Most games, I think it's fair to say all games, are inferior trash compared to Treasure Island and Lewis Carroll.
It isn't just that 'he doesn't like it.' Aesthetically, the games played on computers are pretty pitiful compared to the classics of literature. Maybe someday that will change. We'll just have to give it time to see.
But now I said a complicated word like 'aesthetic' and you'd better all run back to your rumble pack and frag some zoids or whatever.
A twenty cent chip, an 80 cent connector, two dollars of insertion cost at the board stuffer, etc. And when it fails you get to stick a piece of black electrical tape over it, it might not be possible to completely disable it.... Oh, there are countless points to bring up.
My bike is a Columbia. It has balloon tires, and when I traced it's serial number on the web, it came up as being manufactured in 1967.
It has coaster brakes and the handlebar is rusty.
I do need to get a light on it somewhere. Here in central Indiana I am finding the drivers are idiots who pay little attention to bicycles. This is the f*cking jalopy republic part of the country, it seems. I suppose I could make it a flashing LED light. I wouldn't want to spoil a classic Columbia bike with too much tech, though.
Coaster brakes rule. If I wanted a bike that wasn't excercize to ride, I suppose I'd get some ultralight thing that I could make monthly payments on.
Tannenbaum's Minix Operating System is designed as the software equivalent of an 'ensign's training ship.' It has all the parts of an Operating System, but it's kept simple and relatively non-growing because it's a pedagogical tool. Underclassmen (i.e. the ensigns) are supposed to take Minix out in the bay for a cruise, and learn from it, but it's not meant as a production OS. The textbook is written around it and it's not intended to be a general purpose Operating System. Tannenbaum doesn't consider it innovative in any regard, so it's not particularly shocking that he doesn't take in contributed code.
Most of the 'weekly cavalcade' are vulnerabilities in Outlook Express, or IE.
Besides which, who would run Windows 2000 directly on the Internet in the first place? You stick it behind a few layers of crap, i.e. on your subnet behind a firewall, and there's no problems.
There's no 'mainstream support' for Windows 3.1. Guess what? People, including me, use it on some of their equipment.
No matter how much you call Intellectual Property a 'nonsense "IP" myth' there will continue to be highly intelligent and skillful engineers out there developing Intellectual Property and expecting renumeration from the people who use it.
No amount of handwaving about 'freedom' and propaganda about 'sharing' will amount to anything more than a stone soup swindle. Yes, the story of the stone soup was a swindle operation. I know if I showed up I would have brought rocks to put in, and pitied the fool who put in the potatoes and meat. That kind of ideology only works when there's a collective goal. Surprise, surprise, it doesn't scale well to the big competetive world out there.
It was the availability of the first spreadsheet, Visicalc, exclusively on the Apple II for about the first year Visicalc was out, that caused the proliferation of the Apple II. Without Visicalc, the Apple II was just another fledgling personal computer. But businessmen would go into the computer shop and say 'I want a Visicalc' with their credit card flashing. They meant they wanted an Apple II, but the Apple II was just the roadbed, Visicalc was the vehicle.
Apple Computer would just be another also-ran if they hadn't gotten that exclusive killer app on their machines early.
The benchmark that clone vendors had to pass in the early days was being able to run Microsoft Flight Simulator. FS used the whole OS and the whole compliment of firmware/hardware rigorously. A computer wasn't really considered a true 'IBM Clone' unless it would run MS-DOS, and on top of MS-DOS, Flight Simulator. Ancient history, now, but that's the way it was.
That is only if you buy OEM versions of their OS software. You can almost always buy the 'retail box' version, dubbed 'For Installation on a New Computer' which cost more, but are transferrable.
I am also leery of Product Activation in shareware that I register. I bought a copy this past week of the nice Schematic Capture and PCB Layout product AutoTRAX. But before I registered it, I made sure there was a way to plug in the serial number that I was registering it to, because like a lot of Windows shareware these days, it uses a challenge-response authentication method. Each time the software is installed it generates a new serial number. The 'key' that you get back (for $495 in the case of AutoTRAX) only works with the serial number you register. Usually, as is the case with AutoTRAX, it's a simple registry hack to go in and change the serial number of your installed copy to the one you send in with your payment to register, which the 'registration key' you got back is the countersign for.
