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So now you expect me to believe some guy, alone, built a 1,500 robot that bends over and stops a car as easily as I'd bend over to tie my shoe? Come on guys, you can't be that gullible... actually no, wait... yeah, it's real, and I'm taking orders! Only 10 grand each, 5 grand if you supply your own car or SUV. Must be a new model though, 2000 or better, V8s preferred, leather and DVD navigation a plus, so the robot can have GPS of course. There's a backorder, so please allow... 6 to 18 months for delivery. You can send payment through Paypal to... >;-)

Where's the Star Trek fans?? Haven't you learned anything from Spock? "An ancestor of mine maintained, that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

So what's more likely:
A) it's CGI
B) it's a real 10 foot robot that moves with the grace of a ballerina

Plus, it'd be nice if you could get kids into this sort of game rather than the violent/gore filled games they go home to when they fire up their PS2s.

I highly suggest starting with wikipedia's information on propulsion. It should give you enough knowledge to plug into Google. After that, visit my topic on the Nuclear Space message board to find out why heavy lifters aren't a big deal.

I started with the, "we can barely get to LEO" idea as well. Turns out we can put as much tonnage into LEO as we want. Once LEO is achieved, that acts as the staging point for more advanced engine designs.

I've heard of bomb-rates in the 60/sec, which clearly doesn't square with the descriptions of intermittent back-slamming in Lucifer's Hammer, but even a good strong 60Hz buzz in the butt would get tiring, fast. (How well can it really be absorbed?)

If you're referring to "Footfall", I haven't had the chance to read it. You would not be getting a 60hz buzz however. You have to remember that the pusher plate moves so that the acceleration to the rest of the craft is gradual. Thus you'd feel just a constant push. M2P2 Orions would be similar. The M2P2 field "gives" a bit, and basically would accelerate the craft as if it were inside a water balloon.

You're not alone: Here's an interesting rant on the topic
Has some hard facts, and some informed opinions on the flaws of the system.

I know you have alternative parties, but they're not really viable choices.

Voters were clearly still happy with Bush in 2002 or else they would have moved to limit his power.

On top of this, Al Qaeda unfortunately chose that time to instigate their terrorist attacks; that is a situation which only worked in the administration's favor. It was a unifying event, bringing Americans together, and giving the president an opportunity to launch a war which America supported, bolstering Bush's popularity. After taking Afghanistan, Bush used the momentum to pursue his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. Whether or not this will have worked in his favor has yet to be seen. He may have miscalculated; if Iraq would have resisted more, he might have been able to draw out the war through the elections. In the past 100 years, presidents who were running during a period of war that hadn't yet "turned sour" were reelected. If he can keep the spin on the war in Iraq up, he might have a chance. On the other hand, no president who ever lost the popular vote has won a reelected. In any case, it should be an interesting election.

yes, a tiny percentage of voters could have changed the outcome, but when 40% of the people don't vote, clearly it doesn't really matter to the majority who wins.

So, the majority of voters (the only "majority" who counts) were disenfranchised in 2000. It wasn't even the first time that it had happened, just the most obvious.

We may be in a situation where the flawed electoral system in the USA is beginning to collapse. It may be at the point where what the majority of voters wants doesn't matter, because the elections are being fixed, as they were in Florida. I'm not sure we're there yet, but I do know that the system is flawed and needs to be changed.

If you want a more balanced view, there's an interesting bit where she asks her Team Seattle about the MTV show and asks them how much weight they've lost.

Don't worry, Star Wars is staying on too according to a post made by Jake McKee, Community Development Manager which i submitted 2 days ago

2004-01-13 03:06:33 Mindstorms not going away and more LEGO news (articles,toys)
Summary:
pending (1)

for more Star Wars Lego news I recommend From Bricks to Bothans

The person you are arguing with is VERY correct - the first generation of the PS1 had a very, very bad laser in it. You want sources? Read up for PS1:

My favorite PS1 Lens Repair Guide

Common Problem with SCPH-1001 model

And now for PS2:

http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/003/gaming/ps2/ ps2-1.html

http://faqs.ign.com/articles/390/390535p1.html

And I could go on and on...

