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Maybe he doesn't think the show will generate enough intrest. Perhaps a bunch of emails concering etoys would convince him to check out the story and air it?
Here is a link to the Awful Truth http://www.theawfultruth.com website.
Here is the email address awfultv@aol.com for the show.
And remember be nice we're trying to enlist this guy as a friend.

AltaVista, Yahoo, MSN, Netscape, Excite, and of course AOL all have links to this. All of these guys have money, and it's very probable that at least one of them won't obey this court order through sheer carelessness. Let's get ready to Sue!

The article is entitled 'Gold Diggers' which I've always thought of as a rather pejorative phrase suggesting that they're only after the money without actually having earned it

Maybe it's me, but whenever I hear the phrase "Gold Diggers" I think of these guys...

Jay (=

Is it just me, or does the logo for BLP look a lot like the AOL logo ???

http://member.aol.com/Spidergod5/index. html
some more detailed pictures there, looks a little more up-to-date...

Eric is really a nice guy. He is a regular in rec.arts.bodyart, and he even has a homepage with pictures and tons more info at:


http://members.aol.com/spidergod5/

I don't think the idea of deleting an offensive comment, even if generated by a computer application, violates our freedom of speech. However, it violates our freedom to choose what we think is appropriate in our own minds to view. We don't need Slashdot to choose what's unsuitable for our eyes. It's censorship, man- there's NO way we should allow that!

On a sidenote, I must state that Mr. Llewelyn WILL be sorely missed, and any inane comments bashing his tragic death should be disregarded anyway... LOUSY PUNKS!

Afro Ryan

If he WERE still alive, and could make a brief appearance in the next Bond film, well... is that really a cameo? I mean he WAS in practically each film, including "The World is Not Enough". That's pretty much just reprising your role YET AGAIN. I could understand if he maybe would have left for a couple of films, then had a bit-part...

Not to downplay his tragic death or anything. He really did have an excellent presence; his absence shall be felt.

Afro Ryan

Military hardware with night vision, when they don't work so well, and admission that they do cause mishaps in some instances.

Now we'll know what sheets floating across the road are.

Get them while they last, goggles for Y2K. So when you drive around in your caddy on Jan 1, you'll know where to swerve in order to hit those nuts running around in the dark.

Finally, some (real?) statistics about how night vision in cars increases safety.

More on the original topic, I recall a recent post here that said people don't like using tools that serve someone else's purposes. Crippling hardware and software is working against the design of the machine, impeding the progress of bits from point A to point B. Recall David Aucsmith of Intel:

The actual user of the PC -- someone who can do anything they want -- is the enemy.

Ah, finally we hear the voice of the Cult of $cientology, as filtered through one of their loyal members. At least it's better than all the 'Natalie Portman' sporgery that's been going on.

Well, duh! The Catholic Church and the German State are, of course, quite innocent of such motives; the Inquisition and the NAZI (most regrettable) excesses didn't really happen.

Well, duh! yourself. Please remember that those happened years (at least 50) ago and aren't really relevant to the issue at hand. Then again, if your policy is "allways attack / never defend", I guess it's more important to you to hit back than to make your arguement relevant. If relevance is an issue, the Cult of $cientology has been busy much more recently with such things as Operation China Shop, Operation Orange Juice, Operation Funny Bone, Operation Freakout, Operation Snow White, the murder of Lisa McPherson (as well as many others), and far too many other acts of pure evil to mention here (but that you can find here). And while were on the subject of $cientology and the Nazi-ism (you brought it up), don't forget to look here.

At least the Scientologists put out a good product

Matter of opinion. I've used both Diskeeper and Norton Utilities. It's my opinion that Norton Utilities is a much better product. I think it's pretty clear where your opinion comes from.

waged their war for the planet by reason and by legal means

Haha. Yeah, right. 'Reason'? From the people who brought you Xenu (Galactic Overlord of Distinction). And 'legal'? It sure doesn't look that way from where I'm sitting. Once again, what about Operation Snow White etc.?

for the real betterment of humanity

I think these people would disagree. Too bad they can't in person because they're dead.

Every organization screws up from time to time.

Thank god the Cult of $cientology screws up from time to time. Think of the evil they could accomplish if they weren't so incompetent.

