Rage 128 is contemporary; you're confusing it with the Rage Pro.
They don't use TNT because there are no Mac TNT cards, and as for Voodoo3... well, I don't know. It matters little; Rage 128 can keep up with the other cards if they all render in 16-bit mode. Voodoo3 can't even do 32-bit, and all reviews I've ever seen of the TNT series' renderers states that they look comparatively terrible in 32-bit mode. And by the way, I've read that bit that the person from 3Dfx wrote trying to excuse^H^H^H^H^H^Hexplain why they don't use 32-bit; I've seen a Voodoo3 and Rage128 back to back and I don't buy the article for a second.
So yeah, you sacrifice 4 or 5 FPS max (most humans can't percieve the difference between 60 and 55 FPS anyway) but in return you get much better-looking graphics. I'll make that trade any day.
Not really. Keep in mind, there's still such a thing as network addresses, even with AirPort. It would take longer to find the device, but it's certainly possible to find the machine.
Of course, I believe it's also possible to mandate authentication before an iBook can log into an AirPort network, so the kid would need a password to do it anyway.
One: The AirPort does deliver data through the airwaves. However, it's strong-encrypted, if I'm not mistaken. You can certainly try stealing secrets, but you aren't going to get very far.
Two: There isn't normally much fuss about connecting wires, if your building has them. However, if your building is not wired (most homes are not, by the way) then it becomes a huge, and obscenely expensive, deal. Besides which, it's just easier if you can literally just bring a computer into the building and it's hooked up.
Three: There is stuff out for the PC, moreover it works with the AirPort (though due to the limitations in these pre-existing cards, you only get 2 Mbps instead of 11). Perhaps ones which will match up to the AirPort will be out soon; personally I hope they come out (I'm working on convincing my dad to "wire" the house with one and then get ADSL). Not only that, but as long as they follow the open standard which Apple used (and they'd be fools not to, since a card which isn't compatible with an open standard usually gets booted) they'll work with the AirPort too.
As for cordless-network peripherals which use USB, I certainly hope you're right. That'd be cool, though it would suck USB bandwidth big time; such network peripherals would be better if connected to FireWire, SCSI, an Ethernet port (as an adaptor), or even just a PCI slot.
It's still difficult to upgrade and loaded with proprietary hardware.
Difficult to upgrade? What have you been smoking? With the possible exception of a total motherboard replacement, the G4 (and its B&W G3 ancestry) is quite possibly the easiest-to-upgrade machine I've ever seen in every aspect.
As for "loaded with proprietary hardware" I'd watch what you're saying. Pretty much every single thing on that motherboard is now an open standard: Ultra-ATA for hard drives, PCI and AGP for cards, standard PC100 memory (or is it PC133 now?), USB and Firewire for peripherals, 10/100 Ethernet for networking, OpenFirmware for booting (yes, OpenFirmware is itself an open standard; check FirmWorks if you don't believe me), and so on. I should, by the way, note that the G4 AGP no longer has a proprietary Mac ROM on the motherboard anymore (the PCI graphics still do, as they use the legacy Yosemite motherboard rather than Sawtooth, but even the ROM's on these no longer contain any OS-level code). Proprietary hardware? Perhaps one or two things still, but don't even think of calling it "loaded" anymore.
The power user demands a machine that he/she can not only be proud of when it first comes out, but can remain potent for years to come (through upgrades to both operating system and hardware).
True, very true. I don't think you'll argue that the G4 isn't a machine to be proud of when first purchased. Now, look to the studies. It's been shown that Macs have a much longer useful life than any other desktop computer (indeed, usually double or triple that of the average PC in a given establishment); I have a seven-year-old machine at home which now has a G3 processor, a good amount of RAM, great storage space, and so on and so forth. Not only that, but it is still running all the latest software out there. In other words, Macs can and do remain potent for years to come, years longer than even most PC's, through upgrades of software and hardware, just as you said.
The G4 is aiming for the geek market, but just doesn't have the features that would make it attractive for more than a few months.
And what, pray tell, are those "features"? I don't see any glaring lack, except possibly that I'd like a couple more PCI slots and there are ways around even that problem.
By attempting to appeal to higher-end users but not changing its hardware strategy to one of modularity and maximum control, Apple will find that it has sown the seeds of bitter resentment.
Not changing its hardware strategy to one of modularity and maximum control? Perhaps we're on different wavelengths. The G4, as I see it, appears to be just about as "modular" as any PC I've ever seen (sure, there's the mobo issue, but that's the only problem I've seen and considering the way Mac upgrades tend to run this problem is actually quite minor). As for "maximum control" I don't see any real trouble in this area here either. Looks to me like I can dictate more or less exactly what does and doesn't go into my machine.
You did a good job of describing what the average power-user wants. Trouble is, the Mac fits your description perfectly. That's rather countrtproductive to your argument, which is thereby reduced to the level of "Macs suck because they're Macs" (since you have no arguments to support your claim). Perhaps you should actually look into these machines, rather than refer to 10-year-old FUD which hasn't been true for quite some time now.
If anyone can do this, Spielberg can. Contrary to what many people seem to believe, he actually has made some very good science-fiction; witness E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (never mind that the encounter to which the title refers is actually of the fourth kind).
Can he do a Kubrick film? Perhaps. The closest he's come, as some people have pointed out, are Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. In other words, he's going to have to use all his skills to do this. I wish him the best of luck in that regard.
Let's see if I can address the issues brought up. Changes to the previous proposed system will be in italics...
