It may not be the best solution, but what about something like this: a 'teach gestures' option; when checked, every time the user did something another way that could be more efficiently done with a gesture, this would display a popup with a diagram of the relevant technique.
Oh dear God. I can imagine it now:
"Hi, I'm clippy. I think you did that mouse gesture wrong. Don't you realize an upside down star with a circle around it goes to microsoft.com? That's where you wanted to go...right?
Star Wars Galaxies doesn't have classes that are finished, let alone balanced.
Star Wars Galaxies doesn't have...
- Player Vehicles - Jedi (yeah, sure they have Jedi...of course you can only be one after a year or so of playing...they've got that done...sure...) - Dark Jedi - Space flight/combat/interaction
You have to chase down rats/bugs/spiders and kill them incessantly for hours upon end just to get up enough experience to carry a rifle.
Where is the excitement, the intrigue? Running around killing baddies based on your best attack? What about this MMORPG is anything different than EQ with new clothes?
This was the best part:
How can you form an opinion of a game thats not finished ?
Because betas are meant to give you the basic gist of a game. I was in The Frozen Throne beta, and while there was a lot of it that was broken, that needed work, that needed tweaking, it wasn't a miserable experience. It was fun and I had a good time.
Oh, wait. Did I just form an opinion on a game that wasn't even finished?
I thought this was fantastically insightful. I've got all the Karma I could ever need, but I'm sure this would be considered Whoring. Either way, this rang true to me.
This was written by Gabe, the artist (not the tracer) a few days ago
Now that the NDA is no longer hanging over my head I thought I would elaborate a bit on why I wonâ(TM)t be purchasing SWG right away.
I do not personally feel like SWG captures the look and feel of the Star Wars universe as well as Iâ(TM)d like it to.
I decided right away that I wanted to be a bounty hunter and so with blaster in hand I began working my way up that particular skill tree. This involved a lot of shooting of rats, bugs and crabs. At one point on Tatooine I was standing next to a mission terminal waiting for my turn to use it when I saw a large wookie run past me firing wildly over his shoulder as a tiny crab no bigger than a dinner plate chased him through town. How sad I thought to myself. I spent countless hours wandering the hillsides in search of new rats and crabs to shoot. Sometimes I would inadvertently stumble upon too large a rat and be forced to high tail it back to town. I placed my character in auto run and pointed him at the nearest town. As I sat there staring at my Trandoshan bounding across the uneven Tatooine landscape with some kind of super rat closing in on him I thought to myself âoeThis is not how I want to play in the Star Wars Universe.â As I sat there watching this rat slowly gaining on my character my mind flashed back to a conversation I had with Tycho months and months ago.
Tycho had talked me into playing my first MMORPG and I told him that if he ever did that again Iâ(TM)d kick him right in his cream and crackers. After an hour or so of hitting spiders with a bat I was ready to write off the entire genre. He said âoeWhat about Star Wars Galaxies?â At the time I told him that Galaxies would be different because it was Star Wars. âoeItâ(TM)s not like theyâ(TM)re gonna make you spend hours hitting Wamprats with a stick.â Oh irony, thou art a harsh mistress.
The more I think about it the more I think that there may very well be nothing wrong with Star Wars Galaxies. This just isnâ(TM)t my kind of game. I think Iâ(TM)m just better off getting my Star Wars fix from games like Jedi Knight and Rogue Squadron. Maybe some day a developer will combine all the best stuff from games like X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter and Jedi Knight into one game that doesnâ(TM)t involve the poking of rats with sticks. Essentially my fantasy has not changed. I still want to play in a fully realized Star Wars universe. I want to fly a ship I own through space smuggling goods and outrunning Imperials. I want to land that ship on the planet of my choosing and do battle with storm troopers and rival smugglers. I want an action game because the Star Wars movies to me are action movies. Thatâ(TM)s why I never liked the Star Wars RTS bullshit. Star Wars for me is not about running around Naboo shooting bugs in order to build up my blaster XP. It is about adventure and I donâ(TM)t feel like SWG delivers that.
