If this technology is cheap or free, that alone would probably be enough to unseat Flash. I know I've been wanting to see this become a standard feature in browsers so that it could be implemented in Web pages quickly and efficiently, rather than slowing down the page load time.
In most cases, Flash is abused by people who think it adds pizazz to menus or advertisements anyway. 99% of us would get along better without unless we're watching a cartoon or playing a game in it.
Replacing or adding on components is less of an option.
It costs two to three times as much for a feature in a laptop as it does in a desktop.
Laptop stuff always seems to fail or act substandard at some point. Desktop stuff does too nowadays but you can replace it.
64-bit is still experimental.
Pros:
A laptop is portable.
I don't know why people drop serious cash on these things. It's something like $700 for a low-end Dell laptop, which gives you everything you need except serious gaming potential. I'd never make a laptop my main system just because of the reliability factor alone.
Parents picking up Grand Theft Auto or Doom for their children can't very well claim ignorance about the violence of the content. If they aren't maintaining a healthy level of involvement in the lives of their children they've got no one to blame but themselves.
Having said that, video games today are a virtual "pornography of violence"; characters are maimed or killed without thought to consequences in most titles, which are ultimately marketed to children when they share space among children's titles in gaming magazines or on review websites. It's highly unlikely even grown adults leave a session of intense gaming (or violent movies for that matter) without some imprint, as these games are designed to trigger and reward unhealthy responses.
I've got a certain amount of room for games like BF1942 in my free time, but I also enjoy games like Zork or Myst that are underrepresented in today's lineup on the shelves. Maybe they've got a point?
They've kept the Open Source world on the defensive. They experience consistent gains in the stock every time they announce a new initiative in their war on Free Software. They've been able to keep this going for far longer than I would have thought possible, and if this gets to trial the potential is there that they will prevail.
Who would have thought litigation was a way of making a living off of Free Software? I don't like what they're doing, but I have to confess my opinion of their strategy has changed. Fortunately, the rabid response they no doubt expected to provoke from the Open Source community hasn't manifested itself; I've been quite impressed with the professionalism and quality of the response as well. Keep posting these stories... we just can't get enough SCO.
I would agree that if third-party candidates had a fair shot we'd be more likely to elect decent politicians from their ranks, and I have voted for them in the past. Unfortunately, even good third-party candidates are overlooked, because when you get the Rock The Vote graduates and straight-ticket voters and those influenced by 'fact sheets' from their unions and churches and PR firms in the mail... well, all these things go to the benefit of the entrenched.
When it gets down to it, your vote may make a difference in a Dem/Rep decision that it simply cannot for a third party. As somebody else said, we're really kissing two cheeks of the same ass, but I can think of one election coming up where I'll be able to vote Democrat and honestly feel it makes a difference. As far as congressional seats go, most people would do well to kick out the incumbents unless they've got someone like Feingold or Paul (IMHO).
The problem with third-parties is they just don't get the recognition and face time with the public that they need to compete fairly. The potential of the Internet to offset the TV ads and PR of the major parties is still largely unrealized, but maybe you could find a good resource on third-party candidates and include it in your sig?
In a way, being able to have a synthesized singer belt out any tune you'd wish demonstrates the real value of music: zero. Kind of makes the whole P2P thing look dated, in a way.
It's ironic that the very tools the music industry uses today to guarantee pitch-perfection are tomorrow going to undermine their own success, much as people giving away software are doing in many ways for the software industry. Perhaps the only thing guaranteed is acting, as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within demonstrated, although eventually computers may catch up with live actors as well.
But progress is inevitable. And as things that were once worth money become free, we become open to do more things. So I'm not too dismayed by the concept that computers will tomorrow handle (Handel?) music composition as easily as they handle music piracy today.
