Few years ago a couple of friends of mine got T1's installed to their houses up here in the Hollywood hills a few years back, and when we all got together one time over drinks and realized that its just a short step away from sharing the load with our friends, we invested in some radio-WAN gear and set up our own bandwidth coop.
Things have changed now - a couple of guys in the losfeliz net moved to Argentina, and I moved out of range of the radio WAN net we'd set up, but there is still friendly bandwidth sharing going on in this area if you look for it.
... maybe you techs should stop playing games on that DC the boss bough you and do your job.
Perhaps you'd notice that the Dreamcast gives you a field you can use for additional init strings if needed when you set up your ISP account. And that this field is saved along with all the other account info.
I wish my fellow Linux geeks would get this message: THERE ARE CURRENTLY *NO* DREAMCAST GAMES AVAILABLE WHICH USE THE WINDOWS CE OS. ALL CURRENT DREAMCAST GAMES USE SEGA'S OWN KERNEL.
The reason: most pro game development houses found that the performance and other restrictions in Windows CE were simply unacceptable, and opted for the good ol' safe and proven iTron-based SEGA Kernel...
You know, if more of us anti-MS zealots knew this, maybe the Dreamcast would be viewed a bit more favourably as the games machine that proved WinCE isn't up to the task.
The list of items rumoured to be in development for the Dreamcast include:
- Ethernet adapter - Zip disk system - DVD Player add-on - USB port (part of the Zip addon) - Higher capacity VMU's - Serial link cable
I'd say that its just too soon for Sega to release this stuff - makes more sense to me that they'd wait for more multi-player games to be released that require things like the network adapter before actually releasing it.
The built-in 56k modem actually works quite well, and combined with the Sega keyboard it makes web browsing quite simple. I wish we had a trackball or mouse accessory though - I haven't heard of one being developed, and I try to stay on top of things like this.
So far, my guess is that there just aren't enough Dreamcast-owning people who *HAVE A NEED* for an ethernet adapter right now to justify the huge ramp-up production costs... but I bet that we will see this adapter soon.
Maybe within the next few months, when a few choice game software developers also release some good multiplayer games for the Dreamcast system this Christmas as well...
Now, the DC + Keyboard + eth0 + trackball mouse combo would be quite a killer setup, especially if the total cost were less than $300 (for all of it, including the DC). This would make for a very nice web-based data entry system for quite a few of my clients, games-machine capabilities aside...
Frankly, I look forward to the day where, instead of going to a jewellry store and buying a physical object, I simply click on a web page, purchase the design for that object, squirt the design to my kitchen/workshop, and pop! out comes my own fabricated product.
I think that day will come, sooner than we think. It may not be Feed-like a la "Diamond Age", and it may not involve nano-tech at all, but one of these days soon we'll be able to make our own consumer products in the comfort of our living room. Heck, we're already building our own computers - this process has just gotta get simpler and simpler, because there's a huge cottage-industry driving it down to that level.
As computers have become personal, so will all other forms of industry.
So I'm not so sure that market domination of mega-corps in other forms of industry is as black and white as you think.
By way of simple example, the custom "experimental" aircraft industry is a huge one, and neither of those big-3(2) air companies are involved in it on an industry-dominating level. Yet every year, more and more people are buying designer aircraft.
Sure, the custom aircraft industry may be 'cottage' in nature right now due to the cost of entry, but don't forget that the Internet was a 'cottage' industry a few years back as well for the same cost-of-entry problem as well, and since the Internet is now the Grand Facilitator, things will change - pair the Internet with some of these other atom-based cottage industries, and all of a sudden you've got something that *can* challenge the Goliaths.
Granted, this challenge will on the face of it be in terms other than economic i.e. Someone posting a message like 'here is my open source design for an ultralight that'll get you anywhere in a radius of 1000 miles, feel free to improve on it just let me know of any modifications' == a great threat to the design ethic of Boeing but it may not necessarily be a revenue threat...
Also, just because some Goliath company has squintillions of capital to invest in squashing David doesn't mean anything any more - David Corp can always squirt itself out onto the 'net in the form of open projects, and there's nothing that Big Corp can do about it but sit back and watch people evolve their own tech.
