6 to 15 hours is the sweet spot for me. The Mario games are great examples of the right amount of challenge and time invested into the game.
I used to LOVE the Zelda games, back when i could figure them out and finish one of them from start to finish in 10 hours. The newest one on the Wii though I never got all the way through. The puzzles were more challenging than I wanted, there was too much travelling, and the game was WAY too long.
I want puzzles, but i don't want to spend an hour having to figure them out or wandering back and forth across the level trying to find something the developer hid under a rock just to make the game last longer.
I'm currently playing Dante's Inferno and its a good mix of mindless hack and slash and mindlessly easy puzzles.
I don't want a sense of accomplishment for sitting in front of my TV playing a game. I want to play something to take my mind off the daily tasks that should be giving me a sense of accomplishment.
I might be more interested in all of google's offerings if they offered a more unified interface to access everything.
Read, Gmail, Buzz, Wave, Docs, Calendar are all windows that need open. Plus, as they add more services, their interfaces feel more like "hacks" to put it all together.
Just be sure to turn off the root user, setup the SSL, and change the port number to something else. I also like to limit webmin to a list of known IP addresses via its admin interface AND in iptables.
If we need anything longer or shorter we'll make it ourselves.
For cables that are circulated to the public (university library), we have our student workers fix the ends on them a couple of times then pitch them and replace them.
If its not cheaper than driving or flying, then no I wouldn't use it.
If it's cheaper i'm all for it. But as long as driving is cheaper than rail, i'll keep driving. I was looking at a cross country trip earlier this week. Its cheaper to drive or fly than take the train.
I've had about 5 dealings with Apples customer service and have had a bad experience each time. Every dealing with them has been a hassle of fighting for what i needed. In the end they always do whats right, but its a fight to get there.
Obviously milage will very, and i'm sure many people have had nothing but wonderful experiences... but compared to other tech companies i would give Apple a D for the overall customer service experience.
Luckily they make products that I want to use and are generally very reliable, else they would have lost me as a customer many years ago.
I've already invested in some new home theater equipement because i PREFER the home theater experience to going to the movies. If they released DVD's at the same time they release to the theater I would never go to the theater again.
I would spend the $20 it takes to go to the theater and buy the movies that i want to see close to release and netflix the ones that I can wait for. I would probably also invest in more Home Theater equipement. possibly a larger TV, better quality sound system, better seats/lighting/etc...
As a consumer that loves movies it would probably actually be more expensive for me if they released at the same time, but IMO it would be worth it to not have to deal with going out to the theater.
I/HATE/ the theater experience. I probably only go to the movies once every 3 or 4 months because I don't enjoy the theaters.
If the company that runs the game says it is cheating, it IS cheating. they make the rules... play by them... if you don't it cheapens the game for those of us that DO play by the rules.
If the company that develops the game says it isn't cheating, then its not and have at it. Though, paying real world money to get virtual money that is worthless is, in my opinion, stupid.
If they want me to take the time to watch the commercial and figure something out from it they will have to offer me a lot more than just a coupon for a sandwhich.
A bicket of chicken a week for a year or something like that. And even with that i would only stop on the commercial if i happened to see if during my 30 second skips.
I'm paying DirecTV to watch TV not advertisements... I don't want to see them, and if i am ever forced to see them I will cancel my service in a heart beat.
First thing after singing up on lastfm it told me to download 2 applications. A player and a application that sends songs that I play via itunes back to them.
No thanks. I'll stick with pandora.
After spending some time rating songs as likes and dislikes it has done fine for me.
And here I thought it was going to do something useful like notify you when the roll was left empty so you could yell at the person (identified by weight) left it empty...
Perl 5 is still a very viable language. I have and continue to use it for large programming projects. Its string manipulation support is still among the best out there. CPAN provides a very large archive of 3rd party modules so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. perlmonks.com provides a wealth of tips/tricks and knowledge that no other language has.
With that said, I don't disagree that Perl has many short comings. Python is ellegant and easy to read. I've done quite a bit of programming in python over the past couple of years, but I really don't like languages that rely on whitespace.
PHP. Mixing logic and content is a mistake which is how it is mostly used these days.
Ruby is a neat fad. Actually, i hope it catches on even more. I recently started learning ruby and enjoy it s far... though, i'm not sure how much I would actually consider using it at this point (in a production sense). Good documentation is still hard to come by, and if you google for something it brings up mirrors of the same document.
C#/Mono/.net... C# looks like a great language, I spent several months playing with it and considered using mono for some production programs. But using it scares me... C# is an established standard, but.NET is not and can change at the whim of Microsoft...
C/C++... old tried and true languages. I would encourage any NEW programmer to start with ANSI C. Its great to learn on; memory management, pointers, etc... all valuable thigns to know how to work with. My only real problem with C and C++ is that working with strings is a nightmare.
I could go on and on, but ultimately I always find myself falling back to Perl... Its proven to be stable, has a large community behind, is well documented. Perl 6 does worry me a little though, and there will be a lot of time spent testing before it hits any of my production servers.
