It's extreme because there is no room for compromise. In most issues, we need an intelligent and frank discussion with parties willing to compromise on some points. That's how you formulate good For example, for most of the legitimate and understandable arguments put forth by the NRA, they also advocate owning any type of gun and any type of bullet. They oppose just about any regulation on gun ownership.
It's funny, because you go through more checks getting your driver's license than you used to in order to buy a gun (though, a compromise was reached in this case, i.e. background checks and waiting periods, because the NRA lost).
i'm not advocating any position in this post. I'm just pointing out that the NRA has had a track record of being "firm," as you put it, to the point of being unwilling to compromise on any facet of gun control. That qualifies in my judgement as an extreme viewpoint.
As for your last point, the availability of illegal weapons is directly tied to the availability of legal weapons. If you had to import a gun illegally, that's much harder than selling your gun to an "associate" and turning in the police report...
Anti-gun advocates are also extreme... people who will not compromise until guns are completely eliminated are also extreme.
But, let's be honest... change doesn't happen without extreme people. It's a fundamental fact of life, and proven repeatedly throughout history... for better or for worse, we need both sides of this argument to help us in the middle find an idea...
Even more to the point, Dell preinstalls the NVidia driver one their preconfigured Linux boxes with NVidia video cards. We have one in the office, and it had the NVidia binary drivers installed.
I hear this a lot, and it's a sort of silly argument to make for a desktop machine. I mean, I don't care about what's/usr or/usr/local or whatever. I care a little bit about/etc (which is easy to back up) and a hell of a lot more about the stuff in my home directory (and other areas where I have write permissions). On a desktop, viruses/worms suck, period, even if you use a regular user account for daily access.
I use a Linux box at work and at home, and my laptop runs OS X, so I'm not saying this as a slight against the Unix variants out there.
Trust me, I would be much more upset at losing all my digital photographs or code or whatever. Losing the OS isn't really any more or less inconvenient than losing all my data. But losing all my data permanently would really be awful.
Now, I back up most everything periodically, so I figure I'm better off than, let's say, my mom, who rarely backs up anything. Or my sisters, who used to back up to floppy until I explained to them how silly that was.
Not having root just prevents certain "shady" things from happening, but in the end, you can do everything as your normal user. I can start up daemons via my normal startup scripts (some of which get called when X comes up, for example), modify binaries that are owned by my user (many applications these days under Linux and OS X), and open network connections for DDOS attacks. The only nice thing is that I think I'm unable to do things like SYN floods (I think... there are definitely limits on RAW sockets, I believe) and certain nastier attacks without root access or the proper access set up.
That's not really fair. It's expensive to put up a site that can handle a slashdotting. Think of sites that host via a third party or shared hosting to keep costs down.
There are a lot of smart, knowledgeable people out there who don't want a $500+/month hosting or bandwidth+power bill.
In it, he describes that they make sure that enough parts are lying around. For example, propellers, steam pumps, etc. have been some very specific items required for some of the challenges. They do make sure those are around.
Point being, this might be an interesting question if she has a better answer, but this page goes through a lot of detail. It's unlikely that she'll have a better answer, IMHO.
the question is, will Altivec code compiled on a G4 slow down on this new chip? I don't understand how these vector instructions are implemented well enough (are they in the OS as special calls or passes as flags to the compiler which generates different machine code out of it?
They don't track AFAIK. I'm a customer. I remember a few months ago that someone forgot to return the Zipcar right before they went on vacation (I guess they were rushed and just zoned on returning it). Anyway, Zipcar could tell the car was alive and well somewhere, but couldn't track it down via the transmitter on board. I'm not sure if that prompted them to install or plan on location aware systems on board, but I haven't received any emails updating us on policy changes.