Even after youâ(TM)ve reached a level where you can take on larger adversaries the battles still arenâ(TM)t any fun. You click on the thing you want to shoot and then you select from your menu of different attacks. There is no strategy required. You simply choose your best attack and cue it up a couple of times and then wait while your guy shoots the target. If the target comes after you just run away until it stops chasing you and then turn around and repeat the steps above. Stirring Star Wars music plays during a battle and is intended to make the event seem more epic I suppose. The classic arrangement blaring as you take pot shots at a lizard who seems oblivious to your attacks just makes an already absurd situation all the more laughable.
An old saying, but damn, has Blizzard become anti-community or what?
Me and my friends, who have bought every game Blizzard has produced (all the way back to Blackthorne/Lost Vikings), use PVPGN. Why? Because its nice to host your own servers, to have your own games, to not have to worry about who is on there, to have total control. It's a nice thing to have, and to play around with.
Of course blizzard shut it down, because you don't need an "official" key to use it. The honor system has become suprisingly worthless nowadays.
Galactic Civilizations decided to (*gasp*) TRUST their customers and not put SafeDisc or any other type of copy protection on the install discs. A lot of people have problems with these types of anti-piracy methods and generally it just hurts your end user, not that pirates who can get around it with various cracks/hacks/or cd copying programs. Its this kind of trust who now, unfortunately, seems to the be the odd man out. id software did the same thing with Quake3. It was either the first or second patch that took out the cd check, because it annoyed the user more than it actually helped anti-piracy.
I think the worst part is that Blizzard now requires you to buy a "gaming site license" for any gaming venue in which you charge a fee to enter, even if every user has their own, official, bought and paid for copy. This is just sad. You don't see Valve having a fit over Counter Strike players and their LAN habits, yet Blizzard needs more and more cash for reasons that just don't make sense.
Here's the irony: Blizzard is owned by an asshole, very profit-driven company (Vivendi International, AFAIK). The developers have generally been very cool, and sometimes even listen to the community at large (they ignored War3 beta testers, but seemed to actually listen when I participated in the Frozen Throne beta). Even though they might be great people who make some really nice games, this is like PR hell. Give the gamers something great, then stab them in the back once you have their money.
They can't cry "we're just a small developer!" anymore. Not with millions upon millions of sales, and huge development houses around the country.
I say screw this "Don't blame Blizzard, they've got a bad parent company." No, if the Blizzard heads really wanted to dig their feet into the dirt and stand their ground, they would. If they got fired, and worked the press releases well enough, they would start another gaming company and all those brilliant minds would go there, instead of suffering through this idiocy in the name of cash.
The biggie: SCO basically is arguing that any code developed on top of Unix is a derivative work of Unix.
If you developed on Unix, and then went to Linux and did something similiar a few years down the line, with the benefit of hindsight yet with the same goals in mind, you probably did one of two things: recoded the section from memory, or, recoded a part of it using what you remembered plus possibly a better method that you had learned through sheer experience. SCO wants to claim rights to that experience. So no matter where you go from this day forward, if you happen to code the same thing in a *nix-like operating system, and they see the same algorithm (because, for example, the one you came up with couldn't be improved on), they should get a chunk of that.
Next: SCO said it has no current program [for Linux Licensing]. It hopes to come up with something in which noncommercial use and educational use would be free, but for commercial use it wants some remuneration. SCO said it hadn't come up with a plan because it still is trying to figure out the scale of the problem.
Did anyone else cringe as soon as they read the term "Linux Licensing", which preceded that paragraph?
"the scale of the problem" is an easy way of saying "finding every corporate customer on Redhat, Lindows, SUSE, and every other distro's books and sending them OUR Linux Licensing agreement."
This is so painful to watch. The company wants to say that anyone with a good idea cannot port that idea years later. That they own it. That even if that programmer kept a chunk of the code they once wrote, because they knew they couldn't remember it line-per-line, and copied it into a kernel module, that they own the rights to it.
