I've done that before, and it's not as good of an idea as it sounds. Don't use flash for paging! It's not designed for that. It will perform slower than a hard drive by an order of magnitude or two, and the amount of stress put on the memory will cause it to degrade quickly.
"The more you tighten your grip on the galaxy, the more star systems will slip through your fingers!"
I realize that is not the original text of the quote, but I revised it for clarity. Also, before you mod me offtopic, how many of you won't admit that your parents were like the evil empire? I know mine were.
But don't you think that it would be more pragmatic to maximize sales? Profit in the long term is going to depend on just how popular your console is (popularity helps convince more developers to invest in your console because they can reach a large audience). If you are using pricing to actually deter sales, that might decrease the marketability of your product overall.
It could have been a mutation linked to some other trait by coincidence. If the negative effect of the protein is not bad enough to kill itself off, then it will stick around.
Where is it? When I have written software in the past, I've seen rapid development and maintainability go hand in hand.
If you want to finish a software project quickly, your code must be written with a certain level of foresight. You can't just hammer things together, but you must also put in some design effort to make sure that the structure accommodates the functionality you're shooting for. When you do this, your software will be developed faster than any other method because software lends itself to its purpose--your project runs the risk of dying before its finished if you don't. Your software will also have its own intrinsic flexibility toward its application. That means that a clean, solid application will come together more rapidly (and is coincidentally easier to maintain).
First of all, robots are stupid! I don't mean that they suck (by which I don't mean that they do anything orally), but that they aren't intelligent machines like some people imagine. In fact, robot programming is very tedious and only fun for a select group of individuals.
I think a better idea would be to include computers instead of robots. I mean, it's a computer science course, right? And before you get on my case about affording computers and whatnot, when we're talking about intro to computer science, we should be talking about doing some very basic programming (no pun intended) so that students can learn things like logic, control, and design. A very low power machine can be had very cheaply--hell, there are graphing calculators for less than $100 that are more programmable than the majority of PC's (I don't mean to say that PC's aren't capable of being programmed for, but where are the software tools? On an average Windows system, no one can just sit down and write software unless you're terribly interested in x86 ASM on a virtual machine. You're going to have to install additional software whereas the little calculators have built in development environments).
I would wager that most people want to play games not only because it gives them a fun diversion, but also a temporary escape and relief from reality. Not to say that the "hood" is anywhere near reality, but the urban settings are just a little bit close to home. Take GTA for instance; the engine and gameplay was unique and that's what makes the game great, but then when you get down into concept--do I really want to play a game where you walk around in a modern day city and drive cars to and fro? Hell, I do that every day of my life. I've had enough!
The Apple ][e also loads BASIC from the ROM. It also has support for the casette storage, but I don't have any drives for that! You would be right to point out that casette drives are slightly more secure than the diskette drives (none of that autoboot stuff).
I don't know how you got modded insightful for your comment; I have an Apple ][e sitting on my desk and there is absolutely nothing bullet proof about it. In fact, the hardware is designed to load and run software stored on a diskette immediately after the system is loaded. Since the system is stored on a ROM, there is no way to change this behavior--you call that secure by default? The software being loaded can do ANYTHING to the system at will. Nearly all DOS virii were spread this way.
Secondly, once the system is loaded, any user can access a command prompt immediately from which they have unrestricted access to all system resources: disks, memory--you name it. One wrong instruction (or right, depending on what your goals are) can corrupt the system irreversibly until you reboot, and maybe even trash some disks. Malware aside, even normal user programs do this accidentally! Once an old Tandy of ours had the file system on its disk corrupted entirely by a game. Just because the system that's being loaded off of the ROM can't be altered, that doesn't mean the system isn't extremely fragile and insecure after the ROM is loaded. Your data (the most important thing) is still at risk, and malware can have its way with you much more easily.
