I think it's less that 1%, but the problem is that 1% is left with a dead box and in some cases will lose their hard drive with on realistic recovery choice. My Vista laptop does not have a recovery disk, only a disk image that restores a pristine system wiping out everything (including incremental backups on the drive itself). Anyone that bought Vista online also appears to have this issue (no-DVD install), from TFA. Had I not been misled by my recovery disk into believing that I would be able to save files first (it was poorly translated - should have said you should save files first, not you can save files first), I would have booted to a Linux DVD and backed up what I could.
Note that the system is left in a state where you can't even get into safe mode, you can't back out the changes or recover files without an external boot (e.g., DVD-boot Linux).
I don't know Adkinson, so I can't comment on him personally. WotC was paid 325 million to sell to Hasbro - if I were a majority shareholder, I'd have a tough time turning that down.
You apparently missed how RPGs fell almost instantaneously about 2 years after Magic came out. My college gaming group with almost 100 members and 20 years of existence disbanded because all anyone ever wanted to do was play Magic and they could do that with pickup groups anytime. There's a reason its known as 'crack for gamers' and a reason GenCon has a heavy Magic playing base. Incidentally, I have not been to one since 2 years before Magic existed (and quit playing shortly after the first expansion), so that is hearsay from your comment.
I don't know anything about GenCon UK, but according to google he quit as head of the RPGA because WotC became hostile towards it in 1999, the same year Hasbro bought them. I can see that, having been in similar circumstances - I worked for a company purchased by EDS, a company I disliked when they made a bid and came to despise as an employee (no, I don't work for them anymore).
D&D is more popular than it has ever been, from what I've seen and heard. I haven't played it since second edition, but I have friends that do. Some of the recent rule changes were even put in place by a guy I have a lot of respect for, Jonathan Tweet (one of the designers of Ars Magica).
GenCon isn't passing - Chapter 11 is reorganization and removal of debt. Usually this happens when they can't pay their bills but are still profitable.
there are other theories, as well, but most physicists think it's not possible in a vacuum because it violates special relativity. Some possibilities exist, such as time bubbles, quantum tunneling, many worlds theory (which eliminates causality, opening possibilities), etc.
Prince, the guy that is notorious for not paying his employees until they threaten a lawsuit is suing over money... great. I personally know/have known three of his ex-employees and one artist that built sets for him under contract and the only one that got paid on time was a bodyguard.
Not sure where Reznor came from, but most of his angst was from breakups. Record companies deserve the grief they get, so I have no problem with bands like NIN and Radiohead sounding off against them.
If you've never signed a record deal, I recommend doing it once as a musician, just to get screwed the hardest. Songwriters (and producers, AR guys, etc) get a cut of money coming in, whereas musicians pay recording, manufacturing and distribution costs from their cut before they get paid. I've seen a contract that required roughly 100000 CDs in sales before the musicians to see a dime, meanwhile, the songwriter would earn at least 5% of each ~$12 CD (hard to tell with promotional freebies and fan club discounts), or $60000. Oh - and radio performance royalties? They're paid exclusively to the songwriter and song publisher. In return, the label lets the band play the label's songs (in most cases, they own the rights by contract) without paying a door fee (they call this a performance rights license or reciprocation license in contracts), which is something they probably couldn't enforce legally, anyway - I've never heard of actors paying performance royalties, anyhow, and I'm sure they could learn their lines by books-on-tape just as easily as a script.
In other words, as a musician, you're often better off with a daily or weekly live show than to record. Alternatively, it's possible to make a good living doing session work, especially if you can sight read music and live in an advertising town.
those were the days when MS had competition - DR-DOS, PC-DOS, FreeDOS, Novell DOS, OpenDOS, GEM (GUI), and at least one other GUI client I can't remember.
You can't completely count Via out - Via is still marketing the C7 line of low cost, low power enviro-friendly processors, which is what is left of Cyrix's legacy (Via moved the tech into Centaur Technology in Austin and the Cyrix office went away), and I've actually seen tablet computers with them recently. Yes, niche market, but Via is huge (they're bigger than AMD) and has marketing muscle, so it's possible for them to return, especially if people decide the speed of machines is good enough at the low end (e.g. not gamers).
