-L with a P2/400) the Voodoo3 worked better. And later I wished I still had the V3 still in there when I moved to an Athlon and had to suffer the consequences of that decision.
But then you're back to existing physics, where you have to expel mass at velocity in order to gain momentum in the opposite direction.
It then becomes less a matter of what's happening, but how efficient the net result is. I don't think any Rail Gun (that we could build today or in the near future) is as efficient as a rocket engine, unfortunately.
Or, uh, something. IANAPM. (I Am Not A Physics Major)
(sarcasm)
Nah, it's on-topic. In Titanic II instead of sinking in the northern hemisphere... they sink in the southern hemisphere! Bam! It's synergistic - nobody would expect that kind of twist!
(/sarcasm)
That's one of the more exciting aspects of this... hopefully this means we get ANOTHER translation for the english track.
That whole bit about having to keep the revs above (something or other) was pretty pathetic. Whoever changed a remote/automatic fuel cutoff to that... well, deserved what they got, since Streamline and Orion both hit the rocks.
I actually liked the voice actors/actresses, but so much of dialog just doesn't work. Dumb down complex concepts and it ends up sounding... dumb.
(while I prefer watching anime with subs, when I stick them on in the background I prefer an english track so I can easily focus in and out)
Nah, that's merely the "new spin" on the old tale.
I've heard that too, and I laugh at it every time. A serious SW freak I know says that, but also says that George originally thought the parsec was a measurement of time. And admitted it in an (old) interview.
It's nice and all that everyone's bending backwards to make the mistake plausible, but, c'mon, let's not be Microsoftian about it - just call a spade a spade and move on.
Well, I know it once did exist on VHS, but when I went to replace my 5-odd-year-old copy a few months ago I couldn't find it anywhere. Not in stock, not special order, not from my usual online anime/non-anime sources. Not even dubbed pan 'n scan, much less subbed letterbox (which I don't think was ever released).
Now maybe the channel had sold out, but... I think it's more likely that MGM wasn't putting anymore product in the channel. Akira has never gotten the recognition it deserves in the US.
It's pretty telling that Amazon US doesn't list it right now but Amazon UK does. I don't think MGM has/had distribution rights anywhere but the US.
To me, if you clearly can't handle your personal life in a dignified manner
It's hard to be dignified when politicians earmark millions of dollars to investigate your personal life.
Oh. Wait. I get it. You're suffering under the delusion that most people DON'T have affairs during marraige. How quaint. How "delusional vision of 1950s America, even though there were just as many affairs back then (people refused to make a public spectacle out of them)."
Hey, I've got an idea. Let's spend a hundred million dollars and see what we turn up from your past. Kicked a dog? Made a pass at an employee at work? Tsk, tsk, tsk...
They recounted. Bush still won. They recounted again. Bush STILL won.
Have you been watching the same election as I've been watching?
Last time I checked there were two recounts, but they were hardly as bullshit as the whiny crap you're spouting.
First "recount", if you want to call it that, was to look at 1% of the votes in each county. If a wide discrepancy between the machine totals and this count existed, a hand recount is REQUIRED under Florida law. And, surprise surprise, there were discrepancies.
Second "recount" was the only one that matters, since they look at ALL the votes by hand (which they have to since the machine recount was unreliable - see step 1). Then the Secretary of State butted her head into this process. Surely this isn't a tit-for-tat arrangement with the Bush family, who appointed her to this cushy job, one which is so pointless the position won't exist in a couple years. Hard job, that. You realize that if the Bush camp had just left their head up their ass this whole thing would have been over and done with by this point, right?
Then again, there's always that elementary class that conducted an "educational" vote. They used a voting booth, test ballots, and a ballot reader on loan from a company that makes them. Surprise surprise about 20% of their votes weren't read by the machine.
Face it: these are clunky mechanical devices that, quite simply, suck ass. The sooner we move to a digital solution is the sooner all of this crap will go away. Then we're left with the usual bullshit (which happened all over Florida this time around) - ballots & ballot machines getting "left bhind", "misplaced", etc.
Oh well, maybe I won't have to have a pirated PowerPoint on my harddrive for the one or two PPT attachments I open a year.
Actually Microsoft has a free PowerPoint viewer (and Word viewer, and Excel viewer) for that kind of purpose.
Frankly, I don't see the need to upgrade from '97 to any future version, since they finally standardized on a file format. There's a push at my employer to upgrade everyone to Office 2K... despite the fact that maybe one or two people will use a new feature in Office 2K.
I suspect in order for that law to apply, you have to WIN the war in question. Not be subject to war reparations and all that (it probably excluded the Axis in any case).
And, of course, there's that niggling little problem that Germany took a good portion of that stuff from German citizens... that UN law should only apply to international affairs, not domestic ones.
The main problem that developers are having is that they're used to writing for only one CPU at a time.
My point is that today's developers may be used to doing this... but the guys I worked with 10 years ago wouldn't have flinched (in fact several of them are working on PS2 projects). Yet today we have nothing but moaning little bitches.
Seriously though, the problem isn't a new IDE, it's the hardware.
