I used to surf at least once a day for at least 2 hours, lift weights every other day and bike back and forth to school. I was in great shape. I still got RSI...who would have guessed MUDding 16 hours a day could be so hard on your body.
Well, you wouldn't want goldfish in the case because they don't flourish in warm water. Tropical fish or saltwater fish would probably be the way to go. And as long as there was enough circulation and an area for gas/heat exchange the heat would probably not be a problem. In fact, I could imagine the circulating water might actually help keep the computer cooler.
Also, exactly where does it say Intel does not reserve the right to cut Timothy in order to get cheaper labor in the door ? This is just one way of Intel reducing their labor costs; trust me, if they have to (and they probably will), they will lay off people as well if they can get cheaper people (and I mean cheaper with all associated costs in) to replace them. And if they can do this (and again I emphasize with associated costs in), why shouldn't they ???
I'm with you, and I hate Microsoft as much as anyone. Nowhere does the source article intimate that it was an NT machine./. (and other Linux bigots) risk losing relevance if all it can do is trot out the same old "MS sucks/Linux rules" BS, day after day, especially when (as here) the rationale for trotting this out is tenuous at best. MS sucks, and Windows sucks doubly, but is it the best we can do to point out that 1) a computer crashed somewhere, and 2) that organization happens to run a lot of Windows machines (but not exclusively) ? Exactly what would the last line of the original post have been if NASA happened to run a lot of Linux boxes, instead ? GROW UP !!!
Here, here. You don't have to love something to be good at it. Do I care if my surgeon really loves his work ? No, I just care that he is good at it. Do I care if my mechanic or plumber loves *his* work ?? No, I just care that he is good at it. Do I care if a programmer/sysadmin/dba loves *his* work ? No, I just care that he is good at it. The notion that IT workers should love their work is a lame attempt by some IT workers at romanticizing a job. Surely there are some IT workers love their work...but it sure does not say anything about whether or not they are any better at it because of it (are the Slashdot guys really great programmers and DBAs ? Looking at the/. code, I would suggest not, but I would also guess they love their work) . There are lots of would-be doctors who probably would have loved their work, too, but they weren't able to get into medical school. On the other hand I know several doctors and lawyers who ultimately couldn't give a damn about their work, but they are good at it.
I'm not an tax professional, but in order to claim deductions, don't they usually (with some exceptions) need to offset demonstrable income ? Since I presume most people who do open-source software are not making money from that work, I would guess it would be pretty hard to claim any deductions. Of course as others have noted, people *should* consult a tax professional.
Coming from the guy whose work spawned the WWW, this is some speculation worth taking seriously
I found this proposition to be quite empty. No disrespect to Berners-Lee, but just because he did design something which has ultimately had great impact does not mean he is a visionary with any special insights as to where the world or communications is going in the future. My understanding is that the beginnings of the WWW were quite mundane and so were his initial aspirations. He is no more credentialed to opine as an authority on the future of communications than (say) Shawn Fanning would be to speak on the future of music distribution. Just because he had the good fortune of coming up with something which ended up becoming revolutionary does not mean he is any more likely to do so again in the future.
Does this mean that all of Yahoo! will be blocked by the various censorware companies?
No way this would ever happen.
1. as others pointed out, there would be a huge backlash if a well-read and generally 'respectable' portal were suddenly off-limits. That censorware company would be out of business in mere days.
2. If they're not able to do so now (which would startle me), it should be easy to allow the censorware to block only subdomains or specific hosts.
3. If the problem became serious, and subdomain or host-based blocking were somehow impossible (again not likely) Yahoo could just create a domain like yahoo-adult.com
4. Selling porn is a completely different issue than purveying the porn itself on the web. You could allow people to buy it and browse small thumbnails of the covers without having to show overly offensive pictures. Most of the coverart is less revealing than the Sports Illustrated swimsuit callendar banner ads that i keep getting.
My ears are getting tired of all the alarms that keep sounding...
This post seems to assume that there is some kind of unified front dicating opinion at Slashdot.
