Re:Expires on 20010630? Well, isn't THAT special!!
on
DIVX is dead
·
· Score: 2
Side note: Is there any truth to the rumour that the divx players play DVDs at lower quality??
Yes, It's true.
And since I can think of absolutely no technological reason for this, I can only assume it was deliberate sabotage to attempt to cause people who bought DIVX players to have a preference for the "superior quality" DIVX releases.
The ABSOLUTE WORST aspect of DIVX
on
DIVX is dead
·
· Score: 2
This thread give many wonderful reasons why DIVX is bad.
IMHO the overriding, super-duper, most appallingly horrendous thing about DIVX was this:
The disks are married to the player.
Buy a new player because you want do upgrade or, worse yet, because your old one broke and your collection of disks that you fscking BOUGHT just became a bunch of coasters.
Can you imagine if when you bought a new CD player, either as a replacement or a second one (a portable in addition to your home unit for example) if all your CDs wouldn't play on the new player and you had to buy second copies of them for the second player?
Actually, only one of these examples has an analogy to DIVX, IMHO, in the sense that consumers rejected the inferior format in favor of the superior one.
That would be the 8-track. The 8-track and the cassette were released almost simultaneously (1964, yes the formats are REALLY that old). Despite extreme marketing on the part of the 8-track camp, consumers finally figured out that cassettes had dramatically less wow-and-flutter, lasted much longer, and could be rewound and fast-forwarded forcrissakes!
As far as the other formats mentoned:
Laser Disks: Excellent format in it's time, superceded by a technologically more modern one, DVDs.
Vinyl: Ditto laser disks. An excellent format for it's day, superceded by newer technology.
Betamax: Actually dramatically superior to VHS in most respects. Killed by awesome marketing by the VHS camp (and Sony keeping the beta format so closed).
MiniDisk: Format that still has it's strong niche, and is likely to for a while.
First the death of DIVX, now the liberation of personal MP3 players!
Next article: "Microsoft abandons attempt to produce final version of Windows 2000, It's just to bloated and badly written to adequately debug, recomends Windows users switch to Linux."
(Sorry, all this good news just got me carried away!)
Finally, an example of the consumer masses being too inteligent to fall for a horrible idea or product just because it was slickly marketed.
We now have compelling evidence that the public isn't as stupid as some corporations think they are!
My favorite line (probably most people's):
"Sales at participating Divx retailers reflect strong consumer interest in the Divx feature," said Richard L. Sharp, chairman and chief executive officer of Digital Video Express and of Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC, KMX), the majority partner in the Digital Video Express venture. "The majority of customers purchasing DVD players in Circuit City stores have selected players that include the Divx option. Unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain adequate support from studios and other retailers. Despite the significant consumer enthusiasm, we cannot create a viable business without support in these essential areas."
"Strong consumer interest..." "significant consumer enthusiasm". Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.
Tell ya what DIVX dudes... If the consumer support was there, support from other retailers would have been there. Duh!
Hey DIVX, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of marketplace!
I reserve a cautious optimism about this development.
On the one hand, I'll take any contributions to the pool of open source software we can get, provided it's worth something. I'm not aware of any really decent open source performance monitoring packages previously available so this package may prove interesting.
OTOH, SCO is not famous for being particularly friendly to Open Source concepts, and as others have pointed out, something like 25% of them is owned by Microsoft.
It's interesting that this announcement is being made by a company who's CEO, Doug Michels, has been known to have done some truly venomous FUD spewing about Linux in the past. He has also claimed that the supposed venomous FUD spewing was actually a result of the press misquoting him or quoting him out of context.
Maybe it's true that SCO has some respect for the open source concept and the press WAS misquoting Michels on these occasions. It wouldn't be the first time that the press tried to artificially give the impression of a conflict.
This development may or may not be evidence of SCO's real attitude toward open source. Time will tell, and this is a development worth watching.
IMHO Red Hat's success thus far is largely due to the fact that they have embraced the Open Source/GPL model.
They offer something other than the closed, proprietary stuff that the corporate world has seen plenty of.
As soon as they start closing up their code and becoming proprietary, they become just another nameless proprietary software company.
They are successful because they are not that.
If their shareholders force them down that road, they'll just be making a mistake. Red Hat will loose revenue, and another distribution who has remained true to the open source model, will emerge as the top distribution.
Well, this is another article guaranteed to generate alot of "Red Hat != Linux" flaming from purists and fans of other distros.
However, the author correctly recognizes that Linux is becoming a success in the commercial/corporate world, and Red Hat's business activity is largely responsible for bringing Linux to the attention of the typical clueless pointy-haired corporate computer-illiterate weasel who has, interestingly enough, been put in charge of making decisions regarding OS deployment.
