You think folks take jobs as telemarketers because they want to be annoying?
The original poster didn't say they want to be annoying, he said that they are deliberately pissing people off. And for that, they deserve all of the verbal abuse that they get. If they're going to assist in lowering people's quality of life, they shouldn't expect any better in return.
the more people "torrenting" the faster torrents are
Not neccessarily. When there are few people with the whole file, the torrents will be fairly slow, even if there are lots of peers. On the other hand, if you wait a few days, there will be lots of people with the full file, and not many people downloading it.
Typically, for a new torrent with lots of people downloading at once, my download speed will stay around the 30-70 kB/s range. For a somewhat older torrent with sufficient numbers of people seeding the file, I'll often get 200-300 kB/s or better. Of course, YMMV, but the general trends seem to be pretty consistent.
It doesn't "appear" to take longer to start; it really does take longer. Loading stuff while the computer would just be idle (in other words, 99% of the time for a typical desktop computer) isn't cheating, it's simply good sense.
Anyway, as I said, I'm not using Winders, and I'm not using any of the preload tricks. The seven and three-and-a-half numbers are the real startup times.
Dude, of course the OP was exaggerating, but time to start up (and response time) doesn't have much to do with what the program does while idle.
For reference, on my system (900MHz Athlon, 256MB RAM, Linux) mozilla takes seven seconds to start up. I would be rather surprised if it wasn't slower to start on your laptop. In comparison, Opera starts in about three and a half seconds.
Why in the name of God can't developers implement this in their games? I just don't get it.
Because it's easier to only do fixed-point saves. On consoles, people expect it, so the developers get away with it. PC games, on the other hand, are a different story, and most of them allow unlimited saves. (However, they don't erase old saves, making them rather boring to those of us who don't think that hitting the quicksave button every ten seconds makes a game challenging.)
I'm actually (slowly) working on an open-source RPG, and this was one of the topics that I've considered. My plans are to have checkpoints, but allow the player to save/reload the game at any time. If you die, however, you will return to the last checkpoint.
I was just making a practical point: if it works, then it's not an invalid program for your compiler. It might not be valid C, but that's a whole different story.
The way to circumvent this is to allow players to save their games at any time, but delete savefile when you reload. (Like in Nethack, of course.) That way, you can't cheat by saving/reloading, but you can save your game at any point and come back to it later, rather than having to spend fifteen minutes to trudge to the nearest save point.
The original reason for fixed-point saves is a technical one: if you can only save at checkpoints, then there's less data you need to save. With consoles getting more and more savegame memory, that's no longer such a big deal.
Re:What about the physical characteristic changes?
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Robocones
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· Score: 1
On small town roads, they weigh next to nothing so the local municipalities can drop ?em off the back of 'bubba's pickup truck'
If this town is using Bubba's pickup truck for the barrels, I really doubt that they're going to be able to fork out the cash for these new barrels.
Y'know, I don't think that I have ever seen better support for the "Song of the Piracy Apologist" than this rebuttal. Whoever reposts that ought to include a link to his post for supporting material.
...at least say it is ONLY free as in BEER and NOT FREEDOM.
Also, don't forget to specify whether or not it's free as in freeloader, free as in freezer, free as in freeway, free as in freestyle, free as in freeman, or, of course, free as in freemason.
This is getting stupid -- it sounds like you're deliberately trying to misunderstand. But operating on the assumption that you're not, one last time:
I never said that Gnome and Windows are functionally equivalent. They both provide some set of high-level functionality and low-level functionality, however, and perform roughly the same tasks as far as a GUI user is concerned. The notion of a "window manager" and "desktop environment" is largely determined by historical usage of X, not because of any logical criteria. If you can't articulate and justify why some tightly grouped set of software should be treated differently than another tightly grouped set of software, then the decision is arbitrary. And for reference, "the difference is that with one you can keep the same kernel" is an arbitrary distinction.
some things, eh? like displaying contents of folders, previewing images, and browsing the hard drive?
The funny thing about your argument is, IE isn't used for those jobs. That's windows explorer, which is a completely different program than the web browser. And no, that functionality isn't a window manager.
are you suggesting that the toolkit used to make apps in gnome is the same as its window manager?
