Gabe at penny-arcade mentioned this earlier today. Apparently, Mr Goldman called Dave Kelly a "pedophile" in the same forum that he's trying to sue for slander. I thought people around here were supposed to be computer-savvy? I thought the guys at Penny Arcade would understand this point, too.
The E-mail came from someone who had Goldman's E-Mail address in the E-Mail's "FROM" field.
Now, the above statement does not rule out the answer everyone's assuming - that Goldman sent the e-mail. It's possible. But nevertheless there is a very real possibility that the e-mail was just sent by someone else. On Fleen they acknowledge this possibility but assume the sender is a fan of Goldman. Are they really that naive? So naive that they've never heard of trolling by pretending to be the one you want to draw negative attention to, and acting like a complete dickweed under their name?
Now, what could Fleen have done that would constitute slander, libel, what have you? They published that e-mail, and assigned more credibility to it than it was worth. (paraphrasing the post on Fleen here - ) 'I'm not qualified to say if it's really from Goldman, but if it is, he's a bigger jerk than we thought. If it's from his fans then they're bigger jerks than we thought.' They took what, to me, is almost certainly a hoax, and put it in the context as if Goldman had actually sent it.
Now, how could we know if this e-mail was real? - Does the message quote any text that the receiver previously sent to Goldman's e-mail? If so, that wouldn't completely rule out it being fake, but it'd complicate the process of faking it. (The faker would need to gain access to a computer on one end, or intercept the e-mail en route, in order to gain access to the original text.) - The message says "Thanks for the inquiry" - what inquiry? If this is in response to a specific message wouldn't there usually be a quote? Or a "RE:" in the subject line even? - The message headers. Like Gary on Fleen I can't look at the headers and tell you if the message is legit or not. The full headers are posted on fleen.
Now, scenarios. Which do you suppose is most likely? - Goldman sent the offending message himself. (Going just from the "FROM" field this is the simplest explanation - but does it still make sense when you bring the whole picture into consideration? And how much evidence is there supporting this?) - One of Goldman's fans sent the offending message. Feeling polarized in the whole conflict they want to praise their hero and trash Kelly. So why would they pretend to be Goldman? It doesn't take much in the way of brains to see what'd happen when the message is received - if you want to trash somebody it's more effective to be the person you're trying to trash, rather than somebody whose credibility is already on shaky ground. - One of Goldman's enemies sent the offending message. If we assume this is what happened, then we can say it was a very effective strategy. Gary Tyrrell on Fleen didn't cast much doubt on its authenticity, and everyone who wants to hate Goldman seems very willing to assume it's legit. - There was no e-mail, Gary Tyrrell forged the whole thing to get attention on the Fleen blog. I consider this a fairly remote possibility.
It seems to me people are either astoundingly gullible or naive to so quickly accept this message as legit, or else they want it to be legit so badly they're willing to fool themselves, or else they just like the idea of it being legit so much that they want to go along with the gag. One can assume that Goldman has been harassed by well-meaning idiots on the internet over the whole deal - and things like this make that situation worse. So Goldman has a legitimate gripe against people who, by carelessness or design, slander him over this matter. You could try to justify that kind of thing by saying Goldman started it - but remember that Kelly is the one with a legitimate gripe against Goldman. The two of them are apparently working out a deal, and it's Kelly's decision whether that deal is OK. But Goldman didn't do anything to you.
Back in my day, we had 150 Pokemon! And we liked it! Yeah! And we could chant out the names of all of 'em in a rap format, and identify each one by its silhouette!
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there's so many new PC games coming out these days as there were, say, 15 years ago... Certainly PC games don't get the shelf space that they used to.
As for the Nintendo thing - bear in mind this was back in the mid-80s. Console gaming had recently all but died, and that led to a boom in computer gaming. The NES was a big revival for console gaming - and while the NES didn't kill off computer gaming, it certainly diverted a lot of attention away from it.
The term "Artificial Intelligence" also includes algorithms that solve problems that are merely difficult - things like combinatorial searches (A* and min/max searches, in particular) - and the general approach of attempting to model an AI character's actions based on their state and their goals, rather than going just for the desired effect of making them reasonably tough game opponents.
Knowing about "A* and min/max searches" is about as useful in AI these days as knowing about relays is for writing Java enterprise applications. Depends on how broad your definition of "AI" is and what level of "Artificial Intelligence" you seek to create. For an "AI" chess opponent, jet fighter pilot, Bomberman player, etc. those search algorithms could be quite sufficient. I won't claim that this kind of "artificial intelligence" is likely to pass a Turing test - but in the context of games you don't really need that.
