GAIM actually automatically translates some common netspeak into proper english. "k" is translated to "Okay", and "u" to "You" for example. Not really all that useful since it only applies to outgoing messages, but if we could get everyone to use Gaim it would probably cut down on some of that crap people try to pass off as english. Plus it has a spell checker.
Having a spell checker in my IM client is probably the single most useful feature I've ever had in any program I've ever used.
I've been saying this for a long time. To many people are worried about Linux getting popular. I have to say, as both a user and a developer, I prefer Linux to be relegated to the servers and the boxen of the unwashed masses.
As a developer, I like the ability to write an application for people and being able to target an intelligent, computer literate user. I like the freedom to make decisions that may make the application more powerful while sacrificing ease of use, and know that the people using the application are going to appreciate the power of the program, instead of complaining about the uglyness of the GUI. I like not being bombarded by users who cannot figgure out how to use a contextual menu. I like to know that the people who use my application have some appreciation of what I put into it.
As a user I like having a system that can provide a critial thinking challenge, and rewards me with greater power when I figure out how to do something. I like being treated like I know what I'm doing. I like being told exactly and in detail how the programs work, even if that means I might have to pour over man pages longer than an animated tutorial with a cartoon paperclip. I like to be able to compile my programs from source, it makes me feel more like I'm interacting with the system. I like that I can drop to a powerful command line to interact with the system, develop scripts to automate tasks, and edit configuration files to dictate exactly how my system will work- even if that means fewer wizards and automatic configuration tools are available. I like having choices in what runs on my system, from a scheduler to a desktop enviornment- even if it means I have to do research to figgure out whats best suits my needs. I like being part of a community of people who share my ideas of how a system should work, who share software and ideas, and who work together to build a system that works the way we want it to instead of the way that will generate the most sales, or appeal to the most users.
In short, I like Linux the way it is, and while I'm not opposed to more people using it, I don't think we should worry to much about changing the way things are done in Linux just to appeal to Joe User.
I've come across this argument a lot, and I still fair to see why it's that big of a deal.
Right now I'm running KDE, and of the applications I have open, half were written in GTK+ and the other half in Qt, plus a Java application written with SWT and a Windows application running under Crossover Office.
If I didn't know a thing or two about Linux and about these programs I wouldn't have any idea that some of them are "KDE" applications and others are "GNOME" applications. All of these applications pretty much have the same look and feel. I can copy and paste between them, access all of them from a single menu, put GNOME applications on my desktop or toolbar, etc.
So I don't really see why this is a big dea.
I wasn't sure if I should mod this up or comment, so I'll prepend a comment with "Mod Parent Up"
Marion Zimmer Bradley is a great choice for young women- or anyone. Along with The Firebrand, I would recommend The Mists of Avalon- which is based on the story of King Arthur and Avalon, though Mograine is the main character, instead of King Arthur (TNT did a very good movie adaption of this which is available on DVD too).
You might also look into the Harry Potter books, which are quite good and quite popular.
Incidents:
Cigarette smoking by adults. Themes of kidnapping, terror, and peril. Supernatural themes involving cults, hideous monsters, mutations, and mind control. Urinating.
Yeah, because thank goodness in real like NO ONE under the age of 18 EVER Urinates...
This won't really work if your not in school, but a couple of my friends got ahold of a couple of "Intel Inside P4" and "Made for Windows XP" stickers and stuck them to some of the most ancient computers in the labs. They also took the "Pentium II" and "Made for Windows 98" stickers off the old machines and put them on some of the faster machines. Worked fairly well to keep a lot of the clueless off some of the better computers.
Re:Reminds me of a story of a writing assignment
on
Pictures by Hive Mind
·
· Score: 1
We had to do assignments like this in highschool. The idea was supposed to be that it forced people to write about things they might not normally have written about, and flex their creative muscle.
More often than not it devolved into something like this, and after a few fruitless attempts the teacher eventually abanoned the idea.
I think the move toward releasing beta( of course, I say beta software, what they are really releasing is Alpha software (how many "beta" programs have you used that have not had any features added?) ) software by companies is a move to "embrace and extend" the open development style that has served the F/OSS development communities. While some may argue that they are missing the most important ideological aspects of what makes F/OSS software great, I think that companies are finding that by allowing users to provide real feedback that will actually be used in the development of the application- and by allowing users to use software for free- they are able to make applications that appeal more to the target userbase (or modify the target userbase based on who they see using the application), and they can get people "hooked" before they start to charge for the software.
