Wasn't UT2004 made by Digital Extremes, under contract and engine support from Epic? Just a little nitpick, but there maybe a reason why Epic took the whole thing in-house for UT3.
For people who haven't followed the ESA closely, it may interest you to know that developers and publishers alike have been jumping ship and quitting the ESA as of late. Their influence is waning, and they can no longer claim that they represent the majority of the game industry (given the high-profile members they have lost, I doubt they do). Who they hired for what position hardly even matters at this point, given how few supporters they have both in and outside of the industry, from both the customer and the producer sides.
The Communist government came to power because it was honestly better than what it replaced.
Mod parent up, I couldn't agree more. I'm Taiwanese-born, but I sincerely believe that Mao Zedong presented a better option for the majority of China than Chiang Kai-Shek at the time. Americans tend to be given a biased history, partly because of its anti-communism, and partly because traditionally Taiwan has had close (unofficial) ties to the USA.
The Kuomintang government in China after the overthrow of the last Emperor was largely corrupt, and in fact was not a strong central government at all, but more of a loose affiliation of regional warlords who have agreed to fly the same flag and *somewhat* refrain from looting and pillaging everything from their neighbours. This is far from the democratic utopia that was imagined, and in fact was not even heading *towards* democracy - all signs looked like it was just to be yet another autocracy in different clothes.
The people were poor, government was corrupt, stability was non-existent. Now imagine Mao walking in, promising stability, a strong central government, and the elimination of the corrupt privileged class. Sure, it hasn't been a dashing success, but I can certainly see why the people at the time were sold. Mao wasn't a petty revolutionary who "stole" the country, as many history books would like to suggest. He won the hearts and minds of the people fair and square.
Where are the new innovative games? Have there been any innovative games since Populous and Elite? Perhaps, but very few. Hellgate: London most certainly wasn't one.
Honestly, EA has done a very good job redefining themselves. They're resurrecting old, popular franchises, and actually doing them justice. Command and Conquer and Red Alert 3 actually go back to their predecessors' FMV roots. This is a far cry from the lame cash grab that was Generals.
Upcoming games... Dead Space - a new franchise that's supposed to be Silent Hill in space. The recent Battlefield Bad Company (a sitcom + FPS?)... and Mirror's Edge all look VERY VERY good. Spore is also a no brainer.
They're certainly not going to stop making Madden, or horrible Harry Potter games, but EA is getting back into the innovation game, and I for one am very happy.
If you ever dealt with real corpses you would know that they really ain't all this disgusting, it is so easy to get used to it that you might be temped to think that the so called natural revulsion is just media installed reaction.
That's because you KNOW it's a corpse. If this same corpse got up and started walking around you would be pretty freaked out. Or even a live person walking about, looking like that corpse, would be extremely uncanny.
The problem with the uncanny valley is that they purport to be something, but our minds are screaming that something is wrong. In Final Fantasy's case, we were supposed to think these guys are uber-real, but yet something about them wasn't quite right.
Do we feel uneasy at madam Thussauds?
I do. I know others who are... Sensitivity to the uncanny valley varies.
with a nation engaged in the Cold War, a hot war in Vietnam, a much lower economic productivity, a much smaller pool of engineers, much more primitive technology, and no proven example of going to the Moon to reassure us.
And a culture that was a bit smarter than it is today, that actually cared about the nation's scientific accomplishments. Seriously, do you think a man landing on Mars today would get the same TV audience? Americans have gotten far less educated and far dumber between the 60s and now. It's a horrible stereotype but it's based in truth - the average American would be more interested in American Idol than steering their own country away from the road to irrelevance and obscurity.
it lacked much of the gameplay associated with the original games
Wha? Original Doom = identical mazes, randomly scattered weapon/health pickups. Find key, open door, move to next key/door. Shoot random monsters hidden in closets
Doom 3 = identical sci-fi mazes. randomly scattered weapon/health pickups. Find key/switch/computer terminal, open door, move to next terminal/door. Shoot random monsters hidden in closets
Doom 3 was a faithful a sequel as anybody could expect. The problem was the the FPS genre has moved so far beyond the original formula.
Kind of sad that this is the first thing on peoples' minds.
I find it sad too, but for the opposite reason. How sad it is that corporations never own up to their mistakes and issue recalls/updates. They do it so rarely that the only way the average consumer can get satisfaction is by suing.
If you mean "a whole lot" then say it, don't say "infinite".
First of all, I'm not the OP, so I didn't say "infinite". Secondly, even if I did, you're just splitting hairs. The original point was that money is not intrinsically finite, and that the total "wealth" in the world is not a constant, and is growing over time. This is to dispute the notion that any sort of money-printing is unjustifiably causing inflation and lowering the value of currency. So sure, 10,000 years from now we might hit a cap by exhausting the world's resources. But for the time being, to claim that money is finite in the immediate or even medium-term is foolish.
To bring in the car analogy: people still buy Mercedes cars, even though you probably get just as much out of a Honda. It is the seemingly unimportant things that make a difference.
Having worked in a car parts plant (making HVAC motors, radiators, and seat adjustment motors) for a little while in an engineering position, I can say this:
People have *no* idea what kind of hardware they're running when they compare Mercedes to Honda. Seriously.
