I bought a bbc model B just to play elite when both where pretty new, and found a text record of a conversation in the BBCs CMOS (think it was there, that was what I was playing with when I found it).
It was two guys sending text back and forth talking about the legs on a woman who'd just entered the office. It was pretty well buried. I'm guessing they just forgot they'd been clowning around and it got left in when the BBC was put into production. I did write it down at the time, but this was in the eighties...
I can't recall how I found it exactly. It was late, I was hacking about trying to find something I could alter as a joke on a friend, and there it was. It made I chuckle.
I gave the BBC away eight years ago, along with Elite (still had it, and it still worked:). Didn't take me long to regret it. For one thing I'd be able to go find that conversation again now.
What, is it suddenly though that slashdotters have no clue who Kasparov is without referencing Deep Blue?
Its reasonable to include deep blue in any mention of Kasparov, the two are inexorably linked in history.
You get that a lot in the computing field. I think it's because it's still relatively new, and we subconsciously still feel the need to remind people who such and such a person is famous in our field.
This doesn't always work though, sometimes it perpetuates myths. The worst case I know of is John von Neumann, who is invariably mentioned as being the father of computing, responsible for the 'von Neumann Architecture'. Trouble is that's a lie, on both counts. History is written by the winners though, possibly it will 'become' true.
Now, as to why they thought that patenting it was a good idea, I don't have a clue.
That's really easy to answer. It's to stop someone else from patenting it and using it to sue them.
The whole thing is absurd, not just this particular patent, but this stupid torrent of all but worthless patents that is busily burying the US's future ability to innovate..
back when I was a teenager, we would sometimes have to wait three to five years for a film to appear on the television and on video. The media industries move at a snails pace, perhaps they remember ye olde days and think six months isn't very long.
Trouble is, a week is too long nowadays. Hell, even the day after a cinematic release is too long sometimes.
There's another thing, in my childhood going to the Cinema (in my case a drive in by a beach with a playground under the screen, oh the memories) was cheap, even when you take into account the relative cost of living and wages then. Nowadays it's so much that even though I work I hesitate the spend the serious money it costs for a family trip to the cinema, and I hate going alone.
In the last, ooh, five years, there have been just two films I've thought good enough to see at the Cinema. Well, three, but Serenity lasted a fortnight where I am, and I didn't get the time. Bloody stupid timing that..
I bought all three films on dvd too. Most films I just wait and see what the reviews are like and buy the dvd when it's come down from the high price they charge at first. That can mean well over a year for some films.
Honestly though, they shoot themselves in the foot. It's not a privilege to see a film on the big screen, it's a choice.
If dvd's cost £3.00 initially I'd have a regular order coming in every week, and they'd make a fortune off me. As it is the price of films goes up and down in a rather stupid way. One week it's a tenner, next its five again, and back up again if people buy it.
I know it's not a film, but the firefly series was £12.00 when I bought it. Then a couple of months later it was £35.00. Eh? That's the sort of thing that pisses me off about the whole movie/dvd industry, their only consistent trait is wringing money out of a messed up business model.
This didn't really help the Patent Troll at all. Ten Million? When they went after Apple? Hah..
They got the corporate equivilent of 'here, have a dollar, now piss off and stop sleeping on my lawn'. The lawyers got most of it anyway, and even for them it wouldn't be much. It only sounds like a lot to ordinary people.
And they lost 14 patents. If they pull this stunt again they might lose more. Honestly it seems it might be worth more to sell these patents then try this another time.
Microsoft can't really change OOXML at all. This is a primary reason for their wanting it fast tracked to ISO acceptance.
Why can't they fix it? They've already shipped Ofice 2007, and that is built to suport OOXML as is.
As a result, their ISO efforts are likely screwed, or if not, any document format they do get through will be kept around for its status, but left all but unused. Probably support for it will appear in an office service pack that they will say is aimed at the civil service or some other crap.
resources are a memory hog, and spend a lot of time being processed, yes, but they don't get involved with the VM thats actually sending instructions to the game engine. That's what I'm talking about.
It's a matter of the scripts. Any game needs scripting unless you want to code everything natively, which just doesn't work any more. It used to, when games where smaller.