This recognition is a GOOD THING!
Those above-mentioned "pointy-hairs" are getting it, that every line of software on the planet WAS NOT written by Microsoft.
And Red Hat has done much to foster this education of the masses.
I read lots of flaming about the quality of Red Hat's contributions to the software environment that makes up Linux. I would remind those doing such flaming that every single character of code written by Red Hat has been released under the GPL. Don't like what they wrote? Fix it! Take their source and make a better version. This is what the GPL is all about. Software by the people and for the people.
I'm thrilled at Red Hat's success, because it represents the success of a company who seems to have genuinely embraced the open source model of doing things.
All in all, I think this was a good, concise little blurb reporting the state of things at Red Hat.
Next question: if RedHat put $20 million into R&D on Linux, would the Linux community accept these source code modifications? The result would be a new software business model.
Although written with all the right pretenses and buzzwords so as to pose as an enlightened well reasoned article, this is about as FUD filled a piece as I have read about Linux recently.
Remember what FUD stands for: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
It's making a bunch of observations about things that have just a grain of truth to them (but ignore the positive flip side) so as to scare people away from a product or idea.
Let's examine one of the worst ones in the article, shall we:
Linux is a college student's project gone astray.
PURE flaimbait! Pure and simple! "Astray"?? Gimme a break!
Let's try, "Linux is a college students project starting to become mature." Like a college student when he/she graduates, moving out into the world, making a few mistakes along the way but also starting to make his/her mark in the world.
Linux is an open-source project; therefore, all changes to the kernel are subject to review and approval by a small team that controls this portion of the operating system. Companies that add features they need, but that are not accepted into the core distribution, may find themselves in a redevelopment and retesting cycle every time a new version of Linux is released.
And just what the heck is this?
Here he takes two of the most attractive things about open source software (the ability to customize it for one's own needs and the existence of thousands of code testers/debuggers around the globe) and tries to spin this as some sort of negative thing. Get me a shovel!
Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition ships with a full complement of Internet services, including Web, proxy, index, messaging, database, transaction and firewall services. With Linux, these services will soon be available as a multivendor product. Whereas Microsoft's products are designed to work with one another and the operating system's services, users may spend a significant amount of time trying to integrate these components under Linux. The most critical of these integrations will be security and access control.
Again, misinformation and FUD.
A typical Linux distribution ships with all of these things. And since the web was originally designed around UNIX, fitting web and internet functionality into NT is much more of a force fit then running them on Linux IMHO.
Windows supporters still outnumber Linux supporters because Microsoft provides a better value proposition.
In all cases for all purposes?
A blanket statement like this, is by very definition FUD. He is basically saying "Linux is not the right choice over NT for ANYTHING."
I'm totally willing to admit that Linux is a young and still maturing OS. It is not the panacea for everything.
But for small to medium sized web based services (html services, mail routing, firewall, etc.) I find it to be THE best "value proposition" available by far.
Far from being an unbiased article, this one was 110% negative against Linux, and therefore, by definition, just a FUD piece.
DiSH is actually less proprietary than DTV. DTV uses a TOTALLY secret proprietary data stream. DiSH uses DVB/MPEG-II (as someone else pointed out) which is an open standard (encorporating encryption, of course, to prevent stealing the service.)
As to one equipment manufacturer, ALL DTV receivers are re-branded receivers manufactured by Hughes (the parent company of DTV), with the exception of the Sony's. Sony manufactures their own units, but uses proprietary Hughes chips (which are secret and exclusive to Hughes) to decode the signal.
OTOH, the Echostar receivers, which are sold under the brand names Echostar, JVC, and Philips/Magnavox, are generic DVB satelite receivers which can be programed to decode any any DVB complient service (E. G. Canada's Express Vu, several Latin American and European services) via reprogramming of their Flash memory and application of the correct provider's smart card. The flash is appropriately programmed for the target provider. They can even be programed, via flash, to output in NTSC, PAL or SECAM, as required by the service they are being used to receive.
The computers that the FAA is using that would be older than the likes of TRS-80 model I's or Commadore 64's would all fall under the catigory of "Mainframes", and perhaps some "Minis" AFAIK, not "PC's".
There's oodles of 30+ year old mainframes still in use. The contest is strictly for "PCs" (whatever, specifically, their definition of PC is here...)
When I was a kid, one of my best friend's mother was Swedish. When she would talk to her relatives on the phone, my friend's father would "translate".
He actually didn't speak a word of Swedish. He would pick up dribs and drabs of sylables that sort-of sounded like something in English and spin outrageous hilarious context around these dribs and drabs. It was PURE GENIUS, considering how he would be doing it on the fly.
