This is why HAMMER is the holy grail of filesystems.
Well, just like the holy grail, it certainly was a pain to find: http://www.dragonflybsd.org/hammer/. Hint to developers: don't reuse common words as your project name, makes it difficult to Google.
Hahaha.. yeah. Tell that to most MAME users' ROM directories. But yes, the point was that nothing uses controllers.
There are if more than one title can use them.
I'm a fan of reduced-button gaming. I'll start by requiring two buttons: L trigger and R trigger, or D-pad Left and button 2, or whatever anybody else can manage to press with whatever appendages he has. You don't need more than two buttons for pinball (L, R: flipper), racing (L, R: turn; L+R: brake), or platforming (L, R: run, L+R: jump).
Super. Who is supposed to standardize this and tell all the game companies to use this standard controller, and the electronics manufacturers to make this standard controller? There isn't a central controlling body for PC games. No standards body --> no standard controllers --> no controller support.
But why don't gaming magazines report that controller support ended up cut?
It gets cut in the initial design decisions, not that they actually designed controller support and then removed it. It wasn't removed, just not implemented in the first place (or even in the specs).
Not with the extra $1,500 for three more bargain-basement PCs and three more bargain-basement monitors.
If you're including system price, console gaming is always cheaper, even for one machine. No point in arguing about having to buy 4 copies of the game then if you're also comparing 4 computers to one (or 4) console(s).
But in practice, your statement plays out like this: "Open platforms are for one person to sit and and play keyboard/mouse games, lockout chips are for the living room." Why is it possible (and even encouraged) for an individual to shoot, edit, and burn a movie that plays on a set-top player, but not possible (without jailbreaks of dubious legality) for an individual to develop and burn a game that plays on a set-top player?
VCRs and DVD players are sold for a profit on the hardware. They don't care what content is played. They're relatively easy and cheap to produce.
Game consoles are mostly sold at break-even or a loss, and they make the profit back in game licensing. They're basically mini computers, and cost as much to produce. If they allowed free games, they'd have to charge more for the console, thereby limiting their market (and making less money overall). Nintendo has claimed they make money on consoles, but even so, they make more money by also getting a cut of every game.
So: money. That's why.
Then why don't more PCs come with a composite SDTV output like mine did? Or why don't people actually use the VGA jack on their $600 LCD HDTV?
They used to - for example the TRS-80 and Commodore 64. However NTSC TV resolution is 720x480 or so, interlaced and usually very fuzzy. When computer graphics got better, they needed their own monitors, which couldn't also be used to TV, so they separated. By the time TVs got good enough to display a PC screen, the culture was already entrenched. By the way, fancy $600 LCD HDTVs are still inferior to monitors, not only in resolution (720p is 1280x720; super-expensive 1080p is 1920x1080; my monitor is 1920x1200) but also in terms of display lag and responsiveness, important for first person shooters or any reflex game. So - your TV still isn't good enough, and the split was made long ago between living room and desk.
(Always the exception: I personally have a Mac Mini as my media center, plugged via DVI into my $900 HDTV. But that's only for movies/DVR; right next to it is my Wii.)
One major problem with a web-based game is that most users aren't willing to become paying customers; they see "web based" and think "gratis".
Bummer.
Nintendo sells games through its Virtual Console store; t
Even earth isn't anywhere near that consistent, and yet all planets in this galaxy and beyond look like Canada? There should be deserts and rain forests, great plains and high mountains, islands and reefs at the very least, if not even more exotic.
They did have deserts and such, but there were used sparingly. The explanation given - that the Ancients settled on planets that were nice (or were terraformed to be nice), and put the stargates and villages in hospitable locales - does make a lot of sense. The exceptions are mostly where the Goa'uld moved the stargates to places for mining.
"Every planet looks like Canada" was done for cost reasons, but they did fit it in the storyline fairly well.
*whoosh* Sorry. I was using board games as familiar examples of the difference between public and private information, not actual titles. Did you gloss over the part of my post where I mentioned their video gaming counterparts such as Bomberman and NBA Jam?
Yep.:) In particular, sports games tend to stick to consoles (in my oh-so-humble opinion) because many of the players that buy these games are more comfortable with consoles, due to PCs being "too hard" or "for nerds". But everyone understands and is comfortable with an Xbox or PS3, because it's almost like a DVD player. Other symmetric games? Fall back to culture and the controller aspect.
And a port for a USB hub into which one can plug four Logitech Dual Action controllers. The TurboGrafx-16 needed a hub for more than one player too, as did the NES, Genesis, Super NES, PS1, and PS2 for more than two players. As are consoles, which are bundled with only one controller. You have to buy either extra controllers or extra entire systems for simultaneous multiplayer. So why don't PC games take advantage of gamepads plugged into a USB hub?
Yeah, I remember the 4-way thingies for earlier consoles.
Some things do take advantage of multiple USB gamepads - MAME for example (not really a game itself, but whatever). Others have joystick/gamepad support, but usually only for one player, and it's optional.
Controllers are not standardized though, and if you wrote a game that required people to buy controllers to play it - well, nobody is going to buy $20 + 4 x $xx for the controller. And what if they buy the wrong controller - one with too few buttons, or no analog stick, etc. So you have to write your game to not require specific controllers, and you're back to being forced to use keyboard/mouse as the default. At that point, controller support is an extra or nice-to-have, so often doesn't make it.
