I doubt he's reading, but I happen to agree. Anyone who thinks that any form of propulsion that powerful has no chance of a serious catastrophe isn't paying attention.
Not to be a bore, but look at car engines. Fairly small amount of propellent (gasoline), fairly well understood technology (internal combustion), and still there are hundreds of risks. They are as safe as they are simply because of decades of excellent engineering.
I just hope this guy will use every safety measure he can get his hands on. I'd hate to see this being a publicity nightmare.
You are clearly wrong if you think hospitals have several doctors that can handle an emergency. Hospitals have only the minimum possible staff, especially in the anesthesia area.
And yes, when they were on call in the days before pagers, they were woken with a phone call. They then ran their butt off in order to help you.
Now, in the case of my youngest (who has RMS, which is a form of cancer), he has two cancer specialists, 6 anesthesia specialists, but only 1 urinary specialist. Why? Because there is only one pediatric urologist working with his hospital in the WHOLE DARN AREA. If I find out that you hurt my son's doctor because he's watching a movie and my son has an emergency I will personally beat you into the anal-retentive ball of slime you deserve to be .
You have your little attitude, but you have less regard for society than people who are the lone specialist for 200 miles. I am delighted that you are so easily replaced. That way, when you die an insignificant death of ignominy, you will be immediately replaced with another drone.
Yes, but that was some time ago, in a very clearly-defined case. I think things are a bit more hazy now, and I suspect this will be a very long-running suit if it goes forward.
Also, let's not under-estimate the public attention span. If a case like this gets on the "RADAR" then it may become something. Otherwise, it will probably just fade away and provide a bunch of lawyers with pensions.
I mean, seriously. MS has been on trial for so long now I barely remember when it started. IBM has been tried at least once, and I doubt that the Baby Bells will do any worse than those two.
Let's save our legal money for things like national ID cards, and people who wear hushpuppies.
I couldn't agree more. Did that article actually say "low-level Direct X and OpenGL"?
I've written in OpenGL for a long time (first OpenGL game was about when 3dFX came out...) and it is not hard. Freakin' whiners. First assembler is too hard (though I think they do have a point), then C is too hard, then OpenGL is too hard, now DirectX is too hard?
Here's an idea... if you can't write code that is fast, useable, and maintainable GO GET ANOTHER JOB. Stop writing additional layers of abstraction to hog up the CPU and disk.
I believe he meant "functional debugged code". As in, JPL/NASA quality stuff. Not raw code.
Think about it. MS programs typically have over 1M lines of code; which takes them two+ years to compelete. It then takes them another year or two to release patches and bug-fixes.
I have heard the Gartner estimates on coding speed, and I agree with them to a point. I personally write about 60 lines of debugged, optimized, platform adjusted (either specific or not, depending) spell-checked code a day. I obviously am not the programmer this other fellow is, but I clearly make waaaaay more.
This is actually a good point. We had a Windows NT server at a certain company I happen to work for with this "advantage". It was originally an OS/2 box, then upgraded to WinNT. NT was put into C:\OS\Win\Winnt.
The box survived three or for "security tests" from consulting terms with no issues. It was one of three NT machines in the company that survived, the other two of which were actually OS/2 boxes running SAMBA.
Sure. It worked here (US). I think everyone drives at least 10-15 miles over the limit. The old limit was 55 MPH, and now it's 65 MPH. Of course, everyone drives about 80 MPH on a daily basis.
