well, deinterlacing isn't the same as natively progressive, though.
It is for most films on DVD, though not for NTSC TV.
The process is called IVTC, and it reconstructs the original progressive frames, if the source was progressive before being put on DVD.
It doesn't work for NTSC TV, where the source is interlaced and was put on DVD interlaced. For that you need smart de-interlacing that is likely to cause blurriness due to combining two slightly different interlaced fields into a frame.
(I do IVTC every time I rip a movie to H.264 or XviD, or when I want to take a good-looking progressive screencap)
Even only 40,000 people, most with a credit card and leisure time, is a good market. People pay good money to reach less.
That's not their market. Potential market, perhaps. But like real life, only a small percentage will actually visit the store or event at any given time.
Unlike newspaper and magazine ads, Second Life requires someone to be paid to be there. For a full-time presence, they might pay some marketer say $50,000/year, or $25/hr, 8 hours a day. For that they get somewhere between 100-1000 visitors per hour, guessing. So each "viewer" cost them up to $0.25. Not very good compared to TV or the web. If they're selling something on the spot, worth more than $0.25, and a good portion of them buy it, it might be worth it. Otherwise, probably not.
They could probably contract an SL creator/artist to create items with their logo. That might be worth it. But the full-time presence some of the companies talked about surely isn't.
Movies began to suck when Hollywood began making movies for *themselves* rather than the mass population.
Most books suck because the writer will write for himself/herself instead of for a mass population.
It's funny, because after my rather vitriolic diatribe, I started thinking about why I was so angry about someone saying that casual gaming was going to supplant hardcore gaming. And it came down to this: when casual music listening (pop/easy listening) became mainstream, look what it did to our radio stations. Look what it did to music in general. Creating artistic works for the lowest common denominator is almost always a Very Bad Thing.
Console gaming is supposed to cater to the casuals. Atari 2600 appealed to everyone. The NES was a family console. Only as time went on, the consoles catered more and more to the hardcore. They were the fools with no lives spending fortunes on getting every system, every hot game, buying new home theaters and tvs just for their game console, and even willing to pay half a grand for a game console.
Most hardcore gamers that are my age had an NES, an SNES, and an N64. Some of the few who were lucky enough to have parents that were into family gaming at the time also had an Atari. Not to mention Sega Genesis and the other systems. They were hardcore gamers at the time when those were the only systems and genres of games you could buy. The games you mention as hardcore gaming are all fairly recent. Most hardcore gamers remember those old school games fondly.
It was the casual games that defined this industry. Casual Pong made this industry, not hardcore Computer Space. Pac-Man was huge. Beserk was not. Super Mario Brothers was huge. The 'epic games' on the computers then were not. Tetris was huge while other games, with far superior graphics, were not. Wii Sports is huge while Gears of War was nothing but a fad. And don't get started on computer gaming with huge hits like The Sims or Myst.
Again, lowest common denominator. Also, to even play games then was hardcore enough. We didn't really need a separate designation. Huge games now include WoW, Counterstrike, Halo. Even Civilization and most of the similar strategy games are primarily hardcore gamers, just in a different genre.
Casual gamers are the true axis in which this industry revolves around. Hardcore are not in the center but on the far edges.
I don't appreciate your trivialization of hardcore gamers, who were hardcore gamers when they played the first game that defined each genre of the many genres of games we have now. I think as games become mainstream, many of these casual gamers will try to convince everyone that their style of gaming is the center of the universe, regardless of the rich history of gaming. And I don't want to see the industry dumbed-down and watered-down like that. Like pop music.
Hardcore gamers say, "I understand Nintendo trying to expand the audience. But why don't they listen to us?" It is because hardcore gamers ARE the problem with gaming. Microsoft and Sony listened to them and look at where that got them. The more Nintendo defies the hardcore, the more their success.
If you're trying to convince me that the Wii is one step up from flash games and solitaire, designed for casual gamers, you're doing a good job.
Here's a hint for you: without hardcore gamers, most of the gaming industry never would have been developed. Most of the game programmers ARE hardcore gamers. MIYAMOTO IS A HARDCORE GAMER. Now can you please STFU with your Apple-ish "n00bs rule the world" elitism? Nobody cares. Now get back to drinking your Chai.
