what you can do with multiple monitors that you can't do with one large screen is quickly drag an open window to the second monitor and then maximize it. Those two actions take less than a second. Setting up two windows side-by-side on a single monitor takes much longer. Sure, if you have *only* two windows open then you can tile them. But usually you have a dozen or more windows.
We could fix this by having something like "half maximize"
What good is research to those not involved in academia if it provides no benifit to them?
Are you really that narrow-minded?? First of all, everyone else in this thread has been talking about commercial viability (stuff you can sell) and now all of a sudden you use the word benefit - are you for real? Do you really hear "commercial viability" and morph that into "benefit" inside you brain?? Come on!
All research and all knowledge benefits society as a whole. Just because you can't immediately sell it, that doesn't mean there is no benefit. Do I really need to list thousands upon thousands of examples of research that couldn't be sold, that later led to enormous benefits to every human being on the planet? Do I really need to do that??
I can just imagine you standing over someone's shoulder saying, "hey, what are you working on? Networking two computers together?? Can we sell that? Of course we can't, because nobody owns a computer. Get to work on something that we can sell!"
"hey, what's that you're working on? You're using a microscope to look at little invisible bugs? That's ridiculous! We can't sell germ theory! Get to work on something we can sell!"
I would prefer a university to hold a pattern any day than any corporate
I think we will all agree on this point. The real issue is the university charging license fees. I actually work at a university and we recently had a big seminar on intellectual property. You can really tell that the administration is salivating at the thought of an extra revenue stream.
And I really can't blame them - everybody is strapped for cash these days. I'm just concerned that it's a slippery slope. I would hate to see the day that universities pass up on research because they don't see the ability to make money from it. "oh sorry professor Jones, we aren't going to allow you to research that. We really need you to focus on things that we can license. Thanks."
So the point of this seminar they made us attend was that everything we do belongs to the university (and I agree) and that we can't release anything without their permission. They want first stab at it so that they can decide if it's a money-maker. Now in the past, I have come up with a neat little algorithm or something and I've just posted it on usenet, or I've answered a technical question on usenet. Theoretically, I'm no longer allowed to do that. My expertise has value and theoretically the university has the right to charge for it.
So the concern is that there is a chilling effect.
Look at what has happened to college sports teams. They are no longer about having fun or enriching students' educations by giving them experience with a team dynamic. College sports teams are about making money for the university - which is kind of strange because every part of a university should be dedicated to education. Sports could be an important component, but it's like they have been spun off into something else.
Does anyone think there would even *be* a Mal Reynolds if there hadn't been a Han Solo first?
Well, there was a time when the hero in a story was always entirely good - I think the modern term would be "all american" (think Flash Gordon). The idea of a hero with flaws and conflicts was popularized by Lord Byron, oh about 200 years before Han Solo hit the big screen. Here's the wiki article for further research.
I realize that you didn't actually claim that Lucas had invented the Byronic hero. I just want to make it *painfully clear* that he didn't invent it. But you're right, Han Solo did make the archetype very popular.
It bothers me a bit that Lucas gets any credit. Lucas is an idiot who stumbled clumsily into a great movie (ep. IV) that he really didn't deserve. Lucas himself has no clue what a Byronic hero is. Lucas doesn't appreciate it or value it at all. This is why he was willing to change episode IV so that Gredo shot first. Lucas is a drooling idiot staring at a movie that is accidentally good, and going "deeerrrrr, lets maik hand shot first, har har. deeeerrr."
If Lucas understood Han Solo, he would have made it *more* obvious that Han shot first.
Also, in the scene in Empire where Han is getting lowered into carbonite, Lea says, "I love you" and Han says, "I know." How cool is that guy, you know what I mean? Well, Lucas actually wrote the script so that Han says, "I love you too" but Harrison Ford changed it. What a moron Lucas is. He has no clue whatsoever.
Thanks to Jack Thompson, the board at Take Two has been ousted and that horrible murder simulator, Grand Theft Auto IV will *never* be sold... wait, what? It will be released as planned? This has absolutely nothing to do with GTA??
What if the protective equipment is compromise, and the battlemechs dig the computer
that's the beauty of this system. The secure computer isn't actually buried in the asteroid. That computer is just a misdirection (and it's filled with nerve gas btw). The real secure computer was secretly given to Chuck Noris 30 years ago.
in space, you don't even have the resistance of bouncing up and down.
