Why must the tools avoid standards in their respective fields? (typesetting, ISO C99, proper W3C XHTML...)
Why must the tools only work in Windows?
etc, etc, etc....
The problem with Microsoft is that it creates these tools which only serve to further insider goals (e.g. Visual Studio only exists to sell Windows) then pumps it with shady deals and the like. Why must I get Windows with my Dell Laptop? Why can't I get a discount to go with a blank HD? (note: I think Dell is a lousy anti-trust violator too)
In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio (which is an awesome kit) that runs under Linux/BSD and can be bound to other compilers (e.g. Intel CC, GCC, etc). In a truly free market, you'd see Office work in Linux/BSD and use well documented file formats so people could create 3rd party tools for working with the data... In a truly free market, Windows would strive for UNIX/POSIX compliance underneath so that programs written for it (under the GUI level) would be more portable,...
In short, Microsoft writes software that looks shiny, attracts users (usually by first taking away choice, then motivation), then locks them in with tools that are not interchangeable or portable.
I'm sure if the PC revolution occurred WITHOUT Windows being forcefully bundled with EVERY SINGLE PC we'd see a different history here.
And for those who say people can buy their own parts and build a PC, imagine if every car was bundled with an engine that only ran with Shell fuel. Sure you could build your own car, but is that really realistic?
CPU patching is not always done by the OS. It can and is done at the BIOS level as well. And no timing doesn't just mean DRAM, it also includes the northbridge, (if any) and other I/O buses.
As for your sarcastic ignorant bullshit remark, I imagine Los Alamos has a cluster of THE IDENTICAL SAME BOX. Not the 1000s of different motherboards and I/O combos out there.
If it's easily distributed than it's not of value.
Scary thought... isn't it?
The value isn't the bits, it's the process.
In the ideal world, people would invest in a software product, then the product would be free to download and use. The release would be dependent on achieving some level of investment. Then each revision follows it, e.g. Product version 2 will wait until another $X dollars are invested.
That's the REAL way to do it. Not by selling copies of bits that are of NO VALUE.
As for the anti-trust issue, it's because MSFT is doing things that are AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF THE CUSTOMERS all in a guise to raise their vendor lockin (through no valid technical need) to raise profits. Prosecuting anti-trust violators is about giving the customers freedom of choice, so they can decide how to invest their money. e,g, sure I'll run Windows, but I'd rather use Lotus, not Excel, etc, etc....
That "annoying slow crap" is it detecting your processor and devices. Believe it or not, processors [for instance] are not perfect and require patching or tweaking to work with given chipset combos (e.g. adjusting timing, turning on/off features, etc).
I'd rather have a "slower" bios that detects my processors properly than a free bios that skips all that "junk".
though I think there are some other merits. Like features. My gigabyte P965 board has no way to update the bios other than through a floppy disk.... I don't even own a floppy drive, I had to borrow one!!!
Nah, they'll bill you to disconnect the power when you don't pay and then bill you to reconnect it.
They tried that in Mississauga when I moved out (and had canceled the account, or at least tried to). I told them that I wasn't moving back in, nor to the same city and that their vain threats wouldn't make me pay for what is essentially flipping a switch (we had disconnected the power at the breaker box so we weren't using any juice).
In short, companies are a scam and stealing from them is SELF DEFENSE!
It's not a traditional LCD. The colour elements, as I was explained by an OLPC staffer (hint: I'm writing their BIOS security code...), are not stacked, and that you didn't have three elements per pixel. The filtering is REQUIRED to make it look aesthetically pleasing.
I imagine if we had close ups of the REAL screen and not the simulator you'd see what I'm talking about.
The goal is to make them very single purposed. That doesn't mean what it does has to be crappy just that it can't do a lot of things very well for cost and safety.
I wouldn't take "theft" as a light issue though. When these things get stolen in the field, it's usually because the person delivering them HAS BEEN MURDERED and the delivery looted. So making them "feature deprived" isn't just a function of being cheap.
Remember the idea is to bring information and interactiveness to children. I remember playing games on an Apple ][ when I was a kid. This thing definitely packs more punch than that. Sure it's not a multimedia godsend that we're used to, but if us 1st world kids can use a 6502 with a monochrome low res monitor, I think some 3rd world kid can make use of a 350MHz x86 processor and a high-res wide screen display...
