Oh jeez, Lemmings, that game was a day-eater! "Oh, I'll just play Lemmings for a few minutes..." Six hours later, "Man, if I could just get that one lemming to NOT run into the spinning blade..." Heh. I always enjoyed Lode Runner too; a lot of times, there was a strategy to finishing up the levels. And hey, it came with a built-in level editor too.
One of the new(er) puzzle games that I rather enjoyed was Tomb Raider. Sure, it was originally designed so you could play a game and watch Lara shake her booty at the same time, but TR1 and TR2 both had some pretty good puzzle aspects to them. By contrast, the follow-ups have all been quite a bit more difficult than they needed to be, and have lost a lot of the puzzle-solving; now it's just "don't get killed in THIS AMBUSH". Bleh. Save, move, die, load, repeat.
Interesting. He might make a decent Batman - he's actually got the acting ability to pull off a proper tortured Bruce Wayne. Unlike some other Batman impersonators we've seen (Clooney - the shiny-happy Batman).
I still think Val Kilmer was the best Batman we've yet seen. Perhaps it was the writing, perhaps the direction, but I didn't really dig Keaton as The Bat.
I have been told, on many occasions "alternate browsers account for less than 2% of our visitors, don't worry about them".
Well, as a user of an "alternate browser", I thank you for actually giving a shit.:)
Here's a thought: the Foo Corporation has some fancy-schmancy site that they have designed for only IE, and it really won't work at all in anything else (proprietary tags or whatever). So when the PHBs notice that the "alternate browser" share is dropping to 0%, they care even less, and code even more for IE, and it becomes sort of a self-fulfilling feedback loop. That would be pretty hard to break out of. Just a random thought, dunno what can be done about it.
The side-door analogy isn't half bad. The movie theatre only wants you to come in through the front door, so they can know what you're doing, and also keep an accurate count of who comes through. Instead of getting the government to make sneaking in through that side door illegal, and waste the taxpayers' time and money by placing a police officer there, the movie theatre can decide that this side door should remain locked, and perhaps remove the outside knob, making it only accessible from inside (most of the theatres around my area do exactly this).
The same concept can easily be moved to webservers; referral headers, while fakeable, will probably work great in the general case, as somebody else in this thread mentioned. It shouldn't be the government's problem when there is a perfectly workable, simple, and legal solution which the complainants can implement; i.e. redirect all requests with an outside referrer to the main page, same as making all movie patrons come in from the outside through the front door.
Not to mention the fact that you can do chroot-sftp with SSH Communications' software, where you can't with OpenSSH. It's quite trivial to set up, about as hard as chroot-ftp (i.e. not hard at all).
W. Richard Stevens: Tha Man
on
General IT Books?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Anything by W. Richard Stevens is well worth having. The TCP/IP Illustrated series and the Unix Network Programming are both excellent, though the new editions of UNP are unfinished, since he died before UNP3 was published (and apparently, finished). Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment is an excellent in-depth look at Unix system calls.
Part of the problem seems to be that there are precious few managers who have been moved up through the programming ranks, and actually have programming experience, so they have no comprehension what the programmers are actually doing.
Check out the book "Death March" by Edward Yourdon. Some interesting insights in there.
Having worked for a couple of the second type (the shoot from the hip type), I would suggest that the engineering-oriented firm has the right idea.
My big project was a commodity trading application, one in which many millions of dollars of trades and futures would potentially pass through. When we started, the clients had NO idea what they wanted; they actually had us copying the interface of another piece of software. When we got about halfway through the copy, the changes started, and kept on coming, even through the testing phase. The finished product (one year late, almost to the day) had had so many changes, it bore almost no resemblence to the original program we were copying (probably good, from a getting-our-ass-sued standpoint:).
The worst part was that the owners of my company didn't want to spend any time in testing. They never needed to do much more than a couple days' testing on any of their other projects (mostly web programming), so they had no idea why this project need so much. I got as much testing in as I could, and isolated some obscure cases, but there were probably still more lurking in there.
I left that company a long time ago, and have no idea if the project ever went anywhere. I kinda hope it did, considering the amount of work I put into it. The clients' domain is no longer registered, even though my former company still lists them as a client (under the non-working domain, heh), so I guess it was all just wasted effort. As the parent post suggested, it was a disaster waiting to happen.
