Oh no! You mean I have to wait until Q3 to get my copy? Everyone's going to be high-level by then. (Even worse, they might get tired of the game.)
Hopefully the insanity will have died down in time for the Macintosh release.
It would be nice if companies actually started releasing Mac and PC versions simultaneously. I guess that would be too much to ask though, right? Oh well, back to my Alpha Centauri.
That free PCI card slot in my G3 suddenly became much more valuable. I wonder how many G4 chips I can afford?
I wonder if this can be integrated will with existing chips in a Macintosh computer via the Multiprocessing extension in Mac OS 9. Perhaps Mac OS X will make use of this great resource. Mmm... superserver!
I think Michael needs to change his formula. The scale seems a bit off.
He also mentions that there are about 45 TB of data on the web. In comparison, the Gnutella network contains about 1 TB of data, according to the statistics on my computer.
Granted, Gnutella is not the web, and there are many (large) files on it that are not found on the web. However, it is a relatively small network (compared to the Web), and I have a hard time believing it contains as much as 1/50th the data!
Also, since the Web grows exponentially, he could get way off very quickly, even though by my estimates it only grows a little faster than half a percent a day. It may even end up being faster than exponentially (ie. x^x).
All right, all right. I've read it now (thanks to the info that it contains a conventional zip file), and must say that it looks just like Java with some stuff from C++ (ie. namespaces), as well as some additional Microsoft-specific support. How useful.
Hey, Microsoft! Wake me up when you develop a real language!
Sure, it'll strengthen Java among those of us that have the desire to install the JVM and run Java apps on Windows. But the language's power isn't going to stem from us.
If Windows doesn't have more support for Java, then Java programs won't be popular among the masses of people that use out-of-the-box Microsoft Windows.
Although I suppose it would be possible to package programs with a JVM installer, this would only work for programs distributed via CD -- it would really confuse users to have to download and install the JVM first, and you know there could easily end up being 3 copies on the same computer. The distributed installer would have to be smart enough to allow full compatability without resulting in numerous copies of the JVM residing on the user's computer.
Hopefully, this language will crash and burn and Microsoft will jack up its Java support. Or, people could just start using Linux or Mac OS X.
Well, I haven't yet had time to read the C# info -- since it's nicely enclosed in a Windows executable, making it useless for we Mac folks. However, it seems to me that Microsoft is doing a good job of trying to alienate developers as much as possible. I still have no desire to pick up what seems to be a platform-specific version of Java, when I have the platform-independent Java -- which, I might add, seems to be gaining firmer ground.
On that note, though (no pun indended)... What is to become of Java now that Microsoft has its own version? Certainly other operating systems will continue to support it, particularly Solaris and Mac OS X, but will Java support be dropped from later versions of Windows and how badly will this hurt the language?
Although this discovery does seem to imply that birds would not have descended from dinosaurs, it does not eliminate the possibility of dinosaurs and birds having evolved from a common ancestory.
Finding more evidence of a bird/reptile crossover such as this one would actually seem to strengthen the possibility that birds and dinosaurs have common ancestry.
Unfortunately, that still doesn't explain the whole disappearance bit...
are really cool. This is the first time I've seen one put to great use. (Just think -- all this time a more efficient combustion engine has been within our reach, without making any serious modifications.)
Hopefully this engine will be made available soon at a reasonable price. Unlike other engines under development, this one uses known and existing technology, so it shouldn't be too expensive to implement.
Too bad there's not a genetic algorithm to improve code efficiency... or is there? We could run it one Linux, Gnome, Windows... (Okay, so that's probably going too far.)
I think that Gnome for the PDA will be considerably trimmed down, so that it will run quickly on a low-performance system (which is kinda required for PDAs).
It seems people are taking the "Gnome on a PDA" too literally... They're probably just using Gnome as a basic graphical environment and stripping out everything else.
Although I don't use a PDA, if I did, I would be looking forward to picking this up -- I've always liked the Gnome interface.
