Some accounts got yanked more likely then not, don't doubt that at least one scammer person had a change of heart though. (well, statisticaly if you get that many people together . . . .:) )
Hell I even knew a few people who were selling off PS2 boxs. ^_^
"I really can't understand people who think that watching a movie which has been compressed with a lossy algorithm (DivX image is fucking full of artifacts!) is worth watching. On a tiny monitor screen (21" monitor vs. 36+" TV) no less.
That's like butchering the movie. The only right place to watch movies is the movie theatre."
This is obviously a troll but. . ..
Ugh.
First off a WELL DONE DivX encode has _NO_ I repeat, _NO_ artifacts in it WHAT SO EVER. (at least visible to the human eye, bleh).
Pulling this off typically requires that a person run a crudload of filters on the video before even THINKING about using a lossy codec on it. These filters are to optimize the video for DivX compression. This pre-optimization is mostly comprised of removing any existing artifacts from the video (noise or any other sort of signal degration) preforming proper deinterlacing on the video (if necessary) and proper IVTC (read that page over completely until you understand it.:) )
A PROPER DivX encode does NOT use Flask.
At all.
Ever.
A proper DivX encoding is going to be running at a maximum of ~8fps, though 1 or 2 FPS is far more likely. No your CPU does not really matter at this point in time, quite frankly the difference between 1.5FPS and 2.25FPS is minimal. (1ghz computer VS 1.5ghz computer, and that is assuming a linear increase in CPU speed in regards to Encode speed!!)
A properly DivX encode will end up looking BETTER then the DVD source that it came from.
Yes that is right folks, I said it will look BETTER.
This is because even some of the finest mastered DVDs out there now days tend to have at least a few artifacts in them. A person who is good at their craft of video encoding will know how to REMOVE these artifacts and compress the video with the HIGHER QUALITY MPEG4 codec.
For crying out loud, MPEG4 is what, around six years newer then MPEG2? Of course it is more advanced.
Oh, and Analog Mediums by their very nature are lossy. That video that you see at the movie theater is covered in noise. It is just that you quickly become accustom to it.
Even digital projectors are not immune to noise unless the video was handled in a LOSELESS digital codec for its ENTIRE existence.
Which is not TOO likely to happen. At least in the near future.
Oh, and my home computer MONITOR _IS_ 36 inchs.
Which means it is progressive of course.
Wish I could find out a way to get it to do 720p. It is a Gateway Destination screen, hmmm. . ..
Ah, oh well. DVDs do defintly look better on it then through the SVIDEO port on my RCA TV screen.
(It is that RCA TV that was rated the "Worst TV ever made" a little less then a year or so ago back.)
And yes, Theaters DO rock for movies.
Specifically the Cinerama which is the second highest quality source cinema entertainment that you can get, only bested by an Imax screen.
And Imax does not show Lord Of The Rings or Harry Potter.
Hell even Star Wars: Episode 1 looked good at the Cinerama.:) It looked so damn good that it wasn't until a few minutes after the movie was over that I realized exactly how damn annoying that little bastard was. (you know which bastard I am talking about. . ..)
If you have not seen Gladiator with a PROPER THX sound system (as in the kind you CANNOT get unless you are in a movie theater) then your life is incomplete. Period. (Hint: In the intro scene you could COUNT the arrows flying by you just by the sounds that they made. Yes, they sounded like they were flying right past the audience, and each and every arrow was audible. Kick Ass.)
(minus the occasional correction for gravity interferance and such. )
Remember, minimal friction.
The majority of the fuel used up in a space mission is used for taking off, landing, taking off again, and finaly landing back on earth.
What is really needed is a nice space station and some sort of highly efficent method to get people up to that space station. The shuttles could either just be launched once, or built up there to begin with.
Antimatter's efficency at burning IS higher then current fuel technologies though.
(NO fuel CREATES more energy then it took to make it. You can't reverse entropy folks, EVER. Everything is just a battery if you want to look at the long term picture.)
I am opposed to its very EXISTENCE at ALL within the OS.
The fact that there would BLOATED CODE on my HD SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO SUPPORT a pretty boy OS is what I am opposed to.
The fact that time spent CODING IN SUPPORT FOR 32BIT COLOR ICONS rather then fixing bugs or making additional optimizations to Windows XP, -THAT- is what I am opposed to.
The lack luser way that the OS is shoved together (does a default install really need to include EXEs to check for things like the Pentium Bug? Seriously now. . . . ), a 2GB default install is overkill, by about, oh, say, 1.5GB.
(if you do a 2gb install of any decent OS you will get a complete computer SYSTEM, you do a 2GB install of WindowsXP and you get to fork out another few hundred bucks for a Microsoft Approved Compiler, err, I mean development environment, and then have yet ANOTHER few hundred megs of your hard drive given away to it. Then don't forget the _5_ cds that their word processing 'suite' now comes in. Oh wow.)
It is a principles thing buddy. The interface is just the physical manifestation of that which I am opposed to.
I am talking about the logic of spamming somebody in X language though.
Percentage wise, a spammer should either be going for English or Manderin. Spamming outside of China, English is the most likely language of choice.
Especialy if they FOUND my e-mail address on an ENGLISH website. ^_^
You figure that the the spammers would have software advanced enough (AkA check the headers of a page. . . . ) to tell what the native language of a website is and add people to the appropriat linguistic spam catagory.
