Linux PPC made a port to G3, why can't Be? Maybe it has something to do with all the money they are getting from Intel. You think? If a bunch of open-source hackers can do it, it tends to make Be look like a bunch of whiners.
The new notebook should run Linux, NetBSD and MacOS X (client). All of which depend on Open Firmware, which has been in all Macs of recent memory. Why can't Be get their act together and do better than two different open source projects? That's a very good question... (hint: show me the money...)
This should be a news item in and of itself really.
The AirPort is 11 Mb/s, and the hub costs $299. The card is $99 for the iBook. Those of us with other notebooks will have to pay the exorbatent rates charged by other producers. But... 11Mb wireless hub for $300, up to 150 feet. Plus software to go peer to peer.
Playing Quake 3 arena will never be the same.
Who should moderate? 3-5 posters, not lurkers.
on
Slashdot Notes
·
· Score: 1
I've seen in a previous thread here that moderation is somewhat random just so long as you've been logged in for a while, and check back regularly.
Well, it occurs to me that perhaps moderation should be limited to people who regularly post high ranking articles. I had always been under the impression that the reason I got moderator points was because I posted 2 or 3 articles that got 5's. Now that I find out that it is completely arbitrary I'm rather disappointed. Of course I might have this wrong, this is based on a previous post.
Please CmdrTaco, Hemos, and the rest of the team, reward people that post intelligent posts, don't reward lurkers. Not only will it encourage people to write more intelligent posts, but it will also encourage people to continue to write intelligent posts later on. Generally speaking, the people who take the time to write a 4 or 5 scoring article are not the types who will demote an article because they disagree with it.
Controlling moderation based on points recieved by the poster seems to make a lot of sense to me in my own mind. Of course one post that scores 5 should be worth more than ten posts that score 1, so it should scale somehow, but I'm sure the home team here will figure out something that works for that. Please give this some thought, I think it might help the moderation system by improving the quality of moderators.
FYI: No, I didn't log out to post this, but I'm also not moderating this particular article either. Having points is reason more to contribute, not a reason to lurk.
It's good that users of other cards will be able to run 3dfx games. There is a risk however that this will encourage game developers to be lazy and just develop for 3dfx and assume that everyone can just patch their way into making it work for them. Making 3dfx a defacto standard. That would be a Bad Thing.
However the momentum behind OpenGL currently should hopefully fix everything for anyone by providing an open standard that everyone can participate in. That would be a Good Thing. Compatibility is great, but people must more fervently pressure game developers to avoid 3dfx and their proprietary nastyness.
Richard Stallman is not recieving this award for shooting his mouth off as an industry pundit, despite many readers beliefs. He is recieving this award as recognition for his work on GCC, GDB, Emacs and other programs that continue to be key to the internet being as successful as it is.
Look at the history of the award. The inventor of TCP/IP, the inventor of the mouse, the person who tokened 'hypertext'. While Richard Stallman's continued involvment in internet culture probably helped him win this award, people should recognize that most of what he is being awarded for is his efforts to make a universal compiler available to internet hosts, allowing everyone to compile Apache (among other things) to their platform of choice.
Congratulations to Richard Stallman, one of the more influential programmers of our time and author of a number of great utilities. I think, arguably, his development efforts have had as much an influence on free and open software as his public relations efforts through the FSF.
Now before the flaming contest begins, it is important to note that the author was correct about a few things. And then he was wrong about quite a few things. And then there are some ugly truths...
The Good: * The truth is that Linux suffers from a dearth of real usable applications. This is changing rapidly, but at the moment, the lack of apps is the truth for most purposes.
* Microsoft gets lots of mindless bashing from Linux (and *BSD and MacOS) users. Unfortunately people just call Microsoft bad and don't understand the reasons why.
The Bad:
* The author claims that his years of experience make him better able to analyze the operating system market. Unfortunately the computer world doesn't work that way, let alone the world in general. Usually it's the young kids in a garage throwing together a product that cause revolutions, particularly in this industry.
* The author implies that if everyone ran the same operating system there would be an overall benefit. This isn't true at all. Choice and competition causes the operating systems to improve. A capitalist society without competition is a Bad Thing (see also "Railroad/Steel/Oil Barons").
The Ugly:
* The ugly truth for the Linux community is that some users' rage toward Microsoft outweighs their ability to justify their anger. If you believe that all software should be free, then you might have some room for anger. However, programmers are not charity cases generally, and you can't feed your family or yourself by giving your work away. There is room for both free and commercial software to coexist happily.
* The ugly truth about Microsoft is that people are hating them for all the wrong reasons. Once all the anti-competitive practices become the object of the public's rage, rather than just their shoddy software, then all the anti-trust laws will be strengthened. Microsofts crime isn't that it sells lots of software, it's that it leverages the software to screw the little guys by not releasing standards, API calling conventions, etc. Stallman wrote a nice piece recently touching on the fact that it is the leveraging that is the real crime with MS.
