Re:Why designed for one platform
on
AtheOS
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· Score: 1
Makes me very wary. If the designers are short-sighted enough to commit themselves to last decade's microchips, what other stupid decisions did they make?
I find it almost impossible to believe that someone in this day and age writes an OS specifically for one CPU. I mean, there's the Mach microkernel if you want to write an OS; you really don't need to do that lowest-of-low-level hacking any more.
Of course it's a Good Thing (tm)... when done right. One day the "browser" will be the only application you need, and everything else will plug in to it. That's my theory, anyway... you're welcome to disagree (of course;)
That's the funny thing; on the surface it seems eminently reasonable to combine file & HTML browsing. It seems to me like a logical progression. Microsoft did it wrong, of course, and in the process deliberately tried to force Netscape out of the "market"... but really, should there even *be* a browser market? Despite all the technical improvements and new features added to HTTP/HTML I can't help feeling that users have been short-changed in this stupid browser war. When Mosaic was the only browser, everything worked properly;)
Wasn't one of RSA based at Cambridge University? And didn't Alan Turing do some work in this field too?
I keep hearing Americans claim over and over that the US is technologically ahead, but I see absolutely no evidence for this. Intel CPUs suck; Microsoft software sucks; Cisco import much of their router software from the UK; the ARM is the best-selling CPU worldwide, and it's British; even mobile phone handsets come out a year earlier over there.
You're British, right? Yeah, the games industry in the UK does suck somewhat, although there are exceptional companies (so I've heard;) Everything you say about the games industry I would have agreed with... until last year.
I'm so glad I moved to my current company (Naughty Dog, Inc. of Santa Monica, CA) It's pure console development (no DirectX headaches), we're not even using C/C++ (it's LISP;), and the pay is about 3 times what I was getting in the UK. It's more like what I originally thought the games industry would be like. Everyone here is extremely clever; there's a great interaction of expertise across the board; it's generally funky.
I've thought about changing industries, but the games industry is finally starting to pay off, so it seems like the wrong time. Anyway, me & my fiancee are enjoying living in California for the time being;)
When I return to the UK, I'll try to get contract work on the new consoles - esp. the PS2, since it's so darned difficult to code for. That should pay well, and give me time off. But if this title does as well as my company's past history says it should, I may be able to come back to the UK with financial independence tucked into my suitcase.
Compared to writing one in that glorified assembler called "C", it seems eminently practical;)
If graphical programming languages are ever going to take off, they must be capable of non-trivial tasks. Using a GPL for something that JavaScript can do is easy and pointless... using it to do something exceedingly non-trivial, such as write an OS, is much more interesting.
Email me, and I'll explain my dream in more detail.
Me too. Financial independence is my current aim, which I am trying to acheive in the games industry (plenty before me have succeeded!) But it's just a means to an end. Ultimately I want to play around with a graphical programming language I've invented, and write an operating system in it. A free operating system, naturally;)
Brainwashing? It's called "memory". All humans possess it; it's really quite useful. It's what enables you to remember how to read and write, for instance. Of course, a suitably cynical person could say that we were all "brainwashed" as kids into learning these things.
Oops... my mistake. There are over 1,600 games available in Japan, but only about 400 available in the USA. So my PSX, which is a US model, would only play 400.
The CRC thing is not the same as a blind copy. A blind reader can copy any good sectors, be they CD-ROM sectors of 2K or CD-DA sectors of ~2.5K, and it can detect bad sectors and write them to zeroes, but it cannot write a bad sector. CD-R writers are designed to prevent you from writing incorrect CRCs, which is generally a sensible precaution.
If you send all zeroes with a CRC of zero to a burner it will replace the CRC with the correct value before writing the disk. You cannot get around this without a firmware mod.
Even if you did mod the firmware and do this, the 2nd layer of Sony's protection would screw you anyway, since you can't alter the track's physical position on the CD unless you have a fabrication plant in your basement;)
... on the other issue, I must have gotten my wires crossed back when all this was going down. My mistake.
And if Loki ports it, perhaps they will also come up with a robust, generalized voice recognition system for Linux!:)
Or they might be bound by contract not to spread the undoubtedly proprietary voice recognition software around to all and sundry. I wonder which is more likely?
Incidentally, do Loki provide source for their ports, or are they provided as binary-only?
Sony wants Joe Public to be able to buy a PSX game and go home and play it. They can guarantee this by (a) putting strenous conditions on software, and authorizing every single release and (b) controlling the hardware.
Throw some third-party bozo software into the mix, and Sony might have thousands of "customers" complaining to them that their purchases didn't work as expected. These people might do stupid things like sue Sony - things like this happen.
Sony just doesn't want all this crap going on - it's quite understandable. You might view it as paranoia, but in business you're either paranoid or you're dead. It certainly makes sense, from Sony's perspective.
