Dried up? I don't think so, it'll just go back to places like Telefragged.com, which use the gaming community to push a big ass add (though admitidly telafragged is a piss poor example, they where an example of the even shorter lived business model of a gaming room, which, while they still exist, aren't the $$$ nirvana some thought them to be, hehe, AMD came out and lowered CPU prices, W00T!)
Dude, I doubt it. You see, Gamespy LICENCES out their browsing technology to various game companies, who incorporate it into their games. Gamespy is not entirely relient upon banner ad's, and in fact few people seem to remember that they started off as a PROGRAMS website (oddly enough, called gamespy, which totaly sucked and those who did use it used a crack version, but. . ..:)
I use an original model MS natural keyboard and it works great for me. I can do 16+ hr's of typing without issue.
I got it in 1995 or 1996 and it was so dirty by the begining of 2001 that I had to clean it myself. Unfortuantly it is not quite the same after my, err, putting it back together again, hehe. On the other hand, it is worlds better then the logitec wireless keyboard, my hands ache after using it. Oddly enough, I just broke the wireless keyboard (fell off of my lap, SERIOUS problem with those wireless keyboards, I start trying to type while my legs are raised at a 30degree or so incline and tend to forget that indeed, gravity exists and the keyboard has PISS POOR rubber feet, so. . . . the last drop wipped out a good number of keys, GRR, shit!)
Hehe, well. . . . Ugh, I wish somebody still made the original natural keyboards! Damn, why did M$ have to stop making them! My hands are so large that this model is the only one that I can use comfterably. . . . Hehe, None homerow typing? With my hands EVERY row is the homerow. . . .
Heh, I have always hated software that didn't even start up proberly, software that you buy, put in the disk/cd and when ya run it, boom, it crashs your system instantly.
Even worse are the installers then immediatly exit with a Divide by 0 error.
How in the world did they NOT catch that one? Didn't they even try to install their own software first???
Ugh, Black and White has had some simular issues. So far it seems to only work with 75% of the machines out there. The infamious level 5 bug should have been fixed by now. . . . hehe, it's not even that hard to make a work around for it, if Lionhead just went ahead and released at least a minor patch for that one little bug.
At least the Windows installer starts up most of the time, at least Microsoft got that right (notice that I said MOST of the time, heh. . . .::frowns:: )
First off, this document is many MANY years old, nothing new here folks, ya can most likely find this in the www.textfiles.com archive, heh. I read this before I even found/., around 1996 or so. Tis NOT new.
Second off, on tech support. It _IS_ a pain in the ass, but I've found that if both sides can quickly communicate that they do indeed know WTF they are talking about, then things tend to go alot faster. Often times I only need to call up tech support because they have access to some little piece of paper that they don't want the everyday custmer to have access to (IE, how to get a static IP from @Home, which _IS_ a web accessable document but it is buried VERY deep on their website, heh:)
Returns are another thing they are usefull for. Eventualy gave up on that, too many times that I was insulted.
Seeing as how I am a systems builder and purchase recommender, err, heh, Gateway pissed me off, needless to say I _DO NOT_ recommend Gateway computers of any sort to anybody who does business with me. Please, be nice to your customers. Ya don't have to be courtieus, but if they make it clear that they know ALOT more then you do, trust me, it is likely that they do.
Another problem with tech support is that some tech support people, more and more as time goes on, tend to be really fucking stupid. One time I wanted to know the autoexec.bat settings for my soundcard (once again, something the company doesn't want you to know, since your supposed to be a happy sappy windows user, they should have had it setup in the file already, but noooo, heh, assholes. . ..)
Damn fuck-wad FIRST asked me what DOS was, then asked me what I would EVER want to do with it.
Then he told me that they didn't support it (yes they do, I had called a year eariler and gotten the same information, but LILO ate my MBR so I had to reinstall, heh:). Well. . . . He managed to get that wonderfull information after I had spent another 15 minutes or so on hold. Err, it takes 15 minutes to tell me your just an ignorant fuck? Excuse me. . . .
To top it all off, he then had the oddasity to refer me to a 1900 number to call to get the information!! Excuse me, I had just paid $295 for a complete warrenty extention (they had shipped me 3 faulty moniters so far so I figured I'd likely need it, and indeed I did, heh, another moniter went dead shortly after. . . . shitheads still wouldn't send me a better model!) Well. . . .
As I said, I no longer recommend them or do business with them.
For some _ODD_ reason I am perfectly happy with my 1Gigahertz Athlon system that I hand-built for a little under $600.
Oddly enough the 36inch moniter I got for it off of Ebay is a. . . .
Ack, once again, those small movement arguments only apply to people who are ABLE to move things a small distance with some percision. I myself have to use a good portion of the screen (almost always the entire thing, or at least 60% of it. . . ) in order to make any gestures at all in B&W. Since I am just refering to the AREA in which my mouse pointer stays in there, the actual mouse movement is more then enough for me to have moved clear across the screen multiple times. . . .
Of course the true thing to be learned here is that you should NEVER rely on soly one interface for your needs, and that you should always offer multiple ways of doing things.
Even if you compleatly hate M$, you gotta admit, they are good at providing for multiple interface solutions (hell, you can do most things more then 1 way with just the keyboard, heh, indeed, there are very few parts of Windows that don't work with just a keyboard, quite nice actualy. Then, on those days when my keyboard goes out, I have actualy had to use just the mouse to do everything, and I was actualy able to!! Including chatting in ICQ, Heh, go Charmap!!! Painfull, but useable, to my surprise, hehe::Grins:: )
Of course, I _WOULD_ love powerglove support in B&W, or for that matter any other type of tracking device support. I think that it woul. . .
Wait, did the post below say that he/she/it was playing on their powerbook?
Heh
::Breaks out laughing::
Oh man, ouchies, my 1gig Athlon can barly handle it. . .
