Does the internet need *that* much Britney Spears?
Or, does the internet need *that* many FPS games?
Or, does the internet need *that* much corporate money?
The fact is, however, that the internet is what it is, and if you don't like it you'll just have to set up your own little multi-terabyte information resource that is devoid of all that pr0n, Britney Spears mp3's, and corporate money. It's not that easy, you say? Well, no one said we all agree on what's on the 'net, which is why it's so powerful for uniting people in niche sectors that do agree on certain things. Your cable connection doesn't suck because of how much information is available, it sucks because of the way it has been built by the cable company.
Because since the network is being routed through apparently one super server to authenticate its clients as they connect, this gives the RIAA, MPAA, and MS reason to attack and destroy that one server. Gnutella, while a little clunky and information on it is once in a while unreliable - at least it IS completely distributed with no central server so it makes it harder for someone to sue or attack any one entity as they all share in the 'criminal acts' of getting little known artists and videos massively distributed and seen/heard. (Whatever your affiliation is with the MPAA/RIAA/MS, feel free to flame me for being sarcasticly cynical about big corporations tearing up file sharing innovations, a-la Napster).
I'm not a huge TV watcher, wish I had a TIVO to just record the stuff I really like (Farscape, History Channel, various classic movies that I probably wouldn't buy but do want to watch in their entirety like 'Office Space', etc), but I don't. Sometimes I find it quite useful while flipping through cable channels to see those little logo's down in the corner. Helps me determine if the channel is worth slowing down for in the mad dash to change channels, as I keep forgetting which channels are which. Perhaps if there was a simple way to just request through the cable providers to turn those little icons on or off before and after hooking up the cable, now that would be something.
0.9mm=19 gauge [tnt-audio.com]. You can get 18 [asu.edu] and 22 [asu.edu] gauge needles.
Actually, this also equates to an approx. 2.55 pixel bullet, so even though Katz obviously didn't do much research on his technical side of things, he is still sort of right, because in The Matrix, I'm sure there are times where the bullets appear merely as 2-3 pixel objects on screen.;)
Well wasn't that before the days of Java type programming languages too? I guess I'm just wondering how soon the computer industry will become a little more homogenized where the software/hardware codependancy thing is no longer an issue. seems to me that gaming usually makes some of the biggest strides in these areas, so it would seem likely that they would want to explore options like this.
Well, I mean, load a small OS into RAM (requirements on having lots of RAM would obviously be a limitation, but not a big one at this point considering how cheap RAM is) from CD. Make calls to DLL's and drivers on the running Windows, but don't actually *use* Windows.
DVD-ROM's could probably hold all the drivers for multiple hardware. Besides, it's not like multiple disks have never been used to distribute games before. Microsoft would do even better to provide something like WinCE (a scaled down version of Windows) for the PC gamer. Say I've got Linux on my computer. I buy that new game. It loads a really small version of Windows into RAM BEFORE trying to boot Linux when you boot off the CD or DVD-ROM drive. Then the scaled down OS residing in memory directly accesses the hardware with some generic drivers - it'd still run faster I would think, and the game manufacturers wouldn't have to worry so much about losing revenue to people 'sharing' their games all over the net. Granted, sharing is better for visibility and increased profits if you ask me, but if companies want to restrict such things, it would be easier to do so when the majority of the game software resides on actual read-only media instead of on read-write HDD's. You could even store some drivers on your hard-drive that the RAM OS could call when/if needed so that each user could further customize the drivers if they wanted. Maybe this is all just a pipe-dream though *shrugs*.
Why? LAN parties. Every LAN party that my brother has always has its problems getting the various Windows versions to talk to each other correctly 100% of the time. Try playing a network game with Red Alert 2 under a mixed Win2k/Win98 network, and if you don't have things configured just so on your network card in Win2k (we learned this the hard way), you won't be playing much at all. I can imagine the headaches that come into play when you throw a couple completely different Linux distros & kernels and different WINE builds into the mix.
Besides, I haven't gotten around to messing around with WINE yet, and some games don't even like Win2k, let alone trying to run them in WINE. I'm not moving to WinXP, ever, but I also can't ditch Windows yet. Too many absolutely excellent games (Like these Sid Meier classics which I have played EXTENSIVELY: Civilization, Colonization, Civilization 2, Gettysburg, Alpha Centauri). If I didn't have a wedding to go to this weekend, I'd be playing Civ3.:)
This all brings up a good point. Wouldn't it be a better idea for today's PC game development shops to distribute their own customized OS' with their games, so that rather than firing up the game in one of 5 different Windows OS', and trying to support all those versions, they could just boot a lean & mean OS straight from CD to run their game, rather than trying to navigate through Windows' DLL hell? Maybe there's legitamite reasons for not doing this, but it seems like most new motherboards support booting from CD-ROM. Besides, game companies have usually been the computer companies really pushing the limits of home PC's in their attempts to wow and impress the gamer, so I don't see why they wouldn't do something like this to be able to tout their game as the most feature rich, crash-free, highest FPS game out there. Anyone have any further insight on this idea?