One officer stayed behind my door and I could see in the mirror his hand was on his gun. The other officer approached the passenger side with his weapon drawn.
That's crazy. I've never had a gun pulled on me at a routine traffic stop. A freakin u-turn! Wow.
I'm always careful not to make any sudden movements, and to inform the cop any time I need to reach for something, because I know they have a tough job and any stop is a potentially hostile situation. But pulling a gun on somebody who made a U-ey is just wrong. I'd be complaining to anybody locally who would listen.
Sadly, my middle mouse button(scrollwheel) doesn't close firefox tabs in my newer Logitech & MS mouse like my old MS Intellimouse Explorer used to.
You can use SetPoint to remap mouse buttons to keystrokes. (MX1000) Personally, I map the "application switch" key on the thumb grip to CTRL-W for close. Then leave one of the arrows next to it for Back, though Forward is next to useless, so I map that to fullscreen my SageTV window. Then I remap the horizontal scroll to CTRL-ALT-LEFT and CTRL-ALT-RIGHT to skip forward/back 5 secs in iTunes, and the up and down arrow on top to SPACE for play/pause and CTRL-+ to increase font-size. Though it would be nice if iTunes shortcuts were global so I didn't need the window on top.
Who needs more keyboard shortcuts? I'd be happy with just a few more buttons on my mouse. I find myself using mouse only when browsing, listening, watching, basically relaxing, and it is wireless, so that can be across the room like a remote. But other common tasks like CTRL-T (new tab) and CTRL-L (focus address bar) can be done from keyboard just fine, because I'm about to type something anyway.
I'd be very unhappy at this point to not have a close window button beneath my thumb though. So convenient for browsing multiple tabs.
It explains it right in Comcast's literature. I also get 16+ Mbps on a 6 Mbps Comcast connection in the speed tests and while using newsgroups. It is designed so that you can download what I consider to be small files, like Firefox (5 MB), in a couple of seconds.
You can sometimes trick it into downloading at burst speed while you're already downloading by using multiple connections, although it doesn't always work. I still haven't figured out the exact criteria for it.
Later on when I got a faster GeForce with a bazillion of pipelines and the latest shaders, I tried the games again. Yea, they looked better, some interesting effects here and there, but nothing major.
While we're giving anecdotal evidence... When I bought Oblivion I played it on an (unsupported) GeForce 4 Ti4600. I had to use the Oldblivion hack just to get it to run, disabling shaders and running at the lowest possible settings.
About a year later I played again with a C2D and a 7600 GT. It's like a completely different game. I finally knew what everyone was raving about, and it wasn't some pea-soup game that looked like Doom (the first one). It's infinitely more playable now, but that's just my opinion.
I played that way for a long time on Noble/Prince. But it is harder to do that and stay competitive on Monarch. You almost need to take out one civ in the early game. I usually try to get copper and do an Axeman rush or Iron and do a Swordsman rush. If I've got an ok tech lead and room to expand I'll wait until I get Catapults. The idea is to prevent the weaker civs who have copper/iron or sometimes even horses/ivory from being able to get the tech to use them. I raze the resource and capture/destroy that city before he can use it to build any units. Then even if I abandon the war it still gives me an advantage later.
The tech industry, just like the other industry groups, has its old boy's network, and you want to have someone who is connected to that.
Or...you know...you could just have a separate support number/email and bug tracker for handling false positives, which are bound to come up frequently enough to require it. Then assign an employee part-time to resolve them appropriately.
You must be playing Civ3 not Civ4, because the Pyramids no longer give you that bonus. Also, several of those Wonders don't sound at all familiar. Sounds like the parent you replied to was probably playing Civ4 as well. Anyway, heres the strategy that works for me in Civ4/Warlords.
Dude, the Great Wall of China is awesome. It basically protects you from almost all aggression for a huge chunk of the game, thus allowing you to focus your attention almost exclusively on using your resources to build up your cities and rapidly expand your territory.
