Given that: a) most Everquest addicts only eat/sleep/shower after a Windows BSOD ends their 15 hour EQ session; b) Linux can run for months or even years without a reboot; I conclude that this is a bad idea.
Norman doesn't like the fact that nonprofessionals design UIs, since UI specialists will generally come up with a more usable design. In many window managers and "themes" I've found, usability is sacrificed for sweet-ass transparent gizmos and l33t graphics. What Norman misses, though, is that open source window managers can take risks that major for-profit companies will not.
The problem with most operating system GUIs (as I see it, as do Nielson and Gentner ) is that they follow the "desktop" metaphor, where the main onscreen workspace is a "desktop." You have easy access to different tasks you would do, like a calendar or letter-writing program. "Documents" reside inside the desk in different drawers. At this point, the methaphor breaks down: you get desktop shortcuts (or wharf buttons or whatever), which have no real-world counterpart and are confusing to people who are not familiar with the underlying file systems; you get programs that do specialized tasks that are in no sense connected to sitting at your desk and doing office work. In short, the desktop metaphor is fairly limited.
The desktop GIU is ubiquitous enough that people have a passing familiarity with it, however, so the major OS makers won't blow it up and start with a professionally designed UI based on a better concept. (maybe this will change in the next decade when we move to 3d GUIs, into which Microsoft has poured tons of research money). Open source wms can be much more experiemental, and may lead to some ideas that UI experts can later refine.
Every IT budget should include an extra $300 per annum for superfluous LEDs and cans of black and metallic silver spray paint. Also, enormous Linux penguin/BSD devil stickers, whichever is more "buzzword-y" at the time.
I consider it a civic duty to educate myself on the issues and canidates every other November. "Voting" isn't just the physical act of pulling a lever or dimpling a chad, but a process of making an informed choice as to your advocates in the government. I would like to think that everyone else thinks this way, but many have other priorities, whether a family life or a fulfilling career or another pull on the bong. Personally, I would rather have thirty-five percent of the population who are informed or passionate about certain issues decide an election rather than people who vote for a canidate they know little about but has the most name recognition or the best advertising. I would guess that half of the voters in U.S. presidential elections fall into the latter category, and in a mandatory, "go to the polling place today or have your behind hauled off to jail" I would think that number would at least triple.
Remember the Jesux operating system parody? Christian-themed Linux, only with "function calls and features suggesting evil and otherwise pagan ideas would be changed: abort(3), kill(1), references to "daemon" "
He probably got the warez version of the statistics. Download the "three digit numbers" crack from gamecopyworld.com and install the fixed horriblecrimestats.exe
It works if Bill S. Preston, Esquire, plays Jimmy Olson, who, in a major plot twist, turns into an arch-villain.
Makes for a good plot, since I always found Alex Winter pretty funny. In a well-conceived parallel plot, the talented sidekick ends up with nothing while his handsome, affably stupid "buddy" gets the girl/money/fame. This turns Alex/Jimmy e-vil, and he begins plotting Super Ted's downfall...
"I have way lots of kryptonite, you futuristic dick-weed! Time to die, Super Dude!"
Your comments just gave me an idea for an Internet moneymaker: e-lotto. Imagine being able to get Your Chance at BIG BUCKS!!! without having to leave the comfort of your house/trailer/projects. This would be like current Internet gambling, only with a state agency guaranteeing that the game isn't rigged and that your credit card info won't be stolen by some Bad People hosting their site from the Cayman Islands or somewhere.
Good site! I always wanted to play around with OS/2, which I think is still used in ATMs. Who knows, maybe I'll learn something. Now I just have to find a fast FTP with Microsoft Bob (tm). I hear He's 3l33t!
A best-selling Episode 1 bar game they should have made is Whack-a-Mole, only with Jar-Jar heads. It could include voice samples that taunt you for having a low score like, "Meesa thinkin you a muy muy loser," which would only piss you off to the point that you HAD to play again, just to show that %$&%$#! gungan who's boss. It'd be like crack for Star Wars geeks, who'd dump a boatload of quarters into that thing.
I think this is a justifiable use of resources. Let's think of it in AD&D terms: my lawful good cleric (the police) walks into a vampire nest and starts Turning Undead (W4r3z D00dz and H4x0rs). The vamps either (1) run away in terror and don't bother anyone for a long while, (2) die gratuitously (are sent to jail), or (3) are converted to my side (become white hats).
