you would see we're talking about who believes in ID and what purpose it serves
Read my original post more carefully. I was making the case that ID is a notion worthy of being taught in an ancient history class because it is an important historical philosophy. I have made basically that same point in each of my 12 posts today (this will be my 13th), and the best challenge that I have had to it is that "they might do it badly" (to summarize).
that was just a rough number clearly pulled from my ass
Then, it's a good thing I washed thoroughly after handling it.
You missed the point by a mile. The great-grandparent made the following claim:
I don't really think anyone seriously believes in Intelligent Design.
My claim is that many people do believe in intelligent design. The Discovery Institute (comprised of the people who likely coined the term) define ID for us. If they are right about its definition, my original argument stands. If you are right about its definition, namely that it means exactly "creationism", my original claim still stands since many people believe in creationism.
they simply did a mechanical search-and-replace to change "creationism" into "intelligent design"
I understand that the term was originally used as an end run around a supreme court decision, as you say. However, it has taken on its own meaning since, a term for a notion that has existed for thousands of years quite separately from creationism. Claiming that it is still only a drop-in replacement for creationism is as silly as claiming that Volkswagen still exists to serve as the common man's car for fascist regimes. Though it was created for that purpose originally, it has since served different purposes.
No, it's not an ancient belief. It's roughly 22 years old.
Yes, it is an ancient belief. It's roughly 2360 years old. Read Plato's Timaeus. Perhaps you're thinking of the term "intelligent design" which is roughly 21 years old. The concept is far older.
Where are you people coming from and how are you getting modded up?
Nor does it make it okay to teach in a science class.
RTFA - they aren't going to teach it in science class, they're going to teach it in ancient history where it unequivocally belongs.
That's the problem with ID; it's being pushed as legitimate science when it isn't.
RTFA - they aren't pushing as legitimate science, they are pushing it as "controversy".
ID's purpose is to sneak religion into science class where it doesn't belong.
RTFA - quite possibly true, but they aren't doing that here!
They're welcome to believe whatever they want, but that doesn't make it true.
It makes it true that they believe it. And they've been believing it by the masses for thousands of years, which is why it is appropriate information for ancient history (FTFA).
the Bible. You know, that book that was written down by men 2000 years ago
Some of the books were written around 2000 years ago, but Genesis (the biblical account of creationism) is likely not among them. Actually, it was probably written between 2500 and 3500 years ago. Heck, we have manuscripts today that are around 2150 years old (so that's the absolute lower bound). Not that this is important information to your post, just another instance of you getting your facts wrong.
Ahh, now I understand - I was having trouble parsing your previous comment, and my response was completely off-topic. I apologize.
I'm suspicious because they don't say specifically what they're going to teach about it.
Hey, at least it's just suspicion (a justifiable reaction). I've spent the last few hours of my life responding to the myriad of FUD here, coming from people whose mouths start to froth at the very mention of ID. I think they honestly want there to be a conspiracy so they can be angry and indignant about something. Has anybody considered the possibility that the school system is doing exactly what it ought to in this case? To ignore the roll of religion, creationism, and intelligent design in our history and philosophy is to provide a very revisionist version of our history. Given that it ought to be taught somewhere because of its significance in our culture, isn't "ancient history" the perfect place to teach it? And, if that keeps various religious groups appeased, isn't that a perfect compromise?
Even if your suspicions are well founded and there is a bias in the curriculum towards certain religious views, can that not be corrected in subsequent revisions?
They are certainly not the quintessential ID, but they are variations of the same idea. Each of the variations that I proposed solve the fundamental issue that ID advocates claim exists with natural selection. Namely, that undirected natural selection has a low probability of generating certain observable features of the universe and living beings.
(And did you notice that you misspelled "a part" like "alot" earlier, right after you got snooty about the grammar of a colloquial expression? Yeah, good times.)
And that's the best one you could find? I'm guessing that I've made at least 10 grammatical and spelling mistakes in the last hour or so, and I'd also bet that at least a few of them are a fair bit more embarrassing than that one. The reason I made light his mistake was because I suspected that he made that mistake willfully. It is one of several barbaric colloquialisms that I'd like to see snuffed out.
I not quite sure what you're suspicious of. If you need evidence that ID has been around in some form or another for thousands of years, it is readily available. Have a look through Plato's Timaeus. Just because the term was invented recently doesn't mean that the idea hasn't existed for quite a while.
