"The obfuscated code example is not SCO's property," said Perens. "It was developed by the Lawrence Berkeley Lab in 1993, under funding of the US Government. The code was added to SCO's version of Unix in 1995 or 1996, he maintained. "SCO took (the BSD) source code, lost the attribution, and now believes it's theirs."
So what is an ISV ? I get the feeling this is important part of answering this question.
I assume an ISV is providing some sort of add on, plug in, control or whatever that is integrated into a Windows app using the MS IDE ?
So really you're asking what should we target ?
Well target everything. Build libraries. Use the prominent GUI libraries, Motif, QT, Gimp
Maybe this is not your question and you're developing an application in which case I don't see why you need a linux IDE. All you need is a framework that facilitates cross platform development. In this case look at WxWindows or fltk (fast light tool kit). For an example of FLTK see the Palm OS Emulator.
I think the thing about Otherland is that it's a different genre. I suspect that many hard core fantasy readers probably picked it up after Williams wrote it expecting another fantasy but It's more sci-fi or future tech than fantasy.
I found it a bit too long and containing a bit too much detail that dragged it out at times but I LOVE THE SUBJECT MATTER (I dream about writing and working in Virtual 3D environments) and think it's comparable with stuff written by Gibson or Banks. I would rate it as a must read in the Sci-fi future-tech genre.
I agree Tad is much better and shows an excellent level of diversity which I interpret as talent.
I think saying that he's out done Tolkien is going a bit far but I believe that MS&T is the best modern day fantasy I've read.
One of the best things about Williams is that really his books are in separate genre's so for one series you compare him with Tolkien but in another series you need to compare him with Gibson or Banks IMHO.
You can't compare Otherland with Wheel of Time (WoT). They are different genres.
If you want to make a comparison read Memory, Sorrow & Thorn (MS&T). I'd have to say that MS&T is the best series I've read. Here's why:
MS&T is a creative work in my view. It really get's your imagination going. It's like you're watching it in real life as you're reading. There is just something about it which makes it feel like it is a higher quality of writing rather than just an exercise in churning out novels.
While I really enjoyed WoT I think that Jordan has flogged it to death. While it's always a pity to reach the final book of a series you really enjoy; I think that's preferable to being bored to tears by it. The creativity of a writer has to be judged by what he writes and Jordon has only written one series and it just keeps going and going and going. In fact I'm beginning to feel the same way about Wot as I ended up feeling about Dune. I'd say that Jordon is a modern day Eddings whereas Tad is closer to Tolkien or Gibson.
Tad has produced three series of books that are quite different. I think this is a testimony to his creativity. Also as I said above I felt that the literary quality of MS&T was better than other things I was reading or had read in that genre at the time.
On the other hand I found that Otherland stretched my patience a bit. I really enjoyed it but part of that was because I have an interest in virtual 3D worlds but while it was good I think he wrote too much in order to get his ideas across (ie. I'd have to say he rambled a bit). However conceptually it was a joy to read.
So in summary. If you like fantasy then Memory, Sorrow & Thorn is a must read ! IMHO
Bullshit I missed the point of it. The fact is it's one of the dullest movies I've ever seen.
If it says anything about humanity then it's nothing very revealing and could be said in 1000th of the time with a hell of a lot more interest.
If it says anything about technology then it's nothing that's going to change the world.
If it says anything about space travel it's minimal.
I think the music has some merit and is about the only thing that holds it together. ie. the producer thought well if I attach a good score to this bit then people will either think it's saying something poignant, or is about to reveal something revoloutionary or.... BUT having said that after 33 years even the music is a bit old.
In the web site outlining the patent the references section lists: "iDNS--Internationalized Domain Name System, by Center for Internet Research(http://www.apng.org/ids/, Jan. 1998.". Actually the web address is incorrect and should be http://www.apng.org/idns/ so I wonder if that is just a typo on the web page OR in the actual patent. If it's in the actual patent then... doesn't the patent office at least check the references ?.
Anyway can someone explain to me how this referenced web site doesn't constitute prior art ?
I only quickly read the patent and the above reference but they seem to be presenting the same idea.
i.e. The http://www.apng.org/idns/ site suggests UTF-5 whereas the WALID patent suggests Unicode. See this site for a description of the two.
Well I just can't see how taking an existing idea which is clearly still in draft and changing one small aspect of it (ie. the encoding UTF-8 instead of UTF-5) can constitute a new idea. What the hell is the US Patent system doing to free trade if stuff like this is going on ?
Actually I've just been re-reading about Unicode aka UTF-8 & Co and it seems that UTF-5 is actually oneof the unicode formats. In this case how is specifying a patent that specifies "Unicode" all that different from specifying the same idea with one of the particular implementations of Unicode (ie. UTF-5) ?
