That's how the front windows of modern cars are made. You can't break the front window easily, as it has a polymer layer so that in case of a crash you don't have huge shards of glass flying around. If you need to get out of a crashed car, you can kick out the entire front window as it's made to withstand force from the outside but be removable from the inside.
If firemen need to rescue someone from a car they usually a) take a pickaxe, make a hole in the front window and pull it out or b) get a huge hydraulic cutter and cut off the roof.
If the window was made of this transparent armor, you'd still be able to kick it out. The firemen would probably need special equipnemt to pull the window out, but then again they can probably use the cutter.
Actually, I could imagine that English and German get swallowed by Mandarin. It all depends on whether China survives the nuclear war... But it's true, judging from how many mutations the major European languages ahave gone through and how much they have all borrowed from each other, having the current langue du jour swallow everything else is highly unlikely.
Liguistics sure are interesting... Too bad that a) Germany is currently deploying a tuition system and b) I'm not rich enough to study anything that is not directly CS-related.:/
Well, it's the first FOSS MMORPG I ever heard of and as far as I know it's the most popular one, too. Not to mention the most advanced one - most other FOSS MMORPGs I know are basically online Rogue with 2D graphics.
Government tends not to keep its existence a secret.
"Teacher, teacher, where does our government reside?" - "Sorry, that's classified." - "Erm, Who is our current government anyway?" - "Sorry, that's classified too." - "What form of government do we have?" - "That's classified too, as is the answer on whether we even have a government. I can't tell you where all the taxes go to, either, as well as whether there are taxes." - "This sucks." - "I'm sorry but whether this sucks or not is classified."
Which is why it's a good idea for indie developers to know their audience and advertise appropriately. Moonpod, for example, has ads for Starscape (a really nice shoot-em-up/management mix) displayed with gaming related comics like Ctrl+Alt+Del or 8-bit Theater - people who read those comics are likely to be interested in obscure and/or old-school-like games and having the advertisement on the site also serves as some kind of approval by the artists - after all, if they wouldn't like the game they wouldn't advertise it, right? (Actually, concerning how pissy web artists can get I'd figure that the probability of them knowing what games they're advertising for is quite high.)
Independent companies often produce stuff that is in some way superior what you usually get - one example would be Decker (Coral Cache), a graphically unimpressive freeware game for Windows that just happens to be the best simulation of breaking into computers in the Shadowrun world. Please don't click the link unless you really are interested, it's a private site and has a lot of images up front.
However, these innovative or otherwise extremely cool games need to be advertised to the right people. The usual gaming magazine reader will not be interested in games that deviate from the well-known genres like Uplink. But gaming geeks, "real" gamers and the like might want to know about it - which is where specialized advertising comes into play. If a company advertises with the bigger gaming comics it can reach a decent audience that is most likely more interested in their work than the average gamer. If they manage to get mentioned on Penny Arcade it's jackpot... And as Tycho is fond of letting the world know of obscure games he likes just getting PA to notice them might be a way of generating sales.
Indie game companies will always be able to reach an interested audience as long as there are internet celebrities who are willing to display their banner/discuss their latest game. It's not the megabuck business that mainstream gaming is, but there is an ecological niche for games that are just too far out for the regular gamer.
That's what I was referring to and it's also why I tend to get my colds during summer... Entering or leaving a car that's a/c'd to 20C (68F) when the air outside is at 30C (86F) is a pretty good way to get the sniffles.
I have been told that it's best to avoid temperature shifts in excess of 6 Kelvin (about 11F?).
How about just making a standard for desktop Linux? Everything else (server, realtime etc.) is far enough into geek territory that simplifying the market is not going to do much good, but I agree that it'd be a good thing (if not a Good Thing) if people could just buy "Linux 10.5" and be able to use most tutorials etc. on the 'net. I don't want Joe Sixpack to start messing with a source-based distro, but I don't want to lose the option either. Marketing one distro as the desktop Linux might serve both ends. And if you don't want people to confuse Debian or Gentoo with their desktop Linux, point out the fact that there are different distributions, which are not intended for casual home use and that all good tutorials display somewhere. If you put that into the "So you're a Windows emigrant" document, most new users might even read it.
I'm not from the USA and I cringed at that - ever since as a child I once drank orange juice containing lots of nice little white bits (because someone was smart enough to put the package next to the kitchen sink but not smart enough to actually pour it out) I'm overcautious when it comes to fungus. Drinking the same juice twice in half a minute is just one of these defining moments in your life.
