Yeah, yeah, OT distro war, but I find debian's packages to be a bit out of date (even in unstable, which tends to live up to its name.) Not to mention that if you install anything via means besides apt, it screws things up. Not that Mandrake is any better, but IMO mandrake is a lot more user friendly than debian, plus it keeps packages on the bleeding edge. And you can install with XFS!:)
Chances are you'll be dead before any of this happens. Heck, your grandchildren will probably be dead before any of this happens. By then, I hope we have something better than 802.11..;)
Heh, I equate these guys as being the trolls of the physics world. Some are better than others, as witnessed on slashdot here. These guys just happen to be very good trolls.
Heck, they even have the same goals. Slashdot trolls aim to show how the mod system sucks, these guys are trying to show how worthless the peer review system is. Ultimately, however, they'll probably be given just as much credit as trolls, i.e. none at all. It's just because they've found a new medium to troll in that they're getting this much attention.
GOP is in bed with big business, the Dems are in bed with the labor unions. This is the way it's always been. This is more partisan politics than anything. Yeah, the GOP writes some pretty nasty bills, but the democrats write equally nasty ones (gun control legislation, etc) they just don't involve the internet.
Bad caps take a while to blow. Much longer than the 90 day warranty. I've had caps blow on me on a $9000 Ascend Max 6000 (512-channel dialup router) and it was out of service contract. So what'd I do? I went to ye local electronics store, bought more caps, soldered them back on, and it worked. It's worth a try to fix. Of course, on the Ascend, 3 of the fans decided to die randomly and the caps overheated, but still..
This, coming from slashdot... I wonder how many people who are replying to the original post have ever even had a girlfriend.. All women are like this, if you find one who's not, she's probably a lesbian.
I think you miss the point.. Yeah, MMORPGS are geeky (and a waste of time IMO) but consider it a small-scale model for the real world economy and how the real economy might be under different circumstances. No, it's not the same as the real economy by any means, but it's an interesting sociological "experiment" (though more of an observation.) Besides, not everything needs to have a practical application. Some people just enjoy this kind of stuff.:)
LCDs really are brighter. I usually end up cranking the brightness on my CRTs and they still look dim compared to my LCD. I have a feeling most people who bitch about LCDs are just jealous because they don't own one.;)
I've never had any problems
on
LCD Round-up
·
· Score: 2
I consider myself a "gamer" at times (I play a lot of games, but I also do real work) and I absolutely love my LCD (a ViewSonic VX900 for those interested.) There are certain instances where there's a little blur in games, but it only occurs over certain colors and you don't even notice it if you're not looking for it. The "text blur" people speak of is nonexistant; I can scroll as fast as I want with no problems.
I will make this suggestion, however. If you're gonna drop a wad on an LCD, you might want to consider dropping a bit more on a video card with DVI. DVI drastically increases image quality over VGA, as it's a full digital signal rather than a digital signal converted to analog and back to digital. As with any big ticket item though, check out your options before you buy, obviously not all LCDs are created equal.
So true, so true. It's not like everyone on Slashdot doesn't already have 50 karma anyway (or "excellent") so there's no point in whoring (or anti-whoring) anyway.
(yeah, this is OT.. mod me down, karma's stupid anyway, which is kind of the entire point of this post)
I've actually just recently gotten hooked on MiniDiscs. Yes, I know, the DRM sucks, but it's easy enough to get around (besides, I usually rip straight from CD anyway so it's not a big deal.) The NetMDs are way cool, the MDLP4 format can hold about 4 full length CDs on one MD (albeit at a reduced bitrate, but with the headphones most people use with light portables, you'd never be able to tell the difference.) The thing is impossible to skip, the battery life is insane (60+ hrs on a single AA,) plus it's small and the media's cheap.
I really do wish Sony would get over the stupid DRM bullshit though, as that's really the only major flaw the NetMDs have. Well, that and lack of cross-platform drivers, but that seems to be a problem for a lot of portables. You can pick them up at Best Buy for around $150, but I'm sure with some online searching you could find them for a bit less. The discs are about a buck a pop, but when compared to flash media or a cratered hard drive, it's a steal.
