"I don't know about Best Buy, but I know CompUSA has Linux boxen (as in product cardboard) right next to copies of Windows. Not only that, but their prices run the gamut from about $30 to $150, significantly lower than Windows."
" If you've ever wondered why your PHB just doesn't get it when it comes to UNIX and Linux, this article is for you."
Maybe they don't get it because they don't see Linux software on store shelves at Best Buy. Maybe they feel that using Linux would be a huge headache since they have NFI where the software actually comes from. It's percieved as some toy OS.
You know, if you ever wanted to 'encrypt' your screen so that you're the only one who can really see it, stereogram's the way to do it. It looks like a bunch of noise, but to the guy with his eyes crossed (and right in front of it), the info will appear.
Can't say it's the biggest whoop-de-doo ever since lots of information melts away, but it would be kinda neat on an airplane. "Oh I'm looking at something super secret here.."
"I tried the first screenshot, and it actually worked! I could see some detail in the background, I could see jagged pieces and textures in between textures... and then I look to the side and Ker-FUBAR!"
I lost my focus when I looked down to see how many bullets I had left. Wish they'd addressed that too.
"Didn't we already learn that people don't want subscriptions, they want the actual media to keep for posterity?"
How do you know what millions of people want? Ever notice how some people buy houses, and others rent apartments? Why? Depends on how they want to pay for it. Same can be said for entertainment. Do you have HBO and buy movies? Do you know people who do?
The truth of the matter is that there is room for both subscription and "pay more to keep it" business models. Heck, I'm subscribed to a music service right now. I pay $10 a month, and I have unlimited access to all their music. Why would I choose this over iTunes? Simple. This service makes it real easy to find new music for me to enjoy. None of that 30 second clip bs, I can just queue up a bunch of songs and start picking out the ones I like. All for less than the cost of a CD a month. It's more appealing to me. If I want to buy a particular song, $1 to burn it. Not too shabby at all.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this service started catching on. I have a LOT of music I listen to regularly, but I don't have gigs of space taken up on my computer. I don't have to make emergency backups or anything like that . I just need to be able to get on the net and all my music's there. I don't even touch P2P anymore.
It may not be ideal for you, but don't assume that everybody in the world just MUST have their own copy of the music. They're only a bad sector away from wanting an easier alternative.
"Pay for time limited, rental media? Has Circuit City's DIVX fiasco taught them nothing?"
Probably not, seeing as how DivX is completely unrelated to this story. With DivX, you had to buy physical media (that didn't look any different from the normal media, mind you) and then deal with 'renting' the video. It's really hard to justify pay per play when you have the stinking media in your hot little hands. With the music stuff, instead, they make the music available, and you unlock it for a fee. The difference? It doesn't cost you ANYTHING to get the media. Just go download it. Though I think there will be some resistance to this idea, it's midly better than DivX given a.) You don't have to pay to download the file and b.) Music is undoubtedly going to be a lot cheaper than movies.
It'd be more correct to substitute 'DivX' with "Pay per View".
"What bearing does this have on your childhood? Is it that you can't have pictures and figures around your desk now without people telling you how crappy the movies are?"
Ehhh... sorta. I bought an R2 D2 toy (you know, that 18" voice activated one) and it decorated my office for a while. I was fortunate in that my fellow software developing coworkers remember those movies and thought R2 was cool. But if I had that at my previous job with the younger generation, I would have looked pretty dumb. The current crop of movies has been disappointing, and it didn't help that 250 million nerds stood in line for hours to see both movies on opening day. Doesn't reflect so well on me, particularly if they only have the newer movies to go on.
"Yes, I realize I'm never getting a response to this."
Ordinarily, maybe not. But I have the email notification thing on.
"People can make fun of me all they want, but I really think the nicer look and feel in MacOS X makes me a lot happier and more productive. When you stare at a screen all day, it really should be the best-looking screen money can buy."
