"And I have played plenty of HL, Quake II, CS, UT, etc online with just a modem",So have I and all of been a jerky miserable experience, even when directly dialed in to my friend down the road from and even when there was no isp in the loop.
"You need to either investigate a better ISP.." , I have tested a good few isps and none offer satisfactory speeds and I think the fact that I can not get good speeds even when directly dialed in to another person says it all , this could be due to my phone line but I have tried mplayer dialup in many other houses all I TRIED were not up to scratch. "..or learn how to tweak both your OS (tcp/ip network settings) and the game."
Many an hours tweaking and even a change in os yeilded no noticiable speed increase.
" But no company is going to make money by giving away their product for free. Product being what they do, not their code."
The issue is not that they are giving there product away but what licence they place there product under and hence what restrictions that licence places on the person using there product.
"Companies do not have to make money - they either will or they won't, according to free market forces."
The point that this post makes is basicly, "you can bring a horse to the river but you can not nessecarily make it drink",just because you make something does not mean you 'will' or nessecarily 'have' to make a profit.I could set up a company to make product x and then decide to give that product away free.For example There are many companys/individuals out there who started making a game with a view to making a profit and then for one reason or another , did not sell the game but gave it away for free with its source and accompanying materials under an open licence .
"But no company is going to make money by giving away their product for free." well alot of linux ditributions allow people to download there ditribution for free , they even host the iso's.Alot of linux distributions also offer a range of pay for versions of there product which offer better tech support nice packaging and other things.
The question you have to ask you're self is where is a company making there money , that is there product,not neccesarily what they give away for free. A company can spend alot of time developing something,(say a an audio codex), and then give away that codex then sell hardware/special software to stream it/some other thing to take advantadge of it in some way.The point is that 90 percent of the work may go into the codex which is given away freely and only ten percent into the thing which makes the money.
Lets face it There are only certain mplayer games that ordinary dial up people can play comfortably and 3d fps are not amongst them no matter how much They are tweaked by talented programers.
Now when I was younger I used to believe that flat rate broad band was just around the corner,(I live in ireland), and that it would be reasonably priced,(A very naive assumption).Finaly it has arrived here and no it is not reasonably priced and recession will probably slow down its take up by the masses and hence any hope of a price drop any time soon.
I Love playing quake3 urban terror on a Lan it is great fun,but playing it over a dialup connection is not the bee's knee's if you know what I mean . Dialup connections are ok for playing certain types of games mplayer,(rts/certain rpg's/nethacks and muds ),But when games go into 3d things get a bit messy and slow,(as I am sure every one knows ),and I think it is this fact which is putting the brakes on mplayer up take.Untill fast net access becomes common and cheap mplayer will not live up to all it can be.
YOU make an interesting point however I believe that it would get very messy very fast. "If every ISP would offer micropayment to content providers for bandwidth USED and each user of the Web would pay", What about DOS attacks? who would pay for that ?
I think A simpeler and more probable model is basicly for isp's to emulate tv's business model.Where Basicly they buy up the most popular sites and offer then exclusively to there customers much like satelite and cable tv does. I think this is what is going to happen and I think this is a bad Thing as the internet will basicly become a tv like entity which is run and regualted by a few big tv channel like isp's.
I think you make a valid point when you say,"In the Web, money flows from user to ISP and content provider to ISP. There's something wrong here,isn't it?", Yes there is something wrong unfortunately I do not think the solution will be the micropayments method you suggest but rather that the internet will start to look and be treated more and more like tv,(with a bit more interaction).
Sites like http://www.openculture.org/ provide an interesting possibility of an alternative form of media funding.I hope they will be successfull but in the long run I am not so sure.
I would say that if a website moved to an exclusive pay for content model and if it were shown that a signifigant amount of people were willing to pay for this model then it would become more likely for the content site to be bought up by a big isp like aol/time warner, much like a popular tv show would have its rights bought up and offered exclusively to aol/time warner's customers as a draw.
I wonder if this sort of thing happens with porn website's ?They have been offering paid subscription services for years. Do small porn sites that are successfull get bought out and merged into the big central porn networks ?Or do they stay independent?
