The author is missing the point. The geek who ran 40k+ copies of Linux at one time was doing it just to be a geek. Period. I seriously doubt there is a person out there who would need to run that many copies of Linux on one box.
IBM builds some pretty sweet hardware when it comes to mainframes. The darn things are build from the ground up to handle mutiple users and OSs smoothly and efficiently. The IBM 3090 we had at college was pretty darn responsive even when both processors were at 90% utilization.
It's not an issue of trying to run 40k+ copies of Linux, it's about having a stable, fast, and large platform to run an OS. --
I did most of my Ultima on my//e. The only problem I can recall was a disk error in U4. Right before the end. Had to ship the disk back to Origin to get a replacement.
I did buy U6 for the PC, but I haven't touched it in years. I got U8 as a gift, and played it for about 20 minutes before I decided that it sucked. I was told that U7 was pretty good.
I just remember Ultima having high playability and long epic quests with many sub-quests. That's what I liked about the games
I have found the ultima series of games to have more technical flaws than any other piece of software I've used. I can't tell you how many times u6,u7#2, and u8 have crashed out of nowhere on me. You've never run Windows, eh? --
I wasted way too much time playing U1-U5 on my good old Apple//e. Ultima games were always about story and quality. That seems to have gotten lost with U8+.
I hope whatever RG moves onto, he goes back to the simple story/quality formula. Good luck and best wishes. --
No, they wouldn't. Because if they did, we would go to Wendys or Burger King or any one of a million other restaurants. Even though McDonalds is, by far, the largest restaurant chain. I think this is where your argument could use a better analogy. The only reason I can go to Wendys in the first place is that Wendys is able to compete with McDonalds. McDonalds did not contract all the major construction companies in the world to build only McDonalds restaurants. The construction companies are free to build Wendys, Burger King, and McDonalds. If McD had contracted the contruction companies to only build McDs, then there would be no Burger Kings or Wendys. This is exactly what MS did.
MS crushed the competition by making the OS cheaper to manufacturers who would bundle MS products. That is a fact. In the razor thin margins of the hardware market, what could the PC makers do but use MS products? If you don't run Windows, you don't sell PCs.
Without any competition in the OS market, MS was able to add features to the OS rather than fix problems and improve stability. MS has the talent and resources to produce a version of Windows that would be a good and stable OS. What they don't have is the need. Why improve a product when you can write a new one and convince everyone they need to upgrade?
Splitting up MS is not the solution. Too many companies depend on MS for day to day operations. What we need is a big fine, say 20 billion USD, and documented APIs and file formats.
I personally would love to see MS voluntarily release the source code and make Windows an open source project. They could still sell the OS, and people would still buy it. Hackers could track down bugs and submit patches to MS. The average consumer would not be interested in downloading 30 megs of source and compiling it to have a new OS. And they would always have the Office cash cow to fall back on. MS can't continue to grow forever as a company. The curve has to level off sometime. --
I seem to recall a made for TV movie about a high school teacher who started a movement in his school called "The WAVE." Turned out he was the history teacher and was teaching the students about Hitler and group pyschology the HARD WAY. He held a big rally for the students and show them some video of Hitler giving a speech and pointed out the fact that he used Hitler's methods on them. Pretty spooky.
It would have to have been in the early 80's. I think 83-84 sounds about right. Anybody remember?
I wonder if this is where they got the name from? --
And this is supposed to be scary how? You expect me to be specific? I'm just a generalist!;-)
I'm no MS fan. They really did stifle competition in the OS market. I just hope that the settlement/ruling makes things better, not worse.
Better would be stable OSes and a genuine comitment to producing quality software for the general consumer. Okay, Linux has the stable OS, but the software has a way to go.
In this case: better the devil I don't know than the one I know all too well! Agreed.:)
A number of people are hoping for a complete MS breakup of the release of the Windows source.
MS is a huge company. Any decisions that are made will set the precedent for the way the software businesses are run. We will live with the decisions made about this case for a very long time. Let's all hope they are the right ones.
Things may be done today that change each and every one of our lives. Some will benefit, some will suffer.