So who does the initial moderation that happens sometimes within minutes of submission ? When I've made posts I usually see it moderated up (or down) within a few minutes, and somehow I doubt it is that someone with a few mod points decided to check in on *my* post, out of hundreds. I have to conclude there's some little troll with a bag of Doritos and Jolt cola and a poster of Lara Croft sitting there moderating things as they come in. If I believed there was substantial homogenization of opinion happening here, and it was reflected in moderation scores, and if I wanted to look for a mechanism by which a "unified front dictating opinion" would subtly exert its effect, it might be at this stage. This hypothetical initial moderation effort wouldn't even have to be explicitly homogenizing in purpose - it would be just enough that/. probably hires people who are like-minded.
The effect of a single mod point could have a huge effect on how widely a viewpoint gets disseminated : whoever gets modded up initially gets read by others who have their preferences set to filter out low-score posts, and are therefore eligible to be modded up further; those who get downgraded or left alone, are left alone to wither on the vine.
Am I wrong ? I'd love to know if I was, and if there was no initial/. guy modding posts up and down. But if I am wrong, I'd love to know how posts get modded up so quickly on submission - you'd need way too many posters with mod points.
Offtopic, perhaps, but also maybe appropriate given all the hand-waving that goes on here about use of usage information. What exactly is Slashdot's policy on the same topic ? Is Slashdot selling its users' demographics ? Is Slashdot selling information about which posts are interesting/read most/etc ? And what is the policy here regarding ownership/copyright of posts ? Can Slashdot resell them later, say, in a compendium ?
I looked around and was startled to find that I *couldn't* find any such information in the "about" section, nor in the "faq". One would think that given the viewpoints so floridly and frequently espoused here that the policy would be front-and-center. Did I miss it somewhere ?
I haven't run the checksums myself, but I have to say this was the stupidest article I have ever read. Even if there *were* bootlegged copies floating around, this goes NO WAY in explaining how Apple would ship "select developers" the "bad" build, while shipping retail customers the "good" one. Where is his evidence that the latter happened ? Where exactly does the theory that the select developers and reviewers received the bad build come from ? As far as I can tell, it comes exclusively from the Apple apologist framework that believes as its starting and essential premise that Apple can do no wrong.
If the author really wanted some small iota of support for his lame-brained hypothesis, he would have at least run the checksums to show that the bad build he is confident he received (as a 'select' developer) was different than the real builds Apple is distributing.
What you are missing (I suspect you are not) is that almost all of the people here who chime in on this issue (I want a copy of a song on a CD I own to play on my MP3 player...I want the songs I lost when I broke a CD I own...blah, blah) are being dishonest with us and themselves about why they use Napster. I don't know a *single* person who has *not* used Napster to download a song they do not own the rights to. I'm sure there are a few, but these few do NOT account for Napster's widespread popularity. I believe most Napster users (including those here) are using Napster to download songs they have not paid for and have absolutely no intention to pay for. And as for the arguments that sharing increases CD sales, well even if true (and I do not believe it is) that's something the people who own the rights to distribute the music should decide, NOT us.
Many private schools have rules about the conduct of their students, especially as it affects the school or perceptions of the school itself. For instance, many schools have rules that their students *must* wear their school uniform while going or coming from the school; they cannot e.g. change in the school. So it should not come as a suprise that they would suspend students for (as I read the/. article) besmirching the school's reputation or policies.
Nor should we be upset that they would enforce such a policy. Arbirary school rules are valid because they are private schools that students have elected to attend, and this very election constitutes tacit support of their policies. Private schools *try* to groom students in a very particular way (hence the uniforms, hence the common tradition of addressing students by last name, etc.) and this is precisely the reason parents send their children here. If the parents aren't happy with the school policies, they should not have sent them there. If you don't like the school's policies, don't send your kids there either.
Yup. They'll make it work *just* enough to say that they don't wield a monopoly with Windows. Of course the Linux version won't work as well as the Windows version and many users will be left thinking that Linux is a shitty platform as a result. MS is essentially planning to piss in the Linux pool, in order to force people to get out and jump in the MS pool. Meanwhile they will be reaping fees from Linux users and putting themselves in a position to suvert Linux users who come to rely on.NET.