Controllers for consoles, though, are standardized and people understand and expect that you need one for every player. Nobody expects to buy one for PCs, nor would they know how.
I think I mentioned it, but there's also the toaster aspect to consoles and console controllers - there's no configuration, you just throw the game in and plug in the controller. PCs? You might have to fiddle with your USB stack, configure the game to match the controller,
A $60 major label console game for four players costs $60. A $20 indie PC game for four players costs $80 because it doesn't recognize multiple USB gamepads.
True. $10 or $15 for the indie game, or 2-3 players, would make it cheaper.:)
Why does this continue to be the case? How can indie developers gain access to "the living room with the TV, and lots of people can sit around on the couch playing"?
Why? PCs are for one person to sit and and play keyboard/mouse games, consoles are for the living room. This is the way it's been, and I doubt much will change it. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
Aside from culture, controllers, and seating, don't forget a lot of people have 15" monitors and 30" TVs. Which would you rather crowd 4 people around?
How to fix it? They can't. It's a bummer.
Something that might change indie developer access to consoles is either more web-based games accessed from the console (see Homestar Runner on the Wii for example) or console systems opening up their development (not likely).
I can't. I use the real Vista installs for playing games, and Direct3D doesn't work well in VMWare.
Oh. You should say that next time instead of implying that you can't move Vista to VMWare because it would mess up your Vista install in some undefined way. 3D support works for some games, but not all.
"Besides, what if MS Office messes up your existing Vista install?"
That's why I install MS Office into VMWare while games into the real Vista install.
Okaaaay.. what if one of your games messes up your real Vista install? Or your hard drive crashes? The point is, it doesn't matter what you have installed; you should have backups.
Your original post made it sound like you're fine without backups, unless you installed VMWare. You really should have backups regardless of which programs you have installed, and VMWare doesn't pose any great threat to the stability of your system (especially since you apparently already have it installed!).
Why would it matter if the swap file is fragmented?
Same reason it matters that regular files are fragmented - it's slow to pull 200 pieces of a file off of 200 random locations on the disk. It's much faster if all of those 200 pieces are lined up in a row next to each other.
Also, scheduled (or manual) defrags don't defrag the swap file since it's an in-use system file. I once saw a pagefile.sys with >10,000 fragments on a user's disk after he reported performance issues. Had to remove the pagefile, defrag(2x), then set a large static size and warn him not to reset to dynamic no matter how much vram he thought Visual Studio needed.
Not the built-in defragger, no. 3rd party tools like PerfectDisk can defrag the swap file (and other system files), though some of it has to be done during bootup.
or, you could just turn the damn desktop PC off when you're not using it anymore, and stop pretending the 30 seconds it takes for it to boot is somehow destroying your life.
Most modern computers, when not being used, can turn off the monitors and step down the CPU to a lower speed, reducing something like 90% of the energy it would normally use. Spinning down the hard drives, and just auto-suspended are options too. Suspending to RAM uses so little electricity it's silly to argue about it.
Regardless of the efficiency of suspending, the amount of power a computer uses while just idling is negligible. Conversely, there are decent reasons I leave my computer running:
1. Skype (replaced my landline and international dialing) 2. iTunes sharing to other computers/AppleTV (replaced my DVD player and DishTV) 3. Playing music through remote speakers (replaced my stereo)
The amount of electricity to run my computer vs. running the devices I've replaced is probably on par, or less.
Of course, my computer is basically silent (a requirement when I bought it) so aside from energy considerations there's not a real downside to leaving it running.
Yes, it does. Hibernate (ACPI S4. Sometimes referred to in Linux as "suspend to disk" and "safe sleep" on OSX)
"safe sleep" on OS X is a hybrid of suspend and hibernate. It writes all RAM to disk and then suspends. If your battery gets low while suspended, it powers off. Then when you power back on (after finding a wall outlet) it will restore from the hibernation file. If you just pop the lid open before the battery gets low, the system just resumes since everything is in RAM.
I'm not quite sure whether "low" means low as in 10% left or low as in 0%. However it turns out you can also enable safe sleep on some desktop Macs and it works the same way - hit suspend, it writes all ram to disk and suspends. If you hit a key or something, it pops right back up. If you yank the power and then plug it back in and start up, it will resume from the hibernation file.
Because I don't have a Vista reinstall CD or even a restoration partition. Dell didn't provide one. If VMWare fscks up my existing Vista install then I'd have a problem.
You can copy your existing system, make sure it works under VMWare, then remove the original Vista partition. http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/overview.html says "Clone and backup physical machines to virtual machines as part of your disaster recovery plan." In other words, you can leave your existing partition as-is.
Besides, what if MS Office messes up your existing Vista install? What if Vista itself does? You need a regular backup system regardless of OS, virtualization, or installed applications.
P.S. Have you tried calling Dell for a restore CD?
But here's the thing. You only had 3GB of combined RAM and swap before. Why would you need a juggernaught 16GB of swap (again, remember this is going to be 16GB transferring very slowly, so if you're using that much memory, you've probably already reached for the reset button) if you've got twice memory than you've ever used in your entire existence until now?
