The X in Xbox came from DirectX, the abstraction language that almost all windows game programmers use(with the exception of games from id that use OpenGL)
I would think that id uses DirectX as well. What you're actually referring to is Direct3D, the graphics portion of DirectX. DirectX also contains packages for networking, input and sound.
Putting aside the fact that "better controllers" is a subjective item...
The DC controller is vastly superior to the PS. Triggers that are actually triggers are your friend. Putting analog functionality into a button.. did anyone play test this 'feature'? It's fucking maddening. The PS controller is a bit small for me, and since the analog sticks were hacked on, they are obviously mis-placed. I was also never able to get the 'feel' of the sticks. I can move to the extremes without problems, but actually using the analog functionality of the stick is frustrating.
I also prefer the Xbox controller. Just about the only drawback is that the sticks are also buttons. This is nice in theory, but in the heat of gameplay you end up pressing down the stick a lot more than you realize. I also don't like the position of the black/white buttons on the 'S' controller, but I try to stay away from that one.
How many games really take advantage of the XBox's hard drive, for example, beyond (maybe!) lots of save space and custom soundtrack support? Of course, even XBox ONLY games don't seem to do a great job of this, either. It seems like you could transfer assets (art, video, music) to the hard drive, either in the background or from some options menu before/after playing, and knock the disc access time out of the player experience.
A lot of games DO pre-cache to the HD. If you haven't played the game in a while, and it seems like it is taking longer to load than usual, you can bet that it is pre-caching. I wish I could provide concrete examples of games but I just can't remember any at this moment. I'm fairly sure that Halo does this. I think the Burnout games do as well (at least 3).
One must remember that a stock Xbox HD is only 8 GB, and only a portion of that is reserved for the pre-cache. It would be impossible to knock out all disc access time, since that would require too much HD space, and would mean copying a 1-3 GB DVD to HD each time you want to play (assuming the cache was invalided by playing another game).
The same people, who insult politicians by painting swastikas on their portraits, but proudly wear Che Guevara T-shirts (with red star on top)?..
The fact that you think there is any link between Nazis and Guevara shows that you're way out of your league here. Go study some history. I won't call you "right wing" or a "troll". Just ignorant.
Government Agencies frequently have "precedence" and/or internal guidelines, but from my experience these are subject to change at any time, and should not be considered as strong as laws or regulations.
Other people said it too, but I've got to pile on. You're an idiot. The USPS operates solely on postage and mailbox fees. Our mail subsidy comes not from the government, but from junk mailers.
Why? It's still early Feb. Fix em now and they just come back later. My favorite is when they reopen the road just after dumping some asphalt in the hole. 50 cars later and the asphalt is all over the place, kicked up onto windshields, peds, etc.
You live in the Northeast. There will be multiple freeze-thaw cycles each year. Potholes will be created. There is no viable solution.
I seriously think that octopuses belong to the sea and they are not pets. I consider pets dogs and cats because they have been genetically modified (by us trought thousands of years) to be our companions.
Sorry, but that doesn't make a damn bit of sense. It's either right or it's wrong to have an animal as a pet. You can't say "oh well our ancestors made these animals pets so they're okay."
If our ancestors had your attitude, we wouldn't have dogs, cats, cows, pigs, donkeys, horses, chickens, etc., as we know them.
So long as the animal is not threatened/endangered, it's captivity poses minimal risk to other living organisms (this includes humans, other animals and plants), and the habitat provided is proper, I don't see any reason to place arbitrary restrictions on what animals can be pets.
The story was about distractions (like/.) and how people fight those distractions, yet, none of us were fighting distraction, instead, many were happily being distracted and further contributing to the distraction by commenting that the very act of commenting was contributing to the distraction.
Now that's some spin. Seriously, that is more daft than Kerry's "Actually, I voted before it before I voted against it."
Let's sum the discussion until now:
You: Isn't this ironic? Me: No. You: Yes it is. Everyone agrees with me. You're a grammar nazi. Me: No, here's the definition. You: With a bit of revisionist history and bullshitting, my post meets that definition. You're a loser.
Just for reference, here is your post in its entirety: "isn't it ironic that this post has been getting replies at a rate of more than 1 per minute since being posted?"
Fake ID's are a fairly good size problem. I used to work in a bar years ago and we could confiscate 30 fake ID's a night on the weekend- and that's at a country bar. A dance club can easily confiscate 100 ID's a night on a weekend. I'm sure law enforcement has much nastier problems on their hands.