No matter what they rule it as, it's still going to get copied and redistributed either for sale, or for free on P2P networks. Only difference is how much longer it will take for the RIAA/MPAA/etc to realize that the higher they price shitty movies, the more quickly they'll get distributed and downloaded from illegitamite sources versus people paying money for the originals. Just because your industry can't keep up to date on the newest and best technology, doesn't mean you have the right to litigate it off the face of the planet.
Those 'consortiums' of movie and music production companies would be wise to quit hoarding the works for themselves, and try to get them distributed freely, faster. Let consumers pick which artistic works they like the most. No one artist may make as much money, but there will probably be more people collectively making more money than their are today because of the huge barrier to entrance into the industry that all those music and movie studios have set up.
Out of curiosity, where did you buy all those parts? And what type of RAM was it, PC100, PC133, or some type of DDR? You can just email me if you want, instead of posting another comment...
I rebuilt my old Gateway case/Dell mobo/proc setup just recently. I didn't have much money to go on, but the PIII 500MHz, non-overclockable Dell mobo/proc was showing its processing power age, along with the fact that my HDD just farted out a month ago.
1. First and foremost - get an AMD Duron (and cheapest proc you can find in the Duron series), and an easy-to-overclock motherboard. I cranked my Duron750 to 995MHz (very stable) using an Abit KT7A (non-RAID) motherboard. And it only took about $300 to do this since I had my old case, monitor, various PCI cards, etc. My computer isn't the top notch machine out there, but it definitely does the job. Especially when it comes to ripping mp3's for cheap, as that is a pretty CPU intensive operation.
2. Prepare to have a noisy PC. For those of you who don't "get" what all the fuss is about fan noise, try using a powerful heatsink on a high-temp running AMD chip. It's loud! My roommate says it sounds like a small vacuum cleaner or miniature jet plane when I turn the computer on.:)
Obviously, we're all going to debate what the 'best' computer is, but what it really comes down to at this point, is individual tastes, gaming preferences, work needs, price, etc, etc, etc. I read a lot of those computer review and mod sites on a daily basis, so I have a pretty good idea of how to build a PC for just about anyone's personal taste and budget. I'm trying to get a little shop off the ground that makes customizations/recommendations for people, so if you'd like to test my knowledge and drop me an email for some free advice, and give me feedback on how you like (or hate) what I have to say, and how it works out for you, please feel free.;) [/shameless plug]
With Linux, customers "end up being in the operating systems business," managing software updates and security patches while making sure the multitude of software packages don't conflict with each other," Miller said. "That's the job of a software vendor like Microsoft."
You beat me to the punch:)
That's the best quote I've seen yet from MicroCrap! Haha! What are they thinking? The reason RedHat and others exist isn't to make money off of providing the software, it's to make money off of companies who are willing to hand off the support and service of the OS to RedHat and others. They're just pissed because mainstream online outlets keep releasing more news stories about how businesses, especially bigger and bigger ones, are jumping on the Linux bandwagon. Small business is what WinXP is supposed to be targeting I thought, but obviously Linux is starting to cut into their stranglehold on the corporate market, big and small.
If MS can just keep up that kind of ridiculous rhetoric, Linux converts will have nothing to worry about. People will flock to Linux when they hear like this kind of news about how much Linux is saving companies versus the old MicroCrap Windows OS'. Besides, it's the intial press release reaction to money savings that investors will remember, not the 'long term affects'. MS knows it, and tries to disperse FUD during each new pro-Linux article so that people don't forget that Microsoft exists and is there to tell them "Where do you want to go today?!"
Just imagine if we could implant fiber optics into our spine and major nerves! We'd have the fastest reaction time ever!
Actually, our brains/nervous system do have 'bandwidth' issues - which is why the doctor does that little 'smack you on the knee with a tiny hammer' test. It's like pinging your brain for a response, and how long does it take for your brain to respond appropriately.
P2P networks are the next Big Step in computing if you ask me. Free neighborhood wireless networks will probably be the next step in networking too. We've had global community with wire-based networking, now it's time to bring community back TO the community.
