Regardless of the system chosen, make sure that the same system is implemented consistently across the entire electorate. Voting procedures should be the same for each and every electorate and polling place - none of the BS where each state and/or county can decide how the elections are to be run. One system implemented identically across the whole country.
I agree - the best maps available for some games are in the guidebooks, but some maps in guidebooks are not worth the paper they are printed on. I've found the Prima books to have some of the worst maps possible. I want a large, clear, yet detailed map of the level with hints and tips on completing the level - not some damn walkthrough with a thousand nearly useless, tiny screenshots. I'd like to see some gameguides written in the style of the early Infocom and Sierra ones - none of the secrets were revealed until you used a special overlay or "magic pen" to display the hidden text plus they were written in an easy-to-read style with good humour. Now days you just get a straight walkthrough - click here, move to this spot, use this weapon to kill X, etc. Some guides these days are still quite good, but most are crap...
The irony was that Hotmail tossed this email into my "Bulk Mail" folder with the rest of the spam I get. I had subscribed to receive the "executive emails" from Microsoft, and yet Hotmail still thinks it is spam...
I had a quiet chuckle when I got to this line in the email: Part of the challenge in curbing spam lies in accurately identifying legitimate commercial email.
If you wanna play the game on the GBA, then carry the freaking attachment. You don't want to carry the attachment, then don't play the game. Very simple choice - perfect for simple people like you.
I was recently given a new mobile phone by my phone company as part of a promotion for their new 2.5G service. It has a camera and all the goodies, including Java games. INterestingly there are a lot of the old so-called "abandoned" games that are being ported to Java and sold for these new phones. Therefore the copyright owners are still able to benefit from their creations. However the abandonware sites severaly diminish the market for these conversions. I mean, why pay $5 (Australian - that'd be about $2.50 US) for a copy of Asteroids, Pacman, Space Invaders, Arkanoid, Burger Time, Prnie of Persia etc when you can download them for free form an abandonware site?
These games are still under copyright. It may not be easy to track down the copyright holder in many cases, but just because you cannot buy the game in the stores now, that doesn't mean you can copy it freely. The owners may choose to release new ports and/or updated versions of the games in the future - which they are perfectly entitled to do.
Until the copyright law is changed (as if that will ever happen!) these works are still protected by copyright and without express permission, you cannot copy them.
I've also checked the games with cards in both slots, and only Rogue Leader and Sonic will load data form cards in Slot B. (FWIW, I put a blank card in Slot A and the card with all my game data in Slot B - none of the games could find the game data and instead proceded to save a new file to Slot A.)
Of course, I may have purchased the only 11 games that refuse to look at Slot B, but I doubt it.;-)
This has been one of my biggest frustrations with the 'Cube. I actually have a total of four memory cards (two were freebies - not just the one I mentioned in an earlier post - and one is a MC251) and I save almost everything to the MC251, so it is not an insurmountable problem, but the only reason I bought the MC251 was because of the pain involved with switching the smaller cards around and remembering which damn card I had saved which game on.
My guess on this issue is that the APIs to access the memory card must be very rudimentary making it awkward to check which slot has a card in place before accessing files on the card(s).
Which games have you got which only recognise the first slot?
I'll just check each of my games with a single memory card loaded in Slot B...
Games that do not recognise the memory card and ask for a card to be inserted into Slot A:
Starfox Adventures; Metroid Prime; Super Smash Bros Melee; Burnout; Super Monkey Ball; Super Mario Sunshine; Luigi's Mansion; Wave Race Blue Storm; Pikmin; F1 2002; Driven
Games that I own that do recognise a memory card in the second slot:
Rogue Leader; Sonic Adventure Battle 2
Interesting thing I noted - Rogue Leader will read data from a card in Slot B, but if there are two cards inserted with Rogue Leader save games on them, only the card in SLot A will be read. Sonic will ask which slot to read/save to.
