Having money stolen by contractors I can understand... but when MY stolen money is used to buy incense, sarongs, and Dharma & Greg DVDs - well, that's just plain unAmerican!
I think a number of posters are missing the effect this has on average joe users. Sure, for the/. crowd, we know which end is up and uncheck the box. My father, my wife, my son, my clients; when they see something like that ask me, if I'm there, "do I need this?" When I'm not there they install it anyway becuase they think it is something they'll need later.
Then, at the end of the month, it's my job to uninstall that crap.
Average users are morbidly afraid of changing ANY default option when they install software.
Does anyone remember the demo Ron gave at the World Wide Developer's Conference? Was it May 1993...?
Anyway, I remember it was supposed to be a lecture about pen computing, and Apple had Ron come out and show the equation solving interface of the proto-graphing calculator. He threw a bunch o' X and Ys on the screen with some sins and coss for good measure. "Now if you want to solve for X"... and he tapped an X, dragged it to one side of the equals sign, and the equation solved itself.
We were floored. There was this deep silence for a couple of millisenconds and then everyone broke out in thunderous applause. He did more tricks with the equation interface and people hooted and hollered. It was a geek wet dream. After he finished he got a standing ovation and there was a long line of people who wanted to shake his hand.
...because every client is being sent the persistent state of the entities in the world (the entities are what we call the persistent objects in the world), that means that any client has all the information about the world. Because the client knows everything about the world, we can support making them be a new server, if the server machine was to turn off, get disconnected from Xbox Live or the player just wants to leave the game...
Interestingly enough, Bungie's master server and client model is the same model humans use for perceiving the world. For example, right now, Milton Flapdoodle in New Jersey is responsible for perceiving the world, authorizing adjustments to humanity's world view, and beaming the changes to each of us telepathically. Should something happen to Milton, a new server can be chosen because we each carry a copy of the complete world state inside us.
Unfortunately, the technique isn't foolproof and due to the high density of telepathic messages required there is some unexpected bleed-through amongst the clients. You can tell this happens when you witness a profoundly anomalous event like Britney Spears sudden rise in popularity or Brussel Sprouts that inexplicably taste good.
do not give your patronage to those businesses that bombard you with ads
Unfortunately, this just isn't possible in many cities. Long ago various sections of the country were divided into markets owned my movie theatre studios. Now something similar goes on with medium sized corporations which own a large number of regional theatres.
I'm in Memphis and MALCO owns our asses. I could try driving to Collierville or Southaven or Bartlett or Columbus or Corinth or Oxford or Tupelo or Jonesboro or Fayetteville or Fort Smith or Sspringdale or Rogers or Owensboro or Blytheville or Sikeston or Monticello or Paragould. Ooops! All the theatres in those cities are owned by MALCO, too.
So the only way I can vote with my dollars is through NetFlix, which is a shame because I really prefer the movie theatre experience. I've tried downloading illegal movies off the Interweb and watch them on my computer and I feel like a total asshat because my computer is here and the nice comfy couch is over there.
The MPAA is obviously out of their minds. The only people they are loosing sales to are crazy file collectors with big ass hard disks.
you definately shouldn't leave it up to the children to decide what deities they wish to believe in, if any
Of course! I would not let my son worship and unapproved deity just like I wouldn't let him drive my car. Choice of deity is a responsibility that can have concequences. When I feel my son is sufficiently old enough to understand the ramifications of worshiping a particular deity then he can choose. Which, in this particular case, will happen next year.
Last year (his 8th) was the year of Lectures of Why Mommy is an Atheist, Why Daddy is an Agnostic, and Why Grandma is a Baptist. This year (his 9th) is the year of Lectures Upon the Pros and Cons of the Various Religions of the World including The Sampling of Different Rites on Saturdays or Sundays as Applicable Therein. Next year (his 10th) will be the year of Choosing a Religion if so Desired, Subject to Parental Oversight. His 11th year will be the year of Keeping the Parents Informed of Various Religious Choices. Lastly, his 12th year will be the year of The Parents Not Really Caring Anymore for Lo They Have Already Lost Too Much Sleep Over It.
I agonized heavily, relentlessly, endlessly, hell, I'm still agonizing about this with my 9 year old son who has taken up the EverQuest addiction just when I was able to kick the habit. *shakes fist at sky* DAMN YOU EVERQUEST!
