A dumb side scroller I got when I was like 15. You can see it here. I played all the way to level 47 and then spent 4 hours and finally a pad of paper and notes to verify that the level just continually looped you around. Remember this is before the internet and cheat codes..
For some reason at the time I was fixated on 'finishing' this game since there was no save and I had been 'in the zone' to get that far and was unkillable.
Finally I just gave up and decided the programmers didn't want to finish it;P Doing a search now it seems there was a secret exit somewhere! This would of made some sort of sense if at any other part of the game there had been any sort of tricks or hidden areas
For instance the one I am currently working on: www.lpi.org outlines a good broad introduction of basic Linux skills. I prefer the original non-vendor specific certification test to the new beta one which asks a few pointless questions on Redhat RPM's.
You could use this as a solid outline and at level one it also covers a lot of basic Unix skills.
My main complaint is that.NET and C# (notably the . and # symbols.) make it difficult to pull up information with search engines. When I want to know how to manipulate various C# controls I'm not interested in the sheet music for Bob Dylans Blowing in the Wind;P
I think we have reached the point where we will have to agree to disagree and move on.
It is nice to see not all the Slashdot crowd just has a knee-jerk reaction that all things Microsoft are bad. As someone who has worked for the evil empire, I realized they are just another group of people trying to make it through the day. One must remember that there are over 32,000 employees in Redmond alone, and 90% of the employees are just like the group of employees at any other corporate job.
Most of them have either never heard of Linux or support Linux believe it or not. I never heard anyone rant about how evil Open Source or Linux is. My first exsposure to Linux was a fellow Microsoft employee who showed me how to hook up a Linux server.
Just to clarify my problem with KDE cut and paste. It is not supported globally across the board with one key method between all applications like Windows is. I should of made that more clear. I also didn't get very far with KDE since it was slow as hell on a pentium 500 and then crashed horribly.
1) Implying a similarity between food production -- a necessity for a country's survival -- and proprietary software developed by another nation.
The implied link was between the goverment mandating something based on political reasoning instead of logic. In the above incident Mao ignored all logic and reason thinking that he could move his country forward by centrally controlling everything and taking the decision away from the local people. In the Venezula case at least only the goverment would be forced to select free software over proprietary.
2) Calling it the "mercies of whatever GPL software is out there" when funding software development in their own country is in fact one of the purposes of this law.
Again, this is the goverment we are talking about. It is always easier to spend someone elses money on your pet project. How many insanely expensive and wasteful programs will be started to create a "free" alternative.
3) Making an uninformed guess as to what the 'average user' is and needs, and whether KDE or MS Windows is better for them.
In this case I am not uninformed. In my job one of my many tasks is to evalute the desktop needs of our employees and guide it forward. That is why I have played with the Linux desktop. If I had found it offered benifits beyond those of Windows I would of recommended it. People are more open now to the idea with Windows XP licensing scheme.
3) Claiming that using the license as merely "one of many factors" is what a reasnable person does, and nothing else is reasonable. For some reasonable persons; for others, deciding whether to be locked into a proprietary vendor on whose mercy the continued maintenance of your program and access to your data you depend isn't just one of many factors -- it is primary.
Again it depends on the situation. Having public documents and Goverment websites required to use an open format seems reasonable to me. In that case the ability to access it is the primary concern. Requiring that the software used to generate it be free or developed internally when much better proprietary software exists is again placing political reasoning before sound reasoning.
4) Assuming that because the nation of Venezuela decided differently than you, that their decision could not be based on research, informed decision making, and rationality.
You are right here. I am not aware at how Venezuela arrived at this legislation.
5) Failing to acknowlege that the 'truly free computer environment' in question has requirements other than just what the user of a particular computer finds suits their needs. Not the least of which is spending the money of tax payers effectively.
My basic premise is that by legeslating that only free software can be used they are taking the decision away from the local person and replacing it with a broad on high statement.
