Partial solution: Make success more dependent on skill at mouse or joystick, not so much on the experience level of the avatar. This way, players could have some success right away, by utilizing their experience from other, similar games. Acquiring the most powerful items in the game could still be a time-consuming challenge. A good example from the single-player world is X2, an Elite-like space sim. With some practice from games like Privateer, you can make small profits right away. But building an empire might take some months.
Lasers that can correct a large enough area have been available for a few years now. The crucial point is how careful the doctor is in determining your pupil size. Ideally, he would measure your pupil size in the dark (infrared pupillometer?) and set the size of the treated area accordingly. In case he cannot safely treat such a large area, he should decline doing the procedure. A quack doctor, however, might skimp on that diagnosis and go with "6mm treatment area will do for everyone". Bottom line: The technology is there, but you still have to find a good doctor.
From the article: That meant W.L. Gore was faced with paying double what it originally expected to pay for licensing, amounting to $100,000 per server in additional costs
and "In fact, I have spoken with clients who have been told exactly the opposite from the server vendors," says Jane Disbrow, a research director with Gartner. "They've been told, 'No, you don't have to pay double licenses. This is going to save you money in software.' I'm the one that has to give them the bad news."
Don't these people talk to their software vendors before they make upgrades that might cause them six-digit extra costs in licenses? Get the answer in writing so they have some proof?
Management at work...AAARRGGGHHHH
I agree that the threat was necessary, but it DID make Iraq cooperate well enough that the UN inspectors got reasonable working conditions. And they found no WMDs. At this point, the story could have ended. But the Bush government wanted to invade anyway, so they made up their own reasons to start a war. First it was Saddams alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. When those did not show up, it was an alleged connection to Al-Queda. When people did not buy THAT, they claimed humanitarian reasons. Note that no WMDs have been found after a year of occupation, and neither any proof of Saddam supporting the 9/11 terrorists.
was in written word form first. A novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, it is considered THE classic in fantasy. IMHO the film is good but does not quite match the book.
Actually, he will have reason to stop laughing if Linux & OSS applications reach 30% market share. 30% is enough to warrant MUCH better support from hardware vendors than today, and the commercial computer games market for Linux would IMHO finally take off. Overall, this would remove the remaining *objective* reasons not to use Linux on one's private PC. With that boost, I don't think Linux/OSS would stop at 30%.
Are US lawmakers really THAT stupid? There is a nice little device called a breathalyzer, which the police can use to determine if the driver is drunk. It is not considered 100% reliable, but it is way better than inferring that the driver is drunk from a bottle lying around. If you want even better proof, do a blood alcohol test on the guys who test positive with the breathalyzer. In Germany, this is the preferred method of establishing proof of DUI.
In Germany, we have a simple law to handle this problems: If you cannot access the terms of service/ licensing agreement/ whatever before a sale is made, it does not become part of the contract. This seems so obvious that I'd like to ask the guys on/. who know US law: isn't there something similar in your laws? It would not be the first time that a company tries to bully its customers with legally unenforcable clauses in some "agreement".
My point is that this thing will be cheap and screaming fast, and do everything effortlessly except for playing games that don't yet exist Don't underestimate the hardware hunger of games. I have a similarly fast machine (P4, 2.4GHz, 1GByte dual channel RAM), and the space sim X2 needs all of its power to run smoothly. So will Doom3 and Half-Life2 when they finally come out. OK, these don't really exist yet, but it has been known for a while that they will eat LOTS of CPU performance
For the people with fast internet connections, it should be easy to do a repeated page mirroring with some tool like HTTrack. Maybe contolled by a little script that keeps repeating it... That will drive their amount traffic through the roof and cost them. Usually, the amount of free traffic included with a webhosting account is limited to something like 100 GBytes/month. Exceed it and get a big bill.
No, I really don't think the bugs are there to drive the upgrade cycle. I think the bugs are they because they really don't give a shit. Shoddy workmanship. Not the fault, for the most part, of the programmers either, but of the entire aura of the software industry, reaching even into the training the programers get in college.
I think an important factor is the pressure to get the software to market, and many companies are willing to sacrifice "a bit of quality" for it. This is compounded by the fact that for software there is no sharp border between "not ready" and "ready". So the temptation is there to release the software one beta version too early.
Microsoft is not the only company to do this, they are merely the most high-profile.
I would not really trust that: Setting up a 99.99% reliable system, so they can keep 99.99% of the customers' money, is probably less profitable than a 90% reliable system that lets them keep 90% of the money. Hint: 90% might be realistic even with cheap PCs that do only occasional backups on each other's harddisk.
Yes she was. A few days ago, she was guest at an online discussion where these questions were asked. She claimed that Germany could achieve significant improvements in the negotiations and therefore voting for the directive was OK.
I don't buy it, BTW.
For those of you who understand German, here is a link: Heise Newsticker
I agree that shorting is a big risk. Sell options, however, would have been nice. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a bank or investment fond offering these for SCOX. It seems their managements are not that stupid after all.
quote: Have you ever searched a webhoster in Germany that even offers Windows? Mine stopped to offer it last year.
