Doom was the beginning of 3D, first-person shooters
Huh? So I didn't really spend ages playing Wolfenstein 3D before Doom came out, then? That said, Doom was by far the better game, and not just because of the better graphics or game engine, either. This is borne out by the fact that I'm still playing Doom today, while I haven't touched Wolfenstein in years...
Are you ever tempted to get a car that isn't a Ferrari (e.g., Lamborghini, Maclaren, etc.)? Which is your favourite of the cars you own (or have owned)?
How much of the codebase is common across all platforms? Do you primarily design for one platform, and then effectively port to the rest, or do you start off with portability in mind, and use common codebase for all platforms?
IMO, the only reason evolution is not considered a "law" is because of the public (creationistic) response against it.
No, the reason evolution is not considered a law is because it's still just a theory. For it to become more than a theory, it has to be observed, and to date, that hasn't yet been done. For evolution to be considered a law, a species has to be seen to evolve into two (or more) separate species that can't interbreed. Although, we've observed various mutations leading to different characteristics in a number of creatures, it's the interbreeding part that's critical, and that's the bit we've yet to see.
As it happens, we may be on the verge of seeing just that (with a type of moth somewhere obscure that I can't remember:-), at which point, evolution will be considered a law.
The web browser is the "new universal interface" in the same way telnet still is.
Nope. It's a universal interface for simple applications. Anything that requires conditional processing is out unless you go the Java route, and given how slow/flaky the JVMs in most browsers are, that's probably not a good plan. JavaScript and DHTML help to some extent, but they don't go far enough. Try changing the entries in a form menu based on an earlier action in anything other than Java. PHP can do it, but only with a page reload which is unacceptable for performance reasons. I'd love to do a web font end for my current application (which is written in Tcl at the moment), but it's too complex to do without using Java (which we're not allowed to use anyway, because we don't have enough Java expertise on site to support the applicaiton).
Nail file, scissors and a small blade (for opening letters?).
Actually, I have one and wouldn't be without it. It's small, the blade is sharp, the file has a screwdriver tip which is ideal for getting to small screws that are inaccessible to the larger models (due to the tin opener getting in the way), and the scissors are useful for stripping wires if nothing else. And it comes in black:-)
Of course I also have a larger one, too. Sadly, they don't seem to do them without the corkscrews any more -- you used to be able to get a crossheaded screwdriver instead of the corkscrew -- much more useful.
Sun SparcStations hold their MAC address in a NVRAM
Yes, they do, which is wrong -- what happens when you have multiple network cards in a machine? The answer is that Sun violates the standards, and has a MAC address per machine rather than per card...
I bought my 128MB DIMM for 54 pounds sterling about 2 months ago. A week later, they'd dropped to 49, and then prices went through the roof. Last week they were up to 198 pounds (about US$317), but have now starting falling back down again, and are at 167 today. That said, I was quoted up to 245 pounds wandering round the shops in Tottenham Court Road on Saturday. All prices exclude VAT at 17.5%.
From looking at other posts, I guess memory in the US is still dirt cheap (at least compared to our prices in the UK)
There's a reason people don't use direct funds transfers. It's a rip-off. In case you idiots haven't noticed, most banks charge extra for direct debit
Yikes! You really do live in a backward country!:-) Here in the UK, banks charge less for direct debit, because it saves them paperwork. Utilities typically offer around a 5% discount if you pay by direct debit for the same reasons -- it saves them money. A recent survey showed an average family in the UK will save the equivalent of around US$400 a year by paying bills with direct debit.
Hmmm. Doesn't look much like strat to me. And if it's a guitar (it does have six strings), why does it have bass pickups? It's definitely not a Fender head, the top horns look like a BC Rich, and for some reason they made it left handed...
The fact of the matter is that there are some things that just seem wrong to us.
Perhaps so, but this isn't one of them, at least not to me, anyway.
Then is it fair to the child to kill it and deprive it of everything.
Everyone comes into this world with but one natural right -- the right to die. Everything else is a bonus. The universe isn't fair, so fairness doesn't come into it when deciding whether or not to allow killing a disabled baby. All you'd be depriving the child of is a bonus to which it has no natural entitlement anyway.
Sorry Mr. Singer, but you are wrong.
Actually, no. He's right. Whether society can see past it's own prejudices to agree with him is another matter entirely.
... when they start patenting the kinds of ideas that I think up when I'm driving I get pretty pissed.