* The last ugly truth is that dearth of applications I mentioned. The tools to do certain tasks in Linux simply aren't there. If I'm doing programming then it's all a little bit better because many programming tools started in Unix (not Linux), and were quickly converted. At the same time though consumer and small business applications on Linux (or *BSD) are either not as well-featured as the Windows equivilant, or they don't exist. There is a steep learning curve coming too. If you have a superior operating system in some aspect, and the applications, then users will come, right? Wrong. Look at Apple folks. MacOS although not superior in it's low-levels, has a vastly superior user interface to anything else out there. (I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying it, but it is simply a fact.) MacOS has plenty of applications for any task that are parallel or more featured than Win32 equivilants, but they don't have the user base, because they don't have the users and purchasers out of the WinEverywhere mindset yet. To get users out of this mindset, and to convince this columnist that your operating system is better you need a killer app, that no other platform has. And Linux, just like *BSD, just like MacOS, just like BeOS, doesn't have that killer app yet to break the Windows mindset in consumers.
Pardon the novel... this is probably my 10 cents worth. --Cysgod
Quake 3 more of the same (tired)
on
Mac Q3Test Shots
·
· Score: 4
After playing Q3Test plenty of hours last night I found that it offered nothing new over previous versions except slightly better graphics. I congratulate id Software at getting better at making the same game, and I'm sure lots of people will buy it, because they like the same game.
But I'm tired of it. Noone seems to be able to do anything new with first person shooters. Just more weapons, better graphics, new bad guys. The only thing moderately new was Rainbow 6, and I enjoyed it for quite a while, but even it seems like old hat now.
I'm sure lots of/. readers are going to just love Quake 3, but I personally am not going to play it. I can go back to Quake 1 and get the same gameplay experience. Plus with Quake 1 I won't have to worry about whether I need to drop large sums of money into my machine to make it playable.
I'd love to run around and gib people again, but I don't think I'll enjoy it. No, I'd rather go back and play NetHack or TradeWars 2002 or my current fave Myth II. All games that did something new, better and have innovative game play. And Myth II was a really good followup to Myth adding new gameplay features and modifying gameplay of the original.
If you still play Quake or Quake 2 regularly, you'll love Quake 3, otherwise save your money until a better game comes out. On second thought perhaps the names should be Quake 1.0, Quake 2.0, and Quake 3.0 to reflect that they are all the same game with incrementally better graphics.
Maybe I'll write my own first-person shooter in ML. Or maybe not.
Slashdot Mirror
OpenGL hardware and software support is already there for the Mac. Please see http://www.apple.com/opengl
Just because it doesn't bash your platform doesn't make misinformative FUD a good thing.
Linux PPC made a port to G3, why can't Be? Maybe it has something to do with all the money they are getting from Intel. You think? If a bunch of open-source hackers can do it, it tends to make Be look like a bunch of whiners.
The new notebook should run Linux, NetBSD and MacOS X (client). All of which depend on Open Firmware, which has been in all Macs of recent memory. Why can't Be get their act together and do better than two different open source projects? That's a very good question... (hint: show me the money...)
- Cysgod
This should be a news item in and of itself really.
The AirPort is 11 Mb/s, and the hub costs $299. The card is $99 for the iBook. Those of us with other notebooks will have to pay the exorbatent rates charged by other producers. But... 11Mb wireless hub for $300, up to 150 feet. Plus software to go peer to peer.
Playing Quake 3 arena will never be the same.
I've seen in a previous thread here that moderation is somewhat random just so long as you've been logged in for a while, and check back regularly.
Well, it occurs to me that perhaps moderation should be limited to people who regularly post high ranking articles. I had always been under the impression that the reason I got moderator points was because I posted 2 or 3 articles that got 5's. Now that I find out that it is completely arbitrary I'm rather disappointed. Of course I might have this wrong, this is based on a previous post.
Please CmdrTaco, Hemos, and the rest of the team, reward people that post intelligent posts, don't reward lurkers. Not only will it encourage people to write more intelligent posts, but it will also encourage people to continue to write intelligent posts later on. Generally speaking, the people who take the time to write a 4 or 5 scoring article are not the types who will demote an article because they disagree with it.
Controlling moderation based on points recieved by the poster seems to make a lot of sense to me in my own mind. Of course one post that scores 5 should be worth more than ten posts that score 1, so it should scale somehow, but I'm sure the home team here will figure out something that works for that. Please give this some thought, I think it might help the moderation system by improving the quality of moderators.
FYI: No, I didn't log out to post this, but I'm also not moderating this particular article either. Having points is reason more to contribute, not a reason to lurk.
-- Cysgod
(I use BSD and Linux, happy?)
It's good that users of other cards will be able to run 3dfx games. There is a risk however that this will encourage game developers to be lazy and just develop for 3dfx and assume that everyone can just patch their way into making it work for them. Making 3dfx a defacto standard. That would be a Bad Thing.
