Eagle has landed
Bloodstar
Vincenzo Beretta
I wonder what Rose has for eagles and talons ^__^
cur...@hetnet.nl
Think of the range of subjects Norm and Jim may cover in the next years
with this line of thought: no umphteenth "Bulge" game or even WWII
subjects (not that these can't be fun), but in the 19th century alone
several interesting battles can be found (Boer War anyone?). Age of
Rifles goes 3D ;-)
Bas
Giftzwerg
george.w...@microsoft.com says...
> http://www.stormeaglestudios.com/public/home.html
I love the slogan, "We intend to have our cake and eat it too."
--
Giftzwerg
***
"The wailing! The gnashing! The rending of garments! If the conservative
reaction to Harriet Miers is any indication, Bush has no chance of
winning a third term."
- James Lileks
Vincenzo Beretta
I'm now formally asking for a "Demons from Space" sci-fi tactical game ;-)
P.S. On Sunday I'll start my new D&D campaign - I'm curios to see what
"there is an handprint on the first door" will bring. Report on this NG will
follow on Monday.
eddys...@hotmail.com
Vincenzo Beretta wrote:
> > Think of the range of subjects Norm and Jim may cover in the next years
> > with this line of thought: no umphteenth "Bulge" game or even WWII
> > subjects (not that these can't be fun), but in the 19th century alone
> > several interesting battles can be found (Boer War anyone?). Age of
> > Rifles goes 3D ;-)
>
> I'm now formally asking for a "Demons from Space" sci-fi tactical game ;-)
Try X-Com - pretty good
> P.S. On Sunday I'll start my new D&D campaign - I'm curios to see what
> "there is an handprint on the first door" will bring. Report on this NG will
> follow on Monday.
Looking forward to read that :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Norm Koger
Sometimes I wonder the same thing :)
>...no umphteenth "Bulge" game or even
>WWII subjects...
We aren't swearing off on WWII. It's a nice place to visit, I
just wouldn't want to live there. I'm guessing on the mix right now,
but depending upon response to things like RJW we'll probably
alternate between "popular" and "obscure" topics. The next major
installment of the Distant Guns engine will probably be Pacific 1942.
Once the operational/campaign module is complete (no promises on
release dates for that), I plan to lobby for the Spanish American War.
Guess I have a thing about dense clouds of coal smoke.
>I'm now formally asking for a
>"Demons from Space" sci-fi tactical game ;-)
Maybe Jim and I need to go out and register the title...
Norm
Vincenzo Beretta
Played it to death, and I'm playing UFO: Aftershock just now. I'm just
wondering which kind of game an "Age of Blasters" or "The Operational Art of
'This Time, It's War!'" could turn out to be...
Bloodstar
> just wouldn't want to live there. I'm guessing on the mix right now,
> but depending upon response to things like RJW we'll probably
> alternate between "popular" and "obscure" topics. The next major
> installment of the Distant Guns engine will probably be Pacific 1942.
> Once the operational/campaign module is complete (no promises on
> release dates for that), I plan to lobby for the Spanish American War.
> Guess I have a thing about dense clouds of coal smoke.
I can imagine lot's of possible scenarios with this engine: Pursuit of a
Goeben in Mediterran, Goeben adventures in Black Sea / shelling of
Sevastopol, Odesa etc..., Battle of the Bight, Coronel, Falklands, Dogger
Bank, Jutland (? if engine is capable of such massive battle). Good game on
WW1 naval engagements would be really something...
Mario
Miowarra Tomokatu (aka Tomo)
world domination, Vincenzo Beretta mentioned
Sounds a bit like Space:1889 without the RPG game.
.
.
We are Microsoft of Borg.....Your technological distinctiveness will be
added to our own.....Resistance is fu...
.....$$@#
.
General Protection Fault in MSBORG32.DLL
..
Miowarra Tomokatu (aka Tomo)
For a "what-if" scenario, let the Austtro-Hungarian fleet
(Szent-Istvan and the rest) set out into the Adriatic in support of
the Goeben's dash for Turkey. The possibilities might be of meeting an
Italian squadron or French/British blockade of the mouth of the
Adriatic, or both and a remote possibility of changing the balance of
power in the Med, thereby reducing the possibility of the Dardanelles
offensive.
Michel de Becdelièvre
"Norm Koger" <nko...@austin.rr.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
0lnhl19kpb7btb3fl...@4ax.com...
>>"Demons from Space" sci-fi tactical game ;-)
>
> Maybe Jim and I need to go out and register the title...
>
> Norm
For your information, your web site looked like "demons from space" when I
first opened it.
It looks good in IE6, but quite ugly in Firefox, there is a layout problem.
Bloodstar
> (Szent-Istvan and the rest) set out into the Adriatic in support of
> the Goeben's dash for Turkey. The possibilities might be of meeting an
> Italian squadron or French/British blockade of the mouth of the
> Adriatic, or both and a remote possibility of changing the balance of
> power in the Med, thereby reducing the possibility of the Dardanelles
> offensive.
Great idea! Minus Italian fleet since they were neutral till May 1915 I
think.
Mario
Giftzwerg
says...
> For your information, your web site looked like "demons from space" when I
> first opened it.
> It looks good in IE6, but quite ugly in Firefox, there is a layout problem.
Uh, if a website "looks good" in the most widely used, industry standard
web browser, why would you not assume that the problem lies with
Firefox?
--
Giftzwerg
***
"If the American left and its media sympathizers want someone to blame
for our combat losses, they should begin with themselves. Their
irresponsible demands for troop withdrawals provide powerful
encouragement to Muslim fanatics to keep on killing as many American
service members as possible. On the worst days the terrorists suffer in
Iraq, our 'anti-war' fellow citizens keep the cause of Islamist fascism
alive. Their support is worth far more to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi than any
amount of Saudi money."
- Ralph Peters
Luca Morandini
> Uh, if a website "looks good" in the most widely used, industry standard
> web browser, why would you not assume that the problem lies with
> Firefox?
'cause FireFox is much more standard-compliant than IE: sad as it
sounds, web-developers/designers are so used to IE bugs and quirks that
they consider it "the standard" :(
Regards,
--------------------
Luca Morandini
www.lucamorandini.it
--------------------
Giftzwerg
> > Uh, if a website "looks good" in the most widely used, industry standard
> > web browser, why would you not assume that the problem lies with
> > Firefox?
>
> 'cause FireFox is much more standard-compliant than IE: sad as it
> sounds, web-developers/designers are so used to IE bugs and quirks that
> they consider it "the standard" :(
That's just my point; the "bugs and quirks" that comprise the behavior
of the tool actually used by something like 90% of the population *is*
the standard - not some esoteric set of rules hammered out by some
nameless committee.
That's why I abandoned Firefox almost immediately. I need pages to
*actually resolve* - and right now. When they don't, it does me no good
to whine to the webmaster that his page isn't sufficiently "standards-
compliant" to work right on my browser.
Luca Morandini
> In article <3s1dmfF...@individual.net>, lmora...@ieee.org says...
>
>>'cause FireFox is much more standard-compliant than IE: sad as it
>>sounds, web-developers/designers are so used to IE bugs and quirks that
>>they consider it "the standard" :(
>
> That's just my point; the "bugs and quirks" that comprise the behavior
> of the tool actually used by something like 90% of the population *is*
> the standard - not some esoteric set of rules hammered out by some
> nameless committee.
I beg to differ: rules aren't esoteric, and the committees are the W3C
and IETF.
Actually, these are the same standards Microsoft abides too... but in a
rather shabby manner (why should they care, when they can count on users
with your attitude ?).
> That's why I abandoned Firefox almost immediately. I need pages to
> *actually resolve* - and right now. When they don't, it does me no good
> to whine to the webmaster that his page isn't sufficiently "standards-
> compliant" to work right on my browser.
I've found most of the sites I visit rendered nicely in FireFox too;
moreover, if a web-developer is a pro, he takes standards seriously...
well, at least I do :)
Giftzwerg
> > That's just my point; the "bugs and quirks" that comprise the behavior
> > of the tool actually used by something like 90% of the population *is*
> > the standard - not some esoteric set of rules hammered out by some
> > nameless committee.
>
> I beg to differ: rules aren't esoteric, and the committees are the W3C
> and IETF.
Whoop-de-do.
My experience with these committees is that they're generally a day late
and a dollar short; by the time they get around to actually agreeing on
what the "standard" should be, Microsoft et al have actually *set* the
standard. Products need to be useful *now* - not wait for a bunch of
academic-types to stop wrangling.
> Actually, these are the same standards Microsoft abides too... but in a
> rather shabby manner (why should they care, when they can count on users
> with your attitude ?).
Why should they bother, when *their* standard is unconditionally
triumphant?
