When you say "IE", can you please clarify whether you mean IE in general, or IE6? Because IE6 is the primary problem- later versions aren't perfect, but they're vastly improved in terms of standards support.
Anyway, IE6 is declining in use, fortunately. I will not let one dying browser dictate the core structure of my website.
When I design a site, IE6 is still important enough that I try to ensure it looks both workable and presentable with IE6. However, I will not compromise the design and future maintainability of my site for a browser whose market share will soon be insignificant now that some of the big players are abandoning it.
This means that (e.g.) I will happily design using PNG alpha-transparency for the benefit of IE7+/Firefox/everything-else-except-Lynx users, then replace the subtlely graduated background with a slightly less-pretty but still functional white one for IE6. And this will be done using separate inclusions, exceptions etc., for IE6.
Ultimately, designing with IE6 in mind means everyone gets the mediocre experiences, instead of just the IE6 users.
The problem with all browsers other than IE is that they're fragmenting the "feature-space" too much.
Essentially, you're arguing in favour of both a browser monopoly and of stagnation. Monopolies do have some advantages, but they also have massive disadvantages- the most obvious example here being that IE6 was barely developed for years until Mozilla started to give it some serious competition. I can guarantee you that MS would not have started developing it again to the same extent if they'd continued to have the near-monopoly they enjoyed in the early-2000s.
Do try to browse the web with a 2 year old Mozilla browser. You'll be surprised how many web sites don't work right.
That's not the same as not being able to surf the web as you claimed.
Of course this is the result of web developers caring more about making sites compatible with IE6 than with slightly outdated Mozilla browsers. That it is this way for a reason is the point I'm trying to make!
They developed for it because every man and his dog was using IE6 until a few years back, and some still are. Part of that is due to corporate reliance on IE6- companies with systems that don't even work on later versions of IE(!!!) are still using it. By designing around a particular "standard" browser, they're now stuck on it because it wasn't standard!
And yes, the reason that the should-have-been-pensioned-off-years-ago IE6 still works is because people put the effort into developing for it. Ultimately the argument that IE6 should be continued to be supported for such self-perpetuating reasons would lead to a 2001-era browser being used and forcing sites to the lowest-common-denominator for eternity.
Still, you can browse the web with IE6 from 2001, but not with a Mozilla browser from 2009.... The web as we know it works on a 10 year old browser
You can't browse the web with a Mozilla browser from 2009? Bullshit.
And yes, of course you can still browse the majority of the web on IE6. That's because most websites made in the past decade have had to be explicitly designed to support it and its idiosyncracies!- often (though less so nowadays) to the detriment of other, more standard browsers.
Let's see what we can do with IE and implement that. If the same implementation works on other browsers too, nobody looks for ways to complicate things by making an alternative code path. If more "standards compliant" browsers want it done differently, then the solution with the least amount of differences is chosen.
It's generally accepted that it's a lot easier to code something relatively standards-compliant *then* figure out what needs to be done to get it to work with IE. To be fair, that advice dates back to the IE6 era- newer versions of IE are more standard and need less work- but as your argument is essentially "IE6 may be old and creaky, but it's still more 'standard' than Mozilla et all"... that's rubbish.
If I code a site so that it already works in Mozilla, it generally works pretty well in (e.g.) Safari without having been tuned beforehand. In fact, it often works quite decently with IE7+.
Mozilla might not support everything, but it's more a question of what it does and doesn't have at any given point, rather than the use of gratuitously proprietary and nonstandard crap that MS got away with because they had a huge market share.
A typical conference trip for me cost £500-1000, and my card gave 1% cash back, so that worked out to £5-10 of free money (on top of the free holiday).
Don't get me wrong- a fiver's better than a slap in the face, and I'd take it given the opportunity (because it would be stupid not to), but it's pretty negligible as an "added bonus" you have to admit.
IE6, the bane of web developers everywhere, turns out to be one of the most reliable development targets
Yeah, it can be relied on to fuck up a standards *and* even IE7+ compliant page in several different ways, requiring irritating, tedious and untidy workarounds.:-/
Extrapolation [xkcd.com]: because past performance perfectly predicts future growth.
