Do you realize there are now at least 5 responses telling you how to copy 'all of the *.mp3 files in a directory to a floppy'.
Do YOU realize the slight difference in wording between what he said and what all of those other responses are chastizing him for?
HE said "there's no way to sort by extension". All of the replies calling him an idiot are telling him how to "sort by 'Type'". In most cases, "file type" is unique enough that each extension has it's own file type. However, the "file type" varies depending on what software you've installed on your computer that decides to 'claim' those extensions.
If the software decides to just give multiple extensions the same file type name, you end up with multiple filename extensions that are sorted as though they are identical to each other. So in the example he gave: if you'd installed Winamp (or any number of those crap media player packages that many OEMs put on their computers before they ship them), then you COULD have multiple extensions including.mp3 that all appear to be "Winamp media file". (or whatever)
So if you have a folder with lots of files in it, ending in.mp3,.mod,.669,.s3m,.voc, etc., they're all the same type of file as far as Windows Explorer is concerned, so clicking on the "Type" column won't do jack. The files will remain sorted by Filename. This is not just for sound files, it can happen for any extension.
There ARE ways of getting a list of files that match a certain extension from within the GUI (like other people have pointed out, using the Search/Find tool), but what he actually said was correct, and does not deserve your sarcastic bashing. Your post should not have been modded 'offtopic', but rather 'flamebait'.
Most people that don't want to learn console commands aren't going to want to learn "WindowsKey+F, copy current folder location, paste in 'Look in' box, type file extension in 'Named' box, click 'Find Now' button, select all" either.
I don't know why exactly they don't work, I'm just telling you from our experiences there's always issues with it. Sometimes you have some jackass WinXP Home computer that's trying to act as a "home internet gateway" for all computers on the LAN with a non-existent internet connection. Or you have NT/2000/XP Pro boxes that win elections with your master browser because they're faster than your server, or they are giving out their own set of DHCP addresses to whoever talks to them first. And somehow, even with using DHCP, there will be 2 or more Win95/98/ME boxes that end up with the same IP address. It's probably that DHCP is working right for 1 of them and the other 1 or 2 just happened to have the same address on their home LAN or whatever, but it's not really relevant because all you care about is getting them working ASAP for the next day or two.
Now maybe if we had a couple network admin experts who wanted to work full time on watching the LAN packets and monitoring the MAC addresses of all the DHCP requests and figuring out all the bugs with it, we could get it working like it's supposed to. But there's other shit to do, and we've never held a LAN party for "business", only for fun, and we the admins still want some game time. And the most efficient way to handle it that we've found is to use static and assign each person the address they'll use.
I'm giving you facts from my own real experiences on dealing with this shit, and you're just sitting in the corner holding a flamethrower with your head up your ass. It's apparent from your uninformed flame that you... are a jackass.
L) Set up a small web- and fileserver with the lastest patches
M) Maybe provide a small support forum where the users can post there problems to from the table of their neighbour or something. Then others can read what problem have happened so far...
Hmmm, I'm pretty sure I mentioned a file server for the patches in there somewhere...
The tech support web page might be a neat idea if you have a super easy way to update it quickly. However, the main problem is, in order for them to see the page, they already have their network settings working properly, and they know what server address to go to. Which is where 80% of your tech support problems are going to be...
I guess it would still be useful because they could just find someone else nearby whose computer was working OK and look at it on there. I haven't tried anything like that yet tho.
Good point, I forgot to mention the name badges in my long rant above. We did do these one time, they turned out pretty cool, we worked in all the info that's normally on the hand-out sheets onto them while still keeping the "ID badge" look to them.
The last couple we've done have been smaller and we ended up not needing them because it wasn't publicly announced, everybody knew at least 1/3 of the rest of the people. And printing them all out and cutting them to the right size and stuffing them in the little plastic ID badge things was more time consuming than just handing them a piece of paper...
But yeah, with a huge straight-public event like that, I'd say do name badges and enforce no one allowed in the gaming area without one. Helps keep track of people who have paid or not too.
J) If you can pull it off, go and setup the tables in the room you're planning the event for, well before you announce it to the public. You want to get all the logistics of where chairs will go and how many hubs you need and where all the NIC cables will go and which switches they will plug in to, etc. LONG before people start showing up. You might setup half the tables and then realise that "Hey, there's no way in hell we can fit 120 people in here!" or "Hey, these 5 tables here that are supposed to plug into this hub here are more than 100 feet from it!" or "We've got too many hubs on this chain, boo packet loss!"
K) Sponsors: they're good if you can get them, but usually they'll only offer free stuff that they already provide (like a software games/package or free net access), which you can use as contest or random drawin prizes, but it's rare to find a company that will just give you cash in exchange for their banner hanging up or whatever. It's worth asking around for it, but plan on having to cover all of the costs of the event from the money you collect at the door and whatever you're willing to spend on it.
Also, on the food issue that I mentioned above: if it's a larger hotel that has restaurants in it, you can provide the menus of them and tell people to order from there, as long as you make it clear to the employees beforehand that NO ONE is allowed to charge to the "room" for their orders.
