Back in '74 I was nine years old. My dad had just recently finished adding a new bedroom to our house in Fremont, CA. It was to be my mom's sewing room. My grandfather, a guy who knew his way around building electronic things, put together a Heathkit speaker phone. (Pretty neat piece of hardware actually). Figured my mom could use it while sewing.
A few weeks after the room was finished, I was in there checking things out. The phone range. Picked up. A very threatening guy was on the phone asking me questions like: "Is there an unauthorized phone connected to your house? It appears that there is..." I answered "no there isn't" - since, even at 9 years old, I knew your weren't supposed to install non-sanctioned phones. More questions followed, including threats of discontinued service. I let my parents know. They said not to worry. But I do know there were more calls from the phone company, and a visit. The cool Heathkit phone vanished from the house and I never saw it again. It was preplaced with a Princess phone...
Deregulation certainly stopped this sort of activity! Interesting story at least...
Come on? You are making some assumptions: 1) I've never had a PSX so never had a reason to learn/read about the "commandment". 2) I haven't hung around usenet (or game forums) for years now - which is where, presumably, this commandment would have become solidified. 3) When you're 35+, married, with kids, one typically doesn't have a lot of hard-core gaming friends who would share this information with you. 4) I did due-diligence and searched for information on usenet and the web via Google - and didn't turn up any information, IIRC.
So, I appreciate the warning - but it does not excuse a company from releasing a product with untested software, and non-responsive customer support.
As a very pissed off owner of a "Datel Max Memory" card, I'd suggest everyone be wary of this company's "unapproved" products.
I went a few months using their required software to copy games from my card to their 16MB card and had no problems. Then I made a mistake, instead of using the software's "copy" function, I used the "move" function to transfer multiple saves instead. Well, "move" actually worked - it moved the saves I selected to their card. But it also completely corrupted the card I was moving from! I lost every game save I had in progress - hundreds of hours of effort - amongst them: Jak II, GTA:VC, THUG, and, most hurtful, Midnight Club II at 100%!!!
I left multiple, very polite, voice messages with Datel customer service asking for help with this problem. They never returned a call. I eventually got through by contacting their main office number and asking to be transferred.
There was nothing they could do to help me - and here's what really PISSED me off: She said that they don't suggest moving multiple saves at once. Of course, this is a feature proudly touted in the documentation and presented in the interface. She essentially acknowledged that the software they supply is broken and will corrupt cards.
Datel customers beware. They ship shoddy software, and their customer service is non-responsive.
As an aside, this product has nearly destroyed my passion for playing games. As a guy with a full time job, a great wife, and two way cool little boys to raise, I simply do not have the time to replay these games. Just thinking about the loss of effort depresses me and has made me question gaming as a priority in my life. I hope I'll get over it...
I wouldn't really read it that way. I would say rather that the people outside the US are no longer seeing the US as the only place to be to get science done.
And, furthermore, people inside the US are no longer seeing the US as the only place to be to get science done.
This is good for the world as a whole, but certainly isn't good for the US.
But the price of an ALBUM hasn't gone down - it has only gone up, adjusted for inflation.
The baseline price for an album, for me, is the typical 1985 cost of a vinyl LP - which was around $7.50 to $8.50 at the time. (Unless, of course, you went to Record Factory in the mall to buy your Peter Gabriel album for $9.50.) Many newly pressed re-released albums were much less.
The very cheapest of newly released CDs approach this inflation-adjusted price range ($12.99) - but, that's a lost leader price for sharp shoppers only. MSRP for much music is more often $18.99. This is the equivalent of a $11.50 vinyl album in 85. And, to me, that is WAY to much vs. my personal baseline to rationalize.
Face it, the record industry made a killing, when they switched the population over to CD. They still haven't reached the (again, inflation adjusted) low prices offered for albums in the early 80s.
The movie will center on the origins of the game's female protagonist, sexy bounty hunter Samus Aran
It'll be like Tarzan, but in space. And instead of apes, we'll have Chozo aliens. And instead of swinging by vines, we'll have a grappling beam. Imagine the laughs as Samus swings, full body, into a tree, er, metal column.
Region encoding is useful only for logistically lazy businesses and serves to hide underlying business problems.
The profits for the game sales go to Shoten, not EC, because the gamers -- having already played CoolGame and owning the import -- are not inclined to buy the US release. EC is unhappy.
EC has a simple non-technical way of dealing with their revenue stream problem: Minimize the delay between the initial release and the US release. Really, that's all they need to do.
Delays due to contract/localization should be phrased as business problems that need to be addressed. Get the distribution contract in place BEFORE the initial release. Have a localization team and hand-off plan in place at the time of initial release.
