Exactly. Yum takes forever downloading repo data and if you choose to use from cache it doesn't get the new stuff. It's just a bizzare annoying bug. If you're doing more than just a standard update it can be very annoying.
That's the kind of little imperfections that I'm talking about. Package management is a pretty mature technology now. Rather than doing your own thing with new features why not build them into one standard package management system. Use dev forks for experimental features rather than reinventing the wheel. Better to pool your resources and make one really good package management tool. IMO the only reason for alternate package management is if you're doing something very different like Gentoo.
I'm betting the PS3 will be out before Windows Vista. Maybe Microsoft should have got Vista out before using resources to push the 360 out? Although you'd think such a wealthy big company could do both.
Text-based MUDs are about as close to a true non-linear game as you can get. Something like Lambda MOO is extremely flexible. When these fancy 3D graphical MUDs figure out how to capture that same flexibility and open-ended play then they'll have a real winner on their hands. The closest I've seen is Second Life but it isn't quite there in the area of user-interface and it still isn't quite as flexible as something like Lambda.
If Second Life could recruit some major game designers to join in and help them improve the interface and add some sub-games it could be magic. I've been experimenting with doing some creation on Second Life but I'm finding their tools and documentation a little lacking.
It's usually more an issue of 50-100% price increase for the better card not 200%. At least in my experience. So every three years you save around $50 plus time and effort involved.
I always liked the system of requiring one user that has the password for the account that is allowed to sudo and another user having the password to sudo. So it takes two users to login and really do anything. Of course this is probably a bit paranoid. Would work even better with biometrics.
But will it still hit that spot in three years? A decent mid-range game card now can be bought for $100 and not be completely outdated for several years. Most of the budget cards I've ever tried barely did the job when you bought them, still cost around $50-$70, and certainly didn't handle anything very useful two or three years later. It seems the desktop is going to need this 3D power in the near future so maybe it's better to double what you're spending and get something a bit better?
Or - is this card a new generation of cheap cards that won't suck in three years.
Has anyone else noticed that yum sucks? It's just plain slow. apt-get or rug are a lot faster. Is there no way to switch away from yum or simply make it do whatever apt or rug do to be so much more responsive? In general it's just not very user-friendly though. Maybe more so than apt is but less than rug. If we're going to use yum then lets make it work a little better.
Of course I wonder why in this day we are still using multiple packaging systems. It'd be great if at least the big two, Debian and RedHat, could get together and merge the best points of deb and rpm into a single package system both would use complete with good package management. Is it really so hard to do that? What issues are keeping these two package systems apart? Unity in package management would just make life easier for users of both family of distros and therefore would make Linux easier and help it grow.
Thanks, I might suggest they offer PayPal subscriptions as an option so that every month we could have $5 donated or something like that. $5/mo is easier than $60 once a year but I won't remember on my own.
It'd be great to be able to donate funds through Freshmeat or something like that where we could go through and pick out our favorite projects and set-up a donation schedule.
For anything other than vanilla workstations getting a cheap video card usually costs more in the long run than a mid-range card because you have to replace it sooner. This card looks like it has a little bit of power to it. Will it still be able to run most 3D games and apps in three years or will it, like most of these cheapies, have to be replaced yearly? With desktops and apps going 3D more and more it's no longer an issue only for gamers I think.
Do they have a page with info on how to donate? I don't use OpenBSD but I do use some of their other work so I'd be willing to toss in a few bucks here and there.
Shitty websites make ad money because people click the ads and leave. They have no interest in staying. That has been my experience. My better websites with actual designs and content are less profitable (from ads) because people want to stay there.
You can do a lot of things when nobody is checking. How would anyone know that an Internet post was the reason someone wasn't hired unless it was said so? At a past job one of the reasons (all of which were stupid made up reasons) listed was that I dared to say on my website that I'd like to work for Google. The fact that my website has said that since long before I took that job with them didn't seem to matter. In the end it's for the best cus they didn't pay well, had no idea how to write good code, and in general were just not a good place to work.