Wonders that you want to definitely want to have:
1. The Pyramids (free Granary in every city); 2. The Great Library (automatically get every advancement learnt by two rivals until Electricity); 3. The Great Wall (enemies must offer a ceasefire or peace in negotiations until Metallurgy);
Given a choice between the Great Wall and the Hanging Gardens and I'll take the Great Wall any day.
I build the Great Wall for the +100% Great General emergence. If you can get 2 (or 3 if you're a warmonger) Great Generals adding experience points to all units built there or doubling the output of units, you're going to trounce your opponents in battle.
On the other hand, I usually really need Hanging Gardens by the time it is available if my 3 first cities were built in flood plains or without trees around. The +2 health greatly helps them grow beyond where they were stuck at around 11 pop.
I build Pyramids for access to all government civics, specifically for Representation. +3 beakers per scientist specialist combined with Caste System and the Great Library makes for a great Specialist Economy. Rather than spamming cottages, you can build farms and run your Science slider lower while still keeping a good science rate. Similarly, Great Library is good for the 2 free scientists in that city.
If you think that the police will stand there and take it since it was only one person, rather than the mob, that threw the missile, you're sadly mistaken. The police will act and use whatever means that they have at their disposal to break up the mob.
I think we have 1-5 angry mobs per year in the US. I think people are tasered or hit with other non-lethals many 1000s of times per year. Like this guy. I think people in favor of more non-lethals have no perspective of the magnitude of their use in non-violent situations whatsoever.
In the absence of these non-lethal weapons, do you think that riot police would refrain from using their guns if they felt their lives were being threatened? They wouldn't. Hell, you wouldn't either. If, on fear of death, all you had to respond with was a lethal weapon, you'd use it.
I think you missed my point somewhere along the way. If someone is attacking an officer, they will use their firearm regardless of how many non-lethal weapons we create. Therefore it is pointless to compare lethal weapons to non-lethal. Maybe you're arguing my point, I guess?
The argument "would you rather be shot or tasered/[insert non-lethal here]?" is an irrelevant question. In most cases where a non-lethal is used, no weapon would have been used otherwise.
I would still rather get shot by a bean bag or teargas dispenser than a bullet or lead slug. Sure, it could kill me, but it is much less likely to.
The problem is that in any situation where they would have shot you, now that they have non-lethal weapons, they're.....still going to shoot you.
So comparing the effects of lethal and non-lethal weapons is a pointless exercise, don't you think? You could compare non-lethal weapons to other methods of crowd control, or to negotiations. That might make more sense.
How bizarre that there is a "Word of Mouth Marketing Association." Isn't the whole idea of word of mouth advertising that it is not contrived by a marketing group? Reminds me of the Ministry of Truth.
Add Steam and Gametap on top of that and gaming companies are decades ahead of the music industry.
On the other hand you have the people who want to make their games next to impossible to copy. Gaming has done this by releasing consoles that only accept their discs, but it works (nearly) perfectly and gives a hard copy and doesn't restrict the user any more than that. Successful DRM + successful digital integration + successful digital distribute + making a quality product = ridiculous profits. It's that simple.
Steam is huge and getting bigger all the time. It's a little buggy and slow, but the concept is an awesome idea. With some of the games, you can even start playing while it's downloading.
The DRM is essentially a unique game key + cheat protected servers. With most online games, you need the cheat protection anyway, so it might as well verify your license at the same time. And then if you get caught cheating, the key becomes useless. But where the system is ahead of music is that prices are often actually reasonable, and coming down all the time. It's also many hours more enjoyment per dollar than music.
The quality of video games has been increasing? Since when? It's nothing but boring sequel after boring sequel, and lame franchise-pushing game after lame franchise-pushing game.
Fresh out of a Civ4:Warlords game, I'd have to disagree. That expansion pack improved Civ4 wars immensely. The upcoming Beyond the Sword expansion looks like it will similarly improve the late game, much more than the typical expansion pack. And Civ4 is the best Civ sequel by leaps and bounds. It's the 12th most highly rated game on metacritic for PC. It's definitely just about the best turn-based strategy game ever.
