I'm sure you were. The question is did anyone you don't regularly exchange email or phone calls with ever read it?
Just like most blogs that are out there today.
Also, is there a search engine where I can look up.plan files that are relevant to my interests? Can I embed links to other.plans or web content in my.plan file? Did anyone but John Carmack ever have a.plan that was fingered more than once per day?
Google almost lost me as a regular user as a result of crappy search results due to worthless blogs coming back. And, just how difficult is it to add "Check out xyz's.plan" in a plan file? Just as good as a link.
Don't get me wrong, the HTMLified Internet is cool, but having some storage space, bandwidth allocation and a blog site does not make what one has to say any more relevant than a photocopied newsletter distributed on a busy streetcorner.
ABC/Time would have been better off making all non-bloggers the "people of the year" for having to put up with the self-righteous bloggers, especially during the democratic candidate race and the presidential race.
While the scope may be bigger, I was putting updates/info in.plan files before some of these "bloggers" were born. Perhaps someone should show them [the] finger before they get the idea they are doing something new...
(ok, so i'm grumpy on day 1 of 2005 here in the us)
We were actually playing the physical board game last night (Cities & Knights expansion, actually) and I pulled out my PowerBook just to check and see the status.
$30.00USD is not bad for a game and I did the "buy it" before the "try it" assuming that both Microsoft and the game stakeholders would not let a piece of crap ruin the good name of Catan (yes, I am a moron).
With the meager requirements (Pentium, 300MHz, Win98 thru XP, DirectX *3*) I figured it would run on my Win2K Virtual PC image. Not so much.
I managed to get it installed on a real Windows box and RDC'd into it. The game handled well over an RDC connection (I was surprised).
I didn't have time to do a full play analysis (it was late, I've got a day job and I'm not one of the 13 year olds on/.) but I was surprised that the AI did not pick any harbors during the setup phase. The gameplay was quick enough but I won't be able to give a good feel until I get some humans playing over the network. Our daughter is in college, so it will be kinda cool to play Catan with her while she is supposed to be studying for midterms next semester.
The board looked very nice (but the free, online 3D Catan clone is way cooler) but there was just something missing. Perhaps it was the quality of the physical game and the lack of real wooden pieces. Or it might be due to the way that the production window just pops up after the virtual roll. Or it could be the lack of the crafty card shuffle to prevent critical resource loss after someone uses the robber on you.
While it will be cool to have something to fall back on, and board setup and clean up are much easier [grin], my first choice will always be the physical game. Besides, until they get some PhD whiz to create a Cities & Knights or Seafarers AI, it will be hard playing "just Catan".
As to the other, currently free online Catans, I expect that Microsoft and the e-game IP owners will be sending many letters out over the next few months and there will be almost no overt sign of them (one reason I paid to have this one available). It's a shame since there were some really nice implementations.
Since it looks Flash-based, I really wish there were a cross-platform version of it. Until then, I'll keep poking at the Virtual PC problem.
To all who actually get to really test this thing out: pls post reviews!!! I'm eager to know how good the AI really is!
From what I remember, you only pay for what bandwidth is consumed and since most folks will consider your e-card spam, that won't be many. The cost was fairly reasonable as well.
Bugzilla: I always hesitate to make feature requests since the volunteers work hard on just getting out the core product. I was waiting until 1.0 before whining, so I guess I have no excuse (also, thx for the bug id).
Forget search; focus on centralized administration
on
What's Next For Mozilla?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Firefox/Mozilla will not make any headway in large organizations without the ability of admins to centrally control settings, features, etc.
There needs to be an easy (pref with GUI) way to define and distribute a policy that, for example, sets and locks proxy settings, sets and locks the default web page, "brands" various portions of the browser and that restricts the ability to load extensions at will. This should work cross-platform in order to make it easier to adopt other desktop operating systems.
