The remake of Bionic Commando did it perfectly. It didn't *just* have improved graphics. The developers kept the "vibe" of the game and deviated from the original in some important ways. - You could shoot bullets in neutral zones, you didn't have to fight pink enemies dropping through cave walls via parachutes. It gave the ability to shoot your arm straight ahead while in the air even! This was done at the same time the developers were counting the pixels of the old NES game on pause. It keeps the vibe, and improves on awesome mechanics.
I think keeping the vibe is the harder part - but there is no lack of re-makes not achieving vibe *or* mechanic.
We know a re-make isn't going to use a save system that requires a 24 digit case sensitive password that require you yourself to create a new language to interpret your own writing better. =)
That said: Blaster Master Ninja Gaiden (orig)
Blaster Master *especially* needs a remake and it would be *awesome* if the studio that made BC Rearmed did it.
-- My first post at Slashdot in 6+ years... put your tarps over the woodwork. =)
Ahh... thank you! I was just reading about the volt drops on another page... the methods for wiring wasn't talked about. Your post makes it all click in my brain now. Thanks again. =) I think I better pick up a guide to basic electrical engineering. I can really see the idea of LED light design being a hobby for a lot of people.
I want to learn how to solder up a bunch of leds and make some interesting lights. I can't find a good book or info through google on how to wire them up. (like is it series or parallel, both.. is there such a thing as ohms for powersupplies?)... I've found some powersuplies for the job though. Apparently 12 volt is all the rage and the models vary from 25 led powerability to 350 LED powerability. I'm just missing the key info on if you wire LED's all up in Parallel or not really. (My brain is currently wired for speaker hook-ups... not voltage). Sorry for the sentence structure... I blame this cramped laptop keyboard.
Direct linking to Litestep installer?
on
Pepping Up Windows
·
· Score: 1
Not sure it was a good idea in the article to direct link to Litestep installer. I wonder how many people are going to just run it and reboot and not know what the heck is going on? Or how to uninstall it... or where to find the system.ini and change the "shell=" line to "explorer.exe" or how many will misstype it and say "shell=explorerr.exe" and reboot and get scared by the warnings to re-install windows.
Just saying it could have had a warning at least. Or a "READ FURTHER BEFORE INSTALLING".
That said... I think Litestep is great. I wanna see how it's progressed as it's been a few years since I've messed with it. Grrr.step.rc.
Certainly my post has some anger in it but I swear it's because It's been a complaint for years. =) Anyway... RPM's or other Binary formats really are only offered for a portion of the software out there. And then there are different formats among those that don't seem to work so well. So really recent stuff is offered in source first and I understand that is the best way to install. Then they make RPM's and other binaries that when clicked give you/lib errors or someother dependancy. There are lots of "package managers" out there and many even claim to resolve dependency issues... yet they simply just don't work with reliablity in my experience. Maybe if every Linux varient could all pick the same one it could go someplace but it hasn't happened yet that I'm aware.
The tricky thing in my experience of Linux so far is that if anything goes wronge... I really don't know how to fix it. So I get an error.. and I'm left to simply say... Shucks. Und you get errors a lot.
Knowledge is key to fixing this... but it really is a task. I can get on an Apple machine and go to town... I can get on a BeOS machine and go to town (and LOVE it)... and windows too of course... but I haven't found a reliable way to really play a lot with.nix type OS's yet. (That aren't comercial)
Sigh, Looked through their site... looks like they think "Easy to install Software" means the same thing that every other Open Source Operating system does.
I don't care if it's apt-get, RPM, Roll your own, or what not.... the difficulty with installing applications on a.nix like OS is what is keeping me from using it as my "Desktop".
For YEARS (5 years plus now).... I've been saying this. No one WANTS to do anything about it though because of the benefits of the current methods.... yet it is this stuff that will keep it out of the Desktop of you ask me.
And the future of Linux is.....
on
Longhorn Preview
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I really WANT to use linux as a desktop OS. I've wanted it since Redhat 5.2 or so. Every now and then I give it another go. So much of it just seem silly to me though... like installing an app.
There is a thread here on Slashdot right now about the future of Linux. It links to Gobolinux. Here is what it says. Yea this is user-friendly.
----------------
Installing programs from source
If you are used to compiling programs in Linux, you are aware that it is mostly a three-part process: prepare the sources (configure), compile them (make), and install the files generated by the compilation (make install). The process is basically the same in GoboLinux. However, it requires additional setup in the first step, in order to prepare the sources to compile targeting the GoboLinux directories, and additional actions in the third step, so that files installed in/Programs get linked in/System (in order words, to make the files from the programs available for the system).
