Well, I could plug mine. I call it a MMOOORPGE or Massively Multiplayer Object Oriented Online Role Playing Game Engine. What I feel makes this system unique is the object oriented part of it. You create maps and sprites and stuff just like you would expext with any other system, but where the engine really shines is in the way you define the rules of the game. Rather than hard code the system to support things like "Magic Points" and even "Healthe Points", all the rules are created by coding the objects. Say you want to create a sword, so in the object editor you create a new object (you can inheirit from existing objects) called sword. It comes with a few predefined events like DoAction. So in the script editor you write the code for DoAction in Basic. You read the target's health property, subtract a value then write the health property. Then the target's OnChange event would fire and there you would add the code to check if health is greater than 0.
So in order to use it, you do have to do have to have a fair understanding of coding, but it lets you focus on writing the code for the rules rather than all the other stuff for graphics and networking and stuff.
Some of the features it already includes are: 2D Graphics (I wanted to know the concept works before putting a ton of work into 3D) A working client and servers A working Editor Ability to move about gamespace and communicate with other players. Objects Spawn (although players can't touch them yet) A system that can scale from 1 box setups, to a serveral hundred box farm. A text based protocol that could easily be used to create clients for other OSes The ability to update the game without shutting down the servers. (Got a bug in an object you wrote? no problem.) Automatic updating of the client software. There really is a lot to it, I've been working on it in my spare time as hobby for over 4 years now.
Its Open Source. (VB on Windows yeah yeah I know) Its a client server system with the client being totally untrusted. All game calculations and descisions are made on the server, and the client simply displays the state of the simulation.
The only real downsides of it are that it is in VB, so a lot of open source people might not be into it. Its in 2D not 3D, Like i mentioned earlier, I didn't want to spend a lot of time coding 3D and making models for a system that might not ever work. On the other hand it is also a lot easier for amatuers to make 2D graphics than 3D models. But the real downside of it is that its not finished.
I would say its well over 60% done, But I have come up against the 2nd half hard. The object system has proved to be a fun and difficult programming challenge for me, and I have been proceeding rather slowly as I am trying to avoid some potentially serious design flaws. This part of the project has to work otherwise the system really will be just garbage. I think I have this whole system worked out in my head, and I have been working hard lately to put the idea into some project files and making some data-flow and entity relationship models so I can see better what I need to code. So if your interested in finding out more, just click on the k2wrpg.org link up there by my name.
Beginning on October 10, the console will have a suggested retail price of 79 pounds (approximately $131.8 U.S.) in Britain, and 99 euros (approximately $115.4 U.S.) in continental Europe.
Granted, I have never been to the UK, nor any of Europe for that matter, but I am fairly sure that they use Euros in in the UK. So in short the game cube is 14 Euros more expensive in the UK for no other reason than that it is the UK. That just doesn't sit well with me. I guess thats why I don't own a game cube.
I am a DSL salesman, and I have called thousands of americans and talked to them about DSL so I consider myself somewhat of an expert here. The main reason adoption rates of broadband are so low is a combination of two things.
1: Americans are lazy. It doesn't matter if there is a better service available. If it requires them to lift a finger then they don't want it. God forbid you have to change your email. It takes how many seconds to send a message to your entire contact list? Now some services are providing high speed services with the same old software they have been using, and you would think then that people would be all over that, but that brings be to my second point.
2: Americans are cheap. Sure you could get high speed and keep your aol.com address for $50 a month. Or you could get DSL from the phone company for $30 to $35 a month. But why should you do that when you can get dialup for $9 a month now?
Thats all there is to it. I would say only about 1 in 15 sales for me are people who decided they just need something faster, and all of these are usually customers where DSL just recently became available. Typically if speed is the issue, customers sign up with who ever offers it first (you know who you are.) For the other %93 of them its about points 1 or 2.