Karma is the sum of all moderations done to a person's post in the past three weeks. Reputation is the score at which a person's posts start out.
The Anonymous Coward always has a Reputation of 0, whereas user accounts start with a Reputation of 1. The first time the user posts in a given day, the Karma is tallied up.
If the person's Karma is 10 or more, his/her Reputation increases by 1 and the Karma score is reduced by 10 (to offset the increase in Reputation). Note that a user can recieve only one such increase per day.
If the poster's Karma is 5 to 9, his/her Reputation does not change, nor does the Karma score
If the poster's Karma is -2 to 4, his/her Reputation is decreased by 1, down to a minimum of 1. This allows for a person to make a few small slip-ups without a severe penalty. It also decreases the Reputation of people who do not post for a long time, but does not let that Reputation slip below that of an ordinary user ( if the person's Reputation is already 1 or less, it does not change). It is also an attempt to offset the effect on Karma of a good post dropping off the list.
If the poster's Karma is below -2, his/her Reputation is decreased by 1, to a minimum of -1. The person's Karma score is increased to -2 (to offset the decrease in Reputation) If the person was already at -1 Reputation, that person is given Troll status.
If a person is at Troll status, his/her posts start off at -1 regardless of his/her actual Reputation. Troll status is automatically lifted once the person reaches a Reputation of 1 again. In other words, a person with Troll status can only lose that status by a consistent string of good posts.
Note that as a corollary to this system, a person should be able to know his/her exact Karma score at any given moment (probably best to put it in a Slashbox).
Unfortunately, this approach doesn't work for the net. Instead of 70 or 80 channels, I have millions of websites. None of the filter companies can keep up. So, I have to watch my son every second on the net.
That's called being a good parent. Are you saying you don't want that, that you'd rather not take personal involvement in your child's life and instead relegate it to some piece of software which will never be adequate?
I agree with you that a simple standard filtering tag would be nice, but you forget: no one will use it. It's not profitable to do so. You can throw as many laws as you want at the problem; they never solve it.
Personally, I see the fact that the Net cannot be controlled by software as a blessing, rather than a curse. Perhaps it'll get more parents to realize that they do have a child, that their responsibility to that child overrides absolutely every single other personal concern, and that they need to start spending time with their kids. Quick-fixes like filters won't do the job.
To you, I can only say the following: Spend the Net time with your kid. Surf the Web together; use the time to learn his interests and get him into yours; the Net is actually very good for things like that. Talk with him, tell him why this sort of thing is wrong in terms he'll understand, rather than the over-puritanical bull we all hear from the religious right and just about every single person in government nowadays. In the end your child will be a better person for it.
NOTE: Despite the semi-inflammatory wording of this post, it is not intended as a flame at all. If it pisses you off, read it again and consider it for a while before you respond. If you're going to flame, please do us all a favor and do it by e-mail rather than waste space on Slashdot.
You could use encryption to do it (using it like a digital signature, giving the government your public key) but the problem with that is, people can make many signatures.
You could solve that problem by tying a key to something unique about a person, say a Social Security number (which has the advantage that each number is unique and that each person can only be assigned one). Each number could only have one key associated with it. But privacy advocates would just hate that one, besides which you still have people who can manage to get multiple numbers.
It's a problem. The only way you could ever eliminate voter fraud is to eliminate voting altogether (which is counterproductive), so you're going to have to live with the fact that a few will always slip through the cracks. But, is there any real way to minimize the fraud? Not without strong encryption, which the government would never allow.
Pretty good as a whole, but a few modifications are in order. First of all, let me define "Reputation" as the rating which a person automatically recieves when posting a comment.
Registered accounts begin life with a Reputation of 1 (AC posts start at 0). Furthermore, Reputation is carried over from week to week.
Now, let's say that Karma is the sum of all moderation activity a person has had done on them for the past two or three weeks. Furthermore, the Karma is calculated the first time the person posts on a given day. How the person's Reputation is altered would be determined something like this:
If a person has 10 or more Karma they get a +1 bonus to Reputation, up to a maximum of 2 (or 3), and their Karma is docked by ten points (the ten points used to bump up the person's Reputation).
If a person has -2 to 9 Karma they get a -1 penalty to Reputation, down to a miminum of 1 (in other words, once they reach 1 they cannot go lower because of insufficient positive Karma; they have to actually be "bad" before that can happen). By the way, the reason I use -2 instead of 0 is to allow for one or two slip-ups (or posts which simply don't merit the person's Reputation) before penalties begin.
If a person has less than -2 Karma, they recieve -1 penalty to Reputation, down to a minimum of -1. The Karma value is then reset to zero. If they are already at -1 and recieve another such penalty, they are downgraded to Troll status (see below).
If a person is already at -1 Reputation and gets docked due to negative Karma again, they're downgraded to Troll status (and are notified by e-mail of this fact). Troll status would probably be best implemented by a simple flag in the userdata. All of their posts start at -1, regardless of Reputation. The Troll status is lifted when the person's Reputation reaches 1 again (in other words, over a period of time they have to accumulate enough Karma to get two +1 bonuses to Reputation).
The idea of this is to add two advantages to the current systems: 1) People with a high Reputation have to maintain it in order to keep it, and 2) Consistent trolls have their accounts severely punished, but can still work their way back up (though not without really posting some good stuff).
In theory, this bill has some good points and some bad points. The idea of a ratings system is to keep a child who isn't mature enough to handle certain things from being placed in that sort of situation (with that child's maturity being evidenced by the fact that a third party who is mature enough will buy it).