With more modern operating systems, scenarios like this are becoming harder and harder to imagine since usually user apps don't have this level of access, but not so with the machines you're referring to. The question posed in the article is asking for a step forward in one direction, and you're advocating 30 steps backwards.
First, try FreeBSD. I used to run FreeBSD on my old Fujitsu Lifebook (it had a 120mhz pentium with 40mb of RAM), and you get great performance on weak systems. Of course, you're going to go have to build a custom kernel (this is a VERY important step). The initialization scripts are simple and easy to manage if you're not afraid of using a text editor--FreeBSD is already light to begin with, and disabling services like sendmail and ssh will give you a nice speed boost. You've never seen unix-lite until you've run a properly trimmed BSD system. linux is great, but on some distros it's really hard to cut the fat.
As for which linux distro you'd like to use, choose wisely. I don't recommend straying too far from major distributions, or using distros whose work are based on other distros. I hold this opinion because I think distro work should be kept close to the source in order to ensure proper intregration. Also, independent small-time distros may suddenly lose support, and then you're back onto the same boat as you were with win98.
So, out of the big, mainstream distros, your two primary considerations ought to be debian and slackware. If you do a basic install, both give you very clean and light base systems to build on top of, and you can avoid a lot of overhead that way. Distros like Ubuntu and SuSE may feature nicer prepackaging and seem to deliver a more complete environment, they are loaded with stuff that will lay heavily on your laptop.
I've run both slack and debian on my laptop, and slackware was the fastest hands down. It's a great system for your old x86 machines and setup is a breeze. I chose debian in the end, however, because I could not part with the features and flexibility of dpkg. The debian system will load a little slower and some system tools will make you wait, but in the long run your system won't be performing less than it should.
I would like to add to your comment that I have noticed the gaming industry is one of the most heavily-scrutinized industries by its consumers. This is a good thing.
To give you an idea of what I'm talk about, think about the automotive industry for a moment. It's a huge industry, and it's got a wide group of consumers, each of whom have their own understandings about the machine and those who make and sell them. Most people know very little about the real functionality and merit of the vehicles themselves, but usually make their purchasing decisions based on price (some people want shiny, expensive, things) and product loyalty. Honestly, how many people do you know are familiar not only with autos themselves, but understand the dynamics of the industry as a whole (including politics, alignment, strategies, past products, current products, future products) and can speculate the significance of each morsel? It amazes me to sit and watch a bunch of people my age (youngsters--20 and under) sit and analyze the video game industry. Some people are on a first name basis with numerous individuals in the industry, from business men to engineers!
I've seen people do this to sports and music, and I guess it's natural with video games because it is also a great form of entertainment and treasured pastime. It's too bad people can't be this concerned about politics.:)
The terminal, called "sterm" uses a funny imput method where you select the characters individually using the joystick. This sounds really horrible, but combine this with such features as autocompletion, command history, and the fact that most unix commands are very short and abreviated, it's not as bad as you might be thinking. Also, you can buy a serial connector so you can manipulate the system with a remote serial console.
I'd love to have one unified, well-designed, attractive and ergonomic handheld game unit preloaded with a lightweight, unlocked, extendable OS and emulators for every system ever made.
I'd pay a lot of money for that.
You're kidding, right? I've had my GP2X since December, and I love it to death. It doesn't have emualtors for EVERY system evermade (a bit of a hyperbole there), and they aren't preloaded, but there are lots and you can download them right onto an SD card, plug, and go.
The device itself is lovely and capable--dual core ARM, 320x240 LCD, stereo sound, 64mb of RAM + 64MB of internal flash plus SD reader and external serial port. Also has a USB port, but no host controller, I believe. No wifi, but such nicities as onboard MPEG decoder and TV-out. If that's not enough to tickle your fancy, it runs embedded linux and comes (as of firmware 2.0) a handy file browser, ascii viewer, photo viewer, movie and music player (mplayer). Lots of downloadable utilities such as terminal emulator and pdf viewer.
