We've all seen the THG memory bandwidth benchmarks that show RIMMS are still way ahead of DDR DIMMS in terms of bandwidth. The CPU, well that's another story, but nonetheless Intel is not taking back what they've said, they're simply offering another choice to consumers, which is a good thing. I don't think we should critisize them for offering up a system with "slightly" lower performance. How rare is it, when a company has been forced (a la AMD and VIA) to offer more choices for the increasingly price/performance consious consumers? Pour a cold one for the little guy.
I think people are really scared of integration. In general, boundaries, good or bad, provide a limit to each area of life. Take something as simple as TV... it was really, and for the most part is really, easy to use and understand (on a superficial level). Turn it on, change the channel, change the volume... pretty simple. A lot of TVs now have CC on mute, but few people turn the option on. I think if too many things are crammed into one device people shy away from it. People don't want to have to upgrade their kernels in their televisions (well wait... not thems normal peoples:-P ) because of a possible filesystem error, or worry if their overclocked tv can switch channels faster than yours, they want to grab a bag of doritos and forget about everything else.
Take the public's concept of a PC computer 10 years ago. Generally they were regarded as difficult to use and understand, but they could do everything and anything you could program them to do. Now we use them for e-mail, music, movies (maybe) and word processing, and we pay a whole lot to have really fancy ones that we don't know how to really use because we're not told what we can use them for.
When someone wants to watch a movie, who cares if it's connected to the web to deliver relative content... in the end I think companies are pushing wired integration of content delivery systems so they have a unified platform for marketing and marketing information.
Actually I woke up this morning to CBC Radio One's hour long special on Marconi, the man and the mission. I was quite nice. In fact I gave up a little study time for it.
It really has been a long time relatively. Considering that transatlantic communication, especially transatlantic routing of IP packets, is more than commonplace now, its hard to imagine people still struggling to get a signal to each other over the atlantic. Stories like this really help to remind us that it wasn't always this easy.
It is nonetheless an appropriate day to celebrate though I do wonder how quickly they started getting spam on their lines?
Some well designed profession Digital Audio Recording and Mastering software like Sequoia from Sek'd and it's big little brother Samplitude (Under Pro Audio) have amazing support for dual CPU's in a way which isn't considered in most of these reviews. These programs basically emulate a physical mixer, aux effect busses, tracks of audio and MIDI data (999 of them), and effects plug-in. When you run these applications on a dual-cpu system they allow you to assign certain functions to each cpu independantly. For example if you want to run all your effects off one cpu, that leaves the other free to do any mixer automation and file allocation (important in non-linear audio production) that world normally cause hiccups in the effected audio stream. Quite nice really and for those who need it, worth the expense.
Really folks! Let's be a bit serious here: "...22 Hours of Music from a single CD." A single CD! I can compress my music in to 8 bit stereo 96kbps mp3s, or an equivalent Ogvorbis bitrate and fit more than 22 hours of music on a CD. THe point is do we really want that much music on a CD. With SACD quietly penetrating the market and available on many DVD players, sampling rates in the MHz range, why do we keep insisting on lowering the quality of the music we listen too. We all know the WMA and other such formats, including MP3s are still lossy compression architechtures, and until fractal compression makes its way into media file formats, all this jazz is just that... empty words.
Or perhaps have users check off that they are searching for commercial products. Thus two ranking systems would be in place. It would be a small operation, but one that would provide us with junk-free results. If it were possible, I'd be willing to give up an extra keystroke or two.
Users who perenially search outside of corporate sites could be able to customize their setting so that they'd have to select when they want to include corporate sites. Could it work? I don't know. br>
We've been running a LAN out of our home for several years now and have never come across much of what is *lightly* discussed in the article. With a heavy user load (we have 1.3Mbps downstream capabilites, usually running at near full throttle) the only black holes we usually encouter are webservers that have crashed or simply gone down permanently; something which I believe deserves a lot more focus than a little bit of missing space. It is nice to know that there are still places to hide, but we didn't need the article to tell us that!:-P
It [the article] was so vague, in fact, that there was little reason wasting the time to read it. Murk space, dark matter, anti-matter, anti-time. I'm going to go back to downloading more STTNG episodes!