As a result I have developed a weird mishmash of arbitrary rules and semi-biblical provisions which has served me well. OK, I'm lying, it hasn't served me well - but - it's a starting point. To wit:
On the division of FREETIME it shall be thus:
1/2 of the time shall be spent doing things that THE FATHER approves of (reading, listening to music, exercise, hobbies, artistic endeavors, worship of deity or deities approved of beforehand, etc).
1/2 of the time shall be spent doing things that THE CHILD desires (subject to state and local laws).
SATURDAY IS A FREE DAY, for no one should be made to worketh on a Saturday.
FREETIME shall be defined as the time left AFTER school work is completed and chores are accomplished.
Time spent doing otherwise prohibited activities with THE FATHER or THE MOTHER shall not count as time deducted from THE CHILD. For example, playing games of THE CONSOLE with THE FATHER or watching THE TV with THE MOTHER.
And finally, I say unto THE CHILD, LO you should be GRATEFUL that I let you playeth the GAMES VIOLENT and haveth ONLINE CHATS unsupervised for there are many parents whom do not alloweth behaviors such. DO NOT MAKETH ME REGET MINE DECISION!
Gnop, Alex Seropian's first foray into programming, would make a much better movie than Pong.
The year is 1990, a wild and dangerous time. Follow the exploits of the Left Black Paddle as it attempts the overcome the machinations of the Evil Right Black Paddle and its unwilling dupe, The Ball.
Summary
The Studios at Electronic Arts (EA) have future staffing needs for more than 1,000 new hires each year, and EA would like to fill 75% of these positions with university graduates.
... of which 75% will be 'disposed' of when the projects they are working on are completed.
So I had heard about this kewl file format called MP3 and I needed a player. I looked around and found Winamp for $10...
From: Nullsoft [mailto:sales@winamp.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 3:59 PM To: M Smith Subject: Winamp Registration Code
*** Thank you for registering Winamp *** (etc, etc) Since Winamp is uncrippled nag-free shareware, this key doesn't do anything in Winamp. You can, however, for fun, enter the key into the 'shareware' tab of Winamp's about box. (etc etc) Now here's the important part: This registration is valid for ALL versions of Winamp, past, present and future. (etc, etc) --- Justin Frankel Nullsoft, Inc. ---
...and it did kick the Llama's ass. I've got bad eyes and it let me make the control panel DOUBLE SIZE, which was a godsend.
I went through, hrm, 8 or 10 OS upgrades. I almost never downloaded a new version. It did only a few things and it did it well.
My happy world came to an end when I moved to Windows XP and Winamp stopped working. So I got the latest version and found that after 5 years my registration code didn't work anymore. So I wrote NullSoft:
From: M Smith Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 3:24 PM To: 'support@winamp.com' Subject: Ode to a support person
In a desperate attempt to contact someone at NullSoft, I send this letter to you.
Dear Human Being, presumably one employed by NullSoft:
Back in 1997 I paid 10 hard earned dollars for Winamp. I just downloaded the 5 Pro version and discovered that my registration key doesn't work! Could this please be remedied? Here's the text of the email you sent me ages ago: (etc, etc)
To which I got back this message:
From: support@winamp.com Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 12:46 AM To: M Smith Subject: Re: Ode to a support person
Dear M Smith,
Thank you for writing WinAmp, My name is Larry, I will be assisting you today.
You can find your Registration Key in your confirmation e-mail. If you do not have your confirmation e-mail, you can also retrieve your Registration Key by viewing the details of your purchase using the lookup at the address listed below: (etc, etc)
Hrm. Larry appears to not have read my email, for, Lo! I did have a conformation email, in fact, I sent him a copy of it.
NOW, I remembered the whole "AOL buys NullSoft" thing and it occurs to me that I'm in the hands of an organization with infinite cruelty and infinite patience. I tried to break through again:
From: M Smith Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 7:28 AM To: 'support@winamp.com' Subject: FW: Ode to a support person
Larry,
You obviously are not a human being, because a real human being would notice:
1) I DO have my confirmation email - it was pasted at the end of my email.
2) My registration key (NNNNNNNN) is obviously not the format that Winamp uses today.