But noooo, I get spams trying to. . . . well I have NO idea what the hell they are even for, but they are in either Russian or Chinese. (I _DO_ check HTML source.:):) )
Now then, I did somehow manage to get on a list for a semi-annual e-mailing of free porn from some site in Taiwan. Why can't I get more spam like that????:):):)
Oddly enough I get about equal percentage ratios of spam in English and in Some Other Language.
This is my real e-mail address, until I posted it here on/. I got exactly THREE pieces of spam EVER. Period.
Now I get something like 2 or 3 a week.
Originaly the e-mail was not masked in any way, even so it took two weeks before I got any spam to it.
Cable, Digital Cable, Internet Service, Cell Phones, Long Distance Service, ah and soon many such conglomerits hope to be offering digital telephone services as well.
AT&T already provides me will all of the above services minus the digital phone service, the local phone company still does that.
Considering how many quality SNES games are being improved upon and having a GBA version released though, why would you want to bother with 16bit quality when Nintendo is quickly coming out with 32bit quality GBA games? -_-
Hmm, a SMS emulator and a Spectrum emulator also appear to exist.
(heh, Z80 support, who'd have thunk it, eh? -_- I think that the Z80 has to win some type of an award for the chip that just won't die.:) )
If you are really interested in porting the software (uh, it will get your chicks?) you can go to
It uses off the shelf parts pretty much, so the tech docs are all out there and easily available. (legally too).
In fact emulators to run GBA roms existed BEFORE the GBA even came out! The second Nintendo announced the specifications for it people started rushing to emulate it.
Oddly enough there is more legitimate emulation going on for the GBA then perhaps any other system within the last six or so years. I would say that a good percentage (10% or so) of people using GBA emulators are doing so for legal reasons. (well hell, choosing between PSX, N64, Arcade, and GBA games on your computer, which one are YOU going to play for fun? Portable games sacrifice somethings for portability, granted some are good enough to take people away from their big consoles, but it IS a portable system after all, do not expect miracles.:) ).
A lot of those people using the GBA for legal reasons are actually doing it for development, and a good sized scene of demoers has already appeared around the GBA platform.
Nintendo should really be encouraging this, it could be not only a good source of revenue, but it holds all of the hope that the PSX programming box did for Sony, but with none of the initial investment costs on the companies part.
Yes some people are going to be using these devices for pirating games.
But most people are not going to be. Most people who PIRATE games do not want to spend an initial startup charge on something.
Remember who the primary crowd of GBA game users are, kids under the age of 18. 98% of them without credit cards, and those who do have credit cards are still not likely to be tech savvy enough to even know that products like this exist.
People who are running these devices are most likely people who already have large quantities of GBA games in these possession and who just want to be able to carry a large amount of games with them inside of one device.
And everybody here does realize that the MINIMAL entry level cost for these devices is $109.99
Yaaaaah right. I can just see little Jimmy asking his mother
"Uh, mommy. Can I have a $109.99 Flash Advance Linker 64M Kit so that I can pirate games for my GBA?"
Now while in my younger years I _MIGHT_ have been able to pull that one off (I pulled off a few sales pitchs that were even more far fetched then that one, then again my parents were the type who perfectly understood the concept of 'saving' money.:) ), the odds of very many kiddies getting these FAL kits in their hands is pretty much minimal.
Which leaves one market left.
Young adults with way to much money on their hands.
Who already have likely boughten an assload of GBA games anyways and will continue to buy them (often times just to say that they legaly own them, hell I STILL buy an NES game now and then just because I want to be able to say that yes I do legaly own that game) even if they can pirate them for free (after the $109.99 cover charge.)
Hell, at this price level, Nintendo should just release their OWN device of this type.
Have it use mostly write ONCE Static RAM. You know, a WORM type of a storage device.
Have a few megabits left over in it for save game information (one or two megabits should do it) and sell the buggers off for the same price.
Then again mabye that is exactly what they plan on doing.:):):)
Also enable them to be able to act as a bridge between a PC and a GBA, so that developers could use them to try out their GBA games on an actual GBA system.
Of course being tethered to a PC all the time would completely remove any desire for people to actually, you know, play PIRATED games with this thing.
Unless they are Super Uber Desperate for playing a GBA game, but even then they can already play GBA games with GBA emulators on their PC, so the device makes no difference at all. It just reduces the screen size that the pirated games are played on.:):):)
Anyways, the general idea would be that Nintendo would reap huge amounts of profit off of this device (it would not give any specific instructions as to what to DO with this device, though they could also very well run a pay for download system over the web that directly downloaded games to the WORM device, thus bypassing using any sort of pirated channels for distribution all together, which knowing Nintendo's feelings on piracy, is the most likely source).
Think about it. They would be charging $100 for a cart that cost them A LOT less to produce then $100 and likely around the same cost to produce as a regular GBA card.
And somebody would to write what, 3 games to the darned thing? 3 *$30= 90, but with the case of just one distribution medium you get lower overall production packaging and shipping costs.
In other words;
DUDES, YOU AT NINTENDO, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, RELEASE YOUR OWN DEVICE!
Maybe that is what they are planning on doing and they are just shutting down there competitors. If that is the case then I can't say that I blame them, as a standard WORM style of a device with a link to allow developers to test their products out would be just as useful to the legitimate end consumer as these devices here are, but it would not have any illegal uses.
