I have been one of the google "cheerleaders" for a while now... but within the last few months I have:
A. Signed Up for a Flickr account (and paid for a Pro account)... and uploaded over 1000 pictures B. Started Using Del.icio.us religiously C. Registered 3 Domains using Yahoo (they have a good price, I trust them, I like their interface for managing domains). D. Started a Yahoo fantasy football league.
A couple of things I can't give up from Google: A. Searching - Google really is better B. GMail - God I love that interface C. Reader - it just works the way I think D. Personalized Homepage - Yeah I know... yahoo has that too... but it doesn't display my Gmail inbox;-)
All in all, I am starting to have more of my traffic head towards yahoo related sites... when you add it all up it looks like Yahoo is starting to get their game on against Google... it will be an interesting fight!
Hmmm... Having a fairly beefy computer and dual LCD monitors I thought I would go lookup what some of my other appliances around my house pull for comparison.
Oven: 5000 Watts Clothes Dryer: 5000 Watts Water Heater: 3800 Watts Air Conditioner: 3500 Watts Microwave: 1500 Watts Refrigerator: 500 Watts (mine is fairly large) 32" TV: 150 Watts (Estimate)
My Computer at Idle: 150 Watts My Computer While Playing a game: 350 Watts
Now I'm too lazy to do the math.... but it's fairly apparent to me atleast that the computer is just going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the refrigerator, air condition (or heater), and water heater all of which run for a considerable amount of time during the day.
So even though 400W seems like a lot... it _really_ isn't. Plus... it isn't at 400W very often (atleast not unless you're a teenager with nothing better to do.... but then _you're_ not responsible for the bills either;-) most of the time it's going to hum along at around 150 Watts or even be powered off for a lot of people (mine is on 24/7).
Those are the only two stores I have ordered off of in the past year... and I've ordered thousands of dollars worth of things for my house (just got married)...
Trying to get the extra $5 off of something by using some shady site just isn't worth it anymore. Newegg and Amazon are always within 1% of the bottom of the barrel sites and I don't even have to think twice about ordering from them (actually... my credit card is just saved at both.... so I can order at will).
"Remember, most of the sites like pricewatch simply spider member sites for prices."
No... not true at all... the reason I have always used Pricewatch is that they _don't_ spider sites... each item listed on pricewatch is entered _by the the company providing the product_.
This makes pricewatch stand apart because the price that is on the website is actually the advertised price from the companies selling things.... so if they try to give you a different price when you actually order, you have some ground to stand on.
I have personally had a lot of good luck with pricewatch... but I haven't bought anything directly off there in over a year now... why? Well... mostly because I found Newegg. Sure newegg doesn't always have the _absolute_ lowest price (by a couple of bucks usually)... but their service (holy turnaround and shipping time!) and reputation more than makes up for it. I would rather pay $10 and get good shipping and know that my credit card wasn't stolen.... but maybe that's just me;-)
I haven't tried something like this in the past because my gmail is "mission critical" and I didn't want to make a mistake and polute my pristine gmail system (with labels and filters I have everything running perfectly right now). I might give it a try though and see how it goes.
I actually use Google Reader as my main RSS reader...
It has some quirks but overall works well. The main advantage for me is that after I look at something it is automatically "archived" (to use gmail terminology)... I like this because I am using several different computers all day long (laptop, tablet, home desktop, cubicle desktop, lab desktop) and often have short snippets of time to check my rss feed.... with Google Reader I can just tick a couple off when I have time and when I go back to it the stories I haven't looked at yet are the only ones shown, no matter which computer I used last. (Apologies if that was tough to understand.... just go try it yourself).
My only real complaint is that it's kinda slow to load... other than that the only thing I can think of off the top of my head is it needs to provide easier access to your "labels" (yes, the same type of labels as in Gmail)... right now they are kind of hidden.
I do suggest people checking it out, it is definitely an interesting take on how to make a feed reader:
So this isn't "Hard" evidence (is there ever such a thing on slashdot?)... but my Mother worked for a competing local telco (McLeodUSA) that was trying to take business away from SBC. She worked in the department responsible for physically making the switch from a customers old service over to McLeod whenever they signed up....
