I am a hoarder. I would never trade in my games. I would never sell them on. I also buy games infrequently.
The people that I know who buy games a lot, always trade in their old games. They wouldn't be able to afford as many games otherwise.
It is nice to think that you have have people who buy lots of games and hoard them forever. Maybe if we gave those gamers free money then it could happen.
Because it's realistic? if you electricity and telecoms already then it's going to be much easier to set everything else up. Plus an Internet Cafe is a good place for people to meet, get training, etc.
I disagree. There is little difference between unfair moderation resulting in deletion and censorship. Sure the comments here have a bad signal to noise ratio but I wouldn't have it any other way.
I like being able to take the bait from a Troll like you. It gives/. flavour.
The great thing about this is that the music industry is like most others - they do what others are doing. So now what one is going to really try online distribution of files that can be burnt to CD, we might see serious efforts from other publishers to enter the market. They have to be seen to be "keeping up".
This is good news for all of us it means that once a formula that works has been found, all will copy it. Yes!
It seems to me that you can not rate music for how good it is. There is no objective way of measuring that - people respond in an emotional way to music. You only need to look at the different labels people put on music and how they fight about which is better.
I'm saddened to see that at an event that is showing the lunatic fringe of high-tech and robotics, there is nothing more original than a first person shoot 'em up to play.
When we had the Lunar eclipse in the UK it was an odd and slightly mystical experience. The way it gets cold and dim during daylight hours is wierd but the corona is spectacular!
In a year that is odd (like 1999) you'll have a number of odd days (a bunch of them on each odd month). This is the last odd month of this odd year - years from now until 3111 will contain one or more even digits (sounds counterintuitive, but think about it).
Since today is the 19th, whichever way you write is 19/11/1999 or 11/19/1999 - there won't be anymore dates with only odd digits.
Plenty of even days coming up next year though...
I should hope that Microsoft is split up into an even number of parts on an even day. It's only fair to restore the balance on an even day...
In a year that is odd (like 1999) you'll have a number of odd days (a bunch of them on each odd month). This is the last odd month of this odd year - years from now until 3111 will contain one or more even digits (sounds counterintuitive, but think about it).
Since today is the 19th, whichever way you write is 19/11/1999 or 11/19/1999 - there won't be anymore dates with only odd digits.
Plenty of even days coming up next year though...
I should hope that Microsoft is split up into an even number of parts on an even day. It's only fair to restore the balance on an even day...
While I find many of Microsoft's products and marketing techniques loathsome, I do think that for the mainstream market these products are essential. Why? Because people know and loathe^H^H^H^Hve them. Fact. Microsoft cannot simply disappear.
When Microsoft is split up, how will this affect companies that depend on "integrated solutions". The most obvious split for Microsoft might be O/S and applications - but this could be subdivided much further. This is sure to hurt consumers (no matter how wrong-headed they are for buying the products in the first place, etc) with large existing investments.
What about stock price? It is clear that someone has been propping up Microsoft's stock since the announcement - if it kept on falling as it was, this could have had a serious impact on the stock market and possibly the industry at large (due to the way indices are calculated.
To summarise:
What will be done to protect customers with large existing investments in Microsoft products and support? (typically)
How will the break up affect Microsoft stock and thus the prices of shares everywhere.
These questions will have to be addressed sooner or later in our brave new world of "NanoSofts";-)
This could have been more useful if I'd posted 60 posts ago. Let me give you some context: I'm working with the guy who originally posted this. The "Ask Slashdot" question was posted over a month ago. I'll try and answer some of the questions that have been raised by your comments.
We're working on a system that is intended to be a low-cost retail product. We'd rather not divulge the exact nature of the product yet (too early).
This is a server-based system that requires a web front-end with plans to add other front-end(s) in future. The design specifies that the product (server, not client) must at least run on: Solaris, Linux and Windows NT. As porting code is more difficult than writing it cross-platform in the first place we decided these versions should be developed in parallel.
The need for inter-process communication arose from a number of factors:
different parts of this system would be more effectively written in C++ / Java / Perl.
the system should be multi-tier
components of the system should be able to communicate with others on different servers
After testing a number of ORBs on NT, Solaris and Linux we came to see the scope of our nightmare (RMI, Mico, ACE/TAO, omniOrb, Cope, Orbix and a number of others). We started looking into using different ORBs on different platforms, this raised porting and cost issues. There were ways but they weren't pretty and most of it was damn expensive (for what we were doing).
