Ahhh, nothing like the smell of not-so-subtle racism.
Why wouldn't Thai and Japanese tastes in games be "that much different?" Is it because you think they look similar? You might want to spend more time in both countries before jumping to that kind of conclusion. Thailand and Japan are poles apart in terms of history and culture. The fact that both countries are in Asia and the people have similar appearances (to Western eyes, anyway) doesn't make them the same, any more than it would make Czech Republic and France the same.
Even if you didn't RTFA, at the top of this page you can see 'MSNBC is running an article about the relative popularity of some game hardware and software in the West vs. the East in the article submission here.
As a PHP programmer, you have to learn to work with register globals both on & off, because you never know which way round your client's ISP will have it set. Essentially, this means programming without the convenience of having the globals registered, and with the possibility of them being a security problem. All in the name of compatibility..
It doesn't have to be tested with register globals on.
Put instructions in the RTFM.txt that explain how to turn it on in a.htaccess file.
If the web server administration has disallowed users to turn register globals off in an.htaccess file then web hosting company doesn't know much about security and can't be trusted as a host.
believe Poor Richard's Almanac (written by Benjamin Franklin) which went something like this: When solving a problem it is common to take a method and try it. When it fails, try another. But above all, do something."
Are you sure you don't mean Franklin Roosevelt?
Here, here, and another here.
Of course, F. Franklin might have paraphrased B. Franklin.
What is interesting is the use of the word 'method'. It is usually used in a Scientific or Mathematical sense.
I fear the day manufacturers realize that they can just produce less and charge more and call the layoffs profit.
They know about supply and demand. Chip manufacturers already play that game.
It's not so different from what the gasoline companies do. For example, they like the fact that we use different blends of gasoline even within a single state. Then, they create a shortage and muddle the issue by claming the problem is that they have to guess at how much blend X (pc2700) will be sold vs blend Y (flash memory). "It's not our fault we have to follow different environmental guidelines".
The gasoline prices are still increasing and the average consumer has no idea of where the problem is. Is it the Middle East situation? Is it the Gasoline Manufacturers? Is it the Retail outlets? Is it the environmentalists? Is it the Governments? The mainstream media won't tell us, they just repeat different sources of propaganda.
Actually, it's a mix of a lot of things, but ultimately, the Gasoline Manufacturers hold most of the cards and have the most influence.
Problem is that the site's on someone's dynamic connection, and it was submitted by the person whose site it is. Obviously this person was unaware of what a slashdotting does to a workstation.
He also didn't read his contract from the DSL provider. He doesn't have a static IP so there is a 'no servers' clause in that contract..
Then employees can start wearing NRA insignia. Personally, I find it amazing that some employee that has been outsourced hasn't assassinated a high profile supporter of outsourcing such as HP CEO Carly Fiorina. It's either an amazing show of judgement and restraint by the employees. Or lack of will and resignation of the fact that these people will always be able to walk all over you. I haven't decided which.
Security tends to be better for CEO's than the dog or wife at home that the frustration can be easily taken out on.
So if one looks at other jobs around alot of workers are unionized eg, airline pilots/mechanics, auto workers etc etc.
Is there a union for computer professionals?
If so which one I havent found one, if not why not?
The day that much IT unionizing happens will be the same day the a large portion of the rest of those jobs get moved to another country.
Airline Pilots and Plane/Auto Mechanics are a different situation. It's not really feasable to export those jobs. The work needs to be done where the planes and automobiles are at.
Most IT work can be much more easily shifted overseas.
I agree, that's prety close to what I make, and it's definately not easy to live on that.
Especially if your job does not provide medical insurance for your family. You won't be able to afford good insurance for them on your own. If they do get Ill enough to require hospitilization for much time, you'll be close to bankruptcy.
This is not the same as no longer using a screwdriver just because the military use them.
Chances are he has contributed to open-source (or at least advocated it). That makes him one of the creators of a tool used by the military. If you were against the war and the perpetrators of the war were using YOUR creation to do their violent work, then I think you are entitled to object.
How about objecting by not paying tax dollars to the government ever again?
After all, that money is much more useful for killing people in a variety of ways than any particular piece of code.
