There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from different points: I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations; and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.
All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; but these are still in the act of growth; all the others are stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and with celerity along a path to which the human eye can assign no term. The American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose him; the adversaries of the Russian are men; the former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its weapons and its arts: the conquests of the one are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the other by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common-sense of the citizens; the Russian centers all the authority of society in a single arm; the principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.
The citizens of the USA were quite free in 1835 when Alexis de Tocqueville said that. The citizens of Russia were not as much, and even less so in 1917. Of course, within the last 15 years, Russia has been freed significantly, though that could change if the price was right. And within the last 5 years the USA has been enslaved by corporate interests and the agenda they've been pushing for more than 50 years... because the price was right. It all comes down to money. When the price is right, you too will be sold by your benevolent overlords.
FF7? Ugh. Allow me to clear your mind of that notion. FF7 is one of the worst abominations done against the franchise, FF11 being the only one worse, and only because they wanted to bilk extra money out of me.
No, I'm from the old school. Here's how they break down in my mind, in order from best to worst:
- FF6 (3 US) - FF5 - FF4 (2 US) - FF1 - FF3 - FF8 (Yes, I actually liked 8.) - FF2 - FF9 - the ones I haven't played (10, 12) since they can't be worse than 7 - FF7 - FF11 (worst because it's a fricking MMO game)
Unfortunately for the DQ series, I've only played the NES-era ones, and they rank somewhere just below FF9. I don't hate "old school" at all. I'm not wild about voice acting, since it doesn't stop when I have to get up and pee (like text that doesn't move on until you press a button). Cel shading is not a bad thing (I liked Wind Waker, despite the raving anti-fanboyism that it attracted). Maybe it's just a personal preference. I had the same turn-off reaction to Baldur's Gate as I did with Dragon Warrior. It's somehow just too much Ye Olde English and not enough "fantasy" for my tastes.
Just please don't confuse me with those people that swear that "FF7 is the best evar!!!one1!"
But we're hard-wired for consciously applying geometry. If I gave you a board, a piece of string, scissors, and a saw, you could cut the board exactly in half in a short amount of time. How? You'd lay the string out on the board, cut them to match length, fold the string in half, and lay the string out on the board again, making the cut at the end of the string.
That's geometry, and a practical application of it. You wouldn't think about it for too long before coming up with the method of how to accomplish that, either.
Meanwhile, mental "calculus" (the observation of the rates of change of things) and metal "statistics" (the counting of how many times something is going to happen a certain way across repeated attempts) are usually something we can't quite quantify. We do these things automatically, but we can't put them on paper so easily. Geometry, however, works on a sheet of paper, and can be demonstrated there. Notice how all math homework is numbers and letters and symbols except in geometry, where you draw pictures, using the numbers/letters/symbols only to annotate what is going on in those diagrams.
It's not the calculations or even the practical application that sets Geometry apart. It's the fact that we can easily record what's going on in our minds and reuse that recorded information quickly and easily, without having to dredge the rules up from our memories.
which explains why Dragon Quest VIII did so well in Japan but did so poorly in the US
No, the explanation for that is a complicated two-part rant. Let me bullet-point the ways...
- Dragon Quest sucks. It has always sucked. When compared to the (much more popular in the US) Final Fantasy series, it lacks polish. It doesn't impress at all. And since they left off sending them over here after the demise of the NES, Chrono Trigger took the spot of Akira-Toriyama-Artwork-RPG (a.k.a. "It Looks Like DBZ!" or "Oh God It Burns!") in our minds, thus making DQ8 a "copycat". However, the Japanese grew a fondness for them before we ever saw a DW release here in the States. It holds a sentimental place in their hearts for them. They're all over the stuff when it's released.
- Enix sucks. They never made a game that worked for US audiences. US gamers were bombarded with Dragon Warrior. It didn't catch on. DW2-4 didn't either. Why? Probably for the same reasons none of their SNES efforts caught on. 7th Saga? Too hard, not interesting, and buggy. SoulBlazer? Religious-themed (a big no-no in the US) and not widely distributed. Then we got bombarded with hype about Illusion of Gaia. Again, religious themes showed up and people turned their noses up at it. Oh, and IoG had bugs where you could get stuck in certain places. Brain Lord... too short, too "brainy" for most people. They just don't "get it". We want a good story that doesn't involve preaching at the player. We want that story to be told to us, not hinted at for us to guess. We want a non-buggy stats and battle system. We want good graphics. We don't want to replay the first 14 hours of a game because of some stupid bug that got us stuck and we can't escape.
