I live in Auckland and have a reasonably fast connection - much better than the one I had in the UK. I get 6Mbps down, 700Kbps up and have an 80GB cap. There is some competition now so the situation has improved markedly even over the last couple of years and I expect this fibre to the door to improve it even more. Of course we also have to worry about being spied on while we're enjoying our new fast connection. I find it funny that ISPs advertise how fast their connection is in how many movies you can get when there are few legal movie download services. I have an AppleTV and my previous 20GB cap was a serious impediment so I upgraded to 40GB and the ISP offered to double it again if I would commit to stay with them for 12 months. I wonder if caps will still exist once we get fibre because the download speeds are likely to be so high that even 80GB may not be enough.
Also, as someone else commented, it isn't necessarily the speed of the connection to the ISP that is the limiting factor. Often my connection is super fast but accessing sites in the US can be really slow due to traffic making its way across the Pacific. Also, don't get me started on how we suffer from the Aussies censorship decisions - I couldn't even get the proper version of GTAIV because the Aussies don't have adult/M ratings for games and rather than sell us the full version we got shipped the same watered down PG version that Australia got.
At least in Auckland we have broadband, there are still large numbers of people stuck on dialup out in the sticks.....
I would be more interested in the percentages per field. You can't classify all scientists under one banner as some fields are 'softer' than others so people with religious views are able to function. Other fields are strongly incompatible with religious views. Also, there will likely be a strong impact from the population in general so in a country like the US where almost everyone is religious, this will mean that there will be a significant population of scientists who hold religious views albeit lower than the population in general. In other countries where religion is less strongly entrenched the percentages are likely to be significantly lower.
Combination of factors - I am short sighted which makes me prone to PVD which can lead to detached retina, I was likely dehydrated from just having spent 38 hours travelling from Europe to New Zealand so that may have contributed. Frankly, just bad luck. Not going to happen again for the same reasons though, no vitreous in one eye and the other has now done what it is going to do. May get detached retinas for some other reason in the future but for now all clear.
As you age, the vitreous (the jelly part in the eye) starts to liquify. This is normal and it starts around the edges where it connects with the retina and pretty much everyone goes through this. Normally you'll see a rise in floaters in your eye as early as your 40's and it is associated with being short sighted. Sometimes, as the vitreous liquifies, some parts are still attached to the retina and this tugs at the surface and can pull sections away and that is what happened to me in both eyes (Posterior Vitreous Detachment). The ring I saw was a Weiss RIng which is from the area around the optic nerve which was pulled away.
True story - I woke up one morning and my eyes were both full of floating debris and this circular ring. Also there were lots of flashes in my eye. None of this is a good sign so I googled the symptoms and it said I likely had a detached retina and I should go to hospital immediately. I did, and yes, both retinas had significant rips and needed multiple laser treatments, a couple of vitrectomies and a membranectomy before I was given the all clear. The morning I presented the doctor told me that it was very good that I had come in so quickly because it could quickly have deteriorated to a stage where it wouldn't have been repairable.
Of course, my symptoms were pretty obvious and I had an idea what it was before I even started looking but the first hit said 'go to hospital. Now'. Very good advice. I wonder how often the opposite is true and people use Google and find that it suggests it is nothing to worry about and they don't go to the doctor? My guess is that is rather rare compared with the hypochondriacs who have nothing wrong with them.
They're responsible for this abortion of a standard and yet even they can't implement the thing. So much for eating your own dog food. They should be *MADE* to use it or the ISO should simply kill the standard since clearly it can't work.
"Same way you'd explain that you can call someone a Christian when the vast majority by far don't follow the bible and most of their ideals are the exact opposite of Jesus' ideals"
Indeed. This is precisely why I don't believe in Christians. I've never met one. I've met plenty of people who claim to be Christians but since they all selectively believe bits of the bible and not other parts I just don't see how they can claim to be Christian. It reminds me of someone I studied Geology with. She was a 'Young Earther' who didn't believe the world was more than 6000 years old but she was studying a field which explicitly disagrees with her. In the end she got a degree in Geology despite her disagreement with its basic ideas and thus I don't consider her a geologist.
