Is Left Hand, by any chance, part of the highschool curriculum in anybody's neck of the woods?
Yup. I had to read it in my senior highschool English class. I found it every bit as dull as you did too.
After reading through everyone else's comments, I'm beginning to think that was just because I was so young and unsullied. Back then the world had yet to get its natsy hands on my soul, and I truly *believed* men and women were just alike. Now that I'm older and jaded, perhaps it would be a better book. What an unpleasent thought.
One of my long fostered conspiracy theories is that they give kids lame & dull books to read in school just to discourage their further intellectual growth by making reading seem like a soul draining pile of hard work which is best avoided.
You may be onto something there. But it could also be that anything you are reading because you *have* to read it is naturally going to be less enjoyable. I think the most reading I ever did in school was back in 3'rd grade when we could read any book we wanted from a huge list (but we had a quota to fill). I still remember some of those books fondly. I can't say that for anything I read in school since, with the sole exception of Candide. (Yes, its depressing too, but its so damn funny you don't care. It reads just like a HitchHiker's Guide book).
If its malice or incompetence, it certianly works to discourage reading though. I read way *more* in 3'rd grade than I did until after I graduated.
"What we have done is called 'middleware,'" Juszkiewicz said. "We have put software on top of Ethernet that basically synchronizes those packets to a master clock and allows it to send many, many channels and have many work stations that work together in synchrony, meaning low latency, meaning music."
Congradulations to Gibson and their tech team. They have successfully invented FireWire!
I'm not exactly with-it on consoles, but PC games are another matter entirely. Here's my current list:
Civilization III - I only mention this because so many others have. I have it already. Yes, it sucks away all my free time and half my sleep time like a giant vaccum cleaner. However, that isn't really a *good* thing; I'm not really having all that much *fun*. If you, like me, sucked all the marrow out of Civ II, then it doesn't really bring a lot of new fun to the table. If you don't have a CIV right now though, yes you need Civ III.
Kohan: Ahriman's Gift - I really liked the first Kohan. Its sort of a RTS version of Heroes of Might and Magic. The new version doesn't sound like much of a change, but as my main problem with the first one was that the campaign was too short, that could be a very good thing.
Empire Earth - Sort of like Age of Empires, but in 3D. It could be great, it could be a bit dull. I couldn't really tell from the demo.
Myth III - Squad-level RTS game. I keep hearing great things about this series, but I have get to get a Myth game, so I'm about due.
Stronghold - RTS where you build and defend your own castle. Somewhat mixed reviews, but it looks interesting.
Trade Empires - RTS Where the object is to build a trade network, not to take over the world militarily.
That's my current XMAS-list. Yes, its all RTS. I like strategy, game companies like real-time, wadda-ya'-gonna-do?
The Ada "mandate" has been dead for at least 5 years now, so that is definitely not it.
The reason so many military contracts still use Ada is the same reason so many safety-critical projects (avionics, air traffic control, train control, nuclear plant control) use it: its the safest and least error-prone language yet devised.
The reason a lot of universities use it falls from the same logic. If students aren't wasting all their time chasing down bugs in their simple programs, you can teach them (and have them implement) much more advanced concepts.
Actually, "soon" means since late yesterday, as near as I can tell.
I actually like this method of advertising. If sites like slashdot dumped their banner adds for these (rather than using both Ug!), I think the web would be a lot cooler place. Pluses are:
The ad can be more informative (and thus perhaps even a useful source of info if I'm interested) since it has more real-estate to work with.
The Ad goes away.
The ads Doesn't distract me, get in the way, or otherwise take up valuable interface real-estate while I'm reading the actual article.
Similarly, the ad doesn't take up ink, paper, and printing time when I print a page out.
If I don't want to waste time looking at it, I can switch to another window for a while. Ignoring that damn flashing dwarf in the ThinkGeek ad on slashdot is next to impossible.
Drawbacks:
Slows down reading when I'm not reading multiple sites at once.
Nothing's stopping sites from doing this and banner adds and popups. Even worse, some could go to multiple ads taking several minutes...
