The technical issues of which is better/worse are completely irrelevant.
Once Microsoft bundles the software with their OS, they have won. This is all there is to it, and is the only factor involved. Firstly, only a tiny percentage of users are interested in downloading 3rd party software. Secondly, content providers will very quickly "standardize" on the standard that comes bundled with Microsoft Windows.
"I can't just take a videotape of Star Wars, replace the audio track with my own script and distribute it as parody"
Well, the southpark parody of the Star Wars preview simply had the original audio track, with the images changed. Surely this is the same thing - according to your arguments, the southpark skit of the star wars preview should also be removed then. Why haven't GL's lawyers sent them any letters?
Because the issue at heart here isn't the copyright violation, is it? It's the fact that Dilbert-hole was horrible filth.
So the question is really if a disgustingly filthy parody (with seemingly little other purpose than to be disgusting) still qualifies as parody. I don't know.
You can warble on and on about copyrights forever, but the fact is, the only reason the lawyers attacked this parody and not others (like Mad's) is the filth. If it was mildly funny, family-friendly, and rotten made no attempt to sell it or claim it represented Dilbert officially, the lawyers would not have pounced.
On a side note, I personally doubt seriously that ANYONE on the planet is thick enough to mistakenly think that a Dilbert-hole strip is somehow an "official" Dilbert. Why do so many arguments put forth by lawyers seem to be based on the assumption that the general public is incredibly stupid, naive and gullible? When last did you read a "disclaimer" on anything that didn't ONLY apply to incredibly thick single-digit IQ people?
I hate Javascript. I've had more of it than I can take.
I agree with the concept - something like it should exist. But in practice it is HORRIBLY overused. All too often I see javascript used again and again to perform functions that are exactly the same as what plain html can do - except it makes it harder to actually get the information from the site that you want. Javascript is obfuscation of information, and that's why I hate it. Gamasutra, for example, often makes you click on stupid Javascript popup windows just to get a picture in an article. What for? So that you HAVE TO view the site interactively, presumably so that they can shover adverts down your throat. I can't spider the sites with wget. In my country phone billing is done according to how long your phone call is - so for every second I'm online I'm getting charged - and it pisses me off that some lame site is forcing me to sit for hours online, clicking link after link after link just to get one silly little article. Just give me the damn *information* that I want, without all the damn frills and crap getting in the way. Ideally I want articles etc to be made available as zip or tarball; this is what I try do on my webpage.
Javascript should be used extremely sparingly, and only when necessary. The way companies use Javascript to artificially keep you clicking away at their sites while they shove ads down your throat goes against all my principles. The way amateur web designers obfuscate their web pages by throwing in as much "keWl stuff" like Javascript also annoys me.
Java by itself is alright, as long it is used sparingly and in a useful way, for example to demonstrate algorithms. Java doesn't screw over 'wget' either.
For an arbitrary example of a site made totally useless to me by all the ^$%#^$ frills, have a look at http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/9589/ , an electronics website. (Quote: "ActiveX - please use Internet Explorer".) And those damn geocities popup ads. Bah humbug.
Three or four years ago the web was pretty damn cool, and useful too. Now you can't go two hops without having ads pushed at you, and it's become increasingly difficult to wade through all the useless commercial blurbs when searching for real nuggets of info. The current move towards search engines that return links of companies that pay the search engine is going to kill the Web. It will become almost impossible to find information without being steered towards someone selling a related product.
Can't think of any more off the top of my head. Only one of the above isn't still in an alpha state, so they can't really count for Bill's statement. Those are "windowing systems", right? Window managers by themselves aren't "window systems" since they run on X which actually provides the window services. Besides, there are dozens of window managers, not five. Perhaps he meant there are five major implementations of the X Window system? (eg Metro X etc.) I doubt it since they are (a) standardized, eliminating compatibility problems and (b) in competition, meaning they have to be *good*. Unlike Win32, for which there is no incentive to make it better.
The real danger with GM
on
Gene Leakage
·
· Score: 1
I agree with you.. the real danger underlying genetic manipulation is not so much the technology itself, but the fact that corporations are being allowed to a relatively large extent to control it.
Something like this should be kept "safely" under the wing of the scientific community, and only used in responsible ways.
The moment you introduce any element of financial gain, all ethics are tossed out the window instantly. There is no way that any corporation will ever be responsible enough to not abuse technologies like this. (Probably not the government either.)
