Essentially, if aliens really do exist, then Fermi suggests that we should see some unmistakable sign of their existence.
Maybe we do see it and just don't understand or can't comprehend what we're seeing. If you built a 8 lane highway right next to an ant hill would the ants understand what was going on? No. For all we know aliens have built a super-hyper-transwarp highway right next to our solar system.
The ethics and consistency of this group (or lack thereof) amazes me. The vast majority of folks on Slashdot have no stealing music from artists but seem a bit squeamish when it comes to code.
If some company (*cough*Aureal*cough*) promises to open up their linux driver source, and I buy their card on that promise, and then they don't do it, I would have absolutely no problem with "stealing" the source if I could.
If you read the ZDNet article they mention that ICANN is requiring new TLD registrars to screen and limit who can buy domains in that TLD, someting that is sorely needed. Limiting.shop to people who actually run shops, etc.
NVIDIA have publically stated that they cannot open their source because they use a third party AGP driver implementation which they do not have a license to release to the public. This code is responsible for a great deal of their performance.
HAHAHAH! Thats the funniest thing I've ever heard! God. Show me where they state this because if this is the only reason they're keeping them closed then they could open the drivers tomorrow.
1. Their "third party AGP implimentation", if this is really true, and I highly doubt it, doesn't even WORK on most AGP chipsets! It only really works on intel chipsets. So NVidia is getting ripped off.
2. The open part of the kernel module was modified by an open source coder to add support for kernel AGPGART instead of using the internal NVidia AGP routines. It isn't as fast on chipsets which the NVidia AGP implimentation works with, but god, it works on a LOT more chipsets, and its not that slow, maybe about 5 FPS loss in Q3, big deal.
They could spend lots of time and money to get rid of this code, just for the sake of being Open Source, but it doesn't make business sense at this time since they already have a kick ass driver. Not to mention that they would probably get immediately sued by the AGP driver company the instant they "came up with a new implementation" and stopped paying royalties or whatever.
Hah, like I said AGPGART support is already there, clear the old one out and switch to that, the actual implimentation is in the kernel, wouldn't have to put it in the driver itself, would cost almost 0 dollars, and there is no chance of suing. Kick ass driver, rofl. Have you even used them?
Excuse me, but NVidia released the X 3.3.x driverrs as full open source including GL drivers. IT's just their X4 drivers that are closed. If you want the source, go work with the 3.3.x source which is still available on their website. Start a CVS. Do whatever the fuck you want. But at least think about what NVidia has done before you spout off about OSS.
Ahh yes, the nicely obfuscated and useless 3.3.x drivers, how useful. Those drivers were slow as hell, didn't use any advanced fuctions of the cards, and are generally useless, so why even bother with them?
Sure, we don't know why X4 drivers arent OSS yet. Don't worry about it. You probably don't even on an Nvidia card, much less know enough about it to think that you could do a better job programming drivers for it than its creators could.
Yet? You're saying yet as if there is any hope that they WILL be in the future. I'm telling you there isn't. The only part of the drivers which has any hope in hell of being open is the XF86 4 XAA driver module, the GL/GLX implimentation and the kernel driver (except for the kernel interface) will always be closed. And if you want to talk to me about how my TNT doesn't exist you're quite welcome to come by #nvidia on irc.openprojects.net and say that to me with a straight face.
Yes, I do belive the community could write better drivers then nVidia for the simple fact that these drivers share too much code with the windows ones, and nVidia has almost zero experience coding for Linux. Hell the windows drivers don't even honor monitor definition file set modes! I have to use a third party program to switch the sync polarities at run time to even use windows.
Nvidia is not an old-school company. Microsoft is an old-school company. Nvidia is making drivers for Linux, aren't they? Closed source is not old-school, otherwise few people would be still doing things that way.
nVidia is an old school company, their suits follow the old school "keep it to yourself" system of information handleing.
Nvidia does not need to open up precise specs just so that their card can be used on Linux. They wouldn't have had to do that for any other OS. The linux community, in "requiring" companies to OSS their drivers and programs, is effectifly turning away potential suppliers.
