Think about it... Microsoft has a monopoly on OSes and some types of software. This does not look like it will change any time soon (sorry Linux folks =)
Therefore, the AI machines we build will run a Microsoft OS, and with some version of Microsoft software.
Thus, if the AI machines get out of hand, we just have to wait for them to BSOD, which won't take all that long, and we can go kick the crap out of their lifeless hulks!
Not only would Americans actually see a tiny bit of what's going on in the world, they will hear intelligent (and drippingly sarcastic) commentary on it.
Oh, wait, I forgot us in the US prefer totally scripted "reality" shows (if you think Junkyard Wars is scripted, whoo-wee!!) that make us yearn for the fake life that seemingly only the advertiser's products can deliver.
It is a really, really sad state of affairs... not that there are shows like "Survivor" and "Temptation Island", but that there are humans that take time out of their own lives to watch them.
How many of you notice TV ads?? You either have grown to ignore them (by petting the dog, taking a leak, getting another beer, whatever) or you are so quick on the remote you only catch only a second of them.
Banner ads? I don;t know about you, but my brain quickly took measures to block out any annoying animated GIFs that are 468x60... I don;t "see" them on pages anymore (which is one of the reasons we moved to pop-ups, yes?)
Have no fear, us humans will quickly adapt and develop the Alt-F4 reflex (or Command-W or CTRL-W reflex, depending on your OS of choice =) and pop-up ads will go the way of the Dodo as well.
If you "derive" the work from the GPL hello.c, does this make your school work plagerism and / or illegal??
Another issuse is, as pointed out in another post, this is a
PUBLIC (state) school... wouldn't one have to examine the "contract" students enter into upon enrolling into the course and / or university??
A private school may well completely and legally own anything you do in a class, but being an institution funded partially on tax dollars, does that mean that all residents "own" that code, a la.gov sites??
The big question is, how iron clad are the contracts you enter into when you become a student?? If you write a paper, do you own it, or does the school, and how does this changed based on public / private schools? How does this change based on the types of "intellectual property" you create in school? Can a college claim to own a painting a student made in Painting 101?? If not, then can they claim to "own" a computer program you wrote for CS 101??
There it was engineered, but since bacteria and fungi have a very high reproduction rate, and the creation of new materials is relatively recent (in both terms of since the planet was born and even in human history) why WOULDN'T they evolve to take advantage of new possible food sources?
Niven's silicone eating pals might become a reality down the road... tho as an American, I am comforted by the fact that it won't happen in my lifetime, so I don't need to worry about it =)
Counter-Strike, a mod for Half-life currently has
53,849 people playing it right now... and all the Half-Life mods have a combined 65,560 people playing.
Not exactly 5%, as with 270million folks there'd have to be 1,3500,000 people playing, but then again, are we talking 5% playing, or playing at the SAME TIME?
Are you kidding.. they haven't even started compiling material for his posthumous CD with guest stars Tupak and Notorious BIG.......
Death does not mean you can stop selling crap... at least not in our culture. Why, I saw John Wayne hawking Coors Light just yesterday on that there TeeVee!
I totaly agree.. Good Eats is *the* cooking show... Emeril is OK, but after the 1,000,000th time he uses his boxed lines.. "I don't know where you come from, but where I come from my ___ don't come seasoned!" It gets tired... plus, you either can't afford the ingredients financially (Add the lobster to the truffles and..." or health-wise "cook your pork in the rendered bacon fat and..."
Good Eats actually teaches you how to COOK... not just how to follow a recipie. *sigh* I'm gonna go watch one I taped right now. =) Wonder if the all Alton Brown network would fly.
And if Flay wins the rematch, you *know* it was a fix.
I had very bad back pains for a while, mostly due to non-computer things, but anyway, regular Yoga practice cured them in record time (I was amazed how fast the pain stopped) and they have been gone for 6+ years now.
There are tons of beginners videos and books on the subject, as well as specific Yoga workouts for various problems like back pain.