The device runs for about $180. You can get one from gp32z.com (official US distributor--where I purchased mine) or google around for it. In my opinion, it's kind of cheap for what it is. You'll get better hardware for your buck if you get a PSP or even a DS, but you can't beat the programmability.
I see a lot of posts claiming that engineered writing won't work and that simplified phonetic writing is somehow damaging to the language or impractical for several reasons, but before delving into too much speculation let is try to examine real world applications. My main example is Korea's hangul writing. I actually have taken the time to learn it myself, and it's a wonder to behold and use. Be sure to read up on its history and usage.:)
I think you have some good logical points in the way you view positive/negative effects and how they relate to the cause, as harsh as your language is.
I feel, however, that "evil" in the sense you're using it in is being applied to the violation of copyright law in poor taste. See Godwin's Law.
I still believe very strongly in abolishing intellectual property and especially state enforcement of it in any form. The only thing I find "evil" in this situation is your attitude and the government supporting it.
1) Real piracy is wrong, no matter what. There are NO 'positive effects', anymore than more allowing pick-pocketing has the positive effect of giving pick-pockets a job.
You're joking, right? Positive effects can stem from just about anything, so you're clearly overstating your argument. If there were no positive effects whatsoever, or if the negative effects dramatically outweighed the positive effects, I doubt that "piracy" would be as popular or widespread.
From my perspective, when it comese to a person's natural right to copy and redistribute data and information, it is "wrong" to try to force them not to.
And why are the hardware demands so high? Is it because the games are that much cooler? Or because the programmers suck? Reminds me of the reason why Windows Vista's Hardware requirements are so bloated.
It makes me pine for the good old days of DOS gaming when developers squeezed the hardware for every last ounce of performance they could get, which required good design, clever/efficient algorithms, and even bits of human-optimized assembler. We pushed the machines until they wouldn't go any further.
I'm not a Nintendo fanboy, but I'm afraid that I'm about to become one; I've noticed that Nintendo tends to go this design route more often than the competition (ie attempting to fully utilize meager hardware). In fact, if you inspect their current and next gen offerings, you'll discover that the machines have a bit fewer resources than the competition. For example, compare the DS and Sony PSP. Sony's device is overpowering by far in terms of hardware resources, but I read lots of complaints that the games are bloated and slow.:(
I'm going to be nit-picky here and refute your argument on the grounds that you unfairly claim that Ubuntu is a poor distro for gaming when the game examples you cite are for another platform. It's true that there are many more commercial games for Windows than there are for linux, so a gamer would indeed rather run Windows, but let's say you're a carpenter and that you want to hammer in nails but the tool you've selected is a saw. Then you go on to say that the saw is a poor tool compared to the hammer. And, following my example, maybe most of the work you need to do involves hammering rather than sawing.
Before saying that linux/ubuntu is a bad system for games, why don't you actually try some linux games first? I wager that there are more of them than you think.
And with that testimony, I rest my case.
Seriously, if it's necessary... even sometimes... it should be exposed in the UI.
I guess from a design standpoint you would find it unacceptable, and I think you have the right idea, but all I'm trying to say is that I think you're overstating your case and making things out to be a lot more difficult than what is practical. I agree that using a text editor to do coded config files is way too much for MOST users, and I think that dpkg offers are good compromise.
Um, given the limitations you described, shouldn't the partition resizer attempt to detect a Windows install on the partition, and give a big black warning if it looks likes you're trying to do this dangerous operation? I mean, clearly Ubuntu *wants* to support this kinda of thing -- if not, why go to the considerable effort of making a (mostly-kinda-sorta) functional partitioner in the first place?
Actually, I think you're absolutely right. When it comes to resizing partitions, I don't think it's very stable for an installer to support that (we know the file systems don't support this, and by comparison the partitioning tools in Microsoft systems have never offered this feature), and it'd probably be best if they did not offer the functionality unless with very clear and specific warnings that state that the feature is "experimental" and may corrupt your data.
