How to Buy an Arcade Game gives you a good start on purchasing an arcade game. I wrote the FAQ because I got so tired of answering people's questions in my mailbox about how to get ahold of one, or how to find one. There's a lot more to it, and I'm currently writing a book (MS Word format, sorry) all about collecting classic arcade games.
Hmmm.... given my nick's namesake, I'd probably want the Atari shirt. I've already got a navy one, but the problem is that on the sleeves, they use some sort of non-elastic band. A normal T would be nice. If only I could get one of the Aesthetics "Console T's" to go along with it.
I'm starting to wonder what kind of gadgets I can put together with all these 'out of date' and 'market failed' stuff. A Nintendo VR glove + a vibrating vest + a "le stick" (a joystick with mercury switches to detect movement) + one of those eyepiece games + a JAMMA pr0n game board straight from Japan.
This is starting to sound interesting. Almost as interesting as hooking a camera up and putting it on a web page, and giving the control of the vibrating action to people who view the web page.... oh boy. This is starting to get messy.
It seems that TiVos in their 1 week trial period aren't immune to the service upgrade, either. I've had my TiVo HDR312 (new in box) connected to the phone for two days, using the free trial week. Just last night, it was flashed with the 2.0.1 software. So if anyone is thinking about getting an older TiVo that has 1.2.1. or 1.3 still, the same caution applies about the phone line. Your first call will be fine, but your next call may contain an upgrade.
To: "Josh McCormick"
Cc: "Liz McCoy"
Subject: RE: Publication of University's Censorship
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 11:56:30 -0600
Dear Josh,
Thank you for your note regarding the allegations of censorship from a
student at the U. There are significant omissions and serious
misrepresentations in the student's report of the matter concerning the
University's SOS Web site. This is a matter, however, that is being dealt
with by the administration through the student behavior process. The
University is taking this issue very seriously. We are confident the
administration and the school's student association are taking the necessary steps to resolve this issue appropriately.
Fred Esplin
Vice President for University Relations
If TiVo disables my TiVoNET ethernet board, then I'll cancel TiVo service and feed the guide data myself. Blocking the 'hackers' is going to affect their revenue. I will be the first to cancel service and strike out on my own *and* further develop TiVo software.
There is absolutely no way you could have typed all of that within a minute or two of the story going online. It is obvious that you've pasted a prepared script onto Slashdot, with the hope of getting your counter-view seen quickly and widely.
I don't think I'm stretching too far when I call you a shill for another organization.
The site lists people who are in the department of the president. You can scroll down there and get the names and titles of everyone you want to write to. Yes, that includes the legal advisor to the university president, if you so choose.
It isn't there anymore. But back when I was crusing along with my 386/25, I got together the plans and put together one of those home-built D/A converters. The actual use for this device, however, was sound. Basically, it allowed you to play digitized sounds through the parallel port. And I'd play a lot of MODs through it. Those were good stuff. Of course, it was mono, and 8 bit, and not super high frequency. Frankly, even a SoundBlaster Pro would have been better.
Actually, I've been rather disappointed in the advancements in display technologies (and prices) over the years. Yes, I too started with that 12" Amber screen (with a Hercules "high resolution" mono graphics card).
At the same time, we've seen incredible increases in processing power, from a 10mhz to a 1ghz CPU. In graphical terms, we should have a 3d holographic display on our desktops by now.
I personally blame the CRT manufacturers for this extreme lag in display technology. They've really controlled the prices and their technology hasn't increased significantly.
Then there is the industry that placed all its bets on CRT technology for the longest time. But, considering what we've seen in the recent past, I think we're going to get a surge in display technology. CRT technology is increasing in quality, and alternative technologies like LCD are becoming mainstream.
The real problem is tying in all of the mom and pop systems together. That is, of course, even assuming that their systems have a real-time inventory count. And then you get into issues of 'reserving items' or how Mary doesn't want Jane to see some of her inventory.
Its a whole big mess of software, policies, procedures, and politics. You'd accomplish more by trying to start a new Fidonet relay in your region.
Those problems aside, though, I'd love to see something like that work. Looks like a tough sell, but maybe there are a few niche industries it can be done in?
They wanted to give credit to the 'team' rather than individual employees, back in the early days. This didn't go unnoticed, and you had a lot of unhappy programmers / game designers out there. This, BTW, has changed. Well, at least, I though that until I read your story.
