Reminds me of Al Gore's talk about getting Internet access to everyone, which is not a bad idea (of course, Al Gore is still an idiot).
The only issue I see is the same one the post office has. For 34 cents or whatever-the-heck first class mail costs these days, you can send a letter across the street or to some lonely shack 5 miles outside Scuffboot, Nebraska.
If the government is going to lay the infrastructure (I think comparing it to the Interstate system is a valid analogy), then how much would it really cost to lay fiber to every little hamlet across millions of square miles of these great United States? After all, if public money pays for it, it should benefit everyone, if possible. (Forget that, that's too naive).
I think it's a great idea, but it would just be too expensive, so I think we're stuck with the piecemeal development, which is of course hampered by monopolies and stupid regulations and general incompetance all around.
Maybe it's all a cover so they can get the good games for themselves.
Other than humor, I find this action too stupid to even comment upon. I hope nothing like this happens in the U.S. If the gov't wants to enforce a rating system (something I don't have a problem with), they need to get their act together before the product is on the shelf.
Well, the execs are not as stupid as they sound. They are, however, as evil. See, the idea here is to make you (where you == Joe Twelvepack) think they are giving you essentially a legal Napster without giving up their legal hammerlock on music distribution.
Face it, the record execs will never admit that in order to allow free use of their product as guaranteed by the Constitution, piracy will always be easy. That will _never_ change, but the Constitution might (or as is usually the case, it's just ignored).
I've done quite a bit with Audacity the 0.9.6 and 0.9.7 beta versions under Windows 2000. Aside of a few interface quirks, I am extremely pleased with the results. I can slice-n-dice several hundred megabyte WAV files with impunity and then save it all to a completed file. I've been digitizing old audio tapes and Audacity has made it really easy to edit out dead spots, remove clicks and pops, adjust sound levels, etc.
They couldn't sell big low-gas-mileage cars if people didn't want them. How can you fault a company for giving the customers what they want and are willing to pay for.
The gas mileage restrictions killed the station wagon, and now everyone drives mini-vans, which IMO are not always as functional for some transportation needs and get the same or worse gas mileage.
Ford, etc, are gearing up for 6500-plus pound vehicles for when the gas mileage restrictions for trucks start kicking in more. Does Ford hate the environment or are they just trying to provide their customers what they want?
Given the progress being made in finding ways around "protection" schemes, the only two possible scenarios in the future are:
1. Companies find another, intelligent way of dealing with intellectual rights issues.
2. The USA (and elsewhere) will become a corporate-financed police state.
Apple's lawyers can and will complain all they want, but it seems to me that the folks who put together the CD are to blame. It's getting to the point where even a little bit of technical knowledge about software brings the lawyers down like a load of bricks.
I hack software regularly, and perhaps do some things which are technically illegal, but don't involve using software that I don't have a license for. Is it technically illegal to have a copy of the MSDN Windows 98 release so I don't have to pull out Windows 3.1 floppies for my upgrade CD every time I want to reinstall Windows 98 for my kids? Probably. Am I stealing anything I didn't pay for? No. Would Microsoft's lawyers destroy me if they had a chance? You bet.
How long before it is illegal to use RegEdit? How long before it is illegal to use "dir"?
Is it just me, or does the majority of the comments made by the author point out rudimentary common sense ideas?
First off, if you haven't read the book (neither have I), you can't comment on the depth of the information in it, since the review is very brief. On the other hand, go out and surf the Web a bit. The sad fact is that most people don't know these fundamentals.
The problem is that most Web designers, who, it seems, have little or no knowledge of HCI issues are taking the same approach to Web pages that TV producers take to TV. Flashy, little content, lots of bright shiny things to look at. The problem is that TV is totally passive, all a TV program needs to do is make you look at it, and stay there slack-jawed and glassy-eyed while a puddle of drool collects in your lap.
Web sites are delivering information, and more and more, allowing people to do things. It is an interactive format that is far more sophisticated than TV, particularly when you start doing things like commerce.
