Hmmm... I guess that mean it makes a mistake about 1 in 8 times. I can see it now... you're at the airport getting ready to get on a plane...
Q. What is your name?
A. DCowern
*Ding!*
Q. What is your age?
A. 22
*Ding!*
Q. Are you carrying any drugs?
A. No.
*Ding!*
Q. Are you a member of a terrorist organization?
A. No.
*Ding!*
Q. Do you wish to do harm to anyone on this plane?
A. No.
*Ding!*
Q. Do you wish to attempt to hijack this plane?
A. No.
*Ding!*
Q. Should we have any reason not to let you on this plane?
A. No.
*Ding!*
Q. What is your favorite color?
A. Blue
*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!*
I meant red!!!
*sproing* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
This is one of the most obvious-yet-so-long-in-the-conception inventions I've seen. It really is brilliant. Air is a fluid (from an engineering standpoint) just like water. Why not fly through the water just like you do through the air. I especially liked the dirigible/plane analogy in the article. Brilliant work!
The purpose of this alliance is not to oppose DRM or copyright protection -- it's to oppose laws that mandate certain standards of protection. Basically, the heavy hitters are lining up and telling the govenrment that they don't want the Hollywood or the government telling them how to do their jobs.
That's why Microsoft, Apple, et al are involved. They have the opinion that they are better judges of what is/is not technologically feasible and appropriate than the government. This isn't at all about user rights.
This is analogous to me saying that I am against *thinks of controversial topic* laws regulating noncommercial sex between two consenting adults in a private place. I'm against this because I feel I'm a better judge of what's appropriate than the government. It's all about me; a heterosexual male. I'm not necessarily against it because it affects gay rights although it certainly does affect their rights. Now replace me with Apple, Microsoft, et. al., sex laws with copy protection laws, and the end user rights with gay rights. There's your analogy.
If you think terraforming is cool, find a way to halt desertification in Africa.
Now why would you want to go and do that? Just because we can do something doesn't mean its a good idea. The Earth is a dynamic geologic environment that is constantly changing. Parts of the planet are going to change to desert whether we like it or not. Just because the planet looks one way right now doesn't mean its the way it should look forever. Messing with these things causes more problems than they're worth.
A prime example of this is the Mississippi River. Many years ago (in the 1950's, I believe), the Army Corps of Engineeers *tips his hat to the poster above who observed the military isn't just a killing machine* realized that the Mississippi River was leaving its banks in New Orleans and was beginning to meander westward. They decided that since this would economically destroy New Orleans and most shipping in the South not to mention destroy hundreds of communities, they should attempt to halt the river's progression. It sounded like a great idea at the time and has even worked for about 50 years but now we're experiencing big problems because of it. The delta is degrading and there's salt water intrusion on the coastal fresh water marshes. On top of this, it looks like the river is finally winning again and has started moving around our barriers.
My point is that if we stop desertification in Africa, what consequences would there be? Mars is slightly different because its a (relatively speaking) homogenous environment. We WANT consequences (e.g. a lake here causes rain there or dryness here, etc.)
Mea Culpa. That's all I can say. I was running out the door and read the announce but didn't properly spellcheck or coherency-check my post.:-)
The point is that there are certain packages included in a "standard" install of Mandrake. Since these packages are installed on pretty much all Mandrake systems, they get the most attention from the Mandrake development team. More attention = more support for the community surrounding that specific project.
Now instead of the Mandrake corporation making these decisions, they've decided to let the average user make these decisions via Mandrake club. The thought is that the average user knows best what the average user wants and needs in a distrIbution.;-)
Mozillazine had a blurb about it. Here's the full text:
MOZILLA'S MO BETTA
[Mozilla.org Logo]
Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser in the world. But it's not the best. That title belongs to Mozilla, a volunteer-built browser that offers everything Explorer has going for it, plus a bunch of great features. Here are three reasons to switch. One: You can set a preference to prevent pop-up windows. Two: You can right-click on any banner ad and select a menu item that prevents the originating site from sending images to your browser. Three: You can open links as "tabs" that appear along the top of your browser window. Don't be fooled by the new Netscape 7.0. It lacks a built-in pop-up killer and will fire a barrage of AOL ads every chance that it gets.
