"I'm reminded of the good old days of "shotgunning" modems together to combine the total bandwidth. Only now you don't even need multiple phone lines, just multiple wireless receivers."
Well, that would sort-of work. You might be able to get multiple transmitters to send on each one of the frequency slots on a given channel set. The largest problem to that really working is that you're going to have a hell of a time getting the transponders to sync up nicely and not collide and interfere with each other. The second problem is that "shotgunning" worked mostly because you were using multiple independent channels (Seperate phone lines...) and hooked in at the lowest device driver levels and aggregated the total bandwidth in a just so way so that parts of packets could be sent down one wire and other parts down another. You have only ONE channel and you're not going to very likely get the level of device access that you had with the dialup modems. You could get BGP to probably handle all of that if it's exposed only as an network type connection to the user, but since you're a freebie account, you're probably not going to get BGP to readily work because their routers won't acknowlege your router on the recieving end of the multiple recievers.
"What stops me from getting 20 free wireless hookups and running a shotgun program to effectively combine the bandwidth? Other than some sort of account creation requirements (one connection per address? or per Credit card?) I don't see how they could really prevent this."
Well, the above items cause their own set of problems- but there's one more. If you succeed in doing this, you're guilty of theft of service- which is a felony offense in pretty much all of the US as a whole. If you encourage this practice, you're inciting to commit a crime- also a criminal offense in most states. Sure, you're not as likely to get caught doing it as with some other things, but I'm not one for commiting felonies just to get bandwith. Perhaps you don't have those moral qualms?
The size makes me balk a little bit. I've already small issues with the GBA's screen. I was diagnosed about a year ago with Diabetes, much to my chagrin. Shortly after I got diagnosed and got the sugar levels back under control, I went suddenly farsighted (some people go that way for some reason) for about two months time. My sight's mostly normal now, but while I can look at a small screen like the Micro for a while, my eyes start hurting so I'd rather not- the GBA's just fine for me.:-)
They've got crypto in the protocols and network- but to the best of my knowlege, they don't have it turned on for some reason. They're relying more on the spread spectrum features of the various different PCS/GSM services to make it difficult for the average person to snoop- and since you're signalling back to a central point nearby you that hooks you into the network, they don't need to intercept the cryptoed conversations if they ARE encrypted- they can intercept at at different point in the system without worrying about your keys.
Got to get my morning IV of caffene in me before posting more often- less opportunities to make stupid mistakes in the post...
What reads as: "But, unlike the gear the DoD use, the crypto is not handshaked over the air- they typically have physical tokens holding a small amount of flash type memory that hold the keys that get plugged into the crypto modules on the comm gear."
Should read as: "But, unlike the gear the DoD use, the crypto is handshaked over the air. The DoD typically uses physical tokens holding a small amount of flash type memory that hold the keys that get plugged into the crypto modules on the comm gear."
One of them is frequency hopping, Time or Carrier Division Multiple Access signals (which is fun to track for the average snooper...) and then there's encryption, very much like the crypto TFA refers to.
The first is what you're probably referring to, as the DoD has had THAT tech for some time now and has been extensively using the same. They also happen to have the tech to track, identify, and snoop digital and analog spread spectrum of all kinds. You'd need at least 3.5-1 million dollar platforms to DO that, mind, but they happen to have the gear.
The second the DoD also already have as well. But, unlike the gear the DoD use, the crypto is not handshaked over the air- they typically have physical tokens holding a small amount of flash type memory that hold the keys that get plugged into the crypto modules on the comm gear. Better yet, the PCS services don't even HAVE the crypto turned on- as to why, I'll leave that to speculation as I don't have an answer myself (just good educated guesses...).
WEP uses 128-bit crypto; even uses a good algorithm. The problem isn't in the number of bits used, because 128 bits is beyond the resources of all but the most well-heeled governments right at the moment for a well designed base algorithm. The problem lies in that they didn't design the whole system solidly- enough of the magic secret to cracking the WEP key is carried on the packets sent out by the clients and AP. It only requires about 1 million packets in hand from the ESSID to zoom the WEP key, no matter HOW many bits you use for the key.
Key exchange is one of the weak links in Crypto systems- always has been.
It remains to be seen if they've got a virtually uncrackable crypto system (It's not beyond the reach of the NSA right at the moment, but it would take effort on their part right now, unlike the situation with DES/Triple-DES...), because the key exchange part is typically the weak link in the chain- I'll believe it when I see it, and I'll only trust it so far...
