The government could insist that any technology of Microsoft's that it uses adhere to those standards. They could furthermore insist on having NO trouble reading and EDITING documents documents made with non government versions of their products. Otherwise, it's no fat contract for you. Or, even better, the government will refuse to use ANY form of Microsoft's products unless ALL APIs and file formats are exhaustively, clearly and CORRECTLY defined. This might embolden some of Microsoft's other large customers to insist on the same thing. If this played out correctly then Microsoft doesn't have to be broken up, subjected to government oversight, or reveal their source code that no one here would want anyway.
Standards contain definitions that tell one how to implement them. For instance, the meter is defined as a particular number of oscillations of a particular wavelength of light. Furthermore, the standard details what substance needs to be excited in a specific fashion to produce that light. Now that is a standard. It is nonetheless a standard even though most people in the US don't use it (though it is everywhere else).
Tell me, where do I find out how to make my own import filter for Word (one that will actually WORK that is)? Microsoft's "standards" are only standards WITHIN Microsoft. They are closed implementations to everyone else. Popularity has NOTHING to do with what is and is not a standard.
Somebody with a debugger who knows better would catch them at it sooner or later. I don't think even Shrub could save them from the fallout THAT would generate.
So take a disposable Celeron box and stuff in video capture hardware and an appropriate load of software. Techies can roll their own Tivo if push comes to shove.
Say how is this for a workaround? Build a board to extract the video directly from the circuit board that plugs into the back of the tube. It shouldn't be a big deal to get blanking, sync, luma, RGB and friends. Add some buffering circuitry and record the result with hardware that has zero respect for embedded watermarks or control bits that escape this process. If they really want to get nasty and Gloopstick every bit of electronics they can find in the monitor then we can counter this as well.
How difficult would it be to extract this information from the monitor itself? I think a really good DSP engineer might be able to sync up a camera pointed right at a monitor. Sure the video quality will suffer a little but if the camera scanning and blanking can be synced up to the monitor's scanning and blanking then we have them nailed.....no matter what they do.
GTIA equipped Ataris (basically made after 1982 or so...400/800s could be upgraded with it) could display 256 colors. To do it, one put the machine in Graphics mode 9 which allowed one 16 different luminances for one hue and painted 16 vertical stripes on the screen. An assembly language routine was then used to interrupt the graphics processor(ANTIC) and insert a different hue for that scanline. Sixteen hues were available for that scanline value and the screen is already painted with 16 vertical luminance bands thus 256 hue/brightness combinations on the screen at once. And no, you couldn't paint all over the screen with any arbitrary color you wanted. These high color displays had to be carefully planned.
Most of the people behind the 8-bit Atari's chipset went on to develop the Amiga's chipset. Jay Miner was the most notable of these. It is ironic that many Commodore 64 design alumni wound up on the team that developed the Atari ST.
But they are awkward. A CDR can be had for twenty cents or less and burned at 8X or better. The first thing I do with new CDs is to immediately rip and mp3 them. It is a one time automated process. MP3 mix cds can be made from my mp3 server very quickly.
That means I have my mix cd in about 10 minutes or so rather than waiting for the Minidisc to fill up in real time. If Minidiscs were a data format (commonly availiable as such!!) rather than a media/audio format then I would like them a lot more. Ditto for "mp to minidisc" conversion software. The mp3 has to be converted to atrac and written at 1x to the disc. Make it no conversion and usable as a fast superfloppy in a player than can be firmware adapted to play ANY digital audio format and I'll be the first to buy it.
When "make uninstall" is just as common and easy I'll agree. As it is, when I install things from tarballs, I just make a text file out of the crap that scrolls down my screen. Uninstalling using this text file is a PITA and may not get everything. I tried installwatch a couple times but when installwatch dumps core half the time its rather useless.
The 800XLs had slightly different firmware from the original 400/800. The Translator trapped out the 800XLs firmware and loaded the original 400/800 firmware into 16K of ram that was mapped in the same locations the OS roms. And yes, this had to be done with bankswitching. It was bad on one hand because 16K was generally unavailable to BASIC (short of using some really dodgy assembly language tricks). It was good because the OS of the machine could be swapped out for other things entirely.
