Well Spiderweb's RPGs have always been good, but I was a bit disappointed to see the Exile series rehashed into Avernum. However the games are still good anyway, although I do wish they could come out with something new.
Done the FaxYourMp thing already, but it seems that the EU parliament website is really not set up to make it easy to find your MEP at all. Any suggestions on how to go about this?
Suggest that anybody with 10 minutes go now to faxyourmp, and write a letter about this. Every little step to support the cause. Include a link to this ZDNet UK article if you need backup.
No, really? In my experience (and this is where everyone will argue over) win2k pro is much much more stable on computers that I have seen than winxp.
If we come right down to reasons for this its probably down to the users. XP is targetted at home users who generally go out of their way to make machines unstable. There should be little difference between 2k and XP, and I would really think in reality that they are both ultra stable. The 1000x more stable is really overdoing it.
One thing a lot of people haven't noticed is that SQLite will be in 10.4 . Read it on Apple's Tiger preview page (right at the bottom, last paragraph).
While they're not specifiying what they're doing with it, or if it'll even be tied to the filesystem, is seems to be in there for some reason, and apple will put it to use.
I don't dispute your post. But most of this is because Java is a language and a platform. Yes there are many benefits to Java, and the language is great. Its just that there is so much additional unusuable crap that, while the server programmers love it, desktop users have come to hate a lot of Java and its poor performance compared to the rest of the desktop.
Point taken that there may be some good uses for desktop Java, but there's this "lagginess" that just doesn't feel right. And this is not just for 'big' applications, but for small (trivial) ones as well. I don't even think I could name 10 (IMHO) "good" java desktop applications (including the SWT ones).
The cross platform stuff really is a great plus for Java, but with Mono out even I'm off to hedge my bets. I take your point about writing Java GUI apps properly, but this could be the other problem. Is Swing "broken", or is working with Swing inherently too complicated for most programmers? Either way GUI apps seem to be not quite right on Java. Sun should either fix Swing or make it easier to program. I've seen other people commenting that Java was to be VB but better. VB was good for making GUI apps (whatever sort of kludge it was though). Java is nowhere near as good, and this is a fundamental problem that Sun needs to solve ASAP.
The problem with Java is that Sun really has managed it properly. We all thought it was cool when it came out, but the promises really weren't true. Write Once Run Anywhere mostly managed to work on different platforms, but the GUI is so god awful slow nobody really wants to bother. Its just easier to code native. I'm not exagerating here that even Visual Basic programmers could have come up with something better.
Sun has let the technology stagnate while Microsoft has caught up (and IMHO surpassed) Java with their.Net products. Hate MS all you want but.Net actually is really easy to use.
Plus I don't know what's going on at Sun marketing, but they've descended Java into acronym hell. Plus the naming conventions don't really make sense now. The new version of Java is J2SE5 (I'm not even sure that it is this now).
I'm taking this from the perspective of desktop developers (rather than the server side as they seem to use Java fine). Java really does blow, and there are now better technologies to use. Sun has even ignored integrating other, better technologies (*cough* SWT) due to NIH syndrome.
If Sun went and fixed their mistakes rapidly (a bit late IMHO) then Java could still be cool. But everyone on the desktop who's used it considers it a steaming POS.
Most people don't have a clue what the holiday is for nowadays. It's just a big excuse for lighting massive fires (in the middle of a busy road), as well as lighting off fireworks well into the night. Oh, and doing this for a month before and a month after as well.
But it's all in good fun though, and I invite Jerf, as a cultured Yank, to help spread the fun of this party around the world. It's great fun really!!!
THe original on the Master System is worth having a go at - it differs from the Genesis a lot - and is worth enjoying in its own right. It even has Jungle Zone, which wasn't even in the Genesis, plus you could actually have amazing speed contests on the 1st level of Green Hill Zone there.
Also have to chip in that sonic was only good for the 1st two games, as everyone else was saying. Mario (and in particular the SNES mario world which I still love playing to this day) was much better overall.