This process was so depressing that we though hard and long about whether we really needed all of those platforms. The answer was yes. For sure.
Going back to the drawing board, we realised that we only needed a fraction of the features of CORBA and started to roll our own. It hasn't been easy, but it now works on all the platforms we intended. Also, since our code so far does not use any third-party components we can open source all or part of in the future.
Time will tell if we made the right decision. For now things are looking good. Watch this space.
------------------ note: I'd appreciate if you'd moderate this up such that people can see it;-)
note(2): My web site contains no information about any of this whatsoever - but have at the pretty pictures anyway.
I agree that one of the strengths of Linux is that it encourages users to actually understand what they are doing - resulting in a higher qualty of users.
I would say that if Linux is going to really make it as a mainstream O/S then it is going to have to be "dumbed down" to allow basic users to do simple stuff.
If breaking into the mainstream is not a directing Linux is going then what is with the Corel distribution and office suites? I think that many people would like to see Linux as a viable "dumb user" desktop alternative.
Things like simple installers, drag & drop file managers, etc are what is going to make it happen. Having spent a few years in support, I feel that what people (read "dumb users") want from their O/S is pretty animations, screen savers, and sound. What they *need* are simple and consistent interfaces to do basic tasks.
I applaud Loki's contribution here as I think installers are one of those essential things that you shouldn't notice: but you know a bad one when you see it...
Having been an NT admin for awhile... It is not just a question of installing five huge service packs. And I'm not talking about hotfixes either.
There are a number of pieces of software from Microsoft that require the service packs to be applied in differing order:
The place I used to work before used Site Server (extension to IIS). For the personalisation feature to work on this, a completely bizare sequence had to be followed:
Install (approximate - I think this was more complicated): Service Pack 3 Internet Explorer 4 Option Pack 4 (some crucial DLLs have now been deleted/overwritten with incompatible versions) Service Pack 3 Option Pack 4 Site Server 3
You can now install Service Pack 4 & 5 if you want more things to break or you can cut your losses and stick to things that you know work (even if they aren't secure).
The problem with this process is that it is badly documented, denied on Microsoft's site and unknown to most MS users. We got this process from someone who spent days installing and uninstalling the software until it worked. Therefore it takes *days* to install a "decent" version of NT.
This is not the worst bit. The worst thing is that we bought Site Server for all of those built in features (many of which simply didn't work). It wasn't cheap and we ended up just writing our own stuff due to the poor quality of the documentation, lack of speed (dual Pentium Pro, 128MB RAM) and general flakiness.
The problem with all this software is that Microsoft doesn't write applications anymore. Everything has hooks in the O/S which means that departments within MS end up writing software that messes with everything. Incompatibilites arise and no-one is willing to tell you how to fix it without charging you huge consultancy fees.
My new web server boxes run Linux. When fixes come in, thousands of users are willing to help you out with any problems you have. They actually know. The applications do not send tentacles into the O/S, choking functionality out of other applications. My sites run fast. I never need to write ASP in my life ever again. I'm happy again.
Other example? To get a certain feature of MS Visual Interdev running on her machine, a friend of mine had to remove Service Pack 5 & 4 from her machine (Then re-install SP3). Only then would database diagrams re-appear as a feature...
I sense that many people here have not actually really experienced the joys of NT first hand. It is much more of a nightmare than you think. And good NT admins simply don't seem to exist. I'm sure there are some out there. Maybe. The recent joys of the Windows 2k machine that MS couldn't keep up due to running out of disk space, etc indicate that there simply aren't any. Even at MS.
I also know of a well know a major UK hosting provider which is withdrawing the NT dedicated server hosting. Too many problems. Too many security holes. Really bad remote management tools. End of story. </RANT>
If Solaris became free? Then some people might go over to it. That's it. We're talking flavours here...
If Solaris had always been free? The world would be a completely different place and Linux may never have come about.
Think about it. Would you use Windows if it became free and/or open source? I think Linux has enough merits in itself to survive if *all* other o/s' became free.
Slashdot Mirror
I am a hoarder. I would never trade in my games. I would never sell them on. I also buy games infrequently.
The people that I know who buy games a lot, always trade in their old games. They wouldn't be able to afford as many games otherwise.
It is nice to think that you have have people who buy lots of games and hoard them forever. Maybe if we gave those gamers free money then it could happen.
