12 or 13? 22, actually, but hey, think what you want.
And considering I'm currently playing through games on my XBox and PS2, and eyeing a Gamecube for Metroid Prime, let's ditch the fanboy bias, shall we? Besides, your list of games included a stack of cross-platform titles (THPS, SSX, Max Payne,) a game that sucked (TM:B) and the two titles I mentioned (GTA3, VC.) And you're accusing me of not being on top of the latest games? There's a laugh.
Now, Microsoft's money is its own. It's capital. If there's any profit there, it's already been taxed. So, the only money the government is going to make off of that pile is tax on the interest. Go ahead and figure out the value of that, then compare it to the amount of money they'll make taxing Intel and Nvidia for the income from selling CPU's and GPU's to MS.
What would you propose that the government do, forbid companies from entering industries with high startup costs and initial losses, just so they can have (a little) more tax money? Way to hinder trade there, pal. You can't forbid companies from losing money, because then no one would be able to take risks. That's what investment's all about - risk and reward. I see no justification for the government limiting the actions of businesses simply because they're facing the risk of large losses. It's not like they're a public utility - no one's going to die if Microsoft goes out of business. The lights won't go out, the water won't get shut off, etc. MS earned their monopoly, they weren't granted it by the government, and as such, they're not held to the same regulation (though the trial has shown they are held to other regulations, of course, which should be enforced.)
I'm sorry if you somehow think you're entitled to a little piece of MS' money. You're not, unless you're a stockholder. It's theirs, to spend, profit from, lose, make hats out of, etc.
You obviously have something skewed in your perspective of captialism.
Microsoft has a right to their money. They've earned it, they own it, and they can sit on a pile of it and wear money hats if they so choose.
Instead, they develop a product with it (thereby employing American engineers) using components from two major American chip companies (more employed engineers) and then market it, creating demand for games (employing American programmers) and demand for add-ons such as online gaming (employing American telecommunications workers.)
So, MS has reinvested in the economy, employed tax-paying American workers, and when it makes a profit (and it plans to) then there'll be taxes on that profit. Exactly how are they hurting anyone? You don't think Nvidia and Intel pay taxes on those chips MS bought from them? Sure, the assembly's done elsewhere, but the headquarters are still here, and that's where the tax bill gets sent.
If you're really that concerned with the government losing tax dollars, go stop people from buying PS2's. All that money's heading straight for Japan, and only one hot title is from a non-Japanese studio (two, if you count the recently released "sequel.")
Ah, and of course this chip will run the multitudes of applications available just as well as x86, right?
The only way you'd be able to move the industry off the x86 architecture is to provide backwards compatibility. I'm not expert, but I'm pretty sure you'd have to implement all the x86 instructions on the new chip, or have one hell of an emulator. That means an insane die size, or a huge performance hit.
So, enjoy that 1998 chip you've got there. I'm eyeing a Hyper Threaded CPU with Granite Bay (yes, I have need for HT - my hobby is 3D animation.) I hope being stuck in the past is fun for you.
Something tells me if MS tried to abolish software patents, all the other proprietary software companies would gang up on them on an unprecedented scale.
That part about how everyone's a threat to MS? It works both ways. If MS were to attempt to jeopardize enough companies' business models all at once, you'd see them gang up so fast it's make your head spin. Look at the court case for an example - Sun, AOL, Netscape, and even Oracle got involved.
So patents all suck when they're being used against you, but when it can hurt MS, all of a sudden there's a resounding cheer for these guys?
All they're doing is using their patents to try and start another browser war, knowing that whoever wins has to pay them anyway to use the patents.
Wouldn't this be a bad thing if it were anyone other than MS? If so, perhaps you should focus less on attacking MS and more on improving your own side of the fence.
You're correct about the contractors using code in their own internal projects.
And I believe that, if the development is funded with taxpayer dollars, that the code in question should be available under a BSD license. I agree with you on that point.
This raises a question however - how does one determine which code was gov't subsidized? It's easy if you say, "Develop a library for us that does this" but it gets a lot harder if you're making modifed versions of an existing product for their use.