However, this idea of a "formula" system doesn't work. What's more, it's not going to solve anything; in fact it will probably only make the problem worse. Why? Because filmmakers and such put sex and violence in their movies for one reason and one reason only: it's profitable. People want to see this sort of thing for whatever reason, and taking it away from the media will only force them to seek other sources (which spells real disaster; after the media the only source of sex and violence is reality). Media violence isn't a cause; it's a symptom. At worst, it's a catalyst, but chemistry tells us that a catalyst can't do anything unless all the reactants are present. Already some have developed such a huge craving for these things that they can't get their fix from the media anymore; I see the Columbine killers as a grim example of that. Ratings are a quick-fix; they won't change anything in the long run. What will? I don't know, but it will probably take nothing less than a fundamental shift in our nation's culture, and I don't claim to know what that shift would be (I'd hope it's a shift towards the attitude that all people are to be respected simply by virtue of the fact that they're people, but I doubt that's ever going to happen.)
No, glorified violence in the media is not a problem. It's simply a symptom of a problem far worse.
Ask any moviemaker why they put so much sex and violence in their movies. Most will probably dance around the answer for a while, but every one of them will eventually give it to you straight: people will pay exorbitant prices to see it (and by "exorbitant" I mean the fact that the only thing which hasn't gotten cheaper in the US over the past fifty years, once inflation is accounted for, is movie-theater tickets). The fact is, there's one hell of a lot of profit in violence and sex in movies.
We don't crave violence because we see it; we see it because we crave it. Take the violence and sex out of the media, and you've done nothing to solve the problem. Indeed, if people can't see it in the media they'll turn to other sources, and we could quite possibly be in real trouble then.
So what is the problem? I don't claim to know that. Some cultural thing, probably; the fact is something in the fundamental culture of the U.S. is going to have to change if this problem is to be solved, and frankly I don't know what it is. You can blame any of a million different things. My personal belief is that it has much to do with the breakdown of parenting in recent years; kids aren't taught to respect all people anymore (I suppose one could argue that they never were, but in any case the situation on this has gotten much worse). Couple this with a society which has come to hold strength and physical beauty over real virtues like knowledge and kindness, and you have the recipe for a Really Bad Situation.
Only enough to know that you couldn't put the kernel into it (nowhere near enough space; even the floppy-based distro kernels are probably too large). Besides which, that would mean yet another rewrite of the kernel into portable fcode (the bright side of this is that the same kernel would then be able to run on any OF-based machine without ever being compiled on any of them).
Problem is, there's nowhere near enough room in OF to do that. There are some other pretty cool things you can do with it, though. One guy even wrote a playable version of Pong for OF.
One company has already figured out a way around the G4 lockout. Either others will follow, or that company will share its info with the upgrade companies (I hope it does this; while I'll never switch away from my Mac I'm quite pissed off at Apple right now, and certainly won't be buying a new one for some time).
This is one of those times I'm ashamed to be a Mac defender. Simply put, Apple has gone too far. This is a dirty trick, and Apple knows it.
Still, there's hope. Several possible scenarios exist:
1) This really is a dirty trick by Apple. I hope this isn't the case, but it sure looks that way at the moment. 2) This is some sort of bug, which Apple is for some stupid reason not fixing (this is how I would approach Apple with the subject if you write them about it; don't be accusatory or you'll just piss them off). 3) It's well-known that Apple asked Motorola to hold off on releasing the G4 until Apple had a system to put it in. Perhaps this was insurance against that policy, and once Apple has a ready supply of G4-based machines they'll undo the lock.
Anyway, all is not lost; one company (XLR8, if I'm not mistaken) has already found a way around the bug, and may well be sharing it with the other upgrade companies.
I certainly won't be buying a new G4 box. My Beige G3 is still upgradable to the G4, and I have no intention of letting that go. Hopefully by that time Apple will have seen the error of its ways.
One other thought I had: something isn't right about this. Consider that Apple has been lowering its prices, opening parts of its system (and even its QuickTime Streaming Server), and all sorts of other trends towards a more open company. This would seem counterproductive. I never said Steve Jobs wasn't a jerk, but he isn't stupid either, and this doesn't seem to make much in the way of sense. I think he's up to something.
Oh, and one other thing: what exactly is the nature of this lock? I've heard that it's in the Mac OS ROM file; if this is the case, then perhaps it is still possible to upgrade a Linux-only G4 box (anyone tried it?) If it's in OpenFirmware (the only other place it could be on the machine, since it has no hardware-based ROM that can be flashed), then it must be in the form of an OF patch, which means that getting the source to the lock ispossible.
You might think you are denying someone else these all-important rights, but in reality, it would only apply to your modifications. In one sense. But consider: if you're modifying code, then by definition you must have started with code that isn't yours. In most cases, the code can't be readily separated; in order to get back to the "original" code one must grab another copy of the original. The point is that when you modify code, you change the code but you don't take ownership of it. Say somebody has a huge pile of something; I'll say socks in this example (it sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's not computer- or money-related, so I figured I'd use it for the sake of argument). Now, say you see the pile one day and put a few more socks on it. Or maybe you wash the socks that are already there. Or you could make some other change to the pile. You've changed the pile, but that doesn't mean you can walk off with it and claim it as yours or build a fence around the original so no one else can see it or add more socks. The pile still belongs to whoever started the thing, even though you've added to it. You could certainly make an identical pile of socks, call it yours, but you'd have to get the socks from somewhere. You could ask the owner of the original pile for some, and perahps the owner might let you take a few (or, who knows, maybe even the whole thing). Perhaps not; it depends on the owner. Perhaps I should get going before my example gets any sillier. Again, this isn't intended to start a flamewar.
