I'd probably ask "Ooh, DRM... I'll just go home and ask that nephew computer whizzkid of mine if it's any good". Then come back later after having asked. "No sorry. I heard that DRM stuff is bad. I'll take the AMD. It's cheaper anyway."
At least, that's what _should_ happen. If relatives/acquaintences ask, recommend AGAINST DRM. Try to explain why as high-level possible. Tell them that DRM will violate their rights. That they won't be able to back up their music/movies if they want to.
Well, I have been tainted with too much knowledge about DRM. So I'd prolly go with the AMD. For me to imagine to be Joe Sixpack is impossible. Yet I have an inquisitive character. Even if I didn't know what DRM was, I would research it, find out what it really is and probably not go for it.
But that's me of course. When Joe Consumer asks me which he should buy (i.e. Joe Consumer just happens to be family of mine who seeks my advice) I would recommend against DRM. You should too.
People don't _have_ to "upgrade" to pentium 5. They can either buy a Mac, or run an open operating system.
We are the consumers, they need to flog their stuff to us. What happens if we don't _buy_ DRM tech? Right, it fizzles, just like the millions of dollars that people invested in it.
They are forgetting what a consumer really wants: A convenient way to watch their movies/listen to music. DRM will complicate things, so consumers might get burned by this once, and never buy content from an outlet that supports Digital Restrictions Manglement again.
Software DRM will be around for quite a while though, since many people will still have "old" machines laying around.
I'm going to enjoy watching this turkey fizzle.
Re:Why content filtering is not enough
on
As the Spam Turns
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
[lots of very good arguments snipped]
Fundamentally, I agree with you that the problem is one of education. However, it is not merely the education of ISP technical staff that must take place. It's the education of everyone involved -- technical staff, their managers, mail software authors, spammers, the legal system, spam recipients, and businesses that might consider spamming. Everyone needs to wise up about spam.
Exactly. I couldn't have said it better. I urge the moderators to mod this posting to +5 insightful.
The law problem is a sticky one due to them being enforced (or not) locally. With locally I mean per country/state. If one state/country outlaws spamming, spammers will just move to a place that doesn't enforce or have spam laws. Maybe what people in high places aren't realizing is that it's a global social problem.
The people that are actively providing devices (DNSBLs, content filtering, etc.) to fight spam are fighting a worthy cause. I benefit from them. My mailboxes would be unusable if it weren't for them. The problem is that _I_ am technically adept enough to set these countermeasures up for myself. The technical have-nots in my direct neighborhood drool at my efficiency of killing spam, but if I explain them how I do it, their eyes glaze over. It must become easier to use the tools out there. I'm all for ISPs taking initiative to e.g. tag spam (like my upstream ISP does). The spam filtering offerings in mainstream software (like Apple Mail, Mozilla, etc.) is a good thing.
On a side note: I wonder when MS will finally put this in their MUAs (hey, a new technology' to embrace and extend), or if such a filter is available for LookOut from a third party.
Re:OT: spammer's human rights
on
As the Spam Turns
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Geez, get a sense of humor already. I of course ment that sentence in jest. That prisons and penetentiaries have such a reputation isn't my fault. I just used that commonly over-used urban legend (which also gets used by law-enforcers when they do the good-cop, bad-cop routine) to add a little humor to my posting.
Sure, if spammers believe that they get sexually assaulted when they go to prison and if it will actually stop them from abusing the network, then great! Less spammers. Goody.
If a spammer was sent to prison, they _might_ get sexually assaulted. The probability of this happening is probably a little bit higher than getting sexually violated or mugged at night if you strolled into some $dark_alley in $some_big_city.
My point: I don't condone or celebrate in-jail sexual abuse. Presenting someone with the prospect of being sexually assaulted in-jail is just as an effective scare tactic as telling kids there is a monster under their beds that will devour them at night while they sleep. But still, I couldn't resist adding that to add a lighter note to my posting.
In short: heck, it's just my twisted sense of humor. Get over it.
NB: if you are going to post something off topic, please have the courtesy to post _WITHOUT_ your +1 posting bonus. Thank you.
Re:Why content filtering is not enough
on
As the Spam Turns
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Content filtering helps. The more users use content filtering, the less of the spammers' messages gets seen by the users, and it will make mass-mailed advertising scams profitless, and if that's successful, spam dies.