More or less, if you've ever worked for Company A, coded something for them, found a very unique and exceptional way of, say, saving a compressed binary file, and you save that chunk of code for later use, and use it in free, GPL'd, software, then Company A has the right to sue you for violating their Intellectual Property. That, to me, is wrong. Even if the comments are the same. Even if the algorithm is the same.
Welcome to the grey area of black and white operating systems. What a terrible place to be.
The reason umpires don't want these machines on the field is that they make a KILLING doing their job.
Seriously, the average pay for an ump is well over $100k. I'm not talking about your little league ump, I'm talking about the "Big Boys", the major league umpires.
It's hilarious reading the article with this in mind, with the machine doing the same job better and the umps jumping up and down crying foul. Of COURSE they don't want these machines. They'd lose their Lexus.
..but I still can't sell this to the Big Wigs upstairs.
Why? Because Windows 98 is on its way out. All of our proprietary software runs in Windows 95/98, but the new version coming out next month uses Windows 98 and up ONLY. I expect next year (or maybe 2005) it will be phased out much like Windows 95.
Let's face it, not one new machine built today comes with Windows 98 SE. And let's not get into the train wreck that was ME.
What I'm saying is we can't deploy linux on a large scale, even if it will run on our propriety software, until I know it will last at least 3 years (the usual PC-replacement development cycle).
So while I'd love to get this up and running for The Powers that Be, until something that's even more advanced and is guaranteed to support Windows 2000 or XP only apps comes along, no endorsement here can be made.
Of course, the irony is that were we to support this and purchase it for our organization that it would fund the win2k/xp only program support, however, just giving it the once over, what about USB devices such as WinCE devices (yes, a lot of execs do use them...my Tungsten T is the one palm of the whole place), printers, et al. Plus all the weird hardware that my org. relies on, such as high load scanners.
And if you've had any time in sys admining, vendors love to blame things like odd operating systems if their buggy software doesn't work the first time out.
Sigh. I push Linux every time I can around here (I'm the resident Linux Guy of the IT dept.), but it's just not there yet.
Re:Where is my last generation Broadband?
on
150 Mbit/s DSL.
·
· Score: 1
What the hell? How is that -1 Troll? The guy didn't know what the real world speed was. I specified. +1 Informative anyone? Bueller?
Re:Where is my last generation Broadband?
on
150 Mbit/s DSL.
·
· Score: 1
Absolutely! It's stories like that which keep my faith in the grassroots internet movement (whatever that may be, exactly).
Re:Where is my last generation Broadband?
on
150 Mbit/s DSL.
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Easier translation:
before: 40k/sec
after: 160k/sec
Re:Where is my last generation Broadband?
on
150 Mbit/s DSL.
·
· Score: 1
That's awesome man, I say do it grassroots style. Send out flyers explaining your situation. Tell them what it would cost based on the number of people signed up.
Prepare yourself for lots of questions, prepare to make this your fulltime job (and charge accordingly, you'll get 1000 "I can't check my email" "Why won't msn.com come up" questions).
However, wireless technology is very crappy during storms and weather. Latency is terrible. This means you'll get lots of complaints from gamers, because their pings will suffer terribly if they don't have a straight shot to the wireless access point.
You could also petition your local telecom to put a CO within distance of your residence(s). If you get enough signatures they will take notice, and make sure you get that list to those who matter.
Good luck.
Re:Where is my last generation Broadband?
on
150 Mbit/s DSL.
·
· Score: 1
No really...when will last generations broadband stuff truly be available to the masses here in the US? Who and how will they fix the last-mile problem if the governament isn't stimulating this issue?
Heh, firstly, quit whining about 190k/sec. I just went to Bellsouth ADSL from Charter cable, a 384kb/s -> 1500kb/s jump (and man it feels good).
Secondly, the government isn't stimulating this issue (and neither are the states), because the country has serious economic problems. Living with "just" 190k/sec would be heaven to anyone living in a rural area. If you're really more desperate for bandwidth, invest in a T1/T3/OC3/OC48.
