How about my favorite "Crush, Crumble, and Chomp"?
Played it on the C-64. Took 30 MINUTES to load and had a 50% success rate. When your monster got killed you had to RE-LOAD the game. The fact that we played it and played it is a testament to how good it was...
A few weeks ago I ran update... (cue ominous music).
It applied Service Pack 3 to Win 2K and rebooted. When it came back up (or actually failed to), it could no longer see the ATA100 hard drive on which it was installed...
I tinkered around for about an hour before I decided it would be quicker to re-install than to try to fix it...
Until then I had had good experiences with update for the most part. It is a good concept (like Red Hat Network), but given the wide range of hardware/software configurations out there, I'm not sure it will ever get to the point that a large update doesn't fry someone...
Someone should mod the parent to this message up. It was NOT a troll. It was a personal observation. Hmm. Let me guess. Perhaps it was an offended Indian outsourcing person who modded it down?
Just because you don't agree with a post doesn't make it a troll!
I think it'll make for a pretty atmospheric glider, but not a transorbital vehicle.
In the couple of sketchy bits I saw before the slashdot effect overwhelmed their servers... I did notice that they refer to it as a SUB-orbital craft.
I also noticed that it basically has a cockpit just barely big enough for a pilot and he sits with a BIG spherical tank 'o explosive rocket fuel right up against his back. Fun.
My biggest question is how they get back without burning up. Doesn't say if they plan to come back under power. Wish there was more detail on their plans...
This is definitely something that could be interesting if they a) finish it and b) don't blow up all their guys testing it...
Re:Anybody have a working binary?
on
Duke3d in Linux
·
· Score: 1
>>3. An original Duke Nukem CD to get the configuration files and game data
A year ago or so PC Gamer Magazine included the full game on their demo disk. Can't remember which issue it was... Tried it on Win2K and it crapped out after just a few minutes... I forget what the error was.
Maybe someone can find that issue and get some of those disks.
To my ear the IBM demo sounds a little smoother and more natural.
I managed to get a couple of samples from the IBM site before it became totally bogged down... I then went back to the AT&T site and listened to a few. Unfortunately I didn't think to try an apples to apples comparison, I was just playing around.
They both sound funny because they are so close to sounding like real people. The result is they sound like people with mild to serious speech problems...
WinXP is less like Win95 than either Gnome or KDE. You could just as easily argue that the retraining costs for XP would be greater than for Linux because MS gratuitously messed with the user interface.
Really good point. Maybe the oss community has it all wrong. Maybe instead of trying to match the newest Microsoft UI and file formats for OS and Office, they should make a Win95 compatibility mode that works as close to exactly like Win95 (minus crashes, etc.) as possible. Then all the companies and governments would truly have an easier time (from the re-training standpoint) going Linux than XP.
Other than that I have to say that the biggest hurdle for most organizations I've worked with (all private sector) is custom software that is a) required to run the buisiness and b) only works on Windows.
Could all that software be re-written to work with Linux? Sure. Would doing so greatly diminish the TCO of Linux? You bet.
Most companies are neither good at training nor development, nor in the grand scheme of things should they have to be. Widget makers should be good at making, marketing and selling widgets...
For them to be saddled with re-writing either home-grown or custom built software that is currently helping them sell widgets would be something that took their dollars away from new projects.
There may be a market for consultancies that come into an organization and hammer Linux and Wine into working with existing applications.
If the desktop environment can be made to be equal to or better than XP in terms of real productivity (that means legacy apps still work) AND the cost of deploying Linux to desktops PLUS consulting and training fees is less than the cost of XP by a significant amount, then companies and goverments will make the move.
Once upon a time there was a gaming article that blew away the punch lines of several Man-Kzin War stories. I asked that it not be published. In that case too, I acted to protect my copyrights and my authors.
Important point: He asked that it not be published.
He did not litigate. He did not act in some heavy-handed way.
He "acted to protect his copyrights" by requesting that someone not give away the endings and thereby discourage people from reading the books.
The next step has to be to get wireless on the chip and put the lot on a live fly (might need to upgrade to a bumble bee). Then we could have a beowulf swarm!
I'm kicking myself for not recognizing the wing-ed shaow one tho.
