Oh, give me a break. If that were the case, they would be pusing to prevent the FCC from having anything to do with the carriers at all. The report never would have existed.
More likely, somebody is an idiot and actually believes that data is sensitive, somebody thinks calling the data sensitive will make them seem more important, thus advancing their career, or the report is so poorly done that they want to bury it before people realize their incompetence.
This culture we have of pinning things we don't like on politicians we don't like even if there is no evidence or connection is absurd. It is *the* reason that the leaders of both our major political parties are complete morons who's sole talent is pinning blame on somebody else. We get it. You don't like Bush. But stand up and have some principles. Otherwise you are no better than he is.
The problem with the cell is the the SPUs are hell to program if you have a problem that doesn't fit nicely in the 256k ram that an SPU has.
I don't understand why people compare this stuff to 'hell'.
This stuff is *not* hell for programmers who are used to making sure that their data and instructions stay in cache during operations. A modern CPU may handle misses and pull data into the cache for you, but having to do essentially the same thing manually isn't really a big deal if you were going to be doing cache-conscious high performance programming anyway.
This stuff is only 'hell' if you can only comprehend programming on a CPU with the usual MMU. With the right infrastructure, the SPU memory is good for all the same things that 25kb of L1 cache is good for on your average CPU. Anybody who has a hard time programming for these chips needs to go back to school and pay attention in their computer engineering and architecture classes. If you can't hack it with the big boys, then given the right libraries, you should be able to program for the Cell in much the same way as a normal CPU with only minimal performance penalties. However, considering that (in theory) only 'rockstar' programmers get to the level where they are writing cutting edge game engines, they should stop whining and prove they know their shit.
You seem to be confusing MythTV - the free, open source HTPC software maintained by unpaid volunteers) with MS Windows XP Media Centre Edition - the proprietary, closed source HTPC software produced by one of the richest companies in the world, which (as far as I know) still requires the user to install the required third-party drivers for various bits of hardware.
That's rediculous hand waving (especially the "maintained by unpaid volunteers" part) that pins the blame squarely between the parties causing nothing to be done about the problem.
I'm not confusing anything. I'm not some random moron who doesn't understand the architecture and wishes it all just worked like windows. I've installed the last several versions of MythTV from scratch in a multi-system configuration. I write embedded linux software (including device drivers) and device firmware for a living. I know what software integration is, and this is an example of piss-poor integration. It doesn't matter what distro you are running. If the software is packaged correctly (yes, I've made both debs and RPMs), the software in question (MythTV in this case) should be able to find the paths and utilities it needs to do the configuration and firmware loading required. When you run Myth, it *owns* the screen it is on. It should be its own responsibility to get the configuration right. A distribution provider's job is to get the bits on the disk and configured for general purpose use. When it comes to specific use, the application should do the final configuration.
KnoppMyth and (I presume, because I haven't tried it. It sounds very similar to KnoppMyth but with a newer version of MythTV) MythDora still leave an unacceptable amount of configuration up to the user, and there is little reason to require a full OS installation (other than being Microsoftesque) in order to run MythTV.
Instead of comparing to WinXP MCE, compare the MythTV setup to the SageTV Linux edition setup. As far as I'm aware, far fewer developers work on SageTV, and even though its interface and featureset are inferior to MythTV, they still make installation on a vanilla linux distribution very straightforward.
the bits that depend on loading the correct kernel modules and firmware blobs (DVB support)
That stuff absolutely could be done automatically... The only potential obstacle is proprietary firmwares, and it could prompt you to insert the CD that came with the devices and automatically extract said proprietary firmware for you.
choosing the appropriate xorg drivers and xorg.conf hacking (TV out and screen resolution) undetectable hardware (Digital vs. analogue audio out) are a matter of choice (e.g. software vs. hardware MPEG, which interlace method to use)
All of this stuff could automatically be configured to working defaults. In the case of digitally interconnected displays, the xorg.conf stuff could automatically be configured not just to a working default, but to the optimal configuration. Things that are a matter of choice could at least be working by default, and then allow the user to modify the configuration.
