Disappointing. SQL Server had really come a long way, too. Maybe 2005 won't be too late.
Customers may be more disappointed than you think. I attended a conference last week, where Microsoft was in attendance. I sat in on the SQL Server presentation. The Microsoft guy implied it might not make 2005, but would be 1H2006 (likely 1Q2006).
Yup, it's being slashdotted right now. According to the last access time in my web server logs, I think his site stopped responding at 21:09 US/Central.
this happened to a website i had, but the idiots that ripped the site forgot to copy the stylesheet and left it linked to ours, so the next day their site was pink and purple, and a home for gay pride
I run the FreeDOS.org web site, and we have several volunteer mirror sites. Once in a while, a mirror site stops getting updated, and I take them off the mirror list and notify the mirror's owner (if I still have the contact info.)
It so happens that one mirror site hasn't been updated in over 2 years, but they still refer to an image-rotator CGI that is hosted on FreeDOS.org. That CGI now generates an 800x600 "hey dummy! this mirror site is way out of date!" message.
Unfortunately, no one has contacted me and the site is still up. So I assume the mirror site owner is out to lunch. He still gets hits, though (I see the CGI in my access logs.)
Code leaks from Microsoft are not new. Check this article at CIO Update about a code leak a year ago: (emphasis mine)
Microsoft Corp. said it is tracing a key piece of code from its Windows Server 2003 software that was leaked onto the Internet, triggering concerns about piracy problems ahead of the company's scheduled product release later this month.
The volume-licensing key in question allows for unlimited installations of Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 server operating system, the next upgrade from Windows NT that is slated for release on April 24.
However, this seems only to be a partial leak, not comparable to this complete (if it's real) source code leak.
This is possibly one of the cooler hacks (read: completely useless, but very cool) I've seen in a while.
But personally, I'd rather have the Linux be-blinkenlights hack that someone put together in the 1990's. It consisted of a C program that monitored CPU usage and sent info to the serial port, and a circuit you could build and wire to your serial port to generate a 10-bar LED bar graph that represented the load on your system.
I see that Fallen Host by Lyda Morehouse is on the novel nomination list. This is great! I actually know Lyda, and her next book looks like it will be great! If you haven't read her LINK series, you need to start. They're very much like Gibson and Stevenson, but with an interesting twist. I expect most geeks who like Gibson and Stevenson novels will love the LINK series.
Ironically, Fallen Host is no longer being printed by the publisher. I guess due to declining sales, even though it's a Nebula Award nominee, and book #2 of a 4-book series. I can't find it on Amazon anymore. New copies aren't available on BN.com anymore, either, although they do list some used copies. Also check your local bookstores, including used bookstores.
From the article: Forty-seven years after IBM unleashed it, Fortran (formula translation), the original "high-level" programming language, would seem to be the infotech equivalent of cuneiform. But it's still widely used, especially in scientific computing.
And it's scary to think that I could very likely sit down and write FORTRAN code, to this very day. And I learned it lo these many years ago, as my first compiled language. Heck, my first day job (an internship) involved improving on a data analysis program written in FORTRAN-IV. Ugly code, but still easy to manipulate.
Ugh...after Ion Storm butchered Deus Ex: Invisible War by designing it for the Xbox first, I'm NOT looking forward to Thief III any more; I know it'll simply be more of the same - low frame rates, inconsistent graphics, small areas and shallow gameplay.
I know I'm getting really off topic here, and I'll probably be modded down for it, but I wondered why a game like Thief couldn't have been done using a simpler engine? (I loved Thief and Thief2, BTW.)
For example, if you treat Thief the way it was supposed to be taken (first person "sneaker") the weaps are just: blackjack and arrows. Arrows fall into different classes: normal, water, fire, moss, line/rope/vine, smoke/gas.
Under that set of assumptions, you could use a fairly simple engine to create a Thief3-like game that keeps you in 3rd person view when you're sneaking around, and puts you 1st person view when you draw your bow (to aim/shoot an arrow). Take the Jak2 engine, for example. You have huge areas (i.e. Haven City) with basically no load time (because new areas are loaded into memory as you approach them.) Add environmental sound, lighting, and enemy AI to give you the feel of the original Thief and Thief2.
That would actually be a fun game. Notice how the game elements of Thief are boiled down to their basic elements that defined the game.
Heck, if you were willing to simplify gameplay even further, you could even use the TombRaider (PS1) engine to do this. And it would still be a fun game, because the basic elements are all there.
