It's not like there isn't thousands of servers out there for CS anyways - if players don't like it, then market forces will react appropriately - ie players will go to a different server.
That's not the point from Valve's perspective. If I was providing downloads of a popular TV show and inserting my own commercials in it, the producer of that show would expect compensation. The point here is that someone is using Counter Strike as a vehicle for profit and the creators of the premium content, Counter Strike, are not being compensated. Whether players like it or not is irrelevant.
Quicksort may be dry, but if you've never tried to code it then the library function quicksort() is just a magic black box.
So what? If you work in a language that supports a wide array of intrinsic collection types (map, set, list, and so on) and you demonstrate the difference between different mechanisms to sort those containers, then you're teaching something far more valuable than how to implement quicksort. You're teaching the impact of algorithmic complexity. Knowing that 'find(foo)' is going to take time N on a list, time LogN on a tree map and time 1 on a hash map is far more valuable than knowing the specifics of how merge sort is implemented compared to quick sort.
So let quicksort go ahead and be a black box, as long as its a black box that makes certain promises about what it will do when I use it, and keeps those promises. I don't care about the implementation any more than I want to know about the ATA protocol when I call fopen().
I worked at a company where 3D imaging of plaster models of teeth was a critical component to the business model. Scan teeth into computer, rearrange teeth, produce output for devices that move teeth into new positions like braces.
iMovie is absolutely brilliant when it is time to send the grandparents a quick DVD -- attach the camera via Firewire, press the play button, and in less than an hour, you have something that Grandma and Grandpa just love. For free. Profession features would just be in the way at this level.
Ah,but that wasn't the argument I was countering was it? The post I replied to specifically referred to iMovie as near-professional quality and disregarded the corresponding windows bundled app as crap. So which is it? If its great for grandma's dvd's of the grandkids, then mightn't the windows app be just as good?
As for good integration between the apps, I grant its well done, but then again a lot of the cool features require a paid subscription.
I was using list view in Windows Explorer the other day and renamed a file in it. I was shocked to discover it didn't automatically reposition itself in the list based on its new name.
Thats arguably a feature. Sorting is something that should happen when you first open a view onto a folder or when you change the sort criteria. Sorting should NOT mean that when you rename a file it suddenly jumps to another part of the list, making it seem like it disappeared, or alternatively cause your place in the list to suddenly jump. That's an unexpected side effect, NOT a feature.
You can easily force-quit the Finder without having to worry about OS X crashing.
iApps
Of the apps you mention, only iPhoto really 'counts' as you put it. Windows has a free mail client and a free media player / media library app (which is all iTunes is if you want to retain the 'free' attribute). GarageBand, and iMovie are arguably niche apps that are fun as toys for the average user, but unlikely to displace actual professional apps for actual professionals.
Java VM
Which is maintained by apple, not by sun, and is therefore usually a version or two out of date. For god's sake, they JUST NOW came out with Java 5 with the tiger release.
Intelligent file sharing with permissions; in windows you have to go through hell to get this working.
Completely a matter of familiarity, as I find the opposite to be true.
This is similar to the Windows "Control Panels" folder, except it is so much better. ry getting windows to run an FTP server, or an HTTP server, or an SSH server, or...:-) All with two clicks!
Again, the first part is completely a matter of opinion. The second part refers to three apps that are niche apps.
Aqua. (not the ugly University colors of XP).
Aqua, not customizable at all. Third party software required for even the most basic change of the window dressing and colors.
You're quite the spin doctor, but you tend to gloss over the distinction between personal preference and actual technical advantage.
None of these mirrors is actually up to date. The most frustrating part is that the reachable.ca one has the most files of any of them, and has the main SDK download, but only for aix, hpux, gtk-ppc, and gtk-x86_64. I imagine that 95% of people are waiting for the carbon, win32, and gtk-x85 versions. Its like the site is mocking us.
Re:Is it just me, or why not explain it better?
on
Eclipse 3.1 Released
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· Score: 1
If you can get to slashdot, you can probably get to wikipedia. If you're using a recent version of firefox all you have to do is type 'wp eclipse' in the location bar. Granted you have to go to the disambiguation page to find this particular eclipse (since as far as I know no one versions actual astronomical events), but I prefer a nice trim summary on the front page. If you don't know what eclipse is you can find out with minimal extra effort.
