But they're improving at an increadible rate - anyone who has assessed Linux for desktop use a couple of years ago, and has done the same recently, will agree with that. One day soon its going to be really hard for a CTO of a small or medium sized company to justify buying Microsoft rather than using a free, similar product.
wrong - three reasons:
microsoft is continuing to develop it's products - it's not standing still, so oss will always play catchup.
free != free: there's still support. who do you call when you can't get staroffice to stop crashing? microsoft will always have much better
(and more expenseive, but that's their game) support than some oss alternative. the support business model is causing small oss vendors to crater left and right.
most importantly: microsoft office stuff will
not be unthroned simply because too many people rely on it. people at my office have been dumbed down to the point where they send email with.doc attachments, but _everybody_ does it. given that, unless the open alternative is 100% compatible, no chance of them crushing microsoft office.
apple stores and comp usa both trap you in the store for 10 minutes while the cd burns, and guess what, you browse! it's perfect because instead of just bopping in grabbing a cd and leaving, you spend time in the store seeing all the other things you need. and i'll bet they've got market research to back up the idea.
it's pure evil and ingenious -- if only i'd thought of it...
alternative media api: OpenML
on
Whither OpenAL?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
another initiative to create an alternative cross-platform media api is currently underway under the name OpenML. OpenML is a merging of several media apis from SGI and others. the specifications have been released, and whitepapers, specs, and presentations are on
the
OpenML website.
Re:space imaging nyc image 09/12/2001
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 1
i always reply to myself. it's just a bad habit. pix are mirrored here:
The bigger issue is that developers will
have to choose which board they want to develop games for, or, write the code twice--one set for each board. Does this mean that future games will be hardware specific?"
two points:
games have always been hardware-specific. dx8
means only x86 compatible hardware & windows.
but i assume you mean graphics-hardware, so to address that directly:
yes, developers have to write code for one or the other pixel 'shader' api directly, thus
excluding them from the other. this is extremely shrewd business - get developers locked-into your platform, then watch the other
competitor's hardware perform more poorly, and
eat their lunch too. it's how microsoft has
done well, and it's what ati & nvidia are competing for right now. it's not the technology, it's the business of technology.
ok, i lied, 3 points. bonus point. there
are alternatives which are platform neutral, and higher-level. think of pixel-shading apis as writing in assembly. think of high-level shading apis as writing in c or c++. a better idea than writing in 'shader assembly' would be to write in a high-level language. SGI & stanford both have projects which are, at their core, hardware-agnostic:
the most interesting thing to me in the continued
ms vs linux debate is that linux isn't a threat
(yet). the os which has most potential to dethrone
ms is mac osx, and it's rapidly becoming a real
threat. as apple is fond of pointing out, they
will be the largest unix vendor on the planet
within 6months.
it's nice to see microsoft picking the wrong
front on which to attack.
however, they're doing lots of goodness with
their.net stuff, to get lock-in on that, so it's
not at all like they're missing the boat completely. but it's good to see a small
chink in their armor...
ipchains/iptables && squid && junkbuster will accomplish everything that they want you to pay for. The problem was not a "preference for the Windows platform," but "Linux does this for free, why is nobody giving us money."
sure, but this also means that people don't put
a price on their time. to configure a system like
you describe involves reading HOWTOs, FAQs, and
installing stuff that you might not already have. and blowing a week of time testing, etc. needless to say, my mom isn't going to do this.
theoretically, 0knowledge can do all this with one
install, magically. that's worth some $.
if not, start a project to do it, and make a few
$ off the linux market who wants/needs this product.
as for the 'pixelated icon' suggestion, really,
if you're going to criticize a standard, at least try to push the boundaries a smidge. vector graphics at least. even better, a token identifying both type and data of a visual.
asking which cellular plan is best is like asking
which computer you should buy -- without some
context (games, spreadsheets, giant fea runs)
about how you'll use it, it's a meaningless
question. that said, use point.com to compare
plans. this is how i determined the best plan
for me:
As far as I know you still have to use a Mac to use the AirPort base station, but it does not look like it would be impossible to hack for UNIX use (perhaps it already has been and I just missed the news).
works great for unix - it's just IEEE 802.11
wireless networking, no worries. and now, for
your added viewing pleasure, the base-station
configurator exists for windows as well. see:
well, despite the/. commentary, the article
describes how overall the industry will continue
to sell _more_ phones, doubling the number sold
by about 2007. more phones == more growth.
and these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.
we're seeing how much easier it is to 'wire'
3rd world countries with cell infrastructure than
wiring to @ house independently. think of the 5-6
billion people out there. someday they'll all
be connected.
