Not only will it pack more power than the Playstation 2 (consolidated 128-bit blit) but it'll be the first handheld to really take advantage of object-oriented development methodologies.
At $250 it sounds a bit steep (one would think they'd charge less at first and ramp the price up as more games are released) but hopefully someone will circulate a petition to get Linux ported to this thing! Besides, people pay that just for portable DVD players...
I humbly disagree. I think that just about everybody here has in some way or another violated a computer law, be it stealing music online, peeking at somebody else's e-mail account, or even using a library machine in a lavicious manner.
Computer crimes are elevated well beyond reason by a public afraid of the boggyman that technology represents to a luddite populace. We've been throwing people in jail for decades, whether it's a "phreaker" who can whistle a 2600hz "red box" tone back in the days of Ma Bell or a social recluse that demonstrates a flaw in a school computer security system only to face "justice" far harsher than hardened shoplifters or even carjackers might face -- all in the name of setting an example to legions of pasty youth who might wreak havoc on the Internet and by extension a number of normal people by their exploits.
My suggestion is to drop all computer laws until they can be evaluated by competent unbiased professionals in computer science for logic and reprecussion. Things have gotten out of hand.
Software shouldn't be patented. It shouldn't even be copyrighted or trademarked. There is such a short shelf life on software and software companies that the impact of denying access to techniques and logarithms effectively shuts out competition and fair use not only for the life of a product but well beyond, negatively influencing people well beyond the useful scope of any novelty that could possibly be discovered.
One only has to look at the rampant achievements and success of Free Software and Open Source to see how much the rest of the industry is being held back by software patents and other "intellectual property" restrictions.
If you didn't want DRM, you'd buy the CD. It seems like a lot of hassle to set up an account, buy the music, download the music, crack the music, then convert the music to get to the same end result.
Admittedly, without the thrill of "fighting the man", but in this case "the man" is giving you virtually everything you asked for (inexpensive music you can try before you buy with the ability to download exactly what you want and make mix CDs, which you could then rip as well without needing this tool.) Now Apple is going to have to crack down again.
What does this win us? The music industry can point to this as another example of why the restrictions need to be in the hardware and the hardware manufacturers are already in their pocket as far as the next generation of motherboards are concerned. Thanks to the pirates, those of us who buy the stuff again have to pay with further restrictions.
That's a pity about what happened; as a reader of Game Developer I guess I'd expect them to have things a little more together for a game competition as well. E-mail can be dodgy, though, especially if somebody puts a silent spam/virus filter on your account for you or your system administrator inadvertently wipes part or all of a spool file.
If it's any consolation, the game sounds interesting and I've bookmarked the website which is more than I've done for any in the competition (admittedly, I haven't checked them out yet). And modarchive is excellent.
The efforts to put piracy back in the bag, while they have to be made to appease stockholders, are largely worthless until DRM comes along and the original content manufacturer can specify machine-enforceable terms for redistribution. The whole problem is akin to the software piracy situation, which a friend aptly analogizes as thus:
It seems that back in the late 1800's in America (mentioning this for non-U.S./.ers) there was this saloon in the West that was kind of a run-down,
ramshackle joint that was frequented by a few loyal patrons and not too many
others. I think it was California, but it could have been Oregon or someplace
similar -- well, the location isn't really relevant to the story but if you're
interested you may be able to dig a bit on Google to find out. Basically,
while the saloon didn't go out of its way to publicize itself to
out-of-towners (not much point given that it was in a remote area) it managed
to do a fairly steady trade despite the occasional brawl that caused property
damage and the persistent requests from a particular fellow for free drinks.
More nights than not, the proprietor of the saloon would watch this drunk come
wandering in through the doors, sit down, and lay a line on him about how he's
trying to pull things together and how he'd just make enough to keep himself
in beans and couldn't the bartender just pour him a shot or two to fuzz the
edges and whatnot. And again, more nights than not, the bartender would take
pity on the poor guy and pull out the whiskey.