No, they don't have to open up specs so the cards can be used in linux, they can just let 2 or 3 developers code half-assed drivers which lockup and crash when you look funny at them. Do you know that switching to a virtual console while in X with the current drivers will lock up your system? Do you know that for many monitors you cannot specify modelines because the drivers think they know best by autoprobing? Do you know that there is even a report that running "tar" without parameters in X while using the latest drivers will result in a system reboot? These drivers suck, not because the developers are incompetant, but because there arent enough of them and they're inexperienced when it comes to writing for X.
Besides, when there are only 5 or so 3D games for Linux, why bother worrying about it? Windows has game dominance for the forseeable future.
What an obvious troll. There are many more than 5, MANY more. And it's not just about games, its about blender, xmms plugins, q3radiant, and other little niceities you'd like to use because you bought this super duper 3D card. Not to mention Linux gaming wont get any better if there aren't viable 3D accellerator options available.
(I have a TNT2 and dual boot between Debian and 98 on a regular basis. So I know to a good extent what I am talking about.)
I love how you say that with such certainty, especially since you have no knowledge of any "secrets" they're hiding. Opening specs is ALWAYS benificial to a company, as that makes their hardware usable on more systems, as third party coders can write the drivers, which cost the company absolutely nothing.
IIRC, NVIDIA has licenses that do not allow them to open up all the specs of their hardware. I'm sure they would love to open everything up if they could -- they could shift development efforts out of the house and score PR points with the Linux community.
Yeah, except they wont say who they have these phantom licenses with. The only two players they do name are SGI and VA Linux, both of which are extremely Pro-OSS and would have absolutely no problem letting nVidia open their code. The truth of the matter is nVidia is an old school company who is absolutely paranoid. They're in the lead right now and they want to keep it that way as long as possible, even giving a hint of how their hardware works fightens them beyond belief. "Oh but out competators could use that information to compete with us!" Yeah right.
They're using the excuse of phantom third parties having licenses with them which prevent them from opening up specs, and in reality, they don't exist.
I think NVIDIA is committed to supporting OSS, but is simply unable to practice it themselves.
Anyway, if you are looking for the mysterious 0.94 drivers for the NVidia chipset, I found them on the bot on irc.openprojects.net #nvidia.
My bot (iCE-DCC) also has files you simply cannot get anywhere else, including usually many inter-release "test" or "experimental" drivers which fix some bugs, and right now gcc pentium pro+ optimized 0.9-4.1 drivers. Again you can check it out in #nvidia on irc.openprojects.net
heh, I live in the area, the locals are so afraid of all the kids cause they're all old and 80 and shit, heh. It's refreshing really, to have something like spiderfest in such a conservative area.
Animals are not killed for food. They are killed for taste. We have food. Nobody is going to starve (quite the opposite in fact) if we suddenly stop slaughtering cows, pigs, chickens, etc.
Oh, so, if we remove food options then we solve world hunger? Wait, I always thought it was about getting more food? Silly me.
Nah if we all decided eating animals was wrong we'd all just walk around, emaciated, constantly hungry, nibbling on rice all day. Yeah, thats the kind of world I want to live in! Lets all move to Korea!
Troll? That's rich. So anyone who doesn't agree with you is a troll?
The reason that radio stations, VH1, MTV, etc can play songs for us to listen that "we don't own" is that the stations pay royalties to the record companies. These royalties are paid for the right to broadcast the songs. When you download a song you don't own from the net, nobody has paid royalties. You are getting the music, and the record companies aren't getting paid for what is theirs.
But the point is the end user is getting it for free, both times. The first message in the threat stated getting music for free was "wrong", well you can get them for free off VH1 or the radio, and that's not wrong? I don't think it's wrong either way. Illegal in one case, but not wrong.
Of course, I'm assuming you know this, and are just trying to start an argument for no reason.
When you assume you make an ASS out of U and ME, remeber that, Mr. Blaine.
