However after going there a couple of times, you come to realize it is a lot cheaper to play games at home... on your console and not be bugged by those stupid continue messages.
The console versions usually give 0/2/4 "continues", before you have to start over from scratch.
The continue messages may be annoying, but you at least get to finish the game.
As a computer science student, I would like to know why we aren't taught this in school. My professors have told me that software verification is a nearly impossible task which is too complicated for any real system,
Your professors are either incompetant or outright lying. Software verification is performed by creating a list of potential input ranges (a combination of border cases and a random internal check), and making sure that the system works.
This testing can be done in two ways - white box testing which determines if individual algorithms function correctly, and black box testing which determines if the system itself works.
Saying that testing is a nearly impossible task is no different than saying that negative numbers do not exist (as what most elementry school teachers say). My suggestion is to find better teachers - although it is a little late once you've entered college/university since you are already locked in to completing your diploma/degree.
One last thing - there is a reason MSVC, BorlandC, and GCC have an associated debugger. It's to make it much easier to isolate problems that are caused during the test.
Why aren't we being taught that we should be responsible for writing reliable code and how to do it? Why haven't I heard of Z or other methods for writing provable specifications? My professors can't even write a decent specifcation. And supposedly this is one of the best Computer Science programs in the US.
The "best" program gives the "in-demand" skills - Rapid Application Development with no intent on making programs correct. Most people want to be taught what they want to hear: that writing programs is easy. When they hear that, they turn around and recommend that course.
In practice, you need to learn the required skills - programming, developing specification, debugging, and plenty of other stuff that isn't fun. A large chunk of people quit that program, saying that it is too hard (the same people who say math is too hard.)
I'm trying to figure out why the people who designed this architecture didn't realize that putting this level of functionality down at the OS was NOT a good idea.
While you're trying to figure that out, why not do the same to the 640KB barrier?
At the core, Windows was designed from a base where there was a severe limitations from memory and other resources (and in the case of Windows 1.0, could not even support overlapped windows.) Even Windows 3.0 had "silly" limitations that would be brought down simply by being a Moderator on Slashdot. In addition, when 32-bit computing was made easily accessable with Windows 95, there was still a "silly" 16-bit coordinate system limitation for drawing.
It seems to me that the client should be responsible for ALL failures of this nature- what would have been so difficult about simply returning a result code?
How does returning a result code help when you queue up tasks for being done in the background? As any Windows programmer knows (and perhaps for Motif or X11), there are a lot of functions that provide capability for doing non-blocking calls to resources and I/O activity - a return code is useless if you want to know about the status of the operation once it finishes (aside from determining if it was started.)
Of course, similar statements were made about Windows XP - I didn't know what they were talking since I configured my system to be adjusted for best performance rather than best appearance. (Even after getting rid of the annoying smooth scrolling.)
The commit charge was under 150. It did rise to around 200-250 when I loaded up applications (including two instances of Microsoft Visual Studio 2003), but Windows itself doesn't absorb too much memory.
The same reasoning may apply to Windows Vista - is a stock install being used, or was the computer configured to minimize memory footprint? I can understand extra memory cost if Windows is now maintaining the full contents of each window on the screen - that was a feature demonstrated at a user group and was intended to help with deciding which application to choose for ALT-TAB.
There used to be some games on the Amiga that suggested as the new owner of the game that the first thing you should do is make a copy of the game disks and play from those instead. Gunship 2000 I think was one, but I can't actually remember as I had a hard disk which made needing the disks at all unessesary. You would think I would have had a disk full of borrowed software, but you'd be wrong.
Anyone who has an Amiga would know that a massive number of copied disks is not an issue.
I had an Amiga 500 at home - while I haven't heard of as many horror stories as some other people mentioned, I do know that disks inserted into the computer have a slightly higher rate of collecting errors. Most likely, errors are caused by ejecting disks, since it seems that the drive head was originally in contact with the disk in question (and that the default OS for the Amiga is known to spontaneously read the disk suddenly.)
These aren't errors of death - it's eventually a bad sector that manifests itself after seveal months of use. When compared to IBM computers and other modern computers, the disks seem to have about half to a third of the lifespan, mainly because the drive head is in greater contact with the disk during ejection sequence.
