First, I want to give credit to Hemos for recognizing his bias. It would be nice to see more of this humility on Slashdot.
Second, however, is a question: how can any of us really judge the technical merits of Rambus RAM without owning it? Sure, there's the benchmarks, but relying on others is never a way to get accurate information (particularly in this crowd, that likes to do things on their own).
I understand the legality bs, but it would be nice to get some honest to goodness testimonials about Rambus RAM from actual owners.
to the ashes of a loved one, and can be deployed into low-Earth orbit
I'll pass. That's all I need, either my relative's ashes get burned a second time for good measure, or they go accidently careening into space shuttle Atlantis on its next voyage.
I can just imagine NASA calling up my insurance company or something...
Actually, Windows didn't "explode". A few pixels got out of alignment. And it was because I installed a video driver from an unverified source (it wasn't signed by Microsoft).
The system itself didn't crash. I could bring the system to sleep and back and it would realign the screen. But I didn't want to do that every few days.
As for X exploding, have you ever tried to mess around with the refresh rates in the XF86Config file? At least with Windows, it tells me if a refresh rate I'm attempting to use isn't safe, and if necessary, defaults to a 256 VGA screen (or even 16-colors in emergencies). X will let you run an evil refresh rate, and fry your monitor.
Trust me, it does happen in real life. I experimented with a 15 inch throwaway monitor on a 486 box. Do you have any idea what its like to hear your monitor *crackling*?
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Same here. The only time I've had to reboot Windows 2000 is because I installed some crap video drivers that fucked the screen. Rebooted, fixed the problem, and I haven't rebooted since.
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
But the same things can be said about the GUI, at least in terms of using the right tool for the task.
For example, on the command line, doing the copy operation you mentioned is easy. But what if I want to choose a few desparate files (for example, somepic.jpg athing.gif and foo.c from ten or so files. I think this is much easier to do in a GUI.
Likewise, I think it is simpler to drag a picture into a WYSIWYG HTML program, positioning it (although, having the code on hand is nice as well).
Further, when we start getting into larger icons that *all* contain thumbnails of pictures, miniature documents in thumbnails, miniature code in C++ programs, etc., it will be a lot easier to pick out "all the pictures with a red boat in them", and "all the documents that look like web pages with no extensions" and make file changes. The command line will lack here. (Look to Mac OS X and even Windows 2000 for examples of this "miniature view" of files beginning to take hold).
To each his own. I agree that *NIX makes a hell of a file server. People are idiots if they think a server needs a GUI. That's a waste of resources. Still, for workstation tasks a highly-customizable, highly object-oriented (not simply in the C++ sense, but designating files as actual "things" with properties relative to their picture/document/code classification) is best.
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Will this mean that stuff like the PCMCIA libraries will be moved out of the kernel area (regular sourceforge) and into the appropriate area? Sourceforce and anything hardware ought to be completely separate.
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
And since you have a low ID, that makes you the moderator of all things cool? Give me a break.
I'm sick and tired of these "old users" coming out of their graves to make a single post in a month and a half, decrying how Slashdot has gone to pot because of the new users.
If you don't like the new users, why don't you go out and form OldDot with the rest of your brethren?
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
There is a critical flaw in your logic argument. It is called "practicality".
Let's face it, no one has a legitimate need to view pornography or bomb making schematics or the formulas for illicit drugs.
Let's face it, no one has a legitimate need to watch "Friends."
But two of the three things you listed (bomb-making schematics and the formulas for drugs) have the real possiblity of killing the participent, or others around the participent. Viewing pornography perhaps doesn't hurt the viewer, but the person who is performing the pornography is often forced into the situation due to lack of money/lack of education about alternatives.
Watching Friends, while perhaps "mindwarping", will not kill you (unless, perchance, your TV blows up; or the roof caves in while you are sitting there watching it). There is a far greater chance that you will be killed by the other things.
