As winner of the "longest amount of overtime worked on wacky feature, removed two days after completion when the designer decided he doesn't want it after all" award, I'd like to say hello to my wife, family and dog who are all but a faint memory, and would like to know if I can use the MTV showers.
Either that, or engineers are required to enter valid credit card details before submitting new location/orientation parameters. I'm sure NASA are on the look-out for new sources of funding.
No, "dog" is also correct - stands for "Digitally Originated Graphics". There are several campaigns running to try to persuade broadcasters to remove them for reasons such as burned TV screens and aesthetic damage to programmes and films infected with them. See here and here for more info.
It's not often you hear of successful action against a spammer. I'm curious, though.. were the Virginia laws applicable because that's where the companies involved in the email were located, or is that where you were when you received the email?
For any lawyer types... are junk emails subject to laws in the location they're sent from, the location of the company responsible for sending them, the location the email is received, or all of the above?
Fair point... I hope their next project is to reverse the process, turning fourteen carrier bags into an apple pie. That could help solve a few of the world's problems.
That's one of my gripes about RISC OS - the moment you realise you've dragged your save icon, and realised the place you want to put it isn't visible. Another is having to uncover the title bar of a window in order to bring it to the front - I don't know if this has been modified in later versions!
Anyway, seeing as most of us are blessed with two hands, why not have a secondary mouse interface? While we've picked up and dragged the save icon with one hand, we could be moving windows around to find a destination for the file with the other hand. After all these years, I'm still playing around in these desktop metaphors with one hand tied behind my back.
When the MIS guys came and upgraded me from win98 to win2k a couple of years ago, I'm guessing the installation was botched, because I'm unable to run the defrag program. After two years of heavy software development on this machine, I can confirm that it really, really, really needs defragging.
Cross your fingers, they reckon I'm getting a new PC today...
From the article : "Surprisingly, with all the money and time spent in the quest for a road map of the celestial past, "most of the pictures have never been looked at," Stoughton said. Stoughton said that because of the immense amount of information seeing any part of it would take a lifetime"
What they need is SETI-like distributed software than farms the pictures out to us to look at, and we'd get through them in a week or two. Or stick them all on a website - www.AmIAMinorAstronomicalAnomaly.com - with user rankings. Job done.
Heh.. if it is that kind of marine, you'll be wanting one of these JEDI gadgets - Yahoo news article.
"To test quite how much the gadget can take, the Army had a game of football using a JEDI as the ball - and it worked just fine afterwards."
Fear not, although it's WinCE based, it can be rebooted in 12 seconds. Possibly the longest 12 seconds of your life if you're stuck in some remote warzone, I'd imagine, but there you go.
Picking out a few of the top-rated comments is a start, because initially that's what I do anyway, and I imagine the same goes for many other/. readers. I scan through, looking for the highest rated comments, in the hope that generally they'll answer the question being asked or provide additional important information to the story. If I've got time to spend reading, or am particularly interested in the subject, then I'll read through the rest of the comments.
Ideally, when a story has attracted a sufficient number of replies, a digest/summary could be written by one of the editors, referring to the more interesting points or arguments raised by posters, with links to those threads. Add links to further news urls or resources that have submitted. I know this is a lot of extra work for somebody, but it's the type of thing I'd be happy to pay a subscription for.
Having read through the irc log, I went to have a look at alterslash.org, and I liked it. While the legality of the site may be questionable, I was surprised at the reaction from Taco&Co. The shouting about copyright and legal issues reminded me of the knee jerk reactions more typically displayed by the likes of the RIAA and MPAA, so often berated on this site. Instead, it should provide a clue that this is how some people may want to access the stories on slashdot.
I agree with the parent post, that this digest functionality should be included into the slashdot site, rather than just being lost if/when the lawyers come knocking on the door at alterslash.
One of the programmers here was taking a few days off work. He had a few bits and bobs on his work machine that he wanted to transfer to his home PC. Instead of searching around for floppy disks, he bundled the stuff up in a zip file and emailed it to his home account as an attachment that was a few megabytes in size. In case anything important came up while he was away, he set up his work email program to automatically forward mail to his home account. Maybe you've already guessed what happened. Moments after he left, the zip file he sent made its way to his home account, where it was bounced by his isp because his mailbox was already too full. The mail was returned to his work email inbox, attachments and all, and the auto-forward promptly kicked it straight back out. This cycle continued for some time until our network admin guy had to come in and investigate why the mail server was having a fit. He removed several gigabytes of duplicated mail while breaking the cycle. All too easy a problem, it seems.