I prefer FLAC, as while current lossy-compression standards might be OK for nu-metal/alternative/pop they completely mangle more complex music such as Shubert's Streichquintett C-Dur D 956 (Op. Post.163): Allegro ma non troppo or Twisted Sister's I Wanna Rock. However, the potential pitfall in using such a system has less to do with patents and more to do with copyright: it's quite possible that streaming over 802.11 requires broadcast royalties, especially if the stream isn't secured with a Virtual Private Network such as Microsoft's PPPTP. While it isn't likely they'll come after you, I'd be worried enough about people freeloading off of my expensive collection that I'd rather go with an over-the-wire solution.
Much of a store's profits are made on strategy. When this kind of data is released, it cuts into the ability of a business to price things appropriately to the demand.
I'm not saying the DMCA oughta cover this, but this is definitely something that can hurt business.
While it's not a hack-and-slash level-upper like most of 'em, it's got a level of depth to it that can only come from letting users design their own content. Not dungeons, but jetpacks, paintball, rollercoasters, and the like with an advanced scripting engine. The game uses real physics, so it's able to calculate in real time the effect of something you code on a 3D model.
Really neat stuff. It lets average people get a feel for what programming is like in a MMO environment. So the fact that they recognize your stake in what you create is meaningful, given that you aren't just repositioning in-game objects but actually designing your own stuff to entertain others in the game. I may actually have to give it a try now, although the folks that get a little too into these things have made me leery of doing so to this point.
You're not. This is a valid point that is all but ignored by scientists seeking continual funding and rationalizing that if they don't do it someone else will.
However, I think this sort of research is as or more likely to radically benefit society as it is to create catastrophe. Look at the genie released when we first split the atom; I'd argue that the current and future benefits from nuclear power alone outweigh the concern about the misuse of this knowledge. But I feel that ethical concerns must become a stronger part of scientific research and funding, not only because of this breakthrough but because of the ones we're about to make (nanotechnology will present similar worrying potential...)
In its own way, this seems to validate some scientific theories I've heard about recently that struck me as being somewhat far-fetched but become all the more possible now that this breakthrough has been made.
As I understand it, evolution/natural selection is the natural effect when
beings are subjected to adversity: only the strong survive. Thinking about
this, it becomes clear that in a model where evolution is the sole factor
traits that affect survival are gradually weeded out over time because those
without such traits are more likely to survive. So too beings that experienced
beneficial mutation are likely to preserve such traits.
But this
article raises an interesting consideration. When I was in junior high,
we took a brief field trip to collect pond water to view under microscopes,
and one of the most interesting things was how those little critters with the
thing called a flagellum would zoom around. This article brings up the point
that this device, which is not exclusive to pond scum, is "irreducibly
complex": it is made up of several parts, none of which separately would
be of beneficial use to the creature employing it (in fact, such a creature
would probably die off under natural selection.) The odds of a mutation
creating all parts simultaneously are astronomical, and consequently, the only
accepted theory that can sanely describe such a thing is intelligent design,
which has been hinted at in many different real-life examples as well as
probabistically explained by Pascal's Wager.
This theory is currently derided and discriminated against in favor of older
theories, mind you, much as Galileo was in favor of the theory that the Earth
was flat, because it threatens to dredge up the uncomfortable unknown. But like
any theory, the more evidence that is found to support it particularly to the
exclusion of existing theories, the more likely it is correct. So as skeptical
as I am of intelligent design, I can't help but notice how much of our biological
model it predicts. Has anybody heard anything more about this?
I've noticed that different Linux distributions take radically different approaches to fairly menial things such as filesystem layout and package management. Lately, I've started using Gentoo, which seems to offer the best blend of configurability and power of the current crop of Linux distributions while remaining simple and fun to use, but still suffers from the pitfalls of compatibility with software designed for other distributions including Red Hat (and packaging such as RPM).
I think it is inevitable that standardization will continue to occur -- things have gotten much better over the last few years -- but do you see Red Hat changing to fit Linux or Linux changing to fit Red Hat in the future?
You can only write to this stuff once. Real memory is rewritable, like CD-RWs -- it'd probably be better to call this Plastic ROM or something similar.