That's why, at some small shred of a level, there's a reason for the laws against them. Independence doesn't just protect your personal rights, and also the rights of others from your actions.
Logicians seem to have this weird problem binding "truth" with "reality". This is not a signature, but an easily viewed argument considering the above guy's post, which was totally moronic.
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
I'm not saying that kids shouldn't be to see such movies. Hell, they can see all they want.
But I do think the parents should be informed about the nature of the entertainment being provided, before the child engages in it. Hannibal is one thing, because there is a fairly large amount of media attention towards it (I read a few reviews, including Roger Ebert's, that said "If this level of violence doesn't elicit an NC-17 rating, nothing will").
Unreal Tournament on the other hand, while revered by the gaming community, doesn't usually get any mass media attention.
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
I'm not sure, but I think you're wrong
on
GeekCorps v2.0
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· Score: 2
I know absolutely nothing about international politics, but wouldn't handing computers to the lesser nations give them more power to revolutionize their own governments? You have new communication which can yield to increased talk between dissident factions, leading to significant change. Plus, computers would put them in touch with members of other countries that can help/have been through their situations.
I'm not saying that computers are the end-all, but wouldn't anything help at this point?
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
I don't agree with the majority of this article, but I do believe the current rating systems on games is an absolute joke.
I recall going to purchase Unreal Tournament, a game with fanciful violence but a ton of blood just the same. Some kids simply took the game up to the cash register and bought it (the employee completely ignoring the M (17+) rating). When there was a parent involved, they simply plopped down their credit card at the cash register.
I even pointed out that the game had a good deal of blood and violence to one parent, who was buying it for a kid who looked around 10. "There's blood in this game?" she said. They don't show blood on the front of the box. I pointed out the M rating that was clearly stamped on the front. "Oh. I didn't even know what that meant".
More education has to be given to parents and even kids that M rated games should only be viewed by adults. Hell, can you imagine if 10-year olds across the nation were all watching Hannibal without their parents knowing its contents? Nightmare city.
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
I'm curious to see how blindness would be covered under something like this. Wired had that small piece on the handheld machine that converts text to braille under your fingertips (it looked like a small Edison wax drum), and of course there's always the option to have-the-computer-read-to-us.
But how would you convert a Powerpoint demonstration to one of these technologies? Or a gif with text in it? Can you?
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Kleinbottle.com is real. The structures that they sell aren't true klein bottles, but they're as close as you can come in three dimensions. Great gifts.
Yes, nothing says to your girlfriend "your sexy" like giving her a Klein bottle for Valentine's Day.
-------- Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
The guestbook includes some great email addresses of people who thought Bonzai Kitten was real, and proceded to taunt/racially discriminate against the webmaster, who is obviously not Chinese. They were also dumb enough to include their actual email addresses.
Many people missed, and Burg did not make clear, that I was talking about the *interface* to UNIX, not to UNIX itself, which I think is a work of genius and a masterpiece of elegant design.
Definitely. The command line for the average user is absolutely garbage. Why doesn't the Linux/FreeBSD community recognize its explosive growth for what it is: proliferation of decent GUI's like KDE2, Gnome and Eazel is causing the growth.
I have a professor who's been using Unix for some 20 years (he is the only one in our college with a Sparc on his desktop), and he prefers the GUI to the command line for most tasks. I installed RedHat on his laptop, just with the command line (he originally said this was fine) and he came back in a month asking for X-Windows.
Point is, neither the command line nor most GUIs are terribly intuitive. But GUIs, for the end user, make a hell of a lot more sense. Unix's underpinnings are great. Its current interface is absolute garbage.
We all know how IE and Netscape each have their foibles with the standards, but what about Konqueror? I've been using it lately and I think it's really good (especially for a non-IE/non-Netscape browser).
Considering how much people think I'm a Microsoft softie...
Hemos said: I've tried reaching both the U.S. and German branches: SuSE has yet to return a call placed to the U.S. office, and at the German branch it won't be business hours for a while. I've left that message at the SuSE American office, though, and will update with any confirmation/denial.
