Yeah, but didn't they arrest him right after he demonstrated it in America?
Re:Especially when you see the adds :)
on
More on Longhorn
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Even better question - if a site is so anti-You, then why do You advertise on them?
Then again perhaps its because the (maybe) 5% of the world that use Linux come here to this one place and they want to try and convert them back. Of course, Dell and AOL advertising in hardcore magazines like PCXL found out the hard way that this approach doesn't work.
Frontpage (also a WYSIWYG HTML editor) produces "human readable" code
FrontPage 2000/2002 does, but earlier versions were horrible about mangling code. You could place HTML in, go to design view, go back, garbage. In the first versions no one cared (since FP users tended to rely solely on the design view), but it got bad with FP97 and FP98. FP2000 went a long way to correct this.
I don't have a Windows computer. This is not a step in the right direction.
Think about it - if the "right direction" is a service that could some day make any person be able to download and burn a song regardless of platform or browser, then this is a step in the right direction. It's not there yet.
But still, they went for the operating system that a vast majority of the people use and the browser that a vast majority of the people use on that operating system. Simply put, they went for the majority on this one.
And trust me, the RIAA doesn't want to help Microsoft any more than you do. Still, this is where IE as a browser has the advantage - everyone using Windows has it, and you don't have to send them off to download and use something else.
I was in Wal-Mart the other day (no jokes, please) and I spotted a CD-ROM called Left Behind: iLumina Edition. It was basically a CD guide to the world in the Left Behind novels. My best guess would be it was the equivalent of the Star Trek Encyclopedia.
I don't read the Left Behind novels but what caught my attention was the fact that there was a sticker advertising that all 11 Left Behind novels were on the CD in Palm and Microsoft Reader formats.
I know this is vastly different from what the person in this story is doing (since these are no doubt encrypted versions) but I find it interesting that the CD-ROM only retailed for $30 (and had even been marked down to $25). These books retail for $25 hardcover each and $15 on paperback (they do those "big" paperbacks, not trade paperbacks). To buy all 11 on paperback at a discount (let's say $10.49) would cost over $115 before tax, but they're giving them all away on this CD-ROM.
Clearly they don't think that there's much of a market to the PDA book market.
Anywho, I figured I'd point this out (since the Left Behind series is immensely more popular).
Please do us all a favor though and if you respond to this thread, don't turn this into a religious flame war (since the Left Behind series is a speculative fiction series about the rapture).
Actually, The Daily Show ran a piece on Esperanto and the (small) group of people who still study Esperanto and want it to replace, well, everything. They interviewed Shatner for this and IIRC he still knew some Esperanto.
It is my information that while the Star Wars universe has a fairly rigid canon (stepped on occasionally by the new prequels), Star Trek's continuity is all over the map. While the television shows and movies have some degree of consistency (admirable, given the sheer number of opportunities to throw continuity out the window, which happens occasionally), most Trekkers agree to make things easier by simply ignoring any and all Star Trek novels with regards to canon (which, incidentally, appears to be the main source of continuing plotlines for Star Wars fans).
Though I haven't read them, I notice a lot of novels you've written with Picard and Kirk working together, which obviously is another slap to canon. What's your take on Trek canon? Do you think its a big deal or not? What is your response to those who take it seriously?
My Wife can't stand you - she says you're an "egomaniac". In Star Trek Memories you have a chapter about how you discovered how badly some of your crewmates hated you, which (IIRC) came as a bit of a shock - to the point of James Doohan even refusing to speak to you. How are things now? Do you think you're an egomaniac? What do you have to say to those who think that?
Is anyone else tired of hearing about new formats?
on
87GB On DVD-Sized Media
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I mean, I know this is for the most part just some researchers saying "look what we did", but every time someone says "here, we trumped everything that has come before" a few things happen.
First, for the lesser informed, it sends a wave of "oh shit, that DVD player I just bought is already obsolete!". This is of course absurd.
Second, there's always people who don't really know what they're talking about who then go and preach the aforementioned "DVD will be obsolete soon!" bit. Somehow these huckleberries always seek me out - probably because I'm a techie. Perhaps they want to impress me, perhaps they want to pretend they're the first to know something, perhaps they want to make me feel stupid for buying so many DVD's. No amount of evidence seems to convince these people that just because something brand new has been produced in a lab doesn't mean it will be on the market next week. They especially hate it when they tell you "HDTV is the next big thing!" and you point out that this has been the situation since 1989.