Just an idea, maybe it really sucks, I dunno. But I think it might be nifty if musicians had, say, 4 or 6 channels of sound to play around with, instead of just the ordinary 2 for stereo. (And of course so-called "surround", which isn't quite the same as having 6 channels to play with.)
I suppose most musicians wouldn't find any real use for that. But it could be pretty cool for dance music, say, in a club. Make for a more interesting experience than stereo.
"There is *NO* solid evidence to prove a direct link between higher rates of violence and depictions of violence in the media"
Sorry to burst your bubble, but open up any psychology 101 textbook for information contradicting this. Watching depictions of violence stimulates violent behaviour. This has long last stopped actually being a debate.
People learn by imitation. If you've ever been around a baby for a while you would probably have seen this. Are you going to try tell me that if a four year old kid watches his older brother playing Quake for three hours that that kid is NOT going to show even the slightest signs of behavioural influence? Get real.
The only reason people actually still go on and on about this is because it is basically impossible to link any specific case of violent behaviour to specific viewing of violent behaviour. Yes, violent media does not by itself cause aggression - but the fact remains that agression IS stimulated in a significant percentage of people by the viewing of violence.
I'm an adult. I am aware of the fact that hot liquid can burn me and injure me. I am not ignorant in this regard.
It is plain and simple COMMON SENSE. Hot liquids can burn and injure. Virtually every single person is taught this from when they are very young and all through their childhood.
Does anyone really believe that Macdonalds is supposed to put a warning label on every cup of coffee saying, "Hey, did you know that hot liquid can burn and injure you?" (Can you picture a customer reading this and saying, "really, I did not know that!". Puh-leeease! Get real. If you are a non-retarded adult and don't already know that, then you should be locked away in a padded cell so that you can't hurt yourself or others.
It is true, violence in video games do result in more violent behaviour. Psychology 101. Adults, children and babies will ALL be noticeably more inclined to behave violently, simply after having watched a few minutes of video of someone behaving violently; with children the effect is more so than with adults. And this is just watching violence, never mind acting out violence in a murder simulation. Decades of research has proved this over and over again. There is NO debate left there.
I'm definitely not saying that these video games should be banned - after all, generally, adults who play these games are responsible enough to NOT go out and blow up other people after having a round of Quake. They should be allowed to play these games.
What I'm saying is that parents should learn that they actually have to make a bit of effort, and actually try some "responsible parenting" - games like Quake are not meant to be played by kids, it even says so on the box, IIRC. Parents are supposed to enforce that. Sure, it's a really cosy notion that parents think that they can now leave the computer or television to raise their kids.
If you don't plan on actually making an effort to be a decent responsible parent, you shouldn't be having kids.
OK, this is really embarassing to ask, and I'll probably kick myself when I hear.. but I don't know what "phb" stands for. Could someone be so kind as to fill me in?
Re: 1; in one case I repeated what another reply had more or less stated (and had score "1"), not having read that reply yet. I don't think that quite justifies a -1; maybe a 0. The other case my post was reasonably original and (I thought) made a reasonable point.
Re: 2; actually no:) that was the first. I normally avoid saying "sucks". But it seemed apt in this case and I'm not in the mood for searching for euphemisms.
PS I made a mistake in my post, i didn't get two "-1"'s, I got a "-1" and a "0". Oops.
First off, I've had two comments now that have been moderated to -1, and I have examined them over and over and neither of them can I come up with a single reason why. In each case they may have been a teeny bit off-topic, but they were the same topic as the posts I replied to, which were NOT moderated down, so off-topic can't be the problem. What the hell happened there?
Second off, this is dumb because it is possible that someone with a bad posting history could post a pretty good comment. Then nobody reads his post - by the time some moderator gets round to reading his default -1 post and moderating it upwards, the article is old and stale and noone is reading it anymore.
The only exception is when someone obviously is a troll and is out to continually post only crap. Then there should be some other type of flag that can be set on that user, like "troll" or something.
Why the hell was that moderated to -1?
on
Linux on Dilbert
·
· Score: 1
?
One problem with that reasoning
on
Linux on Dilbert
·
· Score: 0
"the 'network' analogy is just a way of, well, getting high philosophy into Slashdot."
I must disagree with this sentiment. Richard Thieme's "Islands in the Clickstream" articles were published in South Africa's biggest computer magazine (http://www.sacm.co.za/) for over a year. They have always been philosophical, yes, but they have always revolved around technology and computers. He has not changed his style or content at all. To presume that Thieme has modified his content in some sort of attempt to make it "fit in" with the 'Almighty Slashdot' (as if everyone is so desperate to be published on slashdot or something) is highly arrogant.
