True. Most people do not care about much beyond their own stomach, but I think you are ignoring an obvious factor. We don't need people to vote or " to sit down and write a letter to their rep over some stupid copy protection that they don't even understand anyway". All we need is for ONE major media outlet to run a story in primetime that opposes these copy-protected CD's. Imagine Bill O'Reilly (or some other jackass) sitting on FoxNews complaining, "My kid bought this Weezer CD, and he put it in our CD player in the living room. And the CD broke my stereo. Not only did I waste money on a broken CD, now I have to spend money to get my stereo fixed. Now, apparently, some of the bigshots at the music companies have decided to take a technology that worked perfectly well and break it. Thank you very much music executives!"
Expose the public to the idea through a mainstream outlet, and make the public understand/think that copy-protected CD's will break their mystic technology. People don't need to protest to effect change.
Of course, this will never, ever, ever happen, because the RIAA has deeeep pockets and powerful bedfellows in the news industry. So, a few nerdy websites will mention this, and maybe even a reputable website like Salon or The Guardian will have a piece about it. But the majority of U.S. citizens will probably never hear of it.
Also, I think comparisons between corporations and the federal government are a little specious. The government has complete freedom until the next round of elections. Corporations have to respond to the market and public opinion much more quickly.
People would not need a book to use Linux if they were consistently exposed to it from first grade through high school, as children are now with MS products.
Using Linux is not very difficult; however it is very DIFFERENT from Windows.
A 3D desktop environment could change the paradigm of human-computer interaction, and it is a worthy concept to be researched. However, I would like to see more research put into the actual devices with which I communicate to my computer.
The mouse is a wonderful device for a simple 2D environment, where all I want to do is select objects and move objects horizontally or vertically. Beyond that, it is crap.
Voice recognition might one day get to the point where I rarely use my keyboard, except when in a cubicle environment or when programming.
But I haven't seen the next generation of human interaction devices, and I don't even know exactly what I think they should be. I just know that the mouse will eventually be inadequate. The only truly exciting device I've seen recently was a force-feedback glove that let me select objects (round basket-ball type things) in very, very simple 3D environment.
siewolf: Since the benchmark page was slashdotted I might be speaking out of my ass. But I never trust "9000 times faster!". It sounds too "2 extra inches to your penis, guaranteed!"
And I'm not gonna get burned by those charlatans EVER AGAIN!!!
--Offtopic for battery but on topic for this discussion
People keep implying that there is an inherent infinite value in human life. "The life of the night watchman is more important than all of the artifacts in the museum." I hate being the one to tell you this, but human life is not magically special, above all else in this world. My life and your life are not more important than the pursuit of knowledge.
Sure, I would rather destroy an old artifact than be destroyed myself. However, there comes a point at which the benefit of society outweighs the harm to an individual. Let's pretend that deep in the basement of an Iraqi museum lies an undiscovered bacterium that miraculously cures HIV, and there is one night watchman guarding the museum. The US accidentally bombs that museum, vaporizing everything contained therein, including the watchman and the bacteria. Which is a worse loss?
I don't have a rational answer to that question, but I know that, were I that watchman, I would gladly sacrifice my life to prevent the destruction of the museum. And you could make the argument that saving the bacteria would save more human lives. That is a valid argument, but how do we know that we are not destroying a similarly precious discovery when we destroy priceless relics from the past.
This battery will probably not benefit humanity much, but this is why many people devote their entire lives to the pursuit of knowledge.
I have had this thought myself, more often lately. I have come to the conclusion that it's probably not an active conspiracy by MSFT. Instead, I think it is a passive effect of a monopoly system.
My example: Reviewer A writes a technical summary of some new MSFT product. Reviewer A invested months learning this new product and how it fits into MSFT's overall strategy. Reviewer A runs a consulting firm that specializes in MSFT products. That firm has invested time in training its people to know the new MSFT product. Reviewer A is probably not conciously being unethical, but he needs people to use this new MSFT product so his firm can make money helping companies solve the new problems that this product created. He writes a review/book that highlights the good points and downplays the bad points.