From talking to her it would take anywhere from 3 to 4 weeks on the smaller end of the spectrum to several months to get people switched. And then, after the switch the customer's service would "magically" switch back to SBC... in fact McLeod had a whole set of people dedicated to watching out for SBC switching people back without notice.... that sounds pretty shady to me.
With SBC atleast, they have a computer system with a published API that independent phone companies are supposed to be able to talk to in order expedite the process (I think it was required by law in our area). The thing is, SBC kept changing the API. McLeod had whole teams of people who's job it was to keep on top of the changing SBC API... and frequently that wasn't enough (ie the computer system still wouldn't work a lot of the time... and then guess what... my mom would be on the phone on hold with SBC trying to get them to switch someone's phone service).
Sure this is just anecdotal evidence... but my mom did work there for something like 3 years and she is full of horror stories about dealing with local telcos. Also note that McLeod is going out of business... as with the DSL provider when people have to wait _months_ to get their service switched it looks bad for the company offering the service.... which benefits SBC... hmmm
Now that you mention it I do remember him pulling this stunt against Daler... but I did see it at the Abit booth as well...
If I remember correctly he was almost dead when he did this to Daler... and he didn't give him the shotgun to the face afterwards... instead he ran off to get health... (is that right?)
I wish I could watch that video of the match vs Daler... anyone have a better link?
After I read your comment though, I started thinking about it... and my program actually started half-way through my second-grade year as well....
As for my friends in junior high... well, most of my good friends were in the program with me;-) So we enjoyed the hour or so a day when we were able to do "guided study";-) It was actually those 7th and 8th grade years that I value the most though, it would have been a really tough time to do Junior high without the support of my fellow Gifted Ed peers and teachers... I learned a lot about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to accomplish things in those two years...
Good to hear that there were programs like mine in other states... I wonder if it was a national push right around the same time. How old are you? I'm 23 myself (will be 24 next month). I know that my "class" was the first to go through the program in my school district... I wonder if other schools started up programs at similar times....
As a beneficiary of "gifted education" throughout my elementary and junior high years, I can say that these types of programs are wonderful.
I am not sure that I would have done as well in school if I didn't have a place to go and be challenged... the normal classes were just too slow and I found myself just treading water most of the time. My Gifted classes offered an environment that was both challenging and encouraging while also providing a place for me to be among other people that understood how it felt.
I don't know if they are still doing "Gifted Ed" out there in public schools (I know that in my home town the program got killed shortly after I left Junior high... due to budget constraints)... anyone know? Anyone have a child that is currently in a public school program built specifically for higher IQ children? I'd be interested in hearing about it.
Friedmud
PS - I guess I never really explained what "Gifted Ed" was... basically it was a bunch of kids that were determined to have higher than average IQ's... once a week we met and learned about "other" subjects in "different" ways... I "tested in" when I was in 3rd grade (as did most of my peers)
Personally, I thought your comment might have been flamebait;-) In fact after I made my response I thought "Oh god did I just feed a troll?"... but then I went and looked up your post history and was relieved to see that you probably weren't trolling.
I do appreciate the civil response, and because it was more than I deserved I will apologize for my off-handed comment... sorry about that.
The thing is I keep seeing this trend on slashdot where people indict other people's actions because they don't "do something constructive for the world" (or something along those lines). For instance, I see comments to case-mod stories like: "What a waste of time, he should do something more constructive with his time." And all I can think is that no one has the right to tell anyone else on the planet how they should spend their time while they are here.
We all have different pursuits in life, and improving the world around is a great long-term goal (and something I recommend to everyone, I don't think there is anything more satisfiying than knowing you've had a lasting positive impact on the world), but not every action needs to have some "higher purpose"... having _fun_ is just a much a worthy goal (and as you pointed out, entertaining others is definitely a way to make a positive impact... even if it is fairly indirect at times).
At any rate I have rambled on too long now... so sorry again for the knee-jerk response... I'm not quite sure why your post pushed my buttons but it plainly did.
What the hell is wrong with all you fucking bleeding heart liberal bastard slashdot high and mighty fuckers that let's you think you get to judge everyone else? (yes there should have been commas in there... but if anyone even thinks of telling me that, then they can take their post and shove it up their ass)
What did _you_ do to "help humanity" today? In the 30 seconds it took you to create this reply you could have saved a baby seal... get off your ass and do something!