I've used it in the past to pipe a tar+bzip2 image of/dev/hda1 over SSH to another Linux system. If I needed to back it to CD, which I did sometimes, I used split on the image and would burn the images individually.
There might be GPL issues that'd compound your Microsoft issues of sector-by-sector copying, but aren't we entitled to a backup? Which laws trump which?
I grew up during the times when security research was all to the good, when companies actually rewarded individuals who took time out of their days to research, document, and reveal flaws in products to them.
But it looks like the economic incentive to cover up rather than fix makes the concept of welcome full disclosure a myth akin in proportion to the commonly-misheld belief that
chopsticks of course originated in Asia. Interesting story: the recently
uncovered truth of the matter is that they were actually designed as a
gimmick by immigrants cooking in American mining communities in the 1800s
and later carried back to Asia as a less resource-intensive means of
preparing and serving food. Ironically, the U.S. is the largest exporter
of chopsticks, with something like 3% of U.S. lumber production going towards
the effort to supply Asia, where chopstick use grew to outstrip other
utensils within the last century.
The point is that when you look at the bigger picture, you realize that there is an economic disincentive to do the right thing; or rather, an incentive to do whatever it takes to improve the bottom line. I think it's unfortunate that they're choosing to punish an individual that was trying to help, and that it's this sort of attitude that drives good hackers underground. When code is owned by outlaws, only outlaws own the code.
A lot of (well, too many) people draw a connection between the promotion of open source/Free Software and piracy, rationalizing that because the members of the previous movements are inclined to give away something for nothing they are also inclined to take something for nothing.
Nevermind that said movements survive on the concept of copyright and respecting the creator's wishes. Standard copyright doesn't even do that anymore, considering most creators of original content hand it over as a work-for-hire and aren't even able to assert moral rights (most copyrighted work being produced in the U.S. or for U.S. companies). So it's possible the prosecutor is attempting to trace the connection between open source and piracy that simply doesn't exist.
To be honest, I haven't noticed that much difference between this and the level of processing ability of my old Voodoo3 (compatibility being the biggest issue.) It seems to work well even with demanding titles like BattleField 1945, where memory, CPU, and disk speed seem to be the biggest bottlenecks. I've even heard that the cards can't possibly get much more efficient at this point because they're already tapping out AGP 8X.
So I suppose my question is why do people get more excited these days about +0.7fps out of a $200 card when they could just drop a bit more memory on the mainboard? Reviewers and fanboys still gush about these things when there are so many better improvements to be made in other areas.
I'd think owning a combination of network/operating system technologies would be beneficial to an OEM that deals heavily in selling machines to businesses, particularly point-of-sale terminals.
But the third Matrix, while not quite a cinematic flop, finally broke any tie the series had with the mainstream. As with most anime, if you aren't a hardcore fan of the genre you're unlikely to mentally fill in enough the plot gaps to leave satisfied.
Parodies only really work if the stuff is popular. But with the three episodes of the Matrix as well as that Animatrix DVD I think most people have had their fill already. It's no Star Wars.
Essentially, agent-based computing is P2P used in a positive way -- multiple redundant systems working together to achieve a common goal, much as is done by ants in a colony.
Like the Internet, but with other goals than networked communications. I think this is the sort of thing that will finally bring the convergence that was always talked about in regards to the Internet (an alarm clock, coffee, toaster, car starter, etc. that are aware of your schedule, not unlike the opening scene of Back To The Future).
Does C# have anything like this, or is this easily portable to C# or any other strongly typed portable languages such as Python? It'd be nice to have another alternative to Java, which seems to cause problems for some people.
I'm not too big on the controls. Although I liked the idea of taking on crime rather than perpetuating it in a video game, I have to admit GTA3/GTA:Vice were easier to control.
Well, except for aiming guns, which is already nearly impossible with a joystick unless you're too young to be playing such a title, and whatever shoulder button you had to hold to aim always went to the lady in the walker instead of to one of the five people beating the holy hell out of you.
