Um, some of my customers have got print rendering engines running on OS/2, and message queueing/tracking software running on NT 3.51...
And on the desktop side, a few people are just super-excited that they're finally rolling Office 2000 under NT 4.0...
Heck, I've got customers that are just ecstatic that they've finally removed IPX traffic from their network.
These customers are lucky if the upgrade migration plan is just "spend X dollars to buy the new machines, new OSes, and new applications" where X is probably 80% of the IT departments project budget for that year. That's the EASY and DOABLE case. The hard case is "OK, we've got to re-engineer this application to work in new environment Y, and that's probably going to take well over a year, and untold man-months."
So, if you tell them, well, we need to move to IPV6 because its shinier and prettier, and then Joe Sixpack can finally get that IP for his toaster he's always been wanting, but oh, BTW, we're talking about not just OS upgrades, but new OSes, new applications on those OSes for nearly everything that uses the network, new lan equipment, new routing equipment, and probably a renogiation of our ISP agreements, well...
The selling points of IPv6 are security and expandability. People aren't feeling the expandability bite nearly as much as they thought they were going to, ESPECIALLY businesses. But even in the home... TiVo media option remote scheduling works just fine through NAT, cause the Tivo initiates the session that goes checks the server to get what to schedule. As for security, there is the perception that people should be able to obtain adequate security in the IPv4 space (and well, shouldn't they? That's where they need it right now)...
Someone mentioned spamless email as the possible killer-app, but that would take some initiative, and it would still have to gateway SMTP... Nobody is going to listen to "you must use the NEW NEW email now" arguments at this point.
"Freeze" alone could put the RIAA in so much hot water, if it ever ran on the wrong system, and I'm not even going to touch the "silence" program...
If they were ever dumb enough to deploy these programs into the general public, the amount of lawsuits they'd be up for would bankrupt them in no time. I'm sure plenty of lawyers and law firms would be more than willing to front for a 100000 person plus class action suit, which this would no doubt cause.
They may not be afraid of the little guy, but they SHOULD be afraid of the big law firm that smells a billion dollar settlement.
True, that's why they'll have to get somebody smarter than me to design the iconography, something of the level that everybody in the culture its being applied to will understand... Like temperatures maybe... or EQ creatures, or something. I dunno.
Another trick is making the low end category still seem "cool" then. Same problem with EQ: Nobody likes fighting Sewer Rats, and nobody would want to own a "Sickly Froglok" class machine.
This strikes me as bad solution to an already sticky problem. Whats to stop a studio from saying a game that runs at 10fps on a system considered a "1" from slapping a "1" rating on it in order to maximize their possible audience? Its all about sales, right? In addition, I wonder if in 2005 the hardware change-rate will be any different, limitations of silicon or no.
Ah, well, what will probably stop them is that MS will trademark/copyright/whatever the category iconography, and probably instigate a QA/licensing scheme similar to their console groups before certifying a title. Yes, this probably means you won't see this stuff being applied to every small house gaming title coming out, but the major market distributors probably won't have a huge cow over it.
Release it as an app, and give various classes of machines code words...
Then you just download an app (or heck, since this is MS, its part of the OS), and every time you click on About Computer or whatever (or even as some sort of icon embedded in a task bar, start menu, whatever) you get a "You have a 'Turnip' class PC!"
OK, maybe not the Turnip part, but you get the picture. If they choose their iconography or scheme well, then its something that can be printed on the back of a box. Perhaps colors in a rainbow. The problem with colors though is that they're always going to need new ones as newer/better stuff comes out.
Hydrogen on earth is like gasoline: Its refined, and made to be a fuel by the expenditure of energy. Hydrogen is only an "unlimited fuel source" if it can be obtained in its free state, not tied to oxygen atoms.
Its simple, basic, conservation of energy: It takes exactly as much energy to free a hydrogen from water as you get back when you burn it, and actually, because of entropy, the net useful energy is a loss. Unless we find a energy positive way of getting large amounts of free hydrogen (finding a source on earth, or finding someway of mining it cheaply from elsewhere) we're not going to remove our dependance on fossil fuels one single iota. How do you think we're going to power the electrolysis of the water to free hydrogen? By burning fossil fuels most likely. All we'd do is centralize our need for fossil fuels, and perhaps make it more likely we could use natural gas or other more domestically available resources.