Don't get me wrong, I love MythTV, and I have a Myth box, but it annoys the crap out of me when people defend its obvious deficiencies as if they weren't an issue.
Is that analogue or digital? European-style DVB or the US equivalent? Does your tuner card need a firmware blob to work? Does your tuner card have onboard MPEG decoding? If not, does your video card have MPEG acceleration and is it supported by Xorg? How do you enable TV-out and set it to native PAL or NTSC resolution with sensible overscan? (anybody using a low power Via Epia system as a HTPC should be shuddering here)
All of that stuff could be autodetected. Every last little bit of it. But it isn't. The key mappings stuff for using remotes is the big headache that couldn't be automated easily, but it certainly could be made much much easier than it currently is. When I was setting up my box, I kept thinking to myself that I would write some code to make the setup suck less, but once I got it working the motivation was lost (I still plan on working on MythDVD a bit though, because it sucks to use just as much as to set up). That must be what happens with everybody else too.
I don't know why you would need a whole distribution though. Just an apt source would be sufficient. And it would spare you an RPM based system.
I could see how if the submission queue has many copies of the same article, and one is more concise than the other but conveys the meaning completely, that the editor might not even read the other one. How many Slashdot stories look like your submission? (None) There is a good chance they didn't even read yours, so why would they have noticed that the text was identical for the first section?
Beyond animal rights, I don't understand why people oppose hunting, and if you're going to allow it, why should we discriminate against blind people as long as they do it safely? Are these people hurting you in any way? (I don't mean *you* specifically, of course) Then why would people want to limit their rights?
The headline of this story was meant to sound outrageous, but it seems ridiculous to me that anybody would consider it outrageous.
Heat can be transfered away much more quickly by the flow of water around the floating ice than it can by just the air around the landlocked ice. I would think that the floating ice would melt much sooner.
That is a good point. You would figure that without a tuner you should be able to pick up a 19" LCD TV for around $250, and with a tuner for around $500...
It is unexpectedly good on the digital inputs (I've read people have problems with the input labeled DVI2. I haven't tried DVI2, but DVI1 and the HDMI input work well). DVI output from a GeForce 5900 at full resolution looks flawless. It also displays lower resolutions well over DVI. S-Video in looks terrible. The up-conversion results in a flickering grid of squares... It seems to blank half of the pixels in the alternate frame when de-interlacing. Again, that's only on the S-Video in. It only supports 'stretch' for scaling from 4:3; there is no 'zoom' for watching 16:9 video from a 4:3 letterboxed source. That may be a deal-breaker for people without an external video processing solution. Using an external device to upscale solves the problem. The speakers aren't worth using, but that's true for almost every TV on the market. The remote is also terrible, but since there is no built in tuner it is just a glorified power button anyway.
I had to return the first one because of a cluster of 9 adjacent dead pixels (looked like a hair was on the glass during the etching process), but the replacement is flawless. I've read that people have problems with vertical brightness bands. The set I returned had this issue, but only for viewing angles outside of 170 degrees; the image was unviewable before the brightness bands were apparent. It is probably because the backlight is in multiple pieces that are assembled at a very slight angle to each other. My replacement set doesn't have this problem at all.
It is *really light*. That is probably one of its best features. It is about 60lbs with the stand removed. That makes for very inexpensive mounting, and less anxiety while installing it.
If I had to change anything about it, I would add a video input that was easily accessible from the front. It is quite difficult to plug anything into the set once it is mounted on the wall. I had to plug in a couple cables that I hide behind the set while I'm not using them so I can plug stuff in without taking the TV off the wall. Considering the price, though, I'm quite pleased with it.
You could try creating a commercial grade Xbox 360 title using 3 or 4 people, but by the time your artists finish their work, we'll be well into the life of the next Xbox at least.