(well outside of pirating $90 of games onto a device that you just paid $100 for. ^_^ )
"Anyway... everyone knows that real hackers use the command line anyway, and couldn't give a hoot about how the GUI looks."
Heh, true.
Nice when the GUI isn't SUCH of a pain in the arse to use though.
Win2k actually has a lot more functionality in it then Windows3.1, if you compare the two side to side even completely ignoring the visuals, you can tell that Windows 2000 feels a lot smoother.
A lot of the shell replacements for Windows
*SIDETRACK*
I do not see why Microsoft says IE cannot be separated from windows, the HTML help engine is about all that is REALLY integrated, and it NEVER was necessary, the old style help system from win95+ is A LOT easier to use. You can completely replace all explorer elements with no problems, and in windows 2000 Internet Explorer is actually SEPARATE from explorer.exe to begin with. (iexplorer VS explorer).
Hell even in Win98 it was possible to replace the shell=explorer.exe line with shell=command.com line with very few issues popping up, in win2k complete shell replacement is easy, and internet explorer is not needed at all.
Hell I wonder what would happen if I set StarOffice (the last Sun version, the one that functioned as a desktop replacement of sorts) as my shell?
Hmmmmm.:):):)
Aaaanyways.
Back on track here.
A lot of the shell replacement for Windows tend to do away with the REALLY nice thingy of a majiggy that pops up when a person alt-tabs.
That is VERY handy.
As another example of how complete Window's interface is,
I can shift-alt-tab though the list of running programs to go backwards.
How is that for sweet, eh?
Hell I just discovered ANOTHER useful hotkey that I did not know about before.
cntrl-tab to switch between main panes within a single window, or tabs or how ever that window is designed to work.
Nifty.
Oh and guess what? Cntrl-shift-tab cycles backwards through the tabs!
As I said, VERY consistent.
Win2k's autocomplete (which FINALLY works worth a living. . ..) makes the Run dialog box damn nearly close to a one line display CLI.:)
I used it for that in windows 98 (ugh) as it is, in Win2K it just flies.
It also uses semi-intelligent (it tried before but was closer to the brain dead end of the spectrum) methods to guess which directory you want to go to, so if I tend to go to C:\program files\direct connect\received files often, I just have to type in C:\pro and it will pop up below the text entry box in a nice/unobtrusive/ fashion, the complete C:\program files\direct connect\received files directory name, all I have to do is hit down and enter to select it.
It of course will give me a list of the most commonly (NOT most recently, most commonly!) accessed directories that fall within the C:\pro* range. Nifty that.
Or C:\wi*, or whatever I type in to it.
Just hitting WindowKey-R and then C will give me a list of my most RECENTLY accessed DATA files, as opposed to the most commonly accessed whatever type of file.
Now how is THAT for nifty! Once I type in C:\ it then goes into Most Commonly Accessed File mode.
(this is actually just a side effect of Windows 2000 using PROPER Unix style forward slash naming when it accesses data files. Once the C:\ part is put in it starts bringing up files from my HD rather then from its internal list of data files that I have accessed recently. But it is still rather nifty.:) )
Hell, I can access almost ANY file on my computer (and I have over 60GB of them) in under 10 keystrokes.
Now that is what I call a good UI.
(and that is just the run dialog box.:):):) )
(or course regular auto complete does exist, which has existed in other OSs for/far/ longer then the MS OSs have had it)
Friend of mine had a beta of the Newton on a laptop, that, err, anyways. (wasn't stolen).
Had to format it because booting up asked for a password and nobody knew what in the world it was. Apparently the password had been written down on a scrap of paper loooong ago (aren't all passwords at some point in time or another?:) ) and then promptly lost, heh.
Ah, told him later that he should have taken out the HD and put it into an IDE adaptor for his PC and plugged it in as a secondary disk and try accessing it with every file system compatiability layer known to mankind.;)
He was quite upset that he had not thought of doing that.
These would be giant balloons (as in huff huff puff puff balloons, though in this case filled with helium, like at the circus) with some transmitters tied on to them.
Not exactly high tech, just thinking about an old problem in a new way.
(though the data transmitters are likely rather nifty)
I recently saw a page using Javascript that was able to upload files from the users HD to the server that did not have any sort of security warnings on it or any warning dialogs pop-up in IE5.
It had a button marked browse that the user used to select which file was to be uploaded and then the user hit submit so that the file was sent, but, uh, is there really that much keeping the other system from selecting a file 'for the user'?
Heck just defaulting to all files under 100k in a the default document save location of Excel would be enough to get at least a few credit card or even social security numbers.
I spent $20 on my Lite-On DVD drive for my computer.
DVD home entertainment systems just plain suck. . . . well they do! The ease of use factor is a pain unless you get a setup that supports automatic changing between inputs based upon detected signals, and even then the standalone DVD player that I do have (last fr*cking stand alone POS I buy. . ..) ALWAYS displays a blue APEX screen and CANNOT be turned off except by walking up to it and hitting the big red button.
Which is a major pain, at least 50 friggin buttons on the remote and I gotta get up to turn it off or on. -_-
Computers are superior for this thing, and they cost a lot less in the long run too.
Heck my 266mhz PentiumII is perfectly capible of playing DVD video, just would cost me $20-$30 for a DVD-ROM drive.
From now on my entertainment center is that video out cable for my Matrox G400 MAX dual head, the audio splitter cable(s), and whatever 5.25in drive is in style at the time.