> > That's why I abandoned Firefox almost immediately. I need pages to
> > *actually resolve* - and right now. When they don't, it does me no good
> > to whine to the webmaster that his page isn't sufficiently "standards-
> > compliant" to work right on my browser.
>
> I've found most of the sites I visit rendered nicely in FireFox too;
> moreover, if a web-developer is a pro, he takes standards seriously...
> well, at least I do :)
Consider an analogy. We both visit Quebec. After listening to the
directions to Casino de Montreal, I nod and head off. You stand there
helplessly, unable to understand the rapid-fire *patois*.
Who has the problem?
Your interpretation appears to be that the speaker (web-page designer)
bears the burden of ensuring that he talks "standard" French - even to
the point that he must satisfy 100% of listeners. My take is that if
the Quebecois is speaking French well enough for 90% of his listeners to
hear him, then the other 10% should get their ears checked.
Norm Koger
>looked like "demons from space" when I
>first opened it.
It may be cleaner now. We've been tinkering The layout was
giving us problems for a while too. Keep checking in. A lot of work
will be going into the site over the next week or two.
The basic design was done using Dreamweaver, rather than the
hand-coding I'm used to. We eventually want to be able to hand
maintenance over to a third party, and include things like flash
animations, etc.. And we had hoped that something like Dreamweaver
would be aware of browser differences so we wouldn't have to worry
about them. So we decided it would be best not to start with a
hand-coded site. But starting up... It's not as easy (at least, not
for me) going in and touching up the code by hand when it was
generated by a design application.
>...if a web-developer is a pro, he takes standards seriously...
I will be the first to admit that Jim and I are amateurs when
it comes to web design. Fortunately, that's not what people pay us
for.
Norm
JP
"Giftzwerg" <giftzw...@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1dc579cbe...@news-east.giganews.com...
<rant on>
Giftz, what you fail to realize, is the new (last decade or so) way of
world thinking. That is, whats good for the/majority doesn't rule, and
everything from toasters to widgets *has* to be accessible to everyone, lest
anyone be offended, feel left out, etc. You know, no valedictorians in
schools anymore, etc.
I.e., at my workplace; the keycodes to unlock any door, (and there's a
lot of them), water fountain placement, locker placement, etc. All are
placed approx. three feet off the ground, so any handicapped (er, physically
challenged) person can use them too.
Of course, the facts aren't relevant that
- not one handicapped (er, physically challenged) person works in my
office, and never has.
- even if so, the vast majority, who aren't handicapped (er, physically
challenged) has to bend, squat, stoop (in this case, literally) to any
perceived minority, actual or not.
But hey, now that I think about it, maybe it's not such a stupid idea, as
much as good proper planning. In the 20-30 years before anyone retires,
after having to stoop down for the above objects multiple times a day,
chances are we too may be handicapped (er, physically challenged), when our
backs go out.
Anyway, don't blame Luca; it's the new "improved" way of thinking don't ya
know.
<rant off>
Luca Morandini
>>and IETF.
>
> Whoop-de-do.
>
> My experience with these committees is that they're generally a day late
> and a dollar short; by the time they get around to actually agreeing on
> what the "standard" should be, Microsoft et al have actually *set* the
> standard. Products need to be useful *now* - not wait for a bunch of
> academic-types to stop wrangling.
Well, the whole point of the Internet is interoperability: how this can
be attained when every player try to set its own ?
Moreover, market share is not set in stone: Netscape was once the king
of browsers and GIF was the most used image format... but then Netscape
fell from grace and Unisys started to impose royalties on GIF use.
Apart from this "philosophical" issue, the end result of Netscape and
Microsoft each competing to impose their own "standard" casued this
situation:
<<Currently, the Web is full of invalid HTML markup, as well as markup
that only functions due to bugs in browsers. The old Netscape browsers,
when they were the market leaders, had bugs. When Internet Explorer
arrived, it mimicked those bugs in order to work with the content at
that time. As newer browsers came to market, most of these original
bugs, usually called quirks, were kept for backwards compatibility.
Mozilla supports many of these in its quirks rendering mode. Note that
due to these quirks, pages will render slower than if they were fully
standards-compliant. Most Web pages are rendered under this mode.>> [1].
I hold the view that is high time to clean up the web and adhere to
these standards, which are now solid and proven (XHTML, CSS 2,
ECMAScript, etc.).
> Your interpretation appears to be that the speaker (web-page designer)
> bears the burden of ensuring that he talks "standard" French - even to
> the point that he must satisfy 100% of listeners. My take is that if
> the Quebecois is speaking French well enough for 90% of his listeners to
> hear him, then the other 10% should get their ears checked.
Fortunately, even Microsoft no longer subscribes to this view:
<<I want to be clear that our intent is to build a platform that fully
complies with the appropriate web standards, in particular CSS 2 ( 2.1,
once it’s been Recommended). I think we will make a lot of progress
against that in IE7 through our goal of removing the worst painful bugs
that make our platform difficult to use for web developers.>> [2].
Regards,
P.S.
Anyway, this is way off-topic for this NG: shall we drop the subject ?
[1] http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-ie2mozgd/
[2] http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/07/29/445242.aspx
eddys...@hotmail.com
> I hold the view that is high time to clean up the web and adhere to
> these standards, which are now solid and proven (XHTML, CSS 2,
> ECMAScript, etc.).
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way - conversation less than a week
ago
Me: "ok, you can have that flat data, what format do you want it in -
fixed, comma separated, ... xml (dreading) "
x : "Oh, XML if you can do that, our import software is fully
xml-compliant"
Me : "you sure ?"
x : "yeah, no problem"
-> proceeding to give them a fully xml compliant export of the data,
fully well realizing their chances of being able to read it in with
their fully compliant import tool are about 10%. They say I'm a cynic,
I'm not, I'm just a realist with lots of experience. I was right of
course, they couldn't import the data ...
All this to say that standards as put in a document by a committee
*still* leave room for people to misinterpret the rules, by accident or
because they need a feature that isn't covered in the rules.
The only *real* standards are the ones that get established by a
company and endorsed by the public. It's unfortunate, but that's the
way it is.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Giftzwerg
> > My experience with these committees is that they're generally a day late
> > and a dollar short; by the time they get around to actually agreeing on
> > what the "standard" should be, Microsoft et al have actually *set* the
> > standard. Products need to be useful *now* - not wait for a bunch of
> > academic-types to stop wrangling.
>
> Well, the whole point of the Internet is interoperability: how this can
> be attained when every player try to set its own ?
Huh? The page in question here is designed to display correctly on the
most common browser. *You're* the one arguing that a designer should
take pains to ensure that the page displays correctly on *every*
browser.
Or are you arguing that designers should grimly implement the
"standard," regardless of whether it displays at all?
> Moreover, market share is not set in stone: Netscape was once the king
> of browsers and GIF was the most used image format... but then Netscape
> fell from grace and Unisys started to impose royalties on GIF use.
So what? Nothing was lost in the transition. And if Firefox gains a
90% market share, designers will (rightly) stop worrying about whether a
page that works right in Firefox displays OK in IE.
Speaking for myself, when I complete a page, I could care less if the
Mozillas and the Operas and the DeepNets and the Firefoxes can display
it. Compatibility with the de facto standard is their problem, not
mine.
> Apart from this "philosophical" issue, the end result of Netscape and
> Microsoft each competing to impose their own "standard" casued this
> situation:
> <<Currently, the Web is full of invalid HTML markup, as well as markup
> that only functions due to bugs in browsers.
Who cares? So long as pages display correctly, it makes no difference
if it does so because of "bugs," or careful design.
> The old Netscape browsers,
> when they were the market leaders, had bugs. When Internet Explorer
> arrived, it mimicked those bugs in order to work with the content at
> that time. As newer browsers came to market, most of these original
> bugs, usually called quirks, were kept for backwards compatibility.
> Mozilla supports many of these in its quirks rendering mode. Note that
> due to these quirks, pages will render slower than if they were fully
> standards-compliant. Most Web pages are rendered under this mode.
Fine. The alternative was to wait ... how many years ... for the
"standard" to emerge from committee?
> > Your interpretation appears to be that the speaker (web-page designer)
> > bears the burden of ensuring that he talks "standard" French - even to
> > the point that he must satisfy 100% of listeners. My take is that if
> > the Quebecois is speaking French well enough for 90% of his listeners to
> > hear him, then the other 10% should get their ears checked.
>
> Fortunately, even Microsoft no longer subscribes to this view:
> <<I want to be clear that our intent is to build a platform that fully
> complies with the appropriate web standards, in particular CSS 2 ( 2.1,
> once itâ€=3Fs been Recommended). I think we will make a lot of progress
> against that in IE7 through our goal of removing the worst painful bugs
> that make our platform difficult to use for web developers.>> [2].
<laughter>
Just wait until Microsoft is faced with a choice between (a)
implementing proprietary code *now*, or waiting for the ivory tower to
supply the next carefully-vetted "standard."
