I'm a trained Artist. I know these people that shit in the corner and call it [fill in random art-style bullshit]. Perl is cool, Perl is geeky and gives a humorous look at the way things where back then with *nix admins. It's an anacronisim with a cool and powerfull interpreter, thus people still like to use and learn it. Even though it's syntax sometimes is like "ActionScript on crack" or something. But calling this (crappy software design and/with/or Perl) 'Postmodern' is like calling Lingo an 'interessting aproach to PLs'. Just because Perl is the tool of choice for a certain set of problems, there's no reason whatsoever in calling this 'postmodern'. Gawd, what people can crap about in more than 2 sentences amazes me ever so often.
How many times have/. rejected your write-up of a story and posted an inferior version instead?
10^10Zillion times.
I'm thinking of building an autoposter with dynamically generated filling phrases for each topic. It would make things easier. Maybe with multiple accounts support. Each account could mod all others up and have it's own DB of random typos, and when one gets blocked from modding by censor it would autmatically generate a new one. You could also build in a post-tracker to avoid double posts and a dialectic analysis option than automatically generates interessting threads with controverse opinions. You could set values for agressiveness, wisdom or talkativeness of each account, or the average amount of Star-Trek, Star-Wars and Monyt Python quotes and a "Beowulf" option. It would also have a set of "goatseX" and "Tableblaster" scanner/filter accounts. You could assign an account to the "first poster" slot that would check/. for new posts every 30 seconds or so, and, at last, you could have a web interface for the whole thing with an own community using it. Maybe call it Meta-Slashdot? It would add quality, I'm shure.:-)
It's solid code of honor amongst Clans not to cheat. Anybody as dedicated to playing online action games would render his pasttime pointless by cheating. And if anyone found out you've cheated your way into Ladder position you'd get an extremely hard time (on and offline).
And when you're playing on a public server, cheaters are easyly identified by playing like crap and either scoring immediate kills once they actually *do* manage to hit or by simply not throwing the towel no matter how many times you flak them at point-blank. Both area mostly less than minor drags to a skilled player and have a somewhat funny aspect to it.
I've seen entire matches in UT (1st) where cheaters we're just plain ignored because of the simply fact their skill level (not trained by playing under real conditions) rendered them something more like 'moving obstacles' rather than actuall participants. Anyhow, some one using more subtle cheats, such as see-through textures or so, can be anoying. Then on the other hand, if you're that good to know for shure that someone is using such a cheat, you'll be playing clan games most of the time anyway. And I haven't met a single Clan player cheating yet. At least none of mentionable Clans.
BTW: I once had a cheater on my team in a pub UT CTF match. I switched sides and telefragged him 'til he gave up and disconnected. That was fun.:-)
Speaking requires something like 80% brain activity. Reading, Pointing, Clicking and single key hitting alltogether only round abouts 20%. You can operate a fluid/consitent GUI setup that makes good use of possible short fingermovements (forget that waving about in "Minority Report", it's a dead concept) on mouse and kb and still think deeply on what is just on your mind (your actual work maybe?:-) ) with no sweat. There is no way in hell you can do that while talking (or boxing the air).
You've brought a rare thing to "Ask/.": A good question that can't be answered without advice, that doesn't score a bazillion howto-hits on Google and that isn't shure to be absolutely above the heads of the slashdot crowd. Nice to have some good question asked. Thanks.
Now for my shots at closing in on answers: I have no larger mentionable expierience in UI design apart for the fact that I do have some webdesign expierience and a professional artist training, but I have used and operated a wide range of professional tools in the professional manner in which they were meant to be used and operated!!! And that's a very important part of my/the answer allready: All extremly complex professional GUI-tools each have their very own distinct, standards-pushing look and feel acustomed to their application family more than, let's say, the CUAS. And that's what makes up a good tool. People who use Avid use it almost exclusively and for hours and years on end - and often on special hardware too. Same goes for Softimage or Houdini. Or check out the difference between Freehand, Illustrator and Corel Draw. The distinct, special funtionality of vector-drawing apps is approached in a different way by each. That's the same reason why you've got a wider range of Video NLE apps that do all the same but with often different workflow aproaches. See what I'm saying: If you're tool is gonna be complex due to very special funtions that only a few people will need or even know, there is no point in trying to find a standard for GUI design. You won't be able to apply it properly. What to use? Photoshop layers or Photopaint objects? How to join vectorcurves: Corel connect and combine or Freehand extend and join? The latter is a very good example: 2 totally different but valid approaches to a very important problem. For those that need solid vector graphics power. Bottom line: Programms that are so complex that they are most likely to become stand alone tools (maybe even with custom hardware!) *can't* follow design standards - because there are none! Such a programm gains recognition by having a distinct character and one team of professionals in it's userfield that really know what they're doing and set up their own set of rules and preferences as to which way the app has to work, behave, look, feel and is intended to be operated. And believe me, nothing sucks more than trying to make a complex powerapp like, let's say, a 3D modeler, instantly 'usable' for people who only know office gui standards. Check out kpovmodeler to see what I mean.
