Hmmm... Where's the reasoning for the death of the Amiga OS? All I see here is some heavy praise for a completely seperate OS. For all the claims that we should be supporting as many alternative development efforts as possible, it strikes me as odd that this post, which knocks down a possibly promising effort without much in the way of support, would get so highly modded up?
Perhaps those whom are moderating should really take a look at exactly what they are supporting.
Please don't heap Canada in with the United States! I'm going to assume that you only took a momentary glance at the listing of locales, although, I know it can be a little difficult to discern between our peoples, what with our similar foreign policy, indistinct political systems, shared currency, and strong relations!
Wait a minute...
-Medgur Why is it that it's ok for the US to demand free trade on water, fish, and other strong US industries, but wrong for Canada to refuse to place tarriffs on US bound lumber?
Look on the bright side - we'll probably all be dead before this becomes even remotely practical, if it ever does.
Think about it, you can't just remove the gene. Cells NEED to die to make way for the new ones which are created, if they did not we'd invariably become lumps of suffocating flesh.
So, we'd need to selectively remove the gene... I have no idea how this would be done, or if it would work.
As for losing the fear of death, there is one major failure to your argument: we could still die if this gene was removed. Having cells not die wouldn't protect you from a fatal wound, just from death by old age.
And IF we instituted the no-death policy, think about the boom in population! You'd have to curb it somehow - forced sterilization of those who have the gene removed comes to mind. Perhaps a combination of that and only offering it to those who do not have offspring? Needless to say, this wouldn't go over well with the American Way. (Large family, Large house, Large paycheck).
I don't know if this applies to those of you south of the border, but up here in Canada any company that advertises a price must stand by any orders placed during the time that price was available. This means they cannot charge you a different amount, and cannot cancel your order on the grounds that there was a pricing glitch... I should have placed an order!
Why even let your young children use the internet? Really, what does your 8 year old need the internet for? As for older children, keep the computer in a heavily trafficked part of the house, such as the kitchen. Simple.
At my university the intended entrance for the CS program has skyrocketed over the past few years, and I believe it's at about 15% of all new students now. Spend about 5 minutes asking around and you may find 1 out of every 15 people are actually there because they love the subject. The rest? Out for a quick buck.
The upside is, the institution at which I attend doesn't play around. We don't mess around with VB or Delphi, first year students get right down to the dirt, fighting with assembler and OO theory.
As a result, the actually number of people who attempt to enter the program after their first year is substantially lower.
But where I go isn't perfect either - because of the large competition, the programmers who spend more time then they should programming rather than studying never make it.
The true geniuses are being tossed aside because their Social Science credits just didn't have high enough GPAs.
Incase you're wondering - I attend Simon Fraser University.
Comments are more than welcome, as these are just my opinions based on what I've observed here.
Some people might not agree with me on my choices, but here goes:
Video Card: Geforce 2 Ultra
Motherboard: Abit KA7-100
Processor: Athlon 850
RAM: 256mb (Trust me, you need this much).
CDRom: Any HP burner will do
Monitor: The ViewSonic PF775 is nice
Sound Card: Sound Blaster live
Network/Modem/Etc: Just check your handy linux compatability lists and find one with the features you like.
About the KA7-100: The HPT370 chipset is not supported 'out of the box' on most distrobutions, but a quick kernel patch/update can fix that. I believe it was introduced in the 2.2.17 kernel tree... If not, Highpoint Technologies has there own kernel patch available.
Sorry, I should have made it clearer that when I was referring to "we" I meant the general geek/nerd crowd, which this ad seems to be targeting.
Of course, Windows is extremely frustrating for many 'leisure' users, and it seems the only reason they use it is because they don't know about the alternatives or they're afraid to give it a shot.
How many times have I heard: "It's free? But isn't that illegal?"
When is Microsoft, and other closed source advocates, going to realize that this is the whole point of an open operating system? The people using these don't want feature overkill, for security and speed reasons. It seems natural then that they'd drift to an open kernel. What you don't like you can just opt out. Can you do that with, say, Win2k? To a limited (severly) extent.
Infact, this ad may be counter productive for Microsoft - it seems to be advertising just what we want, that Linux is a customizable, diverse OS, and that if the maintainers dissappear, it will still be extendable and updatable. If Microsoft goes down in a great ball of litigation, who's going to provide support for all the Win2K boxes out there? Even more important, will there still be support for them in 5 years time, even if Microsoft survives?
I think not.