I live in Germany. In my favourite computer magazine C't there are frequently ads of webhosters who offer servers with both kinds of OS for rent.
Usually, the Linux root server is slightly cheaper than the equivalent Windows server. A typical price would be 49 euros/month for a small linux server with limited transfer volume, and 59 euros/month for the windows version. Now what does this tell you about the TCO?;-)
Actually, they have done this with XP Embedded. We have tried this in a project for a windows-controlled device, and you *can* build a rather small Windows XP that has your program as "shell" instead of the usual Explorer. Maybe not quite as small as Linux in text mode, but it will do. The claims about Internet Exploder being inextricably connected to the OS were pure FUD for the antitrust suit.
Recently (version 2.6.5) ALSA became a part of the official kernel. I guess you will see it in the next release of most distributions. SuSE included it quite a while ago, they also have sponsored the development.
Of course, you only need the highest-end graphics card if you want your game to run at maximum resolution. A TV screen does, at best, give you the equivalent of 800x600 pixels. A PC can usually do this with a medium-range graphics card.
He can't stand that he can write some code, test it and find it working just fine, and come in to work the next day to discover that someone else on the far side of the office working on a seemingly unrelated one of the few thousand files that make up the project has effectively broken his work.
Sound like bad architecture/planning to me:
If you have multiple people working on the same project, you need some coordination to prevent things like this. Ideally, you have well-defined interfaces between the modules, and each programmer is only responsible for HIS side of the code. Before you ask: Yes, I've seen projects that ignored this. Usually, that sloppyness would come around and bite the company in the ass.
Yes they did. Only that it was not a backup, but the only place where part of the BIOS was stored.
Great way for Compaq to prevent people from using other manufactures' harddisks. Without the special BIOS partition, the Compaq would not run.
For those in Germany, I can recommend Papst fans. They are a bit expensive but so far I have had very good success where I used them. They are not only quiet in terms of flow noise, but also well balanced so they cause less vibration in the case than cheap & shitty fans.
Postgre and Firebird(open source descendand of Interbase) seem to be mature enough. If they improve on their management tools, they might be a strong competition for small to medium database installations. For the really large ones, Microsoft has to compete against Oracle.
Slashdot Mirror
Partial solution:
Make success more dependent on skill at mouse or joystick, not so much on the experience level of the avatar.
This way, players could have some success right away, by utilizing their experience from other, similar games. Acquiring the most powerful items in the game could still be a time-consuming challenge.
A good example from the single-player world is X2, an Elite-like space sim. With some practice from games like Privateer, you can make small profits right away. But building an empire might take some months.
Lasers that can correct a large enough area have been available for a few years now. The crucial point is how careful the doctor is in determining your pupil size. Ideally, he would measure your pupil size in the dark (infrared pupillometer?) and set the size of the treated area accordingly. In case he cannot safely treat such a large area, he should decline doing the procedure.
A quack doctor, however, might skimp on that diagnosis and go with "6mm treatment area will do for everyone".
Bottom line:
The technology is there, but you still have to find a good doctor.
Good luck if you go ahead with the treatment!
From the article:
That meant W.L. Gore was faced with paying double what it originally expected to pay for licensing, amounting to $100,000 per server in additional costs
and
"In fact, I have spoken with clients who have been told exactly the opposite from the server vendors," says Jane Disbrow, a research director with Gartner. "They've been told, 'No, you don't have to pay double licenses. This is going to save you money in software.' I'm the one that has to give them the bad news."
Don't these people talk to their software vendors before they make upgrades that might cause them six-digit extra costs in licenses? Get the answer in writing so they have some proof?
Management at work...AAARRGGGHHHH
I agree that the threat was necessary, but it DID make Iraq cooperate well enough that the UN inspectors got reasonable working conditions. And they found no WMDs.
At this point, the story could have ended. But the Bush government wanted to invade anyway, so they made up their own reasons to start a war. First it was Saddams alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. When those did not show up, it was an alleged connection to Al-Queda. When people did not buy THAT, they claimed humanitarian reasons.
Note that no WMDs have been found after a year of occupation, and neither any proof of Saddam supporting the 9/11 terrorists.
was in written word form first. A novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, it is considered THE classic in fantasy. IMHO the film is good but does not quite match the book.
Actually, he will have reason to stop laughing if Linux & OSS applications reach 30% market share. 30% is enough to warrant MUCH better support from hardware vendors than today, and the commercial computer games market for Linux would IMHO finally take off. /OSS would stop at 30%.
Overall, this would remove the remaining *objective* reasons not to use Linux on one's private PC. With that boost, I don't think Linux
Are US lawmakers really THAT stupid?
There is a nice little device called a breathalyzer, which the police can use to determine if the driver is drunk.
It is not considered 100% reliable, but it is way better than inferring that the driver is drunk from a bottle lying around.