Well that's all for now. I'm sure there's more but other people will fill in the gaps. Have fun!
[...security blah blah] With 120+ people, odds are there will be several "Mister Angry's", and the only reason they dont annihilate the person sitting next to them at smaller LAN parties is that almost everyone there knows who they are, and/or where they live. If they're stuck in a room full of strangers, after the 10th time they get blown away by a teammate, someone's monitor is going thru the wall. Be ready to jump on it as soon as they stand up and start yelling.
G) Make Headphones Mandatory. No exceptions. If they 'forgot' to bring theirs, they have to play with no sound. You can't have 100 people all showing off their sub-woofers the whole time, it will be mass chaos because no one will be able to hear themselves think. If you want to be helpful/entrepreneurial, buy a bunch of cheap headphones beforehand and sell them to people who dont have any. You should also bring lots of extra (long) network cables and power strips to sell/loan to the people. Without fail, at least 2 person in a 30 person LAN party will FORGET their own NIC cable or powerstrip and won't be able to play. With 120+ people, you'd have to assume at least 10 or so.
H) Post a list of games that will be played at the event, and try to loosely schedule times to announce that "everyone is playing Counter-strike now", or whatever game you kids play these days heheh. Otherwise you will have lots of little factions of people who want to play a certain game, and with 120 people you'll have 20 groups of 6 people each playing their own favorite game. Defeats the purpose of having a large lan party and everyone will feel that the event sucks because they could play with more people at home on the net. You don't have to be too strict about it, but someone who is "in charge" is going to have to be a negotiator between the main factions, and get everyone to agree to "play BF1942 for 3 hours, then we'll play Counterstrike for 3 hours", etc. With 120 people, you can increase the number of simultaneous games being played to 2 or 3 probably, and still have full servers.
Also, if you have the hardware to spare, run dedicated servers for the popular games yourselves. Otherwise, you have 5 people who all start running servers for the same game at the same time, and people get split up into little groups again, waiting around for 'everyone else to join the server'. If you can't/dont want to run the servers for all the games, have some way for everyone to easily see the IP/names of the "officially sanctioned" servers, even tho it's just some random guy's computer actually running it. Like write big on a chalkboard or use a projection screen which most conference rooms have.
I) Download the latest patches/update files for ALL the games that anyone might play during the party and set up a file server to share them. Make sure you include the address(es) to access these servers on the little sheets you hand out. Assigning everyone an IP/table and giving them a central location to get patches will cut down on HOURS of people wandering between tables asking for CDs or the folder names on each others' shared drives. Actually, you'll probably want multiple servers doing this, but make sure everyone has the addresses of them. Now that BitTorrent is available, it would probably help dramatically reduce the load on the server's hard drive, which is usually the bottleneck in these situations.
Actually now that I think about it, if you've got the time/money/CDburner, you'd probably be better off burning all those files onto a CD and handing them out to people with their sign-in sheets. (We never actually tried this.) Only problem is, even if you only stick to 4-5 games thru-out the whole weekend, one or more of them will have a new patch released between the time that you announce the event and the day it actually happens, so you'd either have to burn them all the day before, or risk having some of them obsoleted. Dunno, something to think a
[I have been involved in running 5 or 6 lan parties before. None as big as 120 people, but my points below are relevent anyway for anything larger than 20 where you don't know everyone personally already.]
A) Actually, I would strongly recommend AGAINST using DHCP. If it worked like it was supposed to, it would seem to be ideal for that kind of setup. Unfortunately, it never does. Somehow, with the combination of Win98/ME/2000/XP and Linux computers all stuck on the same LAN, there are always some computers that just won't get an IP correctly, and cant see the other computers. (You might be able to figure out the problem with some driver or something after hours of messing with it, but you don't want to spend that time.) The most efficient method we ended up using is giving everyone a small piece of paper as soon as they walk in, which contains: 1) Their name (real and in-game name) 2) IP address they are to use 3) workgroup name that everyone is to use 4) Table number that they are to sit at 5) the IP/computer-name of the "game" servers 6) the IP/computer-name of the "file" servers
(you could even go as far as numbering the seats at the tables, but you have to take into consideration that some people have gigantic monitors, or have shorter NIC cables, are really fat, etc., so you might want to let them pick their positions within the table.)
Everyone having this information cuts down on the repeated questions immensely. Along with these sheets to hand out, you have a master list which contains: 1) each person's name (real and in-game) 2) IP address they are using 3) Table they're sitting at 4) whether they've checked in yet 5) whether they've paid their money or not
B) The master list can be a file on your computer at the check-in area, or it can be a paper list with spaces at the end to hand-write in names of people who show up. Of course you also the need extra sheets with blank name spots to hand to those people too. If the master list is on paper, IT STAYS IN ONE SPOT THE WHOLE TIME, no exceptions. Loose paper and CDs get lost in a blackhole in seconds at a large lan party.