So aside from the admitted possible inconveniences (i.e. a delay, or having to connect to a network) associated with having the machine authenticate itself over a network, is there another reason would people be upset about this ? Is it really wrong for a company to try and verify that every user holds a valid license ? Lots of software companies do this now, in some form or another (i.e. they force you to enter a reg key when installed). This just goes a small (but logical) step forward. And don't say piracy isn't a huge issue for these consoles, because although I don't own a PS, I (and I am sure many if not most/. readers) know tons of people who bought the 'chip' and burn copies of either their friends' or rental PS games for themselves. Given that evidently companies don't make much $$ out of console sales, and hope instead to recoup their development costs on software and/or license sales, this is a completely logical thing to do. Not to mention the likelihood that their licensees may well have demanded this ability, for the reasons above.
And would people here be equally upset if there were developers out there trying their darndest to enforce (e.g.) the GPL that their products were released under ?
Re:Worst movie I've seen in a long time.
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Didn't anyone else hate this movie?
Warning: spoilers
Amen, brother. I told everyone at the theater as I was leaving it was the worst movie I had ever paid for. I felt so angry and ripped off I yelled at my friend who dragged me there (and without whom I would have walked out early).
At the end, I had no idea what it was about - there were at least 2 movies therein - and there were such huge inconsistencies that I kept finding myself laughing out loud at them. Here are a few (my subconscious has repressed most already)
- Burns' character just happens to spot a woman from across a crowded street and immediately deducts that she might be a witness
-after very little interaction between the Burns and the witness, he takes her home to pick up her stuff and a romantic scene follows. I groaned out loud.
-Burns kidnaps Olig from police custody and takes him to a warehouse and un-handcuffs him and gives him Flemming's gun so that they can have a shootout!!!! (where did this gun come from anyways)
-Burns guns down an already-surrendered Olig and nobody even acts like he is going to be arrested. He would be arrested immediately.
-Kelsey Grammar's character shows up - by himself - to a hotel room with these two murderers and 1 million dollars in his briefcase . After viewing the horrible video he hands it over to the criminals. Wouldn't it be more likely that the criminals would just take the sizeable money and flee, instead of planning to ultimately be captured ??? -though too complicated to explain, the double-jeopardy scheme cooked up by Olig is too ludicrous to believe. Sure, maybe some people would pay for crime scene footage, but I hardly believe that you are going to get a big book and movie deal for a murder of a fellow criminal who ripped you off, a prostitute, and a cop who is trying to catch you. None of these acts suggest any real pathology, which would be requisite for a big deal.
On a related note. Ever notice that those who complain the most about racial issues are the ones who are least economically successful, but at the same time seem to be the most successful on the dating scene (compare Asians vs. blacks). I'm not sure of how to interpret this.
Well, I am not sure how you should interpret this but lots of other people have interpreted this perceived (and I emphasize perceived) phenomenon. Look up the work of the controversial Canadian psychologist Philip Rushton who - in a nutshell - argues that Asians are more intelligent but are less sexually active and interested, while blacks are the opposite in both dimensions. Whites are supposed to fall in between.
Note: I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this view - I believe arguments like this must be made in the scientific arena, not the emotional arena where almost all arguments on the topic are fought. Do I want such group-based differences to exist ? No.. Do I think that they (or some other equally offensive differences) could possible exist ? Yes.
Re:American Television - Killed by commerce
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Here in the UK much admirable television is produced, mainly because...
I don't know how much good TV the UK produces, but I do know the UK also subjects people in sovereign countries to 'Coronation Street'. That's reason enough for the countries in the Commonwealth to sever all ties to figurehead monarchs.
So what's the big deal ? Just because a key canexpire doesn't mean it must. Companies could sell keys that expired in a short period, or for more money they could sell you a key that lasted forever (or some very very long time), or they could sell you something in between. If I could buy a short-lived key, I might just buy songs in cases where I would not want to spring the full $20 for a CD, under the expectation that I will listen to it for a bit and then never listen to it again (as with many of my own CDs). This just gives the consumer potentially more choices, which is a good thing.
