this isn't flamebait guys, it's my point of view: anything that neglects to evolve with the times is meant to die and justly. I believe there's a place for mechanical machines, but pinball is just outdated. think of how many new things are possible with a combination of electronics and mechanical devices, but pinball stopped evolving after PacMan (at least noticeabley). Or maybe I'm wrong and there isn't a place for mechanical machines anymore. guess i'll never know... ========================
Look people, someday someone has got to make a legal case of the fact that MS and the others hide all kinds of restrictive and abusive terms and conditions behind a very confusing (intentionally), rarely taken seriously, clickthrough EULA that in all honesty, most people don't read (mainly when it's for personal use and not business).
I know it's no excuse to say "oh but I didn't read it and I didn't know", but if they were that honest and forthcoming, you would have to sign a written contract when purchasing the product. Most individuals just assume that what they're accepting makes sense, since after all they're "buying" a product and they expect to be regulated just like any other product purchase. I have yet to come across a person that's not surprised when I explain to them what an EULA really is and what it allows/restricts. And I'm talking about executives, housewives, accountants and lawyers. Housewives being the smartest of them all (seriously!). It just doesn't make sense. Then there's also the fact that clicking on a button, or some information on a disk has absolutely no legal meaning in most countries (like Panama, where I live), but for some mi$terious reason the BSA can throw you in jail if someone as much as points a finger at you and says "pirate!".
Of course, if a country doesn't want to work with the BSA, the USofA will impose economic sanctions on them in about 32 seconds flat (33 seconds if that country has a nuclear arsenal)
And did you know that in most countries, once you open the box of a product, you can't take it back to the store and get your money back? I bet MS knows this. This is another reason for people to not pay much attention to what a contract on a textbox says (that curiously displays 1/25th of the content of the contract and a LARGE I Accept Button): they already opened the box, there's nothing you can do anyways so...
I know this is no excuse and saying "I didn't read it" to the court won't do any good, but surely there must be some legal mechanism to prevent big S/W companies from binding you to a license agreement if they don't go through every effort to make sure that the users understand what they're getting into. Most people would just say "You want me to what??? pay you $400+ to not own this thing when I can download staroffice for windows for a fraction of that (or for free)? Supply and demand will take care of them I assure you.
as of 4AM today I used Photoshop for everything, from little I'm sorry notes I email to my girlfriend when I stand her up to some nice looking.jpgs I use in the websites I design and run. no more. I'm a huge linux user, but photoshop was THE reason for me to boot to windows. I just didn't want to go through the trouble of learning the GIMP. Not anymore, from now on I'll only use The Gimp. Like I said, Supply and Demand will take care of them. ========================
I think the real harm (or punishment) to Microsoft has already been done. The appeal process will take more than a year, and by then the issue will probably be irrelevant since MS would have adapted for whatever decision they predict will happen. what they've lost in public perception (including wallstreet) is enough for real competition to start emerging. look at how linux has grown since the trial started, and while i think linux's success was self earned, at least a portion of its recent popularity goes to the fact that there's the perception in people's mind that the king is about to lose the throne and have started looking elsewhere. I know this is hard to admit, but if we fail to see this we'll also fail to benefit from the oportunity. This is all AFAIK, IMHO and IANAL... ========================
You are wrong. The Internet is a proyect started by the US Government. Note that I said it was invented by people in the US, not necessarily american scientists. Surely the knowledge used to invent it was developed and acquired by scientists around the world, but it was american tax dollars that paid for it. Keep in mind that I'm not american nor do I live in the US, but one would have to be a fool to not see this. ========================
I headed my country's relationship with ICANN for a while and let me tell you, if it wasn't because I've worked with American companies all my life I would have NEVER been able to work with nor understand ICANN. I can see why other countries feel like this is a US organization imposing fees to other countries. Hmm, well, now that i think about it, IT IS!. sure there's the at large. sure, they meet in places like cancun, and sure there are people from all over the world in there, but let's be realistic: the Internet was invented by scientists and engineers in the US, and was spread initially by US lead acedemia at first and by mostly US based companies more recently. it's now used by everyone and their middle class cousins, but there's GOT to be a centralized way of handling domains (eventually resolving will come to this one place, otherwise it would be chaos(was that.com resovled by the australia server? oh but it wasn't synchronized to the gualalunpur server!...)). So now they have to pay. Now, is the amount fair? I dunno...
