I believe bugs will be causing the X-Box flop
on
Crashing Xbox Kiosks
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The people who develop for the X-Box will mainly be PC companies. These companies are new to the console market, when the game need to be ready when it comes out. No "ooops, sorry, here is the patch" are allowed!
Note that this is true for Microsoft as well...
I just think that the X-Box has not got the infrastructure to support this kind of working. PC users are used to Windows crashing and hanging, I am not so sure about console players!I for one, don't believe the X-Box will be the big success every one expects. It might be the fastest on the paper, but I still think the PS2 and Sony are going to eat X-Box and Microsoft alive in the console market!
I believe a gaming console is closer to a TV or VCR than to a PC, so I believe that Microsoft is going to fail in this new market!
I think you should re-read the previous posting.
He clearly said that many people think going after Microsoft is not so wise considering the situation of the tech market...
People like Dell and HP hope that Microsoft will get XP out ASAP. They hope that it's increased demand on memory and CPU will force people to buy new PCs. They are more worried about their income now, than about the restriction Microsoft was putting on OEMs.
You could also say that the US citizens are worried about penalysing one of the most successful US companies.
I have a dual Celeron (300A running at 500Mhz) with a Tyan Tiger dual motherboard.
The clip from the heatsink on one of the CPU went off. Once I noticed that the programs kept hanging and that the temperature of the CPUs was to high, I opened the case, found the problem and fixed it (bought thermal paste and put everything back in place).
The stuff was installed correctly and held for a year. But shit happens... And I doubt the case was thrown though the room (I have got kids so they might have banged the case a bit, but nothing unusual, just the usual kicking;o)
Mind you, it was the first time I saw this happen, and I could probably have got better heatsinks (they came with the CPU's). But still it makes you think! And right now, I am thinking of upgrading in a few month time, with a dual Athlon.
It seems people have problems to understand what I mean these days;o)
That's the problem of not being a native english speaker and having been at work for more than 14 hours...
I agree that it's a useless law since there are always ways of bypassing any kind limitation. Stenography was the example I wanted to give but I couldn't bother finding out what the real name was.
My main point, was that the original argument did not stand since Terrorist would then be forced to use other encryption which would make their messages to be detected. I don't think that decrypting PGP is impossible. All you need is enough power to decrypt it and I believe the US can have enough power. The problem is only that if all messages are PGP encrypted, then the amount of data to decrypt is just to much.
But then, maybe the US could not make the difference between encryption and white noise...
Which would leave them with to many files to try to decrypt.
Concerning the last point you raise, I don't see it as a bonus even if I work for an American company. I think this is just plain wrong (but then, I am European;o)
Besides, it's becoming slowly the usual thing to do to use PGP encryption even for casual talking, just in protest... We take privacy very seriously over here.
Hmmm,I think it could still work since most people would use the "standard encryption", they would be able to brute force the remaining encrypted stuff.
If only terrorist/criminals use encryption, they will also be easier to spot and track down.
It encryption becomes illegal in the US (which is what such a law would do) then they will be able to find people who use it...
But I agree that it is not possible to prevent people encrypting their message in some other way (like sending a mirror picture with the message writen on it in a small corner). Even if it is readable, chances are very low it would be found.
That's not enough to run Pong...
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2.2 GHz Xeon
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, this might not be enough power to emulate the game...
There was a discussion about this on the MAME discussion board (www.mame.net) saying that it would probably require 5Ghz machines to run a simulation of the circuits using the schematics of the game. Pong is an analog game, it's got no microprocessor nor ROM. So emulating it is mighty difficult!
At my University, I have learned C, Fortran, C++, Pascal, Lisp, Close, Smalltalk, Prolog and a few others...
Never Java, and I always thought, "Oh, year, that's like C++ except it's slow and cross-platform". Now I am doing mainly Java (with some EJB) and C++ and I am sad about all the time lost not knowing Java.
Besides, the first language you learn (aside from Basic, mine was C) is very important for what you will really learn. I have been doing C++ because it was a good evolution over C, but let's face it, it would have been easier for me to do all my IA programming in Java instead of struggling with the unreadable syntax of Close and the memory corrupting C++.