Anyway given the large number of comments already and the fact that I only get posted at Score:1 I don't expect too many people to read this but I'd be interested in a comment from someone a bit more clued in to this than I am.
These arragant parasitic bastards should be closed down. They are just screwing with the general public's interests.
I expect this has nothing to do with the effectiveness of Napster's filtering but more to do with the realisation that even though their action has limited Napster's popularity there is still a lot of stuff out their that is outside the direct control of the RIAA.
Further their current action hasn't yet managed to put Napster out of business which means when they develop their own file sharing software they're still going to have to compete with Napster. The RIAA should really be required to shed more light on it's motives and make commitments that it is not trying to create a lot of FUD so that it can step into the same position in the future. It's one thing to prtotect one's legal copyright but these guys really seem to be in a conflict of interest situation here and they need to be required to make greater disclosure of their intended future actions. Further if, in the future, hindsight shows that they have not been truthful in their actual intent then they should be charged with contempt and crucified.
This is one area in which I hope Napster and other anti RIAA parties have some seriously restrictive patents in place so that these bastards can't just wipe out a company so that they can effectively steal it's business.
Aren't the RIAA really doing the same thing that Microsoft was being grilled for doing ?
In Autralia my brother has had download rates of 3.8Mb/s for FTP from Optus cable. I can't comment on ASDL yet.
Admittedly that was from an Optus cache of the aarnet archives but it's still a good indication of the top limit. (He was downloading a RedHat distro about 3 hours after it had been uploaded to the aarnet site).
His download tests from his city office to his home office were about 2Mb/s for FTP which I thought was a good test since his city office (being small) was unlikely to be cached by Optus (at least the first time).
I think his average to site OS particularly the USA is a bit under 200Kb/s which is due to the limited bandwidth between Australia and the USA.
I can't comment on Telstra's actual bandwidth but their figures are probably hard to guage because they have so many different plans where they try and limit the bandwidth one way or the other. i.e. All the practices you can expect from a company that basically has a monopoly.
Re:Console factionism (a bit offtopic, but hey...)
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Oh and DirectX is really open. Why don't they develop a system that uses OpenGL if they're really acting altruistically ?
Sorry but the implication that MS are in some way interested in the good of the console market is so stupid that I just can't ignore it.
Secondly Genius 2 above that claims that the whole argument is about hype and that the hype is good has lost it big time.
The reason people debate these things is because of fear that their favorite console will be wiped out. If that's what you fear then you'd be an idiot to look forward to MS entering the market because their goal will be to wipe out your favorite console and probably also to make their own console so difficult to use that console games in general lose their appeal.
There are some people that get wet thinking about the technology alone. Now all those poor Sega uses are either regretting their purchases or cursing Nintendo & Sony for being more successful. The reason Sony are more successful has nothing to do with better technology. The other guy was basically right all console's are pretty similar but it has everything to do with other factors. Some of these are:
a) PS uses CD's. Even though they have proprietry stuff on them they are still basically the same thing that everyone knows. Nintendo's cartridges do not have that appeal (although the cartridges do load faster).
b) There are so many games for the PS it's fantastic !! When games get old they don;t disapear they get cheaper... even more fantastic !
c) In terms of Sega. They were just too small. Not enough games. People want a console that has lot's of different types of games. Sony realise this so they made the PS2 backward compatible (pity the arrogant bastards didn't make the controllers, multitaps and memory cards backward compatible too).
Point b) is the clincher and anyone who thinks that the market will be better with developers spreading their efforts over more platforms really hasn't thought this through very much.
Finally I just don't know how anyone can believe the market will be better because of the entrance of a rabid monopolist.
If MS are successful enough in the console market to remain in it then in time the market WILL suffer. Don't flame me !!! write down that comment and flame me in 10 - 15 years if it hasn't come true.
I Hope MS don't f--k things up and random stuff
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I'm pretty happy with teh current console market and I'm afraid that anyone who maintains that the market will be better with MS involved has rocks in their head. There is no historical evidence whatsoever to support this assertion.
Personally I have a PS. They're fantastic they are cheap.. even in Australia where our dollar is doing a MIR, there are more games than you can poke a stick at, Initial game releases are not any more expensive than on any other platform and once they've been around for a while the platinum scheme produces lower prices.
I use a PC all day and the best thing about my console is that I put in the game and turn it on. When I'm finished I just turn it off.
AFAICT the only benefit of a PC for gaming at present is the comms. I can't wait to get online with my playstation and I don't care if it never becomes a receiver for other types of entertainment.
One of the problems with emerging technologies is that everyone seems to get tunnel vision. Just because an online console could theoretically be used for other online entertainment there is no reason it should and plenty of reasons that it shouldn't.
The concept of one box to to do everything is a PC paradigm and it's stupid. Imagine not being able to put the console in another room because it's also the Cable TV decoder or the DVD player or the family email/web device... doh !!!!
