For all the fawning over Will Wright and Spore, I can't help but think back to a couple of other titles that were supposed to the The Next Big Thing. Both were designed by legends that had enjoyed previous success.
"Black & White" from Peter Molyneaux "Trespasser" from Seamus Blackley
Who can think of others?
I'm not trying to flame, and I'm certainly not saying the Spore will be an exercise in box-stacking or mouse-gesturing. But these types of compliments have been said before about other titles.
Well, I did have help with the Advantage rapid-fire joystick. With the dogs, I had the character lay on the ground in the center of the screen and used the rapid-fire knife. And as for the towers (only on level 2, if I remember right), I just kept running. The paratroopers in Level 5 were harder because they moved as they shot you from the air.
I remember, when seeing the big missle at the end of the last level, thinking that it was part of the static background and not realizing that I had to shoot it with the bazooka until I shot one of the foot soldiers and the bullet went through the dude and actually hit the damn rocket. Stupid painted backgrounds.
I beat Rush'n Attack. Probably about five years after I bought it when I was home from school sick one day, and about three years after I realized that the title was not, in fact, "Russian Attack".
But even now I see how clever the marketing actually was for a game with a title like this... Double entendres can lay dormant for twenty years, apparently.
From what I can remember, Apple coined the term "FireWire" to tag on the IEEE1394 standard. If Dell or HP sells a box that purports to have "FireWire" capabilities, then they pay Apple a license fee. Or they can just call it something boring like "IEEE1394."
But hey, "USB 2.0" sure isn't very exciting either.
ISDN is a digital solution that is available now, but obviously hasn't been embraced around the world. I don't know if it offers CD quality, but it is certainly clearer than current analog loops.
Listen to the radio for an example. If you hear the DJs or hosts out at some remote site, they are usually patched into the station via an ISDN line, which is why their voice sounds clear instead of fuzzy like an analog phone.
This is a great point. What many people consider "software engineering" can be learned from books, if all you wanna do is create a glorified time sheet. There are lots of handy tools (software libraries, IDEs, C++ for Dummies) and a ton of information out there that allow lay people to convince themselves that they are "engineers."
This is not intended as a slight to me and others that consider themselves software engineers--why would I consider what I do to be one step away from being commoditized? But let's go back 100 years: do you think woodworkers, masons, and farmers believed that what they were doing to build the economy was something that any member of the laity could do?
I contend that in five to ten years, the IT field will be in many ways similar to the construction field. You have powerful project managers (a general contractor) that make design decisions based on customers' requirements, and lower paid technicians (laborers) that implement the design.
Why does it matter if you are getting split off of a DS3? Hell, a DS3 is just a buncha DS1s anyway. Even if it's not split off of a DS3, it's gotta be split off of something--some switches can do DS1 drops directly out of the high speed ring.
These are key. I spent five and a half years in school to learn how to program and the "theory" behind it, only to learn that I didn't like having to spent four months figuring out why the damn icons wouldn't repaint correctly. Although I had a degree and the supposed know-how to crack code all day, I just didn't have the motivation.
Actually, I'm in a similar position you are in. I wanna do sales, but the sales department won't touch the techies. They have me pigeonholed into programming duties. I have the personality and the shamelessness required, but they don't seem to realize that.
I know the feeling. I enjoyed programming and figuring out technical problems, but once I got out in the "real world" (whatever that means), it's not as much fun when you have to think about budgets and standards and coworkers and politics and regulations and the law and ridiculous customers. But most of all, it's just the sheer enormity of a project.
My first job involved tweaking the GUI for performance on an embedded application on the network management module in a huge SONET network. That means I got a teeny-tiny piece of something huge that I knew next to nothing about. Sure I knew how to figure out the coordinates of the icons for network nodes, but how the communication took place and how the network worked was something I knew nothing about.
So why code? You get to know one small piece of the project very well, but that is ridiculous.
Try Product Management: the design of a project requires more technical skills than the implementation and especially the testing. I talk to cusomters, draft requirements, then assist the project leads in the high-level design. Then the developers go off and design the nitty-gritty details and code and test.
Try Sales Engineering: you get to work with customers and figure out how your companies products can help them out. Assisting on things before and after the sale still helps you keep your technical edge, and many times the customers are just as smart as you are.