By the way, I still consider that real men do it in C++ (but clever ones, do it with EJBs in Java;o)
This is also the first thing that came to my mind: smalltalk. But after thought I would have preferred Java as my first language. Why? Because having it as a first language will give you a good headstart to work on different things later. You can do EJB, learn to use it in depth so you can use it for your first work.
Ok, we are talking about learning but why not learn something that you can use later? Java is strict enough that you can do good OO programing, and a teacher giving you good advices can help avoid some caveats.
C++ and C are good languages to learn programming but very bad ones to learn OO. Which BTW does not mean you can not write OO programs in C or C++
AMD is eating intel alive in the low to mid budget market which is still most sales of PCs. Why is that? Well, P4 is expensive for a start but it is mainly because of it's RAMBUS link. RDRAM is about twice the price of DDR RAM and nearly four times that of SDRAM. P4 does not exist yet in anything else than RDRAM (and Intel can not change that right now). So in order to avoid AMD taking all the market, it has to improve performance of PIII to be a close match to Athlon anc co.
If Intel does not do anything, it will loose it's established leader position and DELL will sell AMD to all its corporate customers... Intel needs to stay the market leader since it has not got the best product, else it is going to have a really tough time ahead. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure they will succeed, as Microsoft will succeed with.NET:o(
Funny enough, it is seen as a Troll by people who reply to it, but I hope that "insightful" will not prove to have been the better description for this post... We shall see.
You people have got no humour!
on
Just For Fun
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· Score: 1
That was a good one! I read./ only for the jokes, thanks for this one...
I know I had the same problem, constant back pain, getting hurt when I would be lifting something heavy in a bad position...
My solution? Do some exercise, go to a gym or lift some weights at home. Now everyday, I spend 5 minutes every mornings doing some light exxercises and my pains are gone. We are not only made of a brain, our body has some needs too. We can't just forget about it!
But more seriously, not beeing an english native speaker, I am sure it helps to learn the language. It is a well known fact that learning while playing is the best way... I can see my little brother who at 7 was able to read english in videogames... There is also a logic in the use of technology that helps to develop a logical/mathematical approach to things.
But to be honest, I am sure technology is far from being the most important factor, stimulation and encouragement from parents is THE thing that helps. Having your kids sitting in front of the TV is very unlikely to raise their IQ. So if you want your kids to be smart, you don't need to buy a PC, just get rid of the TV and get off your fat ass!!!
First, I have got many friends who decided to pass a doctorate so that they could work in a university. Why? Because of less stress, a more interresting job, more free time... They know they will earn less money, big deal! They are going to work twice less than someone in the corporate world. And that's valuable... (especially if you plan to have a life outside your work)
Besides, reasearch does not work in a pure corporate model. There has often been 20-30 years (in the last century) between a theory and the time it get's applied. Which company will invest in a reasearch where they will have to wait that long before getting any return on investment?
A team of American scientists have decided to help found a school to help bringing education to children who might be rejected by the rest of the population... The head of this project, Professor Charles Xavier said to the press: "we are obliged to help this poor children!". His colleague Eric Magnus Lehnsherr could not be joined for comments.
Or you could pile it in the bin. That's what I do;o) Ok, you can call me a bad parent but the amount of cra^H^H^H hmmm, I mean lovely picture they create in a day is just insane.
Cut at the bottom, the whole assembly would enter Earth orbit. The question of whether parts of it would ever hit the Earth would depend on the solutions to a hell of a lot of differential equations.
Remember the counter weight? It has to be going at the same speed as the elevator but is at a higher orbit so it would drag all the structure in space...
Why do you think 19 out of the 20 biggest Telco companies use ObjectStore? The answer is speed! I have never seen an app running faster on Oracle than on ObjectStore.
I agree about the complexity and skill availability arguments, it is still easier (and cheaper) to get several COBOL and VB programmers than Java or C++ ones. But then you can always get a consultant to help with the design. And as a matter of fact, it will be faster to develop that way than having a bunch of COBOL developers put together some kind of server side app while some VB coders put the client interface together... Having done both, I can tell you what kind of system scales and which one does not.
Have you done some EJB programming? You would be surprised how much faster and easier it is to go the OODB route.