But is desensitization really all that bad? Wouldn't being able to handle violent situations with ease be better for a person in the long run, particular in cases of mugging, automobile accidents, and the next world war? People have always spent large amounts of time and energy on trying to rationalize these events in order to accept their occurance, wouldn't it be much nicer if they could accept them for what they are and move on with their lives? Of course, no one wants the world to become apathetic to violence, but IMHO it seems to be counter-productive to dwell on these horrible acts, rather than spending that time to prevent them from occuring again.
You have to remember, we are animals, we are driven (somewhat) by our desires, and violence just seems an inevetible, albeit depressing, part of life.
What I would like to know is, why do we enjoy such destructive imagery? It's not like this is anything new, so what drives us to enjoy such destructive imagery? I have a feeling it's due to the adreneline rush... But I could be wrong.
I will not ever buy a game ported by Loki.
Sure, they've got a great installer, and perform excellent porting of even the most complex of games, but I refuse to pay for a game twice. You see, I run Windows AND Linux. The only reason Windows resides on my machine is for multimedia and games - mainly because it has a wider selection, and very little of my game collection has FREE Linux binaries available. And until recently (I upgraded), hardware acceleration was not an option for me in Linux. (Which is a whole other rant entirely).
As such, when I buy a game, I buy a windows game. IMHO, Loki is just adding to the problem of a lack of Linux ports - there are too many people of my point of view to make it financially viable to ever take the Linux gaming market seriously. If Loki really wants to increase Linux market share, then they should stop asking the gamers to pay for their games a second time. Release the binaries for free (as in beer), or at a minimal cost (preferably less than 1/3 of the original). Of course, how would Loki then gain income? It's a gamble, once the market share is there, then perhaps companies will start to pay them the required funds.
In a similar token, I will never pay to play a game I payed $70 (CDN) for. Bring on Neverwinter Nights!
This is just the case of the distributors scrambling to hold on to a dying market. The problem at hand is not whether or not they will survive (which they won't), but how many laws will be created and destroyed during the course of their demise.
Do we really want it made illegal to listen to music on anything but a pair of RIAA-sanctioned sub-cochlea vibro speakers?
Or forcing all music to be automatically placed under the licensing restraints of the more popular RIAA contracts?
And if you're worried about the musicians, I think this states it all.
>What exactly is wrong with teenagers sending e-mail to eachother? What better way to build written communications skills?
The point is not whether or not it was wrong for the students to be using for the system for email, but that it was wrong that they were using the system for that sole purpose, and to such an extent that the emails they were sending were not only a waste of bandwidth, but also keeping the precious computer resources from their original purpose - research and education.
>Maybe it was just too much like having fun, and god forbid that any public schooler would actually enjoy themselves at the taxpayers' expense.
The tax payer's did not intend for the computers to be used for the sole purpose of having fun. Believe it or not, but it's relatively expensive for a money strapped school to buy and maintain a respectable computer system. Sure, have fun, but don't keep people from the computer who NEED to use it for academics.
This is a copy of the email I sent to the author, I thought it could generate some insightful discussion here.
About your latest article, a few things didn't fit right for me, and seem to need a little clarifying.
You state "it will liberate gamers from the PC and the crack-addict lure of endless new peripherals and CPUs." First off - from my understanding - the X-Box is designed to be easily upgradeable. Secondly, many of us don't want to be 'liberated,' upgrading our machines is all part of the fun. I know, most people find it infuriating, others find it boring, but it's like tweaking out a hot car - it's just great.
Next, I thought I'd just point out a big glaring hole in your article. For about the past five years the gaming community has been inundated with 'casual' gamers. Before hand the PC Gaming world was much more of a niche industry, very few people even new such a thing existed. Most PC Gamers were sysops, cubicle slaves, and students. We didn't have the mentality in place to let us play the usually somewhat childish console games, and instead pushed for other, more enduring games on the PCs we already had.
You see, the industry never would have been flooded with the endless C&C, Quake, and Baldur's Gate clones if the market didn't have the multitude of Casual Gamers. Sure, there would have been a few, but they would have had to have been different enough to be noticed, some examples would be Z and Incubation (not really a clone, more of a mix of genres).
If what you say is true, and a large portion of the PC Gaming market switches over to the X-Box, then we'll possibly be left where we began, the true, original 'PC Gamers.' Don't forget us - this industry wouldn't be here if it weren't for our boredom.
I say bring on the X-Box, I've had enough of these newbies.
This opening sentence doesn't look like it has much to do with the case in question, or the arguments presented. From my understanding, LiViD uses no copyrighted source code, the only questionable material would be any lines related to DeCSS.