Sure, DNSBLs and other blacklists help. They should be used. The content filtering is just perfect for covering that last mile (if spam passes all the blacklisting mechanism). It _might_ deterr spammers from spamming, but I doubt it. Spammer notices that his last mailing bounced, and he uses another open relay.
If a spammer knows that Bayesian filters and Spamassassin/Razor type content filtering are widely deployed, it will act as a quite effective deterrant for sending spam. Maybe.
What really needs to be done is EDUCATE isps that an open relay can get you in a whole heap of trouble. Of course many have closed their relays, but a lot still have open ones. Especially administrators in the Middle East and Asia need to be LARTed badly, since that's where 90% of my spam is relayed from. Once all open relays are killed, the spammer has only 2 alternatives, either set up his own SMTP, or use the one his ISP allocated to him. Both are easy to track and put an end to. The spammer would have to register for a new account and the more often that happens, the sooner his/her name will be blacklisted. Heck, if anti-spam laws are legislated, the spammer could end up in jail. Jail is the ultimate deterrent. There's nothing like the prospect of being assraped by Bubba to deterr spammers.
With respect to the "filtering spam is censorship" comments, well... Content filtering is my way of plugging my ears with my fingers because I do not want to know what you are trying to sell me/scam me into. The DNSBLs are a LART to teach the admins not to run an open relay.
I read somewhere (please someone remind me what it was, in case you recognize it) a story about programmers in a company. Some manager asked a Senior programmer if the project would be finished quicker if you let more programmers work on it. The Senior programmer answered that if he hired enough programmers, the project would never be finished.
I might have paraphrased it worng (hey, I'm not native english, sue me). I'm just wondering where I've read that.
I was mainly wanted to repond to the dredging up of a 5 year old.plan file which is no longer an accurate representation of the state of things.
Of course. You are absolutely right. But I thought it deserved a mention.
As for the availability of examples and advanced stuff out there, check out NeHe's website, which shows you what neat stuff is possible with just the "standard" OpenGL 1.2. Very clear examples, and very portable code. Easy to understand as well. If someone ever wants to get started with OpenGL, that is one place to start.
Did you know that they ditched NT as a recommended platform? Those SGI Visual workstation you talk about come with Linux preinstalled.
And the SGI MIPS machines are still widely used. I used to work for a R&D company that did a lot of CAD/CAM. I had to administer those Octanes and Indigo's that were used as workstations for stuff like Alias Wavefront.
I also doubt that people working on a SGI IRIX machine would give it up that easily:) In fact, that same company wanted to use NT for CAD/CAM. I heard the phrase "They'll get my machine when they pry it from my cold dead fingers" a lot.
I wouldn't put down the Mac as of yet, since they are picking up pace at the moment. Same goes for the free *nixes. If those platforms weren't ebcoming interesting, companies like Nvidea wouldn't have made accelerated drivers for FreeBSD and Linux.
I realize that Direct3D has gotten better, but still, it's going to be a tough job for MS to totally finish off OpenGL. It's well rooted into spaces other than gaming, like CAD/CAM and VR research. And if MS tries to patent it away, that will never work, because of prior art.
I think MS's stance toward OpenGL is neutral. I'd say that if somehow Direct3D would die off, MS would embrace (and probably extend) the OpenGL standard.
What 3D library does, say the PS2 and the Nintendo console use? Their own in-house one? I'd guess OpenGL, because it's available on many platforms, and it's portable. And don't forget the wealth of documentation and example code that's out there for OpenGL. It'd save a lot of time training-wise. It's a wise choice if you do console development on a workstation and if you can just cross-compile so it'll work on the console. Other than the X-box (which is just a IA32 machine on funny hardware), DirectX is indeed only available on 2 platforms.
I'm not a console-developer though, maybe someone who develops 3D-action games for consoles that are not X-boxes could comment?
DirectX is no industry standard. OpenGL is. Killing off OpenGL is VERY hard to do. Especially since OpenGL runs on more platforms than just win32 only. And since MS won't have DirectX on anything else other than IA32, it will NEVER be an industry standard. Period.
So it'll disappear from the desktop, only to stay alive where it matters, on the workstations of people using serious applications, like CAD/CAM to name just an example. (And no, not all CAD/CAM happens on intel boxes, actually SGI has this market cornered, guess where OpenGL comes from?)