Modern OSes will preemptively swap out when the disk is idle (leaving the block in RAM and on disk), so swapping out data is as fast as freeing the memory.
The whole idea is insane. You don't need swap at all.
Of course you don't, if you have enough memory to load everything you ever want.
However, even in machines where you have gobs of memory (for example dedicated servers), the OS can often swap out a few bits of itself that were needed to initialize the OS and running applications, but won't be used again until the server is shut down. You could add more memory to support those bits sticking in memory, or the OS could swap out 512mb or so of itself and then reclaim that memory for disk cache.
On servers, swapping is normally a one-time cost at startup, and then you've traded 512mb of disk for 512mb of more memory. It's usually a good trade.
You can have more memory than you ever need, and that eliminates the need for swap. But on that same system, if you added swap, you'd have a little more disk cache, normally improving the speed of the system.
For a web server serving static files, you could take this one step further and make a RAM disk to serve files from. But other applications with a non-static set (database server, file server) can benefit from more disk caching, up to the size of storage. Since disk is cheaper than RAM, you almost never have "enough" RAM to cache everything.
The same principle applies on home machines, but you also have the idea that some applications may sit in the background, doing nothing, for long periods of time. It's cheaper to swap programs in and out of memory when needed and tie up some disk space than to add the extra memory.
Not really. You can't exactly scan an IPv6 range with the same efficiency as you can a IPv4 range. The chances of finding a live machine on the other end is really really really.... really small.
I wonder about that. It depends on what method the site uses for the local part of the IP address. I imagine a number of ranges will start with:1 and just number in order.
I know, but whose fault is it? I want to know in order to fix the problem. Is it my fault for not developing and publishing such a game myself?
I guess that would be partly the developers/publishers that don't want to create such a game, and partly the customer that don't buy it. Not Steam (or Best Buy, or Amazon, or other distributors), which is the only point I was trying to make.
For games in the former category, there isn't any advantage to giving each player his own view. So why are most games like this console-only?
There are tons of clones of Chess and Reversi and Monopoly and every other board game - but they're in the $5 crapware bin at the store, not the shelf. They don't get exposure because any idiot developer could make it (and they do), so there's not much profit in making it. On the console, the console manufacturer ensures that there is only one chess game, so the developer can put a little more effort into it since they have a monopoly.
Yahoo and MSN both have online game sections that have cheap/free games to play, although I think for most of them you'd have to use two browsers to play two people on the same computer.
There's also the big matter of control devices - consoles are designed with 2 or 4 controllers. Computers are designed with one keyboard/mouse. You can pass control of the keyboard/mouse back and forth, but this precludes any simultaneous play, meaning only turn-based games can work. Some older games used half the keyboard for one player, half for the other (for example, WASD and space for player 1, arrow keys and enter for player 2). Many keyboards have problems with multiple simultaneous keys being pressed, and so games don't even try to do this any more since it doesn't really work that well. So, without additional hardware, PCs are restricted to turn-based games for multiplayer, single-computer.
And one of my complaints is that this practice of allowing one CD key to spawn copies is less common, and that is one of the forces driving gamers to the consoles and thus away from indie games.
Uh.. what? Most indie games are cheaper than major titles, even when you have to purchase multiple copies.
The "move" to consoles is more caused by a few things: 1. consoles are actually "good enough' compared to PCs 2. more widespread acceptance of gaming - Halo on Xbox for frat boys, Wii Tennis for your mom - instead of just nerds on PCs 3. most people are idiots and can operate a console, but not a PC 4. consoles live in the living room with the TV, and lots of people can sit around on the couch playing. PCs normally live in the bedroom/study with one office-type chair. It's easier to be a social activity. (ignore the argument any online game is social for the moment, most non-geeks don't agree)
I don't think people are moving to consoles so much as people who would not game on a PC are now gaming on consoles - in other words, new gamers. Two great articles here:
In the first, we find that PC games are only 19% of sales, the rest are console games and hardware. Oh noes, PC games are dying, alert the internet! In the second, we find that even though PC games are only 19% of sales, PC games grew 21% while consoles grew 50%. Moreover, PC game sales have increased every year.
They're both growing, just consoles have a larger market to expand into. Most non-geeks people want a toaster, not a toaster construction kit, even if the toaster is more limited.
Imagine a household with four gamers, and none of the (non-massive) multiplayer PC games will let the owner of a store-bought copy run it on four PCs at once. Doesn't that make PC games cost twice to four times as much as console games, which are more likely to offer single-machine multiplayer?
None of the console games will let the owner of a store-bought copy run it on four consoles at once either.
Steam does not prevent games from having a single-machine multiplayer mode. The fact that such a mode is not common on PCs is not Steam's fault.
If you want to compare the cost of 4 PCs and 4 copies of the game vs 4 console and 4 copies of the game, go right ahead. If you want to compare the cost of 4 PCs and 4 copies of the game to 1 console and 1 copy of the game, you also have to compare the experience of having the full screen and 100% of the CPU/GPU to having 1/4 of the screen and 1/4 of the CPU/GPU. It's not the same experience, so of course it's cheaper.
