I started writing a reasoned explication of the pointlessness and irrelevance of this whole story, but I made myself too angry with the uncritical "private space colonisation" fanboy mentality that says we'll all be living on Starship Enterprise in a century's time. To those people (probably everyone on this thread) I say this: turn off the damn Star Trek DVDs and get a life. Colonising space is an infantile fantasy.
Full of sophomoric cynicism today are you?
You sound a lot like the folks back when who said we'd never drive at 60 MPH 'because it will suck all the air out of your lungs', or the engineer who claimed that 'rockets will never work in space because there's nothing to push against'. Few people in 1900 would have predicted airliners, satellites, nuclear weapons and ICBMs less than 70 years later.
Colonizing space is the only hope for our species to last more than a few more millenia IMO. It's good to see the visionaries pushing forward despite Luddites such as yourself.
Congratulations to SpaceX, and kudos to Elon Musk for doing something worthwhile with his fortune!
Good point. Also kudos to the person advocating nuclear power, we definitely need to bump our nuclear electricity percentage above 50% (preferably far above).
As to "huge arrays of hydrogen fueled millimeter turbine engines", various square/cube issues would seem to make the idea a non-starter. Larger turbines should be far more efficient, not to mention easier to make.
Yes, a Turing machine adapted for war would be pretty scary. Imagine the symbols it could leave on a man! Imagine the countryside devastated by layers of its infinitely long tape!
Only Schrodinger's cat is powerful enough to stop it!
LOL!
Sorry, in my haste to post and move on I apparently confused Von Neumann with Turing. Apologies.
"There's no better way to assure the eventual destruction of mankind than by the event sponsored by Singapore's Defence Science and Technology Agency.
What total nonsense. In terms of threats, bio, nuclear and chem, in that order, outweigh any robotic threat by a great deal (discounting Turing machines, which are a far different class than that discussed here).
In fact, I'd put it as "there's no better way to assure the eventual destruction of mankind than by continuing to develop lethal technologies without making any real effort to improve our ethical standards."
Getting the heck off this rock is a good idea too!
True, modifying the bits might lead to an easily detectable pattern. And any modification at all is noticeable when there are "normal" copies of the same image floating around. So let's assume that there aren't, and that you have a shared one-time pad available beforehand. Then you should be able to make the low order bits carry a message yet remain indistinguishable from random data. Which raises a question - what patterns are normally present in the low order bits of picture files? If the files you normally exchange have random lest significant bits, then you're in the clear. But I'm guessing it's not that easy for photographs and especially simple gifs with few colors.
I've looked at quite a few PNG/RAW images. Often, photos have constant values for the low order bits over large areas. So, you're best off picking photos of natural things with high noise content (little sky or other uniformly colored items in the image). Also, the less information you inject into the image, the less it will affect it statistically.
Write a simple viewer to display the low-order bit as black or white and you'll quickly get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Well whatever method you use, unless you're making use of some hiding room in the format that's discarded as garbage data (like the space after a gzip file), then you won't directly increase the file size by using steganography. However, you would want to work with a larger image to begin with so you could fit more covert data in it, and that alone may be suspicious to anyone watching.
A little quick analysis shows this isn't really an issue, for textual information. Think of a typical 1 megapixel image. This provides 1 million bits of storage, or 128K bytes. That's quite a lengthy message in text, around 64 pages. If all you need is "It's time to execute the plan!" (suitably encrypted of course) a much smaller image could be used.
The tricky area in steganography is that the cutting edge approach is to embed data in lossily compressed JPEGs using DCT coefficients. Apparently the change in DCT statistics can be detected in many cases, so it may not be too useful. However, I'm not too sure of the precept that losslessly compressed images are rare or obviously steganographic. There are plenty of PNG and RAW photo images available on the Net. (BTW, swizzling the low-order pixels as the grandparent suggested is an obvious clue that the image has been altered, and is a possible steganographic image.)
Sorry I got busy and forgot to check this for replies. I hope you notice it.;-)
The majority of knowledgeable geeks I know of don't really think that way. More of them think that way than the non-geeks, as a rough percentage, but the lack of hardware, the lack of software and the overall closed-platform that they had been stuck on for so long makes them less than desireable. That are not clearly one of the most flexible computers, they have a lot of limitations along with their advantages.
You are conflating MacOS with Mac hardware. Mac hardware runs MacOS, Windows (either virtual or native), and Linux (either virtual or native). So, there is no other computer that you can buy that is as flexible of a software platform than a Mac. Sorry I wasn't more clear, though I think you're off on your other conclusions too, see below.
