Open Source is, as the parent poster points out, close to ideal communism.
Under what rationale? Open source is as close as you can get to pure capitalism. Remember, all capitalism entails is a lack of central authority governing production. Those who create most open source software projects do it not out of altruism, but because they receive something valuable in return, which is often an aspect that is neglected by the average onlooker.
When someone creates a project, they do it out of a desire for certain functionality. They feel, however, that it is more than a fair tradeoff to relinquish much of the central control offered by copyrights in order to attain the far better quality, innovation, and speed at which open source software is developed. Other beneficial factors involve credit for work and experience. Many open source projects are started when somebody wants to learn about a language, a certain type of program, or the hardware it runs opon. Hell, this was Linus' rationale for creating Linux in the first place.
If you're going to be needing registered RAM for the system, for god's sakes don't buy low-quality parts. Getting a Chaintech motherboard with registered DDR RAM is kind of like buying a souped-up Geo Metro. It's not a good idea.
10 * 10^(1.42) meters is as far as we can see into space? I'm sorry, but if we've only penetrated 263 meters into space, we're a lot less advanced than I thought we were. Not to mention, now I'm a lot more worried about black holes.
Where the issue grows problematical is that the means of reproducing software are far less expensive than the means of reproducing cupcakes. If I already have a computer (which is reasonable, if I own software), then reproducing it costs next to nothing. If I owned a Star Trek replicator and I bought a box of Hostess cupcakes, then replicated them and gave them away, I would have wronged Hostess. I did not come up with the recipe for those cupcakes nor did I do any real work to reproduce them. However, I'm distributing, for free, cupcakes that are identical to Hostess's. Just because I am able to do this does not mean that it is right or ethical for me to do so.
Where this argument comes into question, however, is that if you are able to buy a Star Trek replicator to produce Hostess cupcakes at little or no cost, Hostess should be able to do the same. You're simply using a process that any company can use to produce a product.
The true problem is the original investment. Sure, it takes $0.20 for Hostess to make the original cupcake, and sometimes well over hundreds of thousands of dollars to pioneer a software project. However, an instance like this would describe a deprecated business model. If this were a common occurrence, companies should realize that their current method of operation no longer remains profitable or strategic.
In the case of software, this may lead to a much better method of software production, wherein companies and individuals do not create software to sell, but to use. Company A no longer is in the business of financial software, but instead uses its software to run a financial institution. The software is developed to run the business, and outside help from others who use the software as well helps cause the software to become far more reliable, useful, and effective.
Don't lament just yet. LucasArts recently announced the production of both a Full Throttle and a Sam and Max sequel. The time for rejoicing will soon be at hand...
Can you imagine the overhead for people who run mailing lists? They've got hundreds of emails a day to thousands of recipients. Even if the cost were a fraction of a cent, the list admin would be swamped.
Personally, I have opposed this war for a long time. I agree absolutely with the Bush administration that Hussein is a terrible dictator, but I have a hard time grasping why we are not dealing with a fundamentally more dangerous situation in North Korea...
Because North Korea already has nuclear weapons. This fact causes the way we attempt to handle the two situations to be quite different. We can't just invade North Korea, for fear of a nuclear launch against South Korea or Japan. We must proceed far more cautiously and diplomatically. However, in Saddam's case, we have the opportunity to prevent another situation like North Korea from arising.
Perhaps you could try demonstrating how easy it would be for a potential cracker to get the information from the system. Where I've worked, explaining it usually isn't enough--they think I'm exaggerating it, or that I'm just being paranoid. When I then show them in two or thee seconds of typing how mindlessly easy it is to sniff data off the network, it goes a long way to helping out my case.
I went to read the comments for this, and was greeted by an advertisement for Microsoft.NET. Isn't that a bit like trying to sell publicity to Mark Hamill?
The police kept a fingerprint database. However, imagine that after time, your fingerprint changes and wears down over time, and it's even possible to change it entirely.
This is the main problem with a law requiring ballistic fingerprinting. It's not reliable. As more and more bullets are fired, the fingerprint of the gun barrel actually changes. Not to mention, if one wanted, you could either scratch the inside of the barrel to completely change it, or you could simply replace the barrel entirely, with one that's undocumented.
And even worse, this would only inconvenience those who intend on following the law. Noone going on a murderous rampage is going to listen to laws saying he's got to register a gun, or submit it for ballistic fingerprinting. Once again, those who want weapons for legitimate reasons get hassled because of those who don't.
