Oh, wow. I was re-gifted one of these in about 1987 or so, right around the time I was going into primary school. It had no manual with it, and some of the button labels were missing. I remember playing around with it for hours a day, weeks on end. I remember finally figuring out only about half the modes, probably limited by my childhood ignorance of standard game rules. Still, at it's heart, it was a simple computer with a few binary inputs and a few binary outputs. I can probably credit that device with launching an entire lifetime of experimenting, fiddling, tweaking, hacking, and documenting. Thank you, Bob.
You can also give NewsBlur a try, and if you like it you have two choices: pony up for a full account or self-host, since it is totally open source: https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur
Check out the PDroid project. It can patch any rom and will let you select on a by-app, by-API basis whether to provide real data, spoofed data, or no data.
Voted today in Washington state. Well, "today" is a misleading word.
I got my ballot weeks ago, spent about 12 full hours doing research with the provided ~100pg guide and an additional ~200 google searches. Carefully considered each vote, filled in the ovals (or abstained where appropriate), sealed her up, and dropped her off at a dropbox today.
I wish more states worked this way. I shudder to think the number of folks in walk-up-and-vote states that go on a whim, punch the name of a person they've seen on a commercial, and never give it another thought.
It's pretty simple: if SMS is point-to-point, Twitter is broadcast.
Provided you are sane and use a protected account, it's part microblog and part one-to-many SMS. Most folk I know have 25-50 'friends' and it is a heck of a lot easier to tweet "pub at 16:30!" than to text each one individually. Bonus points for being able to stay connected with friends in other states on a day-to-day basis in near real-time.
Now the whole business about having an open account and/or following people you don't personally know? Yeah, I don't get that either.
Doesn't EC2 let you request hosts in any of several particular datacentres (which they call an "availability zones") just so you can plan around such location-specific catastrophes? No matter how good the redundant systems, some day a meteor will hit one datacentre and you'll be S.O.L. no matter what if you put all your proverbial eggs in that basket.
Only a fool cares about a single-datacentre outage. This is why it's called "*distributed*-systems engineering", folks.
Can this "feature" (of Android?) be modified in software since this is open source, and since WiFi hardware is so clearly present?
Absolutely. Earlier android phones (the Dream and Magic and others) have well-known solutions for operating without an active SIM. The Nexus One is only 3 days old, so it might still need some work, but unlike the earlier locked-down hardware, the N1 is not only open-source, you don't have to "crack" it to replace the firmware.
The XDA forums contain all the info you could ever want about the topic. (http://forum.xda-developers.com/ )
It's also one more reason why I won't use Android, despite how good it is. I already use too many Google services. I don't need them to know even more about me than they already do.
What kinda weak FUD is this? It's a linux system on which you can gain root access with fair ease! You can packetsniff, block traffic, and swap out whatever bits of the OS you want. If the Big G were spying on you as such, you would not only know, you could do whatever you like about it.
The participants had better be careful; if their entries - submitted to google, solicited by google - happen to redistribute trademarked Google property in any way such as names, logos, or interaction with google services, they'll just slap them with a Cease and Desist letter shortly after awarding the prize money.
I've got RC19 and this worked just fine, from the home screen, from an ssh app (where one might accidentally type the command intending it as genuine input), and even with the phone locked.
And honestly, this isn't that strange. Every phone I've owned has had some set of hidden commands that when keyed in will bring up debug info, reboot, etc. True, it's generally something much more obscure and less easy to accidentally trigger like a numeric sequence with octothorpes (#s) at either end.
I doubt this is a bug at all, just a poorly-chosen way to enact a standard system operation (that, I might add, if you use the browser a lot, you sorely need once a day or so).
Any of the Nokia communicator series that has a qwerty board will do you well, from the 9300 all the way to the uber-expensive E90. Since they can run PuTTY, you're set, provided you don't mind the lag of the WWAN connection (if you ever sysadmined during the days of dial-up, this will be like second nature).
That said, the N770, N800, and N810, while good in theory, are botched by a horrible OS and though they can be tethered to any phone with bluetooth, you'll pull your hair out on the lack or low quality of keyboard.
I don't want to pay "regulatory surcharges" or "cost recovery fees" or anything else that isn't included in the advertised price. Surprise, surprise - many of those extra fees are levied by the same government that so desparately wants to 'protect' you from unfair contracts. Heck, it wouldn't surprise me that if a bill like this passed, we'd see an extra $1.49 every month for "Contract Clarity Compliance". Every time the government steps into business, it hurts smart, capable consumers. Period.
I sure hope that the navigational computer isn't running on the same one as their server, because this would be the first time/. actually "brought down" hardware literally.
Well, it wasn't hard to get. I downloaded the test in less than a few minutes. Install went well, very simple. And I started it right up!
Pretty neat looking interface for configuration and control. Much better than Q3A, especially the multiplayer server page. It has all the functionality that we wanted in Q3A. There were already many, many servers running, too. All with good ping times, not all full or empty.