Incandescent bulbs are not inherently short lived. They have been known to last for years burning continually. Cycling is what kills bulbs. Think about it. A cold bulb has very little resistance and there is a tremendous amount of inrush current when initially powered up. This current heats the filament and the heating increases resistance thus limiting the current to reasonable levels. During the switchover from cold/low resistance to hot/high resistance, the filament expands and fairly large amount of material is sputtered from it. The same thing happens in reverse when the bulb is switched off. (This property also means that a small incandescent bulb can be an excellent power regulation component.) The filament contracts and SOME of the tungsten vapor is redeposited back on the filament. Most of the tungsten vapor condenses back on the walls of the bulb. Turning a bulb on and off is just like flexing a piece of solid core wire back and forth....a piece of wire that gets thinner each time you flex it. You may have noticed that your porch and garage lights often last for years. Even a 100 watt interior bulb can last through several months of regular cycling.
This reminds me of another factor for incandescent longevity: power. A 40 watt bulb doesn't get as hot and will last far longer than that 100 watt bulb.
I once read about a 40 watt bulb at a firestation that burned continously for 16 years! Does anyone remember a primary source of info for this? It may have been one of those yellow sodium jobbers which are possibly the longest lived incandescents of all. When using low power and continous duty cycles, incandescents can last a long time indeed.
Come to think of it, 40 hours was the amount of time the first practical incandescents lasted. This was over a hundred years ago and I do believe they have perfected them somewhat since then!
Of course, none of this addresses being dropped and moved about. Even a 40W bulb is a power pig compared to an LED unit that may be far brighter and efficient using less power.
I used to work as an instrumentation tech at a company that rented Industrial Hygiene and Environmental Remediation instruments. These were things like portable flame ionization detectors and geiger counters. We also rented some big stuff like Gas Chromatographs with Mass Spectrometer detectors.
We had to calibrate, maintain, repair, and ready the instruments for rental. We also had to take support calls for the instruments. Many people rented our stuff after finding out what it costs to have an Industrial Hygienist examine a workplace. Needless to say, this was a nightmare. I once spent 20 minutes trying to explain how to put a windscreen on the microphone of a sound level meter. I've spent over hour talking completely clueless warehouse guys through calibrating gas detectors. If the instrument could be interfaced to a PC to dump logged data then I got to deal with both instrument and serial port problems. Yay!!
It got bad enough that the techs would fight over who had to take the support calls coming in. We would seize on any technicality to stick the guy on the next bench over with it. Of course, I got stuck with all the datalogging instrument calls.....at least they paid me extra to do the "computer stuff".
Working a helpdesk was my idea of hell just because of the talking to stupid people aspect. If I had to deal with an especially abusive management along the ultra regimented environment then I would have to bring an uzi to work. There is no way in hell I would ever take a helpdesk job.
I've seen a fair amount posts that read something like: "You whiny fanboys will NEVER be satisfied and have nothing better to do than pick nits. C'mon! It is awesome....." Bullshit! Harrison made a big deal in interviews of following the book closely. The drubbings are well deserved. There were a fair number of things that were questionable but forgivable like the butterfly guild navigator but things were going downhill well before then.
Paul is depicted as a petulant spoiled brat. What the hell was up with him getting an attitude with Gurney and throwing his shield belt on the floor? His personality didn't improve much after that either. All of the Duke's lieutenants are badasses who can give orders with hand gestures. Where did they find this used up preachifying idiot? The Paul of the book was disciplined, loved his mentors and VERY competent.
The pain box scene was a total waste. This mysterious woman shows up to torture Paul's hand just because "He's getting Bene Gesserit training too." There was nothing at all about the difference between a human being and an animal who happens to walk on two legs. Come to think it, no explanation of the Bene Gesserit is offered whatsover. They're just these strange women who can order Jessica around and torture hands.
The Atreides in the book were painfully aware they were being set up but they hoped they would be able to find their way out of the trap. These Atreides are goony faced fools who are delighted at all the money and influence this is going to bring them. There is also no real introduction to Paul's mentors other than the total botch of a Gurney. "Singing soprano." Sheesh!