Also, it might be a good idea to not neatly fold up the sheets after getting up. If you just toss aside the sheets the surface exposed to the air is larger, thus the sheets give off more humidity, thus more mites die (as they can not keep humidity from diffusing through their skin).
YMMV, though, as I don't have a dust mite allergy and thus no way of checking whether this actually helps in any way.
Yeah, but you can still pick out a thread, get an artificial thumb and combine them to form a mono whip ideal for tring to slice up people called Johnny.
Which is why it's important that kids play outside, get themselves dirty and come back to a home where it's not SOP to treat every spot with antibacterial spray. The more exposure to germs you get as a child, the stronger your immune system becomes.
I know people who barely sneezed once during their childhood and who now can catch a cold from the temperature shift when they get out of bed in the morning, while people who spent half of their childhood sick tend to be more robust.
Fragmentation is one of Linux' strongest features. You need an easy to use desktop OS? SUSE Linux is your friend, as is Fedora Core. You need an ultra-stable OS for use in the server room? Debian Linux is your friend. You need an extremely customizable OS that can be shaped into anything? Gentoo Linux is you friend. You need somtheing that runs off a CD without requiring any kind of installation? Knoppix is your friend. You need a distro that comes with professional support? Enterprise Linuces are your friends. You need a realtime OS? Something that runs on low-powered legacy systems? Something to help you with system recovery? Whatever you need to do, whichever itch there is to scratch, Linux is your friend. Wherever you want to go today, Linux will go there with you.
And now tell me that one distro is supposed to be both a end-user friendly mutimedia-capable desktop system, an embedded realtime OS, a bootable CD filled with both everything for day-to-day work as well as every single specialised program you might ever need, an ultra-stable server OS and a cutting-edge, extremely customizable OS.
Most distros are there for a reason, usually because someone has specific needs. Knoppix, arguably one of the most useful and well-known distributions ever, started as a Debian mutation, as did Ubuntu. If everyone tried to keep the number of Linux distros as small as possible they probably would never have been developed - and we probably wouldn't have any kind of live CD Linux.
While confusing to outsiders, fragmentation is one of the main reasons why Linux is as versatile as it is. I much prefer a versatile OS over one that is easy to keep track of.
1.) Switch to Jabber, using transports to connect to the proprietary networks.
2.) Convince your friends to do the same. Reading up on Jabber might help you make a compelling case.
3.) Try using more proper capitalization and periods, as they make your sentences more readable.
True. Implementing an IRC bot is hardly rocket science - I'm currently in the process of doing a complete rewrite of a bot written in PHP and implementing the protocol is by far the easiest part.
Simply telling people to go Jabber is not going to work, at least not for most of them. You have to approach the geeks first. They understand Jabber's merits and are much more likely to switch, if they don't have a JID already. Once you have a handful of people who are accessible via Jabber, start talking to normal users. Point out that there already are $NUMBER people on their contact list who have a JID. Point out that Jabber is fast and reliable (unlike certain other networks *cough*switchboard error*cough*) and even allows your company/community/crime syndicate to run their very own server while still being connected to the global network - and they can keep their old contacts too! Let everyone with a JID do some advertising.
If you're alone, your case won't be half as compelling as when you already have a dozen people behind you, even more so when those people are being vocal about it, too.
I think the GGP does not have a problem with smilies* but rather with graphical smilies, which are an abomination before Tux and the first thing I turn off if I happen to install a program that supports them. Using a few characters to convey one's mood or to distinguish a troll from a sarcastic statement is a great thing. Replacing these few characters with some image that doesn't even adapt to my font size and thus increases the line's width, creating the impression of a new paragraph, is just ugly and annoying.
* I dislike word constructs where two words are glued together because the end of the first one is like the beginning of the second one (like "emoticon"), so I use "smiley" - even though it's inaccurate and has a slight connotation of "hi how r u:):):)".
That's one of Jabber's biggest selling points: You can use transports to connect to various major IM networks, so you don't lose all of your contacts when making the switch.
Interesting... One day after I start a Jabber advertisement campaign in a community I'm part of,/. brings a story on how instant messaging should use one unified protocol. (Hint: Jabbers XMPP is an IETF standard while the proprietary protocols are not.)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, maybe there will be a Dirty Bunny Tickler Act soon. You better consult a good lawyer.
That's how the front windows of modern cars are made. You can't break the front window easily, as it has a polymer layer so that in case of a crash you don't have huge shards of glass flying around. If you need to get out of a crashed car, you can kick out the entire front window as it's made to withstand force from the outside but be removable from the inside.