It's funny, and does make a valid point about silly extrapolations. However, it's flawed in that an arbitrary point was chosen for the "0" husbands point- they could have chosen any time prior to the point of marriage with equal validity- 5 seconds, 1 day, 20 years, and would have got very different results for each.
In fact, I'm not sure anything meaningful can be extrapolated from a situation like that- you could get an infinitely steep line by choosing a point infinitely close to the point of marriage, but that's just as bad, showing the meaninglessness of acting like discrete events are continuous. (If you had more points, you could probably legitimately draw a line through them if they displayed that trend, but it's not the case here).
BTW, are you sure that this XKCD isn't more relevant to the subject at hand?;-)
seriously, Java in the browser in the mid '90s was painful. Even today, you don't see it much
That's because Applets (ironically the early Java's most-hyped aspect) flopped, probably for the reason you gave. While it might be more workable today, if you think about it, the niche doesn't exist any more- Flash now does pretty much what Java Applets were originally going to do.
Though it wouldn't really be accurate to say that Flash beat Applets- IIRC by the time Flash had evolved beyond its animation origins enough to seriously compete with Applets on functionality, Applets had already flopped on their own (lack of) merit.
A really nice advantage of the move to x86 has been that it has become much easier to port all kinds of FOSS programs to the Mac, especially since it comes with X.
Surely the latter- and the fact that OS X is BSD-like- is more important than the Intel-based CPU, since I assume you could recompile it for PowerPC anyway, being FOSS and all that?...!
I had a software-based PC emulator on my low-end Amiga 500 (same CPU as the Amiga 1000) just to see what it was like. It was *unbelievably* slow- you could often see individual letters appear on-screen in response to typed commands.
As strange as it might sound, Apple made NeXT's products affordable.
I doubt that they could have done NeXT-style products at anything like that price at the time that NeXT were originally making them, though. The power to price ratio was vastly higher between the late 80s and the late 90s (when OS X came out). To have made them back then, I doubt Apple could have done it much cheaper.
I think another reason U.S. arcades died out is because of cost. $1-$1.25 per game for some is beyond expensive
I remember in the late 80s hearing that After Burner (IIRC) cost UK £1 a pop. I remember that because it seemed damn expensive at the time. Allowing for an approximate doubling in prices over the past 20 years, that's around £2.
Converted at present-day rates (*), that's US $3.24. It *was* damn expensive, and makes $1-$1.25 seem quite cheap.
(*) Of course, should I have converted to dollars first (at late-80s rates), then multiplied by *US* inflation. I asked before, and the reply I got was that it shouldn't matter which way round it's done.
You're right, from your tone I mistook you for the OP. The fact remains that the obligation is on the person making an assertion to provide evidence to back that up. It is *not* the responsibility of someone questioning it to do that for them.
Instead, there is no sincere interest, just a lazy challenge.
Again, it's not the questioner's responsibility to do the OP's work for them. It's the OP's job to at least demonstrate why their assertion should justify someone's interest in the first place.
You're just another lazy wanker who couldn't even be bothered to read the thread comprehensively.
You're right. I don't read every detail of a Slashdot thread comprehensively- life is too short. That doesn't constitute laziness.
Oh, and I really care about your opinion of lmgtfy.
I know that when it came out a few years back, you thought it was a fantastic shortcut to pretending you were witty, superior and insightful when you were none of those things yourself. But the sad truth is that it's worn thin and it just makes you sound like a smug, lazy loser rehashing 2008's canned insult.
It's insulting really
No, insulting would be calling people a "lazy wanker" because they don't wish to read every minute, anally-retentive detail of a forum thread, or don't have 78 hours a day to do so and still have a life. Or because they can't be bothered looking into every unsubstantiated assertion that even the original random poster couldn't even be bothered to back up.
Visiting myspace was much like walking into a pool supply retail outlet and suddenly finding yourself in a bounce house full of idiots on methamphetamines. Having a personal page on myspace has all the cachet of shopping at K-Mart.
