Flash for a "visual experience" might be one thing, but when flash is required for me to navigate an informational website, they screwed up.
I've lost track of the number of times I've went to a companies webpage to checkout a product before buying it, only to find it requires a horrible flash setup to see even the small bit of product information.
And yes, as a good nerd should I refuse the buy the product from that company, but since they have no way to know it doesn't do anything to change the problem.
How is this different than any other day for a lot of us?
Sad thing is, it doesn't matter how many times I hit a flash based page with a text based browser it doesn't teach them anything, it only teaches me how bad so many webpage "programmers" are.
Re:IRC analysis fatally flawed
on
Is IRC All Bad?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
You'd need a study of how many channels are warez channels, or what percentage of users were in warez channels.
Warez channels tend to be huge, so no surprise it'd be easy for them to make the top 60.. But what if there are 10 times as many legit channels, but they only average half as many users per channel. Now we've suddenly gone from 99% to 20%...
On that same note you need to figure in how many users are being counted more than once by being in more than one warez channel. Perhaps it's different on other networks, but people that come into channels I op in that have warez channels in their whois list tend to have a dozen or more warez channels listed, while those in only legit channels usually have 3 or less.
Do you fix everything in your car (no matter how non-trivial) that breaks? No, you take it to a mechanic.
Actually I do fix everything in my car, at least everything I can. The only parts I don't fix myself are the parts the manufacturer now makes so that it is impossible to fix without thousands of dollars worth of their specialized computer equipment that they would refuse to sell to me anyways.
Car manufacturers don't want you to be able to fix things yourself, they want you to have to take the car to a mechanic. But despite this, I, along with virtually everyone else in my family, still fixes all car problems that the car manufacturers haven't found a way to prevent me from fixing yet.
Educating people about securing their systems is one thing, but expecting everyone to become a security expert is quite another.
You don't have to be a security expert to prevent the most common problems. Any one on the internet should have at least a simple understanding about security; it's the people that don't have a clue that most of the problems come from.
The watches do not generate electric power, they have a weight that winds a spring.
Um... no. While a watch like you describe MIGHT exist (I've never seen one, nor heard of one working on that priciple) I promise you the majority of batteryless watches are electrically powered quarts watches.
They have a small knetic generator (you can google if you want to know how they work) which charges a power cell, which in turn runs the watch as though it was a (semi) normal quartz watch.
The Seiko Knetic is a good example of this type of watch.
You overlooked a vital problem in your plan.. The prints created by a daisy wheel are as unique to the printer used as fingerprints to a person, if not more so.
And besides not getting used, I haven't heard of problems with windows update.
While I was still using Windows 2000, shortly before ServicePack3 IIRC, I went to windows update and installed the critical "you must install me now biaatch!" updates. Suddenly my system was running so unbarably slow that it was rendered unusable. After a considerable amount of research the problem was tracked down to one of the critical updates that while fixing a GDI exploit, it caused many systems to slow to a halt. This update is one of the updates which would be automatically installed by anyone with automatic updating enabled.
This is by far not an isolated occurance, and not as severe as many other problems windows system administrators see on a frequent enough basis that many of them adopt a phylosphy of not updating until absolutely necissary. However, now you can no longer claim to have never heard of windows update problems.
I have broadband. And I bitch about online activation.
What happens 6 months from now when I don't have broadband and want to install a game I bought?
And what happens a couple years from now when I want to reinstall an "old" game and it turns out they shut down their servers, or perhaps have just quit letting you activate their "old" games in hopes you'll buy a new game?
The problems with online activation aren't just limited to possibly not having internet access when you first purchase the game.
Ok, lets take a moment and assume broadband internet is a reasonable assumption... What happens a couple years from now, when for whatever reason valve's servers are no longer online to active your copy, or worse yet when they decide to no longer active copies so you are forced to buy a new game.
Maybe I'm alone, maybe I'm completely different than anyone else, but I don't like the idea of buying a game and knowing I might not be able to install and play it in a couple years.
