I still have a cartridge for Atari 400/800/1200 of Jumpman Jr.
Hell, I still have my Atari 1200 and <ahem> tape drive that it came with. I used to play Jumpan Jr. all the time. And once I got that floppy drive, Zork I,II,III, Enchanter, Sorcerer, and just about all the old Infocom games.
I even remember punching in the hex code for Lunar Lander out of the back of a Compute! magazine and playing that...man, was I a geek.
One of the best things about Starflight was how they handled the code-wheel thing. Not that I enjoyed the code-wheel, just what the game did if you entered the wrong code: you could potentially play for a long time, then all of a sudden you're flying around in space and these space-cop ships surround you and you can't get away. It was really funny and showed (to me) a sense of humor in the designers.
It was like they were saying, "Look we know you don't have the code wheel, and that you're probably playing a copy of the game you got off a friend, so we'll let you play for a little while...but don't expect to beat the game." It was like trial-ware before the term existed.
Oh, and I loved how the little space-man would tap his foot if you just let him stand there at the space-port.
I'm perfectly clear on all that. Let's just stop pretending the reason there's no open source driver is because "their hands are tied" and all that because of some stupid legal agreement they have with other companies whose code is intermingled with theirs in the drivers.
nVidia: Oh, sorry...there's nothing we can do about it...it's not our fault...
Bullshit. There are no open source drivers because nVidia is profit-driven. I'm not making any fundamental judgement on whether that's good or bad. I'm just sick of hearing the bullshit about them having no choice.
They do...and they choose not to help open source developers make open source drivers. They have every right to make that choice...but puh-leez people...stop acting like they aren't making that choice.
It would be fun if nVidia open sourced the drivers so that you could look at them and port them to BeOS.
No, it would be fun if nVidia shared the details on their cards so others could write drivers and port them to whatever freaking OS they wanted.
I have an nVidia card and it is nice, but I think my next will be an ATI card because they have at least tried to be more cooperative with open source developers.
Check this quote from an October 20, 1999 ATI press release:
Recognizing the phenomenal growth and increasing popularity of Linux, ATI is committed to ensuring that the open source development community has access to technical development information on all its key components.
Hello, nVidia? This is Open Source calling. We want your specs.
D'oh! I hate it when that happens. Should've expected it, though. It is slashdot.
Now I went and complained to the FCC and they're probably thinking: what the F is this guy talking about? We freaking released a PDF and a TEXT file, too!
Seems to me like the FCC releasing docs in text, pdf, AND word format is just covering the bases and trying to be nice to the populace. And I went and accused them of nasty things...
Goddamnit...Now I need to send a retraction e-mail. For once I wish slashdot "editors" could really act like editors and get the freaking story right.
Hell, maybe MS's plan is to buy them and keep them funded and alive to prove to the courts they are interested in competition. Its just as likely.
Whew...good thing I didn't have any food or drink in my mouth when I read that or it would be all over my monitor and keyboard right now.
Just as likely? You must be joking. Perhaps trolling, I don't know. But the presumption that MS is interested in purchasing a competitor to use certain pieces of technology they own and KILL OFF THE REST is not far fetched at all. It happens.
And it doesn't matter that Borland isn't a "titan" anymore. Borland offers some really good products and have had compiler technology superior to Microsoft's own for... well, since I can remember.
The one thing I would definitely see getting the axe in the purchase is Kylix. And that would be too bad. It provides a nice transition for Delphi coders.
Yes...contents of my e-mail to the commissioner, every chairperson, and the webmaster:
Dear Chairman Powell et. al.:
Today I read an article proclaiming the FCC is requesting comments on whether the FCC should expand the unlicensed wireless spectrum.
I would like the opportunity to comment on this, but first I want to read the FCC's release. Unfortunately, I cannot do this. The release
( http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DOC-229400A1.doc )
is in a proprietary format that requires a proprietary piece of software that I do not own.
As a citizen, registered voter, and political activist, I find it unacceptable that my government would force me to purchase software from a proprietary software vendor in order to take part in the political process. Requiring the purchase of said software is equivalent to an
illegal taxation of the people and an illegal subsidy of a company *convicted* under the Sherman Act as an abusive monopoly.