Yes. We want "A" reference point for games. Windows has done more for the PC gaming industry than any other OS I can think of. You have everything you need to be a successful developer:
A full set of APIs
A large user base
Hardware vendors writing drivers
Major Name Recognition (tm)
Future and Past interoperability (better than, say, NES and GameCube. XP will run lots of Win 3.1 stuff. )
Windows is great for game companies. Better than Mac. Better than OS/2. WAAAAAY better than Linux. If you can make Windows games run out of the box on Linux machines (with small additional cost), you make best buddies out of end users, developers, and gamers. People don't want to have a pile of games written for a specific OS that now needs to be repurchased. I have a stack of OS/2 games sitting around. I have a stack of Apple games sitting around. I even have some older Linux games sitting around (RH 6.5 is not very compatible with RH 7.2, you know). What I don't have is old Windows games sitting around. My current box is able to play everything I have. Norse by Norsewest; Command and Conquer; Wing Commander I, II, and III; Ultima I - IX;
It is always better to tell someone "I don't need to you to change anything, I can generate additional revenue for you for free", then to tell them " I want you to create OS-specific, hardware optimized code for a platform that has a niche market."
Face it: as cool and as useful as Linux is, it is not Windows. It has a fraction of the desktop users, supports a fraction of the hardware, and commands a lot less respect from developers. I don't see "Hot New Linux Game!" in any of my game magazines.
I think not. The HP Jornada 500/600 series are aluminum. They are very durable. I can attest to this, and I actually drove over my Jornada 545 at one point. It continued to function for 2 years after that.
Palms on the other hand, are terrible. The only Palm that feels comfortable to me is the Palm V. The Palm VII feels like some kind of badly-designed remote control, and the Palm m505s are not terrible attractive.
I hope that HP/Compaq go the way of Sony and make something that looks pretty nice, with no major dressing.
I agree with that. Raimi is a draw all by himself. Most of my favorite movies were directed by him, often with his brother in them. Let's not forget the Evil Dead series, Hercules and Xena. There have also been some flops, like Cleopatra 2525, and that awful Jack-somethingorother tv show.
He's a guy who has paid his dues, and constantly relies on tough actors, models, and whatever tech is available. Evil Dead 1/2/3 had no CGI at all. Hercules and Xena did, most of it awful:)
Raimi's a director who seems to always have tounge firmly in cheek while still trying to make good entertainment. Lucas used to be like that, 30 some years ago.
I look forward to seeing a spiderman movie that has a really geeky (non-musclebound!) Peter Parker, a good selection of random effects that I can laugh at later, and some really cheesy dialog.
Sheesh. Just remember that Spiderman is really a very silly concept. Who the heck heard of a radioactive spider giving you special powers? Have you people actually read the lousy dialog? Spiderman is for kids. It shouldn't be taken seriously, and I hope that Raimi won't.
Sure looks better than Gimp for the paintbrush type things. It is probably pretty quick for doing little tiny simple stuff, and Gimp can be overwhelming.
I prefer Gimp anyhow, but it is nice to see something that can compete with pbrush and "photo editor".
The funny thing about this is that Microsoft thought they could own the market on the first try.
I liked the concept of the XBOX, I liked the idea that things like Everquest would be easy ports. I liked the idea that everything would work with no setup. Heck, that's why I went to consoles this year. I got sick of paying big money every six months to upgrade my GD PC.
However, I went to buy a console last month, and lo and behold... the XBOX had only a handful of games (only 2 of which I liked), no real broad-band, decent graphics, and a controller that sucked, well MicroSoft:)
So, I bought a PS2. Funny that. It was cheaper, cooler, and had every game I could want. Plus, everything I wanted in a console was already there. (Ya know: games I like, a controller that was comfy, technology that was proven, a really cool developer kit, DTS)
I still like the XBOX. I hope that in the XBOX 2 or the XBOX 3 it will become a full-fledged console!
Everquest for the PS2, however, will be very interesting. How are they going to handle all the frigging patches? How about the fact that the game is 1.5 GBs? I bet the initial EQ port is going to stink SOOOOO bad.
I agree. I have a pair of Athlon MP 1900s. They are sweet. I think that they are probably the nicest chips for a sub $2000 rendering machine out there.
That said, I still wish I could afford a PS/2 developer kit:(
The new Pigeon Packets (RFC 999421-B) use a new form of CRC to help ensure accurate package delivery. Unlike Ethernet and Token-Ring however, these packages are left in the area after mistaken delivery, and must be periodically cleaned.
