So years ago when my mom was persuing her masters degree she decided she needed to get in the digital age- so she got a Mac Plus. The words spoken to me were "this is not your machine. Do NOT touch it. EVER."
You know where the story goes after this- I touched it, broke something (the hypercard main page had some icons, but some painted pictures that can be permanently erased with the eraser tool or painted over. Yep, I 'broke' hypercard!) and kept on using it to figure out how to unbreak what I broke. My mother NEVER turned on the machine, so I was not busted, and now I write code for real-time systems. And she has a laptop that she has turned one twice. Go figure.
All of this info is available at the LOC Copyright Office [copyright.gov]. One would think that on a tech-savvy site such as this, such misinformation would stop being so glibly circulated. I guess one would be wrong.
Totally wrong!;) This goes to my other point- people are just lazy. even worse, are the would-be-knowitalls - who think they know what they are talking about, but in reality don't. I am of that group. Does that make me qualified to be a manager?
Long, turgid windbagging: while perusing the "clearance" bin at Amoeba records I found TRS-80 "Mr. Kickass" for $2. It does indeed live up to its name, so I didn't hesitate to grab it.
I already had most all of it on MP3. Before, I was a thief. Now, I have back-up copies for 'personal use'. Why? Because I paid $2 for a piece of plastic.
don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this;)
You ask why is this any different from the library? I ask why does a used(?) $2 cd make me legit?
These are the boundary conditions where the coypright/intellectual property right law meet reality- where the "road meets the rubber", so to speak.
To get technical, one reason why its different is because of the nature of copyright. IANAL, but from what I understand, if you don't aggresively persue all potential infringements with legal action, you lose your copyright- its meaningless.
Maybe it comes down to a whole bunch of companies sending "Cease and desist" letters and the general public ignoring them. The more flagrant ones have some legal actions brought against them in a big show trial, then everyone goes home happy (except for the people who get screwed- but they are in the minority). Then everything is back to normal- the rampant piracy continues.
The logical mind would counter: "well, if the spirit of the law is being disregarded 99% of the time by both sides, shouldn't we change the law?! Shouldn't the whole concept of copyright be revisited?"
From there it comes down to "shoulds" vs. "the easy path"- its like how a procrastinator will go so far out of his/her way to avoid work, taking it to the point where they expend more effort to NOT do work than if they did it.
In this case, its easier to look the other way than to actually stand up for what you believe in. I guess we can't all be heroes.
are you trying to ensure that he doesn't see 51?!;)
32 compatibility mode vs. true 64 bit apps...
on
AMD Opteron Due In April
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Maybe I'm trying to open a can of worms similar to VI vs EMACS, but so be it.
More addressable memory: cool. 8 way processors: cool*. (insert "do you have parallel apps to take advantage?" disclaimer. And some apps do.)
But if all my stuff is running in some 32 bit compatibility mode, then what real gain am I going to realize? The article did mention something about faster registers- does that mean small fixed point instructions run faster? (like increment register i, or add n to x, etc.)
And how many apps for 64 bit exist in the market? (I'm sure there are some grad students and some code breakers with some custom software, but that's not my aim...)
I guess what I'm asking is- aside from custom code, what are the reason for me to early adopt a 64bit architecture? Or should I just save my money for when things get cheaper?
Sounds like Zen and the Art... kinda...
on
Lucky Wander Boy
·
· Score: 1
I haven't read this book, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance(ZATAOMM) I read a while ago,
but it sounds like if you are interested in that sort of philosophy 101 kinda stuff (NOT an insult! I am very into the philosophy 101 stuff! I'd rather not read Kant) its got a video-game wrapper.
but it sounds like something I'd get from the library and read.
They should be using variable names like $Foo and $Bar[]!!!;)
actually, there is a perfectly valid reason to use arrays: Bounded latency, specifically for real-time code. Give me and array; the size of its elements and its size, and given how paging is on the target platform I can give you a Big O of how long it will take to iterate through. thrashing (excessive paging) suxxors.
I realize that had only tangential relation to your comment about arrays of hard-to-determine crap, but this is slashdot.;)
Folks who are real graphics nuts are talking about how much the PS2 lags behind the competitors in terms of how "pretty" the games are.
This was certainly true in the PlayStation vs. Nintendo 64 days. I had an N64, my friends had the PS. And the PS graphics blew!