In my experience, being young can actually be a huge advantage. Many people actually want and expect younger kids to be wizards, and I have seen much management crow about the "young" star in their stable. Tech companies go out of their way to make for themselves a young hip image.
And if you read magazines like Business 2.0 and Wired and Red Herring, etc., it's clear that the business press, too, worships at the temple of the cult of youth. So I have not really seen situations where youth is a significant disadvantage, assuming, of course, that the young person is qualified. And of course, while not always true, the latter is often the kicker...we should expect younger people to be less qualified and be pleasantly surprised when they are not.
I was coincidentally in Las Vegas this weekend. I was a skeptic about how much interest their would be for the XFL. When we couldn't get tickets to the Vegas game - really because we were curious, we went to the Caesar's Palace sports book to watch the game. Approximately 30-40% of the seats were filled - a reasonable turnout, I though - and there was some excitement at the first shots of the cheerleaders, the first scoring plays, etc. At this point all these factors had me thinking that maybe I had underestimated the XFL's appeal.
But my skepticism was renewed when I realized that two thirds of the crowd disappeared before the end of the first quarter. I am forced to believe that the high initial ratings were purely curiosity-driven, and that they will drop precipitiously from here. Furthermore, as ratings drop McMahon & Co. will start boosting the cheerleader-content, making the position that the XFL is "about real football" more and more untenable.
Others have pointed out their suspicions that the game was scripted, and further noted that people who had been profiled at outset curiously seemed to be involved in on-field action/scuffles later. I too expect that the games are partly scripted, and if this continues Vegas is going to be more and more reluctant to set odds. This would be a disaster for the XFL.
Of course, the fact that Vegas didset odds, in the first-place, when they cannot have had much basis to do so (new rules, players noone knew about, and uncertain confidence in whether the games are legitimate) should be viewed as a first black-eye anyways. And the fact that Vegas is viewing their participation in XFL betting with some trepidation is evidenced by the fact that there was no over-under line set in the books I visited. How do you set a valid point spread, without being able to set an over-under ? The spreads were guesses in the dark, and some gamblers I know are pissed about it.
As for me, I'll be waiting for the day when the XFL goes away with a whimper. Dick Ebersol is a moron.
In your case, mtxl.c is linked to the subsequent programs that use this module, and it seems like it is this linking - and the explicit incorporation of the GPL'ed mtxl.c into all your other programs - that protects these other programs under GPL.
But what if mtxl.c WASN'T linked to your other applications, but was (e.g.) a separate program, runnable by itself, and you wrote other programs X and Y which used mtxl by calling it ? Should X and Y also be *legally* (forget morally) protected under the GPL ?
Because if so, it seems to me the commercial utility of (e.g.) Linux would be greatly diminished, as so many applications would then be GPL'ed, if only because they use cat or ls or grep. That just seems crazy.
Earlier - and valid - posts about the ludicrousness of Katz's claim that computer gaming has become a mainstream form of culture notwithstanding (it's still a subculture, IMO, and still pretty much for geeks), for me the most addictive game ever has to be a text-based MUD I used to play called Isengard.
The text parser was crappy, there were tons of bugs, and (of course) there were no shiny graphics, but it was in my opinion BY FAR a better game than (e.g.) Diablo II, and tons more addictive. I spent literally days on end working on my character, and when she would die (costing a quarter of my experience) I swear it felt like I died - my blood pressure would shoot up, and I would have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach...
And the whole MUD would be in shock, and there would follow a long procession of comfort and condolences. And I would swear off the MUD, only to return a few days later galvanized to regain the lost experience, and then some...I really cared about completing those quests, and advancing in level, whereas in (e.g.) Diablo II, I could not possibly care less.
The best thing about these MUDs - still unduplicated as far as I can tell - was the real sense of community that was created. The same people knew they would find each other almost every day, and consequently there were long histories and emnities that develop, hell there were full out feuds that lasted years. I've heard of people getting married to people they met on MUDs, for crying out loud ! And there was really room for people to take on different personas...there were helpful people, aloof people, stupid people, and evil, dangerous people.
