So apparently clicking little hieroglyphs on toolbar buttons is easier than using a pull-down menu. What about accessibility? What about people who prefer to use the keyboard?
I'm sure the ADA compliancy people will love that part. They already don't like the Type Obscured Numbers In This Box security features. And a nice lawsuit is sure to arise.
The video memory wasn't being used for anything anyway -- these effects come for free for anyone with a decent video card. The only people who will suffer are those with integrated video or low end cards that use system memory (e.g. ATi's "hypermemory" doublespeak).
You realize you just described 99 percent of all laptop users, right? They don't have an easy time "upgrading" video cards.
Is the thing usable yet? The last revision I tried, you would click, and then like an hour later it would load the window I told it to open......and this was not on a slow system by any means.
Nope, the article website is still/.ed, so it's still not usable.
Note that even MSFT admits that you need a faster processor, 1GB (not 512MB) of RAM, and a better video card than you mentioned.
2. no killer app - already use OpenOffice at home and use MySQL at work.
Halo 2? Okay, I'll agree with this one, but then OS upgrades usually don't happen for "killer apps". They happen because you bought a new computer and you got the OS for "free".
I think you mean Halo 3. Nope, FPS bore me to death. Too much time in the Army, I guess. More interested in the Wii controller feedback with speaker aspect for better realism. Black not too bad though.
Now, as I said in another post, if I can only get Will Wright's Spore on Win Vista, that's different. But I think it will release as WinXP and Wii versions at least. So, still no killer apps.
In fact, I have one of only two Windows boxen in my entire lab, everyone else is Linux. My home laptop is Win XP too.
In the end, the thing that will kill Win Vista for me is:
1. excessive screen transition/visual chrome - don't need to waste precious resources on that. 2. no killer app - already use OpenOffice at home and use MySQL at work. 3. price moolah bucks cash - when my laptop cost $500 and a PC costs $250, spending an extra $250+ for Win Vista seems just as insane as shelling out $600 for a PS3 when I can buy a Wii and a PC for that much.
I wonder if it will fix one of my biggest complaints. I had a laptop with a 14" screen and a 1400x1050 resolution. To be able to read anything I had to up the font sizes. The text looked great, but many programs/websites/parts of Windows just looked odd or didn't render right because they expected font sizes to be a specific way.
This will become an even bigger complaint as Win Vista releases. Look, I'm edge gen, overlap for the Baby Boomers and X-Gen, and I can attest there will be a lot of people with bifocals that are going to be complaining about things like that.
You can have all the fancy screen transitions, gliding, dock-pop-and-roll (tm), invisibile panels, transparent panels - but if you make it hard to read you're going to get sued under ADA, cause Boomers love to sue.
1. Price - Nowadays I buy a PC for around $250. Adding Win Vista on top means that's $500. Just like my response to Sony's $600 PS3, it's No Thanks, Try Again Later.
2. No Killer App - there's no there there. Security, DRM, all things I don't need and don't want to pay lots of cash for. Again, Time To Buy Linux For My Next Computer.
Now, I'm sure someone will go on about Database, or maybe Office, but the reality is I can install and use OpenOffice (have it on my WinXP laptop) and MySQL works fine (use it at work), so those dogs don't hunt any longer.
The only thing right now that might shoehorn Win Vista into my home is if I can only get Will Wright's Spore on Win Vista - I think it will also come out for the Nintendo Wii, and will work under WinXP, so I don't have a need to upgrade yet.
Exactly. In real life, we run multiple apps in background, some in tray mode, my own WinXP laptop has about ten icons in the docking bar, and as a result it takes a while to start them all.
This is why Win Vista only "requires" 512MB of RAM, but Premium Vista "needs" 1GB of RAM - they can't possibly get it to work at slower than a crawl with a normal configuration, especially with all the chrome of the unnecessary windows transitions, fading, transparencies and other crud they overloaded video with by default.
I'll wait for the stripped down hack version when someone has wasted a few months figuring out how to turn off all those resource-gobbling "features" I don't want.
It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to 'turn off' your computer, whether you realize it or not.
