They were both excellent games - but Sephiroth, IMHO, was much more of an *outstanding* villan than Kefka.
Kefka was indeed evil - but he was goofy-evil - the kind of evil where you're not afraid, or angry - you're annoyed. He made a great villan, but Sephiroth was...well...just so much more.
By the end of FF7, it was hard *not* to hate Sephiroth, be angry at him, and want to make him pay. He was always just that one step ahead of you - and he *knew* it. You came so *close* to fighting him throughout the entire game, but you were always denied - until the end. When the pseudo-dream sequence at the end happened, it was hard not to start cheering, yelling, and going nuts, because FINALLY you were giving him what he deserved. He was just an absolutely *perfect* character to have in a FF game - and Square hasn't developed a better villan yet, IMHO.
I've seen Katz off-base before, but it's obvious he didn't understand a thing in the movie - nor, it seems, did he try to.
Perhaps the audio track was a bit off in the theatre he went to -- I don't know -- but in our theatre, the sound was synced pretty well -- there were a couple of spots where the sync was a *little* off - but not so much as to be the annoyance Katz makes it out to be. Buscemi's character seemed to get the worst of the desyncing, but again, it wasn't the bother Katz made it out to be.
The voice acting was pretty damned good, if you ask me - it may be that I'm an anime fan, and have suffered through hackdubs, and poorly acted voices more than most. I especially liked the fit of Donald Sutherland's voice to Cid - it matched VERY well (other than the "warm" line;P )
Now - about the plot. Sure - it was a bit contrived. Some of the character development seemed a bit rushed - but overall, it wasn't bad. Katz missed the point of the plot - probably because he was so bothered by the sound - I don't know - but his analysis is pretty much totally off-base. I won't give it away - but if you've played FF7, you'll be wondering where Aerith is at the end;P (I *think* the plot of the movie was conceived around the time FF7 was popular - and the influence shows)
The animation was phenomenal. It takes a *lot* to get *so* close to looking real. Some of the movement was a bit off (but very, *very* close - and some of the faces were a bit...strange (James Wood's character, the general, seemed to have been distorted into an evil mask - noone's that angry all the time;P ) - but overall, they've pushed the envelope for realism in animation.
Especially the eyes. It's awesome to see animated characters whose eyes have real "depth" to them.
Now - all this being said, I think it didn't *quite* live up to the Final Fantasy name. DOn't get me wrong - it was a great movie - but there are a few Final Fantasy elements that were sorely missing.
First was the lack of medieval flair -- most (FF8 not included) Final Fantasy games all had a mixture of medieval swords & sorcery with high technology - that was part of what gave them their distinctive "flavor". This movie was ALL high-tech, and even a little bit on the military side -- kindof like a deeper Aliens movie.
A side note to this was the lack of Magic in general -- I was really looking forward to seeing Ultima being cast on the big screen - or even a couple Summons (Shiva? Ifrit? Bahamut?). Sadly, none made it into this movie, although one of the alien critters looked a bit like Leviathan...
The lack of Airships was bothersome - yes - they had the various spacecraft - and they were well-designed, but again, were lacking the flair of the grandiose FF airships.
The most glaring error, however, was the lack of a single, solitary Chocobo.
It's for these reasons that I think the movie, although very,. VERY good, didn't quite live up to the Final Fantasy name that was placed on it. Had it been simply called "The Spirits Within", I wouldn't have had a single problem with it.
I don't have any experience with Comcast - so I can only speak for AT&T. (this will be quite lengthy)
We moved to MA from Syracuse, NY, where we'd had an excellent experience with Time Warner's Roadrunner cable modem service (note: this was pre-merger, so I have no idea if it's gone downhill since - anyway, it's not like we had mich choice in the matter - TW has a stranglehold on cable out there)
One of the first things we did was look up who the cable modem provider was in the area. AT&T. So, we called and attempted to set up an install.
Our building wasn't "recognized" by their system.
Not really their fault - when the building we're living in was renovated to make apartments, the landlords didn't do all the correct paperwork. The existing cable lockbox for the house was also (literally) ripped from the wall. Needless to say - the situation was a mess.
We waited about a month for them to get their act together and figure out what they were going to do (they had our name, address, and the fact that we WANTED service - they told us we'd need to wait until they could get a technician out to do the necessary work) - and one never came. Finally, my fiancee called and complained her way up to the guy who manages the installation teams.
Within two weeks, we had the new cable lockbox, as well as a new line to the cable trunk in place. Still took them another month to get an actual install date - but hey - we were finally moving along, right?
Well, the installer comes (3 hours late, I might add) and hooks up the digital cable. He then proceeds to pull out an installation CD - which I tell him that I do not want him to install (my computer had that fine balance of software where Windows 98 actually didn't crash every 5 minutes) -- he insists, saying that it doesn't actually install anything, it just lets him confirm that he made the install. Uh huh. I watch as he "doesn't install" a new copy of IE, "doesn't install" a new set of network settings, wiping out my finely tuned registry settings, and "doesn't install" extra icons to my desktop. In addition, he INSISTS on renaming the IE icon to "AT&T INTERNET" (note: all caps), and renaming the Outlook Express icon to "AT&T EMAIL" (Yep - all caps again - and I didn't have OE installed before this install - I chose NOT to have it for a reason!)
Needless to say - I bitched the guy out - and of course, he completely denies that he installed ANYTHING! AARGH!
Installers suck.
Well, after that's over, how does he test the connection? He pulls up CNN.com, which loads OK, and then packs up and leaves. I get his number (which I called into their support center later...) and he takes off.