I hear the argument a lot. "Well, your Mercedes doesn't get you to work any faster!", or "it's just an engine, wheels, and a bunch of steel!". The truth is, having poked my head into the guts of these cars, from cheapo Pontiacs to really ridiculously high-end Mercedes (my factory made a whole range of crap), I can tell you that the extra money does buy a lot of extra hardware.
Which is also why I dislike it when people judge a product entirely based on feature set. Just because you both have power steering don't make two cars equal.
Example: Mercedes Benz cars almost invariably run IRBL radiator motors. These babies are *powerful*. They are capable of venting a LOT of heat in a short time, and have a theoretically unlimited lifespan. Those things fail when the solid-state electronics in them fail, which is a pretty fricking long time. Their speed control is also a lot more precise and advanced than their cheaper counterparts, so you get some energy savings there. And these things *almost never* fail.
On the other hand I was in charge of some Pontiac vehicles during my time there. They all ran standard DC brush motors, which have a lifespan limited by the size of their brushes (the little piece that passes power to the commutator by friction), which for cheap vehicles was generally timed at around 5 years. They are also *much* more prone to failure, since the adhesives holding your magnets to the stator would fail eventually (where eventually is as short as a couple of years), and the fact that you're creating a cloud of copper soot behind also gunks up the internal workings of the motor.
Comparing Mercedes and Hondas is really, really ill-advised. Most people are not aware of the sheer quality difference between the two. If I had the money I wouldn't hesitate plunking down the cash for one.
Oh, and the Chrysler Town & Country is made up of surprisingly quality parts. Don't ask me why:S
I meant to say... here in Canada, the average internet connection is less than 2 Mbps. We have *no* significant presence from any of the video on demand services popular in the States. No Netflix, very little iTunes, no Hulu. An entire economic sector has been cut out simply because our communication infrastructure is crap, and expensive to boot.
Look at data plans in the US and Europe. You can buy music over the air, stream TV over the air. Surf website, conduct business, and generally *produce economic activity*. In Canada our wireless data plans are so ridiculously expensive that's impossible. Yet another economic sector missing because of the greed of a monopolist.
So explain to me how free market is so great again, especially when "free market" involves exclusive last-mile or radio rights?
Tho these days, google is the answer to any query.
That's the sad part:) Google is infinitely more useful for MS platforms than they are for Apple ones, by sheer volume of conversation. Apple developers are a tiny community compared to MS, so Google is proportionally biased. This really should inspire Apple to write better docs, but alas.
It's so very unimportant and the nerdrage surrounding it is so palpable that I can do nothing but scratch my head and thank god i'm not one of the bent-out-of-shape jackasses.
There is a certain amount of importance to the amount of bandwidth that's available.
It limits what you can and cannot do. For example, there's a whole market for video on demand that's just waiting to explode. Unfortunately, as the likes of Hulu are finding out very quickly, the average internet connection *sucks balls*. The *only* reason we don't yet have streaming DVDs is because of sheer lack of bandwidth. 10Mbps is absolutely nothing when you're building a heavy media app. The lack of bandwidth is stifling innovation.
I mean, take it from me. I'm up here in Canada, where the average internet connection is
Pretty much all cities in europe and japan, plus sydney, melbourne and wellington are livable with public transport.
Tightly packed cities naturally are more transit-friendly. You can afford higher service frequency, and walking distances are greatly shortened because you're building up, not out.
And surely New York can't be that bad?
It's not. The problem is that the vast majority of the US doesn't live in an area as densely packed as New York. New Yorkers are a unique bunch in that they've embraced the whole apartment-living train-riding existence. Most mid-sized cities in America have not. In NYC a sign of affluence is a nice apartment high up in a tall building. In other parts of the country you're not rich until you've got 3 acres of backyard in a sprawling suburban community. The latter is the attitude we need to get rid of.
Also, I think that it's unfair to compare Toronto with Metro Vancouver. Toronto is only Toronto, whereas, with Vancouver, you can travel much farther on the same system. To be fair, you'd have to combine Mississauga with Toronto, and then compare it to Vancouver and Burnaby.
Mississauga + Toronto is *HUGE*. The problem isn't really in metro Vancouver anyway, it's the lack of connection to neighbouring cities. Metrotown is the only *real* place that's connected by any real transit link to downtown. In Toronto they have the GO Train, which allows people to live in FAR cheaper municipalities. If you work in downtown Vancouver you can't live any further than Richmond without incurring a HUGE commute problem. That's expensive living.
Also, according to the Translink web site, they are trying to create transit villages. The idea is to heavily develop areas around major stations. I have high hopes for the project, but of course the municipalities will probably derail it.
Last time I was home I saw some of these going up around Aberdeen and Lansdowne stations in Richmond. Things are looking good, and two-storey low-rises are being razed in favour of 15+ storey condos. This can only be good, and will equalize the playing field a bit. That being said, these condos are STILL pricey.
Regarding more stations, I agree with you on almost everything, but the problem is that rapid transit costs a lot of money. Until we quit spending on road widening and new bridges, then I don't have high hopes.