I've allways seen it come. I have no doubt that by now M$ has serious problems appearing on their horizon if they really want to keep up the inhouse software only strategy. People don't by PCs a dime a dozen anymore, and to all sides those who professionally deal with computers are switching to Mac or Linux so to use their older Hardware and have all software for intercomputer work in one package rather than shelling out bundles of bucks for M$ software addons. Just the other day a friend of mine got feed up and ditched XP for SuSE Linux Pro.
All you'll ever need in one box. No license issues. High performant and cheap. No need to ever learn to handle yet another new OS.
And for design jobs? Well of course you take a Mac. M$ will either buy RedHat some day or move to appliances and an AOL like 'community' - but they're not gonna sustain a serious Software buisness - not this way at least.
I've actually thought of some UT Porn mod allready. Those Girls (and probably a guy or 2) in UT are half undedressed sex symbols anyway - it would only be consequent.
You don't die and respawn, you go off and respawn.
The Redeemer would be an "osgasm bomb", the RL shoots dildos (bad news if you've got a male character:-) ), the Bio Rifle a massage oil gun (you don't die, you slip), the Flak would shoot bunches of condoms. Armor would be special sets of lingerie and when losing hits one wouldn't yell and bleed but moan and gasp and spill, well, y'know, other body fluids. Characters with quad damage would have enlargend boobs or dicks (or both? LOL). And so on...
It shouldn't be that difficult to programm and skin and it shure would be cool and a great laugh.
Dark Reign II has an official add-on that lets you play a Tetris Clone called "Dark Rain" when you're in a warroom waiting for a match. *That* is cool.
Say what you want, but the man shure has one hell of an impact. He get's pissy on some issue (for valid reasons too), drops a word on it and all of a sudden even slashdot has some really intelligent controversial discussion going on. It is really all what someone like RMS could want and bargain for, and if I judge him right it's just what he intended. Presumtion: From what I gather the kernel group can use a little self reflection to. Because: If kernel dev is actually stalled by this BitKeeper vs. OSS Tool debate (I hope not so hefty) it is in a state where carrying on with buisness as usual would have driven Linux into a messy corner. I predict that, within a relatively short term, either Bitkeeper will see a chance for cool PR and modify their license to 'free for free Software products' or something or just now some people are firing up a VCS project that is to Emporer Linus' likeing and thus will be prefered:-).
...And the best part is that I believe this is something that could be implemented in hardware in a manner which could be resolved and entirely applied during the instruction decode phase, thereby never passing the added assembly instructions any further down the instruction pipeline, and thereby not increasing the number of clock cycles required to process any instruction. I can provide technical details on how that would work to anyone interested. Please e-mail me if you are....
If this is really acomplishable without wasting *any* extra cpu time (that waste would aply to *all* instructions the CPU goes through!) this is indeed a good stunt that could work out to add a substancial ooomph to x86 performance with the code we have today. Thank god, 'cuz' my Athlon is to hot allready and I'm kinda sceptical about watercooling.:-) Then again, that's a big "if".
Tomb Raider is one of the games women actually *like* to play!
While most of the 'girls' shun FPS like UT2003 as to fast, violent and competetive, it's Lara Croft - once they discovered how fun it actually is to play the game, that makes them agree to invest on an 'also-gaming-computer'.
Tomb Raider is actually a visually diverse game with good animation and a third person perspective that is not just as emerging as an FPS... and it makes for the player to see those cool Animations of Lara Croft which make up allmost half of the game. The riddles built in are also the more challenging sort of game women like - unlike the reflexive, no-brainer 'aim-twitching' you have to practice for hours on end before you can last longer than 30 seconds in an online game of UT2003 CTF and finally can start careing about getting the flag and sorts.
