I don't know about the other states, but in MO, "file online for free" means "download a PDF-that-looks-like-a-tax-form-and-is-every-bit-as -confusing-and-non-explanatory-as-the-real-thing-b ut-it-does-the-calculations-as-you-fill-in-the-bla nks-and-generates-a-bar-code-when-you-print, then mail it via snail mail". So it's a bit of a misnomer.
I'd much rather Apple bring back "popup folder tabs" from MacOS. In MacOS 9 and earlier, you could create a folder, open it in a window, drag the window to the bottom of the screen, and poof! you have a tab at the bottom of the screen that would pop up when you clicked it, kinda like a drawer at the bottom of the screen.
Apple-O (as in "File" > "Open"). I'm not sure if Apple-[Right Arrow] works in every situation, but in some situations it does the same (think about a "tree" directory listing... right arrow to open folders, left arrow to close folders, drill down to an executable file and right arrow still opens it).
I've never heard of a grandmother, aunt, uncle, child, or otherwise require training to use the basic software that comes with windows
You must not be the family "expert" then. I get these calls all the time. "I can't get my email." "My internet doesn't work." "There's a box saying $errorMessage and it keeps coming up when I try to $simpleCommand." Windows is a never-ending supply of annoying questions, and I'm guessing that MS never even bothers to put it through SUT (Stupid User Testing).
A friend of mine just bought a new Dell. He wanted to know how to get his email to stop asking him for the password all the time. It turns out he was checking it via the web and didn't understand that this wasn't the same thing as an email program. So I set up Outlook (which came with the Dell) to get his email. It worked fine, but as soon as I left, he started complaining that he wasn't getting his email. I'm quite capable of setting up an email program, and I had verified that it was working before I left. I went back, and sure enough, it had simply ceased working. It wouldn't send or receive anything. I still have no idea why. The accounts and passwords were all still intact. Fortunately, now, MSIE uses the passwords from Outlook's password store when he logs into his web email.
If I try to use Linux, I run into dead-end after dead-end trying to get my hardware just to FUNCTION correctly. This has some to do with driver support, and much more to do with being user-friendly.
Have you tried a "normal" installation? Or did you try to tweak and recompile stuff? I wholeheartedly recommend Ubuntu for anyone that likes Windows, unless, of course, you want to play Windows games. Ubuntu will install just as easily as Windows, and in about the same amount of time (30 minutes or so).
Another friend of mine had an older system with a b0rked Win98 install on it. I installed Ubuntu for him and showed him how to use it (the usual "there's no start menu, but these menus up here do the same thing" speel). He liked it and was able to get around as well in it as he did in Windows. The only dealbreaker was a game that wouldn't detect the CD in the drive when run under Wine.
You're supposed to refuse sale to anyone you suspect to be underage that can't provide ID to prove otherwise. This includes forms of ID that aren't familiar to the seller.
Most establishments in this area will only accept state ID from this state and the one across the border 10 miles from here, as well as military ID or a passport. The other 48 states' and every other country's ID's are invalid as far as local shops and restaurants are concerned.
countries buy dollars because dollars are good, stable things to have, rather than anything they particularly want to spend dollars on.
Not true. OPEC oil is only sold in exchange for US dollars. Saddam was threatening to accept Euros as well as USD, and got his ass handed to him for merely making that threat. I would bet that Bush would be the highest-approved president in US history right now if he had simply told the truth about Iraq and alerted the American people to the economic threat Saddam posed. Instead, he's a warmongering, excuse-making lame duck with a low rating and a congress breathing threats of impeachment. In today's society, money is everything, and control of money is control of everything. There's a reason the US dollar retains that controlling position, and it's not necessarily "stability".
Actually, $1000 bills are still around and in use. They're only used for transactions between commercial banks and Federal Reserve banks. It's not yet illegal for others to use them, however, so if you really want one, you could probably get it.
Strip clubs start selling paper scrip for tipping at the door.