Hell, try Product Support: help desk in a developer house (like Metrowerks) or a traveling Support Engineer in a telecom company (like Cisco) will keep you away from silly "Where is the Enter Key" questions. You work with other developers and engineers who are just as sharp as you are, only you have more focused knowledge on the tools they are working with.
So don't code! With a CS degree, there are plenty of other options. Look for those and you won't be turned away for not having the right skills.
Well, now that you put it that way, I feel sorta silly.
I guess what I'm referring to are the functions that aren't documented (and some that are):
Browser functions:
1) Alt-D to the Address Bar
2) Enter a domain in the address bar, then push Ctrl-Enter to append "www." to the beginning and ".com" to the end.
3) Alt-(Left Arrow) for Back, Alt-(Right Arrow) for Forward.
All windows (especially a file manager):
1) Alt-Space for the window menu
2) Alt-F9 for minimize, Alt-F5 for restore, Alt-F4 for close. I used these when I used to work on Solaris machines, but I don't recall KDE/GNOME supporting things all of these, only Alt-F4.
3) Shift-F10 for right mouse click for where the focus is.
4) Alt-Enter for Properties
5) F1 for Help, Enter for default, Escape for Cancel
6) Alt-Tab for application switch
A lot of these are Windows-centric, so I might have to get used to a different button combination for the same functions (i.e. Alt-F9 for minimize doesn't work in Windows). And some must be implemented by the programmers (i.e. default buttons). But would I be able to configure a Window Manager-wide keyboard binding for a mouse sequence? For example, would I be able to edit a file to bind Shift-F10 to the right mouse click?
Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, how are these easily done in Linux? This is my biggest beef with moving exclusively to Linux away from Windows.
A focused UI is one thing that MS has down pat. I can't stand using the mouse unless I absolutely have to (i.e. browsing the web), but MS makes sure there is a keyboard shortcut for almost every function.
I know this is off-topic, but if anyone has any quick links, do ya mind posting them for all to see? I mean, hell, this comment is at the top of the list!
DSL comes in over an existing phone line. They may have had to lay some more wire inside the house, but there should only be one line directly from the CO.
Slashdot Mirror
For all the fawning over Will Wright and Spore, I can't help but think back to a couple of other titles that were supposed to the The Next Big Thing. Both were designed by legends that had enjoyed previous success.
"Black & White" from Peter Molyneaux
"Trespasser" from Seamus Blackley
Who can think of others?
I'm not trying to flame, and I'm certainly not saying the Spore will be an exercise in box-stacking or mouse-gesturing. But these types of compliments have been said before about other titles.
Well, I did have help with the Advantage rapid-fire joystick. With the dogs, I had the character lay on the ground in the center of the screen and used the rapid-fire knife. And as for the towers (only on level 2, if I remember right), I just kept running. The paratroopers in Level 5 were harder because they moved as they shot you from the air.
I remember, when seeing the big missle at the end of the last level, thinking that it was part of the static background and not realizing that I had to shoot it with the bazooka until I shot one of the foot soldiers and the bullet went through the dude and actually hit the damn rocket. Stupid painted backgrounds.
I beat Rush'n Attack. Probably about five years after I bought it when I was home from school sick one day, and about three years after I realized that the title was not, in fact, "Russian Attack".
But even now I see how clever the marketing actually was for a game with a title like this... Double entendres can lay dormant for twenty years, apparently.
that freeing up of a portions of the frequency spectrum is not going to lead us to wireless panacea?
t rum/
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/12/spec
The solution is in smart end-points, not "reservation" of a tiny slice of frequency.
From what I can remember, Apple coined the term "FireWire" to tag on the IEEE1394 standard. If Dell or HP sells a box that purports to have "FireWire" capabilities, then they pay Apple a license fee. Or they can just call it something boring like "IEEE1394."
But hey, "USB 2.0" sure isn't very exciting either.
ISDN is a digital solution that is available now, but obviously hasn't been embraced around the world. I don't know if it offers CD quality, but it is certainly clearer than current analog loops.
Listen to the radio for an example. If you hear the DJs or hosts out at some remote site, they are usually patched into the station via an ISDN line, which is why their voice sounds clear instead of fuzzy like an analog phone.
This is a great point. What many people consider "software engineering" can be learned from books, if all you wanna do is create a glorified time sheet. There are lots of handy tools (software libraries, IDEs, C++ for Dummies) and a ton of information out there that allow lay people to convince themselves that they are "engineers."