If you want flashy, dumb pictures to mesmerize and bedazzle your audience toss out the Web site and replace it with a single Flash animation. If you want to provide real information and allow your users to accomplish something useful and productive, study Human-Computer Interface design and actually learn something, because you are ultimately providing a computer application.
Even sites from people who should know better, like Netscape and Microsoft have lots of real usability problems.
The crowd here on/. wouldn't fall into this description, but I would imagine that many (or even most) Web developers do not fall into the/.-reader category.
4NT is a (large) superset of cmd.exe functionality, which has been around since before NT (it was 4DOS back then, which still exists for Win9x). While it's not related to nor based on any Unix shell, and it is a commercial closed-source shareware product, it is extremely flexible and very powerful. I've been using it for about 11 years myself.
Re:Designed for kids
on
The Last Hero
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I can't speak to that, but Pterry's novels aimed towards kids (the Nome books and the Johnny books) are excellent. And far from being dumbed down or simplistic, they are as rich and deep and subtle as any of his other work, just written to subjects that children would identify with more (also both series are set in the modern world).
Although I found "Thief of Time" to be a little tedious in places, I am still amazed at how after 26 or Discworld books, he can still pull exciting and new stories out of his hat.
The main reason, is that like Tolkien, Frank Herbert, David Eddings and very, very few others, the Discworld stories feel like they take place in a real world that exists beyond what is talked about in the stories. It's like he doesn't have to make up anything new, he just needs to describe something we haven't seen yet, and as silly or parodic as it can be, to me, the Discworld is one of the "realest" places in literature.
Take "Star Wars" for instance. To me the "Star Wars" movies never feel like they're taking place in a real world. It always feels to me like nothing exists other than what we see, and despite its aspirations to grand and epic proportions, always comes across as a story about very few people. That doesn't stop me from enjoying them, but it makes it seem less "real" to me. I think the Star Trek movies suffer from it even more, which is interesting because the show (TOS, TNG, and DS9 anyway) generally did not.
Around about ST3, it seems that each story was contrived to get the major characters off on some wild or interesting (or stupid in the case of 5) adventures completely on their own (often against orders), when in the TV shows, they always operated with a crew and under the auspices of Star Fleet.
I think the Hitchhiker's Guide books feel the same way. They occur on a vast scale of space and time (and probability) but never feel like anything really exists other than the few main characters (don't get me wrong, they're some of my favorite books ever).
Anyhow, I seem to have strayed a bit from my original topic. I can only say that sex is more fun than logic. This cannot be proved, but it is. Just like Mount Everest is and Alma Kogen isn't.
It wasn't meant for anyone here, although there's no surplus of brains on/.;-)
I was referring to the fact that the whole "Microsoft Monopoly" idea only hit big time in the courts and the media around 2-3 years ago, even though, when following people like Andrew Schulman or looking at cases like DR-DOS, it was obvious they were playing monopolistic hardball many, many years ago.
Re:A PS2 with different games
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
If they come out with the killer game (what Halo was supposed to be) I think it will spark even more interest. Of course, after Christmas it will be a different story. the PS2 could be more cemented in the lead, or the GameCube might end up being Sony's main competition.
It's all about the games, and Sony has an almost 2 year headstart (plus an enormous catalog of good PS1 stuff... i still hear that "Playstashone" from the commercials in my head).
Microsoft isn't dicking around here (like they were with say, Bob, or even.NET, which seems to be strictly a marketing thing at this point). I think they want a solid foothold in yet another industry to cement their power and help out in case the gov't does end up splitting up the company (which is the dumbest idea I've ever heard) or some other well-deserved punishment.
Um. Star Wars was pretty dumb when you really get around to it. It wasn't really SF either (but rather fantasy). But it was _still_ a great movie.
Now, he's certainly creating a market for toys, no doubt, but things are pretty much like they were in the late 70's/early 80's except this time around (Ep1) he tried to tell too much story and ended up with a muddled movie.
Re:A PS2 with different games
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
No, not bully (although it looks like MS is bullying the independent game stores). I'm talking about throwing money at developing.