Yeah, I know, a lot of people are going to bitch about how the format is closed and very much proprietary, but personally I don't care so long as it works. If you're just looking for a solid portable, take a look at the NetMDs. Yeah, 10 gigs of MP3s on a hard drive player sounds nice, but I'm not sure I wanna plunk down that kind of cash on something with as many sensitive, breakable parts as are in a hard drive. Aw well, any other MD fans out there?
Not to troll here or anything, but aren't these postings of RMS rants a tad redundant? We all know the man isn't going to like anything that's not open source, and we all know what he has to say (well, anyone that really cares anyway.) He's on the fringe anyway, the GNU-nazi camp is a vocal minority of the Linux community (hence why the stupid GNU/Linux thing never caught on.)
Besides, a tad more on topic, Bitkeeper does what the kernel developers need it to do. Other open source alternatives do not. From what I've read, they've basically said that if there's an open source alternative to bitkeeper that does what they need it to, they'd use it. I very often see people bending their projects to fit open source tools, when it should be the other way around (tools made to fit the projects.) This is obviously a bit counterintuitive.
The niche for hardcore zealots is closing as the "open source" world heads toward the mainstream. RMS and his rhetoric are part of that group that needs to go if anyone is going to take Linux or open source seriously.
Mod me down, I got karma to burn. But at least give me some decent replies (not flames:P)
Yeah, but firewire wasn't designed to run things like mice and keyboards, which USB was. I also doubt there are many firewire printers out there (at least in the low price inkjet category.) Don't get me wrong, firewire is great, but it's not the end-all solution to everything. Also, Apple has firewire because they helped develop it:) Apple gets royalties from every firewire device sold, and as such, it's in their best interest to push it. Granted, FireWire is the superior technical standard for high bandwidth situations, but USB is cheaper and more than adequate for say, a printer, a Palm, an input device, etc.
Re:Can we even call them oceans?
on
Life on Pluto?
·
· Score: 2
Water at -180C under extreme pressure, however, is not necessarily ice. If I recall correctly, water in our oceans in the deep trenches can get rather cold (around -10 or -20C) yet it stays liquid.
A bit OT, but Dianetics is actually a very interesting book. Many people discount it because yes, it is used as a recruiting tool for Scientology, but it is at the very least an interesting read.
I have a feeling that this will be one of those situation where Apple doesn't care. This is a project Apple would probably do themselves if money was no issue. But I guess they figure they're not going to do it anyway, so they might as well expand their userbase for no money.
I don't support the RIAA. I want consumers to stop pirating music so that bands who decide to work outside of the RIAA system (by selling their music online) can do so with a hope in hell of making a decent living.
The RIAA has done more to hurt these bands than piracy has. Those who choose to operate "outside the system" are often willing to get their music heard at any price -- and thus they often give it away for free and charge you money if you want a CD. Yeah, you could burn it yourself, but I feel better buying it knowing the money is actually going to the artist instead of Sony.
Depends. Their budget line does (often via an integrated chipset) but a lot of their higher end machines use AGP cards like Radeons and GeForces. Haven't looked in a while so I can't tell you specifically, but as far as computer companies go, Dell's actually not so bad. If I had to get a prebuilt system, I'd buy a Dell.
Yeah, but there's one biiiiiig difference. It costs nothing to develop software. To develop hardware, there is a significant cost involved (parts, testing, manufacturing, etc.) The mobo industry is also very cutthroat. They're all trying to out-do eachother in what they can cram on-board, and as a result, most mobos vary widely. The only boards based off reference designs are usually the bargain basement ones. Not many slashdot geeks have access to a.15 micron SOI fab process.;)
Unfortunately, their offerings are neither available nor inexpensive. Motherboard design is just one of those things that really can't be done in an open-source fashion. The cost is simply too high. Companies like VIA, SiS, AMD and Intel put tens of millions of dollars into their chip designs. Also, nevermind that the OpenPPC spec is horribly outdated (about 2 years to be exact.) Yeah, they may eventually get something shipping, but it'll be long after it really matters.
