I guess our maps in the future will be on that digital paper, and lets say, we wanted to travel to solar system y. We would look on our digital map, it would access some sort of intergalactic network, and find out where the solar system is at that current time, and update my map. (Patent Pending)
Ya, I would agree with what you say, scientiests dont scan sci-fi novels looking for the "next big thing".
It is pretty interesting though to think that 30 years ago, this author came up with this idea, and back then everyone thought it was very much sci-fi, but we now have something today that is pretty close to it.
All these posts though have sparked my interest in jules verne, ill probably go do some reading tonight on the subject =).
I dont think the poster is looking for what you are saying here.. I mean, you cant really say, "without startrek we would not have cell-phones".
I believe what he is asking.. is have you ever read any sort sci-fi book where future technology is portrayed, and that technology has come about in recent years.. not that the original author of the book had any thing to do with the invention, but just seeing some of those new technologies come to light that we once thought were only part of a sci-fi world..
Ive heard that jules verne's descriptions of the natilus were pretty amazing, especially if you realize when he wrote them. The topic came up in the new Clive Cussler book, Valhalla Rising. I have not read any Jules Verne books myself, but after reading Valhalla Rising, I think I may go pick up a copy of 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Well, the text in the bios part shouldn't really be fast, it shouldn't change the speed much by changing video cards.
Well, I dont have much of an idea though.. if you can get this to happen by booting off of a boot disk into dos or something, and it happens there, then it has nothing to do with video drivers or anything, its something with the hardware. Best of luck in trying to fix it! =)
Yea I read it, and thats what I got out of your post.. you say that max payne looks like crap, you mention your system stats (and trust me we all care) and it generally portrays that your bitching.
Yea, I would agree with you 100%. As an example, I just bought Dragon Warrior 7 for the original playstation. The game looks like crap, but the story is amazing and im hooked. This game is at least twice as fun as any of the newer final fantasy games are, much more like the older ones, where the graphics were not as important as the gameplay.
It seems the new final fantasy games have switched those 2 around.. Don't get me wrong, the story in final fantasy games are usually pretty good, but its almost like watching an interactive movie, but the gameplay leaves much to desire you could say...
I guess it really doesn't help much if he just says 'text mode'.
So, during the bios startup screens, is it really slow?
Is it when your booting into linux/windows?
Is it only happen when you do a dir/ls in a console window?
If its a fullscreen text based screen, and he is getting slow text, he might want to see if there is a way to manually adjust the refresh rate of the monitor, if its set real low this can heppen (ive never heard of anything like that happening, but im sure it could).
Zeno
(btw dont take this as a flame, im interestsed to see what he means by slow text mode as well)
3dfx 'fucked' themselves over by not supporting any new features on their video cards.. When they came out with the voodoo3, that was the first nail in the coffin I would say. No 32bit color support, only a limit of 256x256 textures, and the list goes on and on.
After the tnt came out with support for the above items, thats when 3dfx started going downhill.. Is it nvidia's fault for making a better product, or 3dfx for sleeping for too long? Once your king of the hill for a while, you start to lose the idea of competition, and when you start to lose that edge, the road to the bottom is a quick one, especially in the video card department..
I dunno, maybe I have spent too much time on this AC, I think he is probably trolling anyway, as it is a pretty uneducated statement to make..
despite the fact that Max Payne is graphically stunning in this day and age of live-rendered action games, it looks like crap compared to digitally-generated movies like Final Fantasy.
Did you really expect more? Do you really think your single computer (yes, even an athlon 1.4ghz) could do in real time, what it takes a full server farm to do in many many months of rendering?
Id say its going to be a very long time, very very long time, before we see anything like final fantasy type of graphics done in realtime, so dont hold your breath =)
Can't find the link, but there's a rumour stating that we can expect Voodoo5 5500-esque Anti-Aliasing feature. The presumption is that the NV25 will bring a Rotated-Grid AA implementation to the table.
