from reading/playing with the code (erm, I mean a friend told me, yeah, that's it), the hl2 source was no were near ready in Sept./Oct. HL2 ship date would have been pushed back even if the source had not been stolen, because it simply wasn't done. If anything, having it release was a good thing, because it gave them a public excuse to delay, and causes them to perform a decent code review when it's finally "done."
Please don't tell me you're judging what their actual progress was based on a hacker leak...Valve already stated it was a leak of an early pre-E3 demo. The source code wasn't even complete, though it does compile into a functioning, though error-ridden, executable.
I hate when people leap to conclusions all the time without thinking first.
Microsoft for its "secure computing initiative" and the ever-slipping ship date for Longhorn, which is shaping up to be a very promising candidate for the Vaporware awards in 2006, 2007 and maybe even 2008.
Huh? Microsoft initially said they were "aiming" for late 2005, then said maybe early 2006. They haven't faltered since then. What "ever-slipping ship date" are you referring to since there has never been a ship date?
I mean, I always hear liberals tell me it's biased without really telling me why. I guess they're pissed because Dennis Miller comes on the O'Reilly Factor once in a while.
Seriously, what makes it biased? The flag in its promo clips? Is that it?
X-Men 2 came out a week before Matrix Reloaded and did just fine. If anything, people get excited to go to the theater when a highly-anticipated film is coming up.
Nemesis didn't grab that excitement, for whatever reasons (I haven't seen it).
Have you even seen an episode of Star Trek: TNG from its heyday?
TNG was about making statements on humanity and exploring social issues, using the backdrop of a sci-fi space drama.
They keep showing the episode on Spike TV where the young recruit goes on the undercover mission with the terrorist organization, grows fond of them, and eventually defects. The last shot of the episode is Picard sitting in his room in defeat, lost in thought, wondering if he pushed her too hard...
Look at all this wasted energy on splitting efforts and causing pointless competition. Now instead of having one hugely powerful desktop with the best of both worlds, we get these silly rivalries, when Linux really needs to pull its shit together and back one superior project. Even Linus thinks it'll be another 5 to 10 years. Why haven't people combined projects yet?
From the article: He registered the domain in August because he thought it would be cool to have a site that sounded like the famous company to show his Web designing skills.
He started a company that is riding on the coattails of a popular brand name. Contrary to the moron parent post that suggested it was a "common scam," Microsoft owes it to their shareholders to protect themselves from infringement. The guy can choose another name that isn't riding off Microsoft's name, which he is clearly doing.
I love the hypocrisy shown in the comments over this. Some people want Microsoft to be evil even if it means being against them when they're in the right.
This isn't about someone's "right to his own name." He's purposely using a domain that is similar to Microsoft. They owe it to their shareholders to protect that name. Offering it for $10,000 was the big mistake he made.
This seems pretty clear-cut to me. After all, Slashdot itself wanted to go after the daily Slash summary site for infringement. People have to protect their stuff legally, or they lose it.
In other words, it's not Linux's fault it's not as widely used. It's the fault of Microsoft's "illegal" monopoly--even though monopolies aren't illegal.
Microsoft are evil, not because they dominate the desktop, but because, thanks to them, most people (think they) have no alternative.
Get back to me when people are writing commercial apps for Linux instead of Windows, and I can get ACPI under Linux to work on my laptop without crashing on startup, no matter the distro I try.
But this is Slashdot, where one of the editors, michael, has cybersquatted the Censorware domain for years with no explanation. And the the "to-strange-to-be-real dept." (sic) brings us an article that makes sure to mention they're SUING A 17-YEAR OLD! MICROSOFT!
I've personally been using linux on the desktop almost exclusivly for about 4 years now. I can't stand to go back onto windows computers. They are just so slow and crash way too much and why deal with all that when I can use something superior.
Look at that. You spend an entire paragraph railing against Windows users for being used to Windows, thinking they know GUIs because they use it, and complaining when they switch to something else.
Then you say you're used to Linux GUIs and hate going to something else. You've just replaced "Windows" with "Linux" in your diatribe.
I mean look at all the things Windows doesn't have. It doesn't even come with a ram disk driver!!
Jesus, you're right, what a huge disadvantage for mainstream desktop users.
I hate posts like this, because all you doomsdayers seem to think that music never existed before copyrights and the RIAA.
I don't know, I don't see it as "doomsaying" at all. It just seems like normal common sense to me that a lot of people are ignoring for some wacky reason.
Kids are music's biggest demographic. Kid likes new band. Kid sees new CD in stores. Kid goes online and sees the whole CD there for free. Kid downloads for free instead of paying for it. Band doesn't get that sale.
Multiply kid by millions. What do you think the result is?
Besides that, music existed before the RIAA, but that's ignoring that we're in a global media society now in which everything is connected. Things weren't connected before. You can ignore the factor of time and technology (something people like to tell the RIAA, amusingly enough).