I think this has less to do with being pretty and more to do with reflexes. The nice thing about OSX is the way the interface reacts to your mouse moving around. When repetitive actions cause distinctive visual stimuli, it makes it easier to know on an instinctual level what the computer's doing. If an icon flys at you, you know you've clicked it right. Opposed to Windows, which is a little confusing if an app doesn't come up right away. The icon just highlights. I've used Windows for years, and this still gets me once in a while.
People complain about 'eye candy', but man, when you get into the groove, you do less interpreting of the screen and more clicking as a reflex. Yes, this'll make you happier, and yes you'll be more productive.
I'm not quite sure I want a Mac right now, but my experience with using my cousin's machine is really making me consider an Apple laptop purchase.
"How exactly would one company be able to offer more bandwidth than another? There's still a limited amount of bandwidth available. With DSL, you can have the lines to yourself, connected to your backbone."
The bottleneck between cable and DSL isn't removed, just moved to a different point in the network. You still need a big pipe going in, and that pipe can be saturated. Doesn't really matter which service you use.
So why would cable based broadband benefit from other players? Service. An ambitious upstart might provide ISP service to me as well as video on demand because their server is a lot closer to me than somewhere out on the net.
I agree with you, though. It's not clear that it'd be all that big of deal. The real question is: Are they making things better by allowing other companies to come in and provide the service, or are they paving the way for an even bigger company (Time Warner?) to bully their way in, and take over the broadband service from the companies who put the investment into making the network? Frankly, I don't see the value in providing this on the grounds that it cheats the companies laying down the big fat pipes.
"How in HELL does a movie made as an adult have any impact on your childhood, or even things you loved as a child? Do you seriously enjoy the original movies LESS because of the new ones? Why?"
It's a lot harder to call yoruself a star wars fan if the current batch of movies are embarrasing.
"Right now regular Slashdot readers tremble at the approach of April due to the impending parade of sickening unfunny that is April Fools on Slashdot."
Well I haveta agree, it really sucks that Slashdot is only serious 364 days out of the year.
"OK, I'm bored of the April fools jokes... 5 in one day is excessive."
Every single April 1st, there's always some git who gets modded up for saying the exact same thing. Slashdot's been running 365/24/7, you can can take a day off for silliness.
"THey all seem to negate the whole "you don't need to make a wide arcing turn/bank in space to turn around" thing."
I've heard this complaint a lot, but I've never particularly subscribed to it. There's a few things that people don't typically consider.
1.) In a battle, it's important to keep moving. If you suddenly spin your ship 180 degrees and fire your thrusters the other way, you're going to come to a complete stop for a moment before re-accellerating back to your attack speed. A wide sweeping arc keeps you in motion and provides for better evasive maneuvers.
2.) Even though most ships have magic intertial/gravitic control force field thingies, there are probably still structural reasons to keep the ship oriented a certain way while it's moving.
3.) The most powerful thrusters on a ship are going to be to its aft, and along the lateral side of the ship. One's for moving forward, the other's for hovering over a planet. Banking the ship to perform a controlled turn is not necessarily wasteful seeing as how very little is known about how its basic maneuvering systems work.
"It's why, although I think Sands of Iwo Jima was good for its time"
Ever see Tora Tora Tora? (Note: I might have the name wrong, I only caught a little bit of it on TV...) I think it was a portrayal of Pearl Harbor. Several runways were bombed by Japanese planes. They had scenes where guys were hopping out of their plane just before the bomb hit. I remember thinking "SON OF A BITCH!! How'd they film that?!! I can't imagine a stunt guy being that close to a plane blowing up!" (Note: No fancy optics going on here, just a hell of a stunt...)
Come to think of it, the recent Pearl Harbor movie had me going in a similar way. There was a point in that movie that I *really* hated the Japanese military of that era. I haven't been charged by a movie like that in ages. (Fortunately that disappeared quickly after leaving the theater..)
Okay, I'm going to expose my geekiness here. Fortunately I don't think many femmes are watching. I don't think STV had a ramming order in it, but they did have a shuttle nick the floor of the shuttlebay, scaring the shit out of everybody involved. STVIII (First Contact) was the one where Worf ordered it, but didn't actually go through with it. STX actually portrayed a ramming scene, and like or hate the movie, that was pretty damn cool.