After playing with the connection for a few minutes, we realize something is VERY wrong. We can't hold a stable connection to ANYTHING -- we'd get 50-300k into a download, and it would just die. Consistantly.
Try it under linux - same thing.
Replace the Cat5 (hey - it's old) - same problem.
Replace the (new) cable from the wll to the cable modem - same problem.
Hook up to my local network, and transfer files just fine (same network settings, both OS) - so it's obviously not my end.
Call up AT&T's "support" (and I use that term loosely). Spend an hour between being on hold and talking to techs who try to blame everything on my computer - after explaining the situation about 10 times, I get told that I will be "escalated" to a "level 2" tech. His solution? Reinstall Windows.
After explaining to the guy that Windows is not the problem (my local network works fine) about 5 times, he decides that maybe I might know what I'm talking about - and "escalates" me again - this time to an "admin". His solution? "Work is being done in your area - I don't have an ETA, or any more information, but rest assured that we will be fixing the problem."
Uh huh.
Total time spent on the phone to get this response? 2 hours, 45 minutes. Mind you, this is on my cellphone, because the phone company hadn't gotten around to doing their install yet either.
After a month of horrible service, I call back again - armed with my old "ticket number" and the ID numbers of all the techs I spoke to - including the "admin" who told me that work was "being done".
Spend an hour working through the "level 1" techs - who I am convinced are there to waste your time and try to convince you never to call them again, regardless of the problem. I get to a "level 3" tech - who tells me:
1: my old ticket number is invalid
2: the ID of the "admin" I got is invalid
3: there is nothing wrong with my connection - I'm just visiting "slow" sites
Mind you, the problem happened on EVERY site I went to - not just small, unpopular, or slow sites.
Call the guy's bluff - and he gets rude - saying that the problem MUST be on my end, because I'm just a "stupid user", and that I should "know better than to try to test something myself".
At that point I hung up. We started looking for alternatives to AT&T. Noone else in the area offered cable -- they had a lock on that. So, the other avenue was DSL. After poking around for a week or two, we placed an order with Speakeasy.
Within 2 weeks (well, 15 days, actually) we had a brand-spanking-new DSL connection that works like a charm.
AT&T got my disconnect notice the next day - although they still have my address wrong, refuse to pick up their cable modem (which they brought here, and will not give me an address to mail it back to them (I have no car, and their closest "return location" is about 45 minutes away by car) ), and continure to charge me "rent" for.
Last month, they tried to bill me AGAIN for cable modem service -- calling them to resolve the issue took over an hour - and ended up being me saying "I cancelled my service two months ago - don't bill me for something I've cancelled!", to their "Well, we don't have that in our system, and we show you still have our modem, so you MUST still be using the service"
Things just go around and around with these people. If they do it again next month, the BBB will be getting involved (I've already called them once for advice in this matter, and they said to give them one more chance to fix things to my satisfaction before getting the BBB involved)
I would highly recommend ANYONE stay away from AT&T's cable service, if you aren't masochistic.
Chances are they *do* store the ip the search came from -- which, if you have a static IP like me, means they *could* tie in what you've searched for over time. Note that AFAIK, there's nowhere on Google where they actually ask for your name, email, etc... - but if they can ID you by IP, that's nearly as good, for targeting purposes. As soon as they have a "survey" or other somesuch where they want your email address, name, etc... they will have all the info they need to build a complete "browsing profile"...
I'm sure CmdrTaco finds some of this stuff fascinating - and I'm sure there are some neat things that can be pulled form the aggregate data - but I would be more concerned with the privacy implications.
Any license which restricts what TOOLS the developer can use to develop software is shooting itself in the foot.
Developers generally have a favorite set of tools they use to program - even if they only program web pages or shell scripts, they have a favorite editor.
Telling a programmer they can't use their favorite editor to edit source code files is counterproductive - they'll just go elsewhere. There are plenty of toolkits to use, but only MS' says you can't use EMACS or VI;P
If you use a broad definition: "vector drawing tools", then yes, they fall in the same market.
If you define the markets a *little* more specifically: "vector drawing tools for linux", "free vector drawing tools", "vector drawing tools for Windows/MacOS" or "commercial vector drawing tools", they don't fit into the same market at all.
Adobe produces no vector drawing software for Linux (AFAIK they cancelled their only Linux-based project, which was a port of Pagemaker (?) ) - so in the Linux market, their product doesn't fit. AFAIK, KIllustrator doesn't run under Windows or MacOS (with the possibility of OSX as an exception) - so it doesn't fit into Adobe's market.
Yep - confirmed from the back of the FF Chronicles instruction booklet (released just a couple days ago) - Square's planning the US release of FF X for "Early 2002"
Frankly, I'm suprised -- Square's marketers are missing an Xmas release. That *may* be bad...
IIRC, FF7 was an Xmas release - FF8 was late fall, and FF9 was late summer/early fall (US releases, not Japan, and I could be wrong...)
Eh? The original GB had FF Legend 1-3, and FF Adventure - there may have been one more, but I can't remember.
I do remember FF Legend II fondly though =)
I'd love to see them release FF 1-6 on the GBA - perhaps 1-3 on a single cart (those were pretty small games), then 4-6 on their own...but as others have pointed out - the relationship between Nintendo and Square isn't exactly a very good one, so it'll probably never happen.
ironically, as people are screaming
about how the moz team is adding too many features...