My opinion on what the biggest problem really is, is mainstream recognition. OODB vendors are vulnerable to FUD from RDBMS vendors as much as Linux was suffering from Microsoft FUD two years ago. Note that for OODB systems (as for Linux 2 years ago) there are some good reasons to stick with the mainstream solution. Going the OODB route is far more risky (from a business decision making point of view).
First, I'd like to say that I work for Object Design (ObjectStore), so I am probably a little biased... Although I had worked before on Oracle systems.
People have more confidence that they can find developers for Oracle than ObjectStore. But the same is true about COBOL programmers vs Java or C++ ones. But this is why we have got consultants to help start the projects and get the design right. Once started on the right track, development usually goes a lot faster than in a traditional RDBMS environment.
I think the main reason people stick with Oracle and co. is that they prefer a known and tested solution like an Oracle database to store their business data. This is the old "no one got fired for choosing IBM" argument.
By the way, there is no dba with ObjectStore (at least not in the way people think of them). The optimizations are done by the programmers because the db layout is really dependant on your object model.
But the speed factor is something real which is why ObjectStore is doing so well with telcos (where speed is of the essence) with C++ applications. On the EJB side, we really blow RDBMS out of the water. Oracle is nowhere near Javlin (EJB containers for ObjectStore) in term of performance...
I think that people are getting to worked up over privacy. Are you kidding? Do you think it would have been ok for Hitler to have an exhaustive list of all jews? Do you think everybody should be able to know who is gay, who has got AIDS and this kind of info? If yes, then let me tell you, you are a fascist in my book...
Concerning your claims, I am all ready to think you have got the figures to proove what you say, because I remember seeing figures that showed that the lack of privacy had no positive impact on security...
1) Crime would greatly decrease. We can see this already in Britain with CCTV systems. Well, we can't see it in France, but I guess that Brits are well known to be sheeps.
2) Greater honesty in society. People would no longer be able to lie about their personal lives. In a perfect world maybe! Are we living in a perfect world? Let me check... I don't think so. Do you think corruption is going to stop because they are cameras everywhere? This strikes me as being very very naive.
3)Less hypocrisy. Nobody would expect our politicians, wives etc to be perfect. There would be better understanding of human nature. I think this would actually increase the hypocrisy because people would pretend to be perfect when in fact they will just be cheating the system. Or do you think there will be no way to escape.
If you have such trust in society and the people who will rule the camera systems, then please go back to your history books!!!
I think all these genetically modified crops are sterile, so the only way to get a plant is to have an orginal seed.
The argument behind sterile crops is: -economic (you have to buy new seeds every year) -a precaution against the modified genes to spread in an uncontroled manner
Slashdot Mirror
The people who develop for the X-Box will mainly be PC companies. These companies are new to the console market, when the game need to be ready when it comes out. No "ooops, sorry, here is the patch" are allowed!
Note that this is true for Microsoft as well...
I just think that the X-Box has not got the infrastructure to support this kind of working. PC users are used to Windows crashing and hanging, I am not so sure about console players!I for one, don't believe the X-Box will be the big success every one expects. It might be the fastest on the paper, but I still think the PS2 and Sony are going to eat X-Box and Microsoft alive in the console market!
I believe a gaming console is closer to a TV or VCR than to a PC, so I believe that Microsoft is going to fail in this new market!
Let's see what the situation is in one year!
Maybe now this has happenned he will start 2.5 and hand over 2.4.x to Alan who IMO keeps kernel series stable better than Linux does.
;o)
That's exactly what Linus said in his 2.4.12 annoucement. But I guess you knew that already
I think you should re-read the previous posting.
He clearly said that many people think going after Microsoft is not so wise considering the situation of the tech market...
People like Dell and HP hope that Microsoft will get XP out ASAP. They hope that it's increased demand on memory and CPU will force people to buy new PCs. They are more worried about their income now, than about the restriction Microsoft was putting on OEMs.
You could also say that the US citizens are worried about penalysing one of the most successful US companies.
I have a dual Celeron (300A running at 500Mhz) with a Tyan Tiger dual motherboard. ;o)
The clip from the heatsink on one of the CPU went off. Once I noticed that the programs kept hanging and that the temperature of the CPUs was to high, I opened the case, found the problem and fixed it (bought thermal paste and put everything back in place).
