Only if the kid is unable to determine the difference between fiction/fantasy and reality and is able to remove the "violence" from the context. No matter how you wrap it, video games are distinctly artificial, and like tv, you know that what is happening isn't "real."
Regardless of the number of times I've seen a car crash on tv, in the movies, on nascar, or how "fun" it is to trash cars in video games, getting involved in the real thing (for me) definately triggered a different reaction than "awesome."
The military (to varrying extents) brainwashes recruits. THAT is how they get them to not hesitate pulling the trigger. The methods they use to perform this brainwashing have varied over time, but merely playing a video game will not be enough to accomplish the goal.
That's just it -- it didn't effect that many people. Of the 600,000 people who downloaded it, only a "small handful" of people had a problem -- not all 600,000. Now, what quantity a small handful is according to the guy making the statement I do not know, but I doubt it's a significant percentage of the 600,000.
I mean, think about it... how many possible PC configurations are there out there? How many different versions of drivers for each piece of hardware? How many different combinations of software can be installed on each of those combinations? It is not possible to test each and every possible combination. This is not to say that you don't test all sorts of configurations, but you can't hit them all.
If it were such a "simple error", it would have happened to ALL of the 600,000 people who downloaded the update. Crap happens. QA isn't an exact science -- there is no algorithm you can follow to make sure you find 100% of all bugs in existance. The best you can do in this case is find the problem and make sure you test for it in the future.
Unless you live in some sort of fancy retro industrial apartment complex, most power cables/phone lines are run through the walls and are accessed through an outlet in close proximity to whatever your attaching it to. You don't have to tape wires to the walls, ceilings, or under a throwrug (which for extension cords is a also fire hazard).
I wouldn't have a problem with cat 5 cable if I could run it through the walls (which me and my roomie did in our old house) -- its faster, not as prone to interferrance, and its easier to secure. But I don't like feeling like I live in a rats nest, so I go for the solution that doesn't require me to string cable around my apartment like I'm building a borg hive.
...because having carpet on top of carpet and cables running along the walls doesn't look tacky at all...and no misbehaving pet would ever chew on those cables either...
Yeah, you can run wires in a manner that it's not a hazard, but unless I can run them through the walls I don't want them in sight.
Re:If you NEED that bandwidth...
on
802.11g Slows Down
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Why not just run a cable? Because people like me who live in an apartment don't want to trip over an ethernet cable every time they walk from the living room to the kitchen...
I personally want to have all of the big toys in the computer room, with a media pc of some sort in the living room. On top of that I'd like to have a laptop using desktop sharing and use any computer wherever I want, should I so desire. It works ok on 802.11b, but it sure as hell would be better with more bandwidth.
Re:Isn't this a security issue?
on
Hijacking .NET
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· Score: 1
But with.NET, there are many possible exploits. By messing with a class's private variables, it's easy to get the class into a state that would never happen if you just used the public API - and thus it's not hard to imagine getting the class to do something it shouldn't be allowed to do. Since a number of these.NET classes must make Win32 system calls, there's probably a way to trick one of the classes into calling something that it normally shouldn't be able to.
Not an issue. Calling a Win32 api from a.NET app isn't going to give you a different result than calling it from any other app. If there is a bug in the Win32 security api it needs to be fixed in the security api, not hidden by a wrapper class.
People keep saying that this is no different than C++. I agree - except that C#/.NET is supposed to be able to run in a sandbox, and I think that this means that the sandbox is not all that secure.
It does run in a sandbox. Each sandbox has it's own set of access restrictions. The author of the article put no restrictions (didn't build a fence so to speak) around the sandbox he was working with.
I don't know how crashguard works in particular, but I imagine is hooks into the same interface dev studio does. When it receives a crash notification I'd be willing to bet it steps over the problem instruction and continues with execution.
My dad had it installed on an older system several years ago. Never really worked that well (though sometimes it did do the trick), and I'm convinced that a lot of the system's instability was caused by the other crapload of norton apps running on that machine, because my older slower computer without all the crap on it ran faster and more reliably...