In fact, I'm using one today to go to a wedding.:)
Zipcar is best for folks that don't want to deal with owning a car and only use it for short periods of time. It's not really cost effective for full day rentals (of course, I'm saying this while I have a full day rental today...). You can rent a car from Avis or Hertz at better rates for the whole day even if you add insurance and gas (which you don't have to pay directly in the Zipcar case). The tradeoff is, of course, that you have to get to a rental car place (the closest zipcar is a block away from my apartment). And deal with gas, etc. That's why, for example, I'm using it today for the wedding... I'm going to be coming home late from the reception, and I don't want to deal with dropping a car off tonight at a rental place, or with parking it overnight without getting a ticket. So, it's worth it to me to pay $15-20 more just for that ($65 vs. $50ish for a rental with gas+insurance).
But, for short trips, like to BJ's (which is far away from any sort of T/public transportation) or for the once a month super-stock-up-on-non-perishables grocery runs, it's invaluable and quite cost effective. Especially here in Mass... I just had two friends pay their excise taxes on their cars. Man, they were complaining for DAYS about that. My zipcar bills for 6 months adds up to their excise tax. Forget about insurance, gas, parking (or parking tickets with on street parking in Boston), maintenance, etc.
With Zipcar, you pay per hour (between $5-8 depending on their cost for the parking space) plus $0.40/mile (with 125 free miles on full day rentals). that's the other thing... long trips even for a short time can add up. And, you're indirectly paying for the gas and maintenance of the car. But, for short trips, it hardly matters. I always estimate costs for my errands by just adding another hour onto my reservation times. Generally, that works out to be a reasonable estimate.
The cars are generally well-maintained, clean, and easy to find. I have 5 cars within a 5 minute walk.:) It makes a huge difference to my quality of life in the city.
i was just going to read this thread, but something you said crystalized my thought on this thread. What he's doing is the same as all those FTP search engines out there. I dont't think "rummaging" really enters into the picture at all.
It's funny, because we're all too ready to assume that there are public shares (no login/password) that exist without people knowing about them.
The scenario described in the question seems to imply that he's not trying to exploit anything (in other words, he's not trying to use the open shares to exploit a bug or gain further access to the system).
This seems perfectly reasonable to me. If I set up an anonymous FTP service, I expect people to use it, look around, maybe take some stuff, and then leave. I imagine that having an open share is the same thing.
The door analogy isn't appropriate. The assumptions he's working under include that people intend other network users to access those shares. Why else would you create those shares in the first place?
Anyway, my point is that I don't agree that it's wrong to download the files. If they're in a public share that looks as if the owner intended for folks to access them, why is it wrong to download the files? He's not rummaging, he's simply using the share in its intended manner. Let's be honest here... this is a college network, and many people still share MP3's and other things with their friends in these "low tech" ways.
I agree that trust in our elected officials is essential.
I also understand that the evidence is highly classified.
The problem is that it's really more or less impossible to maintain any oversight in these conditions, and that should be suspicious. To trust our elected officials is one thing... to believe that they are incorruptible is quite another.
For that reason, even Congress has intelligence committees with a few senators that are cleared for most classified data. We now have a special court that is appointed to do the same thing. As far as I've heard, Padilla's case hasn't made it in front of them.
I'd make one final point: Our history is replete with examples of corruption and private vendettas at the highest level. I would be happy to point out many examples. Timely disclosure to the public at least about basic charges seems the least the government could do. 10-20 years behind bars on a mistake or an overzealous prosectution seems pretty harsh.
Lsat thing (really, this time:)... your reasoning is still flawed because you're assuming guilt. To trust our officials means that those arrested are always guilty. Just the mere likelihood of such an outcome doesn't justify ripping up the Constitution.
key. There is most likely a very good reason he's being held as he is -- just because you put a terrorist in prison doesn't mean he can't accomplish things if he's allowed to communicate with his cell.
Your reasoning is flawed by two glaring errors. First, you say there is "most likely a very good reason he is being held as he is." The problem is that we don't know, and more importantly, the branch of government that is supposed to check a potentially overzealous action by the executive wasn't involved in the decision.
Your reasoning also assumes guilt before innocence. Look, we don't know if he is a terrorist. But, in this climate, we're all happy to assume he is one... after all, there was that John Walker Lindh fellow, so it must be true.
