Okay, on a more sane note, I work at the parts counter of my local CompUSA, where the laptops are held. I can safely say that these laptops will be the laughing stock of the laptop selection (previously, the iBook held that prestigious title). The current VAIO user base is pretty respectable (with a number of Linux users out there; the chipset in the VAIO is not too shabby). However, with the new VAIOs looking like some VTech toy ripoff of a laptop, the user base will certainly start resembling the iBook user base: people who like how it looks (yes, strangely enough, there are people who wouldn't mind lugging around a big, bulky Speak 'n' Spell).
All the more reason to resist the Japanizing of America. This infernal turd and the Aibo offend me to the point of boycotting all future Sony products.
It's pretty nice, in a graphics quality standpoint. I especially like Shana's transformation (well, shouldn't every guy?) However, I'm not one for turn-based RPGs, so the gameplay doesn't really appeal to me. Nice melting effects, I never knew the PS1 could do that.
Seriously, doesn't this remind anyone of a portable Smith-Corona geezer? That was back in the days of "Bring your own typewriter", and if you were a newspaper journalist or a traveling stenographer, you had to have one.
But seriously, Sony, take your mind out of the gutter, your head out of the past, and your thumb... on second thought, dig deeper on that one, you might just strike gold (or just your coccyx).
One of the most important experiences of playing a 3D game is immersing yourself in the world. Until "smellevision" is invented, the primary way of doing this is by looking at the finer details of the world. Half-Life and Soldier of Fortune really excelled in this respect; seeing a science lab destroyed by marauding aliens brings on that special feeling of fear that would happen in a similar situation. The Quake 3 engine is also good at this, though you rarely have enough time to stop and smell the skulls. DOOM was really the first game to have this type of experience; just seeing the rivers of blood and the impaled bodies added a special macabre feeling to gameplay. Though game designers should never get carried away with that aspect (see: Daikatana), it is still an important part of a 3D game.
Criticism, yes, maybe. But Sun's technicians won't change a component at the whim of an online wanker, as RedHat is prone to do once enough popular demand ensues. Name one situation where a group of Solaris users stood up and said "Put X in Solaris," and where Sun actually complied with their wishes.
So if you designed the next utterly popular hardware/software that raked in millions, would you still have it open sourced? I don't think so; your bottom line would be at stake from having too much plaigarizing competition. That's why companies have NDAs. And that's also why Sun server owners are so closely banded together; an NDA wouldn't matter, it would just mean that the news websites wouldn't release ravenous trolls on the company, as is the situation now.
Public Relations is a form of crowd control; if you don't say what the public wants to hear, then you're liable to have a stampede on your hands.
Where else can you set a C4 charge, experience a.330 caliber rifle bullet ripping through your cranium, float outside of your dead corpse, see the target destroyed by your C4, and still live to tell the tale?
Intel's "Can't do it in life?" slogan holds true on this end: there are many things that you can do on the Internet that you wouldn't want to do in the real world. Unfortunately, some people can't calm down enough to tell the difference between the two.
I actually do play Counter-Strike, and to make it all the more realistic, I have a.330 bullet without a casing on my desk beside my mouse. It serves other purposes, too: it's heavy enough to hold down the Enter key.
If you took a good look at the architecture of John Carmack's engines, you would know that they were at the forefront of technology. The Quake1 engine was the very first, entirely 3D game rendering system. Unlike other games released then, there were only sprites for explosions, air bubbles, and an ornamental sphere. Everything else was modeled in 3D. Quake 2 carried on what the Q1 engine started by adding extended OpenGL support, colored lighting, and 16-bit rendering. The Q2 engine was so efficient, the core technology was used in other successful games, one of the most prominent of them being Half-Life. The Quake 3 engine added on native 32-bit texturing, model animation interpolation, cube environment mapping, and an incredibly high quality texturing engine. It only seems fair to honor such gems of development by using them to push computer systems to their limits.
