he said he thought it was important to look through the Gnome source code to look for racism in the code itself (and not just in the comments, either... he wants to look for racist while loops
Change the l to a t and they are white loops. I think he's on to something.
The problem with some blacks is that they have never really become Americans. Here's what I think they should do:
Take a short cruise out from New Jersey into the Atlantic and spend a day and a night meditating with no land in site. In the morning, return by way of New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis island.
Upon returning to New Jersey, take a train or a bus back to your hometown and imagine that you are relocating because somebody just offered you a job. If you are not employed, get a job in New Jersey. Living in New Jersey will motivate you to get a better job so you can move away. Trust me on this. It worked for a lot of other immigrants, it can work for you too.
...either that, or you could found some sort of organization and milk guilty white liberals for cash donations. Sometimes that works too.
They know all about economics. If they jacked up the price there would be tremendous negative PR. Also, the shortfall was unpredicted, and they probably signed contracts with retailers months in advance.
Maybe a future contract will include a clause stating that Sony has the right to change pricing in the event of a shortfall, but the big chains like Best Buy probably wouldn't go for it. It would screw up a lot of things, from balance sheets to print ads, to decisions about distribution (a price double might not change sales in wealthy areas but it might decrease demand in poorer sections).
By all means study the graphs in your econ books, but don't forget about the real world outside academic theory.
D#$~!!! I looked on eBay last night, and saw some that closed out for $500. I figured that it wasn't worth spending 6 hours standing in line at Best Buy for that kind of money. Silly me. This is the last time I waste my money in the stock market. From now on, my portfolio is going to be exclusively hot toys.
I consider my Celeron 300 to be "low end" only because it's approaching 2 years of age.
We are reaching an interesting stage in computing. My "low end" box can run most applications as fast as any other high end system. I'm not an avid gamer. The only benefit to me would be for some large programs I occasionally need to recompile. But then, it would be a 2 minute compile vs. a 10 minute compile. I'm going to get up for coffee anyway, so why bother with a new system?
You missed an important point in the article. Under Sony's current scheme, if I want to write a game I have to pay them a lot of money, like $25000. Under the X-box scheme, all I have to do is get a compiler. MS compilers are typicly $100-$1200 depending on who you are and how many features you want. The "professional" version is usually somewhere in the middle of that range, and is probably what most game developers would use. Also, the MS architecture will be open like a PC, so you could probably port gcc to it and not pay *anything* for the compiler.
Now, assuming Sony doesn't change their business model, which one is going to have more games written for it?
Re:I had a toy that worked like this
on
Air-Powered Cars
·
· Score: 2
When I was a kid, I had a rocket that you filled up 1/3 with water, then pumped up with air. Great little toy! When you released it, it would soar several hundred feet. It was eventually done in when it landed nose-first onto asphalt. That put a crack in the nose, which reduced performance although it was still useable. I tried duct tape, which helped some to reduce compression loss but made the rocket heavier. With performance reduced and the novelty wearing off, I eventually moved on to other toys. Thanks for reminding me of that.
. I have no idea why companies are still making flashlights with traditional bulbs-- there doesn't seem to be any downside at all! (These bulbs cost $20 more...
I think you answered your own question. Yes, the long life bulb is better. However, if you put these on a retail shelf, and consumers compare the cost, what do you think most of them are going to do?
Of course, a lot of this depends on how much you use a flashlight. The only time I ever use one is during a blackout, and those have become increasingly rare over the years. So, the LED just doesn't make sense for me, because I might burn out one flashlight bulb every 20 years. By then, the flashlight will probably have been lost anyway. I'm not sure where they go... probably the same place as the socks in the dryer.
In this sense, "hair" is similar to "little bit". So, her hair may or may not be in a purple mohawk with green tips. If it is, she is more than just a hair subversive as far as fashion is concerned.
True, but it's just a lousy mascot anyway. They should change their mascot to some sort of bird, such as an eagle. Their motto could be "this bird can fly". Take that, Penguin.
