should indeed bear testimony to a truly portable and well designed operating system.
I'm not entirely sure that the fact linux is available on a bunch of different hardware platforms is due solely to it's design and portability. It could be, but there are other factors that prohibit many proprietary OS's from getting ported.
If the owner of the OS doesn't see a financial incentive to dedicate programmers to the task of porting to XYZ hardware, it's unlikely to happen. Remember, NT used to be available on the PPC platform until it was realized that the market for NT servers was heading X86.
If the owner of a proprietary platform is looking for an OS for a boondoggle project, it can be cheaper in the long run to use a non-proprietary OS rather than get into a huge agreement with some OS vendor that's going to take a chunk of the boondoggle's profits in licensing fees.
Linux has armies of developers willing to dedicate jillions of hours of work towards some technical challenge just to 'do it' whereas BeOS, Mac OS (save for Darwin), and Windows have no open source developers working to port them.
So what I'm saying is that because Linux is all over the hardware map doesn't mean it is necessarily more portable or better designed. That may actually be the case. But if you're speaking relative to other operating systems, you've got to admit that they've got some non-design-related hobbles affecting their portability.
Some other poster said that Xbox has linux and it's more powerful, etc. etc. That's interesting. I'd like to see some info on that. I had assumed that Gates had demanded that all kinds of hardware-level encryption / proprietary protocols were built into the thing to prevent third parties from releasing unlicensed devices / software for the thing (not to mention a repeat of the eyeopener catastrophe).
Making traffic worse is just the idea. If all those streets in NYC could be reclaimed for pedestrians zipping around on these scooters and bikes, think about how many MORE people could get around than when you have EACH person in an automobile taking up 40 square feet (even when the person ISN'T in the car)..
I would strongly encourage anyone who still thinks cars are the only way transportation can work to visit Amsterdam. I visited for a couple weeks and borrowed a friend's bike while I was there. It was the crappiest bike I had ever ridden, but I got from one side of town to the other in pretty much 15 minutes. Anywhere you wanted to go, just hop on the bike and you're there. Those bike lanes are such a luxury. They are sort of seperate from the street and sidewalk with curbs on either sides.
The beauty of the city planners' foresight is that they were able to build the city more densely (fewer or no parking lots) which made it even more easy to depend on bicycles for getting around. Making a city dense also makes it cheaper to provide city services such as sanitation, fire and police protection, utilities, etc. The big problem with dense cities is that real estate then becomes VERY expensive. Then again, if I weren't paying tens of thousands of dollars for an automible, I guess it would help defray the added real estate costs of living in a well-planned city.
NYC bicyclists don't stick to lanes (because they are insane, and you'd have to be insane to ride a bicycle here)
I think the cause of this insanity which you describe is automobile traffic. This could be addressed by removing the cars from the equation.
Out of this cloud of
retards who couldn't recognize / understand a reference to Big Lebowski comes this brilliant piece of absurdist humor. My hat is tipped to you, Lars.
Hooray! I love to see more stuff getting written for the Mac. I am looking forward to the release of Magic Lantern for Mac OS X. In fact, I'll probably write some letters to the FBI demanding Mac OS X support in Magic Lantern.
I really doubt that any of these speculative predictions of yours will actually come to pass.
* They will find a way to make it work in every consumer OS.
* They will find some other way to acheive the same thing with other OSs.
These are basically the same prediction. With Microsoft's 95% domination of the desktop OS market, there's really no need for the FBI to code this thing for Amiga, BeOS, Mac OS 9 & X, Palm, SuSE, MkLinux, Red Hat, Mandrake, Yellow Dog, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and the list goes on with similar obscurities. The mass majority of criminals are going to use the OS used by the mass majority of consumers.
If this changes and terrorists / criminals wise-up to Magic Lantern and circumvent it by purchasing (or stealing) Titanium Powerbooks, then that would make Mac OS X the "criminal's choice" in OS's... hmmm. Sort of gives a new category to add in the Think Different campaign.
* They will outlaw the use of an OS that can be used to evade law enforcement.
Wow. I wonder how much Microsoft stock j. Aschcroft owns. First the slap on the wrist settlement and now the FBI is going to mandate Windows use nationwide because they can't port their trojan to all the obscure minority OS's.
