Well, part of the problem is that LOTR is being judged differently than the Matrix. When I judge LOTR, I look for how well it captures the book (poorly in some cases), and its cinematography (amazing throughout both of movies). With the Matrix, I judge it by how good the story is and by the cinematography. The problem from my view is that in the Matrix (though I have not seen the last one), the Wachowskis concentrated on the special effects. They're amazing, but they do very little to help the story, and I really don't need to see another fight with 200 Smiths. And then there were many points during Reloaded that I just sat in my seat and asked "When will this end and the story begin" (like the whole dance/sex scene). LOTR just seems to keep me on the edge of my seat the whole time, even though I mostly know the stor already.
So overall, yes, LOTR doesn't have as much philosophy. But the philosophy of the Matrix becomes overshadowed by the lack of good movies. Reloaded seemed more like an action movie than a philosophy movie (which is what the first matrix was really like). LOTR already has a script, and since they're following it pretty closely, most people judge it by its cinematography, while the Matrix needs to have a good script as well.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, Ion engines are great for long distrance travel but are absolutely useless for entering space. They can provide thrust for long periods of time with little energy consumption, but they can't provide enough thrust to break into orbit.
I have no sympathy for this guy. It is one thing to casually trade music. It's another to be selling pirated music to people. He wasn't simply giving away the decryption devices to people - he was trying to make money off a crime.
True, he hasn't actually caused all this damage yet, but the article says that he already had 5000 orders for these decryption devices and he was trying to crack the latest DTV cards. Furthermore, this isn't the first time he's been arrested. The article says that he had been arrested in 2000 for the same crime and was let go.
This is not a guy who was just doing this casually. He was trying to make money and already had a warning. Maybe $180 million is too much, but it's not like they expect him to pay it. It's more to make a statement to other pirates who are doing this for profit. Remember that DirecTV is a company that needs to make money. There aren't even moral arguments here like with the RIAA and artists.
That sounds like a good idea, but there's a problem with it. How many phone lines do you have for yourself? A cell phone, regular phone, maybe fax machine, and who knows what else. So you might need 5 different phone numbers. How do you account for that?
Also, remember that its not only people who need phone numbers. I forget the exact number of people in NYC, but let's say its 10 million - enough to fill one area code. But remember the number of businesses in NYC, and the number of people who have cell phones, fax machines, etc... Also remember that there are only 5 or 6 area codes in NYC (I forget how many exactly), so that's only good for 50-60 million numbers. On top of all their numbers, they still need room for future expansion, because so far, people just keep getting more numbers. So that's why we need more and more numbers.
I've used a palm for a long time, but I've realized one thing - writing on a piece of plastic is nothing compared to writing on a good sheet of paper. For example, my signature is consistent on paper. With the electronic signature things more stores are getting, I have a problem with my signature because the tablet doesn't feel the same way as paper. It seems like too little friction or something, but it doesn't doesn't feel right. So until I can write on real electronic paper that feels like paper, I don't think I want to spend another $500 on a tablet pc that I'll end up being annoyed with.
These large hard disks aren't for everyone, but they are great for video editing. I help run a small studio in my (now old) high school, and there is about 1/2 a terabyte of storage there now distribute over something like 12 disks. If we could've installed one 320 GB disk in each computer to hold all the data, it would've been very nice (and I'm not talking about RAID - that's too expensive for us). So remember that there are applications where 320 GB is not all that much.
strange how they give a rating that would barely merit a "C-"
Actually, they gave it the same rating as they gave IE 6, Netscape 7 PR 1, Netscape 6.1, and one more than Opera 6. So in reality, Mozilla ranked as well as the "best" browsers from MS.
I don't know if this could work, but contact a prominent (but still small) ISP not in the area and see if you could franchise. They would be able to offer you their brand name, experience and maybe some equipment, and you still get to run your own business. Sure you don't own the company, but at least you would get a share of the profits and have someone to fall back on if need be.
While building a 3,000 foot structure might help China's development, it would be a really big problem during a war. Let's say the US and china get into a war. One powerful missile knocks the building over, causing more than 100,000 people to die. Plus, not only do they die, but the whole building falls on shanghai, taking out even more people. China's morale level would decrease if something like this happened, so personally, I think that China would be foolsish to do something like this.
