If I bought a magazine and all the articles were blocked by Ads, I'd be pretty pissed.
So, you never read Byte magazine, did you?:-)
For the uninitiated, Byte had a really annoying habit of spreading articles over multiple pages (often not even vaguely consecutive - bits of the article could be 30 pages apart), with as little as a 1/4 or 1/8 of a page used for the content - the rest was ads.
To make an example: The WTC was designed to survive an airplane crash. Now, 9/11 showed that it didn't survive that airplane crash. Was that a bug in the building? Well, no, it wasnt. The design was explicitly to survive a crash with the largest airplane which existed at the time it was built.
The WTC was finished in 1973. The first prototype of the 747 flew in 1969, and Boeing had made its plans for the 747 public in 1966. The 747 was and still is the largest airliner in the world. The WTC was hit by two 767 aircraft. The 767 aircraft are considerably smaller than a 747.
IIRC, one of the reasons for the catastrophic failure of the WTC is that the planes were outgoing flights, and hence full of aviation fuel, which leaked out of the planes and into the steel structure, burning and melting the steel, thus weakening the towers to the point of collapse.
In any case, the size of the planes probably had little to do with the results - I saw a documentary once about skyscraper construction, and they asked the architects/engineers involved about the "What if an airliner crashes into it?" scenario. They explained the large forces the buildings have to survive from just the wind pressure on the building, and compared this to the force of a plane crashing into the building. The wind was by far the greater of the two forces. It was the large quantity of burning aviation fuel that caused the problems.
But I am, of course, not an engineer.
And if we're talking largest airplane, then the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy troop carrier is both larger and heavier than a 747:-) (Others, such as the Antonov An-225 are larger still, but weren't around until the 1980s).
See, I knew those childhood years I spent playing Top Trumps would come in handy one day:-)
At a guess, I'd say the Mac mini motherboard is more size-sensitive than the IBM laptop motherboard, so the IBM designers have more latitude to leave 'enough' space for whatever video solution is to be used. I expect the Mac mini motherboard is jam packed so tight that 'just' swapping the video chipset is a non-trivial task.
My Mac-using buddy assures me that few Mac users are using MacIE these days.
Wow, a slashdot anonymous coward says his friend who uses a Mac doesn't think many people use IE any more. That's good enough for me! I'm certainly running to change my website markup...:-)
I have a 160Gb Linkstation, and while it's great for what I use it for, it's certainly not silent. It's not loud, but it's louder than I expected. Given the fan was described as 'silent', that is. No way is it silent.
Apart from that, though, it 'just works'. Which is nice.
What if the US decides not to go along with international consensus? Would the EU and others try to take over the root servers by force (hacking their way in)?
and then follow it with:
I'm not convinced these bureaucrats even know what they're talking about. Do they really understand how the internet works?
As I understand it, the internet flourished (by which I mean became more than a few hundred academic/military machines linked together) because it was build on open specifications - if you want to add a node, you can build one (to the specs), and run the right software on it (based on the specs), connect to the net, and you're in.
But apparently when it comes to the top-level organisation, this 'share and share alike' policy goes out the window, and it's all "We invented it! Get lost!"
I'd say most of the use of today's internet is web and email. Email was invented in the early days of the internet in the US, and the web was invented in the EU at CERN.
Should Tim Berners-Lee take his web and ban the US from using it, or from resolving DNS names that point to web servers, because "we invented it"? It all seems rather childish.
Well, except for the adverts for BBC programmes themselves. Which are sometimes even more annoying than normal ads, because they put them up during the programme. No, I do not give a flying fuck that EastEnders is on next - I'm currently watching the climactic last 3 minutes of the programme that is on at the moment! Imagine that. But luckily your whizzy animated 'On next!' banner ad has totally ruined any sense of immersion I had. Great job, Mr TV Man!
...that even in the far future, they still haven't solved the textiles problems that cause women's clothes to shrink for no adequately explained reason.
I'm guessing she's got that gun because she's going back to the boutique to get a refund.
I don't think it's cookie stuff - by coincidence I went to www.news.com about an hour ago before I saw this story and got pushed to the beta site, with the weird news context flash ontology thing.
And I haven't been to cnet news for a couple of weeks before today.
Well, firstly, they've opened it up to general use via their mobile phone sign-up thing (which I believe is only in the US though, at the moment).
