You are allowed to use reasonable force and always have been. Recent UK news is about where the limit lies and the answer is and always has been the same - wherever it's reasonable.
Summary for the Tony Martin case:
Shooting an unarmed, fleeing burglar, who ran off before he could even do anything to threaten you or give you time to assess his intentions, in the back, at close range, with a shotgun is not reasonable.
Don't care who you are, what country you're in or why you did it, it's unreasonable. For all you know, the kid could have sneaked in to get his ball back and legged it at the sight of you and you shoot him, intended to wound or kill, in the back when he posed no threat.
I'm all for doing whatever damage is applicable if said burglar goes for you, will not leave, does not back down, reaches for a weapon, etc. but check your case law first, before you go trolling.
Oh, and by the way, banning guns is an idea that you would only understand if you lived in a country which, by and large, never sees the use of them.
Yeah, the UK Schools that I work for use it. From what I've seen it's not "clear", though, it leaves horrible browny-red smudges over whatever you dab it on which you can't remove unless you file it off somehow.
Horrible for personal use (stained the printers and computers I saw it used it), expensive, easy to see and therefore remove. I wouldn't know where you would stand on warranty etc. if you daubed this stuff on something that you later needed to return.
I'm not too hot on C++ but a while back I was working on a similar problem in Java. I wanted platform-independent, non-binary state saving files that could easily be extended without breaking the format and the feature of Java that saved my life was Reflection.
With the Reflection classes, you were able to read out, programatically, a list of the variables, methods/functions etc. within each class in the currently running program.
Properly programmed, and by overloading/extending the Serialization classes, you could look into the internals of the program that was running, view all the variables, choose which ones needed to be saved, serialise them into a nice plain-text format (INI, XML, whatever).
If you designed the format right, you could save the info in such a way that a later version of the program would save the same info, with extra fields, in the same format and not have to worry about whether it was a version 1 or a version 2 savegame.
I don't know if there is an equivalent in C++ (I doubt it with all those pointers and complications) but you only really see the power of a Reflection class when you start playing about with it like this.
Yeah, but that's more because companies like to make money than it isn't possible. I think I've pretty much reached a point where any applications I don't have, I don't need or I can find some version which has the same features that DOES run on 98 (Open Source to the rescue).
More and more, it's hard-coded restrictions rather than a technical reason. I'm not saying that I will never have to upgrade but by the time I do, hopefully Windows XP/2000/whatever will have stabilised to the same point or Linux will be usable as a desktop. I hate the "you have to upgrade it because it's old" argument... it's a crock.
Incorrect - they don't want ANY unknowns. Imagine something like the Pentium FDIV bugs showing themselves for the first time in a mission-critical application. You don't just throw in any old rubbish when billions of dollars of investments rides on it working perfectly without testing and testing and testing until you're as certain as you can be.
I have to agree with CastrTroy here... I run 98SE for the exact reason he has stated. I provide tech support to 6 different schools in my area and I'm having to turn new job offers down because I just don't have enough hours in the week to do them.
Everyone is surprised that I run 98 but, especially now, I know the problems that it has and I have systems in place to stop them. I know it crashes a lot but I also know how to fix it. I've never lost a windows 95/98/me installation yet. However, the XP and 2K machines that I support will lock into all sorts of reboot loops and cryptic stop messages that I can nothing about but restore from backup.
The schools I work for were stung big-time by things like Sasser, they were taken completely off-guard and all reached a critical state within a few days when not one of their PC's would stay up for more than a few minutes.
Because of my setup and because of the way that viruses are now only targeting the new vulnerabilities, I'm pretty safe. I've NEVER, repeat NEVER, had a virus on any computer that I own and for many years didn't even bother with an antivirus.
Nowadays, the only reason I have antivirus is so that I can scan emails from people who forward me crap and ask "is this a virus/trojan etc?". Most of the time, it's a yes before I even bother to scan it.
Virus writers are not targetting me, they'd have a very hard time if they did because I'm not stupid. My IE is up-to-date and never used, because I realised many years ago what a mistake it is to use it. IE is installed purely for Windows Update.
I have people who I support who are still happily running 98, even 95, some of whom are years behind on updates and they don't have a problem because they are educated, firewalled, know what not to do and have established measures in place, have had for years.
