It's not quite as fuddy as you claim. There's a lot of Macs in use that have no USB port and use ADB connectors (3 or 4 in my little company). To sell mice to users of those boxes, they would indeed have to make a different mouse and that's what this poster was talking about. That shouldn't be a big problem; they already have serial, PS/2 and USB versions. The USB version, of course, only needs a driver to provide the fingerprinting service to Mac users. (Presumably is works as a regular mouse already, due to the wonders of the HID protocol) --
People justify space travel and exploration in many ways. It breeds better technology that trickles down to the consumer market, it answers fundamental questions about life, the universe, and everything, and it works toward setting up a colony on another planet, which is nice in case of a catastrophe on Earth. Another reason, which is seldom talked about, is the one illustrated by this part of the article:
We should be in for a treat--this world has some bizarre sights. Large raindrops of methane, almost a centimetre across, drift slowly from the red haze. Geysers spout pale plumes of ethane high into the sky. Careful planning could even land the craft at a cliff edge from which it could watch giant waves breaking on the shores of an ethane lake, in the slow motion mandated by Titan's low gravity.
Now, that's something I want to see. Even if there were no practical reasons to explore Titan, this would still be a valid one. Our lives are richer, our existence more interesting, because we can see new and beautiful things in space that we can't even imagine here on Earth. If we hadn't explored space, we wouldn't even know what we're missing. --
If a lot of people do it, it could lower the signal to noise level on Napster to that of Slashdot. At that point, people will just buy the CD instead:-) --
Not only that, but you're not geek enough to know the difference between 800x600 and 600x800 (and don't even try to tell me you really meant 600x800) --
"We went through a very arduous process in the Arizona election," Election.com President Mel Schrieberg said. "The proof of that matter is that we conducted the election and there were no security problems."
So, somehow, the fact that they didn't find any security problems is supposed to prove that they looked hard enough? I don't see that. Perhaps this guy should talk to people who maintain software such as Sendmail. He might acquire some humility. --
:-) OK, now that that's out of the way, I'm guessing Archimedes's writings were translated into Arabic and it just so happened that the Arabic manuscripts were preserved while the Greek ones were all lost or erased to make prayer books. --
It seems to me that comparing computers to houses and network interfaces with doors on Slashdot is just totally stupid. OK, maybe if you're a reporter writing for the general public, it can be helpful in giving non-technical readers some vague idea of what terms like 'ping' and 'portscan' mean, but when people who understand how networks work already, it doesn't help. It doesn't clarify anything and it exaggerates the seriousness of the situation. --
When Linux didn't support 4GB of RAM, that was a liability. If Phil had a 2GB NT box and Joe had a 2GB Linux box, and they both needed more performance, Phil could pop in 2 more gigs and get it. Complaining about this particular point is like losing a tennis match and yelling "Hey, no fair, you've been working on your serve!". --
About LAME's speed: There's an optimized version of LAME called GOGO. I think it uses the vector processing features of the K6 and PIII. At any rate, it's much faster. But check its output before encoding a bunch of files. I didn't, and ended up with dozens of 256kbps mp3's that sound like shit. Apparently, building GOGO is a fine art. If you don't get it exactly right, you may end up with a binary that runs and produces output, but not the right output. This information is several months old, though, so don't dismiss GOGO on it alone. --
Well, with my ears, an SBAWE64 Gold, and Sennheiser HD580's, I can't tell the difference between 256kbps mp3's (encoded with LAME) and the CD's they were ripped from. 128kbps mp3's are crap, but an mp3 doesn't have to be 128kbps. --
That kind of depends on what you consider successful. While Descent was never as popular as Doom or Quake and didn't make as much money, I'd still say it was successful. Just not as successful as the id games.
That leaves Descent as the first successful FPS with a real 3D world.
...eeeh, hang on. Make that the first successful FPS with a real, texture mapped, 3D world. Elite and such fit the first definition. --
Well, I have a 266MHz AMD in an open case with the CPU and power supply fans disabled. I've been running it like this for a year and it's not dead yet. I've heard that every 10 degrees (not sure if that was supposed to be Celsius of Fahrenheit) cut the lifetime of the chip in half so this probably isn't exactly healthy for the poor processor but hey, it's not like it's going to cost a lot to replace it if it ever melts down.
