Ah, the BBS days... I still have my old 300/110 external Zoom telephonics modem for the Apple ][ that I used to use... not sure what good it'll do me, but last I checked, it still works:)
take a look at Broadband Reports and see what other options are in your area. I did a zip search and your area (49085) and it looks like there are several options, including ADSL. Even satellite has some good options now, including two way. The bad thing about satellite is lag due to signal distance, so don't expect low ping times if you need them.
Personally, I like DSL better in many ways - like my provider letting me operate a semi-private wireless network (requires a key, but I've given the key to several neighbors) and having a static IP. I actually could get a 1500/256 connection (but pay $70 for 1500/768 and a couple of static IPs) for $45 (same as Comcast for me), my download speed is a constant 1380, which actually was an improvement on Comcast's peak thoroughput for me (about 300 during peak times, and maxing at about 1200 late on school nights, but that was back when only 1500/128 was offered in my area - Comcast switched to 3000/256 in December [which, incidentally, was what ATTBI was offering in my area before Comcast cut speeds to "standardize" and was one of the reasons I dumped Comcast]).
Today, Weekly World News and 407 other businesses were raided and shut down after failing to pay back taxes on LAN usage. 12 residents with large LANs in their homes were also arrested and charged with tax evasion this morning.
Florida governor Jeb Bush defended the initiative - "This is just the start, we will bring all businesses and residents blatantly violating this law under compliance. Our state is losing millions, perhaps billions, of tax dollars every day."
When asked where he would get the personnel to enforce the law, he stated "We will pull our DEA agents from Miami to do the network enforcement and outsource the DEA work to India."
In other news, drug trafficking skyrockets in Miami. Bush vows to double the number of DEA agents enforcing narcotics laws and still keep the agency under budget.
Actually, I was going to bring up the mouse, but had to post quick - boss walked in looking for a status:)
The mouse is the single hardest piece to learn for a new user, but the user gets feedback from it in the same way the monitor gives you feedback when you type. The button is actually the tricky part, because users have a tendency to move the mouse when they click the button and that can be frustrating, and there isn't always feedback when you click it. Mouse usage takes about an hour of training, but it is self learned and generally remembered in subsequent attempts, which facilitates users. Keyboard commands are memorized and often forgotten and need to be relearned. I've re-trained myself on lslpp (AIX) for what has to be the 10th time just yesterday, because I only use the program once ever 6 months or so.
The adding of words under icons reinforces the idea of what the icon does. Studies have shown that the eye focuses only on the words, but I personally think that the eye processes the picture without much thought. Eventually, an association is made, and the item is quickly locatable. Try this with randomly sorted text objects - I'm pretty sure that I could find IE or mozilla faster looking for their icons than I could from a random list of words, since I'm familiar with the icon. The same wouldn't go for Spybot Search and Destroy, since I'm not familiar with the icon yet. On the same note, an icon alone won't train the user to what the program is unless they try it multiple times.
D&D may be mature, but the majority of spells and skills (er, feats) just aren't practical in a computer game. If you go and ask 10 gamers what spells or skills they chose in just about any D&D based game, they will generally go towards the hack-and-slash beneficial spells, because that's how experience is earned in these games. ToEE (Temple of Elemental Evil) really proved this to me - there are so many skills and spells, but when you cut away the useless ones, you end up with a few core spells that are practical for a computer game.
I'm not terribly familiar with the AD&D ruleset, having last played AD&D back at the beginning of 2nd edition (I have the second edition DMG and Player's handbook, everything else is first edition), so this made it extra hard to choose the best feats for my PCs in ToEE, but I soon found which ones didn't work well and restarted the game to ditch the bad ones.
There are multiple issues here, but the main one is that new PCs are overwhelmed with the options. Compare the starting options in Fallout to the starting options in ToEE. Fallout - everything is configured on a single screen. ToEE - multiple screens of configuration, many with pre-requisites from other screens. Unless you know all the requirements in advance (are intimate with the D&D ruleset), you won't have a clue what you need to do without lots of trial and error. This is too complex for a computer game that doesn't include all the help needed within itself (and even then). I could probably identify a dozen feats and probably 10x that many spells that aren't worth being in ToEE, but are there just to complete the ruleset. For instance, I would probably throw away all of the cantrips, which are useful for all of about 30 seconds in the game, if that (I think there was maybe one that I used once). In a real RPG, cantrips are useful because there may be a special case where you really need to do one point of acid damage, but in a computer game, 'cmon - just use your damn dagger, since you've got to stand next to the monster anyway and it'll probably resist the spell just as often as you can hit with your lousy dagger skill.
I was skeptical of the Intego stuff, so interesting.
