But the world has changed since the '90ies. Back then, Windows 95 was widely adopted when Windows 98 was released. Equally so with Windows 98 and XP. But now, most PC's are still running Windows XP and twice as many PC's are running XP when compared to Windows 7. If Windows 8 is released within a year, this makes it very likely that most people will still be on XP, which will then not be the previous version of Windows, not the one before that, but the one even before that. Releasing Windows 8 next year would be same as if Windows Vista was released while most people were still on Windows 95.
You could make the case that the cause of this is people aren't as likely to change their software anymore or because they get new hardware less frequently. But the fact of the matter is that both Linux and Mac users do use the more recent versions of their operating systems. Something is clearly amiss at Microsoft, and I doubt sticking to a rigid old-fashioned 3-year release cycle is going to fix this.
It was. Vista's market share peaked at somewhere around 20%. The only reason why W7 was released was due to the unfixable nature of Vista's bad reputation. Technologically speaking, W7 is more like a service pack than a separate release.
Every time Windows 8 is mentioned, it's about running it on ARM-powered tablets. Is Windows 8 a tablet-only operating system? Or is it also for use on desktop PC's? I don't get it.
If Windows 8 is also for desktop PC's, then Windows 7's lifetime was awfully short, as Windows 8 is due for release in 2012 as far as I know. It's very possible that by that time, Windows XP's market share is still larger than that of Windows 7 (as it is currently about 2:1 for XP vs W7, with XP's market share just above 50% and W7 around 25% and Vista remaining at about 10%). Is it really wise to release yet another desktop OS, when neither one of the two previously released systems really caught on yet?
And if Windows 8 isn't a replacement for Windows 7 on the desktop, and merely an operating system for tablets, then why is it called Windows 8? Doesn't that make it seem the desktop is lagging behind compared to the tablet? And besides, if it really only is an OS for tablets, why not put that in the name, equal to Windows Mobile and now Windows Phone? Wouldn't "Windows Tablet" make a lot more sense in that case? Windows 8 as a name suggests it's a continuation of Windows 7, which doesn't make any sense at all if it's in fact a new OS for tablet computers.
All and all I'm completely confused on what Microsoft is planning to do with Windows and Wikipedia doesn't really help. Anyone here who knows more about it?
Nintendo has never sold a single Wii at a loss, not even right after it was released. Actually, the Wii was for quite some time the only current-gen console sold with a profit.
In rhyming slang, the word you're using doesn't hold any significance or meaning. It's about what it refers to and then rhymes with it. The fact a Sherman tank was a nice piece of equipment in it's day is completely besides the point, because you're not talking about Sherman tanks at all when you use it in rhyming slang. Equally so, the meaning of the word "septic" isn't relevant at all.
By the way, thanks for the etymology story of the term "Yankee". I love etymology and love it even more when it involves the Dutch language. I'm not yet sure which of the three theories in the Wikipedia article I'm going to believe though (Jan-Kees, Janneke or Jan Kaas).
So, septic tank, rather than say gas tank, petrol tank, oxygen tank, external fuel tank (like the ET on the all-American Space Shuttle), water tank. Or drifting away from containers, battle tank, M1 Abrams tank, Sherman tank,.... Or frank (like frankfurter, a generally phallic reference),
Yes, one could have also used "Sherman" as a reference to Yanks, as Sherman is easily understood to be a "Sherman tank" and tank rhymes with Yank. Congratulations, you now understand Cockney Rhyming Slang.
But why focus on just term "yank" anyways?... *blah blah blah*... It's called respect, which it seems some people still haven't learned.
If you think someone is lacking in respect when referring to Americans as septics, then you truly are very American indeed.
That was the situation of 2006 ~ 2008 maybe. Today however, there is no excuse for not having a sufficient data infrastructure to offer a decent experience on modern smartphones, because that's what's being sold. If you can't handle data, then don't offer it to customers.
