There is a law which explicitly dictates the terms under which you may use copyrighted material for educational use. Find it and do what it says, and it is legal.
My puzzle pirates crew has recently discovered teamspeak.
http://www.teamspeak.org
Open source, cross-platform voice chat for games. I set us up a server on my gentoo box. It was incredibly easy and awesome. Web administration interface is really slick. I highly reccomend it. If you have broadband it makes for good free international phone calls.
I've used these headhpones almost exclusively for casual listening for about a year now. They're no good for serious audio quality, but for a discman or an mp3 player I like them the best. They come in multiple colors now too, ooooh.
A bootdisk IS OS neutral. No matter what OS you have it will work. The real problem is when you consider something like Abit Flash Menu. It's an awesome windows app that automatically updates your BIOS over the net from within windows. Restart for it to take effect. I wish they had that for linux.
It's sad to say, but what you're looking for is actually a Microsoft product.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/default.asp
That will most likely take care of your problem. I highly reccomend you wait for others to reply to see if there is a free alternative, but that's the easy way out.
Yohoho Puzzle Pirates. I got me a lot of Gamecube and Gameboy games. And I like 'em all a lot. But I find myself playing Puzzle Pirates more than anything else. Even if you don't want to play, at least do the free trial, its worth it. And unlike other MMOs where progress is based on performing repetetive button clicking, in Puzzle Pirates progress is based on skill alone. And all ages and genders can have fun and appreciate it:)
I think that's your problem. Dell. Are there really people out there who don't realize that building your own PC provides you with a) higher quality b) more flexibility c) lower price.
In August I built my new pc after 5 years of my Pentium 3 450 with a TNT2. It cost me $1000. The equivalent machine from dell cost $2500. That's a $1500 savings. And I didn't even shop around, bought everything from newegg.
Apple isn't expensive when you compare the price/performance ratio with Dell, HP or Sony. That's because they are all rediculously expensive compared to building it yourself. Not to mention you save 200$ flat by not paying the "windows tax".
Not to say that apples aren't awesome, but I wouldn't buy one of their desktop machines. But boy oh boy do I want me a titanium powerbook and an ipod. The cost of those is very much appropriate.
Damn straight. All the spam I get is from stupid people on campus who have insecure computers that spammers gain control over and send spam with.
Let's say you leave your gun safe unlocked and someone comes in and takes your guns and kills somebody. You're going to get sued for big moneys. If you leave your computer "unlocked" and someone sends spam with it you should be held accountable in some way.
Spam is an international problem and is very difficult to stop. But there are known spammers in the united states. Make a law that punishes them with federal prison time. Then enforce that law and lock them up. Spam wont go away, but it will definitely decrease. To solve spam on the international level we will need a new international organization that governs the net. They tried, but I think they'll get it on one of the next few go arounds.
Re:source code escrow not very useful
on
Source Code Escrow
·
· Score: 5, Informative
You're right, except for one thing. The reason microsoft doesn't want its source code disclosed is to protect its proprietary properties. For example, NTFS. Right now we only have NTFS read only, and we can write ntfs by actually using microsofts ntfs.sys file. With the source code there would probably be an NTFS kernel patch inside a week that worked perfectly. Other things that microsoft would like to protect are:
a) obvious security holes that anyone who looked at the code could pick out b) the source code to IE, so people don't release a patched version that doesn't suck. c) DirectX, so windows will always remain the system to play games on. Imagine if we had the directx source. Within a couple months there could be a stable linux fork of directx and all windows games would work perfectly in linux. d) Secrets. There are all kinds of things that windows could be doing that nobody knows about exept for one guy at MS who coded it in. If the source was open./ers would comb it over with the finest comb and uncover all of ms dirty secrets if any. Maybe there's an algorithm that is patented by someone else. Maybe there's some hidden precursor to some spyware or some DRM. If the source stays secret they can't get in trouble for what is or isn't in it. e) The #1 reason is really money. If the source for windows was open it would be just that much easier to get free copies of windows. Even better than that, they would get Windows Lite. Just like everyone uses Kazaa Lite. If the source for windows was open there would be a no IE no Media Player stable version roaming the net. People would switch to it so fast. MS would lose all its revenue from desktop OS licenses. f) File formats. If we had the source to office the doc file format would be wide open among others. Presently doc files are supported for importing/exporting in non MSOffice word processors, but it never goes quite right. Justification is missing, or fonts break. With the file formats open nobody would have a reason to use office. g) Driver database. This kind of goes with the NTFS thing I talked about, but windows has a huge database of device drivers in it. With access to the source for all these drivers linux or any other OS (SkyOS or BSD) would have equivalent hardware support to windows.
