Not so much "impressed" as "it's nowhere near as painful as the grandparent made it out to be". No Child Left Behind isn't returned in the first ten results for that phrase, so it's not like Google's doing better...
Interesting concept—thanks for taking the time to dig up more on it! It's like the bastard child of the NES and an Atari 400. *grins*
(It actually is cited briefly in the NES Wikipedia article, in the History section. But, as the other sources said, it wasn't really a failure, just a product that never got made.)
On the other hand, I think that I'm glad that they went with the NES instead; the AVS would have been just another computer in a marketplace already oversaturated with them.
The "original chassis/casing" described in that article is not the one that failed, but rather the extremely common one that most people think of when they think of the NES (and that's pictured at the top of the article).
If you're only buying games from the US and Japan for use in one of those two countries, then yeah, region locking would be annoying. But if you're living in one of those two and trying to buy games from the rest of the world, even if your console could play them, they probably wouldn't display on your NTSC TV.
Yes, but how many developers actually pay any attention to 64-bit Windows? Last I checked, most companies' attitude was "if it's not 32-bit, and it's not working, sod off".
If we don't want the government controlling how we raise our kids, we should have the freedom to do it ourselves. In this case, this is a fairly innocuous measure; almost no roads in the US have speed limits anywhere near 80 mph, and traction control shouldn't be turned off by a novice driver.
This isn't the government controlling how you raise your kids, not in the slightest. First, it's private enterprise offering this of their own volition, not a government-mandated change. Second, they're not controlling how parents raise their kids, because it's completely optional; parents can always give the kids "real" keys, bypassing the lockdowns.
Except patents are about method, not result—and I rather doubt that the difference between the two keys for this new system is purely mechanical as in the valet keys.
What distro are you using? I am really interested since I haven't come across this until I recently started using gentoo - now there is something only the bravest of geeks should try... with most of the mainstream distro's though your issue should be sorted out - or at least have a plan in place to sort it out.
Various versions of Fedora from 3 through 7 or 8. I went back to Windows only at the beginning of the year, when I got a new video card—Cygwin was enough for my schoolwork, and with the new hardware there wasn't enough performance gains in games to justify the effort anymore.
But it can't be retroactively removed. Once they acquire a copy under the BSD license, there are no provisions for termination of that license if they adhere to the terms.
Remember though that users need only worry about using the computer - IT geeks like those who's job it is to fix computers are supposed to worry about the actual hardware, and again for a power user/tech support it is less than an issue than you think.
Not in my personal experience; maybe it's my fault for choosing the wrong wireless card years before I switched to Linux, or for wanting hardware 3D acceleration, </sarcasm> but having to rebuild drivers from the command line with every kernel upgrade (and pray that they work, because I can't download updated wireless drivers without rebooting into the old kernel!) isn't something I particularly enjoy putting up with.
Have you looked at the awesome cockup that is the Office 2007 interface?
Yes, I have, and quickly ran away screaming.;) I was thinking more about a Office 2003 -> OpenOffice transition when I wrote that. You're right, it can be just as bad without changing OSes. It usually isn't, but it can be, as Microsoft oh-so-recently proved.:)
Migrating between OS'es is a general pain - and it is unfair to give Linux (and to single out Ubuntu which is one of the more seamless migrates out there is a bit... strange) special grief.
I used Ubuntu as that's what the grandparent was talking about suggesting people migrate to.
Generally, yes, it is a pain. But if you can run your old applications (XP -> Vista), or if there are versions of your old applications that will behave the same way (XP/Office 2003 -> OS X/Office 2004), then it'll be much less painful.
The OS may be no more difficult to learn (for everyday use; if you're a power user, though, XP -> Vista is still easier than XP -> Ubuntu), but then you also have the added learning curve of replacing every single application except possibly Firefox, if they weren't using IE before.
About the only thing XP doesn't do that would be nice is DirectX 10 support. But since that requires a wholesale replacement of the driver model, I can understand why it's not being patched in.
How is that not following the USB rules? Not following the rules would be doing something like pumping through twice the power it's supposed to have, frying your device. But not supporting a type of device? That's no different than your computer not supporting your new camera or printer without a driver.
Slashdot Mirror
Not so much "impressed" as "it's nowhere near as painful as the grandparent made it out to be". No Child Left Behind isn't returned in the first ten results for that phrase, so it's not like Google's doing better...
1) http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.107hr1
2) http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll681.xml (warning, might not be a permalink; as a bonus, the bill text proper)
3) http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.103hr700
All three in less than ten minutes. Though #3 was a gimme, and it was easier to find the bill than the roll call for #2.
Interesting concept—thanks for taking the time to dig up more on it! It's like the bastard child of the NES and an Atari 400. *grins*
(It actually is cited briefly in the NES Wikipedia article, in the History section. But, as the other sources said, it wasn't really a failure, just a product that never got made.)