The only reason I see is the box looks like a stereo component and not a computer, so if you can find it for 130 bucks its not bad.
I agree that it could do much much more then this.. why not have it have a hard drive, wireless ethernet, visulizations for the tv, etc etc.. Ah well though, 130 bucks isn't bad.
Well you have to think about it.. A lot of the CIA and NSA work there for a LONG LONG time. They see a few presidents come in and out during their time at the respective agencies. These are the people that know long term plans for spying and such, that probably the president doens't even know about. Or I could be reading too much Robert Ludlum, conspiracy theories at their finest =).
Ya, like I said the pausing thing isn't that big of a deal, and I have seen that they put that change in spots where its hard to tell.
Im not sure if the xbox has an optical out, but I use that to hook my ps2 up to my stereo and the sound is great, no artifacts of anything really.. That is a pretty big plus when it comes to DVD movies.
I think when it comes down to it, the dvd feature of these consoles is just an extra added feature, nothing that should really make your decision on what console to buy. Dvd players are real cheap, and any big movie buff should have one by now.. I mainly use mine (ps2) as a mobile dvd player if I ever use that feature on it, its pretty small and easy to move around compared to a normal DVD player.
I haven't ever bought any remotes for the ps2, i just use the controller, not the best in the world, but it works.
And by the way, I still think that the playstation controllers are the best controllers hands down, no other console has come close to the great feel you get from them. And they are SMALL controllers, not the wreckingball sized controllers that come with the xbox.. Thats probably my biggest beef so far with the xbox.. The controllers that come with the system usually are much better then any 3rd party controllers you can buy, and the one with the xbox, I have to actually reposition my hands on the controller to reach all the buttons.. not a good thing IMO..
There seems to be no incentive in the US for people to favour the PS2. But even over here I'm wanting a Xbox now.
I think your forgetting something about the ps2 that is a pretty good feature of it.. being able to play all the old ps1 games. This brings the ps2 library up to hundreds of games, where as the xbox only has 20 or so. And since the ps2 has been out for a while, the developers are starting to learn the hardware, and we see some great games like Devil May Cry, Tony Hawk 3, SSX Tricky, Metal Gear Solid 2, the list goes on and on.
After this they just need to buy up bleem and release it so I can play my old PS games on the machine.
Why wait to see if bleem will be on xbox (I really doubt it, but im all for it!) when the ps2 has this capability out of the box?
I myself haven't noticed much bad with the DVD playback of the ps2. I haven't sat down and tested it really, I usually watch movies on a normal sony dvd player, the only thing I notice with both is in some movies it will pause for a split second when switching chapters, I don't mind it too much though.
I am looking at the msinfo32.exe from Windowsxp, and I do not see the Windows uptime there.. I have looked on win9x machines too and I could not find it.. doesn't mean its not there.. Is it under the main system information section or some subsection on the left?
There is a problem that the new Dell machines are having, they won't admit it, but it is there.
If you have a newer dell machine that has Windows (tm) on it, check the uptime of the os (seems to be only machines that were built before may of 2001). If you are unsure on how to do this, just go to download.com, search for windows uptime, and download the Windows Uptime 1.3.3, its a tiny download, but you will be able to check this quickly...
The problem with these machines is that they are not reporting a correct uptime of windows. I am not sure if this happens with other os's, my job only lets me see these that have Windows on them.. I saw a dell machine last week, it was a week old, but reported an uptime of 40 days. Ive seen another dell machine that said it had a 6 hour uptime on a fresh boot, and an hour later it says 30min uptime.