A mid 1980's home computer could EASILY be reduced to fit down to the size of my pocket.
Actualy size in itself is not the problem. The bleeming screen is.
Until we get some direct to retina or direct to optic nerve display technology, the size of a computer is always going to be limited by what the smallest display the user will stand for is.
Well that and keyboard sizes.
So you should also add direct mental input to your list of features that are needed.
Quite frankly, if you give a modern day computer manufacturing facility the technologies that I have outlined above, and in a decent sized package, a computer could EASILY be made that fits in the palm of your hand.
Hell, lets see now. Use a modified form of Sony's memory stick technology, they have gotten in packed down quite dense now days, so you really do not need such a large package if you are just going to store 4 or 8 megs of data.
The CPU should be no problem. Since this is a business computer we are dealing with here, no FPUs are needed, and 66mhz or so should be enough to run a highly optimized operating system along with some standard business applications.
Hmm, actualy, have you seen those MP3 players that they sell in the stores now days? Yah, those ones, the ones that are about the size of two of my thumbs next to each other. (or to put it in references that mean something, heh, about an inch tall by a bit less then an inch wide)
That is what we can do now days.
It is just the friggen display technology that is holding us back.
Everything else until then (new display technologies coming out) is just a stop gap measure designed to keep the technology sector alive.
Why else do you think that the latest office applications require 500mhz+ to run? Seriously? (this is MS Office of course, bleh. POS. . . . )
Re:Good for some, nightmare for others
on
Peek-a-Boo(ty)
·
· Score: 2
Bah,
as someone who has both admin'd and broken through other admin's security setups, let me say that anybody who cannot COMPLETELY secure a box has no idea what they are doing.
One box I was on was setup so that only files with certain names could be run.
Solution?
Rename file (if rename is disabled, just download it as an 'allowed' file name) to one of the allowed program file names.
The latest clever admin trick that I saw was that the computer was setup such that Install Shield always detected the presence of Uninstall Shield running in the background, thus Install Shield would refuse to run.
Nifty that. I may have to ask them how they did it.:)
I simply got the manual extractor for Install Shield compressed files and decompressed the files myself. (luckily the program did not have a bunch of DLLs that it demanded be installed in the System32 directory or anything.;) ).
Hell systems locked down to run nothing else but Word and Explorer I have managed to get to DOS on. (and once your in DOS shit tends to go all haywire.;) Few Window's admins know how to or care to lock down the basic DOS commands, heh).
This 'security issue' was eventually addressed (even in a Microsoft patch I do believe. . ..) and the ability to add items to your favorites menu in IE from Office was eventually set to something that the Administrator could toggle on or off.:) (heh)
Of course as a last resort option I simply stick in any of a number of Linux Boot Disks that are designed to go in and change the Admin password on a box. I have had to do this several times after being assigned to work on machines for which nobody knew the administrative password for.::groans::
(once physical access to the box has been gained, the machine CAN and eventually WILL be compromised. Period. Unless you encrypt the living shit out of the entire HD and only have the key stored on a dongle that has to be plugged in to the serial port while typing some long password on the keyboard and said dongle is stored in a Fort Knox like security situation)
::notes all of the OTHER graphs on that site show a decrease::
Maine doesn't seem to bad though. . . . .
A few years ago I was witness to a bunch of f*cking MANSIONS being put up in the MIDDLE of forest land.
Pissed me off to no end. Miles away from anyplace else, some dick head 'land developer' had to go around and chop down a bunch of trees to clear some land, and then chop down some MORE trees for lumber, just so some rich dipfuck (mix your swear words folks!) could go and have a retreat in 'the middle of nature' for a few weeks each year.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite a few if I recall. . . .
:)
:) )
Was a relativly common scam at the time.
Some accounts got yanked more likely then not, don't doubt that at least one scammer person had a change of heart though. (well, statisticaly if you get that many people together . . . .
Hell I even knew a few people who were selling off PS2 boxs. ^_^
::groans::
Okay actualy I'm LMAO, heh.
::punts TYP in the general direction of the puns newgroup::
"so does that mean that the X-Men are like dot-com geeks? (powerful yet hated)"
.
Ummm, no.
You see the X-Men have funding . . .
::ducks::
"I really can't understand people who think that watching a movie which has been compressed with a lossy algorithm (DivX image is fucking full of artifacts!) is worth watching. On a tiny monitor screen (21" monitor vs. 36+" TV) no less.
.
:) )
.
:) It looked so damn good that it wasn't until a few minutes after the movie was over that I realized exactly how damn annoying that little bastard was. (you know which bastard I am talking about. . . .)
That's like butchering the movie. The only right place to watch movies is the movie theatre."
This is obviously a troll but. . .
Ugh.
First off a WELL DONE DivX encode has _NO_ I repeat, _NO_ artifacts in it WHAT SO EVER. (at least visible to the human eye, bleh).
Pulling this off typically requires that a person run a crudload of filters on the video before even THINKING about using a lossy codec on it. These filters are to optimize the video for DivX compression. This pre-optimization is mostly comprised of removing any existing artifacts from the video (noise or any other sort of signal degration) preforming proper deinterlacing on the video (if necessary) and proper IVTC (read that page over completely until you understand it.
A PROPER DivX encode does NOT use Flask.
At all.
Ever.