3) Since I paid for the product BEFORE Nullsoft ever used Digitalriver for order fulfillment, looking up my order would be fruitless.
Either the human Larry was incensed at my sarcasm or the Perl Script Larry couldn't handle the language for I haven't heard back from NullSoft/AOL/Time/Warner yet.
So I bumble along with the latest freebie version of Winamp feeling generally dispossessed - I have a lifetime agreement with NullSoft and the parent company won't take my phone calls, so to speak. I tried sending email to Justin Frankel and it bounced - now I know why.
Anyone know know a lawyer who will take on a class-action lawsuit for 1/3rd of $10?
Bungie Released Marathon 12/21/1994 - you could save "films" and during film playback you could cycle through the viewpoints of the other players (in other words still locked in 1stPP).
Bungie Released Myth: The Fallen Lords 11/14/1997 - you could save "films" and during playback you could turn the "auto-follow" camera on and it would try to display the most interesting action in the game in a somewhat cinematic style. It worked reasonably well. On 12/31/1998 Bungie Released Myth II: Soulblighter which had a slightly improved "auto-follow" camera (about 10% better). Oh and this is all 3rdPP.
Sadly, Bungie abandoned replay code in their subsequent games which was a great loss for the fan community - there's nothing like spanking somebody's ass and having the evidence to back it up, especially ten years later when you're old and tired and you don't have any friends anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
The kind of money that is ANYWHERE NEAR the kind needed to support the ongoing production of such an operation? Absolutely not.
I was pondering this as I was not illegally not downloading something that was not a GF mpg. How much does one episode of a show like that cost?
And by cost, I mean the cost of the show minus the advertising and administrative overhead.
Just curious.
Besides the Digisette, does anyone have a suggestion for a good cassette MP3 player?
...They just need to change the technology so that it requires urine samples...
I was lucky enough to lay my hands on a Lisa because, interestingly enough, Federal Express' engineering department bought one the day they came out.
I'd come into work after hours just so I could push this huge bar-of-soap on a wire they called a mouse around the desk.
I had trouble with LisaDraw until I realized that the pixels were twice as wide as they were tall. Drove me nuts.
Mod parent up!
Like this hasn't happened already?
Even people I have respected for ages, Bungie, have been devoured by this monster.
Stop the insanity: play poker.
If it's pr0n, then my hands bleed. Sometimes my feet, too.
My eyes are bleeding! My eyes are bleeding! My eyes are bleeding! My eyes are bleeding! My eyes are bleeding! My eyes are bleeding!
Really, my eyes are bleeding.
I wonder why they don't allow comments on that post?
Apparently, no one has realized yet that Maureen O'Gara is actually Jeff Gannon/Gucket in a dress.
Having money stolen by contractors I can understand... but when MY stolen money is used to buy incense, sarongs, and Dharma & Greg DVDs - well, that's just plain unAmerican!
Looks like it got /.ed - did anyone mirror this?
I think a number of posters are missing the effect this has on average joe users. Sure, for the /. crowd, we know which end is up and uncheck the box. My father, my wife, my son, my clients; when they see something like that ask me, if I'm there, "do I need this?" When I'm not there they install it anyway becuase they think it is something they'll need later.
Then, at the end of the month, it's my job to uninstall that crap.
Average users are morbidly afraid of changing ANY default option when they install software.
Frickin brilliant analysis! Thnx TH.
http://www.tubedepot.com/contact.html
Try talking to these guys. Last I heard they do a brisk trade in discontinued tubes.
Does anyone remember the demo Ron gave at the World Wide Developer's Conference? Was it May 1993...?
Anyway, I remember it was supposed to be a lecture about pen computing, and Apple had Ron come out and show the equation solving interface of the proto-graphing calculator. He threw a bunch o' X and Ys on the screen with some sins and coss for good measure. "Now if you want to solve for X"... and he tapped an X, dragged it to one side of the equals sign, and the equation solved itself.
We were floored. There was this deep silence for a couple of millisenconds and then everyone broke out in thunderous applause. He did more tricks with the equation interface and people hooted and hollered. It was a geek wet dream. After he finished he got a standing ovation and there was a long line of people who wanted to shake his hand.
Good times.
...because every client is being sent the persistent state of the entities in the world (the entities are what we call the persistent objects in the world), that means that any client has all the information about the world. Because the client knows everything about the world, we can support making them be a new server, if the server machine was to turn off, get disconnected from Xbox Live or the player just wants to leave the game...