The same idea applies to games which have a large online appeal but are designed to prevent you from using unofficial servers.
"By the same token, lots of people had a problem with the Xbox because of its size. Why?
"Personally, I'd love to see them all come in a standard size. If they were the same dimensions of a DVD player, or VCR, I could stack them all on top of each other."
I think you answered your own question. The size of the xbox sucks because it takes up too much room and doesn't fit where most other things will.
Maybe I'm just more special than you are, but I see having components small enough so I can actually fit them in the relatively small space I can spare for them as a GoodThing(TM). An xbox is too wide for me to "Stick the sucker on a shelf" on my entertainment center, and I take too much care of my stuff to put it "next to your TV on the floor, and forget about it." where it's going to get kicked around and stepped on.
Not trying to be argumentitive, but you did ask;)
I do agree the smaller PS2 isn't a big deal though... Sure, I wouldn't mind having one, but it's nothing special.
Compounding the problem is that Sony is asking PSP developers to limit how much they push the handheld's technology in their games. The whole prospect is terribly self-defeating. Why bother putting a bunch of powerful hardware in your handheld if you don't even want game developers to take full advantage of it anyway?
Is there a problem with providing a bit more power than what is intended to be used so that in the few cases where a game would normally struggle (too many enemies on screen, etc) it will instead temporarily go over it's power "limit" to continue without faultering? (Yet still averaging out to be within the power usage limit)
I personally see no problem with a limitation of not using 100% power 100% of the time, in fact I commend Sony on taking the leap if this is indeed their reasoning.
The fact remains that Sony has made no announcements as to the exact limitations, which could easily mean the limitations will only be a limitation if trying to use the UMD or WiFi along side high CPU usage.
Sony has also made no announcements as to the battery life of the PSP, so the bickering is pointless. I think it's quite reasonable to assume the PSP will at least have the battery life to last both to and from work on a decent size commute for the average Tokyo businessman, which they previously have alluded to as their primary market for the PSP.
But as I already said, the bickering is pointless, and it's not like I can prove any conjectures I've made. All I can say for sure is that I hope I end up developing on the PSP, as it looks to be one nice machine to work on.
El-Cheapo hardware du jour. This includes many, many x86 mobo manufacturers, as well as bottom of the barrel RAM and PSU suppliers. Guess what: If you're truly talking about making something the same as a $2,000 Mac for half the price (hyperbole, I know), then you're engaging in some of this, and it is where a lot of the BSODs originate.
Embedded Sound and either Embedded video or a lower end video card and you can build an x86 PC with high quality/name brand parts and high specs for under $800 without a problem. Granted, thats without an uber monitor. Upgrade to a nice LCD and you'll probably end up fairly close to $1000.
It wasn't a bad choice as much as it was just a flop.
Of course, unless you worked at GameStop you should have been smart enough to see that it would flop. As much as geeks love LAN parties, the number of people who are going to arrange to have two TVs, two PS2s, and two copies of a game in the room are fairly slim which combined with the large amount of developement work that goes into creating games which take advantage of the link, direct link not being a marketing point, and the eclipse from online play causes it to just not be worth doing.
For what it matters, the link stuff could just as easily been done with the USB ports and sony would benefit by selling $10-$20 link cables. And before you give me crap about 'iLink is faster than USB', the thru-put would be limited by the I/O processors and speed differences are likely negligable (I haven't benchmarked so give me a break!). And besides, if the difference between full speed 1394 and USB kills a games link capabilities, perhaps the code used for linking needs to be re-examined.
A PStwo and GT4 online bundle for christmas would have been a HUGE seller and made a huge impact on PStwo and GT4 sales, and a huge boost to the amount of people playing online.
This seems like one of those "Someone is going to get fired" screw ups to me.
My browser (firefox) does this already. Sometimes I end up at really weird pages, but as long as I type in something sane that has a definite homepage, it takes me there.
