In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's probably worse. Normal cups seems to support a far greater number of printers than this does (3 brands and 93 printers?! What about Lexmark, for example?). Installing a printer in Mandrake using Cups is as easy as selecting it from a list of far more than 93 printers.
Even if your printer isn't supported by default, installing it is usually just a matter of locating and installing the correct software at LinuxPrinting.org. Personally, I ran into a few complications with my supposedly unsupported Lexmark Z43, but the fact that I was eventually able to get it working shows that the Cups system is flexible enough to handle a far greater number of printers than TurboPrint supports.
Does anyone here have any idea how it is possible to make something this complex with 12 transistors? Supposedly it can react to light/other objects, and most importantly, it can learn? Wouldn't just the memory required to remember things and learn take up far more than 12 transistors, let alone the logic needed to process sensory input? And simple enough for a child to reprogram? I could be wrong, but these claims seem a bit suspicious to me...
It is suggested that in English, the first syllable of the name of the binary-multiple prefix should be pronounced in the same way as the first syllable of the name of the corresponding SI prefix, and that the second syllable should be pronounced as "bee."
That sounds okay to me, but the only problem I have is how exactly do we pronounce the first syllable of the name of the corresponding SI prefix? Of course, "me" as in "megabyte" or "mebibyte" is pronounced "meh", and I suppose "ki" is generally pronouced as it would be in "kill" (but "kee" would also be acceptable?). The real problem I have comes with "gi" - is it a soft g (like a j) or a hard one?
Though at first I thought these would sound weird, I actually kind of like the way they sound now that I've given it a few seconds to soak in. For some reason, though, I keep associating it with some type of children's cereal.
Ignoring the pronounciation though, I'm definitely all for doing this, and ending that confusion with hard drives. Ideally they'd start printing the equivilant number of GiB's to clear things up (like monitors now do with viewable image size).
The new Visor models appear to basically just be updates to the line for the sake of updating it. Owners of current Handspring PDAs have no big reason to upgrade, but for people without a PDA I guess I could see looking into these.
Handspring's (and Palm's, for that matter) wireless PDAs look a lot more interesting though. The idea of merging a cell phone with a PDA definitely seems like a good one to me (who wants to load their pockets with extra gadgets when you can get 2 for the size of 1. There was a story on The Register a few weeks ago when information about these models leaked out through the FCC's web site.
FWIW, if you want more details about these officially announced models, The Reg also has a story on them. It's interesting that Handspring continues to advertise their Springboard expansion slot, when the wireless models supposedly will not include one. Their marketing department will have a hard time explaining to all their loyal customers why they abandoned the biggest selling point of all their original models (or, more likely, they will just try to ignore the change).
Although it is tragic that all the innocent people onboard the plane lost their lives, in the eyes of the terrorist I'd imagine that this part of their attack was a failure. While the other 3 planes succeeded in killing hundreds/thousands of people each, this one could "only" kill the people onboard (I think this was somewhere in the 40's or 50's?). If someone is willing to sacrifice his life in a kamikazee attack, I'd imagine he'd want to do far more damage - even a traditional suicide bomber could easily kill over a hundred people, while these ~4 suicidal terrorists were far less "efficient" (once again I'd like to point out how horrible it is to even use words like this, since even one life lost is tragic). Basically, the point is, if you were a suicidal terrorist, why would hijack an airplane only to have it crash in the middle of nowhere, killing only those onboard along with 3 of your terrorist friends, when you can just strap a bomb to your back and run to a crowded street corner?
Actually, I think it's pretty safe to say that they won't try to hijack another plane for a long time. Even without any increased security, you are forgetting that the passengers, having all witnessed last week's attacks, would be much less willing to believe a hijacker that says, "If everyone cooperates nobody gets hurt." In fact, the plane that went down in Pennsylvania was "unsuccessful" in hitting a target because a few passengers found out via cell phone about the other attacks and decided to fight back. Now the decision to fight back would be a much easier one for the passengers to make.
This is, of course, why it was so important to the hijackers that they synchronize 4 attacks at once.
Before proceeding I need to point out that I haven't downloaded this test yet, nor have I really read a whole lot about the game. For those that have downloaded the test, I'd also encourage you to keep in mind that this is a TEST and not a finished product. Now having said that I'd like to be hypocritical and criticize where I fear RtCW and some other shooters of its kind are headed (please feel free to disagree - I'd be interested to hear how others feel about this).
