IBM is fast becoming a company that doesn't actually make anything, and this pretty much confirms that. And that's pretty sad, being that this company pretty much invented computing for the the business sector, and brought personal computing to the general public.
They're making lots of cash right now, but one day, perhaps sooner than they think, this approach is going to come back and bite them in the ass. And then there might not be an IBM.
"Anyone with the slightest amount of sense can clearly see it's the same game with different teams and stadiums...and usually the NCAA one is last years engine to boot."
I was mocking the parent post's lack of knowledge of football. I read his post to mean "madden = football", as in all kinds of football are the same; you see one kind, you see it all. Football fans know differently.
I concur with your statement about the games being knockoffs of each other...this is precisely one of the things that I worry about, that they'll indeed just repackage a pro game with some different logos, and that just wouldn't be the same.
Lovely; now EA can charge through the nose because no one else makes college games.
What really sucks here is that in the pros, the players union can negotiate their own game deals; "The official game of NFL Players", that sort of thing. There's no such option for college ball.
Madden is PRO football, not college. The character and style of play is different.
"Who buys this crap anyway?"
Oh, I don't know...maybe the people who went to the colleges in question? Other fans? There ARE other people that like games that involve other things than going on shooting rampages and getting the Golden Key to acheive First Level Mage or something...
The last time there was a story that touched on Football here, there were a lot of posts along the lines of "I hate sports, the jocks beat me up in high school", etc. The whole "geeks have to be wusses that hate sports" thing chaps my ass.
"Once again, Linus shows he more of a practical guy than a political ideologue."
One of the reasons I like the guy...
"I think Linus' role in this is being underreported--he appears to have been on McVoy's side all through this."
Yup, and if it was anyone other than Linus Torvalds, this piece will be filled with 400+ posts roasting him alive. So I think there's more flaming on McVoy here, because hey, we can't rip on Linus now, can we? I have wonder though, how long until someone comes out and starts ripping Linus a new one? You KNOW some prominent Open Source folks want to. They want to paint him as a villain or idiot because he went with that evil closed-source solution.
Linus is right about one thing; they've gotten more work done, faster, using BitKeeper than they ever have. This whole situation is going to grind things to a bloody halt once they're out of BK. And Linus does not sound happy about this situation, even a little bitter towards Tridgell. He's been put between a rock and a hard place, forced out of using what he considered the best tool for the job.
Why would IBM want to buy a loser? They've stated in the past that they don't want their own distro, because it would interfere with their strategy of "buy IBM hardware, run whatever you want on it". I'm surprised they still make AIX.
Novell made a bad bet. Red Hat owns business Linux, and let's face facts; paid Linux is a niche market. The main attraction of Linux is that it's free as in beer. When it's all said and done, SuSe would have been better off as an independant company. Novell would've been better off buying Red Hat. Just one more disastrous business decision in a history of disastrous business decisions...
"How horrible that Apple should go after someone who broke a confidentiality agreement and disseminated software which wasn't his to begin with and which he had no right to disseminate. "
And if it was done to Microsoft, there's no end to the lengths of hypocrisy most slashdotters would go to in order to cheer on the leakers.
man leaks MS secrets = Yay! does it to Apple = Boo!
He's got a great instinct for being a natural asshole...
Dean Kamen wanted a practical solution to a practical transportation problem. Steve Jobs wanted style. An iPod on wheels. This is why, despite being the best personal computers money can buy, Apple has a market share of 3 percent. It's only a matter of time before the various competing MP3 players out there do the same thing to the iPod.
How long have we been hearing this drivel?
on
The PC Is Not Dead
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"The PC is dying; it'll be replaced by single-purpose Internet enabled devices".
Not only is the PC not dying, it's uses are being expanded more every day. And the onslaught of gaming consoles certainly hasn't hurt the PC, or PC gaming. If there was ever an "Internet enabled PC killer", that should've done it. Keep in mind that many of the people predicting the PC's demise are manufacturers of these competing devices. It's in their interest to tell you not to buy a PC, but to buy their gadget instead.
What if he was RIGHT to jump to conclusions?
on
Google's X Files Vanish
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
And should it become known that Apple WAS responsible for this, will you then apologize and say "yup, he was right, Apple does suck for doing this?".
As you yourself noted, Apple has now accumulated a reputation for "suing everone in sight"; isn't that reputation their own fault? And aren't people justified somewhat in suspecting Apple to be at fault here, BECAUSE of that litigious reputation of theirs?