Please cease releasing documents in proprietary formats that only serve to extend a criminal organization's monopoly control over the desktop
software market while simultaneously locking out citizens such as myself from participating in the political process.
I have tonnes of eBooks, including many from O'Reilly -- I haven't bothered reading them, because it's simply not a nice way to read large quantities of text.
I agree. Just look at all the text on slashdot...very unpleasant reading.
In addition, it is hard to see the cooperative effort working over a period of years in an environment in which hardware changes continually and software must be modified in response.
I guess that's why we're still on the 2.0 series kernel.
And another thing: Was it RMS that actually called the GPL "Viral" as DeLong suggests? I always attributed that label to Mundie...but I could be wrong.
Your comment is exactly the fallacy I'm talking about. It needs to stop. You couldn't be farther from the truth and you don't even know it. How sad is that?
And now, some quotes:
Corporations cannot exist without the permission of the people. The corporation's existence depends on a charter issued by a state government, a government elected by the people to act in the public interest. It follows inexorably that corporations are allowed to exist, first and foremost, to serve the public interest. - Ralph Estes, founder of
The Stakeholder Alliance
The first corporations, given license to operate in the 1600s, were strictly limited in scope and power by their charters. Corporations were kept on a very short leash right through the American Revolution and the early years of the new republic. When a corporation exceeded its powers or ceased to serve the public interest, its charter was revoked and its very right to exist was nullified. -
www.adbusters.org
If business people resist the notion of legal change, we can remind them that corporations exist only because laws allow them to exist. Without these laws, owners would be fully responsible for debts incurred and damages caused by their businesses. Because the public creates the law, corporations owe their existence as much to the public as they do to shareholders. They should have obligations to both. It simply makes no sense that society's most powerful citizens have no concern for the public good. - Excerpt from an article Published in the January/February 2002 issue of
Business Ethics: Corporate Social Responsibility Report
And here's an article that expresses itself fairly well.
I'm so sorry. You are educated stupid and can't compute a timecube.
Don't like the system? Think it's not fair? Figure out something better.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...
Drop the fallacy that a corporation's only reason for existence is to make a profit. The existence of corporations is a grant by the government for the intended purpose of benefiting society.
Drop the fallacy that a corporation is a "thing" in and of itself. A corporation is not a standalone entity. It is a group of people. It should not have the same rights under any law that individuals have. If "a corporation" does something illegal is there not a person committing a crime?
Ensure equal rights among all members of a corporation, not just the few fortunate enough to be on the board or have the disposable money to afford acquiring stock in the company.
Drop the silly notion that the decision-makers owe nothing to the employees.
Stop saying "it's not personal, it's business." It is very personal when you lay someone off. It is very personal when an employee works for years at a company, devotes much of their life to making the shareholders' lives better...then gets "replaced" with third-world labor because there are no labor laws there requiring decent living wages or otherwise prohibiting companies from employing children, slave labor, or doing things that harken back to a pre-union America.
Require all people on whom criminal charges are filed to utilize public defenders...or require high-profile, high-priced lawyers to forfeit large chunks of their blood money if they don't also provide similar services pro-bono to people who would otherwise be forced to use public defenders.
Et cetera...
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I disagree. Yes, legally as of this writing it is essentially the same thing...but that doesn't make it right.
A corporation is more than a "thing" owned by the shareholders. This is why the term "stakeholder" was invented. Employees, whether owning stock or not, are a part of the corporation and have individual rights...among them not to be fucked over by the greed of the board because they weren't lucky enough to have money to start out with.
What this corporate board is doing seems to me like if I bought a car, gave it to my son who worked his ass off and put his effort into repainting it, doing body work on it, and otherwise making it better, then me selling for scrap right out from under him...because, after all, I own it.
His investment in it, although not monetary, in my opinion counts for something: just like employees' investment in time, effort, etc., count for something. Just because the law says it doesn't, that doesn't make it an absolute truth.