Only the 2000/XP computers that I support have problems with such junk because, like Sasser, there was little a user could do to prevent it as it came out of the blue. That's what 98 was like many years ago but we've since established a routine that prevents that.
There is NOTHING WRONG with running an older Windows OS, even an out-of-date, not-updated OS. Sure, I wouldn't use it as a server but then I wouldn't use Windows as a server given half a choice, precisely because of it's many problems.
Windows "automatic update" has screwed up many a machine that I support, and given all sorts of weird problems becuase of it installing crap and hogging internet connections.
Windows 98 works for me, does everything I need to, is blindingly fast (but you don't notice that until you use it after using XP), behind a suitable set of protective measures is as safe as a Windows 2000/XP machine behind the same measures, easy to recover and suffers less problems overall.
Experiment for the adventurous: Get a Windows 3.1 box, install TCP/IP and put it on the net. Wait for it to be compromised. Perform similar action on XP/2K, even with latest updates.
One of my firewalls is still running a Linux 2.0 kernel because it's simple, safe, and works. Old decrepid. Old = tried and tested.
Ask NASA why they won't put a Intel with XP controlling the space shuttle. Now ask them why they would use a Z80 with something like CP/M or Unix.
That's hardly the problem with slackware - it barely supports boot floppies any more, really. In fact, the recommended method of booting from floppies is in the Slackware FTP... there is a single-floppy of SBootMgr which just loads up an ElTorito boot loader that can boot from the slackware CD on even older computers that don't support CD-booting. As you say, nobody uses floppies any more.
2.6 being large is obviously not the concern here. I suppose the other explanations are that it's not as well tested, not as well supported by some older apps, requires many architecture changes in the distro and doesn't do much that 2.4 doesn't already do. The upheaval is hardly worth it at the moment.
If there's anything to learn from the Windows world, it's that just because something has a higher version number doesn't mean it's automatically better.
I know that I pass a company on the M25 (a big, circular car park around London) that has this as the only writing on it's building:
"Sericol: More than ink... solutions."
And I have deliberately avoided actually bothering to look them up and find out what problem it is that they have a solution to.
I'm guessing that they do something like printing but for all I know, they could sell pens or inkjet cartridges or even process squid.
I have no idea and the fact that it's emblazoned in ten-foot-high letters clearly visible along the busiest road in Britian doesn't help a jot because of their vague "management-ese", as I like to call it.
In fact, to me, it's anti-advertising. If you can't be bothered to state clearly what you do, I don't want you or your products/services. If you wrap even your company HQ in nonsense-words, then how can I even begin to trust you to sell me something without bending the truth?
"Kenosis-BitTorrent downloaders will notice that this is a kenosis url and use kenosis" - the other way is a compatibility interface for non-Kenosis BT clients.
RTFA and read it properly. The server is merely a pretty interface for older BT clients that will search the decentralised version and return the tracker address of the last known tracker for that item.
That's got nothing to do with the decentralised network itself.
I had a machine (a 386DX/25) that had a rechargeable backup battery... in fact quite a few of the machines from that era did. For some reason, some bright spark decided to scrap them. Considering that that same PC is still running with the same rechargeable CMOS battery, I have no idea what the problem was.
It was also just a standard Ni-Cd which plugged into a jumper on the motherboard. Didn't get much simpler than that and it was charging whenever the PC had power. It comes to something when you know the code for the battery that you need to go out and buy when someone's CMOS dies... CR2032.
On your first point, I don't see why it's not being done but it's a good idea and I'm sure that if you were only powering the memory modules and a reduced central core of the processor which stored the registers and a simple loop to check for power, you wouldn't need that much power.
"Was it meant for "playing our AAC's on any device"? I doubt it! I haven't seen that many non-Apple players that support the format, even if unprotected."
I don't know about that... my Nokia phone can play AAC's and MP3's so someone is using the format. I'm sure if you dug deeper, you'd find all sorts of dvd players and portable MP3 players that support AAC.
Whatever happened to X-COM PBEM? I remember there being a range of PBEM game being available in my local software outfit including X-Com (Called UFO in the UK) but they seem to have disappeared.
I don't know if they relied on a central server or something but I couldn't even see any copies going on eBay last I looked.
There always seems to be a set of those up on eBay... if you don't win that one, have a look again the following week... I had four sets at one point but now have just two (original in binders and just the magazines). Got them all off of eBay.