Personally, I don't see a lot of potential for games like RtCW, and for that matter much of the future lineup of id-endorsed games (which now includes Quake IV as well as Doom 3) and a large part of the FPS genre as a whole (I'm singling out the id games mainly because they have a lot of publicity and they are the first to come to mind). I think these games might not be taking the genre in the right direction. Clearly there is a lot of interest in team-focused multiplayer shooters, like Counterstrike and Team Fortress, and I definitely see a lot of room for growth there, but I want to focus on pure first person shooters - the direct offspring of Doom and Quake. (Of course, RtCW has team-based multiplayer, but AFAIK it's pretty much just team DM rather than more heavy-duty TF type stuff - correct me if I'm wrong, in which case I'm sorry but I think my comments will still apply to other games..)
For most new games of any kind to succeed, they need some kind of hook - a reason to make me stop playing whatever game I'm currently playing and move on to the next of its kind. Graphics have of course been a big one in the past, as have innovative story-telling techniques as found in Half-Life (which I have problems with as well but I won't get into those). Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament had their focus on deathmatch at its purest, while Max Payne (though not first person I would categorize it with these games) has a terrific story. However, I fear that games like RtCW, Doom 3, and Quake IV are going to rely entirely on the success of their prequels, without offering anything new to the genre. As I see it, there is no reason to buy a traditional FPS for deathmatch anymore - the Quake series and Unreal Tournament were the pinnacle of deathmatch, with graphics far beyond the level needed (in making Quake 3 Carmack emphasized that deathmatch games have more of an emphasis on speed and less on magnificent visuals). I see no areas left to improve, short of moving on to other styles of play. That leaves a compelling single player experience as the main reason to buy a new traditional FPS, and I fear that these new games might end up being the same shoot-anything-that-moves and I-don't-give-a-shit storyline found in the early games of the genre. Though I loved Wolfenstein and Doom, playing the same game again with prettier graphics would not be very fun.
I think the best way for the genre to move forward would be to leave pure deathmatch to Q3A/UT. Multiplayer games will have to offer a unique style of gameplay, most likely along the lines of Team Fortress in order to succeed, while singleplayer shooters should consider themselves to be interactive action movies. I can imagine in the future developers releasing new single player shoooters two to three times a year, with minimal engine enhancements and shorter (under 10 hours of gameplay) but more interesting storylines, costing more in the range of $10-20 than $40-50. Gamers can buy the game, play through it in a few weeks, enjoy the story and the action, and move on to the next one. While Max Payne is the first step in this direction, I fear that RtCW, Doom 3, and Quake IV will be a few steps backward. Hopefully id, Raven, and all the other great FPS developers will prove me wrong.
Pentium II 500? I thought they only went up to 450..
Either way, I haven't downloaded it yet, but remember that RtCW is based on the Quake 3 engine, so performance should be pretty comparable (perhaps a little bit slower due to whatever enhancements they've added).
As far as the listed minimum requirements being too high, I think if anything they tend to be pretty low - it depends of course on what framerates you consider playable, but as a general rule of thumb I find that if you don't mind a choppy playing experience you can go a little under the requirements, but don't expect anything resembling smooth until you get a bit past the minimum system requirements (at the very least a comparable processor and a relatively new video card).
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Even if your printer isn't supported by default, installing it is usually just a matter of locating and installing the correct software at LinuxPrinting.org. Personally, I ran into a few complications with my supposedly unsupported Lexmark Z43, but the fact that I was eventually able to get it working shows that the Cups system is flexible enough to handle a far greater number of printers than TurboPrint supports.
Does anyone here have any idea how it is possible to make something this complex with 12 transistors? Supposedly it can react to light/other objects, and most importantly, it can learn? Wouldn't just the memory required to remember things and learn take up far more than 12 transistors, let alone the logic needed to process sensory input? And simple enough for a child to reprogram? I could be wrong, but these claims seem a bit suspicious to me...
Though at first I thought these would sound weird, I actually kind of like the way they sound now that I've given it a few seconds to soak in. For some reason, though, I keep associating it with some type of children's cereal.
Ignoring the pronounciation though, I'm definitely all for doing this, and ending that confusion with hard drives. Ideally they'd start printing the equivilant number of GiB's to clear things up (like monitors now do with viewable image size).
Handspring's (and Palm's, for that matter) wireless PDAs look a lot more interesting though. The idea of merging a cell phone with a PDA definitely seems like a good one to me (who wants to load their pockets with extra gadgets when you can get 2 for the size of 1. There was a story on The Register a few weeks ago when information about these models leaked out through the FCC's web site.
FWIW, if you want more details about these officially announced models, The Reg also has a story on them. It's interesting that Handspring continues to advertise their Springboard expansion slot, when the wireless models supposedly will not include one. Their marketing department will have a hard time explaining to all their loyal customers why they abandoned the biggest selling point of all their original models (or, more likely, they will just try to ignore the change).
