Lately I've been enjoying Day Of Defeat, a Half-life mod, set in WWII. One of my favourite maps is set in Caen, a town in the north of France, a few weeks after D Day. Great map: big, city in rubbles, lotsa different paths to take, great hide & seek possibilities.
A few days ago I watched a documentary about it on Discovery. In reality, Caen was a place of utter carnage, the city being carpet bombed and changing hands a couple of times, bloody street to street battles, Britons and Canadians on one, Germans on the other, consisting mostly od Hitlerjugend, basically kids with guns (largely under 20 years of age).
Did it diminish my enjoyment of the game? Nope. Would it disturb me if I was a WWII veteran? Probably.
Carmageddon would probably disturb me if I was ever hit by a car. GTA would if I was ever carjacked. Doom would if I was an floating alien head.
My point is: games need a conflict to be interesting, and it's only natural that conflicts from our past be used in games. They will inevitably be uncomfortable and disturbing, even objectionable for some, but we live in a (presumably) free societies, people have the choice of avoidinf things (games, movies, books) that disturb them. I don't believe they have the right to impose their objections on others.
If you would be developing a site with the intention of going live on Linux, why not just install Linux in a separate partition and only have to go through installation headaches once?
Because I have 0 experience installing and administering Linuxes. And spending a month or so getting to know it just to find out that in the end the whole idea won't fly isn't appealing.
But, I guess I'll have to get my feet wet, sooner of later...
develop it on Linux first, or stick with Win2K if/when you decide to go live with it.
When (if) it goes live, I won't be the person administering the machine or taking care of it short of installing and configuring slashcode, and for that I also plan to enlist the help of some Linux wizards. Learning to do everything myself seems like too much overhead just for getting slashcode to run.
I wouldn't even think of hosting the thing on Windows. To each his own (to Windows desktop, to Linux server).:-)
I know broadband usage is on the rise but really... I use a modem. You know... the kind that attaches to a phone line? Everytime I get online with my low bandwidth solution, I don't want my bandwidth eaten up by patches.
Yes, and for such lowly users, Microsoft has designed BITS service. It's used for automatic downloads (patches and stuff). It uses any _remaining_ bandwidth your system has. It can continue interrupted downloads.
I'm a broadband user (ah the joys of in-home ethernet) and I'm in the process of puting together a new machine.
And it didn't occur to you to ask around and get your combat gear (latest SPs, updates, patches, essential shareware and stuff like that) before you actually got around to installing stuff on the machine? At the very least you could round up a dozen of cover CDs from computer magazines, you would find everything there, sure thing.
You are not a very resourceful guy, are you? Please turn in your geek badge at the 'logout' button.
IMHO, no geek should leave home without a set of CDs that allow him to turn a pile of boxes into a fully functioning, sercure computer. To not even have a set, that's unheard of.
Microsoft are MORONS. The fix for this particular worm required SP2 or greater. That is 8 hours and 10 minutes over dialup.
What, dialup is the only connection to the whole wide world that you can possibly think of getting Service Packs?
It didn't occur to you to look for it elsewhere?
I'll bet you whatever you want that you can walk up to a news stand anywhere in the civilized world and find a computer magazine that has a CD with latest Windows SP on it, _right_now_.
Or, it never did occur to you, in your immense smart-assly wisdom, to try asking someone you know with a computer if he possibly has it?
In my book, a MORON is a person that downloads Windows SP over dialup.
Did you merrily click past the EULA that said if it destroyed your system and data it wasn't MS's fault or responsibility?
Could you please point me to an EULA of _any_ software (OS or otherwise) that says if it destroys your data or does some other damage the company that produces the SW will compensate your losses and accept the blame?
Didn't think so.
Did you install on one box and then do a complete round of System Test, or did you just blindly trust MS?
The machine that's exposed to the net in my shop has automatic update and blind trust of any patch that comes it's way, yeah. I'd say you're a fool not to do the same.
