The other point you are forgetting about these consortia is that companies can work together, and not apart, to develop standards that work for all. And in the case of DVD there were multiple standards in existence that could have emerged as the winner - but companies working together and taking the advice of outsiders helped make DVD possible. And DVD's are/were a smashing success.
There are two tremendous electronics successes in my lifetime; The Gameboy (original) is the highest selling single electronics model of all time. The DVD player (of all varieties) is the fastest selling electronics device of all time. And DVD got that way because it was worked on together and perfected by the consortium. There were factions in the consortium that didn't get along, but they eventually did to the benefit of all (and some might say to the benefit of humanity, but that might be a stretch).
Voodoo 1 would have been a great start. For example: Canopus addon cards that went between your existing VGA and the monitor are, in my eyes, what started the revolution. That and GLQuake.
I remember watching CNBC around the time 3DFX was failing. They were telling everyone to sell! sell! sell! - but I thought buy! buy! buy!. While a company may go out of business they still have assests that may want to be acquired by competitors and start ups. But I was drunk a lot then too. I've always had the Warren Buffet approach to buying stock; does the company have value if they closed their doors tomorrow. 3DFX didn't help themselves buy treating their employees like kings, but I'm also betting that's why they were tops in the industry for so long.
(Of course, I don't know what the purchase price was and the value to shareholders... I was like 19 and speculating based on my knowledge of their prior success and the fact that a TON of games in my local arcade were creeping up with 3DFX logos on demo screens, etc.)
I think prettiness is somewhat more important on some games. As a WoW player I find that I'd rather have maxed settings than high frame rates. Of course reaction times are pointless when your card makes the game freeze, but frame rates don't matter when it's pretty, smooth and you can rotate the display without a lockup. Yes, I see frame rates drop in encounters - but it doesn't affect the look and feel. And isn't this a desired effect? Throw out a few frames so the rendering is still bawls awesome and you don't get that half second freeze?
I recently bought a 9800GTS ($70 w/tax @ Best Buy - I'm on a budget here!) and the first thing I did was install the Crysis demo. The question you ask about 24FPS being 'just fine' somewhat boggles me. I maxed out the settings and was running at 15-20 FPS, depending on what was happening, and it looked great.
Now, I hate Crysis - it's a objective based FPS - give me Quake I anyday, but my game of choice today is WoW. I went from 25 FPS to 45 FPS and still notice no *real* difference. Frame rates are getting more credit than they should. Sure for benchmarking, it's important, I guess. But films are 24 FPS, and they look great to me. (But this is due to blurring in frames... some frames have blur which makes your eyes think there is fluid movements).
Now if we dropped to 5 FPS you'd notice a difference. Maybe I'm slow - but on the right games I just don't see it.
You have a good point. Now it looks as if craigslist should be held liable for everything one of their posters/buyers does. Once they start policing their interwebs, they have to stay on it.
So... a guy killed some people he met through craigslist? That isn't craig's fault, it's the murderers fault - he committed the act. Even more, someone posted an ad, decided to meet up with an anonymous person without taking any precautions, and ended up dead.
It's not that what they were doing was legally questionable so it was okay to die, but even street walkers have pimps for protection. Why couldn't these victims left notes with attorneys or something? Had a bodyguard?
I just think there has to be a case where someone met a person through a personal ad or classified and did this before and the newspaper wasn't liable. If it was classifieds wouldn't have been their biggest business - because the risk to possible income ratio would have been way to high to sustain the business.
Corporations are winning the war against our rights.
I must have been away a long time, but I'm pretty sure your rights end at the other guy's nose. i.e.; you've never been given the rights to redistribute someone else's work - so just don't do it. How is it unfair or unjust that you can't send everyone you know (and others you don't) your MP3 collection? Grow up and realize not EVERYTHING should be 'free' all the time.
(The last 10 posts make me feel like a **AA Nazi, but maybe it's because I'm trying to be an adult about all of this. If you disagree that much that Universal has the rights to your favorite type of music... make your own. And then give that away for free or let people run over you by giving it away for free without your permission.)
