you might check out freecycle.org too. They have semi-local mailing lists (i.e. one for most major cities) where people can post about things they don't want and see if anyone on the list could use it.
"People already steal software stealing software. Its called Kazaa-lite and it can be downloaded from Kazaa. Kazaa-lite: software that lets a user steal service from the Kazaa network, which is then used to steal other software software"
So the BSA should support Kazaa-lite then right? I mean if everyone steals service from Kazaa using Kazaa-lite, then they'll go out of business and their problem is solved.:)
Agreed. I still use my Rio (300 I think) that cost me about $40. It only has 64mb capacity but that's plenty of time for jogging or mowing the lawn so it meets my needs.
My biggest complaint is that it's a little slow adding new songs and I have to use a 3rd party app now for it to work with Windows XP.
The main benefits being that I don't cringe every time I drop it and I don't worry about it being stolen from my locker at the gym.
I think you need to go read up on the DS. Straight from Nintendo, it says "And wireless functions could link players in the same room - or across the country."
It's not just about inviting some friends over to your house and playing together in the same room. Whether or not someone will build the infrastructure for that remains to be seen but it does seem to be something that Nintendo is at least considering.
Now to debunk your argument about the GC:
I live in the US (midwest). One of my best friends now lives in Canada. He can't come over too often and play GC games with me, but we play Battlefield together on our PCs all the time and it's a blast. It's a lot more fun when I know my teammate.
Even when I do invite friends over, that means we have to play on a 4-way split screen which I personally don't think is as fun.
You can't have a massive game. Think of 30 real people racing for 1st place in F-Zero. If you want more examples of that, go read the IGN article in my original post.
A lot of people have broadband now and pay one flat monthly fee. Maybe online support wouldn't appeal to the people that don't have that, but there are certainly people it would appeal to other than just me.
All I'm saying is that I think it should be an option for those people who want it instead of Nintendo blowing it off and saying that no one wants it or it wouldn't be profitable. Losing customers to other consoles isn't very profitable either. Neither is losing developers that think your console is more limited than the others.
"Also, the not-a-Game-Boy DS will have wireless connectivity, so it's not as if they're abandoning the Internet altogether..."
I don't get that. Every time I read something about the DS, they're talking about its wi-fi capability and how people want to be able to link up their DSs to play and communicate with the people around them. Somehow though, that doesn't apply to their console.
Personally, I enjoy my single player games but there are definitely some that I think could benefit from online multi-player support. F-Zero and Double Dash come to mind instatntly. Yes, I've heard about the warp pipe project but I've also heard that Double Dash's broadband support pretty much blows.
IGN had this article about GC games that they thought would make good online games. Somebody at Nintendo needs to read it and wake up.
"I think "Looks best in Firefox and other Standards Compliant Browsers" logos might not be so bad"
You mean something like the logos at the bottom of this page.
"Someone should patent 'a method and system for incorrect display of PNG alpha channels coupled with mangling of CSS', and then sue Micro$oft for infringement."
You're forgetting about prior art. I think Microsoft has too much for anyone to get a patent on that now.:)
"anyone or anything can walk in to a baggage terminal and walk off with someone else's bag with out being stopped."
Nobody wants your dirty underwear.
On a more serious note, I wonder how often that happens. I remember one apartment complex I lived at, someone put up a sign warning people that their laundry had been stolen out of the dryer while they were gone.
I guess that would be a good reason to make sure you get to the baggage pickup before they start unloading.
With all those other physical objects, you need to specify what kind of cookies you're talking about. After all the extremely paranoid comments I've seen today, a comment like that just might put Oreo out of business.;)
He must have been dumb. Back in high school when my friend copied my source, he at least changed all the variable names and spacing. Too bad he didn't also wait until it was completely debugged. The teacher noticed that our programs had similar enough errors that they were probably copies. The bad part was that he accused me of being the copier.
By the way, any particular reason your post is between/* and */ ?
Then again, maybe that wasn't on yahoo news. I thought I got that link from there before hitting slashdot but I don't see it now so just ignore the first part of my post.:)
yahoo news had this article from zdnet.
