And there's really no way to rake in the dough like making people pay for something twice. Here's what the backbone providers want: the source of the packets pays for access (a portion of which makes its way up the chain to them), the destination of the packets pays for access (also trickles up to them), and the source and the destination both pay directly for increased QoS if they don't want said packets to spend a few seconds in the purgatorial "low-rent buffer" on their way across the network.
I would go one step further. To understand what they REALLY want, I think you have to get a bit psychological:
Your average corporate executive types, with their business degrees and business experience, have gotten to where they are by using their understanding of capitalistic concepts like control of supply, scarcity, and material goods. This is especially true of those in the content business (the "traditional" cable and media industries).
The internet, at its most fundamental level, simply doesn't work that way. Sure, you can use the internet to sell advertising, or you can sell access to the infrastructure itself, but the internet is ultimately a free medium: anyone can put anything onto it, and anyone can retrieve anything from it. As someone here once wrote, "trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." It is the great equalizer; no one "controls" it...and the corporations who utilize it to do business are ultimately just users like the rest of us. And I think because of this (and despite the fact that these corporations themselves benefit from the internet) they subconsciously DESPISE the way it works, because they can't control it.
What do they really want the internet to be? Cable television. They control what is broadcast and distributed and they also control what you can access: "I'm sorry, but 'www.google.com' is not available as part of your current access package. You must upgrade to our Premium Package to access that site."
I think that the main problem is a rating system can never convey what a reviewer can in terms of exactly WHY a movie is rated "R" or why a game is rated "M". That's why I usually check out a site like Screen It before I see a movie...because even as an adult, there are some things in movies that I frankly just don't care to see. I've seen stuff in PG-13 movies that I could have done without and I've seen R movies that I had no problem with, so the rating system is definitely not "one size fits all".
So is there an gaming equivalent to Screen It for your "wigging parents"?
A legal ban on mandatory microchip implantation is pointless in a way, as the real threat is that they will become so pervasive that it will be impossible to lead a normal life (e.g. buy groceries, vote, hold a drivers license) without one.
Don't go with VB, use VB.NET. There are a lot of reasons for this:
* unlike classic VB (version 6 or prior), the current version of VB.NET is fully object-oriented, supporting generics (templates for you C++ folks), interfaces, full inheritance, abstract classes and members, overloading (including operators), etc.
* the english-like syntax of old-school VB is still present and is now applied to the object-oriented aspects of the language (e.g. which keyword makes more sense for someone learning OOP? VB.NET's "NotInheritable" or C#'s "sealed"? VB.NET's "MustImplement" or C#'s "abstract"?).
* the relevant express editions of Visual Studio are currently free and very powerful.
My warning is related to the last item: resist the urge to use all of the IDE's bells and whistles at first. In my experience, those developers who rely on Visual Studio to do everything for them never really understand what is going on behind the scenes and have trouble later on. Use the IDE just for syntax highlighting and IntelliSense at first (i.e. start with simple console applications and develop from the "Empty Project" template, even building Windows Forms applications from this starting point...THEN use the snazzy designers and wizards).
It is offtopic, but it is the first comment I've read wondering what is going on. I've noticed this as well. Have fewer users been given moderator status lately or something?
Ah, yes... I'll second that one. TIE Fighter was awesome, but I prefered the original X-Wing:
I remember the frustration of trying to complete one mission where you had to protect a transport that was carrying some priceless cargo or something until it could jump into hyperspace. This poor thing was floating defenseless in space as wave after wave of TIE fighters came after it. You furiously dogfight, trying to draw them away, but one would always get through. It made you want to rip your hair out.
But I kept coming back; I remember the sense of accomplishment when the transport finally did make it and the mission was complete. I also remember the sense of satisfaction that you got when you fired that one last laser shot that finally took out a Star Destroyer after you and your wingmen had pounded on it for the last 20 minutes, or when you completed the Death Star trench run mission for the first time.
