[re: restarting] Its interesting: you seem to manage to have used a totally different implementation of WinXP...
No,... I just know my way around WinXP, just as you know your way around OSX. My issues seem trivial to you because you know the solutions. Your issues seem trivial to me because I know the solutions.
[re: uninstalling software] This is untrue: go to an application's directory and delete the install log: see how far you get with uninstalling it through add/remove.
And I'm sure OSX does well when you start deleting system files from it as well. Surely, nothing bad could happen if you did that. I'll concede to your point that an OS will break if you actively set out to break it.
[re: OK/Cancel]Change it back??? (duh...)
I'm talking more about the OK/Cancel principle in Windows as a whole. Until the operation is finished, you can always cancel. Therefore, if you don't know quite what you're doing and you don't know if you're about to blow something up, you can cancel. That's why it is the way it is. If you don't like it, that's fine, but now you can't say you don't understand why its in place.
its basically a downloadable virtual install CD. in fact it, again, is one of those "why don't PCs have that?" moments on the mac
Uh, we do... we have Zip files. Windows reads them as folders, but with limited features. Why? So that you don't have to decompress before you use them, but instead you can just use them.
There's no need to extract and mount. It just works.
"Super hard way?" In Windows, we run an installer, click "OK" and it does the rest. Also, it adds it to the start menu, which can be reorganized and hold all my apps without me having to restructure my executable files. (So, no, dragging the Application folder to the Dock is no substitute for the Start Menu.)
That's a Safari feature, not a Mac feature. Programs like FTP explorer and IE in FTP mode (in Windows) can drag and drop files to and from any explorer window (including the desktop). Browser developers on the PC have made a conscious decision not to use that to save images (and probably only because nobody's ever asked them to).
I have found, both with myself and others, that the learning curve of switching Windows->Mac is a curve of unlearning backwards ways of doing things you've simply gotten used to on Windows.
Okay... backwards compared to an OS that insists that you put your disks in the trash (the place you put things when you want them deleted) in order to eject them... I think it's safer to say that both OS's have shortcomings, not that one is "backwards."
Most simple examples:
Where to find the "save changes" button on the system settings panels? There isn't one, it just makes the changes as you go.
And when you change the setting to something you don't want by mistake? Is it so great that it automatically applied the changes in realtime? Windows works on a principle that with almost every operation it performs, until you click "OK," you can still click "Cancel" and discard your changes. Because of that, I find the Windows way of doing things much more fool-proof.
How to install and uninstall (most) software? Drag and drop. Need to restart after an install or uninstall? No, in fact restarts are a monthly occurance at worst.
Everything I've ever installed on Mac OSX has involved an installer except for a tiny few homebrew applications. Furthermore, I was completely unable to remove said software (I'm looking at you Epson scanner) without re-downloading the installer and telling it to remove the program. Windows has the Add/Remove panel where you can uninstall any softwre, regardless of whether you have the installer.
And I can't remember the last time I restarted Windows after installing something. Maybe Service Pack 2. The problem with these OS vs. OS arguments is that people keep comparing their favorite OS's to Windows 98.
Its a learning curve, but its a curve to doing things much, much better. Its also a curve that has you smiling all the way up it, as repetetive boring tasks you had to do on your PC become easy, or simply obsolete.
The learning curve on OSX has made me want to shoot people every step of the way. Most notably, its antiquated and nigh-unpredictable way of handling files. Is there a way in OSX to make it so that every, say, GIF image opens in a particular program? I always have to deal with the problem of them wanting to open up in the program that spawned them, and sometimes I don't want to fire up Photoshop in order to look at an image.
See, but that's the rub... the PS2 controller didn't work well. The analog sticks are placed at right angles to your thumb's natural orientation. This is stressful and unnatural. If you've used a DC, GCN, or X-Box analog, you know how much more natural that feels than the dual shock 2. Also, they've removed the rumble... one of the things that did work for the PS2 controller.
