At least, so long as the system uses shared libraries.
MS-DOS was the only OS(that needed an install, Atari DOS wouldn't count there) where I really had a "clean" install the whole way through. Programs went in x, drivers in y. Everything using DOS4GW had a copy of it included with the binary, no harm done. Needless to say, configs also went alongside the binary.
Of course, this falls apart as soon as you have a more complex OS that needs things like scripting languages and windowing systems. There's just no way around shared libraries. And with shared libraries comes other kinds of shared access - to data and devices. So you have to reorganize, create new structures to hold certain kinds of files. Version conflicts, missing depends - all result from this necessity.
Of course, these structures just won't make any sense to the end user, except as a programmer. It won't matter how much you try to polish it up. A project like this might help, but putting an end to it all would probably need something along the lines of an FS and binary format revision, to include more data like the version number and purpose for each file. Good luck doing that....:P
The grind and vibrations of your harddrive is also a significant factor in computer noise(though with a good drive it becomes secondary to fans). I've set my own computer at a slight angle(the back on a pillow) to reduce this noise, even though it increases my chances of HD failure.
I find it sort of amusing how everyone says, "oh no, we can't use small vehicles cause the big ones will kill you!"
Following that logic and extrapolating current trends in vehicles, by 2050 we will all drive 18-wheelers to work, and by 2100 we will have "upgraded" to Death Stars.
There ARE advantages to having a small vehicle, or even being on foot. Having a greater range of motion and acceleration seem to be somewhat underrated, but I suspect that's because not enough people parallel park or drive on two-lanes today.
I still don't have a license but I'd be interested in getting a sport bike....but only for touring. City driving is without a doubt far more dangerous , even if you know the roads. Too many blind spots, light-runners, zombie peds, etc. Better to have at least a little bit of armor there.
Exactly. They are called "energy companies" because they deal in energy. The kind of energy they offer is up to them to decide, and it just so happens that the most commonly used energy is oil. But because those companies are so large they are also often the biggest producers of alternative power too.
While getting a new source of oil is a Good Thing, we can't depend entirely on this one, since it's really about increasing the efficency of the existing process(it takes gas to run a farm too!).
Our needs are going to keep increasing, and oil can't possibly cover them all, especially not if the predictions of Peak Oil come true. With several alternatives for production and mobile use almost or currently market-ready(wind, solar, biofuels, fission, fuel cells..), we should - hopefully - be able to get off of oil entirely within a few decades.
I like Python very much. I may not like.Net, but I'll take my favored languages where I can find 'em:)
I'd suspect, though, that a Parrot implementation, as Parrot continues to develop, will prove to be faster, since it was designed with more dynamic languages in mind.
I've felt for a long time that Crawford suffers from the exact problem he stated in the article: He's too stuck in his ways. Oh, he does try to break out and "see the light," and he's ready to rant and make others do so, but it's just not in him. He made games, and many of them were pretty good, but he just can't seem to fathom approaches other than the ones he took 15+ years ago. He himself is to some extent a permanent engineer, a "technical designer," focusing not on plot and atmosphere but on gameplay mechanics and conflict. He wants to DO plot and atmosphere, but he will only do it from a technical perspective, trying to engineer perfect storytelling mechanics.
None of which makes his point less valid, but it helps explain why he says the odd things he does.
First, I think it was, they had the "Bulk mail" box.
Then they added an option to report messages that got through the filter, by opening the message, then a listbox, where one of the options was "this is spam."
Recently they changed it so that now you press a button labeled "spam" rather than open a listbox.
I'm fairly certain their next step will be to make the button bigger and in capital letters.
Re:Great, like traffic isn't bad enough as it is..
on
Nano Body Building
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· Score: 1
OTOH, we've managed to get along pretty well when life expectancy went up by a huge factor during the 20th century.
Why? Because productivity's increased. That's how we were able to get social security in the first place, really. And we have a whole new set of technologies set to come out during the 21st century that will further improve production: biotech, nanotech, robotics...we might also finally get a moon colony or something.
Also, industrialized societies have generally tended to move below the level of population replacement(from 2.something children per family to under 2) as their economic fortunes improved. If the trend continues it may turn out that many people won't have children in future societies.