Yah yah, stop the flames already, no no, wait to hit submit, hear me out first! PPLLLEASE! Don't flame me yet, havn't even started the message!
Ok then. . . .
::grins::
I hate big business just as much as the next guy. Hell, I hate big business ALOT more then most people, but when it comes to large things like this, err, aren't major nationwide expensive highly technical cutting edge thingies something that business's could actualy become good at?
Sure sure, so they fucked us over before, but remember what happened to them? I'm sure they do, and I'm sure that the FCC remembers also. Hell, the FCC _IS_ keeping an eye on these companies (remember how long the Time Warner/AOL merger took to get authorized? Hell, either someone fell asleep or they where reviewing ALOT of paper work, granted, probebly the eariler, but. . . .::grins::). Companies now know to be watchfull, and that yes indeed, consumer backlash CAN fuck them over seriously. Hell, ya piss enough people off and you won't even be able to enforce any unfair laws that you do manage to enact (::COUGH:: microsoft::COUGH:: Hell, I know city sheriffs that pirate software, hehe::Grins::)
Also, case in point for broadband. AT&T@Home. They rock, period. Ok, so AT&T does own me 50 ways to sunday (telephone, cable, AND internet, so if their network goes down then I'm basicaly fucked heh) but their prices aren't that bad (err, ok, so there really friggin high for the cable, but hell, we get a shitpot load of channels, and great service.) and the internet service totaly rocks. Unlike some other local @Home providers, ATT (formerly TCI, I liked them MUCH better when they where TCI, TCI was lazy and didn't manage things quite so much, so you actualy ended up with better service because they didn't insert ad's into your online TV guide or such, hehe, AT&T is on the ball, which does translate to any network errors being fixed faster though, so it's defintly a trade off. . ..) has had minimal problems with custumer relations in this area (only a few pissed off custumers who got shafted, most are VERY happy with their new service!) and in fact has actualy been VERY nice about certian area's of the service (IE: Allowing users to use OUTRAGIOUSLY large amounts of bandwidth, 2gig+ a day, etc) and has done all that they can to ensure that, all in all, shit works, hehe.
Cheap prices too, and they are constantly upgrading their technology.
By comparison, a small time ISP wouldn't be able to offer the same level of backbone connectivity (I have a direct connection to damn nearly EVERY backbone that passes through my area, and seeing as how I am sitting on top of a GigaPOP, heh, that means damn nearly every backbone this side of the Mississippi and a few that go cross it too;) and high end network capibilities (can we say ping of 100 to damn near anyplace in the world? I know of many small time DSL users who are gettings pings in the thousands from their mom and pop DSL ISPs) and great prices (mom and pop ISPs have to pay line leasing charges in alot of cases. Why should I pay more to get the line from a 3rd party when I can deal DIRECTLY with the company that LAYED tghe lines to begin with??)
$40 a month for a 2MegaByte per second internet? I don't care _WHO_ I have to buy it from, as long as he/she doesn't have horns and flames shooting out of their hands. . . .
Err, great, ANOTHER group of science dudes who are promising yet ANOTHER product in a "short period of time" with outragious capibilities that I cannot buy yet. . . .
Ok, tellya what, how about you storage research guys make your announcments as soon as it's IDE or SCSI compatible?
Firewire? Sure, I'll go for that, what the fuck ever, but don't promise shit until you have a major OS (Linux, BSD, Unix, Windows even, SOMETHING) booting off of it!
I've yet to be able to cast the fireball in B&W, yet I am an avid FPS player and I can kick major (42:1 kill/death ratio) ass in HL, CS, etc. Gestures are just a pain in the ass for people like me who have shitty hand writting to begin with. Come on, if I had good hand-eye coordination (there are 2 types of hand-eye coordination, one is true hand-eye coordination and is related to catching balls and such, I don't have that, the other is pushing a button really fucking fast repetivly to make blood appear on the screen, I have _ALOT_ of that:) I wouldn't be using a frigging computer folks! Sheesh. . . . .
I find that hotkeys are ALOT easier, just have the letter in small print next in the lower right hand corner of the gesture icons in B&W and you would remain uncluttered. . . .
Shit, 4 out of 5 times I cannot even draw the circle in B&W to cast a shield spell. . . . Damn, I _HATE_ gestures. if it wasn't for the M hotkey and the R hotkey I wouldn't be able to play the game at all without zipping back to my temple to cast spells each time!
Gestures easier in a browser? Excuse me, WTF? Hmm, lets see now.
Enter, ooh, enter the data! Nice big key there, easy to hit. Backspace, go back a page. Once again. . . easy to do.
Also, don't forget that the amount of mouse movement you use for gestures is equal or GREATER then the distance that you would move your mouse to click on an icon! And if your just browsing then your icons are all up in the toolbar anyways right along with your mouse. Hell, just use tab to go between items and enter to enter the data, hell, I've browser without using the mouse at all, WTF would I want to complicate things even more?
Err, question here, why not just double the PCI bus speed and use one of those reserved pins (ever specification has a few unused reserved pins, heh, just for such occasions!) to ask if the device is PCI(insert number here) compliant, and if it is not only ask that device for data every other cycle?
I'm sure that just doubling the PCI bus's speed would add ALOT of life to it, I mean, come on, it's gona take awhile before we start transmitting data at how ever many gigabits per second (I know the value, but I am too fucking lazy to remember it right now, hehe) that we would get if we just doubled the PCI bus's speed. Why even change the form factor? Why make a new card standard, do what they did with AGP, just up the speed and keep the same connecter.
Hell, put a bit more work into it and new devices could be backwards compatible with the old standard. Quite simple really, if they don't recieve that "heya, what speed are you" question over the used-to-be-reserved pin then they automaticaly assume that the system is operating under the "old" spec.