Is it too expensive to do so? Who knows? In any event, no whining is allowed if your 'potential' customer imports your product before you're ready to ship. You had a chance to get it to them in a timely manner, and clearly decided it wasn't worth it.
they were never a priority since they are easily handled in code.
They are (and should be) easily handled by the database server. They are a pain in the ass to deal with on the client-side.
Granted, subselects save on network traffic
Yes - that's one consideration. Consider, also, the clarity of the syntax vs. a script.
I've had numerous tasks I could have finished with a single ANSI-92 SQL statement. However, since I've been 'stuck' with MySQL on my current project I've had to resort to tedious script-monkey excercises to do the same sort of things.
Thought there was an IP play going on...
on
Superbowling
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· Score: 1
When going through the electronic-oriented Sunday ads last weekend I noticed that televisions will now be delivered before the "big game". Or the "big event". And the players were all "generic". (Granted - that aspect isn't new.) First thing I thought was the NFL was playing the IP protection game.
If it was a fight worth fighting - I'd say that the NFL gave up many (but not all) of their rights to dictate the use of "Super Bowl" after many decades of neglect.
If you read the first article, you'll have noticed what I, at least, consider the biggest news - two levels of service from Tivo:
Both the DVR-57H and the DVR-810H offer consumers the TiVo Basic(TM) service with no monthly fee upfront. Consumers will get DVR functionality such as; pausing live TV, recording from the program guide, manual repeat recording by time and date and three days of program guide data. Consumers can upgrade their TiVo service at any time, to include features such as a fourteen-day program guide, Season Pass(TM), WishList(TM) and Search by Title.
For Tivo, this seems like a nice way of getting around the reaction many have to a monthly (or lifetime) subscription. On the other hand, for a person who knows Tivo, Season Pass(TM)is the feature that makes the Tivo software worthwhile.
Does anyone else get slightly, mmmmm, offended when games like Asteroids are mentioned in the same group as Xevious and R-Type?
Games like R-Type are centered almost exclusively on pattern memorization against scripted events. I could almost argue that they have more in common with Dance Dance Revolution or with the maze-game genre - i.e. specifically the original Pac Man.
Asteroids is nothing like that. (Noting that the lurk strategy could be construed as a pattern.) It is firmly in a category better named as non-scripted action.
And that category, from a general consumer point-of-view, is assuredly dead.
You're didn't include or connect all of the right dots. Just making your point stronger by clarifying a few things here...
I think it boils down to the fact that networks make money on the commercials.
The money that a network takes in for commercials is based almost entirely on the potential and realized viewership of the commercial. The important metric you're looking for here is ratings.
The fear from the networks is that ratings, in the U.S., don't capture viewership of time-shifted programs. And likewise, ratings don't capture space-shifted programs. Both uses are inherently lost when calculating ratings - and that's one reason the networks aren't happy with either. Until recently there wasn't anything technical that could be done to address this issue.
Ah! But now we have Tivo (et al). These devices can easily track viewership of these space and time shifted programs. And this is what causes the networks to tremble: they welcome the inclusion of these users - these viewings eventually boost their ratings as time goes on. The dilemma is that they get (for free!) to measure if a commercial is actually watched! What if the data shows that the ratings that their program earns also indicates that the commercials aren't viewed?
Ignore the folks who say "I'll watch an interesting commercial" or "I'll watch commercials to help the network". The vast majority of these users skip commercials. We know that. The networks know that. And the networks know that their whole business model will fall apart as these devices grow in popularity. They're damned either way: ignore them and eventually, as the devices become entrenched, they'll have to reflect the loss of these viewers in your ratings. If you include them, you'll have to indicate to the advertisers that their output is meaningless.
Of course, they'll be forced to try 'creative' advertising - e.g. banners, product placment, etc. - but that's a whole other rat hole.
Or they can try legislation to force viewing restrictions on consumer products. And THAT'S exactly what they are doing.
(Ob mention: then there are copyright issues too - but that's a bit different and has little to do, except indirectly, with ratings.)
The Register apparently didn't read the article closely enough on the first go around. The.pdf states just the opposite, and the current article has been corrected:
But the benchmark throws up the remarkable statistic that the Java version required 14,004 lines of code, while the.NET version featured just 2,096 (and not the other way round, as we originally stated).
1- Blind people are in no way obligated to do business with non-blind friendly corporations. I've got blind friends who will just take their business elsewhere when that happens.
