This whole ATI vs. Nvidia open source argument bothers me.
1) Nvidia has contracts with SGI that prevents them from disclosing certain features.
2) While the drivers may be done by Nvidia, they are quality drivers.
3) Nvidia goes out of their way to make easy to install.rpms available for several major distro's, along with the kernel source files so you can compile it in yourself if need be. All these files are updated in a VERY timely manner.
4) They have an excellent readme for the install, and if all else fails, a contact email specifically for problems with their drivers.
Personally, I think they've gone farther than ATI by providing the drivers for you, instead of just saying "here's the specs, go figure it out".
Last November, a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support of the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act.
He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time artists found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its way to the White House for the president's signature.
That subtle change in copyright law will add billions of dollars to record company bank accounts over the next few years -- billions of dollars that rightfully should have been paid to artists. A "work for hire" is now owned in perpetuity by the record company.
Under the 1978 Copyright Act, artists could reclaim the copyrights on their work after 35 years. If you wrote and recorded "Everybody Hurts," you at least got it back to as a family legacy after 35 years. But now, because of this corrupt little pisher, "Everybody Hurts" never gets returned to your family, and can now be sold to the highest bidder.
Over the years record companies have tried to put "work for hire" provisions in their contracts, and Mr. Glazier claims that the "work for hire" only "codified" a standard industry practice. But copyright laws didn't identify sound recordings as being eligible to be called "works for hire," so those contracts didn't mean anything. Until now.
Writing and recording "Hey Jude" is now the same thing as writing an English textbook, writing standardized tests, translating a novel from one language to another or making a map. These are the types of things addressed in the "work for hire" act. And writing a standardized test is a work for hire. Not making a record.
So an assistant substantially altered a major law when he only had the authority to make spelling corrections. That's not what I learned about how government works in my high school civics class.
Three months later, the RIAA hired Mr. Glazier to become its top lobbyist at a salary that was obviously much greater than the one he had as the spelling corrector guy.
The RIAA tries to argue that this change was necessary because of a provision in the bill that musicians supported. That provision prevents anyone from registering a famous person's name as a Web address without that person's permission. That's great. I own my name, and should be able to do what I want with my name.
But the bill also created an exception that allows a company to take a person's name for a Web address if they create a work for hire. Which means a record company would be allowed to own your Web site when you record your "work for hire" album. Like I said: Sharecropping.
Although I've never met any one at a record company who "believed in the Internet," they've all been trying to cover their asses by securing everyone's digital rights. Not that they know what to do with them. Go to a major label-owned band site. Give me a dollar for every time you see an annoying "under construction" sign. I used to pester Geffen (when it was a label) to do a better job. I was totally ignored for two years, until I got my band name back. The Goo Goo Dolls are struggling to gain control of their domain name from Warner Bros., who claim they own the name because they set up a shitty promotional Web site for the band.
Orrin Hatch, songwriter and Republican senator from Utah, seems to be the only person in Washington with a progressive view of copyright law. One lobbyist says that there's no one in the House with a similar view and that "this would have never happened if Sonny Bono was still alive."
I'm disgusted. Anyone that can't get their work done at work, needs to either:
A) Find a new job.
B) Learn their job.
C) Get someone to help them with their job.
I can also see a group of Über-geeks sitting in the theater, all in IRC, typing, 'What did he say?' at the same time.
I will personally bitch-slap each and every one of them.
The best thing to do is go here: Codeweavers and buy a copy of the Crossover plugin. You'll get to use Quicktime, Realplayer, and WMplayer for all your video needs. Well, except for DVD...It's pretty impressive, there's a free demo for you to check out.
Rosen said in a statement: "The notion of copy protection is certainly not new to the entertainment industry. Even computer software already employ various technology protections as appropriate for their marketplace and their consumers. The music industry deserves to do the same. Legislation to prevent self-help technologies would be unwise and unfair."
I can still make a legitimate purchase of any piece of software and expect to be able to use it without any interference from said copy protection, unlike these CD's, which can keep you from using them in the very devices they were intended for.
This may be a simple way to state the obvious, but don't force me to the point where I have to deduce how to navigate around your site. Things should be plainly labeled, and obvious. The worst thing is using images on buttons without telling me what it's leads to.
Skip sounds altogether. If I want multimedia, I'll go to a multimedia site.
(Elmer) Be very quiet I'm hunting rabbits
(E) Rabbit tracks!!!
(E) Kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit
(E) Yo ho to oh! Yo ho to oh! Yo ho...