I doubt Bleem! would ever represent a sizable increase in revenue for Sony, even when it's on Dreamcast.
Bleem! backed down and put in the copy protection so gold PSX CDs wouldn't work under it. The old Bleem! played gold CDs, and that is what Sony objected to.
One level of PSX protection is just to check certain sectors for bad CRCs. CD-R writers repair the CRCs for you in firmware, so it's impossible (without a firmware mod) to get it to write bad CRCs.
The second level is in the PSX hardware, and a PC CD-ROM drive couldn't possibly detect it.
Somehow they managed to catalogue 44 million pages which "were not linked to from anywhere".
How did they do this? They used Altavista.
So their entire theory of "bow-tie connectedness" conveniently forgets that Altavista exists. Fortunately for us web users, Altavista (insert your favorite search engine) does exist, and its existence seems to invalidate their hypothesis.
So it's an interesting idea, but if it ignores the existence of search engines it doesn't really hold much meaning.
What a load of rubbish! Are we overdosing on The Outer Limits or what? Sorry, but your use of the word "hubris" gave it away.
No-one understands intelligence; the idea that intelligence springs unexpectedly out of any sufficiently complex system is not even a theory, it's pure conjecture backed up with nothing.
And it never ceases to amaze me that people think technological progress has to be "allowed to proceed". How exactly are you going to stop it?
Contrary to popular opinion within Microsoft, they have nothing to lose from making their products compatible with existing standards. As a matter of fact, strict compatibility actually raises the value of all products, including those from Microsoft. Given that fact, it makes no sense for Microsoft to create an incompatible version of Kerberos.
Quite clearly Microsoft do not think this is the case, and it's not a clear "matter of fact" to me either. Microsoft have done extremely well with their current philosophy; it goes to the core of their anti-competitive nature, which has made Bill Gates a multi-billionaire and the richest man in the world.
Why do Slashdot readers insist they understand the industry better than the single main player in it? Yes, strict compatibility "raises the value of all products", but Microsoft do not want to raise the value of all products, only theirs. They are unique in that this actually poses an advantage to them - no other software company makes a full complement of interoperating software, so these companies are forced to interoperate with each other's stuff properly. Not so Microsoft; they have a vested interest in only interoperating with their own software. You can buy a complete enterprise software setup and never pay a dime to anyone but Microsoft. And that's exactly what their non-interoperability encourages you to do.
The rest of the article seems a little naive given the real matters of fact.
Fascinating post. I agree wholeheartedly. Corporations are a sort of epiphenomenon of humanity; the "corporation" doesn't even really exist. There is no spoon.
There's a rap track by I-don't-know-who which just repeats one line: "Can't beat the system - go with the flow". Quite a similar ethos really.
Very interesting question. For instance, Yamaha have patents on FM synthesis and the Karplus-Strong string algorithm. Then you notice that Waveguide synthesis is just a generalized Karplus-Strong, and that's patented by someone else. Plus, FM synthesis is used by all manner of people who aren't Yamaha (maybe licensed, maybe not).
As you know, the thing with filters is that the implementation doesn't matter from a pure math viewpoint, but once rounding errors occur you need to choose an implementation that minimizes them. Thus you choose Direct-II or some other algebraic manipulation of the algorithm based on these criteria.
I guess this relates to the MP3 codec - you don't have to use Fraunhofer's algorithm, but if you do the sound quality is better.
Anyway, AFAIK (and IANAL) as long as the implementation is substantially different, the patent is not violated. Indeed, if you look at the patents for this sort of thing, they generally include the block diagram for the filter - since you can't patent software, only "hardware" (and this protects software "emulation" of said "hardware", which is the loophole which allows software to be patented).
A friend of mine is in fact a patent researcher in the field of digital audio, and himself holds a patent on a type of nonlinear feedback network. The patent itself specifies how much each component can vary (e.g. "this is x^2/2 in my implementation, but the patent covers any polynomial function in this position") and so forth. Any permutation the patent doesn't explicitly recognize is not covered by the patent.
Proving patent violation in an embedded DSP system is another matter altogether, though;) Do the courts have the right to subpoena your source code to check?
Re:why does /. love unrealistic 'science'?
on
NASA Snake-Bots
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· Score: 1
I can't see how a turbine attached to a robot inside a pipe could ever work. The gas flow would tend to push the whole robot forwards - unless the robot can grab the side of the pipe the turbine would not rotate.
Those "incompetent MCSE monkeys" are what makes Windows a more viable option than Linux in many commercial situations. Like the man said, the Linux knowhow is better used elsewhere than the mail system. A mail system is a boring commodity, you shouldn't need to be a self-taught open-source junkie to make it work. MCSE is *precisely* what Microsoft has over Linux in the server arena.
