Reminds me of buying PC games several years ago. I'd buy the thing, it would install install install then crap out and tell me that it wouldn't install because I had a *gasp* CD burner. I'd have to download the no cd patch every damn time. INcreasingly, the games would die during the install itself. So I started downloading the pirated versions of the games that I had bought. I eventually stopped buying games, just downloaded them. I switched over 100% to Linux later on.
I recently bought a new laptop that came with Windows 7 Home Premium. There are a couple of games that looked like fun, so I figured that I would dual boot. Had to download an ISO for exactly the same version that I legally have a license to as computers do not actually come with discs anymore. Now Windows is telling me that my activation key is not valid. I've re-entered it several times but still a no go. The laptop is from Lenovo and I got it from Newegg, neither of which are shipping fake keys I'd bet.
I'm wiping out Windows as soon as I'm done playing the games I paid for on the OS I paid for.
I am sick of the bullshit I have to deal with in the proprietary world of software.
This reminds me of a story I think I saw here years ago.
Guy is told that they will be moving over to MS Exchange (this would have been in '97 or so). So he does his job and sets up Exchange. World goes to hell. E-Mail doesn't work several times a day, server crashes routinely, etc. His boss and users are on his ass constantly. It all becomes too much for the guy, who was told to do this over his own objections.
Monday morning, e-mail is working fine. It is all smooth sailing. Boss and users are happy. Management is content with their savvy in buying Exchange. A year or something later, the guy quits but not before leaving up to date documentation for the new guy.
First page of the documentation welcomes the replacement and says not to worry, everything he needs to know is in this folder. There are two sections: 1) What is official policy 2) What we actually do. The official policy is that we run Exchange for e-mail and here is the stuff to tell the boss about Exchange if there are ever problems. The actual policy is that we run Debian and postfix, since Exchange was a disaster, and here is how to do maintenance; tell no one except whoever replaces you.
I'm not noticing much different in your comments about engineers than most of the humanities people I've known. All disagreement is an indication of a heresy ("Racism!" and "Sexism!"). The views tend to be more muddled ("Everything is a shade of gray and all who disagree are EVIL!"), I would suspect.
Real Life (tm) does have great graphics, short load times and, once you get used to the controls, it is pretty intuitive (though that may be because of how damn long it takes to level up to adult.) There are some good mini-games (like sex) and there is even some real tension when those mini-games have mini-games (like sex when your in-game girlfriend finds you having it).
But there are some real downers that bring down the score. Some of those mini-games have permanent side effects like diseases that heal potions do not cure or having to sit in a cage FOREVER when you run down an buttload of civilians after stealing that Lamborghini. And WTF do you mean "no respawning"?!?!? What is this, Nethack?
I think you have some comprehension problems. A duty to pay what the law demands is not the same as "nobody owes anybody anything". Paying up under threat of imprisonment is not sharing, nor is it "sacrificing for others". It is not charity nor is it community service.
Wanting others to have to pay more so you can get free stuff is not altruism. It is greed.
Which reminds me of the Windows help system. Do any normal end users use it? I don't use Word at all but I am, for some reason, the guy everyone asks how to do something in Word. I just use the help system. This is considered deep, powerful black magic by most people.
I have to agree with your assessment to a large degree. The "make it like Windows" argument really needs to have its ass kicked definitively. Are we supposed to introduce a C: drive? ("Where is my C: drive?" was my first puzzlement, way back when).
Gnome has done some good things.
I remember when Gnome and KDE were first around and they pretty much looked alike: double wide panel at the bottom of the screen. The first time I saw the Gnome dual panel set up, it was actually from a screenshot of someone doing that on their own and a LOT of people tried it that way and that eventually became the default. That was Gnome advancing; being different was neither here nor there. It was something that users found more useful. How many Gnome screenshots have you seen where the users go back to single panel and it isn't Solaris 10?
Then there is Gconf-editor, whose UI is based on the Windows registry editor. Oh. My. God.
The old screensaver configuration utility was always really easy to use for messing with how your screensaver behaved. It got replaced because it was "too much for users". Uh, no it wasn't. It was easy as hell.
Then there is the new GDM which doesn't even have a config utility, so far as I can tell.
"I can believe that maybe Vader really was Luke's father all along"
He wasn't. There was a draft or some such for Empire where Vader has a deadly duel with... Luke's Father! That and Luke and Leia hook up. The brother/sister thing didn't come about until they were doing Return of the Jedi, hence the incest kiss in Empire.
The Star Wars novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye was actually going to be the second movie since they didn't know if Ford would come back to play Han Solo. Lucas can talk all he likes about having had it all planned out from the get go, but in reality the saga was made up as it was being made.
I read the link you posted to attempt to demonstrated sexism. Finding the story excessively melodramatic, I did some digging. Here is what what I think the co-founder of the site, pen name "Harry" or "Harrison" had to say:
Men with Pens started as an experiment. Most of my ideas start out that way, with a simple "What if?" James and I had two businesses at the time and I posed the question "What if we presented one business as men? You think it would do better?"
and
Although James is a very talented writer, the ball didn't start rolling until we put up our first redesign. After that, the graphics jobs started coming in fast and furious. And you know what? It had nothing to do with whether or not we were men or women. The work spoke for itself.