Yes, and no. I honestly laugh at the guy who refuses to use a different IDE, but the point is that the PS2 represents something different. Different can be better, or it can be worse (e.g. Saturn's rushed delivery date, which resulted in a *horrible* hardware design).
But the people who I hear blathering on and on seem to center around the fact that they need to learn the hardware (gosh, just like every console developer had to 10 years ago).
Slashdot Mirror
And this is different from Microsoft's practices... how?
Hire people in key positions from important competing projects, regardless of non-compete clauses (which go unchallenged due to Microsoft's bottomless coffers), and of course to the extreme detriment of the company they were working for (unless you consider them hiring multiple team members and instructing them not to give notice "acceptable").
So when the tables turn Microsoft cries foul. Isn't this a little hypocritical?
Frankly, I feel sorry for Crossgain, since they did little that Microsoft hadn't done thousands of times, yet due to Microsoft's draconian legal department they've had their livelihood taken away.
This is just another example of Microsoft's strangehold on the computer industry, and why they need to be broken up.
Well, there's a difference between plodding along and doing what was intended for the system, and doing what was planned but never actually implemented.
As the guy states later on in this thread, there was a web server in the system but it crashes after a few hits. Not exactly the robust system you seem to be implying. Nor did it track the kind of information you're listing, it just showed the high score table.
So what this guy has done is to implement what the development team couldn't do (but probably wanted to do at some point). Because, after all, the entire Pinball division of Williams is gone (if you can buy a unit, it's because there's stock left in the channel). Pinball2000 was a bust, even before they shipped to distribution (how much is due to ol' meglomaniacal George Lucas is debatable).
That leaves only one US pinball mfg... Stern. Last I checked they only have plans to release one each year, and certainly not the wiz-bang Pinball2K variety.
Hmm. I've heard that before, get a small loan, put it in a savings account, don't touch it, pay the bill every month, yada yada yada...
Just seemed like too much hassle, plus banks don't like making unsecured loans, even for small amounts.
Personally my method of getting good credit was buying a new car. All I had on my report were some late-paid bills that'd hit credit agencies, all run up by a %#@^@# deadbeat roomate. Thankfully in the past few years those have disappeared into obscurity... so far...
I paid an exhorbitant interest rate, then a year later bought the car I really wanted.
Not quite as bad as it sounds, the second car was roughly the same price, and that year reduced my interest rate by 8%! It was a Honda and that damn thing held it's value like you wouldn't believe... I lost $500 if you added the original downpayment to the loan payoff.
Their foot if you're lucky!
Er. Yes, and no.
Microsoft invested $150M in Apple. That's an investment. Apple's stock was worth 8 or 9 times it's value within a couple years. Microsoft made money on the deal. The primary purpose of this was to show that there was "goodwill" between the two companies.
A seperate agreement was concerning IE and Office. In return for Apple pushing IE down the throats of every Mac user (they don'tm include Netscape anymore, and the auto-software-update mechanism includes IE and OE - the only third party software in the system), Microsoft agreed to publish a new version of Office. Which, miraculously, they'd already been working on. Gosh, imagine that.
In addition to these two points, there was an Apple and Microsoft cross-license agreement. There was an undisclosed amount paid to Apple, which goes back to Intel and Microsoft using the same developer for Video for Windows as Apple used for QuickTime for Windows. There *was* source from QTW in VfW, this came out in the court proceedings. In those same proceedings the developer, under duress, admitted that Intel & Microsoft project managers told them to use the QTW source.
It's amazing how much BS is floating around out there about the whole QTW and VfW issue. Just goes to show how much of a strangehold Intel and Microsoft have on the media, such that they can get factual stories killed and bullshit stories created and published.
Which just goes to show - Linux had better watch out. It isn't paranoia when a company has a massive strangehold on major media outlets due to marketing dollars and the ability to get "exclusive" "previews" of hardware/software. The media outlets understand this and, of their own will, kill articles that otherwise would have been published.
And my name/address isn't theirs, I merely loaned that information to them as a gesture of goodwill.
But it still belongs to me, dammit. Or, at least, it should.
Sigh. I'm sure some corporate weasel in search of ever-increasing profits has wined-and-dined the appropriate politicians..
That's true, DVD uses MPEG2, MPEG2 is 720x480 for widescreen movies.
I'm not sure what resolution they do in "fullscreen" movies though. Certainly higher resolution than MPEG1 (352x240 & 352x2...60? 288? NTSC & PAL, respectively).
However, due to massive sleep deprivation, I can't remember if the PAL aspect ratio is 4:3 or something else... probably 4:3 and just more resolution. So either the fullscreen resolution is higher than both PAL & NTSC, then 'dithered' down in the tuner, or it stretches up NTSC the same way. Yeah, not damn likely on the latter...
Well, the District Attorney (this is a criminal act after all) would have to prove intent to commit a criminal act.
Intentionally hacking a system (notice the phrase "unauthorized access") is a criminal act.
Did they "accidentally" hack into this system and kill a few hundred characters?
Hell, just look up the somewhat-recent slashdot story on the kid who heard a site had been hacked, then sat around trying to figure out what the site had been running. For those actions his system was taken away, and probably won't be returned until the investigation is completed.