It's not that they must be original, it's that the design can still be refined (after all, it's about 12 years old now and the analogs were just tacked on after the N64 came out). Sony doesn't need to be original, but it would be nice if they made some simple and easy improvements to their controller to make it a little more comfortable to play with.
See, what I find funny is not only that you didn't pick up on my sarcastic comment, but you didn't figure out it was sarcasm when I went through the trouble to explain the sarcasm in the following sentence. Welcome to humor, Linux user.
I'm sure you probably aren't attacking FOSS in order to defend MS...
I'm not attacking FOSS at all. I was being sarcastic in using a rhetorical question to point out that the abundance of acronyms in the Linux and Open Source community can be extremely confusing to outsiders. In fact, I want to make it abundantly clear that regardless of the fact that I was being sarcastic, I made no mean-spirited comments about Open Source software itself, only that the names become confusing after a while.
And I only bring it up because the article specifically talks about how hard it is to get average joes to use free and open source software. Part of the reason for that is that they don't care that it's open source. Average joes don't know what that means, and they really shouldn't have to. Their only concerns are "does this work?" "how much does this cost?" and "do I like it?"
Nintendo will announce a general release date for the Wii. It will be sooner than expected.
That's not going to happen. NEC is fabbing the "Broadway" chips for Nintendo, and has stated publicly that they won't be in production until September.
Twilight Princess will be delayed.
Unlikely. Nintendo will not want to release a big Gamecube game after the Wii's released. Last Nintendo said on this one was "fall," which is broad and gives them a range of dates in which to release it. I don't see it being delayed beyond that.
Nintendo will show off a slew of sports games for Wii, including Tennis, Golf, and Fishing.
If development has advanced enough, we may also see Madden for the Wii at E3, at least in trailer form.
The PS3 will not be playable.
The PS3 hardware is already at a playable stage, and there will almost certainly be one or two playable demos. The last big hurdle they were having is that that humongous but sleek box they designed is too small to fit the PS3 hardware in, so the design may change radically.
I'm in no way a nintendo fanboy, but I hope it works.
And hey, even if you're not a fanboy, they'll be cheap enough within a year or two that you could easily pick one up as your 2nd console for this upcoming generation just to play neat controller games and virtual console games.
I think after years of floundering, Nintendo's struck upon a solid strategy for the next gen, simply by removing the concept of "winning" the generation.
EA has said that you'll be able to run in Madden with the analog stick, juke left and right by jerking the nunchuck around, and stiff arm people using the remote. I dare say that Madden for the Wii will be awesome, but that just about every Madden fan will avoid it like the plague simply because it's for a Nintendo system.
Having the skillset couldn't hurt, though. I could see how not knowing anything about how 3D data is represented or how a game engine handles level layouts and construction would impede your ability to write decent AI routines.
Maybe not actually learn to code an engine, but reading some background information on how they work at the core level could be helpful.
I don't gain any insight from it, it's not entertaining, it's not informative, it's a push for Nintendo. Or am I missing something vital?
Meh,... it didn't seem terribly different from any of Zonk's other reviews (including those for games made by Sony and Microsoft), except that he tied three together in order to demonstrate a market strategy (one which is relatively unique). I thought it was kinda nice to have the reviews tied into a theme.
Well, I'll offer the only valid opinion on this that I can without actually getting to use a Revolution controller. This game sounds like a cool concept and I hope it pans out. I look forward to it with cautious optimism.
Okay.. "I doubt it" doesn't seem like a solid indication that this person doesn't use a Mac. But even so, I'm willing to assume that he isn't an avid Mac user. But speaking as someone who isn't a Mac fan about how Boot Camp isn't very attractive to non-Mac users seems completely within his realm of understanding.
I use a mac almost every day at work. Boot camp isn't enticing me to buy one for myself. But I'd be willing to run OSX in VMWare or VirtualPC under Windows. I think my case proves that he's right for at least some people.
