It looks like there were a few typos in your post..here, let me help. ...
The company I work for (large fortune 500 company) still employs the elderly who know to develop for our 40 year old IBM System/360 mainframe. Why use an "ancient" language? Because there is 20-30 years of undocumented business knowledge encoded in the cobol code by people that retired 20 years ago. Not only that, but it is tested, tried, and it just works perfectly. Rewriting in a modern language would make no sense other than using the "latest technology"...and allowing us to make changes to the application logic without incorporating seances into our QA process.
There were two of them actually, first Apple released a GUI shell for prodos in 1996 called Apple II Desktop, it had vital office applications such as er..calc, and notepad, and it looked vaguelly mac-like.
The GEOS operating system was released for the Apple II, but not until 1988. It had windows, it had a fairly nice office suite, it looked like a low budget rip-off of the Mac OS. I don't think this helped Apple's chances much, it was too little and far too late.
The bottom line is that Apple's greatest strength was their huge software library, which was also their greatest weakness as it tied them to the (none too gracefully) aging 6502.
I think it would have been possible to build a Mac-like UI on top of the Apple II. If they had done that, they could have built on their earlier success, maintained their huge library of software (which was a major driver of Apple II sales all through the 80s)
and I think this guy comes from a state that has ice storms every year and is therefore lacking empirical evidence to support this crazy yankee theory about 'global warming'.
I think this guy more-or-less represents the majority opinion in this state.
That may not work 'out of the box', but via COM automation it's trivial to take excel data and export it as comma delimited text, provided your application understands how to talk Windows/COM.
The problem is that this compatability is only within the MS monopoly. Try to Cut&Paste some Excel data into any non-MS document. Even plain text doesn't always behave as expected once you cross the boundary between MS turf and 3rd party "wilderness".
I couldn't agree more, that's why I had to be the first one on my block to wake the sleeper. Getting compared to Hitler within the next 45 seconds was an amazing feat, and instancing the zone would have cheapened the experience.
The challenge I make for the WOW team (or any MMO maker) is to develop a game where players only get a single shot at an instanced zone to foreward their own adventuring. I mean, defeating a mighty dragon is an amazing feat, doing it 10 times in a row against the same dragon is very pointless and cheapens the experience.
I wouldn't think that. Over the last decade hp ratings, safety/emissions standards and gross vehicle weights have all gone up. All of these things hurt fuel economy. Gas powered engines are a fairly mature technology. You mix some air and some gas, and then you light it on fire. We've had fuel injection and good air/fuel maps since 1990 or so, the improvements since then have been much more minor.
Oh, and my three decades old car still gets around 25 mpg city, all while helping fight the record levels of smug here in California.
My decade old car gets 32 miles per gallon. I find it stupid that many cars today brag about that kind of fuel economy on the highway. You would think that in a ten year stretch engines and cars would have become significantly more efficient - even the non-hybrid models.
Really? I'm pretty sure common thieves and pickpockets have had this technology for quite some time. See that 80 year old man in Baggage Claim with the hot 20 year old arm jewelry? I detect large amounts of currency.
I'm pretty sure that a common thief or pickpocket is not sophisticated enough to have a piece of equipment capable of detecting large amounts of currency, if that's even possible.
Are you kidding me? Compared to the terrible port Nintendo made for Intellivision the Colecovision version was pure gold. It wasn't arcade perfect, but it was a giant step forward; just like a number of their other arcade conversions (Zaxxon, Cosmic Avenger, etc). Not too shabby for the COnnecticut LEather COmpany. But then came the giant asteroid that was E.T., and all before it was laid waste.
While Intellivision focused more on thinking games rather than arcade action*, it was pretty much successful right up until the Video Game Crash of '83/84. At that point, Mattel Electronics died, but the Intellivision lived on as part of the newly formed INTV Corp. Some of the best games were produced under INTV (Diner, Thin Ice, Thunder Castle, Hover Force, etc.), and they didn't close their doors until 1991. (IIRC)
And many [Colecovision] units came bundled with a near-arcade-quality port of Nintendo's Donkey Kong.
Except for the fact that Donkey Kong was on the wrong side of the screen.:-/
I'll take explosive tipped whaling harpoons for 1000 Alex
Hmmm - and how are you going to stop the sperm whales from eating them day in and day out.
I'm sure they eat more in a day, than we've caught or killed in all of human history so far.
when you "into" flashlights, you'll find out that
1)Maglights are NOT that good - their beam quality sucks
2)Maglight is the Microsoft of flashlights - they use lawsuits to prevent a LOT of competition
3)9 out of 10 officers prefer the 5 D-cell Maglight to conventional police batons.
Mailing out juror notices is one thing, but just imagine the postal bills from mailing out all of those BMWs and trophy wives.
In an effort to inject some integrity into the legal system, the Australian government picks people at random and designates them lawyers. You too could be an Australian lawyer, and the notice just hasn't arrived yet. Before you laugh, many countries choose jurors this way, why not lawyers?
Is this why it took a class action lawsuit to get Sony to warranty the notoriously fragile DVD players in the first-gen PS2's?
And in fact, this is how Japanese businesses typically behave in the Japanese market. Taking responsibility, sometimes more than they deserve blame for, and making it right, even if it means the president of the company has to go from Okinawa to Hokkaido and personally ring doorbells and apologize to everyone who was wronged.