I could imagine some puzzle or fighter type games being created by small teams. The amount of art and sound for those games could be very low and still be a fun and visually stunning game.
I doubt they are under any delusion that they will break even through game sales on these early systems. They are counting on manufacturing costs to come down and make enough money on future systems (both the hardware and the game sales for them) to make up for the losses today. Remember how much they were losing on the PS2 and everybody talking about how they had to sell 7 or 8 games to break even? In the end, they turned a profit on just the console before you even count games and accessories. You just need a long term view... (It also means that if the PS3 flops, it'll flop *hard*).
I would be shocked if (assuming sales stay strong) they didn't figure out how to produce the system for less than the sale price by the end of year two.
GBA is the sweet spot - powerful enough to code in C/C++, but weak enough that a team of a couple people can max out the power of the system.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Almost no system is too underpowered to run compiled code, including the SNES. There is no system available on the planet right now that cannot be maxed out by one or two people... Even the most advanced renderers can be implemented by a very small number of people.
SNES games were coded in assembly. They wouldn't gain much by opening that up.
There are compiled language tools available for SNES development. There are compilers for pretty much any language that was available at the time for the 6502 (The main CPU in the SNES). I seriously doubt you could produce credible documentation that no SNES games used any compiled code. I'm sure that a large number of them used some, and many were likely mostly compiled.
It doesn't. I was being a jerk in response to his jerkiness.
As far as the camera goes, my point is the same as it was in my original comment. I don't think that a WoW style camera is appropriate for a game where you are managing multiple characters simultaneously. Instead, the camera needs to take into account the positions, and movement of all of your characters as well as other plot-important events. WoW's camera is appropriate for its own style of gameplay and for a few other types of single person perspective, action-oriented games. NWN2 is neither single person perspective, nor action oriented.
It's not as simple as programmers being lazy. Hardware has to be designed for hot plugging. Both from the interconnect (power to the right places in the right order... For example, notice how two pins in your USB connector are longer than the others) and in terms of notifying software of a change. The problem is usually that hardware manufacturers are too cheap to make their hardware with all the appropriate hooks to allow hot-plugging. PCI hot plugging has been around for years, but what percentage of cases and motherboards have all of the components necessary for hot-plugging? 20%? 1% if you don't count servers?
You can try blaming the programmers though. Good luck.
ACPI is Microsoft's baby, and since it is Windows centric, it keeps other OS vendors at a disadvantage. EFI is open and designed by somebody else. What incentive does Microsoft have to invest in EFI?
Given that 32-bit Windows doesn't actually support EFI right now, the scenario you describe seems dubious. I'm almost willing to bet the commenters from the audience were plants.
Educational funding isn't a safety net. Most people who oppose liberal social programs do not oppose spending on education (though they may oppose the way we currently spend those education dollars).
A 'Safety Net' would be paying for somebody's health care and retirement because they blew all their money on a risky venture (which may have been the slot machines at their local casino. Or maybe they blew all their cash on their drug addiction...). If it was the kind of safety net that usually gets proposed, you wouldn't be allowed to benefit if you didn't waste all your money, but you would have to pay for it anyway. Additionally, it would be wrong to judge or comment on people who lived irresponsibly because of the safety net instead of using it for the common good.
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Oh, give me a break. If that were the case, they would be pusing to prevent the FCC from having anything to do with the carriers at all. The report never would have existed.
More likely, somebody is an idiot and actually believes that data is sensitive, somebody thinks calling the data sensitive will make them seem more important, thus advancing their career, or the report is so poorly done that they want to bury it before people realize their incompetence.
This culture we have of pinning things we don't like on politicians we don't like even if there is no evidence or connection is absurd. It is *the* reason that the leaders of both our major political parties are complete morons who's sole talent is pinning blame on somebody else. We get it. You don't like Bush. But stand up and have some principles. Otherwise you are no better than he is.
The problem with the cell is the the SPUs are hell to program if you have a problem that doesn't fit nicely in the 256k ram that an SPU has.
