I think that the point is that Wall Street *wants* a reliable OS that will work on commodity hardware, with a support structure. Intel has done a good job making x86 good enough, hardware wise, to rival the capabilities of lower-end RISC stuff. If the OS is similar to something they're using now, like "proprietary" Unixes, so much the better.
If it wasn't Linux, it could be BSD (again, with proper support). If neither of those, it'd be Solaris x86... if Sun had ever gotten a clue. In absence of the above, it could have eventually been Windows.
In any case, x86 would have won. Just be glad that this is good news in some respect against a total WinTel hegemony.
I know all these blow-hards in my community that have a need to pontificate about everything technology... they're all TOTALLY against MS and its agenda...
Why am I not surprised that none of them are on the list?
Re:Welcome to Russia !
on
SSSCA Hearing
·
· Score: 1
I urge you to vote against the SSSCA. What is your stance on this legislation?
Photocopiers were restricted in the Soviet Union. Not with software or chips, but via physical access - they did not want the rank and file freely copying literature, Western magazines, etc.
The SSSCA parallels this. Using software and/or chips, it'll be impossible for Americans to copy video, music, or to view content from other countries (for any purpose, including fair use), without explicit permission.
I currently use my computer to put music from CD's I purchased onto an MP3 player. I make custom music collections on CD for my own use. Under the SSSCA, I would no longer be able to use a current computer for these very legitimate purposes.
Ooops, meant to post an an AC. Well, the story is still true...
Best NYC taxi story...
on
ULTra Robo-Taxi
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
I moved to NYC in '95 for some schwank internet job, but I was broke, and had to live out in the stix with relatives. The only way to the big city was to take a private bus.
The private buses allow you to look down into taxicabs and see what's going on. I used to do this to amuse myself during a 90 minute commute.
One day, the passenger of a cab really grabs my attention. All I can see are her legs - amazing, shapely legs, ass in the air, and perched up against the front partition. This girlie is totally giving the cabbie a show - her hands are caressing her legs, and going in between.
The bus starts to creep a bit faster than the cab, and I loose the view of the chickie, but now I can see what the cab driver is doing. He's tugging ferociously at a laughably small penis. I mean, it was like the part of the balloon that sticks out from the knot after you tie it. I won't get into his nationality, and I hope his small endowment doesn't actually reflect on his people, but I don't look at many cabbies the same way anymore.
He must have felt my shock, because at that moment he looks up right into my eyes. I'm laughing - no, roaring, tears starting to form, full hysteria mirth. He hits the gas, and in morning rush hour traffic in manhattan, manages to weave, bob and put some distance between my bus and him. The last thing I see is the girlie getting roughly tossed by his sudden acceleration.
Moral: make sure your driver keeps both hands on the wheel:) True story, even if I did post as an AC, so as not to excite those PC folks out there.
Um, the UDP thing doesn't replace bnetd. You can't use it to play against other folks on the Internet (unless you're using VPNs, or some kind of tunnel that doesn't currently exist). Choice is still lost, unfortunately.
I got the same fucking email, it even has the same {WR655} tag at the bottom. Shit, they can't even figure out how to make it look like they're responding in a meaningful way.
Here's my exchange with Blizzard. I'll keep this going for as long as they'll talk to me.
To: kennyz.support Subject: RE: Bad decision on bnetd.org
Kennyz,
I understand that piracy exists; I'm certain that many people are playing pirated versions of your games both on battlenet and off of it.
I've read the faq. It states that:
"Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation for hobbyists."
This isn't true; *Blizzard* has spoiled this situation for hobbyists. All I know is that the pirates are still out there, still using effective keygen utilities that allow them to play on battlenet, but something that this LEGITIMATE user enjoyed has been shut down.
If Blizzard's actions had the most impact on pirates, I'd be more understanding (although I still wouldn't agree). The fact is that this action is affecting MANY legitimate customers, and likely, very few pirates.
I'm sure you've heard the old saying that copy protection actions negatively affect many more legitimate users than pirates. I think that it also applies to this invocation of the DMCA.
Blizzard is clearly more interested in asserting their rights under this unjust legislation, rather than tending to their loyal customers.