The thing that is killing my old iBook G4 are the bloody Flash games that my wife wants to run on it. The thing is still perfectly capable of doing most stuff but Flash is such a resource hog and the OS X version of Flash so poorly optimised, especially since they released Flash 10 for Mac which made the PPC performance much worse. I'm tempted to get an iPad but the lack of Flash would upset her indoors but I think lack of Flash is a bonus. Anyway, if all these Flash game writers started porting over to HTML5 once it is finalised then the lack of Flash will not be an issue. Oh, and Steve Jobs will have done us all a great service in releasing the iPad without Flash and ending it's tyrannical reign.
I had a 486 DX which came with the turbo button. With the turbo on it ran at 33Mhz and with it off it ran at 8Mhz. The justification at the time was that there were some older programs written for the 8086 which would be far too quick at 33Mhz so the turbo button was added to make them run at the right speed. Some later games (Tetris for instance) detected the clock speed and adjusted their speed so it was consistent across different machines and clock speeds but once the game started at 33Mhz you could hit the turbo button to drop to 8Mhz and it would never get so fast as to be unplayable. Great for massive high scores.
"By implanting children with the device, they are no longer in that culture, but neither are they a "normal" fully hearing person, even when they have the device plugged in. "
The problem is that if you don't implant children then their brain never develops the ability to process sound so they will always be deaf. I've heard people say that children shouldn't have implants and you should wait until they are old enough to make the choice but at that point the choice has already been made for them because the implant won't work. Which is worse? Having a technology that will give a child a working level of hearing (not normal but enough to get by) or denying them the ability to ever hear anything? If a child is capable of benefiting from a cochlear implant then it is their right to have one and at least be able to hear something. The same will go for visual implants when they become available. Deaf and blind culture are really just support systems for people with a fundamental disability. I simply can't believe that someone who is deaf or blind would willingly wish that disability on someone else if it could be avoided. To do so would be as bad as the parents who amputate their children's limbs so they can beg (yes, I have seen this, it is not something I wanted to see).
"The xbox came to market in 2001 and is shutting down in 2010. I wonder how you came up with the 5 year run."
The PS2 came out in 2000 and is still getting new games. The Xbox came out in 2001 and was replaced by the 360 in 2006 at which point new games for the Xbox dried up almost immediately. Looks like 5 years to me. If you can't buy new games for the system it is dead.
The PS2 came out before the Xbox and is still being made and new games are still being produced albeit in lower numbers. With the 360 came out, the original Xbox disappeared almost over night and games for it stopped immediately too. When the 360 replacement comes out I fully expect the same thing to happen so despite the fact that I have a 360 and enjoy the system (albeit after 2 RROD repairs) I will seriously consider my options when the time comes.
The PS3 has likely got another 7 years in it at least based on the lifespans of the PS1 and PS2 so even though I don't currently have a PS3 I may buy one in the next year or two knowing that I'll get a good run with it. I wonder how much life today's 360 purchasers can expect given that the original Xbox only had a 5 year run?
"For a long time I was on the fence about Apple. I liked their strong sense of making sure everything works But then I encountered their users, snobby idiots really. Although it was not because they used Apple, more that those with a specific profession tend to use Macs"
I've been programming for 30 years now on everything from the old Commodore Pet right through supercomputers (MasPar, Thinking Machines, Transputers and these days clusters and vector units) and since 1990 I've been UNIX all the way. I *HATED* Macs not because of their users but because of the OS which stunk up the room. OS X is a different beast. I couldn't give a stuff about the snobby tossers who think Apple is cool - I use Macs because they are simply the best combination of hardware and operating system I have encountered and I'm so grateful I don't have to mess with cheap PC hardware to get my UNIX fix any more. My Mac reminds me of everything I loved about my old Sun SPARCStation - elegant design and a solid OS. I don't care that the chips can be found in just about any PC, it is how it is put together that matters.
"Recently I havent liked Apple because of their DRM and crazy control they have over their products and markets. I mean IPods that you cant change the battery in? WTF!"
You mean the DRM that was forced on Apple by the record companies otherwise they wouldn't have anything to sell in the iTunes store, and that they used their market power to remove? Hopefully, the same thing will happen with their movies - it is nice that many Blu-ray discs come with a DVD copy or a digital download version these days but it would be better to have an unencumbered version.