Interestingly enough, Bungie's master server and client model is the same model humans use for perceiving the world. For example, right now, Milton Flapdoodle in New Jersey is responsible for perceiving the world, authorizing adjustments to humanity's world view, and beaming the changes to each of us telepathically. Should something happen to Milton, a new server can be chosen because we each carry a copy of the complete world state inside us.
Unfortunately, the technique isn't foolproof and due to the high density of telepathic messages required there is some unexpected bleed-through amongst the clients. You can tell this happens when you witness a profoundly anomalous event like Britney Spears sudden rise in popularity or Brussel Sprouts that inexplicably taste good.
do not give your patronage to those businesses that bombard you with ads
Unfortunately, this just isn't possible in many cities. Long ago various sections of the country were divided into markets owned my movie theatre studios. Now something similar goes on with medium sized corporations which own a large number of regional theatres.
I'm in Memphis and MALCO owns our asses. I could try driving to Collierville or Southaven or Bartlett or Columbus or Corinth or Oxford or Tupelo or Jonesboro or Fayetteville or Fort Smith or Sspringdale or Rogers or Owensboro or Blytheville or Sikeston or Monticello or Paragould. Ooops! All the theatres in those cities are owned by MALCO, too.
So the only way I can vote with my dollars is through NetFlix, which is a shame because I really prefer the movie theatre experience. I've tried downloading illegal movies off the Interweb and watch them on my computer and I feel like a total asshat because my computer is here and the nice comfy couch is over there.
The MPAA is obviously out of their minds. The only people they are loosing sales to are crazy file collectors with big ass hard disks.
The reply link no longer allows you to see the author's address.
you definately shouldn't leave it up to the children to decide what deities they wish to believe in, if any
Of course! I would not let my son worship and unapproved deity just like I wouldn't let him drive my car. Choice of deity is a responsibility that can have concequences. When I feel my son is sufficiently old enough to understand the ramifications of worshiping a particular deity then he can choose. Which, in this particular case, will happen next year.
Last year (his 8th) was the year of Lectures of Why Mommy is an Atheist, Why Daddy is an Agnostic, and Why Grandma is a Baptist. This year (his 9th) is the year of Lectures Upon the Pros and Cons of the Various Religions of the World including The Sampling of Different Rites on Saturdays or Sundays as Applicable Therein. Next year (his 10th) will be the year of Choosing a Religion if so Desired, Subject to Parental Oversight. His 11th year will be the year of Keeping the Parents Informed of Various Religious Choices. Lastly, his 12th year will be the year of The Parents Not Really Caring Anymore for Lo They Have Already Lost Too Much Sleep Over It.
I agonized heavily, relentlessly, endlessly, hell, I'm still agonizing about this with my 9 year old son who has taken up the EverQuest addiction just when I was able to kick the habit. *shakes fist at sky* DAMN YOU EVERQUEST!
As a result I have developed a weird mishmash of arbitrary rules and semi-biblical provisions which has served me well. OK, I'm lying, it hasn't served me well - but - it's a starting point. To wit:
On the division of FREETIME it shall be thus:
1/2 of the time shall be spent doing things that THE FATHER approves of (reading, listening to music, exercise, hobbies, artistic endeavors, worship of deity or deities approved of beforehand, etc).
1/2 of the time shall be spent doing things that THE CHILD desires (subject to state and local laws).
SATURDAY IS A FREE DAY, for no one should be made to worketh on a Saturday.
FREETIME shall be defined as the time left AFTER school work is completed and chores are accomplished.
Time spent doing otherwise prohibited activities with THE FATHER or THE MOTHER shall not count as time deducted from THE CHILD. For example, playing games of THE CONSOLE with THE FATHER or watching THE TV with THE MOTHER.
And finally, I say unto THE CHILD, LO you should be GRATEFUL that I let you playeth the GAMES VIOLENT and haveth ONLINE CHATS unsupervised for there are many parents whom do not alloweth behaviors such. DO NOT MAKETH ME REGET MINE DECISION!
Not "Pong"... rather... "Gnop"
Gnop, Alex Seropian's first foray into programming, would make a much better movie than Pong.