Formerly State Univeristy of New York at Morrisville started classes on monday August 25th. Sure we had network problems but the entire campuse was clean up by noon on the 26th. Granted there are only about 3,000 students on campus, but there are about 4,000 computers on campus. Since about %80 of the students have laptops, and many have a desktop in their dorm, plus lab computers and faculty. My point is I want to give props to our IT guys for keeping the disruption to a minimum. On the otherhand I can't help but wonder if so many network operators new this was comming, why weren't they more prepared?
I have an OSS game project that I have been working on as a hobby for about 4 or so years now. Its in Visual Basic (I know, some will say Yuk!) and the basic idea is to build a framework that others can use to create their own MMORPG. I wouldn't exactly call it an Indie game since its not exactly a game (more like an engine), nor are we(mostly I) incorporated in anyway.
My Comments on such a venture, Unless you just really like to program and don't have any thing to code that is more worth while then don't start such a project. However, If you just want to flex your muscles, and understand that it will almost never be finished, or 'good enough' or profitable then go right ahead. Also keep in mind that there is a good chance that it will become one of those unfinished things that you will probably spend the rest of you days regreting that you still havn't finished it. You'll go through periods of fast developement where you code more every day, and there will be times when you won't touch it for months. God forbid should anyone actually want to play your game then you introduce new nightmares in terms of support and such.
Other than all these headaches it has been a very rewarding hobby for me.
Sounds to me like you are comparing RESIDENTIAL cable to BUSINESS DSL. In which case your comparison holds true. Perhaps you should look into the costs of residential DSL before posting utter nonsense. Second If you belived the salesman that iDSL was infact DSL you are doubly confused. iDSL is really nothing more than rebranded ISDN. So comparing ISDN to cable as if it were DSL is also utter nonsense. I can only hope to prevent you from spreading this garbage to others. Oh and while I am on it. Cable isn't giving you a fixed IP for $42/month either. If I had mod points your comment would be moderated -1 Poster is Wrong.
Actually I have been selling products from www.2wire.com when I sign people up for DSL service. and I think the products are pretty sweet. DSL Modem, Wireless Access Point, HPNA, NAT Router, Packet Filetering Firewall..... Drool. All for $50 bucks when they sign up for the service. (After Rebate of course.) So if you want to signup for DSl and get your hands on one of these babies, call me at 1-877-672-
No, Seriously If you are a Southwestern Bell Customer I'd love to hear from you.
Obviously you have no grip on how the stock market works. Selling your shares does not hurt the company in any signifgant financial way. Infact selling stocks that you devalue has nothing to do with a companies finances. Accounting 101 students would know that a sale of stock wouldn't even register a entry in the books. Owners equity in the business remains unchanged after such a transaction.
However I conceed that if enough people sell their SCO stock and the market value of the stock drops, the management might have to explain a little to the remaining and new shareholders. They also might have more trouble securing loans.
Now if you are selling the shares back to the company and reducing the total number of shares, that is the opposite of dilution and is a good thing for the remaining shareholders because their dividends (If SCO is paying any) increase.
If you really want to change SCO as a stock holder, you're better off exercising some of the voting power that comes with it. Call up some board members and express your concern. Now if you are planing some kind of boycott then sure sell those looser stocks.
IAATM (I am a telemarketer) and I have probably reached more places around the globe and woken people up early on Saturday morning today than any of you will in your entire lives! mwahahaha!
chances are progressive1.stream.aol.com is a clustered machine, I think it will stand up to any load/. can throw at it. It might hiccup once or twice, but worst thing that is going to happen to them is one hell of a bandwidth bill, and that makes me happy.
In a previous article, Sarcasmooo! (267601) pointed out to me the Common Cause Megavote. The megavote is a easy way for people to get notifications via email about how their elected officials have voted and plan to vote on current bills. While its nice to have/. cover stuff it feels is important, there is a great deal more about the governments actions that I want to know about.
But will you be dilligent when you see that your representitives voted against the 'Soft Furry Puppy and Cute Kitten Act Protection Act' , and not jump to conclusions?