Like strippers don't get fucked enough as it is. You think they won't start paying back progressively lower percentages of those tips when they turn that funny-money over for real dough? You underestimate the sliminess of the average "upstanding restauranteur".
John 3:16 is more accurately translated as (emphasis mine):
"For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life."
A Christian is someone who exercises faith in Christ. Mere belief is not enough. Even the Bible itself says this in James 2:19:
"You believe there is one God, do you? You are doing quite well. And yet the demons believe and shudder."
Exercising faith in Christ requires that you follow his teachings. Just claiming to believe is not enough. In fact, merely doing good along with bad isn't going to get you anywhere. Matthew 7:21-23 says:
"Not everyone saying to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the heavens, but the one doing the will of my Father who is in the heavens will. Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?' And yet then I will confess to them: I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness."
Then buy the power. There's nothing that says you have to generate on-site. I'm just saying it's probably more efficient to do the electrolysis on-site, as it removes the entire supply chain. You then only need basic utilities.
And you still didn't address the trombe wall idea.
Of course, you conveniently ignore the more energy-efficient trombe wall idea. How much for a steam turbine? Certainly less than $4m. How much for a closed loop convection turbine? Still less than $4m, and doesn't require as much heat. Trombe walls can be built to generate steam, but it's easier to generate hot water.
On the bleeding edge, there are thermoelectric generators (basically, peltier coolers heated to produce electricity), which provide some hope of compact, solid-state generators becoming cost-effective. The two technologies could be combined, with a trombe wall gathering heat (very effective, even in overcast weather), and thermoelectric generators using that heat to make electricity. Don't expect this to happen any sooner than you would expect to see hydrogen-fuel cars, though.
1) Hydrogen requires a long-overdue redesign of the sales channel. 2) Hydrogen requires a large amount of nearly-free electricity to generate. 3) Hydrogen requires no transport, and no cooling during storage.
A hydrogen fuel station could be built with various electric generation systems on-site to generate hydrogen for fuel, oxygen for medical purposes, and even feed unneeded electricity back into the grid. Most gas stations in the USA (I don't know about other parts of the world, but I assume they're similar) have a huge canopy over the pumps. It's just a few girders holding up some fancy-looking sheet metal. There's nothing else up there except some wiring. That's a wasted platform. The girders could support many times the weight of what's up there. So put some solar electric panels up there. Or a trombe-wall-like surface. Something to capture solar energy. Use that energy (directly or converted) to perform electrolysis. Sell H2 as vehicle fuel. Sell O2 to local hospitals. Sell excess electricity to the power company. Tell the Teamsters (who are going to be pissed because your station makes them obsolete) to procreate with themselves. The same goes for the fuel brokers, centralized fuel suppliers, and the transport services they're in bed with. You'll be able to sell much cheaper than anyone else in the area due to a distinct lack of middlemen, and you'll soon be able to expand the business.
Of course, none of this can happen until hydrogen cars are available to the general public.
The AHRA certainly puts a lot of pressure on other forms of media to conform to the same measure of "fair use". RIAA v. Diamond sets a strong precedent, and not just for audio.
It could also be argued that, as the hardware used to play older games is no longer produced, space-shifting is in itself a form of archival preservation, and use of archival copies is simply fair use.
There's no "gray" area if you own the original games, but not the console (except in cases where the console has a BIOS, which started becoming common with the PSX). The games are often easy to find at thrift stores (like Goodwill) or resale shops (there's a good chain called "Slackers" here). Ebay is also decent.
Once you have the game, the ROM is legal, or at least as close as you need to worry about being. (Technically, the ROM is only fully legal if you rip it yourself. It's just that you could claim to have ripped it if you show the original cart, and nobody would bother to call you on it.) PSX games are even easier, as you can play them directly from the CD, and it's not difficult to rip your own ISO if you want the convenience.
As far as controllers are concerned, well, it's easy to find dead consoles, salvage some spare parts, and make a cool console-controller-to-USB or -parallel bus converter. There are even premade drivers for some of them.