This kind of 'hack' is never documented by the Shareware vendor, though. It's as if we're supposed to pay for a whole new copy, or write in for another 'activation' each time we reinstall the software. That's ridiculous, as I intend to keep using AutoTRAX, and other shareware I've registered, for years. I predict the AutoTRAX vendor won't be around the last few dozen times that I reinstall it on my PC. Or will be bought up by one of the big CAD vendors who scarf up and digest low-end startups a lot these days.
Windows XP Product Activation is going to hurt Microsoft badly in the enthusiast market, because Windows 2000 is just plain good enough for most of us. I can't see anything coming in the forseeable future to make me upgrade. Security really isn't an issue, because the 'security critical' applications that most people run on a W2K desktop are IE and Outlook Express, and we can run Mozilla, Eudora, and Forte Agen, which are all far, far superior to the Microsoft offerings.
Microsoft had a similar problem with Windows 3.11 and Office 4.3. Both were really good, definite 'plateaus' of quality and it took Microsoft a long time to offer anything better worth the upgrade hassles.
As it stands, I'm just glad I have enough Microsoft software to suit my purposes and I don't plan to buy any more anytime soon. Except a few more dev tools I'm missing and those I'll buy on eBay.
I think there's a company out there making Duck tape who own a trademark on the term, and have this 'duck' logo to go with it. They're sorta astroturfing by making all these claims about 'Duck' tape because they don't have Duct Tape as a trademark.
That syncs well with the forums and places where this 'history' stuff is being planted. "I heard on the radio..." and "This web site says..." are the kind of thing a marketing shill loves to have common people saying.
Actually, I am starting to think that one company has a trademark on 'Duck tape' and that Duct Tape is in common usage and can't be trademarked. So they're spreading around urban legends, cuz they want to own the name everybody uses to refer to the tape.
I almost never keep duct tape around. Because while it might seem like the appropriate thing for a temporary fix, it leaves behind such a messy glue residue when you're ready for the permanent fix that it often does more damage than good.
In general when something has been repaired with duct tape, it indicates an amateur has been at work maintaining it. Equipment at yard sales, etc. which have anything resembling duct tape attached should be avoided at all cost.
Black electrical tape is much the same. Nobody with an interest in quality regarding electronics uses it for anything. Like it says in Horowitz and Hill, black electrical tape is strictly amateur. Use Heat Shrink Tubing.
Bill Gates' money is 'stolen' only in the same sense that people who use Microsoft software without paying for it and swap songs they haven't paid for original copies of on P2P are stealing. And then, he's actually less 'stealing' than those folks by the legal definitions in place.
So go ahead and say he has 'stolen money.' And delete all those MP3s off your hard drive while you're at it, or you're a hypocrite.
In the days before Raymond's campaign to change the language that geeks/nerds/hackers use, a cracker was somebody who sngle stepped through old copy protected games to defeat the copy protection, usually by inserting a jump or NOPs at the critical point where the copy protection scheme kicked in. Often these cracked games would have a modified splash screen that would say 'Cracked by so-and-so' giving credit to the cracker who liberated the game.
Eric S. Raymond is on a campaign to change the meaning of the terms that we have always used, but his attempt to sully the reputation of the term 'cracker' is misguided and historically revisionist.
Slashdot Mirror
Magazines?
Is there something wrong with the brassiere section of the Sears Catalog that I wasn't aware of??
Well, that's creative use of the term 'lucky' but I guess we all have our way with words.
Most games, I think it's fair to say all games, are inferior trash compared to Treasure Island and Lewis Carroll.
It isn't just that 'he doesn't like it.' Aesthetically, the games played on computers are pretty pitiful compared to the classics of literature. Maybe someday that will change. We'll just have to give it time to see.
But now I said a complicated word like 'aesthetic' and you'd better all run back to your rumble pack and frag some zoids or whatever.