And I personally find the RIAA to be scum. However, that doesn't make it right to rip them off. If I decide I don't like the business practices of BMW, that doesn't make it right to go start stealing cars from their dealers. The same is true for this. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Sharing music isn't wrong and it isn't ripping anyone off. To rip someone off you have to actually steal something from someone, to steal something from someone then you have to deprive someone else of its use. Digital music copying does not do this, it makes a copy so BOTH people have a use for it, it costs almost nothing to do, does not deprive anyone else of its use at all. It may not be legal, but it isn't wrong, and it isn't ripping anyone off.
The real wrong here is that the music industry has built this huge mega-corporate infrastructure on selling copies. Early when it cost a lot to make a copy, of say an LP record, it was a viable business model, however now when it costs virtually nothing to do it, it isn't, and they're just trying to preserve the status-quo and make you belive that sharing is wrong and you're swallowing it like the nice brainwashed consumerbot that you are.
I've always "rationalized" (why is it that [geeks] feel they can rationalize [overclocking]?) my overclocking madness by saying that I "have a lot to get Intel back for," the 8088, the 486SX, the Pentium MMX, etc. But at this point in the game, AMD isn't trying to saturate the market, or confuse us, or bleed us for every cent we're worth [like Intel]. Let's buy their silicon and run with it.
Oh man, are you ever missing the point to overclocking! It has never, ever, ever been about ripping a company off, ever. But what it has been is a penis contest, the same way in which tweaking your car out with overpowered crap in the 60s, 70s, and 80s was. It's all about power (arghh arghh arghhh (Tim Allen grunt)) and getting the most bang out of your buck.
We all know that the chip manufacturers run pretty much all the chips off the same line, test a few from a batch at different clock speeds and whatever they get out of them is what they label them as. So if you know your 750 came off the same line as a 850, why not push it?
Again, this isn't about ripping a company off. You bought the peice of hardware, you can do whatever you want with it, period, and just because you overclock doesn't mean you're ripping anyone off.
This whole MP3 deal has me shaking my head. Clearly, it's wrong to obtain a copy of a song without paying for it. We all know it's wrong!
No, I don't think it's wrong. If you do then maybe you need to stop listening to the radio and quit watching VH1.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with ripping my CD collection and playing it back for my own use. I'm not too sure if it's legal, but I'm still gonna do it. What is wrong is when I start sharing the songs with other people that don't own the original CD.
Ripping your own CD's is quite legal, it's called "fair use". Sharing with friends might not be legal, but that doesn't make it wrong. In some ass backwards town in new brunswick it's illegal to paint a wooden ladder, however, that is simply not wrong. We've been tought from childhood to share, and now all of a sudden it's wrong? I don't think so.
Now, we have Senator Hatch telling a private citizen, no, an entire industry how they must distribute their music! Hopefully the rest of congress will be able to moderate his views.
Screw moderation, that's how this problem got started in the FIRST place, we let it happen. No, now is a time of change, and the Music industry, because of its illegal practices, its price gouging, its raping of artists, and its stomping on peoples rights needs to be regulated.
"In l999, the researchers report" "But there's a huge trade off for this convenience. Inforum's l999 Survey"
I've noticed this before in Jon's articles, and while I like his articles sometimes (including this one) I think the use of the lowercase letter "L" for a one in 1999 is somewhat strange. Maybe Jon is working too hard?:)
Consider this open source editing Jon, check that out, huh?
I should take this time to point out that if you're fed up with the way slashdot is posting its stories then you should take a proactive stance.
Kuro5hin is a much better website, which allows user moderation of the story submission queue, unlike the closed we-only-post-irrelevant-junk slashdot seems to be turning into these days.
This is called stealing, and the last time I checked it was against most (all?) major religions, and the laws of most countries.
Well, did you read/hear Courtney Loves rant about the major record labels and how they screw over artists?
Did you read that the Big 5 Music labels settled a case with the FTC basically showing that they were guilty of price fixing?