No. Please read what I said instead of arguing about something else. I'm simply saying that all high-level environments require some set of supporting libraries. (And before you ask, yes, IE acts as a supporting library for the Windows shell.) In general, it is completely unreasonable to suggest that you should be able to replace or remove such libraries trivially. If you remove GTK+, you lose Gnome as well. Same with Windows and IE. But in any case, that's irrelevant, because if you use a different browser, IE is no longer your web browser. Just because it's being used in some other capacity doesn't change that.
Finally, I like a good flamewar as much as the next guy, but if you're going to reply with more misrepresentations of what I've said, don't bother, as it won't earn you a reply.
my point is that if i dont install the gui for gnu/linux, i still can have gnu/linux. such a thing is not possible with windows.
No, you're still missing the point. Let's see if I can illuminate it further:
Windows provides a set of basic functionality for your computer. There are many alternatives to Windows. However, Windows itself a complete unit.
Gnome provides a set of basic functionality for your computer. There are many alternatives to Gnome. However, Gnome itself is a complete unit.
there is not an arbitrary difference between bundling the browser and integrating it permanently into the OS.
This is a strawman; that's not what I was saying. The arbitrary distinction you are making is that that software that provides the functionality of Gnome should be subject to different rules than software that provides the functionality of Windows. Where do you draw that line? At the OS kernel? At kernel-level utilities? Userland utilities? And what justification can you make for that line?
dont believe me that IE is the window manager? open up my computer(or any folder) and type http://slashdot.org into the address bar.
No, what you're seeing is the shell using IE for some things. That doesn't make Internet Explorer the window manager. A quick explanation, since you seem to be unclear on it: A window manager proper is the program that handles placement and display of windows on the screen. Although I couldn't find a good page with a definition, you may want to check out this page. You might be getting confused by the fact that the shell is also known as "Explorer," but that's just an example of a poor naming scheme.
Again, we return to the "Having IE on my computer causes disk rot" argument. Windows needs some of the functionality of internet explorer to provide some of the services of the OS. Saying that you want to completely obliterate it is like saying that you want to replace GTK+ in Gnome with QT. It just doesn't work that way.
However, in this capacity, IE is not functioning as the web browser. Your favorite browser of choice is. You're being mislead by the fact that the same program functions both as a utility library and as a web browser. The two functions are logically independent; they just happen to share code.
i can still have an OS. if you dont install windows, you dont have an OS.
This isn't true. If you don't install windows, you can install Linux, or BSD, or get yourself a Mac, or do something else. If you don't install Gnome, you can install KDE or blackbox or whatever. Yes, saying that one is fine while the other is not is arbitrary. (If you want to believe that's the case, then whatever, but you should recognize that your distinction is arbitrary.)
Second, you seem to be confusing window managers and browsers. The Windows window manager isn't the same as IE. Also, there are other window managers available for windows.
its different because you can install linux with (any choice of) or without a gui. for instance, if you have a server setup, you dont need X, gnone, a keyboard, mouse, monitor, or possibly even a graphics card. i can run linux without a gui. can you run (modern)windows without one?
You're making the arbitrary decision that bundling a browser is OK at the GUI level, but not at the OS level. I don't see why one is fine and the other is not.
what? are you suggesting that i can remove IE from windows?
No, I'm suggesting, like I said, that it's just as easy to use another browser with Windows as it is with Gnome. If you want win32 mozilla goodness, all you have to do is download and install. People make a lot of fuss over the whole "I don't want IE on my computer!" as if having it there rots your disk or something. My computer has hundreds of programs (at least) that I have never used and probably never will -- and I keep my computer cleaner than most. It's not that big a deal.
methinks you dont know linux very well.
Not to get into a pissing match with you, but my home computer has been linux-only since the 2.0 days. I like to think that I have some idea what I'm talking about.
My issue is that many Linux advocates are under the juvenile impression that because they like another OS, that means that absolutely everything that Microsoft touches is of the devil. If you want to say that IE is lousy, fine; you won't get any argument from me. If you say that you won't use Windows because you believe Microsoft to be a monopoly, that's perfectly all right with me. If you use Gnome because of technical or moral reasons, good for you. But FUD shouldn't be tolerated from either side.
however, i dont have to install gnome at all. nor do i have to install X, for that matter.
From a philosophical point of view, I fail to see why "you don't have to install gnome" is any different than "you don't have to install windows." Besides which, it's just as easy to use a different browser with Windows as it is with Gnome or other common desktop environments.
You can't really compare the time to play a game to the time a movie lasts -- to take FF, for example, the vast majority of game time is spent fighting random battles -- which would hopefully not be the case in movie screen time. The actual storyline of the game is certainly doable within the time constraints of a movie.