4 people can ride the bus way cheaper than driving 4 cars, just like 4-way split screen is way cheaper than 4 PCs/consoles and 4 copies of the game. Do you want to spend less money and sit next to a smelly homeless dude, or pay more to have your own environment and a better experience?
As an aside: Starcraft had "spawn" copies - you could install the game multiple times, but the spawn copies could only play locally with the master copy (and other spawn copies, if the master was also playing). However Blizzard decided that they would make more money having one game per PC, and so the expansion (Brood Wars) required a master copy of the game.
Steam's the only DRM I'll ever accept, because in exchange for requiring me to inconvenience myself to use a product I OWN they offer me great services while still leaving it pathetically easy to get to my product without using their system.
I'm going to have to slightly disagree with you there - as someone else said, "Steam is easier than piracy". It's not cheaper, but it is way easier to click on the game, type my credit card number, and blammo, as fast as I can download it, it's there. New computer? Just login and all my games are downloaded again, for free. Staying at my cousin's house for a month? All my games come with me. It's actually easier then jumping on TPB or DC++ and looking for a seeded copy that a) works! b) isn't full of keyloggers/viruses/etc.
Steam doesn't prevent me from doing anything except using the same copy of the game on two computers at the same time, which is not something I legitimately want to do. Other copy protection schemes require me to lug around a physical disk (this is loads of fun when you have 30+ games), or install system drivers that screw up my system.
I don't think it's an accident that it's so easy to run legitimately bought games with steam-free hacks.
I think Valve really designed Steam as a way to sell products first and foremost, which means they thought about what the customer wants, then worried about copy protection. At least it feels that way. Most DRM systems assume you're buying and try to screw you over when you try to actually *use* the product; Steam provides a nice alternative way to buy.
BTW, If you legitimately own the product, there's also an offline mode built in, no hacks required. It might require reactivation if you move to a new computer, I don't remember.
The fees for an original North Carolina driver license and learner permit are as follows: Type of License or Permit Fee Learner Permit $15.00/ 18 months Class A $4.00 / yr.* Class B $4.00 / yr.* Class C (the most common type of license) $4.00 / yr.*
Good luck if you want to run more than one SMTP server behind a given NAT gateway.
If you're talking about load balancing SMTP servers, use a load balancer that presents one forward-facing IP and forwards to backend devices on RFC1918. Foundry and Cisco make gear that will do this, or Linux/BSD machine if you're cheap.
If you're talking about differently configured machines receiving mail for different domains, all behind the same NAT, then put an SMTP relay in place to receive the mail and distribute to your machines. Your SMTP relay can also be load balanced as above.
Some protocols have a method of determining the final service based on in-band information (Host: header for HTTP, domain in SMTP/DNS) and can share an IP. Others have tricks they can use. For example, logging into foo.com's FTP server, you login as username@foo.com. bar.com's FTP server, you login as username@bar.com. Now they can use a relay to share an IP.
HTTP has pretty much taken over as "the" protocol for data interchange. Almost any non-realtime application can tunnel over HTTP. VOIP and games using UDP are the glaring exceptions, and they have their own tricks for NAT - central servers for matchmaking/directory, and matched UDP ports for NAT piercing.
Because of the last reason, protocols that involve callbacks are complicated. FTP, for example, made perfect sense in the days before NAT. Now, it's viewed as a problematic pain in the ass that always needs special NAT rules and connection tracking to accommodate it.
FTP has evolved: most clients use "passive mode" (no callback) by default now, and (almost?) all clients and servers support it. As for setting up NAT devices - most just require you to check "track FTP" or something similar, if it's not on by default.
IPv4+NAT will muddle along for a long time. It's ugly. It's broken. There's an arguably better system (IPv6). But it's good enough, and can be stretched a lot further.
Actually, better yet, don't tell them it's a dry run ahead of time. Have them go through security to be inside by a specific time. Then call them, and say "It's a go" or "Nevermind, enjoy your trip." After a couple of "Nevermind" runs and not getting pulled over, you should know who to send...
Better yet, tell them it *is* a dry run, when it's not. Make sure they go through all the motions, you know, to fully test it.
Great link. I've never actually read Nietzsche, but yeah, the thinking is along those lines from what I can see. From the summary, he spends a lot more time talking about other things - figureheads, punishment, and value judgments of people instead of actions.
Turns out my boss isn't actually a greedy, selfish, thoughtless, heartless bastard-- he just has an 'alternative morality'!:)
Funny, but you've misunderstood my comments. Your boss may very well be a greedy, selfish, thoughtless, heartless bastard. He just may not be specifically trying to hurt you.
"I'm going to help myself, regardless of whether it hurts others" is not the same thinking as "I'm trying to hurt others".
I've heard more than one psychology professor claim that psycho-and scoiopaths line our boardrooms. Maybe they're right.
While there are sadistic persons, I think most "evil" people aren't trying specifically to hurt people; they simply don't care, which can be worse.
The concepts of universal good and universal evil are not that old - or universal. I believe Zoroastrianism was the first to widely spread the idea of some universally good actions and universally evil actions. The alternative way of thinking - and this prevails today in many circles - is that there is "good for me" and "good for you" and these are not necessarily the same action.
