...and no room for the little guys. Don't you see what could happen? The problem isn't another MS, or even two MS corps controlling the market; the problem is that two extremely large corporations will hold control of everything we see. AOL/Time Warner is a media giant in and out of the computer world. Microsoft IS the computer world and has its own media platforms in and out of it as well. The problem with AOL/TW buying RedHat is that this giant will get bigger. Better press, better distribution, and a good face; Mozilla and RedHat Linux would be platform examples of good community efforts... that take focus away from the giant's control of what we see on monitors and televisions.
Here's where the American Dream(TM) dies: with corporations controlling everything, the amount a small firm can change lessens. By letting these two companies get bigger and bigger, we let the smaller guys get pushed around.
RedHat has a huge influence on the Linux/Free Software community, like it or not. If AOL/TW buys it, I guarantee AOL/TW will influence RedHat and therefore the Linux/Free Software community.
If you're watching AOL, and your intentions really are true (ie, get into the Linux world for a complete CD distribution/coaster), buy Mandrake, the 'easy to use' distro. Or perhaps Lindows, or some distribution of your own. Wouldn't the announcement of AOLinux be enough without needing to own the most influential of Linux pushers? Look at what IBM is doing! Look, no buyout; hell, they don't even have an IBM-brand distro (AFAIK).
A Chinese group called Xteam makes (or used to make? the 'buy' link is broken or I can't read the Chinese error message) some product called Xteam Lindows 3.0. Check out the cool icon at least.
Here's an English description of the software and company:
Linux for Windows:
Specially use for installing and running on Microsoft Windows, namely XteamLindows 3.0, offers convenience for those newbies who heard about Linux, curious to know more, and besides, it's a powerful tool for popularizing Linux.
the link provided only brings you to a page with javascript popups of the images, which are slashdotted anyway. here's a direct link to both images: First Second
...looks damn cool, should really help in the migration away from windows for people too comfortable with it to be able to switch.
Slashdot limits me in formatting, I'd prefer to use <dd>s and <dt>s or Qs and As. instead this flows every other comment is mine, the other set (italicized) is CNN.
CPU and RAM: 4- to 5-GHz microprocessor with 512MB of DDR memory and a 600-MHz system bus
No. Processors will not reach 4GHz; take a look at AMD and Intel and you will see that they are redoing the numbers, nearly cutting them in half. Sure, I agree that they will probably be 4-5 times what we have today, but not 4-5GHz. And 512MB RAM is completely unrealistic. I'm quite likely to have enough RAM in my system to load my OS onto it, and I see this as happening in the next year or two; therefore, expect to see 4-8GB of RAM.
Hard disk: From 300GB to 400GB on a Serial ATA bus
I'm guessing ATA will be obsolete in two years, in favor of something that doesn't need to spin as much... heat problems are bringing a limit to HDD speed, which is more important than capacity. As to storage, I think we'll see those numbers in 2002, not 2004.
Removable storage: Rewritable DVD and -- yes -- the unsinkable 1.44MB floppy
If Steve Jobbs has his way, the floppy is gone. I can definately see the floppy going away in the next few years. DVD-RW will surface in '02 or '03 but some form of RAM stick should be superior by '04. It probably won't fly on the market though (say LS120?).
Internet connection: Cable or DSL broadband if you're lucky; 56-kbps modem if not
Bravo! I agree that this is what we'll see. that and a small number of partnerships - neighbors teaming up to share really fast services, creating LANS that will in later years end up growing into a fiber WAN.
Video: 3D graphics card with 128MB of video RAM
We'll see 128MB video ram in late '02. Expect s-video out standard and hdtv (or whatever) extra.
Display: 18- to 21-inch flat-panel LCD screen capable of 1600 by 1200 resolution
I'm not buying one until it's cheaper than the 'bulky' flat-screen CRT (note that the CRT will have to comparatively drop in price b/c who would pay more?); why pay so much extra when I have the space? The world is not ruled by gamers!