They are effectively leaving the niche market with lower profitability to be fought over while they take the larger more profitable market for themselves. A pretty smart move although I do hope they do have a fair powered and networked machine still. I think the low price tag will be their key to success though.
You're claiming that search results aren't already total shit thanks to spammers? It annoys the shit out of me that I have to compete with yahoos that are using link farms and similar methods to get results. If you don't cheat at least a little bit you're not likely to get placed well in search results for anything with very much competition involved thanks to the search engines not better guarding against these creeps. It's sort of a spiral of death.
You, like myself, are getting old. We don't count as hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers are the mostly young male population that lives for games and might never have played Pac Man or Super Mario.
I do share some things with the gamers though in that I'm very interested in seeing what kind of raw processing power can put put into these consumer machines. They want them for games and I want them for doing my own little interesting projects on.
The Revolution may innovate in the controller and basic gameplay premises which is great but as soon as it does the XBox and PS3 will just adopt those innovations and be left with much more powerful machines that can do everything the Revolution can and much more. Sure the game market is stuck in a rut but processing power still gives you more room to do stuff.
I'm betting on collabortive content creation as the next-gen killer app. Get some very powerful machines networked together and turn game building, movie production, music production, etc into an easy-to-do group experience and you'll have something. Maybe the Revolution-type controller will be part of that process but a lot of it has to do with having the raw power and bandwidth needed and creating some nice software interfaces and new task-purposed hardware for input etc.
An example would be that many years ago I had a group of friends that had some custom software that would let them hook their midi instruments up and transmit the data back and forth so the group could jam together despite not living close to each other. Today you could provide a nice interface to that process complete with vocals, cam feeds, live editing, recording, and fan interaction and I think people would love it. That isn't a hardcore gamer type of thing but it could make good use of some serious hardware. It's reinventing the concept of a garage band for the Internet era. You could even offer an MMORPG built around such a system so that you could form online bands and compete with other bands and quest and work your way up in the world by being a good band. Some games have bards and things like that. What if everyone in your group used an instrument to battle, defend, cast magic, heal, etc or if your band had to play a given song with the level of percision used to base how well you succeeded. Lots of possibilities.
I think the Revolution is sort of a wildcard. I think the market is likely to really go in two different directions. Young children and non-hardcore gamers will likely go with the Revolution and the more hardcore gamers will stick with XBox and Playstation. This is a pretty smart move on the part of Nintendo I think.
The problem being that companies are using DRM to make up for overpriced shitty products. With a decent product and decent pricing people will buy the software. As it is the average consumer is quickly learning to find free, already cracked, copies anyhow. Either they are smart enough to find it online or they just find a friend that is. Most people I know that defend commercial software are either people trying to make a living from that software or a consumer that is getting it all for free anyway. The people that have to pay (overpay) for their software aren't as forgiving when it crashes or otherwise sucks. None sucky none overpriced is the key to profits and keeping people from copying.
It can happen but I don't think there is much risk of it happening right now. Sony would have to release a PS3 (now later than the 360) that just didn't have the power and features needed. Lacking such a stupid move I think they'll do fine.
I just want the PS3 to kick ass. If it kicks ass I won't mind if they even skip a whole generation of consoles. I want an awesome experience and I'm willing to pay for it. Deliver and you'll make some cash. I'd even go as far as saying that I'd pay $1000 for a console if it really blew me away. I really want to see something more powerful than the XBox 360 which in my mind is comparable to my (fairly high-end) PC. Cram two or three Cell processors in there and some serious amounts of RAM if needed. I want a machine that I'll lust over the way I wanted a Nintendo when I was a kid.
Any kind of disk is failable so it makes total sense to backup software, movies, music, etc. Not doing so isn't smart, not being able to is just stupid. Of course they want you to have to buy duplicates as it's much easier to sell you one item you like over and over than to make new items you'll like. Lazy bastards.