Now, mind you, this went on for some time, and while the bartender was an easy
mark even he had his limit. So one night, after the bartender already gave
the fellow three shots on the house, he decides to cut the guy off.
"Look," he says, "while I'm really sorry to hear that things still aren't
working out for you I don't think that I can keep giving you free drinks.
I've got to make ends meet too, you know."
So the drunk says, "I don't suppose you've got anything I can do to get another
drink tonight?"
The proprietor, not particularly wanting this fellow to hang around all night
and certainly not expecting him to take him up on his proposition, says "Well,
you see that spittoon over there? If you take a swig out of that I suppose
I could give you a drink to wash it down."
No sooner did he finish his last sentence than the drunk walked over to the
spittoon and hefted it off of the floor. Before the bartender could stop him,
the fellow put the rim to his lips, tipped the bottom of the metal container
up into the air, and began to swallow. To the bartender's dismay, the
guy continued to slowly chug the thick contents of the spittoon. When he had
finally gulped the final remnants of the container, he threw it to the ground,
wiped off his lips with his shirt cuff, and gagged, "So, do I get the drink?"
"You can have the bottle!" exclaimed the bartender, immediately pouring the
first shot. "But tell me, why did you swallow the whole damn thing? You
only needed to swig it to earn the drink."
And the drunk replies: "It was all one long string."
That 80% of development jobs are being outsourced to India but don't seem to pay enough for developers to buy their own product.
It'd be just desserts if this sinks the companies involved. They want employees to understand that a "world economy" creates natural downward forces on jobs in affluent nations but want every customer to pay like they live in the U.S.
Irregardless, managing for long-term viability is a dead concept.
I'd pull the stuff from backups. No critical business is without them, and if you're encrypting those I'd hope you're using DSA with multiple keying to a second administrator and an escrow key that sits in the CEO's safe for precisely this situation.
If you need a Free Software example to follow, turn to that of the author of Vim who has used his work to entreat users to donate to the needy in Uganda. But don't piss on a $750 million donation to some of the worst off on this planet; that's really low class and unless you've solved the problem already don't disparage the people who are taking a crack at it.
The situation might not be that bleak. There are certainly countries that don't see eye-to-eye with the U.S. on this policy, and this particular branch of study has probably become more valuable with America's rejection of this very specific form of stem cell research.
Other countries are already the first option for cutting-edge treatments that haven't yet or won't gain approval in the U.S.; this is yet more business being pushed the way of slightly less scrupulous countries. Perhaps the original research would be too costly to conduct in the U.S., but I wonder if it would be cost-effective to import a viable treatment developed outside the country?
Software shouldn't be patented. It shouldn't even be copyrighted or trademarked. There is such a short shelf life on software and software companies that the impact of denying access to techniques and logarithms effectively shuts out competition and fair use not only for the life of a product but well beyond, negatively influencing people well beyond the useful scope of any novelty that could possibly be discovered.
One only has to look at the rampant achievements and success of Free Software and Open Source to see how much the rest of the industry is being held back by software patents and other "intellectual property" restrictions.
These sports games are getting really stale anyway. These deals actually free Sega up to do something creative with the genre, ala Mutant League Football/Hockey.
RPGs are the most important thing on any console anyway.
The best person to ask about this would probably be CmdrTaco himself (via e-mail). The FAQ entry is outdated, as I thought they moved to servers on the west coast at some point -- certainly, those listed in the FAQ seem quite underpowered for the traffic and features Slashdot's handling now.
I know that Slashdot was bringing down websites regularly when I first made my account, if that helps (found this amusing, and it dates from around 1999). But it'd be interesting to see a monthly tally of hits over the last five years.
Having had an opportunity to install and test this software, I have to say that it fits into the new security initiative in a way that is good to behold. To solve the spyware problem will require the same mettle as the virus problem, and it is a good first step to make it easy for the average user to deploy and use as well as powerful enough to work against current threats.