The problem with getting female testers is that you really have to take them and put them in front of the box until they say: "Ok, it actually isn't that much of a waste of time as I thought." But having them go out and say: "Hey, I dig sitting in front of a dead, rather uncommunicative box striking my lone wolf ego - I have some time to spare for gametesting."? No way.
Are you really suprised that PC-game testing usually isn't a womens pasttime???
Another witness reported seeing a bluish object about 10 to 15 times the size of a typical shooting star streak across the southwestern sky Monday night south of Boulder.
Wasn't that the guy who asked Kevin Kostner to call him "Mr. X" in the JFK movie? From what I understand this is the same guy that also saw that indestructable "tin-foil" laying around in Maricopa by Roswell after that big bang one night. And he once had a Job on Area 51 and had this bumb-in with a small greyish green bug-eyed humanoid in a silver spandex jumpsuit. I know that guy. He's absolutely trustworthy. Really.
Let's face it, friends: Distros save you cooking the cuisine but therefore give you fastfood. You can't have both. And SuSE is the best darn distro I've ever seen - making the best job of offering a fastfood cuisine compromise. It's that simple. For instance: the documentation simply 0wnz RedHat and all the rest - and a dead tree is something good to hold on to when your box won't budge and you haven't been told the "man 'your one-word question here'" trick yet. SuSEs YaST got me so far with me knowing nothin' 'bout Linux, I would have found it silly to give up again. Shure this automatic stuff tends to be a pain a year later when your "/usr/lib/java ->jsdk1.4.1" gets changed to "/usr/lib/java ->jsdk1.1.2" every time you fire it up once again, but when you are ready to notice the fault in some distros config I guess you're ready for Debian.
I'm not buying SuSE anymore, as I am not buying any Distro anymore. I'm expierenced enough to get Gentoo or Debian rolling from scratch and if anything it's them getting a donation.
But for n00bs like I was one once, I know no better way to turn to Linux and *never* look back on Windows again than SuSE. This company has earned itself a solid reputation for a reference grade quality Linux distribution and every word of it is true. If you're thinking of giving Linux a try, try SuSE. I can only recommend it.
Honestly, the 3D Market is Dog-eat-Dog competitive. Even Houdini had to drop pricing to something like 20%, and thats a really good package that costed $20K just 1,5 years ago. User interfaces that make long term sense are rare and there's one package out there that's just been GPLd (Blender) that does that part very well. And memorize: No fuckin' way are you gonna stink up against Cinema (Newbie friendly from the first minute on), Maya (ILMs favorite), Softimage (also ILMs favorite), Hash AnimMaster (best Price/anim performance ratio), Realsoft3D (also best price / performance ratio), Virtools (3D Realtime/Web IDE), Blender (kickass GPLd Package w. RT/Web) and all the rest that are fighting tooth and nail for a share of the next best thing since sliced bread.
Honestly, man, just plain forget it. Blender has gone GPL just now and that a *very* cool package (I got the full version) that needs a good *team* to get on with weeding out and putting in some cool new features that can put it on par with the other ones I mentioned. Join them! If your are only half as good as Ton Roosendal (which I, mind you, don't think) you'll have more than enough to do with that. Anyhow, whatever you do, *don't* waste your time doing stuff from scratch that others have done 6,7,8 years in a row before you. Especially when one of the best is (for) free (as in speech).
Final evidence:Slashdotters are a bunch o' wussies
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Red Hat 8.0 Released
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· Score: 2
I cant believe my eyes just reading the comments!
"Mandrake X is better than RH y, but SuSEs green is prettier" "I can't get no mp3s running *sob*, but I got a candy blue rippoff of Mickeysofts rippoff of KDEs rippoff of Apples Aqua" "I wanna pay for software or else it ain't a professional OS"......and on and on and on - blah, blah, blah, jada, jada jada...
Why are there so few people noticing that, for instance, default KDEs usability sux like a bag of leeches compared to, let's say E or FluxBox? Probably because you have to compile the stuff b4 u can use it. Seems like I'm actually growing out of/.... Geez, what a bunch o' pansies.
