Actually, I believe UT2k3 did have vehicles, but they were sort of a hidden/easter-egg type thing... Not something eh developers/publisher went around advertising.
I liked UT2k3, personally. Atleast for a while... It was just another deathmatch game in my opinion (though really fun to play sometimes). I'd atleast like to have the opportunity to see what UT2k4 is like, but oh well...
So, my problem with this idea is that it seems to assume that computer science is all about computers and/or programming. Granted, that's what alot of CS curriculums focus on, and that's what alot of CS-majors wind up doing, but computer science isn't really about computers... This sounds like something that'd be more appropriate for computer engineers.
On the other hand, if you say something more along the lines of "if you learn assembly language, you'll be a better programmer" or "you should start with assembly language before learning a high level language," then I sort of agree, but sort of don't. Knowing assembly most likely will give the programmer a better understanding of what's going on inside the machine, which is probably useful in lots of places, but not useful everywhere. I would expect that if you continuously think about the machine instead of about the problem you're trying to solve, you wind up getting bogged down in alot of mechanics of the machine. This is probably a good reason why you should start off programming in a higher level language (And I do not include C here, because C is too close to the machine) and focus on the real problem you're trying to solve, and go down closer to the machine only as it becomes necessary (i.e., something you obviously have to do if you're doing any sort of system programming). It would be interesting to take two groups of beginning programmers, and start one off with LISP and the other off with assembly, and see who really understands things better. I would expect that the LISP kids might have a better understanding of algorithms and high-level problem solving, while the assembly kids would have a better idea of what's going on with the internals of a machine.
There's also a fear that you will scare people off if you try to start them off with assembly (though those who aren't competent in LISP would probably say the same about LISP), but then I guess the question becomes are you trying to teach them how to be good programmers, or trying to attract as many people as possible.
Let me make it clear that I'm not 'bashing' assembly language, just that I think it's not the best way to do alot of things (and I've got a feeling anyone who's ever written alot of assembly will agree, to an extent, except those that have to be 'hardcore' and love assembly and only assembly).
In any event, I think the best way to learn programming is probably to have a little bit of high level stuff, a little bit of low-level stuff, and be capable of choosing an appropriate tool/language/whatever.
Great, so now all the kiddies' web pages with 10,000 animated GIFs and MIDI music, is standards compliant and I can view it with a non-IE browser... How is this moving forward?
What would be interesting if a program like this had modules that would let you use any standard you want, as long as a module had been written. Don't know how easy that'd be to actually do... Just a thought.
So, this limits it to all the Andy's in the world. If we assume there are 6 billion people, and about half of them are male, then that's 3 billion people. Now, if we assume about 10% of those 3 billion have the ability to write such a virus, then we knock it down to 3 * 10^9 / 10 = 3 * 10^8 = 300 million people. Now Andy's a sort of English name, and let's say about 40% of those 300 million have English-like names, this narrows it down to 3 * 10^8 * 4/10 = 12 * 10^7 = 120 million people. Maybe 5% of which have the name 'Andy', so 12 * 10^7 / 10 / 2 = 6 * 10^6, which narrows it down to 6 million people.
Now, can I get some cash from SCO for eliminating 5994000000 people as suspects?
I saw Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers movies before reading the books and then read all three books between seeing The Two Towers and the Return of the King (movie) was released. My opinion is that people should see the movies before reading the books. My justification for this is that when I saw the first two movies I was simply blown away, read the books and was even more blown away. But when I saw the Return of the King movie after reading the book, I was a little disappointed. There were parts of the book that the movie changes around (Lots of little things, like how both Merry and Pippin go to the final battle) and it just annoyed me. If someone sees the movies before reading the books, they're oblivious to these little annoyances, where as if someone reads the books first, then little things like that become annoying.
This may have already been mentioned, but current computers are kind of both Harvard and von Neumann in some sense. We store both program instructions and data in main memory, but break them apart in the CPU's cache.