And this is the crux of Stallman's moral failing. The additional freedom gained by users being able to write platform independant code for the PS2 was lost on him. Only when he saw an opportunity to annoy somebody was his opinion turned. I know Stallman is an atheist, but he could stand to benefit by reading Corinthians II. One of the essential messages in that book is that good deeds are ultimately unimportant if they are not done out of love.
Worse yet, you could be stuck in that dark tunnel between your body and "the Light" for 1000 years. Sure it's fun to go sliding through it really fast, but after a few decades, it gets rather boring just sitting there watching the souls go by.
Heheh... If they just wrote a backend to gcc, then doesn't this stuff have to be GPL? That's one of the big reasons I rejected such an approach... that, and the fact that if I ever wanted to distribute a Windows plugin for IE, I'd have to put up gcc for download (The vrml3d.com C-virtual machine is really cool, just sit through this 20 meg download and you'll see...)
OK, maybe now I'll get off my butt and splice my "security" hack together with the OpenGL module for EiC and build it into a Netscape/IE plugin for Windows. Anybody wanna wager I can pull it off in less than a week?
The only trouble would probably be the OpenGL module, since I've never fussed with it, and it might actually be a Mesa module, in which case it probably isn't Windows friendly. Other than that, this shouldn't be rocket science.
I've worked a little with EiC which is an Open Source (Artistic license) package that allows you to run C programs as scripts on many platforms (but it does not have a portable binary VM format).
I have also written a VM of my own, and a parser for C99, but they are not releasable quality yet. If I ever do release it, it'll be either BSD or artistic.
I'm not really plowing a great deal of effort into this, because in order to gain wide acceptance, it would have to be free, and well... there's that pesky money issue.
When I saw this, my jaw dropped... but there is no Windows or Mac version. If they come out with a Windows version, this may be the one I've been waiting for. It would be so nice to see Java just curl up and die. It was a bad idea right from the start. I don't care if this guy releases his stuff as Open Source or not. Simply by putting a C/C++ VM on my box, and having my C/C++ skills be important for both stand-alone *and* internet applications, he would be doing a great service.
Cool. Thanks. Interesting article about the PMM-2 possibility. Here's a quote:
...a perpetual motion machine of the second type--a second-law violator--is powered by the kinetic energy of the reservoir. So, the machine's motion would stop when the bath's temperature hits absolute zero...
I guess this explains the reports of cold spots near UFO sitings.
1. Reverse engineering absolutely never occurs aka "Perfectly Secret Engineering". Even when a design feature is obvious (such as a winglet on a plane) other companies cannot copy it. They must arrive at the same conclusions as the first company through trial and error. Knowledge never passes into the public domain unless someone explicitly places is there.
Outcome: Technology stagnates due to duplication of effort. There is a lack of incentive to innovate because once a product is sufficiently complex as to be difficult to duplicate, the company that originated the idea will have a long time before anybody can duplicate it. Companies will drown in a sea of paperwork required to prove that they arrived at the same design independantly.
2. Unlimited reverse engineering aka "Perfect Reverse Engineering". All products may be disassembled and duplicated without hinderence of patent, trade secrecy, or any other form of intellectual property. Knowledge flow is instantaneous from creator to user.
Outcome: The tragedy of the commons. Companies will play "wait-n-see" to see who comes up with difficult to engineer solutions to problems. If they are making a profit, they will not bother to spend money on R&D. The outlay can't be justified for the low expected return. Companies will only innovate when the entire business segment is threatened. Because all companies share IP in this scenario, the entire sector would have to be threated before it would decide to innovate. If even one company were making a profit, then the failing companies would blame their marketing or management departments. Actually, marketing and management techniques are also IP, and would be shared too. Effectively, such a situation would be akin to a monopoly, since all companies would have the same IP, and would be different companies in name only.