Currently, a document posted to Freenet with the same name as one already present may actually serve to propagate the existing document. There is also currently no means of deleting a document from Freenet. Documents that are never requested are eventually removed through disuse.
this begs the question of document management. if someone posts something that isn't the 'correct' something, can they retract it, change it, modify it? so when somebody posts a file that spoofs another 'real' file (here's the latest linux kernel, but it's only 2 bytes long, or is modified in some way, etc), how can it be maintained or changed? have you thought about how people might 'moderate', ala slashdot, files?
As commercials become much easier to screen out, the money is going to drift off, and, inevitably, program quality will go(further) down. Not that I blame TiVo for this phenomenon -- it's most likely coming no matter what, but it's a concern nevertheless.
this seems like a dubious statement at best. got any facts to support it with? here are a few to support my 'no worries, advertisers will find a way' theory:
the web: advertisers may have had initial problems figuring out how to work in this medium, but now web-ads are ubiquitous.
movies: no commercials in movies, but can you think of a movie you've seen recently with no product placements? even the best manage to sneak in a coke can or two.
i'm sure there are more examples of ways in which advertisers can advertise w/o commercials, so please feel free to add to the list.
my vision?
the future may not have commercials as we know it, but we'll probably move back more into a model as in the early days of television. your favorite host/guest/actor chooses to smoke/drink/eat/own/wear a particular thing, appropriately logoed. this happens all over tv today (seinfeld, the simpons (dialog), etc.) and i think this is the trend you will see in the future, but never, ever, ever, despite how good it might be, will you see advertisers stop advertising. at least until consumers stop consuming, and this, being the usa, seems unlikely.
i disagree. there really _is_ a need for something like this. i'm offline so much of the time, in a cafe, on an airplane, etc, that if i need to search any and all linux documentation, i _have_ to have it with me. as the previous author noted, there are other motivations for having a complete copy offline too, such as expensive connections, and i'm sure there are others.
i'd like to see an iso image of the ldp, and all it contains, have it be searchable, indexed, and running locally on a live webhost, etc.
one completely exellent tool that i've used for years which does this, but for IRIX, is the IRIX developer's toolbox. there's an online mechanism, and a mirror which you can get cds of, and use offline. excellent tool for IRIX devrs (and lots of code for stuff like opengl too). check out:
1) as others have pointed out, IEEE-1394 and USB are designed for different needs (high & low bw respectively), so why try to get one-size-fits-all -- one thing will never be everything to everyone.
2) where does this "but the next version will be faster so let's just wait and see" stuff come from? yes, there will always be something faster next year. but you probably have to get your work done this year. use the tools available, and don't wait for the NextBigThing - you'll be waiting forever.
i'm always bugged when a press release garners more attention than real products. seagate makes 50G drives today. you can get them today here.(also they have some drives which are slightly less than $10/G) or read the specs on the 50G here .
Slashdot Mirror
a: no - let's increase check-in security.
q: do we know that bin laden is _actually_ responsible, not just capable?
a: no, let's bomb the hell out of the taliban.
this type of reactionary non-critical thinking is rampant so many places and it makes me grumpy. grr.
but i digress...
well, i'll rest easier knowing my privacy is insured, and in case someone does find me, what, i pay my premium, and they pay out a giant claim?
wishing corporate america had a spell-checker, bob.
crazy like a fox.
apple stores and comp usa both trap you in the store for 10 minutes while the cd burns, and guess what, you browse! it's perfect because instead of just bopping in grabbing a cd and leaving, you spend time in the store seeing all the other things you need. and i'll bet they've got market research to back up the idea.
it's pure evil and ingenious -- if only i'd thought of it...
another initiative to create an alternative cross-platform media api is currently underway under the name OpenML. OpenML is a merging of several media apis from SGI and others. the specifications have been released, and whitepapers, specs, and presentations are on the OpenML website.
washington post
http://www.spaceimaging.com/newsroom/attack_galler y.htm
one key point they make is how the buildings in the financial district are possible because bedrock is relatively (30-80') near the surface.