Luca Morandini
> Luca Morandini wrote:
>
>
>>I hold the view that is high time to clean up the web and adhere to
>>these standards, which are now solid and proven (XHTML, CSS 2,
>>ECMAScript, etc.).
>
>
> Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way - conversation less than a week
> ago
>
> Me: "ok, you can have that flat data, what format do you want it in -
> fixed, comma separated, ... xml (dreading) "
> course, they couldn't import the data ...
Ahem... if you need a developer with 5 years of experience in all things
XML-related (GML, DTD, XSLT, XPath, XHTML, XSD, SVG, SAX, DOM, etc)...
my fees are reasonable ;)
> The only *real* standards are the ones that get established by a
> company and endorsed by the public. It's unfortunate, but that's the
> way it is.
Man, this is the definition of a monopoly, not of a standard !
Anyway, we are having this conversation precisely thanks to de-iure
standards... or did you want to go back to Compuserve ?
Regards,
eddys...@hotmail.com
Luca Morandini wrote:
> eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > Luca Morandini wrote:
> >
> >
> >>I hold the view that is high time to clean up the web and adhere to
> >>these standards, which are now solid and proven (XHTML, CSS 2,
> >>ECMAScript, etc.).
> >
> >
> > Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way - conversation less than a week
> > ago
> >
> > Me: "ok, you can have that flat data, what format do you want it in -
> > fixed, comma separated, ... xml (dreading) "
> (..)
> > course, they couldn't import the data ...
>
> Ahem... if you need a developer with 5 years of experience in all things
> XML-related (GML, DTD, XSLT, XPath, XHTML, XSD, SVG, SAX, DOM, etc)...
> my fees are reasonable ;)
>
>
> > The only *real* standards are the ones that get established by a
> > company and endorsed by the public. It's unfortunate, but that's the
> > way it is.
>
> Man, this is the definition of a monopoly, not of a standard !
Hm, I suggest you start a crusade against "air" - it's got a monopoly
too because most people prefer to breath it.
Seriously : please give 1 example of a file-format that is accepted the
world over and is proprietary (i.e. only to be gotten from 1 company =
monopoly)
I'll try to help you out a bit here :
DOC, XLS and other M$ formats - nope, plenty of freeware stuff to
create and read them with.
Flash, JPG, PDF, MP3, MPG, ZIP, ... : nope as well
Eagerly awaiting your example standard file format that is a monopoly.
> Anyway, we are having this conversation precisely thanks to de-iure
> standards... or did you want to go back to Compuserve ?
I had no problems with Compuserve - "Go Clipper" :)
... and we're not having this conversation thanks to "de-iure"
standards set in a committee.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/software/part1/
If anything, quite the reverse - a couple of guys "making the standard"
is what is making this conversation possible.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Luca Morandini
> Huh? The page in question here is designed to display correctly on the
> most common browser. *You're* the one arguing that a designer should
> take pains to ensure that the page displays correctly on *every*
> browser.
More precisely, I'm the one whose job is making web-applications that
work on *at least* four browsers: IE 5.0, IE 5.5, IE 6.0, FireFox (yes,
there are quirks in IE that prevents something that works, say, under IE
6.0 from working under IE 5.0).
Do you really think my customers may accept losing 27% [1] of their
potential users because I tested my web-application only under IE 6 ?
Regards,
[1] http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Giftzwerg
eddys...@hotmail.com says...
> All this to say that standards as put in a document by a committee
> *still* leave room for people to misinterpret the rules, by accident or
> because they need a feature that isn't covered in the rules.
And, of course, the proprietary extensions that we're talking about here
didn't arise because someone at MS or Netscape wanted to be perverse -
they came about because the "standard" was *inadequate*. It *had* to be
extended, and pretty much everyone was unwilling to wait until some
ivory-tower coven of experts crafted a new "standard."
[And as a non-web designer, just let me say that the current "standard"
is a nightmare kludge of insane-clown bullshit. If the average Joe ever
had to use Dreamweaver just to produce the same document that takes him
5 minutes using Word - and looks exactly as he wants it - a mob would
descend on the W3C headquarters and put their heads on spears.]
Epi Watkins
lmora...@ieee.org says...
Of course if you have a business, you're going to want
whatever to work for as many customers possible. This
is true even if 90% of potential customers do not comply
with the standard at all. Was this supposed to be a
point for standards?
--
Epi
----
With the bird-flu, imagine how nervous the birds must
be.
----
http://www.curlesneck.com
Giftzwerg
First off, these statistics are the purest bullshit, since they use only
visitors to their own website as the population sample. Wanna bet we'd
get a different set of statistics if we used, say, microsoft.com or
NASCAR.com as our data-collection point? How about www.redhat.com?
In the real world, sometimes companies have to do exactly what you
disparage above - cut off a significant fraction of their users because
these users cannot or will not adopt a requisite technology. I'm
frequently appalled, for example, at the degree to which my customer
base continues to use Windows 98. But that doesn't mean I'm going to
suggest anytime soon that we open our systems to that painfully outdated
and unsecure technology. To put it plainly, people are either going to
upgrade to a modern system, or they're not invited.
Of course, your customers may be different. Fine. But even Microsoft
at some point will tell their paying customers, "Sorry, but we no longer
support NT Server. Upgrade or die."
ray o'hara
"Giftzwerg" > "If the American left and its media sympathizers want someone
to blame
> for our combat losses, they should begin with themselves. Their
> irresponsible demands for troop withdrawals provide powerful
> encouragement to Muslim fanatics to keep on killing as many American
> service members as possible. On the worst days the terrorists suffer in
> Iraq, our 'anti-war' fellow citizens keep the cause of Islamist fascism
> alive. Their support is worth far more to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi than any
> amount of Saudi money."
> - Ralph Peters
that is correct. it is the lefts fault for sending too few troops, the lefts
fault for saying it would be over in weeks and they would be lining the
streets greeting us with flowers. the left always gets it wrong. good thing
we have bush/rummy/cheney making all those brilliant decisions to over come
some bitchin in the press over a series of fatal miscalculations. its a good
thing we are taking the one secular arab country and are turning it in to a
fundemantalist state.
Luca Morandini
> Hm, I suggest you start a crusade against "air" - it's got a monopoly
> too because most people prefer to breath it.
Has "air" been "established by a company" ? Gee... I should go back to
my physics book ;)
> Eagerly awaiting your example standard file format that is a monopoly.
GIF:
<<CompuServe released GIF as a free and open specification in 1987. GIF
soon became a world standard, and also played an important role in the
internet community. It was well supported by CompuServe's Information
Service, but many developers wrote (or acquired under license) software
supporting GIF without even needing to know that a company named
CompuServe existed. GIF was relatively simple, and very well documented
in books, articles and text files.>> [1]
<<At the end of December 1994, CompuServe Inc. and Unisys Corporation
announced to the public that developers would have to pay a license fee
in order to continue to use technology patented by Unisys in certain
categories of software supporting the GIF format.>> [1]
<<While having the right to pursue legal action or seek damages against
infringing LZW developers and publishers, Unisys has so far been very
accommodating and fair. >> [1]
...but Unisys could have not been fair, and choose to terminate the
whole GIF-processing industry by means of lawyers: beware of de-facto
standards !
> If anything, quite the reverse - a couple of guys "making the standard"
> is what is making this conversation possible.
I beg to differ: NNTP was submitted as an RFC proposal as early as 1986,
well before the Internet took off.
Anyway, standards may come from many sources (even from two guys in a
garage), but they should not be owned by a company or an individual to
be *true* standards (as opposed to the *real* standards of your post).
Regards,
[1] http://cloanto.com/users/mcb/19950127giflzw.html
John Secker
writes
> <rant on>
>
> Giftz, what you fail to realize, is the new (last decade or so) way of
>world thinking. That is, whats good for the/majority doesn't rule, and
>everything from toasters to widgets *has* to be accessible to everyone, lest
>anyone be offended, feel left out, etc. You know, no valedictorians in
>schools anymore, etc.
>
> I.e., at my workplace; the keycodes to unlock any door, (and there's a
>lot of them), water fountain placement, locker placement, etc. All are
>placed approx. three feet off the ground, so any handicapped (er, physically
>challenged) person can use them too.
> Of course, the facts aren't relevant that
> - not one handicapped (er, physically challenged) person works in my
>office, and never has.
> - even if so, the vast majority, who aren't handicapped (er, physically
>challenged) has to bend, squat, stoop (in this case, literally) to any
>perceived minority, actual or not.
>
> But hey, now that I think about it, maybe it's not such a stupid idea, as
>much as good proper planning. In the 20-30 years before anyone retires,
>after having to stoop down for the above objects multiple times a day,
>chances are we too may be handicapped (er, physically challenged), when our
>backs go out.
