Being exposed to something doesn't mean you're more likely to do it yourself. I've been exposed to beer most of my life. I don't drink.
In my job, I have access to narcotics and some of my patients are narcotics abusers. Notice that I don't shoot up?
Both my parents smoke, as did all of my grandparents, and most of my immediate family. I took one drag on a cigarette at age 8 and haven't touched another cigarette, cigar, pipe, etc since.
I've seen real people literally beaten do death. I've seen people shot. I've seen people hurt in ways you wouldn't wish on ANYONE.
Does this mean I'm going to go out and mangle someone? Not in this lifetime (though I could probably make your hair stand up with some of my empty threats...).
If parents take the time and effort to educate their children and the difference between real and imaginary violence, they're far less likely to actually do it themselves. But when their babysitter is the computer in the corner running Doom, Quake, Quake2, Quake3, Unreal, Half-Life, etc all day every day, I can see how a kid could become disconnected.
Who's fault is that though? The games' or the parents'? It's time to stop looking for excuses and focus on the real issue.
I'm not saying violent games or TV cause kids to become murderers. I AM saying however that I believe it contributes. Many households use the TV as a replacement for time spent with parents, and therefore expose their children to things that the parents may not yet have addressed as being morally or even legally right or wrong.
Who's at fault here? The TV show producer or the people who expect the TV show to stand in lieu of a babysitter or, heavens forefend, quality time?
I'my sorry, but there's far too many excuses out there drawing attention away from the real issue.
SHODDY PARENTING.
Most of these people would LOVE to let the government raise their kids for them. Then we could have whole generations of maladjusted misantrhopic psychopaths walking the streets!
RPG doesn't desensitize one to violence. It merely draws attention to it in a way that clearly deliniates fantastical conflict from the real thing.
And FPS games like Quake desensitize nobody if the player's parents take the time and the *OOH NASTY WORD COMING UP!*effort to explain and reinforce the difference between the cartoonish violence in games and the real thing.
The point of games like Quake, just like Laser Tag, LARP, etc, is catharsis.
Most people have a certain amount of stress/tension that builds up in the normal course of their lives. Now some people are able to release these tensions without much effort. Others need something to focus in on so they can let off steam.
Some people use sporting events: C'MON! KILL THAT DAMN QUARTERBACK!
Some people drink. Sometimes excessively if their real life sucks bigtime.
Some people actually take up sporting passtimes like boxing, or martial arts to help work it out. Or go to the gym.
And a certain segment of the population turns to role-playing as a safe outlet for their anger/tensions. It's an area where they're able to stand toe to toe with the biggest and baddest, and slug it out.....yet still go to work the next morning without that side-trip to the hospital for broken ribs, or jail for disturbing the peace.
In character, they can do things and release in ways that would be socially unacceptable IRL (hacking things and people to bits, blowing things up with fireballs, sic'ing hordes of undead on a character who's just a bit TOO like your boss, and backstabbing some schmuck aren't generally considered polite).
It also gives the players the chance to explore social situations which they might, otherwise, not encounter. I've seen some really introverted, shy people become absoloute maniacs in-character. And you know what? It was fun as hell! Like improv acting...with magic missiles. And believe it or not, this doesn't disconnect them to society. It connects them.
Yes, it uses fighting and conflict as a facilitator. But what does better business at the movies? Sterile documentaries or action movies?
Some people can just curl up into a good book and live, vicariously, through it. RP is a way to share the book with people.
Also, all but the most delusional understand the difference between the fantasy of the RPG and reality. IOW, there's no cure light wounds when you shove a real sword through someone's chest.
Most of these things apply to Quake-style competitive games as well. Again, violence is a facilitator, but it's still cartoonish, and quite clearly deliniated from real world violence.
All the sub-morons who are going to use the a certain massively parallel form of supercomputer to make a lame joke of this?
I dunno why they're using.21 micron and not a more current.18 or.15 micron fab process. It might drive fabrication cost up some, but the price should stay level due to the fact that they'll get more chips off a wafer. That and the chip would have more headroom before requiring yet another die-shrink.
It's about the only thing that keeps us in control of our environments. If everything is black-boxed, we're at the mercy of faceless corporations and their faceless products.
