I tried that with Windows 2000; it didn't work so well when Microsoft took 2000 support out of VS. But now the alternatives (8, 8.1, 10) don't look so good. I'm sticking with 7 as long as I can, even if it means I have to look for used computers with a W7Pro license sticker.
Indeed. When Microsoft downloaded 6.5 gigabytes of Windows 10 without even asking me first, that was when I said "no". When they re-enabled the GWX "update" (it was a "new version", so it ignored my previous "don't install this update"), I said "hell no." I now run Win7 (for games only) with updates turned the hell off. So far it seems I have made the right decision.
The real problem with Apple is that they don't really build their computers to run games, and even their desktop systems of the past few years have made it hard to get a good GPU at a reasonable price.
So when it comes to games, I am still using Microsoft Windows (though I still bitterly cling to Win7), and I do feel sorry for myself.
In particular, the current Mac OS didn't evolve from its roots but is a BSD fork
If you are implying that "1988" meant the Classic Mac OS, then you are wrong. That would be 1984 (or even 1982, Lisa OS). And it uses a Mach kernel; it only stole the userland stuff from BSD. So "1985, Mach" might be more appropriate.
Only if you call Linux (and Mac!) "Directly stolen from AT&T, 1972". NT has some security model concepts from VMS, but I used VMS in my college days, and NT is definitely not VMS.
I cringe every time I see footage of a FIRST Robotics competition on the local news, and some kid is holding a Logitech F310. I've personally had at least two of them die over the years because there is no strain relief on the USB cable, and the wires broke right where it comes out of the controller. The buttons can have problems too, but that assumes the wire lives long enough first. I later ended up with an F710, much better, even with having to replace batteries.
So far, I can still get computers that will run Windows 7. Thanks to GPU improvements, and Intel being a bit weak in the upgrades department these days, even a seven year old computer (that isn't from Apple) is still relevant! I just got an Optiplex 790 i5 for $25 (with 12GB of RAM in it too, couldn't refuse that), and put a $110 graphics card into it. Runs OEM Windows 7 x64 Pro with no trouble, and that's what's on the license sticker.
I'm still not sure what OS I'll be playing games on in a few years, but at least the one main game I play has a Linux version because it uses Unity.
If it's an MMO, it probably has ways other than Steam to install it. Users should be able to just switch to the "regular" installer with regular account credentials.
I'm playing an online multiplayer game right now that has Steam support, but Steam users are a minority, probably 1 in 4 to 1 in 6. Steam is great for the people who graze on games, playing until they sufficiently "finish" one, then move on to the next. But MMOs are normally played daily or nearly so for years. Not that there aren't people who just don't want to deal with yet another installer/updater, but it's not a good fit between MMOs and Steam. Also, Steam's refund policies mean that the game I'm playing can never have an account properly detached from Steam to let you sell it to someone else, because you could always reclaim it from Steam.
The aphelion of its orbit has been reported variously as 0.98 and 0.99 AU, so I'm pretty sure it will never cross the orbit of Venus, at least not without the right kind of gravitational kick to really mess up its orbit.
3) the mass transit must come close enough to your destination on both ends of the ride
This can be difficult in suburban areas of the US, partly due to the low density, and partly due to the design of suburbs, such that you can't simply go in a straight line to a bus stop because of winding streets and fenced yards. If the walk takes more than 15 minutes or so (I'll even be generous and say "for each end", and that's up to an hour of just walking!), nobody sane will want to do it five times a week. Bicycles? Most buses that I've seen have front racks for two bikes, tough for you if they're already full. Then when you get where you are going, you need somewhere to put the bike.
I had a time when due to vehicle trouble, for a few months I had to take a two-transfer bus ride (in Austin, one of the more lefty cities), it took me at least an hour each way. ~15 minutes to get from my house to the bus stop, up to 30 minutes if I had just missed the bus, and possibly up to another 30 minutes more (often needing to run to make it) if one of my transfers just missed my next bus (fortunately one was a "time point" and the other bus was usually parked at the bus stop when I got there). And the waits at bus stops (few of which had cover) were in weather that could be over 95F and humid or below 40F and damp.
There's also some difference in how it works vs latitude as well.
It seems that latitude may be more important than I expected. I've been living mostly near 30N, with some time near 35N, but it seems that a lot of the people complaining are north of 50N. That's farther north than the urban parts of Canada. That far north, the day is long enough that pushing it forward causes the summer sunset to be 10PM and later. In other words, after bedtime. But there's not a lot you can do about it; if you didn't use DST, the night would still last the same amount of time and you wouldn't get any more time to sleep before the sun came up.
I don't know why you're talking about light bulbs, because Daylight Saving Time does not save energy. Period. It saves "daylight", just like it says on the tin. Some extra time that the sun is in the sky in summer is moved from the morning to the evening.
I started using CFL bulbs around 2000 or so, and the big thing to me was all the time I saved in having to replace burned out bulbs every month. Back then was early in CFC technology, so they were all well-made, not the cheap crap ones that flicker or die early, so most of them are still where I put them over 15 years ago. As they start to die, I'll be replacing them with LED bulbs.
