"I'm assuming it's just a mockup, the nicer to be proved wrong about;) "
Everyday, I wait to surf to slashdot. Not for the news. Not for the information. Not even for the daily marching orders for the war against freedom.
No, I come here so that timothy, the master of the "snide aside" can tell me how to feel about an article, so I don't have to worry my pretty little head about it, much less bother to read it myself.
#ENDSARCASM
Am I the only one who notices that of all of the editors, only "timothy" cannot stop himself from making snide (or worse, offtopic) comments on every article that he posts? Where is the senior editor?
Donut
ps. To paraphrase Sideshow Bob, I am aware of the irony of using an off-topic post to decry an off-topic comment from an editor.
Here is a site with addresses and phone numbers for a great many credit card companies and banks. Nader, as usual, being only half useful, did not see fit to set us up.
Don't use @home. It is a free market, and you can exercise your basic consumer rights and take your business elsewhere.
Last I read, censorship is only when it is done by a government, not by a private party. @home is free to carry any content they choose on their servers. They are not obligated to carry any of them, and I am always suprised by the groups that they do. The market will reward and/or punish their actions accordingly.
Remember that there was a F117 shot down in Kosovo? Ever wonder how?
Actually, they used standard technology, but studied the radar "tapes" night after night. 2 things became clear.
First, the stealth is not 100% stealth. It was showing up on the radar, about the size of a small rock. The processors for the real-time displays were trained to not look for rocks. They changed the software of the radar systems to look for rocks going 500 knots.
Second, the Air Force mission planners got lazy. They made the F117's fly the same routes over and over again, at almost the same time. So, not only did the radar operators know what to look for (rocks moving at 500 knots), they knew when and where to look.
Result? Shot down F117. They simple filled the sky with flak, old-school style.
The Russians, Chinese, and Iraquis all helped Milosovic do this, because they all had interest in seeing if it could be done. The F117's in downtown Bagdhad night after night scared the crap out of them.
Interesting side note: The reason we bombed the Chinese embassy is to destroy some F117 parts that they had bought from Milosovic.
First, I hired people from the defense industry. That was easy, since I was working on hard core miltary sims. Some of the people had real simulation or real AI skills, and also liked the stuff we were working on. These people tended to be older, and had real engineering degrees.
Second, I would hire hot young punks out of college. The prequisites for that was DEMOS. The course work was important, but WAY more important was what a person did on their own time. Mods, tech demos, school projects that actually did something real, or real jobs carried a lot more weight. Also, having that inner "drive" to do whatever it took to get the code done. These people I looked on as blank slates, and I could use them just about anywhere. They would work hard, and if I watched them closely, they could learn alot. I am happy to say that a lot of those people grew up to be damned fine programmers, working on award winning titles. One was the lead programmer of Deus Ex!
The last (but not the least) place I would look would be in the company's QA dept. Our QA staff (back in the day) was the best in the industry. Those guys would know more about our games than we would. They would often do things on the side (tech demos, modding our games) that would make me want to have them join the dev team. I have hired QA people into my teams as assistant producers, designers, and programmers. I had even better luck with these people, since I had already known them through their QA work, and those people grew into great talents. One is working on Star Wars Galaxies now!
So, I have used three paths: Real world experience with the subject matter (really prevelant now that everyone is doing client server stuff), hot punk out of college, and rising through the ranks from QA.
Each has its plusses and minuses. But it always comes back to hard, good work, enthusiasm, and just being a good person.
Donut
ps. I was a young punk from college. Thank you Warren Spector and Rich Garriott!
Uh, Paul Steed got into the industry about 1991 as an artist. His skinning skills were learned on the job, as the first real-time 3D artist at Origin. He mastered the in-house 3D tool, called EOR, and built all of the real time 3D models for Strike Commander.
He then went from artist to Project Lead, and led a team that did absolutely nothing on a non-game called Cyclone Alley.
His fame came when he went to id, and they let him talk to the public...