>
> Anyway, don't blame Luca; it's the new "improved" way of thinking don't ya
>know.
>
> <rant off>
>
brutal wrenching of a thread from its original topic to your particular
hobbyhorse for the day. Getting from "standards in websites and
browsers" to "politically correct provision of services in offices" in a
single bound shows dedication far beyond the norm. The judges were
particularly impressed with your choice of destination topic - the
switching of threads on any subject into discussions on Iraq is no
longer noteworthy.
--
John Secker
John Secker
<lmora...@ieee.org> writes
>Giftzwerg wrote:
>
>> Huh? The page in question here is designed to display correctly on
>>the most common browser. *You're* the one arguing that a designer
>>should take pains to ensure that the page displays correctly on
>>*every* browser.
>
>More precisely, I'm the one whose job is making web-applications that
>work on *at least* four browsers: IE 5.0, IE 5.5, IE 6.0, FireFox (yes,
>there are quirks in IE that prevents something that works, say, under
>IE 6.0 from working under IE 5.0).
>
>Do you really think my customers may accept losing 27% [1] of their
>potential users because I tested my web-application only under IE 6 ?
>
IE gets him over 80% of the market (based on your table), and testing it
and modifying it for Firefox adds more than 25% to his costs, then he is
getting better value by sticking to IE. And even more so if his target
demographic is unlikely to use Firefox - ie if it is Joe Public. The
point being missed by some in this thread is that it is a commercial
decision, driven by the market, not an abstract one driven by some
platonic ideal of the perfect browser standard. Betamax was a far better
technical "standard", but VHS won commercially - that's the way it goes.
--
John Secker
eddys...@hotmail.com
Luca Morandini wrote:
> eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > Hm, I suggest you start a crusade against "air" - it's got a monopoly
> > too because most people prefer to breath it.
>
> Has "air" been "established by a company" ? Gee... I should go back to
> my physics book ;)
>
>
> > Eagerly awaiting your example standard file format that is a monopoly.
>
> GIF:
> <<CompuServe released GIF as a free and open specification in 1987. GIF
> soon became a world standard, and also played an important role in the
> internet community.
100's of programs *are* at this point able to read and create gif's -
where's the monopoly ?
> ...but Unisys could have not been fair, and choose to terminate the
> whole GIF-processing industry by means of lawyers: beware of de-facto
> standards !
LOL - yeah, sure - they sure would have been able to sue the unknown
freeware authors of thousands of gif-based tools and apps around the
world. Get real.
> > If anything, quite the reverse - a couple of guys "making the standard"
> > is what is making this conversation possible.
>
> I beg to differ: NNTP was submitted as an RFC proposal as early as 1986,
> well before the Internet took off.
Did you read what it said in my link ? - scroll down to the history
part.
> Anyway, standards may come from many sources (even from two guys in a
> garage), but they should not be owned by a company or an individual to
> be *true* standards (as opposed to the *real* standards of your post).
Personally I couldn't care less who "owned" a standard - as long as it
works and is widely used and supported. But in practice (and excuse me,
but your gif example is ridiculous) there's not a single standard file
format "owned" by a company in a monopoly kind of way.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Luca Morandini
> Luca Morandini wrote:
>
>>GIF:
>><<CompuServe released GIF as a free and open specification in 1987. GIF
>>soon became a world standard, and also played an important role in the
>>internet community.
>
> 100's of programs *are* at this point able to read and create gif's -
> where's the monopoly ?
Unisys could have decided to set a royalty of 1.000.000 USD for each
copy of PaintShop or PhotoShop, because they owned the patent on the LZW
compression algorithm used by GIF: this is a monopoly.
Luckily, Unisys patent on GIF expired in 2003-2004.
Don't forget that <<granting a patent confers a *monopoly* of sorts upon
an owner, because he may legally exclude competitors from using or
exploiting the invention>> [1].
>>...but Unisys could have not been fair, and choose to terminate the
>>whole GIF-processing industry by means of lawyers: beware of de-facto
>>standards !
>
> LOL - yeah, sure - they sure would have been able to sue the unknown
> freeware authors of thousands of gif-based tools and apps around the
> world. Get real.
They could have sued the freeware users, as RIAA did in the Kazaa lawsuit.
>>I beg to differ: NNTP was submitted as an RFC proposal as early as 1986,
>>well before the Internet took off.
>
> Did you read what it said in my link ? - scroll down to the history
> part.
I'm afraid, but I don't get it: the RFC is dated March '86.
>>Anyway, standards may come from many sources (even from two guys in a
>>garage), but they should not be owned by a company or an individual to
>>be *true* standards (as opposed to the *real* standards of your post).
>
> Personally I couldn't care less who "owned" a standard - as long as it
> works and is widely used and supported. But in practice (and excuse me,
> but your gif example is ridiculous) there's not a single standard file
> format "owned" by a company in a monopoly kind of way.
I beg to differ, Unisys had a monopoly on it (more eaxctly on the LZW
compression algorithm the GIF format uses).
Regards,
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
JP
"John Secker" <jo...@secker.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ytv6UJGE...@secker.demon.co.uk...
Why thank you. Now that I know you care so much, I'll be sure to live up
to your expectations.
eddys...@hotmail.com
Luca Morandini wrote:
> eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > Luca Morandini wrote:
> >
> >>GIF:
> >><<CompuServe released GIF as a free and open specification in 1987. GIF
> >>soon became a world standard, and also played an important role in the
> >>internet community.
> >
> > 100's of programs *are* at this point able to read and create gif's -
> > where's the monopoly ?
>
> Unisys could have decided to set a royalty of 1.000.000 USD for each
> copy of PaintShop or PhotoShop, because they owned the patent on the LZW
> compression algorithm used by GIF: this is a monopoly.
I asked for a factual example of a widely recognized file format that
is a company monopoly and you give me GIF ... <boggle>. Just because
they *theoretically* have it, doesn't mean anything in the real world I
have to live and work in.
> They could have sued the freeware users, as RIAA did in the Kazaa lawsuit.
Sure, they could have sued millions of people having a gif or two on
their homepage - would really have made sense both in an economical and
a practical way.
> >>I beg to differ: NNTP was submitted as an RFC proposal as early as 1986,
> >>well before the Internet took off.
> >
> > Did you read what it said in my link ? - scroll down to the history
> > part.
>
> I'm afraid, but I don't get it: the RFC is dated March '86.
The whole concept of news and newsservers was created by a couple of
guys in a basement in 1978. I guess they should have waited with their
invention/implementation until 1986 when there was a "standard"
See, I'm working in IT as well, and I've got nothing against standards.
On the contrary - I like standards as it makes my life easier. But the
only *real* standards I've ever encountered were the user-determined
ones, they decide what is the standard. Be it for webbrowsers,
graphical files or data-exchange formats. I couldn't care less what a
committee thinks about compliance or non-compliance of <insert piece of
software here> to a committee decided standard as long as 80% of the
users use that piece of software I'll make sure my software works with
the "standard" set by that piece of software even if it's the biggest
piece of junk ever written.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Luca Morandini
> Luca Morandini wrote:
>
>>Unisys could have decided to set a royalty of 1.000.000 USD for each
>>copy of PaintShop or PhotoShop, because they owned the patent on the LZW
>>compression algorithm used by GIF: this is a monopoly.
>
> I asked for a factual example of a widely recognized file format that
> is a company monopoly and you give me GIF ... <boggle>. Just because
> they *theoretically* have it, doesn't mean anything in the real world I
> have to live and work in.
I'm sorry to differ from you point of view, but Unisys *practically*
owned the patent on GIF, and *actually* started to extract royalties
from software vendors.
>>They could have sued the freeware users, as RIAA did in the Kazaa lawsuit.
>
> Sure, they could have sued millions of people having a gif or two on
> their homepage - would really have made sense both in an economical and
> a practical way.
This doesn't change the fact that GIF was (the patent expired in
2003-2004) a monopoly.
>>>>I beg to differ: NNTP was submitted as an RFC proposal as early as 1986,
>>>>well before the Internet took off.
>>>
>>>Did you read what it said in my link ? - scroll down to the history
>>>part.
>>
>>I'm afraid, but I don't get it: the RFC is dated March '86.
>
> The whole concept of news and newsservers was created by a couple of
> guys in a basement in 1978. I guess they should have waited with their
> invention/implementation until 1986 when there was a "standard"
Why should have they ? Standards have to be agreed upon by a committee,
but this doesn't prevent people from proposing them on their own.
Regards,
Giftzwerg
eddys...@hotmail.com says...
> > They could have sued the freeware users, as RIAA did in the Kazaa lawsuit.
>
> Sure, they could have sued millions of people having a gif or two on
> their homepage - would really have made sense both in an economical and
> a practical way.
Moreover, the analogy is silly. If Unisys had threatened lawsuits, it
simply would have meant everyone cheerfully abandoned the .gif format
for <insert any of a dozen formats here>; but there's no "freeware"
alternative to Metallica.