I remember WebCrawler, but lost touch with it in around 1996, when I started religiously using AltaVista. They sure have changed a bit.... but do they have any relevance anymore? They're owned by InfoSpace.:P
A lot of usenet people that I knew dropped WebCrawler shortly after the AOL deal went through.
AltaVista then ended up being the search engine that most people recommended.
It's certainly possible that different hardware or even different drivers on the different machines doing the rendering can create subtle (or not-so-subtle) differences in each resulting frame, but standardising the hardware and drivers across machines should solve that completely.
Yes, but it's not a good idea to tie one's business to a particular hardware company let alone one product, and one driver.
Also, there are many people who make the money decisions that will balk at making particular changes to their their software or hardware without being forced to. Especially if they've been bitten before.
After all, as an example, many people still have to deal with the slick way in which WinModems/NIC's (software driven) pretty much secretly tied their machines down
to using Microsoft Windows.
When I try to convert people in businesses to using Linux for stability, one sticky issue is when I bring up the fact that they will have to use particular modems for their boxes. They immediately think that I am trying to lock them into Something Bad when in reality, the Evil Deed has already been done.
I have to defend my position against "What happens when it breaks, do I have to buy from you? Who will help me if you aren't in business?", "Isn't Linux as capable as Windows?" as well as the silent "hmm, is this just the tip of the iceberg?" and "Will I be able to defend my job if this screws us in the future?"
I don't blame them. I feel the same way when I'm told anything that resembles "You must use brand X".
Please note that in the film and TV business, we're talking of large clusters of machines and weeks of rendering and bringing it down to days with smaller number of machines is a very big progress.
It is a lot of progress.
On the other hand, it'll be interesting to see whether rending times come down, or animations get much more complicated.
Yes Mr "Researcher" if offered chocolate 79% of people can think of a random word.
I have a personal favorite. I've been using it since the Quake1 days and people would constantly be asking for rcon access. After getting tired of people asking, I'd tell them that the password was 'imadufus'.
It was amazing. A lot of the people after a few minutes would complain that 'imadufus' didn't work.
And apparently over 30% of those asked would just reveal their passwords without any bribery!
Yes, that was interesting, and I'm not surprised. But, this quote from the article (emphasis mine) bothered me.
The RSA survey found that maintaining online identities is becoming a burden for many people who, on average, use 20 sites that require them to register and then log on afterwards.
Good Lord! These are 'random' commuters. I find it quite hard to believe that a significant portion of
them have have 20 logins let alone an AVERAGE of 20 online logins to keep track of. Especially considering that only one respondent (allegedly) had a total of 40 logins.
So, it's Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. I don't take the article as anything resembling reality.
Format, Restore, ZonealarmBasic Firewall (not anti-virus yet!), Spybot immunize registry, connect to network, update Windows, install Avast! anti-virus, make Mozilla the default browser, and have Avast! build a database of files on the system and what they are supposed to look like. I also keep an image of the finished setup so that the people who shut off their anti-virus/firewall can pay again here to get fixed and I don't have to go through all of the work again.
I should add that although that looks like a lot of work, it's actually only about 20 or so of actual minutes per box once a tech gets used to the procedure and knows 'next, next, next, yes, no, next, (back to Counter-Strike for a while), ok, reboot, next application, (more Counter-Strike), etc...' well enough to almost do it blindfolded.
No point in trying to educate them. A lot of this stuff is so esoteric that even relatively experienced and competent users get taken in, and new stuff comes up all the time. Is it sensible to make someone who really has no need for in depth computer knowledge sit down and cram new viruses and security vulnerabilities 2 hours a day?
The solution is an OS that doesn't just load everything that comes along. It's the digital equivalent of walking around Times Square jabbing used hypodermics into your arm.
Boxes coming out of Wal-Mart make it around 30-60 days before they end up here with mostly 'my internet connection is slow' problems.
The real problem is a) They got hacked soon after figuring out how to connect to the internet and b) They get helpful toolbars/cursors/whatever that track everything and half the time end up hosting their internet connection.
If the malware doesn't do it, the hacked box ends up spewing emails right away.
So, they end up here, $60-$100 (depending on how long they let the problem go and if they kept their disks) to fix.