Re:Nothing new under the sun
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While doing good deeds is certainly an important thing to promote, I just wouldn't be able to agree that promoting everyone to tolerate everything is a good idea. For one thing, if you have no solid basis for what you believe in, and by this I mean a source outside yourself that offers incontrevertable, multiple, cross-referenced truths, then any thing could be considered a 'good deed' despite how disasterous it might be. Hence we have radical Islamic fundamentalists crashing planes into buildings killing innocent people, because Allah 'commands' that they do it. People loving and helping their friends, neighbors, and business aquaintances is one thing, but trying to get them to agree on whether certain religious practices of another culture half-way round the world are right is another. That is where the 'great' civilizations in the past have failed - trying to unite all humanity under one banner of humanity-believing-anything-we-wish as god, rather than God as God.
Re:Nothing new under the sun
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Ok, point well taken, I agree that we should all 'get along' according to Biblical teaching, but that will never happen with a secular viewpoint, as I'm sure you would agree with me on, because the viewpoint has to come from a Biblical basis, not a humanist basis. Thanks for pointing that out.
Re:Nothing new under the sun
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P.S. Yes, I hit the Karma cap. Yes, I don't care if you mod me down to -1. Yes, I'm not trolling or copy pasting this tirade from elsewhere on the 'net. Yes, I post intelligent, funny things on Slashdot, and do not mind getting modded down when I post something from the heart that no one else agrees with.
Nothing new under the sun
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Interesting article, Jon.
Most people here on Slashdot would probably consider me pretty "fundamentalist" if that's what we're labeling people today who have belief systems that have certain absolute, set-in-stone values that they are unwilling to bend on in ANY circumstance. Unfortunately, I'll have to keep what that belief system is a secret until the later into this schpiel, or most of you will just stop reading, having immediately labeled me as an idiot for what I believe.
So, I've labeled myself a "fundamentalist" now, so what do I think about technology? Technology, awesome! I work with it everyday, love it, there's absolutely nothing wrong about trying to learn more about our universe and how to make our lives easier, healthier, and more productive and exciting. If we didn't have technology, we'd all be dying from anthrax right now, there'd be no way to track down terrorists in dark buildings in the dead of night in a land halfway round the world, etc, etc, etc.
Globalization, is stupid. Now, I will tell you finally, that I am a Christian. Yes, the kind that believes the Bible is absolute truth. Yes, I'm sure I've offended a lot of you just now; get over it. In the Old Testament, there's a story about a guy named Nimrud, who gathers all the people of the earth at that time (not long after Creation, so there weren't that many people as there are today, obviously), and they attempted to build a monumental tower, the tower of Babel. It's goal was to unite all humanity, and be their 'stairway to heaven', a monument to humanity's greatness. God did not like the fact that Nimrud was trying to elevate humanity to a god-like position, because we are flawed creatures, and NOT gods. So God dispersed everyone throughout the earth and made them speak different languages so that they could not all 'unite' and try to promote themselves to a false sense of godliness.
Now, whether you believe that story is true, or just an interesting story, does not matter. What matters is the application it has towards what globalization does to humanity. It corrupts humanity. It gives us a false sense of security in our human-ness. It makes us feel as if we're greater than our weaknesses by our own power. It's been said before that absolute power, corrupts absolutely. I would say that distributed, global power making, distributes the corruption globally, absolutely. We cannot escape it. You slashdotters hate 'group-think', right? It's been made fun of in numerous Simpsons episodes. So why would we want to see it on a grand, worldwide scale?
Being a "fundamentalist" Christian does not make me an opponent of technology, in fact, all Christians should embrace learning and exploring God's universe to learn more about it's design, and about how wonderfully and fearfully made we are. But trying to use science and technology to elevate ourselves to a position of godhood is simply ridiculous. We didn't create ourselves, we didn't even cause ourselves to "evolve", if you believe in Evolution, that was completely apart from our own power. So why would we want to try and "all get along"? Group think will never accomplish humanity's agreeing on one standard, unless that standard is complete anarchy, because ultimately, you cannot tolerate everything, and have everything be in agreement. At some point, as we have seen with the awful events of Sep 11th, that tolerance of everything, breaks down into a complete polarization and lashing out of one belief system (fundamentalism) versus another belief system (globalization). Fundamentalists are not to blame here, the attempt to "globalize" is. I DO NOT condone AT ALL the random killing of innocent civilians to get your point across as Osama and Sadam are doing. That gets you nowhere, and is completely counter-productive to accomplishing the goal of 'enlightening' everyone to the evils of globalization.
