My girlfriends Xbox failed earlier this summer. The unit was just under 2 years old. Xbox wanted $120 to fix it eventhough I knew it was just a failed DVD drive. After some research, it turns out that most early Xbox's used a drive manufactured by Thompson. As a general rule the Thompson drives fail at exactly 2 years. I dug around and found as many direct numbers to the support company and harrased them daily for about a week. I finally mentioned the idea of a class action suit... and like magic, they offered to replace the drive for free with a new warranty to boot. I actually had fun tracking down employees based on personal websites listing resumes.
I think the only times I've listened to the radio are when I'm in my car... those couple of seconds between when I turn on the car stero and when i press play on the CD. I think there are maybe two shows that I watch occasionally on regular network TV... the bulk of broadcast TV is just ridiculous these days. As for print publications, I pretty much just read USnews and world report.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I kind of like how the media has become consolidated and homogenized... it's not worth my time anymore so I've got so much more free time to spend on other more productive things... Now all I need is a-la-carte cable services and I'd be all set.
I got the same form letter about a week ago. I'm just a student so I'm not really sure why I got sent one. I do have all the receits for the software I use. After reading it several times, I'm just assuming it's a scare tactic to drum up sales.
I think the only question that went through my head was what if any legal power would the BSA actually have if they did decide to audit me. Seeing as I don't own a company...
Sounds like Sony needs to go back and read about all the mistakes and lessons learned during Lucasfilm's Habitat program. They had similar problems with customer support issues. In thier case, the designers solved problems withing the rules of the game when they could so things made sense... the employees of Quantum Computer services (Lucasfilms partner on the project) on the other hand would just go in and change stuff.
These games create a virtual world and as such... care must be taken to solve problems within the "rules" of the game or the illusion is ruined.
Digital content creation has a need for such a storage device, providing it becomes cost effective. Personally, I do quite a bit of animation work that requires rather large amounts of storage space.
Granted, this would only make sense if it became cost comparitive with traditional high speed hard drive arrays.
Ok, I may have misunderstood your original post. Yes, the SCENES directory is mostly protected. Seems fair since it contains files that other people created and allowed to be used to demonstrate what POV was capable of. Things like this get debated all the time on the newgroups between users and the POVDEV team. DERIVITIVE works applies to throwing the whole file into something else and calling it your own. Copying bits and pieces is part of the educational process that they were provided for.
If enforced strictly, it would be dangerous to even read the scenes files if you later on plan to use povray to make similar images, though in practice this is unlikely to be enforced.
Your right about the wording of the license,and yes, it's not likely to be enforced. In later versions, the license will become even more liberal (maybe even open source?) The license does a pretty good job of explaining why the software isn't open source right now.
Thier biggest concern is with people charging for free software without letting people know they are paying for something that is free.
If you're talking about the book by laMothe, I can't say I was impressed by that. So far the best book on graphics I've found was "Computer Graphics : Principles and Practice" put out by Addison Welsey. It deals with more of the details. The Guru book did have some tidbits but I just seems like everyone is putting out books on graphics and Game writing without any real substance. Just my 2cents.
Hell, I even found "Computer Graphics" by Hearn/Baker in 86 to have more substance. Sorry I'm ranting.
It's not as restricting as you make it out to be. The source is available to anyone. Yes, there are restrictions as to how you build it. For instance, you can't use the POVengine as the core of your own program. POV was designed as an individual entity. Yes, you can write your own extensions that link to the program via API hooks... The Moray modeling program is an example of this.
As far as scene files and generated images... hey your free to do whatever you want with the images. The Scene Description Language (SDL) files can be distributed as well. The language specification itself on the other hand is obviously something they don't want you to copy, but what did you expect.
Hang around the POV newsgroups, you'll find it to be a very friendly and supportive community. A good number of those on the development team are there to answer questions. I've been hooked on POV since 92 and I'll continue to support them in whatever way possible.
POV has got to be the most interesting free software ever put out. If you havn't heard of POV before or just didn't bother to check it out, I'd recommend it. While it easy enough for just about anyone to learn, It's script based nature makes it an ideal artistic outlet for programmers.
My hat's off to the POVDEV team, it was worth the wait!
I just hope it manages to get mirrored before the rest of the/. community decides to check it out. The site was slow enough with all those who had been playing around with the beta's.... I did find it amusing that I was downloading the 3.5 package at 3.5kbps.
Here's a solution (that will never fly). Have a standard layout and rendering engine put out by the standars board. It's ensured to work the same on all platforms. Sort of like a standard library. Individual companies can then add functionality on top of that such as tabbed windows or whatever else. I guess the big problem would be figuring out how to encourage the library to be released under a GPL or something. Other wise I'm sure it would be subject to some ridiculous licensing agreement.
I suppose such a utopia doesn't exist. Or maybe I'm just naieve.
One relly easy way to inspect a questionable email is to check the source under properties for that email. Youre not actually opening the email so any embedded code won't get executed. As for attached files... Unless it's from maybe 5 out of 100 people I get mail from... it's stripped and canned.
As for the AV corps. , I always did wonder how much of the scare was hype and what was actual fact.
Personally I'd like to know how the crystal holographic devices are doing. There were just so many really interesting properties of that particular technology.
It's still hard to say if this would replace HD's either. If it turns out to be a form of removable media, it would be cool to not just rent one movie on a cube but a whole genre of movies on a cube. Just have to wait an see.
I seem to remember an article in scientific american back in 1992 about a british historical society having built a few stages of an analytical engine.
It was able to calculate factorials if I remember correctly.
Slashdot Mirror
If you look at the price list for this chip it states that "Prices include MP3 license of Thomson Multimedia."
Wasn't the point of Ogg Vorbis to have a codec free of licensing?