Anyone present would be paralyzed with laughter!
This reminded me of that! Good fun!
Of course, while this was going on, my friend's mother would be hissing to her husband, "Shhhh! I'm talking long distance to SWEDEN forgodsakes!"
Now very few people can claim that seeing movies is their life, but it definitely is a hobby. First off, this isn't the first time people have slept in front of ticket counters to be assured tickets to something. And this won't be the last time.
However,
It is arguably the first time that people have slept in front of ticket counters to see a movie that is going to be seen on the very same screen thousands of times before it ends its first theatrical run some six months hence.
It is one thing to camp out for tickets for a one time event. Take a music concert for example. Your favorite artist might visit your town once every five years at best, and each concert by that artist is a little bit different and unique. THIS is worth camping out for. The event will never be repeated.
However, this is a MOVIE. It will be shown thousands of times. It's not like it's going to be that difficult to see. I stated that I have every intention of seeing "Phantom Menace." I assume that I'll enjoy it a lot. I just don't find it necessary to camp out (for WEEKS, in the case of a few people) in order to see it!
I'm really not trying to be insulting. Nor did I really intend to berate anyone. I just don't get it, that's all.
I remember seeing the original Star Wars movie in the theater.
I was living in Minneapolis when it came out and the St. Louis Park Cinema had an area exclusive on it.
This was almost the last hurrah for that theater, which was a grand and gigantic one screen movie theater of the old fashioned kind.
It had a humongeus curved "surround" screen that had been designed for "Cinerama" moves (the type shown by three projectors at once). A thick gold glittery curtain slowly parted to reveal the screen as the movie started.
I did think that Star Wars was perhaps the best movie I had ever seen.
The St. Louis Park Cinema closed a year or two later, run out of business by the multi-screen cineplexes at the malls.
Now, all these years later, "The Phantom Menace" is about to debut. I'm sure it will be an enjoyable movie, and I intend to catch it within it's first few days out. But, I truly never thought I would live to see such hyperbole and hysteria over any movie.
To those who have been camping out for the last three or four weeks to get a ticket, I'll be about the millionth person the scream at you: "IT'S A FSCKING MOVIE FOR CRISSAKES!"
By definition, anyone who has nothing better to do than to sleep in a tent on a sidewalk for weeks on end just so they can make sure to see the very first presentation of a FSCKING MOVIE at their local cineplex has no bloody life whatsoever, period!
After this mythical "first showing" at hundreds of theaters nation wide, I'm sure that I will have no problem calling the automated ticket sales phone line of my local mega-cinema ("The Palace" here in New Orleans), and scarf me a couple o' tickets to a showing on the second, third, or fourth day. No big deal, and I'm happy.
The fact that there are so many people out there willing to dedicate weeks of their life to camping out to ensure they see that "first show" indicates just how the masses can be brainwashed by hype and effective advertising. In a very real sense, this is scary. Individual independent thinking is apparently a rare commodity in today's society. Suppose the hype engine that is producing the "Phantom Menace" hysteria were to be used to sell the masses on some sort of race hatred or ethnic cleansing campaign? Think about it.
Since there are so many people willing to get this worked up over a FSCKING MOVIE however, I really can't say I blame Lucas et. al. for milking them for all they're worth!
I'm old enough to remember when Dolby-B noise reduction was introduced.
The RIAA went bonkers.
"Cassettes recorded with Dolby-B will allow people to pirate and trade albums! This will be the end of the music industry."
They tried to outlaw Dolby-B.
Now cassettes encoded with Dolby-B are the music industry's bread and butter.
When television came out, the movie studios went bat s**t. "No one will go to the movies anymore!"
Didn't happen.
When VHS tape came out, the Movie studios went bat s**t again. "This will kill the movie industry."
Now the sales and rental of VHS movies represents the most profitable aspect of movie making.
When DAT came out. RIAA went nuts again. "This will kill the recording industry."
Didn't happen.
You'd think by now the people in the entertainment industry would have learned not to be so damn PARANOID!
Why can't they embrace MP3 like they eventually did the cassette? THEY can distribute their product in MP3 format!
New consumer recording formats and distribution means have NEVER measurably hurt the recording industry! Why can't they look at their own history and learn from it?
Re:Peace and Harmony and all that
on
BSD vs GPL
·
· Score: 3
Finally, I think the LAST thing that GPL and *BSD users should be doing is fighting each other. I'm sure there are people growing interested in *BSD as a result of "Linux hype". I'm sure there are people who use both. I'm sure there are people who switched to *BSD after using Linux. I saw yesterday's news about AOL's interest in a *BSD-powered set-top as proof that the attention is benefitting everyone.