Remember the story about the municipalities running fiber? How about instead of complaining about 190k/sec you try to get that jump started in the technology hub of America? Who would be more receptive than that bunch of people?
Then I got older and realized it was just a job, and if I didn't like it, I should find a new one.
I too am older and Know Better (tm) than just going along with whatever management tells me, however, I do sympathize with the fact that IT jobs, and in particular good IT jobs, are very hard to come by. After slaving away for 4.5 years in a shitty position I've finally found a great company to work for.
Please realize that IT workers with families and/or great responsibilities just can't up and quit because they don't like where they are or see a trend. You have to plan and hope to land a new job before the old crew finds out.
Things are always simple to the single people. People with families know all too well the grey area of black and white problems.
This is politics at its worst, and I'm calling bullshit.
There was no need for this nicey-nice statement other than NVidia threatening lawsuits and Futuremark wanting to protect what assets they have.
Futuremark had every right to call NVidia on their selfish claim and unbelievable hacks. To say that they weren't liable for their own blunder is to say that Futuremark's reputation has been replaced by corporatespeak and a lack of respect almost unparalelled.
What's worse is that I really thought "Yeah, this time the bad guy gets his due" and that NVidia should've known better.
But of course, a few weeks later we've got to put on the nice face again for the public en large.
What a complete waste of time. I know there isn't much respect left in corporate America, but hell, if you can't call a spade a spade, why even bother with the benchmarks when someone can just rewrite an ENTIRE SHADER and only keep a picture clear while the demo is on rails?
Well, I'll bite. You're argument has so many holes you might as well have titled it "Swiss Cheese".
Star wars was a hit because nobody ever saw anything like it before.. it was the first, fresh, and brought them in because of that.
Matrix... DITTO! the same thing. people are getting tired of the same crap over and over and over and over.. now comes the Matrix.. it's "fresh" and has a plot that is innovative.
Yes, but while Star Wars had a Space Opera effect going on (and those 1970's effects were unbelievably innovative, I'll certainly grant you), the prequels tried to go rewrite its own history to make itself seem more cohesive than it was. Midoclorians(sp?) anyone?
I think that George had the grand idea of nine movies but didn't have the actual plot/details of all nine in his head. And while he was busy working out a new story for these prequels he realized that he couldn't do it without some old characters coming back in strange ways (Anakin built C3PO? WTF?) just to tie it together.
Watch Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress." It's the EXACT SAME STORY as Star Wars, only in feudal Japan. Lucas has admitted as such (though the reference escapes me).
The Matrix, on the other hand, is built upon many different philosophies. The main one, of course, if the Living Inside A Machine philosphy, which has been around ever since man created machines. Back in the 15 and 1600's, men deduced that we might be living inside a Clock, or a clock-like machine. Nowadays technology has advanced to the point where we think we live in a computer. It's the same concept, and it's just as intriguing.
They worked in a romance angle just as Star Wars did. Of course, Star Wars didn't have the high-mindedness that The Matrix accomplishes, and the Uber Sweet Effects, but both turn their emotional screws when necessary in order to get their point across.
Note I'm talking about the original SW trilogy, not the bastardized prequels.
in 20 years when they make 3 prequels to the matrix you will feel as poorly about it as you do about starwars now.
Except The Matrix didn't begin with "Episode IV: The Matrix"
Slashdot Mirror
It's just how democratic republics work.
If only you had spelled it republiks would the circle be complete...
It may not be the best solution, but what about something like this: a 'teach gestures' option; when checked, every time the user did something another way that could be more efficiently done with a gesture, this would display a popup with a diagram of the relevant technique.
Oh dear God. I can imagine it now:
"Hi, I'm clippy. I think you did that mouse gesture wrong. Don't you realize an upside down star with a circle around it goes to microsoft.com? That's where you wanted to go...right?
Right bitch?"