IMHO the holy grail of future tech should and hopefully will be connectivity and common interfaces so that you can use small different systems that together give you a larger system. If they communicate with each other there will be advantages.
OK. Is this really the same topic I started with with ? Well.... show me evidence that MS have EVER been interested in developing products that will work with other people's products. And don't bother talking to me about technologies that aren't really here yet or in wide use yet.
Basically MS is so blindly monopolistic they don't even see it and ANYTHING they do has the longer term goal of tying people to their platforms only and destroying any competition.
What's more MS will never make the console simple. If they gain control of the market then in 15 years we'll have consoles that ressemble current PC's rather than consoles ie. wait 15 minutes for MS Console 2010 to load up. Install a 3rd party game (non MS) damn it's not compatible with the latest upgrade of NTC2010, or the system is locking up... oh well better reinstall the OS again....
OK I'm not saying that the PS is an open standard or anything as stupid. BUT just that if MS are successful in getting into consoles then in 20 years the console market will either be dead OR they'll be so complicated that people will just end up using the equivalent of today's PC.
As a final note. I here a number of people fawning over MS entrance into the console market and suggesting that the current market is monopolistic and that MS will break that up and make it better. NOW most of the people that I know who talk like DO NOT HAVE A CONSOLE. IMO they are morons and should keep their mouths closed until they are actually involved with consoles in some way and can talk with real facts & experience behind them.
There was one that was even better (old & similar though) but I can't remember it's name... ran on the System 80. I think it was called ????? Pilot. Anyone got any ideas ? Had crap block graphics but it was great.
The only things I've played as much since then are Ultima and Tomb Raider (& after about a dozen levels TR get's pretty boring).
Why does the data being transferred have to be illegal. Maybe it's legal ! This could be a great way of reducing bandwidth. Bad luck about the storage required to hold all the digits of PI.
ie. instead of shipping products new customers just log into your web site and are given two numbers. The system to extract the appropriate code from PI is embedded in the OS and will automagically extract the digits, convert them and write to them disk.
Hey why even write them to disk. Maybe in the year 2020AD all computers have a memory chip embedded with PI and when you execute a programme it's extracted and executed on the fly... bring on the quantum computer.
Imagine this invention in the year 2090AD. Some new genius has significantly increased the speed of his computer by storing executables in memory (i.e. Hard disks are defunct by then) in binary form. The programmes can be executed directly without any conversion. The worlds biggest central processing center (Microsoft Central Systems) has shown great interest in this invention. An MS CS spokesman said that using this technique could save millions of dollars in processing time.
Give me an.mp3 file and I will write an algorithm (for that particular.mp3 file) which gives you the beginning of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Firstly. This would be really cool because hasn't the copyright on Shakespeare expired ?:)
Secondly, go on then show me. Use any Metallica song you like (just for the sake of controversy). I assume it will be as easy a conversion as Carmody's prime number.
I could just as easily write a program that takes a css'd copy of Titanic and "unencrypt" it into The Right Stuff.
Perhaps you're getting a bit carried away with the ease of this.
It's seems a bit strange to me that one of your company's clients wants a tool that fits your project exactly but that the project in question has no reseemblance to the development you do for your employer.
Firstly, are you sure you didn't get the idea for the project because it is an extension of other products or ideas that you deal with at work ?
For example. If you are working for a company developing x and you decide "hey, I'm going to develop x using Java instead of C and allow use via a browser or across multiple platforms... "
OR maybe
"... x has these advantages I think I see a new market here for (x+1)/2. I think I'll develop it at home and make some money out of it..."
Secondly I assume that the potential clients you have in mind are not connected in any way past or present with your current employer. Tell me this is true.
My personal view is that if your home project in any way ressembles your employers Or your contact with your potential (private) clients is as a result of you working for your current employer then you are on extremely shaky ground.
In fact I actually think that if your home project can in some way be viewed as a natural extension of existing products or ideas and you are convinced that these extensions will be profitable then in that case you would be an untrustworthy, deceitful, thieving parasite and I wouldn't want you working for any company that I owned.
I say this because anyone can write code. The biggest problem is getting the initial ideas and if the ideas you have are generated as a result of working for someone then in my view the ideas are not yours and one would have to question whether you would have even had the ideas if you weren't working for the employer in question.
If indeed the ideas are your own and your product is nearing completion then I think you had better notify your employers immediately that you've already done what is required but that they can't have it. Otherwise in the future they may claim that you only developed the product because it was requested by a client.
In fact you may have to leave the company in question because you now have a conflict of interest.
The article in the Moscow Times mentioned below says this:
"One of the most trumpeted features... is chatting with other users. Coverage is 50 meters indoors and 100 meters outside, but through a so-called "daisy chain," users can connect to each other over much longer distances."
The article I read in the Australian suggested that the "daisy chain" would work for up to 10 hops.