They completely glossed over Yueh's betrayal. If he wasn't wearing one of those stupid hats I would have been hard pressed to tell him from Thufir (say, what happened to the Butlerian Jihad and the subsequent need for human computer/advisors? We aren't even properly introduced to him before he betrays the Duke...yeah they explain it afterwards but it's totally one-dimensional. Yueh was an anquished soul thirsting revenge against the Baron. Not this wooden martinet SERIOUSLY expecting to be reunited with his wife.
I could go on and on about the wooden acting and the shallow (and dead wrong) characterizations but my hands would get seriously tired. I WILL touch on the unforgivable travesty they made out of the dinner party scene. The book's dinner party featured cuttingly witty schemers probing for weaknesses. The series dinner party is nothing more than a device to wrongly insert Irulan into the story. This was predictably followed by some 90210 romantic tension with Paul. It was made clear in the book that Paul did not like her and only used her as a means to ascend the Imperial throne. He never even consummated the marriage.
I'm aware that some artistic license has to be exercised to adapt a large story to the screen. In short, I know some things have to be cut and condensed but ADDING anything whatsover is unforgivable especially when important details have been glossed over. Harrison should have his artistic license revoked. (And yes, that means he can't play Chromium or read his mail with XFmail either:-)
Is this the wanker whose idea of utopia is the
ubiquitous existance of "truth machines" that
make all forms of dishonesty "impossible"? As if
politicians won't find technological means to
nullify the truth machines....while requiring
everyone else to have no protection.
I've worked on them now and again. Those fuckers are full of crap components that are hemmed in by sharp edges and held in with slide fittings that cause the drives to FLY out when they finally come lose. They usually draw some blood when I have to dive into one. I HATE Craperd Bells!!! I'm very delighted that these cheezebags went out of business. It means there won't be any new Craperds to slice me into ribbons. Be sure and wear gardeners gloves if you ever decide to work on one. I think they subcontracted their case manufacturing to Ginsu. Don't bother with the gloves. Just chuck the nasty things into a dumpster. If you find one in a dumpster....LEAVE it there.
The bulk of gcc development is done on the x86 portion of it's capabilities. The performance between a 400Mhz G3 and a 400Mhz Pentium running various Linux apps tends to come out about even. Sure the G3 has things going for it that should make it perform better but gcc doesn't optimize as well as it could for it. Now if gcc generated highly optimized G3 code........
A few photosensitive cells could serve survival purposes for say an otherwise eyeless fish. Say to know when it's favorite photoplankton food is floating about the the surface.
Eyes with exceedingly simple structures would appear first. Such eyes wouldn't do as much but they wouldn't have to. Think of a simple photocell versus a 3 ccd Megapixel camera. Which comes first? Once the initial sensor is in place, it can go on to evolve lenses, movement muscles, etc. etc.
Eyeballs are actually a rather poor creationist argument. I vastly prefer misinterpretations of the laws of thermodynamics. THOSE arguments at least have some real meat on them.
'Who' strongly presupposes some sort of diety. Why can't the dice rolling mechanism be a 'what'?
Even if the Great Green Arkleseizure is rolling the dice then how did it get here? Will we even care after the coming of the Great Hankerchief?
For the most part, I have to agree with you. Back in the day, I had about 100 2600 carts and boy did they ever get cheap during the Great Videogame Crash. A bunch of them were variants of the sidescrolling Defender genre, a few Pole Position clones and so on. Even then originality was becoming a problem.
Nonetheless there were some gems. Did you ever get in the zone playing Kaboom? Didn't you really hate it when your paddle controller started going flakey? Combat with the complex maze and bouncing shots was the bomb. The blocky graphics didn't matter. Coming back from behind and getting revenge during the last fifteen seconds did. Four player Warlords with Catch the Ball and Fast Release could get absolutely personal.
The 2600 didn't make those games great. The 2600 IS crap. But the best of the games made for it shine because they are good ideas implemented well. Another poster wrote something like "If you take away the awesome graphics, will your game still be fun to play. If not, then your game is shallow." I would like to see some early eighties designs vastly enhanced by what is possible now. Perverting Frogger into a FPS is not quite what I have in mind.