How many CSS hacks will it break?
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Right now I have a ton of css hacks in place to handle MSIE 6... How will IE 7 affect those?
Will I ahve to remove them, so that IE7 renders properly? (But IE6 no longer does)
Will I have to keep using the same hacks to get my pages to work?
Will it ignore the IE6 Hacks, and render properly?
Option #3 is by far the best, ignore the hacks like Firefox and Safari (and opera and the rest), and just render the page as intended.
I'm happy with Apple's DRM. I'd rather not have to deal with the DRM at all, but for 99cents a song its the right price/DRM ratio.
* can listen to it on all my desktops. * can burn it to a cd as many times as I like (and then rip it to remove the DRM so that it will play on my Neuros) * can back it up to cd/dvd in its original format * Only have to purchase the songs that I want, and not the whole album
If it were any more expensive per song, say $1.25, it would no longer meet my my price/DRM ratio and I would probably go back to buying CD's.
I use Directv with the built in tivo and love it. The Tivo software integrates with the normal program guide from DirecTV, and works just like a normal tivo in every other way.
Unfortunately it only has 35 hours of storage and last time I checked that was as big as they went (I'm not interested in putting in a larger hdd myself. I spend all day fixing/building/programming computers. When i watch TV i want a solution that just plugs in and works).
After playing with PVR's from dishnetwork, adelphia, and comcast i have absolutely no interest in anything besides tivo. (Myth tv is nice, but again, its a hack that I don't want to deal with when i am sitting down for 20 minutes to watch some tv).
Thunderbird still pops up an alert dialog when you click on a folder that is not selectable.
This has been the one reason why i haven't switched to using Thunderbird. If you set it to check mail in all folders it pops up that dialog every time it checks each folder.
Huge problem with imap servers that use mbox instead of maildir.
Slashdot Mirror
HelloWorld from YEARS ago was a distributed social networking system. Its a shame that it never took off.
http://www.cooperatingsystems.com/index.htm
Helloworld was way ahead of its time ...
6 to 15 hours is the sweet spot for me. The Mario games are great examples of the right amount of challenge and time invested into the game.
I used to LOVE the Zelda games, back when i could figure them out and finish one of them from start to finish in 10 hours. The newest one on the Wii though I never got all the way through. The puzzles were more challenging than I wanted, there was too much travelling, and the game was WAY too long.
I want puzzles, but i don't want to spend an hour having to figure them out or wandering back and forth across the level trying to find something the developer hid under a rock just to make the game last longer.
I'm currently playing Dante's Inferno and its a good mix of mindless hack and slash and mindlessly easy puzzles.
I don't want a sense of accomplishment for sitting in front of my TV playing a game. I want to play something to take my mind off the daily tasks that should be giving me a sense of accomplishment.
Maybe its time we start pushing distributed social networking.
Think "HelloWorld" from years ago, but more modern. HelloWorld was great, just ahead of its time.
http://www.cooperatingsystems.com/index.htm
I might be more interested in all of google's offerings if they offered a more unified interface to access everything.
Read, Gmail, Buzz, Wave, Docs, Calendar are all windows that need open. Plus, as they add more services, their interfaces feel more like "hacks" to put it all together.
Just be sure to turn off the root user, setup the SSL, and change the port number to something else. I also like to limit webmin to a list of known IP addresses via its admin interface AND in iptables.
Been using Webmin for longer than i can remember.
We buy 5, 7, and 10' patch cables in bulk.
If we need anything longer or shorter we'll make it ourselves.
For cables that are circulated to the public (university library), we have our student workers fix the ends on them a couple of times then pitch them and replace them.
If its not cheaper than driving or flying, then no I wouldn't use it.
If it's cheaper i'm all for it. But as long as driving is cheaper than rail, i'll keep driving. I was looking at a cross country trip earlier this week. Its cheaper to drive or fly than take the train.
They need to switch carriers, or unlock it so that anyone can get it. $600 doesn't seem too high, if you can get it at a better price with a contract.
Needs more than 8gb.
Needs 2 batteries. 1 for the phone and one for the music. Phone batteries are horrible, listening to music will shorten your talk time quickly.
Needs to be opened up to third party developers.
I've had about 5 dealings with Apples customer service and have had a bad experience each time. Every dealing with them has been a hassle of fighting for what i needed. In the end they always do whats right, but its a fight to get there.
Obviously milage will very, and i'm sure many people have had nothing but wonderful experiences
Luckily they make products that I want to use and are generally very reliable, else they would have lost me as a customer many years ago.
I've already invested in some new home theater equipement because i PREFER the home theater experience to going to the movies. If they released DVD's at the same time they release to the theater I would never go to the theater again.