It shouldn't be a surprise that both of these scenarios suck. An equillibrium is required. Politics is the art of compromise. Geeks need to recognize that compromise is a necessary part of the equation. That means Free Software people tolerating some patents, trademarks, and copyrights. That means businesses tolerating some hacking, reverse engineering, and parodies.
Does this provide an easy answer to the questions? Of course not. There is no easy answer. The opposing parties and the mediator(s) are all part of a complex solution. Here's hoping that we can remain civil, and arrive at solutions that provide a fair balance for each individual case.
What Next? eBay.com For Sale?
on
Deja For Sale
·
· Score: 2
What Next? eBay.com For Sale? They could auction themselves off on... um... somewhere.
No kidding. Of course PC sales will saturate. In fact, for some segments of the market they already have. I know one guy who is a lawyer. He only uses his PC for word processing. It's a 486 with Windows 3.1 on it. It's all he needs. It's all he'll ever need. He won't buy a new one until this one breaks.
This doesn't mean box makers are going to go out of business. It just means they will become more like ordinary companies. The business will "grow up" and become like RCA, Zenith, or any other TV-set manufacturer was during the 70s and 80s.
There will still be growth in game machines, where hot new graphics are coming out all the time, but even that will reach a saturation point. When the video card can do real-time raytracing at resolutions such that the human eye cannot see pixels, where do you go from there? You don't go anywhere. That's where the card has reached the saturation point. We've obviously got some ways to go there, but when we reach it then video cards become boring commodity products--like pots and pans. When was the last time a frying-pan company made stockholders rich?
So, if you wanna invest in a company with double-digit annual growth, start to think about looking someplace other than software and PC makers. I've got some ideas, but I'm not disclosing.
Slashdot Mirror
What are you talking about about my name, cracker?
Is he a hacker-cracker or a whitey-cracker, or do you actually think he is a lightly toasted food product? Inquiring minds want to know.
he said he thought it was important to look through the Gnome source code to look for racism in the code itself (and not just in the comments, either... he wants to look for racist while loops
Change the l to a t and they are white loops. I think he's on to something.
I bet nobody reads this. I want to shake my karma down to below 50 though, so I can be a ho again.
suckuz
The problem with some blacks is that they have never really become Americans. Here's what I think they should do:
Take a short cruise out from New Jersey into the Atlantic and spend a day and a night meditating with no land in site. In the morning, return by way of New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis island.
Upon returning to New Jersey, take a train or a bus back to your hometown and imagine that you are relocating because somebody just offered you a job. If you are not employed, get a job in New Jersey. Living in New Jersey will motivate you to get a better job so you can move away. Trust me on this. It worked for a lot of other immigrants, it can work for you too.
...either that, or you could found some sort of organization and milk guilty white liberals for cash donations. Sometimes that works too.
They know all about economics. If they jacked up the price there would be tremendous negative PR. Also, the shortfall was unpredicted, and they probably signed contracts with retailers months in advance.
Maybe a future contract will include a clause stating that Sony has the right to change pricing in the event of a shortfall, but the big chains like Best Buy probably wouldn't go for it. It would screw up a lot of things, from balance sheets to print ads, to decisions about distribution (a price double might not change sales in wealthy areas but it might decrease demand in poorer sections).
By all means study the graphs in your econ books, but don't forget about the real world outside academic theory.
D#$~!!! I looked on eBay last night, and saw some that closed out for $500. I figured that it wasn't worth spending 6 hours standing in line at Best Buy for that kind of money. Silly me. This is the last time I waste my money in the stock market. From now on, my portfolio is going to be exclusively hot toys.
I consider my Celeron 300 to be "low end" only because it's approaching 2 years of age.
We are reaching an interesting stage in computing. My "low end" box can run most applications as fast as any other high end system. I'm not an avid gamer. The only benefit to me would be for some large programs I occasionally need to recompile. But then, it would be a 2 minute compile vs. a 10 minute compile. I'm going to get up for coffee anyway, so why bother with a new system?