You can be sure that this would NEVER happen. There are all kinds of technologies legally available in the US that thwart surveillance by law enforcement. Cell Phone Encryption, Bug Detectors, or how about plain-old PGP?
My point here is that the FBI would find Magic Lantern totally succeful if it works only on the OS used by 95% of the US population. I really can't imagine Aschcroft getting all huffy in a meeting because there are 5% of all computer users who aren't susceptible to this. There's going to be a MUCH larger percentage of Windows users who simply won't get infected with the thing in the first place.
I don't know what software you are using to download binaries off usenet, but it sounds like there's a configuration glitch. If it's storing the pictures of cocker spaniels in/usr/bin, that's probably because of where the program is installed. Try changing the default setting to something like/usr/home/cmdrTaco/urineFetishPics.
Old Dirty Bastard broke
a law (in California, not NY) prohibiting convicted violent felons from wearing body armor. This is similar to other laws prohibiting "those people" (felons, not black people) from owning firearms and / or voting.
There's a lot that just doesn't add up in this story. I agree with the other posters that JK has either fabricated this as nerd-porn, or that he's been duped by a troll.
1. Downloading movies on the 'Commodore' hidden under the chicken coop- What the heck format are the movies in? If they're recent movies, they're not going to be compressed using any codex available to even the last of the Amigas.
2. He wants to get his hands on an iPod. Right... Isn't that putting the cart before the horse in SO many ways. mp3s are only a hot commodity among people who have a. lots of bandwidth and / or b. lots of cds. This guy has neither. If he has the disposable income (which is so damn rare in an impoverished country like Afghanistan) to want to buy an iPod, then he would have the wherewithall to have fled the country at some point during the Taliban's occupation. The people stuck in Afghanistan during the Taliban's occupation weren't the ones saying, "Damn. I have all this money and no cool stuff to buy." Those people got the hell out of there. I drive a car that cost more than some of the bombs they dropped on the Taliban, but with the economy in the state that it is in the US, I'm not talking about spending the cash to buy an iPod anytime soon.
I had a very similar run-in with UPS. I ordered a Vestax turntable from an outfit in New York,
Turntable Lab. It had one of the legs broken off in delivery (by UPS). The vendor suggested I mail it back to them via UPS using their shipping number. I was fine with that, so I did. A month later, no replacement. I checked the tracking number on UPS's website. After receipt here in Austin, no additional info. It had disappeared. I had marked the value as $500- the list price for the turntable. UPS originally claimed they had NO record of me marking the value on the shipping slip and said they would only pay me $100. I faxed the original copy I had (keep those things, trust me) and they had to honor it.
But here was the rub: although the list price of the turntable was $500, the shipping was $40. I had already paid $40 for the one they broke the legs off of. To purchase another turntable, I would need to pay another $40 on top of the $500 list price. So I would be out a total of $80 on their lousy shipping. I was so fed up with them, I was on the virge of filing a small claims case against them. I was willing to push that button for mutually assured destruction. They finally offered me the full cost of the turntable plus shipping. As a result, I am a loyal FedEx user.
and that doesn't mean MS is in control?
on
XBox Released
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· Score: 2
I agree wholeheartedly with your support for competition in the console gaming market. It fuels innovation that benefits the consumer.
Other companies are going to expand, reject, and strengthen parts of the box with 3rd party peripherals and software.
But in support of your theory, how does this mean Microsoft ISN'T in control. In your vision, everyone's livingroom has an xBOx, and the role of other companies is to make peripherals, software, etc. that support the xBOx. Sounds exactly like the current state of the consumer desktop PC market. Do you really want that? With a 95% marketshare, there's no legitimate 'competition' pushing microsoft to innovate its OS in ways other than how it can make more money from it (.NET for example).