Of course, if you have a laptop like I do at home, with a USB external mouse, this could save your battery from draining dry, as the USB draws power while the laptop is on.
Mind you, having your computer turn off while you change the channel on the TV can be a bit disconcerting.
Climate changes aren't caused by humans! So it's irrelevant to study them, whether they are happening or not! There's no proof humans are causing them! ARGH!!!!
Sorry, had to condense anti-global warming people's stuff down to a few lines. =P
I'll go tell that to all the glaciers that melted in the last 20 years here in WA, OR, ID, MT, and BC.
Oh, wait, they're gone - only 40 percent of these glaciers that have existed since wooly mammoths roamed here are left now.
Now, if we were looking at such changes over many centuries, one would expect adaptations, but even the salmonids are dying off, as they can't migrate north to colder streams in time.
Seriously, even though I think the guy is gunning for a job working for the President, you have to admit that if you bought a PS3 you wouldn't have to worry about buying games that required DirectX 11 support.
By definition, all games would automatically work, since they have to be PS3 compatible.
Additionally, you know you'd get browser support, as most websites can't ignore hundreds of millions of consumers, if they did choose to use the PS3 instead of a PC.
Now, that said, I still think you'd be better off spending the $600 on a Nintendo Wii and a PC instead, and get the best of both worlds. Sure, they want you to think PCs cost $2000, but my last laptop (top of the line wireless, nice HD, good battery life, WinXP) cost me $500 thru Tiger Direct, and I see PCs (AMD) for around $250 on there all the time. If you get them with Linux, you get a good solid PC with tons of apps too.
You can also shoot somebody you catch in the act of comitting a felony.
Wow! In other words...
Cops on Mercer Island
Announcer: Tonight on Cops on Mercer Island, we join a citizens patrol walking the streets in Mercer Island, looking thru windows from the sidewalk to see if anyone is an online gambling felon.
Hick One: Ah see one! He's gambling online! Get out yer shotguns!
gunfire ensues for about 30 seconds, with breaking glass
Hick Two: Dang, he's not dead yet!
Hick One: Yup, guess we just winged him. Good thing, though, looks like he was only balancing his checkbook at one o them fancy online banking things - turns out it was a pop-up online gambling ad. Well, a citizen's gotta do what a citizen's gotta do.
There should be a law that you can't put a law on the books with no intention of enforcing it.
You forget, in our state, if someone commits a felony that there's a financial penalty tagged to it, you can turn them in for a bounty (usually 10 percent of the fine, sometimes higher).
Which means $1000 to rat out the guy downstairs in your dorm who's underage and gambling online and bragging about the fancy car he got from gambling.
I think there will be lots of takers for that one.
Maybe they'll do a new TV series "Gates: Bounty Hunter" which has scenes like this:
Gates: Hmm, I see Muffy's got a new Cadillac DeSalle parked in front of the Sorority.
Sidekick Allen: Didn't she turn you down for the Spring Fling, Bill?
Gates: Yup, and she's going down for online gambling - I can use that $1000 reward for turning her in to buy another double core processor for my Opteron! Quick, to the Internet Sniffer, Paul!
music crescendo - And So Another Day In The Life of Bill Gates, Internet Gambling Bounty Hunter, and Another Villian Will Be Brought To Justice! - music diminishes
under our state law, you can act as a bounty hunter and turn in such gamblers for 10 percent of the eventual fine - if you got $1000 to rat out your online gambling neighbor, that might make it worth your while...
that this thing is too bulky, or too expensive, or not abusive enough from its petrol-consuming counterparts (yes electricity is petrol-consuming, not directly but indirectly, of course), i wait for the day when either the cost of your electricity is $1000s for your home and car because the supply has diminished to such a level there is hardly any left in the world anyway
Not likely to happen where I live, we have these giant hydroelectric dams here and up in Canada in the Rockies that supply 98 percent of our electricity supply. However, with all the global warming and the rapid melting of glaciers (now only 40 percent of them are still remaining in WA, OR, MT, ID, and BC) and snowfall reductions, it's possible there might be some impact. But it's still way cheaper than anywhere else. Mostly due to international treaties.
