Re: hardware suckz
On Mar 26, 2006, at 8:55 PM, Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 01:50 AM Thursday 3/23/2006, Dave Land wrote: On Mar 22, 2006, at 11:05 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Being pretty much in 1-1 correspondence with machine language, it also offers you the opportunity to get into places you probably shouldn't be and mess things up royally, even (in fact, usually) unintentionally . . . Bottom line: this thread is misnamed. Software suckz. I thought of changing it, but you know the power of tradition . . . And the demand for backward compatibility Yes. At work recently, I was on a project where the goal was humorously described as change how it works, but don't change any of the files. Because, you see, people already know what was in the files. Dave The Ex-Files Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 01:50 AM Thursday 3/23/2006, Dave Land wrote: On Mar 22, 2006, at 11:05 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Being pretty much in 1-1 correspondence with machine language, it also offers you the opportunity to get into places you probably shouldn't be and mess things up royally, even (in fact, usually) unintentionally . . . Bottom line: this thread is misnamed. Software suckz. I thought of changing it, but you know the power of tradition . . . And the demand for backward compatibility Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
At 07:15 AM Friday 3/24/2006, Alberto Monteiro wrote: I give up. My backup HD is fully readable and writable from Linux, all auxiliary windoze programs can read it, but evil windoze itself keeps giving me the stupid and meaningless error Data error (cyclic redundancy check). I have lost too much time. Time to FR. But since I will waste precious time with (mini-)backup, F, and R, I will change the crappy HD for something more decent. Any ideas about good HDs? So far so good with these two Hitachi 500GB drives I installed last fall. If you have lots of space-hogging files (or just don't want to run out of space anytime soon), I can recommend them. I've also had good luck with the Maxtor drives I've bought and installed myself (currently running a 300GB I bought last year and the 80GB one I took out of the old machine which I had been using since IIRC spring of 2001 and had most of the stuff I used in astronomy classes for those 4 years or so). OTOH, IIRC the two primary drives which came with machines and later failed (the last one within a week) were also Maxtor, FWIW . . . --Ronn! :) Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance... UNDER GOD. Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too? -- Red Skelton (Someone asked me to change my .sig quote back, so I did.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
On 3/22/06, Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Fool wrote: Fat32 There's your problem _Right There_. Unless you are using some version of win9x that needs to be able to see this partition, you need to be using NTFS. It's better in every way. And you can compress NTFS drives. See if you can't dig up an old version of scandisk.exe or norton utilities DOS version. But NTFS is not visible to Linux. If Linux did it, then Linux can fix it :-P But I still think it was not a software bug, but a hardware bug. Alberto Monteiro Actually Linux can read NTFS, and fairly well. I once helped a friend set it up so he could listen to his music collection - but the real problem is that you have to go in via the command line (AFAIK), and Windows is *extremely* hostile to CLIs, what with all the special characters and spaces in the file names. Not to mention we couldn't seem to get tab completion to work, so it was manual copy-paste-quoting. Not fun. As for writing, the devs have it working, but they caution users that it is very much alpha and that there are drives that have been screwed up by being written to. Not something I would use, but fortunately, it is not a problem I will face anytime soon. ~Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
At 01:50 AM Thursday 3/23/2006, Dave Land wrote: On Mar 22, 2006, at 11:05 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Being pretty much in 1-1 correspondence with machine language, it also offers you the opportunity to get into places you probably shouldn't be and mess things up royally, even (in fact, usually) unintentionally . . . Bottom line: this thread is misnamed. Software suckz. I thought of changing it, but you know the power of tradition . . . --Ronn! :) Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance... UNDER GOD. Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too? -- Red Skelton (Someone asked me to change my .sig quote back, so I did.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
maru dubshinki wrote: Actually Linux can read NTFS, and fairly well. I once helped a friend set it up so he could listen to his music collection - but the real problem is that you have to go in via the command line (AFAIK), and Windows is *extremely* hostile to CLIs, what with all the special characters and spaces in the file names. Not to mention we couldn't seem to get tab completion to work, so it was manual copy-paste-quoting. Not fun. If this was from Linux, couldn't you have bundled together each directory -- or even large directory tree -- you wanted to keep into a tarball on the working Linux drive? That would have at least saved a lot of individual file copying. __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .. http://www.brin-l.org Science Fiction-themed online store . http://www.sloan3d.com/store Chmeee's 3D Objects http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .. http://www.sloansteady.com Software Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans . http://www.sloan3d.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
