It's just like the South Park movie -- where the parents protested the vulgarity of a movie about parents protesting the vulgarity of a movie -- except I don't think Parker & Stone intended it.
One thing is for sure, though. Aaron Lutes just learned a lot more from his Computer class than he bargained for, about how people who have skills and knowledge are feared and persecuted by those who don't.
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." --Albert Einstein
Follow the link -- there are several screenshots. The pictures, from top to bottom, are:
* An ad for the game.
* The cover of the game box.
* An Atari 2600 with 2 joysticks, one pair of paddles, and a TV with a superimposed picture of Pitfall! on it.
* (screenshot) Harry at an alligator's pit.
* (screenshot) Harry swinging from a vine.
* (screenshot) Harry leaping over a pit
I agree that it's a great idea. One of the things in the article that bothered me was the guy who said something along the lines of, "It's not rocket science."
Well, of course it's not rocket science. The best detective work never is. You don't use a technical solution to solve what is not really a technical problem. If you try to use just technical solutions, you end up in nothing more than an "arms race."
It's sort of like piracy. The solution to piracy has nothing to do with the method you use; the real solution comes down to a simple formula: If the money it costs to break a software's copy protection scheme is greater than the cost of simply buying more copies of the software, then the copy protection is effective. The "thrill of the chase" is a lot less rewarding if the victory is pyrrhic. It has nothing to do with morals or technology -- it is pure business.
It's the same in this case. Of course it's not rocket science. It's war. The solution is not a scientific one, it is a law enforcement or warrior's problem. Stated similary to the above...the risk in breaking into a system lies in getting caught. If the punishment mitigated by the likelihood of getting caught exceeds the rewards of breaking in for most people, you win. It has nothing to do with being truly impervious, or having the best "technical" solution.
It bothers me when people look snidely at good ideas because they aren't "rocket science," or worse, don't fit the pet paradigm of some self-appointed "expert." Simple ideas are often the best ones, and you use the paradigm that fits the problem. Suggesting a purely technical methodology to prevent hacking is akin to suggesting the use of modern medical techniques to debug code. The expertise doesn't fit the issue.
And I'm not talking about guitars. Violins, Violas, Violoncelli, and Basses. It doesn't matter how well the wood is shaped or machined -- the hand-carved ones, when well-made, beat the living snot out of the machined ones.
Read some of the comments above again... Frequently the so-called "counselors" didn't understand the kids any better, and counseling was a cure-all, a means to cover the school administrations' rears "just in case," and of course, if you're different, OBVIOUSLY there's something wrong with you.
That wasn't the case in many of my schools...but then, I had the advantage of dressing and looking the part of the cool, even though I couldn't act that way. I also had the advantage of parents who genuinely cared about me, who had been there before themselves when they were children, and took time out of their lives. Despite all that, school was a living nightmare for me most of the time...and the first year of undergrad wasn't wonderful, either.
To all the disenchanted, the loners, the free-thinkers out there, my heart goes out to you. It sucks, but success... and you will find it... is the best revenge.
For a while, I was an officer in an attempt to revive SEDS (the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space) at the University of Texas at Austin. Our faculty sponsor was Aerospace Engineering professor Dr. Hans Mark, who was also the deputy head of NASA at the time Pioneer 10 was shipped off.
At the time, the engineers wanted to use the latest and greatest technology in Pioneer 10 -- a tape recorder -- to increase its data rate by an order of magnitude. He shot down the idea, because he wanted no moving parts in Pioneer 10.
The much-vaunted tape recorder device the young engineers wanted to use later failed after very brief forays in the next few projects, but Pioneer 10 has been around for all this time. All of science benefits from that decision.
The moral of the story to young engineers is clear: The latest isn't always the greatest. Sometimes you should sacrifice "bigger, better, faster" for reliability.
It's neat that Pioneer 10 lasted so long. I'm sorry to see it go. Of course, now that the Psychlos have it, they'll be after us for all of our gold, and it'll be another thousand years before we reclaim our planet and destroy Psychlo, but it'll all be worth it in the end.;)
"True - but it isn't supposed to create an instant monopoly for as long as you want to pay lawyers to talk to judges..."
That's hardly what's happened in this case, isn't it? What's happened since the Voodoo2? Nvidia leapfrogged 3dfx, that's what happened. And if you believe 3dfx's side of the story (which is very plausible) it was due to the fact that Nvidia took multitexturing technology without paying for it, and thus were able to focus R&D efforts elsewhere.
"I think that NVIDIA was relying upon previous work (by other people) or patents that they own as showing that the 3dfx patent is invalid, etc."
