Nah, what he did was the best he could/should do. As others mentioned, think of the tech support calls. On the other hand, a nice approach would be "printing" each page they tried to visit to an image file and have squid display that instead.
"I'm clicking in the page, and it does nothing!"
"Could you visit www.check-this-if-you-have-a-problem.com?"
"Yeah, did it"
"So?"
"Same 'ol, same 'ol"...
Be glad for actually reading it as it were.
I read "...forging professional careers as Roaches"... I mean, WTF? I cannot earn much more than the basic wage, with years of experience, computer knowledge and whatnot, and some teenage dudes get dressed as roaches and...
heck...
I felt really bad for a while...
Yeah, you're quite right...
Doom 3 and Halflife 2 sold a lot because they were totally different experience in regards to the previous titles of their series. Just like the gameplay of Final Fantasy is never the same.
Sorry for being sarcastic, but "brand new gameplay" actually means a rat's ass as far as sales go. The same, although we may not want to admit it, is true for what we call "gameplay". Look at Tetris: Lumines on PSP is a glorified Tetris clone, yet it sold quite well from what I know, and is thought of as one of the best current-gen puzzle games. And it actually is "Tetris-with-music-and-rotating-blocks"...
If they manage to put an involving story, nice cinematics, robust engine and game mechanics on the title, I don't see why it can't be succesful. Yes, it will be "another FPS", but each and every year we see a typical Quake with 2 or 3 small changes, nice graphics and sound and although at heart it isn't that much different, we slap on it a "most wanted title of the year" stamp and count the days 'till its release.
Whatever, I don't think we'll see it, at least not this year. And if we do, we should be prepared to hear stuff like "ofcourse its buggy, they rushed us to release it" or "well, if we had more time...".
Ah, don't mind... The answer wasn't only regarding what you said, but what everyone said up until then... And I totally agree. Linux is the best in some stuff, but lags a lot in several places. If these are fixed, heck, the penguin will rule!;-)
Nice, really nice... Typical "uber linux user" behavior, from you and many others... "It's not a problem with linux, you are lazy/an idiot, and don't want to try/work" and stuff...
OK, let's see... Somebody who doesn't have previous experience on Linux, would like to try it but also happens to work from 10 to 14 hours per day and, oh, let's see, tries to actually have-a-life and HASN'T devoted himself to the Almighty Open-Source Cause, is... what? An idiot, or a lazy bastard, if we believe what many linux zealots say. Anyone who finds that his new 5.1 sound system is reduced to stereo in linux should spend "some time" (from 1 minute to 20 hours, depending on previous knowledge of linux, config files, alsa, voodoo magic and stuff) to make it work. If he doesn't he's, I'll repeat, an idiot or a lazy bastard. Right?
And what is all that stuff about "he should research what he bought"? WHAT? WHY should somebody who DOESN'T care in specifics do ANY research on "what he buys"? There are a-lot of people who think their time is way more precious than paying a bit more for a device. Maybe, just maybe, this is why a lot of people prefer consoles for their gaming, prefer to buy Home Cinema systems instead of "building" them, prefer to... buy a fridge instead of assembling it.
I know that it's good making something yourself, creating it from scratch or fine-tuning it so that it does your work exactly the way you like it but sometimes, and it is most of the time, you may prefer buying something pre-made, pre-configured, and live with its shortcomings, just because your time, as well, is precious. There's a finite amount of time you can invest in something, that changes from person to person, from need to need, from device to device. Somebody talked about the VCR clock. Yeah, it may not show the right time for many people, but it DOES play the damn tapes - so, what if it doesn't show the time, if you aren't interested in recording?
Now, if somebody works for 8 hours per day and has lots of time in his hands, yeah, he can learn linux and could be an idiot or a lazy bastard for not trying but... Why? Why should he? And, apart from him, how can linux seem appealing to somebody that wants to try it, but doesn't have the time or money to spent on "research for supported hardware" or "changing options, tweaking and optimising it"? Ah...yes... By taking a divorce, quiting his job and finding more time to learn how to work with it......or maybe, just maybe, by becoming a bit simpler to use. Just like Windows NT did, didn't they?