Personally, I don't hate every Enix game out there, and I'm sure they were trying hard to make something original, fun, and interesting enough for someone to buy. I actually enjoyed some of the Zelda-esqe SNES games they made (SoulBlazer, Brain Lord, Terranigma). But DQ8 isn't as charming as those one-off attempts at selling to the US audience. It's Y.A. Turn-based-battle RPG Like Final Fantasy, and as such, isn't going to do well without that name, or at least some promotional materials that say "From the makers of Final Fantasy". The US market is all about Final Fantasy. Until Squeenix leverages that fact and starts billing traditional Enix titles as "from the makers of Final Fantasy", they won't sell to any but the Japan-watchers. And though it's on the increase, Japanamania hasn't reached critical mass yet. DQ8 just isn't going to sell until that happens.
So did AOL, apparently. AOL's response was something along the lines of "Here are our already publically-available usage stats. Enjoy." In other words, AOL also told the government to pound sand. At least, that's what I heard/saw on News Hour last night...
Most compilers will forgive/fill-in-the-blanks for those errors these days. Ahhh, technology.
Seriously, main() is assumed to return int unless otherwise specified, () as a parameter list is assumed to be (void), and an omitted return is always return 0;.
Welcome to the 1980's, where code flows freely, and compilers find your rookie mistakes. Just wait until the '90's when we get Java...
You and most of the parent/grandparent/great-etc. posters have missed the point.
It's not "Weak" vs. "Strong" with the government. Strong is good. Strong is what it should be. But the scope of its power should be limited. Here's how it should work:
The federal government should have exactly 50 citizens currently (the states), and a few working on their green cards (PR, Guam, etc.). It should collect a percentage tax from them, and should provide laws only governing them. The people are not under its control. It's scope is as a ruler of states.
State governments should have a limited number of citizens, with no hope of expansion. Each "citizen" would be a county or non-county municipal government. (When I say "non-county municipal government", I'm talking about situations like St. Louis City, which is not part of St. Louis County, but is still part of Missouri.) The state's scope is as a ruler of counties.
County (or Parish for you Louisiana residents) governments should collect directly from people who live within their borders and outside of incorporated cities, or from municipal governments.
Municipal governments should collect from the people who live within the city limits.
So, if you pay a 10% tax, and you live in a city and make $100000 a year (we all wish, right?), you would pay $10000 to the city. The city would pay $1000 to the county. The county would pay $100 to the state. The state would pay $10 to the feds. Multiply by the number of people in each jurisdiction, and you'll see that the money tree does indeed have leaves. You'll also see that the federal budget would (a) no longer have the capacity for pork-barrel crap, and (b) would no longer have the need for such money, since it's drastically out-of-scope for that level of government. The national government shouldn't be paying for local stuff unless it's specifically tied to the needs of that level of government. And they wouldn't under that plan, because they wouldn't have the money for it.
But of course, this would be a logical and efficient way of handling things, so not only will it not happen, but people won't even understand the concept because they're too fucking dumb.
Apple doesn't solder their ROM anymore. Not since 1998 when they quit using one. They can solder the OF or EFI EEPROM all they want, but that won't change the fact that their "ROM" is software now. Think about "ntldr" on Windows. Now translate that to a "Mac Boot ROM" file on MacOS X.
Oh, and to the GP: they don't use BIOS. The new Intel Macs use EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface). It's like Open Firmware without the "open" part. Intel owns it (like USB).
No Mac since 1998 has had a ROM. It started with the first iMac. MacOS 8.1 was the first system to use a "software ROM", and OSX has used nothing but a "software ROM". On that OSX install CD is a "software ROM" that OF ("Open Firmware" found on PPC Macs) or EFI ("Extensible Firmware Interface" found on POS, err... Intel Macs) looks for during boot-up. It's installed as part of the system, and it's what makes your system a "blessed" system (that is, one that's bootable). In OSX, the "Startup Disk" preference pane keeps track of these and allows you to choose the default one for the next boot sequence.
When you buy the MacOS X CD/DVD, you buy the "ROM" and anything you can make it do. It's as if you had just paid Apple for a bare, old-skool Mac ROM chip, except it came with a whole OS, it's on a shiny plastic disk, and it's a lot easier to install. If you can get lilo or grub to recognize and track that "ROM" (a fairly simple task, I would guess), you can boot on any PC. If you can get a PC mainboard manufacturer to use EFI instead of a BIOS, it's probably even easier, especially if you can get your hands on Apple's bootloader (which is custom, and probably resides within their implementation of EFI).
Just for reference, Windows has a similar file, known to most as "ntldr". I'm sure there are other similar files for other OS'es.
Now games do not have to be innovative, many GBA DS games are not really THAT innovative BUT you have to add something new or a really big improvement for the gaming public to warm up.
Your comment made me think just exactly how "innovative" a game has to be for me to buy it... And I decided that I would happy if they would port Myst to the DS. I would be even happier if they would port the sequels. And happier still if they would spice those ports up a bit, making them similar to Trace Memory.
So, your comment is just about dead-on perfect. You don't have to make completely unique games to make people happy, but you can't sell the equivalent of a level-pack as a new game for full price and expect people to give a damn.
You mean like how no A/C system in any car has a good design?