Agreed, but that very fact probably makes the patent invalid. In order to be patentable, an idea has to be innovative, not something that would be obvious to anyone with a working knowledge of the area in question. Of course, the patent offices don't tend to have the required working knowledge, and so issue patents that they really shouldn't. However, the fact the the patent is issued doesn't make it valid, and it's unlikely to stand up in court. That doesn't help when J. Random Corporation has millions to pay lawyers and you don't, though...
Alphas are just better/faster processors than Sparcs, and the Linux support is much better
Interesting. Why do you say Linux support is better on the Alpha? The UltraSPARC is very well supported by Linux, and probably has the best SMP support of any Linux platform. Linux installs out of the box on both systems (Red Hat is available for both, and Debian support is either there or coming very soon).
As for the Alpha being a better processor than the UltraSPARC, that's debatable, particularly when talking about the UltraSPARC III. That said, the Alpha is almost certainly better than the CPU in an Ultra 5 (which is one of the older UltraSPARCs).
The area that I see this technology being most useful is in reliable portable storage. In particular, IBM's microdrives (1" disks, not the old Sinclair endless tape loop!) could be turned into a very nice, very small RAID array. This was suggested when they were first announced, but each disk was limited to 170MB IIRC, which didn't lend itself to many practical uses. With this new technology, they're claiming over 2GB for a 1" disk -- 5 of those would give an 8GB RAID 5 array in a *very* small physical space.
one 'trusted' source instead of having to track down 21 security fixes from different sources, which in some cases might require recompiling.
Sigh. You don't have to track down security fixes from different sources, and you don't have to recompile anything. Just go to Red Hat's updates page, download everything and do rpm -Uv *.rpm
What's the problem with a 6'4" elf? Why do they have to make out that elves are short?
As far as I know, AD&D elves are always tall (presumably modelled after Tolkein elves). Certainly the two in our current campain are over 6' tall, and I don't recall having short elves in any previous campaigns.
I have to say I'm dreading the movie. I'm one of those that believes is virtually impossible to do fantasy well on film (as opposed to SF, which is easy), and as fantasy goes, AD&D is pretty much at the top of the pile. I'll go and see it anyway, but I'm not expecting much from it. It can't possibly live up to what I see in my mind anyway...
Is Linux *really* that slow on an IPC? Although I haven't checked recently, Linux used to be marginally faster than SunOS and blew Solaris out of the water on low end hardware. Linux also works great on my HyperSPARC upgraded SS20, but that's another kettle of fish...
The operating system they sell is far from their primary business.
True enough, but I doubt the hardware is, either. Yes, the hardware division is almost certainly very profitable, but I'll pretty much guarantee that Sun makes most of their money from support and services, just as all the others do (IBM, Compaq, SGI, etc.).
Sun plans to eventually make the entire code base of Solaris available. "There's nothing we are scared of in that space," he said. "We only see it as an upside opportunity."
While we've known that Sun were going to do this for some time now, it's a pleasant surprise that they're making the entire codebase available. Until now, it was always going to be desktop Solaris that was community sourced, but they were planning on keeping the high end stuff (clustering, massive SMP, etc.) proprietary. Sure, the license sucks, but it's better than nothing. We can still take the best ideas (although not the code directly) and incorporate them into Linux, *BSD, etc.
Personally, I'd like to see DG/UX opensourced. It's probably the best Unix kernel available today, and I'm sure that EMC are going to drop DG/UX like a hot potato as soon as their contract lets them. They were only ever after CLARiiON anyway...
Use OpenGL for the game itself. That's fully portable between Win32 and X11, as well as having many other advantages (speed, simplicity, flexibility, etc.) For the surrounding bits (if there are any) such as menus etc., either use glut if your needs are relatively simple, or one of the newer toolkits like Gtk+ or Qt otherwise. Avoid Xlib/Xt/Motif like the plague. As you say, Gtk already has a Win32 version available, although it wasn't fully stable last time I looked at it. Qt also has a Win32 version, but you may need a $1500 development license (has this changed with the new license? I haven't checked). Qt also limits you to using C++.
Oh yeah, don't be put off OpenGL if you're doing a 2D game -- although it excels at 3D, it's just as good in 2 dimensions, too!
I had a quick look at the networking section. I quote:
Please note that the examples given here are from the Slackware distribution. The paths of the files might be different on other distributions of Linux.
