Do you have a separate refrigerator and freezer? Or a single device?
Both actually. I have a refrigerator with a freezer, as well as a separate freezer that does the job right. (the combined one is too small and certain items don't fit well, such as frozen pizzas)
And in case you were wondering, I don't carry either of them with me.
If you had something along the lines of the motorola razor that had 80 gigs of storage for music playback etc... with a nice screen, good interface, WiFi, and all the amenities of a good multimedia phone, wouldn't you hop on it?
Simple answer, no.
Could they make it the size of my samsung e105 that is always in my shirt pocket? Ever had to go someplace that posted 'No cameras allowed'? Have you ever dropped your phone?
I might accept a flash based mp3 on my phone, if it didn't increase the size too much or drain the battery quickly. But you don't get something for nothing, and I'm quite happy with my current phone, separate PDA (that I rarely use), good quality digital camera, and flash based MP3 player.
Sure you don't want them to add a thumb drive to your phone too? Should do wonders for gadget obsolescence.
There are those of us who bought a mini 3 months ago and don't think that forking out 25% of the original system price for 10.4 is reasonable.
I hear that. There are also several annoyances with OS X that are getting to me (apps should exit when you hit the x), so it's nice to know that if they push me over the edge I have an alternative. And is it really necessary to make us agree to their EULA every time a security update is installed? It's starting to feel like WoW in that regard.
Well, it's not like I'm clueless about RFID, I heard about them long before the gov't found their new toy, or even Walmart. I do warehouse automation for a living.
BTW, your analogy sucks, it's backwards. More appropriately, making an RFID that can't be defeated is like making an un-piratable CD. As long as there are people willing to attack the technology, it will be broken.
They aren't flying or applying for government services, generally. They won't need this new ID.
The problem isn't a national ID so much as a RFID national ID. I'll identify myself when required, but I don't want any stranger on the street to be able to scan my ID.
Actually, all Democratic senators and representatives do these days is read Slashdot.
Maybe that's a good idea for them. Instead of standing up there reading a phone book, they could pick a slashdot article and read all the comments. They might even learn a thing or two in the process.
Considering that Texas is considering RFID tags on all license places, and yes, police would scan them automatically for criminals in the like, I'd say the "trcaking system" infrastructure is already being put in place.
I think they are going to find that the technology is going to be more trouble than it is worth. Someone already posted a link to a device that destroys the RFID. The first thing I thought was what happens the first time someone sticks that device in their coat and walks through the airport? The first few times, chaos.
An airport would have risks of getting caught, but if they put these on license plates, who is going to monitor all those mall parking lots?
The current XML-based help system might be better, but I'm too depressed by all things Delphi to check it out.
I have no idea where Delphi goes now. I've used every version up to 7, but took one look at Delphi 2005 and couldn't stand it. I love the Borland IDE, probably because I've been using it so long, and with D2005 and CBuilderX they took everything that made their IDE easy to use and threw it away.
Kylix is on my OS wish list. Then someone could rip out the old QT stuff and either update it or replace it with wxWidgets. I can continue to use D7 until I no longer use windows tools. I recently looked at QT Designer, and it felt lacking in comparison to C++Builder(also dead). Downloaded their spiffy demo only to find that the windows demo version isn't even compatible with the last version of BCC. It's not like they've been cranking out new releases. And on another rant, I don't understand the C++ resistance to properties. The world didn't end with C++Builder added them.... oh well.
I've used it with TS and X, and it works pretty good. The fit and finish on the hardware is excellent. It boots linux and has an interface that is really familiar to Windows users. (start button, status bar, icons on the desktop for various server connections)
I bought the first one to demo to clients, but I think I'll get a couple LCDs and put one in the living room and another in the kitchen.
Why not new equipment? I recently purchased a brand new thin client (rdesktop, xterm) for $150. It includes keyboard and mouse and NO moving parts. I figure the useful life will be in the 7-10 year range. Connect that to a Linux server using X or a Windows box with Terminal circus.
It gives the same end result without messing with exotic hardware and configurations, and you only have to be as close as your nearest ethernet port.
Thin clients didn't fail. They just became temporarily obsolete because the servers failed to keep pace with business requirements. Mainframe terminals barely got color before PCs rolled over them. But now, for business purposes a thin client will work perfectly for 90% of the users. With Terminal Services, managers are re-evaluating centralized asset management. Patches, viruses, and data theft are becoming costly.
Recent news story as an example: two computers stolen that had data for thousands of customers.