MS price fixing with vendors (use us only or pay full price) pretty much railroaded the industry. Basically they are the Standard Oil of the software industry and should have been broken up. Now they're actually facing some competition again, and at least one vendor is attacking them at the price level (Linux), which has always been their way to manipulate the industry.
I agree - especially in the extensions realm, nVidia has MUCH better OpenGL support. In fact, the last ATI card I bought was well after fragment [pixel] shaders were approved by the ARB (an EXT in 1.3), but the card spec claiming both vertex and fragment shaders was misleading - the fragment shaders were ATI's (then long dead) proprietary fragment shader GL_ATI_fragment_shader.
They came out with OGL 2.0 and 2.1 cards well before ATI, as well (but ATI tends to outperform them when they finally do show).
actually, my problem (and some others reported on slashdot but not on the MS site) is different that the one sited, but similar - it booted initially at 0% of stage 3, but the endless loop of reboots happens without ever getting back to 0% of stage 3.
that's a different problem, and from most of the symptoms it sounds like bad memory (except the reboot in BIOS - that doesn't use system memory and suggests a BIOS defect or other problem such as overheating). My machine has the latest manufacturer BIOS and ran happily from DVD boot and most of the people reporting this problem have similar symptoms to mine.
This one is consistently the same thing Post Beep Load BIOS watch Ethernet numbers appear as it connects wait 3s reboot (repeat)
It actually fails just after connecting ethernet and continuously reboots itself - about the only thing possible is to change the boot volume (to CD drive) and mount it from CD.
I used my recovery disk and started to dl the update again, so it'll probably be in reboot loop again when I get home (if it wasn't caused by some other driver).
I really wish I could just ignore Vista sometimes (I do multi-platform dev):(
It's the prep release for SP1 that came out a day or so ago, which I believe includes kernel updates. My ASUS S7v3 Vista laptop started rebooting constantly after installing this update, and I was forced to use the recovery feature that wipes the drive (most of my really important stuff is backed up, but not anything from the last week or so).
I began downloading the update again to see if it is repeatable, or if it was due to other drivers on my system. If it's repeatable, I would say this is a very, very serious issue and MS needs to pull the update immediately.
Joysticks were always a niche peripheral really - keyboard/mouse is much better for FPS, and though fighting games use joysticks in the arcade, it's a lot easier to combo with a digital pad
ugh, no, wrong. The mouse wasn't even mass marketed until Xerox Star in 1981. Joysticks (for games) evolved out of paddle technology - basically, they combined two paddles.
Early FPS's actually did it wrong - there was no mouse look, you'd use the joystick or keyboard to look and target (partially because the mouse was not ubiquitous). 2D games hinted toward mouselook, but it really didn't appear until one of Carmack's games (Quake?). I was essentially using mouse look for a flight simulator I was working on at the time (on a mac that had no joystick) and was already doing that, so I didn't find it that revolutionary (expected evolutionary in my mind), but many reviewers did. Incidentally, anyone that had played Space Battle on the Intellivision would be instantly at home with mouselook.
The joystick decline started probably with the Intellivision, which used a disc controller, and the nintendo with its D-Pad controller, which were cheaper to manufacture and less prone to stress failure (joysticks are levers, so the smaller the lever, the less the force). ColecoVision used a short lever, but even that had failure problems (I broke mine twice in 6 months and never broke an Intellivision controller). Gamepad controllers do some things well, joysticks other things. I personally find it easier to do rolling actions with a joystick because a gamepad doesn't naturally redirect momentum (i.e. half-circle and full circle moves in fighting games).