My girlfriends Xbox failed earlier this summer. The unit was just under 2 years old. Xbox wanted $120 to fix it eventhough I knew it was just a failed DVD drive. After some research, it turns out that most early Xbox's used a drive manufactured by Thompson. As a general rule the Thompson drives fail at exactly 2 years. I dug around and found as many direct numbers to the support company and harrased them daily for about a week. I finally mentioned the idea of a class action suit ... and like magic, they offered to replace the drive for free with a new warranty to boot. I actually had fun tracking down employees based on personal websites listing resumes.
I think the only times I've listened to the radio are when I'm in my car ... those couple of seconds between when I turn on the car stero and when i press play on the CD. I think there are maybe two shows that I watch occasionally on regular network TV ... the bulk of broadcast TV is just ridiculous these days. As for print publications, I pretty much just read USnews and world report.
... it's not worth my time anymore so I've got so much more free time to spend on other more productive things ... Now all I need is a-la-carte cable services and I'd be all set.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I kind of like how the media has become consolidated and homogenized
I got the same form letter about a week ago. I'm just a student so I'm not really sure why I got sent one. I do have all the receits for the software I use. After reading it several times, I'm just assuming it's a scare tactic to drum up sales.
...
I think the only question that went through my head was what if any legal power would the BSA actually have if they did decide to audit me. Seeing as I don't own a company
Sounds like Sony needs to go back and read about all the mistakes and lessons learned during Lucasfilm's Habitat program. They had similar problems with customer support issues. In thier case, the designers solved problems withing the rules of the game when they could so things made sense ... the employees of Quantum Computer services (Lucasfilms partner on the project) on the other hand would just go in and change stuff. ... care must be taken to solve problems within the "rules" of the game or the illusion is ruined.
These games create a virtual world and as such
How do you know that you've satisfied a redhead?
She unties you
Digital content creation has a need for such a storage device, providing it becomes cost effective. Personally, I do quite a bit of animation work that requires rather large amounts of storage space.
Granted, this would only make sense if it became cost comparitive with traditional high speed hard drive arrays.
Ok, I may have misunderstood your original post. Yes, the SCENES directory is mostly protected. Seems fair since it contains files that other people created and allowed to be used to demonstrate what POV was capable of. Things like this get debated all the time on the newgroups between users and the POVDEV team. DERIVITIVE works applies to throwing the whole file into something else and calling it your own. Copying bits and pieces is part of the educational process that they were provided for.
If enforced strictly, it would be dangerous to even read the scenes files if you later on plan to use povray to make similar images, though in practice this is unlikely to be enforced.
Your right about the wording of the license,and yes, it's not likely to be enforced. In later versions, the license will become even more liberal (maybe even open source?)
The license does a pretty good job of explaining why the software isn't open source right now.
Thier biggest concern is with people charging for free software without letting people know they are paying for something that is free.
If you're talking about the book by laMothe, I can't say I was impressed by that. So far the best book on graphics I've found was "Computer Graphics : Principles and Practice" put out by Addison Welsey. It deals with more of the details. The Guru book did have some tidbits but I just seems like everyone is putting out books on graphics and Game writing without any real substance. Just my 2cents.
Hell, I even found "Computer Graphics" by Hearn/Baker in 86 to have more substance. Sorry I'm ranting.
It's not as restricting as you make it out to be. The source is available to anyone. Yes, there are restrictions as to how you build it. For instance, you can't use the POVengine as the core of your own program. POV was designed as an individual entity. Yes, you can write your own extensions that link to the program via API hooks ... The Moray modeling program is an example of this.
... hey your free to do whatever you want with the images. The Scene Description Language (SDL) files can be distributed as well. The language specification itself on the other hand is obviously something they don't want you to copy, but what did you expect.
As far as scene files and generated images
Hang around the POV newsgroups, you'll find it to be a very friendly and supportive community. A good number of those on the development team are there to answer questions. I've been hooked on POV since 92 and I'll continue to support them in whatever way possible.
POV has got to be the most interesting free software ever put out. If you havn't heard of POV before or just didn't bother to check it out, I'd recommend it. While it easy enough for just about anyone to learn, It's script based nature makes it an ideal artistic outlet for programmers.
/. community decides to check it out. The site was slow enough with all those who had been playing around with the beta's .... I did find it amusing that I was downloading the 3.5 package at 3.5kbps.
My hat's off to the POVDEV team, it was worth the wait!
I just hope it manages to get mirrored before the rest of the
Here's a solution (that will never fly). Have a standard layout and rendering engine put out by the standars board. It's ensured to work the same on all platforms. Sort of like a standard library. Individual companies can then add functionality on top of that such as tabbed windows or whatever else. I guess the big problem would be figuring out how to encourage the library to be released under a GPL or something. Other wise I'm sure it would be subject to some ridiculous licensing agreement.
I suppose such a utopia doesn't exist. Or maybe I'm just naieve.
One relly easy way to inspect a questionable email is to check the source under properties for that email. Youre not actually opening the email so any embedded code won't get executed. As for attached files ... Unless it's from maybe 5 out of 100 people I get mail from ... it's stripped and canned.
As for the AV corps. , I always did wonder how much of the scare was hype and what was actual fact.
Personally I'd like to know how the crystal holographic devices are doing. There were just so many really interesting properties of that particular technology.
h y/
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/st/projects/holograp
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010423S0113
It's still hard to say if this would replace HD's either. If it turns out to be a form of removable media, it would be cool to not just rent one movie on a cube but a whole genre of movies on a cube. Just have to wait an see.
I seem to remember an article in scientific american back in 1992 about a british historical society having built a few stages of an analytical engine.
It was able to calculate factorials if I remember correctly.