Google and Apple are two companies that can do no wrong in the eyes of Slashdotters; so it's gonna be miiiiighty interesting to see how they manage to support/condemn them at the same time. It'll be fun to see who lines up on one side.
Consider me in Google's corner on this one. And yes, I'm assuming Steve Jobs woke up today and went "I think I'll sue Google. Tribute? HAH! They'll see tribute. Our lawyers will make them PAY! Tribute like 'pay us or get your capital sacked!' ".
Ahh, that Steve Jobs. Not just running a corporation, but changing the world too.
GM never wanted to build the EV1. They had good reason of course. They KNEW battery technology was nowhere near good enough for a truly functional, profitable electric car. But environmental and government pressures made them do SOMETHING, and this was the token effort to get the Sierra Club types off of their backs for awhile. Unless a miracle was discovered, I think GM knew from the get go that these cars had no future. But since they felt forced to build them, destroying them is a nice thank you (with a middle finger) to all that were pressuring them on battery powered cars. Yes, large organizations have personalities, and can be spiteful. This reminds me an awful lot of what happened to Northop in the late 40's, when the USAF destroyed Jack Northop's Flying Wing. As the LA Times article notes, Northop wouldn't allow his company to be forced into a merger with Convair, so the Air Force got medieval on him, in a way...they made his employees watch while Air Force personel took industrial saws to the flying wing prototypes. Now THAT'S spite, folks.
"We still have the technology to go to the moon, and I would even hazard to guess the technology is there to go to Mars as well, but the money is not there."
I would argue to you that we have no WILL to go back to the Moon...or Mars...or anywhere else that requires putting men any farther than low orbit.
We know that no one else is likely going to another planet soon, so we go "What's the rush? Why spend the money now? It's not like anyone else is going". Doing it for science, and frankly, for history and adventure's sake alone doesn't seem to motivate us.
But let China start a manned Lunar or Martian mission; oh boy, watch how fast we send people back up then.
I know there's no air on the moon...I just didn't know how much effect impacts on the lunar surface would have, i.e. how much dust it tends to scatter over a period of time.
...is if these craft could get shots of the hardware we left behind; the moon rovers, the Apollo capsule bases, even the flag.
Don't know if the resolution will be THAT good; but one thing I'd always hoped for in a return to the moon was a look at our old landing sites. I don't know enough about the lunar environment to know, but I wonder if our stuff is still uncovered? Any problems with lunar dust covering things, one wonders?
"It's a blow to the progress that Firefox and Mozilla have made..."
Why is it a blow to Mozilla and Firefox? Are Moz and FF copying what Netscape is doing? No? Are Moz and FF still available in configurations you prefer? Then what's the problem?
", and more to the point, it's a significant FU to the developers, as it reduces all of their hard work to a painfully ugly IE add on."
How is this a Fuck You to the developers at Mozilla? I seem to recall that Mozilla wouldn't exist without Netscape, and there's that small issue of Netscape basically paying Mozilla's way when it went independant. If anyone has a right to base a browser on Mozilla, it's Netscape.
Oh, and some businesses NEED a browser that can view IE code, because some business apps require it. You don't have to like that, by way shoot Netscape for providing an alternative to IE that fills a need?
" Carly wasn't the root source of problem, the boneheads that hired her and let her run the company into the toilet were and are the problem."
You're pointing out what everyone else seems to be missing; the board of directors backed Aunt Carly, even against the son of one of the founders. They knew full well her business plan was the slash and burn the place and turn it into an IBM-Dell hybrid wannabee. They approved all the way, and fought on her side during the Compaq aquisition.
Good on them for firing her, but if they give a shit about HP and want to own up to their mistake, their next actions should be mass resignations, and an invitation to Walter Hewlett to lead the new board of directors.
Slashdot Mirror
IBM is fast becoming a company that doesn't actually make anything, and this pretty much confirms that. And that's pretty sad, being that this company pretty much invented computing for the the business sector, and brought personal computing to the general public.
They're making lots of cash right now, but one day, perhaps sooner than they think, this approach is going to come back and bite them in the ass. And then there might not be an IBM.
"which BSD is the one to cut your teeth on?"
That implies he doesn't know much about BSD. Advocating Open as a first install then, might not be the best of ideas...
