admin as in administration, not network admin (who falls under technology).
But yeah, we shut down everyone except ourselves and the administrative offices because we're the ones who frequently have to drop what we're doing quickly and might forget to save an open document. We're also the ones most likely to work odd hours.
Too bad for them. People leave themselves logged in all the time at the end of the day. Too many people are sloppy for us to make allowances for things like that.
It should be noted that this is a public K-12 school, not a university. There aren't many people around at 6:00 outside of administration personnel. Those who are have been warned what will happen; if they get up at 5:58 to do whatever and come back seven minutes later to their PC shut down, they'd better have saved their work.
At the school I work at, we have an automatic shutdown at 6 PM. It has a five minute timer and is preceeded by a text file in a DOS window reminding people that there is an "ABORT SHUTDOWN" option in their start menu if they are using the PC and the shutdown process begins.
Two simple batch files for XP, on in the All Users startup directory, one in the All Users\Information Services directory of the start menu.
Startup:
AT/DELETE ALL (or whatever the syntax is) - to prevent the AT table from getting crowded with dozens of the same command AT 18:00 "shutdown -t 600"
Abort:
Shutdown -a
We reset the AT table every day just in case some know-it-all high school student finds out such a thing exists and starts screwing with it. For the most part, though, not even the techs knew such a thing existed until I proposed using it.
We tried a lot of other ideas, but this is the simplest and most user-friendly. Big signs don't work, teachers and lab aids are no better than the students about following directions. Since implementing it 18 months ago, we've gone from having roughly 900 PCs online at night to about 100...including servers, timeclock systems running thinstation terminal sessions, and technology and admin workstations that are excepted from the shutdown policy.
What the need to do is get just one major studio to fully convert to hybrid disks without raising prices. Take a loss on the format change if you have to, but play it up big time that the DISKS are HD capable but work in a standard DVD player. People love the idea of buying something that works today that will work tomorrow. ADVERTISE.
I've seen Blu-ray commercials. Lots of people have. A lot of people don't even know what HD-DVD is...some will even say "you mean like Blue Ray?" when you mention the format. They don't understand the distinction and aren't aware that there's a format war. HD-DVD is losing right now simply because no one but people who read tech news know it exists.
It'll be a good thing, too, when Blu Ray's update breaks their earliest players. It'll be that much cheaper for the early adopters to replace their obsolete next-gen players.
HD-DVD needs to push their hybrid DVD/HD-DVD disks that they introduced a year ago. That alone would win the war if they just got out there and told consumers "hey, you can buy a DVD today and when you decide to switch to HD-DVD your HD library will already be started."
In fact, if HD-DVD got half as much advertising time as BR they would be in much better shape.
Iraq: Work with Congress and the Joint Chiefs to establish a realistic goal-oriented roadmap (NOT a timeline) for withdrawal. The idea would be to tell the Iraqis--both our friends and enemies--exactly what we plan to do and we has to be accomplished for us to do it. Start with some easy goals so that they can see that we follow through with it and will do what we promise.
I'm opposed to a mindless, hasty pullout of troops. I don't think we should have gone there in the first place, but we did,we made the mess, and leaving at a specific time regardless of what is going on there won't help anyone.
Environment: I certainly don't want to trample all over businesses and the economy, but we need to take the lead on working toward a clean, sustainable environment. Fuel efficiency, CO2 output reductions, and general air/water quality would be my main concerns. I would stay away from lobby groups from either side in the pursuit of the best answers and bring in real experts on the field--both scientists and economists--to find reasonable solutions.
Education: No Child Left Behind would go away IMMEDIATELY. The idea of paying teachers according to the performance of the students just allows the students to maliciously fail tests. They do it already, thinking it will hurt the teacher somehow. Instead, I'd push for higher salaries for teachers and more successful disciplinary actions. Administrators often fail to support teachers, leaving them unable to keep problem kids under control and disrupting the entire classroom. It also needs to be said that a LOT of problems in schools exist because they are brought there from home. And of course ineffective teachers need to be drummed out as quickly as possible.
Social programs: Trim the fat. There are a lot of social programs that are redundant, inefficient, or completely ineffective. Get rid of those that don't work, increase those that do. The goal should be to lift up citizens so that they can stand on their own two feet, not lean on the government for most of their lives.