...the obligatory "I saw this on FC four days ago" link
And second, it pisses me off that a company's board can legally screw the company and pay itself a bonus out of the remaining cash just before they fsck it to death.
What about all that reform the pols were droning on about after EnWorldRonCom?!
Not now...but once you're no longer a student and practicing law for some years you'll realize that if you're not the next Johnny Cochran the only career path is to try to become a judge or a politician...oops, same thing.
lawyers are humans like you and me. Some are assholes and some are hard-working honest people.
This may be so, but like with most things in life, the rule of 80/20 applies here. And I'm pretty sure it's 80% assholes.
GNU hard-liners will see this as a Bad Thing because the hard work of the Mach-developers is now being used in a non-Free product.
Well, they may see it that way, but who cares? Was Mach their product? Did they write it? If not, then they have no right to dictate what terms it must be licensed under. If the Mach developers had wanted to prohibit Apple from using Mach as a base for their non-Free product, they could have licensed it under different terms.
They didn't. GPL-purists need to get over it...and themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
I still have a cartridge for Atari 400/800/1200 of Jumpman Jr.
Hell, I still have my Atari 1200 and <ahem> tape drive that it came with. I used to play Jumpan Jr. all the time. And once I got that floppy drive, Zork I,II,III, Enchanter, Sorcerer, and just about all the old Infocom games.
I even remember punching in the hex code for Lunar Lander out of the back of a Compute! magazine and playing that...man, was I a geek.
One of the best things about Starflight was how they handled the code-wheel thing. Not that I enjoyed the code-wheel, just what the game did if you entered the wrong code: you could potentially play for a long time, then all of a sudden you're flying around in space and these space-cop ships surround you and you can't get away. It was really funny and showed (to me) a sense of humor in the designers.
It was like they were saying, "Look we know you don't have the code wheel, and that you're probably playing a copy of the game you got off a friend, so we'll let you play for a little while...but don't expect to beat the game." It was like trial-ware before the term existed.
Oh, and I loved how the little space-man would tap his foot if you just let him stand there at the space-port.
I'm perfectly clear on all that. Let's just stop pretending the reason there's no open source driver is because "their hands are tied" and all that because of some stupid legal agreement they have with other companies whose code is intermingled with theirs in the drivers.
nVidia: Oh, sorry...there's nothing we can do about it...it's not our fault...
Bullshit. There are no open source drivers because nVidia is profit-driven. I'm not making any fundamental judgement on whether that's good or bad. I'm just sick of hearing the bullshit about them having no choice.
They do...and they choose not to help open source developers make open source drivers. They have every right to make that choice...but puh-leez people...stop acting like they aren't making that choice.
I have an nVidia card and it is nice, but I think my next will be an ATI card because they have at least tried to be more cooperative with open source developers.
Check this quote from an October 20, 1999 ATI press release:Hello, nVidia? This is Open Source calling. We want your specs.
D'oh! I hate it when that happens. Should've expected it, though. It is slashdot.
Now I went and complained to the FCC and they're probably thinking: what the F is this guy talking about? We freaking released a PDF and a TEXT file, too!
Seems to me like the FCC releasing docs in text, pdf, AND word format is just covering the bases and trying to be nice to the populace. And I went and accused them of nasty things...
Goddamnit...Now I need to send a retraction e-mail. For once I wish slashdot "editors" could really act like editors and get the freaking story right.
I hate this place...I need to stop coming back.
Just as likely? You must be joking. Perhaps trolling, I don't know. But the presumption that MS is interested in purchasing a competitor to use certain pieces of technology they own and KILL OFF THE REST is not far fetched at all. It happens.
And it doesn't matter that Borland isn't a "titan" anymore. Borland offers some really good products and have had compiler technology superior to Microsoft's own for
The one thing I would definitely see getting the axe in the purchase is Kylix. And that would be too bad. It provides a nice transition for Delphi coders.
0.47 seconds
Yes...contents of my e-mail to the commissioner, every chairperson, and the webmaster:
/ DOC-229400A1.doc )
is in a proprietary format that requires a proprietary piece of software that I do not own.