This is dangerous reasoning. To argue that you can't control someone's access to the outside world while they're in prison, and then to use that as justification for throwing a guy in jail and forgetting about the key... wow.
I would definitely recommend the 12.1" iBook. I have the 14.1 and I regret the extra weight (I had stupidly assumed the screen would actually have a higher physical rez at that size, and didn't think to check it). I have the higher battery life, though, so I'm happy enough.
I also had a Sony N505VX for a long while (it was stolen recently). And, while it was so small (10", maybe?) it had a kick ass screen . Physical 1024x768 and sharp as nails. Everything looked so much better on that screen than on my 19" monitor or my new iBook (or any other LCD i've seen except for IBM research prototypes for that matter).
you can kill the "bouncing shit". Hell, you can even kill the GUI itself if you get pressed for RAM/Speed (can you do that in Windows yet?:-).
I disagree with you about this. Apple is careful to focus on the Unix side of OS X in all of it's marketing about the XServe. I just saw an ad in JDJ or one of those rags that focused on an open terminal in a Mac.
OS X isn't necessarily as "Mac" as you put it, and it's really there to replace Windows boxes in the server room. Personally, I don't look at Windows file servers "as a serious piece of computing equipment with a serious operating system." It has the same desktop heritage as the original Mac OS (though the various Windows version are better than the previous Mac iterations). OS X on the other hand starts from Mach and BSD, which has serious computing equipment with serious OS heritage.
So, if you can run a Windows 2K Server box, you can easily run an XServe with OS X Server.... I'm not sure I see the difference. Which means, I'm not sure I see your point about not bringing "Mac" into the picture.
that, and AoTC isn't a generic date movie for the Britney crowd... SpiderMan has Kirsten and the a well known, adored by teeny-boppers Tobey McGuire. I don't see AotC having that kind of draw, so it's pulling from a smaller crowd of people (at least in the first few weeks). Spider-man is also using the MTV/music industry (via the soundtrack) marketing vehicle, and I don't see Star Wars doing that as much, either. So, I'm not convinced that Katz's hypothetical teenagers aren't actually falling for the hype.
In addition, I was talking to a few people who were actually holding off going just because they didn't want to deal with the "Star Wars Fans" during the first few weeks.
On another note, did anyone actually like seeing the moving in a digital theater better than the normal analog one? I found the images crisper in the regular theater, and the pixelation was horrible with bad seats. If you're anywhere in the first few rows of a stadium seating theater (not just the regular rows down front, but even the first few "stadium seat" rows), you can actually see the pixels, which is really, really, really annoying. I mean, really annoying.
And, because of the pixelation, you lose detail. Some of the CG looked better, to be honest (lighting, mostly, and reflective surfaces worked better), but on the whole, I would rather see it in a normal theater on film...
no, not completely covered. But, with proper management you can manage your risk. Just remove the key that got stolen from your remote hosts. The issue then becomes home many keys and where they are, and ancilliary issues like did you use the same passphrase on other keys on other computers (bad user, bad, bad).
At the end of the day, it's all about managing risk. So, you have to take the proper safeguards in order to balance your convenience.
Reduce the duration of copyright, trademark, patent, etc. back to some smaller duration. It's more than just going back 10 years, it means going back at least 40 years, and probably 100 years or so.
I would also be in favor of significantly shorter durations on software patents if we're going to have them (2 or 3 years max?). Of course, the best thing to do would be to eliminate them entirely, but I'm trying to be realistic (in this dream scenario;-) ).
For patents in general, I would suggest that we find a way to shorten the amount of time it takes for for the USPTO to turn around patent applications. It's too slow. The length of time it takes to turn around a patent applicaiton often itself leads to several kinds of abuse. I'm sorry to say that I have no meaningful suggestion on this topic, other than throw more people at it.
I've also often thought about a Fair Use Amendment to the Constitution that would codify the basic thinking behind fair use, and would create a definition of what fair use is and why we need it as a society. Academic research, and fostering creativity need. I realize that this is controversial, and would be very difficult to properly write, let alone pass, but the existing lines in the Constitution get ignored so often because they don't come out and grant fair use.