> Sysadmins are just ego-fied tech support.
> we respect your work... but programming is creative
Then you obviously haven't run into an excellent systems administrator.
The application programming team has
quite a bit investested in a single-threaded
billing code that is horribly inefficient and can't get the bills out on time. What does the creative systems administrator do after the obvious tuning efforts? Looks at the way your processes hit the CPUs, then adjust the time slices of the scheduler, disables interrupts on specific system boards, and errects processor sets to get you that 25% boost because your team has programmed itself into a corner.
He then goes on, after a process trace, to tell you where your programming efforts have failed, beyond the obvious single-threaded issue. You pull information from the database via TCP/IP, and you only pull a single record at a time, so you're stuck in the overhead of database transactions. And yes, he has the metrics in hand to prove it. Fix your code, he says!
A good systems administrator is proactive. He anticipates things before they are going to happen, and either solves them before they happen, or has a solution ready for when it does happen. And he keeps the programmers honest. Do you want me to throw more hardware at this, or do you want them to fix their code, Mr. Corporate Accountant?
You can't say that a systems administrator isn't creative. If they're not creative, either their job doesn't place weighty demands on them, or they're not very good at what they're doing.
That aside, a systems administrator keeps your systems alive. Do you want a good one, or a bad one?
In a way, it sounds like an interesting way to do a Rumplestiltskin type attack. You send the email to one (guessed) address. You send the email from another (guessed) address. If the name your sending it to is bogus, then it bounces back to the other name you guessed.
I'd say that both Microsoft and AOL used the 'negotiations' at the very least as an opportunity to get inside information on the other company. What better way to find out what the competition is doing than doing it in the name of 'joining forces' with them?
FWIW, I view the term "coopetition" the same way I view "frenemies". They're still out to screw you, and a short-term boost isn't worth it in the long run.
Actually, I did a Google AdWords. But in a trollingly juvenile kind of way. You'll either like my story, or you'll hate it.
I submitted a story about Google's adwords, and how it was very interesting in that *anybody* can place an advertisement, automatically, for anything they wanted. I personally consider this a revolution in the way advertising is handled, and I wish the idea would spread.
Of course, my story was rejected. So, what does any evil Slashdotter do? That's right. I did a Google AdWords banner. It was titled "Get the Slashdot Guide!" with the body something to the effect of "Learn the secrets and make the most out of Slashdot. Ride the Taco!" It was set on the keyword "slashdot". It displayed the URL "www.slashdotguide.com".
Effectiveness rate? VERY. I was getting about 12% click-throughs each day. I set a tiny budget of $30. It lasted for a few days. I would say that AdWords can be *very successful* if you correctly target your advertisement. Your experiment was rather bland, IMHO.
Oh. The catch? The ad, while claiming it was directing you to "www.slashdotguide.com" and displaying the URL on a MOUSEOVER, actually linked them to the GoatSe.cx picture. I'm rather surprised that Google didn't put a stop to it. I'm rather surprised I did it.
But it did get my point across when I re-submitted the story about Google AdWords. Even if they didn't follow through on it then and there. Maybe this story has something to do with it?:) (Probably NOT.)
Bingo! Glad I searched for the word "bargaining" before I posted. I think that they were prepared to go with Netscape for the client, but if they were going to get a better deal with Microsoft, they're going to take it. I don't think Sun would be particularly pleased, though.
A combination of a regular keyboard and a *foot mouse* would probably be more idea. Hands constantly stay on the keyboard, so there's no penalty for "context-switching" between mousing and typing. And you get a small multitasking bonus (typing while mouse moving).
If they were CHEAPER, I'd see a lot of people getting one.
Probably the same thing you just did. Wave those last two checks (at 1/2 value, which is more or less 1 check) goodbye, and post an anonymous story about it to Slashdot and other places to exact a satisfactory revenge for being cheated out of money.
At that site, I saw this interesting slide called T&!, which obviously connected with me as a censored version of "T&A". What an interesting surprise it was. And I was looking forward to even more Martian pr0n.
This paper seems to be the most in-depth analysis of the face on Mars that I've seen. And it has a lot of interesting information. Almost wants to make me believe in the face again.:)
Having co-created the first local ISP in a 'secondary city' back in 1994, I have some perspective on this. Also some perspective in having branched out to many smaller cities.