But when I read the previews of Thief3, I'm disappointed. They seemed to have started with a set of assumptions: make the game huge, make the levels minutely detailed, make everything dynamic - but those assumptions also require lots of memory to execute. An XBox (or any console today) doesn't have the memory to execute it. So the game was broken down to fit the lowest common denominator: the XBox. Smaller levels, shallow gameplay. Imagine entering a "mist" and selecting "yes" when asked if you want to move to the next region. That entirely takes away from the immersion of Thief and Thief2 (both had passable graphics, even for the time, but were very immersive in their way.)
What could have been a great game (Thief3) was shoe-horned into a small execution footprint because the design was created separately from the considerations of the platforms it would run on.
I guess the bottom line here is: focus on the gameplay elements that define the game, then create your design around that with respect to the platforms it will run on.
{feel free to mod me down - this has nothing to do with HL2}
Ah, I take that back. I forgot to save my preferences and so the removal of filters didn't take. The teen boob content was acceptable.
(suddenly, the google site is slashdotted by thousands, nay millions, of queries for the same image set: "teen boob". google admins wonder what the hell just happened.)
Re:Why today...
on
SCO Offline
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Oh, hi andy. Yes, this is what we refer to as an "off by one" error. The attack is scheduled Feb 1 (Sun) through Feb 12 (Thu). That's off by one. Feb 2-13 would have gotten you two full business weeks.
Solution 5: SCO Execs point www.sco.com at the loopback address 127.0.0.1, end lawsuits, dismiss lawyers, and invest remaining corporate cash reserves in call options in Dell & Microsoft stock.
Consequences: No denial of service traffic whatsoever seen on the Internet. Millions of Windows users notice that their computer is running extremely slowly. Many buy new machines, which fixes the problem. Dell & Microsoft stock rises. Everyone lives happily ever after.
:-)
Seriously, I find it interesting that more news hasn't been made of the apology buried in the MyDoom.B virus:
The creator of what anti-virus experts say is the fastest spreading virus ever on the Internet signed Mydoom and Mydoom.B with "andy," and left the following message in the latter version: "I'm just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry."
I really, really wonder if a programmer out there will develop a burning conscience, quit his job and leak his story to the press. Man, I'd really like to know what company was responsible for this.
Re:Don't be led astray by things you don't need.
on
KISS
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Unfortunately you have the KeepingUpWithTheJoneses factor to deal with: Jones(A) gets a new phone with games. Not to be outdone, Jones(B) gets a phone with games and a camera. Jones(C) gets a phone with games and a higher-resolution camera.. Repeat ad infinitum.
Not quite. My brother used to work at Microsoft, and he once commented on something that I've carried with me in my career. It's not that the customers are in a "keeping up with the Jones'" mode, but the vendors are.
Example: Microsoft didn't add a grammar checker to Word because the customers were demanding one. In fact, the first MS grammar checker was worthless. (I haven't used MS products in years.. I don't know if it's improved since.) Microsoft added one to Word (version 4.0?) because WordPerfect had added a grammar checker. Microsoft didn't want to look like they also didn't have the features.
Phones are the same way: "It's a phone with a tiny web browser in it." / "We can do web, and we'll add mini-games." / "Okay, we'll do games, but ours are in color." / "We'll also add colors, and we'll support java." / "Now let's add a low-res camera." / "We'll add a hi-res camera too - and also walkie talkie." And so on. Pretty soom, everyone will have a little inkjet printer in their phone, just because the vendors are trying to keep up with each other.
Another way to look at it: if everyone has the same basic features as everyone else, then the product that "wins" isn't necessarily the best product - it's the product that sucks the least.
"The only risk factor we could find in this case was the fact that Dominic had sat on his legs for 10 hours playing computer games without moving... [however, it] doesn't mean that the government should be putting health warnings on PlayStations."
No, we should be putting them on XBoxes, which is what he was playing at the time (as suggested by the XBox photo attached to the article.) So now we know the truth: Microsoft products are a health problem.
Is GPL worse than propietory???
Ever noticed how in the Middle Ages the Church was much more concerned with suppressing heresies rather than battling infidels? (the Spanish Inquisition was the tip of the iceberg, really, nothing more). Ideas similar to yours but different enough could be your worst enemies; after all, they compete for similar ecological niches, biologically speaking.
Ah, so this is a 'Cathedral and the Bazaar' analogy, then?
There was a game for the old Mac... I think it was called Robotwars. It was turn-based. You had a small set of robots in a play field, and you'd play out a "script" for them: Go over there, hunker down, and scan that area for enemies (shoot if you see any). Last player with any robots standing wins.
It was a great game, but simple in concept. Graphics were's too great (isometric view) but not any worse than, say, any GBA game. Your opponnents were only visible if one of your robots could see them.