Moreover, one has to distinguish between code written for the government and a software product sold to the government. Just because the gov't has bought at least one copy of Oracle doesn't mean we paid for its development.
However, a system which makes more government code available for the unrestricted use of all is a good thing, and I agree that it's worth working towards.
The BSD license is the fairest way to handle government code. Corporations are taxpayers too, and should have the same access to this code without having their own code forced open and their business model destroyed.
On the other hand, closing (non-classified) government code benefits no one. As taxpayers, we would be benefited by the availability of such code.
I think Bill Gates would very much like to see the end of the GPL in government code, but don't think he's out to ban OSS - remember, BSD-licensed code was used for implementing TCP/IP originally. MS likes to see government code too, and it is their right, just as it is ours.
As for the issue of non-Americans, you could license it strictly to Americans, but then how would you enforce that license? No country in the world is going to hold up a license which prohibits them from something another nation gets to have....
Palladium isn't going to rob you of the right to use your PC. Do you really think Intel and AMD would make a processor that only ran one OS? They'd be tying their futures to those of Microsoft.
Palladium will just sit there until you choose to run software that uses it. Not install, but run. That means you have to:
1. Have Palladium hardware.
2. Have a Palladium OS.
3. Have a Palladium application.
The above three will allow you to access Palladium-protected content. Guess what? If you don't want to use something protected, you don't need Palladium!
Now, what happens if your favorite band or software company or whoever decides they're going to use Palladium? Well, you tell them you're not buying anything. All Microsoft is providing is a secure delivery vehicle. If you don't want to do business with those who use DRM, or trusted applications, or any of the other uses for Palladium, then you don't have to. Sure, it means you have to go without the latest version of the software you love, or that new album from that band, or whatever else you might want, but that's the sacrifice you make. If enough likeminded people feel the same way, then Palladium will fail.
Palladium is all about layers of security. If the hardware's secure, a secure OS can load. If the OS is secure, a secure app can load. If the app is secure, a secure file can load.
If the system is secure, content providers will be able to provide media with confidence. In a controlled environment with limited legacy software, unauthorized code such as virii can be halted before damaging or spreading. Truly effective copy protection can be implemented if backwards compatibility is left behind (ah, the age-old quandary.)
In short, it's not going to stop you from running your own OS.
So, vote with your wallet. But don't give in to paranoia.
There's a control mechanism set up to try to ensure that you're not doing damage to others through driving.
This is just a control mechanism set up to make sure you're not damaging anyone while running software.
And while this sounds like an Orwellian violation of your rights, think about it for a second. This takes place only if and only when you want it to. Normal programs aren't running as Palladium code. That means your kernel, your apps, and your own compiled code all run just fine, oblivious to the presence of Palladium. When you want to use a secure app, on a secure system, that's when it all clicks and Palladium goes to work. It handles the secure binaries and content so the provider can be assured of a safe delivery.
In short, if you don't want to use Palladium, its presence will not force you to use it (true, you were forced to pay for its development, but one of the costs of doing business with a company is sometimes paying for features you don't need.) Only when you specifically choose to access secure content using a secure application on a secure system does Palladium affect you.
Therefore, if you don't like Palladium, the solution is not to choose hardware or even software which does not use it - you must choose content which does not use it. You don't have to change your hardware or software vendor, but rather your content provider.
Not even that. Just check the IP logs for the server and start banning. If you want to get legal about it, you could start calling ISPs and getting dialup logs.
However, this trick would only work once, and only briefly... the truly paranoid would eventually look up the registration on the crack site.
Until we have computers which can be creative (decades away, IMO) we won't see any such thing happen. Moreover, any such computer will have to be provided with the lifetime of experience from which we draw when doing our jobs. That'll take time, more than it takes for us to gain that experience.
I think the real question is, when will it be easier to make a real engineer out of Engineer-in-a-Box than it is to make them out of raw freshmen? (Or raw graduates, if you're so inclined.)
And when it does? Engineering will change again, just like it always has.
If it weren't for idiots leaving their passwords blank, SQLSnake would never have happened.