Maybe you're right in terms of time - certainly we won't see the big corps come crashing down in the next 20 or so years. But what we *will* see is more and more people sharing more and more information about the design of things, the technology of things, and more and more industry resulting from that process, which is not directly under the control of the large corps that filled the gap pre-Internet.
I need a cheap, portable, affordable, worthwhile laptop to move all of my e-mail over to.
Right now I've got a Windows PC running Eudora, but I want to move it to a laptop, maybe running Linux and KMail (which does the job in terms of filtering - the only reason I still use Eudora).
If I can get a SparcBook inexpensively, I'll do it - I don't need to stick with Intel. The main thing is price.
PSX2 speculators tend to overlook the fact that the PSX2 has Firewire *and* USB ports in addition to the two-on-the-front game controller i/o ports.
I'm willing to bet that there will be cheap USB joysticks and controllers on the PC market in 6 months, which means that Sony *not* putting more proprietary ports on the front is a good thing.
They'll put 'em on there, so that they can bundle cheap controllers in the box, but really I think that USB-based controllers will take over from there.
And I'm willing to bet their Game API's can seamlessly switch between a USB controller and a cheap-front-i/o-port controller...
Sounds like RTS Game fodder to me...
on
The Big U
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· Score: 1
Warring factions with different techs, hostile environment, etc.
Sounds like a perfect scenario for a RTS game. Starcraft in a University.
A Linux-only project starter?
I'm willing to put energy into such a project.
Interactive Comic Book == Nintendo Game Boy
on
Disposable Computers
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· Score: 1
Just Sky and I, sitting in a dumpy little office on Los Feliz Blvd, with 10 modems on a cheap metal shelf we got from a liquidation sale, and a couple of Sun workstations.
Man, EarthLink has changed a lot since those days. I worked with Sky to get the whole thing started, and in fact it was my casual suggestion that he start an ISP before writing Internet-integration software that got the whole thing going... He'd come to me to develop what he'd called "Internet Navigator", which was basically his concept of having everything (mail, telnet, gopher, ftp clients) all bundled together to work as one package.
The idea being that all of it worked well for the end user - in those days, things were very much piece-meal. Also, this was in the Mosaic v0.9 days - MCOM wasn't even around yet.
One night over dinner I told him that before he got into trying to write a do-it-all Internet package, he ought to work out what was needed on the ISP end of things first.
And so he asked for my help, I quit my job, he secured some funding from some smart VC's, and we opened up shop... I was one of the two original founders, but since I left after 6 months and disassociated myself with ELN, I guess I don't count...:)
I just didn't share Sky's vision for world domination - I could tell, even then, that he was going to tread on whoever he needed in order to be as rich as possible, and I guess that's what's happened over the years. That's the way money works, I guess.
Still, its interesting to have been part of EarthLinks primordial history, and to have watched it all grow into a mega-corp so fast.
And even more amusing is the fact that they're now merging with Mindspring - in those days, Sky used to quiver with fear over ISP's like that (Primenet was the other major competitor for the SoCal area).
I wish all my old EarthLink friends best of luck with this merger. You guys that have stuck through everything that's gone on over at ELN deserve whatever you get out of this MindSpring deal...
Yes, I did read the article, thats why I decided it was just propaganda.
So, what you're saying is that the more successful the business model (measured by that ol' faithful yardstick, the Dollar "Gates" Bill), the less likely CNet is to rag on the company involved?
Good, glad we're agreeing on something. Thats *exactly* what I'm saying is *WRONG* with CNet!
And I believe that in this case, its not fair to make a huge thing about eMachines minimal failures - since you read the article you know that it wasn't *eMachines* that lost the lawsuit.
So what exactly is behind this story? Fact is, we're getting damned close to the end of the year.
The American Super-Shopping Experience starts in just a few months... so wouldn't it be handy if those damned nuisance eMachine people weren't around to undercut the big-guns? I mean, if a family buys a computer for $400, they're not gonna buy a computer for $1200. They've already got a computer by that point...
