Here's another example, last year a major game developer allegedly saw an increase of sales of their flagship PS2 game to the tune of 5,000 more units per week when they tweaked the music on their current TV campaign and featured background music that was more familiar to their target audience.....
You mean, like having a game ad use Requiem for a Dream's well-known and incredibly nerve-striking tune, when the game itself has no trace of the music in question? All credit to Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet for doing the marvelous soundtrack, I like it. But to keep this post even slightly on topic, it certainly shows some kind of halo effect, only this time based on aural stimulation: use a good tune in your ad and the general sense the viewer gets is probably biased to positive side.
It used to be that special effects were used to make something look real that otherwise couldn't be done. Nowadays, CGI effects are used for the sake of the effect - there's not even any intent to make something look real, the intent is instead to draw attention to the effect.
Although in general I very much agree with the sentiment above, it is also a rather sobering to discover that at least some directors manage to use computer graphics properly. In Hollywood, no less. The best case in point: Gattaca
Note the genre: science-fiction, and even then CGI is not the main character.
Actually, I'd say that giving proper credit and public recognition for bug reports is good enough for most of the end-users. Case in point (interestingly enough, from LKML and by Andrew Morton himself):
User reports a nasty bug on LKML
Devs request details and the user provides them
User complies and is provided with a patch to test. First one does not work but second one does.
User reports back that the second patch fixes the problem and apologises for not being able to assist better.
Andrew Morton replies (and I'm quoting from memory so only the context will be correct): "You reported a problem, provided enough details to pinpoint it, tested patches to fix the problem and reported back that a certain patch indeed was the correct fix. What more could we possibly ask for?"
Getting an answer like that should lift anyone's spirits. Not only has the bug been fixed, it was also recorded for posterity that a certain user discovered it and helped to his ability in fixing it. And to top it all off, the reporter was given an honest praise and a thank you. The last part alone is usually enough for most users, to see that the developers actually care.
As for resumes? If you have a verifiable record of reporting back bugs and helping to test their fixes, you should be able to use that for your advantage in CV or at least in an interview. If nothing more, it shows that you can communicate with different kinds of people and have enough technical ability to follow through with their requests for further details. You might have even gotten a better product for yourself to use.
Actually, there is a control for this. I just wish they had left it visible like it was in Mozilla. In about:config,
image.animation_mode
is the setting you want to change. I have it as
once
and it allows me to see for instance those Userfriendlies that have a 30s nag screen. I will withstand a minor rotating image - once. If it's an ad, I'll just add it to AdBlock's list of sites/paths to kill off. You may wish to google for the setting's other possible values, as I can not recall what it accepts.
For instance, I'd switch my Mother to Linux just to degrade her chances of a virus, but 3 or 4 little games she plays; Kyodai Mahjongg (this isn't normal mahjongg) Bubble Shooter (There's a similiar one, but it's got a ways to go to catch up to Bubble Shooter), Bookworm, etc. aren't available on Linux that I know of.
Bubble Shooter looks an awfully lot like Frozen Bubble (which in turn is a revision of some really old game). I admit that Frozen Bubble's game areas look more cramped. As for Kyodai, I fail to see what people praise in it. Sure, it's 3D and has quite pleasant sound-world - but it still is a damn solitaire. Real Mah-Jong is a great game and these solitaire versions have as much in common with Mah-Jong as Windows's default Solitaire has with Poker or Bridge. This is real Mah-Jong. Great social game. The computer version is suitably quite close to the real thing.
Now, for Bookworm... I'd love to have the dedicated client for Linux. Applet version works nicely but for some reason Mozilla/Firefox+plugins don't always work seamlessly. (Flash sometimes leaves sound unusable until browser is restarted, Java-plugin doesn't exit and hogs memory in the same manner.)
The other issue is that, people are comfortable with where to go & what to do when there's trouble brewing in Windows. In Linux, even veteran Windows users are often at a loss./
You certainly have a point there, but...