The real coming of age for linux on the game arena is probably not based on easy installation and configuration of the latest trend in game wizardry. Same goes for linux's coming of age as THE desktop platform requiring easier installation and configuration for office apps. For some reason linux lovers have deviated ourselves from the original path that took us where we are. blame it on CNN and IBM for liking us, but all the publicity and capital has made as much bad as it has made good.
why is linux good? hmm let's see: it's rock solid, but so is solaris and AIX. It's free? nah, that's the downside (otherwise it would have been popular 3 years ago) It's the open source movement stupid!: Linux is great because people relate it to OSS. It's popular because of apache, sendmail, samba, gimp, slashcode, etc. But that has nothing to do with MS Office or running the latest windows game!!! (i'm I the only one that thinks this way?)
my frustration level has been steadily increasing with the latest versions of everything that's been done for linux: New, the latest and greatest database system, made to look exactly like oracle!! New and improved desktop environment, it even smells like a window!. I've been sneaking out of meetings, leaving work early, investing precious time in learning everything i can about everything related to developing open source stuff, but every time i feel more and more alone. I don't want an open source powerpoint or an open source oracle, I want open souce AI.I want an open source desktop environment using an open source 3d rendering engine designed for 3d accelerators complete with mouselook and strafe. I want open source search server software that would learn from queries and would spend all day gathering relevant informaiton for me. I want a simple open source word processor that talks html natively to my web server so that i can write letters directly to a url. I want an open source spreadsheet program that is really an interface to a postgreSQL database and presentas and manipulates relationships intuitively (using the open source 3d environment).
Games? well my point is it's not about doing what the others do. that's not what made linux great. it's about being innovative (copyright Microsoft, 1999). how great would a strategy or role playing game be if it was developed by the best players and hackers around on an open source environment? we're good at making new, innovative things, not at making carbon copies of other people's work. That's what's changed. was lotus123 on an IBM PC easy to use for the accountant upstairs? no! some sysadmins had to go around the office everyday turning computers on and running the programs so that people could use it, but they used it anyways. why? because it gave them something unique and valuable. what's so unique and valuable about kde or gnome? sure gnome is open source, but what does it do that you can't do on windows? re-configure everything? is that enough to turn people away from plug and play, ie, mediaplayer, directx and compatible(ubiquitous) file formats? didn't think so, so stop expecting gnome to make people switch from windows (i use both and i'm happy at it). I don't load my linux to do what i do on windows, otherwise i would do it on windows (which you end up having anyways). people install linux because it makes a heck of a server and is too fun to use. same people then go and install it on their home computers and laptops and expect it to do the same as other people's desktop. that's wrong! we need our own creative open way of doing things.
oh well, I better stop or i'll be the first/. user be kicked out of/. for bitching. ========================
To those of you who don't believe in genome mapping or sequencing, IMHO, this is the only way to go. we're basically reverse engineering humans. well, that's what you do when you have working binaries but no docs, sourcecode or cpu design: you reverse engineer the hell out of it until you find out all of the above (if you can). since i truly don't believe the human documentation is hidden in the secret chamber of the sphynx, or written with lines in some field in machu-pichu, i see no other way to go. so stop whining... ========================
C'mon, do you know how XML works?, the chances of a file format created using XML replacing proprietary file format is the same as any other open source file format, even if it's just a C++ data structure, replacing proprietary file formats... there's nothing to XML that will solve your problem!! that's like saying, hey, the new jFAT64 file system is out, will i be able to replace proprietary file formats with it??, it just doesn't work that way... you can probably recreate word95 formats using XML and can do it without XML, it's all in the parser/interpreter/renderer. so you created a very nice, very complete file format using XML, well now every word processor has to support it properly (parse it, interpret it, render it) in order for it to get anywhere, but the same is true for anything you do without XML anyways!!!
Once every videocard has some form of 3d in it with driver support for all OS's (like what happened when all cards had 2d acceleration and drivers for everyone), which should happen in what, 18 months?, do we expect to see some killer app for 3d Web or VRML 3 or something? i would think so.
i know there are tons of arguments against a 3d interface, but so were there against 3d games when Ultima Underworld came out! if i can move around with absolutely no effort under Q3A or UT, why can't a Q3A level be a web site?? sure it's faster to see all in one page, but if slashdot looked like a Q3A level (with news posted in floating billboards and sections looking like houses, buildings, huts and spaceships) would you log on? i would...
ah, but there's the matter of download speed. well if evey other person has downloaded flash plugins, and realplayer, and are now actually using it, couldn't they download a set of very compressed textures so that when you log on all you download is the wireframe file and changing images, wouldn't this be comparable with downloading html and changing images???? c'mon programming gods, it can't be that hard right? besides, if all you have to download is a 3d browser, which already amount to many megs, you could send all basic textures there couldn't you?