On the other hand, I think that I'm glad that they went with the NES instead; the AVS would have been just another computer in a marketplace already oversaturated with them.
The "radical difference" it's talking about is relative to the Famicom design, not to a failed NES design.
The "original chassis/casing" described in that article is not the one that failed, but rather the extremely common one that most people think of when they think of the NES (and that's pictured at the top of the article).
Many Fox Blu-Ray discs use region coding, but I think that most of the other studios have managed to stay back from that so far.
If you're only buying games from the US and Japan for use in one of those two countries, then yeah, region locking would be annoying. But if you're living in one of those two and trying to buy games from the rest of the world, even if your console could play them, they probably wouldn't display on your NTSC TV.
Yes, but how many developers actually pay any attention to 64-bit Windows? Last I checked, most companies' attitude was "if it's not 32-bit, and it's not working, sod off".
That take place at the school that they are already at. And I'm pretty sure that buses generally take kids to and from school.
To and from school, yes. But only at curricular hours; if you have to show up early or stay late, no bus for you.
That's more a failure of NJ than anything else; Michigan has required on-the-road tests for at least thirty years.
If we don't want the government controlling how we raise our kids, we should have the freedom to do it ourselves. In this case, this is a fairly innocuous measure; almost no roads in the US have speed limits anywhere near 80 mph, and traction control shouldn't be turned off by a novice driver.
This isn't the government controlling how you raise your kids, not in the slightest. First, it's private enterprise offering this of their own volition, not a government-mandated change. Second, they're not controlling how parents raise their kids, because it's completely optional; parents can always give the kids "real" keys, bypassing the lockdowns.
Except patents are about method, not result—and I rather doubt that the difference between the two keys for this new system is purely mechanical as in the valet keys.
You appear to have completely misread what I said; you'd need to replace every app migrating to Linux, not to Vista.
What distro are you using? I am really interested since I haven't come across this until I recently started using gentoo - now there is something only the bravest of geeks should try... with most of the mainstream distro's though your issue should be sorted out - or at least have a plan in place to sort it out.
Various versions of Fedora from 3 through 7 or 8. I went back to Windows only at the beginning of the year, when I got a new video card—Cygwin was enough for my schoolwork, and with the new hardware there wasn't enough performance gains in games to justify the effort anymore.
But it can't be retroactively removed. Once they acquire a copy under the BSD license, there are no provisions for termination of that license if they adhere to the terms.
Remember though that users need only worry about using the computer - IT geeks like those who's job it is to fix computers are supposed to worry about the actual hardware, and again for a power user/tech support it is less than an issue than you think.
Not in my personal experience; maybe it's my fault for choosing the wrong wireless card years before I switched to Linux, or for wanting hardware 3D acceleration, </sarcasm> but having to rebuild drivers from the command line with every kernel upgrade (and pray that they work, because I can't download updated wireless drivers without rebooting into the old kernel!) isn't something I particularly enjoy putting up with.
Have you looked at the awesome cockup that is the Office 2007 interface?
Yes, I have, and quickly ran away screaming. ;) I was thinking more about a Office 2003 -> OpenOffice transition when I wrote that. You're right, it can be just as bad without changing OSes. It usually isn't, but it can be, as Microsoft oh-so-recently proved. :)
Migrating between OS'es is a general pain - and it is unfair to give Linux (and to single out Ubuntu which is one of the more seamless migrates out there is a bit... strange) special grief.
I used Ubuntu as that's what the grandparent was talking about suggesting people migrate to.
Generally, yes, it is a pain. But if you can run your old applications (XP -> Vista), or if there are versions of your old applications that will behave the same way (XP/Office 2003 -> OS X/Office 2004), then it'll be much less painful.
The OS may be no more difficult to learn (for everyday use; if you're a power user, though, XP -> Vista is still easier than XP -> Ubuntu), but then you also have the added learning curve of replacing every single application except possibly Firefox, if they weren't using IE before.
Money is leaving the government and entering the private sector. How is that not spending?
The solution to the US going further in the hole every day isn't more taxes, it's to stop pissing away money like $700 billion is pocket change.
About the only thing XP doesn't do that would be nice is DirectX 10 support. But since that requires a wholesale replacement of the driver model, I can understand why it's not being patched in.
Unlike the other systems, the Wii doesn't support non-matrixed surround sound; maybe the reduction in channels from 6 to 2 is how they'll handle it?
How is that not following the USB rules? Not following the rules would be doing something like pumping through twice the power it's supposed to have, frying your device. But not supporting a type of device? That's no different than your computer not supporting your new camera or printer without a driver.
The transfer rate is fine; it's the encryption/decryption speed they need to improve.
Because we saw how well that worked out for the old platform last time...
The Wii is pretty poor in the good RPG area (though it does have Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn). The DS has quite the selection, though.