Unlike the rest of the world, this attack was just a source of amusement for me. My front line was patched a month ago. Automatically.:-)
The 68000 executes 16 bit code. Last I looked it had a 24 bit address space, that's pretty cool. Nonetheless it is not a 32 bit processor, as you say.
68k had 24bit adress space, 16 bit pathways to the outside, and 8/16/32bit operations on the inside. All instrucions that operated on data had a size qualifier (add.b, add.w, add.l), so it could do 32 bit operations, but had to fetch 32 bit data in two reads if it came from the outside. Not so if operating on 16 internal, 32 bit registers (8 data, 8 address).
It's a 32 bit CPU as much as 386SX was.
68010 is a slightly optimized 68010 which has one or two additional instructions.
68010 is a 68k with a VBR (Vector Base Register) which enabled it to place its vector table (a list of pointers to code for servicing interrupts and stuff) wherever inside it's address space. Useful for embedded applications, I guess.
Besides that, it incorporated an 8 byte (or something on that order) cache which enabled it to run tight loops (a couple instructions) much faster.
You don't have to register to view the offline version so why should you to read the online version?
Some of the possible reasons:
- You like headlines delivered to your inbox - You wish to participate in online forums - You feel you can at least in some way compensate them for a great free service they offer - If you have to see the ads, at least you can see the interesting ones - You're not a paranoid freak
The feature has been there for ages. Unused. At least 70% of the Windows desktop software (that I used) ignore it.
Really? Which, pray tell, software is that? You must be extremely unlucky with your choice of software, or abandoned the platform years ago, since my experience is radically different. I have large icons and large fonts set up, and never give it a second thought. Any modern Windows software scales with the system font settings easily. The major notable exceptions being programs ported from Linux.:-)
Seriously, you can spot Linux/Unix-ported GUI-based SW from a mile away, it usually looks and behaves radically different (read: completely ignoring standard windows look&feel) than native applications. Which, I guess it's understandable, but still annoying none the less.
Obviously this naive person has never set the fonts to "largest" and used it for a long period of time.
Well, this, arguably not so naive, person has been using those exact features for years and found really no problems with it. In fact, you don't even think about it, it works that well. And I use a wide variety of software. I'd say the percentage of software that works fine is well above 90%. The exceptions being ancient (Win3.11-) and SW with custom widgets programmed by inept programmers.
Besides, your post is factually incorrect. All windows widget sizes are defined not in pixels, but in relation to system font sizes. If you increase font sizes, all system widgets increase with them.
Furthermore, if 'Large (125%)' setting is too small for your super-duper 23" screen, you can always enter the value manually.
In which case there is a convenient 'Use Large Icons' in 'Effects' tab of display properties.
I run my desktop at 1280x1024 with large icons and large fonts. Works fine with a majority of programs, the exception being some ancient Win3.11 games/utils. You can set it up and forget about it, it's that simple.
IMHO, this is just another case of "With my limited knowledge of Windows features, I guess it probably doesn't have/can't do this, ergo, it sucks".:-)
Number of Windows flaws since . Fun AND informative. Sorta.
I'm keeping a tally of advisories that come through my local CERT mailing list. But, to keep it interesting, I'm keeping a tally on all systems. The current running tab, since 12th of March this year:
So European farmers, who would normally be driven out of business in a free market economy, get to stay alive.
-1, Misinformed.
I find it funny you see it this way... You obviously lack some crucial insight.
Like, for example, that the US farmers stay in bussiness because, and _only_because_ of the _HUGE_ government subsidies awarded. US agriculture would perish if it was operating in a free market economy. Third world farmers would 0wn the US market if they were allowed to play on a level field with domestic farmers. But, instead the US farmers get to export corn, for example, for one quarter of it's production costs. The rest is subsidised (Europe is more or less the same way).
So don't for a second think that you live in a free market economy. Yes, it's allowed to be if that's beneficial to the US economy. If it's not, the government is there with tariffs, subsidies and strongarming at a drop of a hat.