It would also make it easer for Windows-based IT shops if patches/updates had an MSI file with just the updated files/settings. If you want widespread adoption, you have to at least make it as easy to deal with as what they have now. Microsoft may issue tons of patches, but they aren't that difficult to get on the boxes.
There may be ways to do some of this via a prefs.js distribution, but that's not going to fly in the hostile corporate IT environments where the sole admin left (due to outsourcing) is forced to find a way to distribute a prefs.js manually across thousands of diverse desktops.
IE settings can be managed by the IEAK and various GPO settings under Windows and that is a big sell. Mozilla/Firefox needs an equivalent.
I'd gladly help but I can barely find the time to work on my own, pathetic, foray in to the open source world, let alone contribute coding time to the best open source browser on the Net today. I'd be glad to share extensive requirements with any folks who have time time/energy to take up this noble effort.
I am amazed to see the words "quality" and "TV" used in the same sentence.
HDTV presentation of crap is still crap.
RFID isn't a problem-free technology for retailers
on
A Technical RFID Primer
·
· Score: 5, Informative
A little over a week ago, Yahoo! posted a story from TechWeb about IBM's experiences with Wal-Mart in their RFID deployment.
During the deployment, IBM consultants have encountered interference from handheld devices such as walkie-talkies, forklifts, and other devices typically found in distribution facilities. And nearby cell-phone towers, which transmit at the high end of the frequency band, sometimes leak unwanted radio waves into the RFID readers. Bug zappers in the grocery sections of the pilot stores also caused interference. "When you have a bug that hits the zapper, the RF power generated by the interaction with the bug produces noise in the coax cables," says Douglas Martin, executive consultant at IBM Global Services.
Regardless of how much a retailer's internal facility might disrupt their ability to monitor me, I still plan on getting one of RSA's RFID jammers when they're out.
has always floated on my top 10 worst movies list. No one seems to remember it anymore and none of the local video shoppes seem to bother carrying it. It's painful enough to want to see again and again and again...
way more flexible schema updates, especially in a large AD environment
way more secure than Microsoft's pervious iterations right out of the box and in general operation
generally faster (but that will depend on what else you've got running on it - hopefully just AD)
much better command line administration (can do most everything from a command window)
Do yourself a favor and also grab ActiveState's perl distribution and, since you're already running a ludicrously expensive OS, buy their PerlNET disdtribution (part of the Perl Dev Kit - http://activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/prici ng_and_licensing.plex). You get the full power of perl for system administration and the.NET crap that makes it easier to integrate with the beast.
The number I arrived at is pretty much the same (not rounded) as the one all of the major news orgs are tossing about (part of the reason I added them).
Yep. I saw the market cap #'s. What fundamentally amounts to being an advertising placement firm (free search, free e-mail, free news is not a business model) is trying the same boondoggle.
My bet is that the share price drops down to double digits by next year.
OK, top level reply since the sub-posts seem to be either (a) 'screw the RIAA and the government' or (b) 'it's just like radio'.
I don't think that the purchasing of music is on par with the formation of a democracy or stopping slavery or fighting to have inherent civil rights acknowledged. Those kinds of issues are worth taking up arms for and going against the law to begin a change (I'm still mortified that America had laws stating where people of a certain color could sit, eat and walk). There *are* *legal* ways to fight copyright extension and the stranglehold the industry has on music distribution and usage (be it radio, CDs, downloads...). In the US, Prohibition was ended because a politically active group worked and fought (legally) to have it repealed. If we are as convicted about music, this is the model we should follow, not flagrant law breaking (and, yes, there were speakeasy's during Prohibition, there will always those who choose such paths). Try explaining that to 12-year-old's though.
As far as the 'it just like radio' argument, how is it just like radio when you copy music from me and I haven't paid for a broadcast license nor have I paid an RIAA/ASCAP/CCLI/MPA/NMPA/BMI/etc distribution/reuse license? I'm not saying that the 'perfect world' would have this requirement, but that's how things are done now. Unless we all work to change the system, we have an obligation to play by the rules.