This is why when it's not a clock (on a PC or smart phone) that has OS support for DST, I prefer to use so-called "atomic" clocks, which listen to WWVB. The WWVB signal includes one bit representing the DST status for the United States, letting the clocks automatically change to summer time, in addition to staying mostly locked to UTC time. Unfortunately, someone convinced Dubya that changing DST dates would somehow "save energy", so we've been using the "wrong" dates for over a decade.
I know that Mexico still uses the old dates, because I had to binary patch some legacy code that we could no longer compile, so someone in Mexico could start using our old product until our next generation product was ready. (The year comparison was still in there, so I just had to change the high byte of the year.) I guess those WWVB clocks wouldn't be quite as popular in Mexico.
Just be lucky that nobody in post-electronic times has decided to use double-DST. I would bet that much hardware and software only has DST as an on/off flag for a one-hour offset (I know I've done that myself in software for a product) and would break so hard if anyone decided to do two-hour DST, or Eris-forbid, multi-phase two-hour DST. As the latter would probably result in an actual civil uprising, I don't expect it to happen.
It does depend to some extent on where you are in the time zone. I've lived most of my life at around 98W, in the middle of CST, and Daylight Saving Time works about right, except for that nonsense where they tricked Dubya into changing the dates for no valid reason. (DST does not "save energy")
For one year in 9th grade, I lived in Louisiana, near the eastern edge of CST, and it was really weird to see the sun come up half an hour earlier. It also would have set half an hour earlier, but I was too freaked by how early the sun came up to notice. There is a reason we have time zones, it's so that we don't have thousands of local times for thousands of cities.
There's also some difference in how it works vs latitude as well. Above the Arctic Circle, there are times when it's day or night for 24 hours, so that means there will be areas where +/- one hour wouldn't be enough. Fortunately, most of the human population doesn't live at such high latitudes.
The point of DST is to keep the sun from rising too early in the summer, to move that extra daylight to the evening in the summer (here sunset is 9PM at the solstice), and then back to standard time to keep the sunrise from being too late in the winter. But it can't fix the basic problem with time zones, that it's an entire hour difference in solar time between the east and west ends of a time zone.
I think I would be in favor of a Senate Launch System if it started with the most senior Senators first. No landing, just a launch. It would be an "interesting" form of term limits.
Slashdot Mirror
Hard to be not civil when the site is broken for a whole week.
And they say it weighs less than a bag of sugar, but where is the bag of sugar? Will it weigh less on the Moon than a bag of sugar weighs on Earth?
He who controls the Memes, controls the universe!
Recursion is hard! (see Recursion)
...and seven proxies.
Unicode? On my slashdot? You must be new here?
I tried that with Windows 2000; it didn't work so well when Microsoft took 2000 support out of VS. But now the alternatives (8, 8.1, 10) don't look so good. I'm sticking with 7 as long as I can, even if it means I have to look for used computers with a W7Pro license sticker.
Indeed. When Microsoft downloaded 6.5 gigabytes of Windows 10 without even asking me first, that was when I said "no". When they re-enabled the GWX "update" (it was a "new version", so it ignored my previous "don't install this update"), I said "hell no." I now run Win7 (for games only) with updates turned the hell off. So far it seems I have made the right decision.
The real problem with Apple is that they don't really build their computers to run games, and even their desktop systems of the past few years have made it hard to get a good GPU at a reasonable price.
So when it comes to games, I am still using Microsoft Windows (though I still bitterly cling to Win7), and I do feel sorry for myself.
In particular, the current Mac OS didn't evolve from its roots but is a BSD fork
If you are implying that "1988" meant the Classic Mac OS, then you are wrong. That would be 1984 (or even 1982, Lisa OS). And it uses a Mach kernel; it only stole the userland stuff from BSD. So "1985, Mach" might be more appropriate.
Only if you call Linux (and Mac!) "Directly stolen from AT&T, 1972". NT has some security model concepts from VMS, but I used VMS in my college days, and NT is definitely not VMS.
I cringe every time I see footage of a FIRST Robotics competition on the local news, and some kid is holding a Logitech F310. I've personally had at least two of them die over the years because there is no strain relief on the USB cable, and the wires broke right where it comes out of the controller. The buttons can have problems too, but that assumes the wire lives long enough first. I later ended up with an F710, much better, even with having to replace batteries.
So far, I can still get computers that will run Windows 7. Thanks to GPU improvements, and Intel being a bit weak in the upgrades department these days, even a seven year old computer (that isn't from Apple) is still relevant! I just got an Optiplex 790 i5 for $25 (with 12GB of RAM in it too, couldn't refuse that), and put a $110 graphics card into it. Runs OEM Windows 7 x64 Pro with no trouble, and that's what's on the license sticker.
I'm still not sure what OS I'll be playing games on in a few years, but at least the one main game I play has a Linux version because it uses Unity.
If it's an MMO, it probably has ways other than Steam to install it. Users should be able to just switch to the "regular" installer with regular account credentials.