How about the fact that the Canadian equivalent to the RIAA, the SOCAN, got the Canadian government to institut a blank media levy because they claim all citizens are evil beings who "pirate" music.
Really, if you want to look at this in a religious light, think of Napster as karma, comming back to kick the music industry in the balls.
Now-a-days, I guess the US is afraid that China will have better nuke simulators than the US so we gotta beat 'em at it, it's "Keeping up with the Chin's" all over again.
Well China being so close to Japan, wouldn't you be worried about them buying mass quantities of PSX2 units? I mean come on, this ASIC thing may be pretty fast, but nothing beats a PSX2 for weapons design, you know, with that easy to use controller and supercomputer classed processors.
Your beefy 750 Mhz Pentium III has a set of opcodes in it that mimic something called the Z80, used in CP/M machines (and several machines like the Commodore 64)[1].
While I'm not exactly sure how similar the Z80's instruction set is to the x86 family, I do know that the C64 never used a Z80 chip, they used 6502 processors. Now gameboys use Z80's, that'd be interesting, a CP/M port to the gameboy.
Slashdot Mirror
Essentially, if aliens really do exist, then Fermi suggests that we should see some unmistakable sign of their existence.
Maybe we do see it and just don't understand or can't comprehend what we're seeing. If you built a 8 lane highway right next to an ant hill would the ants understand what was going on? No. For all we know aliens have built a super-hyper-transwarp highway right next to our solar system.
-- iCEBaLM
The ethics and consistency of this group (or lack thereof) amazes me. The vast majority of folks on Slashdot have no stealing music from artists but seem a bit squeamish when it comes to code.
If some company (*cough*Aureal*cough*) promises to open up their linux driver source, and I buy their card on that promise, and then they don't do it, I would have absolutely no problem with "stealing" the source if I could.
-- iCEBaLM
Penalize? Why not just take the domain away?
-- iCEBaLM
If you read the ZDNet article they mention that ICANN is requiring new TLD registrars to screen and limit who can buy domains in that TLD, someting that is sorely needed. Limiting .shop to people who actually run shops, etc.
-- iCEBaLM
NVIDIA have publically stated that they cannot open their source because they use a third party AGP driver implementation which they do not have a license to release to the public. This code is responsible for a great deal of their performance.
HAHAHAH! Thats the funniest thing I've ever heard! God. Show me where they state this because if this is the only reason they're keeping them closed then they could open the drivers tomorrow.
1. Their "third party AGP implimentation", if this is really true, and I highly doubt it, doesn't even WORK on most AGP chipsets! It only really works on intel chipsets. So NVidia is getting ripped off.
2. The open part of the kernel module was modified by an open source coder to add support for kernel AGPGART instead of using the internal NVidia AGP routines. It isn't as fast on chipsets which the NVidia AGP implimentation works with, but god, it works on a LOT more chipsets, and its not that slow, maybe about 5 FPS loss in Q3, big deal.
They could spend lots of time and money to get rid of this code, just for the sake of being Open Source, but it doesn't make business sense at this time since they already have a kick ass driver. Not to mention that they would probably get immediately sued by the AGP driver company the instant they "came up with a new implementation" and stopped paying royalties or whatever.
Hah, like I said AGPGART support is already there, clear the old one out and switch to that, the actual implimentation is in the kernel, wouldn't have to put it in the driver itself, would cost almost 0 dollars, and there is no chance of suing. Kick ass driver, rofl. Have you even used them?
-- iCEBaLM
Excuse me, but NVidia released the X 3.3.x driverrs as full open source including GL drivers. IT's just their X4 drivers that are closed. If you want the source, go work with the 3.3.x source which is still available on their website. Start a CVS. Do whatever the fuck you want. But at least think about what NVidia has done before you spout off about OSS.
Ahh yes, the nicely obfuscated and useless 3.3.x drivers, how useful. Those drivers were slow as hell, didn't use any advanced fuctions of the cards, and are generally useless, so why even bother with them?