Ports: USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394
plus some firewire-like protocol (or are these fast enough for ext. hdds?)
Input devices: Wireless (Bluetooth) mouse and keyboard
Ooh, expensive toys - the economy is going DOWN, not up; no need for these!
Operating system: Some version of Windows (you expected Linux, perhaps?)
I used to agree with this. And with GTK 2.0 supposedly being functional on windows, this seems very viable. I think we'll see more distros (ie replacements for non-kernel elements) of Windows, like Win98lite, CygWin, LiteStep and some Gnome thingie. Because of this and projects like Wine, I think Linux will be pretty much the same thing (ie compatible to an extent), thus it will still survive. And around '06, I think we'll see some GPL-esque OS dominate the market.
Other: An 802.11b wireless network designed for users with more than one PC
Not 802.11b but something similar, possibly. I see this as more of a laptop/PDA feature than desktop; if it's plugged into the wall for power, what's so hard about plugging it into the wall for net?
Price: $1,500 to $2,000
Nope. Remember, falling economy. Expect $1,500-2000 to buy the above (high-end) system (wireless net, wireless keyb/mouse, flat-panel, etc) and $500-1,250 for the system I've described.
...As to the laptop, I really don't think we can say that much about it, since the size of the desktop will be shrinking so rapidly; who's to say what the differences will be, especially with wireless networking (read: small hdds)?
Perhaps I should also mention that you'll find nearly all of the images from that little 'top ten' presentation in equal or higher resolution on the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive.
oh, what a cute little setup space.com has. all glorified and brushed up. bah! we're geeks, right? here's something far less propgandized; The Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive has hundreds of great pictures.
One of my favorite ways to get good pictures is to search it for the word "nebula" (click here)- it gives you a nice thumbnail index that I much prefre over that space.com "Image Viewer"...and it has more than ten images!
Make your voice get heard by those who supposedly represent you! Follow this ACLU link and email the Bureau of Prisons today! (and mention this slashdot article too, perhaps they'll actually read about what they fail to represent).
BTW, Wizards of the Coast is a division of Hasbro now. WotC bought TSR with the fortune they made from Magic: The Gathering, and then Hasbro swallowed them up.
oop. MTG didn't give too much money to wotc (not enough to buy the near-bankrupt TSR and survive with a chance of success). It was Pokemon and WotC's alliance with Nintendo that raked in the cash. It was Pokemon that Hasbro bought WOtC for. Magic and D&D were just "bonuses"... Hasbro does that:
Hasbro bought Microprose to get into the computer game industry, Avalon Hill was suing over the rights to the name of competing games called "Civilization" - so Hasbro just bought Avalon Hill rather than fight them. The entire development team at AH was scrapped as was almost the entire product line (except, of course, Diplomacy).
here's a fun fact for ya: Wizards of the Coast made unofficial D&D accessories (and greetings cards) before picking up a certain Richard Garfield and introducing the world to Magic....WotC's staff have always been enamored with D Peter Adkinson, CEO, is supposedly a really good Dungeon Master. The world he created had a group of wizards who called themselves the "Wizards of the Coast."
corby stated that "Interplay is apparently the only company with rights to distribute games under the AD&D license" while this is only partially true.
I'm pretty sure that Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro split the Dungeons and Dragons lines into several different developers' hands. Interplay owns only Forgotten Realms (which includes the Baldurs Gate games, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights) and Planescape.
Due to a grandfather clause, SSI (the company to first publish D&D games, including Eye of the Beholder, Shattered Lands, Menzoberranzan, Strahd's Possession) can still produce Forgotten Realms games. They publish through Mattel, NOT Interplay. Take a look at the Pool of Radiance site for more information. Oh, and Pool of Radiance will also use the D&D 3rd Edition rules (and is the first and only video/computer game out currently to do so).
