Most of the TCO of a computer is the support time and training, NOT the purchase price of the hardware/software.
For desktops, maybe. But clusters have completely different economics. The "training" cost is *zero* after the first (or second, depending how you look at it) machine. And the purchase price is perfectly linear, so it becomes a far more important concern.
$1200 for a ten gig hard drive? Damn, that's quite expensive.
You could argue that the bulk of that $1200 is for R&D, hardware, etc. However, the 60G version is $2200. So, they are charging you $1000 to upgrade the standard notebook hard drive. Pure theft.
But...well... I prefer to just have the raw detail of higher resolutions, rather than FSAA.
I agree. When you filter 1600x1200 down to 800x600 using 4x antialiasing, you're simply throwing away information in the image.
Antialiasing only makes sense when you start to bump against the resolution limits of the display. If the card is capable of rendering 3200x2400 at a good framerate, it doesn't help me much. So that's when antialiasing can be used to give me a better 1600x1200 image.
Coincidentally, we _are_ just now hitting those limits. The GF3 is fast enough to render high quality scenes at a good framerate at 2048x1536, which is beyond the capability of most monitors. So 1024x768 w/4x AA becomes a useful mode.
What was novel about this software, at the time, was that it ran on our server, using ordinary Web pages as the interface.
Um, that's EVERY web application ever written. It doesn't make his statement any more reasonable. It was a shopping cart application, just like everybody and their dog was writing by that point.
In the summer of 1995, my friend Robert Morris and I started a startup called Viaweb.... as far as I know, Viaweb was the first Web-based application.
Whatever. I was building web apps full-time in early 95, at which point CGI app development was common knowledge. The Xerox map server was running in '93, and it was more technically interesting than any web store.
He didn't put a phrase like "to be disbursed at my sole discretion" at the start of the description of the prize award.
However, he was also asking for $100 up front, to encourage only serious submissions. I don't think he'd get many submissions if he tried both tactics.:)
The problem is that the definition of "total file size" is subject to interpretation. If the guy holding the contest had said "total file size as reported by ls -l", he'd be screwed. But he could argue that "total file size" means the number of bytes of disk used to store the file.
Although, by both providing a certain file AND specifying the file size (3145728 bytes), one could argue that he *implicitly* defined file size as the number of bytes within the file. Hence, he loses.
You will need five channels and that means bigger files, but more importantly more redudancy between channels to be compressed which means more CPU cycles
But the point is that you _don't_ need that for music. "CD quality" really is the upper bound on what people need from audio for music. They just don't care about having more than 2 channels. (Remember quadrophonic audio?) The vast majority of people don't even care about better-than-stereo audio for movies.
I bought a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card almost 10 years ago. It was one of the first that was capable of CD quality output. (44KHz,16 Bit stereo). There is still no good reason for me to want to upgrade it today -- it is every bit as good as a Soundblaster Live for playing MP3 files, etc.
If we apply your 'logic' than it should be he's instead of his and I's instead of mine, and so forth.
Goodness no! You mean that applying logical rules to the language might result in even more changes? I take it all back then! English as it is right now is sacred and immutable!
Good ideas on he's and I's though. Now you're starting to understand.
Oh, BTW: replying twice in a flame is the/. equivalent of thinking up a real "zinger" long after all the other kids mocked you and kicked you out of the treehouse.
"It's" is more technically correct, for both "belonging to it" (posessives use apostrophes) and for "it is" (contractions use apostrophes).
The "correct" English usage of "its" is wrong. That it is accepted practice does not make it correct. It's a stupid rule, and I'm happy every time I see someone using the incorrect, yet more logical "it's". Each time brings us a step closer to removing "its" from the language altogether.
Current estimates place the number of people that have ever lived at a little over 100 billion people. There's about six billion around today, which would imply that closer to 94% have been and gone.
This is the mating call of arrogant asses everywhere.
Think Negativland instead of Pat Boone or Puff Daddy.
Jeez, you're really pushing the pretentious thing 110%, aren't you?
Why would a rational human being devote dozens of hours to fawning over a piece of commercial entertainment?
Human beings are social animals. So they tend to enjoy celebrating the things that they have in common. Like it or not, interest in pop culture phenomenons like Star Wars provides a common context for millions of people to chat at the water cooler, post a message on a newsgroup, or run a fansite.
That it is commercial entertainment is only secondary. It's the simple fact that many people _know_ about it and enjoy talking about it that makes people want to create a web site about it and build a community of their peers.
And original subject matter is hardly a prerequisite for art to be "legitimate". If all the artists through history had "created their own characters and settings" instead of reproducing the same old scenes from the bible, the world would be a much poorer place.
The source is speech, and could be classified as an idea, in the loosest sense.
Whether software is in source or binary form does not affect its fundamental nature. Is hand-coded machine language not speech?
If you create something, you have the right to tell people, "please don't distrubite this without compensating me"
Absolutely. And this is part of Mr. Ellison's argument.
