There are also things that Doom got right that have simply been lost in the genre since then.
Damn right. I'd turn the question around and ask "What the hell is it about Quake that makes people so keen on it?"
Apart from the eye candy, Quake was a step backwards from Doom in every respect. Really dumb monster AI, dull single-player levels, less puzzling puzzles.
Use some of your cash to buy a set of pre-indexed Futurama DVDs. As an added bonus, they come with commentary tracks and artwork, and are higher quality than your home recordings. You can get the complete Futurama for under $60 on 7 DVDs, instead of spending $45 on blank DVD-Rs to record your crappy TiVo copies.
Yeah, same here. I got burnt out fighting against the GATT agreement and TRIPS back in the early 90s. The UK government just didn't care, weren't interested in listening, not even to small innovative software companies who saw software patents as a bad idea.
Yes, the P205 is definitely one of the finest hand-writing implements. They last forever, too; I'm on my third in about 25 years.
My problem has been finding an ink-based equivalent of the P205, for situations where you can't write in pencil.
I used to write with a Rotring.5mm rapidograph. That was the epitome of pens, as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately, if you don't use 'em every day, they clog up with dried ink. They also respond really badly to plane trips, and tend to leak if carried around in a bag. I tried a rapidoliner. It was good, and cheaper than a rapidograph set, but suffered the same clogging and leaking problems.
I think I may have found a decent alternative, though. It's the Sanford (rotring) uni ball Gel RT. It feels almost as good as a rapidograph, the lines are nice and even, but it's practical for everyday use and cheap enough that you can keep a box of them in the office.
It's strange how the writing process is so affected by the physical aesthetics of writing implements.
To nitpick even further, it *was* actually FORTH in all caps, because the computer Chuck Moore was using only supported capital letters, and only allowed five characters in a filename.
Yeah, I'm old-school. My first computer didn't have lower case.
I don't want to be forced to fumble around with an inadequate tool, and waste time and taxpayer dollars, just for the sake of using open source software.
Democracy is horribly inefficient. Always has been, always will be. I suggest you get used to it, or move somewhere with a political system more to your liking.
As (I think) Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst possible political system, except for all the others."
We use the touch screen to answer questions. At the end of the voting session, the system prints a "vote" and electronically tabulates the results. The voter verifies that his printed vote matches what's on the tabulation screen. The voter then folds his paper vote and deposits it with election officials in a good old fashioned ballot box.
Right. The correct solution is so painfully obvious and easy to implement that I don't understand why people like Diebold don't implement it. Unless their intent really *is* to fix elections...
I think the sentence was written by a FORTH programmer. You have to read it from the end to the beginning. Here it is turned around into a series of sentences you can read forwards:
"Senators Harradine and Alston [claimed] that the EFA sought information concerning outlawed material in order to promote the offshore hosting of illegal porn, among other wild and specious allegations."
"[T]he Electronic Frontiers Australia association [denied the] claims by Senators Harradine and Alston."
"[T]he Australian Parliament has accepted [the] statement by the Electronic Frontiers Australia association."
"The Register is reporting that the Australian Parliament has accepted [the] statement."
I really don't think people want to reboot every time they want to play a game.
I think they would, if it meant not having to deal with games hosing their OS installation, or being incompatible with their other installed software, and so on.
Yeah, there are just so many benefits to waiting a year or more before playing any new game:
- You get it for half the price.
- The bugs have been worked out.
- There are abundant cheats and tips available for free on the web if you need them.
- You save a ton of money on hardware upgrades.
I just started playing Diablo II a couple of months ago... I remember the anguish when it came out, the bleeding-edge hardware requirements. Well, now it runs on a dirt-cheap laptop. Ha!
Or, if you want to be playing the latest games that everyone else is, get a PlayStation 2.
Once China has a huge economy, capitalist, communist or otherwise, if the wealth is not spread a bit more than now (which has gotten better than ten years ago), the people just might wise up.
I've never owned any kind of Nintendo system before, but I bought a GBA-SP. It's great. It has enough power for (e.g.) "Golden Sun", which is comparable to "Final Fantasy VII", yet I can carry it in a shirt pocket and play anywhere, even outside in the warm sunshine. (Sunlight and gaming! Together at last!) Battery life is plenty long enough, and there are slimline add-on battery packs available too.
So "Jak and Daxter", "Ratchet and Clank" and "Sly Cooper" are all implemented in Lisp? I'm impressed, as they're easily the best 3D platform games available for PlayStation 2. In particular, Jak and Daxter's total lack of between-level loading screens is a beautiful piece of work.