Some of the backlash against the terrorist attacks have been horendous. I was very relieved to see the slashdot community's interest in matters of privacy and such. It seems that most human rights that have been gained over the past century were about to be thrown out a window. It's not to say that they won't be in the future, but the gestapo in Germany began little by little and look what hapened. In the end it adds up. The same goes for the opposite end of the spectrum, but by bit it can get better.
We need to be weary and vigilant when it comes to the policing any given government conducts on it's own population. More often that not the body being protected (as well all know too well) is that which amounts to the powers that be, all the while it is lightly covered with a transparent veil with big letters reading "public safety."
There may be many things which need to be rethought in the comming months and years. Liberty to speak and do (responsibly) should not be one of them, and I'm glad to see others agree.
Yes, it's sad but true that right now Linux just won't cut if for user-level professional audio systems.
Yes. it is also sad to see BeOS struggling so hard when it is the perfect choice for much of the multi-media production that goes on.
My audio setup currently consists of two machines running several pieces of software. Suprisingly, I have been running Windows 98 SE in a mission critical environment with no crashes to date. I swear it must be a first. One of our systems get transported to GIGs as a live sample system, with no problems. Don't get me wrong I'm not a hailer of Windows Products; I've been using linux for several years now (albeit I'm still rather bad with much of it's vast abilities). I switched over to Linux exclusively until I needed my own setup and then the choice was clear... windows. You see, the most powerful studio app I have ever encountered is called Sequoia (Sek'd) and it doesn't run on anything but pcs. It has features that protools will never have.
For example you can run it on multi-processor systems and assign functions individually to different processors to relieve the weight and allow for more DSP power when needed. Macs require expensive add-on cards like the TC_PowerCore which few people will support. Othe PC audio applications like Magix Samplitude (Magix) have absolutely stunning features like realtime FFT filters, a 1000 track limit and unlimited effects routing.
I dream of the day such things will be availanble on linux, and I'm sure they will. No one wants to pay $3K US for Sequoia. What people do want is to be able to work creatively and that will take time to develop. Unfortunately on both the Mac and PC side they products that gain popularity the most are those which have the highest amount of capital backing for advertising, product placement and "subjective" reviews. We need to stop thinking like we're in the early 90's. Sure Macs are good for audio. Windows is there too at this time. As for Linux.... it is on the way. Penguins can move.
In fact most professional audio interfaces like will ignore the SCMS bit. I know mine does (although it has a software switchable setting between consumer and professional S/PDIF which, by the way is Sony / Philips Digital Interchange Format).
Although I'm not the owner of such a cd player, one of my dear friends has a mid-range JVC home mini-system with a built-in S/PDIF optical out for the CD-Player, meaning that anyone posessing an audio interface with compatible inputs would be able to make digital copies of the music (Although it would be like ripping at 1X). In fact, even soundblaster live has a RCA S/PDIF digital in. Meaning the widely used RCA S/PDIF outs on a lot of gear may just get noticed!
As audio interfaces like the MOTU 828 and the Echo Layla24 become increasingly used in home studios, we all just might have a friend who can very well copy this "uncopyable" CD. My only question, to anyone who can answer this is, would some of the erroneous information be transmitted over the pipe? I would think not... but I don't know enough about it.
It just so happens that my real first name (and internet no-no but this is important) happens to coincide exatly with the name of the OS in question in the above slashdot story. Does this mean I have to pay royalty fees everytime I need to submit a university thesis for publication? Seing my name trademarked was rather shocking... and I think my own time to realise just how far this crazy game has gone....
Additonally, who's to say that those google-ites haven't improved their technology over the last year or so. I'm sure many of us have turned exlusively to Google's tried and true system... oh so easy... oh so accurate.
Finally I think we love Google's look and those tiny little modifications they make to their logo on the special (but mostly American) dates.
Hey, if someone can better it, we could all use a search with a button "The right link."
Then as an "MS person" should not your response deal with the fact that MS is, has and will attack anyone and anything that prevents it from earning increasingly rediculous profits at the expense of every person who is "locked in" to a contract on the software they choose to use. The real issue is just that: choice. Frankly, that's not something any monopoly is interested it. Freedom to innundate.
