while Linux is a great OS for things like development, etc, it just isn't the system of choice for gaming.
It is. Or rather, it can be. Quake 3 run faster on my GNU/Linux partition than on windows, etc. It is efficient. Companies just refuse to take the risk to embrace this market (except ID and some other, more power to 'em !).
The question is not whether GNU/Linux could be an OS for gamers. It could indeed. Yes, gamers would be a little lost, not having to install new drivers for the graphical device twice a day. But if there were a real game market, the manufacturer might spend more time on up to date drivers for our OS. (to have more game we need the drivers -- chicken-egg problem -- blah blah -- YES. Still, you won't succeed unless you try. This is the very essence of GNU/Linux).
The question could be, should we make it a gaming platform. Why not, I think the power of this OS lies in its versatility. We do not lack gamers IMHO : most of the current userbase is more or less hard-core geeks. Many of them prefer to code (and many w$ users prefer to work or word or..), but there are still many gamers among them, I'm sure of that.
So, will GNU/Linux become a (The?) gaming platform, I don't know. With Doom 3 and Deus Ex 2, we'll still have 2 out of the three big FPS's to come, which is not that bad. Who knows if the other developpers will follow the example ? The answer is quite simple : buy the game and play under GNU/Linux (sorry RMS:( ), so that they know we exist and are ready to pay.
Qtopia is fine on my Sharp Zaurus SL5000D, but OpenZaurus (with Opie) is really better (and Free) in my opinion. It's more polished, more mature and better documented. I don't really need the few software Qtopia has over OZ (Opera, Handcom Office Suite,..) since there are free alternative (Konqueror, etc).
Good to see Free forks can compete and sometimes overtake the original commercial software.
If you have a Zaurus, you really have to try OpenZaurus !
No protection will ever prevent people from ripping the music and put it on P2P networks. At least, as long as you can listen to the CD (be it on a HiFi, a PC, etc). I'm looking forward to the day the protection will actually prevent people from listening to the music they bought.
Stupid ? I don't know, we're not really far from there honestly. I cannot even record the latest copy-protected CD I bought onto a minidisc.
All they can do it make it always more difficult to grab (eg. requiring a digital connection between the HiFi-Computer). But they cannot stop piracy. They never have, and never will.
In my opinion, it is perfectly normal for them to try to prevent piracy (it's illegal, and bad, remember?). What is not normal is that I cannot listen to the music I buy the way I want (in OGG format, on my minidisc player, in my car, on my computer) !
Games are fun, but that's all they are (in general). Other medias (litterature, cinema, theatre, etc) can be fun, but they are also moving, deep, thematic, controversial (yeah ok there is GTA3). Should game be as powerful as other media to convey emotions, messages or ideas, they would be accepted more easily and broadly.
We're not even dealing with the eternal "But are video games art ?" question.
Games are seen as geek hobby because they make nothing to change that image, ie they tend to aim at being fun (which is good too, of course). Making deeper games with a real message behind, or with really moving scenes, is a really great challenge, because this is the only media where the focus is made on how the player can interract with the content; not the content itself.
The article brings up another point : accessibility. New input devices would greatly help here, but the market just doesn't want to take that risk, too bad.
Games are (already) fun. Period. If they want to break the geek stereotype, they have to be more than that.
I don't know, but I had the chance to see (and got my book signed by;-)) John Howe in Geneva earlier this year. Well amongst an awful lot of interesting things, he said he had seen (all or part of?) the new scenes that would form the extended version, and he totally loved it. He added they really pushed the movie to a new standard, even making it look like a new movie. The new footages is 42 minutes long.
Besides this, he addressed interesting issues (people could ask questions) like the presence of Elves in Helm's Deep and such other things. He answered really calmly and smartly, with precise and interesting arguments.
I really doubt PJ could even manage to do a bad movie with RotK after having seen the two other ones, but I can't wait to find out. And I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
I guess Sangloth was right with his Juno Reactor guess about the electronic part of the teaser soundtrack, but Juno obviously didn't write the classical music part of it.
James Newton Howard (The Fugitive, The 6th Sense,...) is the author of the classical bit, this is the track 20 ("Tarawa") of his soundtrack for the movie Snow Falling on Cedars. You can find this information on Soundtrack.Net as well as a french fan forum (thanks to ZeDuckMaster for this url). The song sounds just great, I have to get this album now;-)
Are you telling me that Bill Gates has released statistics that are obviously wrong, that everybody knows it, and that they are higher than the reality ? Do you really think M$ would release numbers not only fake (well this is not news), but numbers that says that W$ crashes more often than it does in reality ?