But Scientology's screw-ups have been strategic rather than morally flawed.

Um. No. Maybe by the Cult of $Scientology's own special definition of ethics, but not in the real world. Once again, look at Operation Snow White etc.

Whatever you may think of proprietary religion, it is certainly no worse than proprietary software

It is when it kills people. And no, we don't like proprietary software around here either. Choose your arguements more carefully in future.

Scientology is not a threat to democracy.

Not while the Cult of $cientology can use the tools of democracy to press it's own totalitarian agenda. Once they do get control, though, watch out! The Germans have special experience with totalitarianism, and they know it when they see it.

Although Scientology admits to a plan for world domination, so does a certain cabal of OS programmers

But when we say it, it's a joke. When the Cult of $cientology says it, they mean it. Personally, I'd much rather have Linus in charge if I had to choose. And judging from how it treats its own members I'd have to say the Cult of $cientology is my last choice.

"Battlefield Earth"? I loved it. So did my 12 yr old son.

Really? I thought it kind of sucked. Well, actually I though it really sucked. I would think the average 12 year old would have better taste. At 12 years old, I was reading (and enjoying) Heinlein.

Oh, and before you start branding me as some anti-religious bigot or pawn of the anti-$cientology movement, don't. I like most religions. Comparative theology is one of my hobbies. $cientology is just one of the many religions I've studied, and not even the most evil one at that. It's just currently on topic.

flying cars? check this out!

-Wolfgang Spangler

This is a nearly verbatim copy of an article I read several years ago on the subject of communism in America. It illustrates the point that America is about as communist as countries go, except maybe China, fairly well. Probably won't be taken well by someone who has hardcoded beliefs in the goodness of "American governmeent."

But I didn't start typing this to write about me - I'm not, I hope, a Katz. I wanted to let y'all know about the writings of Richard Mitchell, the Underground Grammarian. But I wanted to let you know that, as bad as conditions sometimes are here, it's not quite as bleak as the picture Mitchell paints. Quite rightly, he focuses on the bad, and there is certainly a worrisome quantity of that stuff to be found. But there are - and Mitchell does acknowledge this from time to time - also a great many souls who are, if not quite free of the Educationist disease, not yet incapacitated by it. But they are being worn down, day by day, hour by hour, by the system. And the system, I must confess, does seem to be beyond saving. Mitchell thought so, and I'm afraid I can't see any good grounds for arguing otherwise.

So what's the moral of the story? Find yourself a medium that you control, don't depend on renting space from other companies. How you do that is up to you.

So what do you do when all mediums are controlled by large corporations?

You see, people always think that government is the sole threat to free speech on the Internet, and it is a threat, but it's not the only one. Industry could, conceivably and very possibly, create a barrier-to-entry so high (the reason the internet is so free and inspiring is that the barrier to entry is so low) that the few who can afford to run a website are the ones who control the majority opinion.

You've already seen that happen with television, radio, and newspapers. They're all controlled by conglomerates who create economic barriers to competition. And since it's usually an oligopoly, and not a monopoly, and since it's not technically holding people back (by force of law) from free press, people claim that this is still a free country.

I say, stop bothering to get up and arms when the government claims it can censor or control the internet. They can't, they don't know how. But industry does, because they've been censoring and controlling mediums for years. It's nothing new to them. It's not oppression, they say, it's economics. But whatever they call it, the end result is the same.

So how do we combat this? We need to do all we can to keep the cost of the Internet down. At times like this, Free Beer can equal Free Speech. Linux, and the cooperative in San Francisco which sells T1 lines at cost is a fantastic example, and I wish I could see more situations like this crop up. It would also be nice to see the computer industry unionise but that's a whole different post.

In the end, if you don't want to see the Internet get gobbled up into the stomachs of the bloated plutocrats, it is up to you to make sure it doesn't happen. Keep the internet cheap and open to anybody, and you'll insure that the internet will be cheap and open for your own needs.

Michael Chisari

ASFAIK it's still fairly common practice for ISPs to include in their usage agreements something along the lines of "You can be monitored, and there really isn't much you can do about it".

It may be in your agreement, but the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) overrides it for e-mail. An ISP cannot monitor or intercept your e-mail. This is different from businesses; ECPA applies only to the ISP-customer relationship, not the employer-employee relationship. "Necessary incident[s] to the rendition of service" are exempted (e.g. the aforementioned sendmail queue debugging), as is protecting the rights or property of the ISP.