Video quality isn't as good as dedicated device. Audio quality (normally) isn't as good as dedicated device. Controls sucks. Configuation options are poor. Menu handling is poor. Limited featureset. Etc.
A video game console isn't a dedicated piece of AV equipement. If you arn't expecting that kind of quality, a game console's built in DVD player is probably just fine, but I sure wouldn't want it as a part of my home theater setup...
The PS2 dvd player sucks, but I've never had a problem with it not properly playing a movie.
You should never use a DVD player in a video game console to serve the role of a real dvd player. It's a decent idea for a dvd player in your kid's bedroom, or as a device to bring with you on vacation though.
When I lived in St. Louis I used to live in one of the burbs, and would take the Metrolink downtown (light rail mass transit). I couldn't stand having to wait the full 6 minutes between trains. There was just something massively unconfortable about it. I think it probably had something to do with not knowing or trusting any of the people around me, because it didn't bother me as much after they had cops stationed at the stops. Of course, seeing cops drop down to the rail level and pulling a gun out from under the track once a month didn't do much to help that...
I'm also one of those people that perfer to take side roads over main roads when the highway is congested. For one, it's more relaxing. Two, you don't have as much going on around you to worry about. Three, it seems safer than driving down a highway having to slam on your brakes every time you pass an on-ramp. Generally I'll take the highways, but when traffic comes to a halt in front of me I take the next exit and take another route home...
Depends on the scenery and how anti-social you are;). But then again I prefer to go hiking through a state park where most people would be bored to death.
Thing is, everyone is different and likes different things. Having the option to do either is better than forcing everyone into one group IMO.
While proximity is definately part of the problem, you must also consider that even if locations nearby may have what you want -- they may be selling it at prices you don't like, quality of goods may not be what you want, or they may not have what you want. Or the weather might suck. Who wants to walk a mile in the pouring rain?
The trend I'm seeing in the area I currently live is you'll have a conglomeration of shops in a centralized area with parking around it -- you drive to the lot and walk all over the place, kind of like a glorified strip mall or a normal mall without a roof. I think that kind of design is a pretty good compromise -- most emissions from modern cars are created during the first 5 minutes of use; reduce the number of trips, greatly reduce the number of emissions).
I think I've found that if a place is within 2 miles of my starting point it's not hard to motivate myself walk there (downtown seattle is a good example of a place that's easy to walk around -- though not a place I particularly care to walk around after dark...). Go much further than that and you're taking more than an hour out of your day just to "get someplace." So as a result, I'll generally walk to work (I live.8 miles from the office) but generally drive to the grocery store or shopping center (closest store is 3 miles, next closest is 4 or 5, neither have everything I want; I generally alternate which one I go to...).
On that same note, I can't really see myself walking back from the grocery store carrying 6 bags of groceries either......yes, this is random rambling. But I don't feel like giving it more thought at this point.:)
I know you're joking, but I was recently hit in the drivers side door while making a left turn by a kid driving on the wrong side of the road in a 1964 Ford F150 doing 50mph in a 20. I can say with certainty that the paint on your truck will definately get messed up...
1) We obviously have different views on this and arn't going to convice each other to change our minds.
2) How many years did it take OSS developers to write a browser that could render HTML somewhat realiably? How long an OSS project has been in the works doesn't really tell me much about the complexity of something (mainly because the number of people involved, their level of skill, and the time they invest is not constant). I won't say the office format is simple -- there are a lot of people involved in the design and implementation of the code related to it, but to say that the only people that can figure it out are the people that wrote it is bull.
3) There is competition for Office -- it just isn't competative. OO (or was it star office...can't remember) has an ok converter, but it's got plenty of problems. Works well for simple documents though if I remember right. I still think the app needs a lot of work before it's "usable". But that's just my opinion. Everyone else is entitled to theirs.
Microsoft does have a monopoly. It restricts their actions somewhat over companies that do not have monopolies. Manly towards predatory practices/actions. I don't think having a custom file format is "predatory", because it's been the standard industry practice for as long as I can remember.
