I played MUDs from about 1991 till 1994; WoW is simply a MUD with a pretty front-end. Other than 3d graphics, I don't really see anything that WoW does that I haven't seen before, a decade ago.
I'm sorry, but WoW is not "just that good". I've got a fairly sizable collection of games (several hundred for all of the major consoles) and WoW doesn't even make it into the top fifty. The social aspects aside, it's not a very good RPG.
I did play WoW for about fifteen hours using a friend's account, but I just didn't see any point in continuing to play. My friend on the other hand has several level sixty players and spends hours every evening farming felcloth instead of joining his friends for dinner, at the bar, at a concert etc.
I hate crying addict, but I really don't see the allure.
My mother retired a few years ago after having been a teacher (special ed. and fourth grade) for about thirty years. Your description is dead on although you neglected to mention dealing with unreasonable/uncaring parents. My mom's told me some real horror stories.
Out here in the real world most employers require their employees to show up at a prescribed time every day.
Yes most do, but mine doesn't and it makes me so much happier and productive. If I stay up late for some reason, I just come in later in the morning and work later in the evening. If I feel like working from my home office, I just call in and tell my boss I'm working from home. If I want to come in at 5 am because I need to leave at noon, that's no problem either.
Gone are the days of showing up to work tired because I have to be there at eight o'clock and then not being very productive because I'm tired. Another hour or two of sleep and I would have been fine. Gone are the days of needing to be in the office, because they tell me I need to be in the office even though I do software development and don't interact with others unless I'm doing requirements gathering or user acceptance testing, or something that requires me to meet with people.
Employers don't realize it but their policies sometimes reduce productivity, increase apathy and in general cause workers to resent them. I'm fortunate enough to work for a company that is more concerned with getting the job done than whether or not someone arrived fifteen minutes late. And you know what? I truly love working for the company.
In the case of high school, I tend to suspect that students are pissed off with management's policies, with school staff treating them like children instead of adults, with boring course material and by the fact that they aren't getting a paycheck (good luck convincing a sixteen year-old that an education is really a deferred payment). It's not like a student can just quit his school and look for one more to his liking. On the other hand, if I don't like my job I can quit and look for another. If your only options were to keep working for someone you hated or to quit, what would you do?
I agree with you completely. I'm not sure why teachers don't focus on making learning fun for the students instead of memorizing and regurgitating trivia.
The sensor is in the wiimote. It probably has some kind of low-res ccd that detects the light from the sensor bar and uses it to figure out its orientation.
The Wii remote uses additional mechanisms to detect its orientation besides the infrared emitters. For example, to play ExciteTruck you hold the controller horizontally with the IR detector pointed away from the sensor bar. Tilting side to side steers and tilting forward and back moves your truck's front-end down and up.
Pretty clever stuff though I expect it would be easy to confuse the hell out of it with strip
lighting or sunlight.
Indeed it is. If you go into the Wii options menu and select the sensor bar, you can adjust its sensitivity to IR light. A box is displayed on the screen that shows what the Wii remote is "seeing"; you should only see two dots from the sensor bar. If you then point the remote at an infrared light source such as an incandescent bulb, or the sun, you'll see it appear on-screen.
It was on a university campus, which I don't believe is considered to be a public place. I think if you review the University's regulations, you'll see that students must present their student identification on demand. In this case, I'm guessing the student was arrested for trespassing. Now, I'm sure that charge will have to be dropped once the police get comfirmation he is indeed a student. Unfortunately, he might face additional charges in front of some sort of student review board.
Exactly what would be the attraction of a Linux based operating system in this case? Why not just buy Windows if you're going to be stuck with a single supplier for software, binary drivers (yuck), etc. You've got to know in advance that Microsoft isn't going to make it easy for you to move to another Linux distribution or upgrade to a UNIX system.
The way I read that notice is that if you do anything that's illegal in a foreign country, then you may be arrested when you return to the States. I don't think it means that if you do something that's legal in the country you're in, but illegal in the States that you'll be arrested when you return.
I checked six stores before deciding on a Toys R Us that was in the middle of nowhere (3350 N. Western Ave). The Target on N. Elston in Chicago was supposed to have 80-some units, but the line was at least a hundred people long, the Circuit City just down the street had about twenty or thirty people so I kept looking. I tried the new Circuit City on North Ave (still under construction) but there were a couple dozen people waiting so I went around the corner to Best Buy and there were about forty people in line there. As a last ditch attempt, I decided to drive up to TRU since they were supposed to have plenty for launch. Only twenty people in line! I arrived at about 7:30 AM and I was number 27 in line for 38 consoles. Got my ticket and did some shopping at the grocery store until TRU opened. When I came back I didn't recognize anyone in line and started asking about tickets; of course no one had one and they didn't believe me that tickets were handed out an hour prior. I found one other guy in line that had a pre-sell ticket so we just walked up to the front of the line and the store manager let us in.