I have a Palm IIIxe myself and love it but at the same time I think this unit has heaps of potential.
However I note that you actually have one of each whereas I only have a Palm at the moment.
One of the factors that I believe helps the Palm (at least in the tech community) is the availability of the SDK compatible with GCC. I've done some writing for the Palm myself and this is definitely a factor which appeals to me.
The Moscow page indicated above, and the article I originally read in the Australian indicated that it appeals to kids because that's the way they are marketing it. Originally they planned it for the 20+ age group competing with the raft of PDAs currently available. They decided they would have better initial success with kids.
I think it's shortcomings are well highlighted by LordEq (User #63011) above... good post !
The free Linux SDK really opens up it's potential. Lets face it if memory is the only draw back (OK the screen is even smaller than a Palm's) then you can always expand it. If technically savvy programmers get hold of this who knows what will be developed for it in the future and who it will end up appealing to. It could be the next best seller on ThinkGeek. Come to think of it I wonder why they don't already stock it ?
Now regarding what's a toy. One of my workmates bought a Palm for his son... now I womnder what he does with his ? I can tell you games are high on the list. And if the only thing separating a toy from an organiser is a diary, address book and notepad then I'd say that Palm better watch out.
In my view one of the things that will really limit the Cybiko (apart from no touch screen, graffiti, small memory, and less robust construction) is that the RF won't allow people to use the internet on the road until someone deploys RF access points and that will take a huge committment in both faith and money. Still who knows what some clever hacker will come up with once they get hold of the SDK.
I am surprised that at a brief scan no replies to this posting appear to take it to it's logical (at least to me) conclusion.
Surely nobody would actually implement an interface that required you to wave your arms in the air ?.... I mean what is really the point ? Surely this is just one step closer to being able to intercept, translate and enact neural signals straight from the brain.
Now that's something I can't wait for. I just hope that we begin to get neural interfaces in my lifetime.
Ah just imagine what other developments would flow from that development.... "... what do you mean I'm a big fat idiot ? I didn't say that !... That's beside the point the point... and stay out of my thought's in future... "
People who live in glass houses.... well you know the line.
If you know so much about Qmail you would know that INSTALL.vsm and INSTALL.maildir which come with the qmail source have something to say about this. What in fact they have to say is this:
(INSTALL.vsm)
"UNIX has traditionally delivered mail into a central spool directory,/var/spool/mail....
* It's slow....
* It's insecure...."
(INSTALL.maildir)
"This file points out some reasons that you might want to switch from mbox format to a new format, maildir.
1. The trouble with mbox
The mbox format... is inherently unreliable....
Other formats, such as mh folders, are just as unreliable.
qmail supports maildir, a crashproof format for incoming mail messages.
maildir is fast and easy for MUAs to use. Even better, maildir works wonders over NFS...
I don't want to cram maildir down people's throats, so it's not the default. Nevertheless, I encourage you to start asking for maildir versions of your favorite MUAs, and to switch over to maildir as soon as you can."
SO !.... before you flame people for apparently not getting their facts right at least make sure you're on more solid ground yourself.
NOTE: I do not claim that the above extracts are true, merely that they exist and clearly indicate as suggested by the initial post that qmail does encourage use of maildir rather than mbox.
In fact it is because of the documentation with qmail that I use maildir in our offices although I use mailbox (qmail's version of mbox) at home.
Having experience with both formats and being a Linux user I prefer maildir because I like the way it keeps all my messages separately.
However at work where all our clients are windows users they wouldn't know the difference and wouldn't care as long as they get their email. I use the maildir format in this environment because of the claims of reliability.
I don't believe that it valid to compare a footballer's ownership of a football with a players ownership of their character.
For a start a player's character is often a manefestation of themselves, maybe not in reality but at least in their imagination.
A footballer can be considered an employee whereas a game player is a freelance contributer within a community. They are not employees and as such do not produce their characters out of obligation to the game providers. They freely participate and their characters are as much a product of their own creativity as an artists drawings IMO.
I think that one's ownership of their 'avatar' is vitally important because clearly we are probably not going to be spending less time online as time progresses and very likely our existences on the net will more and more be represented by characters that we have created.
I think there are a lot of other ideas around this but my basic thought is that player characters are a manefestation of themeselves and a game provider should own the character no more than they own the actual real life player themselves.
When I was 16 I was writing a text game for C64 in basic and thought there must be a better way to store data that predeclared arrays.
In first year Uni I learned about pointers and the more basic algorithms using pointers to represent lists, queues, recursion etc etc. I was in heaven.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the subject says it all.
This is almost comical !
r eflaws_1.html
Quote from: http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/08/20/HNscomo
"The obfuscated code example is not SCO's property," said Perens. "It was developed by the Lawrence Berkeley Lab in 1993, under funding of the US Government. The code was added to SCO's version of Unix in 1995 or 1996, he maintained. "SCO took (the BSD) source code, lost the attribution, and now believes it's theirs."