Taxes: A consumption (sales) tax seems like the best idea to me. Flat rate, taxed according to spending rather than income, and can be set up to exclude those things which are necessities of life so that the poor who barely make ends meet don't pay much, if any.
Immigration: It's unrealistic to think we can round up and eject 11,000,000 illegals, or however many there are today. The best compromise I see here is to give them a 12-18 month window to register as "undocumented" and get the process started to be here legally. Anyone not registered after that window is summarily ejected from the country. On top of that, I would seek to make it easier for people to come and go between here and Mexico via a new treaty with Mexico so that people there don't feel the need to be smuggled across packed into trucks in the middle of the desert. The idea is to be able to document and track as many people as we can; that's going to require compromise to make it work.
Gun ownership: I would be okay with requiring a license to purchase a handgun. The purpose would be to ensure that handguns can be easily traced, making them harder to use in the commission of a crime without being caught. I would consider that as falling under "well regulated" in the second amendment. Beyond that, I don't see a need to so tightly control rifles and shotguns; their role in crime is far smaller. Don't register them, don't license them. This disarms the "they're going to take away our guns using that list" argument some of the gun nuts use.
Just to flesh out the idea, it would go something like this: you'd take a basic gun safety class, spend some time on a range, and pass a written test to get a license. Just like you have to do before we let you drive on the road legally. Every time you buy a gun, you present your license, it's scanned, and the gun is tied to your license number by its serial number. Private party transfers can be done free of charge at any gun shop or police department. A stolen gun must be registered as stolen.
If public education makes no mention of God, the students take it upon themselves to do so, typically in the context of "no, God did it." By proactively addressing the relationship between religion (God) and science without making an opinionated statement on the matter, science teachers can disarm a lot of anti-science arguments, thus preventing disruptions in the classroom.
My wife teaches science in public schools, by the way. She takes 15-20 minutes early in the school year to address why religion and science don't have to be at odds, and why students don't need to jump in with comments about God every chance they get. It makes a huge difference in how these kids behave, and even in how they accept the material presented.
She's also a devout Southern Baptist. So much for stereotypes, huh?
No, they shouldn't. If you look into it a bit you'll find that most of the "research" about violence and videogames comes from a handful of psych professors and paid researchers that have made proving this nonexistent link into their entire career. To do their they have used techniques even more shady than the average psych researcher. There are no "links". This is simply an artifact of experimenter bias and poor methodology. They THINK it should be true, so they see it in their results. The notion that violent media MAKES people violent is really laughable on it's face, and demonstrates the extreme disconnect of the "scientists" working on this research.
So you summarily dismiss any and all research that demonstrates a link between violent behavior and violent media...what exactly makes you any different from those researchers who see what they want to see in their results?
Never mind that the same centers of the brain have been found to be stimulated when viewing violent media and committing violent acts. Never mind that hormone levels have been found to have similar results. Clearly they ALL use poor methodology because you KNOW there is no link, and we should dismiss everything.
Here's the thing: it's becoming hard to refute (without pulling what you just did and proclaim everything that doesn't agree with you null) the idea that violent media, especially violent video games, result in more violent thoughts. The important thing to remember hear is that at this point we're just talking about thoughts. Games influence our emotional state and trigger certain responses in our brains. But regardless of how they make us feel or think, we are still in command of our actions. The problem is that SOME PEOPLE do not keep themselves in check so well. SOME PEOPLE are more prone to acting on bad ideas, like violent thoughts. SOME PEOPLE can be influenced by media to do things they wouldn't have done had they not seen or heard it somewhere else first.
Is that the fault of the video game? No more than it is the fault of an author when some nut recreates a crime from a novel. But that doesn't make the issue go away, does it?
"There is no conclusive evidence that playing violent videogames leads to violent acts. That hasn't stopped researchers from looking for links between videogames and aggression."
Good. That's what they *should* be doing. I'd hate to see the day when science went back to standing on the findings of others and saying "that's just the way it is" rather than continuing to investigate, experiment, and study.
They've made some significant links between violent video games and violent *thoughts*, and I'd wager that eventually they will find a direct link between violent games and violent acts. We should not feel threatened by such ideas and summarily dismiss them because we don't like the findings; that will do nothing but encourage those who would let the lowest common denominator make the rules.
