MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs *are* MMO games. The only real difference between them and modern MMO is the interface -- graphical vs. text. In fact, I would venture to say that some of the MUSHes and MOOs were more sophisticated and engaging than the more mainstream MMOGs of today. MOOs especially offered more ability for users to create complex objects through its own scripting language to enhance role-playing. The MMOGs of today are based on the MUD concept of gameplay, which always focused more on hack-n-slash and item collection than role-playing, with social interaction limited to parties banded together to make treasure hunting easier. Of course, MUDs in turn were heavily influenced by such early single-player games as the Nethack/Rogue/Moria variants on Unix systems.
There are still quite a few text-based MMO games out there, just google for them.
It's a good start, but I don't think it goes far enough. There's no requirement to publically acknowledge break-ins, only that individuals be notified. For instance, T-Mobile has yet to publically fess up for their year-long security breach and show no signs of ever doing so.
I'm an "adult" and I play Nintendo. So does my wife. I've never had one of their portable systems, but I would be very interested in a DS with PDA capabilities. I think it's a great move and will expand their market to new segments. The only thing "surprising" about it coming from Nintendo is that it actually makes sense.
Why should you have to learn an uncommon key combination? When issues of usability are discussed, we're talking about your average Joe who mouses around for most tasks.
The point is, by creating two text bars they have added unneeded complexity to the interface. More control does not have to mean more clutter. This is a major tenet of Apple design. The iPod is a classic example. Why have separate buttons for every function when a more streamlined interface is available that is at once both more elegant and more efficient?
Mozilla's integration of a search tool into the address bar is also very google in nature. The address bar becomes a metaphor for data retrieval, much as google's search field has no inherent rules on search types. In the Mozilla field you can type an url, or you can type a general search term. Mozilla automatically differentiates. This is the future of UI design -- a paradigm where the user is separated from the specifics of the data query. It is necessary in this age of information overload. And giving the user a billion widgets to operate is an outmoded concept, when equal power can be given through intelligent agents. Having software that ties disparate pieces of information together autonomously from a meta viewpoint has been in sci-fi land for years, but is slowly becoming reality. Look at google maps for instance. Type "corporate whores in washington d.c." and you get pretty relevant results, all displayed within the context of physical locations on a map.
I'm sort of straying from my point though, which is that people, even geeks, don't have the patience for encumbered interfaces when the data these interfaces manipulate is encumbered enough as it is. The companies which can supply powerful and elegant solutions to this problem will be the ones which thrive -- Apple and Google being two of the most conspicuous examples. The reason this is important to Firefox is that if we want people to dump IE for it en masse, then it must be equally elegant and powerful in its interface as products from Apple and Google. In general the team has done a superb job with Firefox's UI and appearance (far more so than most open source software), but this particular issue of search integration is especially important to do right.
I actually don't use the search field built into Firefox. I find it to be horrid from a usability point-of-view. I don't understand why they didn't follow the way Mozilla handles searching.
In Firefox you have to move your hand to the right, click on the small text bar and type in the search term, which also annoyingly stays there until you manually clear it. It also wastes space; there's no need for a second text box. (I mention moving your hand right because you can feel more stress on your tendons than moving the cursor to the URL field, which requires moving your whole arm forward instead of twisting your wrist.)
In Mozilla, you click on the URL field, type in your search, press the down arrow and hit the return key. If you're opening a new tab/window first, you don't have to grab for the mouse at all because the URL field is already active. It's just a much more efficient process than the one in Firefox.
I've never had cat hair kill a computer, but a few years ago my cat killed one. She has a penchant for tipping over glasses. Especially ones filled with liquid. Actually you might call it a bit of a neurosis. Anyway, one day I was away from my desk for a few minutes, and sensing a golden opportunity, she dumped a glass of water onto the strip-style surge protector below. The surge protector, not exactly of the highest quality, must've overloaded and sent a spike into the computer, taking out the motherboard, several PCI cards, and RAM chips with it. Needless to say, I use an APC UPS located in an area not easily reachable by falling water now.
But I would guess the biggest PC killer is brownouts. I worked at a startup for a while where the admin chose not to use any surge protectors on our computers. I suppose he assumed because we were in a fairly modern office complex that they had clean lines. It took him a bit to figure out why he had to keep supplying me with new power supplies every few weeks after the previous one would die.