Just to point out for people needing a calendar, there is the Sunbird project which aims to build a standalone PIM application. While it is fairly good at the moment, it still needs a lot of work. Plus it needs a few more developers. If you have the time go help out. If they ever get round to integrating Thunderbird and Sunbird, we'll have one kickass Outlook killing application!! (don't mention Evolution - it really isn't cross-platform as such).
But until it is bundled by default with the JVM and JDKs, it will still be hassle to get SWT working for normal users. If Sun replaced the swing toolkit with SwingWT and linked it to SWT, I would think there would be a great improvement in performance of most Java GUI apps (and most of them really do suck - the only good one I have seen is MoneyDance).
The next generation mobile phones are really what killed the PDA. If you have seen the high end phones some are PDA like (Sony Ericsson P900), and even the medium range now has very good organiser and synchronisation facilities. Combine that with Java expandability and there is not much need for PDAs for most people.
If you are in the area and want to help protest against the ID cards, Defy ID is organising meetings against it. Go to the main website to get more information, as well as pointing your friends to it. Everyone needs to know!!
I think the problem lies in the name. I believe that the US Coast Guard is a defence agency, or is at least part of the military. In the UK the Royal Navy handles the defence part, while the coast guard is merely a non-military agency dealing with rescue and safety. This could be part of the reason why the UK coast guard systems aren't as secure - ther just isn't the infrastructure to do it compared to the military.
The newer Skoda's are quite good (being made by volkswagen and all), but the ladas and skodas from two decades ago were truly terrible cars. Appaling build values, a tendency to go nowhere fast. Sure, some people like them, but they were generally a source of humour for everyone else. Which reminds me...
Just to say, i think stuffit archives are a good alternative. It's for mac and windows, and a lot of mac software is compressed with it. It can do 512-bit security as well as having error correction. Plus it does have better compression (although there is a small performance penalty for it).
It seems like UK ads have a different kind of humour to them than US ones (especially taking #4 as an example).
There's a brand of crisps (US=potato chips?) in the UK. They got a very famous footballer, Gary Lineker, to do the ads for them. The ads were basically taking the piss out of him. The US company who owned the brand were absolutely against doing that as in the US it wouldn't be done. Suprisingly it worked a treat in the UK.
We never managed to get a transaltion of Chrono Trigger for the PS, never mind Chrono Cross. Trigger was one of the best RPGs IMHO made, while I would have loved to play Cross.
Square actually gives us an even worse deal than USA gamers, even though there shouldn't be a problem with the language...
A common desktop is needed
on
Linux in 2004?
·
· Score: 1
I like the idea of different APIs, but first there needs to be a common desktop like Mac OS where it doesn't really matter what toolkit is being used, but where it can handle both, and they will look and handle the same.
This probably needs a base desktop API for handling things, but this would probably allow greater acceptance of a desktop linux, as users wouldn't have to be confused by KDE/Gnome differences.
I really think that people should standardise the meaning of kilo-, and giga- to their SI meanings. The is a google cache link to a web page about the proposed changes where they would change to SI definitions, and new prefixes (kibi, gibi) would come into to define the warped computer terminology defintions of kilo- and giga-. It would be less fuss for most people, and everyone could then get on without all this trivial garbage.
... and then there are re-labeled rip-offs. Yes, Rowling's work may be deriviative and all fiction works on inspiration from what has gone before it, but names like "Tanya Grotter" (and even naming a book "Harry Potter" when it has no connection to the author) is just trading off the name of her work.
This has nothing to do with copyright reform - the authors of these new books are trading off Harry Potter by slightly changing the name and keeping all the magic and other elements of the book in it. It's not like they're even trying to be different. If they wrote a book about a magician but was different in other ways you could say that 'magic' was in vogue, and it is OK. But is seems like these people are just ripping off quite a lot and writing some stories for the cash.
I don't even like the argument about local market conditions. Harry Potter books are popular everywhere. People love 'Harry Potter'. So people churn out these knock-off books. If the authors wanted to write for the local market I'm sure they could easily make up their own stories but again the just rip-off works just to get the cash.