Re:A PS2 with different games
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
I didn't complete my thought... the portability argument works for _me_, but not the average user. However, I would suspect that XBox developers will be able to leverage the huge number of Windows programmers out there who don't need to learn a new platform (although I understand the PS2 development tools are good). Hey, it's better than programming an Atari 2600.
Re:A PS2 with different games
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
Thank you for seeing my point!
I'm not arguing that Microsoft isn't a bully or evil or doesn't promote tooth decay. But if Microsoft were the Gandhi or software companies, Netscape 4.0 would have still blown chunks. Did Microsoft have an advantage due to size? Sure. Did that mean Netscape couldn't release good software? No! If they tried to do too much and released it too soon, regardless of the what the competition was up to, that's their problem. I first realized this when Netscape 4.0 spent several _minutes_ "making changes" to my registry.
Re:A PS2 with different games
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 2
I never said "crushed", but since the initial impressions are that the XBox is in the same ballpark as the PS2, I would give Microsoft pretty good odds of doing well against a hypothetical PS3 with a hypothetical XBox2.
Of course, that's not considering things like marketing or Microsoft getting spanked by the DOJ (hey stranger things have happened) or someone figuring out a way to turn one platform or the other (or both) into the ultimate Linux gaming machine.
I would argue on Pope Slackman's behalf that Microsoft _did_ play fairly on this issue.
I think the whole bundling argument is just so much horse hocky. Does Ford compete unfairly against Blaupunkt because their cars and trucks come with stereos installed? I have never heard an argument that draws any real distinction between this example and Microsoft bundling useful tools with their OS. Why didn't people complain about WordPad, or Minesweeper, or edlin?! After Dark managed to overcome the fact that Windows 3 came with built in screensavers because they offered something more. It's not Microsoft's fault that they wrote a better browser. (Of course, it is their fault when they strong-armed OEMs into not letting _them_ bundle Netscape, but let's face it, if Netscape was good enough, they would have figured out a way to overcome customers' reluctance to switch from the default.)
In any event, this was clearly a case of Netscape not being able to cut it technically and being a cry-baby because there was already a groundswell over the fact that Microsoft has done many other unfair things. Of course, anyone with brains realized this around 1990, but by the time it reached the courts it really didn't matter anymore.
Re:A PS2 with different games
on
XBox Released
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Let's review Microsoft history, shall we?
Netscape 1 sucked on toast
IE1 sucked on toast with cherries on top
Netscape was usable
IE2 sucked on toast
Netscape 3 was great
IE3 was usable
Netscape 4 was big and bloated and didn't add anything useful
IE4 was great
Netscape 5... never happened
IE5 refined IE4 a bit
Netscape 6 sucked, from what I understand to be because it wasn't mature enough
IE6 was yet another refinement
Of course, Mozilla is another story...
Netscape is now yesterday's news and Microsoft is the 800-pound gorilla in yet another area. Netscape lost this battle primarily because they couldn't code as well as Microsoft... and they even had a serious head start (but does anyone really remember what a complete piece of crap NS1 was?)
When Microsoft decides to compete with someone they usually won't win in round 1 (at least if they play fair), but when you're a half-trillion dollar company, you can afford to both throw incredible amounts of resources at a problem and wait a few years for an industry-leading product to gel out of it. If the XBox is "as good" or "about the same" as a PS2 (better than being about the same as a PS/2, I think), then I would bet that the XBox-2 has a good chance to exceed the PS3.
I think the XBox's potential lies in the ability (I would assume) to easily port Windows code over to it. I'm not a Linux programmer, but I am a Windows programmer so that appeals to me. Of course, the day someone ports Linux to the XBox, I will laugh as hard as anyone else.
I'd love to see MAME ported to the XBox... that HD would hold all near-3000 ROMs. To me these days the consoles are more interesting now for the games that are distributed for them, but what they can be hacked to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Reminds me of Al Gore's talk about getting Internet access to everyone, which is not a bad idea (of course, Al Gore is still an idiot).
