Regarding Civ III and Infogrames, I've got a gripe with them Stateside.
They marketed a "Limited Editon" which promised designer notes(which were pretty much the only worthwhile goodie added). They shipped the Limited Edition, which said it contained the designer notes, and they never included them. Just plain forgot to include them in all 75,000 of the "limited" Limited Edition.
People have squawked about it, but Infogrames and Firaxis (Sid Meier's company) have been silent on this rip-off. This is particularly galling as Firaxis used to be a real standout in terms of standing behind their products with patch support and decent documentation.
Sometimes you wonder how the bean counters really can manage to screw up a thing of beauty.
This is a great advantage of Linux being superior to Windows. Another is in any sort of server work when the administrator is fairly knowledgeable and competent.
In my case I still use Windows because I play a lot of games and use a lot of high-end graphics software like Quark, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (sorry, but Killustrator and GIMP just cannot compare).
Lastly, I am not a knowledgeable, nor that competent, and Windows '98 is pretty easy to use on the desktop.
In your uncle's case, Windows is still probably the best bet, as dual booting can be a real nightmare, and Windows is still pretty safe to use for Internet tasks if it is properly configured (updated virus definitions, maybe a firewall, don't use Outlook) and he won;t get confused. On the other hand, if he has to share files in a networked enviroment, then Linux with Samba may be a good alternative provided he has a conscientous administrator.
Linux still has a way to go before it is as user friendly as Windows. The truth is that Microsoft throws hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of boring quality assurance work into it's product that the Linux volunteer community is not willing (nor should they be) or able to replicate at this time. It will take someone with very deep pockets to provide this sort of grunt work to get Linux up to the stupid-user-friendly level that Windows is at.
Making an economic argument for this is difficult. It would need to be someone with deep pockets and other reasons for pursuing this strategy. I can only think of IBM, Oracle and HP/Compaq in the private sector. On the public side, If a major government like Japan or the US or France would commit itself to only using open-source software, there may be a future in such a strategy as well.
Why is everyone always bitching when Microsoft tries to milk its customers? The more people get milked, the more they consider their alternatives.
Let Microsoft double its price for the second installation and make software piracy a capital offense. I assure you that would increase the use of open-source software.
This agreement is such bullshit that it boggles the mind.
Microsoft gives away some of it's software to schools that could not have afforded it anyway (so they are really not losing potential revenues).
The real kicker of this settlement is that it sounds like Microsoft will get to value the software at its reatail value and not at the actual marginal cost to Microsoft
Microsoft loses almost no money from giving away the software, except the cost of distributing the cd's. So they get to write-off $1.1 billion in profits, value the give-away at $1.1 billion, but their actual costs are only pennies per installation. So if they value windows XP at $200 but the actual costs of distribution and media on that one istallation are (let's be generous) $5, you can see that this $1.1 billion settlement really costs them only $25 million dollars (taking the $200:$5 ratio of stated-value:actual-cost used earlier).
Now since this $1.1 billion dollars is subtracted from their income, and assuming Microsoft pays about 15% corporate taxes, we can see that they get a $165 million write-off for about $25 million dollars. In other words, Microsoft ends up $140 million dollars richer from this deal.
Now there is $128 million in training and support they are promising (again, real cost to Microsoft is probably less) but even that leaves them with a profit. There are vague promises of setting up a foundation with up to $250 million, but that is not a firm number.
Also they will be trying to obtain matching funds from other charities, to leverage this operation.
And when you get down to brass tacks, this deal benefits Microsoft in a very important way. This gives them an excuse to train millions of schoolkids on how to use their stupid software so that when these kids eventually look for jobs their employers will have to buy software from Microsoft because that is what their employees have been trained on.
Also Microsoft gets good P.R. for "helping disadvantaged kids"(ha!) and don't have to spend millions more staying in court and risking a truly costly jury award.
In summary, Microsoft gets to escape any future civil liability, while instituting a training program that makes their software more valuable at virtually no cost, or even a cash gain for themselves. And all the lawyers will get fat fees.
Sounds like a great deal for Microsoft. Now what would be really good is if Microsoft had to spend $1.1 billion dollars deploying other companies software in disadvantaged schools. Wouldn't it be great to know that the Linux or FreeBSD or Oracle, etc., etc., installation at your local school being paid for by Linux?
This is sort of old news, as the article itself details, neurons and silicon have been linked before.
The article also makes it fairly clear that from a computational point of view, protein has no clear benefits over silicon
Where these silicon/protein hybrid circuits are potentially immediately useful, as outlined by the article, is in the fields of prosthetics and biosensors.