Notice there's no mention of any additional payments of any sort.
Think of it this way. They'll be setting up a virtual ISP inside of the cablemodem network. The only thing their current connection would be used for would be SMTP, POP, and NNTP.
No modem banks. No phone lines. So two of the four major costs of running an ISP are gone. The remaining major costs are:
Employees
The ISP's own connection to the Internet.
The first of which can be severely curtailed, since you don't need as much skilled labor when you're not the one managing dozens of modem banks and scads of servers.
Small ISP's could, conceivably get away with 3-4 people handling a couple thousand of customers (heck, I know one dialup ISP in NW Indiana that does this now!). Only one or two would actually need to know enough to deal with the servers and their office connection. The others could be techsup drones.
Medium ISP's, with more than 2000 subscribers, could get away with maybe 8-12 people. Three or four of which would need to know enough to keep the mail and news servers running (as well as the ISP's connection).
ISP's with more that 10,000 subscribers could probably get away with the most drastic reductions, and staff levels could probably reduced to somewhere between 20 and 30. Again, you'd need 3-4 people who knew enough to keep the computer room running, but the rest could be techsup drones.
Note: This is predicated on the notion that the ISP would be starting from SCRATCH, instead of simply adding the user's onto the load of the current techsup staff.
Currently, cable companies charge around $40-$50 (USC) for cablemodem access. Were a moderate sized ISP to pick up around 1000 subscribers on a cable network, they'd still see $10-$12.50 pre-expense profit per user. Especially if the users are just added into the current techsup staff's load.
As to the 25% from other revenues, well. If it includes dialup accounts, I can see how this'd be REALLY egregious, but like every other business expense, they'd simply pass the buck (well leech the buck) out of their dialup subscribers in the form of higher dialup fees. If a company doesn't take advertising money, there's nothing to worry about there either.
The only issue I'd have would be content control.
It just sounds a lot more horrendous than it actually is.
"One of the intriguing things about virtual reality is that you can go places and do things that you could never possibly do in real life: be a fish in the middle of the ocean or a bird flying over the mountains. That's what really sparks people's imaginations about 3-D environments."
Did anyone ever ask WHY?
Why the heck would I want to be a fish in an ocean? For GAMES it's one thing. But for a data interface?
VRML sounds like a neat thing. The movies make virtual interfaces look cool. I'll admit it. But I want to be able to read a document, not frag it. Not argue with it. Not have to run a virtual mile to go read it.
When you try to alter new technology to appease special interests. You wind up with bastardized, and broken soloutions that NOBODY really wants. It'd be a shame if it weren't so annoyingly stupid.
Gimme a break! If I buy a DVD disk, it's MINE. I want to be able to view it anytime or anywhere on any equipment running any software that I want!
PERIOD!
The MPAA should not be able to come into my home and dictate how or where I should view my own property.
With a tape, as long as I have a functional tape player, I can listen to any tape anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I feel like.
With a CD, as long as I have a functional CD player, I can listen to any CD anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I feel like.
With VHS tape, as long as I have a functional VCR, I can view any VHS tape anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I like.
I cannot watch DVD wherever I like. I cannot utilize it "anywhere", even if I have a valid DVD drive. I need software to descramble the piddling CSS.
So even though I own the disk, and own a valid player, I cannot watch unless I:
Buy a "licensed" piece of software to decode the CSS.
Buy an operating system for no other reason than because it's the ONLY one with "licensed" CSS decoders.
Does a CD player make you buy software? Does a VHS player make you buy an operating system for it?
I have no problem with anyone making royalties off hardware sales, or off of actual per-disk sales. But squeezing money simply to view something you already bought? GIMME A BREAK!
What happens when something succeeds DVD as a digital audio/video medium? Do we have to re-purchase each and every movie?
Given enough time, you can reverse engineer almost ANYTHING. And, judging from the idiotic simplicity of CSS, it would have only been a matter of a couple weeks/months max.
When did a network's owner/admin stop being able to control what goes over their own network? One of the basic precepts of the Internet is consentual peering. If one of the networks is producing a lot of garbage that the other peering partners don't want, they are fully within their rights to stop peering and/or filter.
