Wrong. Try promode before you flame it. The movement variations (strafe-jumping, ramp-jumping, air-control, etc.) do add a lot more depth to the game. That they are possible due to a "bug" is a happy coincidence. Yes, they take some practice, but are well worth it. The point AC is making is that Carmack passed up the chance to release a FPS that involved more than just aim: strategic control of real estate, movement in 3 dimensions, individual creativity in combining game actions.
If you want a game where everybody moves the exact same speed and in 2 dimensions, I'm sure you can find a Doom 1 download somewhere.
Promode gives you somewhere to go after you've mastered vanilla quake.
I've used a Netgear 311RT for the past year, and am quite happy with it--does DHCP, NAT, and port forwarding. BTW, you don't configure it via a web interface, instead you telnet from inside and work through the simple ascii menus.
None of the various home routers ship with a real manual--you have to download it off the manufacturer's website. That should answer more pre-purchase questions about functionality than reading the outside of the box.
Given that this guy is being jailed for an IP "crime" with penalties up to $500,000, does a bail amount of $50000 indicate that the judge thought maybe the feds were overstepping a little?
Any lawyers present? Did elcomsoft only have to put up a 10% surety in cash?
Astroturf alert--remember, Microsoft has a dedicated PR corps who are actually assigned to monitor and manage particular journalists. Very likely they've got people assigned to blur issues on slashdot.
I don't know if any of you young-uns remember, but back in '86 one of Reagan's minions produced the "Meese Commission Report", an attempt to prove a link between porn and criminal behavior. Basically, a sop to the Christian Right. It was widely derided, and elegantly spoofed (ever wonder how the porn video company "Ed Meese Productions" got its name?)
Looks like these congresscritters are recycling old hot-buttons for their dumber constituents. It used to be that the US government would invoke patriotism to do their most un-American things--now the catch-phrase is "protect the children".
civil action via hostage-taking?
on
Adobe Backs Down
·
· Score: 4
"ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor software is no longer available in the United States, and from that perspective the DMCA worked. Adobe will continue to protect its copyright interests and those of its customers."
So let me get this straight--Adobe worked their connections to get a competing company's employee arrested, and now will pretend to back off now that the competitor has taken their product off the market? This is scary, and the EFF should be ashamed letting themselves be used as a figleaf this way. Sklyarov won't be released anytime soon, and this whole episode basically amounted to a hostage-taking.
(Yes, Elcomsoft isn't really a competitor to Adobe, except that one use of their product could reduce ebook sales)
Namely, advertising provides a convenient way to identify substandard or overly expensive products/services. Think about it--given all the viral communications and consumer organisations out there, you can find out about the better products by *looking* for them. If a product is being heavily advertised, then it probably is crap--the producers can't recoup their investment without promoting it heavily. At best, it's as good as something that isn't advertised, but it costs more because you (the consumer) have to subsidize the ad expense.
As an aside, the real mistake with banner advertising was the advertising industry's getting involved with a medium that provides accountability: Guess what! Most advertising doesn't work! Yet the industry promotes the concept with vague media studies and viable-sounding jargon, and keeps this information pollution going. Maybe the advertising downturn will spread to TV and radio too? I can dream, can't I?
Um, so I should be happy that I'm forced to lease the hardware indefinitely, with no control over what software is run on the hardware? BTW, my cable "agreement" values the hardware at $500 should I lose or damage it.
Oh yeah, my 14-year old TV can process the non-digital channels and surf in real time (the piece-of-shit ad-bound AT&T box needs 2.5 seconds to change to an adjacent channel). Don't wish for digital cable--w/o the bandwidth, it will disappoint you.
An hour after posting I was thinking, "Damn, I forgot to mention the box appears to be powered by a Timex Sinclair ZX/80, needs 3-5 seconds to render seven lines of text plus ads, and won't respond to IR commands while it's rendering." Basically, it sucks byzantine royal ass.
I use AT&T Digital Cable for TV (no bandwidth yet, the lamers). It comes with this great surf feature which allows(ed) you to scan 12 channels at a time to see text descriptions of what is showing at any given time, and you can skip up/down by 12 channels at a time, or ahead by 1/2 hour increments or days.
A few months after signup, they "upgraded" the console to limit the text-surf to seven channels at a time, with only 20 character width available for program description. The reason? So they could grab half the screen area for ads.
What really hacks me off is that there's a separate $2/month charge for this "service" that teases me to watch more TV, and they reduced its functionality. I think I'm about ready to switch to the Starband/Echostar 150 channel option for $99/month.
First, make certain your employment agreement doesn't prohibit freelancing. If it does, maybe you should lose the salary gig.
Before you get started take a look at http://www.realrates.com--among all the excellent articles on the negotiations, non-completes, and getting started are reader-supplied aggregated rates sorted by tech specialty and region. This will give a good idea of what your skills are worth.