So, your blind friends would be happy paying $1200 for a blind-friendly round-trip ticket vs. $200 from Southwest? I think you have blind people confused with idiots. Blind means you can't see. Idiot means you pay too much for plane tickets.
And yes - those are some prices I got a few weeks ago when searching for a last minute ticket from Oakland to San Diego.
So no, once and for all, MySQL is not a Relational Database Management System. It is a SQL-based management system.
Agree.
MySQL is an fine Database Management System, but it doesn't do the one thing that it should do well support SQL given its name. The name of the product includes SQL and it doesn't even support huge swaths of features in the 10 year old specification for the language.
I'd probably be able to deal with the disconnect better if it was called 'MyDatabase'.
Perhaps an analogy: Sort of like having 'MyJava' without the extends keyword. Or 'MyC++' without templates.
If you know SQL you KNOW what I'm talking about here.
Never mind that they were bought by Compaq, and now HP - the architecture still stands. It is one of the great - relatively unknown Silicon Valley companies.
There's some really interesting stuff architecture-wise. Linux-heads would do well to check it out.
San Francisco law enforcement has a whole different standard on follow-ups.
Some crimes just aren't cool enough to follow up on: Vigilante's ambush collars S.F. suspect North Beach tax accountant turns to stun gun after police shelve his requests for arrest in theft
Van Lokeren is upset that police at Central Station merely wrote up a report on the thefts and refused to go out and arrest Stevens. Fraud Detail inspectors wouldn't help either, he said.
"I served this guy up on a silver platter for these guys," Van Lokeren said of the police. "They are just so jaded and desensitized to crime."
A nephew, Paul Van Lokeren, assisted in the arrest and expressed dismay at the lack of police help, saying: "They are basically just report-takers. They are secretaries with guns."
Re:One clearchannel station that plays "good" musi
on
Homogenized Music
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· Score: 1
I guess what I'm saying is that individual stations have more say in their programming that it at first appears.
A single Clear Channel outlet has added a single local band to their playlist. That's not an accident.
The choice of the single band was most likely made locally, but there was most likely a directive from 'corporate' which stated something like: "Choose a popular local band/artist that meets your station's demographics. (Please keep a copy of your market surveys available as proof research has been completed - of course we trust you, but we have had problems with other outlets in the past not performing this essential step.) Add them into rotation for 3 weeks: every 3 hours at:10 or:40. For 2 weeks, every 6 hours. The artist must be dropped from your playlist after 5 weeks."
Or do what I do: Just set the printer default to 'draft' and 'black/white' printing only. The s/o can override - but in practice won't. Haven't had to replace a color cartridge in two years.
In the past - on a W2K network - I've set shared printers up to allow no overrides. Kinda overkill for home though.
A very readable article from a few years ago describing, at a high level, some of the efforts needed to become SEI 5. Use this as a benchmark to measure your software endeavours - and when looking at books describing the fragility of software.
Slashdot Mirror
Back in '74 I was nine years old. My dad had just recently finished adding a new bedroom to our house in Fremont, CA. It was to be my mom's sewing room. My grandfather, a guy who knew his way around building electronic things, put together a Heathkit speaker phone. (Pretty neat piece of hardware actually). Figured my mom could use it while sewing.
A few weeks after the room was finished, I was in there checking things out. The phone range. Picked up. A very threatening guy was on the phone asking me questions like: "Is there an unauthorized phone connected to your house? It appears that there is..." I answered "no there isn't" - since, even at 9 years old, I knew your weren't supposed to install non-sanctioned phones. More questions followed, including threats of discontinued service. I let my parents know. They said not to worry. But I do know there were more calls from the phone company, and a visit. The cool Heathkit phone vanished from the house and I never saw it again. It was preplaced with a Princess phone...
Deregulation certainly stopped this sort of activity! Interesting story at least...
Come on? You are making some assumptions: 1) I've never had a PSX so never had a reason to learn/read about the "commandment". 2) I haven't hung around usenet (or game forums) for years now - which is where, presumably, this commandment would have become solidified. 3) When you're 35+, married, with kids, one typically doesn't have a lot of hard-core gaming friends who would share this information with you. 4) I did due-diligence and searched for information on usenet and the web via Google - and didn't turn up any information, IIRC.
So, I appreciate the warning - but it does not excuse a company from releasing a product with untested software, and non-responsive customer support.
As a very pissed off owner of a "Datel Max Memory" card, I'd suggest everyone be wary of this company's "unapproved" products.