I haven't looked under the hood but I suspect it's a glorified I'm Feeling Lucky google search. Doesn't seem very news worthy to me...
Um... Wow. According to the article the only thing they are doing is running over the meshes and lowering the polygon count to reduce filesize... This technique has been around for a very long time.
If you really want to lower the file size of large, complex 3d models, you should be looking into things such a using bezier paths to describe curved surfaces, which also has the advantage of providing infinite levels of detail and thus can be dynamically scaled depending on the power of the rendering engine being used.
That being said, textures often take up more room than 3d models. Either reusing textures or using more polygons and less/lowerquality textures can save space.
Slashdot Mirror
Since when has MS taken accountability for it's security flaws?
I've lost track of the number of times I've went to a companies webpage to checkout a product before buying it, only to find it requires a horrible flash setup to see even the small bit of product information.
And yes, as a good nerd should I refuse the buy the product from that company, but since they have no way to know it doesn't do anything to change the problem.
Sad thing is, it doesn't matter how many times I hit a flash based page with a text based browser it doesn't teach them anything, it only teaches me how bad so many webpage "programmers" are.
Warez channels tend to be huge, so no surprise it'd be easy for them to make the top 60.. But what if there are 10 times as many legit channels, but they only average half as many users per channel. Now we've suddenly gone from 99% to 20%...
On that same note you need to figure in how many users are being counted more than once by being in more than one warez channel. Perhaps it's different on other networks, but people that come into channels I op in that have warez channels in their whois list tend to have a dozen or more warez channels listed, while those in only legit channels usually have 3 or less.
I need to do this, simply because it would finally give a use to these altoid tins I never got around to throwing away!
Actually I do fix everything in my car, at least everything I can. The only parts I don't fix myself are the parts the manufacturer now makes so that it is impossible to fix without thousands of dollars worth of their specialized computer equipment that they would refuse to sell to me anyways.
Car manufacturers don't want you to be able to fix things yourself, they want you to have to take the car to a mechanic. But despite this, I, along with virtually everyone else in my family, still fixes all car problems that the car manufacturers haven't found a way to prevent me from fixing yet.
Educating people about securing their systems is one thing, but expecting everyone to become a security expert is quite another.
You don't have to be a security expert to prevent the most common problems. Any one on the internet should have at least a simple understanding about security; it's the people that don't have a clue that most of the problems come from.
While you may have a valid point... computers have cables and extension cords for a reason.
He's far too busy watching Sesame Street I'm sure.
Um... no. While a watch like you describe MIGHT exist (I've never seen one, nor heard of one working on that priciple) I promise you the majority of batteryless watches are electrically powered quarts watches.
They have a small knetic generator (you can google if you want to know how they work) which charges a power cell, which in turn runs the watch as though it was a (semi) normal quartz watch.
The Seiko Knetic is a good example of this type of watch.
...you obviously haven't been watching the USD lately.
Add in a line about a price cap otherwise it'd be asking for a world of hurt.
You overlooked a vital problem in your plan.. The prints created by a daisy wheel are as unique to the printer used as fingerprints to a person, if not more so.
That'll all depend on how well it sells of course.
While I was still using Windows 2000, shortly before ServicePack3 IIRC, I went to windows update and installed the critical "you must install me now biaatch!" updates. Suddenly my system was running so unbarably slow that it was rendered unusable. After a considerable amount of research the problem was tracked down to one of the critical updates that while fixing a GDI exploit, it caused many systems to slow to a halt. This update is one of the updates which would be automatically installed by anyone with automatic updating enabled.
This is by far not an isolated occurance, and not as severe as many other problems windows system administrators see on a frequent enough basis that many of them adopt a phylosphy of not updating until absolutely necissary. However, now you can no longer claim to have never heard of windows update problems.
What happens 6 months from now when I don't have broadband and want to install a game I bought?
And what happens a couple years from now when I want to reinstall an "old" game and it turns out they shut down their servers, or perhaps have just quit letting you activate their "old" games in hopes you'll buy a new game?