1. Java has been hyped. Undeniably. LISP has not been hyped--it has been advocated by individuals. There's an important difference. When I see multi-million-dollar ad campaigns telling me how great Common LISP is, you'll have a point here.
2. Graham's wrong here, but his argument makes sense coming from a non-programmer's perspective. In fact, Java has managed to get millions of programmers using proper exception handling and automatic memory management--two major revolutions that should have happened decades ago, but no other language or technology managed to make it happen (outside of narrow contexts like the LISP community, of course). That was a high aim. It's just not something a non-programmer would notice when comparing C and Java code.
3. Ulterior motives are generally a problem because compromises are introduced, and resources redirected, to serve the hidden agenda. Unfortunately, a lot of Java APIs have the feel of something thrown together in a real hurry to counter something Microsoft announced. Plenty of Java APIs are such a botch in their 1.0 incarnations that they get completely abandoned and replaced with a ground-up respecification in 2.0. Even core classes turn out to be fundamentally flawed, and are replaced. Sorry, Vector sucked, we're using ArrayList this month. SAX 1.0 was a mistake, rewrite your code for SAX 2.0. Hashtable didn't work out, we've got something new called HashMap.
4. Sure, people who used to have to use C++ love Java. And people who had to use MS-DOS loved Windows when that was introduced.
5. Maybe you're using Java for the sheer love of it. I'm using it because it seems to be the only viable career path for me right now that doesn't involve whoring myself out to Bill Gates.
6. Java APIs well thought out? Ha! See #3 above. Then look at EJB, where you can't even run the same code on a different container on the same machine! And I just love having no unsigned integers and no integer overflow exceptions.
7. See #3 and #6. Then try using Java to generate the current date & time in the current time zone in RFC2822 format, something which damn well ought to be a one-liner in any Internet programming language.
8. Fact is, Java is just as rigidly controlled as.NET, and Sun are just as ruthless about extracting value--read up on the JBoss/Sun issues, or the similar arguments between IBM and Sun over J2EE. Yet for some reason, Java gets used by programmers who would never consider.NET.
9. I'm an atypical programmer: I want my code to be fast, compact and bug-free, and I feel ashamed when it isn't. However, I'm aware that I'm very unusual in this regard, and I think that in general, Paul Graham is right--Java isn't aimed at solo hackers. Of course, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
10. Yeah, this is kind of a weak argument. I could write off countless technologies on the grounds that 'dozers and.NET programmers like them... like Web Services for starters.
11. Plenty of people in the Java community who like the language are nevertheless concerned about what might happen to the language if Sun gets into serious difficulties.
I avoided Java for a long time, precisely because of the stink Paul Graham identifies. When I eventually started using it, I discovered that it did have some advantages. Yes, it's often painful and tedious compared to Perl, and there are a few really boneheaded aspects to it, but it's still a big improvement over C++. For that, at least, I am grateful.
Actually, the big mystery to me isn't the widespread use of Java, it's the widespread use of C++ when Objective-C is available...
Java has lots of type-checking, etc. that's usually unnecessary for my simple reporting/collection of database data.
Thanks, I needed a good chuckle. I look forward to reading about your projects in future issues of RISKS digest.
Plus imho Tomcat is a pain in the ass to configure, and you gotta keep javac'ing, and so on.
Yes, Tomcat sucks. Use JBoss. (Or even JBoss with tomcat pre-embedded.) Also, learn how to use Ant. I type three letters and hit return and the system works out all the dependencies, compiles any files necessary, syntax-checks XML descriptors, bundles everything into jar, war and ear files as appropriate (building the jar descriptors for me), and deploys the final single archive file onto my web server. Then it prints out the URL to click to test the result, in case I've forgotten it.
C programming is kind of a bitch if you don't use make, too.
The division of profits between the software producers and the distributors is their problem. The point is that as a potential customer, there's no way I'm going to pay $50 for the pleasure of committing to a monthly subscription for a game I might not even like.
You can either charge me up front for the game, or charge me monthly for the game. I'm not gonna let you do both.
A big price on the box just says to me "Hey, we don't think you'll want to stay subscribed after the first month or two, so we're going to hedge our bets and try to get some profit up front".
If that wasn't the case, they'd be cutting a deal with the distributor, paid for out of the subscription profits, and making the up-front cost lower.
Given how many right-wing libertarians there are in the computer industry, why haven't we seen any commercial MMORPGs operating as libertarian utopias where there's no mandatory taxation, eh?