I think that it really just depends on the programmer, their methodology, and their projects. A blanket statement one way or the other just doesn't cut it. Some programmers are more like engineers in the sense that they have to engineer their code to stand up against the world (i.e., if you're programming some health application that's used in hospitals, where an individual's life could depend on the correctness of your code), but there are certainly too many 'hacker-ish' programmers out there to say that all programmers are engineers. There's my two cents.
It's interesting how so many Linux users complain about how horrible Microsoft products are, yet at the same time embrace things like Wine, Crossover and now potential ports of MS products (and they also like to have Windows-ish desktops, ala GNOME and KDE). I read this article yesterday and it seemed to me that it was more like MS was willing to license the technology they use in WMP9 to third parties to make the software, not that they were directly porting the software themselves.
Nothing good can come of this. I for one don't want to see a Microsoft product on Linux.
I'm a computer science student at Western Carolina University.. the books I always have sitting somewhere nearby are:
1) C++: The Core Language... It's a really good book for getting up to speed in C++. It makes the assumption the reader has previous programming experience (particularly in C), so it doesn't go through the (what I find annoying) "this is an if statement" sort of chapters.
2) Java, Learn to Program... This is a rather long book with small type that does include those "this is an if statement" sort of chapters earlier on (it's geared for people who have never programmed before), so I tend to use it as a reference when I forget how some Swing component works or want to be reminded how to do programs with multiple threads.
3) Learning Perl is a very short, newbie-ish guide to Perl, but if you want to get up to speed in Perl quickly, this'll do it. (I haven't checked out Programming Perl yet, mainly because I'm not a big Perl user).
4) Online manuals and references (okay, maybe this should fall under last week's thread) are often a good source of information when you're trying to do something not covered in the books.
5) computerbooks.web.com has alot of free books for download (some as HTML in tarballs, some as PDFs, some online only...).
While the idea of turning a 17" monitor into a 100" one that would take up a good portion of my wall sounds intriguing, it sounds incredibly doubtful to me. Think about how ugly low resolution is.. especially on a large monitor. I haven't looked at the site yet, but I would imagine they simply magnify the image someway, if that's the case then you're just blowing it up.. nothing special. But doing that would uglify everything. 1/2" pixels don't sound particularly appealing to me.
You all seem to be missing my point (or not understanding it, one or the other). When I say email versus snail mail, I'm referring to letters, not packages. And perhaps some things we consider to be packages now will take on an electronic form: Catalogs, magazines, books...
Someone mentioned that email offered no advantage and that people were not willing to pay $25-$30 a month for email. Couple of points here. The advantages, atleast in my humble opinion, are speed (two seconds versus two weeks), convenience (click and i have my mail, click and i've read my mail, click and i've gotten rid of my mail. As opposed to go outside and get my mail, walk back inside and read my mail, walk to the trashcan and throw away my mail). I'm not sure how much of the garbage in our landfills are paper products from mailing things, but I would imagine it's a fairly considerable proportion, using electronic mail would help to cut down on the amount of trash we throw away. Apparently no one read the part of my original response "even if they don't have a computer or internet access in their home, an internet cafe or library or such near them almost certainly does." Go to the library, sign up with hotmail or a similar service and there you go. I don't know about you all, but the libraries I've gone to don't charge you to use their computers to get on the internet, so I'm not quite sure what you mean by $25-$30/month.
Another individual stated that their mother and grandmother can't use email. Well, at one time in their lives they couldn't drive a car, but I've got a feeling they can now (ie, someone needs to, and will, teach them if they ask someone to). You also mentioned that we are privileged for having access to computers? I'm not saying that we aren't, but I don't think a computer is excessive in cost, and if they are just going to use the computer for email or what not then hell, a 486 would work ($20 at your local junkomart) or perhaps one of the little email/internet only appliances you see here and there from time to time. And as far as connecting to the internet goes, there are plenty of places that are willing to provide you with free access (normally only 56k though) if you're willing to stare at their ads.