There is one application that needs quite a bit of power - real time encoding. My PII 400 works well for practically everything - a bit of games, financial applications, word processing, internet, etc... There is one thing where it doesn't work, and this is the field where the processor speed is needed. I have the ATI Radeon All-in-wonder, which has the ability to work like a Tivo. But unfortunately, my PII can't simultaneously encode and decode MPEG2 video in real time at a 640x480 resolution. It can barely do it at 320x240, and even then has problems some times. MPEG2 encoder cards are expensive, and since MPEG4 will soon replace MPEG2, we will need the 1.3 GHz machines. I can't even play an MPEG4 on a 600 Mhz machine at full 720x480 resolution with perfect quality.
Even if we do locate an Earth-size planet, I'm not sure if its even theoretically possible to figure out whether there is an Earth-like atmosphere. The othe probem is getting there. Even if we discover an Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centurai (4.3 light years away and our closest neighbor), it's impossible for us to get there. Prior to having the power to get there (even in a bit less than 4.3 years) we need new propulision technology, like nuclear fission (or preferably fusion) or even better, antimatter. The amount of energy needed to get to near-light speeds is huge, and with out current technology, unobtainable for a spaceship. And don't forget that even if we were able to make something like this, the people going there would be out of contact for almost 10 years. By the time we received a signal that they sent back from Proxima Centurai saying "We've arrived", they would probably be almost back.
After looking at the site, it appears that you're not 100% right. First of all, in the TPC-C benchmark the W2K computers are all clustered. Not so with the UNIX computers (none are clustered). In the TCP-H benchmark, the W2K systems are the top in the 100GB results. But they are completely overshadowed by the unix servers in the 300GB or the 1 TB results.
So while W2K is a good OS (I personnaly use it for my desktop), for large enterprise work, SQL Server just doesn't appear to work.
I tend to agree with the article. The inventions of the past 50 years have not changed humans as a whole. True, medical advances have allowed people to live a few extra years. On the other hand, this may be the only reason why humans are as numerous as before. I remember seeing some statistics that most of the first-world countries have very low birthrates. I think Italy even had more people dieing than being born. If the medical advances had not helped, half of the first-world countries might be this way. Even if a relative was helped by one of these inventions, did it benefit all humans?
True, the computer has helped ease many tasks and will allow us to research more effectively. But in reality, except making it cheaper to communicate, has the computer really given us anything very important? Warfare has advanced, and a cruise missile can hit any target needed due to its advanced electronics, but is it really that different from a V-2 missile? Cell phones definitely keep us safer and easier to reach. But beyond saving a trip to the nearest payphone, have they really changed humanity much?
The research going on today may change humanity. Genetic engineering may create stronger, smarter humans. Nanotechnology may allow us to heal quicker and less painfully. New propulsion technologies may allow us to explore other planets. But from what I can see, the technology created in the past 50 years has only increased our safety and has decreased costs. It has not changed humanity like the railroad or the lightbulb or the telephone.
The big problem is that this type of "user-friendly" desktop may alienate many system administrators. I personally run NT4 as my workstation, and am dreadding the upgrade to Win2K. Why? Because 2K will bring more wizards, more "user-friendly" features, and more garbage. I once had an old 486 DX2-50 with 8MB RAM. W3.11 worked fine on it, W95 crawlled. My biggest problem - wizards. I took a few minuts for each wizard to launch and do something. In NT4, You can manage most everything without many "user-friendly" features. With what I see in Whistler (and 2K), MS is taking a good operating system and slowing it down by adding tons of unneeded garbage. I can still run NT4 workstation on my old Pentium 100. I'm having qualms about installing W2K on a PII-400 with 256MB RAM.
The biggest loss for MS may be that System Administrators - especially those who prefer doing everything themselves, may stay with NT4 or maybe 2K. This may not hurt MS's revenues, but they will lose a huge following.
I was listening to most of the AMD conference call today, and they said that they would be releasing a 1.1 GHz chip this quarter (I'm guessing Tbird) with the Mustang (Server chip), Corvette, and Camaro (both notebook) coming in fourth quarter. Also, there will be faster speeds in the fourth quarter. I also think they mentioned something about the Sledgehammer (K8 - 64 bit) coming next year, but I'm not sure when. They also said that they will be moving toward DDR SDRAM, but that they had a Rambus license in case customers wanted a rambus support. There's probably some more things I missed (apart from all the financials).
Linux is great in many ways. It also stinks in many other ways. The biggest problem with Linux (and UNIX in general) is that it is too fragmented. If I create a windows application and sell it, I know I can give someone a binary version and they'll be able to install it (most likely). I know that except for the colors, it'll look almost the same, and everything will behave in the same way as it does on my computer.