So, his review is biased, but it's not exactly a conspiracy by MSFT.
People are posting ideas about treeview back buttons and different back lists.
I use my History archive for this. I think the history archive could contain a little more "intelligence" in storing previously visited links, and I wish that Mozilla offered a "This Session" history folder that only contained sites/pages visited by the current instance of a browser.
History + configurable 5/7 button mouse + tabbed browsing = a pleasant navigation system.
However, it is good to always question the accepted method of interface design. So, I can't get too down on the article.
IANAEE, but if I remember my studies, a plastic-based car would provide much less or no protection from lightning. A car with a metal roof and sides attracts the lightning and creates an protective shell for passengers, as long as they are not directly touching any conductive material. Plastic cars provide no such insulation, and the occupents are as exposed as if they were just standing on the ground. I believe people have studied this exact phenomenon, and I encourage anybody who has more knowledge to please post replies.
Of course, the article seemed to be saying that the plastic would simply be a coating over the metal frame, like paint, and might not have the consequence described above.
I don't understand why ISP's care how many boxes are connected behind a firewall. All of the services in my area give you a fixed amount of bandwidth, including the cable companies who cap. I get 1.5 Mbps downstream/256k upstream through my DSL provider and it shouldn't matter if I have 1 computer or 10 computers sharing that connection. My contract does prohibit sharing the connection among multiple computers, but the installer said that they only use the provision when somebody is abusing the connection, e.g., reselling.
While the RIAA should be worried about piracy, I don't see why the MPAA/Valenti is so concerned. Here's why.
I often download divx rips of movies. I then watch the movie. If I like the movie I buy the DVD, which offers superior quality of video and audio and usually a plethora of special features, like director commentaries or deleted scenes. The movie probably cost between $75 - $150 million dollars to produce. I feel that $15 is not too much for me to pay for the quality of the movie and the extra features.
On the other hand, I download an album of VBR mp3's. I listen to it, and I usually like three or four songs, assuming I'm downloading an album because I've been exposed to the artist. (Otherwise, I might like one song.) I look at the CD, which (liberally) might have cost $350,000 to produce. The CD will cost me at least $15, and I will get a very minimal increase in quality with no added features. That is simply not worth it to me. By purchasing the CD, I get nothing, and I am sending the message that I like the music on the album. Of course, I have bought around 10 cd's in the last month, but they were albums on which I enjoyed a majority of songs.
The RIAA needs to adapt. Their options, as I see it, are to start producing better music or dramatically drop the price. Wasting efforts on DRM systems and lobbying for stricter laws is myopic and futile.
Sure, copying entire DVD's is possible now, but it is beyond the capability of most people. Spending my time finding and downloading an entire DVD image is not worth the cost, to me.
Re:Other combined advertising
on
Advergames
·
· Score: 1
Very true. I am completely ignoring every citizen's inalienable right to Bling Bling.
Other combined advertising
on
Advergames
·
· Score: 1
This topic reminds me of Nelly's newish song, "Air Force Ones." (Or something like that.) This song is so ingenious. He is singing about shoes, a commodity in which the majority of his target audience probably has some interest. He probably gets a kickback from some shoe manufacturer. I even saw him in a commercial for Foot Locker or Foot Action, singing his song and doing sporty things. I guess this has been a trend in rap music for a while, going back to RunDMC and Adidas, but I was just so amazed that Nelly is making money off of a song about shoes, using that song to sell shoes, and even does formal commercials with that song for shoe stores. Is it art? Is it advertisement? Does anybody care anymore?
This post is a little off the topic of "Advergames," but it does speak on the blurring lines of advertising and art.
I'm not positive, but I think that is effectively a completely different company, all of the management has been changed.
Below is a summary of some information from the Infogrames corporate site, listed above.
