God I am looking forward to a nice final from Mozilla....using html for the window layout is going to be interesting..assuming the source will be easy to get at, it'll be a cinch to customize the browser to your own liking..
On the PC side of things, I really have no major browser complaints.. with Linux(installing SuSe tonite on a box I just built, this is my first major use of Linux, as opposed to minor admin stuff, so wish me luck!) I havent used the browser enough to build a list of what it's lacking.. so this is coming from a Mac OS point of view..
I would love to see a browser that merges the best of IE and Netscape.. each of them has strengths, and each has weaknesses..
I love the History on IE, I abhor the netscape history. PLEASE let me go to where I've gone before, even if I have already closed the damn window.
I like that I can click and drag an image in Netscape to see its dimensions..great from a design point of view..
IE seems to bog down quite a bit when loading long pages with a lot of text.. Netscape, for my uses, is all around the quicker browser in day to day surfing..
Rare is the day that Netscape doesnt crash.
What about you guys? Since we are on the topic of new browser releases, what features in the current crop of browsers do you love and hate? Be interesting to see what has driven various people to a particular browser...
My letter. After the note from myself, I included several pages of clippings from user comments here, each one of them expressing their desire to shop elsewhere.
___________
Dir Sir, The following are clippings from user comments on Slashdot pertaining to the court case between yourselves and etoy.com. This should save you some time and allow you to gather a basic idea as to the general feelings towards your company in light of the recent events. I myself, having planned to do most of my Christmas shopping online, will NOT be shopping with eToys.com. Also, as a brief reminder: "Domain Name: ETOY.COM Record created on 13-Oct-1995.
Domain Name: ETOYS.COM Record created on 03-Nov-1997. " Chris Ainsworth EDR Technologies ____________________________________ _________________________
Mashed potatoes were used because in the mashed form they are quickly digested, and happen to have a high glucose content...it appears that the effects are more or less due to glucose consumption, which can be gained from hundreds of edibles, as opposed to being derived from the potato mashing process.:]
Now they mentioned that it worked best on the elderly and those with bad memories...hinted at it being a deficiency type thing...I wouldn't be surprised to see the results of this experiment available in a pill form within the next year or so.
Exactly. I'd been reading the comments waiting for someone else to mention this.
You'd be surprised at how well you can do with women if you are simply confident and honest(as opposed to egotistical and bluntly crass, however.)
Ever notice that when it rains it pours? You get together with a woman, or perhaps you are seeing someone... suddenly, there are more women available(even if they don't know you are dating someone else...) Why is this? Because your confidence level has gone up. You also tend to speak to other women as PEOPLE when you aren't aggressively on the hunt. Learn to do that all the time. Realise that they are individuals such as yourself who like conversation, someone to spend time with, and to get laid now and then. If you want a woman just for sex, don't put on a show or try to con her into thinking you are interested in a long term relationship.. treat her with respect; just as you don't want a woman to fool you, she's not going to take that very well either. ________________________________________________ _____________
Quite a few years ago I worked with an ISP that maintained most of it's admin information(non-server stuff) through BBS software.. we would each log into a terminal and spend the next half hour or so killing each others admin accts, changing passwds, creating new accounts to battle the others with, and so on..
I see this as a potential extension of that good ol' game.. could play something like a varient of Capture the General, where each player tries his damndest to protect his csh monster, while trying to kill the shell of every other player..or perhaps defending your network, attempting to take out the machines of the opposing network.. imagine that, your csh dies and POOF, you're gone..slide your chair over and jump onto the other machine before he hits that as well...
Enough of this, eh? Here is an excerpt from the MacOSRumors information posted today.
"Very importantly, it has been confirmed by reliable Apple sources that the company is planning to include fix for the G4 upgrade block installed with the latest Blue G3 Firmware. Apparently, the decision to develop the block code was extremely controversial within Apple, and even its proponents generally stated that their intentions were only to provide insurance that Apple was not"surprise attacked" by third parties shipping G4 upgrades before Apple was able to ship their own G4 machine.