Tell me what it was called and I'll have a look... do you know roughly what it was about? I know there was a game cliffhanger but that was a entire volume for the project but if you can give more details, I'm sure I could furnish you with a scan or two.
On a similar note, I can remember the series that was published by Marshall Cavendish called INPUT. This was a fantastic bi-weekly serial magazine published in the early 80's that focused almost exclusively on programming for the early micros.
I owned about six or seven issues and it was the best explanation of programming, also containing loads of example programs for about six different home machines, so that no matter what machine you had you could use the same program as everyone else. The learning curve was perfect when I was a kid and isn't patronising now that I'm an adult re-reading them. Those issues almost single-handedly started my love of computing (along with the ZX Spectrum).
My brother found the entire first volume at a boot sale some years back and I read through them all again, despite knowing several languages by then (the books primarily focused on BASIC and assembly for the revelant micros, Z80 or 6502 etc.).
Recently, I purchased the missing volumes off of eBay and they are fantastic. I only wish I had the enthusiasm to actually still sit and type out my programs any more. One text adventure had about 10 pages full of encrypted hexadecimal that you had to type in by hand, perfectly, for it to work! I don't miss those days...
Reading back through them, like this book, the parts that were generic to computing, i.e. hardware, peripherals, storage etc., were very quickly outdated. However the computing and programming principles still stand strong and many's the time that my understanding of binary, assembly and the deeper workings of the computer have helped me.
But it's still amazing how quickly something can go from being state-of-the-art to back-of-the-cupboard.
Problems with fingerprint scanners are legendary, especially when your fingerprint is so easy to collect, glasses, ATM's, a handshake. There was a study not long ago on Slashdot that showed that about 90% of fingerprint scanners can be fooled by things like gelatine.
And you think the retailers would want to buy a big expensive foolproof machine for every shop in the world or just something cheap that can read a fingerprint?
It was hard enough moving them over to what we in the UK call Chip-and-PIN where we've done away (or are going to do away) with signatures and use a four digit code. That's been years in the making and still not completely functional. I can still say "Oh, I haven't been sent a number for that card yet" and they let you sign for the transaction, much like previously.
No, I still say the best system for things like credit cards etc. is to have some sort of graphical. When you swipe the card, the owners picture appears for verification (sent direct from the credit card company, maybe chosen from a few random photographs from different angles, clothing etc.) Much more big brother, I know.
If the person in front of you does not look like the owner, you refuse the transaction. Put this on top of things like Chip-and-PIN and signatures and you've got it made. Only an CC company insider could realistically beat it and then they would be accountable (I would hope that every account created had a traceback history for which staff member created it, one that is unwriteable after creation.).
If the retailer tries to run a stolen credit card through to make a few fake transactions, and presses Yes to ID the photo, there's always the Chip-and-PIN to fall back on that he must know. But it means you can't stroll in just any shop with a stolen credit card and take someone else's money.
As someone who owns EVERY PC GTA game, including the london add-ons etc., I think the original GTA was the best. It wasn't the storyline, that was just humour especially with the London addon, but the freeform play, especially when networked.
When I got bored of trying to play it properly (which was much harder in the original GTA than in the 3-D versions), my brother and I would network and that was just fantastic (albeit very buggy in DOS and unplayable on Windows with my machines at the time). Trying to line up a screen full of cars and then rocket-launchering and trying to surf over the top of the cars as they exploded was great fun.
Skidding around on a bike in the middle of machine-gunning gang was just right and if you were quick and smart you could set up booby traps with some cars and blow them all to kingdom come.
The multiplayer was simple but effective, leading to some good car chases and using the local terrain and traffic to avoid each other's bullets.
GTA2 was a bit too much like another add-on, just a graphical overhaul and a slight change in mission structure, and I never really got into that as much. The graphics were also too dark and the "lighting" was just there to be eye candy and nothing else.
GTA3/VC, although good and groundbreaking, just doesn't rock my socks... it's fun to mess about in but you get bored and the missions are just of the save-and-retry type, along with some impossible ones like controlling the remote control choppers.
All of the games, though, have that right balance of freeform and mission-led play. When you ran out of missions in GTA1, you could go selling cars for a while until the police came and you had to make a quick getaway.
GTA2 had a marvellous idea for missions where you have to keep in with a local gang to get more, or defect to another gang to get theirs. GTA3 has been a good translation to 3D and it keeps the same style, I'm just not sure that it's as good.