what's with the press people? instant on already exists, it's called hybernation (sp?). it's fast and reliable but has all the problems people have posted here. if some program crashes and renders the system unstable, it stays that way until you turn the computer off, clearing the memory. of course on an non-volatile memory system you couldn't do that, so i don't see why you would use windows2005 or BeOS1.1 or Dumbed_down_Linux v8 with it for just it's instant-on porential. which takes me to my point:
the real use for this technology is yet to come. instant on will be irrelevant 5 years from now. IF the desktop computer prevails. it'll probably be used as some kind of very fast storage or transport media (a la zipdrives or something). caching comes to mind too. if the most accessed records of a huge database are stored here, instead of on my 100 XByte HDD, i could see a pretty decent performance boost. also, this is the kind of technology that I'd like to see in game consoles, webpads, cellphones and that sort of thing, where software tends to be much more static and stable (remember microsoft still hasn't taken over that field yet). my point is, the whole thing, as is presented, is similar to saying "10 years from now we'll have holographic storage systems 2 billion times as fast and large as today's storage media, that will revolutionize the way you store mp3's!.
Yes, I think that within my lifetime the propagation of inteligent machines competing against us for resources, power or both might happen. You can't just extrapolate processor power from moore's law, what about the exponential growth in biological knowledge? the more processor power, the more we're able to understand our genes, our brain, our body. replicating it won't be hard once you have the knowledge, and this depends on having powerful computers that help us reverse engineer the human body. so all in all, i think it could happen and there's enough evidence all around.
but I tell you i'm not scared because in a war against machines i could defend myself! programmers and the such are probably the best prepared bunch for such a war, and when you think about it, some out of control computers will probably be based in the logics we programmed into it. it would be like fighting a virus for which you have the complete genetic code, sequence and understanding of what each gene does. it couldn't be that hard. and the best part is it will probably come down to some kind of showdown between slashdot reader's kind of geeks and the AC (in reference to Isaac Asimov's Analog Computer) turned wild.
"and the AC said "let there be light" and on the seventh day, it rested" --- Isaac Asimov.
Well, if i was VW I for one would use it to test my cars. they're just a whole lot better than a crash test dummy!, and probably cheaper (maybe) than a platoon of precision drivers for all kinds of risky situations... Also, if the thing does catch on, it could be kind of like a co-pilot that kicks in on very specific situations, like when you're on the phone.
how great it would be to just tell it you'll be using the phone and be there "just in case". routines for what people usually do wrong while on the phone or after a few drinks should be "easy" to implement. Also, think about crippled people. if you had no legs, the thing could do the pedals for you while you control the wheel... I'm sure the list will go on, but this is comparable to saying "why do we need computers if they will never think like we do?" well it's not there to do what we do better, but to help us do what we do better (and to do some things we just can't do)....
so, let me get this straight. they're recalling the CD's, not the consoles, or else!... hmmm, I know!, I'll make a copy of the CD (i'm sure a modchip2 will be out in a few hours anyway), return the original, be legit with sony and still play my region 1 DVD's. if the japs can't figure THAT out then they deserve the punishment. (or maybe I'm full of it and this just doesn't work)
oh and about the 7-11..well:
7-11=-4. 4 as in four letters. the word sony has four letters. SONY OWNS 7-11!
Articles such as this are only fuel to the virus writing fire. The more people keep daring crackers and virus writers that this is not possible, the closer you get to a virus epidemic. If that happens, it will be a huge disservice to the growing popularity of the amazing OS that is Linux.
of course I'm all for writing about virus warnings, technical consideratiosn and the sort, but, IMHO, we must keep our tone down and speak with humility. Not even suggest for a minute that a successful linux virus is not possible. The ability of humans to do the impossible is a big part of the reason why linux exists, and to be honest, i started using linux BECAUSE most people (used to) think it would fail.
i personally think the open source movement, and the whole linux fenomena, is a serious and professional one, and unless treated that way will probably fall for the same reasons other venues are falling today (that is if you, like me, think that windows won't last that long). If more serious consideration would have been given to viruses when they first showed up (not mainstream), windows would probably be much more protected against them than it is (but then again, maybe not. thanks bill).
I understand that the apple s/w and h/w marriage is a key element in their success, it was also a key element in their failure the last time.
last time I checked, software was much more profitable than hardware since it costs so much less to produce and distribute. if you sell s/w that's not tied to a hardware, you sell your stuff to anyone and are not limited by the production limitations found in the h/w business. plus your margins are much higher if you sell enough (after covering development)
think about this, if they sell OSX only for apple h/w owners, and they are the sole providers of apple boxes, then they'll sell as much s/w as they can build boxes, which have a completely different business model (based on low volume, high margins vs. high volume decent margings).
after all microsoft made its money selling software when the internet wasn't even around and computer usage was just a fraction of what it is today, but it took a revolution, new economy, new age, the internet, etc. for cisco to have as much money as they do today sellin hardware.