I loved the individual mission design and the way the missions were grouped into campaigns that made you really feel like you were a part of an larger unfolding strategy.
I've said this many times before, but with today's GPU technology, I would love to see a really good game shop take a stab at a joystick-required, shoot 'em up space combat simulator with a mission structure as thoughtfully designed as X-Wing and TIE Fighter.
VS.NET does try to do as much as possible for you so that you don't go crazy performing the mind-numbing, repetitive tasks that are part of most development jobs. However, I don't think that this is an excuse to not understand what is really happening behind the scenes when you use VS. I don't think Microsoft feels this way either.
Programming IS hard and requires a lot of knowledge. I personally think that all.NET developers should start by learning how to build applications with a text editor and the command-line compilers that come with the.NET SDK, but I don't think Microsoft could (or should) force people to learn that way.
Sure, there are crappy developers out there who don't understand how.NET works, are only capable of drag 'n drop development, don't understand the concept of descriptive naming practices for GUI controls (the "TextBox1" problem), variables, functions, etc. but that doesn't mean that Microsoft should deliberately NOT produce tools that make development easier or impose artificial barriers of entry into the field.
I've played EVE...and while I enjoyed it, it is not a space simulator, at least not in the "joystick required" way that X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Wing Commander were (and the grandparent was probably referring to). It is more MMORPG than simulator.
However, I will say that the graphics in EVE are beautiful...which REALLY makes me wish that a good game development shop would take a crack at a new space combat sim. Something with the action and mission intricacy of X-Wing that took full advantage of today's GPU power?:::drool:::
I'm sure all of the pro-life women out there agree.:)
I am pro-life, but my opposition to abortion has nothing to do with women. I am not some crazy fundie nutjob who just wants to "keep women in their place". By your argument, anyone who thinks heroin should be illegal is just harboring some deeply-held prejudice against hypodermic needles. OK, so that isn't a perfect analogy.:) The vast majority of homicides in this country are perpetrated by men. I am opposed to murder...so I guess I hate men as well.
It is just that in my experience, many people who are unable to defend their position on abortion without obsessively fixating on gender equality issues are just trying to cover for the fact that their logical gas tank on the subject is about a teaspoon short of bone dry. Not saying that is you, but your statement is a bit of a generalization.
And I was about to moderate in this thread. Oh well...
This looks weird but it still needs more research, especially given Gibson's somewhat dodgy reputation.
1 as an input value is one of those classic boundary conditions that developers should always specifically test against (but sometimes don't...along with 0, negative numbers, MAX_whatever, etc)...so I'm not convinced that it was just a coding error. If the "magic key" length was something completely random like 6385492, then I would be more suspicious.
I can't imagine that a new line of iBooks with Yonah CPUs (either Core Solo or Duo) will be announced with no updates to the PowerBooks as well...wouldn't that make the iBooks more powerful than the PowerBooks?
In the last month, I ran into the following problems:
* My wife recently got a Netgear WiFi card for her laptop. Naturally, Netgear has their own WiFi detection/connection app. And naturally, it was borked and refused to connect to our router. The eventual solution? Removed it and used the connection utility that is built into WinXP SP2.
* A friend got a new Lexmark all-in-one and was trying to scan some photos with the Lexmark "SuperPowerEZPhotoMasterVisiSuite" (which is just about the most crufty, nonintuitive, convoluted piece of crapware I have ever seen...beaten only by some bundled HP utilities I have seen) and was getting nowhere. The eventual solution? Removed it and used WinXP's fast, simple, built-in scanning wizard.
As an aside...can no application just freaking use the OS' built-in GUI widgets anymore? You do not have to reinvent the user interface for every new utility. Ask yourself: are these big bubbly buttons and translucent dropdown lists THAT critical to the functioning and usability of my application?