Format, Restore, ZonealarmBasic Firewall (not anti-virus yet!), Spybot immunize registry, connect to network, update Windows, install Avast! anti-virus, make Mozilla the default browser, and have Avast! build a database of files on the system and what they are supposed to look like. I also keep an image of the finished setup so that the people who shut off their anti-virus/firewall can pay again here to get fixed and I don't have to go through all of the work again.
Too many times I see people trying to do it in a different order for Windoze, and it just doesn't work well. Most add the antivirus first and don't realize that by the time they get the firewall in, the box is already rooted.
So, how can a user figure it out of Microsoft & most computer shops can't?
I'm with you there. Well not necessarily regarding the butterflies and Bambi prancing happily though the meadow, but I'm talking about open environments. There is very, very, very little of that in games for some reason. Everyone still has Doom syndrome where they make you run though a maze for the entire game.
It's probably why I liked Beyond Good & Evil and Giants so much.
The reason they aren't very open is because the load on the graphics card and processor are dramatically raised when you enlarge an area. (I used to design Quake maps for fun)
For example, take a 10'x10'x10' room with stuff in it and double the size. It's not really double to your video card. Instead of 1000 cubic feet, it's 8000 cubic feet! It isn't 8 times the load, but it is a significant difference.
The only way around that problem is to a) lower the detail and put in some flashy effects or fogging so people won't notice, or b) design smaller areas with lots of turns and corners so that the rendering engine can think 'hey, that's around the corner, I don't have to bother with that yet'. That's why lots of games are played in mazes and canyons.
Giants went with option A and was still very tough on video cards. Speaking of which, we play Giants on the lan here sometimes. It's a very replayable game.
The same guys that did Giants just came out with Armed & Dangerous. It's even more funny and entertaining than Giants.
When I was typing my original post, I thought of mentioning that I'm not talking about "Just turn on your flashlight.", but I hoped people would know what I was talking about. I guess too many people play at night and don't even think about it.
I was just kidding. The truth is, the games aren't getting darker and darker, you're going blind!
No, it's really your video card (or drivers) that's the problem. Quake based games have always had several settings to account for things like that.
Look at sites that have screenshots of Half-Life and notice that although there are shadows, it's not really that dark considering the fact that you are underground and the power is failing all over the place.
Google for 'half-life gamma tweak' if you want to fix your problem. I had to mess around with settings with an old video card that showed everything so bright the textures were washed out.
These are the things that accident investigators used prior to black boxes, and the things that will be used afterwards. One hopes they are also used as sanity checks, as someone else mentioned if the black box says you were doing 200MPH whn you hit the other car but all you have is a minor paint scratch, I sure hope they don't believe it blindly.
Yes, the side-effect of having those boxes is another piece of evidence. It won't be the only evidence. The majority of people don't trust computer-type devices since most computers crash at least several times a week. Just last week there was a BSOD on a cable channel here a couple of weeks ago. And, the tv guide channel's clock was incorrect by an hour for two days after the last daylight savings change.
The boxes aren't there to help police figure out what happened in an accident. They are there to protect airbag & car manufacturers from being sued when someone gets in an accident at 100mph and claims it was only 70mph.
I recently downloaded and played the demo of Half Life to see how it was since I heard so much about it. I could barely play it on a Saturday afternoon because even with the brightness settings in the game turned all the way up, the stinkin' hallways were still too dark to see very well in. I could play pretty well at night because there is dim stuff there to be seen if you are playing in the dark.
I have a ti4600 and was using a 2100+ processor. Benchmarking UT2003 in WinXP AND Linux (dual boot) showed that the bottleneck was the processor. As the resolution increased, the framerate slowed down.
When I switched to a 2600+, the benchmark of 800x400 vs. 1600x1200 was within 2% even though the clock speed of the 2600+ (barton) isn't much more than the 2100+.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahhh, nothing like the smell of not-so-subtle racism.
Why wouldn't Thai and Japanese tastes in games be "that much different?" Is it because you think they look similar? You might want to spend more time in both countries before jumping to that kind of conclusion. Thailand and Japan are poles apart in terms of history and culture. The fact that both countries are in Asia and the people have similar appearances (to Western eyes, anyway) doesn't make them the same, any more than it would make Czech Republic and France the same.