Agree. It's going to be massive in dieting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/technology/29TAG S.html?ex=1065412800&en=ae0b64773a522d63&ei=5062&p artner=GOOGLE
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:oo9QDkrHwxIJ: www.projectcensored.org/Publications/2004/+site:pr ojectcensored.org+2004&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Uh-huh. Thanks. more Contiki links in this old /. article.
Must learn to string a sentence together...
Because it's realistic? if you electricity and telecoms already then it's going to be much easier to set everything else up. Plus an Internet Cafe is a good place for people to meet, get training, etc.
I disagree. There is little difference between unfair moderation resulting in deletion and censorship. Sure the comments here have a bad signal to noise ratio but I wouldn't have it any other way.
/. flavour.
I like being able to take the bait from a Troll like you. It gives
The great thing about this is that the music industry is like most others - they do what others are doing. So now what one is going to really try online distribution of files that can be burnt to CD, we might see serious efforts from other publishers to enter the market. They have to be seen to be "keeping up".
This is good news for all of us it means that once a formula that works has been found, all will copy it. Yes!
It seems to me that you can not rate music for how good it is. There is no objective way of measuring that - people respond in an emotional way to music. You only need to look at the different labels people put on music and how they fight about which is better.
For recommending music the only way to go is "if you liked X, try Y". I run a discussion board site where people basically argue about stuff - the most common thing is music. People care, deeply, whether it's Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera or Pop vs Rock vs Rap, Love/hate Cradle of Filth , etc ad nauseam.
I'm saddened to see that at an event that is showing the lunatic fringe of high-tech and robotics, there is nothing more original than a first person shoot 'em up to play.
When we had the Lunar eclipse in the UK it was an odd and slightly mystical experience. The way it gets cold and dim during daylight hours is wierd but the corona is spectacular!
Enjoy!
In a year that is odd (like 1999) you'll have a number of odd days (a bunch of them on each odd month). This is the last odd month of this odd year - years from now until 3111 will contain one or more even digits (sounds counterintuitive, but think about it).
Since today is the 19th, whichever way you write is 19/11/1999 or 11/19/1999 - there won't be anymore dates with only odd digits.
Plenty of even days coming up next year though...
I should hope that Microsoft is split up into an even number of parts on an even day. It's only fair to restore the balance on an even day...
In a year that is odd (like 1999) you'll have a number of odd days (a bunch of them on each odd month). This is the last odd month of this odd year - years from now until 3111 will contain one or more even digits (sounds counterintuitive, but think about it).
Since today is the 19th, whichever way you write is 19/11/1999 or 11/19/1999 - there won't be anymore dates with only odd digits.
Plenty of even days coming up next year though...
I should hope that Microsoft is split up into an even number of parts on an even day. It's only fair to restore the balance on an even day...
When Microsoft is split up, how will this affect companies that depend on "integrated solutions". The most obvious split for Microsoft might be O/S and applications - but this could be subdivided much further. This is sure to hurt consumers (no matter how wrong-headed they are for buying the products in the first place, etc) with large existing investments.
What about stock price? It is clear that someone has been propping up Microsoft's stock since the announcement - if it kept on falling as it was, this could have had a serious impact on the stock market and possibly the industry at large (due to the way indices are calculated.
To summarise:
These questions will have to be addressed sooner or later in our brave new world of "NanoSofts"
...but I have copyright on selling lunar property - I wrote a short story in fourth grade and mailed it to myself.
Not sure how I'm going to enforce it =)
Obviously they have been importing too much crack from Jupiter. They should know it is too strong for humans.
We're working on a system that is intended to be a low-cost retail product. We'd rather not divulge the exact nature of the product yet (too early).
This is a server-based system that requires a web front-end with plans to add other front-end(s) in future. The design specifies that the product (server, not client) must at least run on: Solaris, Linux and Windows NT. As porting code is more difficult than writing it cross-platform in the first place we decided these versions should be developed in parallel.
The need for inter-process communication arose from a number of factors:
After testing a number of ORBs on NT, Solaris and Linux we came to see the scope of our nightmare (RMI, Mico, ACE/TAO, omniOrb, Cope, Orbix and a number of others). We started looking into using different ORBs on different platforms, this raised porting and cost issues. There were ways but they weren't pretty and most of it was damn expensive (for what we were doing).
This process was so depressing that we though hard and long about whether we really needed all of those platforms. The answer was yes. For sure.
Going back to the drawing board, we realised that we only needed a fraction of the features of CORBA and started to roll our own. It hasn't been easy, but it now works on all the platforms we intended. Also, since our code so far does not use any third-party components we can open source all or part of in the future.