Fair enough, at least they mention it, but to use Slackware as illustration is not representative of Linux as a whole. In particular, no other distribution I've come across still uses that nasty/etc/rc.d/rc.inet2 file. Since virtually all the other distributions use SysV style init scripts (and rightly so, IMNSHO), it would have been better to use that for illustrative purposes.
I happened to install both Linux and Win98 on a new machine recently. Apart from the configure device/reboot cycle that you have to go through half a zillion times, the Win98 install was very impressive. It's what Linux should be aiming for. Yes, it took a long time, and yes, it would have been considerably more complex if it hadn't made assumptions about partitioning, but it was very simple -- a huge improvement on installing Win95. Linux isn't as hard to install as people make out, but that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement, and Win98 isn't a bad level to aim for.
The major downside, though, was that it was sooooo slow. Linux on the same box whizzed through the install, and was ready to use in no time at all (apart from having to fix some of the broken Red Hat defaults, like ignoring the users'.inputrc).
FWIW, I also installed Linux and Solaris 7 on my Sparc this week, too. Linux took it's usual 20 minutes. Slowaris took over 4 hours...
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Huh? So I didn't really spend ages playing Wolfenstein 3D before Doom came out, then? That said, Doom was by far the better game, and not just because of the better graphics or game engine, either. This is borne out by the fact that I'm still playing Doom today, while I haven't touched Wolfenstein in years...
Are you ever tempted to get a car that isn't a Ferrari (e.g., Lamborghini, Maclaren, etc.)? Which is your favourite of the cars you own (or have owned)?
How much of the codebase is common across all platforms? Do you primarily design for one platform, and then effectively port to the rest, or do you start off with portability in mind, and use common codebase for all platforms?
No, the reason evolution is not considered a law is because it's still just a theory. For it to become more than a theory, it has to be observed, and to date, that hasn't yet been done. For evolution to be considered a law, a species has to be seen to evolve into two (or more) separate species that can't interbreed. Although, we've observed various mutations leading to different characteristics in a number of creatures, it's the interbreeding part that's critical, and that's the bit we've yet to see.
As it happens, we may be on the verge of seeing just that (with a type of moth somewhere obscure that I can't remember :-), at which point, evolution will be considered a law.
Nope. It's a universal interface for simple applications. Anything that requires conditional processing is out unless you go the Java route, and given how slow/flaky the JVMs in most browsers are, that's probably not a good plan. JavaScript and DHTML help to some extent, but they don't go far enough. Try changing the entries in a form menu based on an earlier action in anything other than Java. PHP can do it, but only with a page reload which is unacceptable for performance reasons. I'd love to do a web font end for my current application (which is written in Tcl at the moment), but it's too complex to do without using Java (which we're not allowed to use anyway, because we don't have enough Java expertise on site to support the applicaiton).
Actually, I have one and wouldn't be without it. It's small, the blade is sharp, the file has a screwdriver tip which is ideal for getting to small screws that are inaccessible to the larger models (due to the tin opener getting in the way), and the scissors are useful for stripping wires if nothing else. And it comes in black :-)
Of course I also have a larger one, too. Sadly, they don't seem to do them without the corkscrews any more -- you used to be able to get a crossheaded screwdriver instead of the corkscrew -- much more useful.
You're just soooo wrong. My NeXTs look excellent in black! Can you imagine them in beige? Bleugh!
eris:~$ dd if=/dev/zero of=~/.signature bs=1 count=120
On a machine called eris, surely you should be using /dev/random, not /dev/zero? :-)
Yes, they do, which is wrong -- what happens when you have multiple network cards in a machine? The answer is that Sun violates the standards, and has a MAC address per machine rather than per card...
From looking at other posts, I guess memory in the US is still dirt cheap (at least compared to our prices in the UK)
Yikes! You really do live in a backward country! :-) Here in the UK, banks charge less for direct debit, because it saves them paperwork. Utilities typically offer around a 5% discount if you pay by direct debit for the same reasons -- it saves them money. A recent survey showed an average family in the UK will save the equivalent of around US$400 a year by paying bills with direct debit.
Take another look -- it is left handed. Personally, I'd prefer a right handed one for nano-Yngwie anyway, but that's personal preference for you...
Hmmm. Doesn't look much like strat to me. And if it's a guitar (it does have six strings), why does it have bass pickups? It's definitely not a Fender head, the top horns look like a BC Rich, and for some reason they made it left handed...
Perhaps so, but this isn't one of them, at least not to me, anyway.