I do not think that means what you think it means...
Non-profit does not have to mean "volunteer", it simply means that a business or company that is non-profit may not obtain profit in any given year. Therefore the net income must == 0. If the company makes more than it spends, it needs to give it away.
Some companies ( I work for what used to be one ) do this by sending all of their "customers" rebate checks. USAA, for example. Other companies invest the money back into their employees, or into communities. I'm sure still others simply mismanage so that net income = 0, by simple accounting tricks.
Therefore, just because a person works for the Red Cross ( a major US non-profit ), it doesn't mean that they have to work at another job to make ends meet. The Red Cross can pay them to do their job.
That a product as great as PGP is going under. I personally think that if it had stayed the way it was before the buyout, it would still be around. I wonder if something like this could eventually happen to/. or Gnome.
This is the reason I am always concerned when a major company snatches up some cool new technology; they see it in major use by techs/geeks/etc, and think, "hey, with some good marketing...". They fail to understand what features matter to the original audience, fail to capture a new audience, and then drop the product.
In the meantime, it strands people who used to like the product. I was a major PGP user since its inception. Now, I can't stand the darned thing. I tried the Palm and Pocket PC versions, I tried the Windows versions. They added too many toys and widgets to a small, light application.
What is, exactly, your point? Are people removing your apps from the source tree? Are you unhappy because some developers like to write GUI apps (like XMMS, Lynx, etc )?
If you aren't getting your apps removed, then just don't load X. It's not hard, and since your probably compile your kernel from source, just don't include anything!
I happen to use AIX, BSD, and Linux daily. My favorite part of Linux is that anyone can write anything they want for it! I can use most of my home toys ( like the AD&D character generator ) without rebooting into Windows, and I can still use ssh, telnet, cat, grep, awk, sed, cvs. Isn't this the whole idea?
Corel Linux was nice, and the apt interface was nice too. The biggest problem I had was that it isn't even potato based. It took me about a week to get the 3dfx stuff to work properly.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be a bore, but look at car engines. Fairly small amount of propellent (gasoline), fairly well understood technology (internal combustion), and still there are hundreds of risks. They are as safe as they are simply because of decades of excellent engineering.
I just hope this guy will use every safety measure he can get his hands on. I'd hate to see this being a publicity nightmare.
-WS
And yes, when they were on call in the days before pagers, they were woken with a phone call. They then ran their butt off in order to help you.
Now, in the case of my youngest (who has RMS, which is a form of cancer), he has two cancer specialists, 6 anesthesia specialists, but only 1 urinary specialist. Why? Because there is only one pediatric urologist working with his hospital in the WHOLE DARN AREA. If I find out that you hurt my son's doctor because he's watching a movie and my son has an emergency I will personally beat you into the anal-retentive ball of slime you deserve to be .
You have your little attitude, but you have less regard for society than people who are the lone specialist for 200 miles. I am delighted that you are so easily replaced. That way, when you die an insignificant death of ignominy, you will be immediately replaced with another drone.
-WS
Also, let's not under-estimate the public attention span. If a case like this gets on the "RADAR" then it may become something. Otherwise, it will probably just fade away and provide a bunch of lawyers with pensions.
-WS
I mean, seriously. MS has been on trial for so long now I barely remember when it started. IBM has been tried at least once, and I doubt that the Baby Bells will do any worse than those two.
Let's save our legal money for things like national ID cards, and people who wear hushpuppies.
(Well, I was just kidding about the hushpuppies)
(I think. . .)
-WS
I've written in OpenGL for a long time (first OpenGL game was about when 3dFX came out...) and it is not hard. Freakin' whiners. First assembler is too hard (though I think they do have a point), then C is too hard, then OpenGL is too hard, now DirectX is too hard?
Here's an idea... if you can't write code that is fast, useable, and maintainable GO GET ANOTHER JOB. Stop writing additional layers of abstraction to hog up the CPU and disk.