What makes me hesitate though, isn't the ideas but the way M$ is approaching things. The inhouse software only policy they ride is counterproductive if they want to achieve technology perks like these. M$ has 3 choices: 1. Carry on as usual ("inhouse software only") and eventually lose monopoly. (Linux is scaring the creeps outta them allready - a little late if you ask me) 2. Make an all out change to a service orietated company with all the certification and stuff. Embrace and extend OSS. (Difficult. It could be to late for that allready. To many ppl know about M$ vs. *nix allready.) 3. Move to closed hardware gadgets and generate revenue from locked hardware/software combos. (XBox anyone? Bills favorite upcoming Tablet PC anyone?)
This article is another indication that they are moving towards number 3. Not the dumbest thing for them to do. One thing you have to admit: If M$ does marketing mistakes, they usually do them fast enough to notice early on if they are right or wrong.
A well, what ever, im just gonna set up that Drag and Drop from Box to Box with 2 or 3 little XFree configuration evenings. Cuz' that's a cool idea.:-)
I'm making just that kind of CD myself! But I'm putting on lot's of platform independent stuff on it, so it will actually run anywhere.
JEdit Best Editor I know. Rulez in everything from.ini Files to serious project work. It's my main tool in Windows and Linux! And it can look really cool if you use the skinlf aqua skin:-). You just need a fast box to benefit from it, cuz' it's in Java (www.jedit.org)
PSI QT Jabber client. Nice. But there ought to be more out there for Windows. You might want to add a Jabber client, or?
Netbeans NB rulez all IDEs. Forget JBuilder and it's lock-in APIs. This is the ticket if you're/they're into Programming. It's in Java for Java, C, C++, etc. (www.netbeans.org)
ActivePerl, ActivePython, etc. There are a lot of *very* cool OSS PL setups for various languages on Windows. WinPython is one that comes to mind, wxPython another. Check out www.activestate.com for all your programming and newbie programming needs under Windows.
I mean: What BS is this? *nix does that allready. It's only our luck that the people haven't relazied that where not adminig all the time but surfing, posting on/. and filling in a short match of ut2k3. Cuz' a good setup can have new userware in a matter of minutes if we will. Don't worry, we've got the brains and we'er into the issue, y'know? And if you *really* feel threatend by this VaporOS then you're not a good admin. Period.
They didn't know the Linux version would be finished in time of shippment? And what the Demo coming in sync with the Win version??? This sounds *really* fishy to me. I wounldn't be suprised if someone payed them not to mention that it's Linux compatible....
This is a *very* interesting thought. With digital content close to outpacing any other it would be very cool to speed up with a GPLd content syndication standard thats OSS from A to Z and is verticile enough to span everything from JBoss/Cocoon to the 1001 'Nuke forks. Something like that could prevent M$ / AOL & Co. from gaining momentum on the ever growing digital content services market and keep them from closing that market via the DMCA.
It tries to be a windows rippoff, forfeighting all that would make people give up the Windows Platform for Linux! Why don't these guys have the gutts to take a perfect linux setup with added usability and all (f.e. Fluxbox WM default behaviour) cool looking Themes and just close the holes that are then left over (crappy fonts on Linux, office package, textmessage bootup and shutdown)? Why the hell does everybody in the buisness consider M$ the reference for end user usability (which is - mind you - utter bullshit)??? Do a mac rippoff if you will - but this grey in grey Win98 copycat? I'm gonna recomend Windoze migrators SuSE 8 Pro as the Linux n00by choice. It might suck as update, but the install is grafical all the way trough to bootup and shutdown and, damn, it may be green but it shure looks cool.
Linux lacks serious regognition as a professional Plattform in large areas. That's a fact. For example, with the Macromedia Dreamteam ported to MacOS X it's a shame they haven't started talking about Linux yet. But there's another problem: With the dotbomb just behind us, the market of software for Computer professionals is quite thin and I presume that lots of proprietary software isn't so much of a license to print money anymore. They're are 2 way's the future could go: 1. Eventually the software companies catch on and come out with software for Linux, or 2. OSS catches up more and more even in the Multimedia field and we've got nothing to worry about. I actually would kinda like number 1 to happen early and the vendors getting the curve to change to a more service orientated culture. There is a lot of Software out there that would 'deserve' a solid plattform like Linux.
And, please, spare me the "Gimp is the OSS Photoshop alternative' crap. You don't no shit about what you're talking about.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a trained Artist. I know these people that shit in the corner and call it [fill in random art-style bullshit].
Perl is cool, Perl is geeky and gives a humorous look at the way things where back then with *nix admins. It's an anacronisim with a cool and powerfull interpreter, thus people still like to use and learn it. Even though it's syntax sometimes is like "ActionScript on crack" or something.