With PCs - A couple thousand to replace the PCs. Tens of thousands to contact customers. Security Audits. Possible additional government oversight in the future. And a black mark on your reputation.
With thin clients - $500. And more importantly, and non-story.
One thing I don't agree with is using 'thin clients' as a means to continue using old hardware. Thin client hardware is just so cheap ($150), and old PCs can have so many different problems. If you have a tight budget, reuse your old monitor. I prefer to put a shiney new terminal with a 17" LCD on a users desk.
That way the users are happy about getting something new, as opposed to something that was 'trickled down' from someone higher in the company. Maintenance is nearly non-existant. And the power savings alone will probably pay for it in a year or two.
Even without thin clients you have mission critical servers. Network authentication, file shares, SQL server. If you're running in a windows environment, you probably have servers configured for specific functions, because they tend to fall over from time to time. That has plusses and minuses. You can't afford to have 100 redundant servers, but if one fails you only loose one critical component. Rather than trying to have seemless backups, you buy good support contracts and use similar equipment for all your servers so you can pull and reconfigure a test box to run production.
Someone mentioned 100 terminals and a $125k server. Please, try some realistic numbers. 2-3 small Netfinities at a total cost of $10-15k should support 100 terminals in most businesses.
Oddly enough, yesterday I stumbled across an old Alpha Centauri CD that I bought a while back since I had never played it. And about 1am this morning I was thinking; damn, I should have been playing WoW, 'cause then I would have been in bed on time. It's amazing how '1 more turn' can cause such sleep deprivation.
Maybe Apple should be sending referral fees to Blizzard. I use mine with WoW as well. Now that they turned off the shaders, at least all the plants are rendering correctly. The Mac client seems to have more bugs than the Intel client, if that is possible. It seems to render more clearly though.
I got the slower model and swapped the RAM with a 512m I had in another system. WoW was unplayable with 256m, but does pretty good with 512.
An interesting bit of trivia, the mini uses less power than my Intel 2g Celeron laptop. Of course, that excludes the video. But I didn't expect a desktop to be so miserly.
I've only run into a couple annoyances. Mapping a printer has been a challenge. First I hang the app trying to map. It wasn't authenticating properly and wouldn't allow me to cancel. Ended up having to kill it in the task manager. And now that it's mapped it doesn't print correctly. I'm going to have to look for new drivers I think. And coming from an Intel world, I find it frustrating that all the shortcut keys I know are wrong because they use their apple key instead of the control. I use ctrl-v/ctrl-c a lot.
I'm primarily using mine for WoW and Firefox at the moment. I have the special Mac GAIM installed to and may move mail over as well, once I have time to check out their mail client or install Thunderbird.
Hmm, I bought my mini at an Apple store. Everybody else was having trouble keeping up with sales. (or just weren't buying very many) There was at least 2 on display, one of each model, and they were running with nice, big LCDs. And of course, they were also surrounded by iPods. But isn't everything in an Apple store surrounded by iPods. They seem to have plenty of stock, but I saw a couple others go out the door in the 10 minutes it took to buy one.
Of course, it was the first really nice Saturday we had this year and the store was packed.
With Blizzard I could do everything I ever did with Decal. Including running bots. The difference is that Decal has a huge learning curve, you have to understand COM and shared memory space. (or be a VB weanie) With WoW, if you can do a little XML and just the basic OOP, you can write a plugin. BTW, I have written plugins for both for my own personal use.
And FWIW, the bug you mentioned in another post was the spike bug, making spikes and selling them back for a profit. After all the yelling, whining, and hand wringing, it really had no effect on the game. Particularly when they opened Verdantine long after it was fixed. Unless you were an eBayer trying to make money. Then it probably cut into your profits. On the worlds that were 'exploited', for many players (even ones that didn't 'exploit') the game got better. Players became more generous. But it's not like pyreal was scarce anyway, the loot profiles were very generous. I know I blew millions of pyreal gambling on VT trying to get gromnies for the mansion.
My concern isn't the advertisements as much as where it might lead us. First it's the guilt trips; "this website is supported by advertising, you should be clicking on the banners.", and of course, the pop-ups, pop-unders, and interstitials. The next step is "if you use your Tivo/VCR to skip commercials, or get up and go to the bathroom, change channels, you're stealing".
I don't want to see MMORPGs go the way of the Web or broadcast TV. If you can't afford to offer your service without nagging me to visit your advertisers, don't offer it.