Thanks for listening.
jonathan hirschman
On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, kennyz.support wrote: > Hello. > > Certain programs have been developed that allow users to bypass Battle.net's CD-key-authentication process. Although these programs might have been made with good intentions, they directly promote software piracy by allowing users who have illegitimately obtained our games to play them as if they'd been legitimately purchased. Furthermore, because these programs allow access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers. Therefore, Blizzard has taken an aggressive stance opposing the use of these programs. > > Please take a moment to read through our FAQ regarding these issues at http://www.battle.net/support/emulationfaq.shtml if you have any questions or concerns about Blizzard's stance on software piracy. > > {WR655} > > Thank you for your email, > Kenny Z. > Technical Support > Blizzard Entertainment > PS. If you plan to reply to this message, please include all previous > messages between us. > > -----Original Message----- > To: sales@blizzard.com > Subject: Bad decision on bnetd.org > > > Sirs, > > Subject: bnetd.org, please reconsider > Dear Sirs, > > I am an enthusiastic owner of Starcraft; it is by far my favorite game, > pretty much ever. > > I started out with Starcraft thanks to a friend, who bought me a copy. We > had so much fun we both recently bought three more copies for our friends. > The key word here is "bought". I'd be happy to forward serial numbers if > you'd like. > > Although we often play on battlenet, we also often like to play on a > bnetd server that I host at home. Why? > > Well, Internet vagaries being what they are, we often find that some of us > can't connect to battlenet, or get latency problems. Sometimes we like to > avoid the legions of kiddies on the service, sometimes we like to have our > own contests. Sometimes its just for the somewhat different experience of > playing on a separate server. > > The bottom line is that, to a number of users, bnetd.org was adding > significant value to your software. By shutting them down, you have made > playing Starcraft much less enjoyable for me, and for four friends. As > someone who has strong feelings against the DMCA, you've used a bad law to > diminish my enjoyment of some excellent software. > > I guarantee that this situation will persuade some of our number to NOT > purchase Warcraft III. Certainly, I won't be purchasing it if this policy > stands. I advocate voting with one's pocketbook, and despite the fact that > I've already purchased better hardware so Warcraft III would have run at > its best, I'll be looking for a replacement for Blizzard games, present > and future purchases included. > > I ask you to please rescind you legal action against the bnetd team, as > they are only trying to help your business and make your games more > accessible to a wider variety of players in a more diverse and distributed > set of network scenarios. These folks toil without pay to ENHANCE your > games and my gaming experience with them. What is so bad about that? > > Thanks.
Motorola will be able to supply chips that understand both the old Dragonball instruction set, as well as the new ARM stuff. Think how Apple did the Powermac transition, it'll be the same.
Prediction: Microsoft introduces a platform, hardware and software, that will essentially block the user from doing many things that we take for granted. Sure, it'll essentially be a PC, but with crypto built into the hardware so that users can't work with "insecure" binaries. Or unauthorized ones, for that matter.
That last statement that Mundie makes in the news.com article is kind of chilling:
Yet the way we build computers, and the way that we now build services around those computers, hasn't really changed that much in the last 30 or 40 years. But it will need to. At a time when computers are starting to find their way into just about every aspect of our lives, we must build trust into these systems from the ground up.
What we're going to see is Microsoft collude with the hardware manufacturers to strip users of complete access to their own computers, in the name of "security". Hey, it worked for the US government time and time again...
Ok, its the goofiest thing I'll ever do, but I like this show so much I'd sign one. Anyone know where it is?
The first season, was, by far, the best season of science fiction on TV ever. The finale was awesome. And yes, things started sucking even at the beginning of season two... although it is still a great show.
When you add in Debian's slower development and release schedule, things get really tricky. The only way to release more quickly is to release a separate product, in essence forking from the main Debian distribution. We've seen this with every "derivative" distribution -Mandrake, Stormix, Corel. Looking down the road we saw Progeny Debian varying further and further from the Debian core, a path that didn't benefit customers, Debian, or Progeny.
This really irritates me. He's now saying that their original value proposition was faulty.Guess what? That's what people were *paying* for - Debian with a bit more ease and less idiosyncracies.