It's not about what the iPhone and other phones can or can't do. It's a fact people weren't generating a lot of traffic over mobile data networks before 2007. Whether or not the iPhone is responsible for this to change isn't really relevant. What's relevant is that the change is clearly there: mobile data traffic has been steadily rising in the last years and there's no indication of it slowing down significantly any time soon. My point is this: network operators know this and have known the whole time. They know how many phones and subscriptions they sell. So why the hell isn't their network prepared to actually offer what they're selling?
Ok, so the 3G network was rolled out before 2007. I get that. But it's 2011 now. You're saying 4 years isn't enough time to scale up your network to meet current bandwith demands? I'm not buying that.
Ah, so you stop using the packet manager all together and just start managing it all by yourself, by manually going through the homepages of all of your applications, tools, frameworks, libraries, daemons and whatnot. I suppose that works great, if you don't have anything actually useful to do.
You do need a console if you want to play these games.
But whatever floats your boat of course. If you want to stick to your PC and play this game using an emulator in 4 years, that's fine. I don't really get the reluctancy against getting a console though. I'm not talking about you personally, but the general PC gaming crows as a whole. Isn't it about the games? So why is it such a problem to get the platform for which these games are created? Of course you have to spend some money, I understand that's a barrier. But a console these days goes for the same price as a graphics card or a monitor and most PC gamers don't make a fuss about upgrading those every few years.
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But the world has changed since the '90ies. Back then, Windows 95 was widely adopted when Windows 98 was released. Equally so with Windows 98 and XP. But now, most PC's are still running Windows XP and twice as many PC's are running XP when compared to Windows 7. If Windows 8 is released within a year, this makes it very likely that most people will still be on XP, which will then not be the previous version of Windows, not the one before that, but the one even before that. Releasing Windows 8 next year would be same as if Windows Vista was released while most people were still on Windows 95.
You could make the case that the cause of this is people aren't as likely to change their software anymore or because they get new hardware less frequently. But the fact of the matter is that both Linux and Mac users do use the more recent versions of their operating systems. Something is clearly amiss at Microsoft, and I doubt sticking to a rigid old-fashioned 3-year release cycle is going to fix this.
It was. Vista's market share peaked at somewhere around 20%. The only reason why W7 was released was due to the unfixable nature of Vista's bad reputation. Technologically speaking, W7 is more like a service pack than a separate release.
In the past few years it seems their entire business plan could be summed up simply as "Whatever Google is doing, plus Windows and Office".
You're really not telling the whole story here. Microsoft also take into account what Amazon, Apple, Nintendo and Sony (XBOX!) are doing.
Every time Windows 8 is mentioned, it's about running it on ARM-powered tablets. Is Windows 8 a tablet-only operating system? Or is it also for use on desktop PC's? I don't get it.
If Windows 8 is also for desktop PC's, then Windows 7's lifetime was awfully short, as Windows 8 is due for release in 2012 as far as I know. It's very possible that by that time, Windows XP's market share is still larger than that of Windows 7 (as it is currently about 2:1 for XP vs W7, with XP's market share just above 50% and W7 around 25% and Vista remaining at about 10%). Is it really wise to release yet another desktop OS, when neither one of the two previously released systems really caught on yet?
And if Windows 8 isn't a replacement for Windows 7 on the desktop, and merely an operating system for tablets, then why is it called Windows 8? Doesn't that make it seem the desktop is lagging behind compared to the tablet? And besides, if it really only is an OS for tablets, why not put that in the name, equal to Windows Mobile and now Windows Phone? Wouldn't "Windows Tablet" make a lot more sense in that case? Windows 8 as a name suggests it's a continuation of Windows 7, which doesn't make any sense at all if it's in fact a new OS for tablet computers.
All and all I'm completely confused on what Microsoft is planning to do with Windows and Wikipedia doesn't really help. Anyone here who knows more about it?
Windows 95 isn't an OS either, it's still just a shell around DOS. Windows NT, now that's an OS.
Actually, yes.