Playboy, January 2003, p.36
This _has_ to be good for mainstream acceptance when such non-tech-oriented magazines like Playboy laud Mozilla so greatly. Maybe if other general living and style magazines adopt such a positive attitude, we'll see a surge in Mozilla adoption. Hey, maybe its wishful thinking but if nothing else, it's increasing awareness.
P.S. -- Consider this proof that I *DO* read the articles.:-P
Mandrake Linux actually has very good language support. Yes, the default is US English but you can install the distribution in Esperanto if you really wanted to (although the Esperanto translation isn't quite finished yet). You can check out the status of any of the (officially) supported languages here.
I'm not posting this to pick nits, I really like the way Mandrake does translations for their distribution. You can join the Mandrake translation mailing list if a language you know and can translate isn't supported. You can submit patches and make the distribution better for others who may not be able to do the translation themselves.
Yes, Mandrake is a for-profit company but there are many less-popular languages that it would be too cost-prohibitive for Mandrake to hire people to translate their tools into (Waloon, Tajik, Malay, or Tamil, anyone?). This effectively opens Linux to people in many areas where it would normally not be an option.
For example, being a former Soviet republic, I don't think Tajikistan has too much money to be spending on Federal IT infrastructure. Many of the Mandrake tools are fully translated into Tajik and most are at least half-way there. This gives their government access to a less expensive, more versatile operating system that can run on more different types of hardware and less expensive hardware.
A woman gives birth to an exact clone of herself. A couple years down the road, the child learns to speak and its first word is a cuss word. It turns out that the child is an EXACT replica of the mother except for the fact that it can only speak swear words. This drives the mother crazy and eventually she drives to a large canyon and pushes the child in. When she returns home, the police arrest her...
Then perhaps you can explain to me what that reasoning is, because I do not understand it.
Sure, look here. In a nutshell, a lot of the code in the drivers does not belong to nVidia. Instead it was written and contributed or licensed to nVidia under highly restrictive licensing. Therefore nVidia cannot release the source without each of the other parties' explicit permission.
You've got to give nVidia some credit. They do a hell of a job supporting the *nix community. Better than any other GPU manufacturer ever has -- ATI and 3dfx both included. Compared to most other manufacturer's complete lack of drivers, nVidia releases complete, stable drivers.
If you're really worried about your kernel being tainted,this article, mentioned earlier on Slashdot, talks about the changes the kernel team is making to prevent non-GPL binary drivers from tainting the kernel. I applaud the kernel team for making these changes and so long as nVidia follows the rules, I have absolutely no problem with using their binary-only drivers.
Welcome to the land of the free, now please step this way so we can get your name, address, telephone number, date of birth, social security number, current occupation, annual income, political allegiances, place of origin, ethnicity, financial history, medical history, criminal history, political beliefs, religious beliefs, shopping habits, list of friends and aquantences, sexual preferences, and a list of books you like to read. In addition, we would also ask that you be fingerprinted, submit to a retinal scan and a polygraph, give a blood sample, hair sample, handwriting sample, urine sample, and wear this GPS-enabled chip under the skin of your left arm after we stamp your barcode there.
In Soviet Russia, the records listen to YOU!
Sorry... I had to...:-) /me slinks back into dark corner
It's actually not their fault. IIRC, their driver code contains a lot of code from other companies that is copyrighted or under very restrictive licensing. This, unfortunately is very bad for people who would like to see the driver code fully released. It'll never happen without all the contributing corporations signing off on it. I support them because they do the best they can do to support the linux community. They also just happen to do it far better than any other GPU manufacturer ever has.
