Way to revise history, pal! Neither RMS nor Linus had Microsoft as a target when they developed their free software and ideas. Apache wasn't created in response to Microsoft's IIS, nor was Sendmail created because of Exchange (and Postfix, Qmail, Exim, etc were developed in response to Sendmail, not Exchange). Of all of the highly successful and visible open source projects, I can only think of two that were started with Microsoft in mind: The Mozilla project, and OpenOffice.org. In both cases, the software itself started out as a proprietary product in direct competition with Microsoft that failed in the proprietary market for one reason or another. Are there any other successful, visible projects that were designed and developed in direct response to Microsoft? Linux wasn't, nor emacs, vim, apache, sendmail, XFree, gcc, etc. I could maybe see a case made for KDE and GNOME, but they're not direct competitors (can't run KDE or GNOME on Windows).
Of course there's no chance that Microsoft would let bungie release it on any thing but Xbox.
Right, because Microsoft didn't let them port Halo to PC (via Gearbox).
Don't get your hopes up for any thing new from bungie yet, remember after this "break" they have to do the PC version of Halo 2.
Unlike Halo 1, which started as a Mac project, then moved to PC and finally XBox, Halo 2 has always been XBox-based, and Bungie has never said a word about it being on any other platform. Why, then, do you assume they'll do a PC version of Halo 2?
No, it takes a lot of money to market shitty music and make it appeal to the mindless by making it "seem" popular. Good music, like good books, can and does sell itself through word-of-mouth and mild exposure. People sharing what they like with friends* is a cheap, effective way for worthwhile stuff to get heard and spread around.
The problem is that shitty and good are subjective. What you find shitty, I might like, or vice versa, and yet we can still be friends (well, unless your friendships are so shallow that you can't be friends with someone who doesn't like the same music as you). Your analogy then breaks down, because you share with me music you think is good, and I just find it shitty. Not that marketing fixes this, or even does what it's supposed to do (introduce us to new bands and music, not just keep pushing the same ol' tripe), but word of mouth doesn't work much better.
Remove the marketing dollars of the corporate labels, and "natural selection" will clear out a lot of the cruft from the stores and airwaves and make way for the good stuff. Less choice? Sure. But the percentage of good choices available will go up.
What makes you think the good bands won't go away with the bad ones? What if my favorite band is deemed as "bad", and goes away? Do I not have the right to like whatever music I want? I find it funny that the average Slashdotter wails away time and again for choice (more web browsers, more operating systems, more linux distributions, more media players, more office suites, etc), but they can turn on a dime and beg for less choice. What makes you think your preferences will be the ones retained? "Crap" like boy bands, Britney Spears, etc, are proven money makers* so even if labels dropped most of their marketing they'd not go away.
* Why does that crap** make so much money? It's because music's prime money-making demographic is teenage girls, and that crap music is targetted squarely at them.
** Obviously my usage of "crap" is subjective, reflecting my own tastes. For example, I also think most (read: all) techno/house/electronica/d&b/dance music is utter crap. If the revolution comes, I hope that tripe is right up their with Britney for removal. In fact, I can stand more Britney tunes than I can techno crap.
Microsoft has not released the.NET framework on any platform but Widnows, and doesn't have any plans (that they're talking about) to do so.
That's assuming you don't count Rotor, Microsoft's reference implementation of the ECMA-standardize bits of.NET (the C# language, the CLR, etc, but not bits like WinForms), which at least works on various BSD platforms, and is licensed such that you can safely port it to other platforms, or use it as the basis for a reimplimentation (think BSD's network stack, for instance).
the only real worry for Mono is that Microsoft would change.NET enough to break what compatibility they have, but the Mono project has already explained why this doesn't worry them.
Also keep in mind that Microsoft has a 10 year support plan for each new version of the.NET framework. Tha means that 1.0 will be supported for another 7-8 years, 1.1. will be supported for another 9, and 2.0 will be supported for 10 years from release (which should be sometime next year?). That means that even if Microsoft does make breaking changes in a new version of the platform, you can still build applications against older versions that Mono does support. As well, each framework has some amount of backwards- and forwards-compatibility (for instance, it's possible to run 1.1-targeted.NET apps on the 1.0 framework, with a few exceptions). Microsoft generally does a good job of listing backwards and forwards breaking changes between versions of the framework. (Yes, GotDotNet.com is a Microsoft property.)
I'm a developer, sometimes I want to exchange executables and scripts with people. Still, you can get around this brillaint defence by changing the file name or zipping it up.
Which is an acceptable solution for people who really do need to share these types of files, and adds enough extra manual steps that Joe Sixpack can't "accidentally" screw himself. He can do it on purpose, but then there's no one to blame but himself.
Most of your list is good, but I take exception to this item:
Avoid OL/OE for eMail
For one, Outlook and Outlook Express are two separate, distinct applications. For another, Outlook itself has been pretty secure since service packs for Outlook 2000 (that's three versions ago, for those who are counting), which remove malicious attachments so you can't execute them. Outlook XP and Outlook 2003 do that out of the box.
However, I surf with IE, read mail with Outlook, don't automatically patch (Windows Update is set to download and notify me when it's ready to install, but I get to choose when is a convenient time to install), and so on, and I haven't had a virus in years. (last virus I had? Michealangelo. Yes, way back in the day.) It boils down to common sense. Don't install/run software you don't trust (in this case, I mean downloaded from a trusted source, since little Windows software is open source so you can't often audit the code), setup IE to ask you (or disable) to run ActiveX objects, don't visit warez sites, only visit "reputable" pr0n sites (yes, there really are such things!), etc.
Avoiding computer virii, like avoiding biological virii, comes down to common sense. Don't engage in risky behaviors, and you'll significantly reduce your exposure and likelihood of contracting a virus.