I went a few months using their required software to copy games from my card to their 16MB card and had no problems. Then I made a mistake, instead of using the software's "copy" function, I used the "move" function to transfer multiple saves instead. Well, "move" actually worked - it moved the saves I selected to their card. But it also completely corrupted the card I was moving from! I lost every game save I had in progress - hundreds of hours of effort - amongst them: Jak II, GTA:VC, THUG, and, most hurtful, Midnight Club II at 100%!!!
I left multiple, very polite, voice messages with Datel customer service asking for help with this problem. They never returned a call. I eventually got through by contacting their main office number and asking to be transferred.
There was nothing they could do to help me - and here's what really PISSED me off: She said that they don't suggest moving multiple saves at once. Of course, this is a feature proudly touted in the documentation and presented in the interface. She essentially acknowledged that the software they supply is broken and will corrupt cards.
Datel customers beware. They ship shoddy software, and their customer service is non-responsive.
As an aside, this product has nearly destroyed my passion for playing games. As a guy with a full time job, a great wife, and two way cool little boys to raise, I simply do not have the time to replay these games. Just thinking about the loss of effort depresses me and has made me question gaming as a priority in my life. I hope I'll get over it...
I wouldn't really read it that way. I would say rather that the people outside the US are no longer seeing the US as the only place to be to get science done.
And, furthermore, people inside the US are no longer seeing the US as the only place to be to get science done.
This is good for the world as a whole, but certainly isn't good for the US.
But the price of an ALBUM hasn't gone down - it has only gone up, adjusted for inflation.
The baseline price for an album, for me, is the typical 1985 cost of a vinyl LP - which was around $7.50 to $8.50 at the time. (Unless, of course, you went to Record Factory in the mall to buy your Peter Gabriel album for $9.50.) Many newly pressed re-released albums were much less.
The very cheapest of newly released CDs approach this inflation-adjusted price range ($12.99) - but, that's a lost leader price for sharp shoppers only. MSRP for much music is more often $18.99. This is the equivalent of a $11.50 vinyl album in 85. And, to me, that is WAY to much vs. my personal baseline to rationalize.
Face it, the record industry made a killing, when they switched the population over to CD. They still haven't reached the (again, inflation adjusted) low prices offered for albums in the early 80s.
The movie will center on the origins of the game's female protagonist, sexy bounty hunter Samus Aran
It'll be like Tarzan, but in space. And instead of apes, we'll have Chozo aliens. And instead of swinging by vines, we'll have a grappling beam. Imagine the laughs as Samus swings, full body, into a tree, er, metal column.
Region encoding is useful only for logistically lazy businesses and serves to hide underlying business problems.
EC has a simple non-technical way of dealing with their revenue stream problem: Minimize the delay between the initial release and the US release. Really, that's all they need to do.
Delays due to contract/localization should be phrased as business problems that need to be addressed. Get the distribution contract in place BEFORE the initial release. Have a localization team and hand-off plan in place at the time of initial release.
Is it too expensive to do so? Who knows? In any event, no whining is allowed if your 'potential' customer imports your product before you're ready to ship. You had a chance to get it to them in a timely manner, and clearly decided it wasn't worth it.
They are (and should be) easily handled by the database server. They are a pain in the ass to deal with on the client-side.
Yes - that's one consideration. Consider, also, the clarity of the syntax vs. a script.
I've had numerous tasks I could have finished with a single ANSI-92 SQL statement. However, since I've been 'stuck' with MySQL on my current project I've had to resort to tedious script-monkey excercises to do the same sort of things.
When going through the electronic-oriented Sunday ads last weekend I noticed that televisions will now be delivered before the "big game". Or the "big event". And the players were all "generic". (Granted - that aspect isn't new.) First thing I thought was the NFL was playing the IP protection game.
If it was a fight worth fighting - I'd say that the NFL gave up many (but not all) of their rights to dictate the use of "Super Bowl" after many decades of neglect.
Yeah - administration costs.
was...
select artist, address, balance from account
where balance > 50;
now...
select artist, address, balance from account
where balance > 25;
should be...
select artist, address, balance from account
where balance > (select cost from actual_rates where task='cutcheck');
For Tivo, this seems like a nice way of getting around the reaction many have to a monthly (or lifetime) subscription. On the other hand, for a person who knows Tivo, Season Pass(TM) is the feature that makes the Tivo software worthwhile.
Does anyone else get slightly, mmmmm, offended when games like Asteroids are mentioned in the same group as Xevious and R-Type?
Games like R-Type are centered almost exclusively on pattern memorization against scripted events. I could almost argue that they have more in common with Dance Dance Revolution or with the maze-game genre - i.e. specifically the original Pac Man.
Asteroids is nothing like that. (Noting that the lurk strategy could be construed as a pattern.) It is firmly in a category better named as non-scripted action.