Correct me if I'm wrong - but CSS isn't copyrighted is it? It's a trade secret, right?
So, the purpose of this opening statement IMHO is to do nothing more than 'plant the seeds' as it were - laying down in the legal community that "open source" is wrong, and something to be fought.
Beyond greedy distributors refusing to publish a game, or innovative ideas getting shot down for being too original, there is one shameful aspect of the Computer Gaming industry that needs to be recognized: the original games don't sell. Many of these games are great, overflowing with gameplay and style, yet due to a combination of lack of marketing, low shelf space, and limited distribution, they rarely reach their full potential.
I'm sure that these genres wouldn't be dying if it weren't for this atrocity. Companies like Babbages and EB need to take a look at what they sell, what they don't sell, and ask themselves if their missing some truly great games.
After this is fixed, something needs to be done about the lack of Linux games on shelves.
Congratulations on your eagerness to harness your student's interest! My experience with my High School CS teacher was far from what you mention. The interest for the top students was actually teaching the teacher to teach the class. Of course, it was all for not, and in the end the Grade 12 class was forced into illuminatus and Visual Basic. Not that there is nothing wrong with VB, it's just that three years of sorting programs (all using bubble sorts) and small games can get slightly dull. There was a way out: if we were up to teaching ourselves, and still did the class work, we could do what we wanted. The consequences: those of us who had the drive developed at great rates, the rest fell into spagetti code.
So, the lesson would be: push your students, push yourself, and above all look into what other classes your students are taking, and try to mix them into the work their doing. If there's something familiar in the work, and some goal that relates to real life, you have a good chance at grabbing their attention.
It's called CSIS - I think that's the correct acronym. Whatever the letter combination, one thing's for certain, even us Canadians rarely here about it. Whether that means they're really good at what they do, or they're virtually non existant is up to you to decide. I believe that during the 50s they had a huge spy presence in Canada, spying on everyone and anyone. http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm... Where's the reasoning for the death of the Amiga OS? All I see here is some heavy praise for a completely seperate OS. For all the claims that we should be supporting as many alternative development efforts as possible, it strikes me as odd that this post, which knocks down a possibly promising effort without much in the way of support, would get so highly modded up?
Perhaps those whom are moderating should really take a look at exactly what they are supporting.
-Medgur
Please don't heap Canada in with the United States! I'm going to assume that you only took a momentary glance at the listing of locales, although, I know it can be a little difficult to discern between our peoples, what with our similar foreign policy, indistinct political systems, shared currency, and strong relations!
Wait a minute...
-Medgur
Why is it that it's ok for the US to demand free trade on water, fish, and other strong US industries, but wrong for Canada to refuse to place tarriffs on US bound lumber?
Look on the bright side - we'll probably all be dead before this becomes even remotely practical, if it ever does.
Think about it, you can't just remove the gene. Cells NEED to die to make way for the new ones which are created, if they did not we'd invariably become lumps of suffocating flesh.
So, we'd need to selectively remove the gene... I have no idea how this would be done, or if it would work.
As for losing the fear of death, there is one major failure to your argument: we could still die if this gene was removed. Having cells not die wouldn't protect you from a fatal wound, just from death by old age.
And IF we instituted the no-death policy, think about the boom in population! You'd have to curb it somehow - forced sterilization of those who have the gene removed comes to mind. Perhaps a combination of that and only offering it to those who do not have offspring? Needless to say, this wouldn't go over well with the American Way. (Large family, Large house, Large paycheck).
-Medgur
I don't know if this applies to those of you south of the border, but up here in Canada any company that advertises a price must stand by any orders placed during the time that price was available. This means they cannot charge you a different amount, and cannot cancel your order on the grounds that there was a pricing glitch... I should have placed an order!
-Medgur
Why even let your young children use the internet? Really, what does your 8 year old need the internet for? As for older children, keep the computer in a heavily trafficked part of the house, such as the kitchen. Simple.
-Medgur
This is a real problem.
At my university the intended entrance for the CS program has skyrocketed over the past few years, and I believe it's at about 15% of all new students now. Spend about 5 minutes asking around and you may find 1 out of every 15 people are actually there because they love the subject. The rest? Out for a quick buck.
The upside is, the institution at which I attend doesn't play around. We don't mess around with VB or Delphi, first year students get right down to the dirt, fighting with assembler and OO theory.
As a result, the actually number of people who attempt to enter the program after their first year is substantially lower.
