Ummm, NDS and Active Directory are not just different implementations of a standard, they're completely different pieces of software. They serve a similar purpose, but I honestly can't see how they could be objectively compared...
Here's a copy of a post I made on this same story that appeared on the Shugashack:
(disclaimer: I am very biased here, being a PSX owner and long-time MS hater)
OK, now that we know(?) something concrete about the X-Box,let's compare it to its obvious competitor, the PS2: - CPU: the X-Box may get "up to 1GHz" cpu, but its quite likely that the PS2's 300MHz chip will beat it out. We already know that the X-Box will be x86-based, which means we have an idea of how that "up to 1GHz" can perform. As various developers who already have development systems have pointed out, the strength of the "Emotion Engine" (blah, lame name) is its vector units. For comparison, 2 of the Athlon's FP units are also vector units, responsible for executing MMX and 3DNow instructions. The Emotion Engine has 10(!) *dedicated* vector units. Also, x86 cpus are 32bit, the EE is 128bit. - RAM: At first, it looks like the X-Box wins here, with 64MB over the PS2's 32MB. But it doesn't say what type is in the X-Box. We know that the PS2's 32MB is Rambus (whether that's good or not is open to debate)... More on the RAM in the OS section... - OS: "Windows Derived OS"? That's reason enough to stay as far away from this thing as possible. And as at least one other poster has noted, how much of that 64MB is this OS going to take up? Judging from what Epic has said about porting Unreal to the PS2, writing PS2 software is like using Glide: you're basically "coding to the metal". Programming for Windows and DirectX on the other hand, involves many layers of abstraction and results in many cycles being wasted in intermediary software. - modem: same as PS2 - other I/O: no info on the X-Box, but the PS2 will have IEEE1394, USB, and PCMCIA, and MS had better match that - DVD: same as PS2 - hard drive: OK, this is the big deal. Some ppl may look at this and say, "hey! the PS2 doesn't have an HDD at all! this r00lz!" Wrong. The PS2 will get by with 8MB memory cards, very similar to what the PSX has now. Sure it's not 4GB, but it costs a hell of a lot less too. But more important than the fact that it shouldn't need an HD is what having one enables. If you follow the link and read the blurb, it says "it also has a 4GB hard drive, which will allow you to download patches" OH SHIT. What is arguably THE best characteristic that consoles have over PC's? Stability. Console games never get patched, because they're shipped on read-only media. This naturally forces developers to make their games bug-free, and it works. With the opportunity given to developers to release crap now and patch it later, like PC devs do, they'll use it. Watch out. - upgradability: I've got the sinking feeling that the X-Box will be upgradeable. Fanatic PC gamers/console haters don't realize this, but upgradeability is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it allows the platform to evolve, on the other hand it *requires* the platform to evolve. Compare the PC to the PSX. Can a PC from 5+ years ago run Quake 3? No. But is a PSX game of today as far advanced past those of 5 years ago as Quake 3 is? Not really. So the technology level of a console's games stays pretty much constant for its lifespan. The upside here is that you've made your one-time hardware expenditure, and that's it! When I buy a PS2 for $200 (which IS the price it'll launch at, every console in recent memory has launched at that price, and Sony's not dumb enough to break that streak), that $200 will likely be the only money I spend on PS2 hardware for as long as I own the thing (other than memory cards, a 2nd controller, etc). However, if I buy even a $500 PC now, to play current games in a year or two I'll need to shovel more hundreds of dollars into it. I'm guessing that the X-Box will fall somewhere between these two extremes. - games: The other obvious advantage the PS2 has is games. One, there are already hundreds of PSX games that will play on it. Two, there are already many developers working on games for it. Three, several developers have contracts with Sony, most notably SquareSoft, so we know they'll be putting their games out on the PS2. As for the X-Box, who knows?
However, I will not deny the possibility that the X-Box could succeed. Microsoft has produced at least three good products (EDIT.COM, the original Natural KB, the Sidewinder pad), plus a few others that are decent but not stellar (Publisher, various mice). So I'll concede the possibility that the X-Box could mark another good product. We'll only know for sure when the thing actually comes out. Until then, however, I will remain VERY skeptical.
== Now for some stuff I've thought of since then: - video: Holy crap, the PS2's advertised triangle and fill rates are insane (although I forget what they are, 75MTriangles/s comes to mind...) And all that with only 4MB of video ram! 4MB, that according to psx2000.org, is linked to the gfx chip by a 2560-bit bus! Now, even if that's a typo, and is supposed to be 256 bits, it's still twice the width of any current PC video bus (unless you count the G400's dual 128 bit buses). - CPU: there were a lot of people on the 'shack who concluded that since the X-Box will have a 1GHz cpu, and the PS2 will only have a 300MHz cpu, that the X-Box will be significantly faster. Now, for some perspective on this, compare the GeForce to the Voodoo3. The former has a clock speed of 120MHz, the latter, up to 183MHz. Which is faster? That's right, the GeForce. Architectural superiority will put the PS2 on top. - price: the fact that this article projected a $149 launch price is indicative of one of two things, either: 1. this report is bogus, entirely rumor, totally worthless. or... 2. Microsoft is going to be selling these things at a loss (or very *slim* margin) in order to put the hurt on Sony. The reasoning behind this is, as I said above, that $200 is basically THE customary launch price. The SNES, PSX, and Dreamcast all hit the market sporting $199.99. Although EB is pre-ordering PS2's for $239, so it may be that inflation is catching up with us;) [and in light of that price, the X-Box launching at $150 is made that much less likely]
I can't imagine how ANYONE could tolerate playing a fighting game with the Dreamcast's controller. It's got what? 4 buttons on top and 2 trigger-type things in front? Marvel vs. Capcom is difficult enough playing on the PSX, with only 4 thumb buttons, but it also has 4 triggers, so you not only get buttons for each punch and each kick, but for the X3 stuff too, so Hypers are (relatively) easy to do.
In fact, I happen to think the Dreamcast controller has NO redeeming features AT ALL, and serves along with the N64 and Atari Jaguar as an example of how NOT to design a control pad. And what is this analog sticklet fad among console companies? I swear, those things'll be the downfall of console gaming.
OK, here's an odd question, all answers to which I openly welcome:
What is so *bad* about pornography? Specifically, how, exactly, does it "harm" children?
My own mind just can't seem to make the connection between naked women (or men...) and "harm" to a child. I remember when I was young (7? 8?) an older friend of mine had procured some smut rag or other and showed it to me. Needless to say, it has not turned me into a serial rapist, or an abusive boyfriend, or even a chauvinist pig. I'm sure millions have had an analogous experience, with equally non-existant results. And there's so much more than smut magazines and internet porn. What about Victoria's Secret catalogs? How far is that from "pornography"? Should we make VS ship their catalogs in black plastic so no children are "harmed" by images of mostly-naked English women in suggestive poses? The little Sunday ad booklets from Target, Sears, K-Mart, etc. have lingerie in them, should they be censored too? How about the black&white ads in the paper itself? I just don't get it, so maybe you guys can help me out here?
This doesn't seem to be Corporate America not realizing that the 'net has NON-techies, but the other way around. Joe Q. NetSurfer loves image-happy sites, even if they take ages to load. It's the techies that browse with images off, or with Lynx, and like to see text-based navigation and alt= tags.
Anyway, it is a problem, but the best way to vote is with your wallet, so to speak. I buy a lot of computer hardware, as I'm sure much of us do, and I tend not to buy from vendors whose sites are bogged down with images, Java[Script], or, I shudder to think, Macromedia. And I outright refuse to buy from vendors whose sites don't work at all in Linux Netscape. For this pharmaceutical company, the story is a bit different. I imagine they're not conducting any actual commerce on their site, merely offering information. But the same principle can still be applied: browsing their site is a pain? Go elsewhere! And if you feel strongly about it, write the webmaster to tell them why you've decided to take your business elsewhere.
You're absolutely right that SDMI is the consumer's worst nightmare, that's the idea. The only interest the RIAA has in preserving artists' copyrights is insofar as it makes them money. Thus, the point of SDMI is to make copying music as difficult as possible. Unfortunately, as we all know, being able to freely copy data is totally essential to the proper function of most computerized tasks. If I can't move my file from here to there, what good is it? The RIAA, whose board of directors must have an 8-track in its office, doesn't get this.
Back when SDMI was first announced and starting getting "industry supporters", I predicted this would happen (not to toot my own horn or anything...). The beauty of MP3 is its simplicity, and SDMI ruins that. Fortunately for us, this may be one area where big media conglomerates that see themselves as omnipotent may not be able to fool a sufficient number of consumers for their lame-brained efforts to succeed. From my point of view, it's far more convenient and cost effective for me to spend my money on even a MiniDisc rig than an SDMI device. In fact, ANY current alternative beats SDMI, even plain old compact discs. What's more, I think that most consumers will see it a similar way. The hassle of SDMI will outweight the benefits of a digital, solid-state playback device, and consumers will turn up their buyer-regret meters and go back to whatever they were using before. I hope.