Briarroot
>>For your information, your web site
>>looked like "demons from space" when I
>>first opened it.
>
>
> It may be cleaner now. We've been tinkering The layout was
> giving us problems for a while too. Keep checking in. A lot of work
> will be going into the site over the next week or two.
Actually, the page displays just fine with Firefox 1.0.7, it's just that
the news articles appear below the graphical sidebars, rather than
between them - not really a problem.
I don't don't know why that guy was complaining about the site being
"ugly." I went there looking for information, not entertainment. When
I want to be entertained, I play wargames. ;-)
eddys...@hotmail.com
Luca Morandini wrote:
> eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> > Luca Morandini wrote:
> >
> >>Unisys could have decided to set a royalty of 1.000.000 USD for each
> >>copy of PaintShop or PhotoShop, because they owned the patent on the LZW
> >>compression algorithm used by GIF: this is a monopoly.
> >
> > I asked for a factual example of a widely recognized file format that
> > is a company monopoly and you give me GIF ... <boggle>. Just because
> > they *theoretically* have it, doesn't mean anything in the real world I
> > have to live and work in.
>
> I'm sorry to differ from you point of view, but Unisys *practically*
> owned the patent on GIF, and *actually* started to extract royalties
> from software vendors.
<sigh> - do you really want me to put the url here of a hundred
freeware programs/tools/utilities that use gif ? Despite the patent.
They "owned" the gif patent allright, but are you seriously suggesting
they had a market monopoly on the gif format ?
> >>They could have sued the freeware users, as RIAA did in the Kazaa lawsuit.
> >
> > Sure, they could have sued millions of people having a gif or two on
> > their homepage - would really have made sense both in an economical and
> > a practical way.
>
> This doesn't change the fact that GIF was (the patent expired in
> 2003-2004) a monopoly.
Oh, yes it does - at what point in time did Unisys have the monopoly on
the gif market ? Monopoly in a sense that you could only create/read
gif files with Unisys created or licenced software ?
> >>>>I beg to differ: NNTP was submitted as an RFC proposal as early as 1986,
> >>>>well before the Internet took off.
> >>>
> >>>Did you read what it said in my link ? - scroll down to the history
> >>>part.
> >>
> >>I'm afraid, but I don't get it: the RFC is dated March '86.
> >
> > The whole concept of news and newsservers was created by a couple of
> > guys in a basement in 1978. I guess they should have waited with their
> > invention/implementation until 1986 when there was a "standard"
>
> Why should have they ? Standards have to be agreed upon by a committee,
> but this doesn't prevent people from proposing them on their own.
LOL - it was *your* claim we were having this discussion "thanks to
committee standards" - I provided you with the link that it was
actually 2 guys in a basement who created/developed the concept of news
and newsservers 8 years before the first committee "standard".
And "standards have to be agreed upon by a committee" is a howler as
well. Standards come and go, but they *all* have one deciding factor :
they were all endorsed and decided upon by market forces. Just point me
to the committee that decided upon the pdf-standard and I'll shut-up
about this.
You seem to have this idea that software and software companies must
somehow make their stuff compliant to some committee decided standard.
They don't. Smart companies will however have a look at standards and
apply them where it makes sense from a business pov. And non-comply
when it doesn't. It's their decision and the market is the judge, not
some committee shrieking that this or that company made a piece of
software that is not compliant with their standard.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Luca Morandini
> Luca Morandini wrote:
>
>>I'm sorry to differ from you point of view, but Unisys *practically*
>>owned the patent on GIF, and *actually* started to extract royalties
>>from software vendors.
>
> <sigh> - do you really want me to put the url here of a hundred
> freeware programs/tools/utilities that use gif ? Despite the patent.
>
> They "owned" the gif patent allright, but are you seriously suggesting
> they had a market monopoly on the gif format ?
It's not me suggesting it, it's the law about patent rights assuring it.
>>This doesn't change the fact that GIF was (the patent expired in
>>2003-2004) a monopoly.
>
> Oh, yes it does - at what point in time did Unisys have the monopoly on
> the gif market ? Monopoly in a sense that you could only create/read
> gif files with Unisys created or licenced software ?
Not with its software, but with its algorithm (LZW compression).
Let me report an extract from the ArcIMS user's manual (a widespread
server GIS software): <<to output map images as GIFs you must have a GIF
license>> (fortunately, after 2004 this is no longer necessary, see [1]).
Actually, no GIF reading and writing software has ever been written
without using Unisys monopoly... and here's the catch: Unisys extracted
money because people were oblivious to this fact and thought GIF an open
standard.
> LOL - it was *your* claim we were having this discussion "thanks to
> committee standards" - I provided you with the link that it was
> actually 2 guys in a basement who created/developed the concept of news
> and newsservers 8 years before the first committee "standard".
Ok, let me restate that: "we are having this conversation thanks to a
couple guys who invented NNTP *and* to an IETF committee that made it a
de-iure standard".
Just imagine how the usenet could have been had without the NNTP
standard: initially a Netscape "de facto" standard, then dislodged by a
Microsoft one, and probably a third Mozilla "open standard", and then...
> And "standards have to be agreed upon by a committee" is a howler as
> well. Standards come and go, but they *all* have one deciding factor :
> they were all endorsed and decided upon by market forces.
One major factor in adopting a protocol is whether it is standardized or
not, most companys don't want to invest in another company's
intellectual property; hence, *both* market and committees should join
forces to make a standard successful.
> Just point me
> to the committee that decided upon the pdf-standard and I'll shut-up
> about this.
Obviously, no standard committee has ever dealt with PDF. This may
change in the future though, because Adobe *may* choose to make PDF a
"de iure" standard as well.
Regards,
[1]
http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.techarticles.articleShow&d=27054
eddys...@hotmail.com
> <snipped>
We're running in circles here - let's just agree to disagree on this :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Luca Morandini
> Luca Morandini wrote:
>
> We're running in circles here - let's just agree to disagree on this :)
Agreed :)
JAB
> LOL - it was *your* claim we were having this discussion "thanks to
> committee standards" - I provided you with the link that it was
> actually 2 guys in a basement who created/developed the concept of news
> and newsservers 8 years before the first committee "standard".
>
I think there's a general misconception of what 'committee standards'
actually do. For example the OMG on it's own doesn't create standards it
just helps industry come up with standards which is a similar idea to
what W3C does I believe. So you can get totally different processes of
how standards come about from your example above to the likes of the
behemoth that is UML2.
> And "standards have to be agreed upon by a committee" is a howler as
> well. Standards come and go, but they *all* have one deciding factor :
> they were all endorsed and decided upon by market forces. Just point me
> to the committee that decided upon the pdf-standard and I'll shut-up
> about this.
>
Totally agree with you here a standard only really becomes a standard
once is widely adopted. IIRC the US DoD came up with their own versions
of IP for use at the tatical level comms, and whose ever heard of that,
and what are they trying to use now, what every body else uses as it's
just too expensive to buy anything else.
> You seem to have this idea that software and software companies must
> somehow make their stuff compliant to some committee decided standard.
> They don't. Smart companies will however have a look at standards and
> apply them where it makes sense from a business pov. And non-comply
> when it doesn't. It's their decision and the market is the judge, not
> some committee shrieking that this or that company made a piece of
> software that is not compliant with their standard.
>
Yep agree again, I think standards are generally a good idea but you
can't force them on people. The market always deceides in the end maybe
with a little help from the courts or a monolopy on the technology :-)
> Greetz,
>
> Eddy Sterckx
>
Giftzwerg
eddys...@hotmail.com says...
> You seem to have this idea that software and software companies must
> somehow make their stuff compliant to some committee decided standard.
> They don't. Smart companies will however have a look at standards and
> apply them where it makes sense from a business pov. And non-comply
> when it doesn't. It's their decision and the market is the judge, not
> some committee shrieking that this or that company made a piece of
> software that is not compliant with their standard.
This puts me in mind of an exchange between Lord Toranaga and the pilot
Blackthorne in James Clavell's SHOGUN. Toranaga snarls, in response to
Blackthorne's comment about some attempted coup in England, that there
are *no* mitigating circumstances surrounding rebellion against one's
liege lord. Blackthorne responds that, yes, there is *one* mitigating
circumstance:
"If you win."
--
Giftzwerg
***
"Unlike allegations that the American military flushed copies of the
Koran down the toilet, the desecration of synagogues in the Gaza Strip
actually happened. [...] Interestingly, Newsweek - and much of the
international media that helped fan the flames of Islamic fanaticism
with the faulty stories of Koran desecration - took a powder on
synagogue desecration."