And I agree with a former poster, the violence is way over the top. Not an effective substitute for game quality, and probably warping the only people with the time to play the things.
Oftentimes, users don't even realize they've got trojans until there's some form of penalty. Internet access suddenly stopping, warning messages, a big red Alert, or something.
It used to be one knew they had a virus because an ambulance would fly around the screen or the computer would stop working. But given the amount of these things coming in through P2P I'm not surprised they aren't seeing all of the extra traffic on the little set of computers in the system tray.
Hopefully, the ISP will be similarly proactive in restoring access when the traffic stops. I'd hate to think somebody's dynamic IP address stops working ala Something Awful because of somebody else's bad Net habit.
Yes, I should point out that I raised the above questions not out of some desire to see the whole thing swept under the rug but to get a sense of perspective on the types of restrictions whistleblowing in the Internet age might face.
From what I've heard, there's more than enough here to interest reasonable news media outlets. I'm somewhat curious about whether reporting of the issues raised in the memos and the cease-and-desisting has been lackluster because they're working on getting more information for a story, because they're concerned about becoming targets for lawsuits over the legality of using information from the memos, or because they're worried about stepping on toes. Murrow be damned; there's movie reviews and diets and rape trials that desperately need 24 hour coverage and analysis.
Companies usually make it clear that any work you do for them is theirs, including the creation of intellectual property. I would have thought such a thing was implicit until I worked at a place where some schmuck contractor dropped copyrights all over his code (back in the mid 80s) that he was specifically paid to create for the company.
If you fail to properly secure your website, do you lose copyright interest in your information?
If I was a (hypothetical) member of the Diebold mailing list, and there were a few e-mails in that bunch that I authored, do I retain copyright on my e-mail? I always assumed I was offering a non-exclusive right to the audience of the list to read/retain/copy/etc., but if that audience increases without my knowledge or consent do I lose the legal right to complain?
When the media reports on specific items in the memos, do lawyers/judges figure the toothpaste is pretty much out of the tube at this point or is there the possibility of going after reporters?
Slashdot Mirror
In most cases, Flash is abused by people who think it adds pizazz to menus or advertisements anyway. 99% of us would get along better without unless we're watching a cartoon or playing a game in it.
Pros:
I don't know why people drop serious cash on these things. It's something like $700 for a low-end Dell laptop, which gives you everything you need except serious gaming potential. I'd never make a laptop my main system just because of the reliability factor alone.
Having said that, video games today are a virtual "pornography of violence"; characters are maimed or killed without thought to consequences in most titles, which are ultimately marketed to children when they share space among children's titles in gaming magazines or on review websites. It's highly unlikely even grown adults leave a session of intense gaming (or violent movies for that matter) without some imprint, as these games are designed to trigger and reward unhealthy responses.
I've got a certain amount of room for games like BF1942 in my free time, but I also enjoy games like Zork or Myst that are underrepresented in today's lineup on the shelves. Maybe they've got a point?
They've kept the Open Source world on the defensive. They experience consistent gains in the stock every time they announce a new initiative in their war on Free Software. They've been able to keep this going for far longer than I would have thought possible, and if this gets to trial the potential is there that they will prevail.
Who would have thought litigation was a way of making a living off of Free Software? I don't like what they're doing, but I have to confess my opinion of their strategy has changed. Fortunately, the rabid response they no doubt expected to provoke from the Open Source community hasn't manifested itself; I've been quite impressed with the professionalism and quality of the response as well. Keep posting these stories... we just can't get enough SCO.
When it gets down to it, your vote may make a difference in a Dem/Rep decision that it simply cannot for a third party. As somebody else said, we're really kissing two cheeks of the same ass, but I can think of one election coming up where I'll be able to vote Democrat and honestly feel it makes a difference. As far as congressional seats go, most people would do well to kick out the incumbents unless they've got someone like Feingold or Paul (IMHO).