I think that's the case, but being able to play GB/GBC titles is a mixed bag. There's at least a few titles that don't play nicely in a GBA- things like the original Pokemon play WELL int the GBA, but there's some titles that just play too fast (Oddworld...) or they made bad assumptions about display, etc. However, that ability, mixed bag that it is, makes the SP, if you don't have a size issue need/want (lust after?) the smaller Micro unit, the all around bang for buck play.
I largely agree with the whole thing, except for one, and only ONE part.
It's not a Neo-Christo Facist country.
Christ has nothing to do with this any more than Mohammed really had anything to do with 9/11.
If you're going to attribute the "Religious Right" in this country with all of this, that's fair enough (I don't wholly believe that one, mind...). You probably ought to call it the right thing, however. If anything, it's a Fundamentalist Facist country- though I don't hold that this is the case (Yes, it's got problems. Yes, Bush's administration (and the staff thereof) have a HELL of a lot of explaining to do- most of what is going on is garbage of late... But is it really Fascist? Not yet... We've still got a ways to go to get there- and if you get enough good people to stand up instead of whining from the sidelines (and merely posting on Slashdot is standing on the sidelines and whining...) you can stem the tide towards Fascism, or even worse... Christ didn't have anything to do with what many attribute to him- this included. I fear he weeps over this, to be honest about it.
People don't spend $50 per crossword book- they spend about $3-5 per book. Atari held the same thinking you did. Where are they today? They were a console company worth lots (Basically the same role MS, Sony, and Nintendo hold now...)- now they're nothing more than a brand name for a larger player.
In the end, games primarily provide entertainment. If it's not novel or new, it eventually gets relegated to second tier things- things you do to while the time away and have nothing better to do.
For them to keep moving forward, they have to have people want to have their games and to schedule part of their time for them. I just don't see the bulk of the stuff EA's producing of late doing that for the most part. I mean, how many more NFL/NHL/NBA 200x games are people going to be willing to keep plunking down $50 or so for? That's their bread and butter right at the moment- sequels of "hit" games with "cooler, more realistic gameplay" than the previous versions.
Hmph... Like with Clear Channel and the RIAA labels and music, EA's more the cause of the current malaise than anything else. Unfortunately, entertainment can only be mass-produced so far before it's no longer really entertainment and more mere killing of time.
But hey, if you're willing to plunk down $50 for the equivalent of doing the crossword puzzle on the Sunday paper (which is what most of EA's offerings have become...), then more power to ya!
ATI's sub-par on at least the Express 200m in 64-bit applications, because the drivers don't work right, forcing you to use UMA.
And if you're using UMA, I don't buy your performance claims- it's just not possible with UMA, system RAM's too slow compared to the on-board offerings, and it's pathway is contended with by everything else in the system. You'll get about half the peak speed at best.
In reality, there's a handfull of things one should know about modern laptops. Some of these things are observations from my search and then ownership in recent times of an Athlon64 laptop.
GPUs:
NVidia's chipset offerings are typically in the "power user"/"power gamer" laptops. ATI's chipset offerings are typically used in the middle of the line laptops. XGI's and S3's offerings are typically in the integrated units that are on the inexpensive category of machines. Intel's integrated offering sometimes shows up, but most laptops with UMA as the accelerator option have opted for the cheaper VIA or SiS chipsets- so you get S3 or XGI respectively on most of those machines.
You really want the NVidia option if budget and CPU choice allow it. 3D works mostly like it's supposed to- and if you're doing anything "fancy" like gaming or serious work with something like Blender, it's going to be the only workable one on a laptop at this time.
ATI's offerings DO work on Linux, but not QUITE like they're supposed to. For example, in Sideport (dedicated memory) mode, the Express 200M mobile solution on Windows will ring in at about a 9200's performance level. Mediocre, but usable. The same goes for the Sideport+UMA (Mixed mode, uses the Sideport to help speed up UMA and effectively doubles the available display memory...) setting, with a slight degredation in performance due to the main memory speed hit. UMA, well, you get about half the peak performance out of the adapter- period. The problem comes in when you find out that the Linux driver will currently only work with one of the UMA involved modes turned on- at least in the context of the 64-bit drivers. They've been repeatedly told by everyone in the community that this is "broken", but nothing has been done as of today in this regard. I don't think that it's a lack of desire on their part in fixing the thing- I think they just don't have enough resources allocated to the problem and until Linux is viewed as something more important to the upper management at ATI, it's going to take a long while before that problem's solved. Again, it works decently enough (I know, I've got one of the laptops- but it was forced by a budget choice, I'd have rather had one of the NVidia based models...) but if you expect to do "gaming", you can pretty much forget it unless it's 2D strategy or something like it. I know what I'm talking about- I'd hoped beyond hope that it would have worked better so I could do development on game ports while I'm on the road, but alas, that wasn't meant to be.