Newton's law of inertia applies equally well to masses of people.
I am willing to say that your claim holds true also the other way round. People who are at home configuring *nix, find themselves at a fairly big loss when confronted with a malfunctioning Windows installation. The systems are really far apart both philosophically and fundamentally. I know I get a headache on those infrequent occasions when I have to work out where something was configured in Windows. Say what you will, the UI is not intuitive.
If you do something wrong installing video drivers in Windows, you get a smack on the hand by the OS forcing you to 640x480, where you have to deal with what you did.
Actually, something quite similar could be done for Linux. If and when X has trouble starting because of screwed-up hardware and/or configuration, it fails to start. It would be quite simple to hook this failure signal with a configurator that allows one to retry. -- Now, I said that would be simple. Making the setup intuitive and moreover, robust, is the hard part. My hunch is that writing this for one distribution would take perhaps 4 months. Making it universally available and able to custom-fit for various different distributions is probably another year. Ironing out bugs and corner-case glitches is like any software project: an ongoing voyage. Not at all that easy.
So what am I saying? You have a point. But for games, there is actually quite a nice selection available. (Incidentally, I'm considering to try out Puzzle Pirates. Yes, they do have a Linux client as well.)
I agree. Epia ITX boards are just about perfect for this kind of setup.
My home server is a 1GHz C3, clocked down to 750MHz (and hence running fanless). I would have liked a 533/600 version but those are available (at least here) only in booksize mini-pc systems and thus use laptop drives.
So what have I got? A system that is silent, relatively cheap, and has very conservative electricity requirements. Large enough a hard drive to double up as a home network media server, although main use is as a mail server.
Just one thing to remember: these processors are marketed as i686 compatible, but for the omission of CMOV call, you can only use i586 optimised binaries.
That is the problem with every operating system out there. If the application for something specific is not linked visible by a pretty icon from the default desktop, you WILL need to find an app that does what you want.
For w32, you'll google or browse some of the several application index sites. For any given Linux distro, you use the provided front-end(s) to search through packages. APT simply eliminates a big part of the dependency tracking, for which you would need to otherwise search, download and install separate blobs manually.
Yes, APT provides a damn neat way to install/uninstall applications and upgrade them. But it still works on top of an operating system, which, by definition, still requires the end-user to actually do something for him or herself. If you want a magical device that does some prespecified things practically by itself, you are not after any kind of general-use operating system. You want a set-top box.
[...] maybe find a way to prepare to get revenue out of it [...]
I agree that it's difficult to see any revenue coming directly from WiX, but indirectly it has one hell of a possibility. Just consider:
People are writing lots of software for Windows
Installing software on that platform is not exactly easy (from what I've heard)
Freely available and unified tool(set) + interface for software install/uninstall lets authors use a system that works and that is the same for all software in given platform. (Think about package management on various Linux distributions. Packages within the same management system usually live along very well.)
This is a tool to keep developers ON Windows. WiX won't ever be a source or revenue, but it may well become a notable reason for some future revenue streams. Also, it's a tool to give both developers and users a unified view for installing software.
I'm a long-time Linux user, and don't exactly have too positive views about M$. However, this is possibly one of the smartest things they have done for quite a while. Credit where it's due.
Re:Security chip and continued development.
on
VIA Pulls PadLockSL
·
· Score: 1
Basically their system allows one to use hardware accelerated AES encryption in all major modes (CTR requires using the co-processor to precompute blocks in ECB mode and then XORing them in regular software.) I'd say that is pretty damn impressive and from what I've looked, the documentation is solid and quite clear.
I read sci.crypt regularly, even if I don't post there. Granted, Tom comes forward as someone who has certain attitude problems (yes, I'm willing to go on record saying this) but the library is still a marvelous piece of work. It's not like we haven't seen controversial personalities in this field before. Also, LTC is nothing but a simple building block, and you can actually verify its functionality and integrity by running the algorithms against any known and verifiable test vector sets. (Locating these is left as an exercise for those interested.) Memory checkers such as valgrind and NJAMD can be used to ascertain that the library routines themselves work without memory flaws. (Especially dangerous when working with crypto, we wouldn't want to overwrite wrong data...)