If a constitutional amendment is outrageous, than at least some legislation that would make it clear that no law can ignore certain basic provisions.
Finally, I would ask that we legislate the rights of corporations by not defining them as people, and defining what rights they have. This is by far the single most onerous situation in our current legislative landscape. Corporations aren't people. They shouldn't have the same rights as you or I.
I generally agree with your points in the second paragraph. There's nothing wrong with that view, and it's acceptable for Sanders to accept the "state of the world" and go along with what is prudent marketing. I'm also not sure what that has to do with Sanders's statements regarding the remedy proposals.
Remember, the remedy pushed by the state and the case itself is not about weakening or eliminating the Windows monopoly. Too many people get caught up in that. While any given remedy has the potential for allowing diversity in the operating system marketplace, they don't have to actually provide that.
The case is about preventing Microsoft from leveraging their existing monopoly in two ways. One, to keep them from leveraging the monopoly illegally to maintain their monopoly. Two, to keep them from leveraging their monopoly to improve the market standing of their other products (such as Internet Explorer).
So, AMD is probably not wrong to focus on "Windows compatibility." Fair enough. But, there are at least a dozen versions of Windows out there already (95, 95A, 95B, 98, 98SE or whatever, ME, NT 4 WS & Server, 2K, 2K Pro, 2K Adv Server, XP Home, XP Pro, XP server, etc).
The remedy is focused on having different Windows "distributions." Distributions as in the Linux sense of the word. As many others have pointed out, drivers that exist for "Linux" generally work on all distributions. AMD would have little to worry about compatibility-wise unless Microsoft tried to intentionally sabotage compatibility with AMD products.
So, in summary, I'm not sure I see the relevance of your point. It's true. But it doesn't justify Sanders's statement that "Microsoft's dominance in PC operating systems fosters diversity" and his comparison to MacOS or Solaris. It's just false.
On the contrary, Sanders did come out and say that "M$ is our bestest buddies and they didn't do nothing wrong." For example, this quote from Sanders's testimony:
"Contrary to some suggestions I have heard in connection with this case, product integration is unambiguously good for consumers," Sanders testified. "The integration of innovative features is a principal means by which both software and hardware products are improved, to the benefit of consumers."
Since the case ostensibly was about bundling and integration, that statement is tantamount to saying Microsoft did nothing wrong.
In addition, other statments, such as the following quote from the article:
In his testimony, Sanders argued that Microsoft's dominance in PC operating systems fosters diversity rather than limits consumer choice. He compared the situation to "proprietary operating systems that run only on specific hardware designed and manufactured by the same vendor," such as Apple Computer's Mac OS or Sun Microsystems' Solaris. "Microsoft's Windows operating systems run on computers manufactured by thousands of different companies," he stated.
demonstrates an incredible ignorance of the technical reasons why Windows requires no single hardware manufacturer. This amazing technical feat has nothing to do with Microsoft, and more to do with IBM and the use of a central (reverse-engineered) bios, and Intel's ubiquity and the reverse-engineering of their instruction set. You would think that the chairman of AMD would realize this.
So, no, Skjellifetti's summary and the headline choice wasn't a troll.
it's not any of the above(it's not fast, bug free or good, because it isn't yet). The build status page still indicates that most things compile, but that doens't necessarily mean they're functional. It'll be a while before you see a functional open office for os x.
These games may be coming out to a pc, but a lot of console gamers don't have pc's with good enough specs to play these games. Sure there is some overlap but the pc competes with Xbox much less than the ps2 does.
Say what? Could you clarify why you believe that the pc competes more with the PS2 more directly than it does with the XBox?
Your statement is counter to much of the evidence and informed speculation:-) out there. It's even illogical from your own post. If you assume one can play the same games, more or less, on both the XBox and a Windows PC, why own both?
I'd be curious to know what percentage of XBox owners are in (or not in) the PC Gaming market...
I thought of your point when writing this (and in discussing this with my office mates). It's a compelling point, but makes me wonder if the games do cross over to the PC. I mean, one of the selling points for the XBox is DX8 being the same, more or less, on both platforms.