Apple expects peoples wants and needs to adapt to their computers, you find that is a lot less common in the PC world.
This isn't really true any more, though I'm sure it'd be nice if Apple had even more models. What you should really look at now are the Mac Pros, which are highly configurable (something like 2 billion possible configurations from the Apple Store, and a lot more if you take into account third party hardware). I'd like to see a Core 2 Duo based tower at a lower price point, but that's the only big hole in Apple's lineup.
1) You can build your own PC, can't do that with an Apple
Since Apple is a hardware manufacturer, that isn't too surprising. You can't build your own IBM or Dell either. But yes, that is one area I'd like to see Apple change, I'd like them to sell their OS for a few hundred dollars to run on third party hardware using approved devices.
2) Until recently, you could put MacOS and maybe wiggle a few flavors of *Nix or *Nix clones on a Mac, PCs had pretty much everything but MacOS, and some industrial-grade operating systems available for them.
I'm not at all sure what you mean here. Current Macs run MacOS, Linux, Windows, and most likely any other x86 compatible OS (say QNX for example).
3) There's a lot more software avialable for Windows for Apple, you can also find more or at least comparable amounts for Linux and BSD as well.
Since Mac _hardware_ runs all of those operating systems (and runs most of the software fine in virtualized environments) I'd say you're off base here. Plus, since MacOS is POSIX, a lot of *nix software compiles and runs fine with no modifications.
4) The majority of hardware/peripherials you find is labeled for Windows. While you can often use them on other operating systems (Linux, BSD, MacOS), the stuff that works on Macs is still a lot less common, probably even less common than that which will work on Linux.
Yes, but the need for third-party hardware is reduced with a Mac. Plus, many things do work, for instance most Bluetooth, USB and Firewire devices - which is a big chunk of the market.
I think Apple is going to see a big upswing in computer sales over the next few years as word spreads of how painless, fun, and powerful Macs are compared to the competition.
With a very few exceptions, most of the people I knwo think Macs are silly and useless computers with limited capabilities. And most of my friends aren't tech geeks.
The thing is, we tech "geeks" who actually know what we're talking about like Apple's products for the most part. Apple products also have some very tangible advantages, and Macs are clearly the most flexible computers on the market.
As to "limited capabilities", I have no idea what you're talking about. I recently picked up a 24" iMac and I'm very pleased with it so far. It definitely outshines any other computer I've had.
Are you really well acquainted with gcj? I'm sorry, but I don't get how the end result or even the stuff going into it (and the required inputs, like making some explicit calls that would never be required in Java) can be called Java anymore.
I'm fairly well acquainted with gcj, and in fact it compiles a fair amount of standard Java without problems. There is also the Jet compiler which is ahead-of-time and fully compliant.
So, it's certainly possible to do a good ahead-of-time Java compiler. Whether Java is desirable as the "next big general purpose language" is another question, of course.
D is attractive if viewed as a superior C++.
Maybe it makes sense for some resource-constrained settings like embedded systems, but there i've used Java straight up, satisfactorily. Granted, these are not life-critical systems I've built, but rather than compiling Java - or trying to - the better answer is to use a more appropriate language in those circumstances.
There is a very big sweet spot for a language that's approachable, powerful, productive and efficient. With the advent of performance/Watt thinking, it makes no sense to get efficient processors and then throw away that efficiency on slow software. Of course, there are also applications where raw speed is very important; real time apps, simulations, games and scientific programs.
C++ is widely viewed as less than desirable. It's good to have better, more modern alternatives going forward. Another interesting looking language is Dylan, though quite different in many ways.
Wrong. There *is* scientific consensus, their is just not media or lay-person consensus.
Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "consensus". Certainly not all qualified scientists believe "human caused global warming" is a dominant factor in current climate change. You might check this 2002 article (for instance):
The one tangible thing that's been done to try and address global warming is the Kyoto Protocol. It is quite flawed, though, in that it gives exemptions to the countries which are most likely to be big polluters in coming decades. It would also impose economic penalties on countries like the US which are already doing quite a lot to reduce their environmental impact.
If/.ers want to rally around a single approach that would be beneficial not just to human related global warming if it exists, but also to energy independence and reduced pollution, do whatever you can to advocate constructing new nuclear reactors here in the US. That is the single best thing we could do at this point.