This is a situation that didn't get the analysis it needs. Sure, EA and co may have some interest in their old titles - intention to re-release or protection of a brand - but what about games released by a publisher that no longer exists? Who does the copyright belong to?
I worked on a game about seven years ago that was developed for three platforms, but only released on two. The company the game was written for has since closed down. An abandonware type group has approached me regarding getting hold of a copy of the version that was unreleased. I'm currently trying to find out who "owns" the game and whether they'd have any complaints about it being distributed like this.
This site has some more information about Acorn/RISC OS based machines in general, but also has a few screenshots of how RISC OS looks, right at the bottom of the page. RISC OS is alive and well, and can be found here.
It seems difficult to get true unbiased reviews of games these days. After all, it's in the interest of the magazine publisher to keep a good relationship with the game developer, because a) they want to sell advertising space to these people and b) they want to be invited back to see the next games. I've been in games development for several years now and I've seen reviews vary from 20% to 90%, depending on whether the journalist was taken to lunch or not. Also, in the rush to be first to cover a new game, they can create a preview with the skimpiest of factual information on the game design. That's always fun when the end result has varied considerably from the initial design.
The fault is probably equally shared between games developers and the magazines that (p)review their games. I just try to remember to these facts while reading reviews, and bear in mind that those lovely screenshots have probably been carefully selected and touched up by artists on the project. Who knows, you might really enjoy a game marked as mediocre by the reviewer because it's something that he or she personally doesn't like all that much. Best to wait and read the comments from people who have bought and played the game, on the forums and newsgroups out there.
Yep, digital or not, I'll end up going to see it. The descriptions of the results of digital filming mentioned in some of the other replies do sound rather nice, though, and I'd be interested in seeing pretty much any film in this format to see for myself.
I'd just like to be able to read/repeat the title as something other than Attack of the Clowns, but that's going to take some time...
The power supply may be an issue. I tried upgrading to a geforce card a couple of years ago and found it was just randomly hanging the machine after a short time. I ended up exchanging it for a somewhat cheaper voodoo3, but since been told that the problems may have been due to the power supply being unable to handle the extra load. Might be BS - I'm not well up on the hardware side - but it sounds feasible. The power supply and case were the only parts that hadn't been changed in the 5 years I've had the computer.
That's a good question. It's a little annoying that issues like this that affect most of the world are handled by just one country. Maybe the EU can do something, other than worrying about how curved bananas are, and clamping down on the heinous crime of selling said bananas by the pound.
Today we have proven our technological, economic and military superiority, NASA no longer has those other more urgent tasks
A few months ago, over morning coffee, we decided that the British should get a mission together to go to the moon, nick the US flag and replace it with a Union Jack. No rock collecting, buggy driving, or any of that nonsense. That should get the whole space thing going again.
However, judging by the trouble I had getting to Manchester by train the other night, I doubt we'll be getting to the moon anytime soon. *Sigh*
You've just reminded me of a recent episode at a watch repair shop. I'd gone in for a new strap, and the guy behind the counter was serving a couple of older teenage lads, who were probably about 16/17 years old. He was explaining to them how a watch they'd brought in worked. They hadn't a clue about what the spring/winding mechanism was and seemed amazed that it didn't need batteries, and that yes, it would stop if it wasn't wound regularly by turning the little knob on the side...
Maybe it's just me, but I thought this was common knowledge. Then again, I had a wind-up watch and lego when I was little, not a digital watch with a built in camera and infra-red comms. Ho hum. Suddenly, I'm feeling very old.:(
You know this sounds sooo familiar...
on
Mob Software
·
· Score: 1
Something about an infinite number of monkeys and typewriters.
Slashdot Mirror
As winner of the "longest amount of overtime worked on wacky feature, removed two days after completion when the designer decided he doesn't want it after all" award, I'd like to say hello to my wife, family and dog who are all but a faint memory, and would like to know if I can use the MTV showers.