Hah, and you just repeated every stock RIAA rebuttal for every argument. Unfortunately, half of them dodge the issues and the other half are stock right-wing/republican answers. I'm surprised you didn't throw in a link between abortion and Marilyn Manson. You chide one of my arguments for supporting "mob rule" then 3 sentences later you support it by saying "this is how capitalism is supposed to work." Believe it or not, capitalism (at least our system) was supposed to protect against a couple of fat cats sitting at the top allowing no competition and thinking they have a license to print money. The RIAA is just that, it's a few companies who buy up their competition before it gets too big and then charge exhorbitant prices for something that should be a part of our culture.
Ah well. As long as there is music, people will pirate it. God bless the Chinese.:)
I didn't know the MPAA had started trolling slashdot.. but I digress.
Yeah, producing movies and music and whatever is a legitimate industry. I recognize this and respect it by buying CDs/DVDs I like. The problem lies in the fact that I can't put the new Linkin Park CD into my MP3 collection. I don't put my CDs in MP3 format to impress people or to share them (I do neither.) I like having all my songs at my fingertips. This way, I can rip all my CDs to MP3 and find a specific song or album in seconds by searching my collection. I don't have to spend 10 minutes digging through my CD collection just to find I lent it to a friend or it was lost/stolen (a good number of my CDs were stolen from my car a month ago.)
Yes, music piracy may be a threat to the RIAA's bottom line (the data doesn't support this, but I'll be favorable to them and accept their claim.) It's not government's responsibility to prop them up by becoming their enforcement arm. The music industry is a rather recent invention. This nation functioned fine without them. The telegram industry was a perfectly legitimate industry that employed millions of people. If they were the RIAA, they would lobby to ban the telephone because it is a threat to their bottom line. It makes little sense.
Add to this that music and video piracy is often NOT a threat to their bottom line. Look at their sales records, in the days of Napster (when music piracy was totally rampant) they enjoyed RECORD SALES. This is the RIAA's own data here. Sales have since dropped.
Maybe this drop in sales is not because of music piracy, but because the vast majority of music released (read: shoved down our throats) is total crap. Nobody's buying this shit because we're all tired of Britney Spears, Creed, Eminem, N'Sync, and all these tired, shitty bands they keep trying to milk for all they're worth. Most of the music I buy now is not from RIAA members but from small, indie labels. Many of my friends are going the same route, because honestly, the major labels gobble an indie label and the music turns to shit as the major label puts pressure on the bands to produce stuff that they think the American public likes.
If the RIAA wants to stay in business, they should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product. I don't want another rap CD where Dr. Dre laid down the beats (he's good, but when he does EVERYTHING, it all starts to sound the same.) The record industry should be no different than any other, you have to innovate to be successful. Right now, that's not happening, and sales are slumping.
As a side note, the prices for CDs are insane. I went CD shopping the other day and was apalled to see that a CD I wanted had a sticker on it for $20. $20! That's roughly $0.50 a minute for a normal CD! Phone sex lines give better rates than that. I didn't buy the CD. The sad thing is, if they were $10 each, I probably would have bought 3 or 4. The record companies have lost touch with their customers, and rather than try to refresh their offerings and fight the piracy in a way that really works, they're trying to crush it, which will never work. The government tried it with drugs, and drug use is as high as it ever was.
</RANT>
Anyway, stop trolling here and tell your board of directors that they need to make products people want to buy if they plan to sell them.
Running an irc network is not a full time job, nor should it be. I help run (notice help, nobody runs the entire thing) a smallish IRC network, EsperNET and all of the admins have full-time jobs.
I'm not familiar with OPN, but it seems to me that this Lilo guy is just looking for a way to freeload. I was an oper on Dalnet when it was around 75,000 users, and it wasn't nearly a full-time job. There's simply not that much stuff to do. Admining a server is pretty much a hands-off task, you make sure the software stays up, has the correct conf files, and deal with problem users. After that, well, there's nothing do to.