6) Calling it an "enforced monopoly", when the very effect of using only GPL software is that this can never happen because you, and anyone else who wants to make a competing product, has the source code.
It is an enforced monopoly becouse the software that the goverment supports will have such an incredible amount of financial and resource backing it that the average perons or business will have no hope to compete and offer their wares, even if they offer a better product. Sound familer?
I also think people need to read more Ayn Rand -- but only to be more familiar with the ways in which she dresses up her various dogmas with a veneer of logic and more importantly the insistent claim of rationality and reasonableness in the hopes that the listener, even if a free-thinker who values reason themself, will be prejudiced toward agreeing to the argument because of the claim. After reading Rand and seeing such egregious examples of this type of behavior, it helps to recognize it when others attempt it.
My Response:
I personally think Ayn Rand is a great philosopher but a lousy writer. I also agree that Ayn Rand the person was dogmatic to the point of insanity and tried to fit all situations into her world view. The example she gave of not giving milk to a starving baby is her going off the deep end. Ironically she fell victim to her own enemy, replacing reason with dogmatic preaching.
In closing I realize that at some point the Slashdot crowd closed off all ability to listen to other viewpoints. They are content to parrot the group think of "Open Source", "Bill Gates is Evil", and have a pathalogical hatred of all things Microsoft. Almost every modded up post is about how incredibly awsome this is and "Die,Microsoft,Die". When Tim O'Reilly dared to question the Linux fanatics about it being a good idea to force people to use Open Source, the editor of the story wrote a long rebuttal ignoring all journalistic integerity. At some point supporting Linux stopped being a geek hobby and became a crusade. I actually have a much harder time now when suggesting an Open Source alternative becouse of this rabid abandonment of reason for ideology that has happened over the years.
Am I the only one reminded of this incident. Whenever politics replaces reason as the basis for making decisions disaster awaits. In this case instead of asking , what tools are the best to solve the problem, the government will have limited itself to the mercies of whatever GPL software is out there. Even if it is not the proper tool to solve the problem.
For instance, KDE Linux is absolutely horrible on the desktop, at least 5 years behind Microsoft. It is hard to configure, has no common usability standards,copy/paste doesn't work, and a host of other problems. It has some real nice features like right clicking for a stay on top window but it is not better then Microsoft for a desktop work setting for your average user. (Please note that there are many instances where Linux is a better choice then the Windows alternative, servers and embedded software for example.)
Finding and configuring a different windows manager for your needs, GPL or not, is what a reasonable person does. Researching and making an informed decision where the license scheme and open source status is but one of many factors is also what a reasonable person does. Selecting a poor substitute and forcing your beliefs on others is what someone who has replaced reason with fanaticism does.
In a truly free computer environment a person would have the freedom to install Linux,Solaris, FreeBSD or Windows XP to suit their needs. What does trading one enforced monopoly for another gain us?
We installed a freebsd box to filter our incoming mail using spamcop.org and MIMEDefang/spamassassin. Since then our spam amount has dropped considerably. My boss observed if an ISP used a service like spamcop they would get much more business then their competitors. I recommend any small business to look into a solution like this.
Um I am a insane reader. Right now I have The Art Of Computer programming in my que. Just finished about half of a big ole phone book on Churchill (wasn't very well). So my friend if anything I read too much;)
You want to know why I dropped out of my local community college. Because I wanted to be a computer programmer and out of my 1st 3 semesters I took a whooping 2 computer classes. The rest of the time I was paying good money to "learn" history, political science and all other sorts of unrelated crap and have libral dogma shoved down my throat. Here is the false premise to this whole "well-rounded" approach. At its core it thinks you are a complete moron who the school must "shape" into someone who knows anything. I love history. I read history books all the time; watch the history channel whenever I can (some of the rare TV I watch). I don't need to sit bored to tears in a classroom to learn that stuff. I don't need to waste two yeasr of my life getting a useless AA degree with all sorts of electives forced down my throat. If I have an interest in the subject I learn about it on my own time. I am thinking of getting a degree from ITT for this very reason. I don't have the money or motivation to be a forever student in the interest of being "well rounded".