Yeah, they'd never make a game like that. Especially by those hacks who made Neverwinter Nights.
I mean, really.
So let me get this straight:
Star Wars Galaxies is shipping beta.
Star Wars Galaxies doesn't have classes that are finished, let alone balanced.
Star Wars Galaxies doesn't have...
- Player Vehicles
- Jedi (yeah, sure they have Jedi...of course you can only be one after a year or so of playing...they've got that done...sure...)
- Dark Jedi
- Space flight/combat/interaction
You have to chase down rats/bugs/spiders and kill them incessantly for hours upon end just to get up enough experience to carry a rifle.
Where is the excitement, the intrigue? Running around killing baddies based on your best attack? What about this MMORPG is anything different than EQ with new clothes?
This was the best part:
How can you form an opinion of a game thats not finished ?
Because betas are meant to give you the basic gist of a game. I was in The Frozen Throne beta, and while there was a lot of it that was broken, that needed work, that needed tweaking, it wasn't a miserable experience. It was fun and I had a good time.
Oh, wait. Did I just form an opinion on a game that wasn't even finished?
I thought this was fantastically insightful. I've got all the Karma I could ever need, but I'm sure this would be considered Whoring. Either way, this rang true to me.
This was written by Gabe, the artist (not the tracer) a few days ago
Now that the NDA is no longer hanging over my head I thought I would elaborate a bit on why I wonâ(TM)t be purchasing SWG right away.
I do not personally feel like SWG captures the look and feel of the Star Wars universe as well as Iâ(TM)d like it to.
I decided right away that I wanted to be a bounty hunter and so with blaster in hand I began working my way up that particular skill tree. This involved a lot of shooting of rats, bugs and crabs. At one point on Tatooine I was standing next to a mission terminal waiting for my turn to use it when I saw a large wookie run past me firing wildly over his shoulder as a tiny crab no bigger than a dinner plate chased him through town. How sad I thought to myself. I spent countless hours wandering the hillsides in search of new rats and crabs to shoot. Sometimes I would inadvertently stumble upon too large a rat and be forced to high tail it back to town. I placed my character in auto run and pointed him at the nearest town. As I sat there staring at my Trandoshan bounding across the uneven Tatooine landscape with some kind of super rat closing in on him I thought to myself âoeThis is not how I want to play in the Star Wars Universe.â As I sat there watching this rat slowly gaining on my character my mind flashed back to a conversation I had with Tycho months and months ago.
Tycho had talked me into playing my first MMORPG and I told him that if he ever did that again Iâ(TM)d kick him right in his cream and crackers. After an hour or so of hitting spiders with a bat I was ready to write off the entire genre. He said âoeWhat about Star Wars Galaxies?â At the time I told him that Galaxies would be different because it was Star Wars. âoeItâ(TM)s not like theyâ(TM)re gonna make you spend hours hitting Wamprats with a stick.â Oh irony, thou art a harsh mistress.
The more I think about it the more I think that there may very well be nothing wrong with Star Wars Galaxies. This just isnâ(TM)t my kind of game. I think Iâ(TM)m just better off getting my Star Wars fix from games like Jedi Knight and Rogue Squadron. Maybe some day a developer will combine all the best stuff from games like X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter and Jedi Knight into one game that doesnâ(TM)t involve the poking of rats with sticks. Essentially my fantasy has not changed. I still want to play in a fully realized Star Wars universe. I want to fly a ship I own through space smuggling goods and outrunning Imperials. I want to land that ship on the planet of my choosing and do battle with storm troopers and rival smugglers. I want an action game because the Star Wars movies to me are action movies. Thatâ(TM)s why I never liked the Star Wars RTS bullshit. Star Wars for me is not about running around Naboo shooting bugs in order to build up my blaster XP. It is about adventure and I donâ(TM)t feel like SWG delivers that.