The thing is, freedom when taken to extremes isn't a Good Thing. For example, a person has the right to hunt for his or her own food. That is freedom. However, that same person cannot hunt and kill another human being, even for food. Why is this? Because killing another human being impinges on the freedom of that other person.
The point: the GPL basically states that you have certain rights. The same rights, more or less, as those granted with the BSD license. The GPL goes further, however, by stating that you must give everyone else the same rights you have, and consequently that they must give everyone else those same rights. BSD doesn't do this, and it's BSD's only critical flaw. When I get a piece of BSD software, I have certain rights. However, because of BSD's license, I can theoretically deny those same rights to other people. This isn't a Good Thing at all.
At least there's a hole: you can always lie to your ISP and tell them you're filtering it when you're not. So I suppose it could be worse then it is. But this is still a Very Bad Thing.
You know, there's a hole in the whole philosophy of this mandatory censorware thing. Consider: essentially censorware is a method of filtering out another's speech. The Australian government (indeed, most governments) have a legal right to do this to their own citizens, immoral censorship is. However, the Net is a global community. Governments have no right to do anything to people not under their jurisdiction. To attempt to do so is, if I'm not mistaken, an act of war.
In other words, Australia has just declared war on everyone else. I hope someone in their government figures this one out fast (no doubt they don't read Slashdot, seeing as it's too supportive of such "anarchistic" rights as free speech, so they'll never see this post). No doubt the boneheads who made this law up didn't think of it.
I see a lot of people saying how this is a Bad Thing because it encourages binary-only drivers. Now, perhaps I'm just clueless, but how the hell does it do that? It's nothing more than a standardized API, kind of like X, or glibc (if you count that as an API, which I do), or any number of other bits of Linux software.
I know, I'm probably begging to be whacked with the Clue Stick, but could someone please enlighten me on how open standards discourage Open-Source?
It's Rage 128, not Rage Pro or Rage II or any of the others.
Rage 128 is actually pretty decent. Depending on what you're looking for in a card, it can be the best one out there. Here's the thing: Voodoo3 has the fastest renderer, but there's a reason for that: it can't do any more than 16-bit color (and yes, I've read that little excuse^H^H^H^H^H^Harticle from that 3Dfx guy; I've seen the cards back to back and I don't buy it in the least). In other words, each frame won't look as good as one from a Rage 128. Then there are NVidia's offerings; reasonably good framerate, but the renderer is still of pretty low quality. Rage 128 has a relatively slow renderer (key word "relatively"; it beats Voodoo2 handily and I've never seen it more than five FPS slower than a Voodoo3) but its frames look better than the others do.
Personally, I'll sacrifice a few FPS for better-looking graphics. Then again, that's just me; some people can't tell the differences between the three renderers, just as some people (myself included)_can't tell the difference between an MP3 and the original CD recording.
Besides which, 3Dfx and Matrox are still flaky with MacOS support. The cards do work, but I don't think either is OF-compliant at this point. ATI, on the other hand, is (and has been since Apple started including their chips, which is probably why Apple did it).
This is unconstitutional. It falls under "illegal search and seizure."
Look, I don't doubt that the people who originally created this law had good intentions. They want to stop terrorists and criminals. But they're deluded. They think they can stop crime and create a utopia.
The simple fact is, you cannot eradicate suffering, no matter how hard you try, because the only sure-fire means of stopping the suffering of a few will instead cause the suffering of billions. Case in point: Big Brother from 1984; it stopped crime, sure, but at what cost? The right to privacy for millions outweighs the right of hundreds to snoop around, even if that snooping could save lives. And yes, that statement sounds heartless, and yes, it isn't fair, but it's the way of the universe. The best a person can do is live his or her life, alleviate suffering as much as possible knowing that it can't be completely stopped, and try not to cause any more.
That's the problem: if law enforcement is to dispense true justice, it can never win completely. It can gain a huge lead, and maintain it indefinitely, but it can't ever totally win the war. It's sad, but I really wish law enforcement would realize this. There's a reason it's called "utopia," after all; translate it from the original Greek word and it means nowhere.
It's Embrace, Extend and Extinguish all over again, but with a substantially different tactic.
Last I checked, DDNS was already a set standard, albeit a very new one that most Unices don't use yet. So there's nothing inherently evil about including that in Win2000. But, M$ is breaking interoperability with Unix servers to do so, due to the poor design decision of making a lot of their stuff (although with "Active" in its name, you can tell it's going to be insecure/unstable/buggy/all-of-the-above) depend on a standard which isn't mainstream yet, even if it is probably an open one.
Very clever, I must admit. A way to twist Open-Source to their advantage. Nonetheless, I'd say this ought to go into the 2.3 development tree now, so that it'll hopefully be ready before Win2k or at least not long after.
Personally, I think it'll be significantly more expensive than that, but the prices will eventually come down. I think it can be done; this guy has one hell of a reputation that he has to uphold. Consider that he said production costs were $50 a drive. The hard drive companies will likely start by charging thousands for the devices, because people will pay for that much storage.
This is different. It's not about translucent plastics. It's not about colors It's not about the fact that the eOne is an inferior ripoff of the iMac (even though that fact is true). eMachines could quite easily have made their machine look like anything they wanted to. Even with translucent plastics and different colors. They chose instead to steal the design of the iMac, with no other purpose than to confuse the consumer. Apple wasn't right in the look-and-feel suit against MS (who the hell could confuse the obscene mess that is Windows with the Mac interface?) It's right this time, though.
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Rage 128 is contemporary; you're confusing it with the Rage Pro.
They don't use TNT because there are no Mac TNT cards, and as for Voodoo3... well, I don't know. It matters little; Rage 128 can keep up with the other cards if they all render in 16-bit mode. Voodoo3 can't even do 32-bit, and all reviews I've ever seen of the TNT series' renderers states that they look comparatively terrible in 32-bit mode. And by the way, I've read that bit that the person from 3Dfx wrote trying to excuse^H^H^H^H^H^Hexplain why they don't use 32-bit; I've seen a Voodoo3 and Rage128 back to back and I don't buy the article for a second.
So yeah, you sacrifice 4 or 5 FPS max (most humans can't percieve the difference between 60 and 55 FPS anyway) but in return you get much better-looking graphics. I'll make that trade any day.
Not really. Keep in mind, there's still such a thing as network addresses, even with AirPort. It would take longer to find the device, but it's certainly possible to find the machine.
Of course, I believe it's also possible to mandate authentication before an iBook can log into an AirPort network, so the kid would need a password to do it anyway.
One: The AirPort does deliver data through the airwaves. However, it's strong-encrypted, if I'm not mistaken. You can certainly try stealing secrets, but you aren't going to get very far.
Two: There isn't normally much fuss about connecting wires, if your building has them. However, if your building is not wired (most homes are not, by the way) then it becomes a huge, and obscenely expensive, deal. Besides which, it's just easier if you can literally just bring a computer into the building and it's hooked up.
Three: There is stuff out for the PC, moreover it works with the AirPort (though due to the limitations in these pre-existing cards, you only get 2 Mbps instead of 11). Perhaps ones which will match up to the AirPort will be out soon; personally I hope they come out (I'm working on convincing my dad to "wire" the house with one and then get ADSL). Not only that, but as long as they follow the open standard which Apple used (and they'd be fools not to, since a card which isn't compatible with an open standard usually gets booted) they'll work with the AirPort too.
As for cordless-network peripherals which use USB, I certainly hope you're right. That'd be cool, though it would suck USB bandwidth big time; such network peripherals would be better if connected to FireWire, SCSI, an Ethernet port (as an adaptor), or even just a PCI slot.
The wireless networking cards currently out for PC's should wirk with the AirPort (I know Farallon makes one which does).
The catch: these cards are only running at 2 MBps, rather than 11. But they'll work until the 11-MBps cards are developed, anyway.
It's still difficult to upgrade and loaded with proprietary hardware.
Difficult to upgrade? What have you been smoking? With the possible exception of a total motherboard replacement, the G4 (and its B&W G3 ancestry) is quite possibly the easiest-to-upgrade machine I've ever seen in every aspect.
As for "loaded with proprietary hardware" I'd watch what you're saying. Pretty much every single thing on that motherboard is now an open standard: Ultra-ATA for hard drives, PCI and AGP for cards, standard PC100 memory (or is it PC133 now?), USB and Firewire for peripherals, 10/100 Ethernet for networking, OpenFirmware for booting (yes, OpenFirmware is itself an open standard; check FirmWorks if you don't believe me), and so on. I should, by the way, note that the G4 AGP no longer has a proprietary Mac ROM on the motherboard anymore (the PCI graphics still do, as they use the legacy Yosemite motherboard rather than Sawtooth, but even the ROM's on these no longer contain any OS-level code). Proprietary hardware? Perhaps one or two things still, but don't even think of calling it "loaded" anymore.
The power user demands a machine that he/she can not only be proud of when it first comes out, but can remain potent for years to come (through upgrades to both operating system and hardware).
True, very true. I don't think you'll argue that the G4 isn't a machine to be proud of when first purchased. Now, look to the studies. It's been shown that Macs have a much longer useful life than any other desktop computer (indeed, usually double or triple that of the average PC in a given establishment); I have a seven-year-old machine at home which now has a G3 processor, a good amount of RAM, great storage space, and so on and so forth. Not only that, but it is still running all the latest software out there. In other words, Macs can and do remain potent for years to come, years longer than even most PC's, through upgrades of software and hardware, just as you said.
The G4 is aiming for the geek market, but just doesn't have the features that would make it attractive for more than a few months.
And what, pray tell, are those "features"? I don't see any glaring lack, except possibly that I'd like a couple more PCI slots and there are ways around even that problem.
By attempting to appeal to higher-end users but not changing its hardware strategy to one of modularity and maximum control, Apple will find that it has sown the seeds of bitter resentment.
Not changing its hardware strategy to one of modularity and maximum control? Perhaps we're on different wavelengths. The G4, as I see it, appears to be just about as "modular" as any PC I've ever seen (sure, there's the mobo issue, but that's the only problem I've seen and considering the way Mac upgrades tend to run this problem is actually quite minor). As for "maximum control" I don't see any real trouble in this area here either. Looks to me like I can dictate more or less exactly what does and doesn't go into my machine.
You did a good job of describing what the average power-user wants. Trouble is, the Mac fits your description perfectly. That's rather countrtproductive to your argument, which is thereby reduced to the level of "Macs suck because they're Macs" (since you have no arguments to support your claim). Perhaps you should actually look into these machines, rather than refer to 10-year-old FUD which hasn't been true for quite some time now.