The fact that you can load up any of them, load in any saved game and just piss about for a while is a major attraction, especially when you can't do that next-to-impossible mission and want to relax.
What I want to see is basically OpenGTA1... same game, same style, loads of new capabilities and missions.
Ain't got it... don't want it... can't use it... I have a 1GHz with a PCI video card. Don't like flickbook animations-type framerates... but I've played CS:Source and seen the demos and I'm not impressed. It's taken years to get a half-decent physics in a game, it should have been MUCH sooner and better.
People have been saying that hype has always been there and you just have to read around it. People like us probably can but it's the little kids and everyone who want the games that are always disappointed. Most youngsters will go on for years about a game just because they've heard it's coming. And then the stupid sods will go out and buy it just because they've wanted it for years.
And it's not just games... the AvP movie has been anticipated for years but in the end, it was just crap. Daikatana, Doom3, Black & White, Half-life 2, were all over-hyped and, for how long development took, under-done.
It probably doesn't even hurt sales but it does hurt the company reputation when you've bought their third long-promised title and got a load of rubbish for your 30 quid.
It's the same as buying Nike or Reebok... if you're stupid enough to just pay for the name, that's your fault. I've worked out my system. I use a deliberately old PC, so I can only run 1-2 year old games. This means that by the time I run a game, I know EXACTLY how good it is, I have all the latest patches, I get the budget price not the 30 quid rip-off and I have the hardware to fully enjoy the game as it was intended without spending a fortune.
Yeah, it hurts for the first year or two when you can't buy the modern games you want but you save a fortune by not buying the bad games and by paying a reasonable price for the good games.
I see, so the idea is to employ a few SCO bods to put up a website describing every detail of the court case, transcribing all of the court documents and putting up articles describings SCO'S opinions and related news articles.
And you think that the little bit of money that you throw into that website is going to counter a huge base of dedicated people who work on the website on their own time, for fun, go to the courthouses of their own accord and get every little thing that's filed and publicly available as soon as it's released? That it'll make anybody think twice about whether they've misjudged SCO?
They seriously think that people don't already know what SCO think (we own the world, give us money, why not? Boo Hoo) and that anyone (except Groklaw and the terminally bored or mindless) will actually bother to rifle through their PR rubbish? This can only provide Groklaw with more ammunition to make the whole world laugh at SCO.
It's also far too late. They've been whinging about Groklaw's influence for months and always seem to manage to talk about it in derogatory terms (sponsored by IBM, you know:-) ) but only now do they bother to even try and counteract it? I bet nothing that gets put onto their new toy will ever contain ever really important, most of it will probably be paid-for PR by either made-up persons like the MIT deep-divers or by known rubbish-talkers.
And what's worse is that the site ain't even up yet. By the time it does get up and get anything useful or vaguely interesting up, it'll all be over.
Do they intend to use this site like an anti-Groklaw, to take IBM's public statements and court transcripts and try to poke holes in them, to find inconsistencies, to watch the superb work of SCO's lawyers ripping the opposition to shreds? That'll be fun to read.
Do they intend to answer all those questions that everyone is just dying to know the answer to, like "Which lines of code?" or "Why can't you tell us which lines of code?" or "Why are you stalling so badly when you've publically claimed such good evidence that you haven't shown anyone yet?". That'll be fun to read.
It's just a ruse. They hope that some middle-manager somewhere, having heard about all of this legal thing that affects their software decisions, will see Groklaw as a collection of amateurs (which can obviously be safely ignored) but will see ProSCO as a glowing advert which closes their doubts because it's got pretty eye candy and some sort of statement which says they are in the right and it's got quotes from SCO's management on it. Maybe then a few of these managers will just ignore their doubts and go SCO.
Can't believe this will help their cause at all and can't wait to see the site when they actually get it working. IP may be gold but a good SCO quote can keep you laughing for the rest of your life.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like a troll but...
You are allowed to use reasonable force and always have been. Recent UK news is about where the limit lies and the answer is and always has been the same - wherever it's reasonable.
Summary for the Tony Martin case:
Shooting an unarmed, fleeing burglar, who ran off before he could even do anything to threaten you or give you time to assess his intentions, in the back, at close range, with a shotgun is not reasonable.
