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• VMWare costs $300 per seat and eats RAM like Pac-Man.
• Windows 2000 Professional costs $300 per seat and eats RAM like Pac-Man.
• Wine lets you go the other way (95% Windows binary compatibility on GNU/Linux) and is both free and Free.

Any questions?

Seriously, what on earth do you mean when you say Unix?

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. (The official legal form of trademarks is in all caps, no matter what ESR's Jargon File says.)

What this means is that an operating system is a UNIX® system if

• the system conforms to a version of the Single UNIX Specification, and
• the publisher is willing to jack up the prices to pay TOG royalties per unit for the UNIX trademark. These run into five or six figures annually, making the trademark program available only to large corporations.

You can download Darwin for x86. But that won't give you Quartz/Carbon/Cocoa (Mac OS X userland libraries) which are all proprietary binaries for PowerPC machines; good luck finding a machine that can code-morph into both an x86 (for the games on your Windows partition) and a PowerPC (for Mac OS X's userland). -- Dr. Mario game for PC based on Mac OS X's Aqua theme
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

Compiling software is for when you want to customize software

Or when you have to customize software to run on your architecture. Binary packages are generally provided for a couple distributions of x86 Linux, not PowerPC Linux systems such as linuxppc and Yellow Dog (forget Debian for a moment).

Who would run Gnome or KDE when they can have Aqua

People who also want to play games. We are in the phase of the gaming market when the most heavily marketed games are on the x86 PC because that's the largest audience; the new consoles (specifically Sony PS2) do not have a foothold. It was similar in the Doom/Duke/Quake days just before the PSX and N64 came out.

The parts of Mac OS X that run on top of the Darwin kernel are only available as binaries for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers. I haven't seen a CPU that can code-morph into both an x86 (for games) and a PowerPC (for Mac OS X).

1. Even though the source code for the Darwin kernel and POSIX layer, the rest of Mac OS (Quartz/Carbon/Cocoa) is still very proprietary.
2. Even Darwin may not qualify under the Open Source definition.

Mac OS X runs only on Apple G3/G4 hardware, which is very well-put-together, and requires 128 MB or more of physical RAM. A machine with a free copy of Mac OS X can be had for USD $799. This is only expensive when compared to the fact that Linux runs well in console mode on a $200 486 box.

Six months of jail time? That seems more than a little extreme to me. Fines would be much more suited to the crime.

And watch the spammers just absorb those fines into their operating expenses. Jail time is the only way to discourage spamming.

bother of having to delete [spam] does not deserve the same kind of punishment as, say, rapists

spammers rape your wallet because it costs the ISP to receive spam (costs passed on to subscribers), and it costs subscribers per minute to download spam through the telco's phone lines. (Local telephone calls are AFAIK billed by the minute pretty much everywhere but North America.)

We do not object to use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term. Also, if the term is to be used, it should be used in all lower-case letters to distinguish it from our trademark SPAM, which should be used with all uppercase letters.

My ISP (Demon Internet) gives you unlimited email addresses at your own domain (albeit a sub-domain of demon.co.uk).

So doe Freeservers, who hosts PinEight.com. Freeservers redirects all mail sent to your subdomain to the email address (a Hotmail/Yahoo account is OK) you gave when you signed up.

To find more MIDIs on the net, you could try Midifarm or Cowdance.

But look at the difficulty in making MIDI's (or NES music, or .ST3 .IT .MOD etc).

All you need is a background in music, software (Modplug Tracker for MOD/XM/S3M/IT, the NT2 tools for NES music (email Memblers at the NESdev site to obtain them), or Jazzware for MIDI), and a sound card, and you can cover any song.

although there's a 99% chance the RIAA made them just as illegal

Pretty close. Re-performance rights in a musical work, live or in studio, are managed by composers' and publishers' organizations such as ASCAP, SESAC, BMI, and Harry Fox Agency.

To sum up my point is that no politician could justify a tax if their was no sample coding. It would be like imposing a guitar tax, since you're probably going to play songs you didn't write.

And ASCAP/SESAC/BMI will probably go after that next.

Unless people fill up entire disks with 100MB's of garbage, I don't think 1K on a disk will cut it as "non-blank" media.

So put ZipSlack on the Zip disks.

I wonder if it is cheaper for them to order CD-Rs and the like from US or other "non EU" countries.

1. Shipping.
2. Customs.

Standard floppy holds about 1.44MB of data. ... And you can only store one song each on a floppy.

MIDI has an approximate bitrate of 20 kilobytes per minute for moderately complex pieces, allowing an entire symphony to fit on a floppy. NES music is ten times leaner than that; you'd be amazed what can be done with three tone generators and a noise generator.

next thing we'll see is a "linux for dummies" series..