Unfortunately, you always have to pay attention to the rear end of a pickup truck. ABS or not, the rear end of one can get away from you very quickly, especially on a wet road or in a turn (forgot to mention in my previous post that the Dakota is an 18' long extended cab pickup).
This is why pickups (and truck-based SUVs) are not good daily drivers. If you have a real reason to have a pickup (farmer, rancher, construction worker, etc), then fine, but you better know how to drive it. I grew up driving pickups (my family falls into one of the above categories), and I learned how to deal with light rear-ends on pickups -- get some weight back there. If you're working, you've probably got the bed loaded down, so you don't need to worry. If you're not, get some sandbags and throw them in the back. The slight increases in gas consumption, tire wear, braking distance, etc are fair trade-offs for better handling. During the winter, we even did one better than that by packing the bed of the truck full of snow. Get enough in there, and you've got all the traction you need for winter weather.
Pickups are good learning vehicles, though. The larger size and worse handling help teach learners to respect the car (for instance, it's much more difficult to parallel park a F150 than it is in a Focus). Either a cheap pickup like an old S10 or a big boat of a car (early 80s Oldsmobile, fr instance) would make perfect learner cars for young drivers.
Also, don't worry about being on the road with me, I'll take my car into a ditch rather than hit someone else almost any day of the week. When I have to stop quickly, I try to aim the front end off road just in case I'm hit from behind. I've been pushed into the car in front of me once, and that was twice too many.
That's good too hear. Too many people have the mentality that if they're going to go, they may as well try to take as many people with them as possible. When I'm in my little sports car (which honestly makes a better bad weather driver with the proper equipment than my big ol' truck), I'm constantly on the lookout for idiots that just don't want to see me. The number of times I've been run off the road (or nearly so) is impossible to count. Yes, my car is small, but I'm not invisible! I really feel for motorcycle riders if a relatively large sports car is all but invisible amidst the mass of SUVs and trucks on the road these days.
About my mother in law, you're right, it's just a case of being stupid while driving.
Sure it's not just a case of being stupid? (Hey, mothers-in-law are all stupid)
I see cameras on the back bumper (already in some fancy cars) and cameras instead of rearview mirrors to be the most important; anything that doesn't force you to look away from the road will help.
I can maybe see a use for a camera in the rear bumper of cars that suck (ie, poorly designed so that you don't get a good view out of the rear window -- like many SUVs), but why would you replace the rearview mirror with a camera? If anything, I think that would be more disorienting. Regardless, replacing mirrors with cameras should never be a replacement for "looking back" (when reversing), because you're losing all of the valuable peripheral vision information you won't get from a camera. Finally, replacing mirrors with cameras will still force you to look away from the road, unless you somehow overlay the camera image in front of the driver (HUD). That is likely even more dangerous than the half a second it takes to scan all of your mirrors. If half a second is enough to cause an accident, you need to work on your driving skills rather than your rear vision.
I've had a few near misses (or near hits) due to the fact I'm used to pumping the brakes or listening and feeling for the rear end breaking loose under high breaking condidtions.
Wow. Remind me not to be on the road with you, if you're frequently getting into these kinds of situations. Anyway, with ABS, you can forget about pumping the brakes and free up some time to think about other stuff, like where you want to steer. That's the whole point of ABS, by the way. You can still steer the car, because the wheels are not locked. I've seen too many people slam onto their brakes, and slowly run into the car in front of them because they didn't understand ABS.
I agree with you that driving has been dumbed down too much. My in-laws are considering a vehicle with a rear mounted camera since my mother in-law doesn't know how to use a the rear window when backing up.
No amount of technology can fix your mother-in-law's problem. It sounds like she's just plain stupid, and it's not because of the dumbing-down of automobiles (I'm going to guess that she's old enough (40s? 50s?) that she "learned" to drive before ABS, traction control, active stability control, air bags, etc).
Yes, and turned over the care of their customers to one of their competitors. That's why EA was wary of Xbox Live; basically, any company that uses Xbox live is giving the competition some levage over them.
If this is the way EA cares for their customers, they would've been better off handing them off to Microsoft. EA's not getting any money out of it anyway (at least, not directly from the customers, as they're paying the Live! subscription fee and not a separate fee to EA -- I have no idea whether or not EA gets any money from Microsoft). Besides, most of EA's XBox customers would rather have EA use Microsoft's Live! capabilities, rather than trying to roll their own. The only thing EA could really do that they couldn't if they didn't run their own 3rd party service is have online play across consoles (PS2 vs. XBox vs. PC), but since they have problems just making XBox vs. XBox work, I wouldn't hold my breath for this.
But seriously. EA's servers shouldn't be causing problems with their games; they should just be a small drop in the pond of XBox Live servers...I'm not saying that's how it's implemented, I'm saying that's how it should be implemented.
The actual game portion of the game is not client/server, but peer-to-peer (all XBox Live! games are this way). The problem is with EA's matchmaking capabilities. Rather than using Microsoft's system that has been proven to work for nearly 2 years (more than 2 years, if you include the time XBox Live! spent in beta prior to the Nov. 2002 release), they wanted to use their own (ask PS2 owners, they'll tell you that EA's online play pretty much sucks). When playing an EA game on Live!, you're lulled into thinking you're on the Live! network by the login, but immediately after that you're shunted off to EA's crap. This means you run into things you'd never see on XBox Live!, like region-specific matchmaking (which could be a nice feature, but it shouldn't be the only way to make matches) and "technical" problems that never should have existed (for instance, you can't play an NTSC version of Burnout 3 against a PAL version of Burnout 3, which is just completely silly).
Chalk this up to growing pains with 3rd-party matchmaking over XBox Live!, but it never would've come about had EA swallowed their pride and used the proven system already in place.