MySpace came across as Geocities for the new decade. A new decade in which social networking was more important, but 13-year-olds still had precisely no design skills.
They didn't just have fugly patterned backgrounds, no... they reintroduced *fixed, non-scrolling* fugly patterned backgrounds. Remember those? They were
common on the early web (circa mid-90s) but had died out almost completely by the millennium because.... well, because they sucked, and they still suck. I hadn't seen one on a new page for years when I caught some on MySpace.
It's happening in and around Detroit especially, but all over the country too. Google [lmgtfy.com] is your friend you lazy wanker.
It's not his job to back up *your* assertions with the evidence that *you* (not him) were too lazy to provide. If it was so damn simple, you should have included it in the first place.
Are you seriously saying that The Coca-Cola Company is only worth $500M? I find that hard to believe, particularly as "Wendys/Arby's" (a primarily North American restaurant chain) is meant to be worth $2B.
Sure, $500M is a lot of money in general terms. But for a company as widespread and influential as Coca-Cola (who, let's not forget, sell very many other products too), it's unfeasibly small.
But since anyone can act as Anonymous then the WBC claim was legit. I can put up a server, make myself a part of Anonymous, attempt to hack my server, leave Anonymous, then claim Anonymous tried to hack my server.
Technically you're correct, but in practice this is wilfully pedantic, unhelpful and not the interpretation any reasonable person would put on it. So, typical Slashdot then:-)
In all seriousness, while one can argue that the "membership" of Anonymous is open to the point of meaninglessness, I don't think you could say that "Anonymous" attacked WBC if they attacked themselves.
Oh, and I'd like to say that WBC are a bunch of attention whores... but then, that's not news.
Although sounding a bit pedantic, the game was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1986. The cartridge version for the Famicom didn't get released until a few years later, well after the American NES version's 1987 release.
Who cares? She looks at least 25.... matter of fact, Zelda looks a *lot* older than 25. Did she have radical cosmetic surgery after she appeared in Terrahawks?
Nonetheless, Leia was right. In the wider context, the Death Star itself was destroyed. If they hadn't been so heavy-handed, the Empire would have survived. But they pushed people too far. The Empire caused the rebellion.
Perhaps so, but nevertheless its oft-omitted context would still take the confidence out of the geeky assertion if this was thought about more.
Well, that and the fact it's from a totally fictitious film and therefore isn't a legitimate example of how the real world works, regardless of how great it sounds to a bunch of nerds:-)
(It's not an online game, but) the only time I'm allowed to play Dwarf Fortress is after my lady has fallen asleep (or the rare event that I happen to be home when she isn't). She simply hates watching me game on the bigscreen bedroom TV. Oh sure, she can play Lego Indiana Jones all day Sunday, but as soon as I launch Dwarf Fortress or Warzone 2100, suddenly gaming is lame.
Sounds like it's your fault for being a doormat then.
You can't control the internet. Someone needs to remind the government of Vietnam that the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems slip through your fingers.
I love how countless nerds-people who ought to know Star Wars *way* better than I do- use that quote in a similar way to you, yet seem to forget its context and what happened immediately following Leia saying it-
Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now. Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Tarkin: Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan.
Leia: [shocked] No! Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can't possibly...—
Tarkin: You would prefer another target? A military target?! Then name the system! [stepping closer to Leia and pinning her against Darth Vader] I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time. Where is the Rebel base?
Leia: [looks at Alderaan for a moment, then, resigned] Dantooine. They're on Dantooine.
Tarkin: There. You see, Lord Vader? She can be reasonable. Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.
Leia: [panicked] What?!
Tarkin: You're far too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry. We will deal with your rebel friends soon enough.
Leia: No. [The Death Star destroys Alderaan]
To be fair, the Scots are reportedly opposed to the proposals because of how dark it'll make their mornings...it does seem fairly England-led. (Some of England, at least - I'm not at all in favour.)
I'm in Wales, and I'm in favour. I'd much rather have daylight in the early evening when I can go outside and use it than in the early morning.
Nice for you I'm sure, but it doesn't add any weight against the English-led argument, since Wales is at similar latitude to the English population centres (which is what counts here) not Scotland.