I'd still argue that Apple is slightly less safe than Linux but much more safe than Windows. Windows, on the other hand, is probably easier to use than macosx, because you don't have to remember your password whenever you want to install, although you do need to be an admin user.
Here's how I see it from a security standpoint: Windows - insecure because most users run as admin users, which is the default. Admin users can install and remove software and make systemwide changes, as well as format drives, so running as an admin user is basically anologous to running as root in Linux.
Apple users typically run as an admin user, as well. The difference is, the user needs to enter a password when installing (essentially a 'sudo'). This means a trojan or other malicious code will not be able to install itself on the system, but could wipe the user and all their data out. A hacker that breaks in by guessing the admin user's password has full control of the system.
Linux - users typically run as a non-admin user and can only install software in their own directory or group/other enabled directories. To install software globally, user needs to become the root user or be given sudo permissions (which reduces security to Apple levels or slightly above, depending on what sudo permissions are given). A hacker that hacks this user or a trojan that is downloaded does not have root, but can wipe the user's data.
Personally, I find the Apple choice a nice compromise, but strongly recommend all admin users on all systems have a tough to crack password.
I can probably answer this - the main advantage to a GUI is ease of learning what to do without reading a manual. I don't know if you ever read some of the old DOS manuals, but they were written in a way that my Dad or Grandma would never be able to figure out what to do, so they'd try the hunt and peck method.
for instance...
Dad sits down to a computer for the first time ever and see this: #linux>
In his head - What is the first thing to do? Maybe type a sentence?
#linux>Show me what you do. Show: command not found #linux>What the heck does that mean? What: command not found
Hmm - looks like the first word I type does something. I should try help #linux> help/lib/help: Permission denied #linux> linux linux: Command not found
At this point, dad tries to read the manual, but it's all so much techno-gibberish that he is lost by the third page. He smashes monitor with his typewriter.
Icons: Dad starts computer and sees a screen with three pictures and a menu bar with Start on it. He clicks Start, and some more pictures appear. He selects one of the pictures from the menu and it starts the program. He tries to click a picture on the Desktop and it does nothing. He's not really sure what to do with those, but he can run them from the Start menu, so he ignores them.
So what did we learn from this? GUIs have multiple solutions to the same task while CLIs usually don't (aliases break this slightly, but require being a little less noob)
CLIs require directions to learn at least the basics, and often those directions aren't easy enough to understand for the computer illiterate.
GUIs facilitate learning by showing the options, where with CLIs you need to find the options, and then usually the options for the options.
CLIs have a lot of configurability that GUIs have, but not ease of learning. Even once learned, the options need to be remembered, where a GUI will put them all in front of you if done correctly, although it has a tendency to get buried in submenus (like Preferences).
I agree - having puked into a regulator my first time diving off a boat (in 6-10 ft crests), I initially forgot to purge, but for the most part, puke gets blown through the regulator without any extra effort - the only thing the purge valve does is air cleans what didn't make it. I actually took several breaths before purging without any adverse affects.
btw, I strongly recommend not eating McDonalds before going diving:)
funny - I may actually know you, but I don't remember from where.
I was going to post that I knew a guy, I think from college, who legally changed his name to include a number because of a typo in some record (high school or something like that)... Ry4an sounds awfully familiar:)
Slashdot is getting a lot of weirdos, lately:P
Re:UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE THAT MUCH CAFFEINE!
on
Death by Coffee?
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· Score: 1
You can't just jump to 13 pills just like that, you need to build up a tolerance, first.
As an asthmatic, I was on 3300mg of theophylline at one point (the secondary stimulant in tea, with Caffeine being the primary, and Theobromine the teritary, but that one is much weaker and more common in other products like Cocoa) and was going to need more when the doctor changed me over to the newfangled inhaled steroids (this is over 15 years ago, when inhaled steroids were only starting to get covered by HMOs). I've found several references since that don't recommend ever going over 500mg Theophylline, so I suspect if you have a good liver, good bladder, and a really long time to build immunity, it's would be possible - assuming 100mg caffeine/cup, that means a tolerance of 10000mg. If you go weak, 80mg caffeine/cup puts you at 8000mg, strong at about 17500.
One problem with caffeine pills, though, is that they're not diluted or mixed with food, which can have an adverse affect on your stomach. I've easily had 20-30 cups of coffee in a day a few times (sometimes in just a few hours), but never could have more than about 10 shots of espresso in that time. Espresso only has about 100mg of caffeine (about a cup of coffee), but because it's concentrated, it has a more powerful affect.
Although he claims it will be falling prices, somehow I see the Gillette model creeping in (give away the razor, sell the blades at a premium) - mainly because the hardware will never be "free," as there is always manufacturing cost involved.
