That's a very good point, one I overlooked. I wonder if it is MS's intentions to drop or strangle off support for OpenGL in the Unix world. I guess that we'd have to know which patents they purchased to see if that were possible.
I don't think that MS owning these patents will really help microsoft "crush" OpenGL. They're doing that already with DirectX.
I have to admit, the one thing MS does very well is a fast development cycle. DirectX is a very mature, feature-rich 3d API. Everyone supports it already. The only way OpenGL can compete is to attain strong developers, maintain a good ease-of-programming and give game deisgners and card venders a solid reason to support it.
No historical evidence
on
The Drone War
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· Score: 2
Actually, there is no economic inidcators that a large, or even full-scale war helps the economy. For every time that, after/during a war, the economy improves there is one where the economy got worse. From little (Mexican/American war) to big (World War 2) we've had economic difficulties immediately during and after a war.
With an all "drone" war, the costs would go up even more. But we'll still HAVE to have casualties, because the point of a war is to say "If you don't do what we say, we'll kill you." Without that threat there's no point in waging war.
I work for a very large company (fortune 100), and we are, very slowly, moving towards using open-source programs like Linux, Apache, etc. The IT department likes and supports these applications, but it's very difficult to convince management that these applications have the same stability and reliability that commercial applications do. What is the best way to approach management to help evaluate open soruce solutions to the problems we face?
It's a bit of a paradox, discussing whether or not the country of viewing binds the restrictions on a published page. Each country will decide for themselves whether or not to censor/restrict any web page, even if the country of origin is different. So, discussing the problem is nice, but it has to be done for every single country.
IMHO any country that controls its populace through ignorance, either as fanatical as the taliban's ban on educating women, or Australia's ludicrous internet laws, sees the Internet as an enemy. Only a powerful movement of the populace will change that.
From the info in the article, it seems that they are either erverse-engineering the Windows APIs, or mimicking the functionality with their own code. This is a time-consuming task.
Also, they said they are focusing on only 10 or so applications. They list Work, Excel, etc. But what about future revisions of these programs? I wonder if Ms would purposefully change them to break under Lindows, which Lindows would have to change to accomodate.
So will this become a perpetual 'chasing' game, trying to catch up to Microsoft?
Potential as a good home system
on
New iMac Announced
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I like the direction that Apple is taking here. Lots of people have things like digital cameras, mp3 players, CD burners, but the software erquired to get them all working together can be a major pain for Joe ComputerUser.
One machine with sufficient power (700MHz G3 is pretty quick) that makes all that truly easy would be a great thing for most homes. But... the secret lies in the software, not the hardware. I'd like to see something like this for PCs.
Hmm, looks like it has a flash interface. Maybe it's just my system, but Flash doesn't run very well for me under Linux. I have a 900MHz CPU, but flash animations, especially games, are very, very slow. How will they overcome that?
I know I'll get modded for redundant but hey, I wonder how much it will cost. I'm guessing this will be a > $1,000 device. Butm an, if it really can do all it says, maybe it would be worth it.
*crosses fingers* DVD playback with progressive output would be nice, too.
Hmmm. With 1GB storage getting so cheap, I wonder if we'll see non DVD portable viseo players coming soon. Why not? VCD movies are supported by DVD players, and it wouldn't be expensive to add a hard drive to store other mpeg/avi movies.
In my mind the real question isn't about the keystroke recorder, but the fact that the govt. let them essentially break-in and secretly install it. Yea yea, he's a "known criminal" in our innocent until proven guilty state, but this mean that they can use the same tactics on *anyone* not just criminals.
I just don't get it. I've been reading slashdot for years, comments and all. I've never posted anything negative, usually I ask a relevent question or try to make a joke. What else is there to do at work?
I heard they used a method of testing based on the same engine that actually powers the facial recognition system. Eleven out of twelve tests came back that the recognition system wasn't effective. The other one reported that the system was, in fact, a jelly dougnut.
This bill didn't cause any problems, though. It was more of a "look at how much I care about the children" move by a politician. I don't know of any instances that it was ever enforced.
This just seems weird. I mean, I can see a practical purpuse for carrying a phone around, and maybe a palm-pilot or the like. But, I just don't like body ornamentation. I think it's silly.
Different strokes for different folks, but it seems the type of person who is into gadgeds doesn't put the same value in mere appearance.
They might not ne able to stop every single spammer, but if laws DON'T exist against anonymous spam, there is no way to ever stop them. It has to come from some physical location, and therefore is able to be tracked.
Just because it's hard to enforce doesn't mean that we shouldn't make the law.
This is a really difficult question to answer. I guess my reply would be that no, pure "OO" programming wouldn't hold any advantage to simple procedural programming in this case. However, you can easily add procedures to objects, so OO language is really just a superset of procedural.
Personally, I like the organizational potential of OO. You can have a Pipe object, and call function like Pipe.calculateFlowrate(12,43,23), then you could have a subclass SquarePipe, and call the function SquarePipe.calculateFlowrate(12,12,43,23).
Essentially, you could have 10 objects each with 10 functions to do 100 different tasks, rather than 100 different functions to do 100 different tasks.
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno, I don't know anyone named "Anonymous cowards" ;)
That's a very good point, one I overlooked. I wonder if it is MS's intentions to drop or strangle off support for OpenGL in the Unix world. I guess that we'd have to know which patents they purchased to see if that were possible.
I don't think that MS owning these patents will really help microsoft "crush" OpenGL. They're doing that already with DirectX.
I have to admit, the one thing MS does very well is a fast development cycle. DirectX is a very mature, feature-rich 3d API. Everyone supports it already. The only way OpenGL can compete is to attain strong developers, maintain a good ease-of-programming and give game deisgners and card venders a solid reason to support it.