-WS
Think about it. MS programs typically have over 1M lines of code; which takes them two+ years to compelete. It then takes them another year or two to release patches and bug-fixes.
I have heard the Gartner estimates on coding speed, and I agree with them to a point. I personally write about 60 lines of debugged, optimized, platform adjusted (either specific or not, depending) spell-checked code a day. I obviously am not the programmer this other fellow is, but I clearly make waaaaay more.
Perhaps a correlation?
-WS
The box survived three or for "security tests" from consulting terms with no issues. It was one of three NT machines in the company that survived, the other two of which were actually OS/2 boxes running SAMBA.
Just goes to show...
-WS
-WS
Mmmmm Moon Pies...
-WS
A full set of APIs
A large user base
Hardware vendors writing drivers
Major Name Recognition (tm)
Future and Past interoperability (better than, say, NES and GameCube. XP will run lots of Win 3.1 stuff. )
Windows is great for game companies. Better than Mac. Better than OS/2. WAAAAAY better than Linux. If you can make Windows games run out of the box on Linux machines (with small additional cost), you make best buddies out of end users, developers, and gamers. People don't want to have a pile of games written for a specific OS that now needs to be repurchased. I have a stack of OS/2 games sitting around. I have a stack of Apple games sitting around. I even have some older Linux games sitting around (RH 6.5 is not very compatible with RH 7.2, you know). What I don't have is old Windows games sitting around. My current box is able to play everything I have. Norse by Norsewest; Command and Conquer; Wing Commander I, II, and III; Ultima I - IX;
It is always better to tell someone "I don't need to you to change anything, I can generate additional revenue for you for free", then to tell them " I want you to create OS-specific, hardware optimized code for a platform that has a niche market."
Face it: as cool and as useful as Linux is, it is not Windows. It has a fraction of the desktop users, supports a fraction of the hardware, and commands a lot less respect from developers. I don't see "Hot New Linux Game!" in any of my game magazines.
-WS
Considering how much the darned things cost, they had better be bullet-proof...
-WS
Palms on the other hand, are terrible. The only Palm that feels comfortable to me is the Palm V. The Palm VII feels like some kind of badly-designed remote control, and the Palm m505s are not terrible attractive.
I hope that HP/Compaq go the way of Sony and make something that looks pretty nice, with no major dressing.
-WS
He's a guy who has paid his dues, and constantly relies on tough actors, models, and whatever tech is available. Evil Dead 1/2/3 had no CGI at all. Hercules and Xena did, most of it awful :)
Raimi's a director who seems to always have tounge firmly in cheek while still trying to make good entertainment. Lucas used to be like that, 30 some years ago.
I look forward to seeing a spiderman movie that has a really geeky (non-musclebound!) Peter Parker, a good selection of random effects that I can laugh at later, and some really cheesy dialog.
Sheesh. Just remember that Spiderman is really a very silly concept. Who the heck heard of a radioactive spider giving you special powers? Have you people actually read the lousy dialog? Spiderman is for kids. It shouldn't be taken seriously, and I hope that Raimi won't.
-WS
I can't wait to see what cool stuff is planned for RH 7.3 :)
-WS
I prefer Gimp anyhow, but it is nice to see something that can compete with pbrush and "photo editor".
-WS
I liked the concept of the XBOX, I liked the idea that things like Everquest would be easy ports. I liked the idea that everything would work with no setup. Heck, that's why I went to consoles this year. I got sick of paying big money every six months to upgrade my GD PC.
However, I went to buy a console last month, and lo and behold... the XBOX had only a handful of games (only 2 of which I liked), no real broad-band, decent graphics, and a controller that sucked, well MicroSoft :)
So, I bought a PS2. Funny that. It was cheaper, cooler, and had every game I could want. Plus, everything I wanted in a console was already there. (Ya know: games I like, a controller that was comfy, technology that was proven, a really cool developer kit, DTS)
I still like the XBOX. I hope that in the XBOX 2 or the XBOX 3 it will become a full-fledged console!