In conclusion, by snail mail I'm referring to letters (bills, letters to friends/relatives, etc), not the new motherboard you ordered. If you want to learn to use email, then you will learn it. It's not expensive by any means (I think it's interesting that so many people buy computers and things that are so much more powerful, and thus more expensive, than they really need. A 486 or so can check email for God's sake).
Email is fast, convenient, cheaper (for a flat monthly fee, or free, you can send pretty much an infinite number of emails. As opposed to having to pay $0.34 for a stamp, $0.25 for a envelope, $0.10 for a sheet of paper, etc... I already know someone will read that and say "Yeah, well you have to spend $150 for a monitor, $10 for a keyboard,...". I just mentioned that it's not as expensive as people are making it out to be. You might have to settle for a Buick instead of a Cadillac, but it'll get you where you need to go). And that's all I have to say until someone responds and I must respond back.
I find it odd that we still use 'snail mail', atleast as much as we do. It certainly seems like everyone and their grandmother has an email account now (even if they don't have a computer or internet access in their home, an internet cafe or library or such near them almost undoubtedly does). The advantages of email to snail certainly seem to be enough that snail mail should magically disappear sometime when we're not looking...
Perhaps the anthrax scare will quicken the process, but I doubt it. I believe it'll happen soon, but that this won't make it happen any quicker.
Slashdot Mirror
And of course after I post, I see terabit instead of terabyte.
Last time I checked, a DVD was (roughly) 4 GB, so 25 DVDs is only 100GB?
Slashdot posts important news?
Took long enough. I don't really have anything to say, but wanted 1st post on this :)
It would really suck for the Simpsons to disappear, like so many other great cartoons (e.g., Family Guy & Futurama) because of Fox's short-sight
Can anybody who manages to get to the page make a mirror, maybe even .torrent's for the videos? It's been maybe 5 minutes and hasn't loaded for me yet.
Actually, I believe UT2k3 did have vehicles, but they were sort of a hidden/easter-egg type thing... Not something eh developers/publisher went around advertising.
I liked UT2k3, personally. Atleast for a while... It was just another deathmatch game in my opinion (though really fun to play sometimes). I'd atleast like to have the opportunity to see what UT2k4 is like, but oh well...
So, a good game comes out for Linux, just after I give up my desktop w/GF3 for a laptop w/no 3d acceleration. Just my luck.
So, my problem with this idea is that it seems to assume that computer science is all about computers and/or programming. Granted, that's what alot of CS curriculums focus on, and that's what alot of CS-majors wind up doing, but computer science isn't really about computers... This sounds like something that'd be more appropriate for computer engineers.
On the other hand, if you say something more along the lines of "if you learn assembly language, you'll be a better programmer" or "you should start with assembly language before learning a high level language," then I sort of agree, but sort of don't. Knowing assembly most likely will give the programmer a better understanding of what's going on inside the machine, which is probably useful in lots of places, but not useful everywhere. I would expect that if you continuously think about the machine instead of about the problem you're trying to solve, you wind up getting bogged down in alot of mechanics of the machine. This is probably a good reason why you should start off programming in a higher level language (And I do not include C here, because C is too close to the machine) and focus on the real problem you're trying to solve, and go down closer to the machine only as it becomes necessary (i.e., something you obviously have to do if you're doing any sort of system programming). It would be interesting to take two groups of beginning programmers, and start one off with LISP and the other off with assembly, and see who really understands things better. I would expect that the LISP kids might have a better understanding of algorithms and high-level problem solving, while the assembly kids would have a better idea of what's going on with the internals of a machine.
There's also a fear that you will scare people off if you try to start them off with assembly (though those who aren't competent in LISP would probably say the same about LISP), but then I guess the question becomes are you trying to teach them how to be good programmers, or trying to attract as many people as possible.