Secondly, MOSR has confirmed that the recent confusion over whether the new Sawtooth-based G4s were processor-upgradable was caused by outdated diagrams of the board. Once more recent versions were uncovered, it was clear that the Boot ROM continues to reside on the main board, and there are no obvious barriers in hardware nor software for the new G4s to be upgraded for years to come.
In a related note, we were surprised to hear from several third party developers that not only had they succesfully used prototype multiple-G4 upgrade boards on Beige and Blue G3s...at least one has also completed a proof-of-concept test for a multi-G4 card that would support the use of the 128-bit, enhanced-performance MaxBus as a "backplane" bus for the processors and cache chips to use for incredibly efficient inter-processor communication -- but would still be compatible with all upgradable PowerPC Macs and their 64-bit "60x" bus protocol. MaxBus, which many insiders had previously not expected to be applied to the Mac until mid to late 2000, could offer dramatic benefits even in this only partial implementation."
With all these new features such as moderation, bonus points for high scorers, karma, etc.. how long is it before we see a highly rated Slashdot acct for sale on eBay?:]
Interesting.. just yesterday I was cleaning out the garage and found my copy of the story...
If you wish to read the story that the movie is based on, it is located here.
..here are some online quotes about it..
"Kubrick, as we well know, has had A.I. in development for several years now. The narrative follows the development of a child and his inter-relation with the technology that surrounds him. We can safely assume here that this technology will be represented by the AI.
"The trick is that the film traces the boys development, not over weeks or months, but YEARS."
June 2, 1996... A long, unsubstantiated rumor is that A.I. actually began production years ago with Joseph Mazzello (Tim from Jurassic Park) starring. [Scoop sent in by 'hansolo'.]
April 2, 1996... Development on A.I. is in the final stages of set design and special-effects development, reports Associated Press. Kubrick plans to return to direct involvement with the project after completing Eyes Wide Shut. [Scoop feedback by Todd Dupler; originally reported by AP.]
I agree with you completely.. Although I love Starcraft, battle.net has been a real thorn in the foot of blizzard games... One alternative you may want to try is FSGS(Free Standard Game Server)... www.fsgs.com..same bnet interface, skipping bnet itself..there are both Linux and Win servers available to host your own games, and you can network with other FSGS servers as well(ala battle.net) so there are usually plenty of games available to jump into...plus it makes it soo much easier to actually get into the server with a few friends and get a game going.
Ever play Herzog Zwei for the Sega? I'm not sure if that came out before Dune2 or not, but it was a hell of a game.. something that definately could deserve a remake..
Second of all, nobody has to be killed in order to find a body. Normal transplants happen every day using organs from people who died. Why is this so different? If they only take the heart or the whole body? You're dead anyway:)
The thing is, for a donor body to be acceptable, the cause of death for the donor would have to be from something above the neck...anything else would deem the body unsuitable for transplant.. Hmm.. Donor dies of a heart attack. Could a heart transplant be performed successfully on the body, allowing it to now be used for a full body transplant?
I wonder how long a body can be dead before undergoing a transplant..
Other interesting black market implications. Sure, yer gonna be paralyzed, but does that really make a difference since you now have [insert name of celebrity idol here]'s body?
C _____________________________________________ ________________
"Actually, I think that his name was Maw. Also, Maw and Darth Maul looked absolutely nothing alike. Maw didn't have horns and had yellowish skin tones. Maul did have horns and his skin tones were not exactly yellow."
On that note... roommate and I were discussing Maul after seeing the film.. The paint on his face, and even the horns, looked fake....what if it was make up he applied to himself to hide his identity? And with this lil tidbit from the JK game, that sounds even more plausible...
Especially considering, from what I've heard, the actor who played Maul is supposed to be in the next film..
Am I incorrect here in saying that as far as R2 and C3PO were concerned, when they crash landed on Tatooine in A New Hope, they were on a planet they hadnt visited before?