While I certainly do not have a problem with proprietary software using a modification of a traditionally F/OSS development method, I think that in the end this might have an unintended effect that companies may not forsee.
One of the big hurdles I see to people adopting Open Source software is that many people are uncomfortable using version 0.x of a program. With this big push to label software "Beta" people are going to become more used to the idea of using programs that aren't quite finished, or are labled as beta or development releases. As people get used to that idea, it takes away one more mental obstacle a lot of people have toward adopting F/OSS solutions.
Setting up an efficient workspace depends a lot on what exactly you do most of the time and how you prefer to work.
Keeping in mind that these tips might not be at all applicable to you, here are a few things I've found that help me to be more efficient.
When doing software development, I like to keep code open in one window and documentation open in another. This is much more useful if your working with an unfamiliar language or API.
When I'm doing web design or coding in PHP I like to keep code open in one window and a web browser open in the other for testing.
Avoid keeping email or IM clients open at all times one one monitor. Even if you are in regular communication with co-workers having these things open all the time is a great distraction.
Choose a good Desktop Environment. While I like KDE for regular non-work stuff, I find that I'm often a lot more productive using WindowMaker, not really sure why this is though to be honest.
I've long been considering moving out of the US for Canada or someplace in Europe. My thinking on the issue has generally been that a group of people has the right to generally run themselves the way they want. If I don't like it then, instead of trying to change things more to my liking (and to the chagrin of many others), I may be better served by moving to a location that is more inline with my own views.
In my case, I would like to move to an area that is much more socially liberal than the US, and has more social services. Personally, I don't mind paying more in taxes if the government is going to use those taxes to help the people of the country.
Basically, you say, "if you don't like X, why not try to change it, and invite other people to come and help", whereas I say "If most people in the area like X, but I don't, would I not be better served by going to a place where people share my ideas instead inviting fruther fragmentation into the area I am at, and trying to strong arm my own views onto others?"
An interesting question, I beleive Nietzsche would argue the latter- that the decision is a reflection of what the decision maker is- as I think it fits in with "Der Wilt Zur Macht". Anyway, I hate to take this discussion too far off topic, but a great point, you just made my friends list (for whatever little that is worth).
Wow, thank you for such an easy to understand and friendly answer. I honestly sort of expected to be flamed.
I think I understand then- basically the topology of the universe and the expansion of the universe are unrelated topics then, where I was trying to mix them together.
As for the looping universe thing- I've always found it to be a philosophically interesting premise (Nietzsche beleived this, and said to live each day as though it were your last, but to make each decision as though you'd make it a thousand times more). But I've long since come to the conclusion that nature doesn't always care what's philosophically appealing.
Anyway, thanks again for the good reply.
I realize that this is probably a stupid question. I haven't had the math or physics yet to really understand probably all the reasons it's a stupid question, so I'll put it out there and see what people have to say on this (slightly) off-topic issue.
Why is it not possible that the universe is simultaneously expanding and contracting?
One question I've had for a while is, why couldn't the universe be shaped in such a way that the force causing accelleration on the expansion of the universe is actually the gravitational force of the universe contracting.
To sort of illustrate my point, think of the game Asteroids. If you fly out of the top of the screen, you appear back on the bottom, and if you fly out the left side of the screen, you appear on the right side. Why couldn't there be some n-dimensional version of that concept in the universe such that as it expands it's actually approaching an earlier state?
Anyway, if this is just the stupidist thing ever, please be kind in saying so. IAONAP (I Am Obviously Not A Physisist).
I realize all of this from a logical point of view, but the point is that a lot of people still have an emotional reaction to these sorts of things. While more often than not I try to take these sorts of things into account, I cannot deny that I to have an emotional reaction to the sort of site I'm looking at. I bet you probably do too, even if you don't realize it.
The point isn't necessarily "omg they'll scam me" most of the time. Instead it's just that when a site looks extremely unprofessional (and I've seen a few that seem to harken back to the early days of AOL with animated GIF backgrounds, blinking lime-green text, etc) it makes you wonder how much of a professional the person on the other end is.
I can't speak for any other slashdotters, but I can immediately think of two reasons why this service could be useful.
The first is that I have a fair few family members who are completely computer illiterate. Once every couple of months they call me wanting to buy some obscure thing, and I have to google for it, find a couple of sites, read what is available and what the cost is to them over the phone. They write it down on a bit of paper and call me back in a few days to tell me what they want, I drive over there, get some cash or a check, deposit it into the bank, wait for the deposit to go through, get online, and order it for them. This is a pain that could be largely mitigated by me simply being able to google and then enter their phone number and allow them to talk to a representitive.