I think that last point is why most Linux users complain so much about Windows crashing. Take a stock Dell machine, a stock Win98 install, and a stock MS Office install. Use them for a week. Tell me how many crashes you get. I'll bet on at least one. That's too many. I'm not claiming that windows boxen crash every half hour. What I'm claiming is that crashes have become a part of life for windows users.
They seem to think that they are OS "gurus" and start to fiddle around with every setting they can find in a vain attempt to "tweak" their system. I know a group of users that use MS OSs, and MS products exclusively. They aren't "tweak"ing their systems, they are just trying to get work done. They have crashes. They don't know how the OS works. They don't understand that to get Win98 to behave you have to do some minor "tweak"ing, like turn off active desktop. Install IE5 so that Win98 will crash less often than when using IE4. Turn off the eye candy. The list goes on.
BTW, strap on a pair and stop posting anonymously. --
Despite what/.ers seem to think, Microsoft has done a lot of good for the computing industry as a whole, making it so that computers have moved from being the domain of long-haired hippies at geek enclaves like MIT to being available for everyone. Was it MS? I think IBM played a bigger part. Let's face it, without IBM, MS would not be as big as it is.
MS has managed to make crashes a normal part of computing for many people. To me, this is a bad thing(tm). Why do I have to reboot a WinX machine when I install software? Here's the most annoying question on the planet -- Do you want to reboot your computer? NO! I just want the fscking thing to run my new program!
Imagine MS with OS competition. You would get a better quality product. The consumers and business would benefit. MS would have to produce a higher quality product than their competitors in order to stay in business. People will buy higher quality products if they are available.
Take the automobile situation in the US. When the 70's gas crunch hit, Japanese cars sold like hotcakes. US automakers lost business because their product was not as good as the Japanese cars. Competition made both American and Japanese automakers produce better cars which in turn benefited the consumers.
MS made contracts which forced OEM computer manufacturers to ship MS OSs exclusively or pay higer prices for MS software. Given the razor thin margins on hardware, the manufacturers had no choice but to sign up. This gave MS the market share to screw the consumer. And they did. --
If you want to write bigger applications in perl, that works too, but the language itself doesn't force you to write good, elegant code. Many use this as an argument against perl, but I think it should be the programmers responsibility. Right. I'm aware of TimToady (I can't remember the correct acronym). Is there a limit to the size of an application you would write in Perl? What I'm getting at is could I drop C++ and write all my applications in Perl or is it better suited for quick hacks and data massaging? --
First off, let me say I read stab's excellent post ("I worked there, and I find it Hard to Believe") and I completely agree with what he says there. I, too, find it difficult to believe this story. But I am interested in why such a story is given credence enough to be published. I agree. You don't see too many geeks try to cover things up when things go wrong. Failure is best used as a learning experience. Most geeks won't take the time to make up a story, it would be distracting and hard to remember later. The truth is the easiest thing to remember.
Roger Beaujolais lives with that moment every day of his life. So do all the men and women of NASA. Amen. I still can't watch the Challenger accident in replays. Every time I see it coming, I run out of the room if possible. I was really hoping to get into space someday, but with the Challenger accident, I don't think we'll see civilians is space anytime soon. John Glen doesn't count. Remember, he was a trained astronaut.
A truly perfect AI is only a mirror of human thought and behavior, and we have that anyway. Perfection is a very subjective word. I would argue that we have yet to see a case of perfect human thought. How would we know when the AI got there?
My general thought on an AI would be that we most likely won't know when a machine becomes self-aware. Human intellegence takes time to develop. I would assume that machine intelligence would also take time. We most likely not notice the first self-aware machine until it is able to tell us that it is self-aware. Its early attempts to communicate will probably be viewed as system glitches. My son could make noise at 10 months old, gesture/noise communicate at 12 months, and make simple sentances at 14 months. To the outsider, they only knew that he was talking at 14 months. He had been communicating since 10 months.