The key to securing Windows boxes is to have people with functioning brain cells do so. I thought this might be the case, but that worm proved me so very wrong. I mean, how do people who don't change passwords get trusted with people's credit card numbers?
Clearly, the only man who can play Zaphod is Bruce Campbell. Just pull out your copy and let his voice read some of the lines in your head. Trust me, Bruce is the only man who could deliver, "If there's anything more important than me, I want it caught and shot." (Yeah, I probably misquoted. I'm too lazy to reach the two feet away my copy is sitting and look it up.)
I hope someone gets this script to Bruce... I'd love to see the role go to him.
Re:PC "Consoles"?
on
UT2003 LiveCD
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I like this idea, but no one really wants to go back to the days of coding for a particular piece of hardware. HAL's and API's have made things easier, and I don't think anyone who hasn't already gone over to the console side of the business really wants to shove their arms back into that particular cow's ass.
Besides, you'd have to deal with driver updates (since some drivers provide better performance, you'd better believe I want to use those) as well as providing support for hardware released after the game (Quake III had damn well better be able to run on my GF4!)
It's a cool idea, but not very workable anymore. Back in the day where it was VESA/Soundblaster, this was workable (didn't games used to come like this?) Nowadays, I don't see how it could work except for a very specific config.
I'll give this the benefit of a doubt though, and despite being a Windows user, I'll download the ISO and compare performance.
Mine plays a fantastic game of Halo. My friends love to come in, grab some couch and a controller, and blow off some steam. It's called entertainment, and socialization, and fun. You know, fun? What you see everyone else having?
Slashdot Mirror
12 or 13? 22, actually, but hey, think what you want.
And considering I'm currently playing through games on my XBox and PS2, and eyeing a Gamecube for Metroid Prime, let's ditch the fanboy bias, shall we? Besides, your list of games included a stack of cross-platform titles (THPS, SSX, Max Payne,) a game that sucked (TM:B) and the two titles I mentioned (GTA3, VC.) And you're accusing me of not being on top of the latest games? There's a laugh.
Now, Microsoft's money is its own. It's capital. If there's any profit there, it's already been taxed. So, the only money the government is going to make off of that pile is tax on the interest. Go ahead and figure out the value of that, then compare it to the amount of money they'll make taxing Intel and Nvidia for the income from selling CPU's and GPU's to MS.
What would you propose that the government do, forbid companies from entering industries with high startup costs and initial losses, just so they can have (a little) more tax money? Way to hinder trade there, pal. You can't forbid companies from losing money, because then no one would be able to take risks. That's what investment's all about - risk and reward. I see no justification for the government limiting the actions of businesses simply because they're facing the risk of large losses. It's not like they're a public utility - no one's going to die if Microsoft goes out of business. The lights won't go out, the water won't get shut off, etc. MS earned their monopoly, they weren't granted it by the government, and as such, they're not held to the same regulation (though the trial has shown they are held to other regulations, of course, which should be enforced.)
I'm sorry if you somehow think you're entitled to a little piece of MS' money. You're not, unless you're a stockholder. It's theirs, to spend, profit from, lose, make hats out of, etc.
You obviously have something skewed in your perspective of captialism.
Microsoft has a right to their money. They've earned it, they own it, and they can sit on a pile of it and wear money hats if they so choose.
Instead, they develop a product with it (thereby employing American engineers) using components from two major American chip companies (more employed engineers) and then market it, creating demand for games (employing American programmers) and demand for add-ons such as online gaming (employing American telecommunications workers.)
So, MS has reinvested in the economy, employed tax-paying American workers, and when it makes a profit (and it plans to) then there'll be taxes on that profit. Exactly how are they hurting anyone? You don't think Nvidia and Intel pay taxes on those chips MS bought from them? Sure, the assembly's done elsewhere, but the headquarters are still here, and that's where the tax bill gets sent.
If you're really that concerned with the government losing tax dollars, go stop people from buying PS2's. All that money's heading straight for Japan, and only one hot title is from a non-Japanese studio (two, if you count the recently released "sequel.")
Ah, and of course this chip will run the multitudes of applications available just as well as x86, right?