Am I the only one who doesn't get the (great) appeal of RSS? I've tried it in various forms (Firefox Live Bookmarks, Google Homepage, RSS plugin for Firefox...) serveral times and I always end up forgetting about it. I really only read three web-pages every day and I like to scan the entire pages, so RSS is a waste of time in those cases as the various methods of using RSS only let you see, say, 20 headlines at once and my main news page, for example, has hundreds well organised in various sections.
In this case alone, RSS is simply an extra burden. However, it is a simple implementation to fix: integreate RSS with precaching - instead of having to wait for the RSS feed to load then waiting for the homepage to load, the RSS newsfeed aggregator will also pre-fetch the homepage of the sites you want to visit. (Although this is not recommended.)
As for me, I see the potential of RSS, but generally don't like seeing bandwidth taken up by applications that insist on doing automatic-downloading without asking for permission first. Even if this should not be an issue, it is for me since most local ISPs have a bandwidth cap. (Ironically, I use MSN Messenger.)
I only really used RSS once - that was with a semi-old Mozilla implementation that simply pulled the headlines from news.bbc.co.uk. Of course, there was no information on whether those bookmarks updated or not, nor was there any visible information on when they updated. (It's also a simple change to have a secondary icon to indicate if there was a recent change or should be a recent change since the last time I checked the RSS feed.)
So I really am not suprised by the 4% figure, the only thing that is suprising is that anybody else is suprised:)
I'm suprised at the 4%... mainly because people keep confusing it with the 12%. For those still confused, 4% use it, 12% know what it is.
In reality, 4% is a reasonable number. Not everyone is a hard-core internet fan (or needs broadband), and doesn't do much more than visit their favourite internet site.
There is no such thing as information overload. All you have to do is narrow your search, or re-evaluate what you thought you were looking for. Because the tools are more powerful, they require more thought to use effectively. Not an astounding surprise there.
I've been responsible for troubleshooting Apple computers. One issue I encountered is ejecting a CD from a Mac Mini. It seems simple enough, but:
- The keyboard is not compatible with the MacMini (it's a Microsoft wireless keyboard.) Even if it was, it doesn't have an eject button that mest keyboards use. - The mouse is not campatible with the MacMini (it's a Microsoft wireless mouse.) - There is no visible hole to eject a CD.
I'm also expected to resolve issues as fast as I can. And I also need to support wireless products.
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. However, there is a localized information deficiency caused by lack of equipment. As a result, I have to go on the internet and do a google search on what is going on - and MacOS 9 is generally considered a bit too obscure to find any solid information.
It's an interesting matter - I experience both information deficiency and information overload at the same time.
I'm referring to literature, financial data, legislation, etc, not forbidden political views.
Even in this, "Information Overload" applies.
In literature... there is effectivly in infinite number of interpretations for fantasy and science fiction. If I ask you to describe a dragon, I either get a large flying lizard with Fire (or element) attack but can be taken down, or a supernatural being that effectivly levels entire cities.
In financial data... There's a reason why accounting in a profession - keeping track of every income and expendature is hard work, especially when you have to deal with taxes.
In legislation... the US is an example - are you aware that there are 50 different criminal codes in the USA?
I was in Florida last week and picked up the daily paper, and there was a major story on how your personality type can be identified by the way in which you sneeze! Yes, folks, this is apparently big-time news in the capital of Florida smack in the middle of the holiday season!
That's sensationalism, not Journalism. It is usually found in Tabloid-class papers.
If you want to see Journalism, try reading a newspaper-class newspaper. One example, even though it is most likely not circulating in your area, is Metro News. Even though the stories isn't in-depth, it is enough to keep a good knowledge of local, semi-local, national and international events.
They can't do massive research for everything that comes up - there is a timelimit for stories. But you can tell that there is enough information on the front page.
Go into a gamestop or electronics boutique. I used to work there. They card everyone they believe under 17. If the person is under 17, product IS NOT SOLD. I have seen this policy enforced at every EB and Gamestop I have ever shopped at.
I purchased a copy of Doom while I was under 18. This isn't an issue, if it weren't for the fact that I also got Duke Nukem 3D at the same time (an 18+ game.) Even though these are 'M' games, they are also engine games where any teenager can claim that he wants to play around with the new rendering engine, and that the lack of access to such an engine will stunt his/her career as a computer programmer.
Of course, this was at Business Depot (before the great name change), but the same rule applies. If the person looks like he is over 18, no ID is asked, as it would feel redundant... especially when a significant group of people between 18-23 do not have ID that proves minimum age.
Do you know who is buying the kids the games? The parents./blockquote
Not always. An allowance or side job gives teenagers enough money to buy those games without parental intervention.
