It's nice to know that the Eu is finally becoming the main location for so many US and Asian companies. Feels like 5 of those are actually european companies.
I agree with you to some part. The main problem with the control scheme is if you think of the game as a 3D shooter, then the controls are strange.
If you see the game as a platform game then the controls make a lot more sense.
However, I still think the controls are the worst part of the game. Particularly during boss battles since they often make you loose your lock (freezing attacks and such). And you are more stressed in boss battles. Since the normal enemies are typically push-overs the controls are not really put to the test either.
There were a few places were jumping annoyed the hell out of me. I still have to beat MP, but I have not had much problems with platforms and fusion metroids. So I have gotten used to the control scheme.
I prefer "Ignorance is Strength", it makes a degenerate life-style sound cool. "Ignorance is Bliss" is something a hippie or general low-life would use as an excuse; "Ignorance is Strength" is for the go-getters and pro-active people who like to do things but don't really care about the reasons, or final results. (Just that there are some results, and fast.)
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned (because I can't be bothered to read all the replyies) but there are a lot of hints on the "Tips and tricks" section on the mozilla/firefox site. Besides the already mentioned about:config you can edit a/lot/ more by editing the user.js and other config files. This will let you alter pretty much all of mozilla/firefox behaviour. Eg you can change the delay before firefox begin rendering an image (while waiting for more data).
If you want features there are loads of extentions which can help you in that area.
Anyone stupid enough to store their data in proprietary and/or obscure formats deserve to get it "incompatible" in the future.
Store images as RAW/TIFF/JPEG/PNG etc and text as ASCII or at least RTF and use the power of open standards to protect you.
While eg the english language has changed in the last few hundreds of years it's still possible to read and understand old books. I can't see why the same wouldn't be true for eg ASCII. (And if all fails it's quite trivial to break the ASCII code using cryptographic methods.)
As long as I can store a decoder for a image format in C source I'm not worried.
Not to mention that the 64MB of RAM in each of the cluster nodes make it pretty much useless for any heavy computation. As has already been concluded: XBox sucks for clustering. It makes a really nice media player though.
If you make a cluster of cheap PCs you could add graphics cards and use as "co-processors" though. That would be a pretty impressive hack. To my knowledge noone has tried to make programs which are both clustered and use "GPGPU" ideas. (That's not saying it hasn't been done though.) Base it on "cheap" EPIA or Shuttle computers and you can make it smaller than the XBox one too.;-)
This seems like a perfect applience for Bluetooth, unfortunately they forgot to include it, again.
Wireless keyboard and mouse as well as going online through mobile phone doesn't seem too bad as far as I'm concerned.
And those complaining about "get a laptop instead" clearly have no imagination. These are made to work in situations were you only have your hands to hold it. Eg during your train ride to work (which many US people don't do). It's made for use on the move, in those situations a laptop is just not possible.
Have you tried it yourself? Personally I haven't noticed problems using 802.11b/g and Bluetooth in the same room.
Stuff like Dect phones are way worse at polluting the airwaves. (They are typically not even smart enough to lower signal strength depending on distance.)
This is only true for some of the earlier BT implementations on Nokia. Later models have better support. The support in Sony-Ericsson phones is great in my experience.
Yes you can do that, the Bluetooth term for that is Scatternet. Specifically it allows a slave in one piconet to be master in a different piconet. A piconet involves one master and 7 slaves, all Bluetooth devices fill at least one of these roles.
Personally I hope that next gen consoles have Bluetooth built in for controls. I would be great to have wireless controls+headphones you could just bring to your pals.
No, you don't need to recompile the kernel to add hardware support. You need to compile a module (containing the driver) and load it. I assume that if Linus oppose a HAL it's because it adds a lot of steps between the hardware and the driver. Stuff that Linux doesn't really need.
All that said I can't say that I'm an expert on this. So there may well be problems I don't know of. Eg if you need to add support to an entirely new hardware type (such as USB, Firewire, PCI-X etc) that may very well need a recompilation. However, adding a new USB device doesn't need a recompilation. Naturally the same is true for Windows.
And there are a lot of drivers for Linux. That's just a term for the software between the hardware and the OS. What is new about nVidia and ATi's drivers are that they are binary only. So you can't compile them, they are still loaded as modules though.
In case you've never been to kuro5hin the content is quite different from Slashdot. To start with it is almost exclusively articles written by the submitters and not just a collection of links. Furthermore they have a large amount of "time-less" articles. That is, articles that are not commenting on news or present day situations.