In other news, a water cooler replacement boy was laid off at Microsoft's headquaters in Redmond, WA.
Fervent had this to say: "I've tried reaching both Microsoft's main number and my personal red hot private line to Bill Gates. I've also tried to call his mother, but nap time at her nursing home won't be over for a while. I've left the message at Bill Gates's personal spa number, though, and will update with any confirmation/denial. This, of course, is a serious issue. Try to stay calm, people".
bet it still can't simulate realistic hair in real time;)
See Shenmue on Dreamcast, particularly on the Passport disc where you can zoom in close to the characters' faces. The game supports the best realtime skin and hair work I've seen (right now, beating the Playstation 2).
Slashdot Mirror
Second, however, is a question: how can any of us really judge the technical merits of Rambus RAM without owning it? Sure, there's the benchmarks, but relying on others is never a way to get accurate information (particularly in this crowd, that likes to do things on their own).
I understand the legality bs, but it would be nice to get some honest to goodness testimonials about Rambus RAM from actual owners.
I'll pass. That's all I need, either my relative's ashes get burned a second time for good measure, or they go accidently careening into space shuttle Atlantis on its next voyage.
I can just imagine NASA calling up my insurance company or something...
The system itself didn't crash. I could bring the system to sleep and back and it would realign the screen. But I didn't want to do that every few days.
As for X exploding, have you ever tried to mess around with the refresh rates in the XF86Config file? At least with Windows, it tells me if a refresh rate I'm attempting to use isn't safe, and if necessary, defaults to a 256 VGA screen (or even 16-colors in emergencies). X will let you run an evil refresh rate, and fry your monitor.
Trust me, it does happen in real life. I experimented with a 15 inch throwaway monitor on a 486 box. Do you have any idea what its like to hear your monitor *crackling*?
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Although to be honest, I think the computer cheats. He has a more sensitive keyboard than me. :)
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Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
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Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
For example, on the command line, doing the copy operation you mentioned is easy. But what if I want to choose a few desparate files (for example, somepic.jpg athing.gif and foo.c from ten or so files. I think this is much easier to do in a GUI.
Likewise, I think it is simpler to drag a picture into a WYSIWYG HTML program, positioning it (although, having the code on hand is nice as well).
Further, when we start getting into larger icons that *all* contain thumbnails of pictures, miniature documents in thumbnails, miniature code in C++ programs, etc., it will be a lot easier to pick out "all the pictures with a red boat in them", and "all the documents that look like web pages with no extensions" and make file changes. The command line will lack here. (Look to Mac OS X and even Windows 2000 for examples of this "miniature view" of files beginning to take hold).
To each his own. I agree that *NIX makes a hell of a file server. People are idiots if they think a server needs a GUI. That's a waste of resources. Still, for workstation tasks a highly-customizable, highly object-oriented (not simply in the C++ sense, but designating files as actual "things" with properties relative to their picture/document/code classification) is best.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Yup. Nothing better than playing a five-year old game way after its prime. Let's go search Freshmeat for Tron too!
Idiots.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
I'm sick and tired of these "old users" coming out of their graves to make a single post in a month and a half, decrying how Slashdot has gone to pot because of the new users.
If you don't like the new users, why don't you go out and form OldDot with the rest of your brethren?
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Let's face it, no one has a legitimate need to view pornography or bomb making schematics or the formulas for illicit drugs.
Let's face it, no one has a legitimate need to watch "Friends."
But two of the three things you listed (bomb-making schematics and the formulas for drugs) have the real possiblity of killing the participent, or others around the participent. Viewing pornography perhaps doesn't hurt the viewer, but the person who is performing the pornography is often forced into the situation due to lack of money/lack of education about alternatives.
