steauengeglase

That was true for games that came out prior to mass dialup and then mass broadband. Since then I have an ever increasing stack of games (and other software) that are unplayable as companies decided that keeping the auth servers up was too expensive (or the company folded, the IPs were sold off and the auth servers brought down). Either way, that disc is pretty much a meaningless waste of space now. BTW, anyone want this awesome System Shock 2 coaster?

I've had this problem with almost ever pre-2.5 resource. On the plus side, the UI is a tad bit more intuitive, so what would have taken a half hour to find is now just a trip to the bathroom and the inevitable "Oh wait, I bet it's under XYZ, DUH!" moment.

We should probably ask Jeff Gannon how that turned out.

Don't forget market saturation. We are nearing the point where we are getting all of the customers we are going to get. I'm sure there are one or two broadband holdouts clinging to dial-up or just going to the public library, but largely, telcos and cablecos already have all of the customers they are going to get. In essence, the field is dead and utterly useless to investors who expect a large, fast, quick return.

As far as decay, this has been a long term thing. Outside of major urban centers where people rely on public transit, most of America is based around car culture. To sum it up, Main Street USA didn't die because of big box retailers, it died because the parking sucked and the affluent went where their cars took them. If the buildings are ratty, we build newer, cheaper ones and drive to them.

This is nothing recent, it started in the 50s and 60s with white flight and has been on a slow, slide downhill ever since because of cheaper constructions methods and cheap gas. Take those two things away and Americans just might go back to monolith building, if for no other reason that the need to work.

Can't it be re-released under dual licenses? There seems to be plenty of other software out there that has done this.

While we are at it, don't forget about http://academicearth.org/. They've done a great job of wrangling all of these sites together. Something nice about being able to jump from circuit design at MIT to Civil War lectures at Yale in just a couple clicks.

What is this "general news" you speak of? Between the hundreds of bookmarks on tech related articles, piles of RSS feeds, stacks of programming books around me, constant work and a single blog for local news on the state legislature, I can't remember when I last had time for "general news". Maybe Bush's 6th or 7th year in office? Back then I'd spend at least an hour on NYT. Now with the work load of two others I just don't have the time.

As far as HN's format, more "hacker" articles would be nice. I enjoy when my jaw drops at the thought of interesting or clever solution to a problem.

All I know is that I'd hurt someone for a USRP.

I really wish I could remember who said it, but it always comes to mind when I read a story like this. "He who stands against the law shall die, for the law is god." [That should probably be an upper-case "G".]

Essentially that is this man's crime. From a judge's perspective, he didn't really say that the law in question was invalid or that he was unjustly persecuted, but that the authority of law was invalid. From the judge's seat he might as well have been a murder arguing that murder was OK by killing someone in the courtroom. In the end, that is the single greatest crime that anyone can commit.

Someone with a little more common sense would have gone to a higher court and argued that he wasn't allowed a court reporter, an act that contradicted the entire point of his argument.

Essay time.

In my freshman and sophomore years in college I did some substitute teaching. It was easy money. The state gives you $90 if you can pass a TB test and everyone makes it through the day with all digits. Simple enough.

So one day I was subbing in a high school math class. I looked over the lesson plan and noticed that one kid was marked as a "disruption". As I'm going over the roll I'm looking for him. Football player? Nope, not him. Thug kid? Nah. Smug asshole attention seeker? No. Oh, there he is and holy shit it's me! White kid with glasses, either over or under weight and reading Musician's Friend, probably has a copy of Elektor hidden in there somewhere. His bookbag has every one of his books in it because he doesn't want to go to his locker. Either someone keeps messing with him or he subconsciously doesn't want to remember his combination.

Soon the disruption became obvious. Every few minutes someone would hit him or yell something at him and he kept withdrawing into his shell. After I threw a couple out it stopped. After class I stopped him on the way out and chatted for a few minutes. I was right, there was a copy of Elektor in his bag and no, he couldn't remember his combination.

During lunch I hung out in the teacher's lounge and chatted with a few of the teachers. Finally I asked them about him. It was a consensus, he was a disruption and they couldn't wait to find a reason to expel him. This was the point where I realized I'd never make it as a teacher. After years of being angry at the other kids it never occurred to me that they were also the enemy. Suddenly the codes made sense. How many times had I heard teachers say that students should be able to "learn in a non-disruptive environment"? Fuck, they wanted me to get thrown to the wolves; it was always a part of the plan. I was just a cancer in the education system's body, something that didn't just work its way out, despite their best non-efforts.

The following year I took a job in a call center and moved to their IT dept. Subbing was easy, but at least IT didn't feel like blood money. There was a silver lining. I ran into that kid a few years ago in a restaurant. He was married with a kid of his own. He rushed and grabbed by hand. "I just want to say thanks. You were right, they were all assholes."

That was by far my most satisfying job related moment. Only Hallmark moment I have to offer.

I've been doing this for a couple years and I've got to say, it has been pretty satisfying, quick and cheap. Depending on the yeast you use and how dedicated you are to experimentation, you can clone almost anything after less than 3 months of serious reading/tinkering/tasting.

I can't think of too many hands-on knowledge investments that have such a quick, broad return with such a low monetary cost. [I've been building a spare brewing kit from more-or-less rummage sources, just to see how cheap I can go. Half-way finished and I've literally spent only $5.]

Both ran smoothly (FF 3.6.12), but there were some collision issues with HTML5. Hitting the ball with the side of the paddle almost always results in the ball passing through it.

A friend of mine said it best. If you see something really interesting (concerning software) and you have the immediate desire to share it with someone else but there is no one around who will understand it, it is time to add Architect to your resume.