"The battle against the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact was pretty good. Didn't last very long, though."
It didn't, but man it was effective. Remember when they listened in on the battle over the radio? All those ships reporting the damage they've sustained, etc. Seeing a bunch of ships flying around and blowing up is kinda neat, but that little audio blurb was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It caused me to imagine standing on one of those ships, knowing that if I didn't die, somebody I know did.
Then, to top it off, the explosion of the Borg ship took out one of the other ships that was too close to it. 500-1,000 people, isntantly gone even though the battle was decidedly over.
" but Starship Troopers had some interesting special effects during the assault on Klendathu--the bug homeworld. Seeing the Rodger Young and other transports lumbering about, colliding stupidly, and eating bug plasma was pretty cool--"
Like or hate the movie, they did an excellent job of portraying how dangerous it would be to be in a soldier/pilot in a battle like that. That scene where the escape pod bumps into a dead body really burned into my mind.
I really like battles that make you feel like "Ugh, I'm glad I'm safe at home in my living room." I saw Star Trek II when I was a kid. There was a scene where the torpedo bay took a hit, and somebody was walking past that section when it was hit. All the sudden there was a flash, the whole room was instantly on fire, and this guy just let out this awful scream of pain. Blowing nacelles off is cool, but that scene really got me.
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't know about Best Buy, but I know CompUSA has Linux boxen (as in product cardboard) right next to copies of Windows. Not only that, but their prices run the gamut from about $30 to $150, significantly lower than Windows."
That's the OS, what about the software?
" If you've ever wondered why your PHB just doesn't get it when it comes to UNIX and Linux, this article is for you."
Maybe they don't get it because they don't see Linux software on store shelves at Best Buy. Maybe they feel that using Linux would be a huge headache since they have NFI where the software actually comes from. It's percieved as some toy OS.
You know, if you ever wanted to 'encrypt' your screen so that you're the only one who can really see it, stereogram's the way to do it. It looks like a bunch of noise, but to the guy with his eyes crossed (and right in front of it), the info will appear.
Can't say it's the biggest whoop-de-doo ever since lots of information melts away, but it would be kinda neat on an airplane. "Oh I'm looking at something super secret here.."
"I tried the first screenshot, and it actually worked! I could see some detail in the background, I could see jagged pieces and textures in between textures... and then I look to the side and Ker-FUBAR!"
I lost my focus when I looked down to see how many bullets I had left. Wish they'd addressed that too.
"Didn't we already learn that people don't want subscriptions, they want the actual media to keep for posterity?"
How do you know what millions of people want? Ever notice how some people buy houses, and others rent apartments? Why? Depends on how they want to pay for it. Same can be said for entertainment. Do you have HBO and buy movies? Do you know people who do?
The truth of the matter is that there is room for both subscription and "pay more to keep it" business models. Heck, I'm subscribed to a music service right now. I pay $10 a month, and I have unlimited access to all their music. Why would I choose this over iTunes? Simple. This service makes it real easy to find new music for me to enjoy. None of that 30 second clip bs, I can just queue up a bunch of songs and start picking out the ones I like. All for less than the cost of a CD a month. It's more appealing to me. If I want to buy a particular song, $1 to burn it. Not too shabby at all.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this service started catching on. I have a LOT of music I listen to regularly, but I don't have gigs of space taken up on my computer. I don't have to make emergency backups or anything like that . I just need to be able to get on the net and all my music's there. I don't even touch P2P anymore.
It may not be ideal for you, but don't assume that everybody in the world just MUST have their own copy of the music. They're only a bad sector away from wanting an easier alternative.
"Pay for time limited, rental media? Has Circuit City's DIVX fiasco taught them nothing?"