(and all that from a person that has Gentoo on two of his boxes, LOVES linux but cannot, I repeat, cannot spend all the time needed to quite-bring-it-arround-to-his-preferences)
The CD. You're missing the CD. That was the "original" thing the PSOne brought to the table. And I guess that being easy to copy its games was an aditional... bonus. That, together with awesome marketing (who'd have thought that a bunch of four symbols would be instantly recognisable?), a lot of support and pretty diverse software for everyone. There are some other little things as well...:
I admit I didn't have a N64, or any console, up until I bought my PS2 and, now, PSP. I was an Amiga guy, so I had access to a lot of nice games, and didn't feel any need to buy a console. Some years ago, I decided to check out, through emulation, what the consoles of ole times that I missed had to offer. So... On SNES/Genesis I found at least 100 games that were quite interesting. They hold up pretty well. On PSOne I found at least 50 games that were quite interesting. They hold up pretty well. On N64 I found 5, I repeat, FIVE games that were quite interesting: Zelda, Banzo Kazooie, Super Mario (from a purely technical standpoint, since I never liked the idea of an Italian mustached plumber riding turtles, eating mushrooms and jumping arround), GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. So, you bought a console to play FIVE games.
Lastly, keep in mind that freshness and style matter, a lot. Remember Wipeout 2097, its soundtrack, presentation, fast action... F-Zero could be first, but it seemed... well... incomplete, in comparison to Wipeout 2097.
Ofcourse, I understand that "buying a console at the time it was released is a bit different than playing its games in an emulator", but I think that you can get a pretty good idea from it about what each system offered.
Yeah, you are absolutely, friggin' right. I was thinking the exact same thing: Since I bought Workbench 3.1 for my Amiga, I have the right to run it on whatever platform I choose. Why the heck did Commodore restrict me to the Amiga platform? I should be able to run it on my PCs, on my PS2 and PSP... But nooooooo sir, they restricted me to their hardware...
If anyone else is in the same position, misses the days of his Workbench and hates the fact that it doesn't run in anything apart from some illegal, hacked software, calling itself "imulatoors" -or something like that, join me. We will sosuem.
...if it writes 1TByte in the HDs, and not on the DVDs. It's a usual TIVO-style device, with 1Tbyte of HD storage and a dvd-writer. Nothing to see here... Move along...
A: Hello sir
B: What?
A: Hello! We're calling regarding...
B: What?
A: HELLOO! We're calling for the peer to peer...
B: What?
A: About the bittorrent...
B: What?
A: About the wares...
B: What?
A: About MP3 bittorrent links...
B: What?
A: WILL YOU TURN DOWN THE DAMN MUSIC?
B: What?
Well, what did you expect? To come and spread the chips themselves?
Modchips are supposed to make PS2s play homebrew software, demos and applications. Like what? The PS2Reality player, whos development was stopped when it managed to play about 60-70% of movies, at low quality and stuttering framerate? That's the best known app requiring a Modchip, and it's not any more developed.
SONY, and all of us, know that modchips are used, as far as PS2 goes, in 99,9% of the cases for piracy. Although, yeah, I've got a modded console -for obvious reasons- we shouldn't hide behind our finger.
I may be harsh here, but I believe that we should "kill" the "idiots" in the land of computers. If somebody cannot understand the difference between a left and a right click, then he shouldn`t be using a computer in the first place. It`s because of these persons that viruses get spread, or when they sit at our computers we return to find them totally messed up. A friend of mines sister cannot, as well, understand the difference between the left and the right button. At the same time she cannot understand why she shouldn`t "delete the windows folder", and sure as heck she cannot understand why when she pressed "save" on a doc she was working on, it didn`t appear in the diskette she had in the drive.