I'm sorry but however low my respect for this company, I don't buy it, this would be really stupid.
As for the relevance of those numbers, have you counted the majority of users who have disabled that feature ?
I'm not french though, are you? Non, je suis suisse (romand):)
Now if you really spoke french, you'd know that courriel isn't a "quick-translate" of any english words. What I meant was that the Academie Francaise feels obliged to find french translations to popular english words. I mean I'll be laughing at the first guy who says "courriel" to me, really:) Not to mention "La Toile", "cédérom" and such stupid words. Let's not be ashamed to use english words. English uses "café", and it's just fine.
I speak french, and I just find this "oh-quick-translate-this-english-words" habit sickening. This word, courriel, is crap. It just sucks hard. (and you're lucky, this is not the worst!).
I help translate the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter from english to french, but I'll really find me sick if I have to write courriel instead of email. English-speaking people don't bitch about "rendez-vous", "à propos", etc. This french habit is just arrogance.
I'll keep using email, internet, web, thank you very much.
Memory (art & palaces as well)
on
Inkblot Passwords
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
You have to read The Art of Memory by Frances Yates. This book deals with ancient practice of memory training and using, including those fantastic Memory Palaces where you litterally build imaginary (or not) places in your mind and use them to store representations that remind you from one idea, word, sentence, concept, or anything. You can then "walk" from place to place, looking at those representations and re-building a speech for instance.
Actually, this is the "intellectual", generic version of the idea posted (and slashdotted) above, and you can use it to remember your passwords, long speeches, todo-list, anything.
And M$ won't be patenting this any time soon, the greeks used this even BC.
Worth a read and a try, really.
Note: Thomas Harris has had Hannibal Lecter use and play with memory palaces in his novels too.
Since when is this word part of the capitalist vocabulary ? Doesn't seem to consistant with the ongoing lawsuits, FUD wars, hypocrisy, etc.
Exploiting other company's business model flaws is the basis of the world economy, so let's not be stupid, if they don't want flaws to be exploited, they've better not have flaws in the first place. Too bad, it's too late now.
I'm surprised nobody mentionned uPM (u as 'micro') so far. I don't know this packaging system very well, but it was discussed on/. a few times IIRC. Seems to be part of uOS, but maybe it can be used on any distro (at least, I see an uPM ebuild on my Gentoo, so I assume this is true) ?
Does anyone have more informations to add about uPM ?
I guess Andreesen when talking about all the innovations he "had in mind" he meant tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, popup blocking...
My guess would be he had stuff like popunder ads, flash and cute furry animals running over you desktop even after you leave a page in mind. At least considering the kind of "innovations" netscape introduced, like "blink", frames and JavaScript - all of which didn't exactly help making the web a better place.
Of course not. What he had in mind was much cleverer navigation, non-stupid Back behaviour (as we all know it today, and has already been the topic of posts on/.), etc. Yes, tabbed browsing, mouse gestures and other features have somewhat improved the browser, but hardly the way we browse. What about "browsing trees" representing the different places you've been in a hierarchical manner. A clever browser would learn your habbits, use RSS in a useful, non-sucky (sidebar) way in order to provide you with the data you are looking for, feature a much better bookmark handling, etc. Type-ahead-find and such are just the beginning of what should be always more efficient web browsing.
Yeah, and in order to have KaZaa, you need Windows.. so its a catch-22.
Oh I got it ! That's what all those stupid OEM versions are sold for : you use a crappy version to download (with Kazaa) another crappy OS. This is so smart...
The real question here is: what makes Mozilla more appealing than Opera? That it's free and open source? Big - fucking - deal. The absence of a boring banner for those who don't want to spend money to use a free media.
Unlike Taco's statement in the headline, the title of the next episode is not "The Matrix Revolution" *but* "The Matrix Revolutions" (see the plural form of "revolution"). I think this detail is much more than a stupid nitpick, it might even turn out to be the main plot element of the trilogy. But let's wait, pray and see.
In the scene where the Architect is talking to Neo (with all of the TV screens), when the Architect is talking about all of the atrocities (I think that's the word he used) that the humans have committed, as soon as he says the word "atrocity," a picture of George W. appears on the screens behind him. Coincidence? I think not.
Well I guess you have missed the even most surprising analogy in this sequence : GWB appears a few seconds after... Adolf Hitler. This is rather disturbing for a Hollywood brewd movie, don't you think ?
Slashdot Mirror
.. you swap !
It is.