A group of technical leaders were at a seminar called "Making Reliable Software". The teacher at the seminar, in order to make the participants appreciate the problems of reliable software, posed this question:
"How many of you would be willing to fly in an airplane that was controlled by software that your company created?"
The technical leaders thought about it, and looked around at each other. Nobody raised their hands, except for one lone guy in the back. The teacher was suprised.
"You, in the back," he asked. "Why are you so sure that it would be safe?"
"Simple," replied the programmer. "Knowing how my guys code, the plane wouldn't even be able to pull away from the gate."
Well, fly-by-wire (completely software controlled) aircraft have been around for about 25 years. Lately, though, the spectactular problems with the software seem to be coming from the government run programs. These problems include:
- V-22 crash
- F-22 crash
- Airbus crashes to numerous to mention
Seems that Boeing, though, built the 777, and has had almost no issues...
Could it be because they would LOSE THEIR SHIRT in the hyper-competitive PRIVATE market of airliners if they had a single problem? Or maybe that there were no government entities backing them up (Yeah, looking at you, you Airbus people) if they screwed the pooch?
Hmmmmm...
I am a parent, I love pr0n, but I do not want my child to look at pr0n.
I carry a concealed handgun, but I don't want my daughter to do that either.
I can drive a car, but she is not ready.
I can drink alcohol, but not her.
Yes, this makes me a "hypocrate". But that is why children are children, and not adults. Any responsible, reasonable adult should realize this. Children are not merely smaller adults.
Since raising kids is the most important thing that we humans do, I thought that there was a Social Contract between parents and society. We parents try to raise our children correctly, to know right and wrong, to think for themselves, and to be prepared to be smart, free citizens of the world. In return, Society tries not to get in our way, tries to keep childhood relatively safe, and supports our efforts. Apparently this contract is getting tattered...
We have a responsibility as a culture to try to raise our children correctly. I know there are many opinions on how to do this, but there are several universal ideas: Certain things should not be allowed into the hands of unsupervised children. Alcohol, guns, cars, and porn are all on this list. There are laws in every state to cover this.
The addition of the internet as a new media into this does not change these facts, and I do not see why it should. We should not make that which children are not ready to deal with easily available to them. Liquour, cigarettes, guns, and car keys are hard for an 11 year old to get a hold of. So is traditional pr0n. So should internet pr0n.
Yes, the primary responsibility is on the parents (at least those lucky kids that have two normal, straight, healthy, male and female parents), and I will uphold my end of that. My child will not use unfiltered, unfettered internet as long as I can prevent it. That will not be forever, nor do I want it to be. Someday she will see a woman f*cking a dog, or some woman felching some guy. I merely want to postpone that as long as possible, until she is at least somewhat ready for it. And no sex-ed-talk I give her will cover these things...
Public unfiltered internet access, readily available to anyone who walks up, breaks the social contract that I thought I had so that I could raise my kid.
Well, actually, most institutions are breaking this contract these days. I guess I should not be surprised.
-Donut, white, straight, married, rich, red-meat-eating, pr0n-surfing, gun-packing, fast-car-driving, raise-my-child-right-or-die, libertarian symbol of everything the P.C. world hates.
ps. Arguing that filtering software is flawed is dodging the issue. The real issue is: Should all information be free for everyone all the time. The answer is, of course, no. You still have to buy books....
[mentally preparing for this to be moderated down to about -1200]
How many other middle-aged retired insurance salesmen have created multi-million dollar publishing empires through their hard work, in-depth research, and good writing?
Slash dot is not falling into the classic-guilty-white-male trap of deriding those that are successful, are they?
