A linux release is almost always inevitable in any game that becomes a solid and lasting multiplayer hit. The usual problem is that such a release is often limited to a dedicated server, rarely a client. However it would be foolish not to take advantage of this. The base for the product is obviously established enough to allow for a rather large penetration on servers alone (check the included server scanner in Half-Life sometime, about half the servers are running on Linux) so why not develop clients?
I'll agree that it's nowhere nearly as simple to port a client for a game and attempt retail sales while as it is to release a free server. Who says, however, that it needs to be retail though? I'm willing that bet that there is not a single linux user that does not have sufficient internet access to order the game online, direct from the company if need be. This would allow for a smaller run if nothing else as the product does not need to be shipped out to every retail location.
As to the task of developing the ported client itself? That's where the problem I feel lies. Outsourcing to a company like Loki that deals primarily in ports of game clients to Linux would be helpful, but in-house solutions will be necessary to achieve wide-spread releases of games under Linux.
Maybe the best we can hope to achieve is Mac-like integration, but the installed base willing to run servers and (presumably) buy Linux clients ought to be large enough to warrant more consideration.
Re:Karma needed for +1 clarification
on
CowboyNeal Speaks
·
· Score: 1
Hmm... oddly enough CowboyNeal said that Karma above 20 means you post with an automatic +1, my karma (at the moment at least) is 24 and yet I've never posted with an automatic +1, just the standard score of 1 that every registered user gets. Who's right here and is there anything else that might contribute to this? I ask purely out of curiosity.
I have to say that I find it rather odd how much karma and posting has taken over. I think most of this has to do with my view of slashdot. I mainly view it as a news site, never a discussion site. Kur5in I'll view as a discussion site.
Why? Well, Slashdot tends to post news stories, lots of them. Bunches of links off to interesting or relevant stories pour across the main page every day and I either read about them and note it or follow the link and read the actual story. About the only time I ever click through is when there is a real story to be had with content. In this manner Slashdot is like memepool for news with a bit more insight tossed into the reports.
Kuro5hin on the other hand I read less frequently. It's updated with new material every few days and most of what it has is short articles. Opinion pieces on recent events or mentions of the background and then analysis of it. The articles posted tend to be more conversation starters and topics rather than news.
I realize that most people probably think Slashdot is wonderful the way it is right now, but personally I think that a greater emphasis on thier main content, news, would be better while lessening the impact that comments seem to have made.
As does the Navy. While hardly revolutionary technology I'm currently involved in a research project for them on group dynamics in technology enviroments using standard air traffic control simulations. Sadly it's not nearly as well designed or advanced as atc. Finally my skill at *nix text-based games pays off! Now all we need is the Marines to start using NetHack....
The title you're looking for is "Dark Dungeons" and is one of the most laughable of all of Chick's tracts (no mean feat either) I suggest the excellent version with commentary at http://www.xentertainment.com
I find it odd that it so often is associated only with Contra for this very reason. When I was growing up and now I still remember it as the "Konami code", not a Contra one specifically.
I remember walking into a friend's room last year and a bunch of my friends were all arguing about what the proper code was to start up a game of Contra with a few getting close, but not close enough. I simply walked up and put it in without a word... they were stunned, but not as much as when I beat it without the code.
Am I the only person who actually likes the cool cyborg look then? Sure normal glasses and maybe a vest or something might work better in some situations, but the bragging rights will go to the person that owns the cool cyborg-esque unit instead of the model for the suits.
Actually Wired ran a brief bit on p. 290 of the current (October 2000) issue. The pictures look about the same as well as the specs and suchforth so I'm willing to take them as real or if nothing else, very close to it.
Ok, I'm a student at Kansas State and I personally can't wait until we ban napster traffic. As one of the few law-abiding students on campus my bandwidth has been seriously getting shot to hell (speeds of 20k/sec are getting frequent as a highpoint... I'm even getting 5-6k/sec). Do I have a serious interest in the legal issues surrounding Napster? Yes. Do I care about academic integrity and freedom of information? Very much so. The problem is that bandwidth is being used almost exclusively to download copyrighted music at most schools. This alone is more than enough reason to, if not an outright ban, severely restrict access to Napster to allow, if for no other reason, bandwidth for academic purposes.