NVidia still hasn't realeased a set of drivers that work with the 2.5.x development kernel which, unfortunately, I must use day-to-day -- albeit on a non-production machine.
I won't criticize NVidia too harshly for distributing binary-only drivers -- I understand their reasoning and I accept it. I only wish that since we can't have the source, they'd support us developers with beta drivers that work with the 2.5 series kernel. It'd be nice to have an idea of what and how things will work in kernel-next.
Allow me to be the first to say WTF...
on
Google's new toys
·
· Score: 2
I never knew there was a Slashdot: Japan. Is this legit or some another cheap Japanese knockoff? (really, I'm just kidding... *flees*:-P)
In all seriousness... this is pretty neat. I never would have known that if I'd never tried their viewer. This is why google is the best. They're the only search engine that innovates. I just wonder when we'll be able to convince them to give us the source.:-)
They gave us their snail mail address. You remember what happened last time we got ahold of one of those. I wonder if Taco needs to get out of debt fast or refinance his home. Perhaps he needs a year's worth of cat food. #Grin#
The article states: They claim that, after analyzing the DVD, they found that its color balance was biased towards red.
Anyone have any ideas how this happened? It doesn't seem like it's one of those things that "just happens". It sounds to me like someone in the DVD production group seriously goofed and it was missed by the QA team. If that's the case, it's a pretty amazing oversight... I'd love to hear the opinions of those who know more about video production than I.
Wow... I remember the GIGANTIC PC Computing headline circa mid-1997 proclaiming "Windows at 500Mhz". It seemed so earth-shattering back then... half a gigahertz.:-P
Maybe now that DEC/Compaq/HP is EOLing them, we'll see some really cheap ones start popping up on eBay once PHBs decide they don't want unsupported boxen. I wouldn't mind adding one of these to my collection. Would make a pretty nice linux workstation.
I mean really... if you don't want them scanning your brain, don't let them! It's not like they can carry around a portable brain scanner and scan random people on the street. The equipment used is large and oftentimes requires the scanee to soak their head in electrolyte (basically salt water). Yes, I've had something similar done to me before.
If they say, "Well, we really want to scan your brain...", tell them it'll cost them. Charge them as much as you personally feel your brainwaves/intrests are worth.
Wow... I think I just camed up with a great new business model...
You know... reading this article made me laugh. It made me realize a logical contradiction that I myself and guilty of. Whenever Apple puts out a "new" product (e.g. the iPod or iMac) they are "innovators". Whenever Microsoft puts out a "new" product (e.g. XP MediaCenter Edition for MediaCenter PCs or the X-Box) they're the "evil empire" and obviously trying to crush all competition in that sector.
The funny thing is that no one accused Apple of trying to kill Creative with their iPod or trying to corner the home movie market with their DVD burning capabilities.
I know why Microsoft is treated the way they are... the recent article on the abismal losses in most of their business areas shows that they are using their monopolisitic powers in other sectors (office and OS) to buoy their newer sectors (entertainment) and thereby rent-seeking. I just think its funny as hell that Microsoft just can't get a break. I guess in the end it serves them right.:-)
BTW Linux doesn't use the bios once past the basic boot phase
The 2.4.x series might not but if you take a look at the 2.5.x development series, you'd be in for a surprise. One of the major changes apparent when you do a 'make yourfavoriteconfig' is that they're working on MAJOR changes in the way linux uses the BIOS.
The most apparent changes are getting PnP information from the BIOS ang getting ACPI and APM configurations from the BIOS. There are others that I can't remember off the top of my head right now -- I'm on a machine I'm not crazy enough to install 2.5 on;-)
While I don't really see the need for an open BIOS right now, we can't rule out the need for one in the future. Several people have already mentioned the DRM/Palladium dilemma. I think this is also an important step in paving the way to open hardware. While truly open hardware design is a way off, it's one of those nice things to dream about, whether or not it ever happens.