As for the battery - they can be replaced. I replaced the battery in my 6 year old iPod 3G recently and it wasn't all that difficult. There isn't much point having an openable door on the back when the battery will last five years. The battery replacement kits come with the necessary tools and instructions to open up the iPod and my 3rd Gen is back up and running with longer battery life than it had when it was new.
"Now yet another reason I dont like Apple, these guys dont seem to realize what they are doing, stagnating their own products by being jackasses about their products. I have distantly wanted a Mac, just to toy with it... but why? No reason anymore."
You're missing out. OS X is very open and the dev tools are excellent and freely available. The locking down of the iPhone, iPod Touch and now the iPad is not representative of Macs in general and simply a feature of the type of use as an appliance. The recent issue with the jailbroken iPhones being hacked is good enough reason for the tight control of the platform. It isn't a general purpose computer no matter what you might think - if you want one of those a Mac is the best solution out there - just don't sit in Starbucks drinking overpriced crap coffee and no-one will think you're a twat. In my field (computational biology) Macs vastly outnumber Windows and Linux users because it is the best platform.
This is not like a hologram, it is more like a viewmaster. Now I enjoyed Up in 3D but it didn't really feel like I was looking at the world. Everything was exaggerated. Put these discs on a small TV and it is going to be surround sound all over again and stereo before it. It will take a while before it settles down and films are made which don't try to be sensational with their use of depth, especially since you'll be peering through a tiny 50" or so screen at most. I'll stick with my HD 100" front projection system until this settles down anyway and if it doesn't catch on, so what?
"Racing is all about knowing the lines and racing techniques, and a video game can definitely teach you that."
Indeed. I'm too old and fat to fit into a real racing car but back when I got my PS2 I had the logitech wheel set up (playing with a joy pad doesn't really do it for me) and ran GT3 on my projection screen. Got pretty good too.
A little later, my wife bought me a track day as a birthday present and they took us out in MG-Fs with an instructor to show us the lines. I already knew how to read the road and so did just fine. The best driver of the day was awarded on the basis of that session and I won largely because of the time spent in GT.
It isn't exactly like a real car as you don't have the G-forces but with a big enough screen and force feedback on the wheel it can be quite involving and educational. I think student drivers should all be put through their paces in a sim before being let out on the road, especially here in New Zealand where kids start driving on the road at 15 (madness) and the standard of driving here is terrible (excessive speed and tailgating resulting in lots and lots of avoidable crashes). Sessions in a simulator letting them learn to judge the road and conditions as well as throwing hazards at them would definitely help a lot.
I have systematically made all my family members get Macs over the years and this has reduced requirements for my support services to near to nothing. I have tried a few on Linux and that helped but they tended to be the most technically literate. Others who insisted that Windows was all they could use got XP with non-administrator accounts and I would remote desktop in as needed. That worked pretty well but not as well as a Mac and that person (my wife's 92 year old grandmother) is about to get a Mac mini.
I can't understand why you have people who only want to do basic tasks with anything other than an non-admin account? Even on a Mac I reserve the admin rights for myself.
Re:The BBC Micro version was first and best
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"The C64 version was better, I'm afraid - the extra memory meant there were special missions and more ships:-)"
The C64 version felt sluggish and the lack of an analogue controller made it harder to do really neat aerobatics (spaceobatics?). The BBC Micro was so much faster than all the other machines of the same generation and the graphics capabilities we better than the C64 despite the lack of hardware sprites. Sound was better on the C64, I'll grant you.
Re:The BBC Micro version was first and best
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"Nope, ArcElite was the best version, but then again the Archimedes was also a "BBC Micro" (well at least the A300-series had the BBC logo):P"
Although I never played the Arc version I have to say I'm not convinced by the solid polygon models. I still think the old wireframe style of the original looks best.
The BBC Micro version was first and best
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I remember getting Elite on my BBC Model B back in '84 on cassette. It took quite a while to load but was well worth it. When I upgraded my machine with Opus DDOS and an 800K double sided, double density 5 1/4" floppy drive I was able to get the floppy version which loaded my more quickly. You really needed the analogue controller too. I stuck an old Scalextric controller on top of mine to give me a full hand grip and I could fly rings around other ships.