And let's not even start with the GM foods, which is basically the equivalent of pushing M$ products on the world because it gives you (the US companies) complete control over the whole industry that uses them.
Get informed, people, that's the only way to really understand what's going on.
I don't know what flavor crack you have to smoke to say that it's "reaching end of life."
I'd say that's because of a popular opinion that a software package that doesn't get new major release each year or two is dead. Which is exactly what is wrong with software today. If a program works and works well, has a full feature set, is bug free and stable then that's it, it's done.
As Knuth correctly decided, after version 3.0 LaTeX was done. And hasn't seen a new major version in the last decade. All that remains are bug fixes, with each release adding a pi digit to the version number (currently at 3.14159, I believe). And it still is the best (and free) package out there for typesetting technical text.
This is one _major_ advantage of free software. There is no pressure for new releases (and new revenue) which eventually must end up as adding crap into complete and usefull programs up to the point that they become bloated useless monsters which hinder, instead of increasing the ease of use and productivity.
The NYT is a local / regional paper when you get right down to it.
Funny how I, living right across the globe (Croatia), can spend a quality half-hour on it daily. Sure, I skip the local section, but the international and op-ed sections would even be worth money if they weren't giving it away for free.:-) No matter where you live, at least it shows there are still some sane people in the US who really get things.
And, yes, I did register. And with my _proper_ email address, too. I find the headlines delivered to my inbox the best way to see what's there to read.
I don't think that's what he meant by a "standard library". He's thinking along the lines of Java's standard library -- a standard library that gives you graphics classes, networking classes, XML parser classes, GUI classes, etc.
I think you're confusing a _platform_ with a _programming_language_. Java is both a platform and a programming language. C++ is just a programming language, and things like graphics, networking and such have to defined on a platform you use the language with.
Which is the way things should be if you need a general, fast and lightweight language applicable to almost any and all environments you could encounter. The opposite is the way of Java, the 'jack of all trades and master of none' approach.
Irony is sort of like goldy or bronzy, except it's made of iron.
Excuse me, why are wearing a slug on your upper lip?
Re:I assume it touches on copying
on
Altered Carbon
·
· Score: 1
If you can digitize and store, you can therefore copy.
When contemplating 'human digitizing' I inevitably end up with this problem: you do not _move_ your brain pattern (whatever it turns out to be) onto computer, you basically do a copy-and-delete procedure.
That 'delete' part is where the problem is for me. In the process of transfer you must at some point exist in both mediums (flesh and electronics), so obviously there are two entities now. And then you have to delete the flesh part in order to finish the 'copy'. But, isn't that in essence a suicide every time you transfer yourself from one medium to another?
Sure, I'd like to live on forever in a computer, but I'm not quite sure that it would be _me_ that lives on...
The only way around this conundrum, as far as I see it, is to do the transfer in the precise moment of death, since that aviods the existence of two entities.
In my (relatively extensive) experience, random crashes, especially without BSOD (random reboots) as a rule point to defective hardware or seriously ill drivers. That is, if the heat problems have been ruled out.
Slashdot Mirror
Lately I've been enjoying Day Of Defeat, a Half-life mod, set in WWII. One of my favourite maps is set in Caen, a town in the north of France, a few weeks after D Day. Great map: big, city in rubbles, lotsa different paths to take, great hide & seek possibilities.
A few days ago I watched a documentary about it on Discovery. In reality, Caen was a place of utter carnage, the city being carpet bombed and changing hands a couple of times, bloody street to street battles, Britons and Canadians on one, Germans on the other, consisting mostly od Hitlerjugend, basically kids with guns (largely under 20 years of age).
Did it diminish my enjoyment of the game? Nope. Would it disturb me if I was a WWII veteran? Probably.
Carmageddon would probably disturb me if I was ever hit by a car. GTA would if I was ever carjacked. Doom would if I was an floating alien head.