Sure, we don't know why X4 drivers arent OSS yet. Don't worry about it. You probably don't even on an Nvidia card, much less know enough about it to think that you could do a better job programming drivers for it than its creators could.
Yet? You're saying yet as if there is any hope that they WILL be in the future. I'm telling you there isn't. The only part of the drivers which has any hope in hell of being open is the XF86 4 XAA driver module, the GL/GLX implimentation and the kernel driver (except for the kernel interface) will always be closed. And if you want to talk to me about how my TNT doesn't exist you're quite welcome to come by #nvidia on irc.openprojects.net and say that to me with a straight face.
Yes, I do belive the community could write better drivers then nVidia for the simple fact that these drivers share too much code with the windows ones, and nVidia has almost zero experience coding for Linux. Hell the windows drivers don't even honor monitor definition file set modes! I have to use a third party program to switch the sync polarities at run time to even use windows.
Nvidia is not an old-school company. Microsoft is an old-school company. Nvidia is making drivers for Linux, aren't they? Closed source is not old-school, otherwise few people would be still doing things that way.
nVidia is an old school company, their suits follow the old school "keep it to yourself" system of information handleing.
Nvidia does not need to open up precise specs just so that their card can be used on Linux. They wouldn't have had to do that for any other OS. The linux community, in "requiring" companies to OSS their drivers and programs, is effectifly turning away potential suppliers.
No, they don't have to open up specs so the cards can be used in linux, they can just let 2 or 3 developers code half-assed drivers which lockup and crash when you look funny at them. Do you know that switching to a virtual console while in X with the current drivers will lock up your system? Do you know that for many monitors you cannot specify modelines because the drivers think they know best by autoprobing? Do you know that there is even a report that running "tar" without parameters in X while using the latest drivers will result in a system reboot? These drivers suck, not because the developers are incompetant, but because there arent enough of them and they're inexperienced when it comes to writing for X.
Besides, when there are only 5 or so 3D games for Linux, why bother worrying about it? Windows has game dominance for the forseeable future.
What an obvious troll. There are many more than 5, MANY more. And it's not just about games, its about blender, xmms plugins, q3radiant, and other little niceities you'd like to use because you bought this super duper 3D card. Not to mention Linux gaming wont get any better if there aren't viable 3D accellerator options available.
(I have a TNT2 and dual boot between Debian and 98 on a regular basis. So I know to a good extent what I am talking about.)
I really don't think you do.
-- iCEBaLM
While it would be a Good Thing© for the end user to have NVIDIA to open their specs, it would very much be a Bad Thing© for them as a company.
I love how you say that with such certainty, especially since you have no knowledge of any "secrets" they're hiding. Opening specs is ALWAYS benificial to a company, as that makes their hardware usable on more systems, as third party coders can write the drivers, which cost the company absolutely nothing.
IIRC, NVIDIA has licenses that do not allow them to open up all the specs of their hardware. I'm sure they would love to open everything up if they could -- they could shift development efforts out of the house and score PR points with the Linux community.
Yeah, except they wont say who they have these phantom licenses with. The only two players they do name are SGI and VA Linux, both of which are extremely Pro-OSS and would have absolutely no problem letting nVidia open their code. The truth of the matter is nVidia is an old school company who is absolutely paranoid. They're in the lead right now and they want to keep it that way as long as possible, even giving a hint of how their hardware works fightens them beyond belief. "Oh but out competators could use that information to compete with us!" Yeah right.
They're using the excuse of phantom third parties having licenses with them which prevent them from opening up specs, and in reality, they don't exist.
I think NVIDIA is committed to supporting OSS, but is simply unable to practice it themselves.
Think again...
-- iCEBaLM
Anyway, if you are looking for the mysterious 0.94 drivers for the NVidia chipset, I found them on the bot on irc.openprojects.net #nvidia.
My bot (iCE-DCC) also has files you simply cannot get anywhere else, including usually many inter-release "test" or "experimental" drivers which fix some bugs, and right now gcc pentium pro+ optimized 0.9-4.1 drivers. Again you can check it out in #nvidia on irc.openprojects.net
-- iCEBaLM
heh, I live in the area, the locals are so afraid of all the kids cause they're all old and 80 and shit, heh. It's refreshing really, to have something like spiderfest in such a conservative area.