(As you can tell by now) I don't agree with the author of the article at all. He just wants a cheap argument to allow author's who have no creative insight in the least to get rich off the hard work of others. If the authors stuck to fan-fiction they would probably get my sympathy. But whoring cash for when they have no talent - I hope they burn (metaphorically of course!).
I have to say that software industry is growing. I would think that the 'low end' is quite healthy nowadays, considering how many individuals and 'independents' are setting there own companies to produce software for PDAs and mobile phones. Want to play MP3's on your phone? Somebody's bound to have done it (or it's an idea for one of you coders reading this).
It's the high end that is having the problems. And even then not all of them - e.g. I agree with the article that MS is still growing: they keep on diversifying. People have realised that over the years some of the 'high-end' systems they've been getting are a rip-off, and that there are cheaper options (you can guess for yourselves) which can replace them.
I can say even in an economic downturn, that if there is a piece of software that has proven worth, and will genuinely help a customer, then it will be purchased. It's just that nobody is delivering what people want (or could want).
If you read the IBM link, you can see that the 970 is multiprocessor enabled. Once apple gets their hands on it they can easily create 2 way systems, and probably 4 way systems and up. I'm not sure about benchmarking, but linking processors in this way will help offset the x86 processor speed advanatge. And with IBM technology behind them, I'm sure it's easily possible.
BTW, I think AMD are trying to pull off a similar trick with the multiproc. Opterons, and eventually Athlons.
For what it's worth, I've got to agree with everyone else and say this is a good thing. EV was one of the best games for the Mac, and was an envy of many PC owning friends.
Just to point out that they are releasing EV:Nova, their most recent installment, although I'd be damn happy if they got round to backporting their older EVs as well.
I'm really wondering, who has a P800? I've thought about getting one, but they keep on pushing the relase date back it's going to be more worthwhile in getting a Palm and hooking it up to, e.g., the t68i.
There seems to be a lot of programs coming out for it - suggesting there are a lot of dev kits out - but in real-life there doesn't seem to be any sign of the phone at all. All the while everyone else, i.e. Nokia etc., is coming out with affordable phones with simple games that actually work.
Slashdot Mirror
Well Spiderweb's RPGs have always been good, but I was a bit disappointed to see the Exile series rehashed into Avernum. However the games are still good anyway, although I do wish they could come out with something new.
Done the FaxYourMp thing already, but it seems that the EU parliament website is really not set up to make it easy to find your MEP at all. Any suggestions on how to go about this?
8 07 05,00.htm
Suggest that anybody with 10 minutes go now to faxyourmp, and write a letter about this. Every little step to support the cause. Include a link to this ZDNet UK article if you need backup.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,391
No, really? In my experience (and this is where everyone will argue over) win2k pro is much much more stable on computers that I have seen than winxp.
If we come right down to reasons for this its probably down to the users. XP is targetted at home users who generally go out of their way to make machines unstable. There should be little difference between 2k and XP, and I would really think in reality that they are both ultra stable. The 1000x more stable is really overdoing it.
One thing a lot of people haven't noticed is that SQLite will be in 10.4 . Read it on Apple's Tiger preview page (right at the bottom, last paragraph).
While they're not specifiying what they're doing with it, or if it'll even be tied to the filesystem, is seems to be in there for some reason, and apple will put it to use.
I don't dispute your post. But most of this is because Java is a language and a platform. Yes there are many benefits to Java, and the language is great. Its just that there is so much additional unusuable crap that, while the server programmers love it, desktop users have come to hate a lot of Java and its poor performance compared to the rest of the desktop.
Point taken that there may be some good uses for desktop Java, but there's this "lagginess" that just doesn't feel right. And this is not just for 'big' applications, but for small (trivial) ones as well. I don't even think I could name 10 (IMHO) "good" java desktop applications (including the SWT ones).
The cross platform stuff really is a great plus for Java, but with Mono out even I'm off to hedge my bets. I take your point about writing Java GUI apps properly, but this could be the other problem. Is Swing "broken", or is working with Swing inherently too complicated for most programmers? Either way GUI apps seem to be not quite right on Java. Sun should either fix Swing or make it easier to program. I've seen other people commenting that Java was to be VB but better. VB was good for making GUI apps (whatever sort of kludge it was though). Java is nowhere near as good, and this is a fundamental problem that Sun needs to solve ASAP.