There was alot of press and public fervor about it, but the studies weren't complete yet. Well, the law was passed, and then the studies completed about 6 months later. The scientific studies concluded that while use of a cell phone in a car was somewhat distracting, it was only marginally more distracting than other legal in-car activites such as tuning the radio or talking to a passenger.
A hand-held cellphone requires people to have three hand to drive a car: One hand on the phone, one hand on the wheel, and one hand to hold the finger out the window.
It's bad to be a Deviant, and just as bad to wish for a Deviation.
I currently work in a higher-ed environment, and one way that our team stays relaxed and ready at the same time is by spending time with each other. I know this sounds a bit corny, but if you like the people you work with, then you enjoy spending time with them. Part of improving morale is knowing that there are actually *good* parts to your job and working those to your advantage.
Actually, that's not corny - it's fully accurrate, and provides much more benefit than most so-called morale boosting activities. (e.g. ones that force everyone to join, and that look like it was organized by a high-school student).
Some people recognize those things a mile away. I am one of them, after experiencing it first hand, every year during elementry/high-school. It was okay the first time around, but eventually felt just like everything else at school - dull and boring.
We are even in the process of designing (when we are not doing projects or solving problems, of course) a large Quake map after the actual physical buildings of our school.
Careful... That's one of the 10 magical signs that you are going to do a killing spree at your school - among other things such as "introversion, generally remains to himself", "refusing to unquestionably accept authority", "Tendancy not to carry ID, in-spite of the fact that such ID takes a few years to obtain", etc.
"... a QWERTY keyboard, which is a keyboard designed to slow typists to prevent typewriters from jamming."
Just FYI, that's an urban legend.
Where did you get that information?
QWERTY shows all the signs of being a slow keyboard when given proper analysis - have you seen studies that carefully analysed the QWERTY and DVORAK layouts, including those that describe their history?
Yep, the only problem is that I don't listen to what the wise and respectable and leet People Who Have Played The Game Longer Than Me say and think OPTIONS=number_pad is the way to go. (The reason I don't listen to them is because I'm an Emacs guy and even when I use vi, the arrow keys seem to work just fine. =)
And thus, Nethack usually needs a full-blown 105-key keyboard, and that's not an option on most laptops. Darn.
Roguelikes were designed to be used an a QWERTY keyboard, which is a keyboard designed to slow typists to prevent typewriters from jamming. OPTIONS=number_pad is required if you use a dvorak keyboard layout - either that, or a lot of rebinding keys.
Rebinding keys is also difficult as there are some keys that are redundant. For example, 'W'earing armor is considered completely seperate from 'P'utting on accessories, even though they both have the same effect, risks and stuff. This is the only cause of annoyance to players using number_pad, since at least one of those two is on the far end of the main keyboard section (requiring the hand to be moved.)
1. The C64 had all of its OS in ROM, which meant :
a) No patching could be done after manufacture, so it had to be right the first time
And that's where the machine will fail.
The C64 is a case in point: What happens when you fill a floppy disk? The files on the disk are lost because the drive attempts to write to the alternate side of the disk.
When faced with a choice between a bright recent grad from a top engineering school with great interships and a can-do attitude vs. a forty-something engineer who's been around the block, worked on various architectures, at various levels of the system, held various roles in a team, and had to pick herself up and dust herself off after a failure or two (and who wants more money than the new grad), my VP will take the experienced programmer almost every time.
I have one question: Where does a "forty-something engineer who's been around the block, worked on various architectures, at various levels of the system, held various roles in a team, and had to pick herself up and dust herself off after a failure or two" come from?
While you could grab a copy of MacOS, Linux, BSD or other stuff, you do not "get" any "experience" until you've been employed.
Even so, most amateur programmers need plenty of paper references, a good IDE, or a perfect online-documentation (as do professionals learning a new tech.)
Someone tell the nerds that the camera people do this at baseball games and football games all the time! All you have to do to win that "contest" is show up - plus it's live so you get a unique opportunity to make any face you'd like!
To get in that contest, you have to blow a lot of money on a scalper - only to reasize that you had to miss eight days of work just to be early in line.
Besides, you don't get the individual attention required for the 15 minutes of fame. When you are part of such a large group, it doesn't feel special at all.
Seriously, wait 18 months and the price of this rig drops by 50%. Until then, I'm quite content to play in 1024x768 at 60Hz with medium textures; and you know, it doesn't bother me in the least.