The only way you'd be able to move the industry off the x86 architecture is to provide backwards compatibility. I'm not expert, but I'm pretty sure you'd have to implement all the x86 instructions on the new chip, or have one hell of an emulator. That means an insane die size, or a huge performance hit.
So, enjoy that 1998 chip you've got there. I'm eyeing a Hyper Threaded CPU with Granite Bay (yes, I have need for HT - my hobby is 3D animation.) I hope being stuck in the past is fun for you.
Hasn't that crap gone on in the browser war for years?
"New Netscape 6.0!"
"Wait a tic, where's 5.0?"
"Uhhh... here's Netscape 7.0!"
You find me a quad Xeon notebook then that fits in the same space, has the same battery life, and costs roughly the same as the iBook.
;) Just because Apple makes some overpriced, underpowered desktops doesn't mean their laptops suck.
You're going to look awful silly hauling around a quad Xeon notebook. You'd have to strap a reservoir/radiator on your back and watercool the laptop.
Hey, you said any machine....
Come on, she's like 14 or something.
Now Janie Porche... yum.
Something tells me if MS tried to abolish software patents, all the other proprietary software companies would gang up on them on an unprecedented scale.
That part about how everyone's a threat to MS? It works both ways. If MS were to attempt to jeopardize enough companies' business models all at once, you'd see them gang up so fast it's make your head spin. Look at the court case for an example - Sun, AOL, Netscape, and even Oracle got involved.
So patents all suck when they're being used against you, but when it can hurt MS, all of a sudden there's a resounding cheer for these guys?
All they're doing is using their patents to try and start another browser war, knowing that whoever wins has to pay them anyway to use the patents.
Wouldn't this be a bad thing if it were anyone other than MS? If so, perhaps you should focus less on attacking MS and more on improving your own side of the fence.
You're correct about the contractors using code in their own internal projects.
And I believe that, if the development is funded with taxpayer dollars, that the code in question should be available under a BSD license. I agree with you on that point.
This raises a question however - how does one determine which code was gov't subsidized? It's easy if you say, "Develop a library for us that does this" but it gets a lot harder if you're making modifed versions of an existing product for their use.
Moreover, one has to distinguish between code written for the government and a software product sold to the government. Just because the gov't has bought at least one copy of Oracle doesn't mean we paid for its development.
However, a system which makes more government code available for the unrestricted use of all is a good thing, and I agree that it's worth working towards.
...even corporations.
The BSD license is the fairest way to handle government code. Corporations are taxpayers too, and should have the same access to this code without having their own code forced open and their business model destroyed.
On the other hand, closing (non-classified) government code benefits no one. As taxpayers, we would be benefited by the availability of such code.
I think Bill Gates would very much like to see the end of the GPL in government code, but don't think he's out to ban OSS - remember, BSD-licensed code was used for implementing TCP/IP originally. MS likes to see government code too, and it is their right, just as it is ours.
As for the issue of non-Americans, you could license it strictly to Americans, but then how would you enforce that license? No country in the world is going to hold up a license which prohibits them from something another nation gets to have....
Palladium isn't going to rob you of the right to use your PC. Do you really think Intel and AMD would make a processor that only ran one OS? They'd be tying their futures to those of Microsoft.
Palladium will just sit there until you choose to run software that uses it. Not install, but run. That means you have to:
1. Have Palladium hardware.
2. Have a Palladium OS.
3. Have a Palladium application.
The above three will allow you to access Palladium-protected content. Guess what? If you don't want to use something protected, you don't need Palladium!
Now, what happens if your favorite band or software company or whoever decides they're going to use Palladium? Well, you tell them you're not buying anything. All Microsoft is providing is a secure delivery vehicle. If you don't want to do business with those who use DRM, or trusted applications, or any of the other uses for Palladium, then you don't have to. Sure, it means you have to go without the latest version of the software you love, or that new album from that band, or whatever else you might want, but that's the sacrifice you make. If enough likeminded people feel the same way, then Palladium will fail.
Palladium is all about layers of security. If the hardware's secure, a secure OS can load. If the OS is secure, a secure app can load. If the app is secure, a secure file can load.