The term "Artificial Intelligence" also includes algorithms that solve problems that are merely difficult - things like combinatorial searches (A* and min/max searches, in particular) - and the general approach of attempting to model an AI character's actions based on their state and their goals, rather than going just for the desired effect of making them reasonably tough game opponents.
To call A* and finite state machines artificial intelligence is, in my opinion, an extreme twisting of the term; these things only fall under that label because early researchers were still under the delusion that they could hand-code an enormous tree of if statements and if they gave it enough feature-bloat it would seem intelligent. In my opinion, the simple algorithms used in today's "AI" engines should more be labelled pre-AI, as in useful procedures that incoming data might be preprocessed through before it's sent to something that actually does something smart with it.
Yeah, I tend to agree. In my AI class at college we learned things like the "Customers who bought this also liked" algorithm, as well as the search tree stuff I mentioned. Like you, I don't think that stuff is a likely candidate for the problem of synthesizing an intelligent mind. But within the context of most games, AI just means the perception of intelligent strategy, within a very limited domain. It's easy to make an "AI" capable of piloting an Armored Core or driving on a small set of pre-defined tracks. It's harder if you also expect that AI to carry on a conversation. Being capable of behavior dynamic enough that it's able to compete with intelligent opponents is all that's really necessary - the complexity of that problem is determined by the complexity of the game.
As for learning - it can be done rather more simply. For instance, if an AI tactic in a Street Fighter game were to dragon-punch enemies jumping toward them - now suppose there's an aerial move the opponent can do that will defend against that attack and counter. Really, that knowledge should already be a part of the AI's play book: it should know that in cases where the opponent can do this move, it's not a good idea to do the dragon punch - so each time the attack is attempted and countered, the preferentiality assigned to that move is reduced for the duration of the match. It's a very simple type of "learning" - and the AI character certainly isn't "intelligent", it's just accumulating rudimentary data about what does and doesn't work, and using it. But nevertheless, the AI character is better at playing the game as a result.
Well, AI is not limited to what we'd classically think of as attempts to mimic thought. The term "Artificial Intelligence" also includes algorithms that solve problems that are merely difficult - things like combinatorial searches (A* and min/max searches, in particular) - and the general approach of attempting to model an AI character's actions based on their state and their goals, rather than going just for the desired effect of making them reasonably tough game opponents.
In the context of this discussion, "AI" means broadening the use of those algorithms (they are already necessary in some situations anyway) and in general producing game AI that's more capable - better able to deal with obstacles in the environment, predict player strategies and determine which of its strategies are most effective against the player. The goal being to create automated opponents which don't need to rely on unfair advantages (such as superior car performance in a racing game) to compete against human players.
In the context of, say, a mech combat game (as an example, racing games are a bit more of a static problem, and flight sims wouldn't require so much obstacle navigation), a capable AI would likely need the following: - A predefined set of tactics. These would be designed by the people who create the game. The important thing would be that the tactics are effective and that the game AI has sufficient information about when each tactic is useful. Supplying this kind of "playbook" information decreases the demands on the AI program significantly: they no longer need to be able to synthesize these tactics, they can merely choose the right one. - A system for selecting tactics to use: a good design would include considerations like the state of the AI's mech, the weapon being used against it, and general parameters of the enemy machine. (For instance, a good AI operating a sniper machine should know not to close to close range with a player machine that specializes in close combat... Likewise, if the AI's machine is running out of power, it shouldn't attempt an "overboost" move - unless it is clear that such a move could work sufficiently to win the fight.) - An adequate navigation system for moving around in the environment. This must be tied in to the tactics being used - so that attempts to dodge a missile, for instance, aren't foiled by collision with an obstacle. - An adaptive factor - a process that attempts to determine how effective various tactics have been against a particular opponent, and why certain tactics may have failed - so that tactics that are likely to fail again are disregarded. - A random factor - the AI's next move is randomly selected from among the best candidates.