Don't care who you are, what country you're in or why you did it, it's unreasonable. For all you know, the kid could have sneaked in to get his ball back and legged it at the sight of you and you shoot him, intended to wound or kill, in the back when he posed no threat.
I'm all for doing whatever damage is applicable if said burglar goes for you, will not leave, does not back down, reaches for a weapon, etc. but check your case law first, before you go trolling.
Oh, and by the way, banning guns is an idea that you would only understand if you lived in a country which, by and large, never sees the use of them.
Yeah, the UK Schools that I work for use it. From what I've seen it's not "clear", though, it leaves horrible browny-red smudges over whatever you dab it on which you can't remove unless you file it off somehow.
Horrible for personal use (stained the printers and computers I saw it used it), expensive, easy to see and therefore remove. I wouldn't know where you would stand on warranty etc. if you daubed this stuff on something that you later needed to return.
I'm not too hot on C++ but a while back I was working on a similar problem in Java. I wanted platform-independent, non-binary state saving files that could easily be extended without breaking the format and the feature of Java that saved my life was Reflection.
With the Reflection classes, you were able to read out, programatically, a list of the variables, methods/functions etc. within each class in the currently running program.
Properly programmed, and by overloading/extending the Serialization classes, you could look into the internals of the program that was running, view all the variables, choose which ones needed to be saved, serialise them into a nice plain-text format (INI, XML, whatever).
If you designed the format right, you could save the info in such a way that a later version of the program would save the same info, with extra fields, in the same format and not have to worry about whether it was a version 1 or a version 2 savegame.
I don't know if there is an equivalent in C++ (I doubt it with all those pointers and complications) but you only really see the power of a Reflection class when you start playing about with it like this.
Yeah, but that's more because companies like to make money than it isn't possible. I think I've pretty much reached a point where any applications I don't have, I don't need or I can find some version which has the same features that DOES run on 98 (Open Source to the rescue).
More and more, it's hard-coded restrictions rather than a technical reason. I'm not saying that I will never have to upgrade but by the time I do, hopefully Windows XP/2000/whatever will have stabilised to the same point or Linux will be usable as a desktop. I hate the "you have to upgrade it because it's old" argument... it's a crock.
Incorrect - they don't want ANY unknowns. Imagine something like the Pentium FDIV bugs showing themselves for the first time in a mission-critical application. You don't just throw in any old rubbish when billions of dollars of investments rides on it working perfectly without testing and testing and testing until you're as certain as you can be.
I have to agree with CastrTroy here... I run 98SE for the exact reason he has stated. I provide tech support to 6 different schools in my area and I'm having to turn new job offers down because I just don't have enough hours in the week to do them.
Everyone is surprised that I run 98 but, especially now, I know the problems that it has and I have systems in place to stop them. I know it crashes a lot but I also know how to fix it. I've never lost a windows 95/98/me installation yet. However, the XP and 2K machines that I support will lock into all sorts of reboot loops and cryptic stop messages that I can nothing about but restore from backup.
The schools I work for were stung big-time by things like Sasser, they were taken completely off-guard and all reached a critical state within a few days when not one of their PC's would stay up for more than a few minutes.
Because of my setup and because of the way that viruses are now only targeting the new vulnerabilities, I'm pretty safe. I've NEVER, repeat NEVER, had a virus on any computer that I own and for many years didn't even bother with an antivirus.
Nowadays, the only reason I have antivirus is so that I can scan emails from people who forward me crap and ask "is this a virus/trojan etc?". Most of the time, it's a yes before I even bother to scan it.
Virus writers are not targetting me, they'd have a very hard time if they did because I'm not stupid.
My IE is up-to-date and never used, because I realised many years ago what a mistake it is to use it. IE is installed purely for Windows Update.
I have people who I support who are still happily running 98, even 95, some of whom are years behind on updates and they don't have a problem because they are educated, firewalled, know what not to do and have established measures in place, have had for years.
Only the 2000/XP computers that I support have problems with such junk because, like Sasser, there was little a user could do to prevent it as it came out of the blue. That's what 98 was like many years ago but we've since established a routine that prevents that.
There is NOTHING WRONG with running an older Windows OS, even an out-of-date, not-updated OS. Sure, I wouldn't use it as a server but then I wouldn't use Windows as a server given half a choice, precisely because of it's many problems.