If anyone can do this, Spielberg can. Contrary to what many people seem to believe, he actually has made some very good science-fiction; witness E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (never mind that the encounter to which the title refers is actually of the fourth kind).
Can he do a Kubrick film? Perhaps. The closest he's come, as some people have pointed out, are Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. In other words, he's going to have to use all his skills to do this. I wish him the best of luck in that regard.
Karma is the sum of all moderations done to a person's post in the past three weeks. Reputation is the score at which a person's posts start out.
The Anonymous Coward always has a Reputation of 0, whereas user accounts start with a Reputation of 1. The first time the user posts in a given day, the Karma is tallied up.
If the person's Karma is 10 or more, his/her Reputation increases by 1 and the Karma score is reduced by 10 (to offset the increase in Reputation). Note that a user can recieve only one such increase per day.
If the poster's Karma is 5 to 9, his/her Reputation does not change, nor does the Karma score
If the poster's Karma is -2 to 4, his/her Reputation is decreased by 1, down to a minimum of 1. This allows for a person to make a few small slip-ups without a severe penalty. It also decreases the Reputation of people who do not post for a long time, but does not let that Reputation slip below that of an ordinary user ( if the person's Reputation is already 1 or less, it does not change). It is also an attempt to offset the effect on Karma of a good post dropping off the list.
If the poster's Karma is below -2, his/her Reputation is decreased by 1, to a minimum of -1. The person's Karma score is increased to -2 (to offset the decrease in Reputation) If the person was already at -1 Reputation, that person is given Troll status.
If a person is at Troll status, his/her posts start off at -1 regardless of his/her actual Reputation. Troll status is automatically lifted once the person reaches a Reputation of 1 again. In other words, a person with Troll status can only lose that status by a consistent string of good posts.
Note that as a corollary to this system, a person should be able to know his/her exact Karma score at any given moment (probably best to put it in a Slashbox).
Unfortunately, this approach doesn't work for the net. Instead of 70 or 80 channels, I have millions of websites. None of the filter companies can keep up. So, I have to watch my son every second on the net.
That's called being a good parent. Are you saying you don't want that, that you'd rather not take personal involvement in your child's life and instead relegate it to some piece of software which will never be adequate?
I agree with you that a simple standard filtering tag would be nice, but you forget: no one will use it. It's not profitable to do so. You can throw as many laws as you want at the problem; they never solve it.
Personally, I see the fact that the Net cannot be controlled by software as a blessing, rather than a curse. Perhaps it'll get more parents to realize that they do have a child, that their responsibility to that child overrides absolutely every single other personal concern, and that they need to start spending time with their kids. Quick-fixes like filters won't do the job.
To you, I can only say the following: Spend the Net time with your kid. Surf the Web together; use the time to learn his interests and get him into yours; the Net is actually very good for things like that. Talk with him, tell him why this sort of thing is wrong in terms he'll understand, rather than the over-puritanical bull we all hear from the religious right and just about every single person in government nowadays. In the end your child will be a better person for it.
NOTE: Despite the semi-inflammatory wording of this post, it is not intended as a flame at all. If it pisses you off, read it again and consider it for a while before you respond. If you're going to flame, please do us all a favor and do it by e-mail rather than waste space on Slashdot.
The sad bit is, he's right.
You could use encryption to do it (using it like a digital signature, giving the government your public key) but the problem with that is, people can make many signatures.
You could solve that problem by tying a key to something unique about a person, say a Social Security number (which has the advantage that each number is unique and that each person can only be assigned one). Each number could only have one key associated with it. But privacy advocates would just hate that one, besides which you still have people who can manage to get multiple numbers.
It's a problem. The only way you could ever eliminate voter fraud is to eliminate voting altogether (which is counterproductive), so you're going to have to live with the fact that a few will always slip through the cracks. But, is there any real way to minimize the fraud? Not without strong encryption, which the government would never allow.
Registered accounts begin life with a Reputation of 1 (AC posts start at 0). Furthermore, Reputation is carried over from week to week.
Now, let's say that Karma is the sum of all moderation activity a person has had done on them for the past two or three weeks. Furthermore, the Karma is calculated the first time the person posts on a given day. How the person's Reputation is altered would be determined something like this:
If a person is already at -1 Reputation and gets docked due to negative Karma again, they're downgraded to Troll status (and are notified by e-mail of this fact). Troll status would probably be best implemented by a simple flag in the userdata. All of their posts start at -1, regardless of Reputation. The Troll status is lifted when the person's Reputation reaches 1 again (in other words, over a period of time they have to accumulate enough Karma to get two +1 bonuses to Reputation).
The idea of this is to add two advantages to the current systems: 1) People with a high Reputation have to maintain it in order to keep it, and 2) Consistent trolls have their accounts severely punished, but can still work their way back up (though not without really posting some good stuff).
In theory, this bill has some good points and some bad points. The idea of a ratings system is to keep a child who isn't mature enough to handle certain things from being placed in that sort of situation (with that child's maturity being evidenced by the fact that a third party who is mature enough will buy it).