On 3/23/06, Steve Sloan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: maru dubshinki wrote: Actually Linux can read NTFS, and fairly well. I once helped a friend set it up so he could listen to his music collection - but the real problem is that you have to go in via the command line (AFAIK), and Windows is *extremely* hostile to CLIs, what with all the special characters and spaces in the file names. Not to mention we couldn't seem to get tab completion to work, so it was manual copy-paste-quoting. Not fun. If this was from Linux, couldn't you have bundled together each directory -- or even large directory tree -- you wanted to keep into a tarball on the working Linux drive? That would have at least saved a lot of individual file copying. __ Steve Sloan . Huntsville, Alabama = [EMAIL PROTECTED] Well, yes we could have. But this was a dual-boot system (obviously), and there was barely enough space on the Linux partition for Ubuntu and a reasonable selection of extra programs. So ~Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
On Mar 22, 2006, at 11:07 PM, Alberto Monteiro wrote: My backup HD seems to be corrupted under game mode [Windows XP], giving an error message [in Portuguese] that probably translates to: Data error (cyclic redundancy check) It's a MAXTOR, and it is functional in Linux. I _may_ have hit the computer the last time I switched to game mode, prior to the error. Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Spinrite might do it, it's a dos thing. Don't have a copy handy unfortunately, my windows stuff is all in Cyprus (and I'm in Oz still with my iBook...). Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
Charlie Bell wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Spinrite might do it, it's a dos thing. Don't have a copy handy unfortunately, my windows stuff is all in Cyprus (and I'm in Oz still with my iBook...). Just as curiosity, I checked the spinrite site. How can this recovery HD software cost _more_ than the price of a new HD? Are they insane? Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
On Mar 23, 2006, at 12:00 AM, Alberto Monteiro wrote: Charlie Bell wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Spinrite might do it, it's a dos thing. Don't have a copy handy unfortunately, my windows stuff is all in Cyprus (and I'm in Oz still with my iBook...). Just as curiosity, I checked the spinrite site. How can this recovery HD software cost _more_ than the price of a new HD? Are they insane? Wrong question. The correct question is this: Does it cost more than the value of the data on the borked hdd? :) Hardward is cheap, yes. Data can be irreplaceable. It's all over the edonkey network if you want to try it out, I just had a look. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] Charlie Bell wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Spinrite might do it, it's a dos thing. Don't have a copy handy unfortunately, my windows stuff is all in Cyprus (and I'm in Oz still with my iBook...). Just as curiosity, I checked the spinrite site. How can this recovery HD software cost _more_ than the price of a new HD? Are they insane? Did toy try using chkdsk.exe? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
The Fool wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Did you try using chkdsk.exe? Yes, but it was useless, like any other Windows XP resident (evil) tool. They either repeat the meaningless error message, or recomend FR. I will[*] try using Linux tools like dosfsck - the HD is still usable for Linux, so probably Linux can fix it without loss of data. Alberto Monteiro [*] the home computer has the problem, and I am using the work computer. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Did you try using chkdsk.exe? Yes, but it was useless, like any other Windows XP resident (evil) tool. They either repeat the meaningless error message, or recomend FR. I will[*] try using Linux tools like dosfsck - the HD is still usable for Linux, so probably Linux can fix it without loss of data. Alberto Monteiro [*] the home computer has the problem, and I am using the work computer. Is the HD partition FAT, Fat32, NTFS or other? And shouldn't you be ysung Windows 2000 or win98SE for your 'game computer'? XP adds nothing but heartache and errors to a game-machine. You should always keep your data (games, programs, etc.) on a different partition (or hard disk) than your OS. If you can access your data in linux, move it to a different partition, and reinstall (this time windows 2000). ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