What we as gamers need to do is continue to expect the gaming industry to properly rate and label their products. We should give our business to retailers who make it easy for consumers to understand ratings, and find games of a certain rating. And we should admit that sometimes a minority of people take their gaming experience too far and become violent in real life...just like a minority of people do things based on what they saw or heard in other entertainment media. Just like a minority of people become violent while playing or even passively *watching* a sport.
The public needs to be reminded that this sort of reaction has accompanied every new medium of entertainment. When people realize that this is nothing new and that some people have a problem with SELF CONTROL, not with video games, then we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I wonder if Star Fleet will have to put up with this nonsense when they invent holodecks. "They're training our kids to be murderers" blah blah blah
It's a matter of culture. The majority of blacks around here have one set of religious and cultural preference, whites have another. So we naturally gravitate to services that understand our preferences better.
It's not Texas, it's Marshall. They don't sue in Dallas or Austin or Houston or Lubbock or Longview or Lufkin...they always sue in Marshall. I'm a native Texan who has lived 30 years within a reasonable distance from Marshall, and all that town has going for it is ETBU and a rather attractive holiday scene around their historic courthouse. I must assume that building houses a court very friendly to the patent trolls, probably someone ignorant of technology enough to not recognize obviousness and prior art in the tech sector. They found a court that consistently supports them, and keep coming back.
I can see objecting to calling gaming a sport. I personally think it's silly and pushes the definition of "sport" to the limit. Even if it can be made to fit the dictionary definition, it certainly doesn't seem to fit the spirit of the word as we traditionally use it.
Gaming can most certainly be a hobby. Would you call chess a hobby? Tinkering with electronics? Hell, a lot of people here would consider programming a hobby. The dictionary I just looked it up on calls a hobby "[a]n activity or interest pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure." I'd have to say most anything can be a hobby.
If I go buy a non-OEM DVD-ROM, odds are it comes with PowerDVD or CyberDVD. Manufactured PCs will come with the software already installed. And of course an iPod will come with the necessary software for syncing it on a Windows machine.
The point is that 1) the software is not supplied by the manufacturer/vendor, and 2) It's not included in most distros. This means that you have to find and install the software yourself, as opposed to being given a neat little autorun CD to walk you through it. Scoff all you want, but for the average user this is a big deal.
It sounds absurd when you say it, but there's actually a lot of truth to that. I've walked elderly people through their registry before and not had a problem. "Click HKLM. Now click software. Click Microsoft. Windows. Now click CurrentVersion. Now click Run. Now double-click on that, type this, and click OK."
This was back in the early days of XP, when a lot of home users had Win9x. I also had to walk them editing some text files like config.sys on occasion. Getting them into the editor was easy, but then..."No sir, you don't need to read me the whole file. Yes sir, I know exactly what we're looking for here. Alright, do you see a line of text that starts with 'buffers'? No? Okay, move your cursor to the end of the last--click the mouse there--right. Okay, now press enter--yes, it should start you on a new blank line. And I want you to type 'buffers=10'. Yes, b-u-f-f-e-r-s. No, don't spell equals, use the sign. Two horizontal lines, to the left of your backspace key. Correct. And the number ten, as in one zero. Yes. Now you want to save that and exit notepad. Yes, overwrite it. No, that won't break anything so long as you did exactly what I told you to do.
The point-and-click interface gives people a sense of security. It makes them feel like they're in control without being at risk of REALLY screwing things up. And there's some truth to that: changing a switch by editing a number in a GUI field is a lot different than editing a text file. You aren't risking breaking the configuration by deleting a slash or a hyphen...the only way to break it is with a configuration that doesn't work.
I would like to see a more unified control panel for the Linux GUIs that allowed you to tweak text files without having to dive into them. It's one of those things that would provide a bridge between being able to use the OS and being able to get the most out of it for your particular requirements. As with all things Linux it has drastically improved in recent years, but it wouldn't hurt to do more.
Troll away, but I think it's safe to say that Linux has taken far more leaps than any other OS since OSX and XP were first released.
It's nice to see an article that at least touches on the shortcomings that hold Linux back as a desktop operating system AND about what is being done/needs to be done to resolve those.