The second thing that I think this could be useful for is for helping smaller sites build trust with customers. I know there have been a few sites that I have decided not to buy from simply because the site looked unprofessional and I wasn't sure I could really trust the site to A: not steal my information, or B: actually deliver what I buy. In this case I think that smaller and lesser known sites might benefit from this service.
This is simply untrue. There are a great many actors who are not hollywood actors. Think about all the theatres in a large metro area, there are a lot of stage actors who can do this sort of thing. Sure, not everyone may be "hollywood beautiful", but I would much rather work with a classically trained stage actor who looks like a real person than an untalented anorexic primadona "star" anyway.
No website set up just yet, filming isn't set to begin until summer. Right now we're working on developing some of the CGI ahead of time- scouting locations, planning some of the special effects, working on costumes, stuff like that. I think a website should go up around the time filming starts. AFAIK the writer/director wants to have a photo-blog of the set during production.
Also, thanks for reminding me that I need to change my website URL in my profile, changed domain names a few weeks ago.
Amature films, as these guys have shown, are all the time becomming more realistc. With the computer power and high availability of digital camcorders any group of friends can write, film and star in a full length movie. With the open source Cinipaint and Blender special effects can even be done on a home computer that can rival a lot of the best special effects of movies from the mid to late 90's, and in some cases even very recent movies.
I've been working on just such a project, doing special effects for a fantasy film that's going to be shot in greece. The entire group consists of the writer/director, a camera/lighting guy, a makeup artist/costume designer, a set guy, 3 actors, an actress, 1 guy doing editing and postprocessing, and myself, doing CGI. That's 10 people, working on a budget of about 12,000. [shamless self-promotion] The script is quite a bit better than most of the dreck that comes out of hollywood- without having the pretentious or preachy feel that people (wrongly) associate with independent films. The makeup effects and costumes are top notch considering the budget (the makeup artist studied with Tom Savini of Night of the Living Dead fame), and the special effects are comming on quite nicely- there is a scene we affectionatley call "Helms Deep" with over 200 creatures that should be one of the main story arcs that I've been working on for about a month.
The movie is going to be released free on the net, with DVD sales hopefully making up for the financing that's come out of pocket from a lot of the people who've been working with the project.
I think this is the reason the MPAA is afraid of Peer to Peer networks, and the internet in general. People now have the ability to make and distribute movies all across the globe for less than the catering budget of most big hollywood movies. It's not that they are afraid that people are going to pirate their movies, it's that they are afraid people are going to make the obsolete.
I think that a lot of people will eventually have multiple systems, but as people have stated before, not all of us can affored $800 to buy two gaming systems. Not only that, I'm sure that I'm not alone in having limited space for consoles in my entertainment center (right now I can just barely fit my GC and PS2 in the entertainment cener with controllers and games, DVD player is in the entertainment center too, but DVDs are on a spare row in one of the bookshelves).
For myself, I plan on probably buying a PS3 and a Revolution. Chances are that I will buy the PS3 near launch, and pick up a revolution later, once the price has dropped and developers have had some time to develop games that make good use of the Revolutions controller. A lot of it comes down to the fact that I think that the PS3 will have more games that I want to play. I also doubt that Sony will use particularly onerous DRM in the PS3 (I belive that the PS3 represents too big of a revenue stream for Sony to risk a backlash like they've faced with the rootkit in their CDs- let alone the backlash that would come from customers who found out that they couldn't use a game in more than one PS3). Likewise, I am not out right now waiting in line to try to get an XBOX 360 because historically the XBOX has not had a great deal of games that interested me (FPS, Racing, etc.)
One thing that annoys me about racing games- and Mario Kart seems to do this to a lesser extent than a lot of the other racing games, is that they advertise "30 tracks" or whatever, but it's really just the same 10 permutations of the same 3 tracks "oooh look, we'll make this a left turn instead of a right turn!".
*sigh* I wish games would be honest about that sort of thing- or at least that reviews would tell you strait out how many of the tracks are essentially clones of one another.
The thing about it is, I think that the same study would not have been funded by a company that supports F/OSS and Linux. The reason is mentioned in a comment a few posts up- the results were given for a very specific set of circumstances. I would venture to say that Microsoft probably knew a few cases where it could objectively beat Linux, and then chose to have a study conducted to prove that. If IBM or Novel or Redhat were to fund a study, I'm sure they would pick the circumstances in which they have the best lead over Windows and focus on those.