I tried other versions like the C=64 and PC versions but they really didn't work as well as the version for the BBC despite the fact that there was little use of colour (only the dash) but the mode 4 high resolution monochrome graphics were much crisper and animation was faster on the BBC than other platforms. The BBC Micro was a real gem for quality games. The versions of arcade games like PacMan, Defender, Scramble and so on were in many ways better than their arcade equivalent. The BBC had some really nice hardware acceleration features such as hardware scrolling (both vertical and horizontal) and a very configurable video ULA which is how they were able to do the mode switching part way down the screen in Elite where it switched from mode 4 (320x256 1 bit colour) to mode 5 (160x256 2 bit colour).
It was a real slog to get to "Elite" but worth the journey. Very few games today are anything like as enjoyable despite the improvements in technology. I guess GTAIII was the first time since Elite I had anything like the same feeling of freedom and the thrill of just being bad.
"The crystalens isn't going to correct a retinal problem. As seeing is done in the brain, not the eye, I'm surprised your visual cortex hasn't corrected the retinal distortion."
Interesting that you say that, with both eyes I see fine. Vertical lines are straight and all is well. Depth perception works too. Basically, with both eyes I can't say my vision is too bad. However, when I use one or the other that is when the problems appear. My right eye has the distortion and my brain has compensated by giving my left eye an equal and opposite distortion. It is gradually improving after the membranectomy which was a year ago now. Before that trying to read with my right eye made it look like the page was folded and words would just be missing so I mostly relied on my left with the right just giving some depth. After the surgery, the retina flattened out somewhat but the surgeon said it may never go fully back to the original shape. As a result I still have some distortion and of course it isn't possible to correct the focus. I have the correct prescription and can only make out the line above the one which should be 6/6 (I think here it is 6 metres because that is basically 20 feet give or take). Also, I still have trouble with O and D since the distortion can make one look like the other which doesn't help. There is also a slight degree of fogging apparent and a minor blind spot right in the centre of my vision from the retinal tear. I also still have bad floaters in the left eye which also had a detached retina but that was corrected with laser treatment a couple of times and is OK now.
The retina isn't coming off now and I hope my brain can figure out how to correct the distortion one of these days since it clearly compensated with my left eye which doesn't have any distortion but does show it. Maybe I should try using just the right eye to really work it. The other thing I have found is that the right eye got lazy since it wasn't really being used so it is now hard to focus up close with that eye but with exercise I can focus it still but expect to lose that soon.
All in all though, I think we're both very lucky to live in the age we do since there is a good chance we would have been members of the white stick club otherwise.
Nothing much has changed as expected other than the Mobile Me iDisk icon has changed to a rather fetching blue one with a cloud on it from the old magenta one. Update took a while to complete on my 1st gen MacBook Pro.
I've had two detached retinas and two vitrectomies. First because of all the crap in my eye after the worst detached retina, and the second because I ended up with scar tissue which was distorting my retina so they needed to remove that (membranectomy). As you say, better than going blind. Anyway, I still have distorted vision and am now developing presbyopia (I'm 43) and have been assured that I will also get a cataract fairly soon. Hoping that it will be possible to get a crystalens because I need to be able to focus back and forth in my job. I doubt that I would get 20/20 vision (6/6 here) even with a crystalens though since my vision in that eye is about 80% with glasses. I can read with it but the distortion is a problem of the retina itself.
"Not even close. Wolfenstein wasn't even the first raycaster game. It was preceded by Catacombs 3D (also by Id) which itself was preceded by Hovertank (also by Id)."
Not a FPS but it did have a first person view - 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Monster_Maze) developed in 1981. Then of course, there was Elite for the BBC Micro in 1984 which gave us the whole 3D space flight battle. Think GTA in space and you're pretty much there.
There is only so much money that is available. By allowing trade in second hand games people who can't afford to buy the full price are contributing something to the games market without devaluing the actual full price. Allowing people to trade games in towards new ones keeps new product coming into the market just like with trading in cars for example. Sure, a game may not degrade the way that a car does but in reality a cutting edge game when new looks a lot less good a few years on. Take GTAIII for instance. Massive hit but would you buy it today?
If the game companies do switch to digital distribution they will have to lower their prices or accept that there will be less money coming into their business, not more. Imagine if people couldn't sell their old car to contribute to a new one. Far fewer new cars would be sold. Same goes for games and other forms of entertainment like movies, books, music and so on.
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It was a 'kin stupid name. I don't know what the 'kin 'ell they were 'kin thinking. 'kin idiots.
