>Isn't it going a little far. It's obvious to me that the Linux installations on various game systems and small appliances is SOLELY for improved GF (Geek Factor).
And just what's wrong with that? If people enjoy doing stuff like this for a hobby then more power to them.
But, if you insist that everything anyone does should serve a "useful" purpose (as far as I'm concerned doing something because it's fun seems pretty useful but let that slide...) here are a few :
- helps the Linux SH project, making Linux more portable
- looks good on a resume if you want a job
- hones skills which will come in useful in said job
- annoys clueless people
I use gnut and set it to allow cacheing of frequently searched for files on my system. Every now and again I clear out some of the more objectionable stuff (surprisingly little of this actually), move some items into my permanent share directory and let it the cache repopulate.
It's fascinating to see what arrives, to the extent that I rarely search for anything, just check the cache and see if anything interesting has turned up overnight.
Re:What size screen does m100 have?
on
The new Palm VIIx
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· Score: 1
I'm sure Rob's right about the average MS employee being a decent individual (I've met a few 'Softies and they're nice folks). The problem is that this has very little to do with how the *company* behaves. This should be obvious to anyone who's been to a demonstration where the crowd got out of control.
The corporate culture at Microsoft, or any large company for that matter, takes on a life of its own, with its own agenda and means of accomplishing it. In the case of Microsoft this corporate culture has lead to the antisocial actions with which we are all familiar - killing off rivals, corrupting standards, the DOS tax, etc.
By all means remember that individuals who work at MS are not evil megolamaniacs, but don't forget that the company itself is a different matter entirely.
Fortunately, company culture can be changed and I hope that the latest DoJ remedies will result in a company which concentrates on producing better software as opposed to eliminating rivals.
The privacy thing is a bit worrisome, and Sprint should consider identifying a phone to the net using something other than its number. It's just too easy to abuse.
However, that's just common sense and isn't the reason why I'm posting. What stikes me is that a lot of the posts here sound like they're written by people who just don't get it. Web phones are in their infancy - think back to the web in 1992, when every browser was incompatible with all the others and each new release broke pages which worked fine before. That's the way it is with web phones now.
This is new technology, and still has a lot of rough edges as site designers learn how to work within the limitations of the devices. The content designers are going to get better, and the phones themselves are going to improve. The keyboards are always going to be small, as are the displays (although the resolution will improve). Complaining that a phone keypad isn't good for entering lots of text. Well, duh! We'll just have to find a better way, like speech recognition or maybe setting up shortcuts using a full size keyboard and loading them into the phone.
The pricing model sucks right now, but remember the web at 2400bps with time metered usage. We didn't give up on it just because it wasn't perfect. In fact we loved it and the competition soon brought prices down. That's what's going to happen with web phones, and right now is the most fascinating part, seeing all the possibilities and being able to influence how it all turns out.
I guess I'm just surprised to see people on Slashdot slagging off these devices just because they're new, unfamiliar and still a bit clunky. To those people, all I can suggest is that they stick with their nice comfortable rotary dial phone and leave all this new fangled stuff to us nerds who like that sort of thing.
(No, I don't work for Sprint, but I do work with web phones, so maybe I'm biased.)
A trojan is a delivery mechanism, a virus is a self replicating program.
A virus might attach itself to a benign program, thus transforming that program into an unwitting trojan, or a trojan might deliver a non-self-replicating program - even a virus killer.
Of course either of the two can exist on Linux, but Linux (and all Unices) have security mechanisms to minimise the damage done by, and propagation of, these beasties.
My bet is that the add-on uses the Gameboy as a sort of dumb terminal and power supply.
If that's the case it seems like it should be possible to leave the Gameboy free to play games while the Soundboy plays music. It might require some sort of pass-through connector for the game cartridge, but once the Soundboy has received its instructions (playlist) there shouldn't be any need for it to use the host's I/O or processor.
Hmm. An alternative to a pass-through would be to store games in part of the Soundboy's memory and allow the Gameboy to read this direct. Of course, that would make the Soundboy an ideal way to pir^Wbackup commercial cartridges (you'd need a way to read a cartridge into a file first, but that can't be too difficult).
Being able to play games and mp3s simultaneously on the same handheld would be very nice.
Aside: I wonder what using the Soundboy does to battery life?
"I love you, Bill" "Let's go monopilising" "Reboot and reinstall" "It must be faulty hardware" "Running non-Microsoft software is not recommended" "It'll be fixed in the next version"
Designing a file format to be backwards and forwards compatible isn't so difficult. I know because I've done it. One useful technique is to arrange for older versions of software to ignore parts of the file that they don't understand (by a happy coincidence this also makes the software more resistant to corrupted data files).
The difference between OSS and proprietary code is that commercial developers have a strong financial incentive to break file compatibility in new releases, thus encouraging existing users to pay for an upgrade. Historically, this hasn't been the case for OSS applications - if anything, the incentive has been to make OSS upgrades unnecessary unless the user has a need for the new features, thus reducing support questions to the developer who, after all, is doing this for fun and doesn't want to spend endless hours providing support for users who have upgraded and now can't use their old data.