I agree completely with the parent post. I am a professional programmer who makes a decent wage, and I never took more then basic algebra in the local community college. While I also see the point the other posts are making, and I am all for learning more efficient ways of doing things, the basic misconception is that a great mathematician will make a great computer programmer and visa versa. One of my co-workers had a degree in computer science and I think in solving complex algorithms he was heads and shoulder ahead of me, but he had no idea how to design a GUI, implement a database backend for storing data etc. Things that I see as a vital part of the complete computer employee package. Populating a tree in the least amount of cycles is not the end all and be all of computer programming. Of course I thank god for the bright fellow who figured out how to populate the tree for me;)
Until I installed a FreeBSD mail filter to our exchange box. Sendmail checks with spamcop and blocks 80% of the spam. MIMEDefang working with spamassassin marks the rest for easy rule disposal on the client side. I now get 1-2 spam a week where we were getting 1-2 an hour before. If every ISP did the same spam would not get to anybody.
I have read several better written posts with the same exact question. I guess Firefly is a prime example, but it comes up again and again near the tail end of his series (when he runs out of ideas). Its also creepier then straight out pedophilia becouse he makes long justifications for it. So I guess its not all, but still enough to be worrysome, and I'm as libral as they come.
Why is one of the common reoccurring plot devices in your book rape/pedophilia? I haven't read your books since I was 14 but even at that young age it seemed after your first few good series ideas you just started churning them out. No problem there, but then you featured rape as a major plot component on several occasions, and also pedophilia. I find this very disturbing since these are presented in titillating ways and not displayed as being morally wrong. I also wonder about your world view since in the books you seem to be living out some weird fantasies of your own.
Slashdot Mirror
A dumb side scroller I got when I was like 15. You can see it here. I played all the way to level 47 and then spent 4 hours and finally a pad of paper and notes to verify that the level just continually looped you around. Remember this is before the internet and cheat codes..
;P Doing a search now it seems there was a secret exit somewhere! This would of made some sort of sense if at any other part of the game there had been any sort of tricks or hidden areas
For some reason at the time I was fixated on 'finishing' this game since there was no save and I had been 'in the zone' to get that far and was unkillable.
Finally I just gave up and decided the programmers didn't want to finish it
For instance the one I am currently working on: www.lpi.org outlines a good broad introduction of basic Linux skills. I prefer the original non-vendor specific certification test to the new beta one which asks a few pointless questions on Redhat RPM's. You could use this as a solid outline and at level one it also covers a lot of basic Unix skills.
My main complaint is that .NET and C# (notably the . and # symbols.) make it difficult to pull up information with search engines. When I want to know how to manipulate various C# controls I'm not interested in the sheet music for Bob Dylans Blowing in the Wind ;P
I think we have reached the point where we will have to agree to disagree and move on.
It is nice to see not all the Slashdot crowd just has a knee-jerk reaction that all things Microsoft are bad. As someone who has worked for the evil empire, I realized they are just another group of people trying to make it through the day. One must remember that there are over 32,000 employees in Redmond alone, and 90% of the employees are just like the group of employees at any other corporate job.
Most of them have either never heard of Linux or support Linux believe it or not. I never heard anyone rant about how evil Open Source or Linux is. My first exsposure to Linux was a fellow Microsoft employee who showed me how to hook up a Linux server.
Just to clarify my problem with KDE cut and paste. It is not supported globally across the board with one key method between all applications like Windows is. I should of made that more clear. I also didn't get very far with KDE since it was slow as hell on a pentium 500 and then crashed horribly.
See inline responses.
:
1) Implying a similarity between food production -- a necessity for a country's survival -- and proprietary software developed by another nation.
