Geeze, you're making me think that I'm the world's only 18-year old curmudgeon. Son, in my day, there was DOZENS of computers on the market, and software written for one wouldn't run on the other.Hypothetical scenario:
"What's that? Uncle Pah's got a new spreadsheet" Why don't we give it a whirl and see if we can whittle somethin' on his cousin's Commodore?" "Because we have an Atari 800, son, and it won't run on that computer."
And we liked it that way : P
Seriously though, while the incompatibility of hardware was a pain for software developers, one nice thing about it was it effectively forced everyone, even big companies, into making multiple versions of software, one for each computer. When everyone "standardized" on PCs, Macs were left out in the cold, and today, because of this same attitude, alternate operating systems on the same hardware platform are neglected. If the level of competition hadn't been so thinned out in the late 80's and early 90's, perhaps we could all be running Photoshop on Linux right now.
Besides, the industry was getting somewhere. Pardon me for showing my bias, but the Commodore 64 was introduced in 1982, firmly placing it in the "early eighties" region of time you specify, and that machine had amazing games for it's time, and even had a technically astounding disk drive which did not cost an arm and a leg. Yeah yeah, standardized hardware is easier, blah blah blah. I still miss some aspects of the 80's computer age, sonny ; )
All right, it was a joke, but I just could not resist pointing out that this is actually one of the selling points of the iPod. They didn't try to make it a game boy, it just does all it needs to, which is display text and provide a backlight if it might be dark.
To rephrase, why can we have a device with hours and hours of battery life when we can waste computational power by displaying a cool animation of musical notes coming out of a boom box, that will not help the sound quality in any way? See Steve, bloatware can be fun!
Eh? The security community should stop documenting weaknesses?
What a great idea! Then all the malicious hackers will know how to exploit security holes, while those in charge of security won't. Wait a second...isn't that kind of like asking security guards not to carry guns, because those guns might hurt someone?
NASA has once again spared us no expense in improving the quality of life through researching...well...something that is entirely possible on our own planet, without having to pay for a huge, fuel-draining rocket.
The iPaq and Journada fight in the marketplace. The iPaq trounces the Journada. HP buys Compaq. HP has to struggle with reconciling their own product lines and bring them into one company.
This is the first example. HP has bought Compaq, but the iPaq is cooler. They can't call it the iHP or anything, can they? Bob Cringely made some remarks about just this sort of thing in his latest column. This merger makes no sense at all. HP and Compaq have already bought out companies that helped their bottom line, and now they're doing it again. Unless HP does some seriously insane reorganization, their chances of doing anything signifigant are pretty small.
After my initial reaction, namely being shocked by imagining how huge this company will be, I started to think about it. We have two struggling computer companies spending a whole buttload of cash to become one BIG struggling company. How does this help profits at all?
I'm not a businessman, surely someone around here can enlighten me.
OK, so chip manufacturers are starting to pay more attention to Linux. Sure, that's great, but what's with the comment about hardware "custom-built" for Linux? Isn't the whole point of open architecture that you can run darn near any operating system on it, including one you just wrote yourself, if you were so inclined? How would a "custom-built" Linux system be any different from the chip architecture it's running on? Linux can even run on closed systems like Macs, for crying out loud. It's not like it particularly needs it's own architecture. Matter of fact, that could be a barrier to entry. Say Joe User wants to try an alternative operating system, and he's narrowed it down to a choice between Linux and Mac OS X. One of the attractive things about Linux is that he doesn't need to buy new hardware to run it.
Bearing all that in mind, why does anyone need custom Linux hardware?
Just imagine being the poor sap trying to defend Passport to privacy groups:
Privacy advocate: "So, you are trying to set yourself up as the one definitive source for our personal information online. Let's talk about your record: Hotmail backdoors, Code Red, Melissa, IIS, and Kournikova, among others, are horrible things which have been influenced by your poor implementations of products. And you want to have even more power?"
Microsoft PR guy: "Try to think of those as valuable lessons we have learned to make Passport more secure...
Dumb subject, but seriously, two endquotes? "The actual photos are details"? Top it off with a second occurence of "The actual photos", and you get compelling evidence that Hemos has been staying up a little too late : )
Not to mention the fact that if something is not being sold any more, there is no signifigant loss being made to, as a random example, Nintendo, every time I "pirate" Donkey Kong Junior.
This is my beef with anyone who knocks down emulating classic systems: getting the darn games is nearly impossible because companies hoard them until they release a re-hash or a bundled emulator (like Namco Museum). If I could get ahold of legal roms, if they were being sold, than at least this kind of argument would be revelent, in much the same way the file-sharing debate is relevant to labels and artists. But Spy Hunter?!
IANAL, but I believe this kind of work can only become public domain after 75 years, if the original creator does not renew copyright. The problem is, that law was created before arcade and console games, which have a tendency to become obsolete much faster than, for example, The Fellowship Of The Ring. For printed literature this makes perfect sense, but surely there is a more reasonable way we can govern interactive gaming copyright issues.