Any other method runs into the exact same issues we have with them right now? Wind and solar? Energy density from them isn't at the level to support the entire energy economy, although thankfully that seems to be getting better, enough to the point that we SHOULD be using it to supplement our reserves (and producing Hydrogen is probably a very good way of doing this). The other choice is nuclear fission, but we've apparently decided the costs of that are too high for large scale use (I'm still unsure one way or the other if this is a logical, reasoned decision or not).
Hydrogen isn't the saviour of mankind. What it IS is a way to use our resources a bit more efficiently, and that's why the idea has merit. Its not because somehow we'll not need all that messy oil anymore.
Any good Linux BBS servers? I notice that's running Synchronet on Windows... I've see a number of BBS packages for Windows, but blessed few for Linux...
I'm pretty sure you could make a PC quieter than the Xbox.
I often play DVDs on the Xbox (since the PS2's DVD player has issues), and I sometimes find myself slightly annoyed because I can hear the whining of the fan from the Xbox.
Nah, all MS has to do is deny the license and say that they did so because Linux "doesn't live up to the high quality consumer experience they want users to have on the Xbox." 100000 geeks fume and vent about it on Slashdot from that time forward, but MS doesn't have to do anything to justify that opinion. They could say the same thing if Nintendo flipped a bit and said they wanted to put Mario on the Xbox. Everyone would know its patently not true and that it was just a smary nasty corporate thing to do, but it would be an EXPECTED smarmy nasty corporate thing to do, and thus impact people not much at all.
Would Sony let MS put Halo on the PS2? Probably not, particularly because MS would no doubt make the Microsoft logo absolutely huge on the front of the box, show up conspicuously all during the boot/intro sequence, and advertise Halo 2 heavily throughout the packaging and software with a "available on Xbox starting this November" or something.
Basically, its not going to happen, and its not going to make MS look all that bad when it doesn't either, except to the people who already hate them, and frankly, as dedicated non-customers of the company, MS could care less about them.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. I imagine he doesn't actually find many of them that funny, but its probably not something that bothers him either.
Nah, its boring WITH the chat, because in that case, the game gets in the WAY of social interaction.
Try to have a conversation with someone in the game... Assuming they DO talk back (and most won't), you can guarantee that about 5 minutes into the conversation, someone will say "Oh, wait, gotta go green." and then go off and do a series of silly repititive tasks and then come back to the conversation and say "So where were we?"
Or skill building... It takes forever, and is boring as heck, and the mere fact that everybody is staring at the screen while doing it tends to shape the conversation. During, the "free trial" I don't know how many "So, wow, we suck at guitar." or "Everybody working out here sounds like they need more fiber" conversations I was party to. The conversations probably would have been better if there was a blank screen ala IRC, since people wouldn't feel compelled to comment on it.
There is no "promotion" system in the game. The current subset of functionality in the game versus the offline Sims is very small.
And in the end, the game really is just IRC with avatars, ala Habitat or what have you. And I don't even really like IRC.
For incoming traffic, and with a connection tracking firewall, this makes perfect sense.
This is done in plenty of places, and users complain not at all, because for the most part, they never see its effects.
Don't take this personally, but I'm sure glad you aren't an employee at my company, if you're saying that you think you need arbitrary ports incoming to be open all the time.
Have one... And its mostly useless, except for the Odd CD-R homebrew thing that tries to do something with it. Or messing around with DC Linux I suppose.
I'm now a console freak Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Xbox, GameCube.
I bought each for their exclusive games... First a PS1 for Soul Blade, then the DreamCast for Soul Calibur, the PS2 was about the only console I bought before I had a game in mind to go with it, but luckily I bought SSX to go with it, the Xbox was Halo, and the GameCube was Metroid...
Since then, I'm mostly picky with what I pick up for each.
If a title shows up on all three, normally I get it for the Xbox: Best hardware currently and best chance that it'll have online play...
Although I mourned the demise of the Dreamcast, I'm happy Sega has reincarnated as a premier 2nd party developer. They really seem to finally be concentrating on games now. Panzer Dragoon Orta is amazingly good, and I was very happy to hear the rumor confirmed that a Golden Axe and Streets of Rage sequel is coming to the PS2.
As for the Gamecube, it currently has the smallest library... because mostly it seems all the 3rd party stuff for the GC is substandard or "also-rans" from other systems, but I do like the 2 first party titles I have for it...
I kind of think 2005 may be a bit early for them to launch a new console. It almost seems like that would be too short of a life span for the GC...