The Fool wrote: Is the HD partition FAT, Fat32, NTFS or other? Fat32 And shouldn't you be ysung Windows 2000 or win98SE for your 'game computer'? XP adds nothing but heartache and errors to a game-machine. I bought the computer with Windows XP. You should always keep your data (games, programs, etc.) on a different partition (or hard disk) than your OS. But the data is safe. I just don't want to have the trouble to reinstall a lot of things, mainly games like Sims 2, that take an enormous time with boring CD-switch. The XP OS is in a different physical HD. If you can access your data in linux, move it to a different partition, and reinstall (this time windows 2000). I could do it, but it would take too much time, because there's more to save than free space [isn't this some Law of Informatics? Data expands to consume all available disk space and more?] I would have to select which files to save, which to abandon, which games to reinstall after the format. Again, data is safe [I am backup-paranoid: my problem is that sometimes undead files reappear and I have to slay them] but I don't want to lose the enormous time it would take me to FR. Specially since all the data is there, Linux can access it, just Windows is blind to it. Hmmm... Could it be that somehow this is not a Windows bug or hardware bug but a _Linux bug_? Somehow Linux turned the partition from Windows-visible to Windows-invisible? Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Is the HD partition FAT, Fat32, NTFS or other? Fat32 There's your problem _Right There_. Unless you are using some version of win9x that needs to be able to see this partition, you need to be using NTFS. It's better in every way. And you can compress NTFS drives. See if you can't dig up an old version of scandisk.exe or norton utilities DOS version. And shouldn't you be usung Windows 2000 or win98SE for your 'game computer'? XP adds nothing but heartache and errors to a game-machine. I bought the computer with Windows XP. Dump XP and install 2000. You should always keep your data (games, programs, etc.) on a different partition (or hard disk) than your OS. But the data is safe. I just don't want to have the trouble to reinstall a lot of things, mainly games like Sims 2, that take an enormous time with boring CD-switch. Boo hoo. You can't take the time to reinstall all tour games. Wh. The XP OS is in a different physical HD. Dump it, reformat as a compressed NTFS drive and install 2000. If you can access your data in linux, move it to a different partition, and reinstall (this time windows 2000). I could do it, but it would take too much time, because there's more to save than free space [isn't this some Law of Informatics? Data expands to consume all available disk space and more?] NTFS drives are compressable. I would have to select which files to save, which to abandon, which games to reinstall after the format. Format the OS drive as compressed NTFS, move the data from your old partition, format that drive as a compressedd NTFS partition and install 2000. Again, data is safe [I am backup-paranoid: my problem is that sometimes undead files reappear and I have to slay them] but I don't want to lose the enormous time it would take me to FR. Specially since all the data is there, Linux can access it, just Windows is blind to it. Hmmm... Could it be that somehow this is not a Windows bug or hardware bug but a _Linux bug_? Somehow Linux turned the partition from Windows-visible to Windows-invisible? Yes. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
The Fool wrote: Fat32 There's your problem _Right There_. Unless you are using some version of win9x that needs to be able to see this partition, you need to be using NTFS. It's better in every way. And you can compress NTFS drives. See if you can't dig up an old version of scandisk.exe or norton utilities DOS version. But NTFS is not visible to Linux. Dump XP and install 2000. I don't want to buy a 2000. But the data is safe. I just don't want to have the trouble to reinstall a lot of things, mainly games like Sims 2, that take an enormous time with boring CD-switch. Boo hoo. You can't take the time to reinstall all tour games. Wh. No. English is not my mother tongue, but it seems that _want_ is not _can_ :-P The XP OS is in a different physical HD. Dump it, reformat as a compressed NTFS drive and install 2000. This is the worst case scenario! I would have to acquire another buggy OS and then have Windows/Linux totally separated. Hmmm... Could it be that somehow this is not a Windows bug or hardware bug but a _Linux bug_? Somehow Linux turned the partition from Windows-visible to Windows-invisible? Yes. If Linux did it, then Linux can fix it :-P But I still think it was not a software bug, but a hardware bug. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Fat32 There's your problem _Right There_. Unless you are using some version of win9x that needs to be able to see this partition, you need to be using NTFS. It's better in every way. And you can compress NTFS drives. See if you can't dig up an old version of scandisk.exe or norton utilities DOS version. But NTFS is not visible to Linux. I'm _sure_ there are versions of programs in specific linux distros that do understand NTFS. Ask some of the more serious linux gurus to help you (I'm sure there's a newsgroup that can help you set it up right). Dump XP and install 2000. I don't want to buy a 2000. Who does? But the data is safe. I just don't want to have the trouble to reinstall a lot of things, mainly games like Sims 2, that take an enormous time with boring CD-switch. Boo hoo. You can't take the time to reinstall all your games. Wh. No. English is not my mother tongue, but it seems that _want_ is not _can_ :-P The XP OS is in a different physical HD. Dump it, reformat as a compressed NTFS drive and install 2000. This is the worst case scenario! I would have to acquire another buggy OS and then have Windows/Linux totally separated. Best case scenario. Windows 2000 has fewer problems than XP, has less garbage tacked on, less bloat, less anonying changes, and greater compatablity. It's always better to keep your O/S's seperated, and your data separated. Hmmm... Could it be that somehow this is not a Windows bug or hardware bug but a _Linux bug_? Somehow Linux turned the partition from Windows-visible to Windows-invisible? Yes. If Linux did it, then Linux can fix it :-P Bssst. But I still think it was not a software bug, but a hardware bug. Fat32 = Dos Norton Utilities ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
