It seems that the chokehold a patent-holder has on their idea/thing/whatever is destrying the competition process.
Perhaps this would be true if patents lasted as long as copyright. If I were to come up with a new technology and not be able to hold my "temporary" monopoly on that technology, some big corporation say (Microsoft, IBM, SCO,...) could take it and profit from it, regardless if I were credited and there would be nothing I could do about it. As an individual, I would be left in the dust unable to compete with the giants. Lazyness has nothing to do with it. If I can't afford to market, produce and distribute an invention, I should be at least able to license it to someone who can and be rewarded for my inovation.
The temporary monopoly gives the inventor the reward of profit for the new inovation, spurs inovation for those unwilling to license the technology to come up with an alternative solution, and eventually expires entering the new technology into the public.
A good example of this is the recently expired GIF patent. The existence of this patent provided the motivation for the push to adopt the PNG format as a royalty free replacement. PNG a superior technology or not, now that the GIF patent is expired, that leverage to push the replacement is gone.
Technology is still the best hope for killing spam. Laws may provide a few amusing high profile instances for public display, but they can't stop a threat that so easily straddles jurisdictions.
Until the spammers grow powerful enough to have the technology outlawed via DMCA or some other poorly written law. Just playing devil's advocate here but if we don't keep the law on our side now, they surely will keep the law on their side then.
I can. You can. I'm pretty sure most of us that read Slashdot can.
The article isn't about us, it's about kids that are just being introduced to computers and programming. There isn't a simple, free tool shipped with computers anymore that is a good place for kids (we are talking elementary school here) to start.
Basic was good, it provided instant feedback without needing to learn a whole lot of other crap.
10 PRINT "Hello Johnny!"
was all that is necessary for instant results instead of something more convoluded as:
#include <stdio.h>
int main (int, char**) {
printf ("Hello Johnny\n");
return 0; }
"What the hell is all this other crap, I just want to print my name."
Think like an 8 year old who's never seen a programming construct. If the language isn't simple and able to provide immediate feedback without needing to learn all the details of a language, your average 8 year old is gonna lose interest.
This is a bit overkill for kids. I don't think Scheme is a very good beginner language for some 8 year old who just wants to write simple text/graphic games or whatever. (At least that was what I was doing at that age...)
Windows used to come with some simple version of QBasic but I haven't seen that around for a while. What we need is some SIMPLE language that will hold a kid's interest (not LISP!) while they can create fun/cool programs.
Maybe something like pascal? What would be better would be to develop some simple basic-like language for creating [insert modern GUI desktop OS here] based applications that handle I/O, graphics, animation, etc... without the kid needing to know about the underlying platform. The modern look will keep the kid interested (as opposed to cryptic command line apps of the past) and possibly the kid might just learn a little about programming.
I learned on the TI-99 back in the day. It had a really cool beginner book for learning programming in their Basic. (Complete with cartoons of a number 5 jumping into a cardboard box representing a variable!) I have not seen an equivalent of that for kids in quite some time.
50% of all married couples are male. 40% of women have hurled footwear at a man. 91% of us lie regularly. 53% of us would take advice from Anne Landers. 95% of the people who read Slashdot are web surfers. 5% of web surfers can't read.
Then find a really cute girl who pays attention and compair notes with hers. Of course if you're taking CS courses this might be easier said than done.
I know this is stereotypically funny but when I was in college, most of the girls in my CS and math courses were not only cute, they were down right hot! I always considered myself lucky there. (not that I could have gotten lucky though... *sigh*)
Could it be that they don't think you would have enough listeners/advertisers to survive?
Probably. But no one really knows the numbers here.
Dame Broadcasting out of Chambersburg, Pa. owns most of the stations around here. The one they pulled, Qwk Rock, a modern/hard rock station, was out of State College, Pa. They only rebroadcast it here so, while they had the audience, they got no revenue from the listeners. Instead of creating a local station with the same music format, they pulled it and brought in The Rock, a classic/heritage rock station, to compete with the 3 other existing classic rock stations.
There was a huge uproar when we lost Qwk Rock that fell on deaf ears. While the audience is here, no one wants to take the risk involved with pulling this town out of the 70s.
(BTW, I heard that Dame Broadcasting was a Clear Channel affilate but I cannot find much information about them on the web so I could be wrong about that.)