Which is the whole point of the system I have in mind. Along with how they voted, include a small summary (if possible, given things like PATRIOT) describing just what the bill means. Its just fustrating to me when the media (generally but I know there are a few good eggs) focuses on who said what and gives almost no coverage to who voted what. I mean really when it comes to congress, what counts is how they vote and not what they say. Oh Well.
Re:Voting Records of Reps
on
NARA Goes Online
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You are on to something very important here, almost nobody know how their elected officials voted on past bills, and fewer still know how they intend to vote on upcomming bills. Personally I would like to create a service (for free hopefully) that would allow people to sign up for email based updates about their representatives. When they sign up, their email address is associated with thier officials. Then whenever a vote occurs, an email is sent out with a summary of the bill, and how their representatives voted. Hopefully the idea is that people would be better informed as to wether or not a given official is really representing their interests, and perhaps question whether or not they want to re-elect that person. Hmm, maybe I can get a grant from the government to do this....
The biggest trouble with p2p networks that I see these days is that they don't seem to take into consideration Internet geography. Wouldn't it make sense to trace route potential sources for files and prefer ones that are fewer hops away? This way you would automatically download from people on your campus, or for home users, other people on your ISP. Seems like this would really cut down on the backbone traffic and speed up many of the downloads. I mean sure the traces would take time, but the saving in bandwith and the faster downloads would probably more than make up for it. Of course the few LANs that block outside ICMP packets would suffer but they would still prefer users on their own LANs.
Well I happen to be, but you won't like it. Its all in Visual Basic. We had given the thought of p2p design, but the answer after discussion was that it was impractical. By putting server function on the user end, there were too many trust issues. It would be too easy for people to hack their own information about how powerfull the characters are. Anyway, we are trying to use open and documented file formats and hopefully have a documented network protocol so that someday I can make a client software for other platforms, but right now the whole project is pretty much windows only. If I still haven't scared you off, check out our website
I would guess that the reason you need Internet Explorer is that the system uses ActiveX controls. ActiveX controls can be wedged into a webpage and they can be programed to do lots of good stuff like open secure sockets to remote hosts and display encrypted information and other goodness. Where Internet Explorer comes in is that it is a vehicle to deliver the ActiveX control to the user. The only trouble I see it that a careless user could easily forget to delete the control off the system and leave it behind on an unfriendly machine for Soviet spys to find and exploit.
Well this article is 3 days old in slashdot time, and has 1000 comments on it and no one will ever read this, but I didn't see any other comments that address the issue so I'll throw in my 2 cents.
I program a handfull of different languages. Visual Basic, Delphi/Kylix, php, C++ (well enough C++ to get me in trouble.) Of all the languages I use, I love Delphi and Kylix. Why? because it lets me make GUI apps with the ease of VB, and the object pascal language has all the power and flexability of a real object oriented language. Yes, I think Delphi/Kylix is a real gem of a language.
When I first heard about Kylix (the Linux version of Delphi for those who don't know) I was overwhelmed with joy. But alas; I had not the big buckets of cash to get Kylix. Then Borland slapped my in the face with open edition. Here was a free Kylix that I could use to develope GPL apps. Ok, GPL only no big deal. I want to write GPL applications, but I went through all the trouble to get kylix Open Edition working and it had none of the things that I found usefull. No database connectivity, no easy access to TCP/IP. So I wiped that Hard drive and put Windows back on.
Whats the point of this long story? Something Microsoft has know about Windos for a long time is that the more programs that run on windows the better. Visual Basic's sole purpose in Microsoft's stratagy is to attract developers to Windows, and it worked. Now as a previous poster noted VB programmers are the scum of the earth, but there are are more of us than any thing else. We write lots of programs and we write them for Windows. If only we could be writing programs for Linux, we could be writing games, Personal information managers, and hosts of other things that people complain are missing from Linux.