Like I said I never heard anything in its entirety, but I think it was Moon Over Morocco. I remembered that title when I was looking at the website.
Aye Carumba! They charge $55 for CDs! Some of the spoken word sources I've seen charge significantly less for MP3 CDs since the cost of one MP3 CD is a fraction of several audio CDs or tapes... Hope they get on that bandwagon... I'd love to get the entire set, but at this price it will take a while.
I heard bits and pieces of the Jack Flanders shows YEARS ago on public radio. I couldn't always pick up the station, so I never heard all of anything... What I did hear was really good.
My favorite bit had a guy talking to a beautiful woman and noticing that her shadow had wings. Beautiful example of something that worked in audio very inexpensively.
Another good one had a wizard's battle of giant machines kinda like mechs, but more organic like giant lobster-clawed dealies. That's about all I remember. It must have been 15 years ago or more...
Thanks for hooking me up with their website. I'll be ordering some of their CDs!
Hmm. Seems to me people invented physical filing cabinets to get rid of big piles of paper on their physical desktops. For that matter they invented desktops to get the big piles up off the floor...
It really is ironic that the consequences of his premise that we should ignore the low-level details of how hardware actually works and concentrate on extremely high level concepts (like a stream of data) are so clearly shown by the fact that his company's servers cannot handle the load of users trying to retrieve info from them...
In the future all data will be available to all people at all times, just not all at the same time...;-)
"Okay, what can you export from the moon that would make any economic sense? My suggestion would be solar power satellites that you then station near the L1 point so they double as sun shades. "
OK. Why exactly would we need a moon colony to put solar power satellites in L1 orbit?
To act as "sun shades" these things would have to be frickin' huge. I know very little about solar satellites, but if I'm not mistaken you need something that will be excited by the light and generate electricity. Creating these monster satellites would take extraordinary amounts of this substance. The only way your suggestion of building them on the moon makes sense is if that substance were rediculously abundant and easily accessible on the moon. In my admittedly limited experience I have never once heard anyone talk about the extreme abundance of photovoltaics on the moon... Maybe they're there, maybe not. Hate to bet a colony on it...
Next, assuming all other problems with your enormous satellites were worked out, how do you keep a) solar winds from blowing them away since they would have gargantuan surface areas similar to solar sails and b) all manner of space debris from punching holes in them to the point of destruction. Just think of the Perseids alone! To be feasible these things would have to be unimaginably thin and high velocity DUST would tear them to shreds.
Third, you mention "beaming" the energy to earth. Most proposals to do this I have read have suggested microwaves. Two things: 1) not sure whether cancer deaths would rise or fall what with all the stray microwaves bounching around... and 2) ever play Sim City? You could literally be the "toast of the town"...
Finally, I'm not sure if by sun shade you mean filtering the light or blocking it. I certainly don't want any part of an artificial night... Seriously, we have such a fingernail's grasp on all the variables involved in our weather patterns that I am confident any such attempt to control the weather (global warming) would be disasterous. We either reduce global warming by reducing greenhouse emissions, or not at all. I just don't see your super satellites as a realistic way to do that. With our current technology level there is no way we can build a quick fix. Maybe Captain Picard could do something with the deflector dish and be done in 60 minutes, but we are stuck with doing it the hard way. I also do not believe we have enough time left to wait for super-de-duper new technology.
OK, there is one quick way I can think of we can eliminate global warming: nuclear winter.;-)
Hmm. A state where there are NO controls on drugs and guns, nor are there funds for police and fire departments. Sounds like a fun place to raise your kids.
Wait! Let's privatize those services!
{Excerpt from 911 transcript}
Operator: 911, how may I help you?
Caller: Help! My house is on fire and my grandmother is trapped inside!
Operator: OK. We have several packages you might be interested in. First there is the basic "Two guys and a pump" service for $10,000. From there it ranges all the way up to our deluxe fire-suppression/granny rescue and treatment package for $225,000.
Just a quick note of "Good Luck" on the moon colony.
Here are my suggestions for funding: Paul Allen, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison and BILL GATES. There really aren't that many people in the world who have enough money to attempt such a grand feat. Even fewer who could EVER be convinced there was some reason to sink their entire fortunes in such lunacy (sorry).
