Under the Atari 2600 section:
Lastly with all the problems that plagued the controller, the absence of a pause button only made it worse, when the joystick stopped working, you couldnt even pause the game.
WHAT pause button? As I recall, there was no pause button on the console either. Good grief - we're talking about a 2600 here. There was no pausing PERIOD back then.
Its a shame that fact checking is SOOOO expensive these days.
You are in a SERIOUS state of denial. I felt much the same as you do now about 10 years ago (actually as a young student of anthropology in college). I thought to myself: "Who would believe this crap?!?" I was absolutely convinced that they were the minority and that reason would win the day.
Fastforward 10 years... I can't tell you when exactly it happened, but I woke up one day and realized that I was in the minority. That reason was NOT carrying the day. I can now honestly say I don't know what to do about it. I can't even get up on my soap box and profess that if "they" just follow my advice, we'll end up on the right track again. And that scares me.
What I can say is this - the trend is probably easier to catch the earlier it is recognized. I said above that I don't have a "right" answer for dealing with it NOW. But had it been noticed and dealth with earlier - I suspect working on education for kids would be key.
The brain rot has crossed the puddle. I sincerely hope that you guys have better luck with it over there than we did here.
Must be a HUGE download
on
IE7 Leaked
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· Score: 1
I wonder if Vista has been leaked with IE7? I mean, given how closely the underlying operating system has becomed bundled with the browser - one can only draw the logical conslusion.
To be honest - I've been skeptical about Google for some time. I was not sure how I felt about a company who's sole purpose in life was to perform the same services as Yahoo! but market it as "not evil". Sucessfully so, I might add. I honestly doubted their "Don't be evil" mission.
After reading up about the other companies quietly folding under White House pressure, I am honestly relieved to see SOMEONE finally standing up for the rights of our citizens. Rights are NEVER erroded all at once. The day will never come when we wake up and the amendment about free speech is removed from the Consitution. The day WILL come, however, when we wake up and the free speech amendment means nothing because several iterations of the "Patriot Act" have erroded what it really means.
People in this country need to seriously wake the fuck up. We've been through several iterations of errosion of our rights under this white house. Allow me to sum up: 1) Plame's identity leaked (treason according to the law - I eagerly await the hangings), 2) The Patriot Act (need I say more?), 3) CIA spying on US citizens (notice how quickly W. moved on catching the traitors that leaked that), and 4) This request for search records. The day is rapidly approaching when we wake up and our rights will not mean anything ALL IN THE NAME OF PROTECTING US FROM [insert irrational fear here].
Today, I for one, take my hat off to Google. At the least, even if they are required to acquiese in the end, it garned media attention on the shifty White House request. It will be a long time before I doubt "Don't be evil." again.
As a general comment - I'm not sure how I feel about the two companies merging. Yes they are similar in some ways - but they both have their own distinct "feels". I have a feeling that the company that was left after a merge would have ended up as a watered down mix of both that would ultimately fail.
Now on to this crap: "There's a pendulum thing where stuff is on the client side and then goes back into the network where it belongs," McNealy said. "The answering machine put voicemail by the desk, and then it went back into the network."
"Your iPod is like your home answering machine," McNealy said. "I guarantee you it will be hard to sell an iPod five or seven years from now when every cell phone can access your entire music library wherever you are."
I've never like the whole network idea. I was happier coding back in the days of client/server architecture. Please keep in mind that I have no technical merit for my argument:) Only that I enjoyed coding client server apps better than I currently enjoy coding web applications. Every once in awhile I get to code a daemon or something that still runs as its own process and every time I'm thrilled to not have to deal with all the overhead crap/marketspeak that comes with coding webapps.
I keep diverging from my ultimate point:) The thing that really bugs me about the quote above is that it implies that no one will actually OWN their own music anymore. Everything will be provided (metaphorically) to you from Sony's servers. When you miss a payment (for whatever reason), your music collection goes away until you pay again. That is NOT a system that I want to deal with.