Sure, whether each ms release is actually innovative is somewhat subjective. You might ask, "What could be that isn't?" How about OS-level distributed computing? NeXT had this in 1991. You simply opened a control panel, selected the names of other computers on your network that were available to handle extra tasks, and then ANY application that needed a little 'umph' could pass out some work to those computers. Developers didn't need to add anything in their apps to take advantage of distributed computing. Sure, maybe we don't need distributed computing for most consumer apps. A dual 800 mhz G4 processor can handle most anything that any consumer would want / need to do. But it certainly would be a nice feature for crazy-ass photoshop and 3-d rendering stuff. And it would open up the potential for developers who are currently hindered by CPU expectations on the part of their customers.
I'm not saying NeXT was better for its distributed computing functionality. It's just an example of a feature that hasn't been implemented because there's no competitive pressure on ms to implement it. The only think irking ms right now is how it can squeeze more money out of these wallets-with-legs called its customers. Do we want that in the console market as well? I certainly don't.
I really hope your prediction is correct that "MS will lose bigtime to PS2 in the console space."
The point I would like you to consider, however, is that with the xBOx, microsoft is opening the floodgates for ports from the PC platform. Again, I agree with you that "Microsoft is definitely not #1 in video games", but the fact remains there are THOUSANDS of games available on the PC platform. Publishers are salivating at the opportunity to make extra money porting titles that have already completed their lifecycle in the PC realm. Sure, microsoft isn't the #1 developer of PC games, but in the computer-gaming market, their platform dominates.
I never tried to say that.NET would help microsoft take over the console market. I provided.NET as an example of the 'innovation' that occurs when a manufacturer is no longer driven by competition to bring new features to the consumer. Instead, the monopolist has the freedom to innovate new methods of raking in cash from consumers.
I am flattered that you chose to mimic my 5-step playbook for 'bling-bling', but I'm pretty unconvinced that steps 1 & 2 are grounded in reality. As for #3, I'd like to know of any large-scale consumer product that's been marketed for years without turning a profit. Other than Internet Explorer, I can't really think of any.
whatever success they have with this, it will be the result of good business and strong games.
The thing that makes microsoft's entrance to the console market different than Sony's is that it already has a huge back catalog of games on its WinX platform that will port like an avalanche to the xBOx. Sony came into the console market with the same footing as its competitors. In the console gaming market, this isn't going to mean anything other than a reheating of last-year's PC gaming leftovers, but the console consumers (i.e. non-computer gamers) who make up the bulk of the market will see the vast number of titles and hop on the xBOx tip. Hardly innovation for the market. When Sony came along with PSX, it enabled such unseen pleasures as the buxom Laura Croft. All xBOx will do is offer PC-gaming 'lite'*.
Once competition is choked off (using the playbook in my earlier post), then consumers will hardly see competition-driven improvements to the xBOx platform-- microsoft will be focused on revenue-driven features, not enhancing the user's experience. As an example, check out.NET. How's that supposed to benefit consumers?
I really would like to think that 'somebody' could step in with 'something better'. But we're not talking about the 1970s with two guys smoking pot in a garage while they cobble together the electronic device that's going to define an industry. This is a mature market dominated by goliaths with dozens of millions of dollars of R&D to throw around. Whether you're talking about consoles, computer OS, etc, you just don't go into a meeting with potential VC investors and announce a business plan that has your startup company COMPETING with microsoft. Nobody does this these days. At best, you can get funding to jump into a market that's still open like databases or app servers. Please feel free to give me a call when one of the better web browsers unseats IEs grip from the throat of the browser market.
As far as the microsoft shareholders' patience for xBOx turning a profit, I'll bet xBOx losses hardly register a blip on their overall revenue chart. I still haven't heard them clamoring for IE to turn a profit...
* "lite" as in diet. As in, you're not going to use your xBOx to create your own mods. You're not going to set up your own xBOx server for public deathmatches. etc.
I think what Cutriss was saying is that he prefers competition to exist in the console market as opposed to microsoft exploiting its monopoly to take over the market.
I'll probably get an XBox because MS seems willing to put their weight (and $$) behind it.
I think this is what Cutriss and I are afraid of. History has demonstrated that microsoft putting its 'weight (and $$) behind' something doesn't necessarily mean a benefit for consumers. In the console arena, this is going to mean more titles exclusively released for the xBOx, plain and simple. Would console gaming have been a better place if Tony Hawk Pro Skater had ONLY been released on the PlayStation? Is microsoft going to work with developers to help them make more games better, or will they work with developers to stifle releases on other platforms?
