Its no secret that Microsoft wants to own the whole TV/media/PC/convergence space. Everyone wants to own it...AOL, Sun, Microsoft...
However, its very unlikely this would be considered a "sequel" to the XBOX. Microsoft has gone out of their way to make sure XBOX is seen as a console and only a console. It would have been very easy for them to include a small GUI with IE, etc built right in to make XBOX a home web station, but they passed on that just to reinforce the idea that the XBOX is a game console, period. While I'm sure they will release something like this 'HomeStation', it'll either use the WebTV brand or be something new, and they'll try to keep it as completely distinct from the XBOX as they possibly can...They learned the lessons of 3do, Apple, etc and don't want to repeat that.
I agree, and that's a sad commentary on Congress. Whenever a Congressman/woman goes out of their way to make a stink about something, my gut instinct it to try to figure out what company is pulling the strings.
How sad.
Perhaps its AOL.. while AOL has no reason to go up against the RIAA directly, they certainly indirectly derive profit from people who, in part, are using the Internet to access Morpheus, etc. Or maybe I'm overly cynical and he's just an idealist, trying to do some good..Not being from Virginia I don't have a lot of context for this guy...
Very few people are going to believe your company has a real product until you make a beta available. Screenshots are nice, but they say nothing of the performance of these applications under Linux, assuming they are even real and not Photoshopped-up.
Also, taking on Microsoft directly is silly. I'm no Microsoft supporter, and I don't think 'Windows' should be trademarkable, but the fact is that it IS a Microsoft trademark as upheld several times by the courts and calling your product Lindows is clearly exactly the sort of close-enough-to-confuse-but-not-exact naming issue that trademark law was created to avoid. You will lose in any legal action against Microsoft and the best move for your company would be to rename the product now before it is too late. If your product is real, and the audience is the audience you mentioned in your mail to Bill Gates (the Linuxy, Slashdotty crowd), we'll all hear about the rename right here on Slashdot, I'm sure; so while you'll lose some amount of branding (and I honestly believe the amount of branding you have so far is a clear indication of your trademark violation and riding on the name of Windows, since you have no product shipping anyone can run to link mentally with 'Lindows'), it would be better for you to do this in the long run.
The longer you don't take REAL action to resolve the legal matters, the more your project looks like a sad attempt to gain attention and less like a serious product that will someday be available.
Just because someone is into technology doesn't make them into LOTR, SW, anime, natural science, patent law, digital music, Harry Potter, Columbine, Blizzard games, and the list goes on and on...
This 'observation' could be made in almost any Slashdot post.
The stories posted to Slashdot are those the editors wish to post, period.
While the assembly source code to WordPerfect and other larger apps might not be next to useless (hopefully its VERY well commented!) I've seen the source code to a few of the older games I was referencing in my original post, and it really is next to worthless.
In many cases the assembly is even less useful than the output of a good modern disassembler against the binary would be because it uses macros poorly or not at all, uses crappy labels, and has next to no comments; this happened quite a bit in the past because many of these programs were kicked out by one coder who understood what he/she was doing at the time and didn't feel a need to overly comment the program.
IIRC, you're right, WordPerfect was 100% assembly. It was a company policy (snickered at by some, while others thought it was quite nice) to use 100% assembly on all products at that time, even when everyone else doing similiar products (apps, not games) was using C or Pascal for 99% of their coding.
There's a lot of instances where people clamor for the source to some old product when the source would be next to useless. The biggest example is old games, particularly those on older systems like the C64 or Amiga. These games were virtually all written in low-level assembler against CPUs and/or specialized coprocessors we don't use anymore and it would be more work to reverse engineer them than to just write them from scratch against modern APIs like DirectX or SDL.
Of course Linux isn't going to "die" because the.com craze is over. Linux has been around longer than the whole.com goldrush, and will continue to be around and developed for years to come.
However, the.com crash probably does signal some changes in the commercial aspects on Linux, namely that it seems unlikely the market will support as many Linux-distribution and Linux-misc companies as it once did.
This part of the "Linux shakeout" has already started of course, but I doubt it has ended.
There's more than a few cases of (stupid) companies paying hundreds of thousands to even millions of dollars for domain names back in the early days of the net rush.
I think the record was something like 7 million for business.com (when's the last time you visited business.com? Heh heh)...
So, people actually have gotten rich (or added to their wealth in some cases) doing this, but the time to do it was 2-3 years ago (selling names originally registered 4 or more years ago), not today.
The overwhelming majority of people who uses MP3 are commiting copyright violations in the first place..Do you think they'll care if they are commiting licensing violations by not paying royalties for MP3 usage? And guess what? Old versions of Winamp will still work with their vast MP3 collections... Unless Microsoft et al implement insanely tight secure audio paths...which they won't do because it would break all existing software (including games, music creation software, etc, anything which uses winmm.lib or DirectSound directly)...So the original poster's point still stands.
Sorry, OGG developers, you've done an outstanding job, but the vast majority of users will not switch from MP3 to OGG. Ever.
Don't just quit without having something else lined up.