By doing this, the researcher and the study can retain credibility and the company can still get the results that they want. After this it's up to marketing to spin the very specific study into a gross generalization.
Obfuscated code is more often the mark of ineptitude rather than expertise, and I think that most people- managers as well as other coders, realize this. I'm not saying that people who win the IOCCC for example do not understand the language they program in, but more often than not really obfuscated code (especially of the type described in the article) is a result of a programmer who either doesn't understand what they were trying to write, or is trying to make up for a lack of confidence by making the code unreadable.
That said, I think deadlines come into play a lot on how maintainable the code is. I know that I've worked on projects where the deadline was extremely short and my priority was getting the code done as quickly as possible while making sure that it ran as fast as possible. I know that some of the other programmers at the shop would have had a hard time understanding the code that I wrote, but when you've been working for 18 hours a day for a week and the program is finished literally 15 minutes before the deadline there isn't always time to go through and document the code, make sure it's maintainable, etc.
I disagree. The thing of it is, if a MMORPG or a Gym either one has, say 1000 subscribers who use the service regularly, then in order to keep people happy and keep everyone paying, then they need to be able to serve 1000 users. If on the other hand there are 1000 subscribers, but only 500 play regularly, then they can get by with the lesser cost of being able to serve, say 750 people. This is the same thing ISPs do when the oversubscribe their lines. They bank on the fact that a lot of the people won't play constantly, and a lot of the people who play occasionally will play at different times so they can share resources.
To look specifically at MMORPGs, with a flat rate you take in $x per month- this goes to pay for things like bandwidth, server costs, developers to fix bugs, etc. If everyone who paid the monthly fee played for 80 or 90 hours a week, then they would have higher costs in bandwidth, need more servers, etc. Likewise, with a metered payment system, people are only paying for the time that they are actually playing- so that income will have to be spent on resources to keep the game running. Even more problematic is that when some new event happens- say some special DMed event, or maybe a new patch- they are likely to see alot of people playing more heavily than normal. Since many of these people may have played rarely and not provided much income in between events like this there might not have been the resources to beef up the servers, etc, before all these people start playing and hitting the servers harder. This means fewer people can sign in, the game will be laggier, possible crashes- all sorts of things that will leave both occasional players who see this activity whenever they sign on aggrevated, as well as hard-core players who will invariably spend the hours they would have been playing constantly bitching and moaning on the forums and causing endless problems.
I'm not saying that from a players point of view a metered approach would be bad- I personally have had the same experience as the poster, I played ATITD and eventually quit because I found that I only played a few hour a week, and couldn't justifty paying for so much time that I wasn't in-game. I think the best solution would perhaps be some sort of compromise. Perhaps two tiers of accounts. One costs less but is limited to, say, 2 hours a day of play time. The other would be standard fair for MMOGs. This would allow companies to bank on a steady income with some sort of idea of when the players will be playing, and help people feel that they are not paying too much for a service they rarely use.
My school has campus wide wifi as well as power and ethernet jacks in most of the rooms. About half the rooms are combination lab/classrooms where every seat has a computer in front of it. Most teachers seem to realize that computers will be used for games and generally do not seem to care as long as the people playing the games are not bothering other students. I can recall well a discussion in my Sociology class a couple of semesters ago. I was participating in the class discussion fully- answering questions, asking questions, making counter points, etc. I was also playing Sonic the Hedgehog on my laptop. At one point in the discussion the professor asked me what I was doing on the computer, and I honestly replied "Playing Sonic professor". She didn't seem to be all that upset replied simply "Well, if your going to during class move to the back, it's distracting the people behind you- they're watching you play instead of paying attention to class."
There are a lot of times during class I find that splitting my attention between a game of Sonic or Tetris or Frozen Bubble allows me to keep half a mind on the game, and half a mind on the lecture, whereas otherwise my mind may wonder completely.
Even with the distraction of games, email, web browsing, etc. that is present, I do find that I tend to learn more and be more productive having access to the internet during class. There are often times that a professor will refer to something and I can get more information by doing a google search or looking it up in wikipedia.
I don't think that help apathetic students to pass classes is a good thing. In fact I think the single largest failure of the american education system has been to make it too easy to fail. I was merely pointing out that, though it may be a terrible goal, that the goal is still to help kids who don't give a damn pass.