Then is it fair to the child to kill it and deprive it of everything.
Everyone comes into this world with but one natural right -- the right to die. Everything else is a bonus. The universe isn't fair, so fairness doesn't come into it when deciding whether or not to allow killing a disabled baby. All you'd be depriving the child of is a bonus to which it has no natural entitlement anyway.
Sorry Mr. Singer, but you are wrong.
Actually, no. He's right. Whether society can see past it's own prejudices to agree with him is another matter entirely.
Agreed, but that very fact probably makes the patent invalid. In order to be patentable, an idea has to be innovative, not something that would be obvious to anyone with a working knowledge of the area in question. Of course, the patent offices don't tend to have the required working knowledge, and so issue patents that they really shouldn't. However, the fact the the patent is issued doesn't make it valid, and it's unlikely to stand up in court. That doesn't help when J. Random Corporation has millions to pay lawyers and you don't, though...
Interesting. Why do you say Linux support is better on the Alpha? The UltraSPARC is very well supported by Linux, and probably has the best SMP support of any Linux platform. Linux installs out of the box on both systems (Red Hat is available for both, and Debian support is either there or coming very soon).
As for the Alpha being a better processor than the UltraSPARC, that's debatable, particularly when talking about the UltraSPARC III. That said, the Alpha is almost certainly better than the CPU in an Ultra 5 (which is one of the older UltraSPARCs).
The area that I see this technology being most useful is in reliable portable storage. In particular, IBM's microdrives (1" disks, not the old Sinclair endless tape loop!) could be turned into a very nice, very small RAID array. This was suggested when they were first announced, but each disk was limited to 170MB IIRC, which didn't lend itself to many practical uses. With this new technology, they're claiming over 2GB for a 1" disk -- 5 of those would give an 8GB RAID 5 array in a *very* small physical space.
Sigh. You don't have to track down security fixes from different sources, and you don't have to recompile anything. Just go to Red Hat's updates page, download everything and do rpm -Uv *.rpm
As far as I know, AD&D elves are always tall (presumably modelled after Tolkein elves). Certainly the two in our current campain are over 6' tall, and I don't recall having short elves in any previous campaigns.
I have to say I'm dreading the movie. I'm one of those that believes is virtually impossible to do fantasy well on film (as opposed to SF, which is easy), and as fantasy goes, AD&D is pretty much at the top of the pile. I'll go and see it anyway, but I'm not expecting much from it. It can't possibly live up to what I see in my mind anyway...
So basically, it's about the same size as a conventional CD/DVD.
Is Linux *really* that slow on an IPC? Although I haven't checked recently, Linux used to be marginally faster than SunOS and blew Solaris out of the water on low end hardware. Linux also works great on my HyperSPARC upgraded SS20, but that's another kettle of fish...
True enough, but I doubt the hardware is, either. Yes, the hardware division is almost certainly very profitable, but I'll pretty much guarantee that Sun makes most of their money from support and services, just as all the others do (IBM, Compaq, SGI, etc.).
While we've known that Sun were going to do this for some time now, it's a pleasant surprise that they're making the entire codebase available. Until now, it was always going to be desktop Solaris that was community sourced, but they were planning on keeping the high end stuff (clustering, massive SMP, etc.) proprietary. Sure, the license sucks, but it's better than nothing. We can still take the best ideas (although not the code directly) and incorporate them into Linux, *BSD, etc.
Personally, I'd like to see DG/UX opensourced. It's probably the best Unix kernel available today, and I'm sure that EMC are going to drop DG/UX like a hot potato as soon as their contract lets them. They were only ever after CLARiiON anyway...
Oh yeah, don't be put off OpenGL if you're doing a 2D game -- although it excels at 3D, it's just as good in 2 dimensions, too!
Fair enough, at least they mention it, but to use Slackware as illustration is not representative of Linux as a whole. In particular, no other distribution I've come across still uses that nasty /etc/rc.d/rc.inet2 file. Since virtually all the other distributions use SysV style init scripts (and rightly so, IMNSHO), it would have been better to use that for illustrative purposes.
The major downside, though, was that it was sooooo slow. Linux on the same box whizzed through the install, and was ready to use in no time at all (apart from having to fix some of the broken Red Hat defaults, like ignoring the users' .inputrc).
FWIW, I also installed Linux and Solaris 7 on my Sparc this week, too. Linux took it's usual 20 minutes. Slowaris took over 4 hours...