Could it be that the ideals don't work in practice?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and if you enter the wrong parking space, you get cut into tiny cubes of flesh by razor-sharp wires, or your face is eaten away by acid.
(OK, I've been watching too many cheesy SF movies.)
Damn right. I'd turn the question around and ask "What the hell is it about Quake that makes people so keen on it?"
Apart from the eye candy, Quake was a step backwards from Doom in every respect. Really dumb monster AI, dull single-player levels, less puzzling puzzles.
Use some of your cash to buy a set of pre-indexed Futurama DVDs. As an added bonus, they come with commentary tracks and artwork, and are higher quality than your home recordings. You can get the complete Futurama for under $60 on 7 DVDs, instead of spending $45 on blank DVD-Rs to record your crappy TiVo copies.
Yes, but will fluoride cause damage to my tinfoil hat?
The reason to dump Lindows is that everything runs as root.
Yeah, same here. I got burnt out fighting against the GATT agreement and TRIPS back in the early 90s. The UK government just didn't care, weren't interested in listening, not even to small innovative software companies who saw software patents as a bad idea.
Sure I can deny it. How about you give us an example?
Yes, the P205 is definitely one of the finest hand-writing implements. They last forever, too; I'm on my third in about 25 years.
.5mm rapidograph. That was the epitome of pens, as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately, if you don't use 'em every day, they clog up with dried ink. They also respond really badly to plane trips, and tend to leak if carried around in a bag. I tried a rapidoliner. It was good, and cheaper than a rapidograph set, but suffered the same clogging and leaking problems.
My problem has been finding an ink-based equivalent of the P205, for situations where you can't write in pencil.
I used to write with a Rotring
I think I may have found a decent alternative, though. It's the Sanford (rotring) uni ball Gel RT. It feels almost as good as a rapidograph, the lines are nice and even, but it's practical for everyday use and cheap enough that you can keep a box of them in the office.
It's strange how the writing process is so affected by the physical aesthetics of writing implements.
To nitpick even further, it *was* actually FORTH in all caps, because the computer Chuck Moore was using only supported capital letters, and only allowed five characters in a filename.
Yeah, I'm old-school. My first computer didn't have lower case.
Democracy is horribly inefficient. Always has been, always will be. I suggest you get used to it, or move somewhere with a political system more to your liking.
As (I think) Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst possible political system, except for all the others."
Right. The correct solution is so painfully obvious and easy to implement that I don't understand why people like Diebold don't implement it. Unless their intent really *is* to fix elections...
I think the sentence was written by a FORTH programmer. You have to read it from the end to the beginning. Here it is turned around into a series of sentences you can read forwards:
"Senators Harradine and Alston [claimed] that the EFA sought information concerning outlawed material in order to promote the offshore hosting of illegal porn, among other wild and specious allegations."
"[T]he Electronic Frontiers Australia association [denied the] claims by Senators Harradine and Alston."
"[T]he Australian Parliament has accepted [the] statement by the Electronic Frontiers Australia association."
"The Register is reporting that the Australian Parliament has accepted [the] statement."
I think they would, if it meant not having to deal with games hosing their OS installation, or being incompatible with their other installed software, and so on.
Yeah, there are just so many benefits to waiting a year or more before playing any new game:
- You get it for half the price.
- The bugs have been worked out.
- There are abundant cheats and tips available for free on the web if you need them.
- You save a ton of money on hardware upgrades.
I just started playing Diablo II a couple of months ago... I remember the anguish when it came out, the bleeding-edge hardware requirements. Well, now it runs on a dirt-cheap laptop. Ha!
Or, if you want to be playing the latest games that everyone else is, get a PlayStation 2.
Like in America, you mean?
I've never owned any kind of Nintendo system before, but I bought a GBA-SP. It's great. It has enough power for (e.g.) "Golden Sun", which is comparable to "Final Fantasy VII", yet I can carry it in a shirt pocket and play anywhere, even outside in the warm sunshine. (Sunlight and gaming! Together at last!) Battery life is plenty long enough, and there are slimline add-on battery packs available too.
So "Jak and Daxter", "Ratchet and Clank" and "Sly Cooper" are all implemented in Lisp? I'm impressed, as they're easily the best 3D platform games available for PlayStation 2. In particular, Jak and Daxter's total lack of between-level loading screens is a beautiful piece of work.
Well, I disagree.
.NET, and Sun are just as ruthless about extracting value--read up on the JBoss/Sun issues, or the similar arguments between IBM and Sun over J2EE. Yet for some reason, Java gets used by programmers who would never consider .NET.
.NET programmers like them... like Web Services for starters.