When media content becomes pay for use it begins to fall under the same economic rules as tv and magazines, i.e it tend's to be bought up by a couple of big players and thoese players useually have there own agenda and this agenda more often than not when it comes to journalism can influences the tone and way news is presented.
Hmm I thought that you could block the banner adds on slashdot and quite alot of banner adds via the correct software . When ever I go to my friends house and I view slashdot and a number of other site's,where the banner add is ment to be there is always a big white "add blocked sign", where his freebsd router with whatever software he has installed on it removed the banner add.
If you can block slashdot and other sites adds any way I do not see why people would pay for an add free slashdot.
Also on the subject I do not think applying traditional tv / newspaper ecomonics to internet sites is nessecarily the best idea if this was to happen I could envision websites content being mirrored on p2p networks very fast . The content would be virtualy Identical to the original bar for example the ability to post a comment.
I agree with many other posters , I think the way google handels its advertising is very promising,quite non intrusive adds which display an item which could possibly have some relevance to me , as opposed to big flashy adds offering me something which I do not want to look at let alone purchase or give money to.
The trouble with alot of media,tv especialy,is when content becomes centeralised, when all the main popular sources of new's get bought up and managed by one big company or a couple of big companys,this is in my view is a dangerous phenomenon as it leads to very agendised reporting,bias towards high paying advertisers and journalists ignoring facts and certain news because it does not tow the pary line or because it annoys some advertiser.
I always thought,(and still do to a certain extent ),that the internet would be immune to such a trend of centeralisation of content and that if such a thing were to occur i.e a lot of media sites being bought out and blatantly manipulated that other independent sites would spring up and that people would switch to thoese sites , what is changing my mind these days is the transformation of the internet into a tv like medium.
I can see it starting with isp's,like time warner/aol , where what you are paying for is not internet usage primarily but rather content , I can see big isps with deep pockets buying up huge amounts of content and offering it exclusively to there users.Over a period of time the small indepent isp's would be picked off one by one as the cost to provide there users with content rise's higher and higer and as legal bill's accumulating become to much to for the small isp to cope with,(These bills would probably arise from defending there users ).I can see the internet turning into a playground run by a handfull of big players and if you want there users to see you you would have to basicly tow there line and pay the highway man in cash and shed what ever blood he wants you to shed.I can see how the internet can and probably will turn into tv.
My point is that paysites , or group's of sites which incourage you to pay for exclusive access to there content incourages this phemomenon.If it came down to a choice between paying for slashdot and not reading slashdot I think I would have to just let slashdot go.I would rather be subjected to targeted advertisements , than to a internet which is like tv.
The apathy of the general public is a real problem when trying to get them to do some thing About what blizzard has done.Blizzard realises that most of the people who play diablo will not give a dam about what they have done.
However most of the people who used/had something to do with the bnetd project will give a dam, a minority of motivated people who are relatively intelligent can make a difference, for example DOS attack could be launched against the battlenet servers people who are on the servers could start spreading the word and asking people who use battlenet to complain to blizzard.
Pirated versions of blizzards games could be singeled out and heavily mirrored and links to the game's old and new could be given to people on battlenet.
people may be to apathetic to boycott blizzard but they could be convinced to download blizzards games for free and give them to there friends, this would annoy and hurt blizzard . I can imagine spam bots logging into bnet channels and posting urls amongst other things.
My point thow is not an advocation of piracy or dos attack's,(They will not change blizzards attitude and that is the key issue here). I personally will not be buying or using,(warezed or otherwise), ANY blizzard games till blizzard changes there policy regarding thebnetd project.
The reason why I will not be using blizzard products is because I dislike the concept of the precedent this sets with regards to blizzard products, basicly what they are doing is calling into question people who make modifications for games and I think this takes away on the whole from the value of there products.One of the main reasons I bought quake3/quake/quake2/doom and most Id products , is because there is a great community behind them and this community is incouraged and helped by john carmack and Id software.
