"They probably had the damn flight path of the shell computed before they fired it."
I saw a thing on the Discovery Channel once where they had a video camera that could watch for bullets. They had a computer hooked up to it that could detect the bullets, watch their movement, and show where it originated. It was even capable of predicting where the bullet'd end up before impact.
Damn cool demo, but I cannot recall what the context of it was or what show it was. They wanted to use it to locate snipers.
Ummm okay. Heh. Opera is quite fast. It's not built into the kernel. IE is the most stable and compatible browser on the web. Mozilla and Phoneix are riding a "we hate Microsoft!" hype wave.
Frankly, I think Opera's a better browser than all of the ones mentioned in your post. Sadly, though, I can't completely remove IE from my workflow because some sites still play better with it. Netscape never had the drive to innovate, that's what killed them.
Hey, I have more than 40 more years left!, your little geek mind wants you to shout. Sadly you don't. All that pork grease soaked pizza and cake frosting straight from the container isn't doing you any good. Particularly in the face of the fact that your days consist primarily of sitting on your ass discussing Boba Fett related topics.
"It's not. Even at film resolution, 3D rendering doesn't require 2 GB of RAM"
I would disagree with that. I'm maxing out my gig of RAM right now. It's not because I'm being inefficient, it's because I'm making good use of it to speed up workflow. The more I have, the more stuff I can do.
In any case, you're right about the 32-bit crunching. I'm not sure if the 3D apps out there are tuned for 64-bit or not. I know that LW used to run on Alpha.
*Shrug* Just thought I'd mention it. If it's not popular today, it could be.
"Pre-emptive Netscape strike. Someone will inevitably point out that Netscape lost market share because it produced an inferior product. While that's partially true, Netscape started losing major marketshare while their product was still superior (they lost marketshare to IE3 forgoodnesssakes!), and now that they've got the superior product again, they're not exactly regaining marketshare. Something other than product quality caused this. "
When did Netscape stop being inferior? It's still slow and it's a memory hog compared to IE. Not only that, but they waited 2 years to release a new version. They tiptoed along while MS was happily updating IE, making new useful features, and making it error-resistent.
Sorry, Netscape lost because they didn't keep up. Pity, they could have easily fought off MS if they had actually put some thought into fixing the problems that users found annoying.
"The problem is that they are forcing machine makers to ship Windows as-is and punishes them for shipping otherwise."
I can't help but think that the bigger PC retailers weren't exactly kicking and screaming over an exlusive arrangement like that until MS's anti-trust allegations came around. If you think about it, 1 OS was good for places like Gateway or Dell or even IBM. Only one OS to support. Computers only needed one OS installed. That one OS ran everything people wanted on their computers, including games.
If you think about it, MS didn't always have the power to dictate who can use what. I think the odds are pretty good that the retailers themselves were happy to get into those agreements, early on at least.
"through this cheating the Seti@home project has proved that there is intelligent life in the universe... albeiet life with the ethics of the undead....
They definitely proved a deficiency of intelligence here on earth.
Amusing Halloween Cartoon...
on
Howl-o-ween
·
· Score: 2, Redundant
Heh, this isn't on-topic really other than it's about Halloween and/.'s favorite company, MS.
"Are you new to Slashdot? The submitted used mystical incantations to make sure his story got accepted. "Solar power," "44 gigs of photos," and "Microsoft Free" (note the miscapitalization) do the trick every time. "
Heh. I think it's funny that a moderator (or two) thought our comments were likely to start a flame war. Yeah, mod us down as 'flamebait' so that people won't see it and get really mad.
"Also of note: the website has 44 gigs of photos so far, runs on solar power, and is Microsoft Free."
Err. Why does that sound like one of the Cosby kids trying to conince their dad that he should buy them a computer? I mean, who cares if it has 44 gigs of photos? None of us are going to download that many. Who cares if it runs on solar power? We're not paying for it. And who cares if it's MS free? We wouldn't know the difference if they were using MS for anything.
I wouldn't normally make a point of it, but the way they presented those last bits of detail suggests to me they were trying really really hard to make sure Slashdot posts this story.
I dunno, maybe I missed the point and each of those details was uber-important to understanding what this guy is doing. Sure.
"MS decide this is illegal and start suing? I mean, clearly there's the whole DMCA thing. Does this decoder ignore MS's DRM system? I would have read the article, but I don't speak C... "
Anybody remember when VirtualDub could work on.ASF files...?
I'm puzzled as to why they think they need to enforce regional zones with this practice. It made sense like 10 years ago. Movies are gauged in the USA before sent out to other countries. Sometimes they're edited differently. Then there's translation into other languages, etc. I understand all that.
These days it's getting harder and harder to justify the segregation. It's easier and easier to launch a movie around the world. For example, I went to Brazil a week after Spiderman was released in the USA. I watched that movie, in Brazil, with Portuguese subtitles only a week after the launch.
