Unfortunately for Neal Stephenson's forecasting record, it may no longer be fast pizza delivery (Domino's got sued (see Stein comment #3)), or software (lots of the kewl open source stuff is, indeed overseas -- can you say linux? [I can't pronounce it right no matter how many times I try -- leenooks?]), but it's still entertainment.
1) Fun: We still produce more films than anyone but India, and not many people outside of the subcontinent watch those anyway. A substantial amount of the television shows (Emeril!) music, video games, theme parks, etc. still come from the good ol' US of A.
2) Pharmaceuticals -- now careful, I'm not lumping these with Entertainment. Prescription drugs are mostly innovated here.
3) Microprocessors -- sure they're manufactured where the labor is cheap, but Intel, Moto, IBM... they're developing the stuff here.
4) Industrial Design -- The shiny new cars that are manufactured by foreign companies use US design teams. Why do you think Daimler bought Chrysler?
For several years, they have been talking about a helmet-mounted airbag for high-school and collegiate football players, to prevent neck injuries. Those injuries have gotten a lot of research into safer equipment, including helmets bolted to shoulder pads.
But looking at that inflato-vest, I couldn't help think that it looked halfway through the transformation to Mospeada (Robotech Part III) ride-armor.
This is probably the second-oldest problem in IT (after 'how do I get a girlfriend?').
Tapes and optical are slow, and either painful manual processes, or expensive robotics. By the time you put the robotics and the drives together, the fixed disks are cheaper. It gets much worse if your goal is near-line storage -- but just archival is expensive.
Even compressing the files (which I wouldn't recommend), you're talking about dozens of DVDs for a full backup of 220GB. Incrementals make it a little easier to back up, but have costs to find each file you need to restore, and reduce your overlap in redundancy [sic].
Time * a = money Storage space * b = money Disaster Recovery costs * c = money Service Agencies * d = money Capital Investment * e = money.... * y = money (Consultant to calculate a through y) * z = money
Personally, I'd only use swappable hard drives for quick-fix backups: rotate two or three for short-term backups, with my longer-term and archival going to some other media. Sooner or later, you'll need to upgrade those hard drives to a larger capacity, and that will be expensive compared to buying another spindle of DVDs.
Of course next year, you may need blu-ray DVDs to handle your backup.
OK... this is the third-oldest problem, after 'Should I buy now or later when the next kewl stuff comes out?'
For all its shortcomings in stability, openness, Clippy... Office's huge strength is its programmability in Visual Basic for Applications, soon to be Visual Studio.NET for Applications*. It's more than a suite, it's a platform.
It's provided probably thousands of programmers with jobs creating add-ons, templates, and most especially, vertical market apps in Access.
Sure, it was also the open hole that pretty much spawned the scripting age of viruses with MS Word Macro viruses, but I have yet to see anything equivalent from Star Office or OpenOffice in terms of access to the document model or program control.
On the other hand, the Chandler project at OSAF is looking at Python in signed XML modules for its extension mechanism -- they've got a chance to be a platform.
* VSAN unfortunately will kill one huge productivity gain that VBA (and VB) have: the ability to attach code snippets within form modules, which tie the visual appearance a little closer to the function. Model/View/Controller fans rejoice, but long-time VBA wonks are sad.
I can't say that Java is a significant programming advantage over C -- it's the Java libraries that beat the snot out of calling the raw Windows/Mac/X APIs.
That's not the only one: The depth of CPAN, the Python library, even MFC/ATL are worlds ahead of hand-coding the guts of an app.
When I started programming, the Mac SDK had to be handled raw, and GDI was brand spankin' new. APIs such as DEC's FMS were considered heaven-sent(talk about dead ends!). Shortly after, class libraries were available, but expensive for an amateur. With Java and Perl, it's part of the (free) package.
I'm sure there's garbage code in those libraries -- there's always going to be bugs. But they're going to be relatively smooth to use, and they're already written, letting me focus on the business logic, instead of the presentation.
The adventures of Tintin established the visual language now standard in comic strips and books: word and thought balloons, moving to the right to signify 'progress' and the left to signify failure, etc.
See Scott McCloud's history of comics for further praise.
