When "The Truman Show" came out, about a guy whose whole life was a reality TV show, many people commented on how similar it was to Dick's "Time Out of Joint".
** spoiler **
TOoJ's "newspaper game" is actually predicting bomb attacks from orbital stations. Obviously, they want him to "win" - correctly predict the attacks - every day. And to this end, they make this whole town to convince him he is freeloading off his sister and her husband and wasting his time on this stupid game.
So.
I suddenly feel better about playing World of Warcraft. In REALITY, I am beating back enemy troops every time I think I am killing a dwarf hunter.
I play WoW with Cedega under Ubuntu. The Warden: "Near as I can tell, there are no other programs on this computer besides WoW. WTF!? Not even Notepad!?"
I value a large and innovative game selection. Wouldn't use Windows otherwise, but no other PC platform can match it.
Pre-OS/X Mac was a lot easier to program than Windows. Haven't tried it since, but I imagine it's still comparitively easy. Why don't more game companies release things on Mac the same time as Windows? Gamers would leave Windows behind, and shortly thereafter, the rest of the world would follow the innovation.
Also, they should run on my SE/30 running System 7.
This whole thing is marketing, anyway. All you really want an O/S to do is let you get your work done and stay out of your way.
I guess people who enjoy staring at their desktop more than doing work give a care about all this stuff. 256x256 color icons? The Amiga had those. Who cares!
The salespeople here use iBooks. All the eye candy is distracting. Bouncy this and growy that. Just show me how to do what I need, like trying to find out why the dialog for setting up mail accounts has disappeared.
Just put Debian on an old Celeron 400 MHz that was previously running Windows 98 and it looks great and is solid as a rock. I want to make it a client for a custom Oracle app we run, but haven't been having a lot of luck there...
However, as a Linux box - runs it better than it ran Win98.
FC4 was a little clunky. SuSE didn't load at all.
Perhaps the single thing that Linux offers that cannot be said for Windows, is its scalability. You can run it on embedded hardware with no UI at all, straight up to desktop systems and through to servers and massive distributed applications. I can put my Puppy disk in any computer and have Linux working in minutes. At work, we just took a Windows 95 computer and installed Fedora Core 4 on it and it's the slickest thing you ever saw on five year old hardware.
Since at least four programmers have answered the same question in the exact same way, the real answer is to see if the problem has already been solved:)
Considering Symantec would instantly cease to exist as a company if it were ever found doing something like this, you can bet they aren't.
There are top secret mailing lists used by AV companies and researchers where they pass around stuff as soon as they find it. Honeynet computers can catch viruses pretty quickly as well, and you can bet that all those AV companies have honeynets of their own just waiting to be infected.
Got a new DVD drive, it came with a Napster trial subscription, I downloaded a song, copied it to my PSP, wouldn't play it. My PSP is not "Napster-to-Go Compatible". Brought it to work to listen to it there, wouldn't play it. Wouldn't play in Windows Media Player. Would only play in Napster application. Cancelled trial subscription, removed Napster from my hard drive.
I know I could have used their app to burn it to CD, then rip it to MP3, but that's more effort than I was looking for. I shouldn't have to circumvent the system just to listen to a song I bought.
As someone left jobless after the tech bubble burst, seeing my fellow ex-programmers turn to real estate and marketing and ambulance driving and other non-programming jobs because they could not find programming work... I urge everyone who asks about entering the IT field to go off and do something else, anything else.
It has to be better than spending years writing software that time and again is released and sinks without a trace.
I worked on the O/S and some utilities for this. It was announced at an WWDC as the Hancock and was canned in favor of the Newton.
It was based on a Powerbook Duo, and like the Duo, would dock into a desktop setup.
I google'd someone's essay about Apple's previous tablet computers (including Hancock).
In the end, I think we'll find the euphemistically named Department of Homeland Security will be a greater threat to our liberty and democracy than any terrorist threat.
It aims to turn us into a nation of suspects and potential saboteurs.
I was wondering the same thing a few weeks back; tried Googling him and the best I could do was get more information about Norton Commander. It's too common a name to pin down to one person, and like other people I know who made money in the tech boom, probably is devoting his life to photography or some other leisure time activity now.
Slashdot Mirror
The Altamont Pass turbines are white, and show up very well against the hills.
Entirely off-topic, they remind me of the opening to Macross Plus whenever I drive by...
When "The Truman Show" came out, about a guy whose whole life was a reality TV show, many people commented on how similar it was to Dick's "Time Out of Joint".
** spoiler **
TOoJ's "newspaper game" is actually predicting bomb attacks from orbital stations. Obviously, they want him to "win" - correctly predict the attacks - every day. And to this end, they make this whole town to convince him he is freeloading off his sister and her husband and wasting his time on this stupid game.
So.
I suddenly feel better about playing World of Warcraft. In REALITY, I am beating back enemy troops every time I think I am killing a dwarf hunter.
