I kid you not. The dialog (well, a "script", if you will), the acting, the sets, OMG, it's just awful. Horrible.
I make bets for $ with my co-workers to actually sit through this thing (I got a used VHS of it from a video store in GA) and NOT tell me that it's the worst thing they've ever seen. That's a very subjective thing, yet I've always won.
It has "a special effect," for chrissake, and the visual on the front cover doesn't even show up in the movie. OMG, it's just awful, I'm gonna go sit in the corner and rock myself for a while now...
I develop MT daemon-type software that runs on a vareity of unices and NT and, with the occasionaly exception of dbx on IRIX, we can't debug squat in terms of MT-specific issues except on NT, using VC++.
Look, some projects, esp. ones that work on platforms where threads really do work well, really lend themselves to MT designs, and that takes modern tools. GDB, even 5.0, just ain't all that (to add insult to injury, our project makes heavy use of shared libraries, making for a good ten minute core file load-up time when going over NFS -- not so w/DLLs and SMB).
The VC++ IDE-based debugger is excellent, and will help you get work done. Period. Thread-specific stack-traces, memory editing, watching, tracing, the whole bit, in a fully MT situation. We have a unified, cross-platform, Make-based build system that allows us to bypass the IDE compeltely for coding, but the debugger just can't be beat.
The Sony PCR-100 is both a digital video cassette camera (both full motion and still pictures on cassette) and can also use Sony's memory sticks for still images storage.
Unlike most DV-style combos, this one's still resolution is quite respectable (1152xSomething), and it has both a very good optical/mechanical stabilization system, a 10x optical/120x interpolated zoom, active NIR, zero-light shooting, and a great, bright little LCD and viewfinder.
Plus, the PC-card adapter for the memory sticks, usable across the Sony line, makes the stick appear just like a removable IDE drive and works under Linux and Win2k (at least) with no extra driver software. Almost as convenient as floppies, in other words, but uses a lot less power and holds a whole pile more of images.
At full-sized, superfine quality the jpg's are 610kb. The current price point on memory sticks (which are *very* small, convenient, and solid-state) are ~$50 for a 32MB model (55 images at that resolution/quality, several hundred at 640x480 and lower quality).
The PCR-100 also has a very complete remote control, serial, composite, and firewire (DVLink) I/O, and it fits in the palm of yer hand. Can be found around the web for ~$1,600. The full-motion video is very good for a single-CCD camera, btw, but you didn't ask about that:)
I just got my G4/450 three days ago. Got q3test two days ago, and I didn't do much yesterday:) I've put it side by side with the Diamond V770-based PCs we have here (at the same resolution) and it is just plain *great*, even with 32-bit textures. I mean, have you *seen* how good this looks? High frame rates, good stable gameplay, the works,...
At the moment, things are going ok. The entire concept of a compuer "application," versus the OS or box itself, has taken some getting used to, so I've improvised. I figured that, in keeping with the keep-it-simple type of recommendations seen here, he ought to get used to just doing something with the machine regularly before I lay all of the possiblities on him (meaning that I tried the latter first and it was a mistake...).
First, I configured TextPad (for Windows) to come up with a nice large font and stay on top of all other windows, with special keyboard mappings such that printing is reduced to a one-key operation, etc.
Several posters pointed out that the graphical "density" of the display might be an issue, and it was, meaning that he had difficulty making out icon labels and other UI elements. To cope, I chose a high resolution, for maximum clarity, but a really large desktop fonts and easy an to resolve color scheme (un-busy background pattern, "Lilac"-purplish).
Fortunately, the Profile's all-AC-powered LCD is *very* bright and clear, with no glare whatsoever, so post-cataract-operation eyes don't get too tired too quickly. I chose the Profile mainly because of this display and low footprint, btw -- my grandfather's apartment doesn't have enough room for even a (first-generation) iMac, with its full-size CRT.