Does the licensing agreement that Microsoft signs with game developers specifically stipulate that you can't develop for the PC also in the general case? or just for specific titles (such as Halo)?.
If this is true (And others have brought up these points, too), Microsoft may be it's own biggest competitor.
I do agree, however, that Halo is the best FPS i've seen for a console, so that could explain it.
My girlfriend just bought an XBox (and already owned a PS2, as do I). We just started playing Halo together on it, and plan on taking our game online as soon as we get decent at the game. I was curious, though, to ask people what the big fuss is over Halo.
Before you take this as a reflexive anti-XBox rant from a PS2 owner, it's not. I really like the XBox controller, because it's designed for adult hands (like mine). It's comfortable, and difficult to mis-hit buttons. I also like Halo and am looking forward to playing it online.
That being said, I'm not sure I understand the big to do about Halo. I'm still early in Halo, to be honest. Having played Tribes 2, Halo looks like a scaled back version of that game. The central concepts are the same, i.e. teamwork, first-person shooter (FPS), good graphics, variety of weaponry, vehicles. The differences, IMHO, definitely lean in favor of Tribes.
For one thing, it looks like you have to fight to score. In Tribes 2 (T2) you can fight and capture the flag (or whatever the objective is), but you can also have non-combatant roles, like repairing turrets/defenses, repairing teamates (medic), set up defensive structures, etc. You get points for repairing bases that people destroy. Vehicles have non-combatant positions (this is similar in Halo).
I really enjoyed T2 when I played regularly (I'm on a counterstrike kick right now), and it still ranks as one of the best games out there in my mind. The teamplay possibilities were incredible. Also, the map sizes, some of which were large enough to give you elbow room with 40 people playing, were incredible.
I like Halo, but not enough to give it very high ratings. The graphics are nicer than most, it's got very nice controls (unique, too), and it's definitely got a good pace to it. But it's basically Unreal + some neat teamwork feature. What am I missing?
Anyway, I would love to hear opinions from others that have played both, especially those that have played Halo more than I have (I'm only partway through the cooperative missions).
Slashdot Mirror
It's funny, because you go through more checks getting your driver's license than you used to in order to buy a gun (though, a compromise was reached in this case, i.e. background checks and waiting periods, because the NRA lost).
i'm not advocating any position in this post. I'm just pointing out that the NRA has had a track record of being "firm," as you put it, to the point of being unwilling to compromise on any facet of gun control. That qualifies in my judgement as an extreme viewpoint.
As for your last point, the availability of illegal weapons is directly tied to the availability of legal weapons. If you had to import a gun illegally, that's much harder than selling your gun to an "associate" and turning in the police report...
Anti-gun advocates are also extreme... people who will not compromise until guns are completely eliminated are also extreme.
But, let's be honest... change doesn't happen without extreme people. It's a fundamental fact of life, and proven repeatedly throughout history... for better or for worse, we need both sides of this argument to help us in the middle find an idea...
Sujal
Personally, they should do it. It might save more interesting online news sources like Salon. :)
sujal
That's distribution by the poster's question.
Sujal
I use a Linux box at work and at home, and my laptop runs OS X, so I'm not saying this as a slight against the Unix variants out there.
Trust me, I would be much more upset at losing all my digital photographs or code or whatever. Losing the OS isn't really any more or less inconvenient than losing all my data. But losing all my data permanently would really be awful.
Now, I back up most everything periodically, so I figure I'm better off than, let's say, my mom, who rarely backs up anything. Or my sisters, who used to back up to floppy until I explained to them how silly that was.
Not having root just prevents certain "shady" things from happening, but in the end, you can do everything as your normal user. I can start up daemons via my normal startup scripts (some of which get called when X comes up, for example), modify binaries that are owned by my user (many applications these days under Linux and OS X), and open network connections for DDOS attacks. The only nice thing is that I think I'm unable to do things like SYN floods (I think... there are definitely limits on RAW sockets, I believe) and certain nastier attacks without root access or the proper access set up.