I would spend the $20 it takes to go to the theater and buy the movies that i want to see close to release and netflix the ones that I can wait for. I would probably also invest in more Home Theater equipement. possibly a larger TV, better quality sound system, better seats/lighting/etc
As a consumer that loves movies it would probably actually be more expensive for me if they released at the same time, but IMO it would be worth it to not have to deal with going out to the theater.
I
Cheating ...
... play by them ... if you don't it cheapens the game for those of us that DO play by the rules.
If the company that runs the game says it is cheating, it IS cheating. they make the rules
If the company that develops the game says it isn't cheating, then its not and have at it. Though, paying real world money to get virtual money that is worthless is, in my opinion, stupid.
If they want me to take the time to watch the commercial and figure something out from it they will have to offer me a lot more than just a coupon for a sandwhich.
A bicket of chicken a week for a year or something like that. And even with that i would only stop on the commercial if i happened to see if during my 30 second skips.
I'm paying DirecTV to watch TV not advertisements
Why can't the market just dictate that companies can't hide 'root kits' on their music CDs?
If people just stop buying their crap, they will change how they do business or go out of business.
First thing after singing up on lastfm it told me to download 2 applications. A player and a application that sends songs that I play via itunes back to them.
No thanks. I'll stick with pandora.
After spending some time rating songs as likes and dislikes it has done fine for me.
And here I thought it was going to do something useful like notify you when the roll was left empty so you could yell at the person (identified by weight) left it empty ...
http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/rss2email/
Great little app.
Set it up as a cron, use your normal email filters to sort all the RSS feeds.
Perl 5 is still a very viable language. I have and continue to use it for large programming projects. Its string manipulation support is still among the best out there. CPAN provides a very large archive of 3rd party modules so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. perlmonks.com provides a wealth of tips/tricks and knowledge that no other language has.
... though, i'm not sure how much I would actually consider using it at this point (in a production sense). Good documentation is still hard to come by, and if you google for something it brings up mirrors of the same document.
... C# looks like a great language, I spent several months playing with it and considered using mono for some production programs. But using it scares me ... C# is an established standard, but .NET is not and can change at the whim of Microsoft ...
... old tried and true languages. I would encourage any NEW programmer to start with ANSI C. Its great to learn on; memory management, pointers, etc ... all valuable thigns to know how to work with. My only real problem with C and C++ is that working with strings is a nightmare.
... Its proven to be stable, has a large community behind, is well documented. Perl 6 does worry me a little though, and there will be a lot of time spent testing before it hits any of my production servers.
With that said, I don't disagree that Perl has many short comings. Python is ellegant and easy to read. I've done quite a bit of programming in python over the past couple of years, but I really don't like languages that rely on whitespace.
PHP. Mixing logic and content is a mistake which is how it is mostly used these days.
Ruby is a neat fad. Actually, i hope it catches on even more. I recently started learning ruby and enjoy it s far
C#/Mono/.net
C/C++
I could go on and on, but ultimately I always find myself falling back to Perl
Right now I have a ton of css hacks in place to handle MSIE 6 ... How will IE 7 affect those?
Will I ahve to remove them, so that IE7 renders properly? (But IE6 no longer does)
Will I have to keep using the same hacks to get my pages to work?
Will it ignore the IE6 Hacks, and render properly?
Option #3 is by far the best, ignore the hacks like Firefox and Safari (and opera and the rest), and just render the page as intended.
I'm happy with Apple's DRM. I'd rather not have to deal with the DRM at all, but for 99cents a song its the right price/DRM ratio.
* can listen to it on all my desktops.
* can burn it to a cd as many times as I like (and then rip it to remove the DRM so that it will play on my Neuros)
* can back it up to cd/dvd in its original format
* Only have to purchase the songs that I want, and not the whole album
If it were any more expensive per song, say $1.25, it would no longer meet my my price/DRM ratio and I would probably go back to buying CD's.
I use Directv with the built in tivo and love it. The Tivo software integrates with the normal program guide from DirecTV, and works just like a normal tivo in every other way.
Unfortunately it only has 35 hours of storage and last time I checked that was as big as they went (I'm not interested in putting in a larger hdd myself. I spend all day fixing/building/programming computers. When i watch TV i want a solution that just plugs in and works).
After playing with PVR's from dishnetwork, adelphia, and comcast i have absolutely no interest in anything besides tivo. (Myth tv is nice, but again, its a hack that I don't want to deal with when i am sitting down for 20 minutes to watch some tv).
And MS Works, which isn't compatible with MS Office out of the box.
Require, by law, that those ports that support p2p and irc be blocked.
...
Require ISPs to isntall packet-sniffers to determine is it is a known p2p or irc-type protocol.
It wouldn't be hard to stop it, if it was a federal law to require them to be stopped
That is how i have it set, and they do show in italics. Still get the popup.
Thunderbird still pops up an alert dialog when you click on a folder that is not selectable.
This has been the one reason why i haven't switched to using Thunderbird. If you set it to check mail in all folders it pops up that dialog every time it checks each folder.
Huge problem with imap servers that use mbox instead of maildir.