The stuff was installed correctly and held for a year. But shit happens... And I doubt the case was thrown though the room (I have got kids so they might have banged the case a bit, but nothing unusual, just the usual kicking
Mind you, it was the first time I saw this happen, and I could probably have got better heatsinks (they came with the CPU's). But still it makes you think! And right now, I am thinking of upgrading in a few month time, with a dual Athlon.
That all you have to do, is turn the key so that it starts. Think like a car not like a PC where you need to install stuff.
;o)
In other words, no installation, everything is configured to work out of the box...
Must be a very big box though...
I said [NO TEXT] ;o)
I said [NO TEXT] ;o)
It seems people have problems to understand what I mean these days ;o)
;o)
That's the problem of not being a native english speaker and having been at work for more than 14 hours...
I agree that it's a useless law since there are always ways of bypassing any kind limitation. Stenography was the example I wanted to give but I couldn't bother finding out what the real name was.
My main point, was that the original argument did not stand since Terrorist would then be forced to use other encryption which would make their messages to be detected. I don't think that decrypting PGP is impossible. All you need is enough power to decrypt it and I believe the US can have enough power. The problem is only that if all messages are PGP encrypted, then the amount of data to decrypt is just to much.
But then, maybe the US could not make the difference between encryption and white noise...
Which would leave them with to many files to try to decrypt.
Concerning the last point you raise, I don't see it as a bonus even if I work for an American company. I think this is just plain wrong (but then, I am European
Besides, it's becoming slowly the usual thing to do to use PGP encryption even for casual talking, just in protest... We take privacy very seriously over here.
Hmmm,I think it could still work since most people would use the "standard encryption", they would be able to brute force the remaining encrypted stuff.
If only terrorist/criminals use encryption, they will also be easier to spot and track down.
It encryption becomes illegal in the US (which is what such a law would do) then they will be able to find people who use it...
But I agree that it is not possible to prevent people encrypting their message in some other way (like sending a mirror picture with the message writen on it in a small corner). Even if it is readable, chances are very low it would be found.
Actually, this might not be enough power to emulate the game...
There was a discussion about this on the MAME discussion board (www.mame.net) saying that it would probably require 5Ghz machines to run a simulation of the circuits using the schematics of the game. Pong is an analog game, it's got no microprocessor nor ROM. So emulating it is mighty difficult!
Never Java, and I always thought, "Oh, year, that's like C++ except it's slow and cross-platform". Now I am doing mainly Java (with some EJB) and C++ and I am sad about all the time lost not knowing Java.
Besides, the first language you learn (aside from Basic, mine was C) is very important for what you will really learn. I have been doing C++ because it was a good evolution over C, but let's face it, it would have been easier for me to do all my IA programming in Java instead of struggling with the unreadable syntax of Close and the memory corrupting C++.
By the way, I still consider that real men do it in C++ (but clever ones, do it with EJBs in Java ;o)
But after thought I would have preferred Java as my first language.
Why? Because having it as a first language will give you a good headstart to work on different things later. You can do EJB, learn to use it in depth so you can use it for your first work.
Ok, we are talking about learning but why not learn something that you can use later? Java is strict enough that you can do good OO programing, and a teacher giving you good advices can help avoid some caveats.
C++ and C are good languages to learn programming but very bad ones to learn OO. Which BTW does not mean you can not write OO programs in C or C++
Why is that? Well, P4 is expensive for a start but it is mainly because of it's RAMBUS link. RDRAM is about twice the price of DDR RAM and nearly four times that of SDRAM. P4 does not exist yet in anything else than RDRAM (and Intel can not change that right now). So in order to avoid AMD taking all the market, it has to improve performance of PIII to be a close match to Athlon anc co.
If Intel does not do anything, it will loose it's established leader position and DELL will sell AMD to all its corporate customers... .NET :o(
Intel needs to stay the market leader since it has not got the best product, else it is going to have a really tough time ahead.
Unfortunately, I am pretty sure they will succeed, as Microsoft will succeed with
We shall see.
I read
My solution? Do some exercise, go to a gym or lift some weights at home. Now everyday, I spend 5 minutes every mornings doing some light exxercises and my pains are gone.
We are not only made of a brain, our body has some needs too. We can't just forget about it!
But more seriously, not beeing an english native speaker, I am sure it helps to learn the language. It is a well known fact that learning while playing is the best way...