<kw>
You mean like Debian for Dummies, Slackware for Dummies, SuSE for Dummies, and Red Hat 7 for Dummies? What about GNOME for Dummies and KDE for Dummies? Or Linux Programming for Dummies?
</kw>

Point-blank microwave radiation from personal communication devices is not a problem if you use an earpiece and microphone that plug into the side of the cellphone.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

Slashdot should open up an entire new area just for trolling and who can do the best flames.

You mean like sid=trolltalk? That's where trolls hang out, organize their activities, etc. There was another Slash-based site called Hotgrits.org that was essentially a troll playground, but that shut down. But let's get this straight: mentioning Natalie Portman on Slashdot is counterproductive.

If I could invent an extremely high resolution image with no flicker at all, I could control the world!

Or you'd just sell it for $4,000 as an Apple Cinema Display. 1.6 megapixel, and LCDs have no flicker.

nonexistent editorial skills

You think you have better? Visit Kuro5hin, where YOU choose the stories!

WINE has supported most installers for (around) the last 4-6 months.

Watch the EULA. Several Microsoft programs (such as Internet Explorer) come with a "Supplemental EULA" that states, in effect, "If you are not installing this on a genuine licensed installation of Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, Microsoft Windows NT, or Microsoft Windows 2000 (hereinafter "Windows Family OS"), you have no rights under this EULA and may not install the Software.

The United States government uses "eminent domain" (nothing to do with Eminem[?]) to buy private property. "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." (US Constitution, Amendment V)
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you may demand only a monetary fee.

Doesn't matter, as the money would most likely go right back to the telco for the ISP bill, unless the law requires that it be a one-time-only compensation.

Perhaps folks who trade live concert recordings. There are quite a few artists who allow/encourage this sort of activity these days

Even Metallica allow trading of recordings of live performances; they've already made their money on tickets. They just don't want you trading the studio recordings for the price of the media.

Each Section of /. has a color scheme. This article is in the interviews Section; therefore it has the interviews colors (which happen to be identical to front_page colors), not the bsd Section colors.
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Kuro5hin: technology and culture, from the trenches
Everything Slashdot should have been.

K5 is like Slashdot, but it allows users to see and moderate the submission queue. The stories are more detailed. It also has very little spam (the -1 FP/portman/goatse.cx shit) because the community just doesn't tolerate it.

But if VA Linux dies, so does the rest of OSDN, which means no more free hosting for free software projects, as most free servers limit file sizes and bandwidths to keep the warez kiddies from hogging their resources.

The press release abbreviates "VA Linux Systems" as "Linux" instead of "VA" or "VA Linux." This helps to create a negative impression in people's minds of Linux-based operating systems (such as GNU/Linux and Embedix). Seeing as Linux is Microsoft's Public Enemy Number 1, does anybody smell foul play?
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

or you play the (mostly) crap games that you CAN get under the GPL.

You downplay the "mostly." I admit, many GPL'd games are crap, but most commercial games are crap too. You just have to find the diamonds in the rough. For instance, have you ever experienced tetris... on LSD? Or have you raced down a mountain as a penguin? Or taken out your frustration by killing those annoying little hampsters?

Users are given a certain number of karma points. They can attach those points as positive or negative values, to other accounts. Once they use up those karma points, they're gone -- but they can re-arrange those points if they want

Think of "attaching karma points to an account" as "certifying that account" and you've just described Advogato. Too bad Advogato AFAIK doesn't even let you reply to articles without having been certified by a number of other users.

If you wanted something like that, you could probably hack the slashdot code to do it (IE, open story submissions and moderation).

The Scoop engine (which powers Kuro5hin) has story moderation and a comment moderation system that always gives you the points you want.

OS could also use the mpeg1-layer2 format, which isnt too bad and close to mp3, that im sure can be 'tweeked' to be an mp2+ (better than mp3)

This is exactly what the mpegplus project tried to do. Extend MP2 into something better. But it seems some of Fraunhofer's MP2 patents hadn't yet expired; other posts suggest that the project has been shot down.

In my opinion, *GPL is a deterrent to adoption. I wouldn't touch a GPL'd codec because i don't want to have to give away my source code.

With a LGPL'd codec, you don't have to. IANAL, but it appears you just have to

• distribute your application in a form that can be re-linked with the library, and
• mirror the library's source code.

talented artists like Eminem stop writing music because you communists think you are allowed to steal it for free

"I say download the audio on MP3 and show the whole world"... Even though Dr. Dre hates MP3, Eminem seems to like it. "And Dr. Dre said... nothing you idiots! Dr. Dre's dead; he's locked in my basement" where he can't pursue people who share Eminem's music on Napster and similar services.