Since when has CNet been anything other than a seething cesspool of bias, anything more than a classic covert market slant operation? Since when does CNet give a damn about anything other than their advertisers interests?
Anyone who's paid any sort of attention to CNet News since its early days has (unless they're lobotomized) witnessed it turn from a somewhat cool Gen-X type news source, into an Intel-and-Microsoft-corporate-interests-are-God source of juicy net propaganda.
CNet is a tabloid at best.
You'll be hard pressed to find *any* articles in there that paint any sort of negative view towards Microsoft along the lines of negativity that's been painted over eMachines right now.
Even when Microsoft (or Intel, or Compaq, or any of the other advertisers on the CNet network) *do* screw up, CNet 'News' somehow manages to paint a "well, they've got it under control now, nothing to be worried about, move along folks" picture. That's because the people who pay for CNet, the marketing 'geniuses' who hold the reigns and who get paid lots of money to be propaganda wizards, know all too well that the Best Kind of Bad News is Old Bad News (i.e. It Was Bad, But We Fixed It and We're Strong Now- TM). That's all you'll get if the subject is Microsoft or Intel.
But if it's some other up-start company, forget it. It'll be bad forcasts, questionable-futures, uncertain perspectives, drama, reaction, excitement. ("Hey look kids, there's a car accident, is anyone dead?")
Tabloid marketing mechanics are very well known at CNet, and I'm willing to wager that most of their editors made a living in that market before they got a whiff of this Internet thing...
CNet News is like Slashdot for Microsoft and Intel. It serves its purpose for its paying members.
And in this case, they're clearly doing their best to dreg up the dirt on eMachines, and capitalizing on the general tabloidical nature of the Internet to propagate the bad news.
So, I say, so damned what. eMachines was a *good* company, with a damned good idea - make PC's affordable to Everyone, not just those elite middle-class crackerjack few who have a grand of expendable income to blow on what usually amounts to nothing more than an expensive toy (for the average family).
So eMachines is having a rough time of it.
Fine.
I for one hope that they pull out of it, and get whatever legal issues resolved that need to be resolved, so they can KEEP SELLING INEXPENSIVE COMPUTERS TO EVERYONE.
In the meantime, Compaq, Dell, and Microsoft can kiss my ass. I'm putting CNet's domains in my filter, because there's nothing but covert propaganda coming from those guys these days, and they know it.
(And before you rightwing fruits draw the Hyopcrisy Card and start saying that the same is true about Slashdot, I'd like to point out a *huge* difference: these conversations. Try posting something like this message on CNet's forums, see how long it takes for it to mysteriously disappear)
Which, by the way, would work to solve your problem of not having enough controller ports.
After all, USB is a perfectly good bus for Joystick controllers, and it also means that there will be crossover in the peripheral market - all the USB joysticks/wheels/pads/controllers that are made for the PC market may also be usable with the PSX2.
Which means, why bother putting more than 2 controller ports on the PSX2 in the first place, I think. Maybe they'll get rid of 'em and just use USB.
For all you guys that have VAIO's, where are you getting 'em from? I'd like to start shopping for a laptop system, but I don't want to pay premium price for a system I'm going to end up re-installing the OS on - is there a better source for them online?
I agree with you 100% on the way that console competitors can undercut each other.
But I think that it's a mistake to think that Microsoft have done this, or that they are the ones coming up with the idea.
Sony are/will *already* doing/have done it.
Okay, that sentence was fucked - because obviously I don't know for sure that Sony are going to do this, but it's pretty clear to me that their announcement earlier in the year that the next-gen Sony console will require developers to use Linux as a development platform means that they're going to start looking at ways to open up software development.
Sony have been in the console-developer-mindset-control business for a lot longer than Microsoft has (I said *console*-developer), so they know what console games programmers want and how to deliver it to them.
I'm not so sure that Microsoft, with its strategy of developer-mindset control is going to cut it against Sony, who understand pop culture (thus, the people who play/make video games) much better than Microsoft.