Well, I wouldn't say screaming;P But, I can see their point - I'd rather have the devteam concentrate on tightening the code, and fixing existing bugs before they go and add more features. Once the existing bugs get squished, however, it'd be nice to have something like this.
One thing I would like to see (outside of the roll-your-own system) is some sort of componentized download - so if I wanted just the web browser, and nothing else (mail/news, composer, etc...) so I could download a smaller file, and have a smaller memory footprint, compared to someone who uses the mail client and/or the composer, who could trade a larger download/memory footprint for those extra features.
I'm actually very happy with the stability improvements over the past few months (I download nightlies twice a week) - the devteam has been doing an excellent job at bugsquishing =)
The problem with this is that the "supplement" comes from the MS point of view.
Think about a smarttag that links the phrase "buy tickets" to a MS-sponsored ticket seller.
Suppose I have a document with the following line:
"Well, we tried to buy tickets for the show at the theatre, but they were sold out. Luckily, we were still able to buy tickets for the movie through a small online retailer known as [booga]" ([] denoting a link).
MS changes that to:
"Well, we tried to [buy tickets] for the show at the theatre, but they were sold out. Luckily, we were still able to [buy tickets] for the movie through a small online retailer known as [booga]" ([] denoting a link).
...with the words "buy tickets" linked to THEIR choice of ticket-seller, when you were obviously trying to point people to a different one.
Granny isn't going to understand the difference between smarttags and regular links. She will follow the "buy tickets" link, and not realize that you, as the author, had no intention of sending her there.
That's the problem here. Ignorant or un-informed people who don't understand the technology, and MS using their dominance in the browser market to change the web into the image THEY want to project, not the one that the authors of the content want to project.
"These radio staions broadcast by airmusic inc. are only avaiilable in a Ford (tm) car, truck, minivan, or suv with a Ford (tm) factory-installed stereo. Want to listen to them? Go buy a Ford."
Seems wrong, somehow...but yes, it's well within their rights to do so.
I think it's more of a situation where/. generally favors the "little guy" who, more often than not, is being taken advantage of by large monied corporate interests.
In this case, it's freelance writers who want to keep control of their works and not be taken advantage of by large publishing houses, who want to sell more ads and thus make more money, by using the freelance writer's work without their permission (note that these are *not* mainly for current freelancers, whose contracts most probably include permissions for digital distribution - they're mainly for older publications whose contracts didn't forsee, and thus didn't include, rights for digital distribution)
In the case of Napster et al. - it's a case of the consumer *and* the artist getting monetarily raped by the music industry. The general consensus on/. seems to be that paying *the artist who made the music* is the right thing to do - paying a huge megalomaniacal corporation $20 for a CD, of which the artist only gets a few pennies is fundamentally wrong somehow.
There's also a bit of "well, the cat is out of the bag" syndrome there too, with the Napster thing - the music is already out there, available, for free - no ammount of legislation or watermarking or whatever is going to take those mp3s away from people who have them, whether they own the CD or not.
But that's beside the point;) The point is that/. readers *seem* to favor the little guy, regardless of his situation -- it's a bit shortsighted, in that these rulings could be used *against* the little guy by corporations in the future -- but it's the way it seems.It's a good thing that any rights not explicitly granted to a *corporation* are reserved by an *individual* - but what if the corps flip it around? Use this as a defense as to why you can't copy that CD/DVD, or why you have to purchase ANOTHER copy of a certain piece of software... Use it, along with UCITA, to guarantee that those terms that you "agreed to" in their click-through license are binding in a way that ONLY benefits them... That's where it gets scary.
Hrmm...how long would an led (small enough to fit, but large enough to illuminate the screen well) powered off a standard (small) watch battery last before needing a new battery?
Is there enough space below the screen to add one without too much trouble?
(I don't yet have a GBA, so I don't have anything to reference to see if something like this is feasible...it *looks* like there might be though...and if it's not that tough to disassemble/reassemble...)
Re:Andromeda disappoints me.
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ROTFL
Silly pubescent teen. Someday you'll stop playing "choke the chicken" to mere TV shows and notice that there are *real* women in the world that will perform that service for you;P
Re:Andromeda disappoints me.
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[ quotes out of order;) ]
hmm..perhaps its time for some absestos underwear, I feel things getting a little toasty
LOL - claiming that because someone really, REALLY dislikes a show they lack a sense of humor will generally get you some flames, yes =)
I mean come on, there is something strangely humorous about a dead guy, a janitor, a severed robot head, and a chick who was turned into a love slave as punishment, all stuck on a bug looking ship.
Yes, the situation itself could be quite humorous - if it was carried off with any talent at all. I'm not so sure the problem is with the actors though - I'm more inclined to think the reason the series is SO bad is they lack talented writers.
Although, the basic setting (minus the sex) was done before, in a show called Red Dwarf. =)
Re:Andromeda disappoints me.
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You've GOT to be kidding - *please* tell me you're kidding...
LEXX was, perhaps, the WORST "sci-fi" show I'd ever seen (which is saying a lot) I'd take 5 EFC/Andromeda-type series over that tripe...
MHO, anyway.
Re:Curiosity killed the cat
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Baby black holes (a theory based on the potential revision of the plank length) would not suck up anything except tiny things near by, and would very quickly decay.
Hmm...what if there was a way to sustain them? Even the tiny ammount of gravitational force produced by one of these "Baby black holes" could potentially be very useful...
IANAS (I'm not a scientist) - so thake this with a grain of salt - I'm just theorizing here...
