You know I know exactly how this guy feels. I always said "When I become king... Marketing will be the first against the wall.."...
They stifle creative thought, they stifle entertainment, the flood the web (a poor mans library?) with crap, my mailbox, my e-mailbox. I cannot get to work in the morning without having ads shoved at me, free papers and stupid flyers proffered by eyelid batting women on the way out of the tube.
AS a creative person myself, I took it personally when a game a team of us had almost finished was pulled because marketing did not like it... Not our "target audience" they said... It was for daytime digital TV - they decided it was for housewives... And put games involving washing piles with soap and toothbrush ads - after all - where is the female interest in strategy games... Why would a "busy housewife" play DTV games anyway was my question to them..
Marketing are the biggest load of bull on the planet... They will definately be the first against the wall...
Any marketing bods here DARE to defend themselves..Better still without hiding behind AC?
Hehe... Unfortunately the prize is only open to bible belt hicks who hunt deer, open bottles with their teeth, drive a ut badly, dont have all their own teeth and whos parents are directly related....hehe..
In response to your sig - I find its only recently I have been anything but a passive reader...But I have started finding time to actually post - but then thats beginning to subside again(its called being between girlfriends)...
Okay - I dont think Walmart shoppers are rednecks.. Homephobes, racists and various biggots are rednecks - I really dont see the walmart connection. But I can see the deerhunter connection;-)..
To be honest I think having Linux, and also Lindows OEM is great. The only reason it hasnt happened yet is that any attempts to do so have been well stamped by MS. Taking these OS's to the mass market could be just the kind of boost they need.
Ahhh... One of the rednecks surfaces...
Even slashdot is not safe from the low-iq cross section of the population(although I am amazed by the fact that they found the post button)...
My bigger objection is to one person per car during rush hour... There is talk of the charges being scaled in such a way that the driver is charged more for empty passenger seats. I agree with this both in terms of space saving and energy waste. I know Boston people may not appretiate "Pansy Environmental Concerns" but quite a lot of British do.
I think the very most point is that its not MD only.. Because that will mean we CANNOT file the lawsuits. If the doctor gets sued for malpractice - perhaps he should have payed more attention in medschool or used the database himself. I beleive that gives every reason to make this data publicly available. You subscribe, you can see this info - joe bloggs, lawyer, jury members and the MD's. You cannot place trust in one so tightly knit group - I certainly dont. Half the time, doctors dont even like to reveal the diagnosis- just recommend treatments. Well I would like to know the problem, and its implications thouroughly- if the doctor doesnt like me knowing - I would have to ask myself why....
So what you are saying here is what I have always feared. The medical profession is more interested in money than diagnosis. Probably after all the Med school rubbish and the old boys pressure, any motivation to actually *help* patients is beaten out as a naive ideal and replaced by the "lets see how much money we can make" version.
Sadly, I live in the UK, where the medical profession is funded from government coffers(I have private health myself), and so doctors are not paid all that well. And consequently- do not give a sh1t. I have given up, and have dealt with all my medical problems myself as I have NO TRUST for them. As a result of this- my health has improved. My advice to anyone-is stay informed and DONT trust your doctor. They do NOT always know best. Use of software like this would restore my trust a little - indeed it is expert system based knowledge systems that I have been looking into myself - I dont mind paying for a website to give me a possible diagnosis. Sometimes it makes me really wonder- how we have acheived so much in medical science and technology, but so many people suffer because a lazy med-school grad cant be bothered to ask the right questions.
Fine - then why not develop mine technology which only has a certain limit of usability- ie an explosive that degrades completely to harmless soil nutrients after a few months- along with most of the casing etc...Then you are no longer creating a permenant hazard.
Why not genetically engineer a weed or large funghi specialising in decomposing the mines. Dust the fields with the seeds and wait a few years... Obviously you would have to make sure its not bacterial/microscopic and wind carried - otherwise we would have a situation not unlike a certain Sci-Fi...
We could use similar stuff to decompose scrap metal/junk.
Yes but that somewhat limits modelling to the elite hacker types - who tend to have all the artistic talent of a staffordshire blue brick.