Those who can plug in hybrids or electric cars to charge would then be running nuclear powered vehicles...sweet!:-)
With no graphics card upgrade, the big question on my mind is what the gaming benchmarks were like for the previous macbook pro. It is likely that this macbook pro will be GPU bound
Yes, I'm surprised that something more powerful than the X1600 wasn't offered, at least on the 17" model.
It could have used the extra power, given the extra pixels to push.
A factual analysis of the liberal attempts at talk radio show that they just don't make money. It seems there is less of a market for liberals bashing of conservatives than most liberals would care to admit.
In related news, Air America just declared bankruptcy.
Liberalism - A plan to socialize America, redistribute wealth, weaken us militarily and tax us to death without providing any new solutions.
I know that users have bombarded them with requests for officially allowing Windows usage on a Mac, and the fact that they yielded to these requests is interesting because they've emphasized the OS X and Windows experiences as being completely separate for quite some time.
I believe OSNews has missed the point.
Apple has always touted OSX as a superior experience to Windows, and is continuing to do so.
However, it is simply reality that many folks have Windows programs they need to run as well. Between Boot Camp and the various VM approaches Apple now has that option covered nicely.
Where does that leave Macs exactly? As:
The worlds most versatile computers.
Powered by a superior, more secure OS.
Able to run legacy Windows applications as need be.
Windows continues to chug along on its own momentum, but I expect Mac sales to do VERY nicely. The vast majority of Mac user time will be spent in MacOS X, I predict. I also predict more and more native MacOS game ports over time, as the userbase swells.
Opteron? Oo...how is an Opteron very much different than a regular A64...really?
Opteron has one more Hypertransport line for interprocessor communication. That was the reason for Socket 940 vs. Socket 939. I need to read up a bit to completely understand Socket AM2 vs. Socket F (great names there, AMD marketing types:P). Socket F apparently supports fully buffered DIMMs for one thing.
Otherwise, though, as you point out they're very similar, and may well come off the same wafers.
But wouldn't this just result in the more tame (less prone to bite) devils surviving? Isn't that how evolution works?
Also, despite the articles claim of low genetic diversity, some devils are probably resistant. It will only help if there are enough to form a viable breeding population, and they can find each other.
Also, although this cuts the average lifespan by quite a bit, since transmission occurs as part of the mating season, it's quite likely that females are able to give birth and create a new generation before dying. For that matter, are females even affected, or is it only the males that engage in these mating related fights?
So, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion at all that this disease could "wipe out" the Tasmanian Devils. More likely, the author is engaging in the ever popular sport of "enviro-alarmism".;-)
I really do feel that manual memory management in most apps is now redundant. i fully accept its need in some cases an indeed I've advocated 'regressing' an app at work, which was ported from C to Java, back into C again to use manual memory management for performance. But that app's an exception - sub-millisecond performance is required. How many day to day apps need that?
Bad idea if you're doing heap allocation in a time-critical code section. Heap allocation ala 'malloc' isn't deterministic, it can take significant time if there's heap fragmentation.
Better to pre-allocate everything before going into the time-critical part. In which case GC is fine.;-)
Linux malloc() is based on the glibc and is slightly brain damaged from my point of view, because it can't be properly overridden for debugging or dma operations (it has debug hooks but they aren't thread safe). OS X malloc() is a different implementation that actually supports multiple heaps and allows for the different heaps to have different allocation/release strategies.
Regardless, GC is often faster, and also prevents mistakes that C/C++ coders often make.
The other point about GC is that for reliable, long-running programs GC mitigates the issue of heap fragmentation, which can lead to irrecoverable program errors in programs using malloc() and cousins.
GC technology is advancing rapidly, there are even deterministic GCs for RT use now.
Object recycling is also often a good strategy, since you get "new" objects with no allocation/GC overhead.
If Cider works well, will there be any more Mac-specific game development? And if not, will it matter?
This is one path for companies to get Windows games onto Macs. It's probably a good thing in that more software will be available for Macs. It sounds like Cedega may have a lot of trouble getting to the point where their software works well enough to satisfy Mac user's expectations though.
All that said, native Mac games will still be produced. They'll run faster, work better, and take full advantage of Mac OS facilities.
In my opinion, the best way to go is a cross-platform game framework. There are many available, and you get nice native ports for very little extra effort, probably no more than that required to support 'Cider'.
NVIDIAs response. Will NVIDIA no longer support AMD processors to the same level? The shocking thing to me about this announcement is that nForce chipsets are the best chipsets for AMD64. Also, NVIDIA driver quality across the board is better than ATI.