Let me make it clear that I'm not 'bashing' assembly language, just that I think it's not the best way to do alot of things (and I've got a feeling anyone who's ever written alot of assembly will agree, to an extent, except those that have to be 'hardcore' and love assembly and only assembly).
In any event, I think the best way to learn programming is probably to have a little bit of high level stuff, a little bit of low-level stuff, and be capable of choosing an appropriate tool/language/whatever.
Great, so now all the kiddies' web pages with 10,000 animated GIFs and MIDI music, is standards compliant and I can view it with a non-IE browser... How is this moving forward?
What would be interesting if a program like this had modules that would let you use any standard you want, as long as a module had been written. Don't know how easy that'd be to actually do... Just a thought.
So, this limits it to all the Andy's in the world. If we assume there are 6 billion people, and about half of them are male, then that's 3 billion people. Now, if we assume about 10% of those 3 billion have the ability to write such a virus, then we knock it down to 3 * 10^9 / 10 = 3 * 10^8 = 300 million people. Now Andy's a sort of English name, and let's say about 40% of those 300 million have English-like names, this narrows it down to 3 * 10^8 * 4/10 = 12 * 10^7 = 120 million people. Maybe 5% of which have the name 'Andy', so 12 * 10^7 / 10 / 2 = 6 * 10^6, which narrows it down to 6 million people.
Now, can I get some cash from SCO for eliminating 5994000000 people as suspects?
I saw Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers movies before reading the books and then read all three books between seeing The Two Towers and the Return of the King (movie) was released. My opinion is that people should see the movies before reading the books. My justification for this is that when I saw the first two movies I was simply blown away, read the books and was even more blown away. But when I saw the Return of the King movie after reading the book, I was a little disappointed. There were parts of the book that the movie changes around (Lots of little things, like how both Merry and Pippin go to the final battle) and it just annoyed me. If someone sees the movies before reading the books, they're oblivious to these little annoyances, where as if someone reads the books first, then little things like that become annoying.
This may have already been mentioned, but current computers are kind of both Harvard and von Neumann in some sense. We store both program instructions and data in main memory, but break them apart in the CPU's cache.
I think that it really just depends on the programmer, their methodology, and their projects. A blanket statement one way or the other just doesn't cut it. Some programmers are more like engineers in the sense that they have to engineer their code to stand up against the world (i.e., if you're programming some health application that's used in hospitals, where an individual's life could depend on the correctness of your code), but there are certainly too many 'hacker-ish' programmers out there to say that all programmers are engineers. There's my two cents.
It's interesting how so many Linux users complain about how horrible Microsoft products are, yet at the same time embrace things like Wine, Crossover and now potential ports of MS products (and they also like to have Windows-ish desktops, ala GNOME and KDE). I read this article yesterday and it seemed to me that it was more like MS was willing to license the technology they use in WMP9 to third parties to make the software, not that they were directly porting the software themselves.
Nothing good can come of this. I for one don't want to see a Microsoft product on Linux.
I'm a computer science student at Western Carolina University.. the books I always have sitting somewhere nearby are:
... It's a really good book for getting up to speed in C++. It makes the assumption the reader has previous programming experience (particularly in C), so it doesn't go through the (what I find annoying) "this is an if statement" sort of chapters.
... This is a rather long book with small type that does include those "this is an if statement" sort of chapters earlier on (it's geared for people who have never programmed before), so I tend to use it as a reference when I forget how some Swing component works or want to be reminded how to do programs with multiple threads.
1) C++: The Core Language
2) Java, Learn to Program
3) Learning Perl is a very short, newbie-ish guide to Perl, but if you want to get up to speed in Perl quickly, this'll do it. (I haven't checked out Programming Perl yet, mainly because I'm not a big Perl user).
4) Online manuals and references (okay, maybe this should fall under last week's thread) are often a good source of information when you're trying to do something not covered in the books.