"... the system that allows cr** to die the death it should: capitalism"
How does this statement tie in with the success of Microsoft Windows?:)
Ultimately I agree with you - OSS has an intrinsic darwinian evolutionary mechanism that lets the "best code win" - but capitalism by itself does NOT always mean that the best product wins. As Microsoft has shown us, there are plenty of artificial ways of ensuring the success of very mediocre products. Sure, capitalism allows OSS to be successful, but capitalism by itself doesn't filter good code from bad. It *should* - but hey, it isn't perfect.
This whole thing sounds to me like a bunch of schoolkids - with no real clue about social systems - trying to show everyone how rebellious and "cool" they are.
I'm not sure why I would want to overthrow capitalism anyway. I don't always like capitalism - it's cold, greedy, fiercely competitive (divides the world into "winners" and "losers"), and places money above humanity - but it has shown itself to be the most successful system we have.
Is this group offering a practical alternative to capitalism for when they've destroyed the current system? Or are we supposed to just die when we suddenly finds there is no food in the stores, no medicine, no hospitals, no transport system etc?
Their whole manifesto can be summed up as "let's show everyone how cool we are by 'fighting the system'". What sort of philosophy is that? These kids should grow up, maybe read some books on sociology and history, and come back when they've actually reasoned this whole thing out.
Outlaw the writing of virii, and fewer people write viruses, because they are afraid. The result: companies like Microsoft can continue to write Operating Systems that are extremely vulnerable to virus attack ("petri dish" if you will), because (a) there will be far fewer viruses attacking their software, and (b) they can simply claim that the blame lies with the criminals who write viruses, that they can't be held liable just because their system is vulnerable.
Then you end up in a situation where (say) 99% of computers run Windows. Then some malicous person wants to write a virus for truly criminal reasons (industrial sabotage.) His job is reeeeally easy, because nobody had been allowed to pressure (say) Microsoft to actually make their systems secure.
The problem is where people shift the blame. You say "Microsoft software is vulnerable to viruses", then someone says, "well we'll just make virus writing illegal then". This is wrong.
In my opinion, David Smith has done the world a service. He has shown everyone just how vulnerable to attack the (Microsoft) software they use is. Just like the Internet worm ten years ago, this will encourage people to start demanding higher quality security in the software they pay good money for. It exposes how sloppy Microsoft's attitude toward security is.
We need people like this, to constantly pick out and find the vulnerabilities in software. Without people like this, we become lax, and security falls apart. By persecuting David Smith so heavily, we discourage others, who may now be too afraid to expose other vulnerabilities that they may have found.
The GUID's (and PIII ID's) are still a bad thing. Although they could potentially be used to track the "bad guys" who write viruses, they *shouldn't*. People should be allowed to continue writing such viruses for as long as companies continue to produce insecure software.
Companies who have lost money due to the damage caused by the virus shouldn't be looking to sue David Smith - they should be looking to sue Microsoft. As long as people are afraid to point towards the root source of the problem (instead of the symptoms) then companies such as Microsoft will continue to have a dont-care attitude about security. Outlawing hacking and/or the writing of viruses will not stop hacking and will not stop the writing of viruses - it will just result in the effects being much more devastating when these things do occur.
April Fools "jokes" aren't necessarily meant to be funny. If they were obviously parodies, then people wouldn't be fooled, would they? The idea is to try trick gullible people, not to write a parody. So the articles are supposed to be "almost believable".
It's true that many major inventions come from military projects and the desire to learn how to kill each other more effective (nuclear bombs for example). But the end results are not always necessarily bad.
The Internet, for example, was a project originally commissioned by the military, for military purposes (they wanted a more reliable communications network, that could more easily withstand having large portions of it taken out.) Some of the first computers were first created due to military interests (they wanted machines to help crack the enemy's codes or to work out missile trajectories.) A good deal of the advancements in space travel were because of the Cold War. GPS systems were also spawned by the military.
Sure, it is questionably as to whether or not all such technologies are necessarily good for mankind. But the knowledge we gain does tend to find its way into useful applications such as in the field of medicine (for those who can afford it anyway:/ )
It is sad that military motivations form such a large part of what urges humans to develop technology. But that's how things work. The end results aren't all bad.
Slashdot Mirror
"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
- Noam Chomsky
The technical issues of which is better/worse are completely irrelevant.
Once Microsoft bundles the software with their OS, they have won. This is all there is to it, and is the only factor involved. Firstly, only a tiny percentage of users are interested in downloading 3rd party software. Secondly, content providers will very quickly "standardize" on the standard that comes bundled with Microsoft Windows.