It is the best place I've seen for discussing world politics and current events online. (And thus offline, since there are no offline places that I know of to have such a discussion.) They don't have as much focus on technology either, it's not really a tech-site.
The Naked Sun was written in 1956, at that time there were few computers around and even less computer security. As such I think you can hardly blame him from missing this.
He did OTOH manage to write computers into the plot of the later books in the Foundation series. Although there were no computers in the first books. It was made in a nice way so that you never really noticed that there were no computers in the first books. Since they were ubiquitous it was of course redundant to mention that they were there.
the software on the card never changes, if it works it will always work (for the most part you hope) I'm not sure if you ment to be ironic here; but don't you think it's a bit funny that you buy a piece of hardware because "it never breaks" to protect from dataloss in case another piece of hardware breaks? (Yeah yeah, moveable parts and that.)
And if you've never had hardware fail then you're about due for it.;-)
The problems you are experiencing with wireless support doesn't really have anything to do with recompiling the kernel. It's really just a driver issue.
The problem is really that when a manufacturer releases hardware they seldom release Linux drivers for it and include that in the box. If they did you could install the hardware in the same way as on Windows. (Fast even, since you can load drivers through modules at run-time.) Unfortunately what you have to do instead is to wait until some kernel hacker has made the necessary alterations to support the hardware and released a patch. You can then download that patch and recompiler, or wait until your distro provides a binary package with an updated kernel.
This is really no different from what happens on Windows, it's just that the process is hidden from you, the user.
Regarding HAL and the Linux way I'm really not knowledgeable enough to say if there is anything specific in HAL which Linux doesn't already do. I kind of doubt that it is all that much more advanced though, it all goes back to manufacturers and drivers in my experience.
And for the record I have Linux installed on a Laptop, without a wireless card though. (And I know that type to get to make it work.)
For those who haven't tried it download the "Debian installer alpha" and test yourselves. Note though that it's not quite perfect and I've had it fail the install in one particular case where the old worked fine.
But given the hour of the parent post, And given that it's 2am-5am in the continental USA {see geography), I strongly suspect that this particular dumbass is far more likely to be a dumbarse from either Europe or Australia. My bet is on GMT+8 Perth.
It could also be an American tourist.;-)
That said I don't have anything against Americans as individuals. I've been there for a year and met a lot of extremely friendly and nice people. I do have some pretty severe problems with the US national policies though. (But quite a few Americans do too.)
I think a problem is that when you see TV reporters interviewing people in the US in Eu they often keep those that said the moronic stuff. Of course the same can be said about US TV reporting in Eu or the rest of the world.
A market needs sellers and buyers. Won't consumers vote with their dollars and act in the interest of society? I'm not agreeing with the original post but I'm a bit curious about this satement. You often see it as consumers has the power of putting bad businesses out of business.
Has that ever happened though? Has it ever happened with a large enough company that hasn't just been grossly incompetent? (Ie they would be going out of business anyways.)
I'm just curious since you hear a lot about it but it never seems like businesses go out of business becuase of "consumer rage".
In WW1 some countries wanted to start a war, otherwise it wouldn' have happened. I'm sure you can trace some nationalistic feelings in there if you want. (Though it's probably not as clear cut as WW2.)
In WW2 Hitler played a lot on the feelings of the German populations that they were better than others and thus deserved a better situation. And since they were pretty miserable at the time that was easy to do. Good 'ol "We against Them" is always effective when you want to make people follow you.
But nationalism is scary. Unless it's like those Norwegians who are more like children on Christmas eve than warmongerers when it comes to Norwedian day of independence.
IMHO if you are willing to die or kill for your country you're an idiot. If you are willing to die for your friends, family and loved ones that's another thing though.
I was impressed with the out-door graphics of Halo but extremely unimpressed with the in-door.
Really, I haven't seen indoor modelling and design that boring since the Doom days. Besides that the rooms never made any sense at all they never varied. Particularly the Library level was horrid, but there were a lot of other challengers to the throne of suck in that game.
I'm hoping Halo2 will pick up the slack in that (indoor design) regard. Although I have to give it to them that they did get the controls right. Seems like everyone is using "Halo" controls now in console games.
Slashdot Mirror
It's nice to know that the Eu is finally becoming the main location for so many US and Asian companies. Feels like 5 of those are actually european companies.
I agree with you to some part. The main problem with the control scheme is if you think of the game as a 3D shooter, then the controls are strange.