If you want even better proof, do a blood alcohol test on the guys who test positive with the breathalyzer. In Germany, this is the preferred method of establishing proof of DUI.
In Germany, we have a simple law to handle this problems: /. who know US law: isn't there something similar in your laws?
If you cannot access the terms of service/ licensing agreement/ whatever before a sale is made, it does not become part of the contract.
This seems so obvious that I'd like to ask the guys on
It would not be the first time that a company tries to bully its customers with legally unenforcable clauses in some "agreement".
Silly long numbers. Hexadecimal is much nicer, kilo=400 and mega=160000 !!
My point is that this thing will be cheap and screaming fast, and do everything effortlessly except for playing games that don't yet exist
Don't underestimate the hardware hunger of games. I have a similarly fast machine (P4, 2.4GHz, 1GByte dual channel RAM), and the space sim X2 needs all of its power to run smoothly.
So will Doom3 and Half-Life2 when they finally come out. OK, these don't really exist yet, but it has been known for a while that they will eat LOTS of CPU performance
For the people with fast internet connections, it should be easy to do a repeated page mirroring with some tool like HTTrack. Maybe contolled by a little script that keeps repeating it...
That will drive their amount traffic through the roof and cost them. Usually, the amount of free traffic included with a webhosting account is limited to something like 100 GBytes/month. Exceed it and get a big bill.
No, I really don't think the bugs are there to drive the upgrade cycle. I think the bugs are they because they really don't give a shit. Shoddy workmanship. Not the fault, for the most part, of the programmers either, but of the entire aura of the software industry, reaching even into the training the programers get in college.
I think an important factor is the pressure to get the software to market, and many companies are willing to sacrifice "a bit of quality" for it. This is compounded by the fact that for software there is no sharp border between "not ready" and "ready". So the temptation is there to release the software one beta version too early.
Microsoft is not the only company to do this, they are merely the most high-profile.
I would not really trust that:
Setting up a 99.99% reliable system, so they can keep 99.99% of the customers' money, is probably less profitable than a 90% reliable system that lets them keep 90% of the money.
Hint:
90% might be realistic even with cheap PCs that do only occasional backups on each other's harddisk.
Yes she was. A few days ago, she was guest at an online discussion where these questions were asked.
She claimed that Germany could achieve significant improvements in the negotiations and therefore voting for the directive was OK.
I don't buy it, BTW.
For those of you who understand German, here is a link:
Heise Newsticker
I agree that shorting is a big risk. Sell options, however, would have been nice. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a bank or investment fond offering these for SCOX. It seems their managements are not that stupid after all.
quote: Have you ever searched a webhoster in Germany that even offers Windows? Mine stopped to offer it last year. ;-)
I live in Germany. In my favourite computer magazine C't there are frequently ads of webhosters who offer servers with both kinds of OS for rent.
Usually, the Linux root server is slightly cheaper than the equivalent Windows server. A typical price would be 49 euros/month for a small linux server with limited transfer volume, and 59 euros/month for the windows version. Now what does this tell you about the TCO?
Actually, they have done this with XP Embedded. We have tried this in a project for a windows-controlled device, and you *can* build a rather small Windows XP that has your program as "shell" instead of the usual Explorer. Maybe not quite as small as Linux in text mode, but it will do.
The claims about Internet Exploder being inextricably connected to the OS were pure FUD for the antitrust suit.
Usually the skimmed milk is cheaper. So they could sell skimmed milk and claim "99% fat free". But we are getting off topic...
Recently (version 2.6.5) ALSA became a part of the official kernel. I guess you will see it in the next release of most distributions. SuSE included it quite a while ago, they also have sponsored the development.
Of course, you only need the highest-end graphics card if you want your game to run at maximum resolution.
A TV screen does, at best, give you the equivalent of 800x600 pixels. A PC can usually do this with a medium-range graphics card.
He can't stand that he can write some code, test it and find it working just fine, and come in to work the next day to discover that someone else on the far side of the office working on a seemingly unrelated one of the few thousand files that make up the project has effectively broken his work.
Sound like bad architecture/planning to me:
If you have multiple people working on the same project, you need some coordination to prevent things like this. Ideally, you have well-defined interfaces between the modules, and each programmer is only responsible for HIS side of the code. Before you ask:
Yes, I've seen projects that ignored this. Usually, that sloppyness would come around and bite the company in the ass.
Yes it is - but the definition is "selling below your own cost in order to increase your market share".
Yes they did. Only that it was not a backup, but the only place where part of the BIOS was stored.
Great way for Compaq to prevent people from using other manufactures' harddisks. Without the special BIOS partition, the Compaq would not run.
For those in Germany, I can recommend Papst fans. They are a bit expensive but so far I have had very good success where I used them. They are not only quiet in terms of flow noise, but also well balanced so they cause less vibration in the case than cheap & shitty fans.
Postgre and Firebird(open source descendand of Interbase) seem to be mature enough. If they improve on their management tools, they might be a strong competition for small to medium database installations.
For the really large ones, Microsoft has to compete against Oracle.