"I can't just take a videotape of Star Wars, replace the audio track with my own script and distribute it as parody"
Well, the southpark parody of the Star Wars preview simply had the original audio track, with the images changed. Surely this is the same thing - according to your arguments, the southpark skit of the star wars preview should also be removed then. Why haven't GL's lawyers sent them any letters?
Because the issue at heart here isn't the copyright violation, is it? It's the fact that Dilbert-hole was horrible filth.
So the question is really if a disgustingly filthy parody (with seemingly little other purpose than to be disgusting) still qualifies as parody. I don't know.
You can warble on and on about copyrights forever, but the fact is, the only reason the lawyers attacked this parody and not others (like Mad's) is the filth. If it was mildly funny, family-friendly, and rotten made no attempt to sell it or claim it represented Dilbert officially, the lawyers would not have pounced.
On a side note, I personally doubt seriously that ANYONE on the planet is thick enough to mistakenly think that a Dilbert-hole strip is somehow an "official" Dilbert. Why do so many arguments put forth by lawyers seem to be based on the assumption that the general public is incredibly stupid, naive and gullible? When last did you read a "disclaimer" on anything that didn't ONLY apply to incredibly thick single-digit IQ people?
I hate Javascript. I've had more of it than I can take.
I agree with the concept - something like it should exist. But in practice it is HORRIBLY overused. All too often I see javascript used again and again to perform functions that are exactly the same as what plain html can do - except it makes it harder to actually get the information from the site that you want. Javascript is obfuscation of information, and that's why I hate it. Gamasutra, for example, often makes you click on stupid Javascript popup windows just to get a picture in an article. What for? So that you HAVE TO view the site interactively, presumably so that they can shover adverts down your throat. I can't spider the sites with wget. In my country phone billing is done according to how long your phone call is - so for every second I'm online I'm getting charged - and it pisses me off that some lame site is forcing me to sit for hours online, clicking link after link after link just to get one silly little article. Just give me the damn *information* that I want, without all the damn frills and crap getting in the way. Ideally I want articles etc to be made available as zip or tarball; this is what I try do on my webpage.
Javascript should be used extremely sparingly, and only when necessary. The way companies use Javascript to artificially keep you clicking away at their sites while they shove ads down your throat goes against all my principles. The way amateur web designers obfuscate their web pages by throwing in as much "keWl stuff" like Javascript also annoys me.
Java by itself is alright, as long it is used sparingly and in a useful way, for example to demonstrate algorithms. Java doesn't screw over 'wget' either.
For an arbitrary example of a site made totally useless to me by all the ^$%#^$ frills, have a look at http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/9589/ , an electronics website. (Quote: "ActiveX - please use Internet Explorer".) And those damn geocities popup ads. Bah humbug.
Three or four years ago the web was pretty damn cool, and useful too. Now you can't go two hops without having ads pushed at you, and it's become increasingly difficult to wade through all the useless commercial blurbs when searching for real nuggets of info. The current move towards search engines that return links of companies that pay the search engine is going to kill the Web. It will become almost impossible to find information without being steered towards someone selling a related product.
Can't think of any more off the top of my head. Only one of the above isn't still in an alpha state, so they can't really count for Bill's statement. Those are "windowing systems", right? Window managers by themselves aren't "window systems" since they run on X which actually provides the window services. Besides, there are dozens of window managers, not five. Perhaps he meant there are five major implementations of the X Window system? (eg Metro X etc.) I doubt it since they are (a) standardized, eliminating compatibility problems and (b) in competition, meaning they have to be *good*. Unlike Win32, for which there is no incentive to make it better.
I agree with you .. the real danger underlying genetic manipulation is not so much the technology itself, but the fact that corporations are being allowed to a relatively large extent to control it.
Something like this should be kept "safely" under the wing of the scientific community, and only used in responsible ways.
The moment you introduce any element of financial gain, all ethics are tossed out the window instantly. There is no way that any corporation will ever be responsible enough to not abuse technologies like this. (Probably not the government either.)
Just an idea, maybe it really sucks, I dunno. But I think it might be nifty if musicians had, say, 4 or 6 channels of sound to play around with, instead of just the ordinary 2 for stereo. (And of course so-called "surround", which isn't quite the same as having 6 channels to play with.)
I suppose most musicians wouldn't find any real use for that. But it could be pretty cool for dance music, say, in a club. Make for a more interesting experience than stereo.