C) I highly recommend requiring people to sign up before the first day of the event. You need to know how much space you need, hubs/routers, cables, table/network layout, etc. Unless you work at a computer store where you can borrow a bunch of extra equip on short notice, you definitely need a good estimate of attendees. You can still accept people showing up at the door with no notice (there WILL be some), but it removes a lot of grief if you've already planned for them.
D) Don't plan on playing any games yourself. Now this depends on how many people you actually have working with you, but with 120 people under your supervision, you will always need at least 4 people to be "available" for all the little issues that come up. Now if you've got 10 of you running the thing, then you can rotate and still get some hours of play in, but you will be playing a lot less than people who are just there for the ride.
E) Make everyone handle their own food deals. It always seems like a good idea to get money from everyone and then order 20 pizzas, but with more than 15 people you end up with people who can't eat certain kinds of foods, or who dont like whatever it is that most other people are getting (pizza), or brought their own food and dont want to pay, or get out of paying somehow but then still eat the food (ie. you collected all money on the 1st day and some people only show up for the 2nd day), want to eat at a different time so there's either no food yet or it's cold/stale etc. You can have some common snacks/drinks included in the cover price, but that's it. You don't want to have to include 2-3 days worth of meals in the cover price, people will balk at it and not show up, even though they will be spending that amount of money on food themselves anyway.
Make up a list of directions to the nearest restaurants and phone numbers of places tha
However, barring the legality, I don't think anyone, short of Metallica, would come after you for it.;)
They wouldn't have to. It's not them who's being screwed. If enough people did this, the RIAA would still come after you, because (as you pointed out for "your friend") the artists don't have the right to distribute their own works on CD either, nor to collect money directly for CD sales. That's what they hire a recording/distribution company for... they give those rights to the company, so the company would still come after you.
I'm sure the caller was enjoying the movie vicariously through the movie-watcher, and I know we were all enjoying the incessant bleeps and burbles of cute little ring patterns.
Luckily, there were only a couple phone rings during our showing on opening night. Our group heartily shouted "OPERATOR!" in unison whenever an audience member's phone went off. Maybe after the first two outbursts the rest of the dumbasses realized they could be next and actually turned theirs off...
Re:A question for the master (with spoilers)
on
Review: Matrix: Reloaded
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· Score: 5, Insightful
*The matrix is built to allow for the "one" to eventually surface, and become struck with the choice to save everyone, or save no one. When put to this choice the obvious answer is to save everyone, allow the matrix as it was created to continue on and on into infinity. By choosing to save trinity, Neo would be exploiting a flaw which cannot exist, since human nature would not allow for someone to go after something so obviously impossible. If it helps, think of it as a buffer overflow, or logic loop.
But you have to incorporate all the crap from the Oracle and the French guy. "Choice is an illusion created by those in power for those without." (or whatever). Accepting that concept, means that Neo didn't really have a choice of doors, he was expected to choose one of them, while believing that he had a choice. Not having a choice made the humans wake up from the Matrix, so they created scenarios in which the humans believed they had a choice, when really they always did what they were expected to do.
By Neo making the choice that was unexpected of him, he rejects the scenario that was placed before him, and thereby starts to "wake up" from the Matrix even more.... and ends up realizing that the "real world" (the world of Zion and eating oatmeal, etc.) is actually another Matrix. What everyone thinks of as "The Matrix" is actually a Matrix within a Matrix, which is why once Neo 'wakes up' a second time, he can start to use his powers in "the real world" too.
The same programming flaws that allowed the 1% of people to 'wake up' and reject the First Matrix, would also allow 1% of THOSE people to eventually wake up and reject the Second Matrix. Which is why every 100 years the robots come in and wipe out everyone in Zion, to keep the chances of that 1% of 1% from growing to a whole number. Only this time, the "Messiah" was stronger than they had allowed for...
If Neo had chosen the other door, he would not have destroyed "The Matrix", he would have only destroyed the First Matrix, and believing he had done so, would have started Zion again believing that it was "the real world", and not tried to "wake up" any more. The architect told him that the machines would continue to survive even if he chose to destroy the Matrix ("we are prepared to accept some level of" existence(?)), so it could have been a reasonable ploy to convince the descendents of those 23 people that the machines were still alive and came back to capture them and put them back in the Matrix, or something.
Sorry for the dupe. The nesting was showing this blah blah blah. I thought nobody had answered.
Your apology is accepted. It was indeed imperative that the appropriate ironic reply be posted regarding that line. If no one had posted that obvious joke, mass chaos would have ensued...
(and the terrorists would have won! buh dump bum chink!)
i'm currently investigating a similar matter: dark data.
I've seen 'dark data' before... (I think they called it Lore). It was kinda cool, until that whole cheesy fiasco of him making Borgs with feelings... that was just plain stupid.
Windows may crash and it may be unrighteous and all that good stuff we like to tell ourselves, but it behaves in a consistent manner on supported hardware, it has a list of supported hardware, a huge list of third party software titles, and it just works by brainlessly clicking things.