My point is: games need a conflict to be interesting, and it's only natural that conflicts from our past be used in games. They will inevitably be uncomfortable and disturbing, even objectionable for some, but we live in a (presumably) free societies, people have the choice of avoidinf things (games, movies, books) that disturb them. I don't believe they have the right to impose their objections on others.
If you would be developing a site with the intention of going live on Linux, why not just install Linux in a separate partition and only have to go through installation headaches once?
Because I have 0 experience installing and administering Linuxes. And spending a month or so getting to know it just to find out that in the end the whole idea won't fly isn't appealing.
But, I guess I'll have to get my feet wet, sooner of later...
develop it on Linux first, or stick with Win2K if/when you decide to go live with it.
:-)
When (if) it goes live, I won't be the person administering the machine or taking care of it short of installing and configuring slashcode, and for that I also plan to enlist the help of some Linux wizards. Learning to do everything myself seems like too much overhead just for getting slashcode to run.
I wouldn't even think of hosting the thing on Windows. To each his own (to Windows desktop, to Linux server).
Anyone managed that?
I have an idea for a web site and I'd like to toy with it on my home machine (W2k), and if it turns out ok I'd go public (on Linux, naturally).
but to me this amounts to saying "our customers are lazy and stupid".
Hello? This is news to you? Wake up, dude, people _are_ lazy and stupid.
I know broadband usage is on the rise but really ... I use a modem. You know ... the kind that attaches to a phone line? Everytime I get online with my low bandwidth solution, I don't want my bandwidth eaten up by patches.
Yes, and for such lowly users, Microsoft has designed BITS service. It's used for automatic downloads (patches and stuff). It uses any _remaining_ bandwidth your system has. It can continue interrupted downloads.
Any more questions?
I'm a broadband user (ah the joys of in-home ethernet) and I'm in the process of puting together a new machine.
And it didn't occur to you to ask around and get your combat gear (latest SPs, updates, patches, essential shareware and stuff like that) before you actually got around to installing stuff on the machine? At the very least you could round up a dozen of cover CDs from computer magazines, you would find everything there, sure thing.
You are not a very resourceful guy, are you? Please turn in your geek badge at the 'logout' button.
IMHO, no geek should leave home without a set of CDs that allow him to turn a pile of boxes into a fully functioning, sercure computer. To not even have a set, that's unheard of.
Microsoft are MORONS. The fix for this particular worm required SP2 or greater. That is 8 hours and 10 minutes over dialup.
What, dialup is the only connection to the whole wide world that you can possibly think of getting Service Packs?
It didn't occur to you to look for it elsewhere?
I'll bet you whatever you want that you can walk up to a news stand anywhere in the civilized world and find a computer magazine that has a CD with latest Windows SP on it, _right_now_.
Or, it never did occur to you, in your immense smart-assly wisdom, to try asking someone you know with a computer if he possibly has it?
In my book, a MORON is a person that downloads Windows SP over dialup.
And you dare post on Slashdot? Geez...
Did you merrily click past the EULA that said if it destroyed your system and data it wasn't MS's fault or responsibility?
:-)
Could you please point me to an EULA of _any_ software (OS or otherwise) that says if it destroys your data or does some other damage the company that produces the SW will compensate your losses and accept the blame?
Didn't think so.
Did you install on one box and then do a complete round of System Test, or did you just blindly trust MS?
The machine that's exposed to the net in my shop has automatic update and blind trust of any patch that comes it's way, yeah. I'd say you're a fool not to do the same.
Unlike the rest of the world, this attack was just a source of amusement for me. My front line was patched a month ago. Automatically.
Go home, troll...
If I may, just to clarify...
The 68000 executes 16 bit code. Last I looked it had a 24 bit address space, that's pretty cool. Nonetheless it is not a 32 bit processor, as you say.