Breaking the law because it's easy to do without being caught and because you don't like the rules and are unwilling to fight within the system to make a change is a frightening scenario.
Finally, to the one poster: yes, my apologies for using 'paradigm shift'. Far too many meetings with managers these days...
OK, I own an iPod and would actually like it to stay off of the contraband list. While I am in favour of a paradigm shift in the way music is distributed and artists are compensated (do we really need to make millionaires out of artists like 'Ms Spears' and the record execs who create those monsters?) pirating music is not going to get us there. I've seen a number of posts already that seem to indicate that copying of music (without payment or compensation) is just fine and dandy.
What's wrong with taking a long stroll through the city and having your 802.11/Bluetooth device capturing all files that are of broadcast interest? Right now, quite a bit. No matter how overpriced the current products are (even $0.99 / song @ iTunes is robbery, esp for 128 DRM'd MP4's) there are still laws that govern how we can obtain and use them - whether we agree with those laws or not (NOTE: I'm in the US, so YMMV). Using a device like Pocketster Pro to actually copy music without payment is no better than shoplifting at FYE or Best Buy.
Now, if Apple or someone else could make an adapter for the iPod to work with the new 802.11 multimedia extensions in devices like Apple's AirPort Express, then there is only the issue of potentially violating the rules about how large an audience or what the venue is when playing a song this way.
Heck, I'd settle for just a Bluetooth or FireWireless or Wireless USB rig on the iPod so I don't have have to connect it up (though one will have to charge it at some point) to put my songs on it.
But please don't give the RIAA any more ammo to declare my iPod a concealed audio weapon!
Slashdot Mirror
Why can't you re-rip to Apple Lossless format? There's an open source (ALAC) decoder for it now.
You can just copy the tracks to your friend's system and temporarily authorize the computer on iTunes to do the burn. No extra cost involved.
*That* was a comprehensive and well-written review? Bah!
Perhaps timothy should have read it before taking the poster's word.
Owned and operated by /.'s very own SlashChick, simpli.biz does both hosting and co-location.
I've heard great things about the tech support and they are fanatical about helping their customers.
I'm sure you were. The question is did anyone you don't regularly exchange email or phone calls with ever read it?
.plan files that are relevant to my interests? Can I embed links to other .plans or web content in my .plan file? Did anyone but John Carmack ever have a .plan that was fingered more than once per day?
.plan" in a plan file? Just as good as a link.
Just like most blogs that are out there today.
Also, is there a search engine where I can look up
Google almost lost me as a regular user as a result of crappy search results due to worthless blogs coming back. And, just how difficult is it to add "Check out xyz's
Don't get me wrong, the HTMLified Internet is cool, but having some storage space, bandwidth allocation and a blog site does not make what one has to say any more relevant than a photocopied newsletter distributed on a busy streetcorner.
ABC/Time would have been better off making all non-bloggers the "people of the year" for having to put up with the self-righteous bloggers, especially during the democratic candidate race and the presidential race.
While the scope may be bigger, I was putting updates/info in .plan files before some of these "bloggers" were born. Perhaps someone should show them [the] finger before they get the idea they are doing something new...
(ok, so i'm grumpy on day 1 of 2005 here in the us)
We were actually playing the physical board game last night (Cities & Knights expansion, actually) and I pulled out my PowerBook just to check and see the status.
/.) but I was surprised that the AI did not pick any harbors during the setup phase. The gameplay was quick enough but I won't be able to give a good feel until I get some humans playing over the network. Our daughter is in college, so it will be kinda cool to play Catan with her while she is supposed to be studying for midterms next semester.
$30.00USD is not bad for a game and I did the "buy it" before the "try it" assuming that both Microsoft and the game stakeholders would not let a piece of crap ruin the good name of Catan (yes, I am a moron).
With the meager requirements (Pentium, 300MHz, Win98 thru XP, DirectX *3*) I figured it would run on my Win2K Virtual PC image. Not so much.