When consumers major media outlets completely cease to produce anything other than plain gelatin in terms of content, who will fill the void? More and more media choices are available every day. Even through the mainstream channel of cable and satellite options, there are more choices and more content produced.
When people find something creative and appealing, it will give a leg up on the regurgitated reality fare offered by the major players....
This is great in theory but not in practice. I mentioned this issue in another recent Slashdot posting of mine. We had a great station here that was replaced by yet another ClearChannel POS. There was a major uproar in the community with protests, petitions, etc... All unheard (read ignored) of course.
No one here has the cash to start up an indy station to provide new creative and appealing content. Our choices now consist of 1) turn our radio off (has so far been my choice), or 2) listen to what THEY think we should be listening to.
There is also 3) meet people online and download their sugestions of KaZaa, et al... I'm not sure what else to do around here to learn about anything new and fresh. By the time any new music gets to us through the regular channels it's already 2 years old.
I would take an old starwars puppet over a CG Jabba anyday.
I agree. Although you got to admit that the CG Yoda in AOTC was pretty impressive. There was only one point in the movie (and only after I had watched it a few times) were you able to "tell" he was CG.
I think the reason CG Yoda was more believeable over Jabba or Jar Jar, etc... was the fact that they tried to make him look and act like the Puppet Yoda and not a real live creature/character.
They are trying to overkill the CG characters giving them cartoon like motion for acting and speaking. (over exaggerate lip movements for syllables, etc...) My lips don't move that much when I speak, and neither do puppets.
Perhaps if they concentrate on making the CG characters look like puppets they may be more believable.
I know you were joking but radio selection has a lot to do w/ location.
We used to have a good radio station around here. Qwk Rock out of State College, Pa. We used to have a sister station that would relay their broadcast around our town. One of the best stations around. It was the best place to hear new up and coming bands just coming on to the scene.
Some genius thought this town needed yet another Classic Rock station so now we can listen to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Creed on 4 stations now. (sometimes Jethro Tull if we catch them on a good day)
There is nothing here that will play anything I want to hear like Static-X, Disturbed, etc... (Hell, there are probably new and better bands out now but I'd never know that!)
2/3 of their 300,000 song catalog is available for CD burning
So, I go to the store and buy a CD I like. But because of copy protection I will not be able to make a mix CD to take with me. Instead, if I want a mix CD, I must purchase the songs again through a service like this. Or, I could just purchase all the songs from a service like this and burn my own CDs however I like. But then I don't get the cool cover art or the feeling that goes along with owning something original.
I know they are trying but somehow I still don't feel any better.
Good question. Sorry I didn't reply yesterday, I had gone home for the day.
This is purely my opinion with absolutely no facts to back it up. Apple probably is better off because they still have control and their business model depends on it. That is where their revenue comes from. I think IBM has too many eggs in too many baskets to really care at this point. I don't think IBM is really relying on the PC market to stay afloat. It's a part of their business model but not all of it. They've got way too much else going on. Apple is a lot more focused on one business model.
I think we all benefitted from all the competition that resulted from the PC standard. I think that kept things moving a lot faster and kept things affordable. I don't think Apple moved as fast since there really was no competition (as in apple clones).
Another thing to think about... Could some of Apples success come from the PC boom because they were really the only quality and affordable PC "alternative?"
Say what you will, but at least Apple is the dominant force in one segment of the personal computing market, while IBM is barely relevant.
Yes, perhaps I/we are still confusing the IBM != "IBM-compatable" architecture issue. IBM is barely relevant in the PC market but the "IBM-compatable" PCs are still very dominant. I may very well be wrong about how willingly the architecture was opened to the clone makers but even IBM credits clone makers for helping launch the IBM-compatable PC industry.
I wouldn't say it was IBM's might that pushed the standard but rather the Clone Wars. If it were not for the clone wars, Microsoft and Intel wouldn't necessarily be where they are either.
Well, not necessarily. Sometimes, one player in a market can be powerfull enough to create their own "standard" and then makes it everyones elses standard. Example IBM PC or MS IExplorer for rendering webpages.
Not to completely disagree, I do understand your point, but...
IBM PC is not standard because of IBM's power but rather because they opened up the architecture for other companies to clone and produce software for. This pushed the architecture into widespread use and therefore became a standard. Had Apple opened their architecture, perhaps Apples would be sitting on the majority of the desktops today.