This was posted about half a year ago, as I recall. I even took the initiative to make a 5.1 audio sound system with them. It sounds like crap, but it sure as hell looks cool;) And when company leaves, I just pull the Klipsches back out of my closet *grin*
Re:You'll need more to bring about OpenGL support.
on
Doom3 and OpenGL2.0
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· Score: 1
Just because DoomIII uses OpenGL I don't believe card manufactures will race out to upgrade their OpenGL support. If a dozen or so games do, that's another story but to bend over for one game just doesn't make sense financial, especially since the other 95% of games use DirectX.
Well, considering ATi has been waiting on Carmack hand and foot to fix any bugs he finds in their drivers, and Nvidia strongly pushes OpenGL, I'd say you're wrong. It also might be the fact that [b]many[/b] games will use the Doom engine, as many have used the Quake engines before. Plenty of games have been either using these or OpenGL, as well. Neverwinter Nights, Quake III, Serious Sam, etc.
Sure my Nvidia 4400 might not get Doom to run as well as Serious Sam, Unreal II, Star Wars Galaxies, Neverwinter Nights, etc. etc. but who honestly cares? If Nvidia increases their support of OpenGL more power to em, that would be great, but one game won't decide the future, even if it is Doom III (Which I believe will fail to live up to hype).
Errrm, Neverwinter Nights and Serious Sam were both done with OpenGL. Nvidia already has stellar support for OpenGL, and has definate plans to have support for OpenGL 2.0. One game isn't deciding the future here. Many games use OpenGL as things are right now, and also, OpenGL is the de facto standard for 3D graphics programs.
I hope they support both standards as DirectX isn't going away anytime soon and like it or not, it is a great set of tools which have helped bring about computer gaming to what it is today.
You're...joking, right? Direct3D has in fact slowed game development, as coders have to sort through the jumble of code you need to write to get anything to work with it. Its tools are pretty much identical to those of OpenGL. Why was it used? Partly because it's more of a burden on hardware companies. Where DirectX tries to adapt itself to every single card released, OpenGL requires the developers of hardware to conform to the standard.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of my country, any other country, or simply to no flag at all and to the form of government the people of its sovereign nation have chosen for which it may or may not stand. One nation, several nations as part of an economic, political, or social union, no nation, or a nation composed of previously separate nations, under my deity, deities of choice, no deity at all, or a ruler appointed by divine right, indivisible (or divisible, as it may be), with liberty and justice, liberty and injustice, servitude and justice, or servitude and injustice for all, a portion of the population, or noone at all.
Why the hell are they pushing legislation? If they want unique identifiers, it's their damned job to use them. But no, they have to make it so that other people who don't agree with their philosophy have to do it as well.
...I'd like to see how this turns out. This might simply be a ploy by Microsoft. They can make Windows XP modular, but intentionally cause it to be unstable as hell. This might give them leverage to say, "Look! We made it modular and it didn't work. We're going back to the old way of doing things!"
...and sue Sanford for making felt-tipped pens. Push for a ban of all marking devices. Run with it. It's things like this that will get the DMCA repealed.
And that's all fabulous. And wrong. The Nazis in Germany came to power through democratic means. Although behind-the-scenes wrangling happened that ultimately allowed Hitler to become Chancellor without a genuine popular mandate, the NSDAP was one of the most, if not the most popular party in 1933. Through democratic means. They then used the democratic mandate they'd gained without illegal means to dismantle the Weimar Republic. (France allowed the National Front to enter local governments here and there, and local councils in certain regions of France have already seen an alarming rise in incidents where radical right-wingers successfully removed a variety of critical works from public libraries, critical newspapers from circulation, etc. Critical of their neo-fascist tactics that restrict democratic expression, mind you.
Then it seems as if your political system is not well designed, and easily abused. This would indicate a need to rework the way your political system is handled rather than to silence the opinions of others.
Of course someone will go on about how ironic it is that it is those very fascist who are banning things, just like Germany is banning stuff, but they need a serious reality check.)
Why is that? Hitler operated by banning those that opposed him. That's exactly how the German government is working now. Just because the German government is on a moral high ground makes it no different. With the "ban it" mentality Germany has today, it doesn't seem like too big a leap to go from banning video games to banning smoking to banning religions, etc.
That's why radical groups are banned. That's why they have to operate underground. That's why Germany is quite keen to ban 'ideas' (I can hear the flames already) and things that are 'dangerous'.
What's dangerous is the banning of ideas. You may be banning Nazis now, but what's to say you won't extend that to, say, Republicans or Libertarians (pardon my lack of knowledge of your political parties)?
Because people in general are easily seduced by things that make them feel good about themselves. Hitler told Germans that they were special and superior.
Then you'd think the German population would learn not to follow the pied piper, hrm?