Infogrames Entertainment Acquisition History Year: Company Acquired, Region (Activity)
* 1996: Ocean Software, United Kingdom (Publishing)
* 1997: Philips Media, Netherlands (Distribution)
* 1998: ABS Multimedia, Portugal (Distribution)
* 1998: Arcadia, Spain (Distribution)
* 1998: Gremlin, United Kingdom (Development and Publishing)
* 1998: Game City, Switzerland (Distribution)
* 1998: Psygnosis, France (Development)
* 1999: Accolade, United States (Development and Publishing)
* 1999: Beam Software, Autsralia (Development)
* 1999: Ozisoft, Australia (Distribution)
* 1999: GT Interactive, United States (Development/Publishing/Distribution)
* 1999: Den-O-Tech, Canada (Development)
* 2000: Hasbro Interactive, United States (Publishing)
* 2000: Paradigm Entertainment, United States (Development)
* 2002: Shiny Entertainment, United States (Development)
* 2002: Eden Studios, France (Development)
For the next 15 or so years Nintendo will have an attribute that MS and Sony cannot completely kill. I grew up playing Nintendo systems. I loved playing Mario and Zelda and Metroid games. I absolutely loved it, and while I don't even own any of the current generation gaming systems, I still feel a flutter of nostalgia when I look at Nintendo products. Some part of me wants to support the company that brought me so much joy as a kid. And I can still play those same characters in new, awesome adventures. As long as Nintendo continues to develop products that are not significantly worse than the competition, I believe that their loyal consumer base (some loyalty to the company, some loyalty to the trademark characters) will keep them afloat for at least a few more generations of systems.
Although, I would like to hear that Nintendo is doing something revolutionary, instead of the same tired cartridge-based technology improvements.
/*I'd love to moderate this discussion, but I feel the overwhelming need to comment. When I say, "America," I mean the United States. */
America is big. America is digitally divided.
These facts preclude cyber cafes from being popular in every community that is not a large metropolis or a very hip compact area.
We have too much land, and we live too far apart. Those who are greatly interested in computers can afford one or a few.
If I could walk out my door or hop on the subway and be in a comfortable Internet cafe in ten minutes, I would consider it. If this cyber cafe offered many attributes over my home setup, I might consider it. However, I live in a heavily-suburban metropolitan area of about 450,000 people. I would have to get in my car and drive twenty minutes from my home to the closest cyber cafe, which offers high usage fees, sophomoric l33t teenagers, and bad grub. There is an Internet cafe very close to my office downtown, but I have a better free connection at work, on which I can use my personally-owned laptop.
With blindingly fast computers becoming dirt cheap and especially with broadband proliferating, Americans have few incentives, from a technological standpoint, to patronize an Internet cafe. Some kids/adults who want to play LAN games might enjoy it, but the best part of playing a lan game is yelling profanity across the hall at your opponent, excepting the low lag. It just requires too much effort for most Americans to get to the cyber cafes, and the only benefit they get is maybe a little camaraderie. Save your money and setup a home LAN.
For some areas, like NYC or any dense urban environment, cyber cafes can be successful. Success requires two things, assuming for the moment that you already have an incredible business design with enough startup capital. First, many people need to live within a ten minute travel time. Second, living space needs to be prohibitively expensive for an average family to have a LAN room. Most of America does not meet those two criteria.
I might be simplifying the situation, but I've participated (as a free network consultant) in two failed Internet cafes, one in outer New Orleans and one in Birmingham, AL. So I hope I'm not totally ignorant.
I have tried XP (extreme programming) about a dozen times, a few times as the keyer but more often as the watcher. In some cases, it produces some good results, but generally I dislike it. Here's why. When I am coding, my watcher (a good, skilled friend) catches a few mistakes that probably results in a net productivity, considering future debug time, increase of 25%. If we work together for one hour, we produce 1.25 hours worth of good coding. Working separately, perhaps on projects that require parallel development, we get 1.5 combined hours of good coding. I can understand that it might work for some pairs, but I will outline a better solution, for me, below. When I am the watcher, I get distracted so incredibly quickly that my only real value is in catching low-level mistakes. It is just impossible for me to maintain a high level of interest. That's just me, but I think that a lot of people feel similarly.