The real reason why Progeny never happened is because their distro was (IMO) unfinished crap. It couldn't compete with what others were charging for, and the support that they gave, IMO, wasn't worth spit. In fact, if you bought the "download" distro, they refused to give you an electronic version of their beloved manual.
Progeny, IMO, was criminal in its behavior towards its customers - first releasing a substandard distro, then orphaning it because no one wanted it.
This is getting totally out of hand. I want to be able to re-use my music, in the formats I want, at the encoding standards I want. This is like telling me I can't copy it to Minidisc.
The bottom line is that the current product is so undesirable that people will waste their time trying to find pirate versions with questionable encoding quality rather than buy it.
They should be putting their efforts into:
* Making the packaging worth owning
* Making the music worth buying
* Adding other features that are worth owning
Anyone with an ounce of business sense would realize that its cheaper to simply provide enough value to make piracy a non-issue.
I've read an early story that Trident is no longer going to work with
projects such as XFree86 in order to provide information so that said
developers can continue to support your hardware.
I can attest that XFree86 support was one of the reasons why my company
purchased two Sharp Actius notebooks a while back - they had a supported
chipset, made by Trident. We've also purchased other notebooks with alternate
graphic chipsets, but always machines that worked with XFree86.
Additionally, there are chipsets, such as the Kyro series, that are banned
from my company because they are _not_ supported.
I strongly urge you to reconsider this decision. We look forward to including
Trident-based products in our purchasing decisions in the future, with your
help.
Slashdot Mirror
Did anyone actually look at the page that this story links to?
The card is not MPEG related at all. It doesn't do compression or decompression.
It is a very high speed serial interface for high-end video applications. That is all.
I think that the point is that Wall Street *wants* a reliable OS that will work on commodity hardware, with a support structure. Intel has done a good job making x86 good enough, hardware wise, to rival the capabilities of lower-end RISC stuff. If the OS is similar to something they're using now, like "proprietary" Unixes, so much the better.
If it wasn't Linux, it could be BSD (again, with proper support). If neither of those, it'd be Solaris x86... if Sun had ever gotten a clue. In absence of the above, it could have eventually been Windows.
In any case, x86 would have won. Just be glad that this is good news in some respect against a total WinTel hegemony.
That's an assclown shitload of drives. What the hell are you doing with them? Or is that just what goes in the desktops at some megacorp?
I'd like to explore this, but I can't find anyone who sells them to end users (I've done quite a bit of google-ing, no dice). Any pointers?
Hmm.
I know all these blow-hards in my community that have a need to pontificate about everything technology... they're all TOTALLY against MS and its agenda...
Why am I not surprised that none of them are on the list?
I think some of us are awfully tempted :)
RE: SSSCA
Senator xxxxxx:
I urge you to vote against the SSSCA. What is your stance on this legislation?
Photocopiers were restricted in the Soviet Union. Not with software or chips, but via physical access - they did not want the rank and file freely copying literature, Western magazines, etc.
The SSSCA parallels this. Using software and/or chips, it'll be impossible for Americans to copy video, music, or to view content from other countries (for any purpose, including fair use), without explicit permission.
I currently use my computer to put music from CD's I purchased onto an MP3 player. I make custom music collections on CD for my own use. Under the SSSCA, I would no longer be able to use a current computer for these very legitimate purposes.
Thanks for listening.
xxxxxx
Guess it happens to best of us, moron.
Ooops, meant to post an an AC. Well, the story is still true...
I moved to NYC in '95 for some schwank internet job, but I was broke, and had to live out in the stix with relatives. The only way to the big city was to take a private bus.
:) True story, even if I did post as an AC, so as not to excite those PC folks out there.
The private buses allow you to look down into taxicabs and see what's going on. I used to do this to amuse myself during a 90 minute commute.
One day, the passenger of a cab really grabs my attention. All I can see are her legs - amazing, shapely legs, ass in the air, and perched up against the front partition. This girlie is totally giving the cabbie a show - her hands are caressing her legs, and going in between.