However, trying to create a global coalition of nations that all want to bash on Afghanistan is already beginning to break down. Globalization just does not, and will not, work to create a better human existence. Trusting in ourselves to all get along, all the time is a pipe-dream, and those who believe it CAN be accomplished would do well to look back into distant, and recent history to see the numerous civilizations and leaders that tried to pull this off and failed miserably in trying to do so (Nimrud - as I mentioned above, Alexander the Great, Egyptian Pharoahs, Persian Kings, Ghengis Khan, Napolean, and Hitler). Everyone who's tried, has run their country into the ground doing so, and those countries are still suffering the consequences of their leaders at one time or another trying to 'control the world'. None of them are majorority world powers today, and I fear that the United States of America will be the next one to take its place in history as a failed attempt at world domination.
ARGH! I missed a Simpson's reference! I suck. (But I get it now, great grandpa simpson qoute btw).
Anyways, wow! That was probably the funniest, most insightful, honest interview I've read on slasdot in the year that I've been reading it. Wil sounds exactly like me. A wanna-be nerd, ending up only as a sorry geek with little true tech knowledge.
I never liked the Wesley Crusher character, but then again, I'm not a huge Star Trek fan because the characters, as Wil admits, were too perfect. Besides, most things that are done in a big way, with big public support, usually aren't done as well. Sure, they can be amazing and larger than life, but they just don't have the quality and soul of something done on a small scale, without regard to the monetary rewards.
I'll check out your website later tonight, Wil. Sounds like there's a lot more to you than a cheesy role on a show I never got into that much. I'd be very interested to see some of your short story home-made movies you kept mentioning above that you want to produce so badly. Given the humor and honest approach to everything, inconjunction with the (for once) good grammatical expression of your thoughts that you demonstrated in this interview, I'm sure I would like your stuff.
P.S. - Geeks DO like girls who don't look like a supermodel, but are cool. My new girlfriend is studying TBAL (To Be A Lawyer), so she's full of book nerdiness, but I gotta admit, she's the best thing for me, despite whatever physical traits other girls might have that would outdo hers.
Oh schnikes, that IS funny! When your website looks like a clipart-happy 15 year old put it together, you know you've got a quality business website! Haha! Oh well, since they've apparently gone under, I guess that's a little more (1kb) bandwidth for the rest of us.
Anyone else notice that all the newest cutting edge music that you find incredible enough to buy, is now found through online outlets like KaZaA, Gnutella, etc? And all the new talk about the next best software is also found for free online first. That's probably why you're not seeing hype parties for selling the masses on crap. It just won't happen anymore. People have more power to make better choices because of the Internet. MS has always been behind the curve on that one. Being that they've been playing catch up on the internet thing for the last 5 years, I'm guessing that WinXP isn't going to do nearly as well as they even think it will.
Well, MS' Passport would, at the least, log your IP address and store cookies all over the place to make sure any authentication needing to be done is done properly. Personally, I don't like companies monitoring my every move on the internet, do you?
I heard a commercial on the radio on the way into work about XP too. It was even somewhat personalized to businesses that operate in the Columbus, OH area as they made sure to mention when traffic sucks on our outerbelt, that "Windows XP makes life easier because I can log into my work computer from home!" They threw in a bunch of other new 'features' to try to convince people why it's a Good Thing to pay more money than what a CPU costs for an OS designed to keep MS' revenue stream high.
Too bad they completely failed to mention to the consumer that you have to give up your personal info to an untested, probably easily crackable (given their track record) database system designed to keep you paying out the nose for MS products as long as possible in a sorry attempt to make the internet 'easier to use'. What a fallacy that is anyways because I have no problem buying things online or filtering spam, and I'm no genius.
I'm an IT buyer, I budget and spend dollars on an annual basis. It doesn't take a big whack from the clue stick to realize that MS is trying to AOL-ize their revenue stream.
Also, remember that it didn't take a big "clue stick" for businesses to figure out how innovative and powerful the internet was for streamlining and saving money for their business. And they had no clue what this new-fangled 'internet' thing was 10 years ago. Open-Source probably won't create any new-new economy, but it won't take long for some cheesehead purchasing manager of IT dept's at any Fortune500 company to figure out that software that is free and does exactly the same thing as the pricey, licensed software of MS, Oracle, etc is a much better investment for their business.
If they want to hang on to their customers, they'll support their product. If they could care less they don't. Dell sucks, as my girlfriend has had lots of problems with her Dell laptop's display dying constantly. And I bet Gateway wouldn't like all the holes I've cut in there computer case. I think it's safe to say, that the bigger the company, the crappier the support. Cisco is probably a shining example of an oxymoron in this industry, but it holds true for most big companies. It's a trade off that in America is commonplace. Smaller size = greater quality = more pricey, Bigger size = less quality = cheaper prices. It all boils down to the kind of quality you expect, and what you're willing to pay to achieve that level of quality.