No, they're not at that stage in the trial yet. This is equivalent to "findings of fact." Basically, at this point, there is no dispute that Nvidia and 3dfx are using the same techniques, and that 3dfx got the patent first. The next step is the summary adjucation, where a judge determines if there was prior art to 3dfx's example, how patent law applies, and makes an award.
Josh from Penstar Systems made a great post on this on the 3dfx board at The Motley Fool, and a lot of my understanding of this comes from his posts (JoshMST on the Fool's boards).
This is on the lawsuit filed 2 years ago by 3dfx against Nvidia on multi-texturing technology.
It sounds one-sided in favor of 3dfx because the ruling was one-sided in favor of 3dfx; the judge chose to use 3dfx's definitions of what the patent means and none of Nvidia's definitions.
3dfx is basically two steps away from getting a favorable judgment from the courts, and they're mostly formalities; at this stage, Nvidia's best recourse is to delay like crazy and hope that 3dfx goes out of business before they can make their claims, which, at the rate things are going, is likely.
Before y'all jump on the whole "Oh, this is an obvious technology, why does this have to be settled in a courtroom instead of the market," etc., remember that 3dfx spent and risked millions of R&D money developing their multi-texturing technology, and that a big reason Nvidia has leapfrogged 3dfx technologically was because Nvidia didn't have to research it; it had already been created by 3dfx. But that's why intellectual property protection exists in the first place -- so that if you come up with an idea and spend millions developing it, your competitors don't get the advantage by stealing it!
But 3dfx has mentioned several times in interviews that they have no plans to continue Glide support; in fact, the new Rampage chipset will probably have no Glide support whatsoever. (Whenever it comes out, you know how 3dfx is with their product cycles...)
I haven't heard that TeraBeam has any solutions to these problems, but I know the folks at AirFiber have. As they mention in the article, they space the R2D2s based on weather patterns in the area.
The problem is not the cost of materials; the problem, especially in cities, is in waiting for city bureaucracy to give a permit, paying a huge fee for the permit, digging up and later replacing concrete and steel to lay the cable, inch by inch, block by block. This gets ludicrously expensive even over inconsequential distances.
"Most likely, yes. Anything that interrupts or degrades the signal will be a problem. What about thunderstorms, which tend to emit on a lot of frequencies?"
I don't know much about the other companies, but I know with AirFiber:
* Birds are not an issue; signals are rerouted (the network is redundant) as soon as the connection is broken, which then automatically relinks;
* Fog hasn't been a problem. Look at it this way -- if you can see a flashlight shining through the fog, you can see this laser.
* How would thunderstorms be a problem? We're not talking about RF frequenciese here!
I know that AirFiber has had functioning networks, many of them numbering hundreds of nodes, for several months now around the world and in use. Right this minute, internet packets are going through AirFiber nodes in real-world use.
So while you're sitting there telling us that it's all vapor and research, while companies around the world are currently using AirFiber technology to provide internet service.
The problem is not so much with Apple as it is with Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is the Peter Pan of the computer industry -- he refuses to grow up. If he doesn't get his way, he throws a tantrum. This lawsuit is just the continuing story of Jobs' temper tantrum. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed their original stance and started giving 3dfx the option to put Voodoo4's and Voodoo5's in Macs from the get-go.
I hate to say it, but your response is essentially a well-written (I must say) version of, "I don't have a problem with it, it must be okay for everyone!" But the truth is, caffeine, and pretty much ANY drug, doesn't have the same effect on everyone else that it will on you. I can drink quite a bit of alcohol before I feel anything, but some of my Asian friends take a small paper cup of beer and they're toasted. Other people, once they start drinking alcohol, can't stop for any reason until they're slobbering drunk. The same is true for caffeine. I can drink a six-pack of Coke in the morning and be jittery as hell, but I'll be fine to sleep; but if I have a quarter of a can anytime after 8PM, I'm awake 'til 3. Other people drink caffeine like crazy and it doesn't affect them. But in general, you're better off drinking V-8 juice, taking Vitamin C, and drinking health-nut "energy" drinks than caffeine if you need a pick-me-up. well-written post, though.
..and I'm only recently getting over it, because I'm at a wonderful job, and I don't have a lot of pressure right now. It's there, but the project I have is definitely doable.
I totally related to the original poster's perspective because I've been there recently, and it's more than a week-long block. I've had this problem for FOUR YEARS...and there is nothing more humiliating than having once been a wizard who taught himself assembly in junior high suddenly having all manner of difficulty doing a simple huffman coding algorithm in graduate school.