XGI and S3... Yeah... You can probably get a UniChrome based chip driven as they've got support, but the performance is even more sub-par than the Radeon performance on laptops running Linux. XGI had promise (While the Volaris out aren't barn-burners, the ones that you'd see in laptops would be on a par with the ballpark of ATI's current fieldings...) in that it was a marginal to adequate performer in the bundled chipsets, and they were seriously working toward a truly Open Sourced driver for the chips- which would have made them a valid choice for laptops. Unfortunately, XGI just recently got bought by ATI and it's very unlikely at this point that we'll ever see Open Source drivers from them now. Short and sweet, if you're looking at an integrated VIA or SiS solution right at the moment, don't just walk, run away as fast as you can unless it's your only option due to budget. You'll have all kinds of pain getting the displays to work right on it.
That's just displays...
WiFi:
Atheros is one of the choices for integrated chipsets these days, but apparently the drivers, while "supported", aren't all stable on all machines.
Broadcom is another one of the typical choices for integrated chipsets, but they stubbornly and steadfastly avoid providing any info that might be used to make drivers possible. Ndiswrapper is an adequate solution for this (though FAR from ideal) if you're stuck with on
They still didn't learn the lesson that NeoGeo provided (while it's still had a following all this time, it's been a small one compared to the PSX and PS2...)- which is if you price the console out of the reasonable reach of budgets it will only (and ONLY) be bought by the hardcore crowd. Sort of a collector's thing or a snobbery thing. The average Joe (who's what propelled them into first place in the market up to this point) can't justify $600 for the thing- and will at most buy an X-Box 360 (which is still over priced for what it is...) or more likely a Wii (since it's more than powerful enough and is priced attractively compared to the other options...).
It matters little if they've got tons of $60 games out there for the thing if nobody can be convinced to BUY the console in the first place.
Yes, you're not a Lawyer, and in reality, neither am I, but being a IP producer (SF Author, Accomplished Software Professional, Musician, and Inventor with one Patent applied for and at least 5 or more on the way...), I've some small knowlege on how the whole lot works.
Section 1201 makes it illegal to:
* (1) "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work" except as allowed after rulemaking procedures administered by the Register of Copyrights every three years.
* (2) "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in" a device, service or component which is primarily intended to circumvent "a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work", and which either has limited commercially significant other uses or is marketed for the anti-circumvention purpose.
* sell any VHS VCR, 8mm analogue video tape recorder, Beta video recorder or other analogue video cassette recorder which isn't affected by automatic gain control copy protection (the basis of Macrovision). This is not required if the video is directly from a camera lens, for a professional recorder or for resale of a used recorder.
While it doesn't impact any defenses to prosecution on infringement (Which is what we normally call "Fair Use"...), the above pretty much means if you're breaking a work out of a DRMed transport that has lapsed into the Public Domain, you're still breaking the law as you're violating items 1 or 2 as the law doesn't have exemptions for works effectively in the Public Domain- it doesn't care or even talk to that. It only makes illegal anything that could be used to circumvent a protection measure used to protect a given Work of Art.
Basically, you've got two things going on here. You've got traditional Copyright law with all the protections, etc. that entails with that. Then you've got this poorly crafted (and willfully done so...) overlay called the DMCA that makes it a requirement to pull anything on a moment's notice from a website or similar (With no proof of ownership being required...) and makes it illegal to discuss or implement any means for unlocking the content, even if it's in the Public Domain at the time it was encapsulated in the DRMed format.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that an IP lawyer will tell you the same thing or something very similar here.
There IS a law that IS thoroughly Unconstitutional in light of the GP's comments.
The DMCA does not make provisions for whether or not the work protected is no longer under Copyright- it's still very illegal to provide or traffic in a circumvention method or disclose how to accomplish the same, even if you're talking about it in the context of a work in the Public Domain that's "protected" by the DRM.
This effectively makes it Copyrighted forever. Mandated DRM combined with DMCA makes for an eternal Copyright for all intents and purposes- at the least the DMCA needs to go the way of the Dodo because it's in violation of the Constitutional grant of authority in this matter given to Congress.
That still doesn't change the statement that if it can read ODF's it meets the critera for access- because anything that is "crucial" from MSOffice that isn't supportable by ODF, would fail the accessability tests. It'd not work for a braille printer since they largely only print the braille and no raised lineart.
Oh, and you didn't read my post very well. I didn't say OpenOffice could hook into a braille printer, only that MSOffice being able read and properly write ODF met the needed criteria. We all KNOW MSOffice hooks into that stuff (Or, rather, Windows does in most cases, and in the ones that aren't covered by a generic Windows driver, it's something that has been hacked into the application...).