I disagree on this one. I've consistently heard people complaining about Windows being bloated, but Windows 2000 and Windows XP run just fine with 192 megs of RAM.
I disagree. I have Win XP at home and have a lot of problems using it with a large number of Win XP games.
Admittedly, I can get it to run Open Office and Firefox and Opera, but one of the reasons I even have XP on it is so that I can play games. If it doesn't work, it doesn't. When I had 256MB it ran like a dog. Now that I've got more than 700MB it works fine.
My expectation is that games will be developed using the guidelines of "run in 512MB", but the designers always forget that a lot of other programs will be running on the same box, so the reality is that you'll need to have Premium Vista levels to even have a hope of running new Vista games on it, specifically Spore and other more recent releases.
This was true for Win 95, Win 98, Win ME, Win 2K, and Win XP - I don't expect Microsoft to break their pattern now, nor the game developers.
Now, I should point out, when I do run such things, I actually turn off a lot of normally running programs that I know I don't need. Which I shouldn't expect to have to do. At least not if we're thinking of average consumer usage.
I've used solar cell arrays for portable engineering laptops as well, the only problem is they add to weight and work best if they don't get scratched. The ethanol you describe could be made at farms that produce biodiesel as well - I believe some states provide subsidies (low-interest capital cost loans to build them and tax breaks) to do so, other than my state (Washington) where I know it's been signed into law by the Governor. But methanol or ethanol both can be used to power laptops.
I can only speak for myself but from what I've heard, Vista will offer few enhancements over XP that I really need in an OS. Better searching? [microsoft.com] I don't particularly need it, but Google Desktop. IE7? [microsoft.com] Not a chance, Firefox has me hooked and has many more features. "Gadgets"? [microsoft.com] No thanks, but Konfabulator (now Yahoo Widgets) if you wanted them.
Wait, you forgot about the need for RAM - you have to get 512MB to even "run" Vista, but the reality is when they say that, they mean "you need to buy at least 1GB of RAM or it will be as slow as a dog".
So, buy requiring you to buy more RAM, they make it easier for games to use that much RAM.
if they force me to buy Windows Vista to use Direct X 10, then I'll just wait until the come out with the Wii version, cause I'm not upgrading to Vista.
Personally, I think this is a bad decision by them, but I'm sure Microsoft made some kind of deal that worked for them.
I think that perhaps Nintendo knows that puzzle games are a rage not just in Japan, not just among women and girls (a vast untapped market with lots of money), but also for people trying to prevent/defer Alzheimers and dementia.
A wise company finds new untapped markets - an old feeble company tries to keep selling whale oil for our lamps.
One could easily argue the opposite - most in fact don't lead the lives of warriors, but in practice most humans have normally been farmers, or shepherds, and some hunter/gatherers. Most mythology speaks of warriors as a "breed apart".
However, your arguments that the warrior class is a method to climb the social ladder are good arguments. Whether they're acting out of true imperitives or just an acquired mythology is the question, however, and most people who write articles tend to present either a strongly positive or strongly negative view of a group they spend time interviewing.
Most genetic fathers turn out to be Dads or Milkmen or Outcasts, actually.
I think dating sims are a great start to this, but they are all fantasy based, very unrealistic etc. I'd love to see a video game that uses real life video of people to train you to better read facial expressions and body language as well as to learn good responses to situations that may cause social anxiety.
If anybody can think of any currently existing titles that are good for this, by all means please post them.
Hmmm. How about the Sims 2? Specifically, the Hot Date, University, and Nightlife expansions for that?
They're all fairly accurate, with a little bit of humorous silliness thrown in so it's not boring.
There's a reason why the Sims is the most widely sold computer game - most of the players are actually women and girls, in fact. But most game mechanics are based on actual psychology and sociology studies.
Slashdot Mirror
So apparently clicking little hieroglyphs on toolbar buttons is easier than using a pull-down menu. What about accessibility? What about people who prefer to use the keyboard?
I'm sure the ADA compliancy people will love that part. They already don't like the Type Obscured Numbers In This Box security features. And a nice lawsuit is sure to arise.