Don't do that. 800x600 at 72Hz is okay, but 60Hz is more than likely to give you a headache.
Take a small country , lets say the one I live in Sweden. Attack that one - Did it work? Now start discussing about taking it out on the US
To take out Sweden via CyberTerror, you need to attack nodes critical to the operation to the country. Same goes with the US.
There are two posibilities: - There are the same number of nodes in the US and Sweden. In this case, attacking the US nodes does more damage, as each node controls a lot more than the equivalent in Sweden. - There are less nodes in Sweden than in the US. In this case, there are less targets of opportunity for Sweden.
The biggest damage caused by CyberTerror: CNN/Yahoo/whatever got taken off the web. Whooppie. CyberTerror is only really effective against one individual (which is really harassment) as opposed to critical infrastructure (as they are generally isolated networks or some other secured system.)
"It interferes with self-esteem. The most disturbing fact is that children who have the least amount of self-esteem and mastery over their life are the ones most attracted to video games. According to Dr. Jane Healy in her book Endangered Minds, boys who pursue violent video games are more likely to have low self-confidence in school and be less successful in personal relationships. Studies have also shown that for girls increased time playing video or computer games is associated with lowered self-esteem. These games give children an out when they don't feel in with other groups."
You did an acceptable response to that passage, but it can be better.
Try a "cause-and-effect" approach - do playing video games lower self-esteem (causing the kid to be abused), or are video games a result of low self-esteem (caused by the kid being abused)?
Anyway, the article seems throughly debunked already.
Naturally, it's the parents job to censor games for their own children. Unfortunately, a lot of them do not do so. The ESRB rating system is the closest the average parent is ever going to get in researching the content of the game,
RSAC was much more in-depth, as it gave three independant rating levels.
and I say the ESRB does a pretty good job at what they do.
Operation Flashpoint gets an 'M' rating. Warcraft III gets a 'T' rating. Worms 2 gets an 'E' rating.
All three games are graphically violent, but get different ratings. Why? I have no idea, but things like this create rumors of "red-pixel syndrome", where ESRB simply counts the number of visible red-pixels.
Amazon already screwed up by even talking to this jackal.
They only sent an auto-reply to him indicating that they will look into the issue. That's about it.
Even if his claims do hold ground, it will be difficult to recover damages - Amazon can't keep up with removing these kinds of reviews, especially when the book later dies into obscurity as simply another book published by a vanity publisher.
Seriously, lawyers should be treated like lepers - required to scream out a warning to anyone they come in contact with for any reason. "Lawyer, outcast, unclean! Beware lest I sue ye". Amazon attempted to treat this scum like a rational human being and he will use those efforts against them.
Do you also believe that computer experts should also be treated as useless nerds, geeks and retards? I'm asking, as that's the exact equivalent on how you want to treat lawyers.
It's not really the same at all. Television "addicts" usually have no problem balancing their time - few TV watchers would skip work, stay up until 4am, or watch for 12 hours straight. Sure, there may be some extreme cases, but the vast majority of TV viewers do not show the typical signs of addiction.
Contrast that with game addicts - many play to the point of exhaustion, start leading extremely unbalanced schedules, become sleep deprived, shun social interaction.
I would like to comment on that: - The "game addicts" on the same level of "TV addicts" do not have the problem you described: they can still stop playing at any time (like I do, e.g. grab a newspaper a block away), they can still run a schedule (even if there is no structure), sleep properly, and interact socially. - Even though I may have the symptoms shown above, I make it a habit to stop as soon as possible when the timer hits twelve - only rarely do I go beyond that. - My schedule was unbalanced because I have had nothing to do during my period of unemployment. This changed right after getting a position, as I went to sleep at 12:00 (at the latest) and set the alarm to 7:00. - Sleep deprivation was caused by uncomfortable sleep, not excess video games. I know this is a fact, since there is a 50% chance per blanket of a blanket appearing on the floor. In addition, I wake up at 5:00 and 8:00, both before and after the alarm. The result is that it feels like I had 4 hours of sleep in an uncomfortable position. (Probably the pillow, but it could be something else.) - I shunned social interaction because the majority of people in my elementry/high school years were assholes. - Since I rely on public transportation, I can't go out and explore as that would take well too much time. Even if I could explore, it is not likely that I would spot the well known supplier of cheap computer components known as "OEM Express" (other stores have since caught up to their semi-low prices.) - It may have been worse when I was younger as it cut into time that I should have spent studying or doing homework. Of course, I never had a need to study. Homework was either trivial, tedious gruntwork that did not really advance my knowledge, or impossible for me to complete (as I did not have artistic abilities at the time).