I don't think that resistance is quite the right word, but I agree with you in general - what she's doing shouldn't qualify as running the marathon. The biggest problem with long-term space travel is bone loss, and NASA has already proven that just tethering a person to a treadmil and letting them exercise doesn't fix the problem. They still lose bone mass. That's all the proof I need that what she's doing isn't the same as running on earth.
Still, there is a bright side to this. This might just be the longest run on a treadmill in zero-g. And since she has run marathons on the ground, she will be in a good position to report what the differences are and maybe this will lead to better zero-g exercise equipment.
souped-up Apollo-era technology, which I predict is a prescription for disaster,
that is a ridiculous statement on a number of levels. There are only two or three spaceship configurations that work. One is aerodyne, like the space shuttle. Another is capsule-based, which just happened to have been used by Apollo, but was also used by every other US manned space program, by every Russian manned program, and by the Chinese. To call it "Apollo era" is like poo-pooing the wheel because it's "cave man era."
It's not Apollo's fault that the thing works and is cost effective. If you have a better idea than a capsule, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, I'm going to assume you are just an ignorant troll.
God, I swear. If we stay with capsules people will complain "if only NASA had invested in the shuttle back in the '80s then we would have a cheap reusable space plane." But if we abandon capsules and give the shuttle a try, then people will complain, "if only NASA had stayed with the proved technology instead of wasting it all on the shuttle." NASA can't win.
Not to belittle them, but they often picked the low-hanging fruit. Much of what can be proven about normal, deterministic computation has been proven.
hmm. I'm not sure that Backus "proved" anything. What he is known for is an idea, the idea that you could write a program independantly of the machine (in other words, a high-level language) as opposed to machine language or assembly language.
I don't think that you can categorize ideas as "low-hanging fruit" the same way you can categorize proofs. Sure, the easy problems might have been solved, but that doesn't mean that the best ideas have been had. We don't have the historical perspective to make judgements about things that happen today, so of course it seems like the best ideas were in the past. But just off the top of my head, a couple of neat ideas are XML and web services. These ideas were no more or less difficult to dream up than was Fortran. They are no more or less "low hanging fruit" than was Fortran.
The big difference in my opinion, and what makes Backus stand out, is that once he had the idea it was more difficult for him to realize it. Today, if you have an idea it is much easier for you to impliment it and tell people about it. So Backus was a real pioneer.
Nobody who knows what he's talking about would poke fun at FORTRAN. COBOL sure, but never FORTRAN. We wouldn't have much of anything in the way of software today if not for Backus. Many people at the time said that a high level language simply wasn't possible, and if they had been right, and Backus and his team had failed, then we'd be three decades or more behind where we are now in terms of software. We'd have no C (and probably no unix), no small talk and object-orientation.
discard any links on a page that are set to "display: none"
I bet the spammers would just start using really obfuscated javascript to set the style = display:none. So, you'd be starting an arms race where search spiders would have to start processing javascript and then the spammers would just come up with something else (maybe set the z-index low so that the links can't be seen). It just doesn't seem like it's worth the effort.
I use display:none all the time by the way. The left column of slashdot has those boxes with Help, Stories, About (etc). That would be a great example of a place where you could hiding the links under those sections and then roll them out when the user clicks or hovers.
read it and then slink away in embarrassment over your shortsighted, ultimately suicidal philosophy. People who think the way you do are basically just selfish. You demand to be made comfortable even though it means the death of your species in the long run. Do us all a favor and just DIAF. The rest of us want a brighter future.
dust on the moon falls back to the ground at the same speed as a dropped hammer
yes but you're missing an important part - the moon's gravity is so weak, you could probably throw a hammer and put it into orbit, because the speed of a dropped hammer is actually pretty low.
So the concern is that some mechanical process, maybe a fast spinning wheel or maybe the use of explosives, will actually put dust grains into orbit. It turns out, the moon already has a very thin atmosphere:
composed of a few atoms that are basically in orbit. So the point is, it is possible to create a dust atmosphere on the moon. We want to be careful when we start mining or whatever. We don't want to make that atmosphere significantly worse, because that dust will gum up machines.