Your (and my) grandma, parents, friends, "idiots" in general (as far as computers go), should not and cannot use a computer without help from someone. And when they do, its bad news for other people. If your grandma cannot understand what is the right click and why she shouldn`t do it, try to explain to her why she shouldn`t open the attachments in her mail. Do it now or ban her from using computers, `cause later you`ll be busy cleaning your PCs from the latest "oportunity letters from Mongolia"...
"WARNING: AUTOEXEC.BAT IS COPYRIGHT PROPERTY OF"...
ah, forget it...
From what I understand, they`d be better of just making a front-end for the Windows Search Assistant function. Hey, why not create a new stupid mascot, something like a "grinning lawyer" or something for it instead of taking time trying to pass it off as a new proggie?
It was time!
Up until now, you fired an mp3 player and you could hear all your MP3s with no problems whatsoever! Now, for the first time in Linux, you`ll be able to load an mp3 player (among other things) and, guess what, you'll be able to hear all your MP3s with no problems whatsoever! Ain`t it great?...err....or something...
You need ARTISTS? What? ARTISTS? OK. Here it goes: you`ve GOT artists. What you don`t have is programming. What are the problems in Linux gaming, as you see them? Do the graphics suck? Nope, they`re, at least, adequate. Is the sound bad? Nope. Fine tunes for me. So, what are the problems?
(*) Although their graphics are a-ok, the "feeling" of the games is down in the dump. Compare Puzzle Bubble with Frozen Bubble. I dunno what`s the problem, but it ain`t their graphics - compare Tux Racer with NFSU2: do you seriously believe that the problem is in the graphics? Has anyone tried adding "drift" modes, realistic physics and stuff like that? Ah, yes... "The problem is with the graphics"...
(*) Most Linux games are constantly in a "to-be-continued" state. You are afraid to start playing because something might be broken, or there may not even exist an ending. If you decide to start playing, maybe the games team will see it fit to quit the project, and you`ll have spent time seeing half of a game you`d like to finish, but won`t ever be able to.
Address this stuff and you`ve done a good start. Its easy blaming the problems on others. In the 8bit age, most game creators were programmers, not multimedia artists. Most games ruled. Nowadays, games are filled to the brim with multimedia stuff, and most of them suck. I ain`t saying "stay with nethack, it has great gameplay", but I won`t blame Frozen Bubble or Pingus for their graphics either - their problems are elsewhere.
I`m a newb in Linux, and I don`t generally use it too much. Although I like the idea of linux, there are some things that put me off it. First one is, ofcourse, that "everything" first-class, as far as a simple user goes, is released on Windows. On Win I can jump from compressing a movie to XviD with Gordian Knot to playing HalfLife2, to hearing MP3s while working in Photoshop and compressing with WinRAR and downloading with eMule at the same time, just by doing 5-6 clicks of a button. On linux, to do the same, you need to type. A lot. To avoid that, you have to create scripts, wich again means that at sime time you have to type. A lot.
Linux ISN`T "user friendly" by design, and that hurst it. Two things that anoy me the most are firstly its idiotic file / directory structure, where when you install a program / application it goes all over the place and you have to search for its individual files (thats how I understood it - if it isn`t this way, sorry, but it wasn`t as obvious as it probbably should be) if you want to check something out. Take for example aMule. It installs its main files in one place, its preferences / user setup in another, its temp, down and shared dirs in some completely diferent place. Nice? I think not.
The second thing that is quite annoying is, again, its user friendliness as long as error tollerance goes. Take X for example. I change my ATi card to an nVidia one. What happens? "Cannot start X". Ok, but we`re in 2005. Can`t you, at least, select a generic VGA and start the damn thing? Or even an EGA and show me a basic graphic environment, where I can at least search on the Internet for some help in some clear and usable way? No. "Cannot start X". You have to start a console-based browser and hotkey your way to google, searching among heaps of text for some help. Niiiice...