Watching Friends, while perhaps "mindwarping", will not kill you (unless, perchance, your TV blows up; or the roof caves in while you are sitting there watching it). There is a far greater chance that you will be killed by the other things.
That's why, at some small shred of a level, there's a reason for the laws against them. Independence doesn't just protect your personal rights, and also the rights of others from your actions.
Logicians seem to have this weird problem binding "truth" with "reality". This is not a signature, but an easily viewed argument considering the above guy's post, which was totally moronic.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
But I do think the parents should be informed about the nature of the entertainment being provided, before the child engages in it. Hannibal is one thing, because there is a fairly large amount of media attention towards it (I read a few reviews, including Roger Ebert's, that said "If this level of violence doesn't elicit an NC-17 rating, nothing will").
Unreal Tournament on the other hand, while revered by the gaming community, doesn't usually get any mass media attention.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
I'm not saying that computers are the end-all, but wouldn't anything help at this point?
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
I recall going to purchase Unreal Tournament, a game with fanciful violence but a ton of blood just the same. Some kids simply took the game up to the cash register and bought it (the employee completely ignoring the M (17+) rating). When there was a parent involved, they simply plopped down their credit card at the cash register.
I even pointed out that the game had a good deal of blood and violence to one parent, who was buying it for a kid who looked around 10. "There's blood in this game?" she said. They don't show blood on the front of the box. I pointed out the M rating that was clearly stamped on the front. "Oh. I didn't even know what that meant".
More education has to be given to parents and even kids that M rated games should only be viewed by adults. Hell, can you imagine if 10-year olds across the nation were all watching Hannibal without their parents knowing its contents? Nightmare city.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
But how would you convert a Powerpoint demonstration to one of these technologies? Or a gif with text in it? Can you?
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Yes, nothing says to your girlfriend "your sexy" like giving her a Klein bottle for Valentine's Day.
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Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Sorry. Names in scientific fields, where the stakes for fame are so high, don't readily come to mind.
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Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
You can have some fun with these:
rburn@quad.com
MoldysMula@aol.com
lrp@lirponics.com
jm@fpwa.com
screed_2001@yahoo.com
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Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Hail Microsoft, once, and unfortunately now future, king.
Definitely. The command line for the average user is absolutely garbage. Why doesn't the Linux/FreeBSD community recognize its explosive growth for what it is: proliferation of decent GUI's like KDE2, Gnome and Eazel is causing the growth.
I have a professor who's been using Unix for some 20 years (he is the only one in our college with a Sparc on his desktop), and he prefers the GUI to the command line for most tasks. I installed RedHat on his laptop, just with the command line (he originally said this was fine) and he came back in a month asking for X-Windows.
Point is, neither the command line nor most GUIs are terribly intuitive. But GUIs, for the end user, make a hell of a lot more sense. Unix's underpinnings are great. Its current interface is absolute garbage.
We all know how IE and Netscape each have their foibles with the standards, but what about Konqueror? I've been using it lately and I think it's really good (especially for a non-IE/non-Netscape browser).
I own an older laptop in addition to a new one, and while the display is getting on, it displays Linux just fine.
Hemos said: I've tried reaching both the U.S. and German branches: SuSE has yet to return a call placed to the U.S. office, and at the German branch it won't be business hours for a while. I've left that message at the SuSE American office, though, and will update with any confirmation/denial.
In other news, a water cooler replacement boy was laid off at Microsoft's headquaters in Redmond, WA.
Fervent had this to say: "I've tried reaching both Microsoft's main number and my personal red hot private line to Bill Gates. I've also tried to call his mother, but nap time at her nursing home won't be over for a while. I've left the message at Bill Gates's personal spa number, though, and will update with any confirmation/denial. This, of course, is a serious issue. Try to stay calm, people".
Let's go New Jersey Devils! :)
See Shenmue on Dreamcast, particularly on the Passport disc where you can zoom in close to the characters' faces. The game supports the best realtime skin and hair work I've seen (right now, beating the Playstation 2).