But the worst part is that there's a certian chunk of the population that hasn't bought into Technology X and go on to say "yeah, I'd get DVD but I'm going to wait for the next format." They don't realize it takes decades for formats to get formalized and introduced to market - and then only if there's a killer app neccessary. The Compact Disc came out and worked since the music industry was ready for a new format. Witness how the VideoCD didn't go anywhere outside of Asia - VHS was king (killed Laserdisc even) and only with the advent of the fast Internet, big hard drives and CD burners did VideoCD take off, and mostly due to piracy. DVD only worked since they decided the killer app was video, namely movies. Notice how DVD-Audio is pretty much going unnoticed. The only format I see coming along in the near future is whatever format supports HDTV - fortunately the DVD Forum has decided that the HDTV DVD format will be reverse compatible.
Just because something better comes along doesn't mean that everything will be tossed out in favor of it. I'm 25 and programming a 1985 mainframe in COBOL for a living, so I can vouch for this line of reasoning. However, much like people tend to think the latest (whatever) is always the best, they tend to think that the latest technology is about to obliterate whatever is currently out there and they're the first to know.
And don't even get me started on those 13-year olds griping that their copy of Windows.NET Server 2003 RC1 won't run Counter-Strike...
They -=know=- just as well as we do that they're not loosing revenue to pirated movies.
Well this has been something I've pondered for a while now. Few if any people will bother to download this movie and watch it exclusively, as opposed to MP3's (i.e., a CD you burn using MP3's is close enough to the real CD for most people). Same thing with AOTC. I think the main reason they're going nuts (and I assume they are) is for different reasons:
The main way a movie makes money is not through viewings but through repeat viewings. Having a VCD kills this since you're less likely to go back and see a movie you can see on your PC or TV. In some ways this movie's release is worse since people will download this movie and teach their kids how to operate a DVD player - instant babysitter.
It could cut into DVD sales later. This is less of an issue for a CAM captured movie than a TV show. If you can download a TiVO Captured SVCD at near DVD quality, why would you buy a DVD of it in a season set later? Commentaries? Subtitles? Extras? Great for the hardcore, but for the casual fan just downloading it is plenty.
Part of the marketing rush for a movie is in its release date, but if the movie is available for whomever before that date, then that equity is shot. Mainly it just irks movie execs that people see the movie before its even in theaters (though since this movie is already in the UK its not quite the situation AOTC was).
IANAL, but the main reason, IMHO, movie companies go after this sort of thing is they have no choice. If they ignore it then they pretty much piss away their copyrights. If someone leaks Harry Potter onto the Internet and they do nothing to stop or combat it, then when they arrest a piracy ring for selling bootleg DVD's of Harry Potter on the streets of Hong Kong or something, they don't have a legal right to stand on since they didn't go after all of them. It sets a bad legal precedent because it says they ignore one kind of copyright infringement but not another.
There are not that many computer users that still [know] PKWare
Indeed, most people probably think WinZIP invented ZIP files. It would make a weird kind of sense since "WinZIP" is the more obvious name and "PKZip" sounds like an offshoot.
I believe that shareware is the only way to get your product known to all computer users
Yeah but I could count on my left hand the people who've paid for WinZIP. Most people crack it or just tolerate the nag screen. Still if a larger number of people buy it legitimately (by mere percentage) than would pick it up in a store, I can see why WinZIP isn't putting stronger protection in.
Something I've always wondered (and this is probably too late in the thread to be noticed) - what exactly is RenderMan? I know it's what Pixar wrote and uses and I always hear everyone talk about it, but what is it exactly? I always figured it was a program unto itself like LightWave or Maya, but now I hear that it needs Maya or something else to do the modelling, so I figured it was a renderer - but then I see people talking about "RenderMan compliant renderers", so RenderMan must not be a renderer. So then I hear it's something like the PostScript for renderers, so it's something like Maya -> RenderMan -> Renderer, right? If this is the case then why is RenderMan so important? I mean if I wrote something in Word and used PostScript to send it to a printer I wouldn't say "I wrote it using PostScript", I'd say "I wrote it using Word".