Of course in real life hackers and vampires are different, since putting Windows 2000 on an FTP site is a tad more benign than sucking the life out of a struggling human being, feeding your twisted bloodlust and creating yet another member of a terrible legion of undead. And software pirates don't give you any experience points or gold when you kill them. Actually, now that I think of it, this AD&D thing is a fairly shitty analogy. Sorry. Oh well, time to go feed my Baldur's Gate 2 addiction.
To quote Weird Al's timeless "All About the Pentiums":
Fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar / downloading pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar / And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er / I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller / You're about as useless as JPEGs to Helen Keller
Hell, Francis Ford Coppola is close with lucas, let's throw him in the mix.
(Spaceship enters the Death Star. Alien heads on pikes are everywhere, and there is weird tribal drum music in the background.)
Natalie Portman: There's a conflict in every human heart between the rational, the irrational, between what's good and the Dark Side of the Force. And Good does not always triumph. Every man has a breaking point. You and I have. Kurtz-- I mean Palpatine-- has reached his and obviously he has gone insane.
Obi-Wan: Annakin, can we see Palpatine?
Wild-eyed Hayden Christiansen: Hey, man, you don't talk to the Emperor. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense...
Mace Windu: I love the smell of lightsaber in the morning! Jar-Jar don't surf!
The thing with Lucas isn't that he's a bad director, just an outdated one. When he started out, directors were still studio tools with job security who showed up and got paid for mediocre work. (There were exceptions, of course, but how many people were like Elia Kazan?) Lucas and his buddy Francis Ford Coppola (and the whole "New Hollywood" crowd which later included Spielberg) introduced a different sort of independent directing style in which the director was in total control of the now-cliched "vision" for a film, which led to more experimental fare. Lucas' directing wasn't great from a technical standpoint, but his ideas and ability to motivate people ("Do it again with more energy!") were rare in this era, and his actors responded to it in his early films. Their success legitimized film schools (they were USC grads), and led to a bunch of tempremental wanna-be Fellinis, and today's actors largely tune them out (so only good technical directors can greatly affect the quality of the film).
if you hate the "eraserhead" mouse-substitute then you'll hate this one too.
Since when did David Lynch start making mice for laptops? I know I would pay extra for a dark and disturbing, surreal input device. I guess Japan really does get all the cool new stuff...
The 10-inch 1,280-by-600 screen is amazingly bright and clear, but if you find yourself squinting at a normal laptop display this one will give you eyestrain.
Customers include Boeing (BA), Exxon (XOM), and Ford (F), not to mention the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston, Jamaica, which recently bought a life-size hologram of the legendary reggae king.
"Dude, let's get stoned and stare at the hologram!" =)
This is often the way the economy works: (1)Company creates a new technology. (2) Rich people immediately find a flippant/sketchy use for it. (3)Company makes money from them, uses it to refine their technology. (4) Technology eventually gets better and cheaper to produce. It becomes ubiquitous.
Case in point, the camcorder. Rich/sketchy people spend thousands on them to create homemade porn and artsy black and white existential movies. Tech. improves, it gets cheaper, and now a decent camcorder is in the $150 range.
Given that people in IBM's server-grade Linux departments like using Thinkpads as development machines, I wouldn't be surprised if Linux is still "supported" unofficially. These in-house people (working in their spare time, of course), plus a community of geeks on a newsgroup or IRC channel could maintain bootloaders, drivers, etc. If there's enough interest in Linux development on game consoles and weird Reagan-era mainframes, there certainly will be enough people for this, provided IBM doesn't build in "Microsoft friendly" BIOS and other nonstandard parts.
Linux hackers work on a movie with a major character named "Lilo"... named after the software, perhaps? Coincidence?
If this were more than a coincidence, the film would begin, we'd hear the opening theme, then the title would appear on the screen-- but everything suddenly stops to a grinding halt:
LI
The projectionist restarts the projector over and over for the next several minutes, trying desperately not to swear in front of the assembled eight year olds. Finally, he gives up and shows the lower-quality movie the theater had shown before they acquired this Linux thing.
Could someone please explain the precise relationship between BSD and Darwin/MacOS X? I was at a job interview a few weeks back (tech support for a local college), and was asked what I knew about MacOS X. I told the guy that I hadn't used it yet, but that I understood it was BSD-based. He told me I was wrong, that it was Mach-based but ran BSD binaries. A quick visit to the Apple website indicates that it is a Mach kernel (held over from Apple aquiring NEXT) but also says it's a modified BSD 4.3. Could someone explain this? I assume this means that it includes all the utilities of BSD, but has a non-BSD kernel? IANAUG (I Am Not A UNIX Guru) and only have user experience with Solaris, and have hacked around with Linux and FreeBSD on my own machines, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.