This is not intended as a slight to me and others that consider themselves software engineers--why would I consider what I do to be one step away from being commoditized? But let's go back 100 years: do you think woodworkers, masons, and farmers believed that what they were doing to build the economy was something that any member of the laity could do?
I contend that in five to ten years, the IT field will be in many ways similar to the construction field. You have powerful project managers (a general contractor) that make design decisions based on customers' requirements, and lower paid technicians (laborers) that implement the design.
Why does it matter if you are getting split off of a DS3? Hell, a DS3 is just a buncha DS1s anyway. Even if it's not split off of a DS3, it's gotta be split off of something--some switches can do DS1 drops directly out of the high speed ring.
These are key. I spent five and a half years in school to learn how to program and the "theory" behind it, only to learn that I didn't like having to spent four months figuring out why the damn icons wouldn't repaint correctly. Although I had a degree and the supposed know-how to crack code all day, I just didn't have the motivation.
Actually, I'm in a similar position you are in. I wanna do sales, but the sales department won't touch the techies. They have me pigeonholed into programming duties. I have the personality and the shamelessness required, but they don't seem to realize that.
I know the feeling. I enjoyed programming and figuring out technical problems, but once I got out in the "real world" (whatever that means), it's not as much fun when you have to think about budgets and standards and coworkers and politics and regulations and the law and ridiculous customers. But most of all, it's just the sheer enormity of a project.
My first job involved tweaking the GUI for performance on an embedded application on the network management module in a huge SONET network. That means I got a teeny-tiny piece of something huge that I knew next to nothing about. Sure I knew how to figure out the coordinates of the icons for network nodes, but how the communication took place and how the network worked was something I knew nothing about.
So why code? You get to know one small piece of the project very well, but that is ridiculous.
Try Product Management: the design of a project requires more technical skills than the implementation and especially the testing. I talk to cusomters, draft requirements, then assist the project leads in the high-level design. Then the developers go off and design the nitty-gritty details and code and test.
Try Sales Engineering: you get to work with customers and figure out how your companies products can help them out. Assisting on things before and after the sale still helps you keep your technical edge, and many times the customers are just as smart as you are.
Hell, try Product Support: help desk in a developer house (like Metrowerks) or a traveling Support Engineer in a telecom company (like Cisco) will keep you away from silly "Where is the Enter Key" questions. You work with other developers and engineers who are just as sharp as you are, only you have more focused knowledge on the tools they are working with.
So don't code! With a CS degree, there are plenty of other options. Look for those and you won't be turned away for not having the right skills.
Well, now that you put it that way, I feel sorta silly.
I guess what I'm referring to are the functions that aren't documented (and some that are):
Browser functions:
1) Alt-D to the Address Bar
2) Enter a domain in the address bar, then push Ctrl-Enter to append "www." to the beginning and ".com" to the end.
3) Alt-(Left Arrow) for Back, Alt-(Right Arrow) for Forward.
All windows (especially a file manager):
1) Alt-Space for the window menu
2) Alt-F9 for minimize, Alt-F5 for restore, Alt-F4 for close. I used these when I used to work on Solaris machines, but I don't recall KDE/GNOME supporting things all of these, only Alt-F4.
3) Shift-F10 for right mouse click for where the focus is.
4) Alt-Enter for Properties
5) F1 for Help, Enter for default, Escape for Cancel
6) Alt-Tab for application switch
A lot of these are Windows-centric, so I might have to get used to a different button combination for the same functions (i.e. Alt-F9 for minimize doesn't work in Windows). And some must be implemented by the programmers (i.e. default buttons). But would I be able to configure a Window Manager-wide keyboard binding for a mouse sequence? For example, would I be able to edit a file to bind Shift-F10 to the right mouse click?
Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, how are these easily done in Linux? This is my biggest beef with moving exclusively to Linux away from Windows.
A focused UI is one thing that MS has down pat. I can't stand using the mouse unless I absolutely have to (i.e. browsing the web), but MS makes sure there is a keyboard shortcut for almost every function.
I know this is off-topic, but if anyone has any quick links, do ya mind posting them for all to see? I mean, hell, this comment is at the top of the list!
DSL comes in over an existing phone line. They may have had to lay some more wire inside the house, but there should only be one line directly from the CO.