God damn...
Friedmud
(PS: I am normally a very level headed contributor, but this post just struck a nerve...)
I guess that depends on the "skill" you are trying to test... it takes a _lot_ of skill to analyze a map... and be able to effectively utilize your knowledge of the map. I've played most of the maps used in Quake3 competition a _lot_ (as in, at my peak I was playing 4 to 5 hours a day), but I still get completely owned by the pro's because their ability to use the maps to their advantage is superior to mine.
That said, I do agree that it would be interesting to plop down a bunch of the pro's in never before seen maps and see what happens. In this case we would be testing their aiming skills and their adaptivity skills... it would be fun to watch!
To my knowledge no professional competitions do this, and probably won't ever do this. You don't make pro football players play on completely different fields (as in not rectangular or not standard length)... instead they always play on the same size field, and team's ability to create a good game plan utilizing that field and properly execute it has a lot to do with their success...
I have, _several_ times at Quakecon and let me tell you it is unbelievable. He will play just hard enough to screw with his opponent... only whipping out the "tricks" when he needs them.
For Quakecon 2004 he was setup in the Abit booth and was playing people for spectacle... if you could even kill him _once_ you got a prize. If you could beat him then you got a whole new computer.... only a few people got a prize at all.
One of the memerable moments from watching him play was when he was taking on a beginner in Doom3... Fatal1ty ran into a room and knew the guy was coming behind him... he shot out all of the lights and crouched in a corner... while his opponent ran _right_ past him... the crowd HOWLED with laughter and his opponent swung around dumbfounded until he got a shotgun in the face.
Fatal1ty plays _so_ often that he is basically one with the game... he knows every nook and cranny of every map and knows exactly which weapon to use in every situtation... he also has an uncanny ability to predict the behaviour of his foe.
Go see him play sometime... then tell me he is some kind of "lamer".... I think you will be surprised.
I have cedega 5 and BF2 so I was toying around with it yesterday... After confirming that it boots you off punkbuster servers with an error something like "Invalid O/S Priviliges"... it got me thinking that maybe Punkbuster was trying to update itself... but failed for whatever reason.
So I downloaded the manual updater for windows (which you linked to) and ran it within Cedega. Surprisingly it ran ok ( a few buttons were gnarled but it did work) and I was actually able to upate BF2's punkbuster using it!
Unfortunately this didn't fix the punkbuster problems with BF2... but it is nice to know that it works in case I ever need it;-)
Give Gobinder a try... it has even better organization capabilities than One Note (for one thing it has integrated tasks and calendar...) and has great inking capabilities (including lasso for selection and moving... use "right click" for instant lasso). Honestly I think my tablet would be worthless without it...
I agree about the Portege... I actually would have gotten one myself, but as my job was buying it for me I didn't have much choice (IBM or HP). As it is though, I love the compactness of the HP, and the resolution doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Only thing I really miss is the Geforce graphics card... would be nice to have XRandR support in linux for on the fly screen rotation (as it is now I have to restart X to get portrait mode... cause the i915 gfx card doesn't support XRandR... sigh).
No matter how you look at it though, tablets are just awesome... anyone sitting on the fence should definitely pick one up!
I would just like to throw one more hat in the "well then you were using it incorrectly" ring. As others have mentioned OneNote and GoBinder boths support searching... and both do a great job at it.
In Gobinder I can even have equations written in my math class with small blurbs written all around the equations describing the different pieces... and if I do a search on the text in one of those slanty little blurbs it _still_ finds it. I have no idea how it does it, but it's awesome.
To be honest though, I hardly ever search for things. Maybe it's because I've only got about 4 months worth of stuff in there, but a good filing system makes all the difference. In gobinder I have folders for each of my classes and for each project I'm working on, when I finish a section in a class I archive that set of notes into a subfolder that is appropriately named (ie "Test1 Material"). Keeping a good filing system is key... but I guess I'm also the kind of person that hasn't used a "Search" function in my operating system in _years_... but I know people who never keep track of their files and have the shortcut for the windows find dialog memorized.... so I guess to each his own.