I would think that a lot of fake IDs fall apart under law enforcement scrutiny because the DL# is fake or copied, the personal info is fake or copied, etc. All of the fake IDs I have seen were absolutely ridiculous and the only reason they worked was because the booze store wanted our money, but these were college hacks, not a professional job.
In any case, doesn't the fact that so many fake IDs are easily detected show that the system may be working? People are always going to try to make and use fake IDs. If you setup a 'fool proof' ID, someone will eventually break it, and then there will be a real problem because we will have placed so much trust in the ID system.
On the other hand, having one standard design instead of 50+ would probably be a bit easier.
Do you know what happens if you apply for refugee status in the US? You get put in jail. That's right. Come here from North Korea or Sudan or any other hellhole and ask the US for help. What do you get? An 8' x 8' cell, orange jumpsuit, and a toilet. Then, a year or two later, your refugee application is denied and you are sent back to wherever you came from, unless you can prove you're not with the terrists.
While you are technically correct, the term "States' rights" has historically been used to describe "State autonomy in the federal system". So when someone against highway funding restrictions says "States' rights!", what they're really yelling about is the Congress removing state autonomy.
I would describe it as curious or amusing, but certainly not ironic. The article was about how productivity has decreased with the introduction of additional tools and distractions. One might describe the situation as ironic if little or no replies were posted to the story, since that would be counter to what we should expect based upon the article and standard slashdot behavior. Irony != coincidence and irony != funny situation. Referring to definition 2a of the American Heritage dictionary (see link in my original post): "Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs."
It didn't take any '[s]pirited debate' to convince me.. just a quick look in the dictionary.
I am one of only about 20 people in the thread who seem to agree on this.
Being in the majority doesn't mean you're right. Sorry.
Would be nice to hit in two addresses in a transit laden area and get the best train/bus/other to take. NJ Transit actually does this.. you can go on their site and punch in addresses and get the nearest train/bus stops and the itinerary. However, it uses a drop box to select City,State. If yours isn't listed, you have to do a bit of research on your own. Also, you need a street address.. you can't just say "Take me from New Brunswick to Parsippany". The NJ Transit site also includes NYC Subways and PATH in planning trips. I couldn't get it to use NYC Buses.
No, the GP is right. You're wrong in thinking that the idea applies to wholesale language changes such as "'speed' now means 'picture frame'". What the idea does apply to are the gray areas, where the boundaries are not so clear. This is how we got the widespread misuse of words/phrases like "irony", "it begs the question", "same difference", etc.
It's the same idea that has led to the "copyright infringment==theft" farce that the RIAA and MPAA take great pride in.
Can we stop using gross number of search results as a metric?
Seriously, are you looking at the 2,838,182th page that Google or MSN returns? Hell, Google will only give you 10,000 of the returns anyway, so why does it matter?
I don't think it's a strong indicator of "more content indexed" as we don't know the details of the search algorithms, how dynamic sites are handled, etc.
Also, using number of results as a guide will lead to the search engines giving a larger number of results simply to have a larger number than their competitor. It will not foster good searching techniques.
The GP was talking about dropping a 486 packard bell. While such a machine did deserve to be dropped, it still had a HD, and it would have been internal. Remember the time frame.
Yeah, if we were living before 1913. With the 17th amendment, senators officially became representatives of the people (although many states were directly electing senators prior to the 17th). While the initial role of senators was to represent the states, it is no longer the case.
Yes there are. Just because you are unaware of them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Why din't you name any, then? Look, I'm not against anything non-MS. It's just that I don't see anything else besides Mac and Linux, and no one else I've talked to does either. If there are other alternatives, as you claim, let's hear it!!!
Interesting claim but certainly not fact at all. This is your prison this belief.
Why can't you counter it with more than "you're wrong"? What, *for the average user*, is easier to use than OS X? After that, what is easier to use than Windows? Again, I'm not saying Windows is great. It's just better than all but one of the alternatives (unless one of your mystery alternatives fills the void?).
That's your bondage. You are a slave to this perception. You have a good rationalization and denial skills.
It's a statement based on market realities. I'm sorry that you can't open your eyes. When a product has 90% market share, they must be doing something right.
Slashdot Mirror
The X in Xbox came from DirectX, the abstraction language that almost all windows game programmers use(with the exception of games from id that use OpenGL)
I would think that id uses DirectX as well. What you're actually referring to is Direct3D, the graphics portion of DirectX. DirectX also contains packages for networking, input and sound.
better controllers
Putting aside the fact that "better controllers" is a subjective item...