If a "Baby black hole" is functionally identical to a "real" black hole, only scaled down, what would happen if you put 3 of them in the same (tiny) area, and set them to rotate around one another? Would it be possible to get their combined gravitational forces to negate at the center of the rotation? What kind of EM variance would such a combination create? How could it be harnessed? Would physics (as we know it) change at the center of the rotation?
Yep... and if they don't care to shut us up, what's the problem? I can find whatever I want on the web no matter how big the conglomerates get. Further, I can publish anything I want and people who know how to look can find it.
Agreed. The open and free nature of the web makes it possible for anyone to have a voice. THat part isn't going away (although poorer people may get squelched a bit by the proliferation of popup ads that need to be closed before their content can be read).
But if you're gonna play the business game, you gotta make money. I guess that bothers an 'online journalist' like Katz more than it bothers me.;)
I'm not sure I agree here - there's a kind of "critical mass" when it comes to a web news site.
You start off on a free host provided with your ISP account - or something like Geocities - and you start to get a readership.
Eventually, the bandwidth usage of your readership becomes high enough that the free hosting just doesn't work (either your site gets too slow, or your hosting service asks you to leave, because the bandwidth your readership uses is costing them too much)
So, yo leave, get a domain, and pay for hosting. If you're lucky, you can host a server yourself - but most ISPs don't allow you to have a static IP, much less host a domain. So chances are you pay for hosting.
Once you are footing the bill for hosting, chances are, you've got metered bandwidth. Go above your ammount, and you start getting charged extra.
For a site that acquires a vast readership - that load can be a lot to bear, and many sites are starting to fold under the burden of bandwidth bills.
It's like you get punished for having a popular site - unless you can fund it.
Some sites turned to banner ads and popups - annoying, but they were supposed to pay the bills. Unfortunately, many of the ad companies didn't pay, or paid far less than they promised. Only now are sites seeing that they can't rely on banners alone.
Some sites turn to donations to pay their bills - while some can become quite successful this way - eventually, that money will dry up too.
Some sites get bought by a larger company, who then assumes the bandwidth burden, and ofen retains the site's staff - sometimes giving them a salary for their efforts. Unfortunately, the main reason companies buy things is to make money. If they can't, or don't make money off of the site, they may sell it again, lay off the staff, or let the site die. They'll throw as many banners and popups as they can get away with - sacrifice content for the sake of ads - basically do anything theycan to try to at least break even on the site. This leads good sites down a poor path, and generally isn't a very good option these days.
Some sites just fold. They get reborn, regather their readership, and suffer the same fate.
It's sad that some of the web's greatest independant media sources get squished because of bandwidth bills - while the crappy ones, or the ones that are bread-and-butter to big corporations with money to burn, live on.
I found that it is much easier to teach a person procedural programming and then Object Oriented programming than just teaching OO. I found that people fresh to programming just don't have the mindset to see the beauty hidden in OO concepts.
I'll agree with that. Procedural programming teaches the basic concepts fairly well - and makes a good starting point for learning OO stuff later on down the road.
I started learning how to program in BASIC back when I had a brand-spanking-new TI994A. I was about 5 years old. All I really got out of it was the ability to really mess with the TRS-80s we had in grade school.
Then I started picking up a bit of C. By the time I was gheaded to college, I had a fairly good grasp of the basics. Pointers and the like were still a bit confusing, but I was at least comfortable with if/else, for, while, and various variable types.
I'd also started down the road of *thinking* in terms of procedural language - which i believe is the biggest stumbling block new programmers have - not being able to conceptualize and break down a problem into pieces that can be programmed.
Intro to programming in college _was_ C, so that worked out well for me =) Learned a lot more about pointers - a _lot_ more.
Left college when the money ran out - started dabbling in HTML and Perl. Eventually got myself mixed up in MySQL and PHP - which led to my current job as webmaster for a small but growing and suprisingly stable startup.
Languages I use today (ranked by usage):
Perl
PHP
No C, other than side-projects of my own. I'm spending a lot of spare time getting up-to-speed on C++ (mainly for the OO stuff), and have considered Java, but haven't gone there yet. I'm pretty sure my next language will be Python.
With a background in C, I picked up PHP and Perl without too much of a problem - I'm sure the same can be said of moving from C++ to Java. I haven't quite figured out where Python fits into all this yet (that's part of what intrigues me about it::grin:: )
I ordered a DSL line through Speakeasy (a Covad reseller) on the 25th of May. End result: June 9th, I was up and running. Would have been up 2 days sooner, but Verizon took a couple of days to notify Speakeasy/Covad that their part of the job was done.
I don't consider 2 days unreasonable - especially after reading some of the horror stories at DSLReports.com. If Covad was holding off in order to make Verizon look bad - it didn't do much in this case.
In any case, I've only had to call Covad once (to cancel the "Professional Install" after I'd hooked the filters and modem up myself) - and the reps I spoke to were polite and prompt - within an hour, Speakeasy had been notified (by them) that the line was installed and working, and the "Professional Install" had been cancelled. SInce their tech visit was cancelled, I can't personally speak of their techs competence.
The whole thing was about as quick and painless as I could ask for. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones =)
Slashdot Mirror
LOL - I tend to type a lot like I talk - with a lot of dashes to denote short pauses, and a lot of little smilies to emphasize emotion ;P
Sorry for not doing it in bold/italic, which would have looked nicer -- I revert to old habits when I'm typing a review.
They were both excellent games - but Sephiroth, IMHO, was much more of an *outstanding* villan than Kefka.