Overall, 11 out of 13 games I own will not recognise a memory card inserted into Slot B, instead insisting that a card be inserted in Slot A. Of those games, two are reasonably recent releases (Metroid and Starfox Adventures).
My biggest issue with the memory cards is not the number of save files, but the fact that although the GameCube has two memory card slots, the overwhelming majority of games will only recognise a card in the first slot. Why have two slots if the only way of accessing the second slot is to use the built-in interface for copying/moving files?
I have two MC59s - I purchased one with the 'Cube and got a freebie when I bought a game a few months back. I have enough space on both cards for the games I play, but I have to swap the cards over to be able to access the darn things. I would love to be able to just plug both cards in and not have to worry about which game is saved on which card and whether or not I have to swap the cards over...
Being able to use a 1gig SD card would mean I'd be able to save a butt-load of games, but why put the second fricking slot in the cube if it is not usable?
They are $200 and you save time, money and effort. Even the geek effect isn't worth it this time.
While a Tivo may be only $200, they aren't available in Australia, so I for one am very interested in building my own Tivo-like system. Also, as others have commented, Tivo requires a subscription, so that makes the cost more than just $200.
The reasons given in the article are backwards. The ad should have been shot down for billing it as high-speed - not broadband. To most users, high-speed would indicate 512k or greater, but the connection still qualifies as broadband.
I guess the decision had to be coached in terms relevant to the initial complaints, which were most likely poorly worded. I wouldn't be surprised if the member of the public was actually connected to Freeserve in some way. They should have based their complaint on the high-speed aspect of the advertising. If NTL appeals, they should be able to win, but Freeserver will no doubt come back at them with other complaints...
Re:compensation != (dollars*hours)
on
Suing for Overtime?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I think you will soon find that your emloyer considers that they factored in 'compensation' into your original package. At least that's what they "normally" do in Australia.
True - to a point. Packages are normally deemed to include consideration for "a reasonable amount of unpaid overtime". To the best of my knowledge, there have been no real challenges to determine what constitutes reasonable. I know some unions were trying to define it as being no more than 5-10 hours per week for short periods of time. (ie, not 10 hours per week, every week.)
The shuttle's recorder is pretty much redundant, since they send everything down in realtime anyway. It's unlikely that this will tell us anything new, IMHO.
Except when the shuttle is tumbling all over the place and the antenna is not pointing anywhere near one of the receiving stations... The recorder could contain some information that it gathered while the shuttle was out of control. A large chunk of the "last 32 seconds" of data transmitted by the shuttle is missing and/or unusable. The recorder will hopefully be able to fill in the gaps there and maybe give some clues to what happened even later in the process.
In most cases of "unmovable" deadlines you would have been correct. In this case though, it was a small system that had been overlooked in the Y2K audits they had done, but it turned out to be an automatic fax broadcast system (not junk-faxes but order confirmations and the like) that generated a sizable chunk of the company's revenue. The hardware this system controlled was not Y2K compliant (testing showed it would die a painful death) and was being replaced with a shiny new Y2K compliant box which the old software would not be able to talk to.
We worked our butts off and got it done in time. A few bug fixes in the first week and the thing has been working fine since with nary a hitch. If we hadn't got the client's signature absolving us of any responsibility for serious bugs due to lack of testing/design though, I wouldn;t have touched the job at all.
let me reword this for you... he absolutely needed to be able to TELL SOMEONE THAT HE HAD the app in place by midnight on Dec 31 1999.
No. He needed the app in place. It needed to run at midnight - which it did, although a couple of issues surfaced later. The client didn't need to be able to tell someone, he needed to be able to demonstrate it working.
Re:So how is it so long
on
F'd Companies
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· Score: 0
...or at the very least, know which are the right corners to cut. No matter how tight the deadline, you have to do some design work. Before you agree to take this job on, sit down with the client and explain to them the (very real) risks of not doing any design or testing. Make sure they are very clear on this. Then, if the client still insists on such a tight schedule, suggest a staged deployment.