Seriously. Why the hell can't I have both the dashboard and the defrost vents open at the same time? Or all three (dashboard, defrost, floor)? Why can't I run the air up onto the defrost vents without the fricking A/C compressor kicking on? Sometimes you just want to melt ice, not defog.
Yeah, I've kinda noticed that most user interfaces suck, even in everyday and accepted situations.
Re:Picking and choosing...
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Well, as a previous poster pointed out, Jesus wasn't a Christian. He was a Jew, and as such, worshipped Jehovah. The Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures (the "old testament") includes the book of Psalms, and if you read Psalm 11:5, you'll find this:
Jehovah himself examines the righteous one as well as the wicked one, and anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates.
Also take note of 1 Chronicles 22:8. King David wants to build a temple to the name of Jehovah. Here's the response:
But Jehovah's word came against me, saying, "Blood in great quantity you have spilled, and great wars you have waged. You will not build a house to my name, for a great deal of blood you have spilled on the earth before me."
That makes it pretty clear where Jehovah (the Almighty God of the Bible) stands on the issue of violence. And it makes clear exactly what Jesus was saying not to ignore. Violence is not acceptable. It can be forgiven, but it can cause you to lose privileges that you might have enjoyed otherwise. And Jesus backed this up in the Greek Scriptures (the "new testament") on the night before his death, when he said, "those who take the sword will perish by the sword."
This also fits in with the prophecy in Isaiah 2:4, where it says, "they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore." (Emphasis mine.)
So let's recap. No violence. No bloodshed. No learning how to fight or wage war effectively. Then you can meet all the other requirements to be a Christian.
Or you can opt for the more common course of action and just call yourself a Christian anyway, whether you actually live up to that ideal or not.
It's vastly cheaper for me to buy from iTunes. How? It keeps me out of Best Buy. If I go to Best Buy, I buy not just music, but games, gadgets, and whatever else suits me at the moment. The iTMS doesn't have games, gadgets, or decent-quality movies. But it has decent-quality music (not perfect, so stfu if you gripe about lossy codecs) for a reasonable price. Or at least a price that isn't higher than Best Buy, and is frequently lower.
And it keeps me from buying a ton of other crap to clutter my house and amuse me for an evening or two. Where I'm from, everyone is raised as a good little consumer (could it be... U.S.A.tan-atan-atan?) and I'm honestly getting tired of it. I'm getting more selective and more burnt-out on stupid bullshit. I guess it's part of "growing up", when everyone around you is Peter-Fucking-Pan. They won't grow up. They want more stuff and if they don't get it, they'll scream, cry, and beat their fists on the ground. And the corporations are milking it for all it's worth. More toys for the whiny bitches. So in that respect, iTunes is downright revolutionary. It's slowly chipping away at the corporate control over immature, weak-minded "consumers".
Or maybe I'm full of shit and need to get some sleep.
1) Install and run iTunes, allowing it to search for music on your computer. 2) Plug the iPod in and watch the files transfer to it one-by-one. 3) THERE IS NO FRICKING STEP THREE. YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS BY NOW.
Sorry for the yelling, but it's just so fricking obvious.
The only unintuitive thing about the iPod is the secondary functions of the wheel during playback (you can fast-forward/rewind the track, change the rating, etc). It's really annoying when you don't know what you did, but you know you didn't like the result. That, and holding the "pause" button to turn it off... stupid. On/off is a hardware function. It needs a hardware button that does only that.
First, a few corrections: - The Mac Mini is an inexpensive desktop. It does not use "cheap" or "light duty" parts, laptop-shite drive notwithstanding. - There is no PCI in a Mac Mini. At all. I doubt there would be PCI-E, especially if EFI works like OF. (Open Firmware has a "device tree" structure that makes every controller independent of any bus, instead making them a bus controller and device 0 on that bus. So a FW400 controller is just "there" without any reliance on a PCI controller.) - Mac Minis already have minimal graphics hardware. It's an ATI R9200XT with 32MB of VRAM. You need at least that much to have a working "Genie effect", which does exist in MacOS X Server. - Mac Minis have a fan. It's not amazingly loud, but you can hear it when it gets going. It only runs when the system temperature gets too high. It's amazing how much quicker that fan comes on when you have a HD under your Mini.