Thx. I don't think Flash is a replacement for Java by any means.. they both have their place, and as I am a graphic designer who can program, not a programmer who can draw, I will leave that determination to someone better suited for it. =)
There are non-macromedia player, one was link to in another post, I think it's made by switfTools.
Shockwave != Flash. Shockwave was the orignal name for the Director plugin, but now is sort of an umbrella term for both Flash and Director content served over the web. It is possible you DLed the Director plugin when you were trying to see Flash or the other way around, but there is a DL that installs both at the same time.
GUess what... this was designed for an intranet (meaning a limited audience) of a comany of ~50 people, where we all know who works where (meaning you know what dept to click on), and I *know* that everyone has Flash 5 (meaning there are no issues with the plugin.)
So all of your bitching is rather useless. If you'd like I could add a search field in about 30 seconds, but then again, I don't have to because the system does what it was designed for... not for YOUR needs, not for a huge 10,000+ companies needs, but for the specific instance it was designed for..
The point was not to say "ooh, this is the best way in the world to show phone extensions" it was to show that Flash is more than a way to annoy people with intors to webistes taht don;t need one.
If you don't see that, then you missed the whole point of my post, and I'm sorry I was not clearer.
The Flash file format is open.... go write some perl that can generate Flash files and go nuts bundling... oh wait, someone already did write open source perl that can generate Flash files.
I have seen some really bad ugly animated GIFs. We should not use the GIF98a format EVER, since you can make ugly, useless things with it. Heck, I've people use the BLINK tag and design really ugly HTML pages... we should get rid of that too!
Yes, Flash makes it easy for any idiot to make really bad, annoying sites. Then again, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, and GoLive do the same for HTML.
Good Flash can be an expressive design media, bring animation to the Web (try doing an animated cartoon with sound in GIF89a =) and with Flash 5, can lead to very powerful web-based apps that interact with live data form a variety of sources... check this thing I did for the intranet of my last job:
It's Flash that pulls XML data from the company database (tho this "public" version uses a flat file with fake data) and generates this on the fly, telling you who's in the office with the colored desks and where people sit... this whole thing took me less than one day to design and code, and was live less than 12 hours after I thought of the idea. Sure, You could do it in Java (but in less than 12 hours?) or DHTML (with 4 code-bases and 11209771207 hours of testing in every browser on every OS to make sure it works) but this was easy to make, and even the Linux crew in the programming dept. are happily using it today.
Is Flash over-used and usually poorly done? Yes. Should Flash be blamed for people not having a clue how to use it? Nope. Don't shoot the tool, shoot the people who use it when they shouldn't be.
Have a nice day.
PS: This is a site I love that I think expresses your frustration perfectly: Skip Intro
Have you ever been to a CPL event? Or even to a "l33T" gamers house?? Everyone I know, myself included, even tho I'm not at the level of the top 100 players anymore (I used to be.. but I can't play 6+ hours a day anymore =), plays at the WORST resolution possible. The Quake3 of the good players looks infinitely worse than software quake1.
Fire up Q3, set everything to 16 bit color, turn OFF every graphic option there is, go to vertex lighting, then add 'r_picmip 5' to you config before you play.
That is what 99.999% of the "good" players play at. Who cares about 32 bit =) heck, if there was an 8 bit option, we'd all use that... more frames per second is good.
Nobody who plays Q3 competatively on-line ever sees anything remotely like 24 bit or higher... sure it looks good, but until high end gamers have rendering farms in the basement to do each frame quick, no "hardcore" gamer cares.
PPC systems will NEVER be cheap beacuse Apple wants them to be expensive, and if you want to run Linux, you already have how many cheap x86 hardware options?
You think things are "different today" because now you can put together your own box... so can anyone with a link to arsTechnica... super!
Those who run Linux made their own boxen 5 years ago... they do so still now. Guess what, they have 5 more years practice running on x86 harware than they did 5 years ago. x86 harware is DIRT CHEAP. I run LinuxPPC on a PPC machine, and RedHat on an AMD box... the PPC box has been more trouble than it's worth.