If you get the games (directx) and the hardware support, there just wont be a reason for people like me to dual boot anymore. If MS opens its source people will look at it and fork it and pieces of it. They wont maintain and develop it. They will chop it to bits and turn lead into gold. Thus being the end of Microsoft's monopoly.
Their source code isn't some secret ingredient. It's the only thing seperating them from certain doom.
Slashdot says: They're making us pay money to use FAT!
Microsoft says: We own FAT. We are the only ones who are allowed to use it. We will now let everyone use it for a fee, thus allowing others to use our things. So we're more open than we used to be.
The day after/. posted the first story crying about how MS was going to charge for fat I saw a nes article about how MS was becoming more open and letting loose fat for everyone to use.
I don't feel bad either. I in fact almost despise this man. Because of his ineptitude there are now drug trafficers in Nigeria who have some positive revenue. Why? Because this dumbass american is a fucking idiot. I feel bad for people who are screwed and it isn't their fault. Like a small child who gets kidnapped from the playground. Or someone who trips and falls into a fire. But if you are this dumb, your life deserves to be ruined. Darwinism at its finest I say.
Making board games is like making books or video games. First you design the game and make it quality. Manufacture a few prototypes of the game. You can do this on your own with cardboard and an injet printer. If the game is quality get it published. There are a lot of board game publishers that will buy your game if it is quality. You can go all the way from Looney Labs (Fluxx and Nanofictionary) to Rio Grande (El Grande, Puerto Rico) to Milton Bradley (Hasbro, right?) If you don't want to publish your game commercialy (couldn't imagine why not) you will need to contact a professional printer. If you hadn't guessed that costs big money.
Oh, you mean that thing that is absolutely necessary to do anything good in puzzle pirates. The bigger the ship, the more mateys, the more booty. That's just how it works.
Gravis was, is and always will be the king of gamepads for the pc. Not king of joysticks, but king of gamepads. The gravis gamepad pro USB is the newest incarnation and is perfectly supported in linux. It's got a very similar button layout to the Playstation controller but no analog. Just about the only thing wrong with it is that all the buttons are digital, even the axis. Not so good for racing games and such, but excellent for emulating the classics.
A lot of what this guy says is just duh hay kind of stuff. And while I'll agree Nintendo's press releases were not as funny as intended. Mario Party still freakin' rules. If you don't like Mario Party its probably because you don't have 3 friends 3 controllers and a freakin' party.
The rest of the article is like "The N-Gage sucks". Not even close to news.
If it's about a stable usable business desktop then the best option would be something like xfce4. Lite, simple, lacking in crazy features, rock solid. Just put a bunch of big ass icons in the panel.
Word Processor, Spreadsheet, E-mail, Web, XMMS, etc. etc.
It would do everything you need to do at work and nothing else.
I read the document and apparently the pop up blocker is crap. Here's why
ustomers will still see pop-ups launched in the following cases:
The pop-up is opened by a link which the user clicked.
The pop-up is opened by software that is running on the computer.
The pop-up is opened by ActiveX controls that are instantiated from a Web site.
The pop-up is opened from the Trusted Sites or Local Intranet zones.
I sense an increased use of ActiveX by ad-ridden websites in the future. What this is really, is not a way for MS to help out the user by eliminating annoyance. It is a strategy to get everyone who wants pop up ads on their site to use ActiveX. And hopefully when they're using ActiveX they'll make important parts of their site with it. Like say, the navigation bar. I'll stick to Firebird tyvm.
See, this is the kind of stuff I'm tlaking about. You have an incorrect impression of the truth. Just because your friend takes hours to install redhat doesn't mean it's crap. It means he's stupid. Sure he's a phd in CS. Mean's he's good at coding. Doesn't mean he's good at using software. I can install gentoo with grp or knoppix so fast it'll make your head spin. I'll even at a cron job so you never have to worry about patches or anything. It will just emerge sync emerge-up world or the apt equivalent once a week.