Personally I have been ready to jump ship for 4 years and honestly the only thing that really keeps me on Windows is that Kylix left me hanging. Now I know you are all saying, "Why don't you just buy Kylix Pro?" Well. When I program professionally, I do it on the platform the boss wants, with the tools the boss wants, but when I do my personal programming, I use the tools I like and the release my code GPL. Since it is just a hobby at that point, I really can't afford to thow $250 at borland each time the come out with a new version of Kylix. This is where it really counts. I'm doomed to use whatever the boss wants at work, but at home I have a choice; granted it is a choice limited by what I have available. I use Delphi and Visual Studio (on Windows obviously) because I acquired them long before I realized that Free Software was what I wanted to write. (I know there are issues with writing free software for a non-free OS but that is a whole other can of spaghetti I'd rather not open at this time)
Summy: I choose Windows because Linux at this time does not offer me the tools to program what I want the way I want, and I already have the tools I want for Windows. I can 'scratch my itch' just fine with what I have, but if I want to scratch that itch on Linux, at this point it will actually cost me money instead of saving it. Maybe once enough LGPL libraries are out the for Kylix Open Edition, I'll consider the switch again but I don't see me swithing any time soon.
I know I am a bad speller, so if you reply save yourslef the time of pointing out misspelling. This post is about ideas, not grammer.
Polymerase Chain Reaction isn't really new its at least 5 or six years old. I remember reading about it in Popular Science way back when. As I recall the process is pretty ingenious. First you take a sample DNA molecule, and split the helix down the middle and drop the two halves into a solution of (god I whish I paid more attention in Biology),forgive spelling, Addnine, Guanine, and all those other bits of DNA. Then each half rebuilds itself, splits and repeats. The reaction continues until the catalist runs out. Very quickly you can produce several hundred thousand copies of a DNA strand.
For those too lazy to do a google search, there is a breif overview of the process Here
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I could plug mine. I call it a MMOOORPGE or Massively Multiplayer Object Oriented Online Role Playing Game Engine. What I feel makes this system unique is the object oriented part of it. You create maps and sprites and stuff just like you would expext with any other system, but where the engine really shines is in the way you define the rules of the game. Rather than hard code the system to support things like "Magic Points" and even "Healthe Points", all the rules are created by coding the objects. Say you want to create a sword, so in the object editor you create a new object (you can inheirit from existing objects) called sword. It comes with a few predefined events like DoAction. So in the script editor you write the code for DoAction in Basic. You read the target's health property, subtract a value then write the health property. Then the target's OnChange event would fire and there you would add the code to check if health is greater than 0.
So in order to use it, you do have to do have to have a fair understanding of coding, but it lets you focus on writing the code for the rules rather than all the other stuff for graphics and networking and stuff.
Some of the features it already includes are:
2D Graphics (I wanted to know the concept works before putting a ton of work into 3D)
A working client and servers
A working Editor
Ability to move about gamespace and communicate with other players.
Objects Spawn (although players can't touch them yet)
A system that can scale from 1 box setups, to a serveral hundred box farm.
A text based protocol that could easily be used to create clients for other OSes
The ability to update the game without shutting down the servers. (Got a bug in an object you wrote? no problem.)
Automatic updating of the client software.
There really is a lot to it, I've been working on it in my spare time as hobby for over 4 years now.
Its Open Source. (VB on Windows yeah yeah I know) Its a client server system with the client being totally untrusted. All game calculations and descisions are made on the server, and the client simply displays the state of the simulation.
The only real downsides of it are that it is in VB, so a lot of open source people might not be into it. Its in 2D not 3D, Like i mentioned earlier, I didn't want to spend a lot of time coding 3D and making models for a system that might not ever work. On the other hand it is also a lot easier for amatuers to make 2D graphics than 3D models. But the real downside of it is that its not finished.
I would say its well over 60% done, But I have come up against the 2nd half hard. The object system has proved to be a fun and difficult programming challenge for me, and I have been proceeding rather slowly as I am trying to avoid some potentially serious design flaws. This part of the project has to work otherwise the system really will be just garbage. I think I have this whole system worked out in my head, and I have been working hard lately to put the idea into some project files and making some data-flow and entity relationship models so I can see better what I need to code. So if your interested in finding out more, just click on the k2wrpg.org link up there by my name.
ya, I got curious after I posted and went to Europa and found out for myself.