I think that instead of formally using XP, a better strategy to take is paired offices or physical workgroups. At my office, we have 8 month - 14 month projects, and when we begin a project, we move all of the design level programmers (about 6 usually) to a centrally located part of the office. We have a large white board and a large shared table. I often will have somebody sit next to me while I am coding, but we don't have these formal XP sessions. We tried following the rules strictly, and it just felt wasteful. Creating a comfortable work environment and teams that work well (synergistically if you like using that word) is so much more important, in my opinion.
Re:well, something tells me that
on
Real DRM
·
· Score: 2
Apparently I have been living under a rock, and I did not know about the Rosebowl Hoax. Goddam, that is one beautiful prank. Never before have I stumbled upon a prank that actually humbled me. It almost brings tears to my eyes for its undeniable genius.
Geez. That brings back memories. I used to have that yellow and black bumper stick on the back of my car. One summer I was driving to SummerCon, and I was pulled over by a Georgia state trooper, on 85 right outside of Atlanta. He actually knew what the sticker meant, and we discussed the merits of the case. It was a very cool experience and made me regain some trust in our government, all of which has subsequently been eroded. AND I only got a written warning for going 83 in a 70mph speed zone. Hell yeah.
If independent game development is to have much of a future, some foundational building blocks need to be created. An open source real-world physics engine would be a good first step. If this were done correctly, it would free independent game shops from thousands of hours of work.
Just as we have an open source operating system that we can use and manipulate however we choose, it would be an incredible advantage to have a few open source base gaming engines that could be used or manipulated.
{moderator note: somewhat offtopic reply to individual, please ignore}
I agree completely. I just sometimes miss those days when the only real concern when I woke up was "How can I defeat this Leviathan?" and then the sense of satisfaction I would get when I finally realized, "Cast Wall against it, and it won't be able to heal itself. EUREKA!" (Some people know what I'm talking about.) I have great satisfaction in most parts of my life; today I was just struck by the fact that I really could not care less about a video game awards show or a video game channel, when 12 years ago I would have been so excited about it. Now my satisfaction comes from creating artfully reusable and flexible classes and libraries.
Geez. I guess I really am a geek. Yep.
If your tastes don't change with time, you probably aren't learning anything new, which is a much more sad idea than a few wistful memories of carefree youth.
There is a significant part of my mind that wishes I were 13 again, with nothing to do on a saturday except play video games all day.
Is it an inherent quality of getting older to feel that all of the coolest shit is marketed at people younger than you?
I would now like to pause my life for several years to read good books, watch good movies, and play all of the RPG's I haven't even heard of.
ARrrrrrr.
Re:Strike one against Mozilla.
on
HotBot Returns
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· Score: 4, Informative
I am not an expert in this area, but I think the following information is accurate.
MS Internet Explorer uses many proprietary html tags and attributes.
Mozilla was designed to read all of the W3C Standards for website design.
If a site displays well on IE but poorly on Mozilla, it is often the case that the designers of the site focused on developing for IE and gave much less thought to being a standards-compliant site.
I don't know if this is the case with Hotbot, but this is an example of how a website could gain a "strike" because Mozilla does not display it as well as IE does.
BTW, I use Mozilla 1.2.1 on W2k at work, and I love it. It is so far superior to IE, IMO. The only feature I miss is the Google Toolbar, but Mozilla has a more robust search tab that can be configured more than the Google bar.
If a manufacturer won't let me buy a computer without a MS OS pre-installed, I just don't buy the computer from them. I know this can't be avoided sometimes, but I think it's better for this community to support manufacturers that are not so intimately in bed with MS.
For laptops, I would try PCTorque.com. (I have no association with the website, other than being a satisfied repeat customer.)
And, to remain on-topic, from everything I've ever experienced or read about MS and their aggressive licensing policies/ideology, I think that it will take an outcry from corporations before MS even begins to contemplate giving refunds on unused merchandise. You've already had the opportunity to see the registration key, and that's very important to them.
I hope Intel does not gain a position from which it can push its own wifi standards. Compatibility is nice, but I would hate to see the large number of wifi gear manufacturers reduced to two or three, as is the case with cpu's.