But they had more games, they had fun games, and that is what truly matters. Yes, a percentage of the consumer population will always hold out for the lastest and greatest, but that is a small percentage (I believe under 10, but I concede this is based upon 0 research, so take with a grain of salt)- the rest just want to play games, man!
Now, couple that with the fact: PS2 is still pretty good looking and some of the PS1 games look good on it (I still play tekken 3 and I don't complain about the graphics), it is not so much of a factor for the non-fanatics!
The obvious incentive for PDA games is that they are an add-on to your other PDA functions. But these days I find myself using my Visor Neo to play Bejewelled (which is the only shareware game I've ever shelled out money for) more and more frequently. Infact, I think I play on it the most; however it still fills a vital role as my calendar/phone center/note taker/organizer/etc.
There are indeed a lot of crappy games for PDAs as well as PC's- but all my experience is with the shareware stuff. Infact, Popcap/astraware (creators of my beloved bejewelled) have a PDA game pack- so I picked it up. And its across the board. Some of the games are fun and fast on my Visor Neo, but some are bad PC ports. E.g.- Atomica. I loved atomica on my pc, and can't stand it on my PDA (so I deleted it).
Re:Are they technological-age hippies?
on
World of Ends
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
easy, tiger...
He's not dissing Zen, he's using it as an adjective; specifically, he's saying "Zen style" as in, "Not zen, but a cheap knock-off."
Its like the word "Trustafarian"- the people who classify aren't trying to be Rastas.
Now, to swing this whole thing back towards the topic at hand: Infact, your complaint of the parent post, is the parent post's complaint of the article! Sweeping generalizations are indeed not technical, the imply some underlying dogma. Hence, the term Zen-style (or Zen-steeze, if you get down like that). The tip off is the "evne a manager could understand it!"- technical went out the window.
depends upon congestion!
on
World of Ends
·
· Score: 1
Also the general bandwidth, your download rate and the "Hand" server's send rate; find the bottleneck and that will limit your "Ommmmm"'s per second, young grasshopper.
If the acks are sped up, this interferes with TCP keeping track of the statistical average Round Trip Time.
So if the network is congested and an ACK SHOULD time out but doesn't, TCP will keep on flooding the network, ruining the pool for everyone.(see: Tragedy of the commons)
Yes, I agree that this is a big-O style worse case scenario, but its something to consider.
ehhhhhh, I don't have the same reverence for the hardware. As such, I view emulation in the same way I view audio reproduction; as long as its good enough, I'm happy.
See, my memory is fuzzy, so for nostalgia, I'll take good enough.
I don't think the visual/sound effects can stand the test of time, so whatever.
And as long as you have the same gameplay, I'll take a 90% reproduction.
But then again- I compress my MP3s to 64kbps MONO to fit more on my portable. YMMV.
However I do think these "kit" articles to belong on slashdot. I'm just not salivating over the chance to play "Resuce of Fractalus!" on the "real" hardware. I really think emu's are great.
WoW! I can make a c-64!! Maybe I'll be uber-cool and use my Xilinx FPGA to re-create an old PONG box!
(*the above is sarcasm)
See, this isn't an article about "Wow! FPGA's are KOOL!" (they are! but they were cool 6 years ago when I used them in my digital lab class)- actually, that article would most likely be about evolutionary computing- google it. This is an article about recreating the past. I think you are missing the point.
I support your right to geek. I support your right to come up with a 40 hour solution to a 10 second problem, simply because the 40 hours solution is you making something from scratch instead of just throwing out the old and buying new. And I believe that such stories do have a place on/.
Mononoke's post combined with this one brings it all together-
I've never even heard of this magazine... so no, I don't know anyone who paid for it. And without any recognition, how do they expect to sell?
Seriously, I find it amazing that this magazine is being compared to wired- simply because even when I didn't want to I was constantly having wired shoved down my throat- a friend had it on his coffee table, some one sent me a link to one of their stories, I google William Gibson and I get his articles for wired.
Shift.....? Good lord, how did they last 10 years!?
Slashdot Mirror
So years ago when my mom was persuing her masters degree she decided she needed to get in the digital age- so she got a Mac Plus. The words spoken to me were "this is not your machine. Do NOT touch it. EVER."
You know where the story goes after this-
I touched it, broke something (the hypercard main page had some icons, but some painted pictures that can be permanently erased with the eraser tool or painted over. Yep, I 'broke' hypercard!) and kept on using it to figure out how to unbreak what I broke. My mother NEVER turned on the machine, so I was not busted, and now I write code for real-time systems. And she has a laptop that she has turned one twice. Go figure.