One item of interest were the three kids standing behind me in line. Only one of them was buying and the other two were along for moral support. The store manager asked if they were in line when he was handing out tickets and they said no. I told them they were fools for not taking a ticket and then auctioning it off an hour later.
I picked up Zelda and ExciteTruck, both of which are pretty fun, and I could play the bowling sports game all day. I am a bit disappointed that I don't have a networked game to play online and that the Nintendo channels are incomplete. I was expecting some sort of meeting/chat area online, but it looks like the only way you can message other Wii owners is if you know their address already. I'm sure that's great for eight year olds, but I'm 30 and don't know anyone else with a Wii.
So you're telling me I can't just do a "dd if=/dev/rcd0c of=dvd.rip bs=1024000" and then burn that to another disc? Are the keys stored somewhere else on the disc, like the innermost plastic area before the data area begins?
I really hate this crap. Small company does some innovation and becomes popular and the next thing you know, they're being sued by a multi-national corporation that's really just hoping the other company will settle the case so they can get a piece of the action.
I don't understand how MySpace would be liable for copyright infringment that's committed by users of the service. Doesn't MySpace classify as a common carrier? Of course no one ever goes to court to fight the big guys, *sigh*.
(And, I am not interested in the lawyerly distinction between copyright violation and theft, etc. In my opinion, if you take something that does not belong to you, it is stealing.)
I know you don't want to hear this, but it's not a lawyerly distinction, it's a reality distinction. When you commit copyright infringment, you're not taking anything; you're making a copy. By your logic, someone that takes a picture of the Statue of Liberty is stealing it.
There's a reason the MPAA is invoking the DMCA, and that's because the DMCA is what makes breaking encryption illegal even if the actions performed thereafter are legal under copyright law.
Since when do you need to decrypt the contents of a DVD in order to duplicate it? You don't. You just rip and burn the encrypted data.
When supply goes up without a corresponding increase in demand, prices go down.
But the supply didn't go up! There were 400,000 units shipped before today and there were still 400,000 units available today. I can only guess that you were talking about the eBay supply? I'm pretty sure those units will all sell for more than $2,000. I guess we'll have to wait a month and do a completed auction search?
I drove by some stores in the Chicago area last night. People were camped out (literally, with tents) at the Best Buy in Downers Grove for the midnight sale. There were easily 100+ people in line; pretty stupid for the 50th person onward since they would have better luck at an 8:00 opening. However, at the Best Buy on North Ave. in Chicago I counted a little over forty people in line at 7:30 PM for 34 units. A thirteen or fourteen hour wait would have landed you a console there.
I was kicking myself for not arriving earlier and making some money, but is it really worth $1,500 to sit on the sidewalk in the cold all night? Instead I ended up buying Bully and Final Fantasy XII for the PS2 along with season one of the original Star Trek. I think I got the better deal.
Think of the look on everyone's face if someone with an autographed system threw it to the ground, stomped on it for a bit and then made a W gang-sign while shouting, "fsck the PS3, Wii rulez!!!!" I'm a bit surprised that stunts like this haven't happened. It would only take a small amount of money and time for what would no doubt be huge exposure.
The GPL prevents that. Any improvements that are distributed beyond the improver him/it-self must effectively be made available to the community in general. Other licenses, like the BSDs do not protect against that sort of free-rider problem.
Go read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". Eric Raymond lays out some ideas regarding the motivations of people who give their code away and
the computing culture to which these people belong. Such developers are being paid for their contributions, just not monetarily (at least not directly). Licensing your code to others under a BSD or GPL license, for example, can increase potential future earnings by increasing your status in either the community or in industry.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking open source code means free code, it does not. I can sell you some software and then give you a license for the source code. That doesn't mean it's either free or can be modified and redistributed by you, but it does mean it's open source.
Late last week I was challenged by EW.com to watch Cinamax's complete Star Wars Marathon -- George Lucas' complete saga in the order in which he originally intended (Episodes I-VI).
Who says that's the order Lucas intended? Plus, there were supposed to be nine movies in all; a trilogy of trilogies. AFAIK, the order that the movies were released _was_ the intended order.
The scripts in the earlier movies are significantly stronger. The dialogue is more mature and smart. They had to be, if he was going to get the funding to continue his saga. For the newer Episodes, you can practically see George sitting at his Mac on top of his pile of money and giggling as he types lines line ''Whoa, that's tense'' and ''How rude!'' I looked it up and he was never a writer for Full House, which means he came up with those ditties all on his own. It could be the 4 o'clock in the morning talking, but it's almost as if he didn't have anyone proofreading his scripts. And did he even hire a casting director?