That might have been an OK move in 1998, but with the economy where it is (it seems to be slowly improving now, but still has a ways to go) I really suggest you don't quit unless you have a lot of money saved and/or have another job lined up already.
The economy isn't so bad that qualified candidates can't find work, but the process of finding that work is a lot more lengthy than it used to be!
Real-world ancetdotal evidence: Back in the mid-to-late 90s I was offered many jobs on the spot halfway through interviews when job seeking. I recently just finished a multi-month full-time job search after a long-term contract ended...While I did find work, it took a LOT longer...Since there are far less open positions and far more people (relatively) going for them, hiring managers can afford to wait things out and consider many, many more candidates than they would in the past. Even if you get the job as the best candidate, this situation of hiring managers having their pick means you're usually going to spend a lot more time in-process...Second (and maybe more) round interviews have become the norm, companies will wait until they interview many candidates before making a final decision, etc...That all takes time (possibly months of time!)
Finally, an in-depth article? This is just a summary of maybe 10-20 other articles Slashdot has posted on each individual console over the past couple months...Everyone who wants to know the guts of these systems has already heard about them...
Further, while all the next-gen consoles are nice pieces of engineering, and get impressive power for price, none of them is particularly groundbreaking, so these 'look inside' articles get old really quickly.
Why not just try installing a video camera in a concealed location?
I'm no lawyer, but I don't think the "glowing hands" argument would stand up in court.. How do you know the guy didn't just touch the coated box, previous to it being stolen? Unlikely, perhaps, but perfectly plausable.
Only a fraction of the total developers of the software you buy in that set will receive any money at all (and even that will be tiny compared to the distribution costs)!!!
Well, once Windows is loaded (or Linux for that matter), you usually run applications or games on top of it. These games/apps will grow to fit available RAM.
One thing I can point you to already is the new Everquest expansion. It requires 256MB, and runs like crap with anything less than 512MB. This is mostly do to extremely poor programming, but its probably a sign of things to come.
I believe the Fellowship 'broke' when Boromir tried to steal the ring from Frodo. But I haven't read the books either so I'm guessing. I fall down midway between the other views here..I think I did miss a bunch not having read the books (but some of the stuff I caught in the little bits of dialog Jackson seemed to throw out to the non-readers). However:
Where did Strider come from? I caught the whole backstory of him being the heir to the throne, but why was he helping Frodo, etc? Clearly (in the movie) he knew Gandalf before hand, but he just sort of popped up on-screen.
Who was Legolas, other than being a bad-ass bow-wielder? What was his motivation for going?
What's up with Galadriel's demonic possession thing? I guess that was meant to represent her temptation by the ring..Why was Frodo offering it to her in the first place, though? Surely the books go into this more.
Why, exactly, did Frodo feel the need to go off alone? Because he was afraid people other than Boromir would be turned by the evil? Strider seemed to prove he wouldn't be tempted in that same scene?
I'm sure all of these points are clear if you've read the book...But not having read it, I'm still in the dark on some things...Overall I thought the movie was very good, though.
I agree. Hugo Weaving was one of the weakest parts of the movie, IMO. It pains me to say this, because I liked him in the Matrix..and partially one has to blame Jackson who should have seen this coming and made him delivery his lines different...Every time he spoke I expected him to end his lines with..
"Mis-ter Bagg-ins"...
It was somewhat amusing, but it pulled me out of the movie, which isn't a good thing for a fantasy 'epic'.
(Who was one of the more famous Amiga users, back in the day...)
While Clarke has forecasted some amazing bits of technology, like the satellite, etc, I'm still more constantly amazed at the predictions made in Huxley's "Brave New World", including those of genetic engineering and cloning...
Considering Huxley wrote that novel in 1932 (the structure of DNA wasn't even found until the 1950s!), its rather amazing how accurate both the technology (in general, not the details, since when he was writing it a lot of this was far off fantasy) and the social aspects of it are compared to the current day.
Slashdot Mirror
Third post!!! Booya!!! bOOYA!!!
Offtopic? Eh? Well fuck you, whoremonger moderator.
I guess this could be offtopic (seems more 'Funny +2' to me), but its not a troll.
Oh wait, I'm repeating myself!
Where'd you hear that? There's no way the DOJ would allow a merger for company of that size to be formed. Do you get your news from tabloids??
However, its very unlikely this would be considered a "sequel" to the XBOX. Microsoft has gone out of their way to make sure XBOX is seen as a console and only a console. It would have been very easy for them to include a small GUI with IE, etc built right in to make XBOX a home web station, but they passed on that just to reinforce the idea that the XBOX is a game console, period. While I'm sure they will release something like this 'HomeStation', it'll either use the WebTV brand or be something new, and they'll try to keep it as completely distinct from the XBOX as they possibly can...They learned the lessons of 3do, Apple, etc and don't want to repeat that.
How sad.
Perhaps its AOL.. while AOL has no reason to go up against the RIAA directly, they certainly indirectly derive profit from people who, in part, are using the Internet to access Morpheus, etc. Or maybe I'm overly cynical and he's just an idealist, trying to do some good..Not being from Virginia I don't have a lot of context for this guy...
