I the case of "Diablo II", I'd be willing to send a check for $49.95 to Loki right this minute that they can cash the second they ship me the game. Perhaps that sort of thing would convince Blizzard that they'd get sales.
It's hard to say. I've paid $50 for many games, and felt royally screwed afterwards, getting only a few hours of gameplay. But if you total the number of hours I've gotten out of things like "Civilization" or "Diablo" or "Half-Life" or "Duke Nuk'em", they would have been dirt cheap for twice the price. The average movie costs $8 for two measely hours of entertainment. I figure I got something over 200 hours of entertainment out of "Civilization" for only $50. That's about $.25/hour!
But if you are broke, there are alternatives, like <A HREF=http://www.freeciv.org>freeciv</A> or discount bins.
A few months ago even I'd have laughed at the thought. Sure, it would be nice if I could play a couple games under Linux, but it's going to be a long time before most games will appear (or so I thought). But I'm amazed about how fast Loki seems to be pumping them out (and also at how they seem to be good at getting some of the better games).
Now I'm seriously wondering if I can shuffle off the windows box to the side. Give that to my wife and never touch it myself.
I hope they're profitable. It'd be even better to see a couple other companies operate on the Loki model. (Or for publishers to port their own games.)
You know, I put together my Linux box because I kept telling myself "Self, you should really stop wasting all that time playing games, and do some real programming and stuff". So I get the linux box. I download egcs. I start throwing some stuff together.
And what happens?
I download a bunch of demos from Loki. Have I done anything worthwhile since? No...
Now they are porting the sequel to one of the most addictive games I've ever played ("Diablo") and the successor to one of the other most addictive games I've ever played ("Alpha Centauri", the true successor to "Civilization II").
Bastards. Now I'm never going to get anything real done.
All I can say is that it is a damn good thing I can't play these things in a telnet session, or I wouldn't get anything done at work, either. (It's hard enough avoiding "nethack".)
I suspect the increased traffic (and the trolls, etc. it brings) are due more to the increasing prominence of Linux than they are to the purchase of/..
Actually, it was more a continuation of the "going to the obfuscated code site to get code for my current project comment". But yeah, you can do some pretty sophisticated OO stuff in C. The encapsulation is difficult to do, though I've had luck with statics and different source files to achieve much the same.
You can't really get anything like a constructor or destructor, though, which goes a long way towards making C++ maintainable.
There are also a lot of little non-OO C++ constructs that are underrated. If I were contemplating a straight C project, I'd still use C++ to get a couple of these.
According to the latest Scott Meyers book I got, it is preferable to use empty braces for functions that take no parameters. I can't remember the argument right now, though.
According to MicroDesign Resources, the processor can handle 6.2 gigaflops at 300MHz. A single gigaflop equals one billion floating-point operations per second. MDR says that makes the chip two times faster than a 733-MHz Pentium III...
Ok, everyone here whose machine is currently at 100% CPU usage, raise your hand.
Now lower your hand if it is seti - 98%.
Now lower your hand if it is distributed.net - 98%.
Anyone with a hand still up?
The realy question is not what its CPU speed is, but how fast its access to peripherals is. Anyone got any info?
Well obviously your post was denigrating the intelligence of Martians...
(Anyway, I've noticed a lot of lame moderation these days. There seem to be a couple of moderators who think it is a means to dock people they don't agree with.)
Stephenson's pretty good, and I like his politics, but both Snow Crash and Diamond Age suffer from silly plot-enabling technical limitations (like requiring human actor/ractors in DA, as though AI wouldn't be able to do it by then), as well as general authorial exhaustion in the endings -- just enough energy to fall across the finish line.
As someone with a degree in Cognitive Science, I agree with Stephanson. AI won't be there to that level. People always seem convinced that true AI is about twenty years away. They thought that in the fifties. They certainly were when I got that degree in 1987. Many still seem to thinks so. I'm convinced they're wrong. By 2050 is wildly optimistic, IMHO. The error comes from a couple of fallacies, the prime one being that creating an AI is merely a matter of collecting enough computing power. That's like say that getting a rocket to the moon merely requires the ability to make a big enough explosion.
You're right about his endings, though.
But anyway, yeah, I agree about Sterling. (Can't believe I forgot him!) (Haven't read MacLoed. Will check him out.)
Some "real" IQ tests use manipulation of blocks and such as well. The only difference being that they are wooden blocks, not legos. If these tests are being done correctly, practice building with legos wouln't help much.
Yes, both of them are good, though Le Guin's best work is definitely her early seventies stuff like "The Dispossed" (one of my top ten books ever) and "The Left Hand of Darkness".
Le Guin has been branching out lately. She's been writing children's books (The "Catwings" series. Great of you are a ten year old.) and other stuff (A "Tao Te Ching" translation. Great if you're a Taoist.)
I wasn't trying to be complete. I don't have the time! As I said, there's a lot of good stuff out there. If you start feeling like there's not much, read the current year's hugo and nebula award winners. That'll give you a start.
I would say that it's a little more realistic in terms of what humanity will actually do.