Great show, catch it every now and then.. A friend of mine knows one of the guys who made the show, and used to to leave msgs on her answering machine in that voice...heh
I'm in Vegas, and get the US Pacific feed of the sci-fi channel...for those of you on this side of the US, the times are as follows: Sun, April 11th: 8:00 pm Sat, April 17th: 8:00 am
Doh..wow, copy and paste hell. Anyways, here's a working link if anyone really wants it. Sigh. "WebSpeak PLUS is available for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, 98 and NT. It includes a software speech synthesizer, called SoftVoice, and the Windows 95, 98 and NT versions will include the E-Mail package when that software is made generally available." www.prodworks.com C
Hmm, aside from telling the user what was a link and what wasnt..(I guess it could read off the hypertext when highlighted, say if using a variant of Lynx.., which would then give the user an idea..) ..Couple years ago I helped a guy setup software that read everything on the screen..he was blind, and this was for Win95.. allowed him to navigate completely thru the OS...wait a sec! Just realised here..he used the internet.. So I assume this already exists, or it would have been pretty boring for him. Wish I remembered more about the particulars.. Hmm. Lemme go read the article now.
Okey, not being a programmer...Can someone who does program for the mac fill us in? How often is 'StringToDate' used? Is this a problem within the OS(I guess the API?) Throughout all versions of the MacOS, if so? Okey..is it something that would be seen in Carbon as well? Article gave me more questions than answers..
"Jon, I'd really like to see you do a Y2K article for Slashdot. That is, a piece allowing for the fact that 99% of us are intimately familiar with the basic aspects of the problem. Pieces like the above are great for Wired, but not so exciting for./ "
I agree with you here.. I would like to see Katz put together an article that doesnt spend 1/3 of the text explaining what a XX versus XXXX century date is. Yeah, he does write editorials, not technical pieces... so what's your view on the whole Y2K thing, Jon? Did Year 2000 in a Nutshell have any impact on your thinking towards the matter?
So how much of this book actually covers the details around the Y2k problem, as opposed to spouting off on how we have to put a flower in every child's hand? Admittedly, the other things he mentioned ARE problems to be dealt with, but I don't think people are going to be buying this look looking for a way to end poverty. If the issue is viewed from a strong technical side, I'd be willing to take a look at it, and see what the author has to say.. Ah well, it'll be an interesting New Years to say the least.. I partied hard this year on the Strip, so next year we'll probably have a quiet party sipping glasses of wine and holding loaded shotguns.:]
Good. More and more games are requiring extensive patching after being purchased.. Pretty soon I expect to see software companies selling alpha versions of their software for 49.95 at EB. "Well, sure there is only one texture, but we got it out in time for Christmas!" When something odd or obscure slips by(ie Bungie Software and the problem with uninstalling Myth II from a userdefined directory,) I can totally understand that. Thats what they have car recalls for...something invariably goes wrong. But when halfbaked software is released as a full, complete version, come on(Uh, Rainbow Six is a great game, but geez guys, how many patches did it take before one could adjust mouse sensitivity? And I've never seen a game crash or show weird bugs as much as R6 does(and this is on 4-6 separate machines!))... 4 or 5 patches just to make the game relatively playable? Hm.
C
You're letting the press off pretty easily
on
First Virtual War
·
· Score: 1
Sure, everyone knows where Kuwait is..it's that little sticky-out part on the bottom of Iraq....don't you watch the CNN graphics?:] Now, ask people where IRAQ is, and we'll see...
Slashdot Mirror
God I am looking forward to a nice final from Mozilla....using html for the window layout is going to be interesting..assuming the source will be easy to get at, it'll be a cinch to customize the browser to your own liking..
_ _____________
On the PC side of things, I really have no major browser complaints.. with Linux(installing SuSe tonite on a box I just built, this is my first major use of Linux, as opposed to minor admin stuff, so wish me luck!) I havent used the browser enough to build a list of what it's lacking.. so this is coming from a Mac OS point of view..