I was about to say the same thing. They were supposed to end dev on the Mozilla suite quite a while back. But perhaps they are referring to the browser engine itself and not the Mozilla suite as such.
The current season is very old-skool Trek in the TOS vein. Leave it to UPN (and probably Berman/Braga) to pull the plug instead of supporting it. But the fact that this season has little Berman influence compared to the others shows just how much his involvement has wrecked the franchise. He is to Trek what Eisner is to Disney or Old Man Lucas is to Star Wars.
I think it's a decent analogy because Apple makes no money on iTunes Music Store sales (and the artists themselves hardly do either). Apple only needs the Music Store to give the iPod a use, and moreover to give Apple a competitive advantage by having such a close partnership with record labels.
I don't know why parent is modded as Funny. It's actually insightful. The MPAA and RIAA have single-handedly destroyed copyright law in this country, impinged on fair-use, and hampered technological progress. I would venture to say the only lobbying group that has a bigger hold on the U.S. government is the military-industrial complex.
It would be a shame to cancel Enterprise at this point, because this is the first season it has actually been watchable. The three-part story arc on genetic enhancements featuring Brent Spiner was especially enjoyable (because of and in spite of Brent Spiner's presence), as was the story arc involving Vulcan politics and religious turmoil. Imagine that, a thoughtful Trek show! I hate to say it, but this is the best sci-fi show on TV right now, as Stargate SG1 has floundered so far this season.
And basically they have no business calling themselves editors any more than the CNN Crossfire guys can call themselves reporters. They don't really do much of anything other than collect a paycheck and *maybe* type a couple comments in the article headline. When was the last time we even saw a new feature on slashdot (other than something that increased their profits)? Or how about making the site standards compliant? If this was still a volunteer site I'd cut them a lot of slack, but they're wholly owned by VA Software now, and all we've seen since then is more lackadaisical "editing" and more banner ads.
Seriously, there's been nine articles at slashdot on the Battlestar Galactica series and mini-series. All for a show that isn't even worth two stories. The level of integrated advertising in slashdot's "news" is becoming more and more apparent.
This is a ridiculous idea, though not surprising considering how desperate Disney is for a new hit in their post-Pixar world. Few of the special effects in Tron were actually computer generated. Instead a special process was developed and was all applied by hand to each frame of the film (using an army of Chinese workers.. an early example of outsourcing). The end result was beautiful and could not be easily replicated today. Story and bad acting aside, this is one of the most beautiful films out there, and I just know they're going to turn it into a lackluster parade of CG. And something tells me Moebius won't be on-board this time to provide amazing art direction.
Check out the Tron DVD, there's a lot of fascinating information about its unique production. It's also interesting to see how vastly Disney as a corporate culture has changed in 20 years, from a company that encouraged innovation, to a company that inhibits it.
Thank you for speaking for the entire populace of the USA. We all appreciate it.
I want a phone that is a game device and a PDA. But I want games I actually care about playing. If the Nintendo DS had a phone, I'd buy one in a second, even though it lacks PDA features.
I always tend to go overboard with the gift-giving in general, but especially where she's concerned. This year I actually had to rein it in a bit. Usually she gets a visit from the fashion fairy, so I was more than a bit reluctant to give her a piece of hardware. I might have had cause for such caution -- she almost pays more attention to it than she does me!
I bought my wife a Gaggia Classic for xmas and she seems to think there is a miniature Italian man inside, so you might say it is magic. Makes espresso as good as you could get in most coffee bars in Italy. This model has been honed over many years, so it's extremely dependable and built like a tank. Perhaps not as high of a hacker factor as the manual-pump La Pavoni machines, but there's still an art to getting a perfect shot out of it.
That's simply not true, or there would already be a software plug-in which does so. Many producers and recording engineers, even those who work with pristine-sounding top-40 pop acts, still regularly use tape reel-to-reels to "warm up" the sound after initially recording and editing the music in ProTools or its ilk. This is often done right before sending the recordings off for mastering.
In fact, there has been quite a resurgence in the use of analog gear in the past few years, so it is disappointing to see analog tape marked for extinction.
Perhaps this new screenless iPod will use their old software patent on color-morphing cases to give visual feedback on a user's current position in the playlist; e.g. the first song would be bright red, the last song would be bright blue. With the growing popularity of information devices like the Ambient Orb Device that use color for data feedback, this seems natural for Apple to get into.
