>> I'm sure few of you would care to see hours of snooker or cricket
You shitting me? That's some of the best TV available.
I've watched probably 15 hours of TV since Friday. Of that, snooker is 10 hours or so, cricket another 3 hours and football the other two. Hours watching everything else: Approximately zero.
Admittedly, this has been unusual compared to my normal fare, cos of the snooker world championships..
Yeah, I'm with you on that. I've given the games industry far too much of my cash for games that frankly are horribly substandard, buggy, unplayable or just crap. So I'd rather be able to acquire a playable version of the game, and if it is worth having, go out and buy it.
I spend a significant percentage of my disposable income on computer games already; I'm keen that I get value for that money.
For the record, games I've played this year are: Battlefield 1942, X2, Battlefield Vietnam, Project Gotham Racing II, Halo - all legit purchased copies.
>> But there is a whole raft of crap that is stuck in films because the "filmmakers" don't think we as an audience will stay focused on the film without someone on screen using "F***" in all of its grammatical forms every 10 seconds. Its unnecessary and shows a lack of creativity on the writers' part.
The thing is, in day to day life every second or third sentence I utter (outside of work) has the word 'fuck', 'shit', 'bollocks' or suchlike in it.
This is how I talk. This is how the people I know talk.
Shit, I watch a movie with someone saying 'shit' or 'fuck' in it, unless it's specially timed for comic or dramatic effect, I don't even notice.
Take Trainspotting. Trust me, people in Scotland do swear like that. This wasn't adding in excessive bad language just to sell the film. Then take your average U rated movie (erm, in the UK U means anybody can watch, including little kids). Apparently when the heroic 8 year old causes a car to run over the evil bad guy, his response is merely 'argh! you pesky brat!'. BULLSHIT. His response is 'SHIT! You little twat!' Personally I'm offended by the sanitisation of the language to suit a younger audience..
Btw, I do tend to swear less at work. I do also sometimes sit and swear continously (usually at my computer) - verbal freedom of expression is a fine alternative to seeking physical release.
perhaps letting him see the odd tit now and again on tv might prevent him from getting a fixation about them, and that will save his future girlfriends a lot of grief.
naked flesh just happens to have no clothes on. by pretending otherwise you're setting up whole new thought patterns in your children.
I'm sorry, but you must adhere to the *letter* of the EJB spec. That means you cannot use java.io.*, cannot have worker threads, no socket communication, scheduled events, or application lifecycle events.
You absolutely must check in everything before you go home at the end of the day. That way you don't lose anything if your workstation dies.
wtf? I do expect my developers to follow those rules. If you're not following them, you're adding undue unnecessary risk to the project.
Of course, sometimes people break rules. Doesn't invalidate those rules though..
Content of an email I sent to my friends last year, after an event.. well, read:
I just had a fantastic night out. The main attractions were (as the title suggests) Mr Jeff Minter, and some curry.
For those of you who didn't know (or don't care) Jeff Minter is the genius behind games such as Andes Attack, Traxx, Gridrunner, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, Hover Bovver, Tempest 2000, the incomparable Llamatron (best shoot-em-up ever) and my favourite game title of all time, Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time.
The evening started badly for me as I found myself alone at a bar, stone cold sober, stood by the man himself. I swiftly ordered their strongest lager and engaged in what I describe as 'small talk'. A few seconds later Jeff acted like most girls do when I attempt this and desparately sought rescue from random passers-by, eventually finding an event organiser and fleeing towards a Commodore 64 running one of his games.
I should mention, I found out about this by accident. I discovered something advertising curry for a tenner, which in Nottingham is a good deal, even without Jeff Minter thrown in for free. He was the ingredient to make the night perfect. Hero worship, and all that.
Anyway, things kicked off and there were 3-4 hours of general questions from the audience, scripted questions from one of the event organisers, and lots of responses and general rambling from the man himself.
Here are some of the quotes I found highly amusing. Non-Jeff-Minter-Fans, stop reading now:)
Unmitigated honesty about his own games: "Andes Attack itself was a pile of wank"
After revealing he wrote Gridrunner in just 7 days, "The best week's work I ever did in my life"
On the camels in Attack of the Mutant Camels, "The graphic of the camel looked like two chubby men in a camel suit" (followed up with "Camels just aren't that shape")
After being asked about the complex storyline in one of the cassette inserts for one of his games, "I just like to write bollocks"
Describing how Nullsoft apologised for nicking his feedback technique, "What they didn't apologise for, was stealing my bastard llama as well" - some resentment apparent there.