DRM is a stupid idea. It never stops hackers but it stops the average consumer from having the full use of the device they've legally bought. Making backups should be a fully protected right. Not a limited number of backup copies - as many as I happen to want to make. If I make a backup and then run it over with my car it shouldn't matter because my original is in a safe location and I can just make a new backup.
Of course 'backup' for the copy you're using isn't a very good term.
It's great that IE7 is more compliant with standards but I'd be a lot happier if they'd get at least close to the same level as Firefox, Opera, or Safari. That would be fantastic. Better yet, I'd love to see them be so compliant that they leave Firefox, Safari, and Opera looking like wannabes. I don't care who I'm supporting so long as they make my life easier.
I often fine little odd behaviors in how Opera handles CSS. They may technically be correct but so is Firefox. The issue being that the spec is very confusing and generic so that it's hard to know where the bug is. Still, Firefox does what I think is most often the desired effect in these cases whereas Opera and Safari seem to take the approach of the easiest solution to implement. Both Opera and Safari handle form widgets incorrectly, IMHO, as they try to use platform-centric widgets rather than widgets that are properly styled using CSS. Try drawing a background image on form dropdowns in Safari or Opera and all you'll get is a flat white background. Little issues like that are a hassle but it's great that Firefox, Safari, and Opera are all doing so well that it even becomes an issue to handle those little nagging things.
Sadly this is a fair example of how users really use any program. To us geeks this stuff is obvious but you have to remember that most users never really pay attention to what they're doing. They don't notice a useful text box that can do powerful things like search unless there is actually a button next to it marked search. To many options and they'll not understand them but if you nest options more than a couple deep they'll get confused and not know what they're doing. It's amazing how stupid people can really be.
In my programs and websites I try to keep things clearly labeled and as simple as possible to use because otherwise people just won't use them very much. I'd suggest it being useful for Firefox to add an optional search button similar to the go button next to the search box and turn tabs on by default even if only one is loaded. Adding an optional new tab button to the tab bar would be smart too.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Yum takes forever downloading repo data and if you choose to use from cache it doesn't get the new stuff. It's just a bizzare annoying bug. If you're doing more than just a standard update it can be very annoying.
That's the kind of little imperfections that I'm talking about. Package management is a pretty mature technology now. Rather than doing your own thing with new features why not build them into one standard package management system. Use dev forks for experimental features rather than reinventing the wheel. Better to pool your resources and make one really good package management tool. IMO the only reason for alternate package management is if you're doing something very different like Gentoo.
I'm betting the PS3 will be out before Windows Vista. Maybe Microsoft should have got Vista out before using resources to push the 360 out? Although you'd think such a wealthy big company could do both.
Text-based MUDs are about as close to a true non-linear game as you can get. Something like Lambda MOO is extremely flexible. When these fancy 3D graphical MUDs figure out how to capture that same flexibility and open-ended play then they'll have a real winner on their hands. The closest I've seen is Second Life but it isn't quite there in the area of user-interface and it still isn't quite as flexible as something like Lambda.
If Second Life could recruit some major game designers to join in and help them improve the interface and add some sub-games it could be magic. I've been experimenting with doing some creation on Second Life but I'm finding their tools and documentation a little lacking.
It's usually more an issue of 50-100% price increase for the better card not 200%. At least in my experience. So every three years you save around $50 plus time and effort involved.
I always liked the system of requiring one user that has the password for the account that is allowed to sudo and another user having the password to sudo. So it takes two users to login and really do anything. Of course this is probably a bit paranoid. Would work even better with biometrics.
But will it still hit that spot in three years? A decent mid-range game card now can be bought for $100 and not be completely outdated for several years. Most of the budget cards I've ever tried barely did the job when you bought them, still cost around $50-$70, and certainly didn't handle anything very useful two or three years later. It seems the desktop is going to need this 3D power in the near future so maybe it's better to double what you're spending and get something a bit better?
Or - is this card a new generation of cheap cards that won't suck in three years.