I get a lot of flak for suporting KDE sometimes. I've never been a big fan of GNOME for my own use though I admit it is as elegant as ever. They look so remarkably similiar, and their design intended that to some degree I believe. Warning* -> I know we've heard this a thousand times before, it would be nice to see them come together somewhat. Is too much choice a good thing?
And realise that as much as standards are pushed there will always be those, especially products that do some coding for you *cough* and you programs know who you are *cough* which will stray from any standard, under the banner of adding more and making it easier for the programmer when, in reality, it just causes some trouble. I'm clearly not a good programmer by any means, in fact I'd rank myself with the lowest of the low, but even my first introduction to programming, starting with the venerable C, I ran in to issues with all the different compilers at home and at school, something which I assume, as a layman, standards are supposed to wash away. Just some thoughts.
Well the article leaves a lot to be desired. It seem quite full of rhetoric, and very little hard scientific fact.
As we've often seen in early cognitive research, especially with the notion of humans as embeded, embodied, pattern-completeting, neural network-based organisms, we see that research of this kind is more inconclusive than ever. So what if part of the brain calms down when we meditate. Parts of it get excited when we procreate, and parts of it likewise calm down when we pass out afterwards.
The modular synthesis of the brain, something which Jerry Fodor, a major proponent of the syntactic properties of the mind, has been slowly dropped by many people, as we find a flexibility in the brain that surpases anything else we've ever encountered. Did this "scientist" find God in the brain. It's dubious and since there are some other good comments above, concerning this ideal, I'll leave my rant right here.
I resent the comment about musicians in the article. The only reason many musicians would hold off on publication, or at least basically give up their publication rights, is because if done through one of the big guys, the payoff is often tremendous. It should be noted that there are also many musicians who have chosen the other route and that they have been made to pay dearly for it, but continued nonetheless. If any of you haven't heard of Eva Cassidy by now, you should definite find a way to take a listen. You will not believe it, and this poor woman passed away in her early 30s, having been offered record deals that she consistently turned down because of the constraints they proposed to impose. Keep the faith!
The only thing I hope about all this new technology is that advantages should always include: 1. Lower power consumptions, 2. Smaller footprints, 3. More recyclable material. I'm not really an environmentalist but I think at this point in time we should all become a little concerned with all these new gadgets that are taking increased amounts of power.
It is inevitable that someone would get blamed, but I truly think that video games are not the ones to strangle. My younger brother, who happens to be 18, has been playing video games for years. The fact is that he is often so engulfed in his games that has neither the time, nor the desire to locate a real weapon and do anything with it. (He also enjoys, camping, is quite fit, and would like to meet a nice God-fearing girl one day:-P.)
Regardless, we are always on the look out for someone to blame, and games are getting increasingly violent. Think back to not-so-old games like Contra on Nintendo, or the original Prince of Persia. These games were quite violent, but the later often involed some good puzzle solving skills. Have things really chnaged. In fact, the modern games like the just-released tribes 2, and huge franchises like the Half-Life series of mods, teach people to work together in teams, and in the end make friends.
Why don't we sue movie makers, the ones who really glorify violence, actually, no, lets sue, the cartoonists, the comic artists, the television manufacturers, and get them all to pay for the fact that I didn't have enough time to spend with my kids. How about that, because I'm not at fault, I'm never at fault, and I only hope the poor bastards who made little Johnny shoot all his friends have a few million for me to feel better.
Sick. Games are fiction. Most people do not have difficulty telling the difference between reality and fiction, and right and wrong for that matter. It's not up to the game companies, television channels, or film distributors to provide the morals for our children. It is up to us. Lets charish that responsibility.
It is sad to say but after reading the article and many comments, I think a lot of Open Source and Free Software proponents have this whole issue of closed sources & systems a little bit confused. The fact is that for-profit corporations don't care about people, standards, or anything which costs them a larger profit margin. Although this is nothing new, we shouldn't be expecting them to invest money in setting up services which we then latch onto and leech off of.
We are here to help promote and provide choice, and choice isn't always easy, but it's often worth it even if the people actually making choices are a small minority of those involved.
I don't think most of the people involved with Open Source software and Free Software respectively, are here to compete (aside from the few companies that are trying to do so, although it never was the original intent.) So let's just keep up supporting, creating, developing and learning. It is really our only weapon against human nature.