Given the vast number of design flaws in the human (and other life forms), this is contradicted by the observed evidence.
This argument is fallacious. Just because a creation has flaws doesn't mean that it lacks an intelligent creator. A few examples (not that I need to provide examples of this, but it's fun):
There is a fairly interesting article about flaws in some of Michelangelo's sculptures. I don't know enough about sculpting to know whether his assertions here are accurate, but it all made sense to me. I for one consider Michelangelo to be intelligent, yet I accept flaws in his masterpieces without any hesitation.
Linux kernel bugs. Possibly the flagship OSS project, written by some of the finest software architects in human history (not a long history of software development, granted), yet I still come across large and debilitating bugs on a semi-frequent basis.
I noticed that the website you have created is down (I assume because IIS is not running?). Though this is quite a large and fundamental flaw in your creation, I still generously deem you to be an intelligent (and well written) Slashdot commenter.
I don't really think anyone seriously believes in Intelligent Design.
Then you don't really understand people very well. From the Center for Science and Culture (a pro-ID organization) here
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Even aside from religious beliefs, it is very difficult for many people to believe that the world and people as they are came about because of chance. Just look at the number of references in popular culture to fate and "the meaning of life". Going back even as far as the Greeks, it was a major theme of their literature and plays. The notion that natural selection determines that outcome of the universe is, to many people, a profoundly unsettling explanation. None of this should be taken as a challenge to natural selection or a defense of ID. However, your assertion that nobody actually believes in ID is naive.
It contradicts all existing evidence. To the extent any scientific theory can be disproved, it is.
There are plenty of variations of ID that really cannot be proved or disproved, just as I stated. Consider a variation of ID where an intelligent entity created a universe with properties that suggest age (carbon isotope levels, fossils, outward trajectory of planets from a single point of origin, etc). It's probably a cop-out, but the point is that you can't disprove that using any form of science we have available. Also, consider a variation of ID where an intelligent agent created what science considers to be the big bang. Again, there really isn't any way to prove or disprove this variation of ID. This is why other people have posted here stating that it doesn't really meet the criteria of a scientific theory, and why Queensland schools will not be talking about ID in science class (from TFA).
"I have it in my little head that God wants me to spam everyone with advertising
For the life of me, I can't understand why people like you are posting this crap, and I'm even more confused why you keep getting modded up. Has anybody even read TFA?
In Queensland schools, creationism will be offered for discussion in the subject of ancient history, under the topic of "controversies".
ID (in some form or another) has been a very large part of our history, and it is most certainly controversial. Thus, this seems like the perfect place for it. If you want to pretend that people never believed anything other than evolution throughout history, you are more full of shit than the people you so flippantly criticize.
That much is right. By its nature, it would be basically impossible to prove or disprove.
The whole thing is a scam, and one that has lost considerable force since Dover.
I'm sorry to break up your rant here, but it isn't a scam. Many people sincerely believe in ID (or a variation thereof). Many of those people would acknowledge that it isn't science in any meaningful form, and nearly all of those people would willingly keep ID out of the science curriculum in public schools.
However, it seems to me ancient history is a perfectly fine place to present the fact that people have believed in ID historically. While ID in its current form is a fairly modern interpretation, the notion of an intelligent designer has been around for quite a while, and has had a profound influence on our world (for better or for worse).
If you want to teach it as a disproved theory, I got no problem.
Bad grammar aside, that isn't a good idea either. It isn't a disproved theory - it can neither be proved nor disproved in any scientifically valid sense. That's why it isn't science in the first place.
If they are indeed teaching intelligent design in much the same way as... motivation for slavery then I have little problem with this.
This should earn you a flamebait mod. Once again, it isn't proper to say that it is wrong or right, to condemn it or glorify it. It is apart of history - it merely needs to be acknowledged so the students can form their own judgments.
They are arguing that this helps critical thinking and allows the child to make their own conclusions... but curiously this "critical thinking" that presents an opposing view is curiously the view that the localized religion adheres to
Of course it is. Starting with viewpoints that students are at least familiar with is the best way to get a good dialog started. College professors use this same tactic all the time. You need to engage students, and talking about ancient historical viewpoints that they have no familiarity with will not get them talking.
This article bounces between acceptable and a BS facade to market Intelligent Design. Australia's a sovereign nation but I will speak up if this comes anywhere near my public schools.
