Actually I saw something rather interesting while I was at Circut City. My girlfriend was waiting (forever) in line to buy something so I gave the console game section a thourough look through. Right next door they had the consoles set up. The whole time I was there someone was always glued to the gamecube, and people would actually watch other people play. With the PS2 people sort of came and went (what I would consider average traffic). The only time it seemed like someone would try out the Xbox would be when the Game Cube and PS2 were already taken and they wanted to play "something". From those observations I would gather that the only thing holding the cube back, is the shortage of the systems. I continue to see X boxes on the shelves so I'm not so sure MS is in the same situation....
Another consideration might be that anyone that has a PS1, can STILL play their PS1 games on a PS2. Having been poor for quite a while I guess I missed out on having a Play Station, but I'm actually finding those old PS1 games to be a lot of fun (where I can still buy them). The only other system I've ever seen backwards compatable is the Sega Genesis, where you can buy an addon to play older MasterSystem (like anyone had one of those;) games. If the PS3 lets me play PS2 (and even better along with PS1) games, then it's going to be no contest that I will buy a PS3 over a Nintendo Game Globe, and a Microsoft XP Box.NET
Install an alternative UNIX: FreeBSD or Linux . Write an essay on the differences between installing i386 UNIX and Windows.
My UNIX Install experience.
For my project I decided to install a Linux. First of all,I missed class so I didn't get the CD. So I went to a bunch of warez sites to look for it to download, but I couldn't find it. My friend says you can get it for free, but who knows what he's been smoking. I mean you don't just GIVE an operating system away for free you know? Eventually I got a couple CD's from a friend of a friend. It then asks a bunch of complicated questions about "partitions" and stuff, so I just hit enter or okay for everything. I didn't see any C: drive mentioned, so I don't even know if it installed on the computer (but I think it did because it started). So anyway, I got it to start, but in order to see my desktop, I have to configure some file because the resolution is all messed up or something and Xwindows won't start. A friend of a friend told me where the file was to configure it, but I guess I have to use this program called V.I. to edit it. Well the program must have been broken or something because it wouldn't let me enter anything. I mean you press some keys and the cursor jumps around, and sometimes it deletes stuff. Since I couldn't get it to work I shut off the computer. I can't find my Windows 98SE CD, so I think my computer is broken....
Well I think mastering only 1 language might be a bit drastic. With constant usage, I think you could probably master a language in about 3 or so years. I do agree that learning a language is more into its philosophy. Looking at my older perl programs, I see that they are basically C programs with '$' in front of the variables. It worked, but I was obviously missing the true power of the language. Now I struggle between the power of Perl, ballenced with readability (and yes, that can be a challenge in Perl). Oh well, that's what comments are for...
I guess you could say things have come full circle. It used to be that you had to optimize image/file sizes for the people with old modems like the 14.4 . The lucky 28.8 people weren't so much of a problem. Then it became "high bandwidth" on the users end and websites stopped optimizing. Perhaps this is just the beginning of going back to optimizing those files to save bandwidth on the server end. I know that I've been stripping down a few sections on my page here and there (but I've always been more for small graphics, lots of text). A difference of 50k per page can make a huge difference when we're talking a lot of hits.
That being said, I think there is also a fundamental problem with the way people tend to be exposed to music now days. Getting a fresh sound from MTV? Good luck. The vast majority of radio stations are also pushing this crap. I think we're all sort of the victim of the big corperation here. For people who don't know where to find "different" music, they're exposure/choices are rather limited.
Re:XP? Wouldn't Linux be just as easy?
on
al Qaeda Hacks XP?
·
· Score: 1
Well that's where open source differs. With MS we just don't know. In Linux you could do such a thing, but getting it distributed is the problem. Getting that code all the way into whatever is considered a major distro point for Linux would be a feat in itself, as it gets looked at quite often for casually browsing, testing, and for "quality" assurance.
You put stuff you didn't want anymore in the trash can
That's the thing I really hate about explaining Macs to people. "Oh, so I have to trash my floppy disk to get it out? Doesn't that delete it?" Seems to me that the people at Apple could have thought of something a LITTLE better than putting the floppy icon into the trash can icon to get it to eject...
It is possible to build labyrinths of internal directories that eventually become too deep to navigate via the mouse.