Surely the point is that there is may be infringing code
uh huh. And you may be a terrorist. So what? If I make the accusation that you're a terrorist, isn't there something that I have to do? What is that called? Jez, it's on the tip of my toungue... oh yeah, "prove it!" That's what I have to do.
If I spend the next four years claiming that you are a terrorist, but never show any proof, what kind of a moron would sum all that up by saying, "surely the point is that he may be a terrorist!"
So here's the deal, SCO made an accusation, and now, years later, they STILL haven't shown any proof. Every time they show some code and claim it belongs to them, it turns out to be bullshit. Use your brain. If SCO had many examples of copyright violation, all they would have to do is pick one - just one - their best one! - and show the source code for linux and also reveal part of SCO code. SCO has argued that they can't show us their code, but come on. If they had so many examples of infringement, they could sacrifice one SCO function and publish it just to make the point that Linux copied.
Why have they never done that?? Because they've got NOTHING!
But you're technically correct. There is may be infringing code. Thank you CPT Obvious.
about a year ago I had to rebuild my dad's computer due to a HD crash. I put open office on there for him. He has a spreadsheet that he uses to track stocks he owns. A few weeks after I gave the computer to him he calls me to say that his spreadsheet doesn't look right.
Well, I do have Excel on my laptop so I went over there and verified that the spreadsheet rendered exactly the same in both OO and Excel. The issue was that there was some Excel feature that he was looking for under some menu. I can't for the life of me remember what it was. But the thing is, a quick google search confirmed that OO had that same feature. So I showed him how to use it.
But he wasn't happy. He just complained so much about having to learn to click a different menu. So I broke down and installed Excel.
Now here is the best part: he just bought a new laptop and guess what's on it - the new version of Office with the funky menus. But he wont complain about having to relearn THAT, because THAT's microsoft.
what I find far more useful than saying no is going through the whole process for any change. I go to a meeting and someone says, "oh, can you make do this extra thing?" And I say sure. Then I add it to the spec, call the new spec version 2.0, add a week to the timeline, and send the whole thing to them to sign.
At some people, they step back and realize that they have asked for four years worth of development and they stop doing that.
Now, after the product is delivered, I give some small leeway for changes or additions. It's my option. But when they keep asking for stuff, I eventually just work up a whole new spec and send it to them to sign, along with a statement that makes it clear how much this is going to cost. At that point, they say, "oh this isn't free? well then we don't want it."
What's funny is, if you've ever built a house, you know that builders don't put up with this crap. If you tell a builder you want tan-colored bricks, and then later change your mind and say you want red, the builder will laugh at you. If you decide you want french doors, the builder will happily charge you for that. Nobody would expect a change like that to be free.
You want to know what the best FPS ever was? Quake 3 with either the Threewave CTFS mod or CPMA mod.
The reason is simple, the action is fast and well-balanced. I'll talk a bit about both points:
1. Action - playing quake in either of these two mods is like being in a fucking kung fu movie. That's the way it feels. You get in people's faces. You dodge, you rocket jump, you move fast.
When I play Halo or Half Life or (god help us) CS, I feel like the goal of the game is to hide and creep. If you turn a corner and find yourself with a bad guy, you hold down the trigger and spray and pray.
The feeling in quake is just so much better, in part due to the running speed, and in part due to the ability to rocket jump off of walls. I played UT for a while and it was better, but I still felt like I was stuck in molasses.
2. Balance - in quake 3, the weapons are better balanced than any other game I've ever seen. A rocket hit does exactly as much damage as a railgun, which does exactly as much damage as a shotgun (up close) or a nade. What that means is, the guy with the railgun doesn't necessarily own - not if you out smart him. Get in close and your shotgun is more powerful. This also means that switching weapons is a useful tactic.
What I see in other games is that some weapons are clearly better than others. That simply isn't true in quake (unless you are a complete newb). It also means that nobody can camp you in quake (unless you are a complete newb). Case in point. Everyone remembers the map q3ctf4. Play that map (in threewave mode) and let someone get on the railgun platform and start camping. I guarantee you I can kill him. All I have to do is dodge his one round, then jump on the bounce pad. I'll be up on the railgun platform before he can reload and I'll have a shotgun, so now I'll have the advantage.
they note that in 10 subsequent tests the crow did the same thing 9 times. Not 10. So, having solved the problem, the crow forgets how to do it once?
in defense of the crow, maybe he tried something else that 1 time, but it didn't work - and at that point he had bent the wire so much he couldn't straighten it out to start over again.