If what you're saying comes true, then YES many people are going to lose money, but I don't think it'll be the (genuinely good) artists.
That's a pretty big social risk to bet on an "I don't think it'll happen" situation.
Instead, I'm willing to bet that they'll be paid like they were for thousands of years in the past--as performers. Besides, in all honesty, doesn't that make more sense than them attempting to be the sole "owners" of an intangible object that can be copied and distributed for little to no cost?
If you have a disagreement with the idea of intellectual property ("idea of intellectual property," what an amusing phrase), that's a whole other issue that I can't argue with. Your opinion is your opinion.
You think when you pirate music that bands are magically compensated for it? What happens when labels see that their bands aren't getting as many returns on their investments?
Those labels start taking less risks, and homogenization occurs.
Even more amusing is the fact that michael posted this article, an editor known for modbombing threads and ruining accounts of those who criticize him. He is the most unpopular editor on Slashdot. I guess Slashdot is its own little virtual world, in a way. Anybody have any articles written about the cultures of Slashdot, from karma whores to trolls to secretive editors?
So Peter Ludlow violates a game's EULA and TOS and gets kicked out because he's caught. This is news?
He removed the link as they requested, yet still got kicked out days later for the link that wasn't there anymore.
Maybe I'm a pimp in The Sims Online because that's how I relax.
But the game is rated "Teen," not "Mature." EA can't have people going around pointing out how mature the game is--complete with pimps and mafias and brothels--far above a Teen rating. EA needs this game to sell, right?
The real issue is the fact that Ludlow was pointing out the sick and bizarre things going on--prostitution, the engaging of cybersex between adults and minors, the scammers, the brothels, and more--in a game rated "Teen."
EA wants this game mass-marketed, which would be a little hard to do with some guy pointing out how sickenly adult the game has become, far above its given rating of Teen. So, he is removed from the system.
Precisely. People bring up "freedom of speech" all the time without realizing freedom of speech means the government can't limit your speech. It's not a right you have on private grounds.
As for this, though, it exposes EA's failure with The Sims Online--they wanted it to be a big, mass-market, hugely successful, friendly game. Ludlow was writing about how horribly sick and twisted the game had become, which is bad marketing for a company wanting to portray the game in the other light to ensnare subscribers.
Yes, downloading is illegal. Yes, it should not be done. For god's sake make the punishment fit the crime though - if I get caught downloading one MP3 I believe that it is not right to sue me for $5000 or more. That's what they expect for the loss of one sale which, if bought through iTunes, would be $0.99 or less.
It's to make an example. There's no way they can go after millions of users and sue them all for $0.99 an mp3. They lump it together with you browsing for illegally pirated product, downloading it and getting it without paying for it, sharing what you have, etc.
"Wake up and smell the coffee time for the hacks at RIAA."
Wake up and smell the coffee for what? The realization that people are going to illegally pirate your product no matter how much you pursue them legally?
When they were trying to shut down p2p programs, all the Slashdotters went on and on about how they should be going after individual users. Then when they started doing that, suddenly the RIAA is the bad guy again.
When does pirating become so widespread that nobody can make any money anymore? Already, PC games sales are declining so much that everybody is moving to console games, and the PC is getting a bunch of ports as a result, some of them crappy (Deus Ex: Invisible War is the most recent example I can remember).
So, wake up and smell the coffee--and realize what? That nobody wants to pay for anything anymore and has justified it as a lame "culture movement" against the RIAA? What about the artists in this? Nobody gives a shit about the human beings who actually rented the studio, showed up, and spent weeks if not months recording the music people are now getting for free.
Re:The Grandmasters and Specials yet to be announc
on
Open Source Awards 2004
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
Valgrind? VideoLAN? JACK? Pango?
Only one of those names gives me any semblance of a clue of what it might do.
At least it's not "Xouvert," but still, I just have to ask out of curiosity--why is it Open Source developers cannot come up with a single reasonable name for their projects? It's bad enough I have to choose between these things called "KDE" and "GNOME." Is there a switch in their brains that's flipped that requires them to choose the most esoteric names possible? It's not cute or funny.
Sounds like the OSS community is full of lazy slackers who think "someone else will do it." How can you complain about lack of mainstream usage if you expect your users to make everything for you?
If that's what the community was hoping, they probably shouldn't have waited so damned long to replace a file selector. How long have people been wanting this now and bitching about the current one? Took them long enough, is all I'm gonna say. What the hell was the holdup?
Reminds me of the 10+ years it took to get RandR in XFree86. I have no idea why it takes so long for the really basic features to get into these projects.
Slashdot Mirror
What about the breaches of GNU/FSF, GNOME, Debian, and Gentoo last year?
