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Comment Microsoft Killed PC Gaming (Score 2, Interesting) 375

I know this might come across as flame bait... but please bear with me.

I firmly believe that Microsoft has had a big hand in killing off PC gaming, despite having a big hand in standardising 3D APIs; hands up here who remembers the first 3DFX and Rendition Verite cards... each had their own APIs. It was a mess until DirectX came along...

Then Microsoft goes and kills it all with shenanigans such as making Halo 2 DX10 (and Vista) only when there was no technical reason for to do so. One has to simply fire up Halo2 on XP via WoWLoader to see that Halo2 works fine under DX9 (and runs 30% faster when compared to Vista).

That one experience convinced me that this was the day PC gaming truly died.

Since then a couple of gems have come along (Torchlight.... Borderlands) but the majority have been Console ports or just rehashed iterations of the same FPS games.

Shame since console gaming (yes I have one) these days mostly concentrates on FPS titles... which is shocking considering how utterly SHIT console controllers are at FPS games (good luck with that head shot) when compared to PC mouse based controls. Titles such as Fable 2 and Sacred, which I can multiplay locally with my wife (we are both Diablo addicts) are very far and few between.

PC Gaming -> RIP

Comment The West Aiding in Censorship (Score 1) 289

I am just wondering if these oppressive regimes wouldn't have such a hard time subjugating their populace if the West wasn't supplying them with the means to exert their power.

Is the Iranian government technically able to censor/throttle the Interwebs? No. Most likely some US or European publicly owned company is supplying the technical capability to do this.

Does anybody know who this is as I for one would like to know and boycott their products.

Comment Don't Bother - Get XBMC on an ION GPU and ATOM CPU (Score 1) 416

I wouldn't really bother:

1. Xbox360 is VERY noisy to be of any use as a modern media appliance. It might have been cool ten years ago but these days you have several cheaper and QUIETER alternatives.

2. Xbox360 is DRM laden and locked down. You can play a DVD but that is pretty much it. Forget streaming video files from NAS/Network Shares unless you have a media streamer (i.e. PC) or formats that MS approves of.

Shame really as a modded classic xbox with XBMC beats the pants out of Xbox360. We're moving backwards instead of forwards.

Viable alternatives are mainly Atom and nVidia Ion GPU based hardware coming out onto the market.

I've recently acquired an Acer Revo. Its tiny, whisper quiet, comes with a Linux only option (read no $100 MS tax) and thanks to its Ion GPU can render 1080p h264 files whilst utilising 10% of the CPU (this is an Atom we are talking about).

All of this on XBMC on Linux. XBMC also offers a wealth of plugins that allow you to stream music, video from the net (you tube) etc.

Its sad state of affairs that it is the open source projects (i.e. non-funded and understaffed) that are leading the way in home entertainment usability whilst these multi billion multinationals are only concerned with limiting and controlling your experience, i.e. propriety formats, cables, DRM..... this shit never ends.

Comment Please please please.... (Score 1) 283

... don't write a web app using Delphi.... and don't write a an app using Paradox.

Having used both circa 1999 and vouch for the awesomeness of both products (at the time), the world has seriously moved on in regards to web development and database platforms.

There are many viable (and cheaper and far more reliable and easier and....) solutions utilising PHP (and their frameworks), Ruby (and its Frameworks), Java and dare I say (wretch) ASP.

Good luck!

Comment Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun (Score 4, Funny) 756

>By the time the earth is uninhabitable, we will have terraformed Mars and Europa.

I don't think so somehow. I'd give us all 100 years tops:

* 2030 - Major/Vast global wars over resources
* 2035 - All the infrastructure that we take for granted today will be but a dream.... referred to as the golden years. Mad Max 1.
* 2045 - Mad Max 2 (lets not talk about Mad Max 3) lifestyle. Nomadic, barbaric and feudal fiefdoms circled around the last few remaining energy resources.
* 2100 - humans loose ability to read/write
* 2200 - I, for one, welcome out xyz overlords...

Its already too late as no effort is being made to find alternative resources... one days we'll just wake up with, "ZMG!!11oneone... no fuel!"

Humanity as a whole is less interesting in scientific endeavour and natural selection is no longer at work as we actively encourage our stupid/lazy/selfish behaviour via socialism and x-factor (pop star type show).

GUI

Preview the Office 2007 Ribbon-Like UI Floated For OpenOffice.Org 617

recoiledsnake writes "OpenOffice.org has prototyped a new UI that radically changes the current OO.o interface into something very similar to the new ribbon style menus that Office 2007 introduced and which have been extensively used throughout Windows 7. The blog shows a screenshot of the prototype in Impress (the equivalent of PowerPoint), but this UI is proposed to be used across all OO.o applications. Some commenters on the Sun blog are not happy about OO.o blindly aping Office 2007, and feel that the ribbon UI may be out of place in non-Windows operating systems."

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