You say you appreciate it, but clearly you don't because you don't actually read the articles in full (by your own admission).
Try reading one from start to finish, then think about how much nonsensical rambling you could remove. My guess is that a competant technical writer could remove at least 2/3 of each Tom's article.
Precision of language is important on the web in general, but especially for technical articles.
A friend of mine was such a well-regarded video card expert in the TH forums that Tom's invited him to an 'expert's round table' to discuss what could be done to improve their site and readership. In that meeting not one 'expert' mentioned that they don't need 38 pages to discuss 5 computer cases.
Simply stated, if you want to let Tom's know what you think of their 50 page articles, you'd be far better off letting them know. They would likely love to hear your feedback because whether you believe it or not, they are really trying to improve their site.
I find that I generally have a good idea what's going on by frequenting/. and many other geekly news-aggrigator sites. I keep my ear to the ground and keep track mentally of how often new programming/tech buzzwords get kicked around. I investigate every technology on a high-level, and when I see a new trend emerging that seems to offer a solution that nothing else has so far, get involved on a granular level. I make my own decisions based on what information I can gather.
Bottom line is, to use your example, if you were looking for what was going down on cutting-edge Java, you would simply spend a good portion of your time researching Java. But the point I'm trying to shoehorn in here is that to stay on edge, you have to be on edge. Which means investing time and researching and *actually* knowing what's going on. Otherwise you'll remain a tool to the hype-machines that have felled so many good programmers / managers.
Sorry... I wish I could give you the "visit site X" answer that you're looking for. I really do.
Air control during a jump! Thanks SMB 1!
That was a HUGE platform-game improvement that was carried forward all future platform games (that didn't suck).
What comes to mind is an Ogre beating the living stuffings out a Gnome - gouging it's eyes, kicking it in the nuts, pulling the rug out from under it and throwing sand in its face. Then the Ogre calls a truce?!?
A truce? How about you just stop beating the shit out of the Gnome?
Was it he who dropped this info to the startup? Did he also drop the transparency trick too? Please say yes.
Hell is a casino in which you always win.
on
Just Let Me Play!
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· Score: 1
I don't really think this guy would like to play the games he writes about wanting to play. Or at leat 99% of the gaming population wouldn't.
If games were made the way he wants, there would be no challenge, no overcoming obstacles and the feeling of satisfaction associated with that - which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a video game.
It does seem improbable that the police would make a comment to a random caller, presumably from another country. We need a 2nd person to call and confirm; report back to this thread.
I just want to offer a couple of concrete reasons why the super cheap cases are a bad idea:
The metal deforms easily; you will find that it is bent to rat-shit after you swap hardware a few times;
The switches on the front cack-out very easily and are often made/molded in just a particular weird shape that usually prevents repair;
On one of the cheap cases I serviced, the metal mount for the PCI/AGP cards would deform gradually with temperature change, causing the cards to ever-so-slowly shimmy out of their slots (guess how long it took me to diagnose THAT one);
The thin, poorly fitted metal does not block fan noise well, and often leads to loud vibration noise with the CD/DVD drive spinning;
Every friend / family member / client for whom I have built a computer, and at their request used a cheap case, has eventually thrown it into the trash and payed the proper price for a proper case. End result : they have a nice case, but payed way more than if they bought for a proper case to begin with.
Do you remember back to a time when virtually NO software / games had major bugs? Yeah, that's because patching software by snail mail with floppy discs was a costly and unpractical nightmare, so you had to get it right the FIRST time.
That's a very valid point. Among my friends is an extremely talented technical writer who spends her *entire working day* in Word. Recently, I coded a collaborative blog for me, her and another friend - a place for us to crack jokes, post stupid photos and generally riff off one-another's slanted sense of humor - took me about 3 hours and I used the FCKeditor for composing the blog entries.
You wouldn't believe her delight when she found herself able to "post something to the internet". She was all smiles for weeks, thanking me repeatedly for setting it up. She now has a huge sense of empowerment and doesn't have to know jack about any nerdly technologies / markup languages. She just goes to the post page, inserts her pictures, clicks the Post button and bam - she's "on the internet". Take my word for it when I say she is beside herself with joy.
So agreed... this feature will be well appreciated and well used by less technical people.
You want to buy a sturdy leather (no frills, no compartments) laptop bag, and a sturdy leather (lots of frills, lots of compartments) video camera bag. Take them to your leather smith (can often be found at shoe repair shops!) and have him sew the backs of them together.
Slashdot Mirror
You say you appreciate it, but clearly you don't because you don't actually read the articles in full (by your own admission).
Try reading one from start to finish, then think about how much nonsensical rambling you could remove. My guess is that a competant technical writer could remove at least 2/3 of each Tom's article.
Precision of language is important on the web in general, but especially for technical articles.
A friend of mine was such a well-regarded video card expert in the TH forums that Tom's invited him to an 'expert's round table' to discuss what could be done to improve their site and readership. In that meeting not one 'expert' mentioned that they don't need 38 pages to discuss 5 computer cases.