I wouldn't call MS IE a standard just because most people are too lazy to download and install an alternative.
A better example of a market player creating and pushing their own standard would be.NET
You pay the cable company for the connection to them and using them.
Agreed.
You inadvertantly pay for commercials by watching them, which fund shows as well.
Not quite. Advertizers pay for the commercials and air time, regardless if I, or anyone else, watch them or buy their product. I have yet to buy a pack of tampons. Does that make me a TV theif? I mean I watched their sponsored block of TV didn't I?
Advertizers purchase air time gambling that someone somewhere will see the advertizement and buy their product. They don't buy it expecting a guanrantee that "everyone" will see it and buy the product.
If I choose to not watch the commercial when the program is first aired, I can go to the kitchen to make a sandwich or turn off the TV for 30 seconds. If I record the program to watch later I can choose to not watch the commercial w/ my fast forward button on my VCR, or skip it w/ the PVR skip feature. Either way that's my choice. If I want to watch the commercials I can choose to do so.
It is not sealing or illegal for me to watch TV without watching the commercials. That program is bought and paid for by the advertizers and inadvertantly by the viewers that actually buy the advertizers product because they saw the ad. That's how it's been done for years and hasn't changed one bit with this new technology.
If someone is going to argue that skipping commercials is stealing, then what's the next step? Making a sandwich during commercial breaks is stealing. Not buying a product after viewing the commercial is stealing. Turning off the TV and playing with my kids is stealing. Next, we must be bound and shackled and in front of the TV and the advertizers will automatically deduct funds from our bank accounts and mail us the product.
this is when developers come in and implement ideas they had over the weekend.
I don't know about some of these development teams they are talking about but around here, you don't just implement "ideas" you might have had over the weekend. "Hey! Wouldn't it be cool if it did this... !" If it's not a requirement, it doesn't go in.
If that were the case... Wouldn't it be cool if Slashdot loaded a random pr0n image with every article posting!:-) Sure it's a cool idea, but I think Slashdot would end up Slashdoting itself!
It's been my experience that current tools like Visual Studio are just fine. Once in a while maybe a kernel level debugger. Most often bugs are the result of some logic error in some algorithm you just know should be working. And with a little tracing and memory dumps you can find the problem.
However, if the error is such that cannot be tracked down within a reasonable amount of time and isn't confined to a small section of code then I wouldn't consider it a bug but a flaw in the design. A good design would eliminate such difficult bugs and then the smaller ones only need the simpler tools we currently have to track them down.
In my opinion, the advances in modeling tools help reduce the number of potential problems so there isn't as much of a need for advanced debuggers.
I'm sure some will disagree but this has been my experience. I've redesigned sections of code to eliminate an elusive bug and it's made for a more solid application.
I'll set up my VCR timer to tape it. And I already broke the Fwd button off my remote! And set a timer lock on my refrigerator so I can't make a sandwich during commercial breaks. I know every time I watch a commercial $0.07 is automatically drafted from my wallet and given to sci-fi cause I know the advertizers didn't already pay them for the air time. I don't want to see sci-fi lose any money now.
I wonder... since skipping commercials is stealing, is it also stealing to watch the commercials with no intention of buying the product? I mean really, for the advertizers to get my money, I've got to buy the product, right?
Not sure what card you are using... The nVidia stereo drivers supply their own crosshairs that are not split with the scene. They float out in front like part of a heads up display. Turn off the crosshairs in your game and use those if you got 'em.
As for the games that still use sprites, well you're right, they weren't designed for it. But neither was quake and it looks great.
Truthfully, if these are successful, games and gaming cards will start to be designed for stereo. Low end cards will actually support quad buffered stereo and the games will take advantage of that and we'll start seeing some really cool effects!
Slashdot Mirror
It seems that the chokehold a patent-holder has on their idea/thing/whatever is destrying the competition process.
Perhaps this would be true if patents lasted as long as copyright. If I were to come up with a new technology and not be able to hold my "temporary" monopoly on that technology, some big corporation say (Microsoft, IBM, SCO,...) could take it and profit from it, regardless if I were credited and there would be nothing I could do about it. As an individual, I would be left in the dust unable to compete with the giants. Lazyness has nothing to do with it. If I can't afford to market, produce and distribute an invention, I should be at least able to license it to someone who can and be rewarded for my inovation.