Kefka was indeed evil - but he was goofy-evil - the kind of evil where you're not afraid, or angry - you're annoyed. He made a great villan, but Sephiroth was...well...just so much more.
By the end of FF7, it was hard *not* to hate Sephiroth, be angry at him, and want to make him pay. He was always just that one step ahead of you - and he *knew* it. You came so *close* to fighting him throughout the entire game, but you were always denied - until the end. When the pseudo-dream sequence at the end happened, it was hard not to start cheering, yelling, and going nuts, because FINALLY you were giving him what he deserved. He was just an absolutely *perfect* character to have in a FF game - and Square hasn't developed a better villan yet, IMHO.
Wow...that was longer than I thought =)
I've seen Katz off-base before, but it's obvious he didn't understand a thing in the movie - nor, it seems, did he try to.
;P )
;P (I *think* the plot of the movie was conceived around the time FF7 was popular - and the influence shows)
;P ) - but overall, they've pushed the envelope for realism in animation.
Perhaps the audio track was a bit off in the theatre he went to -- I don't know -- but in our theatre, the sound was synced pretty well -- there were a couple of spots where the sync was a *little* off - but not so much as to be the annoyance Katz makes it out to be. Buscemi's character seemed to get the worst of the desyncing, but again, it wasn't the bother Katz made it out to be.
The voice acting was pretty damned good, if you ask me - it may be that I'm an anime fan, and have suffered through hackdubs, and poorly acted voices more than most. I especially liked the fit of Donald Sutherland's voice to Cid - it matched VERY well (other than the "warm" line
Now - about the plot. Sure - it was a bit contrived. Some of the character development seemed a bit rushed - but overall, it wasn't bad. Katz missed the point of the plot - probably because he was so bothered by the sound - I don't know - but his analysis is pretty much totally off-base. I won't give it away - but if you've played FF7, you'll be wondering where Aerith is at the end
The animation was phenomenal. It takes a *lot* to get *so* close to looking real. Some of the movement was a bit off (but very, *very* close - and some of the faces were a bit...strange (James Wood's character, the general, seemed to have been distorted into an evil mask - noone's that angry all the time
Especially the eyes. It's awesome to see animated characters whose eyes have real "depth" to them.
Now - all this being said, I think it didn't *quite* live up to the Final Fantasy name. DOn't get me wrong - it was a great movie - but there are a few Final Fantasy elements that were sorely missing.
First was the lack of medieval flair -- most (FF8 not included) Final Fantasy games all had a mixture of medieval swords & sorcery with high technology - that was part of what gave them their distinctive "flavor". This movie was ALL high-tech, and even a little bit on the military side -- kindof like a deeper Aliens movie.
A side note to this was the lack of Magic in general -- I was really looking forward to seeing Ultima being cast on the big screen - or even a couple Summons (Shiva? Ifrit? Bahamut?). Sadly, none made it into this movie, although one of the alien critters looked a bit like Leviathan...
The lack of Airships was bothersome - yes - they had the various spacecraft - and they were well-designed, but again, were lacking the flair of the grandiose FF airships.
The most glaring error, however, was the lack of a single, solitary Chocobo.
It's for these reasons that I think the movie, although very,. VERY good, didn't quite live up to the Final Fantasy name that was placed on it. Had it been simply called "The Spirits Within", I wouldn't have had a single problem with it.
I don't have any experience with Comcast - so I can only speak for AT&T. (this will be quite lengthy)
We moved to MA from Syracuse, NY, where we'd had an excellent experience with Time Warner's Roadrunner cable modem service (note: this was pre-merger, so I have no idea if it's gone downhill since - anyway, it's not like we had mich choice in the matter - TW has a stranglehold on cable out there)
One of the first things we did was look up who the cable modem provider was in the area. AT&T. So, we called and attempted to set up an install.
Our building wasn't "recognized" by their system.
Not really their fault - when the building we're living in was renovated to make apartments, the landlords didn't do all the correct paperwork. The existing cable lockbox for the house was also (literally) ripped from the wall. Needless to say - the situation was a mess.
We waited about a month for them to get their act together and figure out what they were going to do (they had our name, address, and the fact that we WANTED service - they told us we'd need to wait until they could get a technician out to do the necessary work) - and one never came. Finally, my fiancee called and complained her way up to the guy who manages the installation teams.
Within two weeks, we had the new cable lockbox, as well as a new line to the cable trunk in place. Still took them another month to get an actual install date - but hey - we were finally moving along, right?
Well, the installer comes (3 hours late, I might add) and hooks up the digital cable. He then proceeds to pull out an installation CD - which I tell him that I do not want him to install (my computer had that fine balance of software where Windows 98 actually didn't crash every 5 minutes) -- he insists, saying that it doesn't actually install anything, it just lets him confirm that he made the install. Uh huh. I watch as he "doesn't install" a new copy of IE, "doesn't install" a new set of network settings, wiping out my finely tuned registry settings, and "doesn't install" extra icons to my desktop. In addition, he INSISTS on renaming the IE icon to "AT&T INTERNET" (note: all caps), and renaming the Outlook Express icon to "AT&T EMAIL" (Yep - all caps again - and I didn't have OE installed before this install - I chose NOT to have it for a reason!)
Needless to say - I bitched the guy out - and of course, he completely denies that he installed ANYTHING! AARGH!
Installers suck.
Well, after that's over, how does he test the connection? He pulls up CNN.com, which loads OK, and then packs up and leaves. I get his number (which I called into their support center later...) and he takes off.