Slashdot Mirror
True. Most people do not care about much beyond their own stomach, but I think you are ignoring an obvious factor. We don't need people to vote or " to sit down and write a letter to their rep over some stupid copy protection that they don't even understand anyway". All we need is for ONE major media outlet to run a story in primetime that opposes these copy-protected CD's. Imagine Bill O'Reilly (or some other jackass) sitting on FoxNews complaining, "My kid bought this Weezer CD, and he put it in our CD player in the living room. And the CD broke my stereo. Not only did I waste money on a broken CD, now I have to spend money to get my stereo fixed. Now, apparently, some of the bigshots at the music companies have decided to take a technology that worked perfectly well and break it. Thank you very much music executives!"
Expose the public to the idea through a mainstream outlet, and make the public understand/think that copy-protected CD's will break their mystic technology. People don't need to protest to effect change.
Of course, this will never, ever, ever happen, because the RIAA has deeeep pockets and powerful bedfellows in the news industry. So, a few nerdy websites will mention this, and maybe even a reputable website like Salon or The Guardian will have a piece about it. But the majority of U.S. citizens will probably never hear of it.
Also, I think comparisons between corporations and the federal government are a little specious. The government has complete freedom until the next round of elections. Corporations have to respond to the market and public opinion much more quickly.
People would not need a book to use Linux if they were consistently exposed to it from first grade through high school, as children are now with MS products.
Using Linux is not very difficult; however it is very DIFFERENT from Windows.
A 3D desktop environment could change the paradigm of human-computer interaction, and it is a worthy concept to be researched. However, I would like to see more research put into the actual devices with which I communicate to my computer.
The mouse is a wonderful device for a simple 2D environment, where all I want to do is select objects and move objects horizontally or vertically. Beyond that, it is crap.
Voice recognition might one day get to the point where I rarely use my keyboard, except when in a cubicle environment or when programming.
But I haven't seen the next generation of human interaction devices, and I don't even know exactly what I think they should be. I just know that the mouse will eventually be inadequate. The only truly exciting device I've seen recently was a force-feedback glove that let me select objects (round basket-ball type things) in very, very simple 3D environment.
siewolf:
Since the benchmark page was slashdotted I might be speaking out of my ass. But I never trust "9000 times faster!". It sounds too "2 extra inches to your penis, guaranteed!"
And I'm not gonna get burned by those charlatans EVER AGAIN!!!
People keep implying that there is an inherent infinite value in human life. "The life of the night watchman is more important than all of the artifacts in the museum." I hate being the one to tell you this, but human life is not magically special, above all else in this world. My life and your life are not more important than the pursuit of knowledge.
Sure, I would rather destroy an old artifact than be destroyed myself. However, there comes a point at which the benefit of society outweighs the harm to an individual. Let's pretend that deep in the basement of an Iraqi museum lies an undiscovered bacterium that miraculously cures HIV, and there is one night watchman guarding the museum. The US accidentally bombs that museum, vaporizing everything contained therein, including the watchman and the bacteria. Which is a worse loss?
I don't have a rational answer to that question, but I know that, were I that watchman, I would gladly sacrifice my life to prevent the destruction of the museum. And you could make the argument that saving the bacteria would save more human lives. That is a valid argument, but how do we know that we are not destroying a similarly precious discovery when we destroy priceless relics from the past.
This battery will probably not benefit humanity much, but this is why many people devote their entire lives to the pursuit of knowledge.
I have had this thought myself, more often lately. I have come to the conclusion that it's probably not an active conspiracy by MSFT. Instead, I think it is a passive effect of a monopoly system.
My example:
Reviewer A writes a technical summary of some new MSFT product. Reviewer A invested months learning this new product and how it fits into MSFT's overall strategy. Reviewer A runs a consulting firm that specializes in MSFT products. That firm has invested time in training its people to know the new MSFT product. Reviewer A is probably not conciously being unethical, but he needs people to use this new MSFT product so his firm can make money helping companies solve the new problems that this product created. He writes a review/book that highlights the good points and downplays the bad points.