But given the wider implications here, I hope they get a partial victory out of this - such that people who allready have this equipment can keep it.
I hope they get a full and complete victory. If you look at the patent, what they've claimed isn't just that they own MPEG2, what they've claimed is rights over interlace bits, motion compensation, quantization adjustments, etc... to the point where it pretty much claims ownership over every single video encoding standard on the market.
I hope that when MS is done with them, their company is a smoldering hole in the ground. It isn't right for anybody to write a patent, then wait for other people to do the work making the product, and then come forward decades later and claim their profits as your own.
a means responsive to the digital video input signal for producing a field frame coding type signal which directs a selected one, but not both, of the frame coding means or the field coding means to code the digital video input signal.
Wait, let me see if I'm reading this right. They're going after people who use MPEG2 because they patented the interlace bit? You've gotta be out of your freaking mind! Can anyone really own a patent to add a single bit to a frame that says 0=progressive, 1=interlaced?
I don't see how this could possibly hold up, being a patent from 1993. There were video codecs before 1993, and surely they all had information stored in each frame that described how to decode the frame. Storing whether or not the frame is interlaced isn't enough of an advance from just generically storing frame information to warant a patent, and it never should've been granted.
that you are all so seething with anger that someone doesn't believe the same thing you do. Ban religion? Wow that's a blast from humanities past. It's been tried many times - sometimes in conjunction with genocide as race is often intertwined with religious belief.
No matter. If I'm wrong, nobody loses anything. If I'm right, you lose for eternity. I can't wait to see the stupid look on your faces then. Maybe you can ask a professor to forgive you or something. Or maybe you can sit at the edge of Darwin's grave and ask him.
I want to explain this because this is something very commonly misunderstood about us secular people who don't want inteligent design taught in science class. Inteligent design is the theory that all of creation was put in place by a "designer" (God), which is quite obviously a religious theory.
It's a fine theory, but it's a religious theory, and I have no problem with anybody's belief in it.
My problem is that it isn't science. There's not even a remote bullshit shot in the dark chance that it's science. It's religion. And I wouldn't have any problem with it being taught in school, were it being taught in a religion class. However, my issue is when it's put in the setting of a science class. It's most definitely not science. That's my gripe.
I agree, except to add: Why do people "look for excuses" to switch to anything? If you wanna use a mac, just use a mac. If you want to use Windows, use Windows. There's no need for an excuse.
I think the Neo Geo AES would be a more apropriate comparrison. You could say the following about both:
Exceptional graphics for their eras
Excellent sound for their eras (though less of a factor now)
Shockingly large ammounts of storage compared to other home consoles
Too expensive for most consumers to buy
The Neo Geo AES was a commercial failure, not because of any shortcomings in the hardware or the games, but because it was simply too expensive for most people to own. Will the PS3 have the same turnout as the Neo Geo AES? I have no freaking clue. But we know from the AES that price matters.
I think I know why we're stalled on this one. I think it might be a good idea if our fascist dictator in charge actually believed in global warming.
"The jury's still out." No. It hasn't been for a good solid decade now, and you'd have to be an asshole and an idiot to believe otherwise.
Al Gore gives a great presentation on Global Warming (in fact, he just did at Drew University last night) and he cites a survey of scientific journals to see how much global warming is in doubt. That survey found that of 900+ randomly chosen articles, not a single one expressed any doubt that global warming is real. They did the same with a random set of mass media (newspaper, tv, etc...) articles on global warming and found just over 50% expressed doubt about the existence of global warming. No wonder so many people in the US (including G.W. Bush) don't believe that global warming exists.
I do not want our government mandating what types of products I can sell or buy any more than they do now.