Having a single, local, crappy ISP is absolutely no reason to get into the ISP business. It is a headache and a half, and it will consume your life. As mentioned in the various posts, the technical end isn't really all that bad. It is the business/customer/industry/profit side of it.
If you are ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED you want your own dedicated connection and you want spread your cost, then you might want to go the somewhat more profitable route, which is web consulting / web hosting, with dialup access to support your customers. There is some money there.
Dialup? You've got to be on crack. You're overwhelmed by all sorts of new users who are low profit margin accounts and require lots of support.
You could say that the TiVo falls into this category. Buy a 15 hour cheap model, and with a little effort, you can add a much larger second hard drive to it. But to be fair, this isn't quite the same, since the high cost component (the hard drive) isn't there.
I've taken apart a few game controllers by companies which sell an intelligent and a dumbed-down version. It seemed that all that was missing was the actual controls -- all the PCB traces were there.
My RCA television seems to be a case of this as well. There's some minor circuitry missing where the svideo in connector should be. If I had a better understanding of electronics, I could probably just wire one in.
And I wouldn't be surprised in a monitor's bios was the only thing that seperated some high resolution and lower capability models.
Quite a common way to cut costs. Its great when the Internet connected consumer finds a way around it, and publicises it.:)
Of course, you are hourly, so this may or may not work for you. But give it a try, maybe. For us salary employees, we each get a turn on the on-call pager. We have to carry it and be responsible for pages 24/7, for seven days. Then, we hand the pager over to the next guy.
...and the compensation? We get Friday off.
...and how was it handled? Rather than our bosses going and negotiating with HR (pointless), they handled it on their own. We stay at home, but as far as the bean counters know, we were here the full day.
Might work well for your situation, too. Depends on your management.
I think this is similar to this Slashdot article almost two years ago:
TCP Equipped Ethernet Card Josh Baugher writes " A 100 megabit ethernet card
with a TCP/IP stack built in. They claim to be able to
do 9 megabytes/second with only 2% CPU load (compared to 4.5
megabytes/second at 98% receiving CPU load using Windows NT
TCP/IP ( read about this on "geeks" mailing list.) "
Slashdot Mirror
How to Buy an Arcade Game gives you a good start on purchasing an arcade game. I wrote the FAQ because I got so tired of answering people's questions in my mailbox about how to get ahold of one, or how to find one. There's a lot more to it, and I'm currently writing a book (MS Word format, sorry) all about collecting classic arcade games.
Hmmm.... given my nick's namesake, I'd probably want the Atari shirt. I've already got a navy one, but the problem is that on the sleeves, they use some sort of non-elastic band. A normal T would be nice. If only I could get one of the Aesthetics "Console T's" to go along with it.
I'm starting to wonder what kind of gadgets I can put together with all these 'out of date' and 'market failed' stuff. A Nintendo VR glove + a vibrating vest + a "le stick" (a joystick with mercury switches to detect movement) + one of those eyepiece games + a JAMMA pr0n game board straight from Japan.
This is starting to sound interesting. Almost as interesting as hooking a camera up and putting it on a web page, and giving the control of the vibrating action to people who view the web page.... oh boy. This is starting to get messy.
It seems that TiVos in their 1 week trial period aren't immune to the service upgrade, either. I've had my TiVo HDR312 (new in box) connected to the phone for two days, using the free trial week. Just last night, it was flashed with the 2.0.1 software. So if anyone is thinking about getting an older TiVo that has 1.2.1. or 1.3 still, the same caution applies about the phone line. Your first call will be fine, but your next call may contain an upgrade.
Cc: "Liz McCoy"
Subject: RE: Publication of University's Censorship
Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 11:56:30 -0600
Dear Josh,
Thank you for your note regarding the allegations of censorship from a student at the U. There are significant omissions and serious misrepresentations in the student's report of the matter concerning the University's SOS Web site. This is a matter, however, that is being dealt with by the administration through the student behavior process. The University is taking this issue very seriously. We are confident the administration and the school's student association are taking the necessary steps to resolve this issue appropriately.
Fred Esplin
Vice President for University Relations
If TiVo disables my TiVoNET ethernet board, then I'll cancel TiVo service and feed the guide data myself. Blocking the 'hackers' is going to affect their revenue. I will be the first to cancel service and strike out on my own *and* further develop TiVo software.