MSDN may now be a cult in grand tradition, but its a different school. It's all about closed technologies, and keeping up with those technologies. MSDN is as about as closed a community/technology resource as you can get, especially in this Internet universe that most developers are becoming a part of these days...
I think that because of this, Sony are about to raise the bar for developer control, by using the same techniques and opportunities for developer mindshare homesteading that exist in That Other Huge Developer Cult: Linux.
And I don't think Microsoft knows how to pray at that altar just yet...
info: Slashdot AC identity user: bgates name: Sir William Gates 3rd title(s): Holy Knight Inquisitor, Lord of Darkness Version 3.0, Bearer of 32nd Order of Fries host: nicepants.microsoft.com d.o.p.: 05-09-99 12:17 EDT OS: Linux Mandrake 6.1 NSA payoff balance: 15,503,230,390.42 Rating: A1 Super
Notes: Had 4 typo's, used Backspace 5 times. Hands on keyboard are dirty. Body odor index of 15.5 during post. Has not brushed teeth in 45.3 hours. Last consumed food item: Oreo's and Milk.
Account debited $1. New Balance: 15,503,230,389.42
I guess this isn't a violation of the quiet period is it? Does that only apply to press release type stuff, marketing, etc? Just curious if anyone knows.
Visix VIBE was one of the better JAVA-based quick development environments around 2 or 3 years ago. It really is sad that Visix went out of business before they could get VIBE brought up to modern JDK specs...
You know, I wonder if there's any chance that the source code to VIBE might be made available to the public? I remember discussing this possibility with one of the engineers a few years back when I was quite entrenched in using VIBE as a development tool, and he said there was some interest in doing this...
I suppose now with all the assets of Visix being traded around amongst banks and whatnot, the chances of this happening are pretty slim.
Still, it was indeed a great toolkit - it had springs and struts before pretty much any other toolkit for Java based development had 'em...
I'm about to start the process of encoding all of my personal CD's as well, and one thing I'm yet to understand is if there is some degree of CDDB integration with the popular encoders out there, so that encoded files get named properly without requiring much interaction by the user.
If not, then what is the best open-source encoder and CDDB-compatible CD player application, so that I can make a FrankenCoder that will automatically place encoded CD files into the correct directory/filename layout for easy reference...
Though I find Object Pascal to be quite powerful. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 10 years, and in the late 80's I also wrote a *lot* of Turbo Pascal code.
Pascal seems to have gotten a bad rap, but it's an excellent language for the kind of mindset that RAD requires.
The thing about Delphi (I just started using it last year, and *live* by it for Windows development - it is a far better tool for Win32 development, imho, than VisualC++) is that it's a very, very friendly and productive environment.
Want to get a basic dialog-based app built? Just design it, double click on the GUI elements, add the necessary code to validate each, double click on your "Ok" button, add the final code, and oila - its done.
There is no messing about with Message Apps, no crufty code that doesn't seem to be applicable to anything (as is the case with the stuff generated by the MSVC++ AppWizards), and everything is accessible.
Plus, the Delphi VCL really is an excellent toolkit. When I first discovered it after a long hiatus from writing Pascal code, I experienced the same sort of "gee, programming is fun again!" vibe that I got the first time I studied the BeOS API's... it just makes a lot of sense, and most of the time you can *guess* API function names, sensibly.
Which is not something you can say for MFC or any of the other shitty API's/SDK's you get from Those Folks In Richmond.
So I suppose that the Delphi-cult could best be described as being driven by the fact that Delphi makes Windows programming fun again, something that is sorely missing on the Windows platform courtesy of MS.
Slashdot Mirror
Few years ago a couple of friends of mine got T1's installed to their houses up here in the Hollywood hills a few years back, and when we all got together one time over drinks and realized that its just a short step away from sharing the load with our friends, we invested in some radio-WAN gear and set up our own bandwidth coop.
Things have changed now - a couple of guys in the losfeliz net moved to Argentina, and I moved out of range of the radio WAN net we'd set up, but there is still friendly bandwidth sharing going on in this area if you look for it.