What rate? There's never been a ship date. They aimed for late 2005, then decided probably 2006. They've stuck with that since.
from reading/playing with the code (erm, I mean a friend told me, yeah, that's it), the hl2 source was no were near ready in Sept./Oct. HL2 ship date would have been pushed back even if the source had not been stolen, because it simply wasn't done. If anything, having it release was a good thing, because it gave them a public excuse to delay, and causes them to perform a decent code review when it's finally "done."
Please don't tell me you're judging what their actual progress was based on a hacker leak...Valve already stated it was a leak of an early pre-E3 demo. The source code wasn't even complete, though it does compile into a functioning, though error-ridden, executable.
I hate when people leap to conclusions all the time without thinking first.
Microsoft for its "secure computing initiative" and the ever-slipping ship date for Longhorn, which is shaping up to be a very promising candidate for the Vaporware awards in 2006, 2007 and maybe even 2008.
Huh? Microsoft initially said they were "aiming" for late 2005, then said maybe early 2006. They haven't faltered since then. What "ever-slipping ship date" are you referring to since there has never been a ship date?
Prove Fox News is biased.
I mean, I always hear liberals tell me it's biased without really telling me why. I guess they're pissed because Dennis Miller comes on the O'Reilly Factor once in a while.
Seriously, what makes it biased? The flag in its promo clips? Is that it?
X-Men 2 came out a week before Matrix Reloaded and did just fine. If anything, people get excited to go to the theater when a highly-anticipated film is coming up.
Nemesis didn't grab that excitement, for whatever reasons (I haven't seen it).
Have you even seen an episode of Star Trek: TNG from its heyday?
TNG was about making statements on humanity and exploring social issues, using the backdrop of a sci-fi space drama.
They keep showing the episode on Spike TV where the young recruit goes on the undercover mission with the terrorist organization, grows fond of them, and eventually defects. The last shot of the episode is Picard sitting in his room in defeat, lost in thought, wondering if he pushed her too hard...
That was good writing.
Look at all this wasted energy on splitting efforts and causing pointless competition. Now instead of having one hugely powerful desktop with the best of both worlds, we get these silly rivalries, when Linux really needs to pull its shit together and back one superior project. Even Linus thinks it'll be another 5 to 10 years. Why haven't people combined projects yet?
No, they're not.
From the article:
He registered the domain in August because he thought it would be cool to have a site that sounded like the famous company to show his Web designing skills.
He started a company that is riding on the coattails of a popular brand name. Contrary to the moron parent post that suggested it was a "common scam," Microsoft owes it to their shareholders to protect themselves from infringement. The guy can choose another name that isn't riding off Microsoft's name, which he is clearly doing.
I love the hypocrisy shown in the comments over this. Some people want Microsoft to be evil even if it means being against them when they're in the right.
On the other hand, he has a right to his own name
So his name is Mike Rowesoft?
This isn't about someone's "right to his own name." He's purposely using a domain that is similar to Microsoft. They owe it to their shareholders to protect that name. Offering it for $10,000 was the big mistake he made.
This seems pretty clear-cut to me. After all, Slashdot itself wanted to go after the daily Slash summary site for infringement. People have to protect their stuff legally, or they lose it.
In other words, it's not Linux's fault it's not as widely used. It's the fault of Microsoft's "illegal" monopoly--even though monopolies aren't illegal.
Microsoft are evil, not because they dominate the desktop, but because, thanks to them, most people (think they) have no alternative.
Get back to me when people are writing commercial apps for Linux instead of Windows, and I can get ACPI under Linux to work on my laptop without crashing on startup, no matter the distro I try.
But this is Slashdot, where one of the editors, michael, has cybersquatted the Censorware domain for years with no explanation. And the the "to-strange-to-be-real dept." (sic) brings us an article that makes sure to mention they're SUING A 17-YEAR OLD! MICROSOFT!
I've personally been using linux on the desktop almost exclusivly for about 4 years now. I can't stand to go back onto windows computers. They are just so slow and crash way too much and why deal with all that when I can use something superior.
Look at that. You spend an entire paragraph railing against Windows users for being used to Windows, thinking they know GUIs because they use it, and complaining when they switch to something else.
Then you say you're used to Linux GUIs and hate going to something else. You've just replaced "Windows" with "Linux" in your diatribe.
I mean look at all the things Windows doesn't have. It doesn't even come with a ram disk driver!!
Jesus, you're right, what a huge disadvantage for mainstream desktop users.
That has to be one of the most insightful posts I've ever seen written here, seriously.
I hate posts like this, because all you doomsdayers seem to think that music never existed before copyrights and the RIAA.
I don't know, I don't see it as "doomsaying" at all. It just seems like normal common sense to me that a lot of people are ignoring for some wacky reason.
Kids are music's biggest demographic. Kid likes new band. Kid sees new CD in stores. Kid goes online and sees the whole CD there for free. Kid downloads for free instead of paying for it. Band doesn't get that sale.