I can see my little brother who at 7 was able to read english in videogames...
There is also a logic in the use of technology that helps to develop a logical/mathematical approach to things.
But to be honest, I am sure technology is far from being the most important factor, stimulation and encouragement from parents is THE thing that helps. Having your kids sitting in front of the TV is very unlikely to raise their IQ.
So if you want your kids to be smart, you don't need to buy a PC, just get rid of the TV and get off your fat ass!!!
Why? Because of less stress, a more interresting job, more free time... They know they will earn less money, big deal! They are going to work twice less than someone in the corporate world. And that's valuable... (especially if you plan to have a life outside your work)
Besides, reasearch does not work in a pure corporate model. There has often been 20-30 years (in the last century) between a theory and the time it get's applied. Which company will invest in a reasearch where they will have to wait that long before getting any return on investment?
The head of this project, Professor Charles Xavier said to the press: "we are obliged to help this poor children!".
His colleague Eric Magnus Lehnsherr could not be joined for comments.
Ok, you can call me a bad parent but the amount of cra^H^H^H hmmm, I mean lovely picture they create in a day is just insane.
Remember the counter weight? It has to be going at the same speed as the elevator but is at a higher orbit so it would drag all the structure in space...
I agree about the complexity and skill availability arguments, it is still easier (and cheaper) to get several COBOL and VB programmers than Java or C++ ones.
But then you can always get a consultant to help with the design. And as a matter of fact, it will be faster to develop that way than having a bunch of COBOL developers put together some kind of server side app while some VB coders put the client interface together...
Having done both, I can tell you what kind of system scales and which one does not.
Have you done some EJB programming? You would be surprised how much faster and easier it is to go the OODB route.
My opinion on what the biggest problem really is, is mainstream recognition. OODB vendors are vulnerable to FUD from RDBMS vendors as much as Linux was suffering from Microsoft FUD two years ago. Note that for OODB systems (as for Linux 2 years ago) there are some good reasons to stick with the mainstream solution. Going the OODB route is far more risky (from a business decision making point of view).
Although I had worked before on Oracle systems.
People have more confidence that they can find developers for Oracle than ObjectStore. But the same is true about COBOL programmers vs Java or C++ ones.
But this is why we have got consultants to help start the projects and get the design right. Once started on the right track, development usually goes a lot faster than in a traditional RDBMS environment.
I think the main reason people stick with Oracle and co. is that they prefer a known and tested solution like an Oracle database to store their business data.
This is the old "no one got fired for choosing IBM" argument.
By the way, there is no dba with ObjectStore (at least not in the way people think of them).
The optimizations are done by the programmers because the db layout is really dependant on your object model.
But the speed factor is something real which is why ObjectStore is doing so well with telcos (where speed is of the essence) with C++ applications.
On the EJB side, we really blow RDBMS out of the water. Oracle is nowhere near Javlin (EJB containers for ObjectStore) in term of performance...
Are you kidding? Do you think it would have been ok for Hitler to have an exhaustive list of all jews? Do you think everybody should be able to know who is gay, who has got AIDS and this kind of info?
If yes, then let me tell you, you are a fascist in my book...
Concerning your claims, I am all ready to think you have got the figures to proove what you say, because I remember seeing figures that showed that the lack of privacy had no positive impact on security...
1) Crime would greatly decrease. We can see this already in Britain with CCTV systems.
Well, we can't see it in France, but I guess that Brits are well known to be sheeps.
2) Greater honesty in society. People would no longer be able to lie about their personal lives.
In a perfect world maybe! Are we living in a perfect world? Let me check... I don't think so. Do you think corruption is going to stop because they are cameras everywhere? This strikes me as being very very naive.
3)Less hypocrisy. Nobody would expect our politicians, wives etc to be perfect. There would be better understanding of human nature.
I think this would actually increase the hypocrisy because people would pretend to be perfect when in fact they will just be cheating the system. Or do you think there will be no way to escape.
If you have such trust in society and the people who will rule the camera systems, then please go back to your history books!!!
The argument behind sterile crops is:
-economic (you have to buy new seeds every year)
-a precaution against the modified genes to spread in an uncontroled manner
Of course, IANAF (I am not a farmer)