On hearing that Tempest 3k won CES Game of the Show award, "I'm like, Fucking hell!"
A games company tried to sign him, having obviously done their homework, "They said, 'We'll give you a llama on initial signing, and an option on a yak after six months" (he's since acquired two llamas anyway).
Responding to the question 'Why didn't you just blow it all in the '80s?', "I had nothing to blow, having no beasties at that time" - his continual references and innuendos to beastiality were comical in the extreme, although I confess I lacked the guts (and indeed, the interest) to ask whether he'd actually gone that far. He does own at least one (maybe three) sheep (one is 16 years old and called Flossie), a goat, 2 llamas and a dog.
Describing how The Artist Formerly Known As was once interested in some of his work, Jeff described Prince, "He was a very weird geezer actually" - pot, kettle, etc?
Some other random utterances: "Bugger me!", "Yay, have that you bastard", "I'm still no bloody graphic artist", "It gives me a stiffy just thinking about it" (this one in regard to some hardware he's got arriving soon), "I love llama liquid", "My sheep is throbbing", "For total headfuck convenience"
There were some others, but in retrospect they just aren't funny outside of the context they were uttered (not that I'm claiming the ones above were).
Some other interesting info: He's never seen Monsters Inc (amazing given his fur fetish), his favourite film is Bladerunner, and, in a fine quote indeed, "There's nothing wrong with fucking sheep"
Obviously the lager was hitting me hard (not least because I was hitting the lager hard) so when the quiz came about I was in no state to answer it. One question was memorable though: "This is the sound of a Nubian Goat, but what is its problem" - followed by what one must indeed presume is the sound of a Nubian Goat with a problem.
In case you care, its problem was that it was in heat. I leave you with that image.
Turning off the preview panel is completely useless if you subsequently open the message.
How do you know not to open the message? I can almost certainly socially engineer a subject, and probably a From: line that will arouse sufficient interest for you to open an email.
That's all it takes.
Luckily there's a patch already available. Hopefully the corporate IT support where I work have already applied it. Obviously I'm not affected at home as I don't use any Microsoft mail products.
Make the libraries as ubiquitous and standard as the Java J2SE and J2EE APIs, chuck in a few de facto standard libraries (equivalent status to JUnit and Log4J in Java) and make these available and guaranteed to work on all target platforms, and you'll be as cross platform as I need.
Java is cross platform (most people develop on Windows and deploy on Unix for server-side software) and as much down to the consistency of the libraries as the underlying VM/bytecode support..Net will be nice if it can learn from that and be as ubiquitous, and.Net has the advantage of being multi-language. (Sure, Java VMs can run bytecode compiled from Python, etc. It's not exactly industry standard practice.)
Hmm. I'm happy to pay for my satellite TV feed because it gives me: - Live sport. We're talking 2-3 football (soccer) games a week, including every second week at most a match including the team I support. We're talking international footy too, international rugby, and the ODI and test matches in cricket. - Films. Completely uncut, with no adverts, with several hundred to choose from each month (each film tends to get shown several times during the month). 14 dedicated film channels, showing everything from 8 month old blockbusters to 60 year old classics of the art.
I can't get that level of entertainment anywhere else for so little. Or so conveniently.
Much as I hate Rupert Murdoch, the Sky TV offering in the UK is pretty reasonable value for money.
PC games are still the big players in the online gaming arena.
EQ/DAOC/AO are pulling in millions a month, and have no real console equivalent (don't even try and suggest EQ on the PS2). These tend to work more through social interaction than gameplay.
Quake, UT, BF1942 are providing the gameplay. Quite simply there isn't anything on a console to match the adrenaline rush you can get from these games, every day, for months at a time.
I haven't even mentioned the top online game, Counter Strike. Not seen that on any consoles recently.
Of course, PCs do much more than that. Championship Manager (sells millions of copies a year) is PC based (although a console port is now available), there are a myriad of strategy games better than anything on a console, hard core flight sims are still PC based, and the really really popular played by hundreds of millions of people games are all on the PC. Or do you hate minesweeper and hearts?