Yes, it does, which is why it needs commitment. I don't know what kind of service frequency we're talking about with the Canada Line, if it's more than, say, 5 minutes, the thing is in trouble already. Ridership starts with service frequency. Hopefully the new line will knock down tons of buildings along the Cambie corridor. People need a rapid transit link to both work and shopping, and it's about time we built up some REAL mega-malls and office complexes along that corridor.
I grew up in Richmond, BC, actually, and while Vancouver's transit is not the worst I've seen, it's nowhere near the best, or IMHO even adequate.
The key to any transit system is the high speed hub link. In large eastern cities this is probably a subway or metro system. In Ottawa, Canada, this would be the Transitway - a network of bus-only roads with no traffic lights or intersections (bus-rail, if you will). In Vancouver, this is the SkyTrain.
... In cities with SHITE transportation the high-speed link doesn't even exist: see Seattle.
Now look at where SkyTrain covers. It crosses through the whole of east Vancouver into Metrotown in Burnaby. This entire corridor can only be considered lower-middle class housing, with some pretty slummy areas mixed in. This is hardly the "upper middle class white collar worker" population that is currently so obsessed with cars. Like I said in my post - transit is disproportionately well-developed in poor neighbourhoods.
In fact, "white collar upper middle" don't just work downtown. They work in suburban industrial parks where there are probably fewer than 10 buses per DAY.
Either way, we're *just* now getting a proper transit link from Richmond through to downtown. This has been overdue for at least 10 years, and it will serve to open up more inexpensive land to development that will serve affluent commuters, and give working class people a place to live that isn't deep in the slums, while maintaining transportation access. It's a step in the right direction, finally.
Of course, Vancouver housing prices are now ridiculous. Let's not even talk West/North Van. Richmond is also now priced out of the middle class for the most part. Working class people are being moved WAY out into the 'burbs like Surrey, PoCo, or even further. Besides the West Coast Express (which isn't really that good of a commute option), there is still not enough transit coverage of these areas. They need to throw down more stops along the Surrey line, to encourage more condo development, and extend the SkyTrain out into Coquitlam and beyond.
They also need to add an extra transit stop west of what is now Burrard Station. Vancouver's downtown is just slightly too large to be walkable everywhere, and bus-service within downtown itself is almost non-existent. People get off the bus at Burrard and find themselves walking a fair distance to get anywhere. Contrast this to Toronto, where the ENTIRE downtown core is within a 2-block walk (Toronto blocks, small blocks). Vancouver needs to emulate this. This will help spur commercial development in the more bohemian corners of the downtown core, and open up downtown as a real shopping and entertainment district, as opposed to a strict workplace like it is now.
Move close to your work (or get a job you can telecommute to), use a bike / walk / public transport wherever possible. Insulate. Put in a water tank.
And have the right attitude.
Let me explain. Most people can't afford to live close to work, considering how expensive housing is in heavily developed office areas. Here in Seattle it can be up to *millions* to live within walking distance of work. Most people can't afford that.
So, the next best thing is to live somewhere with good public transportation coverage. This effectively cuts out *all* suburbs, since bus service is invariably trash due to the lack of ridership and the vast areas to cover with way too few vehicles. Your only real choice left are condo complexes built around transit hubs. Most American cities don't even *have* a hub-based public transit system (local traffic around a hub, with high speed links between hubs). So, if you live in the wrong city, you're ALREADY SOL.
And most transit authorities have no means to fix this problem. This is where attitude comes in. America has been car-obsessed for so long that riding the bus has become taboo - something the neighbours whisper about. "Oh, that poor Bob! They must be in dire straits, he can't even drive a car to work!"
And indeed it's cyclical. Transit is looked upon as the poor person's choice, and the affluent commuters shun it. This results in less revenue for the bus service, which eventually deteriorates. To maintain some semblance of service, cutbacks have to be made, and obviously the first routes to go are the ones to the rich suburbs - after all, nobody's riding THEM anyways right? That's why in every city I've been to public transit has always been disproportionately well-developed in poorer neighbourhoods. After all, the bus company has to go after its main audience - poor commuters. And on and on this cycle goes, with crappy buses, dirty stations, etc etc.
Few cities have been spared this cruel fate. Toronto, Canada is one of those few cities where commuting via mass transit is even a viable option for your average working-class guy, or even upper-middle class workers. Seattle is not too bad either - but its success is driven more by a yuppie desire to be green than anything else.
It's all in the attitude. As soon as we start accepting public transit as an everyday fact of life, whether rich, poor, or somewhere in between, we can start building cities with mass transit in mind.
If someone like Apple did develop a good 3D API, it might do well. However nobody seems interested.
Sadly, won't ever happen. Apple's "commitment" to gaming on their platform doesn't extend far beyond 3D chess and Tetris clones. Hell, having a working Flash client is probably Apple's idea of supporting "gaming" for their users.
Apple appears to be quite content with OpenGL in its current state, and haven't even gotten close to pushing its limits.
Have you installed the DirectX SDK lately? It's sad how wide the divide is. On the DirectX side you get a *massive* library of documentation, sample code snippets, entire sample projects, and more guides than you can shake a stick at. Compare this with the new-hotness that is Apple's iPhone SDK. Worlds apart. The iPhone SDK documentation is absolute trash. There are almost no tutorials, "sample code" is hardly ever commented. No code snippets to accompany tricky API calls, and the entire thing uses so much Objective-C-speak that I'm quite surprised anybody but a hardened Mac developer can even begin to comprehend it.