A quick search on google for bioterrorism sensors gives one a pretty good idea of how much advances need to be made in this field.
There had to be some catch. Please give more details. I would figure that thousands of people must do searches for PS2s on a daily basis on ebay and it would be tough for a listing to fall through the cracks like it did. please give details on the purchase.
Actually, Gibson's (and Bruce Sterling's) "Difference Engine" was one of the few books by him I did manage to slog through. I read Neuromancer, and while it was interesting, I found his dark Blade-Runner-esque world (the movie, not the book. But that's a different story) affected and romantic.
Re:Jon Katz Comment (from his article)
on
The Difference Engine
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
This article wasn't posted or written by Katz, and while I don't mind some non-tech discussion, I find Katz annoying as well.
If you are a registered user, you can go to preferences:homepage at slashdot and actually filter out stories by certain authors.
Yeah but a thinkpad does not follow the specs with regard to battery life.
I'd think, however, that maybe some of those old portables like the TRS-80 Model 100 might be closer to what's necessary. They at least had great battery life.
But I'll take issue with his not being "hard sci-fi". Sure he didn't make a fetish of rocket ships, but he created believable, amazing worlds.
His imagination was probably the broadest and most prolific in the history of literature. This is a grand claim, but who other than Farmer has successively sprung from his mind such diversely fantastic multiverses.
In Riverworld he resurrected everyone who ever lived! Now if that isn't ambitious, I don't know what is.
Also, his "Lovers" was the first story to seriously deal with the concept of human-extraterrestrial romance.
And if anyone wants to read a truly great short story, read "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol" (in "Riverworld and other Stories" collection)
And don't forget "the Alley Man" (Think it's in another collection), which is the most thorough examination of the prehistoric (prehuman!) mind when confronted with the modern world.
The intel chips do shutdown, after a critical point is reached, but by throttling sown, they also provide time for a more orderly shutdown or maintenance.
Now all of this depends on having a compliant chipset, etc., but even so, at this point, Intel's implementation is more versatile.
OK, this is an evil thing to say, but I am really disgusted by this episode.
I think it is time for Microsoft to pitch in for thr war against terrorism. It's time to bomb Afghanistan with Bill Gates. That's right, take Bill Gates in an airplane, and drop him on Kabul. If the published tales about his personal hygiene are credible, this would also constitute an effective biological-warfare response to the anthrax attacks on this country.
Alternatively, for those of you like myself who hesitate about using biological weapons, even against villains like the Taliban (yeah, ok, dropping Bill Gates out of an airplane might be excessive as well), I have another proposal:
When we do finally capture bin Laden we should force him to sit in a room and have Bill Gates explain, in that whiny, grating voice of his, how Microsoft is not a monopoly ("Well, it depends on how you define 'is'"). Surely, this torture would be enough to drive the man mad.
I have the same impression. I'm running a celery400 with 192 MB SDRAM on a Mobo with integrated ATI 3d rage pro.
This article:
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1505& p= 1
at anandtech makes it pretty clear that XP will perform slower than earlier Windows, especially on older hardware. All those bells and whistles take clock cycles.
$150 for XP Pro isn't bad, but then when
I factor in another $300-$400 for a new processor, mobo, videocard, memory,(and maybe case, since this power supply probably won't handle an athlon or pentium 4), etc, I start getting hesitant.
And I also don't want to go through the annoyance of getting rid of all the marketing that microsoft make syou suffer through on a new OS install.
Re:Oh good, a slashdot article on the release of X
on
Windows XP Has Arrived
·
· Score: 1
Notice the time between the comment post and the original article post: 13 minutes.
I suspect that if you analyzed the data, that most moderation is done on the earliest posts, either because people are viewing on "earliest posts first, or because there is just less comments to choose from early on in an article's life.
Slashdot Mirror
Then again, there is some debate over whether the thylacine is truly extinct.
Regarding Civ III and Infogrames, I've got a gripe with them Stateside.
They marketed a "Limited Editon" which promised designer notes(which were pretty much the only worthwhile goodie added). They shipped the Limited Edition, which said it contained the designer notes, and they never included them. Just plain forgot to include them in all 75,000 of the "limited" Limited Edition.
People have squawked about it, but Infogrames and Firaxis (Sid Meier's company) have been silent on this rip-off. This is particularly galling as Firaxis used to be a real standout in terms of standing behind their products with patch support and decent documentation.
Sometimes you wonder how the bean counters really can manage to screw up a thing of beauty.