If firemen need to rescue someone from a car they usually a) take a pickaxe, make a hole in the front window and pull it out or b) get a huge hydraulic cutter and cut off the roof.
If the window was made of this transparent armor, you'd still be able to kick it out. The firemen would probably need special equipnemt to pull the window out, but then again they can probably use the cutter.
As long as the next version of Paint doesn't save all images in the .goatsecx format...
Actually, I could imagine that English and German get swallowed by Mandarin. It all depends on whether China survives the nuclear war... But it's true, judging from how many mutations the major European languages ahave gone through and how much they have all borrowed from each other, having the current langue du jour swallow everything else is highly unlikely.
:/
Liguistics sure are interesting... Too bad that a) Germany is currently deploying a tuition system and b) I'm not rich enough to study anything that is not directly CS-related.
Well, it's the first FOSS MMORPG I ever heard of and as far as I know it's the most popular one, too. Not to mention the most advanced one - most other FOSS MMORPGs I know are basically online Rogue with 2D graphics.
Government tends not to keep its existence a secret.
"Teacher, teacher, where does our government reside?" - "Sorry, that's classified." - "Erm, Who is our current government anyway?" - "Sorry, that's classified too." - "What form of government do we have?" - "That's classified too, as is the answer on whether we even have a government. I can't tell you where all the taxes go to, either, as well as whether there are taxes." - "This sucks." - "I'm sorry but whether this sucks or not is classified."
Which is why it's a good idea for indie developers to know their audience and advertise appropriately. Moonpod, for example, has ads for Starscape (a really nice shoot-em-up/management mix) displayed with gaming related comics like Ctrl+Alt+Del or 8-bit Theater - people who read those comics are likely to be interested in obscure and/or old-school-like games and having the advertisement on the site also serves as some kind of approval by the artists - after all, if they wouldn't like the game they wouldn't advertise it, right? (Actually, concerning how pissy web artists can get I'd figure that the probability of them knowing what games they're advertising for is quite high.)
Independent companies often produce stuff that is in some way superior what you usually get - one example would be Decker (Coral Cache), a graphically unimpressive freeware game for Windows that just happens to be the best simulation of breaking into computers in the Shadowrun world. Please don't click the link unless you really are interested, it's a private site and has a lot of images up front.
However, these innovative or otherwise extremely cool games need to be advertised to the right people. The usual gaming magazine reader will not be interested in games that deviate from the well-known genres like Uplink. But gaming geeks, "real" gamers and the like might want to know about it - which is where specialized advertising comes into play. If a company advertises with the bigger gaming comics it can reach a decent audience that is most likely more interested in their work than the average gamer. If they manage to get mentioned on Penny Arcade it's jackpot... And as Tycho is fond of letting the world know of obscure games he likes just getting PA to notice them might be a way of generating sales.
Indie game companies will always be able to reach an interested audience as long as there are internet celebrities who are willing to display their banner/discuss their latest game. It's not the megabuck business that mainstream gaming is, but there is an ecological niche for games that are just too far out for the regular gamer.
You mean PlaneShift?
Toyota says that they developed it, but for some reason the patent was filed by a certain "H. Noodly Appendage".
That's what I was referring to and it's also why I tend to get my colds during summer... Entering or leaving a car that's a/c'd to 20C (68F) when the air outside is at 30C (86F) is a pretty good way to get the sniffles.
I have been told that it's best to avoid temperature shifts in excess of 6 Kelvin (about 11F?).
How about just making a standard for desktop Linux? Everything else (server, realtime etc.) is far enough into geek territory that simplifying the market is not going to do much good, but I agree that it'd be a good thing (if not a Good Thing) if people could just buy "Linux 10.5" and be able to use most tutorials etc. on the 'net. I don't want Joe Sixpack to start messing with a source-based distro, but I don't want to lose the option either. Marketing one distro as the desktop Linux might serve both ends. And if you don't want people to confuse Debian or Gentoo with their desktop Linux, point out the fact that there are different distributions, which are not intended for casual home use and that all good tutorials display somewhere. If you put that into the "So you're a Windows emigrant" document, most new users might even read it.
OH MY GOD, HE'S GOT A PUN!!
I'm not from the USA and I cringed at that - ever since as a child I once drank orange juice containing lots of nice little white bits (because someone was smart enough to put the package next to the kitchen sink but not smart enough to actually pour it out) I'm overcautious when it comes to fungus. Drinking the same juice twice in half a minute is just one of these defining moments in your life.