Why? I mean really. Why in the name of all that is holy would ANYONE want to put Windows on a Mac?
I switched FROM Linux (which I was fairly happy with as a longtime user) to OS X about 6 months ago. Comming from Linux - I actually GAINED games that I can play. That being said - around 1995 I switched from Windows to Linux. I just learned to live without Windows specific software. It really does not take much. What gaming I could not do with Linux I substituted with a console. I can see why some people would want to dual boot Linux (I still feel that open source has great merit and the urge to tinker is hard to overcome), but Windows?
To put it another way - WHY would you go out and buy yourself a Mercedes, drive it home happily, then promptly put a nice set of square wheels on it?!?
There is just SOO much crap in the way of viruses and MBR issues that you'd be creating for yourself that would ruin the reason you own a Mac. Why do that to yourself?
Maybe if Dada spent more time with the higher education that he seems to loathe - he would know this.;-)
We study our history to learn from past mistakes. Maybe for his niche this is working out great. However, if this were ever adopted on a wide scale people would be run into the ground to just trying to survive.
I don't mean to sound harsh here, but are you overcompensating for something? Myself and most other readers here know and appreciate that the net does not stop at US borders. However, this was a US study by a US company and it clearly states so in the text. It does not try to mask itself as anything more or anything less. A world poll (which you seem to insinuate would be better) would do a diservice to both third world contries as well as countries like, the US, EU, China, etc.
A poll of that magnituge would skew the numbers such that the "global" results would be meaningless. It would start to look like more people in the US are not actually online and that more people in third world countries that REALLY need the help are on line. Think through what you are asking for.
modifications, enhancements, derivatives and other alterations of the Software regardless of who made any modifications, if any, are, and will remain, the sole and exclusive property of Licensor and its suppliers.
(b) Licensee may not:
(i) sell, redistribute (except as set forth in Paragraph 5 herein), encumber, give, lend, rent, lease, sublicense, or otherwise transfer the Software, or any portions of the Software, to anyone without the prior written consent of Licensor;
(i) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify, translate, make any attempt to discover the source code of the Software, or create derivative works from the Software, or
(i) install the Software on, or run the Software from, a network server.
Why would an open source project submit themselves to this? This is not even in the slightest sense an "open" model. Conversely, people who chose to use open source software can:
1) Make changes to the software they are using, submit the changes for inclusion into the build, and GET CREDIT for it. The changes remain "theirs" as licensed under the GPL.
1a) Redistribute the project or branch the project.
2)Companies that chose to use OSS do not have to pay $500 per seat.
True - and I have also read his book. However, the bottom ten percent is subjective, not objective. That is, the performance of the bottom ten percent in 1985 will be lower than the bottom ten percent in 1990. In terms of performance, the bottom ten percent in 1990 may actually be the lower end of the middle seventy percent in 1985.
As it is, Jack has created an environment that constantly culls the herd and puts increasing pressure on the "survivors". Each year it gets harder to stay out of the bottom 10%. I'm sorry, I like my job, I dont mind putting in extra time when needed, but I work to live not live to work. Jack's environment forces you to constantly struggle for survival.
Conversley - I see no issue with setting objective performance metrics and then letting go those who are not meeting the stated REALISTIC goals. I also see no problem with reviewing the goals each year in terms of possible process improvements that may have been made to see if the metrics need to be raised.
I realize that I am now TOTTALY off topic from the parent, but you got me started on Jack;-)
You make a good point - however the OTHER way to motivate people is through fear. Unfortunately, throughout my career, I've seen both used. There are plenty of asshole people leading successful companies. Just look at Disney and Eisner.
Or better yet - Oracle. NOT a friendly place to work. Each year they cull the bottom 10% of their staff. Or better yet, my personal favoriate asshole manager - Jack Welch of GM.
While I don't doubt that you are geniunely a good person and a positive motivator, I suspect that you are more of the exception rather than the norm.
