boy, if that isn’t a loaded question!
i wish Sim-on-a-Stick worked for the Mac but it doesn’t – well not directly. powers users like Dot Macchi and DreamWalker run it on Macs without any issue but they are technical whizzes (imo)
many educators use Macs, so native use SoaS would be nice. maybe i’ll get it working, i just got a schmancy iMac at work today (lol, what’s up with that magic mouse?!? you can  pinch zoom on it, scroll, and swipe and it doesn’t even have separate buttons or a scroll wheel!) =p
and then there are all the iPads in use – a browser-based viewer would be awesome for that (since browser access has been a hot OpenSim topic lately)
but here’s what lead to the title, a bunch of recent statistics (all from 2013). like most statistics, you can twist them around. the following are about playing games and my simpleton theory is that the more that people play games, the less creative they are. in other words, if you are playing games, you are not creating new things (yah, i never denied being a snob) =)
- iOS users play gaming apps an average of 743 minutes/month, compared to 484 for Android
- iOS users play gaming apps an average of 151 times/month, compared to 95 for Android
- 86% of iOS users play gaming apps, compared to 76% for Android
- the average iOS owner uses 29 apps, compared to 18 for Android
- 44% of iOS users have purchased apps, compared to 23% for Android
- iOS account for 51% of US app spending, compared to 36% for Android
- iPhones account for 48.1% of US smartphone sales, compared to 46.7% for Android
- Android account for 69.7% of worldwide smartphones, compared to 20.9% for iOS
i am biased since i have a Google Nexus 7 =p
and on to some other numbers that are just fun from Mark Morford’s latest column
- 6% of Americans believe in unicorns
- 36% believe in UFOs
- 24% believe dinosaurs and man hung out together
- 18% still believe the sun revolves around the Earth
- nearly 30% believe cloud computing involves… actual clouds
- 45%t of Americans believe in angels
have a great thursday and don’t let this ruffle your apples! =)
Don’t forget that in days gone by (I’m talking of the early 1990s here) Macs were more often found in publishers’ design departments, and were used for writing, for illustration, for page layout — and for music and video.
Their ease of use released and inspired a great deal of creativity and experimentation among those using them.
Over the years things changed, and Windows caught up.
Dot Macchi
14 Mar 13 at 3:10 pm
Ya, the good old times, Dot. Windows was for dummies, Mac was for the cool, creative crowd. How warm and fuzzy I felt when I got my first iMac, like a real rebel. Same as today, Mac hardware was far inferior but thanks to clever softwares much faster than Windows nevertheless. Remember the Motorola processors? LOL. Nobody would ever put a thing like that in their computer anymore.
Nowadays they (Apple) invent only consumer machines, while the creatives (the people that actually make the stuff for Mac users to consume) are mostly to find on Win and Linux systems. And the usability? Well, a good Linux desktop today looks like MacOS only more elegant, better and faster.
That said I still have no idea how anyone would feel the need to log into a virtual world with a tablet or smartphone or would want to log in with their browsers.
Orca
14 Mar 13 at 4:25 pm
phew, thankfully you guys saw the “light: nature of this post! =)
Apple was the first to be able to change the colour of a pixel on the screen. i believe the first user-colured pixel was red! wow, we have come a very, very long way since then!
i am firmly a PC person but that’s because it’s the only thing i have used since like 1990 or something
Apple has done a tremendous job in pioneering the creative side of computer work and a great job in coming back from a bad place years ago (that weird time when the board of directors had fired Steve Jobs!)
i must say, this iMac at work is beautiful! i mean it’s so refined and scifi looking compared to any PC. the mouse is nuts, the keyboard tiny, and the monitor/computer just fabulous!
Ener Hax
15 Mar 13 at 7:30 am
New World Studio works fine on a mac. You have to install mono first. An easy script on the stick to start mono and opensim on the mac :-)
http://newworldstudio.net/
Gianpiero Laval
16 Mar 13 at 3:16 am
haha, I have android (samsung S3) and a PC. I used MAC at work when i worked in advertising but not private. And I DONT play games :)) I know u think i am but im not. Never has and never will. My main interest is to create landscapes in virtual worlds and my dream now is to learn to build islands in Blender (major omg..)to use in Cloud Party for instance. Atm i hate Blender D: So we will see about that ;)
** Squishiehuggies **
Mera
Mera
18 Mar 13 at 2:53 am
Mera! you know you are my garbage PC guru! i am still impressed with your skillz!
i do think you play games but i also know that you are super ninja on the techie stuff! that’s a pretty balanced perspective in my opinion! =)
Blender eh? get mad at vandertoon for that one! it is hard to learn but once you do, you’ll like it. for a few years i used it every week, but i have not looked at it in years – i forgot all the keystrokes for sure! (let’s see, G for grab or something . . . )
all i know was that i spent a lot of time tweaking IPO curves for flying a camera throufh a scene =D
good luck!!! =)
Ener Hax
18 Mar 13 at 7:36 am
well a server doesnt need all the fancy stuff that apple likes. but a server-in-a-box is now possible with the i3 from intel (4x4x1 box) or the new parallel processor for $99 with it credit card size.
i3 has 65w and the new pp has 5w! i think the apple was able to get their imac down to 65w and single core.
i think i would go with the i3 (2 core and 4 threads) and have opensim with 16 regions in my server-in-a-box.
bristle
18 Mar 13 at 4:43 pm
for the parallel processor see
http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/132614
http://www.parallella.org/
for NUC
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/motherboards/desktop-motherboards/next-unit-computing-introduction.html
for apple
*NOTHING*
bristle
18 Mar 13 at 4:48 pm
holy kaw bristle! i think it would be more than ample to run 16 regions in a dedicated box!
are you thinking that you could build a mini OpenSim server?
is the D33217GKE about $300?
you’d have to add like 8 gig of RAM (maybe 4 is plenty?)
while it is small, i think it is still too expensive for a commercial project – you’d have to sell it for at least $600-700
for the same $300, look at these specs – would that work as a server?
if so, i bet you could sell those to teachers for like $650 for classroom use
oh snp, it needs a case! ugh . . .
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KKsp
Ener Hax
19 Mar 13 at 9:27 am
remember intel has an interest in opensimulator too. for k12 they may be willing to reduce their prices and of course they could be given for $0 markup by a charity company.
i think right now, intel is interested in i3 being a commodity chip and a k12 project is perfect. microsoft still is interested in knocking off apple, so they may be willing to have their software on the k12 computers. or use linux.
bristle
20 Mar 13 at 2:46 pm
Intel runs the ScienceSim Ii think. and they have that engineer Robert who is developing the Bullet physics – i’m not entirely sure how they fit in
you are right though in that they have a vested interest in OpenSim =)
Ener Hax
23 Apr 13 at 9:29 am