*If Linux desktops become good enough to replace Windows desktops, we could see Windows driven into the "niche" category. In that case, a $1000 price tag would not be unrealistic at all.*
Even if Linux desktops (and by extension the BSDs since they can run the Big DEs as well) completely match or exceed Windows feature for feature, there is still a lot of inertia and brand loyalty to contend with. I don't see Microsoft being consigned to a dusty grave just yet..even though I would LOVE to see it happen. However, they ARE in the process of losing their ability to be uncontested standard setters (and perverters). Linux and it's brethren are going to put Microsoft into it's place NOT destroy them. The sheer power of Microsoft's billions will not dissipate in a magical poof of smoke. It will take more than a bucket of water to kill this witch.
There is at least one good thing that will come of this. Linux and the BSDs being free will set the minimum standard of competance. Anything that costs money will have to be at least as good as them. This means Microsoft has to clean up their technical act REGARDLESS of what they charge for their stuff.
And when I duplicated the partitions, I was able to mount them using the Amiga Fast Filesystem kernel driver. Shweet! I got a really nifty external SCSI drive in exchange for recovering that drive. Now we're waiting for an Amiga emulator with the stuff to play Rocketz.
dd has been the Swiss Army Chainsaw of Strange Device Recovery for me. I've even made a custom bootfloppy, dd'ed it into an image, scp'ed the image onto my buddie's router with a blank disk sitting in it, and then created the floppy for him all the way across town. Give me two letter UNIX commands any day!
RMS comments on "forgivness" struck me more as a LEGAL statement than a MORAL statement. Trolltech is releasing QT/Free Edition under the GPL making it perfectly legal to link any other GPLed code to it. If FSF copyrighted code is linked to this QT then all will be well. I believe that RMS was trying to say any past linking of FSF (NOT GPLed code in general...just the stuff owned by the FSF so put down yer flamethrower 'kay?) owned code will not be pursued as long as the GPLed QT is used for this purpose in the future.
A new QT release being GPLed does NOT resolve past legal ambiguities if FSF code was linked against "old" QT. RMS' "forgiveness" removes another set of legal ambiguities. He was responding to TrollTech's actions in kind. I'll grant that his way of doing it was a little abrasive but isn't the act more important than the way he said it?
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The government could insist that any technology of Microsoft's that it uses adhere to those standards. They could furthermore insist on having NO trouble reading and EDITING documents documents made with non government versions of their products. Otherwise, it's no fat contract for you. Or, even better, the government will refuse to use ANY form of Microsoft's products unless ALL APIs and file formats are exhaustively, clearly and CORRECTLY defined. This might embolden some of Microsoft's other large customers to insist on the same thing. If this played out correctly then Microsoft doesn't have to be broken up, subjected to government oversight, or reveal their source code that no one here would want anyway.
Standards contain definitions that tell one how to implement them. For instance, the meter is defined as a particular number of oscillations of a particular wavelength of light. Furthermore, the standard details what substance needs to be excited in a specific fashion to produce that light. Now that is a standard. It is nonetheless a standard even though most people in the US don't use it (though it is everywhere else).
Tell me, where do I find out how to make my own import filter for Word (one that will actually WORK that is)? Microsoft's "standards" are only standards WITHIN Microsoft. They are closed implementations to everyone else. Popularity has NOTHING to do with what is and is not a standard.
Somebody with a debugger who knows better would catch them at it sooner or later. I don't think even Shrub could save them from the fallout THAT would generate.
So take a disposable Celeron box and stuff in video capture hardware and an appropriate load of software. Techies can roll their own Tivo if push comes to shove.
Say how is this for a workaround? Build a board to extract the video directly from the circuit board that plugs into the back of the tube. It shouldn't be a big deal to get blanking, sync, luma, RGB and friends. Add some buffering circuitry and record the result with hardware that has zero respect for embedded watermarks or control bits that escape this process. If they really want to get nasty and Gloopstick every bit of electronics they can find in the monitor then we can counter this as well.
How difficult would it be to extract this information from the monitor itself? I think a really good DSP engineer might be able to sync up a camera pointed right at a monitor. Sure the video quality will suffer a little but if the camera scanning and blanking can be synced up to the monitor's scanning and blanking then we have them nailed.....no matter what they do.
GTIA equipped Ataris (basically made after 1982 or so...400/800s could be upgraded with it) could display 256 colors. To do it, one put the machine in Graphics mode 9 which allowed one 16 different luminances for one hue and painted 16 vertical stripes on the screen. An assembly language routine was then used to interrupt the graphics processor(ANTIC) and insert a different hue for that scanline. Sixteen hues were available for that scanline value and the screen is already painted with 16 vertical luminance bands thus 256 hue/brightness combinations on the screen at once. And no, you couldn't paint all over the screen with any arbitrary color you wanted. These high color displays had to be carefully planned.