I like games which foster a community and I like companys that allow and encourage there community's to grow,when company's start cracking down on there community's and when company's try to stop people being creative in ways which does not hinder the sales of there product but in fact incourages it then you have got to question the company and ask you're self "Do I want to encourage this sort of behaviour?","Do I really need this game enough for me to ignore what this company stands for?" Personaly I do not need what blizzard has to offer enough for me to ignore what they are doing to bnetd and even thow I am sure blizzard will survive the disaster that is me not buying there games,I am boycotting blizzard not because I think it will make that much of a difference but because I think I should and I think blizzard are worth boycotting for what they have done and the attitude they foster.
I am not attempting to justify this document, in my opinion,(and I am not the most knoweledgable when it comes to copyright/trademark/patent law),This whole proposal seems very vague and I am merly wondering what benifits,(if any), this proposal offers me.
Taken from Ec faq "Isn't software different to other technologies in that patents can be used to block legitimate independent innovation? The Commission has seen little evidence that this has been a problem in practice in the present environment. This would be the case only if the scope of protection granted by patents were extended to software as such and, for instance, blocked the use of an algorithmic idea in other technical fields from the one in which a patent is granted. Since the proposed Directive would not extend the scope of what can be patented, nor the scope of the protection granted by a patent, there should be nothing to fear on this front"
microsoft seems to spring to mind.
"Would the proposed Directive restrict the interoperability of computer programs?" "..These exceptions include acts performed for the purposes of studying the ideas and principles underlying a program and the reproduction or translation of code if necessary for the achievement of the interoperability of an independently-created computer program. It is also specified that the making of a back-up copy by a lawful user cannot be prevented. Such provisions are necessary in the context of copyright law because copyright confers the absolute right to prevent the making of copies of a protected work. All the acts mentioned involve making copies and would therefore infringe in the absence of any exception."
This part seems to have implications for ebooks among other things, am I allowed make backups of the digital books I own, if I have to circumvent some copy protection to do it ?
"Why would claims to computer programs on their own not be permitted under the proposed Directive? In recent decisions, patents have under certain conditions been allowed which contain claims for computer programs on their own, for example on a disk or even as a signal transmitted over the internet. In the course of consultations, fears were expressed that if enforced, patents including such claims may be used to prevent "reverse engineering" and other activities considered legitimate in respect of computer programs already protected under copyright law. Moreover, such claims could be said to be contrary to the EPC, which does not allow patents for computer programs "as such". In response to these concerns, the Commission has decided not to follow the direction taken by case law in this important respect. Accordingly, the proposal would not allow claims of this type to be considered valid."
It would seem that I can legitamtely make backups according to this, this also seems to have implications for the windows xp licence among other things.
I can not see what makes lindows special , I read the review of it on newsforge and it sounded crap. wtf does lindows really offer that wine does not ? Lindows looks to me just like a repackaged version of wine with a catchy name and some superficial features. can any one explain to me what makes it a unique product worth buying ? The review on newsforge just seemed to show how little it ran and I felt that the review went extremly light on them,I can understand the version they had was a test but still what is the point of sending something which is essentially not very usefull or different to wine running on some other linux varient at this stage of development for review ?
Human nature and it's relationship with science
is something which fascinates me. Even if you could build some magic floating orb that took care of all a persons food and entertainment / communications needs I am positive that human's would find some way to annoy one another.
Everyday I hear about tech advance x and discovery y but everyday I also hear an unending stream of new's which just makes me sad.Most of the new's which makes me sad is to do with copyright and the efforts of groups to restrict,(in most cases and in my opinion), inovation , people's rights and in some cases,( in my opinion ), the flow of culture.These news pieces make me sad but I can understand the motivation behind them , I can guess why in most cases the film/music industry is worried about the internet and I appreciate why they would want to restrict what people do.The Things on slashdot which makes me realy sad are some people's comments and the attitude they reflect.
When ever there is a story concerning Theo de Raadt, richard stallman or even noam chomsky. Certain people give out about these characters, they go on and on and on , they spout so much bitterness and bile , but at the end of the day
These commentators, these amazingly knowledgeable
people , have not one productive or constructive criqique to make, they say things like "chomsky is a crazy leftwinger" or "his comments completly missrepresent facts", this is all fine maybe he is completly left wing maybe his comments do the things you say they do,but I have never heard any one on slashot when critiquing chomsky a) make a constructive comment, b) make specific examples , based on facts he gave/books he wrote/
debates he spoke at / points he made,of why what he said was wrong and or what was wrong with it specifically.