Well, you see, a few months ago I wrote this nice long essay (well, mabye it was a year or so ago, when ever this topic popped up last time. . ..) that was a nice and long explanitory logical rant on why it should be perfectly legal to shoot idiots and assholes (excluding, of course, those with mental disabilities).
It was late at night when I posted the above message, and I _DID_NOT_ feel like posting another long well thought out rant.
Hmm, see my e-mail address above? Sure, go ahead, spam it, I don't really give a shit, hehe, if you DARE to spam it. Hell, even I fear typing that e-mail address in. I've found that the solution to spam is to get THE MOST OFFENSIVE e-mail address possible and use that address in any public forum or on any list that you just know is gonna get spam.
My main e-mail account gets mabye two or three pieces of spam a month, and even alot of those I technicaly signed up for and are occasionaly usefull. I also have a 3rd e-mail address that I check every few days that is for semi-serious e-mail. I use it for things like asking tech support questions and what not. Situtations where I don't want to piss someone off, but I just know that the company in question is going to sell off my e-mail address, hehe::cough:: AIM::cough::
Filters? Why, I don't get any e-mail that I don't want. Well, that and I am such a friggin fast reader (comes from the BBS days, hehe, sorting through messages was a NECCISARY skill, MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!) that I can easily manualy sort through 200 or so messages in under 5 minutes, under 2 minutes if neccisary.
When I am in a really pissy mood I just go about and randomly delete messages from my inbox to lighten the load, heh, some risks, yes, but hell, it also helps to communicate the general "I don't give a fuck about you I'm an apathedic asshole" attitude that helps to keep people away.
Not to surprisingly, it works in real life too, heh, people do not often fuck with me (well, except for the REALLY stupid ones) because I pretty much have that Evil Eye thing down pat, heh.
Hey, what the hell ever happened to darwanism? I say that all the smart kids should bomb their fucking schools and eliminate all of the idiot morons who go around banging their heads against the wall for fun.
Hehe, I yet to be able to cast that fireball spell in Black and White successfully on purpose, though I did manage to cast it ONCE by accident!
Err, I now use the M key to switch to magic mode and if I need to cast the last spell I also use the R key instead of trying 4 or 5 times to make a gesture. If I was artisticaly inclined then I wouldn't be using a computer now would I? (eh shutup, I am a purist, all you artisty types go fuck yourselves!)
Hehe, I have always just considered hitting the back button on my mouse (I have a MERE 8 buttons on my current optical mouse that I bought for $20, damn generic products and tradeshows go so well together!) to be alot faster then some awkward gester system. . . . .
True, but it WAS rare as hell, and it proves that apple is working on maintaining dua(e)l plateform shtuff.
not to mention, the UI was running on the x86, so it shows that they are at least part way there, hehe, even if the other shtuff has changed. . . . alot, even, heh, damn, too late at night, thought process not working, can't link concepts, DAMNIT!
You can download them from any major P2P file trading service worth it's binary size.
Or IRC
or FTP
Or streamload
Or or or or, I'm sure you get the idea.
Releasing movie sub's long after VERY high quality Fan Subs have been aviable is hardly a momentious feat, I personaly don't see as to why the companies just don't pay the fansubs a translation fee afterwords and release the damn thing right away, it would save everybody alot of money and waiting. . . . .
oh well, heh, I just burned those movies a few days ago to CD, hehe, the entertainment industry is DEFINTLY behind the internet when it comes to doing almsot anything. . . . .
shame though, I am more then willing to pay for it, but I won't pay $30+ for something that I downloaded on someone elses bandwidth. Any chance I can paypal them over a $5 or so gratuidy fee? You know, something like
"Heya, nice movie, nice series, already got it, I'm saving a tree and not buying the boxed version, but I want to give the artists credit anyways, so heres some cash, enjoy, toodles."
Shit, as stated above, saves on resources (although I suspect that before long Bandwidth will beconsidered a resource by the mainstream community just like anything else, after all, it is limited by the laws of the universe just like anything else, heh, please, no oddball physics, show me free unlimited bandwidth then I'll go the alternative theory route!) and it doesn't have me end up with duplicates. . . .
Hehe, I had a friend once who was given a PC laptop by a friend of his who worked at apple, and it was running MacOS!
Very cool, hehe, it was locked down tight though, and the passwords where long forgotten, since it was a very early build (2 or 3 years ago) so he had to reformat over it and ended up installing windows on it instead, ugh.
It does show though that Apple has MacOS running on x86 hardware!
heh, great, just what I do _NOT_ need, another disruptive piece of technology. Shit, folks, already, give it up, the internet helps with staying faceless, and I happen to like it that way. If I wanted somebody to know who I was, I sure as hell wouldn't be using an alias.
Face to face contact? Err, excuse me, but isn't one of the perks of being a business man/woman being able to travel around the world at your companies expense? Sure, it can be a hassle, but with this new device you get all the work load, but none of the exquiset food! Hehe, just great, one more excuse to stay locked up in the office all your life, grrr.
Well, DUH, quite simple actualy. In fact, I was highly surprised that they didn't do this already when I went to visit a few online science journals!
Only give free users access to material that is 2 issues or older! Hey, it really is quite obvious. All of the proffesionals, or people with a real desire to learn things right now, will keep their subscription to the annual print version of the journal, while it also allows for students all around the world to have access to years of scientific research! Hey, it works for everbody. I myself have never had a burning desire to read the lastest issue of Nature, but there have been a few times when I wanted to check out some issues from a few years past to double check some articles whose names I had been given, but was not able to.
Listen, I said they have bloatware. Period, and it happens to be true. I am not saying that it isn't AMAZING bloatware, sure, it looks good, but damn, I want a GUI that functions properly.
Think about it, GUI "innovations" (God I am begining to dislike that word!!) make the computers use faster and more efficent overall.