What happened was that I had, at several points in my life, some bad coding experiences, and afterwards, a long break before I would have to write code again. It's just like relationships; the best medicine for getting dumped is to start dating again. Or pilots, having lost a wingman or copilot, who are sent right back into the air so that they don't forget how to fly, and so they don't have a chance to doubt their abilities. If you DO have time to think, if you DO stop, you not only lose the ability to code as you forget things, you lose your confidence.
I'm slowly regaining my confidence, and I'm catching up to the point where I'm capable of writing code again. I can't whip out an application at will like I once did, and I have to swallow my pride almost every day as I try to learn (and re-learn) a lot of very basic things. But the love of coding keeps me going in those rare moments (which are arriving more and more each day) as I get the ability to write again.
I don't think most coders are afraid of failure quite in the way I was. The way I became afraid was by taking too long of a break after having coder's block, or after not being able to finish a project (to the point where it was abandoned completely). You do this several times, and it really starts to wear at your self-confidence, and fear of failure sets in.
But if you recognize where the fear comes from, it's a start to getting rid of it.
All news agencies have places where readers can give feedback and corrections. Every time I read an article stating that DeCSS allows movies to be copied, I send a polite notice of a correction that DeCSS does not enable any form of copying that we weren't able to do in the first place.
I gave them an analogy, to a Southern movie theater in the pre-Civil-Rights era. If you are African-American (i.e., a Linux user), you cannot enter the theater (i.e., watch the DVD) whether you buy a ticket or not. DeCSS is like a trapdoor in the theater whereby African-Americans can sneak into the theater to see the movie. Since they can't buy a ticket legally anyhow, the legality of sneaking in is irrelevant.
I have seen fsaa. And if it didn't take my fps from 100 down to 40 i would use it. If it does this to current games immagine how it would work in future games. By this christmas you will have to play games at 500x300 just to even be able to use it. I have seen the difference, it's hardly niticeable and if you put a geforce 2 and a v5500 you wouldnt be able to tell the difference. Oh and i don't know where you are getting all the diablo 2 nonsense the only time fsaa, or even direct 3d for than matter, helps is during the cutscenses. Mybe you should go and take a good hard look yourself instead of relying on all those review sites.
You may have seen FSAA, but have you seen 3dfx's FSAA? It use an entirely different algorithm from Nvidia's, and also functions in all 3D-accelerated games automatically, be they Direct 3D, Glide, or OpenGL.
I beg your pardon? You don't know where I'm getting the Diablo II nonsense? The cutscenes are full-motion video, not 3D accelerated; the game itself is 3D accelerated (if you turn that feature on).
You have been poorly informed. These facts are true.
Slashdot Mirror
...when he attributes "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" to "anonymous?"
Try JFK.
All your base are belong to us!
...designed by the guy who later developed the Mirage, and founded Ensoniq? I think I remember reading this somewhere...
It's just like the South Park movie -- where the parents protested the vulgarity of a movie about parents protesting the vulgarity of a movie -- except I don't think Parker & Stone intended it.
One thing is for sure, though. Aaron Lutes just learned a lot more from his Computer class than he bargained for, about how people who have skills and knowledge are feared and persecuted by those who don't.
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." --Albert Einstein
Follow the link -- there are several screenshots. The pictures, from top to bottom, are:
* An ad for the game.
* The cover of the game box.
* An Atari 2600 with 2 joysticks, one pair of paddles, and a TV with a superimposed picture of Pitfall! on it.
* (screenshot) Harry at an alligator's pit.
* (screenshot) Harry swinging from a vine.
* (screenshot) Harry leaping over a pit
Well, of course it's not rocket science. The best detective work never is. You don't use a technical solution to solve what is not really a technical problem. If you try to use just technical solutions, you end up in nothing more than an "arms race."
It's sort of like piracy. The solution to piracy has nothing to do with the method you use; the real solution comes down to a simple formula: If the money it costs to break a software's copy protection scheme is greater than the cost of simply buying more copies of the software, then the copy protection is effective. The "thrill of the chase" is a lot less rewarding if the victory is pyrrhic. It has nothing to do with morals or technology -- it is pure business.
It's the same in this case. Of course it's not rocket science. It's war. The solution is not a scientific one, it is a law enforcement or warrior's problem. Stated similary to the above...the risk in breaking into a system lies in getting caught. If the punishment mitigated by the likelihood of getting caught exceeds the rewards of breaking in for most people, you win. It has nothing to do with being truly impervious, or having the best "technical" solution.