Actually, "soon" means since late yesterday, as near as I can tell.
I actually like this method of advertising. If sites like slashdot dumped their banner adds for these (rather than using both Ug!), I think the web would be a lot cooler place. Pluses are:
The ad can be more informative (and thus perhaps even a useful source of info if I'm interested) since it has more real-estate to work with
The Ad goes away.
The ads Doesn't distract me, get in the way, or otherwise take up valuable interface real-estate while I'm reading the actual information.
Similarly, the ad doesn't take up ink, paper, and printing time when I print a page out.
If I don't want to waste time looking at it, I can switch to another window for a while. Ignoring that damn flashing dwarf in the ThinkGeek ad on slashdot is next to impossible.
Drawbacks:
Slows down reading when I'm not reading multiple sites at once.
Nothing's stopping sites from doing this and banner adds and popups. Even worse, some could go to multiple ads taking several minutes...
There certianly are lots of others to read. My boss has about 13 different Ada books in his cubicle area . But then he's a bit of a book nut. I think Amazon sends him christmas cards:-).
Personally this one isn't my favorite Ada reference, but then I'm a bit more of an expert. For beginners, I understand its a very good book, and the price is certianly right.:-)
Our company's stupid filtering software won't let me look at an article on 2600, no matter how relevent it is. I don't suppose someone (from a non BESS-blacklisted site) could mirror it for poor saps like me?
>All the current fast languages suck from a safety standpoint, > and all the rigorous ones (the > Pascal/Modula/Ada/Eiffel/Sather family) are essentially dead.
I have been doing Ada development my entire (11+) year career, and I can tell you that it is *not* dead. It just isn't the current language-du-jour. But lots of new programs are using it.
As to why it isn't as popular as languages like C++, well, the rest of the paragraph I quoted is a pretty good explanation. But if you are looking for a better way, there are lots of actively supported Ada compilers available, including free GPLed ones. Surf over to http://www.adapower.com and check it out.
My stupid corporate filtering software won't let me look at the story. But the Big Huge web page is so new it isn't blocked yet.:-) But I don't see anything there about their first game. Can anyone tell me if there's anything about it in the article?
But in the absence of that information, I do have two things I'd like to see them do.
1. Put the *Real* designer's name on the game. At Microprose and later Firaxis every game had Sid's name slapped on it, whether he designed it or not. Apparently the marketing folks think the sales value of Sid's name is more important than giving the true designer his due. When Firaxis was asked about this policy, their reply was that it is really a "stamp of approval" from Sid, and doesn't really mean that he actively worked on that game.
Because of this, most folks don't even know that Brian actually designed CivII and Alpha Centauri with little significant input from Sid. And now that he's on his own, he finds that the name value that should rightly have been his on both of those great games instead stays with Sid.
So I'd like to see Big Huge take up a policy of crediting the proper game producer, just like movie studios do at the front of a flick. Let the actual game designers have the credit (or blame) that is rightly theirs.
2. As for their first game, I'm dearly hoping its MOO (Master of Orion)-like. That's a game that has had people screaming for for an update for years. Some of the BR touches that CivII and SMAC had would do wonders for the 3x turn-based space genre. Plus anyone who read the back of the SMAC manual knows what a big fan of science fiction Brian is.
Anyway, I wish nothing but success for Brian and Tim and all the gang at Big Huge. And if they need a beta tester there too, my email's attached.:-)
> How was Firaxis formed? By breaking off of Microprose. So the people who broke joined Firaxis were the ones without any job loyalty.
"Job loyalty"??? This is actually *incredibly* common in the Gaming industry.
> Now, less than a year (IIRC) later, people _again_ leave the group and form their own company.
Uhhh, not quite. I don't remember the exact founding date, but I know I registered my interest to be a beta tester on Alpha Centauri with them sometime in the summer of '97. I believe they even had a game out already by then (Gettysburg). Back then the hot game everyone was playing was Warcraft II.
Since then I've worked in 3 different programming orginizations in 2 different companies (and two different states). I have a child who is walking and talking who wasn't even born back then.