Those who favor GPL and those who favor *BSD have more in common than not. They also have bigger opponents than each other.
Hear hear!!
PLEASE let's not have any BSD vs. GPL flamewars! Both are imperfect but noble attempts to accomplish essentially the SAME THING.
We are friends here, not rivals!
Re:Malda has lost all integrity
on
BSD vs GPL
·
· Score: 3
I see nothing in the faqs or descriptions of/. that say that/. will only post articles that are scrictly totally non-biased news fact and will never post links to editorials.
This editorial, even though it may contain factual inacuracies and opinions we don't agree with, as an editorial still falls under the catigory "News for nerds, Stuff that matters", IMHO.
Heck,/. often posts links to MicroSoft utter BS FUD attempting to pass itself off as news! This stuff is still often worthy of our attention.
I don't expect/. to only reference articles and editorials that I 100% agree with!
Re:Sigh... No perfect solution.
on
BSD vs GPL
·
· Score: 1
More along the lines of fast typing and inadequite proof reading than "joking".
I think I intended to type an "almost" in there!
I'd ammend it to read, "most of the key points made", or "many of the points made".
Sigh... No perfect solution.
on
BSD vs GPL
·
· Score: 3
All in all, an excellent article.
I tend to agree with every point made.
However, I tend to favor the GPL over the BSD license myself for code I write and release to the public, in spite of the GPL's problems, for one big reason, which the author did explore:
With the BSD license, some big wealthy corporation could hijack some code I spent hours and hours and sweat and blood writing, make some utterly trivial change to it, then distribute it under a proprietary license and make a huge profit and I never see a penny. In addition, if they made VALUABLE changes, they would be closed, not keeping with the "open source" spirit under which the original code was written. Licensing under GPL prevents this.
Of course, I would still have one defense in such a case. I could do my best to get the word out that BiGreedy Corp.'s XYZ datadiddler (that I actually wrote) was available for free at ftp://gotohell.BiGreedy.jerks.com thus undermining their profitability. If they had made valuable addititions, I could attempt to add them to the still open version (or encourage others to do it and keep the code open). However, such an "education campaign" itself would be a really big effort.
In any case, neither license is perfect, and I often find myself wishing for a hybrid of the two.
However, I REALLY don't want to advocate yet-another-open-source-license! So, I don't have a good answer as to how to address the issues raised.
Soundwaves in the lower frequencies are on the order of several FEET in wavelength. For the wall movement to have a measureable impact on standing waves it would have to be on the order of FEET!
Even the highest audible frequencies have wavelengts on the order of fractions of an inch. For the wall movement to cancel potential standing waves at ANY audible frequency it would have to be moving 0.1 inches or more! And, the WHOLE WALL SURFACE would have to be undulating by at least this much, not a tiny area. Don't think it's gonna happen!
Having dabbled in speaker cabinet design, and designed a few PA systems, been a sound guy for bands, etc., I have a few serious reservations about how well these things would work.
The biggest ones:
1) Aren't the characteristics of the sound going to have huge dependencies on the construction of the walls, the size, stud spacing, wallboard thickness etc. If the wallboard is a little loose wouldn't it "buzz" against the studs? Would pictures vibrate? Wouldn't things like stud spacing, wallboard thickness, wood hardness (of the studs) and other factors affect the flatness of the frequency response. What about metal studs? What about lath and plaster walls vs. paneling vs. sheetrock etc....infinitely more construction based variables of course.
2) There are several evidences in the advertising copy of junk science and BS double-talk. For example, the site claims that this technology eliminates standing waves.
Standing waves are (almost) 100% a function of room geometry (primarily dimensions of the room vs. multiples of wavelengths, absorbancies of various surfaces in the room also come into play) and (almost) 0% a function of speaker design. This claim (and some others on the site) dump its credibility into the toilet IMHO.
Bottom line, IMHO this system is likely to not sound very good at all in the majority of installations.
Re:Don't be fooled by Satan Trek!!!
on
May Ten Quickies
·
· Score: 1
The bible unequivocally says that HATRED is a sin.
Any group that expresses hatred against another group (as this group is doing) is committing as severe a sin as they are accusing the group they hate of committing.
Sadly, I am afraid that this is NOT a spoof, their rhetoric is just too much like other hate filled ultra-fundamentalist groups that I have unfortunately been exposed to that hate others in the name of God and Christianity.
What about the "Christian" values that the world within Star Trek seems to place as worthy high values. Values like love, respect, honor, courage, and TOLERANCE of others. This group seems to lack all of these qualities.