(Bugs) O mighty warrior of great fighting stock
(B) Might I enquire to ask, eh, what's up doc??
(E) I'm going to kill the rabbit!!
(B) Oh mighty warrior t'will be quite a task
(B) How will you do it, might I enquire to ask??
(E) I will do it with my spear and magic helmet!
(B) Your spear and magic helmet?
(E) Spear & magic helmet!
(B) Magic helmet?
(E) Magic helmet!
(B) Magic helmet
(E) Yes, magic helmet and I'll give you a sample
(B) Bye
(E) That was the rabbit
(E) Oh Brunhilda, you're so lovely
(B) Yes I know it I can't help it
(E) Oh Brunhilda be my love
(E) Return my love a longing burns deep inside me
(B) Return my love I want you always beside me
(E) A love like ours must be
(B) Made for you and for me
(B&E) Return won't you return my love for my love is yours
(E) I'll kill the rabbit
(E) Arise storms
(E) North winds blow, south winds blow
(E) Typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, smog
(E) Flash lightning strike the rabbit
(E) What have I done?? I've killed the rabbit....
(E) Poor little bunny, poor little rabbit... (B) Well what did you expect in an opera, a happy ending???
The entertainment industry and MS finally make it impossible for the average user to use their legally purchased media and devices in a manner that complies with the Fair Use Act.
The problem wasn't that OEM's couldn't offer another OS, it was the fine print that said if you offered Windows, you couldn't make any changes to the boot loader. Hitachi had a PC, the Flora Prius, that had BeOS installed on a seperate partition, but in order to use it, there were instructions you could get online to make it bootable. Good article on it here.
If my monitor is only painting the beam at a rate of around 70Hz-- an acceptible rate for most mid-range monitors-- it would seem to me that for any framerate above that frequency the excess frames will never get drawn to the screen and are totally wasted.
Many people disable vsync when they play games, so their monitors set refresh rate won't matter.
Coupled with the fact that the majority of people aren't sensitive to frame rates over about 30fps, it makes even less sense. There's a reason movies run at about 24fps, after all.
This isn't true at all, if it was, a 70hz refresh rate would be useless as well. There are a few variable that make a difference in your perception of PC monitors, TV displays, and movies.
There's much more detail in the article than what I've posted below, and it's defintely worth reading.
First off, you are sitting in a dark movie theater and the projector is flashing a really bright light on a highly reflective screen. What does this do? Have you ever had a doctor flash a bright light in your eye to look at your retina? Most of us have. What happens? A thing called "afterimage". When the doctor turns off the bright light, you see an afterimage of the light (and it is not real comfortable). Movie theaters do the same thing. The light reflected off the screen is much brighter than the theater surroundings. You get an afterimage of the screen after the frame is passed on, so the next frame change is not as noticable.
...Screen refresh is also a very important factor in this equation. Unlike a television or a computer monitor, the movie theater screen is refreshed all at once (the entire frame is instantly projected and not drawn line for line horizontally as in a TV or monitor). So every frame is projected in its entirety all at once. This then leads back to afterimage due to the large neurotransmitter release in the retina.
...TV's run at a refresh rate of 60 Hz. This is not bad for viewing due to the distance we usually sit from the TV, and the size of the phosphors on your average set and the distance between phosphors (between.39 for a high end one, to.5 and higher for cheaper models). This is actually quite big and fuzzy for most of us, but as long as we are not doing any kind of productivity software (such as word processing) and just watching movies at least 6 feet from the TV, that is just fine.
...Let us start with how a scene or frame is set up by the computer. Each frame is put together in the frame buffer of the video card and is then sent out through the RAMDAC to the monitor. That part is very easy, nothing complex there (except the actual setup of the frame). Now each frame is perfectly rendered and sent to the monitor. It looks good on the screen, but there is something missing when that action gets fast. So far, programmers have been unable to make motion blur in these scenes. When a game runs at 30 fps, you are getting 30 perfectly rendered scenes. This does not fool the eye one bit. There is no motion blur, so the transition from frame to frame is not as smooth as in movies. 3dfx put out a demo that runs half the screen at 30 fps, and the other half at 60 fps. There is a definite difference between the two scenes, with the 60 fps looking much better and smoother than the 30 fps.
Did anyone else notice that the listing only goes through August 2001? That would put this before several very nasty Windows vulnerabilties were released or attacked by virii and worms.
They took their first crack at the technology, and will use what they learned to incorporate it into the next generation of the X-Box/Homestation. In 5 years I can see a single box that combines Xbox/Tivo/Moxi capabilities into one effective package.