I would love to see a browser that merges the best of IE and Netscape.. each of them has strengths, and each has weaknesses..
I love the History on IE, I abhor the netscape history. PLEASE let me go to where I've gone before, even if I have already closed the damn window.
I like that I can click and drag an image in Netscape to see its dimensions..great from a design point of view..
IE seems to bog down quite a bit when loading long pages with a lot of text.. Netscape, for my uses, is all around the quicker browser in day to day surfing..
Rare is the day that Netscape doesnt crash.
What about you guys? Since we are on the topic of new browser releases, what features in the current crop of browsers do you love and hate? Be interesting to see what has driven various people to a particular browser...
_______________________________________________
My letter. After the note from myself, I included several pages of clippings from user comments here, each one of them expressing their desire to shop elsewhere.
_ _________________________
___________
Dir Sir,
The following are clippings from user comments on Slashdot pertaining to the court case between yourselves and etoy.com. This should save you some time and allow you to gather a basic idea as to the general feelings towards your company in light of the recent events.
I myself, having planned to do most of my Christmas shopping online, will NOT be shopping with eToys.com.
Also, as a brief reminder:
"Domain Name: ETOY.COM
Record created on 13-Oct-1995.
Domain Name: ETOYS.COM
Record created on 03-Nov-1997. "
Chris Ainsworth
EDR Technologies
___________________________________
Mashed potatoes were used because in the mashed form they are quickly digested, and happen to have a high glucose content...it appears that the effects are more or less due to glucose consumption, which can be gained from hundreds of edibles, as opposed to being derived from the potato mashing process. :]
Now they mentioned that it worked best on the elderly and those with bad memories...hinted at it being a deficiency type thing...I wouldn't be surprised to see the results of this experiment available in a pill form within the next year or so.
_______________________________________________
Unfortunately, www.wwcd.com is already in use by the worldwide collectors digest. Pity.
:]
_ _____________
Hopefully that won't prevent you from making the t-shirts.
D
_______________________________________________
Exactly. I'd been reading the comments waiting for someone else to mention this.
You'd be surprised at how well you can do with women if you are simply confident and honest(as opposed to egotistical and bluntly crass, however.)
Ever notice that when it rains it pours? You get together with a woman, or perhaps you are seeing someone... suddenly, there are more women available(even if they don't know you are dating someone else...) Why is this? Because your confidence level has gone up. You also tend to speak to other women as PEOPLE when you aren't aggressively on the hunt. Learn to do that all the time. Realise that they are individuals such as yourself who like conversation, someone to spend time with, and to get laid now and then. If you want a woman just for sex, don't put on a show or try to con her into thinking you are interested in a long term relationship.. treat her with respect; just as you don't want a woman to fool you, she's not going to take that very well either._______________________________________________
Quite a few years ago I worked with an ISP that maintained most of it's admin information(non-server stuff) through BBS software.. we would each log into a terminal and spend the next half hour or so killing each others admin accts, changing passwds, creating new accounts to battle the others with, and so on..
_ _____________
I see this as a potential extension of that good ol' game.. could play something like a varient of Capture the General, where each player tries his damndest to protect his csh monster, while trying to kill the shell of every other player..or perhaps defending your network, attempting to take out the machines of the opposing network.. imagine that, your csh dies and POOF, you're gone..slide your chair over and jump onto the other machine before he hits that as well...
_______________________________________________
Enough of this, eh? Here is an excerpt from the MacOSRumors information posted today.
_ _____________
"Very importantly, it has been confirmed by reliable Apple sources that the company is planning to include fix for the G4 upgrade block installed with the latest Blue G3 Firmware. Apparently, the decision to develop the block code was extremely controversial within Apple, and even its proponents generally stated that their intentions were only to provide insurance that Apple was not"surprise attacked" by third parties shipping G4 upgrades before Apple was able to ship their own G4 machine.
