A lot of the anti-AI sentiment is based on disappointment from the 80s. We were a long way off from creating any type of useful AI in that time period (and we still are, IMO), but many companies made wild claims to help boost their funding. The government and many private VC-type operations dumped a lot of money into AI at this time -- not quite as much as was dumped into ecommerce-web-sites-selling-pet-clothes-etc, but a significantly large amount.
Considering the AI 'boom' of the 80s failed to produce anything concrete on almost every level, there's still a deep seated resentment against AI and AI researchers in some circles.
The cool thing about ASCII is it can be used to represent not just English and Mandarin, but an infinite amount of languages, using clever symbols.
For example, in my native language this is how we write 'Slashdot':
Sure, Chinese may very well be the native language of most Internet users in 10 years, due to the giant size of the Chinese population, but any claims that this will cause some great shift in how the world uses the web is pretty silly.
Numbers alone aren't significant, if they were Chinese (which, as the article points out, has so many speakers) would be the quasi-official language of multinational business, travel, etc..Right? But it isn't...English is. My point isn't to praise English (which in many ways is a very stupid language, technically), but just point out that the numbers only tell a very small part of the story. I won't even bother to point out that many of these Chinese speakers who get on the net will be in no position to contribute much to the global economy in terms of buying goods for import, etc, due to political and economical roadblocks.
I'm no big fan of Microsoft's but I don't think this is such a major offense. For all the anti-IP stuff that gets posted on Slashdot, what do you think VA would do if someone started up a company called VA WinSystems?
There is something to the fact that it might cause confusion, leading people to think its more officially tied to Windows than it is.
I'm not anti-patent, but I *am* anti-absurd-patent. The fact that a company can basically patent shorthand writing, which has been around for ages, as adapted to computers, is so ridiculously silly that it makes my head spin.
Of course, this is the last thing Palm needed as they are already hemmoraging in the market compared to the WinCE/PocketPC offerings...
The billions of dollars figures come from supposed "lost revenue". eg. We have a product that costs $500; we have tracked 10,000 pirated versions of this software to pirates. We lost $5,000,000 in revenue because these pirates didn't pay.
Of course, it doesn't really add up -- if a pirate version of that software wasn't available, all but a very small percent of those 10,000 pirates wouldn't have actually bought the product... From what I see, most pirates don't even use the vast majority of software they get, they just archive it and build vast collections for bragging rights.
Eh? You do realize its still piracy even if you pay some third party for the software, right?
What you're doing is still illegal, and if caught using that software you could be charged with a felony, depending upon how much of it you have (you don't need to have very much).
In any case, if you're going to pirate software, why don't you just download it from the net? It doesn't take very long to find it (even after these busts), its convienient and you get the English versions of products.
I'm not condoning piracy, but if you're going to do it, why bother importing pirated software from overseas?
"Why rob a bank when the credit union next door is handing out $100 bills?"
Unfortunately, the credit union is usually handing out $100 bills that don't interact well with the money currently in wide circulation, and upon seeing these odd $100 bills, most cashiers will get a blank look on their face, not knowing what to do with them.
I'm not saying this is the _fault_ of Open Source, but it IS a barrier to its adoption.
True, but in that case you're putting the complexity in the OS instead of in the hardware.
I realize its not difficult to add that functionality to an OS, but you introduce at least one and probably many third parties (the OS developers) that you then need to rely on to add this functionality according to some spec that might take years for everyone to agree on..And of course, it won't work with older versions of the OS(es)...
In any case, hot-swappable-everything is neat, but usually not worth the increased price of the hardware involved unless you have very specific needs.. For most reliable-server type applications it makes more sense to just have more standard hardware in a load-balanced configuration that allows you to bring one box down for a time, make changes, etc, without the clients losing access. Of course, for fully interactive sessions built on older protocols like telnet, this doesn't work so well and hot-swapping is more desirable.
Your post confuses me.. On one hand it seems anti-Microsoft -- you're taking them to task for not fixing bugs. On the other hand, if those extremely trivial bugs (from a critical-use standpoint) are the worst bugs you could find/think of, then Microsoft must be doing a terrific job.
For a band that toured for 2 years straight bringing the music to the fans and working hard at it for a lot of years before they hit it big, they should have the right to ask people to pay for metalica music they enjoy..
What's easier to sell: one for $1100 or five for $20?
Probably the one for $1100. Because his customers are already running Windows, etc. The $20 for the "free" software would be a tiny part of the overall cost for them to switch to a "free" solution; most of the cost would be spent on porting all their work to a new system and hiring staff and/or training existing staff.