I managed to get it installed on a real Windows box and RDC'd into it. The game handled well over an RDC connection (I was surprised).
I didn't have time to do a full play analysis (it was late, I've got a day job and I'm not one of the 13 year olds on
The board looked very nice (but the free, online 3D Catan clone is way cooler) but there was just something missing. Perhaps it was the quality of the physical game and the lack of real wooden pieces. Or it might be due to the way that the production window just pops up after the virtual roll. Or it could be the lack of the crafty card shuffle to prevent critical resource loss after someone uses the robber on you.
While it will be cool to have something to fall back on, and board setup and clean up are much easier [grin], my first choice will always be the physical game. Besides, until they get some PhD whiz to create a Cities & Knights or Seafarers AI, it will be hard playing "just Catan".
As to the other, currently free online Catans, I expect that Microsoft and the e-game IP owners will be sending many letters out over the next few months and there will be almost no overt sign of them (one reason I paid to have this one available). It's a shame since there were some really nice implementations.
Since it looks Flash-based, I really wish there were a cross-platform version of it. Until then, I'll keep poking at the Virtual PC problem.
To all who actually get to really test this thing out: pls post reviews!!! I'm eager to know how good the AI really is!
Specifically, their EdgeSuite.
From what I remember, you only pay for what bandwidth is consumed and since most folks will consider your e-card spam, that won't be many. The cost was fairly reasonable as well.
MSIs: great stuff!
Bugzilla: I always hesitate to make feature requests since the volunteers work hard on just getting out the core product. I was waiting until 1.0 before whining, so I guess I have no excuse (also, thx for the bug id).
Firefox/Mozilla will not make any headway in large organizations without the ability of admins to centrally control settings, features, etc.
There needs to be an easy (pref with GUI) way to define and distribute a policy that, for example, sets and locks proxy settings, sets and locks the default web page, "brands" various portions of the browser and that restricts the ability to load extensions at will. This should work cross-platform in order to make it easier to adopt other desktop operating systems.
It would also make it easer for Windows-based IT shops if patches/updates had an MSI file with just the updated files/settings. If you want widespread adoption, you have to at least make it as easy to deal with as what they have now. Microsoft may issue tons of patches, but they aren't that difficult to get on the boxes.
There may be ways to do some of this via a prefs.js distribution, but that's not going to fly in the hostile corporate IT environments where the sole admin left (due to outsourcing) is forced to find a way to distribute a prefs.js manually across thousands of diverse desktops.
IE settings can be managed by the IEAK and various GPO settings under Windows and that is a big sell. Mozilla/Firefox needs an equivalent.
I'd gladly help but I can barely find the time to work on my own, pathetic, foray in to the open source world, let alone contribute coding time to the best open source browser on the Net today. I'd be glad to share extensive requirements with any folks who have time time/energy to take up this noble effort.
I am amazed to see the words "quality" and "TV" used in the same sentence.
HDTV presentation of crap is still crap.
So, you've got the cable for ~$50USD. What more do I need to make this work? What's the total, cheapest solution for me, and can you provide it?
Also, does it work with a Mac?
[IMBD Ref: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089901/]
has always floated on my top 10 worst movies list. No one seems to remember it anymore and none of the local video shoppes seem to bother carrying it. It's painful enough to want to see again and again and again...
- fewer security patches (== longer uptime)
- way more flexible schema updates, especially in a large AD environment
- way more secure than Microsoft's pervious iterations right out of the box and in general operation
- generally faster (but that will depend on what else you've got running on it - hopefully just AD)
- much better command line administration (can do most everything from a command window)
Do yourself a favor and also grab ActiveState's perl distribution and, since you're already running a ludicrously expensive OS, buy their PerlNET disdtribution (part of the Perl Dev Kit - http://activestate.com/Products/Perl_Dev_Kit/pricAlso make sure you install the resource kit.
The number I arrived at is pretty much the same (not rounded) as the one all of the major news orgs are tossing about (part of the reason I added them).