Secondly, MOSR has confirmed that the recent confusion over whether the new Sawtooth-based G4s were processor-upgradable was caused by outdated diagrams of the board. Once more recent
versions were uncovered, it was clear that the Boot ROM continues to reside on the main board, and there are no obvious barriers in hardware nor software for the new G4s to be upgraded for years to come.
In a related note, we were surprised to hear from several third party developers that not only had they succesfully used prototype multiple-G4 upgrade boards on Beige and Blue G3s...at least one has also completed a proof-of-concept test for a multi-G4 card that would support the use of the 128-bit, enhanced-performance MaxBus as a "backplane" bus for the processors and cache chips to use for incredibly efficient inter-processor communication -- but would still be compatible with all upgradable PowerPC Macs and their 64-bit "60x" bus protocol. MaxBus, which many insiders had previously not expected to be applied to the Mac until mid to late 2000, could offer dramatic benefits even in this only partial implementation."
_______________________________________________
With all these new features such as moderation, bonus points for high scorers, karma, etc.. how long is it before we see a highly rated Slashdot acct for sale on eBay? :]
_ _____________
_______________________________________________
Interesting.. just yesterday I was cleaning out the garage and found my copy of the story...
_ _____________
If you wish to read the story that the movie is based on, it is located here.
..here are some online quotes about it..
"Kubrick, as we well know, has had A.I. in development for several years now. The narrative follows the development of a child and his
inter-relation with the technology that surrounds him. We can safely assume here that this technology will be represented by the AI.
"The trick is that the film traces the boys development, not over weeks or months, but YEARS."
June 2, 1996... A long, unsubstantiated rumor is that A.I. actually began production years ago with Joseph Mazzello (Tim from Jurassic Park)
starring. [Scoop sent in by 'hansolo'.]
April 2, 1996... Development on A.I. is in the final stages of set design and special-effects development, reports Associated Press. Kubrick plans to return to direct involvement with the project after completing Eyes Wide Shut. [Scoop feedback by Todd Dupler; originally reported by AP.]
D
_______________________________________________
I agree with you completely.. Although I love Starcraft, battle.net has been a real thorn in the foot of blizzard games... ..same bnet interface, skipping bnet itself..there are both Linux and Win servers available to host your own games, and you can network with other FSGS servers as well(ala battle.net) so there are usually plenty of games available to jump into...plus it makes it soo much easier to actually get into the server with a few friends and get a game going.
_ _____________
One alternative you may want to try is FSGS(Free Standard Game Server)... www.fsgs.com
D
_______________________________________________
Ever play Herzog Zwei for the Sega? I'm not sure if that came out before Dune2 or not, but it was a hell of a game.. something that definately could deserve a remake..
D
_______________________________________________
Second of all, nobody has to be killed in order to find a body. Normal transplants happen every day using organs from people who died. Why is this so different? If they only take the heart or the whole body? You're dead anyway :)
_ ________________
The thing is, for a donor body to be acceptable, the cause of death for the donor would have to be from something above the neck...anything else would deem the body unsuitable for transplant..
Hmm.. Donor dies of a heart attack. Could a heart transplant be performed successfully on the body, allowing it to now be used for a full body transplant?
I wonder how long a body can be dead before undergoing a transplant..
Other interesting black market implications. Sure, yer gonna be paralyzed, but does that really make a difference since you now have [insert name of celebrity idol here]'s body?
C
____________________________________________
Also, if I am correct, I believe the same symbols line the corners of the Wheel of Fortune card as well...
Driph
"Actually, I think that his name was Maw. Also, Maw and Darth Maul looked absolutely nothing alike. Maw didn't have horns and had yellowish skin tones. Maul did have horns and his skin tones were not exactly yellow."
On that note... roommate and I were discussing Maul after seeing the film.. The paint on his face, and even the horns, looked fake....what if it was make up he applied to himself to hide his identity? And with this lil tidbit from the JK game, that sounds even more plausible...