The other part, the "complaint for vicarious infringement against AOL" part, is concerned with his desire to place limitations on author's rights to distribute their own works -- under copyright other otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
For desktops, maybe. But clusters have completely different economics. The "training" cost is *zero* after the first (or second, depending how you look at it) machine. And the purchase price is perfectly linear, so it becomes a far more important concern.
You could argue that the bulk of that $1200 is for R&D, hardware, etc. However, the 60G version is $2200. So, they are charging you $1000 to upgrade the standard notebook hard drive. Pure theft.
I can think of at least one!
One word: 2003
I agree. When you filter 1600x1200 down to 800x600 using 4x antialiasing, you're simply throwing away information in the image.
Antialiasing only makes sense when you start to bump against the resolution limits of the display. If the card is capable of rendering 3200x2400 at a good framerate, it doesn't help me much. So that's when antialiasing can be used to give me a better 1600x1200 image.
Coincidentally, we _are_ just now hitting those limits. The GF3 is fast enough to render high quality scenes at a good framerate at 2048x1536, which is beyond the capability of most monitors. So 1024x768 w/4x AA becomes a useful mode.
Yup, napster.dk is already taken.
Um, that's EVERY web application ever written. It doesn't make his statement any more reasonable. It was a shopping cart application, just like everybody and their dog was writing by that point.
Whatever. I was building web apps full-time in early 95, at which point CGI app development was common knowledge. The Xerox map server was running in '93, and it was more technically interesting than any web store.
Could be.
From Early design notes for the first manned vehicle:
Near term stuff to get / work on
However, he was also asking for $100 up front, to encourage only serious submissions. I don't think he'd get many submissions if he tried both tactics. :)
Although, by both providing a certain file AND specifying the file size (3145728 bytes), one could argue that he *implicitly* defined file size as the number of bytes within the file. Hence, he loses.
The funniest thing about this is going to be the (-1, Redundant) moderation of this double post on redundancy.
But the point is that you _don't_ need that for music. "CD quality" really is the upper bound on what people need from audio for music. They just don't care about having more than 2 channels. (Remember quadrophonic audio?) The vast majority of people don't even care about better-than-stereo audio for movies.
I bought a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card almost 10 years ago. It was one of the first that was capable of CD quality output. (44KHz,16 Bit stereo). There is still no good reason for me to want to upgrade it today -- it is every bit as good as a Soundblaster Live for playing MP3 files, etc.
If the content on the site has anything to do with the Microsoft X-Box, prepare to have a pack of lawyers land on you very quickly.
Goodness no! You mean that applying logical rules to the language might result in even more changes? I take it all back then! English as it is right now is sacred and immutable!
Good ideas on he's and I's though. Now you're starting to understand.
Oh, BTW: replying twice in a flame is the /. equivalent of thinking up a real "zinger" long after all the other kids mocked you and kicked you out of the treehouse.
The "correct" English usage of "its" is wrong. That it is accepted practice does not make it correct. It's a stupid rule, and I'm happy every time I see someone using the incorrect, yet more logical "it's". Each time brings us a step closer to removing "its" from the language altogether.
</RANT>
Now, one of those should really never be fired at a Blackbird, but I imagine the Bad Guys have something similar.
You just described the gameplay of Black & White.
Current estimates place the number of people that have ever lived at a little over 100 billion people. There's about six billion around today, which would imply that closer to 94% have been and gone.
The real world is way ahead of you. :) Ceramic scalpels are already in use.
They review seriously expensive CD _transports_. As in, $5000 machines that read a CD and have a digital output.
Just like your $40 CD-ROM drive.
The audiophile community is loaded with snake-oil drinking buffoons with more money than sense, and their opinion is largely useless.
This is the mating call of arrogant asses everywhere.
Think Negativland instead of Pat Boone or Puff Daddy.
Jeez, you're really pushing the pretentious thing 110%, aren't you?
Why would a rational human being devote dozens of hours to fawning over a piece of commercial entertainment?
Human beings are social animals. So they tend to enjoy celebrating the things that they have in common. Like it or not, interest in pop culture phenomenons like Star Wars provides a common context for millions of people to chat at the water cooler, post a message on a newsgroup, or run a fansite.
That it is commercial entertainment is only secondary. It's the simple fact that many people _know_ about it and enjoy talking about it that makes people want to create a web site about it and build a community of their peers.
And original subject matter is hardly a prerequisite for art to be "legitimate". If all the artists through history had "created their own characters and settings" instead of reproducing the same old scenes from the bible, the world would be a much poorer place.
Wow, that's some impressive stretching. Careful you don't pull a muscle!
I'm pretty sure that most folks don't have a personal relationship with a bunch of news anchors or their producers.
But they have a compiled list of thousands of their email addresses?
That's odd. They seem happy to sell "workstation" and "server" copies of identical software at radically different price points.
Whether software is in source or binary form does not affect its fundamental nature. Is hand-coded machine language not speech?
If you create something, you have the right to tell people, "please don't distrubite this without compensating me"
Absolutely. And this is part of Mr. Ellison's argument.
The other part, the "complaint for vicarious infringement against AOL" part, is concerned with his desire to place limitations on author's rights to distribute their own works -- under copyright other otherwise.