Exactly. I think the best thing Square could do is to build off of games such as FF7, FF3 (4), and Chrono Trigger, widely considered some of the best games of all time. No need to go crazy on new battle systems and what not; I think many fans of the series would just die for extensions of these classic games with only slight modifications. I know I would
(first, I assume by "FF3 (4)" you really meant "FF3 (6)", as FF4j was FF2u, and FF6j was FF3u)
No you wouldn't. Okay, you'd probably enjoy it initially, as everybody would, but it would quickly get to a point where you hate Square-Enix for milking the different game worlds and not coming up with new ideas or story lines. People blast EA for pumping out essentially the same Madden game year after year, so why would it be different with Square-Enix?
That said, Final Fantasy games have always been formulaic, and generally don't lend themselves to sequels. The stories are meant to be that world's "final fantasy", and so the story line progresses up through some cataclysmic, world-altering event, after which evil is banished from the world (or some permutation thereof). How do you make a sequel out of that without totally compromising the story told in the original game?
Finally, the naming would quickly get ridiculous. Final Fantasy X, like Mac OS X, is supposed to be pronounced "Final Fantasy Ten" and not "Final Fantasy Ecks". That just makes Final Fantasy X-2 sound silly. "Final Fantasy Ten Two" "Oh, you mean Final Fantasy Twelve?" "No, Final Fantasy Ten Two". At least with Final Fantasy X, they could've taken the chance and disassociated "X" with the Roman numeral for ten. In that case, like with Mega Man X, it makes sense -- "Final Fantasy Ecks Two" is obviously the sequal to "Final Fantasy Ecks". However, they can't pull that one off with Final Fantasy VII. "Final Fantasy Vee Eye Eye Two"?
Thankfully the link between SCO and Microsoft has been established, admitted to, and documented, otherwise people like me would still be getting called "tinfoil hat idiots".
Just not in your post, eh? Care to provide some linkage for those assertions?
Yeah, real clever. Showing that they have learned from past mistakes and have tried to correct them in their latest version.
"Tried to correct them," or, "Actually corrected them?" I will admit that I won't get within 20 feet of a Real product (I'd rather install something like Real Alternative), and so I don't know how much less crap Real 10 is, but simply from the interviewee's reply it sounds like it's still crap. For example, perhaps you can more easily (which is not the same as just "easily") turn off all of the background processes, but Real never should've started them in the first place. Real made their bed, now they get to sleep in it. One slightly-less-crap release isn't enough to erase years of abuse.
Heaven forbid they actually TAKE CORRECTIVE ACTION! No. Slashdot hypocrites want nothing less than self immolation.
Self-immolation for Real would be a good start.
As far as Window's Media Player Messaging Center popping up with ads an shit, of course not! That is what Windows Messager is for!
Except that Windows Messenger:
Is easy to turn off (Tools->Options, Preferences tab)
Doesn't sign you up for alerts automatically. You won't get alerts (which are not adverts, but information like traffic reports, or what games your XBox Live! friends are currently playing) unless you sign up for specific alerts.
Has other redeeming qualities, like acting as a great IM client (all of my friends and I use Windows/MSN Messenger for IM; of course, my friends aren't 14 year old girls, else I'd probably use AIM instead).
Is not unnecessarily tied to a media player. Windows Messenger is tied to collaboration and communication tools like Outlook, Outlook Express, and certain components of Office, but that makes sense. It's not integrated with Windows Media Player, because that doesn't make sense. (Messenger may require WMP for some of its A/V collaboration features, but WMP does not require Messenger at all)
Give credit where credit is due. Real 10 (9?) was invasive and evil. Real 10 is a different animal and allows simple control over all of that.
Credit, like respect, must be earned. You are entitled to neither, nor is Real. Until Real can consistently and reliably demonstrate that their sole goal is not to fuck me over six ways from Sunday, I'll stay away from their product.
Well, that was a very ignorant statement. You know nothing of this person and you just called them a bad parent, even though you admitted that you don't even know if they are a parent. Please think before you type.
Not really. From the post, it's implied that the children are the poster's (warning: I'm going to assume the poster is male, and refer to him as "him", even though there's nothing that leads me to believe the poster is not female). That being the most likely case, for him to justify modding an XBox and backing up his discs (uh... yeah, "backing up", sure) because he can't fucking parent his children is a lame cop-out. I threw in the disclaimer just in case the children in question weren't his. In fact, they may be neither his kids nor his siblings (about moving out of his parents' house), but those of his single-mother girlfriend, in which case he needs to grow a pair and either poperly parent the kids, or kick her and the rugrats to the curb (the latter being the "correct" response, though if he can't handle the kids, I doubt he'd be able to handle the mother either). They could be his grandkids, and they break stuff because his own kids inherited his shit parenting skills. There are any number of possibilities here, but I kept my post to the two most likely, given the forum.
As the other poster in reply to you said, kids abusing your property is not an excuse. It's the parents' job to instill respect for other people's property in their children, even if that property is the parents' (it's not the kids', so they should respect it). Likewise, the kids should have respect for their own property. If they smear PB&J all over their Disney DVDs, tough shit. It's called "life", and they have to learn about it sooner or later. Keeping multiple (shade-of-gray illegal, depending on interpretation of fair-use policies) backup copies of games or movies "just in case" the crumb munchers fuck up the original won't instill that respect, and cause them to grow up to be more bleeding-heart, "I'm entitled to..." whiners. Just what the world needs.
Invariably, youngsters around my house scratch or otherwise damage the relatively easily damaged media.
Why don't you learn how to parent, and teach the ankle-biters to respect other people's property? The excuse of, "I'm such a horrible parent, I can't teach my kids how to handle a DVD, and thus I should be allowed to make backups," is weak.
(and if they're not your kids, it's time for you to grow up and move out of your parent's house.)
5 years * (approximately) 52 weeks per year * 5 working days per week * 8 hour work days = 10400 hours of work
$158,000 / 10400 hours = $15.19 an hour
Re:Joy of programming...