Yes, Open Office is crap. yes MS Office is crap. That's why I'm an abiword man. I want a word processor and just a word processor. I don't use those other things, and I probably never will have to. If I did there are seperate programs to replace each part of office all of them better than the suite. Also KOffice is pretty good.
Ok, if you think IE is so great, take the Firebird challenge and prove it to yourself. Use Firebird and Firebird only for about a week. Learn the keyboard shortcuts. Install and play with extensions and themes. Put in the ad blocking. Use the tabs. See if you still think IE is king. If you don't I win. If you do, you're either lying to yourself or you're just dumb. If you're afraid to do it, that means you're afraid I'm right. You've got nothing to lose.
Remember what I said. It takes effort to change. In the end it's better. Your complaing is that it just works. It doesn't work better, it just works with less effort. It's like a porsche and a camry. The Porsche is better, but you have to drive stick. Harder to drive, but definitely the superior vehicle. By using Windows and MS Office you're saying you would rather pay for a Toyota Camry than get a free Porsche just because you don't want to learn to drive stick. Think about that for a few minutes.
I would love to see the study redone comparing users of say IE and Firebird. I think that users like myself who don't see any ads on websites could potentially have different reading patters. I often find myself looking in the top left or center of pages first to look for new headlines and to verify which site I am at. Of course that's when I'm conciously thinking about it and is not empirical data.
I'm also worried that studies like this may be used to put advertising in different more annoying places in more annoying ways making it harder to block and ignore.
And if you are wondering how to remove all ads in firebird check this out
Slashdot Mirror
There is a law which explicitly dictates the terms under which you may use copyrighted material for educational use. Find it and do what it says, and it is legal.
My puzzle pirates crew has recently discovered teamspeak.
http://www.teamspeak.org
Open source, cross-platform voice chat for games. I set us up a server on my gentoo box. It was incredibly easy and awesome. Web administration interface is really slick. I highly reccomend it. If you have broadband it makes for good free international phone calls.
Linux Kernel 2.6
these
I've used these headhpones almost exclusively for casual listening for about a year now. They're no good for serious audio quality, but for a discman or an mp3 player I like them the best. They come in multiple colors now too, ooooh.
A bootdisk IS OS neutral. No matter what OS you have it will work. The real problem is when you consider something like Abit Flash Menu. It's an awesome windows app that automatically updates your BIOS over the net from within windows. Restart for it to take effect. I wish they had that for linux.
It's sad to say, but what you're looking for is actually a Microsoft product.
p
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/default.as
That will most likely take care of your problem. I highly reccomend you wait for others to reply to see if there is a free alternative, but that's the easy way out.
Yohoho Puzzle Pirates. I got me a lot of Gamecube and Gameboy games. And I like 'em all a lot. But I find myself playing Puzzle Pirates more than anything else. Even if you don't want to play, at least do the free trial, its worth it. And unlike other MMOs where progress is based on performing repetetive button clicking, in Puzzle Pirates progress is based on skill alone. And all ages and genders can have fun and appreciate it :)
I think that's your problem. Dell. Are there really people out there who don't realize that building your own PC provides you with
a) higher quality
b) more flexibility
c) lower price.
In August I built my new pc after 5 years of my Pentium 3 450 with a TNT2. It cost me $1000. The equivalent machine from dell cost $2500. That's a $1500 savings. And I didn't even shop around, bought everything from newegg.
Apple isn't expensive when you compare the price/performance ratio with Dell, HP or Sony. That's because they are all rediculously expensive compared to building it yourself. Not to mention you save 200$ flat by not paying the "windows tax".
Not to say that apples aren't awesome, but I wouldn't buy one of their desktop machines. But boy oh boy do I want me a titanium powerbook and an ipod. The cost of those is very much appropriate.
Damn straight. All the spam I get is from stupid people on campus who have insecure computers that spammers gain control over and send spam with.
Let's say you leave your gun safe unlocked and someone comes in and takes your guns and kills somebody. You're going to get sued for big moneys. If you leave your computer "unlocked" and someone sends spam with it you should be held accountable in some way.
Spam is an international problem and is very difficult to stop. But there are known spammers in the united states. Make a law that punishes them with federal prison time. Then enforce that law and lock them up. Spam wont go away, but it will definitely decrease. To solve spam on the international level we will need a new international organization that governs the net. They tried, but I think they'll get it on one of the next few go arounds.
