Oh puh-leeze Bruce. That type of thinking is why the community is so fragmented now. This is the thinking of the slaves who would tell mas'a about the escape plans of the other slaves to curry favor.
If we turn on each other over every little disagreement, the internet will be controlled by corporate CEOs and entertainment moguls instead of the hackers and techies who built it.
Microsoft could easily comply with these demands and yet retain business-as-usual, or, worse, further cement their monopoly.
"So, you want to auction off code? Fine, here's the code. But we won't tell you how to use it. Oh, and our automated code-filing system just stripped all the comments out last night to save space on our servers. Now, how much do you want to pay me for this?"
A handful of companies bid, and the highest bidder gets the whole shebang. Hundreds of engineers descend on the indecipherable, obfuscated mess, which even with help and comments would take several years to figure out (I once heard that Windows programmers are brought on board and not allowed to make any architectural decisions until they've lived through one full upgrade cycle. If MS employees can't grok Windows code enough to make architectural decisions unless they stare at it for several years, what hope do these upstart bidders hold?!?!?)
Then, just as the company that bought the code and subsequently hired a hundred brilliant engineers to figure out the various pieces is bringing its slightly improved piece of work to the market, Microsoft is bringing the "next generation" to market, with a slew of new API's and other "improvements". The public buys this for two reasons: it has MS's name on it, and the "alternative" obviously doesn't have much of a future.
All this costs Microsoft *nothing*. It costs one witless competitor *everything*. It does not hurt Microsoft, but instead helps them. When I first read this I actually thought maybe it was a "leak" by Microsoft attorneys hoping the state attorneys general would take the bait, but now it looks like the state attorneys general just haven't thought things through very well, and have a very poor understanding of the pace of the industry.
You are a/.er, therefore you are, by definition, technologically sophisticated.
Hand-helds are for the "technologically challenged" ( read : the people who find "point and click" too hard ).
This may seem like a very trite and patronizing attitude, but as someone who has written applications on handhelds, I know the general level of technological expertise of that end of the user base all too well.
Actually, I replace the batteries (one pair of AA) about every month and a half. As much as I dislike Win9x & WinNT, WinCE seems to be a fairly decent system. I've yet to get any error messages other than an out of memory message when I was trying to crash it. I would be interested in running Linux on it however...
I allways thought those stickers were a little trashy, but if anyone could make one of the mozilla lizard leaking on the IE's e logo, I'd plaster it on every vehicle I own.
...just look at the reaction here. Can the pack of Slashdot flamers turn it off for five minutes? Apparently not. If some of you don't grow up, open source (or free software, or linux, or BSD, or whatever your interests) is gonna go right down the tubes.
You can get beer and pizza at the Bagdad Theater in Portland, Oregon. It's one of my favorite places to go and they only charge a buck for as long as you stay. They charge an extra buck for bogart films.
Can it be... I am actually first post. (or maybe I just don't understand the new filtering)
Well, I may not have a *great* answer. But I was reminded of the old saying about the bandwidth of a truckload of magnetic tape. I.e. don't underestimate it.
I understand that X years ago, it really did turn out that this would be the fastest available way of transporting some large number of bytes from, say NY to LA. Tape has got bigger-capacity and more compact along the way, just like bandwidth has gotten faster. So do they balance, and does the comparison still hold?
When I was in senior high school, I got stuck with an incredibly lame physics teacher. My solution was to enroll for night courses at the local technical college.
I'm sorry dude, but you can't blame it all on parents. My parents didn't think much about education. It was *my* decision to pursue an education, not theirs.
I'm not a sociologist, so I'm not going to get up on a soapbox and rant.
But I will say this. My experience in life is that many ( not all, but many ) people who are poorly educated simply don't want to learn anything new unless they absolutely have to.