What functionality is absolutely vital to the project? What can be delayed until a second release? Do not accept the client's initial response that all the functionality is of equal importance. No matter what the project is, there is surely some features that can be delayed slightly. This will open up some breathing room in the schedule.
Once again, make sure the client knows exactly how much of the project you will be delivering at each stage, and get them to sign a document outlining the deliverables for each stage. If you don't get the client to sign off, you could be screwed over down the track.
If the client is still insistent on tight deadlines and minimal or no testing and you are crazy enough to take this on, make sure you get them to sign a document stating that the decision to do minimal testing is theirs and that they are aware of the massive risks they are taking. Do not start this type of project without making it perfectly clear that it could go to hell in a handbasket if the system is released to production without adequate testing.
I was in the situation where we had to design, build and implement a system in a very short time frame. (Y2K project, started in Nov 1999!) The client was made aware of the risks, and my supervisor almost came to blows with him over the issue of testing. My supervisor was insisting on putting testing into the project plan. (Okay, his idea of testing was pretty scary - run the app and punch in some dummy data. No real methodology behind it, but at least it was something...) The client freaked when he saw that the project would take 3 months, thus pushing the release date to Feb 2000 - obviously no good. The client then made the decision to do no testing (apart from developer's bench testing) and he wrote a memo to that effect. as it turned out, there was one nasty bug that crept into the system, but the client was happy to wear the cost of fixing it and out butts were covered. He absolutely needed the app in place by midnight on Dec 31 1999, so he was willing to accept a potentially buggy product.
Take the time to document the requirements. Take the time to design the system. If the client wants to accept the risks of reduced testing, fine, but make them sign something to that effect (and then do even more unit testing as you are coding than you normally would) to CYA.
I do touch the tech often enough that I'm helping out the VMS guy. Mostly, that'll mean doing his documentation for him when he's done his testing. I just want to be conversant enough that I won't be a time suck while I document everything. As for learning, I find I don't know what to ask the sys admins if I don't know anything about the OS. Even when I know the system, I play dumb... it's just going to be much much easier to play dumb for VMS.
Your best bet to learn about VMS is to ask the VMS guy. You will be a time suck, but it is better asking him what he means than trying to learn some random stuff about VMS and getting it wrong when doing his documentation. (Why are you doing his documentation btw? He should do his own documentation, especially if you are not fully conversant with VMS.) Learn what you can from the VMS guy, that should give you enough insight into the general feel of VMS (quite a nice OS) to be able to start asking the right questions.
What do you want to do with VMS? Do you want to know about administrating a VMS system, general user stuff, in depth technical info, security, etc... Maybe you should just look into the history and general overview of VMS in the few days you have, then when you have a specific task in mind try to find out how to do that.
Basically, I could go in to this and not know a thing about VMS and it wouldn't really hurt my ability to do my job. However, that's not the way I like to do things... I handle processes and policies but the more I know about the client...
As I suggested above, just try to learn some history and background about VMS. When you need to do something in VMS, then ask someone who knows VMS to teach you specific tasks.
I send a lot of SMS messages in Australia, and when a message fails to arrive at the intended destination, it is usually because I was too drunk and sent it to the wrong person. Can be very bad sometimes... 8-/
I would guesstimate that only a very small handful of the thousands of messages I have sent were not delivered and that usually due to network failures. (ie, overloaded networks on New Years Eve)
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless of the system chosen, make sure that the same system is implemented consistently across the entire electorate. Voting procedures should be the same for each and every electorate and polling place - none of the BS where each state and/or county can decide how the elections are to be run. One system implemented identically across the whole country.