The API is consistent, even if at times the need to return error codes means that the amount of bytes processed is written to a passed argument. And indeed, as another poster said, LTC is damn pretty and easy-to-use crypto library. Most of all, it's trivial to use only the parts you need and embed those to any program you're writing.
Someone at SCO summed 2 and 2 together, and apparently got something that has i as a factor. That's the only explanation how they thought that announcing major quarterly losses and giving a public statement that they are starting to sue their own customers, on the same day, would somehow inflate their stock price.
On the subject of noise column missing, I agree with you. On the other hand, my desktop box at work is a Shuttle, and it's incredibly silent. So my first-hand experience on them is actually good.
Granted, when the thing is turned on, it does give a huge WHOOOSH you described - but it's not anything on the motherboard. The hideous noise comes from CD-ROM drive that spins to its full speed and maintains that until the boot-sequence has gone far enough. Then it slows down and stays silent.
Considering the history so far this doesn't look like planned. The people involved (apart from Linus) have little to no relation to the suit. Like elsewhere has been pointed out countless times already: SCO pulls a seemingly egregious stunt every time they are being slapped. Stock manipulation is as good an excuse as any.
When the latest IBM move to subpoena investors for information took place, I actually though that someone at IBM has struck with scary precision. They haven't taken that many separate steps. Instead they've hit seldom and hard. I think that whoever is directing their efforts against SCO works like a war strategist. Compare that to SCO's constant and almost random slinging of threats.
It's almost like a street-fight with two very unequal opponents. Other may be fast but lacking focus manages only to swing wildly at air. A more seasoned fighter just makes sure to avoid the hits and waits for an opening, and then promptly punches in their opponent's adam's apple. It's not pretty, it's not fair, but it is effective.
I only wish SCO choked soon enough.
Going on an off-topic tangent of Studio Ghibli
on
Neil Gaiman Responds
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Where I live in (Finland) there is much of the same prejudice against animations. The TV-stations have this common misconception that animated equals children.
What they have not understood is that animation can be a means to tell stories in the same way movies do. Oh well, we could possibly categorise Sandman as childrens' reading because it is a comic.
But back to animation. Each christmas, our TV channels air program for children from early morning. Usually there are quite a lot of animated shorts included. Hence, I am secretly waiting for the day when some channel honchos find they have yet another animated movie in stock and air Grave of the Fireflies on christmas morning.
The sociopath in me grins when I think of all the families that would find their cheery christmas ruined because of crying children; and the following calls that would swamp the station's lines. I honestly do not believe anything less would wake the TV honchos up to the cold reality that animation does not imply childrens' program.
Try a Parker. I've worn out one pair (a pen and a pencil) and now am going through my third set. The first one got lost at some time. No fuss, the pair is just plain smooth steel.
Parker's website
doesn't show the very basic model I use. The closest match in both style and size would be their 'Inflection' set. Around here, you can find these basic items in any decent bookstore that sells study and office supplies.
And to your being a leftie, the ones I'm referring to are completely round and symmetrical.
FYI: We (Finns) don't have the history of being harassed by beggar-mimes in our streets. Interestingly, mimestry(sp?) is considered a difficult kind of art performance. The few selected ones I've seen have actually been pretty damn good.
Judging by the common jokes about outdoor park mimes tailing people and making everyone feel miserable, they must be all too frequent a phenomenon in U.S.
Re:One thing
on
Assembly '03
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Is there a place to find the results of previous years' compos?
You could try scene.org, as it has lots of stuff archived by category, then by year. I'm looking at last year results: ->files->parties->2002->assembly02->results.txt.
And on a bit narrower scope, practically every single, relatively modern FMS (flexible manufacturing system) house has been writing software that just exactly this. For years. Many years.
