Re:Isn't Palm a success?
on
Palm's Mistakes
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I don't know why this is marked funny. It's true.
The fall of Palm has nothing to do with the technology. The Treo 650 is wildly successful, and does what it does very well. Palm is failing because they are screwing up the business side of the company.
Why? To fill your fanboy needs for platform attention?
This isn't an advertisement site, or a political platform. If something technically interesting (I.E. newsworthy) happens on the DS, it'll get posted. What do you want them to do say "PSP firmware hacked! (Oh yeah, and the DS is kinda neat too.)"?
Why are you hearing about emulation on the PSP, and not on the DS? As far as unofficial software goes, the PSP is far more more interesting, since you don't need any special equipment to do it. Everything you need comes in the box with the machine. Plus, by and large, the hacks for the DS are the same as the hacks for the GBA, just slightly updated. They're old news. People who care know about them already... This PSP stuff is new.
Sure, there might be functions in the newer API that certain games require
That function that returns a higher version number than the last release seems really popular.
Really, though. Games that are coming out now were started years ago. They'd probably run just fine on the API from some old beta firmware. The only thing changing now is bug fixes (if you're lucky), incrementally higher version numbers, and more "copy" protection.
They didn't change when they went from being a Funcoland
They didn't? Well then you must have had the shittiest Funcoland ever.
Funcoland was a no-frills game shop, where prices on used titles were updated weekly based strictly on supply and demand. The store stocked used stuff from every console generation. They either had what you wanted, or they didn't, and they could tell you right away.
Now they're all like GameStop. Obnoxious staff, limited tradeins to keep supply low and prices high, constant nagging to pre-order, stupid cardboard markups and advertising all over the place, and only current generation gear and games for sale.
The incentive from purchasing from GameStop or EBGames instead of buying online is rapidly aproaching zero. If Funcoland were still around, I'd still be broke.
My representative isn't so kind to justify my messages with an automated response, but I got the following from Senators Kerry and Kennedy last week:
---
September 27, 2005
[My home address edited out]
Dear Mr. Baboval:
Thank you for contacting me. I appreciate that you took the time to write and am glad to hear your concerns. Your message has been forwarded to the appropriate staff in my Senate office. I take into account the correspondence my office receives. However, due to the amount of email we receive we are unable to respond individually to each message.
Again, thank you for writing.
Sincerely,
John F. Kerry United States Senator
----
Thank you for your message. Hearing from people like you is important because it allows me to better understand the constituents that I serve in the United States Senate. As you can imagine, my office receives a great number of messages every day regarding a variety of issues - this is particularly true of e-mails. It makes me proud to know that my constituents take an active role in our government by corresponding with me, and I look forward to responding to your concerns in greater detail. In the meantime, I just wanted to let you know that your e-mail has been received, and to ask for your patience until I send you a more detailed response. Again, thank you for writing. Please feel free to visit my website http://kennedy.senate.gov/ to follow my work in the Senate and to learn more about the services my office can provide to you. Warmest regards
Ted Kennedy
----
That's why I typically both e-mail, and then send a hard copy through the USPS. I never use the canned text from some form letter (though I may use bits and pieces of it).
When you write to your representatives and senators, be sure to include the key point that the EFF leaves out:
These laws, when combined with the DMCA, take power away from congress and give it to anybody. Corporations, and individuals alike. Even if they're not US citizens or US based. Congress should reserve the power to grant rights for intellectual property creators for themselves, instead of giving a blank law-making check to content industries.
Make sure you tell your congresspeople that they are giving power reserved for them by the Constitution to whomever wants to wield it.
DVD+-R(W) is typically used for session writing. DVD-RAM is used for block writing. In an hour of using a DVD-RAM disc, you'll have done more than 100 'burns'. The amount of reliablility required for that kind of utilization is in a different league.
You wouldn't use DVD-RAM for the types of things you probably use DVD+R for.