Basically, what he's saying is that hardware prices will drop to the point where they can charge for software and give the hardware away for free. I find this quite ironic because it used to be the other way around - sell the hardware at a premium and toss the software in for free.
If I had my way, hardware prices would drop to nothing as Bill proposed, and I'd create free software for it, making it a free-for-all... nah, it'll never happen, but wishful thinking:)
Not to flame you, but I wouldn't go that far - Apple hardware was great when Woz was designing, ESPECIALLY when compared to the drek Commodore was putting out (PET, and Vic 20, later C64, but not so much with the 64), much less Atari (I had little experience with Atari PCs, but remember being extremely underimpressed by the ST and spent most of my time with the neighboring 386 running DR-DOS and GEM [gads that was ages ago!]).
I especially hated the crappy Commodore disk controller (and slower tape drive), which was slower than dirt and didn't improve until the Amiga era (and then, I believe, only on the Amiga). Disk ][ was an incredible invention, and cheap in comparison to other disk controllers at the time. I loved the C64 MIDI (but not much else), and almost bought an Amiga before they died.
After Woz left, Apple HW went downhill - Jobs wanted an appliance, and didn't even want to stick in all the stuff you'd need (like decent sound). That's why the only macs I ever bought were pro models that could be expanded to add better sound cards (and multitrack recording cards). It wouldn't hurt Apple to add somewhat decent sound already (surround? like my $40 PC mobo comes with, built in... maybe the new ones come with it, but my G3 didn't, and I bought that around the time of my last PC mobo that did come with it). Apple has done great things for software, but tends to be far too insular with hardware nowadays. Firewire's nice, but that's about the only innovation they've done that has gone mainstream.
NTSC was first standardized in 1954, before that the resolutions were below 525 horizontal lines (x60 vertical) and non-standard. The 1936 model you cite is 190 lines.
yep, that and because it was designed by communi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Open Source Developers.
Seriously, tho, you're missing the two main reasons why corporations don't like to go to open source - accountability and support. Basically, someone to sue for that backdoor snuck in 10 years ago, and someone to remove the backdoor ASAP.
If you live in the right areas, you can even get high speed internet, either from the DSL via the telecom (or from companies that specialize in rural service like New Edge networks), cable, satellite, or cellular.
Rural may even be better - I live in a suburban high speed black hole - the space between rural services that New Edge and others offer and a major city where everyone offers. There were at least 8 options for internet 5 miles north of me (a semi-rural outer ring but developing suburb, as well as 7 options in the rural suburb just north of that) and 12 just south (urban) when I looked non-locally last year (at Broadband reports and other places) and I had 4 (none of these include cellular). Cable isn't really a choice for businesses, or at least not for web sites unless you host the site externally.
Most mobos have some way around this - some clear passwords when resetting the CMOS, others you can pop a chip. I used to work tech support on the pop the chip type, which was really quite fun when trying to instruct someone with an IQ of 33 how to open their case and remove the chip (we would do it for them for $50 and replace the chip for another $25, but nobody ever seemed to bite on that until they were on phone support for 5 hours and still didn't have their case open).
Still, I can't imagine granny resetting the CMOS with her arthritis and having to grab that little jumper and move it over one pin (and back again). Even worse, open a laptop case to do this (thankfully, my gramma has a tower for e-mail, and knows nothing about password protecting mobos).
I think this whole thread is missing the #1 reason - No driving factor.
They've already got Windows, and Windows runs all their games. Why switch to Linux... to run less games? Unless Linux gets the killer app that doesn't run on Windows, there really is little point. Linux itself is not a killer app (unfortunately).
Also, Linux still is viewed as an unfriendly OS to the non-tech savvy. I suggested to a friend to try it to cut down on expense in building a new PC (we're shooting for $350, so adding $100 for OS makes that goal near-impossible), but he ixnayed that before I even told him about WINE.
Unfortunately, it isn't just Linux - my wife forced (ok, more like sweet talked) me to fork out $400 for XP and Office 2003 when I built her a new computer because she hated OpenOffice - far too hard to use and completely unlike the tools she knows - Word and Excel (she is an Excel power user and writes some mean VB). That made software 50% of the cost of the computer (and I put in a friggin DVD burner!). On the plus side, I think we'll be able to write off the expense because she uses it almost exclusively for working from home now.
Like aviation sims, there are practical skills you learn from racing games that can be applied to real life. Inside to outside around corners, brake before the turn, etc.
My work went go-carting (on fairly high performance carts) last week and my team won the race, partly because we knew how to pass agressively and take corners fast, while many of the other racers didn't. None of us had much go-cart experience and our team only got the fifth for fastest lap (out of 10), but consistently had near fastest lap speeds (65 of our laps were within two seconds of the fastest lap out of 87 laps, and 6 were slowed 25 seconds by required pit stops - the rest were slowed by either a caution or slow drivers).
