Considering Microsoft's "other MMOG" is a as yet unannounced game from Sigil Games (sigilgames.com) I can't say I'm suprised.
Sigil Games, founded by Brad McQuaid, one of the original creators and producer of Everquest before leaving for Sigil, is working on a 3rd generation MMOG as he calls it.
Say what you will about EQ, but it's still the market leader for MMOGs here in the US. He's hired a ton of talent from the original EQ team to build his game.
Can't say I blame Microsoft at all for betting their chips on Sigil instead of Mythica, considering Turbine already bought Asheron's Call 2 back from Microsoft and running a MMOG isn't cheap, though you can make most of it back over time.
I'd be suprised if the FCC / SEC let this go through. There seem to be too many conflicts of interest in a cable company owning a content creator.
As far as I understand, cable providers pay (and pass on those costs to customers) for channels like ESPN (which just raised how much they charge cable companies because of ESPN-HD, and had some fights with other cable companies about those rates) and having one company who creates TV shows (for ABC and others) and movies (Disney & Touchstone).
Wouldn't Comcast be able to give themselves exclusive content, whether it's a ESPN channel, first run of pay per view movies created by Disney et al, or save on syndication rights on Comcast / Disney run stations? How many times have we seen actors sue over syndication rights when a company like Fox only syndicates to FX? (Or ABC to ABC Family, etc).
And I have a hard time believing that Comcast would pass on those savings (creation & distribution) to their cable customers.
Having used Hughes' DirecDuo / DirecPC 4 years ago before broadband was available at my home, it left the broadband experience wanting.
It was ok for downloading large files, couldn't do online gaming at all, and surfing the web was just ok - you could feel the few seconds where you sent the URL over, but once it got it sent the browser downloaded it quickly enough.
I guess it would depend how their NOC worked - but I still have to imagine this is only good for the same things as DirecPC (which means gaming is still out probably).
I started collecting all of the Bloom County books just over 2 years ago. (Only 2 books left to go!)
It was amazing re-reading all of these again and how many topics written in the 80's are still topical today - especially the strips with political overtones.
And the timing couldn't be better - going into a presidential primary next year. Will Opus get sucked into running again?:)
Mr. Breathed's comment in the article about not having a public voice through the war - it will be great to have that voice back in the comics.
Of course, now they'll have to shrink the comic pages down another 30% to fit a new comic in.
I am of the belief that Novell bought Ximian more for Ximian Connector than anything else, Mono second, and oh yeah, Ximian Desktop / Gnome Development is thrown in.
I have a hard time believing Novell has a vested interest in a Linux desktop like Gnome. Out of the three software apps Ximian works with, Gnome is the only one that isn't so much a cross-platform application (Gnome development for Sun / *BSD aside).
It's probably good for Mono as well. But does Novell have the cash to continue development of all these?
I just hope Novell doesn't let them die on the vine.
It is *ready*. It is usable. Even my wife gets it when she sits down at my machine. The only caveat is minor installations for the browser (Flash mainly).
I'm an avid Gnome user - but applications such as K3B for burning, Gaim, even Grip are easy enough to use for an average user.
The article did a fantastic job by going into details by category, and then summing up the good and the bad, and I like the smilies.
But what about ISP's acceptable use policies? If Kazaa is sending you checks, doesn't this violate almost all Acceptable Use Policies that forbid commerical use of residential broadband access?
Looking at my Roadrunner account's AUP: Unless you have specifically subscribed for commercial grade service, the Road Runner service is provided to you for personal, non-commercial use only. This service cannot be used for any enterprise purpose whatsoever whether or not the enterprise is directed toward making a profit. If it is your intention to use this service for these purposes, please contact your local cable operator to inquire whether commercial Road Runner service programs are available.
I have to believe hosting Kazaa / Altnet content and getting paid for it *could* get some users in trouble.
My boss recommended it to me a few weeks ago, and I just picked it up, and can't set it down.