The only ones that have these symptoms that are directly centered around games have a disabilitating addiction - which should not be compared to a casual addiction that these TV addicts have.
Slashdot Mirror
The console versions usually give 0/2/4 "continues", before you have to start over from scratch.
The continue messages may be annoying, but you at least get to finish the game.
Your professors are either incompetant or outright lying. Software verification is performed by creating a list of potential input ranges (a combination of border cases and a random internal check), and making sure that the system works.
This testing can be done in two ways - white box testing which determines if individual algorithms function correctly, and black box testing which determines if the system itself works.
Saying that testing is a nearly impossible task is no different than saying that negative numbers do not exist (as what most elementry school teachers say). My suggestion is to find better teachers - although it is a little late once you've entered college/university since you are already locked in to completing your diploma/degree.
One last thing - there is a reason MSVC, BorlandC, and GCC have an associated debugger. It's to make it much easier to isolate problems that are caused during the test.
The "best" program gives the "in-demand" skills - Rapid Application Development with no intent on making programs correct. Most people want to be taught what they want to hear: that writing programs is easy. When they hear that, they turn around and recommend that course.
In practice, you need to learn the required skills - programming, developing specification, debugging, and plenty of other stuff that isn't fun. A large chunk of people quit that program, saying that it is too hard (the same people who say math is too hard.)
Sorry, wrong engine.
You probably mean the "ghost" command, which would normally be disabled in a multi-player only game.
While you're trying to figure that out, why not do the same to the 640KB barrier?
At the core, Windows was designed from a base where there was a severe limitations from memory and other resources (and in the case of Windows 1.0, could not even support overlapped windows.) Even Windows 3.0 had "silly" limitations that would be brought down simply by being a Moderator on Slashdot. In addition, when 32-bit computing was made easily accessable with Windows 95, there was still a "silly" 16-bit coordinate system limitation for drawing.
How does returning a result code help when you queue up tasks for being done in the background? As any Windows programmer knows (and perhaps for Motif or X11), there are a lot of functions that provide capability for doing non-blocking calls to resources and I/O activity - a return code is useless if you want to know about the status of the operation once it finishes (aside from determining if it was started.)
The ram has to be used somewhere...
Of course, similar statements were made about Windows XP - I didn't know what they were talking since I configured my system to be adjusted for best performance rather than best appearance. (Even after getting rid of the annoying smooth scrolling.)
The commit charge was under 150. It did rise to around 200-250 when I loaded up applications (including two instances of Microsoft Visual Studio 2003), but Windows itself doesn't absorb too much memory.
The same reasoning may apply to Windows Vista - is a stock install being used, or was the computer configured to minimize memory footprint? I can understand extra memory cost if Windows is now maintaining the full contents of each window on the screen - that was a feature demonstrated at a user group and was intended to help with deciding which application to choose for ALT-TAB.
Anyone who has an Amiga would know that a massive number of copied disks is not an issue.
I had an Amiga 500 at home - while I haven't heard of as many horror stories as some other people mentioned, I do know that disks inserted into the computer have a slightly higher rate of collecting errors. Most likely, errors are caused by ejecting disks, since it seems that the drive head was originally in contact with the disk in question (and that the default OS for the Amiga is known to spontaneously read the disk suddenly.)
These aren't errors of death - it's eventually a bad sector that manifests itself after seveal months of use. When compared to IBM computers and other modern computers, the disks seem to have about half to a third of the lifespan, mainly because the drive head is in greater contact with the disk during ejection sequence.
In this case alone, RSS is simply an extra burden. However, it is a simple implementation to fix: integreate RSS with precaching - instead of having to wait for the RSS feed to load then waiting for the homepage to load, the RSS newsfeed aggregator will also pre-fetch the homepage of the sites you want to visit. (Although this is not recommended.)
As for me, I see the potential of RSS, but generally don't like seeing bandwidth taken up by applications that insist on doing automatic-downloading without asking for permission first. Even if this should not be an issue, it is for me since most local ISPs have a bandwidth cap. (Ironically, I use MSN Messenger.)