Yeah - FPS skills don't work well on the paintball field - at least not from my outdoor experience. That may not be true for indoor play, because the agressive play from our FPS junkies worked better than some of the hide and snipe play of the non-FPS guys. We even had 3 military veterans (one Vietnam era, two Gulf war vets) playing that game and that experience was a non-factor (two games with all 3 on the same side and they split one win, one loss).
As for outdoor, I played a game with my college gaming group against the Doomies (or Ragin' Doomies, or something stupid like that), a group of a little more than 2 dozen high schoolers with Doom obsessions that were thoroughly schooled three times, mostly taken down by our National Guard guy. There was no reason we should have ever won - we had less people (7), worse equipment (2 semi-auto, 1 auto-trigger, 3 pump and 1 pull and load weapon vs 20+ semi-auto and two full auto [with the off-sized paintballs] for the HSers), and even the token female (ok, she rocked, but that was beside the point:). None of us were hunters, and a good chunk of the high schoolers were, so they had more real firearms experience than the majority of the collegers. The high schoolers played weekly (even had their own CO2 cylinder), and most of us were playing for the first time in a year (or more - for me it was 3 years). I don't think any of the college kids played FPS, where the HSers were founded on it.
Actually, FPS probably were a detriment in this case - the HSers played agressively, often moving up quickly individually while the college kids tended to take cover and be patient, waiting for the HSers to walk into the center of an ambush. After a few thumpings we mixed HS and college kids, and the results often varied, the game usually going to the groups that stuck together and fought together and had the fewest Rambos.
Maybe the Bambi Slayer, as I called a friend for a while, should play more Driver -
He has killed at least 8 deer from impacts and totaled several cars (4 that I know of). In the worst case, which I witnessed the carnage from because I was following a couple miles behind him, he hit a small herd killing three and maiming two (which the DNR may have had to put down - didn't stick around to find out, heck, I probably would have barfed if the cop made us stay any longer and it probably showed). His kill count still astounds me as I've seen and avoided many on the same roads and hit exactly 0.
I can't imagine hitting an Elk, though - I don't think even the largest buck he hit was even half 600lbs. Still 5 deer can add up to some cumulative damage... The closest thing I know of size-wise was a cow that rubbed up against my mom's car at a stopsign and broke off her side mirror. Not exactly sure why the cow did that or what it was doing loose, but damn did I laugh.
The dates that are listed for morph and avatar are a little bit confusing - they are for certain specific uses, not for when the word was invented.
Morph in the sense described is the computer shape change like in Terminator 2 or that old Michael Jackson face shift video (the heck if I can remember the name), not the greek word for changing shape, which has been used for lots of stuff WAAAAY before then.
Avatar in VR is the user's VR form, or in a different wording, the character being role-played in the VR world. Literally it means embodiment of form, so it makes sense. This is not related to the original meaning of Avatar, which I think has something to do with Vishnu (the Hindi god) who would come to earth often in some other form.
Hey - all those days of D&D playing in high school do have some practical use - with both words:)
I had actually read Little Snow-White and Sleeping Beauty in a fantasy literature class in college and could paraphase it pretty well from memory, not from recent googling.
I found it interesting that in the Grimm version I have, Snow-White is the mother, but in every movie version I've seen, she's an evil step-mother (e.g., Snow White, A Tale of Terror, Disney version), so I did do a bit of google searching on the subject and found this, from which I quote:
"Some differences between the edition of 1812 and later versions:
Beginning with the edition of 1819, the Grimms add the statement that Snow-White's mother died during childbirth, and that her father remarried. Note that in the first edition, presumably the version closest to its oral sources, Snow-White's jealous antagonist is her own mother, not a stepmother.
Beginning with the edition of 1819, the poisoned apple is dislodged when a servant accidentally stumbles while carrying the coffin to the prince's castle."
The version in my book apparently was based on the original Grimm fairy tale, not the later edition (which makes sense, being a history of fantasy literature, but still surprised me a bit). I noticed while searching that some translations say heart, not liver and lungs, as well. The original would likely be liver and lungs, newer translations switching it to heart because it really was symbology for what gives one life, which I believe was still the liver at the time (which is where it gets its name, but I don't know how the lungs play in this - maybe taking life and breath?).
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Aging? Heck, I started getting younger a couple of years ago. Too bad I'm having such a hard time convincing the DMV of that, tho.