However, I don't think that the story would have the same effect if presented in that fasion. The storyline in virtually every game I can think of is pretty weak compared to even an average novel, but because the player spends so much time with the game, he becomes personally invested in the storyline.
Slashdot Mirror
The original poster didn't say they want to be annoying, he said that they are deliberately pissing people off. And for that, they deserve all of the verbal abuse that they get. If they're going to assist in lowering people's quality of life, they shouldn't expect any better in return.
Not neccessarily. When there are few people with the whole file, the torrents will be fairly slow, even if there are lots of peers. On the other hand, if you wait a few days, there will be lots of people with the full file, and not many people downloading it.
Typically, for a new torrent with lots of people downloading at once, my download speed will stay around the 30-70 kB/s range. For a somewhat older torrent with sufficient numbers of people seeding the file, I'll often get 200-300 kB/s or better. Of course, YMMV, but the general trends seem to be pretty consistent.
Unfortunately, he screwed up step 1.
You might have one small problem: when programming by hand, you have to get the spelling, punctuation, and grammar right. ;)
Well, maybe you could have volunteered to write that utility?
It doesn't "appear" to take longer to start; it really does take longer. Loading stuff while the computer would just be idle (in other words, 99% of the time for a typical desktop computer) isn't cheating, it's simply good sense.
Anyway, as I said, I'm not using Winders, and I'm not using any of the preload tricks. The seven and three-and-a-half numbers are the real startup times.
the fact that it modded down once again proves that religious zealots abound this place.
So you don't think that the fact that your post was offtopic flamebait had anything to do with it?
Dude, of course the OP was exaggerating, but time to start up (and response time) doesn't have much to do with what the program does while idle.
For reference, on my system (900MHz Athlon, 256MB RAM, Linux) mozilla takes seven seconds to start up. I would be rather surprised if it wasn't slower to start on your laptop. In comparison, Opera starts in about three and a half seconds.
Yeah, I'm sure that Bushie himself approved this list. "Yee-haw! That'll fix them good-fer-nuthin' un-natural gays!"
Also, be careful; he's trying to get tin foil banned in the US.
Because it's easier to only do fixed-point saves. On consoles, people expect it, so the developers get away with it. PC games, on the other hand, are a different story, and most of them allow unlimited saves. (However, they don't erase old saves, making them rather boring to those of us who don't think that hitting the quicksave button every ten seconds makes a game challenging.)
I'm actually (slowly) working on an open-source RPG, and this was one of the topics that I've considered. My plans are to have checkpoints, but allow the player to save/reload the game at any time. If you die, however, you will return to the last checkpoint.
I was just making a practical point: if it works, then it's not an invalid program for your compiler. It might not be valid C, but that's a whole different story.
Nothing, as long as he's now using the HURD.
Doesn't make it an invalid program, either.
The way to circumvent this is to allow players to save their games at any time, but delete savefile when you reload. (Like in Nethack, of course.) That way, you can't cheat by saving/reloading, but you can save your game at any point and come back to it later, rather than having to spend fifteen minutes to trudge to the nearest save point.
The original reason for fixed-point saves is a technical one: if you can only save at checkpoints, then there's less data you need to save. With consoles getting more and more savegame memory, that's no longer such a big deal.
If this town is using Bubba's pickup truck for the barrels, I really doubt that they're going to be able to fork out the cash for these new barrels.
Y'know, I don't think that I have ever seen better support for the "Song of the Piracy Apologist" than this rebuttal. Whoever reposts that ought to include a link to his post for supporting material.
For a slashdotter, that means not buying anything from an ebay seller who lives there.
Also, don't forget to specify whether or not it's free as in freeloader, free as in freezer, free as in freeway, free as in freestyle, free as in freeman, or, of course, free as in freemason.
I never said that Gnome and Windows are functionally equivalent. They both provide some set of high-level functionality and low-level functionality, however, and perform roughly the same tasks as far as a GUI user is concerned. The notion of a "window manager" and "desktop environment" is largely determined by historical usage of X, not because of any logical criteria. If you can't articulate and justify why some tightly grouped set of software should be treated differently than another tightly grouped set of software, then the decision is arbitrary. And for reference, "the difference is that with one you can keep the same kernel" is an arbitrary distinction.