If that qualified as "unauthorized access" do you honestly believe they're going to have a hard time proving getting INTO a system and CHANGING the system to be intent?
Personally I bought into the whole "TNT is equal to Voodoo3, and the TNT2 is out and blows the Voodoo3 away!" hype myself, and replaced that Voodoo3 with a TNT2. Know what? My framerates didn't increase, they went down. The TNT2 required a faster CPU to get those higher framerates everyone was raving about. On my box (not exactly a slouch, an Asus P2B-L with a P2/400) the Voodoo3 worked better. And later I wished I still had the V3 still in there when I moved to an Athlon and had to suffer the consequences of that decision.
But then you're back to existing physics, where you have to expel mass at velocity in order to gain momentum in the opposite direction.
It then becomes less a matter of what's happening, but how efficient the net result is. I don't think any Rail Gun (that we could build today or in the near future) is as efficient as a rocket engine, unfortunately.
Or, uh, something. IANAPM. (I Am Not A Physics Major)
(sarcasm)
Nah, it's on-topic. In Titanic II instead of sinking in the northern hemisphere... they sink in the southern hemisphere! Bam! It's synergistic - nobody would expect that kind of twist!
(/sarcasm)
That's one of the more exciting aspects of this... hopefully this means we get ANOTHER translation for the english track.
That whole bit about having to keep the revs above (something or other) was pretty pathetic. Whoever changed a remote/automatic fuel cutoff to that... well, deserved what they got, since Streamline and Orion both hit the rocks.
I actually liked the voice actors/actresses, but so much of dialog just doesn't work. Dumb down complex concepts and it ends up sounding... dumb.
(while I prefer watching anime with subs, when I stick them on in the background I prefer an english track so I can easily focus in and out)
Nah, that's merely the "new spin" on the old tale. I've heard that too, and I laugh at it every time. A serious SW freak I know says that, but also says that George originally thought the parsec was a measurement of time. And admitted it in an (old) interview. It's nice and all that everyone's bending backwards to make the mistake plausible, but, c'mon, let's not be Microsoftian about it - just call a spade a spade and move on.
Now maybe the channel had sold out, but... I think it's more likely that MGM wasn't putting anymore product in the channel. Akira has never gotten the recognition it deserves in the US.
It's pretty telling that Amazon US doesn't list it right now but Amazon UK does. I don't think MGM has/had distribution rights anywhere but the US.
Oh. Wait. I get it. You're suffering under the delusion that most people DON'T have affairs during marraige. How quaint. How "delusional vision of 1950s America, even though there were just as many affairs back then (people refused to make a public spectacle out of them)."
Hey, I've got an idea. Let's spend a hundred million dollars and see what we turn up from your past. Kicked a dog? Made a pass at an employee at work? Tsk, tsk, tsk...
Have you been watching the same election as I've been watching?
Last time I checked there were two recounts, but they were hardly as bullshit as the whiny crap you're spouting.
First "recount", if you want to call it that, was to look at 1% of the votes in each county. If a wide discrepancy between the machine totals and this count existed, a hand recount is REQUIRED under Florida law. And, surprise surprise, there were discrepancies.
Second "recount" was the only one that matters, since they look at ALL the votes by hand (which they have to since the machine recount was unreliable - see step 1). Then the Secretary of State butted her head into this process. Surely this isn't a tit-for-tat arrangement with the Bush family, who appointed her to this cushy job, one which is so pointless the position won't exist in a couple years. Hard job, that. You realize that if the Bush camp had just left their head up their ass this whole thing would have been over and done with by this point, right?
Then again, there's always that elementary class that conducted an "educational" vote. They used a voting booth, test ballots, and a ballot reader on loan from a company that makes them. Surprise surprise about 20% of their votes weren't read by the machine.
Face it: these are clunky mechanical devices that, quite simply, suck ass. The sooner we move to a digital solution is the sooner all of this crap will go away. Then we're left with the usual bullshit (which happened all over Florida this time around) - ballots & ballot machines getting "left bhind", "misplaced", etc.
Well, since Sony's robot is only 20 inches high, and Honda's robot is human-sized...
Actually Microsoft has a free PowerPoint viewer (and Word viewer, and Excel viewer) for that kind of purpose.
Frankly, I don't see the need to upgrade from '97 to any future version, since they finally standardized on a file format. There's a push at my employer to upgrade everyone to Office 2K... despite the fact that maybe one or two people will use a new feature in Office 2K.
Sigh, damn lemmings...
I suspect in order for that law to apply, you have to WIN the war in question. Not be subject to war reparations and all that (it probably excluded the Axis in any case).
And, of course, there's that niggling little problem that Germany took a good portion of that stuff from German citizens... that UN law should only apply to international affairs, not domestic ones.
Nah, the people don't want Rambus, what they REALLY want is for Buchanan to whip up a replacement.
Maybe because we don't live in the same magical fantasy-land you've created for yourselves?
Probably 1770 some-odd people who punched Buchanan when they thought they were punching Gore...
But the people who I hear blathering on and on seem to center around the fact that they need to learn the hardware (gosh, just like every console developer had to 10 years ago).
Big deal.