I live in Auckland and have a reasonably fast connection - much better than the one I had in the UK. I get 6Mbps down, 700Kbps up and have an 80GB cap. There is some competition now so the situation has improved markedly even over the last couple of years and I expect this fibre to the door to improve it even more. Of course we also have to worry about being spied on while we're enjoying our new fast connection. I find it funny that ISPs advertise how fast their connection is in how many movies you can get when there are few legal movie download services. I have an AppleTV and my previous 20GB cap was a serious impediment so I upgraded to 40GB and the ISP offered to double it again if I would commit to stay with them for 12 months. I wonder if caps will still exist once we get fibre because the download speeds are likely to be so high that even 80GB may not be enough.
Also, as someone else commented, it isn't necessarily the speed of the connection to the ISP that is the limiting factor. Often my connection is super fast but accessing sites in the US can be really slow due to traffic making its way across the Pacific. Also, don't get me started on how we suffer from the Aussies censorship decisions - I couldn't even get the proper version of GTAIV because the Aussies don't have adult/M ratings for games and rather than sell us the full version we got shipped the same watered down PG version that Australia got.
At least in Auckland we have broadband, there are still large numbers of people stuck on dialup out in the sticks.....
I would be more interested in the percentages per field. You can't classify all scientists under one banner as some fields are 'softer' than others so people with religious views are able to function. Other fields are strongly incompatible with religious views. Also, there will likely be a strong impact from the population in general so in a country like the US where almost everyone is religious, this will mean that there will be a significant population of scientists who hold religious views albeit lower than the population in general. In other countries where religion is less strongly entrenched the percentages are likely to be significantly lower.
"Why the hell did your retinas detach??"
Combination of factors - I am short sighted which makes me prone to PVD which can lead to detached retina, I was likely dehydrated from just having spent 38 hours travelling from Europe to New Zealand so that may have contributed. Frankly, just bad luck. Not going to happen again for the same reasons though, no vitreous in one eye and the other has now done what it is going to do. May get detached retinas for some other reason in the future but for now all clear.
As you age, the vitreous (the jelly part in the eye) starts to liquify. This is normal and it starts around the edges where it connects with the retina and pretty much everyone goes through this. Normally you'll see a rise in floaters in your eye as early as your 40's and it is associated with being short sighted. Sometimes, as the vitreous liquifies, some parts are still attached to the retina and this tugs at the surface and can pull sections away and that is what happened to me in both eyes (Posterior Vitreous Detachment). The ring I saw was a Weiss RIng which is from the area around the optic nerve which was pulled away.
This site covers it pretty well - http://www.agingeye.net/visionbasics/flashesandfloaters.php
True story - I woke up one morning and my eyes were both full of floating debris and this circular ring. Also there were lots of flashes in my eye. None of this is a good sign so I googled the symptoms and it said I likely had a detached retina and I should go to hospital immediately. I did, and yes, both retinas had significant rips and needed multiple laser treatments, a couple of vitrectomies and a membranectomy before I was given the all clear. The morning I presented the doctor told me that it was very good that I had come in so quickly because it could quickly have deteriorated to a stage where it wouldn't have been repairable.
Of course, my symptoms were pretty obvious and I had an idea what it was before I even started looking but the first hit said 'go to hospital. Now'. Very good advice. I wonder how often the opposite is true and people use Google and find that it suggests it is nothing to worry about and they don't go to the doctor? My guess is that is rather rare compared with the hypochondriacs who have nothing wrong with them.
They're responsible for this abortion of a standard and yet even they can't implement the thing. So much for eating your own dog food. They should be *MADE* to use it or the ISO should simply kill the standard since clearly it can't work.
"Same way you'd explain that you can call someone a Christian when the vast majority by far don't follow the bible and most of their ideals are the exact opposite of Jesus' ideals"
Indeed. This is precisely why I don't believe in Christians. I've never met one. I've met plenty of people who claim to be Christians but since they all selectively believe bits of the bible and not other parts I just don't see how they can claim to be Christian. It reminds me of someone I studied Geology with. She was a 'Young Earther' who didn't believe the world was more than 6000 years old but she was studying a field which explicitly disagrees with her. In the end she got a degree in Geology despite her disagreement with its basic ideas and thus I don't consider her a geologist.