Multiply kid by millions. What do you think the result is?
Besides that, music existed before the RIAA, but that's ignoring that we're in a global media society now in which everything is connected. Things weren't connected before. You can ignore the factor of time and technology (something people like to tell the RIAA, amusingly enough).
If what you're saying comes true, then YES many people are going to lose money, but I don't think it'll be the (genuinely good) artists.
That's a pretty big social risk to bet on an "I don't think it'll happen" situation.
Instead, I'm willing to bet that they'll be paid like they were for thousands of years in the past--as performers. Besides, in all honesty, doesn't that make more sense than them attempting to be the sole "owners" of an intangible object that can be copied and distributed for little to no cost?
If you have a disagreement with the idea of intellectual property ("idea of intellectual property," what an amusing phrase), that's a whole other issue that I can't argue with. Your opinion is your opinion.
who's really ripping off the artist
You think when you pirate music that bands are magically compensated for it? What happens when labels see that their bands aren't getting as many returns on their investments?
Those labels start taking less risks, and homogenization occurs.
Even more amusing is the fact that michael posted this article, an editor known for modbombing threads and ruining accounts of those who criticize him. He is the most unpopular editor on Slashdot. I guess Slashdot is its own little virtual world, in a way. Anybody have any articles written about the cultures of Slashdot, from karma whores to trolls to secretive editors?
So Peter Ludlow violates a game's EULA and TOS and gets kicked out because he's caught. This is news?
He removed the link as they requested, yet still got kicked out days later for the link that wasn't there anymore.
Maybe I'm a pimp in The Sims Online because that's how I relax.
But the game is rated "Teen," not "Mature." EA can't have people going around pointing out how mature the game is--complete with pimps and mafias and brothels--far above a Teen rating. EA needs this game to sell, right?
The real issue is the fact that Ludlow was pointing out the sick and bizarre things going on--prostitution, the engaging of cybersex between adults and minors, the scammers, the brothels, and more--in a game rated "Teen."
EA wants this game mass-marketed, which would be a little hard to do with some guy pointing out how sickenly adult the game has become, far above its given rating of Teen. So, he is removed from the system.
Precisely. People bring up "freedom of speech" all the time without realizing freedom of speech means the government can't limit your speech. It's not a right you have on private grounds.
As for this, though, it exposes EA's failure with The Sims Online--they wanted it to be a big, mass-market, hugely successful, friendly game. Ludlow was writing about how horribly sick and twisted the game had become, which is bad marketing for a company wanting to portray the game in the other light to ensnare subscribers.
Hence, he's booted.
Yes, downloading is illegal. Yes, it should not be done. For god's sake make the punishment fit the crime though - if I get caught downloading one MP3 I believe that it is not right to sue me for $5000 or more. That's what they expect for the loss of one sale which, if bought through iTunes, would be $0.99 or less.
It's to make an example. There's no way they can go after millions of users and sue them all for $0.99 an mp3. They lump it together with you browsing for illegally pirated product, downloading it and getting it without paying for it, sharing what you have, etc.
"Wake up and smell the coffee time for the hacks at RIAA."
Wake up and smell the coffee for what? The realization that people are going to illegally pirate your product no matter how much you pursue them legally?
When they were trying to shut down p2p programs, all the Slashdotters went on and on about how they should be going after individual users. Then when they started doing that, suddenly the RIAA is the bad guy again.
When does pirating become so widespread that nobody can make any money anymore? Already, PC games sales are declining so much that everybody is moving to console games, and the PC is getting a bunch of ports as a result, some of them crappy (Deus Ex: Invisible War is the most recent example I can remember).
So, wake up and smell the coffee--and realize what? That nobody wants to pay for anything anymore and has justified it as a lame "culture movement" against the RIAA? What about the artists in this? Nobody gives a shit about the human beings who actually rented the studio, showed up, and spent weeks if not months recording the music people are now getting for free.
Valgrind? VideoLAN? JACK? Pango?
Only one of those names gives me any semblance of a clue of what it might do.
At least it's not "Xouvert," but still, I just have to ask out of curiosity--why is it Open Source developers cannot come up with a single reasonable name for their projects? It's bad enough I have to choose between these things called "KDE" and "GNOME." Is there a switch in their brains that's flipped that requires them to choose the most esoteric names possible? It's not cute or funny.
Sounds like the OSS community is full of lazy slackers who think "someone else will do it." How can you complain about lack of mainstream usage if you expect your users to make everything for you?
If that's what the community was hoping, they probably shouldn't have waited so damned long to replace a file selector. How long have people been wanting this now and bitching about the current one? Took them long enough, is all I'm gonna say. What the hell was the holdup?
Reminds me of the 10+ years it took to get RandR in XFree86. I have no idea why it takes so long for the really basic features to get into these projects.