You are clearly intelligent and very knowledgeable on this subject. Now put some thought into this: When people who are knowledgable act like dicks and use their intelligence as a weapon to put down others, does it improve the community here at slashdot or bring it down? Most likely the poster you replied to was just not as educated as you on this subject. I've heard of many references to God by Einstein in various quotes. No one bothered to mention that there was this context difference and he wasn't using the word god like we do.
Linux version tomorrow night, if nothing horrible happens.
Some advance warning about something that is sure to stir up some argument:
We should be handing off the masters for all three platforms within a day or two of each other, but they aren't going to show up in stores at the same time. Publishers, distributers, and stores are willing to go out of their way to expedite the arrival of the pc version, but they just won't go to the same amount of trouble for mac and linux boxes.
THE EXECUTABLES FOR ALL PLATFORMS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD UNTIL AFTER CHRISTMAS. This means that if you want to play on the mac or linux, don't pick up a copy of the pc version and expect to download the other executables.
Our first update to the game will be for all platforms, and will allow any version to be converted into any other, but we intend to hold that off for a little while.
We are doing this at the request of the distributors. The fear is that everyone will just grab a windows version, and the separate boxes will be ignored.
A lot of companies are going to be watching the sales figures for the mac and linux versions of Q3 to see if the platforms are actually worth supporting. If everyone bought a windows version and the other boxes sold like crap in comparison, that would be plenty of evidence for most executives to can any cross platform development.
I know there are a lot of people that play in both windows and linux, and this may be a bit of an inconvenience in the short term, but this is an ideal time to cast a vote as a consumer.
Its all the same to Id (I like hybrid CD's), and our continued support of linux and mac (OS X for the next title) is basically a foregone conclusion, but the results will probably influence other companies.
11/18/99 -------- Linux version isn't going to make it tonight. We got too busy with other things. Sorry. Tomorrow.
* shrink zone, grow hunk * flush memory on an error * fixed crash pasting from clipboard * test all compiler optimizations -- 5% speedup * fixed major slowdown in team games with large numbers of players and location markers
I didn't see him specify when the linux version was actually sent to the presses. I apologize for the quoting all of this, but I felt like it was necessary for everyone to read what the man actually said instead of all the hearsay and speculation. I've been reading Carmack's.plans for a couple years now. For those of you who haven't I would recommend them.
This guy is right. Pure FUD. Anyone who uses windows (at least all the ones that I know) have to reinstall periodically. It never ever has destroyed partition tables. What the original poster may have meant was that you will lose your boot loader after installing 95/98, but you don't lose the linux partition, or any other partition.
"It is easy for windoze people to get ppp going (or it should be), but the ISP world apparently revolves around them, so everything is set up for windoze."
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. It is pretty easy (from a client pov) to connect a win95/98 computer to an ISP. It's been a while since I've done this, but I believe all one has to enter is your own IP or specify get IP automatically. I don't think you even have to set the DNS. Maybe you mean that the ISP does a lot of work on their end to make it that easy to connect on a win95/98 client.
disclaimer: I have more experience with win95/98 than with linux. Getting PPP running on a linux system has been a real bitch in my experience. Of course the truly nice thing about learning something in linux is that you just learn how PPP works, and you get to learn about different protocols and stuff. Where as in windows you just learn there "we know best" method of doing things.
One similar application I've seen of this is networks drawing a painted yellow line on the football field for NFL games. The line is where the first down marker is at, and on my less than perfect tv looks as real as any other line drawn on the field. When players step on the line, there foot is shown as being on top of the line. I would guess that they do this by only drawing yellow on the screen where the green field is shown on the display. The perspective of the imaginary line seems to be pretty consistent with the real lines on the field.
I find it ironic that you give so much credit to Intel for maintaining backward compatibility. AMD has kept socket 7 alive for over a year since Intel abandoned it in favor of slot one and later socket 370. The also kept performance competitive enough that I find it hard to believe that Intel only left socket 7 for technical reasons. The big buzz about Intel's slot one when it came out was that no other chip company was going to be able to make a cpu that could function in it.