However, this idea of a "formula" system doesn't work. What's more, it's not going to solve anything; in fact it will probably only make the problem worse. Why? Because filmmakers and such put sex and violence in their movies for one reason and one reason only: it's profitable. People want to see this sort of thing for whatever reason, and taking it away from the media will only force them to seek other sources (which spells real disaster; after the media the only source of sex and violence is reality). Media violence isn't a cause; it's a symptom. At worst, it's a catalyst, but chemistry tells us that a catalyst can't do anything unless all the reactants are present. Already some have developed such a huge craving for these things that they can't get their fix from the media anymore; I see the Columbine killers as a grim example of that. Ratings are a quick-fix; they won't change anything in the long run. What will? I don't know, but it will probably take nothing less than a fundamental shift in our nation's culture, and I don't claim to know what that shift would be (I'd hope it's a shift towards the attitude that all people are to be respected simply by virtue of the fact that they're people, but I doubt that's ever going to happen.)
No, glorified violence in the media is not a problem. It's simply a symptom of a problem far worse.
Ask any moviemaker why they put so much sex and violence in their movies. Most will probably dance around the answer for a while, but every one of them will eventually give it to you straight: people will pay exorbitant prices to see it (and by "exorbitant" I mean the fact that the only thing which hasn't gotten cheaper in the US over the past fifty years, once inflation is accounted for, is movie-theater tickets). The fact is, there's one hell of a lot of profit in violence and sex in movies.
We don't crave violence because we see it; we see it because we crave it. Take the violence and sex out of the media, and you've done nothing to solve the problem. Indeed, if people can't see it in the media they'll turn to other sources, and we could quite possibly be in real trouble then.
So what is the problem? I don't claim to know that. Some cultural thing, probably; the fact is something in the fundamental culture of the U.S. is going to have to change if this problem is to be solved, and frankly I don't know what it is. You can blame any of a million different things. My personal belief is that it has much to do with the breakdown of parenting in recent years; kids aren't taught to respect all people anymore (I suppose one could argue that they never were, but in any case the situation on this has gotten much worse). Couple this with a society which has come to hold strength and physical beauty over real virtues like knowledge and kindness, and you have the recipe for a Really Bad Situation.
Only enough to know that you couldn't put the kernel into it (nowhere near enough space; even the floppy-based distro kernels are probably too large). Besides which, that would mean yet another rewrite of the kernel into portable fcode (the bright side of this is that the same kernel would then be able to run on any OF-based machine without ever being compiled on any of them).
Problem is, there's nowhere near enough room in OF to do that. There are some other pretty cool things you can do with it, though. One guy even wrote a playable version of Pong for OF.
One company has already figured out a way around the G4 lockout. Either others will follow, or that company will share its info with the upgrade companies (I hope it does this; while I'll never switch away from my Mac I'm quite pissed off at Apple right now, and certainly won't be buying a new one for some time).
This is one of those times I'm ashamed to be a Mac defender. Simply put, Apple has gone too far. This is a dirty trick, and Apple knows it.
Still, there's hope. Several possible scenarios exist:
1) This really is a dirty trick by Apple. I hope this isn't the case, but it sure looks that way at the moment.
2) This is some sort of bug, which Apple is for some stupid reason not fixing (this is how I would approach Apple with the subject if you write them about it; don't be accusatory or you'll just piss them off).
3) It's well-known that Apple asked Motorola to hold off on releasing the G4 until Apple had a system to put it in. Perhaps this was insurance against that policy, and once Apple has a ready supply of G4-based machines they'll undo the lock.
Anyway, all is not lost; one company (XLR8, if I'm not mistaken) has already found a way around the bug, and may well be sharing it with the other upgrade companies.
I certainly won't be buying a new G4 box. My Beige G3 is still upgradable to the G4, and I have no intention of letting that go. Hopefully by that time Apple will have seen the error of its ways.
One other thought I had: something isn't right about this. Consider that Apple has been lowering its prices, opening parts of its system (and even its QuickTime Streaming Server), and all sorts of other trends towards a more open company. This would seem counterproductive. I never said Steve Jobs wasn't a jerk, but he isn't stupid either, and this doesn't seem to make much in the way of sense. I think he's up to something.
Oh, and one other thing: what exactly is the nature of this lock? I've heard that it's in the Mac OS ROM file; if this is the case, then perhaps it is still possible to upgrade a Linux-only G4 box (anyone tried it?) If it's in OpenFirmware (the only other place it could be on the machine, since it has no hardware-based ROM that can be flashed), then it must be in the form of an OF patch, which means that getting the source to the lock ispossible.
Unquestionably it's illegal. It violates the Constitutional ban in search and seizure without a warrant.
The question is, "Does the NSA care that it's illegal?" The answer is, undoubtedly, no.
You might think you are denying someone else these all-important rights, but in reality, it would only apply to your modifications. In one sense. But consider: if you're modifying code, then by definition you must have started with code that isn't yours. In most cases, the code can't be readily separated; in order to get back to the "original" code one must grab another copy of the original. The point is that when you modify code, you change the code but you don't take ownership of it. Say somebody has a huge pile of something; I'll say socks in this example (it sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's not computer- or money-related, so I figured I'd use it for the sake of argument). Now, say you see the pile one day and put a few more socks on it. Or maybe you wash the socks that are already there. Or you could make some other change to the pile. You've changed the pile, but that doesn't mean you can walk off with it and claim it as yours or build a fence around the original so no one else can see it or add more socks. The pile still belongs to whoever started the thing, even though you've added to it. You could certainly make an identical pile of socks, call it yours, but you'd have to get the socks from somewhere. You could ask the owner of the original pile for some, and perahps the owner might let you take a few (or, who knows, maybe even the whole thing). Perhaps not; it depends on the owner. Perhaps I should get going before my example gets any sillier. Again, this isn't intended to start a flamewar.