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Dive Into Python
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· Score: 2, Funny
A few years back I needed to develop a program to download all of UserFriendly's archives
You're either a masochist, or this was some form of cruel and unusual punishment. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to why someone would willingly subject himself to UF's brand of mind-numbing "art" (requires quotes because I can't call it real art with a straight face) and "humor" (same reason for the quotes).
While the Internet has had a clearly detrimental effect on our spelling abilities, I think it has had a correspondingly positive impact on our willingness and enthusiasm to express opinions of all kinds.
That just about covers why it used to be difficult to get kids to write and submit essays. When the essays are going to be graded on such "silly" things like spelling, grammar, coherency, research, proper citing of sources, etc, kids obviously shy away from writing. On the internet, however, none of that matters (sadly). Therefore, for every quality essay you get (which will still involve some amount of grammatical errors, spelling errors, fact-checking errors, etc), you get a ton of crap and drivel that would be a waste of time to read. Yes, it's good that the internet gets people to read and write, but if the quality of the writing doesn't improve is it really a win? (I'll ignore quality of reading, because I enjoy trash sci-fi and fantasy novels which could hardly be called "quality":)
Take a look at any race car there are any number of adjustments the driver makes. Be it brake bias, rollbar stiffness, boost, rev limiter, mixture, shocks. the fastest drivers are making these changes during a corner, the ideal setting for entry is most certainly the not the one you want on exit.
I don't know what type of racing you're following, but I've never heard of changing anything like that while driving. (okay, perhaps mixture control, but that's about it). There's simply not time to make the such precise adjustments while in the middle of a turn. Drivers do make adjustments all the time, but they do so through the controls of the car. Changing braking points, carrying more or less brakes while turning, adjusting their line, etc, are all things that drivers can and should do while racing.
Being such a knowledgeable race fan you must have heard of active suspenson with regards to F1. This system is almost the same. In fact one of the most dominant F1 cars of all time was fitted with active suspension.
I don't follow F1, but that wouldn't surprise me. Lots of neat technology has been banned by FIA for one reason or another, but in general it's to try to keep the competition balanced. If anything goes, then the team with the biggest bank account wins (that may still be the case even with regulations, but in theory...). Part of racing is the constant battle between regulatory committees and teams (for instance, look up some history on Porsche's entries in the 24 hours of LeMans to see how they constantly found ways to skirt the rules, everything from aerodynamics to homologation rules, and how FIA responded each time by modifying the rules)
The best race teams hardly ever make radical alterations to car at the track. The reason is that they have raced at the track many times before and have historical data, they set the car up at the factory and then make minor adjustments at the track.
True enough. My point was that setting up an active suspension to behave in a manner you prefer would be just as time consuming as setting up a mechanical suspension, if not more so.
Changes to suspenson can indeed make braking more effective, so it may be feasable that a change via a system like this could help brakes make it to the end.
At what cost? And how quickly would an active suspension be able to adjust from compensating for brake fade to maximum traction during turning to maximum traction during acceleration, and could it do so without upsetting the "set" of the car?
If your stupid enough to drive over oil/fuel then I hardly think you can blame the system for not saving you.
You don't always have that choice. If you're too close behind the accident, or it's in a horrible spot (poor off-line area of the track, and the spill is on-line), or there's simply no room to manuever to avoid, you're going to run through it. It happens, and you have to deal with it. I personally wouldn't be comfortable doing that with a suspension that could change out from underneath me without a ton of seat time in such scenarios. I'm an amateur (less than an amateur, even!), and can't afford that type of seat time. The pros can, but that's why they're the pros:)
It would appear the only thing I agree with in your post is the need for a crew chief
At least we agree on something. I'm not necessarily old-fashioned, but when it comes to racing I'm of the opinion that it should be as visceral as possible. Sure, you can go faster, drive harder, and handle more and more impressive tracks with technology, and that's cool, but I prefer my racing to have a human element (not in the way that the Olympics have a "human el
I personally look forward to racing series' where you can use any technical advantages you want. When everyone is "cheating" they are all competitive.
I'm of the opposite opinion. When anything goes, the guy with the most money wins. I prefer series with more strict regulations on what you can do to your vehicle (I like road racing, so no NASCAR for me, and I'm not too big into F1 either -- I would rather watch touring or GT cars, like SCCA's World Challenge or Grand Am). That way, it comes down to which teams have the better drivers and better mechanics, rather than the biggest bank accounts. I also like the way SCCA rewards winners with added weight, to try to keep diverse cars competitive.
Besides, strict regulations make it easier for mere mortals to get into racing. For example, SCCA's spec classes let you get into racing for as little as $10,000 (about what it will cost to setup a Spec Miata, and get your SCCA license so you can participate). That's still a lot of money, but it's nothing compared to the millions spent on F1 or NASCAR.
On this issue with these newer suspensions, it is a good thing. It decreases resource use and weight of the vehicle.
It decreases weight? Really? How so? If anything, a system like this would add unsprung weight (weight not supported by the suspension system, which includes the suspension system itself, tires, wheels, brakes, etc). You're not changing the mass of the vehicle, so braking and maneuvering will still be more sluggish as the mass of the car increases, and you're increasing unsprung weight, which saps power. I could see such a system reducing (not eliminating) wear and tear on other systems in the car, but I don't see how replacing a relatively light mechanical system with a heavier, active system (ie, requires energy) will reduce resource (ie, fuel) consumption). Tire wear may be reduced somewhat, but a good alignment will do that for you just as well. Worse, as this system isolates you from the road, you run the risk of causing worse damage such as bending a rim on a pothole, because you didn't bother to avoid it (hey, you don't feel it, so that means it didn't happen, right?).
Imagine putting the crew chief in the car-- and basically replacing him with a very small shell script.
Bad idea. No shell script can ever hope to compete with a properly experienced crew chief. Look at pros like F1 teams, where they have all of the wizbang gadgetry you could ever want (telemetry is cool!), and they still have crew chiefs. I could see this being useful for limited applications in a very amateur setting, but anything more serious would require a crew chief with knowledge.
