I'm just skimming through the tech specs here and I'm just gonna comment on a few things...
Note, I'm no graphics professional. I am merely an interested individual. Repeat: I am no John Carmack!:P
The first thing that jumped out at me that ATI seems to be doing in the "new and cool" area (rather than just adding more horsepower to today's GPUs) is adding keyframe interpolation. Not *2D* interpolation, but *3D mesh* interpolation. The idea has a good illustration at the bottom of this page.
Voxels seem to be cropping up here. It's cool to see that they are adding support for them at the hardware level. I know that John Carmack has been skeptical about using voxels due to the sheer amount of processing power they need.
Most of the stuff I saw in the specs, however, is mostly just fluff covering various graphics technologies and what they do. While the specs hint that the chip will have support for them, it doesn't do too much more than hint at it.
I have worked on an open source project, and have placed it on my resume. I did not work on the project for those particular reasons, though.
In this day and age, I find that my classmates at school, while some are very smart, can not find a good internship. This is because a company can not be sure what they are getting for an intern based on grades alone - getting good grades doesn't necessarily mean they'll do well in your company.
On the other hand, I have found that it has never been difficult for me to get a job, or at the very least considered for one up until the final round of cuts. I truly believe that the coding I have done (for Litestep) has helped me get better jobs than ones I would have had otherwise.
You would think that the hosts of the world's foremost programming competition would take the time to write its own database software with a CGI interface, or at least have the sense to use a more stable, open source package. But NO!! Here's what you get by going to the ACM finals page and clicking "Teams":
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'
[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified
/past/icpc2000/finals/RosterPublicFull.asp, line 11
There's more to it though. I don't believe it's about putting an emotion engine inside a tomahawk.
It's about developing the tomahawk on a PS2. I mean, we have games that are flight simulators, fight simulators (notice no l that time:), and driving simulators. And from what's available for the PS2 - the physics is unbelievably good.
Now, imagine a program where you can design your own tomahawk missile - you can change the materials, colors, type of paint, or overhaul the entire design. Then, you click a button, and watch its trajectory be plotted for you with a hundred billion different launch parameters changed in just the slightest way (degree of inclination, speed, etc). Sound stupid? Well, now put that program on every store shelf in the world, along with the system to run it. It's not that hard for some weird militant group to get their hands on it, is it? Sure, there was computing power to do it before - but in a Cray, which cost tens of thousands of dollars. This thing costs $200 - chump change.
What's more interesting is handing it out to every idiot on the street. People get crazy ideas, and some are foolish enough to try them... That's why we have police departments these days.
Most of the time when animation buffs here the words "American Animation" they either gag, or they pretend like they have never heard the term before.
However, I am opposing that opinion. As much as I enjoy Japanese Animation (and yes, it is better than American Animation - but I'm arguing that not all American stuff is in the gutter), I have enjoyed many purely american shows that have the same essential elements as any good anime series or movie.
The most anime-like American animation out there is, most likely, Batman: The Animated Series. The series, IMO, is the epitome of what American animation houses - even if it is Warner Brothers - can produce when money isn't everything. The original artists for Batman were given some extra money to do the series, and it turned out to be a hit. Dark though it was, the series took into account everything a good story should have - great plots, essential character flaws (for instance, Bruce Wayne's constant struggle between living a "normal" life versus the life of Batman, or the clash between his love for Selena Kyle versus the fact that Catwoman is a criminal). The new Batman / Superman adventures, and even Batman Beyond to an extent, aren't as great as the original Batman, but they are measuring up pretty well.
And who can forget The Simpsons? The show has definitely captured what it means to be "American" down to the most minute details (with exaggeration for laughs:)
[shameless plug] I have started an online petition to have Batman: The Animated Series published on DVD here NOTE: *PLEASE* don't Slashdot this site. As much as I would love to have a thousand people sign my petition, I'm pretty sure it's a small server that would just cringe at the oncoming traffic. [/shameless plug] Quite surprisingly (or should I say not surprisingly?), a number of people have answered the question "how much would you pay?" with the words "Whatever it takes!"