From BN.com (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnI nquiry.asp?userid=2TJEZWE6HK&isbn=0385507593&itm=1 ):
From the Publisher Jennifer Government is Here to Help! In Max Barry's twisted, hilarious vision of the near future, the world is run by giant American corporations (except for a few deluded holdouts like the French); taxes are illegal; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; The Police and The NRA are publicly-traded security firms; the U.S. government may only investigate crimes if they can bill a citizen directly. It's a free market paradise! Hack Nike is a lowly Merchandising Officer who's not very good at negotiating his salary. So when John Nike and John Nike, executives from the promised land of Marketing, offer him a contract, he signs without reading it. Unfortunately, Hack's new contract involves shooting teenagers to build up street cred for Nike's new line of $2,500 sneakers. Scared, Hack goes to The Police, who assume he's asking for a subcontracting deal and lease the assassinations to the NRA. Soon Hack finds himself pursued by Jennifer Government, a tough-talking agent with a barcode tattoo under her eye and a rabid determination to nail John Nike (the boss of the other John Nike). In a world where your job title means everything, the most cherished possession is a platinum credit card, and advertising jingles give way to automatic weapons in the fight for market share, Jennifer Government is the consumer watchdog from hell. Jennifer Government is the kind of novel that can become a byword--a Catch-22 for the New World Order, a satire both broad and pointed, deeply funny and disturbingly on-target. From the Hardcover edition.
Author Biography: MAX BARRY is an Australian, for which he apologizes. He is the author of the cult hit Syrup, although he spelled his name "Maxx" for that novel "because it seemed like a funny joke about marketing, and I failed to realize everyone would assume I was a pretentious asshole." He was born on March 18, 1973 and lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he writes full-time, the advantage being that he can do it while wearing only boxer shorts. From the Hardcover edition.
Not quite cyberpunk, but it's a very interesting book - what if Big Businesses rule the world?
I would disagree that Snapstream is a fair comparison to MythTV, especially when you include the weather, music and game modules available, though setup is the biggest differentiator.
In addition, with MythTV having the ability to do frontend and backend - record on one box and play on another, so you can have the noisy machine in a closet somewhere and the quiet one by the TV, is one of the best things Myth has going for it.
That, and it has an extremely active community on the mailing list.
I think a wireless experience at a McDonalds is very different from a Starbucks or a Borders. At McDonalds, my goal is to eat and get out, where at a Starbucks or Borders they encourage you to stay and socialize much more than McD's does.
I can see where it would be nice to have WiFi for your PDA to check email, but lugging my notebook in and getting my greasy fingers from my french fries on my laptop keyboard doesn't seem right.
I understand McDonald's business is hurting, but getting the tech crowd in isn't going to solve their revenue shortfalls.
Even though this is from Clear Channel, this sounds (in theory) like a great idea. Capture the concert forever right there. Well, maybe not forever if it's on CD-R like the article talks about.
This has to scare the heck out of the RIAA -- the last thing they want to see is copies of these on the latest file-sharing software.
But first Clear Channel has to get me to a concert -- the prices they charge now are ridiculous. And do we really think they'll charge only $15 for a copy of the concert on CDR? When a t-shirt is selling for $30-$40 and a hat is $25, I can't believe a CD would only be $15.
I use Wizards Hosting. For $15/month I get 8 Gigs of traffic, 250 megs of space, 250 email addresses, 20 MySQL db's, 100 subdomains, 50 mailing lists and a nifty web interface.
I've been extremely happy with them, much better than my prior hosting service (westhost.com).
They have plans starting from $8/mo for 25MBs of space.
Slashdot Mirror
Considering Microsoft's "other MMOG" is a as yet unannounced game from Sigil Games (sigilgames.com) I can't say I'm suprised.
Sigil Games, founded by Brad McQuaid, one of the original creators and producer of Everquest before leaving for Sigil, is working on a 3rd generation MMOG as he calls it.
Say what you will about EQ, but it's still the market leader for MMOGs here in the US. He's hired a ton of talent from the original EQ team to build his game.
Can't say I blame Microsoft at all for betting their chips on Sigil instead of Mythica, considering Turbine already bought Asheron's Call 2 back from Microsoft and running a MMOG isn't cheap, though you can make most of it back over time.
I'd be suprised if the FCC / SEC let this go through. There seem to be too many conflicts of interest in a cable company owning a content creator.