With people like stallman and theo de raddt There may be more specific complaints but still I find little or no constructive commentary all I find in general is people jumping on a band wagon people pissing on these people and making vague complaints which alot of the time basily boil down to "he is an asshole and I do not like him".When people make these comments , when people flame these people after making in some cases no attempt what so ever to find out about the person they are verbally assaulting , to find out what they have done and why they did it , they forget something.They forget that whether you like or disslike these people they contribute A HUGE amount of there time and effert and skill to the public good.
People forget the amount of work theo de raadt does which is freely available , they forget the amount he has given to people and they forget the
huge portion of his life which he has pored into projects like open bsd,no all they can seem to remember is "theo is a dick and he is not nice to his users", all theo's work, all of his efforts is of course in there eyes is secondary to the fact that theo is not particulalry nice to his users, never mind the fact that the people who complain about theo being a dick may not be the best examples of nice polite people who provide constructive advice which actualy help people in there day to day activites.
Then we have people's attitudes to stallman much of which envoles slagging his appearance , calling him a "commie", every dam thing,people
forget the amount of things he has done and the amount he continues to do for the public good
,all they seem to remember is that in certain
circles on slashdot it is fun to take a poke at him never mind the amount of time he devotes to
the cause of free software and his efforts to promote a cause which help's rather than hinders
the majority of people it touches,(if you want to debate the last point please do it in a constructive and informed mannor).
My point is the attitude of people toward's other people and how horribly selfish and inconsiderate people can be,I believe that no technological advance will really solve this problem,I think that in many ways it will make this problem worse.I Think Mr pearson should have taken human nature more into account when when he was wrighting his bold predictions for the future.
With out a dought, the western world is going to be completly changed in the next few years by new technology and that technology's social implications, the question in my view is will the way people treat people change? will
leaps and bounds in communications matter a dam if all the majority of people can say is "you're a dick", and or some other negative remark.
The problem with online gaming reviews is that there is to much choice.Bettween the sheer amount of reviews and gamers comments on even one site it can be hard to make a decision as to whether a game is worth hard currency.
The advantage a gaming mag,(say for example pc gamer uk ),has is that in most cases it comes with a demo cd and a whole lot of software of varying standards and values.Depending on who you are and what sort of net connnection you have this bundle of software/demos/crap may prove very usefull or as was the case for me a nice source for cd cases for my cdr collection.
In general Pc gamer gave reviews of a reasonable standard and seemed to have a lot of good first hand info concerning up and coming games releases
,also it had a sort of writing humor/style which some people enjoyed,(not me).
Why I stopped buying pc gamer was for a number of reasons,prime among which was the occasional complete bullshit review's , which they gave months and months in advance of a title which would be plagued by delays and bugs and in the end would be shipped with some of the features mentioned in the review missing.Also the other thing pc gamer did which really pissed me off was to purposly late review one game while reviewing another game which was in competion with it early.All of the above reasons were precisely why I stopped buying pc gaming magazines.
After I stopped purchasing pcgamer,I turned more and more to either word of mouth , or online reviews.Being as I live in Ireland and most games
come out first else where Online reviews were and
are my main source of info when it comes to deciding if I am going to get a game.As I mentioned at the start,finding out if I would like a game or not based on the gamers comments and or main review given on even just one site can be difficult. Any one who does not believe this should go to gamespot and look at the readers reviews of any final fantasy game, alot
of people have VERY different and strong opinions about what makes a good ff game.
Now in my opinion the answer to this problem of over information online in relation to game reviews is profiling.I Wish that there was a game site which had a huge list of games on it , I would click on the ones I liked and would be able to read reviews posted by people who liked similar things to what I like.I would then be able to vote for the review I thought I liked
best and I would also be able to see through the miricale of like minded moderating the reviews
that people who like simlar games to me liked thought were the best.
Now my question is , is there a site out there that fits all of my requirements? If so I would like to know!
jc says geforce4 not good for new doom game:
"On the topic of current Nvidia cards:
Do not buy a GeForce4-MX for Doom.