The DC controller is vastly superior to the PS. Triggers that are actually triggers are your friend. Putting analog functionality into a button.. did anyone play test this 'feature'? It's fucking maddening. The PS controller is a bit small for me, and since the analog sticks were hacked on, they are obviously mis-placed. I was also never able to get the 'feel' of the sticks. I can move to the extremes without problems, but actually using the analog functionality of the stick is frustrating.
I also prefer the Xbox controller. Just about the only drawback is that the sticks are also buttons. This is nice in theory, but in the heat of gameplay you end up pressing down the stick a lot more than you realize. I also don't like the position of the black/white buttons on the 'S' controller, but I try to stay away from that one.
How many games really take advantage of the XBox's hard drive, for example, beyond (maybe!) lots of save space and custom soundtrack support? Of course, even XBox ONLY games don't seem to do a great job of this, either. It seems like you could transfer assets (art, video, music) to the hard drive, either in the background or from some options menu before/after playing, and knock the disc access time out of the player experience.
A lot of games DO pre-cache to the HD. If you haven't played the game in a while, and it seems like it is taking longer to load than usual, you can bet that it is pre-caching. I wish I could provide concrete examples of games but I just can't remember any at this moment. I'm fairly sure that Halo does this. I think the Burnout games do as well (at least 3).
One must remember that a stock Xbox HD is only 8 GB, and only a portion of that is reserved for the pre-cache. It would be impossible to knock out all disc access time, since that would require too much HD space, and would mean copying a 1-3 GB DVD to HD each time you want to play (assuming the cache was invalided by playing another game).
The same people, who insult politicians by painting swastikas on their portraits, but proudly wear Che Guevara T-shirts (with red star on top)?..
The fact that you think there is any link between Nazis and Guevara shows that you're way out of your league here. Go study some history. I won't call you "right wing" or a "troll". Just ignorant.
I remember the movie, but I don't remember anything like what you're talking about. Are you referring to one of the sequels, or the remake?
Government Agencies frequently have "precedence" and/or internal guidelines, but from my experience these are subject to change at any time, and should not be considered as strong as laws or regulations.
Other people said it too, but I've got to pile on. You're an idiot. The USPS operates solely on postage and mailbox fees. Our mail subsidy comes not from the government, but from junk mailers.
Why? It's still early Feb. Fix em now and they just come back later. My favorite is when they reopen the road just after dumping some asphalt in the hole. 50 cars later and the asphalt is all over the place, kicked up onto windshields, peds, etc.
You live in the Northeast. There will be multiple freeze-thaw cycles each year. Potholes will be created. There is no viable solution.
I seriously think that octopuses belong to the sea and they are not pets. I consider pets dogs and cats because they have been genetically modified (by us trought thousands of years) to be our companions.
Sorry, but that doesn't make a damn bit of sense. It's either right or it's wrong to have an animal as a pet. You can't say "oh well our ancestors made these animals pets so they're okay."
If our ancestors had your attitude, we wouldn't have dogs, cats, cows, pigs, donkeys, horses, chickens, etc., as we know them.
So long as the animal is not threatened/endangered, it's captivity poses minimal risk to other living organisms (this includes humans, other animals and plants), and the habitat provided is proper, I don't see any reason to place arbitrary restrictions on what animals can be pets.
The story was about distractions (like /.) and how people fight those distractions, yet, none of us were fighting distraction, instead, many were happily being distracted and further contributing to the distraction by commenting that the very act of commenting was contributing to the distraction.
Now that's some spin. Seriously, that is more daft than Kerry's "Actually, I voted before it before I voted against it."
Let's sum the discussion until now:
You: Isn't this ironic?
Me: No.
You: Yes it is. Everyone agrees with me. You're a grammar nazi.
Me: No, here's the definition.
You: With a bit of revisionist history and bullshitting, my post meets that definition. You're a loser.
Just for reference, here is your post in its entirety: "isn't it ironic that this post has been getting replies at a rate of more than 1 per minute since being posted?"
Fake ID's are a fairly good size problem. I used to work in a bar years ago and we could confiscate 30 fake ID's a night on the weekend- and that's at a country bar. A dance club can easily confiscate 100 ID's a night on a weekend. I'm sure law enforcement has much nastier problems on their hands.
I would think that a lot of fake IDs fall apart under law enforcement scrutiny because the DL# is fake or copied, the personal info is fake or copied, etc. All of the fake IDs I have seen were absolutely ridiculous and the only reason they worked was because the booze store wanted our money, but these were college hacks, not a professional job.