I agree - the best maps available for some games are in the guidebooks, but some maps in guidebooks are not worth the paper they are printed on. I've found the Prima books to have some of the worst maps possible. I want a large, clear, yet detailed map of the level with hints and tips on completing the level - not some damn walkthrough with a thousand nearly useless, tiny screenshots. I'd like to see some gameguides written in the style of the early Infocom and Sierra ones - none of the secrets were revealed until you used a special overlay or "magic pen" to display the hidden text plus they were written in an easy-to-read style with good humour. Now days you just get a straight walkthrough - click here, move to this spot, use this weapon to kill X, etc. Some guides these days are still quite good, but most are crap...
The irony was that Hotmail tossed this email into my "Bulk Mail" folder with the rest of the spam I get. I had subscribed to receive the "executive emails" from Microsoft, and yet Hotmail still thinks it is spam...
I had a quiet chuckle when I got to this line in the email: Part of the challenge in curbing spam lies in accurately identifying legitimate commercial email.
That would be he. A right twonk he is too...
The previous games released by EA have been superb on all platforms.
Bah! Rubbish!
The GameCube port was attrocious - long load-times, poor controls, handling of the cars was so-so, graphics were kinda okay but not great, etc.
You mean something like this?
If you wanna play the game on the GBA, then carry the freaking attachment. You don't want to carry the attachment, then don't play the game. Very simple choice - perfect for simple people like you.
Perhaps you'd like to point out where there is a choice?
You have several choices:
1) Pony up the $$$ and buy the e-Reader, cards, game, etc...
2) Jump on ebay and find an original Donkey Kong Jr
3) Don't play it.
Three choices, each one comes with associated costs. Pick one and be happy that you have the option of playing these games on the GBA.
I was recently given a new mobile phone by my phone company as part of a promotion for their new 2.5G service. It has a camera and all the goodies, including Java games. INterestingly there are a lot of the old so-called "abandoned" games that are being ported to Java and sold for these new phones. Therefore the copyright owners are still able to benefit from their creations. However the abandonware sites severaly diminish the market for these conversions. I mean, why pay $5 (Australian - that'd be about $2.50 US) for a copy of Asteroids, Pacman, Space Invaders, Arkanoid, Burger Time, Prnie of Persia etc when you can download them for free form an abandonware site?
These games are still under copyright. It may not be easy to track down the copyright holder in many cases, but just because you cannot buy the game in the stores now, that doesn't mean you can copy it freely. The owners may choose to release new ports and/or updated versions of the games in the future - which they are perfectly entitled to do.
Until the copyright law is changed (as if that will ever happen!) these works are still protected by copyright and without express permission, you cannot copy them.
I've also checked the games with cards in both slots, and only Rogue Leader and Sonic will load data form cards in Slot B. (FWIW, I put a blank card in Slot A and the card with all my game data in Slot B - none of the games could find the game data and instead proceded to save a new file to Slot A.)
;-)
Of course, I may have purchased the only 11 games that refuse to look at Slot B, but I doubt it.
This has been one of my biggest frustrations with the 'Cube. I actually have a total of four memory cards (two were freebies - not just the one I mentioned in an earlier post - and one is a MC251) and I save almost everything to the MC251, so it is not an insurmountable problem, but the only reason I bought the MC251 was because of the pain involved with switching the smaller cards around and remembering which damn card I had saved which game on.
My guess on this issue is that the APIs to access the memory card must be very rudimentary making it awkward to check which slot has a card in place before accessing files on the card(s).
Which games have you got which only recognise the first slot?
I'll just check each of my games with a single memory card loaded in Slot B...
Games that do not recognise the memory card and ask for a card to be inserted into Slot A:
Starfox Adventures; Metroid Prime; Super Smash Bros Melee; Burnout; Super Monkey Ball; Super Mario Sunshine; Luigi's Mansion; Wave Race Blue Storm; Pikmin; F1 2002; Driven
Games that I own that do recognise a memory card in the second slot:
Rogue Leader; Sonic Adventure Battle 2
Interesting thing I noted - Rogue Leader will read data from a card in Slot B, but if there are two cards inserted with Rogue Leader save games on them, only the card in SLot A will be read. Sonic will ask which slot to read/save to.