Slashdot Mirror
????!!???!!!! -- As in WTF????!!???!!!!
;-)
Oh.. wait.. I probably should have installed the Japanese language pack for Mozilla, huh?
Mentioned in this article.
Hmmm... I guess that mean it makes a mistake about 1 in 8 times. I can see it now... you're at the airport getting ready to get on a plane... Q. What is your name? A. DCowern *Ding!* Q. What is your age? A. 22 *Ding!* Q. Are you carrying any drugs? A. No. *Ding!* Q. Are you a member of a terrorist organization? A. No. *Ding!* Q. Do you wish to do harm to anyone on this plane? A. No. *Ding!* Q. Do you wish to attempt to hijack this plane? A. No. *Ding!* Q. Should we have any reason not to let you on this plane? A. No. *Ding!* Q. What is your favorite color? A. Blue *BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!* I meant red!!! *sproing* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
This is one of the most obvious-yet-so-long-in-the-conception inventions I've seen. It really is brilliant. Air is a fluid (from an engineering standpoint) just like water. Why not fly through the water just like you do through the air. I especially liked the dirigible/plane analogy in the article. Brilliant work!
The purpose of this alliance is not to oppose DRM or copyright protection -- it's to oppose laws that mandate certain standards of protection. Basically, the heavy hitters are lining up and telling the govenrment that they don't want the Hollywood or the government telling them how to do their jobs.
That's why Microsoft, Apple, et al are involved. They have the opinion that they are better judges of what is/is not technologically feasible and appropriate than the government. This isn't at all about user rights.
This is analogous to me saying that I am against *thinks of controversial topic* laws regulating noncommercial sex between two consenting adults in a private place. I'm against this because I feel I'm a better judge of what's appropriate than the government. It's all about me; a heterosexual male. I'm not necessarily against it because it affects gay rights although it certainly does affect their rights. Now replace me with Apple, Microsoft, et. al., sex laws with copy protection laws, and the end user rights with gay rights. There's your analogy.
If you think terraforming is cool, find a way to halt desertification in Africa.
Now why would you want to go and do that? Just because we can do something doesn't mean its a good idea. The Earth is a dynamic geologic environment that is constantly changing. Parts of the planet are going to change to desert whether we like it or not. Just because the planet looks one way right now doesn't mean its the way it should look forever. Messing with these things causes more problems than they're worth.
A prime example of this is the Mississippi River. Many years ago (in the 1950's, I believe), the Army Corps of Engineeers *tips his hat to the poster above who observed the military isn't just a killing machine* realized that the Mississippi River was leaving its banks in New Orleans and was beginning to meander westward. They decided that since this would economically destroy New Orleans and most shipping in the South not to mention destroy hundreds of communities, they should attempt to halt the river's progression. It sounded like a great idea at the time and has even worked for about 50 years but now we're experiencing big problems because of it. The delta is degrading and there's salt water intrusion on the coastal fresh water marshes. On top of this, it looks like the river is finally winning again and has started moving around our barriers.
My point is that if we stop desertification in Africa, what consequences would there be? Mars is slightly different because its a (relatively speaking) homogenous environment. We WANT consequences (e.g. a lake here causes rain there or dryness here, etc.)
Mea Culpa. That's all I can say. I was running out the door and read the announce but didn't properly spellcheck or coherency-check my post. :-)
The point is that there are certain packages included in a "standard" install of Mandrake. Since these packages are installed on pretty much all Mandrake systems, they get the most attention from the Mandrake development team. More attention = more support for the community surrounding that specific project.
Now instead of the Mandrake corporation making these decisions, they've decided to let the average user make these decisions via Mandrake club. The thought is that the average user knows best what the average user wants and needs in a distrIbution. ;-)
Mozillazine had a blurb about it. Here's the full text:
This _has_ to be good for mainstream acceptance when such non-tech-oriented magazines like Playboy laud Mozilla so greatly. Maybe if other general living and style magazines adopt such a positive attitude, we'll see a surge in Mozilla adoption. Hey, maybe its wishful thinking but if nothing else, it's increasing awareness.