Other games that have improved upon their predecessors: Morrowind for its story and gameplay, Oblivion for its environment and voice acting. Combined, the two games are the best real-time RPG-ish games ever. Counterstrike: Source took an old game and modernized it. The most popular FPS. In the same genre, BF2 is huge right now. ET: Quake Wars, releasing very soon, will likely be the standard bearer in FPS for a while. Again, much improved upon the ET, RTCW, Wolfenstein, and Quake predecessors. A huge FPS fan, I'll probably be dropping all the other games I mention here to play that one for a few months.
I recently played a good norwegian adventure game (for its story), called Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. The story, characters , dialog and voice actors, and environment is probably the best I've seen in a game. Again, it is much, much better than TLJ that I went back to try. TLJ is much closer to the roots of adventure point-and-click games like King's Quest, while Dreamfall is 3-D WASD movement and a much better game because of it.
While not my favorite genre, WoW and Guild Wars have got to be the best MMORPGs ever created. I have little interest in them, but judging by the subscriber numbers and the huge variety of people they've sucked into an online game, they've got to be the best in that genre.
Heck, I even recently picked up the Tomb Raider: Legends and Tomb Raider: Anniversary games and the controls, graphics, and even story are much richer than the old games.
Basically every genre of PC games has a huge blockbuster recently released or about to be released. I'm more into trying out different types of games than I've ever been. Perhaps gaming on a next gen console is boring right now with limited numbers of "franchise-pushing sequels", but definitely not PC gaming. Future classics are being created every year. Every game I've mentioned here has a lot more to offer than older games, and have really gotten me back into gaming. I can't wait to see what comes out next, personally.
I thought I explained the relative scale of "large" in the very next sentence. But to clarify, when watching TV, especially with a remote, entering Program Title, Season, Episode, Start Time, End Time, Actors/Actresses, and Description, or for that matter, any one of those items individually, is "a large amount of data." TV time is when I kick back and get away from computers and keyboards and reading and typing. I have a feeling I'm not alone in that.
It's enough work just keeping up with my favorite shows and actors and scheduling non-conflicting recordings, then ensuring I have room on my 1.3 TB, burning stuff to disc, etc. It's not helpful to add more work on top of that. Really, I'd pay $50-100 a year to avoid that.
I've thought about that before, but the last thing I'd want to do when using my HTPC is input large amounts of data. Browse the guide, hit the record button, later hit play. Occasionally add a favorite. That's about the max for me. I'd rather pay the $80 for app + listings (SageTV, BeyondTV, etc) than have to "correct" the listings manually. P2P metadata is usually completely useless (and spammy) anyway.
Apparently it already is. I use SageTV and it appears they use Zap2It. I assume I paid for it when I bought the app. But I guess they don't have the infrastructure or desire for direct payment, rather than B2B.
I think that those that feel so strongly averse to XML don't understand it. Undoubtedly, RSS (used in web feeds), RDF + XUL (used throughout Firefox), and SVG (used in Firefox, Opera, and Safari) have proven that XML is not "undeserving of the attention of any serious programmer." Heck, I just got done with a session of playing Civ4, whose mechanics and interface are fully customizable using Python and XML.
I'm not sure exactly what your issue with it is--you didn't specify--but if it is the excessive size of XML files, that is what compression is for. And if it is the need to write full opening and closing tags, that's what namespaces and perhaps more importantly, XML parsers and editors are for. Finally, if you think that everything that XML does could be done with.ini and/etc files, you're missing most of the main benefits of XML, which are clear when you look at RDF triples and standards such as Dublin Core.
Since all HTML docs started with already, the doctype is a pointless piece of text. The correct modification would have been to allow instead. I mean, what type of document did they expect to find inside HTML tags?
HTML, or some other derivative of SGML, such as XML. See HTML DTD.
Slashdot Mirror
You keep posting that. But I don't believe it. Do you have some links to cite?
It is for most films on DVD, though not for NTSC TV.
The process is called IVTC, and it reconstructs the original progressive frames, if the source was progressive before being put on DVD.
It doesn't work for NTSC TV, where the source is interlaced and was put on DVD interlaced. For that you need smart de-interlacing that is likely to cause blurriness due to combining two slightly different interlaced fields into a frame.