The Fool wrote: But NTFS is not visible to Linux. I'm _sure_ there are versions of programs in specific linux distros that do understand NTFS. Ask some of the more serious linux gurus to help you (I'm sure there's a newsgroup that can help you set it up right). Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) My experience with Linux has some moments of frustration, because it seems that 80% of packages don't work. Specifically, after I have a working distro, then 80% of the new stuff I want to add has severe bugs that make them (it?) incompatible. Also, I never found a newsgroup with gurus that could help me. All my problems were analysed, solutions were proposed, but they seldom worked. So I won't even try to see NTFS in Linux. Even much simpler things, like glpk or tux racer, don't work. End of Linux bashing - OTOH, the things that work are really great, with many possibilities for intelligent design [oops...] and learning. Right now, my hobby has been learning perl. It's frustrating, because I know so many different languages that learning a new one gives little pleasure - there's no psychological reward for learning a difficult thing :-) Maybe I should challenge myself to _teach_ perl to my kids... Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: But NTFS is not visible to Linux. I'm _sure_ there are versions of programs in specific linux distros that do understand NTFS. Ask some of the more serious linux gurus to help you (I'm sure there's a newsgroup that can help you set it up right). Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) Never a bad thing. My experience with Linux has some moments of frustration, because it seems that 80% of packages don't work. Specifically, after I have a working distro, then 80% of the new stuff I want to add has severe bugs that make them (it?) incompatible. And people wonder why I don't sing the praises of linux. Also, I never found a newsgroup with gurus that could help me. All my problems were analysed, solutions were proposed, but they seldom worked. Funny I never had that problem with the microsoft newsgroups I used. So I won't even try to see NTFS in Linux. Even much simpler things, like glpk or tux racer, don't work. Thoeretically if you can get wine working you can run much better software designed for...windows. I've seen NTFS functionality with older versions of caldera (SCO) linux among others. It exists. End of Linux bashing - OTOH, the things that work are really great, with many possibilities for intelligent design [oops...] and learning. I'll reiterate that I can have uptimes of 6 months without crashes in windows NT 4.0sp6 and windows2000sp4. I can have upwards of 60 separate Internet explorer sessions going, for literally months, without any crashes whatsoever. I'ts about knowing what you doing. Right now, my hobby has been learning perl. It's frustrating, because I know so many different languages that learning a new one gives little pleasure - there's no psychological reward for learning a difficult thing :-) Maybe I should challenge myself to _teach_ perl to my kids... Write your own c++ compiler that has built in strings, no buffer overflow flaws (no evil printf like functions), built in lex, and yacc, and perl-like functionality. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
The Fool wrote: Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) Never a bad thing. Yes, because it keeps our criticism, not because Linux is worse than the standard PC-alternative :-P Also, I never found a newsgroup with gurus that could help me. All my problems were analysed, solutions were proposed, but they seldom worked. Funny I never had that problem with the microsoft newsgroups I used. But I could _never_ get any satisfactory solution to windows problems that didn't boil down to: (a) FR or (b) buy or get a pirate copy of a very expensive software End of Linux bashing - OTOH, the things that work are really great, with many possibilities for intelligent design [oops...] and learning. I'll reiterate that I can have uptimes of 6 months without crashes in windows NT 4.0sp6 and windows2000sp4. I can have upwards of 60 separate Internet explorer sessions going, for literally months, without any crashes whatsoever. It's about knowing what you doing. Or it's about getting very expensive software? BTW, most of the dual things that I do with my computer are _many_ times faster with Linux than with Windows [except boot and reset]. Even things are designed for windows, like games in Flash, run faster in Linux - my 6-year-old once complained that a game was too fast for him on Linux, before he got the knack to win it. Windows sometimes seems horribly slow. I don't know what the damned thing is doing. Maybe it's compensating the faster boot :-) Write your own c++ compiler that has built in strings, no buffer overflow flaws (no evil printf like functions), built in lex, and yacc, and perl-like functionality. The problem with those projects is that I can't get motivated by them. Aeons ago, I like to write games, but now I look at the games I wrote with nostalgia - I can't get anyone to play those dumb text interfaces. And graphic programming requires too much effort for a meagre outcome. Even a Strip Tic-Tac-Toe would be too complex to be worth