Also, it might be a good idea to not neatly fold up the sheets after getting up. If you just toss aside the sheets the surface exposed to the air is larger, thus the sheets give off more humidity, thus more mites die (as they can not keep humidity from diffusing through their skin).
YMMV, though, as I don't have a dust mite allergy and thus no way of checking whether this actually helps in any way.
Yeah, but you can still pick out a thread, get an artificial thumb and combine them to form a mono whip ideal for tring to slice up people called Johnny.
Which is why it's important that kids play outside, get themselves dirty and come back to a home where it's not SOP to treat every spot with antibacterial spray. The more exposure to germs you get as a child, the stronger your immune system becomes.
I know people who barely sneezed once during their childhood and who now can catch a cold from the temperature shift when they get out of bed in the morning, while people who spent half of their childhood sick tend to be more robust.
Fragmentation is one of Linux' strongest features. You need an easy to use desktop OS? SUSE Linux is your friend, as is Fedora Core. You need an ultra-stable OS for use in the server room? Debian Linux is your friend. You need an extremely customizable OS that can be shaped into anything? Gentoo Linux is you friend. You need somtheing that runs off a CD without requiring any kind of installation? Knoppix is your friend. You need a distro that comes with professional support? Enterprise Linuces are your friends. You need a realtime OS? Something that runs on low-powered legacy systems? Something to help you with system recovery? Whatever you need to do, whichever itch there is to scratch, Linux is your friend. Wherever you want to go today, Linux will go there with you.
And now tell me that one distro is supposed to be both a end-user friendly mutimedia-capable desktop system, an embedded realtime OS, a bootable CD filled with both everything for day-to-day work as well as every single specialised program you might ever need, an ultra-stable server OS and a cutting-edge, extremely customizable OS.
Most distros are there for a reason, usually because someone has specific needs. Knoppix, arguably one of the most useful and well-known distributions ever, started as a Debian mutation, as did Ubuntu. If everyone tried to keep the number of Linux distros as small as possible they probably would never have been developed - and we probably wouldn't have any kind of live CD Linux.
While confusing to outsiders, fragmentation is one of the main reasons why Linux is as versatile as it is. I much prefer a versatile OS over one that is easy to keep track of.
1.) Switch to Jabber, using transports to connect to the proprietary networks.
2.) Convince your friends to do the same. Reading up on Jabber might help you make a compelling case.
3.) Try using more proper capitalization and periods, as they make your sentences more readable.
True. Implementing an IRC bot is hardly rocket science - I'm currently in the process of doing a complete rewrite of a bot written in PHP and implementing the protocol is by far the easiest part.
Simply telling people to go Jabber is not going to work, at least not for most of them. You have to approach the geeks first. They understand Jabber's merits and are much more likely to switch, if they don't have a JID already. Once you have a handful of people who are accessible via Jabber, start talking to normal users. Point out that there already are $NUMBER people on their contact list who have a JID. Point out that Jabber is fast and reliable (unlike certain other networks *cough*switchboard error*cough*) and even allows your company/community/crime syndicate to run their very own server while still being connected to the global network - and they can keep their old contacts too! Let everyone with a JID do some advertising.
If you're alone, your case won't be half as compelling as when you already have a dozen people behind you, even more so when those people are being vocal about it, too.
I think the GGP does not have a problem with smilies* but rather with graphical smilies, which are an abomination before Tux and the first thing I turn off if I happen to install a program that supports them. Using a few characters to convey one's mood or to distinguish a troll from a sarcastic statement is a great thing. Replacing these few characters with some image that doesn't even adapt to my font size and thus increases the line's width, creating the impression of a new paragraph, is just ugly and annoying.
:):):)".
* I dislike word constructs where two words are glued together because the end of the first one is like the beginning of the second one (like "emoticon"), so I use "smiley" - even though it's inaccurate and has a slight connotation of "hi how r u
That's one of Jabber's biggest selling points: You can use transports to connect to various major IM networks, so you don't lose all of your contacts when making the switch.
Interesting... One day after I start a Jabber advertisement campaign in a community I'm part of, /. brings a story on how instant messaging should use one unified protocol. (Hint: Jabbers XMPP is an IETF standard while the proprietary protocols are not.)
You see, I have this theory here that explains this phenomenon quite nicely; it's called "Intelligent Pronounciation"...
Here you are. ;)