*nix users are so used to bitching about how inefficent M$ OS's are, yet compared to OSx, they rock, hehe.
Granted, Windows 2000 requires an equaly ridiculas amount of system requirements to boot, and it should be rewritten so that it takes up half the resources.
Hmm, I guess that is what I am getting into. They give an OS a great new kernal (it is better then it's old one at least) and a high level of customizability for an end user based operating system, and then they throw a hundred megabytes of baggage on top of it, consume a large portion of the CPU's cycles for what are VERY basic tasks, and do a bunch of other esoteric stuff that is in no way at all improves the computers functionality. Oh sure, it looks really friggin neato for the first few months, but then the glammer dies down and you just want the damn thing to turn on in the morning without any crashs and respond like a two grand machine SHOULD respond. Which means fast as hell.
The Next series of products rocked because they did alot with VERY little, at least very little compared to what we have now. Yet we have what is basicaly a linear increase in GUI abilities with an exponential increase in CPU requirments.
GUI's should allow the user to run the system efficently and effortlessly. When something is clicked, it should happen, no if ands or buts; and _DEFINTLY_ *NO* waiting for the CPU to render a friggin window or lines of text!!
Crap, I thought we got over that problem when people stopped trying to run windows95 on 486's?? Hmm, guess we didn't, LOL.
No it would NOT be nice if everything was relient upon the video card. That is a waste of resources, not to mention it is bogged down so easily, no matter how powerfull it gets. Why add useless features, a fancy looking prerendered interface is nice, but rendering that interface in real time is just plain foolish.
Kick ass review, heh, notes that things are slower then they should be, running alot of stuff at once slows stuff down, minimizing alot of app's to the taskbar is utterly ridiculas in the speed hit it does to your system, and well, shit, TRANSPARENCY DOES NOT BELONG IN A FUCKING GUI!
You said Quake?
Sure, shit, no prob, looks nice, I am _NOT_ running Quake1/2/3 when I am in a GUI, I am fucking running an operating system! If I am having driver issues the *LAST* thing I want to have to worry about is the friggin GUI not starting up because it can't intilize its 3d acceloration API proberly, no thank you!
That, and remember that the more complex the program, the higher the chance there is of there being bugs (well, theres gonna be bugs, but there will be MORE bugs, and more bugs of a serious nature). Heh, great, as if OS's aren't unstable enough already!
Oh yes, I can certinaly see how a bunch of windows users are just dying to switch over to a system that slows the fuck down when RESIZING A DAMN WINDOW. Sure sure, that's the default, you can tweak the settings to actualy make it usable, but shit, isn't that what Mac users have been laughing at the rest of us for for ages now?? They didn't have to tweak their OS to make it work, now they have to change ALOT of settings just to get anything done! LOL!
Heh, seriously now, when minimizing and maximizing windows involves OpenGL functions, something is seriously fucked up, taskbars SHOULD NOT take up oodles of system resources, things should just plain WORK. Heh, that and it can't even do scrolling text right in certian situation, hehe.
I think the overall fact here is that there _IS_ no machine powerfull enough to run OSX at full speed, and even when those machines do become avaible, you are still going to be wasteing ALOT of CPU power on the OS's overhead, shit, it is a friggin waste of CPU cycles folks!
128megs to run an OS? Hehe, horrible. The MAXIUMUM that any OS should require, under penalty of death for exceeding it, is around 2 megabytes or so. Anything above that and you get to beat the sh*t out of the OS's programmers.
err, notice I said _WORKED_ as in, heh, without gobs of page rendering errors. Well, that and Netscape's HTML renderer sucks donkey cock, majorily so at that. I have not used Mozzila, sounds kinda of bloated though, err, I don't want a complete f*cking scripting language inside my brower, heh, I want to fucking read with it!!
Oh yah, that and plugins. Shockwave, err, shockwave, and, err, does anybody use anything but Shockwave now days??
Complete well maintained Java VM, always imprortant.
I forget who it was that had a comprehensive review of Be's different browsers a year or two back (when they still had some hope of making it in the OS business, heh), but the overall message was that NONE of Be's browsers was as seamlessly integrated into the OS as other plateforms are used too.
One little pellet? Yah, one little pellet that will be one little radioactive pellet for a VERY long time.
I am not saying that coal plants are safe, far from it, they are horrible for the enviroment, but Radioactive waste isn't exactly pretty either, and keeping it away from civilization isn't exacly easy you know, people have seemed to, must have been when you where not looking for a second or so, spread out a bit.
Shit, all over the place. About the only place that we do NOT live are considered to be nature reservations, and rightly so, we shouldn't intrude on them, and radioactive waste is DEFINFLY considered intrusion. Hell, what's more, even if you DO find a safe place to put it, it is going to do nothing more then delay the problem a few hundred, or even thousnd, years. Though quite frankly I doubt it will delay things more then a few decades.
And no no, don't bitch to me about how we are "just about to discover" a radical new imporovment in our methods of cleaning up nuclear waste. Shit, that has been going to happen Any Day Now(TM) for Quite Some Time Now(C), vapour ware is vapour ware, never make world impacting descisions based on technology that you MAY or MAY NOT have in a few years, tends to fuck things up if other things get off schedual!
What we _DO_ need to research is alternative powers sources, and I am _NOT_ talking about solar or wind power, Anybody have a any better idea's? Come on folks, entire universe of science out there, there _HAS TO BE_ a better way to make power that doesn't involve glow in the dark fish food as a byproduct.
Slashdot Mirror
Dried up? I don't think so, it'll just go back to places like Telefragged.com, which use the gaming community to push a big ass add (though admitidly telafragged is a piss poor example, they where an example of the even shorter lived business model of a gaming room, which, while they still exist, aren't the $$$ nirvana some thought them to be, hehe, AMD came out and lowered CPU prices, W00T!)