In this article, it says (towards the bottom) "Meanwhile, the average Internet surfer is left with few options. Windows users could download an alternate browser, such as Mozilla or Opera, and Mac users are not in danger."
What I found somewhat funny was this quote (from NetSec's chief technology officer) "I told my wife, unless it is absolutely necessary and unless you are going to a site like our banking site, stay off the Internet right now"
Does that mean he forsees a time in the near future when this kind of problem will go away? I don't.
Normally I find the majority of your posts to be pretty entertaining but I don't think I would put Mandrake in the 'begging' category.
So they have a bunch of stuff on the download page asking you to donate, big deal. It's not like every so often, you run a program and it reminds you to donate in the same fashion as some shareware.
Personally, I would much sooner make a donation to Mandrake based on how they treat their customers than buy Microsoft software. I'm lucky enough to get the professional versions of Windows and Office through my school if I wish. On the rare ocassion that I was working on a relative's PC with the home edition of something, I found product activation to be quite annoying.
Besides, getting out of bankruptcty wasn't just about getting more donations. They had to take a look at their business and cut out what was wasteful to survive. That by itself should be a lesson to other companies which think the only way out of a problem is to gouge their customers a little more instead of looking for internal problems.
You might try looking on the support forum for upgrade instructions next time.
It would have been nice to have a link to that on the main page where everyone would see it before having problems.
You're forgetting part of the scam. If you happen to be high risk (i.e. live in an area with a higher crime rate) then you pay higher premiums to start with. Then after you get robbed and make a claim, your premiums go up still. Wasn't that the point of a higher premium in the first place.. because they expected you to be robbed and file a claim?
"if people overseas can do it cheaper, and maybe even better, WE HAVE TO LET THEM. If we don't, then some day they'll come along and simply overpower us"
So we should outsource all of our work to other countries because it's cheaper? I don't know if you've noticed but the U.S. isn't exactly held in high regard around the world. What happens when we depend too much on other countries and they decide they don't like dealing with us any more?
Here's another example of why this can be bad. I'll use food since we kind of need food to live.
Say we import lettuce from Mexico because it's cheaper. Farmers in the U.S. eventually stop growing lettuce because it's not profitable. You seem to think we should just go along with that and let Mexico supply all of our lettuce because it's cheaper for them to do so. What you don't realize is that one of the reasons its cheaper is that they dump pesticides on the food that are illegal to use in the U.S. because of their negative effects on people. But that's ok. Since Mexico can do it cheaper, we should just let them.
sorry, I do respect the idea and wasn't really trying to mock. It's just that after reading the reply about catching fire, I thought of the 3 lil pigs.
I've been a bad joke kinda mood all day.:)
if they would simply run one of the freely available shredder or eraser programs they could get money out of the drives...
or at least happier employees.
I don't know, dropping 20lb weights on hard drives would make a lot of employees happier too.
What I never understood is if you're going to smash/burn the drive, does it really need to be formatted first?
"Or what about someone like me, who is about to reinstall the entire Winblows mess from scratch after a disk crash?"
I ran into that problem a while back when setting up a new computer at work. First thing I did was install all critical updates, then McAfee. By the time I finished that, McAfee popped up after a couple minutes saying that it was infected with something.
The best solution (and yes I know this sounds bad) would probably be to download service packs/updates and burn them to a CD so you can install them before the computer is ever connected to the network.
Assuming that's not an option, I guess turn on the XP firewall first and hope it works well enough to protect you.
Incidentally, this was a new computer from Dell so I would say that's a no to the other question of whether they ship their boxes fully patched.
Slashdot Mirror
"coding C during the day, and doing crazy stuff in Ruby at home."
I don't have a Ruby at home you insensetive clod! Oh you meant the language?
"Sadly, if Mr. Carmack won't take a stand against evil software patents, I doubt anybody will, or will at least do so successfully."
Maybe he's just waiting for the right time. Like when he's up on the moon and Widget is humping his frickin laser beam.
you might check out freecycle.org too. They have semi-local mailing lists (i.e. one for most major cities) where people can post about things they don't want and see if anyone on the list could use it.