Windows "automatic update" has screwed up many a machine that I support, and given all sorts of weird problems becuase of it installing crap and hogging internet connections.
Windows 98 works for me, does everything I need to, is blindingly fast (but you don't notice that until you use it after using XP), behind a suitable set of protective measures is as safe as a Windows 2000/XP machine behind the same measures, easy to recover and suffers less problems overall.
Experiment for the adventurous: Get a Windows 3.1 box, install TCP/IP and put it on the net. Wait for it to be compromised. Perform similar action on XP/2K, even with latest updates.
One of my firewalls is still running a Linux 2.0 kernel because it's simple, safe, and works. Old decrepid. Old = tried and tested.
Ask NASA why they won't put a Intel with XP controlling the space shuttle. Now ask them why they would use a Z80 with something like CP/M or Unix.
Well, I RTFA and I can quite easily summarise it for those who didn't:
When programming:-
Use whitespace properly.
Use comments effectively.
Name your variables sensibly.
This is programming beginner's stuff and barely worth reading through 5 pages of diatribe, padded with quotes and pointless examples.
Considering the technical audience of Slashdot, I'm surprised it ever made it to the front page.
That's hardly the problem with slackware - it barely supports boot floppies any more, really. In fact, the recommended method of booting from floppies is in the Slackware FTP... there is a single-floppy of SBootMgr which just loads up an ElTorito boot loader that can boot from the slackware CD on even older computers that don't support CD-booting. As you say, nobody uses floppies any more.
2.6 being large is obviously not the concern here. I suppose the other explanations are that it's not as well tested, not as well supported by some older apps, requires many architecture changes in the distro and doesn't do much that 2.4 doesn't already do. The upheaval is hardly worth it at the moment.
If there's anything to learn from the Windows world, it's that just because something has a higher version number doesn't mean it's automatically better.
I know that I pass a company on the M25 (a big, circular car park around London) that has this as the only writing on it's building:
"Sericol: More than ink... solutions."
And I have deliberately avoided actually bothering to look them up and find out what problem it is that they have a solution to.
I'm guessing that they do something like printing but for all I know, they could sell pens or inkjet cartridges or even process squid.
I have no idea and the fact that it's emblazoned in ten-foot-high letters clearly visible along the busiest road in Britian doesn't help a jot because of their vague "management-ese", as I like to call it.
In fact, to me, it's anti-advertising. If you can't be bothered to state clearly what you do, I don't want you or your products/services. If you wrap even your company HQ in nonsense-words, then how can I even begin to trust you to sell me something without bending the truth?
"Kenosis-BitTorrent downloaders will notice that this is a kenosis url and use kenosis" - the other way is a compatibility interface for non-Kenosis BT clients.
RTFA and read it properly. The server is merely a pretty interface for older BT clients that will search the decentralised version and return the tracker address of the last known tracker for that item.
That's got nothing to do with the decentralised network itself.
Won't be long before someone comes up with an IrDA exploit.
Funny, it's never done that on mine and I have ZA Security suite which proxies ALL email sending attempts.
You sure you've not just got basic ZA and Gnucleus is connecting to a random port that gets identified as an email port?
Either way, Gnucleus have never sent an email from my machine.
I had a machine (a 386DX/25) that had a rechargeable backup battery... in fact quite a few of the machines from that era did. For some reason, some bright spark decided to scrap them. Considering that that same PC is still running with the same rechargeable CMOS battery, I have no idea what the problem was.
It was also just a standard Ni-Cd which plugged into a jumper on the motherboard. Didn't get much simpler than that and it was charging whenever the PC had power. It comes to something when you know the code for the battery that you need to go out and buy when someone's CMOS dies... CR2032.
On your first point, I don't see why it's not being done but it's a good idea and I'm sure that if you were only powering the memory modules and a reduced central core of the processor which stored the registers and a simple loop to check for power, you wouldn't need that much power.
"Was it meant for "playing our AAC's on any device"? I doubt it! I haven't seen that many non-Apple players that support the format, even if unprotected."
I don't know about that... my Nokia phone can play AAC's and MP3's so someone is using the format. I'm sure if you dug deeper, you'd find all sorts of dvd players and portable MP3 players that support AAC.
Whatever happened to X-COM PBEM? I remember there being a range of PBEM game being available in my local software outfit including X-Com (Called UFO in the UK) but they seem to have disappeared.