All four of Seminole County's criminal judges have been using a standard that if a DUI defendant asks for a key piece of information about how the machine works - its software source code, for instance - and the state cannot provide it, the breath test is rejected, the Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday.
There's a far cry from understanding how a breathalyzer works on general principles, whether testing has shown a given model in use by law enforcement to be accurate and wanting the source code to a forensic tool. A lot of people responding to me are implying that I am disputing an accused's right to face their accusers. I am not. I am disputing the accused's right to recurse far enough into the procedures of how he was arrested until he asks a question the court can't answer and thus gets set free. Maybe the information about his arrest was stored in an Oracle database somewhere. Just because the court can't provide the source for Oracle doesn't mean he should go free.
If whatever mechanism was used to test their BAC has been validated properly, access to its source is irrelevant.
This seems like a really weak defense and I'd be interested to know what the justifications the judges are using to make such a ruling. It seems analagous to DNA testing. Should a rape suspect be able to get off because he questioned how the DNA scanner works, and the court can't provide an answer?
This is not a wedge issue that should be used to push open source. This should be filed under 'ignorance of the law, and by extension ignorance of the tools used in law enforcement, is no excuse'.
And unless the company that makes the analyzer has some sort of vested interest in the conviction of X number of criminals, and therefore an incentive to produce skewed equipment, I don't see how the detailed functioning of the equipment is relevant to the cases.
I concur. The XMBC app plays just about everything I throw at it, with the exception of some of the newer QuickTime codecs. The only downside I've had is that the XBox isn't powerful enough to render anything higher than 720p and sometimes not even that. I've got a number of movies that are encoded in HD and the XBox will sometimes stutter while rendering them during action scenes or if there's too much motion on the screen. You can also set up XBMC to play itunes media streamed from an itunes server somewhere on the net.
I don't know anyone who's ever claimed to pick a favorite platform just to stick it to another platform's fans.
I don't think the original poster was suggesting people buy X to stick it to Y, but that they buy X to feel superior to people who buy Y. It engenders a certain degree of resentment on the part of Y users.
No, the problem with that theory is that I pings to www.google.com were being redirected to www.google.com.net as well. Ping just does resolution, not guessing.
The PSP doesn't qualify as a PDA because it doesn't do the things that every PDA does, such as keep appointments and contacts. Granted, these sorts of built in apps might be addable in a future bios update, and I'd applaud if they were, but the PSP would still lack a critical component for a PDA and that's data entry. A bunch of buttons and an analog stick don't make for a very good alpha numeric input.
As far as I know conductivty is a function of the cross section of a wire, which scales linearly with weight.
So 10 times better at 1/6th the weight should be the same as 60 time better as copper, or that it conducts the same as copper but at 1/60th the weight. Or 20 times better at 1/3rd the weight. Who's deciding this? I feel like I'm reading an article on futuristic wiring technology, but can't be trusted to deal with any number or fraction that involves a number larger than 10. Fuckers.
So is oxygen. And yet, if you find free oxygen in an atmosphere you can bet that a living process put it there. Otherwise oxygen binds to something. Basically anything that burns (methane included) isn't going to just hang around for geological periods of time in an environment like that on mars. If its there something is producing it. Maybe its volcanic activity, but the best thing right now would be to watch the debate of more informed individuals rather than screeching that its no real evidence for the existence of life.
I wasn't suggesting that creating a fan film is 'better' than creating an original work. I was suggesting that it better meets the needs of the creators, who are clearly Star Wars fans. I might argue that making a Star Wars fan film is better than making a Star Trek one, but that's just my opinion.
Jherico
Undoubtedly they get a lot more immediate interest in their work making a 'Star Wars' movie, but if instead they created an original story, I bet it would be a lot more enduring.
Creating a Star Wars story satifies a number of things. First they're Star Wars fans, and ironically can probably more easily forgive some weak writing in a Star Wars fan film than in a original production. Second, its a 40 minute film, and by embedding it in an existing story structure they aren't compelled to explain lots of things, like what a Jedi is, or what the Force is, or who the guys in the white armor are. Since all that can be taken as read they can do a shorter film that focuses on just the plot they want to tell. Such as it is. Finally, its going to be much cheaper to make even a 40 minute star wars film than a 40 minute original production. Why? Because its a lot easier to go out and rent a star wars prop costume, or find someone who has one, than it is to create a new design, build it and outfit 50 people with it.