The PS2 Model SCPH-30001 was horrible at reading DVD-R discs. The newer models are much, much better. So, if you want to watch home movies, you have to pitch the first generation ps2 and get a new one, like a V7, V9, or V10 console. V9 and V10 being almost identical on that front, but V7 is not bad either. About that problem with model 1001 for the PS1 above - I had that problem with my generation 1 model, and it was because Sony used plastic slide rails in the laser instead of metal. Future models used aluminum. One such fix for that problem was to take apart the laser, sand it down so the rails were even again, and then apply aluminum from a pop can with crazy glue on the rails so the plastic is protected, and doesn't wear anymore. I had a lot of success using that method with fixing those old consoles.

My point is that just because your PS1 still works, that doesn't mean that there hasn't been thousands of people who's PS1 or PS2s died within the first year they had them. That's not good - but Sony makes a lot of cash this way, and so do people like me who charge to do repairs :)

Makes you wonder...

Oddly enough, the worst troll ever doesn't get better by being repeated.
www.linuxquestions.org
pub59.ezboard.com
docs.linux.com
www.kuro5hin.org

..that now even Al-Qaeda does it!!

Yup, Bin Laden is the son of a billionare, he's got an MBA(!) and he runs a multi-million dollar global terror "franchise" that outsources its operations to "local allies" who'll supply services under the "brand name".

Last straw for me! If this isn't proof enough the world is a darn big capitalist shithole, I don't know what is.

a refreshing change. so no rockets. (i tried to look up the Orion design, but there's quite a few rockets with the name Orion tacked onto them. i'm going to guess you were talking about this one which supposedly wouldn't work because it required an initial explosion quite a bit stronger than we can create today.)
What about an ion thruster? low weight, you don't have to worry about finding a load bearing mounting point... the biggest complication would be giving the little sucker a power source.

I've posted about my experiences as a BitPass enabled site in a number of places.

One of the unexpected places that BitPass has been a boon to my site has been in terms of donations. I've had several dozen donations ranging from a penny to several dollars. But what is really nice is that nowadays when I recieve a donation, it's an honest to gosh tip and not some begged for handout.

I've made a little money from Google ads, and have had the odd PayPal donation - but let me tell you, none of it is anywhere near as satisfying as when someone hands me a shiny new nickle for the letter 'O' or one of my other short comics.

In the three months or so that I've been on BitPass I've made enough to cover two month's hosting and a cup of coffee. Not very much, I'll admit, but for a little promoted site with daily traffic of maybe a dozen or so - it's certainly better than I could have hoped for otherwise.

> I lost my copy of the green golf ball joke can anyone find it for me?

I felt like being a public servant and returning your joke to you :P (hey, you asked)


Here and Here are two for you!

Oh, Here's another one for you.

I play on a very strict role play server call "The Vast". Check out our forums.

Customers: Shop wisely. You are voting with your dollars. If you accept draconian DRM, you will NEVER get your freedom back. You must protect your individual rights by choosing the best product and not buying based solely on emotionally exciting advertising hype or getting pushed around by impotent corporate shortcuts to profitability.

Corporations: Adapt to the changing environment as you have always done. Listen to the customers and do everything possible to keep these informed consumers on your side. Search for innovative ways to improve your product, streamline your processes, and still make a REASONABLE amount of money. Stay alive to serve the customers tomorrow.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the main gripes consumers have with big media products today:

Things Wrong with Movies: Overpriced movies to match the overpriced snacks, Ben Affleck and J-Lo, crappy plots (which also may fall under the Ben Affleck category), $20+ million dollar salaries for actors which leads to increased ticket prices, irritating and useless copy-protection on DVDs, etc.

Things Wrong with Music: Overpriced CDs, Britney Spears, not enough money given to the artists, Britney Spears, generic one-hit wonder boy bands pushed like a cheap drug, Britney Spears, general refusal to adapt to the internet (thank Apple for what innovation there is there), etc.

Things Wrong with Satellite: Well, nothing.... We're just stealing that because we can.

Here and here

The taller candidate usually wins. Not that I've gone and checked the numbers myself, but it's an interesting theory that gains a lot of credence in light of this artice.

Ok, lets put it this way. I *HAD* a lot of money in New Bridge Strategies. And I mean a lot. You can find some reality here
That and I've known Karl Rove since grade school and he has always been a shmuck. He is completely behind this anti-trueconservative presidency. He would have been much better suited as a marketing guru. He has turned the notion of being a conservative into some cool marketing buzzword and gotten an idiot elected president. In the process, he has gotten every professional wresting cum nascar fan cum jerry springer fan behind him. You can tell them because they'll have no idea that I'm not using "cum" in a porn sense. The idiot fucking morons in this country that can unfortunately vote and have the fucking nerve to call themselves republicans simply because they bought the sales pitch after 9/11. Look. I've killed woman and children in the name of democracy. I'm not about to fall for the stupid bullshit Karl and friends have used to brainwash the majority of America in the past 3 years. To a true flag waving Conservative such as myself and a lot of vets I know, Bush is a fucking idiot anacronysm and we can't wait for his pointless ass to go away.