What makes me suspicious is when she claims that social workers and counselors that previously took the kid's side are now calling to apologize and say they wish they had believed the parents.
Um, bullshit. Yeah, I'm so sure that some government worker picked up the phone to say, "oh hi, this is Frank. Remember me? I'm the guy who was investigating you for abuse? How are you guys doing? Cool. Cool. Listen, I just wanted to apologize for all that, 'almost sending you to jail' thing ok? Well, take it easy. Please don't sue me. Bye."
Documents should be stored in some sort of version control system (CVS, etc).
in my opinion, that would be a microsoft killer - no doubt about it. Think of how cool it would be if you never had to think about where a document was - it just existed. If you worked on it on your laptop and then went somewhere without connectivity, it was just there, magically, on your laptop. If you went to a portal or someone else's computer, (if they have connectivity) the document is just there, magically, over the network. Back on your laptop, you wander into a network and your laptop syncs your changes.
No emailing files back and forth. No lost data.
You do have to worry about merging changes (if both of us go off the network and make changes separately). But you have that problem right now anyway.
Another thing tht google could do would be to sell a caching applications server (they already sell a server appliance). That way, if your business' internet connection went down or became very slow, you could still hit the application server on your intranet.
Slashdot Mirror
what you can do with multiple monitors that you can't do with one large screen is quickly drag an open window to the second monitor and then maximize it. Those two actions take less than a second. Setting up two windows side-by-side on a single monitor takes much longer. Sure, if you have *only* two windows open then you can tile them. But usually you have a dozen or more windows.
We could fix this by having something like "half maximize"
What good is research to those not involved in academia if it provides no benifit to them?
Are you really that narrow-minded?? First of all, everyone else in this thread has been talking about commercial viability (stuff you can sell) and now all of a sudden you use the word benefit - are you for real? Do you really hear "commercial viability" and morph that into "benefit" inside you brain?? Come on!
All research and all knowledge benefits society as a whole. Just because you can't immediately sell it, that doesn't mean there is no benefit. Do I really need to list thousands upon thousands of examples of research that couldn't be sold, that later led to enormous benefits to every human being on the planet? Do I really need to do that??
I can just imagine you standing over someone's shoulder saying, "hey, what are you working on? Networking two computers together?? Can we sell that? Of course we can't, because nobody owns a computer. Get to work on something that we can sell!"
"hey, what's that you're working on? You're using a microscope to look at little invisible bugs? That's ridiculous! We can't sell germ theory! Get to work on something we can sell!"
I would prefer a university to hold a pattern any day than any corporate
I think we will all agree on this point. The real issue is the university charging license fees. I actually work at a university and we recently had a big seminar on intellectual property. You can really tell that the administration is salivating at the thought of an extra revenue stream.
And I really can't blame them - everybody is strapped for cash these days. I'm just concerned that it's a slippery slope. I would hate to see the day that universities pass up on research because they don't see the ability to make money from it. "oh sorry professor Jones, we aren't going to allow you to research that. We really need you to focus on things that we can license. Thanks."
So the point of this seminar they made us attend was that everything we do belongs to the university (and I agree) and that we can't release anything without their permission. They want first stab at it so that they can decide if it's a money-maker. Now in the past, I have come up with a neat little algorithm or something and I've just posted it on usenet, or I've answered a technical question on usenet. Theoretically, I'm no longer allowed to do that. My expertise has value and theoretically the university has the right to charge for it.
So the concern is that there is a chilling effect.
Look at what has happened to college sports teams. They are no longer about having fun or enriching students' educations by giving them experience with a team dynamic. College sports teams are about making money for the university - which is kind of strange because every part of a university should be dedicated to education. Sports could be an important component, but it's like they have been spun off into something else.
Is there anything worse than sitting through some jerk reading their slides verbatim
that bugs the hell out of me.
Does anyone think there would even *be* a Mal Reynolds if there hadn't been a Han Solo first?