I have an eerie feeling (especially since this is on Comedy Central and not say... Discovery or something similiar) that not only do some people out there like the nasty, scary, irritating commentators (for the record I state any sports commentator really). Comedy Central is trying to make this appeal to people as a sport, not a fun geek pasttime. If they did they'd most likely lose a number of viewers who don't get the tech side of things and would proceed to mock the silly geeks and thier wussy robots, crack open another beer and turn on some football.
As for the issue of time I don't see any way to lengthen fights aside from allowing in more robots (teams or something although a free-for-all might be interesting). When you get something being smacked with a hammer or a chainsaw or what have it's pretty hard to keep it together. The only other solution is to make the bots so strong that they're neigh invulnerable and the round lasts forever and the bots cost too much to let into the arena. That said BattleBots the show will probably die out after this season as the novelty wears off, the geeks stop watching b/c of the commentators and the unwashed masses go back to football or whatever other sport they enjoy. A shame too... this could be really fun on a more amateur level.
I think the greatest problem with traditional televised news is the inherent banality of it. When the OJ Simpson trials were going on it was always the first story on the news whether or not anything of importance had occurred that day or not. During the Clinton scandal you could bet that the president's sex life would be the top story of the evening irregardless of any breaking developments. Today the most reported news items are those that aren't really news. Princess Diana dies and it becomes the only story for the next two weeks when frankly the only newsworthy portion was that she had died and how. Local news is even worse. In my local market (kansas city) the evening news functions primarily to report on various crimes that occurred rather than deal with local politics or anything that might have a valid need to be reported. Wrap up the newscast with sports, weather, and some piece of "investigative journalism" and close with a fluffy human interest story and why would any person actually choose to watch this? Very little of it even qualifies as news and what little is news is often overhyped and sensationalized to stretch out the story. Newsmagazines in the US are all but unreadable choosing more often to focus on some minor social issue rather than world events and politics. The only readable newsmagazine is the excellent British publication the Economist which covers US news better than any domestic magazine. In short the problem with "conventional" news sources is the same problem with bad websites, too much flash and not enough valid content.
I think the problem here is that whether the study is right or wrong, biased or objective it all comes down to one simple fact: pirating music or anything else for that matter is illegal. Now, the arguments on where copyrights should be going are a totally different argument and are actually quite productive, but constantly trying to justify what ammounts to little more than common thievery is something else, just give it up. I fully support mp3 as a format for many uses, primarily mobile music and a distribution channel for previews, extra unreleased material and unsigned bands. If the piracy wasn't as rampant as it is and mp3 wasn't as synonymous with "illegal music piracy" as it currently is more artists would likely begin to distribute music either in mp3 format or release extra tracks or promos for legitimate free use. As long as we keep trying to keep Napster afloat and support an illegitimate criminal community however mp3s will never catch on with labels and will remain devoted to people who simply want to steal.
The issue wouldn't be so hotly contested if the word did not have two, diametrically opposed meanings. The equivalent is to take any other word normally used to describe a person, perhaps even a term of honor and respect such as in this case, and reuse it as an insult. I doubt that journalists would idly stand by if, due to changes in the common vernacular, the word journalist was also used for "scum-sucking bottom feeder". The same principle holds true here. Anyone who is refered to as a hacker anymore is summarily insulted as although both definitions are supported their usage is so similiar that they are easily confused. I doubt I'd try to put cheese on Cletus (although you never know...) when you asked me about how I like my crackers, but a cracker and a hacker are both people who deal with computers to a large degree the rest of the distinction is on how they use them. If it was just the wrong term it would be tolerable, but to be insulted almost daily is something that ought to be changed.
So essentially IBM would be reading my mind? Now ok, amazingly cool idea for an input device, but this really has a possibility for massive abuse. Remember the outrage over the PIII serial numbers? That didn't even come close to actually reading your mind. So long as it's handled appropriately there shouldn't be anything to worry about, but otherwise.... I don't even want to imagine.