So, we'll see how this shakes out. If, as others have said, AMD forces ATI to produce better drivers, and good Linux drivers, that may be a good outcome...
The other interesting aspect is (as it often is) Apple. Now AMD gets an instant slice of the Apple pie (sorry) since ATI makes most current Apple graphics chips. Interesting development there... Intel can't be happy.
I suspect the tension level just notched up at NVIDIAs headquarters as well.
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. - Ben Franklin
You misquoted old Ben. His actual words say it much better.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety. - Ben Franklin
Truer words have never been spoken.
By the way, this use of the Patriot Act goes directly against the original intent, which was to be strictly anti-terrorism. American citizens should be exempt unless evidence obtained by other means directly ties them to a terrorist or terrorist organization.
I've used them both, and while OpenGL isn't a slouch, DX is a lot easier to use (especially in the shader department). Supposedly OpenGL has even that under control nowadays, so it's just a matter of taste, really (and performance, Ati's OpenGL drivers are still buggy).
The performance comment cuts both ways. DirectX uses COM, which has overhead compared plain-old-C-function calling.
There is also more to it than "taste". DirectX is one of the better mechanisms Microsoft has come up with to lock developers and titles into Windows. If you plan on writing a game, at least use an engine that supports OpenGL as well. You've increased your potential market, and done a little bit to promote choice in computing.
BTW, NVIDIA's OpenGL drivers are rock solid, including the Linux flavor.
Slashdot Mirror
Full of sophomoric cynicism today are you?
You sound a lot like the folks back when who said we'd never drive at 60 MPH 'because it will suck all the air out of your lungs', or the engineer who claimed that 'rockets will never work in space because there's nothing to push against'. Few people in 1900 would have predicted airliners, satellites, nuclear weapons and ICBMs less than 70 years later.
Colonizing space is the only hope for our species to last more than a few more millenia IMO. It's good to see the visionaries pushing forward despite Luddites such as yourself.
Congratulations to SpaceX, and kudos to Elon Musk for doing something worthwhile with his fortune!
Yeah, I've certainly noticed that different pay scales among software developers has "bred discontent". :P
In fact, I wish every developer would be paid the same so no one's feelings would be hurt! Not!
Let the poor performers feel bad. Perhaps they'll leave teaching and do something they're good at.
Good point. Also kudos to the person advocating nuclear power, we definitely need to bump our nuclear electricity percentage above 50% (preferably far above).
As to "huge arrays of hydrogen fueled millimeter turbine engines", various square/cube issues would seem to make the idea a non-starter. Larger turbines should be far more efficient, not to mention easier to make.
Only Schrodinger's cat is powerful enough to stop it!
LOL!
Sorry, in my haste to post and move on I apparently confused Von Neumann with Turing. Apologies.
What total nonsense. In terms of threats, bio, nuclear and chem, in that order, outweigh any robotic threat by a great deal (discounting Turing machines, which are a far different class than that discussed here).
In fact, I'd put it as "there's no better way to assure the eventual destruction of mankind than by continuing to develop lethal technologies without making any real effort to improve our ethical standards."
Getting the heck off this rock is a good idea too!
I've looked at quite a few PNG/RAW images. Often, photos have constant values for the low order bits over large areas. So, you're best off picking photos of natural things with high noise content (little sky or other uniformly colored items in the image). Also, the less information you inject into the image, the less it will affect it statistically.
Write a simple viewer to display the low-order bit as black or white and you'll quickly get an idea of what I'm talking about.
A little quick analysis shows this isn't really an issue, for textual information. Think of a typical 1 megapixel image. This provides 1 million bits of storage, or 128K bytes. That's quite a lengthy message in text, around 64 pages. If all you need is "It's time to execute the plan!" (suitably encrypted of course) a much smaller image could be used.
The tricky area in steganography is that the cutting edge approach is to embed data in lossily compressed JPEGs using DCT coefficients. Apparently the change in DCT statistics can be detected in many cases, so it may not be too useful. However, I'm not too sure of the precept that losslessly compressed images are rare or obviously steganographic. There are plenty of PNG and RAW photo images available on the Net. (BTW, swizzling the low-order pixels as the grandparent suggested is an obvious clue that the image has been altered, and is a possible steganographic image.)
The majority of knowledgeable geeks I know of don't really think that way. More of them think that way than the non-geeks, as a rough percentage, but the lack of hardware, the lack of software and the overall closed-platform that they had been stuck on for so long makes them less than desireable. That are not clearly one of the most flexible computers, they have a lot of limitations along with their advantages.
