Based on previous posts in the last week, there's not much reason not to rely on extensions - after all, IE and Windows do.
The reason the thing is treated as an executable is because the the.pif extension... there's no really good reason for anyone to want to send you a PIF file these days - they are more or less a DOS/Win3.x hangover. Block *.pif.
[agreed that useful info about the worm would be good too]
Well, I have 140Gb of storage for MP3s. I'd like to be able to carry that around, for a start. No more media for my walkman - just everything already in it.
But there are also best-practice methods to avoid bugs in the first place during the coding stage. Software is not a manufacturing process where you can only test the end product. It's an engineering process which can have checks and balances all through development.
Ironically, you can find a lot of good information about this in a Microsoft Press book: Writing Solid Code by Steve Maguire. As Maguire points out, leaving your bugfinding to the testers is folly.
Aren't human eyes limited to seeing color of no greater quality than 24bit color?
Not quite. From memory, the number of colours shown (16.7 million) is close to the number of distinguishable colours, but the two sets of colours are not in the same colourspace, so it it isn't actually good enough that you can't see the difference between adjacent colours in RGB-8bit space, even though the number of colours is right.
Also, the shades within the RGB-8bit space are distributed evenly amongst red, green and blue, whereas the eye is more sensitive to green, then red, then blue.
Look up 'gamut' in a decent graphics book, like Foley & Van Dam.
All new cards it seem should come not only with good 3D, but video in and out, TV tuners, and the ability to do hardware MPEG2 compression of full-frame video at zero cost to the CPU. At that point the video card arms race would make more sense..
But I don't want to pay for a TV tuner with my video card any more than I want an Instant Messaging app with my OS or Browser.
What I would expect is that if they are going to offer these features, then they should at least be of some reasonable quality - see my other post about quality of picture on TV-outs.
I'd also expect to be able to trade off features/performance for either price or power consumption (and therefore heat/noise), but I'm apparently the only person who cares about that. Or PCI for a second-head.
I wish more reviews covered the quality of the TV-out. I'm trying to put together a system to run as a jukebox through my TV, and I have yet to find a single card that procuces acceptable quality video on the TV.
The TV is OK (sony trinitron), and my Dreamcast and PS2 both produces razor-sharp, rock-solid text and graphics on it. Why can't a PC video card do that?
(Besides, the Ti-200 is priced not much higher than some GeForce 2MX - about 130UKP. It's not a high-end card. After christmas it'll be the standard 'okay I guess' card).
National pride. It's charming, but gets obnoxious fast.
You want to try reading slashdot sometime.
Re:Slashdot search index - fencepost error
on
Swaying CPU Fans
·
· Score: 2
words of less than 3 characters are not indexed
This means that searches for things like "IBM" or "cpu" or "CSS", etc end up with no results.
No, it would mean 'is' and 'it' aren't indexed. Since the page actually says less than 4, your second statement is true though - which is wierd considering the number of TLAs in/. articles.
Maybe "internal consistency" is something that a mass-marketed OS might want, but for the legions of DIY'ers out there, is this something to be worried about in an open-source OS?
For end-users, it's important. As an example, if I go to the Control Center thingy in my desktop and change the Theme, not all of my windows change to match it? Why? because xemacs, xedit, ddd and koffice don't actually take any notice of the GTK settings. As an end-user, I shouldn't have to care about things like that - they should work together, and in a predictable way.(*)
Assuming for a moment that the general desktop is a target audience for Linux, then it's an important thing to behave at least as consistently as say MacOS or Windows (not that I find MacOS all that consistent, personally).
(* Yes, I know it's a bit contrived, and I seem to recall there's a GTK xemacs nowadays, but whatever...)
You may want to take a look at Hansa Financials, which is now available on Linux. We were looking at it a few years ago as a back-end to integrate with an e-commerc product (never happened).
The nice parts are that the system has a documented client/server protocol (which they call "Open TCP/IP" for no good reason). Can run on Windows, Mac and Linux. Fairly sensible licensing, from memory. Nice people.