The issue was raised that some dorms have rooms with ethernet jacks while others (and presumably this hall) doesn't. Now, although it wasn't directly stated I'll assume that these students would have been easily willing to pay the extra $24 to get rooms with ethernet jacks. If the school was smart they'd simply start running these rigs themselves and charging the students $24 each to connect into it. Sure it's a kludge, but it works.
The problem is that the school doesn't have enough money to provide adequate housing to the students and consequently some of the students will be stuck with inferior housing. They decide to do something about it to make up for this and the school gets angry because they aren't making money off the inferior facilities. Somewhere a solution is possible, either wire up all the dorms or start taking the student's money and let them do it themselves.
I've noticed a number of references as to the age of the girl in question and why this book wouldn't be right for a 13 year-old or would be too complicated and above their level to comprehend. Think however, back to when you read most of these books for the first time. Most likely you were around her age if not younger and understood them perfectly. As for the books deemed inappropriate due to age we really ought not to determine what is or is not appropriate for a 13 year-old. Don't delude yourself into thinking that you never read that sort of thing at that age or that she wouldn't already know of them by now. The only thing we can have to gain by pretending otherwise is a delay in teaching her to be an adult and act like one in a mature and dignified manner. Give children and teenagers the ability to make their own decisions and you just might be surprised.
Even better than trying to get games ported after they're released is to pressure those companies that might have released a Linux version, but felt that there wouldn't be enough interest and the sales wouldn't be high enough to justify it. Take Team Fortress 2. After talking to one of the project leaders I was told that while they'd been pushing for a Linux client (they are making a server for linux) the higher-ups didn't think that it'd sell well enough so they called it off. If enough people told them how much they wanted a Linux version it just might have helped. In the Team Fortress community alone a petition went around for a while a few months ago and accumulated a rather large number of signatures. This however is not the way to go. I was told by employees of Valve that if we wanted to get noticed and have the marketing drones actually respond or make a change in policy we need to write to them, personally, in e-mail. While a petition may have tons of signatures the cummulative effect of getting e-mail from all those people is much, much greater. If we want Linux games that were made by the companies to support linux we have to go after them with the might of the penguin.
Oddly enough there hasn't arrisen (or at least to my knowledge) any other text-based browser to rival Lynx. While this may seem trivial the very nature of Lynx is often one of it's greatest assets. It can be easily used from public terminals by connecting into your box so you can use your own settings and bookmarks. It runs much faster than any of the graphical broswers. Most importantly it's often an excellent resource when you've gotten your modem or nework card up and running under linux, but still are having trouble getting X going. If a text-based rival to Lynx was to come out the functionality of the text-based browser market could only improve making these tools almost equal to graphical browsers for everyday surfing.
There is absolutely no problem. Santa exists, the true myth is that there are good children out there. The parents simply don't want the child to get poor self-esteem and feel bad so they pretend that Santa hasn't put you down on the naughty list yet again. Another mystery solved.
One of the greatest problems in this whole arena is that anytime someone stores any bit of information for whatever reason people will get unnecessarily angry. It's a fact of life, albiet a sad one, that many people have become so astoundingly paranoid. If we had slightly more trust then maybe things could start to work, but not until then.
I think we all know why the "junk" section is aprox. 42% of the chromosome... this just proves that Douglas Adams has been on to something far greater than any of the rest of us could possibly imagine.
Re:The obligatory two bits
on
Interface Zen
·
· Score: 2
This is by far not an unusual phenomenon. I know that myself as well as a few others (seeing in that I don't often stand over my friend's shoulders and watch exactly how they type) all tend to use a modified hunt-and-peck style rather than the classic "home row". It would be quite intriguing to find out how many other hackers and geeks end up developing thier own, much more efficient typing style.
Ever since I was a young geek, I hacked the Linux code From SuSE to RedHat, I musta hacked em all. But I ain't grokked nothing like him, in any IRC Channel. That deaf dumb and blind kid, Sure hacks a mean kernel!