The other problem with joysticks was that flight simulators have much different needs than game controllers, and adding controls capable of yaw, pitch and roll, throttle, and buttons mapped to keys made for a much bulkier and expensive control. Basically, joysticks forked to bulky flight sim controllers and small cheap D-Pad controllers, which are essentially joysticks without a lever.
not only that - the friendly Microsoft voice activated software will help you run your home
~~Home of the Future Premium Edition~~ me: Computer! shower on. computer: warning - this will change your current hardware settings, which requires admin approval - are you sure you want to do that? Say 'yes' to continue, 'no' to cancel. me: yes ~shower turns on cold water~ me: computer - set water to 36 degrees computer: sets temp. me: computer -this is still freezing - I said use Celsius yesterday - don't you learn? computer: command not understood. me: computer: set water to 36 degrees CELSIUS computer: this is a US based system and only allows Fahrenheit temperatures. For international measurement packs, install House of the Future Ultimate Edition. me: *%*#%*^ - computer - set temp to 98F! computer: House temperature is now set to 98 degrees Fahrenheit. me: aaargh - no computer, set shower water temperature to 98F and house temp to 70F. computer: shower water temp set to 98F. please enter commands one at a time. me: computer: set house temp to 70F. computer: house temp set to 70F ~~shower~~ me: computer - shower off computer: warning - this will change your current hardware settings, which requires admin approval - are you sure you want to do that? Say 'yes' to continue, 'no' to cancel. me: yes! ~~shower turns off~~
biased, maybe, but also one that has a large vested interest in the area.
As with any study, you have to take it with a grain of salt. ThinkGeek probably gets more affluent viewers than, say, jewelry as a whole, just because the material appeals to a niche crowd rather than the general population. I know plenty of poor people that still splurged on wedding rings and probably browsed hundreds of sites online and several stores looking for the perfect set.
What I really want to know is who the idiots are that buy stuff from spam e-mails. If nobody ever bought anything from them they wouldn't be sent, so you know someone is.
yeah, and any day I expect the US to adopt the biometric anal probe
ah sir, just bend over and keep your pants down - this is a two part deal - no two anal linings are alike and we need to be sure you didn't shove weapons of mass destruction up there!
ah, sir, is that what I think it is? I need to remove and confiscate this socket wrench set and duct tape... you can keep the hamster, but you really should transport pets in a pet container. Have a nice day!
The economic stimulus only works if people getting the 'rebate' (read: borrowed money) spend it on buying stuff (stimulating the economy) and not paying their personal debt. If it backfires, it can cause a worse depression and stimulate hyper-inflation as the currency devalues and causes the debt to grow on its own (one of the risks of fiat currency). Whether rushing this is worth the risk or not is debatable.
As a side note, Income tax rebates are generally considered taxable earned income, so in a way some of that money is just a temporary loan. The government does not collect sales tax, so offering a (tax free) sales tax rebate is not an option.
Incidentally, Vista can also set age appropriate ESRB restrictions and enforce time restrictions. I didn't care to set up any other monitoring, so I don't know what else it supports, but there were other features. I set this up about a month ago to keep my nephew from playing games like UT3 (which I had to update - it erroneously had an ESRB of EC in 1.0 - 1.1 patched it) on my laptop.
I'm not sure how good either of these would work against a determined kid - I disabled everything I came across when I was a kid on mac and PC (Foolproof and At Ease on mac, PC Lock or something like that on Windows) and any exploits are quickly posted on the net these days, not sneaker-net like in my day. I even created programs to clean up the system after I was done - esp. when I was doing root exploits on UNIX later.
Sorry - yes, you are correct - it was the C64 that took 20 minutes for some programs from tape. The Vic was more like 4-5 at worst. I had a train-of-thought bump there because I started talking about the C64. The cart slot wasn't well used among the people I knew - yes, because of rampant piracy.
The slow and flaky Commodore '1541' (aka 'toaster') disk drives were an improvement over tape, but still could take 5 minutes to load a program and the drive heads were notorious for misaligning (a relatively easy fix if you knew how, an expensive problem if you didn't). I kinda liked fixing disk drives of all varieties in the mid-to-late '80s, but I was trying to stick to my horrible tape experiences in the early '80s in the post. The later '157x' drives were faster and more reliable, but harder to fix.
Christian and anti-abortion - Romney and McCain are against it, but not for changing the current system. My brother is a huge fan of Huckabee for his stance of ending all abortion. I'm just the opposite - I like McCain (and to a lesser extent Romney) amongst Republicans for the status quo (I differ with Republicans their Pro-Life stance, but am not wily-nily pro-abortion, either - there should be guidelines).