Nintendo has never sold a single Wii at a loss, not even right after it was released. Actually, the Wii was for quite some time the only current-gen console sold with a profit.
In rhyming slang, the word you're using doesn't hold any significance or meaning. It's about what it refers to and then rhymes with it. The fact a Sherman tank was a nice piece of equipment in it's day is completely besides the point, because you're not talking about Sherman tanks at all when you use it in rhyming slang. Equally so, the meaning of the word "septic" isn't relevant at all.
By the way, thanks for the etymology story of the term "Yankee". I love etymology and love it even more when it involves the Dutch language. I'm not yet sure which of the three theories in the Wikipedia article I'm going to believe though (Jan-Kees, Janneke or Jan Kaas).
So, septic tank, rather than say gas tank, petrol tank, oxygen tank, external fuel tank (like the ET on the all-American Space Shuttle), water tank. Or drifting away from containers, battle tank, M1 Abrams tank, Sherman tank, .... Or frank (like frankfurter, a generally phallic reference),
Yes, one could have also used "Sherman" as a reference to Yanks, as Sherman is easily understood to be a "Sherman tank" and tank rhymes with Yank. Congratulations, you now understand Cockney Rhyming Slang.
But why focus on just term "yank" anyways? ... *blah blah blah* ... It's called respect, which it seems some people still haven't learned.
If you think someone is lacking in respect when referring to Americans as septics, then you truly are very American indeed.
It's not a question of association, but of rhyming. Septic tank rhymes with yank, there's no other link.
That was the situation of 2006 ~ 2008 maybe. Today however, there is no excuse for not having a sufficient data infrastructure to offer a decent experience on modern smartphones, because that's what's being sold. If you can't handle data, then don't offer it to customers.
It's not about what the iPhone and other phones can or can't do. It's a fact people weren't generating a lot of traffic over mobile data networks before 2007. Whether or not the iPhone is responsible for this to change isn't really relevant. What's relevant is that the change is clearly there: mobile data traffic has been steadily rising in the last years and there's no indication of it slowing down significantly any time soon. My point is this: network operators know this and have known the whole time. They know how many phones and subscriptions they sell. So why the hell isn't their network prepared to actually offer what they're selling?
Ok, so the 3G network was rolled out before 2007. I get that. But it's 2011 now. You're saying 4 years isn't enough time to scale up your network to meet current bandwith demands? I'm not buying that.
How is it possible their network isn't designed for data traffic? I mean, it's not like the increase of data consumption was completely unpredictable.
Ah, so you stop using the packet manager all together and just start managing it all by yourself, by manually going through the homepages of all of your applications, tools, frameworks, libraries, daemons and whatnot. I suppose that works great, if you don't have anything actually useful to do.
That's fine if the only software you're running is Firefox.
And don't forget the cancellation of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 because Valve has "moved beyond the episodic model". Whatever that means.
have you played much of the modern interactive fiction being noncommercially produced?
No.
I don't really need or want a console
You do need a console if you want to play these games.
But whatever floats your boat of course. If you want to stick to your PC and play this game using an emulator in 4 years, that's fine. I don't really get the reluctancy against getting a console though. I'm not talking about you personally, but the general PC gaming crows as a whole. Isn't it about the games? So why is it such a problem to get the platform for which these games are created? Of course you have to spend some money, I understand that's a barrier. But a console these days goes for the same price as a graphics card or a monitor and most PC gamers don't make a fuss about upgrading those every few years.
I guess I'll have to wait 4 years until xbox360 emulators become sophisticated enough to run them.
Why the hell would you do that instead of just getting an actual X360 (or PS3) right now and play this game on launch day?
Based on the leaked gameplay footage I think there's enough searching for objects and talking to people to qualify LA Noire as an adventure game, yes.
It's not easy to purchase a company with a higher market cap than your own.
I totally forgot about that. Sweet!
Sound would also be nice. And networking.
The point is that only the device is patented, not the algorithm.