Many people today are raised with the idea of good and evil as universal concepts (particularly in the West through Christianity), and are surprised when others do not share this idea. To other people, "good" is whatever benefits your self/family/country/organization, and whether or not it hurts others is just plain irrelevant. The only reason to consider other people is for long-term "good" - if you have to work with someone for a long period of time, you may get a greater good by not screwing them (much) and working together for a while instead of screwing them right away and then getting little or nothing from them further on. But again, it comes back to trying to do the most good for your concerns, not any particular concern for someone else.
Intelligent and educated people with the "good for me" philosophy will still often play nice with others, because it will create a greater good for themselves in the long term. Less enlightened people with this philosophy will just try to screw everyone they can for as much as possible because that's the direct, fast way to creating good for themselves.
I never really unerstood that line of thought. What's the point if you can't loose what you earn?
There's many motivations to play games - competition, exploration, socialization, etc.
I like building things, in this case my character. Think more of LEGOs, jigsaw puzzles, building sand castles - all fun things with no way to lose. The last thing I was is for some jerk to come along and knock over my stuff. WoW PvE is perfect for me - it's like The Sims where you get to fight monsters. I don't want to beat the other guy, I just want to make my stuff nice.
My brother however likes competition and gambling. He likes CounterStrike and he loved ganking people and taking their stuff in UO. He didn't do it for the stuff (since he often got ganked himself or even gave away his stuff), he did it for the thrill of the kill, the notoriety, and because he enjoyed griefing people. I understand that mentality, but I don't have it myself.
WoW tries to accommodate different play styles. Imagine a public pool, where some people are sitting on the edge with their feet in and talking, some are just splashing around, and others are having timed races in the lanes. It's not always perfect, and each use would be better served by being more specialized - for example a hot tub for the loungers and timing equipment for the racers - but it does a pretty good job of giving everyone something to enjoy.
Re:They also apply different standards
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Tech Vs. Business?
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Six months later someone decided to check our test data against the live configuration and found a very odd rule, giving people with worse credit histories better interest rates. We queried it and they said it was wrong but "why was the system so hard to understand".
If it was so important why didn't they run some real rigourous testing that would catch such flaws? Let me guess - the implementation was pushing up against the due date and in order to meet schedule the testing was cut back. Been there, done that. One of the biggest causes of such problems, in my experience, is failure to properly scope the project and realistically estimate the time needed. IT underestimates the work load, the customer pushes for an unrealistic deadline; and you get a poor result.
The way I read it:
System is installed and tested against test data. Passes. (here is your rigorous testing) Business people have the ability to modify financial rules. They do so. They do not test, or willingly want the existing tests to fail. Techie runs original tests again, notices they no longer pass. Asks business units about it and is told to mind his own business.
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Well, just like the holy grail, it certainly was a pain to find: http://www.dragonflybsd.org/hammer/. Hint to developers: don't reuse common words as your project name, makes it difficult to Google.
Hahaha.. yeah. Tell that to most MAME users' ROM directories. But yes, the point was that nothing uses controllers.
Super. Who is supposed to standardize this and tell all the game companies to use this standard controller, and the electronics manufacturers to make this standard controller? There isn't a central controlling body for PC games. No standards body --> no standard controllers --> no controller support.
It gets cut in the initial design decisions, not that they actually designed controller support and then removed it. It wasn't removed, just not implemented in the first place (or even in the specs).
If you're including system price, console gaming is always cheaper, even for one machine. No point in arguing about having to buy 4 copies of the game then if you're also comparing 4 computers to one (or 4) console(s).
VCRs and DVD players are sold for a profit on the hardware. They don't care what content is played. They're relatively easy and cheap to produce.
Game consoles are mostly sold at break-even or a loss, and they make the profit back in game licensing. They're basically mini computers, and cost as much to produce. If they allowed free games, they'd have to charge more for the console, thereby limiting their market (and making less money overall). Nintendo has claimed they make money on consoles, but even so, they make more money by also getting a cut of every game.
So: money. That's why.
They used to - for example the TRS-80 and Commodore 64. However NTSC TV resolution is 720x480 or so, interlaced and usually very fuzzy. When computer graphics got better, they needed their own monitors, which couldn't also be used to TV, so they separated. By the time TVs got good enough to display a PC screen, the culture was already entrenched. By the way, fancy $600 LCD HDTVs are still inferior to monitors, not only in resolution (720p is 1280x720; super-expensive 1080p is 1920x1080; my monitor is 1920x1200) but also in terms of display lag and responsiveness, important for first person shooters or any reflex game. So - your TV still isn't good enough, and the split was made long ago between living room and desk.
(Always the exception: I personally have a Mac Mini as my media center, plugged via DVI into my $900 HDTV. But that's only for movies/DVR; right next to it is my Wii.)
Bummer.
Nintendo sells games through its Virtual Console store; t
They did have deserts and such, but there were used sparingly. The explanation given - that the Ancients settled on planets that were nice (or were terraformed to be nice), and put the stargates and villages in hospitable locales - does make a lot of sense. The exceptions are mostly where the Goa'uld moved the stargates to places for mining.
"Every planet looks like Canada" was done for cost reasons, but they did fit it in the storyline fairly well.