I agree, but for a different reason: this study doesn't take into consideration the skill of the user. It simply measures the presence or absence of certain security tools. Education and discipline are security measures as well. I have a NAT router as a firewall, but I run no antivirus or anti-spyware software, mainly for performance reasons. I haven't gotten any spyware in a long time and (to my knowledge) have never been infected by a virus/trojan/worm...and this is on a Windows machine.
I don't open attachments, I only install software that I have researched and found to be spyware-free, I don't use Internet Explorer, I keep Windows XP updated, and I stay educated on the latest exploits/threats out there.
I think that for the average user who isn't willing to make a commitment to these things, legalistic use of security tools is necessary, but the study incorrectly assumes that "no antivirus" = "p0wned".
Microsoft is just trying to give the third-party component manufacturers a jump-start. LED, carbon-fiber, transparent, or USB-powered string will soon be available for the 10-16 year old male demographic who are all ready to trick out their 360's. Monster will release "gold-plated quadruple shielded" string for a mere $79.99 for 3 feet of string ("but it comes with a lifetime warranty!!").:)
Let's look at this through what I like to call the Google Lens: nothing that Google does is mysterious, unexplainable, or even particularly charitable. They are a business, and they are interested in only two things in the pursuit of profit: (1) organizing and searching large quantities of information and (2) advertising. Nothing else.
So where would this fit in? I'm not saying it wouldn't, or that they aren't planning something like this...I'm just saying that some derivation of this would have to intersect with their business interests at some point.
You could rake in money hand over fist if you started a company based on this ("DogDuplicator, Inc"). Wealthy family's beloved pet passes away? No problem...Fido, Mark II!
Other tools that I've used to get a complete continuous integration cycle up and running for a large development project I'm currently working on are Subversion (for the server) and TortoiseSVN (for developer PCs). They are full-featured, free, and work well with NAnt/CC.NET out of the box.
Don't be too hard on the UI right now...
on
Longhorn Preview
·
· Score: 4, Informative
...because there is a good chance that the upcoming beta releases will look completely different. And the final release will then look completely different than the betas.
For comparison, here are some links that illustrate the evolution of the Windows XP UI:
ACTUALLY, I'd much rather just start typing the filename into something like Spotlight or Copernic and tell the actual physical location of the file what to go do with itself.:)
"Directory structures can be confusing to navigate" Yes, Joe User and my mom don't use linux because of its confusing directory structure. Please... And don't tell me the directory structure of other systems make more sense, it doesn't.
Um, yes they do; at least in a naming sense. If tasked with finding an arbitrary file, I'd much rather find it in a heirarchy of directories with names like "Documents and Settings", "Program Files", and "My Pictures" than "etc", "var", "proc", and "usr".
Re:In the same class as code complete?
on
Effective C#
·
· Score: 1
Code Complete is probably a useful read for a beginner, but I hardly think of it as professional level
I think I know what you are saying, but I want to add my own 2 cents...I've had the opportunity to work with code written by three types of software developers:
Group A: rank novices. The ink on their comp. sci. B.S. from Somewhere State University is barely dry. They can code an abstract linked list class, but are clueless as to how to intelligently design and construct a non-trivial application with maintainable code.
Group B: the 'leet hackers. They have a few years of "real world" experience under their belt, and think that they can write anything. They usually can, provided that no one else ever has to extend the application or maintain the code again.
Group C: professionals. Their code is a pleasure to work with. They approach the task of building software with humility, their designs are simple and elegant, and their code almost reads like english.
What single trait most often separates (in my experience) the B's from the C's? The C's have studied Code Complete at some point in their career.
I wonder if this release has better support for installing to SATA drives. FC3 choked on my nForce3 SATA controller, and I didn't feel like mucking around with a newer kernel at the time.
Slashdot Mirror
And there's really no way to rake in the dough like making people pay for something twice. Here's what the backbone providers want: the source of the packets pays for access (a portion of which makes its way up the chain to them), the destination of the packets pays for access (also trickles up to them), and the source and the destination both pay directly for increased QoS if they don't want said packets to spend a few seconds in the purgatorial "low-rent buffer" on their way across the network.