It would take some work to re-do Robotwars for anything other than a PC, but it would make for a great GBA game.
Why? I live in Minnesota, so for half the year it's kind of hard to go outside for some kind of exercise. So I needed something that I could do indoors, as well. I have a PS2, so a friend recommended Dance Dance Revolution.
I've been doing DDR for a little over a year (starting with DDR:Konamix), and of course now I'm doing DDR:Max2.
I've been pretty good about getting 4-5 days a week of ~40min doing DDR. I do 1-2 "green" songs (easy), 1-2 "blue" songs (moderate), then the rest of the time I'm doing "yellow" (very difficult).
Actually, I just bought one of RedOctane's high-end Dance pads (the metal one), but not because of this article. All that jumping around takes a good toll on my Dance pads. An off-the-shelf pad usually lasts me a few months. My current Dance pad is starting to get a little flaky.
That's why I started looking around for a better pad, and found the RedOctane pads were highly recommended on several forums.
Lots of people have had good reports about this pad. It's very sturdy, and should last a few *years*.
Also, I've lost quite a bit of weight over the last year - I'm down to 224, and I've lost ~4 inches. Some of that is diet (I don't eat as much red meat, I eat oatmeal for breakfast, and I've cut out almost all of my snacks) but most of it is due to getting more exercise with DDR.
I had to buy a whole new wardrobe, but I don't really mind.:-)
Just a friendly little FYI... the Spyro games were not made my Naughty Dog, but by Insomniac. However, as far as I know, there were some people involved with both companies in the creation of Crash Bandicoot (Naughty Dog) and Spyro.
Doh! You're right. However, AFAIK Naughty Dog and Insomniac did share technology - I believe the engine used to create Jak & Daxter was the same used in Ratchet & Clank.
Slashdot Mirror
Disappointing. SQL Server had really come a long way, too. Maybe 2005 won't be too late.
Customers may be more disappointed than you think. I attended a conference last week, where Microsoft was in attendance. I sat in on the SQL Server presentation. The Microsoft guy implied it might not make 2005, but would be 1H2006 (likely 1Q2006).
Yup, it's being slashdotted right now. According to the last access time in my web server logs, I think his site stopped responding at 21:09 US/Central.
Slashdot has achieved what I could not. :)
Thanks!
Can you provide me with a link to that site? I would love to see it...
Okay. Here's a non-clickable link to the offender:
http://freedos.ne.com.ar/
this happened to a website i had, but the idiots that ripped the site forgot to copy the stylesheet and left it linked to ours, so the next day their site was pink and purple, and a home for gay pride
I run the FreeDOS.org web site, and we have several volunteer mirror sites. Once in a while, a mirror site stops getting updated, and I take them off the mirror list and notify the mirror's owner (if I still have the contact info.)
It so happens that one mirror site hasn't been updated in over 2 years, but they still refer to an image-rotator CGI that is hosted on FreeDOS.org. That CGI now generates an 800x600 "hey dummy! this mirror site is way out of date!" message.
Unfortunately, no one has contacted me and the site is still up. So I assume the mirror site owner is out to lunch. He still gets hits, though (I see the CGI in my access logs.)
I find that completely colorable. Kids' dilatoriness cause them to be parsimonious.
You must have the "Learn-a-word" toilet paper? :_)
Looks like the censors finally beeped out the profanity.
"Dow" is a profanity?
Code leaks from Microsoft are not new. Check this article at CIO Update about a code leak a year ago: (emphasis mine)
Microsoft Corp. said it is tracing a key piece of code from its Windows Server 2003 software that was leaked onto the Internet, triggering concerns about piracy problems ahead of the company's scheduled product release later this month. The volume-licensing key in question allows for unlimited installations of Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 server operating system, the next upgrade from Windows NT that is slated for release on April 24.
However, this seems only to be a partial leak, not comparable to this complete (if it's real) source code leak.
This is possibly one of the cooler hacks (read: completely useless, but very cool) I've seen in a while.
But personally, I'd rather have the Linux be-blinkenlights hack that someone put together in the 1990's. It consisted of a C program that monitored CPU usage and sent info to the serial port, and a circuit you could build and wire to your serial port to generate a 10-bar LED bar graph that represented the load on your system.
Anyone know if this still exists anywhere?
I see that Fallen Host by Lyda Morehouse is on the novel nomination list. This is great! I actually know Lyda, and her next book looks like it will be great! If you haven't read her LINK series, you need to start. They're very much like Gibson and Stevenson, but with an interesting twist. I expect most geeks who like Gibson and Stevenson novels will love the LINK series.