IMHO: keep selling apple h/w adn s/w turnkey solutions, AND sell OSX for Intel for those who want it. whoever was going to buy an apple box will still probably buy it, the rest of us that would like to give it a shot but would never spend on their hardware (i love my custom built PCs) will probably shell out $50 for their s/w.
one more thing, you have OSX on intel and a very good, reliable, fast win emulator will show up in a week. THEN you really start getting sales in by having the still missing critical mass of s/w apps for your OS.
I'm just not going to support a business model where you write a song decently good based on the agency's parameters for sellable material, or even if it's really your own invention, and then you seat back and relax while the millions pour in...
money is hard earned and it should stay that way. even $10M a year sports heroes get to work almost every day and very hard too. if touring and brand selling doesn't pay your bills then you're the problem!! I just don't see how a concert a week with 10,000 people paying $10 a head won't pay the bills..
you want a model that works? write a good original artistic song, distribute it for free on the net, build a solid fan base (if you're smart you'll be on the radio in no time) and start touring and selling t-shirts!!! what? you won't be a millionair in 30 days? ohhhh that's too bad cause neither am i (yet) and sure as hell work at least as hard as most artists do (unless they work more than 20 hours a day)
just imagine how "in" it'll sound when the local radio station starts airing that new song everyone's talking about that's free on the net and the guys have no record label. if that happens where i live everyone would start downloading the thing from their site (which will be loaded with bills paying banners BTW) and if the song's good it'll spread like HIV. all of a sudden the radio starts announcing your first tour (which you financed with VC money) and EVERYBODY will wanna know who the kids behind the mp3 are. sure as hell sounds cooler than the regular dying method of going to super sony and have them take care of you...
bottom line, be creative, aggresive, competitive, just like everything else on the net or else be amazoned.
See what I just don't get about all this mars failures is how come noone's talking about Mr. Goldin's resignation. Where I come from if your team or company or whatever suffers this kinds of failures (despite some great successes) and generates such bad publicity with aftermath conspiracies (which I think this whole "they knew" BS is) you either quit or get fired.
maybe the problem is where I come from....
I don't mean to say that Goldin's a bad leader for NASA, but I'm not saying he's a great one either. Surely, NASA could use a facelift and get some '60s credibility back, and if I was Goldin i would seriously consider resigning in the best interests of NASA. but I'm not him...
I mean his whole strategy is based on the faster/cheaper/better phylosophy that seems to be the root of the problem...
The reason content is vertical is because it's easier to read shorter lines (try reading a 14" line and then go back and find the next line, if you can), and monitors are horizontal is because they evolved from TV sets that were not meant to show text but images, which are better presented horizontally because we can see more of it due to our eyes allignment. I say give us square monitors. that way we all win (or loose?). or better yet, do what the other guy said, keep'em wide and have two tall columns displayed. anyone disagrees?
yeah, but he only did that to turn heads away from y2k induced windows lockups/law suits while he remotely rebooted your computer (he CAN do that you know...)
I'm sure that by now nobody will read this post, but i just can't keep my mouth shut...
First of all I'm a total outsider to the whole open souce vs copyright stuff, for some reason it seems like a lost cause to me. let them come up with a better mouse trap and geeks will genetically engineer a better mouse whose programming is also open source. I pirate stuff i'm interested in, if i like it, i buy it. that simple. well, now to my point....
IT became incrediblly predictable how this discussion would be as soon as I realized it was written by Mr. Jon Outsider Katz (J.O.K, pronnounced Joke), but I must admit it shocked me anyway. only he can post a message that appeals to the very cause that drives a good porcentage of all slashdot discussions, and turn those open everything lovers into copyright advocates (no, i'm not calling you names). don't you get it? the man is trying to get people to agree with him even on this! so he tried an extreme approach in favor of open/free everything (which i also consider to be extreme BTW) and oh surprise! what do you get? the slashdot community starts arguing against free picassos and explains in detail the very argument used to backup license user agreements, copyrights, patents and trademarks.... go figure.
Slashdot Mirror
What? pinball is dying? GOOD!
this isn't flamebait guys, it's my point of view: anything that neglects to evolve with the times is meant to die and justly. I believe there's a place for mechanical machines, but pinball is just outdated. think of how many new things are possible with a combination of electronics and mechanical devices, but pinball stopped evolving after PacMan (at least noticeabley). Or maybe I'm wrong and there isn't a place for mechanical machines anymore. guess i'll never know...