Or rather, it can be. Quake 3 run faster on my GNU/Linux partition than on windows, etc. It is efficient. Companies just refuse to take the risk to embrace this market (except ID and some other, more power to 'em !).
The question is not whether GNU/Linux could be an OS for gamers. It could indeed. Yes, gamers would be a little lost, not having to install new drivers for the graphical device twice a day. But if there were a real game market, the manufacturer might spend more time on up to date drivers for our OS. (to have more game we need the drivers -- chicken-egg problem -- blah blah -- YES. Still, you won't succeed unless you try. This is the very essence of GNU/Linux).
The question could be, should we make it a gaming platform. Why not, I think the power of this OS lies in its versatility. We do not lack gamers IMHO : most of the current userbase is more or less hard-core geeks. Many of them prefer to code (and many w$ users prefer to work or word or
So, will GNU/Linux become a (The?) gaming platform, I don't know. With Doom 3 and Deus Ex 2, we'll still have 2 out of the three big FPS's to come, which is not that bad. Who knows if the other developpers will follow the example ? The answer is quite simple : buy the game and play under GNU/Linux (sorry RMS
Qtopia is fine on my Sharp Zaurus SL5000D, but OpenZaurus (with Opie) is really better (and Free) in my opinion. It's more polished, more mature and better documented. ..) since there are free alternative (Konqueror, etc).
I don't really need the few software Qtopia has over OZ (Opera, Handcom Office Suite,
Good to see Free forks can compete and sometimes overtake the original commercial software.
If you have a Zaurus, you really have to try OpenZaurus !
No protection will ever prevent people from ripping the music and put it on P2P networks. At least, as long as you can listen to the CD (be it on a HiFi, a PC, etc). I'm looking forward to the day the protection will actually prevent people from listening to the music they bought.
Stupid ? I don't know, we're not really far from there honestly. I cannot even record the latest copy-protected CD I bought onto a minidisc.
All they can do it make it always more difficult to grab (eg. requiring a digital connection between the HiFi-Computer). But they cannot stop piracy. They never have, and never will.
In my opinion, it is perfectly normal for them to try to prevent piracy (it's illegal, and bad, remember?). What is not normal is that I cannot listen to the music I buy the way I want (in OGG format, on my minidisc player, in my car, on my computer) !
Games are fun, but that's all they are (in general). Other medias (litterature, cinema, theatre, etc) can be fun, but they are also moving, deep, thematic, controversial (yeah ok there is GTA3). Should game be as powerful as other media to convey emotions, messages or ideas, they would be accepted more easily and broadly.
We're not even dealing with the eternal "But are video games art ?" question.
Games are seen as geek hobby because they make nothing to change that image, ie they tend to aim at being fun (which is good too, of course). Making deeper games with a real message behind, or with really moving scenes, is a really great challenge, because this is the only media where the focus is made on how the player can interract with the content; not the content itself.
The article brings up another point : accessibility. New input devices would greatly help here, but the market just doesn't want to take that risk, too bad.
Games are (already) fun. Period. If they want to break the geek stereotype, they have to be more than that.
I don't know, but I had the chance to see (and got my book signed by ;-)) John Howe in Geneva earlier this year. Well amongst an awful lot of interesting things, he said he had seen (all or part of?) the new scenes that would form the extended version, and he totally loved it. He added they really pushed the movie to a new standard, even making it look like a new movie. The new footages is 42 minutes long.
Besides this, he addressed interesting issues (people could ask questions) like the presence of Elves in Helm's Deep and such other things. He answered really calmly and smartly, with precise and interesting arguments.
I really doubt PJ could even manage to do a bad movie with RotK after having seen the two other ones, but I can't wait to find out. And I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
I saw on TechTV that this trilogy will include features about the fourth book. Anybody catch the name?
You mean The Revenge Of Sauron ? No, Peter Jackson clearly stated only the first three books would be part of his movie trilogy.
I guess Sangloth was right with his Juno Reactor guess about the electronic part of the teaser soundtrack, but Juno obviously didn't write the classical music part of it.
...) is the author of the classical bit, this is the track 20 ("Tarawa") of his soundtrack for the movie Snow Falling on Cedars. You can find this information on Soundtrack.Net as well as a french fan forum (thanks to ZeDuckMaster for this url). The song sounds just great, I have to get this album now ;-)
James Newton Howard (The Fugitive, The 6th Sense,
This shortcut is probably even faster, and is supported directly by X11. Why not use it ?