Personally I'm happy for developers to take the approach that Rockstar do - develop for the console cash cow, then add in proper mouse support, beef up the graphics and release the game on the PC.
>> developer #1: you know how no one had ever really heard of GTA 1 and 2, but 3 was a great success right?
Actually, I played 1 & 2 at the time they were released. Still have the originals somewhere. Good games, same basic premise as 3, just different perspective.
So they've not just re-used their game engine, they've also re-used their game concept.
All I can really say is, Good. It's a good concept. It's immaculately realised. I'm happy to give these guys my money - they've earned it.
My last three jobs (over an 8 year period) have all come from Jobserve.com - it's nothing short of fantastic.
I was looking for work all through last year, in a seriously depressed market, and only using Jobserve. I was turning down interview offers and turning down jobs at interview, because they weren't what I was after. I also received job offers from two companies I did want to join, and am now working for one of them.
So in the UK, online websites do work, and jobserve.com completely rocks.
Incidentally, parent poster was entirely right - only two of the (30+) jobs I applied for on Jobserve were posted directly by the company recruiting. The rest were posted by agencies contracted to the recruiting company. This works for me, I can educate the agency about my needs and desires and they help me weed out a lot of unsuitable jobs, saving my time and that of various HR departments throughout the country.
>> I have been attacked on Slashdot as a flag waving, right wing, conservative neonazi, capitalist pig, America right or wrong type and a politically correct, commie pinko, marxist cant spouting anticapitalist lacky. ..for the same bloody post
Which post? You can't make a claim like that and not link to the specific post, so that we can all have a laugh.
>> The people that were being detained, terrorist or not, do not fit that definition. To grant them that legal status would be to dilute its meaning. POW is a very specific legal term and I do not see anything wrong with this administration refusing to use it.
I totally agree. In which case they are civilians, and should be treated as such. They shot at US soldiers? Ok, prosecute them for attempted murder. They plotted to perpetrate various terrorist attacks? Ok, prosecute them for conspiracy.
There are a myriad of laws that would already deal with these people. Use those laws. Give them a fair and open trial, with untainted judges, lawyers and a jury.
Do not lock them up indefinitely just because they refuse to talk to you, because you can't actually prove any wrongdoing, because you just don't like them.
That is what is out of order.
>> Blaming the government for taking more power is rediculous, the government only has the power that we give to them.
Now you're just being naive. The Government passes the laws detailing how much power it is. In the US they are occasionally constrained by the constitution; in other countries not even by that. It's a rare and unusual step for any Government to intentionally reduce its power - such reductions invariably come through mass civil disobedience (violent or otherwise) and not through the standard democratic process.
~Cederic
Re:However, your rights end. . .
on
Cell-Phone Wars
·
· Score: 1
If it's that important for you to take a phone call, sit at home and wait for the call.
Why should I support your mobile phone fetish on my property? Especially if I have big fat signs hanging which state 'no mobile phones'.
You forget one thing: Ferrari's can be beautiful. They can make you cry just by sitting still.
Sure, they're not necessarily the fastest in a straight line, the best handling around a corner, the most fuel efficient or suited for doing your weekly shopping at the supermarket. They still sell a lot though - wonder why.
Incidentally, the Ferrari Enzo pretty well stacks up against any other road-legal production car, the F40 wasn't exactly shabby and Ferrari have a heritage in world motorsport that nobody else can match (including being the current holders of the F1 world championship).
Slashdot Mirror
>> I'm sure few of you would care to see hours of snooker or cricket
You shitting me? That's some of the best TV available.
I've watched probably 15 hours of TV since Friday. Of that, snooker is 10 hours or so, cricket another 3 hours and football the other two. Hours watching everything else: Approximately zero.
Admittedly, this has been unusual compared to my normal fare, cos of the snooker world championships..
>> is it because it's harder to advertise?
obviously not, because the BBC don't display commercial adverts.
Have you any idea how nice it is to watch an entire 30 minute show without a single break?
~ced
Except that I've already paid for all the BBC content. So it's only fair that I get to download it for free, when I choose.
~ced
Actually, no, I find it quite amusing when American soldiers die.