And that category, from a general consumer point-of-view, is assuredly dead.
The money that a network takes in for commercials is based almost entirely on the potential and realized viewership of the commercial. The important metric you're looking for here is ratings.
The fear from the networks is that ratings, in the U.S., don't capture viewership of time-shifted programs. And likewise, ratings don't capture space-shifted programs. Both uses are inherently lost when calculating ratings - and that's one reason the networks aren't happy with either. Until recently there wasn't anything technical that could be done to address this issue.
Ah! But now we have Tivo (et al). These devices can easily track viewership of these space and time shifted programs. And this is what causes the networks to tremble: they welcome the inclusion of these users - these viewings eventually boost their ratings as time goes on. The dilemma is that they get (for free!) to measure if a commercial is actually watched! What if the data shows that the ratings that their program earns also indicates that the commercials aren't viewed?
Ignore the folks who say "I'll watch an interesting commercial" or "I'll watch commercials to help the network". The vast majority of these users skip commercials. We know that. The networks know that. And the networks know that their whole business model will fall apart as these devices grow in popularity. They're damned either way: ignore them and eventually, as the devices become entrenched, they'll have to reflect the loss of these viewers in your ratings. If you include them, you'll have to indicate to the advertisers that their output is meaningless.
Of course, they'll be forced to try 'creative' advertising - e.g. banners, product placment, etc. - but that's a whole other rat hole.
Or they can try legislation to force viewing restrictions on consumer products. And THAT'S exactly what they are doing.
(Ob mention: then there are copyright issues too - but that's a bit different and has little to do, except indirectly, with ratings.)
FYI: The monthly DirecTivo subscription price has beeen lowered to ~$4.95. Free if you subscribe to Total Choice Premier.
Doesn't work that way for a stand-alone unit, though.
So, your blind friends would be happy paying $1200 for a blind-friendly round-trip ticket vs. $200 from Southwest? I think you have blind people confused with idiots. Blind means you can't see. Idiot means you pay too much for plane tickets.
And yes - those are some prices I got a few weeks ago when searching for a last minute ticket from Oakland to San Diego.
Actually, you aren't dancing. You're playing Simon with your feet.
(It's a joke, son.)
Agree.
MySQL is an fine Database Management System, but it doesn't do the one thing that it should do well support SQL given its name. The name of the product includes SQL and it doesn't even support huge swaths of features in the 10 year old specification for the language.
I'd probably be able to deal with the disconnect better if it was called 'MyDatabase'.
Perhaps an analogy: Sort of like having 'MyJava' without the extends keyword. Or 'MyC++' without templates.
If you know SQL you KNOW what I'm talking about here.
Subject is more of a marketing line than anything, but Tandem systems come much closer to 100% availability than anything else that I'm familiar with.
Check this for more info, and this.
Never mind that they were bought by Compaq, and now HP - the architecture still stands. It is one of the great - relatively unknown Silicon Valley companies.
There's some really interesting stuff architecture-wise. Linux-heads would do well to check it out.
And then, one day, you'll have a wife and a couple of kids and then you'll really understand.
It is as simple as switching your phone to vibrate, watching the movie, and not worrying as much if something is going to go wrong.
Believe me. I know.
Some crimes just aren't cool enough to follow up on:
Vigilante's ambush collars S.F. suspect
North Beach tax accountant turns to stun gun after police shelve his requests for arrest in theft
A single Clear Channel outlet has added a single local band to their playlist. That's not an accident.
The choice of the single band was most likely made locally, but there was most likely a directive from 'corporate' which stated something like: "Choose a popular local band/artist that meets your station's demographics. (Please keep a copy of your market surveys available as proof research has been completed - of course we trust you, but we have had problems with other outlets in the past not performing this essential step.) Add them into rotation for 3 weeks: every 3 hours at :10 or :40. For 2 weeks, every 6 hours. The artist must be dropped from your playlist after 5 weeks."
Or do what I do: Just set the printer default to 'draft' and 'black/white' printing only. The s/o can override - but in practice won't. Haven't had to replace a color cartridge in two years.
In the past - on a W2K network - I've set shared printers up to allow no overrides. Kinda overkill for home though.
First: Turn console switch ON... and LEAVE EVERYTHING ALONE.
Please refer to this for additional instruction.
And I can not repeat this enough: Watch out for the grid bugs!
But you have to pay in time and money.
Read They Write the Right Stuff
A very readable article from a few years ago describing, at a high level, some of the efforts needed to become SEI 5. Use this as a benchmark to measure your software endeavours - and when looking at books describing the fragility of software.