Well, obviously anybody who has their car on fire must have done something wrong or somebody wouldn't have set it on fire.
Good gracious! It isn't a matter of hating kids in general. There are some who should be crushed by falling dumpsters, though.
Here's for putting Playstations out in the middle of busy intersections....
....drive library patrons from the library.
And the kind of wild uncontrolled children those games are drawing into the library are repellant, too.
Sorry for being a little negative about it all. The library is a place for books.
A twenty cent chip, an 80 cent connector, two dollars of insertion cost at the board stuffer, etc. And when it fails you get to stick a piece of black electrical tape over it, it might not be possible to completely disable it.... Oh, there are countless points to bring up.
My bike is a Columbia. It has balloon tires, and when I traced it's serial number on the web, it came up as being manufactured in 1967.
It has coaster brakes and the handlebar is rusty.
I do need to get a light on it somewhere. Here in central Indiana I am finding the drivers are idiots who pay little attention to bicycles. This is the f*cking jalopy republic part of the country, it seems. I suppose I could make it a flashing LED light. I wouldn't want to spoil a classic Columbia bike with too much tech, though.
Coaster brakes rule. If I wanted a bike that wasn't excercize to ride, I suppose I'd get some ultralight thing that I could make monthly payments on.
Tannenbaum's Minix Operating System is designed as the software equivalent of an 'ensign's training ship.' It has all the parts of an Operating System, but it's kept simple and relatively non-growing because it's a pedagogical tool. Underclassmen (i.e. the ensigns) are supposed to take Minix out in the bay for a cruise, and learn from it, but it's not meant as a production OS. The textbook is written around it and it's not intended to be a general purpose Operating System. Tannenbaum doesn't consider it innovative in any regard, so it's not particularly shocking that he doesn't take in contributed code.
I thought Jimmy Carter got it for appeasing North Korea. Which, if I remember, exploded in his face shortly after it was awarded to him.
Most of the 'weekly cavalcade' are vulnerabilities in Outlook Express, or IE.
Besides which, who would run Windows 2000 directly on the Internet in the first place? You stick it behind a few layers of crap, i.e. on your subnet behind a firewall, and there's no problems.
There's no 'mainstream support' for Windows 3.1. Guess what? People, including me, use it on some of their equipment.
Direct quote from the article:
"I think they are struggling to deal with Linux partly because Linux is undermining them the same way they undercut their competition."
I guess the old goose-gander thing should apply.
No matter how much you call Intellectual Property a 'nonsense "IP" myth' there will continue to be highly intelligent and skillful engineers out there developing Intellectual Property and expecting renumeration from the people who use it.
No amount of handwaving about 'freedom' and propaganda about 'sharing' will amount to anything more than a stone soup swindle. Yes, the story of the stone soup was a swindle operation. I know if I showed up I would have brought rocks to put in, and pitied the fool who put in the potatoes and meat. That kind of ideology only works when there's a collective goal. Surprise, surprise, it doesn't scale well to the big competetive world out there.
It was the availability of the first spreadsheet, Visicalc, exclusively on the Apple II for about the first year Visicalc was out, that caused the proliferation of the Apple II. Without Visicalc, the Apple II was just another fledgling personal computer. But businessmen would go into the computer shop and say 'I want a Visicalc' with their credit card flashing. They meant they wanted an Apple II, but the Apple II was just the roadbed, Visicalc was the vehicle.
Apple Computer would just be another also-ran if they hadn't gotten that exclusive killer app on their machines early.
The benchmark that clone vendors had to pass in the early days was being able to run Microsoft Flight Simulator. FS used the whole OS and the whole compliment of firmware/hardware rigorously. A computer wasn't really considered a true 'IBM Clone' unless it would run MS-DOS, and on top of MS-DOS, Flight Simulator. Ancient history, now, but that's the way it was.
That is only if you buy OEM versions of their OS software. You can almost always buy the 'retail box' version, dubbed 'For Installation on a New Computer' which cost more, but are transferrable.