I believe that other companies (not Interplay) have rights to other D&D worlds, such as Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Birthright (Sierra owned this one a few years ago but the line may be dead), and Greyhawk.
Check out the winner and runners-up. There is no meter, there are no rhymes. This is just spliced quotes in moderately humorous arrangement. Maybe this year's will have a real poem?
Regarding the concerns of "Spooon" and certain key characters and copyright issues (as discussed in the above link here), Ben says that "the material from the cartoon series has passed into the ownership of interests outside this current endeavor."
Note that the statement was written back when the pilot was the only episode filmed and while Fox was still considering the show. The statement clears up a number of issues leaving only the lack of NEC and Christopher Lloyd in the credits.
unfortunately, the article you pointed to doesn't say any more than you did... anybody know what issue is behind the sticky legal confliction that would allow the show but not certain key elements such as characters and catch-phrases?
Even more surprising is that the credits do NOT mention New England Comics, the creators of the Tick comic that the cartoon series was based on. Christopher Lloyd made a guest appearance on this premiere and also was not in the credits. eech!
Requires a court application to obtain student records
Does not allow the use of information collected on Americans by foreign governments when that information was collected in violation of the U.S. Constitution
Does not allow disclosure of tax return information by Treasury to federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies in responding to terrorist incidents
wow, this bill has three good provisions. I'm not a Libertarian party supporter, but guess which party I'll be biased towards in near future elections?
Yes, somebody has taken a stab at the date. Accodring to the manifesto, we will see a few more releases (0.9.6-0.9.9) followed by 1.0 or 0.9.10 then 1.0. there will be NO other milestones. The document claims we have about half a year until the 1.0 release. This is the first firm forecast I've seen so far.
here's the big bug holding Mozilla 1.0 back; basically a collection of extremely important bugs. Also of tremendous importance, a dependency of this bug, the Party bug... yes, we need a party for the release!
largly for plugin support, such as g-force, whitecap, geiss... but these will be hard to implement in linux due to the.dll/winAPI problems.
One of my favorite features of WinAMP simply doesn't exist in XMMS: try right-clicking on the (back, play, pause, stop, next, open) buttons and you'll find a bunch of features that most people don't know about. All have shortcuts of course; with winamp selected (and playing a song), press SHIFT+v (or click stop while holding shift). the song will fade to a stop in 10 seconds. CTRL+v will stop playing after the song. I've actually taken a sharpy to my keyboard and drawn these controls on the bottom edges of their respective keys; back on Z, play on X, pause on C, stop on V, next on B.
-q0 is for quality, 0-9, 0 is high. -h is -q2 and I think -q3 is default. Why am I the only one to use q0?
--noshort prevents use of short blocks
-abr 28 averages the bitrate to 28kbps
--lowpass 12 --lowpass-width 0 are from the voice preset, the frequency cutoff settings
--vrb-new (maybe not needed in 3.90?) use new vbr routine
-V3 is the vbr quality setting lower=bigger. 3 is default (~160)
-V2 see above, ~192kbps
-b96 -B192 specifies keep bitrate variance between 96 and 192
The reason I use vbr instead of abr is that if a song needs more quality, it will simply take the higher bitrates (very important in live recordings, which are lossy to begin with). I use my high setting for my favorite music (there's little difference, I'm just being safe).
My journey, Athlon XP Givaway given away
on
AthlonXP Released
·
· Score: 2
I hate you all. I knew about this little givaway before slashdot announced it. There were only so many free chip/mobos and there were waaay too many people in Cambridge, MA pushing (literally) to get one. I arrived to wait in line at 4:30AM this morning only to find that there was no line; I actually got the LAST ticket due to people pushing the line up and past me and others who refused to push.
What did I get? Nothing. A complete waste of time especially considering how I almost threw up riding my bike there and then was hit by a car on the way back (I am okay, but the car...). Now I am working the day away on no sleep and a stinging wrist (where the car and I made contact). Why, oh why, was this posted on slashdot?!...and then there's the whole "starts at 6:00AM" thing; I've gone to sleep past 6AM more often than woken up before then in the past months...