Slashdot Mirror
GAIM actually automatically translates some common netspeak into proper english. "k" is translated to "Okay", and "u" to "You" for example. Not really all that useful since it only applies to outgoing messages, but if we could get everyone to use Gaim it would probably cut down on some of that crap people try to pass off as english. Plus it has a spell checker.
Having a spell checker in my IM client is probably the single most useful feature I've ever had in any program I've ever used.
I've been saying this for a long time. To many people are worried about Linux getting popular. I have to say, as both a user and a developer, I prefer Linux to be relegated to the servers and the boxen of the unwashed masses.
As a developer, I like the ability to write an application for people and being able to target an intelligent, computer literate user. I like the freedom to make decisions that may make the application more powerful while sacrificing ease of use, and know that the people using the application are going to appreciate the power of the program, instead of complaining about the uglyness of the GUI. I like not being bombarded by users who cannot figgure out how to use a contextual menu. I like to know that the people who use my application have some appreciation of what I put into it.
As a user I like having a system that can provide a critial thinking challenge, and rewards me with greater power when I figure out how to do something. I like being treated like I know what I'm doing. I like being told exactly and in detail how the programs work, even if that means I might have to pour over man pages longer than an animated tutorial with a cartoon paperclip. I like to be able to compile my programs from source, it makes me feel more like I'm interacting with the system. I like that I can drop to a powerful command line to interact with the system, develop scripts to automate tasks, and edit configuration files to dictate exactly how my system will work- even if that means fewer wizards and automatic configuration tools are available. I like having choices in what runs on my system, from a scheduler to a desktop enviornment- even if it means I have to do research to figgure out whats best suits my needs. I like being part of a community of people who share my ideas of how a system should work, who share software and ideas, and who work together to build a system that works the way we want it to instead of the way that will generate the most sales, or appeal to the most users.
In short, I like Linux the way it is, and while I'm not opposed to more people using it, I don't think we should worry to much about changing the way things are done in Linux just to appeal to Joe User.
I've come across this argument a lot, and I still fair to see why it's that big of a deal.
Right now I'm running KDE, and of the applications I have open, half were written in GTK+ and the other half in Qt, plus a Java application written with SWT and a Windows application running under Crossover Office.
If I didn't know a thing or two about Linux and about these programs I wouldn't have any idea that some of them are "KDE" applications and others are "GNOME" applications. All of these applications pretty much have the same look and feel. I can copy and paste between them, access all of them from a single menu, put GNOME applications on my desktop or toolbar, etc.
So I don't really see why this is a big dea.
I wasn't sure if I should mod this up or comment, so I'll prepend a comment with "Mod Parent Up"
Marion Zimmer Bradley is a great choice for young women- or anyone. Along with The Firebrand, I would recommend The Mists of Avalon- which is based on the story of King Arthur and Avalon, though Mograine is the main character, instead of King Arthur (TNT did a very good movie adaption of this which is available on DVD too).
You might also look into the Harry Potter books, which are quite good and quite popular.
Incidents: Cigarette smoking by adults. Themes of kidnapping, terror, and peril. Supernatural themes involving cults, hideous monsters, mutations, and mind control. Urinating.
Yeah, because thank goodness in real like NO ONE under the age of 18 EVER Urinates...
This won't really work if your not in school, but a couple of my friends got ahold of a couple of "Intel Inside P4" and "Made for Windows XP" stickers and stuck them to some of the most ancient computers in the labs. They also took the "Pentium II" and "Made for Windows 98" stickers off the old machines and put them on some of the faster machines. Worked fairly well to keep a lot of the clueless off some of the better computers.
We had to do assignments like this in highschool. The idea was supposed to be that it forced people to write about things they might not normally have written about, and flex their creative muscle.
More often than not it devolved into something like this, and after a few fruitless attempts the teacher eventually abanoned the idea.
I think the move toward releasing beta( of course, I say beta software, what they are really releasing is Alpha software (how many "beta" programs have you used that have not had any features added?) ) software by companies is a move to "embrace and extend" the open development style that has served the F/OSS development communities. While some may argue that they are missing the most important ideological aspects of what makes F/OSS software great, I think that companies are finding that by allowing users to provide real feedback that will actually be used in the development of the application- and by allowing users to use software for free- they are able to make applications that appeal more to the target userbase (or modify the target userbase based on who they see using the application), and they can get people "hooked" before they start to charge for the software.