Overall, 11 out of 13 games I own will not recognise a memory card inserted into Slot B, instead insisting that a card be inserted in Slot A. Of those games, two are reasonably recent releases (Metroid and Starfox Adventures).
My biggest issue with the memory cards is not the number of save files, but the fact that although the GameCube has two memory card slots, the overwhelming majority of games will only recognise a card in the first slot. Why have two slots if the only way of accessing the second slot is to use the built-in interface for copying/moving files?
I have two MC59s - I purchased one with the 'Cube and got a freebie when I bought a game a few months back. I have enough space on both cards for the games I play, but I have to swap the cards over to be able to access the darn things. I would love to be able to just plug both cards in and not have to worry about which game is saved on which card and whether or not I have to swap the cards over...
Being able to use a 1gig SD card would mean I'd be able to save a butt-load of games, but why put the second fricking slot in the cube if it is not usable?
How many of these topics will we see?
As many as it takes?
They are $200 and you save time, money and effort. Even the geek effect isn't worth it this time.
While a Tivo may be only $200, they aren't available in Australia, so I for one am very interested in building my own Tivo-like system. Also, as others have commented, Tivo requires a subscription, so that makes the cost more than just $200.
The reasons given in the article are backwards. The ad should have been shot down for billing it as high-speed - not broadband. To most users, high-speed would indicate 512k or greater, but the connection still qualifies as broadband.
I guess the decision had to be coached in terms relevant to the initial complaints, which were most likely poorly worded. I wouldn't be surprised if the member of the public was actually connected to Freeserve in some way. They should have based their complaint on the high-speed aspect of the advertising. If NTL appeals, they should be able to win, but Freeserver will no doubt come back at them with other complaints...
Definitely one of my all-time favourites!
I think you will soon find that your emloyer considers that they factored in 'compensation' into your original package. At least that's what they "normally" do in Australia.
True - to a point. Packages are normally deemed to include consideration for "a reasonable amount of unpaid overtime". To the best of my knowledge, there have been no real challenges to determine what constitutes reasonable. I know some unions were trying to define it as being no more than 5-10 hours per week for short periods of time. (ie, not 10 hours per week, every week.)
The shuttle's recorder is pretty much redundant, since they send everything down in realtime anyway. It's unlikely that this will tell us anything new, IMHO.
Except when the shuttle is tumbling all over the place and the antenna is not pointing anywhere near one of the receiving stations... The recorder could contain some information that it gathered while the shuttle was out of control. A large chunk of the "last 32 seconds" of data transmitted by the shuttle is missing and/or unusable. The recorder will hopefully be able to fill in the gaps there and maybe give some clues to what happened even later in the process.
Which side of the car is the steering wheel on in Oz?
The wheel is on the right and we drive in the left. I haven't really taken much notice of which way people tend to move around shops here though...
In most cases of "unmovable" deadlines you would have been correct. In this case though, it was a small system that had been overlooked in the Y2K audits they had done, but it turned out to be an automatic fax broadcast system (not junk-faxes but order confirmations and the like) that generated a sizable chunk of the company's revenue. The hardware this system controlled was not Y2K compliant (testing showed it would die a painful death) and was being replaced with a shiny new Y2K compliant box which the old software would not be able to talk to.
We worked our butts off and got it done in time. A few bug fixes in the first week and the thing has been working fine since with nary a hitch. If we hadn't got the client's signature absolving us of any responsibility for serious bugs due to lack of testing/design though, I wouldn;t have touched the job at all.
let me reword this for you... he absolutely needed to be able to TELL SOMEONE THAT HE HAD the app in place by midnight on Dec 31 1999.
No. He needed the app in place. It needed to run at midnight - which it did, although a couple of issues surfaced later. The client didn't need to be able to tell someone, he needed to be able to demonstrate it working.