AHHH HAHAHAHAAAHAAAAAA... woooo that was a killer one man. Wow... I'm crying from laughing so hard.... my chest hurts!
My biggest hatred of Windows of all flavors is that it is completely INCONSISTENT in its behavior. A server will sit there running fine for days, then all of a sudden burps and services just die or the whole system hangs, or some function/program will simply refuse to start, or some other disastrous behavior.
You check any settings that are related to the issue at hand, none of them seem to have any effect on the behavior. So what is the catch-all solution that fixes odd problems like this 80% of the time? That's right... REBOOT THE COMPUTER. That's absolutely ludicrous, rebooting should NOT be required, nor should it even have any effect on properly written code, but unfortunately it does on Windows...
Things DO break on Linux (and most of my experience is with RedHat Linux). It usually happens when 'up2date' runs, caused by some config file incorrectly not being marked as a config and being overwritten with the generic default version of it, or it doesn't overwrite it and the new ver of the program doesn't support the old config syntax, or some other similarly stupid bungle by the package manager people. However, when something breaks on Linux, it stays the fuck broken until you figure out what the problem is. Rebooting rarely ever fixes the problem, and is only required when updating the kernel.
And although many bizarre Linux problems are arcane and difficult to figure out, at least it's actually possible because every config file is PLAIN TEXT, and although it may take you hours of research to learn what every line of the bizare syntax means in the Linux config file and figure out the problem, once you do you can fix it yourself and then it works perfectly after that.
Compare that to Windows where almost every config-type file is in a secret binary format, and your solution options usually consist entirely of: playing "Reboot Roulette" and hoping that when it does finally randomly crash that it happens at 4am when few people are actually trying to access the machine.
Not to mention that if there is an actual error in the newly patched code (as opposed to a config file error), and if you are so inclined, you can go look at the source code of the latest patch and compare it to what was there before, and find out what the actual problem is. And even if you are NOT so inclined, you can usually find a place to post a bug report and there's a possibility that someone who contributes code to the project will see it, and occasionally will reply back to you, and often will shortly be followed by an updated patch fixing the problem. When was the last time you submitted a bug report to Microsoft without spending $190 per incident (and gotten any kind of response)? And how many of those times did it result in a new update being issued in the near future to fix the problem? YOUR results may be different, but for me and everyone I've ever talked to, the answer to both questions is "never".
Now the Linux desktop seems to be far less 'polished' than the server side of it, for sure. I have spent way more time dealing with server services than with Desktop programs, but for a server I consider a complex GUI system to be a major hindrance and not a benefit. Sure you can just change options by clicking a check box and then "OK". But the number of times I've come across a checkbox/pulldown/whatever that was grayed-out (disabled) without any indication WHY that option was not available, or had some handful of options that are ambiguously worded and contain no helpful help messages FAR outways the "brainlessly easy" benefits of the GUI.
BBC's site is already under big load with that war stuff now with slashdot I don't know if there severs can take it.
Yeah, good thinking. You better mirror the story for them here on Slashdot... Those little independent newspaper sites don't stand a chance against the onslaught of/.'ers...
I remember back in high school when a couple of us were messing aroung electronics and stuff, and wanted to try and build our own radio walky-talky type things. We went around to various electronics stores getting the parts we thought we needed, but ended up with like 2 parts that we just could find. The one was a variable resistor or something like that. Anyway, we go to Radio Shack and look all over the shelves and finally ask the guy for help. The employee told us that "the government doesn't allow us to sell those anymore".
"But aren't they a required component of every kind of radio receiver??"
"Yes, they are."
"So those shitty little clock radios that are on the shelves in boxes at the front of the store contain them, right?"
"Yes, they do."
"So you can sell us a complete radio, but you can't sell us the parts needed to MAKE a radio individually?? We ARE in RADIO SHACK right? Where else are we supposed to get parts to make a RADIO besides RADIO SHACK??"
"I don't think you'll be able to find them anywhere. The government considers them a restricted item now, so nobody can sell them." ----- I don't know if he was completely full of shit and just making up a story to fuck with us or not. But either way, our trek ended there because we weren't about to go buy three radios at $25 a piece so that we could rip out a $4 part and make our own poorly soldered radios out of them. Oh well, there goes another potential engineer into some other area of work...
I'd just like to congratulate them for making it as far as they have...
As far as they have? I've launched frogs and lizards farther than that on an este's rocket powered tube of cardboard ten years ago... LOL
Just kidding, I know they've put a lot of effort into this project, and I really hope they succeed. But I have to admit, the comments posted to this story (especially the link to that Dragon cartoon) are the funniest things I've seen all week.:)
I think Slashcode should detect URLs and make them linkable automatically.
That, or the lazy ass posters can just take the extra two seconds to add the <a href=""> and </a> around their URLs and avoid the problem altogether. You don't even have to change the pull-down menu from "Plain Old Text" either, it still works!