AIs creating AIs? Well, I guess if it wanted to, it could. Most beings do desire to reproduce. Could the AI make a better AI than itself? I would think so. An AI would be able to understand its own functioning, and optimize/enhance abilities in its offspring. --
I never thought of that. Does it make that much of a difference? Huge. AC usually has a fair amount of line noise, and it really messes with my video.
Is there another way to shield the video signal cable from the power? I run all my cables through a small port in my desk enclosure so there's no avoiding the proximity. If your monitor will take BNC connectors for video inputs (usually 5 BNC connectors), you can get a pretty heavily shielded cable. It will cost you some bucks ($50USD) but will help clean things up. The poor man's solution would be to wrap your monitor cable in aluminum foil. I've never tried it, but I've been told it works.
If I were you, I would run all the cables through the desk except the monitor cable. Pull it out by itself. That should help.
I have an expensive Mitsubishi 22" flat CRT at home, and even though it supports similar resolutions, it isn't nearly as useful. I have to run a much lower resolution than the monitor supports to keep the text sharp, even with top-of-the-line cables and video cards. And what a desk hog! I run a Dell (Repacked Sony or Princeton, I think) 21", and with my Riva ZX 128, I run 1600x1200x16bits and have great looking text all the time. What I had to do was make sure that I moved all other cables (esp power) away from the video cable. That made a huge difference.
Yeah, you are right about a desk hog. And, it's a real bitch to haul to LAN parties. --
I really don't remember the part of Schindler's List where I felt good. Sure, there is a ray of light in that movie (Schindler), but it was definately not a feel-good movie.
True, Indy is a pretty shallow character. RotLA was pure escapism. It also happens to be one the best adventure flicks in existance. Make it a point to watch that movie with kids. You get a pretty good vibe going off of that one.
I won't knock Kubrick. 2.001K was a great flick. CW just rules. I didn't see EWS, but that's due to a Tom Cruise aversion.
I'll turn my kids onto Kubrick when they get older. For now, Indy will have to do.
Speilberg definately has picked his main evil character (either present or implied) to be Hitler. You could look at the collective works of Speilberg to be a warning/reminder of Nazi Germany. It's not terribly morally complex (Hitler was wrong. End of Story.) but does prove a point.
Speilberg has been quietly working on the Shoah (sp?) foundation to preserve the stories of Holocaust survivors. Give him kudos for that. --
They seem bland, generic, badly acted and terribly scripted. Do you remember "Raiders of the Lost Ark?" Not bland. Not generic. Not badly acted. That was and still is a great movie. It is a classic "larger than life" hero in classic "good vs. evil" story. Harrison Ford a bad actor? Come on.
How plausible is it that we communicate with aliens through music and not something more advanced, like mathematics? Music is based on mathematics. Check out the frets on a guitar some time. They are spaced based on the log() function. Admittedly, math would most likey be the first basis of communication, PI begin a good starting point, but it's a movie, and you have to take some leeway to reach the audience.
If you want contact by using math, rent "Contact" with Jodi Foster. The first message the aliens send are a list of prime numbers. Oh, and plans for a space craft.
Oddly enough, both Raiders and Contact were on TV last week.
legal battle over state attempts to regulate spam To quote Neo, "Whoa!" I know Spam is some pretty dangerous stuff, but they pack it in that jelly to keep it stable. I never knew the states wanted to regulate it.
Slashdot Mirror
The author is missing the point. The geek who ran 40k+ copies of Linux at one time was doing it just to be a geek. Period. I seriously doubt there is a person out there who would need to run that many copies of Linux on one box.
IBM builds some pretty sweet hardware when it comes to mainframes. The darn things are build from the ground up to handle mutiple users and OSs smoothly and efficiently. The IBM 3090 we had at college was pretty darn responsive even when both processors were at 90% utilization.
It's not an issue of trying to run 40k+ copies of Linux, it's about having a stable, fast, and large platform to run an OS.
--
Slashcode 1.0? Come on, you can do better April fools jokes than that!
In case you missed it, that was humor.
--
I did most of my Ultima on my //e. The only problem I can recall was a disk error in U4. Right before the end. Had to ship the disk back to Origin to get a replacement.