One company is very good at fostering a developer community and making sure it's easy to get on board their API. The other seems like it goes out of their way to torture devs.
Disclaimer: I am a hobbyist iPhone developer, Mac user, Xbox owner, and DirectX developer.
Also, keep in mind that the *last* time China was democratic was under the not-so-illustrious leadership of the Kuomintang. We're talking about the corrupt of corrupt governments, without a strong central government. China at the time was a loose association of warlords who have conveniently agreed to fly the same flag, not a truly unified country. These are some of the many reasons why the democratic government of China fell, and the communists won the hearts and minds of the people. People are still distrustful of Western-style democracy as a result.
The western media is handing the CPC a colossal propaganda victory by portraying China as just another modern, well-run Asian country, instead of as a totalitarian state that is willing to imprison people for speaking out on issues like why their kids were killed when shoddy schools collapsed.
Talk to the Chinese people. Stop assuming that they're all mindless, idiotic sheep that will spout the party line whenever possible. I would know, I date one, and I personally know many. People *know* about the secret police, the political prisoners, etc etc. But you know what? They don't care. This is a country that has been in abject poverty for far too long, and if some people must be throw in prison so the economy can grow, so be it. Freedom is vastly overrated when you're starving to death, with no roof over your head and no future to look forward to. The West cares about freedom because our lives are so vastly comfortable that we have the *time and energy* to think about such things. Your right to hold demonstrations and believe in your religion aren't the highest thing on the list when you're struggling to make sure your family has their next meal.
The Chinese have seen what a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship has done for the country, which is to say (in recent years anyway), far more good than bad. The same students who were protesting in Tiananmen Square in 1989 are now quiet collaborators with the communist government. Why? Because capitalism reigns, and opportunities are abound. Life is better for hundreds of millions of people, and they know it.
Whether or not the better livelihood of millions of people is worth the exchange of political freedoms is a moral and ethical judgment that's best reserved for discussion over a cup of coffee. This is not an absolute truth of things.
Oh, and people seem to have this weird idea that there is a pervasive fear of the government in everyday life. That's simply not true. While writing critical pieces of the government is ill-advised, people generally badmouth the government in private, all the time. Secret police listening in, recruiting your neighbours to report "dissidents" is basically non-existent in a pervasive scale.
A historical appreciation of China is also necessary to fully understand this issue. China has historically been a country that has suffered extreme amounts of chaos. Warlords would battle over territory, looting and plundering along the way. As a result, culturally the Chinese strongly value stability. The communist government has brought them stability (finally), and they know the collapse of a strong, authoritative central government will simply throw the country back into feuding warlord fiefdoms. Nobody wants that. Historically China has also only been unified under extremely repressive and totalitarian regimes (see: Qin, Yuan, and Qing dynasties). The people value stability and peace far more than they value individual freedom.
That means as long as people want new games to play, the developers hold the upper hand.
There exists a lose-lose situation here. You assume that in the end, consumers will miss having their great games so much that some uneasy equilibrium will be established between piracy and paying for all games. But IMHO this can easily go to either extreme - where game-makers throw up their hands, say "fuck it", and move onto industries where their work won't be ripped off en masse. In this case everyone loses.
The bad part of stealing isn't that you get something for free. It's that you make someone else poorer by doing it.
Not all stealing is tangible like taking a candybar from a convenience store. Say I get someone to design me a website, and then stiff them by refusing to pay the invoice. That's also stealing - I'm stealing the fruits of their labour without proper compensation. In this case the designer still HAS whatever he created, but he can't eat websites, nor will websites run his car. He has not been materially deprived in any tangible way, but it's hard to argue he hasn't been harmed.
It is the same way with game developers. Sure, they have no physically *lost* anything via piracy, but you are enjoying the fruits of their labour without compensating them. That to me is clearly morally wrong (unless the developers have openly invited the whole enjoyment-without-compensation bit). Our society doesn't seem to feel this way, though.
It is also similar to people who steal graphics off websites. The original author hasn't lost the ability to use his graphics, but nonetheless, you have taken his work without compensation. People greatly look down upon stealing things like website content, or pilfering text and graphics from books and publications, but yet somehow software is a-ok.
What it means is they'd have to focus on the thing they have that can't be copied: their skill and talent. In other words, their labor.
What are you talking about? The product of their skill and talent is easily stolen/copied. That's like saying "DVD piracy isn't a problem, movie producers just have to concentrate on their talent and make better movies!". That's bullshit.
Pirates need to own up to the fact that in the vast majority of cases, it's done because the user is too cheap to buy the game, and having it for free with a few mouse clicks beats driving to the store with money. That's the simple truth of it. Our society has ingrained into people that stealing is wrong - but because there's no shopkeeper that the user can see is being negatively impacted, neither sympathy nor empathy exists, and it falls into the category of "victimless crime".
Slashdot Mirror
Wasn't UT2004 made by Digital Extremes, under contract and engine support from Epic? Just a little nitpick, but there maybe a reason why Epic took the whole thing in-house for UT3.