Isn't it a current legal precedent for ISPs and other people in similar situations to basically be held legally responsible for what's on their servers?

The other way around. Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 states that ISPs cannot be held liable for their members' actions, pages, etc. See Doe v. AOL and Zeran v. AOL.

I used to work for a pretty big ISP and I got hundreds of bounced messages (that get bounced to postmaster) sent to me every day.

If it was your own default sendmail config that sent all copies of bounces to postmaster, including contents, then yes, I'd say that's pretty risky. If other sites were sending you these as "bounced bounces", then you weren't the one doing the intercepting.

Jay Levitt
Chief Architect, AOL Mail
Drawing on my job, but speaking for myself

ASFAIK it's still fairly common practice for ISPs to include in their usage agreements something along the lines of "You can be monitored, and there really isn't much you can do about it".

It may be in your agreement, but the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) overrides it for e-mail. An ISP cannot monitor or intercept your e-mail. This is different from businesses; ECPA applies only to the ISP-customer relationship, not the employer-employee relationship. "Necessary incident[s] to the rendition of service" are exempted (e.g. the aforementioned sendmail queue debugging), as is protecting the rights or property of the ISP.

Isn't it a current legal precedent for ISPs and other people in similar situations to basically be held legally responsible for what's on their servers?

The other way around. Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 states that ISPs cannot be held liable for their members' actions, pages, etc. See Doe v. AOL and Zeran v. AOL.

I used to work for a pretty big ISP and I got hundreds of bounced messages (that get bounced to postmaster) sent to me every day.

If it was your own default sendmail config that sent all copies of bounces to postmaster, including contents, then yes, I'd say that's pretty risky. If other sites were sending you these as "bounced bounces", then you weren't the one doing the intercepting.

Jay Levitt
Chief Architect, AOL Mail
Drawing on my job, but speaking for myself

This is slightly offtopic, but I'm sure very helpful for some of the geeks/geek's families out there.. these are some good coupon codes for different online stores.

office max.com has a $20 off a purchaseo f$20 deal, click Here and use the code YES1CFNH2H

Barnes and Nobel (bn.com) has these $10 off $10 codes: CZVRCH7, CBN2222, COSHARE, and CTREATS.
Amazon.com has these $10 off $25: FIRSTGIFT and AMZNPRESENT2

CDNow has these $10 off $14.99 codes: here and here

Last but not lease (see links below for more) Buy.com has $20 off for first time customers. Click Here to get it.

If you're looking for other coupon sites visit these places:
My Coupons.com Message board

Funtasia's Coupons

Another coupon message board

This cycle is definitely possible, and probable, but one big question would be how long it takes to happen.

Look at what would be needed to break the barrier to entry that free software would present -- If the world becomes accustomed to using decent applications for free, what market will there be for someone who wants to charge $20 a copy? In light of the Microsoft Maneuver, is there any possibility that anyone can, in the forseeable future, produce a web browser that they profit from, regardless of what platform it ran on?

Once there are satisfactory products in the market that have zero cost to the consumer, it becomes extremely difficult to promote and profit from a pay-for product. Unfortunately, without some form of income, further development is often stymied, either due to lack of time (because of the need to maintain a personal form of income, ie. day job) or resources (why work on a product that can't be sold when you could work on one that can?) I think perhaps AOL is finding this scenario with their acquisition of Netscape.

Profitable software ventures now become a question of being the first in some niche, rather than producing a superior product. Be the first, grab the market share, make a profit quick before someone else undercuts you. As you said, "Lather, Rinse, Repeat".

"Invent, Bail, Repeat"

Free software is at a stage now where it's forcing commercial software to improve itself. But I think there's going to come a time where it's going to OVERachieve this goal, and will simply put many commercial sources out of the market. Is this good? Is this bad? Probably a little of both. A high quality free product can more easily create a monopoly than one that has an associated cost. However, it is in even more danger of causing a stagnation in development. From a profit standpoint, there's no reason to compete with a free product, especially if it's of a high enough quality.