My biggest problem with Huckabee is the tax reform system he favors, called "Fair Tax," which issues a flat tax for all consumers with a rebate to the poor. While that may sound good, the reality is it shifts the tax burden from the rich to the middle class. If you're rich, this is awesome, because you currently pay a much higher tax. If you're poor, this is bad, but not devastating because you get rebates and assistance. If you're middle class, you pay for it because you don't get assistance and pay an effectively higher tax (there are charts that show this if you dig around). Oh, and kiss free net purchases goodbye, because that would fix the broken Use Tax system in the 48 states that have it - and really, how many people pay Use Tax? If it's 0.5% I'd be amazed.
Personally, I don't think Romney or McCain are all that different on most issues - McCain wants stem cell lines subsidized, path to citizenship, and is against domestic wiretapping. Romney is the opposite on those issues. They have some minor other differences, but those are the big ones in my mind.
The Apple I was sold along with RF converter - non-Apple to get by FCC's heinous shielding rules - the same rules that caused the 400/800 to not have expansion slots and use an expensive serial bus - to be able to connect to standard television screens in 1977. That same converter was used on any monitor or TV. My parent's ][e wasn't even hooked up to a green screen until 1986 (and then it was switchboxed to a TV). The green/amber screens were sold for readability.
The Atari 400/800 were RAM limited and essentially a glorified 2600 (better graphics and sound, but still couldn't do much) and were primarily cartridge based systems with hardly any carts for them and you needed a tape drive to save anything, which hardly any 400 owners I knew had. The 400 had the worst keyboard on the face of the earth. IMO, the Atari computers were junk until the 800XL.
Apple's main graphical limit was 7 color high res graphics, but dithering made it look like there were more colors. The game Airheart shown in the examples of the article is I believe the first 560x192 15 color double hi-res game, and required a certain ROM revision (second or third production run), which my mom got only because hers blew a motherboard in the warranty period. Sound on the ][ sucked, but was decent through a Mockingboard. The AppleCAT modem was awesome (1200 baud to other AppleCATs, otherwise 300, but a very cheap 1200 baud modem for the time).
The C64 was released in August, 1982. The Vic 20 Jan 1981. The Vic was cassette only until 1982 and took 20 minutes to load a program. The PET I used had 4k of RAM and AWFUL games (with a max of 8k RAM, hard to do much).
oh, where to begin... these are some of my earliest Apple ][ memories The Oregon Trail (1970s, diskette version mid '80s) Odyssey: The Comleat Apventure (1980) - written in integer BASIC, not MS-BASIC Ultima I (1980) Zork I (1980) Zork II (1981) Sneakers (1981) Sabotage (1981) Gorgon (1981) Space Eggs (1981) Castle Wolfenstein (1981) Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981 - and Hi Werdna!) Softporn Adventure (1981) [text - graphical update became Leisure Suit Larry] - had to throw that in;) maybe Aztek (may have been 1982...)
I didn't say Akalabeth (prequel to Ultima 1979-80) because I personally found it very unfun, but it was entertaining until I starved for the 300th time. Also the Prisoner (1980?), which some people liked, but I didn't.
You're talking about the Odyssey^2. My cousin had one (that cousin also had the Magnavox TV with built in games that predates everything), and I remember playing KC Munchkin, Pickaxe Pete (Donkey Kong), and Crazy Chase on it. Seems to me KC was also the first "look and feel" copyright lawsuit and established the precedent.
The Odyssey 100, the system I first real console I used as a kid (ooh - Pong and a variant of pong called Hockey) predated the Atari by several years and even predate Atari's pong system. I always loved visiting that uncle and aunt - they were on welfare, 13 kids (conservative Catholics...), and had 2 snowmobiles, every new computer and gadget (Altair and PET computers, Odyssey, Pong), a pool table, etc. Welfare in the 1970s was really screwed up (have more kids - we'll give you more money!).
Isn't that the intent of Microsoft's "Show Friendly HTTP Error Messages" in IE? I admit, they never did much with customizing it, and to be quite honest, they make the message worthless instead of knowledgeably useful, but you could argue they did client side customization of the error message.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's less that 1%, but the problem is that 1% is left with a dead box and in some cases will lose their hard drive with on realistic recovery choice. My Vista laptop does not have a recovery disk, only a disk image that restores a pristine system wiping out everything (including incremental backups on the drive itself). Anyone that bought Vista online also appears to have this issue (no-DVD install), from TFA. Had I not been misled by my recovery disk into believing that I would be able to save files first (it was poorly translated - should have said you should save files first, not you can save files first), I would have booted to a Linux DVD and backed up what I could.