First... this is an nForce2 machine with built-in video, and the default config refused to let me select a screen-res larger than 1024x768. I know, the nerds out there are saying "just edit your x config file", right?/p>
Ubuntu tries to autoconfig everything. Sometimes this doesn't work out, but you don't have to go hacking your configs just yet. If you want to specify your own configuration, just run sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. This will go through and give you easy configuration options.
Also, since you've got an nVidia chipset, you might want the nvidia packages for accelerated X. Ubuntu has them, but if you don't want to mess around, easyubuntu makes this process entirely automated.
Second... I discovered that the oh-so-lovely disk partitioner has the added feature that on some systems (including mine) it borks the MBR of the resized Windows partition in such a way that Windows will refuse to boot. Even after uninstalling Ubuntu.
To be frank, you asked for it. Resizing Windows partitions is a black art, and there are a lot of things that can go wrong with this endeavor, especially since the file system does not officially support this feature. Even if you did partition everything from scratch, Windows doesn't alawys play nice. Also, individual partitions do not have their own MBR; there is one MBR on the disk, which is where Ubuntu will install grub. You will need to configure grub to boot windows if you have a dual boot configuration, or you can optionally reinstall grub on the first sector of your boot partition and have Windows overwite the MBR. If you have NT/2000/XP, you can then set up the NT loader to boot other systems, but this is a major pain.
Considering the sheer number of oxygen atoms there are on earth, the size of our atmosphere, and the various amount of things that can happen to each individual oxygen atom, I actually find it extremely unlikely that most human beings end up sharing oxygen with each other in a short period of time (imagine trillions upon trillions of atoms shared among under ten billion people). These atoms might even be destroyed, and new ones created later.
I imagine that statistically people who share the most are in very close proximity to one another (for example, my girlfriend and I probably breath more common air than anyone else we know), but the further out you go, the less and less you end up sharing with people.
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I've done that before, and it's not as good of an idea as it sounds. Don't use flash for paging! It's not designed for that. It will perform slower than a hard drive by an order of magnitude or two, and the amount of stress put on the memory will cause it to degrade quickly.
"The more you tighten your grip on the galaxy, the more star systems will slip through your fingers!"
I realize that is not the original text of the quote, but I revised it for clarity. Also, before you mod me offtopic, how many of you won't admit that your parents were like the evil empire? I know mine were.
Did we ever need two?
But don't you think that it would be more pragmatic to maximize sales? Profit in the long term is going to depend on just how popular your console is (popularity helps convince more developers to invest in your console because they can reach a large audience). If you are using pricing to actually deter sales, that might decrease the marketability of your product overall.
They're using that RIAA trick of complaining not because sales of gone down, but because they didn't go up as much as they wanted. :(
It could have been a mutation linked to some other trait by coincidence. If the negative effect of the protein is not bad enough to kill itself off, then it will stick around.
Where is it? When I have written software in the past, I've seen rapid development and maintainability go hand in hand.
If you want to finish a software project quickly, your code must be written with a certain level of foresight. You can't just hammer things together, but you must also put in some design effort to make sure that the structure accommodates the functionality you're shooting for. When you do this, your software will be developed faster than any other method because software lends itself to its purpose--your project runs the risk of dying before its finished if you don't. Your software will also have its own intrinsic flexibility toward its application. That means that a clean, solid application will come together more rapidly (and is coincidentally easier to maintain).
First of all, robots are stupid! I don't mean that they suck (by which I don't mean that they do anything orally), but that they aren't intelligent machines like some people imagine. In fact, robot programming is very tedious and only fun for a select group of individuals.
I think a better idea would be to include computers instead of robots. I mean, it's a computer science course, right? And before you get on my case about affording computers and whatnot, when we're talking about intro to computer science, we should be talking about doing some very basic programming (no pun intended) so that students can learn things like logic, control, and design. A very low power machine can be had very cheaply--hell, there are graphing calculators for less than $100 that are more programmable than the majority of PC's (I don't mean to say that PC's aren't capable of being programmed for, but where are the software tools? On an average Windows system, no one can just sit down and write software unless you're terribly interested in x86 ASM on a virtual machine. You're going to have to install additional software whereas the little calculators have built in development environments).