In this respect, there does seem to be a very distinct difference between people - those who enjoy learning during their entire lifetime and those who loose the interest in anything new once they hit puberty. It's not related to race or culture, or even your family life, but something that's very hard to define ( like a random genetic combination maybe? )
America gave us Windows, Europe gave us Linux. I'm English.... nuff said:P
Options-wise however, it stinks.
on
Gaming on Linux
·
· Score: 1
Posted by Scott Francis[Mechaman]:
I just switched back to XFree(after upgrading to RH 5.2) from Accel-X. Originally I bought Accel-X because at the time, it looked as if there would be no free support for the i740(RedHat did an excellent job of keeping XBF under wraps). However, all that Accel-X has going for it is speed and ease of install. And based on the stuff I was doing last night, it doesn't seem that XFree/XBF_i740 lacks much in the speed department. Plus XiG apparently can't be bothered to take a look around; either the MIT-SHM extension is broken or their hardware cursor implementation, and I never found a patch to fix it(chunks drop out around the mouse using Blender or the Gimp). And for some reason, XiG doesn't seem to think you need to drop your resolution to something below 640x480, which prevents full-screen on SNES9x, as well as rendering WINE's usage of Win95 games useless. If you're after speed, yes, Accel-X can provide it, but I'd rather have some more options.
I think a couple others have observed this, but based on the description given in the article, the suit does not seem at all illegitimate. Several things were purported in the article:
(1) The course was for certification. (2) The school charged money for the course. (3) The school made specific and false represenations about the prerequisites for successfully completing the course/certification.
If these features are not accurate, I take back my remarks of course. But assuming they are true, it seems like a straighforward case of false-advertising.
I'm sure the MS certification would not be overly difficult for most./'ers, but the apparent fact is that it *was* too difficult for the students they actually recruited. Probably the school could not get as much enrollment as they wanted by appealing to those who really did have the requisite background, so the advertised more widely.
It is also important that this was not part of a general curriculum (say a CS degree, or public high school). In those cases, one could argue that the school/dept. has a right to set the curriculum as difficult as they think necessary, etc. But this was an isolated continuing-ed course for non-fulltime students. The school claimed, "any one who can point-and-click, and who pays us $X, will get this certificate". That's false... the school should pay for the claim.
even though i only had one day at the show, i managed to check out most of it... here's my thoughts:
people smoking everywhere inside really sucked.
i got online with no worries at one of the compaq stands... and checked out Slashdot.
finding my way thru the crowds and clouds of smoke was dufficult at times.
even though it is an international show, alot of exhibits were presented in german... fair enough there are alot of german companies there, but even many multi-national companies had german only info:(
i got refused a nokia T-shirt because they were only for german Club Nokia members:( (i aint german)
i got really sick of people blowing smoke in my face.
i picked up a few freebies: mouse-mat, several t-shirts, cap, balls, beer, keyrings and lots of sweets and drink coasters (CD's).
in summary, it was really great to see so much kit on show, and most largish companies put alot of effort into their exhibits. i'll try to go again next year so have a longer look. i'll also wear a suit so that exhibitors will put a bit more effort in selling something to me:~)
Slashdot Mirror
Posted by atf2:
An intelligent post. I agree completely.
-- an ex-RMS-worshipper.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
Oh puh-leeze Bruce. That type of thinking is why the community is so fragmented now. This is the thinking of the slaves who would tell mas'a about the escape plans of the other slaves to curry favor.
If we turn on each other over every little disagreement, the internet will be controlled by corporate CEOs and entertainment moguls instead of the hackers and techies who built it.
LK
Posted by tdibble:
Microsoft could easily comply with these demands and yet retain business-as-usual, or, worse, further cement their monopoly.
"So, you want to auction off code? Fine, here's the code. But we won't tell you how to use it. Oh, and our automated code-filing system just stripped all the comments out last night to save space on our servers. Now, how much do you want to pay me for this?"