So what am I not getting (or getting correct) about RenderMan?
What I find most interesting is how almost no news agency would even acknowledge the DOOM III leak until they heard commentary from id on the subject, and the only commentary thus far has been JC's post on Slashdot, the only forum I know of where he comments. Then the story was the response, not the leak (though they obviously vicariously reported it).
So had Slashdot not covered this, I would have never heard of it (I had heard mention of it, but the consensus was it was fake). And yet Carmack posted here, giving pretty much every website the go ahead to comment on the story.
Criticize Slashdot if you will but by posting the original DOOM III story they ensured their place in history.
PVRs will obviously be subsumed into the TV unit itself
Am I the only one that sees this as either a bad thing or something that won't catch on in the way people are implying? I like having everything separated into components and I generally see people who prefer TV/VCR combos as less sophisticated. Plus there's the whole bit of having to take the entire thing in when the VCR breaks. Plus, its not like VCR's are in every TV, so what makes them think the PVR will make it in?
Of course, TiVO, being a small shit, is easier to target by the TV networks. How will the TV networks sue all the TV makers? That's like all the tire manufacturers suing all the car makers - chicken/egg thing again.
It's like in the UK, every vacumn cleaner is usually referred to as a "hoover".
I guess it doesn't really matter if Tivo goes the way of the dodo, but it's kinda like the Aladdin Corporation, they didn't fight the infringement battle over their "Thermos" brand, and now Thermos is pretty much accepted as a term instead of a trademarked brand.
If I had mod points I'd mod this up. Microsoft is not infallible, all you have to do is do a better product.
Microsoft's PhotoDraw product tried a couple of times to enter the graphics market. Never did put a dent in Photoshop or CorelDRAW.
Does anyone remember the Windows Sound System? Microsoft tried to make a sound card at one point in time. Creative didn't go anywhere or sue.
And let's not forget how Sony and Nintendo are handing Microsoft their hat in the console arena.
On the flipside, Microsoft tried to buy Intuit to take over their Quicken product. Since this was when the DOJ was starting to breathe down MS' neck, they backed off. Instead, they went on to make Microsoft Money as good as possible. The result? Now Microsoft Money is consistently rated higher than Quicken by critics and its taking away critical market share.
Two years ago, PalmOS enabled devices commanded 86% of the market - nowadays the market is more than half PocketPC.
In these last two examples, Microsoft didn't pull any punches, they were just better. Perhaps if Netscape had kept up instead of whining to the feds they could have beat Microsoft.
And as for the notion that a good chunk of the reason Microsoft "wins" in the business world is because of mindshare (i.e., the bosses all just think MS is better) - tough shit. I mean, suing a company because they happen to be more popular? Sun is crying to mommy. Too bad mommy just called it bullshit.
By "Weakest" they meant in quality of story, interaction, etc. And since they now have legitimate competition (witness how Shrek won more awards and made more money despite being, IMHO, inferior to Monsters Inc.) this may wind up translating into less box office money.
And plus a lot of people (myself included) point to Pixar films as some of the best of all time for all ages - if they do a bad one, then there goes that 4-0 record of theirs.
Finally remember how fickle the public is. Witness how many people went from being the biggest Star Wars fanboys to wanting Lucas' head on a stick as soon as Jar-Jar opened his mouth. All you have to do is mess up once (e.g., Mariah Carey) and you're screwed.
All that said, however, I don't see how this could be a bad movie. Perhaps its like comparing cold pizza to warm pizza.
well not to make you sound any less the genius, but you're not the first person to think of this, at least not that's posted it on Slashdot anyway.
The idea is not without merit, and it would solve some problems but introduce others.
To run a game this way would mean that the end user can't do anything while they're playing the game. No e-mail checking, no downloading with Kazaa, no way to quickly get back to your desktop (short of rebooting), etc. The notion of multitasking is gone. In may ways this would be like the good/bad old days of rebooting just to play DOOM.
It also means saying goodbye to DirectX. Since we already have UT2K3 and all things Quake running on Linux already it's far from impossible, but many developers don't want to kiss DirectX goodbye. While Epic and id are two companies that favor cross-platform compatibility over ease of tools, many other developers think otherwise (witness Neverwinter Nights).