Granted, I have never been to the UK, nor any of Europe for that matter, but I am fairly sure that they use Euros in in the UK. So in short the game cube is 14 Euros more expensive in the UK for no other reason than that it is the UK. That just doesn't sit well with me. I guess thats why I don't own a game cube.
I am a DSL salesman, and I have called thousands of americans and talked to them about DSL so I consider myself somewhat of an expert here. The main reason adoption rates of broadband are so low is a combination of two things.
1: Americans are lazy. It doesn't matter if there is a better service available. If it requires them to lift a finger then they don't want it. God forbid you have to change your email. It takes how many seconds to send a message to your entire contact list? Now some services are providing high speed services with the same old software they have been using, and you would think then that people would be all over that, but that brings be to my second point.
2: Americans are cheap. Sure you could get high speed and keep your aol.com address for $50 a month. Or you could get DSL from the phone company for $30 to $35 a month. But why should you do that when you can get dialup for $9 a month now?
Thats all there is to it. I would say only about 1 in 15 sales for me are people who decided they just need something faster, and all of these are usually customers where DSL just recently became available. Typically if speed is the issue, customers sign up with who ever offers it first (you know who you are.) For the other %93 of them its about points 1 or 2.
Formerly State Univeristy of New York at Morrisville started classes on monday August 25th. Sure we had network problems but the entire campuse was clean up by noon on the 26th. Granted there are only about 3,000 students on campus, but there are about 4,000 computers on campus. Since about %80 of the students have laptops, and many have a desktop in their dorm, plus lab computers and faculty. My point is I want to give props to our IT guys for keeping the disruption to a minimum. On the otherhand I can't help but wonder if so many network operators new this was comming, why weren't they more prepared?
I can help bu think of Genuine People Personalities TM. How Long till the revolution comes? Thats what I want to know.
I have an OSS game project that I have been working on as a hobby for about 4 or so years now. Its in Visual Basic (I know, some will say Yuk!) and the basic idea is to build a framework that others can use to create their own MMORPG. I wouldn't exactly call it an Indie game since its not exactly a game (more like an engine), nor are we(mostly I) incorporated in anyway.
My Comments on such a venture, Unless you just really like to program and don't have any thing to code that is more worth while then don't start such a project. However, If you just want to flex your muscles, and understand that it will almost never be finished, or 'good enough' or profitable then go right ahead. Also keep in mind that there is a good chance that it will become one of those unfinished things that you will probably spend the rest of you days regreting that you still havn't finished it. You'll go through periods of fast developement where you code more every day, and there will be times when you won't touch it for months. God forbid should anyone actually want to play your game then you introduce new nightmares in terms of support and such.
Other than all these headaches it has been a very rewarding hobby for me.
Sorry About all that. I am a DSL salesman and I was having a shitty day yesterday, so I took it out on you. It was wrong of me and I appologize.
Sounds to me like you are comparing RESIDENTIAL cable to BUSINESS DSL. In which case your comparison holds true. Perhaps you should look into the costs of residential DSL before posting utter nonsense. Second If you belived the salesman that iDSL was infact DSL you are doubly confused. iDSL is really nothing more than rebranded ISDN. So comparing ISDN to cable as if it were DSL is also utter nonsense. I can only hope to prevent you from spreading this garbage to others. Oh and while I am on it. Cable isn't giving you a fixed IP for $42/month either. If I had mod points your comment would be moderated -1 Poster is Wrong.
Actually I have been selling products from www.2wire.com when I sign people up for DSL service. and I think the products are pretty sweet. DSL Modem, Wireless Access Point, HPNA, NAT Router, Packet Filetering Firewall..... Drool. All for $50 bucks when they sign up for the service. (After Rebate of course.) So if you want to signup for DSl and get your hands on one of these babies, call me at 1-877-672-
No, Seriously If you are a Southwestern Bell Customer I'd love to hear from you.