Tracking the current amount of goods, the throughput rate of said goods, transporting required goods to work locations from an automated warehouse, possibly even ordering needed goods automatically,... - Hell, I have worked for one company that does software for this. It was never original, just practical application of automatics. The systems developed also managed some human resources and had hooks to billing systems.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah.
Oh.
Bugger.
...we're getting Bubble 2.0 as well.
It is said that economy works in 7-year cycles. Let me be the first to publicly call this "Hype 2.0"
Here's another example, last year a major game developer allegedly saw an increase of sales of their flagship PS2 game to the tune of 5,000 more units per week when they tweaked the music on their current TV campaign and featured background music that was more familiar to their target audience.....
You mean, like having a game ad use Requiem for a Dream's well-known and incredibly nerve-striking tune, when the game itself has no trace of the music in question? All credit to Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet for doing the marvelous soundtrack, I like it. But to keep this post even slightly on topic, it certainly shows some kind of halo effect, only this time based on aural stimulation: use a good tune in your ad and the general sense the viewer gets is probably biased to positive side.
Thank $deity they're not in Kansas anymore!
It used to be that special effects were used to make something look real that otherwise couldn't be done. Nowadays, CGI effects are used for the sake of the effect - there's not even any intent to make something look real, the intent is instead to draw attention to the effect.
Although in general I very much agree with the sentiment above, it is also a rather sobering to discover that at least some directors manage to use computer graphics properly. In Hollywood, no less. The best case in point: Gattaca Note the genre: science-fiction, and even then CGI is not the main character.
Actually, I'd say that giving proper credit and public recognition for bug reports is good enough for most of the end-users. Case in point (interestingly enough, from LKML and by Andrew Morton himself):
Getting an answer like that should lift anyone's spirits. Not only has the bug been fixed, it was also recorded for posterity that a certain user discovered it and helped to his ability in fixing it. And to top it all off, the reporter was given an honest praise and a thank you. The last part alone is usually enough for most users, to see that the developers actually care.
As for resumes? If you have a verifiable record of reporting back bugs and helping to test their fixes, you should be able to use that for your advantage in CV or at least in an interview. If nothing more, it shows that you can communicate with different kinds of people and have enough technical ability to follow through with their requests for further details. You might have even gotten a better product for yourself to use.
However, under the proposed law, skipping any commercials or promotional announcements would be prohibited.
U.S.A. -- United States of Advertising.
[about inline images and animation]
Actually, there is a control for this. I just wish they had left it visible like it was in Mozilla. In about:config,
is the setting you want to change. I have it as and it allows me to see for instance those Userfriendlies that have a 30s nag screen. I will withstand a minor rotating image - once. If it's an ad, I'll just add it to AdBlock's list of sites/paths to kill off. You may wish to google for the setting's other possible values, as I can not recall what it accepts.For instance, I'd switch my Mother to Linux just to degrade her chances of a virus, but 3 or 4 little games she plays; Kyodai Mahjongg (this isn't normal mahjongg) Bubble Shooter (There's a similiar one, but it's got a ways to go to catch up to Bubble Shooter), Bookworm, etc. aren't available on Linux that I know of.
Bubble Shooter looks an awfully lot like Frozen Bubble (which in turn is a revision of some really old game). I admit that Frozen Bubble's game areas look more cramped. As for Kyodai, I fail to see what people praise in it. Sure, it's 3D and has quite pleasant sound-world - but it still is a damn solitaire. Real Mah-Jong is a great game and these solitaire versions have as much in common with Mah-Jong as Windows's default Solitaire has with Poker or Bridge. This is real Mah-Jong. Great social game. The computer version is suitably quite close to the real thing.
Now, for Bookworm... I'd love to have the dedicated client for Linux. Applet version works nicely but for some reason Mozilla/Firefox+plugins don't always work seamlessly. (Flash sometimes leaves sound unusable until browser is restarted, Java-plugin doesn't exit and hogs memory in the same manner.)