Your historical knowledge is not accurate. Intel-based IBM PC-compatibles were already outselling the competition (Atari, Commodore, Apple) by 10-to-1 before windows became commonplace (i.e. before 1991)
Which market does that refer to- the US or worldwide? Because while I'm willing to accept that it may have been the case in the US, the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga were very popular in Europe during the late 80s and early 90s, certainly moreso than the PC during that same era. (Yes, I know they flopped in the US- this rather proves the point that the US market did *not* reflect the worldwide situation.)
Although the PC gained some popularity in the UK with Amstrad's cheap compatibles in the mid-to-late 80s, DOS and Windows-based machines *never* came close to outselling the Amiga and ST during that era, let alone by "10-to-1". It wasn't until about 1992-93 that the market started to clearly shift in favour of the PC.
What was the appeal of TiVo in the first place, that justified the £10 a month subscription? There are plenty of DVRs with EPGs available, where the only cost is the up-front cost of the box.
I agree that £10/month sounds pretty steep. That said, remember that the UK boxes in question were sold around a decade ago, and things have moved on a lot since then. DVRs weren't common at all (don't remember any competitors to Tivo at the time), terrestrial TV (which was all analogue) didn't have a fancy EPG, even Sky+ wasn't even around then (IIRC didn't Sky basically exploit and stiff Tivo to benefit Sky+?), and even if Sky had an EPG, how do you get your Tivo to use the information in it automatically?
Plus half the supposed benefit of Tivo was that it was meant to be "smart" and recommend stuff based on your preferences and viewing habits. Maybe not such a big deal nowadays, but it's easy to forget what we didn't have ten years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, IE6 is declining in use, fortunately. I will not let one dying browser dictate the core structure of my website.
When I design a site, IE6 is still important enough that I try to ensure it looks both workable and presentable with IE6. However, I will not compromise the design and future maintainability of my site for a browser whose market share will soon be insignificant now that some of the big players are abandoning it.
This means that (e.g.) I will happily design using PNG alpha-transparency for the benefit of IE7+/Firefox/everything-else-except-Lynx users, then replace the subtlely graduated background with a slightly less-pretty but still functional white one for IE6. And this will be done using separate inclusions, exceptions etc., for IE6.
Ultimately, designing with IE6 in mind means everyone gets the mediocre experiences, instead of just the IE6 users.
The problem with all browsers other than IE is that they're fragmenting the "feature-space" too much.
Essentially, you're arguing in favour of both a browser monopoly and of stagnation. Monopolies do have some advantages, but they also have massive disadvantages- the most obvious example here being that IE6 was barely developed for years until Mozilla started to give it some serious competition. I can guarantee you that MS would not have started developing it again to the same extent if they'd continued to have the near-monopoly they enjoyed in the early-2000s.
Do try to browse the web with a 2 year old Mozilla browser. You'll be surprised how many web sites don't work right.
That's not the same as not being able to surf the web as you claimed.
Of course this is the result of web developers caring more about making sites compatible with IE6 than with slightly outdated Mozilla browsers. That it is this way for a reason is the point I'm trying to make!
They developed for it because every man and his dog was using IE6 until a few years back, and some still are. Part of that is due to corporate reliance on IE6- companies with systems that don't even work on later versions of IE(!!!) are still using it. By designing around a particular "standard" browser, they're now stuck on it because it wasn't standard!
And yes, the reason that the should-have-been-pensioned-off-years-ago IE6 still works is because people put the effort into developing for it. Ultimately the argument that IE6 should be continued to be supported for such self-perpetuating reasons would lead to a 2001-era browser being used and forcing sites to the lowest-common-denominator for eternity.
Still, you can browse the web with IE6 from 2001, but not with a Mozilla browser from 2009.... The web as we know it works on a 10 year old browser
You can't browse the web with a Mozilla browser from 2009? Bullshit.
And yes, of course you can still browse the majority of the web on IE6. That's because most websites made in the past decade have had to be explicitly designed to support it and its idiosyncracies!- often (though less so nowadays) to the detriment of other, more standard browsers.