With Linux, that's impossible. First, there are many distributions. Even if we look at only the top 5 distributions for workstations, there is little chance that a program will run flawlessly on every one of those distributions. Each distribution has its own directory structure, version of glibc, kernel version, X version, package manager, etc. And with X, you don't know whether the person is running KDE, GNOME, AfterStep or the ten thousand other possible windows managers. In short, it's imposibble to know that your user will be using. So that forces commerical developers to develop specifically to one distrib^H^H^H^H^H^H^H version of a distribution. Most applications can run the same on Windows 95, 98, NT4, or 2000. Yes, there are some exceptions, but in general, a simple application will work find on any of the version. With Linux, that's impossible.
Then, by the time that application is finished, you have a new version of the Linux Distribution (meaning that it may or may not be compatible), a new popular window manager, and thirty other changes. If you actually do release it, you will then be attacked by every serious user for not supporting their distribution.
Don't think that I don't support Linux and Open Source software. I do. But there are many problems that don't allow commercial support of Linux. And that's crucial for Linux's success in the desktop market. I'm not saying that you have to take away choice. But there has to be a standard of Linux distributions, so that a developer knows that his system will run on any distribution that follows the standard. That X will have a window manager that will display the program the same as if it was displayed by a different manager. That the standard X extensions needed will be there.
If a standard is reached (which it never will be), Linux can actually become a good platform. But a standard never will be reached, because everyone is shouting that choice is needed and that there shouldn't be a standard (It's ironic that IE is hated by the same people because it doesn't support the standards). And because of such people, Linux will never be a good replacement for a desktop system.
The price, according to RedHat is $1995. So what Linux enthousiast would buy this? This eliminates many of the smaller ISPs who are using linux for the price (free). Anyone who wants clustering can download the software and install it. It appears to me, that only large companies would buy this - those who have hear of Linux and want to start using it. For two thousand dollars, they can get an operating system that is probably not equalt in maturaty and stability to solaris or Windows 2000/NT. I found that a 25-client verison of 2000 Advanced server costs $1885. If you have the money to spend $2000, then you probably have the money to buy Solaris or Windows. So the question is, who will buy this?
I'm starting a new project that will try to develop filters for word processing formats. I thought about licensing it under the GPL, but realized that I get absolutely nothing from it. I don't mind if the libraries I create are used by commercial applications, as long as I'm paid licensing fees. At the same time, I still support the open-source movement, and therefore am licensing my software under the QPL. Why? Because I want to be able to get some money from my work, while still allowing anyone to use my libraries in an open-source project.
The GPL was a great idea when it was created. And it's definitely suitable for applications. But if you're developing libraries, anyone should be allowed to use your libraries, even if their program is licensed under the GPL and your libraries aren't. If the whole world used only GPL licenses, then it might be great. But let's face it, we're never going to have only free software. And if the GPL isn't changed to accommodate "semi-free" software, I don't think it should be used at all, because it doesn't allow one to use all of the resources available.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, part of the problem is that LOTR is being judged differently than the Matrix. When I judge LOTR, I look for how well it captures the book (poorly in some cases), and its cinematography (amazing throughout both of movies). With the Matrix, I judge it by how good the story is and by the cinematography. The problem from my view is that in the Matrix (though I have not seen the last one), the Wachowskis concentrated on the special effects. They're amazing, but they do very little to help the story, and I really don't need to see another fight with 200 Smiths. And then there were many points during Reloaded that I just sat in my seat and asked "When will this end and the story begin" (like the whole dance/sex scene). LOTR just seems to keep me on the edge of my seat the whole time, even though I mostly know the stor already.
So overall, yes, LOTR doesn't have as much philosophy. But the philosophy of the Matrix becomes overshadowed by the lack of good movies. Reloaded seemed more like an action movie than a philosophy movie (which is what the first matrix was really like). LOTR already has a script, and since they're following it pretty closely, most people judge it by its cinematography, while the Matrix needs to have a good script as well.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, Ion engines are great for long distrance travel but are absolutely useless for entering space. They can provide thrust for long periods of time with little energy consumption, but they can't provide enough thrust to break into orbit.
I have no sympathy for this guy. It is one thing to casually trade music. It's another to be selling pirated music to people. He wasn't simply giving away the decryption devices to people - he was trying to make money off a crime.
True, he hasn't actually caused all this damage yet, but the article says that he already had 5000 orders for these decryption devices and he was trying to crack the latest DTV cards. Furthermore, this isn't the first time he's been arrested. The article says that he had been arrested in 2000 for the same crime and was let go.