What Spielberg will do to it, I have no idea. It is cited by him as an influence on Raiders.
This just happens to be a terribly trivial request, which could have been cheaply implemented by the Post Office as a standard web query. The only parameters are the weight in pounds and ounces (simple integers), Zip codes (5 digit numbers), and username and password, which are established strings. No muss, no fuss, no unsightly odors.
I only implemented this myself because it was so blinkin' easy, and because there isn't a CPAN module for it (yet).
If you're rolling your own tools, XML is a life saver.
I've built a shopping cart system for my wife's store, and XML forms a key part of several pieces of the internals.
For instance, UPS, US Postal Service and FedEx all have XML-based APIs that allow you to get shipping rates, track packages, generate labels, etc. In the case of rate retrieval, the XML is simple enough that I don't need XML code libraries: the weights and zipcodes get interpolated into a simple Perl string on the way out, and what I get back is easy enough to parse with a pattern (gotta remember non-greedy patterns!).
sub getUSPSDomCost { my ($orig,$dest,$lbs,$oz,$user,$pass,$test) = @_; my $server = $test ? "testing.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPITest.dll" : "production.shippingapis.com/ShippingAPI.dll";
my $ua = new LWP::UserAgent; $ua->agent("MyShipFinder/0.1 " . $ua->agent); # Create a request my $req = new HTTP::Request POST => "http://$server"; $req->content_type('application/x-www-form-urlenco ded');
my $stuff = qq|<RateRequest USERID="$user" PASSWORD="$pass"> <Package ID="0"> <Service>EXPRESS</Service> <ZipOrigination>$orig</ZipOrigination> &nb s p; <ZipDestination>$dest</ZipDestination> &nb s p; <Pounds>$lbs</Pounds><Ounces>$oz</Ounces> &nb s p; <Container>None</Container> <Size>Regular</Size> <Machinable></Machinable> </Package> <Package ID="1"> <Service>PRIORITY</Service> <ZipOrigination>$orig</ZipOrigination> &nb s p; <ZipDestination>$dest</ZipDestination> &nb s p; <Pounds>$lbs</Pounds> <Ounces>$oz</Ounces> <Container>None</Container> <Size>Regular</Size> </Package> </RateRequest>|;
$req->content('API=Rate&XML=' . $stuff);
# Pass request to the user agent and get a response back my $res = $ua->request($req);
# Check the outcome of the response if ($res->is_success) { return $res->content; } else { return -1; }
}
Obtaining a username and password is left as an exercise for the reader, as is parsing the result.
Her primary distributor, Ingram Books, is implementing inventory checks over XML also -- but it's not quite working yet. Their previous tools required FTP-ing a request file to a site, and then waiting around for a response file to show up in the same folder!
So in that respect, B2B is where XML is dominating.
TRU always asks, "May I have your telephone number, starting with the area code."
An answer of "No." seems to flabbergast them. Why wouldn't I want to give them that.
"We only use it for marketing analysis."
My reply to that is, I'm already buying your products, you've got my money, you're not getting anything for free from me.
Well, the only things that have implemented this in real life so far as I know are
A washer that lets you start it remotely -- truly dumb, because who's going to remember to load it, put soap in it... then walk out the door, and still remember to call it. Now if it could dispense the detergent and softener, perhaps (especially if there are water use restrictions or something) -- but even then, just a timer should be sufficient.
ReplayTV -- I wish I had the ambition to hack my TiVo for the TiVoNet, just too many things going on at once. Has anyone had their replay hacked (Oh no! More Gilligan's Island!)?
In general, I'd be very concerned about implementing this. I don't let http requests into my firewall, and I'm not sure I'd like to start, script kiddies or no. Comcast just bought my attbi service, and they're thinking about service caps. My toaster, washer, dryer, fridge, microwave, furnace, answering machine, TiVo, CD Burner, etc. could use up my cap just replying "No, there is no formmail.pl" every twelve seconds.
Hmmm.. that list at least has a few things worth implementing: a nice speech-to-text on my answering machine would be good, and the remote-programmable thermostat is nearly a must-have. Add to that something to feed and let out (and entertain) my dog, and I nearly don't have to come home for a night.