I think this sums it up nicely:
After using the operating system for writing, Web surfing, graphic editing, movie watching and a few other tasks, it is easy to conclude that Linux can be an alternative to the major operating systems. But since common tasks like watching a movie or syncing an iPod require hunting for and installing extra software, Linux is best for technically savvy users or for people whose needs are so basic that they will never need anything other than the bundled software.
However, trying Linux -- especially if you boot it from a CD -- is a great way to find out what a lot of open-source adherents are so excited about.
Linux is easy to start using, especially distros like Ubuntu that bundle a lot of good apps into a near-turnkey solution. I don't think any other OS is quite so functional immediately after install. Linux is also a dream for the technical-minded power users who love to customize and control every aspect of their digital workspace. Where Linux falls short right now is in the middle ground: going from the basic install to a system that is functionally competitive with Vista Home Premium or OSX without being one of those powerusers is a daunting task that can--and will, given time--be made easier.
Articles like this coming out of the mainstream media can seem like fluff with very little content to the avid Linux community, but they need to be taken seriously. They're a good indication of what the outside world wants to see in the next round of distros, which gives the developers at least a hint of a way to expand the userbase. Based on this article and others like it, I'd suggest two things:
1) Make media easier to start using. I'm sure there are a dozen distro teams working on this right now, so I'm probably preaching to the choir...but it needs to be said, lest no one say it at all. I've had issues making media work in Linux recently, and am sticking with Vista at the moment because I can't find a few consecutive hours to devote to troubleshooting the matter.
2) The current method of documentation is quite informative, but a bit dry and sometimes difficult to absorb due to the format. The Linux community would be greatly benefited by solid tutorials based on the documentation and FAQs that are spread all over the internet. I'm not talking about a text file tutorial...I'm talking about a video, or even (if it's possible) a custom live cd distro for the purpose of instructing users. However it can be executed, the end result should be advancing the skill level of the user beyond that which they might reach with the current documentation. (disclaimer: I have a personal interest in this, as I tend to stall out on Linux projects because I have trouble finding some crucial piece of information that might be better taught than read.)
I'd have to say the biggest barrier (aside from the relatively tiny potential market) is the lack of standardization in Linux. Dozens of distros with multiple shells and several desktop environments and a lack of a unified standard on libraries and...well, you get the point. It all adds up to a support nightmare with Linux User #32,469 calls because his customized DSLinux USB key won't properly sync with their device.
With Windows, you can specify "requires Windows XP with SP2 and.Net Framework 3.0". But if you specified a handful of Linux distros and library sets and everything else necessary to ensure it can be supported, you'd only be getting a fraction of the Linux market, which is but a fraction of the PC user market.
The most I could ask of any company in the way of Linux support is a solid driver with good documentation, a wiki to allow the Linux community to fill in the blanks when unexpected problems crop up, and a web forum to facilitate the community and allow developer to monitor/communicate with the users.
Fixed cameras on Resident Evil are one of the many reasons I can't understand the popularity of the game. There's nothing like standing three feet from a zombie and not being able to see it because the camera angle won't change to help you.
I'm gonna get all ranty now because I really, really am baffled by the original success of RE ten years ago. It never should have survived...I guess it reflects the low standards console gamers had at the time versus PC gamers as adventure games and/or shooters go. What sucked about RE:
-The voice acting. Seriously, worst ever. Okay not EVER, but still horrible. -It was the most unscary horror game I've ever played. -Third person oddball camera angles. -I think I could load and fire a musket faster than the 9mm Beretta in that game. -The puzzles were repetitive and simple.
I've often wondered if the mask-wearing protesters understand that this action hurts their cause.
Do you really think the average public is going to be swayed by a bunch of people dressed in black, wearing ski masks, waving banners, and shouting chants? Why go to such great length to conceal your identities when an oppressive government could easily track them down?
The average citizen is going to look at you and wonder what you're hiding from. Some will think you don't want people to know it's *you* out there, which translates into "I'm ashamed to be associated with this cause". Others will assume you do so just in case it turns into a riot, so that you can't be identified once you start breaking the law.