It bothers me when people look snidely at good ideas because they aren't "rocket science," or worse, don't fit the pet paradigm of some self-appointed "expert." Simple ideas are often the best ones, and you use the paradigm that fits the problem. Suggesting a purely technical methodology to prevent hacking is akin to suggesting the use of modern medical techniques to debug code. The expertise doesn't fit the issue.
And I'm not talking about guitars. Violins, Violas, Violoncelli, and Basses. It doesn't matter how well the wood is shaped or machined -- the hand-carved ones, when well-made, beat the living snot out of the machined ones.
They're only buying certain assets, not including marketing and management.
That wasn't the case in many of my schools...but then, I had the advantage of dressing and looking the part of the cool, even though I couldn't act that way. I also had the advantage of parents who genuinely cared about me, who had been there before themselves when they were children, and took time out of their lives. Despite all that, school was a living nightmare for me most of the time...and the first year of undergrad wasn't wonderful, either.
To all the disenchanted, the loners, the free-thinkers out there, my heart goes out to you. It sucks, but success ... and you will find it ... is the best revenge.
--- Free industrial/goth and electronic classical mp3's by yours truly ---
For a while, I was an officer in an attempt to revive SEDS (the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space) at the University of Texas at Austin. Our faculty sponsor was Aerospace Engineering professor Dr. Hans Mark, who was also the deputy head of NASA at the time Pioneer 10 was shipped off.
;)
At the time, the engineers wanted to use the latest and greatest technology in Pioneer 10 -- a tape recorder -- to increase its data rate by an order of magnitude. He shot down the idea, because he wanted no moving parts in Pioneer 10.
The much-vaunted tape recorder device the young engineers wanted to use later failed after very brief forays in the next few projects, but Pioneer 10 has been around for all this time. All of science benefits from that decision.
The moral of the story to young engineers is clear: The latest isn't always the greatest. Sometimes you should sacrifice "bigger, better, faster" for reliability.
It's neat that Pioneer 10 lasted so long. I'm sorry to see it go. Of course, now that the Psychlos have it, they'll be after us for all of our gold, and it'll be another thousand years before we reclaim our planet and destroy Psychlo, but it'll all be worth it in the end.
"True - but it isn't supposed to create an instant monopoly for as long as you want to pay lawyers to talk to judges..."
That's hardly what's happened in this case, isn't it? What's happened since the Voodoo2? Nvidia leapfrogged 3dfx, that's what happened. And if you believe 3dfx's side of the story (which is very plausible) it was due to the fact that Nvidia took multitexturing technology without paying for it, and thus were able to focus R&D efforts elsewhere.
"I think that NVIDIA was relying upon previous work (by other people) or patents that they own as showing that the 3dfx patent is invalid, etc."
No, they're not at that stage in the trial yet. This is equivalent to "findings of fact." Basically, at this point, there is no dispute that Nvidia and 3dfx are using the same techniques, and that 3dfx got the patent first. The next step is the summary adjucation, where a judge determines if there was prior art to 3dfx's example, how patent law applies, and makes an award.
Josh from Penstar Systems made a great post on this on the 3dfx board at The Motley Fool, and a lot of my understanding of this comes from his posts (JoshMST on the Fool's boards).
It sounds one-sided in favor of 3dfx because the ruling was one-sided in favor of 3dfx; the judge chose to use 3dfx's definitions of what the patent means and none of Nvidia's definitions.
3dfx is basically two steps away from getting a favorable judgment from the courts, and they're mostly formalities; at this stage, Nvidia's best recourse is to delay like crazy and hope that 3dfx goes out of business before they can make their claims, which, at the rate things are going, is likely.
Before y'all jump on the whole "Oh, this is an obvious technology, why does this have to be settled in a courtroom instead of the market," etc., remember that 3dfx spent and risked millions of R&D money developing their multi-texturing technology, and that a big reason Nvidia has leapfrogged 3dfx technologically was because Nvidia didn't have to research it; it had already been created by 3dfx. But that's why intellectual property protection exists in the first place -- so that if you come up with an idea and spend millions developing it, your competitors don't get the advantage by stealing it!
But 3dfx has mentioned several times in interviews that they have no plans to continue Glide support; in fact, the new Rampage chipset will probably have no Glide support whatsoever. (Whenever it comes out, you know how 3dfx is with their product cycles...)
I haven't heard that TeraBeam has any solutions to these problems, but I know the folks at AirFiber have. As they mention in the article, they space the R2D2s based on weather patterns in the area.
The problem is not the cost of materials; the problem, especially in cities, is in waiting for city bureaucracy to give a permit, paying a huge fee for the permit, digging up and later replacing concrete and steel to lay the cable, inch by inch, block by block. This gets ludicrously expensive even over inconsequential distances.