Running an IRC server is not that special. There are enough free IRC servers out there that soliciting donations is just stupid. OPN isn't special. There are a number of smaller IRC nets that are very friendly to open source (ours being one of them; all the software we use, including our services, is open-source.) All I can say to this lilo guy is get a fucking job. The rest of us seem to be able to run IRC networks (some MUCH larger than OPN) just fine while holding down a full-time job. Why can't you?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, yeah, OT distro war, but I find debian's packages to be a bit out of date (even in unstable, which tends to live up to its name.) Not to mention that if you install anything via means besides apt, it screws things up. Not that Mandrake is any better, but IMO mandrake is a lot more user friendly than debian, plus it keeps packages on the bleeding edge. And you can install with XFS! :)
Chances are you'll be dead before any of this happens. Heck, your grandchildren will probably be dead before any of this happens. By then, I hope we have something better than 802.11.. ;)
Heh, I equate these guys as being the trolls of the physics world. Some are better than others, as witnessed on slashdot here. These guys just happen to be very good trolls.
Heck, they even have the same goals. Slashdot trolls aim to show how the mod system sucks, these guys are trying to show how worthless the peer review system is. Ultimately, however, they'll probably be given just as much credit as trolls, i.e. none at all. It's just because they've found a new medium to troll in that they're getting this much attention.
GOP is in bed with big business, the Dems are in bed with the labor unions. This is the way it's always been. This is more partisan politics than anything. Yeah, the GOP writes some pretty nasty bills, but the democrats write equally nasty ones (gun control legislation, etc) they just don't involve the internet.
Bad caps take a while to blow. Much longer than the 90 day warranty. I've had caps blow on me on a $9000 Ascend Max 6000 (512-channel dialup router) and it was out of service contract. So what'd I do? I went to ye local electronics store, bought more caps, soldered them back on, and it worked. It's worth a try to fix. Of course, on the Ascend, 3 of the fans decided to die randomly and the caps overheated, but still..
This, coming from slashdot... I wonder how many people who are replying to the original post have ever even had a girlfriend.. All women are like this, if you find one who's not, she's probably a lesbian.
I think you miss the point.. Yeah, MMORPGS are geeky (and a waste of time IMO) but consider it a small-scale model for the real world economy and how the real economy might be under different circumstances. No, it's not the same as the real economy by any means, but it's an interesting sociological "experiment" (though more of an observation.) Besides, not everything needs to have a practical application. Some people just enjoy this kind of stuff. :)
Just a rebuttal to no. 5...
;)
LCDs really are brighter. I usually end up cranking the brightness on my CRTs and they still look dim compared to my LCD. I have a feeling most people who bitch about LCDs are just jealous because they don't own one.
I consider myself a "gamer" at times (I play a lot of games, but I also do real work) and I absolutely love my LCD (a ViewSonic VX900 for those interested.) There are certain instances where there's a little blur in games, but it only occurs over certain colors and you don't even notice it if you're not looking for it. The "text blur" people speak of is nonexistant; I can scroll as fast as I want with no problems.
I will make this suggestion, however. If you're gonna drop a wad on an LCD, you might want to consider dropping a bit more on a video card with DVI. DVI drastically increases image quality over VGA, as it's a full digital signal rather than a digital signal converted to analog and back to digital. As with any big ticket item though, check out your options before you buy, obviously not all LCDs are created equal.
So true, so true. It's not like everyone on Slashdot doesn't already have 50 karma anyway (or "excellent") so there's no point in whoring (or anti-whoring) anyway.
(yeah, this is OT.. mod me down, karma's stupid anyway, which is kind of the entire point of this post)
I've actually just recently gotten hooked on MiniDiscs. Yes, I know, the DRM sucks, but it's easy enough to get around (besides, I usually rip straight from CD anyway so it's not a big deal.) The NetMDs are way cool, the MDLP4 format can hold about 4 full length CDs on one MD (albeit at a reduced bitrate, but with the headphones most people use with light portables, you'd never be able to tell the difference.) The thing is impossible to skip, the battery life is insane (60+ hrs on a single AA,) plus it's small and the media's cheap.
I really do wish Sony would get over the stupid DRM bullshit though, as that's really the only major flaw the NetMDs have. Well, that and lack of cross-platform drivers, but that seems to be a problem for a lot of portables. You can pick them up at Best Buy for around $150, but I'm sure with some online searching you could find them for a bit less. The discs are about a buck a pop, but when compared to flash media or a cratered hard drive, it's a steal.