Really, how many C-based languages to we need to have? And how many of us are going to pick up a new, proprietary Microsoft langauage that's a lot like an existing language (developed by a less evil company), but will most certainly be partial to Windows?
I'm still all for Sun's Java, and to hell with J++, C#, and all of those other deformed Microsoft creations!
There's just something about proprietary Microsoft-developed Windows-centered languages that sends chills down my spine...
seem to be what is insecure here. It looks like this program executes a simple search just like Napster and Gnutella do, returning a list of filenames and the username (or IP) that provides them. This is kind of necessary in order to be able to download anything.
So it seems what this program looks for is anyone that is sharing copyrighted material based on a filename search (which we all know is, of course, the most thorough search algorithm). Unfortunately, the easiest solution would be to become a Napster/Gnutella leech and not share any files.
Although I've only read a little on how Gnutella works, it seems that if you reply to a query, than you forfeit your anonymity -- although I'm sure you could modify it to forge IPs. Of course, Napster doesn't really have anonymity to begin with.
Great... now everyone can jump on the MP3-hating bandwagon.
Actually, it seems to me as if a lot of the sources for Slashdot articles are companies and organizations themselves. There are also a number of links to "half-closed" sites like CNET that are really more closed media but incorporate many of the ideas of open media.
I think MP3 as a file format may slowly die out, but not because of its borderline legality or the current playback restrictions (ie. primarily only on a PC).
No, I think compressed digital music as a whole will slowly take over the industry, with the exception of few "old-format" CDs that will still be printed.
After a standard for packing encoded audio onto CDs is established, Sony and Co. will start supporting it on their home stereo systems, integrated with your CD player.
These home players will be able to tell the difference between a CD-Audio and CD-EA (Encoded Audio), and will be able to tell the difference between MP3 and other encoding standards.
With all this technology for digital music around, the recording industry will have to convert over to encoded music or be lost. You'll be able to purchase the songs you want individually at a reduced price -- either via the Internet, where you download the music, or at a music store, where your selections are burned in a matter of minutes in the format of your choice using quick, high-quality audio encoders and ultra-fast CD-R drives.
A great idea would be for new consoles to all support standard USB controllers. There's already a pretty good number of them, and then you could keep your favorite Ultra Programmable Speed Demon Dual Shock Gamer's Power Controller Plus and use it on all of your consoles!
Actually, although I don't know anything officially, it seems that PSX2 supports USB controllers.
...a real standard for MP3 audio encoded on a CD. It could even be based upon an existing standard (ie. ISO 9660), with some required heirarchial structure.
That way, we could have a real MP3 home audio player, rather than something that just seems to simplify what can already be done with a PC and some technical knowledge.
I would buy one, especially if they were available for car stereos. And you could even integrate it with a standard CD player!
This is very depressing. I happen to be an American Liberal Democrat. As a humor-loving ALD, however, I am quite upset that such other ALDs do indeed exist. I had always put faith in the belief that the American Conservative Republicans were primarily responsible for the lack of humor in America, but apparently this is not the case.
The next person to try to force their views of What Should Be on me is going to get hit with a Liberty and Freedom Stick.
This is just sad. Can't the PETA folks take a joke?
Of course, this does go along with the American policy of allowing companies with money and trademarks to do whatever they want whie the little guys (free speech, etc.) get crushed under the proverbial boot heel.
Corporations are already trying to run the legislature and control every aspect of our lives. They didn't care about the Internet until it turned into a money-making scheme.
Darn right! NPR has to be one of the best entertainment and information resources in existence. Now only if it were available on the Internet... Wait! It is! What's stopping them from taking over the world?
Hey! Under three pounds and around eight hours of battery life. And it'll run Linux! Now all it needs is the power of a desktop machine, and we'll all want them.
-- blueg3 thinks that coding on the beach with a laptop would be nice; that way he could get a tan or something --
I strongly agree, and think that this is a consequence of today's highly advanced medical technology. No longer are pesky genetic problems (tendency for diseases, congenital defects) a reason to die anymore.