For a comparison I have _boxes_ full of notebooks from my undergrad classes... and trying to go back through them and find an equation or algorithm I wrote down a couple of years ago is next to impossible. In the same vain a lot of my coworkers have stacks of "lab notebooks" sitting on their shelves that will almost never be of any use in the future because you can't search them.
I have gentoo running on my hp tc4200 just fine... pen, wifi, and everything working well.
Only problem is that there aren't many "pen enabled" programs for linux... so when note taking I am in Windows using GoBinder.
About meetings: the collaborative part of tablets is _awesome_. Often in group meetings I will hook my tablet up to the projector and take notes so everyone can see what we are talking about. It becomes a kind of white board that you can save and email out the results to everyone... VERY handy.
Not too mention that while giving power point presentations you can actually _write_ on your slides while presenting them! (akin to writing on a printed slide transparency with a felt tip pen) I believe that that component is the one thing powerpoint presentations have been missing for years... and now it's available.
I'm typing this on my tc4200 right now... and I've gotta say that I've fallen in love with this machine.
I use it both at work and at school (graduate degree... blah).. and it serves both purposes extremely well.
I personally selected the tc4200 over the x41 because it is _more_ of a desktop replacement+tablet than the x41 is. The 2Ghz PentiumM + 1GB of ram and a 7200 RPM hardrive upgrade make the tc4200 just as fast as most desktops. The only drawback being that you only have a 1024x768 screen, but a docking station and a good LCD screen solve that problem nicely.
I recommend that anyone in the market for a laptop take a serious look at the hp tc4200. You can find models starting at around $1300 if you shop around, making them not that much more expensive than a regular laptop and adding the tablet functionality to boot.
BTW... if you're going to get a tablet use Gobinder. Whether you are a professional or a student I find that it's note taking/organizing capabilities are beyond anything other offering (including one note).
Except that I pay my ISP and they have a privacy policy saying they won't sniff.
Oh really? So I guess that's working out well for all the people getting sued by the RIAA right now. Oh... their ISP must not have had a "good" privacy policy;-)
Fact of the matter is that at some point or another we end up "trusting" someone else on the internet to do the "right thing" with our data and transaction history. Using google vpn just gets you a little further down the line with encrypted stuff. Also note my other reply above about how much I care about google mining my traffic.
My university has completely unencrypted wireless... and I don't have time to setup my own vpn solution... therefore this google solution looks like a good one to me.
The coffee shop might not... but that guy sitting in the dark corner over there might be sniffing my unencrypted packets and reconstructing useful data on me.
Mostly I'm not worried about 99% of my internet traffic... if google wants to use it to serve me adds that are more appealing to me then that's a plus. Hell... if that guy in the corner wants to sniff my packets and find out I like Linux and read Slashdot then that's perfectly fine with me.
The problem is that 1% (mostly clear text passwords and the like... note that (rightly or wrongly) I trust my SSL encryption to my bank account... even over an unencrypted line). Who do I trust more to do nothing with my clear text passwords (like my slashdot login)? In this case I trust Google to not care about my clear text password more than the shifty guy in the corner. It's not a HUGE deal (hence I do (and am right now!) use unencrypted public wireless) but if I have the choice (and it's easy) I might as well use Google's VPN and be that little bit more secure.
I'm aware of that... what I'm asking is if the software reallly does this... because it didn't for me. They might have changed it so it doesn't do this before making it publicly accessible (and forgot to update the FAQ).
Slashdot Mirror
This is a great post...
;-)
I have been one of the google "cheerleaders" for a while now... but within the last few months I have:
A. Signed Up for a Flickr account (and paid for a Pro account)... and uploaded over 1000 pictures
B. Started Using Del.icio.us religiously
C. Registered 3 Domains using Yahoo (they have a good price, I trust them, I like their interface for managing domains).
D. Started a Yahoo fantasy football league.
A couple of things I can't give up from Google:
A. Searching - Google really is better
B. GMail - God I love that interface
C. Reader - it just works the way I think
D. Personalized Homepage - Yeah I know... yahoo has that too... but it doesn't display my Gmail inbox
All in all, I am starting to have more of my traffic head towards yahoo related sites... when you add it all up it looks like Yahoo is starting to get their game on against Google... it will be an interesting fight!