Dude, I doubt it. You see, Gamespy LICENCES out their browsing technology to various game companies, who incorporate it into their games. Gamespy is not entirely relient upon banner ad's, and in fact few people seem to remember that they started off as a PROGRAMS website (oddly enough, called gamespy, which totaly sucked and those who did use it used a crack version, but. . . .:)
I love fileplanet. Mabye it's cuz I get 300KBp/s from them, or because the backend is run by the most kick ass map reviewer ever, Radium!
W00t! Gamespy is wasting alot of talent by having Radium work behind the scenes.
I use an original model MS natural keyboard and it works great for me. I can do 16+ hr's of typing without issue.
I got it in 1995 or 1996 and it was so dirty by the begining of 2001 that I had to clean it myself. Unfortuantly it is not quite the same after my, err, putting it back together again, hehe. On the other hand, it is worlds better then the logitec wireless keyboard, my hands ache after using it. Oddly enough, I just broke the wireless keyboard (fell off of my lap, SERIOUS problem with those wireless keyboards, I start trying to type while my legs are raised at a 30degree or so incline and tend to forget that indeed, gravity exists and the keyboard has PISS POOR rubber feet, so. . . . the last drop wipped out a good number of keys, GRR, shit!)
Hehe, well. . . . Ugh, I wish somebody still made the original natural keyboards! Damn, why did M$ have to stop making them! My hands are so large that this model is the only one that I can use comfterably. . . . Hehe, None homerow typing? With my hands EVERY row is the homerow. . . .
Heh, I have always hated software that didn't even start up proberly, software that you buy, put in the disk/cd and when ya run it, boom, it crashs your system instantly.
::frowns:: )
Even worse are the installers then immediatly exit with a Divide by 0 error.
How in the world did they NOT catch that one? Didn't they even try to install their own software first???
Ugh, Black and White has had some simular issues. So far it seems to only work with 75% of the machines out there. The infamious level 5 bug should have been fixed by now. . . . hehe, it's not even that hard to make a work around for it, if Lionhead just went ahead and released at least a minor patch for that one little bug.
At least the Windows installer starts up most of the time, at least Microsoft got that right (notice that I said MOST of the time, heh. . . .
First off, this document is many MANY years old, nothing new here folks, ya can most likely find this in the www.textfiles.com archive, heh. I read this before I even found /., around 1996 or so. Tis NOT new.
.)
Second off, on tech support. It _IS_ a pain in the ass, but I've found that if both sides can quickly communicate that they do indeed know WTF they are talking about, then things tend to go alot faster. Often times I only need to call up tech support because they have access to some little piece of paper that they don't want the everyday custmer to have access to (IE, how to get a static IP from @Home, which _IS_ a web accessable document but it is buried VERY deep on their website, heh:)
Returns are another thing they are usefull for. Eventualy gave up on that, too many times that I was insulted.
Seeing as how I am a systems builder and purchase recommender, err, heh, Gateway pissed me off, needless to say I _DO NOT_ recommend Gateway computers of any sort to anybody who does business with me. Please, be nice to your customers. Ya don't have to be courtieus, but if they make it clear that they know ALOT more then you do, trust me, it is likely that they do.
Another problem with tech support is that some tech support people, more and more as time goes on, tend to be really fucking stupid. One time I wanted to know the autoexec.bat settings for my soundcard (once again, something the company doesn't want you to know, since your supposed to be a happy sappy windows user, they should have had it setup in the file already, but noooo, heh, assholes. . .
Damn fuck-wad FIRST asked me what DOS was, then asked me what I would EVER want to do with it.
Then he told me that they didn't support it (yes they do, I had called a year eariler and gotten the same information, but LILO ate my MBR so I had to reinstall, heh:). Well. . . . He managed to get that wonderfull information after I had spent another 15 minutes or so on hold. Err, it takes 15 minutes to tell me your just an ignorant fuck? Excuse me. . . .
To top it all off, he then had the oddasity to refer me to a 1900 number to call to get the information!! Excuse me, I had just paid $295 for a complete warrenty extention (they had shipped me 3 faulty moniters so far so I figured I'd likely need it, and indeed I did, heh, another moniter went dead shortly after. . . . shitheads still wouldn't send me a better model!) Well. . . .
As I said, I no longer recommend them or do business with them.
For some _ODD_ reason I am perfectly happy with my 1Gigahertz Athlon system that I hand-built for a little under $600.
Oddly enough the 36inch moniter I got for it off of Ebay is a. . . .
Gateway, heh.
Ack, once again, those small movement arguments only apply to people who are ABLE to move things a small distance with some percision. I myself have to use a good portion of the screen (almost always the entire thing, or at least 60% of it. . . ) in order to make any gestures at all in B&W. Since I am just refering to the AREA in which my mouse pointer stays in there, the actual mouse movement is more then enough for me to have moved clear across the screen multiple times. . . .
::Grins:: )
Of course the true thing to be learned here is that you should NEVER rely on soly one interface for your needs, and that you should always offer multiple ways of doing things.
Even if you compleatly hate M$, you gotta admit, they are good at providing for multiple interface solutions (hell, you can do most things more then 1 way with just the keyboard, heh, indeed, there are very few parts of Windows that don't work with just a keyboard, quite nice actualy. Then, on those days when my keyboard goes out, I have actualy had to use just the mouse to do everything, and I was actualy able to!! Including chatting in ICQ, Heh, go Charmap!!! Painfull, but useable, to my surprise, hehe
Of course, I _WOULD_ love powerglove support in B&W, or for that matter any other type of tracking device support. I think that it woul. . .
Wait, did the post below say that he/she/it was playing on their powerbook?
Heh
::Breaks out laughing::
Oh man, ouchies, my 1gig Athlon can barly handle it. . .