Now, I'm not saying that I want all of those people that do have these problems to die -- that's just plain immoral. But we have to fact that because we no longer have to compete with each other for survival, then we're not going to evolve.
If we're not careful, these smart mice are going to just keep on evolving until they seize control of the world from we non-evolving humans. At least I'll be satisfied in knowing that all of these supersmart mice will be using Linux.:-)
This isn't proof of life outside earth. Just because there is water, or sugar, or amino acids out there in the clouds does not mean there is life -- just a lot of complex chemicals. What it means is that there is the possibility of life. If there were no sugars or water or amino acids, then there certainly couldn't be the complex chemicals necessary for life as we know it.
That's not true at all. At Earth's surface, the acceleration due to gravity for all objects (excluding air resistance and other such factors) is 1 g = 9.8 m/s^2 = 32 ft/s^2. It's called free fall because you're falling... freely. All objects that are falling freely at the same place will be accelerating at the same rate, and thus not be accelerating relative to one another.
If the acceleration on the trip down were 0 g, then a falling object would not speed up. If this were true, then the object would never fall. At the beginning, it's not falling, and if it doesn't speed up, it'll just stay there. Go learn some physics.
Actually, the new macs have both SCSI and IDE internally, allowing them to use either fast or cheap internal drives.
Also, the G4 is not a 128-bit processor, it is still 32-bit. The Velocity Engine, on the other hand, is 32-bit, although I haven't read up on how that is integrated with the rest of the system.
I personally don't like the clock speed argument, as I only have a 350 MHz G3, which many Intel users practially laugh at, even though it runs faster than most of their computers. But I would like to see a 500 MHz G4 upgrade to the iMacs to turn them into real powerhouses. (Of course, by that point I suppose you could just buy a G4.)
And some of the newer iMacs do come in Graphite, which is close enough to black for me.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
The answer is... forty-two!
Oh no! You mean I have to wait until Q3 to get my copy? Everyone's going to be high-level by then. (Even worse, they might get tired of the game.)
Hopefully the insanity will have died down in time for the Macintosh release.
It would be nice if companies actually started releasing Mac and PC versions simultaneously. I guess that would be too much to ask though, right? Oh well, back to my Alpha Centauri.
That free PCI card slot in my G3 suddenly became much more valuable. I wonder how many G4 chips I can afford?
I wonder if this can be integrated will with existing chips in a Macintosh computer via the Multiprocessing extension in Mac OS 9. Perhaps Mac OS X will make use of this great resource. Mmm... superserver!
I think Michael needs to change his formula. The scale seems a bit off.
He also mentions that there are about 45 TB of data on the web. In comparison, the Gnutella network contains about 1 TB of data, according to the statistics on my computer.
Granted, Gnutella is not the web, and there are many (large) files on it that are not found on the web. However, it is a relatively small network (compared to the Web), and I have a hard time believing it contains as much as 1/50th the data!
Also, since the Web grows exponentially, he could get way off very quickly, even though by my estimates it only grows a little faster than half a percent a day. It may even end up being faster than exponentially (ie. x^x).
All right, all right. I've read it now (thanks to the info that it contains a conventional zip file), and must say that it looks just like Java with some stuff from C++ (ie. namespaces), as well as some additional Microsoft-specific support. How useful.
Hey, Microsoft! Wake me up when you develop a real language!
Sure, it'll strengthen Java among those of us that have the desire to install the JVM and run Java apps on Windows. But the language's power isn't going to stem from us.
If Windows doesn't have more support for Java, then Java programs won't be popular among the masses of people that use out-of-the-box Microsoft Windows.
Although I suppose it would be possible to package programs with a JVM installer, this would only work for programs distributed via CD -- it would really confuse users to have to download and install the JVM first, and you know there could easily end up being 3 copies on the same computer. The distributed installer would have to be smart enough to allow full compatability without resulting in numerous copies of the JVM residing on the user's computer.