I would go one step further. To understand what they REALLY want, I think you have to get a bit psychological:
Your average corporate executive types, with their business degrees and business experience, have gotten to where they are by using their understanding of capitalistic concepts like control of supply, scarcity, and material goods. This is especially true of those in the content business (the "traditional" cable and media industries).
The internet, at its most fundamental level, simply doesn't work that way. Sure, you can use the internet to sell advertising, or you can sell access to the infrastructure itself, but the internet is ultimately a free medium: anyone can put anything onto it, and anyone can retrieve anything from it. As someone here once wrote, "trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." It is the great equalizer; no one "controls" it...and the corporations who utilize it to do business are ultimately just users like the rest of us. And I think because of this (and despite the fact that these corporations themselves benefit from the internet) they subconsciously DESPISE the way it works, because they can't control it.
What do they really want the internet to be? Cable television. They control what is broadcast and distributed and they also control what you can access: "I'm sorry, but 'www.google.com' is not available as part of your current access package. You must upgrade to our Premium Package to access that site."
I think that the main problem is a rating system can never convey what a reviewer can in terms of exactly WHY a movie is rated "R" or why a game is rated "M". That's why I usually check out a site like Screen It before I see a movie...because even as an adult, there are some things in movies that I frankly just don't care to see. I've seen stuff in PG-13 movies that I could have done without and I've seen R movies that I had no problem with, so the rating system is definitely not "one size fits all".
So is there an gaming equivalent to Screen It for your "wigging parents"?
A legal ban on mandatory microchip implantation is pointless in a way, as the real threat is that they will become so pervasive that it will be impossible to lead a normal life (e.g. buy groceries, vote, hold a drivers license) without one.
Don't go with VB, use VB.NET. There are a lot of reasons for this:
* unlike classic VB (version 6 or prior), the current version of VB.NET is fully object-oriented, supporting generics (templates for you C++ folks), interfaces, full inheritance, abstract classes and members, overloading (including operators), etc.
* the english-like syntax of old-school VB is still present and is now applied to the object-oriented aspects of the language (e.g. which keyword makes more sense for someone learning OOP? VB.NET's "NotInheritable" or C#'s "sealed"? VB.NET's "MustImplement" or C#'s "abstract"?).
* the relevant express editions of Visual Studio are currently free and very powerful.
My warning is related to the last item: resist the urge to use all of the IDE's bells and whistles at first. In my experience, those developers who rely on Visual Studio to do everything for them never really understand what is going on behind the scenes and have trouble later on. Use the IDE just for syntax highlighting and IntelliSense at first (i.e. start with simple console applications and develop from the "Empty Project" template, even building Windows Forms applications from this starting point...THEN use the snazzy designers and wizards).
It is offtopic, but it is the first comment I've read wondering what is going on. I've noticed this as well. Have fewer users been given moderator status lately or something?
Ah, yes... I'll second that one. TIE Fighter was awesome, but I prefered the original X-Wing:
I remember the frustration of trying to complete one mission where you had to protect a transport that was carrying some priceless cargo or something until it could jump into hyperspace. This poor thing was floating defenseless in space as wave after wave of TIE fighters came after it. You furiously dogfight, trying to draw them away, but one would always get through. It made you want to rip your hair out.
But I kept coming back; I remember the sense of accomplishment when the transport finally did make it and the mission was complete. I also remember the sense of satisfaction that you got when you fired that one last laser shot that finally took out a Star Destroyer after you and your wingmen had pounded on it for the last 20 minutes, or when you completed the Death Star trench run mission for the first time.
I loved the individual mission design and the way the missions were grouped into campaigns that made you really feel like you were a part of an larger unfolding strategy.