The implied link was between the goverment mandating something based on political reasoning instead of logic. In the above incident Mao ignored all logic and reason thinking that he could move his country forward by centrally controlling everything and taking the decision away from the local people. In the Venezula case at least only the goverment would be forced to select free software over proprietary.
2) Calling it the "mercies of whatever GPL software is out there" when funding software development in their own country is in fact one of the purposes of this law.
Again, this is the goverment we are talking about. It is always easier to spend someone elses money on your pet project. How many insanely expensive and wasteful programs will be started to create a "free" alternative.
3) Making an uninformed guess as to what the 'average user' is and needs, and whether KDE or MS Windows is better for them.
In this case I am not uninformed. In my job one of my many tasks is to evalute the desktop needs of our employees and guide it forward. That is why I have played with the Linux desktop. If I had found it offered benifits beyond those of Windows I would of recommended it. People are more open now to the idea with Windows XP licensing scheme.
3) Claiming that using the license as merely "one of many factors" is what a reasnable person does, and nothing else is reasonable. For some reasonable persons; for others, deciding whether to be locked into a proprietary vendor on whose mercy the continued maintenance of your program and access to your data you depend isn't just one of many factors -- it is primary.
Again it depends on the situation. Having public documents and Goverment websites required to use an open format seems reasonable to me. In that case the ability to access it is the primary concern. Requiring that the software used to generate it be free or developed internally when much better proprietary software exists is again placing political reasoning before sound reasoning.
4) Assuming that because the nation of Venezuela decided differently than you, that their decision could not be based on research, informed decision making, and rationality.
You are right here. I am not aware at how Venezuela arrived at this legislation.
5) Failing to acknowlege that the 'truly free computer environment' in question has requirements other than just what the user of a particular computer finds suits their needs. Not the least of which is spending the money of tax payers effectively.
My basic premise is that by legeslating that only free software can be used they are taking the decision away from the local person and replacing it with a broad on high statement.
6) Calling it an "enforced monopoly", when the very effect of using only GPL software is that this can never happen because you, and anyone else who wants to make a competing product, has the source code.
It is an enforced monopoly becouse the software that the goverment supports will have such an incredible amount of financial and resource backing it that the average perons or business will have no hope to compete and offer their wares, even if they offer a better product. Sound familer?
I also think people need to read more Ayn Rand -- but only to be more familiar with the ways in which she dresses up her various dogmas with a veneer of logic and more importantly the insistent claim of rationality and reasonableness in the hopes that the listener, even if a free-thinker who values reason themself, will be prejudiced toward agreeing to the argument because of the claim. After reading Rand and seeing such egregious examples of this type of behavior, it helps to recognize it when others attempt it.
My Response
I personally think Ayn Rand is a great philosopher but a lousy writer. I also agree that Ayn Rand the person was dogmatic to the point of insanity and tried to fit all situations into her world view. The example she gave of not giving milk to a starving baby is her going off the deep end. Ironically she fell victim to her own enemy, replacing reason with dogmatic preaching.
In closing I realize that at some point the Slashdot crowd closed off all ability to listen to other viewpoints. They are content to parrot the group think of "Open Source", "Bill Gates is Evil", and have a pathalogical hatred of all things Microsoft. Almost every modded up post is about how incredibly awsome this is and "Die,Microsoft,Die". When Tim O'Reilly dared to question the Linux fanatics about it being a good idea to force people to use Open Source, the editor of the story wrote a long rebuttal ignoring all journalistic integerity. At some point supporting Linux stopped being a geek hobby and became a crusade. I actually have a much harder time now when suggesting an Open Source alternative becouse of this rabid abandonment of reason for ideology that has happened over the years.
Am I the only one reminded of this incident. Whenever politics replaces reason as the basis for making decisions disaster awaits. In this case instead of asking , what tools are the best to solve the problem, the government will have limited itself to the mercies of whatever GPL software is out there. Even if it is not the proper tool to solve the problem.