Even if you didn't RTFA, at the top of this page you can see 'MSNBC is running an article about the relative popularity of some game hardware and software in the West vs. the East in the article submission here.
As a PHP programmer, you have to learn to work with register globals both on & off, because you never know which way round your client's ISP will have it set. Essentially, this means programming without the convenience of having the globals registered, and with the possibility of them being a security problem. All in the name of compatibility..
.htaccess file.
.htaccess file then web hosting company doesn't know much about security and can't be trusted as a host.
It doesn't have to be tested with register globals on.
Put instructions in the RTFM.txt that explain how to turn it on in a
If the web server administration has disallowed users to turn register globals off in an
believe Poor Richard's Almanac (written by Benjamin Franklin) which went something like this:
When solving a problem it is common to take a method and try it. When it fails, try another. But above all, do something."
Are you sure you don't mean Franklin Roosevelt? Here, here, and another here. Of course, F. Franklin might have paraphrased B. Franklin.
What is interesting is the use of the word 'method'. It is usually used in a Scientific or Mathematical sense.
I fear the day manufacturers realize that they can just produce less and charge more and call the layoffs profit.
They know about supply and demand. Chip manufacturers already play that game.
It's not so different from what the gasoline companies do. For example, they like the fact that we use different blends of gasoline even within a single state. Then, they create a shortage and muddle the issue by claming the problem is that they have to guess at how much blend X (pc2700) will be sold vs blend Y (flash memory). "It's not our fault we have to follow different environmental guidelines".
The gasoline prices are still increasing and the average consumer has no idea of where the problem is. Is it the Middle East situation? Is it the Gasoline Manufacturers? Is it the Retail outlets? Is it the environmentalists? Is it the Governments? The mainstream media won't tell us, they just repeat different sources of propaganda.
Actually, it's a mix of a lot of things, but ultimately, the Gasoline Manufacturers hold most of the cards and have the most influence.
Even if you don't like playing with Linux winmodem drivers, won't ANY external modem do?
As far as I have seen, yes.
(I use external modems regardless of whether I am using Linux or Windows)
Problem is that the site's on someone's dynamic connection, and it was submitted by the person whose site it is. Obviously this person was unaware of what a slashdotting does to a workstation.
He also didn't read his contract from the DSL provider. He doesn't have a static IP so there is a 'no servers' clause in that contract..
Then employees can start wearing NRA insignia. Personally, I find it amazing that some employee that has been outsourced hasn't assassinated a high profile supporter of outsourcing such as HP CEO Carly Fiorina. It's either an amazing show of judgement and restraint by the employees. Or lack of will and resignation of the fact that these people will always be able to walk all over you. I haven't decided which.
Security tends to be better for CEO's than the dog or wife at home that the frustration can be easily taken out on.
So if one looks at other jobs around alot of workers are unionized eg, airline pilots/mechanics, auto workers etc etc.
Is there a union for computer professionals?
If so which one I havent found one, if not why not?
The day that much IT unionizing happens will be the same day the a large portion of the rest of those jobs get moved to another country.
Airline Pilots and Plane/Auto Mechanics are a different situation. It's not really feasable to export those jobs. The work needs to be done where the planes and automobiles are at.
Most IT work can be much more easily shifted overseas.
I agree, that's prety close to what I make, and it's definately not easy to live on that.
Especially if your job does not provide medical insurance for your family. You won't be able to afford good insurance for them on your own. If they do get Ill enough to require hospitilization for much time, you'll be close to bankruptcy.
This is not the same as no longer using a screwdriver just because the military use them.
Chances are he has contributed to open-source (or at least advocated it). That makes him one of the creators of a tool used by the military. If you were against the war and the perpetrators of the war were using YOUR creation to do their violent work, then I think you are entitled to object.
How about objecting by not paying tax dollars to the government ever again?
After all, that money is much more useful for killing people in a variety of ways than any particular piece of code.
I remember WebCrawler, but lost touch with it in around 1996, when I started religiously using AltaVista. They sure have changed a bit. ... but do they have any relevance anymore? They're owned by InfoSpace. :P
A lot of usenet people that I knew dropped WebCrawler shortly after the AOL deal went through.