He sits there at the puter, light he's never seen. Loads the GNU compiler, always compiles clean. Codes by intuition, no flow charts cast a pall... That deaf dumb and blind kid, Sure hacks a mean kernel!
He's an OS Wizard. Debugging is his trip. An OS Wizard, no wonder his mind slips...
How do you think he does it? I don't know! What makes him so good?
Ain't got no marketing department Can't hear no MP3's. Can't see no modems flashing. Releases when it works well Always installs Linux... On Windows DELTREEs. That deaf dumb and blind kid, Sure hacks a mean kernel!
I thought I was the GNU compiler King But I just handed my C++ crown to him.
Even on my favorite distro his uptime beats my best The caffeine keeps him awake, never needs any rest He's got crazy typing fingers Never made no bugs at all That deaf dumb and blind kid, Sure hacks a mean kernel!
by Belgand (belgand@userfriendly.org), Beregond (beregond@bix.com), and #userfriendly
YOu're entirely correct. You never needed BBSes b/c that's what you had on the early internet. While the rest of us were doing the same sort of things through BBSes you had those opprotunities through the internet. While it may not have been local (and in my opinion, that does take some of the joy away) it was a small, tightly-knit community. You can still find your cliques b/c you never had to deal with switching mediums as the rest of us did. BBSes were rather different and I have, as of yet, not run into any of my good friends back from the day on the Internet.
The "mass-market" BBS style providers died not b/c they were a closed world, but b/c they were a large closed world. They had their system, a large system but with the intimacy of a BBS, with the mass invasions of the internet they died b/c large systems were better and easier to find elsewhere, not b/c large, open systems are necessarily better.
I myself currently am employed by a notetaking service (versity.com) for transcribing my interpretation of the material presented in one of my courses. The key factor here is "interpretation" we were thoroughly told not to copy or post any copyrighted material or handouts. So long as a student is posting material that is written by themself as they view the material presented in class it is entirely legal however.
Slashdot Mirror
A linux release is almost always inevitable in any game that becomes a solid and lasting multiplayer hit. The usual problem is that such a release is often limited to a dedicated server, rarely a client. However it would be foolish not to take advantage of this. The base for the product is obviously established enough to allow for a rather large penetration on servers alone (check the included server scanner in Half-Life sometime, about half the servers are running on Linux) so why not develop clients?
I'll agree that it's nowhere nearly as simple to port a client for a game and attempt retail sales while as it is to release a free server. Who says, however, that it needs to be retail though? I'm willing that bet that there is not a single linux user that does not have sufficient internet access to order the game online, direct from the company if need be. This would allow for a smaller run if nothing else as the product does not need to be shipped out to every retail location.
As to the task of developing the ported client itself? That's where the problem I feel lies. Outsourcing to a company like Loki that deals primarily in ports of game clients to Linux would be helpful, but in-house solutions will be necessary to achieve wide-spread releases of games under Linux.
Maybe the best we can hope to achieve is Mac-like integration, but the installed base willing to run servers and (presumably) buy Linux clients ought to be large enough to warrant more consideration.
Hmm... oddly enough CowboyNeal said that Karma above 20 means you post with an automatic +1, my karma (at the moment at least) is 24 and yet I've never posted with an automatic +1, just the standard score of 1 that every registered user gets. Who's right here and is there anything else that might contribute to this? I ask purely out of curiosity.
I have to say that I find it rather odd how much karma and posting has taken over. I think most of this has to do with my view of slashdot. I mainly view it as a news site, never a discussion site. Kur5in I'll view as a discussion site.
Why? Well, Slashdot tends to post news stories, lots of them. Bunches of links off to interesting or relevant stories pour across the main page every day and I either read about them and note it or follow the link and read the actual story. About the only time I ever click through is when there is a real story to be had with content. In this manner Slashdot is like memepool for news with a bit more insight tossed into the reports.
