What I've found frustrating is the lack of adventure games available for Linux. TuxGames offers a number of strategy and FPS games but only a few adventure games. On the surface this makes sense, strategy and FPS (along with RPGs) are the best selling genre of computer games.
But I wonder if the Linux gaming market isn't somewhat different than the Windows gaming market. Many of the people who run Linux are older professionals. We're often not runnng the latest and greatest equipment. Perhaps one explanation for the lackluster sales of Linux games is that they're targeting the wrong population.
It also seems that the sales of Linux adventure games might be better relative to other genres. As it currently stands in the overall industry, adventures games are a small fish in a big pond. Selling a few thousand copies of Doom III for Linux is a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of Windows sales. But selling an few hundred additional copies of Siberia may be significant. (Not to mention that many adventure games are produced by small, independent publishers for which the margins are even more important.)
Personally, I would plunk down $50 right now for The Longest Journey or Siberia or The Last Express on Linux. There are a host of adventure games that I would happily pony up for. But I have little desire for the scores of strategy and FPS games that TuxGames offers.
If you're asking about CASE tools, I'd recommend that you stay away from them. While CASE tools can be useful for managing larger database schemas, I've found that--for small and mid-sized schemas (dozens of tables)--they tend to hinder more than help. They add a layer of abstraction between you and your design, one which prevents you from really getting into the guts of your design. Personally, I always use a whiteboard to sketch out my design and write all of my SQL from scratch. May be old-fashioned, but I've never found anything that works better. When I'm done designing a schema, I know every column intimately and I have a reason and justification for every decision. CASE tools take those decisions out of your hands. If you want to use CASE tools to manage (rather than design) your schema, you can always import the completed design into your tool of choice.
When it comes to database design, a nice large whiteboard is your best friend.
But here's what puzzles me: if you don't need complicated queries...why bother with a relational DBMS at all? Why not use a simple indexed record engine, like Berkeley DB?
Precisely. As someone who does database development for a living, it's my view that databases are way overused nowadays, especially with regard to websites. People are seduced by the power and flexibility of RDBMSs, but the vast majority of sites simply don't require them. If you're simply serving up the same articles over and over again, there's no reason to hit a db everytime.
This trend holds for applications (and general data storage) as well. People's first instinct is often to look to a relational backend when tab delimited ASCII would work just fine (and be more portable, to boot).
1. Turn off the speakers if you're playing Quake while on a conference call. 2. Mute the volume and turn on subtitles if you're watching t.v. while on a conference call. 3. Don't flush the toilet if you go to the bathroom while on a conference call.
A generalized forum such as "Ask Slashdot" probably isn't the best place to ask this type of questions. The problem is that the domain is too specific. What you probably want to do is talk with other biological anthropologists and see if anyone has a schema that you can adapt to your needs.
That being said, one thing that you might want to do is search Google for XML schemas. I do a lot of (relational) database design and I've noticed that there are XML schemas for just about everything. (Although I generally dislike XML, a real benefit is that it promotes the idea of sharing information and schemas. In the relational database world, we tend to horde our schemas because they are viewed as competitive advantages.) Even though I typically don't use XML in my own projects, I've found that reviewing relevant XML schemas can sometimes help in the database design process. (If nothing else, it can help point out what not to do!)
I also tend to get confused what is local content and what is national
Sounds like you're confused about what "NPR" is. NPR is a content producer/syndicator (similar to a tv network such as NBC) not a station in and of itself. NPR syndicates its content to local stations all over the country (and the world).
So when you're listening to a particular program, you want to listen to who produced it (NPR, PRI, your local station, or whomever). The other option is to check out your local station's website. They should have links to the program's homepage.
It's definitely possible, as others have said, Adobe Acrobat already does this. I happen to own a copy of Acrobat, so I've had the opportunity to play around it's capabilities.
Short answer -- it works pretty damn well. But not with a mouse. A mouse just isn't suited to making marginal notes (i.e., checking an important idea, underlining a particular phrase, or circling an important passage). A tablet device with a stylus, however - that holds promise.
Other things to note: Acrobat provides two types of commenting systems. First, notations -- you can hilight, underline, circle, or freestyle directly onto the document. Second, "sticky-note" style comments. One very cool thing about the sticky-notes are that they render translucent so that you can still read the text underneath the note.