However the momentum behind OpenGL currently should hopefully fix everything for anyone by providing an open standard that everyone can participate in. That would be a Good Thing. Compatibility is great, but people must more fervently pressure game developers to avoid 3dfx and their proprietary nastyness.
-- Cysgod
Richard Stallman is not recieving this award for shooting his mouth off as an industry pundit, despite many readers beliefs. He is recieving this award as recognition for his work on GCC, GDB, Emacs and other programs that continue to be key to the internet being as successful as it is.
Look at the history of the award. The inventor of TCP/IP, the inventor of the mouse, the person who tokened 'hypertext'. While Richard Stallman's continued involvment in internet culture probably helped him win this award, people should recognize that most of what he is being awarded for is his efforts to make a universal compiler available to internet hosts, allowing everyone to compile Apache (among other things) to their platform of choice.
Congratulations to Richard Stallman, one of the more influential programmers of our time and author of a number of great utilities. I think, arguably, his development efforts have had as much an influence on free and open software as his public relations efforts through the FSF.
- Cysgod
Now before the flaming contest begins, it is important to note that the author was correct about a few things. And then he was wrong about quite a few things. And then there are some ugly truths...
The Good:
* The truth is that Linux suffers from a dearth of real usable applications. This is changing rapidly, but at the moment, the lack of apps is the truth for most purposes.
* Microsoft gets lots of mindless bashing from Linux (and *BSD and MacOS) users. Unfortunately people just call Microsoft bad and don't understand the reasons why.
The Bad:
* The author claims that his years of experience make him better able to analyze the operating system market. Unfortunately the computer world doesn't work that way, let alone the world in general. Usually it's the young kids in a garage throwing together a product that cause revolutions, particularly in this industry.
* The author implies that if everyone ran the same operating system there would be an overall benefit. This isn't true at all. Choice and competition causes the operating systems to improve. A capitalist society without competition is a Bad Thing (see also "Railroad/Steel/Oil Barons").
The Ugly:
* The ugly truth for the Linux community is that some users' rage toward Microsoft outweighs their ability to justify their anger. If you believe that all software should be free, then you might have some room for anger. However, programmers are not charity cases generally, and you can't feed your family or yourself by giving your work away. There is room for both free and commercial software to coexist happily.
* The ugly truth about Microsoft is that people are hating them for all the wrong reasons. Once all the anti-competitive practices become the object of the public's rage, rather than just their shoddy software, then all the anti-trust laws will be strengthened. Microsofts crime isn't that it sells lots of software, it's that it leverages the software to screw the little guys by not releasing standards, API calling conventions, etc. Stallman wrote a nice piece recently touching on the fact that it is the leveraging that is the real crime with MS.
* The last ugly truth is that dearth of applications I mentioned. The tools to do certain tasks in Linux simply aren't there. If I'm doing programming then it's all a little bit better because many programming tools started in Unix (not Linux), and were quickly converted. At the same time though consumer and small business applications on Linux (or *BSD) are either not as well-featured as the Windows equivilant, or they don't exist.
There is a steep learning curve coming too. If you have a superior operating system in some aspect, and the applications, then users will come, right? Wrong. Look at Apple folks. MacOS although not superior in it's low-levels, has a vastly superior user interface to anything else out there. (I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying it, but it is simply a fact.) MacOS has plenty of applications for any task that are parallel or more featured than Win32 equivilants, but they don't have the user base, because they don't have the users and purchasers out of the WinEverywhere mindset yet.
To get users out of this mindset, and to convince this columnist that your operating system is better you need a killer app, that no other platform has. And Linux, just like *BSD, just like MacOS, just like BeOS, doesn't have that killer app yet to break the Windows mindset in consumers.
Pardon the novel... this is probably my 10 cents worth.
--Cysgod
After playing Q3Test plenty of hours last night I found that it offered nothing new over previous versions except slightly better graphics. I congratulate id Software at getting better at making the same game, and I'm sure lots of people will buy it, because they like the same game.
/. readers are going to just love Quake 3, but I personally am not going to play it. I can go back to Quake 1 and get the same gameplay experience. Plus with Quake 1 I won't have to worry about whether I need to drop large sums of money into my machine to make it playable.
But I'm tired of it. Noone seems to be able to do anything new with first person shooters. Just more weapons, better graphics, new bad guys. The only thing moderately new was Rainbow 6, and I enjoyed it for quite a while, but even it seems like old hat now.
I'm sure lots of
I'd love to run around and gib people again, but I don't think I'll enjoy it. No, I'd rather go back and play NetHack or TradeWars 2002 or my current fave Myth II. All games that did something new, better and have innovative game play. And Myth II was a really good followup to Myth adding new gameplay features and modifying gameplay of the original.
If you still play Quake or Quake 2 regularly, you'll love Quake 3, otherwise save your money until a better game comes out. On second thought perhaps the names should be Quake 1.0, Quake 2.0, and Quake 3.0 to reflect that they are all the same game with incrementally better graphics.
Maybe I'll write my own first-person shooter in ML. Or maybe not.
-- Cysgod