Although it is tragic that all the innocent people onboard the plane lost their lives, in the eyes of the terrorist I'd imagine that this part of their attack was a failure. While the other 3 planes succeeded in killing hundreds/thousands of people each, this one could "only" kill the people onboard (I think this was somewhere in the 40's or 50's?). If someone is willing to sacrifice his life in a kamikazee attack, I'd imagine he'd want to do far more damage - even a traditional suicide bomber could easily kill over a hundred people, while these ~4 suicidal terrorists were far less "efficient" (once again I'd like to point out how horrible it is to even use words like this, since even one life lost is tragic). Basically, the point is, if you were a suicidal terrorist, why would hijack an airplane only to have it crash in the middle of nowhere, killing only those onboard along with 3 of your terrorist friends, when you can just strap a bomb to your back and run to a crowded street corner?
Actually, I think it's pretty safe to say that they won't try to hijack another plane for a long time. Even without any increased security, you are forgetting that the passengers, having all witnessed last week's attacks, would be much less willing to believe a hijacker that says, "If everyone cooperates nobody gets hurt." In fact, the plane that went down in Pennsylvania was "unsuccessful" in hitting a target because a few passengers found out via cell phone about the other attacks and decided to fight back. Now the decision to fight back would be a much easier one for the passengers to make.
This is, of course, why it was so important to the hijackers that they synchronize 4 attacks at once.
Don't answer this! The government's probably monitoring it, and if you happen to be right...
Before proceeding I need to point out that I haven't downloaded this test yet, nor have I really read a whole lot about the game. For those that have downloaded the test, I'd also encourage you to keep in mind that this is a TEST and not a finished product. Now having said that I'd like to be hypocritical and criticize where I fear RtCW and some other shooters of its kind are headed (please feel free to disagree - I'd be interested to hear how others feel about this).
Personally, I don't see a lot of potential for games like RtCW, and for that matter much of the future lineup of id-endorsed games (which now includes Quake IV as well as Doom 3) and a large part of the FPS genre as a whole (I'm singling out the id games mainly because they have a lot of publicity and they are the first to come to mind). I think these games might not be taking the genre in the right direction. Clearly there is a lot of interest in team-focused multiplayer shooters, like Counterstrike and Team Fortress, and I definitely see a lot of room for growth there, but I want to focus on pure first person shooters - the direct offspring of Doom and Quake. (Of course, RtCW has team-based multiplayer, but AFAIK it's pretty much just team DM rather than more heavy-duty TF type stuff - correct me if I'm wrong, in which case I'm sorry but I think my comments will still apply to other games..)
For most new games of any kind to succeed, they need some kind of hook - a reason to make me stop playing whatever game I'm currently playing and move on to the next of its kind. Graphics have of course been a big one in the past, as have innovative story-telling techniques as found in Half-Life (which I have problems with as well but I won't get into those). Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament had their focus on deathmatch at its purest, while Max Payne (though not first person I would categorize it with these games) has a terrific story. However, I fear that games like RtCW, Doom 3, and Quake IV are going to rely entirely on the success of their prequels, without offering anything new to the genre. As I see it, there is no reason to buy a traditional FPS for deathmatch anymore - the Quake series and Unreal Tournament were the pinnacle of deathmatch, with graphics far beyond the level needed (in making Quake 3 Carmack emphasized that deathmatch games have more of an emphasis on speed and less on magnificent visuals). I see no areas left to improve, short of moving on to other styles of play. That leaves a compelling single player experience as the main reason to buy a new traditional FPS, and I fear that these new games might end up being the same shoot-anything-that-moves and I-don't-give-a-shit storyline found in the early games of the genre. Though I loved Wolfenstein and Doom, playing the same game again with prettier graphics would not be very fun.
I think the best way for the genre to move forward would be to leave pure deathmatch to Q3A/UT. Multiplayer games will have to offer a unique style of gameplay, most likely along the lines of Team Fortress in order to succeed, while singleplayer shooters should consider themselves to be interactive action movies. I can imagine in the future developers releasing new single player shoooters two to three times a year, with minimal engine enhancements and shorter (under 10 hours of gameplay) but more interesting storylines, costing more in the range of $10-20 than $40-50. Gamers can buy the game, play through it in a few weeks, enjoy the story and the action, and move on to the next one. While Max Payne is the first step in this direction, I fear that RtCW, Doom 3, and Quake IV will be a few steps backward. Hopefully id, Raven, and all the other great FPS developers will prove me wrong.
Pentium II 500? I thought they only went up to 450..
Either way, I haven't downloaded it yet, but remember that RtCW is based on the Quake 3 engine, so performance should be pretty comparable (perhaps a little bit slower due to whatever enhancements they've added).
As far as the listed minimum requirements being too high, I think if anything they tend to be pretty low - it depends of course on what framerates you consider playable, but as a general rule of thumb I find that if you don't mind a choppy playing experience you can go a little under the requirements, but don't expect anything resembling smooth until you get a bit past the minimum system requirements (at the very least a comparable processor and a relatively new video card).