I agree with the Insightful moderation someone gave you. Besides, all the new airport 'security' is nothing more than all those minimum wage employees copping a feel on every other person that goes by. If we enforced laws already on the books (like illegal immigration laws) then we wouldn't need a bunch of new ones.
Besides, there's probably plenty of muslims out there who don't like Christians, so what's to stop them from branding any Christian organization a terrorist organization when they lobby our government hard enough. (Doesn't really matter what the truth about such groups, or lack of physical or mental harm done anymore - just how much you can pay off your local politician to say what you want him/her to say).
Ha-ha! They're not harboring them, but TW/AOL DSL and Cable services sure are! I'm pretty sure that's why MS wants a law like this passed:
MS: "We just built the code. It's the terrorists who should be blamed for breaking our code and causing massive database failures and data loss!"
Me: "Well if your code didn't have such massive gaping security holes in it in the first place, maybe we wouldn't have everyone and there Islamic fundamentalist grandmother breaking in on a routine basis!"
AOL/TW: "We'll give up the 'terrorists' as soon as you can produce a massive amount of evidence proving that the terrorists aren't spoofing our IP addresses in an attempt to undermine our legitimate rule of all mass media."
Slashdot Mirror
Does the internet need *that* much Britney Spears?
Or, does the internet need *that* many FPS games?
Or, does the internet need *that* much corporate money?
The fact is, however, that the internet is what it is, and if you don't like it you'll just have to set up your own little multi-terabyte information resource that is devoid of all that pr0n, Britney Spears mp3's, and corporate money. It's not that easy, you say? Well, no one said we all agree on what's on the 'net, which is why it's so powerful for uniting people in niche sectors that do agree on certain things. Your cable connection doesn't suck because of how much information is available, it sucks because of the way it has been built by the cable company.
Because since the network is being routed through apparently one super server to authenticate its clients as they connect, this gives the RIAA, MPAA, and MS reason to attack and destroy that one server. Gnutella, while a little clunky and information on it is once in a while unreliable - at least it IS completely distributed with no central server so it makes it harder for someone to sue or attack any one entity as they all share in the 'criminal acts' of getting little known artists and videos massively distributed and seen/heard. (Whatever your affiliation is with the MPAA/RIAA/MS, feel free to flame me for being sarcasticly cynical about big corporations tearing up file sharing innovations, a-la Napster).
I'm not a huge TV watcher, wish I had a TIVO to just record the stuff I really like (Farscape, History Channel, various classic movies that I probably wouldn't buy but do want to watch in their entirety like 'Office Space', etc), but I don't. Sometimes I find it quite useful while flipping through cable channels to see those little logo's down in the corner. Helps me determine if the channel is worth slowing down for in the mad dash to change channels, as I keep forgetting which channels are which. Perhaps if there was a simple way to just request through the cable providers to turn those little icons on or off before and after hooking up the cable, now that would be something.
Actually, this also equates to an approx. 2.55 pixel bullet, so even though Katz obviously didn't do much research on his technical side of things, he is still sort of right, because in The Matrix, I'm sure there are times where the bullets appear merely as 2-3 pixel objects on screen. ;)
Well wasn't that before the days of Java type programming languages too? I guess I'm just wondering how soon the computer industry will become a little more homogenized where the software/hardware codependancy thing is no longer an issue. seems to me that gaming usually makes some of the biggest strides in these areas, so it would seem likely that they would want to explore options like this.
DVD-ROM's could probably hold all the drivers for multiple hardware. Besides, it's not like multiple disks have never been used to distribute games before. Microsoft would do even better to provide something like WinCE (a scaled down version of Windows) for the PC gamer. Say I've got Linux on my computer. I buy that new game. It loads a really small version of Windows into RAM BEFORE trying to boot Linux when you boot off the CD or DVD-ROM drive. Then the scaled down OS residing in memory directly accesses the hardware with some generic drivers - it'd still run faster I would think, and the game manufacturers wouldn't have to worry so much about losing revenue to people 'sharing' their games all over the net. Granted, sharing is better for visibility and increased profits if you ask me, but if companies want to restrict such things, it would be easier to do so when the majority of the game software resides on actual read-only media instead of on read-write HDD's. You could even store some drivers on your hard-drive that the RAM OS could call when/if needed so that each user could further customize the drivers if they wanted. Maybe this is all just a pipe-dream though *shrugs*.