I say "historically", because there's a danger that this may change now that companies which embrace OSS are expecting to make money from support. An easy way to ensure a steady flow of lucrative support calls is to produce a new version of an app which is incompatible with previous versions' data files. Let people donwload the new version for free and then charge them for the tech support when their old data doesn't work anymore. Ok, that's maybe a bit too cynical a view, but it'll be interesting to see how good version compatibility is in the OSS apps which are commercially sponsored.
He overstated it, but the Internet was a factor. For example, when Boris Yeltsin and his staff were barricaded in the Moscow town hall they were able to communicate with the rest of the world via modem, and these messages were propagated by BBS and Internet.
PC technology in general was also important, enabling many more people to produce samizdat newsletters, either printed out using a PC, faxed using PC software or send to the outside world on BBS and Internet.
The Soviet authorities were used to cutting phone lines and suppressing the transfer of news, but they didn't appreciate just how good the new technology was at propagating information so they didn't clamp down on it.
Knowledge *is* power, and when the citizens of the Soviet countries were kept informed of what was really happening they were able to act together and the whole establishment came crashing down.
Yes there were other factors, but the PC and the internet were crucial enablers. Without them the fall of Soviet communism would have been delayed years - possibly until after WW3.
But if his ideas were completely without credibility then he'd surely have been forced out of business by now.
Snigger. The history of con artists shows this not to be the case. I wish you were right, but too many people want to believe the claims of snake oil salesmen.
Slashdot Mirror
>Isn't it going a little far. It's obvious to me that the Linux installations on various game systems and small appliances is SOLELY for improved GF (Geek Factor).
And just what's wrong with that? If people enjoy doing stuff like this for a hobby then more power to them.
But, if you insist that everything anyone does should serve a "useful" purpose (as far as I'm concerned doing something because it's fun seems pretty useful but let that slide...) here are a few :
- helps the Linux SH project, making Linux more portable
- looks good on a resume if you want a job
- hones skills which will come in useful in said job
- annoys clueless people
Not a question., I just wanted to say thanks for hosting the funniest cartoon on the net. For anyone who hasn't seen them here's a sample.
>It uses EPOC, like the 9110 (surprisingly enough).
The 9110 used GEOS (remember Geoworks anyone?) on an x86. Nokia ditched them and switched to ARM and Symbian/EPOC for the new phones.
>P.S. --What it would look like if we took Q & R out of the alphabet
WETYUIOP. Why do you ask?
I see, and since the NT machine asks for a password anyway is seems reasonable that a normal user should be able to request the mount.
:)
>Guess i have to go read the code.
And maybe fix it and issue a patch
I agree that smbmount is very useful - it's the part of Samba that I get the most use out of. Why would you want to run it as non root though?
I use gnut and set it to allow cacheing of frequently searched for files on my system. Every now and again I clear out some of the more objectionable stuff (surprisingly little of this actually), move some items into my permanent share directory and let it the cache repopulate.
It's fascinating to see what arrives, to the extent that I rarely search for anything, just check the cache and see if anything interesting has turned up overnight.
Same number of pixels (160x160), smaller display.
> Personally, I think that she's a Madonna class performer.
Talk about damning with faint praise...
I'm sure Rob's right about the average MS employee being a decent individual (I've met a few 'Softies and they're nice folks). The problem is that this has very little to do with how the *company* behaves. This should be obvious to anyone who's been to a demonstration where the crowd got out of control.
The corporate culture at Microsoft, or any large company for that matter, takes on a life of its own, with its own agenda and means of accomplishing it. In the case of Microsoft this corporate culture has lead to the antisocial actions with which we are all familiar - killing off rivals, corrupting standards, the DOS tax, etc.
By all means remember that individuals who work at MS are not evil megolamaniacs, but don't forget that the company itself is a different matter entirely.
Fortunately, company culture can be changed and I hope that the latest DoJ remedies will result in a company which concentrates on producing better software as opposed to eliminating rivals.
Here's a link to the patent.
Arrgh! Now I owe *my* maths teacher an apology. Bit shift operators and Sunday morning obviously don't mix well.
I think your maths teacher should get an apology too. Click^2 indeed; it should have been Click*2, or better still Click<<2.
;)
(Just funnin' ya
>one really has to wonder just who is actually still clicking on that stupid link
Mostly Windows users by the look of things. Read into that what you will...
We do. You just can't see them any more.
I think the search engine came out looking better than the human interviewer. Certainly had the best snappy comebacks :
Interviewer (losing temper) : [...] answer the question
Jeeves : gas face - Ask And Ye Shan't Receive.
And here was me expecting to get flamed into a pair of smoking boots. Nice to know there are other neophiles out there.