Also, Intel has created socket 370, if you got one of the motherboards supporting socket 370 it looks like you are going to be out of luck when the new P3s come out in socket form, because Intel decided to change a few pins around.
Actually the first P3s were pretty much identical to P2s, except they added the SSE instructions. The cache was not full speed, it was just like the old P2s.
Compare this to the 5th generation of processors: pentium + more L1 cache + tweaking = pentium mmx
Then the P2 came and it was truly a new core. Entirely different chip that runs the same instruction set, but with a new architecture.
All Athlons 700 Mhz and below use.5 multiplier for the L2 cache with respect to CPU speed. The 750 Mhz part (and 800) runs with a.4 multiplier. This means that L2 cache of a 750 runs at 300 Mhz, a significant reduction from 350 Mhz L2 cache of the 700 Mhz. Intel is now including 256KB of cache on die with the P3's which means that L2 cache gets that same boost in Mhz as the processor. The performance lead the athlon's held over earlier P3's (500-600 Mhz range) is evaporating. Still though, sometime early next year AMD will add L2 on die, which should give it a decent boost.
Good points. For some reason I was thinking that the WebTV they sent him was part of some sort of product promotion. Don't ask, I don't know where that came from. Anyway, I still don't understand the legality of the matter. Microsoft did send it to him. I do see how intent matters. Someone parks your car for you, obviously it is still yours and not a transfer of ownership. I don't know. I can see both sides. I agree that he should give it back. I guess I'm just bothered that the police were involved.
I agree on an ethical level one should return the item mistakenly shipped to you. I have a hard time believing that one would be prosecuted for wrong doing for not returning the item. What would the penalty be? jail time, a fine?
I'm curious as to the approach the police used. Did they demand the unit back? Did they ask? Did they intimidate?
I really don't understand how you can feel comfortable with officers whose job it is to enforce the law tracking down ms screw ups. The fact that the package was worth one million dollars is irrelevant. Why were the police involved?
I disagree. I learned a lot from this thread. Some very good arguments have been presented. To many of you who have been here at slashdot or involved in free software for a long time these arguments may seem old and boring. But to a newcomer like me these arguments really made me think about the benefits of open source software and standards vs. the company's motivations.
On one hand I can understand a competitive company's tendency to guard their secret codec, in this case Sorenson. They spent money, time, and resources developing it, of course they aren't going to give it away to the community.
On the open source side of the debate, I am only beginning to understand the arguments. But I think one key point others may have missed is that we are users. We are customers. It is not for us to understand and sympathize with the companies. It's perfectly legitimate for people to set an idealistic standard which benefits the community as a whole. It's perfectly legitimate to bitch and moan and write letters when companies don't perform up to this standard. If enough people make noise then maybe someday they can influence and shape the development of all these new found technologies. Oops, too late, it's already happening.
The Pentium Pro is the same architecture as every Intel chip after it and all the chips to come yet up until the Williamette. That is a span of how long, about 6 years? 7 years?
In the last few years Intel has been working like crazy on a new architecture, Merced. In addition the release of the Williamette has already been pushed back quite a bit, I believe it was originally scheduled to be out now.
Amd has released a great X86 processor but it uses 20 million transistor's and runs very hot. What do we get for these 20 million transistors? A small performance increase over a P3 with less than half the number of transistors. To be fair, the K7 is supposed to be deeply pipelined which trades off work per clock cycle for the ability to crank up the Mhz.
From Intel, analysts expect 800-MHz PIII chips during the second quarter, and the Pentium IV chip, code-named Willamette, by the end of the year. Willamette is expected to handle more simultaneous instructions than the PIII, and to break the 1-GHz barrier. The accompanying chip set will likely support a 200-MHz system bus, like the Athlon's.