Now, I can understand the desire to prevent people from watching the movie on-line so that they can go see it in the theater first. But why is that such a priority anymore? Seems like they still make money either way. In some respects, they could make even more money. There are movies I want to see. I'd be happy to watch them if I had the tape, but I'm not so interested in making it to a theater to watch them. I'm sure there are lots of people that feel that way.
If their concern is over theater attendence, why not make the experience more appealing? Headphones would be nice so you can't hear the occasional ringing of a cell phone. Bigger screen? Better quality film? I dunno.
In any case, I don't mean to ramble. I have a question: What is the big screaming deal about regional lockouts for movies? Is there an issue I didn't raise? It's just puzzling to me that they feel they need to prevent somebody from Australia from watching a movie in the USA. What if I'm vacationing there?
"Translation: You still want an excuse to download music over P2P. Hey, that's fine, but don't try to cloak it in self-righteousness"
Excuse me, why are you jumping to the harshest conclusion?
If I say I agree with the AC are you going to assume I want to steal music? I got news for you buddy, I spent a good deal of money legitimizing my MP3 collection. There was a time I had a CD containing the song of every MP3 I had. Why did I have MP3s? Two reasons: 1.) To try out music, 2.) so I can listen to my music from work without having to shuffle CDs all day. Never mind that the RIAA was making money from my downloading. No no no, everybody who has an MP3 is 'downloading communism'.
I agree, they owe everybody an apology. When we get it, I'll resume legitimizing my MP3 collection.
I don't really give a flying fuck if you think I'm trying to justify not paying for music. You know damn good and well you wouldn't get gas at a station that raised your car 5 feet in the air to prevent you from driving off.
Slashdot Mirror
"Yes, as an example "vi" happens to be the danish word for "we". "
Another example would be that "VI" means "Six", which in Hollywood means "Despite being real old, the actors in this franchise still got it."
Ah! I think you're on to what I was thinking of. Remember any details? I'd like to look it up.
"They probably had the damn flight path of the shell computed before they fired it."
I saw a thing on the Discovery Channel once where they had a video camera that could watch for bullets. They had a computer hooked up to it that could detect the bullets, watch their movement, and show where it originated. It was even capable of predicting where the bullet'd end up before impact.
Damn cool demo, but I cannot recall what the context of it was or what show it was. They wanted to use it to locate snipers.
"Didn't they have this back in the 60's? correct me if I'm wrong, I was always told this. "
Well, the technnology was developed recently, but yeah it did exist in the 60's. I think it was called the Alan Parsens Project.
"They exist because MS lets them exist."
I think microphobia (fear of Microsoft) today is reaching higher than homophobia a few years ago.
Ummm okay. Heh. Opera is quite fast. It's not built into the kernel. IE is the most stable and compatible browser on the web. Mozilla and Phoneix are riding a "we hate Microsoft!" hype wave.
Frankly, I think Opera's a better browser than all of the ones mentioned in your post. Sadly, though, I can't completely remove IE from my workflow because some sites still play better with it. Netscape never had the drive to innovate, that's what killed them.
You're a real baby, you know that?
"It's not. Even at film resolution, 3D rendering doesn't require 2 GB of RAM"
I would disagree with that. I'm maxing out my gig of RAM right now. It's not because I'm being inefficient, it's because I'm making good use of it to speed up workflow. The more I have, the more stuff I can do.
In any case, you're right about the 32-bit crunching. I'm not sure if the 3D apps out there are tuned for 64-bit or not. I know that LW used to run on Alpha.
*Shrug* Just thought I'd mention it. If it's not popular today, it could be.
"64 bit addressing and Solaris 9 is a great boon for folks running databases on big iron, but I just can't see what it buys you on a laptop."
Sounds like it'd be helpful for 3D rendering apps. In that case, I could see Hollywood buying a few of these.
"I suspect that had IBM decided otherwise, personal computers would be more expensive and Apple would have a significantly larger market share."
Not to mention that there'd be several dividing lines. Life was hard enough when you had to pick between Atari and Commodore. Heh.
When did Netscape stop being inferior? It's still slow and it's a memory hog compared to IE. Not only that, but they waited 2 years to release a new version. They tiptoed along while MS was happily updating IE, making new useful features, and making it error-resistent.
Sorry, Netscape lost because they didn't keep up. Pity, they could have easily fought off MS if they had actually put some thought into fixing the problems that users found annoying.
"The problem is that they are forcing machine makers to ship Windows as-is and punishes them for shipping otherwise."
I can't help but think that the bigger PC retailers weren't exactly kicking and screaming over an exlusive arrangement like that until MS's anti-trust allegations came around. If you think about it, 1 OS was good for places like Gateway or Dell or even IBM. Only one OS to support. Computers only needed one OS installed. That one OS ran everything people wanted on their computers, including games.