I'm afraid it would take REAL geeks to fund this operation which has no practical application or potential for return on investment. The heirs of Sam Walton are super wealthy, but not likely to fall for this plan.
Quick quiz: Name something the moon colony could export to Earth that couldn't be made and transported more cheaply either on Earth or in low Earth orbit (or simply done without)?
Until we have a VERY compelling answer to that question, private companies are NOT going to fund a great big geek colony on the moon for its own sake. Companies do not exist without profit. That is not a view that is popular in these parts, but it is as fundamentally true as plants need carbon dioxide and animals need oxygen. Funding a moon colony that couldn't pay back huge returns would make no more sense than a tiger spending most of his time gathering up plants for the little lambs to eat. Sure it makes him a hell of a guy, but in the end he starves.
That leaves only (drum roll please) the federal government... So the best bet for escaping the federal government (and that pesky gravity well) is the federal government.
Don't forget: when Europeans came to the new world, they didn't have to bring their oxygen with them...
Re:and how many are single ...
on
The Aging Gamer
·
· Score: 1
Here's what I !love about slashdot... The post I'm replying to is really, really funny, yet the folks with "mod" power have not modded it up. Guess he should have bashed Microsoft...
So that this isn't a totally off topic post: I'm 34 and began gaming with Pong in the arcades, followed by Atari (Sears) and the whole line of Commodore computers.
Using books and the Commodore Vic 20 I learned to program in Basic. Skip forward many years and I'm building enterprise systems in Java and Oracle and playing games with my children. My 5 year old loves Aliens vs. Pred 2...;-) He also is getting pretty good at coming up with ideas for games which I'm hoping to get time to build one day...
Please mod me to -9 x 10^2000 and call me an off-topic troll! It builds character!
I love the part about x-by-wire. Steering and braking handled by a computer...
Gives new meaning to Blue Screen Of Death...
You get into the car for the first time. You feel a little nauseous when the car asks, "Where do you want to go today?" You know this ain't gonna be good...
You're driving down the road, and you encounter a rare bug that tries to divide by zero when you try to change the MP3 file you are listening to, when suddenly what to your wondering eyes should appear but an opaque blue windshield that asks if you would like to report this bug to Microsoft...
But don't worry! A) They'll fix it in the next "hot-patch" and B) the fact that you can no longer see the road doesn't really matter, because you have lost the ability to steer or brake!
Your last thought in this world is the regret for your decision to sit directly over the bumper in the "helicopter pilot" configuration, instead of the back seat in the "passengers die first" configuration.
If Java had a similar mechinism you wouldn't have to break compatibility. Now I'm not sure if the bytecode is decorated with the Java version, but I could see a similar soloution being used to keep legacy Java on life support.
Here's a crazy thought... the new 3.0 version (or greater) would have a version number.
Anything without a number would be run by the JVM in "legacy" mode.
Slashdot Mirror
Played it on the C-64. Took 30 MINUTES to load and had a 50% success rate. When your monster got killed you had to RE-LOAD the game. The fact that we played it and played it is a testament to how good it was...
It applied Service Pack 3 to Win 2K and rebooted. When it came back up (or actually failed to), it could no longer see the ATA100 hard drive on which it was installed...
I tinkered around for about an hour before I decided it would be quicker to re-install than to try to fix it...
Until then I had had good experiences with update for the most part. It is a good concept (like Red Hat Network), but given the wide range of hardware/software configurations out there, I'm not sure it will ever get to the point that a large update doesn't fry someone...
I find your lack of faith disturbing...
Someone should mod the parent to this message up. It was NOT a troll. It was a personal observation. Hmm. Let me guess. Perhaps it was an offended Indian outsourcing person who modded it down?
Just because you don't agree with a post doesn't make it a troll!
When it's a couple inches from my back, I don't really distinguish between exploding and burning really fast.
"He didn't technically EXPLODE, Jim, he just burned to cinders very quickly..."
In the couple of sketchy bits I saw before the slashdot effect overwhelmed their servers... I did notice that they refer to it as a SUB-orbital craft.
I also noticed that it basically has a cockpit just barely big enough for a pilot and he sits with a BIG spherical tank 'o explosive rocket fuel right up against his back. Fun.
My biggest question is how they get back without burning up. Doesn't say if they plan to come back under power. Wish there was more detail on their plans...