You're right, except for one thing. The reason microsoft doesn't want its source code disclosed is to protect its proprietary properties. For example, NTFS. Right now we only have NTFS read only, and we can write ntfs by actually using microsofts ntfs.sys file. With the source code there would probably be an NTFS kernel patch inside a week that worked perfectly.
./ers would comb it over with the finest comb and uncover all of ms dirty secrets if any. Maybe there's an algorithm that is patented by someone else. Maybe there's some hidden precursor to some spyware or some DRM. If the source stays secret they can't get in trouble for what is or isn't in it.
Other things that microsoft would like to protect are:
a) obvious security holes that anyone who looked at the code could pick out
b) the source code to IE, so people don't release a patched version that doesn't suck.
c) DirectX, so windows will always remain the system to play games on. Imagine if we had the directx source. Within a couple months there could be a stable linux fork of directx and all windows games would work perfectly in linux.
d) Secrets. There are all kinds of things that windows could be doing that nobody knows about exept for one guy at MS who coded it in. If the source was open
e) The #1 reason is really money. If the source for windows was open it would be just that much easier to get free copies of windows. Even better than that, they would get Windows Lite. Just like everyone uses Kazaa Lite. If the source for windows was open there would be a no IE no Media Player stable version roaming the net. People would switch to it so fast. MS would lose all its revenue from desktop OS licenses.
f) File formats. If we had the source to office the doc file format would be wide open among others. Presently doc files are supported for importing/exporting in non MSOffice word processors, but it never goes quite right. Justification is missing, or fonts break. With the file formats open nobody would have a reason to use office.
g) Driver database. This kind of goes with the NTFS thing I talked about, but windows has a huge database of device drivers in it. With access to the source for all these drivers linux or any other OS (SkyOS or BSD) would have equivalent hardware support to windows.
If you get the games (directx) and the hardware support, there just wont be a reason for people like me to dual boot anymore. If MS opens its source people will look at it and fork it and pieces of it. They wont maintain and develop it. They will chop it to bits and turn lead into gold. Thus being the end of Microsoft's monopoly.
Their source code isn't some secret ingredient. It's the only thing seperating them from certain doom.
Just drop 'em off at my place. Hellooo kloppix.
Puzzle Pirates covered all the islands in snow and holiday decorations. It's not very impressive looking, but it obviously took a lot of work. Yarrrr
This is exactly right.
/. posted the first story crying about how MS was going to charge for fat I saw a nes article about how MS was becoming more open and letting loose fat for everyone to use.
Slashdot says: They're making us pay money to use FAT!
Microsoft says: We own FAT. We are the only ones who are allowed to use it. We will now let everyone use it for a fee, thus allowing others to use our things. So we're more open than we used to be.
The day after
I don't feel bad either. I in fact almost despise this man. Because of his ineptitude there are now drug trafficers in Nigeria who have some positive revenue. Why? Because this dumbass american is a fucking idiot. I feel bad for people who are screwed and it isn't their fault. Like a small child who gets kidnapped from the playground. Or someone who trips and falls into a fire. But if you are this dumb, your life deserves to be ruined. Darwinism at its finest I say.
Making board games is like making books or video games. First you design the game and make it quality. Manufacture a few prototypes of the game. You can do this on your own with cardboard and an injet printer. If the game is quality get it published. There are a lot of board game publishers that will buy your game if it is quality. You can go all the way from Looney Labs (Fluxx and Nanofictionary) to Rio Grande (El Grande, Puerto Rico) to Milton Bradley (Hasbro, right?) If you don't want to publish your game commercialy (couldn't imagine why not) you will need to contact a professional printer. If you hadn't guessed that costs big money.
Oh, you mean that thing that is absolutely necessary to do anything good in puzzle pirates. The bigger the ship, the more mateys, the more booty. That's just how it works.
Gravis was, is and always will be the king of gamepads for the pc. Not king of joysticks, but king of gamepads. The gravis gamepad pro USB is the newest incarnation and is perfectly supported in linux. It's got a very similar button layout to the Playstation controller but no analog. Just about the only thing wrong with it is that all the buttons are digital, even the axis. Not so good for racing games and such, but excellent for emulating the classics.