The jury shouldn't be out on the XML format. It's very straightforward and easy to follow. Don't believe me? See for yourself (I added line feeds for easy reading and removed identifiable information) -- slashdot appears to be adding random forms of   to the output -- random semi-colons or malformed   do not exist in the original document:
Telling people that it's perfectly healthy to spend 30 minutes walking someplace with a -30 degree windchill is stupid. And you don't have to be up in the artic to have to deal with it in the winter either. Just move someplace in the midwest and I'm sure you'll have all sorts of fun.
And I wouldn't exactly call Missouri a southern state either. But the temperature in the winter sure as hell does fluctuate sometimes though. It'll be fucking 6F with 45mph wind one week and 65F degrees with a light breeze the next. Avg winter temp is probalbyaround 28-30 degrees, which isn't horrible -- but I sure as hell wouldn't want to host a party outside either.
Longitude is not the major factor in determining seasonal temperatures. Hell, Seattle is mild compared to St. Louis and it's way further up north...
I'm not talking about the arctic here. You only have to go to the midwest region of the states.
And my point with the ice sidewalks is that it is very easy to slip and fall on those kinds of surfaces -- even more so when dealing with any sort of grade. The odds of sustaining a broken bone falling on ice is substantially higher than, say, sliding into a telephone pole in a car at 15mph.
People get sick from exposure to germs, not from being outside. Aside from the seriously infirm, you won't find a doctor alive who would tell you that it's unhealthy to go for reasonable walks in cold weather.
You've never tried to walk anywhere when the windchill was so low that expose skin becomes frostbitten in 5 minutes have you? And you've never had to walk on an icy sidewalk over a moderately steep hill before either, have you?
...because we all know that the reason you'll be disconnected from a conversion is because the cell phone crashes, and not because the cell company dropped the connection...
1) Who? How many people "need" to read office formats in a non inter-office environment? (ie: not the case where everyone works for the same company; ie: everyone uses the same wp). I don't think my experience is unique. Most communication outside of companies is done via hardcopy or email. Most communication done at home is done through email, or me typing something up and sending it in the mail. I don't write a letter to Grandma and mail her a floppy, nor do I email her a word doc. 2) The Office file format is no more complicated than any other "secret" document format. Contrary to popular belief, the format isn't obfuscated -- poorly designed maybe, but not obfuscated... Hell, if I remember right there are a few projects in sourceforge that work with Office documents... 3) Exactly. Nobody cares enough to write a converter to a different format. If the only reason why Star Office or Open Office aren't gaining wide spread adoptance, write a conversion tool. Write software which round-trips Office documents. With all of the people crying about how evil Microsoft is, there sure isn't a hell of a lot being done by the community to counter the problem. Just a lot of whining about how microsoft should fix their problems (and they did with the XML file format! And they still get shit!).
Slashdot Mirror
The Win32 API will be preserved. Some older stuff is getting the axe. Seriously -- who the hell needs the 16bit API anymore?
So, do video games desensitize kids to violence?
Only if the kid is unable to determine the difference between fiction/fantasy and reality and is able to remove the "violence" from the context. No matter how you wrap it, video games are distinctly artificial, and like tv, you know that what is happening isn't "real."
Regardless of the number of times I've seen a car crash on tv, in the movies, on nascar, or how "fun" it is to trash cars in video games, getting involved in the real thing (for me) definately triggered a different reaction than "awesome."
The military (to varrying extents) brainwashes recruits. THAT is how they get them to not hesitate pulling the trigger. The methods they use to perform this brainwashing have varied over time, but merely playing a video game will not be enough to accomplish the goal.
That's just it -- it didn't effect that many people. Of the 600,000 people who downloaded it, only a "small handful" of people had a problem -- not all 600,000. Now, what quantity a small handful is according to the guy making the statement I do not know, but I doubt it's a significant percentage of the 600,000.