P.S. -- Consider this proof that I *DO* read the articles. :-P
Mandrake Linux actually has very good language support. Yes, the default is US English but you can install the distribution in Esperanto if you really wanted to (although the Esperanto translation isn't quite finished yet). You can check out the status of any of the (officially) supported languages here.
I'm not posting this to pick nits, I really like the way Mandrake does translations for their distribution. You can join the Mandrake translation mailing list if a language you know and can translate isn't supported. You can submit patches and make the distribution better for others who may not be able to do the translation themselves.
Yes, Mandrake is a for-profit company but there are many less-popular languages that it would be too cost-prohibitive for Mandrake to hire people to translate their tools into (Waloon, Tajik, Malay, or Tamil, anyone?). This effectively opens Linux to people in many areas where it would normally not be an option.
For example, being a former Soviet republic, I don't think Tajikistan has too much money to be spending on Federal IT infrastructure. Many of the Mandrake tools are fully translated into Tajik and most are at least half-way there. This gives their government access to a less expensive, more versatile operating system that can run on more different types of hardware and less expensive hardware.
A woman gives birth to an exact clone of herself. A couple years down the road, the child learns to speak and its first word is a cuss word. It turns out that the child is an EXACT replica of the mother except for the fact that it can only speak swear words. This drives the mother crazy and eventually she drives to a large canyon and pushes the child in. When she returns home, the police arrest her...
For making obscene clone falls! Ba dum ching!
Then perhaps you can explain to me what that reasoning is, because I do not understand it.
Sure, look here. In a nutshell, a lot of the code in the drivers does not belong to nVidia. Instead it was written and contributed or licensed to nVidia under highly restrictive licensing. Therefore nVidia cannot release the source without each of the other parties' explicit permission.
You've got to give nVidia some credit. They do a hell of a job supporting the *nix community. Better than any other GPU manufacturer ever has -- ATI and 3dfx both included. Compared to most other manufacturer's complete lack of drivers, nVidia releases complete, stable drivers.
If you're really worried about your kernel being tainted,this article, mentioned earlier on Slashdot, talks about the changes the kernel team is making to prevent non-GPL binary drivers from tainting the kernel. I applaud the kernel team for making these changes and so long as nVidia follows the rules, I have absolutely no problem with using their binary-only drivers.
Welcome to the land of the free, now please step this way so we can get your name, address, telephone number, date of birth, social security number, current occupation, annual income, political allegiances, place of origin, ethnicity, financial history, medical history, criminal history, political beliefs, religious beliefs, shopping habits, list of friends and aquantences, sexual preferences, and a list of books you like to read. In addition, we would also ask that you be fingerprinted, submit to a retinal scan and a polygraph, give a blood sample, hair sample, handwriting sample, urine sample, and wear this GPS-enabled chip under the skin of your left arm after we stamp your barcode there.
In Soviet Russia, the records listen to YOU! :-)
/me slinks back into dark corner
Sorry... I had to...
You are my personal hero. :-) I'll take a look at these ASAP. Thanks for the info!
It's actually not their fault. IIRC, their driver code contains a lot of code from other companies that is copyrighted or under very restrictive licensing. This, unfortunately is very bad for people who would like to see the driver code fully released. It'll never happen without all the contributing corporations signing off on it. I support them because they do the best they can do to support the linux community. They also just happen to do it far better than any other GPU manufacturer ever has.
NVidia still hasn't realeased a set of drivers that work with the 2.5.x development kernel which, unfortunately, I must use day-to-day -- albeit on a non-production machine.