These scripts are slower, if you have too many in memory a machine would slow intolerably. Thus you split it up into portions. Transition between levels can be made seamless, but the separation is still required. Do you want scripts involving an area you won't reach for ages resident in memory? Nope. Seamless transitions are good, even background loading, but too much loaded in one go is a mistake.
what an intriguing mix of insight and paranoid nonsense.
Voting machines do not exist for people to buy elections. They exist because it monetizes the election process, allowing people to get wealthy by controlling a process that is required in a democracy.
The problem is that it's potentially so lucrative, that these guys are rushing into the process, talking up security, trustworthiness and stability, whilst simultaneously ignoring those same things in the interest of gaining the mighty buck, and the mightier government contracts. I don't doubt there are dodgy dealings being employed to gain those contracts, but election fixing? Be serious. You can't spend much money in jail, and they'd go away for a very long time.
Whatever, their aproach doesn't work, that's clear. They need to sort themselves out, or a new consortium of open source hardware and software bods need to step into this mess and offer decent replacements.
If you think it's bad now, investigate the convenience food available in the UK in the 18th century. An investigation into ice cream back then found that semen was a common ingredient.....
Why is it that no one can make pre-packaged or pre-prepared food that isn't awful for you
Its cheaper to make stuff that isn't as good for you, but conforms to the latest fad.
Any idea how much cheaper it is to buy a truckload of fat then to bother with quality? Lots. Our tastebuds don't care, we are programmed to like fat, and the manufacturers know this.
If not fat, then salt. Again we are programmed to like this, it was an absolute essential when we were evolving, we can't help but like it.
Fat+salt in food makes our bodies just love it. Our minds have to resist.
What annoys me is low carb stuff tastes bad, so they up the salt content, or put more of other things that improve the taste but make it bad for you in other ways.
Eating healthy means cooking a lot of your own food from ingredients, not pre-packaged food, and getting exercise every day. Exercise is an important part of a healthy diet, you digest food better if your body isn't always being carried around everywhere by cars or sat in chairs.
Eating healthy doesn't even mean low fat, it can involve fat, suger, salt, anything, provided you eat reasonably, are aware of what your eating (meaning you cook a lot of it yourself) and get that exercise.
The new AGPL will have important effects for companies that, under the GPL, have no obligation to distribute changes to users on the Web
Only if they use it. No-one's under an obligation to use a new version of a licence, and if they don't like the terms, they may steer clear of it to start with.
Answer 1: Yeah, writing good software requires effort
Ah, that's where you're wrong. All you need to do is load this new microsoft mashup stuff, and perfect software materializes out of the ether and makes you a multi millionaire.
most advert serving domains still, for some reason place the images to be used in */ads/* or */banners/*, something like that anyway. A well written rule file for adblockplus (e.g most available ones) have the capacity to block many previously unknown ad servers. Then of course if they are spotted, they go on the list.
Odd isn't it, how people oiver react to such trivial events. Mobile phones communicate with telco's. Satellite boxes communicate with satellite tv providers. PC's bought from pc manufacturers like Dell and HP routinely monitor the software that they installed on your machine and keep it updated.
There will be many such connections, most innocent. People who install my software from download.com, if they don't deselect 'download source code' get that code downloaded from my own server, thus recording their download, and city of origin for me. Am I a bad person? Do I use this for marketing? Nope (well, it's open source and free, what marketing..), but it's handy to monitor how many people use my code, and where they are from.
For f*** sake... when will this stop? When will people say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" and jump off these ISPs and stop being their customers?
There are issues, like contract time left to run, availability of a replacement ISP, stuff like that. If all the ISP's start acting the same, well, choices diminish.
Also, not everyone who uses a net connection is the one paying for it.
Slashdot Mirror
I bought a bbc model B just to play elite when both where pretty new, and found a text record of a conversation in the BBCs CMOS (think it was there, that was what I was playing with when I found it).
It was two guys sending text back and forth talking about the legs on a woman who'd just entered the office. It was pretty well buried. I'm guessing they just forgot they'd been clowning around and it got left in when the BBC was put into production. I did write it down at the time, but this was in the eighties...
I can't recall how I found it exactly. It was late, I was hacking about trying to find something I could alter as a joke on a friend, and there it was. It made I chuckle.
I gave the BBC away eight years ago, along with Elite (still had it, and it still worked:). Didn't take me long to regret it. For one thing I'd be able to go find that conversation again now.