Hopefully, this language will crash and burn and Microsoft will jack up its Java support. Or, people could just start using Linux or Mac OS X.
Well, I haven't yet had time to read the C# info -- since it's nicely enclosed in a Windows executable, making it useless for we Mac folks. However, it seems to me that Microsoft is doing a good job of trying to alienate developers as much as possible. I still have no desire to pick up what seems to be a platform-specific version of Java, when I have the platform-independent Java -- which, I might add, seems to be gaining firmer ground.
On that note, though (no pun indended)... What is to become of Java now that Microsoft has its own version? Certainly other operating systems will continue to support it, particularly Solaris and Mac OS X, but will Java support be dropped from later versions of Windows and how badly will this hurt the language?
Although this discovery does seem to imply that birds would not have descended from dinosaurs, it does not eliminate the possibility of dinosaurs and birds having evolved from a common ancestory.
Finding more evidence of a bird/reptile crossover such as this one would actually seem to strengthen the possibility that birds and dinosaurs have common ancestry.
Unfortunately, that still doesn't explain the whole disappearance bit...
are really cool. This is the first time I've seen one put to great use. (Just think -- all this time a more efficient combustion engine has been within our reach, without making any serious modifications.)
Hopefully this engine will be made available soon at a reasonable price. Unlike other engines under development, this one uses known and existing technology, so it shouldn't be too expensive to implement.
Too bad there's not a genetic algorithm to improve code efficiency... or is there? We could run it one Linux, Gnome, Windows... (Okay, so that's probably going too far.)
I think that Gnome for the PDA will be considerably trimmed down, so that it will run quickly on a low-performance system (which is kinda required for PDAs).
It seems people are taking the "Gnome on a PDA" too literally... They're probably just using Gnome as a basic graphical environment and stripping out everything else.
Although I don't use a PDA, if I did, I would be looking forward to picking this up -- I've always liked the Gnome interface.
...than a mediocre college student.
Really, how many C-based languages to we need to have? And how many of us are going to pick up a new, proprietary Microsoft langauage that's a lot like an existing language (developed by a less evil company), but will most certainly be partial to Windows?
I'm still all for Sun's Java, and to hell with J++, C#, and all of those other deformed Microsoft creations!
There's just something about proprietary Microsoft-developed Windows-centered languages that sends chills down my spine...
seem to be what is insecure here. It looks like this program executes a simple search just like Napster and Gnutella do, returning a list of filenames and the username (or IP) that provides them. This is kind of necessary in order to be able to download anything.
So it seems what this program looks for is anyone that is sharing copyrighted material based on a filename search (which we all know is, of course, the most thorough search algorithm). Unfortunately, the easiest solution would be to become a Napster/Gnutella leech and not share any files.
Although I've only read a little on how Gnutella works, it seems that if you reply to a query, than you forfeit your anonymity -- although I'm sure you could modify it to forge IPs. Of course, Napster doesn't really have anonymity to begin with.
Great... now everyone can jump on the MP3-hating bandwagon.
Actually, it seems to me as if a lot of the sources for Slashdot articles are companies and organizations themselves. There are also a number of links to "half-closed" sites like CNET that are really more closed media but incorporate many of the ideas of open media.
I think MP3 as a file format may slowly die out, but not because of its borderline legality or the current playback restrictions (ie. primarily only on a PC).
No, I think compressed digital music as a whole will slowly take over the industry, with the exception of few "old-format" CDs that will still be printed.
After a standard for packing encoded audio onto CDs is established, Sony and Co. will start supporting it on their home stereo systems, integrated with your CD player.
These home players will be able to tell the difference between a CD-Audio and CD-EA (Encoded Audio), and will be able to tell the difference between MP3 and other encoding standards.
With all this technology for digital music around, the recording industry will have to convert over to encoded music or be lost. You'll be able to purchase the songs you want individually at a reduced price -- either via the Internet, where you download the music, or at a music store, where your selections are burned in a matter of minutes in the format of your choice using quick, high-quality audio encoders and ultra-fast CD-R drives.