The video memory wasn't being used for anything anyway -- these effects come for free for anyone with a decent video card. The only people who will suffer are those with integrated video or low end cards that use system memory (e.g. ATi's "hypermemory" doublespeak).
You realize you just described 99 percent of all laptop users, right? They don't have an easy time "upgrading" video cards.
I'll believe it when I see it.
Is the thing usable yet? The last revision I tried, you would click, and then like an hour later it would load the window I told it to open......and this was not on a slow system by any means.
/.ed, so it's still not usable.
Nope, the article website is still
Note that even MSFT admits that you need a faster processor, 1GB (not 512MB) of RAM, and a better video card than you mentioned.
2. no killer app - already use OpenOffice at home and use MySQL at work.
Halo 2? Okay, I'll agree with this one, but then OS upgrades usually don't happen for "killer apps". They happen because you bought a new computer and you got the OS for "free".
I think you mean Halo 3. Nope, FPS bore me to death. Too much time in the Army, I guess. More interested in the Wii controller feedback with speaker aspect for better realism. Black not too bad though.
Now, as I said in another post, if I can only get Will Wright's Spore on Win Vista, that's different. But I think it will release as WinXP and Wii versions at least. So, still no killer apps.
In fact, I have one of only two Windows boxen in my entire lab, everyone else is Linux. My home laptop is Win XP too.
In the end, the thing that will kill Win Vista for me is:
1. excessive screen transition/visual chrome - don't need to waste precious resources on that.
2. no killer app - already use OpenOffice at home and use MySQL at work.
3. price moolah bucks cash - when my laptop cost $500 and a PC costs $250, spending an extra $250+ for Win Vista seems just as insane as shelling out $600 for a PS3 when I can buy a Wii and a PC for that much.
No amount of marketing droids can save that one.
I wonder if it will fix one of my biggest complaints. I had a laptop with a 14" screen and a 1400x1050 resolution. To be able to read anything I had to up the font sizes. The text looked great, but many programs/websites/parts of Windows just looked odd or didn't render right because they expected font sizes to be a specific way.
This will become an even bigger complaint as Win Vista releases. Look, I'm edge gen, overlap for the Baby Boomers and X-Gen, and I can attest there will be a lot of people with bifocals that are going to be complaining about things like that.
You can have all the fancy screen transitions, gliding, dock-pop-and-roll (tm), invisibile panels, transparent panels - but if you make it hard to read you're going to get sued under ADA, cause Boomers love to sue.
For me it comes down to two things:
1. Price - Nowadays I buy a PC for around $250. Adding Win Vista on top means that's $500. Just like my response to Sony's $600 PS3, it's No Thanks, Try Again Later.
2. No Killer App - there's no there there. Security, DRM, all things I don't need and don't want to pay lots of cash for. Again, Time To Buy Linux For My Next Computer.
Now, I'm sure someone will go on about Database, or maybe Office, but the reality is I can install and use OpenOffice (have it on my WinXP laptop) and MySQL works fine (use it at work), so those dogs don't hunt any longer.
The only thing right now that might shoehorn Win Vista into my home is if I can only get Will Wright's Spore on Win Vista - I think it will also come out for the Nintendo Wii, and will work under WinXP, so I don't have a need to upgrade yet.
Exactly. In real life, we run multiple apps in background, some in tray mode, my own WinXP laptop has about ten icons in the docking bar, and as a result it takes a while to start them all.
This is why Win Vista only "requires" 512MB of RAM, but Premium Vista "needs" 1GB of RAM - they can't possibly get it to work at slower than a crawl with a normal configuration, especially with all the chrome of the unnecessary windows transitions, fading, transparencies and other crud they overloaded video with by default.
I'll wait for the stripped down hack version when someone has wasted a few months figuring out how to turn off all those resource-gobbling "features" I don't want.
It knows that because its well-implemented new Sleep mode uses very little electricity and also takes only two or three seconds to either shut down or restart, you want to use this mode to 'turn off' your computer, whether you realize it or not.
Of course, if you have a laptop like I do at home, with a USB external mouse, this could save your battery from draining dry, as the USB draws power while the laptop is on.
Mind you, having your computer turn off while you change the channel on the TV can be a bit disconcerting.