Is the car pushing on entry? Back off the front repulsors a few volts. Dial a volt or two into the back... Adjust wedge on the fly.
Worse idea. The last thing you want to be doing during a race is making adjustments on the fly like that. Ignoring the logistics of how you'd do it (limited mobility within a cockpit, even of a touring car), trying to decide if you need to dial up two volts or three, or if you should be dialing down, or if you even have the right dial is not a good idea. If you have time to do anything more than glance at your tach (and often, you shouldn't even need that, instead trusting engine sound to tell you when to shift), you're not driving fast enough. This will not make you more competitive, and will add quite a few more possible points of failure.
And the sick thing is, you don't even have to make the driver do it. A few sensors on various wheels and currently available computing horsepower and it'll know on its own. A car that dynamically adjusts itself to optimal handling as the weather changes, the track temperature changes, the fuel load changes, the tires lose grip.
What is optimal handling? Such a system would need a very configurable interface, because no two drivers prefer the same setup. You may like a car that "pushes" (or "understeers", as we non-NASCAR fans like to say), while I may like a car that's "loose" (or "oversteers"). Guess what? That requires a lot of setup beforehand, and will change from track to track so you'll spend much of your available pre-race practice time monkeying with electronics same as you would monkeying with mechanical suspensions. That goes back to the first point, where you will still need a good crew chief.
Finally, this can only compensate for variables that a suspension can affect. If my brakes start to fade late in a race, there's nothing the suspension can do about it. Same for losing aerodynamic pieces of the car. I also wouldn't trust it with unexpected track surface problems (oil or other fluid spills in the race line, dirt or gravel pulled onto the track from off-track excursions, marbles when you have to go off-line for a pass or to avoid a collision, the changing amount of rubber left on braking zones and turns, etc). The transition would have to be completely smooth, and the driver would need a lot of seat time with the system under such conditions to learn what it does in such a scenario. Worst case, you'll lose control of the car because you were expecting it to handle one way, and the suspension changed right out from underneath you.
My current car for instance... The shoulder belt is electronically moved into place when the door is closed, and forward when the door is opened. Since I have to fasten my lap belt anyhow, this doesn't make life one bit easier for me, yet, the sensor goes out, the motor goes out, and either I'm paying shitloads of money to get replacement parts to fix the damn thing, or I'm welding it in-place, and then manually unhooking two seatbelts... Piece of junk. Meanwhile, basic, old-fashioned 3-point seatbelts work better.
What kind of car are you driving? I haven't seen a system like that in a car for nearly a decade. They were in style for a few years in the late 80s and early 90s, but quickly died a quick death. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the automatic belt gave drivers a false sense of safety, thus causing them not to latch their lap belts. The lap belt is the most important piece of a three-point belt restraint system, and with only a shoulder belt you run a very high risk of slipping down your seat in a collision, catching the shoulder belt with your chin, and literally losing your head.
Assuming, then, that you're driving a 10+ year old car, it's no wonder you have these types of problems. Such computer-controlled systems were still relatively new, and they've come quite a long way.
Slashdot Mirror
Way to revise history, pal! Neither RMS nor Linus had Microsoft as a target when they developed their free software and ideas. Apache wasn't created in response to Microsoft's IIS, nor was Sendmail created because of Exchange (and Postfix, Qmail, Exim, etc were developed in response to Sendmail, not Exchange). Of all of the highly successful and visible open source projects, I can only think of two that were started with Microsoft in mind: The Mozilla project, and OpenOffice.org. In both cases, the software itself started out as a proprietary product in direct competition with Microsoft that failed in the proprietary market for one reason or another. Are there any other successful, visible projects that were designed and developed in direct response to Microsoft? Linux wasn't, nor emacs, vim, apache, sendmail, XFree, gcc, etc. I could maybe see a case made for KDE and GNOME, but they're not direct competitors (can't run KDE or GNOME on Windows).
Right, because Microsoft didn't let them port Halo to PC (via Gearbox).
Unlike Halo 1, which started as a Mac project, then moved to PC and finally XBox, Halo 2 has always been XBox-based, and Bungie has never said a word about it being on any other platform. Why, then, do you assume they'll do a PC version of Halo 2?
The problem is that shitty and good are subjective. What you find shitty, I might like, or vice versa, and yet we can still be friends (well, unless your friendships are so shallow that you can't be friends with someone who doesn't like the same music as you). Your analogy then breaks down, because you share with me music you think is good, and I just find it shitty. Not that marketing fixes this, or even does what it's supposed to do (introduce us to new bands and music, not just keep pushing the same ol' tripe), but word of mouth doesn't work much better.
What makes you think the good bands won't go away with the bad ones? What if my favorite band is deemed as "bad", and goes away? Do I not have the right to like whatever music I want? I find it funny that the average Slashdotter wails away time and again for choice (more web browsers, more operating systems, more linux distributions, more media players, more office suites, etc), but they can turn on a dime and beg for less choice. What makes you think your preferences will be the ones retained? "Crap" like boy bands, Britney Spears, etc, are proven money makers* so even if labels dropped most of their marketing they'd not go away.
* Why does that crap** make so much money? It's because music's prime money-making demographic is teenage girls, and that crap music is targetted squarely at them.
** Obviously my usage of "crap" is subjective, reflecting my own tastes. For example, I also think most (read: all) techno/house/electronica/d&b/dance music is utter crap. If the revolution comes, I hope that tripe is right up their with Britney for removal. In fact, I can stand more Britney tunes than I can techno crap.
That's assuming you don't count Rotor, Microsoft's reference implementation of the ECMA-standardize bits of .NET (the C# language, the CLR, etc, but not bits like WinForms), which at least works on various BSD platforms, and is licensed such that you can safely port it to other platforms, or use it as the basis for a reimplimentation (think BSD's network stack, for instance).