This is definitely something that could be interesting if they a) finish it and b) don't blow up all their guys testing it...
A year ago or so PC Gamer Magazine included the full game on their demo disk. Can't remember which issue it was... Tried it on Win2K and it crapped out after just a few minutes... I forget what the error was.
Maybe someone can find that issue and get some of those disks.
I loved the metal guillotine gates you had to jump through.
Man you would NOT want to have to get up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom in that palace...
I managed to get a couple of samples from the IBM site before it became totally bogged down... I then went back to the AT&T site and listened to a few. Unfortunately I didn't think to try an apples to apples comparison, I was just playing around.
They both sound funny because they are so close to sounding like real people. The result is they sound like people with mild to serious speech problems...
Really good point. Maybe the oss community has it all wrong. Maybe instead of trying to match the newest Microsoft UI and file formats for OS and Office, they should make a Win95 compatibility mode that works as close to exactly like Win95 (minus crashes, etc.) as possible. Then all the companies and governments would truly have an easier time (from the re-training standpoint) going Linux than XP.
Other than that I have to say that the biggest hurdle for most organizations I've worked with (all private sector) is custom software that is a) required to run the buisiness and b) only works on Windows.
Could all that software be re-written to work with Linux? Sure. Would doing so greatly diminish the TCO of Linux? You bet.
Most companies are neither good at training nor development, nor in the grand scheme of things should they have to be. Widget makers should be good at making, marketing and selling widgets...
For them to be saddled with re-writing either home-grown or custom built software that is currently helping them sell widgets would be something that took their dollars away from new projects.
There may be a market for consultancies that come into an organization and hammer Linux and Wine into working with existing applications.
If the desktop environment can be made to be equal to or better than XP in terms of real productivity (that means legacy apps still work) AND the cost of deploying Linux to desktops PLUS consulting and training fees is less than the cost of XP by a significant amount, then companies and goverments will make the move.
Important point: He asked that it not be published.
He did not litigate. He did not act in some heavy-handed way.
He "acted to protect his copyrights" by requesting that someone not give away the endings and thereby discourage people from reading the books.
I don't see why anyone would be upset by that.
The secret origin of the Borg...
Like I said I never heard anything in its entirety, but I think it was Moon Over Morocco. I remembered that title when I was looking at the website.
Aye Carumba! They charge $55 for CDs! Some of the spoken word sources I've seen charge significantly less for MP3 CDs since the cost of one MP3 CD is a fraction of several audio CDs or tapes... Hope they get on that bandwagon... I'd love to get the entire set, but at this price it will take a while.
My favorite bit had a guy talking to a beautiful woman and noticing that her shadow had wings. Beautiful example of something that worked in audio very inexpensively.
Another good one had a wizard's battle of giant machines kinda like mechs, but more organic like giant lobster-clawed dealies. That's about all I remember. It must have been 15 years ago or more...
Thanks for hooking me up with their website. I'll be ordering some of their CDs!
Did you ever stop to think that maybe his head gets cold??? You want him "to boldly go" bald?
It really is ironic that the consequences of his premise that we should ignore the low-level details of how hardware actually works and concentrate on extremely high level concepts (like a stream of data) are so clearly shown by the fact that his company's servers cannot handle the load of users trying to retrieve info from them...
In the future all data will be available to all people at all times, just not all at the same time... ;-)
OK. Why exactly would we need a moon colony to put solar power satellites in L1 orbit?
To act as "sun shades" these things would have to be frickin' huge. I know very little about solar satellites, but if I'm not mistaken you need something that will be excited by the light and generate electricity. Creating these monster satellites would take extraordinary amounts of this substance. The only way your suggestion of building them on the moon makes sense is if that substance were rediculously abundant and easily accessible on the moon. In my admittedly limited experience I have never once heard anyone talk about the extreme abundance of photovoltaics on the moon... Maybe they're there, maybe not. Hate to bet a colony on it...
Next, assuming all other problems with your enormous satellites were worked out, how do you keep a) solar winds from blowing them away since they would have gargantuan surface areas similar to solar sails and b) all manner of space debris from punching holes in them to the point of destruction. Just think of the Perseids alone! To be feasible these things would have to be unimaginably thin and high velocity DUST would tear them to shreds.