I've said this many times before, but with today's GPU technology, I would love to see a really good game shop take a stab at a joystick-required, shoot 'em up space combat simulator with a mission structure as thoughtfully designed as X-Wing and TIE Fighter.
VS.NET does try to do as much as possible for you so that you don't go crazy performing the mind-numbing, repetitive tasks that are part of most development jobs. However, I don't think that this is an excuse to not understand what is really happening behind the scenes when you use VS. I don't think Microsoft feels this way either.
.NET developers should start by learning how to build applications with a text editor and the command-line compilers that come with the .NET SDK, but I don't think Microsoft could (or should) force people to learn that way.
.NET works, are only capable of drag 'n drop development, don't understand the concept of descriptive naming practices for GUI controls (the "TextBox1" problem), variables, functions, etc. but that doesn't mean that Microsoft should deliberately NOT produce tools that make development easier or impose artificial barriers of entry into the field.
Programming IS hard and requires a lot of knowledge. I personally think that all
Sure, there are crappy developers out there who don't understand how
space simulators (e.g. Wing Commander)
:::drool:::
Space simulators? Eve Online anyone?
I've played EVE...and while I enjoyed it, it is not a space simulator, at least not in the "joystick required" way that X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Wing Commander were (and the grandparent was probably referring to). It is more MMORPG than simulator.
However, I will say that the graphics in EVE are beautiful...which REALLY makes me wish that a good game development shop would take a crack at a new space combat sim. Something with the action and mission intricacy of X-Wing that took full advantage of today's GPU power?
Anti-abortionists are anti-women.
:)
:) The vast majority of homicides in this country are perpetrated by men. I am opposed to murder...so I guess I hate men as well.
I'm sure all of the pro-life women out there agree.
I am pro-life, but my opposition to abortion has nothing to do with women. I am not some crazy fundie nutjob who just wants to "keep women in their place". By your argument, anyone who thinks heroin should be illegal is just harboring some deeply-held prejudice against hypodermic needles. OK, so that isn't a perfect analogy.
It is just that in my experience, many people who are unable to defend their position on abortion without obsessively fixating on gender equality issues are just trying to cover for the fact that their logical gas tank on the subject is about a teaspoon short of bone dry. Not saying that is you, but your statement is a bit of a generalization.
And I was about to moderate in this thread. Oh well...
You're right...a number like that could be a valid length; I'd forgotten about that (and I listened to the podcast last night, no less).
Well, that makes it a bit more strange...
This looks weird but it still needs more research, especially given Gibson's somewhat dodgy reputation.
1 as an input value is one of those classic boundary conditions that developers should always specifically test against (but sometimes don't...along with 0, negative numbers, MAX_whatever, etc)...so I'm not convinced that it was just a coding error. If the "magic key" length was something completely random like 6385492, then I would be more suspicious.
C'mon MS...let's see the code!
I can't imagine that a new line of iBooks with Yonah CPUs (either Core Solo or Duo) will be announced with no updates to the PowerBooks as well...wouldn't that make the iBooks more powerful than the PowerBooks?
In the last month, I ran into the following problems:
* My wife recently got a Netgear WiFi card for her laptop. Naturally, Netgear has their own WiFi detection/connection app. And naturally, it was borked and refused to connect to our router. The eventual solution? Removed it and used the connection utility that is built into WinXP SP2.
* A friend got a new Lexmark all-in-one and was trying to scan some photos with the Lexmark "SuperPowerEZPhotoMasterVisiSuite" (which is just about the most crufty, nonintuitive, convoluted piece of crapware I have ever seen...beaten only by some bundled HP utilities I have seen) and was getting nowhere. The eventual solution? Removed it and used WinXP's fast, simple, built-in scanning wizard.
As an aside...can no application just freaking use the OS' built-in GUI widgets anymore? You do not have to reinvent the user interface for every new utility. Ask yourself: are these big bubbly buttons and translucent dropdown lists THAT critical to the functioning and usability of my application?