If Apache could do everything IIS could do (and vice versa), but IIS was 1% more stable, would you pay $100 for that bit of improvement? $50? $5? The market has been fighting in terms of functions, not quality. It's as though Ford tried to make their Pintos more appealing by giving them flight capability rather than fixing the exploding gas tank problem. Compare:

"Sure, the Pinto explodes occasionally, but it does something the Chevy doesn't -- it can fly!"

"Sure, IE opens your computer to viruses, but it does something Netscape doesn't -- it can use ActiveX controls!"

Unfortunately, unlike a flying Pinto, it's much easier to sell added features than it is to sell improved quality. Laypeople just don't understand (or care about) why Linux is seen as better than Windows, or why so many people hate Microsoft products.

I'm babbling again. Sorry.

--
If it's not important, you can probably find it in...

I have been told by an applied math geek friend of mine that STW is another one of those "it's all connected, maaaan..."-type theories along the line of "e^(pi * i) + 1 = 0", although a good deal messier. I've also been informed that STW was used heavily in Wiles' proof, not unlike a load-bearing block in Jenga.

(Never mind "First Post!" I hereby start the new tradition of "Most Links!" After all, it's more productive, and more importantly, it's all connected, maaaaaan....)

tesla coil picture

He doesn't seem to be in to much pain to me.

Microwaves work on an entirely different principle. Please do some research before you tell me I am wrong. I seldom post wrong information.

Basically the original page was set up as a practical joke by one of his friends. The details are metioned on Salon some time back.

Another friend sent him a joke email saying she thought he was a stud and he replied back in a serious manner which would suggest it wasn't a joke.

Personally I think you should check out the Brandon and Rick never get laid it's much more funnier. Or if you want to make a bit of cash, check out the 10K for a wife page.

Corsair == GM, not Ford.

While some 70s Mustangs (read Mustang II) might have had a flamability problem, I think you should look at the base platform, the Ford Pinto.

Why no mention of the flammable 80's Chevy trucks? ;)

P.S. Whose law is it that says mentioning 'Nazi' loses you the argument?

I used to run the OmniRemote software by Pacific NeoTek. This tool allows you to record a signal from a device (or a set of signals) and replay them back. So you would point your TV remote at the IR port, hit record on OmniRemote, press "channel up", stop recording and label the "button" you recorded into "Ch+".

The problem was that the built in IR port was too weak. It couldn't control anything more than 2 feet away. So it was just a cute toy that has no practical value.

There are hardware add ons that give you a longer range (or an IR port if you don't have one), but I haven't tried them. There is the OmniRemote Module also by NeoTek for $20 (a lot less than the $300 above, even if you have to buy a used Palm), and TaleBeam for $30 (sorry, $29.95). Apparently there is no software for the TaleBeam yet.

[LINK]
[LINK]

and this

Slashdot
AOL

[LINK]
[LINK]

and this

Slashdot
AOL

As I read it the ADA probably applies to computers/websites (Section 401). The ADA seems to require technology services (such as AOL or, say the New York Times) not to be available directly to the blind, but to be available to a "telecommunications relay service". Such a service might be a computer voice system but it need not be. A toll reader service would qualify and if IIRC, such services exist. Even the existence of braille displays should qualify. In conclusion, I don't think AOL is in violation of the ADA any more than a roadside billboard or a television nature show is.

If I understand this correctly, Yahoo is removing illegal content and is basically now forced to censor inflammatory content. I think its brave that /. will allow users to publish items of questionable legality (e.g., a large number of posts for dummies), but there are situations where there's no easy way out. Here's an example.

Post 1. User A knocks sombody else's race.
Post 2. User B says knock it off that's rude - I am that race and I don't like that.
Post 3. User C says to kill User B. He lives at 12345 A street, Anywhere, USA.


The service removes post no. 3 because its illegal, but is now forced to remove post no. 1 as well, otherwise User B could now sue the service.

It's censorship plain and simple, but I don't think Yahoo has a choice, and to be honest, I admire the fact that they allowed free speech to begin with. Other companies have not had such great track records. AOL, for example, caused quite a stir a while back when they wouldn't let users access certain websites, and more recently, they may be in trouble for selectively banning certain words from user profiles.