I don't know if they relied on a central server or something but I couldn't even see any copies going on eBay last I looked.
There always seems to be a set of those up on eBay... if you don't win that one, have a look again the following week... I had four sets at one point but now have just two (original in binders and just the magazines). Got them all off of eBay.
Tell me what it was called and I'll have a look... do you know roughly what it was about? I know there was a game cliffhanger but that was a entire volume for the project but if you can give more details, I'm sure I could furnish you with a scan or two.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ca tegory=2243&item=6935510035&rd=1&ssPageName=WD VW
On a similar note, I can remember the series that was published by Marshall Cavendish called INPUT. This was a fantastic bi-weekly serial magazine published in the early 80's that focused almost exclusively on programming for the early micros.
I owned about six or seven issues and it was the best explanation of programming, also containing loads of example programs for about six different home machines, so that no matter what machine you had you could use the same program as everyone else. The learning curve was perfect when I was a kid and isn't patronising now that I'm an adult re-reading them. Those issues almost single-handedly started my love of computing (along with the ZX Spectrum).
My brother found the entire first volume at a boot sale some years back and I read through them all again, despite knowing several languages by then (the books primarily focused on BASIC and assembly for the revelant micros, Z80 or 6502 etc.).
Recently, I purchased the missing volumes off of eBay and they are fantastic. I only wish I had the enthusiasm to actually still sit and type out my programs any more. One text adventure had about 10 pages full of encrypted hexadecimal that you had to type in by hand, perfectly, for it to work! I don't miss those days...
Reading back through them, like this book, the parts that were generic to computing, i.e. hardware, peripherals, storage etc., were very quickly outdated. However the computing and programming principles still stand strong and many's the time that my understanding of binary, assembly and the deeper workings of the computer have helped me.
But it's still amazing how quickly something can go from being state-of-the-art to back-of-the-cupboard.
Problems with fingerprint scanners are legendary, especially when your fingerprint is so easy to collect, glasses, ATM's, a handshake. There was a study not long ago on Slashdot that showed that about 90% of fingerprint scanners can be fooled by things like gelatine.
And you think the retailers would want to buy a big expensive foolproof machine for every shop in the world or just something cheap that can read a fingerprint?
It was hard enough moving them over to what we in the UK call Chip-and-PIN where we've done away (or are going to do away) with signatures and use a four digit code. That's been years in the making and still not completely functional. I can still say "Oh, I haven't been sent a number for that card yet" and they let you sign for the transaction, much like previously.
No, I still say the best system for things like credit cards etc. is to have some sort of graphical. When you swipe the card, the owners picture appears for verification (sent direct from the credit card company, maybe chosen from a few random photographs from different angles, clothing etc.) Much more big brother, I know.
If the person in front of you does not look like the owner, you refuse the transaction. Put this on top of things like Chip-and-PIN and signatures and you've got it made. Only an CC company insider could realistically beat it and then they would be accountable (I would hope that every account created had a traceback history for which staff member created it, one that is unwriteable after creation.).
If the retailer tries to run a stolen credit card through to make a few fake transactions, and presses Yes to ID the photo, there's always the Chip-and-PIN to fall back on that he must know. But it means you can't stroll in just any shop with a stolen credit card and take someone else's money.
As someone who owns EVERY PC GTA game, including the london add-ons etc., I think the original GTA was the best. It wasn't the storyline, that was just humour especially with the London addon, but the freeform play, especially when networked.
When I got bored of trying to play it properly (which was much harder in the original GTA than in the 3-D versions), my brother and I would network and that was just fantastic (albeit very buggy in DOS and unplayable on Windows with my machines at the time). Trying to line up a screen full of cars and then rocket-launchering and trying to surf over the top of the cars as they exploded was great fun.
Skidding around on a bike in the middle of machine-gunning gang was just right and if you were quick and smart you could set up booby traps with some cars and blow them all to kingdom come.
The multiplayer was simple but effective, leading to some good car chases and using the local terrain and traffic to avoid each other's bullets.
GTA2 was a bit too much like another add-on, just a graphical overhaul and a slight change in mission structure, and I never really got into that as much. The graphics were also too dark and the "lighting" was just there to be eye candy and nothing else.
GTA3/VC, although good and groundbreaking, just doesn't rock my socks... it's fun to mess about in but you get bored and the missions are just of the save-and-retry type, along with some impossible ones like controlling the remote control choppers.