Also, as far as I can tell, the commenting systems appear to be embedded into the document as PDF code. Specifically, gv is able to render notations (hilighting, underlines, etc). gv is not able to render the sticky-notes, however. I don't know if that's because gv simply can't handle the sticky-notes or because the sticky-notes are in some type of proprietary format. xpdf doesn't render either form of comments.
So, if you're using Windows, are comfortable with proprietary software, and can afford $250, you're more or less set (assuming that pen computing lives up to its promise).
Things get a bit more tricky if you're looking for free-software solutions. As far as I know, there's nothing out there as of yet. And I don't know how difficult it would be to implement (I do know that it's way beyond my capabilities, however). But because it appears that Acrobat embeds the comments as native PDF code, it should be possible. The question is whether or not anyone's willing to take up the cause...
I'm disappointed. I was really hoping that this was a proof of how best to tie one's shoes. My shoelaces are always coming untied. I'm beginning to think that I never learned the proper way to tie shoes.
I'm a bit unclear as to precisely what you're asking. Most respondents seem to think that you want open reviews (by anyone who is subscribed to the journal) on the site. I read it as "We'll have traditional peer-review journal but all distribution (everything from submission of articles for consideration, to distribution of the articles to reviewers, to publication of the journal) will take place online."
Which interpretation is correct?
If the latter, I don't see this as being a particularly complex issue. Basically all that you would want to do is standardize on a format (I'd recommend LaTeX or TeX; others will suggest DocBook). Documents would be emailed or submitted via the website and it would be the responsibility of the website's maintainer(s) to make sure that copies get archived, maintained, and distributed appropriately. As to the site's backend, there may be some pre-fab solutions out there but your needs are so simple that you could roll your own PHP or CGI without much difficulty.
In other words (if my interpretation is correct), I don't think that you want to change the actual submission and review process; rather, you just want to make use of the internet as a distribution mechanism. And if that's the case, your needs are really quite simple.
I'd like to add that, as an academic myself, I'm quite interested in what you're doing. Drop me an email if you'd like to discuss this further.
Ironically (in the Alanis Morissette sense of the term), Slashdot just posted a pretty positive review of Creating Applications with Mozilla. Perhaps that may be what you're looking for?
Since people keep recommending digital cameras, I thought that I just point out that the November issue (not sure if it's on shelves yet) of Consumer Reports has a review of digital cameras in it.
I forgot to mention in my above post -- if you're into science fiction, definitely look up the "Alien Voices" series by Leonard Nimoy and John De Lancie. They got together with a bunch of other actors (generally from the various Star Trek series) and did live audio adaptations of classic science works (e.g. H.G. Wells). Truly, truly wonderful stuff. Well worth the price of admission.
NPR has archives of many of their programs. I don't know it you're able to download them or not (and I think that the format varies from program to program), but it might be worth looking into.
The kicker is that he's going to GPL the raw footage so that people can create their own programs. I expect that it would be trivial to extract the audio stream and burn it onto a cd or download it onto an mp3 player.
I used to do a 1.5 hour car ride (both back and forth) at least once a week for a couple of years. I found that audio books made fantastic companions. Major publishers make many (most?) of their books available on tape or cd -- both fiction and non-fiction.
Speaking for myself, audio books allowed me to delve into genres that I generally don't read very much, such as mysteries. The BBC radio adaptations of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes are simply fantastic. (As an aside, I would recommend looking for radio adaptations rather than straight readings -- the radio adaptations are simply a lot more fun and engrossing.)
I also got a chance to listen to a bunch of the old radio programs -- Superman, Batman, The Shadow, and a bunch that I can't recall off-hand.
And I'm sure that you can find audio books on science -- I just suggest that you also take the opportunity to expose yourself to a wide variety of texts. Since you're stuck in the car anyway, it's not like you're losing anything if you accidentally pick up a crappy story.
Also -- a good way to save money is to find a used bookstore that will allow you to return your audio books for credit. And there are also some stores that rent audio books.
(p.s. You should also engage in the occassional guily pleasure. Mine were the William Shatner "Star Trek" novels -- you haven't heard "Star Trek" until you've heard William Shatner do all of the voices. Yes -- Spock, Uhura, Scotty; it's absolutely fantastic, truly phenomenal.)
Just a couple of days ago NPR did a story on how the San Francisco Chronicle (the major newspaper in SF) is beginning a pilot project of daily audio news. Basically, every night after they complete the morning edition, the email the stories to a recording studio (in Atlanta, I believe). The stories are recorded and then you can download them to your computer and burn them to a cd.