Ah, the BBS days... I still have my old 300/110 external Zoom telephonics modem for the Apple ][ that I used to use... not sure what good it'll do me, but last I checked, it still works :)
take a look at Broadband Reports and see what other options are in your area. I did a zip search and your area (49085) and it looks like there are several options, including ADSL. Even satellite has some good options now, including two way. The bad thing about satellite is lag due to signal distance, so don't expect low ping times if you need them.
Personally, I like DSL better in many ways - like my provider letting me operate a semi-private wireless network (requires a key, but I've given the key to several neighbors) and having a static IP. I actually could get a 1500/256 connection (but pay $70 for 1500/768 and a couple of static IPs) for $45 (same as Comcast for me), my download speed is a constant 1380, which actually was an improvement on Comcast's peak thoroughput for me (about 300 during peak times, and maxing at about 1200 late on school nights, but that was back when only 1500/128 was offered in my area - Comcast switched to 3000/256 in December [which, incidentally, was what ATTBI was offering in my area before Comcast cut speeds to "standardize" and was one of the reasons I dumped Comcast]).
yeah - but honestly, I'd give up my Windows password for a beer if you're buying...
:P
oh, crap, I just remembered, Windows XP defaults to admin users having no passwords - I guess I have to turn that feature on first
(thankfully that box sits behind a Linux router firewall)
Today, Weekly World News and 407 other businesses were raided and shut down after failing to pay back taxes on LAN usage. 12 residents with large LANs in their homes were also arrested and charged with tax evasion this morning.
Florida governor Jeb Bush defended the initiative -
"This is just the start, we will bring all businesses and residents blatantly violating this law under compliance. Our state is losing millions, perhaps billions, of tax dollars every day."
When asked where he would get the personnel to enforce the law, he stated
"We will pull our DEA agents from Miami to do the network enforcement and outsource the DEA work to India."
In other news, drug trafficking skyrockets in Miami. Bush vows to double the number of DEA agents enforcing narcotics laws and still keep the agency under budget.
Actually, I was going to bring up the mouse, but had to post quick - boss walked in looking for a status :)
The mouse is the single hardest piece to learn for a new user, but the user gets feedback from it in the same way the monitor gives you feedback when you type. The button is actually the tricky part, because users have a tendency to move the mouse when they click the button and that can be frustrating, and there isn't always feedback when you click it. Mouse usage takes about an hour of training, but it is self learned and generally remembered in subsequent attempts, which facilitates users. Keyboard commands are memorized and often forgotten and need to be relearned. I've re-trained myself on lslpp (AIX) for what has to be the 10th time just yesterday, because I only use the program once ever 6 months or so.
The adding of words under icons reinforces the idea of what the icon does. Studies have shown that the eye focuses only on the words, but I personally think that the eye processes the picture without much thought. Eventually, an association is made, and the item is quickly locatable. Try this with randomly sorted text objects - I'm pretty sure that I could find IE or mozilla faster looking for their icons than I could from a random list of words, since I'm familiar with the icon. The same wouldn't go for Spybot Search and Destroy, since I'm not familiar with the icon yet. On the same note, an icon alone won't train the user to what the program is unless they try it multiple times.
I completely disagree.
D&D may be mature, but the majority of spells and skills (er, feats) just aren't practical in a computer game. If you go and ask 10 gamers what spells or skills they chose in just about any D&D based game, they will generally go towards the hack-and-slash beneficial spells, because that's how experience is earned in these games. ToEE (Temple of Elemental Evil) really proved this to me - there are so many skills and spells, but when you cut away the useless ones, you end up with a few core spells that are practical for a computer game.
I'm not terribly familiar with the AD&D ruleset, having last played AD&D back at the beginning of 2nd edition (I have the second edition DMG and Player's handbook, everything else is first edition), so this made it extra hard to choose the best feats for my PCs in ToEE, but I soon found which ones didn't work well and restarted the game to ditch the bad ones.
There are multiple issues here, but the main one is that new PCs are overwhelmed with the options. Compare the starting options in Fallout to the starting options in ToEE. Fallout - everything is configured on a single screen. ToEE - multiple screens of configuration, many with pre-requisites from other screens. Unless you know all the requirements in advance (are intimate with the D&D ruleset), you won't have a clue what you need to do without lots of trial and error. This is too complex for a computer game that doesn't include all the help needed within itself (and even then). I could probably identify a dozen feats and probably 10x that many spells that aren't worth being in ToEE, but are there just to complete the ruleset. For instance, I would probably throw away all of the cantrips, which are useful for all of about 30 seconds in the game, if that (I think there was maybe one that I used once). In a real RPG, cantrips are useful because there may be a special case where you really need to do one point of acid damage, but in a computer game, 'cmon - just use your damn dagger, since you've got to stand next to the monster anyway and it'll probably resist the spell just as often as you can hit with your lousy dagger skill.