See, that's not so nebulous, is it? Pretty well-defined, I'd say. It's just, as you say, hard. It's hard to create a system that's dynamic and complex, it's hard to make sure you've got it right when you have created it - and the problem with game development is that there's so many other places that effort could be directed which aren't as easily dispensable as good AI. Most game AIs nowadays have a moderately good playbook (it's one of the easiest elements to add - humans know how to play the game and so they can record sequences the computer can repeat - so it's easy to add a small playbook - though providing good static information about how to choose a tactic from a larger playbook is harder), and a random factor is easy to introduce. Selecting tactics is often reduced to a static problem, and navigation is either made static, or solved by making the AI able to get through the environment in other ways, if necessary. (For instance, an AI that is always shooting and frequently moving forward - but gets caught behind a building - if the building is destroyed when the AI shoots, then moving forward no longer gets the AI stuck.) But navigation often is not tied in to the tactics and adaptive factors usually aren't adequately implemented in a way that makes a real difference.
Crap you mean I have to learn Chinese in 10 years! I'm screwed, I only got a C in French at highschool That's OK, you actually don't need to know French in order to learn Chinese. But just in case, try this simple phrase: "Je m'appelle le Tick!"
"After being exposed in 2006 as 'the biggest game developer you've never heard of', with over 1,100 employees at the time, Gamasutra has caught up with executives from Tose"
To be clear - Tose, not Gamasutra, is the subject of this sentence, the game developer with 1100 employees.
Seriously, I think it's easy to say "Oh, the problems of the Mushroom Kingdom don't affect those of us living in the USA" but this news makes me really happy. For the Toads, for the Goombahs, even for the Koopas themselves.
The GP complaint, that MS won't stop beating the "innovation" drum, has nothing to do with Linux's flaws as an end-user system. I mean, OK, Microsoft does create new things. But they sell it like they were the Thomas Edison of innovation. Thomas Edison wasn't the Thomas Edison of innovation. They whine about it every time someone picks on them. "We were just being innovative, why are you giving us such a hard time?" Well, because you were being innovative dicks. They act like they should be given carte blanche to "innovate" however they like, because they are the embodiment of progress in the world, and so they beat their drum whenever they can, so they'll have ammunition to use next time they get in trouble.
Being pro-Linux doesn't mean (or have to mean) being anti-Windows, naturally - and the same works in reverse. Advocating Windows doesn't mean cutting Linux down, (though I will happily concede that the criticisms brought up here are quite accurate) it means advocating Windows. So don't change the subject.
Is a keyboard "overpriced" just because it costs more than $20? I think it depends on the keyboard. Since we're talking here about a keyboard using actual switches as opposed to the usual rubber membrane system - a new-generation "clicky keyboard" - I think the price is merited. Blank keycaps are just icing on the cake. Now, if only they made one with a Happy Hacking Lite 2 layout...
You probably weren't taught this. It's easy to remember.
"I before E, except after C." Yeah, when I was a kid my nieghbor taught me that one. It may seem like a hassle to learn all these silly little rules, but when you wiegh them against the embarrassment you could suffer in a professional environment as a result of sloppy spelling, it is surely worthwhile.
You mean like Gundam Seed? It all changes colors and becomes invincible?
Re:For me, Palm died when PalmOS went away
on
Palm to go Linux
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I love classic PalmOS, too, but here's the thing: hardware has changed, a lot.
Phones these days have specs like a desktop PC from ten years ago - except for the screen, which is physically smaller and lower resolution. Classic PalmOS was very well suited to handheld devices of 7-10 years ago: small memory footprint, very lightweight and CPU-efficient. The new devices are much, much more powerful, and Palm's not using that power effectively at all. The current hardware can accommodate a richer environment comfortably.
And yet, as you say, with the screen constraints and the mobility concerns you probably don't want something that's just a scale-down of a typical desktop OS. It needs to be better suited to the display. Microsoft has been gradually improving in this area (sometimes by lifting a page or two from Palm's book) while simultaneously providing a full-featured environment. Palm's software has always been well-suited to the interface but these days it's not a good match for the hardware. So hopefully what they're going to do here is continue to provide a good mobile UI (maybe even stealing a page or two from MS's book) but provide better underpinnings - take advantage of the things that made Palm a good platform in 1997 and make it a good fit for today's devices. That's quite possible, you know - a system doesn't need to be able to run on a 16MHz Dragonball in order to be efficient or lightweight by today's standards.
Personally, I say to hell with backward compatibility. I can learn a new API and get new compilers. I'd even be down with buying new copies of the apps I use for the new OS, if necessary. Better than than running under PACE, or getting stuck with a poor collection of system libraries for the sake of compatibility. I think developers can expect a lot of changes when coding natively for the new platform: switching from Db Manager to a filesystem for data storage, inferring datatypes using file extensions (yuck), and -hopefully- all-new UI.