I don't know, I can run all of their 'mid-level' settings (full character shadows/effects) without significant lag on my aging system (2.8G P4, AGP, ATI X800). It's too bad the companion AI/cameras are so flaky, but graphically I really can't complain.
What's with all the new "AAA" games that run like crap and/or look like crap on any system more than a year old? Oblivion, NWN2, the new Total War games (even in map mode), Company of Heroes, etc. Whatever happened to the idea of a scalable graphics engine, or just plain good code design?
Hello! In the outside world, I am a simple geologist... but in here, I am Falcorn, Defender of the Alliance. I have braved the Fargo Deep Mine, defeated the Blood Fish at Gerard's Landing...
Baldrick: I've heard what these Germans will do, Sir. They'll have their wicked way with anything of woman-born.
Edmund: Well, in that case, Baldrick, you're quite safe. However, the Teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded: their operas last three or four days; and they have no word for `fluffy'.
Which coincidentally lowers your chances of living long enough to get cancer...there we go, conclusive evidence that cellphone useage reduces your chance of contracting cancer!
Cell phones are one thing that distracts people when they're driving, but I've seen plenty of drivers who couldn't find their ass with two hands and a map, cell phone or no cell phone. But lets be sure and outlaw them anyway. After all, if we just outlawed retards, who would re-elect us next year?
They didn't take into effect the amount of vehicular accidents that are caused by inattentive cell phone drivers. This is probably the most unsafe aspect of them
I played through most of it, and for a N64 launch title it was great, but Banjo-Kazooie was IMO a far better entry in the same genre.
Super Mario 64 is still by almost all standards one of the greatest games of all time. Sure, it's out-dated now, but the challenges are still fun. Good enough that many people felt compelled to repurchase it on the DS to get the new stars that were added, and to play through it again with the new characters.
Except that the only artists who even stand a chance of getting a cut of the 'pirate tax' are those that have signed with major studios. This is just another way for the big, established corps to raise the barrier to entry for any upstarts. Corporate socialism at its finest.
The point I was attempting to make is that planned obsolescence is one of the ipods design goals. Apple knows if they make their shiny gadget break in a few years, you'll probably upgrade to their new and improved shiny gadget with go faster stripes. Apple is far from the only company to do this, I can come up with plenty of other examples if you like...
1. Cell Phones - use an expensive custom battery pack, not covered with your service plan. Whereas a replacement phone is free and keeps you under contract.
2. Nintendo GBA SP - again, non user-replaceable battery pack. Breaks just in time to buy that new DS!
3. My wife's 98' Villager - Ford/Mercury has stopped carrying some parts and this things not even 10 years old...
Yeah, because that's such an easily solvable problem. Damn Apple for skimping and not using super future battery technology. I mean come on, this criticism is slightly baseless. You think if there were better battery technology (cost, charge duration, and lifetime wise) they wouldn't be using it?
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It looks like there were a few typos in your post..here, let me help.
...
The company I work for (large fortune 500 company) still employs the elderly who know to develop for our 40 year old IBM System/360 mainframe. Why use an "ancient" language? Because there is 20-30 years of undocumented business knowledge encoded in the cobol code by people that retired 20 years ago. Not only that, but it is tested, tried, and it just works perfectly. Rewriting in a modern language would make no sense other than using the "latest technology"...and allowing us to make changes to the application logic without incorporating seances into our QA process.
The GEOS operating system was released for the Apple II, but not until 1988. It had windows, it had a fairly nice office suite, it looked like a low budget rip-off of the Mac OS. I don't think this helped Apple's chances much, it was too little and far too late.
The bottom line is that Apple's greatest strength was their huge software library, which was also their greatest weakness as it tied them to the (none too gracefully) aging 6502.
Oh, and my three decades old car still gets around 25 mpg city, all while helping fight the record levels of smug here in California.
3)9 out of 10 officers prefer the 5 D-cell Maglight to conventional police batons.
Hello! In the outside world, I am a simple geologist... but in here, I am Falcorn, Defender of the Alliance. I have braved the Fargo Deep Mine, defeated the Blood Fish at Gerard's Landing...
Baldrick: I've heard what these Germans will do, Sir. They'll have their wicked way with anything of woman-born.
Edmund: Well, in that case, Baldrick, you're quite safe. However, the Teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded: their operas last three or four days; and they have no word for `fluffy'.
Cell phones are one thing that distracts people when they're driving, but I've seen plenty of drivers who couldn't find their ass with two hands and a map, cell phone or no cell phone. But lets be sure and outlaw them anyway. After all, if we just outlawed retards, who would re-elect us next year?
Hang on, it looks like you had a typo in your post. Here, let me fix it for you...
It's unregistered gun owners that commit nearly 100% of the murders in this country.
If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns...does that somehow make you feel more safe?
actually, scratch that. The SP battery is user replaceable, at least for as long as we can buy those custom battery packs.
1. Cell Phones - use an expensive custom battery pack, not covered with your service plan. Whereas a replacement phone is free and keeps you under contract.
2. Nintendo GBA SP - again, non user-replaceable battery pack. Breaks just in time to buy that new DS!
3. My wife's 98' Villager - Ford/Mercury has stopped carrying some parts and this things not even 10 years old...