The thing that is killing my old iBook G4 are the bloody Flash games that my wife wants to run on it. The thing is still perfectly capable of doing most stuff but Flash is such a resource hog and the OS X version of Flash so poorly optimised, especially since they released Flash 10 for Mac which made the PPC performance much worse. I'm tempted to get an iPad but the lack of Flash would upset her indoors but I think lack of Flash is a bonus. Anyway, if all these Flash game writers started porting over to HTML5 once it is finalised then the lack of Flash will not be an issue. Oh, and Steve Jobs will have done us all a great service in releasing the iPad without Flash and ending it's tyrannical reign.
I had a 486 DX which came with the turbo button. With the turbo on it ran at 33Mhz and with it off it ran at 8Mhz. The justification at the time was that there were some older programs written for the 8086 which would be far too quick at 33Mhz so the turbo button was added to make them run at the right speed. Some later games (Tetris for instance) detected the clock speed and adjusted their speed so it was consistent across different machines and clock speeds but once the game started at 33Mhz you could hit the turbo button to drop to 8Mhz and it would never get so fast as to be unplayable. Great for massive high scores.
"By implanting children with the device, they are no longer in that culture, but neither are they a "normal" fully hearing person, even when they have the device plugged in. "
The problem is that if you don't implant children then their brain never develops the ability to process sound so they will always be deaf. I've heard people say that children shouldn't have implants and you should wait until they are old enough to make the choice but at that point the choice has already been made for them because the implant won't work. Which is worse? Having a technology that will give a child a working level of hearing (not normal but enough to get by) or denying them the ability to ever hear anything? If a child is capable of benefiting from a cochlear implant then it is their right to have one and at least be able to hear something. The same will go for visual implants when they become available. Deaf and blind culture are really just support systems for people with a fundamental disability. I simply can't believe that someone who is deaf or blind would willingly wish that disability on someone else if it could be avoided. To do so would be as bad as the parents who amputate their children's limbs so they can beg (yes, I have seen this, it is not something I wanted to see).
"The xbox came to market in 2001 and is shutting down in 2010. I wonder how you came up with the 5 year run."
The PS2 came out in 2000 and is still getting new games. The Xbox came out in 2001 and was replaced by the 360 in 2006 at which point new games for the Xbox dried up almost immediately. Looks like 5 years to me. If you can't buy new games for the system it is dead.
The PS2 came out before the Xbox and is still being made and new games are still being produced albeit in lower numbers. With the 360 came out, the original Xbox disappeared almost over night and games for it stopped immediately too. When the 360 replacement comes out I fully expect the same thing to happen so despite the fact that I have a 360 and enjoy the system (albeit after 2 RROD repairs) I will seriously consider my options when the time comes.
The PS3 has likely got another 7 years in it at least based on the lifespans of the PS1 and PS2 so even though I don't currently have a PS3 I may buy one in the next year or two knowing that I'll get a good run with it. I wonder how much life today's 360 purchasers can expect given that the original Xbox only had a 5 year run?
"For a long time I was on the fence about Apple. I liked their strong sense of making sure everything works
But then I encountered their users, snobby idiots really. Although it was not because they used Apple, more that those with a specific profession tend to use Macs"
I've been programming for 30 years now on everything from the old Commodore Pet right through supercomputers (MasPar, Thinking Machines, Transputers and these days clusters and vector units) and since 1990 I've been UNIX all the way. I *HATED* Macs not because of their users but because of the OS which stunk up the room. OS X is a different beast. I couldn't give a stuff about the snobby tossers who think Apple is cool - I use Macs because they are simply the best combination of hardware and operating system I have encountered and I'm so grateful I don't have to mess with cheap PC hardware to get my UNIX fix any more. My Mac reminds me of everything I loved about my old Sun SPARCStation - elegant design and a solid OS. I don't care that the chips can be found in just about any PC, it is how it is put together that matters.
"Recently I havent liked Apple because of their DRM and crazy control they have over their products and markets. I mean IPods that you cant change the battery in? WTF!"
You mean the DRM that was forced on Apple by the record companies otherwise they wouldn't have anything to sell in the iTunes store, and that they used their market power to remove? Hopefully, the same thing will happen with their movies - it is nice that many Blu-ray discs come with a DVD copy or a digital download version these days but it would be better to have an unencumbered version.