5) computerbooks.web.com has alot of free books for download (some as HTML in tarballs, some as PDFs, some online only...).
Hope these help!
I'm curious what will happen when some redneck purchases one of these, goes home, and can't figure out why Deer Hunter won't work.
While the idea of turning a 17" monitor into a 100" one that would take up a good portion of my wall sounds intriguing, it sounds incredibly doubtful to me. Think about how ugly low resolution is.. especially on a large monitor. I haven't looked at the site yet, but I would imagine they simply magnify the image someway, if that's the case then you're just blowing it up.. nothing special. But doing that would uglify everything. 1/2" pixels don't sound particularly appealing to me.
Hm.. You present an interesting point...
I would try and define what I mean by unbiased, but I think that "without biases I don't like" pretty much is correct.
It sounds good to see Bugtraq getting a good, unbiased moderator.
You all seem to be missing my point (or not understanding it, one or the other). When I say email versus snail mail, I'm referring to letters, not packages. And perhaps some things we consider to be packages now will take on an electronic form: Catalogs, magazines, books...
...". I just mentioned that it's not as expensive as people are making it out to be. You might have to settle for a Buick instead of a Cadillac, but it'll get you where you need to go). And that's all I have to say until someone responds and I must respond back.
Someone mentioned that email offered no advantage and that people were not willing to pay $25-$30 a month for email. Couple of points here. The advantages, atleast in my humble opinion, are speed (two seconds versus two weeks), convenience (click and i have my mail, click and i've read my mail, click and i've gotten rid of my mail. As opposed to go outside and get my mail, walk back inside and read my mail, walk to the trashcan and throw away my mail). I'm not sure how much of the garbage in our landfills are paper products from mailing things, but I would imagine it's a fairly considerable proportion, using electronic mail would help to cut down on the amount of trash we throw away. Apparently no one read the part of my original response "even if they don't have a computer or internet access in their home, an internet cafe or library or such near them almost certainly does." Go to the library, sign up with hotmail or a similar service and there you go. I don't know about you all, but the libraries I've gone to don't charge you to use their computers to get on the internet, so I'm not quite sure what you mean by $25-$30/month.
Another individual stated that their mother and grandmother can't use email. Well, at one time in their lives they couldn't drive a car, but I've got a feeling they can now (ie, someone needs to, and will, teach them if they ask someone to). You also mentioned that we are privileged for having access to computers? I'm not saying that we aren't, but I don't think a computer is excessive in cost, and if they are just going to use the computer for email or what not then hell, a 486 would work ($20 at your local junkomart) or perhaps one of the little email/internet only appliances you see here and there from time to time. And as far as connecting to the internet goes, there are plenty of places that are willing to provide you with free access (normally only 56k though) if you're willing to stare at their ads.
In conclusion, by snail mail I'm referring to letters (bills, letters to friends/relatives, etc), not the new motherboard you ordered. If you want to learn to use email, then you will learn it. It's not expensive by any means (I think it's interesting that so many people buy computers and things that are so much more powerful, and thus more expensive, than they really need. A 486 or so can check email for God's sake).
Email is fast, convenient, cheaper (for a flat monthly fee, or free, you can send pretty much an infinite number of emails. As opposed to having to pay $0.34 for a stamp, $0.25 for a envelope, $0.10 for a sheet of paper, etc... I already know someone will read that and say "Yeah, well you have to spend $150 for a monitor, $10 for a keyboard,
I find it odd that we still use 'snail mail', atleast as much as we do. It certainly seems like everyone and their grandmother has an email account now (even if they don't have a computer or internet access in their home, an internet cafe or library or such near them almost undoubtedly does). The advantages of email to snail certainly seem to be enough that snail mail should magically disappear sometime when we're not looking...
Perhaps the anthrax scare will quicken the process, but I doubt it. I believe it'll happen soon, but that this won't make it happen any quicker.