The temporary monopoly gives the inventor the reward of profit for the new inovation, spurs inovation for those unwilling to license the technology to come up with an alternative solution, and eventually expires entering the new technology into the public.
A good example of this is the recently expired GIF patent. The existence of this patent provided the motivation for the push to adopt the PNG format as a royalty free replacement. PNG a superior technology or not, now that the GIF patent is expired, that leverage to push the replacement is gone.
Technology is still the best hope for killing spam. Laws may provide a few amusing high profile instances for public display, but they can't stop a threat that so easily straddles jurisdictions.
Until the spammers grow powerful enough to have the technology outlawed via DMCA or some other poorly written law. Just playing devil's advocate here but if we don't keep the law on our side now, they surely will keep the law on their side then.
I can. You can. I'm pretty sure most of us that read Slashdot can.
The article isn't about us, it's about kids that are just being introduced to computers and programming. There isn't a simple, free tool shipped with computers anymore that is a good place for kids (we are talking elementary school here) to start.
Basic was good, it provided instant feedback without needing to learn a whole lot of other crap.
10 PRINT "Hello Johnny!"
was all that is necessary for instant results instead of something more convoluded as:
#include <stdio.h>
int main (int, char**)
{
printf ("Hello Johnny\n");
return 0;
}
"What the hell is all this other crap, I just want to print my name."
Think like an 8 year old who's never seen a programming construct. If the language isn't simple and able to provide immediate feedback without needing to learn all the details of a language, your average 8 year old is gonna lose interest.
This is a bit overkill for kids. I don't think Scheme is a very good beginner language for some 8 year old who just wants to write simple text/graphic games or whatever. (At least that was what I was doing at that age...)
Windows used to come with some simple version of QBasic but I haven't seen that around for a while. What we need is some SIMPLE language that will hold a kid's interest (not LISP!) while they can create fun/cool programs.
Maybe something like pascal? What would be better would be to develop some simple basic-like language for creating [insert modern GUI desktop OS here] based applications that handle I/O, graphics, animation, etc... without the kid needing to know about the underlying platform. The modern look will keep the kid interested (as opposed to cryptic command line apps of the past) and possibly the kid might just learn a little about programming.
I learned on the TI-99 back in the day. It had a really cool beginner book for learning programming in their Basic. (Complete with cartoons of a number 5 jumping into a cardboard box representing a variable!) I have not seen an equivalent of that for kids in quite some time.
According to Captain Lucas, ... She says the Penguins actually hate the noise and scatter as the planes approach the beach.
I just imagined a bunch of RAF pilots out flying around trying this, and that image was just about as funny as the penquins falling over.
50% of all married couples are male.
40% of women have hurled footwear at a man.
91% of us lie regularly.
53% of us would take advice from Anne Landers.
95% of the people who read Slashdot are web surfers.
5% of web surfers can't read.
Wow! The more I think about it, I find this very disturbing!
If this story is really true, I really feel bad for Katy. This guy has serious issues toward women and took it out on her.
True or not, I think she probably has a good libel case against him.
It's guys like this that give the rest of us a bad name.
This guy has got some serious issues.
Free speech I don't think is really the issue here.
Statements like:
did you just call out Tucker Max? About disrespecting a whore?
and
catapulting Katy out of the random whore category and into the remarkable whore category
make it more a slander/libel issue.
Then find a really cute girl who pays attention and compair notes with hers. Of course if you're taking CS courses this might be easier said than done.
I know this is stereotypically funny but when I was in college, most of the girls in my CS and math courses were not only cute, they were down right hot! I always considered myself lucky there. (not that I could have gotten lucky though... *sigh*)
Could it be that they don't think you would have enough listeners/advertisers to survive?
Probably. But no one really knows the numbers here.
Dame Broadcasting out of Chambersburg, Pa. owns most of the stations around here. The one they pulled, Qwk Rock, a modern/hard rock station, was out of State College, Pa. They only rebroadcast it here so, while they had the audience, they got no revenue from the listeners. Instead of creating a local station with the same music format, they pulled it and brought in The Rock, a classic/heritage rock station, to compete with the 3 other existing classic rock stations.
There was a huge uproar when we lost Qwk Rock that fell on deaf ears. While the audience is here, no one wants to take the risk involved with pulling this town out of the 70s.
(BTW, I heard that Dame Broadcasting was a Clear Channel affilate but I cannot find much information about them on the web so I could be wrong about that.)