"People already steal software stealing software. Its called Kazaa-lite and it can be downloaded from Kazaa. Kazaa-lite: software that lets a user steal service from the Kazaa network, which is then used to steal other software software"
:)
So the BSA should support Kazaa-lite then right? I mean if everyone steals service from Kazaa using Kazaa-lite, then they'll go out of business and their problem is solved.
Agreed. I still use my Rio (300 I think) that cost me about $40. It only has 64mb capacity but that's plenty of time for jogging or mowing the lawn so it meets my needs.
My biggest complaint is that it's a little slow adding new songs and I have to use a 3rd party app now for it to work with Windows XP.
The main benefits being that I don't cringe every time I drop it and I don't worry about it being stolen from my locker at the gym.
It's not just about inviting some friends over to your house and playing together in the same room. Whether or not someone will build the infrastructure for that remains to be seen but it does seem to be something that Nintendo is at least considering.
Now to debunk your argument about the GC:
- I live in the US (midwest). One of my best friends now lives in Canada. He can't come over too often and play GC games with me, but we play Battlefield together on our PCs all the time and it's a blast. It's a lot more fun when I know my teammate.
- Even when I do invite friends over, that means we have to play on a 4-way split screen which I personally don't think is as fun.
- You can't have a massive game. Think of 30 real people racing for 1st place in F-Zero. If you want more examples of that, go read the IGN article in my original post.
A lot of people have broadband now and pay one flat monthly fee. Maybe online support wouldn't appeal to the people that don't have that, but there are certainly people it would appeal to other than just me.All I'm saying is that I think it should be an option for those people who want it instead of Nintendo blowing it off and saying that no one wants it or it wouldn't be profitable. Losing customers to other consoles isn't very profitable either. Neither is losing developers that think your console is more limited than the others.
"Also, the not-a-Game-Boy DS will have wireless connectivity, so it's not as if they're abandoning the Internet altogether..."
I don't get that. Every time I read something about the DS, they're talking about its wi-fi capability and how people want to be able to link up their DSs to play and communicate with the people around them. Somehow though, that doesn't apply to their console.
Personally, I enjoy my single player games but there are definitely some that I think could benefit from online multi-player support. F-Zero and Double Dash come to mind instatntly. Yes, I've heard about the warp pipe project but I've also heard that Double Dash's broadband support pretty much blows.
IGN had this article about GC games that they thought would make good online games. Somebody at Nintendo needs to read it and wake up.
"I think "Looks best in Firefox and other Standards Compliant Browsers" logos might not be so bad"
:)
You mean something like the logos at the bottom of this page.
"Someone should patent 'a method and system for incorrect display of PNG alpha channels coupled with mangling of CSS', and then sue Micro$oft for infringement."
You're forgetting about prior art. I think Microsoft has too much for anyone to get a patent on that now.
" > but what about davros? he ruled
:)
Of course he ruled, the Daleks were his big idea."
Maybe the BBC could work out a deal with Davros then and still have the Daleks in the show.
I know what comments are. I guess I just didn't catch the funny bit in posting a comment to slashdot as if it were actually a code comment.
"anyone or anything can walk in to a baggage terminal and walk off with someone else's bag with out being stopped."
Nobody wants your dirty underwear.
On a more serious note, I wonder how often that happens. I remember one apartment complex I lived at, someone put up a sign warning people that their laundry had been stolen out of the dryer while they were gone.
I guess that would be a good reason to make sure you get to the baggage pickup before they start unloading.
"- Cookies"
;)
With all those other physical objects, you need to specify what kind of cookies you're talking about. After all the extremely paranoid comments I've seen today, a comment like that just might put Oreo out of business.
He must have been dumb. Back in high school when my friend copied my source, he at least changed all the variable names and spacing. Too bad he didn't also wait until it was completely debugged. The teacher noticed that our programs had similar enough errors that they were probably copies. The bad part was that he accused me of being the copier.
/* and */ ?
By the way, any particular reason your post is between
"People is already plural, you do not add need to add an s."
:)
See, that's why I don't criticize other people's grammar.