read the whole article here:
http://www.sciam.com/2001/0901issue/0901scitravel. html
use this script:
/dev/null "http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store/productdetail.a spx?prodno=1468594&zoom=yes"
#!/bin/sh
while true
do
sleep 15
wget -a
done
two points:
the most interesting thing to me in the continued ms vs linux debate is that linux isn't a threat (yet). the os which has most potential to dethrone ms is mac osx, and it's rapidly becoming a real threat. as apple is fond of pointing out, they will be the largest unix vendor on the planet within 6months. it's nice to see microsoft picking the wrong front on which to attack. however, they're doing lots of goodness with their .net stuff, to get lock-in on that, so it's
not at all like they're missing the boat completely. but it's good to see a small
chink in their armor...
sure, but this also means that people don't put a price on their time. to configure a system like you describe involves reading HOWTOs, FAQs, and installing stuff that you might not already have. and blowing a week of time testing, etc. needless to say, my mom isn't going to do this.
theoretically, 0knowledge can do all this with one install, magically. that's worth some $.
if not, start a project to do it, and make a few $ off the linux market who wants/needs this product.
http://www.sun.com/jini/
as for the 'pixelated icon' suggestion, really, if you're going to criticize a standard, at least try to push the boundaries a smidge. vector graphics at least. even better, a token identifying both type and data of a visual.
http://www.point.com/default.asp
also, your needs become dramtically different if you travel overseas frequently, but there's tons of good info in here for that too.
works great for unix - it's just IEEE 802.11 wireless networking, no worries. and now, for your added viewing pleasure, the base-station configurator exists for windows as well. see:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ABSConfig/
for starters.
well, despite the /. commentary, the article
describes how overall the industry will continue
to sell _more_ phones, doubling the number sold
by about 2007. more phones == more growth.
and these numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.
we're seeing how much easier it is to 'wire'
3rd world countries with cell infrastructure than
wiring to @ house independently. think of the 5-6
billion people out there. someday they'll all
be connected.
growth slowing? maybe.
overall growth continuing? definitely.
http://www.kasenna.com
imagine that - two sides to this debate.
2.3. Can Freenet documents be updated/deleted?
Currently, a document posted to Freenet with the same name as one already present may actually serve to propagate the existing document. There is also currently no means of deleting a document from Freenet. Documents that are never requested are eventually removed through disuse.
this begs the question of document management. if someone posts something that isn't the 'correct' something, can they retract it, change it, modify it? so when somebody posts a file that spoofs another 'real' file (here's the latest linux kernel, but it's only 2 bytes long, or is modified in some way, etc), how can it be maintained or changed? have you thought about how people might 'moderate', ala slashdot, files?
this seems like a dubious statement at best. got any facts to support it with? here are a few to support my 'no worries, advertisers will find a way' theory:
i'm sure there are more examples of ways in which advertisers can advertise w/o commercials, so please feel free to add to the list.
my vision?
the future may not have commercials as we know it, but we'll probably move back more into a model as in the early days of television. your favorite host/guest/actor chooses to smoke/drink/eat/own/wear a particular thing, appropriately logoed. this happens all over tv today (seinfeld, the simpons (dialog), etc.) and i think this is the trend you will see in the future, but never, ever, ever, despite how good it might be, will you see advertisers stop advertising. at least until consumers stop consuming, and this, being the usa, seems unlikely.
i'd like to see an iso image of the ldp, and all it contains, have it be searchable, indexed, and running locally on a live webhost, etc.
one completely exellent tool that i've used for years which does this, but for IRIX, is the IRIX developer's toolbox. there's an online mechanism, and a mirror which you can get cds of, and use offline. excellent tool for IRIX devrs (and lots of code for stuff like opengl too). check out:
http://toolbox.sgi.com
i'm curious if other slashdotters who work offline would find a tool like this (say ldp on a cd) useful.
do a bit of research before you make a blanket
statement like "$50-$100". here are the latest
cpu prices:
http://sharkyextreme.com/hardware/weekly_cpu/
note the price difference between the top and
top-1 cpus.
... and sony in their VAIO stuff.
1) as others have pointed out, IEEE-1394 and USB are designed for different needs (high & low bw respectively), so why try to get one-size-fits-all -- one thing will never be everything to everyone.
2) where does this "but the next version will be faster so let's just wait and see" stuff come from? yes, there will always be something faster next year. but you probably have to get your work done this year. use the tools available, and don't wait for the NextBigThing - you'll be waiting forever.
i'm always bugged when a press release garners more attention than real products. seagate makes 50G drives today. you can get them today here .(also they have some drives which are slightly less than $10/G) or read the specs on the 50G here .
cool -- large, but cool.