In the end, the most effective protest is one where people put a face on the cause, inform people, and quietly and passively convey their cause. Confrontations with police (provoked or not) and masks and angry speech only drives people away from your cause. The civil rights movement was successful because it was largely peaceful and quiet. Blacks asserted themselves in ways that evoked sympathy and understanding, and it changed the nation.
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admin as in administration, not network admin (who falls under technology).
But yeah, we shut down everyone except ourselves and the administrative offices because we're the ones who frequently have to drop what we're doing quickly and might forget to save an open document. We're also the ones most likely to work odd hours.
Too bad for them. People leave themselves logged in all the time at the end of the day. Too many people are sloppy for us to make allowances for things like that.
It should be noted that this is a public K-12 school, not a university. There aren't many people around at 6:00 outside of administration personnel. Those who are have been warned what will happen; if they get up at 5:58 to do whatever and come back seven minutes later to their PC shut down, they'd better have saved their work.
At the school I work at, we have an automatic shutdown at 6 PM. It has a five minute timer and is preceeded by a text file in a DOS window reminding people that there is an "ABORT SHUTDOWN" option in their start menu if they are using the PC and the shutdown process begins.
/DELETE ALL (or whatever the syntax is) - to prevent the AT table from getting crowded with dozens of the same command
Two simple batch files for XP, on in the All Users startup directory, one in the All Users\Information Services directory of the start menu.
Startup:
AT
AT 18:00 "shutdown -t 600"
Abort:
Shutdown -a
We reset the AT table every day just in case some know-it-all high school student finds out such a thing exists and starts screwing with it. For the most part, though, not even the techs knew such a thing existed until I proposed using it.
We tried a lot of other ideas, but this is the simplest and most user-friendly. Big signs don't work, teachers and lab aids are no better than the students about following directions. Since implementing it 18 months ago, we've gone from having roughly 900 PCs online at night to about 100...including servers, timeclock systems running thinstation terminal sessions, and technology and admin workstations that are excepted from the shutdown policy.
I have to admit, this is the best off-topic goatse snipe in recent /. history.
What the need to do is get just one major studio to fully convert to hybrid disks without raising prices. Take a loss on the format change if you have to, but play it up big time that the DISKS are HD capable but work in a standard DVD player. People love the idea of buying something that works today that will work tomorrow. ADVERTISE. I've seen Blu-ray commercials. Lots of people have. A lot of people don't even know what HD-DVD is...some will even say "you mean like Blue Ray?" when you mention the format. They don't understand the distinction and aren't aware that there's a format war. HD-DVD is losing right now simply because no one but people who read tech news know it exists.
It'll be a good thing, too, when Blu Ray's update breaks their earliest players. It'll be that much cheaper for the early adopters to replace their obsolete next-gen players.
HD-DVD needs to push their hybrid DVD/HD-DVD disks that they introduced a year ago. That alone would win the war if they just got out there and told consumers "hey, you can buy a DVD today and when you decide to switch to HD-DVD your HD library will already be started."
In fact, if HD-DVD got half as much advertising time as BR they would be in much better shape.
Iraq: Work with Congress and the Joint Chiefs to establish a realistic goal-oriented roadmap (NOT a timeline) for withdrawal. The idea would be to tell the Iraqis--both our friends and enemies--exactly what we plan to do and we has to be accomplished for us to do it. Start with some easy goals so that they can see that we follow through with it and will do what we promise.
I'm opposed to a mindless, hasty pullout of troops. I don't think we should have gone there in the first place, but we did,we made the mess, and leaving at a specific time regardless of what is going on there won't help anyone.
Environment: I certainly don't want to trample all over businesses and the economy, but we need to take the lead on working toward a clean, sustainable environment. Fuel efficiency, CO2 output reductions, and general air/water quality would be my main concerns. I would stay away from lobby groups from either side in the pursuit of the best answers and bring in real experts on the field--both scientists and economists--to find reasonable solutions.
Education: No Child Left Behind would go away IMMEDIATELY. The idea of paying teachers according to the performance of the students just allows the students to maliciously fail tests. They do it already, thinking it will hurt the teacher somehow. Instead, I'd push for higher salaries for teachers and more successful disciplinary actions. Administrators often fail to support teachers, leaving them unable to keep problem kids under control and disrupting the entire classroom. It also needs to be said that a LOT of problems in schools exist because they are brought there from home. And of course ineffective teachers need to be drummed out as quickly as possible.