You're spouting back to me the same (ahem) engineering that Weber created to justify the naval battle style.
He created a scientific breakthrough (the impeller wedge) for the sole purpose of telling the story in a certain way, and it's one that I had a problem believing as reasonable. But I got over it.
Re:Worst Book out of the Series
on
War of Honor
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I found the tech development and daring escapes of the last few novels better than either the politics or the space battles.
The politics of the first couple of books gagged me. I mean, having your villain named "Rob S. Pierre?" Care to telegraph your intentions, Dave? (For the history-challenged, go google Robespierre). The political intrigue and machinations is better than the grand-scale stuff.
The technobabble behind his ships also grated on me as a contrivance to be able to recreate a naval battle's broadsides and chases: you've got an impenetrable force field that only covers the top and bottom? Why not include another one that covers the freakin' sides. But once I'd swallowed that, the growth in tech, which parallels to some degree the naval technology of the 20th century (development of radar, aircraft carriers, etc.) got to be a lot of fun.
On Basilisk Station is an excellent read. With the free version available at Baen, and a very cheap hardcover edition floating around, there's no excuse not to read it. Like Bujold's Warrior's Apprentice, a wet-behind-the-ears prodigy parlays an impossible situation into an amazing, improbable and chortle-inducing victory.
Weber's work is not what's best about SF: thought-provoking stories where aliens mirror ourselves, or radical changes in technology serve as a model for the extreme aspects of our society, but it's great entertainment.
I'm not a huge fan of Brosnan as Bond, but one of the few high notes of his 007 career is the glee on his face while operating the BMW from the rear seat using his phone as a controller.
Too bad there's probably too much concrete in that garage to get a decent cell signal. Could be Bluetooth in addition to cell, neh?
I don't recommend that as an option in newer cars: I've seen how my kids drive on the PlayStation.
For something like IP packets, leaky is acceptable, but for many of those other abstractions, constipated might be a better adjective. Some of the tools and technologies out there (remember 4GL report-writers?) were big clogging masses that just won't pass.
The first thing I do when I start in on a new technology (VBA, CGI, ASP, whatever) is to start digging in the corners and see where the model starts breaking down.
What first turned me on to Perl (I'm trying hard not to flamebait here) was the statement that the easy things should be easy, and the hard things possible.
But even Perl's abstraction of scalars could use a little fiber to move through the system. Turn strict and warnings on, and suddenly your "strings when you need 'em" stop being quite so flexible, and you start worrying about when it's really got something in it or not.
On the HTML coding model breaking down, my current least-fave is checkboxes: if unchecked, they don't return a value to the server in the query, making it hard to determine whether the user is coming at the script the first time and there's no value, or just didn't select a value.
Then there's always "This space intentionally left blank.*" Which I always footnote with "*...or it would have been if not for this notice." Sure sign of needing more regularity in your diet.
My math's a little rusty, but with a parabolic transmitter, they should have very little spread over the distance.
Which means that to exploit along the 72-mile path, you'd have to be at the right height to intercept. That's probably close to sea level at the midpoint (draw a line between the tips of a cat's ears for an illustration), but any bobbing in the waves will probably lose your signal.
There just happens to be a boatload of example code for teaching that uses various primitive forms of BASIC.
My 11-year-old son found a book at the school library on programming adventure games that even DOS QBASIC was a bit too advanced for (QBASIC doesn't sort numbered statements). Ah, here it is: "How to Create Adventure Games" by Cristopher Lampton (long out of print). An excellent intro to programming, and a more fun result than many of the simpler programming tutorials.
For that matter, Inform would be great to have around at the middle-school level. It's got OO, it's got structure, sure it's got no techniques that can be applied to other software engineering, but the effort/fun ration is about as good as you can get.
My other son is a freshman in high school taking C++, and the students are all bummed they're not writing games. With Inform, you're gaming in a day or so.
Here's their revenue stream
* Licensing to DirecTV and others of a very smooth technology and a very nice layout of their remote (could use a few more buttons for when I use my DVD, etc.)
* Quick bux from lifetime subscribers, but that's killing the golden goose
* Slow bux from monthly subscribers (can DirecTiVos even get a lifetime sub?)