Yeah, I think that would be the big thing showing the BS of this article. Show me a metaphor where you can't screw yourself somehow. It's an old problem here. I'm the sort of person that makes a million sub directories. My friend is the sort that has a thousand files in "My Documents". Some people seem to feel that they HAVE to put their things in "My Documents" because that's where things go. Basically there is no way you can coddle a person to make up for their total lack of organization. Different metaphors may look nice for a couple hundred files, but like the "desktop" they start to break down after a couple thousand. If you make a mess because you didn't know any better, then you either better fix it, or put up with it because you never thought to learn a few more things about a computer.
Much like the russians did, eh? I don't recall any russian Mars colonies...
Considering the Soviets were the ONLY nation that successfully landed a probe on Venus, I wouldn't totally write off their contributions to space exploration.
The difference is, under socialism/communism, you don't have a CHOICE where your money goes. At least in theory, US citizens do. In russia, if you didn't like what the government did, you were shot
Well realistically I (as an individual) don't have any control over what the govement does with my tax money, so (as you say) - this is in theory. You can get shot in the US too if you don't like what the government does. Go run around Area 51 waving your arms around and see if you get shot. You might, you might not - it sort of depends on if the guards are cranky because of bad coffee.
In any case, my point is that in order for the open source movement to suceed, subscription services are essentially the only solution.
I agree.
Current software doesn't really "expire" on it's own, and as you say - no one holds a gun to your head. But what worries me is that in the future this may not be true. The new MS Office licensing scheme comes to mind. Even now it's very easy to "tie" software to a specific OS, and then require someone to buy the next version when they upgrade their OS. Which is why there is still some Win 3.1 floating around the place I work.
A game written in Perl for Linux by Microsoft starring Natalie Portman and the latex clad BSD Grrls... Now if MS REALLY wanted to poke the eye of the open source/Linux community, they would make this game, but force you to use MS passport to play!
Okay, maybe I'm wrong here (as I often am), but there is a distinct difference with open source. Redhat makes things easier to use, and easier to update, and thus sell themselves as a service. The difference is that Redhat can't FORCE me to do anything. I don't have to stay with Redhat to upgrade my kernel or any other package - it just takes a bit more work. What subscription is about is when a corporation forces me to upgrade. When a software company drives the bus, you have no choice but to ride along and pay whatever fee they dictate.
Maybe that's why I'm more comfortable with open source. If I think a product is good quality I have no problem paying for it. Especially since I know that I can use it as long as I want, and there's nothing they can do about it. I mean that should be my right when I purchase software in my opinion. With open source paying is more about 'support'. Truthfully I have yet to get any real support with commercial closed source software. Usually you just get an answer such as "we're working on" / "wait for" the next fix (which quite often never materializes), "it works for us", or "wait until the next version". And I'm paying for this? Do I want to pay for 5 extra features, a new splash screen, loadtime++, and version++ ? No. Nor do I think I should unless I really feel that the next version is really a better product worth paying for. To me that's what a subscription for software is all about - making you take the upgrade up the rear whether you like it or not. Okay, that turned into a long rant...
Of course as I post this, Mozilla fucks up the form submission for the *nth time... (sigh)
I know how you feel, I still use a windows 3.1 program to mess with wav files. Why upgrade? I hardly use most of the features now. I guess I feel sort of fortunate to be using windows 2000 which has run pretty much every old program I have on it. By contrast, I know a lot of people that switched to XP , which told them to go pound sand when they try to install fairly recent programs.
Usually when something doesn't work, I find it's time to look for (open source) alternatives. If you're looking for something to rip CD's, try CD-DA X-Tractor, and as far as I know, Winamp works fine on XP and is free. When I didn't want to upgrade Corel Word Perfect 7, I switched to Open office. When ICQ stopped working, I switched to Miranda ICQ. Usually you sort of pay the price in dealing with the small quirks in these programs, but at least you have the assurance that they won't pressure you to upgrade... and hell, it's free to upgrade anyway, so why not?
Personally I really like the way These guys do things. You pay one decent fee ONCE, and that's it. Upgrades/fixes/whatever as long as you want.
that is until 2 years later when the computer is obsolite. Then it's not only obsolite, it's damn noisy too! There's a dell powerEdge in my office running as a server, and the thing is loud as HELL. I'd just love to chuck the thing out the window and watch that huge fan in back kiss the pavement. Dell just wasn't thinking, I mean the thing has a 900Mhz processor and one hard drive. Beside it sits a PowerEdge 4400 with 3 15k RPM hard drives, dual 1Ghz processors, and a lot more components inside, and it doesn't even make half the noise. A lot of times it seems like computers are noisey when they don't have to be, which is why I'll never again buy a fan from Radioshack (yeah yeah, I was too lazy to look elsewhere). Having a suped up car with loud pipes is one thing, but a loud computer is sort of like trying to be manly by bragging about your toaster:)
Well if you follow some rules it shouldn't matter what language you use:) Really though, difficulty reading a language is usually due to
1) lack of commenting (duh!)