I did buy U6 for the PC, but I haven't touched it in years. I got U8 as a gift, and played it for about 20 minutes before I decided that it sucked.
I was told that U7 was pretty good.
I just remember Ultima having high playability and long epic quests with many sub-quests. That's what I liked about the games
I have found the ultima series of games to have more technical flaws than any other piece of software I've used. I can't tell you how many times u6,u7#2, and u8 have crashed out of nowhere on me.
You've never run Windows, eh?
--
I wasted way too much time playing U1-U5 on my good old Apple //e. Ultima games were always about story and quality. That seems to have gotten lost with U8+.
I hope whatever RG moves onto, he goes back to the simple story/quality formula. Good luck and best wishes.
--
Excellent post. Kudos.
No, they wouldn't. Because if they did, we would go to Wendys or Burger King or any one of a million other restaurants. Even though McDonalds is, by far, the largest restaurant chain.
I think this is where your argument could use a better analogy. The only reason I can go to Wendys in the first place is that Wendys is able to compete with McDonalds. McDonalds did not contract all the major construction companies in the world to build only McDonalds restaurants. The construction companies are free to build Wendys, Burger King, and McDonalds. If McD had contracted the contruction companies to only build McDs, then there would be no Burger Kings or Wendys. This is exactly what MS did.
MS crushed the competition by making the OS cheaper to manufacturers who would bundle MS products. That is a fact. In the razor thin margins of the hardware market, what could the PC makers do but use MS products? If you don't run Windows, you don't sell PCs.
Without any competition in the OS market, MS was able to add features to the OS rather than fix problems and improve stability. MS has the talent and resources to produce a version of Windows that would be a good and stable OS. What they don't have is the need. Why improve a product when you can write a new one and convince everyone they need to upgrade?
Splitting up MS is not the solution. Too many companies depend on MS for day to day operations. What we need is a big fine, say 20 billion USD, and documented APIs and file formats.
I personally would love to see MS voluntarily release the source code and make Windows an open source project. They could still sell the OS, and people would still buy it. Hackers could track down bugs and submit patches to MS. The average consumer would not be interested in downloading 30 megs of source and compiling it to have a new OS. And they would always have the Office cash cow to fall back on. MS can't continue to grow forever as a company. The curve has to level off sometime.
--
Here is IMDB's entry.
I thought it was odd too.
--
I seem to recall a made for TV movie about a high school teacher who started a movement in his school called "The WAVE." Turned out he was the history teacher and was teaching the students about Hitler and group pyschology the HARD WAY. He held a big rally for the students and show them some video of Hitler giving a speech and pointed out the fact that he used Hitler's methods on them. Pretty spooky.
It would have to have been in the early 80's. I think 83-84 sounds about right. Anybody remember?
I wonder if this is where they got the name from?
--
And this is supposed to be scary how? ;-)
:)
You expect me to be specific? I'm just a generalist!
I'm no MS fan. They really did stifle competition in the OS market. I just hope that the settlement/ruling makes things better, not worse.
Better would be stable OSes and a genuine comitment to producing quality software for the general consumer. Okay, Linux has the stable OS, but the software has a way to go.
In this case: better the devil I don't know than the one I know all too well!
Agreed.
--
...you just may get it.
A number of people are hoping for a complete MS breakup of the release of the Windows source.
MS is a huge company. Any decisions that are made will set the precedent for the way the software businesses are run. We will live with the decisions made about this case for a very long time. Let's all hope they are the right ones.
Things may be done today that change each and every one of our lives. Some will benefit, some will suffer.
--
Yeah, it's old, but my kid is studying Shakespeare now in school. Doust thou understand? :)
And, according to the update, it is Not to Be.
--
I think that last point is why most Linux users complain so much about Windows crashing.
Take a stock Dell machine, a stock Win98 install, and a stock MS Office install. Use them for a week. Tell me how many crashes you get. I'll bet on at least one. That's too many. I'm not claiming that windows boxen crash every half hour. What I'm claiming is that crashes have become a part of life for windows users.