A handful of companies bid, and the highest bidder gets the whole shebang. Hundreds of engineers descend on the indecipherable, obfuscated mess, which even with help and comments would take several years to figure out (I once heard that Windows programmers are brought on board and not allowed to make any architectural decisions until they've lived through one full upgrade cycle. If MS employees can't grok Windows code enough to make architectural decisions unless they stare at it for several years, what hope do these upstart bidders hold?!?!?)
Then, just as the company that bought the code and subsequently hired a hundred brilliant engineers to figure out the various pieces is bringing its slightly improved piece of work to the market, Microsoft is bringing the "next generation" to market, with a slew of new API's and other "improvements". The public buys this for two reasons: it has MS's name on it, and the "alternative" obviously doesn't have much of a future.
All this costs Microsoft *nothing*. It costs one witless competitor *everything*. It does not hurt Microsoft, but instead helps them. When I first read this I actually thought maybe it was a "leak" by Microsoft attorneys hoping the state attorneys general would take the bait, but now it looks like the state attorneys general just haven't thought things through very well, and have a very poor understanding of the pace of the industry.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
/.er, therefore you are, by definition, technologically sophisticated.
You are a
Hand-helds are for the "technologically challenged" ( read : the people who find "point and click" too hard ).
This may seem like a very trite and patronizing attitude, but as someone who has written applications on handhelds, I know the general level of technological expertise of that end of the user base all too well.
Believe me, it's not a pretty sight.
Posted by Myrdraal:
Hi, for those of you who don't know, you can snag the changelist at http://edge.linuxhq.com.
-Myrdraal
Posted by aalain:
...must...download...must...compile....
--Alain
Posted by the order of His Majesty:
Actually, I replace the batteries (one pair of AA) about every month and a half.
As much as I dislike Win9x & WinNT, WinCE seems to be a fairly decent system. I've yet to get any error messages other than an out of memory message when I was trying to crash it.
I would be interested in running Linux on it however...
Posted by Flamburt:
I allways thought those stickers were a little trashy, but if anyone could make one of the mozilla lizard leaking on the IE's e logo, I'd plaster it on every vehicle I own.
Posted by OGL:
...just look at the reaction here. Can the pack of Slashdot flamers turn it off for five minutes? Apparently not. If some of you don't grow up, open source (or free software, or linux, or BSD, or whatever your interests) is gonna go right down the tubes.
-W.W.
Posted by the order of His Majesty:
Zelda is 4Mbit = 512K
Ditto for Mario...
Posted by the order of His Majesty:
I've been playing GB Zelda on my Casiopea for almost a year... I just want Color GB compatability. (:
Posted by Arcana:
You can get beer and pizza at the Bagdad Theater in Portland, Oregon. It's one of my favorite places to go and they only charge a buck for as long as you stay. They charge an extra buck for bogart films.
http://www.mcmenamins.com/
Posted by Nick The Nerd:
Did anyone else notice that their HTML source says that the page was made with Visual Page 2.0 for Windows - Trial Version
Posted by DroneB:
heh
Posted by OGL:
;)
...Dude...that would make an awesome beowulf cluster!
-W.W.
Posted by OGL:
I swear one mention of Unreal on this thread and I'm going ballistic.
Whoops!
-W.W.
P.S. Quake 2 on Linux rocks, and Quake 3 is gonna be even better
Posted by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters:
Can it be... I am actually first post. (or maybe I just don't understand the new filtering)
Well, I may not have a *great* answer. But I was reminded of the old saying about the bandwidth of a truckload of magnetic tape. I.e. don't underestimate it.
I understand that X years ago, it really did turn out that this would be the fastest available way of transporting some large number of bytes from, say NY to LA. Tape has got bigger-capacity and more compact along the way, just like bandwidth has gotten faster. So do they balance, and does the comparison still hold?
Yours, Lulu...
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
If you want a "longterm business roadmap" talk to Micros~1. Just don't plan around it except for buying Intel.
If you want to do anything you want, use Linux. On an Alpha. Or a Strongarm. Or a Mac. Or a PalmPilot.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Before you plug in your video input turn it 90 degrees...