Dear Chairman Powell et. al.:
Today I read an article proclaiming the FCC is requesting comments on whether the FCC should expand the unlicensed wireless spectrum.
I would like the opportunity to comment on this, but first I want to read the FCC's release. Unfortunately, I cannot do this. The release ( http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch
As a citizen, registered voter, and political activist, I find it unacceptable that my government would force me to purchase software from a proprietary software vendor in order to take part in the political process. Requiring the purchase of said software is equivalent to an illegal taxation of the people and an illegal subsidy of a company *convicted* under the Sherman Act as an abusive monopoly.
Please cease releasing documents in proprietary formats that only serve to extend a criminal organization's monopoly control over the desktop software market while simultaneously locking out citizens such as myself from participating in the political process.
Good day to you all,
-ME
And another thing: Was it RMS that actually called the GPL "Viral" as DeLong suggests? I always attributed that label to Mundie...but I could be wrong.
Your comment is exactly the fallacy I'm talking about. It needs to stop. You couldn't be farther from the truth and you don't even know it. How sad is that?
And now, some quotes: And here's an article that expresses itself fairly well.
I'm so sorry. You are educated stupid and can't compute a timecube.
- Drop the fallacy that a corporation's only reason for existence is to make a profit. The existence of corporations is a grant by the government for the intended purpose of benefiting society.
- Drop the fallacy that a corporation is a "thing" in and of itself. A corporation is not a standalone entity. It is a group of people. It should not have the same rights under any law that individuals have. If "a corporation" does something illegal is there not a person committing a crime?
- Ensure equal rights among all members of a corporation, not just the few fortunate enough to be on the board or have the disposable money to afford acquiring stock in the company.
- Drop the silly notion that the decision-makers owe nothing to the employees.
- Stop saying "it's not personal, it's business." It is very personal when you lay someone off. It is very personal when an employee works for years at a company, devotes much of their life to making the shareholders' lives better...then gets "replaced" with third-world labor because there are no labor laws there requiring decent living wages or otherwise prohibiting companies from employing children, slave labor, or doing things that harken back to a pre-union America.
- Require all people on whom criminal charges are filed to utilize public defenders...or require high-profile, high-priced lawyers to forfeit large chunks of their blood money if they don't also provide similar services pro-bono to people who would otherwise be forced to use public defenders.
- Et cetera...
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.I disagree. Yes, legally as of this writing it is essentially the same thing...but that doesn't make it right.
A corporation is more than a "thing" owned by the shareholders. This is why the term "stakeholder" was invented. Employees, whether owning stock or not, are a part of the corporation and have individual rights...among them not to be fucked over by the greed of the board because they weren't lucky enough to have money to start out with.
What this corporate board is doing seems to me like if I bought a car, gave it to my son who worked his ass off and put his effort into repainting it, doing body work on it, and otherwise making it better, then me selling for scrap right out from under him...because, after all, I own it.
His investment in it, although not monetary, in my opinion counts for something: just like employees' investment in time, effort, etc., count for something. Just because the law says it doesn't, that doesn't make it an absolute truth.
...the obligatory "I saw this on FC four days ago" link
And second, it pisses me off that a company's board can legally screw the company and pay itself a bonus out of the remaining cash just before they fsck it to death.
What about all that reform the pols were droning on about after EnWorldRonCom?!
Two comments:
I have no ambitions of becoming a politician.
Not now...but once you're no longer a student and practicing law for some years you'll realize that if you're not the next Johnny Cochran the only career path is to try to become a judge or a politician...oops, same thing.
lawyers are humans like you and me. Some are assholes and some are hard-working honest people.
This may be so, but like with most things in life, the rule of 80/20 applies here. And I'm pretty sure it's 80% assholes.
It has been my experience that the only people who are paid well in the Linux world are developers.
I can't wait until this tracking feature is a de facto standard. Then, all I have to do to disappear for a while is let a friend borrow my cell.
They didn't. GPL-purists need to get over it...and themselves.
No, no...featuring Jenna Jameson as the bisexual, pointy-nippled, dildo wielding heroine.