So what is an ISV ? I get the feeling this is important part of answering this question.
I assume an ISV is providing some sort of add on, plug in, control or whatever that is integrated into a Windows app using the MS IDE ?
So really you're asking what should we target ?
Well target everything. Build libraries. Use the prominent GUI libraries, Motif, QT, Gimp
Maybe this is not your question and you're developing an application in which case I don't see why you need a linux IDE. All you need is a framework that facilitates cross platform development. In this case look at WxWindows or fltk (fast light tool kit). For an example of FLTK see the Palm OS Emulator.
I think the thing about Otherland is that it's a different genre. I suspect that many hard core fantasy readers probably picked it up after Williams wrote it expecting another fantasy but It's more sci-fi or future tech than fantasy.
I found it a bit too long and containing a bit too much detail that dragged it out at times but I LOVE THE SUBJECT MATTER (I dream about writing and working in Virtual 3D environments) and think it's comparable with stuff written by Gibson or Banks. I would rate it as a must read in the Sci-fi future-tech genre.
I agree Tad is much better and shows an excellent level of diversity which I interpret as talent.
I think saying that he's out done Tolkien is going a bit far but I believe that MS&T is the best modern day fantasy I've read.
One of the best things about Williams is that really his books are in separate genre's so for one series you compare him with Tolkien but in another series you need to compare him with Gibson or Banks IMHO.
You can't compare Otherland with Wheel of Time (WoT). They are different genres.
If you want to make a comparison read Memory, Sorrow & Thorn (MS&T). I'd have to say that MS&T is the best series I've read. Here's why:
MS&T is a creative work in my view. It really get's your imagination going. It's like you're watching it in real life as you're reading. There is just something about it which makes it feel like it is a higher quality of writing rather than just an exercise in churning out novels.
While I really enjoyed WoT I think that Jordan has flogged it to death. While it's always a pity to reach the final book of a series you really enjoy; I think that's preferable to being bored to tears by it. The creativity of a writer has to be judged by what he writes and Jordon has only written one series and it just keeps going and going and going. In fact I'm beginning to feel the same way about Wot as I ended up feeling about Dune. I'd say that Jordon is a modern day Eddings whereas Tad is closer to Tolkien or Gibson.
Tad has produced three series of books that are quite different. I think this is a testimony to his creativity. Also as I said above I felt that the literary quality of MS&T was better than other things I was reading or had read in that genre at the time.
On the other hand I found that Otherland stretched my patience a bit. I really enjoyed it but part of that was because I have an interest in virtual 3D worlds but while it was good I think he wrote too much in order to get his ideas across (ie. I'd have to say he rambled a bit). However conceptually it was a joy to read.
So in summary. If you like fantasy then Memory, Sorrow & Thorn is a must read ! IMHO
Bullshit I missed the point of it. The fact is it's one of the dullest movies I've ever seen.
.... BUT having said that after 33 years even the music is a bit old.
If it says anything about humanity then it's nothing very revealing and could be said in 1000th of the time with a hell of a lot more interest.
If it says anything about technology then it's nothing that's going to change the world.
If it says anything about space travel it's minimal.
I think the music has some merit and is about the only thing that holds it together. ie. the producer thought well if I attach a good score to this bit then people will either think it's saying something poignant, or is about to reveal something revoloutionary or
In the web site outlining the patent the references section lists: "iDNS--Internationalized Domain Name System, by Center for Internet Research(http://www.apng.org/ids/, Jan. 1998.". Actually the web address is incorrect and should be http://www.apng.org/idns/ so I wonder if that is just a typo on the web page OR in the actual patent. If it's in the actual patent then ... doesn't the patent office at least check the references ?.
Anyway can someone explain to me how this referenced web site doesn't constitute prior art ?
I only quickly read the patent and the above reference but they seem to be presenting the same idea.
i.e. The http://www.apng.org/idns/ site suggests UTF-5 whereas the WALID patent suggests Unicode. See this site for a description of the two.
Well I just can't see how taking an existing idea which is clearly still in draft and changing one small aspect of it (ie. the encoding UTF-8 instead of UTF-5) can constitute a new idea. What the hell is the US Patent system doing to free trade if stuff like this is going on ?
Actually I've just been re-reading about Unicode aka UTF-8 & Co and it seems that UTF-5 is actually oneof the unicode formats. In this case how is specifying a patent that specifies "Unicode" all that different from specifying the same idea with one of the particular implementations of Unicode (ie. UTF-5) ?
Anyway given the large number of comments already and the fact that I only get posted at Score:1 I don't expect too many people to read this but I'd be interested in a comment from someone a bit more clued in to this than I am.
Thanks.
These arragant parasitic bastards should be closed down. They are just screwing with the general public's interests.
