I've seen a lot of "logic" arguments to this post, but I think people are missing a sort of obvious one: size. If you had enough RAM as an average hard drive (say, 20 gigs) I'm sure that at least *one* piece would be faulty. You're comparing, in a best-case server scenario, a gig of RAM vs. a 80-gig hard drive. I think if the numbers were even it'd be a "fairer" fight.
I'm indifferent to MS (I don't share the same hatred everyone has here, but I refuse to use any of their operating systems that aren't a part of NT, if I can help it). Anyhoo, there is a bit of weird logic involved with this article.
Let's say, on assumption (and probably being conservative) that there's a billion lines of code in all of their current products (by MS standards, up to 3 years old). Lets say they have 1000 programmers (again being conservative) working on this initative. Each programmer puts in a record 10 hours a day, 50 hours a week, and doesn't take a lunch break. That means each one has to find 5000 bugs PER HOUR. 5000 buffer overflows, incorrect types, etc. which are hard enough to find when you're only looking for one of them.
Change the numbers around if you want, but the fact remains that I don't think this is physically possible.
You mean the OS is supposed to catch mistakes from beta video hardware before it triggers a crash? Why didn't someone think of this before? *slaps head* And here I was thinking that running beta kernel-mode nVidia drivers on my Linux box was the reason I was getting crashes. How stupid of me.
Out of curiousity, I wonder if anyone has actually done a study to determine if the subscription model offers more profit than the "pay" model. I know cell phone providers have practically relied on this model exclusively - anyone wonder if more money could be made by just charging someone, say, $200 for the phone and unlimited usage?
Considering how The Register manages to create faux "internal emails" from corporations from time to time, maybe THEY should be named Troll of the Week.
I've bounced around distributions myself (RedHat at first, then Caldera and now Mandrake). My goal is to not necessarily have the latest software, but to have a smooth installation that doesn't destoy everything else on my computer in the process (like Windows XP). Mandrake 8.1 has been the first distro I used that properly identified the NT partitions on my drive, configured a boot loader to load my OS's, and run all of my laptop hardware out of the box (including my wireless network).
Is Debian, commercial or otherwise, at an installation stage when it can do that? I played with an installation on a server one time and was impressed by its content (if not graphical) installation polish (kind of reminded me of FreeBSD). But on a dual-boot machine will it kill my other OS? (Also, do they have the latest PCMCIA and other hardware drivers?)
Sort of on topic, considering the number of comments being posted about heatsink fans (even though the article has little to do with it): why noone ever figured out a way to use the hot air being expelled by the system fan to turn something that would generate electricity. Can't some of it be recycled back to power the system?
You can tell it's the 80s because most of the color work appears to have been done in magic marker.:)
Seriously, though, there are probably more girls in these pictures because they look like concepts for PR art. It's the same idea as putting a model next to a sportscar.
You're a little off. You missed the bell bottom and visor revival by about 5 years. Right now every girl has the "Britney Spears syndrome", which requires them to show their navels (hence the small shirts).
You've got me on the platform shoes. It's hard enough to find someone with the requisite "the girl has to be shorter than me" requirement. Now girls want to be even taller to skew the playing field.
Some would argue that 2000 is more stable than XP. I know from personal experience this was the first OS from Microsoft I really liked (and I never had it crash -- as opposed to XP).
If you were in a company that fell apart because of a scam, I'm sure you would care.
Considering the huge amount of money that has been invested in techs the past 10 years, and a reliance on such techs by investors, nerds really should care about this stuff.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how close some of this sounds to Plan 9. Heck, if Microsoft wants to bring distributed computing to the OS masses, and get databases off of a single source (like.NET) I say be my guest.
I would be more impressed if they can improve current technology to the point that laptop batteries could compete with fuel cells in the "total power" department. For me, it's far easier to plug a laptop into any available wall outlet to juice it up. With newer batteries, you can even get 3 hours worth of juice off an hour of charging.
Whereas with liquid fuel, I'd have to worry about extra sloshing out, easier combustion and availability (not to mention price).
Actually, how often do people start with the words "begin", in lower-case letters? I guess if you're writing a recipe... and your caps lock key is stuck...
"QuickTime is the new standard file format for MPEG4"
Other way around. MPEG4 is (supposed) to be the new standard file format for QuickTime. How long that will take (people are still using RealAudio and Windows Media standards from 3 years ago) is anyone's guess.
I was referring to the API which, while documented, is not "open". If you went with the comment one person made, the Windows APIs would all be "open" because they're documented. That's not "open" in the traditional Source/Slashdot sense.
I don't absolutely require open code (heck, I think DirectX is pretty nifty for some of the things it does) but if you're trying to link Apple, OpenGL, QuickTime and "open source", you're mistaken.
"Mac OS X's strong support for technologies such as OpenGL and QuickTime, can empower game developers to create the custom production tools they often need in a fraction of the programmer hours it takes on other platforms"
The problem is you're dealing with 2 completely different kinds of technologies. One is cross-platform and relatively "free", the other is held back by proprietary code (like most Apple "innovations"). Additionally, even with the new development tools, getting QuickTime to play nicely with OpenGL is a job within itself.
DirectX is no better in the proprietary code department, but at least you can setup a few function calls that will seemlessly pull together 3D graphics, video, sound and input routines that would work on a variety of PC hardware. I just wish that the "Direct-like" projects in Linux would be more ported to Windows, and that they supported more hardware-specific calls like pixel shaders.
I was actually thinking of the "uber" instance of this being a real problem for Comcast (and all other broadband providers); sharing that one $50 connection with a few hundred users in a mile-radius using wireless and a high-gain antenna. Then we're not talking a loss of a few dollars, but possible thousands a month.