...to see that this "new" innovation is going to use a propietary format. Think of the bickering it will cause.... oh, right. You know why they're fighting over this, right? Same kind of problem with MP3. Royalties, it is all about the royalties. Shame on the IETF.
Apparently this is NOT a contest to "Build a Mindstorm Robot to Fly to the ISS"... since building a real spaceship out of legos is a LOT more difficult.
Outer Limits; SciFi carries this, but it used to also show on CBS and Showtime. I think SciFi's run is ending. Individual 1-hour long stories that aren't connected.
There are two different "The Outer Limits." The recent one, which airs in Boston on CBS, and the classic black and white one. They are generally the same show with a ~20 year blip and would be my top pick here.
Also of note, which nobody seems to have mentioned yet, is the X-Files. Sure, it sucks now, but it defined the genre. Before the X-Files, scifi was limited to Star Trek TNG.
And don't forget Futurama, Red Dwarf, Sliders, and Star Trek: CBN (CowboyNeal). Hercules and Xena are fantasy, not scifi....And don't you DARE put Pokemon on.
Slashdot Mirror
...and no room for the little guys. Don't you see what could happen? The problem isn't another MS, or even two MS corps controlling the market; the problem is that two extremely large corporations will hold control of everything we see. AOL/Time Warner is a media giant in and out of the computer world. Microsoft IS the computer world and has its own media platforms in and out of it as well. The problem with AOL/TW buying RedHat is that this giant will get bigger. Better press, better distribution, and a good face; Mozilla and RedHat Linux would be platform examples of good community efforts ... that take focus away from the giant's control of what we see on monitors and televisions.
Here's where the American Dream(TM) dies: with corporations controlling everything, the amount a small firm can change lessens. By letting these two companies get bigger and bigger, we let the smaller guys get pushed around.
RedHat has a huge influence on the Linux/Free Software community, like it or not. If AOL/TW buys it, I guarantee AOL/TW will influence RedHat and therefore the Linux/Free Software community.
If you're watching AOL, and your intentions really are true (ie, get into the Linux world for a complete CD distribution/coaster), buy Mandrake, the 'easy to use' distro. Or perhaps Lindows, or some distribution of your own. Wouldn't the announcement of AOLinux be enough without needing to own the most influential of Linux pushers? Look at what IBM is doing! Look, no buyout; hell, they don't even have an IBM-brand distro (AFAIK).
A Chinese group called Xteam makes (or used to make? the 'buy' link is broken or I can't read the Chinese error message) some product called Xteam Lindows 3.0. Check out the cool icon at least.
Here's an English description of the software and company:
Linux for Windows:
Specially use for installing and running on Microsoft Windows, namely XteamLindows 3.0, offers convenience for those newbies who heard about Linux, curious to know more, and besides, it's a powerful tool for popularizing Linux.
the link provided only brings you to a page with javascript popups of the images, which are slashdotted anyway. here's a direct link to both images: First
...looks damn cool, should really help in the migration away from windows for people too comfortable with it to be able to switch.
Second
Perhaps I should also mention that you'll find nearly all of the images from that little 'top ten' presentation in equal or higher resolution on the Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive.
oh, what a cute little setup space.com has. all glorified and brushed up. bah! we're geeks, right? here's something far less propgandized; The Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive has hundreds of great pictures.
...and it has more than ten images!
One of my favorite ways to get good pictures is to search it for the word "nebula" ( click here )- it gives you a nice thumbnail index that I much prefre over that space.com "Image Viewer"
www.notslashdot.org
horrah for satan.
full context
Make your voice get heard by those who supposedly represent you! Follow this ACLU link and email the Bureau of Prisons today! (and mention this slashdot article too, perhaps they'll actually read about what they fail to represent).