The funny thing about your argument is, IE isn't used for those jobs. That's windows explorer, which is a completely different program than the web browser. And no, that functionality isn't a window manager.
No. Please read what I said instead of arguing about something else. I'm simply saying that all high-level environments require some set of supporting libraries. (And before you ask, yes, IE acts as a supporting library for the Windows shell.) In general, it is completely unreasonable to suggest that you should be able to replace or remove such libraries trivially. If you remove GTK+, you lose Gnome as well. Same with Windows and IE. But in any case, that's irrelevant, because if you use a different browser, IE is no longer your web browser. Just because it's being used in some other capacity doesn't change that.
Finally, I like a good flamewar as much as the next guy, but if you're going to reply with more misrepresentations of what I've said, don't bother, as it won't earn you a reply.
No, you're still missing the point. Let's see if I can illuminate it further:
Windows provides a set of basic functionality for your computer. There are many alternatives to Windows. However, Windows itself a complete unit.
Gnome provides a set of basic functionality for your computer. There are many alternatives to Gnome. However, Gnome itself is a complete unit.
This is a strawman; that's not what I was saying. The arbitrary distinction you are making is that that software that provides the functionality of Gnome should be subject to different rules than software that provides the functionality of Windows. Where do you draw that line? At the OS kernel? At kernel-level utilities? Userland utilities? And what justification can you make for that line?
No, what you're seeing is the shell using IE for some things. That doesn't make Internet Explorer the window manager. A quick explanation, since you seem to be unclear on it: A window manager proper is the program that handles placement and display of windows on the screen. Although I couldn't find a good page with a definition, you may want to check out this page. You might be getting confused by the fact that the shell is also known as "Explorer," but that's just an example of a poor naming scheme.
Again, we return to the "Having IE on my computer causes disk rot" argument. Windows needs some of the functionality of internet explorer to provide some of the services of the OS. Saying that you want to completely obliterate it is like saying that you want to replace GTK+ in Gnome with QT. It just doesn't work that way.
However, in this capacity, IE is not functioning as the web browser. Your favorite browser of choice is. You're being mislead by the fact that the same program functions both as a utility library and as a web browser. The two functions are logically independent; they just happen to share code.
This isn't true. If you don't install windows, you can install Linux, or BSD, or get yourself a Mac, or do something else. If you don't install Gnome, you can install KDE or blackbox or whatever. Yes, saying that one is fine while the other is not is arbitrary. (If you want to believe that's the case, then whatever, but you should recognize that your distinction is arbitrary.)
Second, you seem to be confusing window managers and browsers. The Windows window manager isn't the same as IE. Also, there are other window managers available for windows.
You're making the arbitrary decision that bundling a browser is OK at the GUI level, but not at the OS level. I don't see why one is fine and the other is not.
No, I'm suggesting, like I said, that it's just as easy to use another browser with Windows as it is with Gnome. If you want win32 mozilla goodness, all you have to do is download and install. People make a lot of fuss over the whole "I don't want IE on my computer!" as if having it there rots your disk or something. My computer has hundreds of programs (at least) that I have never used and probably never will -- and I keep my computer cleaner than most. It's not that big a deal.
Not to get into a pissing match with you, but my home computer has been linux-only since the 2.0 days. I like to think that I have some idea what I'm talking about.
My issue is that many Linux advocates are under the juvenile impression that because they like another OS, that means that absolutely everything that Microsoft touches is of the devil. If you want to say that IE is lousy, fine; you won't get any argument from me. If you say that you won't use Windows because you believe Microsoft to be a monopoly, that's perfectly all right with me. If you use Gnome because of technical or moral reasons, good for you. But FUD shouldn't be tolerated from either side.
however, i dont have to install gnome at all. nor do i have to install X, for that matter.
From a philosophical point of view, I fail to see why "you don't have to install gnome" is any different than "you don't have to install windows." Besides which, it's just as easy to use a different browser with Windows as it is with Gnome or other common desktop environments.
With a uid of over 200k? It'll be a couple years before that's worth anything.
You can't really compare the time to play a game to the time a movie lasts -- to take FF, for example, the vast majority of game time is spent fighting random battles -- which would hopefully not be the case in movie screen time. The actual storyline of the game is certainly doable within the time constraints of a movie.
However, I don't think that the story would have the same effect if presented in that fasion. The storyline in virtually every game I can think of is pretty weak compared to even an average novel, but because the player spends so much time with the game, he becomes personally invested in the storyline.