Yep. :) In particular, sports games tend to stick to consoles (in my oh-so-humble opinion) because many of the players that buy these games are more comfortable with consoles, due to PCs being "too hard" or "for nerds". But everyone understands and is comfortable with an Xbox or PS3, because it's almost like a DVD player. Other symmetric games? Fall back to culture and the controller aspect.
Yeah, I remember the 4-way thingies for earlier consoles.
Some things do take advantage of multiple USB gamepads - MAME for example (not really a game itself, but whatever). Others have joystick/gamepad support, but usually only for one player, and it's optional.
Controllers are not standardized though, and if you wrote a game that required people to buy controllers to play it - well, nobody is going to buy $20 + 4 x $xx for the controller. And what if they buy the wrong controller - one with too few buttons, or no analog stick, etc. So you have to write your game to not require specific controllers, and you're back to being forced to use keyboard/mouse as the default. At that point, controller support is an extra or nice-to-have, so often doesn't make it.
Controllers for consoles, though, are standardized and people understand and expect that you need one for every player. Nobody expects to buy one for PCs, nor would they know how.
I think I mentioned it, but there's also the toaster aspect to consoles and console controllers - there's no configuration, you just throw the game in and plug in the controller. PCs? You might have to fiddle with your USB stack, configure the game to match the controller,
True. $10 or $15 for the indie game, or 2-3 players, would make it cheaper. :)
Why? PCs are for one person to sit and and play keyboard/mouse games, consoles are for the living room. This is the way it's been, and I doubt much will change it. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
Aside from culture, controllers, and seating, don't forget a lot of people have 15" monitors and 30" TVs. Which would you rather crowd 4 people around?
How to fix it? They can't. It's a bummer.
Something that might change indie developer access to consoles is either more web-based games accessed from the console (see Homestar Runner on the Wii for example) or console systems opening up their development (not likely).
Oh. You should say that next time instead of implying that you can't move Vista to VMWare because it would mess up your Vista install in some undefined way. 3D support works for some games, but not all.
Okaaaay.. what if one of your games messes up your real Vista install? Or your hard drive crashes? The point is, it doesn't matter what you have installed; you should have backups.
Your original post made it sound like you're fine without backups, unless you installed VMWare. You really should have backups regardless of which programs you have installed, and VMWare doesn't pose any great threat to the stability of your system (especially since you apparently already have it installed!).
Same reason it matters that regular files are fragmented - it's slow to pull 200 pieces of a file off of 200 random locations on the disk. It's much faster if all of those 200 pieces are lined up in a row next to each other.
Not the built-in defragger, no. 3rd party tools like PerfectDisk can defrag the swap file (and other system files), though some of it has to be done during bootup.
Most modern computers, when not being used, can turn off the monitors and step down the CPU to a lower speed, reducing something like 90% of the energy it would normally use. Spinning down the hard drives, and just auto-suspended are options too. Suspending to RAM uses so little electricity it's silly to argue about it.
Regardless of the efficiency of suspending, the amount of power a computer uses while just idling is negligible. Conversely, there are decent reasons I leave my computer running:
1. Skype (replaced my landline and international dialing)
2. iTunes sharing to other computers/AppleTV (replaced my DVD player and DishTV)
3. Playing music through remote speakers (replaced my stereo)
The amount of electricity to run my computer vs. running the devices I've replaced is probably on par, or less.
Of course, my computer is basically silent (a requirement when I bought it) so aside from energy considerations there's not a real downside to leaving it running.
"safe sleep" on OS X is a hybrid of suspend and hibernate. It writes all RAM to disk and then suspends. If your battery gets low while suspended, it powers off. Then when you power back on (after finding a wall outlet) it will restore from the hibernation file. If you just pop the lid open before the battery gets low, the system just resumes since everything is in RAM.
I'm not quite sure whether "low" means low as in 10% left or low as in 0%. However it turns out you can also enable safe sleep on some desktop Macs and it works the same way - hit suspend, it writes all ram to disk and suspends. If you hit a key or something, it pops right back up. If you yank the power and then plug it back in and start up, it will resume from the hibernation file.
You can copy your existing system, make sure it works under VMWare, then remove the original Vista partition.
http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/overview.html says "Clone and backup physical machines to virtual machines as part of your disaster recovery plan." In other words, you can leave your existing partition as-is.
Besides, what if MS Office messes up your existing Vista install? What if Vista itself does? You need a regular backup system regardless of OS, virtualization, or installed applications.
P.S. Have you tried calling Dell for a restore CD?
Modern OSes will preemptively swap out when the disk is idle (leaving the block in RAM and on disk), so swapping out data is as fast as freeing the memory.
Of course you don't, if you have enough memory to load everything you ever want.
However, even in machines where you have gobs of memory (for example dedicated servers), the OS can often swap out a few bits of itself that were needed to initialize the OS and running applications, but won't be used again until the server is shut down. You could add more memory to support those bits sticking in memory, or the OS could swap out 512mb or so of itself and then reclaim that memory for disk cache.
On servers, swapping is normally a one-time cost at startup, and then you've traded 512mb of disk for 512mb of more memory. It's usually a good trade.