A good interview though
Actually, there is no economic inidcators that a large, or even full-scale war helps the economy. For every time that, after/during a war, the economy improves there is one where the economy got worse. From little (Mexican/American war) to big (World War 2) we've had economic difficulties immediately during and after a war.
With an all "drone" war, the costs would go up even more. But we'll still HAVE to have casualties, because the point of a war is to say "If you don't do what we say, we'll kill you." Without that threat there's no point in waging war.
I work for a very large company (fortune 100), and we are, very slowly, moving towards using open-source programs like Linux, Apache, etc. The IT department likes and supports these applications, but it's very difficult to convince management that these applications have the same stability and reliability that commercial applications do. What is the best way to approach management to help evaluate open soruce solutions to the problems we face?
It's a bit of a paradox, discussing whether or not the country of viewing binds the restrictions on a published page. Each country will decide for themselves whether or not to censor/restrict any web page, even if the country of origin is different. So, discussing the problem is nice, but it has to be done for every single country.
IMHO any country that controls its populace through ignorance, either as fanatical as the taliban's ban on educating women, or Australia's ludicrous internet laws, sees the Internet as an enemy. Only a powerful movement of the populace will change that.
From the info in the article, it seems that they are either erverse-engineering the Windows APIs, or mimicking the functionality with their own code. This is a time-consuming task.
Also, they said they are focusing on only 10 or so applications. They list Work, Excel, etc. But what about future revisions of these programs? I wonder if Ms would purposefully change them to break under Lindows, which Lindows would have to change to accomodate.
So will this become a perpetual 'chasing' game, trying to catch up to Microsoft?
Sid Meyers. Er wait, wasn't that CivNet? Whatever happened to that, anyways?
Mmmm.. playing Civnet over Civicnet. Now that's a good way to kill time in a traffick jam!
Someday I will be a moderator. Oh well..
At least you could have used the digits for Pi.
I like the direction that Apple is taking here. Lots of people have things like digital cameras, mp3 players, CD burners, but the software erquired to get them all working together can be a major pain for Joe ComputerUser.
One machine with sufficient power (700MHz G3 is pretty quick) that makes all that truly easy would be a great thing for most homes. But... the secret lies in the software, not the hardware. I'd like to see something like this for PCs.
Hmm, looks like it has a flash interface. Maybe it's just my system, but Flash doesn't run very well for me under Linux. I have a 900MHz CPU, but flash animations, especially games, are very, very slow. How will they overcome that?
I know I'll get modded for redundant but hey, I wonder how much it will cost. I'm guessing this will be a > $1,000 device. Butm an, if it really can do all it says, maybe it would be worth it.
*crosses fingers* DVD playback with progressive output would be nice, too.
Hmmm. With 1GB storage getting so cheap, I wonder if we'll see non DVD portable viseo players coming soon. Why not? VCD movies are supported by DVD players, and it wouldn't be expensive to add a hard drive to store other mpeg/avi movies.
I'd buy one.
In my mind the real question isn't about the keystroke recorder, but the fact that the govt. let them essentially break-in and secretly install it. Yea yea, he's a "known criminal" in our innocent until proven guilty state, but this mean that they can use the same tactics on *anyone* not just criminals.
It definitely bothers me.
I just don't get it. I've been reading slashdot for years, comments and all. I've never posted anything negative, usually I ask a relevent question or try to make a joke. What else is there to do at work?
I wish they could have included old Tom. And of course, the river-daughter.
I heard they used a method of testing based on the same engine that actually powers the facial recognition system. Eleven out of twelve tests came back that the recognition system wasn't effective. The other one reported that the system was, in fact, a jelly dougnut.
This bill didn't cause any problems, though. It was more of a "look at how much I care about the children" move by a politician. I don't know of any instances that it was ever enforced.
I am glad to see it annihilated though.
(sarcasm)
Of course they'll sell their code! It's the only way to be an American! *Giving* code away, well, that's just un-American.
And we don't want to be un-American, do we?
(/sarcasm)
Here's a quote from one patent description:
"Each private URL ("PURL") uniquely identifies an intended recipient of a document..."
Now, why on earth didn't the acronym "PURL" catch on? The world will never know.
I hope that this technology can help me get away from @Home er, ATT...
This just seems weird. I mean, I can see a practical purpuse for carrying a phone around, and maybe a palm-pilot or the like. But, I just don't like body ornamentation. I think it's silly.
Different strokes for different folks, but it seems the type of person who is into gadgeds doesn't put the same value in mere appearance.
They might not ne able to stop every single spammer, but if laws DON'T exist against anonymous spam, there is no way to ever stop them. It has to come from some physical location, and therefore is able to be tracked.
Just because it's hard to enforce doesn't mean that we shouldn't make the law.
Indiana has a new "list" you can add your telephone number to to avoid any telemarketers (Well, 95% of telemarketers. Some groups aren't bound by it).
Maybe it's the first step to adding your e-mail to a "no spam" list. If they're doing it with etlemarketers, why NOT with mass e-mailers?
This is a really difficult question to answer. I guess my reply would be that no, pure "OO" programming wouldn't hold any advantage to simple procedural programming in this case. However, you can easily add procedures to objects, so OO language is really just a superset of procedural.
Personally, I like the organizational potential of OO. You can have a Pipe object, and call function like Pipe.calculateFlowrate(12,43,23), then you could have a subclass SquarePipe, and call the function SquarePipe.calculateFlowrate(12,12,43,23).
Essentially, you could have 10 objects each with 10 functions to do 100 different tasks, rather than 100 different functions to do 100 different tasks.