I'm actually using Gnome right now as its what I run as my primary OS on my work computer (the easiest way to keep corporate IT sticky fingers and policies off my desktop). However I find that Gnome and X apps in general are still fighting a war between Windows UI conventions and Unix ones, and as a result of this lack consistency, especially in the keyboard shortcuts area. I praise Gnome and GTK for combatting this to some extent, but all in all the linux desktop still isn't all the way there.
[It] was only with XP that you started geting the ability to do themes as well as you could with System 7.5 and Kalidescope.
Not quite true. It was only with XP that Microsoft really started promoting theming and intentionally giving hooks to developers to write theming engines. However, Stardock provides theming software for windows for that predates XP for quite some time.
In fact, why do zip files act nothing like regular folders at all when explorer presents them as if they are.
Because zip folders are a new feature and aren't as polished as everything else.
Why does MS-Office _always_ have a totally different look and feel to any existing windows version at the time of its release?
Well, that's hardly a failing of the OS is it? But in point of fact, the release cycle of Office, arguably one of the most used applications on windows besides IE and games, allows the microsoft team to experiment with additional UI polishing efforts. You'll frequently notice the well recieved changes in Office finding their way in to the next version of Windows.
Why can I use windows networking paths [...] not in cmd.exe?
In point of fact you can. If I say 'copy \\server\share\foo.txt c:\' it will work fine, as long as I'm able to authenticate against that share. Granted, you can't change to a network directory unless you mount it somewhere, but I'm pretty sure that's the case on Mac and Unix as well.
Microsoft loves to introduce an idea - and then not follow through with a complete and useful implementation,
This is actually a common problem with developing features in software. You can make a feature, and you can decide its not popular enough to not warrant further effort, but got help you if you ever remove a feature. When you add a feature to software, keep that in mind, because somewhere out there, no matter how bad the feature is, will love it, use it, and scream bloody murder and never upgrade again if you remove it.
On the flip side, though, this philosophy makes it considerably easier to support the user.
If its at the expense of me being able to customize the UI to fit my style, then I don't want it. This 'easy to support' philosophy is reflected in the commentary you frequently get when you move from another OS to Mac and complain about a bit of UI shear. 'You'll get used to it.' I don't want to get used to it. I want to be able to make the computer respond to what I'm already used to.
If LW had followed Apple's lead, the documentation and tutorial part would have been easier.
Instead Newtek followed the windows lead, where undo is typically Ctrl-Z.
In Apple's case, I think it works for them.
And for the subset of computer users who naturally adhere to Apple's UI philosophy. In the end I think it limits their market.
You'll forgive me if I'm not more incisive, but I've had a couple beers since my last post. In the end its probably the case that people are always going to be most comfortable with whatever interface they've used the longest. I own a mac and I use it on a daily basis. But I'm still more comfortable with my windows UI, for all of its quirks, because I've been using it for decades now.
No, the taskbar should be however the user feels more comfortable with it. I prefer two rows, with two quick launch toolbars on the left side, one for work apps, one for non-work apps.
Say what you want about the Windows UI. In my opinion it is far better than the OS X UI, NOT because of its inherent functionalty, but because its far more customizable than the Mac UI. The Windows UI also does a passable job supporting keyboard shortcuts in a consistent way, and making more of the UI accessible from the keyboard.
The Mac theory of UI seems to revolve around Apple knowing the right way to do something. But different people end up working with the UI in different ways. There's never just one right way to do a thing with something as complex as an application or an operating system.
Slashdot Mirror
So what? If you work in a language that supports a wide array of intrinsic collection types (map, set, list, and so on) and you demonstrate the difference between different mechanisms to sort those containers, then you're teaching something far more valuable than how to implement quicksort. You're teaching the impact of algorithmic complexity. Knowing that 'find(foo)' is going to take time N on a list, time LogN on a tree map and time 1 on a hash map is far more valuable than knowing the specifics of how merge sort is implemented compared to quick sort.
So let quicksort go ahead and be a black box, as long as its a black box that makes certain promises about what it will do when I use it, and keeps those promises. I don't care about the implementation any more than I want to know about the ATA protocol when I call fopen().
I worked at a company where 3D imaging of plaster models of teeth was a critical component to the business model. Scan teeth into computer, rearrange teeth, produce output for devices that move teeth into new positions like braces.