Yahoo (from what I can tell)seems to have done a better job at allowing personal freedom than most services would dream of - remember, they either go to jail, get sued, or remove certain posts. I don't like the fact that they have to do this, but I think I can understand that they don't have a choice. Hopefully, Yahoo will simply draw the line at those comments that leave them open to litigation...

I have not seen an explicit comparison, however, from doing some research on the web I have been led to personally consider the risks from contacts to be absolutely negligible (except in certain cases where contacts are medically inadvisable) in comparison to RK, PRK, LASIK, Intacs, etc.

Success rates are not as good as the advertising leads one to believe, especially because their definition of success is being able to read the 20/20 line on a Snellen(sp.) chart and there a heck of a lot that can be wrong without affecting that ability. Also, no long-term studies have been performed. No one has any idea what will happen to these people 20 or 30 years down the road, and the damage done to the cornea in these procedures is pretty extensive. Repeated corrections with the procedures are really not recommended because the cornea loses much mechanical strength and most of its tissue layers are not regenerative.

Here's a site with lots of information to ponder: http://members.aol.com/eyeknowwhy/index .htm

The basic upshot is that there's about a 75-85 percent chance that your vision will improve to 20/40. Past that, the odds decrease, but are at about 40-60 percent for 20/20 vision. For a list of statistics, go here.

Side effects can include halos around bright lights, starburst effects, and other interesting visual abnormalities. They tend to go away in a few weeks to a few months.

The procedure itself is very quick, and takes about 15 min per eye. For a pretty good description of the procedure, check out this page, about halfway down.

If you do read one page on the subject, let it be this one. This page presents a negative viewpoint on LASIK surgery, with some statistics, problems, etc. I intend to have this done, but I'd still read this to make very sure that you comprehend the risks.

Price can range anywhere from $1200-$2500, depending on the place. The one I'm looking at is about $1650/eye. Most places include "touch-up" procedures (ie, the eye reshaped itself and needs re-lasering) for free in a 1-2 year period. Make sure you check about this.

Most places will allow you to watch a procedure, if you're curious. Might be a smart thing to do.

Another good place for information is the Yahoo! category dealing with the subject. Lots of good links here.

Tsu

I found a couple places through Altavista:

Advanced Technology Systems Corporation -- has TEMPEST-compliant and "ruggedized" (their word not mine) devices.
Candes Systems, Inc. -- Offers TEMPEST-compliant desktops and laptops.
The EMF Safety Catalog -- Mostly stuff about reducing EMF radiation, but also has some TEMPEST-compliant devices

So what OS do you develop for? You certainly wouldn't want to pump up the price of RHAT any more than AAOL, right?

I think this was a production of their news section, so you can mail mtvdart@aol.com with your comments. Of course, this may also fall under the umbrella of "shows", so you might want to use this page to send your feedback. I'm pretty sure the former is the case, however.

FreakHo

Where is the evidence for Creationism?

I'd really like to know about this "onslaught" of Christian evidence, other than the so-called truths that Christians have been raised to simply believe without question. The Bible itself won't suffice for me, because it is full of holes and inconsistencies. An easy one would be Adam and Eve's child--for the human race to continue, the child would have had to have sex with another female, but the only other one, according to the Bible, was Eve. So does the Bible encourage sex with your mother? I suppose I should believe that the entire human race is based upon an incident of incest. I could literally find hundreds of other mistakes and holes in the Bible. Which causes me to believe that the Bible is either simply not true, or is true, but on a highly symbolic level. The latter is what I choose to believe. I don't think the Bible was meant to be taken literally.

Personally, I believe there is a higher being of some sort, and that he used evolution to create all living things here on our little planet. And I just don't understand Christians who rejoice when other viewpoints and ideas are discouraged. How is your belief in Creationism any better than another's belief in evolution? Both are just beliefs attempting to explain why we're here. Why should we drop ours just to believe yours? Because you think it's true? That is the biggest beef I have with a lot of Christians I talk to about this subject--they are very close-minded, because they are often raised from birth to believe everything about Christianity and the Bible without question.

If there was an "onslaught" of evidence supporting Christianity, I would probably be a Christian. However, there is not enough evidence supporting Christianity for me to consider it at all.

For a list of issues on Bible errancy, check out http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/

I know this is probably wishful thinking at this point, but it would be cool...