For people who haven't followed the ESA closely, it may interest you to know that developers and publishers alike have been jumping ship and quitting the ESA as of late. Their influence is waning, and they can no longer claim that they represent the majority of the game industry (given the high-profile members they have lost, I doubt they do). Who they hired for what position hardly even matters at this point, given how few supporters they have both in and outside of the industry, from both the customer and the producer sides.
The Communist government came to power because it was honestly better than what it replaced.
Mod parent up, I couldn't agree more. I'm Taiwanese-born, but I sincerely believe that Mao Zedong presented a better option for the majority of China than Chiang Kai-Shek at the time. Americans tend to be given a biased history, partly because of its anti-communism, and partly because traditionally Taiwan has had close (unofficial) ties to the USA.
The Kuomintang government in China after the overthrow of the last Emperor was largely corrupt, and in fact was not a strong central government at all, but more of a loose affiliation of regional warlords who have agreed to fly the same flag and *somewhat* refrain from looting and pillaging everything from their neighbours. This is far from the democratic utopia that was imagined, and in fact was not even heading *towards* democracy - all signs looked like it was just to be yet another autocracy in different clothes.
The people were poor, government was corrupt, stability was non-existent. Now imagine Mao walking in, promising stability, a strong central government, and the elimination of the corrupt privileged class. Sure, it hasn't been a dashing success, but I can certainly see why the people at the time were sold. Mao wasn't a petty revolutionary who "stole" the country, as many history books would like to suggest. He won the hearts and minds of the people fair and square.
Where are the new innovative games? Have there been any innovative games since Populous and Elite? Perhaps, but very few. Hellgate: London most certainly wasn't one.
Honestly, EA has done a very good job redefining themselves. They're resurrecting old, popular franchises, and actually doing them justice. Command and Conquer and Red Alert 3 actually go back to their predecessors' FMV roots. This is a far cry from the lame cash grab that was Generals.
Upcoming games... Dead Space - a new franchise that's supposed to be Silent Hill in space. The recent Battlefield Bad Company (a sitcom + FPS?)... and Mirror's Edge all look VERY VERY good. Spore is also a no brainer.
They're certainly not going to stop making Madden, or horrible Harry Potter games, but EA is getting back into the innovation game, and I for one am very happy.
If you ever dealt with real corpses you would know that they really ain't all this disgusting, it is so easy to get used to it that you might be temped to think that the so called natural revulsion is just media installed reaction.
That's because you KNOW it's a corpse. If this same corpse got up and started walking around you would be pretty freaked out. Or even a live person walking about, looking like that corpse, would be extremely uncanny.
The problem with the uncanny valley is that they purport to be something, but our minds are screaming that something is wrong. In Final Fantasy's case, we were supposed to think these guys are uber-real, but yet something about them wasn't quite right.
Do we feel uneasy at madam Thussauds?
I do. I know others who are... Sensitivity to the uncanny valley varies.
with a nation engaged in the Cold War, a hot war in Vietnam, a much lower economic productivity, a much smaller pool of engineers, much more primitive technology, and no proven example of going to the Moon to reassure us.
And a culture that was a bit smarter than it is today, that actually cared about the nation's scientific accomplishments. Seriously, do you think a man landing on Mars today would get the same TV audience? Americans have gotten far less educated and far dumber between the 60s and now. It's a horrible stereotype but it's based in truth - the average American would be more interested in American Idol than steering their own country away from the road to irrelevance and obscurity.
it lacked much of the gameplay associated with the original games
Wha? Original Doom = identical mazes, randomly scattered weapon/health pickups. Find key, open door, move to next key/door. Shoot random monsters hidden in closets
Doom 3 = identical sci-fi mazes. randomly scattered weapon/health pickups. Find key/switch/computer terminal, open door, move to next terminal/door. Shoot random monsters hidden in closets
Doom 3 was a faithful a sequel as anybody could expect. The problem was the the FPS genre has moved so far beyond the original formula.
Kind of sad that this is the first thing on peoples' minds.
I find it sad too, but for the opposite reason. How sad it is that corporations never own up to their mistakes and issue recalls/updates. They do it so rarely that the only way the average consumer can get satisfaction is by suing.
If you mean "a whole lot" then say it, don't say "infinite".
First of all, I'm not the OP, so I didn't say "infinite". Secondly, even if I did, you're just splitting hairs. The original point was that money is not intrinsically finite, and that the total "wealth" in the world is not a constant, and is growing over time. This is to dispute the notion that any sort of money-printing is unjustifiably causing inflation and lowering the value of currency. So sure, 10,000 years from now we might hit a cap by exhausting the world's resources. But for the time being, to claim that money is finite in the immediate or even medium-term is foolish.
Where is all of this infinite wealth being kept?
In the ground? Theoretically the Earth has a finite amount of wealth stored within it, but we're not even close to exhausting that yet.
To bring in the car analogy: people still buy Mercedes cars, even though you probably get just as much out of a Honda. It is the seemingly unimportant things that make a difference.
Having worked in a car parts plant (making HVAC motors, radiators, and seat adjustment motors) for a little while in an engineering position, I can say this:
People have *no* idea what kind of hardware they're running when they compare Mercedes to Honda. Seriously.