As for good integration between the apps, I grant its well done, but then again a lot of the cool features require a paid subscription.
that doent help me if i want to share my external firewire drive full of media
You're quite the spin doctor, but you tend to gloss over the distinction between personal preference and actual technical advantage.
None of these mirrors is actually up to date. The most frustrating part is that the reachable.ca one has the most files of any of them, and has the main SDK download, but only for aix, hpux, gtk-ppc, and gtk-x86_64. I imagine that 95% of people are waiting for the carbon, win32, and gtk-x85 versions. Its like the site is mocking us.
If you can get to slashdot, you can probably get to wikipedia. If you're using a recent version of firefox all you have to do is type 'wp eclipse' in the location bar. Granted you have to go to the disambiguation page to find this particular eclipse (since as far as I know no one versions actual astronomical events), but I prefer a nice trim summary on the front page. If you don't know what eclipse is you can find out with minimal extra effort.
There's a far cry from understanding how a breathalyzer works on general principles, whether testing has shown a given model in use by law enforcement to be accurate and wanting the source code to a forensic tool. A lot of people responding to me are implying that I am disputing an accused's right to face their accusers. I am not. I am disputing the accused's right to recurse far enough into the procedures of how he was arrested until he asks a question the court can't answer and thus gets set free. Maybe the information about his arrest was stored in an Oracle database somewhere. Just because the court can't provide the source for Oracle doesn't mean he should go free.
If whatever mechanism was used to test their BAC has been validated properly, access to its source is irrelevant.
This is not a wedge issue that should be used to push open source. This should be filed under 'ignorance of the law, and by extension ignorance of the tools used in law enforcement, is no excuse'.
And unless the company that makes the analyzer has some sort of vested interest in the conviction of X number of criminals, and therefore an incentive to produce skewed equipment, I don't see how the detailed functioning of the equipment is relevant to the cases.
I concur. The XMBC app plays just about everything I throw at it, with the exception of some of the newer QuickTime codecs. The only downside I've had is that the XBox isn't powerful enough to render anything higher than 720p and sometimes not even that. I've got a number of movies that are encoded in HD and the XBox will sometimes stutter while rendering them during action scenes or if there's too much motion on the screen. You can also set up XBMC to play itunes media streamed from an itunes server somewhere on the net.
No, the problem with that theory is that I pings to www.google.com were being redirected to www.google.com.net as well. Ping just does resolution, not guessing.
Jhercio
As far as I know conductivty is a function of the cross section of a wire, which scales linearly with weight.
So 10 times better at 1/6th the weight should be the same as 60 time better as copper, or that it conducts the same as copper but at 1/60th the weight. Or 20 times better at 1/3rd the weight. Who's deciding this? I feel like I'm reading an article on futuristic wiring technology, but can't be trusted to deal with any number or fraction that involves a number larger than 10. Fuckers.
I wasn't suggesting that creating a fan film is 'better' than creating an original work. I was suggesting that it better meets the needs of the creators, who are clearly Star Wars fans. I might argue that making a Star Wars fan film is better than making a Star Trek one, but that's just my opinion. Jherico
I'm actually using Gnome right now as its what I run as my primary OS on my work computer (the easiest way to keep corporate IT sticky fingers and policies off my desktop). However I find that Gnome and X apps in general are still fighting a war between Windows UI conventions and Unix ones, and as a result of this lack consistency, especially in the keyboard shortcuts area. I praise Gnome and GTK for combatting this to some extent, but all in all the linux desktop still isn't all the way there.
You'll forgive me if I'm not more incisive, but I've had a couple beers since my last post. In the end its probably the case that people are always going to be most comfortable with whatever interface they've used the longest. I own a mac and I use it on a daily basis. But I'm still more comfortable with my windows UI, for all of its quirks, because I've been using it for decades now.
Say what you want about the Windows UI. In my opinion it is far better than the OS X UI, NOT because of its inherent functionalty, but because its far more customizable than the Mac UI. The Windows UI also does a passable job supporting keyboard shortcuts in a consistent way, and making more of the UI accessible from the keyboard.
The Mac theory of UI seems to revolve around Apple knowing the right way to do something. But different people end up working with the UI in different ways. There's never just one right way to do a thing with something as complex as an application or an operating system.
Fileplanet offers its Direct 2 Drive service. I'd call that a direct to consumer internet-based game delivery service.