At the alpha stage it's impossible to know what the final requirements will be. With the state of software development these days, they have no idea when the game will be released. Nothing is ever on schedule, not when people will accept 'when it's ready'. Part of the alpha will be to determine what hardware is necessary for acceptable play. And to an extent they are waiting to see what advances there will be in computers. They will aim for the average configuration being sold at the time of release. That way the developers can put all their cool features in. The more eye candy the better.
For a long time, battle.net was known for it's bugs and hacks. With Diablo I there was a bug where you could dupe anything by dropping it in a certain manner, god mode, invisibility mode. It kept me from buying Diablo II or playing D I online. It hasn't stopped me from trying WoW though.
As far as Turbine is concerned, they've had to live with Microsoft's legacy and AC2 was simply a pitiful flop. Sequels really don't make sense in MMORPGs. While you might draw in some new players, if the new game is perceived to be better than the old one, you'll just rape the user base from your existing game. Nothing like spending millions of dollars developing a new game only to have the same players. (and more support costs)
And the exploiting in AC is blown out of proportion. The difference in combat macros between AC and WoW: Blizzard supplied an approved method of hacking their UI.
Pinball is all about the feel of the game. Williams tried adding video components to their Pin2000 machines. In case you didn't know, Williams doesn't make pinballs any more.
It's all about the mechanics. (who wants to play a pinball that doesn't 'knock' when you win a game?) If they want to cut down on maintenance, use off the shelf ITX motherboards, change the bulbs to LEDs, and something like hall effect sensors for the rollovers.
I remember when Haunted House came out. It's the first one I remember with the lower playfield. Unfortunately, they had a tendancy to break a lot. Particularly the kicker from the basement. As a result, I spent a lot more time on Space Invaders. A friend of mine could consistantly hit the loop in the middle of the SI table, and we could play for hours on a quarter.
Odd, I have a Black Knight and have never had to buy special 'ferrous core' balls. Pinballs are simply polished ball bearings. I use the same balls in my BK('80), Space Invaders ('80), Hurricane('91), and Bad Girls('88).
There were a couple newer machines (90s) that used special pinballs. But otherwise, if someone is trying to sell you special 'pinballs', they think you're a sucker. Do a usenet search for 'Mirror Balls' and Pinball
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have a separate refrigerator and freezer? Or a single device?
Both actually. I have a refrigerator with a freezer, as well as a separate freezer that does the job right. (the combined one is too small and certain items don't fit well, such as frozen pizzas)
And in case you were wondering, I don't carry either of them with me.
If you had something along the lines of the motorola razor that had 80 gigs of storage for music playback etc... with a nice screen, good interface, WiFi, and all the amenities of a good multimedia phone, wouldn't you hop on it?
Simple answer, no.
Could they make it the size of my samsung e105 that is always in my shirt pocket? Ever had to go someplace that posted 'No cameras allowed'? Have you ever dropped your phone?
I might accept a flash based mp3 on my phone, if it didn't increase the size too much or drain the battery quickly. But you don't get something for nothing, and I'm quite happy with my current phone, separate PDA (that I rarely use), good quality digital camera, and flash based MP3 player.
Sure you don't want them to add a thumb drive to your phone too? Should do wonders for gadget obsolescence.
There are those of us who bought a mini 3 months ago and don't think that forking out 25% of the original system price for 10.4 is reasonable.
I hear that. There are also several annoyances with OS X that are getting to me (apps should exit when you hit the x), so it's nice to know that if they push me over the edge I have an alternative. And is it really necessary to make us agree to their EULA every time a security update is installed? It's starting to feel like WoW in that regard.
Well, it's not like I'm clueless about RFID, I heard about them long before the gov't found their new toy, or even Walmart. I do warehouse automation for a living.
BTW, your analogy sucks, it's backwards. More appropriately, making an RFID that can't be defeated is like making an un-piratable CD. As long as there are people willing to attack the technology, it will be broken.
They aren't flying or applying for government services, generally. They won't need this new ID.
The problem isn't a national ID so much as a RFID national ID. I'll identify myself when required, but I don't want any stranger on the street to be able to scan my ID.
Re: filibuster
Actually, all Democratic senators and representatives do these days is read Slashdot.
Maybe that's a good idea for them. Instead of standing up there reading a phone book, they could pick a slashdot article and read all the comments. They might even learn a thing or two in the process.
Considering that Texas is considering RFID tags on all license places, and yes, police would scan them automatically for criminals in the like, I'd say the "trcaking system" infrastructure is already being put in place.
I think they are going to find that the technology is going to be more trouble than it is worth. Someone already posted a link to a device that destroys the RFID. The first thing I thought was what happens the first time someone sticks that device in their coat and walks through the airport? The first few times, chaos.