I think that Microsoft has traditionally done quite well with buying great software
and making it fit in a system (Excel being the best example, Foxpro and
Visio close second). It makes me wonder if this might be the next-generation computer business
model. Let the little guys innovate and purchase the projects that make
sense; kind of like venture capital after-the-fact. Certainly the original
makers aren't often remembered -- the guys that first invented optical media
or the stereo are less important and became less rich than the greats that
currently manufacture them. And few seem aware that chopsticks originated
in American mining communities in the 1800s by Chinese immigrants seeking to
differentiate their restaurants from more common fare, and currently accounts
for 3% of American lumber exports.
Ultimately, integration is far more important than innovation -- there are all
sorts of people who come up with new things, but recognizing what is practical
and developing it to its fullest extent as part of a system is what makes
Microsoft work. And I'm really glad they've picked up an anti-spyware package
instead of developing one in-house because they can capitalize on someone
else's focus on the spyware problem, to our benefit.
This would be a bad thing (I am not a lawyer).
on
New Attacks on Spam
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Even ignoring any possible First Amendment issues (which can be done if we discuss this hypothetically occuring only in other countries) imagine what kinds of doors are opened when you permit automatic sight-unseen licensing to take effect on material on the WWW?
Here's a hint: website indexing as we know it will be completely destroyed the instant site owners can claim complete discretion about how their website information is used even though the websites are publically disclosed. Any automated webcrawling process could potentially subject the person running it to liability. Which means any future indexing will have to be vetted by hand.
I could be misinterpreting this, but I think it would be very bad news to allow websites to bind people to contracts they aren't able to read or understand (even if we have a similar horrendous system for end-users of software). It's one thing to write a law restricting such behavior on a general basis, or specifying some way for people to opt-out of information collecting with a robots file, but even that is subject to confusion.
Technical answers are needed for technical problems.
Why don't we just run razor wire along the coasts and borders, and declare everyone incarcerated?
I have no doubt that should this come to pass there is a sizeable group here who would firmly believe that we have finally tried the rest of the world, found them guilty, and thrown them in the clink.
Some companies view a buggy leak as an opportunity to generate free buzz about the final product. Some view it as an opportunity to use the legal system to bludgeon extreme enthusiasts that have allegedly crossed the line.
Maybe it's time to look at OS marketshare to see how the different strategies work out.
A2M swapping rears its ugly head. This semaphore system has worked well to date, but perhaps should be mandated (i.e. code will not work unless a semaphore is set.)
They've got a pretty good record. Unfortunately, kernel-level stuff is nasty -- how do you fix embedded devices?
They've been speculating for years that magnetic forces were involved in the shaping of planetary nebulae. Given the relatively low position of iron on the table of elements, it doesn't surprise me magnetic forces play a part (if a less significant one than gravity itself) in nebula formation or other interaction of stellar bodies.
And as usual, when one mystery is solved another springs forward to take its place. So it goes until we determine intelligent design really was behind everything to begin with after all.:)
The cost of the unit will have to go up if you want the support.
I've got a few pieces of hardware that still work, but doesn't have support in Windows XP. No practical reason for it, but the hardware was inexpensive and purchased maybe a year before XP came out. The cost was based on the level of support the companies anticipated providing, so good equipment becomes paperweights with a system upgrade.
Don't buy cheap and expect more than you pay for. This was a clever hack but I'm sure Palm sells stuff with WiFi for a little more than the Treo 650 goes for. As with printers, you need to spend more on handheld equipment if you expect reasonable performance and reliability.
Slashdot Mirror
At $250 it sounds a bit steep (one would think they'd charge less at first and ramp the price up as more games are released) but hopefully someone will circulate a petition to get Linux ported to this thing! Besides, people pay that just for portable DVD players...