Change these two at first, and you`ve got a winner. Make it possible that each and every program installs everything into ONE dir, with links to other dirs, or if that happens (told you, dunno, I`m a newb) show the user that it actually happens that way. Show him how he can manage files. Give him a proper file handling tool (Nautilus? Yeah, right...) like Directory Opus on the Amiga, or its spinoff for Windows (Gentoo - the file manager - tries to imitate this but actually is still miles away from them). Use DEFAULTS, for crying out loud, for X, and mPlayer, and anything that could crap out and fall on its face reporting that its misconfigured. Supply a ready, basic config from the start for each and everything on linux. And try to avoid behaviour such as mPlayers, where when you start the program and throw a file at it it shows you an interface, but when you double click a video file it starts without one - where the heck is it hidden?
Do these sound as newbie questions? They are. They are what makes me avoid linux when I don`t have a lot of spare time to spend on it and revert to the all-easy Windows. And do you know something? I don`t care if linux zealots don`t care about people like me. They lose as much as I do. They won`t help me out because my needs are silly for them, I won`t design some graphics for them since I simply cannot work on what they provide me.
Best Regards
Ducklord
I don`t understand one thing: if you go in a shop and buy, say, 30-40 different goods, are they tracked all "at the same time" or one by one? That, although it doesn`t seem so important, has a lot to do with our privacy: If the RFID tags can`t be tracked in groups, then when you bring what you bought to your car, when you throw away the garbage it won`t get tracked or, at least, -some- of the things will get tracked, but not the whole bunch. Not being so technical regarding RFID technology, I understand it like "the signals could get mixed" or something... Does it work that way?
Not exactly. From what I know, it wasn`t just that "music and language" were one and the same, but that both were based on maths. The classic Greek language is based heavily on mathematic relations and, from what they tought us at school, the only one that complies to pure mathematic logic. If you learn the logic behind it, you`ve learned the language.
The same, for Greeks, applied to music. Music that wasn`t based on patterns, that didn`t incorporate maths was, simply, "not music".
Anyway, my two cents... ergh... sausages as a Greek..!;-)
Actually, I`ve tried Newteks Lightwave (latest version) and it works, BUT: not in a... ahem... "lawful" way. Its protection crashes under WINE, so you have to find "a way to bypass it". After that, its not only usable, its actually faster than the same frickin version running under windows!!! From what I`m guessing, it has to do not only with lesser bloatware in my Gentoo dist, but with native, fast support for OpenGL in the desktop (the preview windows are blazingly fast compared to running it under Windows).
Keeping in mind that I`m a newbie, don`t know hell about linux (not even what are or how to create symlinks - what the heck are these?) I`m guessing that WINE might just be able to run your Max with no problems! Give it a try, you ain`t got anything to lose but some of your time!
Well, if I`m not mistaken, there WAS a case in court were a teen was accused of hacking a network but used the good`ol trojan as an alibi. Since there was a trojan in his computer, ANYTHING was presumed as possible - a malicious attacker could even create false logs if he was able enough, couldn`t he?
Well, the argument is the same: he didn`t distribute them, he created the means of distributing them - and that isn`t, exactly, illegal. It`s, like other people allready said, like suing a knife maker because a blade of his was used in a murder.
Well, maybe I didn`t quite get it right, but in what way exactly is what he`s done illegal? Or is it just because he made it difficult for them to crack the network he`d created that they wanted even more to "crack him", as an example?
Believe you me, maybe that will be the start of a new row of attacks from RIAA and MPAA towards program creators.
Oh my, are you nuts? I`m Greek, and the Greek language has, as well, "a different word for everything". I understand that if it is different than what you`re used to it just... well, "seems strange", but try to think about it: if two things are different, shouldn`t them be named differently?
"What`s that?" "The sky..." "And that?" (pointing at a cow) "Eehr...the sky?!"...you get, I hope, the example!
Well, if there IS satellite evidence of a huge ship where every single animal - and its mate - were collected by an old man, his family and his colleagues, what else remains there to be said? Mulder, are you there?