There is where my experience ended. I tried to connect to various servers about 30 times, and each time, it froze at the "Awaiting Gamestate" screen. Twice I actually got into a game and saw about 5 seconds worth of play, then got dumped back to the main menu w/o an error message of any sort.
So, yeah, I suppose it's just what we should expect from test software: buggy.
Concept, however, looked really neat. The readme file explained basic game ideas, and this looks to be much more of an intellegent game than the "kill everything that moves" type of game. More akin to CTF and team DM games, but with extra controls and character abilities.
Now really, you mock the fact that it is in Java in the sub-header, but let's think about this.
Most of the time here on/., everyone is bitching about things being tied to the Windows world. If a video clip is only available in a windows format, everyone whines till the cows come home.
However, now something is out in Java, which you can play on windows (should you be a masochist), Linux, Solaris, hell, even more obscure things. So why the instant negative attitue towards Java? Is that whole "Java is Slow" myth still floating around so prominantly?
Here in Atlanta, we went to 10 digits (area + exchange + 4) years ago. And they keep adding more and more area codes. This in itself has gone over pretty well. Three more numbers hasn't killed anyone, especially what with speed dial and PDAs theese days.
I understand this is not the argument against the new plan, however. It's the new use of those special digits 1 and 0. They can cause confusion because the occasionally mean long distance and big fees and the sometimes would mean a local call.
But then it dawned on me . . . look at my mobile phone. It only ever takes 10 digits. And regardless of what those 10 digits are, the call costs the same thing. No long distance, no BS. Now if mobile companies have figured out how to simplify this, why haven't the telcos?
Sure, their business model revolves around screwing customers on the long distance, but why doesn't some telco just go to flat fee phone lines, maybe a little pricier, but no stupid charges just because you called someone who lives 3 feet outside your area code(s) considerd local.
It always seemed likely that Java should go open source, since the language itself is sort of a forced-open source language. (I'm referring to the extreme ease with which you can decompile Java, and trust me, even if it's been decompile-proofed, it's a snap).
Also, as someone who has worked with Java for nearly 4 years now, if you follow the Java community at all, you know that the main gripes people have are platform support, and bug fixes. The Sun Java Bug Parade and RFE lists have thousands of votes for fixes and enhancements. Imagine if instead of people just telling them what was wrong, people were sending sun fixes, or revisions.
This will also help platform support. Java's strength is it's run-anywhere ability. But as of now, there just aren't THAT many VMs available. If that changes, Java could surge in popularity with the platforms that don't get so much software written for them.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, wow. I was re-gifted one of these in about 1987 or so, right around the time I was going into primary school. It had no manual with it, and some of the button labels were missing. I remember playing around with it for hours a day, weeks on end. I remember finally figuring out only about half the modes, probably limited by my childhood ignorance of standard game rules. Still, at it's heart, it was a simple computer with a few binary inputs and a few binary outputs. I can probably credit that device with launching an entire lifetime of experimenting, fiddling, tweaking, hacking, and documenting. Thank you, Bob.
You can also give NewsBlur a try, and if you like it you have two choices: pony up for a full account or self-host, since it is totally open source: https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur
Pitchforks. Torches. More effective than phone calls.
Check out the PDroid project. It can patch any rom and will let you select on a by-app, by-API basis whether to provide real data, spoofed data, or no data.
There is votingforjudges.org, which is a great start.
Wish I could help more for other states!
Voted today in Washington state. Well, "today" is a misleading word.
I got my ballot weeks ago, spent about 12 full hours doing research with the provided ~100pg guide and an additional ~200 google searches. Carefully considered each vote, filled in the ovals (or abstained where appropriate), sealed her up, and dropped her off at a dropbox today.
I wish more states worked this way. I shudder to think the number of folks in walk-up-and-vote states that go on a whim, punch the name of a person they've seen on a commercial, and never give it another thought.
It's pretty simple: if SMS is point-to-point, Twitter is broadcast.
Provided you are sane and use a protected account, it's part microblog and part one-to-many SMS. Most folk I know have 25-50 'friends' and it is a heck of a lot easier to tweet "pub at 16:30!" than to text each one individually. Bonus points for being able to stay connected with friends in other states on a day-to-day basis in near real-time.
Now the whole business about having an open account and/or following people you don't personally know? Yeah, I don't get that either.
Is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDUVe3a496Y
Doesn't EC2 let you request hosts in any of several particular datacentres (which they call an "availability zones") just so you can plan around such location-specific catastrophes? No matter how good the redundant systems, some day a meteor will hit one datacentre and you'll be S.O.L. no matter what if you put all your proverbial eggs in that basket.
Only a fool cares about a single-datacentre outage. This is why it's called "*distributed*-systems engineering", folks.
*bzzzt*
John Spartan, you have been fined one credit for violation of the Verbal Morality Statute.
Be well!
If you debunk a debunker, don't you just get back to the net-zero result?
The terrorists have won.
No, the government has won
You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to . . .
Can this "feature" (of Android?) be modified in software since this is open source, and since WiFi hardware is so clearly present?