Almost makes up for the Iraqi civilians they keep killing.
Almost.
Yeah, I'm with you on that. I've given the games industry far too much of my cash for games that frankly are horribly substandard, buggy, unplayable or just crap. So I'd rather be able to acquire a playable version of the game, and if it is worth having, go out and buy it.
I spend a significant percentage of my disposable income on computer games already; I'm keen that I get value for that money.
For the record, games I've played this year are: Battlefield 1942, X2, Battlefield Vietnam, Project Gotham Racing II, Halo - all legit purchased copies.
~ced
>> But there is a whole raft of crap that is stuck in films because the "filmmakers" don't think we as an audience will stay focused on the film without someone on screen using "F***" in all of its grammatical forms every 10 seconds. Its unnecessary and shows a lack of creativity on the writers' part.
The thing is, in day to day life every second or third sentence I utter (outside of work) has the word 'fuck', 'shit', 'bollocks' or suchlike in it.
This is how I talk. This is how the people I know talk.
Shit, I watch a movie with someone saying 'shit' or 'fuck' in it, unless it's specially timed for comic or dramatic effect, I don't even notice.
Take Trainspotting. Trust me, people in Scotland do swear like that. This wasn't adding in excessive bad language just to sell the film. Then take your average U rated movie (erm, in the UK U means anybody can watch, including little kids). Apparently when the heroic 8 year old causes a car to run over the evil bad guy, his response is merely 'argh! you pesky brat!'. BULLSHIT. His response is 'SHIT! You little twat!' Personally I'm offended by the sanitisation of the language to suit a younger audience..
Btw, I do tend to swear less at work. I do also sometimes sit and swear continously (usually at my computer) - verbal freedom of expression is a fine alternative to seeking physical release.
~Cederic
he's going to be interested in sex anyway.
perhaps letting him see the odd tit now and again on tv might prevent him from getting a fixation about them, and that will save his future girlfriends a lot of grief.
naked flesh just happens to have no clothes on. by pretending otherwise you're setting up whole new thought patterns in your children.
~cederic
>> Do you believe that Tom Hanks will be happy to have the atrocities of war stripped from Saving Private Ryan?
Not as happy as I'd be if I could get a version of Saving Private Ryan stripped of Tom Hanks.
You absolutely must check in everything before you go home at the end of the day. That way you don't lose anything if your workstation dies.
wtf? I do expect my developers to follow those rules. If you're not following them, you're adding undue unnecessary risk to the project.
Of course, sometimes people break rules. Doesn't invalidate those rules though..
~Ced
actually, I'm reading this, and I'm starving. I haven't eaten since yesterday, my stomach is rumbling and I risk malnutrition if I don't eat soon.
Luckily I'm going to stop for a pizza on the way home, so don't send any charity cheques just yet..
~ced
At the time of writing of the above (i.e. before September last year), she was still going, albeit only just.
She will be mourned by many.
Content of an email I sent to my friends last year, after an event.. well, read:
I just had a fantastic night out. The main attractions were (as the title suggests) Mr Jeff Minter, and some curry.
For those of you who didn't know (or don't care) Jeff Minter is the genius behind games such as Andes Attack, Traxx, Gridrunner, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, Hover Bovver, Tempest 2000, the incomparable Llamatron (best shoot-em-up ever) and my favourite game title of all time, Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time.
The evening started badly for me as I found myself alone at a bar, stone cold sober, stood by the man himself. I swiftly ordered their strongest lager and engaged in what I describe as 'small talk'. A few seconds later Jeff acted like most girls do when I attempt this and desparately sought rescue from random passers-by, eventually finding an event organiser and fleeing towards a Commodore 64 running one of his games.
I should mention, I found out about this by accident. I discovered something advertising curry for a tenner, which in Nottingham is a good deal, even without Jeff Minter thrown in for free. He was the ingredient to make the night perfect. Hero worship, and all that.
Anyway, things kicked off and there were 3-4 hours of general questions from the audience, scripted questions from one of the event organisers, and lots of responses and general rambling from the man himself.