Perhaps you dislike the particular implementation of this subject matter into their curriculum. However, you have to admit that any ancient history curriculum that fails to discuss religion is profoundly flawed. They are an extremely important part of our history and even of our current world sociopolitical makeup.
Nothing beats the simple listing of directory content shared on a Windows PC by the 360
XBMC is an absolute joy to use with a decent media library. I have around 225 movies, 6500 songs, and 4000 television episodes. XBMC cheerfully and quickly scrapes all the media information and indexes all video content by actor, year, genre, TV series, season number, and episode number. These indexes are really quite helpful, and if you don't like the added flexibility, the default functionality is to browse by directory anyway (what is more simple than that?). Not having used a 360 with Windows Media Center, I can't comment on that setup. I do however own a 360 that I use as a game console. It sounds like a jet engine, possesses about the same power efficiency as a Hummer, has a life span that compares poorly to a Yugo, and looks like a Caribbean oil leak. The thought of using it as my main media device chills me to my core.
other than create another obstacle between me and the content I want displayed on the screen
An Obstacle? What program were you running? The XBMC interface on my rig is so simple that my parents can use it. The fact that you consider it an obstacle is more telling about your computer competency (or lack thereof) than about the capabilities of XBMC.
it would be nice to play all or create a play list
It is shocking that WMC/XB360 can't do that. Both WMC and XB360 are software upgradeable, and have been upgraded on several occasions, yet they still lack these basic features. This is the kind of thing that always annoyed me with Microsoft. The good folks at XBMC, who aren't even getting payed, are better about listening to what I want than the $250b software giant.
hey look at that Windows Media Center is already built right in!
For those of us fortunate enough to have something other than Windows, it isn't built right in. Hell, it isn't even built into most copies of Windows! But whether you have MacOS, Windows (almost any version), Linux (almost any distribution), or even an Xbox, XBMC will run just fine. Also as somebody who was forced to use WMC at a previous domicile, it is a big heap of putrescence. While it handled OTA DVR relatively well, its support for various media types was completely underwhelming, and its extensibility was low. The third party "codec packs" that were required to make it work with even the most common of media types frequently broke and I was without Dolby Digital and DTS for a large portion of my tenure with WMC. That being said, I wasn't the one who maintained the system, and it probably would have worked better if I was.
I've used Boxee as well. It really is pretty nice - imagine taking XBMC an adding a ton more content and a ton more bugs. I love it for my baseball games, but when I want to play my Flac library (which is buggy on Boxee), I find myself switching back to XBMC.
Yep, just because they're ending support doesn't mean that the XBox branch isn't still wildly popular. I for one still have a deployment at my folks' place.
Out of curiosity, are the nightly SVNs usually stable enough for production? Does that site archive known-stable revision of the repository and/or document which revisions tend to be relatively trouble-free?
2,4) Acknowledged. Trying to figure out why software wasn't working with a no-longer-in-service system configuration is fruitless. Suffice it to say, modern XBMC works flawlessly with even the most meek system configurations (as long as they have decent video acceleration).
5) This is, of course, a subjective measurement. That being said, it is certainly an atypical opinion of the XBMC UI. I personally have found it to be both beautiful and functional. My non-techie roommates and parents have been able to navigate XBMC with ease, and have noted how much they like it. In fact, I managed to convert a few people who have been at my house and seen my setup. It is worth noting that the XBMC uses a 10 foot interface (just like your PS3). It isn't designed to be used by a nerd huddled up next to a laptop like a white guy driving a Geo. If that's what you're looking for, perhaps you should be using something else anyway.
6) Well conceded - as mentioned before, XBMC is a 10 foot interface. It definitely isn't meant to be used with mice. In fact, many of the skins specifically advise the they are not mouse compatible (though this will probably change in the next version).
Configuration failure. I've seen XBMC running flawlessly on various chipsets from vintage 2007 integrated ATI chipsets and old 5xxx series Nvidia cards to 4xxx series ATI cards and newer AMD/ATI integrated chipsets. In fact, I doubt that it is even an XBMC configuration problem - sounds like DirectX or your NVIDIA drivers are out of date. Either way, head over to the XBMC Forums" for support. It's a fantastic community that will almost certainly help you out with your problem. Only, try not to slander XBMC until you figure out how you mis-configured your system.
No it doesn't. It stands for nothing else than "XBMC".