Come on over and introduce yourself. It's a blank board, with no customization, so don't be shy or disgusted by it's blandness.

In several races with electronic voting machines, there were noticeable differences between pre-election polls and the actual election results. In Georgia, both Roy Barnes and Max Cleland led their opponents until the actual election.

Other Dieboldalical results (from a source found via Google) are here.

Chuck Hagel's opponent wanted a hand-recount, but by the terms of the signed contract, it was illegal for government election workers to review the votes.

Short form: what you describe happened, and you didn't even notice. (Final tinfoil hat moment - did we mention that there was a file named "rob-georgia" containing patches not tested by the state on the Diebold FTP site?)

Excellent collection of info, btw.

Regarding newer laptops and CPU sockets:

I upgraded my Sony GRX570 (1.6Ghz) to a 2.0Ghz because it's a socketed P4-M platform.

Before CPU removal.

After CPU removal.

The entire post is at Vaio Village for those curious. (Yes, same username)

translation

here

I know someone, had I not mentioned it, would instantly pipe in that all MhZs are not created equal (I'm a Mac nut- trust me I know), but I'm merely trying to say that there really is no niche for Transmeta anymore.

Once again from your intellectual, moral, social, and emotional superior,

a few sites people might find interesting - but most riddled with spoilers...

http://www.westeros.org/ - the most complete asoiaf reference on the web

http://pub26.ezboard.com/basoiaf - a message board with over 80,000 postings

http://www.georgerrmartin.com - the authour's official home page (not so interesting most of the time).

http://www.amoka.net - some fantastic art by a russian dude.

Actually, free reg requires a valid email id.

I tend to agree with you, but I'm on my 2nd VAIO Laptop, and would happily buy a 3rd. The build quality of the machines is good, but certainly not up to ThinkPad quality. However, the real problem with Sony is technical support policies, and their warranties. If your warranty is up, and something breaks, you're really out of luck. This is why I suggest that laptop owners buy an extended warranty of some sort for their machines. It's not like you can go to your local PC shop and get a new mainboard if this one fries.

I would actually suggest you take a look at the Vaio Village for a very good usergroup. If you've got a machine that needs reparing, check out Sony Spare Parts, a division of UCR, which also runs parts services for several other manufacturerss. I just did business with them to replace a couple of cruddy internal cables on a friend's older FX-series notebook. The prices are a bit high, but they're the same exact part Sony uses, since they're an authorized repair agency.

By the way, I have no financial interest in any of the companies mentioned in this post.

If anyone's looking to talk about the works of George Martin with fans of like mind, we've got a great discussion board going at A Song of Ice and Fire. It's also where his fan club, the Brotherhood Without Banners, hangs out online. The last two years running we (the Brotherhood) have thrown parties for (and with) George at Worldcon, and are planning to throw another one in Toronto this year. FWIW, George is a great fellow. He's witty, polite, and likes to hang out with his fans. Two years ago we spent all night drinking with him, and then he went with us to get cheesesteaks in the wilds of South Philly at 3AM. He even knighted us, right there on the sidewalk, with an actual sword!

So what the game may end up being is a place where casual gamers can go to chat about the day and to relax and kill a few things, but that the game is not ready for people to play to win. There are many other reasons people feel the game is not ready for release. You can read some of then at the thread on the subject HERE.

GOATSE DIGEST #1
Author Comment
rkz
Member
Posts: 8
(6/20/03 3:39 pm)
Reply good job kerri immos slashdot.org/comments.pl?...id=6252659 [goatse.cx]

Keri Immos
Member
Posts: 1
(6/20/03 4:01 pm)
Reply Re: good job kerri immos Thanks. It's pretty tough to bs the moderators, especially when they don't know what you mean because they're asshats (see third response).[goatse.cx]

GOATSE DIGEST #1
Author Comment
rkz
Member
Posts: 8
(6/20/03 3:39 pm)
Reply good job kerri immos slashdot.org/comments.pl?...id=6252659 [goatse.cx]

Keri Immos
Member
Posts: 1
(6/20/03 4:01 pm)
Reply Re: good job kerri immos Thanks. It's pretty tough to bs the moderators, especially when they don't know what you mean because they're asshats (see third response).[goatse.cx]

Trolltalk v 2
> General Discussion
> How to post redirects from sourceforge

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rkz
Member
Posts: 3
(6/20/03 9:30 am)
Reply How to post redirects from sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/project/admin/?url=http://g oatse.cx/#hatid=354421&group_id=4421

everything after # is just for padding and doesnt matter. have fun

I recomend you visit this message board... Matrix Reloaded (spoilers)

Well that excuse sure enough doesn't work with the SEC...