Social programs: Trim the fat. There are a lot of social programs that are redundant, inefficient, or completely ineffective. Get rid of those that don't work, increase those that do. The goal should be to lift up citizens so that they can stand on their own two feet, not lean on the government for most of their lives.
Taxes: A consumption (sales) tax seems like the best idea to me. Flat rate, taxed according to spending rather than income, and can be set up to exclude those things which are necessities of life so that the poor who barely make ends meet don't pay much, if any.
Immigration: It's unrealistic to think we can round up and eject 11,000,000 illegals, or however many there are today. The best compromise I see here is to give them a 12-18 month window to register as "undocumented" and get the process started to be here legally. Anyone not registered after that window is summarily ejected from the country. On top of that, I would seek to make it easier for people to come and go between here and Mexico via a new treaty with Mexico so that people there don't feel the need to be smuggled across packed into trucks in the middle of the desert. The idea is to be able to document and track as many people as we can; that's going to require compromise to make it work.
Gun ownership: I would be okay with requiring a license to purchase a handgun. The purpose would be to ensure that handguns can be easily traced, making them harder to use in the commission of a crime without being caught. I would consider that as falling under "well regulated" in the second amendment. Beyond that, I don't see a need to so tightly control rifles and shotguns; their role in crime is far smaller. Don't register them, don't license them. This disarms the "they're going to take away our guns using that list" argument some of the gun nuts use.
Just to flesh out the idea, it would go something like this: you'd take a basic gun safety class, spend some time on a range, and pass a written test to get a license. Just like you have to do before we let you drive on the road legally. Every time you buy a gun, you present your license, it's scanned, and the gun is tied to your license number by its serial number. Private party transfers can be done free of charge at any gun shop or police department. A stolen gun must be registered as stolen.
If public education makes no mention of God, the students take it upon themselves to do so, typically in the context of "no, God did it." By proactively addressing the relationship between religion (God) and science without making an opinionated statement on the matter, science teachers can disarm a lot of anti-science arguments, thus preventing disruptions in the classroom.
My wife teaches science in public schools, by the way. She takes 15-20 minutes early in the school year to address why religion and science don't have to be at odds, and why students don't need to jump in with comments about God every chance they get. It makes a huge difference in how these kids behave, and even in how they accept the material presented.
She's also a devout Southern Baptist. So much for stereotypes, huh?
You forgot "stripper" and "prostitute". It'd be a sad, sad world when only men did those jobs.
So you summarily dismiss any and all research that demonstrates a link between violent behavior and violent media...what exactly makes you any different from those researchers who see what they want to see in their results?
Never mind that the same centers of the brain have been found to be stimulated when viewing violent media and committing violent acts. Never mind that hormone levels have been found to have similar results. Clearly they ALL use poor methodology because you KNOW there is no link, and we should dismiss everything.
Here's the thing: it's becoming hard to refute (without pulling what you just did and proclaim everything that doesn't agree with you null) the idea that violent media, especially violent video games, result in more violent thoughts. The important thing to remember hear is that at this point we're just talking about thoughts. Games influence our emotional state and trigger certain responses in our brains. But regardless of how they make us feel or think, we are still in command of our actions. The problem is that SOME PEOPLE do not keep themselves in check so well. SOME PEOPLE are more prone to acting on bad ideas, like violent thoughts. SOME PEOPLE can be influenced by media to do things they wouldn't have done had they not seen or heard it somewhere else first.
Is that the fault of the video game? No more than it is the fault of an author when some nut recreates a crime from a novel. But that doesn't make the issue go away, does it?
"There is no conclusive evidence that playing violent videogames leads to violent acts. That hasn't stopped researchers from looking for links between videogames and aggression."
Good. That's what they *should* be doing. I'd hate to see the day when science went back to standing on the findings of others and saying "that's just the way it is" rather than continuing to investigate, experiment, and study.
They've made some significant links between violent video games and violent *thoughts*, and I'd wager that eventually they will find a direct link between violent games and violent acts. We should not feel threatened by such ideas and summarily dismiss them because we don't like the findings; that will do nothing but encourage those who would let the lowest common denominator make the rules.