For instance, KDE Linux is absolutely horrible on the desktop, at least 5 years behind Microsoft. It is hard to configure, has no common usability standards,copy/paste doesn't work, and a host of other problems. It has some real nice features like right clicking for a stay on top window but it is not better then Microsoft for a desktop work setting for your average user. (Please note that there are many instances where Linux is a better choice then the Windows alternative, servers and embedded software for example.)
Finding and configuring a different windows manager for your needs, GPL or not, is what a reasonable person does. Researching and making an informed decision where the license scheme and open source status is but one of many factors is also what a reasonable person does. Selecting a poor substitute and forcing your beliefs on others is what someone who has replaced reason with fanaticism does.
In a truly free computer environment a person would have the freedom to install Linux,Solaris, FreeBSD or Windows XP to suit their needs. What does trading one enforced monopoly for another gain us?
We installed a freebsd box to filter our incoming mail using spamcop.org and MIMEDefang/spamassassin. Since then our spam amount has dropped considerably. My boss observed if an ISP used a service like spamcop they would get much more business then their competitors. I recommend any small business to look into a solution like this.
Um I am a insane reader. Right now I have The Art Of Computer programming in my que. Just finished about half of a big ole phone book on Churchill (wasn't very well). So my friend if anything I read too much ;)
You want to know why I dropped out of my local community college. Because I wanted to be a computer programmer and out of my 1st 3 semesters I took a whooping 2 computer classes. The rest of the time I was paying good money to "learn" history, political science and all other sorts of unrelated crap and have libral dogma shoved down my throat. Here is the false premise to this whole "well-rounded" approach. At its core it thinks you are a complete moron who the school must "shape" into someone who knows anything. I love history. I read history books all the time; watch the history channel whenever I can (some of the rare TV I watch). I don't need to sit bored to tears in a classroom to learn that stuff. I don't need to waste two yeasr of my life getting a useless AA degree with all sorts of electives forced down my throat. If I have an interest in the subject I learn about it on my own time. I am thinking of getting a degree from ITT for this very reason. I don't have the money or motivation to be a forever student in the interest of being "well rounded".
I agree completely with the parent post. I am a professional programmer who makes a decent wage, and I never took more then basic algebra in the local community college. While I also see the point the other posts are making, and I am all for learning more efficient ways of doing things, the basic misconception is that a great mathematician will make a great computer programmer and visa versa. One of my co-workers had a degree in computer science and I think in solving complex algorithms he was heads and shoulder ahead of me, but he had no idea how to design a GUI, implement a database backend for storing data etc. Things that I see as a vital part of the complete computer employee package. Populating a tree in the least amount of cycles is not the end all and be all of computer programming. Of course I thank god for the bright fellow who figured out how to populate the tree for me ;)
Until I installed a FreeBSD mail filter to our exchange box. Sendmail checks with spamcop and blocks 80% of the spam. MIMEDefang working with spamassassin marks the rest for easy rule disposal on the client side. I now get 1-2 spam a week where we were getting 1-2 an hour before. If every ISP did the same spam would not get to anybody.
I have read several better written posts with the same exact question. I guess Firefly is a prime example, but it comes up again and again near the tail end of his series (when he runs out of ideas). Its also creepier then straight out pedophilia becouse he makes long justifications for it. So I guess its not all, but still enough to be worrysome, and I'm as libral as they come.
Why is one of the common reoccurring plot devices in your book rape/pedophilia? I haven't read your books since I was 14 but even at that young age it seemed after your first few good series ideas you just started churning them out. No problem there, but then you featured rape as a major plot component on several occasions, and also pedophilia. I find this very disturbing since these are presented in titillating ways and not displayed as being morally wrong. I also wonder about your world view since in the books you seem to be living out some weird fantasies of your own.