The bus starts to creep a bit faster than the cab, and I loose the view of the chickie, but now I can see what the cab driver is doing. He's tugging ferociously at a laughably small penis. I mean, it was like the part of the balloon that sticks out from the knot after you tie it. I won't get into his nationality, and I hope his small endowment doesn't actually reflect on his people, but I don't look at many cabbies the same way anymore.
He must have felt my shock, because at that moment he looks up right into my eyes. I'm laughing - no, roaring, tears starting to form, full hysteria mirth. He hits the gas, and in morning rush hour traffic in manhattan, manages to weave, bob and put some distance between my bus and him. The last thing I see is the girlie getting roughly tossed by his sudden acceleration.
Moral: make sure your driver keeps both hands on the wheel
Um, the UDP thing doesn't replace bnetd. You can't use it to play against other folks on the Internet (unless you're using VPNs, or some kind of tunnel that doesn't currently exist). Choice is still lost, unfortunately.
Blizzard is suck.
I got the same fucking email, it even has the same {WR655} tag at the bottom. Shit, they can't even figure out how to make it look like they're responding in a meaningful way.
Here's my exchange with Blizzard. I'll keep this going for as long as they'll talk to me.
To: kennyz.support
Subject: RE: Bad decision on bnetd.org
Kennyz,
I understand that piracy exists; I'm certain that many people are playing pirated versions of your games both on battlenet and off of it.
I've read the faq. It states that:
"Unfortunately, software pirates have spoiled this situation for hobbyists."
This isn't true; *Blizzard* has spoiled this situation for hobbyists. All I know is that the pirates are still out there, still using effective
keygen utilities that allow them to play on battlenet, but something that this LEGITIMATE user enjoyed has been shut down.
If Blizzard's actions had the most impact on pirates, I'd be more understanding (although I still wouldn't agree). The fact is that this
action is affecting MANY legitimate customers, and likely, very few pirates.
I'm sure you've heard the old saying that copy protection actions negatively affect many more legitimate users than pirates. I think that it
also applies to this invocation of the DMCA.
Blizzard is clearly more interested in asserting their rights under this unjust legislation, rather than tending to their loyal customers.
Thanks for listening.
jonathan hirschman
On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, kennyz.support wrote:
> Hello.
>
> Certain programs have been developed that allow users to bypass Battle.net's CD-key-authentication process. Although these programs might have been made with good intentions, they directly promote software piracy by allowing
users who have illegitimately obtained our games to play them as if they'd been legitimately purchased. Furthermore, because these programs allow access without a CD key, they render malicious users unaccountable, thereby
eliminating Blizzard's ability to protect legitimate consumers. Therefore, Blizzard has taken an aggressive stance opposing the use of these programs.
>
> Please take a moment to read through our FAQ regarding these issues at http://www.battle.net/support/emulationfaq.shtml if you have any questions or concerns about Blizzard's stance on software piracy.
>
> {WR655}
>
> Thank you for your email,
> Kenny Z.
> Technical Support
> Blizzard Entertainment
> PS. If you plan to reply to this message, please include all previous
> messages between us.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> To: sales@blizzard.com
> Subject: Bad decision on bnetd.org
>
>
> Sirs,
>
> Subject: bnetd.org, please reconsider
> Dear Sirs,
>
> I am an enthusiastic owner of Starcraft; it is by far my favorite game,
> pretty much ever.
>
> I started out with Starcraft thanks to a friend, who bought me a copy. We
> had so much fun we both recently bought three more copies for our friends.
> The key word here is "bought". I'd be happy to forward serial numbers if
> you'd like.
>
> Although we often play on battlenet, we also often like to play on a
> bnetd server that I host at home. Why?
>
> Well, Internet vagaries being what they are, we often find that some of us
> can't connect to battlenet, or get latency problems. Sometimes we like to
> avoid the legions of kiddies on the service, sometimes we like to have our
> own contests. Sometimes its just for the somewhat different experience of
> playing on a separate server.
>
> The bottom line is that, to a number of users, bnetd.org was adding
> significant value to your software. By shutting them down, you have made
> playing Starcraft much less enjoyable for me, and for four friends. As
> someone who has strong feelings against the DMCA, you've used a bad law to
> diminish my enjoyment of some excellent software.