Re:The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
on
Top 20 Geek Novels
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· Score: 1
While we are on Ursula LeGuin - I am a fan of Left Hand of Darkness. Her father is Alfred Kroeber, a prominent cultural anthropologist in his day. Alot of her writing (particularly LHoD) is written with an interesting cultural anthropology slant.
I seriously get aggravated at the editorializing on Slashdot sometimes. It amazes me how people can post while being ignorant of the actual debate.
I know exactly what you mean... Proponents of ID tend to change the basic tenants of evolution to fit their argument.
If you can demonstrate that random processes and death can
Your use of the word random in that sentence insinuates that it is NOT directed when in fact it IS. A definition of evolution can be: A change in gene frequency over time. What does this mean? It means that the process by which genetic varition occurs is random - as you stated. However, selection (the fitness of a particular allele for any environment) is NOT random. If you are going to attack evolution under the guise of science, PLEASE at least attack it without change its basic definition.
This is one things that scares me the most about this debate. Not only are proponents changing the definition of science, they are changing the definition of evolution to make their argument more paletable to the masses.
Fuck Mac OS X. I have a Mac and still prefer Gnome or KDE (I have used both extensively and like both). OS X is a sorry excuse for a UNIX.
Good - don't use it then. Sell your Mac on ebay and buy a new Linux box. However, while you are trolling - go take a long look at modern Linux desktops, then go look at OS X. You'll probably be supprised to notice that alot of the "good" functionality in KDE and GNOME was swiped directly from OS X.
It doesn't even have a working native terminal program (one which allows PGUP/PGDN), and Fink's repository is very poorly maintained. Running X apps doesn't work all that great (why don't they show up in the Dock?). Maybe with a huge amount of effort (and buying a few shareware apps), I could get OS X to work how I want it.
That argument is the EXACT argument used by Windows users against Linux in the early days. Why would you do it? To perhaps show your support to a commerical company that IS actually innovating. Oh, and they don't show up in the dock because they were written using a different API and are connecting to a different window SERVER!
But why would I bother when I can have Linux working out-of-box the way I want it? Why would a want a non-free OS when a free one works just as good if not better? Again - show some support for a company that is innovating.
There are a few apps that are really great on OS X, but that is all I use it for. Linux is my primary OS. Just because all the pussy, wannabe users fled to OS X, doesn't mean that OS X is better. It's better than Windows, but that's about all that can be said for OS X.
I'll call it like I see it here. You must be an l33t h@x0r right??? Go back to high school and do your homework. OS X has a unique and interesting background in NextStep - which is what both AfterStep and Windowmaker (two of my favorite window managers) are open source clones of. I find it ammusing that someone with your mentality is extolling the virtues of Linux and in the same breath praising KDE and Gnome rather than a more lightweight window manager. Your views are an uninformed mishmash of "popular" thoughts without ONE of your own.
This is special. I WISH I had modpoints today. Can someone tell me why my post (see above) is modded as flamebait while this parent is modded as insightful? PLEASE - read the two posts and tell me why. I'd love to know.
Trolltech is a COMPANY - not an open source trust. As much as I like KDE and Qt, you need to keep in mind that they can go away in an instant if Trolltech is bought, the license changes, ect. The counter argument here is that the license is written in such a way that it provides for such an event. Maybe so - but the threat of a (or actual) lawsuit (even if it results in a loss in the long term) would be enough to kill the project or at least result in companies running from it.
GNOME's APIs suck (or at least they did a year or so ago) - its that simple. Unless there has been (or will be) a major restructuring - its NOT fun to play with.
GNUStep gets us closer to a completely open stack. Its well written and well thought out.
Slashdot Mirror
Under the Atari 2600 section: Lastly with all the problems that plagued the controller, the absence of a pause button only made it worse, when the joystick stopped working, you couldnt even pause the game.
WHAT pause button? As I recall, there was no pause button on the console either. Good grief - we're talking about a 2600 here. There was no pausing PERIOD back then.
Its a shame that fact checking is SOOOO expensive these days.