.. well, that certainly puts it on equal terms with Windows.
I realize this is meant more as quip rather than a serious statement, but it underlies a grave problem with the Linux/FS/OSS world; primarily, a lot of people seem to be living in the past. Yes, Win9x was a huge fat kludge on top of DOS. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are not. If we in the Linux community don't start addressing the threat Microsoft poses today rather than the threat they posed 3 years ago, we might as well give up already.
I seem to be in the minority wrt/geeks, but I've always thought Joss Whedon is incredibly overrated. Yes, Buffy is a fairly clever show, but everything else I've seen that he's been attached to has been crap, IMO.
He seems to be a one-trick pony, like Stone/Parker (I like South Park; but Basketball? That Bush show? Hell, even Orgasmo, which I know does have a cult following.....all crap IMO).
The more open code, the better; but expecting low-level hardware programming info and specs these days is kind of naive. Hardware companies are IP-mad and increasingly unwilling to publish any of this information. Until someone comes up with some viable means of "Free (as in speech) Hardware", which is pretty unlikely as most of us don't have our own chip foundries in-house, its just going to get worse and worse.
The real world options are: #1, use very old hardware, with published specs; #2, concede that extremely low-level stuff like device drivers might have to be closed source and learn to work around that while keeping as much code as we possibly can Open; #3, stick head in sand.
This is great news, finally OpenGL will gain some ground...
I'll believe it when I see it. I don't mean to be flamey or rain on anyone's parade, but as a 3D programmer I've been hearing how great OpenGL 2.0, OpenML, etc will be..
I've read specs, read committee meeting discussions ad naseum; but I still don't have any API to program to or even what looks like the beginnings of consenseus among the ARB members.
In the meantime Microsoft is going fullsteam ahead with Direct3D (and the rest of DX) 9, adding in the latest features, fixing the last remaining issues with DX8 (don't kid yourself, its a great API; if anyone quotes Carmack's 5 year old.plan I will kill their mother).
Meanwhile, if I choose to use OpenGL I'm stuck with vendors who implement things different (yes, there are benefits to OpenGL's open extention architecture, but only if the vendors play nice, which they haven't been..),
no standard for shading languages (until OpenGL 2.0..and considering how long it took OpenGL 1.2 to be well supported over OpenGL 1.1 I wouldn't hold my breath and fuck you ATI, for lagging on implementing NV's shading extentions and forcing coders to write to two seperate interfaces!), etc, etc.
Sometimes a strong authority is better than a committe, and this is one of those situations, IMO.
PS2 games, on average, look better than Dreamcast games, but not really better enough. Compare a late release Dreamcast game with one of the new release PS2 games -- GTA3, MGS2, etc. Yes, the PS2 game has noticably better graphics, but only noticable by the somewhat geekish. To the lay person the difference in graphics, assuming both have good design and programming, is extremely minimal.
Anyway, that's not the PS2's real problem..The PS2's real problem is that the first generation XBOX and GameCube games look better than the current crop of PS2 games....Compare to the PS2 launch where the first generation PS2 games actually DID look worse (to anyone with a brain and not in denial) than the then-current Dreamcast releases.
Of course, none of this is really important financially, its all about the games and the marketing...
Slashdot Mirror
Considering the AI 'boom' of the 80s failed to produce anything concrete on almost every level, there's still a deep seated resentment against AI and AI researchers in some circles.
Yeah yeah this is completely off topic to the current thread, but many developers may be interested in this and no Slashdot story yet.
z ip
The full Quake2 source has been released under the GPL, similar to the previous Doom and Quake1 releases.
Grab it here:
ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/quake2.
The cool thing about ASCII is it can be used to represent not just English and Mandarin, but an infinite amount of languages, using clever symbols.
For example, in my native language this is how we write 'Slashdot':
<O
 (\
X
8===D
Numbers alone aren't significant, if they were Chinese (which, as the article points out, has so many speakers) would be the quasi-official language of multinational business, travel, etc..Right? But it isn't...English is. My point isn't to praise English (which in many ways is a very stupid language, technically), but just point out that the numbers only tell a very small part of the story. I won't even bother to point out that many of these Chinese speakers who get on the net will be in no position to contribute much to the global economy in terms of buying goods for import, etc, due to political and economical roadblocks.
There is something to the fact that it might cause confusion, leading people to think its more officially tied to Windows than it is.
Of course, this is the last thing Palm needed as they are already hemmoraging in the market compared to the WinCE/PocketPC offerings...