Back in the pre-DirectX days the developer would have to code for every concievable piece of hardware. DirectX shifted most of this burden to the hardware makers, but to do this LiveCD route would make the developer have to do it again. Not sure how big a problem this would be nowadays (since it might not be such a big deal to just throw every driver in history onto the disc) but it might be another Big Hassle for the developers.
Finally, this means that game developers would have to either become geniuses on making bootable Linux distros in addition to games, or else get cozy with Linux distro makers. Heck, this might even cause political distro wars as to whom gets used. Plus this probably won't do anything to further Linux on the desktop (if that's your bag).
But I can see this as an interesting option to do in addition to the install and run in Windows/Linux option. Kinda reminds me of when Windows wasn't popular yet and Adobe Photoshop 1.0 (I think) came out with a Windows Runtime.
Where and when did you hear this? A short while back I read on AICN that the next film was The Incredibles (like you said) but that the film after that was tentatively called Cars and would mark the return of John Lasseter (sp?) to the director's "chair".
The reason there's not a Toy Story 3 yet is because Pixar is contractually obligated to deliver three films to Disney by 2005 and sequels don't count towards that number. Steve Jobs pleaded with Disney to make a Toy Story exception but they wouldn't have it. If TS3 is indeed already in planning stages then either they have great confidence their new Disney deal will allow for it, or they're sure whomever they deal with next will.
The part that worries me is that rumor has it Pixar thinks Finding Nemo will be their weakest film and if there's fallout from that they may not be in the bargaining position they would be in right now if it doesn't do so well.
Myself, I accidentally found Knoppix when I was looking for the UT2K3 Demo LiveCD from Gentoo. I fired it up and ran it on my system. VERY impressive. Runs like a dream, and more importantly, it does what what Windows has done all along - it detected and used everything I had. I was online with DHCP, it knew my video card, everything.
But like I said, I had this confused for the UT2K3 disc, so I was looking for that and couldn't find it. This is when I found out what probably most "avid" PC users experienced with Windows find out, and is probably the real #1 threat to Linux on the desktop - the fact that it's all very different, and compared to Windows, difficult. I mean, with a Mac versus Windows you of course know there are differences in things like interface and file system structure, but after some work you've got it down. The way Linux uses and organizes files befuddled me, and I can suddenly see why most people are turned off by Linux - it doesn't seem worth it to learn a whole new paradigm when the one you're most comfortable with is used by 90+% of the world and (from a business standpoint) is more profitbale anyway.
So perhaps what is needed next is a good "So you've only ever used Windows..." guide. (and if one already exists, feel free to point to it)
...that the whole thing is over? The DOJ trial? The investigations? The whole kit and caboodle? Five years ago it started, three years ago MS got ruled a Monopoly, but is this finally over?
I mean we knew they weren't getting broken up, and we know that this isn't the end of Anti-MS litigation, but is the big iceberg over?
Slashdot Mirror
Even better question - if a site is so anti-You, then why do You advertise on them?
Then again perhaps its because the (maybe) 5% of the world that use Linux come here to this one place and they want to try and convert them back. Of course, Dell and AOL advertising in hardcore magazines like PCXL found out the hard way that this approach doesn't work.
But still, they went for the operating system that a vast majority of the people use and the browser that a vast majority of the people use on that operating system. Simply put, they went for the majority on this one.
And trust me, the RIAA doesn't want to help Microsoft any more than you do. Still, this is where IE as a browser has the advantage - everyone using Windows has it, and you don't have to send them off to download and use something else.
I don't read the Left Behind novels but what caught my attention was the fact that there was a sticker advertising that all 11 Left Behind novels were on the CD in Palm and Microsoft Reader formats.
I know this is vastly different from what the person in this story is doing (since these are no doubt encrypted versions) but I find it interesting that the CD-ROM only retailed for $30 (and had even been marked down to $25). These books retail for $25 hardcover each and $15 on paperback (they do those "big" paperbacks, not trade paperbacks). To buy all 11 on paperback at a discount (let's say $10.49) would cost over $115 before tax, but they're giving them all away on this CD-ROM.