The only issue I see is the same one the post office has. For 34 cents or whatever-the-heck first class mail costs these days, you can send a letter across the street or to some lonely shack 5 miles outside Scuffboot, Nebraska.
If the government is going to lay the infrastructure (I think comparing it to the Interstate system is a valid analogy), then how much would it really cost to lay fiber to every little hamlet across millions of square miles of these great United States? After all, if public money pays for it, it should benefit everyone, if possible. (Forget that, that's too naive).
I think it's a great idea, but it would just be too expensive, so I think we're stuck with the piecemeal development, which is of course hampered by monopolies and stupid regulations and general incompetance all around.
Maybe it's all a cover so they can get the good games for themselves.
Other than humor, I find this action too stupid to even comment upon. I hope nothing like this happens in the U.S. If the gov't wants to enforce a rating system (something I don't have a problem with), they need to get their act together before the product is on the shelf.
By free use, I mean fair use by a paying customer. Sorry if I was unclear about that, I typed "free" for "fair".
Well, the execs are not as stupid as they sound. They are, however, as evil. See, the idea here is to make you (where you == Joe Twelvepack) think they are giving you essentially a legal Napster without giving up their legal hammerlock on music distribution.
Face it, the record execs will never admit that in order to allow free use of their product as guaranteed by the Constitution, piracy will always be easy. That will _never_ change, but the Constitution might (or as is usually the case, it's just ignored).
I've done quite a bit with Audacity the 0.9.6 and 0.9.7 beta versions under Windows 2000. Aside of a few interface quirks, I am extremely pleased with the results. I can slice-n-dice several hundred megabyte WAV files with impunity and then save it all to a completed file. I've been digitizing old audio tapes and Audacity has made it really easy to edit out dead spots, remove clicks and pops, adjust sound levels, etc.
And it's GPL! Much recommended.
That's my point. We are heading down a slippery slope (about 75 degrees) toward option 2.
They couldn't sell big low-gas-mileage cars if people didn't want them. How can you fault a company for giving the customers what they want and are willing to pay for.
The gas mileage restrictions killed the station wagon, and now everyone drives mini-vans, which IMO are not always as functional for some transportation needs and get the same or worse gas mileage.
Ford, etc, are gearing up for 6500-plus pound vehicles for when the gas mileage restrictions for trucks start kicking in more. Does Ford hate the environment or are they just trying to provide their customers what they want?
Not a troll but a real question... Does the porn industry already have established digital characters like this?
Does Leisure Suit Larry count?
In celebration of the upcoming movie....
Rick
Given the progress being made in finding ways around "protection" schemes, the only two possible scenarios in the future are:
1. Companies find another, intelligent way of dealing with intellectual rights issues.
2. The USA (and elsewhere) will become a corporate-financed police state.
Apple's lawyers can and will complain all they want, but it seems to me that the folks who put together the CD are to blame. It's getting to the point where even a little bit of technical knowledge about software brings the lawyers down like a load of bricks.
I hack software regularly, and perhaps do some things which are technically illegal, but don't involve using software that I don't have a license for. Is it technically illegal to have a copy of the MSDN Windows 98 release so I don't have to pull out Windows 3.1 floppies for my upgrade CD every time I want to reinstall Windows 98 for my kids? Probably. Am I stealing anything I didn't pay for? No. Would Microsoft's lawyers destroy me if they had a chance? You bet.
How long before it is illegal to use RegEdit? How long before it is illegal to use "dir"?
Is it just me, or does the majority of the comments made by the author point out rudimentary common sense ideas?
/. wouldn't fall into this description, but I would imagine that many (or even most) Web developers do not fall into the /.-reader category.
First off, if you haven't read the book (neither have I), you can't comment on the depth of the information in it, since the review is very brief. On the other hand, go out and surf the Web a bit. The sad fact is that most people don't know these fundamentals.
The problem is that most Web designers, who, it seems, have little or no knowledge of HCI issues are taking the same approach to Web pages that TV producers take to TV. Flashy, little content, lots of bright shiny things to look at. The problem is that TV is totally passive, all a TV program needs to do is make you look at it, and stay there slack-jawed and glassy-eyed while a puddle of drool collects in your lap.
