This list was fairly ridiculous. Ranking NTv4 above XP home is bizarre -- NT had, what, six service packs? And different apps required specific service packs. Lots of fun getting even one ap running right, let alone having a bunch co-exist on an NT server.
Ranking WinME way below Win98 or Win95 is even more weird. WinME was Win98SE + USB support - stupid indexing that slowed it down. Turn off the indexing and WinME was the best of the 9x line.
You make some good points. One thing I don't see as valuable is the amount of time one can spend "screwing around in %game%". Part of my point is that old arcade games didn't allow that because they were hard. And "screwing around" doesn't accomplish much, if anything. I am into self-improvement, being tested by a game or otherwise, and coming away with some idea of how well I have done. Hanging around in a game does nothing for me.
Some commenters have said they like modern high quality graphics. Others have said the old games were hard. We are all different in what we like but how about what we like to watch, and re-watch? Maybe we can be more objective with this kind of question.
In other words, are high quality graphics enough to enjoy watching someone else play? Not for me they aren't -- unless they make the game harder to play for the average player (e.g. R-Type or Raiden).
How about game difficulty -- is it more fun to watch someone ace a game that is very hard than one that is easy? You bet it is. Also, if the player playing is many times better than us (e.g. a great player on Gauntlet, or Mr. Do!, versus myself).
Modern games are like modern action flicks -- ok the first time, but not worth a re-watch. Old classic games like Defender/Stargate, Tetris, Missile Command, Centipede are interesting to watch when a master is at work -- including when you are the master. On one sales trip I drove "up country", passing through several towns along the way. On the way up I played one game of Arkanoid on a game I had not played before. Before playing I bought an ice cream cone and played one while I ate the other. An hour later the game was done and I left. On the way back down I got another cone and popped in another quarter. As I started to play I heard someone behind say "That's the guy!..."
Modern games reflect modern life, where the schools don't give out grades any more. At least not the ones our three go to -- they get slashes, hyphens and single letters not in the range from A to F. Just participate, doodle and consume -- growing up to become good consumers and good sheeple.
One of my most memorable moments was getting a serious score on ST:TNG pin -- 10Billion+. No sooner did I finish the game but the techie came along, turned it off and started to clean it, as clean pins are tougher pins. The ST:TNG pin was so tough, yet so cool, that I surfed the 'net in 1994 to learn more about it (and ended up contributing to the FAQ I found). Today we might look for cheats, or cracks, but just end up like cheaters or crackers when we use them. At that time is was a true mission (to stop the owner from taking this, my very own, quarter until I have played for an hour or two) and success was shared.
Classic arcade games are meant to be tough coin-suckers. Anyone able to conquer one of them is a hero. Heck, I've even gave one guy a quarter just to see him play a game again after watching him get 9xx,xxx on Centipede.
Today, thanks to MAME I can watch great replays without leaving the house. And I prefer that to playing any modern console/commercial games. They are not my style and don't interest me. I'd rather throw a football. I should say that some flash games carry on the tradition -- Super Collapse comes to mind.
Classic games were more physical and that was good. They were tougher and that was good also. They weren't all flash and no substance like modern games. They were truly tough nuts to crack and anyone that did was cool. They made us want to improve ourselves. Modern games are addictive, but not in the way that programming is addictive -- more in the way that TV is, putting us into that coma-like state for hours at a time.
1) How did it prove itself to be as big a mistake as Windows ME? No one knew how bad ME was until a year after it when Microsoft was already almost done with XP. ME was an intermediate OS, which was why it sucked.
This is flat out wrong. ME was an intermediate to nothing, it was end-of-the-line for the Win9x platform. It was Win98SE crippled with a constantly disk-accessing "index" service, and little else (except USB support that pushed a few to want it over 98SE).
Windows NT begat 2000 that begat XP, etc. Unrelated product line to 9x. Made to look better than ME because ME was deliberately crippled. And we knew this immediately. Forget "until a year after". It was a dog, performance-wise, unless you turned off the useless index thing and then you were still using the same old artificially system-resource-limited 9x product with a new dress on.
ME is to Windows 95/98/98SE as Vista is to NT/2000/XP. But the twain ain't family, they ain't even first cousins.
Actually, yes. Most DVDs these days are movies, and most movies are dual layer (or double sided with 4.7Gigs). In either case they use more than a total of
Also, what about that annoying pause when DVDs change layers? This is something that will be done away with on HD discs. i.e. a good feature. So there are a few bones with the new formats. Just not enough (yet) to make anyone want to switch.