You broke the chain jerky! That's the first time I've EVER seen 6 insightful(ly modded) comments in a row, and you had to go screw it up. Figures it be you, "Anonymous Coward". All you post is crap anyways...
Slashdot Mirror
Warthog has written a review for all of you ...
Warthog... don't you mean the 'puma'??
Do YOU realize the slight difference in wording between what he said and what all of those other responses are chastizing him for?
HE said "there's no way to sort by extension". All of the replies calling him an idiot are telling him how to "sort by 'Type'". In most cases, "file type" is unique enough that each extension has it's own file type. However, the "file type" varies depending on what software you've installed on your computer that decides to 'claim' those extensions.
If the software decides to just give multiple extensions the same file type name, you end up with multiple filename extensions that are sorted as though they are identical to each other. So in the example he gave: if you'd installed Winamp (or any number of those crap media player packages that many OEMs put on their computers before they ship them), then you COULD have multiple extensions including
So if you have a folder with lots of files in it, ending in
There ARE ways of getting a list of files that match a certain extension from within the GUI (like other people have pointed out, using the Search/Find tool), but what he actually said was correct, and does not deserve your sarcastic bashing. Your post should not have been modded 'offtopic', but rather 'flamebait'.
Most people that don't want to learn console commands aren't going to want to learn "WindowsKey+F, copy current folder location, paste in 'Look in' box, type file extension in 'Named' box, click 'Find Now' button, select all" either.
Gee, spaz out much?
I don't know why exactly they don't work, I'm just telling you from our experiences there's always issues with it. Sometimes you have some jackass WinXP Home computer that's trying to act as a "home internet gateway" for all computers on the LAN with a non-existent internet connection. Or you have NT/2000/XP Pro boxes that win elections with your master browser because they're faster than your server, or they are giving out their own set of DHCP addresses to whoever talks to them first. And somehow, even with using DHCP, there will be 2 or more Win95/98/ME boxes that end up with the same IP address. It's probably that DHCP is working right for 1 of them and the other 1 or 2 just happened to have the same address on their home LAN or whatever, but it's not really relevant because all you care about is getting them working ASAP for the next day or two.
Now maybe if we had a couple network admin experts who wanted to work full time on watching the LAN packets and monitoring the MAC addresses of all the DHCP requests and figuring out all the bugs with it, we could get it working like it's supposed to. But there's other shit to do, and we've never held a LAN party for "business", only for fun, and we the admins still want some game time. And the most efficient way to handle it that we've found is to use static and assign each person the address they'll use.
I'm giving you facts from my own real experiences on dealing with this shit, and you're just sitting in the corner holding a flamethrower with your head up your ass. It's apparent from your uninformed flame that you... are a jackass.
Hmmm, I'm pretty sure I mentioned a file server for the patches in there somewhere...
The tech support web page might be a neat idea if you have a super easy way to update it quickly. However, the main problem is, in order for them to see the page, they already have their network settings working properly, and they know what server address to go to. Which is where 80% of your tech support problems are going to be...
I guess it would still be useful because they could just find someone else nearby whose computer was working OK and look at it on there. I haven't tried anything like that yet tho.
Good point, I forgot to mention the name badges in my long rant above. We did do these one time, they turned out pretty cool, we worked in all the info that's normally on the hand-out sheets onto them while still keeping the "ID badge" look to them.
The last couple we've done have been smaller and we ended up not needing them because it wasn't publicly announced, everybody knew at least 1/3 of the rest of the people. And printing them all out and cutting them to the right size and stuffing them in the little plastic ID badge things was more time consuming than just handing them a piece of paper...
But yeah, with a huge straight-public event like that, I'd say do name badges and enforce no one allowed in the gaming area without one. Helps keep track of people who have paid or not too.
It's a good idea in theory, but we didn't have quite the turnout we were hoping for the last time we announced a Free-Civ and MS Hearts LAN party....
Sometimes it's worth paying 40 bucks for a game that has awesome 3D visuals and good game play... I'm hooked on BF1942 right now...
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J) If you can pull it off, go and setup the tables in the room you're planning the event for, well before you announce it to the public. You want to get all the logistics of where chairs will go and how many hubs you need and where all the NIC cables will go and which switches they will plug in to, etc. LONG before people start showing up. You might setup half the tables and then realise that "Hey, there's no way in hell we can fit 120 people in here!" or "Hey, these 5 tables here that are supposed to plug into this hub here are more than 100 feet from it!" or "We've got too many hubs on this chain, boo packet loss!"
K) Sponsors: they're good if you can get them, but usually they'll only offer free stuff that they already provide (like a software games/package or free net access), which you can use as contest or random drawin prizes, but it's rare to find a company that will just give you cash in exchange for their banner hanging up or whatever. It's worth asking around for it, but plan on having to cover all of the costs of the event from the money you collect at the door and whatever you're willing to spend on it.
Also, on the food issue that I mentioned above: if it's a larger hotel that has restaurants in it, you can provide the menus of them and tell people to order from there, as long as you make it clear to the employees beforehand that NO ONE is allowed to charge to the "room" for their orders.