Most of the people behind the 8-bit Atari's chipset went on to develop the Amiga's chipset. Jay Miner was the most notable of these. It is ironic that many Commodore 64 design alumni wound up on the team that developed the Atari ST.
But they are awkward. A CDR can be had for twenty cents or less and burned at 8X or better. The first thing I do with new CDs is to immediately rip and mp3 them. It is a one time automated process. MP3 mix cds can be made from my mp3 server very quickly.
That means I have my mix cd in about 10 minutes or so rather than waiting for the Minidisc to fill up in real time. If Minidiscs were a data format (commonly availiable as such!!) rather than a media/audio format then I would like them a lot more. Ditto for "mp to minidisc" conversion software. The mp3 has to be converted to atrac and written at 1x to the disc. Make it no conversion and usable as a fast superfloppy in a player than can be firmware adapted to play ANY digital audio format and I'll be the first to buy it.
>you can't beat ./configure and make install.
When "make uninstall" is just as common and easy I'll agree. As it is, when I install things from tarballs, I just make a text file out of the crap that scrolls down my screen. Uninstalling using this text file is a PITA and may not get everything. I tried installwatch a couple times but when installwatch dumps core half the time its rather useless.
The 800XLs had slightly different firmware from the original 400/800. The Translator trapped out the 800XLs firmware and loaded the original 400/800 firmware into 16K of ram that was mapped in the same locations the OS roms. And yes, this had to be done with bankswitching. It was bad on one hand because 16K was generally unavailable to BASIC (short of using some really dodgy assembly language tricks). It was good because the OS of the machine could be swapped out for other things entirely.
Incandescent bulbs are not inherently short lived. They have been known to last for years burning continually. Cycling is what kills bulbs. Think about it. A cold bulb has very little resistance and there is a tremendous amount of inrush current when initially powered up. This current heats the filament and the heating increases resistance thus limiting the current to reasonable levels. During the switchover from cold/low resistance to hot/high resistance, the filament expands and fairly large amount of material is sputtered from it. The same thing happens in reverse when the bulb is switched off. (This property also means that a small incandescent bulb can be an excellent power regulation component.) The filament contracts and SOME of the tungsten vapor is redeposited back on the filament. Most of the tungsten vapor condenses back on the walls of the bulb. Turning a bulb on and off is just like flexing a piece of solid core wire back and forth....a piece of wire that gets thinner each time you flex it. You may have noticed that your porch and garage lights often last for years. Even a 100 watt interior bulb can last through several months of regular cycling.
This reminds me of another factor for incandescent longevity: power. A 40 watt bulb doesn't get as hot and will last far longer than that 100 watt bulb.
I once read about a 40 watt bulb at a firestation that burned continously for 16 years! Does anyone remember a primary source of info for this? It may have been one of those yellow sodium jobbers which are possibly the longest lived incandescents of all. When using low power and continous duty cycles, incandescents can last a long time indeed.
Come to think of it, 40 hours was the amount of time the first practical incandescents lasted. This was over a hundred years ago and I do believe they have perfected them somewhat since then!
Of course, none of this addresses being dropped and moved about. Even a 40W bulb is a power pig compared to an LED unit that may be far brighter and efficient using less power.
We can DREAM can't we?
1. Mir is finally deorbited. 2. The Iridium sats are splashed. 3. The presidential election comes to an end.
I used to work as an instrumentation tech at a company that rented Industrial Hygiene and Environmental Remediation instruments. These were things like portable flame ionization detectors and geiger counters. We also rented some big stuff like Gas Chromatographs with Mass Spectrometer detectors.
We had to calibrate, maintain, repair, and ready the instruments for rental. We also had to take support calls for the instruments. Many people rented our stuff after finding out what it costs to have an Industrial Hygienist examine a workplace. Needless to say, this was a nightmare. I once spent 20 minutes trying to explain how to put a windscreen on the microphone of a sound level meter. I've spent over hour talking completely clueless warehouse guys through calibrating gas detectors. If the instrument could be interfaced to a PC to dump logged data then I got to deal with both instrument and serial port problems. Yay!!