... maybe you techs should stop playing games on that DC the boss bough you and do your job.
Perhaps you'd notice that the Dreamcast gives you a field you can use for additional init strings if needed when you set up your ISP account. And that this field is saved along with all the other account info.
Might I suggest you read the manual, too.
I wish my fellow Linux geeks would get this message: THERE ARE CURRENTLY *NO* DREAMCAST GAMES AVAILABLE WHICH USE THE WINDOWS CE OS. ALL CURRENT DREAMCAST GAMES USE SEGA'S OWN KERNEL.
The reason: most pro game development houses found that the performance and other restrictions in Windows CE were simply unacceptable, and opted for the good ol' safe and proven iTron-based SEGA Kernel...
You know, if more of us anti-MS zealots knew this, maybe the Dreamcast would be viewed a bit more favourably as the games machine that proved WinCE isn't up to the task.
The list of items rumoured to be in development for the Dreamcast include:
- Ethernet adapter
- Zip disk system
- DVD Player add-on
- USB port (part of the Zip addon)
- Higher capacity VMU's
- Serial link cable
I'd say that its just too soon for Sega to release this stuff - makes more sense to me that they'd wait for more multi-player games to be released that require things like the network adapter before actually releasing it.
The built-in 56k modem actually works quite well, and combined with the Sega keyboard it makes web browsing quite simple. I wish we had a trackball or mouse accessory though - I haven't heard of one being developed, and I try to stay on top of things like this.
So far, my guess is that there just aren't enough Dreamcast-owning people who *HAVE A NEED* for an ethernet adapter right now to justify the huge ramp-up production costs... but I bet that we will see this adapter soon.
Maybe within the next few months, when a few choice game software developers also release some good multiplayer games for the Dreamcast system this Christmas as well...
Now, the DC + Keyboard + eth0 + trackball mouse combo would be quite a killer setup, especially if the total cost were less than $300 (for all of it, including the DC). This would make for a very nice web-based data entry system for quite a few of my clients, games-machine capabilities aside...
j.
Makes *ME* glad I ride a bicycle.
Unless the require me to shave my head and paint a reg # on my pate...
I agree with you, sort of.
Frankly, I look forward to the day where, instead of going to a jewellry store and buying a physical object, I simply click on a web page, purchase the design for that object, squirt the design to my kitchen/workshop, and pop! out comes my own fabricated product.
I think that day will come, sooner than we think. It may not be Feed-like a la "Diamond Age", and it may not involve nano-tech at all, but one of these days soon we'll be able to make our own consumer products in the comfort of our living room. Heck, we're already building our own computers - this process has just gotta get simpler and simpler, because there's a huge cottage-industry driving it down to that level.
As computers have become personal, so will all other forms of industry.
So I'm not so sure that market domination of mega-corps in other forms of industry is as black and white as you think.
By way of simple example, the custom "experimental" aircraft industry is a huge one, and neither of those big-3(2) air companies are involved in it on an industry-dominating level. Yet every year, more and more people are buying designer aircraft.
Sure, the custom aircraft industry may be 'cottage' in nature right now due to the cost of entry, but don't forget that the Internet was a 'cottage' industry a few years back as well for the same cost-of-entry problem as well, and since the Internet is now the Grand Facilitator, things will change - pair the Internet with some of these other atom-based cottage industries, and all of a sudden you've got something that *can* challenge the Goliaths.
Granted, this challenge will on the face of it be in terms other than economic i.e. Someone posting a message like 'here is my open source design for an ultralight that'll get you anywhere in a radius of 1000 miles, feel free to improve on it just let me know of any modifications' == a great threat to the design ethic of Boeing but it may not necessarily be a revenue threat...
Also, just because some Goliath company has squintillions of capital to invest in squashing David doesn't mean anything any more - David Corp can always squirt itself out onto the 'net in the form of open projects, and there's nothing that Big Corp can do about it but sit back and watch people evolve their own tech.
Maybe you're right in terms of time - certainly we won't see the big corps come crashing down in the next 20 or so years. But what we *will* see is more and more people sharing more and more information about the design of things, the technology of things, and more and more industry resulting from that process, which is not directly under the control of the large corps that filled the gap pre-Internet.