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Look people, someday someone has got to make a legal case of the fact that MS and the others hide all kinds of restrictive and abusive terms and conditions behind a very confusing (intentionally), rarely taken seriously, clickthrough EULA that in all honesty, most people don't read (mainly when it's for personal use and not business).
.jpgs I use in the websites I design and run. no more. I'm a huge linux user, but photoshop was THE reason for me to boot to windows. I just didn't want to go through the trouble of learning the GIMP. Not anymore, from now on I'll only use The Gimp. Like I said, Supply and Demand will take care of them.
I know it's no excuse to say "oh but I didn't read it and I didn't know", but if they were that honest and forthcoming, you would have to sign a written contract when purchasing the product. Most individuals just assume that what they're accepting makes sense, since after all they're "buying" a product and they expect to be regulated just like any other product purchase. I have yet to come across a person that's not surprised when I explain to them what an EULA really is and what it allows/restricts. And I'm talking about executives, housewives, accountants and lawyers. Housewives being the smartest of them all (seriously!). It just doesn't make sense. Then there's also the fact that clicking on a button, or some information on a disk has absolutely no legal meaning in most countries (like Panama, where I live), but for some mi$terious reason the BSA can throw you in jail if someone as much as points a finger at you and says "pirate!".
Of course, if a country doesn't want to work with the BSA, the USofA will impose economic sanctions on them in about 32 seconds flat (33 seconds if that country has a nuclear arsenal)
And did you know that in most countries, once you open the box of a product, you can't take it back to the store and get your money back? I bet MS knows this. This is another reason for people to not pay much attention to what a contract on a textbox says (that curiously displays 1/25th of the content of the contract and a LARGE I Accept Button): they already opened the box, there's nothing you can do anyways so...
I know this is no excuse and saying "I didn't read it" to the court won't do any good, but surely there must be some legal mechanism to prevent big S/W companies from binding you to a license agreement if they don't go through every effort to make sure that the users understand what they're getting into. Most people would just say "You want me to what??? pay you $400+ to not own this thing when I can download staroffice for windows for a fraction of that (or for free)? Supply and demand will take care of them I assure you.
as of 4AM today I used Photoshop for everything, from little I'm sorry notes I email to my girlfriend when I stand her up to some nice looking
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I think the real harm (or punishment) to Microsoft has already been done. The appeal process will take more than a year, and by then the issue will probably be irrelevant since MS would have adapted for whatever decision they predict will happen. what they've lost in public perception (including wallstreet) is enough for real competition to start emerging. look at how linux has grown since the trial started, and while i think linux's success was self earned, at least a portion of its recent popularity goes to the fact that there's the perception in people's mind that the king is about to lose the throne and have started looking elsewhere. I know this is hard to admit, but if we fail to see this we'll also fail to benefit from the oportunity. This is all AFAIK, IMHO and IANAL...
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You are wrong. The Internet is a proyect started by the US Government. Note that I said it was invented by people in the US, not necessarily american scientists. Surely the knowledge used to invent it was developed and acquired by scientists around the world, but it was american tax dollars that paid for it. Keep in mind that I'm not american nor do I live in the US, but one would have to be a fool to not see this.
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I headed my country's relationship with ICANN for a while and let me tell you, if it wasn't because I've worked with American companies all my life I would have NEVER been able to work with nor understand ICANN. I can see why other countries feel like this is a US organization imposing fees to other countries. Hmm, well, now that i think about it, IT IS!. sure there's the at large. sure, they meet in places like cancun, and sure there are people from all over the world in there, but let's be realistic: the Internet was invented by scientists and engineers in the US, and was spread initially by US lead acedemia at first and by mostly US based companies more recently. it's now used by everyone and their middle class cousins, but there's GOT to be a centralized way of handling domains (eventually resolving will come to this one place, otherwise it would be chaos(was that.com resovled by the australia server? oh but it wasn't synchronized to the gualalunpur server!...)). So now they have to pay. Now, is the amount fair? I dunno...
just my 0.02Kb
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Warning, OT:
/. user be kicked out of /. for bitching.
The real coming of age for linux on the game arena is probably not based on easy installation and configuration of the latest trend in game wizardry. Same goes for linux's coming of age as THE desktop platform requiring easier installation and configuration for office apps. For some reason linux lovers have deviated ourselves from the original path that took us where we are. blame it on CNN and IBM for liking us, but all the publicity and capital has made as much bad as it has made good.
why is linux good? hmm let's see:
it's rock solid, but so is solaris and AIX.