>
> I guarantee that this situation will persuade some of our number to NOT
> purchase Warcraft III. Certainly, I won't be purchasing it if this policy
> stands. I advocate voting with one's pocketbook, and despite the fact that
> I've already purchased better hardware so Warcraft III would have run at
> its best, I'll be looking for a replacement for Blizzard games, present
> and future purchases included.
>
> I ask you to please rescind you legal action against the bnetd team, as
> they are only trying to help your business and make your games more
> accessible to a wider variety of players in a more diverse and distributed
> set of network scenarios. These folks toil without pay to ENHANCE your
> games and my gaming experience with them. What is so bad about that?
>
> Thanks.
TI's OMAP chip does this today. Yawwwn.
Info here...
Motorola will be able to supply chips that understand both the old Dragonball instruction set, as well as the new ARM stuff. Think how Apple did the Powermac transition, it'll be the same.
I would have expected to see some of the new glitz... perhaps this isn't as baked as Palm would like us to believe.
Prediction: Microsoft introduces a platform, hardware and software, that will essentially block the user from doing many things that we take for granted. Sure, it'll essentially be a PC, but with crypto built into the hardware so that users can't work with "insecure" binaries. Or unauthorized ones, for that matter.
That last statement that Mundie makes in the news.com article is kind of chilling:
Yet the way we build computers, and the way that we now build services around those computers, hasn't really changed that much in the last 30 or 40 years. But it will need to. At a time when computers are starting to find their way into just about every aspect of our lives, we must build trust into these systems from the ground up.
What we're going to see is Microsoft collude with the hardware manufacturers to strip users of complete access to their own computers, in the name of "security". Hey, it worked for the US government time and time again...
guess its time to pack up all those springboard carts :(
Over two years old. I had mine in November 1999. No SDMI, lots of 3rd party software, and it works great.
:)
Problem tho? VERY expensive compared to what's coming out now.
I'll keep mine a while
Can you actually buy this stuff? I searched the site and can't find any vendors.
Anyone here use it? Is it any good?
Ok, its the goofiest thing I'll ever do, but I like this show so much I'd sign one. Anyone know where it is?
The first season, was, by far, the best season of science fiction on TV ever. The finale was awesome. And yes, things started sucking even at the beginning of season two... although it is still a great show.
Man, this was absolutely the last show I liked, and now they're going to kill it.
Just who do they think their audience is, anyway? Maybe they should sex up the chicks and add a laugh track...
This really irritates me. He's now saying that their original value proposition was faulty.Guess what? That's what people were *paying* for - Debian with a bit more ease and less idiosyncracies.
The real reason why Progeny never happened is because their distro was (IMO) unfinished crap. It couldn't compete with what others were charging for, and the support that they gave, IMO, wasn't worth spit. In fact, if you bought the "download" distro, they refused to give you an electronic version of their beloved manual.
Progeny, IMO, was criminal in its behavior towards its customers - first releasing a substandard distro, then orphaning it because no one wanted it.
This is getting totally out of hand. I want to be able to re-use my music, in the formats I want, at the encoding standards I want. This is like telling me I can't copy it to Minidisc.
The bottom line is that the current product is so undesirable that people will waste their time trying to find pirate versions with questionable encoding quality rather than buy it.
They should be putting their efforts into:
* Making the packaging worth owning
* Making the music worth buying
* Adding other features that are worth owning
Anyone with an ounce of business sense would realize that its cheaper to simply provide enough value to make piracy a non-issue.
jonathan
Sirs,
I've read an early story that Trident is no longer going to work with projects such as XFree86 in order to provide information so that said developers can continue to support your hardware.
I can attest that XFree86 support was one of the reasons why my company purchased two Sharp Actius notebooks a while back - they had a supported chipset, made by Trident. We've also purchased other notebooks with alternate graphic chipsets, but always machines that worked with XFree86.
Additionally, there are chipsets, such as the Kyro series, that are banned from my company because they are _not_ supported.
I strongly urge you to reconsider this decision. We look forward to including Trident-based products in our purchasing decisions in the future, with your help.