Yes I am a coder, and yes I have hand-coded vertices before - and I shudder to think about ever doing it again. Why doesnt someone reading this now- poised ready to post another article go over and start the source tree for an OSS modeller ui right now...
(Does that mean maybe I should volunteer for starting this?)
I can see this turning into a license/language holy war if I mention which I will use - so I think I will just get on with it.
Now the interesting thing here is learning to touch-type on them again. Would you need(during learning) the different keycaps?
Maybe its about time we were able to purchase keyboards with usb controlled LCD/LED key caps via a USB interface. The technology is not that difficult - LEDs are more hard wearing than LCDs. But it would be considerably more expensive than a normal board- though think of the applications for such a keyboard - place icons on keycaps for apps etc!
So you would edit/download a key configuration, upload it to your USB keyboard - and store it in a memory smart card- or keychain USB device which you would take elsewhere - and even if you cant see the caps, you can still replicate your layout. Niiice..
Anyway my hat goes off to the poster of this article. Its about time the old keyboard underwent an overhaul. My hands hurt sometimes too.
Okay - I may be touchy, and I may have a concentration span that rivals a goldfish. But I dont think its computer games, as much as prolonged contact with anything without rest.
You are just a likely to show these same symptoms were you to paint figures 8hours a day, or watch TV, or read comic books, write down train badge numbers etc... I think its generally a symptom of letting a mere hobby/pasttime reach anti-sociable proportions.
Ever heard of tent fever? Where just spending a long time with the same person can lead to manifestation of the above symptoms- and then a lot worse..
However - were they to try this in the UK it would be an absolute disaster. English trains are less reliable than the Californian Power grid. In fact they are less reliable than an 80 year old alzheimer sufferers ability to perform brain surgery...
Imagine the surviving passengers(the ones who waited for their train to turn up, the platform wasnt flooded, and got through the mounds of rubbish, and managed to cut through the huge queues to get the ridiculously overpriced ticket from an extrememly unhelpful ticket clerk) having the very large danger of electricution to deal with... Not to forget our control systems being so good that another train is likely to hit them in the next five minutes...
Hey- take this from a limey- if you ever go to the UK - use the buses, or planes - hell you could probably strap yourself to the front of a cargo truck- but DONT use the trains.You're lucky to get a train at all, and not be killed in it - let a lone get a seat and one without a smell. And DONT even consider eating the food.
Umm- I agree that some of the statements made above were not entirely well founded as there are possibly cheaper alternatives to java. But your simple statement "Not against Microsoft it doesn't." instantly puts you in the troll category. At least give some backing or proof behind such a claim.
As for not guaranteed- there will be jobs in java development for a long time, for the same reason that there are still jobs for Cobol- yes COBOL programmers. It may be old, it may be obsolete- but it was well bought up and is completely ingrained. Systems of the size to serve corporate systems(intrAnets anybody?) are not easily replaced. Maintenance and extension is much more viable and welcome.
And if you are building a monolithic C++ app, then you might as well use the portable GCJ and compile your java into native code. This means java is comparably as fast(if not faster with fewer bugs etc) as the C/C++ app.
Of course if you were that worried about speed, you would hand-assemble the lot- but who here has hand assembled server apps? I certainly wouldnt like to try.
As for PHP vs Java - I am sure both have their applications.
I am opposed to.net because of the MS affiliation. Other, non MS implementations of similar concepts are not a problem. In this case, I will not dispute the capabilities of the languages/platform itself but the political/corporate agendas behind it - which is an entirely different issue- and should always remain so(ref the Halloween documents- I cannot be bothered to dig up the URLs so get of yer/. behinds and find it yerselves).
Anyway- although the business model for XML provided web-content only exists in the business->business arena, there are uses of XML itself outside of this arena.
XML is also an existing standard for storing data which is often modified. Obviously not as compact as binary formats - but *withstanding using C) is a lot easier to read, to port and to edit. If an XML file doesnt quite do what you want, you can easily pull out notepad and tweak it.