Slashdot Mirror
Side note: Is there any truth to the rumour that the divx players play DVDs at lower quality??
Yes, It's true.
And since I can think of absolutely no technological reason for this, I can only assume it was deliberate sabotage to attempt to cause people who bought DIVX players to have a preference for the "superior quality" DIVX releases.
This thread give many wonderful reasons why DIVX is bad.
IMHO the overriding, super-duper, most appallingly horrendous thing about DIVX was this:
The disks are married to the player.
Buy a new player because you want do upgrade or, worse yet, because your old one broke and your collection of disks that you fscking BOUGHT just became a bunch of coasters.
Can you imagine if when you bought a new CD player, either as a replacement or a second one (a portable in addition to your home unit for example) if all your CDs wouldn't play on the new player and you had to buy second copies of them for the second player?
How outrageous can you get!?
Actually, only one of these examples has an analogy to DIVX, IMHO, in the sense that consumers rejected the inferior format in favor of the superior one.
That would be the 8-track. The 8-track and the cassette were released almost simultaneously (1964, yes the formats are REALLY that old). Despite extreme marketing on the part of the 8-track camp, consumers finally figured out that cassettes had dramatically less wow-and-flutter, lasted much longer, and could be rewound and fast-forwarded forcrissakes!
As far as the other formats mentoned:
Laser Disks: Excellent format in it's time, superceded by a technologically more modern one, DVDs.
Vinyl: Ditto laser disks. An excellent format for it's day, superceded by newer technology.
Betamax: Actually dramatically superior to VHS in most respects. Killed by awesome marketing by the VHS camp (and Sony keeping the beta format so closed).
MiniDisk: Format that still has it's strong niche, and is likely to for a while.
What a great day for consumer freedom!
First the death of DIVX, now the liberation of personal MP3 players!
Next article: "Microsoft abandons attempt to produce final version of Windows 2000, It's just to bloated and badly written to adequately debug, recomends Windows users switch to Linux."
(Sorry, all this good news just got me carried away!)
Finally, an example of the consumer masses being too inteligent to fall for a horrible idea or product just because it was slickly marketed.
We now have compelling evidence that the public isn't as stupid as some corporations think they are!
My favorite line (probably most people's):
"Sales at participating Divx retailers reflect strong consumer interest in the Divx feature," said Richard L. Sharp, chairman and chief executive officer of Digital Video Express and of Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC, KMX), the majority partner in the Digital Video Express venture. "The majority of customers purchasing DVD players in Circuit City stores have selected players that include the Divx option. Unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain adequate support from studios and other retailers. Despite the significant consumer enthusiasm, we cannot create a viable business without support in these essential areas."
"Strong consumer interest..." "significant consumer enthusiasm". Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.
Tell ya what DIVX dudes... If the consumer support was there, support from other retailers would have been there. Duh!
Hey DIVX, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of marketplace!
[gidyness] [grin]
More than 700 IT users signed the protest letter...
I find this quite funny.
Methinks that Microsoft can't take nearly universal acceptance of it's product by the public for granted anymore!
Hmmm...
I reserve a cautious optimism about this development.
On the one hand, I'll take any contributions to the pool of open source software we can get, provided it's worth something. I'm not aware of any really decent open source performance monitoring packages previously available so this package may prove interesting.
OTOH, SCO is not famous for being particularly friendly to Open Source concepts, and as others have pointed out, something like 25% of them is owned by Microsoft.
It's interesting that this announcement is being made by a company who's CEO, Doug Michels, has been known to have done some truly venomous FUD spewing about Linux in the past. He has also claimed that the supposed venomous FUD spewing was actually a result of the press misquoting him or quoting him out of context.
Maybe it's true that SCO has some respect for the open source concept and the press WAS misquoting Michels on these occasions. It wouldn't be the first time that the press tried to artificially give the impression of a conflict.
This development may or may not be evidence of SCO's real attitude toward open source. Time will tell, and this is a development worth watching.
It's possible that this might happen, but...
IMHO Red Hat's success thus far is largely due to the fact that they have embraced the Open Source/GPL model.
They offer something other than the closed, proprietary stuff that the corporate world has seen plenty of.
As soon as they start closing up their code and becoming proprietary, they become just another nameless proprietary software company.
They are successful because they are not that.
If their shareholders force them down that road, they'll just be making a mistake. Red Hat will loose revenue, and another distribution who has remained true to the open source model, will emerge as the top distribution.
Well, this is another article guaranteed to generate alot of "Red Hat != Linux" flaming from purists and fans of other distros.