But here's a question for everyone: Spielberg has yet to do a commentary (that I know of). Would you want to acquire any HD discs if Spielberg started to do commentaries but only on HD discs? And if you answered no, is there another aspect of HD that may tip the balance for you?
I think it is just a matter of time before we all want HD discs. Some of us may upgrade/switch to gain better audio. Others to upgrade to higher quality video. Or for additional extras that don't reduce the quality of the main feature. Or for a dozen or more audio tracks, including Tagalog, Swahili or whatever. Personally, I want the commentary tracks, but not yet. I'm waiting for better pricing, compatibility [and DVD Jon;-)]
There's advantages. First, it simplifies things for the programs, since they can pretend they're always alone on the screen.
It seems the drawback to this would be an application busily (re)drawing itself when it is not visible. The (re)drawing takes CPU time, yet the result is not even visible to the user (who might even have minimized or hidden the window precisely to save it from redrawing.) Does GG avoid this?
I am a very straight shooting, to the point, person -- quite real about what I say and how I live -- yet profanity doesn't enter into it.
The f word has a very sharp ring to it indeed.
I have plenty of monosyllabic, quick-to-say, words. Shoot is just as quick as the other S word. In fact, at one job whenever things went particularly bad and I said that, one guy couldn't believe it and thought I was a mormon or cop or something. He couldn't imagine I _wouldn't_ swear at that moment. Anyway, shows it can be done.
I think the idea is equally true for women as men. Real people don't use crutches. They know, or learn, how to both express _and_ control themselves.
I'm not sure I'm trying to pretend anything. For those wanting to get good deals in a more systematic way than running spot checks on various sites (and get good enough prices they can forgoe the hassle of making a USB drive themselves), I suggest DealNews.com.
Cheaper than $135 for a 500GB USB 2 drive? That is how much my Maxtor One Touch III 500GB USB2 drive cost. And by the way, why wasn't Maxtor included in this lineup? Even though it was bought up, it still produces a different (and apparently cheaper) product.
No, that was Richard Brodie, who had a hand in WinWord. Charles is the guy who did Word for DOS (that I still use primarily, with WinWord only for gui formatting). At least that is what books at the time say.
I never heard of Richard Brodie until he started promoting himself at the World Series of Poker, main event.
Interesting perspective. I think there's just a difference in opinion between my generation (I'm 23) and yours (your website says 47). I've never thought it to be a violent word but perhaps I have been overexposed to it growing up and just don't think about it.
I'm 49 now (and have updated that page, thx for the heads up). It may very well be age-related. It is also related to how much we try to improve ourselves. If we don't, we have a lot of default behaviors that are unhealthy -- bgates' cheeseburger habit comes to mind.
With Sin City, my wife and I never even finished it. We watched about 20 to 30 minutes, got increasingly grossed out and disgusted by it, and stopped. It is _not_ visually attractive (but it is visually different), it has extremely vial and disgusting scenes and attitude, but at least it has helped me to eliminate a whole new category of movies -- "graphic novels by Rodriguez", like his latest humdinger.
Perhaps that's just the problem these days - my generation has been so overexposed to profanity that we don't really register the connotations associated with using them. I don't really think they hold much meaning to any of us; so when we swear, it's meaningless and has become equivalent, in our eyes, to saying "Shitty day." instead of "My day isn't going well." in response to "How's it going?"
I think that is an extremely good point, and here is a related true story. I lived in residence for a year (Totem Park, at the U of B.C.) and remember seeing a guy with the "have a [crappy] day" shirt. So one day I went up to him and enthusiastically wished him what it said on his shirt. He took it very very poorly.
Maybe receiving a swear word is totally different in feel to saying one. Kind of gets back to that guy thing -- wanting to impose ourselves on the world, oblivious to what others think until we have been dumped by enough girls to want to change.
The home video game console is what killed aracades.
But it is not what killed pinballs. There could be more large pinball arcades. Part of the reason there isn't is that kids today have been taught to like playing more violent (and much less skillful) games -- and now, thanks to first person shoot em ups we have new "games" like paintball, a truly barbaric thing to introduce children to. The (electronic) game times have changed, for the worse.
By the way, props to Radica "20 Q", that has done an amazing job with a handheld version of a classic game. We use it all the time when driving in our car, the game's amazing algorithms get what we thought about 80% of the time, interface is simple and easy to use, and some of the remarks it makes are funny. All that computing power for under $20 -- it renews my confidence in the human race.
I've not seen a Tetris game around. I mentioned two other games nearby that I do pop quarters into. So yes I do support classic arcade and pinball games when and where I find them.