I am also leery of Product Activation in shareware that I register. I bought a copy this past week of the nice Schematic Capture and PCB Layout product AutoTRAX. But before I registered it, I made sure there was a way to plug in the serial number that I was registering it to, because like a lot of Windows shareware these days, it uses a challenge-response authentication method. Each time the software is installed it generates a new serial number. The 'key' that you get back (for $495 in the case of AutoTRAX) only works with the serial number you register. Usually, as is the case with AutoTRAX, it's a simple registry hack to go in and change the serial number of your installed copy to the one you send in with your payment to register, which the 'registration key' you got back is the countersign for.
This kind of 'hack' is never documented by the Shareware vendor, though. It's as if we're supposed to pay for a whole new copy, or write in for another 'activation' each time we reinstall the software. That's ridiculous, as I intend to keep using AutoTRAX, and other shareware I've registered, for years. I predict the AutoTRAX vendor won't be around the last few dozen times that I reinstall it on my PC. Or will be bought up by one of the big CAD vendors who scarf up and digest low-end startups a lot these days.
MacOS? What's that? Didn't Apple give up on MacOS and just put some cheap makeup on NeXTStep and pretend it was version 10?
Windows XP Product Activation is going to hurt Microsoft badly in the enthusiast market, because Windows 2000 is just plain good enough for most of us. I can't see anything coming in the forseeable future to make me upgrade. Security really isn't an issue, because the 'security critical' applications that most people run on a W2K desktop are IE and Outlook Express, and we can run Mozilla, Eudora, and Forte Agen, which are all far, far superior to the Microsoft offerings.
Microsoft had a similar problem with Windows 3.11 and Office 4.3. Both were really good, definite 'plateaus' of quality and it took Microsoft a long time to offer anything better worth the upgrade hassles.
As it stands, I'm just glad I have enough Microsoft software to suit my purposes and I don't plan to buy any more anytime soon. Except a few more dev tools I'm missing and those I'll buy on eBay.
I think there's a company out there making Duck tape who own a trademark on the term, and have this 'duck' logo to go with it. They're sorta astroturfing by making all these claims about 'Duck' tape because they don't have Duct Tape as a trademark.
That syncs well with the forums and places where this 'history' stuff is being planted. "I heard on the radio..." and "This web site says..." are the kind of thing a marketing shill loves to have common people saying.
Actually, I am starting to think that one company has a trademark on 'Duck tape' and that Duct Tape is in common usage and can't be trademarked. So they're spreading around urban legends, cuz they want to own the name everybody uses to refer to the tape.
WD-40 is actually a solvent, not a lubricant. In the cases where it's used to lubricate, what it's doing is re-liquifying the old caked on lubricant.
I almost never keep duct tape around. Because while it might seem like the appropriate thing for a temporary fix, it leaves behind such a messy glue residue when you're ready for the permanent fix that it often does more damage than good.
In general when something has been repaired with duct tape, it indicates an amateur has been at work maintaining it. Equipment at yard sales, etc. which have anything resembling duct tape attached should be avoided at all cost.
Black electrical tape is much the same. Nobody with an interest in quality regarding electronics uses it for anything. Like it says in Horowitz and Hill, black electrical tape is strictly amateur. Use Heat Shrink Tubing.
Bill Gates' money is 'stolen' only in the same sense that people who use Microsoft software without paying for it and swap songs they haven't paid for original copies of on P2P are stealing. And then, he's actually less 'stealing' than those folks by the legal definitions in place.
So go ahead and say he has 'stolen money.' And delete all those MP3s off your hard drive while you're at it, or you're a hypocrite.
In the days before Raymond's campaign to change the language that geeks/nerds/hackers use, a cracker was somebody who sngle stepped through old copy protected games to defeat the copy protection, usually by inserting a jump or NOPs at the critical point where the copy protection scheme kicked in. Often these cracked games would have a modified splash screen that would say 'Cracked by so-and-so' giving credit to the cracker who liberated the game.
Eric S. Raymond is on a campaign to change the meaning of the terms that we have always used, but his attempt to sully the reputation of the term 'cracker' is misguided and historically revisionist.
You can go buy your software in that short half-row in the back of the store, cool dude.