However, the author correctly recognizes that Linux is becoming a success in the commercial/corporate world, and Red Hat's business activity is largely responsible for bringing Linux to the attention of the typical clueless pointy-haired corporate computer-illiterate weasel who has, interestingly enough, been put in charge of making decisions regarding OS deployment.
This recognition is a GOOD THING!
Those above-mentioned "pointy-hairs" are getting it, that every line of software on the planet WAS NOT written by Microsoft.
And Red Hat has done much to foster this education of the masses.
I read lots of flaming about the quality of Red Hat's contributions to the software environment that makes up Linux. I would remind those doing such flaming that every single character of code written by Red Hat has been released under the GPL. Don't like what they wrote? Fix it! Take their source and make a better version. This is what the GPL is all about. Software by the people and for the people.
I'm thrilled at Red Hat's success, because it represents the success of a company who seems to have genuinely embraced the open source model of doing things.
All in all, I think this was a good, concise little blurb reporting the state of things at Red Hat.
Next question: if RedHat put $20 million into R&D on Linux, would the Linux community accept these source code modifications? The result would be a new software business model.
"...a new software business model."
Damn straight! and about time.
Although written with all the right pretenses and buzzwords so as to pose as an enlightened well reasoned article, this is about as FUD filled a piece as I have read about Linux recently.
Remember what FUD stands for: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
It's making a bunch of observations about things that have just a grain of truth to them (but ignore the positive flip side) so as to scare people away from a product or idea.
Let's examine one of the worst ones in the article, shall we:
Linux is a college student's project gone astray.
PURE flaimbait! Pure and simple! "Astray"?? Gimme a break!
Let's try, "Linux is a college students project starting to become mature." Like a college student when he/she graduates, moving out into the world, making a few mistakes along the way but also starting to make his/her mark in the world.
Linux is an open-source project; therefore, all changes to the kernel are subject to review and approval by a small team that controls this portion of the operating system. Companies that add features they need, but that are not accepted into the core distribution, may find themselves in a redevelopment and retesting cycle every time a new version of Linux is released.
And just what the heck is this?
Here he takes two of the most attractive things about open source software (the ability to customize it for one's own needs and the existence of thousands of code testers/debuggers around the globe) and tries to spin this as some sort of negative thing. Get me a shovel!
Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition ships with a full complement of Internet services, including Web, proxy, index, messaging, database, transaction and firewall services. With Linux, these services will soon be available as a multivendor product. Whereas Microsoft's products are designed to work with one another and the operating system's services, users may spend a significant amount of time trying to integrate these components under Linux. The most critical of these integrations will be security and access control.
Again, misinformation and FUD.
A typical Linux distribution ships with all of these things. And since the web was originally designed around UNIX, fitting web and internet functionality into NT is much more of a force fit then running them on Linux IMHO.
Windows supporters still outnumber Linux supporters because Microsoft provides a better value proposition.
In all cases for all purposes?
A blanket statement like this, is by very definition FUD. He is basically saying "Linux is not the right choice over NT for ANYTHING."
I'm totally willing to admit that Linux is a young and still maturing OS. It is not the panacea for everything.
But for small to medium sized web based services (html services, mail routing, firewall, etc.) I find it to be THE best "value proposition" available by far.
Far from being an unbiased article, this one was 110% negative against Linux, and therefore, by definition, just a FUD piece.
DiSH is actually less proprietary than DTV. DTV uses a TOTALLY secret proprietary data stream. DiSH uses DVB/MPEG-II (as someone else pointed out) which is an open standard (encorporating encryption, of course, to prevent stealing the service.)
As to one equipment manufacturer, ALL DTV receivers are re-branded receivers manufactured by Hughes (the parent company of DTV), with the exception of the Sony's. Sony manufactures their own units, but uses proprietary Hughes chips (which are secret and exclusive to Hughes) to decode the signal.
OTOH, the Echostar receivers, which are sold under the brand names Echostar, JVC, and Philips/Magnavox, are generic DVB satelite receivers which can be programed to decode any any DVB complient service (E. G. Canada's Express Vu, several Latin American and European services) via reprogramming of their Flash memory and application of the correct provider's smart card. The flash is appropriately programmed for the target provider. They can even be programed, via flash, to output in NTSC, PAL or SECAM, as required by the service they are being used to receive.
And not only that,
The computers that the FAA is using that would be older than the likes of TRS-80 model I's or Commadore 64's would all fall under the catigory of "Mainframes", and perhaps some "Minis" AFAIK, not "PC's".
There's oodles of 30+ year old mainframes still in use. The contest is strictly for "PCs" (whatever, specifically, their definition of PC is here...)
ROTFL!!!