Computer crimes are elevated well beyond reason by a public afraid of the boggyman that technology represents to a luddite populace. We've been throwing people in jail for decades, whether it's a "phreaker" who can whistle a 2600hz "red box" tone back in the days of Ma Bell or a social recluse that demonstrates a flaw in a school computer security system only to face "justice" far harsher than hardened shoplifters or even carjackers might face -- all in the name of setting an example to legions of pasty youth who might wreak havoc on the Internet and by extension a number of normal people by their exploits.
My suggestion is to drop all computer laws until they can be evaluated by competent unbiased professionals in computer science for logic and reprecussion. Things have gotten out of hand.
It is (a) percursor to object-oriented languages such as Smalltalk and C++, and was the first strongly-typed language (Python being the most recent.)
One only has to look at the rampant achievements and success of Free Software and Open Source to see how much the rest of the industry is being held back by software patents and other "intellectual property" restrictions.
URL addresses and IP addresses amount to the same thing. Think about it.
Definitely an improvement over the old days where you had to buy every little utility.
Admittedly, without the thrill of "fighting the man", but in this case "the man" is giving you virtually everything you asked for (inexpensive music you can try before you buy with the ability to download exactly what you want and make mix CDs, which you could then rip as well without needing this tool.) Now Apple is going to have to crack down again.
What does this win us? The music industry can point to this as another example of why the restrictions need to be in the hardware and the hardware manufacturers are already in their pocket as far as the next generation of motherboards are concerned. Thanks to the pirates, those of us who buy the stuff again have to pay with further restrictions.
If it's any consolation, the game sounds interesting and I've bookmarked the website which is more than I've done for any in the competition (admittedly, I haven't checked them out yet). And modarchive is excellent.
It seems that back in the late 1800's in America (mentioning this for non-U.S. /.ers) there was this saloon in the West that was kind of a run-down,
ramshackle joint that was frequented by a few loyal patrons and not too many
others. I think it was California, but it could have been Oregon or someplace
similar -- well, the location isn't really relevant to the story but if you're
interested you may be able to dig a bit on Google to find out. Basically,
while the saloon didn't go out of its way to publicize itself to
out-of-towners (not much point given that it was in a remote area) it managed
to do a fairly steady trade despite the occasional brawl that caused property
damage and the persistent requests from a particular fellow for free drinks.
More nights than not, the proprietor of the saloon would watch this drunk come wandering in through the doors, sit down, and lay a line on him about how he's trying to pull things together and how he'd just make enough to keep himself in beans and couldn't the bartender just pour him a shot or two to fuzz the edges and whatnot. And again, more nights than not, the bartender would take pity on the poor guy and pull out the whiskey.
Now, mind you, this went on for some time, and while the bartender was an easy mark even he had his limit. So one night, after the bartender already gave the fellow three shots on the house, he decides to cut the guy off.
"Look," he says, "while I'm really sorry to hear that things still aren't working out for you I don't think that I can keep giving you free drinks. I've got to make ends meet too, you know."
So the drunk says, "I don't suppose you've got anything I can do to get another drink tonight?"
The proprietor, not particularly wanting this fellow to hang around all night and certainly not expecting him to take him up on his proposition, says "Well, you see that spittoon over there? If you take a swig out of that I suppose I could give you a drink to wash it down."
No sooner did he finish his last sentence than the drunk walked over to the spittoon and hefted it off of the floor. Before the bartender could stop him, the fellow put the rim to his lips, tipped the bottom of the metal container up into the air, and began to swallow. To the bartender's dismay, the guy continued to slowly chug the thick contents of the spittoon. When he had finally gulped the final remnants of the container, he threw it to the ground, wiped off his lips with his shirt cuff, and gagged, "So, do I get the drink?"
"You can have the bottle!" exclaimed the bartender, immediately pouring the first shot. "But tell me, why did you swallow the whole damn thing? You only needed to swig it to earn the drink."
And the drunk replies: "It was all one long string."
