Well, here's the wiki entry for it. It's a real term. I don't know who it's used by (demolitions experts, etc.), but it wasn't made up on the spot. Whether or not it was recently coined, I don't know, but it wasn't just made up for people to "sound important".
Copy protection hurts legitimate users more than it helps the software developers. When users who legitimately buy games have trouble playing them, while pirates can simply crack the game (and they can, pretty much no matter what you do) and play it more easily than the legitimate buyers, you know you need to step back and re-evaluate your copy protection policy. Most legit users end up cracking the game anyway, just for simplicity's sake. At least UT2K4's patch removed the CD checking.
It doesn't even stop at games. I can't play Let It Be...Naked by The Beatles in any CD player I own because of the copy protection. There's even a disclaimer on the back stating that it may not work in all CD equipment. However, I'm sure you could download the entire album in 10 minutes if you wanted to.
As long as you know the proper protocol (LDAP for example), making replacement client and/or server apps is only a matter of writing the implementation code. If it's a server, you have to make sure it duplicates functionality exactly, and that's where you could run into problems. It's basically like writing a new IRC client or web browser. I don't know if MS makes all its protocols public though, and, again, that's where you could run into trouble getting started.
I'm not sure about the legality of it though. That is something that would need to be researched before any serious undertaking is made.
If 3 out of 5 machines failed to boot, something is wrong with them. Boot failure is not normal operation... at least not for me. My machine boots fine every time.
Just look at the meta keywords in the site.
honey, bees, Margaret, small busines, beekeeping,
hives, retail, market, Operator, bug, buggy, virus, infestation, WTF is
going on with this damn thing, parasite, strong intrusive inclination, medium,
messages, shipwreck, network throttling, SOS, hoax, game, bee hoax, bee game,
survivor, survive, evade, resist, escape, a little help would be appreciated,
thanks and tip your waitress, sleep, is, good, install, reinstall,
re-reinstall, re-re-reinstall, I, love, bees
Microsoft already has tools that generate valid XML. XHTML obviously has further restrictions, and not all valid XML is valid XHTML, but it should not be too be difficult for them to adopt their current XML serialization technology to follow the rules of XHTML.
Well, Microsoft seems to be pretty big on promoting the use of XML as a whole, especially with its integration with their more recent.NET technology. What this means for IE and XHTML I don't know, but it definately seems to be a standard that Microsoft is interested in.
On a somewhat related note, Longhorn's presentation subsystem (Avalon) will use an XML-based definition language called XAML (similar to XUL, I believe) to define application user interfaces.
With XML being so common in new MS technologies, I would say they will more than likely adopt XHTML soon enough.
"XML is not really parallel to XHTML/HTML. It is more useful for defining data containers and storing data."
Not sure this is not entirely true. Technically, a strictly conforming XHTML document is an XML document. If you think of an XHTML document like a hierarchy (which is in fact what it is in the Document Object Model), it becomes clear that a website is made up of data and data containers. This is my interpretation of it at least.
You are right that HTML and XML are really not parallel, though, other than they share the same SGML syntax.
While HTML is an implementation of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), XHTML is an implementation of XML (Extensible Markup Language, which is a subset of SGML used for describing different types data).
Basically as long as HTML follows the syntax structure of SGML correctly it is considered valid, but XHTML must follow the rules of XML correctly in order to be valid.
It's scary to think that such a commonly used and widespread material could be so toxic without anyone realizing it for so many years.
"Does anyone else remember using asbestos modeling compound in elementary school in the '60s? It was served up as a powder (!) on small plywood work boards used at our desks. We added water, mixed into a play doh like consistency, and made sculptures."
That sounds more like Plaster of Paris to me. I don't know, I've just never heard of asbestos used for that. In fact a Google search on the subject turned up rather bare as well.
Maybe I missed something important in that article, but it looks to me like it says it is not likely to include backwards compatability.
Given the disparaging remarks made by senior members of the Xbox team about the importance of backwards compatibility in consoles, it seems highly unlikely, then, that the next-generation system will include this feature - even regardless of the comments made to our source, which effectively rule out backwards compatibility entirely.
and
At present, the technology to emulate Xbox hardware on the proposed Xbox 2 hardware simply does not exist - a fact which is acknowledged by a document released today which purports to be a leak of a white paper on the Xbox 2 ("Xenon") specification for developers.
From the look of it, Microsoft never said anything about whether it will have backwards compatability, they just said that they can't comment on the issue.
Personally, the time it takes to beat a game is irrelevant to me. To me, replay value is the biggest factor.
Adding numerous ways to complete levels, optional/hidden items, and perhaps even multiple routes through the game makes it much more fun to go back and play it again. If a game is only good for one play-through before its gameplay is completely exhausted, I would be reluctant to shell out my cash for it.
"Next week, before you can purchase DOOM 3, our goal is to publish the DOOM 3 [H]ardware Guide in order to give you an official resource to help you know what to expect out of your current hardware or to help make the right hardware buying decision should you be ready for an upgrade."