I believe that this - to some extent - shows that these problems are more imagined than real. Nothing is ever certain of course, but I think we have a good shot at coming out of this century with excellent prospects.
One of the major problems I've had in learning Linux is in configuration. While it isn't too bad to add a line to load a module when my kernel contains almost everything I need(except nvidia of course), I get squeamish about really dealing with it, because I don't know exactly what I have in the system, not down to the last part at least. Autodetection helps but there are different solutions and each one only goes so far.
I think a unified driver/configuration solution would be optimal for desktop users like me. I would love the "idealized scenario" that's presented on the main page.
The weak link, though, is that DoD can't help in the case where the hardware can't even get connected. But that's an issue for other projects to resolve...
They have the fantastic strategy of including friend settings and friendlists, which gives them a huge leg up over other services; basically locks all those us who want to communicate with friends using blogs into the same system. Which I admit isn't exactly ideal from a privacy/security standpoint, but it works pretty well.
I think 1/2 the posts were about multi-head setups, even though the article DIRECTLY STATES that the two cards in this setup are each rendering one half of the screen:P
I think the various top designers that attended here are now really engaged in the process of developing ideas of what games are capable of(rather than being fixated on the past) and it shows through in this. The general feeling seems to be that "yes, we can make a game educational" but the approaches vary; nobody has a definitive answer on how to get There.
What's most fascinating is that I don't think there was hardly as much thought devoted to the topic even five years ago. It shows a sort of maturing within the industry.
I just wanted to add that I find it amusing how few/.ers have posted in the hour or so since this article went up. It must have all gone over their heads:P
It discusses a lot of things that I have on some level been interested in and really clarified them...
"Sub-creation" is probably the biggest of them. Since earliest childhood, I would spend time making little worlds, using whatever media I had available - mapmaking was one common form of this, and still pictures another. But I wanted to make video games always, because they were the best at it, at making a world full and realized, and I knew it.
Also, I had accepted the McCloud definition of art as communication for a long time, but seeing the alternate view makes me wonder if I had perhaps been wrong to follow it. Communication and world-building don't go together well, after all.
Will Linus become a patch robot one day...?
on
Bitkeeper News Redux
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· Score: 1
The article's estimate is 50 patches a day. If kernel development continued at an accelerating rate, it might someday happen that he gets 100, 200, even 300 patches per day.
I can't imagine him having anything resembling a sane life if that happens:P He'd probably have to start delegating the work somehow...
One test that wasn't in the article was a reliability test - i.e. if something bad happens, how much is lost? Or just as importantly, can you guarantee the FS will work as long as the storage device does?
I've noticed that many people seem to have a bias against ReiserFS for being a less stable FS. There is some truth to that, I suppose, since it's newer, but I've poked around google for hard facts, and couldn't really find any evidence from the past 1 to 1-1/2 years of particular problems with *any* of the major filesystems. All I came up with were anecdotes, and not only that: There were just about as many with horror stories about ext2 and ext3 as with Reiser!!!
So I wouldn't worry about corruption unless it's already happened to you; experience is the best teacher:P
But CT never really had much in the way of game mechanics over previous RPGs. There were some tweaks and perks to the combat from Square's usual fare, but the essence of the game is entirely based upon the story.
It's not surprising, then, that a project seeking to recreate it would put such an emphasis on looks and polish. How else to better retell the story?
Entirely true. In about two years of IRC I've met people from pretty much every spot of the world, Tasmania, New Zealand, South Africa, Korea etc., most European countries, and prolly all 50 US states too now, though I haven't kept track.
A lot does depend on the channels you visit. Many are effectively dead; everyone just PMs each other. Others are full of angst and power disputes. You can rest assured, though, that the channel you want is out there somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
At least, so long as the system uses shared libraries.
:P
MS-DOS was the only OS(that needed an install, Atari DOS wouldn't count there) where I really had a "clean" install the whole way through. Programs went in x, drivers in y. Everything using DOS4GW had a copy of it included with the binary, no harm done. Needless to say, configs also went alongside the binary.