GoboLinux fetures a series of scripts that automate this process. They are:
PrepareProgram and SymlinkProgram are wrappers to the first and third step of compilation as explained above (the second step being simply running 'make'). CompileProgram is a higher-level wrapper script, that wraps the process as a whole: well-behaved autoconf-based programs can be compiled with a single CompileProgram command. Setting up the sources: PrepareProgram
The PrepareProgram script does two things. It creates a directory hierarchy for the program under/Programs, and it attempts to prepare the sources for compilation.
The syntax for the PrepareProgram is:
PrepareProgram [ -- ]
Passing a program name and version number is mandatory. These names are the ones used in the directories under programs. For example,
PrepareProgram SuperFoo 1.0
creates the directories/Programs/SuperFoo/Settings,/Programs/SuperFoo/1.0,/Programs/SuperFoo/1.0/bin and so on.
The second task performed by PrepareProgram is to prepare the sources. Since there isn't a standardized format for distribution of source-code tarballs in the free software world, there is no way to implement completely automated preparation. Fortunately, the popularization of the GNU AutoTools brings us closer to such a standard.
PrepareProgram, in this second step, will detect availability of preparation tools and perform one of the following:
1. If the program includes a 'configure' script generated by GNU autoconf, PrepareProgram will run it, passing the necessary options (mainly --prefix, --sysconfdir) as well as any additional options requested by the user in the command line (as ).
2. Some authors develop their own 'configure' scripts, but due to the popularity of GNU autoconf, design a command line interface similar to that used by this program. PrepareProgram tries to detect if a non-autoconf 'configure' script accepts at least the --prefix option, and use it.
3. If unfortunately the program does not feature a standard preparation script such as 'configure', the PrepareProgram will, as a last resort, scan for hardcoded paths in the Makefiles and attempt to modify them. Given that this automated process can be highly error-prone, PrepareProgram avoids being "automagical" and asks for the user's assistance: it asks the user for permission before attempting modifications, it saves backup copies of all Makefiles, and displays a summary of changes to the user. (Note: If the user is sure the modifications will be correct, all interaction can be suppressed passing the --batch option to PrepareProgram.)
In short, PrepareProgram can be considered a wrapper to 'configure'. Instead of running, for example,
As you know... "The peoples liberation Army" is called such... and the DPRK "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is actual aswell.
The "Patriot Missle" is a missle. Hmmm so is the patriot act.;)
Grrrrr..... I know this shit because the internet gives me the info to confirm. I *Really* hate it when I see regulation that limits this medium that is, by nature, global.
It's tradition. Every year is like this. It's your one stop shop to get 4/1 out of your system. By the end of the day you've actually had enough. I was saddened to see it hadn't even started yet when I went to bed last night... though I'm glad things look to be in full swing right now.
I'm inclined to believe there is a miriad of stuff we don't know about but is *very* important to our future. There may be good reasons the general populous isn't briefed... but we can only guess really. Check out this link here that goes through reponses that Military Generals and Presidents have given in response to questions asking them about being briefed on UFO's. http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=819&cat egory=Science
Good point.. and I do have dual processor machines. However... the faster the processors that Intel makes...the faster each of the 2 processors can be in my dual processor machine.
Unless the two cores on one die theory works aswell as a two cpu machine, I will be happy. But I imagine there would be some loss. Hyperthreading certainly did very little to speed rendering. I do know that what Intel is planing goes beyond hyperthreading.... so we'll see.
For 3D Rendering all you need to do *is* just turn up the clock speed. It doesn't matter how fast the memory bus is... or even how much cache is on a chip beyond a certain mimimal level.
You can build super cheap (except for processors) computers to use in a renderfarm.. (I use Lightwave 3D, Modo, and SoftImage XSI)... and hard drive speed / graphics card speed / Memory speed / Cache on die, Do nothing to speed up a render once you hit that "Render" button. Sure... SSE extensions and the like do speed it up if the code is optimized... but there isn't really a way to optimize the code with this new direction Intel is going.
I'm a big fan of live CD's... I think they can offer a lot in functionality and usefullness. I like this one here because it included FireFox as the browser. I don't know why but even knoppix doesn't include FireFox. This one here looks like it took some time aswell to create an interesting desktop. Add to it all that there are relevant bookmarks in FireFox that are geared toward the subject matter (GO).. and I think it's a winner. =)
Anyone recognize what kinda code that site is running? -- I mean is it a php driven open source software that he just theme'd? I really like the look of it.