But I also think it helped that Gmail is a fast, simple webmail service that works well. Hotmail etc had dropped my expectations of webmail quality to such an extent that, to paraphrase jwz, I considered a good webmail system to be one that didn't irritate the living fuck out of me.
The invitation thing helped drive the PR etc - your Cartman analogy is spot on there, but it also helped that the product was really good. I also got invited to orkut. However, it sucked big time, so I (and most other people I know who were invited) gave up on it. orkut sucked, Gmail didn't.
Isn't that how it works though? You have to patent a device or mechanism. You can't just say "I have invented anti-gravity! And it will be controlled by a button on my belt. I 0wn j00!"
From what I remember at the time, there weren't a lot of those that did 3D graphics (exploiting advanced features of the latest graphics parts, of course), 3D sound, used a variety of game controllers as input, did real-time asset streaming etc.
I also like the idea that there are always some wonderfully suitable 'correct cross-platform libraries' for everything just lying around ready to be used, with no issues of not being well supported on some platforms, etc.
As for Linux support in general, when I looked into it on a game I was working on, my main reactions were: which distros do I support? There's so many, and have a lot of variation. If we pick a few, people will bitch endlessly and loudly about how we don't support their distro. How the hell do we do support for this? How will I get the publisher/distributor to agree to train their people to support Linux, when let's face it they have enough trouble with just Windows*? If we sold the game without support, that would be suicidal in terms of PR, etc (no matter how many of your friends would 'buy it anyway').
I never did come up with any solid answers to these questions. The Linux distro thing made Windows driver versions look like heaven in comparison.
*And, let's face it, walking and talking at the same time, but that's a separate issue.
Not so much. In the original C&C, try starving the enemy of resources (by killing harvesters) and then watch his silos run dry. Now let one harvester go out and come back in - bing! All his silos are now completely full from just one harvester run.
That's from my last bill. As I said, if I include the calling plan (which seems to be compulsory the last time I checked, so you may as well call it line rental) it comes to about £10.50 or something (hence £40/month in total).
£45/month? Hmmm...are you sure that's a good deal? My BT line rental is about £2/month, and you can get that ADSL service (2Mb/256k/uncapped) from, e.g. Eclipse, for £30/month. So I'm not sure how £45/month is a 'bloody good deal'..?
Even including my BT dialing plan charge, it only comes to £40/month.
Slashdot Mirror
So, you never read Byte magazine, did you? :-)
For the uninitiated, Byte had a really annoying habit of spreading articles over multiple pages (often not even vaguely consecutive - bits of the article could be 30 pages apart), with as little as a 1/4 or 1/8 of a page used for the content - the rest was ads.
The WTC was finished in 1973. The first prototype of the 747 flew in 1969, and Boeing had made its plans for the 747 public in 1966. The 747 was and still is the largest airliner in the world. The WTC was hit by two 767 aircraft. The 767 aircraft are considerably smaller than a 747.
IIRC, one of the reasons for the catastrophic failure of the WTC is that the planes were outgoing flights, and hence full of aviation fuel, which leaked out of the planes and into the steel structure, burning and melting the steel, thus weakening the towers to the point of collapse.
In any case, the size of the planes probably had little to do with the results - I saw a documentary once about skyscraper construction, and they asked the architects/engineers involved about the "What if an airliner crashes into it?" scenario. They explained the large forces the buildings have to survive from just the wind pressure on the building, and compared this to the force of a plane crashing into the building. The wind was by far the greater of the two forces. It was the large quantity of burning aviation fuel that caused the problems.
But I am, of course, not an engineer.
And if we're talking largest airplane, then the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy troop carrier is both larger and heavier than a 747 :-) (Others, such as the Antonov An-225 are larger still, but weren't around until the 1980s).
See, I knew those childhood years I spent playing Top Trumps would come in handy one day :-)
Or we could just keep the existing laws where you don't have to buy a game if you don't want it.
At a guess, I'd say the Mac mini motherboard is more size-sensitive than the IBM laptop motherboard, so the IBM designers have more latitude to leave 'enough' space for whatever video solution is to be used. I expect the Mac mini motherboard is jam packed so tight that 'just' swapping the video chipset is a non-trivial task.
You're wrong. What it really needs is one of those rainbow coloured horizontal rule gifs. They rock!
