I personally would argue that you can never go too far "bagging" that which owns a major majority of anything. You must question and evaluate everything that large with a fine toothed comb.
They don't even have to be paid... they just have to have a personal interest in a competitor product. This is primarily why people say a true democracy and truly social sites (like Digg) can't be non-bias. You remove the ability for someone to compete for fair reporting. If you notice your favorite newspaper is swinging one way or the other, you can always go to a competitor... for example. You can't really have this in a socially run website because any competitor will also have the same affect. At least, that's my viewpoint on it.;)
You don't really need a tinfoil hat to understand that it could be true. We live in a capitalist world. People pay to get certified for Microsoft technologies and they don't want to see that effort go to waste so they will consciously or subconsciously pass along and regurgitate "bad news" to keep their investments from wasting away (even though they really don't because most technologies apply across the board.)
Even though MS may not be paying for it, how many Microsoft trained individuals would go out of their way to bury good news from a technology that they didn't study?
But isn't that problem created by the same people that complain about it? (ie: if you don't switch, the "professionals" won't make games.) So who's going to make sacrifices to make your life better through competition and why do you go out of your way to stand in their way and ridicule them?
I remember reading that the source code disks were lost in a move... it would be interesting if it was still available. I would love to dig into that one for sure.;)
You mean like Moonlight? The free implementation of Silverlight? Silverlight runs in IE, Firefox on Windows, Safari, Firefox on Mac, and Firefox in Linux (x86 and x64) through Moonlight. It's coming to mobile soon, too.
So Moonlight supports all of Silverlight 3's features?
You can write silverlight apps in vim and run them in a fully opensourced plugin in firefox on linux... it's fully documented publicly unlike Flash. I have linux hacker friends who do just this because silverlight/moonlight can be developed without expensive tools and flash can't. You can even play theora videos natively in IE, Safari/Mac, and Firefox/Linux with it TODAY. I would say the technology is quite freeing.
GP's point is that, "Sure, MS is supporting Moonlight... but they aren't using free and open standards to help limit the adoption."
If Microsoft was serious about cross platform support, they'd adopt standards that could be used on all platforms. They are setting up Moonlight to fail by requiring licensed protocols and closed binaries because they know that all the competition will not use them. They can appear to be "open" and "supportive" but in reality they are being selectively restrictive to the competition. In essence, they are ensuring that the experience is "better" on their platform. While they have the right to do that, they are hiding that bit of knowledge from everyone by pushing it off as a licensing issue instead of their decision.
People care about what other people code in if there's a 200+MB download just to be able to run it...
If people coded in native apps that argument would be fine, but if I have to install a huge framework to run a note taking program it's hardly worth my time.
I agree with you on that. MW2 was far more customizable. Microsoft Games got hold of the franchise and it went to "socket city" with no real customization options.
Made for some interesting tactics: A friend would load his Mech with nothing but lasers, run in and blow off my leg in one shot.
So what you are saying is that we should dumb down the game (by limiting vertical camera movement/vision) so that you don't have to worry about it?...level the playing field so games are easier for you? Many tactics involve thinking in 3 dimensions. What you are basically stating is that a game is not fun for you because you have trouble coping with that third dimension so therefore the millions of other people that enjoy being able to look up/down have no idea what fun is?
The argument is that modern graphics detract from gaming and I argue that it's the exact opposite. It enables much more gaming styles. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean others don't.
No way. In DOOM you can't hide in a dark support beam and wait for an enemy to round the corner where you'll jump out and surprise them getting the first shot. You're fixed to only 2 dimensions so you can't hide under a bridge to avoid someone with "quad damage" or better armor.
The reason DOOM was more memorable was because of it's graphics in an era where 3D games only had 4 directions of travel. Doom 3 was just another reprint of a typical FPS game. It didn't have much in the innovation department so it was easily forgotten.
But a movie (and a game with better graphics than a competitor) has a lower level of entry than a book (or a screen full of ASCII symbols.)
Immersive, imaginative or not... it's easier for someone to pick up a game if it looks and acts like something real. It also doesn't require them to imagine what something looks like. They can focus on the story/plot (and I'll agree, games don't have much story) or the movie/game's mechanical features without having to task half their brain trying to figure out what a "Dornag" looks like or have to read 14 pages of descriptive text.
It's about consuming the story in as little time as possible. People would rather spend 2 hours watching a movie than several days reading it in a book.
I can't think of an appropriate combination of ASCII pictures to represent capitalism in a way which he could understand (without having to explain it all later in parenthesis.)
I'm going to venture that they will still have Xorg as the graphical interface. There's no sense recreating that. It sounds as though they are just creating a window manager that runs on top of Xorg, like Gnome/KDE/XFCE/*box/Enlightenment/et al do currently.
If that's true, that would only show that IE is only popular because of silly campus/business mandates that their students/employees be forced to use IE and that they choose to use other browsers when they can. I know I fall into that situation. I'm sure I'm not alone.
Slashdot Mirror
... that's the next Ubuntu codename isn't it?
Not only that, but upgrading to some people means buying a new PC... and finding a way (a safe way for some) to dispose of the old one.
I personally would argue that you can never go too far "bagging" that which owns a major majority of anything. You must question and evaluate everything that large with a fine toothed comb.
They don't even have to be paid... they just have to have a personal interest in a competitor product. This is primarily why people say a true democracy and truly social sites (like Digg) can't be non-bias. You remove the ability for someone to compete for fair reporting. If you notice your favorite newspaper is swinging one way or the other, you can always go to a competitor... for example. You can't really have this in a socially run website because any competitor will also have the same affect. At least, that's my viewpoint on it. ;)
You don't really need a tinfoil hat to understand that it could be true. We live in a capitalist world. People pay to get certified for Microsoft technologies and they don't want to see that effort go to waste so they will consciously or subconsciously pass along and regurgitate "bad news" to keep their investments from wasting away (even though they really don't because most technologies apply across the board.)