1. Java has been hyped. Undeniably. LISP has not been hyped--it has been advocated by individuals. There's an important difference. When I see multi-million-dollar ad campaigns telling me how great Common LISP is, you'll have a point here.
2. Graham's wrong here, but his argument makes sense coming from a non-programmer's perspective. In fact, Java has managed to get millions of programmers using proper exception handling and automatic memory management--two major revolutions that should have happened decades ago, but no other language or technology managed to make it happen (outside of narrow contexts like the LISP community, of course). That was a high aim. It's just not something a non-programmer would notice when comparing C and Java code.
3. Ulterior motives are generally a problem because compromises are introduced, and resources redirected, to serve the hidden agenda. Unfortunately, a lot of Java APIs have the feel of something thrown together in a real hurry to counter something Microsoft announced. Plenty of Java APIs are such a botch in their 1.0 incarnations that they get completely abandoned and replaced with a ground-up respecification in 2.0. Even core classes turn out to be fundamentally flawed, and are replaced. Sorry, Vector sucked, we're using ArrayList this month. SAX 1.0 was a mistake, rewrite your code for SAX 2.0. Hashtable didn't work out, we've got something new called HashMap.
4. Sure, people who used to have to use C++ love Java. And people who had to use MS-DOS loved Windows when that was introduced.
5. Maybe you're using Java for the sheer love of it. I'm using it because it seems to be the only viable career path for me right now that doesn't involve whoring myself out to Bill Gates.
6. Java APIs well thought out? Ha! See #3 above. Then look at EJB, where you can't even run the same code on a different container on the same machine! And I just love having no unsigned integers and no integer overflow exceptions.
7. See #3 and #6. Then try using Java to generate the current date & time in the current time zone in RFC2822 format, something which damn well ought to be a one-liner in any Internet programming language.
8. Fact is, Java is just as rigidly controlled as
9. I'm an atypical programmer: I want my code to be fast, compact and bug-free, and I feel ashamed when it isn't. However, I'm aware that I'm very unusual in this regard, and I think that in general, Paul Graham is right--Java isn't aimed at solo hackers. Of course, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
10. Yeah, this is kind of a weak argument. I could write off countless technologies on the grounds that 'dozers and
11. Plenty of people in the Java community who like the language are nevertheless concerned about what might happen to the language if Sun gets into serious difficulties.
I avoided Java for a long time, precisely because of the stink Paul Graham identifies. When I eventually started using it, I discovered that it did have some advantages. Yes, it's often painful and tedious compared to Perl, and there are a few really boneheaded aspects to it, but it's still a big improvement over C++. For that, at least, I am grateful.
Actually, the big mystery to me isn't the widespread use of Java, it's the widespread use of C++ when Objective-C is available...
Enterprise Beans
Good for the heart
But make your web site
Slow to start
If Java is an SUV, EJB is a Winnebago.
Thanks, I needed a good chuckle. I look forward to reading about your projects in future issues of RISKS digest.
Yes, Tomcat sucks. Use JBoss. (Or even JBoss with tomcat pre-embedded.) Also, learn how to use Ant. I type three letters and hit return and the system works out all the dependencies, compiles any files necessary, syntax-checks XML descriptors, bundles everything into jar, war and ear files as appropriate (building the jar descriptors for me), and deploys the final single archive file onto my web server. Then it prints out the URL to click to test the result, in case I've forgotten it.
C programming is kind of a bitch if you don't use make, too.
Well, it kinda depends whether you think "Internet Explorer + Windows" = the web. Personally, I think that's rather too narrow a definition.
Is it just me, or is the "boss fight" the biggest, stalest, lamest c l i c h e-acute-accent in the video game world?
(Spelt out 'cause Slashdot blows and can't deal with accented characters.)
Not when it was released it didn't.
EverQuest for Mac (released recently) is $50.
The division of profits between the software producers and the distributors is their problem. The point is that as a potential customer, there's no way I'm going to pay $50 for the pleasure of committing to a monthly subscription for a game I might not even like.
You can either charge me up front for the game, or charge me monthly for the game. I'm not gonna let you do both.
A big price on the box just says to me "Hey, we don't think you'll want to stay subscribed after the first month or two, so we're going to hedge our bets and try to get some profit up front".
If that wasn't the case, they'd be cutting a deal with the distributor, paid for out of the subscription profits, and making the up-front cost lower.
Given how many right-wing libertarians there are in the computer industry, why haven't we seen any commercial MMORPGs operating as libertarian utopias where there's no mandatory taxation, eh?
Could it be that the ideals don't work in practice?