Friedmud
Hmmm... Having a fairly beefy computer and dual LCD monitors I thought I would go lookup what some of my other appliances around my house pull for comparison.
l
;-) most of the time it's going to hum along at around 150 Watts or even be powered off for a lot of people (mine is on 24/7).
According to:
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/howmuch.htm
Oven: 5000 Watts
Clothes Dryer: 5000 Watts
Water Heater: 3800 Watts
Air Conditioner: 3500 Watts
Microwave: 1500 Watts
Refrigerator: 500 Watts (mine is fairly large)
32" TV: 150 Watts (Estimate)
My Computer at Idle: 150 Watts
My Computer While Playing a game: 350 Watts
Now I'm too lazy to do the math.... but it's fairly apparent to me atleast that the computer is just going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the refrigerator, air condition (or heater), and water heater all of which run for a considerable amount of time during the day.
So even though 400W seems like a lot... it _really_ isn't. Plus... it isn't at 400W very often (atleast not unless you're a teenager with nothing better to do.... but then _you're_ not responsible for the bills either
Friedmud
This is _exactly_ my mentality lately.
Those are the only two stores I have ordered off of in the past year... and I've ordered thousands of dollars worth of things for my house (just got married)...
Trying to get the extra $5 off of something by using some shady site just isn't worth it anymore. Newegg and Amazon are always within 1% of the bottom of the barrel sites and I don't even have to think twice about ordering from them (actually... my credit card is just saved at both.... so I can order at will).
A little piece of mind is worth a lot!
Friedmud
"Remember, most of the sites like pricewatch simply spider member sites for prices."
;-)
No... not true at all... the reason I have always used Pricewatch is that they _don't_ spider sites... each item listed on pricewatch is entered _by the the company providing the product_.
This makes pricewatch stand apart because the price that is on the website is actually the advertised price from the companies selling things.... so if they try to give you a different price when you actually order, you have some ground to stand on.
I have personally had a lot of good luck with pricewatch... but I haven't bought anything directly off there in over a year now... why? Well... mostly because I found Newegg. Sure newegg doesn't always have the _absolute_ lowest price (by a couple of bucks usually)... but their service (holy turnaround and shipping time!) and reputation more than makes up for it. I would rather pay $10 and get good shipping and know that my credit card wasn't stolen.... but maybe that's just me
Friedmud
Thanks for the tip... I will check it out.
I haven't tried something like this in the past because my gmail is "mission critical" and I didn't want to make a mistake and polute my pristine gmail system (with labels and filters I have everything running perfectly right now). I might give it a try though and see how it goes.
Friedmud
I actually use Google Reader as my main RSS reader...
It has some quirks but overall works well. The main advantage for me is that after I look at something it is automatically "archived" (to use gmail terminology)... I like this because I am using several different computers all day long (laptop, tablet, home desktop, cubicle desktop, lab desktop) and often have short snippets of time to check my rss feed.... with Google Reader I can just tick a couple off when I have time and when I go back to it the stories I haven't looked at yet are the only ones shown, no matter which computer I used last. (Apologies if that was tough to understand.... just go try it yourself).
My only real complaint is that it's kinda slow to load... other than that the only thing I can think of off the top of my head is it needs to provide easier access to your "labels" (yes, the same type of labels as in Gmail)... right now they are kind of hidden.
I do suggest people checking it out, it is definitely an interesting take on how to make a feed reader:
http://reader.google.com/
Friedmud
So this isn't "Hard" evidence (is there ever such a thing on slashdot?)... but my Mother worked for a competing local telco (McLeodUSA) that was trying to take business away from SBC. She worked in the department responsible for physically making the switch from a customers old service over to McLeod whenever they signed up....
From talking to her it would take anywhere from 3 to 4 weeks on the smaller end of the spectrum to several months to get people switched. And then, after the switch the customer's service would "magically" switch back to SBC... in fact McLeod had a whole set of people dedicated to watching out for SBC switching people back without notice.... that sounds pretty shady to me.