Nvidia has really made a mess of the naming conventions here. I always thought it was bad enough that GF2 was just a speed bumped GF1, while GF3 had significant architectural improvements over GF2. I expected GF4 to be the speed bumped GF3, but calling the NV17 GF4-MX really sucks.
GF4-MX will still run Doom properly, but it will be using the NV10 codepath with only two texture units and no vertex shaders. A GF3 or 8500 will be much better performers. The GF4-MX may still be the card of choice for many people depending on pricing, especially considering that many games won't use four textures and vertex programs, but damn, I wish they had named it something else.
As usual, there will be better cards available from both Nvidia and ATI by the time we ship the game. "
Yeah I remember pcgamer in particular used to do things like that a lot , review a crap game,(and give it a good review),which would get delayed and come out months later , but better still were the games that got reviewed way after they were released. This , if I remember right used to happen alot when there were two competing games in the same genre.Pc gamer would give one,(the one who had the bigger budget presumably),a really good review and then wait for a good 2 months and then review the other, both games would be released about the same time, this used to really piss me off.
I used to spend money on mags like pc gamer and pc zone , but I got pissed off at both the tone and content of there review's and found that on the whole better and more up to date reviews with in depth commentary from gamers and a wider scope of opinions could be found online.I now do not see the point of spending money on pc gaming magazines who constantly have to do a balancing act bettween advertisers and there reader base which often leads to comprimise's in the quality of a review .
"*eww, i feel all dirty after having used that word now - i mean real innovation, not the chomsky-1984-doublespeak that has loaded the word with propaganda."
Sorry,what do you mean I do not understand you?
could some one explain this to me ?
" I just wish they weren't so contemptuous of the masses. If they weren't, they would notice that people are very sensible."
I do not think the problem is that the majority of people are stupid more that the majority of people are apethetic and lazy about issues which could effect them in both the long/short run, and unless something is shown to have a very direct immediate negative effect on there day to day lives,in general the majority of people do not care about it and will not do any thing signifigant about it.
"Government power is kept in check by stripping the powerful down and subjecting them to scrutiny in the application of their delegated power, so that abuse of the power can be caught and rapidly dealt with. We are protected by enhancing our ability to see them, not by reducing their ability to see us."
The whole issue of who funds party's running for Government needs to be addressed before we will see truly open and observable government and business.Until this happens I do not believe that the public will be given, "fierce accountability measures", in fact I think that in most cases whatever laws or legislation that get's passed will most likely come out heavily in favor of big busines and not the general public.
People will not wake up one morning and suddenly find all there rights taken away and a secret police officer at there door enquiring about the printed copy of the anarchists cookbook under there bed.What is more likely to happen is a slow eroision of rights that the general public take for granted and are to apathetic to do anything about and by the time they realise, "hey why can't I do that any more ", and decide that maybe they should have done something about that 'crazy russian commie' who cracked adobe's ebook program and that maybe there Privacy is some thing they should care about,it will be to late and The majority of people through apathy and not a lack of inteligence will have, "grant(ed) our servants the tools they claim they need".
"NET is a "software platform". It's a language-neutral environment for writing programs that can easily and securely interoperate. Rather than targetting a particular hardware/OS combination, programs will instead target ".NET", and will run wherever.NET is implemented."
So will programs incorperating directx which are written for.net run on all os's where.net is
implimented or will they just run on microsoft os's ?
You make a very good point and the same could be said to a certain extent about the music industry
and it's methods of distribution.
The problem in my opinion is that there is no good universal form of digital cash or rather , no easy way to pay for some thing anywhere with t the click of a button.Any one who shops on ebay will Have enountered similar problems when dealing with people outside the states or thoese who do not accept pay pal.
Admitedly pay pal works ok if you live in the us or selected countries and have a credit card,(if not you can not acept payment for a product you sell http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr cmd=p/gen/approved_countries-outside cheque here for further details ), but if you are outside the us,and or do not have a credit card paying for things online can become a real pain in the ass.