I hear the argument a lot. "Well, your Mercedes doesn't get you to work any faster!", or "it's just an engine, wheels, and a bunch of steel!". The truth is, having poked my head into the guts of these cars, from cheapo Pontiacs to really ridiculously high-end Mercedes (my factory made a whole range of crap), I can tell you that the extra money does buy a lot of extra hardware.
Which is also why I dislike it when people judge a product entirely based on feature set. Just because you both have power steering don't make two cars equal.
Example: Mercedes Benz cars almost invariably run IRBL radiator motors. These babies are *powerful*. They are capable of venting a LOT of heat in a short time, and have a theoretically unlimited lifespan. Those things fail when the solid-state electronics in them fail, which is a pretty fricking long time. Their speed control is also a lot more precise and advanced than their cheaper counterparts, so you get some energy savings there. And these things *almost never* fail.
On the other hand I was in charge of some Pontiac vehicles during my time there. They all ran standard DC brush motors, which have a lifespan limited by the size of their brushes (the little piece that passes power to the commutator by friction), which for cheap vehicles was generally timed at around 5 years. They are also *much* more prone to failure, since the adhesives holding your magnets to the stator would fail eventually (where eventually is as short as a couple of years), and the fact that you're creating a cloud of copper soot behind also gunks up the internal workings of the motor.
Comparing Mercedes and Hondas is really, really ill-advised. Most people are not aware of the sheer quality difference between the two. If I had the money I wouldn't hesitate plunking down the cash for one.
Oh, and the Chrysler Town & Country is made up of surprisingly quality parts. Don't ask me why :S
Whoops. Bad use of HTML tags :P
I meant to say... here in Canada, the average internet connection is less than 2 Mbps. We have *no* significant presence from any of the video on demand services popular in the States. No Netflix, very little iTunes, no Hulu. An entire economic sector has been cut out simply because our communication infrastructure is crap, and expensive to boot.
Look at data plans in the US and Europe. You can buy music over the air, stream TV over the air. Surf website, conduct business, and generally *produce economic activity*. In Canada our wireless data plans are so ridiculously expensive that's impossible. Yet another economic sector missing because of the greed of a monopolist.
So explain to me how free market is so great again, especially when "free market" involves exclusive last-mile or radio rights?
Tho these days, google is the answer to any query.
That's the sad part :) Google is infinitely more useful for MS platforms than they are for Apple ones, by sheer volume of conversation. Apple developers are a tiny community compared to MS, so Google is proportionally biased. This really should inspire Apple to write better docs, but alas.
It's so very unimportant and the nerdrage surrounding it is so palpable that I can do nothing but scratch my head and thank god i'm not one of the bent-out-of-shape jackasses.
There is a certain amount of importance to the amount of bandwidth that's available.
It limits what you can and cannot do. For example, there's a whole market for video on demand that's just waiting to explode. Unfortunately, as the likes of Hulu are finding out very quickly, the average internet connection *sucks balls*. The *only* reason we don't yet have streaming DVDs is because of sheer lack of bandwidth. 10Mbps is absolutely nothing when you're building a heavy media app. The lack of bandwidth is stifling innovation.
I mean, take it from me. I'm up here in Canada, where the average internet connection is
It is a GOOD thing that the US is not moronic enough to wire our large, open country to the same extent that a small, island country can.
And what about your major cities? Does it strike you as odd that the supposed hub of all technology, in California, has shitty internet access?
Pretty much all cities in europe and japan, plus sydney, melbourne and wellington are livable with public transport.
Tightly packed cities naturally are more transit-friendly. You can afford higher service frequency, and walking distances are greatly shortened because you're building up, not out.
And surely New York can't be that bad?
It's not. The problem is that the vast majority of the US doesn't live in an area as densely packed as New York. New Yorkers are a unique bunch in that they've embraced the whole apartment-living train-riding existence. Most mid-sized cities in America have not. In NYC a sign of affluence is a nice apartment high up in a tall building. In other parts of the country you're not rich until you've got 3 acres of backyard in a sprawling suburban community. The latter is the attitude we need to get rid of.
Also, I think that it's unfair to compare Toronto with Metro Vancouver. Toronto is only Toronto, whereas, with Vancouver, you can travel much farther on the same system. To be fair, you'd have to combine Mississauga with Toronto, and then compare it to Vancouver and Burnaby.
Mississauga + Toronto is *HUGE*. The problem isn't really in metro Vancouver anyway, it's the lack of connection to neighbouring cities. Metrotown is the only *real* place that's connected by any real transit link to downtown. In Toronto they have the GO Train, which allows people to live in FAR cheaper municipalities. If you work in downtown Vancouver you can't live any further than Richmond without incurring a HUGE commute problem. That's expensive living.
Also, according to the Translink web site, they are trying to create transit villages. The idea is to heavily develop areas around major stations. I have high hopes for the project, but of course the municipalities will probably derail it.
Last time I was home I saw some of these going up around Aberdeen and Lansdowne stations in Richmond. Things are looking good, and two-storey low-rises are being razed in favour of 15+ storey condos. This can only be good, and will equalize the playing field a bit. That being said, these condos are STILL pricey.
Regarding more stations, I agree with you on almost everything, but the problem is that rapid transit costs a lot of money. Until we quit spending on road widening and new bridges, then I don't have high hopes.