Because a default of 2 for high karma posters is annoying. Not everything they say is golden: Witness the high number of "In Soviet Russia" jokes that seem to be showing up at 2. For crying out loud, there needs to be a -1 "Not (Even Slightly) Funny".
I'd move my threshold up to 3, but then I'd miss all the comments at 2 that DESERVE to be there.
Its common thought in security circles that if you can't afford to do something right, its best not to do it at all. And given Japan's monetary issues right now, its quite possible they can't afford to do it right.
Shutting it all off till they can afford to place the resources on it that it requires is perfectly reasonable.
I'm afraid what I find sad is that people are getting so worked up by what they PERCEIVE in an extremely narrow way to be a slight. Sounds like the kind of people who get all worked up if somebody passes by their cube and just says "Hi" rather than stopping, smiling and saying "Hello, Mr. , I am EVERY SO VERY GLAD to see you!"
If you're able to tell from 15-20 sentences that this man is a personal blight to your well-being and happiness... Sigh.
There's a difference between writing a 40 page, 12 step, can-be-done-by-the-janitor manual that basically is a self-help guide that makes you at least mostly unecessary, and a "here's how I set up the RAID array, the major software packages, and the list of patches applied to this system" type documentation. As a consultant, I've done both.
The former, if being done by an FTE, is usually a very bad sign and probably requires at least a "boss, why exactly do you want this kind of detail, since a competant employee in my position doesn't need it?", the latter is simply a part of the job. If I was a manager and an employee refused the latter task, I'd consider it failure to perform.
Slashdot Mirror
Great for streaming music, maybe even some downloads, but horrible for interactive web-browsing to dynamic content.
Um, some of my customers have got print rendering engines running on OS/2, and message queueing/tracking software running on NT 3.51...
And on the desktop side, a few people are just super-excited that they're finally rolling Office 2000 under NT 4.0...
Heck, I've got customers that are just ecstatic that they've finally removed IPX traffic from their network.
These customers are lucky if the upgrade migration plan is just "spend X dollars to buy the new machines, new OSes, and new applications" where X is probably 80% of the IT departments project budget for that year. That's the EASY and DOABLE case. The hard case is "OK, we've got to re-engineer this application to work in new environment Y, and that's probably going to take well over a year, and untold man-months."
So, if you tell them, well, we need to move to IPV6 because its shinier and prettier, and then Joe Sixpack can finally get that IP for his toaster he's always been wanting, but oh, BTW, we're talking about not just OS upgrades, but new OSes, new applications on those OSes for nearly everything that uses the network, new lan equipment, new routing equipment, and probably a renogiation of our ISP agreements, well...
The selling points of IPv6 are security and expandability. People aren't feeling the expandability bite nearly as much as they thought they were going to, ESPECIALLY businesses. But even in the home... TiVo media option remote scheduling works just fine through NAT, cause the Tivo initiates the session that goes checks the server to get what to schedule. As for security, there is the perception that people should be able to obtain adequate security in the IPv4 space (and well, shouldn't they? That's where they need it right now)...
Someone mentioned spamless email as the possible killer-app, but that would take some initiative, and it would still have to gateway SMTP... Nobody is going to listen to "you must use the NEW NEW email now" arguments at this point.
"Freeze" alone could put the RIAA in so much hot water, if it ever ran on the wrong system, and I'm not even going to touch the "silence" program...
If they were ever dumb enough to deploy these programs into the general public, the amount of lawsuits they'd be up for would bankrupt them in no time. I'm sure plenty of lawyers and law firms would be more than willing to front for a 100000 person plus class action suit, which this would no doubt cause.
They may not be afraid of the little guy, but they SHOULD be afraid of the big law firm that smells a billion dollar settlement.
True, that's why they'll have to get somebody smarter than me to design the iconography, something of the level that everybody in the culture its being applied to will understand... Like temperatures maybe... or EQ creatures, or something. I dunno.
Another trick is making the low end category still seem "cool" then. Same problem with EQ: Nobody likes fighting Sewer Rats, and nobody would want to own a "Sickly Froglok" class machine.
This strikes me as bad solution to an already sticky problem. Whats to stop a studio from saying a game that runs at 10fps on a system considered a "1" from slapping a "1" rating on it in order to maximize their possible audience? Its all about sales, right? In addition, I wonder if in 2005 the hardware change-rate will be any different, limitations of silicon or no.