Willard says that McOwen was singled out for prosecution partly because he had ignored his supervisor's warnings. "In this case, Mr. McOwen was expressively prohibited by his superiors from downloading these programs and was informed on many occasions by his supervisors to stop downloading programs," said Willard. "They were aware that he was doing it and he had gone in and cleaned it up on numerous occasions." Joyner insists McOwen received no such warning.
Prosecutors also claim that McOwen had a financial motive for volunteering the school's machines. McOwen was a top producer on distributed.net for "Team AnandTech," a group sponsored by a hardware forum site which is still the second ranking contributor to the RC5 research project. A $1,000 prize goes to the individual contributor who recovers the RC5 encryption key.
"McOwen placed a program on computers, that in his estimation would benefit him personally, including computers that has sensitive student financial and identity information without authorization," says Willard. "There is concern about the program itself compromising or providing the basis to compromise sensitive personal or financial information, there is the matter of Mr. McOwen's unauthorized activities on this computer, and finally there is the point that there was misappropriation of state property."
He was warned several times, and the software had repeatedly been uninstalled. This isn't the only article I've read that discussed this fact. I may not agree with the charge or the penalty, but he should have been fired for ignoring his supervisors continued requests.
INDEMNITY
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless us and our agents, employees, representatives, licensors, affiliates, parents and subsidiaries from and against any and all claims, losses, demands, causes of action and judgments (including attorneys' fees and court costs) (collectively "Claims") arising from or concerning your use of the Player or Content and to reimburse them on demand for any losses, costs or expenses they incur as a result of any Claims.
So in other words. I buy the CD, install their player on my PC. And if the player hoses my Windows installation, or the copy protection damages any of my hardware including sound card and speakers, I have no recourse against UMG?
A very common configuration of a firewall is to let some incoming ports translate themselves to other boxes inside the network via NAT
This has to be manually configured in the Web Interface. There are plenty of warnings on why you shouldn't. Even if you set up a DMZ, you have to manually configure access to those machines from your other internal machines.
Even with all ports turned off to the outside world, Windows boxes receive email/word/AOL/etc viruses and trojans all the time.
I can tell the difference between a firewall and anti-virus software. You also assume that all the machines behind my firewall are windows boxes.
After trying several different Firewall products, I found smoothwall to be the easiest to setup and maintain. As far as the reviewers points, most are irrelavant, since the only access to the web interface and to SSH is from INSIDE your network. Unless you go out of your way to activate these things exterally, they're simply not seen to attackers. But then again, if you changed the way the product is shipped, then it's really working like it was intended anyway.
I think this is a great idea, but the execution is flawed. I can pay less for VMWare or Win4Lin and get access to all the applications that Lindows allows, plus some that it won't. I also don't care for the fact that not only will the final product cost $100.00, but the 'preview' will as well, at least according to their website.
Slashdot Mirror
This whole ATI vs. Nvidia open source argument bothers me.
.rpms available for several major distro's, along with the kernel source files so you can compile it in yourself if need be. All these files are updated in a VERY timely manner.
1) Nvidia has contracts with SGI that prevents them from disclosing certain features.
2) While the drivers may be done by Nvidia, they are quality drivers.
3) Nvidia goes out of their way to make easy to install
4) They have an excellent readme for the install, and if all else fails, a contact email specifically for problems with their drivers.
Personally, I think they've gone farther than ATI by providing the drivers for you, instead of just saying "here's the specs, go figure it out".
602 Download
from:
Article
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Last November, a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support of the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act.
He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time artists found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its way to the White House for the president's signature.
That subtle change in copyright law will add billions of dollars to record company bank accounts over the next few years -- billions of dollars that rightfully should have been paid to artists. A "work for hire" is now owned in perpetuity by the record company.
Under the 1978 Copyright Act, artists could reclaim the copyrights on their work after 35 years. If you wrote and recorded "Everybody Hurts," you at least got it back to as a family legacy after 35 years. But now, because of this corrupt little pisher, "Everybody Hurts" never gets returned to your family, and can now be sold to the highest bidder.
Over the years record companies have tried to put "work for hire" provisions in their contracts, and Mr. Glazier claims that the "work for hire" only "codified" a standard industry practice. But copyright laws didn't identify sound recordings as being eligible to be called "works for hire," so those contracts didn't mean anything. Until now.
Writing and recording "Hey Jude" is now the same thing as writing an English textbook, writing standardized tests, translating a novel from one language to another or making a map. These are the types of things addressed in the "work for hire" act. And writing a standardized test is a work for hire. Not making a record.