writing. Ok, I think I have a project worth writing: gnuchess is too strong, and there's no way to weaken its play. xboard is the CGI to gnuchess, and it enables an _other_ chess program to play. So maybe I should write a chess program that plays _random_ moves, as a challenging chess oponent to my 6-year-old :-) I could beat all computer chess programs up to about 1990 or so. By then the match was tough, but now with gnuchess I can only win by cheating. Maybe a windows-gnuchess port would be a beatable opponent :-) Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) Never a bad thing. Yes, because it keeps our criticism, not because Linux is worse than the standard PC-alternative :-P But 99% of open source progams outside of the the top 30 are terrible, horrble, craptackularly bad. Also, I never found a newsgroup with gurus that could help me. All my problems were analysed, solutions were proposed, but they seldom worked. Funny I never had that problem with the microsoft newsgroups I used. But I could _never_ get any satisfactory solution to windows problems that didn't boil down to: (a) FR or (b) buy or get a pirate copy of a very expensive software You gotta know the right people in the right newsgroup. End of Linux bashing - OTOH, the things that work are really great, with many possibilities for intelligent design [oops...] and learning. I'll reiterate that I can have uptimes of 6 months without crashes in windows NT 4.0sp6 and windows2000sp4. I can have upwards of 60 separate Internet explorer sessions going, for literally months, without any crashes whatsoever. It's about knowing what you doing. Or it's about getting very expensive software? Like? (I got Vc++ for $100 and that came with NT 4.0 (~'$299 value' at the time), and VB for $100 and thats it). BTW, most of the dual things that I do with my computer are _many_ times faster with Linux than with Windows [except boot and reset]. Even things are designed for windows, like games in Flash, run faster in Linux - my 6-year-old once complained that a game was too fast for him on Linux, before he got the knack to win it. Windows sometimes seems horribly slow. I don't know what the damned thing is doing. Maybe it's compensating the faster boot :-) It's running a whole bunch of services that you can turn off, like indexing service, and probably some others (office), which don't really help you very often. You can also use task manager to see which programs are running and using what percent of the cpu at any given time. Any game that doesn't have built in timing isn't a very well written game. Any game that's using Flash is probably pure $h!t anyway. Anything run in browser is going to run like $h!t because of Java$h!t. Write your own c++ compiler that has built in strings, no buffer overflow flaws (no evil printf like functions), built in lex, and yacc, and perl-like functionality. The problem with those projects is that I can't get motivated by them. Aeons ago, I like to write games, but now I look at You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. the games I wrote with nostalgia - I can't get anyone to play those dumb text interfaces. And graphic programming requires too much effort for a meagre outcome. Even a Strip Tic-Tac-Toe would be too complex to be worth writing. What tic-tack-toe logic would be difficult? Seems like their would only be about 10 significant patterns you'd need to match. Ok, I think I have a project worth writing: gnuchess is too strong, and there's no way to weaken its play. xboard is the CGI to gnuchess, and it enables an _other_ chess program to play. So maybe I should write a chess program that plays _random_ moves, as a challenging chess oponent to my 6-year-old :-) I could beat all computer chess programs up to about 1990 or so. By then the match was tough, but now with gnuchess I can only win by cheating. Maybe a windows-gnuchess port would be a beatable opponent :-) Find an old board game that noones made a version of. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
The Fool wrote: Yes, because it keeps our criticism, not because Linux is worse than the standard PC-alternative :-P But 99% of open source progams outside of the the top 30 are terrible, horrble, craptackularly bad. Sturgeon Law Squared? 99% of everything is terrible, horrible, craptackularly bad. I wonder if as the Age of Information procceeds, this Law will also procceed to 99.9%, 99.99%, and so on. Or it's about getting very expensive software? Like? (I got Vc++ for $100 and that came with NT 4.0 (~'$299 value' at the time), and VB for $100 and thats it). Too much - but if the barrel of oil increases more I may think otherwise :-) When I bought The Sims 2, it cost me about $33. Now it's about $50 - our local currency increased its value relative to the dollar, but the prices didn't go down :-( Any game that doesn't have built in timing isn't a very well written game. Any game that's using Flash is probably pure $h!t anyway. Notice the target user: a 6 year old boy! Anything run in browser is going to run like $h!t because of Java$h!t. Java is better under Linux than under Windows. There's even a Gnu Java compiler, that is faster than Sun's. The problem with those projects is that I can't get motivated by them. Aeons ago, I like to write games, but now I look at You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. Or I could try to code in intercal or brainfuck, but I am not that crazy :-) Even a Strip Tic-Tac-Toe would be too complex to be worth writing. What tic-tack-toe logic would be difficult? Seems like