But calling this (crappy software design and/with/or Perl) 'Postmodern' is like calling Lingo an 'interessting aproach to PLs'. Just because Perl is the tool of choice for a certain set of problems, there's no reason whatsoever in calling this 'postmodern'.
Gawd, what people can crap about in more than 2 sentences amazes me ever so often.
How many times have /. rejected your write-up of a story and posted an inferior version instead?
/. for new posts every 30 seconds or so, and, at last, you could have a web interface for the whole thing with an own community using it. Maybe call it Meta-Slashdot? :-)
10^10Zillion times.
I'm thinking of building an autoposter with dynamically generated filling phrases for each topic. It would make things easier.
Maybe with multiple accounts support. Each account could mod all others up and have it's own DB of random typos, and when one gets blocked from modding by censor it would autmatically generate a new one. You could also build in a post-tracker to avoid double posts and a dialectic analysis option than automatically generates interessting threads with controverse opinions. You could set values for agressiveness, wisdom or talkativeness of each account, or the average amount of Star-Trek, Star-Wars and Monyt Python quotes and a "Beowulf" option. It would also have a set of "goatseX" and "Tableblaster" scanner/filter accounts.
You could assign an account to the "first poster" slot that would check
It would add quality, I'm shure.
Gees what a load of typos. Guess I didn't get enough sleep these days. Been playing too much Kohan:IS and UT2003. Would've you guessed? :-)
It's solid code of honor amongst Clans not to cheat. Anybody as dedicated to playing online action games would render his pasttime pointless by cheating. And if anyone found out you've cheated your way into Ladder position you'd get an extremely hard time (on and offline).
:-)
And when you're playing on a public server, cheaters are easyly identified by playing like crap and either scoring immediate kills once they actually *do* manage to hit or by simply not throwing the towel no matter how many times you flak them at point-blank. Both area mostly less than minor drags to a skilled player and have a somewhat funny aspect to it.
I've seen entire matches in UT (1st) where cheaters we're just plain ignored because of the simply fact their skill level (not trained by playing under real conditions) rendered them something more like 'moving obstacles' rather than actuall participants.
Anyhow, some one using more subtle cheats, such as see-through textures or so, can be anoying. Then on the other hand, if you're that good to know for shure that someone is using such a cheat, you'll be playing clan games most of the time anyway. And I haven't met a single Clan player cheating yet. At least none of mentionable Clans.
BTW: I once had a cheater on my team in a pub UT CTF match. I switched sides and telefragged him 'til he gave up and disconnected. That was fun.
You're right. One single virtual desktop is just fine. Any more open apps and it would crash anyway.
Speaking requires something like 80% brain activity. Reading, Pointing, Clicking and single key hitting alltogether only round abouts 20%. :-) ) with no sweat.
You can operate a fluid/consitent GUI setup that makes good use of possible short fingermovements (forget that waving about in "Minority Report", it's a dead concept) on mouse and kb and still think deeply on what is just on your mind (your actual work maybe?
There is no way in hell you can do that while talking (or boxing the air).
You've brought a rare thing to "Ask /.":
A good question that can't be answered without advice, that doesn't score a bazillion howto-hits on Google and that isn't shure to be absolutely above the heads of the slashdot crowd.
Nice to have some good question asked. Thanks.
Now for my shots at closing in on answers:
I have no larger mentionable expierience in UI design apart for the fact that I do have some webdesign expierience and a professional artist training, but I have used and operated a wide range of professional tools in the professional manner in which they were meant to be used and operated!!!
And that's a very important part of my/the answer allready:
All extremly complex professional GUI-tools each have their very own distinct, standards-pushing look and feel acustomed to their application family more than, let's say, the CUAS. And that's what makes up a good tool.
People who use Avid use it almost exclusively and for hours and years on end - and often on special hardware too. Same goes for Softimage or Houdini. Or check out the difference between Freehand, Illustrator and Corel Draw. The distinct, special funtionality of vector-drawing apps is approached in a different way by each. That's the same reason why you've got a wider range of Video NLE apps that do all the same but with often different workflow aproaches.
See what I'm saying: If you're tool is gonna be complex due to very special funtions that only a few people will need or even know, there is no point in trying to find a standard for GUI design. You won't be able to apply it properly.