Well that's all for now. I'm sure there's more but other people will fill in the gaps. Have fun!
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[...security blah blah]
With 120+ people, odds are there will be several "Mister Angry's", and the only reason they dont annihilate the person sitting next to them at smaller LAN parties is that almost everyone there knows who they are, and/or where they live. If they're stuck in a room full of strangers, after the 10th time they get blown away by a teammate, someone's monitor is going thru the wall. Be ready to jump on it as soon as they stand up and start yelling.
G) Make Headphones Mandatory. No exceptions. If they 'forgot' to bring theirs, they have to play with no sound. You can't have 100 people all showing off their sub-woofers the whole time, it will be mass chaos because no one will be able to hear themselves think. If you want to be helpful/entrepreneurial, buy a bunch of cheap headphones beforehand and sell them to people who dont have any. You should also bring lots of extra (long) network cables and power strips to sell/loan to the people. Without fail, at least 2 person in a 30 person LAN party will FORGET their own NIC cable or powerstrip and won't be able to play. With 120+ people, you'd have to assume at least 10 or so.
H) Post a list of games that will be played at the event, and try to loosely schedule times to announce that "everyone is playing Counter-strike now", or whatever game you kids play these days heheh. Otherwise you will have lots of little factions of people who want to play a certain game, and with 120 people you'll have 20 groups of 6 people each playing their own favorite game. Defeats the purpose of having a large lan party and everyone will feel that the event sucks because they could play with more people at home on the net. You don't have to be too strict about it, but someone who is "in charge" is going to have to be a negotiator between the main factions, and get everyone to agree to "play BF1942 for 3 hours, then we'll play Counterstrike for 3 hours", etc. With 120 people, you can increase the number of simultaneous games being played to 2 or 3 probably, and still have full servers.
Also, if you have the hardware to spare, run dedicated servers for the popular games yourselves. Otherwise, you have 5 people who all start running servers for the same game at the same time, and people get split up into little groups again, waiting around for 'everyone else to join the server'. If you can't/dont want to run the servers for all the games, have some way for everyone to easily see the IP/names of the "officially sanctioned" servers, even tho it's just some random guy's computer actually running it. Like write big on a chalkboard or use a projection screen which most conference rooms have.
I) Download the latest patches/update files for ALL the games that anyone might play during the party and set up a file server to share them. Make sure you include the address(es) to access these servers on the little sheets you hand out. Assigning everyone an IP/table and giving them a central location to get patches will cut down on HOURS of people wandering between tables asking for CDs or the folder names on each others' shared drives. Actually, you'll probably want multiple servers doing this, but make sure everyone has the addresses of them. Now that BitTorrent is available, it would probably help dramatically reduce the load on the server's hard drive, which is usually the bottleneck in these situations.
Actually now that I think about it, if you've got the time/money/CDburner, you'd probably be better off burning all those files onto a CD and handing them out to people with their sign-in sheets. (We never actually tried this.) Only problem is, even if you only stick to 4-5 games thru-out the whole weekend, one or more of them will have a new patch released between the time that you announce the event and the day it actually happens, so you'd either have to burn them all the day before, or risk having some of them obsoleted. Dunno, something to think a
[I have been involved in running 5 or 6 lan parties before. None as big as 120 people, but my points below are relevent anyway for anything larger than 20 where you don't know everyone personally already.]
A) Actually, I would strongly recommend AGAINST using DHCP. If it worked like it was supposed to, it would seem to be ideal for that kind of setup. Unfortunately, it never does. Somehow, with the combination of Win98/ME/2000/XP and Linux computers all stuck on the same LAN, there are always some computers that just won't get an IP correctly, and cant see the other computers. (You might be able to figure out the problem with some driver or something after hours of messing with it, but you don't want to spend that time.) The most efficient method we ended up using is giving everyone a small piece of paper as soon as they walk in, which contains:
1) Their name (real and in-game name)
2) IP address they are to use
3) workgroup name that everyone is to use
4) Table number that they are to sit at
5) the IP/computer-name of the "game" servers
6) the IP/computer-name of the "file" servers
(you could even go as far as numbering the seats at the tables, but you have to take into consideration that some people have gigantic monitors, or have shorter NIC cables, are really fat, etc., so you might want to let them pick their positions within the table.)
Everyone having this information cuts down on the repeated questions immensely. Along with these sheets to hand out, you have a master list which contains:
1) each person's name (real and in-game)
2) IP address they are using
3) Table they're sitting at
4) whether they've checked in yet
5) whether they've paid their money or not
B) The master list can be a file on your computer at the check-in area, or it can be a paper list with spaces at the end to hand-write in names of people who show up. Of course you also the need extra sheets with blank name spots to hand to those people too. If the master list is on paper, IT STAYS IN ONE SPOT THE WHOLE TIME, no exceptions. Loose paper and CDs get lost in a blackhole in seconds at a large lan party.