We're smart, educated and savvy
:/
We are? Wow. Are you sure you're posting on the right board?
do we really need to stoop to this?
Well if we didn't it's be left to b3ta and 4chan. The internets don't deserve that
uh, Oxford doesn't have a department of nuclear physics [ox.ac.uk]
It used to, you changed the answer by observing it..
What, is it suddenly though that slashdotters have no clue who Kasparov is without referencing Deep Blue?
Its reasonable to include deep blue in any mention of Kasparov, the two are inexorably linked in history.
You get that a lot in the computing field. I think it's because it's still relatively new, and we subconsciously still feel the need to remind people who such and such a person is famous in our field.
This doesn't always work though, sometimes it perpetuates myths. The worst case I know of is John von Neumann, who is invariably mentioned as being the father of computing, responsible for the 'von Neumann Architecture'. Trouble is that's a lie, on both counts. History is written by the winners though, possibly it will 'become' true.
Now, as to why they thought that patenting it was a good idea, I don't have a clue.
That's really easy to answer. It's to stop someone else from patenting it and using it to sue them.
The whole thing is absurd, not just this particular patent, but this stupid torrent of all but worthless patents that is busily burying the US's future ability to innovate..
I rather think this is actually heavy theoretical physics type stuff. Not for the likes of us norms.
Everything is changed by observing it, but only on the quantum level if I have this right, something to do with wave form collapsing or somesuch.
Since everything is made out of quantum, nothing can escaped being changed.
A load of early filmstock and programs from the bbc in the fifties and sixties was destroyed when the bbc's storage vaults flooded.
I can't seem to find a web reference, but David Attenborough discusses it, and some of the resultant problems in his autobiography 'life on air'.
back when I was a teenager, we would sometimes have to wait three to five years for a film to appear on the television and on video. The media industries move at a snails pace, perhaps they remember ye olde days and think six months isn't very long.
Trouble is, a week is too long nowadays. Hell, even the day after a cinematic release is too long sometimes.
There's another thing, in my childhood going to the Cinema (in my case a drive in by a beach with a playground under the screen, oh the memories) was cheap, even when you take into account the relative cost of living and wages then. Nowadays it's so much that even though I work I hesitate the spend the serious money it costs for a family trip to the cinema, and I hate going alone.
In the last, ooh, five years, there have been just two films I've thought good enough to see at the Cinema. Well, three, but Serenity lasted a fortnight where I am, and I didn't get the time. Bloody stupid timing that..
I bought all three films on dvd too. Most films I just wait and see what the reviews are like and buy the dvd when it's come down from the high price they charge at first. That can mean well over a year for some films.
Honestly though, they shoot themselves in the foot. It's not a privilege to see a film on the big screen, it's a choice.
If dvd's cost £3.00 initially I'd have a regular order coming in every week, and they'd make a fortune off me. As it is the price of films goes up and down in a rather stupid way. One week it's a tenner, next its five again, and back up again if people buy it.
I know it's not a film, but the firefly series was £12.00 when I bought it. Then a couple of months later it was £35.00. Eh? That's the sort of thing that pisses me off about the whole movie/dvd industry, their only consistent trait is wringing money out of a messed up business model.
This didn't really help the Patent Troll at all. Ten Million? When they went after Apple? Hah..
They got the corporate equivilent of 'here, have a dollar, now piss off and stop sleeping on my lawn'. The lawyers got most of it anyway, and even for them it wouldn't be much. It only sounds like a lot to ordinary people.
And they lost 14 patents. If they pull this stunt again they might lose more. Honestly it seems it might be worth more to sell these patents then try this another time.
Microsoft can't really change OOXML at all. This is a primary reason for their wanting it fast tracked to ISO acceptance.
Why can't they fix it? They've already shipped Ofice 2007, and that is built to suport OOXML as is.
As a result, their ISO efforts are likely screwed, or if not, any document format they do get through will be kept around for its status, but left all but unused. Probably support for it will appear in an office service pack that they will say is aimed at the civil service or some other crap.
resources are a memory hog, and spend a lot of time being processed, yes, but they don't get involved with the VM thats actually sending instructions to the game engine. That's what I'm talking about.