This is a great advantage of Linux being superior to Windows. Another is in any sort of server work when the administrator is fairly knowledgeable and competent.
In my case I still use Windows because I play a lot of games and use a lot of high-end graphics software like Quark, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (sorry, but Killustrator and GIMP just cannot compare).
Lastly, I am not a knowledgeable, nor that competent, and Windows '98 is pretty easy to use on the desktop.
In your uncle's case, Windows is still probably the best bet, as dual booting can be a real nightmare, and Windows is still pretty safe to use for Internet tasks if it is properly configured (updated virus definitions, maybe a firewall, don't use Outlook) and he won;t get confused. On the other hand, if he has to share files in a networked enviroment, then Linux with Samba may be a good alternative provided he has a conscientous administrator.
Linux still has a way to go before it is as user friendly as Windows. The truth is that Microsoft throws hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of boring quality assurance work into it's product that the Linux volunteer community is not willing (nor should they be) or able to replicate at this time. It will take someone with very deep pockets to provide this sort of grunt work to get Linux up to the stupid-user-friendly level that Windows is at.
Making an economic argument for this is difficult. It would need to be someone with deep pockets and other reasons for pursuing this strategy. I can only think of IBM, Oracle and HP/Compaq in the private sector. On the public side, If a major government like Japan or the US or France would commit itself to only using open-source software, there may be a future in such a strategy as well.
Why is everyone always bitching when Microsoft tries to milk its customers? The more people get milked, the more they consider their alternatives.
Let Microsoft double its price for the second installation and make software piracy a capital offense. I assure you that would increase the use of open-source software.
No.
just easily accessible information. Cost can count as a deterrent to accessibility.
I'm too lazy to check out Microsoft's 10-k report, but you should be able to find it pretty easily online. That should show Microsoft's foreign trade.
I don;t feel too bad for the Europeans. Their regulators are generally more pro-consumer than American ones.
right.
but if you have an organic-type sensor, a neuron may be better as an interface than a silicon circuit.
hmmm....
found this company:
http://www.arpnetworks.com
They look pretty reasonable.
Anyone ever use them?
whoops. my bad.
Looks like there is a somewhat useful discussion forum at the colosource site.
That link is just an advertisement for a book.
Any place where that info is available for free (as in beer) and online?
This agreement is such bullshit that it boggles the mind.
Microsoft gives away some of it's software to schools that could not have afforded it anyway (so they are really not losing potential revenues).
The real kicker of this settlement is that it sounds like Microsoft will get to value the software at its reatail value and not at the actual marginal cost to Microsoft
Microsoft loses almost no money from giving away the software, except the cost of distributing the cd's. So they get to write-off $1.1 billion in profits, value the give-away at $1.1 billion, but their actual costs are only pennies per installation. So if they value windows XP at $200 but the actual costs of distribution and media on that one istallation are (let's be generous) $5, you can see that this $1.1 billion settlement really costs them only $25 million dollars (taking the $200:$5 ratio of stated-value:actual-cost used earlier).
Now since this $1.1 billion dollars is subtracted from their income, and assuming Microsoft pays about 15% corporate taxes, we can see that they get a $165 million write-off for about $25 million dollars. In other words, Microsoft ends up $140 million dollars richer from this deal.
Now there is $128 million in training and support they are promising (again, real cost to Microsoft is probably less) but even that leaves them with a profit. There are vague promises of setting up a foundation with up to $250 million, but that is not a firm number.
Also they will be trying to obtain matching funds from other charities, to leverage this operation.
And when you get down to brass tacks, this deal benefits Microsoft in a very important way. This gives them an excuse to train millions of schoolkids on how to use their stupid software so that when these kids eventually look for jobs their employers will have to buy software from Microsoft because that is what their employees have been trained on.
Also Microsoft gets good P.R. for "helping disadvantaged kids" (ha!) and don't have to spend millions more staying in court and risking a truly costly jury award.
In summary, Microsoft gets to escape any future civil liability, while instituting a training program that makes their software more valuable at virtually no cost, or even a cash gain for themselves. And all the lawyers will get fat fees.
Sounds like a great deal for Microsoft. Now what would be really good is if Microsoft had to spend $1.1 billion dollars deploying other companies software in disadvantaged schools. Wouldn't it be great to know that the Linux or FreeBSD or Oracle, etc., etc., installation at your local school being paid for by Linux?
This is sort of old news, as the article itself details, neurons and silicon have been linked before.