From my limited experience (I'm no accountant), it did what you'd expect, but you saw a lot more of the database directly than you do with Sage Line 50 (the other package I know a bit about).
I agree. I have DVDROM in most of my PCs, and a DVD player. I used the PS2's DVD playing exactly once, just to see what it was like (annoying with a game-pad as a remote).
What attracted me to the Q was the sexy case compared with the fisher-price inspired original game cube.
...curious if anyone has picked up a real, honest-to-God DVB broadcast on a PC?
I have, in the UK, but not of UK TV... it seems a lot of the rest of europe settled on standard DVB for digital TV, whereas the UK went it's own way. I wish I could get the MPEG-2 stream for my ITV Digital subscription, for instance.
Re:Ease of copying killed the Dreamcast...
on
Sony vs Modchips
·
· Score: 1
I didn't say there was a KyroII X server. Come to that, you didn't ask for one - you wanted a dreamcast running X. You can do that today.
Take a look at Boob! and check in the download sections.
Besides, where else can you use photoshop, illustrator, gimp, and apache all on one box?
Err, Windows. Provided you can get around the brain-damaged memory-management that Photoshop and Illustrator inherited from their mac cousins ("allocate 50% of memory to this app"?).
Supposedly part of the reason they suck compared to similarly-clocked 32-bit CPUs is that the compiler-optimisations required for ia64 are radically different from those used for x86.
Not to defend Intel, but there has been about 10-15 years to develop compiler technology for the 386...
Re:Ease of copying killed the Dreamcast...
on
Sony vs Modchips
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Make an X server for that graphics chip you use that runs on both the DC and PC hardware (my buddy has a PC based version of your DC graphics chip, no X server exists) Make sure you ship ethernet adapters, keyboards, mice, hard drive adaptors and some friggen version of linux with the thing. I for one would gladly pay $200-300 for a completely custamizable system than can be used as an X terminal on any TV
Sega don't (didn't) make the graphics chip, Videologic do. The (current) "PC Version" is the Kyro II, which uses a similar Tile Accelerator approach to the PVR chipset in the DC. There is an X server, and linux, and keyboards, and mice, and ethernet available for the DC. You would pay about $2-300 to do that (without a harddisk), once you'd found someone willing to sell you the ethernet (in short supply).
You'd probably be better off getting something like this x86 settop box for the same money, which would be quieter (silent vs DC's noisy fan) and easier get binaries and bits for (but suck for games), and you can either add a 2.5" HDD to it, or keep it silent and boot off a dirt-cheap CompactFlash, your server, or DiskOnChip.
Personally, I would not use X on an 800x600 monitor, let alone my TV.
"The writer of the slashdot blurb probably assumed that people reading what he wrote would read the article, and thus notice" that the article said exactly the opposite of what he said.
Editorialising is usually adding an opinion to a fact, not completely obscuring the fact. Not to mention it's usually done by the editor. Taco's contribution was to not care about DVD zoning.
I am curious as to why this game wasn't released. Why did it remain vaporware?
Many games for the 2600, even in advanced stages of development, were canned when the market for that console collapsed. People couldn't dump it quick enough...
I didn't much like the weapon line-up in UT, but I did like the gameplay modes - particularly Assault and Domination.
If there was (and I suppose there probably is) a mod for Q3A for those game modes then I'd not bother playing UT at all. I don't player either that much, except for a quick burst of Urban Terror every now and then at work.
You're right, I'd much rather spend $300+ on a console that isn't substantially different to my PC to play a game that has been getting decidedly mixed reviews.
Are you on commission?
(I'm not interested in either RTCW or MOH either, thankyou)
It'll be that intake fan that changed the gameplay for you. Try changing it for a Papst, and the game will feel a little more atmospheric. *rolls eyes*
Slashdot Mirror
Based on previous posts in the last week, there's not much reason not to rely on extensions - after all, IE and Windows do.