* Paid downloaded commercials -- wouldn't be so bad if I could wipe 'em from the main window once I'd seen 'em
* Fees from "Click here to record" on commercials -- rarely seen these days. I think only NBC uses it.
Given that some VCRs have 30-sec skip, some TV's have 'mute for 30 sec' mode, the adsellers should have little to complain about TiVo specifically. And since I TiVo many programs without commercials (Rough Science to Sopranos), it doesn't apply at all!
Advertisers should learn one thing: grab me quick in the first few seconds, and I might watch the whole commercial, or display really really cool stuff in the last few seconds and I might back up.
ABC has had advertising in the margins during the "Next Week On" segments for years.
And if you TiVo users out there don't know already: Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select for 30-sec skip mode on the SkipToEnd button. Every software upgrade nukes that setting, so it's good to memorize.
Look at it this way, when you're on power, you've got a better chip than the equivalent mobile CPU, right?
And the control panel for SpeedStep (under Windoze at least) lets you turn it off and burn through your batteries anyway.
And how often are you away from power? Cars and planes, it's only $100 or so for a DC adapter. Camping? Unless you're backcountry, you've probably got an accessible outlet, even if it's next to the sink;^). At the beach? Sand plays hob with your CD drive -- which won't last long on battery power either.
Frankly, what are all those cycles for? I can only think of a few things: * Gaming -- but if you've got broadband to play, isn't there a power outlet around? * Digital photos and video -- snag some extra batteries -- if you're video editing, you've got a backpack full of gear anyway. * Warskating? * Serving Oggs from a park bench? * Digital capture at the Two Towers premiere?
What will make this thing work is if it is integrated with the e-mail client.
With this tool, you unfortunately have to manually add a message of a certain classification (work, pr0n, spam, family...) to the progrma through the perl script -- very awkward.
A tool like this need to run as a daemon and 'notice' when a message is added to a folder. Unfortunately, with different formats for e-mail folders, it's a much tougher job.
As it stands, with something like Outlook, I'd have to export each message individually, then run the Perl script. I can probably add a macro to do that (with its own pains -- you add a VBA macro to Outlook and it gripes every time you start up), and possibly even one that responds to filing in a folder.... hmm... maybe I will try this out.
The emphasis today is on special effects and graphics -- without 3D animation and full-motion video clips seamlessly (cough) integrated into the game play, the execs figure it won't sell.
We have PCs, NES, SNES, Genesis, PS, X-Box in the house, and my kids spend more time playing old FUN games such as Dragon Warrior IV, Solstice, Landtalker, Shining Force II than they do Final Fantasy XI or Baldur's Gate.
I still think Civ II is more fun than Alpha Centauri or Civ III -- I may later change my mind, but I still need more experience with C3 before it gets fun -- Civ II was fun out of the box.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately for Neal Stephenson's forecasting record, it may no longer be fast pizza delivery (Domino's got sued (see Stein comment #3)), or software (lots of the kewl open source stuff is, indeed overseas -- can you say linux? [I can't pronounce it right no matter how many times I try -- leenooks?]), but it's still entertainment.
1) Fun: We still produce more films than anyone but India, and not many people outside of the subcontinent watch those anyway. A substantial amount of the television shows (Emeril!) music, video games, theme parks, etc. still come from the good ol' US of A.
2) Pharmaceuticals -- now careful, I'm not lumping these with Entertainment. Prescription drugs are mostly innovated here.
3) Microprocessors -- sure they're manufactured where the labor is cheap, but Intel, Moto, IBM... they're developing the stuff here.
4) Industrial Design -- The shiny new cars that are manufactured by foreign companies use US design teams. Why do you think Daimler bought Chrysler?
For several years, they have been talking about a helmet-mounted airbag for high-school and collegiate football players, to prevent neck injuries. Those injuries have gotten a lot of research into safer equipment, including helmets bolted to shoulder pads.
But looking at that inflato-vest, I couldn't help think that it looked halfway through the transformation to Mospeada (Robotech Part III) ride-armor.
This is probably the second-oldest problem in IT (after 'how do I get a girlfriend?').