I was skeptical of the Intego stuff, so interesting.
I'd still argue that Apple is slightly less safe than Linux but much more safe than Windows. Windows, on the other hand, is probably easier to use than macosx, because you don't have to remember your password whenever you want to install, although you do need to be an admin user.
Here's how I see it from a security standpoint:
Windows - insecure because most users run as admin users, which is the default. Admin users can install and remove software and make systemwide changes, as well as format drives, so running as an admin user is basically anologous to running as root in Linux.
Apple users typically run as an admin user, as well. The difference is, the user needs to enter a password when installing (essentially a 'sudo'). This means a trojan or other malicious code will not be able to install itself on the system, but could wipe the user and all their data out. A hacker that breaks in by guessing the admin user's password has full control of the system.
Linux - users typically run as a non-admin user and can only install software in their own directory or group/other enabled directories. To install software globally, user needs to become the root user or be given sudo permissions (which reduces security to Apple levels or slightly above, depending on what sudo permissions are given). A hacker that hacks this user or a trojan that is downloaded does not have root, but can wipe the user's data.
Personally, I find the Apple choice a nice compromise, but strongly recommend all admin users on all systems have a tough to crack password.
I can probably answer this - the main advantage to a GUI is ease of learning what to do without reading a manual. I don't know if you ever read some of the old DOS manuals, but they were written in a way that my Dad or Grandma would never be able to figure out what to do, so they'd try the hunt and peck method.
/lib/help: Permission denied
for instance...
Dad sits down to a computer for the first time ever and see this:
#linux>
In his head - What is the first thing to do? Maybe type a sentence?
#linux>Show me what you do.
Show: command not found
#linux>What the heck does that mean?
What: command not found
Hmm - looks like the first word I type does something. I should try help
#linux> help
#linux> linux
linux: Command not found
At this point, dad tries to read the manual, but it's all so much techno-gibberish that he is lost by the third page. He smashes monitor with his typewriter.
Icons:
Dad starts computer and sees a screen with three pictures and a menu bar with Start on it. He clicks Start, and some more pictures appear. He selects one of the pictures from the menu and it starts the program. He tries to click a picture on the Desktop and it does nothing. He's not really sure what to do with those, but he can run them from the Start menu, so he ignores them.
So what did we learn from this?
GUIs have multiple solutions to the same task while CLIs usually don't (aliases break this slightly, but require being a little less noob)
CLIs require directions to learn at least the basics, and often those directions aren't easy enough to understand for the computer illiterate.
GUIs facilitate learning by showing the options, where with CLIs you need to find the options, and then usually the options for the options.
CLIs have a lot of configurability that GUIs have, but not ease of learning. Even once learned, the options need to be remembered, where a GUI will put them all in front of you if done correctly, although it has a tendency to get buried in submenus (like Preferences).
I agree - having puked into a regulator my first time diving off a boat (in 6-10 ft crests), I initially forgot to purge, but for the most part, puke gets blown through the regulator without any extra effort - the only thing the purge valve does is air cleans what didn't make it. I actually took several breaths before purging without any adverse affects.
:)
btw, I strongly recommend not eating McDonalds before going diving
I don't trust Blizzard - they probably _WILL_ put them in as a playable race.
:)
Diablo's Secret Cow Level started as an April Fools joke too
funny - I may actually know you, but I don't remember from where.
:)
:P
I was going to post that I knew a guy, I think from college, who legally changed his name to include a number because of a typo in some record (high school or something like that)... Ry4an sounds awfully familiar
Slashdot is getting a lot of weirdos, lately
You can't just jump to 13 pills just like that, you need to build up a tolerance, first.
As an asthmatic, I was on 3300mg of theophylline at one point (the secondary stimulant in tea, with Caffeine being the primary, and Theobromine the teritary, but that one is much weaker and more common in other products like Cocoa) and was going to need more when the doctor changed me over to the newfangled inhaled steroids (this is over 15 years ago, when inhaled steroids were only starting to get covered by HMOs). I've found several references since that don't recommend ever going over 500mg Theophylline, so I suspect if you have a good liver, good bladder, and a really long time to build immunity, it's would be possible - assuming 100mg caffeine/cup, that means a tolerance of 10000mg. If you go weak, 80mg caffeine/cup puts you at 8000mg, strong at about 17500.
One problem with caffeine pills, though, is that they're not diluted or mixed with food, which can have an adverse affect on your stomach. I've easily had 20-30 cups of coffee in a day a few times (sometimes in just a few hours), but never could have more than about 10 shots of espresso in that time. Espresso only has about 100mg of caffeine (about a cup of coffee), but because it's concentrated, it has a more powerful affect.