C) I highly recommend requiring people to sign up before the first day of the event. You need to know how much space you need, hubs/routers, cables, table/network layout, etc. Unless you work at a computer store where you can borrow a bunch of extra equip on short notice, you definitely need a good estimate of attendees. You can still accept people showing up at the door with no notice (there WILL be some), but it removes a lot of grief if you've already planned for them.
D) Don't plan on playing any games yourself. Now this depends on how many people you actually have working with you, but with 120 people under your supervision, you will always need at least 4 people to be "available" for all the little issues that come up. Now if you've got 10 of you running the thing, then you can rotate and still get some hours of play in, but you will be playing a lot less than people who are just there for the ride.
E) Make everyone handle their own food deals. It always seems like a good idea to get money from everyone and then order 20 pizzas, but with more than 15 people you end up with people who can't eat certain kinds of foods, or who dont like whatever it is that most other people are getting (pizza), or brought their own food and dont want to pay, or get out of paying somehow but then still eat the food (ie. you collected all money on the 1st day and some people only show up for the 2nd day), want to eat at a different time so there's either no food yet or it's cold/stale etc. You can have some common snacks/drinks included in the cover price, but that's it. You don't want to have to include 2-3 days worth of meals in the cover price, people will balk at it and not show up, even though they will be spending that amount of money on food themselves anyway.
Make up a list of directions to the nearest restaurants and phone numbers of places tha
They wouldn't have to. It's not them who's being screwed. If enough people did this, the RIAA would still come after you, because (as you pointed out for "your friend") the artists don't have the right to distribute their own works on CD either, nor to collect money directly for CD sales. That's what they hire a recording/distribution company for... they give those rights to the company, so the company would still come after you.
I'm sure the caller was enjoying the movie vicariously through the movie-watcher, and I know we were all enjoying the incessant bleeps and burbles of cute little ring patterns.
Luckily, there were only a couple phone rings during our showing on opening night. Our group heartily shouted "OPERATOR!" in unison whenever an audience member's phone went off. Maybe after the first two outbursts the rest of the dumbasses realized they could be next and actually turned theirs off...
But you have to incorporate all the crap from the Oracle and the French guy. "Choice is an illusion created by those in power for those without." (or whatever). Accepting that concept, means that Neo didn't really have a choice of doors, he was expected to choose one of them, while believing that he had a choice. Not having a choice made the humans wake up from the Matrix, so they created scenarios in which the humans believed they had a choice, when really they always did what they were expected to do.
By Neo making the choice that was unexpected of him, he rejects the scenario that was placed before him, and thereby starts to "wake up" from the Matrix even more.... and ends up realizing that the "real world" (the world of Zion and eating oatmeal, etc.) is actually another Matrix. What everyone thinks of as "The Matrix" is actually a Matrix within a Matrix, which is why once Neo 'wakes up' a second time, he can start to use his powers in "the real world" too.
The same programming flaws that allowed the 1% of people to 'wake up' and reject the First Matrix, would also allow 1% of THOSE people to eventually wake up and reject the Second Matrix. Which is why every 100 years the robots come in and wipe out everyone in Zion, to keep the chances of that 1% of 1% from growing to a whole number. Only this time, the "Messiah" was stronger than they had allowed for...
If Neo had chosen the other door, he would not have destroyed "The Matrix", he would have only destroyed the First Matrix, and believing he had done so, would have started Zion again believing that it was "the real world", and not tried to "wake up" any more. The architect told him that the machines would continue to survive even if he chose to destroy the Matrix ("we are prepared to accept some level of" existence(?)), so it could have been a reasonable ploy to convince the descendents of those 23 people that the machines were still alive and came back to capture them and put them back in the Matrix, or something.
Your apology is accepted. It was indeed imperative that the appropriate ironic reply be posted regarding that line. If no one had posted that obvious joke, mass chaos would have ensued...
(and the terrorists would have won! buh dump bum chink!)
i'm currently investigating a similar matter: dark data.
I've seen 'dark data' before... (I think they called it Lore). It was kinda cool, until that whole cheesy fiasco of him making Borgs with feelings... that was just plain stupid.
ahhh shit, I already posted in this thread or I'd mod you.
+1 Funny
+1 Obviously Read Article Modifier
In a nutshell: the naive fauna of the paleolithic Middle East included numerous herd animals suitable for domestication.
Yeah, those stupid Middle Eastern animals... they'll believe ANYTHING!
Windows may crash and it may be unrighteous and all that good stuff we like to tell ourselves, but it behaves in a consistent manner on supported hardware, it has a list of supported hardware, a huge list of third party software titles, and it just works by brainlessly clicking things.
AHHH HAHAHAHAAAHAAAAAA... woooo that was a killer one man. Wow... I'm crying from laughing so hard.... my chest hurts!
My biggest hatred of Windows of all flavors is that it is completely INCONSISTENT in its behavior. A server will sit there running fine for days, then all of a sudden burps and services just die or the whole system hangs, or some function/program will simply refuse to start, or some other disastrous behavior.