All of the games, though, have that right balance of freeform and mission-led play. When you ran out of missions in GTA1, you could go selling cars for a while until the police came and you had to make a quick getaway.
GTA2 had a marvellous idea for missions where you have to keep in with a local gang to get more, or defect to another gang to get theirs. GTA3 has been a good translation to 3D and it keeps the same style, I'm just not sure that it's as good.
The fact that you can load up any of them, load in any saved game and just piss about for a while is a major attraction, especially when you can't do that next-to-impossible mission and want to relax.
What I want to see is basically OpenGTA1... same game, same style, loads of new capabilities and missions.
Ain't got it... don't want it... can't use it... I have a 1GHz with a PCI video card. Don't like flickbook animations-type framerates... but I've played CS:Source and seen the demos and I'm not impressed. It's taken years to get a half-decent physics in a game, it should have been MUCH sooner and better.
People have been saying that hype has always been there and you just have to read around it. People like us probably can but it's the little kids and everyone who want the games that are always disappointed. Most youngsters will go on for years about a game just because they've heard it's coming. And then the stupid sods will go out and buy it just because they've wanted it for years.
And it's not just games... the AvP movie has been anticipated for years but in the end, it was just crap. Daikatana, Doom3, Black & White, Half-life 2, were all over-hyped and, for how long development took, under-done.
It probably doesn't even hurt sales but it does hurt the company reputation when you've bought their third long-promised title and got a load of rubbish for your 30 quid.
It's the same as buying Nike or Reebok... if you're stupid enough to just pay for the name, that's your fault. I've worked out my system. I use a deliberately old PC, so I can only run 1-2 year old games. This means that by the time I run a game, I know EXACTLY how good it is, I have all the latest patches, I get the budget price not the 30 quid rip-off and I have the hardware to fully enjoy the game as it was intended without spending a fortune.
Yeah, it hurts for the first year or two when you can't buy the modern games you want but you save a fortune by not buying the bad games and by paying a reasonable price for the good games.
I see, so the idea is to employ a few SCO bods to put up a website describing every detail of the court case, transcribing all of the court documents and putting up articles describings SCO'S opinions and related news articles.
:-) ) but only now do they bother to even try and counteract it? I bet nothing that gets put onto their new toy will ever contain ever really important, most of it will probably be paid-for PR by either made-up persons like the MIT deep-divers or by known rubbish-talkers.
And you think that the little bit of money that you throw into that website is going to counter a huge base of dedicated people who work on the website on their own time, for fun, go to the courthouses of their own accord and get every little thing that's filed and publicly available as soon as it's released? That it'll make anybody think twice about whether they've misjudged SCO?
They seriously think that people don't already know what SCO think (we own the world, give us money, why not? Boo Hoo) and that anyone (except Groklaw and the terminally bored or mindless) will actually bother to rifle through their PR rubbish? This can only provide Groklaw with more ammunition to make the whole world laugh at SCO.
It's also far too late. They've been whinging about Groklaw's influence for months and always seem to manage to talk about it in derogatory terms (sponsored by IBM, you know
And what's worse is that the site ain't even up yet. By the time it does get up and get anything useful or vaguely interesting up, it'll all be over.
Do they intend to use this site like an anti-Groklaw, to take IBM's public statements and court transcripts and try to poke holes in them, to find inconsistencies, to watch the superb work of SCO's lawyers ripping the opposition to shreds? That'll be fun to read.
Do they intend to answer all those questions that everyone is just dying to know the answer to, like "Which lines of code?" or "Why can't you tell us which lines of code?" or "Why are you stalling so badly when you've publically claimed such good evidence that you haven't shown anyone yet?". That'll be fun to read.
It's just a ruse. They hope that some middle-manager somewhere, having heard about all of this legal thing that affects their software decisions, will see Groklaw as a collection of amateurs (which can obviously be safely ignored) but will see ProSCO as a glowing advert which closes their doubts because it's got pretty eye candy and some sort of statement which says they are in the right and it's got quotes from SCO's management on it. Maybe then a few of these managers will just ignore their doubts and go SCO.
Can't believe this will help their cause at all and can't wait to see the site when they actually get it working. IP may be gold but a good SCO quote can keep you laughing for the rest of your life.