I know artists who use Rapidshare to post their own music to download, and they love it. But why should Rapidshare protect you if you are posting their other albums, etc, that they don't want to be given away for free.
Why should they protect you before they uphold the laws of their land?
you should probably stop writing, collect your thoughts, and put your effort towards articulating that idea into a piece that can be critiqued in depth and seriously.
I'm sure The Beatles were just going to play music and wait and see what the response was before they applied for protection. I'm pretty sure they protected themselves before they played one note publicly. And you are talking out of both sides of your mouth; "a piece that can be critiqued in depth and seriously"... "posting it and waiting to see what the karma-seekers have to say about it". What's the difference? Karma seekers, mods or college professors, it doesn't matter. What you are saying is that minutia shouldn't be protected, but it's your right. It's kind of like the first ten amendments - you don't care until you need to hide behind one of them. Maybe you just don't produce anything worthwhile to have a dog in this fight. But you also can't say everything should meet a certain standard. Britney Spears, for example, is not the greatest musical act to ever live - but people would rip her off left and right if they could (and by her I mean her writers).
I think that you should be writing for more altruistic reasons than profit motive -- especially on a blog or/. comment.
Altruism... pretty much doesn't get anyone anything anytime. Stallman didn't create the GPL out of altruism, to simply help his fellow man. While I agree with him he is also a zealot. If you remove the economic motivators people simply aren't going to produce. Sure, there will still be music, but will it be any good? Even those who give it all away are after something, dominance in their genre, satisfaction of knowing they have provided something.
Humans are not altruistic animals. Animals aren't altruistic. Sometimes they exhibit this behavior, but usually there are deeper motivations than just being 'nice'.
(This post deserves a few commas, but it's late and I'm refusing to put them in)
Posting your "creative" concept to a public forum pretty much voids the concept of copywrite. [SIC]
I think posting something in the public a) begs for you to copyright it because others may plagiarize it and b) publishing works (no matter how significant) creates copyright
If you keep ideas/works/(or even patentable works) to yourself, there just isn't any point and essentially shouldn't even be in this discussion.
I think you are confusing everything that has happened since her work with her work (Sonny Bono for example). She struck a balance and she should be applauded for that.
I'm sorry - but we just can't refuse someone's right to protect their work. Even the name Linux is trademarked, most GPL code is in fact copyrighted - it's just given out under a unrestrictive license (so say we, not the GPL enemies).
But this line; without a flourishing public domain innovation is doomed... shows some ignorance. If everything is public domain there is no reason to innovate. Is it not the restrictions on everything else out there that became the motivating factors behind the GPL et. al.? And if you can just use whatever whenever, why create something better.
It can't be denied that patents and copyright keep the mind moving forward. Otherwise we'd have stagnation. (I'm coming off as a Disney lover - but even in their work you see how using public domain stories [the first 20 years of Disney movies] let them rest on that without writing anything new for a loooong time.)
I personally think that the 1909 law (28 years + renewal) was a much better length of time (though I am skeptical about the renewal)
I think the good thing about the renewal is this: you'd only renew if it was worth it. If you weren't making money then you wouldn't bother and then it would enter the public domain. What could be good about this is that an author couldn't find 30 years after the work that it's on an upswing and cash in if it was never profitable before.
Also, I'm guessing you'd have to be ALIVE to renew the copyright.
And before you reply saying that asking to be taken off a calling list doesn't work - realize you've dealt with fly-by-nights or otherwise shady ventures before. We are quick to blacklist anyone who is nasty or otherwise shows no interest, it just doesn't pay to keep calling.
Spam is spam, but believe it or not... most people WANT to be marketed to. Don't believe me? Purchase some Experian demo data and look at the 'multi-company mail responders'. In our geographical market most of the households do in fact reply to junk mail and so forth.
(And you'll never beat junk mail - it makes the USPS too much money. You can opt-out of 'junk mail', but you have to wait in line to do it. It's just too much postage for the USPS to turn down.)