AltaVista then ended up being the search engine that most people recommended.
Angelina Jolie is ugly.
i have nothing to say , this shows ur taste
Speaking of media and what it tries to convince people of, Angelina is IMO one of the most 'pushed on the public' model types that I have ever seen.
I know many people who otherwise find women of that fame beautiful, yet find her to be extremely unattractive.
Myself included. That goes for Ms. Spears also. Just because they are proclaimed to be beautiful doesn't mean much to me.
It's certainly possible that different hardware or even different drivers on the different machines doing the rendering can create subtle (or not-so-subtle) differences in each resulting frame, but standardising the hardware and drivers across machines should solve that completely.
Yes, but it's not a good idea to tie one's business to a particular hardware company let alone one product, and one driver.
Also, there are many people who make the money decisions that will balk at making particular changes to their their software or hardware without being forced to. Especially if they've been bitten before.
After all, as an example, many people still have to deal with the slick way in which WinModems/NIC's (software driven) pretty much secretly tied their machines down to using Microsoft Windows.
When I try to convert people in businesses to using Linux for stability, one sticky issue is when I bring up the fact that they will have to use particular modems for their boxes. They immediately think that I am trying to lock them into Something Bad when in reality, the Evil Deed has already been done.
I have to defend my position against "What happens when it breaks, do I have to buy from you? Who will help me if you aren't in business?", "Isn't Linux as capable as Windows?" as well as the silent "hmm, is this just the tip of the iceberg?" and "Will I be able to defend my job if this screws us in the future?"
I don't blame them. I feel the same way when I'm told anything that resembles "You must use brand X".
Please note that in the film and TV business, we're talking of large clusters of machines and weeks of rendering and bringing it down to days with smaller number of machines is a very big progress.
It is a lot of progress.
On the other hand, it'll be interesting to see whether rending times come down, or animations get much more complicated.
Yes Mr "Researcher" if offered chocolate 79% of people can think of a random word.
I have a personal favorite. I've been using it since the Quake1 days and people would constantly be asking for rcon access. After getting tired of people asking, I'd tell them that the password was 'imadufus'.
It was amazing. A lot of the people after a few minutes would complain that 'imadufus' didn't work.
And apparently over 30% of those asked would just reveal their passwords without any bribery!
Yes, that was interesting, and I'm not surprised. But, this quote from the article (emphasis mine) bothered me.
The RSA survey found that maintaining online identities is becoming a burden for many people who, on average, use 20 sites that require them to register and then log on afterwards.
Good Lord! These are 'random' commuters. I find it quite hard to believe that a significant portion of them have have 20 logins let alone an AVERAGE of 20 online logins to keep track of. Especially considering that only one respondent (allegedly) had a total of 40 logins.
So, it's Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. I don't take the article as anything resembling reality.
Format, Restore, ZonealarmBasic Firewall (not anti-virus yet!), Spybot immunize registry, connect to network, update Windows, install Avast! anti-virus, make Mozilla the default browser, and have Avast! build a database of files on the system and what they are supposed to look like. I also keep an image of the finished setup so that the people who shut off their anti-virus/firewall can pay again here to get fixed and I don't have to go through all of the work again.
I should add that although that looks like a lot of work, it's actually only about 20 or so of actual minutes per box once a tech gets used to the procedure and knows 'next, next, next, yes, no, next, (back to Counter-Strike for a while), ok, reboot, next application, (more Counter-Strike), etc...' well enough to almost do it blindfolded.
No point in trying to educate them. A lot of this stuff is so esoteric that even relatively experienced and competent users get taken in, and new stuff comes up all the time. Is it sensible to make someone who really has no need for in depth computer knowledge sit down and cram new viruses and security vulnerabilities 2 hours a day?
The solution is an OS that doesn't just load everything that comes along. It's the digital equivalent of walking around Times Square jabbing used hypodermics into your arm.
Boxes coming out of Wal-Mart make it around 30-60 days before they end up here with mostly 'my internet connection is slow' problems.
The real problem is a) They got hacked soon after figuring out how to connect to the internet and b) They get helpful toolbars/cursors/whatever that track everything and half the time end up hosting their internet connection.
If the malware doesn't do it, the hacked box ends up spewing emails right away.