Are you telling me that Bill Gates has released statistics that are obviously wrong, that everybody knows it, and that they are higher than the reality ? Do you really think M$ would release numbers not only fake (well this is not news), but numbers that says that W$ crashes more often than it does in reality ?
I'm sorry but however low my respect for this company, I don't buy it, this would be really stupid.
As for the relevance of those numbers, have you counted the majority of users who have disabled that feature ?
I'm not french though, are you? :)
:)
Non, je suis suisse (romand)
Now if you really spoke french, you'd know that courriel isn't a "quick-translate" of any english words.
What I meant was that the Academie Francaise feels obliged to find french translations to popular english words. I mean I'll be laughing at the first guy who says "courriel" to me, really
Not to mention "La Toile", "cédérom" and such stupid words. Let's not be ashamed to use english words. English uses "café", and it's just fine.
Er- If you are Google Translator, yes.
Otherwise, it'd be more like
Hé Pierre, courriel moi ces graphiques de ventes !
Which sounds just as stupid, I agree.
I speak french, and I just find this "oh-quick-translate-this-english-words" habit sickening. This word, courriel, is crap. It just sucks hard. (and you're lucky, this is not the worst!).
I help translate the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter from english to french, but I'll really find me sick if I have to write courriel instead of email. English-speaking people don't bitch about "rendez-vous", "à propos", etc. This french habit is just arrogance.
I'll keep using email, internet, web, thank you very much.
You have to read The Art of Memory by Frances Yates. This book deals with ancient practice of memory training and using, including those fantastic Memory Palaces where you litterally build imaginary (or not) places in your mind and use them to store representations that remind you from one idea, word, sentence, concept, or anything. You can then "walk" from place to place, looking at those representations and re-building a speech for instance.
Actually, this is the "intellectual", generic version of the idea posted (and slashdotted) above, and you can use it to remember your passwords, long speeches, todo-list, anything.
And M$ won't be patenting this any time soon, the greeks used this even BC.
Worth a read and a try, really.
Note: Thomas Harris has had Hannibal Lecter use and play with memory palaces in his novels too.
Yes I was surprised to be modded Funny for that, it was not intended as a joke ... :)
It's not a technical flaw. It's a business flaw.
Since when is this word part of the capitalist vocabulary ? Doesn't seem to consistant with the ongoing lawsuits, FUD wars, hypocrisy, etc.
Exploiting other company's business model flaws is the basis of the world economy, so let's not be stupid, if they don't want flaws to be exploited, they've better not have flaws in the first place. Too bad, it's too late now.
I'm surprised nobody mentionned uPM (u as 'micro') so far. I don't know this packaging system very well, but it was discussed on /. a few times IIRC. Seems to be part of uOS, but maybe it can be used on any distro (at least, I see an uPM ebuild on my Gentoo, so I assume this is true) ?
Does anyone have more informations to add about uPM ?
Of course not.
What he had in mind was much cleverer navigation, non-stupid Back behaviour (as we all know it today, and has already been the topic of posts on
Yes, tabbed browsing, mouse gestures and other features have somewhat improved the browser, but hardly the way we browse.
What about "browsing trees" representing the different places you've been in a hierarchical manner. A clever browser would learn your habbits, use RSS in a useful, non-sucky (sidebar) way in order to provide you with the data you are looking for, feature a much better bookmark handling, etc.
Type-ahead-find and such are just the beginning of what should be always more efficient web browsing.
How many minutes before we can see the first Linux port (it works under W$, FreeBSD and MacOS X) ?
Oh I got it ! That's what all those stupid OEM versions are sold for : you use a crappy version to download (with Kazaa) another crappy OS. This is so smart
I'd have thought windows would be the most downloaded program (in order to make Kazaa work for instance) ...
The real question here is: what makes Mozilla more appealing than Opera? That it's free and open source? Big - fucking - deal.
The absence of a boring banner for those who don't want to spend money to use a free media.
Unlike Taco's statement in the headline, the title of the next episode is not "The Matrix Revolution" *but* "The Matrix Revolutions" (see the plural form of "revolution"). I think this detail is much more than a stupid nitpick, it might even turn out to be the main plot element of the trilogy. But let's wait, pray and see.
In the scene where the Architect is talking to Neo (with all of the TV screens), when the Architect is talking about all of the atrocities (I think that's the word he used) that the humans have committed, as soon as he says the word "atrocity," a picture of George W. appears on the screens behind him. Coincidence? I think not.
... Adolf Hitler. This is rather disturbing for a Hollywood brewd movie, don't you think ?
Well I guess you have missed the even most surprising analogy in this sequence : GWB appears a few seconds after