How's that for a future?
A great idea would be for new consoles to all support standard USB controllers. There's already a pretty good number of them, and then you could keep your favorite Ultra Programmable Speed Demon Dual Shock Gamer's Power Controller Plus and use it on all of your consoles!
Actually, although I don't know anything officially, it seems that PSX2 supports USB controllers.
...a real standard for MP3 audio encoded on a CD. It could even be based upon an existing standard (ie. ISO 9660), with some required heirarchial structure.
That way, we could have a real MP3 home audio player, rather than something that just seems to simplify what can already be done with a PC and some technical knowledge.
I would buy one, especially if they were available for car stereos. And you could even integrate it with a standard CD player!
This is very depressing. I happen to be an American Liberal Democrat. As a humor-loving ALD, however, I am quite upset that such other ALDs do indeed exist. I had always put faith in the belief that the American Conservative Republicans were primarily responsible for the lack of humor in America, but apparently this is not the case.
The next person to try to force their views of What Should Be on me is going to get hit with a Liberty and Freedom Stick.
This is just sad. Can't the PETA folks take a joke?
Of course, this does go along with the American policy of allowing companies with money and trademarks to do whatever they want whie the little guys (free speech, etc.) get crushed under the proverbial boot heel.
Corporations are already trying to run the legislature and control every aspect of our lives. They didn't care about the Internet until it turned into a money-making scheme.
Give us our 'Net back!
Darn right! NPR has to be one of the best entertainment and information resources in existence. Now only if it were available on the Internet... Wait! It is! What's stopping them from taking over the world?
Hey! Under three pounds and around eight hours of battery life. And it'll run Linux! Now all it needs is the power of a desktop machine, and we'll all want them.
-- blueg3 thinks that coding on the beach with a laptop would be nice; that way he could get a tan or something --
a long-lost Martian swimming pool. So they like their water a little chilly...
I strongly agree, and think that this is a consequence of today's highly advanced medical technology. No longer are pesky genetic problems (tendency for diseases, congenital defects) a reason to die anymore.
Now, I'm not saying that I want all of those people that do have these problems to die -- that's just plain immoral. But we have to fact that because we no longer have to compete with each other for survival, then we're not going to evolve.
If we're not careful, these smart mice are going to just keep on evolving until they seize control of the world from we non-evolving humans. At least I'll be satisfied in knowing that all of these supersmart mice will be using Linux. :-)
This isn't proof of life outside earth. Just because there is water, or sugar, or amino acids out there in the clouds does not mean there is life -- just a lot of complex chemicals. What it means is that there is the possibility of life. If there were no sugars or water or amino acids, then there certainly couldn't be the complex chemicals necessary for life as we know it.
That's not true at all. At Earth's surface, the acceleration due to gravity for all objects (excluding air resistance and other such factors) is 1 g = 9.8 m/s^2 = 32 ft/s^2. It's called free fall because you're falling... freely. All objects that are falling freely at the same place will be accelerating at the same rate, and thus not be accelerating relative to one another.
If the acceleration on the trip down were 0 g, then a falling object would not speed up. If this were true, then the object would never fall. At the beginning, it's not falling, and if it doesn't speed up, it'll just stay there. Go learn some physics.
Actually, the new macs have both SCSI and IDE internally, allowing them to use either fast or cheap internal drives.
:-)
Also, the G4 is not a 128-bit processor, it is still 32-bit. The Velocity Engine, on the other hand, is 32-bit, although I haven't read up on how that is integrated with the rest of the system.
I personally don't like the clock speed argument, as I only have a 350 MHz G3, which many Intel users practially laugh at, even though it runs faster than most of their computers. But I would like to see a 500 MHz G4 upgrade to the iMacs to turn them into real powerhouses. (Of course, by that point I suppose you could just buy a G4.)
And some of the newer iMacs do come in Graphite, which is close enough to black for me.