Dell isn't taking any responsibility in this.. I am really not too sure if it is Dell's fault, but it is only happening on new Dell machines. I have had 4 people call them up, and ask them why their machine does this, and they get one of 2 answers:
1 - We have never heard of this problem before, but don't worry about it
or
2 - This is a Windows problem, call Microsoft
Soo.. if you do have one of these newer dell machines, try looking at the uptime for windows. Heck, if it has linux on it, check it too. I know of a few games that will base their internal clock off of the Windows Uptime (dont ask me why, im really not too sure why they use windows uptime, Links 2001 is an example of a game that will use the uptime for the internal clock.) If you have a machine with this problem, document it and send the info to dell. They do have responsibility over the OS that ships with a new machine, but they are just pawning it off and screwing customers over.
Well there is my rant, I used to like dell quite a bit but lately their support is just utter crap. I am really suprised that if someone spends 3 grand on a machine, and then gets that from dell when asked about the problem, I would take the machine back myself..
If anyone knows/has a fix, or knows why this might be happening, please reply back, im kinda dying to know you could say =)
Acutally a lot of people use real 3d workstation cards, like the oxygen cards from www.3dlabs.com. Most of those cards (read:not all) do not really have much directx support at all. From what I can see, directx is seen as a set of technologies used for gaming, i don't think its quite as precise when it comes to workstation/cad/3d rendering as opengl is, but thats just my opinion..
Microsoft has released a patch today to all versions of Encarta(tm). If you are using Windows XP(tm) you do not need to worry about patching, as the process will happen automatically once it decides Encarta(tm) has been installed on the system. For those who cannot get a patch, Microsoft recommends destroying the aforementioned software, and upgrade to the new version.
Windows isn't open source how can Bill claim that its his idea?
In what rulebook does it say if you come up with something, you have to use that for the rest of your life. Im not defending billy here, nor do I think he is 100% correct in what he said at the shareholder meeting, but your statement really doesn't make much sense. It is possible for him to come up with something, then later, decide to do something else. Remember, its ~1980 he is talking about.
Sure he worked with Mac abit but he was the one who stole the GUI of Mac for Windows.
Actually, who he did work with for a bit was called Apple. The GUI thing was originally stolen from Xerox.
Jeez Bill should just relax and try to organise Windows a bit better and get rid of all the bugs.
Its pretty much inhumanly possible for a single person to 'get rid of all the bugs' in windows.
**Disclaimer**
I know very little about programming, these comments are more about the general idea of multi-language programs in a buisness world i guess you could say..
I think from a corporate standpoint, its a tough sell. They think $$$. When something like this shows up, this is what they think:
1 - A group of developers (or just one) wants to use a few languages to complete a project that, lets say, the company will depend on for a few years. They are unsure as of how long these people/person might be working for them, they have maintainability to think of. Sure you could tell them that it would end up better this way, but they just see it as more money being spent. More money being spent hiring better trained developers, and so on.
2 - They see a group of developers (or just one) that can do the same project with one language. They now only have to worry about one single language, and hiring a developer that knows one language is much easier and cheaper.
Who do you think they will chose?
From the standpoint of a coder, I would say use the tools that are given to you. Given that, you have 2 choices:
1 - Make a program only using one language. You feel that if you do it this way, it would be more standard, easier to maintain, but you see that there might be some parts of the project that could pose some problems. Nothing that couldn't be done of course, but you may have to do some things with your code that shouldn't 'need' to be done.
2 - You take the same project, and see that the same language you were thinking of in the first scenario could do most of what you want pretty easily. The difficult sections, you find that there are other languages out there, such as perl, that could do something fairly easily. By doing this, you one, become a better coder, knowing not only how a certain langauge works, but how it could interface with other languages. You will start to understand that each language was written to do certain tasks.(some may incorporate many many things, but they never intended for their language to do everything humanly possible 5 years down the road).
Each language has strong points and weak points. It is your job to understand these tools, and use them in a way that will get what you want done. If it means using one application, then go ahead and do so. Don't try to force something without knowing if there are easier options, better ways of doing things.
It seems that people are more locked into using a single language(or even lets say a group of languages like visual basic/c++) when you are in a corporate enviorment, as you may not really be the one who decides on what you are going to use. You get an email that says do this and you do it.