The problem with third-parties is they just don't get the recognition and face time with the public that they need to compete fairly. The potential of the Internet to offset the TV ads and PR of the major parties is still largely unrealized, but maybe you could find a good resource on third-party candidates and include it in your sig?
It's ironic that the very tools the music industry uses today to guarantee pitch-perfection are tomorrow going to undermine their own success, much as people giving away software are doing in many ways for the software industry. Perhaps the only thing guaranteed is acting, as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within demonstrated, although eventually computers may catch up with live actors as well.
But progress is inevitable. And as things that were once worth money become free, we become open to do more things. So I'm not too dismayed by the concept that computers will tomorrow handle (Handel?) music composition as easily as they handle music piracy today.
I prefer FLAC, as while current lossy-compression standards might be OK for nu-metal/alternative/pop they completely mangle more complex music such as Shubert's Streichquintett C-Dur D 956 (Op. Post.163): Allegro ma non troppo or Twisted Sister's I Wanna Rock. However, the potential pitfall in using such a system has less to do with patents and more to do with copyright: it's quite possible that streaming over 802.11 requires broadcast royalties, especially if the stream isn't secured with a Virtual Private Network such as Microsoft's PPPTP. While it isn't likely they'll come after you, I'd be worried enough about people freeloading off of my expensive collection that I'd rather go with an over-the-wire solution.
I'm not saying the DMCA oughta cover this, but this is definitely something that can hurt business.
Really neat stuff. It lets average people get a feel for what programming is like in a MMO environment. So the fact that they recognize your stake in what you create is meaningful, given that you aren't just repositioning in-game objects but actually designing your own stuff to entertain others in the game. I may actually have to give it a try now, although the folks that get a little too into these things have made me leery of doing so to this point.
However, I think this sort of research is as or more likely to radically benefit society as it is to create catastrophe. Look at the genie released when we first split the atom; I'd argue that the current and future benefits from nuclear power alone outweigh the concern about the misuse of this knowledge. But I feel that ethical concerns must become a stronger part of scientific research and funding, not only because of this breakthrough but because of the ones we're about to make (nanotechnology will present similar worrying potential...)
As I understand it, evolution/natural selection is the natural effect when beings are subjected to adversity: only the strong survive. Thinking about this, it becomes clear that in a model where evolution is the sole factor traits that affect survival are gradually weeded out over time because those without such traits are more likely to survive. So too beings that experienced beneficial mutation are likely to preserve such traits.
But this article raises an interesting consideration. When I was in junior high, we took a brief field trip to collect pond water to view under microscopes, and one of the most interesting things was how those little critters with the thing called a flagellum would zoom around. This article brings up the point that this device, which is not exclusive to pond scum, is "irreducibly complex": it is made up of several parts, none of which separately would be of beneficial use to the creature employing it (in fact, such a creature would probably die off under natural selection.) The odds of a mutation creating all parts simultaneously are astronomical, and consequently, the only accepted theory that can sanely describe such a thing is intelligent design, which has been hinted at in many different real-life examples as well as probabistically explained by Pascal's Wager.
This theory is currently derided and discriminated against in favor of older theories, mind you, much as Galileo was in favor of the theory that the Earth was flat, because it threatens to dredge up the uncomfortable unknown. But like any theory, the more evidence that is found to support it particularly to the exclusion of existing theories, the more likely it is correct. So as skeptical as I am of intelligent design, I can't help but notice how much of our biological model it predicts. Has anybody heard anything more about this?
I think it is inevitable that standardization will continue to occur -- things have gotten much better over the last few years -- but do you see Red Hat changing to fit Linux or Linux changing to fit Red Hat in the future?
You can only write to this stuff once. Real memory is rewritable, like CD-RWs -- it'd probably be better to call this Plastic ROM or something similar.
There might be GPL issues that'd compound your Microsoft issues of sector-by-sector copying, but aren't we entitled to a backup? Which laws trump which?