From "green" energy sources like solar power. We're not at a point in the U.S. yet where there's an economy of scale to replace our main fossil fuel plants with green power, however for single-use applications like vehicle charging, you have a viable solution to keep the entire automobile energy chain pollution-free.
Wow. That car looks like a cross between something driven by a Speed Racer villian and one of those promotional films from the 1950s about the "car of the future." Pretty damn cool. I have to admire a daring vision of design like that.
As mentioned, the major drawback to pure electrics are the wait. If they solve that hurdle, I think you could see electrics boom, especially in countries in China where the car market is exploding and so is the pollution.
Pesonally though, I would rather see a pure zero-emission hydrogen solution. At least in the U.S. electrics are still deriving their energy from mostly fossil-fuel power plants.
Yeah, but you're not going to see $40 pricetags when everyone is happy to pay $50 or $60. And for that you don't get any kind of manual. The publishers are pulling the wool over everyone's eyes, just like the record companies who keep raising the price of albums, even though the cost of producing CDs has gone down dramatically. I'm all for supporting small studios, but I don't like when they abuse my patronage by trying to increase their profit margins as much as possible at our expense.
I don't know if that really matters, though. Since most of the software DSPs only work with one particular mp3 player (except for the DBX plug-ins), end-users should only really care about the overall sound quality of the player. I should note that to my ears, XMMS on Linux has a greater sonic fidelity than either Sonique or Winamp.
In terms of features, interface and customability, I still think Sonique holds the top position. Their decoder is not up to par anymore, but it still sounds better than Winamp (which is dead now too). It's a shame that Lycos let Sonique languish and then die..Sonique 2.0 was very promising. It's funny how the Mac used to have almost no mp3 players and Windows had great ones, and now the reverse is true (though I'm still not totally enchanted with iTunes).
But do people even use software mp3 players anymore, or is it all iPods and media centers like XBMC now?
It's true. Every person I've shown Firefox to has downloaded and installed it on their own machine. When you point out the advantages to someone, it's a no-brainer. The revolution will not be televised, and there's not much Microsoft can do about it.
Slashdot Mirror
MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs *are* MMO games. The only real difference between them and modern MMO is the interface -- graphical vs. text. In fact, I would venture to say that some of the MUSHes and MOOs were more sophisticated and engaging than the more mainstream MMOGs of today. MOOs especially offered more ability for users to create complex objects through its own scripting language to enhance role-playing. The MMOGs of today are based on the MUD concept of gameplay, which always focused more on hack-n-slash and item collection than role-playing, with social interaction limited to parties banded together to make treasure hunting easier. Of course, MUDs in turn were heavily influenced by such early single-player games as the Nethack/Rogue/Moria variants on Unix systems.
There are still quite a few text-based MMO games out there, just google for them.
It's a good start, but I don't think it goes far enough. There's no requirement to publically acknowledge break-ins, only that individuals be notified. For instance, T-Mobile has yet to publically fess up for their year-long security breach and show no signs of ever doing so.
I'm an "adult" and I play Nintendo. So does my wife. I've never had one of their portable systems, but I would be very interested in a DS with PDA capabilities. I think it's a great move and will expand their market to new segments. The only thing "surprising" about it coming from Nintendo is that it actually makes sense.
Why should you have to learn an uncommon key combination? When issues of usability are discussed, we're talking about your average Joe who mouses around for most tasks.
The point is, by creating two text bars they have added unneeded complexity to the interface. More control does not have to mean more clutter. This is a major tenet of Apple design. The iPod is a classic example. Why have separate buttons for every function when a more streamlined interface is available that is at once both more elegant and more efficient?
Mozilla's integration of a search tool into the address bar is also very google in nature. The address bar becomes a metaphor for data retrieval, much as google's search field has no inherent rules on search types. In the Mozilla field you can type an url, or you can type a general search term. Mozilla automatically differentiates. This is the future of UI design -- a paradigm where the user is separated from the specifics of the data query. It is necessary in this age of information overload. And giving the user a billion widgets to operate is an outmoded concept, when equal power can be given through intelligent agents. Having software that ties disparate pieces of information together autonomously from a meta viewpoint has been in sci-fi land for years, but is slowly becoming reality. Look at google maps for instance. Type "corporate whores in washington d.c." and you get pretty relevant results, all displayed within the context of physical locations on a map.