So no, I don't think this is an unreasonably short amount of time for Brian to have stayed on. Particularly not in the gaming industry.
Generally languages encourage good and bad programming practices; they can't out and out prevent bad code.
But its interesting to note how many items on the list can't be done in Ada. By my accounting 11 items of the 55 (20%!) aren't an issue in Ada:
12 (no optional block delimiters)
14 (case insensitive)
16 (literals are not type-designated in this way)
17 (case insensitive)
23 (passing mode is explicitly stated in interface)
27 (arrays are not pointers, and pointer arithmetic is not allowed)
37 (names must be unique within the same scope)
44 (named notation insulates clients from parameter order)
48 (no macro preprocessor)
52 (no macro preprocessor)
53 (only one way to declare arrays)
54 (its tough to do this conversion in any way other than the straightforward one)
I guess one good addition would be:
56. Refuse to use Ada. If your manager presses you, insist that no-one else uses it, and point out that it doesn't work with your large suite of tools that work around C's failings like lint and plummer.
I'm a bit confused now. How can it be called "cracking" when you have been given the root password by the owner? I thought the whole point of cracking was to *get* the root password (or some equivalent).
Not that he won't accept it. But given Stallman's known opinions on Linux, getting an award for "supporting the Linux community" has to be like getting slapped in the face with a stack of twenties.
I just hope it gets struck down or repealed. Otherwise I could easily see it getting used as a model for regulations in other countries. I can just hear it now: "It works in Austrailia..."
...from a father of 2, who doesn't *want* anyone removing his children's freedom in the name of "protecting" them.
"Even though their requests have been met, the Linux community has not officially accepted Mindcraft's offer."
I'm curious...how does a community of hundreds of thousands of people "officially" accept a challange? It seems MS knows how to attack a copeting organization, but they have no clue how to deal with a community.
Certianly bashing the Linux community isn't going to help, becuase these are *users* being bashed. How can you hope to win over users by attacking them?
A sales visit from a Microsoft rep must be interesting. "I see you have a Linux box. You must be a moron. I'll condescend to sell you this NT box instead, even though you will probably have to put an X here on the contract, as you clearly must be an illiterate. Please don't drool on my Armani shoes while you're signing..."
I felt the same way. In fact, I wrote the author Steve Litt about it. He response was along the lines of "I had no idea the same person was responsible for both those wonderful machines." (Amiga 1000 & Atari 800), and he offered to put my letter in the "Letters to the editors" section of the next issue. If you'd like to see it earlier, I could post the letter here.
I see lots of calls for doing another benchmark that's "fair" to prove the Linux system superior. The problem with that is that it could never be "fair" if carried out by Linux partisans. Even if it were, likely there would be one missed tweak which would throw the whole thing in doubt.
Instead, why not fight FUD with FUD? Mindcraft claims the study's still valid even though the systems weren't tweaked equally. If that's the truly the case we're home free! Do a study designed to show how *badly* an NT server can be tweaked, and publish the results. As long as you promote the results as "just as valid as the Mindcraft benchmarks", you are being perfectly honest.:-)
So next time MS throws out the invalid Mindcraft survey (NT 2.5 times better), don't attack the survey. Just throw out the new Linux survey (Linux 153 times better) done using the "Mindcraft method".
If folks sending unsolicited email to multiple parties were compelled to use the "junk" priority that was put into the email standard it would solve a lot of the problems. It would be much easier to filter them, and sendmail servers would be able give them the lower prioity in delivery that they deserve.
MS is getting bludgeoned in the suit on the basis of anticompetitive practices agains *other* closed-source vendors. But RMS's whole argument seems to rest on the sentence:
"The latter would mainly help others proprietary application developers compete, which would only offer users alternative ways to let go of their freedom."
In other words, "now that you've won, abandon the logic that won you the suit and help out Open Source advocates instead."
Its a nice idea, I'll grant him that. But I don't think the judge can explore remedies that aren't geared towards helping out the aggrieved parties in the lawsuit.
That entire article was clearly written with a goal in mind. Logic is just used as a tool. As a result, it reads a lot like Moonie or Commie promotional material.