Anyway, the above is just my opinion on the subject, I am no expert and I don't claim to be. This of course does not apply to every situation out there either.. The above is more of a general way of looking at a lot of things, but I hope I got my point across..
I heard that there was even part of the liscense agreement with the OEMS that even restricts it more...
Lets say Dell had a machine called the Dimension XPS T600, and you could buy this machine bundled with Windows(TM).
Microsoft would not let Dell sell that same machine with a different OS on it, if Dell wanted to, they would have to create a brand new model number for it..
Not sure if its true but I can see M$ doing things like that..
teachers, train administrators, offer new classes. Maybe then you would be raising a whole new generation of coputer users that weren't hardwired to use Windows!
Unfortunately the schools dont have enough money to put all their teachers in training.. they can barely pay the teachers in the first place. What we need is a lot more funding for schools, it really should be the most important thing for the future of this country.. Anyway, off the soap box for now.
Slashdot Mirror
Zeno
Ya, I would agree with what you say, scientiests dont scan sci-fi novels looking for the "next big thing".
It is pretty interesting though to think that 30 years ago, this author came up with this idea, and back then everyone thought it was very much sci-fi, but we now have something today that is pretty close to it.
All these posts though have sparked my interest in jules verne, ill probably go do some reading tonight on the subject =).
I dont think the poster is looking for what you are saying here.. I mean, you cant really say, "without startrek we would not have cell-phones".
I believe what he is asking.. is have you ever read any sort sci-fi book where future technology is portrayed, and that technology has come about in recent years.. not that the original author of the book had any thing to do with the invention, but just seeing some of those new technologies come to light that we once thought were only part of a sci-fi world..
Ive heard that jules verne's descriptions of the natilus were pretty amazing, especially if you realize when he wrote them. The topic came up in the new Clive Cussler book, Valhalla Rising. I have not read any Jules Verne books myself, but after reading Valhalla Rising, I think I may go pick up a copy of 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Well, I dont have much of an idea though.. if you can get this to happen by booting off of a boot disk into dos or something, and it happens there, then it has nothing to do with video drivers or anything, its something with the hardware. Best of luck in trying to fix it! =)
Yea I read it, and thats what I got out of your post.. you say that max payne looks like crap, you mention your system stats (and trust me we all care) and it generally portrays that your bitching.
It seems the new final fantasy games have switched those 2 around.. Don't get me wrong, the story in final fantasy games are usually pretty good, but its almost like watching an interactive movie, but the gameplay leaves much to desire you could say...
So, during the bios startup screens, is it really slow?
Is it when your booting into linux/windows?
Is it only happen when you do a dir/ls in a console window?
If its a fullscreen text based screen, and he is getting slow text, he might want to see if there is a way to manually adjust the refresh rate of the monitor, if its set real low this can heppen (ive never heard of anything like that happening, but im sure it could).
Zeno
(btw dont take this as a flame, im interestsed to see what he means by slow text mode as well)
After the tnt came out with support for the above items, thats when 3dfx started going downhill.. Is it nvidia's fault for making a better product, or 3dfx for sleeping for too long? Once your king of the hill for a while, you start to lose the idea of competition, and when you start to lose that edge, the road to the bottom is a quick one, especially in the video card department..
I dunno, maybe I have spent too much time on this AC, I think he is probably trolling anyway, as it is a pretty uneducated statement to make..
Zeno
Did you really expect more? Do you really think your single computer (yes, even an athlon 1.4ghz) could do in real time, what it takes a full server farm to do in many many months of rendering?
Id say its going to be a very long time, very very long time, before we see anything like final fantasy type of graphics done in realtime, so dont hold your breath =)
The only reason I see is the box looks like a stereo component and not a computer, so if you can find it for 130 bucks its not bad.
I agree that it could do much much more then this.. why not have it have a hard drive, wireless ethernet, visulizations for the tv, etc etc.. Ah well though, 130 bucks isn't bad.