A proper DivX encoding is going to be running at a maximum of ~8fps, though 1 or 2 FPS is far more likely. No your CPU does not really matter at this point in time, quite frankly the difference between 1.5FPS and 2.25FPS is minimal. (1ghz computer VS 1.5ghz computer, and that is assuming a linear increase in CPU speed in regards to Encode speed!!)
A properly DivX encode will end up looking BETTER then the DVD source that it came from.
Yes that is right folks, I said it will look BETTER.
This is because even some of the finest mastered DVDs out there now days tend to have at least a few artifacts in them. A person who is good at their craft of video encoding will know how to REMOVE these artifacts and compress the video with the HIGHER QUALITY MPEG4 codec.
For crying out loud, MPEG4 is what, around six years newer then MPEG2? Of course it is more advanced.
Oh, and Analog Mediums by their very nature are lossy. That video that you see at the movie theater is covered in noise. It is just that you quickly become accustom to it.
Even digital projectors are not immune to noise unless the video was handled in a LOSELESS digital codec for its ENTIRE existence.
Which is not TOO likely to happen. At least in the near future.
Oh, and my home computer MONITOR _IS_ 36 inchs.
Which means it is progressive of course.
Wish I could find out a way to get it to do 720p. It is a Gateway Destination screen, hmmm. . .
Ah, oh well. DVDs do defintly look better on it then through the SVIDEO port on my RCA TV screen.
(It is that RCA TV that was rated the "Worst TV ever made" a little less then a year or so ago back.)
And yes, Theaters DO rock for movies.
Specifically the Cinerama which is the second highest quality source cinema entertainment that you can get, only bested by an Imax screen.
And Imax does not show Lord Of The Rings or Harry Potter.
Hell even Star Wars: Episode 1 looked good at the Cinerama.
If you have not seen Gladiator with a PROPER THX sound system (as in the kind you CANNOT get unless you are in a movie theater) then your life is incomplete. Period. (Hint: In the intro scene you could COUNT the arrows flying by you just by the sounds that they made. Yes, they sounded like they were flying right past the audience, and each and every arrow was audible. Kick Ass.)
Nice thing about space;
Once you get started you keep on going.
(minus the occasional correction for gravity interferance and such. )
Remember, minimal friction.
The majority of the fuel used up in a space mission is used for taking off, landing, taking off again, and finaly landing back on earth.
What is really needed is a nice space station and some sort of highly efficent method to get people up to that space station. The shuttles could either just be launched once, or built up there to begin with.
Antimatter's efficency at burning IS higher then current fuel technologies though.
(NO fuel CREATES more energy then it took to make it. You can't reverse entropy folks, EVER. Everything is just a battery if you want to look at the long term picture.)
::bangs head on wall::
I am opposed to its very EXISTENCE at ALL within the OS.
The fact that there would BLOATED CODE on my HD SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO SUPPORT a pretty boy OS is what I am opposed to.
The fact that time spent CODING IN SUPPORT FOR 32BIT COLOR ICONS rather then fixing bugs or making additional optimizations to Windows XP, -THAT- is what I am opposed to.
The lack luser way that the OS is shoved together (does a default install really need to include EXEs to check for things like the Pentium Bug? Seriously now. . . . ), a 2GB default install is overkill, by about, oh, say, 1.5GB.
(if you do a 2gb install of any decent OS you will get a complete computer SYSTEM, you do a 2GB install of WindowsXP and you get to fork out another few hundred bucks for a Microsoft Approved Compiler, err, I mean development environment, and then have yet ANOTHER few hundred megs of your hard drive given away to it. Then don't forget the _5_ cds that their word processing 'suite' now comes in. Oh wow.)
It is a principles thing buddy. The interface is just the physical manifestation of that which I am opposed to.
Yah but unlike MacOS it is not shipped as part of the system unless I want it to be.
:)
I also do not plan on BUYING WinXP.
Hell I refuse to even PIRATE it.
I am that f*cking opposed to blue curvy shit.
I actualy don't care WHAT color it is. It is the curvy shit part that gets to me. That and the pseudo-transparency.
Oh, and by the way. The base color of the fade is color is r21, g105, b103.
By comparison, slashdot by default uses r0, g102, b102 (which is close, the curvy thing has r8, g102, b103 on its upper left curved boarder).
r0, g102, b102 is obviously equal parts green and blue though.
Mabye the blue amplifier[1] in the brains of these AC respondants are outa synch?
[1] may be bullshit, just found that link a few minutes ago.
::checks::
::done::
Rode bike.
Still think gradiant curved interfaces look like dog shit.
It is the pseduo transparency that really gets to me though. Can't stand it. Ugh.
I am talking about the logic of spamming somebody in X language though.
:) :) )
:) :) :)
/. I got exactly THREE pieces of spam EVER. Period.
Percentage wise, a spammer should either be going for English or Manderin. Spamming outside of China, English is the most likely language of choice.
Especialy if they FOUND my e-mail address on an ENGLISH website. ^_^
You figure that the the spammers would have software advanced enough (AkA check the headers of a page. . . . ) to tell what the native language of a website is and add people to the appropriat linguistic spam catagory.
But noooo, I get spams trying to. . . . well I have NO idea what the hell they are even for, but they are in either Russian or Chinese. (I _DO_ check HTML source.
Now then, I did somehow manage to get on a list for a semi-annual e-mailing of free porn from some site in Taiwan. Why can't I get more spam like that????