But where I go isn't perfect either - because of the large competition, the programmers who spend more time then they should programming rather than studying never make it.
The true geniuses are being tossed aside because their Social Science credits just didn't have high enough GPAs.
Incase you're wondering - I attend Simon Fraser University.
Comments are more than welcome, as these are just my opinions based on what I've observed here.
-Medgur
Some people might not agree with me on my choices, but here goes:
Video Card: Geforce 2 Ultra
Motherboard: Abit KA7-100
Processor: Athlon 850
RAM: 256mb (Trust me, you need this much).
CDRom: Any HP burner will do
Monitor: The ViewSonic PF775 is nice
Sound Card: Sound Blaster live
Network/Modem/Etc: Just check your handy linux compatability lists and find one with the features you like.
About the KA7-100: The HPT370 chipset is not supported 'out of the box' on most distrobutions, but a quick kernel patch/update can fix that. I believe it was introduced in the 2.2.17 kernel tree... If not, Highpoint Technologies has there own kernel patch available.
-Medgur
Sorry, I should have made it clearer that when I was referring to "we" I meant the general geek/nerd crowd, which this ad seems to be targeting.
Of course, Windows is extremely frustrating for many 'leisure' users, and it seems the only reason they use it is because they don't know about the alternatives or they're afraid to give it a shot.
How many times have I heard: "It's free? But isn't that illegal?"
-Medgur
When is Microsoft, and other closed source advocates, going to realize that this is the whole point of an open operating system? The people using these don't want feature overkill, for security and speed reasons. It seems natural then that they'd drift to an open kernel. What you don't like you can just opt out. Can you do that with, say, Win2k? To a limited (severly) extent.
Infact, this ad may be counter productive for Microsoft - it seems to be advertising just what we want, that Linux is a customizable, diverse OS, and that if the maintainers dissappear, it will still be extendable and updatable. If Microsoft goes down in a great ball of litigation, who's going to provide support for all the Win2K boxes out there? Even more important, will there still be support for them in 5 years time, even if Microsoft survives?
I think not.
-Medgur
I agree, but there's one problem, what would it be named? Battlebots and Robot Wars are taken, so... Autobots?
I think I'll call mine Roadblock.
-Medgur
But is desensitization really all that bad? Wouldn't being able to handle violent situations with ease be better for a person in the long run, particular in cases of mugging, automobile accidents, and the next world war? People have always spent large amounts of time and energy on trying to rationalize these events in order to accept their occurance, wouldn't it be much nicer if they could accept them for what they are and move on with their lives? Of course, no one wants the world to become apathetic to violence, but IMHO it seems to be counter-productive to dwell on these horrible acts, rather than spending that time to prevent them from occuring again.
You have to remember, we are animals, we are driven (somewhat) by our desires, and violence just seems an inevetible, albeit depressing, part of life.
What I would like to know is, why do we enjoy such destructive imagery? It's not like this is anything new, so what drives us to enjoy such destructive imagery? I have a feeling it's due to the adreneline rush... But I could be wrong.
-Medgur
I will not ever buy a game ported by Loki.
Sure, they've got a great installer, and perform excellent porting of even the most complex of games, but I refuse to pay for a game twice. You see, I run Windows AND Linux. The only reason Windows resides on my machine is for multimedia and games - mainly because it has a wider selection, and very little of my game collection has FREE Linux binaries available. And until recently (I upgraded), hardware acceleration was not an option for me in Linux. (Which is a whole other rant entirely).
As such, when I buy a game, I buy a windows game.
IMHO, Loki is just adding to the problem of a lack of Linux ports - there are too many people of my point of view to make it financially viable to ever take the Linux gaming market seriously. If Loki really wants to increase Linux market share, then they should stop asking the gamers to pay for their games a second time. Release the binaries for free (as in beer), or at a minimal cost (preferably less than 1/3 of the original). Of course, how would Loki then gain income? It's a gamble, once the market share is there, then perhaps companies will start to pay them the required funds.
In a similar token, I will never pay to play a game I payed $70 (CDN) for.
Bring on Neverwinter Nights!
-Medgur
This is just the case of the distributors scrambling to hold on to a dying market. The problem at hand is not whether or not they will survive (which they won't), but how many laws will be created and destroyed during the course of their demise.
Do we really want it made illegal to listen to music on anything but a pair of RIAA-sanctioned sub-cochlea vibro speakers?
Or forcing all music to be automatically placed under the licensing restraints of the more popular RIAA contracts?
And if you're worried about the musicians, I think this states it all.