Also keep in mind that Microsoft has a 10 year support plan for each new version of the .NET framework. Tha means that 1.0 will be supported for another 7-8 years, 1.1. will be supported for another 9, and 2.0 will be supported for 10 years from release (which should be sometime next year?). That means that even if Microsoft does make breaking changes in a new version of the platform, you can still build applications against older versions that Mono does support. As well, each framework has some amount of backwards- and forwards-compatibility (for instance, it's possible to run 1.1-targeted .NET apps on the 1.0 framework, with a few exceptions). Microsoft generally does a good job of listing backwards and forwards breaking changes between versions of the framework. (Yes, GotDotNet.com is a Microsoft property.)
But you can still use the new Photo Mode, since "according to the developers, they expect some gamers to purchase the game for this new mode alone."
Looks like Forza Motorsports won't have much in the way of competition, now.
Which is an acceptable solution for people who really do need to share these types of files, and adds enough extra manual steps that Joe Sixpack can't "accidentally" screw himself. He can do it on purpose, but then there's no one to blame but himself.
Most of your list is good, but I take exception to this item:
For one, Outlook and Outlook Express are two separate, distinct applications. For another, Outlook itself has been pretty secure since service packs for Outlook 2000 (that's three versions ago, for those who are counting), which remove malicious attachments so you can't execute them. Outlook XP and Outlook 2003 do that out of the box.
However, I surf with IE, read mail with Outlook, don't automatically patch (Windows Update is set to download and notify me when it's ready to install, but I get to choose when is a convenient time to install), and so on, and I haven't had a virus in years. (last virus I had? Michealangelo. Yes, way back in the day.) It boils down to common sense. Don't install/run software you don't trust (in this case, I mean downloaded from a trusted source, since little Windows software is open source so you can't often audit the code), setup IE to ask you (or disable) to run ActiveX objects, don't visit warez sites, only visit "reputable" pr0n sites (yes, there really are such things!), etc.
Avoiding computer virii, like avoiding biological virii, comes down to common sense. Don't engage in risky behaviors, and you'll significantly reduce your exposure and likelihood of contracting a virus.
This is why pickups (and truck-based SUVs) are not good daily drivers. If you have a real reason to have a pickup (farmer, rancher, construction worker, etc), then fine, but you better know how to drive it. I grew up driving pickups (my family falls into one of the above categories), and I learned how to deal with light rear-ends on pickups -- get some weight back there. If you're working, you've probably got the bed loaded down, so you don't need to worry. If you're not, get some sandbags and throw them in the back. The slight increases in gas consumption, tire wear, braking distance, etc are fair trade-offs for better handling. During the winter, we even did one better than that by packing the bed of the truck full of snow. Get enough in there, and you've got all the traction you need for winter weather.
Pickups are good learning vehicles, though. The larger size and worse handling help teach learners to respect the car (for instance, it's much more difficult to parallel park a F150 than it is in a Focus). Either a cheap pickup like an old S10 or a big boat of a car (early 80s Oldsmobile, fr instance) would make perfect learner cars for young drivers.
That's good too hear. Too many people have the mentality that if they're going to go, they may as well try to take as many people with them as possible. When I'm in my little sports car (which honestly makes a better bad weather driver with the proper equipment than my big ol' truck), I'm constantly on the lookout for idiots that just don't want to see me. The number of times I've been run off the road (or nearly so) is impossible to count. Yes, my car is small, but I'm not invisible! I really feel for motorcycle riders if a relatively large sports car is all but invisible amidst the mass of SUVs and trucks on the road these days.
Sure it's not just a case of being stupid? (Hey, mothers-in-law are all stupid)
I can maybe see a use for a camera in the rear bumper of cars that suck (ie, poorly designed so that you don't get a good view out of the rear window -- like many SUVs), but why would you replace the rearview mirror with a camera? If anything, I think that would be more disorienting. Regardless, replacing mirrors with cameras should never be a replacement for "looking back" (when reversing), because you're losing all of the valuable peripheral vision information you won't get from a camera. Finally, replacing mirrors with cameras will still force you to look away from the road, unless you somehow overlay the camera image in front of the driver (HUD). That is likely even more dangerous than the half a second it takes to scan all of your mirrors. If half a second is enough to cause an accident, you need to work on your driving skills rather than your rear vision.
Wow. Remind me not to be on the road with you, if you're frequently getting into these kinds of situations. Anyway, with ABS, you can forget about pumping the brakes and free up some time to think about other stuff, like where you want to steer. That's the whole point of ABS, by the way. You can still steer the car, because the wheels are not locked. I've seen too many people slam onto their brakes, and slowly run into the car in front of them because they didn't understand ABS.
No amount of technology can fix your mother-in-law's problem. It sounds like she's just plain stupid, and it's not because of the dumbing-down of automobiles (I'm going to guess that she's old enough (40s? 50s?) that she "learned" to drive before ABS, traction control, active stability control, air bags, etc).
If this is the way EA cares for their customers, they would've been better off handing them off to Microsoft. EA's not getting any money out of it anyway (at least, not directly from the customers, as they're paying the Live! subscription fee and not a separate fee to EA -- I have no idea whether or not EA gets any money from Microsoft). Besides, most of EA's XBox customers would rather have EA use Microsoft's Live! capabilities, rather than trying to roll their own. The only thing EA could really do that they couldn't if they didn't run their own 3rd party service is have online play across consoles (PS2 vs. XBox vs. PC), but since they have problems just making XBox vs. XBox work, I wouldn't hold my breath for this.