.pif extension... there's no really good reason for anyone to want to send you a PIF file these days - they are more or less a DOS/Win3.x hangover. Block *.pif.
The reason the thing is treated as an executable is because the the
[agreed that useful info about the worm would be good too]
Well, I have 140Gb of storage for MP3s. I'd like to be able to carry that around, for a start. No more media for my walkman - just everything already in it.
Actually, I think the huge thread of indignant rebuttals is funnier than the article itself, almost. Thanks for the link.
Ironically, you can find a lot of good information about this in a Microsoft Press book: Writing Solid Code by Steve Maguire. As Maguire points out, leaving your bugfinding to the testers is folly.
You play EQ enough that you are considering buying a $300+ video card to support your habit, and you still have a wife? ;-)
Aren't human eyes limited to seeing color of no greater quality than 24bit color?
Not quite. From memory, the number of colours shown (16.7 million) is close to the number of distinguishable colours, but the two sets of colours are not in the same colourspace, so it it isn't actually good enough that you can't see the difference between adjacent colours in RGB-8bit space, even though the number of colours is right.
Also, the shades within the RGB-8bit space are distributed evenly amongst red, green and blue, whereas the eye is more sensitive to green, then red, then blue.
Look up 'gamut' in a decent graphics book, like Foley & Van Dam.
All new cards it seem should come not only with good 3D, but video in and out, TV tuners, and the ability to do hardware MPEG2 compression of full-frame video at zero cost to the CPU. At that point the video card arms race would make more sense..
But I don't want to pay for a TV tuner with my video card any more than I want an Instant Messaging app with my OS or Browser.
What I would expect is that if they are going to offer these features, then they should at least be of some reasonable quality - see my other post about quality of picture on TV-outs.
I'd also expect to be able to trade off features/performance for either price or power consumption (and therefore heat/noise), but I'm apparently the only person who cares about that. Or PCI for a second-head.
I wish more reviews covered the quality of the TV-out. I'm trying to put together a system to run as a jukebox through my TV, and I have yet to find a single card that procuces acceptable quality video on the TV.
The TV is OK (sony trinitron), and my Dreamcast and PS2 both produces razor-sharp, rock-solid text and graphics on it. Why can't a PC video card do that?
(Besides, the Ti-200 is priced not much higher than some GeForce 2MX - about 130UKP. It's not a high-end card. After christmas it'll be the standard 'okay I guess' card).
National pride. It's charming, but gets obnoxious fast.
You want to try reading slashdot sometime.
words of less than 3 characters are not indexed
/. articles.
This means that searches for things like "IBM" or "cpu" or "CSS", etc end up with no results.
No, it would mean 'is' and 'it' aren't indexed. Since the page actually says less than 4, your second statement is true though - which is wierd considering the number of TLAs in
This is the second post I've seen that assumes you'd project 3d graphics onto this thing. What about video?
I'm sure existing 360 and 180-degree camera technology, plus some clever DSP/image-processing could get you immersive live environments too.
Visit the space-shuttle. Swim the great barrier reef. Be on the frontline for war reporting.
Maybe "internal consistency" is something that a mass-marketed OS might want, but for the legions of DIY'ers out there, is this something to be worried about in an open-source OS?
For end-users, it's important. As an example, if I go to the Control Center thingy in my desktop and change the Theme, not all of my windows change to match it? Why? because xemacs, xedit, ddd and koffice don't actually take any notice of the GTK settings. As an end-user, I shouldn't have to care about things like that - they should work together, and in a predictable way.(*)
Assuming for a moment that the general desktop is a target audience for Linux, then it's an important thing to behave at least as consistently as say MacOS or Windows (not that I find MacOS all that consistent, personally).
(* Yes, I know it's a bit contrived, and I seem to recall there's a GTK xemacs nowadays, but whatever...)
You may want to take a look at Hansa Financials, which is now available on Linux. We were looking at it a few years ago as a back-end to integrate with an e-commerc product (never happened).