Slashdot Mirror
At last... That brings us one more step closer to Disney's Farcry ride... "Please don't feed the hybrids" (-"Ah! AAaAahhHh! He ate my arm!")
It's a Lie!
Nah, what he did was the best he could/should do. As others mentioned, think of the tech support calls. On the other hand, a nice approach would be "printing" each page they tried to visit to an image file and have squid display that instead. "I'm clicking in the page, and it does nothing!" "Could you visit www.check-this-if-you-have-a-problem.com?" "Yeah, did it" "So?" "Same 'ol, same 'ol"...
Be glad for actually reading it as it were. I read "...forging professional careers as Roaches"... I mean, WTF? I cannot earn much more than the basic wage, with years of experience, computer knowledge and whatnot, and some teenage dudes get dressed as roaches and... heck... I felt really bad for a while...
Yeah, you're quite right... Doom 3 and Halflife 2 sold a lot because they were totally different experience in regards to the previous titles of their series. Just like the gameplay of Final Fantasy is never the same.
Sorry for being sarcastic, but "brand new gameplay" actually means a rat's ass as far as sales go. The same, although we may not want to admit it, is true for what we call "gameplay". Look at Tetris: Lumines on PSP is a glorified Tetris clone, yet it sold quite well from what I know, and is thought of as one of the best current-gen puzzle games. And it actually is "Tetris-with-music-and-rotating-blocks"...
If they manage to put an involving story, nice cinematics, robust engine and game mechanics on the title, I don't see why it can't be succesful. Yes, it will be "another FPS", but each and every year we see a typical Quake with 2 or 3 small changes, nice graphics and sound and although at heart it isn't that much different, we slap on it a "most wanted title of the year" stamp and count the days 'till its release.
Whatever, I don't think we'll see it, at least not this year. And if we do, we should be prepared to hear stuff like "ofcourse its buggy, they rushed us to release it" or "well, if we had more time...".
Ah, don't mind... The answer wasn't only regarding what you said, but what everyone said up until then... And I totally agree. Linux is the best in some stuff, but lags a lot in several places. If these are fixed, heck, the penguin will rule! ;-)
Nice, really nice... Typical "uber linux user" behavior, from you and many others... "It's not a problem with linux, you are lazy/an idiot, and don't want to try/work" and stuff...
...or maybe, just maybe, by becoming a bit simpler to use. Just like Windows NT did, didn't they?
OK, let's see...
Somebody who doesn't have previous experience on Linux, would like to try it but also happens to work from 10 to 14 hours per day and, oh, let's see, tries to actually have-a-life and HASN'T devoted himself to the Almighty Open-Source Cause, is... what? An idiot, or a lazy bastard, if we believe what many linux zealots say. Anyone who finds that his new 5.1 sound system is reduced to stereo in linux should spend "some time" (from 1 minute to 20 hours, depending on previous knowledge of linux, config files, alsa, voodoo magic and stuff) to make it work. If he doesn't he's, I'll repeat, an idiot or a lazy bastard. Right?
And what is all that stuff about "he should research what he bought"? WHAT? WHY should somebody who DOESN'T care in specifics do ANY research on "what he buys"? There are a-lot of people who think their time is way more precious than paying a bit more for a device. Maybe, just maybe, this is why a lot of people prefer consoles for their gaming, prefer to buy Home Cinema systems instead of "building" them, prefer to... buy a fridge instead of assembling it.
I know that it's good making something yourself, creating it from scratch or fine-tuning it so that it does your work exactly the way you like it but sometimes, and it is most of the time, you may prefer buying something pre-made, pre-configured, and live with its shortcomings, just because your time, as well, is precious. There's a finite amount of time you can invest in something, that changes from person to person, from need to need, from device to device. Somebody talked about the VCR clock. Yeah, it may not show the right time for many people, but it DOES play the damn tapes - so, what if it doesn't show the time, if you aren't interested in recording?
Now, if somebody works for 8 hours per day and has lots of time in his hands, yeah, he can learn linux and could be an idiot or a lazy bastard for not trying but... Why? Why should he?