Of which, only Super Mario RPG came out in the USA. Hence, for those of us in the USA, SMRPG was the only game that used the SA-1. Also, at least one of the games listed as using the SA-1 wasn't even a SNES release. Try out that PGA Tour '96 link. It was a Genesis/MD game.
Good call on the DSP's and the Cx4. I had those confused.
As far as the SuperFX lists go, I'm pretty sure Dirt Trax FX used the SFX2 and Stunt Race FX used the SFX1. Stunt Race FX was released in 1994 before the SFX was updated, while Dirt Trax FX was released in 1995, after the update.
and the Orginal Unreal dear god how the hell they put that much story line on a single CD still blows my mind
Eh? Please tell me that's sarcasm. The plot for the original Unreal was: 1) You're a prisoner being transferred to a prison planet. Your guilt is not necessarily proven, but you're screwed nonetheless. (This part is in the manual.) 2) The transfer ship has crashed. Everyone from the ship is dead. (This is where you begin the game.) 3) There are bad aliens nearby. (Level 1, ISV Vortex Rikers) 4) There are good aliens nearby, and they've been enslaved by the bad aliens. (Level 2, Nyleve's Falls) 5) There is another crashed ship nearby. (Level 7, ISV Kran) 6) You've defeated all the bad aliens and helped free the good aliens. (Level 35, Escape from Na Pali)
Note that the plot arc for the game isn't started until (3) and spans 35 levels for the next 3 plot points.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Unreal and wish that Epic would stop wasting time screwing up the UT franchise and make more Unreal games. I just don't fool myself into thinking that the plot was deep. Now Unreal 2, on the other hand, had a good plot. Too bad I'm one of the 3 people that actually liked it.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about the other states, but in MO, "file online for free" means "download a PDF-that-looks-like-a-tax-form-and-is-every-bit-as -confusing-and-non-explanatory-as-the-real-thing-b ut-it-does-the-calculations-as-you-fill-in-the-bla nks-and-generates-a-bar-code-when-you-print, then mail it via snail mail". So it's a bit of a misnomer.
Morse code sucks.
That is all.
- KB0LIG
I'd much rather Apple bring back "popup folder tabs" from MacOS. In MacOS 9 and earlier, you could create a folder, open it in a window, drag the window to the bottom of the screen, and poof! you have a tab at the bottom of the screen that would pop up when you clicked it, kinda like a drawer at the bottom of the screen.
Apple-O (as in "File" > "Open"). I'm not sure if Apple-[Right Arrow] works in every situation, but in some situations it does the same (think about a "tree" directory listing... right arrow to open folders, left arrow to close folders, drill down to an executable file and right arrow still opens it).
With any luck, Nintendo will head that one off at the pass by releasing a neck strap instead.
You must not be the family "expert" then. I get these calls all the time. "I can't get my email." "My internet doesn't work." "There's a box saying $errorMessage and it keeps coming up when I try to $simpleCommand." Windows is a never-ending supply of annoying questions, and I'm guessing that MS never even bothers to put it through SUT (Stupid User Testing).
A friend of mine just bought a new Dell. He wanted to know how to get his email to stop asking him for the password all the time. It turns out he was checking it via the web and didn't understand that this wasn't the same thing as an email program. So I set up Outlook (which came with the Dell) to get his email. It worked fine, but as soon as I left, he started complaining that he wasn't getting his email. I'm quite capable of setting up an email program, and I had verified that it was working before I left. I went back, and sure enough, it had simply ceased working. It wouldn't send or receive anything. I still have no idea why. The accounts and passwords were all still intact. Fortunately, now, MSIE uses the passwords from Outlook's password store when he logs into his web email.
Have you tried a "normal" installation? Or did you try to tweak and recompile stuff? I wholeheartedly recommend Ubuntu for anyone that likes Windows, unless, of course, you want to play Windows games. Ubuntu will install just as easily as Windows, and in about the same amount of time (30 minutes or so).