So, his review is biased, but it's not exactly a conspiracy by MSFT.
People are posting ideas about treeview back buttons and different back lists.
I use my History archive for this. I think the history archive could contain a little more "intelligence" in storing previously visited links, and I wish that Mozilla offered a "This Session" history folder that only contained sites/pages visited by the current instance of a browser.
History + configurable 5/7 button mouse + tabbed browsing = a pleasant navigation system.
However, it is good to always question the accepted method of interface design. So, I can't get too down on the article.
IANAEE, but if I remember my studies, a plastic-based car would provide much less or no protection from lightning. A car with a metal roof and sides attracts the lightning and creates an protective shell for passengers, as long as they are not directly touching any conductive material. Plastic cars provide no such insulation, and the occupents are as exposed as if they were just standing on the ground. I believe people have studied this exact phenomenon, and I encourage anybody who has more knowledge to please post replies.
Of course, the article seemed to be saying that the plastic would simply be a coating over the metal frame, like paint, and might not have the consequence described above.
I don't understand why ISP's care how many boxes are connected behind a firewall. All of the services in my area give you a fixed amount of bandwidth, including the cable companies who cap. I get 1.5 Mbps downstream/256k upstream through my DSL provider and it shouldn't matter if I have 1 computer or 10 computers sharing that connection. My contract does prohibit sharing the connection among multiple computers, but the installer said that they only use the provision when somebody is abusing the connection, e.g., reselling.
While the RIAA should be worried about piracy, I don't see why the MPAA/Valenti is so concerned. Here's why.
I often download divx rips of movies. I then watch the movie. If I like the movie I buy the DVD, which offers superior quality of video and audio and usually a plethora of special features, like director commentaries or deleted scenes. The movie probably cost between $75 - $150 million dollars to produce. I feel that $15 is not too much for me to pay for the quality of the movie and the extra features.
On the other hand, I download an album of VBR mp3's. I listen to it, and I usually like three or four songs, assuming I'm downloading an album because I've been exposed to the artist. (Otherwise, I might like one song.) I look at the CD, which (liberally) might have cost $350,000 to produce. The CD will cost me at least $15, and I will get a very minimal increase in quality with no added features. That is simply not worth it to me. By purchasing the CD, I get nothing, and I am sending the message that I like the music on the album. Of course, I have bought around 10 cd's in the last month, but they were albums on which I enjoyed a majority of songs.
The RIAA needs to adapt. Their options, as I see it, are to start producing better music or dramatically drop the price. Wasting efforts on DRM systems and lobbying for stricter laws is myopic and futile.
Sure, copying entire DVD's is possible now, but it is beyond the capability of most people. Spending my time finding and downloading an entire DVD image is not worth the cost, to me.
Very true. I am completely ignoring every citizen's inalienable right to Bling Bling.
This topic reminds me of Nelly's newish song, "Air Force Ones." (Or something like that.) This song is so ingenious. He is singing about shoes, a commodity in which the majority of his target audience probably has some interest. He probably gets a kickback from some shoe manufacturer. I even saw him in a commercial for Foot Locker or Foot Action, singing his song and doing sporty things. I guess this has been a trend in rap music for a while, going back to RunDMC and Adidas, but I was just so amazed that Nelly is making money off of a song about shoes, using that song to sell shoes, and even does formal commercials with that song for shoe stores. Is it art? Is it advertisement? Does anybody care anymore?
This post is a little off the topic of "Advergames," but it does speak on the blurring lines of advertising and art.
I'll indulge your offtopic request.
Atari is owned by Infogrames of France.
I'm not positive, but I think that is effectively a completely different company, all of the management has been changed.
Below is a summary of some information from the Infogrames corporate site, listed above.