Version 5.5.6.4 here. Ya know... unfortunatly extraction to hard drive didn't work either. I'm re-downloading now with an actual FTP program this time and I'm grabbing the md5 checksum aswell. I think something may have gone wrong on the original download.
I was trying to burn the ISO with Nero... and it was giving me problems... same with Fireburner and others. I guess EasyCD creator works fine though I don't have that to use. If you have Winrar... it will read the ISO file and you can extract the whole directory contents onto your harddrive and burn from there. Many use Nero with no problems... many however do have problems.
Yea a couple other stories I thought were a bit behind aswell. I always had Slashdot as my home-page because it was fast loading and I would stumble upon some stuff everynow and then that I hadn't read anywhere else. I still find stuff that I haven't read anywhere else... but I'm finding a couple that were from quite a while ago. It really sorta waters down the experience a bit when you see a story you had read somewhere else a full day or so earlier. I only see this as a problem that can get worse as they are going forward with more and more "subscriber" stories.
I was thinking something like this... (tho even on a lesser scale) would be a good place to install Mozilla or Pheonix. I know especially Pheonix is getting really fast to launch for a browser.. but this would be great!
My Wife will ask "What were you doing on Avon.com?" when she sees the credit card charge.;) You know... I gotta say though that the site seems pretty well designed!
I checked the site out... I couldn't actually find a search function. Sure I can browse... but not my idea of fun. -- I'm sure you get the search feature after you register... but requiring people to register to even see what content is offered is not a good idea.
I'm very lazy... I'm also the common man on the internet.
I have a TiVo... I'd love for my habits to be known. -- Errr I mean that really. -- When I change the channel because a show I don't like it comming on... I want that to count as a vote against that show. -- Vice-versa for good shows. As it is right now... no one knows what *I* think is good, except me.
Slashdot Mirror
The remake of Bionic Commando did it perfectly. It didn't *just* have improved graphics. The developers kept the "vibe" of the game and deviated from the original in some important ways. - You could shoot bullets in neutral zones, you didn't have to fight pink enemies dropping through cave walls via parachutes. It gave the ability to shoot your arm straight ahead while in the air even! This was done at the same time the developers were counting the pixels of the old NES game on pause. It keeps the vibe, and improves on awesome mechanics.
I think keeping the vibe is the harder part - but there is no lack of re-makes not achieving vibe *or* mechanic.
We know a re-make isn't going to use a save system that requires a 24 digit case sensitive password that require you yourself to create a new language to interpret your own writing better. =)
That said:
Blaster Master
Ninja Gaiden (orig)
Blaster Master *especially* needs a remake and it would be *awesome* if the studio that made BC Rearmed did it.
-- My first post at Slashdot in 6+ years... put your tarps over the woodwork. =)
What are their demands? I say we give them whatever they want.
Ahh... thank you! I was just reading about the volt drops on another page... the methods for wiring wasn't talked about. Your post makes it all click in my brain now. Thanks again. =) I think I better pick up a guide to basic electrical engineering. I can really see the idea of LED light design being a hobby for a lot of people.
I want to learn how to solder up a bunch of leds and make some interesting lights. I can't find a good book or info through google on how to wire them up. (like is it series or parallel, both.. is there such a thing as ohms for powersupplies?)... I've found some powersuplies for the job though. Apparently 12 volt is all the rage and the models vary from 25 led powerability to 350 LED powerability. I'm just missing the key info on if you wire LED's all up in Parallel or not really. (My brain is currently wired for speaker hook-ups... not voltage). Sorry for the sentence structure... I blame this cramped laptop keyboard.
Not sure it was a good idea in the article to direct link to Litestep installer. I wonder how many people are going to just run it and reboot and not know what the heck is going on? Or how to uninstall it... or where to find the system.ini and change the "shell=" line to "explorer.exe" or how many will misstype it and say "shell=explorerr.exe" and reboot and get scared by the warnings to re-install windows.
.step.rc.
Just saying it could have had a warning at least. Or a "READ FURTHER BEFORE INSTALLING".