Just not *dumb* enough to spend 1/2 an iPod on something that may be worth less than your ill spent $0.02USD in two years.
Excellent point. I vote "hype".
Yep. I saw the market cap #'s. What fundamentally amounts to being an advertising placement firm (free search, free e-mail, free news is not a business model) is trying the same boondoggle.
My bet is that the share price drops down to double digits by next year.
boB
OK, so 2,4636,659 shares * $135.00USD = $3,325,948,965USD
Is it just me, or are we back in the dot com shenanigans?
Google. 3 *billion* USD. Not worth it (to me at least).
Then again, I'm just a lowly engineer.
Why not more shares and lower price so those of us who *made* Google what it is could have had at least one share?
Sigh.
I guess I'm no longer a geek since our bedroom gets *plenty* of use... tho, not for gaming (at least not for computer gaming [grin]).
OK, top level reply since the sub-posts seem to be either (a) 'screw the RIAA and the government' or (b) 'it's just like radio'.
I don't think that the purchasing of music is on par with the formation of a democracy or stopping slavery or fighting to have inherent civil rights acknowledged. Those kinds of issues are worth taking up arms for and going against the law to begin a change (I'm still mortified that America had laws stating where people of a certain color could sit, eat and walk). There *are* *legal* ways to fight copyright extension and the stranglehold the industry has on music distribution and usage (be it radio, CDs, downloads...). In the US, Prohibition was ended because a politically active group worked and fought (legally) to have it repealed. If we are as convicted about music, this is the model we should follow, not flagrant law breaking (and, yes, there were speakeasy's during Prohibition, there will always those who choose such paths). Try explaining that to 12-year-old's though.
As far as the 'it just like radio' argument, how is it just like radio when you copy music from me and I haven't paid for a broadcast license nor have I paid an RIAA/ASCAP/CCLI/MPA/NMPA/BMI/etc distribution/reuse license? I'm not saying that the 'perfect world' would have this requirement, but that's how things are done now. Unless we all work to change the system, we have an obligation to play by the rules.
Breaking the law because it's easy to do without being caught and because you don't like the rules and are unwilling to fight within the system to make a change is a frightening scenario.
Finally, to the one poster: yes, my apologies for using 'paradigm shift'. Far too many meetings with managers these days...
OK, I own an iPod and would actually like it to stay off of the contraband list. While I am in favour of a paradigm shift in the way music is distributed and artists are compensated (do we really need to make millionaires out of artists like 'Ms Spears' and the record execs who create those monsters?) pirating music is not going to get us there. I've seen a number of posts already that seem to indicate that copying of music (without payment or compensation) is just fine and dandy.
What's wrong with taking a long stroll through the city and having your 802.11/Bluetooth device capturing all files that are of broadcast interest? Right now, quite a bit. No matter how overpriced the current products are (even $0.99 / song @ iTunes is robbery, esp for 128 DRM'd MP4's) there are still laws that govern how we can obtain and use them - whether we agree with those laws or not (NOTE: I'm in the US, so YMMV). Using a device like Pocketster Pro to actually copy music without payment is no better than shoplifting at FYE or Best Buy.
Now, if Apple or someone else could make an adapter for the iPod to work with the new 802.11 multimedia extensions in devices like Apple's AirPort Express, then there is only the issue of potentially violating the rules about how large an audience or what the venue is when playing a song this way.
Heck, I'd settle for just a Bluetooth or FireWireless or Wireless USB rig on the iPod so I don't have have to connect it up (though one will have to charge it at some point) to put my songs on it.
But please don't give the RIAA any more ammo to declare my iPod a concealed audio weapon!
Ouch.
Good one.
It's M$, so I'm assuming security patches are an implicit "0" item.
- Cygwin (is this cheating? [grin])
- Firefox
- Textpad
- WinDVD
- VideoLAN
- Xshell
- Xmanager
- ActiveState Perl
- iTunes
- Acrobat