So an assistant substantially altered a major law when he only had the authority to make spelling corrections. That's not what I learned about how government works in my high school civics class.
Three months later, the RIAA hired Mr. Glazier to become its top lobbyist at a salary that was obviously much greater than the one he had as the spelling corrector guy.
The RIAA tries to argue that this change was necessary because of a provision in the bill that musicians supported. That provision prevents anyone from registering a famous person's name as a Web address without that person's permission. That's great. I own my name, and should be able to do what I want with my name.
But the bill also created an exception that allows a company to take a person's name for a Web address if they create a work for hire. Which means a record company would be allowed to own your Web site when you record your "work for hire" album. Like I said: Sharecropping.
Although I've never met any one at a record company who "believed in the Internet," they've all been trying to cover their asses by securing everyone's digital rights. Not that they know what to do with them. Go to a major label-owned band site. Give me a dollar for every time you see an annoying "under construction" sign. I used to pester Geffen (when it was a label) to do a better job. I was totally ignored for two years, until I got my band name back. The Goo Goo Dolls are struggling to gain control of their domain name from Warner Bros., who claim they own the name because they set up a shitty promotional Web site for the band.
Orrin Hatch, songwriter and Republican senator from Utah, seems to be the only person in Washington with a progressive view of copyright law. One lobbyist says that there's no one in the House with a similar view and that "this would have never happened if Sonny Bono was still alive."
I'm disgusted. Anyone that can't get their work done at work, needs to either: A) Find a new job. B) Learn their job. C) Get someone to help them with their job. I can also see a group of Über-geeks sitting in the theater, all in IRC, typing, 'What did he say?' at the same time. I will personally bitch-slap each and every one of them.
The best thing to do is go here: Codeweavers and buy a copy of the Crossover plugin. You'll get to use Quicktime, Realplayer, and WMplayer for all your video needs. Well, except for DVD...It's pretty impressive, there's a free demo for you to check out.
Rosen said in a statement: "The notion of copy protection is certainly not new to the entertainment industry. Even computer software already employ various technology protections as appropriate for their marketplace and their consumers. The music industry deserves to do the same. Legislation to prevent self-help technologies would be unwise and unfair."
I can still make a legitimate purchase of any piece of software and expect to be able to use it without any interference from said copy protection, unlike these CD's, which can keep you from using them in the very devices they were intended for.
What about 128-bit support for online transactions? Ease of installing plugins?
This may be a simple way to state the obvious, but don't force me to the point where I have to deduce how to navigate around your site. Things should be plainly labeled, and obvious. The worst thing is using images on buttons without telling me what it's leads to. Skip sounds altogether. If I want multimedia, I'll go to a multimedia site.
The japanese have been skiing indoors for years. You can have climate controlled fun year round here at the Tokyo Skidome:
Indoor Skiing
(Elmer) Be very quiet I'm hunting rabbits
(E) Rabbit tracks!!!
(E) Kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit
(E) Yo ho to oh! Yo ho to oh! Yo ho...
(Bugs) O mighty warrior of great fighting stock
(B) Might I enquire to ask, eh, what's up doc??
(E) I'm going to kill the rabbit!!
(B) Oh mighty warrior t'will be quite a task
(B) How will you do it, might I enquire to ask??
(E) I will do it with my spear and magic helmet!
(B) Your spear and magic helmet?
(E) Spear & magic helmet!
(B) Magic helmet?
(E) Magic helmet!
(B) Magic helmet
(E) Yes, magic helmet and I'll give you a sample
(B) Bye
(E) That was the rabbit
(E) Oh Brunhilda, you're so lovely
(B) Yes I know it I can't help it
(E) Oh Brunhilda be my love
(E) Return my love a longing burns deep inside me
(B) Return my love I want you always beside me
(E) A love like ours must be
(B) Made for you and for me
(B&E) Return won't you return my love for my love is yours
(E) I'll kill the rabbit
(E) Arise storms
(E) North winds blow, south winds blow
(E) Typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, smog
(E) Flash lightning strike the rabbit
(E) What have I done?? I've killed the rabbit....
(E) Poor little bunny, poor little rabbit...
(B) Well what did you expect in an opera, a happy ending???
Why not WSU? They have a fantastic Agro department, and make one damn fine cheese in award winning Cougar Gold.
The entertainment industry and MS finally make it impossible for the average user to use their legally purchased media and devices in a manner that complies with the Fair Use Act.