Kuro5hin on the other hand I read less frequently. It's updated with new material every few days and most of what it has is short articles. Opinion pieces on recent events or mentions of the background and then analysis of it. The articles posted tend to be more conversation starters and topics rather than news.
I realize that most people probably think Slashdot is wonderful the way it is right now, but personally I think that a greater emphasis on thier main content, news, would be better while lessening the impact that comments seem to have made.
As does the Navy. While hardly revolutionary technology I'm currently involved in a research project for them on group dynamics in technology enviroments using standard air traffic control simulations. Sadly it's not nearly as well designed or advanced as atc. Finally my skill at *nix text-based games pays off! Now all we need is the Marines to start using NetHack....
The title you're looking for is "Dark Dungeons" and is one of the most laughable of all of Chick's tracts (no mean feat either) I suggest the excellent version with commentary at http://www.xentertainment.com
I find it odd that it so often is associated only with Contra for this very reason. When I was growing up and now I still remember it as the "Konami code", not a Contra one specifically.
I remember walking into a friend's room last year and a bunch of my friends were all arguing about what the proper code was to start up a game of Contra with a few getting close, but not close enough. I simply walked up and put it in without a word... they were stunned, but not as much as when I beat it without the code.
Am I the only person who actually likes the cool cyborg look then? Sure normal glasses and maybe a vest or something might work better in some situations, but the bragging rights will go to the person that owns the cool cyborg-esque unit instead of the model for the suits.
Actually Wired ran a brief bit on p. 290 of the current (October 2000) issue. The pictures look about the same as well as the specs and suchforth so I'm willing to take them as real or if nothing else, very close to it.
Ok, I'm a student at Kansas State and I personally can't wait until we ban napster traffic. As one of the few law-abiding students on campus my bandwidth has been seriously getting shot to hell (speeds of 20k/sec are getting frequent as a highpoint... I'm even getting 5-6k/sec). Do I have a serious interest in the legal issues surrounding Napster? Yes. Do I care about academic integrity and freedom of information? Very much so. The problem is that bandwidth is being used almost exclusively to download copyrighted music at most schools. This alone is more than enough reason to, if not an outright ban, severely restrict access to Napster to allow, if for no other reason, bandwidth for academic purposes.
I have an eerie feeling (especially since this is on Comedy Central and not say... Discovery or something similiar) that not only do some people out there like the nasty, scary, irritating commentators (for the record I state any sports commentator really). Comedy Central is trying to make this appeal to people as a sport, not a fun geek pasttime. If they did they'd most likely lose a number of viewers who don't get the tech side of things and would proceed to mock the silly geeks and thier wussy robots, crack open another beer and turn on some football.
As for the issue of time I don't see any way to lengthen fights aside from allowing in more robots (teams or something although a free-for-all might be interesting). When you get something being smacked with a hammer or a chainsaw or what have it's pretty hard to keep it together. The only other solution is to make the bots so strong that they're neigh invulnerable and the round lasts forever and the bots cost too much to let into the arena. That said BattleBots the show will probably die out after this season as the novelty wears off, the geeks stop watching b/c of the commentators and the unwashed masses go back to football or whatever other sport they enjoy. A shame too... this could be really fun on a more amateur level.
I think the greatest problem with traditional televised news is the inherent banality of it. When the OJ Simpson trials were going on it was always the first story on the news whether or not anything of importance had occurred that day or not. During the Clinton scandal you could bet that the president's sex life would be the top story of the evening irregardless of any breaking developments. Today the most reported news items are those that aren't really news. Princess Diana dies and it becomes the only story for the next two weeks when frankly the only newsworthy portion was that she had died and how. Local news is even worse. In my local market (kansas city) the evening news functions primarily to report on various crimes that occurred rather than deal with local politics or anything that might have a valid need to be reported. Wrap up the newscast with sports, weather, and some piece of "investigative journalism" and close with a fluffy human interest story and why would any person actually choose to watch this? Very little of it even qualifies as news and what little is news is often overhyped and sensationalized to stretch out the story. Newsmagazines in the US are all but unreadable choosing more often to focus on some minor social issue rather than world events and politics. The only readable newsmagazine is the excellent British publication the Economist which covers US news better than any domestic magazine. In short the problem with "conventional" news sources is the same problem with bad websites, too much flash and not enough valid content.