Note that the system is left in a state where you can't even get into safe mode, you can't back out the changes or recover files without an external boot (e.g., DVD-boot Linux).
I don't know Adkinson, so I can't comment on him personally. WotC was paid 325 million to sell to Hasbro - if I were a majority shareholder, I'd have a tough time turning that down.
You apparently missed how RPGs fell almost instantaneously about 2 years after Magic came out. My college gaming group with almost 100 members and 20 years of existence disbanded because all anyone ever wanted to do was play Magic and they could do that with pickup groups anytime. There's a reason its known as 'crack for gamers' and a reason GenCon has a heavy Magic playing base. Incidentally, I have not been to one since 2 years before Magic existed (and quit playing shortly after the first expansion), so that is hearsay from your comment.
I don't know anything about GenCon UK, but according to google he quit as head of the RPGA because WotC became hostile towards it in 1999, the same year Hasbro bought them. I can see that, having been in similar circumstances - I worked for a company purchased by EDS, a company I disliked when they made a bid and came to despise as an employee (no, I don't work for them anymore).
D&D is more popular than it has ever been, from what I've seen and heard. I haven't played it since second edition, but I have friends that do. Some of the recent rule changes were even put in place by a guy I have a lot of respect for, Jonathan Tweet (one of the designers of Ars Magica).
GenCon isn't passing - Chapter 11 is reorganization and removal of debt. Usually this happens when they can't pay their bills but are still profitable.
Heh - I took it one step further - "Birth Control Handset for gamers." I'm sure they have that already.
there are other theories, as well, but most physicists think it's not possible in a vacuum because it violates special relativity. Some possibilities exist, such as time bubbles, quantum tunneling, many worlds theory (which eliminates causality, opening possibilities), etc.
Prince, the guy that is notorious for not paying his employees until they threaten a lawsuit is suing over money... great. I personally know/have known three of his ex-employees and one artist that built sets for him under contract and the only one that got paid on time was a bodyguard.
Not sure where Reznor came from, but most of his angst was from breakups. Record companies deserve the grief they get, so I have no problem with bands like NIN and Radiohead sounding off against them.
If you've never signed a record deal, I recommend doing it once as a musician, just to get screwed the hardest. Songwriters (and producers, AR guys, etc) get a cut of money coming in, whereas musicians pay recording, manufacturing and distribution costs from their cut before they get paid. I've seen a contract that required roughly 100000 CDs in sales before the musicians to see a dime, meanwhile, the songwriter would earn at least 5% of each ~$12 CD (hard to tell with promotional freebies and fan club discounts), or $60000. Oh - and radio performance royalties? They're paid exclusively to the songwriter and song publisher. In return, the label lets the band play the label's songs (in most cases, they own the rights by contract) without paying a door fee (they call this a performance rights license or reciprocation license in contracts), which is something they probably couldn't enforce legally, anyway - I've never heard of actors paying performance royalties, anyhow, and I'm sure they could learn their lines by books-on-tape just as easily as a script.
In other words, as a musician, you're often better off with a daily or weekly live show than to record. Alternatively, it's possible to make a good living doing session work, especially if you can sight read music and live in an advertising town.
those were the days when MS had competition - DR-DOS, PC-DOS, FreeDOS, Novell DOS, OpenDOS, GEM (GUI), and at least one other GUI client I can't remember.
You can't completely count Via out - Via is still marketing the C7 line of low cost, low power enviro-friendly processors, which is what is left of Cyrix's legacy (Via moved the tech into Centaur Technology in Austin and the Cyrix office went away), and I've actually seen tablet computers with them recently. Yes, niche market, but Via is huge (they're bigger than AMD) and has marketing muscle, so it's possible for them to return, especially if people decide the speed of machines is good enough at the low end (e.g. not gamers).