It's not a matter of cost efficiency, it's a matter of reliability. Since DVD-RAM is typically used for block IO in a moment to moment reusable fashion, and DVD+/-RW is more for session writing, it doesn't matter that you'd save money. For the types things you'd use DVD-RAM for, DVD+R is useless.
The chance that your DVD-RAM disc works after you burn it is practically 100%. The chance that your DVD-RW or DVD+-R works after you burn it isn't even close.
Plus, when you throw a DVD-RAM drive in your machine, you access it as essentially a slow hard drive. DVD-R and DVD-RAM are different beasts for different tasks, and they both have their place.
You don't need a degree to be qualified for a job, you need an education. Unfortunatly, it's more and more common that a degree doesn't necesscarily imply that you've been educated, nor does having obtained the knowledge imply that you've got a degree. This will become more and more true as schools realize that the sheets of paper they can print are essentially cash.
It's been true for a long time when it comes to high school diplomas, because if you fail a kid and don't give him the diploma either somebody doesn't get re-elected, or somebody gets sued for being a racist.
SLI works well for game developers who are writing for next generation hardware.
Are you saying this from experience, or are you guessing? This doesn't seem accurate to me, since next generation hardware has additional features to go with the additional performance.
That sounds like the same story to me. Over a single DVI-D link, you can only push enough pixels to get 60Hz at 1600x1200. It has nothing to do with the card, it's the interconnect. If you want faster, you have to go to dual-link.
Who cares about this stuff other than the tiny portion of the population that will ever use it?
The whole point of this SLI stuff is marketing. It convinces people to buy a more expensive video card than they otherwise would have so that they can fool themselves into thinking they'll get a huge performance boost a few years down the line when they add a second card on the cheap.
In reality, when the second card comes down in price, the SLI configuration will be outclassed on the same order of magnitude as the single card alone by the latest stuff, and you'll just end up having to buy a whole new expensive card, or living with slow graphics.
So unless you've got a boatload of cash and are going to buy two top of the line cards *right now*, it really doesn't matter if either of these manufacturers SLI technology is any good. It's just a marketing gimmick.
See, there's your problem. Now I understand why you don't get it. Not everything you use a hash for is cryptography, or even security related. If you don't understand that, of course you won't understand what I'm saying. You need to understand this to see why you're so very, very wrong.
300% increase in network utilization? Umm, no. Not unless all you're sending is a constant stream of hashes.
I said 300% increase in overhead, not a 300% increase in utilization, however if you are familliar with the protocols I used as an example, you'd know that in the best case scenario, hashes are all you'd send over the network. Remember, hashes are used for a lot more than security.
Once again, these datacenters are running Windows on all their machines of course, otherwise this would have absolutely no point in this discussion...
You couldn't pry my PalmOS powerd phone out of my cold dead fingers.
If there is a God, and we get stuck with Windows Mobile and it's shitty user interface as the replacement for PalmOS, even Garnet, it's undeniable proof that God hates us.
Did you even read the article? The whole point is that Google pays the Mozilla Foundation and Opera to include Google in the browser, of course Mozilla doesn't pay Google.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know why this is marked funny. It's true.
The fall of Palm has nothing to do with the technology. The Treo 650 is wildly successful, and does what it does very well. Palm is failing because they are screwing up the business side of the company.
Giving the other handheld platform equal time
Why? To fill your fanboy needs for platform attention?
This isn't an advertisement site, or a political platform. If something technically interesting (I.E. newsworthy) happens on the DS, it'll get posted. What do you want them to do say "PSP firmware hacked! (Oh yeah, and the DS is kinda neat too.)"?
Why are you hearing about emulation on the PSP, and not on the DS? As far as unofficial software goes, the PSP is far more more interesting, since you don't need any special equipment to do it. Everything you need comes in the box with the machine. Plus, by and large, the hacks for the DS are the same as the hacks for the GBA, just slightly updated. They're old news. People who care know about them already... This PSP stuff is new.