-Medgur
Who owns the rights to "Happy Birthday?"
>What exactly is wrong with teenagers sending e-mail to eachother? What better way to build written communications skills?
The point is not whether or not it was wrong for the students to be using for the system for email, but that it was wrong that they were using the system for that sole purpose, and to such an extent that the emails they were sending were not only a waste of bandwidth, but also keeping the precious computer resources from their original purpose - research and education.
>Maybe it was just too much like having fun, and god forbid that any public schooler would actually enjoy themselves at the taxpayers' expense.
The tax payer's did not intend for the computers to be used for the sole purpose of having fun. Believe it or not, but it's relatively expensive for a money strapped school to buy and maintain a respectable computer system. Sure, have fun, but don't keep people from the computer who NEED to use it for academics.
-Medgur
This is a copy of the email I sent to the author, I thought it could generate some insightful discussion here.
About your latest article, a few things didn't fit right for me, and seem to need a little clarifying.
You state "it will liberate gamers from the PC and the crack-addict lure of endless new peripherals and CPUs." First off - from my understanding - the X-Box is designed to be easily upgradeable. Secondly, many of us don't want to be 'liberated,' upgrading our machines is all part of the fun. I know, most people find it infuriating, others find it boring, but it's like tweaking out a hot car - it's just great.
Next, I thought I'd just point out a big glaring hole in your article. For about the past five years the gaming community has been inundated with 'casual' gamers. Before hand the PC Gaming world was much more of a niche industry, very few people even new such a thing existed. Most PC Gamers were sysops, cubicle slaves, and students. We didn't have the mentality in place to let us play the usually somewhat childish console games, and instead pushed for other, more enduring games on the PCs we already had.
You see, the industry never would have been flooded with the endless C&C, Quake, and Baldur's Gate clones if the market didn't have the multitude of Casual Gamers. Sure, there would have been a few, but they would have had to have been different enough to be noticed, some examples would be Z and Incubation (not really a clone, more of a mix of genres).
If what you say is true, and a large portion of the PC Gaming market switches over to the X-Box, then we'll possibly be left where we began, the true, original 'PC Gamers.' Don't forget us - this industry wouldn't be here if it weren't for our boredom.
I say bring on the X-Box, I've had enough of these newbies.
-Medgur
This opening sentence doesn't look like it has much to do with the case in question, or the arguments presented. From my understanding, LiViD uses no copyrighted source code, the only questionable material would be any lines related to DeCSS.
Correct me if I'm wrong - but CSS isn't copyrighted is it? It's a trade secret, right?
So, the purpose of this opening statement IMHO is to do nothing more than 'plant the seeds' as it were - laying down in the legal community that "open source" is wrong, and something to be fought.
This could definitely be a bad thing.
-Medgur
Beyond greedy distributors refusing to publish a game, or innovative ideas getting shot down for being too original, there is one shameful aspect of the Computer Gaming industry that needs to be recognized: the original games don't sell. Many of these games are great, overflowing with gameplay and style, yet due to a combination of lack of marketing, low shelf space, and limited distribution, they rarely reach their full potential.
I'm sure that these genres wouldn't be dying if it weren't for this atrocity. Companies like Babbages and EB need to take a look at what they sell, what they don't sell, and ask themselves if their missing some truly great games.
After this is fixed, something needs to be done about the lack of Linux games on shelves.
Incubation, anyone?
Or how about Age of Wonders?
Maybe Ultimate Race Pro?
Congratulations on your eagerness to harness your student's interest! My experience with my High School CS teacher was far from what you mention. The interest for the top students was actually teaching the teacher to teach the class. Of course, it was all for not, and in the end the Grade 12 class was forced into illuminatus and Visual Basic. Not that there is nothing wrong with VB, it's just that three years of sorting programs (all using bubble sorts) and small games can get slightly dull. There was a way out: if we were up to teaching ourselves, and still did the class work, we could do what we wanted. The consequences: those of us who had the drive developed at great rates, the rest fell into spagetti code.
So, the lesson would be: push your students, push yourself, and above all look into what other classes your students are taking, and try to mix them into the work their doing. If there's something familiar in the work, and some goal that relates to real life, you have a good chance at grabbing their attention.
-Medgur
It's called CSIS - I think that's the correct acronym. Whatever the letter combination, one thing's for certain, even us Canadians rarely here about it. Whether that means they're really good at what they do, or they're virtually non existant is up to you to decide. I believe that during the 50s they had a huge spy presence in Canada, spying on everyone and anyone. http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/