As to Rodriguez & his graphic trash, I just used jackbird's favorable comments about Sin City to describe a nuclear bomb. His words were as applicable to one as the other, i.e. not at all. We assign wonderful words to trash these days, especially about movies.
My girlfriend-at-the-time and I spent countless hours and 10-spots playing Tetris. It is still a very playable game. Location matters -- our local Breyer's Ice Cream parlor has a Gallaga game that we drop slugs, I mean quarters, into whenever we visit. Another location nearby had Theater of Magic pin, and we dined there for months until the game got flakey and they replaced it instead of fixing it;-(.
As to Rodriguez & landmarks & things: the nuclear detonations over Japan were also landmarks in how their particular medium is created and presented to the audience. Pity he wasn't at ground zero.
The f word is one of the ugliest words in the English language. Using it is violent -- it says "I have no ability to express myself in a refined, intelligent way. When I drop the F bomb I feel all powerful. Besides, I am a Mark Wahlberg wannabe." Using it announces your complete lack of concern for other people. Real men don't use the f word.
The preceding was my opinion. Good luck with your's.
Ah, come on, some good stuff will slip past the guards;-)
A DVD like "The Corporation" is quite amazing for how much is jammed on it -- 6 hours of interviews plus a 2 hour movie, all on a "2 hour" DVD. And recently companies are putting out 2 movies on one DVD -- "48HRS / Another 48HRS" comes to mind. In an HD world this could be "Batman 1 2 3 4 5" on one HD disc. Sure it wouldn't be the special editions, but it would still be handy for a Batman marathon (even though I only really like the first and last ones. I'm more likely to have a Lethal Weapon, Robert De Niro, Mel Gibson or David Fincher marathon.)
I see the movie studios responding to the market better than the record companies. Yes DVDs started off ridiculously expensive, but now they are ridiculously cheap (unless you like the BBC). Also, the special editions have become the standard editions in many cases. Called double dipping when done too soon after the first release, this is a huge value add and I love it. Run a search on Amazon (I did 500 such searches recently when I was updating my favorite movies page) and you will be amazed at the value.
Like buying a new machine in 2006 to forestall having Vista rammed down their throat, now is a great time to stock up on DVDs. And I think the same will be true with HD discs in a few years. No they probably won't be unencumbered, but they will bring value and I will probably get an HD player. Beethoven's 9 symphonies alone were enough to get me to buy a CD player.
I still like the idea that some portion of HD content is unencumbered. I think it is natural that the more time-consuming stuff to listen to (face it, you never need to watch the extras) like "Making ofs" and director commentaries be available in MP3 form. Make it 24kbps or something, I would be more than happy with that. While you are at it, ban the group commentaries -- those truly suck. If someone has something to say, use all that space to put it on a separate track, or at least manage it like the excellent Bond Double Oh 7 editions do.
Is this the pinball equiv. of MAME? If so, I started to install that 4 or 5 years ago and realized this ain't an "even your grandmother can do it" install. Gave up, sadly. Maybe it is time to revisit it.
The one thing HD discs do better is carry more bits. Already we are seeing movies released in 3 and 4-DVD packages -- that is a lot of disc shuffling that can be reduced. TV series are commonly on 7-disc sets (e.g. Lost, The Wild Wild West) -- one Blu-Ray could hold this.
I think (and hope) future movie discs will have even more commentary tracks, and extras. Already DVDs are a great value, once one has filtered out the 98% of movies that suck. I look forward to Lawrence of Arabia with twice the quality of the current two-DVD package, and one or more commentary tracks. HD "Stuck On You", not so much.
I hope also, perhaps unrealistically, that the commentary tracks are also available in an unencumbered form (even if at super low quality) so I can listen to them while I commute, and work. I can dream, can't I?
This is one side of the picture. The other side is that children need to learn how to solve math problems and spell words, and some won't do this if you give them unlimited video games, movies and television.
Our oldest is naturally bright, I guess. He consumes books yet loves WoW, and leans towards our adult movies despite being 13. He has a great sense of humor, is very helpful around the house, and will probably become a video game addict like his biological father.
Our second oldest loves Bionicles, and being creative. He can take or leave video games, movies and television. Surprisingly, he also has the most latent aggression, I think because he has the poorest social skills.
Our youngest likes it all, from popcorn to shoot-em-ups, Spongebob to Mushu. He is also the weakest at learning, by a fair margin. At times we have to hold his feet to the fire to get him to concentrate long enough (i.e. for several minutes) to figure out something -- recently that something was "what is half of 9?". Should he be allowed unlimited access to video games? How about the WoW lover?