I think it's pretty common for stroke victims to suffer from paralysis. Although it seems like many different things could go wrong when a part of the brain doesn't recieve oxygen for a significant length of time.
I think you just have to take the plunge and take an introduction course. Trying to learn from a book is pretty hard in general. I tend to believe that books are better at extending knowledge, not as good as a starting point especially something very conceptual like programming. A live class, imo, will give a better introduction.
Sitting in my freshman c programming class and the lab that accompanied it really highlighted the different ways that people think to me. IMHO, I am fairly intelligent and good at math and relationships. I found C programming (the entry level class and the follow up class that dealt with data structures, linked lists, etc.) to be intuitive and pretty cool on the whole. It was all about understanding the goal at hand and how to fit the pieces together to solve the problem, while at the same time breaking problems down into smaller problems and applying that process recursively.
However, I found trying to explain how to solve the problems to classmates who were struggling pretty difficult. Programming (in my limited experience) is an artform. It's an expression of the programmer's understanding of a problem.
I am not at all familiar with other programming languages (except basic and a little 68000 assembly), but it seems to me that C is probably not the easiest to learn becuase it is a little quirky in places. However, the main barrier for entry to programming seems to me to be the ability to solve problems.
Slashdot Mirror
You are clearly intelligent and very knowledgeable on this subject. Now put some thought into this: When people who are knowledgable act like dicks and use their intelligence as a weapon to put down others, does it improve the community here at slashdot or bring it down? Most likely the poster you replied to was just not as educated as you on this subject. I've heard of many references to God by Einstein in various quotes. No one bothered to mention that there was this context difference and he wasn't using the word god like we do.
Zipping up my flame retardent suit
are you on crack? the link took me right to "Best of the Millennium"
no reason to litter your mind reading postings about quake on slashdot. go read the bible or a history book or something...
11/17/99
.plans for a couple years now. For those of you who haven't I would recommend them.
Linux version tomorrow night, if nothing horrible happens.
Some advance warning about something that is sure to stir
up some argument:
We should be handing off the masters for all three platforms
within a day or two of each other, but they aren't going to
show up in stores at the same time. Publishers, distributers,
and stores are willing to go out of their way to expedite the
arrival of the pc version, but they just won't go to the
same amount of trouble for mac and linux boxes.
THE EXECUTABLES FOR ALL PLATFORMS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR
DOWNLOAD UNTIL AFTER CHRISTMAS. This means that if you want
to play on the mac or linux, don't pick up a copy of the pc
version and expect to download the other executables.
Our first update to the game will be for all platforms, and
will allow any version to be converted into any other, but
we intend to hold that off for a little while.
We are doing this at the request of the distributors. The
fear is that everyone will just grab a windows version,
and the separate boxes will be ignored.
A lot of companies are going to be watching the sales
figures for the mac and linux versions of Q3 to see if
the platforms are actually worth supporting. If everyone
bought a windows version and the other boxes sold like crap
in comparison, that would be plenty of evidence for most
executives to can any cross platform development.
I know there are a lot of people that play in both windows
and linux, and this may be a bit of an inconvenience in
the short term, but this is an ideal time to cast a vote
as a consumer.
Its all the same to Id (I like hybrid CD's), and our continued
support of linux and mac (OS X for the next title) is basically
a foregone conclusion, but the results will probably influence
other companies.
11/18/99
--------
Linux version isn't going to make it tonight. We got
too busy with other things. Sorry. Tomorrow.
* shrink zone, grow hunk
* flush memory on an error
* fixed crash pasting from clipboard
* test all compiler optimizations -- 5% speedup
* fixed major slowdown in team games with large
numbers of players and location markers
I didn't see him specify when the linux version was actually sent to the presses. I apologize for the quoting all of this, but I felt like it was necessary for everyone to read what the man actually said instead of all the hearsay and speculation. I've been reading Carmack's
www.bluesnews.com
This guy is right. Pure FUD. Anyone who uses windows (at least all the ones that I know) have to reinstall periodically. It never ever has destroyed partition tables. What the original poster may have meant was that you will lose your boot loader after installing 95/98, but you don't lose the linux partition, or any other partition.