This is not a guy who was just doing this casually. He was trying to make money and already had a warning. Maybe $180 million is too much, but it's not like they expect him to pay it. It's more to make a statement to other pirates who are doing this for profit. Remember that DirecTV is a company that needs to make money. There aren't even moral arguments here like with the RIAA and artists.
That sounds like a good idea, but there's a problem with it. How many phone lines do you have for yourself? A cell phone, regular phone, maybe fax machine, and who knows what else. So you might need 5 different phone numbers. How do you account for that?
Also, remember that its not only people who need phone numbers. I forget the exact number of people in NYC, but let's say its 10 million - enough to fill one area code. But remember the number of businesses in NYC, and the number of people who have cell phones, fax machines, etc... Also remember that there are only 5 or 6 area codes in NYC (I forget how many exactly), so that's only good for 50-60 million numbers. On top of all their numbers, they still need room for future expansion, because so far, people just keep getting more numbers. So that's why we need more and more numbers.
I've used a palm for a long time, but I've realized one thing - writing on a piece of plastic is nothing compared to writing on a good sheet of paper. For example, my signature is consistent on paper. With the electronic signature things more stores are getting, I have a problem with my signature because the tablet doesn't feel the same way as paper. It seems like too little friction or something, but it doesn't doesn't feel right. So until I can write on real electronic paper that feels like paper, I don't think I want to spend another $500 on a tablet pc that I'll end up being annoyed with.
These large hard disks aren't for everyone, but they are great for video editing. I help run a small studio in my (now old) high school, and there is about 1/2 a terabyte of storage there now distribute over something like 12 disks. If we could've installed one 320 GB disk in each computer to hold all the data, it would've been very nice (and I'm not talking about RAID - that's too expensive for us). So remember that there are applications where 320 GB is not all that much.
Actually, they gave it the same rating as they gave IE 6, Netscape 7 PR 1, Netscape 6.1, and one more than Opera 6. So in reality, Mozilla ranked as well as the "best" browsers from MS.
And version 3.1 will take over the world :)
I don't know if this could work, but contact a prominent (but still small) ISP not in the area and see if you could franchise. They would be able to offer you their brand name, experience and maybe some equipment, and you still get to run your own business. Sure you don't own the company, but at least you would get a share of the profits and have someone to fall back on if need be.
While building a 3,000 foot structure might help China's development, it would be a really big problem during a war. Let's say the US and china get into a war. One powerful missile knocks the building over, causing more than 100,000 people to die. Plus, not only do they die, but the whole building falls on shanghai, taking out even more people. China's morale level would decrease if something like this happened, so personally, I think that China would be foolsish to do something like this.
Download: http://www.research.att.com/sw/download/t ml 7 3.html
License: http://www.research.att.com/sw/license/ast-open.h
LinuxJournal Article: http://www2.linuxjournal.com/lj-issues/issue27/12
There is one application that needs quite a bit of power - real time encoding. My PII 400 works well for practically everything - a bit of games, financial applications, word processing, internet, etc... There is one thing where it doesn't work, and this is the field where the processor speed is needed. I have the ATI Radeon All-in-wonder, which has the ability to work like a Tivo. But unfortunately, my PII can't simultaneously encode and decode MPEG2 video in real time at a 640x480 resolution. It can barely do it at 320x240, and even then has problems some times. MPEG2 encoder cards are expensive, and since MPEG4 will soon replace MPEG2, we will need the 1.3 GHz machines. I can't even play an MPEG4 on a 600 Mhz machine at full 720x480 resolution with perfect quality.
Even if we do locate an Earth-size planet, I'm not sure if its even theoretically possible to figure out whether there is an Earth-like atmosphere. The othe probem is getting there. Even if we discover an Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centurai (4.3 light years away and our closest neighbor), it's impossible for us to get there. Prior to having the power to get there (even in a bit less than 4.3 years) we need new propulision technology, like nuclear fission (or preferably fusion) or even better, antimatter. The amount of energy needed to get to near-light speeds is huge, and with out current technology, unobtainable for a spaceship. And don't forget that even if we were able to make something like this, the people going there would be out of contact for almost 10 years. By the time we received a signal that they sent back from Proxima Centurai saying "We've arrived", they would probably be almost back.
So while W2K is a good OS (I personnaly use it for my desktop), for large enterprise work, SQL Server just doesn't appear to work.
True, the computer has helped ease many tasks and will allow us to research more effectively. But in reality, except making it cheaper to communicate, has the computer really given us anything very important? Warfare has advanced, and a cruise missile can hit any target needed due to its advanced electronics, but is it really that different from a V-2 missile? Cell phones definitely keep us safer and easier to reach. But beyond saving a trip to the nearest payphone, have they really changed humanity much?