--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org

I, nutt, am now coining a new phrase for the next millenium...here goes: "Backseat Hacking"

:p

There are obvious security problems involved... could you imagine the problems with IE5 autocomplete/password store?!?! And since every idiot in the world seems to have AOL, they'll all be checkin http://netmail.web.aol.com... you could hop a cab with a floppy in your pocket, and leave with 10 accounts... LOL

And yahoo finance....
Cookies would be a major problem.. these are the same problems that public libraries and such are having...

Well, good thing linux doesnt have IE.

Imagine installing Back Orifice on a cab comp... geez!!!!!! woa.
It wont take long till they all realize this...3...2...1

-------

Particularly as regards making effective use of your point 1 (Kids enjoy learning) Look especially at "How to Multiply Your Babies' Intelligence" and "How to Make Your Baby Physically Supurb" Though there are quite a few books in their "Gentle Revolution" series of books, these two are from what I've heard the most comprehensive. I've read a couple, including the first one there, and it was the best book on teaching and learning that I've read. I hope that he's wrong about losing your ability to learn later in life!

One of the points that they make is that Mothers make the best Mothers. There is no more effective teacher/student pair than a mother (parent) and her child. These people have done the research.

You can look at the books online here: Amazon or look on Barnes and Noble. Or, do the tightwad thing and visit your local library.

OK, back on topic.

The USA's public school system isn't malfunctioning! It is doing exactly what it was designed to do, thus it meets the spec, and by definition works well. The basic idea was to help out the world by churning out herd-behavior disinterested in learning factory workers. It was designed to be ruled by the bullies, and to discourage learning. It's supposed to be a somewhat traumatic experience for everyone and if a few get more chewed up than most, well, that's just part of the price for such a wonderfully effective system. All things considered, the rate of defective parts is fairly low. ("Defective" in this case includes both the non-fuctional and the free thinkers.) (In fact, the more those categories overlap the better!) This mode of thought is obviously outdated and would have (IMHO) been replaced, if it weren't for the large businesses realizing that they have an interest in having an easily controlled population.

If we want to fix it we will have to take a good hard look at what the purpose of a publicly funded educational system is. First, why does society have a interest in my children's education? They will shape society. Children about the only way to bring about widespread social change. Most adults will be too set in their ways to accept radical new things. Even Hitler (famous example) recognized that with his youth program. It's fairly obvious education is the place to start for anyone who has a social agenda to push. And lots of very unpleasant and very well funded people have a social agenda to push! What will be the aim of this educational system? Given the combination of democracy, apathy, and capatalism, the aim will be to keep the money in the hands of those who now have it. Or in other words, the aim will be to preserve and even enhance the social and especially the monetary inequalities in society. Does it coincide with the best interests of the children? No, obviously not. (Given my assumptions :) If you see hope for any publicly funded educational system in today's world, get your head out of the sand.

As you can probably tell, I'm a bit bitter about the situation. I'm all for homeschool! Or no school, or private school, or whatever. Just NOT the public system!

Ok, so it was only kinda on topic.

The current thread manager only supports cooperative threads. Previously, 68k threads could be preemptively scheduled, but apparantly even that is gone. The Multiprocessing Services manager lets you create preemptive threads, even on a single processor machine, but these threads can't make system calls.

Of course there are all kinds of tricks apps can play to work well, "even when the mouse is down". Anarchie, a popular FTP client, does a lot of stuff using asynchronous network calls, so it works well in the background. There's also a hack called the "Menutasking Enabler" that lets other apps run while menus are down. I don't know how well it works on recent systems, haven't tried it lately.

Reference to information about threads manager (It also mentions this on page 9 of this PDF.)
Menutasking Enabler

If you are interested in space habitats have a look at Oscar's Page. There are many good reasons for going into space...

Two days ago, I recieved a total of 3 AOL CDs in the mail. Before microwaving them, I noticed that AOL 4.0 "Includes Microsoft Internet Explorer". AOL's web site says the same thing!

Can't blame him for leaving!

As for other services, I just use ICQ. I generally use Licq (homepage), but there exist a number of other clients. I've found that I like Licq the best. Linuxberg (homepage) has a lot of chat programs as I recall.

Hope this helps.