Well, there was a time when the hero in a story was always entirely good - I think the modern term would be "all american" (think Flash Gordon). The idea of a hero with flaws and conflicts was popularized by Lord Byron, oh about 200 years before Han Solo hit the big screen. Here's the wiki article for further research.
I realize that you didn't actually claim that Lucas had invented the Byronic hero. I just want to make it *painfully clear* that he didn't invent it. But you're right, Han Solo did make the archetype very popular.
It bothers me a bit that Lucas gets any credit. Lucas is an idiot who stumbled clumsily into a great movie (ep. IV) that he really didn't deserve. Lucas himself has no clue what a Byronic hero is. Lucas doesn't appreciate it or value it at all. This is why he was willing to change episode IV so that Gredo shot first. Lucas is a drooling idiot staring at a movie that is accidentally good, and going "deeerrrrr, lets maik hand shot first, har har. deeeerrr."
If Lucas understood Han Solo, he would have made it *more* obvious that Han shot first.
Also, in the scene in Empire where Han is getting lowered into carbonite, Lea says, "I love you" and Han says, "I know." How cool is that guy, you know what I mean? Well, Lucas actually wrote the script so that Han says, "I love you too" but Harrison Ford changed it. What a moron Lucas is. He has no clue whatsoever.
Thanks to Jack Thompson, the board at Take Two has been ousted and that horrible murder simulator, Grand Theft Auto IV will *never* be sold... wait, what? It will be released as planned? This has absolutely nothing to do with GTA??
well god damnit.
What if the protective equipment is compromise, and the battlemechs dig the computer
that's the beauty of this system. The secure computer isn't actually buried in the asteroid. That computer is just a misdirection (and it's filled with nerve gas btw). The real secure computer was secretly given to Chuck Noris 30 years ago.
in space, you don't even have the resistance of bouncing up and down.
I don't think that resistance is quite the right word, but I agree with you in general - what she's doing shouldn't qualify as running the marathon. The biggest problem with long-term space travel is bone loss, and NASA has already proven that just tethering a person to a treadmil and letting them exercise doesn't fix the problem. They still lose bone mass. That's all the proof I need that what she's doing isn't the same as running on earth.
Still, there is a bright side to this. This might just be the longest run on a treadmill in zero-g. And since she has run marathons on the ground, she will be in a good position to report what the differences are and maybe this will lead to better zero-g exercise equipment.
souped-up Apollo-era technology, which I predict is a prescription for disaster,
that is a ridiculous statement on a number of levels. There are only two or three spaceship configurations that work. One is aerodyne, like the space shuttle. Another is capsule-based, which just happened to have been used by Apollo, but was also used by every other US manned space program, by every Russian manned program, and by the Chinese. To call it "Apollo era" is like poo-pooing the wheel because it's "cave man era."
It's not Apollo's fault that the thing works and is cost effective. If you have a better idea than a capsule, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, I'm going to assume you are just an ignorant troll.
God, I swear. If we stay with capsules people will complain "if only NASA had invested in the shuttle back in the '80s then we would have a cheap reusable space plane." But if we abandon capsules and give the shuttle a try, then people will complain, "if only NASA had stayed with the proved technology instead of wasting it all on the shuttle." NASA can't win.
Not to belittle them, but they often picked the low-hanging fruit. Much of what can be proven about normal, deterministic computation has been proven.
hmm. I'm not sure that Backus "proved" anything. What he is known for is an idea, the idea that you could write a program independantly of the machine (in other words, a high-level language) as opposed to machine language or assembly language.
I don't think that you can categorize ideas as "low-hanging fruit" the same way you can categorize proofs. Sure, the easy problems might have been solved, but that doesn't mean that the best ideas have been had. We don't have the historical perspective to make judgements about things that happen today, so of course it seems like the best ideas were in the past. But just off the top of my head, a couple of neat ideas are XML and web services. These ideas were no more or less difficult to dream up than was Fortran. They are no more or less "low hanging fruit" than was Fortran.
The big difference in my opinion, and what makes Backus stand out, is that once he had the idea it was more difficult for him to realize it. Today, if you have an idea it is much easier for you to impliment it and tell people about it. So Backus was a real pioneer.