-- iCEBaLM
Animals are not killed for food. They are killed for taste. We have food. Nobody is going to starve (quite the opposite in fact) if we suddenly stop slaughtering cows, pigs, chickens, etc.
Oh, so, if we remove food options then we solve world hunger? Wait, I always thought it was about getting more food? Silly me.
Nah if we all decided eating animals was wrong we'd all just walk around, emaciated, constantly hungry, nibbling on rice all day. Yeah, thats the kind of world I want to live in! Lets all move to Korea!
-- iCEBaLM
OK, I'm biting at this troll, though I shouldn't.
Troll? That's rich. So anyone who doesn't agree with you is a troll?
The reason that radio stations, VH1, MTV, etc can play songs for us to listen that "we don't own" is that the stations pay royalties to the record companies. These royalties are paid for the right to broadcast the songs. When you download a song you don't own from the net, nobody has paid royalties. You are getting the music, and the record companies aren't getting paid for what is theirs.
But the point is the end user is getting it for free, both times. The first message in the threat stated getting music for free was "wrong", well you can get them for free off VH1 or the radio, and that's not wrong? I don't think it's wrong either way. Illegal in one case, but not wrong.
Of course, I'm assuming you know this, and are just trying to start an argument for no reason.
When you assume you make an ASS out of U and ME, remeber that, Mr. Blaine.
And I personally find the RIAA to be scum. However, that doesn't make it right to rip them off. If I decide I don't like the business practices of BMW, that doesn't make it right to go start stealing cars from their dealers. The same is true for this. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Sharing music isn't wrong and it isn't ripping anyone off. To rip someone off you have to actually steal something from someone, to steal something from someone then you have to deprive someone else of its use. Digital music copying does not do this, it makes a copy so BOTH people have a use for it, it costs almost nothing to do, does not deprive anyone else of its use at all. It may not be legal, but it isn't wrong, and it isn't ripping anyone off.
The real wrong here is that the music industry has built this huge mega-corporate infrastructure on selling copies. Early when it cost a lot to make a copy, of say an LP record, it was a viable business model, however now when it costs virtually nothing to do it, it isn't, and they're just trying to preserve the status-quo and make you belive that sharing is wrong and you're swallowing it like the nice brainwashed consumerbot that you are.
-- iCEBaLM
I've always "rationalized" (why is it that [geeks] feel they can rationalize [overclocking]?) my overclocking madness by saying that I "have a lot to get Intel back for," the 8088, the 486SX, the Pentium MMX, etc. But at this point in the game, AMD isn't trying to saturate the market, or confuse us, or bleed us for every cent we're worth [like Intel]. Let's buy their silicon and run with it.
Oh man, are you ever missing the point to overclocking! It has never, ever, ever been about ripping a company off, ever. But what it has been is a penis contest, the same way in which tweaking your car out with overpowered crap in the 60s, 70s, and 80s was. It's all about power (arghh arghh arghhh (Tim Allen grunt)) and getting the most bang out of your buck.
We all know that the chip manufacturers run pretty much all the chips off the same line, test a few from a batch at different clock speeds and whatever they get out of them is what they label them as. So if you know your 750 came off the same line as a 850, why not push it?
Again, this isn't about ripping a company off. You bought the peice of hardware, you can do whatever you want with it, period, and just because you overclock doesn't mean you're ripping anyone off.
-- iCEBaLM
This whole MP3 deal has me shaking my head. Clearly, it's wrong to obtain a copy of a song without paying for it. We all know it's wrong!
No, I don't think it's wrong. If you do then maybe you need to stop listening to the radio and quit watching VH1.
Personally, I see nothing wrong with ripping my CD collection and playing it back for my own use. I'm not too sure if it's legal, but I'm still gonna do it. What is wrong is when I start sharing the songs with other people that don't own the original CD.