Where I live, dumpster diving is considered tresspass which could lead to theft charges

This was an underhanded misuse of an already bad law to get the site taken down.

How can this be considered piracy?

Justin Frankel's Website Here he talks about his wanting to resign from the company due to recent cencorship against his products.. It's not about contracts, etc.. it's just about the fact that he isn't allowed to express himself freely doing what he loves. Here is some more comments about his leaving...

Secret Group Manipulates Vote Machines - The widespread use of electronic voting machines has severely undermined the integrity of elections in the United States. Behind the companies that make the voting machines is a small and secretive group of men, including a well-known U.S. senator.

Voting machine companies: Ownership disclosure, "private" vote-counting codes, potential for manipulation - This is an article about just three things: disclosure, conflict of interest and potential for manipulation. It is not a conspiracy theory or a political point of view. I think you'll agree with me: We don't care who wins the election, as long as it's who was VOTED FOR.

Senator Hagel campaign treasurer owns voting machine co. - Election Systems & Software, the firm whose machines were involved in the 2002 flubbed Florida primary election(4)-- and the recent huge flub in Dallas, where early voting had to be shut down when machines kept registering Democratic votes as Republican (See the 31 mistakes link, top of page) and the company that now makes the voting machines for most of America--is a private company that does not like to tell the public who owns it.

Warning... Adult material here...

Evidently, nVidia may have hired porn star Catalina to attend e3. Well. Here are the pics. There sure are lots of ladies at nVidia's party? I wonder if that has anything to do with the bad press.

http://pub30.ezboard.com/fopaage87310frm2.showMess age?topicID=676.topic

I gotta agree with this guy on where Nvidia's going. Look at the screenshot you link to (the Nvidia version). Now tell me what the fuck is that white shit between her lips? Semen! Once again, the porn industry pushes technology further and faster than it would have gone otherwise. All hail porn!

ATI vs. NVIDIA: ATI Steals the Show
I dunno if you guys heard about this one but nVIDIA actually had a e3 party then went pretty wild(some topless pics). Not only did they have Smashmouth perform at their E3 party but they also had some porn star make an appearance to(she was eventually kicked out for dancing topless on a table). Check google its all fact

I liked reading this article because lately I've started to work on my drawing skills. It's very humbling to do something I'm skilled at (coding) and then move to something where people can barely tell what I'm trying to draw.

One commonality I've seen so far is that you just have to jump in and do what you can before anyone can help you. Posting questions like "how do I write an OS?" or "how do I draw such-and-such?" will yield theory but not get you far. On your first tries it's going to look like a bunch of scribbles (or spaghetti code that is far from compilable), but you have to put something down for others to critique. And of course coding and art both take tons of practice time. This goes along with just trying and not worrying about the results. If I didn't code unless I was sure each line was perfectly bug free.. well, that's impossible.

I've been working on realistic and anime-style people. Humans are the most rewarding subjects and also one of the hardest to draw, but I wouldn't want to draw anything else. For anyone else wanting to start in this direction, I recommend the PolyKarbon BBS. There are some amazingly talented people there that are very helpful. This site with anatomy books is a good reference. If you have more helpful links, like a newsgroup for new artists (I haven't found any that are good), please post them.

Here is an excellent read on type one diabetes and stem cell research, and a comment on why study sjogren's in conjunction with diabetes (namely, the organ being damaged is much easier to get at and assess.)

Here is a great site for info- the CDC genomics site, which includes info on common and rare genetic diseases, and can give a greater array of background info. NCBI offers another set of info- an explanation of human mouse homology (thus answering the question... why mice?

I hope this helps put some extra info out there for those of you who are interested. And frankly, as one who has had to deal with the sudden "switching on" of not just one but a whole array of diseases- since my DNA happened to include the lucky strands- I'm now having my stance on animal testing completely revised...

The site is actually here :)

Look here. I think you will find that on average, Intel P4s consume more wattage per Mhz. The P4 wattage/perormance ratio is off the charts. If you bother to look around, and compare some benchmark ratings, and do some math with wattage consumed/score, I can assure you that you will find that this is the case.