Also, as has been pointed out, time and again, all that bandwidth used costs MONEY. Do the spammers like Harris (okay, maybe they're not QUITE malicious spammers, but they have very poorly run mailing lists and they DO have abuse complaints) have a right to dictate how a network allocates it's monetary/bandwidth resources?
I'm quite disappointed in Juno and Microsoft and fully intend on NEVER using their ISP's if I can at all avoid it.
Spam is like a COD (Collect on Delivery). Notice how FEW places accept COD's anymore. Save that SPAM would also cost the post office unrecoupable money as well.
Wether you buy the hardware or they give it to you, you own the hardware. You have to use the hardware. They don't come into the house and use it for you.
As said owner of the hardware (all your semantics aside), you have the right of fair use. They can't tell you you can't use for A, B, and C, but can't use it for X, Y, and Z. You also have the right to write your own drivers for the device.
The reason that Loss-Leader business models are so easy to break is because the business model relies on ignorance and good will. Not everyone who uses the product is ignorant enough to not reverse engineer the drivers. Not everyone has the good will to wait and hope that they'll someday produce drivers for their preferred operating system.
They fail to realize that not everyone will blithely go along with their "plan" for the usage of this product. That's their oversight. And I refuse to be held responsible for their blind spots.
So you feel that, whenever I wish to make a piece of hardware that I own functional on my computer system, I should always call or e-mail the manufacturer first? Let's see. Who do I call first....
Intel (P3, Intel BX440 BIOS, AGP, etc)
ABit (Their motherboard)
Western Digital and IBM (For HD's)
nVidia (Vidcard)
Creative Labs (SB128)
Tekram (SCSI Card)
USR (3Com) (Modem)
Bay Networks and D-Link (NIC's)
Sigma Designs (Hollywood+ card)
Pioneer (DVD Drive)
Smart & Friendly (CD-R...wait, their company's dead!
Teac (Floppy)
Lexmark (Printer)
Umax (Scanner)
Sony (Monitor)
PC Concepts (Cheapie keyboard)
Microsoft (Mouse)
So I should pay $20-30 in long distance phone calls (or wait weeks/months for an e-mail reply) just to be able to use this stuff right?
If you buy the hardware (or the company gives it to you for free), you own it. You have the right to do with it as you will.
The main point being, if 3dfx actually HAS stolen their implementation, why should they NOT sue 3dfx?
Because they feel SORRY for 3dfx? Because 3dfx is having some rought times right now? Because they're all but the laughing stock of the 3D accelerator/video card industry? Because nVidia's now the performance leader, they should take PITY on them?
If the patents are viable, and 3dfx is shown to have violated them, nVidia's perfectly within their rights to sue. And they should. It'd send a message that you can't steal someone else's time and research that they spent untold millions (or billions) on.
Apparently you've already made up your mind. You keep referring to this action, by nVidia, as a (and I quote) "dirty tactic".
Just because an opponent is hemmoraging money like a hemophiliac in a pool full of razors doesn't mean you "cut them a break".
Remember, if you don't enforce your patent, you don't HAVE a patent anymore.
Personally, I feel that it's quite possibly parallel development. But if it IS a case of stealing an actual implementation, then 3dfx, suffering or not, needs to be slapped down.
Being a benevolent market leader isn't a good enough reason for a company like nVidia to simply give away millions (or billions) of dollars in hardware R&D.
Register array for utilizing burst mode transfer on local bus (5,687,357)
Apparatus adapted to be joined between the system I/O bus and I/O devices which translates addresses furnished directly by an application program (5,721,947)
DMA controller translates virtual I/O device address received directly from application program command to physical i/o device address of I/O device on device bus (5,758,182)
Method and apparatus for accelerating the transfer of graphical images (6,023,738)
Method and apparatus for accelerating the rendering of images (6,092,124)
I'm surprised that nobody ever considers the possibility of parallel development tracks.
Anonymous. If TrollTech were a user-based, not-for-profit organization, and the joke had been made somewhere on a message board, I'd probably take it with a grain of salt.
But this showed up ON THEIR WEBSITE. The public face that they turn to the web each and every second of the day. I'm sorry, but some modicum of professionalism, not political correctness, should be maintained. If they want to laugh behind their hands, fine by me. I have zero problems with that. When they want to take a childish, and completely public slap at a competitior, that's something else.