MS price fixing with vendors (use us only or pay full price) pretty much railroaded the industry. Basically they are the Standard Oil of the software industry and should have been broken up. Now they're actually facing some competition again, and at least one vendor is attacking them at the price level (Linux), which has always been their way to manipulate the industry.
I agree - especially in the extensions realm, nVidia has MUCH better OpenGL support. In fact, the last ATI card I bought was well after fragment [pixel] shaders were approved by the ARB (an EXT in 1.3), but the card spec claiming both vertex and fragment shaders was misleading - the fragment shaders were ATI's (then long dead) proprietary fragment shader GL_ATI_fragment_shader.
They came out with OGL 2.0 and 2.1 cards well before ATI, as well (but ATI tends to outperform them when they finally do show).
actually, my problem (and some others reported on slashdot but not on the MS site) is different that the one sited, but similar - it booted initially at 0% of stage 3, but the endless loop of reboots happens without ever getting back to 0% of stage 3.
that's a different problem, and from most of the symptoms it sounds like bad memory (except the reboot in BIOS - that doesn't use system memory and suggests a BIOS defect or other problem such as overheating). My machine has the latest manufacturer BIOS and ran happily from DVD boot and most of the people reporting this problem have similar symptoms to mine.
This one is consistently the same thing
Post Beep
Load BIOS
watch Ethernet numbers appear as it connects
wait 3s
reboot
(repeat)
in your case you may want to download and burn MS memory diagnostic (or any other) and run it
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp
also try removing one
It actually fails just after connecting ethernet and continuously reboots itself - about the only thing possible is to change the boot volume (to CD drive) and mount it from CD.
:(
I used my recovery disk and started to dl the update again, so it'll probably be in reboot loop again when I get home (if it wasn't caused by some other driver).
I really wish I could just ignore Vista sometimes (I do multi-platform dev)
It's the prep release for SP1 that came out a day or so ago, which I believe includes kernel updates. My ASUS S7v3 Vista laptop started rebooting constantly after installing this update, and I was forced to use the recovery feature that wipes the drive (most of my really important stuff is backed up, but not anything from the last week or so).
I began downloading the update again to see if it is repeatable, or if it was due to other drivers on my system. If it's repeatable, I would say this is a very, very serious issue and MS needs to pull the update immediately.
ugh, no, wrong.
The mouse wasn't even mass marketed until Xerox Star in 1981. Joysticks (for games) evolved out of paddle technology - basically, they combined two paddles.
Early FPS's actually did it wrong - there was no mouse look, you'd use the joystick or keyboard to look and target (partially because the mouse was not ubiquitous). 2D games hinted toward mouselook, but it really didn't appear until one of Carmack's games (Quake?). I was essentially using mouse look for a flight simulator I was working on at the time (on a mac that had no joystick) and was already doing that, so I didn't find it that revolutionary (expected evolutionary in my mind), but many reviewers did. Incidentally, anyone that had played Space Battle on the Intellivision would be instantly at home with mouselook.
The joystick decline started probably with the Intellivision, which used a disc controller, and the nintendo with its D-Pad controller, which were cheaper to manufacture and less prone to stress failure (joysticks are levers, so the smaller the lever, the less the force). ColecoVision used a short lever, but even that had failure problems (I broke mine twice in 6 months and never broke an Intellivision controller). Gamepad controllers do some things well, joysticks other things. I personally find it easier to do rolling actions with a joystick because a gamepad doesn't naturally redirect momentum (i.e. half-circle and full circle moves in fighting games).
The other problem with joysticks was that flight simulators have much different needs than game controllers, and adding controls capable of yaw, pitch and roll, throttle, and buttons mapped to keys made for a much bulkier and expensive control. Basically, joysticks forked to bulky flight sim controllers and small cheap D-Pad controllers, which are essentially joysticks without a lever.