One down, but what about these other UIDs, which have been around for a long time... - the MAC address on your Ethernet card. Unique by design, easy to get to. - The serial number of your hard drive. Very easy to get to. Not guaranteed unique, can be changed, but most are not. - The serial number in your BIOS. - The serial number in Windows. - The serial number of any plug and play device. When people went nuts over the Pentium ID, I LMAO at the knee-jerk morons. You are already tagged! -Donut
Hahhah! Did you get this from liberal-think-tank Wizard Application? Sacrifice is NOT the measure of someone's philanthropic usefulness. $20 from a poor guys is $20. 2 billion from Bill Gates is $2 billion. Which will do the most good? If I was looking for scholarship, I know what I would consider. If I had malaria, I know which one I would appriciate more. Besides, Gates has publically stated that he plans to give it all (except some small sum per offspring) to charity. Man, what the schools are turning out today. Donut
Here is the internal email that went out from Jack Heistand, CEO of Origin, to the troops about what was going on. It was on the X-Origin mailing list in about 2.5 seconds.
Ok, all you nerds with more time than I, someone needs to figure out how to open this box! Bigger Hard Drives (75 Gigs!) More Memory! Make it run a web browser, play MP3's, play MAME games. I am kind of disapointed that this has not been done. Is there something about this hardware that makes this difficult? I would expect them to use as many simple, off-the-shelf components as possible. I know some TIVO hardware people are reading this. Spill! Donut
Then, in my mind, I realized that if the thing had been animated, and the astronauts had been monkeys or fish or something, it would have been perfect for an 8 year old kid.
The only real flaw of this movie, then, was that it was live action, and used good actors, and a name, geeky director. Besides those [small] items, it was a prototypical Disney cartoon, about what you would expect from the Mouse. The addition of live action and good actors increased our expeectations, and BOOM, disapointment.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyday, I wait to surf to slashdot. Not for the news. Not for the information. Not even for the daily marching orders for the war against freedom.
No, I come here so that timothy, the master of the "snide aside" can tell me how to feel about an article, so I don't have to worry my pretty little head about it, much less bother to read it myself.
#ENDSARCASM
Am I the only one who notices that of all of the editors, only "timothy" cannot stop himself from making snide (or worse, offtopic) comments on every article that he posts? Where is the senior editor?
Donut
ps. To paraphrase Sideshow Bob, I am aware of the irony of using an off-topic post to decry an off-topic comment from an editor.
Here's Mickey Kaus, of Kausfiles.com, with an argument that the release of XP will mark a turnaround for our sinking economy. Interesting argument.
You are calmly surfing around, and suddenly a breathy female voice announces that she has a porn site so hot, that she can't tell anyone about it.
Anyone buy my wife in the next room, apparently.
Donut
Try this.
Last I read, censorship is only when it is done by a government, not by a private party. @home is free to carry any content they choose on their servers. They are not obligated to carry any of them, and I am always suprised by the groups that they do. The market will reward and/or punish their actions accordingly.
And chances are, 95% of their users won't care.
Why is this a big deal?
Actually, they used standard technology, but studied the radar "tapes" night after night. 2 things became clear.
First, the stealth is not 100% stealth. It was showing up on the radar, about the size of a small rock. The processors for the real-time displays were trained to not look for rocks. They changed the software of the radar systems to look for rocks going 500 knots.
Second, the Air Force mission planners got lazy. They made the F117's fly the same routes over and over again, at almost the same time. So, not only did the radar operators know what to look for (rocks moving at 500 knots), they knew when and where to look.
Result? Shot down F117. They simple filled the sky with flak, old-school style.
The Russians, Chinese, and Iraquis all helped Milosovic do this, because they all had interest in seeing if it could be done. The F117's in downtown Bagdhad night after night scared the crap out of them.
Interesting side note: The reason we bombed the Chinese embassy is to destroy some F117 parts that they had bought from Milosovic.
...even if Microsoft itself has to provide them.
Somewhere in the middle, that is the answer.
First, I hired people from the defense industry. That was easy, since I was working on hard core miltary sims. Some of the people had real simulation or real AI skills, and also liked the stuff we were working on. These people tended to be older, and had real engineering degrees.