Time will tell if we made the right decision. For now things are looking good. Watch this space.
------------------
note: I'd appreciate if you'd moderate this up such that people can see it
note(2): My web site contains no information about any of this whatsoever - but have at the pretty pictures anyway.
I agree that one of the strengths of Linux is that it encourages users to actually understand what they are doing - resulting in a higher qualty of users.
I would say that if Linux is going to really make it as a mainstream O/S then it is going to have to be "dumbed down" to allow basic users to do simple stuff.
If breaking into the mainstream is not a directing Linux is going then what is with the Corel distribution and office suites? I think that many people would like to see Linux as a viable "dumb user" desktop alternative.
Things like simple installers, drag & drop file managers, etc are what is going to make it happen. Having spent a few years in support, I feel that what people (read "dumb users") want from their O/S is pretty animations, screen savers, and sound. What they *need* are simple and consistent interfaces to do basic tasks.
I applaud Loki's contribution here as I think installers are one of those essential things that you shouldn't notice: but you know a bad one when you see it...
Having been an NT admin for awhile... It is not just a question of installing five huge service packs. And I'm not talking about hotfixes either.
There are a number of pieces of software from Microsoft that require the service packs to be applied in differing order:
The place I used to work before used Site Server (extension to IIS). For the personalisation feature to work on this, a completely bizare sequence had to be followed:
Install (approximate - I think this was more complicated):
Service Pack 3
Internet Explorer 4
Option Pack 4
(some crucial DLLs have now been deleted/overwritten with incompatible versions)
Service Pack 3
Option Pack 4
Site Server 3
You can now install Service Pack 4 & 5 if you want more things to break or you can cut your losses and stick to things that you know work (even if they aren't secure).
The problem with this process is that it is badly documented, denied on Microsoft's site and unknown to most MS users. We got this process from someone who spent days installing and uninstalling the software until it worked. Therefore it takes *days* to install a "decent" version of NT.
This is not the worst bit. The worst thing is that we bought Site Server for all of those built in features (many of which simply didn't work). It wasn't cheap and we ended up just writing our own stuff due to the poor quality of the documentation, lack of speed (dual Pentium Pro, 128MB RAM) and general flakiness.
The problem with all this software is that Microsoft doesn't write applications anymore. Everything has hooks in the O/S which means that departments within MS end up writing software that messes with everything. Incompatibilites arise and no-one is willing to tell you how to fix it without charging you huge consultancy fees.
My new web server boxes run Linux. When fixes come in, thousands of users are willing to help you out with any problems you have. They actually know. The applications do not send tentacles into the O/S, choking functionality out of other applications. My sites run fast. I never need to write ASP in my life ever again. I'm happy again.
Other example? To get a certain feature of MS Visual Interdev running on her machine, a friend of mine had to remove Service Pack 5 & 4 from her machine (Then re-install SP3). Only then would database diagrams re-appear as a feature...
I sense that many people here have not actually really experienced the joys of NT first hand. It is much more of a nightmare than you think. And good NT admins simply don't seem to exist. I'm sure there are some out there. Maybe. The recent joys of the Windows 2k machine that MS couldn't keep up due to running out of disk space, etc indicate that there simply aren't any. Even at MS.
I also know of a well know a major UK hosting provider which is withdrawing the NT dedicated server hosting. Too many problems. Too many security holes. Really bad remote management tools. End of story.
</RANT>
No amount of targeted marketing is going to stop me buying a Barbie PC. It is what people would expect of me anyway...
Or maybe I should confound everyone by buying the product that is actually intended for my gender? Nah.
I have to know why /.'s icon for the Internet looks like an over simplified Token Ring network diagram.
Thanks.
If Solaris became free? Then some people might go over to it. That's it. We're talking flavours here...
If Solaris had always been free? The world would be a completely different place and Linux may never have come about.
Think about it. Would you use Windows if it became free and/or open source? I think Linux has enough merits in itself to survive if *all* other o/s' became free.
And yet I was completely off track. It appears this was a simple user error: a case of "premature posting"...
;-)
/. ...?
Boring
Where are the sinister plots from the dark recesses of the sold-out
Sorry... Conspiracy theorist on overdrive.
I apologise if I was being accusatory.
But people should know about the /. article that has been pulled from the index page.
/article.pl?sid=99/09/20/0744243&mode=thread
/. community wants to know.
http://slashdot.org
I know this is completely irrelevant to the article but I can't believe that no explanation has been offered on why this was pulled.
Moderate this up, the