All of this info is available at the LOC Copyright Office [copyright.gov]. One would think that on a tech-savvy site such as this, such misinformation would stop being so glibly circulated. I guess one would be wrong.
;)
Totally wrong!
This goes to my other point- people are just lazy. even worse, are the would-be-knowitalls - who think they know what they are talking about, but in reality don't. I am of that group. Does that make me qualified to be a manager?
Thanks for the clarification!
Quick answer: its not, but for the copyright.
;)
Long, turgid windbagging:
while perusing the "clearance" bin at Amoeba records I found TRS-80 "Mr. Kickass" for $2.
It does indeed live up to its name, so I didn't hesitate to grab it.
I already had most all of it on MP3. Before, I was a thief. Now, I have back-up copies for 'personal use'. Why? Because I paid $2 for a piece of plastic.
don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this
You ask why is this any different from the library? I ask why does a used(?) $2 cd make me legit?
These are the boundary conditions where the coypright/intellectual property right law meet reality- where the "road meets the rubber", so to speak.
To get technical, one reason why its different is because of the nature of copyright. IANAL, but from what I understand, if you don't aggresively persue all potential infringements with legal action, you lose your copyright- its meaningless.
Maybe it comes down to a whole bunch of companies sending "Cease and desist" letters and the general public ignoring them. The more flagrant ones have some legal actions brought against them in a big show trial, then everyone goes home happy (except for the people who get screwed- but they are in the minority). Then everything is back to normal- the rampant piracy continues.
The logical mind would counter: "well, if the spirit of the law is being disregarded 99% of the time by both sides, shouldn't we change the law?! Shouldn't the whole concept of copyright be revisited?"
From there it comes down to "shoulds" vs. "the easy path"- its like how a procrastinator will go so far out of his/her way to avoid work, taking it to the point where they expend more effort to NOT do work than if they did it.
In this case, its easier to look the other way than to actually stand up for what you believe in.
I guess we can't all be heroes.
are you trying to ensure that he doesn't see 51?! ;)
Maybe I'm trying to open a can of worms similar to VI vs EMACS, but so be it.
More addressable memory: cool.
8 way processors: cool*. (insert "do you have parallel apps to take advantage?" disclaimer. And some apps do.)
But if all my stuff is running in some 32 bit compatibility mode, then what real gain am I going to realize? The article did mention something about faster registers- does that mean small fixed point instructions run faster? (like increment register i, or add n to x, etc.)
And how many apps for 64 bit exist in the market?
(I'm sure there are some grad students and some code breakers with some custom software, but that's not my aim...)
I guess what I'm asking is- aside from custom code, what are the reason for me to early adopt a 64bit architecture? Or should I just save my money for when things get cheaper?
I haven't read this book, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance(ZATAOMM) I read a while ago,
but it sounds like if you are interested in that sort of philosophy 101 kinda stuff (NOT an insult! I am very into the philosophy 101 stuff! I'd rather not read Kant) its got a video-game wrapper.
but it sounds like something I'd get from the library and read.
They should be using variable names like $Foo and $Bar[]!!! ;)
;)
actually, there is a perfectly valid reason to use arrays: Bounded latency, specifically for real-time code. Give me and array; the size of its elements and its size, and given how paging is on the target platform I can give you a Big O of how long it will take to iterate through. thrashing (excessive paging) suxxors.
I realize that had only tangential relation to your comment about arrays of hard-to-determine crap, but this is slashdot.
Folks who are real graphics nuts are talking about how much the PS2 lags behind the competitors in terms of how "pretty" the games are.
This was certainly true in the PlayStation vs. Nintendo 64 days. I had an N64, my friends had the PS. And the PS graphics blew!
But they had more games, they had fun games, and that is what truly matters. Yes, a percentage of the consumer population will always hold out for the lastest and greatest, but that is a small percentage (I believe under 10, but I concede this is based upon 0 research, so take with a grain of salt)- the rest just want to play games, man!
Now, couple that with the fact: PS2 is still pretty good looking and some of the PS1 games look good on it (I still play tekken 3 and I don't complain about the graphics), it is not so much of a factor for the non-fanatics!
THIS should be the topic!
The obvious incentive for PDA games is that they are an add-on to your other PDA functions. But these days I find myself using my Visor Neo to play Bejewelled (which is the only shareware game I've ever shelled out money for) more and more frequently. Infact, I think I play on it the most; however it still fills a vital role as my calendar/phone center/note taker/organizer/etc.