You missed an important point in the article. Under Sony's current scheme, if I want to write a game I have to pay them a lot of money, like $25000. Under the X-box scheme, all I have to do is get a compiler. MS compilers are typicly $100-$1200 depending on who you are and how many features you want. The "professional" version is usually somewhere in the middle of that range, and is probably what most game developers would use. Also, the MS architecture will be open like a PC, so you could probably port gcc to it and not pay *anything* for the compiler.
Now, assuming Sony doesn't change their business model, which one is going to have more games written for it?
When I was a kid, I had a rocket that you filled up 1/3 with water, then pumped up with air. Great little toy! When you released it, it would soar several hundred feet. It was eventually done in when it landed nose-first onto asphalt. That put a crack in the nose, which reduced performance although it was still useable. I tried duct tape, which helped some to reduce compression loss but made the rocket heavier. With performance reduced and the novelty wearing off, I eventually moved on to other toys. Thanks for reminding me of that.
. I have no idea why companies are still making flashlights with traditional bulbs-- there doesn't seem to be any downside at all! (These bulbs cost $20 more...
I think you answered your own question. Yes, the long life bulb is better. However, if you put these on a retail shelf, and consumers compare the cost, what do you think most of them are going to do?
Of course, a lot of this depends on how much you use a flashlight. The only time I ever use one is during a blackout, and those have become increasingly rare over the years. So, the LED just doesn't make sense for me, because I might burn out one flashlight bulb every 20 years. By then, the flashlight will probably have been lost anyway. I'm not sure where they go... probably the same place as the socks in the dryer.
In this sense, "hair" is similar to "little bit". So, her hair may or may not be in a purple mohawk with green tips. If it is, she is more than just a hair subversive as far as fashion is concerned.
And I say, more power to 'em. I'm working on a way to have people feed me as much cake as I want for no reason.
True, but it's just a lousy mascot anyway. They should change their mascot to some sort of bird, such as an eagle. Their motto could be "this bird can fly". Take that, Penguin.
And this is the crux of Stallman's moral failing. The additional freedom gained by users being able to write platform independant code for the PS2 was lost on him. Only when he saw an opportunity to annoy somebody was his opinion turned. I know Stallman is an atheist, but he could stand to benefit by reading Corinthians II. One of the essential messages in that book is that good deeds are ultimately unimportant if they are not done out of love.
Worse yet, you could be stuck in that dark tunnel between your body and "the Light" for 1000 years. Sure it's fun to go sliding through it really fast, but after a few decades, it gets rather boring just sitting there watching the souls go by.
That depends. Is vi a word processor?
Heheh... If they just wrote a backend to gcc, then doesn't this stuff have to be GPL? That's one of the big reasons I rejected such an approach... that, and the fact that if I ever wanted to distribute a Windows plugin for IE, I'd have to put up gcc for download (The vrml3d.com C-virtual machine is really cool, just sit through this 20 meg download and you'll see...)
OK, maybe now I'll get off my butt and splice my "security" hack together with the OpenGL module for EiC and build it into a Netscape/IE plugin for Windows. Anybody wanna wager I can pull it off in less than a week?
The only trouble would probably be the OpenGL module, since I've never fussed with it, and it might actually be a Mesa module, in which case it probably isn't Windows friendly. Other than that, this shouldn't be rocket science.
I had the same idea quite some time ago.
I've worked a little with EiC which is an Open Source (Artistic license) package that allows you to run C programs as scripts on many platforms (but it does not have a portable binary VM format).
I have also written a VM of my own, and a parser for C99, but they are not releasable quality yet. If I ever do release it, it'll be either BSD or artistic.
I'm not really plowing a great deal of effort into this, because in order to gain wide acceptance, it would have to be free, and well... there's that pesky money issue.