A lot of linux users/advocates are making the mistake of taking broadening the user base as an unwritten ethic. I'll tell you what, I'd really like to see Linux get better hardware support, more software, blah blah blah, but if the price is dumbing it down to the level of the average user, and having the community flooded with morons, I'd prefer the status quo.
As someone said, OSS programmers have tended to put functionality far, far ahead of making pretty and intuitive interfaces. And really, that's the way I like it. To paraphrase from Allen Holub's great book, _Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself In the Foot_, we musn't confuse ease-of-learning with ease-of-use. MS Word is relatively easy to learn: it has buttons with pictures, lots of visual metaphors, decent help, and that damned office assistant. But it's hard to USE. To anyone who learns Word's basic ins and outs, and starts to get comfortable with it, it's "user friendly" features start throwing curveballs. In short, all the fluff designed to make it easy for new users to get into it makes it difficult for advanced users to stay with it. At the opposite end of the spectrum is vi. This little piece of ware has a totally un-intuitive UI. It's so complicated, it has it's own Nutshell book. But everyone who I know who's really taken the time to learn it, swears by it. A vi user has basically taught the commands to their fingers, and doesn't have to really think about what their doing, rather like a manual transmission in capable hands. Use of vi also doesn't require constantly losing momentum by having to go for the mouse. In short, it is difficult to LEARN, but easy to USE. (Another great example is Blender, www.blender.nl, a 3D rendering and modelling tool with the least intuitive interface you've ever laid hands/eyes on, but which is a breeze to use once you get the hang of it.)
Anyway, there's a lot of people who don't like this state of affairs. They think that we should all follow the lead of GNOME and KDE and their ilk, to copy the "successful" interfaces, in order to make Linux easier for the newbie (although I contend that those two projects have their own UI "issues" that make them bad examples). Go ahead and call me elitist, but I think the largest reason why this is a bad idea is that it will make Linux more marketable to the Best Buy/CompUSA crowd. You see, until now, the rude state of unix UI's has served to make it the domain of knowledgeable people. People who know that their computer won't work during a power outage, that their CDROM is not a cupholder, the difference between memory and disk space, that they can't order the 'net on a CD, et cetera. In short, non-morons. But people who buy commodity PC's and Macs, are, for the most part, morons, at least when it comes to applying some sense to computer use. The great majority of users are resentful that they can't just sit down and "get it", that they have to think and learn. They get angry when something doesn't work to their own unreasonable expectation, and usually take it out on whoever is trying to help them. From working in a small custom PC shop for 7 months, I encountered, studied, and catalogued quite a few morons. The only really important thing about them is this: I *don't* want them using Linux. Hell, I don't want them using a COMPUTER! These people should have those web-pad thingies.
So to those who cry that Linux UI's are in a horrific state, I say "so &%$#@*! what?" There certainly are some UI's, and many configuration schemes, that are not only difficult for newbies but for advanced users, and those DO need work. But just because you have to sit down and -- the horror! -- read the documentation before you can successfully handle a UI doesn't make it bad. In essence, we shouldn't start a crusade to fix UI's that aren't really broken.
Even though I really suck at it, Homeworld would be a good game to port. Since it has software and OpenGL renderers besides the D3D one, it shouldn't be too hard either...
And for anyone who says Starcraft is "too old", come on. People still play Quake. Starcraft epitomizes its genre, and today is still nearly as featureful and often more fun than newer RTS games. Hell, I just got the thing and I can't tell that it's "old"...
It's so good to hear fellow/.'ers expressing Libertarian views, especially without making it blatanly clear that one is doing so, like I always feel the need to;)
It's so hard to convince people that gov't funding is always bad. We say, "the gov't shouldn't be funding nanotech research." And people say, "What, you're opposed to nanotech development?!" as if we're some kind of heretics. But that's not what we said! The issue is that the gov't is stealing (yes, taxes = theft) copious amounts of money from us constantly, and it doesn't matter WHAT they spend it on, the mere fact that they have it at all is completely unethical and, in the words of Frederic Bastiat, "a perversion of the law".
If you're not a member already, I suggest you join the party! http://www.lp.org
Being won over by internet presence? WTF? How about we choose a candidate based on their politics and principles? Internet or no internet, my vote goes to Harry Browne.
I'm sure Jon has participated in many other online discussion systems besides this one, as have most of its readers and posters, but I think that when we get to discussing online forums here, our minds may be subconsciously defaulting to considering the Slashdot system. Slashdot's comment system is far from perfect, as is every online forum. But I think the specific problems it experiences are very related to its specific shortcomings. These may have arisen through conscious choices on the part of the system's designers, or they may be accidental. Here they are:
- Comments are always attached to stories. Because it's impossible to just go into a generic forum and start up a discussion about the topic of one's choice, some posters feel the need to post offtopic messages or even attempt to "hijack" a thread or whole discussion. My own pet topic is libertarian politics, but hours, days, weeks can go by without an appropriate story to post my thoughts to (though for that particular topic, I usually have quite a few opportunities). On the other hand, I've never seen a system where comments could be attached to stories OR seperate. At the Shugashack, they're attached to stories. At ArsTechnica, they're totally seperate. Many times at Ars, a story will say "take your thoughts to the forum!" or whatever, but it's often left up to the readers to start a new thread, and rarely is a link provided to it. The mythical "ideal" discussion system probably would exist as a mix of these two, with comments about stories, and a seperate space for standalone discussion.
- Threading, and the other default comment options. Though Slashdot provides very robust functionality for custom comment viewing, the default is still threaded, oldest first. Since this is the format used by all non-logged-in users and anyone who hasn't changed it, it's what shapes the discussions. At the Shugashack, where there is no customization, and comments are always displayed flat, newest first, the flow of discussion is very different. First posts, while still an issue, are eclipsed very quickly, and on stories with a large number of comments (100+), many posters and readers will never see them at all. But a larger issue than "first posters" is the amount of attention a comment receives as it relates to when it's posted. At the Shugashack, those most likely to see your comment are those reading the comments immediately after you post it. But at Slashdot, there is an opposing and very complex system at work. First, the default viewing parameters mean that the first few posts will get the most eyeballs. Moderation is also very influential since its effects are enabled by default. Probably the worst factor though, is the difference in attention between new threads and replies. Since the display defaults to threaded, the first post in a thread is far more prominently displayed, and naturally gets the bulk of the attention. Threads are important to organized discussion of a sub-topic, but I cannot excuse the way they short-shrift replies. I voice my favor for the UBB style, where messages are divided into threads, but displayed "flat" within them. Again, I must emphasize that it's the DEFAULT system that shapes the flow of the discussions. Related to the fact that the first posts get more eyeballs is a problem wherein after a certain number of posts, new posts become essentially invisible. Depending on interest in the story, this number ranges from about 100 to 300. In fact, this post itself is hardly worth making, as the front page comment meter is showing 383 comments already posted, thus reducing the likelihood of this message being seen to near nil. I do really think that if nothing else ever changes, the default display method should become NEWEST messages first, so that new opinions are not drowned out an hour or two after a story goes up. I can't count the number of stories that I've felt a burning need to comment on but not bothered since there were already a couple of hundred posts.
- Unwillingness to nuke abuses. I'm a very outspoken proponent of free speech, but only insofar as we're talking about the *government* regulating speech. As a private organization (of sorts), Slashdot, or any other site, is perfectly within everyone's rights to decide what is and is not appropriate. There's free speech, and then there's bullshit. I mean really, if some AC (or registered user, for that matter) posted a message that looked, in it's entirety, about like this:
I mean, what use is that? That's not productive discussion, it's a waste of bandwidth. What's more, if that were a reply, the subject line could be used to disguise it as a real post, so that the hapless reader this moron is abusing didn't know it until the time and bandwidth had already been wasted. As it is, the default threshold is 0, and most worthless posts get taken down to -1 pretty quickly. But oftimes, since I browse at 2 for a quick "Reader's Digest" version of the comments, I'll want to get into more detail and click the "XX replies below your current threshold" link. Unfortunately, when I do so, I get all the -1 "you suck", "get out, Katz!", and "first post!" BS right alongside the worthwhile 0's and 1's. I really think there is a case for just outright nuking some of the really abusive and pointless posts, but I think the priveledge to do it should be very restricted. Say, all those with story posting priveledges and 50 or so of those they trust. A log of nuked posts could be generated and examined by Rob and Jeff to look for abuses of nuking. Anyway, just a suggestion.