Sujal
There are a lot of smart, knowledgeable people out there who don't want a $500+/month hosting or bandwidth+power bill.
Sujal
In it, he describes that they make sure that enough parts are lying around. For example, propellers, steam pumps, etc. have been some very specific items required for some of the challenges. They do make sure those are around.
As for the engines, here is their page on seeding the yard: http://www.the-nerds.org/on-seeding.html.
Point being, this might be an interesting question if she has a better answer, but this page goes through a lot of detail. It's unlikely that she'll have a better answer, IMHO.
Sujal
Can someone explain this?
Sujal
not mine, though.... :)
Sujal
Zipcar is best for folks that don't want to deal with owning a car and only use it for short periods of time. It's not really cost effective for full day rentals (of course, I'm saying this while I have a full day rental today...). You can rent a car from Avis or Hertz at better rates for the whole day even if you add insurance and gas (which you don't have to pay directly in the Zipcar case). The tradeoff is, of course, that you have to get to a rental car place (the closest zipcar is a block away from my apartment). And deal with gas, etc. That's why, for example, I'm using it today for the wedding... I'm going to be coming home late from the reception, and I don't want to deal with dropping a car off tonight at a rental place, or with parking it overnight without getting a ticket. So, it's worth it to me to pay $15-20 more just for that ($65 vs. $50ish for a rental with gas+insurance).
But, for short trips, like to BJ's (which is far away from any sort of T/public transportation) or for the once a month super-stock-up-on-non-perishables grocery runs, it's invaluable and quite cost effective. Especially here in Mass... I just had two friends pay their excise taxes on their cars. Man, they were complaining for DAYS about that. My zipcar bills for 6 months adds up to their excise tax. Forget about insurance, gas, parking (or parking tickets with on street parking in Boston), maintenance, etc.
With Zipcar, you pay per hour (between $5-8 depending on their cost for the parking space) plus $0.40/mile (with 125 free miles on full day rentals). that's the other thing... long trips even for a short time can add up. And, you're indirectly paying for the gas and maintenance of the car. But, for short trips, it hardly matters. I always estimate costs for my errands by just adding another hour onto my reservation times. Generally, that works out to be a reasonable estimate.
The cars are generally well-maintained, clean, and easy to find. I have 5 cars within a 5 minute walk. :) It makes a huge difference to my quality of life in the city.
Sujal
It's funny, because we're all too ready to assume that there are public shares (no login/password) that exist without people knowing about them. The scenario described in the question seems to imply that he's not trying to exploit anything (in other words, he's not trying to use the open shares to exploit a bug or gain further access to the system).
This seems perfectly reasonable to me. If I set up an anonymous FTP service, I expect people to use it, look around, maybe take some stuff, and then leave. I imagine that having an open share is the same thing.
The door analogy isn't appropriate. The assumptions he's working under include that people intend other network users to access those shares. Why else would you create those shares in the first place?
Anyway, my point is that I don't agree that it's wrong to download the files. If they're in a public share that looks as if the owner intended for folks to access them, why is it wrong to download the files? He's not rummaging, he's simply using the share in its intended manner. Let's be honest here... this is a college network, and many people still share MP3's and other things with their friends in these "low tech" ways.
Sujal
The problem is that it's really more or less impossible to maintain any oversight in these conditions, and that should be suspicious. To trust our elected officials is one thing... to believe that they are incorruptible is quite another.
For that reason, even Congress has intelligence committees with a few senators that are cleared for most classified data. We now have a special court that is appointed to do the same thing. As far as I've heard, Padilla's case hasn't made it in front of them.
I'd make one final point: Our history is replete with examples of corruption and private vendettas at the highest level. I would be happy to point out many examples. Timely disclosure to the public at least about basic charges seems the least the government could do. 10-20 years behind bars on a mistake or an overzealous prosectution seems pretty harsh.
Lsat thing (really, this time :)... your reasoning is still flawed because you're assuming guilt. To trust our officials means that those arrested are always guilty. Just the mere likelihood of such an outcome doesn't justify ripping up the Constitution.