However, he's certainly a generous devil. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has repeatedly received donations from Gates (and other benefactors), towards advancement in many medicinal and health fields - including hunger, cancer, and others.
Recently, Gates has donated:
March, 2000 - $133 million towards people being able to receive health benefits of the advancements in pharmaceuticals
October, 1999 - $7.7 million towards New York State public libraries for internet access and technical training/information
September, 1999 - $1 billion for the Gates Millenium Scholarships to pay for 1,000 college students' tuition, room, and board
I could go further back, but you can look it all up for yourself at New.C om
Yep, this is exactly how I felt. Kai Krause no longer has much to do with the company, with the exception that his name is associated with some of its products.
I believe that he has even quit the board of directors - but don't quote me on that. I'm sure you can see for yourself on MetaCreations' web site.
As for whether I believe it's another "next big thing"... I do. The reason is because Metastream has already signed with 25 partners to provide the technology base. And - kids have fun with it!! On the contrary to VRML, which kids said "It takes too long" and "it looks like crap." Metastream is something that (when I saw it at the party) could actually captivate a 5 year old girl. Can anyone say toy retailers?
The truth is that VRML was too far ahead of its time... It tried to push too much data down the pipe, and failed to deliver on its promise. Metastream is different.
I've worked for MetaCreations in the past (twice as an intern), and I've followed up on them since I've left them to come to college. From what I've seen and heard, here's what MetaCreations is doing at the moment and in the future:
Last summer, MetaCreations decided to change its core focus from its bread-and-butter graphics software business to its E-commerce visualization business. Approximately October, MetaCreations decided to sell its graphics software division to cut down on expenses and such.
Above I said "E-commerce visualization." What I mean by this is their Metastream platform for bringing 3D over the web. Basically, just like a JPEG file, the model data (including textures) is streamed to you over a plain old HTTP connection. From this, the viewer gradually displays more and more 3D data to the user, just like a JPEG can be rendered gradually. Sorry, at the moment, there are only Windows and Mac plugins for Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers. This is the stuff that I worked on - lemme just say that it rocks.
Here's what they plan on doing as a business:
Offer tools to create and view Metastream model data free over the web
Open up the file format (to an extent - a good number of white papers, including some file format specs, are available on their web site now).
For commercial vendors (ie E-commerce sites), they plan on charging a negotiable amount per "model-view" (much like banner-ads, only the money goes the opposite way).
The technology is amazing. I went to the launch party for Metastream 3.0, and it is a world of difference from Metastream 2.0 (which is what I worked on). With the new format, you can easily do animations. For instance, you have a television and a VCR, with a VHS tape on the side. Click the tape - and it slides into the VCR. You can even see the LCD display on the VCR change.
Want something cooler? Okay. How's this: Once the tape is in the VCR, hit the play button. Guess what you get? Live streaming video displayed on the television. This video isn't stored in the Metastream file - it can be video from anywhere on the web. Also, you can rotate, zoom, slide - whatever you want while the video is playing. And even on a moderate consumer PC - such as a PII or PIII, you don't see ANY slowdown.
And there's more - the compression technology is awesome as hell. The average model file is less than 50 K (and that's a pretty big model - like a person or something. The television/VCR above would be 20 to 30 Kilobytes).
As of right now, MetaCreations is a publicly traded company (MCRE). I do not know what their plans are about spinning off Metastream as a company of its own, however, they do have their own offices in New York.
The opinions expressed above are opinions of my own. They are not necessarily the opinions of MetaCreations or Metastream.
The good thing is - more chances come later on. No matter what walk of life you are on: Business, Technology, everything. People make billions in Food (Philip Morris anyone?). People make billions in Tobacco (Philip Morris again?). People make billions in other industries besides technology. All of them have opportunities to make it big.