The thing is, freedom when taken to extremes isn't a Good Thing. For example, a person has the right to hunt for his or her own food. That is freedom. However, that same person cannot hunt and kill another human being, even for food. Why is this? Because killing another human being impinges on the freedom of that other person.
The point: the GPL basically states that you have certain rights. The same rights, more or less, as those granted with the BSD license. The GPL goes further, however, by stating that you must give everyone else the same rights you have, and consequently that they must give everyone else those same rights. BSD doesn't do this, and it's BSD's only critical flaw. When I get a piece of BSD software, I have certain rights. However, because of BSD's license, I can theoretically deny those same rights to other people. This isn't a Good Thing at all.
At least there's a hole: you can always lie to your ISP and tell them you're filtering it when you're not. So I suppose it could be worse then it is. But this is still a Very Bad Thing.
You know, there's a hole in the whole philosophy of this mandatory censorware thing. Consider: essentially censorware is a method of filtering out another's speech. The Australian government (indeed, most governments) have a legal right to do this to their own citizens, immoral censorship is. However, the Net is a global community. Governments have no right to do anything to people not under their jurisdiction. To attempt to do so is, if I'm not mistaken, an act of war.
In other words, Australia has just declared war on everyone else. I hope someone in their government figures this one out fast (no doubt they don't read Slashdot, seeing as it's too supportive of such "anarchistic" rights as free speech, so they'll never see this post). No doubt the boneheads who made this law up didn't think of it.
I see a lot of people saying how this is a Bad Thing because it encourages binary-only drivers. Now, perhaps I'm just clueless, but how the hell does it do that? It's nothing more than a standardized API, kind of like X, or glibc (if you count that as an API, which I do), or any number of other bits of Linux software.
I know, I'm probably begging to be whacked with the Clue Stick, but could someone please enlighten me on how open standards discourage Open-Source?
It's Rage 128, not Rage Pro or Rage II or any of the others.
Rage 128 is actually pretty decent. Depending on what you're looking for in a card, it can be the best one out there. Here's the thing: Voodoo3 has the fastest renderer, but there's a reason for that: it can't do any more than 16-bit color (and yes, I've read that little excuse^H^H^H^H^H^Harticle from that 3Dfx guy; I've seen the cards back to back and I don't buy it in the least). In other words, each frame won't look as good as one from a Rage 128. Then there are NVidia's offerings; reasonably good framerate, but the renderer is still of pretty low quality. Rage 128 has a relatively slow renderer (key word "relatively"; it beats Voodoo2 handily and I've never seen it more than five FPS slower than a Voodoo3) but its frames look better than the others do.
Personally, I'll sacrifice a few FPS for better-looking graphics. Then again, that's just me; some people can't tell the differences between the three renderers, just as some people (myself included)_can't tell the difference between an MP3 and the original CD recording.
Besides which, 3Dfx and Matrox are still flaky with MacOS support. The cards do work, but I don't think either is OF-compliant at this point. ATI, on the other hand, is (and has been since Apple started including their chips, which is probably why Apple did it).
This is unconstitutional. It falls under "illegal search and seizure."
Look, I don't doubt that the people who originally created this law had good intentions. They want to stop terrorists and criminals. But they're deluded. They think they can stop crime and create a utopia.
The simple fact is, you cannot eradicate suffering, no matter how hard you try, because the only sure-fire means of stopping the suffering of a few will instead cause the suffering of billions. Case in point: Big Brother from 1984; it stopped crime, sure, but at what cost? The right to privacy for millions outweighs the right of hundreds to snoop around, even if that snooping could save lives. And yes, that statement sounds heartless, and yes, it isn't fair, but it's the way of the universe. The best a person can do is live his or her life, alleviate suffering as much as possible knowing that it can't be completely stopped, and try not to cause any more.
That's the problem: if law enforcement is to dispense true justice, it can never win completely. It can gain a huge lead, and maintain it indefinitely, but it can't ever totally win the war. It's sad, but I really wish law enforcement would realize this. There's a reason it's called "utopia," after all; translate it from the original Greek word and it means nowhere.
It's Embrace, Extend and Extinguish all over again, but with a substantially different tactic.
Last I checked, DDNS was already a set standard, albeit a very new one that most Unices don't use yet. So there's nothing inherently evil about including that in Win2000. But, M$ is breaking interoperability with Unix servers to do so, due to the poor design decision of making a lot of their stuff (although with "Active" in its name, you can tell it's going to be insecure/unstable/buggy/all-of-the-above) depend on a standard which isn't mainstream yet, even if it is probably an open one.
Very clever, I must admit. A way to twist Open-Source to their advantage. Nonetheless, I'd say this ought to go into the 2.3 development tree now, so that it'll hopefully be ready before Win2k or at least not long after.
If they can do this for $50, I'll buy five.
If they can do this for $200, I'll still buy one.
Personally, I think it'll be significantly more expensive than that, but the prices will eventually come down. I think it can be done; this guy has one hell of a reputation that he has to uphold. Consider that he said production costs were $50 a drive. The hard drive companies will likely start by charging thousands for the devices, because people will pay for that much storage.
This is different. It's not about translucent plastics. It's not about colors It's not about the fact that the eOne is an inferior ripoff of the iMac (even though that fact is true). eMachines could quite easily have made their machine look like anything they wanted to. Even with translucent plastics and different colors. They chose instead to steal the design of the iMac, with no other purpose than to confuse the consumer. Apple wasn't right in the look-and-feel suit against MS (who the hell could confuse the obscene mess that is Windows with the Mac interface?) It's right this time, though.