Sujal
Your reasoning is flawed by two glaring errors. First, you say there is "most likely a very good reason he is being held as he is." The problem is that we don't know, and more importantly, the branch of government that is supposed to check a potentially overzealous action by the executive wasn't involved in the decision.
Your reasoning also assumes guilt before innocence. Look, we don't know if he is a terrorist. But, in this climate, we're all happy to assume he is one... after all, there was that John Walker Lindh fellow, so it must be true.
This is dangerous reasoning. To argue that you can't control someone's access to the outside world while they're in prison, and then to use that as justification for throwing a guy in jail and forgetting about the key... wow.
Sujal
I also had a Sony N505VX for a long while (it was stolen recently). And, while it was so small (10", maybe?) it had a kick ass screen . Physical 1024x768 and sharp as nails. Everything looked so much better on that screen than on my 19" monitor or my new iBook (or any other LCD i've seen except for IBM research prototypes for that matter).
Sujal
I disagree with you about this. Apple is careful to focus on the Unix side of OS X in all of it's marketing about the XServe. I just saw an ad in JDJ or one of those rags that focused on an open terminal in a Mac.
OS X isn't necessarily as "Mac" as you put it, and it's really there to replace Windows boxes in the server room. Personally, I don't look at Windows file servers "as a serious piece of computing equipment with a serious operating system." It has the same desktop heritage as the original Mac OS (though the various Windows version are better than the previous Mac iterations). OS X on the other hand starts from Mach and BSD, which has serious computing equipment with serious OS heritage.
So, if you can run a Windows 2K Server box, you can easily run an XServe with OS X Server.... I'm not sure I see the difference. Which means, I'm not sure I see your point about not bringing "Mac" into the picture.
Sujal
In addition, I was talking to a few people who were actually holding off going just because they didn't want to deal with the "Star Wars Fans" during the first few weeks.
On another note, did anyone actually like seeing the moving in a digital theater better than the normal analog one? I found the images crisper in the regular theater, and the pixelation was horrible with bad seats. If you're anywhere in the first few rows of a stadium seating theater (not just the regular rows down front, but even the first few "stadium seat" rows), you can actually see the pixels, which is really, really, really annoying. I mean, really annoying.
And, because of the pixelation, you lose detail. Some of the CG looked better, to be honest (lighting, mostly, and reflective surfaces worked better), but on the whole, I would rather see it in a normal theater on film...
Sujal
At the end of the day, it's all about managing risk. So, you have to take the proper safeguards in order to balance your convenience.
Sujal
I would also be in favor of significantly shorter durations on software patents if we're going to have them (2 or 3 years max?). Of course, the best thing to do would be to eliminate them entirely, but I'm trying to be realistic (in this dream scenario ;-) ).
For patents in general, I would suggest that we find a way to shorten the amount of time it takes for for the USPTO to turn around patent applications. It's too slow. The length of time it takes to turn around a patent applicaiton often itself leads to several kinds of abuse. I'm sorry to say that I have no meaningful suggestion on this topic, other than throw more people at it.
I've also often thought about a Fair Use Amendment to the Constitution that would codify the basic thinking behind fair use, and would create a definition of what fair use is and why we need it as a society. Academic research, and fostering creativity need. I realize that this is controversial, and would be very difficult to properly write, let alone pass, but the existing lines in the Constitution get ignored so often because they don't come out and grant fair use.
If a constitutional amendment is outrageous, than at least some legislation that would make it clear that no law can ignore certain basic provisions.
Finally, I would ask that we legislate the rights of corporations by not defining them as people, and defining what rights they have. This is by far the single most onerous situation in our current legislative landscape. Corporations aren't people. They shouldn't have the same rights as you or I.
Sujal
Remember, the remedy pushed by the state and the case itself is not about weakening or eliminating the Windows monopoly. Too many people get caught up in that. While any given remedy has the potential for allowing diversity in the operating system marketplace, they don't have to actually provide that.