Asking Cmdr "Story Repost" Taco if he hasn't been reading /.? Have YOU not been reading /.?
Dear Mister Robertson,
Very few people are going to believe your company has a real product until you make a beta available. Screenshots are nice, but they say nothing of the performance of these applications under Linux, assuming they are even real and not Photoshopped-up.
Also, taking on Microsoft directly is silly. I'm no Microsoft supporter, and I don't think 'Windows' should be trademarkable, but the fact is that it IS a Microsoft trademark as upheld several times by the courts and calling your product Lindows is clearly exactly the sort of close-enough-to-confuse-but-not-exact naming issue that trademark law was created to avoid. You will lose in any legal action against Microsoft and the best move for your company would be to rename the product now before it is too late. If your product is real, and the audience is the audience you mentioned in your mail to Bill Gates (the Linuxy, Slashdotty crowd), we'll all hear about the rename right here on Slashdot, I'm sure; so while you'll lose some amount of branding (and I honestly believe the amount of branding you have so far is a clear indication of your trademark violation and riding on the name of Windows, since you have no product shipping anyone can run to link mentally with 'Lindows'), it would be better for you to do this in the long run.
The longer you don't take REAL action to resolve the legal matters, the more your project looks like a sad attempt to gain attention and less like a serious product that will someday be available.
I speak only for myself.
Just because someone is into technology doesn't make them into LOTR, SW, anime, natural science, patent law, digital music, Harry Potter, Columbine, Blizzard games, and the list goes on and on...
This 'observation' could be made in almost any Slashdot post.
The stories posted to Slashdot are those the editors wish to post, period.
...who can type fully formed, English sentences on Slashdot?
In many cases the assembly is even less useful than the output of a good modern disassembler against the binary would be because it uses macros poorly or not at all, uses crappy labels, and has next to no comments; this happened quite a bit in the past because many of these programs were kicked out by one coder who understood what he/she was doing at the time and didn't feel a need to overly comment the program.
There's a lot of instances where people clamor for the source to some old product when the source would be next to useless. The biggest example is old games, particularly those on older systems like the C64 or Amiga. These games were virtually all written in low-level assembler against CPUs and/or specialized coprocessors we don't use anymore and it would be more work to reverse engineer them than to just write them from scratch against modern APIs like DirectX or SDL.
However, the .com crash probably does signal some changes in the commercial aspects on Linux, namely that it seems unlikely the market will support as many Linux-distribution and Linux-misc companies as it once did.
This part of the "Linux shakeout" has already started of course, but I doubt it has ended.
What's VA's stockprice at again?
I think the record was something like 7 million for business.com (when's the last time you visited business.com? Heh heh)...
So, people actually have gotten rich (or added to their wealth in some cases) doing this, but the time to do it was 2-3 years ago (selling names originally registered 4 or more years ago), not today.
Sorry, OGG developers, you've done an outstanding job, but the vast majority of users will not switch from MP3 to OGG. Ever.
Don't just quit without having something else lined up.
That might have been an OK move in 1998, but with the economy where it is (it seems to be slowly improving now, but still has a ways to go) I really suggest you don't quit unless you have a lot of money saved and/or have another job lined up already.
The economy isn't so bad that qualified candidates can't find work, but the process of finding that work is a lot more lengthy than it used to be!
Real-world ancetdotal evidence: Back in the mid-to-late 90s I was offered many jobs on the spot halfway through interviews when job seeking. I recently just finished a multi-month full-time job search after a long-term contract ended...While I did find work, it took a LOT longer...Since there are far less open positions and far more people (relatively) going for them, hiring managers can afford to wait things out and consider many, many more candidates than they would in the past. Even if you get the job as the best candidate, this situation of hiring managers having their pick means you're usually going to spend a lot more time in-process...Second (and maybe more) round interviews have become the norm, companies will wait until they interview many candidates before making a final decision, etc...That all takes time (possibly months of time!)
Further, while all the next-gen consoles are nice pieces of engineering, and get impressive power for price, none of them is particularly groundbreaking, so these 'look inside' articles get old really quickly.
I'm no lawyer, but I don't think the "glowing hands" argument would stand up in court.. How do you know the guy didn't just touch the coated box, previous to it being stolen? Unlikely, perhaps, but perfectly plausable.
Only a fraction of the total developers of the software you buy in that set will receive any money at all (and even that will be tiny compared to the distribution costs)!!!
me too
One thing I can point you to already is the new Everquest expansion. It requires 256MB, and runs like crap with anything less than 512MB. This is mostly do to extremely poor programming, but its probably a sign of things to come.
I'm sure all of these points are clear if you've read the book...But not having read it, I'm still in the dark on some things...Overall I thought the movie was very good, though.
"Mis-ter Bagg-ins"...
It was somewhat amusing, but it pulled me out of the movie, which isn't a good thing for a fantasy 'epic'.
Considering Huxley wrote that novel in 1932 (the structure of DNA wasn't even found until the 1950s!), its rather amazing how accurate both the technology (in general, not the details, since when he was writing it a lot of this was far off fantasy) and the social aspects of it are compared to the current day.
Simple amazing...