While I certainly do not have a problem with proprietary software using a modification of a traditionally F/OSS development method, I think that in the end this might have an unintended effect that companies may not forsee.
One of the big hurdles I see to people adopting Open Source software is that many people are uncomfortable using version 0.x of a program. With this big push to label software "Beta" people are going to become more used to the idea of using programs that aren't quite finished, or are labled as beta or development releases. As people get used to that idea, it takes away one more mental obstacle a lot of people have toward adopting F/OSS solutions.
Setting up an efficient workspace depends a lot on what exactly you do most of the time and how you prefer to work.
Keeping in mind that these tips might not be at all applicable to you, here are a few things I've found that help me to be more efficient.
When doing software development, I like to keep code open in one window and documentation open in another. This is much more useful if your working with an unfamiliar language or API.
When I'm doing web design or coding in PHP I like to keep code open in one window and a web browser open in the other for testing.
Avoid keeping email or IM clients open at all times one one monitor. Even if you are in regular communication with co-workers having these things open all the time is a great distraction.
Choose a good Desktop Environment. While I like KDE for regular non-work stuff, I find that I'm often a lot more productive using WindowMaker, not really sure why this is though to be honest.
I've long been considering moving out of the US for Canada or someplace in Europe. My thinking on the issue has generally been that a group of people has the right to generally run themselves the way they want. If I don't like it then, instead of trying to change things more to my liking (and to the chagrin of many others), I may be better served by moving to a location that is more inline with my own views.
In my case, I would like to move to an area that is much more socially liberal than the US, and has more social services. Personally, I don't mind paying more in taxes if the government is going to use those taxes to help the people of the country.
Basically, you say, "if you don't like X, why not try to change it, and invite other people to come and help", whereas I say "If most people in the area like X, but I don't, would I not be better served by going to a place where people share my ideas instead inviting fruther fragmentation into the area I am at, and trying to strong arm my own views onto others?"
An interesting question, I beleive Nietzsche would argue the latter- that the decision is a reflection of what the decision maker is- as I think it fits in with "Der Wilt Zur Macht". Anyway, I hate to take this discussion too far off topic, but a great point, you just made my friends list (for whatever little that is worth).
Wow, thank you for such an easy to understand and friendly answer. I honestly sort of expected to be flamed.
I think I understand then- basically the topology of the universe and the expansion of the universe are unrelated topics then, where I was trying to mix them together.
As for the looping universe thing- I've always found it to be a philosophically interesting premise (Nietzsche beleived this, and said to live each day as though it were your last, but to make each decision as though you'd make it a thousand times more). But I've long since come to the conclusion that nature doesn't always care what's philosophically appealing.
Anyway, thanks again for the good reply.
I realize that this is probably a stupid question. I haven't had the math or physics yet to really understand probably all the reasons it's a stupid question, so I'll put it out there and see what people have to say on this (slightly) off-topic issue.
Why is it not possible that the universe is simultaneously expanding and contracting?
One question I've had for a while is, why couldn't the universe be shaped in such a way that the force causing accelleration on the expansion of the universe is actually the gravitational force of the universe contracting.
To sort of illustrate my point, think of the game Asteroids. If you fly out of the top of the screen, you appear back on the bottom, and if you fly out the left side of the screen, you appear on the right side. Why couldn't there be some n-dimensional version of that concept in the universe such that as it expands it's actually approaching an earlier state?
Anyway, if this is just the stupidist thing ever, please be kind in saying so. IAONAP (I Am Obviously Not A Physisist).
I realize all of this from a logical point of view, but the point is that a lot of people still have an emotional reaction to these sorts of things. While more often than not I try to take these sorts of things into account, I cannot deny that I to have an emotional reaction to the sort of site I'm looking at. I bet you probably do too, even if you don't realize it.
The point isn't necessarily "omg they'll scam me" most of the time. Instead it's just that when a site looks extremely unprofessional (and I've seen a few that seem to harken back to the early days of AOL with animated GIF backgrounds, blinking lime-green text, etc) it makes you wonder how much of a professional the person on the other end is.
I can't speak for any other slashdotters, but I can immediately think of two reasons why this service could be useful.
The first is that I have a fair few family members who are completely computer illiterate. Once every couple of months they call me wanting to buy some obscure thing, and I have to google for it, find a couple of sites, read what is available and what the cost is to them over the phone. They write it down on a bit of paper and call me back in a few days to tell me what they want, I drive over there, get some cash or a check, deposit it into the bank, wait for the deposit to go through, get online, and order it for them. This is a pain that could be largely mitigated by me simply being able to google and then enter their phone number and allow them to talk to a representitive.