If you think about it, MS didn't always have the power to dictate who can use what. I think the odds are pretty good that the retailers themselves were happy to get into those agreements, early on at least.
"...for that matter you could take freebsd itself... " ...please! *bad-dum-CHING!*
"Who would think that a dead browser... "
Define dead. Percentage-wise, IE is the only browsezr that's alive.
Somehow they've found money to keep developing new versions of Opera, so I wouldn't be so quick to call it 'dead'.
Uh... Off-topic? Sure. Overrated? Sure. Redundant? What, did somebody else publish the cartoon before me?
"through this cheating the Seti@home project has proved that there is intelligent life in the universe... albeiet life with the ethics of the undead....
They definitely proved a deficiency of intelligence here on earth.
Heh, this isn't on-topic really other than it's about Halloween and /.'s favorite company, MS.
Check out today's Foxtrot, Im sure most of the ppl visiting this site will get a chuckle from it.
"Are you new to Slashdot? The submitted used mystical incantations to make sure his story got accepted. "Solar power," "44 gigs of photos," and "Microsoft Free" (note the miscapitalization) do the trick every time. "
Heh. I think it's funny that a moderator (or two) thought our comments were likely to start a flame war. Yeah, mod us down as 'flamebait' so that people won't see it and get really mad.
"Also of note: the website has 44 gigs of photos so far, runs on solar power, and is Microsoft Free."
Err. Why does that sound like one of the Cosby kids trying to conince their dad that he should buy them a computer? I mean, who cares if it has 44 gigs of photos? None of us are going to download that many. Who cares if it runs on solar power? We're not paying for it. And who cares if it's MS free? We wouldn't know the difference if they were using MS for anything.
I wouldn't normally make a point of it, but the way they presented those last bits of detail suggests to me they were trying really really hard to make sure Slashdot posts this story.
I dunno, maybe I missed the point and each of those details was uber-important to understanding what this guy is doing. Sure.
"MS decide this is illegal and start suing? I mean, clearly there's the whole DMCA thing. Does this decoder ignore MS's DRM system? I would have read the article, but I don't speak C...
.ASF files...?
"
Anybody remember when VirtualDub could work on
Here is a short blurb talking about it.
Well, yeah they have headphones for those who ask for them. I was thinking offering them in a general sense.
And that answer on the regional zones was very interesting. Thank you!
"Thath enough of thith Opera bashing! It maketh me tho mad... I jutht wanna... wanna... give you a good hard thpanking! "
-1 Troll? Oh please, I was trying to be funny. There's no way that was any more trollish than the post I was replying to.
I'm puzzled as to why they think they need to enforce regional zones with this practice. It made sense like 10 years ago. Movies are gauged in the USA before sent out to other countries. Sometimes they're edited differently. Then there's translation into other languages, etc. I understand all that.
These days it's getting harder and harder to justify the segregation. It's easier and easier to launch a movie around the world. For example, I went to Brazil a week after Spiderman was released in the USA. I watched that movie, in Brazil, with Portuguese subtitles only a week after the launch.
Now, I can understand the desire to prevent people from watching the movie on-line so that they can go see it in the theater first. But why is that such a priority anymore? Seems like they still make money either way. In some respects, they could make even more money. There are movies I want to see. I'd be happy to watch them if I had the tape, but I'm not so interested in making it to a theater to watch them. I'm sure there are lots of people that feel that way.
If their concern is over theater attendence, why not make the experience more appealing? Headphones would be nice so you can't hear the occasional ringing of a cell phone. Bigger screen? Better quality film? I dunno.
In any case, I don't mean to ramble. I have a question: What is the big screaming deal about regional lockouts for movies? Is there an issue I didn't raise? It's just puzzling to me that they feel they need to prevent somebody from Australia from watching a movie in the USA. What if I'm vacationing there?
"Opera is "alternative" because it leads a gay lifestyle."
Thath enough of thith Opera bashing! It maketh me tho mad... I jutht wanna... wanna... give you a good hard thpanking!
"Translation: You still want an excuse to download music over P2P. Hey, that's fine, but don't try to cloak it in self-righteousness"
Excuse me, why are you jumping to the harshest conclusion?
If I say I agree with the AC are you going to assume I want to steal music? I got news for you buddy, I spent a good deal of money legitimizing my MP3 collection. There was a time I had a CD containing the song of every MP3 I had. Why did I have MP3s? Two reasons: 1.) To try out music, 2.) so I can listen to my music from work without having to shuffle CDs all day. Never mind that the RIAA was making money from my downloading. No no no, everybody who has an MP3 is 'downloading communism'.
I agree, they owe everybody an apology. When we get it, I'll resume legitimizing my MP3 collection.
I don't really give a flying fuck if you think I'm trying to justify not paying for music. You know damn good and well you wouldn't get gas at a station that raised your car 5 feet in the air to prevent you from driving off.