Of course, this falls apart as soon as you have a more complex OS that needs things like scripting languages and windowing systems. There's just no way around shared libraries. And with shared libraries comes other kinds of shared access - to data and devices. So you have to reorganize, create new structures to hold certain kinds of files. Version conflicts, missing depends - all result from this necessity.
Of course, these structures just won't make any sense to the end user, except as a programmer. It won't matter how much you try to polish it up. A project like this might help, but putting an end to it all would probably need something along the lines of an FS and binary format revision, to include more data like the version number and purpose for each file. Good luck doing that....
The grind and vibrations of your harddrive is also a significant factor in computer noise(though with a good drive it becomes secondary to fans). I've set my own computer at a slight angle(the back on a pillow) to reduce this noise, even though it increases my chances of HD failure.
What I remember is this crazy early 90s comic where they show how the TG16 will cost you less than certain "other" systems(Genesis).
I find it sort of amusing how everyone says, "oh no, we can't use small vehicles cause the big ones will kill you!"
Following that logic and extrapolating current trends in vehicles, by 2050 we will all drive 18-wheelers to work, and by 2100 we will have "upgraded" to Death Stars.
There ARE advantages to having a small vehicle, or even being on foot. Having a greater range of motion and acceleration seem to be somewhat underrated, but I suspect that's because not enough people parallel park or drive on two-lanes today.
I still don't have a license but I'd be interested in getting a sport bike....but only for touring. City driving is without a doubt far more dangerous , even if you know the roads. Too many blind spots, light-runners, zombie peds, etc. Better to have at least a little bit of armor there.
Exactly. They are called "energy companies" because they deal in energy. The kind of energy they offer is up to them to decide, and it just so happens that the most commonly used energy is oil. But because those companies are so large they are also often the biggest producers of alternative power too.
This is what I concluded by looking at the BP reports myself.
However, I did note that most parts of the world(not the Mid-East) do produce at full capacity.
So there is a threat of energy shortage, but it's probably not here "right now" as the alarmist Peak Oil sites that sell you books would say.
While getting a new source of oil is a Good Thing, we can't depend entirely on this one, since it's really about increasing the efficency of the existing process(it takes gas to run a farm too!).
Our needs are going to keep increasing, and oil can't possibly cover them all, especially not if the predictions of Peak Oil come true. With several alternatives for production and mobile use almost or currently market-ready(wind, solar, biofuels, fission, fuel cells..), we should - hopefully - be able to get off of oil entirely within a few decades.
I like Python very much. I may not like .Net, but I'll take my favored languages where I can find 'em :)
I'd suspect, though, that a Parrot implementation, as Parrot continues to develop, will prove to be faster, since it was designed with more dynamic languages in mind.
I've felt for a long time that Crawford suffers from the exact problem he stated in the article: He's too stuck in his ways. Oh, he does try to break out and "see the light," and he's ready to rant and make others do so, but it's just not in him. He made games, and many of them were pretty good, but he just can't seem to fathom approaches other than the ones he took 15+ years ago. He himself is to some extent a permanent engineer, a "technical designer," focusing not on plot and atmosphere but on gameplay mechanics and conflict. He wants to DO plot and atmosphere, but he will only do it from a technical perspective, trying to engineer perfect storytelling mechanics.
None of which makes his point less valid, but it helps explain why he says the odd things he does.
Wait.....so are you a plant too?
First, I think it was, they had the "Bulk mail" box.
Then they added an option to report messages that got through the filter, by opening the message, then a listbox, where one of the options was "this is spam."
Recently they changed it so that now you press a button labeled "spam" rather than open a listbox.
I'm fairly certain their next step will be to make the button bigger and in capital letters.
OTOH, we've managed to get along pretty well when life expectancy went up by a huge factor during the 20th century.
Why? Because productivity's increased. That's how we were able to get social security in the first place, really. And we have a whole new set of technologies set to come out during the 21st century that will further improve production: biotech, nanotech, robotics...we might also finally get a moon colony or something.
Also, industrialized societies have generally tended to move below the level of population replacement(from 2.something children per family to under 2) as their economic fortunes improved. If the trend continues it may turn out that many people won't have children in future societies.
I believe that this - to some extent - shows that these problems are more imagined than real. Nothing is ever certain of course, but I think we have a good shot at coming out of this century with excellent prospects.