Write a bot that takes a list of verbs, autogens a patent app for doing said verb *on the web*, and autosubmit the patent apps every hour until they agree to quit granting the silly things.
If they grant your autogen'ed patents, well, sue the world (you owe me royalties on your
coherent thought...)
Wow. Almost 20 years ago I wrote a letter to the Washington Post after they printed the rantings of some Virginia preacher how DnD was an evil corrupting influence on the youth of America. To their credit, the Post ran my letter, and perhaps
it had some small positive influence on parents
worried that their intelligent computer-affinative progeny were destined for perdition.
But now, again, 20 years later, here we are,
explaining that FPS games are *not* training for
blowing away the local jocks in the cafeteria...
Ya suppose that the game of chess was interdicted during its first century due to it's theme of regicide?
I believe patent filings are already required to contain an "implementation description", or something like that which demonstrates how to build a functional instance of the principle(s) being patented. After all, w/o that what's to stop me from filing a patent on a teleportation booth? (the implementation is left as an exercise for the user...)
Look folks--H1B is not about a path to citizenship. In practice it is a mechanism for importing skilled foreign labor on a contract basis, just like the Kuwaitis or Germans do, except that they're up-front about classifying the foreign workers as 2nd-class citizens. The American green-card bit is mostly carrot. Don't think so? Then why is the INS *still* understaffed, and *still* processing visas manually (or so my friends on H1B's tell me)?
Sending home the current crop of H1B holders before they can get their green cards is entirely consistent with the industry practice of avoiding expensive experienced employees. After all, these experienced H1B holders have figured out some of their rights, aren't intimidated as easily, and are probably going to quit their sponsored job the moment they do get their green card.
What do I think can be done about this?
1. Don't increase the H1B pool size.
2. Allow H1B holders to change jobs as easily as a citizen, after some reasonable commitment to
their sponsoring employer (eg. 1 year).
3. Couple H1B sponsorship to US citizen hiring on a one-for-one basis, in the same field.
4. Actually enforce the limitation of H1B visas to jobs that are difficult to fill--shut down the IT contracting body shops made up of over 50% H1B indentured servants.
Slashdot Mirror
Credit Peggy Noonan, or one of his other speechwriters. And whichever of his handlers helped select this text out of others.
Wrong. Try promode before you flame it. The movement variations (strafe-jumping, ramp-jumping, air-control, etc.) do add a lot more depth to the game. That they are possible due to a "bug" is a happy coincidence. Yes, they take some practice, but are well worth it. The point AC is making is that Carmack passed up the chance to release a FPS that involved more than just aim: strategic control of real estate, movement in 3 dimensions, individual creativity in combining game actions.
If you want a game where everybody moves the exact same speed and in 2 dimensions, I'm sure you can find a Doom 1 download somewhere.
Promode gives you somewhere to go after you've mastered vanilla quake.
I've used a Netgear 311RT for the past year, and am quite happy with it--does DHCP, NAT, and port forwarding. BTW, you don't configure it via a web interface, instead you telnet from inside and work through the simple ascii menus.
None of the various home routers ship with a real manual--you have to download it off the manufacturer's website. That should answer more pre-purchase questions about functionality than reading the outside of the box.
Given that this guy is being jailed for an IP "crime" with penalties up to $500,000, does a bail amount of $50000 indicate that the judge thought maybe the feds were overstepping a little?
Any lawyers present? Did elcomsoft only have to put up a 10% surety in cash?
Astroturf alert--remember, Microsoft has a dedicated PR corps who are actually assigned to monitor and manage particular journalists. Very likely they've got people assigned to blur issues on slashdot.
I don't know if any of you young-uns remember, but back in '86 one of Reagan's minions produced the "Meese Commission Report", an attempt to prove a link between porn and criminal behavior. Basically, a sop to the Christian Right. It was widely derided, and elegantly spoofed (ever wonder how the porn video company "Ed Meese Productions" got its name?)
See http://www.solomonsrefuge.com/MeeseLinks.htm
Looks like these congresscritters are recycling old hot-buttons for their dumber constituents. It used to be that the US government would invoke patriotism to do their most un-American things--now the catch-phrase is "protect the children".
"ElcomSoft's Advanced eBook Processor software is no longer available in the United States, and from that perspective the DMCA worked. Adobe will continue to protect its copyright interests and those of its customers."
So let me get this straight--Adobe worked their connections to get a competing company's employee arrested, and now will pretend to back off now that the competitor has taken their product off the market? This is scary, and the EFF should be ashamed letting themselves be used as a figleaf this way. Sklyarov won't be released anytime soon, and this whole episode basically amounted to a hostage-taking.
(Yes, Elcomsoft isn't really a competitor to Adobe, except that one use of their product could reduce ebook sales)
Freelance writers will divert their content to whomever will pay the most and whomever they have to make the least effort to sell to.