"It is easy for windoze people to get ppp going (or it should be), but the ISP world apparently revolves around them, so everything is set up for windoze."
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. It is pretty easy (from a client pov) to connect a win95/98 computer to an ISP. It's been a while since I've done this, but I believe all one has to enter is your own IP or specify get IP automatically. I don't think you even have to set the DNS. Maybe you mean that the ISP does a lot of work on their end to make it that easy to connect on a win95/98 client.
disclaimer: I have more experience with win95/98 than with linux. Getting PPP running on a linux system has been a real bitch in my experience. Of course the truly nice thing about learning something in linux is that you just learn how PPP works, and you get to learn about different protocols and stuff. Where as in windows you just learn there "we know best" method of doing things.
One similar application I've seen of this is networks drawing a painted yellow line on the football field for NFL games. The line is where the first down marker is at, and on my less than perfect tv looks as real as any other line drawn on the field. When players step on the line, there foot is shown as being on top of the line. I would guess that they do this by only drawing yellow on the screen where the green field is shown on the display. The perspective of the imaginary line seems to be pretty consistent with the real lines on the field.
I find it ironic that you give so much credit to Intel for maintaining backward compatibility. AMD has kept socket 7 alive for over a year since Intel abandoned it in favor of slot one and later socket 370. The also kept performance competitive enough that I find it hard to believe that Intel only left socket 7 for technical reasons. The big buzz about Intel's slot one when it came out was that no other chip company was going to be able to make a cpu that could function in it.
Also, Intel has created socket 370, if you got one of the motherboards supporting socket 370 it looks like you are going to be out of luck when the new P3s come out in socket form, because Intel decided to change a few pins around.
Kudos to Intel.
Actually the first P3s were pretty much identical to P2s, except they added the SSE instructions. The cache was not full speed, it was just like the old P2s.
Compare this to the 5th generation of processors:
pentium + more L1 cache + tweaking = pentium mmx
Then the P2 came and it was truly a new core. Entirely different chip that runs the same instruction set, but with a new architecture.
All Athlons 700 Mhz and below use .5 multiplier for the L2 cache with respect to CPU speed. The 750 Mhz part (and 800) runs with a .4 multiplier. This means that L2 cache of a 750 runs at 300 Mhz, a significant reduction from 350 Mhz L2 cache of the 700 Mhz. Intel is now including 256KB of cache on die with the P3's which means that L2 cache gets that same boost in Mhz as the processor. The performance lead the athlon's held over earlier P3's (500-600 Mhz range) is evaporating. Still though, sometime early next year AMD will add L2 on die, which should give it a decent boost.
for more information look here:
www.anandtech.com
Good points. For some reason I was thinking that the WebTV they sent him was part of some sort of product promotion. Don't ask, I don't know where that came from. Anyway, I still don't understand the legality of the matter. Microsoft did send it to him. I do see how intent matters. Someone parks your car for you, obviously it is still yours and not a transfer of ownership. I don't know. I can see both sides. I agree that he should give it back. I guess I'm just bothered that the police were involved.
I agree on an ethical level one should return the item mistakenly shipped to you. I have a hard time believing that one would be prosecuted for wrong doing for not returning the item. What would the penalty be? jail time, a fine?
IANAL either, but why would anyone be required to return a screw up?
Let's look at similar situations:
I want to give you a gift, but accidently give you something I did not intend to:
1) I hand deliver it to you.
2) I pay my friend bob to act as a courier and deliver it to you.
3) I ship it through a professional mailing service to you.
I can't see anyway that I could use the law to force you to return something back to me in situation 1. Why would 2 or 3 be different?