Let's see what we can do with IE and implement that. If the same implementation works on other browsers too, nobody looks for ways to complicate things by making an alternative code path. If more "standards compliant" browsers want it done differently, then the solution with the least amount of differences is chosen.
It's generally accepted that it's a lot easier to code something relatively standards-compliant *then* figure out what needs to be done to get it to work with IE. To be fair, that advice dates back to the IE6 era- newer versions of IE are more standard and need less work- but as your argument is essentially "IE6 may be old and creaky, but it's still more 'standard' than Mozilla et all"... that's rubbish.
If I code a site so that it already works in Mozilla, it generally works pretty well in (e.g.) Safari without having been tuned beforehand. In fact, it often works quite decently with IE7+.
Mozilla might not support everything, but it's more a question of what it does and doesn't have at any given point, rather than the use of gratuitously proprietary and nonstandard crap that MS got away with because they had a huge market share.
A typical conference trip for me cost £500-1000, and my card gave 1% cash back, so that worked out to £5-10 of free money (on top of the free holiday).
Don't get me wrong- a fiver's better than a slap in the face, and I'd take it given the opportunity (because it would be stupid not to), but it's pretty negligible as an "added bonus" you have to admit.
IE6, the bane of web developers everywhere, turns out to be one of the most reliable development targets
Yeah, it can be relied on to fuck up a standards *and* even IE7+ compliant page in several different ways, requiring irritating, tedious and untidy workarounds. :-/
Extrapolation [xkcd.com]: because past performance perfectly predicts future growth.
It's funny, and does make a valid point about silly extrapolations. However, it's flawed in that an arbitrary point was chosen for the "0" husbands point- they could have chosen any time prior to the point of marriage with equal validity- 5 seconds, 1 day, 20 years, and would have got very different results for each.
;-)
In fact, I'm not sure anything meaningful can be extrapolated from a situation like that- you could get an infinitely steep line by choosing a point infinitely close to the point of marriage, but that's just as bad, showing the meaninglessness of acting like discrete events are continuous. (If you had more points, you could probably legitimately draw a line through them if they displayed that trend, but it's not the case here).
BTW, are you sure that this XKCD isn't more relevant to the subject at hand?
seriously, Java in the browser in the mid '90s was painful. Even today, you don't see it much
That's because Applets (ironically the early Java's most-hyped aspect) flopped, probably for the reason you gave. While it might be more workable today, if you think about it, the niche doesn't exist any more- Flash now does pretty much what Java Applets were originally going to do.
Though it wouldn't really be accurate to say that Flash beat Applets- IIRC by the time Flash had evolved beyond its animation origins enough to seriously compete with Applets on functionality, Applets had already flopped on their own (lack of) merit.
A really nice advantage of the move to x86 has been that it has become much easier to port all kinds of FOSS programs to the Mac, especially since it comes with X.
Surely the latter- and the fact that OS X is BSD-like- is more important than the Intel-based CPU, since I assume you could recompile it for PowerPC anyway, being FOSS and all that?...!
(2) Mid 90's Mac running the legacy (classic) Mac OS did the same thing, a PC on a card.
The original Commodore Amiga 1000 did something similar in the mid-80s- basically a PC on a card.
I had a software-based PC emulator on my low-end Amiga 500 (same CPU as the Amiga 1000) just to see what it was like. It was *unbelievably* slow- you could often see individual letters appear on-screen in response to typed commands.
As strange as it might sound, Apple made NeXT's products affordable.
I doubt that they could have done NeXT-style products at anything like that price at the time that NeXT were originally making them, though. The power to price ratio was vastly higher between the late 80s and the late 90s (when OS X came out). To have made them back then, I doubt Apple could have done it much cheaper.
I think another reason U.S. arcades died out is because of cost. $1-$1.25 per game for some is beyond expensive
I remember in the late 80s hearing that After Burner (IIRC) cost UK £1 a pop. I remember that because it seemed damn expensive at the time. Allowing for an approximate doubling in prices over the past 20 years, that's around £2.
Converted at present-day rates (*), that's US $3.24. It *was* damn expensive, and makes $1-$1.25 seem quite cheap.