Oddly enough I get about equal percentage ratios of spam in English and in Some Other Language.
This is my real e-mail address, until I posted it here on
Now I get something like 2 or 3 a week.
Originaly the e-mail was not masked in any way, even so it took two weeks before I got any spam to it.
I had microsoft, but they don't have monthly download limits on their ISPs. . . . (yet. . . .)
Comcast on the other hand just plain SCARES me.
My internet CACHE monthly exceeds what they consider to be reasonable usage!
(In other words, even if I did not DOWNLOAD any FILES or watch any MOVIES, I would STILL exceed their monthly download limits!)
No, it is aqua blue.
Or a blue green.
Most most DEFINTLY some short of shade of blue.
Defintly alot of green in there too though, but also some blue.
Cable, Digital Cable, Internet Service, Cell Phones, Long Distance Service, ah and soon many such conglomerits hope to be offering digital telephone services as well.
AT&T already provides me will all of the above services minus the digital phone service, the local phone company still does that.
::notes that AT&T owns him::
DAMNIT!
I consider static to be visualy enjoyable.
:)
::shrugs::
Then again I also enjoy the sound of my case fans spinning as well.
Love your local white noise generators!
Do we REALLY have to put up with this ass end UGLY interface?
.
.
.)
I stick with PCs because I -CANNOT STAND BLUE FRIGGIN CURVY EDGES INTERFACES-
I do NOT want to have to put up with it on a site that is dedicated (more or less) to an OS known for its CLI. . .
Help. . .
(this would be one good reason to disable images. . .
"But my challenge still stands regarding the SNES emulator."
:P
:) )
:) ).
:) ), the odds of very many kiddies getting these FAL kits in their hands is pretty much minimal.
:) :) :)
:) :) :)
Umm, why should a person have to write one?
A number of opensource ZSNES emulators already exist, port it yourself.
ZSNES page on sourceforge.net
Considering how many quality SNES games are being improved upon and having a GBA version released though, why would you want to bother with 16bit quality when Nintendo is quickly coming out with 32bit quality GBA games? -_-
Hmm, a SMS emulator and a Spectrum emulator also appear to exist.
(heh, Z80 support, who'd have thunk it, eh? -_- I think that the Z80 has to win some type of an award for the chip that just won't die.
If you are really interested in porting the software (uh, it will get your chicks?) you can go to
This GBA developers documention page that I found in about 5 seconds on google
It uses off the shelf parts pretty much, so the tech docs are all out there and easily available. (legally too).
In fact emulators to run GBA roms existed BEFORE the GBA even came out! The second Nintendo announced the specifications for it people started rushing to emulate it.
Oddly enough there is more legitimate emulation going on for the GBA then perhaps any other system within the last six or so years.
I would say that a good percentage (10% or so) of people using GBA emulators are doing so for legal reasons. (well hell, choosing between PSX, N64, Arcade, and GBA games on your computer, which one are YOU going to play for fun? Portable games sacrifice somethings for portability, granted some are good enough to take people away from their big consoles, but it IS a portable system after all, do not expect miracles.
A lot of those people using the GBA for legal reasons are actually doing it for development, and a good sized scene of demoers has already appeared around the GBA platform.
Nintendo should really be encouraging this, it could be not only a good source of revenue, but it holds all of the hope that the PSX programming box did for Sony, but with none of the initial investment costs on the companies part.
Yes some people are going to be using these devices for pirating games.
But most people are not going to be. Most people who PIRATE games do not want to spend an initial startup charge on something.
Remember who the primary crowd of GBA game users are, kids under the age of 18. 98% of them without credit cards, and those who do have credit cards are still not likely to be tech savvy enough to even know that products like this exist.
People who are running these devices are most likely people who already have large quantities of GBA games in these possession and who just want to be able to carry a large amount of games with them inside of one device.
And everybody here does realize that the MINIMAL entry level cost for these devices is $109.99
Yaaaaah right. I can just see little Jimmy asking his mother
"Uh, mommy. Can I have a $109.99 Flash Advance Linker 64M Kit so that I can pirate games for my GBA?"
Now while in my younger years I _MIGHT_ have been able to pull that one off (I pulled off a few sales pitchs that were even more far fetched then that one, then again my parents were the type who perfectly understood the concept of 'saving' money.
Which leaves one market left.
Young adults with way to much money on their hands.
Who already have likely boughten an assload of GBA games anyways and will continue to buy them (often times just to say that they legaly own them, hell I STILL buy an NES game now and then just because I want to be able to say that yes I do legaly own that game) even if they can pirate them for free (after the $109.99 cover charge.)
Hell, at this price level, Nintendo should just release their OWN device of this type.
Have it use mostly write ONCE Static RAM. You know, a WORM type of a storage device.
Have a few megabits left over in it for save game information (one or two megabits should do it) and sell the buggers off for the same price.
Then again mabye that is exactly what they plan on doing.
Also enable them to be able to act as a bridge between a PC and a GBA, so that developers could use them to try out their GBA games on an actual GBA system.
Of course being tethered to a PC all the time would completely remove any desire for people to actually, you know, play PIRATED games with this thing.
Unless they are Super Uber Desperate for playing a GBA game, but even then they can already play GBA games with GBA emulators on their PC, so the device makes no difference at all. It just reduces the screen size that the pirated games are played on.