No. I'm really pretty sure now that its a virus. Good grief man, check your facts before you post garbage like this! ;-)
McDonalds, Burger King, and 20 out of 24 hours behind a computer/console gaming has been VINDICATED!!!
I knew it all along - damn viruses. Probaby sent here by aliens too to "soften" us up before the attack
You are in a SERIOUS state of denial. I felt much the same as you do now about 10 years ago (actually as a young student of anthropology in college). I thought to myself: "Who would believe this crap?!?" I was absolutely convinced that they were the minority and that reason would win the day.
Fastforward 10 years... I can't tell you when exactly it happened, but I woke up one day and realized that I was in the minority. That reason was NOT carrying the day. I can now honestly say I don't know what to do about it. I can't even get up on my soap box and profess that if "they" just follow my advice, we'll end up on the right track again. And that scares me.
What I can say is this - the trend is probably easier to catch the earlier it is recognized. I said above that I don't have a "right" answer for dealing with it NOW. But had it been noticed and dealth with earlier - I suspect working on education for kids would be key.
The brain rot has crossed the puddle. I sincerely hope that you guys have better luck with it over there than we did here.
Actually, maybe it could
I wonder if Vista has been leaked with IE7? I mean, given how closely the underlying operating system has becomed bundled with the browser - one can only draw the logical conslusion.
:)
To be honest - I've been skeptical about Google for some time. I was not sure how I felt about a company who's sole purpose in life was to perform the same services as Yahoo! but market it as "not evil". Sucessfully so, I might add. I honestly doubted their "Don't be evil" mission.
After reading up about the other companies quietly folding under White House pressure, I am honestly relieved to see SOMEONE finally standing up for the rights of our citizens. Rights are NEVER erroded all at once. The day will never come when we wake up and the amendment about free speech is removed from the Consitution. The day WILL come, however, when we wake up and the free speech amendment means nothing because several iterations of the "Patriot Act" have erroded what it really means.
People in this country need to seriously wake the fuck up. We've been through several iterations of errosion of our rights under this white house. Allow me to sum up: 1) Plame's identity leaked (treason according to the law - I eagerly await the hangings), 2) The Patriot Act (need I say more?), 3) CIA spying on US citizens (notice how quickly W. moved on catching the traitors that leaked that), and 4) This request for search records. The day is rapidly approaching when we wake up and our rights will not mean anything ALL IN THE NAME OF PROTECTING US FROM [insert irrational fear here].
Today, I for one, take my hat off to Google. At the least, even if they are required to acquiese in the end, it garned media attention on the shifty White House request. It will be a long time before I doubt "Don't be evil." again.
As a general comment - I'm not sure how I feel about the two companies merging. Yes they are similar in some ways - but they both have their own distinct "feels". I have a feeling that the company that was left after a merge would have ended up as a watered down mix of both that would ultimately fail.
:) Only that I enjoyed coding client server apps better than I currently enjoy coding web applications. Every once in awhile I get to code a daemon or something that still runs as its own process and every time I'm thrilled to not have to deal with all the overhead crap/marketspeak that comes with coding webapps.
:) The thing that really bugs me about the quote above is that it implies that no one will actually OWN their own music anymore. Everything will be provided (metaphorically) to you from Sony's servers. When you miss a payment (for whatever reason), your music collection goes away until you pay again. That is NOT a system that I want to deal with.
Now on to this crap:
"There's a pendulum thing where stuff is on the client side and then goes back into the network where it belongs," McNealy said. "The answering machine put voicemail by the desk, and then it went back into the network." "Your iPod is like your home answering machine," McNealy said. "I guarantee you it will be hard to sell an iPod five or seven years from now when every cell phone can access your entire music library wherever you are."
I've never like the whole network idea. I was happier coding back in the days of client/server architecture. Please keep in mind that I have no technical merit for my argument
I keep diverging from my ultimate point
Why? I mean really. Why in the name of all that is holy would ANYONE want to put Windows on a Mac?