I need a cheap, portable, affordable, worthwhile laptop to move all of my e-mail over to.
:)
Right now I've got a Windows PC running Eudora, but I want to move it to a laptop, maybe running Linux and KMail (which does the job in terms of filtering - the only reason I still use Eudora).
If I can get a SparcBook inexpensively, I'll do it - I don't need to stick with Intel. The main thing is price.
So where'd you get it?!!!
PSX2 speculators tend to overlook the fact that the PSX2 has Firewire *and* USB ports in addition to the two-on-the-front game controller i/o ports.
I'm willing to bet that there will be cheap USB joysticks and controllers on the PC market in 6 months, which means that Sony *not* putting more proprietary ports on the front is a good thing.
They'll put 'em on there, so that they can bundle cheap controllers in the box, but really I think that USB-based controllers will take over from there.
And I'm willing to bet their Game API's can seamlessly switch between a USB controller and a cheap-front-i/o-port controller...
Warring factions with different techs, hostile environment, etc.
Sounds like a perfect scenario for a RTS game. Starcraft in a University.
A Linux-only project starter?
I'm willing to put energy into such a project.
Subject says it all.
Harvesting diamonds - easy. Just crash something large and heavy into it, then scoot around picking up the pieces that are flung off into space.
Given NASA's recent activities, I'd imagine they're quite skilled at crashing things into distant planets.
So we're half way there, at least.
Question is : what can we crash into it to make a big enough diamond splash?
Hey - maybe there is a use for AOL disks after all!
Just Sky and I, sitting in a dumpy little office on Los Feliz Blvd, with 10 modems on a cheap metal shelf we got from a liquidation sale, and a couple of Sun workstations.
:)
Man, EarthLink has changed a lot since those days. I worked with Sky to get the whole thing started, and in fact it was my casual suggestion that he start an ISP before writing Internet-integration software that got the whole thing going... He'd come to me to develop what he'd called "Internet Navigator", which was basically his concept of having everything (mail, telnet, gopher, ftp clients) all bundled together to work as one package.
The idea being that all of it worked well for the end user - in those days, things were very much piece-meal. Also, this was in the Mosaic v0.9 days - MCOM wasn't even around yet.
One night over dinner I told him that before he got into trying to write a do-it-all Internet package, he ought to work out what was needed on the ISP end of things first.
And so he asked for my help, I quit my job, he secured some funding from some smart VC's, and we opened up shop... I was one of the two original founders, but since I left after 6 months and disassociated myself with ELN, I guess I don't count...
I just didn't share Sky's vision for world domination - I could tell, even then, that he was going to tread on whoever he needed in order to be as rich as possible, and I guess that's what's happened over the years. That's the way money works, I guess.
Still, its interesting to have been part of EarthLinks primordial history, and to have watched it all grow into a mega-corp so fast.
And even more amusing is the fact that they're now merging with Mindspring - in those days, Sky used to quiver with fear over ISP's like that (Primenet was the other major competitor for the SoCal area).
I wish all my old EarthLink friends best of luck with this merger. You guys that have stuck through everything that's gone on over at ELN deserve whatever you get out of this MindSpring deal...
Yes, I did read the article, thats why I decided it was just propaganda.
So, what you're saying is that the more successful the business model (measured by that ol' faithful yardstick, the Dollar "Gates" Bill), the less likely CNet is to rag on the company involved?
Good, glad we're agreeing on something. Thats *exactly* what I'm saying is *WRONG* with CNet!
And I believe that in this case, its not fair to make a huge thing about eMachines minimal failures - since you read the article you know that it wasn't *eMachines* that lost the lawsuit.
So what exactly is behind this story? Fact is, we're getting damned close to the end of the year.
The American Super-Shopping Experience starts in just a few months... so wouldn't it be handy if those damned nuisance eMachine people weren't around to undercut the big-guns? I mean, if a family buys a computer for $400, they're not gonna buy a computer for $1200. They've already got a computer by that point...