Yeah, I know, a lot of people are going to bitch about how the format is closed and very much proprietary, but personally I don't care so long as it works. If you're just looking for a solid portable, take a look at the NetMDs. Yeah, 10 gigs of MP3s on a hard drive player sounds nice, but I'm not sure I wanna plunk down that kind of cash on something with as many sensitive, breakable parts as are in a hard drive. Aw well, any other MD fans out there?
Unfortunately, this is a lesson in the real world. Ideals get in the way of progress. You have to choose one or the other.
Not to troll here or anything, but aren't these postings of RMS rants a tad redundant? We all know the man isn't going to like anything that's not open source, and we all know what he has to say (well, anyone that really cares anyway.) He's on the fringe anyway, the GNU-nazi camp is a vocal minority of the Linux community (hence why the stupid GNU/Linux thing never caught on.)
:P)
Besides, a tad more on topic, Bitkeeper does what the kernel developers need it to do. Other open source alternatives do not. From what I've read, they've basically said that if there's an open source alternative to bitkeeper that does what they need it to, they'd use it. I very often see people bending their projects to fit open source tools, when it should be the other way around (tools made to fit the projects.) This is obviously a bit counterintuitive.
The niche for hardcore zealots is closing as the "open source" world heads toward the mainstream. RMS and his rhetoric are part of that group that needs to go if anyone is going to take Linux or open source seriously.
Mod me down, I got karma to burn. But at least give me some decent replies (not flames
Yeah, but firewire wasn't designed to run things like mice and keyboards, which USB was. I also doubt there are many firewire printers out there (at least in the low price inkjet category.) Don't get me wrong, firewire is great, but it's not the end-all solution to everything. Also, Apple has firewire because they helped develop it :) Apple gets royalties from every firewire device sold, and as such, it's in their best interest to push it. Granted, FireWire is the superior technical standard for high bandwidth situations, but USB is cheaper and more than adequate for say, a printer, a Palm, an input device, etc.
Water at -180C under extreme pressure, however, is not necessarily ice. If I recall correctly, water in our oceans in the deep trenches can get rather cold (around -10 or -20C) yet it stays liquid.
A bit OT, but Dianetics is actually a very interesting book. Many people discount it because yes, it is used as a recruiting tool for Scientology, but it is at the very least an interesting read.
I have a feeling that this will be one of those situation where Apple doesn't care. This is a project Apple would probably do themselves if money was no issue. But I guess they figure they're not going to do it anyway, so they might as well expand their userbase for no money.
I don't support the RIAA. I want consumers to stop pirating music so that bands who decide to work outside of the RIAA system (by selling their music online) can do so with a hope in hell of making a decent living.
The RIAA has done more to hurt these bands than piracy has. Those who choose to operate "outside the system" are often willing to get their music heard at any price -- and thus they often give it away for free and charge you money if you want a CD. Yeah, you could burn it yourself, but I feel better buying it knowing the money is actually going to the artist instead of Sony.
Depends. Their budget line does (often via an integrated chipset) but a lot of their higher end machines use AGP cards like Radeons and GeForces. Haven't looked in a while so I can't tell you specifically, but as far as computer companies go, Dell's actually not so bad. If I had to get a prebuilt system, I'd buy a Dell.
heh, just got done with a government class and this was the teacher's assessment of the way this country is headed. I tend to agree. ;)
Yeah, but there's one biiiiiig difference. It costs nothing to develop software. To develop hardware, there is a significant cost involved (parts, testing, manufacturing, etc.) The mobo industry is also very cutthroat. They're all trying to out-do eachother in what they can cram on-board, and as a result, most mobos vary widely. The only boards based off reference designs are usually the bargain basement ones. Not many slashdot geeks have access to a .15 micron SOI fab process. ;)
Unfortunately, their offerings are neither available nor inexpensive. Motherboard design is just one of those things that really can't be done in an open-source fashion. The cost is simply too high. Companies like VIA, SiS, AMD and Intel put tens of millions of dollars into their chip designs. Also, nevermind that the OpenPPC spec is horribly outdated (about 2 years to be exact.) Yeah, they may eventually get something shipping, but it'll be long after it really matters.