Kids can not help being exposed to violent video games, swearing, etc. etc. If we don't do these things, the neighbor kids do. I accept this and frankly have no problem with it. They see one lifestyle at home, and different ones at other homes. I am completely comfortable letting them draw their own conclusions, just as I did, while I keep their video game time to 75 minutes a day. [Sadly, our 5 computers are available 24x7 for non-game usage but never ever get used by the kids for anything but video games.]
Why can't we continue to play hand-eye coordination improving games? I've played pinball and hung around arcades for over 30 years. When the fight 'em kick 'em punch 'em games came in, the arcade became a ghost town.
I can understand that pinball machines, being electro-mechanical, are expensive to run. These days you might only see one or two in an arcade. But where have the simple but good video games gone? Oh, that's right, they have become violent.
It is not about censoring out violence -- our society has already done that, with kindergarten kids getting expelled if they use the f word twice (our son used it once, so we are flying without a safety net). It is about having some class -- Sin City is not a good movie, and Doom ain't interesting. Sorry to burst your bubble, script kiddies.
P.S. Sierra's 3D Ultra Pinball Thrillride is proof that you can make a superb video pinball game. Sadly it is discontinued. Luckily it is still available via Amazon, etc. for about $10.
MP3 files are more convenient than a CD -- they do a better job of delivering audio on a bus, bike, while jogging, at the copy machine at work, etc. Anyone pushing CDs has to realize and accept this.
OTOH, Outsourcers do a worse job. My problem with a Dell hard drive never should have gone on for a year, but it did thanks exclusively to Super Crappy(TM) tech "support" from India. [It was ultimately resolved to my satisfaction ONLY when a North American Dell techie contacted me on his own initiative and sent me a replacement hard drive. The whole sordid tale is here.] Outsourcers are interested in _their_ companies profitability. This translates to lying to customers who call, in order to decrease the number of replacement hard drives shipped, for example. Outsourcers are also removed from the problem. They can't just walk over to Jim in manufacturing and find out what makes the hard drives so flakey. On the Q.T. Jim might reveal that the case is a custom job with poor ventilation, or that a hard drive can be overworked (hence the utility of external USB drives), etc. In India the "techie" will say there is nothing wrong with the hard drive and thank you for calling Dell.
So it comes down to slashdotters being in favor of things that work (e.g. Win2000) and against things that don't (e.g. Vista).
I have two drives in my system. I can give one to each VM if I need to. I could hook up an external one if I really needed more, but I'd more likely just attach an ISO file to one of the VMs and have it pretend it was a real drive.
Uh, yes you can give one to each VM, just as you could use either in a non-VM setting. I said, two applications hitting one drive -- think one DVD. Most common example I can think of -- you get an application on CD/DVD and want to install it, then back it up to network. With two machines you install it on the machine you want it on (probably that primary machine) then you pop the disc out, put it in the other one and your main machine is now completely free (to reboot after the installation, for example).
Why on earth are you calling it a kludge, or inferior?
It has the drawbacks of an emulator -- higher memory usage and inferior performance. A second machine is 100% efficient at the tasks you give it and it alone to do. A VM (or emulator) competes with everything other application, for every resource.
The whole point about 2nd (& nth) machine testing, is to test on different platforms.
Your non-answer.
So we agree that a VM-using main dev. machine can not do 2nd to nth machine testing.
If you're concerned about different software, VMs make the job easier rather than harder. I have access to dozens of VMs, all with different versions of Windows and combinations of software installed. Do that with your measly two physical machines.
Recall that this is a discussion about being productive. If multiple VMs are needed, either my main machine or backup could have them. They are not precluded, I am merely saying that VMs on a single dev machine is not as good as two machines (that may or may not have VMs on one or both of them).
Also, just out of curiosity, how often do you see hardware-specific bugs?
Right now there are all kinds of machines with them -- think "This machine is Vista capable", then when you test it turns out to not be. So your glass ap is opaque on that machine. [By the way, I don't recall saying you used 2nd thru nth machines to test for hardware bugs. You use them to test for software bugs in your new program.]
Also, it is not hardware bugs but hardware limitations that you ferret out with 2nd thru nth machine testing of your new software. Sure it runs great with 4GB, 256MB video & RAID5, but why does it run like a dog on Susie's machine in accounting? Can you optimize around this, or will there have to be some hardware upgrades? etc.
I agree about the tactile feedback. There might be two markets/products here: the majority of people having the touch screen/virtual keyboard, and developers/data entry types having an embedded keyboard surrounded by screens.