Now, I think there's basically two ways this could go. First, they could create their new OS and model some of it after PalmOS, but follow WinCE's lead on some other details. If they do that, I think they'll have a solid system. The other possibility is that they'll overexert themselves trying to match eye candy from the iPhone, and the underlying OS will suffer. I really hope they do the former.
It may be too little too late. But what Palm has got going for them at this point is the Treo line. It's not much of an edge anymore, since WinCE phones are quite comparable in raw specs to Palm-based Treos these days, and the OS on WinCE phones is better suited to the hardware than PalmOS. But nevertheless, the Treo is still a decent shot at a better future for Palm. So, yes, they're talking about smartphones more than they are talking about straight PDAs.
I am hopeful that they're really going to make it happen this time, and they'll turn out a new device I'll be happy to use. (Not running every bloody thing under PACE would be a good start, no matter what they do...)
None of my niggers steal watermelons.
on
Palm to go Linux
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· Score: 1
You know, even though bashing Linux isn't popular around here, you had the potential for a funny post there, and you fucking blew it.
I know several people who've been abused through Craigslist -- unfortunately it just proves too tempting an environment for assholes. One friend had his garage pretty much cleaned out (bikes, tools, etc) from a posting on Craigslist saying he was moving and was offering it all free to people who would pick it up.
Sorry to be pendactic here, but I don't believe your friend was "abused through Craigslist." Instead, he was abused by the lowlife thieves that stole his property. by lowlifes, through Craigslist.
The world needs more Splashdown fans! For those aren't familiar with Splashdown; you owe it to yourself to give them a listen. Most of their songs are available online. Thank you! You get a cookie! Not just any cookie but a GREAT BIG COOKIE! It's gluten-free, and very yummy.
For first-timers heading to the Splashdown archives, just tell 'em Wirt the Peg-Legged boy sent ya.
You know, I got my sister interested in Splashdown and the first show of theirs she saw was their last.:|
I highly recommend 50%, Ironspy, and Games you Play. Anything from the Blueshift CD is amazing. Personally I like Paradox better than Games you Play - I mean, they're basically the same song, of course, and I like the embellishments in the Blueshift version ("Games you Play", for those unfamiliar with it) I just think the direction they took in the original was more compelling. The "Sugar High" Doc mix is a long-time favorite of mine.
As a side note, I was a little disappointed by Universal Hall Pass but I did think it was worth checking out. Melissa is a great singer. (shrug) I think Tutelary Genius, Dragonfly, and Six Step Dragon are solid. Getting my hands on the UHP album after having just "Dragonfly" on endless loop for a few months was a little bit of a shock - you know, 'cause not all the songs on there are like Dragonfly. But it's definitely good stuff IMO.
Yeah, it bugs me whenever I load up a site on my Treo and the site itself decides that I ought to be seeing a reduced-functionality version of the site. Blazer's not perfect by a long shot, but it doesn't need the super dumbed-down version of a page, either.
'Course, there is one advantage to sites custom made for phones - they're designed to fit low-res, physically-small screens. That's not something you can get dynamically, it's something you need to plan for.
Slashdot Mirror
The E-mail came from someone who had Goldman's E-Mail address in the E-Mail's "FROM" field.
Now, the above statement does not rule out the answer everyone's assuming - that Goldman sent the e-mail. It's possible. But nevertheless there is a very real possibility that the e-mail was just sent by someone else. On Fleen they acknowledge this possibility but assume the sender is a fan of Goldman. Are they really that naive? So naive that they've never heard of trolling by pretending to be the one you want to draw negative attention to, and acting like a complete dickweed under their name?
Now, what could Fleen have done that would constitute slander, libel, what have you? They published that e-mail, and assigned more credibility to it than it was worth. (paraphrasing the post on Fleen here - ) 'I'm not qualified to say if it's really from Goldman, but if it is, he's a bigger jerk than we thought. If it's from his fans then they're bigger jerks than we thought.' They took what, to me, is almost certainly a hoax, and put it in the context as if Goldman had actually sent it.
Now, how could we know if this e-mail was real?
- Does the message quote any text that the receiver previously sent to Goldman's e-mail? If so, that wouldn't completely rule out it being fake, but it'd complicate the process of faking it. (The faker would need to gain access to a computer on one end, or intercept the e-mail en route, in order to gain access to the original text.)