Now for the suggestions, since I don't think your idea is without merit: - Standard HD, but not two. This keeps the price down, otherwise, just buy a fricking XServe. - The G4 (read: inexpensive and 7 years old, so it's only going to get cheaper) architecture should be fine for most tasks. It currently is sufficient (just barely) to run an HD PVR. A Core Duo would be nice, but only if it's not a whole lot more expensive. - More FW400 ports. Put some external SATA on there just in case it takes off (and it will if this happens). This would be the primary way to add more HD space. You can RAID or mirror it however you want. - BT and Airport make for a kickass combo for a PVR. Leave 'em in. The wireless BT keyboard and mouse that Apple makes are sturdy and aren't so ugly you have to banish them from the coffee table. WiFi (Airport) is handy if you don't have Ethernet strung all over your house and don't want every baseboard lined with data cables. - The Mac Mini is not a 4-port switch. A dedicated switch is (a) cheaper, (b) less expensive to run, (c) easier to set up and use, and (d) not as error prone. On (a), Apple isn't a volume network-equipment manufacturer. Sure, they could do it, but they won't have the best price. And even if they had the lowest cost, you'd get reamed because it would be an Ethernet switch in a fancy, smooth, white, shiny box. On (b), a Mac Mini has an 85W power brick. A switch has a less-than-10W one. On (c), switches are about as close to plug-and-play as most people have ever seen in a computing gadget. Mac Mini's are well designed, but just can't be that simple. And on a related note, (d), if a Mac Mini is running some sort of switch software, a really stupid user can (and will!) find a way to screw it up. It also could open up exploits on the box, which would be A Bad Thing. - Apple will never design something to be tucked away in a closet. Everything must be shiny and display-case-quality. It's their thing. It's probably what gets Steve Jobs off.
That page consists of pure pedantry. If you were a less scientifically-minded person, you'd understand things like "language" which has concepts like "simile", "metaphor", and "anthropomorphism", which are all used to "explain" "ideas" and "help people understand things better" and "communicate ideas". (My apologies to the late Chris Farley.)
The best one was: The atmosphere likes to absorb IR radiation so we have an imbalance. Yes. Yes it does. Perhaps you would prefer to replace "likes to absorb" with "has an affinity for absorbing" or "tends to absorb". And while those would be different, they wouldn't necessarily communicate the idea better.
People understand anthropomorphism, simile, and metaphor. Those things help them grasp new concepts (or even old ones) much more quickly than if you just presented facts in a boring, straightforward, and completely politically (and pedantically) correct way. So you introduce the ideas to them using something they're likely to make an emotional connection with (because like it or not, people have emotions), then you follow up with the boring facts. It's sort of a trojan horse thing. The human mind tends to reject boredom, but if you get "inside the gates", you can release the boring-fact trojans to bludgeon them into learning something of value.
Oh, and by the way: you triggered this with a completely invalid example. Gravity pulls. Low pressure pulls. Horses pull. Tractors pull. The word "pull" describes motion or the cause thereof, not intent.
C++ is easy to learn. Damn near impossible to master, but very easy to learn.
I started off with QBASIC. VB was just strange when I started playing with it, but not impossible to deal with. I learned some other useless crap for a while (COBOL, Pascal, RPG).
Then I got to C. The syntax took some gettting used to, but almost instantly, it made sense. Braces set off blocks of code. Functions wrap up a single task into a single place so you don't have to keep putting the same stuff in your main code block. Operators don't have to be a single character. Logic operators are useful. Standard I/O is not a given; it has to be included if you want it. Pointers are used because you don't really care where data is, just that you can get to it when you need it. Arrays are just pointers to the first item. Suddenly it all was clear: you can do anything with C. So if you can do anything with C, what the heck is this C++ stuff?
So I started learning about C++ and OOP and overloading and inheritance and all that good stuff. I looked back at C and thought, "Wow, I thought I could do anything, but I was so wrong." C++ syntax makes as much sense as C's does, only this time, there are a few added constructs (classes, obviously). So if you can do more than anything with C++, why would you need Java?
So I started chunking away learning Java. And I learned the answer to the above question: "You don't. Java just mucks things up and screws the nice, clean OO principles you learned all to hell. It wrecks any control you might have over your objects and forces you to do things in Sun's One True Way. Fuck Java." So with Java out of the way, I went on hiatus from programming. I couldn't get a job in the industry without moving a long way away from my family, so I simply gave up programming for a time. I tried a bit of Objective-C (I'm a Mac guy, as if you couldn't tell from my username) and found it to be wholly confusing, as it lacked that familiar and sane C-style syntax. Then I stumbled across PHP. So, if you can't do shit with Java, and C++ is supposedly falling by the wayside, what does PHP offer?
PHP offers two things: a job in the industry, and experience as to why you should love C++. PHP's OO stuff is shaky and weird. It works well enough, if you stick to a few principles: (1) don't pass objects around, only pass scalar types (2) don't use static members, because PHP is kinda shitty (3) design is everything, if you don't have a decent object model, your app is screwed. So... if PHP is kinda shaky but taught me all of this... could it work for C++?
I'm still trying to answer that question. In the meantime, C++ is coming back to me very quickly, and it's showing a lot of improvement due to proper design. It's kinda odd how you have to hit the bottom of the barrel before you know how to get out. No, wait, the bottom of the barrel would've been Perl. Sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
Homer's drivers license in one episode has the state as "NT", which is the abbreviation for "North Takoma", according to the same episode.