I think the problem here is that whether the study is right or wrong, biased or objective it all comes down to one simple fact: pirating music or anything else for that matter is illegal. Now, the arguments on where copyrights should be going are a totally different argument and are actually quite productive, but constantly trying to justify what ammounts to little more than common thievery is something else, just give it up. I fully support mp3 as a format for many uses, primarily mobile music and a distribution channel for previews, extra unreleased material and unsigned bands. If the piracy wasn't as rampant as it is and mp3 wasn't as synonymous with "illegal music piracy" as it currently is more artists would likely begin to distribute music either in mp3 format or release extra tracks or promos for legitimate free use. As long as we keep trying to keep Napster afloat and support an illegitimate criminal community however mp3s will never catch on with labels and will remain devoted to people who simply want to steal.
The issue wouldn't be so hotly contested if the word did not have two, diametrically opposed meanings. The equivalent is to take any other word normally used to describe a person, perhaps even a term of honor and respect such as in this case, and reuse it as an insult. I doubt that journalists would idly stand by if, due to changes in the common vernacular, the word journalist was also used for "scum-sucking bottom feeder". The same principle holds true here. Anyone who is refered to as a hacker anymore is summarily insulted as although both definitions are supported their usage is so similiar that they are easily confused. I doubt I'd try to put cheese on Cletus (although you never know...) when you asked me about how I like my crackers, but a cracker and a hacker are both people who deal with computers to a large degree the rest of the distinction is on how they use them. If it was just the wrong term it would be tolerable, but to be insulted almost daily is something that ought to be changed.
So essentially IBM would be reading my mind? Now ok, amazingly cool idea for an input device, but this really has a possibility for massive abuse. Remember the outrage over the PIII serial numbers? That didn't even come close to actually reading your mind. So long as it's handled appropriately there shouldn't be anything to worry about, but otherwise.... I don't even want to imagine.
The issue was raised that some dorms have rooms with ethernet jacks while others (and presumably this hall) doesn't. Now, although it wasn't directly stated I'll assume that these students would have been easily willing to pay the extra $24 to get rooms with ethernet jacks. If the school was smart they'd simply start running these rigs themselves and charging the students $24 each to connect into it. Sure it's a kludge, but it works.
The problem is that the school doesn't have enough money to provide adequate housing to the students and consequently some of the students will be stuck with inferior housing. They decide to do something about it to make up for this and the school gets angry because they aren't making money off the inferior facilities. Somewhere a solution is possible, either wire up all the dorms or start taking the student's money and let them do it themselves.
I've noticed a number of references as to the age of the girl in question and why this book wouldn't be right for a 13 year-old or would be too complicated and above their level to comprehend. Think however, back to when you read most of these books for the first time. Most likely you were around her age if not younger and understood them perfectly. As for the books deemed inappropriate due to age we really ought not to determine what is or is not appropriate for a 13 year-old. Don't delude yourself into thinking that you never read that sort of thing at that age or that she wouldn't already know of them by now. The only thing we can have to gain by pretending otherwise is a delay in teaching her to be an adult and act like one in a mature and dignified manner. Give children and teenagers the ability to make their own decisions and you just might be surprised.
Even better than trying to get games ported after they're released is to pressure those companies that might have released a Linux version, but felt that there wouldn't be enough interest and the sales wouldn't be high enough to justify it. Take Team Fortress 2. After talking to one of the project leaders I was told that while they'd been pushing for a Linux client (they are making a server for linux) the higher-ups didn't think that it'd sell well enough so they called it off. If enough people told them how much they wanted a Linux version it just might have helped. In the Team Fortress community alone a petition went around for a while a few months ago and accumulated a rather large number of signatures. This however is not the way to go. I was told by employees of Valve that if we wanted to get noticed and have the marketing drones actually respond or make a change in policy we need to write to them, personally, in e-mail. While a petition may have tons of signatures the cummulative effect of getting e-mail from all those people is much, much greater. If we want Linux games that were made by the companies to support linux we have to go after them with the might of the penguin.