Didn't anyone ever teach you not to kick yourself when you're down? It only keeps you from catching that second opportunity, and then you only kick yourself even harder.
There seems to be a real bad Slashdot code bug around here - the Score descriptions aren't showing. Meaning, if a post is rated (3, Informative) the 'Informative does *not* show up (only the "(3,)") does.
I implore all of you - DON'T DO THIS!!! Chu Chu Rocket is one of the most addictive games on the planet and is the premiere online game for the Dreamcast.
If you want to save your sanity - DON'T SIGN UP WITH THIS!
I recently applied to Handspring for a summer internship. Turns out that the only thing I lacked (compared to the people who went on to the "next round of cuts") was that I hadn't developed applications for PalmOS before.
Sucks to know that had I just spent a week or two developing a few apps, I mighta been a lot richer this summer:P
Last week, Microsoft gave out Windows 2000 for free - but not on purpose.
You know those demo discs you get with computing magazines? They usually come with a bunch of software that not too many people really want. Well, instead of putting their demo crap on the discs, some genius at Microsoft put full versions of Windows 2000 on each disc!
The discs were shipped to the Spanish edition of PC World. Also, there seems to have been many of them - approximately 100,000 copies were shipped.
However, the CD Key listed on the CDs were for the evaluation version of Windows 2000 (there is such a thing!?), but thanks to the power of the Internet, that's fixable...
But it's not like this fiasco will hurt MS' bottom line at all anyway...
Speaking of losing money, remember the Microstrategy CEO - Michael Saylor - who pledged $100 Million to start an online university? Well, his company stated on Monday that it would "restate its earnings." (In financial talk, this means: we goofed up in our accounting, here's the real figures.)
This is a BAD THING for the company. It was SO BAD that the stock price dropped $140 in one day and Michael Saylor himself lost $6 Billion. Imagine losing about 2/3 of your wealth in a single day. Don't worry though, he's still worth a healthy $3 Billion.
And here I am worried about the thousand dollars I'm down for the year...
Being a "knowledge worker" (I just consider myself a smart individual who doesn't mind being paid for thinking) is really the best part about being a geek.
I had a real job (ie. not behind a register) while I was in high school - and that was because I knew computers really well (and was a fledgling programmer). I remember at one point, a lot of the people at the company got pink slips, and all interns would have to go. The coolest part was when my manager quickly called up HR and basically said "I NEED HIM, IDIOTS!" (referring to me).
Wouldn't that just make you feel GOOD? The best thing about being a knowledge worker is that you are needed for more than your typing ability. It is your ability to think analytically about a problem, and come up with a solution faster than the other guy.
However, job security is a big thing among young programmers these days. Why pay some guy $70k a year, when we can pay the next college grad $50k for the same thing? This is where being a good knowledge worker comes in (and it's why I would suggest to anyone thinking about not going to college to cash in on all the tech stuff now to think twice). Your job security is much better when you're the guy behind the desk who isn't just hammering out the code for some guy's design, but you're actually making the design decisions.
Being a knowledge worker should make everyone here feel better. And the better you are at thinking, the even better you should feel.
Imagine what might happen if we all just threatened to leave our employers? I think we'd easily get some pay raises:P
When I initially read this, I thought to myself, "Why didn't IBM just do a machine that was super-superscalar?" (Superscalar basically means that the processor takes n instructions at a time, rather than just 1 at a time).
It would be really interesting to see the results from using on-die SMP versus a chip that is just twice as wide (2n instructions, instead of n).
Also in question is how the caching is done. Do both cores update the same cache? Or do they operate on separate caches?
Sony has a good reason why this happened. See, due to the amount of brain-power needed on the PS2's development, Sony had to contract some of the work out to Boeing. However, Boeing misplaced some of the design specs for stuff like DVD Playback, and the functionality was lost until everyone found out at launch time.:)
But, seriously... how does a Japanese firm forget to put in hardware that recognizes region 2 DVDs!?
There is a really easy way to distinguish distributions of software for Linux (and Linux itself). Tux can be on every box, or as a readme.gif file along with a distribution.