In the US it's called Canadian Bacon. Throw in a hoser or two, eh?
not only that - the friendly Microsoft voice activated software will help you run your home
~~Home of the Future Premium Edition~~
me: Computer! shower on.
computer: warning - this will change your current hardware settings, which requires admin approval - are you sure you want to do that? Say 'yes' to continue, 'no' to cancel.
me: yes
~shower turns on cold water~
me: computer - set water to 36 degrees
computer: sets temp.
me: computer -this is still freezing - I said use Celsius yesterday - don't you learn?
computer: command not understood.
me: computer: set water to 36 degrees CELSIUS
computer: this is a US based system and only allows Fahrenheit temperatures. For international measurement packs, install House of the Future Ultimate Edition.
me: *%*#%*^ - computer - set temp to 98F!
computer: House temperature is now set to 98 degrees Fahrenheit.
me: aaargh - no computer, set shower water temperature to 98F and house temp to 70F.
computer: shower water temp set to 98F. please enter commands one at a time.
me: computer: set house temp to 70F.
computer: house temp set to 70F
~~shower~~
me: computer - shower off
computer: warning - this will change your current hardware settings, which requires admin approval - are you sure you want to do that? Say 'yes' to continue, 'no' to cancel.
me: yes!
~~shower turns off~~
biased, maybe, but also one that has a large vested interest in the area.
As with any study, you have to take it with a grain of salt. ThinkGeek probably gets more affluent viewers than, say, jewelry as a whole, just because the material appeals to a niche crowd rather than the general population. I know plenty of poor people that still splurged on wedding rings and probably browsed hundreds of sites online and several stores looking for the perfect set.
What I really want to know is who the idiots are that buy stuff from spam e-mails. If nobody ever bought anything from them they wouldn't be sent, so you know someone is.
yeah, and any day I expect the US to adopt the biometric anal probe
ah sir, just bend over and keep your pants down - this is a two part deal - no two anal linings are alike and we need to be sure you didn't shove weapons of mass destruction up there!
ah, sir, is that what I think it is? I need to remove and confiscate this socket wrench set and duct tape... you can keep the hamster, but you really should transport pets in a pet container. Have a nice day!
The economic stimulus only works if people getting the 'rebate' (read: borrowed money) spend it on buying stuff (stimulating the economy) and not paying their personal debt. If it backfires, it can cause a worse depression and stimulate hyper-inflation as the currency devalues and causes the debt to grow on its own (one of the risks of fiat currency). Whether rushing this is worth the risk or not is debatable.
As a side note, Income tax rebates are generally considered taxable earned income, so in a way some of that money is just a temporary loan. The government does not collect sales tax, so offering a (tax free) sales tax rebate is not an option.
you must really be a fan of reality TV, because that's what the networks had planned to wait out the strike.
Incidentally, Vista can also set age appropriate ESRB restrictions and enforce time restrictions. I didn't care to set up any other monitoring, so I don't know what else it supports, but there were other features. I set this up about a month ago to keep my nephew from playing games like UT3 (which I had to update - it erroneously had an ESRB of EC in 1.0 - 1.1 patched it) on my laptop.
I'm not sure how good either of these would work against a determined kid - I disabled everything I came across when I was a kid on mac and PC (Foolproof and At Ease on mac, PC Lock or something like that on Windows) and any exploits are quickly posted on the net these days, not sneaker-net like in my day. I even created programs to clean up the system after I was done - esp. when I was doing root exploits on UNIX later.
Sorry - yes, you are correct - it was the C64 that took 20 minutes for some programs from tape. The Vic was more like 4-5 at worst. I had a train-of-thought bump there because I started talking about the C64. The cart slot wasn't well used among the people I knew - yes, because of rampant piracy.
The slow and flaky Commodore '1541' (aka 'toaster') disk drives were an improvement over tape, but still could take 5 minutes to load a program and the drive heads were notorious for misaligning (a relatively easy fix if you knew how, an expensive problem if you didn't). I kinda liked fixing disk drives of all varieties in the mid-to-late '80s, but I was trying to stick to my horrible tape experiences in the early '80s in the post. The later '157x' drives were faster and more reliable, but harder to fix.
Christian and anti-abortion - Romney and McCain are against it, but not for changing the current system. My brother is a huge fan of Huckabee for his stance of ending all abortion. I'm just the opposite - I like McCain (and to a lesser extent Romney) amongst Republicans for the status quo (I differ with Republicans their Pro-Life stance, but am not wily-nily pro-abortion, either - there should be guidelines).