Sure, there might be functions in the newer API that certain games require
That function that returns a higher version number than the last release seems really popular.
Really, though. Games that are coming out now were started years ago. They'd probably run just fine on the API from some old beta firmware. The only thing changing now is bug fixes (if you're lucky), incrementally higher version numbers, and more "copy" protection.
They didn't change when they went from being a Funcoland
They didn't? Well then you must have had the shittiest Funcoland ever.
Funcoland was a no-frills game shop, where prices on used titles were updated weekly based strictly on supply and demand. The store stocked used stuff from every console generation. They either had what you wanted, or they didn't, and they could tell you right away.
Now they're all like GameStop. Obnoxious staff, limited tradeins to keep supply low and prices high, constant nagging to pre-order, stupid cardboard markups and advertising all over the place, and only current generation gear and games for sale.
The incentive from purchasing from GameStop or EBGames instead of buying online is rapidly aproaching zero. If Funcoland were still around, I'd still be broke.
I know it was automated. That's what I was saying.
but who gets to decide what the "spirit" of a bill is
Why, the courts, of course.
There are arguments to be made both for and against more specific language than "spirit." I can see merits on both sides.
My representative isn't so kind to justify my messages with an automated response, but I got the following from Senators Kerry and Kennedy last week:
---
September 27,
2005
[My home address edited out]
Dear Mr. Baboval:
Thank you for contacting me. I
appreciate that you took the time to write
and am glad to hear your concerns. Your
message has been forwarded to the
appropriate staff in my Senate office. I
take into account the correspondence my
office receives. However, due to the amount
of email we receive we are unable to respond
individually to each message.
Again, thank you for writing.
Sincerely,
John F. Kerry
United States Senator
----
Thank you for your message. Hearing from people like you is important because it allows me to better understand the constituents that I serve in the United States Senate.
As you can imagine, my office receives a great number of messages every day regarding a variety of issues - this is particularly true of e-mails. It makes me proud to know that my constituents take an active role in our government by corresponding with me, and I look forward to responding to your concerns in greater detail. In the meantime, I just wanted to let you know that your e-mail has been received, and to ask for your patience until I send you a more detailed response.
Again, thank you for writing. Please feel free to visit my website http://kennedy.senate.gov/ to follow my work in the Senate and to learn more about the services my office can provide to you.
Warmest regards
Ted Kennedy
----
That's why I typically both e-mail, and then send a hard copy through the USPS. I never use the canned text from some form letter (though I may use bits and pieces of it).
We need a constitutional amendment that disallows text in a law that doesn't fit the spirit of the law's title.
It would make for some amusing titles, and some great TV on CSPAN.
When you write to your representatives and senators, be sure to include the key point that the EFF leaves out:
These laws, when combined with the DMCA, take power away from congress and give it to anybody. Corporations, and individuals alike. Even if they're not US citizens or US based. Congress should reserve the power to grant rights for intellectual property creators for themselves, instead of giving a blank law-making check to content industries.
Make sure you tell your congresspeople that they are giving power reserved for them by the Constitution to whomever wants to wield it.
DVD+-R(W) is typically used for session writing. DVD-RAM is used for block writing. In an hour of using a DVD-RAM disc, you'll have done more than 100 'burns'. The amount of reliablility required for that kind of utilization is in a different league.
You wouldn't use DVD-RAM for the types of things you probably use DVD+R for.
It's not a matter of cost efficiency, it's a matter of reliability. Since DVD-RAM is typically used for block IO in a moment to moment reusable fashion, and DVD+/-RW is more for session writing, it doesn't matter that you'd save money. For the types things you'd use DVD-RAM for, DVD+R is useless.
As long as the drives exist, both Microsoft Windows and Intel based PCs will support both of these formats.
DVD-RAM *NEVER* required a cartridge. It was *ALWAYS* optional.