This is just slashdot, who cares about grammar here anyway? Do you use perfect grammar in IM too? How about text messages on cell phones?
Then again, maybe that wasn't on yahoo news. I thought I got that link from there before hitting slashdot but I don't see it now so just ignore the first part of my post. :)
yahoo news had this article from zdnet.
In this article, it says (towards the bottom)
"Meanwhile, the average Internet surfer is left with few options. Windows users could download an alternate browser, such as Mozilla or Opera, and Mac users are not in danger."
What I found somewhat funny was this quote (from NetSec's chief technology officer)
"I told my wife, unless it is absolutely necessary and unless you are going to a site like our banking site, stay off the Internet right now"
Does that mean he forsees a time in the near future when this kind of problem will go away? I don't.
Normally I find the majority of your posts to be pretty entertaining but I don't think I would put Mandrake in the 'begging' category.
So they have a bunch of stuff on the download page asking you to donate, big deal. It's not like every so often, you run a program and it reminds you to donate in the same fashion as some shareware.
Personally, I would much sooner make a donation to Mandrake based on how they treat their customers than buy Microsoft software. I'm lucky enough to get the professional versions of Windows and Office through my school if I wish. On the rare ocassion that I was working on a relative's PC with the home edition of something, I found product activation to be quite annoying.
Besides, getting out of bankruptcty wasn't just about getting more donations. They had to take a look at their business and cut out what was wasteful to survive. That by itself should be a lesson to other companies which think the only way out of a problem is to gouge their customers a little more instead of looking for internal problems.
That's a relief, I thought I was going to have to wait until next year to get Mandrake 10.
from the interview...
"Mandrake10 Official boxed sets will be shipped out on about May 10"
You might try looking on the support forum for upgrade instructions next time.
It would have been nice to have a link to that on the main page where everyone would see it before having problems.
You're forgetting part of the scam. If you happen to be high risk (i.e. live in an area with a higher crime rate) then you pay higher premiums to start with. Then after you get robbed and make a claim, your premiums go up still. Wasn't that the point of a higher premium in the first place.. because they expected you to be robbed and file a claim?
"if people overseas can do it cheaper, and maybe even better, WE HAVE TO LET THEM. If we don't, then some day they'll come along and simply overpower us"
So we should outsource all of our work to other countries because it's cheaper? I don't know if you've noticed but the U.S. isn't exactly held in high regard around the world. What happens when we depend too much on other countries and they decide they don't like dealing with us any more?
Here's another example of why this can be bad. I'll use food since we kind of need food to live.
Say we import lettuce from Mexico because it's cheaper. Farmers in the U.S. eventually stop growing lettuce because it's not profitable. You seem to think we should just go along with that and let Mexico supply all of our lettuce because it's cheaper for them to do so. What you don't realize is that one of the reasons its cheaper is that they dump pesticides on the food that are illegal to use in the U.S. because of their negative effects on people. But that's ok. Since Mexico can do it cheaper, we should just let them.
sorry, I do respect the idea and wasn't really trying to mock. It's just that after reading the reply about catching fire, I thought of the 3 lil pigs. :)
I've been a bad joke kinda mood all day.
or if a big bad wolf wolf comes along he might blow your house down.
if they would simply run one of the freely available shredder or eraser programs they could get money out of the drives...
or at least happier employees.
I don't know, dropping 20lb weights on hard drives would make a lot of employees happier too.
What I never understood is if you're going to smash/burn the drive, does it really need to be formatted first?
"Or what about someone like me, who is about to reinstall the entire Winblows mess from scratch after a disk crash?"
I ran into that problem a while back when setting up a new computer at work. First thing I did was install all critical updates, then McAfee. By the time I finished that, McAfee popped up after a couple minutes saying that it was infected with something.
The best solution (and yes I know this sounds bad) would probably be to download service packs/updates and burn them to a CD so you can install them before the computer is ever connected to the network.
Assuming that's not an option, I guess turn on the XP firewall first and hope it works well enough to protect you.
Incidentally, this was a new computer from Dell so I would say that's a no to the other question of whether they ship their boxes fully patched.