If these patents are allowed to stand, you can forget about taking pictures with your spiffy new 8Mpixel camera and mounting the pictures in your Linux box and you can forget about mounting it as a USB drive too. Unless your camera vendor provides ext2 or some Linux software to read it (fat chance), you are going to have to own a Windows box to get your pictures transfered.
Why not just leave the animation in the native language and add subtitles?
Because my eyes are for watching the super fighting robot action. Constantly glancing up and down between the show and the subtitles is immensely distracting.
My biggest beef with it is that the Slashboxes don't work. I've switched to the regular layout for the time being, but it's horrid; so cluttered when compared with the simple, clean light version.
Seconded, if: - it's redone with cel-shaded graphics, designed to match Amano's original illustrations; - Ted Woolsey comes back to write the English script.
"zomg it's the java multithreading meme!!! ask me 3 questions about java multithreading, and then post this meme in your own lj!!!111one"
Really, your argument would hold just as well for online marketers, etc. Why would you want to exclude the hundreds of websites that merely offer referral links ? after all, those websites may very well be relevant to what you're looking for %)
I've seen more worthwhile stuff on blogs than on referral sites, but you do raise a valid point regarding the kinds of blogs that just link to other articles without containing any actual useful content themselves.
Why would you want to discount search results just because they happen to be on blogs? That strikes me as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Sure, we all know that a large proportion of blogs are worthless. But if you do a search for, say, "java multithreading", you'll get a load of relevant results from blogs and non-blogs alike. The worthless "omg my bf is cheeting on me what am i going to do lol" type blogs contain no entries related to the search terms, so they won't appear in the results, and you won't have to read them.
Like the rest of the Web, some blogs are interesting and informative, some aren't.
Likewise, though I do still buy CDs from non-RIAA labels. Most of the music I'm interested in at the moment is video game music, published by Japanese labels that don't seem to be on the list of RIAA members. Costs a bomb to import, mind.
The mouse gesture extension I use with Firefox provides visual feedback in the status bar while I perform gestures. Unless I've missed it (which is possible), I can't find an option for that in Opera, which is a shame because I like the feature.
It was Opera that introduced me to mouse gestures. I was sold on them immediately after trying them out. I installed the Firefox gesture extension the same day.
The many exposition-by-radio-conversation scenes in Metal Gear Solid 2 might also have inspired the "right to play". I've read some quite scathing criticisms of MGS2 regarding the exposition scenes.
(Speaking personally: though they could have been shorter, I didn't mind them so much, because I enjoyed the story. The head-messing fourth-wall breakery in the final section of the game more than made up for any earlier failings, too).
Our computer lab had a load of ghetto Sparc IPXs an similar machines, and a single Sparc 5 with audio output and speakers. In our second year, one of the other geeks hacked together a "jukebox" program that ran as a server and allowed people to telnet in and queue MP3s to be played.
For my project, I rewrote the jukebox in Java. It used the ident protocol to log users in, so no usernames/passwords were required (which was fine for a relatively friendly environment like a university network). It checked the IP address of the connecting clients, only allowing people in the lab to queue songs. The song queue was a priority queue, allowing people a certain degree of queuejumping to ensure that no one person got to dominate the queue. It also had primitive IRC-type chat functionality.
It wasn't exactly an academic masterpiece, and I have no doubt that the quality of the code would embarrass me if I were to look at it now. But it taught me Java and the basics of network code, it was loads of fun to write, and the other geeks in the lab had fun using it.
Aren't we inocculated against measles when you're maybe six years old?
Nowdays, yes, but it hasn't always been that way. I'm in my late twenties and was never vaccinated against measles or mumps. I contracted measles as a child, but I never did catch the mumps, which makes me think I ought to get a vaccination at some point because it's not the most pleasant of diseases for an adult male to catch.
The only problem is the file transfer and A/V chat features. When I want to use those I fire up the official client.
I worked around the file transfer problem by training my friends to FTP stuff to me, or to email the files to my Gmail account. Of course, it helps that my friends are a technically-minded bunch.
Open Solaris is Free Software, yes? So if it becomes a "Linux killer", then the Linux vendors will simply become Open Solaris vendors.