BTW, Wizards of the Coast is a division of Hasbro now. WotC bought TSR with the fortune they made from Magic: The Gathering, and then Hasbro swallowed them up.
... Hasbro does that:
...WotC's staff have always been enamored with D Peter Adkinson, CEO, is supposedly a really good Dungeon Master. The world he created had a group of wizards who called themselves the "Wizards of the Coast."
oop. MTG didn't give too much money to wotc (not enough to buy the near-bankrupt TSR and survive with a chance of success). It was Pokemon and WotC's alliance with Nintendo that raked in the cash. It was Pokemon that Hasbro bought WOtC for. Magic and D&D were just "bonuses"
Hasbro bought Microprose to get into the computer game industry, Avalon Hill was suing over the rights to the name of competing games called "Civilization" - so Hasbro just bought Avalon Hill rather than fight them. The entire development team at AH was scrapped as was almost the entire product line (except, of course, Diplomacy).
here's a fun fact for ya: Wizards of the Coast made unofficial D&D accessories (and greetings cards) before picking up a certain Richard Garfield and introducing the world to Magic.
corby stated that "Interplay is apparently the only company with rights to distribute games under the AD&D license" while this is only partially true.
I'm pretty sure that Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro split the Dungeons and Dragons lines into several different developers' hands. Interplay owns only Forgotten Realms (which includes the Baldurs Gate games, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights) and Planescape.
Due to a grandfather clause, SSI (the company to first publish D&D games, including Eye of the Beholder, Shattered Lands, Menzoberranzan, Strahd's Possession) can still produce Forgotten Realms games. They publish through Mattel, NOT Interplay. Take a look at the Pool of Radiance site for more information. Oh, and Pool of Radiance will also use the D&D 3rd Edition rules (and is the first and only video/computer game out currently to do so).
I believe that other companies (not Interplay) have rights to other D&D worlds, such as Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Birthright (Sierra owned this one a few years ago but the line may be dead), and Greyhawk.
Check out the winner and runners-up. There is no meter, there are no rhymes. This is just spliced quotes in moderately humorous arrangement. Maybe this year's will have a real poem?
okay, perhaps I should have dug through the NEC website a bit first. There is a page on the TV show which links to a statement from Tick creator Ben Edlund (who is in the credits while New England Comics is not).
Regarding the concerns of "Spooon" and certain key characters and copyright issues (as discussed in the above link here), Ben says that "the material from the cartoon series has passed into the ownership of interests outside this current endeavor."
Note that the statement was written back when the pilot was the only episode filmed and while Fox was still considering the show. The statement clears up a number of issues leaving only the lack of NEC and Christopher Lloyd in the credits.
unfortunately, the article you pointed to doesn't say any more than you did ... anybody know what issue is behind the sticky legal confliction that would allow the show but not certain key elements such as characters and catch-phrases?
Even more surprising is that the credits do NOT mention New England Comics, the creators of the Tick comic that the cartoon series was based on. Christopher Lloyd made a guest appearance on this premiere and also was not in the credits. eech!
- Requires a court application to obtain student records
- Does not allow the use of information collected on Americans by foreign governments when that information was collected in violation of the U.S. Constitution
- Does not allow disclosure of tax return information by Treasury to federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies in responding to terrorist incidents
wow, this bill has three good provisions. I'm not a Libertarian party supporter, but guess which party I'll be biased towards in near future elections?Why one propietary language should be used over another ... kind of misses the point. I say they're both bad due to being closed and propietary.
Yes, somebody has taken a stab at the date. Accodring to the manifesto, we will see a few more releases (0.9.6-0.9.9) followed by 1.0 or 0.9.10 then 1.0. there will be NO other milestones. The document claims we have about half a year until the 1.0 release. This is the first firm forecast I've seen so far.
... yes, we need a party for the release!
here's the big bug holding Mozilla 1.0 back; basically a collection of extremely important bugs. Also of tremendous importance, a dependency of this bug, the Party bug
there is apparently more than one funny bug(here's the list) on Bugzilla.
largly for plugin support, such as g-force, whitecap, geiss ... but these will be hard to implement in linux due to the .dll/winAPI problems.