Simply stated, if you want to let Tom's know what you think of their 50 page articles, you'd be far better off letting them know. They would likely love to hear your feedback because whether you believe it or not, they are really trying to improve their site.
I'm really, really surprised that Out of This World (aka Another World) wasn't on that list.
I don't think what you're looking for exists!
/. and many other geekly news-aggrigator sites. I keep my ear to the ground and keep track mentally of how often new programming/tech buzzwords get kicked around. I investigate every technology on a high-level, and when I see a new trend emerging that seems to offer a solution that nothing else has so far, get involved on a granular level. I make my own decisions based on what information I can gather.
I find that I generally have a good idea what's going on by frequenting
Bottom line is, to use your example, if you were looking for what was going down on cutting-edge Java, you would simply spend a good portion of your time researching Java. But the point I'm trying to shoehorn in here is that to stay on edge, you have to be on edge. Which means investing time and researching and *actually* knowing what's going on. Otherwise you'll remain a tool to the hype-machines that have felled so many good programmers / managers.
Sorry... I wish I could give you the "visit site X" answer that you're looking for. I really do.
Air control during a jump! Thanks SMB 1! That was a HUGE platform-game improvement that was carried forward all future platform games (that didn't suck).
IIRC, Dragon's Lair was the first game that took TWO quarters to get a credit. At least in my city where the game made the local news.
What comes to mind is an Ogre beating the living stuffings out a Gnome - gouging it's eyes, kicking it in the nuts, pulling the rug out from under it and throwing sand in its face. Then the Ogre calls a truce?!?
A truce? How about you just stop beating the shit out of the Gnome?
Wow... talk about seeing and missing the point at the same time.
I too detest abysmal spelling mistakes like that. If geeks coded the way some writers write, we'd end up with... well... Windows.
I highly doubt it. While I know nothing of metals, I do know about common sense.
If your scenario played out in the real-world, it would be the nerd equivalent of "UNIX admins discover that chmod also works on directories.
Give people in other fields a bit of credit.
Was it he who dropped this info to the startup? Did he also drop the transparency trick too? Please say yes.
I don't really think this guy would like to play the games he writes about wanting to play. Or at leat 99% of the gaming population wouldn't.
If games were made the way he wants, there would be no challenge, no overcoming obstacles and the feeling of satisfaction associated with that - which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a video game.
It does seem improbable that the police would make a comment to a random caller, presumably from another country. We need a 2nd person to call and confirm; report back to this thread.
As much as I respect Bram, I'm not going to include his voice as being relevant for the net neutrality discussion.
Anybody with a vested interest cannot add anything other than personal slant to the discussion.
The internet makes patching software a breeze.
Do you remember back to a time when virtually NO software / games had major bugs? Yeah, that's because patching software by snail mail with floppy discs was a costly and unpractical nightmare, so you had to get it right the FIRST time.
Say nothing...
Wouldn't simply Robotic Telesurgery be an appropriate title? Wouldn't simply Robotic Telesurgery be an appropriate title?
That's a very valid point. Among my friends is an extremely talented technical writer who spends her *entire working day* in Word. Recently, I coded a collaborative blog for me, her and another friend - a place for us to crack jokes, post stupid photos and generally riff off one-another's slanted sense of humor - took me about 3 hours and I used the FCKeditor for composing the blog entries.
You wouldn't believe her delight when she found herself able to "post something to the internet". She was all smiles for weeks, thanking me repeatedly for setting it up. She now has a huge sense of empowerment and doesn't have to know jack about any nerdly technologies / markup languages. She just goes to the post page, inserts her pictures, clicks the Post button and bam - she's "on the internet". Take my word for it when I say she is beside herself with joy.
So agreed... this feature will be well appreciated and well used by less technical people.
You want to buy a sturdy leather (no frills, no compartments) laptop bag, and a sturdy leather (lots of frills, lots of compartments) video camera bag. Take them to your leather smith (can often be found at shoe repair shops!) and have him sew the backs of them together.
It's not crazy, I've done similar things.
I cannot believe that this is on the front page of /.
What a disgrace to this site and everything it's ever stood for.
Take this B.S. to digg or youtube or whatever the fuck else you can think of because it sure as hell doesn't belong here IMNSHO.
What the hell are you talking about? How is this relevant? Why are you bragging about your hardware setup and trying to push product?
Please show me something the size of a CD ROM that can power a notebook... I'll buy 10.
I assume that what they meant to write was 'CD ROM _Drive_ Sized'
Are you sure about it being an acronym? From the Adaptive Path site:
"Q. Why did you feel the need to give this a name?
A. I needed something shorter than "Asynchronous JavaScript+CSS+DOM+XMLHttpRequest" to use when discussing this approach with clients."
Good job! Nice to see there are some people willing to spend their personal time to help ensure that advertisers can't operate totally unchecked!