You check any settings that are related to the issue at hand, none of them seem to have any effect on the behavior. So what is the catch-all solution that fixes odd problems like this 80% of the time? That's right... REBOOT THE COMPUTER. That's absolutely ludicrous, rebooting should NOT be required, nor should it even have any effect on properly written code, but unfortunately it does on Windows...
Things DO break on Linux (and most of my experience is with RedHat Linux). It usually happens when 'up2date' runs, caused by some config file incorrectly not being marked as a config and being overwritten with the generic default version of it, or it doesn't overwrite it and the new ver of the program doesn't support the old config syntax, or some other similarly stupid bungle by the package manager people. However, when something breaks on Linux, it stays the fuck broken until you figure out what the problem is. Rebooting rarely ever fixes the problem, and is only required when updating the kernel.
And although many bizarre Linux problems are arcane and difficult to figure out, at least it's actually possible because every config file is PLAIN TEXT, and although it may take you hours of research to learn what every line of the bizare syntax means in the Linux config file and figure out the problem, once you do you can fix it yourself and then it works perfectly after that.
Compare that to Windows where almost every config-type file is in a secret binary format, and your solution options usually consist entirely of: playing "Reboot Roulette" and hoping that when it does finally randomly crash that it happens at 4am when few people are actually trying to access the machine.
Not to mention that if there is an actual error in the newly patched code (as opposed to a config file error), and if you are so inclined, you can go look at the source code of the latest patch and compare it to what was there before, and find out what the actual problem is. And even if you are NOT so inclined, you can usually find a place to post a bug report and there's a possibility that someone who contributes code to the project will see it, and occasionally will reply back to you, and often will shortly be followed by an updated patch fixing the problem. When was the last time you submitted a bug report to Microsoft without spending $190 per incident (and gotten any kind of response)? And how many of those times did it result in a new update being issued in the near future to fix the problem? YOUR results may be different, but for me and everyone I've ever talked to, the answer to both questions is "never".
Now the Linux desktop seems to be far less 'polished' than the server side of it, for sure. I have spent way more time dealing with server services than with Desktop programs, but for a server I consider a complex GUI system to be a major hindrance and not a benefit. Sure you can just change options by clicking a check box and then "OK". But the number of times I've come across a checkbox/pulldown/whatever that was grayed-out (disabled) without any indication WHY that option was not available, or had some handful of options that are ambiguously worded and contain no helpful help messages FAR outways the "brainlessly easy" benefits of the GUI.
<Tangent
BBC's site is already under big load with that war stuff now with slashdot I don't know if there severs can take it.
/.'ers...
Yeah, good thinking. You better mirror the story for them here on Slashdot... Those little independent newspaper sites don't stand a chance against the onslaught of
you are OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND if you order anything from these bastards.
He used to be bitter, but he's over that now....
I remember back in high school when a couple of us were messing aroung electronics and stuff, and wanted to try and build our own radio walky-talky type things. We went around to various electronics stores getting the parts we thought we needed, but ended up with like 2 parts that we just could find. The one was a variable resistor or something like that. Anyway, we go to Radio Shack and look all over the shelves and finally ask the guy for help. The employee told us that "the government doesn't allow us to sell those anymore".
"But aren't they a required component of every kind of radio receiver??"
"Yes, they are."
"So those shitty little clock radios that are on the shelves in boxes at the front of the store contain them, right?"
"Yes, they do."
"So you can sell us a complete radio, but you can't sell us the parts needed to MAKE a radio individually?? We ARE in RADIO SHACK right? Where else are we supposed to get parts to make a RADIO besides RADIO SHACK??"
"I don't think you'll be able to find them anywhere. The government considers them a restricted item now, so nobody can sell them."
-----
I don't know if he was completely full of shit and just making up a story to fuck with us or not. But either way, our trek ended there because we weren't about to go buy three radios at $25 a piece so that we could rip out a $4 part and make our own poorly soldered radios out of them. Oh well, there goes another potential engineer into some other area of work...
I'd just like to congratulate them for making it as far as they have ...
:)
As far as they have? I've launched frogs and lizards farther than that on an este's rocket powered tube of cardboard ten years ago... LOL
Just kidding, I know they've put a lot of effort into this project, and I really hope they succeed. But I have to admit, the comments posted to this story (especially the link to that Dragon cartoon) are the funniest things I've seen all week.
True, because as we all know, leaving the computer to goto the bathroom is the cause of pre-mature death of computer geeks!
I think Slashcode should detect URLs and make them linkable automatically.
That, or the lazy ass posters can just take the extra two seconds to add the <a href=""> and </a> around their URLs and avoid the problem altogether. You don't even have to change the pull-down menu from "Plain Old Text" either, it still works!
See, look ma! I just made a link!
Under communism, man exploits man. Under capitalism, it's the other way around...
You broke the chain jerky! That's the first time I've EVER seen 6 insightful(ly modded) comments in a row, and you had to go screw it up. Figures it be you, "Anonymous Coward". All you post is crap anyways...