An airport would have risks of getting caught, but if they put these on license plates, who is going to monitor all those mall parking lots?
The current XML-based help system might be better, but I'm too depressed by all things Delphi to check it out.
I have no idea where Delphi goes now. I've used every version up to 7, but took one look at Delphi 2005 and couldn't stand it. I love the Borland IDE, probably because I've been using it so long, and with D2005 and CBuilderX they took everything that made their IDE easy to use and threw it away.
Kylix is on my OS wish list. Then someone could rip out the old QT stuff and either update it or replace it with wxWidgets. I can continue to use D7 until I no longer use windows tools. I recently looked at QT Designer, and it felt lacking in comparison to C++Builder(also dead). Downloaded their spiffy demo only to find that the windows demo version isn't even compatible with the last version of BCC. It's not like they've been cranking out new releases. And on another rant, I don't understand the C++ resistance to properties. The world didn't end with C++Builder added them.... oh well.
Which model did you get, and are you happy with it?
NTAVO
I've used it with TS and X, and it works pretty good. The fit and finish on the hardware is excellent. It boots linux and has an interface that is really familiar to Windows users. (start button, status bar, icons on the desktop for various server connections)
I bought the first one to demo to clients, but I think I'll get a couple LCDs and put one in the living room and another in the kitchen.
Why not new equipment? I recently purchased a brand new thin client (rdesktop, xterm) for $150. It includes keyboard and mouse and NO moving parts. I figure the useful life will be in the 7-10 year range. Connect that to a Linux server using X or a Windows box with Terminal circus.
It gives the same end result without messing with exotic hardware and configurations, and you only have to be as close as your nearest ethernet port.
Thin clients didn't fail. They just became temporarily obsolete because the servers failed to keep pace with business requirements. Mainframe terminals barely got color before PCs rolled over them. But now, for business purposes a thin client will work perfectly for 90% of the users. With Terminal Services, managers are re-evaluating centralized asset management. Patches, viruses, and data theft are becoming costly.
Recent news story as an example: two computers stolen that had data for thousands of customers.
With PCs - A couple thousand to replace the PCs. Tens of thousands to contact customers. Security Audits. Possible additional government oversight in the future. And a black mark on your reputation.
With thin clients - $500. And more importantly, and non-story.
One thing I don't agree with is using 'thin clients' as a means to continue using old hardware. Thin client hardware is just so cheap ($150), and old PCs can have so many different problems. If you have a tight budget, reuse your old monitor. I prefer to put a shiney new terminal with a 17" LCD on a users desk.
That way the users are happy about getting something new, as opposed to something that was 'trickled down' from someone higher in the company. Maintenance is nearly non-existant. And the power savings alone will probably pay for it in a year or two.
Even without thin clients you have mission critical servers. Network authentication, file shares, SQL server. If you're running in a windows environment, you probably have servers configured for specific functions, because they tend to fall over from time to time. That has plusses and minuses. You can't afford to have 100 redundant servers, but if one fails you only loose one critical component. Rather than trying to have seemless backups, you buy good support contracts and use similar equipment for all your servers so you can pull and reconfigure a test box to run production.
Someone mentioned 100 terminals and a $125k server. Please, try some realistic numbers. 2-3 small Netfinities at a total cost of $10-15k should support 100 terminals in most businesses.
Oddly enough, yesterday I stumbled across an old Alpha Centauri CD that I bought a while back since I had never played it. And about 1am this morning I was thinking; damn, I should have been playing WoW, 'cause then I would have been in bed on time. It's amazing how '1 more turn' can cause such sleep deprivation.
Maybe Apple should be sending referral fees to Blizzard. I use mine with WoW as well. Now that they turned off the shaders, at least all the plants are rendering correctly. The Mac client seems to have more bugs than the Intel client, if that is possible. It seems to render more clearly though.
I got the slower model and swapped the RAM with a 512m I had in another system. WoW was unplayable with 256m, but does pretty good with 512.
An interesting bit of trivia, the mini uses less power than my Intel 2g Celeron laptop. Of course, that excludes the video. But I didn't expect a desktop to be so miserly.
I've only run into a couple annoyances. Mapping a printer has been a challenge. First I hang the app trying to map. It wasn't authenticating properly and wouldn't allow me to cancel. Ended up having to kill it in the task manager. And now that it's mapped it doesn't print correctly. I'm going to have to look for new drivers I think. And coming from an Intel world, I find it frustrating that all the shortcut keys I know are wrong because they use their apple key instead of the control. I use ctrl-v/ctrl-c a lot.