Can you provide evidence for this? It is entirely possible that they changed it again, but at one time it was a recursive acronym. My evidence is as follows:
It means XBMC Media Center. It is officially a recursive acronym and has been for a few years. source - natethomas
The "about" page of THIS SITE says 'XBMC, recursive acronym for "XBMC Media Center"' source - XFaktor
XBMC is now only a semi-recursive acronym for XBMC Media Center. source - Gamester17
As an ardent quiet-computing aficionado, this was one of the first components that I purchased when I started building my XBMC rigs. My word of caution is that you really want something with very decent write performance, since the average XBMC system will have to do a lot of writing in its lifetime. The most common kind of writing that an XBMC system has to do is caching the results from scrapings. This includes not only movie/tv actor, genre, description, year, and other text vitals, but also fanart, some of which can be very large. The other major writing that you'll do is when you "apt-get dist-upgrade" your system (something that you'll inevitably want to do). If you don't have decent write performance, a USB drive (or SD card) will make your life miserable.
In fact, if you have the money, I highly recommended getting a decent SATA SSD drive. Unfortunately, this is a serious expenditure and will nearly double the cost of an XBMC rig on its own.
Huge delay between pressing a button and anything happening. Slow menu changes.
Sounds like you didn't have decent hardware video acceleration. The XBMC processor and memory requirements are quite modest, and you are well over them. Heck, XBMC runs like a dream on the Ion platform which uses atom processors (the most meek processor you will ever meet). It's all about video acceleration, something that the XBox was quite good at for its time.
And now, it's the best thing for everything else. If you're happy with your WDTV, then there isn't any sense in "fixing it". However, the day it dies or fails to do something that you'd like it to do, install XBMC on a spare PC to which you have access. It is absolutely the best media center software I have ever used.
Just about any decent hardware will work fine with XBMC. Zotac Ion seems to be a popular choice at the moment. If you want to seriously research out what to buy, visit the XBMC Hardware Discussion forum
If you don't know its history, you'd find it a joke what XBMC stands for.
You might as well just say it. It now stands for "XBMC Media Center". Perhaps it's somewhat funny, but recursive acronyms are hardly new, and they have a long and proud tradition in Free Software. GNU, the name for the userspace tools in most Linux-based operating systems, is among the oldest of currently used recursive acronyms in free software.
This is completely true. Every time I'm listening to the radio or reading news online and I hear or see the words "bi-partisan support", I know it's going to be really bad.
Fucking assholes
Here is where we disagree. Though they are by definition assholes (being politicians), I usually prefer to attribute their terrible legislative track record to incompetence rather than malice. See Hanlon's Razor. Even if I were not so quick to apply that adage, it wouldn't be a huge logical leap to assume the incompetence of U.S. leadership. Just listen to our various senators and congressmen speak and you'll see what I mean.
Slashdot Mirror
If you read the post I was replying to
Even better, I wrote it.
you would see we're talking about who believes in ID and what purpose it serves
Read my original post more carefully. I was making the case that ID is a notion worthy of being taught in an ancient history class because it is an important historical philosophy. I have made basically that same point in each of my 12 posts today (this will be my 13th), and the best challenge that I have had to it is that "they might do it badly" (to summarize).
that was just a rough number clearly pulled from my ass
Then, it's a good thing I washed thoroughly after handling it.
I don't really think anyone seriously believes in Intelligent Design.
My claim is that many people do believe in intelligent design. The Discovery Institute (comprised of the people who likely coined the term) define ID for us. If they are right about its definition, my original argument stands. If you are right about its definition, namely that it means exactly "creationism", my original claim still stands since many people believe in creationism.
they simply did a mechanical search-and-replace to change "creationism" into "intelligent design"
I understand that the term was originally used as an end run around a supreme court decision, as you say. However, it has taken on its own meaning since, a term for a notion that has existed for thousands of years quite separately from creationism. Claiming that it is still only a drop-in replacement for creationism is as silly as claiming that Volkswagen still exists to serve as the common man's car for fascist regimes. Though it was created for that purpose originally, it has since served different purposes.
No, it's not an ancient belief. It's roughly 22 years old.
Yes, it is an ancient belief. It's roughly 2360 years old. Read Plato's Timaeus. Perhaps you're thinking of the term "intelligent design" which is roughly 21 years old. The concept is far older.
Nor does it make it okay to teach in a science class.
RTFA - they aren't going to teach it in science class, they're going to teach it in ancient history where it unequivocally belongs.
That's the problem with ID; it's being pushed as legitimate science when it isn't.