Is this a daft idea?
"There is *NO* solid evidence to prove a direct link between higher rates of violence and depictions of violence in the media"
Sorry to burst your bubble, but open up any psychology 101 textbook for information contradicting this. Watching depictions of violence stimulates violent behaviour. This has long last stopped actually being a debate.
People learn by imitation. If you've ever been around a baby for a while you would probably have seen this. Are you going to try tell me that if a four year old kid watches his older brother playing Quake for three hours that that kid is NOT going to show even the slightest signs of behavioural influence? Get real.
The only reason people actually still go on and on about this is because it is basically impossible to link any specific case of violent behaviour to specific viewing of violent behaviour. Yes, violent media does not by itself cause aggression - but the fact remains that agression IS stimulated in a significant percentage of people by the viewing of violence.
I'm an adult. I am aware of the fact that hot liquid can burn me and injure me. I am not ignorant in this regard.
It is plain and simple COMMON SENSE. Hot liquids can burn and injure. Virtually every single person is taught this from when they are very young and all through their childhood.
Does anyone really believe that Macdonalds is supposed to put a warning label on every cup of coffee saying, "Hey, did you know that hot liquid can burn and injure you?" (Can you picture a customer reading this and saying, "really, I did not know that!". Puh-leeease! Get real. If you are a non-retarded adult and don't already know that, then you should be locked away in a padded cell so that you can't hurt yourself or others.
It is true, violence in video games do result in more violent behaviour. Psychology 101. Adults, children and babies will ALL be noticeably more inclined to behave violently, simply after having watched a few minutes of video of someone behaving violently; with children the effect is more so than with adults. And this is just watching violence, never mind acting out violence in a murder simulation. Decades of research has proved this over and over again. There is NO debate left there.
I'm definitely not saying that these video games should be banned - after all, generally, adults who play these games are responsible enough to NOT go out and blow up other people after having a round of Quake. They should be allowed to play these games.
What I'm saying is that parents should learn that they actually have to make a bit of effort, and actually try some "responsible parenting" - games like Quake are not meant to be played by kids, it even says so on the box, IIRC. Parents are supposed to enforce that. Sure, it's a really cosy notion that parents think that they can now leave the computer or television to raise their kids.
If you don't plan on actually making an effort to be a decent responsible parent, you shouldn't be having kids.
Someone else asked. Sorry for the noise.
OK, this is really embarassing to ask, and I'll .. but I don't know what "phb" stands for. Could someone be so kind as to fill me in?
probably kick myself when I hear
Sorry if this post is "noise".
Re: 1; in one case I repeated what another reply had more or less stated (and had score "1"), not having read that reply yet. I don't think that quite justifies a -1; maybe a 0. The other case my post was reasonably original and (I thought) made a reasonable point.
:) that was the first. I normally avoid saying "sucks". But it seemed apt in this case and I'm not in the mood for searching for euphemisms.
Re: 2; actually no
PS I made a mistake in my post, i didn't get two "-1"'s, I got a "-1" and a "0". Oops.
First off, I've had two comments now that have been moderated to -1, and I have examined them over and over and neither of them can I come up with a single reason why. In each case they may have been a teeny bit off-topic, but they were the same topic as the posts I replied to, which were NOT moderated down, so off-topic can't be the problem. What the hell happened there?
Second off, this is dumb because it is possible that someone with a bad posting history could post a pretty good comment. Then nobody reads his post - by the time some moderator gets round to reading his default -1 post and moderating it upwards, the article is old and stale and noone is reading it anymore.
The only exception is when someone obviously is a troll and is out to continually post only crap. Then there should be some other type of flag that can be set on that user, like "troll" or something.
?
Dilbert is drawn about a month in advance.
"the 'network' analogy is just a way of, well, getting high philosophy into Slashdot."
I must disagree with this sentiment. Richard Thieme's "Islands in the Clickstream" articles were published in South Africa's biggest computer magazine (http://www.sacm.co.za/) for over a year. They have always been philosophical, yes, but they have always revolved around technology and computers. He has not changed his style or content at all. To presume that Thieme has modified his content in some sort of attempt to make it "fit in" with the 'Almighty Slashdot' (as if everyone is so desperate to be published on slashdot or something) is highly arrogant.
"... the system that allows cr** to die the death it should: capitalism"
How does this statement tie in with the success of Microsoft Windows? :)
Ultimately I agree with you - OSS has an intrinsic darwinian evolutionary mechanism that lets the "best code win" - but capitalism by itself does NOT always mean that the best product wins. As Microsoft has shown us, there are plenty of artificial ways of ensuring the success of very mediocre products. Sure, capitalism allows OSS to be successful, but capitalism by itself doesn't filter good code from bad. It *should* - but hey, it isn't perfect.