After playing with the connection for a few minutes, we realize something is VERY wrong. We can't hold a stable connection to ANYTHING -- we'd get 50-300k into a download, and it would just die. Consistantly.
Try it under linux - same thing.
Replace the Cat5 (hey - it's old) - same problem.
Replace the (new) cable from the wll to the cable modem - same problem.
Hook up to my local network, and transfer files just fine (same network settings, both OS) - so it's obviously not my end.
Call up AT&T's "support" (and I use that term loosely). Spend an hour between being on hold and talking to techs who try to blame everything on my computer - after explaining the situation about 10 times, I get told that I will be "escalated" to a "level 2" tech. His solution? Reinstall Windows.
After explaining to the guy that Windows is not the problem (my local network works fine) about 5 times, he decides that maybe I might know what I'm talking about - and "escalates" me again - this time to an "admin". His solution? "Work is being done in your area - I don't have an ETA, or any more information, but rest assured that we will be fixing the problem."
Uh huh.
Total time spent on the phone to get this response? 2 hours, 45 minutes. Mind you, this is on my cellphone, because the phone company hadn't gotten around to doing their install yet either.
After a month of horrible service, I call back again - armed with my old "ticket number" and the ID numbers of all the techs I spoke to - including the "admin" who told me that work was "being done".
Spend an hour working through the "level 1" techs - who I am convinced are there to waste your time and try to convince you never to call them again, regardless of the problem. I get to a "level 3" tech - who tells me:
1: my old ticket number is invalid
2: the ID of the "admin" I got is invalid
3: there is nothing wrong with my connection - I'm just visiting "slow" sites
Mind you, the problem happened on EVERY site I went to - not just small, unpopular, or slow sites.
Call the guy's bluff - and he gets rude - saying that the problem MUST be on my end, because I'm just a "stupid user", and that I should "know better than to try to test something myself".
At that point I hung up. We started looking for alternatives to AT&T. Noone else in the area offered cable -- they had a lock on that. So, the other avenue was DSL. After poking around for a week or two, we placed an order with Speakeasy.
Within 2 weeks (well, 15 days, actually) we had a brand-spanking-new DSL connection that works like a charm.
AT&T got my disconnect notice the next day - although they still have my address wrong, refuse to pick up their cable modem (which they brought here, and will not give me an address to mail it back to them (I have no car, and their closest "return location" is about 45 minutes away by car) ), and continure to charge me "rent" for.
Last month, they tried to bill me AGAIN for cable modem service -- calling them to resolve the issue took over an hour - and ended up being me saying "I cancelled my service two months ago - don't bill me for something I've cancelled!", to their "Well, we don't have that in our system, and we show you still have our modem, so you MUST still be using the service"
Things just go around and around with these people. If they do it again next month, the BBB will be getting involved (I've already called them once for advice in this matter, and they said to give them one more chance to fix things to my satisfaction before getting the BBB involved)
I would highly recommend ANYONE stay away from AT&T's cable service, if you aren't masochistic.
Chances are they *do* store the ip the search came from -- which, if you have a static IP like me, means they *could* tie in what you've searched for over time. Note that AFAIK, there's nowhere on Google where they actually ask for your name, email, etc... - but if they can ID you by IP, that's nearly as good, for targeting purposes. As soon as they have a "survey" or other somesuch where they want your email address, name, etc... they will have all the info they need to build a complete "browsing profile"...
I'm sure CmdrTaco finds some of this stuff fascinating - and I'm sure there are some neat things that can be pulled form the aggregate data - but I would be more concerned with the privacy implications.
Indiana Jones and the Grand Inquisitor?
Any license which restricts what TOOLS the developer can use to develop software is shooting itself in the foot.
;P
Developers generally have a favorite set of tools they use to program - even if they only program web pages or shell scripts, they have a favorite editor.
Telling a programmer they can't use their favorite editor to edit source code files is counterproductive - they'll just go elsewhere. There are plenty of toolkits to use, but only MS' says you can't use EMACS or VI
My 2 cents, anyway.
::shrug:: It depends on how you define "market".
If you use a broad definition: "vector drawing tools", then yes, they fall in the same market.
If you define the markets a *little* more specifically: "vector drawing tools for linux", "free vector drawing tools", "vector drawing tools for Windows/MacOS" or "commercial vector drawing tools", they don't fit into the same market at all.
Adobe produces no vector drawing software for Linux (AFAIK they cancelled their only Linux-based project, which was a port of Pagemaker (?) ) - so in the Linux market, their product doesn't fit. AFAIK, KIllustrator doesn't run under Windows or MacOS (with the possibility of OSX as an exception) - so it doesn't fit into Adobe's market.
The two seem fairly well seperated to me =)
Yep - confirmed from the back of the FF Chronicles instruction booklet (released just a couple days ago) - Square's planning the US release of FF X for "Early 2002"
Frankly, I'm suprised -- Square's marketers are missing an Xmas release. That *may* be bad...
IIRC, FF7 was an Xmas release - FF8 was late fall, and FF9 was late summer/early fall (US releases, not Japan, and I could be wrong...)
Eh? The original GB had FF Legend 1-3, and FF Adventure - there may have been one more, but I can't remember.
I do remember FF Legend II fondly though =)
I'd love to see them release FF 1-6 on the GBA - perhaps 1-3 on a single cart (those were pretty small games), then 4-6 on their own...but as others have pointed out - the relationship between Nintendo and Square isn't exactly a very good one, so it'll probably never happen.
ironically, as people are screaming
;P But, I can see their point - I'd rather have the devteam concentrate on tightening the code, and fixing existing bugs before they go and add more features. Once the existing bugs get squished, however, it'd be nice to have something like this.
about how the moz team is adding too many features...