I wonder what would have happened or did happen if the recipient just refused the police and asked the police to leave?
I'm curious as to the approach the police used. Did they demand the unit back? Did they ask? Did they intimidate?
I really don't understand how you can feel comfortable with officers whose job it is to enforce the law tracking down ms screw ups. The fact that the package was worth one million dollars is irrelevant. Why were the police involved?
I disagree. I learned a lot from this thread. Some very good arguments have been presented. To many of you who have been here at slashdot or involved in free software for a long time these arguments may seem old and boring. But to a newcomer like me these arguments really made me think about the benefits of open source software and standards vs. the company's motivations.
On one hand I can understand a competitive company's tendency to guard their secret codec, in this case Sorenson. They spent money, time, and resources developing it, of course they aren't going to give it away to the community.
On the open source side of the debate, I am only beginning to understand the arguments. But I think one key point others may have missed is that we are users. We are customers. It is not for us to understand and sympathize with the companies. It's perfectly legitimate for people to set an idealistic standard which benefits the community as a whole. It's perfectly legitimate to bitch and moan and write letters when companies don't perform up to this standard. If enough people make noise then maybe someday they can influence and shape the development of all these new found technologies. Oops, too late, it's already happening.
I think 3D Realms was/is the distibutor?
The Pentium Pro is the same architecture as every Intel chip after it and all the chips to come yet up until the Williamette. That is a span of how long, about 6 years? 7 years?
In the last few years Intel has been working like crazy on a new architecture, Merced. In addition the release of the Williamette has already been pushed back quite a bit, I believe it was originally scheduled to be out now.
Amd has released a great X86 processor but it uses 20 million transistor's and runs very hot. What do we get for these 20 million transistors? A small performance increase over a P3 with less than half the number of transistors. To be fair, the K7 is supposed to be deeply pipelined which trades off work per clock cycle for the ability to crank up the Mhz.
X86 is reaching the end of the road.
oops, thats end of the year 2000
From Intel, analysts expect 800-MHz PIII chips during the second quarter, and the Pentium IV chip, code-named Willamette, by the end of the year. Willamette is expected to handle more simultaneous instructions than the PIII, and to break the 1-GHz barrier. The accompanying chip set will likely support a 200-MHz system bus, like the Athlon's.
Roblimo has considerable influence, what is wrong with suggesting a little more accountability? Slashdot isn't journalism, but he has quite a pulpit.
I think it's pretty common for stroke victims to suffer from paralysis. Although it seems like many different things could go wrong when a part of the brain doesn't recieve oxygen for a significant length of time.
I wouldn't have responded except for the "Sigh..."
Statement A:"In addition, destroying your own property is not considered arson unless you intend to defraud someone"
Statement B:"if the court had already decided that the insurance company had to pay for the cigars, then it couldn't be arson."
Statement A does not support Statement B, seems unrelated. I understand what you were trying to say.
I think you just have to take the plunge and take an introduction course. Trying to learn from a book is pretty hard in general. I tend to believe that books are better at extending knowledge, not as good as a starting point especially something very conceptual like programming. A live class, imo, will give a better introduction.
Sitting in my freshman c programming class and the lab that accompanied it really highlighted the different ways that people think to me. IMHO, I am fairly intelligent and good at math and relationships. I found C programming (the entry level class and the follow up class that dealt with data structures, linked lists, etc.) to be intuitive and pretty cool on the whole. It was all about understanding the goal at hand and how to fit the pieces together to solve the problem, while at the same time breaking problems down into smaller problems and applying that process recursively.
However, I found trying to explain how to solve the problems to classmates who were struggling pretty difficult. Programming (in my limited experience) is an artform. It's an expression of the programmer's understanding of a problem.
I am not at all familiar with other programming languages (except basic and a little 68000 assembly), but it seems to me that C is probably not the easiest to learn becuase it is a little quirky in places. However, the main barrier for entry to programming seems to me to be the ability to solve problems.