Ripping your own CD's is quite legal, it's called "fair use". Sharing with friends might not be legal, but that doesn't make it wrong. In some ass backwards town in new brunswick it's illegal to paint a wooden ladder, however, that is simply not wrong. We've been tought from childhood to share, and now all of a sudden it's wrong? I don't think so.
Now, we have Senator Hatch telling a private citizen, no, an entire industry how they must distribute their music! Hopefully the rest of congress will be able to moderate his views.
Screw moderation, that's how this problem got started in the FIRST place, we let it happen. No, now is a time of change, and the Music industry, because of its illegal practices, its price gouging, its raping of artists, and its stomping on peoples rights needs to be regulated.
-- iCEBaLM
"In l999, the researchers report"
:)
"But there's a huge trade off for this convenience. Inforum's l999 Survey"
I've noticed this before in Jon's articles, and while I like his articles sometimes (including this one) I think the use of the lowercase letter "L" for a one in 1999 is somewhat strange. Maybe Jon is working too hard?
Consider this open source editing Jon, check that out, huh?
-- iCEBaLM
Offtopic? Possibly. Informative? Definately.
I should take this time to point out that if you're fed up with the way slashdot is posting its stories then you should take a proactive stance.
Kuro5hin is a much better website, which allows user moderation of the story submission queue, unlike the closed we-only-post-irrelevant-junk slashdot seems to be turning into these days.
-- iCEBaLM
Not just artists, consumers. I emplore you to go back and read points 2 and 3.
-- iCEBaLM
This is called stealing, and the last time I checked it was against most (all?) major religions, and the laws of most countries.
Well, did you read/hear Courtney Loves rant about the major record labels and how they screw over artists?
Did you read that the Big 5 Music labels settled a case with the FTC basically showing that they were guilty of price fixing?
How about the fact that the Canadian equivalent to the RIAA, the SOCAN, got the Canadian government to institut a blank media levy because they claim all citizens are evil beings who "pirate" music.
Really, if you want to look at this in a religious light, think of Napster as karma, comming back to kick the music industry in the balls.
-- iCEBaLM
You should use your moderation points to attack opinions with which you disagree (especially if they are anti-Linux or pro-Microsoft).
Sometimes I just can't help but laugh at trolls such as this one.
-- iCEBaLM
The problem is the blue pixels only last for 1000 hours. so about every 3/4 of a year you'd have to replace it if you used it for 5 hours a day.
This will more then likely change, the blue pixel lifetimes will rise, when they do then it would be easier to impliment them as screens.
-- iCEBaLM
Then maybe kids should be given the vote.
-- iCEBaLM
The second starts with a more familliar sound of a carriage moving abck and forth, and what might be a daisy-wheel printer tapping the rhythm.
A daisy wheel printer in the symphony for dot matrix printers?! Thats harmonic sacrilige! Beethoven is probably turning over in his grave!
-- iCEBaLM
Now-a-days, I guess the US is afraid that China will have better nuke simulators than the US so we gotta beat 'em at it, it's "Keeping up with the Chin's" all over again.
Well China being so close to Japan, wouldn't you be worried about them buying mass quantities of PSX2 units? I mean come on, this ASIC thing may be pretty fast, but nothing beats a PSX2 for weapons design, you know, with that easy to use controller and supercomputer classed processors.
-- iCEBaLM
Well, press releases arn't supposed to be informative, they're for the press! When was the last time you saw anything mildly informative from CNN?
-- iCEBaLM
Your beefy 750 Mhz Pentium III has a set of opcodes in it that mimic something called the Z80, used in CP/M machines (and several machines like the Commodore 64)[1].
While I'm not exactly sure how similar the Z80's instruction set is to the x86 family, I do know that the C64 never used a Z80 chip, they used 6502 processors. Now gameboys use Z80's, that'd be interesting, a CP/M port to the gameboy.
-- iCEBaLM
Blah, thats Zee Vehicle Eventually Zoom Dives Apocolyptically
-- iCEBaLM