A lot of what this guy says is just duh hay kind of stuff. And while I'll agree Nintendo's press releases were not as funny as intended. Mario Party still freakin' rules. If you don't like Mario Party its probably because you don't have 3 friends 3 controllers and a freakin' party.
The rest of the article is like "The N-Gage sucks". Not even close to news.
If it's about a stable usable business desktop then the best option would be something like xfce4. Lite, simple, lacking in crazy features, rock solid. Just put a bunch of big ass icons in the panel.
Word Processor, Spreadsheet, E-mail, Web, XMMS, etc. etc.
It would do everything you need to do at work and nothing else.
Well, there is one thing I would get.
A solid 24 karat gold Zelda 1 NES cartridge. If one doesn't exist I'll have it made.
Also, I would get the ultimate racing game. Or the other ultimate racing game.
Or the extremely rare Virtua Racing 2 machine. I know I played it at least once at Epcot Center.
OOh, Ooh, one of those ms. pac-man galaga machines. Those are hot!
I read the headline and me and my roomate proceeded to laugh for 5 mintues nonstop. No joke.
You should seriously put warnings on these things, I could have spit milk all over my keyboard.
I know it's not possible or probable, but I came up with this great idea today. The ultimate scenario.
Linus Torvalds subpoenas Darl McBride under the DMCA for violating the GPL. This results in a repeal of the DMCA in the supreme court.
I know it's just a dream, but its nice to think it could happen.
Also, if the DMCA is ever repealed, freakin' party of the century at my place!
I read the document and apparently the pop up blocker is crap. Here's why
ustomers will still see pop-ups launched in the following cases:
The pop-up is opened by a link which the user clicked.
The pop-up is opened by software that is running on the computer.
The pop-up is opened by ActiveX controls that are instantiated from a Web site.
The pop-up is opened from the Trusted Sites or Local Intranet zones.
I sense an increased use of ActiveX by ad-ridden websites in the future. What this is really, is not a way for MS to help out the user by eliminating annoyance. It is a strategy to get everyone who wants pop up ads on their site to use ActiveX. And hopefully when they're using ActiveX they'll make important parts of their site with it. Like say, the navigation bar. I'll stick to Firebird tyvm.
See, this is the kind of stuff I'm tlaking about. You have an incorrect impression of the truth. Just because your friend takes hours to install redhat doesn't mean it's crap. It means he's stupid. Sure he's a phd in CS. Mean's he's good at coding. Doesn't mean he's good at using software. I can install gentoo with grp or knoppix so fast it'll make your head spin. I'll even at a cron job so you never have to worry about patches or anything. It will just emerge sync emerge-up world or the apt equivalent once a week.
Yes, Open Office is crap. yes MS Office is crap. That's why I'm an abiword man. I want a word processor and just a word processor. I don't use those other things, and I probably never will have to. If I did there are seperate programs to replace each part of office all of them better than the suite. Also KOffice is pretty good.
Ok, if you think IE is so great, take the Firebird challenge and prove it to yourself. Use Firebird and Firebird only for about a week. Learn the keyboard shortcuts. Install and play with extensions and themes. Put in the ad blocking. Use the tabs. See if you still think IE is king. If you don't I win. If you do, you're either lying to yourself or you're just dumb. If you're afraid to do it, that means you're afraid I'm right. You've got nothing to lose.
Remember what I said. It takes effort to change. In the end it's better. Your complaing is that it just works. It doesn't work better, it just works with less effort. It's like a porsche and a camry. The Porsche is better, but you have to drive stick. Harder to drive, but definitely the superior vehicle. By using Windows and MS Office you're saying you would rather pay for a Toyota Camry than get a free Porsche just because you don't want to learn to drive stick. Think about that for a few minutes.
I would love to see the study redone comparing users of say IE and Firebird. I think that users like myself who don't see any ads on websites could potentially have different reading patters. I often find myself looking in the top left or center of pages first to look for new headlines and to verify which site I am at. Of course that's when I'm conciously thinking about it and is not empirical data.
I'm also worried that studies like this may be used to put advertising in different more annoying places in more annoying ways making it harder to block and ignore.
And if you are wondering how to remove all ads in firebird check this out
http://www.texturizer.net/firebird/adblock.html