What to use? Photoshop layers or Photopaint objects? How to join vectorcurves: Corel connect and combine or Freehand extend and join? The latter is a very good example: 2 totally different but valid approaches to a very important problem. For those that need solid vector graphics power.
Bottom line:
Programms that are so complex that they are most likely to become stand alone tools (maybe even with custom hardware!) *can't* follow design standards - because there are none! Such a programm gains recognition by having a distinct character and one team of professionals in it's userfield that really know what they're doing and set up their own set of rules and preferences as to which way the app has to work, behave, look, feel and is intended to be operated.
And believe me, nothing sucks more than trying to make a complex powerapp like, let's say, a 3D modeler, instantly 'usable' for people who only know office gui standards. Check out kpovmodeler to see what I mean.
I've allways seen it come. I have no doubt that by now M$ has serious problems appearing on their horizon if they really want to keep up the inhouse software only strategy.
People don't by PCs a dime a dozen anymore, and to all sides those who professionally deal with computers are switching to Mac or Linux so to use their older Hardware and have all software for intercomputer work in one package rather than shelling out bundles of bucks for M$ software addons. Just the other day a friend of mine got feed up and ditched XP for SuSE Linux Pro.
All you'll ever need in one box.
No license issues.
High performant and cheap.
No need to ever learn to handle yet another new OS.
And for design jobs?
Well of course you take a Mac.
M$ will either buy RedHat some day or move to appliances and an AOL like 'community' - but they're not gonna sustain a serious Software buisness - not this way at least.
I've actually thought of some UT Porn mod allready.
:-) ), the Bio Rifle a massage oil gun (you don't die, you slip), the Flak would shoot bunches of condoms. Armor would be special sets of lingerie and when losing hits one wouldn't yell and bleed but moan and gasp and spill, well, y'know, other body fluids. Characters with quad damage would have enlargend boobs or dicks (or both? LOL). And so on...
Those Girls (and probably a guy or 2) in UT are half undedressed sex symbols anyway - it would only be consequent.
You don't die and respawn, you go off and respawn.
The Redeemer would be an "osgasm bomb", the RL shoots dildos (bad news if you've got a male character
It shouldn't be that difficult to programm and skin and it shure would be cool and a great laugh.
Dark Reign II has an official add-on that lets you play a Tetris Clone called "Dark Rain" when you're in a warroom waiting for a match.
*That* is cool.
Say what you want, but the man shure has one hell of an impact. :-).
He get's pissy on some issue (for valid reasons too), drops a word on it and all of a sudden even slashdot has some really intelligent controversial discussion going on.
It is really all what someone like RMS could want and bargain for, and if I judge him right it's just what he intended.
Presumtion:
From what I gather the kernel group can use a little self reflection to. Because: If kernel dev is actually stalled by this BitKeeper vs. OSS Tool debate (I hope not so hefty) it is in a state where carrying on with buisness as usual would have driven Linux into a messy corner.
I predict that, within a relatively short term, either Bitkeeper will see a chance for cool PR and modify their license to 'free for free Software products' or something or just now some people are firing up a VCS project that is to Emporer Linus' likeing and thus will be prefered
...And the best part is that I believe this is something that could be implemented in hardware in a manner which could be resolved and entirely applied during the instruction decode phase, thereby never passing the added assembly instructions any further down the instruction pipeline, and thereby not increasing the number of clock cycles required to process any instruction. I can provide technical details on how that would work to anyone interested. Please e-mail me if you are....
:-)
If this is really acomplishable without wasting *any* extra cpu time (that waste would aply to *all* instructions the CPU goes through!) this is indeed a good stunt that could work out to add a substancial ooomph to x86 performance with the code we have today.
Thank god, 'cuz' my Athlon is to hot allready and I'm kinda sceptical about watercooling.
Then again, that's a big "if".
Tomb Raider is one of the games women actually *like* to play!
... and it makes for the player to see those cool Animations of Lara Croft which make up allmost half of the game. The riddles built in are also the more challenging sort of game women like - unlike the reflexive, no-brainer 'aim-twitching' you have to practice for hours on end before you can last longer than 30 seconds in an online game of UT2003 CTF and finally can start careing about getting the flag and sorts.
While most of the 'girls' shun FPS like UT2003 as to fast, violent and competetive, it's Lara Croft - once they discovered how fun it actually is to play the game, that makes them agree to invest on an 'also-gaming-computer'.