I expect this has nothing to do with the effectiveness of Napster's filtering but more to do with the realisation that even though their action has limited Napster's popularity there is still a lot of stuff out their that is outside the direct control of the RIAA.
Further their current action hasn't yet managed to put Napster out of business which means when they develop their own file sharing software they're still going to have to compete with Napster. The RIAA should really be required to shed more light on it's motives and make commitments that it is not trying to create a lot of FUD so that it can step into the same position in the future. It's one thing to prtotect one's legal copyright but these guys really seem to be in a conflict of interest situation here and they need to be required to make greater disclosure of their intended future actions. Further if, in the future, hindsight shows that they have not been truthful in their actual intent then they should be charged with contempt and crucified.
This is one area in which I hope Napster and other anti RIAA parties have some seriously restrictive patents in place so that these bastards can't just wipe out a company so that they can effectively steal it's business.
Aren't the RIAA really doing the same thing that Microsoft was being grilled for doing ?
In Autralia my brother has had download rates of 3.8Mb/s for FTP from Optus cable. I can't comment on ASDL yet.
Admittedly that was from an Optus cache of the aarnet archives but it's still a good indication of the top limit. (He was downloading a RedHat distro about 3 hours after it had been uploaded to the aarnet site).
His download tests from his city office to his home office were about 2Mb/s for FTP which I thought was a good test since his city office (being small) was unlikely to be cached by Optus (at least the first time).
I think his average to site OS particularly the USA is a bit under 200Kb/s which is due to the limited bandwidth between Australia and the USA.
I can't comment on Telstra's actual bandwidth but their figures are probably hard to guage because they have so many different plans where they try and limit the bandwidth one way or the other. i.e. All the practices you can expect from a company that basically has a monopoly.
Oh and DirectX is really open. Why don't they develop a system that uses OpenGL if they're really acting altruistically ?
... even more fantastic !
Sorry but the implication that MS are in some way interested in the good of the console market is so stupid that I just can't ignore it.
Secondly Genius 2 above that claims that the whole argument is about hype and that the hype is good has lost it big time.
The reason people debate these things is because of fear that their favorite console will be wiped out. If that's what you fear then you'd be an idiot to look forward to MS entering the market because their goal will be to wipe out your favorite console and probably also to make their own console so difficult to use that console games in general lose their appeal.
There are some people that get wet thinking about the technology alone. Now all those poor Sega uses are either regretting their purchases or cursing Nintendo & Sony for being more successful. The reason Sony are more successful has nothing to do with better technology. The other guy was basically right all console's are pretty similar but it has everything to do with other factors. Some of these are:
a) PS uses CD's. Even though they have proprietry stuff on them they are still basically the same thing that everyone knows. Nintendo's cartridges do not have that appeal (although the cartridges do load faster).
b) There are so many games for the PS it's fantastic !! When games get old they don;t disapear they get cheaper
c) In terms of Sega. They were just too small. Not enough games. People want a console that has lot's of different types of games. Sony realise this so they made the PS2 backward compatible (pity the arrogant bastards didn't make the controllers, multitaps and memory cards backward compatible too).
Point b) is the clincher and anyone who thinks that the market will be better with developers spreading their efforts over more platforms really hasn't thought this through very much.
Finally I just don't know how anyone can believe the market will be better because of the entrance of a rabid monopolist.
If MS are successful enough in the console market to remain in it then in time the market WILL suffer. Don't flame me !!! write down that comment and flame me in 10 - 15 years if it hasn't come true.
I'm pretty happy with teh current console market and I'm afraid that anyone who maintains that the market will be better with MS involved has rocks in their head. There is no historical evidence whatsoever to support this assertion.
.. even in Australia where our dollar is doing a MIR, there are more games than you can poke a stick at, Initial game releases are not any more expensive than on any other platform and once they've been around for a while the platinum scheme produces lower prices.
... doh !!!!
.... show me evidence that MS have EVER been interested in developing products that will work with other people's products. And don't bother talking to me about technologies that aren't really here yet or in wide use yet.
... oh well better reinstall the OS again ....
Personally I have a PS. They're fantastic they are cheap
I use a PC all day and the best thing about my console is that I put in the game and turn it on. When I'm finished I just turn it off.
AFAICT the only benefit of a PC for gaming at present is the comms. I can't wait to get online with my playstation and I don't care if it never becomes a receiver for other types of entertainment.
One of the problems with emerging technologies is that everyone seems to get tunnel vision. Just because an online console could theoretically be used for other online entertainment there is no reason it should and plenty of reasons that it shouldn't.
The concept of one box to to do everything is a PC paradigm and it's stupid. Imagine not being able to put the console in another room because it's also the Cable TV decoder or the DVD player or the family email/web device
IMHO the holy grail of future tech should and hopefully will be connectivity and common interfaces so that you can use small different systems that together give you a larger system. If they communicate with each other there will be advantages.