I only really used RSS once - that was with a semi-old Mozilla implementation that simply pulled the headlines from news.bbc.co.uk. Of course, there was no information on whether those bookmarks updated or not, nor was there any visible information on when they updated. (It's also a simple change to have a secondary icon to indicate if there was a recent change or should be a recent change since the last time I checked the RSS feed.)
I'm suprised at the 4%... mainly because people keep confusing it with the 12%. For those still confused, 4% use it, 12% know what it is.
In reality, 4% is a reasonable number. Not everyone is a hard-core internet fan (or needs broadband), and doesn't do much more than visit their favourite internet site.
I've been responsible for troubleshooting Apple computers. One issue I encountered is ejecting a CD from a Mac Mini. It seems simple enough, but:
- The keyboard is not compatible with the MacMini (it's a Microsoft wireless keyboard.) Even if it was, it doesn't have an eject button that mest keyboards use.
- The mouse is not campatible with the MacMini (it's a Microsoft wireless mouse.)
- There is no visible hole to eject a CD.
I'm also expected to resolve issues as fast as I can. And I also need to support wireless products.
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. However, there is a localized information deficiency caused by lack of equipment. As a result, I have to go on the internet and do a google search on what is going on - and MacOS 9 is generally considered a bit too obscure to find any solid information.
It's an interesting matter - I experience both information deficiency and information overload at the same time.
Even in this, "Information Overload" applies.
In literature... there is effectivly in infinite number of interpretations for fantasy and science fiction. If I ask you to describe a dragon, I either get a large flying lizard with Fire (or element) attack but can be taken down, or a supernatural being that effectivly levels entire cities.
In financial data... There's a reason why accounting in a profession - keeping track of every income and expendature is hard work, especially when you have to deal with taxes.
In legislation... the US is an example - are you aware that there are 50 different criminal codes in the USA?
That's sensationalism, not Journalism. It is usually found in Tabloid-class papers.
If you want to see Journalism, try reading a newspaper-class newspaper. One example, even though it is most likely not circulating in your area, is Metro News. Even though the stories isn't in-depth, it is enough to keep a good knowledge of local, semi-local, national and international events.
They can't do massive research for everything that comes up - there is a timelimit for stories. But you can tell that there is enough information on the front page.
I purchased a copy of Doom while I was under 18. This isn't an issue, if it weren't for the fact that I also got Duke Nukem 3D at the same time (an 18+ game.) Even though these are 'M' games, they are also engine games where any teenager can claim that he wants to play around with the new rendering engine, and that the lack of access to such an engine will stunt his/her career as a computer programmer.
Of course, this was at Business Depot (before the great name change), but the same rule applies. If the person looks like he is over 18, no ID is asked, as it would feel redundant... especially when a significant group of people between 18-23 do not have ID that proves minimum age.
A hand-held cellphone requires people to have three hand to drive a car: One hand on the phone, one hand on the wheel, and one hand to hold the finger out the window.
It's bad to be a Deviant, and just as bad to wish for a Deviation.
Actually, that's not corny - it's fully accurrate, and provides much more benefit than most so-called morale boosting activities. (e.g. ones that force everyone to join, and that look like it was organized by a high-school student).
Some people recognize those things a mile away. I am one of them, after experiencing it first hand, every year during elementry/high-school. It was okay the first time around, but eventually felt just like everything else at school - dull and boring.
Careful... That's one of the 10 magical signs that you are going to do a killing spree at your school - among other things such as "introversion, generally remains to himself", "refusing to unquestionably accept authority", "Tendancy not to carry ID, in-spite of the fact that such ID takes a few years to obtain", etc.
Where did you get that information?
QWERTY shows all the signs of being a slow keyboard when given proper analysis - have you seen studies that carefully analysed the QWERTY and DVORAK layouts, including those that describe their history?
Roguelikes were designed to be used an a QWERTY keyboard, which is a keyboard designed to slow typists to prevent typewriters from jamming.
OPTIONS=number_pad is required if you use a dvorak keyboard layout - either that, or a lot of rebinding keys.
Rebinding keys is also difficult as there are some keys that are redundant. For example, 'W'earing armor is considered completely seperate from 'P'utting on accessories, even though they both have the same effect, risks and stuff. This is the only cause of annoyance to players using number_pad, since at least one of those two is on the far end of the main keyboard section (requiring the hand to be moved.)
It could be worse, but anyway...
A Blackberry is a pocket device with a sufficient number of buttons.
And that's where the machine will fail.