The girth of the software or distribution defines how fat Tux is! See, for Embeddable Linux, you have a Tux that hasn't eaten in a few weeks. For RedHat, you have one that's been eating too much caviar instead of the regular fish. And for Office for Linux, you have a Tux that has had WAY too much Mackerel, and is really starting to look like he needs to pull his own weight around here....
And who in hell is going to want to buy a product that has a penguin that looks like Fat Bastard stamped on the box?
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL - A tragic day for the Earth as two astronauts have perished in space due to the idiocy of Boeing engineers. Two air tanks which would have provided air to the astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavor were mistakenly left upon the ground, and in fact, in a land fill.
Amazingly, our under cover agents have been able to obtain a top secret audio recording of the communications just before the untimely death of America's newest heroes. Unfortunately, names are not yet known of the deceased:
[Astronaut #1] Mission Command, we have a problem. Our instruments show we're losing air up here. Please confirm.
[Mission Control] Uhh, Affirmative Endeavor. We show a slight drop in breathable air. Give us a minute, we'll get back to you on that.
[Astronaut #2] Tell them to hurry the fuck up! This dial isn't going anywhere but southward!
[MC] Endeavor, this is Mission Control. We recommend you use your suicide capsules within the next few minutes
[Astronaut #2] WHAT!? You're telling me..... there's no air.... aboard this fucking ship!?
[Astronaut #1] Stop yelling fool! You're wastin all the air!!
[MC] Well, guys, have a good one. Everyone down here is hailing your mission as a victory for all mankind... Make us proud gentlemen!
[Astronaut #1] Well, fuck... what do we do now?
As you can see, a shameless show of disregard for the lives of these brave astronauts. And all because Boeing couldn't keep track of a couple of fucking air canisters.
THIS WAS A JOKE. IF YOU CAN'T ACCEPT IT AS SUCH, DON'T READ IT
Slashdot Mirror
I'm just skimming through the tech specs here and I'm just gonna comment on a few things...
:P
Note, I'm no graphics professional. I am merely an interested individual. Repeat: I am no John Carmack!
The first thing that jumped out at me that ATI seems to be doing in the "new and cool" area (rather than just adding more horsepower to today's GPUs) is adding keyframe interpolation. Not *2D* interpolation, but *3D mesh* interpolation. The idea has a good illustration at the bottom of this page.
Voxels seem to be cropping up here. It's cool to see that they are adding support for them at the hardware level. I know that John Carmack has been skeptical about using voxels due to the sheer amount of processing power they need.
Most of the stuff I saw in the specs, however, is mostly just fluff covering various graphics technologies and what they do. While the specs hint that the chip will have support for them, it doesn't do too much more than hint at it.
Maybe there'll be more information soon...
emmett, you missed April Fool's Day by almost a month. No one's falling for your joke.
(In case you didn't get that, take a look here)
I have worked on an open source project, and have placed it on my resume. I did not work on the project for those particular reasons, though.
In this day and age, I find that my classmates at school, while some are very smart, can not find a good internship. This is because a company can not be sure what they are getting for an intern based on grades alone - getting good grades doesn't necessarily mean they'll do well in your company.
On the other hand, I have found that it has never been difficult for me to get a job, or at the very least considered for one up until the final round of cuts. I truly believe that the coding I have done (for Litestep) has helped me get better jobs than ones I would have had otherwise.
You would think that the hosts of the world's foremost programming competition would take the time to write its own database software with a CGI interface, or at least have the sense to use a more stable, open source package. But NO!! Here's what you get by going to the ACM finals page and clicking "Teams":
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'
[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified
/past/icpc2000/finals/RosterPublicFull.asp, line 11
There's more to it though. I don't believe it's about putting an emotion engine inside a tomahawk.
:), and driving simulators. And from what's available for the PS2 - the physics is unbelievably good.