For a while, I ran it with the fans off and the case on and underclocked it to 166MHz. Then I let the power supply fan run for a while and felt the temperature of the airflow. It was so hot it was scary. Smelled bad too. --
In the past, when people here have pointed out that the.doc spec is available on msdn, others have pointed out that it comes with a license which prohibits its use for making converters or import plugins for competing products.
If that's true (and I'm not saying it is--I don't believe everything I read on Slashdot) then that spec doesn't help much. Sure, you could use it to write the converter but it might land you in jail (and living in Norway apparently wouldn't protect you). --
Slashdot Mirror
It's not quite as fuddy as you claim. There's a lot of Macs in use that have no USB port and use ADB connectors (3 or 4 in my little company). To sell mice to users of those boxes, they would indeed have to make a different mouse and that's what this poster was talking about. That shouldn't be a big problem; they already have serial, PS/2 and USB versions. The USB version, of course, only needs a driver to provide the fingerprinting service to Mac users. (Presumably is works as a regular mouse already, due to the wonders of the HID protocol)
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If a lot of people do it, it could lower the signal to noise level on Napster to that of Slashdot. At that point, people will just buy the CD instead :-)
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Not only that, but you're not geek enough to know the difference between 800x600 and 600x800 (and don't even try to tell me you really meant 600x800)
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The real Metallica has PayPal ID 3872. Anyone else is an impostor.
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You know, I used to be annoyed by the trolls, but now I find them oh so entertaining. I even feed them sometimes, but rarely one this obvious.
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It seems to me that comparing computers to houses and network interfaces with doors on Slashdot is just totally stupid. OK, maybe if you're a reporter writing for the general public, it can be helpful in giving non-technical readers some vague idea of what terms like 'ping' and 'portscan' mean, but when people who understand how networks work already, it doesn't help. It doesn't clarify anything and it exaggerates the seriousness of the situation.
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Your benchmark would be about as fair as the Mindcraft one.
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Ok, hi, are you the same guy who makes those strange fortunes?
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When Linux didn't support 4GB of RAM, that was a liability. If Phil had a 2GB NT box and Joe had a 2GB Linux box, and they both needed more performance, Phil could pop in 2 more gigs and get it. Complaining about this particular point is like losing a tennis match and yelling "Hey, no fair, you've been working on your serve!".
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Copyright prohibits distribution of the source code. I don't know what happens to the compiled form.
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viruses, not virii
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About LAME's speed: There's an optimized version of LAME called GOGO. I think it uses the vector processing features of the K6 and PIII. At any rate, it's much faster. But check its output before encoding a bunch of files. I didn't, and ended up with dozens of 256kbps mp3's that sound like shit. Apparently, building GOGO is a fine art. If you don't get it exactly right, you may end up with a binary that runs and produces output, but not the right output. This information is several months old, though, so don't dismiss GOGO on it alone.
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Geez, did you get your Grammar Nazi badge from a cereal box?
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So if anyone ever asks you "how is a heart like a raindrop?", now you know.
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...or NT or Windows 2000
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I think we need a better grammar nazi. This just won't do.
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Well, with my ears, an SBAWE64 Gold, and Sennheiser HD580's, I can't tell the difference between 256kbps mp3's (encoded with LAME) and the CD's they were ripped from. 128kbps mp3's are crap, but an mp3 doesn't have to be 128kbps.
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Are the rest of you as tied of this "I know I'm gonna get marked down for this, but..." shit as I am?
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That leaves Descent as the first successful FPS with a real 3D world.
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For a while, I ran it with the fans off and the case on and underclocked it to 166MHz. Then I let the power supply fan run for a while and felt the temperature of the airflow. It was so hot it was scary. Smelled bad too.
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If that's true (and I'm not saying it is--I don't believe everything I read on Slashdot) then that spec doesn't help much. Sure, you could use it to write the converter but it might land you in jail (and living in Norway apparently wouldn't protect you).
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I wonder if he imagined this scenario when he picked his handle.
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