The problems with online activation aren't just limited to possibly not having internet access when you first purchase the game.
Maybe I'm alone, maybe I'm completely different than anyone else, but I don't like the idea of buying a game and knowing I might not be able to install and play it in a couple years.
The same idea applies to games which have a large online appeal but are designed to prevent you from using unofficial servers.
"Personally, I'd love to see them all come in a standard size. If they were the same dimensions of a DVD player, or VCR, I could stack them all on top of each other."
I think you answered your own question. The size of the xbox sucks because it takes up too much room and doesn't fit where most other things will.
Maybe I'm just more special than you are, but I see having components small enough so I can actually fit them in the relatively small space I can spare for them as a GoodThing(TM). An xbox is too wide for me to "Stick the sucker on a shelf" on my entertainment center, and I take too much care of my stuff to put it "next to your TV on the floor, and forget about it." where it's going to get kicked around and stepped on.
Not trying to be argumentitive, but you did ask ;)
I do agree the smaller PS2 isn't a big deal though... Sure, I wouldn't mind having one, but it's nothing special.
RNA, a.k.a. "RoboDNA" -- Robots "equivalent" to DNA.
I know it's not a quote, but it's still from Futurama.
Is there a problem with providing a bit more power than what is intended to be used so that in the few cases where a game would normally struggle (too many enemies on screen, etc) it will instead temporarily go over it's power "limit" to continue without faultering? (Yet still averaging out to be within the power usage limit)
I personally see no problem with a limitation of not using 100% power 100% of the time, in fact I commend Sony on taking the leap if this is indeed their reasoning.
The fact remains that Sony has made no announcements as to the exact limitations, which could easily mean the limitations will only be a limitation if trying to use the UMD or WiFi along side high CPU usage.
Sony has also made no announcements as to the battery life of the PSP, so the bickering is pointless. I think it's quite reasonable to assume the PSP will at least have the battery life to last both to and from work on a decent size commute for the average Tokyo businessman, which they previously have alluded to as their primary market for the PSP.
But as I already said, the bickering is pointless, and it's not like I can prove any conjectures I've made. All I can say for sure is that I hope I end up developing on the PSP, as it looks to be one nice machine to work on.
You're forgetting the tiny cache, Er... x86 CPUs tend to have a very large cache, largely to make up for the horrible bandwith of the bus.
Embedded Sound and either Embedded video or a lower end video card and you can build an x86 PC with high quality/name brand parts and high specs for under $800 without a problem. Granted, thats without an uber monitor. Upgrade to a nice LCD and you'll probably end up fairly close to $1000.
Of course, unless you worked at GameStop you should have been smart enough to see that it would flop. As much as geeks love LAN parties, the number of people who are going to arrange to have two TVs, two PS2s, and two copies of a game in the room are fairly slim which combined with the large amount of developement work that goes into creating games which take advantage of the link, direct link not being a marketing point, and the eclipse from online play causes it to just not be worth doing.
For what it matters, the link stuff could just as easily been done with the USB ports and sony would benefit by selling $10-$20 link cables. And before you give me crap about 'iLink is faster than USB', the thru-put would be limited by the I/O processors and speed differences are likely negligable (I haven't benchmarked so give me a break!). And besides, if the difference between full speed 1394 and USB kills a games link capabilities, perhaps the code used for linking needs to be re-examined.
This seems like one of those "Someone is going to get fired" screw ups to me.
I haven't looked under the hood but I suspect it's a glorified I'm Feeling Lucky google search. Doesn't seem very news worthy to me...
If you really want to lower the file size of large, complex 3d models, you should be looking into things such a using bezier paths to describe curved surfaces, which also has the advantage of providing infinite levels of detail and thus can be dynamically scaled depending on the power of the rendering engine being used.
That being said, textures often take up more room than 3d models. Either reusing textures or using more polygons and less/lowerquality textures can save space.