Their main selling point is that you can customize what sections you want to receive. So, if all you want is sports and science/technology, you can get just that. However, it is a pay-for service (but there aren't any ads).
For those not reading the article (and to provide a little background), last year a hoax circulated throughout both the UK and Australia that if enough people marked "Jedi" on their census form, that it would become a nationally recognized religion. This was never true.
What made some people believe that it was true was that, in Britain, it was eventually revealed that "Jedi" was getting a specific response code assigned to it (e.g., people who wrote in "Jedi" as their response were getting assigned a value such as "746" for their religion). The fact that the "Jedi" responses were being recorded made some people believe that the hoax was true.
However, in many surveys, responses that pass a certain numerical threshold are often assigned a distinct numerical code. This doesn't actually mean anything; it's simply to aid in the tabulation of the results. For analysis purposes, "Jedi" was always going to be grouped into "N/A" or "Other" or "Refused to Answer" (I'm not realy sure which; depends upon how they want to deal with it).
Talk about adding insult to injury...
on
Pentium 4 2.8GHz
·
· Score: 4, Funny
I knew that my P200 was getting old when they released this newfangled "AGP" slot. And I realized that it was obsolete when GHz processors started coming out. But approaching 3 GHz?!? That's just rubbing salt in the wound.
The problem with these results is that the sample was self-selected. Whoever wanted to respond to the survey could. So, these results don't tell us anything about the Free Software development community as a whole; rather it just tells us about those people who knew about the survey and chose to respond to it.
Debian Weekly News comments on this in their latest issue:
The FLOSS (see below) survey is finished and the results were posted. The most interesting bit is the number of Debian users among the participants, however, since we pointed out that survey, we may have contributed a little bit to the trend...
It's important to recognize that the college in question is a community college. In many respects community colleges are largely paperless anyway; for example, many (most?) don't have their own libraries.
There's no danger of research universities going paperless.
Slashdot Mirror
What I've found frustrating is the lack of adventure games available for Linux. TuxGames offers a number of strategy and FPS games but only a few adventure games. On the surface this makes sense, strategy and FPS (along with RPGs) are the best selling genre of computer games.
But I wonder if the Linux gaming market isn't somewhat different than the Windows gaming market. Many of the people who run Linux are older professionals. We're often not runnng the latest and greatest equipment. Perhaps one explanation for the lackluster sales of Linux games is that they're targeting the wrong population.
It also seems that the sales of Linux adventure games might be better relative to other genres. As it currently stands in the overall industry, adventures games are a small fish in a big pond. Selling a few thousand copies of Doom III for Linux is a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of Windows sales. But selling an few hundred additional copies of Siberia may be significant. (Not to mention that many adventure games are produced by small, independent publishers for which the margins are even more important.)
Personally, I would plunk down $50 right now for The Longest Journey or Siberia or The Last Express on Linux. There are a host of adventure games that I would happily pony up for. But I have little desire for the scores of strategy and FPS games that TuxGames offers.
If you're asking about CASE tools, I'd recommend that you stay away from them. While CASE tools can be useful for managing larger database schemas, I've found that--for small and mid-sized schemas (dozens of tables)--they tend to hinder more than help. They add a layer of abstraction between you and your design, one which prevents you from really getting into the guts of your design. Personally, I always use a whiteboard to sketch out my design and write all of my SQL from scratch. May be old-fashioned, but I've never found anything that works better. When I'm done designing a schema, I know every column intimately and I have a reason and justification for every decision. CASE tools take those decisions out of your hands. If you want to use CASE tools to manage (rather than design) your schema, you can always import the completed design into your tool of choice.
When it comes to database design, a nice large whiteboard is your best friend.
Does anyone know how to say "Don't run as the root user" in Hindi?
But here's what puzzles me: if you don't need complicated queries...why bother with a relational DBMS at all? Why not use a simple indexed record engine, like Berkeley DB?
Precisely. As someone who does database development for a living, it's my view that databases are way overused nowadays, especially with regard to websites. People are seduced by the power and flexibility of RDBMSs, but the vast majority of sites simply don't require them. If you're simply serving up the same articles over and over again, there's no reason to hit a db everytime.
This trend holds for applications (and general data storage) as well. People's first instinct is often to look to a relational backend when tab delimited ASCII would work just fine (and be more portable, to boot).