The actual game portion of the game is not client/server, but peer-to-peer (all XBox Live! games are this way). The problem is with EA's matchmaking capabilities. Rather than using Microsoft's system that has been proven to work for nearly 2 years (more than 2 years, if you include the time XBox Live! spent in beta prior to the Nov. 2002 release), they wanted to use their own (ask PS2 owners, they'll tell you that EA's online play pretty much sucks). When playing an EA game on Live!, you're lulled into thinking you're on the Live! network by the login, but immediately after that you're shunted off to EA's crap. This means you run into things you'd never see on XBox Live!, like region-specific matchmaking (which could be a nice feature, but it shouldn't be the only way to make matches) and "technical" problems that never should have existed (for instance, you can't play an NTSC version of Burnout 3 against a PAL version of Burnout 3, which is just completely silly).
Chalk this up to growing pains with 3rd-party matchmaking over XBox Live!, but it never would've come about had EA swallowed their pride and used the proven system already in place.
(first, I assume by "FF3 (4)" you really meant "FF3 (6)", as FF4j was FF2u, and FF6j was FF3u)
No you wouldn't. Okay, you'd probably enjoy it initially, as everybody would, but it would quickly get to a point where you hate Square-Enix for milking the different game worlds and not coming up with new ideas or story lines. People blast EA for pumping out essentially the same Madden game year after year, so why would it be different with Square-Enix?
That said, Final Fantasy games have always been formulaic, and generally don't lend themselves to sequels. The stories are meant to be that world's "final fantasy", and so the story line progresses up through some cataclysmic, world-altering event, after which evil is banished from the world (or some permutation thereof). How do you make a sequel out of that without totally compromising the story told in the original game?
Finally, the naming would quickly get ridiculous. Final Fantasy X, like Mac OS X, is supposed to be pronounced "Final Fantasy Ten" and not "Final Fantasy Ecks". That just makes Final Fantasy X-2 sound silly. "Final Fantasy Ten Two" "Oh, you mean Final Fantasy Twelve?" "No, Final Fantasy Ten Two". At least with Final Fantasy X, they could've taken the chance and disassociated "X" with the Roman numeral for ten. In that case, like with Mega Man X, it makes sense -- "Final Fantasy Ecks Two" is obviously the sequal to "Final Fantasy Ecks". However, they can't pull that one off with Final Fantasy VII. "Final Fantasy Vee Eye Eye Two"?
Just not in your post, eh? Care to provide some linkage for those assertions?
"Tried to correct them," or, "Actually corrected them?" I will admit that I won't get within 20 feet of a Real product (I'd rather install something like Real Alternative), and so I don't know how much less crap Real 10 is, but simply from the interviewee's reply it sounds like it's still crap. For example, perhaps you can more easily (which is not the same as just "easily") turn off all of the background processes, but Real never should've started them in the first place. Real made their bed, now they get to sleep in it. One slightly-less-crap release isn't enough to erase years of abuse.
Self-immolation for Real would be a good start.
Except that Windows Messenger:
Credit, like respect, must be earned. You are entitled to neither, nor is Real. Until Real can consistently and reliably demonstrate that their sole goal is not to fuck me over six ways from Sunday, I'll stay away from their product.
Not really. From the post, it's implied that the children are the poster's (warning: I'm going to assume the poster is male, and refer to him as "him", even though there's nothing that leads me to believe the poster is not female). That being the most likely case, for him to justify modding an XBox and backing up his discs (uh ... yeah, "backing up", sure) because he can't fucking parent his children is a lame cop-out. I threw in the disclaimer just in case the children in question weren't his. In fact, they may be neither his kids nor his siblings (about moving out of his parents' house), but those of his single-mother girlfriend, in which case he needs to grow a pair and either poperly parent the kids, or kick her and the rugrats to the curb (the latter being the "correct" response, though if he can't handle the kids, I doubt he'd be able to handle the mother either). They could be his grandkids, and they break stuff because his own kids inherited his shit parenting skills. There are any number of possibilities here, but I kept my post to the two most likely, given the forum.
As the other poster in reply to you said, kids abusing your property is not an excuse. It's the parents' job to instill respect for other people's property in their children, even if that property is the parents' (it's not the kids', so they should respect it). Likewise, the kids should have respect for their own property. If they smear PB&J all over their Disney DVDs, tough shit. It's called "life", and they have to learn about it sooner or later. Keeping multiple (shade-of-gray illegal, depending on interpretation of fair-use policies) backup copies of games or movies "just in case" the crumb munchers fuck up the original won't instill that respect, and cause them to grow up to be more bleeding-heart, "I'm entitled to ..." whiners. Just what the world needs.
Why don't you learn how to parent, and teach the ankle-biters to respect other people's property? The excuse of, "I'm such a horrible parent, I can't teach my kids how to handle a DVD, and thus I should be allowed to make backups," is weak.
(and if they're not your kids, it's time for you to grow up and move out of your parent's house.)
Must suck to have to work on weekends.
5 years * (approximately) 52 weeks per year * 5 working days per week * 8 hour work days = 10400 hours of work
$158,000 / 10400 hours = $15.19 an hour
You're either a masochist, or this was some form of cruel and unusual punishment. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to why someone would willingly subject himself to UF's brand of mind-numbing "art" (requires quotes because I can't call it real art with a straight face) and "humor" (same reason for the quotes).
That just about covers why it used to be difficult to get kids to write and submit essays. When the essays are going to be graded on such "silly" things like spelling, grammar, coherency, research, proper citing of sources, etc, kids obviously shy away from writing. On the internet, however, none of that matters (sadly). Therefore, for every quality essay you get (which will still involve some amount of grammatical errors, spelling errors, fact-checking errors, etc), you get a ton of crap and drivel that would be a waste of time to read. Yes, it's good that the internet gets people to read and write, but if the quality of the writing doesn't improve is it really a win? (I'll ignore quality of reading, because I enjoy trash sci-fi and fantasy novels which could hardly be called "quality" :)
I don't know what type of racing you're following, but I've never heard of changing anything like that while driving. (okay, perhaps mixture control, but that's about it). There's simply not time to make the such precise adjustments while in the middle of a turn. Drivers do make adjustments all the time, but they do so through the controls of the car. Changing braking points, carrying more or less brakes while turning, adjusting their line, etc, are all things that drivers can and should do while racing.