I'm sort of straying from my point though, which is that people, even geeks, don't have the patience for encumbered interfaces when the data these interfaces manipulate is encumbered enough as it is. The companies which can supply powerful and elegant solutions to this problem will be the ones which thrive -- Apple and Google being two of the most conspicuous examples. The reason this is important to Firefox is that if we want people to dump IE for it en masse, then it must be equally elegant and powerful in its interface as products from Apple and Google. In general the team has done a superb job with Firefox's UI and appearance (far more so than most open source software), but this particular issue of search integration is especially important to do right.
I actually don't use the search field built into Firefox. I find it to be horrid from a usability point-of-view. I don't understand why they didn't follow the way Mozilla handles searching.
In Firefox you have to move your hand to the right, click on the small text bar and type in the search term, which also annoyingly stays there until you manually clear it. It also wastes space; there's no need for a second text box. (I mention moving your hand right because you can feel more stress on your tendons than moving the cursor to the URL field, which requires moving your whole arm forward instead of twisting your wrist.)
In Mozilla, you click on the URL field, type in your search, press the down arrow and hit the return key. If you're opening a new tab/window first, you don't have to grab for the mouse at all because the URL field is already active. It's just a much more efficient process than the one in Firefox.
I've never had cat hair kill a computer, but a few years ago my cat killed one. She has a penchant for tipping over glasses. Especially ones filled with liquid. Actually you might call it a bit of a neurosis. Anyway, one day I was away from my desk for a few minutes, and sensing a golden opportunity, she dumped a glass of water onto the strip-style surge protector below. The surge protector, not exactly of the highest quality, must've overloaded and sent a spike into the computer, taking out the motherboard, several PCI cards, and RAM chips with it. Needless to say, I use an APC UPS located in an area not easily reachable by falling water now.
But I would guess the biggest PC killer is brownouts. I worked at a startup for a while where the admin chose not to use any surge protectors on our computers. I suppose he assumed because we were in a fairly modern office complex that they had clean lines. It took him a bit to figure out why he had to keep supplying me with new power supplies every few weeks after the previous one would die.
I was about to say the same thing. They were supposed to end dev on the Mozilla suite quite a while back. But perhaps they are referring to the browser engine itself and not the Mozilla suite as such.
The current season is very old-skool Trek in the TOS vein. Leave it to UPN (and probably Berman/Braga) to pull the plug instead of supporting it. But the fact that this season has little Berman influence compared to the others shows just how much his involvement has wrecked the franchise. He is to Trek what Eisner is to Disney or Old Man Lucas is to Star Wars.
I think it's a decent analogy because Apple makes no money on iTunes Music Store sales (and the artists themselves hardly do either). Apple only needs the Music Store to give the iPod a use, and moreover to give Apple a competitive advantage by having such a close partnership with record labels.
I don't know why parent is modded as Funny. It's actually insightful. The MPAA and RIAA have single-handedly destroyed copyright law in this country, impinged on fair-use, and hampered technological progress. I would venture to say the only lobbying group that has a bigger hold on the U.S. government is the military-industrial complex.
It would be a shame to cancel Enterprise at this point, because this is the first season it has actually been watchable. The three-part story arc on genetic enhancements featuring Brent Spiner was especially enjoyable (because of and in spite of Brent Spiner's presence), as was the story arc involving Vulcan politics and religious turmoil. Imagine that, a thoughtful Trek show! I hate to say it, but this is the best sci-fi show on TV right now, as Stargate SG1 has floundered so far this season.
And basically they have no business calling themselves editors any more than the CNN Crossfire guys can call themselves reporters. They don't really do much of anything other than collect a paycheck and *maybe* type a couple comments in the article headline. When was the last time we even saw a new feature on slashdot (other than something that increased their profits)? Or how about making the site standards compliant? If this was still a volunteer site I'd cut them a lot of slack, but they're wholly owned by VA Software now, and all we've seen since then is more lackadaisical "editing" and more banner ads.
Seriously, there's been nine articles at slashdot on the Battlestar Galactica series and mini-series. All for a show that isn't even worth two stories. The level of integrated advertising in slashdot's "news" is becoming more and more apparent.