OK. Is this really the same topic I started with with ? Well
Basically MS is so blindly monopolistic they don't even see it and ANYTHING they do has the longer term goal of tying people to their platforms only and destroying any competition.
What's more MS will never make the console simple. If they gain control of the market then in 15 years we'll have consoles that ressemble current PC's rather than consoles ie. wait 15 minutes for MS Console 2010 to load up. Install a 3rd party game (non MS) damn it's not compatible with the latest upgrade of NTC2010, or the system is locking up
OK I'm not saying that the PS is an open standard or anything as stupid. BUT just that if MS are successful in getting into consoles then in 20 years the console market will either be dead OR they'll be so complicated that people will just end up using the equivalent of today's PC.
As a final note. I here a number of people fawning over MS entrance into the console market and suggesting that the current market is monopolistic and that MS will break that up and make it better. NOW most of the people that I know who talk like DO NOT HAVE A CONSOLE. IMO they are morons and should keep their mouths closed until they are actually involved with consoles in some way and can talk with real facts & experience behind them.
Elite. Now that was a good game.
... ran on the System 80. I think it was called ????? Pilot. Anyone got any ideas ? Had crap block graphics but it was great.
There was one that was even better (old & similar though) but I can't remember it's name
The only things I've played as much since then are Ultima and Tomb Raider (& after about a dozen levels TR get's pretty boring).
[off topic]
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...
Even though you're probably a troll
Can somebody explain the term troll to me ?
Does it have something to do with waiting under bridges for unsuspecting individuals to come along and then
Try thinking positive instead of negative.
... bring on the quantum computer.
...
Why does the data being transferred have to be illegal. Maybe it's legal ! This could be a great way of reducing bandwidth. Bad luck about the storage required to hold all the digits of PI.
ie. instead of shipping products new customers just log into your web site and are given two numbers. The system to extract the appropriate code from PI is embedded in the OS and will automagically extract the digits, convert them and write to them disk.
Hey why even write them to disk. Maybe in the year 2020AD all computers have a memory chip embedded with PI and when you execute a programme it's extracted and executed on the fly
Imagine this invention in the year 2090AD. Some new genius has significantly increased the speed of his computer by storing executables in memory (i.e. Hard disks are defunct by then) in binary form. The programmes can be executed directly without any conversion. The worlds biggest central processing center (Microsoft Central Systems) has shown great interest in this invention. An MS CS spokesman said that using this technique could save millions of dollars in processing time.
OK I'm starting to ramble so that's it
Give me an .mp3 file and I will write an algorithm (for that particular .mp3 file) which gives you the beginning of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
:)
Firstly. This would be really cool because hasn't the copyright on Shakespeare expired ?
Secondly, go on then show me. Use any Metallica song you like (just for the sake of controversy). I assume it will be as easy a conversion as Carmody's prime number.
I could just as easily write a program that takes a css'd copy of Titanic and "unencrypt" it into The Right Stuff.
Perhaps you're getting a bit carried away with the ease of this.
Suppose that for a certain n,
n/2 = win2k
n/2 + 1 = DeCSS
Who has copyright on n ?
Does the mouse produce an electrical or magnetic field ? :)
It's seems a bit strange to me that one of your company's clients wants a tool that fits your project exactly but that the project in question has no reseemblance to the development you do for your employer.
... "
..."
Firstly, are you sure you didn't get the idea for the project because it is an extension of other products or ideas that you deal with at work ?
For example. If you are working for a company developing x and you decide "hey, I'm going to develop x using Java instead of C and allow use via a browser or across multiple platforms
OR maybe
"... x has these advantages I think I see a new market here for (x+1)/2. I think I'll develop it at home and make some money out of it
Secondly I assume that the potential clients you have in mind are not connected in any way past or present with your current employer. Tell me this is true.
My personal view is that if your home project in any way ressembles your employers Or your contact with your potential (private) clients is as a result of you working for your current employer then you are on extremely shaky ground.
In fact I actually think that if your home project can in some way be viewed as a natural extension of existing products or ideas and you are convinced that these extensions will be profitable then in that case you would be an untrustworthy, deceitful, thieving parasite and I wouldn't want you working for any company that I owned.
I say this because anyone can write code. The biggest problem is getting the initial ideas and if the ideas you have are generated as a result of working for someone then in my view the ideas are not yours and one would have to question whether you would have even had the ideas if you weren't working for the employer in question.
If indeed the ideas are your own and your product is nearing completion then I think you had better notify your employers immediately that you've already done what is required but that they can't have it. Otherwise in the future they may claim that you only developed the product because it was requested by a client.
In fact you may have to leave the company in question because you now have a conflict of interest.
The article in the Moscow Times mentioned below says this:
... is chatting with other users. Coverage is 50 meters indoors and 100 meters outside, but through a so-called "daisy chain," users can connect to each other over much longer distances."