Well, I wouldn't say screaming
One thing I would like to see (outside of the roll-your-own system) is some sort of componentized download - so if I wanted just the web browser, and nothing else (mail/news, composer, etc...) so I could download a smaller file, and have a smaller memory footprint, compared to someone who uses the mail client and/or the composer, who could trade a larger download/memory footprint for those extra features.
I'm actually very happy with the stability improvements over the past few months (I download nightlies twice a week) - the devteam has been doing an excellent job at bugsquishing =)
The problem with this is that the "supplement" comes from the MS point of view.
Think about a smarttag that links the phrase "buy tickets" to a MS-sponsored ticket seller.
Suppose I have a document with the following line:
"Well, we tried to buy tickets for the show at the theatre, but they were sold out. Luckily, we were still able to buy tickets for the movie through a small online retailer known as [booga]" ([] denoting a link).
MS changes that to:
"Well, we tried to [buy tickets] for the show at the theatre, but they were sold out. Luckily, we were still able to [buy tickets] for the movie through a small online retailer known as [booga]" ([] denoting a link).
...with the words "buy tickets" linked to THEIR choice of ticket-seller, when you were obviously trying to point people to a different one.
Granny isn't going to understand the difference between smarttags and regular links. She will follow the "buy tickets" link, and not realize that you, as the author, had no intention of sending her there.
That's the problem here. Ignorant or un-informed people who don't understand the technology, and MS using their dominance in the browser market to change the web into the image THEY want to project, not the one that the authors of the content want to project.
Hrmm...how long till those of us on a linux/BSD OS can connect up to this? Someone's got to be reverse-engineering ithe protocol...
OTOH, Gnutella is alive and well, despite it's quirks - and Freenet is starting to get usable. =)
Poorly-thought-out-analogy:
"These radio staions broadcast by airmusic inc. are only avaiilable in a Ford (tm) car, truck, minivan, or suv with a Ford (tm) factory-installed stereo. Want to listen to them? Go buy a Ford."
Seems wrong, somehow...but yes, it's well within their rights to do so.
I think it's more of a situation where /. generally favors the "little guy" who, more often than not, is being taken advantage of by large monied corporate interests.
/. seems to be that paying *the artist who made the music* is the right thing to do - paying a huge megalomaniacal corporation $20 for a CD, of which the artist only gets a few pennies is fundamentally wrong somehow.
;) The point is that /. readers *seem* to favor the little guy, regardless of his situation -- it's a bit shortsighted, in that these rulings could be used *against* the little guy by corporations in the future -- but it's the way it seems.It's a good thing that any rights not explicitly granted to a *corporation* are reserved by an *individual* - but what if the corps flip it around? Use this as a defense as to why you can't copy that CD/DVD, or why you have to purchase ANOTHER copy of a certain piece of software... Use it, along with UCITA, to guarantee that those terms that you "agreed to" in their click-through license are binding in a way that ONLY benefits them... That's where it gets scary.
In this case, it's freelance writers who want to keep control of their works and not be taken advantage of by large publishing houses, who want to sell more ads and thus make more money, by using the freelance writer's work without their permission (note that these are *not* mainly for current freelancers, whose contracts most probably include permissions for digital distribution - they're mainly for older publications whose contracts didn't forsee, and thus didn't include, rights for digital distribution)
In the case of Napster et al. - it's a case of the consumer *and* the artist getting monetarily raped by the music industry. The general consensus on
There's also a bit of "well, the cat is out of the bag" syndrome there too, with the Napster thing - the music is already out there, available, for free - no ammount of legislation or watermarking or whatever is going to take those mp3s away from people who have them, whether they own the CD or not.
But that's beside the point
Don't forget the Bridgekeeper and the "Famous Historian" ;)
I can see the ads now...
New BLACK KNIGHT! With "Spurting Blood Action"(TM)!
TERRIFIED VILLAGER! With "Ni! Cringing Action"(TM)!
Press the button to cause SIR ROBIN to wet himself!
Pull the string to hear KING ARTHUR count to five..err..three!
Hrmm...how long would an led (small enough to fit, but large enough to illuminate the screen well) powered off a standard (small) watch battery last before needing a new battery?
Is there enough space below the screen to add one without too much trouble?
(I don't yet have a GBA, so I don't have anything to reference to see if something like this is feasible...it *looks* like there might be though...and if it's not that tough to disassemble/reassemble...)
ROTFL
;P
Silly pubescent teen. Someday you'll stop playing "choke the chicken" to mere TV shows and notice that there are *real* women in the world that will perform that service for you
[ quotes out of order ;) ]
hmm..perhaps its time for some absestos underwear, I feel things getting a little toasty
LOL - claiming that because someone really, REALLY dislikes a show they lack a sense of humor will generally get you some flames, yes =)
I mean come on, there is something strangely humorous about a dead guy, a janitor, a severed robot head, and a chick who was turned into a love slave as punishment, all stuck on a bug looking ship.
Yes, the situation itself could be quite humorous - if it was carried off with any talent at all. I'm not so sure the problem is with the actors though - I'm more inclined to think the reason the series is SO bad is they lack talented writers.
Although, the basic setting (minus the sex) was done before, in a show called Red Dwarf. =)
You've GOT to be kidding - *please* tell me you're kidding...