It may surprise you to learn that a lot of MAJOR game developers are turning to XML for data as its a lot easier to extend and to tweak. Plus you can diff it(non-binary) and patch it to your hearts content. It has been great for game resource scripts - and I can well imagine it being used in many other places for the same. Also it then extends the product with downloadable content being easily exchanged(even in A mode). And we are fully aware of the revenue streams from subscriptions to downloadable content for games. Making a game hackable may even extend this furthar(HL with XML?).
Fine, then set up a FSF/GPL monetary fund(I think there is one), and contribute. Then there will be monetary resources for a global community - NON CORPORATE - to do something "Risky". Yes it is possible. The only problem is - just who do we put in control of releasing them funds?Maybe democratic consent with some specialist bank..
Maybe we need to set up a new global bank for this very purpose - where money is invested in these projects - and some may harvest returns to go into the bank for furthar projects- yes sales, yes profits - but in the name of a community - non exclusive - not a company...
Maybe my head is in the clouds and we are too damn human to ever realise that kind of future- it is just utopian bull really. The long and short of it is I am not about to surrender the cash I could add the next module to my intended beowulf behemoth any more than the next slashdotter - even if its a really worthy cause. Maybe I should set an example and do so...
Oh and one more thing- I am not sure that US dollars are the best currency for such a venture. Although I'm a limey- I dont think GBP is either. But we have to start somewhere...
Donning an asbestos suit -
Fully aware of starting a holy war - why not use a PS2?
Cheaper than an XBox- And the two Vu's in the EE can do fast vector calcs. Plus dont forget that the PS1 CPU and GTE is still there.
Oh and linux has already been ported...
And you wouldnt have that much of a performance difference if you used ALL of the PS2.
Umm- Thats a very poor statistic. I use my drives and PC intensively. I have 2x20gb HDD's and regularly siphon off data to CD-R's. I have only had one hard drive failure in around 6 years. My current drives are 3 years old. All the others I sold off when I upgraded. Mind you- if youu are lugging it regularly then its a different ballgame.
Ever thought of getting a second lightweight PC for LAN parties? Just the basics -hdd big enough for skins etc, nice GFX, nice sound,single CD/DVD drive.
But I must admit- 40-80Gig NVRAM is a thought that turns me on too - the speed as well as weight loss and less power consumption(I would assume as there are no motors or servos to drive).
Question - Does anyone here know what heat output is like? I would imagine they're a lot cooler than hard drives. That would be a big advantage in the market.
Surely this is a fairly large cross-sectional representation of slashdotters?
BTW- I dont smoke(Any more), and I dont wear a leather jacket(any more), no badges(any more), and I cut my hair and shaved my beard... All this happened around two years ago... Reason? girlfriend... 'nuff said..
I am also not sure its always roll-ups.. IYKWIM..;-)
I do still read Pratchet..
Vp3 - I have great hopes for this one...
Maybe it will lead the way for codecs. Being free, and hopefully pretty decent.
Surely a standard free codec will lend itself to hardware implentations much easier...
But alas, we must wait... Why couldnt it have been done sooner...
Whoaahh.. Okay we are now moving from the realm of science, physics and technology into existentialism. Which at some fundamental low-level must co-exist. I wonder how low-level we can get?
Maybe one day we will be able to see the source (code) of the universe... Though maybe it isnt the stepwised, serialized kind of thing we imagine- but at the end of the day some super-massively, multidimensional parallel process occuring in multiple dimensions sychronously in a truly chaotic access pattern. The fact we experience the universe at all prooves that it exists- however flimsy the existence- it exists.
To put it another way - does a "virtual" world really exist? Yes and No- no because its existence may seem "meaningless" in the "real" world, yes because whatever it is- *it is*.
Superstrings- the universe performing high-level multithreading?
Time is as real as the chair your sat on- wether you beleive in its existance or if it is an illusion. An illusion is still *something*.
"I think therefore I am". If the universe is just an individuals thoughts- it is still something. After all- in what medium are these thoughts... Its all relative.
Slashdot Mirror
You know I know exactly how this guy feels. I always said "When I become king... Marketing will be the first against the wall.."...