- Jonathan Gurwitz
Frank E
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Luca Morandini wrote:
>> eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>> > Luca Morandini wrote:
>> >
>> >>Unisys could have decided to set a royalty of 1.000.000 USD for each
>> >>copy of PaintShop or PhotoShop, because they owned the patent on the LZW
>> >>compression algorithm used by GIF: this is a monopoly.
>> >
>> > I asked for a factual example of a widely recognized file format that
>> > is a company monopoly and you give me GIF ... <boggle>. Just because
>> > they *theoretically* have it, doesn't mean anything in the real world I
>> > have to live and work in.
>>
>> I'm sorry to differ from you point of view, but Unisys *practically*
>> owned the patent on GIF, and *actually* started to extract royalties
>> from software vendors.
>
><sigh> - do you really want me to put the url here of a hundred
>freeware programs/tools/utilities that use gif ? Despite the patent.
>
>They "owned" the gif patent allright, but are you seriously suggesting
>they had a market monopoly on the gif format ?
Yup. The problem wasn't that you couldn't find freeware algorithms out
there for GIF, but that you couldn't use those in any kind of business
software because of threats of a lawsuit. Same way that I couldn't
just steal a copy of Win XP and install that on an Industrial PC that
we plan to sell through work. Sure it's theoretically possible, the
software would be easy to find, but it's just not something that can
be done in a business enviornment, so for all intents and purposes,
they have a monopoly.
>You seem to have this idea that software and software companies must
>somehow make their stuff compliant to some committee decided standard.
>They don't.
Nope, but if I have the choice, the ones that do comply to some type
of open standard will get my business. Been burned too many times by
proprietary systems.
Rgds, Frank
GJK
Giftzwerg wrote:
> Uh, if a website "looks good" in the most widely used, industry standard
> web browser, why would you not assume that the problem lies with
> Firefox?
It's also a mess in Win Opera.
If the site was little Tommy Tuttles 5th grade school trip pictures,
then it wouldn't be a problem, but being a business website, something
as easy to fix as this should be done so that it renders properly in
FF, Opera and browsers other than just IE. IE btw, which doesn't
comply with industry standards but has it's own proprietary way of
interpreting some CSS2 elements.
Giftzwerg
ju...@garykrockover.com says...
> > Uh, if a website "looks good" in the most widely used, industry standard
> > web browser, why would you not assume that the problem lies with
> > Firefox?
>
> It's also a mess in Win Opera.
Oh, *dear*! Now another .05% of the community will think ill of the
designer!
> If the site was little Tommy Tuttles 5th grade school trip pictures,
> then it wouldn't be a problem,
And yet, you're upset that you can't view it with Opera - aka "little
Tommy Tuttle's web browser."
Briarroot
> eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>> Luca Morandini wrote:
>>
>> We're running in circles here - let's just agree to disagree on this :)
>
>
> Agreed :)
Wimps! You guys haven't even started insulting each other's ancestors
yet. ;-)
Norm Koger
Does anyone know if it the same in Opera as in Firefox? If so,
we may look into it sooner rather than later. If they're screwing up
in different, creatively perverse ways, we'll probably wait - or post
some really simple text-only pages for the off-the-wall browser crowd.
A bit of a reality check here: We're still putting final
touches on Distant Guns - better and more varied sounds, etc. A couple
days spent chasing browser salvos translates directly into a couple
days delay in release of the game.
Norm
eddys...@hotmail.com
LOL - insulting, nah, I've gone nuclear : Burned all my paintings of
Francesco Morandini and as of now actively boycotting all Bertoli
products (produced in Lucca, not exactly Luca, but close enough for my
wrath)
Good enough ? :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Giftzwerg
nko...@austin.rr.com says...
Well, I, for one, insist that you stop all development on the actual
product and devote yourselves 100% to solving the dread Invalid HTML
Code issue to the satisfaction of these folks who insist on using their
pet web-browsers.
Standards must be rigorously upheld, else The Imminent Death Of The Net
shall certainly result!
Luca Morandini
>>It's also a mess in Win Opera.
>
> Does anyone know if it the same in Opera as in Firefox? If so,
> we may look into it sooner rather than later. If they're screwing up
> in different, creatively perverse ways, we'll probably wait - or post
> some really simple text-only pages for the off-the-wall browser crowd.
It looks the same: the "content" div appears under the "headlines" and
"navBar" ones.
I suppose DIVs behaviour is specified in 3col_leftNav.css, hence you
should take a look there.
Anyway, for some nice CSS formatting, you may go to:
http://www.csszengarden.com/
Or, for a three column format similar to yours, to:
http://realworldstyle.com/nn4_3col_header.html
Regards,
Giftzwerg
> >>It's also a mess in Win Opera.
> >
> > Does anyone know if it the same in Opera as in Firefox? If so,
> > we may look into it sooner rather than later. If they're screwing up
> > in different, creatively perverse ways, we'll probably wait - or post
> > some really simple text-only pages for the off-the-wall browser crowd.
>
> It looks the same: the "content" div appears under the "headlines" and
> "navBar" ones.
>
> I suppose DIVs behaviour is specified in 3col_leftNav.css, hence you
> should take a look there.
>
> Anyway, for some nice CSS formatting, you may go to:
> http://www.csszengarden.com/
>
> Or, for a three column format similar to yours, to:
> http://realworldstyle.com/nn4_3col_header.html
Great! We shouldn't have to wait more than three or four weeks extra
for the release of RJW while Norm et al fixes his website with nice,
proper cascading style sheets.
Charming. Wonderful. Brilliant.
Glad to see that all you webmeisters have your priorities firmly
entrenched.
John Secker
<ju...@garykrockover.com> writes
of the target audience . Your problem is the word "should" in your
sentence. If it is a business website then they "should" do whatever is
most cost effective, and if that means aiming for IE only then that is
what they "should" do, whether or not it complies with industry
standards.
--
John Secker
John Secker
"eddys...@hotmail.com" <eddys...@hotmail.com> writes
you want it.
--
John Secker
John Secker
<nko...@austin.rr.com> writes
of the game rather than the look of the website.
--
John Secker
Norm Koger
>"navBar" ones.
Thanks. Jim is messing around with the css right now.
I did some research after checking here this morning, and
found that Firefox runs a bit under 10% of the browser market right
now. Worth a bit of time. All the other contenders are so far behind
that we probably won't bother with them.
> I think most of us would rather you spent your time on the content
>of the game rather than the look of the website.
Well, yes. The site is a bit of a priority right now though.
Briarroot
>
> A bit of a reality check here: We're still putting final
> touches on Distant Guns - better and more varied sounds, etc. A couple
> days spent chasing browser salvos translates directly into a couple
> days delay in release of the game.
>
I wouldn't pay any attention to browser problems on your website as long
as the vital information can be read at all. We all have to keep IE
around anyway in order to connect with the Windows Update server.
Microsoft don't cotton to furriners!
Briarroot
Heh: The War to End All Wars! ;-)
Epi Watkins
woo...@iwon.com says...
I got the impression that they were talking about two
different things. One was talking about how it should
be; the other was talking about how it is.
--
Epi
----
With the bird-flu, imagine how nervous the birds must
be.
----
http://www.curlesneck.com
Michel de Becdelièvre
"Norm Koger" <nko...@austin.rr.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
ui6ql1l3vcihau1fi...@4ax.com...
> >It looks the same: the "content" div appears under the "headlines" and
>>"navBar" ones.
>
> Thanks. Jim is messing around with the css right now.
>
> I did some research after checking here this morning, and
> found that Firefox runs a bit under 10% of the browser market right
> now. Worth a bit of time. All the other contenders are so far behind
> that we probably won't bother with them.
My attitude too for my commercial applications.
Try the "Web Developer" extension of Firefox, it saves me a *lot* of time,
even for IE work. Generally speaking the CSS developer tools of Firefox are
without match and really useful. Making it work for Firefox is also some
kind of insurance against IE7, which is supposed to be much more standard
compliant.
>
>> I think most of us would rather you spent your time on the content
>>of the game rather than the look of the website.
>
> Well, yes. The site is a bit of a priority right now though.
Need to sell some games ?
Sorry for all the fuss, I had no intention to start a flame war, just to
signal a minor defect. The first time I opened the site I thought it was
unfinished since the main text was scrolled way out of my window.
I guess Giftzwerg was bored.
Giftzwerg
says...
> I guess Giftzwerg was bored.
Giftzwerg hasn't got any decent new games to play right now. He's not
only bored, he's getting cranky.
Briarroot
> In article <11lqp7o...@corp.supernews.com>,
> woo...@iwon.com says...
>
>>eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>>>Briarroot wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Wimps! You guys haven't even started insulting each other's ancestors
>>>>yet. ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>>LOL - insulting, nah, I've gone nuclear : Burned all my paintings of
>>>Francesco Morandini and as of now actively boycotting all Bertoli
>>>products (produced in Lucca, not exactly Luca, but close enough for my
>>>wrath)
>>>
>>>Good enough ? :)=
>>
>>Heh: The War to End All Wars! ;-)
>
>
> I got the impression that they were talking about two
> different things. One was talking about how it should
> be; the other was talking about how it is.