The privacy thing is a bit worrisome, and Sprint should consider identifying a phone to the net using something other than its number. It's just too easy to abuse.
However, that's just common sense and isn't the reason why I'm posting. What stikes me is that a lot of the posts here sound like they're written by people who just don't get it. Web phones are in their infancy - think back to the web in 1992, when every browser was incompatible with all the others and each new release broke pages which worked fine before. That's the way it is with web phones now.
This is new technology, and still has a lot of rough edges as site designers learn how to work within the limitations of the devices. The content designers are going to get better, and the phones themselves are going to improve. The keyboards are always going to be small, as are the displays (although the resolution will improve). Complaining that a phone keypad isn't good for entering lots of text. Well, duh! We'll just have to find a better way, like speech recognition or maybe setting up shortcuts using a full size keyboard and loading them into the phone.
The pricing model sucks right now, but remember the web at 2400bps with time metered usage. We didn't give up on it just because it wasn't perfect. In fact we loved it and the competition soon brought prices down. That's what's going to happen with web phones, and right now is the most fascinating part, seeing all the possibilities and being able to influence how it all turns out.
I guess I'm just surprised to see people on Slashdot slagging off these devices just because they're new, unfamiliar and still a bit clunky. To those people, all I can suggest is that they stick with their nice comfortable rotary dial phone and leave all this new fangled stuff to us nerds who like that sort of thing.
(No, I don't work for Sprint, but I do work with web phones, so maybe I'm biased.)
A trojan is a delivery mechanism, a virus is a self replicating program.
A virus might attach itself to a benign program, thus transforming that program into an unwitting trojan, or a trojan might deliver a non-self-replicating program - even a virus killer.
Of course either of the two can exist on Linux, but Linux (and all Unices) have security mechanisms to minimise the damage done by, and propagation of, these beasties.
My bet is that the add-on uses the Gameboy as a sort of dumb terminal and power supply.
If that's the case it seems like it should be possible to leave the Gameboy free to play games while the Soundboy plays music. It might require some sort of pass-through connector for the game cartridge, but once the Soundboy has received its instructions (playlist) there shouldn't be any need for it to use the host's I/O or processor.
Hmm. An alternative to a pass-through would be to store games in part of the Soundboy's memory and allow the Gameboy to read this direct. Of course, that would make the Soundboy an ideal way to pir^Wbackup commercial cartridges (you'd need a way to read a cartridge into a file first, but that can't be too difficult).
Being able to play games and mp3s simultaneously on the same handheld would be very nice.
Aside: I wonder what using the Soundboy does to battery life?
What, like "Start Me Up"?
Maybe if they just spoke :
"I love you, Bill"
"Let's go monopilising"
"Reboot and reinstall"
"It must be faulty hardware"
"Running non-Microsoft software is not recommended"
"It'll be fixed in the next version"
I can think of a far superior one, but modesty forbids...
Designing a file format to be backwards and forwards compatible isn't so difficult. I know because I've done it. One useful technique is to arrange for older versions of software to ignore parts of the file that they don't understand (by a happy coincidence this also makes the software more resistant to corrupted data files).
The difference between OSS and proprietary code is that commercial developers have a strong financial incentive to break file compatibility in new releases, thus encouraging existing users to pay for an upgrade. Historically, this hasn't been the case for OSS applications - if anything, the incentive has been to make OSS upgrades unnecessary unless the user has a need for the new features, thus reducing support questions to the developer who, after all, is doing this for fun and doesn't want to spend endless hours providing support for users who have upgraded and now can't use their old data.
I say "historically", because there's a danger that this may change now that companies which embrace OSS are expecting to make money from support. An easy way to ensure a steady flow of lucrative support calls is to produce a new version of an app which is incompatible with previous versions' data files. Let people donwload the new version for free and then charge them for the tech support when their old data doesn't work anymore. Ok, that's maybe a bit too cynical a view, but it'll be interesting to see how good version compatibility is in the OSS apps which are commercially sponsored.
He overstated it, but the Internet was a factor. For example, when Boris Yeltsin and his staff were barricaded in the Moscow town hall they were able to communicate with the rest of the world via modem, and these messages were propagated by BBS and Internet.
PC technology in general was also important, enabling many more people to produce samizdat newsletters, either printed out using a PC, faxed using PC software or send to the outside world on BBS and Internet.
The Soviet authorities were used to cutting phone lines and suppressing the transfer of news, but they didn't appreciate just how good the new technology was at propagating information so they didn't clamp down on it.
Knowledge *is* power, and when the citizens of the Soviet countries were kept informed of what was really happening they were able to act together and the whole establishment came crashing down.
Yes there were other factors, but the PC and the internet were crucial enablers. Without them the fall of Soviet communism would have been delayed years - possibly until after WW3.
But if his ideas were completely without credibility then he'd surely have been forced out of business by now.
Snigger. The history of con artists shows this not to be the case. I wish you were right, but too many people want to believe the claims of snake oil salesmen.