And now for some thoughts on flame itself. When I had an article of mine published on OS Opinion, I was prepared to be disagreed with (it was a very controversial view). But I was not prepared for the medium-well roasting I received. It truly laid heavy on my soul, making me feel as stupid as the flamers truly were. But the encouraging words of a few intelligent respondents were, as Katz has repeatedly related, enough to keep me going and convince me I wasn't horribly in the wrong. This experience taught me the same fear and respect for flame as one should have for power tools and firearms: it can kill you, but not if you treat it correctly. But I digress. My real view is that flame is important to our evolution as people who interact with others. From everywhere I am bombarded by images and stories of people who are far far far too sensitive, and the U.S.'s illness of rampant litigation can turn a petty insult or spot of poor service into a multi-million dollar issue. People really need to realize that they don't have the right to not be offended. That's what free speech is all about, being able to say whatever you want as long as it does not endanger anyone. If I say "fuck" aloud out on the street, there's no way anyone, not even a parent with a small child, can reasonably claim that I've done them any harm. Anyone who says otherwise really doesn't have their priorities straight. But I'm somewhat afraid to do just that, for fear that some numbnuts with a lawyer will accuse me of violating their personal linguistic space or whatever and sue me for a million or ten. In short, it is the right of any online community to moderate and/or nuke flames, but the users and proprietors of any such system should think it over carefully, because flame is not 100% without value (if nothing else, it's often funny).
I just can't resist putting my opinion in on this one. Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is a CRAPPY GAME. Last xmas, I picked up quite a few FPS games, including Shogo, SiN, Half-Life, and Heretic II (close enough). By far, Shogo was the worst. It's not toally without redeeming qualities: the LithTech engine itself is rather nice, and is praiseworthy for it's excellent performance relative to other engines of the time. But what I'm really talking here is the content, not the technology. At the same time that SiN and Half-Life were raising environmental interactivity to all new heights, Shogo was less interactive than Quake. And it's AI was pathetic. Enemies would run in place against walls that partially blocked their path, had no concepts of avoiding fire, and in general just acted stupid. The on-foot missions were excruciatingly difficult, owing to the somewhat realistic representation of how many bullets a human body can take (this is a case where gameplay should have trumped realism). Basically, Shogo was a step backward for the FPS genre, not a step forward like Half-Life (although that game was certainly not without its problems, and was hardly deserving of the 11 out of 10 that PCXL gave it). I will admit that many of the weapons were pretty neat, and that the on-foot/in-robot dual modes of gameplay was pretty innovative, but these small points failed to redeem the game. What I do feel really did it for many is its use of anime... sort of. The only anime elements I really saw were the bizarre plot, the character mugshots, and the giant-robot influence.
The above is true for Blood II as well, only no anime.
But Monolith does have other games... Septerra Core has won that same "critical acclaim", though my RPG'ing friends are divided as to whether it's decent or totally blows. I'll reserve my own judgment until I can play the demo. Monolith's other RPM, Odium, I have heard nothing about, though I intend to secure its demo as well.
At any rate, more game houses porting their wares to Linux is always a Good Thing(tm) I guess. But realistically, until the hardware support infrastructure for 3D games has matured and the stability of the Linux releases is good enough for them to be "supported" (some are there now), I will continue to game in Windows...
I'm really looking forward to a full release of Mozilla since it'll finally mean a stable graphical browser for Linux (right?). But, having used Netscape browsers for so long, there's a few bugs/features that I'm worried will still be around to bother me. So I'd like to list my irks with Netscape and anyone who has used the most recent milestones can tell me (and all of us) if Mozilla still does them. The reason I don't just try it myself is that it requires glibc2.1 which I don't have and can't upgrade to. (please don't reply just telling me to upgrade / use LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc, I've heard it before) Thank you.
1. Blocking DNS lookups. Why is it that UNIX Netscapes have always shut down every single browser window while it's doing a name lookup? I mean, WTF?!?!?!
2. Deleting incomplete downloads. With Netscape it's always been that if you're downloading, say, a 50MB game demo and your ISP kicks you off when you have about 49MB, you're just %$#@ed, cuz it deletes the partial file. I imagine this is to "protect" clueless users from their own stupidity, but it'd be nice if there was at least a toggle for it, or even better, a continue option.
3. Cursor keys in the location bar. The guys at Netscape probably think this is a feature instead of a bug. I click in the location bar, put in a URL, hit Enter. The page loads. I've read the first screenful and want to scroll down, so I hit the down arrow or PgDn. Buuuuuut, my cursor is still in the location bar so instead of scrolling, I go whizzing back to some seemingly random site from my location history. AAAAAAAARGH!!! %$#@!!! I'd settle for being able to toggle the drop-down feature of the location bar.
4. The "Personal Toolbar Folder". Ugh, this is just lame. Why can't I just remove it from my bookmarks and be done with it? Why does Netscape feel such an urgent need to burden my bookmark list with a folder full of crap I won't use?
5. Copious number of toolbar buttons. With auto load images off, 4.7 has 11 toolbar buttons. And since Stop is way off to the right, I have to either browse with a really wide window or do show toolbar buttons as pictures only. It would be SOOOOO nice to be able to choose which of these buttons I really need. (and to have back the Find button, that was far more useful than Shop or My Netscape)
6. Resizing causes the page to reload. I don't know why, but on some sites, if you resize the browser window, Netscape feels the need to reload the whole thing. This is another WTF?!?!?! kind of thing.
on the off chance anyone actually reads this post:
The RIAA bugs the shit out of me (as does the MPAA). I understand that the labels and the artists have legal and voluntary contracts that give the recording companies the exclusive right to distribute their music, and that's fine. I do realize that when I download an MP3 from a CD I don't own and don't subsequently buy, I have hurt the label, and to a lesser extent, the artist. I do not know for sure, but I have heard that the artist's cut from a $15 CD is about 25 cents, and certainly under $1. Soooooo, if an album sells a million copies, assuming even the $1 figure, the artist receives $1,000,000 (only $400,000 if it's a quarter). BUT, a combination of hearsay and gut feeling says the LABEL gets, ohhhh, $5,000,000? My issue with the actions of the RIAA is that they're acting the typical corporate hypocrite. They *claim* that they're "looking out for the artists", or that it's somehow about the "artist's rights", blah blah blah. Assuming the figures I've used are not total fabrications, the label is getting anywhere from 5 to 20(!) times as much money as the artist is, so it's pretty obvious to anyone with a rudimentary grasp of arithmetic just WHOSE interests the RIAA is looking out for, eh? Something I considered doing is, when I have the chance, acquire a CDR copy of a CD I want, then send the artist a check for $5. That way, I end up paying maybe $2 to the friend who made me the copy (or myself I had a recorder), and $5 to the artist, netting myself basically a 50% discount off the retail price. Everyone's better off but the damned hypocritical labels. This is a moral stand against the labels' behavior of which I do not really approve. HOWEVER, I have not done this, and the reason is simple. On the back of my Libertarian Party membership card, it says this:
"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others do live in whatever manner they choose."
I really believe in that principle. And I know that when I deny the labels their cut, which they have arranged by legal and voluntary contract, I am "forcibly interfering" with their rights. So I have not embarked on my CDR-getting & check-mailing endeavor. I do still occasionally download MP3s and not buy the source album (usually for soundtrack songs and one-hit-wonders), or make a handful of MP3s from a friend's CD that's not good enough to earn my dollars. But on the bright side, and what the RIAA *totally* ignores, is that often I get an MP3 and it spurs me to buy a CD, or even several. Not too long ago, I got a couple of Type O Negative MP3s, "Haunted", and "Cinnamon Girl". Now I have 4 Type O CDs. If it weren't for what the RIAA blankets as "piracy", I doubt I ever would have discovered this wonderful music. If I'd never got to download Corrosion of Conformity's "Albatross", I never would have purchased "Deliverance". A whole bunch of Rammstein files I got a while back prompted me to buy both of their albums. Same story for Stabbing Westward. But there's a rub here, too. All 4 of those Type O CDs were purchased USED. So what? The thing is, when a CD is purchased by a distributor and subsequently sold to a retailer (or some other outlet), then and only then is a cut given to the label (and the artist). The Joe Q. Public who originally bought the copy of "October Rust" I have now did in fact help to line the pockets of Roadrunner Records, BUT I DID NOT (at least not directly). I have a feeling that the RIAA knows this, and secretly hates used record stores for that reason. But there's no way they could pass off a ban on used sales on any sane person. That's why, as an earlier very eloquent post noted, that all media distribution industries lust for self-destructing or limited-use media. Witness DIVX. It was great for the industry. It was like pay-per-view with media. But it sucked for the consumer, and we knew it, and we voted with our dollars. I don't know where I'm going with this, so I'll change the subject again.