RTFA - they aren't pushing as legitimate science, they are pushing it as "controversy".
ID's purpose is to sneak religion into science class where it doesn't belong.
RTFA - quite possibly true, but they aren't doing that here!
They're welcome to believe whatever they want, but that doesn't make it true.
It makes it true that they believe it. And they've been believing it by the masses for thousands of years, which is why it is appropriate information for ancient history (FTFA).
the Bible. You know, that book that was written down by men 2000 years ago
Some of the books were written around 2000 years ago, but Genesis (the biblical account of creationism) is likely not among them. Actually, it was probably written between 2500 and 3500 years ago. Heck, we have manuscripts today that are around 2150 years old (so that's the absolute lower bound). Not that this is important information to your post, just another instance of you getting your facts wrong.
I'm suspicious because they don't say specifically what they're going to teach about it.
Hey, at least it's just suspicion (a justifiable reaction). I've spent the last few hours of my life responding to the myriad of FUD here, coming from people whose mouths start to froth at the very mention of ID. I think they honestly want there to be a conspiracy so they can be angry and indignant about something. Has anybody considered the possibility that the school system is doing exactly what it ought to in this case? To ignore the roll of religion, creationism, and intelligent design in our history and philosophy is to provide a very revisionist version of our history. Given that it ought to be taught somewhere because of its significance in our culture, isn't "ancient history" the perfect place to teach it? And, if that keeps various religious groups appeased, isn't that a perfect compromise?
Even if your suspicions are well founded and there is a bias in the curriculum towards certain religious views, can that not be corrected in subsequent revisions?
(And did you notice that you misspelled "a part" like "alot" earlier, right after you got snooty about the grammar of a colloquial expression? Yeah, good times.)
And that's the best one you could find? I'm guessing that I've made at least 10 grammatical and spelling mistakes in the last hour or so, and I'd also bet that at least a few of them are a fair bit more embarrassing than that one. The reason I made light his mistake was because I suspected that he made that mistake willfully. It is one of several barbaric colloquialisms that I'd like to see snuffed out.
I not quite sure what you're suspicious of. If you need evidence that ID has been around in some form or another for thousands of years, it is readily available. Have a look through Plato's Timaeus. Just because the term was invented recently doesn't mean that the idea hasn't existed for quite a while.
Given the vast number of design flaws in the human (and other life forms), this is contradicted by the observed evidence.
This argument is fallacious. Just because a creation has flaws doesn't mean that it lacks an intelligent creator. A few examples (not that I need to provide examples of this, but it's fun):
I don't really think anyone seriously believes in Intelligent Design.
Then you don't really understand people very well. From the Center for Science and Culture (a pro-ID organization) here
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Even aside from religious beliefs, it is very difficult for many people to believe that the world and people as they are came about because of chance. Just look at the number of references in popular culture to fate and "the meaning of life". Going back even as far as the Greeks, it was a major theme of their literature and plays. The notion that natural selection determines that outcome of the universe is, to many people, a profoundly unsettling explanation. None of this should be taken as a challenge to natural selection or a defense of ID. However, your assertion that nobody actually believes in ID is naive.
It contradicts all existing evidence. To the extent any scientific theory can be disproved, it is.
There are plenty of variations of ID that really cannot be proved or disproved, just as I stated. Consider a variation of ID where an intelligent entity created a universe with properties that suggest age (carbon isotope levels, fossils, outward trajectory of planets from a single point of origin, etc). It's probably a cop-out, but the point is that you can't disprove that using any form of science we have available. Also, consider a variation of ID where an intelligent agent created what science considers to be the big bang. Again, there really isn't any way to prove or disprove this variation of ID. This is why other people have posted here stating that it doesn't really meet the criteria of a scientific theory, and why Queensland schools will not be talking about ID in science class (from TFA).
"I have it in my little head that God wants me to spam everyone with advertising
For the life of me, I can't understand why people like you are posting this crap, and I'm even more confused why you keep getting modded up. Has anybody even read TFA?
In Queensland schools, creationism will be offered for discussion in the subject of ancient history, under the topic of "controversies".
ID (in some form or another) has been a very large part of our history, and it is most certainly controversial. Thus, this seems like the perfect place for it. If you want to pretend that people never believed anything other than evolution throughout history, you are more full of shit than the people you so flippantly criticize.
It's not even a disproved theory.