Yeah yeah, I know the parent is a troll, but I decided to bite. *shrug*
John Carmack hates Direct3D with a passion. He once posted a comparison in his.plan file where he tried to compare the two by trying to build functionally the same.
The thing is that JC thought that DirectX was severely over-complex to do anything worthwhile. In OpenGL he got the exact same thing done as DirectX, but with less code, and less stuff that got in the way. He summed it up nicely. DirectX is crap because it is too complex. OpenGL is quite simple and it'll help you get stuff done.
Also, OpenGL is a real industry standard, as where DirectX isn't. OpenGL is cross-platform, as DirectX isn't.
Mozilla is BIG. Web brouwser projects tend to be. That means lots of code. That also means more bugs than one would love to care about.
Sure, IE has bug, Mozilla has bugs, Konqueror has bugs, Opera too, has bugs. Big whoop.
Yes, they need to get fixed, but don't get your panties in a knot if another (or several) bugs are found. They get fixed. We get a better browser as a result of this fixing. Yeehah. We all win.
The whole buissness over IE is just stupid. I, as a UNIX user can't use MSIE because my *nix boxen (except for my Mac OS X and SPARC/Solaris ones) can't even run MSIE. So I use something else. Moz is nice. Konq is also nice. I understand people thing Opera is snazzy. Hey I can browse the web! yippee. Get over it.
> cat vmlinuz >/dev/audio
cat: vmlinuz: No such file or directory
Right... Must be because I don't run linux on this machine:) Catting/boot/kernel to/dev/audio isn't exactly pleasant sounding, as with all binary files
Guess again. I know FOR A FACT that GLX works just fine (glxinfo says so!). I didn't take the time to check the rest, but I'd certianly assume they are supported... Your insistance otherwise really doesn't mean anything to me at this point.
On all ports? Linux has GLX working fine on my mac, for instance. I've also had success with NetBSD. OpenBSD wouldn't even run most of the desktop apps I usually run. Also, is direct rendering supported? Sure, you can have glx, but hardware accelerrated? For that you need DRM. Did you know that GLX falls back to software opengl when there's no hardware support?
Performance on FreeBSD is snappier simply because it just is. OpenBSD was never engineered or optimized for speed, only for anat-retentive security. FreeBSD has different design goals that will result in a speedier operating system. SUre, there might be a security advisory or two, but these are solved quickly. Oh, and there's the SMP issue of course, which you avoided. Workstations with multiple CPU's are getting more commonplace all the time. Heck, even I got one.
Also, ELF is something that is in OpenBSD current. Do you expect a end user to run a CVS version of OpenBSD?
You also neglected to interpret one of my answers correctly:
All stuff OpenBSD does not (yet) have
See that word between parentheses? You read over that, did you? Who's trolling who here?
I'm not saying that OpenBSD is absolute crap. It's just not as suitable as a workstation compared to the other BSD's out there.
Slashdot Mirror
At least, that's what _should_ happen. If relatives/acquaintences ask, recommend AGAINST DRM. Try to explain why as high-level possible. Tell them that DRM will violate their rights. That they won't be able to back up their music/movies if they want to.
But that's me of course. When Joe Consumer asks me which he should buy (i.e. Joe Consumer just happens to be family of mine who seeks my advice) I would recommend against DRM. You should too.
We are the consumers, they need to flog their stuff to us. What happens if we don't _buy_ DRM tech? Right, it fizzles, just like the millions of dollars that people invested in it.
They are forgetting what a consumer really wants: A convenient way to watch their movies/listen to music. DRM will complicate things, so consumers might get burned by this once, and never buy content from an outlet that supports Digital Restrictions Manglement again.
Software DRM will be around for quite a while though, since many people will still have "old" machines laying around.
I'm going to enjoy watching this turkey fizzle.
Fundamentally, I agree with you that the problem is one of education. However, it is not merely the education of ISP technical staff that must take place. It's the education of everyone involved -- technical staff, their managers, mail software authors, spammers, the legal system, spam recipients, and businesses that might consider spamming. Everyone needs to wise up about spam.
Exactly. I couldn't have said it better. I urge the moderators to mod this posting to +5 insightful.
The law problem is a sticky one due to them being enforced (or not) locally. With locally I mean per country/state. If one state/country outlaws spamming, spammers will just move to a place that doesn't enforce or have spam laws. Maybe what people in high places aren't realizing is that it's a global social problem.