- The message says "Thanks for the inquiry" - what inquiry? If this is in response to a specific message wouldn't there usually be a quote? Or a "RE:" in the subject line even?
- The message headers. Like Gary on Fleen I can't look at the headers and tell you if the message is legit or not. The full headers are posted on fleen.
Now, scenarios. Which do you suppose is most likely?
- Goldman sent the offending message himself. (Going just from the "FROM" field this is the simplest explanation - but does it still make sense when you bring the whole picture into consideration? And how much evidence is there supporting this?)
- One of Goldman's fans sent the offending message. Feeling polarized in the whole conflict they want to praise their hero and trash Kelly. So why would they pretend to be Goldman? It doesn't take much in the way of brains to see what'd happen when the message is received - if you want to trash somebody it's more effective to be the person you're trying to trash, rather than somebody whose credibility is already on shaky ground.
- One of Goldman's enemies sent the offending message. If we assume this is what happened, then we can say it was a very effective strategy. Gary Tyrrell on Fleen didn't cast much doubt on its authenticity, and everyone who wants to hate Goldman seems very willing to assume it's legit.
- There was no e-mail, Gary Tyrrell forged the whole thing to get attention on the Fleen blog. I consider this a fairly remote possibility.
It seems to me people are either astoundingly gullible or naive to so quickly accept this message as legit, or else they want it to be legit so badly they're willing to fool themselves, or else they just like the idea of it being legit so much that they want to go along with the gag. One can assume that Goldman has been harassed by well-meaning idiots on the internet over the whole deal - and things like this make that situation worse. So Goldman has a legitimate gripe against people who, by carelessness or design, slander him over this matter. You could try to justify that kind of thing by saying Goldman started it - but remember that Kelly is the one with a legitimate gripe against Goldman. The two of them are apparently working out a deal, and it's Kelly's decision whether that deal is OK. But Goldman didn't do anything to you.
('course, we actually had 151...)
It downsized. (See also this)
The thing is, it's no longer what it was. It's now invitation-only, and much smaller. It's changed so much that it's fundamentally not what it was.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there's so many new PC games coming out these days as there were, say, 15 years ago... Certainly PC games don't get the shelf space that they used to.
As for the Nintendo thing - bear in mind this was back in the mid-80s. Console gaming had recently all but died, and that led to a boom in computer gaming. The NES was a big revival for console gaming - and while the NES didn't kill off computer gaming, it certainly diverted a lot of attention away from it.
Knowing about "A* and min/max searches" is about as useful in AI these days as knowing about relays is for writing Java enterprise applications. Depends on how broad your definition of "AI" is and what level of "Artificial Intelligence" you seek to create. For an "AI" chess opponent, jet fighter pilot, Bomberman player, etc. those search algorithms could be quite sufficient. I won't claim that this kind of "artificial intelligence" is likely to pass a Turing test - but in the context of games you don't really need that.
To call A* and finite state machines artificial intelligence is, in my opinion, an extreme twisting of the term; these things only fall under that label because early researchers were still under the delusion that they could hand-code an enormous tree of if statements and if they gave it enough feature-bloat it would seem intelligent. In my opinion, the simple algorithms used in today's "AI" engines should more be labelled pre-AI, as in useful procedures that incoming data might be preprocessed through before it's sent to something that actually does something smart with it.
Yeah, I tend to agree. In my AI class at college we learned things like the "Customers who bought this also liked" algorithm, as well as the search tree stuff I mentioned. Like you, I don't think that stuff is a likely candidate for the problem of synthesizing an intelligent mind. But within the context of most games, AI just means the perception of intelligent strategy, within a very limited domain. It's easy to make an "AI" capable of piloting an Armored Core or driving on a small set of pre-defined tracks. It's harder if you also expect that AI to carry on a conversation. Being capable of behavior dynamic enough that it's able to compete with intelligent opponents is all that's really necessary - the complexity of that problem is determined by the complexity of the game.As for learning - it can be done rather more simply. For instance, if an AI tactic in a Street Fighter game were to dragon-punch enemies jumping toward them - now suppose there's an aerial move the opponent can do that will defend against that attack and counter. Really, that knowledge should already be a part of the AI's play book: it should know that in cases where the opponent can do this move, it's not a good idea to do the dragon punch - so each time the attack is attempted and countered, the preferentiality assigned to that move is reduced for the duration of the match. It's a very simple type of "learning" - and the AI character certainly isn't "intelligent", it's just accumulating rudimentary data about what does and doesn't work, and using it. But nevertheless, the AI character is better at playing the game as a result.