"I've never seen anyone seriously suggest a quota system in technical fields"
Haven't heard about the push to "Title IX" science programs?
Ubuntu works really well for what it is designed to do: be an easy to setup and use Linux system.
I've got it on my desktop and laptop currently. On the laptop, I was going to go with FreeBSD, but it wouldn't install properly. I then tried to install Arch; it was a no go. Gentoo? Nope. Sabayon sounded interesting but unfortunately the installer crapped out. Ubuntu? After a simple, easy install, it works like a charm.
There are annoyances, like having no luck getting wireless networking going strictly from a command line which I had no problem with on my late, lamented UltraSparc laptop with OpenBSD.
But Ubuntu is the only one that would install without any problems.
From the Founding Fathers mostly, whether apocryphal or not. "Democracy as two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner" and other such things. Democracy as the majority taking their fill from the rights of the minority. Democracy as Ochlocracy. In a republic, some things (see "Inalienable rights") can be above governmental power (in theory at least), whereas in a democracy everyone's rights are bestowed by the will of the majority and can be revoked the same way.
Also, I remember reading something about the government at least up through FDR publishing material distinguishing democracy and republics. I got a remnant of this when I was in grade school. I don't know if it has any place in any curriculum any longer.
Light is also not something I thought too much about; it seems to be above my intellectual pay grade.
Could a basic implementation be done in just software like this: Take a 3d game engine with a map and a model. Attach two "player's" eyes to the face of the model so there are two POVs instead of the usual FPS's one. The output goes to the video processing system (perhaps on a different machine), which creates a new 3d map with entities based on what the video system came up with.
Idea of it being that more could be controlled than in trying to model the real world, like light and shadows. So if a game car drove past, it doesn't cast a shadow, so the programmer can work on getting the basics down first before moving on to dealing with things casting shadows.
Slashdot Mirror
"scanned, rehashed, and misrepresented by crowds of quick and sloppy readers."
RTFA? Surely, you jest. This is Slashdot.
They're Californians. Not real people.
Reminds me of buying PC games several years ago. I'd buy the thing, it would install install install then crap out and tell me that it wouldn't install because I had a *gasp* CD burner. I'd have to download the no cd patch every damn time. INcreasingly, the games would die during the install itself. So I started downloading the pirated versions of the games that I had bought. I eventually stopped buying games, just downloaded them. I switched over 100% to Linux later on.
I recently bought a new laptop that came with Windows 7 Home Premium. There are a couple of games that looked like fun, so I figured that I would dual boot. Had to download an ISO for exactly the same version that I legally have a license to as computers do not actually come with discs anymore. Now Windows is telling me that my activation key is not valid. I've re-entered it several times but still a no go. The laptop is from Lenovo and I got it from Newegg, neither of which are shipping fake keys I'd bet.
I'm wiping out Windows as soon as I'm done playing the games I paid for on the OS I paid for.
I am sick of the bullshit I have to deal with in the proprietary world of software.
Liberal is a synonym not antonym.
This reminds me of a story I think I saw here years ago.
Guy is told that they will be moving over to MS Exchange (this would have been in '97 or so). So he does his job and sets up Exchange. World goes to hell. E-Mail doesn't work several times a day, server crashes routinely, etc. His boss and users are on his ass constantly. It all becomes too much for the guy, who was told to do this over his own objections.
Monday morning, e-mail is working fine. It is all smooth sailing. Boss and users are happy. Management is content with their savvy in buying Exchange. A year or something later, the guy quits but not before leaving up to date documentation for the new guy.
First page of the documentation welcomes the replacement and says not to worry, everything he needs to know is in this folder. There are two sections: 1) What is official policy 2) What we actually do. The official policy is that we run Exchange for e-mail and here is the stuff to tell the boss about Exchange if there are ever problems. The actual policy is that we run Debian and postfix, since Exchange was a disaster, and here is how to do maintenance; tell no one except whoever replaces you.
I'm not noticing much different in your comments about engineers than most of the humanities people I've known. All disagreement is an indication of a heresy ("Racism!" and "Sexism!"). The views tend to be more muddled ("Everything is a shade of gray and all who disagree are EVIL!"), I would suspect.
Somebody has some ideological blinders on.
Real Life (tm) does have great graphics, short load times and, once you get used to the controls, it is pretty intuitive (though that may be because of how damn long it takes to level up to adult.) There are some good mini-games (like sex) and there is even some real tension when those mini-games have mini-games (like sex when your in-game girlfriend finds you having it).
But there are some real downers that bring down the score. Some of those mini-games have permanent side effects like diseases that heal potions do not cure or having to sit in a cage FOREVER when you run down an buttload of civilians after stealing that Lamborghini. And WTF do you mean "no respawning"?!?!? What is this, Nethack?
This is a good idea. I think a LOT of people got their start in programming with QuakeC.
My "local merchants" are out of state businesses that send their profits elsewhere. Why should I care?