They seem to think that they are OS "gurus" and start to fiddle around with every setting they can find in a vain attempt to "tweak" their system.
I know a group of users that use MS OSs, and MS products exclusively. They aren't "tweak"ing their systems, they are just trying to get work done. They have crashes. They don't know how the OS works. They don't understand that to get Win98 to behave you have to do some minor "tweak"ing, like turn off active desktop. Install IE5 so that Win98 will crash less often than when using IE4. Turn off the eye candy. The list goes on.
BTW, strap on a pair and stop posting anonymously.
--
Despite what /.ers seem to think, Microsoft has done a lot of good for the computing industry as a whole, making it so that computers have moved from being the domain of long-haired hippies at geek enclaves like MIT to being available for everyone.
Was it MS? I think IBM played a bigger part. Let's face it, without IBM, MS would not be as big as it is.
MS has managed to make crashes a normal part of computing for many people. To me, this is a bad thing(tm). Why do I have to reboot a WinX machine when I install software? Here's the most annoying question on the planet -- Do you want to reboot your computer? NO! I just want the fscking thing to run my new program!
Imagine MS with OS competition. You would get a better quality product. The consumers and business would benefit. MS would have to produce a higher quality product than their competitors in order to stay in business. People will buy higher quality products if they are available.
Take the automobile situation in the US. When the 70's gas crunch hit, Japanese cars sold like hotcakes. US automakers lost business because their product was not as good as the Japanese cars. Competition made both American and Japanese automakers produce better cars which in turn benefited the consumers.
MS made contracts which forced OEM computer manufacturers to ship MS OSs exclusively or pay higer prices for MS software. Given the razor thin margins on hardware, the manufacturers had no choice but to sign up. This gave MS the market share to screw the consumer. And they did.
--
Fucking retard.
How nice.
(or you WOULD use, if you weren't such a poseur)
Once again, very nice.
Stop posting flamebait, and go back to chronic masturbation.
Please stop, I'm blushing.
It would be nice if you would recognize the difference between flamebait and a serious attempt to discuss something.
Your answers are helpfull, and I thank you.
Of course, if the future, if you feel the need to insult me, have the BALLS to post using your name.
--
If you want to write bigger applications in perl, that works too, but the language itself doesn't force you to write good, elegant code. Many use this as an argument against perl, but I think it should be the programmers responsibility.
Right. I'm aware of TimToady (I can't remember the correct acronym). Is there a limit to the size of an application you would write in Perl? What I'm getting at is could I drop C++ and write all my applications in Perl or is it better suited for quick hacks and data massaging?
--
I'm played with Perl a bit (4 hours) and I see where it could be usefull.
/. uses Perl, but what else does?
/. opinion on the subject.
Can anyone provide me with a good argument for using Perl or provide some examples of where Perl is used? I know
It's on the list of things to learn, but I'm just asking for the
--
First off, let me say I read stab's excellent post ("I worked there, and I find it Hard to Believe") and I completely agree with what he says there. I, too, find it difficult to believe this story. But I am interested in why such a story is given credence enough to be published.
I agree. You don't see too many geeks try to cover things up when things go wrong. Failure is best used as a learning experience. Most geeks won't take the time to make up a story, it would be distracting and hard to remember later. The truth is the easiest thing to remember.
Roger Beaujolais lives with that moment every day of his life. So do all the men and women of NASA.
Amen. I still can't watch the Challenger accident in replays. Every time I see it coming, I run out of the room if possible. I was really hoping to get into space someday, but with the Challenger accident, I don't think we'll see civilians is space anytime soon. John Glen doesn't count. Remember, he was a trained astronaut.
Chirstine Macauliff
Christine Macauliffe, IRRC.
--
A patch to the patch?
-if(HoursSinceLastShower > 24) {
+if(Player.HoursSinceLastShower > 24) {
even then, probably
-if(HoursSinceLastShower > 24) {
+-if(Player.HoursSinceLastShower() > 24) {
would be better.
--
A truly perfect AI is only a mirror of human thought and behavior, and we have that anyway.
Perfection is a very subjective word. I would argue that we have yet to see a case of perfect human thought. How would we know when the AI got there?