It's under a license that's not really an Open Source or Free license. The same goes for things like the Java Media Framework- something that could be useful and allow some rather nifty VoIP applications, etc. but is languishing because Sun's the only one that can legally extend it.
Yes, the source is available, but few, if any can really honestly USE it like one can with Linux, GCC, etc.
It would have had a kernel, but it'd been a separate dictionary running a background process. A good example of what I'm talking about would be MVP Forth running on x86 PC's- it was multithreaded back in the early 80's and you could use it as a full-blown OS environment if you wanted to. You probably could tickle an OS layer in F-Code out of OpenBoot/SunBoot if you tried hard enough.
The only truly "handicapped accessable documents" that I know of are physical documents in Braille. Anything else is a document that can be read by a screen reader hitting Word or Excel or by way of a screen enlarger app with anything else. In order for it to be "handicapped accessable", the documents in question would HAVE to be simplistic in their formatting- something OpenOffice and StarOffice seem to do a VERY good job of right now. Anything that MS is bitching about as far as capabilities goes wouldn't BE "handicapped accessable" in the first place- so it should be able to convert all just fine. Well as long as MS documented their filter interface correctly- and they'd piss off a few vendors that are important if they did something to impair that piece...
If it does that much, the screen readers can still hook into MS Office and work JUST FINE by way of import.
"Case Closed" pretty much describes it. And better yet, I've seen what schemas MS' OpenXML uses and what ODF uses- there really is nothing special about OpenXML that ODF doesn't already cover, except a lock-down of who can/can't read and use it and a lock-in of varying degrees by obfuscating the details of what's going on in the document formatting.
Is SoftMaker a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No? Is IBM a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No? Is Sun Microsystems a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No? Is Corel a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?
That'd be a list of the main players in the "Office Suite" game left that either already support OpenDocument or are in full development of the same. Guess you're just a trollin'- either because you're a fanboy or an employee of some kind for MS...
"While I hate 'whining' about things or claiming privileges as consequence of a handicap, I also believe I shouldn't have to defend certain consequences of it all the time (in your case the service dogs, in my case more often things like anouncement displays and such simply not working for me).
At any rate, I agree that Wal-Mart seems wrong here, but I think that is more a symptom of the society you live in then anything else."
We're in the same camp there. I pretty much don't "whine" about things or claiming privileges for either my wife or our friend- but in the same case, there's always consequences about the problems they have. As such, we have permanent handicapped plates on my wife's car and on our friend's car, we have the service dogs, power chairs for extended "walking" situations (While they can walk about, they're very mobility limited- my wife's got four collapsed lumbar discs and the friend has severe osteo-arthritis in her knees and hips as a complication caused by the extreme weight for her frame that is caused by primary Lymphedema (For starters, since all the Lymph collects in the extremities and doesn't get properly re-absorbed, there's no way for her to "lose" that weight, per se- it's not fat, it's something else indeed...). There's a reason why they laws are framed the way they are- and I don't really appreciate someone (Like a Manager of a Wal-Mart...) telling me "You can't..." when they damn well know better because they did get some ADA compliance training as part of their managerial training if they're a major business. It probably IS cultural in nature, but when the people know what the law is, they shouldn't be doing it- because if you're in a business, you can get sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars in punitive damages over it (and lose the case to the plaintiff without question in many cases...) if you don't comply with the rules (And you can claim "Assault" if they get at all pushy about it- and that WILL stick and IS a criminal charge...). And it applies to government as well as businesses.
"With regards to local laws, those make me sad and angry for the simple reason that having lived there, I can quite appreciate the nice sides of American society, and I hate to see that being destroyed."
We can definitely agree on that one... I'm trying all I can to keep that from happening, but the people in office generally seem to be intent on doing that very thing- destroying all that made the United States of America special in the world.
The headroom on the next-gen consoles is a little better than on the current generation. This means that once developers get a handle on developing for them, they'll be able to make more impressive games on them than the current generation. Having said this, I don't see this sort of thing coming out of the titles being pushed for rollout on the consoles- only one or two of any of the titles really showcases what makes them special, and what we're seeing isn't really worth the pricepoints.
We're about to see an implosion of companies right now unless something comes along to justify the price points- about like what happened with Atari back years ago.
"The unit has 4 USB 2.0 ports, which would imply that a USB memory card reader can be added on."
This statement implies that there will be a USB Storage Device driver on the console's base OS that won't be missing when the game comes up. Having said this, the rumors of Linux being the base OS coming from of the game dev community that have actual access to development units, you're probably right, so long as they put all the other systems support pieces for USB Storage hotplug in place. It also probably addresses the lack of WiFi (many of the USB sticks are of the typically used USB WiFi chipsets and Linux has open source drivers, etc. for those chips...)- but only if all of the USB support daemons are included in the start up OS image along with the requisite drivers (which aren't all part of the 2.6 kernel yet (Yet...)).