Ironically, Fallen Host is no longer being printed by the publisher. I guess due to declining sales, even though it's a Nebula Award nominee, and book #2 of a 4-book series. I can't find it on Amazon anymore. New copies aren't available on BN.com anymore, either, although they do list some used copies. Also check your local bookstores, including used bookstores.
From the article: Forty-seven years after IBM unleashed it, Fortran (formula translation), the original "high-level" programming language, would seem to be the infotech equivalent of cuneiform. But it's still widely used, especially in scientific computing.
And it's scary to think that I could very likely sit down and write FORTRAN code, to this very day. And I learned it lo these many years ago, as my first compiled language. Heck, my first day job (an internship) involved improving on a data analysis program written in FORTRAN-IV. Ugly code, but still easy to manipulate.
Ugh...after Ion Storm butchered Deus Ex: Invisible War by designing it for the Xbox first, I'm NOT looking forward to Thief III any more; I know it'll simply be more of the same - low frame rates, inconsistent graphics, small areas and shallow gameplay.
I know I'm getting really off topic here, and I'll probably be modded down for it, but I wondered why a game like Thief couldn't have been done using a simpler engine? (I loved Thief and Thief2, BTW.)
For example, if you treat Thief the way it was supposed to be taken (first person "sneaker") the weaps are just: blackjack and arrows. Arrows fall into different classes: normal, water, fire, moss, line/rope/vine, smoke/gas.
Under that set of assumptions, you could use a fairly simple engine to create a Thief3-like game that keeps you in 3rd person view when you're sneaking around, and puts you 1st person view when you draw your bow (to aim/shoot an arrow). Take the Jak2 engine, for example. You have huge areas (i.e. Haven City) with basically no load time (because new areas are loaded into memory as you approach them.) Add environmental sound, lighting, and enemy AI to give you the feel of the original Thief and Thief2.
That would actually be a fun game. Notice how the game elements of Thief are boiled down to their basic elements that defined the game.
Heck, if you were willing to simplify gameplay even further, you could even use the TombRaider (PS1) engine to do this. And it would still be a fun game, because the basic elements are all there.
But when I read the previews of Thief3, I'm disappointed. They seemed to have started with a set of assumptions: make the game huge, make the levels minutely detailed, make everything dynamic - but those assumptions also require lots of memory to execute. An XBox (or any console today) doesn't have the memory to execute it. So the game was broken down to fit the lowest common denominator: the XBox. Smaller levels, shallow gameplay. Imagine entering a "mist" and selecting "yes" when asked if you want to move to the next region. That entirely takes away from the immersion of Thief and Thief2 (both had passable graphics, even for the time, but were very immersive in their way.)
What could have been a great game (Thief3) was shoe-horned into a small execution footprint because the design was created separately from the considerations of the platforms it would run on.
I guess the bottom line here is: focus on the gameplay elements that define the game, then create your design around that with respect to the platforms it will run on.
{feel free to mod me down - this has nothing to do with HL2}
Ah, I take that back. I forgot to save my preferences and so the removal of filters didn't take. The teen boob content was acceptable.
(suddenly, the google site is slashdotted by thousands, nay millions, of queries for the same image set: "teen boob". google admins wonder what the hell just happened.)
Oh, hi andy. Yes, this is what we refer to as an "off by one" error. The attack is scheduled Feb 1 (Sun) through Feb 12 (Thu). That's off by one. Feb 2-13 would have gotten you two full business weeks.
Bad programmer. Go sit by your dish.
Oh my, I didn't read my comment that way. Wonder if there's a way to delete a comment...
Its like saying "She likes sex. I like her hot looking cousin. Why not combine the two?"
Great suggestion! I'd try that with my wife ... except her cousin is a GUY.
So maybe not a good idea. :-)
I liked option #5 in the article you linked to:
Solution 5: SCO Execs point www.sco.com at the loopback address 127.0.0.1, end lawsuits, dismiss lawyers, and invest remaining corporate cash reserves in call options in Dell & Microsoft stock.
Consequences: No denial of service traffic whatsoever seen on the Internet. Millions of Windows users notice that their computer is running extremely slowly. Many buy new machines, which fixes the problem. Dell & Microsoft stock rises. Everyone lives happily ever after.
:-)
Seriously, I find it interesting that more news hasn't been made of the apology buried in the MyDoom.B virus: The creator of what anti-virus experts say is the fastest spreading virus ever on the Internet signed Mydoom and Mydoom.B with "andy," and left the following message in the latter version: "I'm just doing my job, nothing personal, sorry."
I really, really wonder if a programmer out there will develop a burning conscience, quit his job and leak his story to the press. Man, I'd really like to know what company was responsible for this.