I agree. As both a list manager for e-mail and phone lists we have the opinion that we don't want to waste time with the people who don't want to hear from us.
On the calling side; we love the FDNC list. It means we don't have to spend man hours dialing people who will just scream and holler (when all it takes is a simple 'take us off your list'). As far as e-mail goes; we sent out opt-in emails to 20,000 folks in our market area and 95% of them opt'ed in. People respect that you asked first and if you tell them there might be interesting content coming their way they watch for it.
Hey your STD metaphor is what I use to keep people from using IE! I always tell people browsing with IE is like having unprotected sex with many strangers - you will eventually catch something.
It sounds to me like this could possibly be explained by some kind of conditional optimization that the compiler puts in for various chips, to take advantage of differences in their designs that can improve performance.
I understand that we are all just trying to grasp at straws here to explain this away, but if what your saying is the case: are software developers optimizing their code based on the subtle, undocumented differences in the chips?
If they aren't (and I don't see many "Optimized for Intel" or "AMD" software out there...) then why would a benchmark test in that fashion? Shouldn't the benchmark just throw some non-optimized code at the chip first and see how it does?
Not that I really know anything about this area, but my common sense tells me that a benchmark shouldn't try to look faster at all. It shouldn't be optimized for anything: Just throw items at the chip and see how it does. If it's equal then we know the ratings will be equal (and, ahem, fair). Sure, do the SSE* tests and the others, but just attempt them and see how it goes. Don't have two SSE3 tests, just one.
Slashdot Mirror
The other point you are forgetting about these consortia is that companies can work together, and not apart, to develop standards that work for all. And in the case of DVD there were multiple standards in existence that could have emerged as the winner - but companies working together and taking the advice of outsiders helped make DVD possible. And DVD's are/were a smashing success.
There are two tremendous electronics successes in my lifetime; The Gameboy (original) is the highest selling single electronics model of all time. The DVD player (of all varieties) is the fastest selling electronics device of all time. And DVD got that way because it was worked on together and perfected by the consortium. There were factions in the consortium that didn't get along, but they eventually did to the benefit of all (and some might say to the benefit of humanity, but that might be a stretch).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Forum
(Too lazy to create the links, but if you were using Google Chrome you could drag those into your location bar and go...)
Now all you can look forward to is getting swine flu from screwing an Omega Mu.
Voodoo 1 would have been a great start. For example: Canopus addon cards that went between your existing VGA and the monitor are, in my eyes, what started the revolution. That and GLQuake.
I remember watching CNBC around the time 3DFX was failing. They were telling everyone to sell! sell! sell! - but I thought buy! buy! buy!. While a company may go out of business they still have assests that may want to be acquired by competitors and start ups. But I was drunk a lot then too. I've always had the Warren Buffet approach to buying stock; does the company have value if they closed their doors tomorrow. 3DFX didn't help themselves buy treating their employees like kings, but I'm also betting that's why they were tops in the industry for so long.
(Of course, I don't know what the purchase price was and the value to shareholders... I was like 19 and speculating based on my knowledge of their prior success and the fact that a TON of games in my local arcade were creeping up with 3DFX logos on demo screens, etc.)
I think prettiness is somewhat more important on some games. As a WoW player I find that I'd rather have maxed settings than high frame rates. Of course reaction times are pointless when your card makes the game freeze, but frame rates don't matter when it's pretty, smooth and you can rotate the display without a lockup. Yes, I see frame rates drop in encounters - but it doesn't affect the look and feel. And isn't this a desired effect? Throw out a few frames so the rendering is still bawls awesome and you don't get that half second freeze?
I recently bought a 9800GTS ($70 w/tax @ Best Buy - I'm on a budget here!) and the first thing I did was install the Crysis demo. The question you ask about 24FPS being 'just fine' somewhat boggles me. I maxed out the settings and was running at 15-20 FPS, depending on what was happening, and it looked great.