Indeed. Speaking as a Debian user: it isn't about the kernel, it's about the environment. As long as the environment suits me as a user, it doesn't matter that much which kernel is providing the hardware abstractions needed for the system to run. Ten years from now, if Debian is still going, I might conceivably be using Debian GNU/Solaris.
While the melodramatic stories are certainly not to everyone's taste, each FF game is different in that the skill learning/character customization system gets a shakeup in every game, and the series isn't afraid to try bold experiments that sometimes don't work as well as hoped (e.g. the Junction system in FFVIII -- innovtative system that abolished armour upgrades in favour of using magic for stat alteration; probably worked very well on paper, but made the game too easy in practice).
FFX-2, the first direct sequel in the series' history, is a completely different experience from FFX because the character customization systems are radically different.
I once bought something from Dixons. It was a pile of junk, so I returned it. My conversation with the chavette at the checkout went something like this:
Me: "I'd like to return this item, please." Her: "Why?" Me: "It's of substandard quality." Her: "You didn't need it. Have you opened it?" Me: "Yes." Her: "You said no."
The girl was clearly too lazy to process the return properly, so she just filed it as an unwanted, unopened item. Fantastic.
I couldn't agree more. Especially if they did cel-shaded graphics following Amano's original illustrations, and hired back Ted Woolsey to do the English script.
Slashdot Mirror
If these patents are allowed to stand, you can forget about taking pictures with your spiffy new 8Mpixel camera and mounting the pictures in your Linux box and you can forget about mounting it as a USB drive too. Unless your camera vendor provides ext2 or some Linux software to read it (fat chance), you are going to have to own a Windows box to get your pictures transfered.
Not necessarily.
That one niggle doesn't invalidate your main point, of course. It's a scary patent that we could all definitely do without.
-Stephen
"Yes sir, the month-long wiretap on the 1-900 chatline was definitely an accident. It won't happen again. Really."
-Stephen
You, sir/madam, are hysterically funny. Biggest laugh I've had all week. Thanks! :-)
-Stephen
News to me, because mine certainly does. It's a cheapy InnoVision one.
-Stephen
Well, kinda fanless. My GeForce 2 MX is four years old. At some point between purchase and now, the fan seized up. Hooray for accidental quietness!
The card still works perfectly. I wouldn't like to run a modern card with a seized-up fan, mind...
-Stephen
Why not just leave the animation in the native language and add subtitles?
Because my eyes are for watching the super fighting robot action. Constantly glancing up and down between the show and the subtitles is immensely distracting.
-Stephen
My biggest beef with it is that the Slashboxes don't work. I've switched to the regular layout for the time being, but it's horrid; so cluttered when compared with the simple, clean light version.
-Stephen
(Seriously, wtf is a technical article doing on a site full of whiny emo-kids?)
That's like pointing at Slashdot and asking what a technical article is doing on a site full of Microsoft-bashing and trolls.
-Stephen
Seconded, if:
- it's redone with cel-shaded graphics, designed to match Amano's original illustrations;
- Ted Woolsey comes back to write the English script.
-Stephen
"zomg it's the java multithreading meme!!! ask me 3 questions about java multithreading, and then post this meme in your own lj!!!111one"
Really, your argument would hold just as well for online marketers, etc. Why would you want to exclude the hundreds of websites that merely offer referral links ? after all, those websites may very well be relevant to what you're looking for %)
I've seen more worthwhile stuff on blogs than on referral sites, but you do raise a valid point regarding the kinds of blogs that just link to other articles without containing any actual useful content themselves.
-Stephen
Why would you want to discount search results just because they happen to be on blogs? That strikes me as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Sure, we all know that a large proportion of blogs are worthless. But if you do a search for, say, "java multithreading", you'll get a load of relevant results from blogs and non-blogs alike. The worthless "omg my bf is cheeting on me what am i going to do lol" type blogs contain no entries related to the search terms, so they won't appear in the results, and you won't have to read them.
Like the rest of the Web, some blogs are interesting and informative, some aren't.
-Stephen
I thought Americans measured such things in football fields per Library of Congress, or something.
-Stephen
Likewise, though I do still buy CDs from non-RIAA labels. Most of the music I'm interested in at the moment is video game music, published by Japanese labels that don't seem to be on the list of RIAA members. Costs a bomb to import, mind.