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This list was fairly ridiculous. Ranking NTv4 above XP home is bizarre -- NT had, what, six service packs? And different apps required specific service packs. Lots of fun getting even one ap running right, let alone having a bunch co-exist on an NT server.
Ranking WinME way below Win98 or Win95 is even more weird. WinME was Win98SE + USB support - stupid indexing that slowed it down. Turn off the indexing and WinME was the best of the 9x line.
You make some good points. One thing I don't see as valuable is the amount of time one can spend "screwing around in %game%". Part of my point is that old arcade games didn't allow that because they were hard. And "screwing around" doesn't accomplish much, if anything. I am into self-improvement, being tested by a game or otherwise, and coming away with some idea of how well I have done. Hanging around in a game does nothing for me.
Some commenters have said they like modern high quality graphics. Others have said the old games were hard. We are all different in what we like but how about what we like to watch, and re-watch? Maybe we can be more objective with this kind of question.
In other words, are high quality graphics enough to enjoy watching someone else play? Not for me they aren't -- unless they make the game harder to play for the average player (e.g. R-Type or Raiden).
How about game difficulty -- is it more fun to watch someone ace a game that is very hard than one that is easy? You bet it is. Also, if the player playing is many times better than us (e.g. a great player on Gauntlet, or Mr. Do!, versus myself).
Modern games are like modern action flicks -- ok the first time, but not worth a re-watch. Old classic games like Defender/Stargate, Tetris, Missile Command, Centipede are interesting to watch when a master is at work -- including when you are the master. On one sales trip I drove "up country", passing through several towns along the way. On the way up I played one game of Arkanoid on a game I had not played before. Before playing I bought an ice cream cone and played one while I ate the other. An hour later the game was done and I left. On the way back down I got another cone and popped in another quarter. As I started to play I heard someone behind say "That's the guy!..."
Modern games reflect modern life, where the schools don't give out grades any more. At least not the ones our three go to -- they get slashes, hyphens and single letters not in the range from A to F. Just participate, doodle and consume -- growing up to become good consumers and good sheeple.
One of my most memorable moments was getting a serious score on ST:TNG pin -- 10Billion+. No sooner did I finish the game but the techie came along, turned it off and started to clean it, as clean pins are tougher pins. The ST:TNG pin was so tough, yet so cool, that I surfed the 'net in 1994 to learn more about it (and ended up contributing to the FAQ I found). Today we might look for cheats, or cracks, but just end up like cheaters or crackers when we use them. At that time is was a true mission (to stop the owner from taking this, my very own, quarter until I have played for an hour or two) and success was shared.
Classic arcade games are meant to be tough coin-suckers. Anyone able to conquer one of them is a hero. Heck, I've even gave one guy a quarter just to see him play a game again after watching him get 9xx,xxx on Centipede.
Today, thanks to MAME I can watch great replays without leaving the house. And I prefer that to playing any modern console/commercial games. They are not my style and don't interest me. I'd rather throw a football. I should say that some flash games carry on the tradition -- Super Collapse comes to mind.
Classic games were more physical and that was good. They were tougher and that was good also. They weren't all flash and no substance like modern games. They were truly tough nuts to crack and anyone that did was cool. They made us want to improve ourselves. Modern games are addictive, but not in the way that programming is addictive -- more in the way that TV is, putting us into that coma-like state for hours at a time.
1) How did it prove itself to be as big a mistake as Windows ME? No one knew how bad ME was until a year after it when Microsoft was already almost done with XP. ME was an intermediate OS, which was why it sucked.
This is flat out wrong. ME was an intermediate to nothing, it was end-of-the-line for the Win9x platform. It was Win98SE crippled with a constantly disk-accessing "index" service, and little else (except USB support that pushed a few to want it over 98SE).
Windows NT begat 2000 that begat XP, etc. Unrelated product line to 9x. Made to look better than ME because ME was deliberately crippled. And we knew this immediately. Forget "until a year after". It was a dog, performance-wise, unless you turned off the useless index thing and then you were still using the same old artificially system-resource-limited 9x product with a new dress on.
ME is to Windows 95/98/98SE as Vista is to NT/2000/XP. But the twain ain't family, they ain't even first cousins.
And Bill Gates could do it in 655,360 or less.
Edit: .LE. 4.7Gb."
"...a total of
It didn't like the less than and equals signs.
Do most DVDs actually use the entire 4.7 Gb? No.
;-)]
Actually, yes. Most DVDs these days are movies, and most movies are dual layer (or double sided with 4.7Gigs). In either case they use more than a total of
Also, what about that annoying pause when DVDs change layers? This is something that will be done away with on HD discs. i.e. a good feature. So there are a few bones with the new formats. Just not enough (yet) to make anyone want to switch.