I play WoW with Cedega under Ubuntu. The Warden: "Near as I can tell, there are no other programs on this computer besides WoW. WTF!? Not even Notepad!?"
:)
Just gotta stay a step ahead!
Tipa & Kanda
Kirin Tor server
Jack belatedly faxed the Seattle PD with it. Couldn't find where I read this on the PA site, so it was probably elsewhere.
We should just legislate that cares take NO fuel - that would save even more!
A culture that allows shows that laugh at ourselves and use satire and laughter examine ourselves isn't a good thing?
I value a large and innovative game selection. Wouldn't use Windows otherwise, but no other PC platform can match it.
Pre-OS/X Mac was a lot easier to program than Windows. Haven't tried it since, but I imagine it's still comparitively easy. Why don't more game companies release things on Mac the same time as Windows? Gamers would leave Windows behind, and shortly thereafter, the rest of the world would follow the innovation.
Also, they should run on my SE/30 running System 7.
Mightn't the less-craterful areas just be areas of more recent lava flow, or just places where dust had settled.
NWN has everything you want.
This whole thing is marketing, anyway. All you really want an O/S to do is let you get your work done and stay out of your way.
I guess people who enjoy staring at their desktop more than doing work give a care about all this stuff. 256x256 color icons? The Amiga had those. Who cares!
The salespeople here use iBooks. All the eye candy is distracting. Bouncy this and growy that. Just show me how to do what I need, like trying to find out why the dialog for setting up mail accounts has disappeared.
One word: eBay.
Space exploration funding for the new millennium!
Just put Debian on an old Celeron 400 MHz that was previously running Windows 98 and it looks great and is solid as a rock. I want to make it a client for a custom Oracle app we run, but haven't been having a lot of luck there... However, as a Linux box - runs it better than it ran Win98. FC4 was a little clunky. SuSE didn't load at all.
Perhaps the single thing that Linux offers that cannot be said for Windows, is its scalability. You can run it on embedded hardware with no UI at all, straight up to desktop systems and through to servers and massive distributed applications. I can put my Puppy disk in any computer and have Linux working in minutes. At work, we just took a Windows 95 computer and installed Fedora Core 4 on it and it's the slickest thing you ever saw on five year old hardware.
Scalability. That's what Linux has.
At Digital Research, we used to keep a little checklist of John Rowley's favorite phrases that meant nothing. They'd just have to be in every speech.
I wish I could remember them; but it's been twenty years.
People aren't fooled by obfuscatory rhetoric!
Since at least four programmers have answered the same question in the exact same way, the real answer is to see if the problem has already been solved :)
long int a, b, c, x;
x = (a&b) | (a&c) | (b&c);
Do I get the job?
Considering Symantec would instantly cease to exist as a company if it were ever found doing something like this, you can bet they aren't. There are top secret mailing lists used by AV companies and researchers where they pass around stuff as soon as they find it. Honeynet computers can catch viruses pretty quickly as well, and you can bet that all those AV companies have honeynets of their own just waiting to be infected.
Phishing is a job? Wow, finally a new sort of tech job and it is immediately shipped oversees.... can't even buy a break these days.
Got a new DVD drive, it came with a Napster trial subscription, I downloaded a song, copied it to my PSP, wouldn't play it. My PSP is not "Napster-to-Go Compatible". Brought it to work to listen to it there, wouldn't play it. Wouldn't play in Windows Media Player. Would only play in Napster application. Cancelled trial subscription, removed Napster from my hard drive. I know I could have used their app to burn it to CD, then rip it to MP3, but that's more effort than I was looking for. I shouldn't have to circumvent the system just to listen to a song I bought.
As someone left jobless after the tech bubble burst, seeing my fellow ex-programmers turn to real estate and marketing and ambulance driving and other non-programming jobs because they could not find programming work... I urge everyone who asks about entering the IT field to go off and do something else, anything else. It has to be better than spending years writing software that time and again is released and sinks without a trace.
I worked on the O/S and some utilities for this. It was announced at an WWDC as the Hancock and was canned in favor of the Newton. It was based on a Powerbook Duo, and like the Duo, would dock into a desktop setup. I google'd someone's essay about Apple's previous tablet computers (including Hancock).
. Tim Powers' "The Drawing of the Dark" is all about beer. And the crusades. And reincarnation. And the Fisher King. And... well, and a million other things, like usual.
In the end, I think we'll find the euphemistically named Department of Homeland Security will be a greater threat to our liberty and democracy than any terrorist threat. It aims to turn us into a nation of suspects and potential saboteurs.
I was wondering the same thing a few weeks back; tried Googling him and the best I could do was get more information about Norton Commander. It's too common a name to pin down to one person, and like other people I know who made money in the tech boom, probably is devoting his life to photography or some other leisure time activity now.