If you see the game as a platform game then the controls make a lot more sense.
However, I still think the controls are the worst part of the game. Particularly during boss battles since they often make you loose your lock (freezing attacks and such). And you are more stressed in boss battles. Since the normal enemies are typically push-overs the controls are not really put to the test either.
There were a few places were jumping annoyed the hell out of me. I still have to beat MP, but I have not had much problems with platforms and fusion metroids. So I have gotten used to the control scheme.
I still think it pretty much sucks though.
I prefer "Ignorance is Strength", it makes a degenerate life-style sound cool. "Ignorance is Bliss" is something a hippie or general low-life would use as an excuse; "Ignorance is Strength" is for the go-getters and pro-active people who like to do things but don't really care about the reasons, or final results. (Just that there are some results, and fast.)
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned (because I can't be bothered to read all the replyies) but there are a lot of hints on the "Tips and tricks" section on the mozilla/firefox site. Besides the already mentioned about:config you can edit a /lot/ more by editing the user.js and other config files. This will let you alter pretty much all of mozilla/firefox behaviour. Eg you can change the delay before firefox begin rendering an image (while waiting for more data).
If you want features there are loads of extentions which can help you in that area.
Anyone stupid enough to store their data in proprietary and/or obscure formats deserve to get it "incompatible" in the future.
Store images as RAW/TIFF/JPEG/PNG etc and text as ASCII or at least RTF and use the power of open standards to protect you.
While eg the english language has changed in the last few hundreds of years it's still possible to read and understand old books. I can't see why the same wouldn't be true for eg ASCII. (And if all fails it's quite trivial to break the ASCII code using cryptographic methods.)
As long as I can store a decoder for a image format in C source I'm not worried.
Not to mention that the 64MB of RAM in each of the cluster nodes make it pretty much useless for any heavy computation. As has already been concluded: XBox sucks for clustering. It makes a really nice media player though.
;-)
If you make a cluster of cheap PCs you could add graphics cards and use as "co-processors" though. That would be a pretty impressive hack. To my knowledge noone has tried to make programs which are both clustered and use "GPGPU" ideas. (That's not saying it hasn't been done though.) Base it on "cheap" EPIA or Shuttle computers and you can make it smaller than the XBox one too.
True, no mention of WiFi either. Although the older versions has WiFi so I assumed that this newer would as well.
The machines are really nice though. I got a chance to play a little with demo-versions in Japan this summer.
This seems like a perfect applience for Bluetooth, unfortunately they forgot to include it, again.
Wireless keyboard and mouse as well as going online through mobile phone doesn't seem too bad as far as I'm concerned.
And those complaining about "get a laptop instead" clearly have no imagination. These are made to work in situations were you only have your hands to hold it. Eg during your train ride to work (which many US people don't do). It's made for use on the move, in those situations a laptop is just not possible.
Have you tried it yourself? Personally I haven't noticed problems using 802.11b/g and Bluetooth in the same room.
Stuff like Dect phones are way worse at polluting the airwaves. (They are typically not even smart enough to lower signal strength depending on distance.)
As another poster pointed out before the problem is with implementations, not the BT specification.
This is only true for some of the earlier BT implementations on Nokia. Later models have better support. The support in Sony-Ericsson phones is great in my experience.
Yes you can do that, the Bluetooth term for that is Scatternet. Specifically it allows a slave in one piconet to be master in a different piconet. A piconet involves one master and 7 slaves, all Bluetooth devices fill at least one of these roles.
Personally I hope that next gen consoles have Bluetooth built in for controls. I would be great to have wireless controls+headphones you could just bring to your pals.
No, you don't need to recompile the kernel to add hardware support. You need to compile a module (containing the driver) and load it. I assume that if Linus oppose a HAL it's because it adds a lot of steps between the hardware and the driver. Stuff that Linux doesn't really need.
All that said I can't say that I'm an expert on this. So there may well be problems I don't know of. Eg if you need to add support to an entirely new hardware type (such as USB, Firewire, PCI-X etc) that may very well need a recompilation. However, adding a new USB device doesn't need a recompilation. Naturally the same is true for Windows.
And there are a lot of drivers for Linux. That's just a term for the software between the hardware and the OS. What is new about nVidia and ATi's drivers are that they are binary only. So you can't compile them, they are still loaded as modules though.
In case you've never been to kuro5hin the content is quite different from Slashdot. To start with it is almost exclusively articles written by the submitters and not just a collection of links. Furthermore they have a large amount of "time-less" articles. That is, articles that are not commenting on news or present day situations.