Thus, you want to make sure that radical groups that want to dismantle democracy are not allowed a popular mandate. You do not want to legitimize them by allowing them to exist in the public sphere. You do not want to allow them to become coalition partners, to enter local governments, and to slowly subvert and destroy freedom, tolerance, and democracy.
While I can understand that nobody in Germany wants to allow others to dismantle democracy, wouldn't it be better accomplished by showing people unequivically why Naziism is a horrible thing, rather than silencing them altogether? Let them speak their vile brand of hatred, and then shoot them down. The United States has managed to keep the K.K.K. in check with no effort whatsoever. I fail to see the difference with Nazis.
Because that's what they want.
And they're not going to get it. We've been there, we're not going back. We like democracy, we like freedom...
A touch of irony here...
...we like being able to say whatever we want without being locked up...
Now a little hypocrisy...
...we don't want to be herded into camps because of our racial distinctions or religious beliefs, and we sure as fuck don't want to let radicals who want to destroy all of that back into the limelight.
Then don't let them! There are plenty of other ways of keeping groups in check than silencing them outright. Even more effective is proving exactly why their ideals are wrong and why they would only lead to terrible things.
So go on all you want about 'bans are bad!' and 'information wants to be free!'. Naivety will only get you so far...
As will hypocrisy.
...and jackbooted thugs will exploit all of it quite happily while you sit there letting them take away everything you hold dear.
You speak as if you feel that the only options here are to silence them or to revert back to the 3rd Reich, which simply is not the case. There are other options here.
Not to mention, in the U.S., the War on Drugs has increased the problem exponentially. Aren't you worried that the ban on Naziism might end up doing the same thing? Especially if it's all underground, you'd have no idea of knowing the extents of it. Atleast if it were in the open, you could see it coming.
As I understood it, the potential of zero-point energy does not lie within the extraction of the energy itself. The most promising aspect, actually, would be if we were to somehow "shield" a nucleus from this energy. Theory states that it would cause the nucleus to implode upon itself, and produce a blast that would make the H-bomb look like a firecracker.
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Open Source is, as the parent poster points out, close to ideal communism.
Under what rationale? Open source is as close as you can get to pure capitalism. Remember, all capitalism entails is a lack of central authority governing production. Those who create most open source software projects do it not out of altruism, but because they receive something valuable in return, which is often an aspect that is neglected by the average onlooker.
When someone creates a project, they do it out of a desire for certain functionality. They feel, however, that it is more than a fair tradeoff to relinquish much of the central control offered by copyrights in order to attain the far better quality, innovation, and speed at which open source software is developed. Other beneficial factors involve credit for work and experience. Many open source projects are started when somebody wants to learn about a language, a certain type of program, or the hardware it runs opon. Hell, this was Linus' rationale for creating Linux in the first place.
If you're going to be needing registered RAM for the system, for god's sakes don't buy low-quality parts. Getting a Chaintech motherboard with registered DDR RAM is kind of like buying a souped-up Geo Metro. It's not a good idea.
It's 10 * 10^1.42. Still, that's only 263 meters, which isn't much better.
10 * 10^(1.42) meters is as far as we can see into space? I'm sorry, but if we've only penetrated 263 meters into space, we're a lot less advanced than I thought we were. Not to mention, now I'm a lot more worried about black holes.
Where the issue grows problematical is that the means of reproducing software are far less expensive than the means of reproducing cupcakes. If I already have a computer (which is reasonable, if I own software), then reproducing it costs next to nothing. If I owned a Star Trek replicator and I bought a box of Hostess cupcakes, then replicated them and gave them away, I would have wronged Hostess. I did not come up with the recipe for those cupcakes nor did I do any real work to reproduce them. However, I'm distributing, for free, cupcakes that are identical to Hostess's. Just because I am able to do this does not mean that it is right or ethical for me to do so.
Where this argument comes into question, however, is that if you are able to buy a Star Trek replicator to produce Hostess cupcakes at little or no cost, Hostess should be able to do the same. You're simply using a process that any company can use to produce a product.
The true problem is the original investment. Sure, it takes $0.20 for Hostess to make the original cupcake, and sometimes well over hundreds of thousands of dollars to pioneer a software project. However, an instance like this would describe a deprecated business model. If this were a common occurrence, companies should realize that their current method of operation no longer remains profitable or strategic.
In the case of software, this may lead to a much better method of software production, wherein companies and individuals do not create software to sell, but to use. Company A no longer is in the business of financial software, but instead uses its software to run a financial institution. The software is developed to run the business, and outside help from others who use the software as well helps cause the software to become far more reliable, useful, and effective.