The problem with Java is that Sun really has managed it properly. We all thought it was cool when it came out, but the promises really weren't true. Write Once Run Anywhere mostly managed to work on different platforms, but the GUI is so god awful slow nobody really wants to bother. Its just easier to code native. I'm not exagerating here that even Visual Basic programmers could have come up with something better.
.Net products. Hate MS all you want but .Net actually is really easy to use.
Sun has let the technology stagnate while Microsoft has caught up (and IMHO surpassed) Java with their
Plus I don't know what's going on at Sun marketing, but they've descended Java into acronym hell. Plus the naming conventions don't really make sense now. The new version of Java is J2SE5 (I'm not even sure that it is this now).
I'm taking this from the perspective of desktop developers (rather than the server side as they seem to use Java fine). Java really does blow, and there are now better technologies to use. Sun has even ignored integrating other, better technologies (*cough* SWT) due to NIH syndrome.
If Sun went and fixed their mistakes rapidly (a bit late IMHO) then Java could still be cool. But everyone on the desktop who's used it considers it a steaming POS.
Most people don't have a clue what the holiday is for nowadays. It's just a big excuse for lighting massive fires (in the middle of a busy road), as well as lighting off fireworks well into the night. Oh, and doing this for a month before and a month after as well.
But it's all in good fun though, and I invite Jerf, as a cultured Yank, to help spread the fun of this party around the world. It's great fun really!!!
THe original on the Master System is worth having a go at - it differs from the Genesis a lot - and is worth enjoying in its own right. It even has Jungle Zone, which wasn't even in the Genesis, plus you could actually have amazing speed contests on the 1st level of Green Hill Zone there.
Also have to chip in that sonic was only good for the 1st two games, as everyone else was saying. Mario (and in particular the SNES mario world which I still love playing to this day) was much better overall.
Just to point out for people needing a calendar, there is the Sunbird project which aims to build a standalone PIM application. While it is fairly good at the moment, it still needs a lot of work. Plus it needs a few more developers. If you have the time go help out. If they ever get round to integrating Thunderbird and Sunbird, we'll have one kickass Outlook killing application!! (don't mention Evolution - it really isn't cross-platform as such).
But until it is bundled by default with the JVM and JDKs, it will still be hassle to get SWT working for normal users. If Sun replaced the swing toolkit with SwingWT and linked it to SWT, I would think there would be a great improvement in performance of most Java GUI apps (and most of them really do suck - the only good one I have seen is MoneyDance).
The next generation mobile phones are really what killed the PDA. If you have seen the high end phones some are PDA like (Sony Ericsson P900), and even the medium range now has very good organiser and synchronisation facilities. Combine that with Java expandability and there is not much need for PDAs for most people.
If you are in the area and want to help protest against the ID cards, Defy ID is organising meetings against it. Go to the main website to get more information, as well as pointing your friends to it. Everyone needs to know!!
I think the problem lies in the name. I believe that the US Coast Guard is a defence agency, or is at least part of the military. In the UK the Royal Navy handles the defence part, while the coast guard is merely a non-military agency dealing with rescue and safety. This could be part of the reason why the UK coast guard systems aren't as secure - ther just isn't the infrastructure to do it compared to the military.
The newer Skoda's are quite good (being made by volkswagen and all), but the ladas and skodas from two decades ago were truly terrible cars. Appaling build values, a tendency to go nowhere fast. Sure, some people like them, but they were generally a source of humour for everyone else. Which reminds me...
What do you call a Lada convertible? A skip
Just to say, i think stuffit archives are a good alternative. It's for mac and windows, and a lot of mac software is compressed with it. It can do 512-bit security as well as having error correction. Plus it does have better compression (although there is a small performance penalty for it).
It seems like UK ads have a different kind of humour to them than US ones (especially taking #4 as an example).