Wow, a slashdot anonymous coward says his friend who uses a Mac doesn't think many people use IE any more. That's good enough for me! I'm certainly running to change my website markup... :-)
I have a 160Gb Linkstation, and while it's great for what I use it for, it's certainly not silent. It's not loud, but it's louder than I expected. Given the fan was described as 'silent', that is. No way is it silent.
Apart from that, though, it 'just works'. Which is nice.
Yes, if only so that the psychologist could tell them that they actually want a psychiatrist.
An 'option'? Is that your opinion, or what you think the UN believe?
Either way, hacking would be an option for about a day, until the US patch their servers to repair whatever hacks were done.
and then follow it with:
Do you? :-)
As I understand it, the internet flourished (by which I mean became more than a few hundred academic/military machines linked together) because it was build on open specifications - if you want to add a node, you can build one (to the specs), and run the right software on it (based on the specs), connect to the net, and you're in.
But apparently when it comes to the top-level organisation, this 'share and share alike' policy goes out the window, and it's all "We invented it! Get lost!"
I'd say most of the use of today's internet is web and email. Email was invented in the early days of the internet in the US, and the web was invented in the EU at CERN.
Should Tim Berners-Lee take his web and ban the US from using it, or from resolving DNS names that point to web servers, because "we invented it"? It all seems rather childish.
And don't get me started on DOGs :-)
Quite - to anyone who thinks there's nothing wrong with cubicles, I have two words for you: Read Peopleware.
...that even in the far future, they still haven't solved the textiles problems that cause women's clothes to shrink for no adequately explained reason.
I'm guessing she's got that gun because she's going back to the boutique to get a refund.
I don't think it's cookie stuff - by coincidence I went to www.news.com about an hour ago before I saw this story and got pushed to the beta site, with the weird news context flash ontology thing.
And I haven't been to cnet news for a couple of weeks before today.
Well, firstly, they've opened it up to general use via their mobile phone sign-up thing (which I believe is only in the US though, at the moment).
But I also think it helped that Gmail is a fast, simple webmail service that works well. Hotmail etc had dropped my expectations of webmail quality to such an extent that, to paraphrase jwz, I considered a good webmail system to be one that didn't irritate the living fuck out of me.
The invitation thing helped drive the PR etc - your Cartman analogy is spot on there, but it also helped that the product was really good. I also got invited to orkut. However, it sucked big time, so I (and most other people I know who were invited) gave up on it. orkut sucked, Gmail didn't.
Isn't that how it works though? You have to patent a device or mechanism. You can't just say "I have invented anti-gravity! And it will be controlled by a button on my belt. I 0wn j00!"
Er, or something.
But you're right - probably just me.
So what you're saying is, in Soviet Russia, the ISS orbits around you?
I also like the idea that there are always some wonderfully suitable 'correct cross-platform libraries' for everything just lying around ready to be used, with no issues of not being well supported on some platforms, etc.
As for Linux support in general, when I looked into it on a game I was working on, my main reactions were: which distros do I support? There's so many, and have a lot of variation. If we pick a few, people will bitch endlessly and loudly about how we don't support their distro. How the hell do we do support for this? How will I get the publisher/distributor to agree to train their people to support Linux, when let's face it they have enough trouble with just Windows*? If we sold the game without support, that would be suicidal in terms of PR, etc (no matter how many of your friends would 'buy it anyway').
I never did come up with any solid answers to these questions. The Linux distro thing made Windows driver versions look like heaven in comparison.
*And, let's face it, walking and talking at the same time, but that's a separate issue.
Not so much. In the original C&C, try starving the enemy of resources (by killing harvesters) and then watch his silos run dry. Now let one harvester go out and come back in - bing! All his silos are now completely full from just one harvester run.
:)
Now that's cheating
Chat to DVD+R/RW first, though.
That's from my last bill. As I said, if I include the calling plan (which seems to be compulsory the last time I checked, so you may as well call it line rental) it comes to about £10.50 or something (hence £40/month in total).
£45/month? Hmmm...are you sure that's a good deal? My BT line rental is about £2/month, and you can get that ADSL service (2Mb/256k/uncapped) from, e.g. Eclipse, for £30/month. So I'm not sure how £45/month is a 'bloody good deal'..?
Even including my BT dialing plan charge, it only comes to £40/month.
...says the man posting to slashdot.