Of course, it doesn't really add up -- if a pirate version of that software wasn't available, all but a very small percent of those 10,000 pirates wouldn't have actually bought the product... From what I see, most pirates don't even use the vast majority of software they get, they just archive it and build vast collections for bragging rights.
In any case, if you're going to pirate software, why don't you just download it from the net? It doesn't take very long to find it (even after these busts), its convienient and you get the English versions of products.
I'm not condoning piracy, but if you're going to do it, why bother importing pirated software from overseas?
Unfortunately, the credit union is usually handing out $100 bills that don't interact well with the money currently in wide circulation, and upon seeing these odd $100 bills, most cashiers will get a blank look on their face, not knowing what to do with them.
I'm not saying this is the _fault_ of Open Source, but it IS a barrier to its adoption.
I realize its not difficult to add that functionality to an OS, but you introduce at least one and probably many third parties (the OS developers) that you then need to rely on to add this functionality according to some spec that might take years for everyone to agree on..And of course, it won't work with older versions of the OS(es)...
In any case, hot-swappable-everything is neat, but usually not worth the increased price of the hardware involved unless you have very specific needs.. For most reliable-server type applications it makes more sense to just have more standard hardware in a load-balanced configuration that allows you to bring one box down for a time, make changes, etc, without the clients losing access. Of course, for fully interactive sessions built on older protocols like telnet, this doesn't work so well and hot-swapping is more desirable.
Heh heh.
Dumb ass.
Your post confuses me.. On one hand it seems anti-Microsoft -- you're taking them to task for not fixing bugs. On the other hand, if those extremely trivial bugs (from a critical-use standpoint) are the worst bugs you could find/think of, then Microsoft must be doing a terrific job.
Is that you lars??
Shouldn't you be off somewhere commiting felony crimes, you dirty bastard?
the kind that tastes not entirely unlike tea, of course.
Truly I am the ELITEST MOTHERFUCKER EVER!
NSA must be filled with IDIOTS !!!
Why bother posting to Slashdot if all you've got to say is "Wow, great."?
Probably the one for $1100. Because his customers are already running Windows, etc. The $20 for the "free" software would be a tiny part of the overall cost for them to switch to a "free" solution; most of the cost would be spent on porting all their work to a new system and hiring staff and/or training existing staff.
I realize this is meant more as quip rather than a serious statement, but it underlies a grave problem with the Linux/FS/OSS world; primarily, a lot of people seem to be living in the past. Yes, Win9x was a huge fat kludge on top of DOS. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are not. If we in the Linux community don't start addressing the threat Microsoft poses today rather than the threat they posed 3 years ago, we might as well give up already.
He seems to be a one-trick pony, like Stone/Parker (I like South Park; but Basketball? That Bush show? Hell, even Orgasmo, which I know does have a cult following.....all crap IMO).
The real world options are: #1, use very old hardware, with published specs; #2, concede that extremely low-level stuff like device drivers might have to be closed source and learn to work around that while keeping as much code as we possibly can Open; #3, stick head in sand.
Was it meant as a joke, or have readers not only stopped reading the articles referenced, but the Slashdot writeups as well?
Are people just reading the HEADLINE and then posting these days?
Sheesh.
I'll believe it when I see it. I don't mean to be flamey or rain on anyone's parade, but as a 3D programmer I've been hearing how great OpenGL 2.0, OpenML, etc will be..
I've read specs, read committee meeting discussions ad naseum; but I still don't have any API to program to or even what looks like the beginnings of consenseus among the ARB members.
In the meantime Microsoft is going fullsteam ahead with Direct3D (and the rest of DX) 9, adding in the latest features, fixing the last remaining issues with DX8 (don't kid yourself, its a great API; if anyone quotes Carmack's 5 year old .plan I will kill their mother).
Meanwhile, if I choose to use OpenGL I'm stuck with vendors who implement things different (yes, there are benefits to OpenGL's open extention architecture, but only if the vendors play nice, which they haven't been..), no standard for shading languages (until OpenGL 2.0..and considering how long it took OpenGL 1.2 to be well supported over OpenGL 1.1 I wouldn't hold my breath and fuck you ATI, for lagging on implementing NV's shading extentions and forcing coders to write to two seperate interfaces!), etc, etc.
Sometimes a strong authority is better than a committe, and this is one of those situations, IMO.
Anyway, that's not the PS2's real problem..The PS2's real problem is that the first generation XBOX and GameCube games look better than the current crop of PS2 games....Compare to the PS2 launch where the first generation PS2 games actually DID look worse (to anyone with a brain and not in denial) than the then-current Dreamcast releases.
Of course, none of this is really important financially, its all about the games and the marketing...