The colour is faked and isn't as crisp as a good LCD or CRT. it's good enough to entertain children but is definitely not something you wan't to work on if you have to look at pixels.
The mono mode is much better and made to make looking at text a pleasurable experience:-)
It's a 300MHz x86 board with a gray-scale display (the colour is faked), 128M of ram, 512M of flash, no cdrom, no advanced GPU, very small keys, and the host OS is designed for small children. Perfect for reading, playing simple learning games, and browsing the web. Sucks for games, videos, music and the like.
I seriously doubt there will be a huge black market for adults to hack them and turn them into a standard Linux PC. Selling them as is to children won't be really productive either. I'm not saying people won't try. I just doubt it will be very successful.
The processor is only worth a couple bucks in volume production. unless these guys sell 3 PCs a year it should be way cheaper. For reference, for just the mobo + northbridge/southbridge + processor I'd expect to pay no more than $300. I can add my own ram/hd/case thank you very much....
Believe it or not the OLPC people are not COMPLETE FUCKING MORONS
There are lockdown measures to avoid corrupt distribution. A black market wouldn't really work because a stolen OLPC laptop won't work. Not to mention that they're pretty much useless for most other tasks. A geek may want one for the neat factor or for an effective terminal. But you can't exactly play 3d shooters on them, or store gigabytes of movies or whatever (I doubt you could even play a divx on it).
The corrupt market would be to steal the boards and then try to sell them to schools. Which is exactly what they're aiming to stop.
As for the GP, yes, it's COUNTRIES that buy them, not students.
Except the C3 sucks balls and nobody in their right mind would want one. I'd rather have a Z80 running CP/M then anything you can build out of a VIA C3...
Actually, I'd love to see a laptop built out of an ARM core. That'd be a hoot.
What ARM should do is contract out to someone to make a 754-pin or 479-pin compatible ARM9 core...:-)
You should have stopped reading after I wrote they're a SIG.
Like most of my slashdot rhetoric I was just trying to play the devils advocate.:-)
And you know what, I hate that double standard anyways. Offer to help a blind dude when you can see he's lost/confused/etc and you're an ass. But don't bow down and perform their every whim and you're an insensitive clod. (real experience at a bus stop with a dude who one day got pissed when I told him he was getting on the wrong bus, then got upset when I didn't reply to him the next week...).
Generally I just avoid blind people because I don't know what mood they're in and I don't want to get caught up in their bullshit.
You've obviously never ran a small business so you have no fucking clue whatsoever.
Adding ADA compatible facilities and also making sure you're compliant costs money that most small companies don't have to spend. Given that it's to cater to a SMALLER market segment it's not good business sense to do it.
And why should disabled people not expect to be 100% independent? Because majority rules. Sorry dude. Why should I cripple my business so you can read my literature? You don't have a right to be my customer. You have a right to employment, and to that end I'd have to at least accept the resumes of disabled folk. But i don't have to cater to the whims of every nancy out there with a problem.
Not that catering is bad. I think if a company has the means and market it should attempt to go all ADA compliant. I think it's a good thing to get ramps, lifts, braille/etc. I just don't think it's a good idea to FORCE it upon people.
Any console that costs more than 300 is not worth getting. It's a fucking toy, nothing more. If I wanted a souped up gaming box I'd buy another PC and dedicate it to gaming...
That said, I don't really care what some random asshat says about a yet-to-be-released console. What? Will slashdot start posting articles about my opinions?
The problem is you have to start a diet on a crash. I think it's important to quickly lose that first 10lbs then start optimizing the diet to flavour/calories. It's also good for the self-esteem and keeps motivation high.
I think one of the things people forget is that when you are dieting you are basically on a controlled starvation. You *should* feel hungry because, well, you're STARVING. The point is to make your body take energy from fat stores (this requires a metabolism which requires exercise). Dieting can only be done for so long and when you're doing it, it's best to make the most of it.
There is no sense on doing a week of -800 calories/day, then to throw it away by going to McDonalds on the weekend. Especially since McDonalds is loaded with sugar, fats, and sodium. If you want to have something more flavourful make yourself a salad with grilled chicken. Just don't add oil, dressing or salt and you'll be better off.