their would only be about 10 significant patterns you'd need to match. No, the tic-tac-toe logic would be simple, but the _strip_ part would be difficult (CGI programming suckz). The Strip Tic-Tac-Toe project that I planned would have several opponents: one (male) would never lose, another would play random, another would always score a X-X-X when possible but otherwise play random, another would always defend a X-X-X when possible etc, and another would start playing random and learn with every loss (maybe start with a young woman and grow old with learning). Ok, maybe I will write it to learn perl + CGI :-) Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: Yes, because it keeps our criticism, not because Linux is worse than the standard PC-alternative :-P But 99% of open source progams outside of the the top 30 are terrible, horrble, craptackularly bad. Sturgeon Law Squared? 99% of everything is terrible, horrible, craptackularly bad. I wonder if as the Age of Information procceeds, this Law will also procceed to 99.9%, 99.99%, and so on. Probably. Or it's about getting very expensive software? Like? (I got Vc++ for $100 and that came with NT 4.0 (~'$299 value' at the time), and VB for $100 and thats it). Too much - but if the barrel of oil increases more I may think otherwise :-) When I bought The Sims 2, it cost me about $33. Now it's about $50 - our local currency increased its value relative to the dollar, but the prices didn't go down :-( I have original versions of final fantasy, final fantasy II, final fantasy III, secret of mana xenogears, all of which are very hard to find and expensive now. Any game that doesn't have built in timing isn't a very well written game. Any game that's using Flash is probably pure $h!t anyway. Notice the target user: a 6 year old boy! Bad timing is still bad programming. Anything run in browser is going to run like $h!t because of Java$h!t. Java is better under Linux than under Windows. There's even a Gnu Java compiler, that is faster than Sun's. The problem with those projects is that I can't get motivated by them. Aeons ago, I like to write games, but now I look at You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. Or I could try to code in intercal or brainfvck, but I am not that crazy :-) Simpler than that. Even a Strip Tic-Tac-Toe would be too complex to be worth writing. What tic-tack-toe logic would be difficult? Seems like their would only be about 10 significant patterns you'd need to match. No, the tic-tac-toe logic would be simple, but the _strip_ part would be difficult (CGI programming suckz). I've written the interface to several 2d-board games and it wasnt that difficult. The Strip Tic-Tac-Toe project that I planned would have several opponents: one (male) would never lose, another would play random, another would always score a X-X-X when possible but otherwise play random, another would always defend a X-X-X when possible etc, and another would start playing random and learn with every loss (maybe start with a young woman and grow old with learning). Ok, maybe I will write it to learn perl + CGI :-) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
At 07:00 AM Wednesday 3/22/2006, Alberto Monteiro wrote: Charlie Bell wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Spinrite might do it, it's a dos thing. Don't have a copy handy unfortunately, my windows stuff is all in Cyprus (and I'm in Oz still with my iBook...). Just as curiosity, I checked the spinrite site. How can this recovery HD software cost _more_ than the price of a new HD? (Someone else may have answered by now.) To a business frex which may go out of business if the customer files or proprietary product information on the disk are irretrievably lost, the data is far more valuable than the couple of hundred dollars a typical hard drive costs. Are they insane? They know what their product/service is worth to the right client. You judge. --Ronn! :) Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance... UNDER GOD. Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too? -- Red Skelton (Someone asked me to change my .sig quote back, so I did.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
On 22 Mar 2006 at 11:16, The Fool wrote: From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: But NTFS is not visible to Linux. I'm _sure_ there are versions of programs in specific linux distros that do understand NTFS. Ask some of the more serious linux gurus to help you (I'm sure there's a newsgroup that can help you set it up right). Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) Never a bad thing. My experience with Linux has some moments of frustration, because it seems that 80% of packages don't work. Specifically, after I have a working distro, then 80% of the new stuff I want to add has severe bugs that make them (it?) incompatible. And people wonder why I don't sing the praises of linux. How about Open Office? So I won't even try to see NTFS in Linux. Even much simpler things, like glpk or tux racer, don't work. Thoeretically if you can get wine working you can run much better software designed for...windows. Although I have more luck running DOS programs under Linux than I do under DOS these days. Heck, than I did running them under DOS ever. I have a really handy CD which lets me boot Linux and a 2GB FAT partition for that stuff. AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