That said... I think Litestep is great. I wanna see how it's progressed as it's been a few years since I've messed with it. Grrr
Certainly my post has some anger in it but I swear it's because It's been a complaint for years. =) Anyway... RPM's or other Binary formats really are only offered for a portion of the software out there. And then there are different formats among those that don't seem to work so well. So really recent stuff is offered in source first and I understand that is the best way to install. Then they make RPM's and other binaries that when clicked give you /lib errors or someother dependancy. There are lots of "package managers" out there and many even claim to resolve dependency issues... yet they simply just don't work with reliablity in my experience. Maybe if every Linux varient could all pick the same one it could go someplace but it hasn't happened yet that I'm aware.
.nix type OS's yet. (That aren't comercial)
The tricky thing in my experience of Linux so far is that if anything goes wronge... I really don't know how to fix it. So I get an error.. and I'm left to simply say... Shucks. Und you get errors a lot.
Knowledge is key to fixing this... but it really is a task. I can get on an Apple machine and go to town... I can get on a BeOS machine and go to town (and LOVE it)... and windows too of course... but I haven't found a reliable way to really play a lot with
Sigh, Looked through their site... looks like they think "Easy to install Software" means the same thing that every other Open Source Operating system does.
.nix like OS is what is keeping me from using it as my "Desktop".
I don't care if it's apt-get, RPM, Roll your own, or what not.... the difficulty with installing applications on a
For YEARS (5 years plus now).... I've been saying this. No one WANTS to do anything about it though because of the benefits of the current methods.... yet it is this stuff that will keep it out of the Desktop of you ask me.
I really WANT to use linux as a desktop OS. I've wanted it since Redhat 5.2 or so. Every now and then I give it another go. So much of it just seem silly to me though... like installing an app.
/Programs get linked in /System (in order words, to make the files from the programs available for the system).
/Programs, and it attempts to prepare the sources for compilation.
/Programs/SuperFoo/Settings, /Programs/SuperFoo/1.0, /Programs/SuperFoo/1.0/bin and so on.
There is a thread here on Slashdot right now about the future of Linux. It links to Gobolinux. Here is what it says. Yea this is user-friendly.
----------------
Installing programs from source
If you are used to compiling programs in Linux, you are aware that it is mostly a three-part process: prepare the sources (configure), compile them (make), and install the files generated by the compilation (make install). The process is basically the same in GoboLinux. However, it requires additional setup in the first step, in order to prepare the sources to compile targeting the GoboLinux directories, and additional actions in the third step, so that files installed in
GoboLinux fetures a series of scripts that automate this process. They are:
* PrepareProgram
* SymlinkProgram
* CompileProgram
PrepareProgram and SymlinkProgram are wrappers to the first and third step of compilation as explained above (the second step being simply running 'make'). CompileProgram is a higher-level wrapper script, that wraps the process as a whole: well-behaved autoconf-based programs can be compiled with a single CompileProgram command.
Setting up the sources: PrepareProgram
The PrepareProgram script does two things. It creates a directory hierarchy for the program under
The syntax for the PrepareProgram is:
PrepareProgram [ -- ]
Passing a program name and version number is mandatory. These names are the ones used in the directories under programs. For example,
PrepareProgram SuperFoo 1.0
creates the directories
The second task performed by PrepareProgram is to prepare the sources. Since there isn't a standardized format for distribution of source-code tarballs in the free software world, there is no way to implement completely automated preparation. Fortunately, the popularization of the GNU AutoTools brings us closer to such a standard.
PrepareProgram, in this second step, will detect availability of preparation tools and perform one of the following:
1. If the program includes a 'configure' script generated by GNU autoconf, PrepareProgram will run it, passing the necessary options (mainly --prefix, --sysconfdir) as well as any additional options requested by the user in the command line (as ).
2. Some authors develop their own 'configure' scripts, but due to the popularity of GNU autoconf, design a command line interface similar to that used by this program. PrepareProgram tries to detect if a non-autoconf 'configure' script accepts at least the --prefix option, and use it.
3. If unfortunately the program does not feature a standard preparation script such as 'configure', the PrepareProgram will, as a last resort, scan for hardcoded paths in the Makefiles and attempt to modify them. Given that this automated process can be highly error-prone, PrepareProgram avoids being "automagical" and asks for the user's assistance: it asks the user for permission before attempting modifications, it saves backup copies of all Makefiles, and displays a summary of changes to the user. (Note: If the user is sure the modifications will be correct, all interaction can be suppressed passing the --batch option to PrepareProgram.)
In short, PrepareProgram can be considered a wrapper to 'configure'. Instead of running, for example,
~/superfoo-1.0] configure --with-shared=yes
you'll run
~/
As you know... "The peoples liberation Army" is called such... and the DPRK "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is actual aswell.
