So I work in the field of 3D graphics with both experience of game and visual effects 3D. It's hell trying to hire people who are any good. But one thing comes up again and again: when we find someone who's really good they often grew up programming in BASIC, often on machines like Atari 800s or BBC Micros. The fact is that these machines were delivered to customers with BASIC built in lowering the entry level to programming. These people had a great headstart. Today the barrier to enter graphics programming is much higher and kids are put off discovering programming for themselves. Products like BlitzMax can only open up opportunities for kids to actually try their hand at creating games rather than just accepting the products corporations throw at them. Like the previous generation who grew up on BASIC these kids will have a headstart. (Oh and screw the crap Dijkstra says about BASIC, that was merely the squealing of someone who felt his priesthood was threatened by the opening up of computing.)
Copyrights and licenses have nothing to do with each other. If X produces a work then Y is bound by law to respect X's copyright regardless of whether or not X and Y have enetered into a contractual agreement. A license is a form of contractual agreement and if Y finds a way to install X's software without encountering the EULA then there is potentially no license agreeement (though Y is still bound by copyright law).
Day After Tomorrow came out months ago. The DVD is already released. There's no need for any more hype, it ain't gonna sell many more copies whatever Fox does.
Of course the primary motivation for the statement "Since when does the Authors opinion count!?" is to allow practitioners of lit crit to justify their own existence. For them to continue their tenures it is essential to propagate the myth that they can be correct about the author's intentions even in the face of denials by the author. And as these people obviously have a monopoly on the teaching of lit crit it's not surprising that they have succeeded in brainwashing their students into believing them.
This is not to say that the statement is entirely without merit. It's quite clear, for example, that an author writing in a particular culture at a particular time is probably going to be saying a lot about that culture, esepcially when read by readers in a different time and place. Their work is likely to be highly colored by the values and mores of the day, even if the author didn't deliberately set out to represent these things. But there's no mystery here, no need even to invoke the word 'subconscious' (because using the word 'subconscious' suggests that when a 21st century mystery writer, say, sets out to write a mystery novel, that 'deep down' there's a part of their brain that's saying 'we must sneak some covert references to 21st century values into this story', and there's clearly no need for such a hypothesis.)
I've always found that the fastest way to get data from A to B was to copy it onto a big fat RAID, put the RAID on a truck, drive from A to B, unload and copy. But now we have blimps to do this I'll be able to deliver my data without being bogged down in traffic and to places where they don't have roads.
...about the politics of open source? When I write a piece of open source my goal is to write something useful that can be useful to as many people as possible. My goal isn't to bring down a particular corporation, or promote a philosophy (except maybe a coding style), or get a particular OS into companies or anything like that. I have no time for such politics. I just want to write something cool or useful. If someone ports that to an OS different to that for which I wrote it then that's great, even more people can use it. It's kinda depressing that people have a problem with this. What should be a simple act, writing a bit of code and making it available to others, has become a political statement even though I don't want to make any such statement.
No, some day they'll dump the stupid concept that you should be unaltered to enter the Olympics. When that happens the Olympics will become truly spectacular as competitors use training and a mixture of electronic, chemical and biological enhancement to perform feats that are currently undreamt of by athletes. Athletes who refuse to modify themselves will be seen as a curiously old-fashioned bunch of old fuddy duddies.
When I was getting my Ph.D in math...
on
Mathematics and Sex
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· Score: 2, Funny
the words 'sex' and 'mathematics' were not juxtaposed all that often
When I did my PhD they frequently appeared together. Often in conjunction with phrases like "isn't getting any".
...test out all 100 candidates. That way you get laid 100 times. If you just marry the 38th candidate she'll decide she has a headache every night from the moment you agree to be a 'life mate'.
Linux was a lot easier in those days! It was certainly a lot simpler and when you installed a distribution you got only a few 100MB of useful tools, not GB of God knows what. The only thing difficult was configuring your XF86Config so you could use X (plenty of web sites warned that if you entered the wrong data you could kill your monitor, but I never knew if that was just urban myth...). But that hasn't improved much over the years.
10 years ago...hmmm...did nobody tell you about the Unix clone you could download off the web that allowed you to run all the same stuff that you ran at work on a home PC? Ahh...Linux was exciting in those days.
As I understand it the issue is not with irradiated food per se. The problem is that many food safety tests are tests for live organisms. Irradiating beef, say, can kill the bacteria, leaving toxins produced by the bacteria untouched and harder to detect. But that was a few years ago and by now I'd expect there to be good tests for the toxins too.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow! Someone on /. who isn't a complete moron!
Every poor kid. Any kid with $20 to spare will be better off buying a decently written, imaginative, properly thought out game for their game boy.