It's free? nah, that's the downside (otherwise it would have been popular 3 years ago)
It's the open source movement stupid!: Linux is great because people relate it to OSS. It's popular because of apache, sendmail, samba, gimp, slashcode, etc. But that has nothing to do with MS Office or running the latest windows game!!! (i'm I the only one that thinks this way?)
my frustration level has been steadily increasing with the latest versions of everything that's been done for linux: New, the latest and greatest database system, made to look exactly like oracle!! New and improved desktop environment, it even smells like a window!. I've been sneaking out of meetings, leaving work early, investing precious time in learning everything i can about everything related to developing open source stuff, but every time i feel more and more alone. I don't want an open source powerpoint or an open source oracle, I want open souce AI.I want an open source desktop environment using an open source 3d rendering engine designed for 3d accelerators complete with mouselook and strafe. I want open source search server software that would learn from queries and would spend all day gathering relevant informaiton for me. I want a simple open source word processor that talks html natively to my web server so that i can write letters directly to a url. I want an open source spreadsheet program that is really an interface to a postgreSQL database and presentas and manipulates relationships intuitively (using the open source 3d environment).
Games? well my point is it's not about doing what the others do. that's not what made linux great. it's about being innovative (copyright Microsoft, 1999). how great would a strategy or role playing game be if it was developed by the best players and hackers around on an open source environment? we're good at making new, innovative things, not at making carbon copies of other people's work. That's what's changed. was lotus123 on an IBM PC easy to use for the accountant upstairs? no! some sysadmins had to go around the office everyday turning computers on and running the programs so that people could use it, but they used it anyways. why? because it gave them something unique and valuable. what's so unique and valuable about kde or gnome? sure gnome is open source, but what does it do that you can't do on windows? re-configure everything? is that enough to turn people away from plug and play, ie, mediaplayer, directx and compatible(ubiquitous) file formats? didn't think so, so stop expecting gnome to make people switch from windows (i use both and i'm happy at it). I don't load my linux to do what i do on windows, otherwise i would do it on windows (which you end up having anyways). people install linux because it makes a heck of a server and is too fun to use. same people then go and install it on their home computers and laptops and expect it to do the same as other people's desktop. that's wrong! we need our own creative open way of doing things.
oh well, I better stop or i'll be the first
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I read the post's title and for a moment there i thought it read:
John Katz leaks IQ everywhere, goes for wizards
(as in M$ wizards)...
sorry Jon.
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To those of you who don't believe in genome mapping or sequencing, IMHO, this is the only way to go. we're basically reverse engineering humans. well, that's what you do when you have working binaries but no docs, sourcecode or cpu design: you reverse engineer the hell out of it until you find out all of the above (if you can). since i truly don't believe the human documentation is hidden in the secret chamber of the sphynx, or written with lines in some field in machu-pichu, i see no other way to go. so stop whining...
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C'mon, do you know how XML works?, the chances of a file format created using XML replacing proprietary file format is the same as any other open source file format, even if it's just a C++ data structure, replacing proprietary file formats... there's nothing to XML that will solve your problem!! that's like saying, hey, the new jFAT64 file system is out, will i be able to replace proprietary file formats with it??, it just doesn't work that way... you can probably recreate word95 formats using XML and can do it without XML, it's all in the parser/interpreter/renderer. so you created a very nice, very complete file format using XML, well now every word processor has to support it properly (parse it, interpret it, render it) in order for it to get anywhere, but the same is true for anything you do without XML anyways!!!
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Once every videocard has some form of 3d in it with driver support for all OS's (like what happened when all cards had 2d acceleration and drivers for everyone), which should happen in what, 18 months?, do we expect to see some killer app for 3d Web or VRML 3 or something? i would think so.
i know there are tons of arguments against a 3d interface, but so were there against 3d games when Ultima Underworld came out! if i can move around with absolutely no effort under Q3A or UT, why can't a Q3A level be a web site?? sure it's faster to see all in one page, but if slashdot looked like a Q3A level (with news posted in floating billboards and sections looking like houses, buildings, huts and spaceships) would you log on? i would...
ah, but there's the matter of download speed. well if evey other person has downloaded flash plugins, and realplayer, and are now actually using it, couldn't they download a set of very compressed textures so that when you log on all you download is the wireframe file and changing images, wouldn't this be comparable with downloading html and changing images???? c'mon programming gods, it can't be that hard right? besides, if all you have to download is a 3d browser, which already amount to many megs, you could send all basic textures there couldn't you?
whatdoyouthink people?