Absolutely. Earlier android phones (the Dream and Magic and others) have well-known solutions for operating without an active SIM. The Nexus One is only 3 days old, so it might still need some work, but unlike the earlier locked-down hardware, the N1 is not only open-source, you don't have to "crack" it to replace the firmware.
The XDA forums contain all the info you could ever want about the topic. (http://forum.xda-developers.com/ )
][
It's also one more reason why I won't use Android, despite how good it is. I already use too many Google services. I don't need them to know even more about me than they already do.
What kinda weak FUD is this? It's a linux system on which you can gain root access with fair ease! You can packetsniff, block traffic, and swap out whatever bits of the OS you want. If the Big G were spying on you as such, you would not only know, you could do whatever you like about it.
][
The participants had better be careful; if their entries - submitted to google, solicited by google - happen to redistribute trademarked Google property in any way such as names, logos, or interaction with google services, they'll just slap them with a Cease and Desist letter shortly after awarding the prize money.
You don't train a cat, you teach a cat. That's the difference.
I've got RC19 and this worked just fine, from the home screen, from an ssh app (where one might accidentally type the command intending it as genuine input), and even with the phone locked.
And honestly, this isn't that strange. Every phone I've owned has had some set of hidden commands that when keyed in will bring up debug info, reboot, etc. True, it's generally something much more obscure and less easy to accidentally trigger like a numeric sequence with octothorpes (#s) at either end.
I doubt this is a bug at all, just a poorly-chosen way to enact a standard system operation (that, I might add, if you use the browser a lot, you sorely need once a day or so).
quality, government-run
because this is the most hilarious oxymoron of which I can think?
Any of the Nokia communicator series that has a qwerty board will do you well, from the 9300 all the way to the uber-expensive E90. Since they can run PuTTY, you're set, provided you don't mind the lag of the WWAN connection (if you ever sysadmined during the days of dial-up, this will be like second nature).
That said, the N770, N800, and N810, while good in theory, are botched by a horrible OS and though they can be tethered to any phone with bluetooth, you'll pull your hair out on the lack or low quality of keyboard.
][
I sure hope that the navigational computer isn't running on the same one as their server, because this would be the first time /. actually "brought down" hardware literally.
Well, it wasn't hard to get. I downloaded the test in less than a few minutes. Install went well, very simple. And I started it right up!
Pretty neat looking interface for configuration and control. Much better than Q3A, especially the multiplayer server page. It has all the functionality that we wanted in Q3A. There were already many, many servers running, too. All with good ping times, not all full or empty.
There is where my experience ended. I tried to connect to various servers about 30 times, and each time, it froze at the "Awaiting Gamestate" screen. Twice I actually got into a game and saw about 5 seconds worth of play, then got dumped back to the main menu w/o an error message of any sort.
So, yeah, I suppose it's just what we should expect from test software: buggy.
Concept, however, looked really neat. The readme file explained basic game ideas, and this looks to be much more of an intellegent game than the "kill everything that moves" type of game. More akin to CTF and team DM games, but with extra controls and character abilities.
I can't wait for test version 2.
D
Now really, you mock the fact that it is in Java in the sub-header, but let's think about this.
/., everyone is bitching about things being tied to the Windows world. If a video clip is only available in a windows format, everyone whines till the cows come home.
Most of the time here on
However, now something is out in Java, which you can play on windows (should you be a masochist), Linux, Solaris, hell, even more obscure things. So why the instant negative attitue towards Java? Is that whole "Java is Slow" myth still floating around so prominantly?
Daniel
--
Riddle me this . . .
Here in Atlanta, we went to 10 digits (area + exchange + 4) years ago. And they keep adding more and more area codes. This in itself has gone over pretty well. Three more numbers hasn't killed anyone, especially what with speed dial and PDAs theese days.
I understand this is not the argument against the new plan, however. It's the new use of those special digits 1 and 0. They can cause confusion because the occasionally mean long distance and big fees and the sometimes would mean a local call.
But then it dawned on me . . . look at my mobile phone. It only ever takes 10 digits. And regardless of what those 10 digits are, the call costs the same thing. No long distance, no BS. Now if mobile companies have figured out how to simplify this, why haven't the telcos?
Sure, their business model revolves around screwing customers on the long distance, but why doesn't some telco just go to flat fee phone lines, maybe a little pricier, but no stupid charges just because you called someone who lives 3 feet outside your area code(s) considerd local.
--
In all fairness, GOD am I glad this may happen.
It always seemed likely that Java should go open source, since the language itself is sort of a forced-open source language. (I'm referring to the extreme ease with which you can decompile Java, and trust me, even if it's been decompile-proofed, it's a snap).
Also, as someone who has worked with Java for nearly 4 years now, if you follow the Java community at all, you know that the main gripes people have are platform support, and bug fixes. The Sun Java Bug Parade and RFE lists have thousands of votes for fixes and enhancements. Imagine if instead of people just telling them what was wrong, people were sending sun fixes, or revisions.
This will also help platform support. Java's strength is it's run-anywhere ability. But as of now, there just aren't THAT many VMs available. If that changes, Java could surge in popularity with the platforms that don't get so much software written for them.
It'll work.
--