So the child who, instead of identifying a problem and working towards a constructive resoloution, sits there and and makes fun of something, in a public place, should be rewarded? Sorry. I don't see it that way. You don't reward someone for poor social skills.
Slashdot Mirror
Being exposed to something doesn't mean you're more likely to do it yourself. I've been exposed to beer most of my life. I don't drink.
In my job, I have access to narcotics and some of my patients are narcotics abusers. Notice that I don't shoot up?
Both my parents smoke, as did all of my grandparents, and most of my immediate family. I took one drag on a cigarette at age 8 and haven't touched another cigarette, cigar, pipe, etc since.
I've seen real people literally beaten do death. I've seen people shot. I've seen people hurt in ways you wouldn't wish on ANYONE.
Does this mean I'm going to go out and mangle someone? Not in this lifetime (though I could probably make your hair stand up with some of my empty threats...).
If parents take the time and effort to educate their children and the difference between real and imaginary violence, they're far less likely to actually do it themselves. But when their babysitter is the computer in the corner running Doom, Quake, Quake2, Quake3, Unreal, Half-Life, etc all day every day, I can see how a kid could become disconnected.
Who's fault is that though? The games' or the parents'? It's time to stop looking for excuses and focus on the real issue.
SHODDY PARENTING
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Well. Lemme chuck a couple imps and cacodaemons at you. =)
A la peanut butter sandwiches!
*POOF*
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Who's at fault here? The TV show producer or the people who expect the TV show to stand in lieu of a babysitter or, heavens forefend, quality time?
I'my sorry, but there's far too many excuses out there drawing attention away from the real issue.
SHODDY PARENTING .
Most of these people would LOVE to let the government raise their kids for them. Then we could have whole generations of maladjusted misantrhopic psychopaths walking the streets!
RPG doesn't desensitize one to violence. It merely draws attention to it in a way that clearly deliniates fantastical conflict from the real thing.
And FPS games like Quake desensitize nobody if the player's parents take the time and the *OOH NASTY WORD COMING UP!* effort to explain and reinforce the difference between the cartoonish violence in games and the real thing.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Actually I believe you have that somewhat wrong.
The point of games like Quake, just like Laser Tag, LARP, etc, is catharsis.
Most people have a certain amount of stress/tension that builds up in the normal course of their lives. Now some people are able to release these tensions without much effort. Others need something to focus in on so they can let off steam.
Some people use sporting events: C'MON! KILL THAT DAMN QUARTERBACK!
Some people drink. Sometimes excessively if their real life sucks bigtime.
Some people actually take up sporting passtimes like boxing, or martial arts to help work it out. Or go to the gym.
And a certain segment of the population turns to role-playing as a safe outlet for their anger/tensions. It's an area where they're able to stand toe to toe with the biggest and baddest, and slug it out.....yet still go to work the next morning without that side-trip to the hospital for broken ribs, or jail for disturbing the peace.
In character, they can do things and release in ways that would be socially unacceptable IRL (hacking things and people to bits, blowing things up with fireballs, sic'ing hordes of undead on a character who's just a bit TOO like your boss, and backstabbing some schmuck aren't generally considered polite).
It also gives the players the chance to explore social situations which they might, otherwise, not encounter. I've seen some really introverted, shy people become absoloute maniacs in-character. And you know what? It was fun as hell! Like improv acting...with magic missiles. And believe it or not, this doesn't disconnect them to society. It connects them.
Yes, it uses fighting and conflict as a facilitator. But what does better business at the movies? Sterile documentaries or action movies?
Some people can just curl up into a good book and live, vicariously, through it. RP is a way to share the book with people.
Also, all but the most delusional understand the difference between the fantasy of the RPG and reality. IOW, there's no cure light wounds when you shove a real sword through someone's chest.
Most of these things apply to Quake-style competitive games as well. Again, violence is a facilitator, but it's still cartoonish, and quite clearly deliniated from real world violence.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
All the sub-morons who are going to use the a certain massively parallel form of supercomputer to make a lame joke of this?