Probably not, seeing as how DivX is completely unrelated to this story. With DivX, you had to buy physical media (that didn't look any different from the normal media, mind you) and then deal with 'renting' the video. It's really hard to justify pay per play when you have the stinking media in your hot little hands. With the music stuff, instead, they make the music available, and you unlock it for a fee. The difference? It doesn't cost you ANYTHING to get the media. Just go download it. Though I think there will be some resistance to this idea, it's midly better than DivX given a.) You don't have to pay to download the file and b.) Music is undoubtedly going to be a lot cheaper than movies.
It'd be more correct to substitute 'DivX' with "Pay per View".
"What bearing does this have on your childhood? Is it that you can't have pictures and figures around your desk now without people telling you how crappy the movies are?"
Ehhh... sorta. I bought an R2 D2 toy (you know, that 18" voice activated one) and it decorated my office for a while. I was fortunate in that my fellow software developing coworkers remember those movies and thought R2 was cool. But if I had that at my previous job with the younger generation, I would have looked pretty dumb. The current crop of movies has been disappointing, and it didn't help that 250 million nerds stood in line for hours to see both movies on opening day. Doesn't reflect so well on me, particularly if they only have the newer movies to go on.
"Yes, I realize I'm never getting a response to this."
Ordinarily, maybe not. But I have the email notification thing on.
"People can make fun of me all they want, but I really think the nicer look and feel in MacOS X makes me a lot happier and more productive. When you stare at a screen all day, it really should be the best-looking screen money can buy."
I think this has less to do with being pretty and more to do with reflexes. The nice thing about OSX is the way the interface reacts to your mouse moving around. When repetitive actions cause distinctive visual stimuli, it makes it easier to know on an instinctual level what the computer's doing. If an icon flys at you, you know you've clicked it right. Opposed to Windows, which is a little confusing if an app doesn't come up right away. The icon just highlights. I've used Windows for years, and this still gets me once in a while.
People complain about 'eye candy', but man, when you get into the groove, you do less interpreting of the screen and more clicking as a reflex. Yes, this'll make you happier, and yes you'll be more productive.
I'm not quite sure I want a Mac right now, but my experience with using my cousin's machine is really making me consider an Apple laptop purchase.
"How exactly would one company be able to offer more bandwidth than another? There's still a limited amount of bandwidth available. With DSL, you can have the lines to yourself, connected to your backbone."
The bottleneck between cable and DSL isn't removed, just moved to a different point in the network. You still need a big pipe going in, and that pipe can be saturated. Doesn't really matter which service you use.
So why would cable based broadband benefit from other players? Service. An ambitious upstart might provide ISP service to me as well as video on demand because their server is a lot closer to me than somewhere out on the net.
I agree with you, though. It's not clear that it'd be all that big of deal. The real question is: Are they making things better by allowing other companies to come in and provide the service, or are they paving the way for an even bigger company (Time Warner?) to bully their way in, and take over the broadband service from the companies who put the investment into making the network? Frankly, I don't see the value in providing this on the grounds that it cheats the companies laying down the big fat pipes.
"What if I pay cash and am unemployed?"
Then you are tracked through unemployment.
"How in HELL does a movie made as an adult have any impact on your childhood, or even things you loved as a child? Do you seriously enjoy the original movies LESS because of the new ones? Why?"
It's a lot harder to call yoruself a star wars fan if the current batch of movies are embarrasing.
"I GNU this would come out... But I wouldn't put something GNU like this past him."
Oh shut up, GNUmbnuts.
"Right now regular Slashdot readers tremble at the approach of April due to
the impending parade of sickening unfunny that is April Fools on Slashdot."
Well I haveta agree, it really sucks that Slashdot is only serious 364 days out of the year.
"OK, I'm bored of the April fools jokes... 5 in one day is excessive."
Every single April 1st, there's always some git who gets modded up for saying the exact same thing. Slashdot's been running 365/24/7, you can can take a day off for silliness.
At least with the Microsoft tax, I get a neat holographic coaster.
"oh yeah, this is the day that i'm not supposed to read /.. dammit, what am i going to do at work?"
If you're running Windows at work, play Solitaire. If you're running Linux, play "Make sound work in KDE."
"Green ships include Klingon and Romulan ships, both of which are hostile in some Trek series."