It got bad enough that the techs would fight over who had to take the support calls coming in. We would seize on any technicality to stick the guy on the next bench over with it. Of course, I got stuck with all the datalogging instrument calls.....at least they paid me extra to do the "computer stuff".
Working a helpdesk was my idea of hell just because of the talking to stupid people aspect. If I had to deal with an especially abusive management along the ultra regimented environment then I would have to bring an uzi to work. There is no way in hell I would ever take a helpdesk job.
I've seen a fair amount posts that read something like: "You whiny fanboys will NEVER be satisfied and have nothing better to do than pick nits. C'mon! It is awesome....." Bullshit! Harrison made a big deal in interviews of following the book closely. The drubbings are well deserved. There were a fair number of things that were questionable but forgivable like the butterfly guild navigator but things were going downhill well before then.
:-)
Paul is depicted as a petulant spoiled brat. What the hell was up with him getting an attitude with Gurney and throwing his shield belt on the floor? His personality didn't improve much after that either. All of the Duke's lieutenants are badasses who can give orders with hand gestures. Where did they find this used up preachifying idiot? The Paul of the book was disciplined, loved his mentors and VERY competent.
The pain box scene was a total waste. This mysterious woman shows up to torture Paul's hand just because "He's getting Bene Gesserit training too." There was nothing at all about the difference between a human being and an animal who happens to walk on two legs. Come to think it, no explanation of the Bene Gesserit is offered whatsover. They're just these strange women who can order Jessica around and torture hands.
The Atreides in the book were painfully aware they were being set up but they hoped they would be able to find their way out of the trap. These Atreides are goony faced fools who are delighted at all the money and influence this is going to bring them. There is also no real introduction to Paul's mentors other than the total botch of a Gurney. "Singing soprano." Sheesh!
They completely glossed over Yueh's betrayal. If he wasn't wearing one of those stupid hats I would have been hard pressed to tell him from Thufir (say, what happened to the Butlerian Jihad and the subsequent need for human computer/advisors? We aren't even properly introduced to him before he betrays the Duke...yeah they explain it afterwards but it's totally one-dimensional. Yueh was an anquished soul thirsting revenge against the Baron. Not this wooden martinet SERIOUSLY expecting to be reunited with his wife.
I could go on and on about the wooden acting and the shallow (and dead wrong) characterizations but my hands would get seriously tired. I WILL touch on the unforgivable travesty they made out of the dinner party scene. The book's dinner party featured cuttingly witty schemers probing for weaknesses. The series dinner party is nothing more than a device to wrongly insert Irulan into the story. This was predictably followed by some 90210 romantic tension with Paul. It was made clear in the book that Paul did not like her and only used her as a means to ascend the Imperial throne. He never even consummated the marriage.
I'm aware that some artistic license has to be exercised to adapt a large story to the screen. In short, I know some things have to be cut and condensed but ADDING anything whatsover is unforgivable especially when important details have been glossed over. Harrison should have his artistic license revoked. (And yes, that means he can't play Chromium or read his mail with XFmail either
Is this the wanker whose idea of utopia is the
ubiquitous existance of "truth machines" that
make all forms of dishonesty "impossible"? As if
politicians won't find technological means to
nullify the truth machines....while requiring
everyone else to have no protection.
I've worked on them now and again. Those fuckers are full of crap components that are hemmed in by sharp edges and held in with slide fittings that cause the drives to FLY out when they finally come lose. They usually draw some blood when I have to dive into one. I HATE Craperd Bells!!! I'm very delighted that these cheezebags went out of business. It means there won't be any new Craperds to slice me into ribbons. Be sure and wear gardeners gloves if you ever decide to work on one. I think they subcontracted their case manufacturing to Ginsu. Don't bother with the gloves. Just chuck the nasty things into a dumpster. If you find one in a dumpster....LEAVE it there.
This is not a troll,.....
Nice try troll boy. I hope no one is stupid enough to bite this one.
'nuff said.
The bulk of gcc development is done on the x86 portion of it's capabilities. The performance between a 400Mhz G3 and a 400Mhz Pentium running various Linux apps tends to come out about even. Sure the G3 has things going for it that should make it perform better but gcc doesn't optimize as well as it could for it. Now if gcc generated highly optimized G3 code........