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what's with the press people? instant on already exists, it's called hybernation (sp?). it's fast and reliable but has all the problems people have posted here. if some program crashes and renders the system unstable, it stays that way until you turn the computer off, clearing the memory. of course on an non-volatile memory system you couldn't do that, so i don't see why you would use windows2005 or BeOS1.1 or Dumbed_down_Linux v8 with it for just it's instant-on porential. which takes me to my point:
the real use for this technology is yet to come. instant on will be irrelevant 5 years from now. IF the desktop computer prevails. it'll probably be used as some kind of very fast storage or transport media (a la zipdrives or something). caching comes to mind too. if the most accessed records of a huge database are stored here, instead of on my 100 XByte HDD, i could see a pretty decent performance boost. also, this is the kind of technology that I'd like to see in game consoles, webpads, cellphones and that sort of thing, where software tends to be much more static and stable (remember microsoft still hasn't taken over that field yet). my point is, the whole thing, as is presented, is similar to saying "10 years from now we'll have holographic storage systems 2 billion times as fast and large as today's storage media, that will revolutionize the way you store mp3's!.
Now the site will be jammed by the /. effect! all hopes of ever having the human genome made public are now vanished!
To be honest, I'm not that scared.
Yes, I think that within my lifetime the propagation of inteligent machines competing against us for resources, power or both might happen. You can't just extrapolate processor power from moore's law, what about the exponential growth in biological knowledge? the more processor power, the more we're able to understand our genes, our brain, our body. replicating it won't be hard once you have the knowledge, and this depends on having powerful computers that help us reverse engineer the human body. so all in all, i think it could happen and there's enough evidence all around.
but I tell you i'm not scared because in a war against machines i could defend myself! programmers and the such are probably the best prepared bunch for such a war, and when you think about it, some out of control computers will probably be based in the logics we programmed into it. it would be like fighting a virus for which you have the complete genetic code, sequence and understanding of what each gene does. it couldn't be that hard. and the best part is it will probably come down to some kind of showdown between slashdot reader's kind of geeks and the AC (in reference to Isaac Asimov's Analog Computer) turned wild.
"and the AC said "let there be light" and on the seventh day, it rested" --- Isaac Asimov.
Well, if i was VW I for one would use it to test my cars. they're just a whole lot better than a crash test dummy!, and probably cheaper (maybe) than a platoon of precision drivers for all kinds of risky situations... Also, if the thing does catch on, it could be kind of like a co-pilot that kicks in on very specific situations, like when you're on the phone.
how great it would be to just tell it you'll be using the phone and be there "just in case". routines for what people usually do wrong while on the phone or after a few drinks should be "easy" to implement. Also, think about crippled people. if you had no legs, the thing could do the pedals for you while you control the wheel... I'm sure the list will go on, but this is comparable to saying "why do we need computers if they will never think like we do?" well it's not there to do what we do better, but to help us do what we do better (and to do some things we just can't do)....
so, let me get this straight. they're recalling the CD's, not the consoles, or else!... hmmm, I know!, I'll make a copy of the CD (i'm sure a modchip2 will be out in a few hours anyway), return the original, be legit with sony and still play my region 1 DVD's. if the japs can't figure THAT out then they deserve the punishment. (or maybe I'm full of it and this just doesn't work)
oh and about the 7-11..well:
7-11=-4. 4 as in four letters. the word sony has four letters. SONY OWNS 7-11!
have you ever played the game? it would run like crap on WHOPER or HAL!
thanks, didn't catch that one.
Articles such as this are only fuel to the virus writing fire. The more people keep daring crackers and virus writers that this is not possible, the closer you get to a virus epidemic. If that happens, it will be a huge disservice to the growing popularity of the amazing OS that is Linux.
of course I'm all for writing about virus warnings, technical consideratiosn and the sort, but, IMHO, we must keep our tone down and speak with humility. Not even suggest for a minute that a successful linux virus is not possible. The ability of humans to do the impossible is a big part of the reason why linux exists, and to be honest, i started using linux BECAUSE most people (used to) think it would fail.
i personally think the open source movement, and the whole linux fenomena, is a serious and professional one, and unless treated that way will probably fall for the same reasons other venues are falling today (that is if you, like me, think that windows won't last that long). If more serious consideration would have been given to viruses when they first showed up (not mainstream), windows would probably be much more protected against them than it is (but then again, maybe not. thanks bill).
anyway, that's just my $0.02
I understand that the apple s/w and h/w marriage is a key element in their success, it was also a key element in their failure the last time.
last time I checked, software was much more profitable than hardware since it costs so much less to produce and distribute. if you sell s/w that's not tied to a hardware, you sell your stuff to anyone and are not limited by the production limitations found in the h/w business. plus your margins are much higher if you sell enough (after covering development)
think about this, if they sell OSX only for apple h/w owners, and they are the sole providers of apple boxes, then they'll sell as much s/w as they can build boxes, which have a completely different business model (based on low volume, high margins vs. high volume decent margings).
after all microsoft made its money selling software when the internet wasn't even around and computer usage was just a fraction of what it is today, but it took a revolution, new economy, new age, the internet, etc. for cisco to have as much money as they do today sellin hardware.