This whole thing sounds to me like a bunch of schoolkids - with no real clue about social systems - trying to show everyone how rebellious and "cool" they are.
I'm not sure why I would want to overthrow capitalism anyway. I don't always like capitalism - it's cold, greedy, fiercely competitive (divides the world into "winners" and "losers"), and places money above humanity - but it has shown itself to be the most successful system we have.
Is this group offering a practical alternative to capitalism for when they've destroyed the current system? Or are we supposed to just die when we suddenly finds there is no food in the stores, no medicine, no hospitals, no transport system etc?
Their whole manifesto can be summed up as "let's show everyone how cool we are by 'fighting the system'". What sort of philosophy is that? These kids should grow up, maybe read some books on sociology and history, and come back when they've actually reasoned this whole thing out.
Outlaw the writing of virii, and fewer people write viruses, because they are afraid. The result: companies like Microsoft can continue to write Operating Systems that are extremely vulnerable to virus attack ("petri dish" if you will), because (a) there will be far fewer viruses attacking their software, and (b) they can simply claim that the blame lies with the criminals who write viruses, that they can't be held liable just because their system is vulnerable.
Then you end up in a situation where (say) 99% of computers run Windows. Then some malicous person wants to write a virus for truly criminal reasons (industrial sabotage.) His job is reeeeally easy, because nobody had been allowed to pressure (say) Microsoft to actually make their systems secure.
The problem is where people shift the blame. You say "Microsoft software is vulnerable to viruses", then someone says, "well we'll just make virus writing illegal then". This is wrong.
In my opinion, David Smith has done the world a service. He has shown everyone just how vulnerable to attack the (Microsoft) software they use is. Just like the Internet worm ten years ago, this will encourage people to start demanding higher quality security in the software they pay good money for. It exposes how sloppy Microsoft's attitude toward security is.
We need people like this, to constantly pick out and find the vulnerabilities in software. Without people like this, we become lax, and security falls apart. By persecuting David Smith so heavily, we discourage others, who may now be too afraid to expose other vulnerabilities that they may have found.
The GUID's (and PIII ID's) are still a bad thing. Although they could potentially be used to track the "bad guys" who write viruses, they *shouldn't*. People should be allowed to continue writing such viruses for as long as companies continue to produce insecure software.
Companies who have lost money due to the damage caused by the virus shouldn't be looking to sue David Smith - they should be looking to sue Microsoft. As long as people are afraid to point towards the root source of the problem (instead of the symptoms) then companies such as Microsoft will continue to have a dont-care attitude about security. Outlawing hacking and/or the writing of viruses will not stop hacking and will not stop the writing of viruses - it will just result in the effects being much more devastating when these things do occur.
April Fools "jokes" aren't necessarily meant to be funny. If they were obviously parodies, then people wouldn't be fooled, would they? The idea is to try trick gullible people, not to write a parody. So the articles are supposed to be "almost believable".
PenguinPlay games SDK (probably the API that compares most closely to DirectX) at http://sunsite.auc.dk/penguinplay/.
GGI (General Graphics Interface, compares to DirectDraw, Direct3D and DirectInput portions of DirectX) at http://www.ggi-project.org/.
GSI (General Sound Interface) at http://wouters.www.cistron.nl/gsi/gsi.ht ml.
All these projects could use some help from any of you out there with a bit of free time.
It's true that many major inventions come from military projects and the desire to learn how to kill each other more effective (nuclear bombs for example). But the end results are not always necessarily bad.
:/ )
The Internet, for example, was a project originally commissioned by the military, for military purposes (they wanted a more reliable communications network, that could more easily withstand having large portions of it taken out.) Some of the first computers were first created due to military interests (they wanted machines to help crack the enemy's codes or to work out missile trajectories.) A good deal of the advancements in space travel were because of the Cold War. GPS systems were also spawned by the military.
Sure, it is questionably as to whether or not all such technologies are necessarily good for mankind. But the knowledge we gain does tend to find its way into useful applications such as in the field of medicine (for those who can afford it anyway
It is sad that military motivations form such a large part of what urges humans to develop technology. But that's how things work. The end results aren't all bad.
There is a project similar to what you describe called PenguinPlay.
URL: http://sunsite.auc.dk/penguinplay/.
Please help this project along!!