I live in ireland and everything I buy online be it from inside europe , australia or the us or else where is bought through my friend who has a credit card,(I give him cash he pays ), pay pal is the prefered method of payment as it does not nessessitate me going in to a bank and paying a ridiculus exchange rate and waiting around in a que for a long time,(the waiting and the effert of going to the bank is the worst ).
What is badly needed is a quick and easy way to pay some one for something online that will work any where in the world and does not nessessitate owning a credit card.
I am interested in finding out more aobut different digital payment methods so if any one knows of a particularly good one I am all ears .
Well,I am in the market for a card that will run the new doom game when it comes out? If you have a non nvidia suggestion I will take it in to account look at some reviews and way up the prices.
Taken from http://webdog.org/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=1&time=2001 0222225435
John Carmack:"I just got back from Tokyo, where I demonstrated our new engine
running under MacOS-X with a GeForce 3 card. We had quite a bit of
discussion about whether we should be showing anything at all,
considering how far away we are from having a title on the shelves, so
we probably aren't going to be showing it anywhere else for quite a while."
The main reason for me being in the market for a new 3d card and my main requirement for the new 3d card which I intend to purchase is that it be able to play existing john carmack games at a higher graphical standard and my main worry when trying to decide which one to buy and which one is the best value is that the card I buy will not be able to cope with upcoming john carmack games such as the new doom game.
www.newegg.com says
a CardExpert GeForce2 MX 400 64MB SDRAM AGP No TV-Out - RETAIL - costs $46
and
VGA LEADTEK GEFORCE4 MX440 64MB VGA & TV-OUT. RETAIL BOX Part# - costs $122
and
VGA LEADTEK Geforce3 TI500 64MB TV/DVI RETAIL BOX
- $350
(other geforce 3's range from $110 up)
According to the prices shown on this site I can pick up a decent graphics card for just under $130
,(A satisfactory geforce3 can be had for under $130 if the geforce4 price turns out to be a missprint),That is about the price I am willing to pay for a 3d card that will do what I want it to.
"A quick peak over to GameSpot to sneak a peak at the previews. After you remove the previews for games already out, you come up with the following:
GameCube has around 60 titles previewed.
Xbox was around 140 previewed.
PlayStation2 has more than 300 previewed."
taken from
http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter0 1. html
I think this really says it all.People buy console's for games not to boast about how powerfull there console is.The playstation 2 has
the huge back library of ps1 games and the most new titels in the works. There are far far more playstation 2's siting in peoples house at the moment than xbox's, hence a far bigger market for
developers to sell to.
By the time the xbox is able to take full advantadge of its enhanced graphical abilities it will be to late and the ps3 will be here which
will raise the ante in terms of tech specs even more.
another point which is this also taken from the afore mentioned site,(actsofgord.com),:
"To date, Sony has sold nearly 100,000,000 PS1's. That's a lot. And for the
sake of the argument, we'll pretend Nintendo sold nearly 30 million N64's
(though sales data suggests between 20 to 24 million, but who cares). So,
assuming every N64 owner also bought a PS1, that means 70% of the market bought ONE console. One console. Just one.
Now, obviously this didn't happen. Somewhere near half of N64 owners bought a PS1. Now, so we have 15 million N64 owners who remained exclusive, and 15 million who were multi-console (and 15 of the 100 million PS1 owners).
So, you've got 85 million PS1's who belong to one system owners, and 15
million N64's who belong to one system owners. That's, well, 100 million.
Add in the 15 million owners who bought multi-systems, and there you are at a market peak of 115 million users.Basic math shows that 87% of owners owned one system."
I think this shows quite clearly that the majority of people will not buy a playstation2 and a xbox,because for one thing I do not think people are willing to spend money as freely as they once were due to the present economic climet and back when people were willing to spend more
,(ps1 v n64 days), they only bought one console.
Now back in the ps1 v n64 days a console cost alot less,(stating the obvious I know), NOW look at the price i.e back then ps1 + n64 = $200 maybe a little more , now ps2 + xbox = $650 or more and this without any games?