The people that are actively providing devices (DNSBLs, content filtering, etc.) to fight spam are fighting a worthy cause. I benefit from them. My mailboxes would be unusable if it weren't for them. The problem is that _I_ am technically adept enough to set these countermeasures up for myself. The technical have-nots in my direct neighborhood drool at my efficiency of killing spam, but if I explain them how I do it, their eyes glaze over. It must become easier to use the tools out there. I'm all for ISPs taking initiative to e.g. tag spam (like my upstream ISP does). The spam filtering offerings in mainstream software (like Apple Mail, Mozilla, etc.) is a good thing.
On a side note: I wonder when MS will finally put this in their MUAs (hey, a new technology' to embrace and extend), or if such a filter is available for LookOut from a third party.
Sure, if spammers believe that they get sexually assaulted when they go to prison and if it will actually stop them from abusing the network, then great! Less spammers. Goody.
If a spammer was sent to prison, they _might_ get sexually assaulted. The probability of this happening is probably a little bit higher than getting sexually violated or mugged at night if you strolled into some $dark_alley in $some_big_city.
My point: I don't condone or celebrate in-jail sexual abuse. Presenting someone with the prospect of being sexually assaulted in-jail is just as an effective scare tactic as telling kids there is a monster under their beds that will devour them at night while they sleep. But still, I couldn't resist adding that to add a lighter note to my posting.
In short: heck, it's just my twisted sense of humor. Get over it.
NB: if you are going to post something off topic, please have the courtesy to post _WITHOUT_ your +1 posting bonus. Thank you.
Sure, DNSBLs and other blacklists help. They should be used. The content filtering is just perfect for covering that last mile (if spam passes all the blacklisting mechanism). It _might_ deterr spammers from spamming, but I doubt it. Spammer notices that his last mailing bounced, and he uses another open relay.
If a spammer knows that Bayesian filters and Spamassassin/Razor type content filtering are widely deployed, it will act as a quite effective deterrant for sending spam. Maybe.
What really needs to be done is EDUCATE isps that an open relay can get you in a whole heap of trouble. Of course many have closed their relays, but a lot still have open ones. Especially administrators in the Middle East and Asia need to be LARTed badly, since that's where 90% of my spam is relayed from. Once all open relays are killed, the spammer has only 2 alternatives, either set up his own SMTP, or use the one his ISP allocated to him. Both are easy to track and put an end to. The spammer would have to register for a new account and the more often that happens, the sooner his/her name will be blacklisted. Heck, if anti-spam laws are legislated, the spammer could end up in jail. Jail is the ultimate deterrent. There's nothing like the prospect of being assraped by Bubba to deterr spammers.
With respect to the "filtering spam is censorship" comments, well... Content filtering is my way of plugging my ears with my fingers because I do not want to know what you are trying to sell me/scam me into. The DNSBLs are a LART to teach the admins not to run an open relay.
thanks!
I read somewhere (please someone remind me what it was, in case you recognize it) a story about programmers in a company. Some manager asked a Senior programmer if the project would be finished quicker if you let more programmers work on it. The Senior programmer answered that if he hired enough programmers, the project would never be finished.
I might have paraphrased it worng (hey, I'm not native english, sue me). I'm just wondering where I've read that.
Not that I run windows though... My copy of HalfLife works great in winex.
Of course. You are absolutely right. But I thought it deserved a mention.
As for the availability of examples and advanced stuff out there, check out NeHe's website, which shows you what neat stuff is possible with just the "standard" OpenGL 1.2. Very clear examples, and very portable code. Easy to understand as well. If someone ever wants to get started with OpenGL, that is one place to start.
Did you know that they ditched NT as a recommended platform? Those SGI Visual workstation you talk about come with Linux preinstalled.
And the SGI MIPS machines are still widely used. I used to work for a R&D company that did a lot of CAD/CAM. I had to administer those Octanes and Indigo's that were used as workstations for stuff like Alias Wavefront.
I also doubt that people working on a SGI IRIX machine would give it up that easily :) In fact, that same company wanted to use NT for CAD/CAM. I heard the phrase "They'll get my machine when they pry it from my cold dead fingers" a lot.