Either that, or engineers are required to enter valid credit card details before submitting new location/orientation parameters. I'm sure NASA are on the look-out for new sources of funding.
No, "dog" is also correct - stands for "Digitally Originated Graphics". There are several campaigns running to try to persuade broadcasters to remove them for reasons such as burned TV screens and aesthetic damage to programmes and films infected with them. See here and here for more info.
It's not often you hear of successful action against a spammer. I'm curious, though.. were the Virginia laws applicable because that's where the companies involved in the email were located, or is that where you were when you received the email?
For any lawyer types... are junk emails subject to laws in the location they're sent from, the location of the company responsible for sending them, the location the email is received, or all of the above?
Fair point... I hope their next project is to reverse the process, turning fourteen carrier bags into an apple pie. That could help solve a few of the world's problems.
Oi! That's three words!
That's one of my gripes about RISC OS - the moment you realise you've dragged your save icon, and realised the place you want to put it isn't visible. Another is having to uncover the title bar of a window in order to bring it to the front - I don't know if this has been modified in later versions!
Anyway, seeing as most of us are blessed with two hands, why not have a secondary mouse interface? While we've picked up and dragged the save icon with one hand, we could be moving windows around to find a destination for the file with the other hand. After all these years, I'm still playing around in these desktop metaphors with one hand tied behind my back.
I can only dream of having the amount of spare time these folks seem to have. Sod this programming lark, I'm becoming a maths professor.
Ah.. good idea!
It's all a bit academic now, though. It seems that instead of a new PC, I'll be getting a redundancy package instead. Life's a bitch sometimes.
When the MIS guys came and upgraded me from win98 to win2k a couple of years ago, I'm guessing the installation was botched, because I'm unable to run the defrag program. After two years of heavy software development on this machine, I can confirm that it really, really, really needs defragging.
Cross your fingers, they reckon I'm getting a new PC today...
From the article : "Surprisingly, with all the money and time spent in the quest for a road map of the celestial past, "most of the pictures have never been looked at," Stoughton said. Stoughton said that because of the immense amount of information seeing any part of it would take a lifetime"
What they need is SETI-like distributed software than farms the pictures out to us to look at, and we'd get through them in a week or two. Or stick them all on a website - www.AmIAMinorAstronomicalAnomaly.com - with user rankings. Job done.
Heh.. if it is that kind of marine, you'll be wanting one of these JEDI gadgets - Yahoo news article.
"To test quite how much the gadget can take, the Army had a game of football using a JEDI as the ball - and it worked just fine afterwards."
Fear not, although it's WinCE based, it can be rebooted in 12 seconds. Possibly the longest 12 seconds of your life if you're stuck in some remote warzone, I'd imagine, but there you go.
Picking out a few of the top-rated comments is a start, because initially that's what I do anyway, and I imagine the same goes for many other /. readers. I scan through, looking for the highest rated comments, in the hope that generally they'll answer the question being asked or provide additional important information to the story. If I've got time to spend reading, or am particularly interested in the subject, then I'll read through the rest of the comments.
Ideally, when a story has attracted a sufficient number of replies, a digest/summary could be written by one of the editors, referring to the more interesting points or arguments raised by posters, with links to those threads. Add links to further news urls or resources that have submitted. I know this is a lot of extra work for somebody, but it's the type of thing I'd be happy to pay a subscription for.
Having read through the irc log, I went to have a look at alterslash.org, and I liked it. While the legality of the site may be questionable, I was surprised at the reaction from Taco&Co. The shouting about copyright and legal issues reminded me of the knee jerk reactions more typically displayed by the likes of the RIAA and MPAA, so often berated on this site. Instead, it should provide a clue that this is how some people may want to access the stories on slashdot.
I agree with the parent post, that this digest functionality should be included into the slashdot site, rather than just being lost if/when the lawyers come knocking on the door at alterslash.