Tomb Raider is actually a visually diverse game with good animation and a third person perspective that is not just as emerging as an FPS
The problem with getting female testers is that you really have to take them and put them in front of the box until they say: "Ok, it actually isn't that much of a waste of time as I thought."
But having them go out and say: "Hey, I dig sitting in front of a dead, rather uncommunicative box striking my lone wolf ego - I have some time to spare for gametesting."? No way.
Are you really suprised that PC-game testing usually isn't a womens pasttime???
Another witness reported seeing a bluish object about 10 to 15 times the size of a typical shooting star streak across the southwestern sky Monday night south of Boulder.
Wasn't that the guy who asked Kevin Kostner to call him "Mr. X" in the JFK movie?
From what I understand this is the same guy that also saw that indestructable "tin-foil" laying around in Maricopa by Roswell after that big bang one night. And he once had a Job on Area 51 and had this bumb-in with a small greyish green bug-eyed humanoid in a silver spandex jumpsuit.
I know that guy. He's absolutely trustworthy.
Really.
Let's face it, friends:
Distros save you cooking the cuisine but therefore give you fastfood. You can't have both. And SuSE is the best darn distro I've ever seen - making the best job of offering a fastfood cuisine compromise.
It's that simple.
For instance: the documentation simply 0wnz RedHat and all the rest - and a dead tree is something good to hold on to when your box won't budge and you haven't been told the "man 'your one-word question here'" trick yet.
SuSEs YaST got me so far with me knowing nothin' 'bout Linux, I would have found it silly to give up again.
Shure this automatic stuff tends to be a pain a year later when your "/usr/lib/java ->jsdk1.4.1" gets changed to "/usr/lib/java ->jsdk1.1.2" every time you fire it up once again, but when you are ready to notice the fault in some distros config I guess you're ready for Debian.
I'm not buying SuSE anymore, as I am not buying any Distro anymore. I'm expierenced enough to get Gentoo or Debian rolling from scratch and if anything it's them getting a donation.
But for n00bs like I was one once, I know no better way to turn to Linux and *never* look back on Windows again than SuSE. This company has earned itself a solid reputation for a reference grade quality Linux distribution and every word of it is true. If you're thinking of giving Linux a try, try SuSE.
I can only recommend it.
Honestly, the 3D Market is Dog-eat-Dog competitive. Even Houdini had to drop pricing to something like 20%, and thats a really good package that costed $20K just 1,5 years ago. /anim performance ratio), Realsoft3D (also best price / performance ratio), Virtools (3D Realtime/Web IDE), Blender (kickass GPLd Package w. RT/Web) and all the rest that are fighting tooth and nail for a share of the next best thing since sliced bread.
User interfaces that make long term sense are rare and there's one package out there that's just been GPLd (Blender) that does that part very well. And memorize:
No fuckin' way are you gonna stink up against Cinema (Newbie friendly from the first minute on), Maya (ILMs favorite), Softimage (also ILMs favorite), Hash AnimMaster (best Price
Honestly, man, just plain forget it . Blender has gone GPL just now and that a *very* cool package (I got the full version) that needs a good *team* to get on with weeding out and putting in some cool new features that can put it on par with the other ones I mentioned. Join them! If your are only half as good as Ton Roosendal (which I, mind you, don't think) you'll have more than enough to do with that.
Anyhow, whatever you do, *don't* waste your time doing stuff from scratch that others have done 6,7,8 years in a row before you. Especially when one of the best is (for) free (as in speech).
I cant believe my eyes just reading the comments!
...and on and on and on - blah, blah, blah, jada, jada jada...
/. ... Geez, what a bunch o' pansies.
"Mandrake X is better than RH y, but SuSEs green is prettier"
"I can't get no mp3s running *sob*, but I got a candy blue rippoff of Mickeysofts rippoff of KDEs rippoff of Apples Aqua"
"I wanna pay for software or else it ain't a professional OS"...
Why are there so few people noticing that, for instance, default KDEs usability sux like a bag of leeches compared to, let's say E or FluxBox?
Probably because you have to compile the stuff b4 u can use it.
Seems like I'm actually growing out of
The screen looks cool, the shuttle case looks cool. Why go through all the fuss? I doubt the space gained is relevant.
For a homemade it's quite ok though.
What makes me hesitate though, isn't the ideas but the way M$ is approaching things. The inhouse software only policy they ride is counterproductive if they want to achieve technology perks like these.