Elaine from Seinfeld: "The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It's for gettin' around. It's like a Jeep." :)
I agree, but for a different reason: this study doesn't take into consideration the skill of the user. It simply measures the presence or absence of certain security tools. Education and discipline are security measures as well. I have a NAT router as a firewall, but I run no antivirus or anti-spyware software, mainly for performance reasons. I haven't gotten any spyware in a long time and (to my knowledge) have never been infected by a virus/trojan/worm...and this is on a Windows machine.
I don't open attachments, I only install software that I have researched and found to be spyware-free, I don't use Internet Explorer, I keep Windows XP updated, and I stay educated on the latest exploits/threats out there.
I think that for the average user who isn't willing to make a commitment to these things, legalistic use of security tools is necessary, but the study incorrectly assumes that "no antivirus" = "p0wned".
Microsoft is just trying to give the third-party component manufacturers a jump-start. LED, carbon-fiber, transparent, or USB-powered string will soon be available for the 10-16 year old male demographic who are all ready to trick out their 360's. Monster will release "gold-plated quadruple shielded" string for a mere $79.99 for 3 feet of string ("but it comes with a lifetime warranty!!"). :)
Let's look at this through what I like to call the Google Lens: nothing that Google does is mysterious, unexplainable, or even particularly charitable. They are a business, and they are interested in only two things in the pursuit of profit: (1) organizing and searching large quantities of information and (2) advertising. Nothing else.
So where would this fit in? I'm not saying it wouldn't, or that they aren't planning something like this...I'm just saying that some derivation of this would have to intersect with their business interests at some point.
You could rake in money hand over fist if you started a company based on this ("DogDuplicator, Inc"). Wealthy family's beloved pet passes away? No problem...Fido, Mark II!
This guy alone probably tipped the scales considerably...
Other tools that I've used to get a complete continuous integration cycle up and running for a large development project I'm currently working on are Subversion (for the server) and TortoiseSVN (for developer PCs). They are full-featured, free, and work well with NAnt/CC.NET out of the box.
...because there is a good chance that the upcoming beta releases will look completely different. And the final release will then look completely different than the betas.
For comparison, here are some links that illustrate the evolution of the Windows XP UI:
Whistler preview
Another Whistler preview
Yet another Whistler preview
Whistler beta 1
Beta 1, another build
XP Beta 2
XP RC1
Adding a P.S. to my own comment...
:)
ACTUALLY, I'd much rather just start typing the filename into something like Spotlight or Copernic and tell the actual physical location of the file what to go do with itself.
"Directory structures can be confusing to navigate"
Yes, Joe User and my mom don't use linux because of its confusing directory structure. Please...
And don't tell me the directory structure of other systems make more sense, it doesn't.
Um, yes they do; at least in a naming sense. If tasked with finding an arbitrary file, I'd much rather find it in a heirarchy of directories with names like "Documents and Settings", "Program Files", and "My Pictures" than "etc", "var", "proc", and "usr".
Code Complete is probably a useful read for a beginner, but I hardly think of it as professional level
I think I know what you are saying, but I want to add my own 2 cents...I've had the opportunity to work with code written by three types of software developers:
Group A: rank novices. The ink on their comp. sci. B.S. from Somewhere State University is barely dry. They can code an abstract linked list class, but are clueless as to how to intelligently design and construct a non-trivial application with maintainable code.
Group B: the 'leet hackers. They have a few years of "real world" experience under their belt, and think that they can write anything. They usually can, provided that no one else ever has to extend the application or maintain the code again.
Group C: professionals. Their code is a pleasure to work with. They approach the task of building software with humility, their designs are simple and elegant, and their code almost reads like english.
What single trait most often separates (in my experience) the B's from the C's? The C's have studied Code Complete at some point in their career.
I wonder if this release has better support for installing to SATA drives. FC3 choked on my nForce3 SATA controller, and I didn't feel like mucking around with a newer kernel at the time.