The other thing I don't like about the RIAA's attempts to run MP3 out of town on a rail is they completely deny any legitimate use of the format. I'll tell you what, if there were no Internet, I would still dig MP3. Why? I'm no audiophile. I honestly can't tell the difference between a decent 128K/44KHz MP3 and a CD (or even between VHS and DVD most of the time). So rather than buying a 100 disc CD changer or whatever, it's perfectly convenient for me to make MP3s of the songs I really like and keep them on my computer(s). In my main music directory, I have 538 songs using about 2.8GB of space. I would guess that less than 100 of those songs are "illegitimate". Most of them are just copies of songs that I legitimately own and simply wish to have available in a different format. I don't want a Rio (or whatever) to play "Internet music", I want it because it's small, doesn't skip, and lets me mix'n'match my songs. But the RIAA doesn't dig that. In their minds (or at least their press releases), MP3=piracy. But their wrong, and that's why SDMI will fail (oh please oh please oh please). I, as a consumer, benefit not at all from SDMI over plain MP3. Nor, I would imagine, do any of the rest of us. And the wonderful thing is that since there is plenty of open-source software for the creation and playback of MP3 files, that no one, not the RIAA, not the US gov't, NO ONE CAN EVER TAKE IT AWAY. But the RIAA either doesn't see it, or just won't admit it, and that's their total logical disconnect.
here I go advancing my personal politcal agenda again...
Hey FCC, WHY IN THE FLYING FUCK IS THIS NECESSARY, HMMMM???!!!
I was at Best Buy the other day scoping out a new stereo, and I decide to wander through the TV section to check out this whole HDTV thing. Well, they've got this display of two equally-sized (56", yikes!) Panasonic TVs, one digial, one analog. Aside from a difference in their color settings (totally unrelated to technology differences), I simply could not tell the difference. And what's more, I didn't see any HDTV sets in reasonable sizes. If I wanna go digital, why can't I do it for less than four figures? I don't even have room in my house for a 50-some inch TV (much less the cash to afford one).
But... I do recognize that some people really do dig this digital TV thing, for whatever reason. I think they're crazy for it, but lots of people think *I'm* crazy for liking Trinitron screens. Go figure.
The point is that the government has ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS forcing me to buy a $3000 TV I don't want just to have the same functionality I have now, whether it's now or in 6 years. And if they succeed in making the relevant industries switch over by then, that's exactly what will be happening since I won't be able to watch digital signals on my old analog sets. Why is analog TV soooooo horrible that we've got to rid ourselves of it so quickly? As another poster noted, I'd rather have cable internet service than digital TV. Hell, I rarely watch TV at all. If the industry wants to take its sweet time figuring out a standard, then let's let it! I don't see how the FCC barging in and setting the standard (and making it law, to boot) would be beneficial to ANYONE.
As a free-market'er and a Libertarian, this pisses me off. It's time we start working to get the government out of our businesses and lives.
"Many areas still have legalized monoplies (the exact opposite of what should be happening in a market controlled partially by the government)."
You couldn't be more wrong. When the government controls a "market" (in quotes cuz it really stops being a market then, doesn't it?), legalized monopolies are what happens. In fact, that's the ONLY way a legalized monopoly can exist, just look at the words: LEGALized monopoly. When the local gov't grants an exclusive charter for a power company, cable company, phone company, taxi company, or whatever, that's a legalized monopoly. Only de-regulation can solve this problem.
/me goes into shameless advancement of personal political agenda mode...
Liberals love to censor. Anything the gov't can do to "improve" our lives, they wanna do it. Look at Al Gore. Yikes. Conservatives aren't as rampant, but they'll do it if it's in their interests. What with how many Republicans LIVE in the pocket of the Religious Right, it's amazing they're not MORE prone to censor than they are...
Do you support free speech in all its forms? Do you recognize that the gov't (of ANY body politic) has no right to regulate the Internet? You should be a Libertarian. There's only one party that supports YOUR rights:
Remember those scorching articles on Lucas and TPM by David Brin? Remember how he said that Lucas favors dictatorship over democracy? That's what's at work here, I believe. Lucas is playing dictator. For some bizarre, surely wacked-out reason, he doesn't want to put TPM on DVD alongside the VHS release. He doesn't CARE that the fans want it, cuz he's the dictator and he doesn't have to listen to "the people".
This is a perfect example of government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. Our (U.S.) gov't has soooooooooo many regulatory agencies doing things that mean well, but are pretty ridiculous when you sit down and think about them. And OSHA is one of the worst.
OSHA's job is basically to take the common sense of the workplace and make it law. Seems like a good idea on the surface, yes? Flip through the hundreds of binders that house the collected works of OSHA and you'll change your mind. They have rules about EVERYTHING. Railings must be EXACTLY 42 inches off the ground (IIRC), planks may not extend more than 3 feet beyond the edge of a scaffold, et cetera, ad naseum.
If I want to build my railings forty-FOUR inches off the ground, or maybe THIRTY-SIX! I can, but not if I want to pass a building inspection. Why don't I have the right to build my railings whatever height I want? And, more to the point, why shouldn't telecommuters have the right to as un-ergonomic of a workstation as they like, without their employer fearing an OSHA audit?
As geeks, we have a different perspective on workplace ergonomics than most. Many of us live at our keyboards and mice/trackballs/whatever. We're just BEGGING to acquire Repetitive Stress Injury (correct term?). But, as geeks, we should also realize that the only way to do it right is to do it yourself. Some gov't agency requiring your employer to meet some arbitrarily set standard is NOT the right way to do it. YOU should go to YOUR employer and say, "I require better ergonomics. I need a new keyboard, a desk that's X units high and a chair that's blah blah blah. And if you can't cut it, I'm out." You get the idea. I'm sure a lot of you are making $50,000/yr or more, your employer can afford to buy you a new chair at your request. And if they "can't", is that the kind of place you want to work? I know *I'd* prefer to work somewhere where the management cares enough about its employees to either on its own or at their behest provide an ergonomically sound working environment, rather than waiting until some tax-wasting gov't agency forces them to.
Our government simply has its grubby paws in too many aspects of our lives, and with OUR money to boot. Enough is enough.
I simply cannot believe that Mr. Kaku isn't willing to give Mills any credit. His own theory was labeled as total insanity when it was first proposed. In one of Kaku's papers that was written for the layman, he talked at length about how it's not whether physics theories are crazy, but whether they are "crazy enough". The fact that Mills' theories contradict such fundamental principles of physics should be considered a PLUS point, not grounds for dismissal.
That aside, Mills' claims seem to fall in to the too-good-to-be-true category. I won't invest any money in his endeavor, but I will stay optimistic.
And I liked Dr. Anderson;). The fact a (Nobel Laureate?) physicist would use "fuck" three times in one sentence talking to an interviewer is quite an admirable trait in my book;).
22%? More like 0.22%. I just don't buy any mental illness that doesn't have an identifiable physiological cause. ADHD? A total fabrication of psychiatrists. Its diagnosis results more often than not in a life-long dependency on drugs. Clinical Depression? Some people just can't bring themselves to feel good. Its a facet of their PERSONALITY, not a disease. Yes, Prozac can treat depression, the same way Heroin treats boredom. What the Surgeon General is really saying is that, as a representative of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and of the federal government, 22% of the US populous falls into one arbitrary category or another that "requires", in his estimation, some kind of (expensive) medication. This isn't about health, it's about PROFIT. As a free-market economist and libertarian, I love profit just as much as the next guy. But the one regulation I feel is absolutely necessary for ALL industries is 100% truth-in-advertising. And when they "diagnose" your kid with ADHD and cram Ritalin down his/her throat, or "diagnose" you with Depression, and cram Prozac down *your* throat, it's simple false advertising. Their selling you a product you don't need or want, with a huge profit margin, and a near-perfect repeat customer probability. It's more of a racket than an industry.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm, NDS and Active Directory are not just different implementations of a standard, they're completely different pieces of software. They serve a similar purpose, but I honestly can't see how they could be objectively compared...
MoNSTeR
What... The... Fuck...?!