Yes, it does, which is why it needs commitment. I don't know what kind of service frequency we're talking about with the Canada Line, if it's more than, say, 5 minutes, the thing is in trouble already. Ridership starts with service frequency. Hopefully the new line will knock down tons of buildings along the Cambie corridor. People need a rapid transit link to both work and shopping, and it's about time we built up some REAL mega-malls and office complexes along that corridor.
Metro Vancouver isn't too bad.
I grew up in Richmond, BC, actually, and while Vancouver's transit is not the worst I've seen, it's nowhere near the best, or IMHO even adequate.
The key to any transit system is the high speed hub link. In large eastern cities this is probably a subway or metro system. In Ottawa, Canada, this would be the Transitway - a network of bus-only roads with no traffic lights or intersections (bus-rail, if you will). In Vancouver, this is the SkyTrain.
... In cities with SHITE transportation the high-speed link doesn't even exist: see Seattle.
Now look at where SkyTrain covers. It crosses through the whole of east Vancouver into Metrotown in Burnaby. This entire corridor can only be considered lower-middle class housing, with some pretty slummy areas mixed in. This is hardly the "upper middle class white collar worker" population that is currently so obsessed with cars. Like I said in my post - transit is disproportionately well-developed in poor neighbourhoods.
In fact, "white collar upper middle" don't just work downtown. They work in suburban industrial parks where there are probably fewer than 10 buses per DAY.
Either way, we're *just* now getting a proper transit link from Richmond through to downtown. This has been overdue for at least 10 years, and it will serve to open up more inexpensive land to development that will serve affluent commuters, and give working class people a place to live that isn't deep in the slums, while maintaining transportation access. It's a step in the right direction, finally.
Of course, Vancouver housing prices are now ridiculous. Let's not even talk West/North Van. Richmond is also now priced out of the middle class for the most part. Working class people are being moved WAY out into the 'burbs like Surrey, PoCo, or even further. Besides the West Coast Express (which isn't really that good of a commute option), there is still not enough transit coverage of these areas. They need to throw down more stops along the Surrey line, to encourage more condo development, and extend the SkyTrain out into Coquitlam and beyond.
They also need to add an extra transit stop west of what is now Burrard Station. Vancouver's downtown is just slightly too large to be walkable everywhere, and bus-service within downtown itself is almost non-existent. People get off the bus at Burrard and find themselves walking a fair distance to get anywhere. Contrast this to Toronto, where the ENTIRE downtown core is within a 2-block walk (Toronto blocks, small blocks). Vancouver needs to emulate this. This will help spur commercial development in the more bohemian corners of the downtown core, and open up downtown as a real shopping and entertainment district, as opposed to a strict workplace like it is now.
Move close to your work (or get a job you can telecommute to), use a bike / walk / public transport wherever possible. Insulate. Put in a water tank.
And have the right attitude.
Let me explain. Most people can't afford to live close to work, considering how expensive housing is in heavily developed office areas. Here in Seattle it can be up to *millions* to live within walking distance of work. Most people can't afford that.
So, the next best thing is to live somewhere with good public transportation coverage. This effectively cuts out *all* suburbs, since bus service is invariably trash due to the lack of ridership and the vast areas to cover with way too few vehicles. Your only real choice left are condo complexes built around transit hubs. Most American cities don't even *have* a hub-based public transit system (local traffic around a hub, with high speed links between hubs). So, if you live in the wrong city, you're ALREADY SOL.
And most transit authorities have no means to fix this problem. This is where attitude comes in. America has been car-obsessed for so long that riding the bus has become taboo - something the neighbours whisper about. "Oh, that poor Bob! They must be in dire straits, he can't even drive a car to work!"
And indeed it's cyclical. Transit is looked upon as the poor person's choice, and the affluent commuters shun it. This results in less revenue for the bus service, which eventually deteriorates. To maintain some semblance of service, cutbacks have to be made, and obviously the first routes to go are the ones to the rich suburbs - after all, nobody's riding THEM anyways right? That's why in every city I've been to public transit has always been disproportionately well-developed in poorer neighbourhoods. After all, the bus company has to go after its main audience - poor commuters. And on and on this cycle goes, with crappy buses, dirty stations, etc etc.
Few cities have been spared this cruel fate. Toronto, Canada is one of those few cities where commuting via mass transit is even a viable option for your average working-class guy, or even upper-middle class workers. Seattle is not too bad either - but its success is driven more by a yuppie desire to be green than anything else.
It's all in the attitude. As soon as we start accepting public transit as an everyday fact of life, whether rich, poor, or somewhere in between, we can start building cities with mass transit in mind.
Absolutely. Javadoc rules as much as MSDN does. Apple has two successful parties to emulate. I ain't holding my breath though :(
If someone like Apple did develop a good 3D API, it might do well. However nobody seems interested.
Sadly, won't ever happen. Apple's "commitment" to gaming on their platform doesn't extend far beyond 3D chess and Tetris clones. Hell, having a working Flash client is probably Apple's idea of supporting "gaming" for their users.
Apple appears to be quite content with OpenGL in its current state, and haven't even gotten close to pushing its limits.