... how many possible PC configurations are there out there? How many different versions of drivers for each piece of hardware? How many different combinations of software can be installed on each of those combinations? It is not possible to test each and every possible combination. This is not to say that you don't test all sorts of configurations, but you can't hit them all.
I mean, think about it
If it were such a "simple error", it would have happened to ALL of the 600,000 people who downloaded the update. Crap happens. QA isn't an exact science -- there is no algorithm you can follow to make sure you find 100% of all bugs in existance. The best you can do in this case is find the problem and make sure you test for it in the future.
Do they have any sort of quality control?=)
Yes. And the amount of time and money they spend on QA would amaze you. There is about one tester for every developer in the organization...
Unless you live in some sort of fancy retro industrial apartment complex, most power cables/phone lines are run through the walls and are accessed through an outlet in close proximity to whatever your attaching it to. You don't have to tape wires to the walls, ceilings, or under a throwrug (which for extension cords is a also fire hazard).
I wouldn't have a problem with cat 5 cable if I could run it through the walls (which me and my roomie did in our old house) -- its faster, not as prone to interferrance, and its easier to secure. But I don't like feeling like I live in a rats nest, so I go for the solution that doesn't require me to string cable around my apartment like I'm building a borg hive.
...because having carpet on top of carpet and cables running along the walls doesn't look tacky at all...and no misbehaving pet would ever chew on those cables either...
Yeah, you can run wires in a manner that it's not a hazard, but unless I can run them through the walls I don't want them in sight.
Why not just run a cable? Because people like me who live in an apartment don't want to trip over an ethernet cable every time they walk from the living room to the kitchen ...
I personally want to have all of the big toys in the computer room, with a media pc of some sort in the living room. On top of that I'd like to have a laptop using desktop sharing and use any computer wherever I want, should I so desire. It works ok on 802.11b, but it sure as hell would be better with more bandwidth.
But with
Not an issue. Calling a Win32 api from a
People keep saying that this is no different than C++. I agree - except that C#/.NET is supposed to be able to run in a sandbox, and I think that this means that the sandbox is not all that secure.
It does run in a sandbox. Each sandbox has it's own set of access restrictions. The author of the article put no restrictions (didn't build a fence so to speak) around the sandbox he was working with.
I don't know how crashguard works in particular, but I imagine is hooks into the same interface dev studio does. When it receives a crash notification I'd be willing to bet it steps over the problem instruction and continues with execution.
My dad had it installed on an older system several years ago. Never really worked that well (though sometimes it did do the trick), and I'm convinced that a lot of the system's instability was caused by the other crapload of norton apps running on that machine, because my older slower computer without all the crap on it ran faster and more reliably...
Why not?
Video quality isn't as good as dedicated device.
Audio quality (normally) isn't as good as dedicated device.
Controls sucks.
Configuation options are poor.
Menu handling is poor.
Limited featureset.
Etc.
A video game console isn't a dedicated piece of AV equipement. If you arn't expecting that kind of quality, a game console's built in DVD player is probably just fine, but I sure wouldn't want it as a part of my home theater setup...
The PS2 dvd player sucks, but I've never had a problem with it not properly playing a movie.
You should never use a DVD player in a video game console to serve the role of a real dvd player. It's a decent idea for a dvd player in your kid's bedroom, or as a device to bring with you on vacation though.
Yeah, both of those figures sound about right.
When I lived in St. Louis I used to live in one of the burbs, and would take the Metrolink downtown (light rail mass transit). I couldn't stand having to wait the full 6 minutes between trains. There was just something massively unconfortable about it. I think it probably had something to do with not knowing or trusting any of the people around me, because it didn't bother me as much after they had cops stationed at the stops. Of course, seeing cops drop down to the rail level and pulling a gun out from under the track once a month didn't do much to help that...
I'm also one of those people that perfer to take side roads over main roads when the highway is congested. For one, it's more relaxing. Two, you don't have as much going on around you to worry about. Three, it seems safer than driving down a highway having to slam on your brakes every time you pass an on-ramp. Generally I'll take the highways, but when traffic comes to a halt in front of me I take the next exit and take another route home...
