Heh, first time I tried to load this story I got "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
I've been seeing this happen every now and then lately. I think either something is wrong with Slashdot or maybe you have a dodgy transparent web cache in-line at your ISP. (I have a known dodgy cache here.)
Geez, this guy isn't such a great used games shopper if all he thinks of is stores that specifically sell games. I don't know where he goes that charges $10 for Super Mario/Duck Hunt, but almost any game store knows that's a dirt common and knows better than to charge more than a dollar or two for it. Charging $10 for it is like saying "ha ha, we know you're stupid and we don't care!"
Number one on my list is shopping at thrift stores. It's not as good of a source as it used to be, but that's how I got most of my Atari 2600 collection. You still have to leave your brain in gear, as they often price games without consideration to the game itself, so you could see a $4 SMB/DH next to a $4 Bubble Bath Babes. Okay, so maybe you won't find a Bubble Bath Babes, but I found a Chase the Chuckwagon and a 5200 Meteorites at the same thrift store. If you're one of those crazy "one of each" collectors, carry a list with you to avoid duplicates, and check the rarities so you don't pay too much for those commons. At least lately, thrift stores have been finally catching on that nobody wants to buy those endless copies of Sega sports games, and have been pricing them at a dollar. If they're complete and I don't already have one, or if they're in a good condition Sega CD jewel case, sure I'll pay a dollar for them.
Also good are flea markets and pawn shops. Pawn shops aren't all that great for older games, but sometimes you can find an out of the way place with a good cache of stuff. There's always at least one guy at a good flea market with a bunch of cartridges. And I mean a real open-air flea market with people who only sell for one day or one weekend, not those stupid indoor flea markets in an old Wal-Mart building.
it's very hard to get a hold of the original Katamari Damacy, due to NAMCO not wanting to flood the market,
Huh? I've seen plenty of copies in stores (in particular Fry's and Best Buy) since January. It was only hard to find before that. I had to go to an EB in the middle of nowhere to get my copy.
With that in mind, run around and find the highest userid you can (I've see over 800,000 myself) and then you'll have a "very approximate" idea of how large the Slashdot crowd is.
Then divide by at least four to account for abandoned userids and for people with more than one userid.
They're out of their minds to release this for the Xbox! With the Xbox-2 right around the corner, nobody will want to buy it because you're supposed to throw away your existing console and wait in line until midnight to buy the new one the moment it appears!
Then you'll lose all your data and have to start all over with the level 1 SQL commands!
I have one dead pixel on my 17" Powerbook. The blue is stuck on. I don't normally notice it because usually something white or bluish is over it, but I can notice it when the screen is black. Sometimes it fails white, but if I rub at it with a fingernail, it goes back to blue.
Re:The myth is dead! Long live the myth!
on
The Solar Death Ray
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Apparently it worked when it was tried in 1973 (see middle of page).
A Greek scientist, Dr. ioannis Sakkas, curious about whether Archimedes could really have used a "burning glass" to destroy the Roman fleet in 212 BC lined up nearly 60 Greek sailors, each holding an oblong mirror tipped to catch the Sun's rays and direct them at a wooden ship 160 feet away. The ship caught fire at once.....Sakkas said after the experiment there was no doubt in his mind the great inventor could have used bronze mirrors to scuttle the Romans
Re:The myth is dead! Long live the myth!
on
The Solar Death Ray
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Ummmm, shields aren't concave, they're convex. I suppose they could be turned around, but then the handles and stuff counteract the effectiveness of the "focusing". Also, focusing only really helps at near the focal length. Beyond twice the focal length it should disperse rays that started as parallel.
Just be sure to either get it with 512M as a build-to-order option or have a plan to add your own 512M or 1G PC2700 stick when you get it. Your mom or grandma might be able to live with 256M, but if you're like most slashdotters, you really need the 512M minimum.
I used to hate Macs; pre-OSX I was convinced they were complete garbage.
Between the late '040 era and the built-in Firewire era they really were mostly garbage except for the 9500 and PowerTowerPro. Even if you didn't have a problem with the OS, the hardware was crap. Their worst machines of all time came during this period: the Performa 61xx and the 4400.
I have what was the lastest and greatest thing a year and a half ago: The PowerMac G5 2.0ghz dual processor system. It's been through a revision or two since then, but nothing earth-shattering.
I still prefer my dual 1.0GHz MDD "Windtunnel" G4 that I got 3 (?) years ago when they were new. The speed is still more than sufficient, and it's got four internal HD bays. Which are all filled, of course. The G5 case only has two HD bays.
I'm so not needing the G5's speed that I've gotten two Blue & White G3s and a Mac Mini since getting the G4, for a total cost much less than that of a new G5.
