Now. The counter you see there is a Javascript box, similiar to Gmails space indicator. It ups the count once a second then takes the actual result using XMLHTTPRequest just like Google Maps does.
Also, they clearly state somewhere(too tired to look up) that they don't count the downloads which result from the Auto Update mechanism.
Now, these results are not terribly accurate. It's great for those of us who enjoy using Firefox and who advocate that people use it and so forth. It's gratifying to see that there is further competition in the browser market - as it is W3C guidelines are slowly being followed more and more. Now, this is a Good Thing(tm), a boon to people who enjoy designing to standards rather than to browser quirks.
Disclaimer: I have only done an A-Level in Economics. Now the EU is a common market, right? How does this work out then? Don't they all have to levy this tax? Can you just pop into a neighbouring country and pick up an iPod?
This is an open letter to Rob and the rest of the editors.
Please do NOT let the site change into bash.org. I enjoy reading bash.org for certain things, and I enjoy reading slashdot for somethings. If I want bash, I'll go there. If I want slashdot, I point my browser to slashdot.org.
Now - please look at the stories submitted here. There is one about a fucking snail being faster than an aDSL line. Then there is a 12 year old story about a 127.0.0.1 hacker.
I realise that you guys are now owned by the OSDL. I realise that you now have ads on. However, don't let the compulsion to feed your advertising revenue overcome your editorial standards. By keeping slashdot focused on actual tech stories, about "Stuff that Matters", you attract a class of reader who is more likely to actually buy the server or the linux product that your advertiser is offering, enabling you to increase the rates that you charge.
Now I like a good laugh as much as the next person, but this is just lame. On slashdot, the stories themselves don't need to be funny, it's the people who post who make it funny. Granted, the beowulf cluster jokes are getting a bit old.;).
You *need* at least a 256 kbps line to play CS : Source, and Steam just sucks up bandwith, especially with the initial decryption or whatever. I know a friend who specifically arranged for a 512 kbps line so that he could play Source.
And if I take India as a representative, $10 for 256 kbps works out, especially when you're shelling out $50 for the original game.
What I do find crazy is that there are some computers with 32 mb of RAM listed here. I'm surprised Steam even loaded! There are about a 100 people who have less than a 100 megs of RAM who are probably cursing 'coz HL2 doesn't work on their machines. And don't get me started on the 200 MHz machines which are listed!
Now I don't expect everyone on/. to be stupid, but I don't expect them to be stupid in the extreme either.
No where in TFA does it say that "Design could have prevented 9/11".
Usability is something which can help. Think about hospital steps. If there is a ramp there, it helps people with wheelchairs get up there. Sure, ramps don't go around saving lives by throwing themselves over bombs or anything, but they do help by helping people use the facility.
Now - look at the two different documents. What is lost by using the second one? All the information stays the same. What one does is to visually cue a person, providing easy ways to categorise the document without even reading it.
You disagree?
Try reading the same post as above, with a slight modification. Spacing doesn't save lives. Does it?
Well - I got it off Limewire earlier this week cause their servers were still down from our last attack, and funnily enough the text is COMPLETELY unreadable. Are they overideing the default web-text with another font?
I checked the box which says author mode and all you know, and disabled the fonts settings in the Fonts tab. Any help here?
What I'd really like would be to see Robert Jordans world out as an MMORPG. The sheer number of factions, people, the detailed world that is already available - there is nothing here that won't work. It could even be heavily scripted, like the MxO, with the bigger characters occasionally showing up....
ahh...who am I kidding? He hasn't finished the books even.
Vaporware (or vapourware) is software or hardware which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle. The term implies deception, or at least a negligent degree of optimism; that is, it implies that the announcer knows that product development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility.
Now, as far as I know, GMail is available, last time I checked worked as advertised and was available to almost anybody who wanted one. (If you are one of the three people on this earth who doesn't have one, email me, I'll send you one immediately.).
Also, be aware of the fact that to qualify as being vaporware, the provider of the service needs to announc these features. Not Slashdot. Not someone over at blogspot. Google.
R.
Saw this about a week ago....
on
The Bender PC Case
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
....at that huge Norwegien game gathering. You know, the one where they had the coolest 5 day network ever?
I think it won their case-modding contest as well. Well - more power to them.
The other cool thing at the game gathering was the 1 GBps uplink to the net that they had! My god, I had never heard about such a big pipe before!
He said open and proprietary standards could co-exist, arguing Microsoft promoted common development of standards by sitting on all of the representative bodies working on them.
And opposing every one of them? This is like the US saying that it "protects everybodys interests by sitting on the UN" - and then using its veto for say - The International Criminal Court.
Well - i don't know too much about this, but take a look at their website.
At first glance, it looks ok, neatly done. However, take a closer look. The text is a large IMAGE! OMG - if their technology is anything like their web-design skills, then we're safe.