There's a brand of crisps (US=potato chips?) in the UK. They got a very famous footballer, Gary Lineker, to do the ads for them. The ads were basically taking the piss out of him. The US company who owned the brand were absolutely against doing that as in the US it wouldn't be done. Suprisingly it worked a treat in the UK.
We never managed to get a transaltion of Chrono Trigger for the PS, never mind Chrono Cross. Trigger was one of the best RPGs IMHO made, while I would have loved to play Cross.
Square actually gives us an even worse deal than USA gamers, even though there shouldn't be a problem with the language...
I like the idea of different APIs, but first there needs to be a common desktop like Mac OS where it doesn't really matter what toolkit is being used, but where it can handle both, and they will look and handle the same.
This probably needs a base desktop API for handling things, but this would probably allow greater acceptance of a desktop linux, as users wouldn't have to be confused by KDE/Gnome differences.
I really think that people should standardise the meaning of kilo-, and giga- to their SI meanings. The is a google cache link to a web page about the proposed changes where they would change to SI definitions, and new prefixes (kibi, gibi) would come into to define the warped computer terminology defintions of kilo- and giga-. It would be less fuss for most people, and everyone could then get on without all this trivial garbage.
... and then there are re-labeled rip-offs. Yes, Rowling's work may be deriviative and all fiction works on inspiration from what has gone before it, but names like "Tanya Grotter" (and even naming a book "Harry Potter" when it has no connection to the author) is just trading off the name of her work.
This has nothing to do with copyright reform - the authors of these new books are trading off Harry Potter by slightly changing the name and keeping all the magic and other elements of the book in it. It's not like they're even trying to be different. If they wrote a book about a magician but was different in other ways you could say that 'magic' was in vogue, and it is OK. But is seems like these people are just ripping off quite a lot and writing some stories for the cash.
I don't even like the argument about local market conditions. Harry Potter books are popular everywhere. People love 'Harry Potter'. So people churn out these knock-off books. If the authors wanted to write for the local market I'm sure they could easily make up their own stories but again the just rip-off works just to get the cash.
(As you can tell by now) I don't agree with the author of the article at all. He just wants a cheap argument to allow author's who have no creative insight in the least to get rich off the hard work of others. If the authors stuck to fan-fiction they would probably get my sympathy. But whoring cash for when they have no talent - I hope they burn (metaphorically of course!).
I have to say that software industry is growing. I would think that the 'low end' is quite healthy nowadays, considering how many individuals and 'independents' are setting there own companies to produce software for PDAs and mobile phones. Want to play MP3's on your phone? Somebody's bound to have done it (or it's an idea for one of you coders reading this).
It's the high end that is having the problems. And even then not all of them - e.g. I agree with the article that MS is still growing: they keep on diversifying. People have realised that over the years some of the 'high-end' systems they've been getting are a rip-off, and that there are cheaper options (you can guess for yourselves) which can replace them.
I can say even in an economic downturn, that if there is a piece of software that has proven worth, and will genuinely help a customer, then it will be purchased. It's just that nobody is delivering what people want (or could want).
If you read the IBM link, you can see that the 970 is multiprocessor enabled. Once apple gets their hands on it they can easily create 2 way systems, and probably 4 way systems and up. I'm not sure about benchmarking, but linking processors in this way will help offset the x86 processor speed advanatge. And with IBM technology behind them, I'm sure it's easily possible.
BTW, I think AMD are trying to pull off a similar trick with the multiproc. Opterons, and eventually Athlons.
For what it's worth, I've got to agree with everyone else and say this is a good thing. EV was one of the best games for the Mac, and was an envy of many PC owning friends.
Just to point out that they are releasing EV:Nova, their most recent installment, although I'd be damn happy if they got round to backporting their older EVs as well.
I'm really wondering, who has a P800? I've thought about getting one, but they keep on pushing the relase date back it's going to be more worthwhile in getting a Palm and hooking it up to, e.g., the t68i.
There seems to be a lot of programs coming out for it - suggesting there are a lot of dev kits out - but in real-life there doesn't seem to be any sign of the phone at all. All the while everyone else, i.e. Nokia etc., is coming out with affordable phones with simple games that actually work.