(I do IVTC every time I rip a movie to H.264 or XviD, or when I want to take a good-looking progressive screencap)
That's not their market. Potential market, perhaps. But like real life, only a small percentage will actually visit the store or event at any given time.
Unlike newspaper and magazine ads, Second Life requires someone to be paid to be there. For a full-time presence, they might pay some marketer say $50,000/year, or $25/hr, 8 hours a day. For that they get somewhere between 100-1000 visitors per hour, guessing. So each "viewer" cost them up to $0.25. Not very good compared to TV or the web. If they're selling something on the spot, worth more than $0.25, and a good portion of them buy it, it might be worth it. Otherwise, probably not.
They could probably contract an SL creator/artist to create items with their logo. That might be worth it. But the full-time presence some of the companies talked about surely isn't.
It's funny, because after my rather vitriolic diatribe, I started thinking about why I was so angry about someone saying that casual gaming was going to supplant hardcore gaming. And it came down to this: when casual music listening (pop/easy listening) became mainstream, look what it did to our radio stations. Look what it did to music in general. Creating artistic works for the lowest common denominator is almost always a Very Bad Thing.
Most hardcore gamers that are my age had an NES, an SNES, and an N64. Some of the few who were lucky enough to have parents that were into family gaming at the time also had an Atari. Not to mention Sega Genesis and the other systems. They were hardcore gamers at the time when those were the only systems and genres of games you could buy. The games you mention as hardcore gaming are all fairly recent. Most hardcore gamers remember those old school games fondly.
Again, lowest common denominator. Also, to even play games then was hardcore enough. We didn't really need a separate designation. Huge games now include WoW, Counterstrike, Halo. Even Civilization and most of the similar strategy games are primarily hardcore gamers, just in a different genre.
I don't appreciate your trivialization of hardcore gamers, who were hardcore gamers when they played the first game that defined each genre of the many genres of games we have now. I think as games become mainstream, many of these casual gamers will try to convince everyone that their style of gaming is the center of the universe, regardless of the rich history of gaming. And I don't want to see the industry dumbed-down and watered-down like that. Like pop music.
If you're trying to convince me that the Wii is one step up from flash games and solitaire, designed for casual gamers, you're doing a good job.
Here's a hint for you: without hardcore gamers, most of the gaming industry never would have been developed. Most of the game programmers ARE hardcore gamers. MIYAMOTO IS A HARDCORE GAMER. Now can you please STFU with your Apple-ish "n00bs rule the world" elitism? Nobody cares. Now get back to drinking your Chai.
That's crazy. I've never had a gun pulled on me at a routine traffic stop. A freakin u-turn! Wow.
I'm always careful not to make any sudden movements, and to inform the cop any time I need to reach for something, because I know they have a tough job and any stop is a potentially hostile situation. But pulling a gun on somebody who made a U-ey is just wrong. I'd be complaining to anybody locally who would listen.
You can use SetPoint to remap mouse buttons to keystrokes. (MX1000) Personally, I map the "application switch" key on the thumb grip to CTRL-W for close. Then leave one of the arrows next to it for Back, though Forward is next to useless, so I map that to fullscreen my SageTV window. Then I remap the horizontal scroll to CTRL-ALT-LEFT and CTRL-ALT-RIGHT to skip forward/back 5 secs in iTunes, and the up and down arrow on top to SPACE for play/pause and CTRL-+ to increase font-size. Though it would be nice if iTunes shortcuts were global so I didn't need the window on top.
Who needs more keyboard shortcuts? I'd be happy with just a few more buttons on my mouse. I find myself using mouse only when browsing, listening, watching, basically relaxing, and it is wireless, so that can be across the room like a remote. But other common tasks like CTRL-T (new tab) and CTRL-L (focus address bar) can be done from keyboard just fine, because I'm about to type something anyway.
I'd be very unhappy at this point to not have a close window button beneath my thumb though. So convenient for browsing multiple tabs.
It explains it right in Comcast's literature. I also get 16+ Mbps on a 6 Mbps Comcast connection in the speed tests and while using newsgroups. It is designed so that you can download what I consider to be small files, like Firefox (5 MB), in a couple of seconds.