Geez, all that tear gas in Quebec city must have gone to my brain?
I think the real issue here is just how ambiguous the governmnet / corporation line has become. Governments are no longer "for the people by the people" but "for the people to buy the people." It is this disparity which should concern most people. Interests, at least the primary ones, are solely control and profit, and not health, education, morals, etc. We find our humanity erroded on a daily basis, not because we want it too, but because (myself included) we're really too lazy to get informed and actually think about it. That's why there is so much support for entertainment. It is a pacifier. What you think The Simpsons is about? (Hint: What Maggie sucks on is paramount to the great cornerstone of modern civilization - yes the television. D'OH!).
A Russian model kit I had acquired indicated, very early on in the sr-71 scheme, that the bird's top speed was Mach 5 +. Now whether it is accurate or not is not the point. The SR-71 skin and fuel were highly specialized for high speed, low radar contact flying but we won't admit it. Admit what? What was I talking about again?
Actually people use linux because it gives them a choice to do whatever they want to do, how they want to do it. If no one has ever done it before and you have the knowledge, then you can get it to do it.
Its a pretty simple equation that requires as little as a 386 with 8MB of RAM. All you really need is a brain. I am in no way implying that anyone here does or doesn't [have a brain], but I think the problem with computers these days (especially Apple systems) is that they take people to be stupid, implement increased user-friendliness, and subsequently make the users machines in their own right. Everyone should be allowed to make their choices, and we here at Slashdot should listen to why people make those choices and just think about what they have to say. No really. Just think.
28 hours of DV editing and I'm off to watch the scenes in my head. Take care folks!
Part of being a responsible citizen is informing yourself by doing some research on ideas, beliefs, policies, organizations etc.
Sure, the web makes it easier to do all this, but are we going to let ourselves be force-fed, in any way, information that is supposedly balanced. I will never believe it, and will not give up looking it up for myself. It's the only way to gurantee that if I'm wrong, I'm at the very least, responsible for it.
Slashdot Mirror
We've all seen the THG memory bandwidth benchmarks that show RIMMS are still way ahead of DDR DIMMS in terms of bandwidth. The CPU, well that's another story, but nonetheless Intel is not taking back what they've said, they're simply offering another choice to consumers, which is a good thing. I don't think we should critisize them for offering up a system with "slightly" lower performance. How rare is it, when a company has been forced (a la AMD and VIA) to offer more choices for the increasingly price/performance consious consumers? Pour a cold one for the little guy.
I think people are really scared of integration. In general, boundaries, good or bad, provide a limit to each area of life. Take something as simple as TV... it was really, and for the most part is really, easy to use and understand (on a superficial level). Turn it on, change the channel, change the volume... pretty simple. A lot of TVs now have CC on mute, but few people turn the option on. I think if too many things are crammed into one device people shy away from it. People don't want to have to upgrade their kernels in their televisions (well wait... not thems normal peoples :-P ) because of a possible filesystem error, or worry if their overclocked tv can switch channels faster than yours, they want to grab a bag of doritos and forget about everything else.
Take the public's concept of a PC computer 10 years ago. Generally they were regarded as difficult to use and understand, but they could do everything and anything you could program them to do. Now we use them for e-mail, music, movies (maybe) and word processing, and we pay a whole lot to have really fancy ones that we don't know how to really use because we're not told what we can use them for.
When someone wants to watch a movie, who cares if it's connected to the web to deliver relative content... in the end I think companies are pushing wired integration of content delivery systems so they have a unified platform for marketing and marketing information.
Actually I woke up this morning to CBC Radio One's hour long special on Marconi, the man and the mission. I was quite nice. In fact I gave up a little study time for it.
It really has been a long time relatively. Considering that transatlantic communication, especially transatlantic routing of IP packets, is more than commonplace now, its hard to imagine people still struggling to get a signal to each other over the atlantic. Stories like this really help to remind us that it wasn't always this easy.
It is nonetheless an appropriate day to celebrate though I do wonder how quickly they started getting spam on their lines?