They stifle creative thought, they stifle entertainment, the flood the web (a poor mans library?) with crap, my mailbox, my e-mailbox. I cannot get to work in the morning without having ads shoved at me, free papers and stupid flyers proffered by eyelid batting women on the way out of the tube.
AS a creative person myself, I took it personally when a game a team of us had almost finished was pulled because marketing did not like it... Not our "target audience" they said... It was for daytime digital TV - they decided it was for housewives... And put games involving washing piles with soap and toothbrush ads - after all - where is the female interest in strategy games... Why would a "busy housewife" play DTV games anyway was my question to them..
Marketing are the biggest load of bull on the planet... They will definately be the first against the wall...
Any marketing bods here DARE to defend themselves..Better still without hiding behind AC?
Hehe... Unfortunately the prize is only open to bible belt hicks who hunt deer, open bottles with their teeth, drive a ut badly, dont have all their own teeth and whos parents are directly related....hehe..
In response to your sig - I find its only recently I have been anything but a passive reader...But I have started finding time to actually post - but then thats beginning to subside again(its called being between girlfriends)...
Okay - I dont think Walmart shoppers are rednecks.. Homephobes, racists and various biggots are rednecks - I really dont see the walmart connection. But I can see the deerhunter connection ;-)..
To be honest I think having Linux, and also Lindows OEM is great. The only reason it hasnt happened yet is that any attempts to do so have been well stamped by MS. Taking these OS's to the mass market could be just the kind of boost they need.
Ahhh... One of the rednecks surfaces... Even slashdot is not safe from the low-iq cross section of the population(although I am amazed by the fact that they found the post button)...
My bigger objection is to one person per car during rush hour... There is talk of the charges being scaled in such a way that the driver is charged more for empty passenger seats. I agree with this both in terms of space saving and energy waste. I know Boston people may not appretiate "Pansy Environmental Concerns" but quite a lot of British do.
I think the very most point is that its not MD only.. Because that will mean we CANNOT file the lawsuits. If the doctor gets sued for malpractice - perhaps he should have payed more attention in medschool or used the database himself. I beleive that gives every reason to make this data publicly available. You subscribe, you can see this info - joe bloggs, lawyer, jury members and the MD's. You cannot place trust in one so tightly knit group - I certainly dont. Half the time, doctors dont even like to reveal the diagnosis- just recommend treatments. Well I would like to know the problem, and its implications thouroughly- if the doctor doesnt like me knowing - I would have to ask myself why....
So what you are saying here is what I have always feared. The medical profession is more interested in money than diagnosis. Probably after all the Med school rubbish and the old boys pressure, any motivation to actually *help* patients is beaten out as a naive ideal and replaced by the "lets see how much money we can make" version.
Sadly, I live in the UK, where the medical profession is funded from government coffers(I have private health myself), and so doctors are not paid all that well. And consequently- do not give a sh1t. I have given up, and have dealt with all my medical problems myself as I have NO TRUST for them. As a result of this- my health has improved. My advice to anyone-is stay informed and DONT trust your doctor. They do NOT always know best.
Use of software like this would restore my trust a little - indeed it is expert system based knowledge systems that I have been looking into myself - I dont mind paying for a website to give me a possible diagnosis.
Sometimes it makes me really wonder- how we have acheived so much in medical science and technology, but so many people suffer because a lazy med-school grad cant be bothered to ask the right questions.
Fine - then why not develop mine technology which only has a certain limit of usability- ie an explosive that degrades completely to harmless soil nutrients after a few months- along with most of the casing etc...Then you are no longer creating a permenant hazard.
Why not genetically engineer a weed or large funghi specialising in decomposing the mines. Dust the fields with the seeds and wait a few years... Obviously you would have to make sure its not bacterial/microscopic and wind carried - otherwise we would have a situation not unlike a certain Sci-Fi... We could use similar stuff to decompose scrap metal/junk.
Yes but that somewhat limits modelling to the elite hacker types - who tend to have all the artistic talent of a staffordshire blue brick.
Yes I am a coder, and yes I have hand-coded vertices before - and I shudder to think about ever doing it again. Why doesnt someone reading this now- poised ready to post another article go over and start the source tree for an OSS modeller ui right now...