Ah oh well,
end
Yah yah, stop the flames already, no no, wait to hit submit, hear me out first! PPLLLEASE! Don't flame me yet, havn't even started the message!
::grins::). Companies now know to be watchfull, and that yes indeed, consumer backlash CAN fuck them over seriously. Hell, ya piss enough people off and you won't even be able to enforce any unfair laws that you do manage to enact (::COUGH:: microsoft ::COUGH:: Hell, I know city sheriffs that pirate software, hehe ::Grins::)
.) has had minimal problems with custumer relations in this area (only a few pissed off custumers who got shafted, most are VERY happy with their new service!) and in fact has actualy been VERY nice about certian area's of the service (IE: Allowing users to use OUTRAGIOUSLY large amounts of bandwidth, 2gig+ a day, etc) and has done all that they can to ensure that, all in all, shit works, hehe.
;) and high end network capibilities (can we say ping of 100 to damn near anyplace in the world? I know of many small time DSL users who are gettings pings in the thousands from their mom and pop DSL ISPs) and great prices (mom and pop ISPs have to pay line leasing charges in alot of cases. Why should I pay more to get the line from a 3rd party when I can deal DIRECTLY with the company that LAYED tghe lines to begin with??)
Ok then. . . .
::grins::
I hate big business just as much as the next guy. Hell, I hate big business ALOT more then most people, but when it comes to large things like this, err, aren't major nationwide expensive highly technical cutting edge thingies something that business's could actualy become good at?
Sure sure, so they fucked us over before, but remember what happened to them? I'm sure they do, and I'm sure that the FCC remembers also. Hell, the FCC _IS_ keeping an eye on these companies (remember how long the Time Warner/AOL merger took to get authorized? Hell, either someone fell asleep or they where reviewing ALOT of paper work, granted, probebly the eariler, but. . . .
Also, case in point for broadband. AT&T@Home. They rock, period. Ok, so AT&T does own me 50 ways to sunday (telephone, cable, AND internet, so if their network goes down then I'm basicaly fucked heh) but their prices aren't that bad (err, ok, so there really friggin high for the cable, but hell, we get a shitpot load of channels, and great service.) and the internet service totaly rocks. Unlike some other local @Home providers, ATT (formerly TCI, I liked them MUCH better when they where TCI, TCI was lazy and didn't manage things quite so much, so you actualy ended up with better service because they didn't insert ad's into your online TV guide or such, hehe, AT&T is on the ball, which does translate to any network errors being fixed faster though, so it's defintly a trade off. . .
Cheap prices too, and they are constantly upgrading their technology.
By comparison, a small time ISP wouldn't be able to offer the same level of backbone connectivity (I have a direct connection to damn nearly EVERY backbone that passes through my area, and seeing as how I am sitting on top of a GigaPOP, heh, that means damn nearly every backbone this side of the Mississippi and a few that go cross it too
$40 a month for a 2MegaByte per second internet? I don't care _WHO_ I have to buy it from, as long as he/she doesn't have horns and flames shooting out of their hands. . . .
Err, great, ANOTHER group of science dudes who are promising yet ANOTHER product in a "short period of time" with outragious capibilities that I cannot buy yet. . . .
Ok, tellya what, how about you storage research guys make your announcments as soon as it's IDE or SCSI compatible?
Firewire? Sure, I'll go for that, what the fuck ever, but don't promise shit until you have a major OS (Linux, BSD, Unix, Windows even, SOMETHING) booting off of it!
I've yet to be able to cast the fireball in B&W, yet I am an avid FPS player and I can kick major (42:1 kill/death ratio) ass in HL, CS, etc. Gestures are just a pain in the ass for people like me who have shitty hand writting to begin with. Come on, if I had good hand-eye coordination (there are 2 types of hand-eye coordination, one is true hand-eye coordination and is related to catching balls and such, I don't have that, the other is pushing a button really fucking fast repetivly to make blood appear on the screen, I have _ALOT_ of that:) I wouldn't be using a frigging computer folks! Sheesh. . . . .
I find that hotkeys are ALOT easier, just have the letter in small print next in the lower right hand corner of the gesture icons in B&W and you would remain uncluttered. . . .
Shit, 4 out of 5 times I cannot even draw the circle in B&W to cast a shield spell. . . . Damn, I _HATE_ gestures. if it wasn't for the M hotkey and the R hotkey I wouldn't be able to play the game at all without zipping back to my temple to cast spells each time!
Gestures easier in a browser? Excuse me, WTF? Hmm, lets see now.
Enter, ooh, enter the data! Nice big key there, easy to hit. Backspace, go back a page. Once again. . . easy to do.
Also, don't forget that the amount of mouse movement you use for gestures is equal or GREATER then the distance that you would move your mouse to click on an icon! And if your just browsing then your icons are all up in the toolbar anyways right along with your mouse. Hell, just use tab to go between items and enter to enter the data, hell, I've browser without using the mouse at all, WTF would I want to complicate things even more?
Err, question here, why not just double the PCI bus speed and use one of those reserved pins (ever specification has a few unused reserved pins, heh, just for such occasions!) to ask if the device is PCI(insert number here) compliant, and if it is not only ask that device for data every other cycle?
I'm sure that just doubling the PCI bus's speed would add ALOT of life to it, I mean, come on, it's gona take awhile before we start transmitting data at how ever many gigabits per second (I know the value, but I am too fucking lazy to remember it right now, hehe) that we would get if we just doubled the PCI bus's speed. Why even change the form factor? Why make a new card standard, do what they did with AGP, just up the speed and keep the same connecter.
Hell, put a bit more work into it and new devices could be backwards compatible with the old standard. Quite simple really, if they don't recieve that "heya, what speed are you" question over the used-to-be-reserved pin then they automaticaly assume that the system is operating under the "old" spec.