My impression is that it's mostly a floating point monster, which will be nice for scientific clusters but almost no one else will give a shit because they mostly need to do integer math and shove data around on their servers.
Not to mention that to get full performance out of Cell, you have to compile code to yet another assembly language.
I think Cell is a bit overrated. It's a great idea for something like a video game where you're coding to the hardware anyway, but my guess is that IBM is more likely to go for multi-core PPC in the long run.
Slashdot Mirror
I prefer to clean mine at the carwash... the only problem is that it's a bit hard to find Svinto in the United States.
They don't now. Who's to say that one day some bean counter won't decide that they should be turned on for everyone?
I've been seeing this happen every now and then lately. I think either something is wrong with Slashdot or maybe you have a dodgy transparent web cache in-line at your ISP. (I have a known dodgy cache here.)
Number one on my list is shopping at thrift stores. It's not as good of a source as it used to be, but that's how I got most of my Atari 2600 collection. You still have to leave your brain in gear, as they often price games without consideration to the game itself, so you could see a $4 SMB/DH next to a $4 Bubble Bath Babes. Okay, so maybe you won't find a Bubble Bath Babes, but I found a Chase the Chuckwagon and a 5200 Meteorites at the same thrift store. If you're one of those crazy "one of each" collectors, carry a list with you to avoid duplicates, and check the rarities so you don't pay too much for those commons. At least lately, thrift stores have been finally catching on that nobody wants to buy those endless copies of Sega sports games, and have been pricing them at a dollar. If they're complete and I don't already have one, or if they're in a good condition Sega CD jewel case, sure I'll pay a dollar for them.
Also good are flea markets and pawn shops. Pawn shops aren't all that great for older games, but sometimes you can find an out of the way place with a good cache of stuff. There's always at least one guy at a good flea market with a bunch of cartridges. And I mean a real open-air flea market with people who only sell for one day or one weekend, not those stupid indoor flea markets in an old Wal-Mart building.
Huh? I've seen plenty of copies in stores (in particular Fry's and Best Buy) since January. It was only hard to find before that. I had to go to an EB in the middle of nowhere to get my copy.
Then divide by at least four to account for abandoned userids and for people with more than one userid.
If this is an April Fool's submission, then I don't know enough about any Subversion vs BitKeeper politics to get the joke.
...and James Doohan.
/then we'd have some really animated acting
Then you'll lose all your data and have to start all over with the level 1 SQL commands!
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart,
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Eeeeeeewww! Punch card pr0n!
Wouldn't jizzing on the cards tend to jam the reader?
I'm a Mac.
I have one dead pixel on my 17" Powerbook. The blue is stuck on. I don't normally notice it because usually something white or bluish is over it, but I can notice it when the screen is black. Sometimes it fails white, but if I rub at it with a fingernail, it goes back to blue.
Why don't they give in and just switch to blipverts already?
Here you go!
Ummmm, shields aren't concave, they're convex. I suppose they could be turned around, but then the handles and stuff counteract the effectiveness of the "focusing". Also, focusing only really helps at near the focal length. Beyond twice the focal length it should disperse rays that started as parallel.
The PDF model was chosen to replace the Display Postscript model used by NeXT, which would definitely have required an Adobe license.
Just be sure to either get it with 512M as a build-to-order option or have a plan to add your own 512M or 1G PC2700 stick when you get it. Your mom or grandma might be able to live with 256M, but if you're like most slashdotters, you really need the 512M minimum.
Between the late '040 era and the built-in Firewire era they really were mostly garbage except for the 9500 and PowerTowerPro. Even if you didn't have a problem with the OS, the hardware was crap. Their worst machines of all time came during this period: the Performa 61xx and the 4400.
/we're #2, we try harder
Hey, I don't care, just as long as they light up Jupiter.
I'm tickled Pink waiting to see what will come NeXT in this cascade!
I still prefer my dual 1.0GHz MDD "Windtunnel" G4 that I got 3 (?) years ago when they were new. The speed is still more than sufficient, and it's got four internal HD bays. Which are all filled, of course. The G5 case only has two HD bays.
I'm so not needing the G5's speed that I've gotten two Blue & White G3s and a Mac Mini since getting the G4, for a total cost much less than that of a new G5.
Not to mention that to get full performance out of Cell, you have to compile code to yet another assembly language.
Cell = 1 PPC w/Altivec + 8 non-PPC vector coprocessors
I think Cell is a bit overrated. It's a great idea for something like a video game where you're coding to the hardware anyway, but my guess is that IBM is more likely to go for multi-core PPC in the long run.