The only thing that would stop me from playing was when I would come down with weakness in the forearm from banging out the same key combination for hours straight. Then I would have to take a break for a few days. And what finally stopped me was when I left college, and thereby lost my free Net access. I just couldn't play the same way anymore when all those hourse would cost me big-time.
The abstract suggests that Infocom did not die "because it decided to shift its focus to business software by making Cornerstone", but almost all of the company's problems that they document appear, indeed, to stem from the Cornerstone decision - transition costs, split of corporate identity from transitioning to business products and the resulting employee anomie, the large outlay to buy a new machine for Cornerstone development, disappointing Cornerstone sales, Cornerstone's poor performance due to it's z-machine implementation, etc.
The only allusions to non-Cornerstone related factors were to the growing importance of graphics in computer games, but the examples they detail were mostly console games, and Infocom's text adventures would most likely (as suggested by the earlier accounts of the Zork packaging fiasco) be purchased by a completely different market sector.
One thing that really stuck in my craw for some reason is the authors' assertion that "all sales projections indicated the company would continue to grow exponentially", while they refer the reader to a diagram which presented very little reason to believe that sales had grown exponentially at all - in fact, sales growth looked pretty linear. There were other flaws with their analysis, but this one really bugged me.
Anyways, the only thing that I really enjoyed about the article were the scans and screencaps of the old programs and the throw-ins for the Infocom games. I remember poring over those Deadline materials, and keeping files of rolled-up thermal paper printouts of my game...
I wonder what grade they got...
p.s. anybody know if the downloadable infocom games also have available the physical throwin materials, like maps, crime scene photos, etc ? The article implied that the materials were necessary to complete the games...
is work on his jumpshot, take growth hormone and later - say, when 10 or 11, spend some quality time in the gym doing strength training. If his inside game is halfway as good as his computer skills evidently are, he will be the happiest kid to ever leave college early, and he will invite you to parties with models and actresses, and to rap-video shoots where there will be more models and actresses. Are there any computer guys who party with tons of models and actresses ? Can't think of any offhand.
Failing that, teach him how to play the guitar. The world doesn't need another Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, the world needs another Jimi Hendrix (or a good big center who can seriously help some NBA team challenge the lakers).
Slashdot Mirror
I used to surf at least once a day for at least 2 hours, lift weights every other day and bike back and forth to school. I was in great shape. I still got RSI...who would have guessed MUDding 16 hours a day could be so hard on your body.
Well, you wouldn't want goldfish in the case because they don't flourish in warm water. Tropical fish or saltwater fish would probably be the way to go. And as long as there was enough circulation and an area for gas/heat exchange the heat would probably not be a problem. In fact, I could imagine the circulating water might actually help keep the computer cooler.
Also, exactly where does it say Intel does not reserve the right to cut Timothy in order to get cheaper labor in the door ? This is just one way of Intel reducing their labor costs; trust me, if they have to (and they probably will), they will lay off people as well if they can get cheaper people (and I mean cheaper with all associated costs in) to replace them. And if they can do this (and again I emphasize with associated costs in), why shouldn't they ???
I'm with you, and I hate Microsoft as much as anyone. Nowhere does the source article intimate that it was an NT machine. /. (and other Linux bigots) risk losing relevance if all it can do is trot out the same old "MS sucks/Linux rules" BS, day after day, especially when (as here) the rationale for trotting this out is tenuous at best. MS sucks, and Windows sucks doubly, but is it the best we can do to point out that 1) a computer crashed somewhere, and 2) that organization happens to run a lot of Windows machines (but not exclusively) ? Exactly what would the last line of the original post have been if NASA happened to run a lot of Linux boxes, instead ? GROW UP !!!
Here, here. You don't have to love something to be good at it. Do I care if my surgeon really loves his work ? No, I just care that he is good at it. Do I care if my mechanic or plumber loves *his* work ?? No, I just care that he is good at it. Do I care if a programmer/sysadmin/dba loves *his* work ? No, I just care that he is good at it. The notion that IT workers should love their work is a lame attempt by some IT workers at romanticizing a job. Surely there are some IT workers love their work...but it sure does not say anything about whether or not they are any better at it because of it (are the Slashdot guys really great programmers and DBAs ? Looking at the /. code, I would suggest not, but I would also guess they love their work) . There are lots of would-be doctors who probably would have loved their work, too, but they weren't able to get into medical school. On the other hand I know several doctors and lawyers who ultimately couldn't give a damn about their work, but they are good at it.