You can have more memory than you ever need, and that eliminates the need for swap. But on that same system, if you added swap, you'd have a little more disk cache, normally improving the speed of the system.
For a web server serving static files, you could take this one step further and make a RAM disk to serve files from. But other applications with a non-static set (database server, file server) can benefit from more disk caching, up to the size of storage. Since disk is cheaper than RAM, you almost never have "enough" RAM to cache everything.
The same principle applies on home machines, but you also have the idea that some applications may sit in the background, doing nothing, for long periods of time. It's cheaper to swap programs in and out of memory when needed and tie up some disk space than to add the extra memory.
I wonder about that. It depends on what method the site uses for the local part of the IP address. I imagine a number of ranges will start with :1 and just number in order.
Yeah, those programmers/engineers/nerds at NIST and IEC need more salt. Possibly pepper too.
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
http://www.iec.ch/
I guess that would be partly the developers/publishers that don't want to create such a game, and partly the customer that don't buy it. Not Steam (or Best Buy, or Amazon, or other distributors), which is the only point I was trying to make.
There are tons of clones of Chess and Reversi and Monopoly and every other board game - but they're in the $5 crapware bin at the store, not the shelf. They don't get exposure because any idiot developer could make it (and they do), so there's not much profit in making it. On the console, the console manufacturer ensures that there is only one chess game, so the developer can put a little more effort into it since they have a monopoly.
Yahoo and MSN both have online game sections that have cheap/free games to play, although I think for most of them you'd have to use two browsers to play two people on the same computer.
There's also the big matter of control devices - consoles are designed with 2 or 4 controllers. Computers are designed with one keyboard/mouse. You can pass control of the keyboard/mouse back and forth, but this precludes any simultaneous play, meaning only turn-based games can work. Some older games used half the keyboard for one player, half for the other (for example, WASD and space for player 1, arrow keys and enter for player 2). Many keyboards have problems with multiple simultaneous keys being pressed, and so games don't even try to do this any more since it doesn't really work that well. So, without additional hardware, PCs are restricted to turn-based games for multiplayer, single-computer.
Uh.. what? Most indie games are cheaper than major titles, even when you have to purchase multiple copies.
The "move" to consoles is more caused by a few things:
1. consoles are actually "good enough' compared to PCs
2. more widespread acceptance of gaming - Halo on Xbox for frat boys, Wii Tennis for your mom - instead of just nerds on PCs
3. most people are idiots and can operate a console, but not a PC
4. consoles live in the living room with the TV, and lots of people can sit around on the couch playing. PCs normally live in the bedroom/study with one office-type chair. It's easier to be a social activity. (ignore the argument any online game is social for the moment, most non-geeks don't agree)
I don't think people are moving to consoles so much as people who would not game on a PC are now gaming on consoles - in other words, new gamers. Two great articles here:
http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_080131b.html
http://cordblomquist.com/?p=119
In the first, we find that PC games are only 19% of sales, the rest are console games and hardware. Oh noes, PC games are dying, alert the internet!
In the second, we find that even though PC games are only 19% of sales, PC games grew 21% while consoles grew 50%. Moreover, PC game sales have increased every year.
They're both growing, just consoles have a larger market to expand into. Most non-geeks people want a toaster, not a toaster construction kit, even if the toaster is more limited.
None of the console games will let the owner of a store-bought copy run it on four consoles at once either.
Steam does not prevent games from having a single-machine multiplayer mode. The fact that such a mode is not common on PCs is not Steam's fault.
If you want to compare the cost of 4 PCs and 4 copies of the game vs 4 console and 4 copies of the game, go right ahead. If you want to compare the cost of 4 PCs and 4 copies of the game to 1 console and 1 copy of the game, you also have to compare the experience of having the full screen and 100% of the CPU/GPU to having 1/4 of the screen and 1/4 of the CPU/GPU. It's not the same experience, so of course it's cheaper.
4 people can ride the bus way cheaper than driving 4 cars, just like 4-way split screen is way cheaper than 4 PCs/consoles and 4 copies of the game. Do you want to spend less money and sit next to a smelly homeless dude, or pay more to have your own environment and a better experience?
As an aside: Starcraft had "spawn" copies - you could install the game multiple times, but the spawn copies could only play locally with the master copy (and other spawn copies, if the master was also playing). However Blizzard decided that they would make more money having one game per PC, and so the expansion (Brood Wars) required a master copy of the game.
I'm going to have to slightly disagree with you there - as someone else said, "Steam is easier than piracy". It's not cheaper, but it is way easier to click on the game, type my credit card number, and blammo, as fast as I can download it, it's there. New computer? Just login and all my games are downloaded again, for free. Staying at my cousin's house for a month? All my games come with me. It's actually easier then jumping on TPB or DC++ and looking for a seeded copy that a) works! b) isn't full of keyloggers/viruses/etc.
Steam doesn't prevent me from doing anything except using the same copy of the game on two computers at the same time, which is not something I legitimately want to do. Other copy protection schemes require me to lug around a physical disk (this is loads of fun when you have 30+ games), or install system drivers that screw up my system.
I think Valve really designed Steam as a way to sell products first and foremost, which means they thought about what the customer wants, then worried about copy protection. At least it feels that way. Most DRM systems assume you're buying and try to screw you over when you try to actually *use* the product; Steam provides a nice alternative way to buy.