"...all worried about the US's defence being trusted to a "commie OS" written by "hacker"s and other "hippy" malcontents..."
And when the Army sees all the indignant "Linux is being used to MURDER people!" posts on Slashdot, they just might agree.
"Anyone with the slightest amount of sense can clearly see it's the same game with different teams and stadiums...and usually the NCAA one is last years engine to boot."
I was mocking the parent post's lack of knowledge of football. I read his post to mean "madden = football", as in all kinds of football are the same; you see one kind, you see it all. Football fans know differently.
I concur with your statement about the games being knockoffs of each other...this is precisely one of the things that I worry about, that they'll indeed just repackage a pro game with some different logos, and that just wouldn't be the same.
Lovely; now EA can charge through the nose because no one else makes college games.
What really sucks here is that in the pros, the players union can negotiate their own game deals; "The official game of NFL Players", that sort of thing. There's no such option for college ball.
Ha ha ha....funniest post I've read all day, and it's from a Troll. If the truth hurts...
"more Madden action"
Madden is PRO football, not college. The character and style of play is different.
"Who buys this crap anyway?"
Oh, I don't know...maybe the people who went to the colleges in question? Other fans? There ARE other people that like games that involve other things than going on shooting rampages and getting the Golden Key to acheive First Level Mage or something...
"Am I missing anything?"
Yeah..."We're geeks, sports suck, who cares".
The last time there was a story that touched on Football here, there were a lot of posts along the lines of "I hate sports, the jocks beat me up in high school", etc. The whole "geeks have to be wusses that hate sports" thing chaps my ass.
"Once again, Linus shows he more of a practical guy than a political ideologue."
One of the reasons I like the guy...
"I think Linus' role in this is being underreported--he appears to have been on McVoy's side all through this."
Yup, and if it was anyone other than Linus Torvalds, this piece will be filled with 400+ posts roasting him alive. So I think there's more flaming on McVoy here, because hey, we can't rip on Linus now, can we? I have wonder though, how long until someone comes out and starts ripping Linus a new one? You KNOW some prominent Open Source folks want to. They want to paint him as a villain or idiot because he went with that evil closed-source solution.
Linus is right about one thing; they've gotten more work done, faster, using BitKeeper than they ever have. This whole situation is going to grind things to a bloody halt once they're out of BK. And Linus does not sound happy about this situation, even a little bitter towards Tridgell. He's been put between a rock and a hard place, forced out of using what he considered the best tool for the job.
"...and his character is simply beyond reproach."
Linus Torvalds doesn't seem to agree. Or does that not count now that he's betrayed the purer faith?
...they actually started the day off with what appears to be a real story... ...or, IS it?
Google...Slashdot....in cahoots? Hmmmmm....
...you guys aren't even trying anymore, are you?
Why would IBM want to buy a loser? They've stated in the past that they don't want their own distro, because it would interfere with their strategy of "buy IBM hardware, run whatever you want on it". I'm surprised they still make AIX.
Novell made a bad bet. Red Hat owns business Linux, and let's face facts; paid Linux is a niche market. The main attraction of Linux is that it's free as in beer. When it's all said and done, SuSe would have been better off as an independant company. Novell would've been better off buying Red Hat. Just one more disastrous business decision in a history of disastrous business decisions...
"How horrible that Apple should go after someone who broke a confidentiality agreement and disseminated software which wasn't his to begin with and which he had no right to disseminate. "
And if it was done to Microsoft, there's no end to the lengths of hypocrisy most slashdotters would go to in order to cheer on the leakers.
man leaks MS secrets = Yay!
does it to Apple = Boo!
"All the more evidence of your vegetative state: You can't spell S-C-H-I-A-V-O."
Maybe too much of the brain has already been consumed...
He's got a great instinct for being a natural asshole...
Dean Kamen wanted a practical solution to a practical transportation problem. Steve Jobs wanted style. An iPod on wheels. This is why, despite being the best personal computers money can buy, Apple has a market share of 3 percent. It's only a matter of time before the various competing MP3 players out there do the same thing to the iPod.
"The PC is dying; it'll be replaced by single-purpose Internet enabled devices".
Not only is the PC not dying, it's uses are being expanded more every day. And the onslaught of gaming consoles certainly hasn't hurt the PC, or PC gaming. If there was ever an "Internet enabled PC killer", that should've done it. Keep in mind that many of the people predicting the PC's demise are manufacturers of these competing devices. It's in their interest to tell you not to buy a PC, but to buy their gadget instead.