LEXX was, perhaps, the WORST "sci-fi" show I'd ever seen (which is saying a lot) I'd take 5 EFC/Andromeda-type series over that tripe...
MHO, anyway.
Baby black holes (a theory based on the potential revision of the plank length) would not suck up anything except tiny things near by, and would very quickly decay.
Hmm...what if there was a way to sustain them? Even the tiny ammount of gravitational force produced by one of these "Baby black holes" could potentially be very useful...
IANAS (I'm not a scientist) - so thake this with a grain of salt - I'm just theorizing here...
If a "Baby black hole" is functionally identical to a "real" black hole, only scaled down, what would happen if you put 3 of them in the same (tiny) area, and set them to rotate around one another? Would it be possible to get their combined gravitational forces to negate at the center of the rotation? What kind of EM variance would such a combination create? How could it be harnessed? Would physics (as we know it) change at the center of the rotation?
Fun stuff =)
Yep... and if they don't care to shut us up, what's the problem? I can find whatever I want on the web no matter how big the conglomerates get. Further, I can publish anything I want and people who know how to look can find it.
;)
Agreed. The open and free nature of the web makes it possible for anyone to have a voice. THat part isn't going away (although poorer people may get squelched a bit by the proliferation of popup ads that need to be closed before their content can be read).
But if you're gonna play the business game, you gotta make money. I guess that bothers an 'online journalist' like Katz more than it bothers me.
I'm not sure I agree here - there's a kind of "critical mass" when it comes to a web news site.
You start off on a free host provided with your ISP account - or something like Geocities - and you start to get a readership.
Eventually, the bandwidth usage of your readership becomes high enough that the free hosting just doesn't work (either your site gets too slow, or your hosting service asks you to leave, because the bandwidth your readership uses is costing them too much)
So, yo leave, get a domain, and pay for hosting. If you're lucky, you can host a server yourself - but most ISPs don't allow you to have a static IP, much less host a domain. So chances are you pay for hosting.
Once you are footing the bill for hosting, chances are, you've got metered bandwidth. Go above your ammount, and you start getting charged extra.
For a site that acquires a vast readership - that load can be a lot to bear, and many sites are starting to fold under the burden of bandwidth bills.
It's like you get punished for having a popular site - unless you can fund it.
Some sites turned to banner ads and popups - annoying, but they were supposed to pay the bills. Unfortunately, many of the ad companies didn't pay, or paid far less than they promised. Only now are sites seeing that they can't rely on banners alone.
Some sites turn to donations to pay their bills - while some can become quite successful this way - eventually, that money will dry up too.
Some sites get bought by a larger company, who then assumes the bandwidth burden, and ofen retains the site's staff - sometimes giving them a salary for their efforts. Unfortunately, the main reason companies buy things is to make money. If they can't, or don't make money off of the site, they may sell it again, lay off the staff, or let the site die. They'll throw as many banners and popups as they can get away with - sacrifice content for the sake of ads - basically do anything theycan to try to at least break even on the site. This leads good sites down a poor path, and generally isn't a very good option these days.
Some sites just fold. They get reborn, regather their readership, and suffer the same fate.
It's sad that some of the web's greatest independant media sources get squished because of bandwidth bills - while the crappy ones, or the ones that are bread-and-butter to big corporations with money to burn, live on.
I'll agree with that. Procedural programming teaches the basic concepts fairly well - and makes a good starting point for learning OO stuff later on down the road.
I started learning how to program in BASIC back when I had a brand-spanking-new TI994A. I was about 5 years old. All I really got out of it was the ability to really mess with the TRS-80s we had in grade school.
Then I started picking up a bit of C. By the time I was gheaded to college, I had a fairly good grasp of the basics. Pointers and the like were still a bit confusing, but I was at least comfortable with if/else, for, while, and various variable types.
I'd also started down the road of *thinking* in terms of procedural language - which i believe is the biggest stumbling block new programmers have - not being able to conceptualize and break down a problem into pieces that can be programmed.
Intro to programming in college _was_ C, so that worked out well for me =) Learned a lot more about pointers - a _lot_ more.
Left college when the money ran out - started dabbling in HTML and Perl. Eventually got myself mixed up in MySQL and PHP - which led to my current job as webmaster for a small but growing and suprisingly stable startup.
Languages I use today (ranked by usage):
Perl
PHP
::grin:: )
No C, other than side-projects of my own. I'm spending a lot of spare time getting up-to-speed on C++ (mainly for the OO stuff), and have considered Java, but haven't gone there yet. I'm pretty sure my next language will be Python.
With a background in C, I picked up PHP and Perl without too much of a problem - I'm sure the same can be said of moving from C++ to Java. I haven't quite figured out where Python fits into all this yet (that's part of what intrigues me about it
I ordered a DSL line through Speakeasy (a Covad reseller) on the 25th of May. End result: June 9th, I was up and running. Would have been up 2 days sooner, but Verizon took a couple of days to notify Speakeasy/Covad that their part of the job was done.
I don't consider 2 days unreasonable - especially after reading some of the horror stories at DSLReports.com. If Covad was holding off in order to make Verizon look bad - it didn't do much in this case.
In any case, I've only had to call Covad once (to cancel the "Professional Install" after I'd hooked the filters and modem up myself) - and the reps I spoke to were polite and prompt - within an hour, Speakeasy had been notified (by them) that the line was installed and working, and the "Professional Install" had been cancelled. SInce their tech visit was cancelled, I can't personally speak of their techs competence.
The whole thing was about as quick and painless as I could ask for. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones =)