The way I see it is that it is very difficult to make a profit with open source software. Since its open and everyone can see the code, nobody is going to pay for it because they can just take it for free. You have companies like Red Hat who give away their software for nothing, but they are trying to profit! I think all these companies like red hat, mandrake, osdn even, should stop trying to profit. Just break even. Become a non-profit organization. A non profit organization still brings in money, it just doesn't bring in more than it needs to say in existance. Employees get paid, stuff gets done. A non-profit organization gets a break on postage too! In my eyes there is no way to make money by selling something and simultaneously giving it away. Winzip is proof. Do you know anyone who has ever paid for winzip? I don't. Being a not for profit organization seems like such an obvious thing, if anyone knows a reason why its not a good idea, please do tell.
I've got service pack 3 and yeah, the EULA says stuff about automatic updates. But you know what. There's a handy dandy automatic update tool in the control panel now. I have it set to "never automatically update". I'm so sure that they are going to try to force software upon me. And at worst, if they do, I remove it. In the worst situation I can re-install windows. Sun is doing the same thing, I guess its because they want to have an automatic update tool too. Good, its a nice feature for lazy people or people who aren't geeky enough to update their own software. The way it looks to me is these automatic update clauses are just protections put in by lawyers so there's no way we can sue the companies after using their auto-update tools. It's for their protection in case they automatically update everyone with a virus or buggy program. I highly doubt they are trying to force things on us. Anyone who says otherwise is too paranoid and too fanatical. Just give it up already.
when somethign you've been into for like over a year starts to become popular in a mainstream way. Our arcade has a 4th mix machine and we have a ps1 with pads at home, and we're pretty damn good. However, I've noticed a bad trend in DDR. There are lots of people who play just to hit the arrows. I mean if I can't beat every catastrophic song on maniac some people wont even bother talking to me. So for all you people who are bragging about your ability to hit every single 1/64th note crazy speed arrow on a 100 foot song, you suck, get a life. I mean playing a game instead of dancing is bad enough. So for all you DDR people, it's about having fun and possibly even looking good! *gasp* or at least trying to look good.
If you don't know about DDR or Bemani check out www.ddrfreak.com www.bemanistyle.com
we can chalk another one up for ogg vorbis, but I really don't like it. I mean the only real difference I see between mp3 and vorbis is that mp3 isn't legally free. But I can still download winamp. I can download any version I want actually, it's called www.oldversion.com. And i can still get radium, and lame. CDex is totally awesome. So for me to use ogg all it would do is force me to spend hours re-encoding all my files. What at a great way to spend a weekend! They can't charge ME for something I've already got for free. They can't take it away from me either. So until that changes I couldnt' give two craps, can you?
the whole internet. While it's obviously no good that something like this exists, I'm not too worried. Sure RIT (the college I'm at) could install one of these systems and see what I do, but there is no way that anyone can watch the whole internet. And as other have said, encryption is nice. VNC is encrypted too.
its so nice to just block all cookies. Then when a website tells me that I need a cookie, or a shopping cart doesn't work I go back and accept it. I have yet to see a cookie that serves a dual purpose of tracking you and doing something useful, like a shopping cart. It seems that doubleclick and other ad companies always use separate cookies from that of the site advertised on. So until they find a better way to do it, I don't think they are going to get me. As for all this stuff they are doing. Allowing users to view profiles. Paying for "education" etc. It's all just the usual. They do a few things to make themselves not look like a horrible evil. Whoever is pestering them has to lay off for a bit, and they continue business as usual. Does anyone know if doubleclick is currently profitable? I mean considering how banner ads don't work, how can a company that relies on them still exist?
I hate it when people always use racism as an excuse. I mean sure a database of people likely to commit crimes may not be the best thing in the world. The police would probably look at it every time they didn't have a suspect and check for anyone who is likely. I'm guessing that would lead to more than 1 innocent person being arrested. However, I absolutely HATE it when people put a racist spin on things. They are saying hey! the police made a list of likely criminals and they chose people in minorities! they are racist! NO. If you read it correctly the police chose people who live in high crime areas. People who live in high crime areas are probably more likely to commit crimes than people in low crime areas. Common sense. high crime area = more people who commit crimes. And it just so happens that in said high crime areas many of the residents are minorities.
You don't want a PDA, you want a calculator. TI has had the TI-92 for a long time. It will solve all of your on the go math needs. I think they also have some new calculator that is better than the 92. Check Texas Instruments' website to see what their latest offering is. While it doesn't run Linux itself there is a great deal of linux software that allows you to interface with the calculator. Other than that I believe this device will suit all your needs. It is also very reasonably priced compared to palm devices.
We had a team website for our Software Engineering class in the spring. We didn't have any web interface. All we had was a shared account with a public_html directory. We also had backups of the team account in case anything happened. It was quite easy.
is a particularly cool company. If you haven't heard of them they make very very cheap DVD players. Like 60 bucks for some of the models. As far as I know they were the first to have "cheat codes" to unlock regions. And some people are paying hundreds for region free players! The really cool thing about Apex players is that some of the models have PAL converters in them. So you will really have no problem watching DVDs from England or anywhere else. Be warned though. Apex's players are 60 bucks for a reason. They are made of cheap parts and cheap plastic. Basically they are pieces of crap, and the region changing/pal converting is the only feature they have. I don't even think they all have optical audio out. Yeah, so check them out, it's the cheapest solution I've found.
I run Mandrake and Win2k in a dual boot. I must say that Mandrake has the best installer for linux I have ever seen. It is easy, graphical, doesn't fail, has lots of hardware support and other good stuff. Mandrake may take less time to install, but Win2k requires less user input. All you need to install win2k is to press enter once, press F* to agree to the EULA, then format/make partitions and select one for the OS. Done. For Mandrake you have to select many many things. Half of which are very obvious and easy. One of which is package selection. You can make package selection easy and quick, but to get the most out of linux you need to select individual packages, takes forever, and I have to be there to do it. I can install win2k with 3 minutes of my time and 45 minutes of the computers time. When linux AND linux software install as easily and quickly as windows and windows software it will have a chance on the desktop. G-d forbit it could actually maybe install easiER!
This is absolutely true. Businesses don't need better technology, unless their business IS technology. An average firm only needs one or a few big databases, a network of pcs, office tools, e-mail, a corporate web site, and other stuff like acrobat. Win2k or NT running on Pentium IIs is all anyone in a basic office really needs. The only use for higher technology is technological work. Scientists, programmers, animators, etc. Finally they have realized that faster computers don't increase productivity or profits. It takes "joe" the same amount of time to prepare his presentation whether he's got 400mhz or 2ghz. Powerpoint 97 isn't more or less productive than the newest one(XP?). When upgrades become necessary, which is about every 3 years I'd say (my current pc has lasted me about 3 years, and just now I'm finally unable to do things I want to do), that is when more spending will go to IT. Other than that the only IT spending will be limited to salaries for the employess needed to support the existing system. If a company is spending more than that on IT, they are wasting their money, and it looks like they finally realize it.
people who live in the "boonies" or homeless people. There are so many US citizens all over the world who have so many different levels of technology and social involvement that they will never be able to get everybody. It will be very easy to avoid getting in this system.
course all the good movies have already been taken. So I'm going to put my money on Akira, Transformers The Movie, Battle Royale, Monty Python(any one of 'em), and the Super Mario Bros. movie just for laughs.
I do, read my journal. However, you seem to be implying that you A)Agree linux is not easy and B) you think linux is better and would like to see windows go away. So C)shouldn't you want to make linux easier?
Whatever happened to the track ball? (or atari trak ball). I remember laptops used to have an actual ball built in you could spin around to move the cursors with a button on either side. This was beautiful it allowed perfect control without adding a lot of space or forcing me to carry a real mouse around with my laptop. The mid keyboard "foam nubs" and the touch pads I find horrible. I can't control the mouse cursor with great accuracy at all. If it isn't sensitive and accurate enough to play a round of quake then it isn't much of a mouse or mouse replacement. Anyone know a modern laptop that still has the ball?
if indeed these features are available and I don't have the correct things installed, then how am I to activated them? The driver and tools from the sourceforge project you link to is the one that I currently have installed. Obviously it isn't blatantly obvious or easy to do. It's great if something is supported. But it doesn't do me any good if it isn't very obvious how to make it work. It's not worth my time or effort to figure it out.
Ok, not only are you asking to get a driver written for an obscure piece of hardware (at least I've never heard of it before), but it made a slashdot news story? I think that before the people who write drivers for linux, whoever they are, make on for your pcmcia sound card they should make one for my Sound Blaster Live!, a slightly more common piece of equipment. I run Mandrake, and yes the soundcard works. I can listen to mp3s and the correct noises come out of my speakers. However, I have a Cambridge Soundworks speaker system 4 sattelites and a subwoofer. The bass is supposed to come out of the sub and the treble is supposed to come out of the sattelites. There are two wires coming out of the sound card that go to the sub, the wires and front and rear. The sattelites are all connected to the sub one wire each. I do hear sound with the current emu10k1 driver, however it is total crap. NO sound comes out of the sub while in linux, none at all. And the sattelites all get the same signal. That same signal is the entire range of sound. So I have every frequency of sound coming out of each of 4 very small, never supposed to play bass, speakers. Let me tell you it sounds like open ass. So maybe before they make your obscure sound card work, they should make it so that the common hardware works properly. Just a suggestion.
Isn't the only reason that a library is legal because they have a limited number of copies of a book? I mean if a new book comes out and goes in the library, its ok for the library to lend it out because they only have a limited number of copies. Assuming they will have a collection of fiction these university students will be able to make an e-book copy of every book in the library and share them with the rest of the world. A new book will come out, these students will make e-book copies, and anyone who wants can have it for free rather than going to Borders. The book companies have been on "our side" in terms of DMCA and stuff, we don't want to make another RIAA evil organization.
The longest line for any event were the Megatokyo Panels. The comic is seriously popular among anime fanboys who feel the same as Piro. Our art is superior! We can't get chix! Meanwhile all the people who weren't socially inept (i.e. the ones who didn't pay almost 2000$ for one megatokyo drawing) were at the www.dubthis.net party. party or wait in line to see a guy who can draw, party, guy who can draw, party... The only people who still like Megatokyo are fanboys. It's popular, because there are a lot of fanboys.
Re:Why not a partnership?
on
Borrowing ROMs
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The reason is that Nintendo, unlike other game companies, still makes money off of their old games. Notice the three Super Mario Advance games are exact copies of Mario 2, Mario World, and Yoshi's Island? Other companies like Sega do not re-relase their old games, like Sonic 2, in their exactly the same as original forms. So while companies like Sega and Sony or Arcade machine makers aren't hurt by roms, Nintendo very much is. If you download Mario 2 for free, that's one less copy of Mario Advance they sell. If you download a copy of Sonic 2, the only one who gets hurt is the used game store in the mall.
I'm still pissed however that Mario Advance 3 is Yoshi's Island and not Super Mario 3. What's up with that? The last time Mario 3 was put out was Mario All Stars for SNES. I want it for GBA, like now-ish.
just throw out all the current instant messenging standards and make a new one. AOL owns AIM and ICQ which is the vast majority of IM anyway. They could change the way both programs work under the hood, making them follow the same standard (i could see how the name and number thing might be hard, but that's it). Then release new versions of both that look and feel like current version, just with the same standard IM protocol underneath. An open standard would be nice, but as long as other people can write clients its ok by me. Even if you have to pay, so long as there's another choice besides AIM or ICQ. If the industry wont come together to make a standard AOL should step forth and force one upon everyone. I can call anyone in the world on the telephone, I should have to have the same IM to IM everyone.
the answer that took a little thought is that indeed the NSA needs plutonium to make an unbeatable UPS for its large powerful computer systems. This way the will never have a power out, meaning they can spy on everyone 24/7 365.
The GBA is what needs wireless gaming. Imagine sitting in your car on a road trip playing GBA games against other players in their cars on the other side of the country. Now Imagine a FF6 style MMORPG, that you carry around with you. Yeah, the MMORPG would eat your soul, BUT at least people wouldn't be sitting cooped up in their house playing everquest, they would walk around, go places, and just play in the meantime.
Boss: Joe do something blah blah blah Joe: I gotta beat this dragon first hold on.
Slashdot Mirror
The way I see it is that it is very difficult to make a profit with open source software. Since its open and everyone can see the code, nobody is going to pay for it because they can just take it for free. You have companies like Red Hat who give away their software for nothing, but they are trying to profit! I think all these companies like red hat, mandrake, osdn even, should stop trying to profit. Just break even. Become a non-profit organization. A non profit organization still brings in money, it just doesn't bring in more than it needs to say in existance. Employees get paid, stuff gets done.
A non-profit organization gets a break on postage too!
In my eyes there is no way to make money by selling something and simultaneously giving it away. Winzip is proof. Do you know anyone who has ever paid for winzip? I don't.
Being a not for profit organization seems like such an obvious thing, if anyone knows a reason why its not a good idea, please do tell.
I've got service pack 3 and yeah, the EULA says stuff about automatic updates. But you know what. There's a handy dandy automatic update tool in the control panel now. I have it set to "never automatically update". I'm so sure that they are going to try to force software upon me. And at worst, if they do, I remove it. In the worst situation I can re-install windows.
Sun is doing the same thing, I guess its because they want to have an automatic update tool too. Good, its a nice feature for lazy people or people who aren't geeky enough to update their own software.
The way it looks to me is these automatic update clauses are just protections put in by lawyers so there's no way we can sue the companies after using their auto-update tools. It's for their protection in case they automatically update everyone with a virus or buggy program. I highly doubt they are trying to force things on us. Anyone who says otherwise is too paranoid and too fanatical. Just give it up already.
when somethign you've been into for like over a year starts to become popular in a mainstream way. Our arcade has a 4th mix machine and we have a ps1 with pads at home, and we're pretty damn good.
However, I've noticed a bad trend in DDR. There are lots of people who play just to hit the arrows. I mean if I can't beat every catastrophic song on maniac some people wont even bother talking to me. So for all you people who are bragging about your ability to hit every single 1/64th note crazy speed arrow on a 100 foot song, you suck, get a life. I mean playing a game instead of dancing is bad enough.
So for all you DDR people, it's about having fun and possibly even looking good! *gasp* or at least trying to look good.
If you don't know about DDR or Bemani check out
www.ddrfreak.com
www.bemanistyle.com
Paraparaparadise is pretty cool.
we can chalk another one up for ogg vorbis, but I really don't like it. I mean the only real difference I see between mp3 and vorbis is that mp3 isn't legally free. But I can still download winamp. I can download any version I want actually, it's called www.oldversion.com. And i can still get radium, and lame. CDex is totally awesome. So for me to use ogg all it would do is force me to spend hours re-encoding all my files. What at a great way to spend a weekend!
They can't charge ME for something I've already got for free. They can't take it away from me either. So until that changes I couldnt' give two craps, can you?
the whole internet. While it's obviously no good that something like this exists, I'm not too worried. Sure RIT (the college I'm at) could install one of these systems and see what I do, but there is no way that anyone can watch the whole internet. And as other have said, encryption is nice. VNC is encrypted too.
its so nice to just block all cookies. Then when a website tells me that I need a cookie, or a shopping cart doesn't work I go back and accept it. I have yet to see a cookie that serves a dual purpose of tracking you and doing something useful, like a shopping cart. It seems that doubleclick and other ad companies always use separate cookies from that of the site advertised on.
So until they find a better way to do it, I don't think they are going to get me.
As for all this stuff they are doing. Allowing users to view profiles. Paying for "education" etc. It's all just the usual. They do a few things to make themselves not look like a horrible evil. Whoever is pestering them has to lay off for a bit, and they continue business as usual.
Does anyone know if doubleclick is currently profitable? I mean considering how banner ads don't work, how can a company that relies on them still exist?
I hate it when people always use racism as an excuse. I mean sure a database of people likely to commit crimes may not be the best thing in the world. The police would probably look at it every time they didn't have a suspect and check for anyone who is likely. I'm guessing that would lead to more than 1 innocent person being arrested.
However, I absolutely HATE it when people put a racist spin on things. They are saying hey! the police made a list of likely criminals and they chose people in minorities! they are racist! NO. If you read it correctly the police chose people who live in high crime areas. People who live in high crime areas are probably more likely to commit crimes than people in low crime areas. Common sense. high crime area = more people who commit crimes. And it just so happens that in said high crime areas many of the residents are minorities.
You don't want a PDA, you want a calculator. TI has had the TI-92 for a long time. It will solve all of your on the go math needs. I think they also have some new calculator that is better than the 92. Check Texas Instruments' website to see what their latest offering is. While it doesn't run Linux itself there is a great deal of linux software that allows you to interface with the calculator. Other than that I believe this device will suit all your needs. It is also very reasonably priced compared to palm devices.
We had a team website for our Software Engineering class in the spring. We didn't have any web interface. All we had was a shared account with a public_html directory. We also had backups of the team account in case anything happened. It was quite easy.
is a particularly cool company. If you haven't heard of them they make very very cheap DVD players. Like 60 bucks for some of the models. As far as I know they were the first to have "cheat codes" to unlock regions. And some people are paying hundreds for region free players! The really cool thing about Apex players is that some of the models have PAL converters in them. So you will really have no problem watching DVDs from England or anywhere else.
Be warned though. Apex's players are 60 bucks for a reason. They are made of cheap parts and cheap plastic. Basically they are pieces of crap, and the region changing/pal converting is the only feature they have. I don't even think they all have optical audio out. Yeah, so check them out, it's the cheapest solution I've found.
I run Mandrake and Win2k in a dual boot. I must say that Mandrake has the best installer for linux I have ever seen. It is easy, graphical, doesn't fail, has lots of hardware support and other good stuff. Mandrake may take less time to install, but Win2k requires less user input. All you need to install win2k is to press enter once, press F* to agree to the EULA, then format/make partitions and select one for the OS. Done.
For Mandrake you have to select many many things. Half of which are very obvious and easy. One of which is package selection. You can make package selection easy and quick, but to get the most out of linux you need to select individual packages, takes forever, and I have to be there to do it. I can install win2k with 3 minutes of my time and 45 minutes of the computers time.
When linux AND linux software install as easily and quickly as windows and windows software it will have a chance on the desktop. G-d forbit it could actually maybe install easiER!
This is absolutely true. Businesses don't need better technology, unless their business IS technology. An average firm only needs one or a few big databases, a network of pcs, office tools, e-mail, a corporate web site, and other stuff like acrobat.
Win2k or NT running on Pentium IIs is all anyone in a basic office really needs. The only use for higher technology is technological work. Scientists, programmers, animators, etc.
Finally they have realized that faster computers don't increase productivity or profits. It takes "joe" the same amount of time to prepare his presentation whether he's got 400mhz or 2ghz. Powerpoint 97 isn't more or less productive than the newest one(XP?).
When upgrades become necessary, which is about every 3 years I'd say (my current pc has lasted me about 3 years, and just now I'm finally unable to do things I want to do), that is when more spending will go to IT. Other than that the only IT spending will be limited to salaries for the employess needed to support the existing system.
If a company is spending more than that on IT, they are wasting their money, and it looks like they finally realize it.
people who live in the "boonies" or homeless people. There are so many US citizens all over the world who have so many different levels of technology and social involvement that they will never be able to get everybody. It will be very easy to avoid getting in this system.
course all the good movies have already been taken. So I'm going to put my money on Akira, Transformers The Movie, Battle Royale, Monty Python(any one of 'em), and the Super Mario Bros. movie just for laughs.
I do, read my journal. However, you seem to be implying that you A)Agree linux is not easy and B) you think linux is better and would like to see windows go away. So C)shouldn't you want to make linux easier?
Whatever happened to the track ball? (or atari trak ball). I remember laptops used to have an actual ball built in you could spin around to move the cursors with a button on either side. This was beautiful it allowed perfect control without adding a lot of space or forcing me to carry a real mouse around with my laptop. The mid keyboard "foam nubs" and the touch pads I find horrible. I can't control the mouse cursor with great accuracy at all. If it isn't sensitive and accurate enough to play a round of quake then it isn't much of a mouse or mouse replacement. Anyone know a modern laptop that still has the ball?
if indeed these features are available and I don't have the correct things installed, then how am I to activated them? The driver and tools from the sourceforge project you link to is the one that I currently have installed. Obviously it isn't blatantly obvious or easy to do. It's great if something is supported. But it doesn't do me any good if it isn't very obvious how to make it work. It's not worth my time or effort to figure it out.
Ok, not only are you asking to get a driver written for an obscure piece of hardware (at least I've never heard of it before), but it made a slashdot news story?
I think that before the people who write drivers for linux, whoever they are, make on for your pcmcia sound card they should make one for my Sound Blaster Live!, a slightly more common piece of equipment.
I run Mandrake, and yes the soundcard works. I can listen to mp3s and the correct noises come out of my speakers. However, I have a Cambridge Soundworks speaker system 4 sattelites and a subwoofer. The bass is supposed to come out of the sub and the treble is supposed to come out of the sattelites. There are two wires coming out of the sound card that go to the sub, the wires and front and rear. The sattelites are all connected to the sub one wire each.
I do hear sound with the current emu10k1 driver, however it is total crap. NO sound comes out of the sub while in linux, none at all. And the sattelites all get the same signal. That same signal is the entire range of sound. So I have every frequency of sound coming out of each of 4 very small, never supposed to play bass, speakers. Let me tell you it sounds like open ass.
So maybe before they make your obscure sound card work, they should make it so that the common hardware works properly. Just a suggestion.
Isn't the only reason that a library is legal because they have a limited number of copies of a book? I mean if a new book comes out and goes in the library, its ok for the library to lend it out because they only have a limited number of copies. Assuming they will have a collection of fiction these university students will be able to make an e-book copy of every book in the library and share them with the rest of the world. A new book will come out, these students will make e-book copies, and anyone who wants can have it for free rather than going to Borders.
The book companies have been on "our side" in terms of DMCA and stuff, we don't want to make another RIAA evil organization.
The longest line for any event were the Megatokyo Panels. The comic is seriously popular among anime fanboys who feel the same as Piro. Our art is superior! We can't get chix! Meanwhile all the people who weren't socially inept (i.e. the ones who didn't pay almost 2000$ for one megatokyo drawing) were at the www.dubthis.net party. party or wait in line to see a guy who can draw, party, guy who can draw, party... The only people who still like Megatokyo are fanboys. It's popular, because there are a lot of fanboys.
The reason is that Nintendo, unlike other game companies, still makes money off of their old games. Notice the three Super Mario Advance games are exact copies of Mario 2, Mario World, and Yoshi's Island? Other companies like Sega do not re-relase their old games, like Sonic 2, in their exactly the same as original forms.
So while companies like Sega and Sony or Arcade machine makers aren't hurt by roms, Nintendo very much is. If you download Mario 2 for free, that's one less copy of Mario Advance they sell. If you download a copy of Sonic 2, the only one who gets hurt is the used game store in the mall.
I'm still pissed however that Mario Advance 3 is Yoshi's Island and not Super Mario 3. What's up with that? The last time Mario 3 was put out was Mario All Stars for SNES. I want it for GBA, like now-ish.
just throw out all the current instant messenging standards and make a new one. AOL owns AIM and ICQ which is the vast majority of IM anyway. They could change the way both programs work under the hood, making them follow the same standard (i could see how the name and number thing might be hard, but that's it). Then release new versions of both that look and feel like current version, just with the same standard IM protocol underneath. An open standard would be nice, but as long as other people can write clients its ok by me. Even if you have to pay, so long as there's another choice besides AIM or ICQ. If the industry wont come together to make a standard AOL should step forth and force one upon everyone. I can call anyone in the world on the telephone, I should have to have the same IM to IM everyone.
yes, I definitely meant 3/4 overhead perspecitve with 2d graphics and classic rpg combat system.
the easy answer is they are making a few nukes.
the answer that took a little thought is that indeed the NSA needs plutonium to make an unbeatable UPS for its large powerful computer systems. This way the will never have a power out, meaning they can spy on everyone 24/7 365.
The GBA is what needs wireless gaming. Imagine sitting in your car on a road trip playing GBA games against other players in their cars on the other side of the country. Now Imagine a FF6 style MMORPG, that you carry around with you. Yeah, the MMORPG would eat your soul, BUT at least people wouldn't be sitting cooped up in their house playing everquest, they would walk around, go places, and just play in the meantime.
Boss: Joe do something blah blah blah
Joe: I gotta beat this dragon first hold on.