I don't follow F1, but that wouldn't surprise me. Lots of neat technology has been banned by FIA for one reason or another, but in general it's to try to keep the competition balanced. If anything goes, then the team with the biggest bank account wins (that may still be the case even with regulations, but in theory ...). Part of racing is the constant battle between regulatory committees and teams (for instance, look up some history on Porsche's entries in the 24 hours of LeMans to see how they constantly found ways to skirt the rules, everything from aerodynamics to homologation rules, and how FIA responded each time by modifying the rules)
True enough. My point was that setting up an active suspension to behave in a manner you prefer would be just as time consuming as setting up a mechanical suspension, if not more so.
At what cost? And how quickly would an active suspension be able to adjust from compensating for brake fade to maximum traction during turning to maximum traction during acceleration, and could it do so without upsetting the "set" of the car?
You don't always have that choice. If you're too close behind the accident, or it's in a horrible spot (poor off-line area of the track, and the spill is on-line), or there's simply no room to manuever to avoid, you're going to run through it. It happens, and you have to deal with it. I personally wouldn't be comfortable doing that with a suspension that could change out from underneath me without a ton of seat time in such scenarios. I'm an amateur (less than an amateur, even!), and can't afford that type of seat time. The pros can, but that's why they're the pros :)
At least we agree on something. I'm not necessarily old-fashioned, but when it comes to racing I'm of the opinion that it should be as visceral as possible. Sure, you can go faster, drive harder, and handle more and more impressive tracks with technology, and that's cool, but I prefer my racing to have a human element (not in the way that the Olympics have a "human el
I'm of the opposite opinion. When anything goes, the guy with the most money wins. I prefer series with more strict regulations on what you can do to your vehicle (I like road racing, so no NASCAR for me, and I'm not too big into F1 either -- I would rather watch touring or GT cars, like SCCA's World Challenge or Grand Am). That way, it comes down to which teams have the better drivers and better mechanics, rather than the biggest bank accounts. I also like the way SCCA rewards winners with added weight, to try to keep diverse cars competitive.
Besides, strict regulations make it easier for mere mortals to get into racing. For example, SCCA's spec classes let you get into racing for as little as $10,000 (about what it will cost to setup a Spec Miata, and get your SCCA license so you can participate). That's still a lot of money, but it's nothing compared to the millions spent on F1 or NASCAR.
It decreases weight? Really? How so? If anything, a system like this would add unsprung weight (weight not supported by the suspension system, which includes the suspension system itself, tires, wheels, brakes, etc). You're not changing the mass of the vehicle, so braking and maneuvering will still be more sluggish as the mass of the car increases, and you're increasing unsprung weight, which saps power. I could see such a system reducing (not eliminating) wear and tear on other systems in the car, but I don't see how replacing a relatively light mechanical system with a heavier, active system (ie, requires energy) will reduce resource (ie, fuel) consumption). Tire wear may be reduced somewhat, but a good alignment will do that for you just as well. Worse, as this system isolates you from the road, you run the risk of causing worse damage such as bending a rim on a pothole, because you didn't bother to avoid it (hey, you don't feel it, so that means it didn't happen, right?).
Bad idea. No shell script can ever hope to compete with a properly experienced crew chief. Look at pros like F1 teams, where they have all of the wizbang gadgetry you could ever want (telemetry is cool!), and they still have crew chiefs. I could see this being useful for limited applications in a very amateur setting, but anything more serious would require a crew chief with knowledge.
Worse idea. The last thing you want to be doing during a race is making adjustments on the fly like that. Ignoring the logistics of how you'd do it (limited mobility within a cockpit, even of a touring car), trying to decide if you need to dial up two volts or three, or if you should be dialing down, or if you even have the right dial is not a good idea. If you have time to do anything more than glance at your tach (and often, you shouldn't even need that, instead trusting engine sound to tell you when to shift), you're not driving fast enough. This will not make you more competitive, and will add quite a few more possible points of failure.
What is optimal handling? Such a system would need a very configurable interface, because no two drivers prefer the same setup. You may like a car that "pushes" (or "understeers", as we non-NASCAR fans like to say), while I may like a car that's "loose" (or "oversteers"). Guess what? That requires a lot of setup beforehand, and will change from track to track so you'll spend much of your available pre-race practice time monkeying with electronics same as you would monkeying with mechanical suspensions. That goes back to the first point, where you will still need a good crew chief.
Finally, this can only compensate for variables that a suspension can affect. If my brakes start to fade late in a race, there's nothing the suspension can do about it. Same for losing aerodynamic pieces of the car. I also wouldn't trust it with unexpected track surface problems (oil or other fluid spills in the race line, dirt or gravel pulled onto the track from off-track excursions, marbles when you have to go off-line for a pass or to avoid a collision, the changing amount of rubber left on braking zones and turns, etc). The transition would have to be completely smooth, and the driver would need a lot of seat time with the system under such conditions to learn what it does in such a scenario. Worst case, you'll lose control of the car because you were expecting it to handle one way, and the suspension changed right out from underneath you.
What kind of car are you driving? I haven't seen a system like that in a car for nearly a decade. They were in style for a few years in the late 80s and early 90s, but quickly died a quick death. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the automatic belt gave drivers a false sense of safety, thus causing them not to latch their lap belts. The lap belt is the most important piece of a three-point belt restraint system, and with only a shoulder belt you run a very high risk of slipping down your seat in a collision, catching the shoulder belt with your chin, and literally losing your head.
Assuming, then, that you're driving a 10+ year old car, it's no wonder you have these types of problems. Such computer-controlled systems were still relatively new, and they've come quite a long way.