[repetition of the title of the song]
[apology in advance to Davinci's Notebook]
The citizens of the USA were quite free in 1835 when Alexis de Tocqueville said that. The citizens of Russia were not as much, and even less so in 1917. Of course, within the last 15 years, Russia has been freed significantly, though that could change if the price was right. And within the last 5 years the USA has been enslaved by corporate interests and the agenda they've been pushing for more than 50 years... because the price was right. It all comes down to money. When the price is right, you too will be sold by your benevolent overlords.
FF7? Ugh. Allow me to clear your mind of that notion. FF7 is one of the worst abominations done against the franchise, FF11 being the only one worse, and only because they wanted to bilk extra money out of me.
No, I'm from the old school. Here's how they break down in my mind, in order from best to worst:
- FF6 (3 US)
- FF5
- FF4 (2 US)
- FF1
- FF3
- FF8 (Yes, I actually liked 8.)
- FF2
- FF9
- the ones I haven't played (10, 12) since they can't be worse than 7
- FF7
- FF11 (worst because it's a fricking MMO game)
Unfortunately for the DQ series, I've only played the NES-era ones, and they rank somewhere just below FF9. I don't hate "old school" at all. I'm not wild about voice acting, since it doesn't stop when I have to get up and pee (like text that doesn't move on until you press a button). Cel shading is not a bad thing (I liked Wind Waker, despite the raving anti-fanboyism that it attracted). Maybe it's just a personal preference. I had the same turn-off reaction to Baldur's Gate as I did with Dragon Warrior. It's somehow just too much Ye Olde English and not enough "fantasy" for my tastes.
Just please don't confuse me with those people that swear that "FF7 is the best evar!!!one1!"
But we're hard-wired for consciously applying geometry. If I gave you a board, a piece of string, scissors, and a saw, you could cut the board exactly in half in a short amount of time. How? You'd lay the string out on the board, cut them to match length, fold the string in half, and lay the string out on the board again, making the cut at the end of the string.
That's geometry, and a practical application of it. You wouldn't think about it for too long before coming up with the method of how to accomplish that, either.
Meanwhile, mental "calculus" (the observation of the rates of change of things) and metal "statistics" (the counting of how many times something is going to happen a certain way across repeated attempts) are usually something we can't quite quantify. We do these things automatically, but we can't put them on paper so easily. Geometry, however, works on a sheet of paper, and can be demonstrated there. Notice how all math homework is numbers and letters and symbols except in geometry, where you draw pictures, using the numbers/letters/symbols only to annotate what is going on in those diagrams.
It's not the calculations or even the practical application that sets Geometry apart. It's the fact that we can easily record what's going on in our minds and reuse that recorded information quickly and easily, without having to dredge the rules up from our memories.
which explains why Dragon Quest VIII did so well in Japan but did so poorly in the US
No, the explanation for that is a complicated two-part rant. Let me bullet-point the ways...
- Dragon Quest sucks. It has always sucked. When compared to the (much more popular in the US) Final Fantasy series, it lacks polish. It doesn't impress at all. And since they left off sending them over here after the demise of the NES, Chrono Trigger took the spot of Akira-Toriyama-Artwork-RPG (a.k.a. "It Looks Like DBZ!" or "Oh God It Burns!") in our minds, thus making DQ8 a "copycat". However, the Japanese grew a fondness for them before we ever saw a DW release here in the States. It holds a sentimental place in their hearts for them. They're all over the stuff when it's released.
- Enix sucks. They never made a game that worked for US audiences. US gamers were bombarded with Dragon Warrior. It didn't catch on. DW2-4 didn't either. Why? Probably for the same reasons none of their SNES efforts caught on. 7th Saga? Too hard, not interesting, and buggy. SoulBlazer? Religious-themed (a big no-no in the US) and not widely distributed. Then we got bombarded with hype about Illusion of Gaia. Again, religious themes showed up and people turned their noses up at it. Oh, and IoG had bugs where you could get stuck in certain places. Brain Lord... too short, too "brainy" for most people. They just don't "get it". We want a good story that doesn't involve preaching at the player. We want that story to be told to us, not hinted at for us to guess. We want a non-buggy stats and battle system. We want good graphics. We don't want to replay the first 14 hours of a game because of some stupid bug that got us stuck and we can't escape.
Personally, I don't hate every Enix game out there, and I'm sure they were trying hard to make something original, fun, and interesting enough for someone to buy. I actually enjoyed some of the Zelda-esqe SNES games they made (SoulBlazer, Brain Lord, Terranigma). But DQ8 isn't as charming as those one-off attempts at selling to the US audience. It's Y.A. Turn-based-battle RPG Like Final Fantasy, and as such, isn't going to do well without that name, or at least some promotional materials that say "From the makers of Final Fantasy". The US market is all about Final Fantasy. Until Squeenix leverages that fact and starts billing traditional Enix titles as "from the makers of Final Fantasy", they won't sell to any but the Japan-watchers. And though it's on the increase, Japanamania hasn't reached critical mass yet. DQ8 just isn't going to sell until that happens.