I dunno why they're using .21 micron and not a more current .18 or .15 micron fab process. It might drive fabrication cost up some, but the price should stay level due to the fact that they'll get more chips off a wafer. That and the chip would have more headroom before requiring yet another die-shrink.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's about the only thing that keeps us in control of our environments. If everything is black-boxed, we're at the mercy of faceless corporations and their faceless products.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Yet more proof that the people at Motorola have completely lost any grounding they had in reality or common sense.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Now, someone gets it.
Notice there's no mention of any additional payments of any sort.
Think of it this way. They'll be setting up a virtual ISP inside of the cablemodem network. The only thing their current connection would be used for would be SMTP, POP, and NNTP.
No modem banks. No phone lines. So two of the four major costs of running an ISP are gone. The remaining major costs are:
The first of which can be severely curtailed, since you don't need as much skilled labor when you're not the one managing dozens of modem banks and scads of servers.
Small ISP's could, conceivably get away with 3-4 people handling a couple thousand of customers (heck, I know one dialup ISP in NW Indiana that does this now!). Only one or two would actually need to know enough to deal with the servers and their office connection. The others could be techsup drones.
Medium ISP's, with more than 2000 subscribers, could get away with maybe 8-12 people. Three or four of which would need to know enough to keep the mail and news servers running (as well as the ISP's connection).
ISP's with more that 10,000 subscribers could probably get away with the most drastic reductions, and staff levels could probably reduced to somewhere between 20 and 30. Again, you'd need 3-4 people who knew enough to keep the computer room running, but the rest could be techsup drones. Note: This is predicated on the notion that the ISP would be starting from SCRATCH, instead of simply adding the user's onto the load of the current techsup staff.
Currently, cable companies charge around $40-$50 (USC) for cablemodem access. Were a moderate sized ISP to pick up around 1000 subscribers on a cable network, they'd still see $10-$12.50 pre-expense profit per user. Especially if the users are just added into the current techsup staff's load.
As to the 25% from other revenues, well. If it includes dialup accounts, I can see how this'd be REALLY egregious, but like every other business expense, they'd simply pass the buck (well leech the buck) out of their dialup subscribers in the form of higher dialup fees. If a company doesn't take advertising money, there's nothing to worry about there either.
The only issue I'd have would be content control.
It just sounds a lot more horrendous than it actually is.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Did anyone ever ask WHY?
Why the heck would I want to be a fish in an ocean? For GAMES it's one thing. But for a data interface?
VRML sounds like a neat thing. The movies make virtual interfaces look cool. I'll admit it. But I want to be able to read a document, not frag it. Not argue with it. Not have to run a virtual mile to go read it.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Linus Torvalds is working on a satellite in orbit, stripping out the Windows OS and installing Linux.
From the top of the screen, John "Maddog" Hall floats in, inverted, wearing sunglasses with a big, evil grin on his face.....
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Even old code wants to be free. =)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That the company actually tries to get R&D costs back somehow.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
When you try to alter new technology to appease special interests. You wind up with bastardized, and broken soloutions that NOBODY really wants. It'd be a shame if it weren't so annoyingly stupid.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That's the point though. You don't use this at home. You use it as a "free" roaming dialin.
Using this from home is almost like cracking bank computer systems from your house.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Gimme a break! If I buy a DVD disk, it's MINE. I want to be able to view it anytime or anywhere on any equipment running any software that I want!
PERIOD!
The MPAA should not be able to come into my home and dictate how or where I should view my own property.
With a tape, as long as I have a functional tape player, I can listen to any tape anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I feel like.
With a CD, as long as I have a functional CD player, I can listen to any CD anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I feel like.
With VHS tape, as long as I have a functional VCR, I can view any VHS tape anywhere. I can also reproduce it (in another media format/for my own personal use) whenever I like.
I cannot watch DVD wherever I like. I cannot utilize it "anywhere", even if I have a valid DVD drive. I need software to descramble the piddling CSS.
So even though I own the disk, and own a valid player, I cannot watch unless I:
Does a CD player make you buy software? Does a VHS player make you buy an operating system for it?
I have no problem with anyone making royalties off hardware sales, or off of actual per-disk sales. But squeezing money simply to view something you already bought? GIMME A BREAK!