My biggest problem with Huckabee is the tax reform system he favors, called "Fair Tax," which issues a flat tax for all consumers with a rebate to the poor. While that may sound good, the reality is it shifts the tax burden from the rich to the middle class. If you're rich, this is awesome, because you currently pay a much higher tax. If you're poor, this is bad, but not devastating because you get rebates and assistance. If you're middle class, you pay for it because you don't get assistance and pay an effectively higher tax (there are charts that show this if you dig around). Oh, and kiss free net purchases goodbye, because that would fix the broken Use Tax system in the 48 states that have it - and really, how many people pay Use Tax? If it's 0.5% I'd be amazed.
Personally, I don't think Romney or McCain are all that different on most issues - McCain wants stem cell lines subsidized, path to citizenship, and is against domestic wiretapping. Romney is the opposite on those issues. They have some minor other differences, but those are the big ones in my mind.
You apparently know nothing about early Apples.
The Apple I was sold along with RF converter - non-Apple to get by FCC's heinous shielding rules - the same rules that caused the 400/800 to not have expansion slots and use an expensive serial bus - to be able to connect to standard television screens in 1977. That same converter was used on any monitor or TV. My parent's ][e wasn't even hooked up to a green screen until 1986 (and then it was switchboxed to a TV). The green/amber screens were sold for readability.
The Atari 400/800 were RAM limited and essentially a glorified 2600 (better graphics and sound, but still couldn't do much) and were primarily cartridge based systems with hardly any carts for them and you needed a tape drive to save anything, which hardly any 400 owners I knew had. The 400 had the worst keyboard on the face of the earth. IMO, the Atari computers were junk until the 800XL.
Apple's main graphical limit was 7 color high res graphics, but dithering made it look like there were more colors. The game Airheart shown in the examples of the article is I believe the first 560x192 15 color double hi-res game, and required a certain ROM revision (second or third production run), which my mom got only because hers blew a motherboard in the warranty period. Sound on the ][ sucked, but was decent through a Mockingboard. The AppleCAT modem was awesome (1200 baud to other AppleCATs, otherwise 300, but a very cheap 1200 baud modem for the time).
The C64 was released in August, 1982. The Vic 20 Jan 1981. The Vic was cassette only until 1982 and took 20 minutes to load a program. The PET I used had 4k of RAM and AWFUL games (with a max of 8k RAM, hard to do much).
;)
oh, where to begin... these are some of my earliest Apple ][ memories
The Oregon Trail (1970s, diskette version mid '80s)
Odyssey: The Comleat Apventure (1980) - written in integer BASIC, not MS-BASIC
Ultima I (1980)
Zork I (1980)
Zork II (1981)
Sneakers (1981)
Sabotage (1981)
Gorgon (1981)
Space Eggs (1981)
Castle Wolfenstein (1981)
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981 - and Hi Werdna!)
Softporn Adventure (1981) [text - graphical update became Leisure Suit Larry] - had to throw that in
maybe Aztek (may have been 1982...)
I didn't say Akalabeth (prequel to Ultima 1979-80) because I personally found it very unfun, but it was entertaining until I starved for the 300th time. Also the Prisoner (1980?), which some people liked, but I didn't.
You're talking about the Odyssey^2. My cousin had one (that cousin also had the Magnavox TV with built in games that predates everything), and I remember playing KC Munchkin, Pickaxe Pete (Donkey Kong), and Crazy Chase on it. Seems to me KC was also the first "look and feel" copyright lawsuit and established the precedent.
The Odyssey 100, the system I first real console I used as a kid (ooh - Pong and a variant of pong called Hockey) predated the Atari by several years and even predate Atari's pong system. I always loved visiting that uncle and aunt - they were on welfare, 13 kids (conservative Catholics...), and had 2 snowmobiles, every new computer and gadget (Altair and PET computers, Odyssey, Pong), a pool table, etc. Welfare in the 1970s was really screwed up (have more kids - we'll give you more money!).
Isn't that the intent of Microsoft's "Show Friendly HTTP Error Messages" in IE? I admit, they never did much with customizing it, and to be quite honest, they make the message worthless instead of knowledgeably useful, but you could argue they did client side customization of the error message.