Well, you see, a few months ago I wrote this nice long essay (well, mabye it was a year or so ago, when ever this topic popped up last time. . . .) that was a nice and long explanitory logical rant on why it should be perfectly legal to shoot idiots and assholes (excluding, of course, those with mental disabilities).
It was late at night when I posted the above message, and I _DID_NOT_ feel like posting another long well thought out rant.
So a general "fuck'em all to hell" sufficed.
Hmm, see my e-mail address above? Sure, go ahead, spam it, I don't really give a shit, hehe, if you DARE to spam it. Hell, even I fear typing that e-mail address in. I've found that the solution to spam is to get THE MOST OFFENSIVE e-mail address possible and use that address in any public forum or on any list that you just know is gonna get spam.
::cough:: AIM ::cough::
My main e-mail account gets mabye two or three pieces of spam a month, and even alot of those I technicaly signed up for and are occasionaly usefull. I also have a 3rd e-mail address that I check every few days that is for semi-serious e-mail. I use it for things like asking tech support questions and what not. Situtations where I don't want to piss someone off, but I just know that the company in question is going to sell off my e-mail address, hehe
Filters? Why, I don't get any e-mail that I don't want. Well, that and I am such a friggin fast reader (comes from the BBS days, hehe, sorting through messages was a NECCISARY skill, MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!) that I can easily manualy sort through 200 or so messages in under 5 minutes, under 2 minutes if neccisary.
When I am in a really pissy mood I just go about and randomly delete messages from my inbox to lighten the load, heh, some risks, yes, but hell, it also helps to communicate the general "I don't give a fuck about you I'm an apathedic asshole" attitude that helps to keep people away.
Not to surprisingly, it works in real life too, heh, people do not often fuck with me (well, except for the REALLY stupid ones) because I pretty much have that Evil Eye thing down pat, heh.
Hey, what the hell ever happened to darwanism? I say that all the smart kids should bomb their fucking schools and eliminate all of the idiot morons who go around banging their heads against the wall for fun.
!DOWN WITH THE IDIOTS!
Hehe, I yet to be able to cast that fireball spell in Black and White successfully on purpose, though I did manage to cast it ONCE by accident!
Err, I now use the M key to switch to magic mode and if I need to cast the last spell I also use the R key instead of trying 4 or 5 times to make a gesture. If I was artisticaly inclined then I wouldn't be using a computer now would I? (eh shutup, I am a purist, all you artisty types go fuck yourselves!)
Hehe, I have always just considered hitting the back button on my mouse (I have a MERE 8 buttons on my current optical mouse that I bought for $20, damn generic products and tradeshows go so well together!) to be alot faster then some awkward gester system. . . . .
Err, I like hotkeys, hehe.
True, but it WAS rare as hell, and it proves that apple is working on maintaining dua(e)l plateform shtuff.
not to mention, the UI was running on the x86, so it shows that they are at least part way there, hehe, even if the other shtuff has changed. . . . alot, even, heh, damn, too late at night, thought process not working, can't link concepts, DAMNIT!
You can download them from any major P2P file trading service worth it's binary size.
Or IRC
or FTP
Or streamload
Or or or or, I'm sure you get the idea.
Releasing movie sub's long after VERY high quality Fan Subs have been aviable is hardly a momentious feat, I personaly don't see as to why the companies just don't pay the fansubs a translation fee afterwords and release the damn thing right away, it would save everybody alot of money and waiting. . . . .
oh well, heh, I just burned those movies a few days ago to CD, hehe, the entertainment industry is DEFINTLY behind the internet when it comes to doing almsot anything. . . . .
shame though, I am more then willing to pay for it, but I won't pay $30+ for something that I downloaded on someone elses bandwidth. Any chance I can paypal them over a $5 or so gratuidy fee? You know, something like
"Heya, nice movie, nice series, already got it, I'm saving a tree and not buying the boxed version, but I want to give the artists credit anyways, so heres some cash, enjoy, toodles."
Shit, as stated above, saves on resources (although I suspect that before long Bandwidth will beconsidered a resource by the mainstream community just like anything else, after all, it is limited by the laws of the universe just like anything else, heh, please, no oddball physics, show me free unlimited bandwidth then I'll go the alternative theory route!) and it doesn't have me end up with duplicates. . . .
Hehe, I had a friend once who was given a PC laptop by a friend of his who worked at apple, and it was running MacOS!
Very cool, hehe, it was locked down tight though, and the passwords where long forgotten, since it was a very early build (2 or 3 years ago) so he had to reformat over it and ended up installing windows on it instead, ugh.
It does show though that Apple has MacOS running on x86 hardware!
heh, great, just what I do _NOT_ need, another disruptive piece of technology. Shit, folks, already, give it up, the internet helps with staying faceless, and I happen to like it that way. If I wanted somebody to know who I was, I sure as hell wouldn't be using an alias.
Face to face contact? Err, excuse me, but isn't one of the perks of being a business man/woman being able to travel around the world at your companies expense? Sure, it can be a hassle, but with this new device you get all the work load, but none of the exquiset food! Hehe, just great, one more excuse to stay locked up in the office all your life, grrr.
Well, DUH, quite simple actualy. In fact, I was highly surprised that they didn't do this already when I went to visit a few online science journals!
Only give free users access to material that is 2 issues or older! Hey, it really is quite obvious. All of the proffesionals, or people with a real desire to learn things right now, will keep their subscription to the annual print version of the journal, while it also allows for students all around the world to have access to years of scientific research! Hey, it works for everbody. I myself have never had a burning desire to read the lastest issue of Nature, but there have been a few times when I wanted to check out some issues from a few years past to double check some articles whose names I had been given, but was not able to.