Using tables to lay out widgets is Ok,

Actually, it sucks rocks. That's why I use CSS1 and 2 exclusively. If you're talking standalone app, you can always include Raptor, the 1mb rendering engine from mozilla, but if you're actually wanting it to go over the web, I'm afraid you'll more or less have to wait untill Christmas, when the final Mozilla is availiable.

but missing progress bars

Mike's site has a progress bar app implemented in javascript.

and not beng able to give user feedback except as the result of clicking a submit button

There are lots of sites that talk about form validation in javascript. Neeraj Kochhar has basic intro on the subject. Search for form validation javascript.

Also, look at some of the features of Forms and the Button object in HTML 4.0, which include the disable feature.

These are not complete solutions, since incompatibilities between NS and MS's implementation of ECMAScript can make life annoying. However, DOM1 and strict ECMAScript addresses these issues, but Mozilla will be the only browser to support strict DOM1 for a while.

~mindlace

Using tables to lay out widgets is Ok,

Actually, it sucks rocks. That's why I use CSS1 and 2 exclusively. If you're talking standalone app, you can always include Raptor, the 1mb rendering engine from mozilla, but if you're actually wanting it to go over the web, I'm afraid you'll more or less have to wait untill Christmas, when the final Mozilla is availiable.

but missing progress bars

Mike's site has a progress bar app implemented in javascript.

and not beng able to give user feedback except as the result of clicking a submit button

There are lots of sites that talk about form validation in javascript. Neeraj Kochhar has basic intro on the subject. Search for form validation javascript.

Also, look at some of the features of Forms and the Button object in HTML 4.0, which include the disable feature.

These are not complete solutions, since incompatibilities between NS and MS's implementation of ECMAScript can make life annoying. However, DOM1 and strict ECMAScript addresses these issues, but Mozilla will be the only browser to support strict DOM1 for a while.

~mindlace

It would be cool to get the various distributed computing initiatives (d.net's RC5, SETI, OGR, etc.) together onto one CD image to burn and run on Dreamcasts. Just pop the disc in when you're done playing and let it crack/spook/compute... It might be a good first step before tackling getting to the onboard 3D.

Regards, Ralph.

My win setup is cdcopy (http://members.aol.com/mbarth2193) which has bladeenc builtin and also does cddb lookup. Doesn't work with all cdrom drives, tho....


linux: I follow the cdparanoia/bladeenc/cddb crowd with some homebrew shell scripts


either way, I use 160 kbits

This has been 100% of my experience in the industry as well. I agree that the best game developers are multi-talented, with expertise at art, design, game scripting, implementation, and good old fashioned hacking.

I ended up working with a small shareware company part time, so that I could still work on games, but do it in a pleasant environment. Your list description of an ideal environment is what I strive for. Our company focusses on the relationship between customers, the company, and "employees". We have no salaries, so we are free to work on or start whatever projects we want, because it is not costing the company anything. If something ships, the profits are distributed entirely among the people who contributed to the product.

The down side of this is that you don't ship sexy, cutting edge apps. The things that ship as consumer products in our case tend to be simple Win32 arcade games, which have accumulated a small cult following and get a few million downloads a year.

However, we do have some sexy things in house-- platform independent (well, really linux, win32, mac, sparc... anywhere codewarrior or gcc compile to) games, 2d/3d graphics engines, languages, etc. that are developed and licensed to larger companies, as well as small but lucrative consulting deals for websites and small apps. We don't get the brand recognition of working on a product anybody has ever heard of, and you don't get the support of having up front resources to afford to hire people and buy art-- everything is through contributors who work for free (plus royalties, of course). We do get to work in an exciting, supportive environment (where everyone wants to be there and finds it fun!). It is comfortable, but I wouldn't say "low-key", though. There are a lot of late nights of hacking or design sessions, because that's one way great things get done in this industry.

FWIW, Morgan Systems is the company. You probably won't be impressed with the games, and they don't run under linux :( Maybe some of our other stuff will start to get out though; we have a simplified Matlab style app/language and ray tracer that are going to be released as open source, and run everywhere. Hopefully some of our libraries are coming to a game near you, but not with our brand on them.

Nathan

Nathan

AOL only took down the main page. If you still need a copy, you can download it here:

http://www.aim.aol.com/tik/tik-0.75.tar. gz

All of the other pages are also available through HotBot here.

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