Honestly, I'm kind of surprised (though not worried enough to panic) that they went this path- and that there was no easy way to "upgrade" the "base" console unit to the delux model at these price points. If Nintendo's console is effective enough, they could cherry-pick enough market share to make them closer to where they were back last iteration of the console wars... From what I'm seeing, that'd be the case- it should do well and it's priced cheaper than the other players and can accomplish most of what the others are striving for.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, that would sort-of work. You might be able to get multiple transmitters to send on each one of the frequency slots on a given channel set. The largest problem to that really working is that you're going to have a hell of a time getting the transponders to sync up nicely and not collide and interfere with each other. The second problem is that "shotgunning" worked mostly because you were using multiple independent channels (Seperate phone lines...) and hooked in at the lowest device driver levels and aggregated the total bandwidth in a just so way so that parts of packets could be sent down one wire and other parts down another. You have only ONE channel and you're not going to very likely get the level of device access that you had with the dialup modems. You could get BGP to probably handle all of that if it's exposed only as an network type connection to the user, but since you're a freebie account, you're probably not going to get BGP to readily work because their routers won't acknowlege your router on the recieving end of the multiple recievers.
Well, the above items cause their own set of problems- but there's one more. If you succeed in doing this, you're guilty of theft of service- which is a felony offense in pretty much all of the US as a whole. If you encourage this practice, you're inciting to commit a crime- also a criminal offense in most states. Sure, you're not as likely to get caught doing it as with some other things, but I'm not one for commiting felonies just to get bandwith. Perhaps you don't have those moral qualms?
The size makes me balk a little bit. I've already small issues with the GBA's screen. I was diagnosed about a year ago with Diabetes, much to my chagrin. Shortly after I got diagnosed and got the sugar levels back under control, I went suddenly farsighted (some people go that way for some reason) for about two months time. My sight's mostly normal now, but while I can look at a small screen like the Micro for a while, my eyes start hurting so I'd rather not- the GBA's just fine for me. :-)
They've got crypto in the protocols and network- but to the best of my knowlege, they don't have it turned on for some reason. They're relying more on the spread spectrum features of the various different PCS/GSM services to make it difficult for the average person to snoop- and since you're signalling back to a central point nearby you that hooks you into the network, they don't need to intercept the cryptoed conversations if they ARE encrypted- they can intercept at at different point in the system without worrying about your keys.
Got to get my morning IV of caffene in me before posting more often- less opportunities to make stupid mistakes in the post...
What reads as: "But, unlike the gear the DoD use, the crypto is not handshaked over the air- they typically have physical tokens holding a small amount of flash type memory that hold the keys that get plugged into the crypto modules on the comm gear."
Should read as: "But, unlike the gear the DoD use, the crypto is handshaked over the air. The DoD typically uses physical tokens holding a small amount of flash type memory that hold the keys that get plugged into the crypto modules on the comm gear."
There's two things going on here with PCS...
.5-1 million dollar platforms to DO that, mind, but they happen to have the gear.
One of them is frequency hopping, Time or Carrier Division Multiple Access signals (which is fun to track for the average snooper...) and then there's encryption, very much like the crypto TFA refers to.
The first is what you're probably referring to, as the DoD has had THAT tech for some time now and has been extensively using the same. They also happen to have the tech to track, identify, and snoop digital and analog spread spectrum of all kinds. You'd need at least 3
The second the DoD also already have as well. But, unlike the gear the DoD use, the crypto is not handshaked over the air- they typically have physical tokens holding a small amount of flash type memory that hold the keys that get plugged into the crypto modules on the comm gear. Better yet, the PCS services don't even HAVE the crypto turned on- as to why, I'll leave that to speculation as I don't have an answer myself (just good educated guesses...).
WEP uses 128-bit crypto; even uses a good algorithm. The problem isn't in the number of bits used, because 128 bits is beyond the resources of all but the most well-heeled governments right at the moment for a well designed base algorithm. The problem lies in that they didn't design the whole system solidly- enough of the magic secret to cracking the WEP key is carried on the packets sent out by the clients and AP. It only requires about 1 million packets in hand from the ESSID to zoom the WEP key, no matter HOW many bits you use for the key.
Key exchange is one of the weak links in Crypto systems- always has been.
It remains to be seen if they've got a virtually uncrackable crypto system (It's not beyond the reach of the NSA right at the moment, but it would take effort on their part right now, unlike the situation with DES/Triple-DES...), because the key exchange part is typically the weak link in the chain- I'll believe it when I see it, and I'll only trust it so far...