But it looks like the economic incentive to cover up rather than fix makes the concept of welcome full disclosure a myth akin in proportion to the commonly-misheld belief that chopsticks of course originated in Asia. Interesting story: the recently uncovered truth of the matter is that they were actually designed as a gimmick by immigrants cooking in American mining communities in the 1800s and later carried back to Asia as a less resource-intensive means of preparing and serving food. Ironically, the U.S. is the largest exporter of chopsticks, with something like 3% of U.S. lumber production going towards the effort to supply Asia, where chopstick use grew to outstrip other utensils within the last century.
The point is that when you look at the bigger picture, you realize that there is an economic disincentive to do the right thing; or rather, an incentive to do whatever it takes to improve the bottom line. I think it's unfortunate that they're choosing to punish an individual that was trying to help, and that it's this sort of attitude that drives good hackers underground. When code is owned by outlaws, only outlaws own the code.
Nevermind that said movements survive on the concept of copyright and respecting the creator's wishes. Standard copyright doesn't even do that anymore, considering most creators of original content hand it over as a work-for-hire and aren't even able to assert moral rights (most copyrighted work being produced in the U.S. or for U.S. companies). So it's possible the prosecutor is attempting to trace the connection between open source and piracy that simply doesn't exist.
So I suppose my question is why do people get more excited these days about +0.7fps out of a $200 card when they could just drop a bit more memory on the mainboard? Reviewers and fanboys still gush about these things when there are so many better improvements to be made in other areas.
I'd think owning a combination of network/operating system technologies would be beneficial to an OEM that deals heavily in selling machines to businesses, particularly point-of-sale terminals.
Parodies only really work if the stuff is popular. But with the three episodes of the Matrix as well as that Animatrix DVD I think most people have had their fill already. It's no Star Wars.
Like the Internet, but with other goals than networked communications. I think this is the sort of thing that will finally bring the convergence that was always talked about in regards to the Internet (an alarm clock, coffee, toaster, car starter, etc. that are aware of your schedule, not unlike the opening scene of Back To The Future).
Does C# have anything like this, or is this easily portable to C# or any other strongly typed portable languages such as Python? It'd be nice to have another alternative to Java, which seems to cause problems for some people.
Well, except for aiming guns, which is already nearly impossible with a joystick unless you're too young to be playing such a title, and whatever shoulder button you had to hold to aim always went to the lady in the walker instead of to one of the five people beating the holy hell out of you.
And I agree with a former poster, the violence is way over the top. Not an effective substitute for game quality, and probably warping the only people with the time to play the things.
It used to be one knew they had a virus because an ambulance would fly around the screen or the computer would stop working. But given the amount of these things coming in through P2P I'm not surprised they aren't seeing all of the extra traffic on the little set of computers in the system tray.
Hopefully, the ISP will be similarly proactive in restoring access when the traffic stops. I'd hate to think somebody's dynamic IP address stops working ala Something Awful because of somebody else's bad Net habit.
From what I've heard, there's more than enough here to interest reasonable news media outlets. I'm somewhat curious about whether reporting of the issues raised in the memos and the cease-and-desisting has been lackluster because they're working on getting more information for a story, because they're concerned about becoming targets for lawsuits over the legality of using information from the memos, or because they're worried about stepping on toes. Murrow be damned; there's movie reviews and diets and rape trials that desperately need 24 hour coverage and analysis.
Companies usually make it clear that any work you do for them is theirs, including the creation of intellectual property. I would have thought such a thing was implicit until I worked at a place where some schmuck contractor dropped copyrights all over his code (back in the mid 80s) that he was specifically paid to create for the company.
If I was a (hypothetical) member of the Diebold mailing list, and there were a few e-mails in that bunch that I authored, do I retain copyright on my e-mail? I always assumed I was offering a non-exclusive right to the audience of the list to read/retain/copy/etc., but if that audience increases without my knowledge or consent do I lose the legal right to complain?
When the media reports on specific items in the memos, do lawyers/judges figure the toothpaste is pretty much out of the tube at this point or is there the possibility of going after reporters?