Sun's Solaris has less nagging bugs, and an NDA, while RedHat Linux has many nagging bugs, and is open to criticism, hacking, cracking, etc. How is RedHat any better than Sun in this respect? I don't care if you can bitch at Bob Young all you want, that's just not going to help. A rolling stone gathers no moss, and on the release of RH7, the boulder that is RedHat was stagnant. Only now have they started their journey towards fixing the nefarious bugs in RH7.
Does this seem like a déjà vu from RH6.0? It seems that they do this after every.0 release. If this rule held true for everything Linux, I wouldn't even touch anything x.0; but thankfully, other people constantly check their syntax and bugcheck feverishly.
I don't have to "invent" any incompatibility, there's already two blaring examples out there: the original GeForce running on the original Athlon (so incompatible that Maximum PC did an "Athlon and GeForce" article stating that it was a lost cause). This was due to the GeForce needing an "Intel Pentium III or 100% compatible" processor. The original GeForce had major issues running on any Athlon system, so it can be argued that the Athlon is NOT 100% compatible with the Pentium III.
Also, this Microsoft Knowledge Base article chronicles the AGP memory addressing problem with the Athlon chipsets. This has been logged as an official "errata" by AMD. This includes the VIA and AMD chipsets.
That's a snippet from a DNA sequence (AGTC) and a movie portraying an Orwellian society (gotta love the Sci-Fi channel's wide-screen version!). I wonder how many instances of "GATTACA" are in my genome.
Usually, the bugs I see in Windows are trivial; usually stuff I haven't even tried yet. So far, I haven't been directly affected by any incident with Windows. On the other hand, Creative's drivers gave me hell with channel reversing, and now that they've bought out Aureal, I am once again at the wrath of their imps in the driver engineering section.
This is just too funny, and too reminiscent of Microsoft's follies. They tried to innovate by providing a daemon which searches for updated packages, but it crashes the system after 3 weeks. Gee, is that why the ZDOOM site isn't working? That's what happens when a company blindly tries to "innovate" and doesn't bugcheck.
These credit-card thin batteries could be used to power robotic spy drones which move along on wheels, kinda like the little thing in Star Wars that Chewbacca hollered at and scared. Is no one safe when a new technology is used in the wrong way?
I almost thought that VMSK was related to Java(TM), but then I checked out the August article. I hope that this gets through, but there's always the vaporware rule: don't believe it until you see it in action.
For instance, was there a whetstone test to obtain the MFLOPs reading? Seriously, 400 GIPs is worthless without at least 20 GFLOPs. The SETI team at UCB would certainly frown on this if the GIPs/GFLOPs ratio was horrendous; what they really want is a strong FPU for Fast-Fourier Transform operations.
I'm waiting for a system that can churn out one SETI@Home unit (about 300K of data from Arecibo) per hour. Currently, it takes a nicely equipped P3 about 12 hours to process a unit.
I know, I know, SETI@Home isn't everything. But it is a good way to get a glimpse at the level of FPU performance
I'm going to act on these ideals very soon. I'm already engaged in a motion picture boycott (except for Star Trek movies; my mother always drags the entire family along, but hey, why see a Star Trek movie or episode when you can play it out?)
Also, I might be considered a Transcendentalist hybrid, since I'm so engaged in the news. If Thoreau was alive now, he'd be an avid Slashdot member for sure. He'd have opinions on the DMCA, the DeCSS issue, Microsoft's sales practices, and so on.
Well, you use the IRC for return postage outside of your country. Therefore, the recipient can obtain proper postage for a reply message/package. There, is that about it?
"Joe Sixpack and Vinny Bagadonuts [don't] care about [the] DMCA, freedom or anything like that. As long as the football game will be broadcast on time they're happy."
Well, it's time to MAKE them care, by making them aware of the impact that the DMCA will have on their lives. It might turn out that Joe Sixpack downloads his favorite Elvis Costello tunes from Napster because his LP's are scratched beyond recognition. And what if he wanted to get DVD soon, but didn't want to worry about the MPAA charging him a flat rate to play the movie? Then he should start caring about how the DMCA will affect his life.