You are conflating MacOS with Mac hardware. Mac hardware runs MacOS, Windows (either virtual or native), and Linux (either virtual or native). So, there is no other computer that you can buy that is as flexible of a software platform than a Mac. Sorry I wasn't more clear, though I think you're off on your other conclusions too, see below.
Apple expects peoples wants and needs to adapt to their computers, you find that is a lot less common in the PC world.
This isn't really true any more, though I'm sure it'd be nice if Apple had even more models. What you should really look at now are the Mac Pros, which are highly configurable (something like 2 billion possible configurations from the Apple Store, and a lot more if you take into account third party hardware). I'd like to see a Core 2 Duo based tower at a lower price point, but that's the only big hole in Apple's lineup.
1) You can build your own PC, can't do that with an Apple
Since Apple is a hardware manufacturer, that isn't too surprising. You can't build your own IBM or Dell either. But yes, that is one area I'd like to see Apple change, I'd like them to sell their OS for a few hundred dollars to run on third party hardware using approved devices.
2) Until recently, you could put MacOS and maybe wiggle a few flavors of *Nix or *Nix clones on a Mac, PCs had pretty much everything but MacOS, and some industrial-grade operating systems available for them.
I'm not at all sure what you mean here. Current Macs run MacOS, Linux, Windows, and most likely any other x86 compatible OS (say QNX for example).
3) There's a lot more software avialable for Windows for Apple, you can also find more or at least comparable amounts for Linux and BSD as well.
Since Mac _hardware_ runs all of those operating systems (and runs most of the software fine in virtualized environments) I'd say you're off base here. Plus, since MacOS is POSIX, a lot of *nix software compiles and runs fine with no modifications.
4) The majority of hardware/peripherials you find is labeled for Windows. While you can often use them on other operating systems (Linux, BSD, MacOS), the stuff that works on Macs is still a lot less common, probably even less common than that which will work on Linux.
Yes, but the need for third-party hardware is reduced with a Mac. Plus, many things do work, for instance most Bluetooth, USB and Firewire devices - which is a big chunk of the market.
I think Apple is going to see a big upswing in computer sales over the next few years as word spreads of how painless, fun, and powerful Macs are compared to the competition.
The thing is, we tech "geeks" who actually know what we're talking about like Apple's products for the most part. Apple products also have some very tangible advantages, and Macs are clearly the most flexible computers on the market.
As to "limited capabilities", I have no idea what you're talking about. I recently picked up a 24" iMac and I'm very pleased with it so far. It definitely outshines any other computer I've had.
I'm fairly well acquainted with gcj, and in fact it compiles a fair amount of standard Java without problems. There is also the Jet compiler which is ahead-of-time and fully compliant.
So, it's certainly possible to do a good ahead-of-time Java compiler. Whether Java is desirable as the "next big general purpose language" is another question, of course.
D is attractive if viewed as a superior C++.
Maybe it makes sense for some resource-constrained settings like embedded systems, but there i've used Java straight up, satisfactorily. Granted, these are not life-critical systems I've built, but rather than compiling Java - or trying to - the better answer is to use a more appropriate language in those circumstances.
There is a very big sweet spot for a language that's approachable, powerful, productive and efficient. With the advent of performance/Watt thinking, it makes no sense to get efficient processors and then throw away that efficiency on slow software. Of course, there are also applications where raw speed is very important; real time apps, simulations, games and scientific programs.
C++ is widely viewed as less than desirable. It's good to have better, more modern alternatives going forward. Another interesting looking language is Dylan, though quite different in many ways.
Hard to remove and externally invisible.
I really wouldn't like them to start getting hot. You can take your glasses off.
Not to worry - this radiation doesn't penetrate beyond the first mm. or two of skin.
Now, those who wear metal jewelry in external body piercings...THEY should worry. ;-)
Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "consensus". Certainly not all qualified scientists believe "human caused global warming" is a dominant factor in current climate change. You might check this 2002 article (for instance):
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/14 /161152.shtml
The one tangible thing that's been done to try and address global warming is the Kyoto Protocol. It is quite flawed, though, in that it gives exemptions to the countries which are most likely to be big polluters in coming decades. It would also impose economic penalties on countries like the US which are already doing quite a lot to reduce their environmental impact.
If /.ers want to rally around a single approach that would be beneficial not just to human related global warming if it exists, but also to energy independence and reduced pollution, do whatever you can to advocate constructing new nuclear reactors here in the US. That is the single best thing we could do at this point.