Although he claims it will be falling prices, somehow I see the Gillette model creeping in (give away the razor, sell the blades at a premium) - mainly because the hardware will never be "free," as there is always manufacturing cost involved.
:)
Basically, what he's saying is that hardware prices will drop to the point where they can charge for software and give the hardware away for free. I find this quite ironic because it used to be the other way around - sell the hardware at a premium and toss the software in for free.
If I had my way, hardware prices would drop to nothing as Bill proposed, and I'd create free software for it, making it a free-for-all... nah, it'll never happen, but wishful thinking
Not to flame you, but I wouldn't go that far - Apple hardware was great when Woz was designing, ESPECIALLY when compared to the drek Commodore was putting out (PET, and Vic 20, later C64, but not so much with the 64), much less Atari (I had little experience with Atari PCs, but remember being extremely underimpressed by the ST and spent most of my time with the neighboring 386 running DR-DOS and GEM [gads that was ages ago!]).
I especially hated the crappy Commodore disk controller (and slower tape drive), which was slower than dirt and didn't improve until the Amiga era (and then, I believe, only on the Amiga). Disk ][ was an incredible invention, and cheap in comparison to other disk controllers at the time. I loved the C64 MIDI (but not much else), and almost bought an Amiga before they died.
After Woz left, Apple HW went downhill - Jobs wanted an appliance, and didn't even want to stick in all the stuff you'd need (like decent sound). That's why the only macs I ever bought were pro models that could be expanded to add better sound cards (and multitrack recording cards). It wouldn't hurt Apple to add somewhat decent sound already (surround? like my $40 PC mobo comes with, built in... maybe the new ones come with it, but my G3 didn't, and I bought that around the time of my last PC mobo that did come with it). Apple has done great things for software, but tends to be far too insular with hardware nowadays. Firewire's nice, but that's about the only innovation they've done that has gone mainstream.
NTSC was first standardized in 1954, before that the resolutions were below 525 horizontal lines (x60 vertical) and non-standard. The 1936 model you cite is 190 lines.
yep, that and because it was designed by communi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Open Source Developers.
Seriously, tho, you're missing the two main reasons why corporations don't like to go to open source - accountability and support. Basically, someone to sue for that backdoor snuck in 10 years ago, and someone to remove the backdoor ASAP.
If you live in the right areas, you can even get high speed internet, either from the DSL via the telecom (or from companies that specialize in rural service like New Edge networks), cable, satellite, or cellular.
Rural may even be better - I live in a suburban high speed black hole - the space between rural services that New Edge and others offer and a major city where everyone offers. There were at least 8 options for internet 5 miles north of me (a semi-rural outer ring but developing suburb, as well as 7 options in the rural suburb just north of that) and 12 just south (urban) when I looked non-locally last year (at Broadband reports and other places) and I had 4 (none of these include cellular). Cable isn't really a choice for businesses, or at least not for web sites unless you host the site externally.
Most mobos have some way around this - some clear passwords when resetting the CMOS, others you can pop a chip. I used to work tech support on the pop the chip type, which was really quite fun when trying to instruct someone with an IQ of 33 how to open their case and remove the chip (we would do it for them for $50 and replace the chip for another $25, but nobody ever seemed to bite on that until they were on phone support for 5 hours and still didn't have their case open).
Still, I can't imagine granny resetting the CMOS with her arthritis and having to grab that little jumper and move it over one pin (and back again). Even worse, open a laptop case to do this (thankfully, my gramma has a tower for e-mail, and knows nothing about password protecting mobos).
I think this whole thread is missing the #1 reason - No driving factor.
They've already got Windows, and Windows runs all their games. Why switch to Linux... to run less games? Unless Linux gets the killer app that doesn't run on Windows, there really is little point. Linux itself is not a killer app (unfortunately).
Also, Linux still is viewed as an unfriendly OS to the non-tech savvy. I suggested to a friend to try it to cut down on expense in building a new PC (we're shooting for $350, so adding $100 for OS makes that goal near-impossible), but he ixnayed that before I even told him about WINE.
Unfortunately, it isn't just Linux - my wife forced (ok, more like sweet talked) me to fork out $400 for XP and Office 2003 when I built her a new computer because she hated OpenOffice - far too hard to use and completely unlike the tools she knows - Word and Excel (she is an Excel power user and writes some mean VB). That made software 50% of the cost of the computer (and I put in a friggin DVD burner!). On the plus side, I think we'll be able to write off the expense because she uses it almost exclusively for working from home now.
Like aviation sims, there are practical skills you learn from racing games that can be applied to real life. Inside to outside around corners, brake before the turn, etc.