One of the major reasons why I hate the DMCA is because of how it became law: a joint venture between the MPAA, RIAA, and the government. In no way was this act approved by the US citizens. The very fact that the DMCA will become law soon flies in the face of this passage of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
From the consent of governed. Now, did we give any consent to have the DMCA passed into law? NO. Were any referendums held to study public opinion on this issue? NO.
The DMCA IS destructive of the ends established in the Declaration, and it is our right to abolish the DMCA. It is not only our right, but now it is our responsibility to eliminate the DMCA. The DMCA will affect our happiness in the future; we will become drones, being forced by the MPAA to shell out X amount of dollars to watch a pre-recorded movie for Y amount of time. Even worse, the RIAA might soon mandate that we pay for FM radio by the minute. I fear that this idea (or a similar incarnation) isn't far off.
Do I sound a little like Henry David Thoreau? Good! It's nice to know that I'm one of the only remaining Transcendentalists in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, on a more sane note, I work at the parts counter of my local CompUSA, where the laptops are held. I can safely say that these laptops will be the laughing stock of the laptop selection (previously, the iBook held that prestigious title). The current VAIO user base is pretty respectable (with a number of Linux users out there; the chipset in the VAIO is not too shabby). However, with the new VAIOs looking like some VTech toy ripoff of a laptop, the user base will certainly start resembling the iBook user base: people who like how it looks (yes, strangely enough, there are people who wouldn't mind lugging around a big, bulky Speak 'n' Spell).
All the more reason to resist the Japanizing of America. This infernal turd and the Aibo offend me to the point of boycotting all future Sony products.
It's pretty nice, in a graphics quality standpoint. I especially like Shana's transformation (well, shouldn't every guy?) However, I'm not one for turn-based RPGs, so the gameplay doesn't really appeal to me. Nice melting effects, I never knew the PS1 could do that.
But seriously, Sony, take your mind out of the gutter, your head out of the past, and your thumb... on second thought, dig deeper on that one, you might just strike gold (or just your coccyx).
One of the most important experiences of playing a 3D game is immersing yourself in the world. Until "smellevision" is invented, the primary way of doing this is by looking at the finer details of the world. Half-Life and Soldier of Fortune really excelled in this respect; seeing a science lab destroyed by marauding aliens brings on that special feeling of fear that would happen in a similar situation. The Quake 3 engine is also good at this, though you rarely have enough time to stop and smell the skulls. DOOM was really the first game to have this type of experience; just seeing the rivers of blood and the impaled bodies added a special macabre feeling to gameplay. Though game designers should never get carried away with that aspect (see: Daikatana), it is still an important part of a 3D game.
Criticism, yes, maybe. But Sun's technicians won't change a component at the whim of an online wanker, as RedHat is prone to do once enough popular demand ensues. Name one situation where a group of Solaris users stood up and said "Put X in Solaris," and where Sun actually complied with their wishes.
Public Relations is a form of crowd control; if you don't say what the public wants to hear, then you're liable to have a stampede on your hands.
Intel's "Can't do it in life?" slogan holds true on this end: there are many things that you can do on the Internet that you wouldn't want to do in the real world. Unfortunately, some people can't calm down enough to tell the difference between the two.
I actually do play Counter-Strike, and to make it all the more realistic, I have a .330 bullet without a casing on my desk beside my mouse. It serves other purposes, too: it's heavy enough to hold down the Enter key.
If you took a good look at the architecture of John Carmack's engines, you would know that they were at the forefront of technology. The Quake1 engine was the very first, entirely 3D game rendering system. Unlike other games released then, there were only sprites for explosions, air bubbles, and an ornamental sphere. Everything else was modeled in 3D. Quake 2 carried on what the Q1 engine started by adding extended OpenGL support, colored lighting, and 16-bit rendering. The Q2 engine was so efficient, the core technology was used in other successful games, one of the most prominent of them being Half-Life. The Quake 3 engine added on native 32-bit texturing, model animation interpolation, cube environment mapping, and an incredibly high quality texturing engine. It only seems fair to honor such gems of development by using them to push computer systems to their limits.
Does this seem like a déjà vu from RH6.0? It seems that they do this after every .0 release. If this rule held true for everything Linux, I wouldn't even touch anything x.0; but thankfully, other people constantly check their syntax and bugcheck feverishly.