As for the battery - they can be replaced. I replaced the battery in my 6 year old iPod 3G recently and it wasn't all that difficult. There isn't much point having an openable door on the back when the battery will last five years. The battery replacement kits come with the necessary tools and instructions to open up the iPod and my 3rd Gen is back up and running with longer battery life than it had when it was new.
"Now yet another reason I dont like Apple, these guys dont seem to realize what they are doing, stagnating their own products by being jackasses about their products.
I have distantly wanted a Mac, just to toy with it... but why? No reason anymore."
You're missing out. OS X is very open and the dev tools are excellent and freely available. The locking down of the iPhone, iPod Touch and now the iPad is not representative of Macs in general and simply a feature of the type of use as an appliance. The recent issue with the jailbroken iPhones being hacked is good enough reason for the tight control of the platform. It isn't a general purpose computer no matter what you might think - if you want one of those a Mac is the best solution out there - just don't sit in Starbucks drinking overpriced crap coffee and no-one will think you're a twat. In my field (computational biology) Macs vastly outnumber Windows and Linux users because it is the best platform.
This is not like a hologram, it is more like a viewmaster. Now I enjoyed Up in 3D but it didn't really feel like I was looking at the world. Everything was exaggerated. Put these discs on a small TV and it is going to be surround sound all over again and stereo before it. It will take a while before it settles down and films are made which don't try to be sensational with their use of depth, especially since you'll be peering through a tiny 50" or so screen at most. I'll stick with my HD 100" front projection system until this settles down anyway and if it doesn't catch on, so what?
"Racing is all about knowing the lines and racing techniques, and a video game can definitely teach you that."
Indeed. I'm too old and fat to fit into a real racing car but back when I got my PS2 I had the logitech wheel set up (playing with a joy pad doesn't really do it for me) and ran GT3 on my projection screen. Got pretty good too.
A little later, my wife bought me a track day as a birthday present and they took us out in MG-Fs with an instructor to show us the lines. I already knew how to read the road and so did just fine. The best driver of the day was awarded on the basis of that session and I won largely because of the time spent in GT.
It isn't exactly like a real car as you don't have the G-forces but with a big enough screen and force feedback on the wheel it can be quite involving and educational. I think student drivers should all be put through their paces in a sim before being let out on the road, especially here in New Zealand where kids start driving on the road at 15 (madness) and the standard of driving here is terrible (excessive speed and tailgating resulting in lots and lots of avoidable crashes). Sessions in a simulator letting them learn to judge the road and conditions as well as throwing hazards at them would definitely help a lot.
I have systematically made all my family members get Macs over the years and this has reduced requirements for my support services to near to nothing. I have tried a few on Linux and that helped but they tended to be the most technically literate. Others who insisted that Windows was all they could use got XP with non-administrator accounts and I would remote desktop in as needed. That worked pretty well but not as well as a Mac and that person (my wife's 92 year old grandmother) is about to get a Mac mini.
I can't understand why you have people who only want to do basic tasks with anything other than an non-admin account? Even on a Mac I reserve the admin rights for myself.
"The C64 version was better, I'm afraid - the extra memory meant there were special missions and more ships :-)"
The C64 version felt sluggish and the lack of an analogue controller made it harder to do really neat aerobatics (spaceobatics?). The BBC Micro was so much faster than all the other machines of the same generation and the graphics capabilities we better than the C64 despite the lack of hardware sprites. Sound was better on the C64, I'll grant you.
"Nope, ArcElite was the best version, but then again the Archimedes was also a "BBC Micro" (well at least the A300-series had the BBC logo) :P"
Although I never played the Arc version I have to say I'm not convinced by the solid polygon models. I still think the old wireframe style of the original looks best.
I remember getting Elite on my BBC Model B back in '84 on cassette. It took quite a while to load but was well worth it. When I upgraded my machine with Opus DDOS and an 800K double sided, double density 5 1/4" floppy drive I was able to get the floppy version which loaded my more quickly. You really needed the analogue controller too. I stuck an old Scalextric controller on top of mine to give me a full hand grip and I could fly rings around other ships.