Quoting probabilities isn't worth a thing unless you're prepared to put your money where your mouth is.
...once. The thought of my family reading my mail after I die is too horrible for words.
So I work in the field of 3D graphics with both experience of game and visual effects 3D. It's hell trying to hire people who are any good. But one thing comes up again and again: when we find someone who's really good they often grew up programming in BASIC, often on machines like Atari 800s or BBC Micros. The fact is that these machines were delivered to customers with BASIC built in lowering the entry level to programming. These people had a great headstart. Today the barrier to enter graphics programming is much higher and kids are put off discovering programming for themselves. Products like BlitzMax can only open up opportunities for kids to actually try their hand at creating games rather than just accepting the products corporations throw at them. Like the previous generation who grew up on BASIC these kids will have a headstart. (Oh and screw the crap Dijkstra says about BASIC, that was merely the squealing of someone who felt his priesthood was threatened by the opening up of computing.)
Copyrights and licenses have nothing to do with each other. If X produces a work then Y is bound by law to respect X's copyright regardless of whether or not X and Y have enetered into a contractual agreement. A license is a form of contractual agreement and if Y finds a way to install X's software without encountering the EULA then there is potentially no license agreeement (though Y is still bound by copyright law).
Day After Tomorrow came out months ago. The DVD is already released. There's no need for any more hype, it ain't gonna sell many more copies whatever Fox does.
Maybe we should shut down Hollywood to give companies with less money more chances of getting an Oscar. Or maybe not.
This is not to say that the statement is entirely without merit. It's quite clear, for example, that an author writing in a particular culture at a particular time is probably going to be saying a lot about that culture, esepcially when read by readers in a different time and place. Their work is likely to be highly colored by the values and mores of the day, even if the author didn't deliberately set out to represent these things. But there's no mystery here, no need even to invoke the word 'subconscious' (because using the word 'subconscious' suggests that when a 21st century mystery writer, say, sets out to write a mystery novel, that 'deep down' there's a part of their brain that's saying 'we must sneak some covert references to 21st century values into this story', and there's clearly no need for such a hypothesis.)
I've always found that the fastest way to get data from A to B was to copy it onto a big fat RAID, put the RAID on a truck, drive from A to B, unload and copy. But now we have blimps to do this I'll be able to deliver my data without being bogged down in traffic and to places where they don't have roads.
...about the politics of open source? When I write a piece of open source my goal is to write something useful that can be useful to as many people as possible. My goal isn't to bring down a particular corporation, or promote a philosophy (except maybe a coding style), or get a particular OS into companies or anything like that. I have no time for such politics. I just want to write something cool or useful. If someone ports that to an OS different to that for which I wrote it then that's great, even more people can use it. It's kinda depressing that people have a problem with this. What should be a simple act, writing a bit of code and making it available to others, has become a political statement even though I don't want to make any such statement.
No, some day they'll dump the stupid concept that you should be unaltered to enter the Olympics. When that happens the Olympics will become truly spectacular as competitors use training and a mixture of electronic, chemical and biological enhancement to perform feats that are currently undreamt of by athletes. Athletes who refuse to modify themselves will be seen as a curiously old-fashioned bunch of old fuddy duddies.
...test out all 100 candidates. That way you get laid 100 times. If you just marry the 38th candidate she'll decide she has a headache every night from the moment you agree to be a 'life mate'.
BTW The past tense of 'cost' is 'cost', not 'costed'. Just doing my bit to help non-native English speakers communicate better on /.
Linux was a lot easier in those days! It was certainly a lot simpler and when you installed a distribution you got only a few 100MB of useful tools, not GB of God knows what. The only thing difficult was configuring your XF86Config so you could use X (plenty of web sites warned that if you entered the wrong data you could kill your monitor, but I never knew if that was just urban myth...). But that hasn't improved much over the years.
10 years ago...hmmm...did nobody tell you about the Unix clone you could download off the web that allowed you to run all the same stuff that you ran at work on a home PC? Ahh...Linux was exciting in those days.
So do I. But the best game ever is worth playing twice, especially when I can play it any time, including when nobody is looking when I'm at work :-)
You tried Best Buy Emeryville? I'm pretty sure I saw some there.
What part of "SUPER MARIO 64 DS" isn't killer?
By the way, the DS is AWESOME!
As I understand it the issue is not with irradiated food per se. The problem is that many food safety tests are tests for live organisms. Irradiating beef, say, can kill the bacteria, leaving toxins produced by the bacteria untouched and harder to detect. But that was a few years ago and by now I'd expect there to be good tests for the toxins too.
It's 'piqued', not 'peaked'.
Weird! I could see the streak until I wiped my screen with a Kleenex and the streak vanished!