The VM is the bottleneck for most games
It's a matter of the scripts. Any game needs scripting unless you want to code everything natively, which just doesn't work any more. It used to, when games where smaller.
These scripts are slower, if you have too many in memory a machine would slow intolerably. Thus you split it up into portions. Transition between levels can be made seamless, but the separation is still required. Do you want scripts involving an area you won't reach for ages resident in memory? Nope. Seamless transitions are good, even background loading, but too much loaded in one go is a mistake.
ask yourself how you knew that the machine that you voted on last election was not rigged?
I would go for incompetently managed over rigged, personally.
what an intriguing mix of insight and paranoid nonsense.
Voting machines do not exist for people to buy elections. They exist because it monetizes the election process, allowing people to get wealthy by controlling a process that is required in a democracy.
The problem is that it's potentially so lucrative, that these guys are rushing into the process, talking up security, trustworthiness and stability, whilst simultaneously ignoring those same things in the interest of gaining the mighty buck, and the mightier government contracts. I don't doubt there are dodgy dealings being employed to gain those contracts, but election fixing? Be serious. You can't spend much money in jail, and they'd go away for a very long time.
Whatever, their aproach doesn't work, that's clear. They need to sort themselves out, or a new consortium of open source hardware and software bods need to step into this mess and offer decent replacements.
If you think it's bad now, investigate the convenience food available in the UK in the 18th century. An investigation into ice cream back then found that semen was a common ingredient.....
Sadly I am not kidding.
Why is it that no one can make pre-packaged or pre-prepared food that isn't awful for you
Its cheaper to make stuff that isn't as good for you, but conforms to the latest fad.
Any idea how much cheaper it is to buy a truckload of fat then to bother with quality? Lots. Our tastebuds don't care, we are programmed to like fat, and the manufacturers know this.
If not fat, then salt. Again we are programmed to like this, it was an absolute essential when we were evolving, we can't help but like it.
Fat+salt in food makes our bodies just love it. Our minds have to resist.
Not more of this low-carb propaganda bullshit
What annoys me is low carb stuff tastes bad, so they up the salt content, or put more of other things that improve the taste but make it bad for you in other ways.
Eating healthy means cooking a lot of your own food from ingredients, not pre-packaged food, and getting exercise every day. Exercise is an important part of a healthy diet, you digest food better if your body isn't always being carried around everywhere by cars or sat in chairs.
Eating healthy doesn't even mean low fat, it can involve fat, suger, salt, anything, provided you eat reasonably, are aware of what your eating (meaning you cook a lot of it yourself) and get that exercise.
The new AGPL will have important effects for companies that, under the GPL, have no obligation to distribute changes to users on the Web
Only if they use it. No-one's under an obligation to use a new version of a licence, and if they don't like the terms, they may steer clear of it to start with.
That is, of course, if you really want to pay for Alienware.
I might, if I had money to burn on a gaming rig, and people were going to see it. They do have that 'look at me, I'm well off' sheen.
Answer 1: Yeah, writing good software requires effort
Ah, that's where you're wrong. All you need to do is load this new microsoft mashup stuff, and perfect software materializes out of the ether and makes you a multi millionaire.
Don't you know anything?
Creationists are idiots!!!1111one
Ok, I'll go back to my corner now....
most advert serving domains still, for some reason place the images to be used in */ads/* or */banners/*, something like that anyway. A well written rule file for adblockplus (e.g most available ones) have the capacity to block many previously unknown ad servers. Then of course if they are spotted, they go on the list.
Odd isn't it, how people oiver react to such trivial events.
Mobile phones communicate with telco's. Satellite boxes communicate with satellite tv providers. PC's bought from pc manufacturers like Dell and HP routinely monitor the software that they installed on your machine and keep it updated.
There will be many such connections, most innocent. People who install my software from download.com, if they don't deselect 'download source code' get that code downloaded from my own server, thus recording their download, and city of origin for me. Am I a bad person? Do I use this for marketing? Nope (well, it's open source and free, what marketing..), but it's handy to monitor how many people use my code, and where they are from.
For f*** sake... when will this stop? When will people say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" and jump off these ISPs and stop being their customers?
There are issues, like contract time left to run, availability of a replacement ISP, stuff like that. If all the ISP's start acting the same, well, choices diminish.
Also, not everyone who uses a net connection is the one paying for it.