[removes tongue from cheek]
I mean, come on, give me a break.
Since when has CNet been anything other than a seething cesspool of bias, anything more than a classic covert market slant operation? Since when does CNet give a damn about anything other than their advertisers interests?
Anyone who's paid any sort of attention to CNet News since its early days has (unless they're lobotomized) witnessed it turn from a somewhat cool Gen-X type news source, into an Intel-and-Microsoft-corporate-interests-are-God source of juicy net propaganda.
CNet is a tabloid at best.
You'll be hard pressed to find *any* articles in there that paint any sort of negative view towards Microsoft along the lines of negativity that's been painted over eMachines right now.
Even when Microsoft (or Intel, or Compaq, or any of the other advertisers on the CNet network) *do* screw up, CNet 'News' somehow manages to paint a "well, they've got it under control now, nothing to be worried about, move along folks" picture. That's because the people who pay for CNet, the marketing 'geniuses' who hold the reigns and who get paid lots of money to be propaganda wizards, know all too well that the Best Kind of Bad News is Old Bad News (i.e. It Was Bad, But We Fixed It and We're Strong Now- TM). That's all you'll get if the subject is Microsoft or Intel.
But if it's some other up-start company, forget it. It'll be bad forcasts, questionable-futures, uncertain perspectives, drama, reaction, excitement. ("Hey look kids, there's a car accident, is anyone dead?")
Tabloid marketing mechanics are very well known at CNet, and I'm willing to wager that most of their editors made a living in that market before they got a whiff of this Internet thing...
CNet News is like Slashdot for Microsoft and Intel. It serves its purpose for its paying members.
And in this case, they're clearly doing their best to dreg up the dirt on eMachines, and capitalizing on the general tabloidical nature of the Internet to propagate the bad news.
So, I say, so damned what. eMachines was a *good* company, with a damned good idea - make PC's affordable to Everyone, not just those elite middle-class crackerjack few who have a grand of expendable income to blow on what usually amounts to nothing more than an expensive toy (for the average family).
So eMachines is having a rough time of it.
Fine.
I for one hope that they pull out of it, and get whatever legal issues resolved that need to be resolved, so they can KEEP SELLING INEXPENSIVE COMPUTERS TO EVERYONE.
In the meantime, Compaq, Dell, and Microsoft can kiss my ass. I'm putting CNet's domains in my filter, because there's nothing but covert propaganda coming from those guys these days, and they know it.
(And before you rightwing fruits draw the Hyopcrisy Card and start saying that the same is true about Slashdot, I'd like to point out a *huge* difference: these conversations. Try posting something like this message on CNet's forums, see how long it takes for it to mysteriously disappear)
Which, by the way, would work to solve your problem of not having enough controller ports.
After all, USB is a perfectly good bus for Joystick controllers, and it also means that there will be crossover in the peripheral market - all the USB joysticks/wheels/pads/controllers that are made for the PC market may also be usable with the PSX2.
Which means, why bother putting more than 2 controller ports on the PSX2 in the first place, I think. Maybe they'll get rid of 'em and just use USB.
j.
For all you guys that have VAIO's, where are you getting 'em from? I'd like to start shopping for a laptop system, but I don't want to pay premium price for a system I'm going to end up re-installing the OS on - is there a better source for them online?
j.
G3/PPC laptops aren't that common, are they?
Where can they be bought? I'm in the market for a new laptop, maybe this is a good solution for me...
Details?
j.
I agree with you 100% on the way that console competitors can undercut each other.
...
But I think that it's a mistake to think that Microsoft have done this, or that they are the ones coming up with the idea.
Sony are/will *already* doing/have done it.
Okay, that sentence was fucked - because obviously I don't know for sure that Sony are going to do this, but it's pretty clear to me that their announcement earlier in the year that the next-gen Sony console will require developers to use Linux as a development platform means that they're going to start looking at ways to open up software development.
Sony have been in the console-developer-mindset-control business for a lot longer than Microsoft has (I said *console*-developer), so they know what console games programmers want and how to deliver it to them.