It's an elaborate joke. SA does like doing that sort of thing. They also like controversy(they have a gallery of legal threats).
/. in the first place.
Yet I don't find it funny.
Really, it smacks of a sort of rampant egotism that someone would try to get this on
One of the major problems I've had in learning Linux is in configuration. While it isn't too bad to add a line to load a module when my kernel contains almost everything I need(except nvidia of course), I get squeamish about really dealing with it, because I don't know exactly what I have in the system, not down to the last part at least. Autodetection helps but there are different solutions and each one only goes so far.
I think a unified driver/configuration solution would be optimal for desktop users like me. I would love the "idealized scenario" that's presented on the main page.
The weak link, though, is that DoD can't help in the case where the hardware can't even get connected. But that's an issue for other projects to resolve...
They have the fantastic strategy of including friend settings and friendlists, which gives them a huge leg up over other services; basically locks all those us who want to communicate with friends using blogs into the same system. Which I admit isn't exactly ideal from a privacy/security standpoint, but it works pretty well.
Makes /. look even more illiterate than usual.
:P
I think 1/2 the posts were about multi-head setups, even though the article DIRECTLY STATES that the two cards in this setup are each rendering one half of the screen
I think the various top designers that attended here are now really engaged in the process of developing ideas of what games are capable of(rather than being fixated on the past) and it shows through in this. The general feeling seems to be that "yes, we can make a game educational" but the approaches vary; nobody has a definitive answer on how to get There.
What's most fascinating is that I don't think there was hardly as much thought devoted to the topic even five years ago. It shows a sort of maturing within the industry.
Not so. Larry's retired from the series. This is his NEPHEW we're talking about(hence why the game can take on a college campus setting).
I just wanted to add that I find it amusing how few /.ers have posted in the hour or so since this article went up. It must have all gone over their heads :P
It discusses a lot of things that I have on some level been interested in and really clarified them...
"Sub-creation" is probably the biggest of them. Since earliest childhood, I would spend time making little worlds, using whatever media I had available - mapmaking was one common form of this, and still pictures another. But I wanted to make video games always, because they were the best at it, at making a world full and realized, and I knew it.
Also, I had accepted the McCloud definition of art as communication for a long time, but seeing the alternate view makes me wonder if I had perhaps been wrong to follow it. Communication and world-building don't go together well, after all.
The article's estimate is 50 patches a day. If kernel development continued at an accelerating rate, it might someday happen that he gets 100, 200, even 300 patches per day.
:P He'd probably have to start delegating the work somehow...
I can't imagine him having anything resembling a sane life if that happens
One test that wasn't in the article was a reliability test - i.e. if something bad happens, how much is lost? Or just as importantly, can you guarantee the FS will work as long as the storage device does?
:P
I've noticed that many people seem to have a bias against ReiserFS for being a less stable FS. There is some truth to that, I suppose, since it's newer, but I've poked around google for hard facts, and couldn't really find any evidence from the past 1 to 1-1/2 years of particular problems with *any* of the major filesystems. All I came up with were anecdotes, and not only that: There were just about as many with horror stories about ext2 and ext3 as with Reiser!!!
So I wouldn't worry about corruption unless it's already happened to you; experience is the best teacher
But CT never really had much in the way of game mechanics over previous RPGs. There were some tweaks and perks to the combat from Square's usual fare, but the essence of the game is entirely based upon the story.
It's not surprising, then, that a project seeking to recreate it would put such an emphasis on looks and polish. How else to better retell the story?
He would count his money by running this routine:
count_money(bills) {
if bills.empty()==true {
return 0;
}
else {
amount = count_money(bills);
thisbill = bills.pop_bill();
amount +=thisbill.read_bill();
return amount;
}
}
Unfortunately, he isn't very good at other tasks such as sorting. But that's why he has a housekeeper.
Entirely true. In about two years of IRC I've met people from pretty much every spot of the world, Tasmania, New Zealand, South Africa, Korea etc., most European countries, and prolly all 50 US states too now, though I haven't kept track.
A lot does depend on the channels you visit. Many are effectively dead; everyone just PMs each other. Others are full of angst and power disputes. You can rest assured, though, that the channel you want is out there somewhere.