Depends on the scenery and how anti-social you are ;). But then again I prefer to go hiking through a state park where most people would be bored to death.
Thing is, everyone is different and likes different things. Having the option to do either is better than forcing everyone into one group IMO.
While proximity is definately part of the problem, you must also consider that even if locations nearby may have what you want -- they may be selling it at prices you don't like, quality of goods may not be what you want, or they may not have what you want. Or the weather might suck. Who wants to walk a mile in the pouring rain?
.8 miles from the office) but generally drive to the grocery store or shopping center (closest store is 3 miles, next closest is 4 or 5, neither have everything I want; I generally alternate which one I go to...).
...yes, this is random rambling. But I don't feel like giving it more thought at this point. :)
The trend I'm seeing in the area I currently live is you'll have a conglomeration of shops in a centralized area with parking around it -- you drive to the lot and walk all over the place, kind of like a glorified strip mall or a normal mall without a roof. I think that kind of design is a pretty good compromise -- most emissions from modern cars are created during the first 5 minutes of use; reduce the number of trips, greatly reduce the number of emissions).
I think I've found that if a place is within 2 miles of my starting point it's not hard to motivate myself walk there (downtown seattle is a good example of a place that's easy to walk around -- though not a place I particularly care to walk around after dark...). Go much further than that and you're taking more than an hour out of your day just to "get someplace." So as a result, I'll generally walk to work (I live
On that same note, I can't really see myself walking back from the grocery store carrying 6 bags of groceries either...
For comparison, Microsoft spends $8m anually on soda for it's employees...
I know you're joking, but I was recently hit in the drivers side door while making a left turn by a kid driving on the wrong side of the road in a 1964 Ford F150 doing 50mph in a 20. I can say with certainty that the paint on your truck will definately get messed up...
Who said that having a house on a decent sized lot means you have to drive an oversized SUV to work?
So the only people who should post to slashdot are people roughly the age of 15 and under? Actually, that'd explain a lot....
1) We obviously have different views on this and arn't going to convice each other to change our minds.
/2003/auxHint" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C1488 2" xml:space="preserve">
2) How many years did it take OSS developers to write a browser that could render HTML somewhat realiably? How long an OSS project has been in the works doesn't really tell me much about the complexity of something (mainly because the number of people involved, their level of skill, and the time they invest is not constant). I won't say the office format is simple -- there are a lot of people involved in the design and implementation of the code related to it, but to say that the only people that can figure it out are the people that wrote it is bull.
3) There is competition for Office -- it just isn't competative. OO (or was it star office...can't remember) has an ok converter, but it's got plenty of problems. Works well for simple documents though if I remember right. I still think the app needs a lot of work before it's "usable". But that's just my opinion. Everyone else is entitled to theirs.
Microsoft does have a monopoly. It restricts their actions somewhat over companies that do not have monopolies. Manly towards predatory practices/actions. I don't think having a custom file format is "predatory", because it's been the standard industry practice for as long as I can remember.