And, apart from him, how can linux seem appealing to somebody that wants to try it, but doesn't have the time or money to spent on "research for supported hardware" or "changing options, tweaking and optimising it"?
Ah...yes... By taking a divorce, quiting his job and finding more time to learn how to work with it...
(and all that from a person that has Gentoo on two of his boxes, LOVES linux but cannot, I repeat, cannot spend all the time needed to quite-bring-it-arround-to-his-preferences)
The CD. You're missing the CD. That was the "original" thing the PSOne brought to the table. And I guess that being easy to copy its games was an aditional... bonus. That, together with awesome marketing (who'd have thought that a bunch of four symbols would be instantly recognisable?), a lot of support and pretty diverse software for everyone. There are some other little things as well...:
I admit I didn't have a N64, or any console, up until I bought my PS2 and, now, PSP. I was an Amiga guy, so I had access to a lot of nice games, and didn't feel any need to buy a console. Some years ago, I decided to check out, through emulation, what the consoles of ole times that I missed had to offer. So...
On SNES/Genesis I found at least 100 games that were quite interesting. They hold up pretty well.
On PSOne I found at least 50 games that were quite interesting. They hold up pretty well.
On N64 I found 5, I repeat, FIVE games that were quite interesting: Zelda, Banzo Kazooie, Super Mario (from a purely technical standpoint, since I never liked the idea of an Italian mustached plumber riding turtles, eating mushrooms and jumping arround), GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. So, you bought a console to play FIVE games.
Lastly, keep in mind that freshness and style matter, a lot. Remember Wipeout 2097, its soundtrack, presentation, fast action... F-Zero could be first, but it seemed... well... incomplete, in comparison to Wipeout 2097.
Ofcourse, I understand that "buying a console at the time it was released is a bit different than playing its games in an emulator", but I think that you can get a pretty good idea from it about what each system offered.
Yeah, you are absolutely, friggin' right. I was thinking the exact same thing: Since I bought Workbench 3.1 for my Amiga, I have the right to run it on whatever platform I choose. Why the heck did Commodore restrict me to the Amiga platform? I should be able to run it on my PCs, on my PS2 and PSP... But nooooooo sir, they restricted me to their hardware...
If anyone else is in the same position, misses the days of his Workbench and hates the fact that it doesn't run in anything apart from some illegal, hacked software, calling itself "imulatoors" -or something like that, join me. We will sosuem.
...if it writes 1TByte in the HDs, and not on the DVDs. It's a usual TIVO-style device, with 1Tbyte of HD storage and a dvd-writer. Nothing to see here... Move along...
A: Hello sir B: What? A: Hello! We're calling regarding... B: What? A: HELLOO! We're calling for the peer to peer... B: What? A: About the bittorrent... B: What? A: About the wares... B: What? A: About MP3 bittorrent links... B: What? A: WILL YOU TURN DOWN THE DAMN MUSIC? B: What?
Well, what did you expect? To come and spread the chips themselves?
Modchips are supposed to make PS2s play homebrew software, demos and applications. Like what? The PS2Reality player, whos development was stopped when it managed to play about 60-70% of movies, at low quality and stuttering framerate? That's the best known app requiring a Modchip, and it's not any more developed.
SONY, and all of us, know that modchips are used, as far as PS2 goes, in 99,9% of the cases for piracy. Although, yeah, I've got a modded console -for obvious reasons- we shouldn't hide behind our finger.
I may be harsh here, but I believe that we should "kill" the "idiots" in the land of computers. If somebody cannot understand the difference between a left and a right click, then he shouldn`t be using a computer in the first place. It`s because of these persons that viruses get spread, or when they sit at our computers we return to find them totally messed up. A friend of mines sister cannot, as well, understand the difference between the left and the right button. At the same time she cannot understand why she shouldn`t "delete the windows folder", and sure as heck she cannot understand why when she pressed "save" on a doc she was working on, it didn`t appear in the diskette she had in the drive. Your (and my) grandma, parents, friends, "idiots" in general (as far as computers go), should not and cannot use a computer without help from someone. And when they do, its bad news for other people. If your grandma cannot understand what is the right click and why she shouldn`t do it, try to explain to her why she shouldn`t open the attachments in her mail. Do it now or ban her from using computers, `cause later you`ll be busy cleaning your PCs from the latest "oportunity letters from Mongolia"...