PPC chips have great adavantages to them, don't get me wrong... however, if Linux runs faster on them, it's not a revolution. It means.0004% of the worlds computer users might buy different next year.
Today: XML "embraced" my Microsoft.... heck they don't have to spend a dime on R&D for a wonderful thing that makes life easier for them.
Tomorrow: Redmond notices that XML is being written on non-Microsoft text editors, being used in non-Microsoft apps, and that data is being pulled from MySQL databases & formatted in XML by PHP.
Next Week: mXML (microsoftXML) is indroduced. It's just like XML, except if you look at in InterNet Explorer 6.5, it strokes you off while it stabs you in the back =)
Slashdot Mirror
Therefore, the AI machines we build will run a Microsoft OS, and with some version of Microsoft software.
Thus, if the AI machines get out of hand, we just have to wait for them to BSOD, which won't take all that long, and we can go kick the crap out of their lifeless hulks!
==============
Oh, wait, I forgot us in the US prefer totally scripted "reality" shows (if you think Junkyard Wars is scripted, whoo-wee!!) that make us yearn for the fake life that seemingly only the advertiser's products can deliver.
It is a really, really sad state of affairs... not that there are shows like "Survivor" and "Temptation Island", but that there are humans that take time out of their own lives to watch them.
==============
Banner ads? I don;t know about you, but my brain quickly took measures to block out any annoying animated GIFs that are 468x60... I don;t "see" them on pages anymore (which is one of the reasons we moved to pop-ups, yes?)
Have no fear, us humans will quickly adapt and develop the Alt-F4 reflex (or Command-W or CTRL-W reflex, depending on your OS of choice =) and pop-up ads will go the way of the Dodo as well.
Just worry about what comes next..... =)
==============
Another issuse is, as pointed out in another post, this is a PUBLIC (state) school... wouldn't one have to examine the "contract" students enter into upon enrolling into the course and / or university??
A private school may well completely and legally own anything you do in a class, but being an institution funded partially on tax dollars, does that mean that all residents "own" that code, a la .gov sites??
The big question is, how iron clad are the contracts you enter into when you become a student?? If you write a paper, do you own it, or does the school, and how does this changed based on public / private schools? How does this change based on the types of "intellectual property" you create in school? Can a college claim to own a painting a student made in Painting 101?? If not, then can they claim to "own" a computer program you wrote for CS 101??
I dunno, wondering if anybody does.
Niven's silicone eating pals might become a reality down the road... tho as an American, I am comforted by the fact that it won't happen in my lifetime, so I don't need to worry about it =)
Yes, but only to Microsoft approved pr0n. Which I think involves sock garters somehow.
These numbers are from Gamespy's Stats page as of a few minutes ago...
Not exactly 5%, as with 270million folks there'd have to be 1,3500,000 people playing, but then again, are we talking 5% playing, or playing at the SAME TIME?
Death does not mean you can stop selling crap... at least not in our culture. Why, I saw John Wayne hawking Coors Light just yesterday on that there TeeVee!
I think we could do without that =)
Good Eats actually teaches you how to COOK... not just how to follow a recipie. *sigh* I'm gonna go watch one I taped right now. =) Wonder if the all Alton Brown network would fly.
And if Flay wins the rematch, you *know* it was a fix.
There are tons of beginners videos and books on the subject, as well as specific Yoga workouts for various problems like back pain.
Click on the link in my above post. Bookmark that page. Any questions?? =)
There are non-macromedia player, one was link to in another post, I think it's made by switfTools.
Shockwave != Flash. Shockwave was the orignal name for the Director plugin, but now is sort of an umbrella term for both Flash and Director content served over the web. It is possible you DLed the Director plugin when you were trying to see Flash or the other way around, but there is a DL that installs both at the same time.
HTH
GUess what... this was designed for an intranet (meaning a limited audience) of a comany of ~50 people, where we all know who works where (meaning you know what dept to click on), and I *know* that everyone has Flash 5 (meaning there are no issues with the plugin.)