When consumers major media outlets completely cease to produce anything other than plain gelatin in terms of content, who will fill the void? More and more media choices are available every day. Even through the mainstream channel of cable and satellite options, there are more choices and more content produced.
...
When people find something creative and appealing, it will give a leg up on the regurgitated reality fare offered by the major players.
This is great in theory but not in practice. I mentioned this issue in another recent Slashdot posting of mine. We had a great station here that was replaced by yet another ClearChannel POS. There was a major uproar in the community with protests, petitions, etc... All unheard (read ignored) of course.
No one here has the cash to start up an indy station to provide new creative and appealing content. Our choices now consist of 1) turn our radio off (has so far been my choice), or 2) listen to what THEY think we should be listening to.
There is also 3) meet people online and download their sugestions of KaZaa, et al... I'm not sure what else to do around here to learn about anything new and fresh. By the time any new music gets to us through the regular channels it's already 2 years old.
I would take an old starwars puppet over a CG Jabba anyday.
I agree. Although you got to admit that the CG Yoda in AOTC was pretty impressive. There was only one point in the movie (and only after I had watched it a few times) were you able to "tell" he was CG.
I think the reason CG Yoda was more believeable over Jabba or Jar Jar, etc... was the fact that they tried to make him look and act like the Puppet Yoda and not a real live creature/character.
They are trying to overkill the CG characters giving them cartoon like motion for acting and speaking. (over exaggerate lip movements for syllables, etc...) My lips don't move that much when I speak, and neither do puppets.
Perhaps if they concentrate on making the CG characters look like puppets they may be more believable.
I don't know about new, but there's always better. Namely Led Zeppelin.
;-)
Hey, I never said Led Zeppelin wasn't good. I own all their 8-Tracks!
But you can only eat pizza for so many days before it's time for a change. I like to keep up with the times.
Well... maybe pizza is a bad example.
I know you were joking but radio selection has a lot to do w/ location.
We used to have a good radio station around here. Qwk Rock out of State College, Pa. We used to have a sister station that would relay their broadcast around our town. One of the best stations around. It was the best place to hear new up and coming bands just coming on to the scene.
Some genius thought this town needed yet another Classic Rock station so now we can listen to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Creed on 4 stations now. (sometimes Jethro Tull if we catch them on a good day)
There is nothing here that will play anything I want to hear like Static-X, Disturbed, etc... (Hell, there are probably new and better bands out now but I'd never know that!)
2/3 of their 300,000 song catalog is available for CD burning
So, I go to the store and buy a CD I like. But because of copy protection I will not be able to make a mix CD to take with me. Instead, if I want a mix CD, I must purchase the songs again through a service like this. Or, I could just purchase all the songs from a service like this and burn my own CDs however I like. But then I don't get the cool cover art or the feeling that goes along with owning something original.
I know they are trying but somehow I still don't feel any better.
Which company got the better deal overall?
Good question. Sorry I didn't reply yesterday, I had gone home for the day.
This is purely my opinion with absolutely no facts to back it up. Apple probably is better off because they still have control and their business model depends on it. That is where their revenue comes from. I think IBM has too many eggs in too many baskets to really care at this point. I don't think IBM is really relying on the PC market to stay afloat. It's a part of their business model but not all of it. They've got way too much else going on. Apple is a lot more focused on one business model.
I think we all benefitted from all the competition that resulted from the PC standard. I think that kept things moving a lot faster and kept things affordable. I don't think Apple moved as fast since there really was no competition (as in apple clones).
Another thing to think about... Could some of Apples success come from the PC boom because they were really the only quality and affordable PC "alternative?"
Say what you will, but at least Apple is the dominant force in one segment of the personal computing market, while IBM is barely relevant.
Yes, perhaps I/we are still confusing the IBM != "IBM-compatable" architecture issue. IBM is barely relevant in the PC market but the "IBM-compatable" PCs are still very dominant. I may very well be wrong about how willingly the architecture was opened to the clone makers but even IBM credits clone makers for helping launch the IBM-compatable PC industry.
I wouldn't say it was IBM's might that pushed the standard but rather the Clone Wars. If it were not for the clone wars, Microsoft and Intel wouldn't necessarily be where they are either.
Well, not necessarily. Sometimes, one player in a market can be powerfull enough to create their own "standard" and then makes it everyones elses standard. Example IBM PC or MS IExplorer for rendering webpages.