When I saw this, my jaw dropped... but there is no Windows or Mac version. If they come out with a Windows version, this may be the one I've been waiting for. It would be so nice to see Java just curl up and die. It was a bad idea right from the start. I don't care if this guy releases his stuff as Open Source or not. Simply by putting a C/C++ VM on my box, and having my C/C++ skills be important for both stand-alone *and* internet applications, he would be doing a great service.
...What would happen if we can store all the information of internet in a sugar cube...
Dude 1 Have you seen a sugar cube around here?
Dude 2 Yeah, on that plate. I put it in my coffee.
Dude 1 Dude! That was the whole internet. It was our only copy!
Dude 2 Oh well, S*&^ happens.
Dude 1 What's it taste like?
Dude 2 (sip...) sort of raunchy.
Cool. Thanks. Interesting article about the PMM-2 possibility. Here's a quote:
I guess this explains the reports of cold spots near UFO sitings.
1. Reverse engineering absolutely never occurs aka "Perfectly Secret Engineering". Even when a design feature is obvious (such as a winglet on a plane) other companies cannot copy it. They must arrive at the same conclusions as the first company through trial and error. Knowledge never passes into the public domain unless someone explicitly places is there.
Outcome: Technology stagnates due to duplication of effort. There is a lack of incentive to innovate because once a product is sufficiently complex as to be difficult to duplicate, the company that originated the idea will have a long time before anybody can duplicate it. Companies will drown in a sea of paperwork required to prove that they arrived at the same design independantly.
2. Unlimited reverse engineering aka "Perfect Reverse Engineering". All products may be disassembled and duplicated without hinderence of patent, trade secrecy, or any other form of intellectual property. Knowledge flow is instantaneous from creator to user.
Outcome: The tragedy of the commons. Companies will play "wait-n-see" to see who comes up with difficult to engineer solutions to problems. If they are making a profit, they will not bother to spend money on R&D. The outlay can't be justified for the low expected return. Companies will only innovate when the entire business segment is threatened. Because all companies share IP in this scenario, the entire sector would have to be threated before it would decide to innovate. If even one company were making a profit, then the failing companies would blame their marketing or management departments. Actually, marketing and management techniques are also IP, and would be shared too. Effectively, such a situation would be akin to a monopoly, since all companies would have the same IP, and would be different companies in name only.
It shouldn't be a surprise that both of these scenarios suck. An equillibrium is required. Politics is the art of compromise. Geeks need to recognize that compromise is a necessary part of the equation. That means Free Software people tolerating some patents, trademarks, and copyrights. That means businesses tolerating some hacking, reverse engineering, and parodies.
Does this provide an easy answer to the questions? Of course not. There is no easy answer. The opposing parties and the mediator(s) are all part of a complex solution. Here's hoping that we can remain civil, and arrive at solutions that provide a fair balance for each individual case.
What Next? eBay.com For Sale? They could auction themselves off on... um... somewhere.
No kidding. Of course PC sales will saturate. In fact, for some segments of the market they already have. I know one guy who is a lawyer. He only uses his PC for word processing. It's a 486 with Windows 3.1 on it. It's all he needs. It's all he'll ever need. He won't buy a new one until this one breaks.
This doesn't mean box makers are going to go out of business. It just means they will become more like ordinary companies. The business will "grow up" and become like RCA, Zenith, or any other TV-set manufacturer was during the 70s and 80s.
There will still be growth in game machines, where hot new graphics are coming out all the time, but even that will reach a saturation point. When the video card can do real-time raytracing at resolutions such that the human eye cannot see pixels, where do you go from there? You don't go anywhere. That's where the card has reached the saturation point. We've obviously got some ways to go there, but when we reach it then video cards become boring commodity products--like pots and pans. When was the last time a frying-pan company made stockholders rich?
So, if you wanna invest in a company with double-digit annual growth, start to think about looking someplace other than software and PC makers. I've got some ideas, but I'm not disclosing.
http://www.lonezone.com/2000/catalog/6915.html is exactly what I was talking about. Thanks.