Hah, and you just repeated every stock RIAA rebuttal for every argument. Unfortunately, half of them dodge the issues and the other half are stock right-wing/republican answers. I'm surprised you didn't throw in a link between abortion and Marilyn Manson. You chide one of my arguments for supporting "mob rule" then 3 sentences later you support it by saying "this is how capitalism is supposed to work." Believe it or not, capitalism (at least our system) was supposed to protect against a couple of fat cats sitting at the top allowing no competition and thinking they have a license to print money. The RIAA is just that, it's a few companies who buy up their competition before it gets too big and then charge exhorbitant prices for something that should be a part of our culture.
:)
Ah well. As long as there is music, people will pirate it. God bless the Chinese.
I didn't know the MPAA had started trolling slashdot.. but I digress.
Yeah, producing movies and music and whatever is a legitimate industry. I recognize this and respect it by buying CDs/DVDs I like. The problem lies in the fact that I can't put the new Linkin Park CD into my MP3 collection. I don't put my CDs in MP3 format to impress people or to share them (I do neither.) I like having all my songs at my fingertips. This way, I can rip all my CDs to MP3 and find a specific song or album in seconds by searching my collection. I don't have to spend 10 minutes digging through my CD collection just to find I lent it to a friend or it was lost/stolen (a good number of my CDs were stolen from my car a month ago.)
Yes, music piracy may be a threat to the RIAA's bottom line (the data doesn't support this, but I'll be favorable to them and accept their claim.) It's not government's responsibility to prop them up by becoming their enforcement arm. The music industry is a rather recent invention. This nation functioned fine without them. The telegram industry was a perfectly legitimate industry that employed millions of people. If they were the RIAA, they would lobby to ban the telephone because it is a threat to their bottom line. It makes little sense.
Add to this that music and video piracy is often NOT a threat to their bottom line. Look at their sales records, in the days of Napster (when music piracy was totally rampant) they enjoyed RECORD SALES. This is the RIAA's own data here. Sales have since dropped.
Maybe this drop in sales is not because of music piracy, but because the vast majority of music released (read: shoved down our throats) is total crap. Nobody's buying this shit because we're all tired of Britney Spears, Creed, Eminem, N'Sync, and all these tired, shitty bands they keep trying to milk for all they're worth. Most of the music I buy now is not from RIAA members but from small, indie labels. Many of my friends are going the same route, because honestly, the major labels gobble an indie label and the music turns to shit as the major label puts pressure on the bands to produce stuff that they think the American public likes.
If the RIAA wants to stay in business, they should move from strongarm anti-piracy attempts to actually improving their product. I don't want another rap CD where Dr. Dre laid down the beats (he's good, but when he does EVERYTHING, it all starts to sound the same.) The record industry should be no different than any other, you have to innovate to be successful. Right now, that's not happening, and sales are slumping.
As a side note, the prices for CDs are insane. I went CD shopping the other day and was apalled to see that a CD I wanted had a sticker on it for $20. $20! That's roughly $0.50 a minute for a normal CD! Phone sex lines give better rates than that. I didn't buy the CD. The sad thing is, if they were $10 each, I probably would have bought 3 or 4. The record companies have lost touch with their customers, and rather than try to refresh their offerings and fight the piracy in a way that really works, they're trying to crush it, which will never work. The government tried it with drugs, and drug use is as high as it ever was.
</RANT>
Anyway, stop trolling here and tell your board of directors that they need to make products people want to buy if they plan to sell them.
Running an irc network is not a full time job, nor should it be. I help run (notice help, nobody runs the entire thing) a smallish IRC network, EsperNET and all of the admins have full-time jobs.
I'm not familiar with OPN, but it seems to me that this Lilo guy is just looking for a way to freeload. I was an oper on Dalnet when it was around 75,000 users, and it wasn't nearly a full-time job. There's simply not that much stuff to do. Admining a server is pretty much a hands-off task, you make sure the software stays up, has the correct conf files, and deal with problem users. After that, well, there's nothing do to.
Running an IRC server is not that special. There are enough free IRC servers out there that soliciting donations is just stupid. OPN isn't special. There are a number of smaller IRC nets that are very friendly to open source (ours being one of them; all the software we use, including our services, is open-source.) All I can say to this lilo guy is get a fucking job. The rest of us seem to be able to run IRC networks (some MUCH larger than OPN) just fine while holding down a full-time job. Why can't you?