That much is right. By its nature, it would be basically impossible to prove or disprove.
The whole thing is a scam, and one that has lost considerable force since Dover.
I'm sorry to break up your rant here, but it isn't a scam. Many people sincerely believe in ID (or a variation thereof). Many of those people would acknowledge that it isn't science in any meaningful form, and nearly all of those people would willingly keep ID out of the science curriculum in public schools.
However, it seems to me ancient history is a perfectly fine place to present the fact that people have believed in ID historically. While ID in its current form is a fairly modern interpretation, the notion of an intelligent designer has been around for quite a while, and has had a profound influence on our world (for better or for worse).
If you want to teach it as a disproved theory, I got no problem.
Bad grammar aside, that isn't a good idea either. It isn't a disproved theory - it can neither be proved nor disproved in any scientifically valid sense. That's why it isn't science in the first place.
If they are indeed teaching intelligent design in much the same way as ... motivation for slavery then I have little problem with this.
This should earn you a flamebait mod. Once again, it isn't proper to say that it is wrong or right, to condemn it or glorify it. It is apart of history - it merely needs to be acknowledged so the students can form their own judgments.
They are arguing that this helps critical thinking and allows the child to make their own conclusions ... but curiously this "critical thinking" that presents an opposing view is curiously the view that the localized religion adheres to
Of course it is. Starting with viewpoints that students are at least familiar with is the best way to get a good dialog started. College professors use this same tactic all the time. You need to engage students, and talking about ancient historical viewpoints that they have no familiarity with will not get them talking.
This article bounces between acceptable and a BS facade to market Intelligent Design. Australia's a sovereign nation but I will speak up if this comes anywhere near my public schools.
Perhaps you dislike the particular implementation of this subject matter into their curriculum. However, you have to admit that any ancient history curriculum that fails to discuss religion is profoundly flawed. They are an extremely important part of our history and even of our current world sociopolitical makeup.
Nothing beats the simple listing of directory content shared on a Windows PC by the 360
XBMC is an absolute joy to use with a decent media library. I have around 225 movies, 6500 songs, and 4000 television episodes. XBMC cheerfully and quickly scrapes all the media information and indexes all video content by actor, year, genre, TV series, season number, and episode number. These indexes are really quite helpful, and if you don't like the added flexibility, the default functionality is to browse by directory anyway (what is more simple than that?). Not having used a 360 with Windows Media Center, I can't comment on that setup. I do however own a 360 that I use as a game console. It sounds like a jet engine, possesses about the same power efficiency as a Hummer, has a life span that compares poorly to a Yugo, and looks like a Caribbean oil leak. The thought of using it as my main media device chills me to my core.
other than create another obstacle between me and the content I want displayed on the screen
An Obstacle? What program were you running? The XBMC interface on my rig is so simple that my parents can use it. The fact that you consider it an obstacle is more telling about your computer competency (or lack thereof) than about the capabilities of XBMC.
it would be nice to play all or create a play list
It is shocking that WMC/XB360 can't do that. Both WMC and XB360 are software upgradeable, and have been upgraded on several occasions, yet they still lack these basic features. This is the kind of thing that always annoyed me with Microsoft. The good folks at XBMC, who aren't even getting payed, are better about listening to what I want than the $250b software giant.
hey look at that Windows Media Center is already built right in!
For those of us fortunate enough to have something other than Windows, it isn't built right in. Hell, it isn't even built into most copies of Windows! But whether you have MacOS, Windows (almost any version), Linux (almost any distribution), or even an Xbox, XBMC will run just fine. Also as somebody who was forced to use WMC at a previous domicile, it is a big heap of putrescence. While it handled OTA DVR relatively well, its support for various media types was completely underwhelming, and its extensibility was low. The third party "codec packs" that were required to make it work with even the most common of media types frequently broke and I was without Dolby Digital and DTS for a large portion of my tenure with WMC. That being said, I wasn't the one who maintained the system, and it probably would have worked better if I was.
I've used Boxee as well. It really is pretty nice - imagine taking XBMC an adding a ton more content and a ton more bugs. I love it for my baseball games, but when I want to play my Flac library (which is buggy on Boxee), I find myself switching back to XBMC.
Yep, just because they're ending support doesn't mean that the XBox branch isn't still wildly popular. I for one still have a deployment at my folks' place.
Out of curiosity, are the nightly SVNs usually stable enough for production? Does that site archive known-stable revision of the repository and/or document which revisions tend to be relatively trouble-free?