68k had 24bit adress space, 16 bit pathways to the outside, and 8/16/32bit operations on the inside. All instrucions that operated on data had a size qualifier (add.b, add.w, add.l), so it could do 32 bit operations, but had to fetch 32 bit data in two reads if it came from the outside. Not so if operating on 16 internal, 32 bit registers (8 data, 8 address).
It's a 32 bit CPU as much as 386SX was.
68010 is a slightly optimized 68010 which has one or two additional instructions.
68010 is a 68k with a VBR (Vector Base Register) which enabled it to place its vector table (a list of pointers to code for servicing interrupts and stuff) wherever inside it's address space. Useful for embedded applications, I guess.
Besides that, it incorporated an 8 byte (or something on that order) cache which enabled it to run tight loops (a couple instructions) much faster.
God, I loved Motorola CPUs...
You don't have to register to view the offline version so why should you to read the online version?
Some of the possible reasons:
- You like headlines delivered to your inbox
- You wish to participate in online forums
- You feel you can at least in some way compensate them for a great free service they offer
- If you have to see the ads, at least you can see the interesting ones
- You're not a paranoid freak
The feature has been there for ages. Unused. At least 70% of the Windows desktop software (that I used) ignore it.
:-)
Really? Which, pray tell, software is that? You must be extremely unlucky with your choice of software, or abandoned the platform years ago, since my experience is radically different. I have large icons and large fonts set up, and never give it a second thought. Any modern Windows software scales with the system font settings easily. The major notable exceptions being programs ported from Linux.
Seriously, you can spot Linux/Unix-ported GUI-based SW from a mile away, it usually looks and behaves radically different (read: completely ignoring standard windows look&feel) than native applications. Which, I guess it's understandable, but still annoying none the less.
Obviously this naive person has never set the fonts to "largest" and used it for a long period of time.
Well, this, arguably not so naive, person has been using those exact features for years and found really no problems with it. In fact, you don't even think about it, it works that well. And I use a wide variety of software. I'd say the percentage of software that works fine is well above 90%. The exceptions being ancient (Win3.11-) and SW with custom widgets programmed by inept programmers.
Besides, your post is factually incorrect. All windows widget sizes are defined not in pixels, but in relation to system font sizes. If you increase font sizes, all system widgets increase with them.
Furthermore, if 'Large (125%)' setting is too small for your super-duper 23" screen, you can always enter the value manually.
So there, more information to assimilate.
Wasn't his real problem seeing the icons?
:-)
In which case there is a convenient 'Use Large Icons' in 'Effects' tab of display properties.
I run my desktop at 1280x1024 with large icons and large fonts. Works fine with a majority of programs, the exception being some ancient Win3.11 games/utils. You can set it up and forget about it, it's that simple.
IMHO, this is just another case of "With my limited knowledge of Windows features, I guess it probably doesn't have/can't do this, ergo, it sucks".
Number of Windows flaws since . Fun AND informative. Sorta.
:-)
I'm keeping a tally of advisories that come through my local CERT mailing list. But, to keep it interesting, I'm keeping a tally on all systems. The current running tab, since 12th of March this year:
Debian: 76
RedHat: 51
MS: 45
Mandr: 37
Sun: 36
HP: 29
SGI: 23
TurboL: 18
Cisco: 15
SuSe: 6
SCO: 6
Oracle: 2
Fun and informative, indeed.
You make your own conclusions. This is just information to assimilate.
My Win2k solution already downloaded and installed the update last night automatically via WindowsUpdate.com. Nice system.
This means you're not really up to date. AFAIK, SP4 for W2k, which is out for about a month now, adresses this issue.
Btw, why does this test compare only proprietary formats and not free (as speech) formats like Ogg Vorbis or FLAC ?
Well, if you can't be bothered to RTFA, a least RTFST (RTFStoryTitle)!
Which part of "Hydrogenaudio _AAC_ Listening Test Results" you don't understand?
So European farmers, who would normally be driven out of business in a free market economy, get to stay alive.