Climate changes aren't caused by humans! So it's irrelevant to study them, whether they are happening or not! There's no proof humans are causing them! ARGH!!!!
Sorry, had to condense anti-global warming people's stuff down to a few lines. =P
I'll go tell that to all the glaciers that melted in the last 20 years here in WA, OR, ID, MT, and BC.
Oh, wait, they're gone - only 40 percent of these glaciers that have existed since wooly mammoths roamed here are left now.
Now, if we were looking at such changes over many centuries, one would expect adaptations, but even the salmonids are dying off, as they can't migrate north to colder streams in time.
Seriously, even though I think the guy is gunning for a job working for the President, you have to admit that if you bought a PS3 you wouldn't have to worry about buying games that required DirectX 11 support.
By definition, all games would automatically work, since they have to be PS3 compatible.
Additionally, you know you'd get browser support, as most websites can't ignore hundreds of millions of consumers, if they did choose to use the PS3 instead of a PC.
Now, that said, I still think you'd be better off spending the $600 on a Nintendo Wii and a PC instead, and get the best of both worlds. Sure, they want you to think PCs cost $2000, but my last laptop (top of the line wireless, nice HD, good battery life, WinXP) cost me $500 thru Tiger Direct, and I see PCs (AMD) for around $250 on there all the time. If you get them with Linux, you get a good solid PC with tons of apps too.
You can also shoot somebody you catch in the act of comitting a felony.
...
Wow! In other words
Cops on Mercer Island
Announcer: Tonight on Cops on Mercer Island, we join a citizens patrol walking the streets in Mercer Island, looking thru windows from the sidewalk to see if anyone is an online gambling felon.
Hick One: Ah see one! He's gambling online! Get out yer shotguns!
gunfire ensues for about 30 seconds, with breaking glass
Hick Two: Dang, he's not dead yet!
Hick One: Yup, guess we just winged him. Good thing, though, looks like he was only balancing his checkbook at one o them fancy online banking things - turns out it was a pop-up online gambling ad. Well, a citizen's gotta do what a citizen's gotta do.
who do you think voted for the bill in the Frist place?
you can check it out at leg.wa.gov if you want. it shows all the bills and signed laws from Washington State. Including who the sponsors were in the House and Senate versions and the recorded votes on the law when it was passed as a bill by the State House and Senate.
There should be a law that you can't put a law on the books with no intention of enforcing it.
You forget, in our state, if someone commits a felony that there's a financial penalty tagged to it, you can turn them in for a bounty (usually 10 percent of the fine, sometimes higher).
Which means $1000 to rat out the guy downstairs in your dorm who's underage and gambling online and bragging about the fancy car he got from gambling.
I think there will be lots of takers for that one.
Maybe they'll do a new TV series "Gates: Bounty Hunter" which has scenes like this:
Gates: Hmm, I see Muffy's got a new Cadillac DeSalle parked in front of the Sorority.
Sidekick Allen: Didn't she turn you down for the Spring Fling, Bill?
Gates: Yup, and she's going down for online gambling - I can use that $1000 reward for turning her in to buy another double core processor for my Opteron! Quick, to the Internet Sniffer, Paul!
music crescendo - And So Another Day In The Life of Bill Gates, Internet Gambling Bounty Hunter, and Another Villian Will Be Brought To Justice! - music diminishes
under our state law, you can act as a bounty hunter and turn in such gamblers for 10 percent of the eventual fine - if you got $1000 to rat out your online gambling neighbor, that might make it worth your while ...
that this thing is too bulky, or too expensive, or not abusive enough from its petrol-consuming counterparts (yes electricity is petrol-consuming, not directly but indirectly, of course), i wait for the day when either the cost of your electricity is $1000s for your home and car because the supply has diminished to such a level there is hardly any left in the world anyway
Not likely to happen where I live, we have these giant hydroelectric dams here and up in Canada in the Rockies that supply 98 percent of our electricity supply. However, with all the global warming and the rapid melting of glaciers (now only 40 percent of them are still remaining in WA, OR, MT, ID, and BC) and snowfall reductions, it's possible there might be some impact. But it's still way cheaper than anywhere else. Mostly due to international treaties.