The second thing that I think this could be useful for is for helping smaller sites build trust with customers. I know there have been a few sites that I have decided not to buy from simply because the site looked unprofessional and I wasn't sure I could really trust the site to A: not steal my information, or B: actually deliver what I buy. In this case I think that smaller and lesser known sites might benefit from this service.
This is simply untrue. There are a great many actors who are not hollywood actors. Think about all the theatres in a large metro area, there are a lot of stage actors who can do this sort of thing. Sure, not everyone may be "hollywood beautiful", but I would much rather work with a classically trained stage actor who looks like a real person than an untalented anorexic primadona "star" anyway.
No website set up just yet, filming isn't set to begin until summer. Right now we're working on developing some of the CGI ahead of time- scouting locations, planning some of the special effects, working on costumes, stuff like that. I think a website should go up around the time filming starts. AFAIK the writer/director wants to have a photo-blog of the set during production.
Also, thanks for reminding me that I need to change my website URL in my profile, changed domain names a few weeks ago.
Amature films, as these guys have shown, are all the time becomming more realistc. With the computer power and high availability of digital camcorders any group of friends can write, film and star in a full length movie. With the open source Cinipaint and Blender special effects can even be done on a home computer that can rival a lot of the best special effects of movies from the mid to late 90's, and in some cases even very recent movies.
I've been working on just such a project, doing special effects for a fantasy film that's going to be shot in greece. The entire group consists of the writer/director, a camera/lighting guy, a makeup artist/costume designer, a set guy, 3 actors, an actress, 1 guy doing editing and postprocessing, and myself, doing CGI. That's 10 people, working on a budget of about 12,000. [shamless self-promotion] The script is quite a bit better than most of the dreck that comes out of hollywood- without having the pretentious or preachy feel that people (wrongly) associate with independent films. The makeup effects and costumes are top notch considering the budget (the makeup artist studied with Tom Savini of Night of the Living Dead fame), and the special effects are comming on quite nicely- there is a scene we affectionatley call "Helms Deep" with over 200 creatures that should be one of the main story arcs that I've been working on for about a month.
The movie is going to be released free on the net, with DVD sales hopefully making up for the financing that's come out of pocket from a lot of the people who've been working with the project.
I think this is the reason the MPAA is afraid of Peer to Peer networks, and the internet in general. People now have the ability to make and distribute movies all across the globe for less than the catering budget of most big hollywood movies. It's not that they are afraid that people are going to pirate their movies, it's that they are afraid people are going to make the obsolete.
I think that a lot of people will eventually have multiple systems, but as people have stated before, not all of us can affored $800 to buy two gaming systems. Not only that, I'm sure that I'm not alone in having limited space for consoles in my entertainment center (right now I can just barely fit my GC and PS2 in the entertainment cener with controllers and games, DVD player is in the entertainment center too, but DVDs are on a spare row in one of the bookshelves).
For myself, I plan on probably buying a PS3 and a Revolution. Chances are that I will buy the PS3 near launch, and pick up a revolution later, once the price has dropped and developers have had some time to develop games that make good use of the Revolutions controller. A lot of it comes down to the fact that I think that the PS3 will have more games that I want to play. I also doubt that Sony will use particularly onerous DRM in the PS3 (I belive that the PS3 represents too big of a revenue stream for Sony to risk a backlash like they've faced with the rootkit in their CDs- let alone the backlash that would come from customers who found out that they couldn't use a game in more than one PS3). Likewise, I am not out right now waiting in line to try to get an XBOX 360 because historically the XBOX has not had a great deal of games that interested me (FPS, Racing, etc.)
One thing that annoys me about racing games- and Mario Kart seems to do this to a lesser extent than a lot of the other racing games, is that they advertise "30 tracks" or whatever, but it's really just the same 10 permutations of the same 3 tracks "oooh look, we'll make this a left turn instead of a right turn!".
*sigh* I wish games would be honest about that sort of thing- or at least that reviews would tell you strait out how many of the tracks are essentially clones of one another.
The thing about it is, I think that the same study would not have been funded by a company that supports F/OSS and Linux. The reason is mentioned in a comment a few posts up- the results were given for a very specific set of circumstances. I would venture to say that Microsoft probably knew a few cases where it could objectively beat Linux, and then chose to have a study conducted to prove that. If IBM or Novel or Redhat were to fund a study, I'm sure they would pick the circumstances in which they have the best lead over Windows and focus on those.