I tried other versions like the C=64 and PC versions but they really didn't work as well as the version for the BBC despite the fact that there was little use of colour (only the dash) but the mode 4 high resolution monochrome graphics were much crisper and animation was faster on the BBC than other platforms. The BBC Micro was a real gem for quality games. The versions of arcade games like PacMan, Defender, Scramble and so on were in many ways better than their arcade equivalent. The BBC had some really nice hardware acceleration features such as hardware scrolling (both vertical and horizontal) and a very configurable video ULA which is how they were able to do the mode switching part way down the screen in Elite where it switched from mode 4 (320x256 1 bit colour) to mode 5 (160x256 2 bit colour).
It was a real slog to get to "Elite" but worth the journey. Very few games today are anything like as enjoyable despite the improvements in technology. I guess GTAIII was the first time since Elite I had anything like the same feeling of freedom and the thrill of just being bad.
"Holy crap, you've lived a terrible nightmare."
Yep.
"The crystalens isn't going to correct a retinal problem. As seeing is done in the brain, not the eye, I'm surprised your visual cortex hasn't corrected the retinal distortion."
Interesting that you say that, with both eyes I see fine. Vertical lines are straight and all is well. Depth perception works too. Basically, with both eyes I can't say my vision is too bad. However, when I use one or the other that is when the problems appear. My right eye has the distortion and my brain has compensated by giving my left eye an equal and opposite distortion. It is gradually improving after the membranectomy which was a year ago now. Before that trying to read with my right eye made it look like the page was folded and words would just be missing so I mostly relied on my left with the right just giving some depth. After the surgery, the retina flattened out somewhat but the surgeon said it may never go fully back to the original shape. As a result I still have some distortion and of course it isn't possible to correct the focus. I have the correct prescription and can only make out the line above the one which should be 6/6 (I think here it is 6 metres because that is basically 20 feet give or take). Also, I still have trouble with O and D since the distortion can make one look like the other which doesn't help. There is also a slight degree of fogging apparent and a minor blind spot right in the centre of my vision from the retinal tear. I also still have bad floaters in the left eye which also had a detached retina but that was corrected with laser treatment a couple of times and is OK now.
The retina isn't coming off now and I hope my brain can figure out how to correct the distortion one of these days since it clearly compensated with my left eye which doesn't have any distortion but does show it. Maybe I should try using just the right eye to really work it. The other thing I have found is that the right eye got lazy since it wasn't really being used so it is now hard to focus up close with that eye but with exercise I can focus it still but expect to lose that soon.
All in all though, I think we're both very lucky to live in the age we do since there is a good chance we would have been members of the white stick club otherwise.
Nothing much has changed as expected other than the Mobile Me iDisk icon has changed to a rather fetching blue one with a cloud on it from the old magenta one. Update took a while to complete on my 1st gen MacBook Pro.
I've had two detached retinas and two vitrectomies. First because of all the crap in my eye after the worst detached retina, and the second because I ended up with scar tissue which was distorting my retina so they needed to remove that (membranectomy). As you say, better than going blind. Anyway, I still have distorted vision and am now developing presbyopia (I'm 43) and have been assured that I will also get a cataract fairly soon. Hoping that it will be possible to get a crystalens because I need to be able to focus back and forth in my job. I doubt that I would get 20/20 vision (6/6 here) even with a crystalens though since my vision in that eye is about 80% with glasses. I can read with it but the distortion is a problem of the retina itself.
"Not even close. Wolfenstein wasn't even the first raycaster game. It was preceded by Catacombs 3D (also by Id) which itself was preceded by Hovertank (also by Id)."
Not a FPS but it did have a first person view - 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Monster_Maze) developed in 1981. Then of course, there was Elite for the BBC Micro in 1984 which gave us the whole 3D space flight battle. Think GTA in space and you're pretty much there.
There is only so much money that is available. By allowing trade in second hand games people who can't afford to buy the full price are contributing something to the games market without devaluing the actual full price. Allowing people to trade games in towards new ones keeps new product coming into the market just like with trading in cars for example. Sure, a game may not degrade the way that a car does but in reality a cutting edge game when new looks a lot less good a few years on. Take GTAIII for instance. Massive hit but would you buy it today?
If the game companies do switch to digital distribution they will have to lower their prices or accept that there will be less money coming into their business, not more. Imagine if people couldn't sell their old car to contribute to a new one. Far fewer new cars would be sold. Same goes for games and other forms of entertainment like movies, books, music and so on.