The jury shouldn't be out on the XML format. It's very straightforward and easy to follow. Don't believe me? See for yourself (I added line feeds for easy reading and removed identifiable information) -- slashdot appears to be adding random forms of   to the output -- random semi-colons or malformed   do not exist in the original document:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<w:wordDocument xmlns:w="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/ 2003/wordml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:w10="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:sl="http://schemas.microsoft.com/schemaLibra ry/2003/core" xmlns:aml="http://schemas.microsoft.com/aml/2001/c ore" xmlns:wx="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word
<o:DocumentProperties>
&nb sp; <o:Title>Hello World</o:Title>
<o:Author>*CENSORED*</o:Author>
&nbs p; <o:LastAuthor>*CENSORED*</o:LastAuthor>
  ; <o:Revision>1</o:Revision>
&nbs p; <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime>
  ; <o:Created>2003-05-19T18:13:00Z</o:Created>
&nbs p; <o:LastSaved>2003-05-19T18:13:00Z</o:LastSaved>
<o:Pages>1</o:Pages>
<o:Words>1</o:Words>
<o:Characters>12</o:Characters>
&nbs p; <o:Company>Microsoft</o:Company>
<o:Lines>1</o:Lines>
<o:Paragraphs>1</o:Paragraphs>
  ; <o:CharactersWithSpaces>12</o:CharactersWithSpace s>
<o:Version>11.5207</o:Version>
</o:DocumentPrope rties>
<w:fonts>
<w:defaultFonts w:ascii="Times New Roman" w:fareast="Times New Roman" w:h-ansi="Times New Roman" w:cs="Times New Roman"/>
</w:fonts>
<w:styles>
&nbs p; <w:versionOfBuiltInStylenames w:val="3"/>
<w:latentStyles w:defLockedState="off" w:latentStyleCount="156"/>
<w:style w:type="paragraph" w:default="on" w:styleId="Normal">
<w:name w:val="Normal"/>
<w:rPr>
<wx:font wx:val="Times New Roman"/>
<w:sz w:val="24"/>
<w:sz-cs w:val="24"/>
<w:lang w:val="EN-US" w:fareast="EN-US" w:bidi="AR-SA"/>
</w:rPr>
</w:style>
<w:style w:type="character" w:default="on" w:styleId="DefaultP
I try...though I'm glad I'm out of that shithole. Don't ever visit there. It sucks.
Telling people that it's perfectly healthy to spend 30 minutes walking someplace with a -30 degree windchill is stupid. And you don't have to be up in the artic to have to deal with it in the winter either. Just move someplace in the midwest and I'm sure you'll have all sorts of fun.
And I wouldn't exactly call Missouri a southern state either. But the temperature in the winter sure as hell does fluctuate sometimes though. It'll be fucking 6F with 45mph wind one week and 65F degrees with a light breeze the next. Avg winter temp is probalbyaround 28-30 degrees, which isn't horrible -- but I sure as hell wouldn't want to host a party outside either.
Longitude is not the major factor in determining seasonal temperatures. Hell, Seattle is mild compared to St. Louis and it's way further up north...
Blah. Go back north and go thaw something.
I'm not talking about the arctic here. You only have to go to the midwest region of the states.
And my point with the ice sidewalks is that it is very easy to slip and fall on those kinds of surfaces -- even more so when dealing with any sort of grade. The odds of sustaining a broken bone falling on ice is substantially higher than, say, sliding into a telephone pole in a car at 15mph.
People get sick from exposure to germs, not from being outside. Aside from the seriously infirm, you won't find a doctor alive who would tell you that it's unhealthy to go for reasonable walks in cold weather.
You've never tried to walk anywhere when the windchill was so low that expose skin becomes frostbitten in 5 minutes have you? And you've never had to walk on an icy sidewalk over a moderately steep hill before either, have you?
...because we all know that the reason you'll be disconnected from a conversion is because the cell phone crashes, and not because the cell company dropped the connection...
1) Who? How many people "need" to read office formats in a non inter-office environment? (ie: not the case where everyone works for the same company; ie: everyone uses the same wp). I don't think my experience is unique. Most communication outside of companies is done via hardcopy or email. Most communication done at home is done through email, or me typing something up and sending it in the mail. I don't write a letter to Grandma and mail her a floppy, nor do I email her a word doc.
2) The Office file format is no more complicated than any other "secret" document format. Contrary to popular belief, the format isn't obfuscated -- poorly designed maybe, but not obfuscated... Hell, if I remember right there are a few projects in sourceforge that work with Office documents...
3) Exactly. Nobody cares enough to write a converter to a different format. If the only reason why Star Office or Open Office aren't gaining wide spread adoptance, write a conversion tool. Write software which round-trips Office documents. With all of the people crying about how evil Microsoft is, there sure isn't a hell of a lot being done by the community to counter the problem. Just a lot of whining about how microsoft should fix their problems (and they did with the XML file format! And they still get shit!).