Zeno
And who says ads are evil? =P
Well you have to think about it.. A lot of the CIA and NSA work there for a LONG LONG time. They see a few presidents come in and out during their time at the respective agencies. These are the people that know long term plans for spying and such, that probably the president doens't even know about. Or I could be reading too much Robert Ludlum, conspiracy theories at their finest =).
Zeno
Im not sure if the xbox has an optical out, but I use that to hook my ps2 up to my stereo and the sound is great, no artifacts of anything really.. That is a pretty big plus when it comes to DVD movies.
I think when it comes down to it, the dvd feature of these consoles is just an extra added feature, nothing that should really make your decision on what console to buy. Dvd players are real cheap, and any big movie buff should have one by now.. I mainly use mine (ps2) as a mobile dvd player if I ever use that feature on it, its pretty small and easy to move around compared to a normal DVD player.
I haven't ever bought any remotes for the ps2, i just use the controller, not the best in the world, but it works.
And by the way, I still think that the playstation controllers are the best controllers hands down, no other console has come close to the great feel you get from them. And they are SMALL controllers, not the wreckingball sized controllers that come with the xbox.. Thats probably my biggest beef so far with the xbox.. The controllers that come with the system usually are much better then any 3rd party controllers you can buy, and the one with the xbox, I have to actually reposition my hands on the controller to reach all the buttons.. not a good thing IMO..
Zeno
I think your forgetting something about the ps2 that is a pretty good feature of it.. being able to play all the old ps1 games. This brings the ps2 library up to hundreds of games, where as the xbox only has 20 or so. And since the ps2 has been out for a while, the developers are starting to learn the hardware, and we see some great games like Devil May Cry, Tony Hawk 3, SSX Tricky, Metal Gear Solid 2, the list goes on and on.
After this they just need to buy up bleem and release it so I can play my old PS games on the machine.
Why wait to see if bleem will be on xbox (I really doubt it, but im all for it!) when the ps2 has this capability out of the box?
I myself haven't noticed much bad with the DVD playback of the ps2. I haven't sat down and tested it really, I usually watch movies on a normal sony dvd player, the only thing I notice with both is in some movies it will pause for a split second when switching chapters, I don't mind it too much though.
And why would giving software licenses away to schools remedy a class-action antitrust lawsuit?
I am looking at the msinfo32.exe from Windowsxp, and I do not see the Windows uptime there.. I have looked on win9x machines too and I could not find it.. doesn't mean its not there.. Is it under the main system information section or some subsection on the left?
If you have a newer dell machine that has Windows (tm) on it, check the uptime of the os (seems to be only machines that were built before may of 2001). If you are unsure on how to do this, just go to download.com, search for windows uptime, and download the Windows Uptime 1.3.3, its a tiny download, but you will be able to check this quickly... The problem with these machines is that they are not reporting a correct uptime of windows. I am not sure if this happens with other os's, my job only lets me see these that have Windows on them.. I saw a dell machine last week, it was a week old, but reported an uptime of 40 days. Ive seen another dell machine that said it had a 6 hour uptime on a fresh boot, and an hour later it says 30min uptime.
Dell isn't taking any responsibility in this.. I am really not too sure if it is Dell's fault, but it is only happening on new Dell machines. I have had 4 people call them up, and ask them why their machine does this, and they get one of 2 answers:
1 - We have never heard of this problem before, but don't worry about it
or
2 - This is a Windows problem, call Microsoft
Soo.. if you do have one of these newer dell machines, try looking at the uptime for windows. Heck, if it has linux on it, check it too. I know of a few games that will base their internal clock off of the Windows Uptime (dont ask me why, im really not too sure why they use windows uptime, Links 2001 is an example of a game that will use the uptime for the internal clock.) If you have a machine with this problem, document it and send the info to dell. They do have responsibility over the OS that ships with a new machine, but they are just pawning it off and screwing customers over.