(Does that mean maybe I should volunteer for starting this?)
I can see this turning into a license/language holy war if I mention which I will use - so I think I will just get on with it.
Any other takers?
Now the interesting thing here is learning to touch-type on them again. Would you need(during learning) the different keycaps?
Maybe its about time we were able to purchase keyboards with usb controlled LCD/LED key caps via a USB interface. The technology is not that difficult - LEDs are more hard wearing than LCDs. But it would be considerably more expensive than a normal board- though think of the applications for such a keyboard - place icons on keycaps for apps etc!
So you would edit/download a key configuration, upload it to your USB keyboard - and store it in a memory smart card- or keychain USB device which you would take elsewhere - and even if you cant see the caps, you can still replicate your layout. Niiice..
Anyway my hat goes off to the poster of this article. Its about time the old keyboard underwent an overhaul. My hands hurt sometimes too.
Okay - I may be touchy, and I may have a concentration span that rivals a goldfish. But I dont think its computer games, as much as prolonged contact with anything without rest.
You are just a likely to show these same symptoms were you to paint figures 8hours a day, or watch TV, or read comic books, write down train badge numbers etc... I think its generally a symptom of letting a mere hobby/pasttime reach anti-sociable proportions.
Ever heard of tent fever? Where just spending a long time with the same person can lead to manifestation of the above symptoms- and then a lot worse..
However - were they to try this in the UK it would be an absolute disaster. English trains are less reliable than the Californian Power grid. In fact they are less reliable than an 80 year old alzheimer sufferers ability to perform brain surgery...
Imagine the surviving passengers(the ones who waited for their train to turn up, the platform wasnt flooded, and got through the mounds of rubbish, and managed to cut through the huge queues to get the ridiculously overpriced ticket from an extrememly unhelpful ticket clerk) having the very large danger of electricution to deal with... Not to forget our control systems being so good that another train is likely to hit them in the next five minutes...
Hey- take this from a limey- if you ever go to the UK - use the buses, or planes - hell you could probably strap yourself to the front of a cargo truck- but DONT use the trains.You're lucky to get a train at all, and not be killed in it - let a lone get a seat and one without a smell. And DONT even consider eating the food.
I duuno about the rest - but thats the best sig I have read in a long time - it really put things in perspective.
And theres furthar irony given thats its the 4th of July...
Umm- I agree that some of the statements made above were not entirely well founded as there are possibly cheaper alternatives to java. But your simple statement "Not against Microsoft it doesn't." instantly puts you in the troll category. At least give some backing or proof behind such a claim.
As for not guaranteed- there will be jobs in java development for a long time, for the same reason that there are still jobs for Cobol- yes COBOL programmers. It may be old, it may be obsolete- but it was well bought up and is completely ingrained. Systems of the size to serve corporate systems(intrAnets anybody?) are not easily replaced. Maintenance and extension is much more viable and welcome.
And if you are building a monolithic C++ app, then you might as well use the portable GCJ and compile your java into native code. This means java is comparably as fast(if not faster with fewer bugs etc) as the C/C++ app.
.net because of the MS affiliation. Other, non MS implementations of similar concepts are not a problem. In this case, I will not dispute the capabilities of the languages/platform itself but the political/corporate agendas behind it - which is an entirely different issue- and should always remain so(ref the Halloween documents- I cannot be bothered to dig up the URLs so get of yer /. behinds and find it yerselves).
Of course if you were that worried about speed, you would hand-assemble the lot- but who here has hand assembled server apps? I certainly wouldnt like to try.
As for PHP vs Java - I am sure both have their applications.
I am opposed to
Sheesh- You did have a boring high school...
Anyway- although the business model for XML provided web-content only exists in the business->business arena, there are uses of XML itself outside of this arena.
XML is also an existing standard for storing data which is often modified. Obviously not as compact as binary formats - but *withstanding using C) is a lot easier to read, to port and to edit. If an XML file doesnt quite do what you want, you can easily pull out notepad and tweak it.