What happens when something succeeds DVD as a digital audio/video medium? Do we have to re-purchase each and every movie?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Given enough time, you can reverse engineer almost ANYTHING. And, judging from the idiotic simplicity of CSS, it would have only been a matter of a couple weeks/months max.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Don't think. Let us think for you.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
When did a network's owner/admin stop being able to control what goes over their own network? One of the basic precepts of the Internet is consentual peering. If one of the networks is producing a lot of garbage that the other peering partners don't want, they are fully within their rights to stop peering and/or filter.
Also, as has been pointed out, time and again, all that bandwidth used costs MONEY. Do the spammers like Harris (okay, maybe they're not QUITE malicious spammers, but they have very poorly run mailing lists and they DO have abuse complaints) have a right to dictate how a network allocates it's monetary/bandwidth resources?
I'm quite disappointed in Juno and Microsoft and fully intend on NEVER using their ISP's if I can at all avoid it.
Spam is like a COD (Collect on Delivery). Notice how FEW places accept COD's anymore. Save that SPAM would also cost the post office unrecoupable money as well.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Apparently you misunderstand the issue.
It's not about someone STEALING hardware, or hacking up existing drivers.
It's about someone exercising their right to make their piece of hardware work how they want it to.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The problem with your argument is this.
Wether you buy the hardware or they give it to you, you own the hardware. You have to use the hardware. They don't come into the house and use it for you.
As said owner of the hardware (all your semantics aside), you have the right of fair use. They can't tell you you can't use for A, B, and C, but can't use it for X, Y, and Z. You also have the right to write your own drivers for the device.
The reason that Loss-Leader business models are so easy to break is because the business model relies on ignorance and good will. Not everyone who uses the product is ignorant enough to not reverse engineer the drivers. Not everyone has the good will to wait and hope that they'll someday produce drivers for their preferred operating system.
They fail to realize that not everyone will blithely go along with their "plan" for the usage of this product. That's their oversight. And I refuse to be held responsible for their blind spots.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
So you feel that, whenever I wish to make a piece of hardware that I own functional on my computer system, I should always call or e-mail the manufacturer first? Let's see. Who do I call first....
So I should pay $20-30 in long distance phone calls (or wait weeks/months for an e-mail reply) just to be able to use this stuff right?
If you buy the hardware (or the company gives it to you for free), you own it. You have the right to do with it as you will.
The glories of fair use.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The main point being, if 3dfx actually HAS stolen their implementation, why should they NOT sue 3dfx?
Because they feel SORRY for 3dfx? Because 3dfx is having some rought times right now? Because they're all but the laughing stock of the 3D accelerator/video card industry? Because nVidia's now the performance leader, they should take PITY on them?
If the patents are viable, and 3dfx is shown to have violated them, nVidia's perfectly within their rights to sue. And they should. It'd send a message that you can't steal someone else's time and research that they spent untold millions (or billions) on.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Apparently you've already made up your mind. You keep referring to this action, by nVidia, as a (and I quote) "dirty tactic".
Just because an opponent is hemmoraging money like a hemophiliac in a pool full of razors doesn't mean you "cut them a break".
Remember, if you don't enforce your patent, you don't HAVE a patent anymore.
Personally, I feel that it's quite possibly parallel development. But if it IS a case of stealing an actual implementation, then 3dfx, suffering or not, needs to be slapped down.
Being a benevolent market leader isn't a good enough reason for a company like nVidia to simply give away millions (or billions) of dollars in hardware R&D.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The patents in question are:
I'm surprised that nobody ever considers the possibility of parallel development tracks.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Anonymous. If TrollTech were a user-based, not-for-profit organization, and the joke had been made somewhere on a message board, I'd probably take it with a grain of salt.
But this showed up ON THEIR WEBSITE. The public face that they turn to the web each and every second of the day. I'm sorry, but some modicum of professionalism, not political correctness, should be maintained. If they want to laugh behind their hands, fine by me. I have zero problems with that. When they want to take a childish, and completely public slap at a competitior, that's something else.
So the child who, instead of identifying a problem and working towards a constructive resoloution, sits there and and makes fun of something, in a public place, should be rewarded? Sorry. I don't see it that way. You don't reward someone for poor social skills.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!