3. Profit?
...or at the very least, know which are the right corners to cut. No matter how tight the deadline, you have to do some design work. Before you agree to take this job on, sit down with the client and explain to them the (very real) risks of not doing any design or testing. Make sure they are very clear on this. Then, if the client still insists on such a tight schedule, suggest a staged deployment.
What functionality is absolutely vital to the project? What can be delayed until a second release? Do not accept the client's initial response that all the functionality is of equal importance. No matter what the project is, there is surely some features that can be delayed slightly. This will open up some breathing room in the schedule.
Once again, make sure the client knows exactly how much of the project you will be delivering at each stage, and get them to sign a document outlining the deliverables for each stage. If you don't get the client to sign off, you could be screwed over down the track.
If the client is still insistent on tight deadlines and minimal or no testing and you are crazy enough to take this on, make sure you get them to sign a document stating that the decision to do minimal testing is theirs and that they are aware of the massive risks they are taking. Do not start this type of project without making it perfectly clear that it could go to hell in a handbasket if the system is released to production without adequate testing.
I was in the situation where we had to design, build and implement a system in a very short time frame. (Y2K project, started in Nov 1999!) The client was made aware of the risks, and my supervisor almost came to blows with him over the issue of testing. My supervisor was insisting on putting testing into the project plan. (Okay, his idea of testing was pretty scary - run the app and punch in some dummy data. No real methodology behind it, but at least it was something...) The client freaked when he saw that the project would take 3 months, thus pushing the release date to Feb 2000 - obviously no good. The client then made the decision to do no testing (apart from developer's bench testing) and he wrote a memo to that effect. as it turned out, there was one nasty bug that crept into the system, but the client was happy to wear the cost of fixing it and out butts were covered. He absolutely needed the app in place by midnight on Dec 31 1999, so he was willing to accept a potentially buggy product.
Take the time to document the requirements. Take the time to design the system. If the client wants to accept the risks of reduced testing, fine, but make them sign something to that effect (and then do even more unit testing as you are coding than you normally would) to CYA.
If in any doubt, don't take the job.
I'm not going to actually touch a machine.
Thank Ghod for that!
I do touch the tech often enough that I'm helping out the VMS guy. Mostly, that'll mean doing his documentation for him when he's done his testing. I just want to be conversant enough that I won't be a time suck while I document everything. As for learning, I find I don't know what to ask the sys admins if I don't know anything about the OS. Even when I know the system, I play dumb... it's just going to be much much easier to play dumb for VMS.
Your best bet to learn about VMS is to ask the VMS guy. You will be a time suck, but it is better asking him what he means than trying to learn some random stuff about VMS and getting it wrong when doing his documentation. (Why are you doing his documentation btw? He should do his own documentation, especially if you are not fully conversant with VMS.) Learn what you can from the VMS guy, that should give you enough insight into the general feel of VMS (quite a nice OS) to be able to start asking the right questions.
What do you want to do with VMS? Do you want to know about administrating a VMS system, general user stuff, in depth technical info, security, etc... Maybe you should just look into the history and general overview of VMS in the few days you have, then when you have a specific task in mind try to find out how to do that.
Basically, I could go in to this and not know a thing about VMS and it wouldn't really hurt my ability to do my job. However, that's not the way I like to do things... I handle processes and policies but the more I know about the client...
As I suggested above, just try to learn some history and background about VMS. When you need to do something in VMS, then ask someone who knows VMS to teach you specific tasks.
5) ???
6) Profit!
I send a lot of SMS messages in Australia, and when a message fails to arrive at the intended destination, it is usually because I was too drunk and sent it to the wrong person. Can be very bad sometimes... 8-/
I would guesstimate that only a very small handful of the thousands of messages I have sent were not delivered and that usually due to network failures. (ie, overloaded networks on New Years Eve)