.NET
Not to completely disagree, I do understand your point, but...
IBM PC is not standard because of IBM's power but rather because they opened up the architecture for other companies to clone and produce software for. This pushed the architecture into widespread use and therefore became a standard. Had Apple opened their architecture, perhaps Apples would be sitting on the majority of the desktops today.
I wouldn't call MS IE a standard just because most people are too lazy to download and install an alternative.
A better example of a market player creating and pushing their own standard would be
You pay the cable company for the connection to them and using them.
Agreed.
You inadvertantly pay for commercials by watching them, which fund shows as well.
Not quite. Advertizers pay for the commercials and air time, regardless if I, or anyone else, watch them or buy their product. I have yet to buy a pack of tampons. Does that make me a TV theif? I mean I watched their sponsored block of TV didn't I?
Advertizers purchase air time gambling that someone somewhere will see the advertizement and buy their product. They don't buy it expecting a guanrantee that "everyone" will see it and buy the product.
If I choose to not watch the commercial when the program is first aired, I can go to the kitchen to make a sandwich or turn off the TV for 30 seconds. If I record the program to watch later I can choose to not watch the commercial w/ my fast forward button on my VCR, or skip it w/ the PVR skip feature. Either way that's my choice. If I want to watch the commercials I can choose to do so.
It is not sealing or illegal for me to watch TV without watching the commercials. That program is bought and paid for by the advertizers and inadvertantly by the viewers that actually buy the advertizers product because they saw the ad. That's how it's been done for years and hasn't changed one bit with this new technology.
If someone is going to argue that skipping commercials is stealing, then what's the next step? Making a sandwich during commercial breaks is stealing. Not buying a product after viewing the commercial is stealing. Turning off the TV and playing with my kids is stealing. Next, we must be bound and shackled and in front of the TV and the advertizers will automatically deduct funds from our bank accounts and mail us the product.
this is when developers come in and implement ideas they had over the weekend.
:-) Sure it's a cool idea, but I think Slashdot would end up Slashdoting itself!
I don't know about some of these development teams they are talking about but around here, you don't just implement "ideas" you might have had over the weekend. "Hey! Wouldn't it be cool if it did this... !" If it's not a requirement, it doesn't go in.
If that were the case... Wouldn't it be cool if Slashdot loaded a random pr0n image with every article posting!
It's been my experience that current tools like Visual Studio are just fine. Once in a while maybe a kernel level debugger. Most often bugs are the result of some logic error in some algorithm you just know should be working. And with a little tracing and memory dumps you can find the problem.
However, if the error is such that cannot be tracked down within a reasonable amount of time and isn't confined to a small section of code then I wouldn't consider it a bug but a flaw in the design. A good design would eliminate such difficult bugs and then the smaller ones only need the simpler tools we currently have to track them down.
In my opinion, the advances in modeling tools help reduce the number of potential problems so there isn't as much of a need for advanced debuggers.
I'm sure some will disagree but this has been my experience. I've redesigned sections of code to eliminate an elusive bug and it's made for a more solid application.
I'm not gonna steal programming...
I'll set up my VCR timer to tape it. And I already broke the Fwd button off my remote! And set a timer lock on my refrigerator so I can't make a sandwich during commercial breaks. I know every time I watch a commercial $0.07 is automatically drafted from my wallet and given to sci-fi cause I know the advertizers didn't already pay them for the air time. I don't want to see sci-fi lose any money now.
I wonder... since skipping commercials is stealing, is it also stealing to watch the commercials with no intention of buying the product? I mean really, for the advertizers to get my money, I've got to buy the product, right?
I'll have to look for the utility, thanks.
I haven't messed w/ directx a lot. Unreal Tournament wasn't right w/ dx but was ok with OpenGL.
Not sure what card you are using... The nVidia stereo drivers supply their own crosshairs that are not split with the scene. They float out in front like part of a heads up display. Turn off the crosshairs in your game and use those if you got 'em.
As for the games that still use sprites, well you're right, they weren't designed for it. But neither was quake and it looks great.
Truthfully, if these are successful, games and gaming cards will start to be designed for stereo. Low end cards will actually support quad buffered stereo and the games will take advantage of that and we'll start seeing some really cool effects!
http://www.prescoinc.com/high_speed/heads_up.htm :-)