Don't most shrinkwrap licenses explicitly say "if you don't agree to the terms of the license, return the package for a full refund"? It would be extremely harsh if one did not, but the few I have around here certainly do. I'm sure if that ever came up in court the plaintiff would win the refund.
My pet peeve is books which come with CDs (which you not only pay for, but in the UK at least it makes the book subject to VAT at 17.5%) which have Windows programs on plus 4K of C listings, covered in a shrinkwrap license. I'm sure every one costs me an extra $10, and I never install them. But that's only marginally relevant;)
I have to admit I didn't actually read the entire thing, nor do I immediately understand your explanation;) IANAL, as they say.
I hadn't realized there was so much incompetence - verging on negligence - involved in the case. You make a very good point; I find it hard to defend the software company's actions given these facts.
I understand people's doubts about shrink-wrap agreements. They should certainly be more up-front. I just fear the day software companys are made accountable for losses due to bugs in their software. Consequential losses could be immense for even the most trivial or obscure flaws in the software, as in this case. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it could bring the software industry to its knees.
Ah well, at least no-one's going to sue a games company like mine for loss of earnings;)
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I find it almost impossible to believe that someone in this day and age writes an OS specifically for one CPU. I mean, there's the Mach microkernel if you want to write an OS; you really don't need to do that lowest-of-low-level hacking any more.
That's the funny thing; on the surface it seems eminently reasonable to combine file & HTML browsing. It seems to me like a logical progression. Microsoft did it wrong, of course, and in the process deliberately tried to force Netscape out of the "market" ... but really, should there even *be* a browser market? Despite all the technical improvements and new features added to HTTP/HTML I can't help feeling that users have been short-changed in this stupid browser war. When Mosaic was the only browser, everything worked properly ;)
I keep hearing Americans claim over and over that the US is technologically ahead, but I see absolutely no evidence for this. Intel CPUs suck; Microsoft software sucks; Cisco import much of their router software from the UK; the ARM is the best-selling CPU worldwide, and it's British; even mobile phone handsets come out a year earlier over there.
I'm so glad I moved to my current company (Naughty Dog, Inc. of Santa Monica, CA) It's pure console development (no DirectX headaches), we're not even using C/C++ (it's LISP ;), and the pay is about 3 times what I was getting in the UK. It's more like what I originally thought the games industry would be like. Everyone here is extremely clever; there's a great interaction of expertise across the board; it's generally funky.
I've thought about changing industries, but the games industry is finally starting to pay off, so it seems like the wrong time. Anyway, me & my fiancee are enjoying living in California for the time being ;)
When I return to the UK, I'll try to get contract work on the new consoles - esp. the PS2, since it's so darned difficult to code for. That should pay well, and give me time off. But if this title does as well as my company's past history says it should, I may be able to come back to the UK with financial independence tucked into my suitcase.
We'll see ...
If graphical programming languages are ever going to take off, they must be capable of non-trivial tasks. Using a GPL for something that JavaScript can do is easy and pointless ... using it to do something exceedingly non-trivial, such as write an OS, is much more interesting.
Email me, and I'll explain my dream in more detail.
Me too. Financial independence is my current aim, which I am trying to acheive in the games industry (plenty before me have succeeded!) But it's just a means to an end. Ultimately I want to play around with a graphical programming language I've invented, and write an operating system in it. A free operating system, naturally ;)
Brainwashing? It's called "memory". All humans possess it; it's really quite useful. It's what enables you to remember how to read and write, for instance. Of course, a suitably cynical person could say that we were all "brainwashed" as kids into learning these things.
Who's this "we" you refer to? Mankind? America? Slashdot?
I think yesterday was my day for being wrong ;)
If you send all zeroes with a CRC of zero to a burner it will replace the CRC with the correct value before writing the disk. You cannot get around this without a firmware mod.
Even if you did mod the firmware and do this, the 2nd layer of Sony's protection would screw you anyway, since you can't alter the track's physical position on the CD unless you have a fabrication plant in your basement ;)
Or they might be bound by contract not to spread the undoubtedly proprietary voice recognition software around to all and sundry. I wonder which is more likely?
Incidentally, do Loki provide source for their ports, or are they provided as binary-only?
Throw some third-party bozo software into the mix, and Sony might have thousands of "customers" complaining to them that their purchases didn't work as expected. These people might do stupid things like sue Sony - things like this happen.
Sony just doesn't want all this crap going on - it's quite understandable. You might view it as paranoia, but in business you're either paranoid or you're dead. It certainly makes sense, from Sony's perspective.
I doubt Bleem! would ever represent a sizable increase in revenue for Sony, even when it's on Dreamcast.
Seriously, how many Dreamcast owners don't have a Playstation as well?