Well, I have to take issue with this. There was a lot of crap back then, but there was a lot of good stuff that is applicable right now. For example, there is the wonderfully satirical "Midas Plague" (Pohl and Kornbluth) in which people are forced to consume in order to keep the economy going. (Or their "Space Merchants", which similarly talks about consumerism. Bester's "Demolished Man" stands up as well right now as it ever did. Much of Heinlein's stuff (especially the early stuff) is as relevent now as it ever was. (His early stuff wasn't "death rays". It was "What would happen if right-wing wackos turned the US into a theocracy" ("If this goes on..."). There was Simak, talking about the social effects of the flight from the city, to the suburbs. Hell, just read "Slan", for god's sakes!
"Reflective spandex" is an artifact of the film industry, not written SF. Try reading some of the old masters. I suspect you'll be surprised.
Unfortunately a lot of his stuff is out of print. I see from the evil patent-scumbags* that while "Slan" can be had, most of his stuff, including "World of Null-A", is out of print.
*I search their site to use their resources. Don't buy from them.
Declining? There's lots of good SF out there still, though Sturgeon's law (sigh...lost him too) still applies.
There's Stephanson, of course (though his last wasn't SF) as well as the SF B's, Bear, Brin and Benford. (Just read Benford's "Cosm", BTW. recommended if you are looking for hard SF.)
Of the old masters, Jack Vance, Frederick Pohl and Poul Anderson are still active and writing. (And up to full caliber.) (Though I suppose Vance is more fantasy usually.)
Then there's Haldeman, and Varley, and Kim Stanley Robinson. About half of Cherryh's stuff is SF. (She's currently doing fantasy, but she recently completed the "Foreigner" series, which was SF.)
There's also Vernor Vinge.
There's plenty of stuff. You just have to learn to sort through the chaff.
Slashdot Mirror
Will people please just use a little bit of thought before they moderate?
(Is it just me, or does (html tags to text) no longer work)?
Something that COBOL can't do at all, legibly or otherwise.
I haven't used it, so I make no warranties, etc, etc,etc.
It was even discussed on slashdot
I the case of "Diablo II", I'd be willing to send a check for $49.95 to Loki right this minute that they can cash the second they ship me the game. Perhaps that sort of thing would convince Blizzard that they'd get sales.
It's hard to say. I've paid $50 for many games, and felt royally screwed afterwards, getting only a few hours of gameplay. But if you total the number of hours I've gotten out of things like "Civilization" or "Diablo" or "Half-Life" or "Duke Nuk'em", they would have been dirt cheap for twice the price. The average movie costs $8 for two measely hours of entertainment. I figure I got something over 200 hours of entertainment out of "Civilization" for only $50. That's about $.25/hour!
But if you are broke, there are alternatives, like <A HREF=http://www.freeciv.org>freeciv</A> or discount bins.
A few months ago even I'd have laughed at the thought. Sure, it would be nice if I could play a couple games under Linux, but it's going to be a long time before most games will appear (or so I thought). But I'm amazed about how fast Loki seems to be pumping them out (and also at how they seem to be good at getting some of the better games).
Now I'm seriously wondering if I can shuffle off the windows box to the side. Give that to my wife and never touch it myself.
I hope they're profitable. It'd be even better to see a couple other companies operate on the Loki model. (Or for publishers to port their own games.)
You know, I put together my Linux box because I kept telling myself "Self, you should really stop wasting all that time playing games, and do some real programming and stuff". So I get the linux box. I download egcs. I start throwing some stuff together.
And what happens?
I download a bunch of demos from Loki. Have I done anything worthwhile since? No...
Now they are porting the sequel to one of the most addictive games I've ever played ("Diablo") and the successor to one of the other most addictive games I've ever played ("Alpha Centauri", the true successor to "Civilization II").
Bastards. Now I'm never going to get anything real done.
All I can say is that it is a damn good thing I can't play these things in a telnet session, or I wouldn't get anything done at work, either. (It's hard enough avoiding "nethack".)
I suspect the increased traffic (and the trolls, etc. it brings) are due more to the increasing prominence of Linux than they are to the purchase of /..
In terms of results, yes. In terms of code maintainability, no.
A trivial example. You can't do this in C:
for(int i=0;i10;i++)
Yes, you can translate that to
int i;
for(i=0;i10;i++)
and have something that is semantically the same, but there are code maintainability reasons why you might want the former.
Actually, it was more a continuation of the "going to the obfuscated code site to get code for my current project comment". But yeah, you can do some pretty sophisticated OO stuff in C. The encapsulation is difficult to do, though I've had luck with statics and different source files to achieve much the same.
You can't really get anything like a constructor or destructor, though, which goes a long way towards making C++ maintainable.
There are also a lot of little non-OO C++ constructs that are underrated. If I were contemplating a straight C project, I'd still use C++ to get a couple of these.
Oops. Wrong language!
Oh well. I hardly ever do C these days...
Hey, if I wrote maintainable code, they'd be able to hire someone to replace me.