.... * y = money
Tapes and optical are slow, and either painful manual processes, or expensive robotics. By the time you put the robotics and the drives together, the fixed disks are cheaper. It gets much worse if your goal is near-line storage -- but just archival is expensive.
Even compressing the files (which I wouldn't recommend), you're talking about dozens of DVDs for a full backup of 220GB. Incrementals make it a little easier to back up, but have costs to find each file you need to restore, and reduce your overlap in redundancy [sic].
Time * a = money
Storage space * b = money
Disaster Recovery costs * c = money
Service Agencies * d = money
Capital Investment * e = money
(Consultant to calculate a through y) * z = money
Personally, I'd only use swappable hard drives for quick-fix backups: rotate two or three for short-term backups, with my longer-term and archival going to some other media. Sooner or later, you'll need to upgrade those hard drives to a larger capacity, and that will be expensive compared to buying another spindle of DVDs.
Of course next year, you may need blu-ray DVDs to handle your backup.
OK... this is the third-oldest problem, after 'Should I buy now or later when the next kewl stuff comes out?'
For all its shortcomings in stability, openness, Clippy... Office's huge strength is its programmability in Visual Basic for Applications, soon to be Visual Studio .NET for Applications*. It's more than a suite, it's a platform.
It's provided probably thousands of programmers with jobs creating add-ons, templates, and most especially, vertical market apps in Access.
Sure, it was also the open hole that pretty much spawned the scripting age of viruses with MS Word Macro viruses, but I have yet to see anything equivalent from Star Office or OpenOffice in terms of access to the document model or program control.
On the other hand, the Chandler project at OSAF is looking at Python in signed XML modules for its extension mechanism -- they've got a chance to be a platform.
* VSAN unfortunately will kill one huge productivity gain that VBA (and VB) have: the ability to attach code snippets within form modules, which tie the visual appearance a little closer to the function. Model/View/Controller fans rejoice, but long-time VBA wonks are sad.
... you'd get a most excellent map of where the public restrooms are. Always useful when traveling to a foreign city.
I can't say that Java is a significant programming advantage over C -- it's the Java libraries that beat the snot out of calling the raw Windows/Mac/X APIs.
That's not the only one: The depth of CPAN, the Python library, even MFC/ATL are worlds ahead of hand-coding the guts of an app.
When I started programming, the Mac SDK had to be handled raw, and GDI was brand spankin' new. APIs such as DEC's FMS were considered heaven-sent(talk about dead ends!). Shortly after, class libraries were available, but expensive for an amateur. With Java and Perl, it's part of the (free) package.
I'm sure there's garbage code in those libraries -- there's always going to be bugs. But they're going to be relatively smooth to use, and they're already written, letting me focus on the business logic, instead of the presentation.
The adventures of Tintin established the visual language now standard in comic strips and books: word and thought balloons, moving to the right to signify 'progress' and the left to signify failure, etc.
See Scott McCloud's history of comics for further praise.
What Spielberg will do to it, I have no idea. It is cited by him as an influence on Raiders.
I don't disagree with you on a general case.
This just happens to be a terribly trivial request, which could have been cheaply implemented by the Post Office as a standard web query. The only parameters are the weight in pounds and ounces (simple integers), Zip codes (5 digit numbers), and username and password, which are established strings. No muss, no fuss, no unsightly odors.
I only implemented this myself because it was so blinkin' easy, and because there isn't a CPAN module for it (yet).
If you're rolling your own tools, XML is a life saver.
I've built a shopping cart system for my wife's store, and XML forms a key part of several pieces of the internals.
For instance, UPS, US Postal Service and FedEx all have XML-based APIs that allow you to get shipping rates, track packages, generate labels, etc. In the case of rate retrieval, the XML is simple enough that I don't need XML code libraries: the weights and zipcodes get interpolated into a simple Perl string on the way out, and what I get back is easy enough to parse with a pattern (gotta remember non-greedy patterns!).
Obtaining a username and password is left as an exercise for the reader, as is parsing the result.
Her primary distributor, Ingram Books, is implementing inventory checks over XML also -- but it's not quite working yet. Their previous tools required FTP-ing a request file to a site, and then waiting around for a response file to show up in the same folder!