I'm primarily using mine for WoW and Firefox at the moment. I have the special Mac GAIM installed to and may move mail over as well, once I have time to check out their mail client or install Thunderbird.
Hmm, I bought my mini at an Apple store. Everybody else was having trouble keeping up with sales. (or just weren't buying very many) There was at least 2 on display, one of each model, and they were running with nice, big LCDs. And of course, they were also surrounded by iPods. But isn't everything in an Apple store surrounded by iPods. They seem to have plenty of stock, but I saw a couple others go out the door in the 10 minutes it took to buy one.
Of course, it was the first really nice Saturday we had this year and the store was packed.
With Blizzard I could do everything I ever did with Decal. Including running bots. The difference is that Decal has a huge learning curve, you have to understand COM and shared memory space. (or be a VB weanie) With WoW, if you can do a little XML and just the basic OOP, you can write a plugin. BTW, I have written plugins for both for my own personal use.
And FWIW, the bug you mentioned in another post was the spike bug, making spikes and selling them back for a profit. After all the yelling, whining, and hand wringing, it really had no effect on the game. Particularly when they opened Verdantine long after it was fixed. Unless you were an eBayer trying to make money. Then it probably cut into your profits. On the worlds that were 'exploited', for many players (even ones that didn't 'exploit') the game got better. Players became more generous. But it's not like pyreal was scarce anyway, the loot profiles were very generous. I know I blew millions of pyreal gambling on VT trying to get gromnies for the mansion.
Well, every game Turbine has released has been PC only. So, wanna take a guess? :-)
My concern isn't the advertisements as much as where it might lead us. First it's the guilt trips; "this website is supported by advertising, you should be clicking on the banners.", and of course, the pop-ups, pop-unders, and interstitials. The next step is "if you use your Tivo/VCR to skip commercials, or get up and go to the bathroom, change channels, you're stealing".
I don't want to see MMORPGs go the way of the Web or broadcast TV. If you can't afford to offer your service without nagging me to visit your advertisers, don't offer it.
At the alpha stage it's impossible to know what the final requirements will be. With the state of software development these days, they have no idea when the game will be released. Nothing is ever on schedule, not when people will accept 'when it's ready'. Part of the alpha will be to determine what hardware is necessary for acceptable play. And to an extent they are waiting to see what advances there will be in computers. They will aim for the average configuration being sold at the time of release. That way the developers can put all their cool features in. The more eye candy the better.
For a long time, battle.net was known for it's bugs and hacks. With Diablo I there was a bug where you could dupe anything by dropping it in a certain manner, god mode, invisibility mode. It kept me from buying Diablo II or playing D I online. It hasn't stopped me from trying WoW though.
As far as Turbine is concerned, they've had to live with Microsoft's legacy and AC2 was simply a pitiful flop. Sequels really don't make sense in MMORPGs. While you might draw in some new players, if the new game is perceived to be better than the old one, you'll just rape the user base from your existing game. Nothing like spending millions of dollars developing a new game only to have the same players. (and more support costs)
And the exploiting in AC is blown out of proportion. The difference in combat macros between AC and WoW: Blizzard supplied an approved method of hacking their UI.
I'd love to find a machine for the home, but its going to take some bizarre retro-fad thing to happen for lots of machines to be sold that way.
You can buy a new machine from a Stern dealer. Or, depending on where you live, there are auctions you can go to for older games.
Super Auctions
US Amusement Auctions
Pinball is all about the feel of the game. Williams tried adding video components to their Pin2000 machines. In case you didn't know, Williams doesn't make pinballs any more.
It's all about the mechanics. (who wants to play a pinball that doesn't 'knock' when you win a game?) If they want to cut down on maintenance, use off the shelf ITX motherboards, change the bulbs to LEDs, and something like hall effect sensors for the rollovers.
I remember when Haunted House came out. It's the first one I remember with the lower playfield. Unfortunately, they had a tendancy to break a lot. Particularly the kicker from the basement. As a result, I spent a lot more time on Space Invaders. A friend of mine could consistantly hit the loop in the middle of the SI table, and we could play for hours on a quarter.
Odd, I have a Black Knight and have never had to buy special 'ferrous core' balls. Pinballs are simply polished ball bearings. I use the same balls in my BK('80), Space Invaders ('80), Hurricane('91), and Bad Girls('88).
There were a couple newer machines (90s) that used special pinballs. But otherwise, if someone is trying to sell you special 'pinballs', they think you're a sucker. Do a usenet search for 'Mirror Balls' and Pinball