"WARNING: AUTOEXEC.BAT IS COPYRIGHT PROPERTY OF"... ah, forget it... From what I understand, they`d be better of just making a front-end for the Windows Search Assistant function. Hey, why not create a new stupid mascot, something like a "grinning lawyer" or something for it instead of taking time trying to pass it off as a new proggie?
It was time! Up until now, you fired an mp3 player and you could hear all your MP3s with no problems whatsoever! Now, for the first time in Linux, you`ll be able to load an mp3 player (among other things) and, guess what, you'll be able to hear all your MP3s with no problems whatsoever! Ain`t it great? ...err....or something...
You need ARTISTS?
What?
ARTISTS?
OK. Here it goes: you`ve GOT artists. What you don`t have is programming. What are the problems in Linux gaming, as you see them? Do the graphics suck? Nope, they`re, at least, adequate. Is the sound bad? Nope. Fine tunes for me. So, what are the problems?
(*) Although their graphics are a-ok, the "feeling" of the games is down in the dump. Compare Puzzle Bubble with Frozen Bubble. I dunno what`s the problem, but it ain`t their graphics - compare Tux Racer with NFSU2: do you seriously believe that the problem is in the graphics? Has anyone tried adding "drift" modes, realistic physics and stuff like that? Ah, yes... "The problem is with the graphics"...
(*) Most Linux games are constantly in a "to-be-continued" state. You are afraid to start playing because something might be broken, or there may not even exist an ending. If you decide to start playing, maybe the games team will see it fit to quit the project, and you`ll have spent time seeing half of a game you`d like to finish, but won`t ever be able to.
Address this stuff and you`ve done a good start. Its easy blaming the problems on others. In the 8bit age, most game creators were programmers, not multimedia artists. Most games ruled. Nowadays, games are filled to the brim with multimedia stuff, and most of them suck. I ain`t saying "stay with nethack, it has great gameplay", but I won`t blame Frozen Bubble or Pingus for their graphics either - their problems are elsewhere.
I`m a newb in Linux, and I don`t generally use it too much. Although I like the idea of linux, there are some things that put me off it. First one is, ofcourse, that "everything" first-class, as far as a simple user goes, is released on Windows. On Win I can jump from compressing a movie to XviD with Gordian Knot to playing HalfLife2, to hearing MP3s while working in Photoshop and compressing with WinRAR and downloading with eMule at the same time, just by doing 5-6 clicks of a button. On linux, to do the same, you need to type. A lot. To avoid that, you have to create scripts, wich again means that at sime time you have to type. A lot. Linux ISN`T "user friendly" by design, and that hurst it. Two things that anoy me the most are firstly its idiotic file / directory structure, where when you install a program / application it goes all over the place and you have to search for its individual files (thats how I understood it - if it isn`t this way, sorry, but it wasn`t as obvious as it probbably should be) if you want to check something out. Take for example aMule. It installs its main files in one place, its preferences / user setup in another, its temp, down and shared dirs in some completely diferent place. Nice? I think not. The second thing that is quite annoying is, again, its user friendliness as long as error tollerance goes. Take X for example. I change my ATi card to an nVidia one. What happens? "Cannot start X". Ok, but we`re in 2005. Can`t you, at least, select a generic VGA and start the damn thing? Or even an EGA and show me a basic graphic environment, where I can at least search on the Internet for some help in some clear and usable way? No. "Cannot start X". You have to start a console-based browser and hotkey your way to google, searching among heaps of text for some help. Niiiice... Change these two at first, and you`ve got a winner. Make it possible that each and every program installs everything into ONE dir, with links to other dirs, or if that happens (told you, dunno, I`m a newb) show the user that it actually happens that way. Show him how he can manage files. Give him a proper file handling tool (Nautilus? Yeah, right...) like Directory Opus on the Amiga, or its spinoff for Windows (Gentoo - the file