Even though MS may not be paying for it, how many Microsoft trained individuals would go out of their way to bury good news from a technology that they didn't study?
Yes, but whatever Linux distro I install, I can make it work like any other without having to pay extra.;)
But isn't that problem created by the same people that complain about it? (ie: if you don't switch, the "professionals" won't make games.) So who's going to make sacrifices to make your life better through competition and why do you go out of your way to stand in their way and ridicule them?
I remember reading that the source code disks were lost in a move... it would be interesting if it was still available. I would love to dig into that one for sure. ;)
Actionscript 3 using the Flex3 SDK can be totally developer centric. You do not need Flash to develop and compile SWFs.
At work, I use FlashDevelop in Windows using the Flex3 SDK to create all my SWF files.
You mean like Moonlight? The free implementation of Silverlight? Silverlight runs in IE, Firefox on Windows, Safari, Firefox on Mac, and Firefox in Linux (x86 and x64) through Moonlight. It's coming to mobile soon, too.
So Moonlight supports all of Silverlight 3's features?
You can write silverlight apps in vim and run them in a fully opensourced plugin in firefox on linux... it's fully documented publicly unlike Flash. I have linux hacker friends who do just this because silverlight/moonlight can be developed without expensive tools and flash can't. You can even play theora videos natively in IE, Safari/Mac, and Firefox/Linux with it TODAY. I would say the technology is quite freeing.
You can develop Flash apps in vim as well. It's been available for some time actually. Flex3 SDK can compile Actionscript files into a SWF file.
GP's point is that, "Sure, MS is supporting Moonlight... but they aren't using free and open standards to help limit the adoption."
If Microsoft was serious about cross platform support, they'd adopt standards that could be used on all platforms. They are setting up Moonlight to fail by requiring licensed protocols and closed binaries because they know that all the competition will not use them. They can appear to be "open" and "supportive" but in reality they are being selectively restrictive to the competition. In essence, they are ensuring that the experience is "better" on their platform. While they have the right to do that, they are hiding that bit of knowledge from everyone by pushing it off as a licensing issue instead of their decision.
I think the better question is... what smartphones have Silverlight on them? I'm pretty sure Android, the iPhone, and Blackberry don't.
I guess that just leaves Windows Mobile? That must mean "Silverlight mobile" is cross platform as well. /rolleyes
Crap... that's right. It's been a while. ;)
1) http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=46887
2) http://weblogs.java.net/blog/alexwinston/archive/2005/04/strongly_types_1.html
3) http://www.developer.com/java/other/article.php/3300881 ?
4) http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/language/generics.html
5) http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/reflection/proxy.html ?
Absent? (Admittedly, I don't code in Java, but I got those links just by googling all your points.)
People care about what other people code in if there's a 200+MB download just to be able to run it...
If people coded in native apps that argument would be fine, but if I have to install a huge framework to run a note taking program it's hardly worth my time.
I agree with you on that. MW2 was far more customizable. Microsoft Games got hold of the franchise and it went to "socket city" with no real customization options.
Made for some interesting tactics: A friend would load his Mech with nothing but lasers, run in and blow off my leg in one shot.
Upgrade to ferro-fiberous armor... its a real space saver.
So what you are saying is that we should dumb down the game (by limiting vertical camera movement/vision) so that you don't have to worry about it? ...level the playing field so games are easier for you? Many tactics involve thinking in 3 dimensions. What you are basically stating is that a game is not fun for you because you have trouble coping with that third dimension so therefore the millions of other people that enjoy being able to look up/down have no idea what fun is?
The argument is that modern graphics detract from gaming and I argue that it's the exact opposite. It enables much more gaming styles. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean others don't.
No way. In DOOM you can't hide in a dark support beam and wait for an enemy to round the corner where you'll jump out and surprise them getting the first shot. You're fixed to only 2 dimensions so you can't hide under a bridge to avoid someone with "quad damage" or better armor.
The reason DOOM was more memorable was because of it's graphics in an era where 3D games only had 4 directions of travel. Doom 3 was just another reprint of a typical FPS game. It didn't have much in the innovation department so it was easily forgotten.
But a movie (and a game with better graphics than a competitor) has a lower level of entry than a book (or a screen full of ASCII symbols.)
Immersive, imaginative or not... it's easier for someone to pick up a game if it looks and acts like something real. It also doesn't require them to imagine what something looks like. They can focus on the story/plot (and I'll agree, games don't have much story) or the movie/game's mechanical features without having to task half their brain trying to figure out what a "Dornag" looks like or have to read 14 pages of descriptive text.
It's about consuming the story in as little time as possible. People would rather spend 2 hours watching a movie than several days reading it in a book.
I can't think of an appropriate combination of ASCII pictures to represent capitalism in a way which he could understand (without having to explain it all later in parenthesis.)
There are already a few "charts" out there.
I'm going to venture that they will still have Xorg as the graphical interface. There's no sense recreating that. It sounds as though they are just creating a window manager that runs on top of Xorg, like Gnome/KDE/XFCE/*box/Enlightenment/et al do currently.
Actually, now that I think about it...
If that's true, that would only show that IE is only popular because of silly campus/business mandates that their students/employees be forced to use IE and that they choose to use other browsers when they can. I know I fall into that situation. I'm sure I'm not alone.
Plenty of time to go install FF3.5 on all those machines so the students will enjoy working in the lab again... ;)