According to the latest Scott Meyers book I got, it is preferable to use empty braces for functions that take no parameters. I can't remember the argument right now, though.
Bzzt. That's perfectly legal C. This compiles with gcc just fine and dandy:
typedef int IntFunc();
int TheFunc()
{
return 1;
}
struct st_Post
{
IntFunc *First;
} Post;
int main()
{
Post.First = TheFunc;
if( Post.First() ) printf("FIRST POST!\n");
}
(Function pointers as members of structures are perfectly legal C.)
Now will you guys stop slashdoting the site? I need to download some code for my latest project.
According to MicroDesign Resources, the processor can handle 6.2 gigaflops at 300MHz. A single gigaflop equals one billion floating-point operations per second. MDR says that makes the chip two times faster than a 733-MHz Pentium III...
Ok, everyone here whose machine is currently at 100% CPU usage, raise your hand.
Now lower your hand if it is seti - 98%.
Now lower your hand if it is distributed.net - 98%.
Anyone with a hand still up?
The realy question is not what its CPU speed is, but how fast its access to peripherals is. Anyone got any info?
Well obviously your post was denigrating the intelligence of Martians...
(Anyway, I've noticed a lot of lame moderation these days. There seem to be a couple of moderators who think it is a means to dock people they don't agree with.)
The e-mail I'm going to write to my state senater:
"By reading this e-mail, you agree to vote against any and all bills endowing "click-wrap" license agreements enforcable"
Stephenson's pretty good, and I like his politics, but both Snow Crash and Diamond Age suffer from silly plot-enabling technical limitations (like requiring human actor/ractors in DA, as though AI wouldn't be able to do it by then), as well as general authorial exhaustion in the endings -- just enough energy to fall across the finish line.
As someone with a degree in Cognitive Science, I agree with Stephanson. AI won't be there to that level. People always seem convinced that true AI is about twenty years away. They thought that in the fifties. They certainly were when I got that degree in 1987. Many still seem to thinks so. I'm convinced they're wrong. By 2050 is wildly optimistic, IMHO. The error comes from a couple of fallacies, the prime one being that creating an AI is merely a matter of collecting enough computing power. That's like say that getting a rocket to the moon merely requires the ability to make a big enough explosion.
You're right about his endings, though.
But anyway, yeah, I agree about Sterling. (Can't believe I forgot him!) (Haven't read MacLoed. Will check him out.)
"Stranger in a Strange Land" character -> Micheal Valentine Smith.
Some "real" IQ tests use manipulation of blocks and such as well. The only difference being that they are wooden blocks, not legos. If these tests are being done correctly, practice building with legos wouln't help much.
Yes, both of them are good, though Le Guin's best work is definitely her early seventies stuff like "The Dispossed" (one of my top ten books ever) and "The Left Hand of Darkness".
Le Guin has been branching out lately. She's been writing children's books (The "Catwings" series. Great of you are a ten year old.) and other stuff (A "Tao Te Ching" translation. Great if you're a Taoist.)
I wasn't trying to be complete. I don't have the time! As I said, there's a lot of good stuff out there. If you start feeling like there's not much, read the current year's hugo and nebula award winners. That'll give you a start.
I would say that it's a little more realistic in terms of what humanity will actually do.
Well, I have to take issue with this. There was a lot of crap back then, but there was a lot of good stuff that is applicable right now. For example, there is the wonderfully satirical "Midas Plague" (Pohl and Kornbluth) in which people are forced to consume in order to keep the economy going. (Or their "Space Merchants", which similarly talks about consumerism. Bester's "Demolished Man" stands up as well right now as it ever did. Much of Heinlein's stuff (especially the early stuff) is as relevent now as it ever was. (His early stuff wasn't "death rays". It was "What would happen if right-wing wackos turned the US into a theocracy" ("If this goes on..."). There was Simak, talking about the social effects of the flight from the city, to the suburbs. Hell, just read "Slan", for god's sakes!
"Reflective spandex" is an artifact of the film industry, not written SF. Try reading some of the old masters. I suspect you'll be surprised.
Unfortunately a lot of his stuff is out of print. I see from the evil patent-scumbags* that while "Slan" can be had, most of his stuff, including "World of Null-A", is out of print.
*I search their site to use their resources. Don't buy from them.
Declining? There's lots of good SF out there still, though Sturgeon's law (sigh...lost him too) still applies.
There's Stephanson, of course (though his last wasn't SF) as well as the SF B's, Bear, Brin and Benford. (Just read Benford's "Cosm", BTW. recommended if you are looking for hard SF.)
Of the old masters, Jack Vance, Frederick Pohl and Poul Anderson are still active and writing. (And up to full caliber.) (Though I suppose Vance is more fantasy usually.)
Then there's Haldeman, and Varley, and Kim Stanley Robinson. About half of Cherryh's stuff is SF. (She's currently doing fantasy, but she recently completed the "Foreigner" series, which was SF.)
There's also Vernor Vinge.
There's plenty of stuff. You just have to learn to sort through the chaff.