Oddly enough there hasn't arrisen (or at least to my knowledge) any other text-based browser to rival Lynx. While this may seem trivial the very nature of Lynx is often one of it's greatest assets. It can be easily used from public terminals by connecting into your box so you can use your own settings and bookmarks. It runs much faster than any of the graphical broswers. Most importantly it's often an excellent resource when you've gotten your modem or nework card up and running under linux, but still are having trouble getting X going. If a text-based rival to Lynx was to come out the functionality of the text-based browser market could only improve making these tools almost equal to graphical browsers for everyday surfing.
There is absolutely no problem. Santa exists, the true myth is that there are good children out there. The parents simply don't want the child to get poor self-esteem and feel bad so they pretend that Santa hasn't put you down on the naughty list yet again. Another mystery solved.
One of the greatest problems in this whole arena is that anytime someone stores any bit of information for whatever reason people will get unnecessarily angry. It's a fact of life, albiet a sad one, that many people have become so astoundingly paranoid. If we had slightly more trust then maybe things could start to work, but not until then.
I think we all know why the "junk" section is aprox. 42% of the chromosome... this just proves that Douglas Adams has been on to something far greater than any of the rest of us could possibly imagine.
This is by far not an unusual phenomenon. I know that myself as well as a few others (seeing in that I don't often stand over my friend's shoulders and watch exactly how they type) all tend to use a modified hunt-and-peck style rather than the classic "home row". It would be quite intriguing to find out how many other hackers and geeks end up developing thier own, much more efficient typing style.
(sung to the tune of "Pinball Wizard" by the Who)
Ever since I was a young geek, I hacked the Linux code
From SuSE to RedHat, I musta hacked em all.
But I ain't grokked nothing like him, in any IRC Channel.
That deaf dumb and blind kid, Sure hacks a mean kernel!
He sits there at the puter, light he's never seen.
Loads the GNU compiler, always compiles clean.
Codes by intuition, no flow charts cast a pall...
That deaf dumb and blind kid, Sure hacks a mean kernel!
He's an OS Wizard.
Debugging is his trip.
An OS Wizard, no wonder his mind slips...
How do you think he does it?
I don't know!
What makes him so good?
Ain't got no marketing department
Can't hear no MP3's.
Can't see no modems flashing.
Releases when it works well
Always installs Linux... On Windows DELTREEs.
That deaf dumb and blind kid, Sure hacks a mean kernel!
I thought I was the GNU compiler King
But I just handed my C++ crown to him.
Even on my favorite distro his uptime beats my best
The caffeine keeps him awake, never needs any rest
He's got crazy typing fingers
Never made no bugs at all
That deaf dumb and blind kid, Sure hacks a mean kernel!
by Belgand (belgand@userfriendly.org), Beregond (beregond@bix.com), and #userfriendly
YOu're entirely correct. You never needed BBSes b/c that's what you had on the early internet. While the rest of us were doing the same sort of things through BBSes you had those opprotunities through the internet. While it may not have been local (and in my opinion, that does take some of the joy away) it was a small, tightly-knit community. You can still find your cliques b/c you never had to deal with switching mediums as the rest of us did. BBSes were rather different and I have, as of yet, not run into any of my good friends back from the day on the Internet.
The "mass-market" BBS style providers died not b/c they were a closed world, but b/c they were a large closed world. They had their system, a large system but with the intimacy of a BBS, with the mass invasions of the internet they died b/c large systems were better and easier to find elsewhere, not b/c large, open systems are necessarily better.
I myself currently am employed by a notetaking service (versity.com) for transcribing my interpretation of the material presented in one of my courses. The key factor here is "interpretation" we were thoroughly told not to copy or post any copyrighted material or handouts. So long as a student is posting material that is written by themself as they view the material presented in class it is entirely legal however.