In your typical fashion, you have entirely missed the point of my
humorous aside. Eddy didn't!
GJK
Norm, do the right thing, you're a professional and should have a
professional looking site to display your product(s). My suggestion:
CSS is the "new wave" but as you can see, not all broswers display it
the same yet. There's nothing wrong with tables, they work the same in
all browsers and they're easy to use. Put a simple 3 column table in
there instead of the div's and be done with it.
GJK
site the way it is now, is that ok? How about if it's 10? How about
50? What number is acceptable to you?
eddys...@hotmail.com
False assumption - everyone can *see* everything relevant, it's just a
layout problem. People using non-IE browsers are used to that (and
often have the IE browser installed as a backup).
Some sites look ugly because they were optimized for a 800x600 display
- it doesn't stop me from visiting them as it's the content that
counts.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
GJK
years now? Me, since 1999.
I've said my piece on this; Norm, use a table and have the site display
properly. I won't even mention that it's not displaying properly on
the Mac either (FF, Opera - haven't checked in Safari yet) with Eddy
here snipping quotes of how Mac users make up less than 10% of the
market and he wants his game right now.
eddys...@hotmail.com
GJK wrote:
> And you've been designing professional e-commerce websites for how many
> years now? Me, since 1999.
If you can earn your living convincing managers they need to invest 50%
more (time & money) in their site so that 10% more people have a better
*layout* experience watching it, more power to you.
But now it looks like you've started to believe your own commercial bs.
> with Eddy
> here snipping quotes of how Mac users make up less than 10% of the
> market and he wants his game right now.
??? Distant Guns runs on the Mac too ???
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
[web consumer who learned a long time ago the way a company website
looks has no bearing on the quality of their product]
Giftzwerg
ju...@garykrockover.com says...
> If Norm loses 5 customers because they can't view his products on his
> site the way it is now, is that ok? How about if it's 10? How about
> 50? What number is acceptable to you?
Who da fuck is this zipperhead talking to?
Giftzwerg
ju...@garykrockover.com says...
> And you've been designing professional e-commerce websites for how many
> years now? Me, since 1999.
Couldn't get a regular job, eh?
Norm Koger
>as the vital information can be read at all.
Well, we're not losing sleep over it right now - but you have
to keep in mind that for a lot of folks, the first general impression
of Storm Eagle will come from the site. It _is_ worth tinkering with.
This morning the focus is on toning down the fontfest - down
to two styles, one for headings and another for body text, bolds for
company names only, italics for product names only, no color or pitch
changes outside the two styles... If you've ever maintained a site of
your own for more than a few weeks, you know the drill.
Some of the reported Firefox formatting problems may have been
solved yesterday. Anyone care to take a look and report back?
Norm Koger
Storm Eagle Studios
GJK
Perhaps I surf the web on my Mac because I don't want all the spyware
crap that WinIE puts on the PC but I play games using the PC?
GJK
solved yesterday. Anyone care to take a look and report back?
Sorry Norm, the problem still persists in both FF and Opera. Do
yourself a favor and ignore the idiots saying that it doesn't matter,
perception does matter.
Giftzwerg
ju...@garykrockover.com says...
> > ??? Distant Guns runs on the Mac too ???
>
> Perhaps I surf the web on my Mac because I don't want all the spyware
> crap that WinIE puts on the PC but I play games using the PC?
You're a "professional e-commerce designer" and you can't even manage
your own system well enough to keep it secured?
Epi Watkins
woo...@iwon.com says...
I wasn't even thinking about you. I replied to your
post, but it should have been simple to see what I
meant. It should have been for most people at least.
Paul Roberts
Since you're discussing the impression the site makes...
One version of the vertical banner ad on the Storm Eagle site says,
"There's distant guns/guns on the horizon." ("Guns" repeats on the
second line.)
In addition, shouldn't you say "There ARE distant guns on the horizon?"
Pardon my pickiness, but I notice these things. I can't wait for the
game!
Epi Watkins
<MPG.1dc83ac66...@news.east.earthlink.net>,
epica...@hotmail.com says...
Let me respond again. I was a little harsh in my first
response, because your post surprised me. It surprised
me because my other post wasn't attacking you in any
way. Why don't you read it again and see if you can
understand how I meant it. It was just a comment on the
eddy-lucca exchange.
Giftzwerg
nko...@austin.rr.com says...
> >I wouldn't pay any attention to browser problems on your website as long
> >as the vital information can be read at all.
>
> Well, we're not losing sleep over it right now - but you have
> to keep in mind that for a lot of folks, the first general impression
> of Storm Eagle will come from the site. It _is_ worth tinkering with.
But in the context of this group...
I have to make the comment here that this thread, as it's developed, is
borderline surreal ... a true USENET classic. Here we have the highly-
respected designer of a game that's been - well, to say "eagerly
awaited" would be a canonical example of damning with faint praise - and
we're grilling him about ...
... his *web site*?!?!?!?
Jebus. Maria. Iosif.
Speaking for myself, I'd rather relegate the burning issue of whether
the site resolves properly on some fringe-element web browser to the
appropriate 12-year-olds at Slashdot who care about such things.
Speaking for myself, I'd rather be focused on the upcoming release of
the software. Speaking for myself, I'd rather see a dozen threads on
ancillary issues like:
(a) What's the interface like? How are orders entered and transmitted?
(b) What fog-of-war elements are present? Operationally? Tactically?
How are these represented in game terms? What control does a human
fleet commander have over individual ships? Total? Mitigated by
circumstance? Variable via options?
(c) What is the scope of the first release? Tsushima only? Port
Arthur prequel included? What's the mix of tactical and operational
elements? Can operational issues affect the scenarios? Or is it a
straight tactical fleet-to-fleet-by-precanned-scenario design at this
point?
(d) What tactical flexibility will be allowed in individual scenarios?
Will the Russians be limited to their historical divisional deployments?
Will there be "what-if" features that allow the player to pursue more
promising tactics as the Russian commander?
(e) How are morale, tactical-doctrinal differences, and communication
disparities represented?
(f) And then there's the Big What-If. What if the Russians had proved
competent? At all levels of military endeavor? What if the whole
disastrous voyage of the 2nd Pacific Squadron had been handled
brilliantly and successfully?
Again being "selfish" here, I'd like to see 100% less blather about the
website dealing with DISTANT GUNS, and 100% more discussions about
DISTANT GUNS itself.
Of course, I'm also the sort of Captain Ahab who's reading his dog-eared
copy of Pleshakov again, in happy preparation to playing the new game,
but something tells me I might no be *completely* alone in these
sentiments.
--
Giftzwerg
***
"If the American left and its media sympathizers want someone to blame
for our combat losses, they should begin with themselves. Their
irresponsible demands for troop withdrawals provide powerful
encouragement to Muslim fanatics to keep on killing as many American
service members as possible. On the worst days the terrorists suffer in
Iraq, our 'anti-war' fellow citizens keep the cause of Islamist fascism
alive. Their support is worth far more to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi than any
amount of Saudi money."
- Ralph Peters
Norm Koger
I finally installed Firefox. The site appears to display on my
system now that I've modified the css. Unfortunately, there is a
catch. For Firefox to display the site properly, the window needs to
be in the 1024+ range. I could modify the CSS to get it to display
properly in smaller windows, but that has a negative impact on the
appearance under Explorer (90% of the market - a non-starter).
From my search of the web, it became apparent that some
Firefox supporters tend to get a bit defensive when anyone suggests
that Firefox doesn't fully implement CSS. The partly line is that
Firefox supports _standard_ CSS, yada, yada, and that Explorer
doesn't. Perhaps that's true. It's also irrelevant. If the product
used by 90% of the market is "non-standard", it doesn't pay to adhere
to the standard when that means negatively impacting the 9 of 10
users.
Personally, I've avoided CSS until now. It appears that was a
wise choice. At some point in the future, unless other browsers choose
to fully implement Microsoft's "non standard" CSS, we will probably
strip all of the CSS out of the Storm Eagle site. It's more pain than
it's worth.
This is why I tend to get pissed off when folks go ranting
about the evil of the Microsoft/Intel architecture monopoly on
operating systems. I remember this kind of crap all too well from the
days when I had to do different versions of games for PC, Amiga, and
Atari ST. Monopolies may be bad, but real standards are good.
Now, back to the game.
Oleg Mastruko
wrote:
>>It looks the same: the "content" div appears under the "headlines" and
>>"navBar" ones.
>
> Thanks. Jim is messing around with the css right now.
>
> I did some research after checking here this morning, and
>found that Firefox runs a bit under 10% of the browser market right
>now. Worth a bit of time. All the other contenders are so far behind
>that we probably won't bother with them.