Bleem! backed down and put in the copy protection so gold PSX CDs wouldn't work under it. The old Bleem! played gold CDs, and that is what Sony objected to.
One level of PSX protection is just to check certain sectors for bad CRCs. CD-R writers repair the CRCs for you in firmware, so it's impossible (without a firmware mod) to get it to write bad CRCs.
The second level is in the PSX hardware, and a PC CD-ROM drive couldn't possibly detect it.
I wonder how Sony would go about proving that they didn't?
You seem to imply that a goal-reward system is developed in response to intelligence - I would assert that the exact opposite is the case.
How did they do this? They used Altavista.
So their entire theory of "bow-tie connectedness" conveniently forgets that Altavista exists. Fortunately for us web users, Altavista (insert your favorite search engine) does exist, and its existence seems to invalidate their hypothesis.
So it's an interesting idea, but if it ignores the existence of search engines it doesn't really hold much meaning.
No-one understands intelligence; the idea that intelligence springs unexpectedly out of any sufficiently complex system is not even a theory, it's pure conjecture backed up with nothing.
And it never ceases to amaze me that people think technological progress has to be "allowed to proceed". How exactly are you going to stop it?
Quite clearly Microsoft do not think this is the case, and it's not a clear "matter of fact" to me either. Microsoft have done extremely well with their current philosophy; it goes to the core of their anti-competitive nature, which has made Bill Gates a multi-billionaire and the richest man in the world.
Why do Slashdot readers insist they understand the industry better than the single main player in it? Yes, strict compatibility "raises the value of all products", but Microsoft do not want to raise the value of all products, only theirs. They are unique in that this actually poses an advantage to them - no other software company makes a full complement of interoperating software, so these companies are forced to interoperate with each other's stuff properly. Not so Microsoft; they have a vested interest in only interoperating with their own software. You can buy a complete enterprise software setup and never pay a dime to anyone but Microsoft. And that's exactly what their non-interoperability encourages you to do.
The rest of the article seems a little naive given the real matters of fact.
There's a rap track by I-don't-know-who which just repeats one line: "Can't beat the system - go with the flow". Quite a similar ethos really.
As you know, the thing with filters is that the implementation doesn't matter from a pure math viewpoint, but once rounding errors occur you need to choose an implementation that minimizes them. Thus you choose Direct-II or some other algebraic manipulation of the algorithm based on these criteria.
I guess this relates to the MP3 codec - you don't have to use Fraunhofer's algorithm, but if you do the sound quality is better.
Anyway, AFAIK (and IANAL) as long as the implementation is substantially different, the patent is not violated. Indeed, if you look at the patents for this sort of thing, they generally include the block diagram for the filter - since you can't patent software, only "hardware" (and this protects software "emulation" of said "hardware", which is the loophole which allows software to be patented).
A friend of mine is in fact a patent researcher in the field of digital audio, and himself holds a patent on a type of nonlinear feedback network. The patent itself specifies how much each component can vary (e.g. "this is x^2/2 in my implementation, but the patent covers any polynomial function in this position") and so forth. Any permutation the patent doesn't explicitly recognize is not covered by the patent.
Proving patent violation in an embedded DSP system is another matter altogether, though ;) Do the courts have the right to subpoena your source code to check?
I can't see how a turbine attached to a robot inside a pipe could ever work. The gas flow would tend to push the whole robot forwards - unless the robot can grab the side of the pipe the turbine would not rotate.
Those "incompetent MCSE monkeys" are what makes Windows a more viable option than Linux in many commercial situations. Like the man said, the Linux knowhow is better used elsewhere than the mail system. A mail system is a boring commodity, you shouldn't need to be a self-taught open-source junkie to make it work. MCSE is *precisely* what Microsoft has over Linux in the server arena.
Don't most shrinkwrap licenses explicitly say "if you don't agree to the terms of the license, return the package for a full refund"? It would be extremely harsh if one did not, but the few I have around here certainly do. I'm sure if that ever came up in court the plaintiff would win the refund.
My pet peeve is books which come with CDs (which you not only pay for, but in the UK at least it makes the book subject to VAT at 17.5%) which have Windows programs on plus 4K of C listings, covered in a shrinkwrap license. I'm sure every one costs me an extra $10, and I never install them. But that's only marginally relevant ;)
I hadn't realized there was so much incompetence - verging on negligence - involved in the case. You make a very good point; I find it hard to defend the software company's actions given these facts.
I understand people's doubts about shrink-wrap agreements. They should certainly be more up-front. I just fear the day software companys are made accountable for losses due to bugs in their software. Consequential losses could be immense for even the most trivial or obscure flaws in the software, as in this case. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it could bring the software industry to its knees.
Ah well, at least no-one's going to sue a games company like mine for loss of earnings ;)