The C64 is a case in point: What happens when you fill a floppy disk? The files on the disk are lost because the drive attempts to write to the alternate side of the disk.
I have one question: Where does a "forty-something engineer who's been around the block, worked on various architectures, at various levels of the system, held various roles in a team, and had to pick herself up and dust herself off after a failure or two" come from?
While you could grab a copy of MacOS, Linux, BSD or other stuff, you do not "get" any "experience" until you've been employed.
Even so, most amateur programmers need plenty of paper references, a good IDE, or a perfect online-documentation (as do professionals learning a new tech.)
To get in that contest, you have to blow a lot of money on a scalper - only to reasize that you had to miss eight days of work just to be early in line.
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/1F14.html
Besides, you don't get the individual attention required for the 15 minutes of fame. When you are part of such a large group, it doesn't feel special at all.
Don't do that. 800x600 at 72Hz is okay, but 60Hz is more than likely to give you a headache.
A quick gift idea for a gamer: Anything other than a game.
If you pick a random game off the shelf, it's one of the following:
- Substandard.
- Already owned.
- A rehash.
If you do your research, it still might not work. Do your loved one a favour, and give him chocolates, a card, or something else of sentamental value.
To take out Sweden via CyberTerror, you need to attack nodes critical to the operation to the country. Same goes with the US.
There are two posibilities:
- There are the same number of nodes in the US and Sweden. In this case, attacking the US nodes does more damage, as each node controls a lot more than the equivalent in Sweden.
- There are less nodes in Sweden than in the US. In this case, there are less targets of opportunity for Sweden.
The biggest damage caused by CyberTerror: CNN/Yahoo/whatever got taken off the web. Whooppie. CyberTerror is only really effective against one individual (which is really harassment) as opposed to critical infrastructure (as they are generally isolated networks or some other secured system.)
You did an acceptable response to that passage, but it can be better.
Try a "cause-and-effect" approach - do playing video games lower self-esteem (causing the kid to be abused), or are video games a result of low self-esteem (caused by the kid being abused)?
Anyway, the article seems throughly debunked already.
RSAC was much more in-depth, as it gave three independant rating levels.
Operation Flashpoint gets an 'M' rating.
Warcraft III gets a 'T' rating.
Worms 2 gets an 'E' rating.
All three games are graphically violent, but get different ratings. Why? I have no idea, but things like this create rumors of "red-pixel syndrome", where ESRB simply counts the number of visible red-pixels.
They only sent an auto-reply to him indicating that they will look into the issue. That's about it.
Even if his claims do hold ground, it will be difficult to recover damages - Amazon can't keep up with removing these kinds of reviews, especially when the book later dies into obscurity as simply another book published by a vanity publisher.
Do you also believe that computer experts should also be treated as useless nerds, geeks and retards? I'm asking, as that's the exact equivalent on how you want to treat lawyers.
I would like to comment on that:
- The "game addicts" on the same level of "TV addicts" do not have the problem you described: they can still stop playing at any time (like I do, e.g. grab a newspaper a block away), they can still run a schedule (even if there is no structure), sleep properly, and interact socially.
- Even though I may have the symptoms shown above, I make it a habit to stop as soon as possible when the timer hits twelve - only rarely do I go beyond that.
- My schedule was unbalanced because I have had nothing to do during my period of unemployment. This changed right after getting a position, as I went to sleep at 12:00 (at the latest) and set the alarm to 7:00.
- Sleep deprivation was caused by uncomfortable sleep, not excess video games. I know this is a fact, since there is a 50% chance per blanket of a blanket appearing on the floor. In addition, I wake up at 5:00 and 8:00, both before and after the alarm. The result is that it feels like I had 4 hours of sleep in an uncomfortable position. (Probably the pillow, but it could be something else.)
- I shunned social interaction because the majority of people in my elementry/high school years were assholes.
- Since I rely on public transportation, I can't go out and explore as that would take well too much time. Even if I could explore, it is not likely that I would spot the well known supplier of cheap computer components known as "OEM Express" (other stores have since caught up to their semi-low prices.)
- It may have been worse when I was younger as it cut into time that I should have spent studying or doing homework. Of course, I never had a need to study. Homework was either trivial, tedious gruntwork that did not really advance my knowledge, or impossible for me to complete (as I did not have artistic abilities at the time).
The only ones that have these symptoms that are directly centered around games have a disabilitating addiction - which should not be compared to a casual addiction that these TV addicts have.