Probably, but expect silence until Tuesday, when a patch will suddenly appear to bump Safari to 2.0.4.
Google just had the nads to stand up and say no.
So did AOL, apparently. AOL's response was something along the lines of "Here are our already publically-available usage stats. Enjoy." In other words, AOL also told the government to pound sand. At least, that's what I heard/saw on News Hour last night...
Most compilers will forgive/fill-in-the-blanks for those errors these days. Ahhh, technology.
Seriously, main() is assumed to return int unless otherwise specified, () as a parameter list is assumed to be (void), and an omitted return is always return 0;.
Welcome to the 1980's, where code flows freely, and compilers find your rookie mistakes. Just wait until the '90's when we get Java...
And a replicator would end this stupid "copy protection" bullcrap once and for all.
You and most of the parent/grandparent/great-etc. posters have missed the point.
It's not "Weak" vs. "Strong" with the government. Strong is good. Strong is what it should be. But the scope of its power should be limited. Here's how it should work:
The federal government should have exactly 50 citizens currently (the states), and a few working on their green cards (PR, Guam, etc.). It should collect a percentage tax from them, and should provide laws only governing them. The people are not under its control. It's scope is as a ruler of states.
State governments should have a limited number of citizens, with no hope of expansion. Each "citizen" would be a county or non-county municipal government. (When I say "non-county municipal government", I'm talking about situations like St. Louis City, which is not part of St. Louis County, but is still part of Missouri.) The state's scope is as a ruler of counties.
County (or Parish for you Louisiana residents) governments should collect directly from people who live within their borders and outside of incorporated cities, or from municipal governments.
Municipal governments should collect from the people who live within the city limits.
So, if you pay a 10% tax, and you live in a city and make $100000 a year (we all wish, right?), you would pay $10000 to the city. The city would pay $1000 to the county. The county would pay $100 to the state. The state would pay $10 to the feds. Multiply by the number of people in each jurisdiction, and you'll see that the money tree does indeed have leaves. You'll also see that the federal budget would (a) no longer have the capacity for pork-barrel crap, and (b) would no longer have the need for such money, since it's drastically out-of-scope for that level of government. The national government shouldn't be paying for local stuff unless it's specifically tied to the needs of that level of government. And they wouldn't under that plan, because they wouldn't have the money for it.
But of course, this would be a logical and efficient way of handling things, so not only will it not happen, but people won't even understand the concept because they're too fucking dumb.
Apple doesn't solder their ROM anymore. Not since 1998 when they quit using one. They can solder the OF or EFI EEPROM all they want, but that won't change the fact that their "ROM" is software now. Think about "ntldr" on Windows. Now translate that to a "Mac Boot ROM" file on MacOS X.
Oh, and to the GP: they don't use BIOS. The new Intel Macs use EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface). It's like Open Firmware without the "open" part. Intel owns it (like USB).
No Mac since 1998 has had a ROM. It started with the first iMac. MacOS 8.1 was the first system to use a "software ROM", and OSX has used nothing but a "software ROM". On that OSX install CD is a "software ROM" that OF ("Open Firmware" found on PPC Macs) or EFI ("Extensible Firmware Interface" found on POS, err... Intel Macs) looks for during boot-up. It's installed as part of the system, and it's what makes your system a "blessed" system (that is, one that's bootable). In OSX, the "Startup Disk" preference pane keeps track of these and allows you to choose the default one for the next boot sequence.
When you buy the MacOS X CD/DVD, you buy the "ROM" and anything you can make it do. It's as if you had just paid Apple for a bare, old-skool Mac ROM chip, except it came with a whole OS, it's on a shiny plastic disk, and it's a lot easier to install. If you can get lilo or grub to recognize and track that "ROM" (a fairly simple task, I would guess), you can boot on any PC. If you can get a PC mainboard manufacturer to use EFI instead of a BIOS, it's probably even easier, especially if you can get your hands on Apple's bootloader (which is custom, and probably resides within their implementation of EFI).
Just for reference, Windows has a similar file, known to most as "ntldr". I'm sure there are other similar files for other OS'es.
Now games do not have to be innovative, many GBA DS games are not really THAT innovative BUT you have to add something new or a really big improvement for the gaming public to warm up.
Your comment made me think just exactly how "innovative" a game has to be for me to buy it... And I decided that I would happy if they would port Myst to the DS. I would be even happier if they would port the sequels. And happier still if they would spice those ports up a bit, making them similar to Trace Memory.
So, your comment is just about dead-on perfect. You don't have to make completely unique games to make people happy, but you can't sell the equivalent of a level-pack as a new game for full price and expect people to give a damn.
you can't do the right click->Send to->Notepad thing under OSX
That's because you do the right click->Open With->TextEdit thing instead.
You mean like how no A/C system in any car has a good design?