The other issue is that, people are comfortable with where to go & what to do when there's trouble brewing in Windows. In Linux, even veteran Windows users are often at a loss./
You certainly have a point there, but...
If you do something wrong installing video drivers in Windows, you get a smack on the hand by the OS forcing you to 640x480, where you have to deal with what you did.
Actually, something quite similar could be done for Linux. If and when X has trouble starting because of screwed-up hardware and/or configuration, it fails to start. It would be quite simple to hook this failure signal with a configurator that allows one to retry. -- Now, I said that would be simple. Making the setup intuitive and moreover, robust, is the hard part. My hunch is that writing this for one distribution would take perhaps 4 months. Making it universally available and able to custom-fit for various different distributions is probably another year. Ironing out bugs and corner-case glitches is like any software project: an ongoing voyage. Not at all that easy.
So what am I saying? You have a point. But for games, there is actually quite a nice selection available. (Incidentally, I'm considering to try out Puzzle Pirates. Yes, they do have a Linux client as well.)
I agree. Epia ITX boards are just about perfect for this kind of setup.
My home server is a 1GHz C3, clocked down to 750MHz (and hence running fanless). I would have liked a 533/600 version but those are available (at least here) only in booksize mini-pc systems and thus use laptop drives.
So what have I got? A system that is silent, relatively cheap, and has very conservative electricity requirements. Large enough a hard drive to double up as a home network media server, although main use is as a mail server.
Just one thing to remember: these processors are marketed as i686 compatible, but for the omission of CMOV call, you can only use i586 optimised binaries.
How did you know what to type?
That is the problem with every operating system out there. If the application for something specific is not linked visible by a pretty icon from the default desktop, you WILL need to find an app that does what you want.
For w32, you'll google or browse some of the several application index sites. For any given Linux distro, you use the provided front-end(s) to search through packages. APT simply eliminates a big part of the dependency tracking, for which you would need to otherwise search, download and install separate blobs manually.
Yes, APT provides a damn neat way to install/uninstall applications and upgrade them. But it still works on top of an operating system, which, by definition, still requires the end-user to actually do something for him or herself. If you want a magical device that does some prespecified things practically by itself, you are not after any kind of general-use operating system. You want a set-top box.
[...] maybe find a way to prepare to get revenue out of it [...]
I agree that it's difficult to see any revenue coming directly from WiX, but indirectly it has one hell of a possibility. Just consider:
This is a tool to keep developers ON Windows. WiX won't ever be a source or revenue, but it may well become a notable reason for some future revenue streams. Also, it's a tool to give both developers and users a unified view for installing software.
I'm a long-time Linux user, and don't exactly have too positive views about M$. However, this is possibly one of the smartest things they have done for quite a while. Credit where it's due.
Does VIA offer documentation on their chipsets?
Yes, at least to their PadLock system. Overview, Programmer's Guide.
Basically their system allows one to use hardware accelerated AES encryption in all major modes (CTR requires using the co-processor to precompute blocks in ECB mode and then XORing them in regular software.) I'd say that is pretty damn impressive and from what I've looked, the documentation is solid and quite clear.
You can even get Brian Gladman's AES implementation which uses VIA's hardware acceleration if such is present.
I read sci.crypt regularly, even if I don't post there. Granted, Tom comes forward as someone who has certain attitude problems (yes, I'm willing to go on record saying this) but the library is still a marvelous piece of work. It's not like we haven't seen controversial personalities in this field before. Also, LTC is nothing but a simple building block, and you can actually verify its functionality and integrity by running the algorithms against any known and verifiable test vector sets. (Locating these is left as an exercise for those interested.) Memory checkers such as valgrind and NJAMD can be used to ascertain that the library routines themselves work without memory flaws. (Especially dangerous when working with crypto, we wouldn't want to overwrite wrong data...)