2) being unfamiliar with a language
3) lack of organization (formatting code blocks)
Perl programmers tend to be bad on the third point, but it's not the fault of the language. Personally I find it easier to read a program where my variables are easily marked with a $ in front, but that's probably a sign I've done Perl to long.
yeah, that actually works most of the time, but I still get IE sometimes. It seems like there are times when some things don't ask the OS for the browser, they just go look explicitly for IE. [sarcasm] because we all know windows users ONLY use IE [/sarcasm]
a virus scanner that would probably end up completely crippling MS outlook? I'm not sure this would be a big selling point, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to work on the tech support team and get a flood of calls reguarding this. Still that sort of leads you back to the first point of why do I need a separate program to protect me, when the program should have that safety built in?
But then again maybe I think this way because I don't have any faith in anti virus programs.
considering win95 doesn't know what to do with more than 64 megs of ram, and that Mozilla sucks up way more than that (typically 124 Megs in memory on W2k), you'd be much better off with Opera
if you know it's spam just by it's title, you should probably set up a filter just to send it to the trash. I dump about 90% of my spam just by specifying anything that isn't addressed to me, to go to the trash (assumably they use cc, or bcc).
Which brings up the point, that this is supposed to be a list of things that promotes violence. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a kid would probably only want a DBZ action figure if they had actually seen the show, and to me it would seem that if they already watch the show, "the damage is done". Give a kid who has never seen DBZ the figure and they won't know what to make of it. I mean it's the show itself that is the connection, and if you didn't want your kids acting out on it, you wouldn't let them watch it in the first place.
Now would I want my kid doing super fast attacks that look like wrap around animation, while floating around the house and shooting flaming orbs everywhere? Not really, but then again I don't see how this action figure would let them do that anyway. And if it could, I'd buy it for myself!
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I saw something rather interesting while I was at Circut City. My girlfriend was waiting (forever) in line to buy something so I gave the console game section a thourough look through. Right next door they had the consoles set up. The whole time I was there someone was always glued to the gamecube, and people would actually watch other people play. With the PS2 people sort of came and went (what I would consider average traffic). The only time it seemed like someone would try out the Xbox would be when the Game Cube and PS2 were already taken and they wanted to play "something". From those observations I would gather that the only thing holding the cube back, is the shortage of the systems. I continue to see X boxes on the shelves so I'm not so sure MS is in the same situation....
Another consideration might be that anyone that has a PS1, can STILL play their PS1 games on a PS2. Having been poor for quite a while I guess I missed out on having a Play Station, but I'm actually finding those old PS1 games to be a lot of fun (where I can still buy them). The only other system I've ever seen backwards compatable is the Sega Genesis, where you can buy an addon to play older MasterSystem (like anyone had one of those ;) games. If the PS3 lets me play PS2 (and even better along with PS1) games, then it's going to be no contest that I will buy a PS3 over a Nintendo Game Globe, and a Microsoft XP Box .NET
OK, make it an assignment:
:)
Install an alternative UNIX: FreeBSD or Linux . Write an essay on the differences between installing i386 UNIX and Windows.
My UNIX Install experience.
For my project I decided to install a Linux. First of all,I missed class so I didn't get the CD. So I went to a bunch of warez sites to look for it to download, but I couldn't find it. My friend says you can get it for free, but who knows what he's been smoking. I mean you don't just GIVE an operating system away for free you know? Eventually I got a couple CD's from a friend of a friend. It then asks a bunch of complicated questions about "partitions" and stuff, so I just hit enter or okay for everything. I didn't see any C: drive mentioned, so I don't even know if it installed on the computer (but I think it did because it started). So anyway, I got it to start, but in order to see my desktop, I have to configure some file because the resolution is all messed up or something and Xwindows won't start. A friend of a friend told me where the file was to configure it, but I guess I have to use this program called V.I. to edit it. Well the program must have been broken or something because it wouldn't let me enter anything. I mean you press some keys and the cursor jumps around, and sometimes it deletes stuff. Since I couldn't get it to work I shut off the computer. I can't find my Windows 98SE CD, so I think my computer is broken....
and Yes, this is flaimbait
Well I think mastering only 1 language might be a bit drastic. With constant usage, I think you could probably master a language in about 3 or so years. I do agree that learning a language is more into its philosophy. Looking at my older perl programs, I see that they are basically C programs with '$' in front of the variables. It worked, but I was obviously missing the true power of the language. Now I struggle between the power of Perl, ballenced with readability (and yes, that can be a challenge in Perl). Oh well, that's what comments are for...