Here's a probable tactic that is a page right out of Bill Gates' playbook.
1. Offer to waive development fees and licensing for any titles released exclusively for the xBOx.
2. Over time, it will become 'more expensive' for developers to release a title on other systems because those console manufacturers' business model is based on licensing revenue for each title sold on their platform.
3. microsoft can afford to not make money from licensing for many years and can hold out while the other console manufacturers have their 'air supply cut off.'
4. After other console makers pull out of the market, microsoft raises their licensing rates for developers and owns the marketplace.
5. Bling-Bling.
The thing that has most bothered me recently with microsoft is that this is a company that doesn't have to partner with shit. They don't have to build alliances. If any other company wants to build a standard for their product to work, they've got to go out and convince a bunch of other companies to sign on with them. You'll usually see Adobe, Sun, Oracle listed in announcements for whatever XYZ web publishing standard a company is promoting. Since when did microsoft ever go out and say, "Here's this new thing, and all these other companies are really excited about it, and they've already committed to support it."? Take the.NET offensive. They just announce this thing and say, "Well, this is the way we've decided things are going to be. Get used to it."
I must give you credit for maintaining a site about vr technology. But when I read this line, I noticed some pretty ferocious clipping occuring within the VR world you live in and are trying to project. "cheap LCD TVs from Frys" is as unrealistic as you can possibly get.
But I didn't want to just criticize. I do agree with you that it doesn't take a LOT to get some homebrew VR stuff going.
As a matter of fact, I think one of these UTcave systems could be cobbled together from projectors like they always use at work to show powerpoint presentations. The tricky stuff is that trigonometry that the guy who built this was talking about on his page....
This is a very good idea. I hadn't thought of this at all. Would liked to have done this before Time Warner (RoadRunner) disabled inbound port 80 due to nimdA. Now I don't have crap coming to my server. I switched it to run at port 81, which works, but how elegant is the URL http://myserver.dhs.org:81/ ? Not very.
I like your analogy, and I think that strategy really is true for a cola company, but I think this fails to apply to a software company, and ESPECIALLY fails to apply to the open source infantry.
You can't possibly compete with our economies of scale, distribution channels, marketing, or name recognition.
Economies of scale means that the more raw materials a producer purchases, then the cheaper they get those raw materials and they can thereby lower the price of the finished product. Apple's inclusion of a $399 Toshiba hard drive in the $399 iPod is an example of that. For software, you've got a static development cost that does not decrease based on the amount of discs shipped.
Distribution channels? Uhh. The internet.
Marketing? ditto. Word of mouth via the internet. I don't think I remember seeing a single Napster magazine ad until after they had several million users.
Name recognition? If open source software apps were able to fully handle the docs created by word and xl, name recognition would be irrelevant here as "Microsoft Word" would quickly become diluted as trademarks like "Xerox" and "Band aid" have. Word processor people wouldn't recognize a distinction between 'MS Word' and 'Abi Word'. It would all be 'word' to them.
I don't think the PHBs are the supporters of Microsoft on the office productivity front. If anything, I think they would be the main propnents of migrating to free alternatives if they were told that the alternatives were 100% compatible with the documents created by MS Office. In this economy, purchasing $400 licenses for each copy of office is a real cost-cutting opportunity for a budget-conscious PHB.
Minidisc is terrific for being able to record in the field, but the whole thing is still a closed-digital thing. Like what I mean is that if you want to load a minidisc with sound to listen to, you gotta play all the music in real-time to transfer it. And if you want track numbers in there, it requires a lot of manual intervention.
The article, unfortunately, focuses on the size of this player and not how you get the music on the disc. I'm wondering if it's firewire or USB.. It would be very cool if this thing recorded in the field, too. That's one feature I think they could add to the iPod 2.0 to make it just a tad bit more appealing: Recording.
The original poster fails to identify the need to digitize this video in the first place. Since rapid retrieval isn't even a priority, I don't think storing this video footage on computers / hard drives is necessary.
The only reason you would need this data stored on computers is if it needed instant-access from multiple client locations at any given time. Under the conditions described here, I don't see why normal digital video tape can't be used. It'll support the highest-clarity possible- better than the best compression codec available- and it'll be cheaper.