When I was a kid, one of my best friend's mother was Swedish. When she would talk to her relatives on the phone, my friend's father would "translate".
He actually didn't speak a word of Swedish. He would pick up dribs and drabs of sylables that sort-of sounded like something in English and spin outrageous hilarious context around these dribs and drabs. It was PURE GENIUS, considering how he would be doing it on the fly.
Anyone present would be paralyzed with laughter!
This reminded me of that! Good fun!
Of course, while this was going on, my friend's mother would be hissing to her husband, "Shhhh!
I'm talking long distance to SWEDEN forgodsakes!"
Now very few people can claim that seeing movies is their life, but it definitely is a hobby. First off, this isn't the first time people have slept in front of ticket counters to be assured tickets to something. And this won't be the last time.
However,
It is arguably the first time that people have slept in front of ticket counters to see a movie that is going to be seen on the very same screen thousands of times before it ends its first theatrical run some six months hence.
It is one thing to camp out for tickets for a one time event. Take a music concert for example. Your favorite artist might visit your town once every five years at best, and each concert by that artist is a little bit different and unique. THIS is worth camping out for. The event will never be repeated.
However, this is a MOVIE. It will be shown thousands of times. It's not like it's going to be that difficult to see. I stated that I have every intention of seeing "Phantom Menace." I assume that I'll enjoy it a lot. I just don't find it necessary to camp out (for WEEKS, in the case of a few people) in order to see it!
I'm really not trying to be insulting. Nor did I really intend to berate anyone. I just don't get it, that's all.
I remember seeing the original Star Wars movie in the theater.
I was living in Minneapolis when it came out and the St. Louis Park Cinema had an area exclusive on it.
This was almost the last hurrah for that theater, which was a grand and gigantic one screen movie theater of the old fashioned kind.
It had a humongeus curved "surround" screen that had been designed for "Cinerama" moves (the type shown by three projectors at once). A thick gold glittery curtain slowly parted to reveal the screen as the movie started.
I did think that Star Wars was perhaps the best movie I had ever seen.
The St. Louis Park Cinema closed a year or two later, run out of business by the multi-screen cineplexes at the malls.
Now, all these years later, "The Phantom Menace" is about to debut. I'm sure it will be an enjoyable movie, and I intend to catch it within it's first few days out. But, I truly never thought I would live to see such hyperbole and hysteria over any movie.
To those who have been camping out for the last three or four weeks to get a ticket, I'll be about the millionth person the scream at you: "IT'S A FSCKING MOVIE FOR CRISSAKES!"
By definition, anyone who has nothing better to do than to sleep in a tent on a sidewalk for weeks on end just so they can make sure to see the very first presentation of a FSCKING MOVIE at their local cineplex has no bloody life whatsoever, period!
After this mythical "first showing" at hundreds of theaters nation wide, I'm sure that I will have no problem calling the automated ticket sales phone line of my local mega-cinema ("The Palace" here in New Orleans), and scarf me a couple o' tickets to a showing on the second, third, or fourth day. No big deal, and I'm happy.
The fact that there are so many people out there willing to dedicate weeks of their life to camping out to ensure they see that "first show" indicates just how the masses can be brainwashed by hype and effective advertising. In a very real sense, this is scary. Individual independent thinking is apparently a rare commodity in today's society. Suppose the hype engine that is producing the "Phantom Menace" hysteria were to be used to sell the masses on some sort of race hatred or ethnic cleansing campaign? Think about it.
Since there are so many people willing to get this worked up over a FSCKING MOVIE however, I really can't say I blame Lucas et. al. for milking them for all they're worth!
I'm old enough to remember when Dolby-B noise reduction was introduced.
The RIAA went bonkers.
"Cassettes recorded with Dolby-B will allow people to pirate and trade albums! This will be the end of the music industry."
They tried to outlaw Dolby-B.
Now cassettes encoded with Dolby-B are the music industry's bread and butter.
When television came out, the movie studios went bat s**t. "No one will go to the movies anymore!"
Didn't happen.
When VHS tape came out, the Movie studios went bat s**t again. "This will kill the movie industry."
Now the sales and rental of VHS movies represents the most profitable aspect of movie making.
When DAT came out. RIAA went nuts again. "This will kill the recording industry."
Didn't happen.
You'd think by now the people in the entertainment industry would have learned not to be so damn PARANOID!
Why can't they embrace MP3 like they eventually did the cassette? THEY can distribute their product in MP3 format!
New consumer recording formats and distribution means have NEVER measurably hurt the recording industry! Why can't they look at their own history and learn from it?