2,4) Acknowledged. Trying to figure out why software wasn't working with a no-longer-in-service system configuration is fruitless. Suffice it to say, modern XBMC works flawlessly with even the most meek system configurations (as long as they have decent video acceleration). 5) This is, of course, a subjective measurement. That being said, it is certainly an atypical opinion of the XBMC UI. I personally have found it to be both beautiful and functional. My non-techie roommates and parents have been able to navigate XBMC with ease, and have noted how much they like it. In fact, I managed to convert a few people who have been at my house and seen my setup. It is worth noting that the XBMC uses a 10 foot interface (just like your PS3). It isn't designed to be used by a nerd huddled up next to a laptop like a white guy driving a Geo. If that's what you're looking for, perhaps you should be using something else anyway. 6) Well conceded - as mentioned before, XBMC is a 10 foot interface. It definitely isn't meant to be used with mice. In fact, many of the skins specifically advise the they are not mouse compatible (though this will probably change in the next version).
Configuration failure. I've seen XBMC running flawlessly on various chipsets from vintage 2007 integrated ATI chipsets and old 5xxx series Nvidia cards to 4xxx series ATI cards and newer AMD/ATI integrated chipsets. In fact, I doubt that it is even an XBMC configuration problem - sounds like DirectX or your NVIDIA drivers are out of date. Either way, head over to the XBMC Forums" for support. It's a fantastic community that will almost certainly help you out with your problem. Only, try not to slander XBMC until you figure out how you mis-configured your system.
No it doesn't. It stands for nothing else than "XBMC".
Can you provide evidence for this? It is entirely possible that they changed it again, but at one time it was a recursive acronym. My evidence is as follows:
It means XBMC Media Center. It is officially a recursive acronym and has been for a few years. source - natethomas
The "about" page of THIS SITE says 'XBMC, recursive acronym for "XBMC Media Center"' source - XFaktor
XBMC is now only a semi-recursive acronym for XBMC Media Center. source - Gamester17
booting off USB/SD card
As an ardent quiet-computing aficionado, this was one of the first components that I purchased when I started building my XBMC rigs. My word of caution is that you really want something with very decent write performance, since the average XBMC system will have to do a lot of writing in its lifetime. The most common kind of writing that an XBMC system has to do is caching the results from scrapings. This includes not only movie/tv actor, genre, description, year, and other text vitals, but also fanart, some of which can be very large. The other major writing that you'll do is when you "apt-get dist-upgrade" your system (something that you'll inevitably want to do). If you don't have decent write performance, a USB drive (or SD card) will make your life miserable.
In fact, if you have the money, I highly recommended getting a decent SATA SSD drive. Unfortunately, this is a serious expenditure and will nearly double the cost of an XBMC rig on its own.
Huge delay between pressing a button and anything happening. Slow menu changes.
Sounds like you didn't have decent hardware video acceleration. The XBMC processor and memory requirements are quite modest, and you are well over them. Heck, XBMC runs like a dream on the Ion platform which uses atom processors (the most meek processor you will ever meet). It's all about video acceleration, something that the XBox was quite good at for its time.
XBMC was the best thing for the Xbox
And now, it's the best thing for everything else. If you're happy with your WDTV, then there isn't any sense in "fixing it". However, the day it dies or fails to do something that you'd like it to do, install XBMC on a spare PC to which you have access. It is absolutely the best media center software I have ever used.
Just about any decent hardware will work fine with XBMC. Zotac Ion seems to be a popular choice at the moment. If you want to seriously research out what to buy, visit the XBMC Hardware Discussion forum
The XBMC, which abreviates "XBOX Media Center"
If you don't know its history, you'd find it a joke what XBMC stands for.
You might as well just say it. It now stands for "XBMC Media Center". Perhaps it's somewhat funny, but recursive acronyms are hardly new, and they have a long and proud tradition in Free Software. GNU, the name for the userspace tools in most Linux-based operating systems, is among the oldest of currently used recursive acronyms in free software.
Fucking assholes
Here is where we disagree. Though they are by definition assholes (being politicians), I usually prefer to attribute their terrible legislative track record to incompetence rather than malice. See Hanlon's Razor. Even if I were not so quick to apply that adage, it wouldn't be a huge logical leap to assume the incompetence of U.S. leadership. Just listen to our various senators and congressmen speak and you'll see what I mean.