If you want to LOSE weight you have to eat LESS than your BMR.
My BMR for instance is ~2600-2700 or so [estimated of course]. Meaning that if I only eat ~1800 calories a day I'm burning 800 or so a day. If I tack on an hour of biking that's close to 900-950. Basically I'd be losing close to 1lbs per 3.5 days or so.
The problem with the OPs point of "you can have junk just once in a while" is that it TOTALLY THROWS OFF your diet. A bag of chips for instance (a large one) has more than 1000 calories in it. That's not a "snack". Even a small bag has way too many calories. it's just too hard to have 13 chips and toss the rest away. Not everyone (especially myself) have that level of control. So what people like me try is to just wholesale avoid bad foods. Doesn't always work but it's easier than trying to half small portions of larger junk foods.
If you just wanted to maintain your weight and figure than yeah, eat and exercise to your BMR.
But for probably quite a few/.'ers we need to aim lower than that:-)
Slashdot Mirror
There is a difference there. They're not monopolies. There are plenty [even often common] games for each platform.
What I have a problem with is them going after homebrew folk. But that's another story...
Tom
Why must the file formats be secret?
...
Why must the tools avoid standards in their respective fields? (typesetting, ISO C99, proper W3C XHTML...)
Why must the tools only work in Windows?
etc, etc, etc....
The problem with Microsoft is that it creates these tools which only serve to further insider goals (e.g. Visual Studio only exists to sell Windows) then pumps it with shady deals and the like. Why must I get Windows with my Dell Laptop? Why can't I get a discount to go with a blank HD? (note: I think Dell is a lousy anti-trust violator too)
In a truly free market, you'd see Visual Studio (which is an awesome kit) that runs under Linux/BSD and can be bound to other compilers (e.g. Intel CC, GCC, etc). In a truly free market, you'd see Office work in Linux/BSD and use well documented file formats so people could create 3rd party tools for working with the data... In a truly free market, Windows would strive for UNIX/POSIX compliance underneath so that programs written for it (under the GUI level) would be more portable,
In short, Microsoft writes software that looks shiny, attracts users (usually by first taking away choice, then motivation), then locks them in with tools that are not interchangeable or portable.
I'm sure if the PC revolution occurred WITHOUT Windows being forcefully bundled with EVERY SINGLE PC we'd see a different history here.
And for those who say people can buy their own parts and build a PC, imagine if every car was bundled with an engine that only ran with Shell fuel. Sure you could build your own car, but is that really realistic?
Tom
CPU patching is not always done by the OS. It can and is done at the BIOS level as well. And no timing doesn't just mean DRAM, it also includes the northbridge, (if any) and other I/O buses.
As for your sarcastic ignorant bullshit remark, I imagine Los Alamos has a cluster of THE IDENTICAL SAME BOX. Not the 1000s of different motherboards and I/O combos out there.
So shut your gob you ignorant fuck.
Tom
If it's easily distributed than it's not of value.
... isn't it?
Scary thought
The value isn't the bits, it's the process.
In the ideal world, people would invest in a software product, then the product would be free to download and use. The release would be dependent on achieving some level of investment. Then each revision follows it, e.g. Product version 2 will wait until another $X dollars are invested.
That's the REAL way to do it. Not by selling copies of bits that are of NO VALUE.
As for the anti-trust issue, it's because MSFT is doing things that are AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF THE CUSTOMERS all in a guise to raise their vendor lockin (through no valid technical need) to raise profits. Prosecuting anti-trust violators is about giving the customers freedom of choice, so they can decide how to invest their money. e,g, sure I'll run Windows, but I'd rather use Lotus, not Excel, etc, etc....
Tom
That "annoying slow crap" is it detecting your processor and devices. Believe it or not, processors [for instance] are not perfect and require patching or tweaking to work with given chipset combos (e.g. adjusting timing, turning on/off features, etc).
I'd rather have a "slower" bios that detects my processors properly than a free bios that skips all that "junk".
though I think there are some other merits. Like features. My gigabyte P965 board has no way to update the bios other than through a floppy disk.... I don't even own a floppy drive, I had to borrow one!!!
Tom
Nah, they'll bill you to disconnect the power when you don't pay and then bill you to reconnect it.