One of the programmers here was taking a few days off work. He had a few bits and bobs on his work machine that he wanted to transfer to his home PC. Instead of searching around for floppy disks, he bundled the stuff up in a zip file and emailed it to his home account as an attachment that was a few megabytes in size. In case anything important came up while he was away, he set up his work email program to automatically forward mail to his home account. Maybe you've already guessed what happened. Moments after he left, the zip file he sent made its way to his home account, where it was bounced by his isp because his mailbox was already too full. The mail was returned to his work email inbox, attachments and all, and the auto-forward promptly kicked it straight back out. This cycle continued for some time until our network admin guy had to come in and investigate why the mail server was having a fit. He removed several gigabytes of duplicated mail while breaking the cycle. All too easy a problem, it seems.
This is a situation that didn't get the analysis it needs. Sure, EA and co may have some interest in their old titles - intention to re-release or protection of a brand - but what about games released by a publisher that no longer exists? Who does the copyright belong to?
I worked on a game about seven years ago that was developed for three platforms, but only released on two. The company the game was written for has since closed down. An abandonware type group has approached me regarding getting hold of a copy of the version that was unreleased. I'm currently trying to find out who "owns" the game and whether they'd have any complaints about it being distributed like this.
To my delight, I've found an alternative place to buy these gizmos, avoiding the super-inflated auction prices.
See here.
This site has some more information about Acorn/RISC OS based machines in general, but also has a few screenshots of how RISC OS looks, right at the bottom of the page. RISC OS is alive and well, and can be found here.
It seems difficult to get true unbiased reviews of games these days. After all, it's in the interest of the magazine publisher to keep a good relationship with the game developer, because a) they want to sell advertising space to these people and b) they want to be invited back to see the next games. I've been in games development for several years now and I've seen reviews vary from 20% to 90%, depending on whether the journalist was taken to lunch or not. Also, in the rush to be first to cover a new game, they can create a preview with the skimpiest of factual information on the game design. That's always fun when the end result has varied considerably from the initial design.
The fault is probably equally shared between games developers and the magazines that (p)review their games. I just try to remember to these facts while reading reviews, and bear in mind that those lovely screenshots have probably been carefully selected and touched up by artists on the project. Who knows, you might really enjoy a game marked as mediocre by the reviewer because it's something that he or she personally doesn't like all that much. Best to wait and read the comments from people who have bought and played the game, on the forums and newsgroups out there.
Yep, digital or not, I'll end up going to see it. The descriptions of the results of digital filming mentioned in some of the other replies do sound rather nice, though, and I'd be interested in seeing pretty much any film in this format to see for myself.
I'd just like to be able to read/repeat the title as something other than Attack of the Clowns, but that's going to take some time...
The power supply may be an issue. I tried upgrading to a geforce card a couple of years ago and found it was just randomly hanging the machine after a short time. I ended up exchanging it for a somewhat cheaper voodoo3, but since been told that the problems may have been due to the power supply being unable to handle the extra load. Might be BS - I'm not well up on the hardware side - but it sounds feasible. The power supply and case were the only parts that hadn't been changed in the 5 years I've had the computer.
That's a good question. It's a little annoying that issues like this that affect most of the world are handled by just one country. Maybe the EU can do something, other than worrying about how curved bananas are, and clamping down on the heinous crime of selling said bananas by the pound.
Or maybe not.
Today we have proven our technological, economic and military superiority, NASA no longer has those other more urgent tasks
A few months ago, over morning coffee, we decided that the British should get a mission together to go to the moon, nick the US flag and replace it with a Union Jack. No rock collecting, buggy driving, or any of that nonsense. That should get the whole space thing going again.
However, judging by the trouble I had getting to Manchester by train the other night, I doubt we'll be getting to the moon anytime soon. *Sigh*
You've just reminded me of a recent episode at a watch repair shop. I'd gone in for a new strap, and the guy behind the counter was serving a couple of older teenage lads, who were probably about 16/17 years old. He was explaining to them how a watch they'd brought in worked. They hadn't a clue about what the spring/winding mechanism was and seemed amazed that it didn't need batteries, and that yes, it would stop if it wasn't wound regularly by turning the little knob on the side...
:(
Maybe it's just me, but I thought this was common knowledge. Then again, I had a wind-up watch and lego when I was little, not a digital watch with a built in camera and infra-red comms. Ho hum. Suddenly, I'm feeling very old.
Something about an infinite number of monkeys and typewriters.