I think you have some comprehension problems. A duty to pay what the law demands is not the same as "nobody owes anybody anything". Paying up under threat of imprisonment is not sharing, nor is it "sacrificing for others". It is not charity nor is it community service.
Wanting others to have to pay more so you can get free stuff is not altruism. It is greed.
Which reminds me of the Windows help system. Do any normal end users use it? I don't use Word at all but I am, for some reason, the guy everyone asks how to do something in Word. I just use the help system. This is considered deep, powerful black magic by most people.
I have to agree with your assessment to a large degree. The "make it like Windows" argument really needs to have its ass kicked definitively. Are we supposed to introduce a C: drive? ("Where is my C: drive?" was my first puzzlement, way back when).
Gnome has done some good things.
I remember when Gnome and KDE were first around and they pretty much looked alike: double wide panel at the bottom of the screen. The first time I saw the Gnome dual panel set up, it was actually from a screenshot of someone doing that on their own and a LOT of people tried it that way and that eventually became the default. That was Gnome advancing; being different was neither here nor there. It was something that users found more useful. How many Gnome screenshots have you seen where the users go back to single panel and it isn't Solaris 10?
Then there is Gconf-editor, whose UI is based on the Windows registry editor. Oh. My. God.
The old screensaver configuration utility was always really easy to use for messing with how your screensaver behaved. It got replaced because it was "too much for users". Uh, no it wasn't. It was easy as hell.
Then there is the new GDM which doesn't even have a config utility, so far as I can tell.
Seriously, Gnome guys, what the hell?
If Windows is so easy to use, why am I constantly asked "How do I do this?", "Why won't this work?" and "How do I make this work?" by Windows users?
The Windows UI is dog shit.
I think it is now "Dances with Jurassic Smurfs" now.
"I can believe that maybe Vader really was Luke's father all along"
He wasn't. There was a draft or some such for Empire where Vader has a deadly duel with... Luke's Father! That and Luke and Leia hook up. The brother/sister thing didn't come about until they were doing Return of the Jedi, hence the incest kiss in Empire.
The Star Wars novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye was actually going to be the second movie since they didn't know if Ford would come back to play Han Solo. Lucas can talk all he likes about having had it all planned out from the get go, but in reality the saga was made up as it was being made.
AKA Most Awesome Car Ever
Men with Pens started as an experiment. Most of my ideas start out that way, with a simple "What if?" James and I had two businesses at the time and I posed the question "What if we presented one business as men? You think it would do better?"
and
Although James is a very talented writer, the ball didn't start rolling until we put up our first redesign. After that, the graphics jobs started coming in fast and furious. And you know what? It had nothing to do with whether or not we were men or women. The work spoke for itself.
"I've never seen anyone seriously suggest a quota system in technical fields"
Haven't heard about the push to "Title IX" science programs?
Having read a number of Supreme Court cases, I'm going to have to require actual proof of that.
Ubuntu works really well for what it is designed to do: be an easy to setup and use Linux system.
I've got it on my desktop and laptop currently. On the laptop, I was going to go with FreeBSD, but it wouldn't install properly. I then tried to install Arch; it was a no go. Gentoo? Nope. Sabayon sounded interesting but unfortunately the installer crapped out. Ubuntu? After a simple, easy install, it works like a charm.
There are annoyances, like having no luck getting wireless networking going strictly from a command line which I had no problem with on my late, lamented UltraSparc laptop with OpenBSD.
But Ubuntu is the only one that would install without any problems.
From the Founding Fathers mostly, whether apocryphal or not. "Democracy as two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner" and other such things. Democracy as the majority taking their fill from the rights of the minority. Democracy as Ochlocracy. In a republic, some things (see "Inalienable rights") can be above governmental power (in theory at least), whereas in a democracy everyone's rights are bestowed by the will of the majority and can be revoked the same way.
Also, I remember reading something about the government at least up through FDR publishing material distinguishing democracy and republics. I got a remnant of this when I was in grade school. I don't know if it has any place in any curriculum any longer.
"I am lucky enough to have never had my real name associated with my alias at the time. However, I did not avoid a criminal record"
Convicted in abstentia or something?
"Why is this solution acceptable for Windows but not Linux?"
Because of all us tools that fix people's Windows computers for them for free.
"Why don't you try something else since you are having so many problems with Windows?"
"I like Windows!"
"You like Windows because you can call me to fix all your problems."
Light is also not something I thought too much about; it seems to be above my intellectual pay grade.
Could a basic implementation be done in just software like this: Take a 3d game engine with a map and a model. Attach two "player's" eyes to the face of the model so there are two POVs instead of the usual FPS's one. The output goes to the video processing system (perhaps on a different machine), which creates a new 3d map with entities based on what the video system came up with.
Idea of it being that more could be controlled than in trying to model the real world, like light and shadows. So if a game car drove past, it doesn't cast a shadow, so the programmer can work on getting the basics down first before moving on to dealing with things casting shadows.
Thank you! When I did my searching for something like my idea, I couldn't find anything. Obviously my Google-fu needs some work.
With regards to how easy it would be, my estimate was that it was beyond my abilities. So it still is, but just way way beyond my abilities.