;)
The "Patriot Missle" is a missle. Hmmm so is the patriot act.
Grrrrr..... I know this shit because the internet gives me the info to confirm. I *Really* hate it when I see regulation that limits this medium that is, by nature, global.
It's tradition. Every year is like this. It's your one stop shop to get 4/1 out of your system. By the end of the day you've actually had enough. I was saddened to see it hadn't even started yet when I went to bed last night... though I'm glad things look to be in full swing right now.
I'm inclined to believe there is a miriad of stuff we don't know about but is *very* important to our future. There may be good reasons the general populous isn't briefed... but we can only guess really. Check out this link here that goes through reponses that Military Generals and Presidents have given in response to questions asking them about being briefed on UFO's. http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=819&cat egory=Science
Good point.. and I do have dual processor machines. However... the faster the processors that Intel makes...the faster each of the 2 processors can be in my dual processor machine.
Unless the two cores on one die theory works aswell as a two cpu machine, I will be happy. But I imagine there would be some loss. Hyperthreading certainly did very little to speed rendering. I do know that what Intel is planing goes beyond hyperthreading.... so we'll see.
For 3D Rendering all you need to do *is* just turn up the clock speed. It doesn't matter how fast the memory bus is... or even how much cache is on a chip beyond a certain mimimal level.
You can build super cheap (except for processors) computers to use in a renderfarm.. (I use Lightwave 3D, Modo, and SoftImage XSI)... and hard drive speed / graphics card speed / Memory speed / Cache on die, Do nothing to speed up a render once you hit that "Render" button. Sure... SSE extensions and the like do speed it up if the code is optimized... but there isn't really a way to optimize the code with this new direction Intel is going.
My nieghbor just said it was slashdotted. I put a mirror up here. http://www.opnotic.com/mirror/page.htm
I'm a big fan of live CD's... I think they can offer a lot in functionality and usefullness. I like this one here because it included FireFox as the browser. I don't know why but even knoppix doesn't include FireFox. This one here looks like it took some time aswell to create an interesting desktop. Add to it all that there are relevant bookmarks in FireFox that are geared toward the subject matter (GO).. and I think it's a winner. =)
"Unfortunately changing the WM or default desktop will be a but of a chore, as a plug in to control this is not yet included in Yoperconf."
Maybe it's just me... but uhh.. heh.
Anyone recognize what kinda code that site is running? -- I mean is it a php driven open source software that he just theme'd? I really like the look of it.
Version 5.5.6.4 here.
Ya know... unfortunatly extraction to hard drive didn't work either. I'm re-downloading now with an actual FTP program this time and I'm grabbing the md5 checksum aswell. I think something may have gone wrong on the original download.
I was trying to burn the ISO with Nero... and it was giving me problems... same with Fireburner and others. I guess EasyCD creator works fine though I don't have that to use. If you have Winrar... it will read the ISO file and you can extract the whole directory contents onto your harddrive and burn from there. Many use Nero with no problems... many however do have problems.
Yea a couple other stories I thought were a bit behind aswell. I always had Slashdot as my home-page because it was fast loading and I would stumble upon some stuff everynow and then that I hadn't read anywhere else. I still find stuff that I haven't read anywhere else... but I'm finding a couple that were from quite a while ago. It really sorta waters down the experience a bit when you see a story you had read somewhere else a full day or so earlier. I only see this as a problem that can get worse as they are going forward with more and more "subscriber" stories.
I was thinking something like this... (tho even on a lesser scale) would be a good place to install Mozilla or Pheonix. I know especially Pheonix is getting really fast to launch for a browser.. but this would be great!
My Wife will ask "What were you doing on Avon.com?" when she sees the credit card charge. ;)
You know... I gotta say though that the site seems pretty well designed!
Microsoft's stock closed at $53, down 47 cents. Its stock rose nearly 5 percent in after hours trading.
And who yet doesn't think today was a major win for Microsoft?
I checked the site out... I couldn't actually find a search function. Sure I can browse... but not my idea of fun. -- I'm sure you get the search feature after you register... but requiring people to register to even see what content is offered is not a good idea.
I'm very lazy... I'm also the common man on the internet.
I have a TiVo ... I'd love for my habits to be known. -- Errr I mean that really. -- When I change the channel because a show I don't like it comming on... I want that to count as a vote against that show. -- Vice-versa for good shows. As it is right now... no one knows what *I* think is good, except me.