Even the drives allowed you to put the discs in either with, or without the cartridge. Nowadays, some drives only work without the cartridge.
The chance that your DVD-RAM disc works after you burn it is practically 100%. The chance that your DVD-RW or DVD+-R works after you burn it isn't even close.
Plus, when you throw a DVD-RAM drive in your machine, you access it as essentially a slow hard drive. DVD-R and DVD-RAM are different beasts for different tasks, and they both have their place.
And the worst part... They have degrees...
You don't need a degree to be qualified for a job, you need an education. Unfortunatly, it's more and more common that a degree doesn't necesscarily imply that you've been educated, nor does having obtained the knowledge imply that you've got a degree. This will become more and more true as schools realize that the sheets of paper they can print are essentially cash.
It's been true for a long time when it comes to high school diplomas, because if you fail a kid and don't give him the diploma either somebody doesn't get re-elected, or somebody gets sued for being a racist.
When you're looking for jobs to apply for, subtract 5 from the posted years of experience listed.
Of course, make sure you have the right skillset first, but if you can do the job, everything else is negotiable in the interview.
If there is a better alternative I would like to hear it, and by better I mean cheaper/faster/quicker to implement.
Use one card; interpolate the performance based on the specs of the next generation hardware.
Digital projectors these days are generally LCD or DLP, which don't scan the frame either.
SLI works well for game developers who are writing for next generation hardware.
Are you saying this from experience, or are you guessing? This doesn't seem accurate to me, since next generation hardware has additional features to go with the additional performance.
That sounds like the same story to me. Over a single DVI-D link, you can only push enough pixels to get 60Hz at 1600x1200. It has nothing to do with the card, it's the interconnect. If you want faster, you have to go to dual-link.
Who cares about this stuff other than the tiny portion of the population that will ever use it?
The whole point of this SLI stuff is marketing. It convinces people to buy a more expensive video card than they otherwise would have so that they can fool themselves into thinking they'll get a huge performance boost a few years down the line when they add a second card on the cheap.
In reality, when the second card comes down in price, the SLI configuration will be outclassed on the same order of magnitude as the single card alone by the latest stuff, and you'll just end up having to buy a whole new expensive card, or living with slow graphics.
So unless you've got a boatload of cash and are going to buy two top of the line cards *right now*, it really doesn't matter if either of these manufacturers SLI technology is any good. It's just a marketing gimmick.
60Hz is essentially the maximum you can achieve over DVI-D at 1600x1200.
[...] cryptography [...] cryptography [...] cryptography
See, there's your problem. Now I understand why you don't get it. Not everything you use a hash for is cryptography, or even security related. If you don't understand that, of course you won't understand what I'm saying. You need to understand this to see why you're so very, very wrong.
300% increase in network utilization? Umm, no. Not unless all you're sending is a constant stream of hashes.
I said 300% increase in overhead, not a 300% increase in utilization, however if you are familliar with the protocols I used as an example, you'd know that in the best case scenario, hashes are all you'd send over the network. Remember, hashes are used for a lot more than security.
Once again, these datacenters are running Windows on all their machines of course, otherwise this would have absolutely no point in this discussion...
Ever hear of a company called Egenera? They make very high density compute farms that run windows. They're not the only ones. So, yes. It is done. But you're the one who's pulling this windows requirement out of your ass.
Not in cryptography. A faster hash that has lots of collisions and can easily be 'fooled' is almost NEVER useful.
Yes I'm repeating myself, but it'll do you good. Many, if not most, of the uses of hash functions have nothing to do with security or cryptography.
You couldn't pry my PalmOS powerd phone out of my cold dead fingers.
If there is a God, and we get stuck with Windows Mobile and it's shitty user interface as the replacement for PalmOS, even Garnet, it's undeniable proof that God hates us.
Did you even read the article? The whole point is that Google pays the Mozilla Foundation and Opera to include Google in the browser, of course Mozilla doesn't pay Google.