There is absolutely no way you could have typed all of that within a minute or two of the story going online. It is obvious that you've pasted a prepared script onto Slashdot, with the hope of getting your counter-view seen quickly and widely.
I don't think I'm stretching too far when I call you a shill for another organization.
The site lists people who are in the department of the president. You can scroll down there and get the names and titles of everyone you want to write to. Yes, that includes the legal advisor to the university president, if you so choose.
It isn't there anymore. But back when I was crusing along with my 386/25, I got together the plans and put together one of those home-built D/A converters. The actual use for this device, however, was sound. Basically, it allowed you to play digitized sounds through the parallel port. And I'd play a lot of MODs through it. Those were good stuff. Of course, it was mono, and 8 bit, and not super high frequency. Frankly, even a SoundBlaster Pro would have been better.
Actually, I've been rather disappointed in the advancements in display technologies (and prices) over the years. Yes, I too started with that 12" Amber screen (with a Hercules "high resolution" mono graphics card).
At the same time, we've seen incredible increases in processing power, from a 10mhz to a 1ghz CPU. In graphical terms, we should have a 3d holographic display on our desktops by now.
I personally blame the CRT manufacturers for this extreme lag in display technology. They've really controlled the prices and their technology hasn't increased significantly.
Then there is the industry that placed all its bets on CRT technology for the longest time. But, considering what we've seen in the recent past, I think we're going to get a surge in display technology. CRT technology is increasing in quality, and alternative technologies like LCD are becoming mainstream.
Here's to graphics display research.
The real problem is tying in all of the mom and pop systems together. That is, of course, even assuming that their systems have a real-time inventory count. And then you get into issues of 'reserving items' or how Mary doesn't want Jane to see some of her inventory.
Its a whole big mess of software, policies, procedures, and politics. You'd accomplish more by trying to start a new Fidonet relay in your region.
Those problems aside, though, I'd love to see something like that work. Looks like a tough sell, but maybe there are a few niche industries it can be done in?
They wanted to give credit to the 'team' rather than individual employees, back in the early days. This didn't go unnoticed, and you had a lot of unhappy programmers / game designers out there. This, BTW, has changed. Well, at least, I though that until I read your story.
> we respect your work... but programming is creative
Then you obviously haven't run into an excellent systems administrator.
The application programming team has quite a bit investested in a single-threaded billing code that is horribly inefficient and can't get the bills out on time. What does the creative systems administrator do after the obvious tuning efforts? Looks at the way your processes hit the CPUs, then adjust the time slices of the scheduler, disables interrupts on specific system boards, and errects processor sets to get you that 25% boost because your team has programmed itself into a corner.
He then goes on, after a process trace, to tell you where your programming efforts have failed, beyond the obvious single-threaded issue. You pull information from the database via TCP/IP, and you only pull a single record at a time, so you're stuck in the overhead of database transactions. And yes, he has the metrics in hand to prove it. Fix your code, he says!
A good systems administrator is proactive. He anticipates things before they are going to happen, and either solves them before they happen, or has a solution ready for when it does happen. And he keeps the programmers honest. Do you want me to throw more hardware at this, or do you want them to fix their code, Mr. Corporate Accountant?
You can't say that a systems administrator isn't creative. If they're not creative, either their job doesn't place weighty demands on them, or they're not very good at what they're doing.
That aside, a systems administrator keeps your systems alive. Do you want a good one, or a bad one?
In a way, it sounds like an interesting way to do a Rumplestiltskin type attack. You send the email to one (guessed) address. You send the email from another (guessed) address. If the name your sending it to is bogus, then it bounces back to the other name you guessed.
I hate the idea already.
I'd say that both Microsoft and AOL used the 'negotiations' at the very least as an opportunity to get inside information on the other company. What better way to find out what the competition is doing than doing it in the name of 'joining forces' with them?
FWIW, I view the term "coopetition" the same way I view "frenemies". They're still out to screw you, and a short-term boost isn't worth it in the long run.
Actually, I did a Google AdWords. But in a trollingly juvenile kind of way. You'll either like my story, or you'll hate it.
:) (Probably NOT.)
I submitted a story about Google's adwords, and how it was very interesting in that *anybody* can place an advertisement, automatically, for anything they wanted. I personally consider this a revolution in the way advertising is handled, and I wish the idea would spread.