Dear God! Take another look at the credits. The best movies in the series are the ones where Lucas didn't write the screenplay.
They need to do a follow-up article where the reviewer watches the theatrical releases and compares them to the re-releases. I swear, that musical number they added in ROTJ makes my ears bleed.
Sadly, yes. Many computer science curriculums don't cover assembler anymore. I'm not sure about microcode; I assume that computer architecture courses still cover that area.
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I'm sorry, but if the software is released under the GPL it is anything but free; the GPL is all about restricting your rights.
I played MUDs from about 1991 till 1994; WoW is simply a MUD with a pretty front-end. Other than 3d graphics, I don't really see anything that WoW does that I haven't seen before, a decade ago.
I'm sorry, but WoW is not "just that good". I've got a fairly sizable collection of games (several hundred for all of the major consoles) and WoW doesn't even make it into the top fifty. The social aspects aside, it's not a very good RPG.
I did play WoW for about fifteen hours using a friend's account, but I just didn't see any point in continuing to play. My friend on the other hand has several level sixty players and spends hours every evening farming felcloth instead of joining his friends for dinner, at the bar, at a concert etc.
I hate crying addict, but I really don't see the allure.
My mother retired a few years ago after having been a teacher (special ed. and fourth grade) for about thirty years. Your description is dead on although you neglected to mention dealing with unreasonable/uncaring parents. My mom's told me some real horror stories.
Yes most do, but mine doesn't and it makes me so much happier and productive. If I stay up late for some reason, I just come in later in the morning and work later in the evening. If I feel like working from my home office, I just call in and tell my boss I'm working from home. If I want to come in at 5 am because I need to leave at noon, that's no problem either.
Gone are the days of showing up to work tired because I have to be there at eight o'clock and then not being very productive because I'm tired. Another hour or two of sleep and I would have been fine. Gone are the days of needing to be in the office, because they tell me I need to be in the office even though I do software development and don't interact with others unless I'm doing requirements gathering or user acceptance testing, or something that requires me to meet with people.
Employers don't realize it but their policies sometimes reduce productivity, increase apathy and in general cause workers to resent them. I'm fortunate enough to work for a company that is more concerned with getting the job done than whether or not someone arrived fifteen minutes late. And you know what? I truly love working for the company.
In the case of high school, I tend to suspect that students are pissed off with management's policies, with school staff treating them like children instead of adults, with boring course material and by the fact that they aren't getting a paycheck (good luck convincing a sixteen year-old that an education is really a deferred payment). It's not like a student can just quit his school and look for one more to his liking. On the other hand, if I don't like my job I can quit and look for another. If your only options were to keep working for someone you hated or to quit, what would you do?
I agree with you completely. I'm not sure why teachers don't focus on making learning fun for the students instead of memorizing and regurgitating trivia.
The Wii remote uses additional mechanisms to detect its orientation besides the infrared emitters. For example, to play ExciteTruck you hold the controller horizontally with the IR detector pointed away from the sensor bar. Tilting side to side steers and tilting forward and back moves your truck's front-end down and up.
Indeed it is. If you go into the Wii options menu and select the sensor bar, you can adjust its sensitivity to IR light. A box is displayed on the screen that shows what the Wii remote is "seeing"; you should only see two dots from the sensor bar. If you then point the remote at an infrared light source such as an incandescent bulb, or the sun, you'll see it appear on-screen.
It was on a university campus, which I don't believe is considered to be a public place. I think if you review the University's regulations, you'll see that students must present their student identification on demand. In this case, I'm guessing the student was arrested for trespassing. Now, I'm sure that charge will have to be dropped once the police get comfirmation he is indeed a student. Unfortunately, he might face additional charges in front of some sort of student review board.
Exactly what would be the attraction of a Linux based operating system in this case? Why not just buy Windows if you're going to be stuck with a single supplier for software, binary drivers (yuck), etc. You've got to know in advance that Microsoft isn't going to make it easy for you to move to another Linux distribution or upgrade to a UNIX system.
The way I read that notice is that if you do anything that's illegal in a foreign country, then you may be arrested when you return to the States. I don't think it means that if you do something that's legal in the country you're in, but illegal in the States that you'll be arrested when you return.
Indeed. If we're lucky, the PS3 will be the straw the breaks the camel's back and Sony will be facing bankruptcy.
I don't suppose you were shopping in Chicago?