It may surprise you to learn that a lot of MAJOR game developers are turning to XML for data as its a lot easier to extend and to tweak. Plus you can diff it(non-binary) and patch it to your hearts content. It has been great for game resource scripts - and I can well imagine it being used in many other places for the same. Also it then extends the product with downloadable content being easily exchanged(even in A mode). And we are fully aware of the revenue streams from subscriptions to downloadable content for games. Making a game hackable may even extend this furthar(HL with XML?).
If you aint a smelly geek - what're you doing on slashdot? Trolling for kicks?
Hmmm.. ever visited H2G2.com?
Maybe its time someone made the hardware version of the guide....
Fine, then set up a FSF/GPL monetary fund(I think there is one), and contribute. Then there will be monetary resources for a global community - NON CORPORATE - to do something "Risky". Yes it is possible. The only problem is - just who do we put in control of releasing them funds?Maybe democratic consent with some specialist bank..
Maybe we need to set up a new global bank for this very purpose - where money is invested in these projects - and some may harvest returns to go into the bank for furthar projects- yes sales, yes profits - but in the name of a community - non exclusive - not a company...
Maybe my head is in the clouds and we are too damn human to ever realise that kind of future- it is just utopian bull really. The long and short of it is I am not about to surrender the cash I could add the next module to my intended beowulf behemoth any more than the next slashdotter - even if its a really worthy cause. Maybe I should set an example and do so...
Oh and one more thing- I am not sure that US dollars are the best currency for such a venture. Although I'm a limey- I dont think GBP is either. But we have to start somewhere...
Donning an asbestos suit -
Fully aware of starting a holy war - why not use a PS2?
Cheaper than an XBox- And the two Vu's in the EE can do fast vector calcs. Plus dont forget that the PS1 CPU and GTE is still there.
Oh and linux has already been ported...
And you wouldnt have that much of a performance difference if you used ALL of the PS2.
Umm- Thats a very poor statistic. I use my drives and PC intensively. I have 2x20gb HDD's and regularly siphon off data to CD-R's. I have only had one hard drive failure in around 6 years. My current drives are 3 years old. All the others I sold off when I upgraded. Mind you- if youu are lugging it regularly then its a different ballgame.
Ever thought of getting a second lightweight PC for LAN parties?
Just the basics -hdd big enough for skins etc, nice GFX, nice sound,single CD/DVD drive.
But I must admit- 40-80Gig NVRAM is a thought that turns me on too - the speed as well as weight loss and less power consumption(I would assume as there are no motors or servos to drive).
Question - Does anyone here know what heat output is like? I would imagine they're a lot cooler than hard drives. That would be a big advantage in the market.
Surely this is a fairly large cross-sectional representation of slashdotters? BTW- I dont smoke(Any more), and I dont wear a leather jacket(any more), no badges(any more), and I cut my hair and shaved my beard... All this happened around two years ago... Reason? girlfriend... 'nuff said.. I am also not sure its always roll-ups.. IYKWIM.. ;-)
I do still read Pratchet..
Vp3 - I have great hopes for this one...
Maybe it will lead the way for codecs. Being free, and hopefully pretty decent. Surely a standard free codec will lend itself to hardware implentations much easier...
But alas, we must wait... Why couldnt it have been done sooner...
Whoaahh.. Okay we are now moving from the realm of science, physics and technology into existentialism. Which at some fundamental low-level must co-exist. I wonder how low-level we can get? Maybe one day we will be able to see the source (code) of the universe... Though maybe it isnt the stepwised, serialized kind of thing we imagine- but at the end of the day some super-massively, multidimensional parallel process occuring in multiple dimensions sychronously in a truly chaotic access pattern. The fact we experience the universe at all prooves that it exists- however flimsy the existence- it exists. To put it another way - does a "virtual" world really exist? Yes and No- no because its existence may seem "meaningless" in the "real" world, yes because whatever it is- *it is*. Superstrings- the universe performing high-level multithreading? Time is as real as the chair your sat on- wether you beleive in its existance or if it is an illusion. An illusion is still *something*. "I think therefore I am". If the universe is just an individuals thoughts- it is still something. After all- in what medium are these thoughts... Its all relative.