Also revealing is the line somewhere which says that after they released their software, the total PURCHASES DECREASED by some percentage!
There is a lesson here, and I hope somebody at the **IA sees it soon.
When I was about eleven or twelve, I bought or was given a copy of the original Age of Empires. I remember avidly reading the "Historical Info" section at the beginning of each scenario, and then actually looking up these things.
I now study History as my major, so while I won't make any stupid direct links between the two, I will say that it helped sustain an interest in history which was started earlier by reading things stories about Greek gods and "Myths and Legends of Ye Olde England"...
It was a fun game, and the fact that it had a pseudo-historical angle to it meant that I cared enough to look these things up.
It's got a colour screen version too. I think for about $50 more.
Re:Alternatives have more attractive free software
on
What Happened to Simputer?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Having actually used the Simputer - one of the hardware engineers is a good friend - I must say that the device itself is quite cool. I also own a Palm Tree 6500, and even when compared to that, it is quite an interesting machine.
One of the coolest features is the decent handwriting recognition software - it also works for I think, at last count, 6 Indian languages. The otehr cool thing is the interface. Clean. Sweet. Just Works (tm).
Seriously. This is IMHO, the biggest cool thing about this machine. Everything is very slickly built, the stylus works completely....etc.
Now about the Windows inter-operability raised by parent. While Windows is the defacto standard, the target audience here is a village person - for whom interoperability may not be the top priority given that he may never have more than one or two of these things. Also - if you're working with the Indian government, like trying to check land-records and so on, you'll find that most of the departments which HAVE some useful information are using Linux. Yes, it's big in India...
i was a volunteer for the last three months with Oxfam India, in Cuddalore, one of the affected districts of South India.
As part of our rehabilitation efforts, we set up Information Centres, using $700 laptops donated by IBM and CDMA based wireless telephones.
These Information Centres contained a large amount of daily updated information - News, Commodity and Vegetable prices, weather information and forecasts, fish prices, government schemes and subsidies that people were eligible for...
We trained local village women to use these machines - aside:our information centre was coded with XUL and therefore, Firefox, hehe - and they earned a small amount of money from printing out say - a governemnt subsidy application form.
Now - and here is where I get to the actual crux of my arguemnet, the price of technology is not the only limiting factor. Just because something costs less than $200 doesn't mean that people WILL buy it. The content - or the usefuleness of the software will ultimately be the driving force behind its adoption. Once people saw that our product was actually useful, they actually raised nearly half the cost of another machine so that there queries could be dealt with faster!
Otherwise you're just giving them an expensive solitare toy.
Slashdot Mirror
Now. The counter you see there is a Javascript box, similiar to Gmails space indicator. It ups the count once a second then takes the actual result using XMLHTTPRequest just like Google Maps does.
Also, they clearly state somewhere(too tired to look up) that they don't count the downloads which result from the Auto Update mechanism.
Now, these results are not terribly accurate. It's great for those of us who enjoy using Firefox and who advocate that people use it and so forth. It's gratifying to see that there is further competition in the browser market - as it is W3C guidelines are slowly being followed more and more. Now, this is a Good Thing(tm), a boon to people who enjoy designing to standards rather than to browser quirks.
R.
Disclaimer: I have only done an A-Level in Economics. Now the EU is a common market, right? How does this work out then? Don't they all have to levy this tax? Can you just pop into a neighbouring country and pick up an iPod?
R.
Please do NOT let the site change into bash.org. I enjoy reading bash.org for certain things, and I enjoy reading slashdot for somethings. If I want bash, I'll go there. If I want slashdot, I point my browser to slashdot.org.
Now - please look at the stories submitted here. There is one about a fucking snail being faster than an aDSL line. Then there is a 12 year old story about a 127.0.0.1 hacker.
I realise that you guys are now owned by the OSDL. I realise that you now have ads on. However, don't let the compulsion to feed your advertising revenue overcome your editorial standards. By keeping slashdot focused on actual tech stories, about "Stuff that Matters", you attract a class of reader who is more likely to actually buy the server or the linux product that your advertiser is offering, enabling you to increase the rates that you charge.
Now I like a good laugh as much as the next person, but this is just lame. On slashdot, the stories themselves don't need to be funny, it's the people who post who make it funny. Granted, the beowulf cluster jokes are getting a bit old.
C'mon guys, be strong, stand up to your sponsors.
R.
You *need* at least a 256 kbps line to play CS : Source, and Steam just sucks up bandwith, especially with the initial decryption or whatever. I know a friend who specifically arranged for a 512 kbps line so that he could play Source.
And if I take India as a representative, $10 for 256 kbps works out, especially when you're shelling out $50 for the original game.
What I do find crazy is that there are some computers with 32 mb of RAM listed here. I'm surprised Steam even loaded! There are about a 100 people who have less than a 100 megs of RAM who are probably cursing 'coz HL2 doesn't work on their machines. And don't get me started on the 200 MHz machines which are listed!