manager - tries to imitate this but actually is still miles away from them). Use DEFAULTS, for crying out loud, for X, and mPlayer, and anything that could crap out and fall on its face reporting that its misconfigured. Supply a ready, basic config from the start for each and everything on linux. And try to avoid behaviour such as mPlayers, where when you start the program and throw a file at it it shows you an interface, but when you double click a video file it starts without one - where the heck is it hidden? Do these sound as newbie questions? They are. They are what makes me avoid linux when I don`t have a lot of spare time to spend on it and revert to the all-easy Windows. And do you know something? I don`t care if linux zealots don`t care about people like me. They lose as much as I do. They won`t help me out because my needs are silly for them, I won`t design some graphics for them since I simply cannot work on what they provide me. Best Regards Ducklord
I don`t understand one thing: if you go in a shop and buy, say, 30-40 different goods, are they tracked all "at the same time" or one by one? That, although it doesn`t seem so important, has a lot to do with our privacy: If the RFID tags can`t be tracked in groups, then when you bring what you bought to your car, when you throw away the garbage it won`t get tracked or, at least, -some- of the things will get tracked, but not the whole bunch. Not being so technical regarding RFID technology, I understand it like "the signals could get mixed" or something... Does it work that way?
Not exactly. From what I know, it wasn`t just that "music and language" were one and the same, but that both were based on maths. The classic Greek language is based heavily on mathematic relations and, from what they tought us at school, the only one that complies to pure mathematic logic. If you learn the logic behind it, you`ve learned the language.
;-)
The same, for Greeks, applied to music. Music that wasn`t based on patterns, that didn`t incorporate maths was, simply, "not music".
Anyway, my two cents... ergh... sausages as a Greek..!
Actually, I`ve tried Newteks Lightwave (latest version) and it works, BUT: not in a... ahem... "lawful" way. Its protection crashes under WINE, so you have to find "a way to bypass it". After that, its not only usable, its actually faster than the same frickin version running under windows!!! From what I`m guessing, it has to do not only with lesser bloatware in my Gentoo dist, but with native, fast support for OpenGL in the desktop (the preview windows are blazingly fast compared to running it under Windows).
Keeping in mind that I`m a newbie, don`t know hell about linux (not even what are or how to create symlinks - what the heck are these?) I`m guessing that WINE might just be able to run your Max with no problems! Give it a try, you ain`t got anything to lose but some of your time!
Well, if I`m not mistaken, there WAS a case in court were a teen was accused of hacking a network but used the good`ol trojan as an alibi. Since there was a trojan in his computer, ANYTHING was presumed as possible - a malicious attacker could even create false logs if he was able enough, couldn`t he?
Well, the argument is the same: he didn`t distribute them, he created the means of distributing them - and that isn`t, exactly, illegal. It`s, like other people allready said, like suing a knife maker because a blade of his was used in a murder.
Well, maybe I didn`t quite get it right, but in what way exactly is what he`s done illegal? Or is it just because he made it difficult for them to crack the network he`d created that they wanted even more to "crack him", as an example? Believe you me, maybe that will be the start of a new row of attacks from RIAA and MPAA towards program creators.
Oh my, are you nuts?
...you get, I hope, the example!
I`m Greek, and the Greek language has, as well, "a different word for everything". I understand that if it is different than what you`re used to it just... well, "seems strange", but try to think about it: if two things are different, shouldn`t them be named differently?
"What`s that?"
"The sky..."
"And that?" (pointing at a cow)
"Eehr...the sky?!"
Well, if there IS satellite evidence of a huge ship where every single animal - and its mate - were collected by an old man, his family and his colleagues, what else remains there to be said? Mulder, are you there?