"Why don't you use a SNES pad for the icon
(IMHO one of the best controllers ever)? "
Ugh, not that tiny thing. Give me the NES Advantage any day (the "arcade-sized" stick with huge buttons). I've grown to like "adult-sized" controllers: Dreamcast's, XBox, etc.
It may have already been said, but does anyone get the impression Slashdot has been posting so many game stories so it can show off the new Atari icon?
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen a lot of "logic" arguments to this post, but I think people are missing a sort of obvious one: size. If you had enough RAM as an average hard drive (say, 20 gigs) I'm sure that at least *one* piece would be faulty. You're comparing, in a best-case server scenario, a gig of RAM vs. a 80-gig hard drive. I think if the numbers were even it'd be a "fairer" fight.
Let's say, on assumption (and probably being conservative) that there's a billion lines of code in all of their current products (by MS standards, up to 3 years old). Lets say they have 1000 programmers (again being conservative) working on this initative. Each programmer puts in a record 10 hours a day, 50 hours a week, and doesn't take a lunch break. That means each one has to find 5000 bugs PER HOUR. 5000 buffer overflows, incorrect types, etc. which are hard enough to find when you're only looking for one of them.
Change the numbers around if you want, but the fact remains that I don't think this is physically possible.
You mean the OS is supposed to catch mistakes from beta video hardware before it triggers a crash? Why didn't someone think of this before? *slaps head* And here I was thinking that running beta kernel-mode nVidia drivers on my Linux box was the reason I was getting crashes. How stupid of me.
Out of curiousity, I wonder if anyone has actually done a study to determine if the subscription model offers more profit than the "pay" model. I know cell phone providers have practically relied on this model exclusively - anyone wonder if more money could be made by just charging someone, say, $200 for the phone and unlimited usage?
Considering how The Register manages to create faux "internal emails" from corporations from time to time, maybe THEY should be named Troll of the Week.
Is Debian, commercial or otherwise, at an installation stage when it can do that? I played with an installation on a server one time and was impressed by its content (if not graphical) installation polish (kind of reminded me of FreeBSD). But on a dual-boot machine will it kill my other OS? (Also, do they have the latest PCMCIA and other hardware drivers?)
Sort of on topic, considering the number of comments being posted about heatsink fans (even though the article has little to do with it): why noone ever figured out a way to use the hot air being expelled by the system fan to turn something that would generate electricity. Can't some of it be recycled back to power the system?
Seriously, though, there are probably more girls in these pictures because they look like concepts for PR art. It's the same idea as putting a model next to a sportscar.
I have one question, though: what are these nets on the ceiling for?
You've got me on the platform shoes. It's hard enough to find someone with the requisite "the girl has to be shorter than me" requirement. Now girls want to be even taller to skew the playing field.
Some would argue that 2000 is more stable than XP. I know from personal experience this was the first OS from Microsoft I really liked (and I never had it crash -- as opposed to XP).
Are you kidding me? I'm using it to browse the internet right n-
Daily Show I like. Beat the Geeks I'll tolerate. But the new Battlebots is just sad.
Considering the huge amount of money that has been invested in techs the past 10 years, and a reliance on such techs by investors, nerds really should care about this stuff.
No, but it gives "ping of death" a whole new meaning.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how close some of this sounds to Plan 9. Heck, if Microsoft wants to bring distributed computing to the OS masses, and get databases off of a single source (like .NET) I say be my guest.
Whereas with liquid fuel, I'd have to worry about extra sloshing out, easier combustion and availability (not to mention price).
Actually, how often do people start with the words "begin", in lower-case letters? I guess if you're writing a recipe... and your caps lock key is stuck...
Other way around. MPEG4 is (supposed) to be the new standard file format for QuickTime. How long that will take (people are still using RealAudio and Windows Media standards from 3 years ago) is anyone's guess.
I was referring to the API which, while documented, is not "open". If you went with the comment one person made, the Windows APIs would all be "open" because they're documented. That's not "open" in the traditional Source/Slashdot sense.
I don't absolutely require open code (heck, I think DirectX is pretty nifty for some of the things it does) but if you're trying to link Apple, OpenGL, QuickTime and "open source", you're mistaken.
There's a solution. Don't watch the channel.
The problem is you're dealing with 2 completely different kinds of technologies. One is cross-platform and relatively "free", the other is held back by proprietary code (like most Apple "innovations"). Additionally, even with the new development tools, getting QuickTime to play nicely with OpenGL is a job within itself.
DirectX is no better in the proprietary code department, but at least you can setup a few function calls that will seemlessly pull together 3D graphics, video, sound and input routines that would work on a variety of PC hardware. I just wish that the "Direct-like" projects in Linux would be more ported to Windows, and that they supported more hardware-specific calls like pixel shaders.
I guess those "real men" don't have to work at a company that makes any money.
*Sigh*. More people with very little experience with laptops. Read the mini-faq, people.
I was actually thinking of the "uber" instance of this being a real problem for Comcast (and all other broadband providers); sharing that one $50 connection with a few hundred users in a mile-radius using wireless and a high-gain antenna. Then we're not talking a loss of a few dollars, but possible thousands a month.
(IMHO one of the best controllers ever)? "
Ugh, not that tiny thing. Give me the NES Advantage any day (the "arcade-sized" stick with huge buttons). I've grown to like "adult-sized" controllers: Dreamcast's, XBox, etc.
It may have already been said, but does anyone get the impression Slashdot has been posting so many game stories so it can show off the new Atari icon?