Anyways, the general idea would be that Nintendo would reap huge amounts of profit off of this device (it would not give any specific instructions as to what to DO with this device, though they could also very well run a pay for download system over the web that directly downloaded games to the WORM device, thus bypassing using any sort of pirated channels for distribution all together, which knowing Nintendo's feelings on piracy, is the most likely source).
Think about it. They would be charging $100 for a cart that cost them A LOT less to produce then $100 and likely around the same cost to produce as a regular GBA card.
And somebody would to write what, 3 games to the darned thing? 3 *$30= 90, but with the case of just one distribution medium you get lower overall production packaging and shipping costs.
In other words;
DUDES, YOU AT NINTENDO, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, RELEASE YOUR OWN DEVICE!
Maybe that is what they are planning on doing and they are just shutting down there competitors. If that is the case then I can't say that I blame them, as a standard WORM style of a device with a link to allow developers to test their products out would be just as useful to the legitimate end consumer as these devices here are, but it would not have any illegal uses.
(well outside of pirating $90 of games onto a device that you just paid $100 for. ^_^ )
The damn spam is IN the native language of the sender.
Which is compleatly stupid.
Why the HELL are they sending me spam in another language?
The Russians do this too.
Do they think that I am going to go through babelfish JUST to read THEIR spam?
Honestly, how stupid are these spammers? Why not just send out compleatly random junk characters on a massive scale, the profits would be the same.
"Anyway... everyone knows that real hackers use the command line anyway, and couldn't give a hoot about how the GUI looks."
:) :) :)
.) makes the Run dialog box damn nearly close to a one line display CLI. :)
/unobtrusive/ fashion, the complete C:\program files\direct connect\received files directory name, all I have
:) )
:) :) :) )
/far/ longer then the MS OSs have had it)
Heh, true.
Nice when the GUI isn't SUCH of a pain in the arse to use though.
Win2k actually has a lot more functionality in it then Windows3.1, if you compare the two side to side even completely ignoring the visuals, you can tell that Windows 2000 feels a lot smoother.
A lot of the shell replacements for Windows
*SIDETRACK*
I do not see why Microsoft says IE cannot be separated from windows, the HTML help engine is about all that is REALLY integrated, and it NEVER was necessary, the old style help system from win95+ is A LOT easier to use. You can completely replace all explorer elements with no problems, and in windows 2000 Internet Explorer is actually SEPARATE from explorer.exe to begin with. (iexplorer VS explorer).
Hell even in Win98 it was possible to replace the shell=explorer.exe line with shell=command.com line with very few issues popping up, in win2k complete shell replacement is easy, and internet explorer is not needed at all.
Hell I wonder what would happen if I set StarOffice (the last Sun version, the one that functioned as a desktop replacement of sorts) as my shell?
Hmmmmm.
Aaaanyways.
Back on track here.
A lot of the shell replacement for Windows tend to do away with the REALLY nice thingy of a majiggy that pops up when a person alt-tabs.
That is VERY handy.
As another example of how complete Window's interface is,
I can shift-alt-tab though the list of running programs to go backwards.
How is that for sweet, eh?
Hell I just discovered ANOTHER useful hotkey that I did not know about before.
cntrl-tab to switch between main panes within a single window, or tabs or how ever that window is designed to work.
Nifty.
Oh and guess what? Cntrl-shift-tab cycles backwards through the tabs!
As I said, VERY consistent.
Win2k's autocomplete (which FINALLY works worth a living. . .
I used it for that in windows 98 (ugh) as it is, in Win2K it just flies.
It also uses semi-intelligent (it tried before but was closer to the brain dead end of the spectrum) methods to guess which directory you want to go to, so if I tend to go to C:\program files\direct connect\received files often, I just have to type in C:\pro and it will pop up below the text entry box in a nice
to do is hit down and enter to select it.
It of course will give me a list of the most commonly (NOT most recently, most commonly!) accessed directories that fall within the C:\pro* range. Nifty that.
Or C:\wi*, or whatever I type in to it.
Just hitting WindowKey-R and then C will give me a list of my most RECENTLY accessed DATA files, as opposed to the most commonly accessed whatever type of file.
Now how is THAT for nifty! Once I type in C:\ it then goes into Most Commonly Accessed File mode.
(this is actually just a side effect of Windows 2000 using PROPER Unix style forward slash naming when it accesses data files. Once the C:\ part is put in it starts bringing up files from my HD rather then from its internal list of data files that I have accessed recently. But it is still rather nifty.
Hell, I can access almost ANY file on my computer (and I have over 60GB of them) in under 10 keystrokes.
Now that is what I call a good UI.
(and that is just the run dialog box.
(or course regular auto complete does exist, which has existed in other OSs for
Friend of mine had a beta of the Newton on a laptop, that, err, anyways. (wasn't stolen).
:) ) and then promptly lost, heh.
;)
Had to format it because booting up asked for a password and nobody knew what in the world it was. Apparently the password had been written down on a scrap of paper loooong ago (aren't all passwords at some point in time or another?
Ah, told him later that he should have taken out the HD and put it into an IDE adaptor for his PC and plugged it in as a secondary disk and try accessing it with every file system compatiability layer known to mankind.
He was quite upset that he had not thought of doing that.
Uh, no.
These would be giant balloons (as in huff huff puff puff balloons, though in this case filled with helium, like at the circus) with some transmitters tied on to them.