The year is 1990, a wild and dangerous time. Follow the exploits of the Left Black Paddle as it attempts the overcome the machinations of the Evil Right Black Paddle and its unwilling dupe, The Ball.
Welcome to the new coal mines, boys.
From: Nullsoft [mailto:sales@winamp.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 3:59 PM
To: M Smith
Subject: Winamp Registration Code
*** Thank you for registering Winamp ***
(etc, etc)
Since Winamp is uncrippled nag-free shareware, this key doesn't do anything in Winamp. You can, however, for fun, enter the key into the 'shareware' tab of Winamp's about box.
(etc etc) Now here's the important part:
This registration is valid for ALL versions of Winamp, past, present and future.
(etc, etc)
---
Justin Frankel
Nullsoft, Inc.
---
...and it did kick the Llama's ass. I've got bad eyes and it let me make the control panel DOUBLE SIZE, which was a godsend.
I went through, hrm, 8 or 10 OS upgrades. I almost never downloaded a new version. It did only a few things and it did it well.
My happy world came to an end when I moved to Windows XP and Winamp stopped working. So I got the latest version and found that after 5 years my registration code didn't work anymore. So I wrote NullSoft:
From: M Smith
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 3:24 PM
To: 'support@winamp.com'
Subject: Ode to a support person
In a desperate attempt to contact someone at NullSoft, I send this letter to you.
Dear Human Being, presumably one employed by NullSoft:
Back in 1997 I paid 10 hard earned dollars for Winamp. I just downloaded the 5 Pro version and discovered that my registration key doesn't work! Could this please be remedied? Here's the text of the email you sent me ages ago: (etc, etc)
To which I got back this message:
From: support@winamp.com
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 12:46 AM
To: M Smith
Subject: Re: Ode to a support person
Dear M Smith,
Thank you for writing WinAmp, My name is Larry, I will be assisting you today.
You can find your Registration Key in your confirmation e-mail. If you do not have your confirmation e-mail, you can also retrieve your Registration Key by viewing the details of your purchase using the lookup at the address listed below: (etc, etc)
Hrm. Larry appears to not have read my email, for, Lo! I did have a conformation email, in fact, I sent him a copy of it.
NOW, I remembered the whole "AOL buys NullSoft" thing and it occurs to me that I'm in the hands of an organization with infinite cruelty and infinite patience. I tried to break through again:
From: M Smith
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 7:28 AM
To: 'support@winamp.com'
Subject: FW: Ode to a support person
Larry,
You obviously are not a human being, because a real human being would notice:
1) I DO have my confirmation email - it was pasted at the end of my email.
2) My registration key (NNNNNNNN) is obviously not the format that Winamp uses today.
3) Since I paid for the product BEFORE Nullsoft ever used Digitalriver for order fulfillment, looking up my order would be fruitless.
Either the human Larry was incensed at my sarcasm or the Perl Script Larry couldn't handle the language for I haven't heard back from NullSoft/AOL/Time/Warner yet.
So I bumble along with the latest freebie version of Winamp feeling generally dispossessed - I have a lifetime agreement with NullSoft and the parent company won't take my phone calls, so to speak. I tried sending email to Justin Frankel and it bounced - now I know why.
Anyone know know a lawyer who will take on a class-action lawsuit for 1/3rd of $10?
Offhand I recall from Bungie:
Bungie Released Marathon 12/21/1994 - you could save "films" and during film playback you could cycle through the viewpoints of the other players (in other words still locked in 1stPP).
Bungie Released Myth: The Fallen Lords 11/14/1997 - you could save "films" and during playback you could turn the "auto-follow" camera on and it would try to display the most interesting action in the game in a somewhat cinematic style. It worked reasonably well. On 12/31/1998 Bungie Released Myth II: Soulblighter which had a slightly improved "auto-follow" camera (about 10% better). Oh and this is all 3rdPP.
Sadly, Bungie abandoned replay code in their subsequent games which was a great loss for the fan community - there's nothing like spanking somebody's ass and having the evidence to back it up, especially ten years later when you're old and tired and you don't have any friends anymore.
Go Alex! Go Matt!
Last week my 9-year-old son gave away all his Neopets points. He said he did it because he wasn't going to play with it anymore.
/. did?
Egads! Could it be that my son knew about something before