Of course, with this many cameras churning out this much video, a computer indexing system is essential. Perhaps it would also be useful to have one of those robotic arm things moving the tapes around and labelling them.
When you say a hard drive skipping would be worse than a cd skipping, I'm not sure you know how right you are. If you've got your hard drive 'skipping' due to bumps in the road, you'd be wishing it was only affecting the quality of the sound. Likely you're going to be replacing that hard drive after just a couple skips.
Since hard drives are designed to sustain G-force pressure to some extent, most normal driving shouldn't muss with them too much. Especially if you use laptop hard drives.
In
Office Space, they had a guy (Michael Bolton) who was a computer programmer and always talked street and listened to gansta rap. He had a sort of pent-up hard-ass attitude, too. Like when they took that printer out into the field and kicked its ass, you could just see how he was applying experience gained through several stomp-downs he had issued in the tough city streets. Maybe he had graduated from a similar program?
Michael Bolton: We're not going to some white collar resort prison. No, no, no! We're going to federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison!
As for the firewire stuff, I think the technology abstracts the device to be immediately compatible with PCs and linux boxes that can handle normal firewire communication.
My intuition tells me that firewire is simply mounting the device as a hard drive and you'll be able to drag-n-drop files between it and your Mac. iTunes probably can get involved for organizational needs, transferring files, and will probably write simple text file playlists that are placed on the hard drive in a format expected by the iPod. There's absolutely no reason some highschool kid can't figure out a way to write a similar utility for those Mac-alternative platforms that will write these playlists. Since Apple didn't manufacture the drive, it's likely got some firewire drivers available for PCs.
Other consoles use cooler chipsets
on
Crashing Xbox Kiosks
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· Score: 2, Informative
With the exception of the dreamcast (which may be the first gaming console with a fan built in), other consoles have used cooler-running chips. Don't know too much about the PS2, but the PSX was using a RISC chip built by SGI. Probably the same for PS2.
xBox, OTOH, will be using commodity intel-based hardware which has historically had heat and energy consumption issues.
PowerBook G4/400 spotted for $1,699 at TX Fry's 12:12 pm
An Austin, TX, reader reports that the local Fry's Electronics has stock of the Apple PowerBook G4/400 Titanium 128/10.0/DVD/56k/100BT 15.2-inch TFT, model no. M7952LL/A, for $1,699. That beats the best mail-order price we could find for a new, factory-sealed unit. The offer may only be available at this location, assuming that it's still in stock.
Slashdot Mirror
Why does my
Ironpoint,
.NET would help microsoft take over the console market. I provided .NET as an example of the 'innovation' that occurs when a manufacturer is no longer driven by competition to bring new features to the consumer. Instead, the monopolist has the freedom to innovate new methods of raking in cash from consumers.
I really hope your prediction is correct that "MS will lose bigtime to PS2 in the console space."
The point I would like you to consider, however, is that with the xBOx, microsoft is opening the floodgates for ports from the PC platform. Again, I agree with you that "Microsoft is definitely not #1 in video games", but the fact remains there are THOUSANDS of games available on the PC platform. Publishers are salivating at the opportunity to make extra money porting titles that have already completed their lifecycle in the PC realm. Sure, microsoft isn't the #1 developer of PC games, but in the computer-gaming market, their platform dominates.
I never tried to say that
I am flattered that you chose to mimic my 5-step playbook for 'bling-bling', but I'm pretty unconvinced that steps 1 & 2 are grounded in reality. As for #3, I'd like to know of any large-scale consumer product that's been marketed for years without turning a profit. Other than Internet Explorer, I can't really think of any.
* "lite" as in diet. As in, you're not going to use your xBOx to create your own mods. You're not going to set up your own xBOx server for public deathmatches. etc.
2
This is a very good idea. I hadn't thought of this at all. Would liked to have done this before Time Warner (RoadRunner) disabled inbound port 80 due to nimdA. Now I don't have crap coming to my server. I switched it to run at port 81, which works, but how elegant is the URL http://myserver.dhs.org:81/ ? Not very.
From www.dealmac.com