But here's a question for everyone: Spielberg has yet to do a commentary (that I know of). Would you want to acquire any HD discs if Spielberg started to do commentaries but only on HD discs? And if you answered no, is there another aspect of HD that may tip the balance for you?
I think it is just a matter of time before we all want HD discs. Some of us may upgrade/switch to gain better audio. Others to upgrade to higher quality video. Or for additional extras that don't reduce the quality of the main feature. Or for a dozen or more audio tracks, including Tagalog, Swahili or whatever. Personally, I want the commentary tracks, but not yet. I'm waiting for better pricing, compatibility [and DVD Jon
There's advantages. First, it simplifies things for the programs, since they can pretend they're always alone on the screen.
It seems the drawback to this would be an application busily (re)drawing itself when it is not visible. The (re)drawing takes CPU time, yet the result is not even visible to the user (who might even have minimized or hidden the window precisely to save it from redrawing.) Does GG avoid this?
I am a very straight shooting, to the point, person -- quite real about what I say and how I live -- yet profanity doesn't enter into it.
The f word has a very sharp ring to it indeed.
I have plenty of monosyllabic, quick-to-say, words. Shoot is just as quick as the other S word. In fact, at one job whenever things went particularly bad and I said that, one guy couldn't believe it and thought I was a mormon or cop or something. He couldn't imagine I _wouldn't_ swear at that moment. Anyway, shows it can be done.
I think the idea is equally true for women as men. Real people don't use crutches. They know, or learn, how to both express _and_ control themselves.
I'm not sure I'm trying to pretend anything. For those wanting to get good deals in a more systematic way than running spot checks on various sites (and get good enough prices they can forgoe the hassle of making a USB drive themselves), I suggest DealNews.com.
Cheaper than $135 for a 500GB USB 2 drive? That is how much my Maxtor One Touch III 500GB USB2 drive cost. And by the way, why wasn't Maxtor included in this lineup? Even though it was bought up, it still produces a different (and apparently cheaper) product.
No, that was Richard Brodie, who had a hand in WinWord. Charles is the guy who did Word for DOS (that I still use primarily, with WinWord only for gui formatting). At least that is what books at the time say.
I never heard of Richard Brodie until he started promoting himself at the World Series of Poker, main event.
Interesting perspective. I think there's just a difference in opinion between my generation (I'm 23) and yours (your website says 47). I've never thought it to be a violent word but perhaps I have been overexposed to it growing up and just don't think about it.
I'm 49 now (and have updated that page, thx for the heads up). It may very well be age-related. It is also related to how much we try to improve ourselves. If we don't, we have a lot of default behaviors that are unhealthy -- bgates' cheeseburger habit comes to mind.
With Sin City, my wife and I never even finished it. We watched about 20 to 30 minutes, got increasingly grossed out and disgusted by it, and stopped. It is _not_ visually attractive (but it is visually different), it has extremely vial and disgusting scenes and attitude, but at least it has helped me to eliminate a whole new category of movies -- "graphic novels by Rodriguez", like his latest humdinger.
Perhaps that's just the problem these days - my generation has been so overexposed to profanity that we don't really register the connotations associated with using them. I don't really think they hold much meaning to any of us; so when we swear, it's meaningless and has become equivalent, in our eyes, to saying "Shitty day." instead of "My day isn't going well." in response to "How's it going?"
I think that is an extremely good point, and here is a related true story. I lived in residence for a year (Totem Park, at the U of B.C.) and remember seeing a guy with the "have a [crappy] day" shirt. So one day I went up to him and enthusiastically wished him what it said on his shirt. He took it very very poorly.
Maybe receiving a swear word is totally different in feel to saying one. Kind of gets back to that guy thing -- wanting to impose ourselves on the world, oblivious to what others think until we have been dumped by enough girls to want to change.
The home video game console is what killed aracades.
But it is not what killed pinballs. There could be more large pinball arcades. Part of the reason there isn't is that kids today have been taught to like playing more violent (and much less skillful) games -- and now, thanks to first person shoot em ups we have new "games" like paintball, a truly barbaric thing to introduce children to. The (electronic) game times have changed, for the worse.
By the way, props to Radica "20 Q", that has done an amazing job with a handheld version of a classic game. We use it all the time when driving in our car, the game's amazing algorithms get what we thought about 80% of the time, interface is simple and easy to use, and some of the remarks it makes are funny. All that computing power for under $20 -- it renews my confidence in the human race.
I've not seen a Tetris game around. I mentioned two other games nearby that I do pop quarters into. So yes I do support classic arcade and pinball games when and where I find them.