I particularly like the lengths they went through to associate OSS with Ralph Nader. And just in case your parents were too young or moderate to have taught you to spit whenever that name is mentioned, they made sure to slap the label "leftist" wherever they could.
Take a look at some of the other articles on their home page. I particularly like the one complaining FDR's New Deal destroyed private charity.:-)
Also take a look at their board. The only name I recognized was Ed Meese. That explains a lot. Anyone remember the Meese commision? As I remember it, all the scientists on it resgined in protest. Does anyone know who the any of the rest of those yahoos are?
...when I got to the four little words "and the Justice department". Why, oh why, did they have to mention the Justice Department? It changed the whole tone from a well-reasoned *conditional* welcome, to an empty threat. As representatives of the OS community, the signors of the letter have neither the legal knowledge to make that claim, nor the power to carry out.
Otherwise, I think its a well concieved letter. Someone with some percieved authority definitly needed to tell them to put up or shut up.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. I had to read it in my senior highschool English class. I found it every bit as dull as you did too.
After reading through everyone else's comments, I'm beginning to think that was just because I was so young and unsullied. Back then the world had yet to get its natsy hands on my soul, and I truly *believed* men and women were just alike. Now that I'm older and jaded, perhaps it would be a better book. What an unpleasent thought.
You may be onto something there. But it could also be that anything you are reading because you *have* to read it is naturally going to be less enjoyable. I think the most reading I ever did in school was back in 3'rd grade when we could read any book we wanted from a huge list (but we had a quota to fill). I still remember some of those books fondly. I can't say that for anything I read in school since, with the sole exception of Candide. (Yes, its depressing too, but its so damn funny you don't care. It reads just like a HitchHiker's Guide book).
If its malice or incompetence, it certianly works to discourage reading though. I read way *more* in 3'rd grade than I did until after I graduated.
- Civilization III - I only mention this because so many others have. I have it already. Yes, it sucks away all my free time and half my sleep time like a giant vaccum cleaner. However, that isn't really a *good* thing; I'm not really having all that much *fun*. If you, like me, sucked all the marrow out of Civ II, then it doesn't really bring a lot of new fun to the table. If you don't have a CIV right now though, yes you need Civ III.
- Kohan: Ahriman's Gift - I really liked the first Kohan. Its sort of a RTS version of Heroes of Might and Magic. The new version doesn't sound like much of a change, but as my main problem with the first one was that the campaign was too short, that could be a very good thing.
- Empire Earth - Sort of like Age of Empires, but in 3D. It could be great, it could be a bit dull. I couldn't really tell from the demo.
- Myth III - Squad-level RTS game. I keep hearing great things about this series, but I have get to get a Myth game, so I'm about due.
- Stronghold - RTS where you build and defend your own castle. Somewhat mixed reviews, but it looks interesting.
- Trade Empires - RTS Where the object is to build a trade network, not to take over the world militarily.
That's my current XMAS-list. Yes, its all RTS. I like strategy, game companies like real-time, wadda-ya'-gonna-do?I just can't wait to see the flamewars when messages get crossposted to alt.crips and alt.bloods.
The reason so many military contracts still use Ada is the same reason so many safety-critical projects (avionics, air traffic control, train control, nuclear plant control) use it: its the safest and least error-prone language yet devised.
The reason a lot of universities use it falls from the same logic. If students aren't wasting all their time chasing down bugs in their simple programs, you can teach them (and have them implement) much more advanced concepts.
- The ad can be more informative (and thus perhaps even a useful source of info if I'm interested) since it has more real-estate to work with.
- The Ad goes away.
- The ads Doesn't distract me, get in the way, or otherwise take up valuable interface real-estate while I'm reading the actual article.
- Similarly, the ad doesn't take up ink, paper, and printing time when I print a page out.
- If I don't want to waste time looking at it, I can switch to another window for a while. Ignoring that damn flashing dwarf in the ThinkGeek ad on slashdot is next to impossible.
Drawbacks:I actually like this method of advertising. If sites like slashdot dumped their banner adds for these (rather than using both Ug!), I think the web would be a lot cooler place. Pluses are:
Drawbacks:
> Does that mean there were others?