Here are some of the quotes I found highly amusing. Non-Jeff-Minter-Fans, stop reading now
Unmitigated honesty about his own games: "Andes Attack itself was a pile of wank"
After revealing he wrote Gridrunner in just 7 days, "The best week's work I ever did in my life"
On the camels in Attack of the Mutant Camels, "The graphic of the camel looked like two chubby men in a camel suit" (followed up with "Camels just aren't that shape")
After being asked about the complex storyline in one of the cassette inserts for one of his games, "I just like to write bollocks"
Describing how Nullsoft apologised for nicking his feedback technique, "What they didn't apologise for, was stealing my bastard llama as well" - some resentment apparent there.
On hearing that Tempest 3k won CES Game of the Show award, "I'm like, Fucking hell!"
A games company tried to sign him, having obviously done their homework, "They said, 'We'll give you a llama on initial signing, and an option on a yak after six months" (he's since acquired two llamas anyway).
Responding to the question 'Why didn't you just blow it all in the '80s?', "I had nothing to blow, having no beasties at that time" - his continual
references and innuendos to beastiality were comical in the extreme, although I confess I lacked the guts (and indeed, the interest) to ask
whether he'd actually gone that far. He does own at least one (maybe three) sheep (one is 16 years old and called Flossie), a goat, 2 llamas and a dog.
Describing how The Artist Formerly Known As was once interested in some of his work, Jeff described Prince, "He was a very weird geezer actually" - pot, kettle, etc?
Some other random utterances: "Bugger me!", "Yay, have that you bastard", "I'm still no bloody graphic artist", "It gives me a stiffy just thinking about it" (this one in regard to some hardware he's got arriving soon), "I love llama liquid", "My sheep is throbbing", "For total headfuck convenience"
There were some others, but in retrospect they just aren't funny outside of the context they were uttered (not that I'm claiming the ones above were).
Some other interesting info: He's never seen Monsters Inc (amazing given his fur fetish), his favourite film is Bladerunner, and, in a fine quote indeed, "There's nothing wrong with fucking sheep"
Obviously the lager was hitting me hard (not least because I was hitting the lager hard) so when the quiz came about I was in no state to answer it. One question was memorable though: "This is the sound of a Nubian Goat, but what is its problem" - followed by what one must indeed presume is the sound of a Nubian Goat with a problem.
In case you care, its problem was that it was in heat. I leave you with that image.
>> I don't personally remember the bad old days when Linux distros were mailed between developers on stacks of fifty or sixty floppy disks.
Neither do I, and I first installed Linux in '94 or so. File transfer over the Internet was pretty advanced, even then.
~Cederic
Hmm. Is that Outlook Express functionality? I can't find a way to do that in Outlook
Ah well, it's only a few hundred thousand pound if my work PC gets infected - nothing like the personal hassle I'd have if my home one did..
~ced
Turning off the preview panel is completely useless if you subsequently open the message.
How do you know not to open the message? I can almost certainly socially engineer a subject, and probably a From: line that will arouse sufficient interest for you to open an email.
That's all it takes.
Luckily there's a patch already available. Hopefully the corporate IT support where I work have already applied it. Obviously I'm not affected at home as I don't use any Microsoft mail products.
~Cederic
>> the tens of thousands of people that quit looking everyday because they can't find one.
References?
>> So it's better that Americans lose jobs and starve then Indians or Russians?
hell yes.
Make the libraries as ubiquitous and standard as the Java J2SE and J2EE APIs, chuck in a few de facto standard libraries (equivalent status to JUnit and Log4J in Java) and make these available and guaranteed to work on all target platforms, and you'll be as cross platform as I need.
Java is cross platform (most people develop on Windows and deploy on Unix for server-side software) and as much down to the consistency of the libraries as the underlying VM/bytecode support.
~Ced
Hmm. I'm happy to pay for my satellite TV feed because it gives me:
- Live sport. We're talking 2-3 football (soccer) games a week, including every second week at most a match including the team I support. We're talking international footy too, international rugby, and the ODI and test matches in cricket.
- Films. Completely uncut, with no adverts, with several hundred to choose from each month (each film tends to get shown several times during the month). 14 dedicated film channels, showing everything from 8 month old blockbusters to 60 year old classics of the art.
I can't get that level of entertainment anywhere else for so little. Or so conveniently.
Much as I hate Rupert Murdoch, the Sky TV offering in the UK is pretty reasonable value for money.