Seriously. Why the hell can't I have both the dashboard and the defrost vents open at the same time? Or all three (dashboard, defrost, floor)? Why can't I run the air up onto the defrost vents without the fricking A/C compressor kicking on? Sometimes you just want to melt ice, not defog.
Yeah, I've kinda noticed that most user interfaces suck, even in everyday and accepted situations.
Well, as a previous poster pointed out, Jesus wasn't a Christian. He was a Jew, and as such, worshipped Jehovah. The Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures (the "old testament") includes the book of Psalms, and if you read Psalm 11:5, you'll find this:
Jehovah himself examines the righteous one as well as the wicked one, and anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates.
Also take note of 1 Chronicles 22:8. King David wants to build a temple to the name of Jehovah. Here's the response:
But Jehovah's word came against me, saying, "Blood in great quantity you have spilled, and great wars you have waged. You will not build a house to my name, for a great deal of blood you have spilled on the earth before me."
That makes it pretty clear where Jehovah (the Almighty God of the Bible) stands on the issue of violence. And it makes clear exactly what Jesus was saying not to ignore. Violence is not acceptable. It can be forgiven, but it can cause you to lose privileges that you might have enjoyed otherwise. And Jesus backed this up in the Greek Scriptures (the "new testament") on the night before his death, when he said, "those who take the sword will perish by the sword."
This also fits in with the prophecy in Isaiah 2:4, where it says, "they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore." (Emphasis mine.)
So let's recap. No violence. No bloodshed. No learning how to fight or wage war effectively. Then you can meet all the other requirements to be a Christian.
Or you can opt for the more common course of action and just call yourself a Christian anyway, whether you actually live up to that ideal or not.
Most Mac users have latched onto Pico for their CLI text-editing needs, which are minimal.
It's vastly cheaper for me to buy from iTunes. How? It keeps me out of Best Buy. If I go to Best Buy, I buy not just music, but games, gadgets, and whatever else suits me at the moment. The iTMS doesn't have games, gadgets, or decent-quality movies. But it has decent-quality music (not perfect, so stfu if you gripe about lossy codecs) for a reasonable price. Or at least a price that isn't higher than Best Buy, and is frequently lower.
And it keeps me from buying a ton of other crap to clutter my house and amuse me for an evening or two. Where I'm from, everyone is raised as a good little consumer (could it be... U.S.A.tan-atan-atan?) and I'm honestly getting tired of it. I'm getting more selective and more burnt-out on stupid bullshit. I guess it's part of "growing up", when everyone around you is Peter-Fucking-Pan. They won't grow up. They want more stuff and if they don't get it, they'll scream, cry, and beat their fists on the ground. And the corporations are milking it for all it's worth. More toys for the whiny bitches. So in that respect, iTunes is downright revolutionary. It's slowly chipping away at the corporate control over immature, weak-minded "consumers".
Or maybe I'm full of shit and need to get some sleep.
Umm...
1) Install and run iTunes, allowing it to search for music on your computer.
2) Plug the iPod in and watch the files transfer to it one-by-one.
3) THERE IS NO FRICKING STEP THREE. YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS BY NOW.
Sorry for the yelling, but it's just so fricking obvious.
The only unintuitive thing about the iPod is the secondary functions of the wheel during playback (you can fast-forward/rewind the track, change the rating, etc). It's really annoying when you don't know what you did, but you know you didn't like the result. That, and holding the "pause" button to turn it off... stupid. On/off is a hardware function. It needs a hardware button that does only that.
I second that, and have a name to back it up.
First, a few corrections:
- The Mac Mini is an inexpensive desktop. It does not use "cheap" or "light duty" parts, laptop-shite drive notwithstanding.
- There is no PCI in a Mac Mini. At all. I doubt there would be PCI-E, especially if EFI works like OF. (Open Firmware has a "device tree" structure that makes every controller independent of any bus, instead making them a bus controller and device 0 on that bus. So a FW400 controller is just "there" without any reliance on a PCI controller.)
- Mac Minis already have minimal graphics hardware. It's an ATI R9200XT with 32MB of VRAM. You need at least that much to have a working "Genie effect", which does exist in MacOS X Server.
- Mac Minis have a fan. It's not amazingly loud, but you can hear it when it gets going. It only runs when the system temperature gets too high. It's amazing how much quicker that fan comes on when you have a HD under your Mini.
Now for the suggestions, since I don't think your idea is without merit:
- Standard HD, but not two. This keeps the price down, otherwise, just buy a fricking XServe.
- The G4 (read: inexpensive and 7 years old, so it's only going to get cheaper) architecture should be fine for most tasks. It currently is sufficient (just barely) to run an HD PVR. A Core Duo would be nice, but only if it's not a whole lot more expensive.
- More FW400 ports. Put some external SATA on there just in case it takes off (and it will if this happens). This would be the primary way to add more HD space. You can RAID or mirror it however you want.