More wattage consumed=more wattage put out in heat.

other areas far from the west coast in the U.S. have been rated for being in danger of a severe quake....even parts of my home state of Illinois , about every 500 years or so

If you want to build a machine to mill circuit boards, do it right. Build a machine designed by John C Kleinbauer. The Brute is designed to make PCBs cheaply. I recently bought some of John's plans (well worth it) and they are quite nice. They are very well done, easy to understand, don't need things that are exotic and hard to get (if your in the US). He includes a booklet on how to mill PCBs with The Brute, or you can order it seperatly. He even maintains and activly participates on his forum, Hardware Store CNC.

I've started to build a brute, and things are going pretty well considering I'm doing this in my spare time with only some time to work on it. If you guys are like me (I really like to build things with my hands) this is a ton of fun. I can't wait to get it running so that I can make PCBs, robot parts, a wooden clock and more.

Someone may remember (if you live in the East Bay, or follow LLNL news) that a high ranking scientist here resigned for getting caught falsifying his doctorate for many years. Big ol' scandal at the time.

Win 9x has direct access to the ports. Win NT/XP needs you to go via the device drivers, but it's not a difficult problem - plenty of info for how to do it.

Beyond Logic
Parallel Port Central

Both the above have a bunch of useful stuff.

Also don't forget that you'll need to learn how to drive LEDs. I'm admin on an electronics board, so here's a blatant plug:-

BasicElectronics board, LED FAQ

(and kudos to David Bridgen and MacGregor who put that info together :-)

Grab.

In truth, sony pours TONS of money into Everquest. Their bandwidth alone is huge. Add onto that that they have a full development team for dealing with the implimented game, (the live team: fixes bugs, etc), and then another whole development team that builds expansions and such to add content. They are contuiously changing the core code of the game, (such to add features not implimented in the original game such as 2 new user interfaces since the game was released).

They have 50ish servers compromising, (from what I understand), of roughly 30 computers per server, which means for every patch they are possibly updating around 1500. (Though it should be noted that I doubt they patch every computer every patch.) Also, these servers are located in both the United States and in Europe. And they are expected to have minor patches done in 2 hours, major patches, (for things such as expansions), done in 8. And no loss of any amount of data, (such as what character has which items), is tollerated in any way. Because of this their network administration must be near flawless.

Now lets look at what we have down the pipe. We have games that are being thrown together by people who come from single player games instead of MUDs and D&D. We have people who design games with out the backing of the enormious companies it takes to supply the capital required for a 4 to 5 year development cycle, implimentation of the enormious amount of hardware, the marketting, and the payroll for the support staff. We have people who don't realize that they must either be perfect at what they do, (see blizzard), or tap a previously untapped nitch, (Star Wars Galaxies) of MMoG potential. It would be wise that they make sure that the nitch exists and that the model for advancement in the game actually holds water first though (The Sims: Online).

In the end, we will have many companies that put 2/3rds of the work and money into making the games all competing with each other for a very small populace of people who are not already commited to as many games as they can afford time wise and monitarily. Most of them will die out, just like the dot-com bust.

But many games will pervail. Star Wars Galaxies will likely be as big, if not bigger than Everquest. Worlds of Warcraft shows amazing promise. Horizons seems to be a crowd favorite. And whatever product is being build by Sigil will be one of the leading contenders. (For those who don't know, the company is run by the people who made the decisions about Everquests form and is funded by microsoft. They also have recruited alot of the senior staff that had previously worked for the Everquest team.)

But with the majority of the market for Online RPGs and D&D type worlds already accounted for through Everquest, (or soon to be picked up by the above mentioned games), Developers better have a spot for their game to fit and they better do a DAMN good job of designing it, populating it, and supporting it if they plan on recouping their losses.