As far as I understand, cable providers pay (and pass on those costs to customers) for channels like ESPN (which just raised how much they charge cable companies because of ESPN-HD, and had some fights with other cable companies about those rates) and having one company who creates TV shows (for ABC and others) and movies (Disney & Touchstone).
Wouldn't Comcast be able to give themselves exclusive content, whether it's a ESPN channel, first run of pay per view movies created by Disney et al, or save on syndication rights on Comcast / Disney run stations? How many times have we seen actors sue over syndication rights when a company like Fox only syndicates to FX? (Or ABC to ABC Family, etc).
And I have a hard time believing that Comcast would pass on those savings (creation & distribution) to their cable customers.
I wonder how the latency and ping time would be.
Having used Hughes' DirecDuo / DirecPC 4 years ago before broadband was available at my home, it left the broadband experience wanting.
It was ok for downloading large files, couldn't do online gaming at all, and surfing the web was just ok - you could feel the few seconds where you sent the URL over, but once it got it sent the browser downloaded it quickly enough.
I guess it would depend how their NOC worked - but I still have to imagine this is only good for the same things as DirecPC (which means gaming is still out probably).
Wait till the RIAA hears about this one.
This is great news.
:)
I started collecting all of the Bloom County books just over 2 years ago. (Only 2 books left to go!)
It was amazing re-reading all of these again and how many topics written in the 80's are still topical today - especially the strips with political overtones.
And the timing couldn't be better - going into a presidential primary next year. Will Opus get sucked into running again?
Mr. Breathed's comment in the article about not having a public voice through the war - it will be great to have that voice back in the comics.
Of course, now they'll have to shrink the comic pages down another 30% to fit a new comic in.
Frankly, because of the tech support.
If you look at all the features and modules Myth specifically can do, tech support could be a nightmare.
The web frontend and the back end / front end come to mind.
Get questions like:
Why can't I schedule my recordings over the web at work? - How are you going to trouble shoot their firewall?
Or on the front end / back end, trying to figure out a customer's samba shares set up correctly, etc.
I think it's a great idea if someone would as I'm about to build one, but I can understand why companies haven't.
That and the software isn't close to 1.0 yet.
I'm of mixed feelings on this.
I am of the belief that Novell bought Ximian more for Ximian Connector than anything else, Mono second, and oh yeah, Ximian Desktop / Gnome Development is thrown in.
I have a hard time believing Novell has a vested interest in a Linux desktop like Gnome. Out of the three software apps Ximian works with, Gnome is the only one that isn't so much a cross-platform application (Gnome development for Sun / *BSD aside).
It's probably good for Mono as well. But does Novell have the cash to continue development of all these?
I just hope Novell doesn't let them die on the vine.
I've switched to Linux as my full time desktop.
It is *ready*. It is usable. Even my wife gets it when she sits down at my machine. The only caveat is minor installations for the browser (Flash mainly).
I'm an avid Gnome user - but applications such as K3B for burning, Gaim, even Grip are easy enough to use for an average user.
The article did a fantastic job by going into details by category, and then summing up the good and the bad, and I like the smilies.
But what about ISP's acceptable use policies? If Kazaa is sending you checks, doesn't this violate almost all Acceptable Use Policies that forbid commerical use of residential broadband access?
Looking at my Roadrunner account's AUP:
Unless you have specifically subscribed for commercial grade service, the Road Runner service is provided to you for personal, non-commercial use only. This service cannot be used for any enterprise purpose whatsoever whether or not the enterprise is directed toward making a profit. If it is your intention to use this service for these purposes, please contact your local cable operator to inquire whether commercial Road Runner service programs are available.
I have to believe hosting Kazaa / Altnet content and getting paid for it *could* get some users in trouble.
I can't recommend this book highly enough.
I nquiry.asp?userid=2TJEZWE6HK&isbn=0385507593&itm=1 ):
My boss recommended it to me a few weeks ago, and I just picked it up, and can't set it down.
From BN.com (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbn
From the Publisher
Jennifer Government is Here to Help!