Don't lament just yet. LucasArts recently announced the production of both a Full Throttle and a Sam and Max sequel. The time for rejoicing will soon be at hand...
Can you imagine the overhead for people who run mailing lists? They've got hundreds of emails a day to thousands of recipients. Even if the cost were a fraction of a cent, the list admin would be swamped.
Personally, I have opposed this war for a long time. I agree absolutely with the Bush administration that Hussein is a terrible dictator, but I have a hard time grasping why we are not dealing with a fundamentally more dangerous situation in North Korea...
Because North Korea already has nuclear weapons. This fact causes the way we attempt to handle the two situations to be quite different. We can't just invade North Korea, for fear of a nuclear launch against South Korea or Japan. We must proceed far more cautiously and diplomatically. However, in Saddam's case, we have the opportunity to prevent another situation like North Korea from arising.
Perhaps you could try demonstrating how easy it would be for a potential cracker to get the information from the system. Where I've worked, explaining it usually isn't enough--they think I'm exaggerating it, or that I'm just being paranoid. When I then show them in two or thee seconds of typing how mindlessly easy it is to sniff data off the network, it goes a long way to helping out my case.
Wrong again, it actually says that it has the authority to act on behalf of Joe Bob Copyright holder in this matter, which is a huge difference.
Inside joke. Move along folks, nothing to see here.
is a Doudie-head. Pun intended.
I went to read the comments for this, and was greeted by an advertisement for Microsoft .NET. Isn't that a bit like trying to sell publicity to Mark Hamill?
The police kept a fingerprint database. However, imagine that after time, your fingerprint changes and wears down over time, and it's even possible to change it entirely. This is the main problem with a law requiring ballistic fingerprinting. It's not reliable. As more and more bullets are fired, the fingerprint of the gun barrel actually changes. Not to mention, if one wanted, you could either scratch the inside of the barrel to completely change it, or you could simply replace the barrel entirely, with one that's undocumented. And even worse, this would only inconvenience those who intend on following the law. Noone going on a murderous rampage is going to listen to laws saying he's got to register a gun, or submit it for ballistic fingerprinting. Once again, those who want weapons for legitimate reasons get hassled because of those who don't.
This was posted about half a year ago, as I recall. I even took the initiative to make a 5.1 audio sound system with them. It sounds like crap, but it sure as hell looks cool ;) And when company leaves, I just pull the Klipsches back out of my closet *grin*
Just because DoomIII uses OpenGL I don't believe card manufactures will race out to upgrade their OpenGL support. If a dozen or so games do, that's another story but to bend over for one game just doesn't make sense financial, especially since the other 95% of games use DirectX.
Well, considering ATi has been waiting on Carmack hand and foot to fix any bugs he finds in their drivers, and Nvidia strongly pushes OpenGL, I'd say you're wrong. It also might be the fact that [b]many[/b] games will use the Doom engine, as many have used the Quake engines before. Plenty of games have been either using these or OpenGL, as well. Neverwinter Nights, Quake III, Serious Sam, etc.
Sure my Nvidia 4400 might not get Doom to run as well as Serious Sam, Unreal II, Star Wars Galaxies, Neverwinter Nights, etc. etc. but who honestly cares? If Nvidia increases their support of OpenGL more power to em, that would be great, but one game won't decide the future, even if it is Doom III (Which I believe will fail to live up to hype).
Errrm, Neverwinter Nights and Serious Sam were both done with OpenGL. Nvidia already has stellar support for OpenGL, and has definate plans to have support for OpenGL 2.0. One game isn't deciding the future here. Many games use OpenGL as things are right now, and also, OpenGL is the de facto standard for 3D graphics programs.
I hope they support both standards as DirectX isn't going away anytime soon and like it or not, it is a great set of tools which have helped bring about computer gaming to what it is today.
You're...joking, right? Direct3D has in fact slowed game development, as coders have to sort through the jumble of code you need to write to get anything to work with it. Its tools are pretty much identical to those of OpenGL. Why was it used? Partly because it's more of a burden on hardware companies. Where DirectX tries to adapt itself to every single card released, OpenGL requires the developers of hardware to conform to the standard.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of my country, any other country, or simply to no flag at all and to the form of government the people of its sovereign nation have chosen for which it may or may not stand. One nation, several nations as part of an economic, political, or social union, no nation, or a nation composed of previously separate nations, under my deity, deities of choice, no deity at all, or a ruler appointed by divine right, indivisible (or divisible, as it may be), with liberty and justice, liberty and injustice, servitude and justice, or servitude and injustice for all, a portion of the population, or noone at all.