I feel so dirty.
Its that very contrution technique shown in those pictures why memory is sometimes refered to as 'pages'.
Obviously you have no grip on how the stock market works. Selling your shares does not hurt the company in any signifgant financial way. Infact selling stocks that you devalue has nothing to do with a companies finances. Accounting 101 students would know that a sale of stock wouldn't even register a entry in the books. Owners equity in the business remains unchanged after such a transaction.
However I conceed that if enough people sell their SCO stock and the market value of the stock drops, the management might have to explain a little to the remaining and new shareholders. They also might have more trouble securing loans.
Now if you are selling the shares back to the company and reducing the total number of shares, that is the opposite of dilution and is a good thing for the remaining shareholders because their dividends (If SCO is paying any) increase.
If you really want to change SCO as a stock holder, you're better off exercising some of the voting power that comes with it. Call up some board members and express your concern. Now if you are planing some kind of boycott then sure sell those looser stocks.
Lets see, when I was a college student my Life savings was always near zero, what with the high cost of tuition and beer.
here are some better ones:
COM NOT UP - The system is down yo.
MOUNT COP - New file system or perversion of the legal system?
PC MUON TO - The sub-atomic particle that Computons are made of.
NU PC TOOM - Where old computers go when they die.
UNO PC TOM - How many computers Tom can afford now that he pays by the computon.
Props to Internet Anagram Server
IAATM (I am a telemarketer) and I have probably reached more places around the globe and woken people up early on Saturday morning today than any of you will in your entire lives! mwahahaha!
(Please don't mod me as a troll. I'm sorry)
chances are progressive1.stream.aol.com is a clustered machine, I think it will stand up to any load /. can throw at it. It might hiccup once or twice, but worst thing that is going to happen to them is one hell of a bandwidth bill, and that makes me happy.
In a previous article, Sarcasmooo! (267601) pointed out to me the Common Cause Megavote. The megavote is a easy way for people to get notifications via email about how their elected officials have voted and plan to vote on current bills. While its nice to have /. cover stuff it feels is important, there is a great deal more about the governments actions that I want to know about.
Which is the whole point of the system I have in mind. Along with how they voted, include a small summary (if possible, given things like PATRIOT) describing just what the bill means. Its just fustrating to me when the media (generally but I know there are a few good eggs) focuses on who said what and gives almost no coverage to who voted what. I mean really when it comes to congress, what counts is how they vote and not what they say. Oh Well.
You are on to something very important here, almost nobody know how their elected officials voted on past bills, and fewer still know how they intend to vote on upcomming bills. Personally I would like to create a service (for free hopefully) that would allow people to sign up for email based updates about their representatives. When they sign up, their email address is associated with thier officials. Then whenever a vote occurs, an email is sent out with a summary of the bill, and how their representatives voted. Hopefully the idea is that people would be better informed as to wether or not a given official is really representing their interests, and perhaps question whether or not they want to re-elect that person. Hmm, maybe I can get a grant from the government to do this....
The biggest trouble with p2p networks that I see these days is that they don't seem to take into consideration Internet geography. Wouldn't it make sense to trace route potential sources for files and prefer ones that are fewer hops away? This way you would automatically download from people on your campus, or for home users, other people on your ISP. Seems like this would really cut down on the backbone traffic and speed up many of the downloads. I mean sure the traces would take time, but the saving in bandwith and the faster downloads would probably more than make up for it. Of course the few LANs that block outside ICMP packets would suffer but they would still prefer users on their own LANs.
You know I have no Idea where that image came from. I'll have to ask the webmaster.