Not during the Dominion War. The Romulans and the Klingons were Federation allies. Remember, we were talking about 'too many ships on screen at once'.
"Why should you not hate both tyranny and the tyrants that seek [or sought] to impose it?"
I think very highly of Japan today. I wouldn't want an event that happened 50 years ago to make me hate them now.
"Are you listening, producers? We want good, long space battles!"
Watch Nemesis. Lots of battle there. Very 3-dimensional too. Very satisfying to boot.
"ST:V had a story arc where a race of aliens had a huge ship that was a temporal weapon."
Oops, I didn't realize you meant Voyager. I thought you were referring to Star Trek 5. Sorry.
"THey all seem to negate the whole "you don't need to make a wide arcing turn/bank in space to turn around" thing."
I've heard this complaint a lot, but I've never particularly subscribed to it. There's a few things that people don't typically consider.
1.) In a battle, it's important to keep moving. If you suddenly spin your ship 180 degrees and fire your thrusters the other way, you're going to come to a complete stop for a moment before re-accellerating back to your attack speed. A wide sweeping arc keeps you in motion and provides for better evasive maneuvers.
2.) Even though most ships have magic intertial/gravitic control force field thingies, there are probably still structural reasons to keep the ship oriented a certain way while it's moving.
3.) The most powerful thrusters on a ship are going to be to its aft, and along the lateral side of the ship. One's for moving forward, the other's for hovering over a planet. Banking the ship to perform a controlled turn is not necessarily wasteful seeing as how very little is known about how its basic maneuvering systems work.
4.) B5 did it all the time.
"It's why, although I think Sands of Iwo Jima was good for its time"
Ever see Tora Tora Tora? (Note: I might have the name wrong, I only caught a little bit of it on TV...) I think it was a portrayal of Pearl Harbor. Several runways were bombed by Japanese planes. They had scenes where guys were hopping out of their plane just before the bomb hit. I remember thinking "SON OF A BITCH!! How'd they film that?!! I can't imagine a stunt guy being that close to a plane blowing up!" (Note: No fancy optics going on here, just a hell of a stunt...)
Come to think of it, the recent Pearl Harbor movie had me going in a similar way. There was a point in that movie that I *really* hated the Japanese military of that era. I haven't been charged by a movie like that in ages. (Fortunately that disappeared quickly after leaving the theater..)
"It was used in B5, ST:DS9, and ST:V iirc."
Okay, I'm going to expose my geekiness here. Fortunately I don't think many femmes are watching. I don't think STV had a ramming order in it, but they did have a shuttle nick the floor of the shuttlebay, scaring the shit out of everybody involved. STVIII (First Contact) was the one where Worf ordered it, but didn't actually go through with it. STX actually portrayed a ramming scene, and like or hate the movie, that was pretty damn cool.
"The battle against the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact was pretty good. Didn't last very long, though."
It didn't, but man it was effective. Remember when they listened in on the battle over the radio? All those ships reporting the damage they've sustained, etc. Seeing a bunch of ships flying around and blowing up is kinda neat, but that little audio blurb was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It caused me to imagine standing on one of those ships, knowing that if I didn't die, somebody I know did.
Then, to top it off, the explosion of the Borg ship took out one of the other ships that was too close to it. 500-1,000 people, isntantly gone even though the battle was decidedly over.
" but Starship Troopers had some interesting special effects during the assault on Klendathu--the bug homeworld. Seeing the Rodger Young and other transports lumbering about, colliding stupidly, and eating bug plasma was pretty cool--"
Like or hate the movie, they did an excellent job of portraying how dangerous it would be to be in a soldier/pilot in a battle like that. That scene where the escape pod bumps into a dead body really burned into my mind.
I really like battles that make you feel like "Ugh, I'm glad I'm safe at home in my living room." I saw Star Trek II when I was a kid. There was a scene where the torpedo bay took a hit, and somebody was walking past that section when it was hit. All the sudden there was a flash, the whole room was instantly on fire, and this guy just let out this awful scream of pain. Blowing nacelles off is cool, but that scene really got me.