I assumed with the candy reference, you were alluding to M&Ms brand candies. M&Ms are made by Mars Inc. not Hershey.
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if not, then right-click the link and view in a new window

Sorry, you don't have permission to right-click.

Lisp (aka Lithp) and its cousin Scheme are both OO and functional. There's no reason a language can't be both; the article shows that procedural languages can also be OO.
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You HAVE to have the methods as part of the structure in order for it to be a self contained "object".

What are they compiled into? A vtable, or a pointer to an array of method pointers (one array per class). I've seen similar polymorphism in the Allegro library's BITMAP structure.

How do you know that the "and make your DVD" step won't re-introduce region coding?
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

If you travel to the year 802,701, don't forget to say hi to the Precious Moments people who call themselves Eloi.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

it is very difficult to sit there for hours on end and read the text on the screen. The text starts to blur

Not if you're using an LCD, especially with subpixel text rendering. It's at least five times sharper than the average CRT.

there wasn't really any space between the lines

That's what style sheets are for. Make one with one of those CSS tools and use it.

These books are free as in "free beer" but not free as in unfettered. The GNU Free Documentation License covers GNU manuals, but I don't see anything similar on the Baen site.
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Of course, the battery voltage doesn't change much while the system is in operation.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

There was talk of IBM going back to re-do the POWER3 cpu

IBM did so, adding simultaneous multi-threading (on-die SMP), and created POWER4.

Gypsies are the Roma. They are not Romanians. (Read More...)
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

To vote against it with your pocket book, don't buy any digital TV.

You mean "don't buy any TV." All US analog television broadcasts will go silent on January 1, 2006, when the FCC reclaims all analog television frequencies (as is its right; the Supreme Court has ruled that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments do not imply a right to broadcast). All television will be digital, encrypted, and non-recordable.

It's true this will set back the introduction of digital TV if nobody buys it

The law does have a provision for this, to push back the introduction of digital TV if it has not yet caught on, but Hollywood knows how to market to the sheeple[?], and the sheeple follow the rule "Do what you're told; buy what you're sold."

It is required of VCR manufactures to have a non defeatable AGC that the Macrovision signal will mess up. It is part of the VHS tm. license.

I can't believe that JVC (the VHS trademark and (formerly) patent owner) would want to cripple VCRs in such a way. Use a $30 video stabilizer.

Why prevent people from making copies of their DVDs onto VHS tapes? What if they wanted the copy to take it to a relatives house to watch it, but the relative didnt have a DVD?

In that case, you're supposed to buy your relatives a DVD player for Christmas; royalties on DVD patents go straight back to Hollywood, who makes more money when you "Collect all six!" (one for each DVD region).

You forgot that most components of your average game console are patented, that the boot sector is copyrighted and must be bit-for-bit identical with a copy in the console's BIOS for the disc to boot, and that the boot sector displays trademarks on screen.

You forgot the $10 per unit royalties for console games.

Macrovision plays with a VCR's automatic gain control by placing fluctuating signals in the normally invisible vertical blank portion of the video signal, causing the reproduced signal to fade in and out. It also plays with some televisions; this can be fixed with a video stabilizer that costs in the neighborhood of $30. But if you use a stabilizer to remove the Macrovision signal and tape a DVD, you are in violation of 17 USC 1201.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.

Baud is "discrete signals per second." BPS is "bits of information per second." DDR modulation sends two signals on each clock pulse, one on the rising edge and one on the falling edge. Because these are two discrete signals and not multiple bits squeezed into one phase/amplitude signal (as with phone modems), the "baud" rate is the same as the "words per second" rate; however, the parallel bus increases the "bits per second" rate to 64 or 128 times the baud rate and 128 or 256 times the clock frequency.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

The only true benchmark is your own feeling. Does this Athlon feel faster than my Celeron at home ? Yes it does. I don't know why, but it just does.

It feels faster because it's either swapping less (more RAM) or swapping faster (better hard drive). Windows 98/ME on a Novell network with antivirus software is a RAM hog; if you have less than 128 MB of RAM, you are going to lose 90% of your performance to the swap file. I learned this the hard way; in June of 1999, I thought a 333 MHz PII laptop with 64 MB of RAM would be enough, until I tried to run Windows; the low-power-consumption i.e. low-rotational-speed i.e. slow-swapping hard drive ate all my performance, making the machine "feel" slower than my old 1 MHz Apple II.