I don't understand why people compare this stuff to 'hell'.
This stuff is *not* hell for programmers who are used to making sure that their data and instructions stay in cache during operations. A modern CPU may handle misses and pull data into the cache for you, but having to do essentially the same thing manually isn't really a big deal if you were going to be doing cache-conscious high performance programming anyway.
This stuff is only 'hell' if you can only comprehend programming on a CPU with the usual MMU. With the right infrastructure, the SPU memory is good for all the same things that 25kb of L1 cache is good for on your average CPU. Anybody who has a hard time programming for these chips needs to go back to school and pay attention in their computer engineering and architecture classes. If you can't hack it with the big boys, then given the right libraries, you should be able to program for the Cell in much the same way as a normal CPU with only minimal performance penalties. However, considering that (in theory) only 'rockstar' programmers get to the level where they are writing cutting edge game engines, they should stop whining and prove they know their shit.
You seem to be confusing MythTV - the free, open source HTPC software maintained by unpaid volunteers) with MS Windows XP Media Centre Edition - the proprietary, closed source HTPC software produced by one of the richest companies in the world, which (as far as I know) still requires the user to install the required third-party drivers for various bits of hardware.
That's rediculous hand waving (especially the "maintained by unpaid volunteers" part) that pins the blame squarely between the parties causing nothing to be done about the problem.
I'm not confusing anything. I'm not some random moron who doesn't understand the architecture and wishes it all just worked like windows. I've installed the last several versions of MythTV from scratch in a multi-system configuration. I write embedded linux software (including device drivers) and device firmware for a living. I know what software integration is, and this is an example of piss-poor integration. It doesn't matter what distro you are running. If the software is packaged correctly (yes, I've made both debs and RPMs), the software in question (MythTV in this case) should be able to find the paths and utilities it needs to do the configuration and firmware loading required. When you run Myth, it *owns* the screen it is on. It should be its own responsibility to get the configuration right. A distribution provider's job is to get the bits on the disk and configured for general purpose use. When it comes to specific use, the application should do the final configuration.
KnoppMyth and (I presume, because I haven't tried it. It sounds very similar to KnoppMyth but with a newer version of MythTV) MythDora still leave an unacceptable amount of configuration up to the user, and there is little reason to require a full OS installation (other than being Microsoftesque) in order to run MythTV.
Instead of comparing to WinXP MCE, compare the MythTV setup to the SageTV Linux edition setup. As far as I'm aware, far fewer developers work on SageTV, and even though its interface and featureset are inferior to MythTV, they still make installation on a vanilla linux distribution very straightforward.
the bits that depend on loading the correct kernel modules and firmware blobs (DVB support)
That stuff absolutely could be done automatically... The only potential obstacle is proprietary firmwares, and it could prompt you to insert the CD that came with the devices and automatically extract said proprietary firmware for you.
choosing the appropriate xorg drivers and xorg.conf hacking (TV out and screen resolution) undetectable hardware (Digital vs. analogue audio out) are a matter of choice (e.g. software vs. hardware MPEG, which interlace method to use)
All of this stuff could automatically be configured to working defaults. In the case of digitally interconnected displays, the xorg.conf stuff could automatically be configured not just to a working default, but to the optimal configuration. Things that are a matter of choice could at least be working by default, and then allow the user to modify the configuration.
Don't get me wrong, I love MythTV, and I have a Myth box, but it annoys the crap out of me when people defend its obvious deficiencies as if they weren't an issue.
Is that analogue or digital? European-style DVB or the US equivalent? Does your tuner card need a firmware blob to work? Does your tuner card have onboard MPEG decoding? If not, does your video card have MPEG acceleration and is it supported by Xorg? How do you enable TV-out and set it to native PAL or NTSC resolution with sensible overscan? (anybody using a low power Via Epia system as a HTPC should be shuddering here)
All of that stuff could be autodetected. Every last little bit of it. But it isn't. The key mappings stuff for using remotes is the big headache that couldn't be automated easily, but it certainly could be made much much easier than it currently is. When I was setting up my box, I kept thinking to myself that I would write some code to make the setup suck less, but once I got it working the motivation was lost (I still plan on working on MythDVD a bit though, because it sucks to use just as much as to set up). That must be what happens with everybody else too.