I'm not an tax professional, but in order to claim deductions, don't they usually (with some exceptions) need to offset demonstrable income ? Since I presume most people who do open-source software are not making money from that work, I would guess it would be pretty hard to claim any deductions. Of course as others have noted, people *should* consult a tax professional.
I found this proposition to be quite empty. No disrespect to Berners-Lee, but just because he did design something which has ultimately had great impact does not mean he is a visionary with any special insights as to where the world or communications is going in the future. My understanding is that the beginnings of the WWW were quite mundane and so were his initial aspirations. He is no more credentialed to opine as an authority on the future of communications than (say) Shawn Fanning would be to speak on the future of music distribution. Just because he had the good fortune of coming up with something which ended up becoming revolutionary does not mean he is any more likely to do so again in the future.
No way this would ever happen.
1. as others pointed out, there would be a huge backlash if a well-read and generally 'respectable' portal were suddenly off-limits. That censorware company would be out of business in mere days.
2. If they're not able to do so now (which would startle me), it should be easy to allow the censorware to block only subdomains or specific hosts.
3. If the problem became serious, and subdomain or host-based blocking were somehow impossible (again not likely) Yahoo could just create a domain like yahoo-adult.com
4. Selling porn is a completely different issue than purveying the porn itself on the web. You could allow people to buy it and browse small thumbnails of the covers without having to show overly offensive pictures. Most of the coverart is less revealing than the Sports Illustrated swimsuit callendar banner ads that i keep getting.
My ears are getting tired of all the alarms that keep sounding...
So who does the initial moderation that happens sometimes within minutes of submission ? When I've made posts I usually see it moderated up (or down) within a few minutes, and somehow I doubt it is that someone with a few mod points decided to check in on *my* post, out of hundreds. I have to conclude there's some little troll with a bag of Doritos and Jolt cola and a poster of Lara Croft sitting there moderating things as they come in. If I believed there was substantial homogenization of opinion happening here, and it was reflected in moderation scores, and if I wanted to look for a mechanism by which a "unified front dictating opinion" would subtly exert its effect, it might be at this stage. This hypothetical initial moderation effort wouldn't even have to be explicitly homogenizing in purpose - it would be just enough that /. probably hires people who are like-minded.
The effect of a single mod point could have a huge effect on how widely a viewpoint gets disseminated : whoever gets modded up initially gets read by others who have their preferences set to filter out low-score posts, and are therefore eligible to be modded up further; those who get downgraded or left alone, are left alone to wither on the vine.
Am I wrong ? I'd love to know if I was, and if there was no initial /. guy modding posts up and down. But if I am wrong, I'd love to know how posts get modded up so quickly on submission - you'd need way too many posters with mod points.
I looked around and was startled to find that I *couldn't* find any such information in the "about" section, nor in the "faq". One would think that given the viewpoints so floridly and frequently espoused here that the policy would be front-and-center. Did I miss it somewhere ?
If the author really wanted some small iota of support for his lame-brained hypothesis, he would have at least run the checksums to show that the bad build he is confident he received (as a 'select' developer) was different than the real builds Apple is distributing.
What you are missing (I suspect you are not) is that almost all of the people here who chime in on this issue (I want a copy of a song on a CD I own to play on my MP3 player...I want the songs I lost when I broke a CD I own...blah, blah) are being dishonest with us and themselves about why they use Napster. I don't know a *single* person who has *not* used Napster to download a song they do not own the rights to. I'm sure there are a few, but these few do NOT account for Napster's widespread popularity. I believe most Napster users (including those here) are using Napster to download songs they have not paid for and have absolutely no intention to pay for. And as for the arguments that sharing increases CD sales, well even if true (and I do not believe it is) that's something the people who own the rights to distribute the music should decide, NOT us.