-1, Misinformed.
I find it funny you see it this way... You obviously lack some crucial insight.
Like, for example, that the US farmers stay in bussiness because, and _only_because_ of the _HUGE_ government subsidies awarded. US agriculture would perish if it was operating in a free market economy. Third world farmers would 0wn the US market if they were allowed to play on a level field with domestic farmers. But, instead the US farmers get to export corn, for example, for one quarter of it's production costs. The rest is subsidised (Europe is more or less the same way).
So don't for a second think that you live in a free market economy. Yes, it's allowed to be if that's beneficial to the US economy. If it's not, the government is there with tariffs, subsidies and strongarming at a drop of a hat.
And let's not even start with the GM foods, which is basically the equivalent of pushing M$ products on the world because it gives you (the US companies) complete control over the whole industry that uses them.
Get informed, people, that's the only way to really understand what's going on.
in my personal toolbar link and added:
+'+-shop+-deal+-value'
I find it useful to include '-free' in my searches.
Almost as a rule, a page that has 'FREE' plastered all over it is either trying to sell you something, or scam you in one way or the other.
I don't know what flavor crack you have to smoke to say that it's "reaching end of life."
I'd say that's because of a popular opinion that a software package that doesn't get new major release each year or two is dead. Which is exactly what is wrong with software today. If a program works and works well, has a full feature set, is bug free and stable then that's it, it's done.
As Knuth correctly decided, after version 3.0 LaTeX was done. And hasn't seen a new major version in the last decade. All that remains are bug fixes, with each release adding a pi digit to the version number (currently at 3.14159, I believe). And it still is the best (and free) package out there for typesetting technical text.
This is one _major_ advantage of free software. There is no pressure for new releases (and new revenue) which eventually must end up as adding crap into complete and usefull programs up to the point that they become bloated useless monsters which hinder, instead of increasing the ease of use and productivity.
The NYT is a local / regional paper when you get right down to it.
:-) No matter where you live, at least it shows there are still some sane people in the US who really get things.
Funny how I, living right across the globe (Croatia), can spend a quality half-hour on it daily. Sure, I skip the local section, but the international and op-ed sections would even be worth money if they weren't giving it away for free.
And, yes, I did register. And with my _proper_ email address, too. I find the headlines delivered to my inbox the best way to see what's there to read.
I don't think that's what he meant by a "standard library". He's thinking along the lines of Java's standard library -- a standard library that gives you graphics classes, networking classes, XML parser classes, GUI classes, etc.
I think you're confusing a _platform_ with a _programming_language_. Java is both a platform and a programming language. C++ is just a programming language, and things like graphics, networking and such have to defined on a platform you use the language with.
Which is the way things should be if you need a general, fast and lightweight language applicable to almost any and all environments you could encounter. The opposite is the way of Java, the 'jack of all trades and master of none' approach.
Irony is sort of like goldy or bronzy, except it's made of iron.
Excuse me, why are wearing a slug on your upper lip?
If you can digitize and store, you can therefore copy.
When contemplating 'human digitizing' I inevitably end up with this problem: you do not _move_ your brain pattern (whatever it turns out to be) onto computer, you basically do a copy-and-delete procedure.
That 'delete' part is where the problem is for me. In the process of transfer you must at some point exist in both mediums (flesh and electronics), so obviously there are two entities now. And then you have to delete the flesh part in order to finish the 'copy'. But, isn't that in essence a suicide every time you transfer yourself from one medium to another?
Sure, I'd like to live on forever in a computer, but I'm not quite sure that it would be _me_ that lives on...
The only way around this conundrum, as far as I see it, is to do the transfer in the precise moment of death, since that aviods the existence of two entities.
Any thoughts?
it randomly crashes, blue screen or not
In my (relatively extensive) experience, random crashes, especially without BSOD (random reboots) as a rule point to defective hardware or seriously ill drivers. That is, if the heat problems have been ruled out.