Especially considering, from what I've heard, the actor who played Maul is supposed to be in the next film..
Driph
Am I incorrect here in saying that as far as R2 and C3PO were concerned, when they crash landed on Tatooine in A New Hope, they were on a planet they hadnt visited before?
Hmm.
D
Great show, catch it every now and then.. A friend of mine knows one of the guys who made the show, and used to to leave msgs on her answering machine in that voice...heh
But how can you like S&O and not like MST3K? Hmm.
C
I'm in Vegas, and get the US Pacific feed of the sci-fi channel...for those of you on this side of the US, the times are as follows:
..and the episodes name is "Soultaker" ...#1001
Sun, April 11th: 8:00 pm
Sat, April 17th: 8:00 am
I know that is one I am not going to miss..
C
That's because you're on the internet.
Doh..wow, copy and paste hell. Anyways, here's a working link if anyone really wants it. Sigh. "WebSpeak PLUS is available for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, 98 and NT. It includes a software speech synthesizer, called SoftVoice, and the Windows 95, 98 and NT versions will include the E-Mail package when that software is made generally available." www.prodworks.com C
Hope they include an option to turn images off.
Hmm, aside from telling the user what was a link and what wasnt..(I guess it could read off the hypertext when highlighted, say if using a variant of Lynx.., which would then give the user an idea..)
..Couple years ago I helped a guy setup software that read everything on the screen..he was blind, and this was for Win95.. allowed him to navigate completely thru the OS...wait a sec! Just realised here..he used the internet.. So I assume this already exists, or it would have been pretty boring for him. Wish I remembered more about the particulars.. Hmm. Lemme go read the article now.
C
Okey, not being a programmer...Can someone who does program for the mac fill us in? How often is 'StringToDate' used? Is this a problem within the OS(I guess the API?) Throughout all versions of the MacOS, if so? Okey..is it something that would be seen in Carbon as well? Article gave me more questions than answers..
C
"Jon, I'd really like to see you do a Y2K article for Slashdot. That is, a piece allowing for the fact that 99% of us are intimately familiar with the basic aspects of the problem. Pieces like the above are great for Wired, but not so exciting for ./ "
I agree with you here.. I would like to see Katz put together an article that doesnt spend 1/3 of the text explaining what a XX versus XXXX century date is.
Yeah, he does write editorials, not technical pieces... so what's your view on the whole Y2K thing, Jon? Did Year 2000 in a Nutshell have any impact on your thinking towards the matter?
C
So how much of this book actually covers the details around the Y2k problem, as opposed to spouting off on how we have to put a flower in every child's hand? Admittedly, the other things he mentioned ARE problems to be dealt with, but I don't think people are going to be buying this look looking for a way to end poverty. If the issue is viewed from a strong technical side, I'd be willing to take a look at it, and see what the author has to say.. :]
Ah well, it'll be an interesting New Years to say the least.. I partied hard this year on the Strip, so next year we'll probably have a quiet party sipping glasses of wine and holding loaded shotguns.
C
Good. More and more games are requiring extensive patching after being purchased.. Pretty soon I expect to see software companies selling alpha versions of their software for 49.95 at EB. "Well, sure there is only one texture, but we got it out in time for Christmas!"
When something odd or obscure slips by(ie Bungie Software and the problem with uninstalling Myth II from a userdefined directory,) I can totally understand that. Thats what they have car recalls for...something invariably goes wrong.
But when halfbaked software is released as a full, complete version, come on(Uh, Rainbow Six is a great game, but geez guys, how many patches did it take before one could adjust mouse sensitivity? And I've never seen a game crash or show weird bugs as much as R6 does(and this is on 4-6 separate machines!))... 4 or 5 patches just to make the game relatively playable? Hm.
C
Sure, everyone knows where Kuwait is..it's that little sticky-out part on the bottom of Iraq....don't you watch the CNN graphics? :]
Now, ask people where IRAQ is, and we'll see...
C