;)
MoNsTeR
Here's a copy of a post I made on this same story that appeared on the Shugashack:
;) [and in light of that price, the X-Box launching at $150 is made that much less likely]
(disclaimer: I am very biased here, being a PSX owner and long-time MS hater)
OK, now that we know(?) something concrete about the X-Box,let's compare it to its obvious competitor, the PS2:
- CPU: the X-Box may get "up to 1GHz" cpu, but its quite likely that the PS2's 300MHz chip will beat it out. We already know that the X-Box will be x86-based, which means we have an idea of how that "up to 1GHz" can perform. As various developers who already have development systems have pointed out, the strength of the "Emotion Engine" (blah, lame name) is its vector units. For comparison, 2 of the Athlon's FP units are also vector units,
responsible for executing MMX and 3DNow instructions. The Emotion Engine has 10(!) *dedicated* vector units. Also, x86 cpus are 32bit, the EE is 128bit.
- RAM: At first, it looks like the X-Box wins here, with 64MB over the PS2's 32MB. But it doesn't say what type is in the X-Box. We know that the PS2's 32MB is Rambus (whether that's good or not is open to debate)... More on the RAM in the OS section...
- OS: "Windows Derived OS"? That's reason enough to stay as far away from this thing as possible. And as at least one other poster has noted, how much of that 64MB is this OS going to take up? Judging from what Epic has said about porting Unreal to the PS2, writing PS2 software is like
using Glide: you're basically "coding to the metal". Programming for Windows and DirectX on the other hand, involves many layers of abstraction
and results in many cycles being wasted in intermediary software.
- modem: same as PS2
- other I/O: no info on the X-Box, but the PS2 will have IEEE1394, USB, and PCMCIA, and MS had better match that
- DVD: same as PS2
- hard drive: OK, this is the big deal. Some ppl may look at this and say, "hey! the PS2 doesn't have an HDD at all! this r00lz!" Wrong. The PS2 will get by with 8MB memory cards, very similar to what the PSX has now. Sure it's not 4GB, but it costs a hell of a lot less too. But more important than the fact that it shouldn't need an HD is what having one enables. If you follow the link and read the blurb, it says "it also has a 4GB hard drive, which will allow you to download patches" OH SHIT. What is arguably THE best characteristic
that consoles have over PC's? Stability. Console games never get patched, because they're shipped on read-only media. This naturally forces developers to make their games bug-free, and it works. With the opportunity given to developers to release crap now and patch it later, like PC devs do, they'll use it. Watch out.
- upgradability: I've got the sinking feeling that the X-Box will be upgradeable. Fanatic PC gamers/console haters don't realize this, but upgradeability is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it allows the platform to evolve, on the other hand it *requires* the platform to evolve. Compare the PC to the PSX. Can a PC from 5+ years ago run Quake 3? No. But is a PSX game of today as far advanced past those of 5 years ago as Quake 3 is? Not really. So the technology level of a console's games stays pretty much constant for its lifespan. The upside here is that you've made your one-time hardware expenditure, and that's it! When I buy a PS2 for $200 (which IS the price it'll launch at, every console in recent memory has launched at that price, and Sony's not dumb enough to break that streak), that $200 will likely be the only money I spend on PS2 hardware for as long as I own the thing (other than memory cards, a 2nd controller, etc). However, if I buy even a $500 PC now, to play current games in a year or two I'll need to shovel more hundreds of dollars into it.
I'm guessing that the X-Box will fall somewhere between these two extremes.
- games: The other obvious advantage the PS2 has is games. One, there are already hundreds of PSX games that will play on it. Two, there are already many developers working on games for it. Three, several developers have contracts with Sony, most
notably SquareSoft, so we know they'll be putting their games out on the PS2. As for the X-Box, who knows?
However, I will not deny the possibility that the X-Box could succeed. Microsoft has produced at least three good products (EDIT.COM, the original Natural KB, the Sidewinder pad), plus a few others that are decent but not stellar (Publisher, various mice). So I'll concede the possibility that the X-Box could mark another good product. We'll only know for sure when the thing actually comes out. Until then, however, I will remain VERY skeptical.
==
Now for some stuff I've thought of since then:
- video: Holy crap, the PS2's advertised triangle and fill rates are insane (although I forget what they are, 75MTriangles/s comes to mind...)
And all that with only 4MB of video ram! 4MB, that according to psx2000.org, is linked to the gfx chip by a 2560-bit bus! Now, even if that's a typo, and is supposed to be 256 bits, it's still twice the width of any current PC video bus (unless you count the G400's dual 128 bit buses).
- CPU: there were a lot of people on the 'shack who concluded that since the X-Box will have a 1GHz cpu, and the PS2 will only have a 300MHz cpu, that the X-Box will be significantly faster. Now, for some perspective on this, compare the GeForce to the Voodoo3. The former has a clock speed of 120MHz, the latter, up to 183MHz. Which is faster? That's right, the GeForce. Architectural superiority will put the PS2 on top.
- price: the fact that this article projected a $149 launch price is indicative of one of two things, either:
1. this report is bogus, entirely rumor, totally worthless. or...
2. Microsoft is going to be selling these things at a loss (or very *slim* margin) in order to put the hurt on Sony.
The reasoning behind this is, as I said above, that $200 is basically THE customary launch price. The SNES, PSX, and Dreamcast all hit the market sporting $199.99. Although EB is pre-ordering PS2's for $239, so it may be that inflation is catching up with us
MoNsTeR
I can't imagine how ANYONE could tolerate playing a fighting game with the Dreamcast's controller. It's got what? 4 buttons on top and 2 trigger-type things in front? Marvel vs. Capcom is difficult enough playing on the PSX, with only 4 thumb buttons, but it also has 4 triggers, so you not only get buttons for each punch and each kick, but for the X3 stuff too, so Hypers are (relatively) easy to do.
;)
In fact, I happen to think the Dreamcast controller has NO redeeming features AT ALL, and serves along with the N64 and Atari Jaguar as an example of how NOT to design a control pad. And what is this analog sticklet fad among console companies? I swear, those things'll be the downfall of console gaming.
There, now I've vented that off
MoNsTeR
OK, here's an odd question, all answers to which I openly welcome:
What is so *bad* about pornography? Specifically, how, exactly, does it "harm" children?
My own mind just can't seem to make the connection between naked women (or men...) and "harm" to a child. I remember when I was young (7? 8?) an older friend of mine had procured some smut rag or other and showed it to me. Needless to say, it has not turned me into a serial rapist, or an abusive boyfriend, or even a chauvinist pig. I'm sure millions have had an analogous experience, with equally non-existant results. And there's so much more than smut magazines and internet porn. What about Victoria's Secret catalogs? How far is that from "pornography"? Should we make VS ship their catalogs in black plastic so no children are "harmed" by images of mostly-naked English women in suggestive poses? The little Sunday ad booklets from Target, Sears, K-Mart, etc. have lingerie in them, should they be censored too? How about the black&white ads in the paper itself? I just don't get it, so maybe you guys can help me out here?
MoNsTeR
This doesn't seem to be Corporate America not realizing that the 'net has NON-techies, but the other way around. Joe Q. NetSurfer loves image-happy sites, even if they take ages to load. It's the techies that browse with images off, or with Lynx, and like to see text-based navigation and alt= tags.
Anyway, it is a problem, but the best way to vote is with your wallet, so to speak. I buy a lot of computer hardware, as I'm sure much of us do, and I tend not to buy from vendors whose sites are bogged down with images, Java[Script], or, I shudder to think, Macromedia. And I outright refuse to buy from vendors whose sites don't work at all in Linux Netscape. For this pharmaceutical company, the story is a bit different. I imagine they're not conducting any actual commerce on their site, merely offering information. But the same principle can still be applied: browsing their site is a pain? Go elsewhere! And if you feel strongly about it, write the webmaster to tell them why you've decided to take your business elsewhere.
MoNsTeR
You're absolutely right that SDMI is the consumer's worst nightmare, that's the idea. The only interest the RIAA has in preserving artists' copyrights is insofar as it makes them money. Thus, the point of SDMI is to make copying music as difficult as possible. Unfortunately, as we all know, being able to freely copy data is totally essential to the proper function of most computerized tasks. If I can't move my file from here to there, what good is it? The RIAA, whose board of directors must have an 8-track in its office, doesn't get this.
Back when SDMI was first announced and starting getting "industry supporters", I predicted this would happen (not to toot my own horn or anything...). The beauty of MP3 is its simplicity, and SDMI ruins that. Fortunately for us, this may be one area where big media conglomerates that see themselves as omnipotent may not be able to fool a sufficient number of consumers for their lame-brained efforts to succeed. From my point of view, it's far more convenient and cost effective for me to spend my money on even a MiniDisc rig than an SDMI device. In fact, ANY current alternative beats SDMI, even plain old compact discs. What's more, I think that most consumers will see it a similar way. The hassle of SDMI will outweight the benefits of a digital, solid-state playback device, and consumers will turn up their buyer-regret meters and go back to whatever they were using before. I hope.