Has anyone else noticed that yum sucks? It's just plain slow. apt-get or rug are a lot faster. Is there no way to switch away from yum or simply make it do whatever apt or rug do to be so much more responsive? In general it's just not very user-friendly though. Maybe more so than apt is but less than rug. If we're going to use yum then lets make it work a little better.
Of course I wonder why in this day we are still using multiple packaging systems. It'd be great if at least the big two, Debian and RedHat, could get together and merge the best points of deb and rpm into a single package system both would use complete with good package management. Is it really so hard to do that? What issues are keeping these two package systems apart? Unity in package management would just make life easier for users of both family of distros and therefore would make Linux easier and help it grow.
Thanks, I might suggest they offer PayPal subscriptions as an option so that every month we could have $5 donated or something like that. $5/mo is easier than $60 once a year but I won't remember on my own.
It'd be great to be able to donate funds through Freshmeat or something like that where we could go through and pick out our favorite projects and set-up a donation schedule.
For anything other than vanilla workstations getting a cheap video card usually costs more in the long run than a mid-range card because you have to replace it sooner. This card looks like it has a little bit of power to it. Will it still be able to run most 3D games and apps in three years or will it, like most of these cheapies, have to be replaced yearly? With desktops and apps going 3D more and more it's no longer an issue only for gamers I think.
Do they have a page with info on how to donate? I don't use OpenBSD but I do use some of their other work so I'd be willing to toss in a few bucks here and there.
Shitty websites make ad money because people click the ads and leave. They have no interest in staying. That has been my experience. My better websites with actual designs and content are less profitable (from ads) because people want to stay there.
You can do a lot of things when nobody is checking. How would anyone know that an Internet post was the reason someone wasn't hired unless it was said so? At a past job one of the reasons (all of which were stupid made up reasons) listed was that I dared to say on my website that I'd like to work for Google. The fact that my website has said that since long before I took that job with them didn't seem to matter. In the end it's for the best cus they didn't pay well, had no idea how to write good code, and in general were just not a good place to work.
They are effectively leaving the niche market with lower profitability to be fought over while they take the larger more profitable market for themselves. A pretty smart move although I do hope they do have a fair powered and networked machine still. I think the low price tag will be their key to success though.
You're claiming that search results aren't already total shit thanks to spammers? It annoys the shit out of me that I have to compete with yahoos that are using link farms and similar methods to get results. If you don't cheat at least a little bit you're not likely to get placed well in search results for anything with very much competition involved thanks to the search engines not better guarding against these creeps. It's sort of a spiral of death.
You, like myself, are getting old. We don't count as hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers are the mostly young male population that lives for games and might never have played Pac Man or Super Mario.
I do share some things with the gamers though in that I'm very interested in seeing what kind of raw processing power can put put into these consumer machines. They want them for games and I want them for doing my own little interesting projects on.
The Revolution may innovate in the controller and basic gameplay premises which is great but as soon as it does the XBox and PS3 will just adopt those innovations and be left with much more powerful machines that can do everything the Revolution can and much more. Sure the game market is stuck in a rut but processing power still gives you more room to do stuff.
I'm betting on collabortive content creation as the next-gen killer app. Get some very powerful machines networked together and turn game building, movie production, music production, etc into an easy-to-do group experience and you'll have something. Maybe the Revolution-type controller will be part of that process but a lot of it has to do with having the raw power and bandwidth needed and creating some nice software interfaces and new task-purposed hardware for input etc.
An example would be that many years ago I had a group of friends that had some custom software that would let them hook their midi instruments up and transmit the data back and forth so the group could jam together despite not living close to each other. Today you could provide a nice interface to that process complete with vocals, cam feeds, live editing, recording, and fan interaction and I think people would love it. That isn't a hardcore gamer type of thing but it could make good use of some serious hardware. It's reinventing the concept of a garage band for the Internet era. You could even offer an MMORPG built around such a system so that you could form online bands and compete with other bands and quest and work your way up in the world by being a good band. Some games have bards and things like that. What if everyone in your group used an instrument to battle, defend, cast magic, heal, etc or if your band had to play a given song with the level of percision used to base how well you succeeded. Lots of possibilities.