I'm playing an online multiplayer game right now that has Steam support, but Steam users are a minority, probably 1 in 4 to 1 in 6. Steam is great for the people who graze on games, playing until they sufficiently "finish" one, then move on to the next. But MMOs are normally played daily or nearly so for years. Not that there aren't people who just don't want to deal with yet another installer/updater, but it's not a good fit between MMOs and Steam. Also, Steam's refund policies mean that the game I'm playing can never have an account properly detached from Steam to let you sell it to someone else, because you could always reclaim it from Steam.
St’man
"Is this about the GPL?"
The aphelion of its orbit has been reported variously as 0.98 and 0.99 AU, so I'm pretty sure it will never cross the orbit of Venus, at least not without the right kind of gravitational kick to really mess up its orbit.
3) the mass transit must come close enough to your destination on both ends of the ride
This can be difficult in suburban areas of the US, partly due to the low density, and partly due to the design of suburbs, such that you can't simply go in a straight line to a bus stop because of winding streets and fenced yards. If the walk takes more than 15 minutes or so (I'll even be generous and say "for each end", and that's up to an hour of just walking!), nobody sane will want to do it five times a week. Bicycles? Most buses that I've seen have front racks for two bikes, tough for you if they're already full. Then when you get where you are going, you need somewhere to put the bike.
I had a time when due to vehicle trouble, for a few months I had to take a two-transfer bus ride (in Austin, one of the more lefty cities), it took me at least an hour each way. ~15 minutes to get from my house to the bus stop, up to 30 minutes if I had just missed the bus, and possibly up to another 30 minutes more (often needing to run to make it) if one of my transfers just missed my next bus (fortunately one was a "time point" and the other bus was usually parked at the bus stop when I got there). And the waits at bus stops (few of which had cover) were in weather that could be over 95F and humid or below 40F and damp.
There's also some difference in how it works vs latitude as well.
It seems that latitude may be more important than I expected. I've been living mostly near 30N, with some time near 35N, but it seems that a lot of the people complaining are north of 50N. That's farther north than the urban parts of Canada. That far north, the day is long enough that pushing it forward causes the summer sunset to be 10PM and later. In other words, after bedtime. But there's not a lot you can do about it; if you didn't use DST, the night would still last the same amount of time and you wouldn't get any more time to sleep before the sun came up.
I don't know why you're talking about light bulbs, because Daylight Saving Time does not save energy. Period. It saves "daylight", just like it says on the tin. Some extra time that the sun is in the sky in summer is moved from the morning to the evening.
I started using CFL bulbs around 2000 or so, and the big thing to me was all the time I saved in having to replace burned out bulbs every month. Back then was early in CFC technology, so they were all well-made, not the cheap crap ones that flicker or die early, so most of them are still where I put them over 15 years ago. As they start to die, I'll be replacing them with LED bulbs.
This is why when it's not a clock (on a PC or smart phone) that has OS support for DST, I prefer to use so-called "atomic" clocks, which listen to WWVB. The WWVB signal includes one bit representing the DST status for the United States, letting the clocks automatically change to summer time, in addition to staying mostly locked to UTC time. Unfortunately, someone convinced Dubya that changing DST dates would somehow "save energy", so we've been using the "wrong" dates for over a decade.
I know that Mexico still uses the old dates, because I had to binary patch some legacy code that we could no longer compile, so someone in Mexico could start using our old product until our next generation product was ready. (The year comparison was still in there, so I just had to change the high byte of the year.) I guess those WWVB clocks wouldn't be quite as popular in Mexico.
Just be lucky that nobody in post-electronic times has decided to use double-DST. I would bet that much hardware and software only has DST as an on/off flag for a one-hour offset (I know I've done that myself in software for a product) and would break so hard if anyone decided to do two-hour DST, or Eris-forbid, multi-phase two-hour DST. As the latter would probably result in an actual civil uprising, I don't expect it to happen.
It does depend to some extent on where you are in the time zone. I've lived most of my life at around 98W, in the middle of CST, and Daylight Saving Time works about right, except for that nonsense where they tricked Dubya into changing the dates for no valid reason. (DST does not "save energy")
For one year in 9th grade, I lived in Louisiana, near the eastern edge of CST, and it was really weird to see the sun come up half an hour earlier. It also would have set half an hour earlier, but I was too freaked by how early the sun came up to notice. There is a reason we have time zones, it's so that we don't have thousands of local times for thousands of cities.
There's also some difference in how it works vs latitude as well. Above the Arctic Circle, there are times when it's day or night for 24 hours, so that means there will be areas where +/- one hour wouldn't be enough. Fortunately, most of the human population doesn't live at such high latitudes.
The point of DST is to keep the sun from rising too early in the summer, to move that extra daylight to the evening in the summer (here sunset is 9PM at the solstice), and then back to standard time to keep the sunrise from being too late in the winter. But it can't fix the basic problem with time zones, that it's an entire hour difference in solar time between the east and west ends of a time zone.
He wouldn't need to do anything more than lease it out to NASA and charge for rides after ISS is deprecated. Anything after that is gravy.
I think I would be in favor of a Senate Launch System if it started with the most senior Senators first. No landing, just a launch. It would be an "interesting" form of term limits.