To round everthing out, the Profile can be shut down "nicely," like a laptop, so all my grandfather has to do when he's done writing is to hit the power button and everything goes off cleanly (as long as all applications exit ok...).
So far, so good -- but he's only had it without me around for a few days. Thanks for all of the ideas and encouragement! I'll keep your suggestions at hand when either this approach doesn't work or when he wants to go to the next level (kernel hacking, that is:)
...it's not that Mandrake is particularly easy to use vs. RH (they contain mostly the same software, after all), it's just that (a) Mandrake is optimized for my architecture (and anything sold in the last three years, btw) and (b) it is more *complete*. The RH releases continue to be very rough around the edges and missing really useful stuff that I have to go out and snag right away (eg, xemacs). RH has done a great deal of work, and I benefit greatly from it indirectly, but they need the polish that Mandrake spends a little time adding.
Mind you, I've installed some grisly distros -- Slackware 2something almost three years ago, for one -- but I do like to get some work done once in a while!
Yes, and of course *we power user types* don't do GUI installs. I don't mind one bit -- it's still Linux, after all, and every CLI tool you could ever want is right where it's always been.
Sorry, but the scope of this fella's crime was international and disabled critical business and gov't computing resources all over the place. It should make a lot of noise. The 'net is still the most liberated, unregulated piece of context in the known universe.
It sure *sounds* a whole bunch like cheerleading -- Kind of the inverse of the rhetorical approach he goes to so much trouble to describe.
With regards to the content, I say the following. I've spent a *lot* of time behind multiple flavors of UNIX, including my own Redhat Linux variant at home, and they are all shades of the same, ungracefully aging way of doing things.
NT & 98 are by no means the wave of the future, but they are more hardware-compatible, easy to manage (on a small scale), and more suitable for the modern desktop than anything running X. Sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
R.O.T.O.R.: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098156/
I kid you not. The dialog (well, a "script", if you will), the acting, the sets, OMG, it's just awful. Horrible.
I make bets for $ with my co-workers to actually sit through this thing (I got a used VHS of it from a video store in GA) and NOT tell me that it's the worst thing they've ever seen. That's a very subjective thing, yet I've always won.
It has "a special effect," for chrissake, and the visual on the front cover doesn't even show up in the movie. OMG, it's just awful, I'm gonna go sit in the corner and rock myself for a while now...
I develop MT daemon-type software that runs on a vareity of unices and NT and, with the occasionaly exception of dbx on IRIX, we can't debug squat in terms of MT-specific issues except on NT, using VC++.
Look, some projects, esp. ones that work on platforms where threads really do work well, really lend themselves to MT designs, and that takes modern tools. GDB, even 5.0, just ain't all that (to add insult to injury, our project makes heavy use of shared libraries, making for a good ten minute core file load-up time when going over NFS -- not so w/DLLs and SMB).
The VC++ IDE-based debugger is excellent, and will help you get work done. Period. Thread-specific stack-traces, memory editing, watching, tracing, the whole bit, in a fully MT situation. We have a unified, cross-platform, Make-based build system that allows us to bypass the IDE compeltely for coding, but the debugger just can't be beat.
The Sony PCR-100 is both a digital video cassette camera (both full motion and still pictures on cassette) and can also use Sony's memory sticks for still images storage.
:)
Unlike most DV-style combos, this one's still resolution is quite respectable (1152xSomething), and it has both a very good optical/mechanical stabilization system, a 10x optical/120x interpolated zoom, active NIR, zero-light shooting, and a great, bright little LCD and viewfinder.
Plus, the PC-card adapter for the memory sticks, usable across the Sony line, makes the stick appear just like a removable IDE drive and works under Linux and Win2k (at least) with no extra driver software. Almost as convenient as floppies, in other words, but uses a lot less power and holds a whole pile more of images.
At full-sized, superfine quality the jpg's are 610kb. The current price point on memory sticks (which are *very* small, convenient, and solid-state) are ~$50 for a 32MB model (55 images at that resolution/quality, several hundred at 640x480 and lower quality).