Clearly they don't think that there's much of a market to the PDA book market.
Anywho, I figured I'd point this out (since the Left Behind series is immensely more popular).
Please do us all a favor though and if you respond to this thread, don't turn this into a religious flame war (since the Left Behind series is a speculative fiction series about the rapture).
Plus this is Slashdot, aren't we supposed to be anti-MS? And anti-Sony?
Actually, The Daily Show ran a piece on Esperanto and the (small) group of people who still study Esperanto and want it to replace, well, everything. They interviewed Shatner for this and IIRC he still knew some Esperanto.
Though I haven't read them, I notice a lot of novels you've written with Picard and Kirk working together, which obviously is another slap to canon. What's your take on Trek canon? Do you think its a big deal or not? What is your response to those who take it seriously?
My Wife can't stand you - she says you're an "egomaniac". In Star Trek Memories you have a chapter about how you discovered how badly some of your crewmates hated you, which (IIRC) came as a bit of a shock - to the point of James Doohan even refusing to speak to you. How are things now? Do you think you're an egomaniac? What do you have to say to those who think that?
First, for the lesser informed, it sends a wave of "oh shit, that DVD player I just bought is already obsolete!". This is of course absurd.
Second, there's always people who don't really know what they're talking about who then go and preach the aforementioned "DVD will be obsolete soon!" bit. Somehow these huckleberries always seek me out - probably because I'm a techie. Perhaps they want to impress me, perhaps they want to pretend they're the first to know something, perhaps they want to make me feel stupid for buying so many DVD's. No amount of evidence seems to convince these people that just because something brand new has been produced in a lab doesn't mean it will be on the market next week. They especially hate it when they tell you "HDTV is the next big thing!" and you point out that this has been the situation since 1989.
But the worst part is that there's a certian chunk of the population that hasn't bought into Technology X and go on to say "yeah, I'd get DVD but I'm going to wait for the next format." They don't realize it takes decades for formats to get formalized and introduced to market - and then only if there's a killer app neccessary. The Compact Disc came out and worked since the music industry was ready for a new format. Witness how the VideoCD didn't go anywhere outside of Asia - VHS was king (killed Laserdisc even) and only with the advent of the fast Internet, big hard drives and CD burners did VideoCD take off, and mostly due to piracy. DVD only worked since they decided the killer app was video, namely movies. Notice how DVD-Audio is pretty much going unnoticed. The only format I see coming along in the near future is whatever format supports HDTV - fortunately the DVD Forum has decided that the HDTV DVD format will be reverse compatible.
Just because something better comes along doesn't mean that everything will be tossed out in favor of it. I'm 25 and programming a 1985 mainframe in COBOL for a living, so I can vouch for this line of reasoning. However, much like people tend to think the latest (whatever) is always the best, they tend to think that the latest technology is about to obliterate whatever is currently out there and they're the first to know.
And don't even get me started on those 13-year olds griping that their copy of Windows.NET Server 2003 RC1 won't run Counter-Strike...
So what am I not getting (or getting correct) about RenderMan?
So had Slashdot not covered this, I would have never heard of it (I had heard mention of it, but the consensus was it was fake). And yet Carmack posted here, giving pretty much every website the go ahead to comment on the story.
Criticize Slashdot if you will but by posting the original DOOM III story they ensured their place in history.
Buy that one here. It includes Pitfall.
Of course, TiVO, being a small shit, is easier to target by the TV networks. How will the TV networks sue all the TV makers? That's like all the tire manufacturers suing all the car makers - chicken/egg thing again.
Me: "I got a new Visor."
Them: "A what?"
Me: "A Handspring Visor."
Them: "A Handspring Who?"
Me: "A Vis-err, Palm Pilot"
Them: "OOOhhh..."
Worked for Coke and Kleenex.
Microsoft's PhotoDraw product tried a couple of times to enter the graphics market. Never did put a dent in Photoshop or CorelDRAW.
Does anyone remember the Windows Sound System? Microsoft tried to make a sound card at one point in time. Creative didn't go anywhere or sue.
And let's not forget how Sony and Nintendo are handing Microsoft their hat in the console arena.