They tried that in Mississauga when I moved out (and had canceled the account, or at least tried to). I told them that I wasn't moving back in, nor to the same city and that their vain threats wouldn't make me pay for what is essentially flipping a switch (we had disconnected the power at the breaker box so we weren't using any juice).
In short, companies are a scam and stealing from them is SELF DEFENSE!
Tom
Yeah cuz porn is so hard to get on the net...
...
I'm so hard up that I have to watch some b-rated barbie talk on her blog
Tom
Emmanuel Goldstein is famous in certain circles too. I doubt the average person knows who he is.
The difference? This person fights for your right to share and distribute information and has been doing os since 1983.
This female "blogger" is just some twat with an opinion.
Tom
"famous video blogger..." who?
/.?
Page hits are notoriously bad, especially for people with a trillion little images and what not.
She probably gets 1000 [unique] visitors at most a day. The world has over 6 billion people in it.
Guess what. NOBODY CARES.
Why is this on
Tom
It's not a traditional LCD. The colour elements, as I was explained by an OLPC staffer (hint: I'm writing their BIOS security code...), are not stacked, and that you didn't have three elements per pixel. The filtering is REQUIRED to make it look aesthetically pleasing.
I imagine if we had close ups of the REAL screen and not the simulator you'd see what I'm talking about.
Tom
The goal is to make them very single purposed. That doesn't mean what it does has to be crappy just that it can't do a lot of things very well for cost and safety.
I wouldn't take "theft" as a light issue though. When these things get stolen in the field, it's usually because the person delivering them HAS BEEN MURDERED and the delivery looted. So making them "feature deprived" isn't just a function of being cheap.
Remember the idea is to bring information and interactiveness to children. I remember playing games on an Apple ][ when I was a kid. This thing definitely packs more punch than that. Sure it's not a multimedia godsend that we're used to, but if us 1st world kids can use a 6502 with a monochrome low res monitor, I think some 3rd world kid can make use of a 350MHz x86 processor and a high-res wide screen display...
Tom
The colour is faked and isn't as crisp as a good LCD or CRT. it's good enough to entertain children but is definitely not something you wan't to work on if you have to look at pixels.
:-)
The mono mode is much better and made to make looking at text a pleasurable experience
Tom
The point is to remove the worth.
It's a 300MHz x86 board with a gray-scale display (the colour is faked), 128M of ram, 512M of flash, no cdrom, no advanced GPU, very small keys, and the host OS is designed for small children. Perfect for reading, playing simple learning games, and browsing the web. Sucks for games, videos, music and the like.
I seriously doubt there will be a huge black market for adults to hack them and turn them into a standard Linux PC. Selling them as is to children won't be really productive either. I'm not saying people won't try. I just doubt it will be very successful.
Tom
$2200 CDN for a 600MHz ARM PC?
Are you fucking mad? Seriously?
The processor is only worth a couple bucks in volume production. unless these guys sell 3 PCs a year it should be way cheaper. For reference, for just the mobo + northbridge/southbridge + processor I'd expect to pay no more than $300. I can add my own ram/hd/case thank you very much....
Tom
Believe it or not the OLPC people are not COMPLETE FUCKING MORONS
There are lockdown measures to avoid corrupt distribution. A black market wouldn't really work because a stolen OLPC laptop won't work. Not to mention that they're pretty much useless for most other tasks. A geek may want one for the neat factor or for an effective terminal. But you can't exactly play 3d shooters on them, or store gigabytes of movies or whatever (I doubt you could even play a divx on it).
The corrupt market would be to steal the boards and then try to sell them to schools. Which is exactly what they're aiming to stop.
As for the GP, yes, it's COUNTRIES that buy them, not students.
Tom
Except the C3 sucks balls and nobody in their right mind would want one. I'd rather have a Z80 running CP/M then anything you can build out of a VIA C3...
... :-)
Actually, I'd love to see a laptop built out of an ARM core. That'd be a hoot.
What ARM should do is contract out to someone to make a 754-pin or 479-pin compatible ARM9 core
Tom
You should have stopped reading after I wrote they're a SIG.
:-)
Like most of my slashdot rhetoric I was just trying to play the devils advocate.