Have you installed the DirectX SDK lately? It's sad how wide the divide is. On the DirectX side you get a *massive* library of documentation, sample code snippets, entire sample projects, and more guides than you can shake a stick at. Compare this with the new-hotness that is Apple's iPhone SDK. Worlds apart. The iPhone SDK documentation is absolute trash. There are almost no tutorials, "sample code" is hardly ever commented. No code snippets to accompany tricky API calls, and the entire thing uses so much Objective-C-speak that I'm quite surprised anybody but a hardened Mac developer can even begin to comprehend it.
One company is very good at fostering a developer community and making sure it's easy to get on board their API. The other seems like it goes out of their way to torture devs.
Disclaimer: I am a hobbyist iPhone developer, Mac user, Xbox owner, and DirectX developer.
Also, keep in mind that the *last* time China was democratic was under the not-so-illustrious leadership of the Kuomintang. We're talking about the corrupt of corrupt governments, without a strong central government. China at the time was a loose association of warlords who have conveniently agreed to fly the same flag, not a truly unified country. These are some of the many reasons why the democratic government of China fell, and the communists won the hearts and minds of the people. People are still distrustful of Western-style democracy as a result.
The western media is handing the CPC a colossal propaganda victory by portraying China as just another modern, well-run Asian country, instead of as a totalitarian state that is willing to imprison people for speaking out on issues like why their kids were killed when shoddy schools collapsed.
Talk to the Chinese people. Stop assuming that they're all mindless, idiotic sheep that will spout the party line whenever possible. I would know, I date one, and I personally know many. People *know* about the secret police, the political prisoners, etc etc. But you know what? They don't care. This is a country that has been in abject poverty for far too long, and if some people must be throw in prison so the economy can grow, so be it. Freedom is vastly overrated when you're starving to death, with no roof over your head and no future to look forward to. The West cares about freedom because our lives are so vastly comfortable that we have the *time and energy* to think about such things. Your right to hold demonstrations and believe in your religion aren't the highest thing on the list when you're struggling to make sure your family has their next meal.
The Chinese have seen what a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship has done for the country, which is to say (in recent years anyway), far more good than bad. The same students who were protesting in Tiananmen Square in 1989 are now quiet collaborators with the communist government. Why? Because capitalism reigns, and opportunities are abound. Life is better for hundreds of millions of people, and they know it.
Whether or not the better livelihood of millions of people is worth the exchange of political freedoms is a moral and ethical judgment that's best reserved for discussion over a cup of coffee. This is not an absolute truth of things.
Oh, and people seem to have this weird idea that there is a pervasive fear of the government in everyday life. That's simply not true. While writing critical pieces of the government is ill-advised, people generally badmouth the government in private, all the time. Secret police listening in, recruiting your neighbours to report "dissidents" is basically non-existent in a pervasive scale.
A historical appreciation of China is also necessary to fully understand this issue. China has historically been a country that has suffered extreme amounts of chaos. Warlords would battle over territory, looting and plundering along the way. As a result, culturally the Chinese strongly value stability. The communist government has brought them stability (finally), and they know the collapse of a strong, authoritative central government will simply throw the country back into feuding warlord fiefdoms. Nobody wants that. Historically China has also only been unified under extremely repressive and totalitarian regimes (see: Qin, Yuan, and Qing dynasties). The people value stability and peace far more than they value individual freedom.
That means as long as people want new games to play, the developers hold the upper hand.
There exists a lose-lose situation here. You assume that in the end, consumers will miss having their great games so much that some uneasy equilibrium will be established between piracy and paying for all games. But IMHO this can easily go to either extreme - where game-makers throw up their hands, say "fuck it", and move onto industries where their work won't be ripped off en masse. In this case everyone loses.
The bad part of stealing isn't that you get something for free. It's that you make someone else poorer by doing it.
Not all stealing is tangible like taking a candybar from a convenience store. Say I get someone to design me a website, and then stiff them by refusing to pay the invoice. That's also stealing - I'm stealing the fruits of their labour without proper compensation. In this case the designer still HAS whatever he created, but he can't eat websites, nor will websites run his car. He has not been materially deprived in any tangible way, but it's hard to argue he hasn't been harmed.
It is the same way with game developers. Sure, they have no physically *lost* anything via piracy, but you are enjoying the fruits of their labour without compensating them. That to me is clearly morally wrong (unless the developers have openly invited the whole enjoyment-without-compensation bit). Our society doesn't seem to feel this way, though.
It is also similar to people who steal graphics off websites. The original author hasn't lost the ability to use his graphics, but nonetheless, you have taken his work without compensation. People greatly look down upon stealing things like website content, or pilfering text and graphics from books and publications, but yet somehow software is a-ok.
What it means is they'd have to focus on the thing they have that can't be copied: their skill and talent. In other words, their labor.
What are you talking about? The product of their skill and talent is easily stolen/copied. That's like saying "DVD piracy isn't a problem, movie producers just have to concentrate on their talent and make better movies!". That's bullshit.
Pirates need to own up to the fact that in the vast majority of cases, it's done because the user is too cheap to buy the game, and having it for free with a few mouse clicks beats driving to the store with money. That's the simple truth of it. Our society has ingrained into people that stealing is wrong - but because there's no shopkeeper that the user can see is being negatively impacted, neither sympathy nor empathy exists, and it falls into the category of "victimless crime".