In the year that I telecommuted, I learned:
1. Turn off the speakers if you're playing Quake while on a conference call.
2. Mute the volume and turn on subtitles if you're watching t.v. while on a conference call.
3. Don't flush the toilet if you go to the bathroom while on a conference call.
A generalized forum such as "Ask Slashdot" probably isn't the best place to ask this type of questions. The problem is that the domain is too specific. What you probably want to do is talk with other biological anthropologists and see if anyone has a schema that you can adapt to your needs.
That being said, one thing that you might want to do is search Google for XML schemas. I do a lot of (relational) database design and I've noticed that there are XML schemas for just about everything. (Although I generally dislike XML, a real benefit is that it promotes the idea of sharing information and schemas. In the relational database world, we tend to horde our schemas because they are viewed as competitive advantages.) Even though I typically don't use XML in my own projects, I've found that reviewing relevant XML schemas can sometimes help in the database design process. (If nothing else, it can help point out what not to do!)
I assume that we're discussing developers who have switched since we last discussed this survey?
I also tend to get confused what is local content and what is national
Sounds like you're confused about what "NPR" is. NPR is a content producer/syndicator (similar to a tv network such as NBC) not a station in and of itself. NPR syndicates its content to local stations all over the country (and the world).
So when you're listening to a particular program, you want to listen to who produced it (NPR, PRI, your local station, or whomever). The other option is to check out your local station's website. They should have links to the program's homepage.
It's definitely possible, as others have said, Adobe Acrobat already does this. I happen to own a copy of Acrobat, so I've had the opportunity to play around it's capabilities.
Short answer -- it works pretty damn well. But not with a mouse. A mouse just isn't suited to making marginal notes (i.e., checking an important idea, underlining a particular phrase, or circling an important passage). A tablet device with a stylus, however - that holds promise.
Other things to note: Acrobat provides two types of commenting systems. First, notations -- you can hilight, underline, circle, or freestyle directly onto the document. Second, "sticky-note" style comments. One very cool thing about the sticky-notes are that they render translucent so that you can still read the text underneath the note.
Also, as far as I can tell, the commenting systems appear to be embedded into the document as PDF code. Specifically, gv is able to render notations (hilighting, underlines, etc). gv is not able to render the sticky-notes, however. I don't know if that's because gv simply can't handle the sticky-notes or because the sticky-notes are in some type of proprietary format. xpdf doesn't render either form of comments.
So, if you're using Windows, are comfortable with proprietary software, and can afford $250, you're more or less set (assuming that pen computing lives up to its promise).
Things get a bit more tricky if you're looking for free-software solutions. As far as I know, there's nothing out there as of yet. And I don't know how difficult it would be to implement (I do know that it's way beyond my capabilities, however). But because it appears that Acrobat embeds the comments as native PDF code, it should be possible. The question is whether or not anyone's willing to take up the cause...
I'm disappointed. I was really hoping that this was a proof of how best to tie one's shoes. My shoelaces are always coming untied. I'm beginning to think that I never learned the proper way to tie shoes.
I blame my mother.
I'm a bit unclear as to precisely what you're asking. Most respondents seem to think that you want open reviews (by anyone who is subscribed to the journal) on the site. I read it as "We'll have traditional peer-review journal but all distribution (everything from submission of articles for consideration, to distribution of the articles to reviewers, to publication of the journal) will take place online."
Which interpretation is correct?
If the latter, I don't see this as being a particularly complex issue. Basically all that you would want to do is standardize on a format (I'd recommend LaTeX or TeX; others will suggest DocBook). Documents would be emailed or submitted via the website and it would be the responsibility of the website's maintainer(s) to make sure that copies get archived, maintained, and distributed appropriately. As to the site's backend, there may be some pre-fab solutions out there but your needs are so simple that you could roll your own PHP or CGI without much difficulty.
In other words (if my interpretation is correct), I don't think that you want to change the actual submission and review process; rather, you just want to make use of the internet as a distribution mechanism. And if that's the case, your needs are really quite simple.
I'd like to add that, as an academic myself, I'm quite interested in what you're doing. Drop me an email if you'd like to discuss this further.
The FSF sells a poster of the preamble of the GPL: https://agia.fsf.org/#posters
Ironically (in the Alanis Morissette sense of the term), Slashdot just posted a pretty positive review of Creating Applications with Mozilla. Perhaps that may be what you're looking for?