Another friend of mine had an older system with a b0rked Win98 install on it. I installed Ubuntu for him and showed him how to use it (the usual "there's no start menu, but these menus up here do the same thing" speel). He liked it and was able to get around as well in it as he did in Windows. The only dealbreaker was a game that wouldn't detect the CD in the drive when run under Wine.
Apple doesn't make "upgrade" versions of Mac OS X for any market. Only "Pro" apps have upgrades (Final Cut, Logic, DVD Studio, etc.).
You mean Stargate Sagittarius-Aries-Aries, right?
You're supposed to refuse sale to anyone you suspect to be underage that can't provide ID to prove otherwise. This includes forms of ID that aren't familiar to the seller.
Most establishments in this area will only accept state ID from this state and the one across the border 10 miles from here, as well as military ID or a passport. The other 48 states' and every other country's ID's are invalid as far as local shops and restaurants are concerned.
Two words: Crystalline Entity.
countries buy dollars because dollars are good, stable things to have, rather than anything they particularly want to spend dollars on.
Not true. OPEC oil is only sold in exchange for US dollars. Saddam was threatening to accept Euros as well as USD, and got his ass handed to him for merely making that threat. I would bet that Bush would be the highest-approved president in US history right now if he had simply told the truth about Iraq and alerted the American people to the economic threat Saddam posed. Instead, he's a warmongering, excuse-making lame duck with a low rating and a congress breathing threats of impeachment. In today's society, money is everything, and control of money is control of everything. There's a reason the US dollar retains that controlling position, and it's not necessarily "stability".
Actually, $1000 bills are still around and in use. They're only used for transactions between commercial banks and Federal Reserve banks. It's not yet illegal for others to use them, however, so if you really want one, you could probably get it.
Strip clubs start selling paper scrip for tipping at the door.
Like strippers don't get fucked enough as it is. You think they won't start paying back progressively lower percentages of those tips when they turn that funny-money over for real dough? You underestimate the sliminess of the average "upstanding restauranteur".
A Christian is someone who exercises faith in Christ. Mere belief is not enough. Even the Bible itself says this in James 2:19:
Exercising faith in Christ requires that you follow his teachings. Just claiming to believe is not enough. In fact, merely doing good along with bad isn't going to get you anywhere. Matthew 7:21-23 says:
Or to put it another way (Galatians 5:9):
Breek and sprorts?
Then buy the power. There's nothing that says you have to generate on-site. I'm just saying it's probably more efficient to do the electrolysis on-site, as it removes the entire supply chain. You then only need basic utilities.
And you still didn't address the trombe wall idea.
The first example of the use of continue made me want to cry!
If you're not the baby Jesus, you don't count.
Besides, continue is just a fancy way to do a break followed by a goto. Anything that keeps manual goto statements out of code is a good thing.
Of course, you conveniently ignore the more energy-efficient trombe wall idea. How much for a steam turbine? Certainly less than $4m. How much for a closed loop convection turbine? Still less than $4m, and doesn't require as much heat. Trombe walls can be built to generate steam, but it's easier to generate hot water.
On the bleeding edge, there are thermoelectric generators (basically, peltier coolers heated to produce electricity), which provide some hope of compact, solid-state generators becoming cost-effective. The two technologies could be combined, with a trombe wall gathering heat (very effective, even in overcast weather), and thermoelectric generators using that heat to make electricity. Don't expect this to happen any sooner than you would expect to see hydrogen-fuel cars, though.
"Sally" is Stone Phillips?
Stone Phillips is "Sally"?
I'm so confused.
I suggest a counter-advertising campaign of "Telephone Companies Are Funding Al Qaeda" or perhaps "Comcast's Executives Worship Satan."
Ooh! Truthiness!
1) Hydrogen requires a long-overdue redesign of the sales channel.
2) Hydrogen requires a large amount of nearly-free electricity to generate.