I guess you could say things have come full circle. It used to be that you had to optimize image/file sizes for the people with old modems like the 14.4 . The lucky 28.8 people weren't so much of a problem. Then it became "high bandwidth" on the users end and websites stopped optimizing. Perhaps this is just the beginning of going back to optimizing those files to save bandwidth on the server end. I know that I've been stripping down a few sections on my page here and there (but I've always been more for small graphics, lots of text). A difference of 50k per page can make a huge difference when we're talking a lot of hits.
That being said, I think there is also a fundamental problem with the way people tend to be exposed to music now days. Getting a fresh sound from MTV? Good luck. The vast majority of radio stations are also pushing this crap. I think we're all sort of the victim of the big corperation here. For people who don't know where to find "different" music, they're exposure/choices are rather limited.
Well that's where open source differs. With MS we just don't know. In Linux you could do such a thing, but getting it distributed is the problem. Getting that code all the way into whatever is considered a major distro point for Linux would be a feat in itself, as it gets looked at quite often for casually browsing, testing, and for "quality" assurance.
You put stuff you didn't want anymore in the trash can
That's the thing I really hate about explaining Macs to people. "Oh, so I have to trash my floppy disk to get it out? Doesn't that delete it?" Seems to me that the people at Apple could have thought of something a LITTLE better than putting the floppy icon into the trash can icon to get it to eject...
It is possible to build labyrinths of internal directories that eventually become too deep to navigate via the mouse.
Yeah, I think that would be the big thing showing the BS of this article. Show me a metaphor where you can't screw yourself somehow. It's an old problem here. I'm the sort of person that makes a million sub directories. My friend is the sort that has a thousand files in "My Documents". Some people seem to feel that they HAVE to put their things in "My Documents" because that's where things go. Basically there is no way you can coddle a person to make up for their total lack of organization. Different metaphors may look nice for a couple hundred files, but like the "desktop" they start to break down after a couple thousand. If you make a mess because you didn't know any better, then you either better fix it, or put up with it because you never thought to learn a few more things about a computer.
Much like the russians did, eh? I don't recall any russian Mars colonies...
Considering the Soviets were the ONLY nation that successfully landed a probe on Venus, I wouldn't totally write off their contributions to space exploration.
The difference is, under socialism/communism, you don't have a CHOICE where your money goes. At least in theory, US citizens do. In russia, if you didn't like what the government did, you were shot
Well realistically I (as an individual) don't have any control over what the govement does with my tax money, so (as you say) - this is in theory. You can get shot in the US too if you don't like what the government does. Go run around Area 51 waving your arms around and see if you get shot. You might, you might not - it sort of depends on if the guards are cranky because of bad coffee.
I'm done nit-picking now.
"Does it mean I have to use real names for my variables instead of just my favorite letters? "
I wish someone would apply this to some of the program names in Linux...
Orrin Hatch - not notable for intelligent remarks - actually spoke up against Microsoft!
That's a bug. It should be fixed in M$ goverment 2.0
In any case, my point is that in order for the open source movement to suceed, subscription services are essentially the only solution.
I agree.
Current software doesn't really "expire" on it's own, and as you say - no one holds a gun to your head. But what worries me is that in the future this may not be true. The new MS Office licensing scheme comes to mind. Even now it's very easy to "tie" software to a specific OS, and then require someone to buy the next version when they upgrade their OS. Which is why there is still some Win 3.1 floating around the place I work.
A game written in Perl for Linux by Microsoft starring Natalie Portman and the latex clad BSD Grrls... Now if MS REALLY wanted to poke the eye of the open source/Linux community, they would make this game, but force you to use MS passport to play!
Okay, maybe I'm wrong here (as I often am), but there is a distinct difference with open source. Redhat makes things easier to use, and easier to update, and thus sell themselves as a service. The difference is that Redhat can't FORCE me to do anything. I don't have to stay with Redhat to upgrade my kernel or any other package - it just takes a bit more work. What subscription is about is when a corporation forces me to upgrade. When a software company drives the bus, you have no choice but to ride along and pay whatever fee they dictate.