Ah, well, what will probably stop them is that MS will trademark/copyright/whatever the category iconography, and probably instigate a QA/licensing scheme similar to their console groups before certifying a title. Yes, this probably means you won't see this stuff being applied to every small house gaming title coming out, but the major market distributors probably won't have a huge cow over it.
Release it as an app, and give various classes of machines code words...
Then you just download an app (or heck, since this is MS, its part of the OS), and every time you click on About Computer or whatever (or even as some sort of icon embedded in a task bar, start menu, whatever) you get a "You have a 'Turnip' class PC!"
OK, maybe not the Turnip part, but you get the picture. If they choose their iconography or scheme well, then its something that can be printed on the back of a box. Perhaps colors in a rainbow. The problem with colors though is that they're always going to need new ones as newer/better stuff comes out.
Between a refined fuel and a resource fuel?
Hydrogen on earth is like gasoline: Its refined, and made to be a fuel by the expenditure of energy. Hydrogen is only an "unlimited fuel source" if it can be obtained in its free state, not tied to oxygen atoms.
Its simple, basic, conservation of energy: It takes exactly as much energy to free a hydrogen from water as you get back when you burn it, and actually, because of entropy, the net useful energy is a loss. Unless we find a energy positive way of getting large amounts of free hydrogen (finding a source on earth, or finding someway of mining it cheaply from elsewhere) we're not going to remove our dependance on fossil fuels one single iota. How do you think we're going to power the electrolysis of the water to free hydrogen? By burning fossil fuels most likely. All we'd do is centralize our need for fossil fuels, and perhaps make it more likely we could use natural gas or other more domestically available resources.
Any other method runs into the exact same issues we have with them right now? Wind and solar? Energy density from them isn't at the level to support the entire energy economy, although thankfully that seems to be getting better, enough to the point that we SHOULD be using it to supplement our reserves (and producing Hydrogen is probably a very good way of doing this). The other choice is nuclear fission, but we've apparently decided the costs of that are too high for large scale use (I'm still unsure one way or the other if this is a logical, reasoned decision or not).
Hydrogen isn't the saviour of mankind. What it IS is a way to use our resources a bit more efficiently, and that's why the idea has merit. Its not because somehow we'll not need all that messy oil anymore.
Any good Linux BBS servers? I notice that's running Synchronet on Windows... I've see a number of BBS packages for Windows, but blessed few for Linux...
What? You're telling me Apple is still in business?!? I wonder if I can get them to fix the Apple 2e I have in the garage.
I'm pretty sure you could make a PC quieter than the Xbox.
I often play DVDs on the Xbox (since the PS2's DVD player has issues), and I sometimes find myself slightly annoyed because I can hear the whining of the fan from the Xbox.
Nah, all MS has to do is deny the license and say that they did so because Linux "doesn't live up to the high quality consumer experience they want users to have on the Xbox." 100000 geeks fume and vent about it on Slashdot from that time forward, but MS doesn't have to do anything to justify that opinion. They could say the same thing if Nintendo flipped a bit and said they wanted to put Mario on the Xbox. Everyone would know its patently not true and that it was just a smary nasty corporate thing to do, but it would be an EXPECTED smarmy nasty corporate thing to do, and thus impact people not much at all.
Would Sony let MS put Halo on the PS2? Probably not, particularly because MS would no doubt make the Microsoft logo absolutely huge on the front of the box, show up conspicuously all during the boot/intro sequence, and advertise Halo 2 heavily throughout the packaging and software with a "available on Xbox starting this November" or something.
Basically, its not going to happen, and its not going to make MS look all that bad when it doesn't either, except to the people who already hate them, and frankly, as dedicated non-customers of the company, MS could care less about them.
I'm sure he takes it OK.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. I imagine he doesn't actually find many of them that funny, but its probably not something that bothers him either.
Nah, its boring WITH the chat, because in that case, the game gets in the WAY of social interaction.
Try to have a conversation with someone in the game... Assuming they DO talk back (and most won't), you can guarantee that about 5 minutes into the conversation, someone will say "Oh, wait, gotta go green." and then go off and do a series of silly repititive tasks and then come back to the conversation and say "So where were we?"