Now, I hate Crysis - it's a objective based FPS - give me Quake I anyday, but my game of choice today is WoW. I went from 25 FPS to 45 FPS and still notice no *real* difference. Frame rates are getting more credit than they should. Sure for benchmarking, it's important, I guess. But films are 24 FPS, and they look great to me. (But this is due to blurring in frames... some frames have blur which makes your eyes think there is fluid movements).
Now if we dropped to 5 FPS you'd notice a difference. Maybe I'm slow - but on the right games I just don't see it.
More on how your eyes actually work
You have a good point. Now it looks as if craigslist should be held liable for everything one of their posters/buyers does. Once they start policing their interwebs, they have to stay on it.
So... a guy killed some people he met through craigslist? That isn't craig's fault, it's the murderers fault - he committed the act. Even more, someone posted an ad, decided to meet up with an anonymous person without taking any precautions, and ended up dead.
It's not that what they were doing was legally questionable so it was okay to die, but even street walkers have pimps for protection. Why couldn't these victims left notes with attorneys or something? Had a bodyguard?
I just think there has to be a case where someone met a person through a personal ad or classified and did this before and the newspaper wasn't liable. If it was classifieds wouldn't have been their biggest business - because the risk to possible income ratio would have been way to high to sustain the business.
Craigslist should have just stayed quiet and stayed out of it. We have free weeklies in my town that have the same type of ads, and they aren't being shut down (unless they are undercover police). And I live in a city once made famous for going after (and winning against) Larry Flynt (twice).
I pray in Perl, it is shorter, but God doesn't understand what I've said.
At this point I think it's best to lose productivity and have the employee return than to possibly die (or kill the whole office).
To put it in terms that management can understand; you'll have to train a whole new workforce which will cost a ton of money.
Corporations are winning the war against our rights.
I must have been away a long time, but I'm pretty sure your rights end at the other guy's nose. i.e.; you've never been given the rights to redistribute someone else's work - so just don't do it. How is it unfair or unjust that you can't send everyone you know (and others you don't) your MP3 collection? Grow up and realize not EVERYTHING should be 'free' all the time.
(The last 10 posts make me feel like a **AA Nazi, but maybe it's because I'm trying to be an adult about all of this. If you disagree that much that Universal has the rights to your favorite type of music... make your own. And then give that away for free or let people run over you by giving it away for free without your permission.)
... when you are posting protected works.
I know artists who use Rapidshare to post their own music to download, and they love it. But why should Rapidshare protect you if you are posting their other albums, etc, that they don't want to be given away for free.
Why should they protect you before they uphold the laws of their land?
you should probably stop writing, collect your thoughts, and put your effort towards articulating that idea into a piece that can be critiqued in depth and seriously.
I'm sure The Beatles were just going to play music and wait and see what the response was before they applied for protection. I'm pretty sure they protected themselves before they played one note publicly. And you are talking out of both sides of your mouth; "a piece that can be critiqued in depth and seriously" ... "posting it and waiting to see what the karma-seekers have to say about it". What's the difference? Karma seekers, mods or college professors, it doesn't matter. What you are saying is that minutia shouldn't be protected, but it's your right. It's kind of like the first ten amendments - you don't care until you need to hide behind one of them. Maybe you just don't produce anything worthwhile to have a dog in this fight. But you also can't say everything should meet a certain standard. Britney Spears, for example, is not the greatest musical act to ever live - but people would rip her off left and right if they could (and by her I mean her writers).
I think that you should be writing for more altruistic reasons than profit motive -- especially on a blog or /. comment.
Altruism... pretty much doesn't get anyone anything anytime. Stallman didn't create the GPL out of altruism, to simply help his fellow man. While I agree with him he is also a zealot. If you remove the economic motivators people simply aren't going to produce. Sure, there will still be music, but will it be any good? Even those who give it all away are after something, dominance in their genre, satisfaction of knowing they have provided something.
Humans are not altruistic animals. Animals aren't altruistic. Sometimes they exhibit this behavior, but usually there are deeper motivations than just being 'nice'.