Not exactly high tech, just thinking about an old problem in a new way.
(though the data transmitters are likely rather nifty)
"NFS is to security what Microsoft is to competition."
:)
:)
Uh, the one who ownz all?
Seriously, might want to rework that metaphore.
NFS is to security what Windows95osr1 is to stability?
Hmm, too long.
NFS is to security what Win95 is to stability.
Works I guess. Grammericaly incorrect, but the concept gets through.
I recently saw a page using Javascript that was able to upload files from the users HD to the server that did not have any sort of security warnings on it or any warning dialogs pop-up in IE5.
It had a button marked browse that the user used to select which file was to be uploaded and then the user hit submit so that the file was sent, but, uh, is there really that much keeping the other system from selecting a file 'for the user'?
Heck just defaulting to all files under 100k in a the default document save location of Excel would be enough to get at least a few credit card or even social security numbers.
A lot of money?
.) ALWAYS displays a blue APEX screen and CANNOT be turned off except by walking up to it and hitting the big red button.
I spent $20 on my Lite-On DVD drive for my computer.
DVD home entertainment systems just plain suck. . . . well they do! The ease of use factor is a pain unless you get a setup that supports automatic changing between inputs based upon detected signals, and even then the standalone DVD player that I do have (last fr*cking stand alone POS I buy. . .
Which is a major pain, at least 50 friggin buttons on the remote and I gotta get up to turn it off or on. -_-
Computers are superior for this thing, and they cost a lot less in the long run too.
Heck my 266mhz PentiumII is perfectly capible of playing DVD video, just would cost me $20-$30 for a DVD-ROM drive.
From now on my entertainment center is that video out cable for my Matrox G400 MAX dual head, the audio splitter cable(s), and whatever 5.25in drive is in style at the time.
Hmm, full home computers?
A mid 1980's home computer could EASILY be reduced to fit down to the size of my pocket.
Actualy size in itself is not the problem. The bleeming screen is.
Until we get some direct to retina or direct to optic nerve display technology, the size of a computer is always going to be limited by what the smallest display the user will stand for is.
Well that and keyboard sizes.
So you should also add direct mental input to your list of features that are needed.
Quite frankly, if you give a modern day computer manufacturing facility the technologies that I have outlined above, and in a decent sized package, a computer could EASILY be made that fits in the palm of your hand.
Hell, lets see now. Use a modified form of Sony's memory stick technology, they have gotten in packed down quite dense now days, so you really do not need such a large package if you are just going to store 4 or 8 megs of data.
The CPU should be no problem. Since this is a business computer we are dealing with here, no FPUs are needed, and 66mhz or so should be enough to run a highly optimized operating system along with some standard business applications.
Hmm, actualy, have you seen those MP3 players that they sell in the stores now days? Yah, those ones, the ones that are about the size of two of my thumbs next to each other. (or to put it in references that mean something, heh, about an inch tall by a bit less then an inch wide)
That is what we can do now days.
It is just the friggen display technology that is holding us back.
Everything else until then (new display technologies coming out) is just a stop gap measure designed to keep the technology sector alive.
Why else do you think that the latest office applications require 500mhz+ to run? Seriously? (this is MS Office of course, bleh. POS. . . . )
Bah,
:)
;) ).
;) Few Window's admins know how to or care to lock down the basic DOS commands, heh).
.) and the ability to add items to your favorites menu in IE from Office was eventually set to something that the Administrator could toggle on or off. :) (heh)
::groans::
as someone who has both admin'd and broken through other admin's security setups, let me say that anybody who cannot COMPLETELY secure a box has no idea what they are doing.
One box I was on was setup so that only files with certain names could be run.
Solution?
Rename file (if rename is disabled, just download it as an 'allowed' file name) to one of the allowed program file names.
The latest clever admin trick that I saw was that the computer was setup such that Install Shield always detected the presence of Uninstall Shield running in the background, thus Install Shield would refuse to run.
Nifty that. I may have to ask them how they did it.
I simply got the manual extractor for Install Shield compressed files and decompressed the files myself. (luckily the program did not have a bunch of DLLs that it demanded be installed in the System32 directory or anything.
Hell systems locked down to run nothing else but Word and Explorer I have managed to get to DOS on. (and once your in DOS shit tends to go all haywire.
This 'security issue' was eventually addressed (even in a Microsoft patch I do believe. . .
Of course as a last resort option I simply stick in any of a number of Linux Boot Disks that are designed to go in and change the Admin password on a box. I have had to do this several times after being assigned to work on machines for which nobody knew the administrative password for.
(once physical access to the box has been gained, the machine CAN and eventually WILL be compromised. Period. Unless you encrypt the living shit out of the entire HD and only have the key stored on a dongle that has to be plugged in to the serial port while typing some long password on the keyboard and said dongle is stored in a Fort Knox like security situation)
*COUGH* *COUGH*
::notes all of the OTHER graphs on that site show a decrease::
Maine doesn't seem to bad though. . . . .
A few years ago I was witness to a bunch of f*cking MANSIONS being put up in the MIDDLE of forest land.
Pissed me off to no end. Miles away from anyplace else, some dick head 'land developer' had to go around and chop down a bunch of trees to clear some land, and then chop down some MORE trees for lumber, just so some rich dipfuck (mix your swear words folks!) could go and have a retreat in 'the middle of nature' for a few weeks each year.
Damn near made me sick to my stomach.