- BT and Airport make for a kickass combo for a PVR. Leave 'em in. The wireless BT keyboard and mouse that Apple makes are sturdy and aren't so ugly you have to banish them from the coffee table. WiFi (Airport) is handy if you don't have Ethernet strung all over your house and don't want every baseboard lined with data cables.
- The Mac Mini is not a 4-port switch. A dedicated switch is (a) cheaper, (b) less expensive to run, (c) easier to set up and use, and (d) not as error prone. On (a), Apple isn't a volume network-equipment manufacturer. Sure, they could do it, but they won't have the best price. And even if they had the lowest cost, you'd get reamed because it would be an Ethernet switch in a fancy, smooth, white, shiny box. On (b), a Mac Mini has an 85W power brick. A switch has a less-than-10W one. On (c), switches are about as close to plug-and-play as most people have ever seen in a computing gadget. Mac Mini's are well designed, but just can't be that simple. And on a related note, (d), if a Mac Mini is running some sort of switch software, a really stupid user can (and will!) find a way to screw it up. It also could open up exploits on the box, which would be A Bad Thing.
- Apple will never design something to be tucked away in a closet. Everything must be shiny and display-case-quality. It's their thing. It's probably what gets Steve Jobs off.
.Mac is not $99.00 per year. It's $99.95, which makes his point even more valid and yours just incorrect.
That page consists of pure pedantry. If you were a less scientifically-minded person, you'd understand things like "language" which has concepts like "simile", "metaphor", and "anthropomorphism", which are all used to "explain" "ideas" and "help people understand things better" and "communicate ideas". (My apologies to the late Chris Farley.)
The best one was: The atmosphere likes to absorb IR radiation so we have an imbalance. Yes. Yes it does. Perhaps you would prefer to replace "likes to absorb" with "has an affinity for absorbing" or "tends to absorb". And while those would be different, they wouldn't necessarily communicate the idea better.
People understand anthropomorphism, simile, and metaphor. Those things help them grasp new concepts (or even old ones) much more quickly than if you just presented facts in a boring, straightforward, and completely politically (and pedantically) correct way. So you introduce the ideas to them using something they're likely to make an emotional connection with (because like it or not, people have emotions), then you follow up with the boring facts. It's sort of a trojan horse thing. The human mind tends to reject boredom, but if you get "inside the gates", you can release the boring-fact trojans to bludgeon them into learning something of value.
Oh, and by the way: you triggered this with a completely invalid example. Gravity pulls. Low pressure pulls. Horses pull. Tractors pull. The word "pull" describes motion or the cause thereof, not intent.
Ugh.
C++ is easy to learn. Damn near impossible to master, but very easy to learn.
I started off with QBASIC. VB was just strange when I started playing with it, but not impossible to deal with. I learned some other useless crap for a while (COBOL, Pascal, RPG).
Then I got to C. The syntax took some gettting used to, but almost instantly, it made sense. Braces set off blocks of code. Functions wrap up a single task into a single place so you don't have to keep putting the same stuff in your main code block. Operators don't have to be a single character. Logic operators are useful. Standard I/O is not a given; it has to be included if you want it. Pointers are used because you don't really care where data is, just that you can get to it when you need it. Arrays are just pointers to the first item. Suddenly it all was clear: you can do anything with C. So if you can do anything with C, what the heck is this C++ stuff?
So I started learning about C++ and OOP and overloading and inheritance and all that good stuff. I looked back at C and thought, "Wow, I thought I could do anything, but I was so wrong." C++ syntax makes as much sense as C's does, only this time, there are a few added constructs (classes, obviously). So if you can do more than anything with C++, why would you need Java?
So I started chunking away learning Java. And I learned the answer to the above question: "You don't. Java just mucks things up and screws the nice, clean OO principles you learned all to hell. It wrecks any control you might have over your objects and forces you to do things in Sun's One True Way. Fuck Java." So with Java out of the way, I went on hiatus from programming. I couldn't get a job in the industry without moving a long way away from my family, so I simply gave up programming for a time. I tried a bit of Objective-C (I'm a Mac guy, as if you couldn't tell from my username) and found it to be wholly confusing, as it lacked that familiar and sane C-style syntax. Then I stumbled across PHP. So, if you can't do shit with Java, and C++ is supposedly falling by the wayside, what does PHP offer?
PHP offers two things: a job in the industry, and experience as to why you should love C++. PHP's OO stuff is shaky and weird. It works well enough, if you stick to a few principles: (1) don't pass objects around, only pass scalar types (2) don't use static members, because PHP is kinda shitty (3) design is everything, if you don't have a decent object model, your app is screwed. So... if PHP is kinda shaky but taught me all of this... could it work for C++?
I'm still trying to answer that question. In the meantime, C++ is coming back to me very quickly, and it's showing a lot of improvement due to proper design. It's kinda odd how you have to hit the bottom of the barrel before you know how to get out. No, wait, the bottom of the barrel would've been Perl. Sorry.