Of course, my story was rejected. So, what does any evil Slashdotter do? That's right. I did a Google AdWords banner. It was titled "Get the Slashdot Guide!" with the body something to the effect of "Learn the secrets and make the most out of Slashdot. Ride the Taco!" It was set on the keyword "slashdot". It displayed the URL "www.slashdotguide.com".
Effectiveness rate? VERY. I was getting about 12% click-throughs each day. I set a tiny budget of $30. It lasted for a few days. I would say that AdWords can be *very successful* if you correctly target your advertisement. Your experiment was rather bland, IMHO.
Oh. The catch? The ad, while claiming it was directing you to "www.slashdotguide.com" and displaying the URL on a MOUSEOVER, actually linked them to the GoatSe.cx picture. I'm rather surprised that Google didn't put a stop to it. I'm rather surprised I did it.
But it did get my point across when I re-submitted the story about Google AdWords. Even if they didn't follow through on it then and there. Maybe this story has something to do with it?
Bingo! Glad I searched for the word "bargaining" before I posted. I think that they were prepared to go with Netscape for the client, but if they were going to get a better deal with Microsoft, they're going to take it. I don't think Sun would be particularly pleased, though.
As is obvious, Observers.net is an AOL watchdog
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Observers.net may be an AOL watchdog, but something tells me they need to keep a better eye on their own site!
A combination of a regular keyboard and a *foot mouse* would probably be more idea. Hands constantly stay on the keyboard, so there's no penalty for "context-switching" between mousing and typing. And you get a small multitasking bonus (typing while mouse moving).
If they were CHEAPER, I'd see a lot of people getting one.
Probably the same thing you just did. Wave those last two checks (at 1/2 value, which is more or less 1 check) goodbye, and post an anonymous story about it to Slashdot and other places to exact a satisfactory revenge for being cheated out of money.
At that site, I saw this interesting slide called T&!, which obviously connected with me as a censored version of "T&A". What an interesting surprise it was. And I was looking forward to even more Martian pr0n.
This paper seems to be the most in-depth analysis of the face on Mars that I've seen. And it has a lot of interesting information. Almost wants to make me believe in the face again. :)
Its a good read.
Having co-created the first local ISP in a 'secondary city' back in 1994, I have some perspective on this. Also some perspective in having branched out to many smaller cities.
Having a single, local, crappy ISP is absolutely no reason to get into the ISP business. It is a headache and a half, and it will consume your life. As mentioned in the various posts, the technical end isn't really all that bad. It is the business/customer/industry/profit side of it.
If you are ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED you want your own dedicated connection and you want spread your cost, then you might want to go the somewhat more profitable route, which is web consulting / web hosting, with dialup access to support your customers. There is some money there.
Dialup? You've got to be on crack. You're overwhelmed by all sorts of new users who are low profit margin accounts and require lots of support.
You could say that the TiVo falls into this category. Buy a 15 hour cheap model, and with a little effort, you can add a much larger second hard drive to it. But to be fair, this isn't quite the same, since the high cost component (the hard drive) isn't there.
:)
I've taken apart a few game controllers by companies which sell an intelligent and a dumbed-down version. It seemed that all that was missing was the actual controls -- all the PCB traces were there.
My RCA television seems to be a case of this as well. There's some minor circuitry missing where the svideo in connector should be. If I had a better understanding of electronics, I could probably just wire one in.
And I wouldn't be surprised in a monitor's bios was the only thing that seperated some high resolution and lower capability models.
Quite a common way to cut costs. Its great when the Internet connected consumer finds a way around it, and publicises it.
Of course, you are hourly, so this may or may not work for you. But give it a try, maybe. For us salary employees, we each get a turn on the on-call pager. We have to carry it and be responsible for pages 24/7, for seven days. Then, we hand the pager over to the next guy.
...and the compensation? We get Friday off.
...and how was it handled? Rather than our bosses going and negotiating with HR (pointless), they handled it on their own. We stay at home, but as far as the bean counters know, we were here the full day.
Might work well for your situation, too. Depends on your management.
TCP Equipped Ethernet Card
Josh Baugher writes " A 100 megabit ethernet card with a TCP/IP stack built in. They claim to be able to do 9 megabytes/second with only 2% CPU load (compared to 4.5 megabytes/second at 98% receiving CPU load using Windows NT TCP/IP ( read about this on "geeks" mailing list.) "