Why do large companies like Borders announce implementations of things like this, suspend them upon complaints and then review things like customer's rights to privacy? Are these only an issue when people complain?
I swear, one day I'll just have to make my own company so I can make a point of not doing evil things like this.
Geez, someone needs to tell these guys about blogs. A few quick trips to Memepool and BoingBoing should be enough to convince anyone that the web is still a pretty eclectic and loony place to be.
You mentioned Apple, who is one of the few manufacturers to use non-standard, non-boxy cases recently. Do you remember the reaction when the iMac was first introduced? I know some people who went ballistic over the thing: "How dare they try to make computers cute!", and whatever else. How do you reconcile the obsession many geeks have with tricking out cases to make them different, from this reaction to pre-built different cases?
You have to take into account that when someone mods a case by themselves, it will then be considered unique to them (even if someone else is probably doing something very similar). This is the Slashdot crowd we're talking about, the people who like to compile their own programs. If it's already done for them, what's the point?
If you already have ethernet cable strung through your house, wouldn't it just make more sense to connect your computer to the network, and then just listen to the mp3 files by connecting a stereo to that computer? Works fine for me, and it only costs $0.
Does nobody remember the days when consoles came with games included in the sticker price? The Super NES came with Super Mario World for nothing extra, if I remember right. None of this, "It costs $200, but you have to pay $250 since it has a game" crap.
I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. In this case, the FBI seemed to be quite devious, not stupid. What does this have to do with Copyright violation? Nothing, since with the security whole it would be easier to deface intellectual property. Maybe you should consider spending some time away from Slashdot for a bit : ) Not every dumb government action is because of the DMCA, after all.
Just another reason to go with a PS2 or a Gamecube, I guess. Don't retailers understand that forcing people to pay a hundred extra bucks for games that not everyone wants, instead of letting the customer choose these things is bad? If enough stores go along with this nonsense, the $299 sticker price for Xbox means nothing, and will end up being a huge boost to the competition. When you buy a car, you don't have to add an extra $1000 for the included yacht.
Go on, read the story, and you'll notice that the headline is "Princeton Professor Bares All."
Silly guys. Don't they realize that on the internet, the headline is only as tantalizing as what the referring link says, so this kind of thing doesn't increase readership?
A great read for people interested in newspaper comics is the tenth anniversery collection of Calvin And Hobbes, which is notable for Bill Watterson's informative essays on how the comics work. To sum up:syndicates only accept things geared towards mass consumption because newspaper comics are by and large regarded as an annoyance by the people creating newspapers, which results in reduced sizes, restrictive sunday formats, and other aggravating issues. Watterson practically had newspaper editors at his throat when he and his syndicate asked about being able to actually design his own sunday comic format. When they were finally convinced into doing this, Calvan and Hobbes created some amazing work.
Since then, Breathed, Watterson, and Larson have all retired and the newspaper comics aren't very enjoyable for me today. Occasionally Fox Trot will still be amusing, and of course Dilbert is very witty, but you never get a chance to see anything impressive visually. Maybe the internet will pick up the slack? Sluggy Freelance (to pick a random example) has had amazing storylines spanning months, and the artist is free to create whatever kind of strip he wants, without censorship, ridiculous format demands, or any other unnecessary crap. Now, if only being profitable was easier...
What about Morpheus?
on
Taming the Web
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The article mentions that Gnutella is moving to larger servers to facilitate traffic, and this makes these servers prime targets for shutting down, thus slowing the networks. But what about Morpheus? This company licenses the same technology as KaZaA (but without the spyware), which lets broadband users serve as intermediate "super-nodes" which will automatically have more queries passed along, if I understand right. I might have gotten that detail wrong as I'm not very familiar with the technology, but the point is that Morpheus automatically sorts the bandwidth for you, and presumably does not rely on a centralized server while still giving adquete performance. The webpage also claims that information on the network is "encrypted", but not many details are given.
I think this kind of thing would be pretty hard to police.
Slashdot Mirror
"What's that? Uncle Pah's got a new spreadsheet" Why don't we give it a whirl and see if we can whittle somethin' on his cousin's Commodore?"
"Because we have an Atari 800, son, and it won't run on that computer."
And we liked it that way : P
Seriously though, while the incompatibility of hardware was a pain for software developers, one nice thing about it was it effectively forced everyone, even big companies, into making multiple versions of software, one for each computer. When everyone "standardized" on PCs, Macs were left out in the cold, and today, because of this same attitude, alternate operating systems on the same hardware platform are neglected. If the level of competition hadn't been so thinned out in the late 80's and early 90's, perhaps we could all be running Photoshop on Linux right now.