You can sometimes trick it into downloading at burst speed while you're already downloading by using multiple connections, although it doesn't always work. I still haven't figured out the exact criteria for it.
While we're giving anecdotal evidence... When I bought Oblivion I played it on an (unsupported) GeForce 4 Ti4600. I had to use the Oldblivion hack just to get it to run, disabling shaders and running at the lowest possible settings.
About a year later I played again with a C2D and a 7600 GT. It's like a completely different game. I finally knew what everyone was raving about, and it wasn't some pea-soup game that looked like Doom (the first one). It's infinitely more playable now, but that's just my opinion.
I played that way for a long time on Noble/Prince. But it is harder to do that and stay competitive on Monarch. You almost need to take out one civ in the early game. I usually try to get copper and do an Axeman rush or Iron and do a Swordsman rush. If I've got an ok tech lead and room to expand I'll wait until I get Catapults. The idea is to prevent the weaker civs who have copper/iron or sometimes even horses/ivory from being able to get the tech to use them. I raze the resource and capture/destroy that city before he can use it to build any units. Then even if I abandon the war it still gives me an advantage later.
Or...you know...you could just have a separate support number/email and bug tracker for handling false positives, which are bound to come up frequently enough to require it. Then assign an employee part-time to resolve them appropriately.
I build the Great Wall for the +100% Great General emergence. If you can get 2 (or 3 if you're a warmonger) Great Generals adding experience points to all units built there or doubling the output of units, you're going to trounce your opponents in battle.
On the other hand, I usually really need Hanging Gardens by the time it is available if my 3 first cities were built in flood plains or without trees around. The +2 health greatly helps them grow beyond where they were stuck at around 11 pop.
I build Pyramids for access to all government civics, specifically for Representation. +3 beakers per scientist specialist combined with Caste System and the Great Library makes for a great Specialist Economy. Rather than spamming cottages, you can build farms and run your Science slider lower while still keeping a good science rate. Similarly, Great Library is good for the 2 free scientists in that city.
As a side note, did anyone else read the headline and think of the 5 new Wonders about to be introduced in Beyond the Sword?
I think we have 1-5 angry mobs per year in the US. I think people are tasered or hit with other non-lethals many 1000s of times per year. Like this guy. I think people in favor of more non-lethals have no perspective of the magnitude of their use in non-violent situations whatsoever.
I think you missed my point somewhere along the way. If someone is attacking an officer, they will use their firearm regardless of how many non-lethal weapons we create. Therefore it is pointless to compare lethal weapons to non-lethal. Maybe you're arguing my point, I guess?
The argument "would you rather be shot or tasered/[insert non-lethal here]?" is an irrelevant question. In most cases where a non-lethal is used, no weapon would have been used otherwise.
The problem is that in any situation where they would have shot you, now that they have non-lethal weapons, they're.....still going to shoot you.
So comparing the effects of lethal and non-lethal weapons is a pointless exercise, don't you think? You could compare non-lethal weapons to other methods of crowd control, or to negotiations. That might make more sense.
How bizarre that there is a "Word of Mouth Marketing Association." Isn't the whole idea of word of mouth advertising that it is not contrived by a marketing group? Reminds me of the Ministry of Truth.
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
or Google Video RvB seasons if you prefer.
E4000 - doesn't exist
E6000 - doesn't exist
Q6600 - k, this one does exist
X6800 - this one exists too
XC6700 - doesn't exist
XC6800 - doesn't exist
Of course, they probably meant E4000 and E6000 series, and maybe they meant QX6700 and QX6800...
I guess it was the inquirer's fault. But they probably could have just said "all Core 2 Duos, Extremes, and Quads."
Steam is huge and getting bigger all the time. It's a little buggy and slow, but the concept is an awesome idea. With some of the games, you can even start playing while it's downloading.
The DRM is essentially a unique game key + cheat protected servers. With most online games, you need the cheat protection anyway, so it might as well verify your license at the same time. And then if you get caught cheating, the key becomes useless. But where the system is ahead of music is that prices are often actually reasonable, and coming down all the time. It's also many hours more enjoyment per dollar than music.