MoNsTeR
A lot of linux users/advocates are making the mistake of taking broadening the user base as an unwritten ethic. I'll tell you what, I'd really like to see Linux get better hardware support, more software, blah blah blah, but if the price is dumbing it down to the level of the average user, and having the community flooded with morons, I'd prefer the status quo.
As someone said, OSS programmers have tended to put functionality far, far ahead of making pretty and intuitive interfaces. And really, that's the way I like it. To paraphrase from Allen Holub's great book, _Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself In the Foot_, we musn't confuse ease-of-learning with ease-of-use. MS Word is relatively easy to learn: it has buttons with pictures, lots of visual metaphors, decent help, and that damned office assistant. But it's hard to USE. To anyone who learns Word's basic ins and outs, and starts to get comfortable with it, it's "user friendly" features start throwing curveballs. In short, all the fluff designed to make it easy for new users to get into it makes it difficult for advanced users to stay with it. At the opposite end of the spectrum is vi. This little piece of ware has a totally un-intuitive UI. It's so complicated, it has it's own Nutshell book. But everyone who I know who's really taken the time to learn it, swears by it. A vi user has basically taught the commands to their fingers, and doesn't have to really think about what their doing, rather like a manual transmission in capable hands. Use of vi also doesn't require constantly losing momentum by having to go for the mouse. In short, it is difficult to LEARN, but easy to USE. (Another great example is Blender, www.blender.nl, a 3D rendering and modelling tool with the least intuitive interface you've ever laid hands/eyes on, but which is a breeze to use once you get the hang of it.)
Anyway, there's a lot of people who don't like this state of affairs. They think that we should all follow the lead of GNOME and KDE and their ilk, to copy the "successful" interfaces, in order to make Linux easier for the newbie (although I contend that those two projects have their own UI "issues" that make them bad examples). Go ahead and call me elitist, but I think the largest reason why this is a bad idea is that it will make Linux more marketable to the Best Buy/CompUSA crowd. You see, until now, the rude state of unix UI's has served to make it the domain of knowledgeable people. People who know that their computer won't work during a power outage, that their CDROM is not a cupholder, the difference between memory and disk space, that they can't order the 'net on a CD, et cetera. In short, non-morons. But people who buy commodity PC's and Macs, are, for the most part, morons, at least when it comes to applying some sense to computer use. The great majority of users are resentful that they can't just sit down and "get it", that they have to think and learn. They get angry when something doesn't work to their own unreasonable expectation, and usually take it out on whoever is trying to help them. From working in a small custom PC shop for 7 months, I encountered, studied, and catalogued quite a few morons. The only really important thing about them is this: I *don't* want them using Linux. Hell, I don't want them using a COMPUTER! These people should have those web-pad thingies.
So to those who cry that Linux UI's are in a horrific state, I say "so &%$#@*! what?" There certainly are some UI's, and many configuration schemes, that are not only difficult for newbies but for advanced users, and those DO need work. But just because you have to sit down and -- the horror! -- read the documentation before you can successfully handle a UI doesn't make it bad. In essence, we shouldn't start a crusade to fix UI's that aren't really broken.
MoNsTeR
Even though I really suck at it, Homeworld would be a good game to port. Since it has software and OpenGL renderers besides the D3D one, it shouldn't be too hard either...
And for anyone who says Starcraft is "too old", come on. People still play Quake. Starcraft epitomizes its genre, and today is still nearly as featureful and often more fun than newer RTS games. Hell, I just got the thing and I can't tell that it's "old"...
MoNsTeR
...the zipper ;)
MoNsTeR
It's so good to hear fellow /.'ers expressing Libertarian views, especially without making it blatanly clear that one is doing so, like I always feel the need to ;)
It's so hard to convince people that gov't funding is always bad. We say, "the gov't shouldn't be funding nanotech research." And people say, "What, you're opposed to nanotech development?!" as if we're some kind of heretics. But that's not what we said! The issue is that the gov't is stealing (yes, taxes = theft) copious amounts of money from us constantly, and it doesn't matter WHAT they spend it on, the mere fact that they have it at all is completely unethical and, in the words of Frederic Bastiat, "a perversion of the law".
If you're not a member already, I suggest you join the party! http://www.lp.org
MoNsTeR
Being won over by internet presence? WTF? How about we choose a candidate based on their politics and principles? Internet or no internet, my vote goes to Harry Browne.
http://www.lp.org
http://www.self-gov.org
MoNsTeR
I'm sure Jon has participated in many other online discussion systems besides this one, as have most of its readers and posters, but I think that when we get to discussing online forums here, our minds may be subconsciously defaulting to considering the Slashdot system. Slashdot's comment system is far from perfect, as is every online forum. But I think the specific problems it experiences are very related to its specific shortcomings. These may have arisen through conscious choices on the part of the system's designers, or they may be accidental. Here they are:
- Comments are always attached to stories. Because it's impossible to just go into a generic forum and start up a discussion about the topic of one's choice, some posters feel the need to post offtopic messages or even attempt to "hijack" a thread or whole discussion. My own pet topic is libertarian politics, but hours, days, weeks can go by without an appropriate story to post my thoughts to (though for that particular topic, I usually have quite a few opportunities). On the other hand, I've never seen a system where comments could be attached to stories OR seperate. At the Shugashack, they're attached to stories. At ArsTechnica, they're totally seperate. Many times at Ars, a story will say "take your thoughts to the forum!" or whatever, but it's often left up to the readers to start a new thread, and rarely is a link provided to it. The mythical "ideal" discussion system probably would exist as a mix of these two, with comments about stories, and a seperate space for standalone discussion.
- Threading, and the other default comment options. Though Slashdot provides very robust functionality for custom comment viewing, the default is still threaded, oldest first. Since this is the format used by all non-logged-in users and anyone who hasn't changed it, it's what shapes the discussions. At the Shugashack, where there is no customization, and comments are always displayed flat, newest first, the flow of discussion is very different. First posts, while still an issue, are eclipsed very quickly, and on stories with a large number of comments (100+), many posters and readers will never see them at all. But a larger issue than "first posters" is the amount of attention a comment receives as it relates to when it's posted. At the Shugashack, those most likely to see your comment are those reading the comments immediately after you post it. But at Slashdot, there is an opposing and very complex system at work. First, the default viewing parameters mean that the first few posts will get the most eyeballs. Moderation is also very influential since its effects are enabled by default. Probably the worst factor though, is the difference in attention between new threads and replies. Since the display defaults to threaded, the first post in a thread is far more prominently displayed, and naturally gets the bulk of the attention. Threads are important to organized discussion of a sub-topic, but I cannot excuse the way they short-shrift replies. I voice my favor for the UBB style, where messages are divided into threads, but displayed "flat" within them. Again, I must emphasize that it's the DEFAULT system that shapes the flow of the discussions. Related to the fact that the first posts get more eyeballs is a problem wherein after a certain number of posts, new posts become essentially invisible. Depending on interest in the story, this number ranges from about 100 to 300. In fact, this post itself is hardly worth making, as the front page comment meter is showing 383 comments already posted, thus reducing the likelihood of this message being seen to near nil. I do really think that if nothing else ever changes, the default display method should become NEWEST messages first, so that new opinions are not drowned out an hour or two after a story goes up. I can't count the number of stories that I've felt a burning need to comment on but not bothered since there were already a couple of hundred posts.
- Unwillingness to nuke abuses. I'm a very outspoken proponent of free speech, but only insofar as we're talking about the *government* regulating speech. As a private organization (of sorts), Slashdot, or any other site, is perfectly within everyone's rights to decide what is and is not appropriate. There's free speech, and then there's bullshit. I mean really, if some AC (or registered user, for that matter) posted a message that looked, in it's entirety, about like this:
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
I mean, what use is that? That's not productive discussion, it's a waste of bandwidth. What's more, if that were a reply, the subject line could be used to disguise it as a real post, so that the hapless reader this moron is abusing didn't know it until the time and bandwidth had already been wasted. As it is, the default threshold is 0, and most worthless posts get taken down to -1 pretty quickly. But oftimes, since I browse at 2 for a quick "Reader's Digest" version of the comments, I'll want to get into more detail and click the "XX replies below your current threshold" link. Unfortunately, when I do so, I get all the -1 "you suck", "get out, Katz!", and "first post!" BS right alongside the worthwhile 0's and 1's. I really think there is a case for just outright nuking some of the really abusive and pointless posts, but I think the priveledge to do it should be very restricted. Say, all those with story posting priveledges and 50 or so of those they trust. A log of nuked posts could be generated and examined by Rob and Jeff to look for abuses of nuking. Anyway, just a suggestion.