Even after youâ(TM)ve reached a level where you can take on larger adversaries the battles still arenâ(TM)t any fun. You click on the thing you want to shoot and then you select from your menu of different attacks. There is no strategy required. You simply choose your best attack and cue it up a couple of times and then wait while your guy shoots the target. If the target comes after you just run away until it stops chasing you and then turn around and repeat the steps above. Stirring Star Wars music plays during a battle and is intended to make the event seem more epic I suppose. The classic arrangement blaring as you take pot shots at a lizard who seems oblivious to your attacks just makes an already absurd situation all the more laughable.
Iâ(TM)m not go
Hilarious.
The best part:
what about you debian?
we'll discuss it and let you know in 5 years.
That, my friends, is real comedy.
Me and my friends, who have bought every game Blizzard has produced (all the way back to Blackthorne/Lost Vikings), use PVPGN. Why? Because its nice to host your own servers, to have your own games, to not have to worry about who is on there, to have total control. It's a nice thing to have, and to play around with.
Of course blizzard shut it down, because you don't need an "official" key to use it. The honor system has become suprisingly worthless nowadays.
Galactic Civilizations decided to (*gasp*) TRUST their customers and not put SafeDisc or any other type of copy protection on the install discs. A lot of people have problems with these types of anti-piracy methods and generally it just hurts your end user, not that pirates who can get around it with various cracks/hacks/or cd copying programs. Its this kind of trust who now, unfortunately, seems to the be the odd man out. id software did the same thing with Quake3. It was either the first or second patch that took out the cd check, because it annoyed the user more than it actually helped anti-piracy.
I think the worst part is that Blizzard now requires you to buy a "gaming site license" for any gaming venue in which you charge a fee to enter, even if every user has their own, official, bought and paid for copy. This is just sad. You don't see Valve having a fit over Counter Strike players and their LAN habits, yet Blizzard needs more and more cash for reasons that just don't make sense.
Here's the irony: Blizzard is owned by an asshole, very profit-driven company (Vivendi International, AFAIK). The developers have generally been very cool, and sometimes even listen to the community at large (they ignored War3 beta testers, but seemed to actually listen when I participated in the Frozen Throne beta). Even though they might be great people who make some really nice games, this is like PR hell. Give the gamers something great, then stab them in the back once you have their money.
They can't cry "we're just a small developer!" anymore. Not with millions upon millions of sales, and huge development houses around the country.
I say screw this "Don't blame Blizzard, they've got a bad parent company." No, if the Blizzard heads really wanted to dig their feet into the dirt and stand their ground, they would. If they got fired, and worked the press releases well enough, they would start another gaming company and all those brilliant minds would go there, instead of suffering through this idiocy in the name of cash.
Sigh. Dare to dream, folks.
Two things stuck out for me, after reading.
The biggie: SCO basically is arguing that any code developed on top of Unix is a derivative work of Unix.
If you developed on Unix, and then went to Linux and did something similiar a few years down the line, with the benefit of hindsight yet with the same goals in mind, you probably did one of two things: recoded the section from memory, or, recoded a part of it using what you remembered plus possibly a better method that you had learned through sheer experience. SCO wants to claim rights to that experience. So no matter where you go from this day forward, if you happen to code the same thing in a *nix-like operating system, and they see the same algorithm (because, for example, the one you came up with couldn't be improved on), they should get a chunk of that.
Next: SCO said it has no current program [for Linux Licensing]. It hopes to come up with something in which noncommercial use and educational use would be free, but for commercial use it wants some remuneration. SCO said it hadn't come up with a plan because it still is trying to figure out the scale of the problem.
Did anyone else cringe as soon as they read the term "Linux Licensing", which preceded that paragraph?
"the scale of the problem" is an easy way of saying "finding every corporate customer on Redhat, Lindows, SUSE, and every other distro's books and sending them OUR Linux Licensing agreement."
This is so painful to watch. The company wants to say that anyone with a good idea cannot port that idea years later. That they own it. That even if that programmer kept a chunk of the code they once wrote, because they knew they couldn't remember it line-per-line, and copied it into a kernel module, that they own the rights to it.