(*) Of course, should I have converted to dollars first (at late-80s rates), then multiplied by *US* inflation. I asked before, and the reply I got was that it shouldn't matter which way round it's done.
Learn2Read.
Learn to write.
It is not my obligation to do anything
You're right, from your tone I mistook you for the OP. The fact remains that the obligation is on the person making an assertion to provide evidence to back that up. It is *not* the responsibility of someone questioning it to do that for them.
Instead, there is no sincere interest, just a lazy challenge.
Again, it's not the questioner's responsibility to do the OP's work for them. It's the OP's job to at least demonstrate why their assertion should justify someone's interest in the first place.
You're just another lazy wanker who couldn't even be bothered to read the thread comprehensively.
You're right. I don't read every detail of a Slashdot thread comprehensively- life is too short. That doesn't constitute laziness.
Oh, and I really care about your opinion of lmgtfy.
I know that when it came out a few years back, you thought it was a fantastic shortcut to pretending you were witty, superior and insightful when you were none of those things yourself. But the sad truth is that it's worn thin and it just makes you sound like a smug, lazy loser rehashing 2008's canned insult.
It's insulting really
No, insulting would be calling people a "lazy wanker" because they don't wish to read every minute, anally-retentive detail of a forum thread, or don't have 78 hours a day to do so and still have a life. Or because they can't be bothered looking into every unsubstantiated assertion that even the original random poster couldn't even be bothered to back up.
Weirdo.
I hear tell of some torrent of bits that can be used over the series of tubes we call the internet when content creators fuck up like that.
Perhaps, but that isn't "streaming" since you don't normally(?) get to see it until you have the lot.
Visiting myspace was much like walking into a pool supply retail outlet and suddenly finding yourself in a bounce house full of idiots on methamphetamines. Having a personal page on myspace has all the cachet of shopping at K-Mart.
MySpace came across as Geocities for the new decade. A new decade in which social networking was more important, but 13-year-olds still had precisely no design skills.
They didn't just have fugly patterned backgrounds, no... they reintroduced *fixed, non-scrolling* fugly patterned backgrounds. Remember those? They were common on the early web (circa mid-90s) but had died out almost completely by the millennium because.... well, because they sucked, and they still suck. I hadn't seen one on a new page for years when I caught some on MySpace.
MySpace- "The goggles do nothing".
It's happening in and around Detroit especially, but all over the country too. Google [lmgtfy.com] is your friend you lazy wanker.
It's not his job to back up *your* assertions with the evidence that *you* (not him) were too lazy to provide. If it was so damn simple, you should have included it in the first place.
And lmgtfy.com is old, old hat now.
Coke ($500M)
Are you seriously saying that The Coca-Cola Company is only worth $500M? I find that hard to believe, particularly as "Wendys/Arby's" (a primarily North American restaurant chain) is meant to be worth $2B.
Sure, $500M is a lot of money in general terms. But for a company as widespread and influential as Coca-Cola (who, let's not forget, sell very many other products too), it's unfeasibly small.
But since anyone can act as Anonymous then the WBC claim was legit. I can put up a server, make myself a part of Anonymous, attempt to hack my server, leave Anonymous, then claim Anonymous tried to hack my server.
Technically you're correct, but in practice this is wilfully pedantic, unhelpful and not the interpretation any reasonable person would put on it. So, typical Slashdot then :-)
In all seriousness, while one can argue that the "membership" of Anonymous is open to the point of meaninglessness, I don't think you could say that "Anonymous" attacked WBC if they attacked themselves.
Oh, and I'd like to say that WBC are a bunch of attention whores... but then, that's not news.
Although sounding a bit pedantic, the game was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1986. The cartridge version for the Famicom didn't get released until a few years later, well after the American NES version's 1987 release.
Who cares? She looks at least 25.... matter of fact, Zelda looks a *lot* older than 25. Did she have radical cosmetic surgery after she appeared in Terrahawks?
Nonetheless, Leia was right. In the wider context, the Death Star itself was destroyed. If they hadn't been so heavy-handed, the Empire would have survived. But they pushed people too far. The Empire caused the rebellion.