Those who can plug in hybrids or electric cars to charge would then be running nuclear powered vehicles...sweet! :-)
Yes, I'm surprised that something more powerful than the X1600 wasn't offered, at least on the 17" model.
It could have used the extra power, given the extra pixels to push.
Was it OSX causing the problem, or was it the first Macbook Pro hardware?
TIA...
In related news, Air America just declared bankruptcy.
Liberalism - A plan to socialize America, redistribute wealth, weaken us militarily and tax us to death without providing any new solutions.
Brilliant!
Time for a >2 party system.
Therefore, it's not subliminal, since the flashed frame is supposed to be imperceptible to the conscious mind.
I believe OSNews has missed the point.
Apple has always touted OSX as a superior experience to Windows, and is continuing to do so.
However, it is simply reality that many folks have Windows programs they need to run as well. Between Boot Camp and the various VM approaches Apple now has that option covered nicely.
Where does that leave Macs exactly? As:
- The worlds most versatile computers.
- Powered by a superior, more secure OS.
- Able to run legacy Windows applications as need be.
Windows continues to chug along on its own momentum, but I expect Mac sales to do VERY nicely. The vast majority of Mac user time will be spent in MacOS X, I predict. I also predict more and more native MacOS game ports over time, as the userbase swells.Opteron has one more Hypertransport line for interprocessor communication. That was the reason for Socket 940 vs. Socket 939. I need to read up a bit to completely understand Socket AM2 vs. Socket F (great names there, AMD marketing types :P). Socket F apparently supports fully buffered DIMMs for one thing.
Otherwise, though, as you point out they're very similar, and may well come off the same wafers.
Also, despite the articles claim of low genetic diversity, some devils are probably resistant. It will only help if there are enough to form a viable breeding population, and they can find each other.
Also, although this cuts the average lifespan by quite a bit, since transmission occurs as part of the mating season, it's quite likely that females are able to give birth and create a new generation before dying. For that matter, are females even affected, or is it only the males that engage in these mating related fights?
So, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion at all that this disease could "wipe out" the Tasmanian Devils. More likely, the author is engaging in the ever popular sport of "enviro-alarmism". ;-)
Bad idea if you're doing heap allocation in a time-critical code section. Heap allocation ala 'malloc' isn't deterministic, it can take significant time if there's heap fragmentation.
Better to pre-allocate everything before going into the time-critical part. In which case GC is fine. ;-)
Regardless, GC is often faster, and also prevents mistakes that C/C++ coders often make.
The other point about GC is that for reliable, long-running programs GC mitigates the issue of heap fragmentation, which can lead to irrecoverable program errors in programs using malloc() and cousins.
GC technology is advancing rapidly, there are even deterministic GCs for RT use now.
Object recycling is also often a good strategy, since you get "new" objects with no allocation/GC overhead.
This is one path for companies to get Windows games onto Macs. It's probably a good thing in that more software will be available for Macs. It sounds like Cedega may have a lot of trouble getting to the point where their software works well enough to satisfy Mac user's expectations though.
All that said, native Mac games will still be produced. They'll run faster, work better, and take full advantage of Mac OS facilities.
In my opinion, the best way to go is a cross-platform game framework. There are many available, and you get nice native ports for very little extra effort, probably no more than that required to support 'Cider'.
So, we'll see how this shakes out. If, as others have said, AMD forces ATI to produce better drivers, and good Linux drivers, that may be a good outcome...
The other interesting aspect is (as it often is) Apple. Now AMD gets an instant slice of the Apple pie (sorry) since ATI makes most current Apple graphics chips. Interesting development there... Intel can't be happy.
I suspect the tension level just notched up at NVIDIAs headquarters as well.
You misquoted old Ben. His actual words say it much better.
Truer words have never been spoken.
By the way, this use of the Patriot Act goes directly against the original intent, which was to be strictly anti-terrorism. American citizens should be exempt unless evidence obtained by other means directly ties them to a terrorist or terrorist organization.
Don't be sheeple, folks.
The performance comment cuts both ways. DirectX uses COM, which has overhead compared plain-old-C-function calling.
There is also more to it than "taste". DirectX is one of the better mechanisms Microsoft has come up with to lock developers and titles into Windows. If you plan on writing a game, at least use an engine that supports OpenGL as well. You've increased your potential market, and done a little bit to promote choice in computing.
BTW, NVIDIA's OpenGL drivers are rock solid, including the Linux flavor.