I think the Revolution is sort of a wildcard. I think the market is likely to really go in two different directions. Young children and non-hardcore gamers will likely go with the Revolution and the more hardcore gamers will stick with XBox and Playstation. This is a pretty smart move on the part of Nintendo I think.
The problem being that companies are using DRM to make up for overpriced shitty products. With a decent product and decent pricing people will buy the software. As it is the average consumer is quickly learning to find free, already cracked, copies anyhow. Either they are smart enough to find it online or they just find a friend that is. Most people I know that defend commercial software are either people trying to make a living from that software or a consumer that is getting it all for free anyway. The people that have to pay (overpay) for their software aren't as forgiving when it crashes or otherwise sucks. None sucky none overpriced is the key to profits and keeping people from copying.
It can happen but I don't think there is much risk of it happening right now. Sony would have to release a PS3 (now later than the 360) that just didn't have the power and features needed. Lacking such a stupid move I think they'll do fine.
I just want the PS3 to kick ass. If it kicks ass I won't mind if they even skip a whole generation of consoles. I want an awesome experience and I'm willing to pay for it. Deliver and you'll make some cash. I'd even go as far as saying that I'd pay $1000 for a console if it really blew me away. I really want to see something more powerful than the XBox 360 which in my mind is comparable to my (fairly high-end) PC. Cram two or three Cell processors in there and some serious amounts of RAM if needed. I want a machine that I'll lust over the way I wanted a Nintendo when I was a kid.
Any kind of disk is failable so it makes total sense to backup software, movies, music, etc. Not doing so isn't smart, not being able to is just stupid. Of course they want you to have to buy duplicates as it's much easier to sell you one item you like over and over than to make new items you'll like. Lazy bastards.
DRM is a stupid idea. It never stops hackers but it stops the average consumer from having the full use of the device they've legally bought. Making backups should be a fully protected right. Not a limited number of backup copies - as many as I happen to want to make. If I make a backup and then run it over with my car it shouldn't matter because my original is in a safe location and I can just make a new backup.
Of course 'backup' for the copy you're using isn't a very good term.
It's great that IE7 is more compliant with standards but I'd be a lot happier if they'd get at least close to the same level as Firefox, Opera, or Safari. That would be fantastic. Better yet, I'd love to see them be so compliant that they leave Firefox, Safari, and Opera looking like wannabes. I don't care who I'm supporting so long as they make my life easier.
I often fine little odd behaviors in how Opera handles CSS. They may technically be correct but so is Firefox. The issue being that the spec is very confusing and generic so that it's hard to know where the bug is. Still, Firefox does what I think is most often the desired effect in these cases whereas Opera and Safari seem to take the approach of the easiest solution to implement. Both Opera and Safari handle form widgets incorrectly, IMHO, as they try to use platform-centric widgets rather than widgets that are properly styled using CSS. Try drawing a background image on form dropdowns in Safari or Opera and all you'll get is a flat white background. Little issues like that are a hassle but it's great that Firefox, Safari, and Opera are all doing so well that it even becomes an issue to handle those little nagging things.
I d/388
Some examples -
Centering problem in Safari and Opera: http://www.tubmonkey.com/
Dropdown backgrounds problem in Safari and Opera (color selector): http://www.tubmonkey.com/viewProduct.html/product
Sadly this is a fair example of how users really use any program. To us geeks this stuff is obvious but you have to remember that most users never really pay attention to what they're doing. They don't notice a useful text box that can do powerful things like search unless there is actually a button next to it marked search. To many options and they'll not understand them but if you nest options more than a couple deep they'll get confused and not know what they're doing. It's amazing how stupid people can really be.
In my programs and websites I try to keep things clearly labeled and as simple as possible to use because otherwise people just won't use them very much. I'd suggest it being useful for Firefox to add an optional search button similar to the go button next to the search box and turn tabs on by default even if only one is loaded. Adding an optional new tab button to the tab bar would be smart too.