One of my favorite features of WinAMP simply doesn't exist in XMMS: try right-clicking on the (back, play, pause, stop, next, open) buttons and you'll find a bunch of features that most people don't know about. All have shortcuts of course; with winamp selected (and playing a song), press SHIFT+v (or click stop while holding shift). the song will fade to a stop in 10 seconds. CTRL+v will stop playing after the song. I've actually taken a sharpy to my keyboard and drawn these controls on the bottom edges of their respective keys; back on Z, play on X, pause on C, stop on V, next on B.
I'll have to try this r3mix; it's not in lame 3.88 and I need an upgrade. as to the -b112, I thought you need -v to make it variable first.
Here are the settings I use:
- Voice: lame -mm -q0 --noshort --abr 28 --lowpass 12 --lowpass-width 0 source.wav out.mp3
- Normal: lame -q0 --vbr-new -V3 -b96 -B192
- High: lame -q0 --vbr-new -V2 -b96 -B256
explanations:- -mm is for mode: mono
- -q0 is for quality, 0-9, 0 is high. -h is -q2 and I think -q3 is default. Why am I the only one to use q0?
- --noshort prevents use of short blocks
- -abr 28 averages the bitrate to 28kbps
- --lowpass 12 --lowpass-width 0 are from the voice preset, the frequency cutoff settings
- --vrb-new (maybe not needed in 3.90?) use new vbr routine
- -V3 is the vbr quality setting lower=bigger. 3 is default (~160)
- -V2 see above, ~192kbps
- -b96 -B192 specifies keep bitrate variance between 96 and 192
The reason I use vbr instead of abr is that if a song needs more quality, it will simply take the higher bitrates (very important in live recordings, which are lossy to begin with). I use my high setting for my favorite music (there's little difference, I'm just being safe).I hate you all. I knew about this little givaway before slashdot announced it. There were only so many free chip/mobos and there were waaay too many people in Cambridge, MA pushing (literally) to get one. I arrived to wait in line at 4:30AM this morning only to find that there was no line; I actually got the LAST ticket due to people pushing the line up and past me and others who refused to push.
...and then there's the whole "starts at 6:00AM" thing; I've gone to sleep past 6AM more often than woken up before then in the past months...
What did I get? Nothing. A complete waste of time especially considering how I almost threw up riding my bike there and then was hit by a car on the way back (I am okay, but the car...). Now I am working the day away on no sleep and a stinging wrist (where the car and I made contact). Why, oh why, was this posted on slashdot?!
...to see that this "new" innovation is going to use a propietary format. Think of the bickering it will cause.... oh, right. You know why they're fighting over this, right? Same kind of problem with MP3. Royalties, it is all about the royalties. Shame on the IETF.
'This site is intended for people over 18, but only because kids
shoot each other if they hear the word "fuck."'
Apparently this is NOT a contest to "Build a Mindstorm Robot to Fly to the ISS" ... since building a real spaceship out of legos is a LOT more difficult.
Wow, look at those pictures! They present a rather solid case for XP. I guess I'll finally make the switch.
Outer Limits; SciFi carries this, but it used to also show on CBS and Showtime. I think SciFi's run is ending. Individual 1-hour long stories that aren't connected.
...And don't you DARE put Pokemon on.
There are two different "The Outer Limits." The recent one, which airs in Boston on CBS, and the classic black and white one. They are generally the same show with a ~20 year blip and would be my top pick here.
Also of note, which nobody seems to have mentioned yet, is the X-Files. Sure, it sucks now, but it defined the genre. Before the X-Files, scifi was limited to Star Trek TNG.
And don't forget Futurama, Red Dwarf, Sliders, and Star Trek: CBN (CowboyNeal). Hercules and Xena are fantasy, not scifi.