I checked six stores before deciding on a Toys R Us that was in the middle of nowhere (3350 N. Western Ave). The Target on N. Elston in Chicago was supposed to have 80-some units, but the line was at least a hundred people long, the Circuit City just down the street had about twenty or thirty people so I kept looking. I tried the new Circuit City on North Ave (still under construction) but there were a couple dozen people waiting so I went around the corner to Best Buy and there were about forty people in line there. As a last ditch attempt, I decided to drive up to TRU since they were supposed to have plenty for launch. Only twenty people in line! I arrived at about 7:30 AM and I was number 27 in line for 38 consoles. Got my ticket and did some shopping at the grocery store until TRU opened. When I came back I didn't recognize anyone in line and started asking about tickets; of course no one had one and they didn't believe me that tickets were handed out an hour prior. I found one other guy in line that had a pre-sell ticket so we just walked up to the front of the line and the store manager let us in.
One item of interest were the three kids standing behind me in line. Only one of them was buying and the other two were along for moral support. The store manager asked if they were in line when he was handing out tickets and they said no. I told them they were fools for not taking a ticket and then auctioning it off an hour later.
I picked up Zelda and ExciteTruck, both of which are pretty fun, and I could play the bowling sports game all day. I am a bit disappointed that I don't have a networked game to play online and that the Nintendo channels are incomplete. I was expecting some sort of meeting/chat area online, but it looks like the only way you can message other Wii owners is if you know their address already. I'm sure that's great for eight year olds, but I'm 30 and don't know anyone else with a Wii.
The problem is that the speculators can just return the unopened system to the store they bought it from.
So you're telling me I can't just do a "dd if=/dev/rcd0c of=dvd.rip bs=1024000" and then burn that to another disc? Are the keys stored somewhere else on the disc, like the innermost plastic area before the data area begins?
I really hate this crap. Small company does some innovation and becomes popular and the next thing you know, they're being sued by a multi-national corporation that's really just hoping the other company will settle the case so they can get a piece of the action.
I don't understand how MySpace would be liable for copyright infringment that's committed by users of the service. Doesn't MySpace classify as a common carrier? Of course no one ever goes to court to fight the big guys, *sigh*.
I know you don't want to hear this, but it's not a lawyerly distinction, it's a reality distinction. When you commit copyright infringment, you're not taking anything; you're making a copy. By your logic, someone that takes a picture of the Statue of Liberty is stealing it.
Since when do you need to decrypt the contents of a DVD in order to duplicate it? You don't. You just rip and burn the encrypted data.
I suppose I'm the only one that would just sit in his seat until he smelled smoke?
But the supply didn't go up! There were 400,000 units shipped before today and there were still 400,000 units available today. I can only guess that you were talking about the eBay supply? I'm pretty sure those units will all sell for more than $2,000. I guess we'll have to wait a month and do a completed auction search?
I drove by some stores in the Chicago area last night. People were camped out (literally, with tents) at the Best Buy in Downers Grove for the midnight sale. There were easily 100+ people in line; pretty stupid for the 50th person onward since they would have better luck at an 8:00 opening. However, at the Best Buy on North Ave. in Chicago I counted a little over forty people in line at 7:30 PM for 34 units. A thirteen or fourteen hour wait would have landed you a console there.
I was kicking myself for not arriving earlier and making some money, but is it really worth $1,500 to sit on the sidewalk in the cold all night? Instead I ended up buying Bully and Final Fantasy XII for the PS2 along with season one of the original Star Trek. I think I got the better deal.
Think of the look on everyone's face if someone with an autographed system threw it to the ground, stomped on it for a bit and then made a W gang-sign while shouting, "fsck the PS3, Wii rulez!!!!" I'm a bit surprised that stunts like this haven't happened. It would only take a small amount of money and time for what would no doubt be huge exposure.
I can't help but to laugh a little every time I see an etc directory on a Windows server.
How exactly is that a problem?
Go read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". Eric Raymond lays out some ideas regarding the motivations of people who give their code away and the computing culture to which these people belong. Such developers are being paid for their contributions, just not monetarily (at least not directly). Licensing your code to others under a BSD or GPL license, for example, can increase potential future earnings by increasing your status in either the community or in industry.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking open source code means free code, it does not. I can sell you some software and then give you a license for the source code. That doesn't mean it's either free or can be modified and redistributed by you, but it does mean it's open source.
Who says that's the order Lucas intended? Plus, there were supposed to be nine movies in all; a trilogy of trilogies. AFAIK, the order that the movies were released _was_ the intended order.
Dear God! Take another look at the credits. The best movies in the series are the ones where Lucas didn't write the screenplay.
They need to do a follow-up article where the reviewer watches the theatrical releases and compares them to the re-releases. I swear, that musical number they added in ROTJ makes my ears bleed.
Sadly, yes. Many computer science curriculums don't cover assembler anymore. I'm not sure about microcode; I assume that computer architecture courses still cover that area.