(This post deserves a few commas, but it's late and I'm refusing to put them in)
Posting your "creative" concept to a public forum pretty much voids the concept of copywrite. [SIC]
I think posting something in the public a) begs for you to copyright it because others may plagiarize it and b) publishing works (no matter how significant) creates copyright
If you keep ideas/works/(or even patentable works) to yourself, there just isn't any point and essentially shouldn't even be in this discussion.
I think you are confusing everything that has happened since her work with her work (Sonny Bono for example). She struck a balance and she should be applauded for that.
I'm sorry - but we just can't refuse someone's right to protect their work. Even the name Linux is trademarked, most GPL code is in fact copyrighted - it's just given out under a unrestrictive license (so say we, not the GPL enemies).
But this line; without a flourishing public domain innovation is doomed... shows some ignorance. If everything is public domain there is no reason to innovate. Is it not the restrictions on everything else out there that became the motivating factors behind the GPL et. al.? And if you can just use whatever whenever, why create something better.
It can't be denied that patents and copyright keep the mind moving forward. Otherwise we'd have stagnation. (I'm coming off as a Disney lover - but even in their work you see how using public domain stories [the first 20 years of Disney movies] let them rest on that without writing anything new for a loooong time.)
I personally think that the 1909 law (28 years + renewal) was a much better length of time (though I am skeptical about the renewal)
I think the good thing about the renewal is this: you'd only renew if it was worth it. If you weren't making money then you wouldn't bother and then it would enter the public domain. What could be good about this is that an author couldn't find 30 years after the work that it's on an upswing and cash in if it was never profitable before.
Also, I'm guessing you'd have to be ALIVE to renew the copyright.
And before you reply saying that asking to be taken off a calling list doesn't work - realize you've dealt with fly-by-nights or otherwise shady ventures before. We are quick to blacklist anyone who is nasty or otherwise shows no interest, it just doesn't pay to keep calling.
Spam is spam, but believe it or not... most people WANT to be marketed to. Don't believe me? Purchase some Experian demo data and look at the 'multi-company mail responders'. In our geographical market most of the households do in fact reply to junk mail and so forth.
(And you'll never beat junk mail - it makes the USPS too much money. You can opt-out of 'junk mail', but you have to wait in line to do it. It's just too much postage for the USPS to turn down.)
I agree. As both a list manager for e-mail and phone lists we have the opinion that we don't want to waste time with the people who don't want to hear from us.
On the calling side; we love the FDNC list. It means we don't have to spend man hours dialing people who will just scream and holler (when all it takes is a simple 'take us off your list'). As far as e-mail goes; we sent out opt-in emails to 20,000 folks in our market area and 95% of them opt'ed in. People respect that you asked first and if you tell them there might be interesting content coming their way they watch for it.
But honestly, a 4% party doesn't rule the country.
Actually, in Sweden 4% is all you need to start forming coalitions in government. Read up on it.
They will be purchased eventually...
Hey your STD metaphor is what I use to keep people from using IE! I always tell people browsing with IE is like having unprotected sex with many strangers - you will eventually catch something.
Can I sue because I had to read the poorly written summary?
It sounds to me like this could possibly be explained by some kind of conditional optimization that the compiler puts in for various chips, to take advantage of differences in their designs that can improve performance.
I understand that we are all just trying to grasp at straws here to explain this away, but if what your saying is the case: are software developers optimizing their code based on the subtle, undocumented differences in the chips?
If they aren't (and I don't see many "Optimized for Intel" or "AMD" software out there...) then why would a benchmark test in that fashion? Shouldn't the benchmark just throw some non-optimized code at the chip first and see how it does?
Not that I really know anything about this area, but my common sense tells me that a benchmark shouldn't try to look faster at all. It shouldn't be optimized for anything: Just throw items at the chip and see how it does. If it's equal then we know the ratings will be equal (and, ahem, fair). Sure, do the SSE* tests and the others, but just attempt them and see how it goes. Don't have two SSE3 tests, just one.
What, your sisters don't like porn?
I think it proves that the G8 wants those things. Try looking out for a pirated copy of "Endgame" by Alex Jones...
The true lesson here is that RIAA lawyers make good oil.
If you live in the EU, no one represents you.