With SBC atleast, they have a computer system with a published API that independent phone companies are supposed to be able to talk to in order expedite the process (I think it was required by law in our area). The thing is, SBC kept changing the API. McLeod had whole teams of people who's job it was to keep on top of the changing SBC API... and frequently that wasn't enough (ie the computer system still wouldn't work a lot of the time... and then guess what... my mom would be on the phone on hold with SBC trying to get them to switch someone's phone service).
Sure this is just anecdotal evidence... but my mom did work there for something like 3 years and she is full of horror stories about dealing with local telcos. Also note that McLeod is going out of business... as with the DSL provider when people have to wait _months_ to get their service switched it looks bad for the company offering the service.... which benefits SBC... hmmm
Friedmud
As a fellow tablet user I'm surprised that you've missed this bit of news:
http://geckotip.mozdev.org/
It's a new extention based on the (outdated) tpctip extension (that used to make the tpctip work in older versions of firefox). It works well for me.
Also, while we're on the subject of FF and tablets... I _highly_ suggest using pie menus with a tablet pc... it works _really_ well with a stylus:
http://optimoz.mozdev.org/piemenus/
Friedmud
Now that you mention it I do remember him pulling this stunt against Daler... but I did see it at the Abit booth as well...
If I remember correctly he was almost dead when he did this to Daler... and he didn't give him the shotgun to the face afterwards... instead he ran off to get health... (is that right?)
I wish I could watch that video of the match vs Daler... anyone have a better link?
Friedmud
Nope... from Missouri myself.
;-) So we enjoyed the hour or so a day when we were able to do "guided study" ;-) It was actually those 7th and 8th grade years that I value the most though, it would have been a really tough time to do Junior high without the support of my fellow Gifted Ed peers and teachers... I learned a lot about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to accomplish things in those two years...
After I read your comment though, I started thinking about it... and my program actually started half-way through my second-grade year as well....
As for my friends in junior high... well, most of my good friends were in the program with me
Good to hear that there were programs like mine in other states... I wonder if it was a national push right around the same time. How old are you? I'm 23 myself (will be 24 next month). I know that my "class" was the first to go through the program in my school district... I wonder if other schools started up programs at similar times....
Friedmud
As a beneficiary of "gifted education" throughout my elementary and junior high years, I can say that these types of programs are wonderful.
I am not sure that I would have done as well in school if I didn't have a place to go and be challenged... the normal classes were just too slow and I found myself just treading water most of the time. My Gifted classes offered an environment that was both challenging and encouraging while also providing a place for me to be among other people that understood how it felt.
I don't know if they are still doing "Gifted Ed" out there in public schools (I know that in my home town the program got killed shortly after I left Junior high... due to budget constraints)... anyone know? Anyone have a child that is currently in a public school program built specifically for higher IQ children? I'd be interested in hearing about it.
Friedmud
PS - I guess I never really explained what "Gifted Ed" was... basically it was a bunch of kids that were determined to have higher than average IQ's... once a week we met and learned about "other" subjects in "different" ways... I "tested in" when I was in 3rd grade (as did most of my peers)
Personally, I thought your comment might have been flamebait ;-) In fact after I made my response I thought "Oh god did I just feed a troll?"... but then I went and looked up your post history and was relieved to see that you probably weren't trolling.
I do appreciate the civil response, and because it was more than I deserved I will apologize for my off-handed comment... sorry about that.
The thing is I keep seeing this trend on slashdot where people indict other people's actions because they don't "do something constructive for the world" (or something along those lines). For instance, I see comments to case-mod stories like: "What a waste of time, he should do something more constructive with his time." And all I can think is that no one has the right to tell anyone else on the planet how they should spend their time while they are here.
We all have different pursuits in life, and improving the world around is a great long-term goal (and something I recommend to everyone, I don't think there is anything more satisfiying than knowing you've had a lasting positive impact on the world), but not every action needs to have some "higher purpose"... having _fun_ is just a much a worthy goal (and as you pointed out, entertaining others is definitely a way to make a positive impact... even if it is fairly indirect at times).
At any rate I have rambled on too long now... so sorry again for the knee-jerk response... I'm not quite sure why your post pushed my buttons but it plainly did.
Friedmud
You have to be kidding me...