Well there is my rant, I used to like dell quite a bit but lately their support is just utter crap. I am really suprised that if someone spends 3 grand on a machine, and then gets that from dell when asked about the problem, I would take the machine back myself..
If anyone knows/has a fix, or knows why this might be happening, please reply back, im kinda dying to know you could say =)
Zeno
Microsoft has released a patch today to all versions of Encarta(tm). If you are using Windows XP(tm) you do not need to worry about patching, as the process will happen automatically once it decides Encarta(tm) has been installed on the system. For those who cannot get a patch, Microsoft recommends destroying the aforementioned software, and upgrade to the new version.
In what rulebook does it say if you come up with something, you have to use that for the rest of your life. Im not defending billy here, nor do I think he is 100% correct in what he said at the shareholder meeting, but your statement really doesn't make much sense. It is possible for him to come up with something, then later, decide to do something else. Remember, its ~1980 he is talking about.
Sure he worked with Mac abit but he was the one who stole the GUI of Mac for Windows.
Actually, who he did work with for a bit was called Apple. The GUI thing was originally stolen from Xerox.
Jeez Bill should just relax and try to organise Windows a bit better and get rid of all the bugs.
Its pretty much inhumanly possible for a single person to 'get rid of all the bugs' in windows.
Zeno
I know very little about programming, these comments are more about the general idea of multi-language programs in a buisness world i guess you could say..
I think from a corporate standpoint, its a tough sell. They think $$$. When something like this shows up, this is what they think:
1 - A group of developers (or just one) wants to use a few languages to complete a project that, lets say, the company will depend on for a few years. They are unsure as of how long these people/person might be working for them, they have maintainability to think of. Sure you could tell them that it would end up better this way, but they just see it as more money being spent. More money being spent hiring better trained developers, and so on.
2 - They see a group of developers (or just one) that can do the same project with one language. They now only have to worry about one single language, and hiring a developer that knows one language is much easier and cheaper.
Who do you think they will chose?
From the standpoint of a coder, I would say use the tools that are given to you. Given that, you have 2 choices:
1 - Make a program only using one language. You feel that if you do it this way, it would be more standard, easier to maintain, but you see that there might be some parts of the project that could pose some problems. Nothing that couldn't be done of course, but you may have to do some things with your code that shouldn't 'need' to be done.
2 - You take the same project, and see that the same language you were thinking of in the first scenario could do most of what you want pretty easily. The difficult sections, you find that there are other languages out there, such as perl, that could do something fairly easily. By doing this, you one, become a better coder, knowing not only how a certain langauge works, but how it could interface with other languages. You will start to understand that each language was written to do certain tasks.(some may incorporate many many things, but they never intended for their language to do everything humanly possible 5 years down the road).
Each language has strong points and weak points. It is your job to understand these tools, and use them in a way that will get what you want done. If it means using one application, then go ahead and do so. Don't try to force something without knowing if there are easier options, better ways of doing things.
It seems that people are more locked into using a single language(or even lets say a group of languages like visual basic/c++) when you are in a corporate enviorment, as you may not really be the one who decides on what you are going to use. You get an email that says do this and you do it.
Anyway, the above is just my opinion on the subject, I am no expert and I don't claim to be. This of course does not apply to every situation out there either.. The above is more of a general way of looking at a lot of things, but I hope I got my point across..
Zeno
I heard that there was even part of the liscense agreement with the OEMS that even restricts it more...
Lets say Dell had a machine called the Dimension XPS T600, and you could buy this machine bundled with Windows(TM).
Microsoft would not let Dell sell that same machine with a different OS on it, if Dell wanted to, they would have to create a brand new model number for it..
Not sure if its true but I can see M$ doing things like that..
Unfortunately the schools dont have enough money to put all their teachers in training.. they can barely pay the teachers in the first place. What we need is a lot more funding for schools, it really should be the most important thing for the future of this country.. Anyway, off the soap box for now.