For that sort of money required to buy two consoles you may as well go the extra inch and just buy a gaming pc.What graphics power the xbox appears to have now has already been surpased by the pc (nvidia g4),and this gap will continue to grow as more and more 3d cards are developed by the hardware industry.The upgrade ability of the pc will mean that in the end it will surpass any console currently on the market in terms of graphics.The question I am trying to raise is is there room on the market for the xbox?The xbox will not be bought en mass by playstation2 users
as it does not offer enough NEW and signifigantly different games or features which would make the
averedge ps2 owner fork out the extra money.
I personaly think that the xbox will not gain enough of the market share to pose a serious treat to sonys domination of the console market.
Slashdot Mirror
"And I have played plenty of HL, Quake II, CS, UT, etc online with just a modem",So have I and all of been a jerky miserable experience, even when directly dialed in to my friend down the road from and even when there was no isp in the loop. "You need to either investigate a better ISP.." , I have tested a good few isps and none offer satisfactory speeds and I think the fact that I can not get good speeds even when directly dialed in to another person says it all , this could be due to my phone line but I have tried mplayer dialup in many other houses all I TRIED were not up to scratch. "..or learn how to tweak both your OS (tcp/ip network settings) and the game." Many an hours tweaking and even a change in os yeilded no noticiable speed increase.
" But no company is going to make money by giving away their product for free. Product being what they do, not their code."
.Alot of linux distributions also offer a range of pay for versions of there product which offer better tech support nice packaging and other things.
,not neccesarily what they give away for free. A company can spend alot of time developing something ,(say a an audio codex), and then give away that codex then sell hardware/special software to stream it /some other thing to take advantadge of it in some way.The point is that 90 percent of the work may go into the codex which is given away freely and only ten percent into the thing which makes the money.
The issue is not that they are giving there product away but what licence they place there product under and hence what restrictions that licence places on the person using there product.
"Companies do not have to make money - they either will or they won't, according to free market forces."
The point that this post makes is basicly, "you can bring a horse to the river but you can not nessecarily make it drink",just because you make something does not mean you 'will' or nessecarily 'have' to make a profit.I could set up a company to make product x and then decide to give that product away free.For example There are many companys/individuals out there who started making a game with a view to making a profit and then for one reason or another , did not sell the game but gave it away for free with its source and accompanying materials under an open licence .
"But no company is going to make money by giving away their product for free." well alot of linux ditributions allow people to download there ditribution for free , they even host the iso's
The question you have to ask you're self is where is a company making there money , that is there product
Lets face it There are only certain mplayer games that ordinary dial up people can play comfortably and 3d fps are not amongst them no matter how much They are tweaked by talented programers.
.
,but playing it over a dialup connection
Now when I was younger I used to believe that flat rate broad band was just around the corner,(I live in ireland), and that it would be reasonably priced,(A very naive assumption).Finaly it has arrived here and no it is not reasonably priced and recession will probably slow down its take up by the masses and hence any hope of a price drop any time soon
I Love playing quake3 urban terror on a Lan it is great fun
is not the bee's knee's if you know what I mean . Dialup connections are ok for playing certain types of games mplayer,(rts/certain rpg's/nethacks and muds ),But when games go into 3d things get a bit messy and slow,(as I am sure every one knows ),and I think it is this fact which is putting the brakes on mplayer up take.Untill fast net access becomes common and cheap mplayer will not live up to all it can be.
YOU make an interesting point however I believe that it would get very messy very fast.
,"In the Web, money flows from user to ISP and content provider to ISP. There's something wrong here ,isn't it?", Yes there is something wrong unfortunately I do not think the solution will be ,(with a bit more interaction).
"If every ISP would offer micropayment to content providers for bandwidth USED and each user of the Web would pay", What about DOS attacks? who would pay for that ?
I think A simpeler and more probable model is basicly for isp's to emulate tv's business model.Where Basicly they buy up the most popular sites and offer then exclusively to there customers much like satelite and cable tv does. I think this is what is going to happen and I think this is a bad Thing as the internet will basicly become a tv like entity which is run and regualted by a few big tv channel like isp's.
I think you make a valid point when you say
the micropayments method you suggest but rather that the internet will start to look and be treated more and more like tv
Sites like http://www.openculture.org/ provide an interesting possibility of an alternative form of media funding.I hope they will be successfull but in the long run I am not so sure.