A few photosensitive cells could serve survival purposes for say an otherwise eyeless fish. Say to know when it's favorite photoplankton food is floating about the the surface.
Eyes with exceedingly simple structures would appear first. Such eyes wouldn't do as much but they wouldn't have to. Think of a simple photocell versus a 3 ccd Megapixel camera. Which comes first? Once the initial sensor is in place, it can go on to evolve lenses, movement muscles, etc. etc.
Eyeballs are actually a rather poor creationist argument. I vastly prefer misinterpretations of the laws of thermodynamics. THOSE arguments at least have some real meat on them.
'Who' strongly presupposes some sort of diety. Why can't the dice rolling mechanism be a 'what'? Even if the Great Green Arkleseizure is rolling the dice then how did it get here? Will we even care after the coming of the Great Hankerchief?
For the most part, I have to agree with you. Back in the day, I had about 100 2600 carts and boy did they ever get cheap during the Great Videogame Crash. A bunch of them were variants of the sidescrolling Defender genre, a few Pole Position clones and so on. Even then originality was becoming a problem.
Nonetheless there were some gems. Did you ever get in the zone playing Kaboom? Didn't you really hate it when your paddle controller started going flakey? Combat with the complex maze and bouncing shots was the bomb. The blocky graphics didn't matter. Coming back from behind and getting revenge during the last fifteen seconds did. Four player Warlords with Catch the Ball and Fast Release could get absolutely personal.
The 2600 didn't make those games great. The 2600 IS crap. But the best of the games made for it shine because they are good ideas implemented well. Another poster wrote something like "If you take away the awesome graphics, will your game still be fun to play. If not, then your game is shallow." I would like to see some early eighties designs vastly enhanced by what is possible now. Perverting Frogger into a FPS is not quite what I have in mind.
Never see twinkies on Iron Chef? Maybe, but I wouldn't put anything past Morimoto.
*If Linux desktops become good enough to replace Windows desktops, we could see Windows driven into the "niche" category. In that case, a $1000 price tag would not be unrealistic at all.*
Even if Linux desktops (and by extension the BSDs since they can run the Big DEs as well) completely match or exceed Windows feature for feature, there is still a lot of inertia and brand loyalty to contend with. I don't see Microsoft being consigned to a dusty grave just yet..even though I would LOVE to see it happen. However, they ARE in the process of losing their ability to be uncontested standard setters (and perverters). Linux and it's brethren are going to put Microsoft into it's place NOT destroy them. The sheer power of Microsoft's billions will not dissipate in a magical poof of smoke. It will take more than a bucket of water to kill this witch.
There is at least one good thing that will come of this. Linux and the BSDs being free will set the minimum standard of competance. Anything that costs money will have to be at least as good as them. This means Microsoft has to clean up their technical act REGARDLESS of what they charge for their stuff.
And when I duplicated the partitions, I was able to mount them using the Amiga Fast Filesystem kernel driver. Shweet! I got a really nifty external SCSI drive in exchange for recovering that drive. Now we're waiting for an Amiga emulator with the stuff to play Rocketz.
dd has been the Swiss Army Chainsaw of Strange Device Recovery for me. I've even made a custom bootfloppy, dd'ed it into an image, scp'ed the image onto my buddie's router with a blank disk sitting in it, and then created the floppy for him all the way across town. Give me two letter UNIX commands any day!
RMS comments on "forgivness" struck me more as a LEGAL statement than a MORAL statement. Trolltech is releasing QT/Free Edition under the GPL making it perfectly legal to link any other GPLed code to it. If FSF copyrighted code is linked to this QT then all will be well. I believe that RMS was trying to say any past linking of FSF (NOT GPLed code in general...just the stuff owned by the FSF so put down yer flamethrower 'kay?) owned code will not be pursued as long as the GPLed QT is used for this purpose in the future.
A new QT release being GPLed does NOT resolve past legal ambiguities if FSF code was linked against "old" QT. RMS' "forgiveness" removes another set of legal ambiguities. He was responding to TrollTech's actions in kind. I'll grant that his way of doing it was a little abrasive but isn't the act more important than the way he said it?