The research going on today may change humanity. Genetic engineering may create stronger, smarter humans. Nanotechnology may allow us to heal quicker and less painfully. New propulsion technologies may allow us to explore other planets. But from what I can see, the technology created in the past 50 years has only increased our safety and has decreased costs. It has not changed humanity like the railroad or the lightbulb or the telephone.
The big problem is that this type of "user-friendly" desktop may alienate many system administrators. I personally run NT4 as my workstation, and am dreadding the upgrade to Win2K. Why? Because 2K will bring more wizards, more "user-friendly" features, and more garbage. I once had an old 486 DX2-50 with 8MB RAM. W3.11 worked fine on it, W95 crawlled. My biggest problem - wizards. I took a few minuts for each wizard to launch and do something. In NT4, You can manage most everything without many "user-friendly" features. With what I see in Whistler (and 2K), MS is taking a good operating system and slowing it down by adding tons of unneeded garbage. I can still run NT4 workstation on my old Pentium 100. I'm having qualms about installing W2K on a PII-400 with 256MB RAM.
The biggest loss for MS may be that System Administrators - especially those who prefer doing everything themselves, may stay with NT4 or maybe 2K. This may not hurt MS's revenues, but they will lose a huge following.
I was listening to most of the AMD conference call today, and they said that they would be releasing a 1.1 GHz chip this quarter (I'm guessing Tbird) with the Mustang (Server chip), Corvette, and Camaro (both notebook) coming in fourth quarter. Also, there will be faster speeds in the fourth quarter. I also think they mentioned something about the Sledgehammer (K8 - 64 bit) coming next year, but I'm not sure when. They also said that they will be moving toward DDR SDRAM, but that they had a Rambus license in case customers wanted a rambus support. There's probably some more things I missed (apart from all the financials).
With Linux, that's impossible. First, there are many distributions. Even if we look at only the top 5 distributions for workstations, there is little chance that a program will run flawlessly on every one of those distributions. Each distribution has its own directory structure, version of glibc, kernel version, X version, package manager, etc. And with X, you don't know whether the person is running KDE, GNOME, AfterStep or the ten thousand other possible windows managers. In short, it's imposibble to know that your user will be using. So that forces commerical developers to develop specifically to one distrib^H^H^H^H^H^H^H version of a distribution. Most applications can run the same on Windows 95, 98, NT4, or 2000. Yes, there are some exceptions, but in general, a simple application will work find on any of the version. With Linux, that's impossible.
Then, by the time that application is finished, you have a new version of the Linux Distribution (meaning that it may or may not be compatible), a new popular window manager, and thirty other changes. If you actually do release it, you will then be attacked by every serious user for not supporting their distribution.
Don't think that I don't support Linux and Open Source software. I do. But there are many problems that don't allow commercial support of Linux. And that's crucial for Linux's success in the desktop market. I'm not saying that you have to take away choice. But there has to be a standard of Linux distributions, so that a developer knows that his system will run on any distribution that follows the standard. That X will have a window manager that will display the program the same as if it was displayed by a different manager. That the standard X extensions needed will be there.
If a standard is reached (which it never will be), Linux can actually become a good platform. But a standard never will be reached, because everyone is shouting that choice is needed and that there shouldn't be a standard (It's ironic that IE is hated by the same people because it doesn't support the standards). And because of such people, Linux will never be a good replacement for a desktop system.
The price, according to RedHat is $1995. So what Linux enthousiast would buy this? This eliminates many of the smaller ISPs who are using linux for the price (free). Anyone who wants clustering can download the software and install it.
It appears to me, that only large companies would buy this - those who have hear of Linux and want to start using it. For two thousand dollars, they can get an operating system that is probably not equalt in maturaty and stability to solaris or Windows 2000/NT. I found that a 25-client verison of 2000 Advanced server costs $1885. If you have the money to spend $2000, then you probably have the money to buy Solaris or Windows.
So the question is, who will buy this?
The GPL was a great idea when it was created. And it's definitely suitable for applications. But if you're developing libraries, anyone should be allowed to use your libraries, even if their program is licensed under the GPL and your libraries aren't. If the whole world used only GPL licenses, then it might be great. But let's face it, we're never going to have only free software. And if the GPL isn't changed to accommodate "semi-free" software, I don't think it should be used at all, because it doesn't allow one to use all of the resources available.