So in that respect, B2B is where XML is dominating.
TRU always asks, "May I have your telephone number, starting with the area code." An answer of "No." seems to flabbergast them. Why wouldn't I want to give them that. "We only use it for marketing analysis." My reply to that is, I'm already buying your products, you've got my money, you're not getting anything for free from me.
Well, the only things that have implemented this in real life so far as I know are
In general, I'd be very concerned about implementing this. I don't let http requests into my firewall, and I'm not sure I'd like to start, script kiddies or no. Comcast just bought my attbi service, and they're thinking about service caps. My toaster, washer, dryer, fridge, microwave, furnace, answering machine, TiVo, CD Burner, etc. could use up my cap just replying "No, there is no formmail.pl" every twelve seconds.
Hmmm.. that list at least has a few things worth implementing: a nice speech-to-text on my answering machine would be good, and the remote-programmable thermostat is nearly a must-have. Add to that something to feed and let out (and entertain) my dog, and I nearly don't have to come home for a night.
You missed the point.
You're spouting back to me the same (ahem) engineering that Weber created to justify the naval battle style.
He created a scientific breakthrough (the impeller wedge) for the sole purpose of telling the story in a certain way, and it's one that I had a problem believing as reasonable. But I got over it.
Actually, I found the tech development and daring escapes of the last few novels better than either the politics or the space battles.
The politics of the first couple of books gagged me. I mean, having your villain named "Rob S. Pierre?" Care to telegraph your intentions, Dave? (For the history-challenged, go google Robespierre). The political intrigue and machinations is better than the grand-scale stuff.
The technobabble behind his ships also grated on me as a contrivance to be able to recreate a naval battle's broadsides and chases: you've got an impenetrable force field that only covers the top and bottom? Why not include another one that covers the freakin' sides. But once I'd swallowed that, the growth in tech, which parallels to some degree the naval technology of the 20th century (development of radar, aircraft carriers, etc.) got to be a lot of fun.
On Basilisk Station is an excellent read. With the free version available at Baen, and a very cheap hardcover edition floating around, there's no excuse not to read it. Like Bujold's Warrior's Apprentice, a wet-behind-the-ears prodigy parlays an impossible situation into an amazing, improbable and chortle-inducing victory.
Weber's work is not what's best about SF: thought-provoking stories where aliens mirror ourselves, or radical changes in technology serve as a model for the extreme aspects of our society, but it's great entertainment.
I'm not a huge fan of Brosnan as Bond, but one of the few high notes of his 007 career is the glee on his face while operating the BMW from the rear seat using his phone as a controller. Too bad there's probably too much concrete in that garage to get a decent cell signal. Could be Bluetooth in addition to cell, neh? I don't recommend that as an option in newer cars: I've seen how my kids drive on the PlayStation.
John Cleese -- it's official. He's promoted from R (which I always figured was meant to be pronounced "Arrrrrr" like a pirate).
For something like IP packets, leaky is acceptable, but for many of those other abstractions, constipated might be a better adjective. Some of the tools and technologies out there (remember 4GL report-writers?) were big clogging masses that just won't pass.
The first thing I do when I start in on a new technology (VBA, CGI, ASP, whatever) is to start digging in the corners and see where the model starts breaking down.
What first turned me on to Perl (I'm trying hard not to flamebait here) was the statement that the easy things should be easy, and the hard things possible.
But even Perl's abstraction of scalars could use a little fiber to move through the system. Turn strict and warnings on, and suddenly your "strings when you need 'em" stop being quite so flexible, and you start worrying about when it's really got something in it or not.
On the HTML coding model breaking down, my current least-fave is checkboxes: if unchecked, they don't return a value to the server in the query, making it hard to determine whether the user is coming at the script the first time and there's no value, or just didn't select a value.
Then there's always "This space intentionally left blank.*" Which I always footnote with "*...or it would have been if not for this notice." Sure sign of needing more regularity in your diet.
But are you unwilling to mutate to make your company stronger?
My math's a little rusty, but with a parabolic transmitter, they should have very little spread over the distance.