Infogrames Entertainment Acquisition History
Year: Company Acquired, Region (Activity)
* 1996: Ocean Software, United Kingdom (Publishing)
* 1997: Philips Media, Netherlands (Distribution)
* 1998: ABS Multimedia, Portugal (Distribution)
* 1998: Arcadia, Spain (Distribution)
* 1998: Gremlin, United Kingdom (Development and Publishing)
* 1998: Game City, Switzerland (Distribution)
* 1998: Psygnosis, France (Development)
* 1999: Accolade, United States (Development and Publishing)
* 1999: Beam Software, Autsralia (Development)
* 1999: Ozisoft, Australia (Distribution)
* 1999: GT Interactive, United States (Development/Publishing/Distribution)
* 1999: Den-O-Tech, Canada (Development)
* 2000: Hasbro Interactive, United States (Publishing)
* 2000: Paradigm Entertainment, United States (Development)
* 2002: Shiny Entertainment, United States (Development)
* 2002: Eden Studios, France (Development)
For the next 15 or so years Nintendo will have an attribute that MS and Sony cannot completely kill. I grew up playing Nintendo systems. I loved playing Mario and Zelda and Metroid games. I absolutely loved it, and while I don't even own any of the current generation gaming systems, I still feel a flutter of nostalgia when I look at Nintendo products. Some part of me wants to support the company that brought me so much joy as a kid. And I can still play those same characters in new, awesome adventures. As long as Nintendo continues to develop products that are not significantly worse than the competition, I believe that their loyal consumer base (some loyalty to the company, some loyalty to the trademark characters) will keep them afloat for at least a few more generations of systems.
Although, I would like to hear that Nintendo is doing something revolutionary, instead of the same tired cartridge-based technology improvements.
/*I'd love to moderate this discussion, but I feel the overwhelming need to comment. When I say, "America," I mean the United States. */
America is big. America is digitally divided.
These facts preclude cyber cafes from being popular in every community that is not a large metropolis or a very hip compact area.
We have too much land, and we live too far apart. Those who are greatly interested in computers can afford one or a few.
If I could walk out my door or hop on the subway and be in a comfortable Internet cafe in ten minutes, I would consider it. If this cyber cafe offered many attributes over my home setup, I might consider it. However, I live in a heavily-suburban metropolitan area of about 450,000 people. I would have to get in my car and drive twenty minutes from my home to the closest cyber cafe, which offers high usage fees, sophomoric l33t teenagers, and bad grub. There is an Internet cafe very close to my office downtown, but I have a better free connection at work, on which I can use my personally-owned laptop.
With blindingly fast computers becoming dirt cheap and especially with broadband proliferating, Americans have few incentives, from a technological standpoint, to patronize an Internet cafe. Some kids/adults who want to play LAN games might enjoy it, but the best part of playing a lan game is yelling profanity across the hall at your opponent, excepting the low lag. It just requires too much effort for most Americans to get to the cyber cafes, and the only benefit they get is maybe a little camaraderie. Save your money and setup a home LAN.
For some areas, like NYC or any dense urban environment, cyber cafes can be successful. Success requires two things, assuming for the moment that you already have an incredible business design with enough startup capital. First, many people need to live within a ten minute travel time. Second, living space needs to be prohibitively expensive for an average family to have a LAN room. Most of America does not meet those two criteria.
I might be simplifying the situation, but I've participated (as a free network consultant) in two failed Internet cafes, one in outer New Orleans and one in Birmingham, AL. So I hope I'm not totally ignorant.
I have tried XP (extreme programming) about a dozen times, a few times as the keyer but more often as the watcher. In some cases, it produces some good results, but generally I dislike it. Here's why. When I am coding, my watcher (a good, skilled friend) catches a few mistakes that probably results in a net productivity, considering future debug time, increase of 25%. If we work together for one hour, we produce 1.25 hours worth of good coding. Working separately, perhaps on projects that require parallel development, we get 1.5 combined hours of good coding. I can understand that it might work for some pairs, but I will outline a better solution, for me, below. When I am the watcher, I get distracted so incredibly quickly that my only real value is in catching low-level mistakes. It is just impossible for me to maintain a high level of interest. That's just me, but I think that a lot of people feel similarly.