BTW, If you legitimately own the product, there's also an offline mode built in, no hacks required. It might require reactivation if you move to a new computer, I don't remember.
Maybe your state is different; I haven't seen one yet that didn't charge some nominal amount ($10 or $20).
http://www.ncdot.org/DMV/driver_services/drivingpublic/applying.html#Step%203
Step 3 - Paying Your Fees:
spacer
The fees for an original North Carolina driver license and learner permit are as follows:
Type of License or Permit Fee
Learner Permit $15.00/ 18 months
Class A $4.00 / yr.*
Class B $4.00 / yr.*
Class C (the most common type of license) $4.00 / yr.*
If you're talking about load balancing SMTP servers, use a load balancer that presents one forward-facing IP and forwards to backend devices on RFC1918. Foundry and Cisco make gear that will do this, or Linux/BSD machine if you're cheap.
If you're talking about differently configured machines receiving mail for different domains, all behind the same NAT, then put an SMTP relay in place to receive the mail and distribute to your machines. Your SMTP relay can also be load balanced as above.
Some protocols have a method of determining the final service based on in-band information (Host: header for HTTP, domain in SMTP/DNS) and can share an IP. Others have tricks they can use. For example, logging into foo.com's FTP server, you login as username@foo.com. bar.com's FTP server, you login as username@bar.com. Now they can use a relay to share an IP.
HTTP has pretty much taken over as "the" protocol for data interchange. Almost any non-realtime application can tunnel over HTTP. VOIP and games using UDP are the glaring exceptions, and they have their own tricks for NAT - central servers for matchmaking/directory, and matched UDP ports for NAT piercing.
FTP has evolved: most clients use "passive mode" (no callback) by default now, and (almost?) all clients and servers support it. As for setting up NAT devices - most just require you to check "track FTP" or something similar, if it's not on by default.
IPv4+NAT will muddle along for a long time. It's ugly. It's broken. There's an arguably better system (IPv6). But it's good enough, and can be stretched a lot further.
Better yet, tell them it *is* a dry run, when it's not. Make sure they go through all the motions, you know, to fully test it.
See also: Ender's Game book series
Great link. I've never actually read Nietzsche, but yeah, the thinking is along those lines from what I can see. From the summary, he spends a lot more time talking about other things - figureheads, punishment, and value judgments of people instead of actions.
Funny, but you've misunderstood my comments. Your boss may very well be a greedy, selfish, thoughtless, heartless bastard. He just may not be specifically trying to hurt you.
"I'm going to help myself, regardless of whether it hurts others" is not the same thinking as "I'm trying to hurt others".
While there are sadistic persons, I think most "evil" people aren't trying specifically to hurt people; they simply don't care, which can be worse.
The concepts of universal good and universal evil are not that old - or universal. I believe Zoroastrianism was the first to widely spread the idea of some universally good actions and universally evil actions. The alternative way of thinking - and this prevails today in many circles - is that there is "good for me" and "good for you" and these are not necessarily the same action.
Many people today are raised with the idea of good and evil as universal concepts (particularly in the West through Christianity), and are surprised when others do not share this idea. To other people, "good" is whatever benefits your self/family/country/organization, and whether or not it hurts others is just plain irrelevant. The only reason to consider other people is for long-term "good" - if you have to work with someone for a long period of time, you may get a greater good by not screwing them (much) and working together for a while instead of screwing them right away and then getting little or nothing from them further on. But again, it comes back to trying to do the most good for your concerns, not any particular concern for someone else.
Intelligent and educated people with the "good for me" philosophy will still often play nice with others, because it will create a greater good for themselves in the long term. Less enlightened people with this philosophy will just try to screw everyone they can for as much as possible because that's the direct, fast way to creating good for themselves.
Perhaps he was the one that placed the power strip beneath the sink, where it would get wet?
There's many motivations to play games - competition, exploration, socialization, etc.
I like building things, in this case my character. Think more of LEGOs, jigsaw puzzles, building sand castles - all fun things with no way to lose. The last thing I was is for some jerk to come along and knock over my stuff. WoW PvE is perfect for me - it's like The Sims where you get to fight monsters. I don't want to beat the other guy, I just want to make my stuff nice.
My brother however likes competition and gambling. He likes CounterStrike and he loved ganking people and taking their stuff in UO. He didn't do it for the stuff (since he often got ganked himself or even gave away his stuff), he did it for the thrill of the kill, the notoriety, and because he enjoyed griefing people. I understand that mentality, but I don't have it myself.
WoW tries to accommodate different play styles. Imagine a public pool, where some people are sitting on the edge with their feet in and talking, some are just splashing around, and others are having timed races in the lanes. It's not always perfect, and each use would be better served by being more specialized - for example a hot tub for the loungers and timing equipment for the racers - but it does a pretty good job of giving everyone something to enjoy.
The way I read it:
System is installed and tested against test data. Passes. (here is your rigorous testing)
Business people have the ability to modify financial rules. They do so. They do not test, or willingly want the existing tests to fail.
Techie runs original tests again, notices they no longer pass. Asks business units about it and is told to mind his own business.