It's been done: see http://www.svtarot.com
Namely, advertising provides a convenient way to identify substandard or overly expensive products/services. Think about it--given all the viral communications and consumer organisations out there, you can find out about the better products by *looking* for them. If a product is being heavily advertised, then it probably is crap--the producers can't recoup their investment without promoting it heavily. At best, it's as good as something that isn't advertised, but it costs more because you (the consumer) have to subsidize the ad expense. As an aside, the real mistake with banner advertising was the advertising industry's getting involved with a medium that provides accountability: Guess what! Most advertising doesn't work! Yet the industry promotes the concept with vague media studies and viable-sounding jargon, and keeps this information pollution going. Maybe the advertising downturn will spread to TV and radio too? I can dream, can't I?
Um, so I should be happy that I'm forced to lease the hardware indefinitely, with no control over what software is run on the hardware? BTW, my cable "agreement" values the hardware at $500 should I lose or damage it.
Oh yeah, my 14-year old TV can process the non-digital channels and surf in real time (the piece-of-shit ad-bound AT&T box needs 2.5 seconds to change to an adjacent channel). Don't wish for digital cable--w/o the bandwidth, it will disappoint you.
An hour after posting I was thinking, "Damn, I forgot to mention the box appears to be powered by a Timex Sinclair ZX/80, needs 3-5 seconds to render seven lines of text plus ads, and won't respond to IR commands while it's rendering." Basically, it sucks byzantine royal ass.
Happy now?
I use AT&T Digital Cable for TV (no bandwidth yet, the lamers). It comes with this great surf feature which allows(ed) you to scan 12 channels at a time to see text descriptions of what is showing at any given time, and you can skip up/down by 12 channels at a time, or ahead by 1/2 hour increments or days.
A few months after signup, they "upgraded" the console to limit the text-surf to seven channels at a time, with only 20 character width available for program description. The reason? So they could grab half the screen area for ads.
What really hacks me off is that there's a separate $2/month charge for this "service" that teases me to watch more TV, and they reduced its functionality. I think I'm about ready to switch to the Starband/Echostar 150 channel option for $99/month.
Hit 'em with a denial of service attack from one of your boxes. Then they'll be pounding on *your* door. Don't hurry to respond.
First, make certain your employment agreement doesn't prohibit freelancing. If it does, maybe you should lose the salary gig.
Before you get started take a look at http://www.realrates.com--among all the excellent articles on the negotiations, non-completes, and getting started are reader-supplied aggregated rates sorted by tech specialty and region. This will give a good idea of what your skills are worth.
Write a bot that takes a list of verbs, autogens a patent app for doing said verb *on the web*, and autosubmit the patent apps every hour until they agree to quit granting the silly things.
If they grant your autogen'ed patents, well, sue the world (you owe me royalties on your
coherent thought...)
I tried napping with my head on laptop, and now my
ear is sore and I drooled in the dvd slot...
Wow. Almost 20 years ago I wrote a letter to the Washington Post after they printed the rantings of some Virginia preacher how DnD was an evil corrupting influence on the youth of America. To their credit, the Post ran my letter, and perhaps it had some small positive influence on parents worried that their intelligent computer-affinative progeny were destined for perdition. But now, again, 20 years later, here we are, explaining that FPS games are *not* training for blowing away the local jocks in the cafeteria... Ya suppose that the game of chess was interdicted during its first century due to it's theme of regicide?
I believe patent filings are already required to contain an "implementation description", or something like that which demonstrates how to build a functional instance of the principle(s) being patented. After all, w/o that what's to stop me from filing a patent on a teleportation booth? (the implementation is left as an exercise for the user...)
Look folks--H1B is not about a path to citizenship. In practice it is a mechanism for importing skilled foreign labor on a contract basis, just like the Kuwaitis or Germans do, except that they're up-front about classifying the foreign workers as 2nd-class citizens. The American green-card bit is mostly carrot. Don't think so? Then why is the INS *still* understaffed, and *still* processing visas manually (or so my friends on H1B's tell me)?
Sending home the current crop of H1B holders before they can get their green cards is entirely consistent with the industry practice of avoiding expensive experienced employees. After all, these experienced H1B holders have figured out some of their rights, aren't intimidated as easily, and are probably going to quit their sponsored job the moment they do get their green card.
What do I think can be done about this?
1. Don't increase the H1B pool size.
2. Allow H1B holders to change jobs as easily as a citizen, after some reasonable commitment to
their sponsoring employer (eg. 1 year).
3. Couple H1B sponsorship to US citizen hiring on a one-for-one basis, in the same field.
4. Actually enforce the limitation of H1B visas to jobs that are difficult to fill--shut down the IT contracting body shops made up of over 50% H1B indentured servants.