I think that's the case, but being able to play GB/GBC titles is a mixed bag. There's at least a few titles that don't play nicely in a GBA- things like the original Pokemon play WELL int the GBA, but there's some titles that just play too fast (Oddworld...) or they made bad assumptions about display, etc. However, that ability, mixed bag that it is, makes the SP, if you don't have a size issue need/want (lust after?) the smaller Micro unit, the all around bang for buck play.
I largely agree with the whole thing, except for one, and only ONE part.
It's not a Neo-Christo Facist country.
Christ has nothing to do with this any more than Mohammed really had anything to do with 9/11.
If you're going to attribute the "Religious Right" in this country with all of this, that's fair enough (I don't wholly believe that one, mind...). You probably ought to call it the right thing, however. If anything, it's a Fundamentalist Facist country- though I don't hold that this is the case (Yes, it's got problems. Yes, Bush's administration (and the staff thereof) have a HELL of a lot of explaining to do- most of what is going on is garbage of late... But is it really Fascist? Not yet... We've still got a ways to go to get there- and if you get enough good people to stand up instead of whining from the sidelines (and merely posting on Slashdot is standing on the sidelines and whining...) you can stem the tide towards Fascism, or even worse... Christ didn't have anything to do with what many attribute to him- this included. I fear he weeps over this, to be honest about it.
You got edged out by another poster...
:-)
It was funny, yes, but not funny enough to outshine the first post of the joke...
But it's apparently not limited to communicating thoughts and ideas, but also malware as well...
Two things...
People don't spend $50 per crossword book- they spend about $3-5 per book.
Atari held the same thinking you did. Where are they today? They were a console company worth lots (Basically the same role MS, Sony, and Nintendo hold now...)- now they're nothing more than a brand name for a larger player.
In the end, games primarily provide entertainment . If it's not novel or new, it eventually gets relegated to second tier things- things you do to while the time away and have nothing better to do.
For them to keep moving forward, they have to have people want to have their games and to schedule part of their time for them. I just don't see the bulk of the stuff EA's producing of late doing that for the most part. I mean, how many more NFL/NHL/NBA 200x games are people going to be willing to keep plunking down $50 or so for? That's their bread and butter right at the moment- sequels of "hit" games with "cooler, more realistic gameplay" than the previous versions.
Hmph... Like with Clear Channel and the RIAA labels and music, EA's more the cause of the current malaise than anything else. Unfortunately, entertainment can only be mass-produced so far before it's no longer really entertainment and more mere killing of time.
But hey, if you're willing to plunk down $50 for the equivalent of doing the crossword puzzle on the Sunday paper (which is what most of EA's offerings have become...), then more power to ya!
ATI's sub-par on at least the Express 200m in 64-bit applications, because the drivers don't work right, forcing you to use UMA.
And if you're using UMA, I don't buy your performance claims- it's just not possible with UMA, system RAM's too slow compared to the on-board offerings, and it's pathway is contended with by everything else in the system. You'll get about half the peak speed at best.
In reality, there's a handfull of things one should know about modern laptops. Some of these things are observations from my search and then ownership in recent times of an Athlon64 laptop.
GPUs:
NVidia's chipset offerings are typically in the "power user"/"power gamer" laptops.
ATI's chipset offerings are typically used in the middle of the line laptops.
XGI's and S3's offerings are typically in the integrated units that are on the inexpensive category of machines.
Intel's integrated offering sometimes shows up, but most laptops with UMA as the accelerator option have opted for the cheaper VIA or SiS chipsets- so you get S3 or XGI respectively on most of those machines.
You really want the NVidia option if budget and CPU choice allow it. 3D works mostly like it's supposed to- and if you're doing anything "fancy" like gaming or serious work with something like Blender, it's going to be the only workable one on a laptop at this time.
ATI's offerings DO work on Linux, but not QUITE like they're supposed to. For example, in Sideport (dedicated memory) mode, the Express 200M mobile solution on Windows will ring in at about a 9200's performance level. Mediocre, but usable. The same goes for the Sideport+UMA (Mixed mode, uses the Sideport to help speed up UMA and effectively doubles the available display memory...) setting, with a slight degredation in performance due to the main memory speed hit. UMA, well, you get about half the peak performance out of the adapter- period. The problem comes in when you find out that the Linux driver will currently only work with one of the UMA involved modes turned on- at least in the context of the 64-bit drivers. They've been repeatedly told by everyone in the community that this is "broken", but nothing has been done as of today in this regard. I don't think that it's a lack of desire on their part in fixing the thing- I think they just don't have enough resources allocated to the problem and until Linux is viewed as something more important to the upper management at ATI, it's going to take a long while before that problem's solved. Again, it works decently enough (I know, I've got one of the laptops- but it was forced by a budget choice, I'd have rather had one of the NVidia based models...) but if you expect to do "gaming", you can pretty much forget it unless it's 2D strategy or something like it. I know what I'm talking about- I'd hoped beyond hope that it would have worked better so I could do development on game ports while I'm on the road, but alas, that wasn't meant to be.