In Max Barry's twisted, hilarious vision of the near future, the world is run by giant American corporations (except for a few deluded holdouts like the French); taxes are illegal; employees take the last names of the companies they work for; The Police and The NRA are publicly-traded security firms; the U.S. government may only investigate crimes if they can bill a citizen directly. It's a free market paradise!
Hack Nike is a lowly Merchandising Officer who's not very good at negotiating his salary. So when John Nike and John Nike, executives from the promised land of Marketing, offer him a contract, he signs without reading it. Unfortunately, Hack's new contract involves shooting teenagers to build up street cred for Nike's new line of $2,500 sneakers. Scared, Hack goes to The Police, who assume he's asking for a subcontracting deal and lease the assassinations to the NRA.
Soon Hack finds himself pursued by Jennifer Government, a tough-talking agent with a barcode tattoo under her eye and a rabid determination to nail John Nike (the boss of the other John Nike). In a world where your job title means everything, the most cherished possession is a platinum credit card, and advertising jingles give way to automatic weapons in the fight for market share, Jennifer Government is the consumer watchdog from hell.
Jennifer Government is the kind of novel that can become a byword--a Catch-22 for the New World Order, a satire both broad and pointed, deeply funny and disturbingly on-target.
From the Hardcover edition.
Author Biography: MAX BARRY is an Australian, for which he apologizes. He is the author of the cult hit Syrup, although he spelled his name "Maxx" for that novel "because it seemed like a funny joke about marketing, and I failed to realize everyone would assume I was a pretentious asshole." He was born on March 18, 1973 and lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he writes full-time, the advantage being that he can do it while wearing only boxer shorts.
From the Hardcover edition.
Not quite cyberpunk, but it's a very interesting book - what if Big Businesses rule the world?
Sil
There are HDTV PCI cards, but good luck getting them to work in Linux.
The Hauppauge cards are infamous for getting not working in Linux, and the Hipix cards, I *believe* can be made to work, but it's a ton of work.
I recommend you head over the AVScience forums, they have a dedicated forum for HTPC, and a subforum for Linux HTPCs.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb
I would disagree that Snapstream is a fair comparison to MythTV, especially when you include the weather, music and game modules available, though setup is the biggest differentiator.
In addition, with MythTV having the ability to do frontend and backend - record on one box and play on another, so you can have the noisy machine in a closet somewhere and the quiet one by the TV, is one of the best things Myth has going for it.
That, and it has an extremely active community on the mailing list.
The Opteron has not been delayed, it's comiing out at the end of April. This is a server chip/chipset, and the motherboards are missing AGP.
The Athlon 64 is the consumer version of this. Both are 64 bit, basically the same chips, Opteron is for serveres, Athlon 64 is for desktops.
I think a wireless experience at a McDonalds is very different from a Starbucks or a Borders. At McDonalds, my goal is to eat and get out, where at a Starbucks or Borders they encourage you to stay and socialize much more than McD's does.
I can see where it would be nice to have WiFi for your PDA to check email, but lugging my notebook in and getting my greasy fingers from my french fries on my laptop keyboard doesn't seem right.
I understand McDonald's business is hurting, but getting the tech crowd in isn't going to solve their revenue shortfalls.
Even though this is from Clear Channel, this sounds (in theory) like a great idea. Capture the concert forever right there. Well, maybe not forever if it's on CD-R like the article talks about.
This has to scare the heck out of the RIAA -- the last thing they want to see is copies of these on the latest file-sharing software.
But first Clear Channel has to get me to a concert -- the prices they charge now are ridiculous. And do we really think they'll charge only $15 for a copy of the concert on CDR? When a t-shirt is selling for $30-$40 and a hat is $25, I can't believe a CD would only be $15.
I use Wizards Hosting. For $15/month I get 8 Gigs of traffic, 250 megs of space, 250 email addresses, 20 MySQL db's, 100 subdomains, 50 mailing lists and a nifty web interface. I've been extremely happy with them, much better than my prior hosting service (westhost.com). They have plans starting from $8/mo for 25MBs of space.
Remember, though we rail against this and the system that has produced it, write your Congress representatives in the House and the Senate.
The EFF has a very nice form letter you can copy and paste and send to your elected officials.
Make your voice heard. They do check their emails and do make tallies of what issues their constituents are writing and calling about.