There are indeed a lot of crappy games for PDAs as well as PC's- but all my experience is with the shareware stuff.
Infact, Popcap/astraware (creators of my beloved bejewelled) have a PDA game pack- so I picked it up. And its across the board. Some of the games are fun and fast on my Visor Neo, but some are bad PC ports. E.g.- Atomica. I loved atomica on my pc, and can't stand it on my PDA (so I deleted it).
easy, tiger...
He's not dissing Zen, he's using it as an adjective; specifically, he's saying "Zen style" as in, "Not zen, but a cheap knock-off."
Its like the word "Trustafarian"- the people who classify aren't trying to be Rastas.
Now, to swing this whole thing back towards the topic at hand:
Infact, your complaint of the parent post, is the parent post's complaint of the article! Sweeping generalizations are indeed not technical, the imply some underlying dogma. Hence, the term Zen-style (or Zen-steeze, if you get down like that). The tip off is the "evne a manager could understand it!"- technical went out the window.
Also the general bandwidth, your download rate and the "Hand" server's send rate; find the bottleneck and that will limit your "Ommmmm"'s per second, young grasshopper.
If the acks are sped up, this interferes with TCP keeping track of the statistical average Round Trip Time.
So if the network is congested and an ACK SHOULD time out but doesn't, TCP will keep on flooding the network, ruining the pool for everyone.(see: Tragedy of the commons)
Yes, I agree that this is a big-O style worse case scenario, but its something to consider.
actually,I was thinking "all your bong are belong to us" but yours is much better!
thanks!
:)
Actually- I have a history of battling with my moderations.
Typically, I lose. But I have an awful lot of fun shouting about it!
If you go to the UPDATED website, it says " ISONEWS is now the property of the United States government. "
All your base are belong to us!
A cheesecake shot of a little girl and her new puppy, with the text:
"what if...
her new puppy was...."
and then in HUGE WHITE ON BLACK FONT:
"LOST AND NEVER FOUND!!!!!!!"
too bad those posters don't come with an orchestra to play a jarring chord when you get to the third line.
So we write code that people's lives depend upon. Realtime systems have huge safety requirements.
;)
We have taken scripts written in PERL and painstakingly moved them to C for this very reason.
P.S.- getopts() sucks equally in PERL and C!
I just wrote code around it.
ehhhhhh, I don't have the same reverence for the hardware. As such, I view emulation in the same way I view audio reproduction; as long as its good enough, I'm happy.
See, my memory is fuzzy, so for nostalgia, I'll take good enough.
I don't think the visual/sound effects can stand the test of time, so whatever.
And as long as you have the same gameplay, I'll take a 90% reproduction.
But then again- I compress my MP3s to 64kbps MONO to fit more on my portable. YMMV.
However I do think these "kit" articles to belong on slashdot. I'm just not salivating over the chance to play "Resuce of Fractalus!" on the "real" hardware. I really think emu's are great.
WoW! I can make a c-64!! Maybe I'll be uber-cool and use my Xilinx FPGA to re-create an old PONG box!
/.
(*the above is sarcasm)
See, this isn't an article about "Wow! FPGA's are KOOL!" (they are! but they were cool 6 years ago when I used them in my digital lab class)- actually, that article would most likely be about evolutionary computing- google it. This is an article about recreating the past. I think you are missing the point.
I support your right to geek. I support your right to come up with a 40 hour solution to a 10 second problem, simply because the 40 hours solution is you making something from scratch instead of just throwing out the old and buying new. And I believe that such stories do have a place on
I'm just not impressed with this one.
Good stuff! alt.seduction.fast!
Of course, when you talk about role playing games, and then segue into wanning to "do girls",
only one thing comes to mind... SUMMONER GEEKS!
jobs supporting legacy End Of Life systems. Learn mainframe internals, learn ADA, and get a security clearance.
and don't forget their spinoff paper, the Delete Picayune!
Mononoke's post combined with this one brings it all together-
I've never even heard of this magazine...
so no, I don't know anyone who paid for it. And without any recognition, how do they expect to sell?
Seriously, I find it amazing that this magazine is being compared to wired- simply because even when I didn't want to I was constantly having wired shoved down my throat- a friend had it on his coffee table, some one sent me a link to one of their stories, I google William Gibson and I get his articles for wired.
Shift.....?
Good lord, how did they last 10 years!?