Couldn't content providers make java-based web chat rooms on something like chat.kids.us? It would be more like IRC than AOL Instant Messaging, and by using the service you agree to be bound by the decisions of aggressively sensitive/paranoid moderators. They could register users with verifiable contact info (parents' CC #), content is logged, and if you even think of talking dirty to the kids you get banned.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's three nines... upside down.
Given that:
a) most Everquest addicts only eat/sleep/shower after a Windows BSOD ends their 15 hour EQ session;
b) Linux can run for months or even years without a reboot;
I conclude that this is a bad idea.
The problem with most operating system GUIs (as I see it, as do Nielson and Gentner ) is that they follow the "desktop" metaphor, where the main onscreen workspace is a "desktop." You have easy access to different tasks you would do, like a calendar or letter-writing program. "Documents" reside inside the desk in different drawers. At this point, the methaphor breaks down: you get desktop shortcuts (or wharf buttons or whatever), which have no real-world counterpart and are confusing to people who are not familiar with the underlying file systems; you get programs that do specialized tasks that are in no sense connected to sitting at your desk and doing office work. In short, the desktop metaphor is fairly limited.
The desktop GIU is ubiquitous enough that people have a passing familiarity with it, however, so the major OS makers won't blow it up and start with a professionally designed UI based on a better concept. (maybe this will change in the next decade when we move to 3d GUIs, into which Microsoft has poured tons of research money). Open source wms can be much more experiemental, and may lead to some ideas that UI experts can later refine.
Every IT budget should include an extra $300 per annum for superfluous LEDs and cans of black and metallic silver spray paint. Also, enormous Linux penguin/BSD devil stickers, whichever is more "buzzword-y" at the time.
I consider it a civic duty to educate myself on the issues and canidates every other November. "Voting" isn't just the physical act of pulling a lever or dimpling a chad, but a process of making an informed choice as to your advocates in the government. I would like to think that everyone else thinks this way, but many have other priorities, whether a family life or a fulfilling career or another pull on the bong. Personally, I would rather have thirty-five percent of the population who are informed or passionate about certain issues decide an election rather than people who vote for a canidate they know little about but has the most name recognition or the best advertising. I would guess that half of the voters in U.S. presidential elections fall into the latter category, and in a mandatory, "go to the polling place today or have your behind hauled off to jail" I would think that number would at least triple.
Teh J35U5 C|-|R15T I5 3l337, D00D!
He probably got the warez version of the statistics. Download the "three digit numbers" crack from gamecopyworld.com and install the fixed horriblecrimestats.exe
It works if Bill S. Preston, Esquire, plays Jimmy Olson, who, in a major plot twist, turns into an arch-villain. Makes for a good plot, since I always found Alex Winter pretty funny. In a well-conceived parallel plot, the talented sidekick ends up with nothing while his handsome, affably stupid "buddy" gets the girl/money/fame. This turns Alex/Jimmy e-vil, and he begins plotting Super Ted's downfall... "I have way lots of kryptonite, you futuristic dick-weed! Time to die, Super Dude!"
Your comments just gave me an idea for an Internet moneymaker: e-lotto. Imagine being able to get Your Chance at BIG BUCKS!!! without having to leave the comfort of your house/trailer/projects. This would be like current Internet gambling, only with a state agency guaranteeing that the game isn't rigged and that your credit card info won't be stolen by some Bad People hosting their site from the Cayman Islands or somewhere.
Good site! I always wanted to play around with OS/2, which I think is still used in ATMs. Who knows, maybe I'll learn something. Now I just have to find a fast FTP with Microsoft Bob (tm). I hear He's 3l33t!
A best-selling Episode 1 bar game they should have made is Whack-a-Mole, only with Jar-Jar heads. It could include voice samples that taunt you for having a low score like, "Meesa thinkin you a muy muy loser," which would only piss you off to the point that you HAD to play again, just to show that %$&%$#! gungan who's boss. It'd be like crack for Star Wars geeks, who'd dump a boatload of quarters into that thing.
Of course in real life hackers and vampires are different, since putting Windows 2000 on an FTP site is a tad more benign than sucking the life out of a struggling human being, feeding your twisted bloodlust and creating yet another member of a terrible legion of undead. And software pirates don't give you any experience points or gold when you kill them. Actually, now that I think of it, this AD&D thing is a fairly shitty analogy. Sorry. Oh well, time to go feed my Baldur's Gate 2 addiction.
Fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar / downloading pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar / And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er / I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller / You're about as useless as JPEGs to Helen Keller
(Spaceship enters the Death Star. Alien heads on pikes are everywhere, and there is weird tribal drum music in the background.)
Natalie Portman: There's a conflict in every human heart between the rational, the irrational, between what's good and the Dark Side of the Force. And Good does not always triumph. Every man has a breaking point. You and I have. Kurtz-- I mean Palpatine-- has reached his and obviously he has gone insane.
Obi-Wan: Annakin, can we see Palpatine?
Wild-eyed Hayden Christiansen: Hey, man, you don't talk to the Emperor. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in the classic sense...
Mace Windu: I love the smell of lightsaber in the morning! Jar-Jar don't surf!
The thing with Lucas isn't that he's a bad director, just an outdated one. When he started out, directors were still studio tools with job security who showed up and got paid for mediocre work. (There were exceptions, of course, but how many people were like Elia Kazan?) Lucas and his buddy Francis Ford Coppola (and the whole "New Hollywood" crowd which later included Spielberg) introduced a different sort of independent directing style in which the director was in total control of the now-cliched "vision" for a film, which led to more experimental fare. Lucas' directing wasn't great from a technical standpoint, but his ideas and ability to motivate people ("Do it again with more energy!") were rare in this era, and his actors responded to it in his early films. Their success legitimized film schools (they were USC grads), and led to a bunch of tempremental wanna-be Fellinis, and today's actors largely tune them out (so only good technical directors can greatly affect the quality of the film).
New NRA bumper sticker: Make Lego trebuchet criminal, and only criminals will have Lego trebuchets.
Since when did David Lynch start making mice for laptops? I know I would pay extra for a dark and disturbing, surreal input device. I guess Japan really does get all the cool new stuff...
(Insert obligatory tasteless "Japanese squinty eye" joke here.)
"Dude, let's get stoned and stare at the hologram!" =)
This is often the way the economy works: (1)Company creates a new technology. (2) Rich people immediately find a flippant/sketchy use for it. (3)Company makes money from them, uses it to refine their technology. (4) Technology eventually gets better and cheaper to produce. It becomes ubiquitous.
Case in point, the camcorder. Rich/sketchy people spend thousands on them to create homemade porn and artsy black and white existential movies. Tech. improves, it gets cheaper, and now a decent camcorder is in the $150 range.
Given that people in IBM's server-grade Linux departments like using Thinkpads as development machines, I wouldn't be surprised if Linux is still "supported" unofficially. These in-house people (working in their spare time, of course), plus a community of geeks on a newsgroup or IRC channel could maintain bootloaders, drivers, etc. If there's enough interest in Linux development on game consoles and weird Reagan-era mainframes, there certainly will be enough people for this, provided IBM doesn't build in "Microsoft friendly" BIOS and other nonstandard parts.
If this were more than a coincidence, the film would begin, we'd hear the opening theme, then the title would appear on the screen-- but everything suddenly stops to a grinding halt:
LI
The projectionist restarts the projector over and over for the next several minutes, trying desperately not to swear in front of the assembled eight year olds. Finally, he gives up and shows the lower-quality movie the theater had shown before they acquired this Linux thing.
Yes, but they named a main character after everyone's favorite bootloader...
Could someone please explain the precise relationship between BSD and Darwin/MacOS X? I was at a job interview a few weeks back (tech support for a local college), and was asked what I knew about MacOS X. I told the guy that I hadn't used it yet, but that I understood it was BSD-based. He told me I was wrong, that it was Mach-based but ran BSD binaries. A quick visit to the Apple website indicates that it is a Mach kernel (held over from Apple aquiring NEXT) but also says it's a modified BSD 4.3. Could someone explain this? I assume this means that it includes all the utilities of BSD, but has a non-BSD kernel? IANAUG (I Am Not A UNIX Guru) and only have user experience with Solaris, and have hacked around with Linux and FreeBSD on my own machines, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here.
The nice thing about the emulator is that you don't have to blow air on it for twenty minutes before your game works correctly.
Couldn't content providers make java-based web chat rooms on something like chat.kids.us? It would be more like IRC than AOL Instant Messaging, and by using the service you agree to be bound by the decisions of aggressively sensitive/paranoid moderators. They could register users with verifiable contact info (parents' CC #), content is logged, and if you even think of talking dirty to the kids you get banned.