Well, just consider that most of the product disclaimers you see are the direct result of somebody doing the thing that they say not to do. Do not operate hairdryer in water came about because somebody was trying to dry their hair in the bathtub (which doesn't make sense anyway, since you'll likely get it wet again, being in the tub). And so on...
And we're the same species as some of those people? Man, doesn't bode well for the species.
ICANN isn't doing the greatest job, but at least they are theoreticaly an open, international organization that I could effect somehow.
I don't think they actually make a suitcase large enough, that you could pack with enough money, to affect ICANN in any way. It's been taken over by money-grubbing, do-nothing corporate bloodsuckers. It needs to be eradicated, and replaced with a democratic body.
You've got an interesting idea; it's almost like corewar or something. It might actually be interesting to have an all-bot match - pit one set of bots against another. You could almost do a genetic-like breeding of the best bot and/or team of bots.
In America, you study a book and take a written exam and a driving test to get a license.
Unfortunately, in Texas, most no longer have to take the driving test. As long as you can show that you've taken some sort of driving school, you don't have to demonstrate that you can actually drive properly.
And of course, now that they've dropped the speed limits to 55mph all over Houston because of our pollution problem, things just continue to spiral ever-downward. And our buses are much-reviled, and we have no trains.
Here's a question: in Europe, do you have to occasionally take a renewal test, to make sure your driving skills are up to snuff? Seems like a good idea; if we had something like that here, most of my friends would be walkin'.
Man, SimEarth was THE greatest of all the Sim* games, not to mention the hardest of them all. I was able to get a proper civilization once (trichordates). The rest of my attempts usually ended up with like 30 atmospheres of pressure, which will kill pretty much anything. We really do need a SimEarth update!
The baseball "world championship", and it doesn't contain teams from around the world, just the US and Canada. The game is all stats, man, nothing more. Don't let anybody tell you different. It's much more boring to watch than, oh, about anything else on TV. Hell, it's mostly boring when you're there.
I don't know about you guys, but when I play, the car is, uh, "worn out" well before the tires even think about having a chance to wear out. Just something about those INSANE STUNT BONUSes that makes me cackle hideously. When I get too frustrated with the mission I'm working on, I just drive around looking for ramp-like devices. The Duke boys got nuthin' on me.:)
If you had actually happened to read the article, you would realize that the game is to be called "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City". The Slash editors and the submitter both didn't apparently read it either, so you're in good company.
...until the industry itself changes, the course can only be considered "generic" in the sense that it is NOT teaching what is in the workplace nor what the industry is doing.
So you're suggesting here that the spoon-feed method of teaching is the best one, correct? Teach them only what everyone else is doing now, and they will know it. Well, that's one way to go, but I suggest it's not the best.
Do you remember the old adage about giving a man a fish vs. teaching a man to fish? Teaching them to use some generic applications (word-proc, spreadsheet, mail, browser), and possibly more than one of each type, more than prepares them for "computer use" in the future. Really, all those types of applications are basically the same; the only differences are just in which menu the <foo> feature is located.
Programmers learning new languages is very similar. As long as you know the fundamentals (loops, conditionals, logic flow, etc.), learning a new language is trivial; it's all just syntactic differences. A loop is a loop is a loop, be it in Java or Perl or Fortran.
No, they're just desperate to maintain their almost-monopoly. They're the Microschlock of domain registration - overly-high prices, poor quality, poor support, condescending attitude toward customers. Did I leave anything out?
Why people insist on patronizing NSI, I'll never know. I was a pretty satisfied customer of theirs for a while, all until I needed to make a change. I would rather have had all my teeth pulled out... without anesthesia!
Slashdot Mirror
Oh jeez, Lemmings, that game was a day-eater! "Oh, I'll just play Lemmings for a few minutes..." Six hours later, "Man, if I could just get that one lemming to NOT run into the spinning blade..." Heh. I always enjoyed Lode Runner too; a lot of times, there was a strategy to finishing up the levels. And hey, it came with a built-in level editor too.