The PCR-100 also has a very complete remote control, serial, composite, and firewire (DVLink) I/O, and it fits in the palm of yer hand. Can be found around the web for ~$1,600. The full-motion video is very good for a single-CCD camera, btw, but you didn't ask about that
I just got my G4/450 three days ago. Got q3test two days ago, and I didn't do much yesterday :) I've put it side by side with the Diamond V770-based PCs we have here (at the same resolution) and it is just plain *great*, even with 32-bit textures. I mean, have you *seen* how good this looks? High frame rates, good stable gameplay, the works,...
At the moment, things are going ok. The entire concept of a compuer "application," versus the OS or box itself, has taken some getting used to, so I've improvised. I figured that, in keeping with the keep-it-simple type of recommendations seen here, he ought to get used to just doing something with the machine regularly before I lay all of the possiblities on him (meaning that I tried the latter first and it was a mistake...).
:)
First, I configured TextPad (for Windows) to come up with a nice large font and stay on top of all other windows, with special keyboard mappings such that printing is reduced to a one-key operation, etc.
Several posters pointed out that the graphical "density" of the display might be an issue, and it was, meaning that he had difficulty making out icon labels and other UI elements. To cope, I chose a high resolution, for maximum clarity, but a really large desktop fonts and easy an to resolve color scheme (un-busy background pattern, "Lilac"-purplish).
Fortunately, the Profile's all-AC-powered LCD is *very* bright and clear, with no glare whatsoever, so post-cataract-operation eyes don't get too tired too quickly. I chose the Profile mainly because of this display and low footprint, btw -- my grandfather's apartment doesn't have enough room for even a (first-generation) iMac, with its full-size CRT.
To round everthing out, the Profile can be shut down "nicely," like a laptop, so all my grandfather has to do when he's done writing is to hit the power button and everything goes off cleanly (as long as all applications exit ok...).
So far, so good -- but he's only had it without me around for a few days. Thanks for all of the ideas and encouragement! I'll keep your suggestions at hand when either this approach doesn't work or when he wants to go to the next level (kernel hacking, that is
...Works great on our servers and workstations -- weeks of uptime, lots of apps up and running, a great show.
...it's not that Mandrake is particularly easy to use vs. RH (they contain mostly the same software, after all), it's just that (a) Mandrake is optimized for my architecture (and anything sold in the last three years, btw) and (b) it is more *complete*. The RH releases continue to be very rough around the edges and missing really useful stuff that I have to go out and snag right away (eg, xemacs). RH has done a great deal of work, and I benefit greatly from it indirectly, but they need the polish that Mandrake spends a little time adding.
Mind you, I've installed some grisly distros -- Slackware 2something almost three years ago, for one -- but I do like to get some work done once in a while!
"And for my next trick..."
Yeah, they were ("Linux on NT," if you will...)! Check out this link from their home page:
t ml
http://www.interix.com/press/press99/06.08.99.h
Yes, and of course *we power user types* don't do GUI installs. I don't mind one bit -- it's still Linux, after all, and every CLI tool you could ever want is right where it's always been.
All hail the big, nasty HTML coder. I'm skeeerrd...what will (s)he try next? C++?!
Sorry, but the scope of this fella's crime was international and disabled critical business and gov't computing resources all over the place. It should make a lot of noise. The 'net is still the most liberated, unregulated piece of context in the known universe.
It sure *sounds* a whole bunch like cheerleading -- Kind of the inverse of the rhetorical approach he goes to so much trouble to describe.
With regards to the content, I say the following. I've spent a *lot* of time behind multiple flavors of UNIX, including my own Redhat Linux variant at home, and they are all shades of the same, ungracefully aging way of doing things.
NT & 98 are by no means the wave of the future, but they are more hardware-compatible, easy to manage (on a small scale), and more suitable for the modern desktop than anything running X. Sorry.