Besides, the industry was getting somewhere. Pardon me for showing my bias, but the Commodore 64 was introduced in 1982, firmly placing it in the "early eighties" region of time you specify, and that machine had amazing games for it's time, and even had a technically astounding disk drive which did not cost an arm and a leg. Yeah yeah, standardized hardware is easier, blah blah blah. I still miss some aspects of the 80's computer age, sonny ; )
To rephrase, why can we have a device with hours and hours of battery life when we can waste computational power by displaying a cool animation of musical notes coming out of a boom box, that will not help the sound quality in any way? See Steve, bloatware can be fun!
What a great idea! Then all the malicious hackers will know how to exploit security holes, while those in charge of security won't. Wait a second...isn't that kind of like asking security guards not to carry guns, because those guns might hurt someone?
...this is the new frontier of animation.
Ah, how I love the human race ; )
Dang. He must be a really interesting subject ; )
The iPaq and Journada fight in the marketplace.
The iPaq trounces the Journada.
HP buys Compaq.
HP has to struggle with reconciling their own product lines and bring them into one company.
This is the first example. HP has bought Compaq, but the iPaq is cooler. They can't call it the iHP or anything, can they? Bob Cringely made some remarks about just this sort of thing in his latest column. This merger makes no sense at all. HP and Compaq have already bought out companies that helped their bottom line, and now they're doing it again. Unless HP does some seriously insane reorganization, their chances of doing anything signifigant are pretty small.
I'm not a businessman, surely someone around here can enlighten me.
Bearing all that in mind, why does anyone need custom Linux hardware?
Privacy advocate: "So, you are trying to set yourself up as the one definitive source for our personal information online. Let's talk about your record: Hotmail backdoors, Code Red, Melissa, IIS, and Kournikova, among others, are horrible things which have been influenced by your poor implementations of products. And you want to have even more power?"
Microsoft PR guy: "Try to think of those as valuable lessons we have learned to make Passport more secure...
Dumb subject, but seriously, two endquotes? "The actual photos are details"? Top it off with a second occurence of "The actual photos", and you get compelling evidence that Hemos has been staying up a little too late : )
This is my beef with anyone who knocks down emulating classic systems: getting the darn games is nearly impossible because companies hoard them until they release a re-hash or a bundled emulator (like Namco Museum). If I could get ahold of legal roms, if they were being sold, than at least this kind of argument would be revelent, in much the same way the file-sharing debate is relevant to labels and artists. But Spy Hunter?!
IANAL, but I believe this kind of work can only become public domain after 75 years, if the original creator does not renew copyright. The problem is, that law was created before arcade and console games, which have a tendency to become obsolete much faster than, for example, The Fellowship Of The Ring. For printed literature this makes perfect sense, but surely there is a more reasonable way we can govern interactive gaming copyright issues.
I swear, one day I'll just have to make my own company so I can make a point of not doing evil things like this.
Geez, someone needs to tell these guys about blogs. A few quick trips to Memepool and BoingBoing should be enough to convince anyone that the web is still a pretty eclectic and loony place to be.
You have to take into account that when someone mods a case by themselves, it will then be considered unique to them (even if someone else is probably doing something very similar). This is the Slashdot crowd we're talking about, the people who like to compile their own programs. If it's already done for them, what's the point?
If you already have ethernet cable strung through your house, wouldn't it just make more sense to connect your computer to the network, and then just listen to the mp3 files by connecting a stereo to that computer? Works fine for me, and it only costs $0.
I'm hardly a neophyte when it comes to technical stuff, but a lot of this article went over my head. Am I alone here? Maybe I'm just tired right now.
Cut the ST some slack, man! It can't be that bad.
Oh, wait...you meant that as a compliment : )
This is not a good sign...
Does nobody remember the days when consoles came with games included in the sticker price? The Super NES came with Super Mario World for nothing extra, if I remember right. None of this, "It costs $200, but you have to pay $250 since it has a game" crap.
I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. In this case, the FBI seemed to be quite devious, not stupid. What does this have to do with Copyright violation? Nothing, since with the security whole it would be easier to deface intellectual property. Maybe you should consider spending some time away from Slashdot for a bit : ) Not every dumb government action is because of the DMCA, after all.
Just another reason to go with a PS2 or a Gamecube, I guess. Don't retailers understand that forcing people to pay a hundred extra bucks for games that not everyone wants, instead of letting the customer choose these things is bad? If enough stores go along with this nonsense, the $299 sticker price for Xbox means nothing, and will end up being a huge boost to the competition. When you buy a car, you don't have to add an extra $1000 for the included yacht.
Silly guys. Don't they realize that on the internet, the headline is only as tantalizing as what the referring link says, so this kind of thing doesn't increase readership?
Since then, Breathed, Watterson, and Larson have all retired and the newspaper comics aren't very enjoyable for me today. Occasionally Fox Trot will still be amusing, and of course Dilbert is very witty, but you never get a chance to see anything impressive visually. Maybe the internet will pick up the slack? Sluggy Freelance (to pick a random example) has had amazing storylines spanning months, and the artist is free to create whatever kind of strip he wants, without censorship, ridiculous format demands, or any other unnecessary crap. Now, if only being profitable was easier...
I think this kind of thing would be pretty hard to police.