Fresh out of a Civ4:Warlords game, I'd have to disagree. That expansion pack improved Civ4 wars immensely. The upcoming Beyond the Sword expansion looks like it will similarly improve the late game, much more than the typical expansion pack. And Civ4 is the best Civ sequel by leaps and bounds. It's the 12th most highly rated game on metacritic for PC. It's definitely just about the best turn-based strategy game ever.
Other games that have improved upon their predecessors: Morrowind for its story and gameplay, Oblivion for its environment and voice acting. Combined, the two games are the best real-time RPG-ish games ever. Counterstrike: Source took an old game and modernized it. The most popular FPS. In the same genre, BF2 is huge right now. ET: Quake Wars, releasing very soon, will likely be the standard bearer in FPS for a while. Again, much improved upon the ET, RTCW, Wolfenstein, and Quake predecessors. A huge FPS fan, I'll probably be dropping all the other games I mention here to play that one for a few months.
I recently played a good norwegian adventure game (for its story), called Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. The story, characters , dialog and voice actors, and environment is probably the best I've seen in a game. Again, it is much, much better than TLJ that I went back to try. TLJ is much closer to the roots of adventure point-and-click games like King's Quest, while Dreamfall is 3-D WASD movement and a much better game because of it.
While not my favorite genre, WoW and Guild Wars have got to be the best MMORPGs ever created. I have little interest in them, but judging by the subscriber numbers and the huge variety of people they've sucked into an online game, they've got to be the best in that genre.
Heck, I even recently picked up the Tomb Raider: Legends and Tomb Raider: Anniversary games and the controls, graphics, and even story are much richer than the old games.
Basically every genre of PC games has a huge blockbuster recently released or about to be released. I'm more into trying out different types of games than I've ever been. Perhaps gaming on a next gen console is boring right now with limited numbers of "franchise-pushing sequels", but definitely not PC gaming. Future classics are being created every year. Every game I've mentioned here has a lot more to offer than older games, and have really gotten me back into gaming. I can't wait to see what comes out next, personally.
I thought I explained the relative scale of "large" in the very next sentence. But to clarify, when watching TV, especially with a remote, entering Program Title, Season, Episode, Start Time, End Time, Actors/Actresses, and Description, or for that matter, any one of those items individually, is "a large amount of data." TV time is when I kick back and get away from computers and keyboards and reading and typing. I have a feeling I'm not alone in that.
It's enough work just keeping up with my favorite shows and actors and scheduling non-conflicting recordings, then ensuring I have room on my 1.3 TB, burning stuff to disc, etc. It's not helpful to add more work on top of that. Really, I'd pay $50-100 a year to avoid that.
I've thought about that before, but the last thing I'd want to do when using my HTPC is input large amounts of data. Browse the guide, hit the record button, later hit play. Occasionally add a favorite. That's about the max for me. I'd rather pay the $80 for app + listings (SageTV, BeyondTV, etc) than have to "correct" the listings manually. P2P metadata is usually completely useless (and spammy) anyway.
Apparently it already is. I use SageTV and it appears they use Zap2It. I assume I paid for it when I bought the app. But I guess they don't have the infrastructure or desire for direct payment, rather than B2B.
I think that those that feel so strongly averse to XML don't understand it. Undoubtedly, RSS (used in web feeds), RDF + XUL (used throughout Firefox), and SVG (used in Firefox, Opera, and Safari) have proven that XML is not "undeserving of the attention of any serious programmer." Heck, I just got done with a session of playing Civ4, whose mechanics and interface are fully customizable using Python and XML.
.ini and /etc files, you're missing most of the main benefits of XML, which are clear when you look at RDF triples and standards such as Dublin Core.
I'm not sure exactly what your issue with it is--you didn't specify--but if it is the excessive size of XML files, that is what compression is for. And if it is the need to write full opening and closing tags, that's what namespaces and perhaps more importantly, XML parsers and editors are for. Finally, if you think that everything that XML does could be done with
HTML, or some other derivative of SGML, such as XML. See HTML DTD.