Raising the minimum MPG rating does not restrict what types of products you can sell or buy. It sets standards for the products for production, not trade. I understand the concept of having a "smaller" government, and completely respect that point of view. But in this case, I feel that liberterians have been especially lied to. The federal government already does have minimum MPG standards for cars manufactured in the US. The proposal is not for additional regulation, but rather for increasing the standard to better reflect what's possible with modern technology (the MPG standard has not changed significantly since the 1970's).
I look at it this way... we want the government (and I bet you do too) to set minimum standards of safety for electrical applicances so that they don't short out and injure us. These standards don't have to harshly restrict trade, just ensure that products are minimally safe. It doesn't seem outlandish at all when these standards are tightened to better reflect what kind of electrical saftey is possible with the advancement of modern technology.
Global Warming (as seen in the increase in intensity of storms worldwide and the devistation of Hurricaine Katrina) has become a safety issue. Increasing MPG standards to match modern technology is a measure the government can take to better ensure our safety in the long run.
I'm hoping that Wifi will become a bit more ubiquitous in the near future, with free access available whenever you sit down to eat a meal. Some of my local malls are already set, and the various Starbucks-esque shops in the area are good-to-go. I can also imagine this coming in handy for tons of college students stuck in boring lecture auditoriums.
Opera for the DS is based on Opera for Devices, not Opera Mini. Basically, it'll be a bit more fully-featured than Opera Mini, but still tailored for the small screen. Opera for Devices Page - With Opera DS Info.
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"Super hard way?" In Windows, we run an installer, click "OK" and it does the rest. Also, it adds it to the start menu, which can be reorganized and hold all my apps without me having to restructure my executable files. (So, no, dragging the Application folder to the Dock is no substitute for the Start Menu.)
That's a Safari feature, not a Mac feature. Programs like FTP explorer and IE in FTP mode (in Windows) can drag and drop files to and from any explorer window (including the desktop). Browser developers on the PC have made a conscious decision not to use that to save images (and probably only because nobody's ever asked them to).
See, but that's the rub... the PS2 controller didn't work well. The analog sticks are placed at right angles to your thumb's natural orientation. This is stressful and unnatural. If you've used a DC, GCN, or X-Box analog, you know how much more natural that feels than the dual shock 2. Also, they've removed the rumble... one of the things that did work for the PS2 controller.
It's not that they must be original, it's that the design can still be refined (after all, it's about 12 years old now and the analogs were just tacked on after the N64 came out). Sony doesn't need to be original, but it would be nice if they made some simple and easy improvements to their controller to make it a little more comfortable to play with.
See, what I find funny is not only that you didn't pick up on my sarcastic comment, but you didn't figure out it was sarcasm when I went through the trouble to explain the sarcasm in the following sentence. Welcome to humor, Linux user.
And I only bring it up because the article specifically talks about how hard it is to get average joes to use free and open source software. Part of the reason for that is that they don't care that it's open source. Average joes don't know what that means, and they really shouldn't have to. Their only concerns are "does this work?" "how much does this cost?" and "do I like it?"
I think after years of floundering, Nintendo's struck upon a solid strategy for the next gen, simply by removing the concept of "winning" the generation.
EA has said that you'll be able to run in Madden with the analog stick, juke left and right by jerking the nunchuck around, and stiff arm people using the remote. I dare say that Madden for the Wii will be awesome, but that just about every Madden fan will avoid it like the plague simply because it's for a Nintendo system.
What the fuck is a FOSS?
... seriously, though, part of the complexity comes from using your own terms and vocabulary that the average software user wouldn't understand.
Having the skillset couldn't hurt, though. I could see how not knowing anything about how 3D data is represented or how a game engine handles level layouts and construction would impede your ability to write decent AI routines.
Maybe not actually learn to code an engine, but reading some background information on how they work at the core level could be helpful.
Well, I'll offer the only valid opinion on this that I can without actually getting to use a Revolution controller. This game sounds like a cool concept and I hope it pans out. I look forward to it with cautious optimism.