More or less, if you've ever worked for Company A, coded something for them, found a very unique and exceptional way of, say, saving a compressed binary file, and you save that chunk of code for later use, and use it in free, GPL'd, software, then Company A has the right to sue you for violating their Intellectual Property. That, to me, is wrong. Even if the comments are the same. Even if the algorithm is the same.
Welcome to the grey area of black and white operating systems. What a terrible place to be.
Dude, it's called The Google Toolbar.
Install it and watch her make the switch in a few days.
The reason umpires don't want these machines on the field is that they make a KILLING doing their job.
Seriously, the average pay for an ump is well over $100k. I'm not talking about your little league ump, I'm talking about the "Big Boys", the major league umpires.
It's hilarious reading the article with this in mind, with the machine doing the same job better and the umps jumping up and down crying foul. Of COURSE they don't want these machines. They'd lose their Lexus.
Just something to think about.
..but I still can't sell this to the Big Wigs upstairs.
Why? Because Windows 98 is on its way out. All of our proprietary software runs in Windows 95/98, but the new version coming out next month uses Windows 98 and up ONLY. I expect next year (or maybe 2005) it will be phased out much like Windows 95.
Let's face it, not one new machine built today comes with Windows 98 SE. And let's not get into the train wreck that was ME.
What I'm saying is we can't deploy linux on a large scale, even if it will run on our propriety software, until I know it will last at least 3 years (the usual PC-replacement development cycle).
So while I'd love to get this up and running for The Powers that Be, until something that's even more advanced and is guaranteed to support Windows 2000 or XP only apps comes along, no endorsement here can be made.
Of course, the irony is that were we to support this and purchase it for our organization that it would fund the win2k/xp only program support, however, just giving it the once over, what about USB devices such as WinCE devices (yes, a lot of execs do use them...my Tungsten T is the one palm of the whole place), printers, et al. Plus all the weird hardware that my org. relies on, such as high load scanners.
And if you've had any time in sys admining, vendors love to blame things like odd operating systems if their buggy software doesn't work the first time out.
Sigh. I push Linux every time I can around here (I'm the resident Linux Guy of the IT dept.), but it's just not there yet.
As long as it wasn't Windows XP Bullet Edition...
What the hell? How is that -1 Troll? The guy didn't know what the real world speed was. I specified. +1 Informative anyone? Bueller?
Absolutely! It's stories like that which keep my faith in the grassroots internet movement (whatever that may be, exactly).
Easier translation:
before: 40k/sec
after: 160k/sec
That's awesome man, I say do it grassroots style. Send out flyers explaining your situation. Tell them what it would cost based on the number of people signed up.
Prepare yourself for lots of questions, prepare to make this your fulltime job (and charge accordingly, you'll get 1000 "I can't check my email" "Why won't msn.com come up" questions).
However, wireless technology is very crappy during storms and weather. Latency is terrible. This means you'll get lots of complaints from gamers, because their pings will suffer terribly if they don't have a straight shot to the wireless access point.
You could also petition your local telecom to put a CO within distance of your residence(s). If you get enough signatures they will take notice, and make sure you get that list to those who matter.
Good luck.
No really...when will last generations broadband stuff truly be available to the masses
here in the US? Who and how will they fix the last-mile problem if the governament isn't
stimulating this issue?
Heh, firstly, quit whining about 190k/sec. I just went to Bellsouth ADSL from Charter cable, a 384kb/s -> 1500kb/s jump (and man it feels good).
Secondly, the government isn't stimulating this issue (and neither are the states), because the country has serious economic problems. Living with "just" 190k/sec would be heaven to anyone living in a rural area. If you're really more desperate for bandwidth, invest in a T1/T3/OC3/OC48.
Remember the story about the municipalities running fiber? How about instead of complaining about 190k/sec you try to get that jump started in the technology hub of America? Who would be more receptive than that bunch of people?
Wowza, I have a friend who lives up there, and have never heard of that. Is it just one half of the state or is it the whole state?
