A car is made up of many moving parts, all put together to make a car. An operating system is made up of many functions, all put together to make an operating system.
But keep in mind that a car was not built to drive other cars.
Maybe not. But software bugs, for the most part, only show up in cases of exact circumstances. Maybe you haven't been doing anything Linux doesn't like.
Keep in mind, too, that M$ is also in business to make money, and to make money, they have to sell products. Linux is open-source, so they're less tempted to put a buggy version out on the market.
People are wary of the GPL and the public domain - the GPL in particular - because a) it's not backed by anyone, except the programmer, and b) they think there's a catch. Nothing for nothing, the saying goes. Except, under the GPL, you essentially get something for nothing, and to most people, especially businesses, this seems a bit off. It's all because of what people are used to.
The new addition to the public domain from the Internet is the dissemination of knowledge and information. Now, anything published under the GPL and public domain can be can be retreived very quickly and very efficiently - and people are wary.
"Hi, I'm a programmer. Take this, I've spent a year working on it."
"Who are you?"
"A programmer."
"Who do you work for?"
"Uh, no one, I did this myself."
"And you're giving it to me?"
"Yes."
"For free?"
"Yes."
I know I'd be wary if someone walked up to me and offered me some new piece of technology for free. Especially if no one was standing there to say "Oh yeah, I've seen that, and it works great!"
we're living in a virtual world right now. we're discussing this topic with - who? i don't know any of you, i think, and nor do you know me. there's already a loss of personification.
like you said, they're games - and (i hope) most people will treat them as such, and NOT live in them 24/7. there will always be the community that plays the game all the time, but we have those already. if the human race has reached the point where we can't differentiate between a game and reality, then we're in serious trouble. unless the Matrix DOES have us, in which case, we're in trouble anyway.
also, the reason that games don't use force-feedback is because the technology isn't out there OR most people who play the game don't have the equipment. a good number of PSOne/PS2 games used the rumble pak in the controllers, and a lot of N64 games did as well. while this is limited, it is still force-feedback, and the PS2 controllers come with it built-in.
if you build it, they will come. the gaming industry might not jump all over it, but they'll get into it, especially once the technology is more refined and cheaper.
it might be a while (maybe even five years! OH NO!) before we see fully-interactive force-feedback games. but the market is the same size it ever was for games. and i don't believe that the appeal for a fully force-feedback game is limited at all.
they can't refine the interface so that it's easy to use unless they get feedback from the audience it's intended for. one day, they will hit on an interface that's easy to use for 6dof, force-feedback, but this is what they have to work with now.
The US government does NOT own and operate the Internet, unless you think that the government owns and operates all the companies, organizations, and universities whose computer networks we can connect to to retrieve information, not to mention all the private computers. The government actually has very little to do with the Internet as a whole. Internet standards are set by an international committee.
What ICANN does is match names with numbers, akin to a telephone book. Domain names are matched to IP addresses. And to be able to access something over the Internet, you need an IP address.
And as for starting your own network...how would you get onto the Internet without an IP and/or domain name?
even if the data storage medium survives an EMP blast (from a nuclear explosion or what have you) you will still need electric circuits to READ this data. so, it will be inaccessible until the circuits are rebuilt/replaced.
antimatter does exist, actually. it's like a monopole - its existence cannot be proven, but it must exist for the universe to work.
when it reacts with matter, both masses are annihilated and pure energy is released. what we have to do to develop antimatter engines is to:
a) invent an efficient and cheap process for producing antimatter
b) figure out a way to harness the energy that is released when matter and antimatter come into contact
once we have those two things, antimatter engines will be practical.
Slashdot Mirror
or, you could read it/watch it because it's absolutely hilarious...
the lesser of two evils? though i'm not even sure that's the case with Microsoft.
A car is made up of many moving parts, all put together to make a car. An operating system is made up of many functions, all put together to make an operating system.
But keep in mind that a car was not built to drive other cars.
Sheer dumb luck?
Maybe not. But software bugs, for the most part, only show up in cases of exact circumstances. Maybe you haven't been doing anything Linux doesn't like.
Keep in mind, too, that M$ is also in business to make money, and to make money, they have to sell products. Linux is open-source, so they're less tempted to put a buggy version out on the market.
As for the difference... no science we have yet teleports actual particles.
according to quantum physics, particles are waves and vice versa.
People are wary of the GPL and the public domain - the GPL in particular - because a) it's not backed by anyone, except the programmer, and b) they think there's a catch. Nothing for nothing, the saying goes. Except, under the GPL, you essentially get something for nothing, and to most people, especially businesses, this seems a bit off. It's all because of what people are used to.
The new addition to the public domain from the Internet is the dissemination of knowledge and information. Now, anything published under the GPL and public domain can be can be retreived very quickly and very efficiently - and people are wary.
"Hi, I'm a programmer. Take this, I've spent a year working on it."
"Who are you?"
"A programmer."
"Who do you work for?"
"Uh, no one, I did this myself."
"And you're giving it to me?"
"Yes."
"For free?"
"Yes."
I know I'd be wary if someone walked up to me and offered me some new piece of technology for free. Especially if no one was standing there to say "Oh yeah, I've seen that, and it works great!"
we're living in a virtual world right now. we're discussing this topic with - who? i don't know any of you, i think, and nor do you know me. there's already a loss of personification.
like you said, they're games - and (i hope) most people will treat them as such, and NOT live in them 24/7. there will always be the community that plays the game all the time, but we have those already. if the human race has reached the point where we can't differentiate between a game and reality, then we're in serious trouble. unless the Matrix DOES have us, in which case, we're in trouble anyway.
bad news - 5+ years isn't that long of a time.
also, the reason that games don't use force-feedback is because the technology isn't out there OR most people who play the game don't have the equipment. a good number of PSOne/PS2 games used the rumble pak in the controllers, and a lot of N64 games did as well. while this is limited, it is still force-feedback, and the PS2 controllers come with it built-in.
if you build it, they will come. the gaming industry might not jump all over it, but they'll get into it, especially once the technology is more refined and cheaper.
it might be a while (maybe even five years! OH NO!) before we see fully-interactive force-feedback games. but the market is the same size it ever was for games. and i don't believe that the appeal for a fully force-feedback game is limited at all.
they can't refine the interface so that it's easy to use unless they get feedback from the audience it's intended for. one day, they will hit on an interface that's easy to use for 6dof, force-feedback, but this is what they have to work with now.
The US government does NOT own and operate the Internet, unless you think that the government owns and operates all the companies, organizations, and universities whose computer networks we can connect to to retrieve information, not to mention all the private computers. The government actually has very little to do with the Internet as a whole. Internet standards are set by an international committee.
What ICANN does is match names with numbers, akin to a telephone book. Domain names are matched to IP addresses. And to be able to access something over the Internet, you need an IP address.
And as for starting your own network...how would you get onto the Internet without an IP and/or domain name?
even if the data storage medium survives an EMP blast (from a nuclear explosion or what have you) you will still need electric circuits to READ this data. so, it will be inaccessible until the circuits are rebuilt/replaced.
antimatter does exist, actually. it's like a monopole - its existence cannot be proven, but it must exist for the universe to work.
when it reacts with matter, both masses are annihilated and pure energy is released. what we have to do to develop antimatter engines is to:
a) invent an efficient and cheap process for producing antimatter
b) figure out a way to harness the energy that is released when matter and antimatter come into contact
once we have those two things, antimatter engines will be practical.