Nor should we be upset that they would enforce such a policy. Arbirary school rules are valid because they are private schools that students have elected to attend, and this very election constitutes tacit support of their policies. Private schools *try* to groom students in a very particular way (hence the uniforms, hence the common tradition of addressing students by last name, etc.) and this is precisely the reason parents send their children here. If the parents aren't happy with the school policies, they should not have sent them there. If you don't like the school's policies, don't send your kids there either.
Yup. They'll make it work *just* enough to say that they don't wield a monopoly with Windows. Of course the Linux version won't work as well as the Windows version and many users will be left thinking that Linux is a shitty platform as a result. MS is essentially planning to piss in the Linux pool, in order to force people to get out and jump in the MS pool. Meanwhile they will be reaping fees from Linux users and putting themselves in a position to suvert Linux users who come to rely on .NET.
And would people here be equally upset if there were developers out there trying their darndest to enforce (e.g.) the GPL that their products were released under ?
Warning: spoilers
Amen, brother. I told everyone at the theater as I was leaving it was the worst movie I had ever paid for. I felt so angry and ripped off I yelled at my friend who dragged me there (and without whom I would have walked out early).
At the end, I had no idea what it was about - there were at least 2 movies therein - and there were such huge inconsistencies that I kept finding myself laughing out loud at them. Here are a few (my subconscious has repressed most already)
- Burns' character just happens to spot a woman from across a crowded street and immediately deducts that she might be a witness
-after very little interaction between the Burns and the witness, he takes her home to pick up her stuff and a romantic scene follows. I groaned out loud.
-Burns kidnaps Olig from police custody and takes him to a warehouse and un-handcuffs him and gives him Flemming's gun so that they can have a shootout!!!! (where did this gun come from anyways)
-Burns guns down an already-surrendered Olig and nobody even acts like he is going to be arrested. He would be arrested immediately.
-Kelsey Grammar's character shows up - by himself - to a hotel room with these two murderers and 1 million dollars in his briefcase . After viewing the horrible video he hands it over to the criminals. Wouldn't it be more likely that the criminals would just take the sizeable money and flee, instead of planning to ultimately be captured ???
-though too complicated to explain, the double-jeopardy scheme cooked up by Olig is too ludicrous to believe. Sure, maybe some people would pay for crime scene footage, but I hardly believe that you are going to get a big book and movie deal for a murder of a fellow criminal who ripped you off, a prostitute, and a cop who is trying to catch you. None of these acts suggest any real pathology, which would be requisite for a big deal.
Well, I am not sure how you should interpret this but lots of other people have interpreted this perceived (and I emphasize perceived) phenomenon. Look up the work of the controversial Canadian psychologist Philip Rushton who - in a nutshell - argues that Asians are more intelligent but are less sexually active and interested, while blacks are the opposite in both dimensions. Whites are supposed to fall in between.
Note: I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this view - I believe arguments like this must be made in the scientific arena, not the emotional arena where almost all arguments on the topic are fought. Do I want such group-based differences to exist ? No.. Do I think that they (or some other equally offensive differences) could possible exist ? Yes.
Here in the UK much admirable television is produced, mainly because... I don't know how much good TV the UK produces, but I do know the UK also subjects people in sovereign countries to 'Coronation Street'. That's reason enough for the countries in the Commonwealth to sever all ties to figurehead monarchs.
So what's the big deal ? Just because a key canexpire doesn't mean it must. Companies could sell keys that expired in a short period, or for more money they could sell you a key that lasted forever (or some very very long time), or they could sell you something in between. If I could buy a short-lived key, I might just buy songs in cases where I would not want to spring the full $20 for a CD, under the expectation that I will listen to it for a bit and then never listen to it again (as with many of my own CDs). This just gives the consumer potentially more choices, which is a good thing.
And if you read magazines like Business 2.0 and Wired and Red Herring, etc., it's clear that the business press, too, worships at the temple of the cult of youth. So I have not really seen situations where youth is a significant disadvantage, assuming, of course, that the young person is qualified. And of course, while not always true, the latter is often the kicker...we should expect younger people to be less qualified and be pleasantly surprised when they are not.