So all of your bitching is rather useless. If you'd like I could add a search field in about 30 seconds, but then again, I don't have to because the system does what it was designed for... not for YOUR needs, not for a huge 10,000+ companies needs, but for the specific instance it was designed for..
The point was not to say "ooh, this is the best way in the world to show phone extensions" it was to show that Flash is more than a way to annoy people with intors to webistes taht don;t need one.
If you don't see that, then you missed the whole point of my post, and I'm sorry I was not clearer.
The Flash file format is open.... go write some perl that can generate Flash files and go nuts bundling... oh wait, someone already did write open source perl that can generate Flash files.
I have seen some really bad ugly animated GIFs. We should not use the GIF98a format EVER, since you can make ugly, useless things with it. Heck, I've people use the BLINK tag and design really ugly HTML pages... we should get rid of that too!
Yes, Flash makes it easy for any idiot to make really bad, annoying sites. Then again, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, and GoLive do the same for HTML.
Good Flash can be an expressive design media, bring animation to the Web (try doing an animated cartoon with sound in GIF89a =) and with Flash 5, can lead to very powerful web-based apps that interact with live data form a variety of sources... check this thing I did for the intranet of my last job:
http://www.eskimospy.com/contentPages/phone.html
It's Flash that pulls XML data from the company database (tho this "public" version uses a flat file with fake data) and generates this on the fly, telling you who's in the office with the colored desks and where people sit... this whole thing took me less than one day to design and code, and was live less than 12 hours after I thought of the idea. Sure, You could do it in Java (but in less than 12 hours?) or DHTML (with 4 code-bases and 11209771207 hours of testing in every browser on every OS to make sure it works) but this was easy to make, and even the Linux crew in the programming dept. are happily using it today.
Is Flash over-used and usually poorly done? Yes. Should Flash be blamed for people not having a clue how to use it? Nope. Don't shoot the tool, shoot the people who use it when they shouldn't be.
Have a nice day.
PS: This is a site I love that I think expresses your frustration perfectly: Skip Intro
It happens all the time.. someone will join a HPB server using a spoofer and own... yet another way losers cheat =)
Have you ever been to a CPL event? Or even to a "l33T" gamers house?? Everyone I know, myself included, even tho I'm not at the level of the top 100 players anymore (I used to be.. but I can't play 6+ hours a day anymore =), plays at the WORST resolution possible. The Quake3 of the good players looks infinitely worse than software quake1.
Fire up Q3, set everything to 16 bit color, turn OFF every graphic option there is, go to vertex lighting, then add 'r_picmip 5' to you config before you play.
That is what 99.999% of the "good" players play at. Who cares about 32 bit =) heck, if there was an 8 bit option, we'd all use that... more frames per second is good.
Nobody who plays Q3 competatively on-line ever sees anything remotely like 24 bit or higher... sure it looks good, but until high end gamers have rendering farms in the basement to do each frame quick, no "hardcore" gamer cares.*sigh*
PPC systems will NEVER be cheap beacuse Apple wants them to be expensive, and if you want to run Linux, you already have how many cheap x86 hardware options?
You think things are "different today" because now you can put together your own box... so can anyone with a link to arsTechnica... super!
Those who run Linux made their own boxen 5 years ago... they do so still now. Guess what, they have 5 more years practice running on x86 harware than they did 5 years ago. x86 harware is DIRT CHEAP. I run LinuxPPC on a PPC machine, and RedHat on an AMD box... the PPC box has been more trouble than it's worth.
PPC chips have great adavantages to them, don't get me wrong... however, if Linux runs faster on them, it's not a revolution. It means .0004% of the worlds computer users might buy different next year.
Today: XML "embraced" my Microsoft.... heck they don't have to spend a dime on R&D for a wonderful thing that makes life easier for them. Tomorrow: Redmond notices that XML is being written on non-Microsoft text editors, being used in non-Microsoft apps, and that data is being pulled from MySQL databases & formatted in XML by PHP. Next Week: mXML (microsoftXML) is indroduced. It's just like XML, except if you look at in InterNet Explorer 6.5, it strokes you off while it stabs you in the back =)