Second, I would hire hot young punks out of college. The prequisites for that was DEMOS. The course work was important, but WAY more important was what a person did on their own time. Mods, tech demos, school projects that actually did something real, or real jobs carried a lot more weight. Also, having that inner "drive" to do whatever it took to get the code done. These people I looked on as blank slates, and I could use them just about anywhere. They would work hard, and if I watched them closely, they could learn alot. I am happy to say that a lot of those people grew up to be damned fine programmers, working on award winning titles. One was the lead programmer of Deus Ex!
The last (but not the least) place I would look would be in the company's QA dept. Our QA staff (back in the day) was the best in the industry. Those guys would know more about our games than we would. They would often do things on the side (tech demos, modding our games) that would make me want to have them join the dev team. I have hired QA people into my teams as assistant producers, designers, and programmers. I had even better luck with these people, since I had already known them through their QA work, and those people grew into great talents. One is working on Star Wars Galaxies now!
So, I have used three paths: Real world experience with the subject matter (really prevelant now that everyone is doing client server stuff), hot punk out of college, and rising through the ranks from QA.
Each has its plusses and minuses. But it always comes back to hard, good work, enthusiasm, and just being a good person.
Donut
ps. I was a young punk from college. Thank you Warren Spector and Rich Garriott!
He then went from artist to Project Lead, and led a team that did absolutely nothing on a non-game called Cyclone Alley.
His fame came when he went to id, and they let him talk to the public...
A group of technical leaders were at a seminar called "Making Reliable Software". The teacher at the seminar, in order to make the participants appreciate the problems of reliable software, posed this question: "How many of you would be willing to fly in an airplane that was controlled by software that your company created?" The technical leaders thought about it, and looked around at each other. Nobody raised their hands, except for one lone guy in the back. The teacher was suprised. "You, in the back," he asked. "Why are you so sure that it would be safe?" "Simple," replied the programmer. "Knowing how my guys code, the plane wouldn't even be able to pull away from the gate."
Well, fly-by-wire (completely software controlled) aircraft have been around for about 25 years. Lately, though, the spectactular problems with the software seem to be coming from the government run programs. These problems include: - V-22 crash - F-22 crash - Airbus crashes to numerous to mention Seems that Boeing, though, built the 777, and has had almost no issues... Could it be because they would LOSE THEIR SHIRT in the hyper-competitive PRIVATE market of airliners if they had a single problem? Or maybe that there were no government entities backing them up (Yeah, looking at you, you Airbus people) if they screwed the pooch? Hmmmmm...
...maybe it will survive my daily fits of rage at the @ssh0le that AWP'ed me in counterstrike....
[BOOM goes AWP]
"Son of a ^%&%^#&!!!!"
[BAM BAM BAM goes mouse on desk]
[CRACK! goes mouse]
"uh, oh..."
I am a parent, I love pr0n, but I do not want my child to look at pr0n.
I carry a concealed handgun, but I don't want my daughter to do that either.
I can drive a car, but she is not ready.
I can drink alcohol, but not her.
Yes, this makes me a "hypocrate". But that is why children are children, and not adults. Any responsible, reasonable adult should realize this. Children are not merely smaller adults.
Since raising kids is the most important thing that we humans do, I thought that there was a Social Contract between parents and society. We parents try to raise our children correctly, to know right and wrong, to think for themselves, and to be prepared to be smart, free citizens of the world. In return, Society tries not to get in our way, tries to keep childhood relatively safe, and supports our efforts. Apparently this contract is getting tattered...
We have a responsibility as a culture to try to raise our children correctly. I know there are many opinions on how to do this, but there are several universal ideas: Certain things should not be allowed into the hands of unsupervised children. Alcohol, guns, cars, and porn are all on this list. There are laws in every state to cover this.
The addition of the internet as a new media into this does not change these facts, and I do not see why it should. We should not make that which children are not ready to deal with easily available to them. Liquour, cigarettes, guns, and car keys are hard for an 11 year old to get a hold of. So is traditional pr0n. So should internet pr0n.