On 22 Mar 2006 at 10:07, Alberto Monteiro wrote: My backup HD seems to be corrupted under game mode [Windows XP], giving an error message [in Portuguese] that probably translates to: Data error (cyclic redundancy check) It's a MAXTOR, and it is functional in Linux. I _may_ have hit the computer the last time I switched to game mode, prior to the error. Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Maybe... But I for one would be making sure my saves were backed up, even if you can currently read them under Linux. You're better off making a partition of say 2GB for the XP boot drive, incidently, even if the games and so on are installed on a FAT32 drive. (I dual boot XP and 2000, 'cos I have a few programs which are XP- only now...) Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
From: Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 22 Mar 2006 at 11:16, The Fool wrote: From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Fool wrote: But NTFS is not visible to Linux. I'm _sure_ there are versions of programs in specific linux distros that do understand NTFS. Ask some of the more serious linux gurus to help you (I'm sure there's a newsgroup that can help you set it up right). Now you force me to do a little Linux bashing :-) Never a bad thing. My experience with Linux has some moments of frustration, because it seems that 80% of packages don't work. Specifically, after I have a working distro, then 80% of the new stuff I want to add has severe bugs that make them (it?) incompatible. And people wonder why I don't sing the praises of linux. How about Open Office? I barely ever even use office95 as it is. I'm not the person to ask that. So I won't even try to see NTFS in Linux. Even much simpler things, like glpk or tux racer, don't work. Thoeretically if you can get wine working you can run much better software designed for...windows. Although I have more luck running DOS programs under Linux than I do under DOS these days. Heck, than I did running them under DOS ever. I have a really handy CD which lets me boot Linux and a 2GB FAT partition for that stuff. It's about finding ways to shove drivers and things into small amounts high memory. As long as Darklands and few emulators work, it's all good. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
On Mar 22, 2006, at 4:07 AM, Alberto Monteiro wrote: My backup HD seems to be corrupted under game mode [Windows XP], giving an error message [in Portuguese] that probably translates to: Data error (cyclic redundancy check) It's a MAXTOR, and it is functional in Linux. I _may_ have hit the computer the last time I switched to game mode, prior to the error. I think that this _may_ have contributed to your problem. It's never a good idea to use violence to solve computer problems. They have *really* good self-defense mechanisms: First, they're often made of metal with sharp corners, which can cut or bruise mushy human beings. Second, they are prone to break in unfortunate ways as a result of having been hit, leading the human to come whining to his useless on-line friends about how he broke his computer. I'd love to help, but my Powerbook just runs and runs and runs, at least in part because I treat it like a sharp-cornered metal easily-broken thing. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
On Mar 22, 2006, at 11:58 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 07:00 AM Wednesday 3/22/2006, Alberto Monteiro wrote: Charlie Bell wrote: Is there any way to recover the HD for Windows XP without FR? Spinrite might do it, it's a dos thing. Don't have a copy handy unfortunately, my windows stuff is all in Cyprus (and I'm in Oz still with my iBook...). Just as curiosity, I checked the spinrite site. How can this recovery HD software cost _more_ than the price of a new HD? (Someone else may have answered by now.) To a business frex which may go out of business if the customer files or proprietary product information on the disk are irretrievably lost, the data is far more valuable than the couple of hundred dollars a typical hard drive costs. Are they insane? They know what their product/service is worth to the right client. You judge. David Pogue recently did a story on DriveSavers, a company that does data recovery from soaked, smashed, bashed, burned or _may_-have- been-hit hard drives. The repairs to his drive cost about $2700. Pogue could have bought himself a couple of laptop computers for that price, leave alone a hard drive. For a game drive, the cost is the inconvenience of having to locate the original CDs (and their licenses -- you no doubt bought them fair and square) and reinstall, then kick a bunch of AI butt to get back to where you were. I'm about 70% of the way through Need for Speed Underground 2, and you better believe I keep a backup of my game. I out-drove a helluva lot of AIs to get where I am :-). For a business drive, the cost is whatever you think your career is worth. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
The Fool wrote: You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. ASM? Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
At 06:24 PM Wednesday 3/22/2006, Julia Thompson wrote: The Fool wrote: You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. ASM? Julia ASseMbly language . . . --Ronn! :) Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance... UNDER GOD. Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too? -- Red Skelton (Someone asked me to change my .sig quote back, so I did.) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 06:24 PM Wednesday 3/22/2006, Julia Thompson wrote: The Fool wrote: You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. ASM? Julia ASseMbly language . . . Thanks, I thought that might be it. Yeah, assembly is kick-ass. (I have no idea how to program in it, but I've seen some pretty sweet performance enhancements just by tweaking in assembly for crucial bits. Seen benchmarks and stuff. Cool.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: hardware suckz