The nice parts are that the system has a documented client/server protocol (which they call "Open TCP/IP" for no good reason). Can run on Windows, Mac and Linux. Fairly sensible licensing, from memory. Nice people.
From my limited experience (I'm no accountant), it did what you'd expect, but you saw a lot more of the database directly than you do with Sage Line 50 (the other package I know a bit about).
I agree. I have DVDROM in most of my PCs, and a DVD player. I used the PS2's DVD playing exactly once, just to see what it was like (annoying with a game-pad as a remote).
What attracted me to the Q was the sexy case compared with the fisher-price inspired original game cube.
...curious if anyone has picked up a real, honest-to-God DVB broadcast on a PC?
I have, in the UK, but not of UK TV... it seems a lot of the rest of europe settled on standard DVB for digital TV, whereas the UK went it's own way. I wish I could get the MPEG-2 stream for my ITV Digital subscription, for instance.
I didn't say there was a KyroII X server. Come to that, you didn't ask for one - you wanted a dreamcast running X. You can do that today.
Take a look at Boob! and check in the download sections.
Besides, where else can you use photoshop, illustrator, gimp, and apache all on one box?
Err, Windows. Provided you can get around the brain-damaged memory-management that Photoshop and Illustrator inherited from their mac cousins ("allocate 50% of memory to this app"?).
Damn, I never thought I'd see people on Slashdot advocating the purchase of Microsoft products as a form of protest!
:)
It's the Great Satan and the Lesser Satan isn't it?
Supposedly part of the reason they suck compared to similarly-clocked 32-bit CPUs is that the compiler-optimisations required for ia64 are radically different from those used for x86.
Not to defend Intel, but there has been about 10-15 years to develop compiler technology for the 386...
Make an X server for that graphics chip you use that runs on both the DC and PC hardware (my buddy has a PC based version of your DC graphics chip, no X server exists) Make sure you ship ethernet adapters, keyboards, mice, hard drive adaptors and some friggen version of linux with the thing. I for one would gladly pay $200-300 for a completely custamizable system than can be used as an X terminal on any TV
Sega don't (didn't) make the graphics chip, Videologic do. The (current) "PC Version" is the Kyro II, which uses a similar Tile Accelerator approach to the PVR chipset in the DC. There is an X server, and linux, and keyboards, and mice, and ethernet available for the DC. You would pay about $2-300 to do that (without a harddisk), once you'd found someone willing to sell you the ethernet (in short supply).
You'd probably be better off getting something like this x86 settop box for the same money, which would be quieter (silent vs DC's noisy fan) and easier get binaries and bits for (but suck for games), and you can either add a 2.5" HDD to it, or keep it silent and boot off a dirt-cheap CompactFlash, your server, or DiskOnChip.
Personally, I would not use X on an 800x600 monitor, let alone my TV.
"The writer of the slashdot blurb probably assumed that people reading what he wrote would read the article, and thus notice" that the article said exactly the opposite of what he said.
Editorialising is usually adding an opinion to a fact, not completely obscuring the fact. Not to mention it's usually done by the editor. Taco's contribution was to not care about DVD zoning.
I am curious as to why this game wasn't released. Why did it remain vaporware?
Many games for the 2600, even in advanced stages of development, were canned when the market for that console collapsed. People couldn't dump it quick enough...
I didn't much like the weapon line-up in UT, but I did like the gameplay modes - particularly Assault and Domination.
If there was (and I suppose there probably is) a mod for Q3A for those game modes then I'd not bother playing UT at all. I don't player either that much, except for a quick burst of Urban Terror every now and then at work.
You're right, I'd much rather spend $300+ on a console that isn't substantially different to my PC to play a game that has been getting decidedly mixed reviews.
Are you on commission?
(I'm not interested in either RTCW or MOH either, thankyou)
It'll be that intake fan that changed the gameplay for you. Try changing it for a Papst, and the game will feel a little more atmospheric. *rolls eyes*