So, they end up here, $60-$100 (depending on how long they let the problem go and if they kept their disks) to fix.
Format, Restore, ZonealarmBasic Firewall (not anti-virus yet!), Spybot immunize registry, connect to network, update Windows, install Avast! anti-virus, make Mozilla the default browser, and have Avast! build a database of files on the system and what they are supposed to look like. I also keep an image of the finished setup so that the people who shut off their anti-virus/firewall can pay again here to get fixed and I don't have to go through all of the work again.
Too many times I see people trying to do it in a different order for Windoze, and it just doesn't work well. Most add the antivirus first and don't realize that by the time they get the firewall in, the box is already rooted.
So, how can a user figure it out of Microsoft & most computer shops can't?
I'm with you there. Well not necessarily regarding the butterflies and Bambi prancing happily though the meadow, but I'm talking about open environments. There is very, very, very little of that in games for some reason. Everyone still has Doom syndrome where they make you run though a maze for the entire game.
It's probably why I liked Beyond Good & Evil and Giants so much.
The reason they aren't very open is because the load on the graphics card and processor are dramatically raised when you enlarge an area. (I used to design Quake maps for fun)
For example, take a 10'x10'x10' room with stuff in it and double the size. It's not really double to your video card. Instead of 1000 cubic feet, it's 8000 cubic feet! It isn't 8 times the load, but it is a significant difference.
The only way around that problem is to a) lower the detail and put in some flashy effects or fogging so people won't notice, or b) design smaller areas with lots of turns and corners so that the rendering engine can think 'hey, that's around the corner, I don't have to bother with that yet'. That's why lots of games are played in mazes and canyons.
Giants went with option A and was still very tough on video cards. Speaking of which, we play Giants on the lan here sometimes. It's a very replayable game.
The same guys that did Giants just came out with Armed & Dangerous. It's even more funny and entertaining than Giants.
When I was typing my original post, I thought of mentioning that I'm not talking about "Just turn on your flashlight.", but I hoped people would know what I was talking about. I guess too many people play at night and don't even think about it.
I was just kidding. The truth is, the games aren't getting darker and darker, you're going blind!
No, it's really your video card (or drivers) that's the problem. Quake based games have always had several settings to account for things like that.
Look at sites that have screenshots of Half-Life and notice that although there are shadows, it's not really that dark considering the fact that you are underground and the power is failing all over the place.
Google for 'half-life gamma tweak' if you want to fix your problem. I had to mess around with settings with an old video card that showed everything so bright the textures were washed out.
These are the things that accident investigators used prior to black boxes, and the things that will be used afterwards. One hopes they are also used as sanity checks, as someone else mentioned if the black box says you were doing 200MPH whn you hit the other car but all you have is a minor paint scratch, I sure hope they don't believe it blindly.
Yes, the side-effect of having those boxes is another piece of evidence. It won't be the only evidence. The majority of people don't trust computer-type devices since most computers crash at least several times a week. Just last week there was a BSOD on a cable channel here a couple of weeks ago. And, the tv guide channel's clock was incorrect by an hour for two days after the last daylight savings change.
The boxes aren't there to help police figure out what happened in an accident. They are there to protect airbag & car manufacturers from being sued when someone gets in an accident at 100mph and claims it was only 70mph.
I recently downloaded and played the demo of Half Life to see how it was since I heard so much about it. I could barely play it on a Saturday afternoon because even with the brightness settings in the game turned all the way up, the stinkin' hallways were still too dark to see very well in. I could play pretty well at night because there is dim stuff there to be seen if you are playing in the dark.
You're carrying a flashlight in that game.
Check the batteries.
incomplete. what color is '1' and what color is '0'?
1 is 'all colors' and 0 is 'no colors'.
No, it's the video card.
It's hard to say without some benchmarking.
I have a ti4600 and was using a 2100+ processor. Benchmarking UT2003 in WinXP AND Linux (dual boot) showed that the bottleneck was the processor. As the resolution increased, the framerate slowed down.
When I switched to a 2600+, the benchmark of 800x400 vs. 1600x1200 was within 2% even though the clock speed of the 2600+ (barton) isn't much more than the 2100+.
Someone never played duckhunt.
Or, Nethack.