At 10:29 PM Wednesday 3/22/2006, Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 06:24 PM Wednesday 3/22/2006, Julia Thompson wrote: The Fool wrote: You don't do it because it is easy. You do it because it is hard. If you are really looking for some hardcore programmming to do as a hobby try starting here: http://romhacking.net or http://www.rpgone.net or http://agtp.romhack.net/ None of that sissy c++. All hardcore ASM. ASM? Julia ASseMbly language . . . Thanks, I thought that might be it. Yeah, assembly is kick-ass. (I have no idea how to program in it, but I've seen some pretty sweet performance enhancements just by tweaking in assembly for crucial bits. Seen benchmarks and stuff. Cool.) Julia Being pretty much in 1-1 correspondence with machine language, it also offers you the opportunity to get into places you probably shouldn't be and mess things up royally, even (in fact, usually) unintentionally . . . I may have told this story before, but bear with me: when I was a freshman, the university had rather recently gone to a 4-1-4 schedule, making the month of January a mini-term during which they intended to offer classes not offered during the regular fall, spring, or summer terms. (By the time a couple of more years had passed, it turned out that what most students wanted from the January mini-term was an opportunity to take one of the courses that the university required everybody to take outside their majors and get it out of the way instead of taking something to broaden one's horizons.) Many of the freshman math majors took a course in constructing synthetic proofs. Of course, as a double major, only one of which was math, and a polygonal peg of some order from the beginning, I took the course on molecular orbital theory offered by the chemistry department. (I may have mentioned at some time in the past that until I was I think about a sophomore in high school I was considering majoring in chemistry.) The idea of MO theory in a nutshell is that although we cannot get an exact solution to the Schrödinger equation in the general case (for the same reason we cannot get an exact solution to the general 3-body problem, much less the general n-body problem, in celestial mechanics), we can use algebra to get approximate solutions which allow us to the electrons in the various orbitals in the individual atoms interact when the atoms bond together to make a molecule. Part of the process involves finding the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a matrix. The dimensions of the matrix increase as the number of atoms in the molecule increases, and even though the matrices tend to be rather sparse (almost, but not quite, in the case of many molecules tridiagonal), doing the eigenanalysis by hand gets old pretty fast. At the time (Jan 72), I had never touched a computer. So, although it wasn't required for that class, I learned enough FORTRAN to make some attempt to do calculations for some larger, more interesting molecules than we had covered in class. Some of the others in that class already knew more about programming, and one guy in particular came up with a pretty good program (better than anything I came up with). A year or so later, and I had been learning a bit more about programming on my own (including going to an off-campus source to get the standard book on assembly language programming for the machine we had and going through it on my own), and so I was one of the lab assistants qualified to have a key to the campus computer room and sit down there in the evenings and answer any questions anyone taking any computer course might have. :P The guy I mentioned who had written the program during that mini-term MO class was taking the assembly language class that semester. Every time he came in to run his solution to one of the assigned projects, the first thing I did was to I open the desk drawer and get out the so-called cold-start card (the punched card which when run through the card reader would re-boot the computer) and have it ready, because every time he ran his attempted solution, the machine died an unnatural death. The really strange thing was that I could never figure out what he had in his program which caused it, no matter how much I looked at his listing, the console display of no-longer blinking lights that told where it had stopped, etc., and neither could anyone else. To cause the problem he must have been telling it to access something he shouldn't or to overwrite some location he shouldn't have been in or something of that nature, but as I said afaik no one was ever able to figure out just where he was going astray. I dunno if he ever got that program to run, although apparently no one else in the class had problems, or at least their problems did not cause the machine to lock up _every_ time they tried their program . . . --Ronn! :)
Re: hardware suckz
On Mar 22, 2006, at 11:05 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Being pretty much in 1-1 correspondence with machine language, it also offers you the opportunity to get into places you probably shouldn't be and mess things up royally, even (in fact, usually) unintentionally . . . Bottom line: this thread is misnamed. Software suckz. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