This is a ridiculous idea, though not surprising considering how desperate Disney is for a new hit in their post-Pixar world. Few of the special effects in Tron were actually computer generated. Instead a special process was developed and was all applied by hand to each frame of the film (using an army of Chinese workers.. an early example of outsourcing). The end result was beautiful and could not be easily replicated today. Story and bad acting aside, this is one of the most beautiful films out there, and I just know they're going to turn it into a lackluster parade of CG. And something tells me Moebius won't be on-board this time to provide amazing art direction.
Check out the Tron DVD, there's a lot of fascinating information about its unique production. It's also interesting to see how vastly Disney as a corporate culture has changed in 20 years, from a company that encouraged innovation, to a company that inhibits it.
Thank you for speaking for the entire populace of the USA. We all appreciate it.
I want a phone that is a game device and a PDA. But I want games I actually care about playing. If the Nintendo DS had a phone, I'd buy one in a second, even though it lacks PDA features.
I always tend to go overboard with the gift-giving in general, but especially where she's concerned. This year I actually had to rein it in a bit. Usually she gets a visit from the fashion fairy, so I was more than a bit reluctant to give her a piece of hardware. I might have had cause for such caution -- she almost pays more attention to it than she does me!
I bought my wife a Gaggia Classic for xmas and she seems to think there is a miniature Italian man inside, so you might say it is magic. Makes espresso as good as you could get in most coffee bars in Italy. This model has been honed over many years, so it's extremely dependable and built like a tank. Perhaps not as high of a hacker factor as the manual-pump La Pavoni machines, but there's still an art to getting a perfect shot out of it.
That's simply not true, or there would already be a software plug-in which does so. Many producers and recording engineers, even those who work with pristine-sounding top-40 pop acts, still regularly use tape reel-to-reels to "warm up" the sound after initially recording and editing the music in ProTools or its ilk. This is often done right before sending the recordings off for mastering.
In fact, there has been quite a resurgence in the use of analog gear in the past few years, so it is disappointing to see analog tape marked for extinction.
Perhaps this new screenless iPod will use their old software patent on color-morphing cases to give visual feedback on a user's current position in the playlist; e.g. the first song would be bright red, the last song would be bright blue. With the growing popularity of information devices like the Ambient Orb Device that use color for data feedback, this seems natural for Apple to get into.
From "green" energy sources like solar power. We're not at a point in the U.S. yet where there's an economy of scale to replace our main fossil fuel plants with green power, however for single-use applications like vehicle charging, you have a viable solution to keep the entire automobile energy chain pollution-free.
Wow. That car looks like a cross between something driven by a Speed Racer villian and one of those promotional films from the 1950s about the "car of the future." Pretty damn cool. I have to admire a daring vision of design like that.
As mentioned, the major drawback to pure electrics are the wait. If they solve that hurdle, I think you could see electrics boom, especially in countries in China where the car market is exploding and so is the pollution.
Pesonally though, I would rather see a pure zero-emission hydrogen solution. At least in the U.S. electrics are still deriving their energy from mostly fossil-fuel power plants.
Yeah, but you're not going to see $40 pricetags when everyone is happy to pay $50 or $60. And for that you don't get any kind of manual. The publishers are pulling the wool over everyone's eyes, just like the record companies who keep raising the price of albums, even though the cost of producing CDs has gone down dramatically. I'm all for supporting small studios, but I don't like when they abuse my patronage by trying to increase their profit margins as much as possible at our expense.
I don't know if that really matters, though. Since most of the software DSPs only work with one particular mp3 player (except for the DBX plug-ins), end-users should only really care about the overall sound quality of the player. I should note that to my ears, XMMS on Linux has a greater sonic fidelity than either Sonique or Winamp.
In terms of features, interface and customability, I still think Sonique holds the top position. Their decoder is not up to par anymore, but it still sounds better than Winamp (which is dead now too). It's a shame that Lycos let Sonique languish and then die..Sonique 2.0 was very promising. It's funny how the Mac used to have almost no mp3 players and Windows had great ones, and now the reverse is true (though I'm still not totally enchanted with iTunes).
But do people even use software mp3 players anymore, or is it all iPods and media centers like XBMC now?
It's true. Every person I've shown Firefox to has downloaded and installed it on their own machine. When you point out the advantages to someone, it's a no-brainer. The revolution will not be televised, and there's not much Microsoft can do about it.