I realize that Direct3D has gotten better, but still, it's going to be a tough job for MS to totally finish off OpenGL. It's well rooted into spaces other than gaming, like CAD/CAM and VR research. And if MS tries to patent it away, that will never work, because of prior art.
I think MS's stance toward OpenGL is neutral. I'd say that if somehow Direct3D would die off, MS would embrace (and probably extend) the OpenGL standard.
What 3D library does, say the PS2 and the Nintendo console use? Their own in-house one? I'd guess OpenGL, because it's available on many platforms, and it's portable. And don't forget the wealth of documentation and example code that's out there for OpenGL. It'd save a lot of time training-wise. It's a wise choice if you do console development on a workstation and if you can just cross-compile so it'll work on the console. Other than the X-box (which is just a IA32 machine on funny hardware), DirectX is indeed only available on 2 platforms.
I'm not a console-developer though, maybe someone who develops 3D-action games for consoles that are not X-boxes could comment?
Can you say: Prior Art?
So it'll disappear from the desktop, only to stay alive where it matters, on the workstations of people using serious applications, like CAD/CAM to name just an example. (And no, not all CAD/CAM happens on intel boxes, actually SGI has this market cornered, guess where OpenGL comes from?)
Yeah yeah, I know the parent is a troll, but I decided to bite. *shrug*
The thing is that JC thought that DirectX was severely over-complex to do anything worthwhile. In OpenGL he got the exact same thing done as DirectX, but with less code, and less stuff that got in the way. He summed it up nicely. DirectX is crap because it is too complex. OpenGL is quite simple and it'll help you get stuff done.
Also, OpenGL is a real industry standard, as where DirectX isn't. OpenGL is cross-platform, as DirectX isn't.
CVS can do this.
Sure, IE has bug, Mozilla has bugs, Konqueror has bugs, Opera too, has bugs. Big whoop.
Yes, they need to get fixed, but don't get your panties in a knot if another (or several) bugs are found. They get fixed. We get a better browser as a result of this fixing. Yeehah. We all win.
The whole buissness over IE is just stupid. I, as a UNIX user can't use MSIE because my *nix boxen (except for my Mac OS X and SPARC/Solaris ones) can't even run MSIE. So I use something else. Moz is nice. Konq is also nice. I understand people thing Opera is snazzy. Hey I can browse the web! yippee. Get over it.
Nothing yet on the idsoftware finger servers... I'm curious to see the reactions of JohnC et al. in their .plan files.
cat: vmlinuz: No such file or directory
Right... Must be because I don't run linux on this machine :) Catting /boot/kernel to /dev/audio isn't exactly pleasant sounding, as with all binary files
Yes, that might work if you stand still. But what if you jump?
That's almost as heavily visited as my personal website... ;) (hint: no, not hackerheaven.org. duh)
You wouldn't want to live in a space station for 10 years and go back to earth to find out your bones have dissolved, because you didn't need them.
zero gravoty might sound fun, but it's a killer in the long term
*ducks* *runs*
Mod this thing up. It's the funniest I've read in a while :)
Guess again. I know FOR A FACT that GLX works just fine (glxinfo says so!). I didn't take the time to check the rest, but I'd certianly assume they are supported... Your insistance otherwise really doesn't mean anything to me at this point.
On all ports? Linux has GLX working fine on my mac, for instance. I've also had success with NetBSD. OpenBSD wouldn't even run most of the desktop apps I usually run. Also, is direct rendering supported? Sure, you can have glx, but hardware accelerrated? For that you need DRM. Did you know that GLX falls back to software opengl when there's no hardware support?
Performance on FreeBSD is snappier simply because it just is. OpenBSD was never engineered or optimized for speed, only for anat-retentive security. FreeBSD has different design goals that will result in a speedier operating system. SUre, there might be a security advisory or two, but these are solved quickly. Oh, and there's the SMP issue of course, which you avoided. Workstations with multiple CPU's are getting more commonplace all the time. Heck, even I got one.
Also, ELF is something that is in OpenBSD current. Do you expect a end user to run a CVS version of OpenBSD?
You also neglected to interpret one of my answers correctly:
All stuff OpenBSD does not (yet) have
See that word between parentheses? You read over that, did you? Who's trolling who here?
I'm not saying that OpenBSD is absolute crap. It's just not as suitable as a workstation compared to the other BSD's out there.