I don't know why you would need a whole distribution though. Just an apt source would be sufficient. And it would spare you an RPM based system.
They could always do a reverse split on the dollar 1:10... Then everybody would convert their existing dollars for New Dimes, and pennies would more.
Other than being completely impractical, it's the perfect plan!
Do you really think that the only benefit you get from an open platform is that you can audit the code?
I could see how if the submission queue has many copies of the same article, and one is more concise than the other but conveys the meaning completely, that the editor might not even read the other one. How many Slashdot stories look like your submission? (None) There is a good chance they didn't even read yours, so why would they have noticed that the text was identical for the first section?
In my town, the difference between in price between Comcast internet service, and the Comcast internet service and Basic Cable package is $0.04.
Yup, if you cancel basic cable but keep internet access, your bill will be reduced by four cents.
Don't you think that, maybe, they picked the anonymous submitter instead of yours because the summary was better?
You make excellent points.
Beyond animal rights, I don't understand why people oppose hunting, and if you're going to allow it, why should we discriminate against blind people as long as they do it safely? Are these people hurting you in any way? (I don't mean *you* specifically, of course) Then why would people want to limit their rights?
The headline of this story was meant to sound outrageous, but it seems ridiculous to me that anybody would consider it outrageous.
That doesn't seem obvious.
Heat can be transfered away much more quickly by the flow of water around the floating ice than it can by just the air around the landlocked ice. I would think that the floating ice would melt much sooner.
That is a good point. You would figure that without a tuner you should be able to pick up a 19" LCD TV for around $250, and with a tuner for around $500...
2 E16889251010
There are some of those available though:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
Seems like there should be a lot more. The price of a 19" Aquos, for example, is practically criminal. The profit margin must be 150%.
If you're going to use a cable box, you may as well just buy a computer monitor.
Yes.
It is unexpectedly good on the digital inputs (I've read people have problems with the input labeled DVI2. I haven't tried DVI2, but DVI1 and the HDMI input work well). DVI output from a GeForce 5900 at full resolution looks flawless. It also displays lower resolutions well over DVI. S-Video in looks terrible. The up-conversion results in a flickering grid of squares... It seems to blank half of the pixels in the alternate frame when de-interlacing. Again, that's only on the S-Video in. It only supports 'stretch' for scaling from 4:3; there is no 'zoom' for watching 16:9 video from a 4:3 letterboxed source. That may be a deal-breaker for people without an external video processing solution. Using an external device to upscale solves the problem. The speakers aren't worth using, but that's true for almost every TV on the market. The remote is also terrible, but since there is no built in tuner it is just a glorified power button anyway.
I had to return the first one because of a cluster of 9 adjacent dead pixels (looked like a hair was on the glass during the etching process), but the replacement is flawless. I've read that people have problems with vertical brightness bands. The set I returned had this issue, but only for viewing angles outside of 170 degrees; the image was unviewable before the brightness bands were apparent. It is probably because the backlight is in multiple pieces that are assembled at a very slight angle to each other. My replacement set doesn't have this problem at all.
It is *really light*. That is probably one of its best features. It is about 60lbs with the stand removed. That makes for very inexpensive mounting, and less anxiety while installing it.
If I had to change anything about it, I would add a video input that was easily accessible from the front. It is quite difficult to plug anything into the set once it is mounted on the wall. I had to plug in a couple cables that I hide behind the set while I'm not using them so I can plug stuff in without taking the TV off the wall. Considering the price, though, I'm quite pleased with it.
I just bought a 1920x1080 47" LCD for $1700. Those didn't even exist two years ago, and smaller ones cost 5x as much.