3) Hydrogen requires no transport, and no cooling during storage.
A hydrogen fuel station could be built with various electric generation systems on-site to generate hydrogen for fuel, oxygen for medical purposes, and even feed unneeded electricity back into the grid. Most gas stations in the USA (I don't know about other parts of the world, but I assume they're similar) have a huge canopy over the pumps. It's just a few girders holding up some fancy-looking sheet metal. There's nothing else up there except some wiring. That's a wasted platform. The girders could support many times the weight of what's up there. So put some solar electric panels up there. Or a trombe-wall-like surface. Something to capture solar energy. Use that energy (directly or converted) to perform electrolysis. Sell H2 as vehicle fuel. Sell O2 to local hospitals. Sell excess electricity to the power company. Tell the Teamsters (who are going to be pissed because your station makes them obsolete) to procreate with themselves. The same goes for the fuel brokers, centralized fuel suppliers, and the transport services they're in bed with. You'll be able to sell much cheaper than anyone else in the area due to a distinct lack of middlemen, and you'll soon be able to expand the business.
Of course, none of this can happen until hydrogen cars are available to the general public.
The AHRA certainly puts a lot of pressure on other forms of media to conform to the same measure of "fair use". RIAA v. Diamond sets a strong precedent, and not just for audio.
It could also be argued that, as the hardware used to play older games is no longer produced, space-shifting is in itself a form of archival preservation, and use of archival copies is simply fair use.
There's no "gray" area if you own the original games, but not the console (except in cases where the console has a BIOS, which started becoming common with the PSX). The games are often easy to find at thrift stores (like Goodwill) or resale shops (there's a good chain called "Slackers" here). Ebay is also decent.
Once you have the game, the ROM is legal, or at least as close as you need to worry about being. (Technically, the ROM is only fully legal if you rip it yourself. It's just that you could claim to have ripped it if you show the original cart, and nobody would bother to call you on it.) PSX games are even easier, as you can play them directly from the CD, and it's not difficult to rip your own ISO if you want the convenience.
As far as controllers are concerned, well, it's easy to find dead consoles, salvage some spare parts, and make a cool console-controller-to-USB or -parallel bus converter. There are even premade drivers for some of them.
Wikipedia lists 25 games that use the SA-1
Of which, only Super Mario RPG came out in the USA. Hence, for those of us in the USA, SMRPG was the only game that used the SA-1. Also, at least one of the games listed as using the SA-1 wasn't even a SNES release. Try out that PGA Tour '96 link. It was a Genesis/MD game.
Good call on the DSP's and the Cx4. I had those confused.
As far as the SuperFX lists go, I'm pretty sure Dirt Trax FX used the SFX2 and Stunt Race FX used the SFX1. Stunt Race FX was released in 1994 before the SFX was updated, while Dirt Trax FX was released in 1995, after the update.
Moral: Don't just blindly trust Wikipedia.
Eh? Please tell me that's sarcasm. The plot for the original Unreal was:
1) You're a prisoner being transferred to a prison planet. Your guilt is not necessarily proven, but you're screwed nonetheless. (This part is in the manual.)
2) The transfer ship has crashed. Everyone from the ship is dead. (This is where you begin the game.)
3) There are bad aliens nearby. (Level 1, ISV Vortex Rikers)
4) There are good aliens nearby, and they've been enslaved by the bad aliens. (Level 2, Nyleve's Falls)
5) There is another crashed ship nearby. (Level 7, ISV Kran)
6) You've defeated all the bad aliens and helped free the good aliens. (Level 35, Escape from Na Pali)
Note that the plot arc for the game isn't started until (3) and spans 35 levels for the next 3 plot points.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Unreal and wish that Epic would stop wasting time screwing up the UT franchise and make more Unreal games. I just don't fool myself into thinking that the plot was deep. Now Unreal 2, on the other hand, had a good plot. Too bad I'm one of the 3 people that actually liked it.