XGI and S3... Yeah... You can probably get a UniChrome based chip driven as they've got support, but the performance is even more sub-par than the Radeon performance on laptops running Linux. XGI had promise (While the Volaris out aren't barn-burners, the ones that you'd see in laptops would be on a par with the ballpark of ATI's current fieldings...) in that it was a marginal to adequate performer in the bundled chipsets, and they were seriously working toward a truly Open Sourced driver for the chips- which would have made them a valid choice for laptops. Unfortunately, XGI just recently got bought by ATI and it's very unlikely at this point that we'll ever see Open Source drivers from them now. Short and sweet, if you're looking at an integrated VIA or SiS solution right at the moment, don't just walk, run away as fast as you can unless it's your only option due to budget. You'll have all kinds of pain getting the displays to work right on it.
That's just displays...
WiFi:
Atheros is one of the choices for integrated chipsets these days, but apparently the drivers, while "supported", aren't all stable on all machines.
Broadcom is another one of the typical choices for integrated chipsets, but they stubbornly and steadfastly avoid providing any info that might be used to make drivers possible. Ndiswrapper is an adequate solution for this (though FAR from ideal) if you're stuck with on
They still didn't learn the lesson that NeoGeo provided (while it's still had a following all this time, it's been a small one compared to the PSX and PS2...)- which is if you price the console out of the reasonable reach of budgets it will only (and ONLY) be bought by the hardcore crowd. Sort of a collector's thing or a snobbery thing. The average Joe (who's what propelled them into first place in the market up to this point) can't justify $600 for the thing- and will at most buy an X-Box 360 (which is still over priced for what it is...) or more likely a Wii (since it's more than powerful enough and is priced attractively compared to the other options...).
It matters little if they've got tons of $60 games out there for the thing if nobody can be convinced to BUY the console in the first place.
Section 1201 makes it illegal to:
While it doesn't impact any defenses to prosecution on infringement (Which is what we normally call "Fair Use"...), the above pretty much means if you're breaking a work out of a DRMed transport that has lapsed into the Public Domain, you're still breaking the law as you're violating items 1 or 2 as the law doesn't have exemptions for works effectively in the Public Domain- it doesn't care or even talk to that. It only makes illegal anything that could be used to circumvent a protection measure used to protect a given Work of Art.
Basically, you've got two things going on here. You've got traditional Copyright law with all the protections, etc. that entails with that. Then you've got this poorly crafted (and willfully done so...) overlay called the DMCA that makes it a requirement to pull anything on a moment's notice from a website or similar (With no proof of ownership being required...) and makes it illegal to discuss or implement any means for unlocking the content, even if it's in the Public Domain at the time it was encapsulated in the DRMed format.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that an IP lawyer will tell you the same thing or something very similar here.
There IS a law that IS thoroughly Unconstitutional in light of the GP's comments.
The DMCA does not make provisions for whether or not the work protected is no longer under Copyright- it's still very illegal to provide or traffic in a circumvention method or disclose how to accomplish the same, even if you're talking about it in the context of a work in the Public Domain that's "protected" by the DRM.
This effectively makes it Copyrighted forever . Mandated DRM combined with DMCA makes for an eternal Copyright for all intents and purposes- at the least the DMCA needs to go the way of the Dodo because it's in violation of the Constitutional grant of authority in this matter given to Congress.
That still doesn't change the statement that if it can read ODF's it meets the critera for access- because anything that is "crucial" from MSOffice that isn't supportable by ODF, would fail the accessability tests. It'd not work for a braille printer since they largely only print the braille and no raised lineart.
Oh, and you didn't read my post very well. I didn't say OpenOffice could hook into a braille printer, only that MSOffice being able read and properly write ODF met the needed criteria. We all KNOW MSOffice hooks into that stuff (Or, rather, Windows does in most cases, and in the ones that aren't covered by a generic Windows driver, it's something that has been hacked into the application...).
Not quite so clear.
It's under a license that's not really an Open Source or Free license. The same goes for things like the Java Media Framework- something that could be useful and allow some rather nifty VoIP applications, etc. but is languishing because Sun's the only one that can legally extend it.