Maybe that's why I'm more comfortable with open source. If I think a product is good quality I have no problem paying for it. Especially since I know that I can use it as long as I want, and there's nothing they can do about it. I mean that should be my right when I purchase software in my opinion. With open source paying is more about 'support'. Truthfully I have yet to get any real support with commercial closed source software. Usually you just get an answer such as "we're working on" / "wait for" the next fix (which quite often never materializes), "it works for us", or "wait until the next version". And I'm paying for this? Do I want to pay for 5 extra features, a new splash screen, loadtime++, and version++ ? No. Nor do I think I should unless I really feel that the next version is really a better product worth paying for. To me that's what a subscription for software is all about - making you take the upgrade up the rear whether you like it or not. Okay, that turned into a long rant...
Of course as I post this, Mozilla fucks up the form submission for the *nth time... (sigh)
um.... okay, if I can download the source, and compile it, then how are they going to charge me for a subscription?
I know how you feel, I still use a windows 3.1 program to mess with wav files. Why upgrade? I hardly use most of the features now. I guess I feel sort of fortunate to be using windows 2000 which has run pretty much every old program I have on it. By contrast, I know a lot of people that switched to XP , which told them to go pound sand when they try to install fairly recent programs.
Usually when something doesn't work, I find it's time to look for (open source) alternatives. If you're looking for something to rip CD's, try CD-DA X-Tractor, and as far as I know, Winamp works fine on XP and is free. When I didn't want to upgrade Corel Word Perfect 7, I switched to Open office. When ICQ stopped working, I switched to Miranda ICQ. Usually you sort of pay the price in dealing with the small quirks in these programs, but at least you have the assurance that they won't pressure you to upgrade... and hell, it's free to upgrade anyway, so why not?
Personally I really like the way These guys do things. You pay one decent fee ONCE, and that's it. Upgrades/fixes/whatever as long as you want.
that is until 2 years later when the computer is obsolite. Then it's not only obsolite, it's damn noisy too! There's a dell powerEdge in my office running as a server, and the thing is loud as HELL. I'd just love to chuck the thing out the window and watch that huge fan in back kiss the pavement. Dell just wasn't thinking, I mean the thing has a 900Mhz processor and one hard drive. Beside it sits a PowerEdge 4400 with 3 15k RPM hard drives, dual 1Ghz processors, and a lot more components inside, and it doesn't even make half the noise. A lot of times it seems like computers are noisey when they don't have to be, which is why I'll never again buy a fan from Radioshack (yeah yeah, I was too lazy to look elsewhere). Having a suped up car with loud pipes is one thing, but a loud computer is sort of like trying to be manly by bragging about your toaster :)
[fbi.exe has preformed an illegal operation]
dammit, how many times do I have to reinstall this thing before it works?!
"if you follow some rules. "
:) Really though, difficulty reading a language is usually due to
Well if you follow some rules it shouldn't matter what language you use
1) lack of commenting (duh!)
2) being unfamiliar with a language
3) lack of organization (formatting code blocks)
Perl programmers tend to be bad on the third point, but it's not the fault of the language. Personally I find it easier to read a program where my variables are easily marked with a $ in front, but that's probably a sign I've done Perl to long.
yeah, that actually works most of the time, but I still get IE sometimes. It seems like there are times when some things don't ask the OS for the browser, they just go look explicitly for IE.
[sarcasm] because we all know windows users ONLY use IE [/sarcasm]
a virus scanner that would probably end up completely crippling MS outlook? I'm not sure this would be a big selling point, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to work on the tech support team and get a flood of calls reguarding this. Still that sort of leads you back to the first point of why do I need a separate program to protect me, when the program should have that safety built in?
But then again maybe I think this way because I don't have any faith in anti virus programs.
considering win95 doesn't know what to do with more than 64 megs of ram, and that Mozilla sucks up way more than that (typically 124 Megs in memory on W2k), you'd be much better off with Opera
if you know it's spam just by it's title, you should probably set up a filter just to send it to the trash. I dump about 90% of my spam just by specifying anything that isn't addressed to me, to go to the trash (assumably they use cc, or bcc).
Which brings up the point, that this is supposed to be a list of things that promotes violence. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a kid would probably only want a DBZ action figure if they had actually seen the show, and to me it would seem that if they already watch the show, "the damage is done". Give a kid who has never seen DBZ the figure and they won't know what to make of it. I mean it's the show itself that is the connection, and if you didn't want your kids acting out on it, you wouldn't let them watch it in the first place.
Now would I want my kid doing super fast attacks that look like wrap around animation, while floating around the house and shooting flaming orbs everywhere? Not really, but then again I don't see how this action figure would let them do that anyway. And if it could, I'd buy it for myself!