My general thought on an AI would be that we most likely won't know when a machine becomes self-aware. Human intellegence takes time to develop. I would assume that machine intelligence would also take time. We most likely not notice the first self-aware machine until it is able to tell us that it is self-aware. Its early attempts to communicate will probably be viewed as system glitches. My son could make noise at 10 months old, gesture/noise communicate at 12 months, and make simple sentances at 14 months. To the outsider, they only knew that he was talking at 14 months. He had been communicating since 10 months.
AIs creating AIs? Well, I guess if it wanted to, it could. Most beings do desire to reproduce. Could the AI make a better AI than itself? I would think so. An AI would be able to understand its own functioning, and optimize/enhance abilities in its offspring.
--
Boxers or briefs?
--
What are the rules of thumb for writing documentation?
How often do you see them followed?
What are the common mistakes committed when writing documentation?
--
I never thought of that. Does it make that much of a difference?
Huge. AC usually has a fair amount of line noise, and it really messes with my video.
Is there another way to shield the video signal cable from the power? I run all my cables through a small port in my desk enclosure so there's no avoiding the proximity.
If your monitor will take BNC connectors for video inputs (usually 5 BNC connectors), you can get a pretty heavily shielded cable. It will cost you some bucks ($50USD) but will help clean things up. The poor man's solution would be to wrap your monitor cable in aluminum foil. I've never tried it, but I've been told it works.
If I were you, I would run all the cables through the desk except the monitor cable. Pull it out by itself. That should help.
--
I have an expensive Mitsubishi 22" flat CRT at home, and even though it supports similar resolutions, it isn't nearly as useful. I have to run a much lower resolution than the monitor supports to keep the text sharp, even with top-of-the-line cables and video cards. And what a desk hog!
I run a Dell (Repacked Sony or Princeton, I think) 21", and with my Riva ZX 128, I run 1600x1200x16bits and have great looking text all the time. What I had to do was make sure that I moved all other cables (esp power) away from the video cable. That made a huge difference.
Yeah, you are right about a desk hog. And, it's a real bitch to haul to LAN parties.
--
I really don't remember the part of Schindler's List where I felt good. Sure, there is a ray of light in that movie (Schindler), but it was definately not a feel-good movie.
True, Indy is a pretty shallow character. RotLA was pure escapism. It also happens to be one the best adventure flicks in existance. Make it a point to watch that movie with kids. You get a pretty good vibe going off of that one.
I won't knock Kubrick. 2.001K was a great flick. CW just rules. I didn't see EWS, but that's due to a Tom Cruise aversion.
I'll turn my kids onto Kubrick when they get older. For now, Indy will have to do.
Speilberg definately has picked his main evil character (either present or implied) to be Hitler. You could look at the collective works of Speilberg to be a warning/reminder of Nazi Germany. It's not terribly morally complex (Hitler was wrong. End of Story.) but does prove a point.
Speilberg has been quietly working on the Shoah (sp?) foundation to preserve the stories of Holocaust survivors. Give him kudos for that.
--
They seem bland, generic, badly acted and terribly scripted.
Do you remember "Raiders of the Lost Ark?" Not bland. Not generic. Not badly acted. That was and still is a great movie. It is a classic "larger than life" hero in classic "good vs. evil" story. Harrison Ford a bad actor? Come on.
How plausible is it that we communicate with aliens through music and not something more advanced, like mathematics?
Music is based on mathematics. Check out the frets on a guitar some time. They are spaced based on the log() function. Admittedly, math would most likey be the first basis of communication, PI begin a good starting point, but it's a movie, and you have to take some leeway to reach the audience.
If you want contact by using math, rent "Contact" with Jodi Foster. The first message the aliens send are a list of prime numbers. Oh, and plans for a space craft.
Oddly enough, both Raiders and Contact were on TV last week.
--
legal battle over state attempts to regulate spam
To quote Neo, "Whoa!" I know Spam is some pretty dangerous stuff, but they pack it in that jelly to keep it stable. I never knew the states wanted to regulate it.
--