This post is not off topic, I swear to Dios. The second paragraph contains a bunch of shit, but the first contains useful information. The first paragraph begins here: I just love it when some huge Microsoft ad comes up when I load up a story. Astute readers probably know that I hate Microsoft's guts and that I firmly believe that everything they are/sell/do/say is pure garbage. So when I see one of their ads on Slashdot, I click on it and when their ugly webpage finishes to load, I simply hit the 'back' button. I never look at what they're advertising. Even if I did, I would certainly not be interested in it, whatever it is, because I use products that are in every way superior to theirs. Products like six different distributions of Linux, all three BSDs, versions of BeOS ranging from 3 to 5 (because it's still useful), QNX, IRIX and HP-UX. There were others, but I reduced the list of operating systems to the ones listed here. So Microsoft has to pay for another click that led them nowhere. And I wasted some of their bandwidth. These two facts make me feel good about myself and about who I am. I firmly believe that causing them additional expenses such as the one described herein is a good way to increase one's self esteem (not that I need to do so, what with the 6 different girlfriends I have that don't know about each other, and would probably still love/screw me if they knew, since I am such a studmuffin, so yeah, I have lots of self esteem... girls love guys that troll Slashdot).Now, to what I was going to say about this article before that stupid ad got in my way... Oh, that was in the first paragraph... sorry, forgot.

Actually, I was going to stop here but I think I'll add more...

• http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~wayne/microsoft-sucks.h tml
• http://pub32.ezboard.com/fogrebattle6432793frm13
• http://brighten.bigw.org/humor/mine/microsoft_suck s.html
• http://www.taikahn.com/mssucks.html
• http://www.microsoftsucks.com/
• http://www.never.com/eva/
• http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/talkback/talkback_ 253.html
• http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/12/18/155016/66
• http://www.spiffle.com/rants/10-05-1999_01-05am

This post has been moderated -9: Sewage.

This is very true, chaeron. I think it is also a side effect of another phenomenon, something I realized painfully in 2002 while out of work.

The fact is that software development and information technology is an industry undergoing severe deflation. It used to be such deflation affected only hardware, a byproduct of it becoming a commodity industry. But with interest rates so low and growth not so good, most businesses are really cutting costs and anything which doesn't translate directly and can be seen to translate directly into improved sales or profits is a likely candidate.

In my opinion, which was discussed extensively in a forum at realrates.com, demand for programmers has been constant since 1990 and, in fact, slightly decreasing. There has been a lot of demand for other computing specialists, including the database development crowd to which I now belong. The reason for this is that businesses have moved to buying shrinkwrap solutions rather than keeping a stable of expensive programmers. For most companies who cannot sell a product to a zillion customers and thereby fund an expensive development group, doing software is just too expensive and consumes resources not related directly to sales or support. Heck, I saw an article in one of those business mags for the suits that recommended rethinking corporate philanthropy so that it is more oriented towards sales and so the business gets something back for it. Buying shrinkwrap is the cheapest form of outsourcing there is.

If tools for special effects in movies are any indication, large sectors of what were hot domains for programmers are becoming standardized and usable directly by functionals. Naturally, the company that makes these tools needs programmers, but once a market has a dozen competitors offering products that everyone else buys that caps the limit on the number of coders. And, of course, if the sector sees a shakeout, as most eventually do, that trims the demand more.

I think this phenomenon is behind the rise of one-size-fits-all enterprise packages like PeopleSoft, SAP, and the Oracle Financials entrants. Suits seem to have decided that software is so much a drain they win bigger if they distort their policies and procedures to fit the software rather than using custom. I think this phenomenon is also behind the push for software that lets one DBA administer hundreds of databases.

Not all software application areas seem to be sucuumbing to this. Games development still looks like it can afford building independent engines and the like. But it'll probably happen there, too. I mean, realistically, what's the point of repeating a creation of a good renderer? Most games today seem to be built using tools that let artist-designers develop scenes and having extensive parameter files. How much longer before a half dozen companies standardize that and make up for any efficiencies by simply exploiting faster hardware?

Frankly, I think the reason why scripts are becoming so popular and widely used is that they can do a job quickly. That means it's cheaper because it draws fewer programming hours. And, with reason, I think the suits don't see a cost to impossible-to-maintain software, at least not one that's comparable to the price of paying the programmer hours. If there are components of their process that must be maintained carefully, they buy that. Anything else by definition doesn't require long term maintenance. It does require speed, flexibility, and low cost.

I, like many people here, love to code and it's what I envisioned doing indefinitely. But the demand is decreasing. So, I get my kicks doing ETL, database, and business intelligence stuff, using gawk to do it whenever I can. And with gawk I can knock out applications really fast. Clients often don't even know or care as long as the job gets done cheaply and quickly.

Hey, we have always known, struggled, and argued with software being too expensive to develop and maintain. Much of the training professional programmers get concerns how to build better software. We've always felt a tension between quality and speed in the sense of rapid development. The suits have decided that we took too long to solve the problem and found their own way. Oh well, the computer giveth and the computer taketh away.