It is the best place I've seen for discussing world politics and current events online. (And thus offline, since there are no offline places that I know of to have such a discussion.) They don't have as much focus on technology either, it's not really a tech-site.
The Naked Sun was written in 1956, at that time there were few computers around and even less computer security. As such I think you can hardly blame him from missing this.
He did OTOH manage to write computers into the plot of the later books in the Foundation series. Although there were no computers in the first books. It was made in a nice way so that you never really noticed that there were no computers in the first books. Since they were ubiquitous it was of course redundant to mention that they were there.
the software on the card never changes, if it works it will always work (for the most part you hope)
;-)
I'm not sure if you ment to be ironic here; but don't you think it's a bit funny that you buy a piece of hardware because "it never breaks" to protect from dataloss in case another piece of hardware breaks? (Yeah yeah, moveable parts and that.)
And if you've never had hardware fail then you're about due for it.
The problems you are experiencing with wireless support doesn't really have anything to do with recompiling the kernel. It's really just a driver issue.
The problem is really that when a manufacturer releases hardware they seldom release Linux drivers for it and include that in the box. If they did you could install the hardware in the same way as on Windows. (Fast even, since you can load drivers through modules at run-time.) Unfortunately what you have to do instead is to wait until some kernel hacker has made the necessary alterations to support the hardware and released a patch. You can then download that patch and recompiler, or wait until your distro provides a binary package with an updated kernel.
This is really no different from what happens on Windows, it's just that the process is hidden from you, the user.
Regarding HAL and the Linux way I'm really not knowledgeable enough to say if there is anything specific in HAL which Linux doesn't already do. I kind of doubt that it is all that much more advanced though, it all goes back to manufacturers and drivers in my experience.
And for the record I have Linux installed on a Laptop, without a wireless card though. (And I know that type to get to make it work.)
Seconded.
For those who haven't tried it download the "Debian installer alpha" and test yourselves. Note though that it's not quite perfect and I've had it fail the install in one particular case where the old worked fine.
It could also be an American tourist.
That said I don't have anything against Americans as individuals. I've been there for a year and met a lot of extremely friendly and nice people. I do have some pretty severe problems with the US national policies though. (But quite a few Americans do too.)
I think a problem is that when you see TV reporters interviewing people in the US in Eu they often keep those that said the moronic stuff. Of course the same can be said about US TV reporting in Eu or the rest of the world.
I believe they had a mock election in several different countries a few weeks back. Kerry won in something like 35 of 37 countries.
A market needs sellers and buyers. Won't consumers vote with their dollars and act in the interest of society?
I'm not agreeing with the original post but I'm a bit curious about this satement. You often see it as consumers has the power of putting bad businesses out of business.
Has that ever happened though? Has it ever happened with a large enough company that hasn't just been grossly incompetent? (Ie they would be going out of business anyways.)
I'm just curious since you hear a lot about it but it never seems like businesses go out of business becuase of "consumer rage".
Well perhaps that will teach those in charge to not fuck up all the time and take some responsibility for their actions.
For the sake of the Iraqies it would probably be better if a more diverse peace-keeping force was established though.
In WW1 some countries wanted to start a war, otherwise it wouldn' have happened. I'm sure you can trace some nationalistic feelings in there if you want. (Though it's probably not as clear cut as WW2.)
In WW2 Hitler played a lot on the feelings of the German populations that they were better than others and thus deserved a better situation. And since they were pretty miserable at the time that was easy to do. Good 'ol "We against Them" is always effective when you want to make people follow you.
But nationalism is scary. Unless it's like those Norwegians who are more like children on Christmas eve than warmongerers when it comes to Norwedian day of independence.
IMHO if you are willing to die or kill for your country you're an idiot. If you are willing to die for your friends, family and loved ones that's another thing though.
I was impressed with the out-door graphics of Halo but extremely unimpressed with the in-door.
Really, I haven't seen indoor modelling and design that boring since the Doom days. Besides that the rooms never made any sense at all they never varied. Particularly the Library level was horrid, but there were a lot of other challengers to the throne of suck in that game.
I'm hoping Halo2 will pick up the slack in that (indoor design) regard. Although I have to give it to them that they did get the controls right. Seems like everyone is using "Halo" controls now in console games.
OTOH when you get a bluescreen in XP you don't get a bluescreen. It just reboots your computer.