Web sites are delivering information, and more and more, allowing people to do things. It is an interactive format that is far more sophisticated than TV, particularly when you start doing things like commerce.
If you want flashy, dumb pictures to mesmerize and bedazzle your audience toss out the Web site and replace it with a single Flash animation. If you want to provide real information and allow your users to accomplish something useful and productive, study Human-Computer Interface design and actually learn something, because you are ultimately providing a computer application.
Even sites from people who should know better, like Netscape and Microsoft have lots of real usability problems.
The crowd here on
It's like that other old saying:
Whoever has the most money gets the most rights.
4NT is a (large) superset of cmd.exe functionality, which has been around since before NT (it was 4DOS back then, which still exists for Win9x). While it's not related to nor based on any Unix shell, and it is a commercial closed-source shareware product, it is extremely flexible and very powerful. I've been using it for about 11 years myself.
Watch out for snakes!
I can't speak to that, but Pterry's novels aimed towards kids (the Nome books and the Johnny books) are excellent. And far from being dumbed down or simplistic, they are as rich and deep and subtle as any of his other work, just written to subjects that children would identify with more (also both series are set in the modern world).
Although I found "Thief of Time" to be a little tedious in places, I am still amazed at how after 26 or Discworld books, he can still pull exciting and new stories out of his hat.
The main reason, is that like Tolkien, Frank Herbert, David Eddings and very, very few others, the Discworld stories feel like they take place in a real world that exists beyond what is talked about in the stories. It's like he doesn't have to make up anything new, he just needs to describe something we haven't seen yet, and as silly or parodic as it can be, to me, the Discworld is one of the "realest" places in literature.
Take "Star Wars" for instance. To me the "Star Wars" movies never feel like they're taking place in a real world. It always feels to me like nothing exists other than what we see, and despite its aspirations to grand and epic proportions, always comes across as a story about very few people. That doesn't stop me from enjoying them, but it makes it seem less "real" to me. I think the Star Trek movies suffer from it even more, which is interesting because the show (TOS, TNG, and DS9 anyway) generally did not.
Around about ST3, it seems that each story was contrived to get the major characters off on some wild or interesting (or stupid in the case of 5) adventures completely on their own (often against orders), when in the TV shows, they always operated with a crew and under the auspices of Star Fleet.
I think the Hitchhiker's Guide books feel the same way. They occur on a vast scale of space and time (and probability) but never feel like anything really exists other than the few main characters (don't get me wrong, they're some of my favorite books ever).
Anyhow, I seem to have strayed a bit from my original topic. I can only say that sex is more fun than logic. This cannot be proved, but it is. Just like Mount Everest is and Alma Kogen isn't.
It wasn't meant for anyone here, although there's no surplus of brains on /. ;-)
I was referring to the fact that the whole "Microsoft Monopoly" idea only hit big time in the courts and the media around 2-3 years ago, even though, when following people like Andrew Schulman or looking at cases like DR-DOS, it was obvious they were playing monopolistic hardball many, many years ago.
If they come out with the killer game (what Halo was supposed to be) I think it will spark even more interest. Of course, after Christmas it will be a different story. the PS2 could be more cemented in the lead, or the GameCube might end up being Sony's main competition.
.NET, which seems to be strictly a marketing thing at this point). I think they want a solid foothold in yet another industry to cement their power and help out in case the gov't does end up splitting up the company (which is the dumbest idea I've ever heard) or some other well-deserved punishment.
It's all about the games, and Sony has an almost 2 year headstart (plus an enormous catalog of good PS1 stuff... i still hear that "Playstashone" from the commercials in my head).
Microsoft isn't dicking around here (like they were with say, Bob, or even
I heard that on the DVD release there is one frame of JarJar where he's got no pants.
OK, that was a bad Roger Rabbit reference.
Um. Star Wars was pretty dumb when you really get around to it. It wasn't really SF either (but rather fantasy). But it was _still_ a great movie.