I switched FROM Linux (which I was fairly happy with as a longtime user) to OS X about 6 months ago. Comming from Linux - I actually GAINED games that I can play. That being said - around 1995 I switched from Windows to Linux. I just learned to live without Windows specific software. It really does not take much. What gaming I could not do with Linux I substituted with a console. I can see why some people would want to dual boot Linux (I still feel that open source has great merit and the urge to tinker is hard to overcome), but Windows?
To put it another way - WHY would you go out and buy yourself a Mercedes, drive it home happily, then promptly put a nice set of square wheels on it?!?
There is just SOO much crap in the way of viruses and MBR issues that you'd be creating for yourself that would ruin the reason you own a Mac. Why do that to yourself?
Maybe if Dada spent more time with the higher education that he seems to loathe - he would know this. ;-)
We study our history to learn from past mistakes. Maybe for his niche this is working out great. However, if this were ever adopted on a wide scale people would be run into the ground to just trying to survive.
I don't mean to sound harsh here, but are you overcompensating for something? Myself and most other readers here know and appreciate that the net does not stop at US borders. However, this was a US study by a US company and it clearly states so in the text. It does not try to mask itself as anything more or anything less. A world poll (which you seem to insinuate would be better) would do a diservice to both third world contries as well as countries like, the US, EU, China, etc.
A poll of that magnituge would skew the numbers such that the "global" results would be meaningless. It would start to look like more people in the US are not actually online and that more people in third world countries that REALLY need the help are on line. Think through what you are asking for.
Your license is restricitve:
modifications, enhancements, derivatives and other alterations of the Software regardless of who made any modifications, if any, are, and will remain, the sole and exclusive property of Licensor and its suppliers.
(b) Licensee may not: (i) sell, redistribute (except as set forth in Paragraph 5 herein), encumber, give, lend, rent, lease, sublicense, or otherwise transfer the Software, or any portions of the Software, to anyone without the prior written consent of Licensor; (i) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify, translate, make any attempt to discover the source code of the Software, or create derivative works from the Software, or (i) install the Software on, or run the Software from, a network server.
Why would an open source project submit themselves to this? This is not even in the slightest sense an "open" model. Conversely, people who chose to use open source software can:
1) Make changes to the software they are using, submit the changes for inclusion into the build, and GET CREDIT for it. The changes remain "theirs" as licensed under the GPL.
1a) Redistribute the project or branch the project.
2)Companies that chose to use OSS do not have to pay $500 per seat.
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/buy/buy.html>
At $500 per seat, its not even worth looking at. Now THATS a piece of crap.
Its still a scourge.
True - and I have also read his book. However, the bottom ten percent is subjective, not objective. That is, the performance of the bottom ten percent in 1985 will be lower than the bottom ten percent in 1990. In terms of performance, the bottom ten percent in 1990 may actually be the lower end of the middle seventy percent in 1985.
;-)
As it is, Jack has created an environment that constantly culls the herd and puts increasing pressure on the "survivors". Each year it gets harder to stay out of the bottom 10%. I'm sorry, I like my job, I dont mind putting in extra time when needed, but I work to live not live to work. Jack's environment forces you to constantly struggle for survival.
Conversley - I see no issue with setting objective performance metrics and then letting go those who are not meeting the stated REALISTIC goals. I also see no problem with reviewing the goals each year in terms of possible process improvements that may have been made to see if the metrics need to be raised.
I realize that I am now TOTTALY off topic from the parent, but you got me started on Jack
You make a good point - however the OTHER way to motivate people is through fear. Unfortunately, throughout my career, I've seen both used. There are plenty of asshole people leading successful companies. Just look at Disney and Eisner.
Or better yet - Oracle. NOT a friendly place to work. Each year they cull the bottom 10% of their staff. Or better yet, my personal favoriate asshole manager - Jack Welch of GM.
While I don't doubt that you are geniunely a good person and a positive motivator, I suspect that you are more of the exception rather than the norm.
While we are on Ursula LeGuin - I am a fan of Left Hand of Darkness. Her father is Alfred Kroeber, a prominent cultural anthropologist in his day. Alot of her writing (particularly LHoD) is written with an interesting cultural anthropology slant.