It'd be just desserts if this sinks the companies involved. They want employees to understand that a "world economy" creates natural downward forces on jobs in affluent nations but want every customer to pay like they live in the U.S.
Irregardless, managing for long-term viability is a dead concept.
I'd pull the stuff from backups. No critical business is without them, and if you're encrypting those I'd hope you're using DSA with multiple keying to a second administrator and an escrow key that sits in the CEO's safe for precisely this situation.
If you need a Free Software example to follow, turn to that of the author of Vim who has used his work to entreat users to donate to the needy in Uganda. But don't piss on a $750 million donation to some of the worst off on this planet; that's really low class and unless you've solved the problem already don't disparage the people who are taking a crack at it.
Other countries are already the first option for cutting-edge treatments that haven't yet or won't gain approval in the U.S.; this is yet more business being pushed the way of slightly less scrupulous countries. Perhaps the original research would be too costly to conduct in the U.S., but I wonder if it would be cost-effective to import a viable treatment developed outside the country?
One only has to look at the rampant achievements and success of Free Software and Open Source to see how much the rest of the industry is being held back by software patents and other "intellectual property" restrictions.
RPGs are the most important thing on any console anyway.
I know that Slashdot was bringing down websites regularly when I first made my account, if that helps (found this amusing, and it dates from around 1999). But it'd be interesting to see a monthly tally of hits over the last five years.
I think that Microsoft has traditionally done quite well with buying great software and making it fit in a system (Excel being the best example, Foxpro and Visio close second). It makes me wonder if this might be the next-generation computer business model. Let the little guys innovate and purchase the projects that make sense; kind of like venture capital after-the-fact. Certainly the original makers aren't often remembered -- the guys that first invented optical media or the stereo are less important and became less rich than the greats that currently manufacture them. And few seem aware that chopsticks originated in American mining communities in the 1800s by Chinese immigrants seeking to differentiate their restaurants from more common fare, and currently accounts for 3% of American lumber exports.
Ultimately, integration is far more important than innovation -- there are all sorts of people who come up with new things, but recognizing what is practical and developing it to its fullest extent as part of a system is what makes Microsoft work. And I'm really glad they've picked up an anti-spyware package instead of developing one in-house because they can capitalize on someone else's focus on the spyware problem, to our benefit.
Here's a hint: website indexing as we know it will be completely destroyed the instant site owners can claim complete discretion about how their website information is used even though the websites are publically disclosed. Any automated webcrawling process could potentially subject the person running it to liability. Which means any future indexing will have to be vetted by hand.
I could be misinterpreting this, but I think it would be very bad news to allow websites to bind people to contracts they aren't able to read or understand (even if we have a similar horrendous system for end-users of software). It's one thing to write a law restricting such behavior on a general basis, or specifying some way for people to opt-out of information collecting with a robots file, but even that is subject to confusion.
Technical answers are needed for technical problems.
Have we forgotten already? Money talks, you know.
I have no doubt that should this come to pass there is a sizeable group here who would firmly believe that we have finally tried the rest of the world, found them guilty, and thrown them in the clink.
Maybe it's time to look at OS marketshare to see how the different strategies work out.
They've got a pretty good record. Unfortunately, kernel-level stuff is nasty -- how do you fix embedded devices?
One potential non-infringing widespread use: this would be a reasonable size for a HDTV PVR unit.
And as usual, when one mystery is solved another springs forward to take its place. So it goes until we determine intelligent design really was behind everything to begin with after all. :)
I've got a few pieces of hardware that still work, but doesn't have support in Windows XP. No practical reason for it, but the hardware was inexpensive and purchased maybe a year before XP came out. The cost was based on the level of support the companies anticipated providing, so good equipment becomes paperweights with a system upgrade.
Don't buy cheap and expect more than you pay for. This was a clever hack but I'm sure Palm sells stuff with WiFi for a little more than the Treo 650 goes for. As with printers, you need to spend more on handheld equipment if you expect reasonable performance and reliability.