Yes, the primary responsibility is on the parents (at least those lucky kids that have two normal, straight, healthy, male and female parents), and I will uphold my end of that. My child will not use unfiltered, unfettered internet as long as I can prevent it. That will not be forever, nor do I want it to be. Someday she will see a woman f*cking a dog, or some woman felching some guy. I merely want to postpone that as long as possible, until she is at least somewhat ready for it. And no sex-ed-talk I give her will cover these things...
Public unfiltered internet access, readily available to anyone who walks up, breaks the social contract that I thought I had so that I could raise my kid.
Well, actually, most institutions are breaking this contract these days. I guess I should not be surprised.
-Donut, white, straight, married, rich, red-meat-eating, pr0n-surfing, gun-packing, fast-car-driving, raise-my-child-right-or-die, libertarian symbol of everything the P.C. world hates.
ps. Arguing that filtering software is flawed is dodging the issue. The real issue is: Should all information be free for everyone all the time. The answer is, of course, no. You still have to buy books....
[mentally preparing for this to be moderated down to about -1200]
Hey moderators, can you moderate an entire article as flamebait?
Donut
Dijjy-Mike? Duplicon? Why can't he say Sun and Xerox? It is not against the law. Coupland did it in Microserfs.
What a pain in the ass.
Donut
How many other middle-aged retired insurance salesmen have created multi-million dollar publishing empires through their hard work, in-depth research, and good writing?
Slash dot is not falling into the classic-guilty-white-male trap of deriding those that are successful, are they?
Oh, wait, Bill Gates.
Donut
ps. Tom still writes well, read "Debt of Honor".
One down, but what about these other UIDs, which have been around for a long time... - the MAC address on your Ethernet card. Unique by design, easy to get to. - The serial number of your hard drive. Very easy to get to. Not guaranteed unique, can be changed, but most are not. - The serial number in your BIOS. - The serial number in Windows. - The serial number of any plug and play device. When people went nuts over the Pentium ID, I LMAO at the knee-jerk morons. You are already tagged! -Donut
Mr. Taco sez: "(and comes complete with a cover designed by my girlfriend). "
I guess he is so ecstatic that a geek could actually get a girlfriend, he had to slyly insert that fact where he could, to brag on his fellow-geeks.
Either that, or he was trying to get brownie points by posting her link to millions.
Donut
The one with the better product. Duh.
Donut
Hahhah! Did you get this from liberal-think-tank Wizard Application?
Sacrifice is NOT the measure of someone's philanthropic usefulness. $20 from a poor guys is $20. 2 billion from Bill Gates is $2 billion. Which will do the most good? If I was looking for scholarship, I know what I would consider. If I had malaria, I know which one I would appriciate more.
Besides, Gates has publically stated that he plans to give it all (except some small sum per offspring) to charity.
Man, what the schools are turning out today.
Donut
Here is the internal email that went out from Jack Heistand, CEO of Origin, to the troops about what was going on. It was on the X-Origin mailing list in about 2.5 seconds.
Here it is on Gamespy
Donut, Ex-Origin, who never thought this day would come.
Ok, all you nerds with more time than I, someone needs to figure out how to open this box! Bigger Hard Drives (75 Gigs!) More Memory! Make it run a web browser, play MP3's, play MAME games.
I am kind of disapointed that this has not been done.
Is there something about this hardware that makes this difficult? I would expect them to use as many simple, off-the-shelf components as possible.
I know some TIVO hardware people are reading this. Spill!
Donut
I too, was griped out about this crappy movie.
Then, I remembered that it was DISNEY.
Then, in my mind, I realized that if the thing had been animated, and the astronauts had been monkeys or fish or something, it would have been perfect for an 8 year old kid.
The only real flaw of this movie, then, was that it was live action, and used good actors, and a name, geeky director. Besides those [small] items, it was a prototypical Disney cartoon, about what you would expect from the Mouse. The addition of live action and good actors increased our expeectations, and BOOM, disapointment.
At least they didn't sing.
Donut