Well, AI is not limited to what we'd classically think of as attempts to mimic thought. The term "Artificial Intelligence" also includes algorithms that solve problems that are merely difficult - things like combinatorial searches (A* and min/max searches, in particular) - and the general approach of attempting to model an AI character's actions based on their state and their goals, rather than going just for the desired effect of making them reasonably tough game opponents.
In the context of this discussion, "AI" means broadening the use of those algorithms (they are already necessary in some situations anyway) and in general producing game AI that's more capable - better able to deal with obstacles in the environment, predict player strategies and determine which of its strategies are most effective against the player. The goal being to create automated opponents which don't need to rely on unfair advantages (such as superior car performance in a racing game) to compete against human players.
In the context of, say, a mech combat game (as an example, racing games are a bit more of a static problem, and flight sims wouldn't require so much obstacle navigation), a capable AI would likely need the following:
- A predefined set of tactics. These would be designed by the people who create the game. The important thing would be that the tactics are effective and that the game AI has sufficient information about when each tactic is useful. Supplying this kind of "playbook" information decreases the demands on the AI program significantly: they no longer need to be able to synthesize these tactics, they can merely choose the right one.
- A system for selecting tactics to use: a good design would include considerations like the state of the AI's mech, the weapon being used against it, and general parameters of the enemy machine. (For instance, a good AI operating a sniper machine should know not to close to close range with a player machine that specializes in close combat... Likewise, if the AI's machine is running out of power, it shouldn't attempt an "overboost" move - unless it is clear that such a move could work sufficiently to win the fight.)
- An adequate navigation system for moving around in the environment. This must be tied in to the tactics being used - so that attempts to dodge a missile, for instance, aren't foiled by collision with an obstacle.
- An adaptive factor - a process that attempts to determine how effective various tactics have been against a particular opponent, and why certain tactics may have failed - so that tactics that are likely to fail again are disregarded.
- A random factor - the AI's next move is randomly selected from among the best candidates.
See, that's not so nebulous, is it? Pretty well-defined, I'd say. It's just, as you say, hard. It's hard to create a system that's dynamic and complex, it's hard to make sure you've got it right when you have created it - and the problem with game development is that there's so many other places that effort could be directed which aren't as easily dispensable as good AI. Most game AIs nowadays have a moderately good playbook (it's one of the easiest elements to add - humans know how to play the game and so they can record sequences the computer can repeat - so it's easy to add a small playbook - though providing good static information about how to choose a tactic from a larger playbook is harder), and a random factor is easy to introduce. Selecting tactics is often reduced to a static problem, and navigation is either made static, or solved by making the AI able to get through the environment in other ways, if necessary. (For instance, an AI that is always shooting and frequently moving forward - but gets caught behind a building - if the building is destroyed when the AI shoots, then moving forward no longer gets the AI stuck.) But navigation often is not tied in to the tactics and adaptive factors usually aren't adequately implemented in a way that makes a real difference.
"After being exposed in 2006 as 'the biggest game developer you've never heard of', with over 1,100 employees at the time, Gamasutra has caught up with executives from Tose"
To be clear - Tose, not Gamasutra, is the subject of this sentence, the game developer with 1100 employees.
"Ano Yarou" - lit. "that guy", actually means something more like "What a dickweed."
"Ano Yarro"...
Seriously, I think it's easy to say "Oh, the problems of the Mushroom Kingdom don't affect those of us living in the USA" but this news makes me really happy. For the Toads, for the Goombahs, even for the Koopas themselves.
The GP complaint, that MS won't stop beating the "innovation" drum, has nothing to do with Linux's flaws as an end-user system. I mean, OK, Microsoft does create new things. But they sell it like they were the Thomas Edison of innovation. Thomas Edison wasn't the Thomas Edison of innovation. They whine about it every time someone picks on them. "We were just being innovative, why are you giving us such a hard time?" Well, because you were being innovative dicks. They act like they should be given carte blanche to "innovate" however they like, because they are the embodiment of progress in the world, and so they beat their drum whenever they can, so they'll have ammunition to use next time they get in trouble.