Unfortunately you have the KeepingUpWithTheJoneses factor to deal with: Jones(A) gets a new phone with games. Not to be outdone, Jones(B) gets a phone with games and a camera. Jones(C) gets a phone with games and a higher-resolution camera.. Repeat ad infinitum.
Not quite. My brother used to work at Microsoft, and he once commented on something that I've carried with me in my career. It's not that the customers are in a "keeping up with the Jones'" mode, but the vendors are.
Example: Microsoft didn't add a grammar checker to Word because the customers were demanding one. In fact, the first MS grammar checker was worthless. (I haven't used MS products in years .. I don't know if it's improved since.) Microsoft added one to Word (version 4.0?) because WordPerfect had added a grammar checker. Microsoft didn't want to look like they also didn't have the features.
Phones are the same way: "It's a phone with a tiny web browser in it." / "We can do web, and we'll add mini-games." / "Okay, we'll do games, but ours are in color." / "We'll also add colors, and we'll support java." / "Now let's add a low-res camera." / "We'll add a hi-res camera too - and also walkie talkie." And so on. Pretty soom, everyone will have a little inkjet printer in their phone, just because the vendors are trying to keep up with each other.
Another way to look at it: if everyone has the same basic features as everyone else, then the product that "wins" isn't necessarily the best product - it's the product that sucks the least.
"The only risk factor we could find in this case was the fact that Dominic had sat on his legs for 10 hours playing computer games without moving... [however, it] doesn't mean that the government should be putting health warnings on PlayStations."
No, we should be putting them on XBoxes, which is what he was playing at the time (as suggested by the XBox photo attached to the article.) So now we know the truth: Microsoft products are a health problem.
Is GPL worse than propietory??? Ever noticed how in the Middle Ages the Church was much more concerned with suppressing heresies rather than battling infidels? (the Spanish Inquisition was the tip of the iceberg, really, nothing more). Ideas similar to yours but different enough could be your worst enemies; after all, they compete for similar ecological niches, biologically speaking.
Ah, so this is a 'Cathedral and the Bazaar' analogy, then?
Sorry, couldn't resist. :-)
Did some googling ... the game was actually called "Robosport", from Maxis.
Robosport - DOS and Win3x. There was also a port to Macintosh.
There was a game for the old Mac ... I think it was called Robotwars. It was turn-based. You had a small set of robots in a play field, and you'd play out a "script" for them: Go over there, hunker down, and scan that area for enemies (shoot if you see any). Last player with any robots standing wins.
It was a great game, but simple in concept. Graphics were's too great (isometric view) but not any worse than, say, any GBA game. Your opponnents were only visible if one of your robots could see them.
It would take some work to re-do Robotwars for anything other than a PC, but it would make for a great GBA game.
Why do I have a problem with the "(c) 1999" in this "screenshot" from Pac Man? (from the article) pacman.gif
Why? I live in Minnesota, so for half the year it's kind of hard to go outside for some kind of exercise. So I needed something that I could do indoors, as well. I have a PS2, so a friend recommended Dance Dance Revolution. I've been doing DDR for a little over a year (starting with DDR:Konamix), and of course now I'm doing DDR:Max2. I've been pretty good about getting 4-5 days a week of ~40min doing DDR. I do 1-2 "green" songs (easy), 1-2 "blue" songs (moderate), then the rest of the time I'm doing "yellow" (very difficult).
Actually, I just bought one of RedOctane's high-end Dance pads (the metal one), but not because of this article. All that jumping around takes a good toll on my Dance pads. An off-the-shelf pad usually lasts me a few months. My current Dance pad is starting to get a little flaky. That's why I started looking around for a better pad, and found the RedOctane pads were highly recommended on several forums. Lots of people have had good reports about this pad. It's very sturdy, and should last a few *years*.
Also, I've lost quite a bit of weight over the last year - I'm down to 224, and I've lost ~4 inches. Some of that is diet (I don't eat as much red meat, I eat oatmeal for breakfast, and I've cut out almost all of my snacks) but most of it is due to getting more exercise with DDR. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe, but I don't really mind. :-)
Just a friendly little FYI... the Spyro games were not made my Naughty Dog, but by Insomniac. However, as far as I know, there were some people involved with both companies in the creation of Crash Bandicoot (Naughty Dog) and Spyro.
Doh! You're right. However, AFAIK Naughty Dog and Insomniac did share technology - I believe the engine used to create Jak & Daxter was the same used in Ratchet & Clank.
Instead of us having to go to Mars, Mars is coming to us!
No, now we're just shooting back. For every rock they fired at us, we'll fire back a Beagle spacecraft.