Okay.. "I doubt it" doesn't seem like a solid indication that this person doesn't use a Mac. But even so, I'm willing to assume that he isn't an avid Mac user. But speaking as someone who isn't a Mac fan about how Boot Camp isn't very attractive to non-Mac users seems completely within his realm of understanding.
I use a mac almost every day at work. Boot camp isn't enticing me to buy one for myself. But I'd be willing to run OSX in VMWare or VirtualPC under Windows. I think my case proves that he's right for at least some people.
I hope that when MS is done with them, their company is a smoldering hole in the ground. It isn't right for anybody to write a patent, then wait for other people to do the work making the product, and then come forward decades later and claim their profits as your own.
From the patent:
a means responsive to the digital video input signal for producing a field frame coding type signal which directs a selected one, but not both, of the frame coding means or the field coding means to code the digital video input signal.Wait, let me see if I'm reading this right. They're going after people who use MPEG2 because they patented the interlace bit? You've gotta be out of your freaking mind! Can anyone really own a patent to add a single bit to a frame that says 0=progressive, 1=interlaced?
I don't see how this could possibly hold up, being a patent from 1993. There were video codecs before 1993, and surely they all had information stored in each frame that described how to decode the frame. Storing whether or not the frame is interlaced isn't enough of an advance from just generically storing frame information to warant a patent, and it never should've been granted.
It's a fine theory, but it's a religious theory, and I have no problem with anybody's belief in it.
My problem is that it isn't science. There's not even a remote bullshit shot in the dark chance that it's science. It's religion. And I wouldn't have any problem with it being taught in school, were it being taught in a religion class. However, my issue is when it's put in the setting of a science class. It's most definitely not science. That's my gripe.
I agree, except to add: Why do people "look for excuses" to switch to anything? If you wanna use a mac, just use a mac. If you want to use Windows, use Windows. There's no need for an excuse.
I think the Neo Geo AES would be a more apropriate comparrison. You could say the following about both:
The Neo Geo AES was a commercial failure, not because of any shortcomings in the hardware or the games, but because it was simply too expensive for most people to own. Will the PS3 have the same turnout as the Neo Geo AES? I have no freaking clue. But we know from the AES that price matters.
I think I know why we're stalled on this one. I think it might be a good idea if our fascist dictator in charge actually believed in global warming.
"The jury's still out." No. It hasn't been for a good solid decade now, and you'd have to be an asshole and an idiot to believe otherwise.
Al Gore gives a great presentation on Global Warming (in fact, he just did at Drew University last night) and he cites a survey of scientific journals to see how much global warming is in doubt. That survey found that of 900+ randomly chosen articles, not a single one expressed any doubt that global warming is real. They did the same with a random set of mass media (newspaper, tv, etc...) articles on global warming and found just over 50% expressed doubt about the existence of global warming. No wonder so many people in the US (including G.W. Bush) don't believe that global warming exists.
I look at it this way... we want the government (and I bet you do too) to set minimum standards of safety for electrical applicances so that they don't short out and injure us. These standards don't have to harshly restrict trade, just ensure that products are minimally safe. It doesn't seem outlandish at all when these standards are tightened to better reflect what kind of electrical saftey is possible with the advancement of modern technology.
Global Warming (as seen in the increase in intensity of storms worldwide and the devistation of Hurricaine Katrina) has become a safety issue. Increasing MPG standards to match modern technology is a measure the government can take to better ensure our safety in the long run.
I'm hoping that Wifi will become a bit more ubiquitous in the near future, with free access available whenever you sit down to eat a meal. Some of my local malls are already set, and the various Starbucks-esque shops in the area are good-to-go. I can also imagine this coming in handy for tons of college students stuck in boring lecture auditoriums.
Opera for the DS is based on Opera for Devices, not Opera Mini. Basically, it'll be a bit more fully-featured than Opera Mini, but still tailored for the small screen. Opera for Devices Page - With Opera DS Info.