But my skepticism was renewed when I realized that two thirds of the crowd disappeared before the end of the first quarter. I am forced to believe that the high initial ratings were purely curiosity-driven, and that they will drop precipitiously from here. Furthermore, as ratings drop McMahon & Co. will start boosting the cheerleader-content, making the position that the XFL is "about real football" more and more untenable.
Others have pointed out their suspicions that the game was scripted, and further noted that people who had been profiled at outset curiously seemed to be involved in on-field action/scuffles later. I too expect that the games are partly scripted, and if this continues Vegas is going to be more and more reluctant to set odds. This would be a disaster for the XFL.
Of course, the fact that Vegas didset odds, in the first-place, when they cannot have had much basis to do so (new rules, players noone knew about, and uncertain confidence in whether the games are legitimate) should be viewed as a first black-eye anyways. And the fact that Vegas is viewing their participation in XFL betting with some trepidation is evidenced by the fact that there was no over-under line set in the books I visited. How do you set a valid point spread, without being able to set an over-under ? The spreads were guesses in the dark, and some gamblers I know are pissed about it.
As for me, I'll be waiting for the day when the XFL goes away with a whimper. Dick Ebersol is a moron.
In your case, mtxl.c is linked to the subsequent programs that use this module, and it seems like it is this linking - and the explicit incorporation of the GPL'ed mtxl.c into all your other programs - that protects these other programs under GPL. But what if mtxl.c WASN'T linked to your other applications, but was (e.g.) a separate program, runnable by itself, and you wrote other programs X and Y which used mtxl by calling it ? Should X and Y also be *legally* (forget morally) protected under the GPL ? Because if so, it seems to me the commercial utility of (e.g.) Linux would be greatly diminished, as so many applications would then be GPL'ed, if only because they use cat or ls or grep. That just seems crazy.
The text parser was crappy, there were tons of bugs, and (of course) there were no shiny graphics, but it was in my opinion BY FAR a better game than (e.g.) Diablo II, and tons more addictive. I spent literally days on end working on my character, and when she would die (costing a quarter of my experience) I swear it felt like I died - my blood pressure would shoot up, and I would have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach...
And the whole MUD would be in shock, and there would follow a long procession of comfort and condolences. And I would swear off the MUD, only to return a few days later galvanized to regain the lost experience, and then some...I really cared about completing those quests, and advancing in level, whereas in (e.g.) Diablo II, I could not possibly care less.
The best thing about these MUDs - still unduplicated as far as I can tell - was the real sense of community that was created. The same people knew they would find each other almost every day, and consequently there were long histories and emnities that develop, hell there were full out feuds that lasted years. I've heard of people getting married to people they met on MUDs, for crying out loud ! And there was really room for people to take on different personas...there were helpful people, aloof people, stupid people, and evil, dangerous people.
The only thing that would stop me from playing was when I would come down with weakness in the forearm from banging out the same key combination for hours straight. Then I would have to take a break for a few days. And what finally stopped me was when I left college, and thereby lost my free Net access. I just couldn't play the same way anymore when all those hourse would cost me big-time.
Ahh, the old days.
The only allusions to non-Cornerstone related factors were to the growing importance of graphics in computer games, but the examples they detail were mostly console games, and Infocom's text adventures would most likely (as suggested by the earlier accounts of the Zork packaging fiasco) be purchased by a completely different market sector.
One thing that really stuck in my craw for some reason is the authors' assertion that "all sales projections indicated the company would continue to grow exponentially", while they refer the reader to a diagram which presented very little reason to believe that sales had grown exponentially at all - in fact, sales growth looked pretty linear. There were other flaws with their analysis, but this one really bugged me.
Anyways, the only thing that I really enjoyed about the article were the scans and screencaps of the old programs and the throw-ins for the Infocom games. I remember poring over those Deadline materials, and keeping files of rolled-up thermal paper printouts of my game...
I wonder what grade they got...
p.s. anybody know if the downloadable infocom games also have available the physical throwin materials, like maps, crime scene photos, etc ? The article implied that the materials were necessary to complete the games...
Failing that, teach him how to play the guitar. The world doesn't need another Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds, the world needs another Jimi Hendrix (or a good big center who can seriously help some NBA team challenge the lakers).