And you know what, I hate that double standard anyways. Offer to help a blind dude when you can see he's lost/confused/etc and you're an ass. But don't bow down and perform their every whim and you're an insensitive clod. (real experience at a bus stop with a dude who one day got pissed when I told him he was getting on the wrong bus, then got upset when I didn't reply to him the next week...).
Generally I just avoid blind people because I don't know what mood they're in and I don't want to get caught up in their bullshit.
Tom
IIRC my xbox was ~190 or something in around 2003 [I know it was less than 200]. My DS was 120$.
The SNES was 400 when it first came out but quickly dropped down over a few years.
The xbox360 is way too expensive as it is, the PS3 costing more just makes things worse.
I'd gladly do without either to know I'm not shelling out tons of money for a platform I can't legitimately hack.
Tom
once again that Homeland Security is about money and power, not the well being of the citizens.
...
Hahahahaha cute. you thought the government was your representative. How naive, how cute...
In other news, taxation with representation, the new 2007 theme....
FDA approvals on medicines we actually need...
Welfare doled out in appropriate amounts with supervision...
Foreign policies that put you less at risk
Tom
You've obviously never ran a small business so you have no fucking clue whatsoever.
Adding ADA compatible facilities and also making sure you're compliant costs money that most small companies don't have to spend. Given that it's to cater to a SMALLER market segment it's not good business sense to do it.
And why should disabled people not expect to be 100% independent? Because majority rules. Sorry dude. Why should I cripple my business so you can read my literature? You don't have a right to be my customer. You have a right to employment, and to that end I'd have to at least accept the resumes of disabled folk. But i don't have to cater to the whims of every nancy out there with a problem.
Not that catering is bad. I think if a company has the means and market it should attempt to go all ADA compliant. I think it's a good thing to get ramps, lifts, braille/etc. I just don't think it's a good idea to FORCE it upon people.
Tom
"who gives a shit" and "don't give a rats ass."
Any console that costs more than 300 is not worth getting. It's a fucking toy, nothing more. If I wanted a souped up gaming box I'd buy another PC and dedicate it to gaming...
That said, I don't really care what some random asshat says about a yet-to-be-released console. What? Will slashdot start posting articles about my opinions?
Tom
How is that any different from getting a grant to write a book?
You still have to pay for the book, heck the Author even makes a profit off it!
Tom
"Thankfully", the $495 report (if you aren't a "Conference Board associate") helps tell you how to handle the situation.
Bruce isn't in the business for giving out his top notch observations for free.
Are any of us?
I'd say it's a pretty lame attack to point out the cost as a negative. Just admit that you're not interested in his opinion and move on.
IT security sucks for this very single reason: It takes effort.
The solution? Demand effort.
Tom
The problem is you have to start a diet on a crash. I think it's important to quickly lose that first 10lbs then start optimizing the diet to flavour/calories. It's also good for the self-esteem and keeps motivation high.
I think one of the things people forget is that when you are dieting you are basically on a controlled starvation. You *should* feel hungry because, well, you're STARVING. The point is to make your body take energy from fat stores (this requires a metabolism which requires exercise). Dieting can only be done for so long and when you're doing it, it's best to make the most of it.
There is no sense on doing a week of -800 calories/day, then to throw it away by going to McDonalds on the weekend. Especially since McDonalds is loaded with sugar, fats, and sodium. If you want to have something more flavourful make yourself a salad with grilled chicken. Just don't add oil, dressing or salt and you'll be better off.
Tom
If you want to LOSE weight you have to eat LESS than your BMR.
/.'ers we need to aim lower than that :-)
My BMR for instance is ~2600-2700 or so [estimated of course]. Meaning that if I only eat ~1800 calories a day I'm burning 800 or so a day. If I tack on an hour of biking that's close to 900-950. Basically I'd be losing close to 1lbs per 3.5 days or so.
The problem with the OPs point of "you can have junk just once in a while" is that it TOTALLY THROWS OFF your diet. A bag of chips for instance (a large one) has more than 1000 calories in it. That's not a "snack". Even a small bag has way too many calories. it's just too hard to have 13 chips and toss the rest away. Not everyone (especially myself) have that level of control. So what people like me try is to just wholesale avoid bad foods. Doesn't always work but it's easier than trying to half small portions of larger junk foods.
If you just wanted to maintain your weight and figure than yeah, eat and exercise to your BMR.
But for probably quite a few
Tom