Poke fun at Fortran all you want
Nobody who knows what he's talking about would poke fun at FORTRAN. COBOL sure, but never FORTRAN. We wouldn't have much of anything in the way of software today if not for Backus. Many people at the time said that a high level language simply wasn't possible, and if they had been right, and Backus and his team had failed, then we'd be three decades or more behind where we are now in terms of software. We'd have no C (and probably no unix), no small talk and object-orientation.
discard any links on a page that are set to "display: none"
I bet the spammers would just start using really obfuscated javascript to set the style = display:none. So, you'd be starting an arms race where search spiders would have to start processing javascript and then the spammers would just come up with something else (maybe set the z-index low so that the links can't be seen). It just doesn't seem like it's worth the effort.
I use display:none all the time by the way. The left column of slashdot has those boxes with Help, Stories, About (etc). That would be a great example of a place where you could hiding the links under those sections and then roll them out when the user clicks or hovers.
The pictures were worth 40% of 2 mill to my customer.
ok, you've *got* to spill the beans on this one. Who was the customer, the National Enquirer?
Or...
/ 2006-12-18-why-go.html
We could not go to the moon. Maybe focus on... problems on earth? Just a thought...
This cartoon illustrates the complete idiocy of that line of reasoning:
http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive
read it and then slink away in embarrassment over your shortsighted, ultimately suicidal philosophy. People who think the way you do are basically just selfish. You demand to be made comfortable even though it means the death of your species in the long run. Do us all a favor and just DIAF. The rest of us want a brighter future.
no, you're right. A human couldn't throw a hammer and put it into orbit.
But the concern about dust is (I think) as I stated.
dust on the moon falls back to the ground at the same speed as a dropped hammer
m l
yes but you're missing an important part - the moon's gravity is so weak, you could probably throw a hammer and put it into orbit, because the speed of a dropped hammer is actually pretty low.
So the concern is that some mechanical process, maybe a fast spinning wheel or maybe the use of explosives, will actually put dust grains into orbit. It turns out, the moon already has a very thin atmosphere:
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Moon/atmosphere.ht
composed of a few atoms that are basically in orbit. So the point is, it is possible to create a dust atmosphere on the moon. We want to be careful when we start mining or whatever. We don't want to make that atmosphere significantly worse, because that dust will gum up machines.
Surely the point is that there is may be infringing code
uh huh. And you may be a terrorist. So what? If I make the accusation that you're a terrorist, isn't there something that I have to do? What is that called? Jez, it's on the tip of my toungue... oh yeah, "prove it!" That's what I have to do.
If I spend the next four years claiming that you are a terrorist, but never show any proof, what kind of a moron would sum all that up by saying, "surely the point is that he may be a terrorist!"
So here's the deal, SCO made an accusation, and now, years later, they STILL haven't shown any proof. Every time they show some code and claim it belongs to them, it turns out to be bullshit. Use your brain. If SCO had many examples of copyright violation, all they would have to do is pick one - just one - their best one! - and show the source code for linux and also reveal part of SCO code. SCO has argued that they can't show us their code, but come on. If they had so many examples of infringement, they could sacrifice one SCO function and publish it just to make the point that Linux copied.
Why have they never done that?? Because they've got NOTHING!
But you're technically correct. There is may be infringing code. Thank you CPT Obvious.
about a year ago I had to rebuild my dad's computer due to a HD crash. I put open office on there for him. He has a spreadsheet that he uses to track stocks he owns. A few weeks after I gave the computer to him he calls me to say that his spreadsheet doesn't look right.
Well, I do have Excel on my laptop so I went over there and verified that the spreadsheet rendered exactly the same in both OO and Excel. The issue was that there was some Excel feature that he was looking for under some menu. I can't for the life of me remember what it was. But the thing is, a quick google search confirmed that OO had that same feature. So I showed him how to use it.
But he wasn't happy. He just complained so much about having to learn to click a different menu. So I broke down and installed Excel.
Now here is the best part: he just bought a new laptop and guess what's on it - the new version of Office with the funky menus. But he wont complain about having to relearn THAT, because THAT's microsoft.
God that pisses me off.
you might have to say "no" at some point
what I find far more useful than saying no is going through the whole process for any change. I go to a meeting and someone says, "oh, can you make do this extra thing?" And I say sure. Then I add it to the spec, call the new spec version 2.0, add a week to the timeline, and send the whole thing to them to sign.