I disagree on this one. I've consistently heard people complaining about Windows being bloated, but Windows 2000 and Windows XP run just fine with 192 megs of RAM.
I disagree. I have Win XP at home and have a lot of problems using it with a large number of Win XP games.
Admittedly, I can get it to run Open Office and Firefox and Opera, but one of the reasons I even have XP on it is so that I can play games. If it doesn't work, it doesn't. When I had 256MB it ran like a dog. Now that I've got more than 700MB it works fine.
My expectation is that games will be developed using the guidelines of "run in 512MB", but the designers always forget that a lot of other programs will be running on the same box, so the reality is that you'll need to have Premium Vista levels to even have a hope of running new Vista games on it, specifically Spore and other more recent releases.
This was true for Win 95, Win 98, Win ME, Win 2K, and Win XP - I don't expect Microsoft to break their pattern now, nor the game developers.
Now, I should point out, when I do run such things, I actually turn off a lot of normally running programs that I know I don't need. Which I shouldn't expect to have to do. At least not if we're thinking of average consumer usage.
I've used solar cell arrays for portable engineering laptops as well, the only problem is they add to weight and work best if they don't get scratched. The ethanol you describe could be made at farms that produce biodiesel as well - I believe some states provide subsidies (low-interest capital cost loans to build them and tax breaks) to do so, other than my state (Washington) where I know it's been signed into law by the Governor. But methanol or ethanol both can be used to power laptops.
dang, messed up the headline, meant spot, not stop - sorry, I meant to say:
He's the guy to whom the girl says: "Is that a fuel-cell laptop you have, or are you just happy to see me?"
He's the guy to whom the girl says: "Is that a fuel-cell laptop you're using, or are you just happy to see me".
I can only speak for myself but from what I've heard, Vista will offer few enhancements over XP that I really need in an OS. Better searching? [microsoft.com] I don't particularly need it, but Google Desktop. IE7? [microsoft.com] Not a chance, Firefox has me hooked and has many more features. "Gadgets"? [microsoft.com] No thanks, but Konfabulator (now Yahoo Widgets) if you wanted them.
Wait, you forgot about the need for RAM - you have to get 512MB to even "run" Vista, but the reality is when they say that, they mean "you need to buy at least 1GB of RAM or it will be as slow as a dog".
So, buy requiring you to buy more RAM, they make it easier for games to use that much RAM.
if they force me to buy Windows Vista to use Direct X 10, then I'll just wait until the come out with the Wii version, cause I'm not upgrading to Vista.
Personally, I think this is a bad decision by them, but I'm sure Microsoft made some kind of deal that worked for them.
I think that perhaps Nintendo knows that puzzle games are a rage not just in Japan, not just among women and girls (a vast untapped market with lots of money), but also for people trying to prevent/defer Alzheimers and dementia.
A wise company finds new untapped markets - an old feeble company tries to keep selling whale oil for our lamps.
One could easily argue the opposite - most in fact don't lead the lives of warriors, but in practice most humans have normally been farmers, or shepherds, and some hunter/gatherers. Most mythology speaks of warriors as a "breed apart".
... ;-)
However, your arguments that the warrior class is a method to climb the social ladder are good arguments. Whether they're acting out of true imperitives or just an acquired mythology is the question, however, and most people who write articles tend to present either a strongly positive or strongly negative view of a group they spend time interviewing.
Most genetic fathers turn out to be Dads or Milkmen or Outcasts, actually.
I blame the media of course
I think dating sims are a great start to this, but they are all fantasy based, very unrealistic etc. I'd love to see a video game that uses real life video of people to train you to better read facial expressions and body language as well as to learn good responses to situations that may cause social anxiety.
If anybody can think of any currently existing titles that are good for this, by all means please post them.
Hmmm. How about the Sims 2? Specifically, the Hot Date, University, and Nightlife expansions for that?
They're all fairly accurate, with a little bit of humorous silliness thrown in so it's not boring.
There's a reason why the Sims is the most widely sold computer game - most of the players are actually women and girls, in fact. But most game mechanics are based on actual psychology and sociology studies.