Well I happen to be, but you won't like it. Its all in Visual Basic. We had given the thought of p2p design, but the answer after discussion was that it was impractical. By putting server function on the user end, there were too many trust issues. It would be too easy for people to hack their own information about how powerfull the characters are. Anyway, we are trying to use open and documented file formats and hopefully have a documented network protocol so that someday I can make a client software for other platforms, but right now the whole project is pretty much windows only. If I still haven't scared you off, check out our website
I would guess that the reason you need Internet Explorer is that the system uses ActiveX controls. ActiveX controls can be wedged into a webpage and they can be programed to do lots of good stuff like open secure sockets to remote hosts and display encrypted information and other goodness. Where Internet Explorer comes in is that it is a vehicle to deliver the ActiveX control to the user. The only trouble I see it that a careless user could easily forget to delete the control off the system and leave it behind on an unfriendly machine for Soviet spys to find and exploit.
Well this article is 3 days old in slashdot time, and has 1000 comments on it and no one will ever read this, but I didn't see any other comments that address the issue so I'll throw in my 2 cents.
I program a handfull of different languages. Visual Basic, Delphi/Kylix, php, C++ (well enough C++ to get me in trouble.) Of all the languages I use, I love Delphi and Kylix. Why? because it lets me make GUI apps with the ease of VB, and the object pascal language has all the power and flexability of a real object oriented language. Yes, I think Delphi/Kylix is a real gem of a language.
When I first heard about Kylix (the Linux version of Delphi for those who don't know) I was overwhelmed with joy. But alas; I had not the big buckets of cash to get Kylix. Then Borland slapped my in the face with open edition. Here was a free Kylix that I could use to develope GPL apps. Ok, GPL only no big deal. I want to write GPL applications, but I went through all the trouble to get kylix Open Edition working and it had none of the things that I found usefull. No database connectivity, no easy access to TCP/IP. So I wiped that Hard drive and put Windows back on.
Whats the point of this long story? Something Microsoft has know about Windos for a long time is that the more programs that run on windows the better. Visual Basic's sole purpose in Microsoft's stratagy is to attract developers to Windows, and it worked. Now as a previous poster noted VB programmers are the scum of the earth, but there are are more of us than any thing else. We write lots of programs and we write them for Windows. If only we could be writing programs for Linux, we could be writing games, Personal information managers, and hosts of other things that people complain are missing from Linux.
Personally I have been ready to jump ship for 4 years and honestly the only thing that really keeps me on Windows is that Kylix left me hanging. Now I know you are all saying, "Why don't you just buy Kylix Pro?" Well. When I program professionally, I do it on the platform the boss wants, with the tools the boss wants, but when I do my personal programming, I use the tools I like and the release my code GPL. Since it is just a hobby at that point, I really can't afford to thow $250 at borland each time the come out with a new version of Kylix. This is where it really counts. I'm doomed to use whatever the boss wants at work, but at home I have a choice; granted it is a choice limited by what I have available. I use Delphi and Visual Studio (on Windows obviously) because I acquired them long before I realized that Free Software was what I wanted to write. (I know there are issues with writing free software for a non-free OS but that is a whole other can of spaghetti I'd rather not open at this time)
Summy: I choose Windows because Linux at this time does not offer me the tools to program what I want the way I want, and I already have the tools I want for Windows. I can 'scratch my itch' just fine with what I have, but if I want to scratch that itch on Linux, at this point it will actually cost me money instead of saving it. Maybe once enough LGPL libraries are out the for Kylix Open Edition, I'll consider the switch again but I don't see me swithing any time soon.
I know I am a bad speller, so if you reply save yourslef the time of pointing out misspelling. This post is about ideas, not grammer.
Polymerase Chain Reaction isn't really new its at least 5 or six years old. I remember reading about it in Popular Science way back when. As I recall the process is pretty ingenious. First you take a sample DNA molecule, and split the helix down the middle and drop the two halves into a solution of (god I whish I paid more attention in Biology) ,forgive spelling, Addnine, Guanine, and all those other bits of DNA. Then each half rebuilds itself, splits and repeats. The reaction continues until the catalist runs out. Very quickly you can produce several hundred thousand copies of a DNA strand.
For those too lazy to do a google search, there is a breif overview of the process Here