I would wager that most people want to play games not only because it gives them a fun diversion, but also a temporary escape and relief from reality. Not to say that the "hood" is anywhere near reality, but the urban settings are just a little bit close to home. Take GTA for instance; the engine and gameplay was unique and that's what makes the game great, but then when you get down into concept--do I really want to play a game where you walk around in a modern day city and drive cars to and fro? Hell, I do that every day of my life. I've had enough!
The Apple ][e also loads BASIC from the ROM. It also has support for the casette storage, but I don't have any drives for that! You would be right to point out that casette drives are slightly more secure than the diskette drives (none of that autoboot stuff).
I don't know how you got modded insightful for your comment; I have an Apple ][e sitting on my desk and there is absolutely nothing bullet proof about it. In fact, the hardware is designed to load and run software stored on a diskette immediately after the system is loaded. Since the system is stored on a ROM, there is no way to change this behavior--you call that secure by default? The software being loaded can do ANYTHING to the system at will. Nearly all DOS virii were spread this way.
Secondly, once the system is loaded, any user can access a command prompt immediately from which they have unrestricted access to all system resources: disks, memory--you name it. One wrong instruction (or right, depending on what your goals are) can corrupt the system irreversibly until you reboot, and maybe even trash some disks. Malware aside, even normal user programs do this accidentally! Once an old Tandy of ours had the file system on its disk corrupted entirely by a game. Just because the system that's being loaded off of the ROM can't be altered, that doesn't mean the system isn't extremely fragile and insecure after the ROM is loaded. Your data (the most important thing) is still at risk, and malware can have its way with you much more easily.
With more modern operating systems, scenarios like this are becoming harder and harder to imagine since usually user apps don't have this level of access, but not so with the machines you're referring to. The question posed in the article is asking for a step forward in one direction, and you're advocating 30 steps backwards.
Historically, copyright law used to protect derivitive works, you know.
Remember me?
First, try FreeBSD. I used to run FreeBSD on my old Fujitsu Lifebook (it had a 120mhz pentium with 40mb of RAM), and you get great performance on weak systems. Of course, you're going to go have to build a custom kernel (this is a VERY important step). The initialization scripts are simple and easy to manage if you're not afraid of using a text editor--FreeBSD is already light to begin with, and disabling services like sendmail and ssh will give you a nice speed boost. You've never seen unix-lite until you've run a properly trimmed BSD system. linux is great, but on some distros it's really hard to cut the fat.
As for which linux distro you'd like to use, choose wisely. I don't recommend straying too far from major distributions, or using distros whose work are based on other distros. I hold this opinion because I think distro work should be kept close to the source in order to ensure proper intregration. Also, independent small-time distros may suddenly lose support, and then you're back onto the same boat as you were with win98.
So, out of the big, mainstream distros, your two primary considerations ought to be debian and slackware. If you do a basic install, both give you very clean and light base systems to build on top of, and you can avoid a lot of overhead that way. Distros like Ubuntu and SuSE may feature nicer prepackaging and seem to deliver a more complete environment, they are loaded with stuff that will lay heavily on your laptop.
I've run both slack and debian on my laptop, and slackware was the fastest hands down. It's a great system for your old x86 machines and setup is a breeze. I chose debian in the end, however, because I could not part with the features and flexibility of dpkg. The debian system will load a little slower and some system tools will make you wait, but in the long run your system won't be performing less than it should.
I would like to add to your comment that I have noticed the gaming industry is one of the most heavily-scrutinized industries by its consumers. This is a good thing.