Why? LAN parties. Every LAN party that my brother has always has its problems getting the various Windows versions to talk to each other correctly 100% of the time. Try playing a network game with Red Alert 2 under a mixed Win2k/Win98 network, and if you don't have things configured just so on your network card in Win2k (we learned this the hard way), you won't be playing much at all. I can imagine the headaches that come into play when you throw a couple completely different Linux distros & kernels and different WINE builds into the mix.
Besides, I haven't gotten around to messing around with WINE yet, and some games don't even like Win2k, let alone trying to run them in WINE. I'm not moving to WinXP, ever, but I also can't ditch Windows yet. Too many absolutely excellent games (Like these Sid Meier classics which I have played EXTENSIVELY: Civilization, Colonization, Civilization 2, Gettysburg, Alpha Centauri). If I didn't have a wedding to go to this weekend, I'd be playing Civ3. :)
This all brings up a good point. Wouldn't it be a better idea for today's PC game development shops to distribute their own customized OS' with their games, so that rather than firing up the game in one of 5 different Windows OS', and trying to support all those versions, they could just boot a lean & mean OS straight from CD to run their game, rather than trying to navigate through Windows' DLL hell? Maybe there's legitamite reasons for not doing this, but it seems like most new motherboards support booting from CD-ROM. Besides, game companies have usually been the computer companies really pushing the limits of home PC's in their attempts to wow and impress the gamer, so I don't see why they wouldn't do something like this to be able to tout their game as the most feature rich, crash-free, highest FPS game out there. Anyone have any further insight on this idea?
Those 'consortiums' of movie and music production companies would be wise to quit hoarding the works for themselves, and try to get them distributed freely, faster. Let consumers pick which artistic works they like the most. No one artist may make as much money, but there will probably be more people collectively making more money than their are today because of the huge barrier to entrance into the industry that all those music and movie studios have set up.
Out of curiosity, where did you buy all those parts? And what type of RAM was it, PC100, PC133, or some type of DDR? You can just email me if you want, instead of posting another comment...
1. First and foremost - get an AMD Duron (and cheapest proc you can find in the Duron series), and an easy-to-overclock motherboard. I cranked my Duron750 to 995MHz (very stable) using an Abit KT7A (non-RAID) motherboard. And it only took about $300 to do this since I had my old case, monitor, various PCI cards, etc. My computer isn't the top notch machine out there, but it definitely does the job. Especially when it comes to ripping mp3's for cheap, as that is a pretty CPU intensive operation. :)
2. Prepare to have a noisy PC. For those of you who don't "get" what all the fuss is about fan noise, try using a powerful heatsink on a high-temp running AMD chip. It's loud! My roommate says it sounds like a small vacuum cleaner or miniature jet plane when I turn the computer on.
Obviously, we're all going to debate what the 'best' computer is, but what it really comes down to at this point, is individual tastes, gaming preferences, work needs, price, etc, etc, etc. I read a lot of those computer review and mod sites on a daily basis, so I have a pretty good idea of how to build a PC for just about anyone's personal taste and budget. I'm trying to get a little shop off the ground that makes customizations/recommendations for people, so if you'd like to test my knowledge and drop me an email for some free advice, and give me feedback on how you like (or hate) what I have to say, and how it works out for you, please feel free. ;) [/shameless plug]
You beat me to the punch :)
That's the best quote I've seen yet from MicroCrap! Haha! What are they thinking? The reason RedHat and others exist isn't to make money off of providing the software, it's to make money off of companies who are willing to hand off the support and service of the OS to RedHat and others. They're just pissed because mainstream online outlets keep releasing more news stories about how businesses, especially bigger and bigger ones, are jumping on the Linux bandwagon. Small business is what WinXP is supposed to be targeting I thought, but obviously Linux is starting to cut into their stranglehold on the corporate market, big and small.
If MS can just keep up that kind of ridiculous rhetoric, Linux converts will have nothing to worry about. People will flock to Linux when they hear like this kind of news about how much Linux is saving companies versus the old MicroCrap Windows OS'. Besides, it's the intial press release reaction to money savings that investors will remember, not the 'long term affects'. MS knows it, and tries to disperse FUD during each new pro-Linux article so that people don't forget that Microsoft exists and is there to tell them "Where do you want to go today?!"
Actually, our brains/nervous system do have 'bandwidth' issues - which is why the doctor does that little 'smack you on the knee with a tiny hammer' test. It's like pinging your brain for a response, and how long does it take for your brain to respond appropriately.
P2P networks are the next Big Step in computing if you ask me. Free neighborhood wireless networks will probably be the next step in networking too. We've had global community with wire-based networking, now it's time to bring community back TO the community.