It's about developing the tomahawk on a PS2. I mean, we have games that are flight simulators, fight simulators (notice no l that time
Now, imagine a program where you can design your own tomahawk missile - you can change the materials, colors, type of paint, or overhaul the entire design. Then, you click a button, and watch its trajectory be plotted for you with a hundred billion different launch parameters changed in just the slightest way (degree of inclination, speed, etc). Sound stupid? Well, now put that program on every store shelf in the world, along with the system to run it. It's not that hard for some weird militant group to get their hands on it, is it? Sure, there was computing power to do it before - but in a Cray, which cost tens of thousands of dollars. This thing costs $200 - chump change.
What's more interesting is handing it out to every idiot on the street. People get crazy ideas, and some are foolish enough to try them... That's why we have police departments these days.
Most of the time when animation buffs here the words "American Animation" they either gag, or they pretend like they have never heard the term before.
:)
However, I am opposing that opinion. As much as I enjoy Japanese Animation (and yes, it is better than American Animation - but I'm arguing that not all American stuff is in the gutter), I have enjoyed many purely american shows that have the same essential elements as any good anime series or movie.
The most anime-like American animation out there is, most likely, Batman: The Animated Series. The series, IMO, is the epitome of what American animation houses - even if it is Warner Brothers - can produce when money isn't everything. The original artists for Batman were given some extra money to do the series, and it turned out to be a hit. Dark though it was, the series took into account everything a good story should have - great plots, essential character flaws (for instance, Bruce Wayne's constant struggle between living a "normal" life versus the life of Batman, or the clash between his love for Selena Kyle versus the fact that Catwoman is a criminal). The new Batman / Superman adventures, and even Batman Beyond to an extent, aren't as great as the original Batman, but they are measuring up pretty well.
And who can forget The Simpsons? The show has definitely captured what it means to be "American" down to the most minute details (with exaggeration for laughs
[shameless plug] I have started an online petition to have Batman: The Animated Series published on DVD here NOTE: *PLEASE* don't Slashdot this site. As much as I would love to have a thousand people sign my petition, I'm pretty sure it's a small server that would just cringe at the oncoming traffic. [/shameless plug] Quite surprisingly (or should I say not surprisingly?), a number of people have answered the question "how much would you pay?" with the words "Whatever it takes!"
However, he's certainly a generous devil. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has repeatedly received donations from Gates (and other benefactors), towards advancement in many medicinal and health fields - including hunger, cancer, and others.
Recently, Gates has donated:
I could go further back, but you can look it all up for yourself at New.C om
Yep, this is exactly how I felt. Kai Krause no longer has
much to do with the company, with the exception that his name is
associated with some of its products.
I believe that he has even quit the board of directors -
but don't quote me on that. I'm sure you can
see for yourself on MetaCreations' web site.
As for whether I believe it's another "next big thing"...
I do. The reason is because Metastream has already signed
with 25 partners to provide the technology base. And -
kids have fun with it!! On the contrary to VRML,
which kids said "It takes too long" and "it looks
like crap." Metastream is something that (when I
saw it at the party) could actually captivate a 5
year old girl. Can anyone say toy retailers?
The truth is that VRML was too far ahead of its time...
It tried to push too much data down the pipe, and failed
to deliver on its promise. Metastream is different.
Last summer, MetaCreations decided to change its core focus from its bread-and-butter graphics software business to its E-commerce visualization business. Approximately October, MetaCreations decided to sell its graphics software division to cut down on expenses and such.
Above I said "E-commerce visualization." What I mean by this is their Metastream platform for bringing 3D over the web. Basically, just like a JPEG file, the model data (including textures) is streamed to you over a plain old HTTP connection. From this, the viewer gradually displays more and more 3D data to the user, just like a JPEG can be rendered gradually. Sorry, at the moment, there are only Windows and Mac plugins for Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers. This is the stuff that I worked on - lemme just say that it rocks.