I love Firefox, I use it, and my first contact with your site
was thru Firefox - thus, buggy.
On the other hand I also agree with whoever said that W3C
"standards" do not matter, the only real standards are the ones
"enforced" by companies (sad or not, but that's the truth).
Still, considering many people use Firefox, it can't be ignored
*for that reason alone* - no matter whether it uses W3C standards
better than IE or not.
Why I use it? I am notorious as MS lover, but Firefox loads
faster, has nicer UI, and has Google search entry field built in
toolbar. It had popup blocker before IE got it, and it's popup blocker
is better. And it's free. Enough for me.
I noticed you use DW for web development - I have some
experience with it and it's excellent tool, should have no problems
making sites compatible in both IE and FF.
Oleg
eddys...@hotmail.com
Oleg Mastruko wrote:
> On the other hand I also agree with whoever said that W3C
> "standards" do not matter, the only real standards are the ones
> "enforced" by companies (sad or not, but that's the truth).
Oleg agreeing with me - that clinches it - I must have been dead wrong
:)
[and don't start betting your cojones on it here as well after losing
them in the TOAW forum :) ]
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Oleg Mastruko
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>[and don't start betting your cojones on it here as well after losing
>them in the TOAW forum :) ]
LOL those guys can't take a joke (except Keke).
O.
Oleg Mastruko
wrote:
> Personally, I've avoided CSS until now. It appears that was a
>wise choice. At some point in the future, unless other browsers choose
>to fully implement Microsoft's "non standard" CSS, we will probably
>strip all of the CSS out of the Storm Eagle site. It's more pain than
>it's worth.
Don't waste your time. Please find someone to take care of your
site while you concentrate on *making games* :o)
We want Distant Guns and we want it now!
But I must say this... CSS is your friend, regardless of what
browser you use. Enough of CSS standard is implemented by both IE and
FF so it would be pity to discard CSS totally just because main
contenders quarrel about say 2% of the standard (you never use those
2% anyway).
CSS is probably the best, and most useful technology to emerge
from W3C's standards, ever. (Maybe the *only* useful technology beside
basic HTML.)
If you need someone to take care of your site contact me. I am
serious. Hm, almost :o) I have some experience with Dreamweaver, CSS
and site maintenance. Your site is very basic anyway (which is good).
If you really think I could help, I could send you a list of sites I
worked on.
Oleg
eddys...@hotmail.com
> If you need someone to take care of your site contact me. I am
> serious. Hm, almost :o) I have some experience with Dreamweaver, CSS
> and site maintenance. Your site is very basic anyway (which is good).
> If you really think I could help, I could send you a list of sites I
> worked on.
Mr. Koger, I'll second that - a look at Mr. Mastruko's resume and
website will tell you this guy is pretty serious about it.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
eddys...@hotmail.com
... and a good one at that - I wonder why anyone was offended - nobody
in here would have batted an eyelid over it :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Luca Morandini
>
> Personally, I've avoided CSS until now. It appears that was a
> wise choice. At some point in the future, unless other browsers choose
> to fully implement Microsoft's "non standard" CSS, we will probably
> strip all of the CSS out of the Storm Eagle site. It's more pain than
> it's worth.
I understand your point, but take into consideration how CSS may pay for
itself in the long run.
As those designs in the CSS Zen garden show, you can have totally
different look&feel with the same HTML code, bottom line: you can revamp
your site just by changing the CSS, and keep visitors entartained with
fresh glitter every now and then.
I'm fully aware that, glitter or not, the "grognards" will buy your game
just the same, but, still...
Regards,
--------------------
Luca Morandini
www.lucamorandini.it
--------------------
Vincenzo Beretta
> in here would have batted an eyelid over it :)
I missed this one! I'll exchange the link for one to the funniest "Harpoon"
banner ever :o)
eddys...@hotmail.com
Briarroot
>
> Some of the reported Firefox formatting problems may have been
> solved yesterday. Anyone care to take a look and report back?
>
It's now displaying properly with Firefox. ;-)
Briarroot
> In article <11ls6m6...@corp.supernews.com>,
> woo...@iwon.com says...
>
>>Epi Watkins wrote:
>>
>>>In article <11lqp7o...@corp.supernews.com>,
>>>woo...@iwon.com says...
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I got the impression that they were talking about two
>>>different things. One was talking about how it should
>>>be; the other was talking about how it is.
>>
>>In your typical fashion, you have entirely missed the point of my
>>humorous aside. Eddy didn't!
>
>
> I wasn't even thinking about you. I replied to your
> post, but it should have been simple to see what I
> meant. It should have been for most people at least.
So, you weren't replying to *me* you were just replying to my post.
Yeah, I get it. You're an idiot!
[ Note to Eddy and Luca: See! This is how a proper flame war goes. ;-) ]
Briarroot
> In article
> <MPG.1dc83ac66...@news.east.earthlink.net>,
> epica...@hotmail.com says...
>
>>In article <11ls6m6...@corp.supernews.com>,
>>woo...@iwon.com says...
>>
>>>Epi Watkins wrote:
>>>
>>>>In article <11lqp7o...@corp.supernews.com>,
>>>>woo...@iwon.com says...
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I got the impression that they were talking about two
>>>>different things. One was talking about how it should
>>>>be; the other was talking about how it is.
>>>
>>>In your typical fashion, you have entirely missed the point of my
>>>humorous aside. Eddy didn't!
>>
>>I wasn't even thinking about you. I replied to your
>>post, but it should have been simple to see what I
>>meant. It should have been for most people at least.
>
>
> Let me respond again. I was a little harsh in my first
> response, because your post surprised me. It surprised
> me because my other post wasn't attacking you in any
> way. Why don't you read it again and see if you can
> understand how I meant it. It was just a comment on the
> eddy-lucca exchange.
I understood it perfectly, you moronic half-wit!
Epi Watkins
Why don't you sit in your favorite chair, smoke your
favorite pipe, read a historical book, turn on public
radio, and feel real smart. After all, that's the only
way you'll ever manage.
You couldn't understand my post, then you accuse me of
that with yours. Your something. Not exactly a Rhodes
Scholar are you?
Briarroot
>
> Why I use it? I am notorious as MS lover, but Firefox loads
> faster, has nicer UI, and has Google search entry field built in
> toolbar. It had popup blocker before IE got it, and it's popup blocker
> is better. And it's free. Enough for me.
Ditto. I purposely keep Firefox stripped down without any plug-ins and
without all the bells and whistles that come built into IE. It's loads
pages *much* faster, displays far fewer ads, has tabbed browser windows,
doesn't display pop-ups, and there's isn't any danger of ActiveX
malware. What's not to like? I use IE whenever necessary, but much
prefer FF.
Vincenzo Beretta
> http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/m.asp?m=971431&mpage=1&key=
ehehehehe!
And here is the banner http://reckall.altervista.org/harplonk.jpg
It spawned a COLOSSAL flamewar - I'm rather proud of it :)
p.ox...@comcast.net
Giftzwerg
nko...@austin.rr.com says...
> From my search of the web, it became apparent that some
> Firefox supporters tend to get a bit defensive when anyone suggests
> that Firefox doesn't fully implement CSS.
My experience has been that Firefox fanboys weep like little girls when
someone suggests that they just STFU and just use Explorer (like
everyone else does...).
--
Giftzwerg
***
"But we've had fifty years of peace."
- Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor,
describing the state of affairs in the Middle East
prior to George W. Bush's attempt to democratize Iraq
"If you call the last fifty years in the Mideast 'peace,' what the fuck
do you call 'war,' shithead?"
- Giftzwerg
Briarroot
> In article <11ltcpo...@corp.supernews.com>,
> woo...@iwon.com says...
>>
>>I understood it perfectly, you moronic half-wit!
>
>
> Why don't you sit in your favorite chair, smoke your
> favorite pipe, read a historical book, turn on public
> radio, and feel real smart. After all, that's the only
> way you'll ever manage.
>
> You couldn't understand my post, then you accuse me of
> that with yours. Your something. Not exactly a Rhodes
> Scholar are you?
<laughter!>
Your imbecilic attempt to appear intellectually gifted fails miserably
for the simple reason that you clearly *missed* the point of my humorous
addition to Eddy's and Luca's aborted argument. Hint: it had nothing to
do with the subject they were arguing about, why they were arguing in
the first place, or the logic either employed. All you've accomplished
instead, is to demonstrate your own stupidity - once again!
And another thing: if you wish to claim the intellectual high ground in
the future, you might want to examine your grammar before you post.
Awkward phrases like "feel real smart" and the misuse of the word 'your'
in "Your something" (should be "you're") in a post criticizing another's
intelligence, indicate that you lack the basic requirements to even
*suggest* that your opponents can't keep up with you. Not exactly a
Rhodes Scholar, are you? <snicker!>