While doing good deeds is certainly an important thing to promote, I just wouldn't be able to agree that promoting everyone to tolerate everything is a good idea. For one thing, if you have no solid basis for what you believe in, and by this I mean a source outside yourself that offers incontrevertable, multiple, cross-referenced truths, then any thing could be considered a 'good deed' despite how disasterous it might be. Hence we have radical Islamic fundamentalists crashing planes into buildings killing innocent people, because Allah 'commands' that they do it. People loving and helping their friends, neighbors, and business aquaintances is one thing, but trying to get them to agree on whether certain religious practices of another culture half-way round the world are right is another. That is where the 'great' civilizations in the past have failed - trying to unite all humanity under one banner of humanity-believing-anything-we-wish as god, rather than God as God.
Ok, point well taken, I agree that we should all 'get along' according to Biblical teaching, but that will never happen with a secular viewpoint, as I'm sure you would agree with me on, because the viewpoint has to come from a Biblical basis, not a humanist basis. Thanks for pointing that out.
P.S. Yes, I hit the Karma cap. Yes, I don't care if you mod me down to -1. Yes, I'm not trolling or copy pasting this tirade from elsewhere on the 'net. Yes, I post intelligent, funny things on Slashdot, and do not mind getting modded down when I post something from the heart that no one else agrees with.
Most people here on Slashdot would probably consider me pretty "fundamentalist" if that's what we're labeling people today who have belief systems that have certain absolute, set-in-stone values that they are unwilling to bend on in ANY circumstance. Unfortunately, I'll have to keep what that belief system is a secret until the later into this schpiel, or most of you will just stop reading, having immediately labeled me as an idiot for what I believe.
So, I've labeled myself a "fundamentalist" now, so what do I think about technology? Technology, awesome! I work with it everyday, love it, there's absolutely nothing wrong about trying to learn more about our universe and how to make our lives easier, healthier, and more productive and exciting. If we didn't have technology, we'd all be dying from anthrax right now, there'd be no way to track down terrorists in dark buildings in the dead of night in a land halfway round the world, etc, etc, etc.
Globalization, is stupid. Now, I will tell you finally, that I am a Christian. Yes, the kind that believes the Bible is absolute truth. Yes, I'm sure I've offended a lot of you just now; get over it. In the Old Testament, there's a story about a guy named Nimrud, who gathers all the people of the earth at that time (not long after Creation, so there weren't that many people as there are today, obviously), and they attempted to build a monumental tower, the tower of Babel. It's goal was to unite all humanity, and be their 'stairway to heaven', a monument to humanity's greatness. God did not like the fact that Nimrud was trying to elevate humanity to a god-like position, because we are flawed creatures, and NOT gods. So God dispersed everyone throughout the earth and made them speak different languages so that they could not all 'unite' and try to promote themselves to a false sense of godliness.
Now, whether you believe that story is true, or just an interesting story, does not matter. What matters is the application it has towards what globalization does to humanity. It corrupts humanity. It gives us a false sense of security in our human-ness. It makes us feel as if we're greater than our weaknesses by our own power. It's been said before that absolute power, corrupts absolutely. I would say that distributed, global power making, distributes the corruption globally, absolutely. We cannot escape it. You slashdotters hate 'group-think', right? It's been made fun of in numerous Simpsons episodes. So why would we want to see it on a grand, worldwide scale?
Being a "fundamentalist" Christian does not make me an opponent of technology, in fact, all Christians should embrace learning and exploring God's universe to learn more about it's design, and about how wonderfully and fearfully made we are. But trying to use science and technology to elevate ourselves to a position of godhood is simply ridiculous. We didn't create ourselves, we didn't even cause ourselves to "evolve", if you believe in Evolution, that was completely apart from our own power. So why would we want to try and "all get along"? Group think will never accomplish humanity's agreeing on one standard, unless that standard is complete anarchy, because ultimately, you cannot tolerate everything, and have everything be in agreement. At some point, as we have seen with the awful events of Sep 11th, that tolerance of everything, breaks down into a complete polarization and lashing out of one belief system (fundamentalism) versus another belief system (globalization). Fundamentalists are not to blame here, the attempt to "globalize" is. I DO NOT condone AT ALL the random killing of innocent civilians to get your point across as Osama and Sadam are doing. That gets you nowhere, and is completely counter-productive to accomplishing the goal of 'enlightening' everyone to the evils of globalization.
However, trying to create a global coalition of nations that all want to bash on Afghanistan is already beginning to break down. Globalization just does not, and will not, work to create a better human existence. Trusting in ourselves to all get along, all the time is a pipe-dream, and those who believe it CAN be accomplished would do well to look back into distant, and recent history to see the numerous civilizations and leaders that tried to pull this off and failed miserably in trying to do so (Nimrud - as I mentioned above, Alexander the Great, Egyptian Pharoahs, Persian Kings, Ghengis Khan, Napolean, and Hitler). Everyone who's tried, has run their country into the ground doing so, and those countries are still suffering the consequences of their leaders at one time or another trying to 'control the world'. None of them are majorority world powers today, and I fear that the United States of America will be the next one to take its place in history as a failed attempt at world domination.