Some well designed profession Digital Audio Recording and Mastering software like Sequoia from Sek'd and it's big little brother Samplitude (Under Pro Audio) have amazing support for dual CPU's in a way which isn't considered in most of these reviews. These programs basically emulate a physical mixer, aux effect busses, tracks of audio and MIDI data (999 of them), and effects plug-in. When you run these applications on a dual-cpu system they allow you to assign certain functions to each cpu independantly. For example if you want to run all your effects off one cpu, that leaves the other free to do any mixer automation and file allocation (important in non-linear audio production) that world normally cause hiccups in the effected audio stream. Quite nice really and for those who need it, worth the expense.
Really folks! Let's be a bit serious here: "...22 Hours of Music from a single CD." A single CD! I can compress my music in to 8 bit stereo 96kbps mp3s, or an equivalent Ogvorbis bitrate and fit more than 22 hours of music on a CD. THe point is do we really want that much music on a CD. With SACD quietly penetrating the market and available on many DVD players, sampling rates in the MHz range, why do we keep insisting on lowering the quality of the music we listen too. We all know the WMA and other such formats, including MP3s are still lossy compression architechtures, and until fractal compression makes its way into media file formats, all this jazz is just that... empty words.
Or perhaps have users check off that they are searching for commercial products. Thus two ranking systems would be in place. It would be a small operation, but one that would provide us with junk-free results. If it were possible, I'd be willing to give up an extra keystroke or two.
Users who perenially search outside of corporate sites could be able to customize their setting so that they'd have to select when they want to include corporate sites. Could it work? I don't know.
br>
We've been running a LAN out of our home for several years now and have never come across much of what is *lightly* discussed in the article. With a heavy user load (we have 1.3Mbps downstream capabilites, usually running at near full throttle) the only black holes we usually encouter are webservers that have crashed or simply gone down permanently; something which I believe deserves a lot more focus than a little bit of missing space. It is nice to know that there are still places to hide, but we didn't need the article to tell us that! :-P
It [the article] was so vague, in fact, that there was little reason wasting the time to read it. Murk space, dark matter, anti-matter, anti-time. I'm going to go back to downloading more STTNG episodes!
Some of the backlash against the terrorist attacks have been horendous. I was very relieved to see the slashdot community's interest in matters of privacy and such. It seems that most human rights that have been gained over the past century were about to be thrown out a window. It's not to say that they won't be in the future, but the gestapo in Germany began little by little and look what hapened. In the end it adds up. The same goes for the opposite end of the spectrum, but by bit it can get better.
We need to be weary and vigilant when it comes to the policing any given government conducts on it's own population. More often that not the body being protected (as well all know too well) is that which amounts to the powers that be, all the while it is lightly covered with a transparent veil with big letters reading "public safety."
There may be many things which need to be rethought in the comming months and years. Liberty to speak and do (responsibly) should not be one of them, and I'm glad to see others agree.
Yes, it's sad but true that right now Linux just won't cut if for user-level professional audio systems.
... windows. You see, the most powerful studio app I have ever encountered is called Sequoia (Sek'd) and it doesn't run on anything but pcs. It has features that protools will never have.
Yes. it is also sad to see BeOS struggling so hard when it is the perfect choice for much of the multi-media production that goes on.
My audio setup currently consists of two machines running several pieces of software. Suprisingly, I have been running Windows 98 SE in a mission critical environment with no crashes to date. I swear it must be a first. One of our systems get transported to GIGs as a live sample system, with no problems. Don't get me wrong I'm not a hailer of Windows Products; I've been using linux for several years now (albeit I'm still rather bad with much of it's vast abilities). I switched over to Linux exclusively until I needed my own setup and then the choice was clear
For example you can run it on multi-processor systems and assign functions individually to different processors to relieve the weight and allow for more DSP power when needed. Macs require expensive add-on cards like the TC_PowerCore which few people will support. Othe PC audio applications like Magix Samplitude (Magix) have absolutely stunning features like realtime FFT filters, a 1000 track limit and unlimited effects routing.
I dream of the day such things will be availanble on linux, and I'm sure they will. No one wants to pay $3K US for Sequoia. What people do want is to be able to work creatively and that will take time to develop. Unfortunately on both the Mac and PC side they products that gain popularity the most are those which have the highest amount of capital backing for advertising, product placement and "subjective" reviews. We need to stop thinking like we're in the early 90's. Sure Macs are good for audio. Windows is there too at this time. As for Linux.... it is on the way. Penguins can move.