And now for some thoughts on flame itself. When I had an article of mine published on OS Opinion, I was prepared to be disagreed with (it was a very controversial view). But I was not prepared for the medium-well roasting I received. It truly laid heavy on my soul, making me feel as stupid as the flamers truly were. But the encouraging words of a few intelligent respondents were, as Katz has repeatedly related, enough to keep me going and convince me I wasn't horribly in the wrong. This experience taught me the same fear and respect for flame as one should have for power tools and firearms: it can kill you, but not if you treat it correctly. But I digress. My real view is that flame is important to our evolution as people who interact with others. From everywhere I am bombarded by images and stories of people who are far far far too sensitive, and the U.S.'s illness of rampant litigation can turn a petty insult or spot of poor service into a multi-million dollar issue. People really need to realize that they don't have the right to not be offended. That's what free speech is all about, being able to say whatever you want as long as it does not endanger anyone. If I say "fuck" aloud out on the street, there's no way anyone, not even a parent with a small child, can reasonably claim that I've done them any harm. Anyone who says otherwise really doesn't have their priorities straight. But I'm somewhat afraid to do just that, for fear that some numbnuts with a lawyer will accuse me of violating their personal linguistic space or whatever and sue me for a million or ten. In short, it is the right of any online community to moderate and/or nuke flames, but the users and proprietors of any such system should think it over carefully, because flame is not 100% without value (if nothing else, it's often funny).
MoNsTeR
I just can't resist putting my opinion in on this one. Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is a CRAPPY GAME. Last xmas, I picked up quite a few FPS games, including Shogo, SiN, Half-Life, and Heretic II (close enough). By far, Shogo was the worst. It's not toally without redeeming qualities: the LithTech engine itself is rather nice, and is praiseworthy for it's excellent performance relative to other engines of the time. But what I'm really talking here is the content, not the technology. At the same time that SiN and Half-Life were raising environmental interactivity to all new heights, Shogo was less interactive than Quake. And it's AI was pathetic. Enemies would run in place against walls that partially blocked their path, had no concepts of avoiding fire, and in general just acted stupid. The on-foot missions were excruciatingly difficult, owing to the somewhat realistic representation of how many bullets a human body can take (this is a case where gameplay should have trumped realism). Basically, Shogo was a step backward for the FPS genre, not a step forward like Half-Life (although that game was certainly not without its problems, and was hardly deserving of the 11 out of 10 that PCXL gave it). I will admit that many of the weapons were pretty neat, and that the on-foot/in-robot dual modes of gameplay was pretty innovative, but these small points failed to redeem the game. What I do feel really did it for many is its use of anime... sort of. The only anime elements I really saw were the bizarre plot, the character mugshots, and the giant-robot influence.
The above is true for Blood II as well, only no anime.
But Monolith does have other games... Septerra Core has won that same "critical acclaim", though my RPG'ing friends are divided as to whether it's decent or totally blows. I'll reserve my own judgment until I can play the demo. Monolith's other RPM, Odium, I have heard nothing about, though I intend to secure its demo as well.
At any rate, more game houses porting their wares to Linux is always a Good Thing(tm) I guess. But realistically, until the hardware support infrastructure for 3D games has matured and the stability of the Linux releases is good enough for them to be "supported" (some are there now), I will continue to game in Windows...
MoNsTeR
I really love how the voting page looks like total shit in Netscape 3.04, really great work guys. Same thing as the preferences page.
take a look:
http://members.xoom.com/edutrocity/borked.jpg
MoNsTeR
(slightly OT)
I'm really looking forward to a full release of Mozilla since it'll finally mean a stable graphical browser for Linux (right?). But, having used Netscape browsers for so long, there's a few bugs/features that I'm worried will still be around to bother me. So I'd like to list my irks with Netscape and anyone who has used the most recent milestones can tell me (and all of us) if Mozilla still does them. The reason I don't just try it myself is that it requires glibc2.1 which I don't have and can't upgrade to. (please don't reply just telling me to upgrade / use LD_LIBRARY_PATH, etc, I've heard it before) Thank you.
1. Blocking DNS lookups. Why is it that UNIX Netscapes have always shut down every single browser window while it's doing a name lookup? I mean, WTF?!?!?!
2. Deleting incomplete downloads. With Netscape it's always been that if you're downloading, say, a 50MB game demo and your ISP kicks you off when you have about 49MB, you're just %$#@ed, cuz it deletes the partial file. I imagine this is to "protect" clueless users from their own stupidity, but it'd be nice if there was at least a toggle for it, or even better, a continue option.
3. Cursor keys in the location bar. The guys at Netscape probably think this is a feature instead of a bug. I click in the location bar, put in a URL, hit Enter. The page loads. I've read the first screenful and want to scroll down, so I hit the down arrow or PgDn. Buuuuuut, my cursor is still in the location bar so instead of scrolling, I go whizzing back to some seemingly random site from my location history. AAAAAAAARGH!!! %$#@!!!
I'd settle for being able to toggle the drop-down feature of the location bar.
4. The "Personal Toolbar Folder". Ugh, this is just lame. Why can't I just remove it from my bookmarks and be done with it? Why does Netscape feel such an urgent need to burden my bookmark list with a folder full of crap I won't use?
5. Copious number of toolbar buttons. With auto load images off, 4.7 has 11 toolbar buttons. And since Stop is way off to the right, I have to either browse with a really wide window or do show toolbar buttons as pictures only. It would be SOOOOO nice to be able to choose which of these buttons I really need. (and to have back the Find button, that was far more useful than Shop or My Netscape)
6. Resizing causes the page to reload. I don't know why, but on some sites, if you resize the browser window, Netscape feels the need to reload the whole thing. This is another WTF?!?!?! kind of thing.
MoNsTeR
...where's my(our) glibc2.1 based distro? I'd really like to try out the recent builds of Mozilla and Opera, but.... ;)
MoNsTeR
on the off chance anyone actually reads this post:
The RIAA bugs the shit out of me (as does the MPAA). I understand that the labels and the artists have legal and voluntary contracts that give the recording companies the exclusive right to distribute their music, and that's fine. I do realize that when I download an MP3 from a CD I don't own and don't subsequently buy, I have hurt the label, and to a lesser extent, the artist. I do not know for sure, but I have heard that the artist's cut from a $15 CD is about 25 cents, and certainly under $1. Soooooo, if an album sells a million copies, assuming even the $1 figure, the artist receives $1,000,000 (only $400,000 if it's a quarter). BUT, a combination of hearsay and gut feeling says the LABEL gets, ohhhh, $5,000,000? My issue with the actions of the RIAA is that they're acting the typical corporate hypocrite. They *claim* that they're "looking out for the artists", or that it's somehow about the "artist's rights", blah blah blah. Assuming the figures I've used are not total fabrications, the label is getting anywhere from 5 to 20(!) times as much money as the artist is, so it's pretty obvious to anyone with a rudimentary grasp of arithmetic just WHOSE interests the RIAA is looking out for, eh? Something I considered doing is, when I have the chance, acquire a CDR copy of a CD I want, then send the artist a check for $5. That way, I end up paying maybe $2 to the friend who made me the copy (or myself I had a recorder), and $5 to the artist, netting myself basically a 50% discount off the retail price. Everyone's better off but the damned hypocritical labels. This is a moral stand against the labels' behavior of which I do not really approve. HOWEVER, I have not done this, and the reason is simple. On the back of my Libertarian Party membership card, it says this:
"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others do live in whatever manner they choose."
I really believe in that principle. And I know that when I deny the labels their cut, which they have arranged by legal and voluntary contract, I am "forcibly interfering" with their rights. So I have not embarked on my CDR-getting & check-mailing endeavor. I do still occasionally download MP3s and not buy the source album (usually for soundtrack songs and one-hit-wonders), or make a handful of MP3s from a friend's CD that's not good enough to earn my dollars. But on the bright side, and what the RIAA *totally* ignores, is that often I get an MP3 and it spurs me to buy a CD, or even several. Not too long ago, I got a couple of Type O Negative MP3s, "Haunted", and "Cinnamon Girl". Now I have 4 Type O CDs. If it weren't for what the RIAA blankets as "piracy", I doubt I ever would have discovered this wonderful music. If I'd never got to download Corrosion of Conformity's "Albatross", I never would have purchased "Deliverance". A whole bunch of Rammstein files I got a while back prompted me to buy both of their albums. Same story for Stabbing Westward. But there's a rub here, too. All 4 of those Type O CDs were purchased USED. So what? The thing is, when a CD is purchased by a distributor and subsequently sold to a retailer (or some other outlet), then and only then is a cut given to the label (and the artist). The Joe Q. Public who originally bought the copy of "October Rust" I have now did in fact help to line the pockets of Roadrunner Records, BUT I DID NOT (at least not directly). I have a feeling that the RIAA knows this, and secretly hates used record stores for that reason. But there's no way they could pass off a ban on used sales on any sane person. That's why, as an earlier very eloquent post noted, that all media distribution industries lust for self-destructing or limited-use media. Witness DIVX. It was great for the industry. It was like pay-per-view with media. But it sucked for the consumer, and we knew it, and we voted with our dollars. I don't know where I'm going with this, so I'll change the subject again.