Perhaps so, but nevertheless its oft-omitted context would still take the confidence out of the geeky assertion if this was thought about more.
:-)
Well, that and the fact it's from a totally fictitious film and therefore isn't a legitimate example of how the real world works, regardless of how great it sounds to a bunch of nerds
(It's not an online game, but) the only time I'm allowed to play Dwarf Fortress is after my lady has fallen asleep (or the rare event that I happen to be home when she isn't). She simply hates watching me game on the bigscreen bedroom TV. Oh sure, she can play Lego Indiana Jones all day Sunday, but as soon as I launch Dwarf Fortress or Warzone 2100, suddenly gaming is lame.
Sounds like it's your fault for being a doormat then.
You can't control the internet. Someone needs to remind the government of Vietnam that the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems slip through your fingers.
I love how countless nerds-people who ought to know Star Wars *way* better than I do- use that quote in a similar way to you, yet seem to forget its context and what happened immediately following Leia saying it-
Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.
Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Tarkin: Not after we demonstrate the power of this station. In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station's destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan.
Leia: [shocked] No! Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can't possibly...—
Tarkin: You would prefer another target? A military target?! Then name the system! [stepping closer to Leia and pinning her against Darth Vader] I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time. Where is the Rebel base?
Leia: [looks at Alderaan for a moment, then, resigned] Dantooine. They're on Dantooine.
Tarkin: There. You see, Lord Vader? She can be reasonable. Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.
Leia: [panicked] What?!
Tarkin: You're far too trusting. Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, but don't worry. We will deal with your rebel friends soon enough.
Leia: No.
[The Death Star destroys Alderaan]
To be fair, the Scots are reportedly opposed to the proposals because of how dark it'll make their mornings...it does seem fairly England-led. (Some of England, at least - I'm not at all in favour.)
I'm in Wales, and I'm in favour. I'd much rather have daylight in the early evening when I can go outside and use it than in the early morning.
Nice for you I'm sure, but it doesn't add any weight against the English-led argument, since Wales is at similar latitude to the English population centres (which is what counts here) not Scotland.
Your historical knowledge is not accurate. Intel-based IBM PC-compatibles were already outselling the competition (Atari, Commodore, Apple) by 10-to-1 before windows became commonplace (i.e. before 1991)
Which market does that refer to- the US or worldwide? Because while I'm willing to accept that it may have been the case in the US, the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga were very popular in Europe during the late 80s and early 90s, certainly moreso than the PC during that same era. (Yes, I know they flopped in the US- this rather proves the point that the US market did *not* reflect the worldwide situation.)
Although the PC gained some popularity in the UK with Amstrad's cheap compatibles in the mid-to-late 80s, DOS and Windows-based machines *never* came close to outselling the Amiga and ST during that era, let alone by "10-to-1". It wasn't until about 1992-93 that the market started to clearly shift in favour of the PC.
no reading anything after you smash it.
Plus it's very hard to smash a hammer.
Reportedly, they only sold 35000 units. Even assuming every one of them survived the past decade without breaking down, I'm not sure that's a flood.
I can also guarantee that a consumer device from *ten* years ago will be exceptionally low-powered by modern standards.
What was the appeal of TiVo in the first place, that justified the £10 a month subscription? There are plenty of DVRs with EPGs available, where the only cost is the up-front cost of the box.
I agree that £10/month sounds pretty steep. That said, remember that the UK boxes in question were sold around a decade ago, and things have moved on a lot since then. DVRs weren't common at all (don't remember any competitors to Tivo at the time), terrestrial TV (which was all analogue) didn't have a fancy EPG, even Sky+ wasn't even around then (IIRC didn't Sky basically exploit and stiff Tivo to benefit Sky+?), and even if Sky had an EPG, how do you get your Tivo to use the information in it automatically?
Plus half the supposed benefit of Tivo was that it was meant to be "smart" and recommend stuff based on your preferences and viewing habits. Maybe not such a big deal nowadays, but it's easy to forget what we didn't have ten years ago.