:-).
:-)
There certianly are lots of others to read. My boss has about 13 different Ada books in his cubicle area . But then he's a bit of a book nut. I think Amazon sends him christmas cards
Personally this one isn't my favorite Ada reference, but then I'm a bit more of an expert. For beginners, I understand its a very good book, and the price is certianly right.
Our company's stupid filtering software won't let me look at an article on 2600, no matter how relevent it is. I don't suppose someone (from a non BESS-blacklisted site) could mirror it for poor saps like me?
>All the current fast languages suck from a safety standpoint,
> and all the rigorous ones (the
> Pascal/Modula/Ada/Eiffel/Sather family) are essentially dead.
I have been doing Ada development my entire (11+) year career, and I can tell you that it is *not* dead. It just isn't the current language-du-jour. But lots of new programs are using it.
As to why it isn't as popular as languages like C++, well, the rest of the paragraph I quoted is a pretty good explanation. But if you are looking for a better way, there are lots of actively supported Ada compilers available, including free GPLed ones. Surf over to http://www.adapower.com and check it out.
My stupid corporate filtering software won't let me look at the story. But the Big Huge web page is so new it isn't blocked yet. :-) But I don't see anything there about their first game. Can anyone tell me if there's anything about it in the article?
:-)
But in the absence of that information, I do have two things I'd like to see them do.
1. Put the *Real* designer's name on the game. At Microprose and later Firaxis every game had Sid's name slapped on it, whether he designed it or not. Apparently the marketing folks think the sales value of Sid's name is more important than giving the true designer his due. When Firaxis was asked about this policy, their reply was that it is really a "stamp of approval" from Sid, and doesn't really mean that he actively worked on that game.
Because of this, most folks don't even know that Brian actually designed CivII and Alpha Centauri with little significant input from Sid. And now that he's on his own, he finds that the name value that should rightly have been his on both of those great games instead stays with Sid.
So I'd like to see Big Huge take up a policy of crediting the proper game producer, just like movie studios do at the front of a flick. Let the actual game designers have the credit (or blame) that is rightly theirs.
2. As for their first game, I'm dearly hoping its MOO (Master of Orion)-like. That's a game that has had people screaming for for an update for years. Some of the BR touches that CivII and SMAC had would do wonders for the 3x turn-based space genre. Plus anyone who read the back of the SMAC manual knows what a big fan of science fiction Brian is.
Anyway, I wish nothing but success for Brian and Tim and all the gang at Big Huge. And if they need a beta tester there too, my email's attached.
> How was Firaxis formed? By breaking off of Microprose. So the people who broke joined Firaxis were the ones without any job loyalty.
"Job loyalty"??? This is actually *incredibly* common in the Gaming industry.
> Now, less than a year (IIRC) later, people _again_ leave the group and form their own company.
Uhhh, not quite. I don't remember the exact founding date, but I know I registered my interest to be a beta tester on Alpha Centauri with them sometime in the summer of '97. I believe they even had a game out already by then (Gettysburg). Back then the hot game everyone was playing was Warcraft II.
Since then I've worked in 3 different programming orginizations in 2 different companies (and two different states). I have a child who is walking and talking who wasn't even born back then.
So no, I don't think this is an unreasonably short amount of time for Brian to have stayed on. Particularly not in the gaming industry.
But its interesting to note how many items on the list can't be done in Ada. By my accounting 11 items of the 55 (20%!) aren't an issue in Ada:
- 12 (no optional block delimiters)
- 14 (case insensitive)
- 16 (literals are not type-designated in this way)
- 17 (case insensitive)
- 23 (passing mode is explicitly stated in interface)
- 27 (arrays are not pointers, and pointer arithmetic is not allowed)
- 37 (names must be unique within the same scope)
- 44 (named notation insulates clients from parameter order)
- 48 (no macro preprocessor)
- 52 (no macro preprocessor)
- 53 (only one way to declare arrays)
- 54 (its tough to do this conversion in any way other than the straightforward one)
I guess one good addition would be:I'm a bit confused now. How can it be called "cracking" when you have been given the root password by the owner? I thought the whole point of cracking was to *get* the root password (or some equivalent).