In fact most professional audio interfaces like will ignore the SCMS bit. I know mine does (although it has a software switchable setting between consumer and professional S/PDIF which, by the way is Sony / Philips Digital Interchange Format).
Although I'm not the owner of such a cd player, one of my dear friends has a mid-range JVC home mini-system with a built-in S/PDIF optical out for the CD-Player, meaning that anyone posessing an audio interface with compatible inputs would be able to make digital copies of the music (Although it would be like ripping at 1X). In fact, even soundblaster live has a RCA S/PDIF digital in. Meaning the widely used RCA S/PDIF outs on a lot of gear may just get noticed!
As audio interfaces like the MOTU 828 and the Echo Layla24 become increasingly used in home studios, we all just might have a friend who can very well copy this "uncopyable" CD. My only question, to anyone who can answer this is, would some of the erroneous information be transmitted over the pipe? I would think not... but I don't know enough about it.
It just so happens that my real first name (and internet no-no but this is important) happens to coincide exatly with the name of the OS in question in the above slashdot story. Does this mean I have to pay royalty fees everytime I need to submit a university thesis for publication? Seing my name trademarked was rather shocking... and I think my own time to realise just how far this crazy game has gone....
Google had no ads at the outset either.
Additonally, who's to say that those google-ites haven't improved their technology over the last year or so. I'm sure many of us have turned exlusively to Google's tried and true system... oh so easy... oh so accurate.
Finally I think we love Google's look and those tiny little modifications they make to their logo on the special (but mostly American) dates.
Hey, if someone can better it, we could all use a search with a button "The right link."
yoink
Then as an "MS person" should not your response deal with the fact that MS is, has and will attack anyone and anything that prevents it from earning increasingly rediculous profits at the expense of every person who is "locked in" to a contract on the software they choose to use. The real issue is just that: choice. Frankly, that's not something any monopoly is interested it. Freedom to innundate.
yoink
I get a lot of flak for suporting KDE sometimes. I've never been a big fan of GNOME for my own use though I admit it is as elegant as ever. They look so remarkably similiar, and their design intended that to some degree I believe. Warning* -> I know we've heard this a thousand times before, it would be nice to see them come together somewhat. Is too much choice a good thing?
Just asking.
yoink
And realise that as much as standards are pushed there will always be those, especially products that do some coding for you *cough* and you programs know who you are *cough* which will stray from any standard, under the banner of adding more and making it easier for the programmer when, in reality, it just causes some trouble. I'm clearly not a good programmer by any means, in fact I'd rank myself with the lowest of the low, but even my first introduction to programming, starting with the venerable C, I ran in to issues with all the different compilers at home and at school, something which I assume, as a layman, standards are supposed to wash away. Just some thoughts.
yoink
Well the article leaves a lot to be desired. It seem quite full of rhetoric, and very little hard scientific fact.
As we've often seen in early cognitive research, especially with the notion of humans as embeded, embodied, pattern-completeting, neural network-based organisms, we see that research of this kind is more inconclusive than ever. So what if part of the brain calms down when we meditate. Parts of it get excited when we procreate, and parts of it likewise calm down when we pass out afterwards.
The modular synthesis of the brain, something which Jerry Fodor, a major proponent of the syntactic properties of the mind, has been slowly dropped by many people, as we find a flexibility in the brain that surpases anything else we've ever encountered. Did this "scientist" find God in the brain. It's dubious and since there are some other good comments above, concerning this ideal, I'll leave my rant right here.
yoink
I resent the comment about musicians in the article. The only reason many musicians would hold off on publication, or at least basically give up their publication rights, is because if done through one of the big guys, the payoff is often tremendous. It should be noted that there are also many musicians who have chosen the other route and that they have been made to pay dearly for it, but continued nonetheless. If any of you haven't heard of Eva Cassidy by now, you should definite find a way to take a listen. You will not believe it, and this poor woman passed away in her early 30s, having been offered record deals that she consistently turned down because of the constraints they proposed to impose. Keep the faith!
yoink
The only thing I hope about all this new technology is that advantages should always include: 1. Lower power consumptions, 2. Smaller footprints, 3. More recyclable material. I'm not really an environmentalist but I think at this point in time we should all become a little concerned with all these new gadgets that are taking increased amounts of power.
yoink
It is inevitable that someone would get blamed, but I truly think that video games are not the ones to strangle. My younger brother, who happens to be 18, has been playing video games for years. The fact is that he is often so engulfed in his games that has neither the time, nor the desire to locate a real weapon and do anything with it. (He also enjoys, camping, is quite fit, and would like to meet a nice God-fearing girl one day :-P .)