As to Rodriguez & his graphic trash, I just used jackbird's favorable comments about Sin City to describe a nuclear bomb. His words were as applicable to one as the other, i.e. not at all. We assign wonderful words to trash these days, especially about movies.
My girlfriend-at-the-time and I spent countless hours and 10-spots playing Tetris. It is still a very playable game. Location matters -- our local Breyer's Ice Cream parlor has a Gallaga game that we drop slugs, I mean quarters, into whenever we visit. Another location nearby had Theater of Magic pin, and we dined there for months until the game got flakey and they replaced it instead of fixing it ;-(.
As to Rodriguez & landmarks & things: the nuclear detonations over Japan were also landmarks in how their particular medium is created and presented to the audience. Pity he wasn't at ground zero.
The f word is one of the ugliest words in the English language. Using it is violent -- it says "I have no ability to express myself in a refined, intelligent way. When I drop the F bomb I feel all powerful. Besides, I am a Mark Wahlberg wannabe." Using it announces your complete lack of concern for other people. Real men don't use the f word.
The preceding was my opinion. Good luck with your's.
Ah, come on, some good stuff will slip past the guards ;-)
A DVD like "The Corporation" is quite amazing for how much is jammed on it -- 6 hours of interviews plus a 2 hour movie, all on a "2 hour" DVD. And recently companies are putting out 2 movies on one DVD -- "48HRS / Another 48HRS" comes to mind. In an HD world this could be "Batman 1 2 3 4 5" on one HD disc. Sure it wouldn't be the special editions, but it would still be handy for a Batman marathon (even though I only really like the first and last ones. I'm more likely to have a Lethal Weapon, Robert De Niro, Mel Gibson or David Fincher marathon.)
I see the movie studios responding to the market better than the record companies. Yes DVDs started off ridiculously expensive, but now they are ridiculously cheap (unless you like the BBC). Also, the special editions have become the standard editions in many cases. Called double dipping when done too soon after the first release, this is a huge value add and I love it. Run a search on Amazon (I did 500 such searches recently when I was updating my favorite movies page) and you will be amazed at the value.
Like buying a new machine in 2006 to forestall having Vista rammed down their throat, now is a great time to stock up on DVDs. And I think the same will be true with HD discs in a few years. No they probably won't be unencumbered, but they will bring value and I will probably get an HD player. Beethoven's 9 symphonies alone were enough to get me to buy a CD player.
I still like the idea that some portion of HD content is unencumbered. I think it is natural that the more time-consuming stuff to listen to (face it, you never need to watch the extras) like "Making ofs" and director commentaries be available in MP3 form. Make it 24kbps or something, I would be more than happy with that. While you are at it, ban the group commentaries -- those truly suck. If someone has something to say, use all that space to put it on a separate track, or at least manage it like the excellent Bond Double Oh 7 editions do.
Is this the pinball equiv. of MAME? If so, I started to install that 4 or 5 years ago and realized this ain't an "even your grandmother can do it" install. Gave up, sadly. Maybe it is time to revisit it.
The one thing HD discs do better is carry more bits. Already we are seeing movies released in 3 and 4-DVD packages -- that is a lot of disc shuffling that can be reduced. TV series are commonly on 7-disc sets (e.g. Lost, The Wild Wild West) -- one Blu-Ray could hold this.
I think (and hope) future movie discs will have even more commentary tracks, and extras. Already DVDs are a great value, once one has filtered out the 98% of movies that suck. I look forward to Lawrence of Arabia with twice the quality of the current two-DVD package, and one or more commentary tracks. HD "Stuck On You", not so much.
I hope also, perhaps unrealistically, that the commentary tracks are also available in an unencumbered form (even if at super low quality) so I can listen to them while I commute, and work. I can dream, can't I?
This is one side of the picture. The other side is that children need to learn how to solve math problems and spell words, and some won't do this if you give them unlimited video games, movies and television.
Our oldest is naturally bright, I guess. He consumes books yet loves WoW, and leans towards our adult movies despite being 13. He has a great sense of humor, is very helpful around the house, and will probably become a video game addict like his biological father.
Our second oldest loves Bionicles, and being creative. He can take or leave video games, movies and television. Surprisingly, he also has the most latent aggression, I think because he has the poorest social skills.
Our youngest likes it all, from popcorn to shoot-em-ups, Spongebob to Mushu. He is also the weakest at learning, by a fair margin. At times we have to hold his feet to the fire to get him to concentrate long enough (i.e. for several minutes) to figure out something -- recently that something was "what is half of 9?". Should he be allowed unlimited access to video games? How about the WoW lover?