The other thing I don't like about the RIAA's attempts to run MP3 out of town on a rail is they completely deny any legitimate use of the format. I'll tell you what, if there were no Internet, I would still dig MP3. Why? I'm no audiophile. I honestly can't tell the difference between a decent 128K/44KHz MP3 and a CD (or even between VHS and DVD most of the time). So rather than buying a 100 disc CD changer or whatever, it's perfectly convenient for me to make MP3s of the songs I really like and keep them on my computer(s). In my main music directory, I have 538 songs using about 2.8GB of space. I would guess that less than 100 of those songs are "illegitimate". Most of them are just copies of songs that I legitimately own and simply wish to have available in a different format. I don't want a Rio (or whatever) to play "Internet music", I want it because it's small, doesn't skip, and lets me mix'n'match my songs. But the RIAA doesn't dig that. In their minds (or at least their press releases), MP3=piracy. But their wrong, and that's why SDMI will fail (oh please oh please oh please). I, as a consumer, benefit not at all from SDMI over plain MP3. Nor, I would imagine, do any of the rest of us. And the wonderful thing is that since there is plenty of open-source software for the creation and playback of MP3 files, that no one, not the RIAA, not the US gov't, NO ONE CAN EVER TAKE IT AWAY. But the RIAA either doesn't see it, or just won't admit it, and that's their total logical disconnect.
MoNsTeR
(obligatory links: www.lp.org www.self-gov.org)
here I go advancing my personal politcal agenda again...
Hey FCC, WHY IN THE FLYING FUCK IS THIS NECESSARY, HMMMM???!!!
I was at Best Buy the other day scoping out a new stereo, and I decide to wander through the TV section to check out this whole HDTV thing. Well, they've got this display of two equally-sized (56", yikes!) Panasonic TVs, one digial, one analog. Aside from a difference in their color settings (totally unrelated to technology differences), I simply could not tell the difference. And what's more, I didn't see any HDTV sets in reasonable sizes. If I wanna go digital, why can't I do it for less than four figures? I don't even have room in my house for a 50-some inch TV (much less the cash to afford one).
But... I do recognize that some people really do dig this digital TV thing, for whatever reason. I think they're crazy for it, but lots of people think *I'm* crazy for liking Trinitron screens. Go figure.
The point is that the government has ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS forcing me to buy a $3000 TV I don't want just to have the same functionality I have now, whether it's now or in 6 years. And if they succeed in making the relevant industries switch over by then, that's exactly what will be happening since I won't be able to watch digital signals on my old analog sets.
Why is analog TV soooooo horrible that we've got to rid ourselves of it so quickly? As another poster noted, I'd rather have cable internet service than digital TV. Hell, I rarely watch TV at all. If the industry wants to take its sweet time figuring out a standard, then let's let it! I don't see how the FCC barging in and setting the standard (and making it law, to boot) would be beneficial to ANYONE.
As a free-market'er and a Libertarian, this pisses me off. It's time we start working to get the government out of our businesses and lives.
www.lp.org
www.self-gov.org
www.mises.org
MoNsTeR
"Many areas still have legalized monoplies (the exact opposite of what should be happening in a market controlled partially by the government)."
You couldn't be more wrong. When the government controls a "market" (in quotes cuz it really stops being a market then, doesn't it?), legalized monopolies are what happens. In fact, that's the ONLY way a legalized monopoly can exist, just look at the words: LEGALized monopoly. When the local gov't grants an exclusive charter for a power company, cable company, phone company, taxi company, or whatever, that's a legalized monopoly. Only de-regulation can solve this problem.
MoNsTeR
/me goes into shameless advancement of personal political agenda mode...
Liberals love to censor. Anything the gov't can do to "improve" our lives, they wanna do it. Look at Al Gore. Yikes.
Conservatives aren't as rampant, but they'll do it if it's in their interests. What with how many Republicans LIVE in the pocket of the Religious Right, it's amazing they're not MORE prone to censor than they are...
Do you support free speech in all its forms? Do you recognize that the gov't (of ANY body politic) has no right to regulate the Internet? You should be a Libertarian. There's only one party that supports YOUR rights:
http://www.lp.org
http://www.self-gov.org
MoNsTeR
Remember those scorching articles on Lucas and TPM by David Brin? Remember how he said that Lucas favors dictatorship over democracy? That's what's at work here, I believe. Lucas is playing dictator. For some bizarre, surely wacked-out reason, he doesn't want to put TPM on DVD alongside the VHS release. He doesn't CARE that the fans want it, cuz he's the dictator and he doesn't have to listen to "the people".
MoNsTeR
This is a perfect example of government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. Our (U.S.) gov't has soooooooooo many regulatory agencies doing things that mean well, but are pretty ridiculous when you sit down and think about them. And OSHA is one of the worst.
OSHA's job is basically to take the common sense of the workplace and make it law. Seems like a good idea on the surface, yes? Flip through the hundreds of binders that house the collected works of OSHA and you'll change your mind. They have rules about EVERYTHING. Railings must be EXACTLY 42 inches off the ground (IIRC), planks may not extend more than 3 feet beyond the edge of a scaffold, et cetera, ad naseum.
If I want to build my railings forty-FOUR inches off the ground, or maybe THIRTY-SIX! I can, but not if I want to pass a building inspection. Why don't I have the right to build my railings whatever height I want? And, more to the point, why shouldn't telecommuters have the right to as un-ergonomic of a workstation as they like, without their employer fearing an OSHA audit?
As geeks, we have a different perspective on workplace ergonomics than most. Many of us live at our keyboards and mice/trackballs/whatever. We're just BEGGING to acquire Repetitive Stress Injury (correct term?). But, as geeks, we should also realize that the only way to do it right is to do it yourself. Some gov't agency requiring your employer to meet some arbitrarily set standard is NOT the right way to do it. YOU should go to YOUR employer and say, "I require better ergonomics. I need a new keyboard, a desk that's X units high and a chair that's blah blah blah. And if you can't cut it, I'm out." You get the idea. I'm sure a lot of you are making $50,000/yr or more, your employer can afford to buy you a new chair at your request. And if they "can't", is that the kind of place you want to work? I know *I'd* prefer to work somewhere where the management cares enough about its employees to either on its own or at their behest provide an ergonomically sound working environment, rather than waiting until some tax-wasting gov't agency forces them to.
Our government simply has its grubby paws in too many aspects of our lives, and with OUR money to boot. Enough is enough.
www.lp.org
www.self-gov.org
MoNsTeR
I simply cannot believe that Mr. Kaku isn't willing to give Mills any credit. His own theory was labeled as total insanity when it was first proposed. In one of Kaku's papers that was written for the layman, he talked at length about how it's not whether physics theories are crazy, but whether they are "crazy enough". The fact that Mills' theories contradict such fundamental principles of physics should be considered a PLUS point, not grounds for dismissal.
;). The fact a (Nobel Laureate?) physicist would use "fuck" three times in one sentence talking to an interviewer is quite an admirable trait in my book ;).
That aside, Mills' claims seem to fall in to the too-good-to-be-true category. I won't invest any money in his endeavor, but I will stay optimistic.
And I liked Dr. Anderson
MoNsTeR
22%? More like 0.22%. I just don't buy any mental illness that doesn't have an identifiable physiological cause. ADHD? A total fabrication of psychiatrists. Its diagnosis results more often than not in a life-long dependency on drugs. Clinical Depression? Some people just can't bring themselves to feel good. Its a facet of their PERSONALITY, not a disease. Yes, Prozac can treat depression, the same way Heroin treats boredom. What the Surgeon General is really saying is that, as a representative of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and of the federal government, 22% of the US populous falls into one arbitrary category or another that "requires", in his estimation, some kind of (expensive) medication. This isn't about health, it's about PROFIT. As a free-market economist and libertarian, I love profit just as much as the next guy. But the one regulation I feel is absolutely necessary for ALL industries is 100% truth-in-advertising. And when they "diagnose" your kid with ADHD and cram Ritalin down his/her throat, or "diagnose" you with Depression, and cram Prozac down *your* throat, it's simple false advertising. Their selling you a product you don't need or want, with a huge profit margin, and a near-perfect repeat customer probability. It's more of a racket than an industry.
MoNsTeR