By doing this, the researcher and the study can retain credibility and the company can still get the results that they want. After this it's up to marketing to spin the very specific study into a gross generalization.
Obfuscated code is more often the mark of ineptitude rather than expertise, and I think that most people- managers as well as other coders, realize this. I'm not saying that people who win the IOCCC for example do not understand the language they program in, but more often than not really obfuscated code (especially of the type described in the article) is a result of a programmer who either doesn't understand what they were trying to write, or is trying to make up for a lack of confidence by making the code unreadable.
That said, I think deadlines come into play a lot on how maintainable the code is. I know that I've worked on projects where the deadline was extremely short and my priority was getting the code done as quickly as possible while making sure that it ran as fast as possible. I know that some of the other programmers at the shop would have had a hard time understanding the code that I wrote, but when you've been working for 18 hours a day for a week and the program is finished literally 15 minutes before the deadline there isn't always time to go through and document the code, make sure it's maintainable, etc.
I disagree. The thing of it is, if a MMORPG or a Gym either one has, say 1000 subscribers who use the service regularly, then in order to keep people happy and keep everyone paying, then they need to be able to serve 1000 users. If on the other hand there are 1000 subscribers, but only 500 play regularly, then they can get by with the lesser cost of being able to serve, say 750 people. This is the same thing ISPs do when the oversubscribe their lines. They bank on the fact that a lot of the people won't play constantly, and a lot of the people who play occasionally will play at different times so they can share resources.
To look specifically at MMORPGs, with a flat rate you take in $x per month- this goes to pay for things like bandwidth, server costs, developers to fix bugs, etc. If everyone who paid the monthly fee played for 80 or 90 hours a week, then they would have higher costs in bandwidth, need more servers, etc. Likewise, with a metered payment system, people are only paying for the time that they are actually playing- so that income will have to be spent on resources to keep the game running. Even more problematic is that when some new event happens- say some special DMed event, or maybe a new patch- they are likely to see alot of people playing more heavily than normal. Since many of these people may have played rarely and not provided much income in between events like this there might not have been the resources to beef up the servers, etc, before all these people start playing and hitting the servers harder. This means fewer people can sign in, the game will be laggier, possible crashes- all sorts of things that will leave both occasional players who see this activity whenever they sign on aggrevated, as well as hard-core players who will invariably spend the hours they would have been playing constantly bitching and moaning on the forums and causing endless problems.
I'm not saying that from a players point of view a metered approach would be bad- I personally have had the same experience as the poster, I played ATITD and eventually quit because I found that I only played a few hour a week, and couldn't justifty paying for so much time that I wasn't in-game. I think the best solution would perhaps be some sort of compromise. Perhaps two tiers of accounts. One costs less but is limited to, say, 2 hours a day of play time. The other would be standard fair for MMOGs. This would allow companies to bank on a steady income with some sort of idea of when the players will be playing, and help people feel that they are not paying too much for a service they rarely use.
My school has campus wide wifi as well as power and ethernet jacks in most of the rooms. About half the rooms are combination lab/classrooms where every seat has a computer in front of it. Most teachers seem to realize that computers will be used for games and generally do not seem to care as long as the people playing the games are not bothering other students. I can recall well a discussion in my Sociology class a couple of semesters ago. I was participating in the class discussion fully- answering questions, asking questions, making counter points, etc. I was also playing Sonic the Hedgehog on my laptop. At one point in the discussion the professor asked me what I was doing on the computer, and I honestly replied "Playing Sonic professor". She didn't seem to be all that upset replied simply "Well, if your going to during class move to the back, it's distracting the people behind you- they're watching you play instead of paying attention to class."
There are a lot of times during class I find that splitting my attention between a game of Sonic or Tetris or Frozen Bubble allows me to keep half a mind on the game, and half a mind on the lecture, whereas otherwise my mind may wonder completely.
Even with the distraction of games, email, web browsing, etc. that is present, I do find that I tend to learn more and be more productive having access to the internet during class. There are often times that a professor will refer to something and I can get more information by doing a google search or looking it up in wikipedia.
I don't think that help apathetic students to pass classes is a good thing. In fact I think the single largest failure of the american education system has been to make it too easy to fail. I was merely pointing out that, though it may be a terrible goal, that the goal is still to help kids who don't give a damn pass.