"One of the most trumpeted features
The article I read in the Australian suggested that the "daisy chain" would work for up to 10 hops.
Is this the same as your relaying concept ?
I have a Palm IIIxe myself and love it but at the same time I think this unit has heaps of potential.
... good post !
... now I womnder what he does with his ? I can tell you games are high on the list. And if the only thing separating a toy from an organiser is a diary, address book and notepad then I'd say that Palm better watch out.
However I note that you actually have one of each whereas I only have a Palm at the moment.
One of the factors that I believe helps the Palm (at least in the tech community) is the availability of the SDK compatible with GCC. I've done some writing for the Palm myself and this is definitely a factor which appeals to me.
The Moscow page indicated above, and the article I originally read in the Australian indicated that it appeals to kids because that's the way they are marketing it. Originally they planned it for the 20+ age group competing with the raft of PDAs currently available. They decided they would have better initial success with kids.
I think it's shortcomings are well highlighted by LordEq (User #63011) above
The free Linux SDK really opens up it's potential. Lets face it if memory is the only draw back (OK the screen is even smaller than a Palm's) then you can always expand it. If technically savvy programmers get hold of this who knows what will be developed for it in the future and who it will end up appealing to. It could be the next best seller on ThinkGeek. Come to think of it I wonder why they don't already stock it ?
Now regarding what's a toy. One of my workmates bought a Palm for his son
In my view one of the things that will really limit the Cybiko (apart from no touch screen, graffiti, small memory, and less robust construction) is that the RF won't allow people to use the internet on the road until someone deploys RF access points and that will take a huge committment in both faith and money. Still who knows what some clever hacker will come up with once they get hold of the SDK.
I am surprised that at a brief scan no replies to this posting appear to take it to it's logical (at least to me) conclusion.
.... I mean what is really the point ? Surely this is just one step closer to being able to intercept, translate and enact neural signals straight from the brain.
.... " ... what do you mean I'm a big fat idiot ? I didn't say that ! ... That's beside the point the point ... and stay out of my thought's in future ... "
Surely nobody would actually implement an interface that required you to wave your arms in the air ?
Now that's something I can't wait for. I just hope that we begin to get neural interfaces in my lifetime.
Ah just imagine what other developments would flow from that development
woo hoo bring it on !
People who live in glass houses .... well you know the line.
/var/spool/mail. ...
...
..."
... is inherently unreliable. ...
...
.... before you flame people for apparently not getting their facts right at least make sure you're on more solid ground yourself.
If you know so much about Qmail you would know that INSTALL.vsm and INSTALL.maildir which come with the qmail source have something to say about this. What in fact they have to say is this:
(INSTALL.vsm)
"UNIX has traditionally delivered mail into a central spool directory,
* It's slow.
* It's insecure.
(INSTALL.maildir)
"This file points out some reasons that you might want to switch from mbox format to a new format, maildir.
1. The trouble with mbox
The mbox format
Other formats, such as mh folders, are just as unreliable.
qmail supports maildir, a crashproof format for incoming mail messages.
maildir is fast and easy for MUAs to use. Even better, maildir works wonders over NFS
I don't want to cram maildir down people's throats, so it's not the default. Nevertheless, I encourage you to start asking for maildir versions of your favorite MUAs, and to switch over to maildir as soon as you can."
SO !
NOTE: I do not claim that the above extracts are true, merely that they exist and clearly indicate as suggested by the initial post that qmail does encourage use of maildir rather than mbox.
In fact it is because of the documentation with qmail that I use maildir in our offices although I use mailbox (qmail's version of mbox) at home.
Having experience with both formats and being a Linux user I prefer maildir because I like the way it keeps all my messages separately.
However at work where all our clients are windows users they wouldn't know the difference and wouldn't care as long as they get their email. I use the maildir format in this environment because of the claims of reliability.
I don't believe that it valid to compare a footballer's ownership of a football with a players ownership of their character.
For a start a player's character is often a manefestation of themselves, maybe not in reality but at least in their imagination.
A footballer can be considered an employee whereas a game player is a freelance contributer within a community. They are not employees and as such do not produce their characters out of obligation to the game providers. They freely participate and their characters are as much a product of their own creativity as an artists drawings IMO.
I think that one's ownership of their 'avatar' is vitally important because clearly we are probably not going to be spending less time online as time progresses and very likely our existences on the net will more and more be represented by characters that we have created.
I think there are a lot of other ideas around this but my basic thought is that player characters are a manefestation of themeselves and a game provider should own the character no more than they own the actual real life player themselves.
When I was 16 I was writing a text game for C64 in basic and thought there must be a better way to store data that predeclared arrays.
In first year Uni I learned about pointers and the more basic algorithms using pointers to represent lists, queues, recursion etc etc. I was in heaven.