Listen, I said they have bloatware. Period, and it happens to be true. I am not saying that it isn't AMAZING bloatware, sure, it looks good, but damn, I want a GUI that functions properly.
Think about it, GUI "innovations" (God I am begining to dislike that word!!) make the computers use faster and more efficent overall.
*nix users are so used to bitching about how inefficent M$ OS's are, yet compared to OSx, they rock, hehe.
Granted, Windows 2000 requires an equaly ridiculas amount of system requirements to boot, and it should be rewritten so that it takes up half the resources.
Hmm, I guess that is what I am getting into. They give an OS a great new kernal (it is better then it's old one at least) and a high level of customizability for an end user based operating system, and then they throw a hundred megabytes of baggage on top of it, consume a large portion of the CPU's cycles for what are VERY basic tasks, and do a bunch of other esoteric stuff that is in no way at all improves the computers functionality. Oh sure, it looks really friggin neato for the first few months, but then the glammer dies down and you just want the damn thing to turn on in the morning without any crashs and respond like a two grand machine SHOULD respond. Which means fast as hell.
The Next series of products rocked because they did alot with VERY little, at least very little compared to what we have now. Yet we have what is basicaly a linear increase in GUI abilities with an exponential increase in CPU requirments.
GUI's should allow the user to run the system efficently and effortlessly. When something is clicked, it should happen, no if ands or buts; and _DEFINTLY_ *NO* waiting for the CPU to render a friggin window or lines of text!!
Crap, I thought we got over that problem when people stopped trying to run windows95 on 486's?? Hmm, guess we didn't, LOL.
No it would NOT be nice if everything was relient upon the video card. That is a waste of resources, not to mention it is bogged down so easily, no matter how powerfull it gets. Why add useless features, a fancy looking prerendered interface is nice, but rendering that interface in real time is just plain foolish.
x -f inal/macos-x-1.html
My arguments are based upon the review at
http://www.ars-technica.com/reviews/01q2/macos-
Kick ass review, heh, notes that things are slower then they should be, running alot of stuff at once slows stuff down, minimizing alot of app's to the taskbar is utterly ridiculas in the speed hit it does to your system, and well, shit, TRANSPARENCY DOES NOT BELONG IN A FUCKING GUI!
You said Quake?
Sure, shit, no prob, looks nice, I am _NOT_ running Quake1/2/3 when I am in a GUI, I am fucking running an operating system! If I am having driver issues the *LAST* thing I want to have to worry about is the friggin GUI not starting up because it can't intilize its 3d acceloration API proberly, no thank you!
That, and remember that the more complex the program, the higher the chance there is of there being bugs (well, theres gonna be bugs, but there will be MORE bugs, and more bugs of a serious nature). Heh, great, as if OS's aren't unstable enough already!
Oh yes, I can certinaly see how a bunch of windows users are just dying to switch over to a system that slows the fuck down when RESIZING A DAMN WINDOW. Sure sure, that's the default, you can tweak the settings to actualy make it usable, but shit, isn't that what Mac users have been laughing at the rest of us for for ages now?? They didn't have to tweak their OS to make it work, now they have to change ALOT of settings just to get anything done! LOL!
Heh, seriously now, when minimizing and maximizing windows involves OpenGL functions, something is seriously fucked up, taskbars SHOULD NOT take up oodles of system resources, things should just plain WORK. Heh, that and it can't even do scrolling text right in certian situation, hehe.
I think the overall fact here is that there _IS_ no machine powerfull enough to run OSX at full speed, and even when those machines do become avaible, you are still going to be wasteing ALOT of CPU power on the OS's overhead, shit, it is a friggin waste of CPU cycles folks!
128megs to run an OS? Hehe, horrible. The MAXIUMUM that any OS should require, under penalty of death for exceeding it, is around 2 megabytes or so. Anything above that and you get to beat the sh*t out of the OS's programmers.
err, notice I said _WORKED_ as in, heh, without gobs of page rendering errors. Well, that and Netscape's HTML renderer sucks donkey cock, majorily so at that. I have not used Mozzila, sounds kinda of bloated though, err, I don't want a complete f*cking scripting language inside my brower, heh, I want to fucking read with it!!
Oh yah, that and plugins. Shockwave, err, shockwave, and, err, does anybody use anything but Shockwave now days??
Complete well maintained Java VM, always imprortant.
I forget who it was that had a comprehensive review of Be's different browsers a year or two back (when they still had some hope of making it in the OS business, heh), but the overall message was that NONE of Be's browsers was as seamlessly integrated into the OS as other plateforms are used too.
One little pellet? Yah, one little pellet that will be one little radioactive pellet for a VERY long time.
I am not saying that coal plants are safe, far from it, they are horrible for the enviroment, but Radioactive waste isn't exactly pretty either, and keeping it away from civilization isn't exacly easy you know, people have seemed to, must have been when you where not looking for a second or so, spread out a bit.
Shit, all over the place. About the only place that we do NOT live are considered to be nature reservations, and rightly so, we shouldn't intrude on them, and radioactive waste is DEFINFLY considered intrusion. Hell, what's more, even if you DO find a safe place to put it, it is going to do nothing more then delay the problem a few hundred, or even thousnd, years. Though quite frankly I doubt it will delay things more then a few decades.
And no no, don't bitch to me about how we are "just about to discover" a radical new imporovment in our methods of cleaning up nuclear waste. Shit, that has been going to happen Any Day Now(TM) for Quite Some Time Now(C), vapour ware is vapour ware, never make world impacting descisions based on technology that you MAY or MAY NOT have in a few years, tends to fuck things up if other things get off schedual!
What we _DO_ need to research is alternative powers sources, and I am _NOT_ talking about solar or wind power, Anybody have a any better idea's? Come on folks, entire universe of science out there, there _HAS TO BE_ a better way to make power that doesn't involve glow in the dark fish food as a byproduct.