I won't criticize NVidia too harshly for distributing binary-only drivers -- I understand their reasoning and I accept it. I only wish that since we can't have the source, they'd support us developers with beta drivers that work with the 2.5 series kernel. It'd be nice to have an idea of what and how things will work in kernel-next.
I never knew there was a Slashdot: Japan. Is this legit or some another cheap Japanese knockoff? (really, I'm just kidding... *flees* :-P)
In all seriousness... this is pretty neat. I never would have known that if I'd never tried their viewer. This is why google is the best. They're the only search engine that innovates. I just wonder when we'll be able to convince them to give us the source. :-)
They gave us their snail mail address. You remember what happened last time we got ahold of one of those. I wonder if Taco needs to get out of debt fast or refinance his home. Perhaps he needs a year's worth of cat food. #Grin#
In all serious, congrats Taco!
My source disagrees. It looks more like 126 million... not thousand.
The article states: They claim that, after analyzing the DVD, they found that its color balance was biased towards red.
Anyone have any ideas how this happened? It doesn't seem like it's one of those things that "just happens". It sounds to me like someone in the DVD production group seriously goofed and it was missed by the QA team. If that's the case, it's a pretty amazing oversight... I'd love to hear the opinions of those who know more about video production than I.
Wow... I remember the GIGANTIC PC Computing headline circa mid-1997 proclaiming "Windows at 500Mhz". It seemed so earth-shattering back then... half a gigahertz. :-P
Maybe now that DEC/Compaq/HP is EOLing them, we'll see some really cheap ones start popping up on eBay once PHBs decide they don't want unsupported boxen. I wouldn't mind adding one of these to my collection. Would make a pretty nice linux workstation.
I mean really... if you don't want them scanning your brain, don't let them! It's not like they can carry around a portable brain scanner and scan random people on the street. The equipment used is large and oftentimes requires the scanee to soak their head in electrolyte (basically salt water). Yes, I've had something similar done to me before.
If they say, "Well, we really want to scan your brain...", tell them it'll cost them. Charge them as much as you personally feel your brainwaves/intrests are worth.
Wow... I think I just camed up with a great new business model...
1. Think
2. ???
3. Profit!!!
;-)
You know... reading this article made me laugh. It made me realize a logical contradiction that I myself and guilty of. Whenever Apple puts out a "new" product (e.g. the iPod or iMac) they are "innovators". Whenever Microsoft puts out a "new" product (e.g. XP MediaCenter Edition for MediaCenter PCs or the X-Box) they're the "evil empire" and obviously trying to crush all competition in that sector.
The funny thing is that no one accused Apple of trying to kill Creative with their iPod or trying to corner the home movie market with their DVD burning capabilities.
I know why Microsoft is treated the way they are... the recent article on the abismal losses in most of their business areas shows that they are using their monopolisitic powers in other sectors (office and OS) to buoy their newer sectors (entertainment) and thereby rent-seeking. I just think its funny as hell that Microsoft just can't get a break. I guess in the end it serves them right. :-)
BTW Linux doesn't use the bios once past the basic boot phase
The 2.4.x series might not but if you take a look at the 2.5.x development series, you'd be in for a surprise. One of the major changes apparent when you do a 'make yourfavoriteconfig' is that they're working on MAJOR changes in the way linux uses the BIOS.
The most apparent changes are getting PnP information from the BIOS ang getting ACPI and APM configurations from the BIOS. There are others that I can't remember off the top of my head right now -- I'm on a machine I'm not crazy enough to install 2.5 on ;-)
While I don't really see the need for an open BIOS right now, we can't rule out the need for one in the future. Several people have already mentioned the DRM/Palladium dilemma. I think this is also an important step in paving the way to open hardware. While truly open hardware design is a way off, it's one of those nice things to dream about, whether or not it ever happens.
It's a slow news day... ;-)
What are the specs on those babies? I donno but can you imagine a beow... Maybe it would've been better if /. was DoSed today. :-)