-Stephen
The mouse gesture extension I use with Firefox provides visual feedback in the status bar while I perform gestures. Unless I've missed it (which is possible), I can't find an option for that in Opera, which is a shame because I like the feature.
It was Opera that introduced me to mouse gestures. I was sold on them immediately after trying them out. I installed the Firefox gesture extension the same day.
-Stephen
The many exposition-by-radio-conversation scenes in Metal Gear Solid 2 might also have inspired the "right to play". I've read some quite scathing criticisms of MGS2 regarding the exposition scenes.
(Speaking personally: though they could have been shorter, I didn't mind them so much, because I enjoyed the story. The head-messing fourth-wall breakery in the final section of the game more than made up for any earlier failings, too).
-Stephen
What, you mean that if you type ":-)", ":-P", ";-)" etc, they don't get transmitted?
Emoticons don't have to be graphical.
-Stephen
Our computer lab had a load of ghetto Sparc IPXs an similar machines, and a single Sparc 5 with audio output and speakers. In our second year, one of the other geeks hacked together a "jukebox" program that ran as a server and allowed people to telnet in and queue MP3s to be played.
For my project, I rewrote the jukebox in Java. It used the ident protocol to log users in, so no usernames/passwords were required (which was fine for a relatively friendly environment like a university network). It checked the IP address of the connecting clients, only allowing people in the lab to queue songs. The song queue was a priority queue, allowing people a certain degree of queuejumping to ensure that no one person got to dominate the queue. It also had primitive IRC-type chat functionality.
It wasn't exactly an academic masterpiece, and I have no doubt that the quality of the code would embarrass me if I were to look at it now. But it taught me Java and the basics of network code, it was loads of fun to write, and the other geeks in the lab had fun using it.
-Stephen
Aren't we inocculated against measles when you're maybe six years old?
Nowdays, yes, but it hasn't always been that way. I'm in my late twenties and was never vaccinated against measles or mumps. I contracted measles as a child, but I never did catch the mumps, which makes me think I ought to get a vaccination at some point because it's not the most pleasant of diseases for an adult male to catch.
-Stephen
The only problem is the file transfer and A/V chat features. When I want to use those I fire up the official client.
I worked around the file transfer problem by training my friends to FTP stuff to me, or to email the files to my Gmail account. Of course, it helps that my friends are a technically-minded bunch.
-Stephen
Open Solaris is Free Software, yes? So if it becomes a "Linux killer", then the Linux vendors will simply become Open Solaris vendors.
Indeed. Speaking as a Debian user: it isn't about the kernel, it's about the environment. As long as the environment suits me as a user, it doesn't matter that much which kernel is providing the hardware abstractions needed for the system to run. Ten years from now, if Debian is still going, I might conceivably be using Debian GNU/Solaris.
-Stephen
They do not derive sick pleasure from being killed from out of nowhere with no chance to respond in a logically thought out way.
You just described the later stages of Fire Emblem. I guess that's the exception that proves the rule.
-Stephen
While the melodramatic stories are certainly not to everyone's taste, each FF game is different in that the skill learning/character customization system gets a shakeup in every game, and the series isn't afraid to try bold experiments that sometimes don't work as well as hoped (e.g. the Junction system in FFVIII -- innovtative system that abolished armour upgrades in favour of using magic for stat alteration; probably worked very well on paper, but made the game too easy in practice).
FFX-2, the first direct sequel in the series' history, is a completely different experience from FFX because the character customization systems are radically different.
-Stephen
I once bought something from Dixons. It was a pile of junk, so I returned it. My conversation with the chavette at the checkout went something like this:
Me: "I'd like to return this item, please."
Her: "Why?"
Me: "It's of substandard quality."
Her: "You didn't need it. Have you opened it?"
Me: "Yes."
Her: "You said no."
The girl was clearly too lazy to process the return properly, so she just filed it as an unwanted, unopened item. Fantastic.
-Stephen
They probably took the personality test, were told that they were beyond help, and decided to sue out of spite.
-Stephen
I couldn't agree more. Especially if they did cel-shaded graphics following Amano's original illustrations, and hired back Ted Woolsey to do the English script.
</fanboy-dream>
-Stephen