Everquest for the PS2, however, will be very interesting. How are they going to handle all the frigging patches? How about the fact that the game is 1.5 GBs? I bet the initial EQ port is going to stink SOOOOO bad.
-WS
Scrub the really experimental ones, scrub the really "gee-whiz" ones. Sorry, but they are rarely ready for prime time.
Then, when you're down to 2-3 that sound good, install them. I have a check-list that I use to see if I'm going to use an OS for awhile:
Does it have a good installation? Not just simple, but actually good?
Does it support multiple boot methods? Boot floppies, recovery floppies, multiple configs?
Is it easy for you to use your hardware on it?
Is the help easily available?
Do the games you want come for it?
Will they work anyway? (Yay WineX! http://www.transgaming.com )
Do you like the web browser?
Can you do your work easily, or are you always and looking for stuff?
Finally, does it network well?
These are what I use for all OSs. I've been using it since I chose between PC-DOS, MS-DOS, and DR-DOS. The web stuff was added later, of course :)
-WS
That said, I still wish I could afford a PS/2 developer kit :(
-WS
The new Pigeon Packets (RFC 999421-B) use a new form of CRC to help ensure accurate package delivery. Unlike Ethernet and Token-Ring however, these packages are left in the area after mistaken delivery, and must be periodically cleaned.
The biggest problem stems from packet storms...
-WS
"There is always more than one way to shoot yourself in the foot"
Which explains things like the Schwartzian Transform and the Orcish maneouver...
-WS
I do not think that means what you think it means...
Non-profit does not have to mean "volunteer", it simply means that a business or company that is non-profit may not obtain profit in any given year. Therefore the net income must == 0. If the company makes more than it spends, it needs to give it away.
Some companies ( I work for what used to be one ) do this by sending all of their "customers" rebate checks. USAA, for example. Other companies invest the money back into their employees, or into communities. I'm sure still others simply mismanage so that net income = 0, by simple accounting tricks.
Therefore, just because a person works for the Red Cross ( a major US non-profit ), it doesn't mean that they have to work at another job to make ends meet. The Red Cross can pay them to do their job.
-WS
That a product as great as PGP is going under. I personally think that if it had stayed the way it was before the buyout, it would still be around. I wonder if something like this could eventually happen to /. or Gnome.
This is the reason I am always concerned when a major company snatches up some cool new technology; they see it in major use by techs/geeks/etc, and think, "hey, with some good marketing...". They fail to understand what features matter to the original audience, fail to capture a new audience, and then drop the product.
In the meantime, it strands people who used to like the product. I was a major PGP user since its inception. Now, I can't stand the darned thing. I tried the Palm and Pocket PC versions, I tried the Windows versions. They added too many toys and widgets to a small, light application.
Oh well. I hope the Gnu PGP clone keeps up.
-WS
Actually, I think that is a good point. Would you end up on academic probation for renting "Animal House" too many times?
After all, you never know what kind of ideas might come of it...
I guess I should go rent "Sense and Sensability" and Rocky MCMLX just to put myself in the 3rd standard deviation...
-WS
What is, exactly, your point? Are people removing your apps from the source tree? Are you unhappy because some developers like to write GUI apps (like XMMS, Lynx, etc )?
If you aren't getting your apps removed, then just don't load X. It's not hard, and since your probably compile your kernel from source, just don't include anything!
I happen to use AIX, BSD, and Linux daily. My favorite part of Linux is that anyone can write anything they want for it! I can use most of my home toys ( like the AD&D character generator ) without rebooting into Windows, and I can still use ssh, telnet, cat, grep, awk, sed, cvs. Isn't this the whole idea?
-WS
Corel Linux was nice, and the apt interface was nice too. The biggest problem I had was that it isn't even potato based. It took me about a week to get the 3dfx stuff to work properly.
Then I tried installing Ximian on it...
-WS