To give you an idea of what I'm talk about, think about the automotive industry for a moment. It's a huge industry, and it's got a wide group of consumers, each of whom have their own understandings about the machine and those who make and sell them. Most people know very little about the real functionality and merit of the vehicles themselves, but usually make their purchasing decisions based on price (some people want shiny, expensive, things) and product loyalty. Honestly, how many people do you know are familiar not only with autos themselves, but understand the dynamics of the industry as a whole (including politics, alignment, strategies, past products, current products, future products) and can speculate the significance of each morsel? It amazes me to sit and watch a bunch of people my age (youngsters--20 and under) sit and analyze the video game industry. Some people are on a first name basis with numerous individuals in the industry, from business men to engineers!
I've seen people do this to sports and music, and I guess it's natural with video games because it is also a great form of entertainment and treasured pastime. It's too bad people can't be this concerned about politics. :)
The terminal, called "sterm" uses a funny imput method where you select the characters individually using the joystick. This sounds really horrible, but combine this with such features as autocompletion, command history, and the fact that most unix commands are very short and abreviated, it's not as bad as you might be thinking. Also, you can buy a serial connector so you can manipulate the system with a remote serial console.
I'd love to have one unified, well-designed, attractive and ergonomic handheld game unit preloaded with a lightweight, unlocked, extendable OS and emulators for every system ever made. I'd pay a lot of money for that.
You're kidding, right? I've had my GP2X since December, and I love it to death. It doesn't have emualtors for EVERY system evermade (a bit of a hyperbole there), and they aren't preloaded, but there are lots and you can download them right onto an SD card, plug, and go.
The device itself is lovely and capable--dual core ARM, 320x240 LCD, stereo sound, 64mb of RAM + 64MB of internal flash plus SD reader and external serial port. Also has a USB port, but no host controller, I believe. No wifi, but such nicities as onboard MPEG decoder and TV-out. If that's not enough to tickle your fancy, it runs embedded linux and comes (as of firmware 2.0) a handy file browser, ascii viewer, photo viewer, movie and music player (mplayer). Lots of downloadable utilities such as terminal emulator and pdf viewer.
The device runs for about $180. You can get one from gp32z.com (official US distributor--where I purchased mine) or google around for it. In my opinion, it's kind of cheap for what it is. You'll get better hardware for your buck if you get a PSP or even a DS, but you can't beat the programmability.
I see a lot of posts claiming that engineered writing won't work and that simplified phonetic writing is somehow damaging to the language or impractical for several reasons, but before delving into too much speculation let is try to examine real world applications. My main example is Korea's hangul writing. I actually have taken the time to learn it myself, and it's a wonder to behold and use. Be sure to read up on its history and usage. :)
I think you have some good logical points in the way you view positive/negative effects and how they relate to the cause, as harsh as your language is.
I feel, however, that "evil" in the sense you're using it in is being applied to the violation of copyright law in poor taste. See Godwin's Law.
I still believe very strongly in abolishing intellectual property and especially state enforcement of it in any form. The only thing I find "evil" in this situation is your attitude and the government supporting it.
1) Real piracy is wrong, no matter what. There are NO 'positive effects', anymore than more allowing pick-pocketing has the positive effect of giving pick-pockets a job.
You're joking, right? Positive effects can stem from just about anything, so you're clearly overstating your argument. If there were no positive effects whatsoever, or if the negative effects dramatically outweighed the positive effects, I doubt that "piracy" would be as popular or widespread.
From my perspective, when it comese to a person's natural right to copy and redistribute data and information, it is "wrong" to try to force them not to.
And why are the hardware demands so high? Is it because the games are that much cooler? Or because the programmers suck? Reminds me of the reason why Windows Vista's Hardware requirements are so bloated.
It makes me pine for the good old days of DOS gaming when developers squeezed the hardware for every last ounce of performance they could get, which required good design, clever/efficient algorithms, and even bits of human-optimized assembler. We pushed the machines until they wouldn't go any further.