"Who's going to try it first?"
Several companies are already currently using AirFiber's system.
"Most likely, yes. Anything that interrupts or degrades the signal will be a problem. What about thunderstorms, which tend to emit on a lot of frequencies?"
I don't know much about the other companies, but I know with AirFiber:
* Birds are not an issue; signals are rerouted (the network is redundant) as soon as the connection is broken, which then automatically relinks;
* Fog hasn't been a problem. Look at it this way -- if you can see a flashlight shining through the fog, you can see this laser.
* How would thunderstorms be a problem? We're not talking about RF frequenciese here!
So while you're sitting there telling us that it's all vapor and research, while companies around the world are currently using AirFiber technology to provide internet service.
The problem is not so much with Apple as it is with Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is the Peter Pan of the computer industry -- he refuses to grow up. If he doesn't get his way, he throws a tantrum. This lawsuit is just the continuing story of Jobs' temper tantrum. I wouldn't be surprised if they changed their original stance and started giving 3dfx the option to put Voodoo4's and Voodoo5's in Macs from the get-go.
But I've been wrong before.
I hate to say it, but your response is essentially a well-written (I must say) version of, "I don't have a problem with it, it must be okay for everyone!" But the truth is, caffeine, and pretty much ANY drug, doesn't have the same effect on everyone else that it will on you. I can drink quite a bit of alcohol before I feel anything, but some of my Asian friends take a small paper cup of beer and they're toasted. Other people, once they start drinking alcohol, can't stop for any reason until they're slobbering drunk. The same is true for caffeine. I can drink a six-pack of Coke in the morning and be jittery as hell, but I'll be fine to sleep; but if I have a quarter of a can anytime after 8PM, I'm awake 'til 3. Other people drink caffeine like crazy and it doesn't affect them. But in general, you're better off drinking V-8 juice, taking Vitamin C, and drinking health-nut "energy" drinks than caffeine if you need a pick-me-up. well-written post, though.
..and I'm only recently getting over it, because I'm at a wonderful job, and I don't have a lot of pressure right now. It's there, but the project I have is definitely doable.
I totally related to the original poster's perspective because I've been there recently, and it's more than a week-long block. I've had this problem for FOUR YEARS...and there is nothing more humiliating than having once been a wizard who taught himself assembly in junior high suddenly having all manner of difficulty doing a simple huffman coding algorithm in graduate school.
What happened was that I had, at several points in my life, some bad coding experiences, and afterwards, a long break before I would have to write code again. It's just like relationships; the best medicine for getting dumped is to start dating again. Or pilots, having lost a wingman or copilot, who are sent right back into the air so that they don't forget how to fly, and so they don't have a chance to doubt their abilities. If you DO have time to think, if you DO stop, you not only lose the ability to code as you forget things, you lose your confidence.
I'm slowly regaining my confidence, and I'm catching up to the point where I'm capable of writing code again. I can't whip out an application at will like I once did, and I have to swallow my pride almost every day as I try to learn (and re-learn) a lot of very basic things. But the love of coding keeps me going in those rare moments (which are arriving more and more each day) as I get the ability to write again.
I don't think most coders are afraid of failure quite in the way I was. The way I became afraid was by taking too long of a break after having coder's block, or after not being able to finish a project (to the point where it was abandoned completely). You do this several times, and it really starts to wear at your self-confidence, and fear of failure sets in.
But if you recognize where the fear comes from, it's a start to getting rid of it.
Good luck to all!
All news agencies have places where readers can give feedback and corrections. Every time I read an article stating that DeCSS allows movies to be copied, I send a polite notice of a correction that DeCSS does not enable any form of copying that we weren't able to do in the first place.
I gave them an analogy, to a Southern movie theater in the pre-Civil-Rights era. If you are African-American (i.e., a Linux user), you cannot enter the theater (i.e., watch the DVD) whether you buy a ticket or not. DeCSS is like a trapdoor in the theater whereby African-Americans can sneak into the theater to see the movie. Since they can't buy a ticket legally anyhow, the legality of sneaking in is irrelevant.
You may have seen FSAA, but have you seen 3dfx's FSAA? It use an entirely different algorithm from Nvidia's, and also functions in all 3D-accelerated games automatically, be they Direct 3D, Glide, or OpenGL.
I beg your pardon? You don't know where I'm getting the Diablo II nonsense? The cutscenes are full-motion video, not 3D accelerated; the game itself is 3D accelerated (if you turn that feature on).
You have been poorly informed. These facts are true.