What the hell is wrong with all you fucking bleeding heart liberal bastard slashdot high and mighty fuckers that let's you think you get to judge everyone else? (yes there should have been commas in there... but if anyone even thinks of telling me that, then they can take their post and shove it up their ass)
What did _you_ do to "help humanity" today? In the 30 seconds it took you to create this reply you could have saved a baby seal... get off your ass and do something!
God damn...
Friedmud
(PS: I am normally a very level headed contributor, but this post just struck a nerve...)
I guess that depends on the "skill" you are trying to test... it takes a _lot_ of skill to analyze a map... and be able to effectively utilize your knowledge of the map. I've played most of the maps used in Quake3 competition a _lot_ (as in, at my peak I was playing 4 to 5 hours a day), but I still get completely owned by the pro's because their ability to use the maps to their advantage is superior to mine.
That said, I do agree that it would be interesting to plop down a bunch of the pro's in never before seen maps and see what happens. In this case we would be testing their aiming skills and their adaptivity skills... it would be fun to watch!
To my knowledge no professional competitions do this, and probably won't ever do this. You don't make pro football players play on completely different fields (as in not rectangular or not standard length)... instead they always play on the same size field, and team's ability to create a good game plan utilizing that field and properly execute it has a lot to do with their success...
Friedmud
You have obviously not seen him play then...
I have, _several_ times at Quakecon and let me tell you it is unbelievable. He will play just hard enough to screw with his opponent... only whipping out the "tricks" when he needs them.
For Quakecon 2004 he was setup in the Abit booth and was playing people for spectacle... if you could even kill him _once_ you got a prize. If you could beat him then you got a whole new computer.... only a few people got a prize at all.
One of the memerable moments from watching him play was when he was taking on a beginner in Doom3... Fatal1ty ran into a room and knew the guy was coming behind him... he shot out all of the lights and crouched in a corner... while his opponent ran _right_ past him... the crowd HOWLED with laughter and his opponent swung around dumbfounded until he got a shotgun in the face.
Fatal1ty plays _so_ often that he is basically one with the game... he knows every nook and cranny of every map and knows exactly which weapon to use in every situtation... he also has an uncanny ability to predict the behaviour of his foe.
Go see him play sometime... then tell me he is some kind of "lamer".... I think you will be surprised.
Friedmud
As a side note...
;-)
I have cedega 5 and BF2 so I was toying around with it yesterday... After confirming that it boots you off punkbuster servers with an error something like "Invalid O/S Priviliges"... it got me thinking that maybe Punkbuster was trying to update itself... but failed for whatever reason.
So I downloaded the manual updater for windows (which you linked to) and ran it within Cedega. Surprisingly it ran ok ( a few buttons were gnarled but it did work) and I was actually able to upate BF2's punkbuster using it!
Unfortunately this didn't fix the punkbuster problems with BF2... but it is nice to know that it works in case I ever need it
Friedmud
Give Gobinder a try... it has even better organization capabilities than One Note (for one thing it has integrated tasks and calendar...) and has great inking capabilities (including lasso for selection and moving... use "right click" for instant lasso). Honestly I think my tablet would be worthless without it...
I agree about the Portege... I actually would have gotten one myself, but as my job was buying it for me I didn't have much choice (IBM or HP). As it is though, I love the compactness of the HP, and the resolution doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Only thing I really miss is the Geforce graphics card... would be nice to have XRandR support in linux for on the fly screen rotation (as it is now I have to restart X to get portrait mode... cause the i915 gfx card doesn't support XRandR... sigh).
No matter how you look at it though, tablets are just awesome... anyone sitting on the fence should definitely pick one up!
Friedmud
I would just like to throw one more hat in the "well then you were using it incorrectly" ring. As others have mentioned OneNote and GoBinder boths support searching... and both do a great job at it.
In Gobinder I can even have equations written in my math class with small blurbs written all around the equations describing the different pieces... and if I do a search on the text in one of those slanty little blurbs it _still_ finds it. I have no idea how it does it, but it's awesome.