I think that instead of formally using XP, a better strategy to take is paired offices or physical workgroups. At my office, we have 8 month - 14 month projects, and when we begin a project, we move all of the design level programmers (about 6 usually) to a centrally located part of the office. We have a large white board and a large shared table. I often will have somebody sit next to me while I am coding, but we don't have these formal XP sessions. We tried following the rules strictly, and it just felt wasteful. Creating a comfortable work environment and teams that work well (synergistically if you like using that word) is so much more important, in my opinion.
Holy fuck. That's too funny.
Apparently I have been living under a rock, and I did not know about the Rosebowl Hoax. Goddam, that is one beautiful prank. Never before have I stumbled upon a prank that actually humbled me. It almost brings tears to my eyes for its undeniable genius.
Or maybe it's just these spicy black-eyed peas.
Geez. That brings back memories. I used to have that yellow and black bumper stick on the back of my car. One summer I was driving to SummerCon, and I was pulled over by a Georgia state trooper, on 85 right outside of Atlanta. He actually knew what the sticker meant, and we discussed the merits of the case. It was a very cool experience and made me regain some trust in our government, all of which has subsequently been eroded. AND I only got a written warning for going 83 in a 70mph speed zone. Hell yeah.
If independent game development is to have much of a future, some foundational building blocks need to be created. An open source real-world physics engine would be a good first step. If this were done correctly, it would free independent game shops from thousands of hours of work.
Just as we have an open source operating system that we can use and manipulate however we choose, it would be an incredible advantage to have a few open source base gaming engines that could be used or manipulated.
Or maybe that's unrealistic...I don't know.
{moderator note: somewhat offtopic reply to individual, please ignore}
I agree completely. I just sometimes miss those days when the only real concern when I woke up was "How can I defeat this Leviathan?" and then the sense of satisfaction I would get when I finally realized, "Cast Wall against it, and it won't be able to heal itself. EUREKA!" (Some people know what I'm talking about.) I have great satisfaction in most parts of my life; today I was just struck by the fact that I really could not care less about a video game awards show or a video game channel, when 12 years ago I would have been so excited about it. Now my satisfaction comes from creating artfully reusable and flexible classes and libraries.
Geez. I guess I really am a geek. Yep.
If your tastes don't change with time, you probably aren't learning anything new, which is a much more sad idea than a few wistful memories of carefree youth.
There is a significant part of my mind that wishes I were 13 again, with nothing to do on a saturday except play video games all day.
Is it an inherent quality of getting older to feel that all of the coolest shit is marketed at people younger than you?
I would now like to pause my life for several years to read good books, watch good movies, and play all of the RPG's I haven't even heard of.
ARrrrrrr.
I am not an expert in this area, but I think the following information is accurate.
MS Internet Explorer uses many proprietary html tags and attributes.
Mozilla was designed to read all of the W3C Standards for website design.
If a site displays well on IE but poorly on Mozilla, it is often the case that the designers of the site focused on developing for IE and gave much less thought to being a standards-compliant site.
I don't know if this is the case with Hotbot, but this is an example of how a website could gain a "strike" because Mozilla does not display it as well as IE does.
BTW, I use Mozilla 1.2.1 on W2k at work, and I love it. It is so far superior to IE, IMO. The only feature I miss is the Google Toolbar, but Mozilla has a more robust search tab that can be configured more than the Google bar.
If a manufacturer won't let me buy a computer without a MS OS pre-installed, I just don't buy the computer from them. I know this can't be avoided sometimes, but I think it's better for this community to support manufacturers that are not so intimately in bed with MS.
For laptops, I would try PCTorque.com. (I have no association with the website, other than being a satisfied repeat customer.)
And, to remain on-topic, from everything I've ever experienced or read about MS and their aggressive licensing policies/ideology, I think that it will take an outcry from corporations before MS even begins to contemplate giving refunds on unused merchandise. You've already had the opportunity to see the registration key, and that's very important to them.
I hope Intel does not gain a position from which it can push its own wifi standards. Compatibility is nice, but I would hate to see the large number of wifi gear manufacturers reduced to two or three, as is the case with cpu's.