Since people keep recommending digital cameras, I thought that I just point out that the November issue (not sure if it's on shelves yet) of Consumer Reports has a review of digital cameras in it.
A similar question was recently asked here.
I forgot to mention in my above post -- if you're into science fiction, definitely look up the "Alien Voices" series by Leonard Nimoy and John De Lancie. They got together with a bunch of other actors (generally from the various Star Trek series) and did live audio adaptations of classic science works (e.g. H.G. Wells). Truly, truly wonderful stuff. Well worth the price of admission.
NPR has archives of many of their programs. I don't know it you're able to download them or not (and I think that the format varies from program to program), but it might be worth looking into.
. html.
Also, Bob Cringely just announced that he'll be doing a new interview program called "NerdTV." The full article is here: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020912
The kicker is that he's going to GPL the raw footage so that people can create their own programs. I expect that it would be trivial to extract the audio stream and burn it onto a cd or download it onto an mp3 player.
I used to do a 1.5 hour car ride (both back and forth) at least once a week for a couple of years. I found that audio books made fantastic companions. Major publishers make many (most?) of their books available on tape or cd -- both fiction and non-fiction.
Speaking for myself, audio books allowed me to delve into genres that I generally don't read very much, such as mysteries. The BBC radio adaptations of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes are simply fantastic. (As an aside, I would recommend looking for radio adaptations rather than straight readings -- the radio adaptations are simply a lot more fun and engrossing.)
I also got a chance to listen to a bunch of the old radio programs -- Superman, Batman, The Shadow, and a bunch that I can't recall off-hand.
And I'm sure that you can find audio books on science -- I just suggest that you also take the opportunity to expose yourself to a wide variety of texts. Since you're stuck in the car anyway, it's not like you're losing anything if you accidentally pick up a crappy story.
Also -- a good way to save money is to find a used bookstore that will allow you to return your audio books for credit. And there are also some stores that rent audio books.
(p.s. You should also engage in the occassional guily pleasure. Mine were the William Shatner "Star Trek" novels -- you haven't heard "Star Trek" until you've heard William Shatner do all of the voices. Yes -- Spock, Uhura, Scotty; it's absolutely fantastic, truly phenomenal.)
Just a couple of days ago NPR did a story on how the San Francisco Chronicle (the major newspaper in SF) is beginning a pilot project of daily audio news. Basically, every night after they complete the morning edition, the email the stories to a recording studio (in Atlanta, I believe). The stories are recorded and then you can download them to your computer and burn them to a cd.
Their main selling point is that you can customize what sections you want to receive. So, if all you want is sports and science/technology, you can get just that. However, it is a pay-for service (but there aren't any ads).
they use phase-shifting inside the memory modules to accomplish the same goal.
Isn't phase-shifting what happened to Jordi and Ensign Ro causing the crew of the Enterprise to think that they had died in a transporter accident?
Or is phase-shifting what the Traveler used to send the Enterprise to the center of the galaxy?
In any case, I don't ever recall Star Trek using phase-shifting to increase memory bandwith. Something's amiss here.
For those not reading the article (and to provide a little background), last year a hoax circulated throughout both the UK and Australia that if enough people marked "Jedi" on their census form, that it would become a nationally recognized religion. This was never true.
What made some people believe that it was true was that, in Britain, it was eventually revealed that "Jedi" was getting a specific response code assigned to it (e.g., people who wrote in "Jedi" as their response were getting assigned a value such as "746" for their religion). The fact that the "Jedi" responses were being recorded made some people believe that the hoax was true.
However, in many surveys, responses that pass a certain numerical threshold are often assigned a distinct numerical code. This doesn't actually mean anything; it's simply to aid in the tabulation of the results. For analysis purposes, "Jedi" was always going to be grouped into "N/A" or "Other" or "Refused to Answer" (I'm not realy sure which; depends upon how they want to deal with it).
All the details can be found here.
I knew that my P200 was getting old when they released this newfangled "AGP" slot. And I realized that it was obsolete when GHz processors started coming out. But approaching 3 GHz?!? That's just rubbing salt in the wound.
Debian Weekly News comments on this in their latest issue:
It's important to recognize that the college in question is a community college. In many respects community colleges are largely paperless anyway; for example, many (most?) don't have their own libraries.
There's no danger of research universities going paperless.
Do used book sales generate for authors ? Does Ford get money when I sell my car as used ??
Shhh! Don't give them any ideas! Before you know it, publishers might start going after libraries. Oh, too late...