IMHO: keep selling apple h/w adn s/w turnkey solutions, AND sell OSX for Intel for those who want it. whoever was going to buy an apple box will still probably buy it, the rest of us that would like to give it a shot but would never spend on their hardware (i love my custom built PCs) will probably shell out $50 for their s/w.
one more thing, you have OSX on intel and a very good, reliable, fast win emulator will show up in a week. THEN you really start getting sales in by having the still missing critical mass of s/w apps for your OS.
I'm just not going to support a business model where you write a song decently good based on the agency's parameters for sellable material, or even if it's really your own invention, and then you seat back and relax while the millions pour in...
money is hard earned and it should stay that way. even $10M a year sports heroes get to work almost every day and very hard too. if touring and brand selling doesn't pay your bills then you're the problem!! I just don't see how a concert a week with 10,000 people paying $10 a head won't pay the bills..
you want a model that works? write a good original artistic song, distribute it for free on the net, build a solid fan base (if you're smart you'll be on the radio in no time) and start touring and selling t-shirts!!! what? you won't be a millionair in 30 days? ohhhh that's too bad cause neither am i (yet) and sure as hell work at least as hard as most artists do (unless they work more than 20 hours a day)
just imagine how "in" it'll sound when the local radio station starts airing that new song everyone's talking about that's free on the net and the guys have no record label. if that happens where i live everyone would start downloading the thing from their site (which will be loaded with bills paying banners BTW) and if the song's good it'll spread like HIV. all of a sudden the radio starts announcing your first tour (which you financed with VC money) and EVERYBODY will wanna know who the kids behind the mp3 are. sure as hell sounds cooler than the regular dying method of going to super sony and have them take care of you...
bottom line, be creative, aggresive, competitive, just like everything else on the net or else be amazoned.
oh, sorry, all of the above is IMHO.
See what I just don't get about all this mars failures is how come noone's talking about Mr. Goldin's resignation. Where I come from if your team or company or whatever suffers this kinds of failures (despite some great successes) and generates such bad publicity with aftermath conspiracies (which I think this whole "they knew" BS is) you either quit or get fired.
maybe the problem is where I come from....
I don't mean to say that Goldin's a bad leader for NASA, but I'm not saying he's a great one either. Surely, NASA could use a facelift and get some '60s credibility back, and if I was Goldin i would seriously consider resigning in the best interests of NASA. but I'm not him...
I mean his whole strategy is based on the faster/cheaper/better phylosophy that seems to be the root of the problem...
or maybe I'm full of it...
Believe me, I don't mean to be as stupid as I sound when I ask you:
Will Samba ever die?, if so, how?
The reason content is vertical is because it's easier to read shorter lines (try reading a 14" line and then go back and find the next line, if you can), and monitors are horizontal is because they evolved from TV sets that were not meant to show text but images, which are better presented horizontally because we can see more of it due to our eyes allignment. I say give us square monitors. that way we all win (or loose?). or better yet, do what the other guy said, keep'em wide and have two tall columns displayed. anyone disagrees?
yeah, but he only did that to turn heads away from y2k induced windows lockups/law suits while he remotely rebooted your computer (he CAN do that you know...)
I'm sure that by now nobody will read this post, but i just can't keep my mouth shut...
First of all I'm a total outsider to the whole open souce vs copyright stuff, for some reason it seems like a lost cause to me. let them come up with a better mouse trap and geeks will genetically engineer a better mouse whose programming is also open source. I pirate stuff i'm interested in, if i like it, i buy it. that simple. well, now to my point....
IT became incrediblly predictable how this discussion would be as soon as I realized it was written by Mr. Jon Outsider Katz (J.O.K, pronnounced Joke), but I must admit it shocked me anyway. only he can post a message that appeals to the very cause that drives a good porcentage of all slashdot discussions, and turn those open everything lovers into copyright advocates (no, i'm not calling you names). don't you get it? the man is trying to get people to agree with him even on this! so he tried an extreme approach in favor of open/free everything (which i also consider to be extreme BTW) and oh surprise! what do you get? the slashdot community starts arguing against free picassos and explains in detail the very argument used to backup license user agreements, copyrights, patents and trademarks.... go figure.