And should it become known that Apple WAS responsible for this, will you then apologize and say "yup, he was right, Apple does suck for doing this?".
As you yourself noted, Apple has now accumulated a reputation for "suing everone in sight"; isn't that reputation their own fault? And aren't people justified somewhat in suspecting Apple to be at fault here, BECAUSE of that litigious reputation of theirs?
Google and Apple are two companies that can do no wrong in the eyes of Slashdotters; so it's gonna be miiiiighty interesting to see how they manage to support/condemn them at the same time. It'll be fun to see who lines up on one side.
Consider me in Google's corner on this one. And yes, I'm assuming Steve Jobs woke up today and went "I think I'll sue Google. Tribute? HAH! They'll see tribute. Our lawyers will make them PAY! Tribute like 'pay us or get your capital sacked!' ".
Ahh, that Steve Jobs. Not just running a corporation, but changing the world too.
*Put's armor on*
Ok, come on, Apple slaves...do your worst!
Why did GM destroy the cars?
Pure spite.
GM never wanted to build the EV1. They had good reason of course. They KNEW battery technology was nowhere near good enough for a truly functional, profitable electric car. But environmental and government pressures made them do SOMETHING, and this was the token effort to get the Sierra Club types off of their backs for awhile. Unless a miracle was discovered, I think GM knew from the get go that these cars had no future. But since they felt forced to build them, destroying them is a nice thank you (with a middle finger) to all that were pressuring them on battery powered cars. Yes, large organizations have personalities, and can be spiteful. This reminds me an awful lot of what happened to Northop in the late 40's, when the USAF destroyed Jack Northop's Flying Wing. As the LA Times article notes, Northop wouldn't allow his company to be forced into a merger with Convair, so the Air Force got medieval on him, in a way...they made his employees watch while Air Force personel took industrial saws to the flying wing prototypes. Now THAT'S spite, folks.
"We still have the technology to go to the moon, and I would even hazard to guess the technology is there to go to Mars as well, but the money is not there."
I would argue to you that we have no WILL to go back to the Moon...or Mars...or anywhere else that requires putting men any farther than low orbit.
We know that no one else is likely going to another planet soon, so we go "What's the rush? Why spend the money now? It's not like anyone else is going". Doing it for science, and frankly, for history and adventure's sake alone doesn't seem to motivate us.
But let China start a manned Lunar or Martian mission; oh boy, watch how fast we send people back up then.
I know there's no air on the moon...I just didn't know how much effect impacts on the lunar surface would have, i.e. how much dust it tends to scatter over a period of time.
I suppose that I could've pretended, I guess...
...is if these craft could get shots of the hardware we left behind; the moon rovers, the Apollo capsule bases, even the flag.
Don't know if the resolution will be THAT good; but one thing I'd always hoped for in a return to the moon was a look at our old landing sites. I don't know enough about the lunar environment to know, but I wonder if our stuff is still uncovered? Any problems with lunar dust covering things, one wonders?
"It's a blow to the progress that Firefox and Mozilla have made..."
Why is it a blow to Mozilla and Firefox? Are Moz and FF copying what Netscape is doing? No? Are Moz and FF still available in configurations you prefer? Then what's the problem?
", and more to the point, it's a significant FU to the developers, as it reduces all of their hard work to a painfully ugly IE add on."
How is this a Fuck You to the developers at Mozilla? I seem to recall that Mozilla wouldn't exist without Netscape, and there's that small issue of Netscape basically paying Mozilla's way when it went independant. If anyone has a right to base a browser on Mozilla, it's Netscape.
Oh, and some businesses NEED a browser that can view IE code, because some business apps require it. You don't have to like that, by way shoot Netscape for providing an alternative to IE that fills a need?
" Carly wasn't the root source of problem, the boneheads that hired her and let her run the company into the toilet were and are the problem."
You're pointing out what everyone else seems to be missing; the board of directors backed Aunt Carly, even against the son of one of the founders. They knew full well her business plan was the slash and burn the place and turn it into an IBM-Dell hybrid wannabee. They approved all the way, and fought on her side during the Compaq aquisition.
Good on them for firing her, but if they give a shit about HP and want to own up to their mistake, their next actions should be mass resignations, and an invitation to Walter Hewlett to lead the new board of directors.