On the flipside, Microsoft tried to buy Intuit to take over their Quicken product. Since this was when the DOJ was starting to breathe down MS' neck, they backed off. Instead, they went on to make Microsoft Money as good as possible. The result? Now Microsoft Money is consistently rated higher than Quicken by critics and its taking away critical market share.
Two years ago, PalmOS enabled devices commanded 86% of the market - nowadays the market is more than half PocketPC.
In these last two examples, Microsoft didn't pull any punches, they were just better. Perhaps if Netscape had kept up instead of whining to the feds they could have beat Microsoft.
And as for the notion that a good chunk of the reason Microsoft "wins" in the business world is because of mindshare (i.e., the bosses all just think MS is better) - tough shit. I mean, suing a company because they happen to be more popular? Sun is crying to mommy. Too bad mommy just called it bullshit.
And plus a lot of people (myself included) point to Pixar films as some of the best of all time for all ages - if they do a bad one, then there goes that 4-0 record of theirs.
Finally remember how fickle the public is. Witness how many people went from being the biggest Star Wars fanboys to wanting Lucas' head on a stick as soon as Jar-Jar opened his mouth. All you have to do is mess up once (e.g., Mariah Carey) and you're screwed.
All that said, however, I don't see how this could be a bad movie. Perhaps its like comparing cold pizza to warm pizza.
The idea is not without merit, and it would solve some problems but introduce others.
To run a game this way would mean that the end user can't do anything while they're playing the game. No e-mail checking, no downloading with Kazaa, no way to quickly get back to your desktop (short of rebooting), etc. The notion of multitasking is gone. In may ways this would be like the good/bad old days of rebooting just to play DOOM.
It also means saying goodbye to DirectX. Since we already have UT2K3 and all things Quake running on Linux already it's far from impossible, but many developers don't want to kiss DirectX goodbye. While Epic and id are two companies that favor cross-platform compatibility over ease of tools, many other developers think otherwise (witness Neverwinter Nights).
Back in the pre-DirectX days the developer would have to code for every concievable piece of hardware. DirectX shifted most of this burden to the hardware makers, but to do this LiveCD route would make the developer have to do it again. Not sure how big a problem this would be nowadays (since it might not be such a big deal to just throw every driver in history onto the disc) but it might be another Big Hassle for the developers.
Finally, this means that game developers would have to either become geniuses on making bootable Linux distros in addition to games, or else get cozy with Linux distro makers. Heck, this might even cause political distro wars as to whom gets used. Plus this probably won't do anything to further Linux on the desktop (if that's your bag).
But I can see this as an interesting option to do in addition to the install and run in Windows/Linux option. Kinda reminds me of when Windows wasn't popular yet and Adobe Photoshop 1.0 (I think) came out with a Windows Runtime.
The reason there's not a Toy Story 3 yet is because Pixar is contractually obligated to deliver three films to Disney by 2005 and sequels don't count towards that number. Steve Jobs pleaded with Disney to make a Toy Story exception but they wouldn't have it. If TS3 is indeed already in planning stages then either they have great confidence their new Disney deal will allow for it, or they're sure whomever they deal with next will.
The part that worries me is that rumor has it Pixar thinks Finding Nemo will be their weakest film and if there's fallout from that they may not be in the bargaining position they would be in right now if it doesn't do so well.
But like I said, I had this confused for the UT2K3 disc, so I was looking for that and couldn't find it. This is when I found out what probably most "avid" PC users experienced with Windows find out, and is probably the real #1 threat to Linux on the desktop - the fact that it's all very different, and compared to Windows, difficult. I mean, with a Mac versus Windows you of course know there are differences in things like interface and file system structure, but after some work you've got it down. The way Linux uses and organizes files befuddled me, and I can suddenly see why most people are turned off by Linux - it doesn't seem worth it to learn a whole new paradigm when the one you're most comfortable with is used by 90+% of the world and (from a business standpoint) is more profitbale anyway.
So perhaps what is needed next is a good "So you've only ever used Windows..." guide. (and if one already exists, feel free to point to it)
I mean we knew they weren't getting broken up, and we know that this isn't the end of Anti-MS litigation, but is the big iceberg over?
And can we all move on with our lives now?
Or (if you don't mind staying on Windows) there's SharpDevelop an actually pretty good VS.net clone that's GPL.