One of the new(er) puzzle games that I rather enjoyed was Tomb Raider. Sure, it was originally designed so you could play a game and watch Lara shake her booty at the same time, but TR1 and TR2 both had some pretty good puzzle aspects to them. By contrast, the follow-ups have all been quite a bit more difficult than they needed to be, and have lost a lot of the puzzle-solving; now it's just "don't get killed in THIS AMBUSH". Bleh. Save, move, die, load, repeat.
Interesting. He might make a decent Batman - he's actually got the acting ability to pull off a proper tortured Bruce Wayne. Unlike some other Batman impersonators we've seen (Clooney - the shiny-happy Batman).
I still think Val Kilmer was the best Batman we've yet seen. Perhaps it was the writing, perhaps the direction, but I didn't really dig Keaton as The Bat.
It sounds more like having a pro-stock dragster with bald bike tires. Oh man, I need sleep!
And only 512MB? Man, my old-ass dual-PPro 200 has more core than that. By a factor of 2!
I have been told, on many occasions "alternate browsers account for less than 2% of our visitors, don't worry about them".
Well, as a user of an "alternate browser", I thank you for actually giving a shit. :)
Here's a thought: the Foo Corporation has some fancy-schmancy site that they have designed for only IE, and it really won't work at all in anything else (proprietary tags or whatever). So when the PHBs notice that the "alternate browser" share is dropping to 0%, they care even less, and code even more for IE, and it becomes sort of a self-fulfilling feedback loop. That would be pretty hard to break out of. Just a random thought, dunno what can be done about it.
The side-door analogy isn't half bad. The movie theatre only wants you to come in through the front door, so they can know what you're doing, and also keep an accurate count of who comes through. Instead of getting the government to make sneaking in through that side door illegal, and waste the taxpayers' time and money by placing a police officer there, the movie theatre can decide that this side door should remain locked, and perhaps remove the outside knob, making it only accessible from inside (most of the theatres around my area do exactly this).
The same concept can easily be moved to webservers; referral headers, while fakeable, will probably work great in the general case, as somebody else in this thread mentioned. It shouldn't be the government's problem when there is a perfectly workable, simple, and legal solution which the complainants can implement; i.e. redirect all requests with an outside referrer to the main page, same as making all movie patrons come in from the outside through the front door.
Not to mention the fact that you can do chroot-sftp with SSH Communications' software, where you can't with OpenSSH. It's quite trivial to set up, about as hard as chroot-ftp (i.e. not hard at all).
Anything by W. Richard Stevens is well worth having. The TCP/IP Illustrated series and the Unix Network Programming are both excellent, though the new editions of UNP are unfinished, since he died before UNP3 was published (and apparently, finished). Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment is an excellent in-depth look at Unix system calls.
Don't managers get it?
Nope, they don't.
Part of the problem seems to be that there are precious few managers who have been moved up through the programming ranks, and actually have programming experience, so they have no comprehension what the programmers are actually doing.
Check out the book "Death March" by Edward Yourdon. Some interesting insights in there.
Having worked for a couple of the second type (the shoot from the hip type), I would suggest that the engineering-oriented firm has the right idea.
:).
My big project was a commodity trading application, one in which many millions of dollars of trades and futures would potentially pass through. When we started, the clients had NO idea what they wanted; they actually had us copying the interface of another piece of software. When we got about halfway through the copy, the changes started, and kept on coming, even through the testing phase. The finished product (one year late, almost to the day) had had so many changes, it bore almost no resemblence to the original program we were copying (probably good, from a getting-our-ass-sued standpoint
The worst part was that the owners of my company didn't want to spend any time in testing. They never needed to do much more than a couple days' testing on any of their other projects (mostly web programming), so they had no idea why this project need so much. I got as much testing in as I could, and isolated some obscure cases, but there were probably still more lurking in there.
I left that company a long time ago, and have no idea if the project ever went anywhere. I kinda hope it did, considering the amount of work I put into it. The clients' domain is no longer registered, even though my former company still lists them as a client (under the non-working domain, heh), so I guess it was all just wasted effort. As the parent post suggested, it was a disaster waiting to happen.
I found this a while back, and it's a pretty good story.