Clearly, they are still working on getting the full guide together.
It is interesting to see how the engine can push the latest and the greatest to the edge of acceptable framerates though. Makes me wonder just how much compromising I'll have to do to make it run on my GF3. As long as it runs fairly decently, I'll be happy.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, here's the wiki entry for it. It's a real term. I don't know who it's used by (demolitions experts, etc.), but it wasn't made up on the spot. Whether or not it was recently coined, I don't know, but it wasn't just made up for people to "sound important".
Copy protection hurts legitimate users more than it helps the software developers. When users who legitimately buy games have trouble playing them, while pirates can simply crack the game (and they can, pretty much no matter what you do) and play it more easily than the legitimate buyers, you know you need to step back and re-evaluate your copy protection policy. Most legit users end up cracking the game anyway, just for simplicity's sake. At least UT2K4's patch removed the CD checking.
It doesn't even stop at games. I can't play Let It Be...Naked by The Beatles in any CD player I own because of the copy protection. There's even a disclaimer on the back stating that it may not work in all CD equipment. However, I'm sure you could download the entire album in 10 minutes if you wanted to.
As long as you know the proper protocol (LDAP for example), making replacement client and/or server apps is only a matter of writing the implementation code. If it's a server, you have to make sure it duplicates functionality exactly, and that's where you could run into problems. It's basically like writing a new IRC client or web browser. I don't know if MS makes all its protocols public though, and, again, that's where you could run into trouble getting started.
I'm not sure about the legality of it though. That is something that would need to be researched before any serious undertaking is made.
If 3 out of 5 machines failed to boot, something is wrong with them. Boot failure is not normal operation... at least not for me. My machine boots fine every time.
Just look at the meta keywords in the site. honey, bees, Margaret, small busines, beekeeping, hives, retail, market, Operator, bug, buggy, virus, infestation, WTF is going on with this damn thing, parasite, strong intrusive inclination, medium, messages, shipwreck, network throttling, SOS, hoax, game, bee hoax, bee game, survivor, survive, evade, resist, escape, a little help would be appreciated, thanks and tip your waitress, sleep, is, good, install, reinstall, re-reinstall, re-re-reinstall, I, love, bees
The ilovebees business is intriguing.
e bees.gif
Anyway, here is a (barely distiguishable, but whatever) image of the aforementioned frame I found; http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/files/xboxilov
Also it appears that for some reason, people have set up a whole forum dedicated to the event.
Microsoft already has tools that generate valid XML. XHTML obviously has further restrictions, and not all valid XML is valid XHTML, but it should not be too be difficult for them to adopt their current XML serialization technology to follow the rules of XHTML.
Well, Microsoft seems to be pretty big on promoting the use of XML as a whole, especially with its integration with their more recent .NET technology. What this means for IE and XHTML I don't know, but it definately seems to be a standard that Microsoft is interested in.
On a somewhat related note, Longhorn's presentation subsystem (Avalon) will use an XML-based definition language called XAML (similar to XUL, I believe) to define application user interfaces.
With XML being so common in new MS technologies, I would say they will more than likely adopt XHTML soon enough.
"XML is not really parallel to XHTML/HTML. It is more useful for defining data containers and storing data."
Not sure this is not entirely true. Technically, a strictly conforming XHTML document is an XML document. If you think of an XHTML document like a hierarchy (which is in fact what it is in the Document Object Model), it becomes clear that a website is made up of data and data containers. This is my interpretation of it at least.
You are right that HTML and XML are really not parallel, though, other than they share the same SGML syntax.
While HTML is an implementation of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), XHTML is an implementation of XML (Extensible Markup Language, which is a subset of SGML used for describing different types data).
Basically as long as HTML follows the syntax structure of SGML correctly it is considered valid, but XHTML must follow the rules of XML correctly in order to be valid.
It's scary to think that such a commonly used and widespread material could be so toxic without anyone realizing it for so many years.
"Does anyone else remember using asbestos modeling compound in elementary school in the '60s? It was served up as a powder (!) on small plywood work boards used at our desks. We added water, mixed into a play doh like consistency, and made sculptures."
That sounds more like Plaster of Paris to me. I don't know, I've just never heard of asbestos used for that. In fact a Google search on the subject turned up rather bare as well.
There is really no reason for the article to be 3 pages long.
a rticle_id=16524&pavilion=112
http://www.atmmarketplace.com/futurearticles.htm?
Much more concise.
Personally, the time it takes to beat a game is irrelevant to me. To me, replay value is the biggest factor.
Adding numerous ways to complete levels, optional/hidden items, and perhaps even multiple routes through the game makes it much more fun to go back and play it again. If a game is only good for one play-through before its gameplay is completely exhausted, I would be reluctant to shell out my cash for it.
As long as I can trap the characters between two wooden chairs and have them die of starvation à la The Sims, I'm happy.