Anyways, wow! That was probably the funniest, most insightful, honest interview I've read on slasdot in the year that I've been reading it. Wil sounds exactly like me. A wanna-be nerd, ending up only as a sorry geek with little true tech knowledge.
I never liked the Wesley Crusher character, but then again, I'm not a huge Star Trek fan because the characters, as Wil admits, were too perfect. Besides, most things that are done in a big way, with big public support, usually aren't done as well. Sure, they can be amazing and larger than life, but they just don't have the quality and soul of something done on a small scale, without regard to the monetary rewards.
I'll check out your website later tonight, Wil. Sounds like there's a lot more to you than a cheesy role on a show I never got into that much. I'd be very interested to see some of your short story home-made movies you kept mentioning above that you want to produce so badly. Given the humor and honest approach to everything, inconjunction with the (for once) good grammatical expression of your thoughts that you demonstrated in this interview, I'm sure I would like your stuff.
P.S. - Geeks DO like girls who don't look like a supermodel, but are cool. My new girlfriend is studying TBAL (To Be A Lawyer), so she's full of book nerdiness, but I gotta admit, she's the best thing for me, despite whatever physical traits other girls might have that would outdo hers.
Oh schnikes, that IS funny! When your website looks like a clipart-happy 15 year old put it together, you know you've got a quality business website! Haha! Oh well, since they've apparently gone under, I guess that's a little more (1kb) bandwidth for the rest of us.
Anyone else notice that all the newest cutting edge music that you find incredible enough to buy, is now found through online outlets like KaZaA, Gnutella, etc? And all the new talk about the next best software is also found for free online first. That's probably why you're not seeing hype parties for selling the masses on crap. It just won't happen anymore. People have more power to make better choices because of the Internet. MS has always been behind the curve on that one. Being that they've been playing catch up on the internet thing for the last 5 years, I'm guessing that WinXP isn't going to do nearly as well as they even think it will.
Well, MS' Passport would, at the least, log your IP address and store cookies all over the place to make sure any authentication needing to be done is done properly. Personally, I don't like companies monitoring my every move on the internet, do you?
Too bad they completely failed to mention to the consumer that you have to give up your personal info to an untested, probably easily crackable (given their track record) database system designed to keep you paying out the nose for MS products as long as possible in a sorry attempt to make the internet 'easier to use'. What a fallacy that is anyways because I have no problem buying things online or filtering spam, and I'm no genius.
Also, remember that it didn't take a big "clue stick" for businesses to figure out how innovative and powerful the internet was for streamlining and saving money for their business. And they had no clue what this new-fangled 'internet' thing was 10 years ago. Open-Source probably won't create any new-new economy, but it won't take long for some cheesehead purchasing manager of IT dept's at any Fortune500 company to figure out that software that is free and does exactly the same thing as the pricey, licensed software of MS, Oracle, etc is a much better investment for their business.
If they want to hang on to their customers, they'll support their product. If they could care less they don't. Dell sucks, as my girlfriend has had lots of problems with her Dell laptop's display dying constantly. And I bet Gateway wouldn't like all the holes I've cut in there computer case. I think it's safe to say, that the bigger the company, the crappier the support. Cisco is probably a shining example of an oxymoron in this industry, but it holds true for most big companies. It's a trade off that in America is commonplace. Smaller size = greater quality = more pricey, Bigger size = less quality = cheaper prices. It all boils down to the kind of quality you expect, and what you're willing to pay to achieve that level of quality.
Besides, there's probably plenty of muslims out there who don't like Christians, so what's to stop them from branding any Christian organization a terrorist organization when they lobby our government hard enough. (Doesn't really matter what the truth about such groups, or lack of physical or mental harm done anymore - just how much you can pay off your local politician to say what you want him/her to say).
MS: "We just built the code. It's the terrorists who should be blamed for breaking our code and causing massive database failures and data loss!"
Me: "Well if your code didn't have such massive gaping security holes in it in the first place, maybe we wouldn't have everyone and there Islamic fundamentalist grandmother breaking in on a routine basis!"
AOL/TW: "We'll give up the 'terrorists' as soon as you can produce a massive amount of evidence proving that the terrorists aren't spoofing our IP addresses in an attempt to undermine our legitimate rule of all mass media."