Well, just consider that most of the product disclaimers you see are the direct result of somebody doing the thing that they say not to do. Do not operate hairdryer in water came about because somebody was trying to dry their hair in the bathtub (which doesn't make sense anyway, since you'll likely get it wet again, being in the tub). And so on...
And we're the same species as some of those people? Man, doesn't bode well for the species.
As the other poster said, it's the General Public License. Read it here.
ICANN isn't doing the greatest job, but at least they are theoreticaly an open, international organization that I could effect somehow.
I don't think they actually make a suitcase large enough, that you could pack with enough money, to affect ICANN in any way. It's been taken over by money-grubbing, do-nothing corporate bloodsuckers. It needs to be eradicated, and replaced with a democratic body.
But no, here's how I really feel...
Since always. Have a quick gander at this link, or this one and there you have it, straight from the, uh, wildebeest's mouth.
You've got an interesting idea; it's almost like corewar or something. It might actually be interesting to have an all-bot match - pit one set of bots against another. You could almost do a genetic-like breeding of the best bot and/or team of bots.
In America, you study a book and take a written exam and a driving test to get a license.
Unfortunately, in Texas, most no longer have to take the driving test. As long as you can show that you've taken some sort of driving school, you don't have to demonstrate that you can actually drive properly.
And of course, now that they've dropped the speed limits to 55mph all over Houston because of our pollution problem, things just continue to spiral ever-downward. And our buses are much-reviled, and we have no trains.
Here's a question: in Europe, do you have to occasionally take a renewal test, to make sure your driving skills are up to snuff? Seems like a good idea; if we had something like that here, most of my friends would be walkin'.
The title says it all.
<AOL>Me TOO!!!<AOL>
Man, SimEarth was THE greatest of all the Sim* games, not to mention the hardest of them all. I was able to get a proper civilization once (trichordates). The rest of my attempts usually ended up with like 30 atmospheres of pressure, which will kill pretty much anything. We really do need a SimEarth update!
a whopping resolution of 1280x1024
That's it? Man, my monitor at home does better than that, and it's like 5 years old.
Here's to hoping that digital cinema will be put on hold until it's better, and that Lucas will never be allowed to write love scenes again.
s/love scenes/movie scripts/
The baseball "world championship", and it doesn't contain teams from around the world, just the US and Canada. The game is all stats, man, nothing more. Don't let anybody tell you different. It's much more boring to watch than, oh, about anything else on TV. Hell, it's mostly boring when you're there.
Everytime a foul is committed the opposing player who was injured gets to power-slam the offender? Sounds good to me.
Damn dude, you had me laughing for a good couple minutes with that one. I can just picture it... <laughs some more>
I don't know about you guys, but when I play, the car is, uh, "worn out" well before the tires even think about having a chance to wear out. Just something about those INSANE STUNT BONUSes that makes me cackle hideously. When I get too frustrated with the mission I'm working on, I just drive around looking for ramp-like devices. The Duke boys got nuthin' on me. :)
If you had actually happened to read the article, you would realize that the game is to be called "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City". The Slash editors and the submitter both didn't apparently read it either, so you're in good company.
So you're suggesting here that the spoon-feed method of teaching is the best one, correct? Teach them only what everyone else is doing now, and they will know it. Well, that's one way to go, but I suggest it's not the best.
Do you remember the old adage about giving a man a fish vs. teaching a man to fish? Teaching them to use some generic applications (word-proc, spreadsheet, mail, browser), and possibly more than one of each type, more than prepares them for "computer use" in the future. Really, all those types of applications are basically the same; the only differences are just in which menu the <foo> feature is located.
Programmers learning new languages is very similar. As long as you know the fundamentals (loops, conditionals, logic flow, etc.), learning a new language is trivial; it's all just syntactic differences. A loop is a loop is a loop, be it in Java or Perl or Fortran.
No, they're just desperate to maintain their almost-monopoly. They're the Microschlock of domain registration - overly-high prices, poor quality, poor support, condescending attitude toward customers. Did I leave anything out?
Why people insist on patronizing NSI, I'll never know. I was a pretty satisfied customer of theirs for a while, all until I needed to make a change. I would rather have had all my teeth pulled out... without anesthesia!