The article also makes it fairly clear that from a computational point of view, protein has no clear benefits over silicon
Where these silicon/protein hybrid circuits are potentially immediately useful, as outlined by the article, is in the fields of prosthetics and biosensors.
A quick search on google for bioterrorism sensors gives one a pretty good idea of how much advances need to be made in this field.
A PS2 for $24!
There had to be some catch. Please give more details. I would figure that thousands of people must do searches for PS2s on a daily basis on ebay and it would be tough for a listing to fall through the cracks like it did. please give details on the purchase.
I'd say getting a lawyer to look at those pics is an excellent first step. UPS would probably settle rather than face the expense of a trial.
Even if the guy had no case, UPS would have to spend thousands in lawyers fees to get the case thrown out.
Sue the bastards.
Go to your yellow pages, or call your local bar (that's a lawyer's association, not a watering hole, you idiots!).
Of course, IANAL.
Hey, I usually read slash at a mod filter of three. It's rare that I can read my own comments at that level!
Actually, Gibson's (and Bruce Sterling's) "Difference Engine" was one of the few books by him I did manage to slog through. I read Neuromancer, and while it was interesting, I found his dark Blade-Runner-esque world (the movie, not the book. But that's a different story) affected and romantic.
This article wasn't posted or written by Katz, and while I don't mind some non-tech discussion, I find Katz annoying as well.
If you are a registered user, you can go to preferences:homepage at slashdot and actually filter out stories by certain authors.
Guess who I filtered out yesterday!
Yeah but a thinkpad does not follow the specs with regard to battery life.
I'd think, however, that maybe some of those old portables like the TRS-80 Model 100 might be closer to what's necessary. They at least had great battery life.
As usual the really good stuff is in the appendix, which is available here:_ ap pdx.pdf
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/reports/2001/imce
Amen on PJP.
But I'll take issue with his not being "hard sci-fi". Sure he didn't make a fetish of rocket ships, but he created believable, amazing worlds.
His imagination was probably the broadest and most prolific in the history of literature. This is a grand claim, but who other than Farmer has successively sprung from his mind such diversely fantastic multiverses.
In Riverworld he resurrected everyone who ever lived! Now if that isn't ambitious, I don't know what is.
Also, his "Lovers" was the first story to seriously deal with the concept of human-extraterrestrial romance.
And if anyone wants to read a truly great short story, read "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol" (in "Riverworld and other Stories" collection)
And don't forget "the Alley Man" (Think it's in another collection), which is the most thorough examination of the prehistoric (prehuman!) mind when confronted with the modern world.
I could go on and on.
The intel chips do shutdown, after a critical point is reached, but by throttling sown, they also provide time for a more orderly shutdown or maintenance.
Now all of this depends on having a compliant chipset, etc., but even so, at this point, Intel's implementation is more versatile.
This is the most important point of all:
Intel's chips throttle down, while AMD's just completely shut down, even in the best of circumstances.
OK, this is an evil thing to say, but I am really disgusted by this episode.
I think it is time for Microsoft to pitch in for thr war against terrorism. It's time to bomb Afghanistan with Bill Gates. That's right, take Bill Gates in an airplane, and drop him on Kabul. If the published tales about his personal hygiene are credible, this would also constitute an effective biological-warfare response to the anthrax attacks on this country.
Alternatively, for those of you like myself who hesitate about using biological weapons, even against villains like the Taliban (yeah, ok, dropping Bill Gates out of an airplane might be excessive as well), I have another proposal:
When we do finally capture bin Laden we should force him to sit in a room and have Bill Gates explain, in that whiny, grating voice of his, how Microsoft is not a monopoly ("Well, it depends on how you define 'is'"). Surely, this torture would be enough to drive the man mad.
I have the same impression. I'm running a celery400 with 192 MB SDRAM on a Mobo with integrated ATI 3d rage pro.
& p= 1
This article:
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1505
at anandtech makes it pretty clear that XP will perform slower than earlier Windows, especially on older hardware. All those bells and whistles take clock cycles.
$150 for XP Pro isn't bad, but then when
I factor in another $300-$400 for a new processor, mobo, videocard, memory,(and maybe case, since this power supply probably won't handle an athlon or pentium 4), etc, I start getting hesitant.
And I also don't want to go through the annoyance of getting rid of all the marketing that microsoft make syou suffer through on a new OS install.
Notice the time between the comment post and the original article post: 13 minutes.
I suspect that if you analyzed the data, that most moderation is done on the earliest posts, either because people are viewing on "earliest posts first, or because there is just less comments to choose from early on in an article's life.