What we as gamers need to do is continue to expect the gaming industry to properly rate and label their products. We should give our business to retailers who make it easy for consumers to understand ratings, and find games of a certain rating. And we should admit that sometimes a minority of people take their gaming experience too far and become violent in real life...just like a minority of people do things based on what they saw or heard in other entertainment media. Just like a minority of people become violent while playing or even passively *watching* a sport.
The public needs to be reminded that this sort of reaction has accompanied every new medium of entertainment. When people realize that this is nothing new and that some people have a problem with SELF CONTROL, not with video games, then we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I wonder if Star Fleet will have to put up with this nonsense when they invent holodecks. "They're training our kids to be murderers" blah blah blah
Play the challenges. I spent an hour trying to shave steps off of one map. I think I can get it down to 5, but it says my next goal is 2...ARGH.
It's a matter of culture. The majority of blacks around here have one set of religious and cultural preference, whites have another. So we naturally gravitate to services that understand our preferences better.
It's not Texas, it's Marshall. They don't sue in Dallas or Austin or Houston or Lubbock or Longview or Lufkin...they always sue in Marshall. I'm a native Texan who has lived 30 years within a reasonable distance from Marshall, and all that town has going for it is ETBU and a rather attractive holiday scene around their historic courthouse. I must assume that building houses a court very friendly to the patent trolls, probably someone ignorant of technology enough to not recognize obviousness and prior art in the tech sector. They found a court that consistently supports them, and keep coming back.
Excuse me, your f1r5t p0st is in my article discussion.
I can see objecting to calling gaming a sport. I personally think it's silly and pushes the definition of "sport" to the limit. Even if it can be made to fit the dictionary definition, it certainly doesn't seem to fit the spirit of the word as we traditionally use it.
Gaming can most certainly be a hobby. Would you call chess a hobby? Tinkering with electronics? Hell, a lot of people here would consider programming a hobby. The dictionary I just looked it up on calls a hobby "[a]n activity or interest pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure." I'd have to say most anything can be a hobby.
Hopefully they have checks and balances built in to prevent such abuse. Here in the States, we call it the Constitution. YMMV.
If I go buy a non-OEM DVD-ROM, odds are it comes with PowerDVD or CyberDVD. Manufactured PCs will come with the software already installed. And of course an iPod will come with the necessary software for syncing it on a Windows machine.
The point is that 1) the software is not supplied by the manufacturer/vendor, and 2) It's not included in most distros. This means that you have to find and install the software yourself, as opposed to being given a neat little autorun CD to walk you through it. Scoff all you want, but for the average user this is a big deal.
It sounds absurd when you say it, but there's actually a lot of truth to that. I've walked elderly people through their registry before and not had a problem. "Click HKLM. Now click software. Click Microsoft. Windows. Now click CurrentVersion. Now click Run. Now double-click on that, type this, and click OK."
This was back in the early days of XP, when a lot of home users had Win9x. I also had to walk them editing some text files like config.sys on occasion. Getting them into the editor was easy, but then..."No sir, you don't need to read me the whole file. Yes sir, I know exactly what we're looking for here. Alright, do you see a line of text that starts with 'buffers'? No? Okay, move your cursor to the end of the last--click the mouse there--right. Okay, now press enter--yes, it should start you on a new blank line. And I want you to type 'buffers=10'. Yes, b-u-f-f-e-r-s. No, don't spell equals, use the sign. Two horizontal lines, to the left of your backspace key. Correct. And the number ten, as in one zero. Yes. Now you want to save that and exit notepad. Yes, overwrite it. No, that won't break anything so long as you did exactly what I told you to do.
The point-and-click interface gives people a sense of security. It makes them feel like they're in control without being at risk of REALLY screwing things up. And there's some truth to that: changing a switch by editing a number in a GUI field is a lot different than editing a text file. You aren't risking breaking the configuration by deleting a slash or a hyphen...the only way to break it is with a configuration that doesn't work.
I would like to see a more unified control panel for the Linux GUIs that allowed you to tweak text files without having to dive into them. It's one of those things that would provide a bridge between being able to use the OS and being able to get the most out of it for your particular requirements. As with all things Linux it has drastically improved in recent years, but it wouldn't hurt to do more.