Odd, indeed. I guess it would be EDT, wouldn't it?
Standard, of course. /. is based in America...
Then I got older and realized it was just a job, and if I didn't like it, I should find a new one.
I too am older and Know Better (tm) than just going along with whatever management tells me, however, I do sympathize with the fact that IT jobs, and in particular good IT jobs, are very hard to come by. After slaving away for 4.5 years in a shitty position I've finally found a great company to work for.
Please realize that IT workers with families and/or great responsibilities just can't up and quit because they don't like where they are or see a trend. You have to plan and hope to land a new job before the old crew finds out.
Things are always simple to the single people. People with families know all too well the grey area of black and white problems.
The total cost of airfare is staggering by itself, but 35+ top of the line video and sound cards as well... nothing to sneeze at.
:)
You do realize the video/sound card companies give them oodles of free cards with which to develop on, correct?
Though it is sweet you got to go and hang out w/ them based solely on your mod work, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I just couldn't help my cynicism
This guy has too much time on his hands.
Not sure what you're referencing here. Are you speaking of general 802.x wireless everywhere?
If so, you have to pony up cash to implement it.
And its terribly unreliable in stormy weather (can you say "dropped packets"? I knew ya could), when most people like to use the internet.
And you better believe that Comcast will lobby like hell to make sure it doesn't get implemented in the first place.
A pipe dream indeed.
This is politics at its worst, and I'm calling bullshit.
There was no need for this nicey-nice statement other than NVidia threatening lawsuits and Futuremark wanting to protect what assets they have.
Futuremark had every right to call NVidia on their selfish claim and unbelievable hacks. To say that they weren't liable for their own blunder is to say that Futuremark's reputation has been replaced by corporatespeak and a lack of respect almost unparalelled.
What's worse is that I really thought "Yeah, this time the bad guy gets his due" and that NVidia should've known better.
But of course, a few weeks later we've got to put on the nice face again for the public en large.
What a complete waste of time. I know there isn't much respect left in corporate America, but hell, if you can't call a spade a spade, why even bother with the benchmarks when someone can just rewrite an ENTIRE SHADER and only keep a picture clear while the demo is on rails?
Well, I'll bite. You're argument has so many holes you might as well have titled it "Swiss Cheese".
Star wars was a hit because nobody ever saw anything like it before.. it was the first, fresh, and brought them in because of that.
Matrix... DITTO! the same thing. people are getting tired of the same crap over and over and over and over.. now comes the Matrix.. it's "fresh" and has a plot that is innovative.
Yes, but while Star Wars had a Space Opera effect going on (and those 1970's effects were unbelievably innovative, I'll certainly grant you), the prequels tried to go rewrite its own history to make itself seem more cohesive than it was. Midoclorians(sp?) anyone?
I think that George had the grand idea of nine movies but didn't have the actual plot/details of all nine in his head. And while he was busy working out a new story for these prequels he realized that he couldn't do it without some old characters coming back in strange ways (Anakin built C3PO? WTF?) just to tie it together.
Watch Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress." It's the EXACT SAME STORY as Star Wars, only in feudal Japan. Lucas has admitted as such (though the reference escapes me).
The Matrix, on the other hand, is built upon many different philosophies. The main one, of course, if the Living Inside A Machine philosphy, which has been around ever since man created machines. Back in the 15 and 1600's, men deduced that we might be living inside a Clock, or a clock-like machine. Nowadays technology has advanced to the point where we think we live in a computer. It's the same concept, and it's just as intriguing.
They worked in a romance angle just as Star Wars did. Of course, Star Wars didn't have the high-mindedness that The Matrix accomplishes, and the Uber Sweet Effects, but both turn their emotional screws when necessary in order to get their point across.
Note I'm talking about the original SW trilogy, not the bastardized prequels.
in 20 years when they make 3 prequels to the matrix you will feel as poorly about it as you do about starwars now.
Except The Matrix didn't begin with "Episode IV: The Matrix"