:-)
M$ has 3 choices:
1. Carry on as usual ("inhouse software only") and eventually lose monopoly. (Linux is scaring the creeps outta them allready - a little late if you ask me)
2. Make an all out change to a service orietated company with all the certification and stuff. Embrace and extend OSS. (Difficult. It could be to late for that allready. To many ppl know about M$ vs. *nix allready.)
3. Move to closed hardware gadgets and generate revenue from locked hardware/software combos. (XBox anyone? Bills favorite upcoming Tablet PC anyone?)
This article is another indication that they are moving towards number 3. Not the dumbest thing for them to do.
One thing you have to admit: If M$ does marketing mistakes, they usually do them fast enough to notice early on if they are right or wrong.
A well, what ever, im just gonna set up that Drag and Drop from Box to Box with 2 or 3 little XFree configuration evenings. Cuz' that's a cool idea.
I'm making just that kind of CD myself!
.ini Files to serious project work. It's my main tool in Windows and Linux! And it can look really cool if you use the skinlf aqua skin :-). You just need a fast box to benefit from it, cuz' it's in Java (www.jedit.org)
But I'm putting on lot's of platform independent stuff on it, so it will actually run anywhere.
JEdit
Best Editor I know. Rulez in everything from
PSI
QT Jabber client. Nice. But there ought to be more out there for Windows. You might want to add a Jabber client, or?
Netbeans
NB rulez all IDEs. Forget JBuilder and it's lock-in APIs. This is the ticket if you're/they're into Programming. It's in Java for Java, C, C++, etc. (www.netbeans.org)
ActivePerl, ActivePython, etc.
There are a lot of *very* cool OSS PL setups for various languages on Windows. WinPython is one that comes to mind, wxPython another. Check out www.activestate.com for all your programming and newbie programming needs under Windows.
I mean: What BS is this? *nix does that allready. /. and filling in a short match of ut2k3. Cuz' a good setup can have new userware in a matter of minutes if we will. Don't worry, we've got the brains and we'er into the issue, y'know?
It's only our luck that the people haven't relazied that where not adminig all the time but surfing, posting on
And if you *really* feel threatend by this VaporOS then you're not a good admin. Period.
They didn't know the Linux version would be finished in time of shippment? And what the Demo coming in sync with the Win version???
This sounds *really* fishy to me. I wounldn't be suprised if someone payed them not to mention that it's Linux compatible....
This is a *very* interesting thought.
With digital content close to outpacing any other it would be very cool to speed up with a GPLd content syndication standard thats OSS from A to Z and is verticile enough to span everything from JBoss/Cocoon to the 1001 'Nuke forks. Something like that could prevent M$ / AOL & Co. from gaining momentum on the ever growing digital content services market and keep them from closing that market via the DMCA.
This is something really worth considering.
It tries to be a windows rippoff, forfeighting all that would make people give up the Windows Platform for Linux!
Why don't these guys have the gutts to take a perfect linux setup with added usability and all (f.e. Fluxbox WM default behaviour) cool looking Themes and just close the holes that are then left over (crappy fonts on Linux, office package, textmessage bootup and shutdown)?
Why the hell does everybody in the buisness consider M$ the reference for end user usability (which is - mind you - utter bullshit)???
Do a mac rippoff if you will - but this grey in grey Win98 copycat? I'm gonna recomend Windoze migrators SuSE 8 Pro as the Linux n00by choice. It might suck as update, but the install is grafical all the way trough to bootup and shutdown and, damn, it may be green but it shure looks cool.
Linux lacks serious regognition as a professional Plattform in large areas. That's a fact.
For example, with the Macromedia Dreamteam ported to MacOS X it's a shame they haven't started talking about Linux yet.
But there's another problem:
With the dotbomb just behind us, the market of software for Computer professionals is quite thin and I presume that lots of proprietary software isn't so much of a license to print money anymore. They're are 2 way's the future could go:
1. Eventually the software companies catch on and come out with software for Linux, or
2. OSS catches up more and more even in the Multimedia field and we've got nothing to worry about.
I actually would kinda like number 1 to happen early and the vendors getting the curve to change to a more service orientated culture. There is a lot of Software out there that would 'deserve' a solid plattform like Linux.
And, please, spare me the "Gimp is the OSS Photoshop alternative' crap. You don't no shit about what you're talking about.