Third, you mention "beaming" the energy to earth. Most proposals to do this I have read have suggested microwaves. Two things: 1) not sure whether cancer deaths would rise or fall what with all the stray microwaves bounching around... and 2) ever play Sim City? You could literally be the "toast of the town"...
Finally, I'm not sure if by sun shade you mean filtering the light or blocking it. I certainly don't want any part of an artificial night... Seriously, we have such a fingernail's grasp on all the variables involved in our weather patterns that I am confident any such attempt to control the weather (global warming) would be disasterous. We either reduce global warming by reducing greenhouse emissions, or not at all. I just don't see your super satellites as a realistic way to do that. With our current technology level there is no way we can build a quick fix. Maybe Captain Picard could do something with the deflector dish and be done in 60 minutes, but we are stuck with doing it the hard way. I also do not believe we have enough time left to wait for super-de-duper new technology.
OK, there is one quick way I can think of we can eliminate global warming: nuclear winter. ;-)
Wait! Let's privatize those services!
{Excerpt from 911 transcript}
Operator: 911, how may I help you?
Caller: Help! My house is on fire and my grandmother is trapped inside!
Operator: OK. We have several packages you might be interested in. First there is the basic "Two guys and a pump" service for $10,000. From there it ranges all the way up to our deluxe fire-suppression/granny rescue and treatment package for $225,000.
Caller: What!!
Operator: So how much are you looking to spend?
Third Person: Go for the upsale!
Operator: Oh, would you like police with that?
Here are my suggestions for funding: Paul Allen, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison and BILL GATES. There really aren't that many people in the world who have enough money to attempt such a grand feat. Even fewer who could EVER be convinced there was some reason to sink their entire fortunes in such lunacy (sorry).
I'm afraid it would take REAL geeks to fund this operation which has no practical application or potential for return on investment. The heirs of Sam Walton are super wealthy, but not likely to fall for this plan.
Quick quiz: Name something the moon colony could export to Earth that couldn't be made and transported more cheaply either on Earth or in low Earth orbit (or simply done without)?
Until we have a VERY compelling answer to that question, private companies are NOT going to fund a great big geek colony on the moon for its own sake. Companies do not exist without profit. That is not a view that is popular in these parts, but it is as fundamentally true as plants need carbon dioxide and animals need oxygen. Funding a moon colony that couldn't pay back huge returns would make no more sense than a tiger spending most of his time gathering up plants for the little lambs to eat. Sure it makes him a hell of a guy, but in the end he starves.
That leaves only (drum roll please) the federal government... So the best bet for escaping the federal government (and that pesky gravity well) is the federal government.
Don't forget: when Europeans came to the new world, they didn't have to bring their oxygen with them...
So that this isn't a totally off topic post: I'm 34 and began gaming with Pong in the arcades, followed by Atari (Sears) and the whole line of Commodore computers.
Using books and the Commodore Vic 20 I learned to program in Basic. Skip forward many years and I'm building enterprise systems in Java and Oracle and playing games with my children. My 5 year old loves Aliens vs. Pred 2... ;-) He also is getting pretty good at coming up with ideas for games which I'm hoping to get time to build one day...
Please mod me to -9 x 10^2000 and call me an off-topic troll! It builds character!
You can't pronounce it. You refer to it as "The Planet Formerly Known As Planet X"
Once per user...
Gives new meaning to Blue Screen Of Death...
You get into the car for the first time. You feel a little nauseous when the car asks, "Where do you want to go today?" You know this ain't gonna be good...
You're driving down the road, and you encounter a rare bug that tries to divide by zero when you try to change the MP3 file you are listening to, when suddenly what to your wondering eyes should appear but an opaque blue windshield that asks if you would like to report this bug to Microsoft...
But don't worry! A) They'll fix it in the next "hot-patch" and B) the fact that you can no longer see the road doesn't really matter, because you have lost the ability to steer or brake!
Your last thought in this world is the regret for your decision to sit directly over the bumper in the "helicopter pilot" configuration, instead of the back seat in the "passengers die first" configuration.
Either about a frog who crosses the road or a religious fellow who cannot in good conscience fight in the war...
Here's a crazy thought... the new 3.0 version (or greater) would have a version number.
Anything without a number would be run by the JVM in "legacy" mode.