Not that he won't accept it. But given Stallman's known opinions on Linux, getting an award for "supporting the Linux community" has to be like getting slapped in the face with a stack of twenties.
I just hope it gets struck down or repealed. Otherwise I could easily see it getting used as a model for regulations in other countries. I can just hear it now: "It works in Austrailia..."
...from a father of 2, who doesn't *want* anyone removing his children's freedom in the name of "protecting" them.
"Even though their requests have been met, the Linux community has not officially accepted Mindcraft's offer."
I'm curious...how does a community of hundreds of thousands of people "officially" accept a challange? It seems MS knows how to attack a copeting organization, but they have no clue how to deal with a community.
Certianly bashing the Linux community isn't going to help, becuase these are *users* being bashed. How can you hope to win over users by attacking them?
A sales visit from a Microsoft rep must be interesting. "I see you have a Linux box. You must be a moron. I'll condescend to sell you this NT box instead, even though you will probably have to put an X here on the contract, as you clearly must be an illiterate. Please don't drool on my Armani shoes while you're signing..."
I felt the same way. In fact, I wrote the author Steve Litt about it. He response was along the lines of "I had no idea the same person was
responsible for both those wonderful machines." (Amiga 1000 & Atari 800), and he offered to put my letter in the "Letters to the editors" section of the next issue. If you'd like to see it earlier, I could post the letter here.
I see lots of calls for doing another benchmark that's "fair" to prove the Linux system superior. The problem with that is that it could never be "fair" if carried out by Linux partisans. Even if it were, likely there would be one missed tweak which would throw the whole thing in doubt.
:-)
Instead, why not fight FUD with FUD? Mindcraft claims the study's still valid even though the systems weren't tweaked equally. If that's the truly the case we're home free! Do a study designed to show how *badly* an NT server can be tweaked, and publish the results. As long as you promote the results as "just as valid as the Mindcraft benchmarks", you are being perfectly honest.
So next time MS throws out the invalid Mindcraft survey (NT 2.5 times better), don't attack the survey. Just throw out the new Linux survey (Linux 153 times better) done using the "Mindcraft method".
If folks sending unsolicited email to multiple parties were compelled to use the "junk" priority that was put into the email standard it would solve a lot of the problems. It would be much easier to filter them, and sendmail servers would be able give them the lower prioity in delivery that they deserve.
MS is getting bludgeoned in the suit on the basis of anticompetitive practices agains *other* closed-source vendors. But RMS's whole argument seems to rest on the sentence:
"The latter would mainly help others proprietary application developers compete, which would only offer users alternative ways to let go of their freedom."
In other words, "now that you've won, abandon the logic that won you the suit and help out Open Source advocates instead."
Its a nice idea, I'll grant him that. But I don't think the judge can explore remedies that aren't geared towards helping out the aggrieved parties in the lawsuit.
That entire article was clearly written with a goal in mind. Logic is just used as a tool. As a result, it reads a lot like Moonie or Commie promotional material.
:-)
I particularly like the lengths they went through to associate OSS with Ralph Nader. And just in case your parents were too young or moderate to have taught you to spit whenever that name is mentioned, they made sure to slap the label "leftist" wherever they could.
Take a look at some of the other articles on their home page. I particularly like the one complaining FDR's New Deal destroyed private charity.
Also take a look at their board. The only name I recognized was Ed Meese. That explains a lot. Anyone remember the Meese commision? As I remember it, all the scientists on it resgined in protest. Does anyone know who the any of the rest of those yahoos are?
...when I got to the four little words "and the Justice department". Why, oh why, did they have to mention the Justice Department? It changed the whole tone from a well-reasoned *conditional* welcome, to an empty threat. As representatives of the OS community, the signors of the letter have neither the legal knowledge to make that claim, nor the power to carry out.
Otherwise, I think its a well concieved letter. Someone with some percieved authority definitly needed to tell them to put up or shut up.