The case is about preventing Microsoft from leveraging their existing monopoly in two ways. One, to keep them from leveraging the monopoly illegally to maintain their monopoly. Two, to keep them from leveraging their monopoly to improve the market standing of their other products (such as Internet Explorer).
So, AMD is probably not wrong to focus on "Windows compatibility." Fair enough. But, there are at least a dozen versions of Windows out there already (95, 95A, 95B, 98, 98SE or whatever, ME, NT 4 WS & Server, 2K, 2K Pro, 2K Adv Server, XP Home, XP Pro, XP server, etc).
The remedy is focused on having different Windows "distributions." Distributions as in the Linux sense of the word. As many others have pointed out, drivers that exist for "Linux" generally work on all distributions. AMD would have little to worry about compatibility-wise unless Microsoft tried to intentionally sabotage compatibility with AMD products.
So, in summary, I'm not sure I see the relevance of your point. It's true. But it doesn't justify Sanders's statement that "Microsoft's dominance in PC operating systems fosters diversity" and his comparison to MacOS or Solaris. It's just false.
Sujal
Since the case ostensibly was about bundling and integration, that statement is tantamount to saying Microsoft did nothing wrong.
In addition, other statments, such as the following quote from the article:
demonstrates an incredible ignorance of the technical reasons why Windows requires no single hardware manufacturer. This amazing technical feat has nothing to do with Microsoft, and more to do with IBM and the use of a central (reverse-engineered) bios, and Intel's ubiquity and the reverse-engineering of their instruction set. You would think that the chairman of AMD would realize this.
So, no, Skjellifetti's summary and the headline choice wasn't a troll.
Sujal
Sujal
Oh ok, my bad. Now that I read it again, you're right. Thanks. Sujal
Say what? Could you clarify why you believe that the pc competes more with the PS2 more directly than it does with the XBox?
Your statement is counter to much of the evidence and informed speculation :-) out there. It's even illogical from your own post. If you assume one can play the same games, more or less, on both the XBox and a Windows PC, why own both?
I'd be interested in hearing your logic.
Sujal
I thought of your point when writing this (and in discussing this with my office mates). It's a compelling point, but makes me wonder if the games do cross over to the PC. I mean, one of the selling points for the XBox is DX8 being the same, more or less, on both platforms.
Does the licensing agreement that Microsoft signs with game developers specifically stipulate that you can't develop for the PC also in the general case? or just for specific titles (such as Halo)?.
If this is true (And others have brought up these points, too), Microsoft may be it's own biggest competitor.
I do agree, however, that Halo is the best FPS i've seen for a console, so that could explain it.
Sujal
Before you take this as a reflexive anti-XBox rant from a PS2 owner, it's not. I really like the XBox controller, because it's designed for adult hands (like mine). It's comfortable, and difficult to mis-hit buttons. I also like Halo and am looking forward to playing it online.
That being said, I'm not sure I understand the big to do about Halo. I'm still early in Halo, to be honest. Having played Tribes 2, Halo looks like a scaled back version of that game. The central concepts are the same, i.e. teamwork, first-person shooter (FPS), good graphics, variety of weaponry, vehicles. The differences, IMHO, definitely lean in favor of Tribes.
For one thing, it looks like you have to fight to score. In Tribes 2 (T2) you can fight and capture the flag (or whatever the objective is), but you can also have non-combatant roles, like repairing turrets/defenses, repairing teamates (medic), set up defensive structures, etc. You get points for repairing bases that people destroy. Vehicles have non-combatant positions (this is similar in Halo).
I really enjoyed T2 when I played regularly (I'm on a counterstrike kick right now), and it still ranks as one of the best games out there in my mind. The teamplay possibilities were incredible. Also, the map sizes, some of which were large enough to give you elbow room with 40 people playing, were incredible.
I like Halo, but not enough to give it very high ratings. The graphics are nicer than most, it's got very nice controls (unique, too), and it's definitely got a good pace to it. But it's basically Unreal + some neat teamwork feature. What am I missing?
Anyway, I would love to hear opinions from others that have played both, especially those that have played Halo more than I have (I'm only partway through the cooperative missions).
Sujal