If the system is secure, content providers will be able to provide media with confidence. In a controlled environment with limited legacy software, unauthorized code such as virii can be halted before damaging or spreading. Truly effective copy protection can be implemented if backwards compatibility is left behind (ah, the age-old quandary.)
In short, it's not going to stop you from running your own OS.
So, vote with your wallet. But don't give in to paranoia.
That was great. Sorry I'm out of mod points.
Thanks for taking the time to write that.
Nope. I'd like to though, if that proves your point....
There's a control mechanism set up to try to ensure that you're not doing damage to others through driving.
This is just a control mechanism set up to make sure you're not damaging anyone while running software.
And while this sounds like an Orwellian violation of your rights, think about it for a second. This takes place only if and only when you want it to. Normal programs aren't running as Palladium code. That means your kernel, your apps, and your own compiled code all run just fine, oblivious to the presence of Palladium. When you want to use a secure app, on a secure system, that's when it all clicks and Palladium goes to work. It handles the secure binaries and content so the provider can be assured of a safe delivery.
In short, if you don't want to use Palladium, its presence will not force you to use it (true, you were forced to pay for its development, but one of the costs of doing business with a company is sometimes paying for features you don't need.) Only when you specifically choose to access secure content using a secure application on a secure system does Palladium affect you.
Therefore, if you don't like Palladium, the solution is not to choose hardware or even software which does not use it - you must choose content which does not use it. You don't have to change your hardware or software vendor, but rather your content provider.
Not even that. Just check the IP logs for the server and start banning. If you want to get legal about it, you could start calling ISPs and getting dialup logs.
However, this trick would only work once, and only briefly... the truly paranoid would eventually look up the registration on the crack site.
They tried. It was called Indrema.
Oh, wait, they failed, while Microsoft actually put hardware in my living room... silly me for betting on MS seeing this through.
And you played them all, right?
Until we have computers which can be creative (decades away, IMO) we won't see any such thing happen. Moreover, any such computer will have to be provided with the lifetime of experience from which we draw when doing our jobs. That'll take time, more than it takes for us to gain that experience.
I think the real question is, when will it be easier to make a real engineer out of Engineer-in-a-Box than it is to make them out of raw freshmen? (Or raw graduates, if you're so inclined.)
And when it does? Engineering will change again, just like it always has.
If it weren't for idiots leaving their passwords blank, SQLSnake would never have happened.
The key to securing Windows boxes is to have people with functioning brain cells do so. I thought this might be the case, but that worm proved me so very wrong. I mean, how do people who don't change passwords get trusted with people's credit card numbers?
Clearly, the only man who can play Zaphod is Bruce Campbell. Just pull out your copy and let his voice read some of the lines in your head. Trust me, Bruce is the only man who could deliver, "If there's anything more important than me, I want it caught and shot." (Yeah, I probably misquoted. I'm too lazy to reach the two feet away my copy is sitting and look it up.)
I hope someone gets this script to Bruce... I'd love to see the role go to him.
I like this idea, but no one really wants to go back to the days of coding for a particular piece of hardware. HAL's and API's have made things easier, and I don't think anyone who hasn't already gone over to the console side of the business really wants to shove their arms back into that particular cow's ass.
Besides, you'd have to deal with driver updates (since some drivers provide better performance, you'd better believe I want to use those) as well as providing support for hardware released after the game (Quake III had damn well better be able to run on my GF4!)
It's a cool idea, but not very workable anymore. Back in the day where it was VESA/Soundblaster, this was workable (didn't games used to come like this?) Nowadays, I don't see how it could work except for a very specific config.
I'll give this the benefit of a doubt though, and despite being a Windows user, I'll download the ISO and compare performance.
What about the goal of making software usable by the masses?
Do you really think the average person can use a compiler as well as you or I?
So offtopic. But soooooo damn funny...
Someone mod this the way it deserves.
Tell that to everyone who plays games.
Mine plays a fantastic game of Halo. My friends love to come in, grab some couch and a controller, and blow off some steam. It's called entertainment, and socialization, and fun. You know, fun? What you see everyone else having?
"Childish" isn't the right word, but it's the first one that comes to mind.