Here's what they plan on doing as a business:
The technology is amazing. I went to the launch party for Metastream 3.0, and it is a world of difference from Metastream 2.0 (which is what I worked on). With the new format, you can easily do animations. For instance, you have a television and a VCR, with a VHS tape on the side. Click the tape - and it slides into the VCR. You can even see the LCD display on the VCR change.
Want something cooler? Okay. How's this: Once the tape is in the VCR, hit the play button. Guess what you get? Live streaming video displayed on the television. This video isn't stored in the Metastream file - it can be video from anywhere on the web. Also, you can rotate, zoom, slide - whatever you want while the video is playing. And even on a moderate consumer PC - such as a PII or PIII, you don't see ANY slowdown.
And there's more - the compression technology is awesome as hell. The average model file is less than 50 K (and that's a pretty big model - like a person or something. The television/VCR above would be 20 to 30 Kilobytes).
As of right now, MetaCreations is a publicly traded company (MCRE). I do not know what their plans are about spinning off Metastream as a company of its own, however, they do have their own offices in New York.
The opinions expressed above are opinions of my own. They are not necessarily the opinions of MetaCreations or Metastream.
... some blow it.
The good thing is - more chances come later on. No matter what walk of life you are on: Business, Technology, everything. People make billions in Food (Philip Morris anyone?). People make billions in Tobacco (Philip Morris again?). People make billions in other industries besides technology. All of them have opportunities to make it big.
Didn't anyone ever teach you not to kick yourself when you're down? It only keeps you from catching that second opportunity, and then you only kick yourself even harder.
There seems to be a real bad Slashdot code bug around here - the Score descriptions aren't showing. Meaning, if a post is rated (3, Informative) the 'Informative does *not* show up (only the "(3,)") does.
... There's no way in hell John Carmack would have enough money left this year to buy another Ferrari.
I implore all of you - DON'T DO THIS!!! Chu Chu Rocket is one of the most addictive games on the planet and is the premiere online game for the Dreamcast.
If you want to save your sanity - DON'T SIGN UP WITH THIS!
I recently applied to Handspring for a summer internship. Turns out that the only thing I lacked (compared to the people who went on to the "next round of cuts") was that I hadn't developed applications for PalmOS before.
:P
Sucks to know that had I just spent a week or two developing a few apps, I mighta been a lot richer this summer
Last week, Microsoft gave out Windows 2000 for free - but not on purpose.
You know those demo discs you get with computing magazines? They usually come with a bunch of software that not too many people really want. Well, instead of putting their demo crap on the discs, some genius at Microsoft put full versions of Windows 2000 on each disc!
The discs were shipped to the Spanish edition of PC World. Also, there seems to have been many of them - approximately 100,000 copies were shipped.
However, the CD Key listed on the CDs were for the evaluation version of Windows 2000 (there is such a thing!?), but thanks to the power of the Internet, that's fixable...
But it's not like this fiasco will hurt MS' bottom line at all anyway...
Speaking of losing money, remember the Microstrategy CEO - Michael Saylor - who pledged $100 Million to start an online university? Well, his company stated on Monday that it would "restate its earnings." (In financial talk, this means: we goofed up in our accounting, here's the real figures.)
This is a BAD THING for the company. It was SO BAD that the stock price dropped $140 in one day and Michael Saylor himself lost $6 Billion. Imagine losing about 2/3 of your wealth in a single day. Don't worry though, he's still worth a healthy $3 Billion.
And here I am worried about the thousand dollars I'm down for the year...
UNIX IS NOT FUCKING WINDOWS
I sure hope not... It's gonna catch a nasty cold if it is.
Being a "knowledge worker" (I just consider myself a smart individual who doesn't mind being paid for thinking) is really the best part about being a geek.
:P
I had a real job (ie. not behind a register) while I was in high school - and that was because I knew computers really well (and was a fledgling programmer). I remember at one point, a lot of the people at the company got pink slips, and all interns would have to go. The coolest part was when my manager quickly called up HR and basically said "I NEED HIM, IDIOTS!" (referring to me).