Being pro-Linux doesn't mean (or have to mean) being anti-Windows, naturally - and the same works in reverse. Advocating Windows doesn't mean cutting Linux down, (though I will happily concede that the criticisms brought up here are quite accurate) it means advocating Windows. So don't change the subject.
"Raise them!"
(*whine, thrash, pout*)"I CAN'T!"
Is a keyboard "overpriced" just because it costs more than $20? I think it depends on the keyboard. Since we're talking here about a keyboard using actual switches as opposed to the usual rubber membrane system - a new-generation "clicky keyboard" - I think the price is merited. Blank keycaps are just icing on the cake. Now, if only they made one with a Happy Hacking Lite 2 layout...
"I before E, except after C." Yeah, when I was a kid my nieghbor taught me that one. It may seem like a hassle to learn all these silly little rules, but when you wiegh them against the embarrassment you could suffer in a professional environment as a result of sloppy spelling, it is surely worthwhile.
You mean like Gundam Seed? It all changes colors and becomes invincible?
I love classic PalmOS, too, but here's the thing: hardware has changed, a lot.
Phones these days have specs like a desktop PC from ten years ago - except for the screen, which is physically smaller and lower resolution. Classic PalmOS was very well suited to handheld devices of 7-10 years ago: small memory footprint, very lightweight and CPU-efficient. The new devices are much, much more powerful, and Palm's not using that power effectively at all. The current hardware can accommodate a richer environment comfortably.
And yet, as you say, with the screen constraints and the mobility concerns you probably don't want something that's just a scale-down of a typical desktop OS. It needs to be better suited to the display. Microsoft has been gradually improving in this area (sometimes by lifting a page or two from Palm's book) while simultaneously providing a full-featured environment. Palm's software has always been well-suited to the interface but these days it's not a good match for the hardware. So hopefully what they're going to do here is continue to provide a good mobile UI (maybe even stealing a page or two from MS's book) but provide better underpinnings - take advantage of the things that made Palm a good platform in 1997 and make it a good fit for today's devices. That's quite possible, you know - a system doesn't need to be able to run on a 16MHz Dragonball in order to be efficient or lightweight by today's standards.
Personally, I say to hell with backward compatibility. I can learn a new API and get new compilers. I'd even be down with buying new copies of the apps I use for the new OS, if necessary. Better than than running under PACE, or getting stuck with a poor collection of system libraries for the sake of compatibility. I think developers can expect a lot of changes when coding natively for the new platform: switching from Db Manager to a filesystem for data storage, inferring datatypes using file extensions (yuck), and -hopefully- all-new UI.
Now, I think there's basically two ways this could go. First, they could create their new OS and model some of it after PalmOS, but follow WinCE's lead on some other details. If they do that, I think they'll have a solid system. The other possibility is that they'll overexert themselves trying to match eye candy from the iPhone, and the underlying OS will suffer. I really hope they do the former.
It may be too little too late. But what Palm has got going for them at this point is the Treo line. It's not much of an edge anymore, since WinCE phones are quite comparable in raw specs to Palm-based Treos these days, and the OS on WinCE phones is better suited to the hardware than PalmOS. But nevertheless, the Treo is still a decent shot at a better future for Palm. So, yes, they're talking about smartphones more than they are talking about straight PDAs.
I am hopeful that they're really going to make it happen this time, and they'll turn out a new device I'll be happy to use. (Not running every bloody thing under PACE would be a good start, no matter what they do...)
You know, even though bashing Linux isn't popular around here, you had the potential for a funny post there, and you fucking blew it.
Good job.
Can I get game output in that mode? Is it gonna be laggy?
Wow, Mr. President, I didn't know you posted here...
Sorry to be pendactic here, but I don't believe your friend was "abused through Craigslist." Instead, he was abused by the lowlife thieves that stole his property. by lowlifes, through Craigslist.
For first-timers heading to the Splashdown archives, just tell 'em Wirt the Peg-Legged boy sent ya.
You know, I got my sister interested in Splashdown and the first show of theirs she saw was their last.
Yeah, it bugs me whenever I load up a site on my Treo and the site itself decides that I ought to be seeing a reduced-functionality version of the site. Blazer's not perfect by a long shot, but it doesn't need the super dumbed-down version of a page, either.
'Course, there is one advantage to sites custom made for phones - they're designed to fit low-res, physically-small screens. That's not something you can get dynamically, it's something you need to plan for.
I've delivered that presentation, um, you insensitive scrod!