It's nice to see an article that at least touches on the shortcomings that hold Linux back as a desktop operating system AND about what is being done/needs to be done to resolve those.
I think this sums it up nicely:
Linux is easy to start using, especially distros like Ubuntu that bundle a lot of good apps into a near-turnkey solution. I don't think any other OS is quite so functional immediately after install. Linux is also a dream for the technical-minded power users who love to customize and control every aspect of their digital workspace. Where Linux falls short right now is in the middle ground: going from the basic install to a system that is functionally competitive with Vista Home Premium or OSX without being one of those powerusers is a daunting task that can--and will, given time--be made easier.
Articles like this coming out of the mainstream media can seem like fluff with very little content to the avid Linux community, but they need to be taken seriously. They're a good indication of what the outside world wants to see in the next round of distros, which gives the developers at least a hint of a way to expand the userbase. Based on this article and others like it, I'd suggest two things:
1) Make media easier to start using. I'm sure there are a dozen distro teams working on this right now, so I'm probably preaching to the choir...but it needs to be said, lest no one say it at all. I've had issues making media work in Linux recently, and am sticking with Vista at the moment because I can't find a few consecutive hours to devote to troubleshooting the matter.
2) The current method of documentation is quite informative, but a bit dry and sometimes difficult to absorb due to the format. The Linux community would be greatly benefited by solid tutorials based on the documentation and FAQs that are spread all over the internet. I'm not talking about a text file tutorial...I'm talking about a video, or even (if it's possible) a custom live cd distro for the purpose of instructing users. However it can be executed, the end result should be advancing the skill level of the user beyond that which they might reach with the current documentation. (disclaimer: I have a personal interest in this, as I tend to stall out on Linux projects because I have trouble finding some crucial piece of information that might be better taught than read.)
I'd have to say the biggest barrier (aside from the relatively tiny potential market) is the lack of standardization in Linux. Dozens of distros with multiple shells and several desktop environments and a lack of a unified standard on libraries and...well, you get the point. It all adds up to a support nightmare with Linux User #32,469 calls because his customized DSLinux USB key won't properly sync with their device.
.Net Framework 3.0". But if you specified a handful of Linux distros and library sets and everything else necessary to ensure it can be supported, you'd only be getting a fraction of the Linux market, which is but a fraction of the PC user market.
With Windows, you can specify "requires Windows XP with SP2 and
The most I could ask of any company in the way of Linux support is a solid driver with good documentation, a wiki to allow the Linux community to fill in the blanks when unexpected problems crop up, and a web forum to facilitate the community and allow developer to monitor/communicate with the users.
Fixed cameras on Resident Evil are one of the many reasons I can't understand the popularity of the game. There's nothing like standing three feet from a zombie and not being able to see it because the camera angle won't change to help you.
I'm gonna get all ranty now because I really, really am baffled by the original success of RE ten years ago. It never should have survived...I guess it reflects the low standards console gamers had at the time versus PC gamers as adventure games and/or shooters go. What sucked about RE:
-The voice acting. Seriously, worst ever. Okay not EVER, but still horrible.
-It was the most unscary horror game I've ever played.
-Third person oddball camera angles.
-I think I could load and fire a musket faster than the 9mm Beretta in that game.
-The puzzles were repetitive and simple.
Baptists?
I've often wondered if the mask-wearing protesters understand that this action hurts their cause.
Do you really think the average public is going to be swayed by a bunch of people dressed in black, wearing ski masks, waving banners, and shouting chants? Why go to such great length to conceal your identities when an oppressive government could easily track them down?
The average citizen is going to look at you and wonder what you're hiding from. Some will think you don't want people to know it's *you* out there, which translates into "I'm ashamed to be associated with this cause". Others will assume you do so just in case it turns into a riot, so that you can't be identified once you start breaking the law.
In the end, the most effective protest is one where people put a face on the cause, inform people, and quietly and passively convey their cause. Confrontations with police (provoked or not) and masks and angry speech only drives people away from your cause. The civil rights movement was successful because it was largely peaceful and quiet. Blacks asserted themselves in ways that evoked sympathy and understanding, and it changed the nation.
What reflects worst on Kerry is the fact that he continued talking as if nothing was happening.
I guess he "staid the course" pretty well.