~Cederic
PC games are still the big players in the online gaming arena.
EQ/DAOC/AO are pulling in millions a month, and have no real console equivalent (don't even try and suggest EQ on the PS2). These tend to work more through social interaction than gameplay.
Quake, UT, BF1942 are providing the gameplay. Quite simply there isn't anything on a console to match the adrenaline rush you can get from these games, every day, for months at a time.
I haven't even mentioned the top online game, Counter Strike. Not seen that on any consoles recently.
Of course, PCs do much more than that. Championship Manager (sells millions of copies a year) is PC based (although a console port is now available), there are a myriad of strategy games better than anything on a console, hard core flight sims are still PC based, and the really really popular played by hundreds of millions of people games are all on the PC. Or do you hate minesweeper and hearts?
Personally I'm happy for developers to take the approach that Rockstar do - develop for the console cash cow, then add in proper mouse support, beef up the graphics and release the game on the PC.
~Cederic
>> developer #1: you know how no one had ever really heard of GTA 1 and 2, but 3 was a great success right?
Actually, I played 1 & 2 at the time they were released. Still have the originals somewhere. Good games, same basic premise as 3, just different perspective.
So they've not just re-used their game engine, they've also re-used their game concept.
All I can really say is, Good. It's a good concept. It's immaculately realised. I'm happy to give these guys my money - they've earned it.
~Cederic
My last three jobs (over an 8 year period) have all come from Jobserve.com - it's nothing short of fantastic.
I was looking for work all through last year, in a seriously depressed market, and only using Jobserve. I was turning down interview offers and turning down jobs at interview, because they weren't what I was after. I also received job offers from two companies I did want to join, and am now working for one of them.
So in the UK, online websites do work, and jobserve.com completely rocks.
Incidentally, parent poster was entirely right - only two of the (30+) jobs I applied for on Jobserve were posted directly by the company recruiting. The rest were posted by agencies contracted to the recruiting company. This works for me, I can educate the agency about my needs and desires and they help me weed out a lot of unsuitable jobs, saving my time and that of various HR departments throughout the country.
~Cederic
>> I have been attacked on Slashdot as a flag waving, right wing, conservative neonazi, capitalist pig, America right or wrong type and a politically correct, commie pinko, marxist cant spouting anticapitalist lacky. . .for the same bloody post
Which post? You can't make a claim like that and not link to the specific post, so that we can all have a laugh.
~Cederic
>> The people that were being detained, terrorist or not, do not fit that definition. To grant them that legal status would be to dilute its meaning. POW is a very specific legal term and I do not see anything wrong with this administration refusing to use it.
I totally agree. In which case they are civilians, and should be treated as such. They shot at US soldiers? Ok, prosecute them for attempted murder. They plotted to perpetrate various terrorist attacks? Ok, prosecute them for conspiracy.
There are a myriad of laws that would already deal with these people. Use those laws. Give them a fair and open trial, with untainted judges, lawyers and a jury.
Do not lock them up indefinitely just because they refuse to talk to you, because you can't actually prove any wrongdoing, because you just don't like them.
That is what is out of order.
>> Blaming the government for taking more power is rediculous, the government only has the power that we give to them.
Now you're just being naive. The Government passes the laws detailing how much power it is. In the US they are occasionally constrained by the constitution; in other countries not even by that. It's a rare and unusual step for any Government to intentionally reduce its power - such reductions invariably come through mass civil disobedience (violent or otherwise) and not through the standard democratic process.
~Cederic
If it's that important for you to take a phone call, sit at home and wait for the call.
Why should I support your mobile phone fetish on my property? Especially if I have big fat signs hanging which state 'no mobile phones'.
Btw, the FCC have no jurisdiction where I live.
~Cederic
You forget one thing: Ferrari's can be beautiful. They can make you cry just by sitting still.
Sure, they're not necessarily the fastest in a straight line, the best handling around a corner, the most fuel efficient or suited for doing your weekly shopping at the supermarket. They still sell a lot though - wonder why.
Incidentally, the Ferrari Enzo pretty well stacks up against any other road-legal production car, the F40 wasn't exactly shabby and Ferrari have a heritage in world motorsport that nobody else can match (including being the current holders of the F1 world championship).
~Cederic wants a Ferrari, even if they do suck