R.
Firefox becomes Lynx!
R.
No where in TFA does it say that "Design could have prevented 9/11".
Usability is something which can help. Think about hospital steps. If there is a ramp there, it helps people with wheelchairs get up there. Sure, ramps don't go around saving lives by throwing themselves over bombs or anything, but they do help by helping people use the facility.
Now - look at the two different documents. What is lost by using the second one? All the information stays the same. What one does is to visually cue a person, providing easy ways to categorise the document without even reading it.
You disagree?
Try reading the same post as above, with a slight modification. Spacing doesn't save lives. Does it?
NowIdon'texpecteveryoneon/.tobestupid,butIdon't
I checked the box which says author mode and all you know, and disabled the fonts settings in the Fonts tab. Any help here?
R.
ahh...who am I kidding? He hasn't finished the books even.
And the WoT game sucked. Yes it did.
R.
Wait - I haven't used Office 2003.
R.
Now, as far as I know, GMail is available, last time I checked worked as advertised and was available to almost anybody who wanted one. (If you are one of the three people on this earth who doesn't have one, email me, I'll send you one immediately.).
Also, be aware of the fact that to qualify as being vaporware, the provider of the service needs to announc these features. Not Slashdot. Not someone over at blogspot. Google.
R.
....at that huge Norwegien game gathering. You know, the one where they had the coolest 5 day network ever?
I think it won their case-modding contest as well. Well - more power to them.
The other cool thing at the game gathering was the 1 GBps uplink to the net that they had! My god, I had never heard about such a big pipe before!
R.
And opposing every one of them? This is like the US saying that it "protects everybodys interests by sitting on the UN" - and then using its veto for say - The International Criminal Court.
Just too scary.
At first glance, it looks ok, neatly done. However, take a closer look. The text is a large IMAGE! OMG - if their technology is anything like their web-design skills, then we're safe.
Also revealing is the line somewhere which says that after they released their software, the total PURCHASES DECREASED by some percentage!
There is a lesson here, and I hope somebody at the **IA sees it soon.
R.
I can just see the next colour scheme for iBooks - Military Green Camouflage!
R.
In Bangalore, India, we had the airwaves open out only VERY recently - Prices are, I believe, among the cheapest in the world.
Gordon Farrel is probably my favourite designer. Find some of his work here - http://aoe.heavengames.com/dl-php/lister.php?categ ory=spscen&rating=top.
His campaigns about the Pelopennesean war and the Persian War were some of the coolest ever, and I think he got hired later by Ensemble.?
I now study History as my major, so while I won't make any stupid direct links between the two, I will say that it helped sustain an interest in history which was started earlier by reading things stories about Greek gods and "Myths and Legends of Ye Olde England"...
It was a fun game, and the fact that it had a pseudo-historical angle to it meant that I cared enough to look these things up.
It's got a colour screen version too. I think for about $50 more.
One of the coolest features is the decent handwriting recognition software - it also works for I think, at last count, 6 Indian languages. The otehr cool thing is the interface. Clean. Sweet. Just Works (tm).
Seriously. This is IMHO, the biggest cool thing about this machine. Everything is very slickly built, the stylus works completely....etc.
Now about the Windows inter-operability raised by parent. While Windows is the defacto standard, the target audience here is a village person - for whom interoperability may not be the top priority given that he may never have more than one or two of these things. Also - if you're working with the Indian government, like trying to check land-records and so on, you'll find that most of the departments which HAVE some useful information are using Linux. Yes, it's big in India...
As part of our rehabilitation efforts, we set up Information Centres, using $700 laptops donated by IBM and CDMA based wireless telephones.
These Information Centres contained a large amount of daily updated information - News, Commodity and Vegetable prices, weather information and forecasts, fish prices, government schemes and subsidies that people were eligible for...
We trained local village women to use these machines - aside:our information centre was coded with XUL and therefore, Firefox, hehe - and they earned a small amount of money from printing out say - a governemnt subsidy application form.
Now - and here is where I get to the actual crux of my arguemnet, the price of technology is not the only limiting factor. Just because something costs less than $200 doesn't mean that people WILL buy it. The content - or the usefuleness of the software will ultimately be the driving force behind its adoption. Once people saw that our product was actually useful, they actually raised nearly half the cost of another machine so that there queries could be dealt with faster!
Otherwise you're just giving them an expensive solitare toy.
Oops - Thats technically two.
http://www.duckisland.com/GreekMachine.asp?strLang uage=technobabble&strParag=3
"If the Windows process is so poor, why is it more popular than Linux?"
Discuss.
...just a lot of hot air...
Strange? Coincidence? I think not.
Mainstream game companies (EA anybody?) suck - apart from the great Harry Potter series that they put out every month of course ;)