Finally, I think the LAST thing that GPL and *BSD users should be doing is fighting each other. I'm sure there are people growing interested in *BSD as a result of "Linux hype". I'm sure there are people who use both. I'm sure there are people who switched to *BSD after using Linux. I saw yesterday's news about AOL's interest in a *BSD-powered set-top as proof that the attention is benefitting everyone.
Those who favor GPL and those who favor *BSD have more in common than not. They also have bigger opponents than each other.
Hear hear!!
PLEASE let's not have any BSD vs. GPL flamewars! Both are imperfect but noble attempts to accomplish essentially the SAME THING.
We are friends here, not rivals!
I see nothing in the faqs or descriptions of /. that say that /. will only post articles that are scrictly totally non-biased news fact and will never post links to editorials.
/. often posts links to MicroSoft utter BS FUD attempting to pass itself off as news! This stuff is still often worthy of our attention.
/. to only reference articles and editorials that I 100% agree with!
This editorial, even though it may contain factual inacuracies and opinions we don't agree with, as an editorial still falls under the catigory "News for nerds, Stuff that matters", IMHO.
Heck,
I don't expect
More along the lines of fast typing and inadequite proof reading than "joking".
I think I intended to type an "almost" in there!
I'd ammend it to read, "most of the key points made", or "many of the points made".
All in all, an excellent article.
I tend to agree with every point made.
However, I tend to favor the GPL over the BSD license myself for code I write and release to the public, in spite of the GPL's problems, for one big reason, which the author did explore:
With the BSD license, some big wealthy corporation could hijack some code I spent hours and hours and sweat and blood writing, make some utterly trivial change to it, then distribute it under a proprietary license and make a huge profit and I never see a penny. In addition, if they made VALUABLE changes, they would be closed, not keeping with the "open source" spirit under which the original code was written. Licensing under GPL prevents this.
Of course, I would still have one defense in such a case. I could do my best to get the word out that BiGreedy Corp.'s XYZ datadiddler (that I actually wrote) was available for free at ftp://gotohell.BiGreedy.jerks.com thus undermining their profitability. If they had made valuable addititions, I could attempt to add them to the still open version (or encourage others to do it and keep the code open). However, such an "education campaign" itself would be a really big effort.
In any case, neither license is perfect, and I often find myself wishing for a hybrid of the two.
However, I REALLY don't want to advocate yet-another-open-source-license! So, I don't have a good answer as to how to address the issues raised.
More junk science.
Soundwaves in the lower frequencies are on the order of several FEET in wavelength. For the wall movement to have a measureable impact on standing waves it would have to be on the order of FEET!
Even the highest audible frequencies have wavelengts on the order of fractions of an inch. For the wall movement to cancel potential standing waves at ANY audible frequency it would have to be moving 0.1 inches or more! And, the WHOLE WALL SURFACE would have to be undulating by at least this much, not a tiny area. Don't think it's gonna happen!
Don't forget: "The Unicorn."
Having dabbled in speaker cabinet design, and designed a few PA systems, been a sound guy for bands, etc., I have a few serious reservations about how well these things would work.
...infinitely more construction based variables of course.
The biggest ones:
1) Aren't the characteristics of the sound going to have huge dependencies on the construction of the walls, the size, stud spacing, wallboard thickness etc. If the wallboard is a little loose wouldn't it "buzz" against the studs? Would pictures vibrate? Wouldn't things like stud spacing, wallboard thickness, wood hardness (of the studs) and other factors affect the flatness of the frequency response. What about metal studs? What about lath and plaster walls vs. paneling vs. sheetrock etc.
2) There are several evidences in the advertising copy of junk science and BS double-talk. For example, the site claims that this technology eliminates standing waves.
Standing waves are (almost) 100% a function of room geometry (primarily dimensions of the room vs. multiples of wavelengths, absorbancies of various surfaces in the room also come into play) and (almost) 0% a function of speaker design. This claim (and some others on the site) dump its credibility into the toilet IMHO.
Bottom line, IMHO this system is likely to not sound very good at all in the majority of installations.
DUUUUHH!
I just checked out the guy's root page.
IT IS A SPOOF!
Actually, I'm releived!
The bible unequivocally says that HATRED is a sin.
Any group that expresses hatred against another group (as this group is doing) is committing as severe a sin as they are accusing the group they hate of committing.
Sadly, I am afraid that this is NOT a spoof, their rhetoric is just too much like other hate filled ultra-fundamentalist groups that I have unfortunately been exposed to that hate others in the name of God and Christianity.
What about the "Christian" values that the world within Star Trek seems to place as worthy high values. Values like love, respect, honor, courage, and TOLERANCE of others. This group seems to lack all of these qualities.