Also, this Microsoft Knowledge Base article chronicles the AGP memory addressing problem with the Athlon chipsets. This has been logged as an official "errata" by AMD. This includes the VIA and AMD chipsets.
That's a snippet from a DNA sequence (AGTC) and a movie portraying an Orwellian society (gotta love the Sci-Fi channel's wide-screen version!). I wonder how many instances of "GATTACA" are in my genome.
Usually, the bugs I see in Windows are trivial; usually stuff I haven't even tried yet. So far, I haven't been directly affected by any incident with Windows. On the other hand, Creative's drivers gave me hell with channel reversing, and now that they've bought out Aureal, I am once again at the wrath of their imps in the driver engineering section.
That message was from a license plate. On it, it said in big green letters, KEEP OFF THE GRASS. In between the words, it said "Drink Schlitz Beer."
Now it will change from "My AMD AtHl0n 1.3gHz 0WnZ!" to "My dUaL AMD AtHl0n 1.3gHz 0Wn... oh damnit, now I have to go change the kernel!"
This is just too funny, and too reminiscent of Microsoft's follies. They tried to innovate by providing a daemon which searches for updated packages, but it crashes the system after 3 weeks. Gee, is that why the ZDOOM site isn't working? That's what happens when a company blindly tries to "innovate" and doesn't bugcheck.
I say, boycott AOL in all its forms, hack AIM and ICQ, and cut up your aol50 discs/coasters!
These credit-card thin batteries could be used to power robotic spy drones which move along on wheels, kinda like the little thing in Star Wars that Chewbacca hollered at and scared. Is no one safe when a new technology is used in the wrong way?
I almost thought that VMSK was related to Java(TM), but then I checked out the August article. I hope that this gets through, but there's always the vaporware rule: don't believe it until you see it in action.
I'm waiting for a system that can churn out one SETI@Home unit (about 300K of data from Arecibo) per hour. Currently, it takes a nicely equipped P3 about 12 hours to process a unit.
I know, I know, SETI@Home isn't everything. But it is a good way to get a glimpse at the level of FPU performance
Also, I might be considered a Transcendentalist hybrid, since I'm so engaged in the news. If Thoreau was alive now, he'd be an avid Slashdot member for sure. He'd have opinions on the DMCA, the DeCSS issue, Microsoft's sales practices, and so on.
Well, you use the IRC for return postage outside of your country. Therefore, the recipient can obtain proper postage for a reply message/package. There, is that about it?
Would you care to correct me? Or will you just remain a worthless, pathetic Troll?
Well, it's time to MAKE them care, by making them aware of the impact that the DMCA will have on their lives. It might turn out that Joe Sixpack downloads his favorite Elvis Costello tunes from Napster because his LP's are scratched beyond recognition. And what if he wanted to get DVD soon, but didn't want to worry about the MPAA charging him a flat rate to play the movie? Then he should start caring about how the DMCA will affect his life.
One of the major reasons why I hate the DMCA is because of how it became law: a joint venture between the MPAA, RIAA, and the government. In no way was this act approved by the US citizens. The very fact that the DMCA will become law soon flies in the face of this passage of the Declaration of Independence:
From the consent of governed. Now, did we give any consent to have the DMCA passed into law? NO. Were any referendums held to study public opinion on this issue? NO.
The DMCA IS destructive of the ends established in the Declaration, and it is our right to abolish the DMCA. It is not only our right, but now it is our responsibility to eliminate the DMCA. The DMCA will affect our happiness in the future; we will become drones, being forced by the MPAA to shell out X amount of dollars to watch a pre-recorded movie for Y amount of time. Even worse, the RIAA might soon mandate that we pay for FM radio by the minute. I fear that this idea (or a similar incarnation) isn't far off.
Do I sound a little like Henry David Thoreau? Good! It's nice to know that I'm one of the only remaining Transcendentalists in the US.
I know what an IRC is, it's a form of monetary payment accepted all over the world. Back in WW1, they were using it to help our boys.