Regardless, we are always on the look out for someone to blame, and games are getting increasingly violent. Think back to not-so-old games like Contra on Nintendo, or the original Prince of Persia. These games were quite violent, but the later often involed some good puzzle solving skills. Have things really chnaged. In fact, the modern games like the just-released tribes 2, and huge franchises like the Half-Life series of mods, teach people to work together in teams, and in the end make friends.
Why don't we sue movie makers, the ones who really glorify violence, actually, no, lets sue, the cartoonists, the comic artists, the television manufacturers, and get them all to pay for the fact that I didn't have enough time to spend with my kids. How about that, because I'm not at fault, I'm never at fault, and I only hope the poor bastards who made little Johnny shoot all his friends have a few million for me to feel better.
Sick. Games are fiction. Most people do not have difficulty telling the difference between reality and fiction, and right and wrong for that matter. It's not up to the game companies, television channels, or film distributors to provide the morals for our children. It is up to us. Lets charish that responsibility.
yoink
It is sad to say but after reading the article and many comments, I think a lot of Open Source and Free Software proponents have this whole issue of closed sources & systems a little bit confused. The fact is that for-profit corporations don't care about people, standards, or anything which costs them a larger profit margin. Although this is nothing new, we shouldn't be expecting them to invest money in setting up services which we then latch onto and leech off of.
We are here to help promote and provide choice, and choice isn't always easy, but it's often worth it even if the people actually making choices are a small minority of those involved.
I don't think most of the people involved with Open Source software and Free Software respectively, are here to compete (aside from the few companies that are trying to do so, although it never was the original intent.) So let's just keep up supporting, creating, developing and learning. It is really our only weapon against human nature.
Geez, all that tear gas in Quebec city must have gone to my brain?
yoink
I think the real issue here is just how ambiguous the governmnet / corporation line has become. Governments are no longer "for the people by the people" but "for the people to buy the people." It is this disparity which should concern most people. Interests, at least the primary ones, are solely control and profit, and not health, education, morals, etc. We find our humanity erroded on a daily basis, not because we want it too, but because (myself included) we're really too lazy to get informed and actually think about it. That's why there is so much support for entertainment. It is a pacifier. What you think The Simpsons is about? (Hint: What Maggie sucks on is paramount to the great cornerstone of modern civilization - yes the television. D'OH!).
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A Russian model kit I had acquired indicated, very early on in the sr-71 scheme, that the bird's top speed was Mach 5 +. Now whether it is accurate or not is not the point. The SR-71 skin and fuel were highly specialized for high speed, low radar contact flying but we won't admit it. Admit what? What was I talking about again?
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Actually people use linux because it gives them a choice to do whatever they want to do, how they want to do it. If no one has ever done it before and you have the knowledge, then you can get it to do it.
Its a pretty simple equation that requires as little as a 386 with 8MB of RAM. All you really need is a brain. I am in no way implying that anyone here does or doesn't [have a brain], but I think the problem with computers these days (especially Apple systems) is that they take people to be stupid, implement increased user-friendliness, and subsequently make the users machines in their own right. Everyone should be allowed to make their choices, and we here at Slashdot should listen to why people make those choices and just think about what they have to say. No really. Just think.
28 hours of DV editing and I'm off to watch the scenes in my head. Take care folks!
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Required links to the opposing viewpoints?
Part of being a responsible citizen is informing yourself by doing some research on ideas, beliefs, policies, organizations etc.
Sure, the web makes it easier to do all this, but are we going to let ourselves be force-fed, in any way, information that is supposedly balanced. I will never believe it, and will not give up looking it up for myself. It's the only way to gurantee that if I'm wrong, I'm at the very least, responsible for it.
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