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Comment: Re:Hardware support (Score 1) 166

by Forkenhoppen (#31443306) Attached to: OpenGL 4.0 Spec Released

In D3D's defence, they had a number of optional features in D3D9, but developers really got to loathing the caps, so it was mostly abandoned for D3D10+.

As to D3D9's 'set functionality', it's true that Microsoft tried to lock down what you could add to the API. But you should check out Aras' D3D9 cheat sheet for hacked-in functionality. While there aren't any easy vectors for adding extra functionality to D3D9, that hasn't stopped ATI and NVIDIA from offering stuff through some of the weirdest and ugliest hacks imaginable. (Let's have a round of applause for the tesselation factor and point parameter render states, shall we?)

That having been said, I wholeheartedly agree that OpenGL has provided a much cleaner approach to extensibility of the API.

Comment: Bring on the post-mortem (Score 1) 189

by Forkenhoppen (#27902475) Attached to: <em>Duke Nukem Forever</em> Gameplay Footage Leaked

I'm really hoping that someone will write a post-mortem of the project for Game Developer magazine. It sounds like what happened here was a classic case of "the design document is in my head."

I once worked on a game project that lacked direction; I'm curious to hear just how much the experience here mirrored my own. (From the post linked in the story, it sounds suspiciously similar. If you don't have someone at your company whose mandate includes calling bull$#!% on projects that aren't going anywhere, and has the power to affect change, the end result is obvious.)

Comment: Re:For God's sake no! (Score 3, Informative) 519

by Forkenhoppen (#27770613) Attached to: Bluetooth Versus Wireless Mice

One more caveat on Apple mice worth mentioning explicitly; they only have one clicker for the multiple mouse buttons (as others have mentioned) which means it's impossible to a L+R simultaneous click. Since some apps do use this combination explicitly (i.e., Blender), this can be very frustrating.

(Blender does have offer an alternative way to trigger/emulate this mouse combo, but that requires holding down a key on the keyboard, and thus is considerably less elegant/easy to trigger.)

Comment: Re:Um (Score 2, Informative) 89

by Forkenhoppen (#27021021) Attached to: Nintendo Reveals New Wii Controller

What part of "the Classic Controller Pro, a new input device for the Wii of a more typical design than the Wii Remote" was lost on you?

Actually, if you want to go splitting hairs, it's really a new input device for the Wiimote, so the OP does have a point about the description being a touch misleading/inaccurate. ;)

Comment: There are downsides to this approach (Score 4, Informative) 261

by Forkenhoppen (#26373375) Attached to: NVIDIA Offers 3D Glasses For the Masses

To understand why this may be a poor choice for 3D glasses technology for consumers, as well as some thoughts on why NVIDIA might have gone with it anyways, here's an article that gets into the nitty gritty. Brief summary; headaches and batteries.

(Insert usual disclaimer about the Inquirer not exactly being an enthusiastic supporter of NVIDIA here..)

Comment: OpenID never was a first-class citizen (Score 1) 333

by Forkenhoppen (#26368833) Attached to: OpenID Fan Club Is Shrinking

The main problem here is that OpenID was never a first-class citizen. If I go to a site that does support OpenID for login, which is a rarity, they only give the most basic of abilities to me. Whereas if I create a username in their system, suddenly I can create a profile for myself, set some preferences, etc. (Livejournal and Blogger being two notable ones.)

I really like OpenID, but my feeling is that companies never really wanted it in the first place. Sure the person running the site probably thought it was a great idea, but I'm sure the suits looked at it and thought "gee, I'm not going to be able to force my users to give me their full address and credit card before letting them do anything on my site, if they're logged in with this openid thing.." So instead, they use it as a teaser, and up-sell you on a real login. Of course, users aren't stupid, and if you're going to write comments on a blog and you think there's a hope in hell that you'll ever want to use the 'full' features of the site, you'll create a login instead.

What could save companies from this problem would be if they'd allow you to tie an OpenID to your login, and use that to login instead. (See stackoverflow.) But instead, a lot of sites prefer to use it as a way to avoid requiring a captcha for "anonymous" comments.

Also, it'd help if some of the big players weren't such dicks, and allowed you to login with an external OpenID rather than only exporting an OpenID.. It has to be a two-way street.

Comment: Positioning Linux (Score 4, Interesting) 460

by Forkenhoppen (#26189781) Attached to: New Contest Will Seek the Best "I'm Linux" Video

The key to the Mac and PC commercials has been their positioning.

Apple's Macs are all-in-one machines, that come with both hardware and software. So it's easy for them to position their avatar and straw man appropriately to showcase the advantages of their platform versus Microsoft's. "I'm a has-it-all-together Mac, you're a slightly confused yet assertive PC. Gee, why am I simpler to set up and use?"

Microsoft sells just the software, so they aimed to take the focus off of the 'whole package' aspect and instead focus on the users. Hence their "I'm a PC" campaign. (Incidentally, someone needs to tell Microsoft that PC stands for 'Personal Computer,' and not 'Person using a Computer'..)

The proper Linux positioning should be about Open Source, and how everyone contributes. So instead of an "I'm Linux" response, I'd suggest "We're Linux." Unlike how Microsoft's approach bends the meaning of words 'til they break, "We're Linux" would actually ring true on a lot of levels, from all of the different people whose pieces are put together to make one distribution, to the number of distributions available, to the sheer number of platforms that Linux has been ported to.