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
When I was in senior high school, I got stuck with an incredibly lame physics teacher. My solution was to enroll for night courses at the local technical college.
I'm sorry dude, but you can't blame it all on parents. My parents didn't think much about education. It was *my* decision to pursue an education, not theirs.
I'm not a sociologist, so I'm not going to get up on a soapbox and rant.
But I will say this. My experience in life is that many ( not all, but many ) people who are poorly educated simply don't want to learn anything new unless they absolutely have to.
In this respect, there does seem to be a very distinct difference between people - those who enjoy learning during their entire lifetime and those who loose the interest in anything new once they hit puberty. It's not related to race or culture, or even your family life, but something that's very hard to define ( like a random genetic combination maybe? )
Just my 39 years of cynicism gang.
Posted by Zyca:
:)
Next thing you know would be Colts, S&W, Brownings and other gun manufacturers making "Nutron Gun/Rifles"...
"Perfect for hunting! No need to worry about biting on your own bullets!"
Posted by stodge:
:P
America gave us Windows, Europe gave us Linux. I'm English.... nuff said
Posted by Scott Francis[Mechaman]:
I just switched back to XFree(after upgrading to RH 5.2) from Accel-X.
Originally I bought Accel-X because at the time, it looked as if there would be no free support for the i740(RedHat did an excellent job of keeping XBF under wraps).
However, all that Accel-X has going for it is speed and ease of install. And based on the stuff I was doing last night, it doesn't seem that XFree/XBF_i740 lacks much in the speed department.
Plus XiG apparently can't be bothered to take a look around; either the MIT-SHM extension is broken or their hardware cursor implementation, and I never found a patch to fix it(chunks drop out around the mouse using Blender or the Gimp). And for some reason, XiG doesn't seem to think you need to drop your resolution to something below 640x480, which prevents full-screen on SNES9x, as well as rendering WINE's usage of Win95 games useless.
If you're after speed, yes, Accel-X can provide it, but I'd rather have some more options.
Posted by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters:
./'ers, but the apparent fact is that it *was* too difficult for the students they actually recruited. Probably the school could not get as much enrollment as they wanted by appealing to those who really did have the requisite background, so the advertised more widely.
I think a couple others have observed this, but based on the description given in the article, the suit does not seem at all illegitimate. Several things were purported in the article:
(1) The course was for certification.
(2) The school charged money for the course.
(3) The school made specific and false represenations about the prerequisites for successfully completing the course/certification.
If these features are not accurate, I take back my remarks of course. But assuming they are true, it seems like a straighforward case of false-advertising.
I'm sure the MS certification would not be overly difficult for most
It is also important that this was not part of a general curriculum (say a CS degree, or public high school). In those cases, one could argue that the school/dept. has a right to set the curriculum as difficult as they think necessary, etc. But this was an isolated continuing-ed course for non-fulltime students. The school claimed, "any one who can point-and-click, and who pays us $X, will get this certificate". That's false... the school should pay for the claim.
Yours, Lulu...
even though i only had one day at the show, i managed to check out most of it... here's my thoughts:
people smoking everywhere inside really sucked.
i got online with no worries at one of the compaq stands... and checked out Slashdot.
finding my way thru the crowds and clouds of smoke was dufficult at times.
even though it is an international show, alot of exhibits were presented in german... fair enough there are alot of german companies there, but even many multi-national companies had german only info :(
i got refused a nokia T-shirt because they were only for german Club Nokia members :( (i aint german)
i got really sick of people blowing smoke in my face.
i picked up a few freebies: mouse-mat, several t-shirts, cap, balls, beer, keyrings and lots of sweets and drink coasters (CD's).
:~)
in summary, it was really great to see so much kit on show, and most largish companies put alot of effort into their exhibits. i'll try to go again next year so have a longer look. i'll also wear a suit so that exhibitors will put a bit more effort in selling something to me