Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Pricedrops, Honor, Games
Making your computer worth even less. Acid-F1ux writes: "Advanced Micro Devices has slashed prices of its desktop and mobile Athlon processors just days after a similar move by rival Intel. The cuts range from 17 percent to 52 percent for mobile Athlon XP chips and between 11 percent and 32 percent for desktop Athlon XP chips. On Sunday, Intel dropped prices of its Pentium 4 processors by as much as 53 percent."
Progressive Education strikes a blow. darnellmc writes: "According to this Atlanta Journal-Constitution news article GA Tech had so many students violate the school's "honor code" that they have decided to change it.
"In the wake of the investigation, Tech officials have decided to allow students in introductory computer science courses to share information and collaborate on homework, previously prohibited under the school's academic honor code."
Of course code sharing also teaches the value of Open Source ;o) . Maybe now some young Computer Science student can spend more time on developing a good overall program, instead of spending a bunch of time writing simple things like their own sorting routine."
How many letters will the next big threat have? matthew writes: "LWN is carrying the notes from the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) conference (more info at the EFF). The BPDG is the body that will be suggesting future technological control measures; they make the DMCA and CBDTPA seem like trivial problems. The BPDG conference was last week and it was open to the public so anyone could call in. You can read about what the FSF's Bradley M. Kuhn digitalspeech.org's Jonathan Watterson thought of the conference. The basic summary is that we're screwed if people don't start fighting against this kind of injustice."
This is what's called taking license. infochuck writes "Back in January, this story on Slashdot focused on Borland's licensing PR fiasco, and how they promised to remedy the situation (in short, their license permitted them to search at any time any of your computers looking for stolen software). Well, here we are, five months later, and their license hasn't changed one bit - at least not the two most unreasonable clauses, 12 and 14.4, and not in the license included with the Windows version of the Personal Edition. Download for yourself to see, but be warned, you'll have to register, which involves many questions and no less than 5 checkboxes to uncheck, as well as at least a 25MB DL. I believe pr@borland.com is still the place to write..."
Playful is good. If the last month of pre-hype hype, pre-hype, actual hype and post-hype weren't enough, you'll be pleased to read that E3 coverage continues, at Gamespy (some cool reviews), Gamegal (good photos) and other sites beginning with "Game."
You're probably one of those Communists that loans books out to your friends when you're not reading them.
> E3 coverage continues, at Gamespy (some cool reviews), Gamegal (good photos) and other sites beginning with "Game."
;-)
So, am I the only one who misses all the obligatory pictures we used to get from these conventions of 3dfx's latest Lara Croft booth babe?
They may have fallen behind in the video card market before their demise, but they sure had *showmanship*. Teenage girls in skimpy fantasy-wear and video cards the size of...
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
I dont care if its Gamegal or Gamespy!
If she managed to shoot a pic of the "Harry Potter" booth, she damn well could have managed to snag a pic of the DoomIII booth! Fscking chic!
Yeah! I could go to some other website, but still..
Rapid Nirvana
Imagine that you are sitting in a cube farm right now. Pop your head up and have a look around.
Yeah, isn't she cute. I knew you'd spot her first. She's the receptionist, but you couldn't tell she works here by the hours she puts in. Most of the time she is in a closed door meeting with the VP.
Ah, Bill, the VP. Isn't he a character. Always shifting those paradigms, building synergies. He's a 3 handicapper at the club. Goes every afternoon after twiddling the receptionist's switchboard.
At least your boss Shamir works his ass off. Always on the phone to Bangalore. The language is pretty opaque, but it sounds like he is haggling. You just wish he'd quit printing up org charts on the department printer.
Well, the team looks solid anyway. Jerry is the best coder you've ever met. This guy dreams in regular expressions and could probably vomit a virtual memory system. OK, so he's just supervising now. Someone needs to be responsible for the spec and overseeing the reports. He doesn't code much anymore, but he's so good that he's always correcting the lead programmer Mike.
Of course Mike doesn't code much either. He needs to fill out those damn reports. Plus he doesn't get along with Jerry. Mike keeps telling him to quit messing with the spec and to leave his code alone. Jerry just blames Marketing, who blames the Focus Group (that was requested by the Customer) and THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. With Jerry tied up, Mike also needs to make sure the "Gang of Four" are working hard. After all, this is the company's main product we're working on. Someone needs to write it.
Oh wow! Did you say you've got the Gang of Four working with you? No, not quite. Someone decided to hire a team of recent grads from Cal Poly. They'd all worked on the same senior project, and one of them couldn't shut up about Design Patterns, so the name just stuck. When they aren't talking about their rice racers they can pound out a few lines. On the other hand, just by listening to them chatter, you can rebuild a Civic SI in your sleep.
Now it's down to just you and me, and we're both reading Slashdot. I wonder if I can convice the brass to start giving me put options...
-BW
if that's the kind of message you want to pay for, there's a cheaper method: watch TV.
thi