Yes - but what if they are magically faries that CAN fly in a vaccume?!? ;-)
I seriously get aggravated at the editorializing on Slashdot sometimes. It amazes me how people can post while being ignorant of the actual debate.
I know exactly what you mean... Proponents of ID tend to change the basic tenants of evolution to fit their argument.
If you can demonstrate that random processes and death can
Your use of the word random in that sentence insinuates that it is NOT directed when in fact it IS. A definition of evolution can be: A change in gene frequency over time. What does this mean? It means that the process by which genetic varition occurs is random - as you stated. However, selection (the fitness of a particular allele for any environment) is NOT random. If you are going to attack evolution under the guise of science, PLEASE at least attack it without change its basic definition.
This is one things that scares me the most about this debate. Not only are proponents changing the definition of science, they are changing the definition of evolution to make their argument more paletable to the masses.
Fuck Mac OS X. I have a Mac and still prefer Gnome or KDE (I have used both extensively and like both). OS X is a sorry excuse for a UNIX.
Good - don't use it then. Sell your Mac on ebay and buy a new Linux box. However, while you are trolling - go take a long look at modern Linux desktops, then go look at OS X. You'll probably be supprised to notice that alot of the "good" functionality in KDE and GNOME was swiped directly from OS X.
It doesn't even have a working native terminal program (one which allows PGUP/PGDN), and Fink's repository is very poorly maintained. Running X apps doesn't work all that great (why don't they show up in the Dock?). Maybe with a huge amount of effort (and buying a few shareware apps), I could get OS X to work how I want it.
That argument is the EXACT argument used by Windows users against Linux in the early days. Why would you do it? To perhaps show your support to a commerical company that IS actually innovating. Oh, and they don't show up in the dock because they were written using a different API and are connecting to a different window SERVER!
But why would I bother when I can have Linux working out-of-box the way I want it? Why would a want a non-free OS when a free one works just as good if not better?
Again - show some support for a company that is innovating.
There are a few apps that are really great on OS X, but that is all I use it for. Linux is my primary OS. Just because all the pussy, wannabe users fled to OS X, doesn't mean that OS X is better. It's better than Windows, but that's about all that can be said for OS X.
I'll call it like I see it here. You must be an l33t h@x0r right??? Go back to high school and do your homework. OS X has a unique and interesting background in NextStep - which is what both AfterStep and Windowmaker (two of my favorite window managers) are open source clones of. I find it ammusing that someone with your mentality is extolling the virtues of Linux and in the same breath praising KDE and Gnome rather than a more lightweight window manager. Your views are an uninformed mishmash of "popular" thoughts without ONE of your own.
This is special. I WISH I had modpoints today. Can someone tell me why my post (see above) is modded as flamebait while this parent is modded as insightful? PLEASE - read the two posts and tell me why. I'd love to know.
Trolltech is a COMPANY - not an open source trust. As much as I like KDE and Qt, you need to keep in mind that they can go away in an instant if Trolltech is bought, the license changes, ect. The counter argument here is that the license is written in such a way that it provides for such an event. Maybe so - but the threat of a (or actual) lawsuit (even if it results in a loss in the long term) would be enough to kill the project or at least result in companies running from it.
GNOME's APIs suck (or at least they did a year or so ago) - its that simple. Unless there has been (or will be) a major restructuring - its NOT fun to play with.
GNUStep gets us closer to a completely open stack. Its well written and well thought out.
You make an interesting point.
But do you remember this company/product?
Netscape
Yes - but can't you see the "Certified Microsoft Solutions Provider" banner at the top? That should put all your fears to rest right there ;-)
At the time of this posting, there are ~1200 posts about CmdrTaco not being able to use CmdrTaco in WoW. There are ~500 posts for this story.
That alone speaks volumes about how (we) Americans view this issue.
That's fine. But do you understand that I was booted from WoW???
;-)
Which is more important, really?
Good luck today.