Why the hell are they pushing legislation? If they want unique identifiers, it's their damned job to use them. But no, they have to make it so that other people who don't agree with their philosophy have to do it as well.
...I'd like to see how this turns out. This might simply be a ploy by Microsoft. They can make Windows XP modular, but intentionally cause it to be unstable as hell. This might give them leverage to say, "Look! We made it modular and it didn't work. We're going back to the old way of doing things!"
Wouldn't surprise me in the least...
...and sue Sanford for making felt-tipped pens. Push for a ban of all marking devices. Run with it. It's things like this that will get the DMCA repealed.
And that's all fabulous. And wrong. The Nazis in Germany came to power through democratic means. Although behind-the-scenes wrangling happened that ultimately allowed Hitler to become Chancellor without a genuine popular mandate, the NSDAP was one of the most, if not the most popular party in 1933. Through democratic means. They then used the democratic mandate they'd gained without illegal means to dismantle the Weimar Republic. (France allowed the National Front to enter local governments here and there, and local councils in certain regions of France have already seen an alarming rise in incidents where radical right-wingers successfully removed a variety of critical works from public libraries, critical newspapers from circulation, etc. Critical of their neo-fascist tactics that restrict democratic expression, mind you.
...we like being able to say whatever we want without being locked up...
...we don't want to be herded into camps because of our racial distinctions or religious beliefs, and we sure as fuck don't want to let radicals who want to destroy all of that back into the limelight.
...and jackbooted thugs will exploit all of it quite happily while you sit there letting them take away everything you hold dear.
Then it seems as if your political system is not well designed, and easily abused. This would indicate a need to rework the way your political system is handled rather than to silence the opinions of others.
Of course someone will go on about how ironic it is that it is those very fascist who are banning things, just like Germany is banning stuff, but they need a serious reality check.)
Why is that? Hitler operated by banning those that opposed him. That's exactly how the German government is working now. Just because the German government is on a moral high ground makes it no different. With the "ban it" mentality Germany has today, it doesn't seem like too big a leap to go from banning video games to banning smoking to banning religions, etc.
That's why radical groups are banned. That's why they have to operate underground. That's why Germany is quite keen to ban 'ideas' (I can hear the flames already) and things that are 'dangerous'.
What's dangerous is the banning of ideas. You may be banning Nazis now, but what's to say you won't extend that to, say, Republicans or Libertarians (pardon my lack of knowledge of your political parties)?
Because people in general are easily seduced by things that make them feel good about themselves. Hitler told Germans that they were special and superior.
Then you'd think the German population would learn not to follow the pied piper, hrm?
Thus, you want to make sure that radical groups that want to dismantle democracy are not allowed a popular mandate. You do not want to legitimize them by allowing them to exist in the public sphere. You do not want to allow them to become coalition partners, to enter local governments, and to slowly subvert and destroy freedom, tolerance, and democracy.
While I can understand that nobody in Germany wants to allow others to dismantle democracy, wouldn't it be better accomplished by showing people unequivically why Naziism is a horrible thing, rather than silencing them altogether? Let them speak their vile brand of hatred, and then shoot them down. The United States has managed to keep the K.K.K. in check with no effort whatsoever. I fail to see the difference with Nazis.
Because that's what they want.
And they're not going to get it. We've been there, we're not going back. We like democracy, we like freedom...
A touch of irony here...
Now a little hypocrisy...
Then don't let them! There are plenty of other ways of keeping groups in check than silencing them outright. Even more effective is proving exactly why their ideals are wrong and why they would only lead to terrible things.
So go on all you want about 'bans are bad!' and 'information wants to be free!'. Naivety will only get you so far...
As will hypocrisy.
You speak as if you feel that the only options here are to silence them or to revert back to the 3rd Reich, which simply is not the case. There are other options here.
Not to mention, in the U.S., the War on Drugs has increased the problem exponentially. Aren't you worried that the ban on Naziism might end up doing the same thing? Especially if it's all underground, you'd have no idea of knowing the extents of it. Atleast if it were in the open, you could see it coming.
Internet Explorer changes " signs before a word to look like that. Don't ask me why.
As I understood it, the potential of zero-point energy does not lie within the extraction of the energy itself. The most promising aspect, actually, would be if we were to somehow "shield" a nucleus from this energy. Theory states that it would cause the nucleus to implode upon itself, and produce a blast that would make the H-bomb look like a firecracker.
Hell, last I checked, Mindspring's DNS servers were Itchy and Scratchy.
"What would you do with a few million liters of this stuff?"
Make myself one hell of a martini.