At some people, they step back and realize that they have asked for four years worth of development and they stop doing that.
Now, after the product is delivered, I give some small leeway for changes or additions. It's my option. But when they keep asking for stuff, I eventually just work up a whole new spec and send it to them to sign, along with a statement that makes it clear how much this is going to cost. At that point, they say, "oh this isn't free? well then we don't want it."
What's funny is, if you've ever built a house, you know that builders don't put up with this crap. If you tell a builder you want tan-colored bricks, and then later change your mind and say you want red, the builder will laugh at you. If you decide you want french doors, the builder will happily charge you for that. Nobody would expect a change like that to be free.
You want to know what the best FPS ever was? Quake 3 with either the Threewave CTFS mod or CPMA mod.
7 663174837
The reason is simple, the action is fast and well-balanced. I'll talk a bit about both points:
1. Action - playing quake in either of these two mods is like being in a fucking kung fu movie. That's the way it feels. You get in people's faces. You dodge, you rocket jump, you move fast.
When I play Halo or Half Life or (god help us) CS, I feel like the goal of the game is to hide and creep. If you turn a corner and find yourself with a bad guy, you hold down the trigger and spray and pray.
The feeling in quake is just so much better, in part due to the running speed, and in part due to the ability to rocket jump off of walls. I played UT for a while and it was better, but I still felt like I was stuck in molasses.
2. Balance - in quake 3, the weapons are better balanced than any other game I've ever seen. A rocket hit does exactly as much damage as a railgun, which does exactly as much damage as a shotgun (up close) or a nade. What that means is, the guy with the railgun doesn't necessarily own - not if you out smart him. Get in close and your shotgun is more powerful. This also means that switching weapons is a useful tactic.
What I see in other games is that some weapons are clearly better than others. That simply isn't true in quake (unless you are a complete newb). It also means that nobody can camp you in quake (unless you are a complete newb). Case in point. Everyone remembers the map q3ctf4. Play that map (in threewave mode) and let someone get on the railgun platform and start camping. I guarantee you I can kill him. All I have to do is dodge his one round, then jump on the bounce pad. I'll be up on the railgun platform before he can reload and I'll have a shotgun, so now I'll have the advantage.
Take a look at this video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=439291559
Note the speed of the game. It's just crazy. They aren't making games like that anymore. Modern FPSs are slow and boring. Even Quake 4 sucked.
... and those corporate whores have piles of money sky high
singing, "it's so fun to make users cry"
yeah, it's fun to make our customers cry.
they note that in 10 subsequent tests the crow did the same thing 9 times. Not 10. So, having solved the problem, the crow forgets how to do it once?
in defense of the crow, maybe he tried something else that 1 time, but it didn't work - and at that point he had bent the wire so much he couldn't straighten it out to start over again.
What makes me suspicious is when she claims that social workers and counselors that previously took the kid's side are now calling to apologize and say they wish they had believed the parents.
Um, bullshit. Yeah, I'm so sure that some government worker picked up the phone to say, "oh hi, this is Frank. Remember me? I'm the guy who was investigating you for abuse? How are you guys doing? Cool. Cool. Listen, I just wanted to apologize for all that, 'almost sending you to jail' thing ok? Well, take it easy. Please don't sue me. Bye."
She's lying about that part *at the very least*
wonder why so many of them are getting caught up.
my guess is that someone has invented a way of catching them.
Documents should be stored in some sort of version control system (CVS, etc).
in my opinion, that would be a microsoft killer - no doubt about it. Think of how cool it would be if you never had to think about where a document was - it just existed. If you worked on it on your laptop and then went somewhere without connectivity, it was just there, magically, on your laptop. If you went to a portal or someone else's computer, (if they have connectivity) the document is just there, magically, over the network. Back on your laptop, you wander into a network and your laptop syncs your changes.
No emailing files back and forth. No lost data.
You do have to worry about merging changes (if both of us go off the network and make changes separately). But you have that problem right now anyway.
Another thing tht google could do would be to sell a caching applications server (they already sell a server appliance). That way, if your business' internet connection went down or became very slow, you could still hit the application server on your intranet.