Yes, the source is available, but few, if any can really honestly USE it like one can with Linux, GCC, etc.
It would have had a kernel, but it'd been a separate dictionary running a background process. A good example of what I'm talking about would be MVP Forth running on x86 PC's- it was multithreaded back in the early 80's and you could use it as a full-blown OS environment if you wanted to. You probably could tickle an OS layer in F-Code out of OpenBoot/SunBoot if you tried hard enough.
Yeah, riiight.
The only truly "handicapped accessable documents" that I know of are physical documents in Braille. Anything else is a document that can be read by a screen reader hitting Word or Excel or by way of a screen enlarger app with anything else. In order for it to be "handicapped accessable", the documents in question would HAVE to be simplistic in their formatting- something OpenOffice and StarOffice seem to do a VERY good job of right now. Anything that MS is bitching about as far as capabilities goes wouldn't BE "handicapped accessable" in the first place- so it should be able to convert all just fine. Well as long as MS documented their filter interface correctly- and they'd piss off a few vendors that are important if they did something to impair that piece...
If it does that much, the screen readers can still hook into MS Office and work JUST FINE by way of import.
"Case Closed" pretty much describes it. And better yet, I've seen what schemas MS' OpenXML uses and what ODF uses- there really is nothing special about OpenXML that ODF doesn't already cover, except a lock-down of who can/can't read and use it and a lock-in of varying degrees by obfuscating the details of what's going on in the document formatting.
I don't buy your line. Not one bit.
(Yes, I know I'm feeding the troll...)
Is SoftMaker a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?
Is IBM a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?
Is Sun Microsystems a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?
Is Corel a 'retarded FOSS-monkey'? No?
That'd be a list of the main players in the "Office Suite" game left that either already support OpenDocument or are in full development of the same. Guess you're just a trollin'- either because you're a fanboy or an employee of some kind for MS...
We're in the same camp there. I pretty much don't "whine" about things or claiming privileges for either my wife or our friend- but in the same case, there's always consequences about the problems they have. As such, we have permanent handicapped plates on my wife's car and on our friend's car, we have the service dogs, power chairs for extended "walking" situations (While they can walk about, they're very mobility limited- my wife's got four collapsed lumbar discs and the friend has severe osteo-arthritis in her knees and hips as a complication caused by the extreme weight for her frame that is caused by primary Lymphedema (For starters, since all the Lymph collects in the extremities and doesn't get properly re-absorbed, there's no way for her to "lose" that weight, per se- it's not fat, it's something else indeed...). There's a reason why they laws are framed the way they are- and I don't really appreciate someone (Like a Manager of a Wal-Mart...) telling me "You can't..." when they damn well know better because they did get some ADA compliance training as part of their managerial training if they're a major business. It probably IS cultural in nature, but when the people know what the law is, they shouldn't be doing it- because if you're in a business, you can get sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars in punitive damages over it (and lose the case to the plaintiff without question in many cases...) if you don't comply with the rules (And you can claim "Assault" if they get at all pushy about it- and that WILL stick and IS a criminal charge...). And it applies to government as well as businesses.
We can definitely agree on that one... I'm trying all I can to keep that from happening, but the people in office generally seem to be intent on doing that very thing- destroying all that made the United States of America special in the world.
The headroom on the next-gen consoles is a little better than on the current generation. This means that once developers get a handle on developing for them, they'll be able to make more impressive games on them than the current generation. Having said this, I don't see this sort of thing coming out of the titles being pushed for rollout on the consoles- only one or two of any of the titles really showcases what makes them special, and what we're seeing isn't really worth the pricepoints.
We're about to see an implosion of companies right now unless something comes along to justify the price points- about like what happened with Atari back years ago.
This statement implies that there will be a USB Storage Device driver on the console's base OS that won't be missing when the game comes up. Having said this, the rumors of Linux being the base OS coming from of the game dev community that have actual access to development units, you're probably right, so long as they put all the other systems support pieces for USB Storage hotplug in place. It also probably addresses the lack of WiFi (many of the USB sticks are of the typically used USB WiFi chipsets and Linux has open source drivers, etc. for those chips...)- but only if all of the USB support daemons are included in the start up OS image along with the requisite drivers (which aren't all part of the 2.6 kernel yet (Yet...)).
Honestly, I'm kind of surprised (though not worried enough to panic) that they went this path- and that there was no easy way to "upgrade" the "base" console unit to the delux model at these price points. If Nintendo's console is effective enough, they could cherry-pick enough market share to make them closer to where they were back last iteration of the console wars... From what I'm seeing, that'd be the case- it should do well and it's priced cheaper than the other players and can accomplish most of what the others are striving for.