My work went go-carting (on fairly high performance carts) last week and my team won the race, partly because we knew how to pass agressively and take corners fast, while many of the other racers didn't. None of us had much go-cart experience and our team only got the fifth for fastest lap (out of 10), but consistently had near fastest lap speeds (65 of our laps were within two seconds of the fastest lap out of 87 laps, and 6 were slowed 25 seconds by required pit stops - the rest were slowed by either a caution or slow drivers).
Yeah - FPS skills don't work well on the paintball field - at least not from my outdoor experience. That may not be true for indoor play, because the agressive play from our FPS junkies worked better than some of the hide and snipe play of the non-FPS guys. We even had 3 military veterans (one Vietnam era, two Gulf war vets) playing that game and that experience was a non-factor (two games with all 3 on the same side and they split one win, one loss).
:). None of us were hunters, and a good chunk of the high schoolers were, so they had more real firearms experience than the majority of the collegers. The high schoolers played weekly (even had their own CO2 cylinder), and most of us were playing for the first time in a year (or more - for me it was 3 years). I don't think any of the college kids played FPS, where the HSers were founded on it.
As for outdoor, I played a game with my college gaming group against the Doomies (or Ragin' Doomies, or something stupid like that), a group of a little more than 2 dozen high schoolers with Doom obsessions that were thoroughly schooled three times, mostly taken down by our National Guard guy. There was no reason we should have ever won - we had less people (7), worse equipment (2 semi-auto, 1 auto-trigger, 3 pump and 1 pull and load weapon vs 20+ semi-auto and two full auto [with the off-sized paintballs] for the HSers), and even the token female (ok, she rocked, but that was beside the point
Actually, FPS probably were a detriment in this case - the HSers played agressively, often moving up quickly individually while the college kids tended to take cover and be patient, waiting for the HSers to walk into the center of an ambush. After a few thumpings we mixed HS and college kids, and the results often varied, the game usually going to the groups that stuck together and fought together and had the fewest Rambos.
Maybe the Bambi Slayer, as I called a friend for a while, should play more Driver -
He has killed at least 8 deer from impacts and totaled several cars (4 that I know of). In the worst case, which I witnessed the carnage from because I was following a couple miles behind him, he hit a small herd killing three and maiming two (which the DNR may have had to put down - didn't stick around to find out, heck, I probably would have barfed if the cop made us stay any longer and it probably showed). His kill count still astounds me as I've seen and avoided many on the same roads and hit exactly 0.
I can't imagine hitting an Elk, though - I don't think even the largest buck he hit was even half 600lbs. Still 5 deer can add up to some cumulative damage... The closest thing I know of size-wise was a cow that rubbed up against my mom's car at a stopsign and broke off her side mirror. Not exactly sure why the cow did that or what it was doing loose, but damn did I laugh.
The dates that are listed for morph and avatar are a little bit confusing - they are for certain specific uses, not for when the word was invented.
:)
Morph in the sense described is the computer shape change like in Terminator 2 or that old Michael Jackson face shift video (the heck if I can remember the name), not the greek word for changing shape, which has been used for lots of stuff WAAAAY before then.
Avatar in VR is the user's VR form, or in a different wording, the character being role-played in the VR world. Literally it means embodiment of form, so it makes sense. This is not related to the original meaning of Avatar, which I think has something to do with Vishnu (the Hindi god) who would come to earth often in some other form.
Hey - all those days of D&D playing in high school do have some practical use - with both words
Naw, it'll just move to handhelds, like the video game industry.
:P
yes, that _IS_ an innuendo
I just spelled it the same way as the parent :)
I had actually read Little Snow-White and Sleeping Beauty in a fantasy literature class in college and could paraphase it pretty well from memory, not from recent googling.
I found it interesting that in the Grimm version I have, Snow-White is the mother, but in every movie version I've seen, she's an evil step-mother (e.g., Snow White, A Tale of Terror, Disney version), so I did do a bit of google searching on the subject and found this, from which I quote:
"Some differences between the edition of 1812 and later versions:
Beginning with the edition of 1819, the Grimms add the statement that Snow-White's mother died during childbirth, and that her father remarried. Note that in the first edition, presumably the version closest to its oral sources, Snow-White's jealous antagonist is her own mother, not a stepmother.
Beginning with the edition of 1819, the poisoned apple is dislodged when a servant accidentally stumbles while carrying the coffin to the prince's castle."
The version in my book apparently was based on the original Grimm fairy tale, not the later edition (which makes sense, being a history of fantasy literature, but still surprised me a bit). I noticed while searching that some translations say heart, not liver and lungs, as well. The original would likely be liver and lungs, newer translations switching it to heart because it really was symbology for what gives one life, which I believe was still the liver at the time (which is where it gets its name, but I don't know how the lungs play in this - maybe taking life and breath?).