Or skill building... It takes forever, and is boring as heck, and the mere fact that everybody is staring at the screen while doing it tends to shape the conversation. During, the "free trial" I don't know how many "So, wow, we suck at guitar." or "Everybody working out here sounds like they need more fiber" conversations I was party to. The conversations probably would have been better if there was a blank screen ala IRC, since people wouldn't feel compelled to comment on it.
There is no "promotion" system in the game. The current subset of functionality in the game versus the offline Sims is very small.
And in the end, the game really is just IRC with avatars, ala Habitat or what have you. And I don't even really like IRC.
For incoming traffic, and with a connection tracking firewall, this makes perfect sense.
This is done in plenty of places, and users complain not at all, because for the most part, they never see its effects.
Don't take this personally, but I'm sure glad you aren't an employee at my company, if you're saying that you think you need arbitrary ports incoming to be open all the time.
Have one... And its mostly useless, except for the Odd CD-R homebrew thing that tries to do something with it. Or messing around with DC Linux I suppose.
Have you tried the S Controller? Definitely worth it, and it comes standard with the new bundle (the one with Sega GT and Jet Set Radio Future)...
Alright, I'll admit it:
I'm now a console freak
Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Xbox, GameCube.
I bought each for their exclusive games... First a PS1 for Soul Blade, then the DreamCast for Soul Calibur, the PS2 was about the only console I bought before I had a game in mind to go with it, but luckily I bought SSX to go with it, the Xbox was Halo, and the GameCube was Metroid...
Since then, I'm mostly picky with what I pick up for each.
If a title shows up on all three, normally I get it for the Xbox: Best hardware currently and best chance that it'll have online play...
Although I mourned the demise of the Dreamcast, I'm happy Sega has reincarnated as a premier 2nd party developer. They really seem to finally be concentrating on games now. Panzer Dragoon Orta is amazingly good, and I was very happy to hear the rumor confirmed that a Golden Axe and Streets of Rage sequel is coming to the PS2.
As for the Gamecube, it currently has the smallest library... because mostly it seems all the 3rd party stuff for the GC is substandard or "also-rans" from other systems, but I do like the 2 first party titles I have for it...
I kind of think 2005 may be a bit early for them to launch a new console. It almost seems like that would be too short of a life span for the GC...
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD SLASHDOT, JUST CAUSE I CAN TYPE A SENTENCE FAST... 18 seconds.... ... .... ...
waiting a bit...
OK.
Actually, If I recall correctly, it was Buzz Aldrin who punched out the moon-conspiracy theorist.
Because a default of 2 for high karma posters is annoying. Not everything they say is golden: Witness the high number of "In Soviet Russia" jokes that seem to be showing up at 2. For crying out loud, there needs to be a -1 "Not (Even Slightly) Funny".
I'd move my threshold up to 3, but then I'd miss all the comments at 2 that DESERVE to be there.
Prey got the official axe sometime this year, so it can't be vaporware anymore: The vapor has dissapated.
Its common thought in security circles that if you can't afford to do something right, its best not to do it at all. And given Japan's monetary issues right now, its quite possible they can't afford to do it right.
Shutting it all off till they can afford to place the resources on it that it requires is perfectly reasonable.
If anything, I entirely expect it not to be Merry as the one who helps Eowyn. (It was Merry, right? Don't have the books in front of me)...
My suspicion is that its going to be an Arwen/Eowyn tag-team match up against the Lord of the Nazgul. Cage match. Seat. Edge. All you need.
I'm afraid what I find sad is that people are getting so worked up by what they PERCEIVE in an extremely narrow way to be a slight. Sounds like the kind of people who get all worked up if somebody passes by their cube and just says "Hi" rather than stopping, smiling and saying "Hello, Mr. , I am EVERY SO VERY GLAD to see you!"
If you're able to tell from 15-20 sentences that this man is a personal blight to your well-being and happiness... Sigh.
There's a difference between writing a 40 page, 12 step, can-be-done-by-the-janitor manual that basically is a self-help guide that makes you at least mostly unecessary, and a "here's how I set up the RAID array, the major software packages, and the list of patches applied to this system" type documentation. As a consultant, I've done both.
The former, if being done by an FTE, is usually a very bad sign and probably requires at least a "boss, why exactly do you want this kind of detail, since a competant employee in my position doesn't need it?", the latter is simply a part of the job. If I was a manager and an employee refused the latter task, I'd consider it failure to perform.
Rampage was fun, but as someone who bought the version of it for the Playstation a number of years ago, it gets pretty darn old, pretty darn fast.