Which means that to exploit along the 72-mile path, you'd have to be at the right height to intercept. That's probably close to sea level at the midpoint (draw a line between the tips of a cat's ears for an illustration), but any bobbing in the waves will probably lose your signal.
There just happens to be a boatload of example code for teaching that uses various primitive forms of BASIC.
My 11-year-old son found a book at the school library on programming adventure games that even DOS QBASIC was a bit too advanced for (QBASIC doesn't sort numbered statements). Ah, here it is: "How to Create Adventure Games" by Cristopher Lampton (long out of print). An excellent intro to programming, and a more fun result than many of the simpler programming tutorials.
For that matter, Inform would be great to have around at the middle-school level. It's got OO, it's got structure, sure it's got no techniques that can be applied to other software engineering, but the effort/fun ration is about as good as you can get.
My other son is a freshman in high school taking C++, and the students are all bummed they're not writing games. With Inform, you're gaming in a day or so.
Here's their revenue stream * Licensing to DirecTV and others of a very smooth technology and a very nice layout of their remote (could use a few more buttons for when I use my DVD, etc.) * Quick bux from lifetime subscribers, but that's killing the golden goose * Slow bux from monthly subscribers (can DirecTiVos even get a lifetime sub?) * Paid downloaded commercials -- wouldn't be so bad if I could wipe 'em from the main window once I'd seen 'em * Fees from "Click here to record" on commercials -- rarely seen these days. I think only NBC uses it. Given that some VCRs have 30-sec skip, some TV's have 'mute for 30 sec' mode, the adsellers should have little to complain about TiVo specifically. And since I TiVo many programs without commercials (Rough Science to Sopranos), it doesn't apply at all! Advertisers should learn one thing: grab me quick in the first few seconds, and I might watch the whole commercial, or display really really cool stuff in the last few seconds and I might back up. ABC has had advertising in the margins during the "Next Week On" segments for years. And if you TiVo users out there don't know already: Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select for 30-sec skip mode on the SkipToEnd button. Every software upgrade nukes that setting, so it's good to memorize.
Look at it this way, when you're on power, you've got a better chip than the equivalent mobile CPU, right?
;^). At the beach? Sand plays hob with your CD drive -- which won't last long on battery power either.
And the control panel for SpeedStep (under Windoze at least) lets you turn it off and burn through your batteries anyway.
And how often are you away from power? Cars and planes, it's only $100 or so for a DC adapter. Camping? Unless you're backcountry, you've probably got an accessible outlet, even if it's next to the sink
Frankly, what are all those cycles for? I can only think of a few things:
* Gaming -- but if you've got broadband to play, isn't there a power outlet around?
* Digital photos and video -- snag some extra batteries -- if you're video editing, you've got a backpack full of gear anyway.
* Warskating?
* Serving Oggs from a park bench?
* Digital capture at the Two Towers premiere?
... and now my toys have more fun than I do.
At least SOMEBODY has time to enjoy them.
Well, for one, you're anonymous, making that difficult.
For two, I typoed, and it's FFIX not FFXI. Sorry.
What will make this thing work is if it is integrated with the e-mail client.
With this tool, you unfortunately have to manually add a message of a certain classification (work, pr0n, spam, family...) to the progrma through the perl script -- very awkward.
A tool like this need to run as a daemon and 'notice' when a message is added to a folder. Unfortunately, with different formats for e-mail folders, it's a much tougher job.
As it stands, with something like Outlook, I'd have to export each message individually, then run the Perl script. I can probably add a macro to do that (with its own pains -- you add a VBA macro to Outlook and it gripes every time you start up), and possibly even one that responds to filing in a folder.... hmm... maybe I will try this out.
The emphasis today is on special effects and graphics -- without 3D animation and full-motion video clips seamlessly (cough) integrated into the game play, the execs figure it won't sell.
We have PCs, NES, SNES, Genesis, PS, X-Box in the house, and my kids spend more time playing old FUN games such as Dragon Warrior IV, Solstice, Landtalker, Shining Force II than they do Final Fantasy XI or Baldur's Gate.
I still think Civ II is more fun than Alpha Centauri or Civ III -- I may later change my mind, but I still need more experience with C3 before it gets fun -- Civ II was fun out of the box.
Do games keep needing to get harder?