Wouldn't that just make you feel GOOD? The best thing about being a knowledge worker is that you are needed for more than your typing ability. It is your ability to think analytically about a problem, and come up with a solution faster than the other guy.
However, job security is a big thing among young programmers these days. Why pay some guy $70k a year, when we can pay the next college grad $50k for the same thing? This is where being a good knowledge worker comes in (and it's why I would suggest to anyone thinking about not going to college to cash in on all the tech stuff now to think twice). Your job security is much better when you're the guy behind the desk who isn't just hammering out the code for some guy's design, but you're actually making the design decisions.
Being a knowledge worker should make everyone here feel better. And the better you are at thinking, the even better you should feel.
Imagine what might happen if we all just threatened to leave our employers? I think we'd easily get some pay raises
I searched for "Stuff" as my first search on TopClick, just to see what search results look like. The results were quite interesting.
When I initially read this, I thought to myself, "Why didn't IBM just do a machine that was super-superscalar?" (Superscalar basically means that the processor takes n instructions at a time, rather than just 1 at a time).
It would be really interesting to see the results from using on-die SMP versus a chip that is just twice as wide (2n instructions, instead of n).
Also in question is how the caching is done. Do both cores update the same cache? Or do they operate on separate caches?
He obviously deserves to be transformed into a TLA by now. We should be calling him TOR on Slashdot.
"Muwahahahaha... My games are so addictive they cause injuries to the players! I have finally reached my goal after all these years!"
Sony has a good reason why this happened. See, due to the amount of brain-power needed on the PS2's development, Sony had to contract some of the work out to Boeing. However, Boeing misplaced some of the design specs for stuff like DVD Playback, and the functionality was lost until everyone found out at launch time. :)
But, seriously... how does a Japanese firm forget to put in hardware that recognizes region 2 DVDs!?
There is a really easy way to distinguish distributions of software for Linux (and Linux itself). Tux can be on every box, or as a readme.gif file along with a distribution.
The girth of the software or distribution defines how fat Tux is! See, for Embeddable Linux, you have a Tux that hasn't eaten in a few weeks. For RedHat, you have one that's been eating too much caviar instead of the regular fish. And for Office for Linux, you have a Tux that has had WAY too much Mackerel, and is really starting to look like he needs to pull his own weight around here....
And who in hell is going to want to buy a product that has a penguin that looks like Fat Bastard stamped on the box?
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL - A tragic day for the Earth as two astronauts have perished in space due to the idiocy of Boeing engineers. Two air tanks which would have provided air to the astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavor were mistakenly left upon the ground, and in fact, in a land fill.
Amazingly, our under cover agents have been able to obtain a top secret audio recording of the communications just before the untimely death of America's newest heroes. Unfortunately, names are not yet known of the deceased:
[Astronaut #1] Mission Command, we have a problem. Our instruments show we're losing air up here. Please confirm.
[Mission Control] Uhh, Affirmative Endeavor. We show a slight drop in breathable air. Give us a minute, we'll get back to you on that.
[Astronaut #2] Tell them to hurry the fuck up! This dial isn't going anywhere but southward!
[Astronaut #1] Just.. give.. them.. some.. time. I'm.. sure.. they'll.. have.. an answer.
[MC] Endeavor, this is Mission Control. We recommend you use your suicide capsules within the next few minutes
[Astronaut #2] WHAT!? You're telling me..... there's no air.... aboard this fucking ship!?
[Astronaut #1] Stop yelling fool! You're wastin all the air!!
[MC] Well, guys, have a good one. Everyone down here is hailing your mission as a victory for all mankind... Make us proud gentlemen!
[Astronaut #1] Well, fuck... what do we do now?
As you can see, a shameless show of disregard for the lives of these brave astronauts. And all because Boeing couldn't keep track of a couple of fucking air canisters.
THIS WAS A JOKE. IF YOU CAN'T ACCEPT IT AS SUCH, DON'T READ IT