The API is consistent, even if at times the need to return error codes means that the amount of bytes processed is written to a passed argument. And indeed, as another poster said, LTC is damn pretty and easy-to-use crypto library. Most of all, it's trivial to use only the parts you need and embed those to any program you're writing.
Someone at SCO summed 2 and 2 together, and apparently got something that has i as a factor. That's the only explanation how they thought that announcing major quarterly losses and giving a public statement that they are starting to sue their own customers, on the same day, would somehow inflate their stock price.
Just out of curiosity, what would be the mount options?
On the subject of noise column missing, I agree with you. On the other hand, my desktop box at work is a Shuttle, and it's incredibly silent. So my first-hand experience on them is actually good.
Granted, when the thing is turned on, it does give a huge WHOOOSH you described - but it's not anything on the motherboard. The hideous noise comes from CD-ROM drive that spins to its full speed and maintains that until the boot-sequence has gone far enough. Then it slows down and stays silent.
Who boots their work box more than once a month?
Considering the history so far this doesn't look like planned. The people involved (apart from Linus) have little to no relation to the suit. Like elsewhere has been pointed out countless times already: SCO pulls a seemingly egregious stunt every time they are being slapped. Stock manipulation is as good an excuse as any.
When the latest IBM move to subpoena investors for information took place, I actually though that someone at IBM has struck with scary precision. They haven't taken that many separate steps. Instead they've hit seldom and hard. I think that whoever is directing their efforts against SCO works like a war strategist. Compare that to SCO's constant and almost random slinging of threats.
It's almost like a street-fight with two very unequal opponents. Other may be fast but lacking focus manages only to swing wildly at air. A more seasoned fighter just makes sure to avoid the hits and waits for an opening, and then promptly punches in their opponent's adam's apple. It's not pretty, it's not fair, but it is effective.
I only wish SCO choked soon enough.
Where I live in (Finland) there is much of the same prejudice against animations. The TV-stations have this common misconception that animated equals children.
What they have not understood is that animation can be a means to tell stories in the same way movies do. Oh well, we could possibly categorise Sandman as childrens' reading because it is a comic.
But back to animation. Each christmas, our TV channels air program for children from early morning. Usually there are quite a lot of animated shorts included. Hence, I am secretly waiting for the day when some channel honchos find they have yet another animated movie in stock and air Grave of the Fireflies on christmas morning.
The sociopath in me grins when I think of all the families that would find their cheery christmas ruined because of crying children; and the following calls that would swamp the station's lines. I honestly do not believe anything less would wake the TV honchos up to the cold reality that animation does not imply childrens' program.
Try a Parker. I've worn out one pair (a pen and a pencil) and now am going through my third set. The first one got lost at some time. No fuss, the pair is just plain smooth steel.
Parker's website doesn't show the very basic model I use. The closest match in both style and size would be their 'Inflection' set. Around here, you can find these basic items in any decent bookstore that sells study and office supplies.
And to your being a leftie, the ones I'm referring to are completely round and symmetrical.
FYI: We (Finns) don't have the history of being harassed by beggar-mimes in our streets. Interestingly, mimestry(sp?) is considered a difficult kind of art performance. The few selected ones I've seen have actually been pretty damn good.
Judging by the common jokes about outdoor park mimes tailing people and making everyone feel miserable, they must be all too frequent a phenomenon in U.S.
Is there a place to find the results of previous years' compos?
You could try scene.org, as it has lots of stuff archived by category, then by year. I'm looking at last year results: ->files->parties->2002->assembly02->results.txt .
And on a bit narrower scope, practically every single, relatively modern FMS (flexible manufacturing system) house has been writing software that just exactly this. For years. Many years.
Tracking the current amount of goods, the throughput rate of said goods, transporting required goods to work locations from an automated warehouse, possibly even ordering needed goods automatically, ... - Hell, I have worked for one company that does software for this. It was never original, just practical application of automatics. The systems developed also managed some human resources and had hooks to billing systems.
Absolutely insane.
Casual friday all week long?
I could live with that...