Kids can not help being exposed to violent video games, swearing, etc. etc. If we don't do these things, the neighbor kids do. I accept this and frankly have no problem with it. They see one lifestyle at home, and different ones at other homes. I am completely comfortable letting them draw their own conclusions, just as I did, while I keep their video game time to 75 minutes a day. [Sadly, our 5 computers are available 24x7 for non-game usage but never ever get used by the kids for anything but video games.]
Why can't we continue to play hand-eye coordination improving games? I've played pinball and hung around arcades for over 30 years. When the fight 'em kick 'em punch 'em games came in, the arcade became a ghost town.
I can understand that pinball machines, being electro-mechanical, are expensive to run. These days you might only see one or two in an arcade. But where have the simple but good video games gone? Oh, that's right, they have become violent.
It is not about censoring out violence -- our society has already done that, with kindergarten kids getting expelled if they use the f word twice (our son used it once, so we are flying without a safety net). It is about having some class -- Sin City is not a good movie, and Doom ain't interesting. Sorry to burst your bubble, script kiddies.
P.S. Sierra's 3D Ultra Pinball Thrillride is proof that you can make a superb video pinball game. Sadly it is discontinued. Luckily it is still available via Amazon, etc. for about $10.
MP3 files are more convenient than a CD -- they do a better job of delivering audio on a bus, bike, while jogging, at the copy machine at work, etc. Anyone pushing CDs has to realize and accept this.
OTOH, Outsourcers do a worse job. My problem with a Dell hard drive never should have gone on for a year, but it did thanks exclusively to Super Crappy(TM) tech "support" from India. [It was ultimately resolved to my satisfaction ONLY when a North American Dell techie contacted me on his own initiative and sent me a replacement hard drive. The whole sordid tale is here.] Outsourcers are interested in _their_ companies profitability. This translates to lying to customers who call, in order to decrease the number of replacement hard drives shipped, for example. Outsourcers are also removed from the problem. They can't just walk over to Jim in manufacturing and find out what makes the hard drives so flakey. On the Q.T. Jim might reveal that the case is a custom job with poor ventilation, or that a hard drive can be overworked (hence the utility of external USB drives), etc. In India the "techie" will say there is nothing wrong with the hard drive and thank you for calling Dell.
So it comes down to slashdotters being in favor of things that work (e.g. Win2000) and against things that don't (e.g. Vista).
I have two drives in my system. I can give one to each VM if I need to. I could hook up an external one if I really needed more, but I'd more likely just attach an ISO file to one of the VMs and have it pretend it was a real drive.
Uh, yes you can give one to each VM, just as you could use either in a non-VM setting. I said, two applications hitting one drive -- think one DVD. Most common example I can think of -- you get an application on CD/DVD and want to install it, then back it up to network. With two machines you install it on the machine you want it on (probably that primary machine) then you pop the disc out, put it in the other one and your main machine is now completely free (to reboot after the installation, for example).
Why on earth are you calling it a kludge, or inferior?
It has the drawbacks of an emulator -- higher memory usage and inferior performance. A second machine is 100% efficient at the tasks you give it and it alone to do. A VM (or emulator) competes with everything other application, for every resource.
The whole point about 2nd (& nth) machine testing, is to test on different platforms.
Your non-answer.
So we agree that a VM-using main dev. machine can not do 2nd to nth machine testing.
If you're concerned about different software, VMs make the job easier rather than harder. I have access to dozens of VMs, all with different versions of Windows and combinations of software installed. Do that with your measly two physical machines.
Recall that this is a discussion about being productive. If multiple VMs are needed, either my main machine or backup could have them. They are not precluded, I am merely saying that VMs on a single dev machine is not as good as two machines (that may or may not have VMs on one or both of them).
Also, just out of curiosity, how often do you see hardware-specific bugs?
Right now there are all kinds of machines with them -- think "This machine is Vista capable", then when you test it turns out to not be. So your glass ap is opaque on that machine. [By the way, I don't recall saying you used 2nd thru nth machines to test for hardware bugs. You use them to test for software bugs in your new program.]
Also, it is not hardware bugs but hardware limitations that you ferret out with 2nd thru nth machine testing of your new software. Sure it runs great with 4GB, 256MB video & RAID5, but why does it run like a dog on Susie's machine in accounting? Can you optimize around this, or will there have to be some hardware upgrades? etc.
I agree about the tactile feedback. There might be two markets/products here: the majority of people having the touch screen/virtual keyboard, and developers/data entry types having an embedded keyboard surrounded by screens.