In any case, doesn't the fact that so many fake IDs are easily detected show that the system may be working? People are always going to try to make and use fake IDs. If you setup a 'fool proof' ID, someone will eventually break it, and then there will be a real problem because we will have placed so much trust in the ID system.
On the other hand, having one standard design instead of 50+ would probably be a bit easier.
Do you know what happens if you apply for refugee status in the US? You get put in jail. That's right. Come here from North Korea or Sudan or any other hellhole and ask the US for help. What do you get? An 8' x 8' cell, orange jumpsuit, and a toilet. Then, a year or two later, your refugee application is denied and you are sent back to wherever you came from, unless you can prove you're not with the terrists.
Tough luck, eh?
While you are technically correct, the term "States' rights" has historically been used to describe "State autonomy in the federal system". So when someone against highway funding restrictions says "States' rights!", what they're really yelling about is the Congress removing state autonomy.
I would describe it as curious or amusing, but certainly not ironic. The article was about how productivity has decreased with the introduction of additional tools and distractions. One might describe the situation as ironic if little or no replies were posted to the story, since that would be counter to what we should expect based upon the article and standard slashdot behavior. Irony != coincidence and irony != funny situation. Referring to definition 2a of the American Heritage dictionary (see link in my original post): "Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs."
It didn't take any '[s]pirited debate' to convince me.. just a quick look in the dictionary.
I am one of only about 20 people in the thread who seem to agree on this.
Being in the majority doesn't mean you're right. Sorry.
No, not at all.
Irony, courtesy of dictionary.com
Would be nice to hit in two addresses in a transit laden area and get the best train/bus/other to take. NJ Transit actually does this.. you can go on their site and punch in addresses and get the nearest train/bus stops and the itinerary. However, it uses a drop box to select City,State. If yours isn't listed, you have to do a bit of research on your own. Also, you need a street address.. you can't just say "Take me from New Brunswick to Parsippany". The NJ Transit site also includes NYC Subways and PATH in planning trips. I couldn't get it to use NYC Buses.
Doesn't really help you for your SF trip, though.
No, the GP is right. You're wrong in thinking that the idea applies to wholesale language changes such as "'speed' now means 'picture frame'". What the idea does apply to are the gray areas, where the boundaries are not so clear. This is how we got the widespread misuse of words/phrases like "irony", "it begs the question", "same difference", etc.
It's the same idea that has led to the "copyright infringment==theft" farce that the RIAA and MPAA take great pride in.
Can we stop using gross number of search results as a metric?
Seriously, are you looking at the 2,838,182th page that Google or MSN returns? Hell, Google will only give you 10,000 of the returns anyway, so why does it matter?
I don't think it's a strong indicator of "more content indexed" as we don't know the details of the search algorithms, how dynamic sites are handled, etc.
Also, using number of results as a guide will lead to the search engines giving a larger number of results simply to have a larger number than their competitor. It will not foster good searching techniques.
In a sense, it is like the MHz myth.
Bah. If they're well-educated, they can speak English.
Honestly, Paxman is brilliant
Honestly, he can't be that brilliant if we went as unprepared to an interview as you describe.
The GP was talking about dropping a 486 packard bell. While such a machine did deserve to be dropped, it still had a HD, and it would have been internal. Remember the time frame.
and who the senators represent(the state)
Yeah, if we were living before 1913. With the 17th amendment, senators officially became representatives of the people (although many states were directly electing senators prior to the 17th). While the initial role of senators was to represent the states, it is no longer the case.
I think less than half of the adults understand the 1st amendment.
You include yourself in this group, I hope.
Yes, but just because it is not there does not mean you do not have the right. Check out the 9th amendment.
Yes there are. Just because you are unaware of them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Why din't you name any, then? Look, I'm not against anything non-MS. It's just that I don't see anything else besides Mac and Linux, and no one else I've talked to does either. If there are other alternatives, as you claim, let's hear it!!!
Interesting claim but certainly not fact at all. This is your prison this belief.
Why can't you counter it with more than "you're wrong"? What, *for the average user*, is easier to use than OS X? After that, what is easier to use than Windows? Again, I'm not saying Windows is great. It's just better than all but one of the alternatives (unless one of your mystery alternatives fills the void?).
That's your bondage. You are a slave to this perception. You have a good rationalization and denial skills.
It's a statement based on market realities. I'm sorry that you can't open your eyes. When a product has 90% market share, they must be doing something right.