The problem wasn't that OEM's couldn't offer another OS, it was the fine print that said if you offered Windows, you couldn't make any changes to the boot loader. Hitachi had a PC, the Flora Prius, that had BeOS installed on a seperate partition, but in order to use it, there were instructions you could get online to make it bootable. Good article on it here.
Many people disable vsync when they play games, so their monitors set refresh rate won't matter.
Coupled with the fact that the majority of people aren't sensitive to frame rates over about 30fps, it makes even less sense. There's a reason movies run at about 24fps, after all.
This isn't true at all, if it was, a 70hz refresh rate would be useless as well. There are a few variable that make a difference in your perception of PC monitors, TV displays, and movies.
From Article
There's much more detail in the article than what I've posted below, and it's defintely worth reading.
First off, you are sitting in a dark movie theater and the projector is flashing a really bright light on a highly reflective screen. What does this do? Have you ever had a doctor flash a bright light in your eye to look at your retina? Most of us have. What happens? A thing called "afterimage". When the doctor turns off the bright light, you see an afterimage of the light (and it is not real comfortable). Movie theaters do the same thing. The light reflected off the screen is much brighter than the theater surroundings. You get an afterimage of the screen after the frame is passed on, so the next frame change is not as noticable.
Did anyone else notice that the listing only goes through August 2001? That would put this before several very nasty Windows vulnerabilties were released or attacked by virii and worms.
When I was a teenager, we had no Video Games, yet we still managed to find plenty of things to do. Like go outside.
They took their first crack at the technology, and will use what they learned to incorporate it into the next generation of the X-Box/Homestation. In 5 years I can see a single box that combines Xbox/Tivo/Moxi capabilities into one effective package.
-I have yet to see webmail that allows me to filter mailing lists, family members, and business mail into their respective folders.
-Webmail is slower and kludgier.
-I can see my POP mail when I'm not online, which is a great bonus for laptop users.
SecurtyFocus
Financial Motive Alleged
Willard says that McOwen was singled out for prosecution partly because he had ignored his supervisor's warnings. "In this case, Mr. McOwen was expressively prohibited by his superiors from downloading these programs and was informed on many occasions by his supervisors to stop downloading programs," said Willard. "They were aware that he was doing it and he had gone in and cleaned it up on numerous occasions." Joyner insists McOwen received no such warning.
Prosecutors also claim that McOwen had a financial motive for volunteering the school's machines. McOwen was a top producer on distributed.net for "Team AnandTech," a group sponsored by a hardware forum site which is still the second ranking contributor to the RC5 research project. A $1,000 prize goes to the individual contributor who recovers the RC5 encryption key. "McOwen placed a program on computers, that in his estimation would benefit him personally, including computers that has sensitive student financial and identity information without authorization," says Willard. "There is concern about the program itself compromising or providing the basis to compromise sensitive personal or financial information, there is the matter of Mr. McOwen's unauthorized activities on this computer, and finally there is the point that there was misappropriation of state property."
He was warned several times, and the software had repeatedly been uninstalled. This isn't the only article I've read that discussed this fact. I may not agree with the charge or the penalty, but he should have been fired for ignoring his supervisors continued requests.
So in other words. I buy the CD, install their player on my PC. And if the player hoses my Windows installation, or the copy protection damages any of my hardware including sound card and speakers, I have no recourse against UMG?
I applied for a position as a Sendmail admin. I sent my resume in .txt. The recriter replied back with: "Please send me a copy in .doc format."
A very common configuration of a firewall is to let some incoming ports translate themselves to other boxes inside the network via NAT This has to be manually configured in the Web Interface. There are plenty of warnings on why you shouldn't. Even if you set up a DMZ, you have to manually configure access to those machines from your other internal machines. Even with all ports turned off to the outside world, Windows boxes receive email/word/AOL/etc viruses and trojans all the time. I can tell the difference between a firewall and anti-virus software. You also assume that all the machines behind my firewall are windows boxes.
After trying several different Firewall products, I found smoothwall to be the easiest to setup and maintain. As far as the reviewers points, most are irrelavant, since the only access to the web interface and to SSH is from INSIDE your network. Unless you go out of your way to activate these things exterally, they're simply not seen to attackers. But then again, if you changed the way the product is shipped, then it's really working like it was intended anyway.
I think this is a great idea, but the execution is flawed. I can pay less for VMWare or Win4Lin and get access to all the applications that Lindows allows, plus some that it won't. I also don't care for the fact that not only will the final product cost $100.00, but the 'preview' will as well, at least according to their website.
What will happen to all the collected data? Will they sell it? Keep it? Destroy it?