It seems to me that they're keeping pace...
You could try creating a commercial grade Xbox 360 title using 3 or 4 people, but by the time your artists finish their work, we'll be well into the life of the next Xbox at least.
I could imagine some puzzle or fighter type games being created by small teams. The amount of art and sound for those games could be very low and still be a fun and visually stunning game.
I doubt they are under any delusion that they will break even through game sales on these early systems. They are counting on manufacturing costs to come down and make enough money on future systems (both the hardware and the game sales for them) to make up for the losses today. Remember how much they were losing on the PS2 and everybody talking about how they had to sell 7 or 8 games to break even? In the end, they turned a profit on just the console before you even count games and accessories. You just need a long term view... (It also means that if the PS3 flops, it'll flop *hard*).
I would be shocked if (assuming sales stay strong) they didn't figure out how to produce the system for less than the sale price by the end of year two.
GBA is the sweet spot - powerful enough to code in C/C++, but weak enough that a team of a couple people can max out the power of the system.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Almost no system is too underpowered to run compiled code, including the SNES. There is no system available on the planet right now that cannot be maxed out by one or two people... Even the most advanced renderers can be implemented by a very small number of people.
SNES games were coded in assembly. They wouldn't gain much by opening that up.
There are compiled language tools available for SNES development. There are compilers for pretty much any language that was available at the time for the 6502 (The main CPU in the SNES). I seriously doubt you could produce credible documentation that no SNES games used any compiled code. I'm sure that a large number of them used some, and many were likely mostly compiled.
It doesn't. I was being a jerk in response to his jerkiness.
As far as the camera goes, my point is the same as it was in my original comment. I don't think that a WoW style camera is appropriate for a game where you are managing multiple characters simultaneously. Instead, the camera needs to take into account the positions, and movement of all of your characters as well as other plot-important events. WoW's camera is appropriate for its own style of gameplay and for a few other types of single person perspective, action-oriented games. NWN2 is neither single person perspective, nor action oriented.
It's not as simple as programmers being lazy. Hardware has to be designed for hot plugging. Both from the interconnect (power to the right places in the right order... For example, notice how two pins in your USB connector are longer than the others) and in terms of notifying software of a change. The problem is usually that hardware manufacturers are too cheap to make their hardware with all the appropriate hooks to allow hot-plugging. PCI hot plugging has been around for years, but what percentage of cases and motherboards have all of the components necessary for hot-plugging? 20%? 1% if you don't count servers?
You can try blaming the programmers though. Good luck.
Removing hardware while in hibernation can cause some badly designed drivers to crash.
Like the default Microsoft USB HID drivers. Don't unplug that mouse while you are hibernating.
WoW players complain because they know what a good camera is.
You assume that people who aren't WoW players have never been WoW players, and thus don't know how the WoW camera works.
In reality, some of us just don't like that type of game just as much as you do like it.
I guess if I wanted to be a jerk I could say that the rest of us know what good gameplay is.
Ok there mister sarcastic. Have fun playing by yourself.
ACPI is Microsoft's baby, and since it is Windows centric, it keeps other OS vendors at a disadvantage. EFI is open and designed by somebody else. What incentive does Microsoft have to invest in EFI?
Given that 32-bit Windows doesn't actually support EFI right now, the scenario you describe seems dubious. I'm almost willing to bet the commenters from the audience were plants.
Educational funding isn't a safety net. Most people who oppose liberal social programs do not oppose spending on education (though they may oppose the way we currently spend those education dollars).
A 'Safety Net' would be paying for somebody's health care and retirement because they blew all their money on a risky venture (which may have been the slot machines at their local casino. Or maybe they blew all their cash on their drug addiction...). If it was the kind of safety net that usually gets proposed, you wouldn't be allowed to benefit if you didn't waste all your money, but you would have to pay for it anyway. Additionally, it would be wrong to judge or comment on people who lived irresponsibly because of the safety net instead of using it for the common good.