Now, he's certainly creating a market for toys, no doubt, but things are pretty much like they were in the late 70's/early 80's except this time around (Ep1) he tried to tell too much story and ended up with a muddled movie.
No, not bully (although it looks like MS is bullying the independent game stores). I'm talking about throwing money at developing.
I didn't complete my thought... the portability argument works for _me_, but not the average user. However, I would suspect that XBox developers will be able to leverage the huge number of Windows programmers out there who don't need to learn a new platform (although I understand the PS2 development tools are good). Hey, it's better than programming an Atari 2600.
Thank you for seeing my point!
I'm not arguing that Microsoft isn't a bully or evil or doesn't promote tooth decay. But if Microsoft were the Gandhi or software companies, Netscape 4.0 would have still blown chunks. Did Microsoft have an advantage due to size? Sure. Did that mean Netscape couldn't release good software? No! If they tried to do too much and released it too soon, regardless of the what the competition was up to, that's their problem. I first realized this when Netscape 4.0 spent several _minutes_ "making changes" to my registry.
I never said "crushed", but since the initial impressions are that the XBox is in the same ballpark as the PS2, I would give Microsoft pretty good odds of doing well against a hypothetical PS3 with a hypothetical XBox2.
Of course, that's not considering things like marketing or Microsoft getting spanked by the DOJ (hey stranger things have happened) or someone figuring out a way to turn one platform or the other (or both) into the ultimate Linux gaming machine.
I would argue on Pope Slackman's behalf that Microsoft _did_ play fairly on this issue.
I think the whole bundling argument is just so much horse hocky. Does Ford compete unfairly against Blaupunkt because their cars and trucks come with stereos installed? I have never heard an argument that draws any real distinction between this example and Microsoft bundling useful tools with their OS. Why didn't people complain about WordPad, or Minesweeper, or edlin?! After Dark managed to overcome the fact that Windows 3 came with built in screensavers because they offered something more. It's not Microsoft's fault that they wrote a better browser. (Of course, it is their fault when they strong-armed OEMs into not letting _them_ bundle Netscape, but let's face it, if Netscape was good enough, they would have figured out a way to overcome customers' reluctance to switch from the default.)
In any event, this was clearly a case of Netscape not being able to cut it technically and being a cry-baby because there was already a groundswell over the fact that Microsoft has done many other unfair things. Of course, anyone with brains realized this around 1990, but by the time it reached the courts it really didn't matter anymore.
Let's review Microsoft history, shall we?
Netscape 1 sucked on toast
IE1 sucked on toast with cherries on top
Netscape was usable
IE2 sucked on toast
Netscape 3 was great
IE3 was usable
Netscape 4 was big and bloated and didn't add anything useful
IE4 was great
Netscape 5... never happened
IE5 refined IE4 a bit
Netscape 6 sucked, from what I understand to be because it wasn't mature enough
IE6 was yet another refinement
Of course, Mozilla is another story...
Netscape is now yesterday's news and Microsoft is the 800-pound gorilla in yet another area. Netscape lost this battle primarily because they couldn't code as well as Microsoft... and they even had a serious head start (but does anyone really remember what a complete piece of crap NS1 was?)
When Microsoft decides to compete with someone they usually won't win in round 1 (at least if they play fair), but when you're a half-trillion dollar company, you can afford to both throw incredible amounts of resources at a problem and wait a few years for an industry-leading product to gel out of it. If the XBox is "as good" or "about the same" as a PS2 (better than being about the same as a PS/2, I think), then I would bet that the XBox-2 has a good chance to exceed the PS3.
I think the XBox's potential lies in the ability (I would assume) to easily port Windows code over to it. I'm not a Linux programmer, but I am a Windows programmer so that appeals to me. Of course, the day someone ports Linux to the XBox, I will laugh as hard as anyone else.
I'd love to see MAME ported to the XBox... that HD would hold all near-3000 ROMs. To me these days the consoles are more interesting now for the games that are distributed for them, but what they can be hacked to do.
In the meantime, enjoy the games!