To be honest though, I hardly ever search for things. Maybe it's because I've only got about 4 months worth of stuff in there, but a good filing system makes all the difference. In gobinder I have folders for each of my classes and for each project I'm working on, when I finish a section in a class I archive that set of notes into a subfolder that is appropriately named (ie "Test1 Material"). Keeping a good filing system is key... but I guess I'm also the kind of person that hasn't used a "Search" function in my operating system in _years_... but I know people who never keep track of their files and have the shortcut for the windows find dialog memorized.... so I guess to each his own.
For a comparison I have _boxes_ full of notebooks from my undergrad classes... and trying to go back through them and find an equation or algorithm I wrote down a couple of years ago is next to impossible. In the same vain a lot of my coworkers have stacks of "lab notebooks" sitting on their shelves that will almost never be of any use in the future because you can't search them.
Just my $.02
Friedmud
I have gentoo running on my hp tc4200 just fine... pen, wifi, and everything working well.
Only problem is that there aren't many "pen enabled" programs for linux... so when note taking I am in Windows using GoBinder.
About meetings: the collaborative part of tablets is _awesome_. Often in group meetings I will hook my tablet up to the projector and take notes so everyone can see what we are talking about. It becomes a kind of white board that you can save and email out the results to everyone... VERY handy.
Not too mention that while giving power point presentations you can actually _write_ on your slides while presenting them! (akin to writing on a printed slide transparency with a felt tip pen) I believe that that component is the one thing powerpoint presentations have been missing for years... and now it's available.
Friedmud
I'm typing this on my tc4200 right now... and I've gotta say that I've fallen in love with this machine.
I use it both at work and at school (graduate degree... blah).. and it serves both purposes extremely well.
I personally selected the tc4200 over the x41 because it is _more_ of a desktop replacement+tablet than the x41 is. The 2Ghz PentiumM + 1GB of ram and a 7200 RPM hardrive upgrade make the tc4200 just as fast as most desktops. The only drawback being that you only have a 1024x768 screen, but a docking station and a good LCD screen solve that problem nicely.
I recommend that anyone in the market for a laptop take a serious look at the hp tc4200. You can find models starting at around $1300 if you shop around, making them not that much more expensive than a regular laptop and adding the tablet functionality to boot.
BTW... if you're going to get a tablet use Gobinder. Whether you are a professional or a student I find that it's note taking/organizing capabilities are beyond anything other offering (including one note).
Friedmud
"Your system is among the top 4% of all systems scanned by the Game Advisor."
Atleast I can show my wife this when she see's next months credit card bill and there is another $1600 added to it....
Friedmud
Except that I pay my ISP and they have a privacy policy saying they won't sniff.
;-)
Oh really? So I guess that's working out well for all the people getting sued by the RIAA right now. Oh... their ISP must not have had a "good" privacy policy
Fact of the matter is that at some point or another we end up "trusting" someone else on the internet to do the "right thing" with our data and transaction history. Using google vpn just gets you a little further down the line with encrypted stuff. Also note my other reply above about how much I care about google mining my traffic.
My university has completely unencrypted wireless... and I don't have time to setup my own vpn solution... therefore this google solution looks like a good one to me.
Friedmud
The coffee shop might not... but that guy sitting in the dark corner over there might be sniffing my unencrypted packets and reconstructing useful data on me.
Mostly I'm not worried about 99% of my internet traffic... if google wants to use it to serve me adds that are more appealing to me then that's a plus. Hell... if that guy in the corner wants to sniff my packets and find out I like Linux and read Slashdot then that's perfectly fine with me.
The problem is that 1% (mostly clear text passwords and the like... note that (rightly or wrongly) I trust my SSL encryption to my bank account... even over an unencrypted line). Who do I trust more to do nothing with my clear text passwords (like my slashdot login)? In this case I trust Google to not care about my clear text password more than the shifty guy in the corner. It's not a HUGE deal (hence I do (and am right now!) use unencrypted public wireless) but if I have the choice (and it's easy) I might as well use Google's VPN and be that little bit more secure.
Friedmud
I'm aware of that... what I'm asking is if the software reallly does this... because it didn't for me. They might have changed it so it doesn't do this before making it publicly accessible (and forgot to update the FAQ).
Friedmud
I just installed it and I was never asked anything about google toolbar. Can anyone confirm that you were asked?
Friedmud