I'm not a Nintendo fanboy, but I'm afraid that I'm about to become one; I've noticed that Nintendo tends to go this design route more often than the competition (ie attempting to fully utilize meager hardware). In fact, if you inspect their current and next gen offerings, you'll discover that the machines have a bit fewer resources than the competition. For example, compare the DS and Sony PSP. Sony's device is overpowering by far in terms of hardware resources, but I read lots of complaints that the games are bloated and slow. :(
I'm going to be nit-picky here and refute your argument on the grounds that you unfairly claim that Ubuntu is a poor distro for gaming when the game examples you cite are for another platform. It's true that there are many more commercial games for Windows than there are for linux, so a gamer would indeed rather run Windows, but let's say you're a carpenter and that you want to hammer in nails but the tool you've selected is a saw. Then you go on to say that the saw is a poor tool compared to the hammer. And, following my example, maybe most of the work you need to do involves hammering rather than sawing.
Before saying that linux/ubuntu is a bad system for games, why don't you actually try some linux games first? I wager that there are more of them than you think.
And with that testimony, I rest my case. Seriously, if it's necessary... even sometimes... it should be exposed in the UI.
I guess from a design standpoint you would find it unacceptable, and I think you have the right idea, but all I'm trying to say is that I think you're overstating your case and making things out to be a lot more difficult than what is practical. I agree that using a text editor to do coded config files is way too much for MOST users, and I think that dpkg offers are good compromise.
Um, given the limitations you described, shouldn't the partition resizer attempt to detect a Windows install on the partition, and give a big black warning if it looks likes you're trying to do this dangerous operation? I mean, clearly Ubuntu *wants* to support this kinda of thing -- if not, why go to the considerable effort of making a (mostly-kinda-sorta) functional partitioner in the first place?
Actually, I think you're absolutely right. When it comes to resizing partitions, I don't think it's very stable for an installer to support that (we know the file systems don't support this, and by comparison the partitioning tools in Microsoft systems have never offered this feature), and it'd probably be best if they did not offer the functionality unless with very clear and specific warnings that state that the feature is "experimental" and may corrupt your data.
First... this is an nForce2 machine with built-in video, and the default config refused to let me select a screen-res larger than 1024x768. I know, the nerds out there are saying "just edit your x config file", right?/p>
Ubuntu tries to autoconfig everything. Sometimes this doesn't work out, but you don't have to go hacking your configs just yet. If you want to specify your own configuration, just run sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. This will go through and give you easy configuration options.
Also, since you've got an nVidia chipset, you might want the nvidia packages for accelerated X. Ubuntu has them, but if you don't want to mess around, easyubuntu makes this process entirely automated.
Second... I discovered that the oh-so-lovely disk partitioner has the added feature that on some systems (including mine) it borks the MBR of the resized Windows partition in such a way that Windows will refuse to boot. Even after uninstalling Ubuntu.
To be frank, you asked for it. Resizing Windows partitions is a black art, and there are a lot of things that can go wrong with this endeavor, especially since the file system does not officially support this feature. Even if you did partition everything from scratch, Windows doesn't alawys play nice. Also, individual partitions do not have their own MBR; there is one MBR on the disk, which is where Ubuntu will install grub. You will need to configure grub to boot windows if you have a dual boot configuration, or you can optionally reinstall grub on the first sector of your boot partition and have Windows overwite the MBR. If you have NT/2000/XP, you can then set up the NT loader to boot other systems, but this is a major pain.
Considering the sheer number of oxygen atoms there are on earth, the size of our atmosphere, and the various amount of things that can happen to each individual oxygen atom, I actually find it extremely unlikely that most human beings end up sharing oxygen with each other in a short period of time (imagine trillions upon trillions of atoms shared among under ten billion people). These atoms might even be destroyed, and new ones created later.
I imagine that statistically people who share the most are in very close proximity to one another (for example, my girlfriend and I probably breath more common air than anyone else we know), but the further out you go, the less and less you end up sharing with people.