I'm not so sure that Microsoft, with its strategy of developer-mindset control is going to cut it against Sony, who understand pop culture (thus, the people who play/make video games) much better than Microsoft.
MSDN may now be a cult in grand tradition, but its a different school. It's all about closed technologies, and keeping up with those technologies. MSDN is as about as closed a community/technology resource as you can get, especially in this Internet universe that most developers are becoming a part of these days...
I think that because of this, Sony are about to raise the bar for developer control, by using the same techniques and opportunities for developer mindshare homesteading that exist in That Other Huge Developer Cult: Linux.
And I don't think Microsoft knows how to pray at that altar just yet
From the NSA database:
info: Slashdot AC identity
user: bgates
name: Sir William Gates 3rd
title(s): Holy Knight Inquisitor, Lord of Darkness Version 3.0, Bearer of 32nd Order of Fries
host: nicepants.microsoft.com
d.o.p.: 05-09-99 12:17 EDT
OS: Linux Mandrake 6.1
NSA payoff balance: 15,503,230,390.42
Rating: A1 Super
Notes: Had 4 typo's, used Backspace 5 times.
Hands on keyboard are dirty.
Body odor index of 15.5 during post.
Has not brushed teeth in 45.3 hours.
Last consumed food item: Oreo's and Milk.
Account debited $1.
New Balance: 15,503,230,389.42
Don't you have better things to do, Bill?
I guess this isn't a violation of the quiet period is it? Does that only apply to press release type stuff, marketing, etc? Just curious if anyone knows.
Visix VIBE was one of the better JAVA-based quick development environments around 2 or 3 years ago. It really is sad that Visix went out of business before they could get VIBE brought up to modern JDK specs...
You know, I wonder if there's any chance that the source code to VIBE might be made available to the public? I remember discussing this possibility with one of the engineers a few years back when I was quite entrenched in using VIBE as a development tool, and he said there was some interest in doing this...
I suppose now with all the assets of Visix being traded around amongst banks and whatnot, the chances of this happening are pretty slim.
Still, it was indeed a great toolkit - it had springs and struts before pretty much any other toolkit for Java based development had 'em...
If you find that mice are a pain in the ass, can I humbly suggest that you re-evaulate how you're using your mouse?
They're not supposed to go anywhere near your ass.
I'm about to start the process of encoding all of my personal CD's as well, and one thing I'm yet to understand is if there is some degree of CDDB integration with the popular encoders out there, so that encoded files get named properly without requiring much interaction by the user.
If not, then what is the best open-source encoder and CDDB-compatible CD player application, so that I can make a FrankenCoder that will automatically place encoded CD files into the correct directory/filename layout for easy reference...
Though I find Object Pascal to be quite powerful. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 10 years, and in the late 80's I also wrote a *lot* of Turbo Pascal code.
Pascal seems to have gotten a bad rap, but it's an excellent language for the kind of mindset that RAD requires.
The thing about Delphi (I just started using it last year, and *live* by it for Windows development - it is a far better tool for Win32 development, imho, than VisualC++) is that it's a very, very friendly and productive environment.
Want to get a basic dialog-based app built? Just design it, double click on the GUI elements, add the necessary code to validate each, double click on your "Ok" button, add the final code, and oila - its done.
There is no messing about with Message Apps, no crufty code that doesn't seem to be applicable to anything (as is the case with the stuff generated by the MSVC++ AppWizards), and everything is accessible.
Plus, the Delphi VCL really is an excellent toolkit. When I first discovered it after a long hiatus from writing Pascal code, I experienced the same sort of "gee, programming is fun again!" vibe that I got the first time I studied the BeOS API's... it just makes a lot of sense, and most of the time you can *guess* API function names, sensibly.
Which is not something you can say for MFC or any of the other shitty API's/SDK's you get from Those Folks In Richmond.
So I suppose that the Delphi-cult could best be described as being driven by the fact that Delphi makes Windows programming fun again, something that is sorely missing on the Windows platform courtesy of MS.
Anyone else having problems getting it running under Linux? My new binary just core dumps...