I would say that if a website moved to an exclusive pay for content model and if it were shown that a signifigant amount of people were willing to pay for this model then it would become more likely for the content site to be bought up by a big isp like aol /time warner, much like a popular tv show would have its rights bought up and offered exclusively to aol/time warner's customers as a draw.
I wonder if this sort of thing happens with porn website's ?They have been offering paid subscription services for years. Do small porn sites that are successfull get bought out and merged into the big central porn networks ?Or do they stay independent?
When media content becomes pay for use it begins to fall under the same economic rules as tv and magazines, i.e it tend's to be bought up by a couple of big players and thoese players useually have there own agenda and this agenda more often than not when it comes to journalism can influences the tone and way news is presented.
Hmm I thought that you could block the banner adds on slashdot and quite alot of banner adds ,where the banner add is ment to be there is always a big white "add blocked sign", where his freebsd router with whatever software he has installed on it removed the banner add.
,quite non intrusive adds which display an item which could possibly have some relevance to me , as opposed to big flashy adds offering me something which I do not want to look at let alone purchase or give money to.
,bias towards high paying advertisers and journalists ignoring facts and certain news because it does not tow the pary line or because it annoys some advertiser.
,(and still do to a certain extent ),that the internet would be immune to such a trend of centeralisation of content and that if such a thing were to occur i.e a lot of media sites being bought out and blatantly manipulated that other independent sites would spring up and that people would switch to thoese sites , what is changing my mind these days is the transformation of the internet into a tv like medium.
,like time warner/aol , where what you are paying for is not internet usage primarily but rather content , I can see big isps with deep pockets buying up huge amounts of content and offering it exclusively to there users.Over a period of time the small indepent isp's would be picked off one by one as the cost to provide there users with content rise's higher and higer and as legal bill's accumulating become to much to for the small isp to cope with,(These bills would probably arise from defending there users ).I can see the internet turning into a playground run by a handfull of big players and if you want there users to see you you would have to basicly tow there line and pay the highway man in cash and shed what ever blood he wants you to shed.I can see how the internet can and probably will turn into tv.
.I would rather be subjected to targeted advertisements , than to a internet which is like tv.
via the correct software . When ever I go to my friends house and I view slashdot and a number of other site's
If you can block slashdot and other sites adds any way I do not see why people would pay for an add free slashdot.
Also on the subject I do not think applying traditional tv / newspaper ecomonics to internet sites is nessecarily the best idea if this was to happen I could envision websites content being mirrored on p2p networks very fast . The content would be virtualy Identical to the original bar for example the ability to post a comment.
I agree with many other posters , I think the way google handels its advertising is very promising
The trouble with alot of media,tv especialy,is when content becomes centeralised, when all the main popular sources of new's get bought up and managed by one big company or a couple of big companys,this is in my view is a dangerous phenomenon as it leads to very agendised reporting
I always thought
I can see it starting with isp's
My point is that paysites , or group's of sites which incourage you to pay for exclusive access to there content incourages this phemomenon.If it came down to a choice between paying for slashdot and not reading slashdot I think I would have to just let slashdot go
The apathy of the general public is a real problem when trying to get them to do some thing About what blizzard has done.Blizzard realises that most of the people who play diablo will not give a dam about what they have done.
,(They will not change blizzards attitude and that is the key issue here). I personally will not be buying or using ,(warezed or otherwise), ANY blizzard games till blizzard changes there policy regarding thebnetd project.
,when company's start cracking down on there community's and when company's try to stop people being creative in ways which does not hinder the sales of there product but in fact incourages it then you have got to question the company and ask you're self "Do I want to encourage this sort of behaviour?" ,"Do I really need this game enough for me to ignore what this company stands for?" ,I am boycotting blizzard not because I think it will make that much of a difference but because I think I should and I think blizzard are worth boycotting for what they have done and the attitude they foster.
However most of the people who used/had something to do with the bnetd project will give a dam, a minority of motivated people who are relatively intelligent can make a difference, for example DOS
attack could be launched against the battlenet servers people who are on the servers could start spreading the word and asking people who use battlenet to complain to blizzard.
Pirated versions of blizzards games could be singeled out and heavily mirrored and links to the game's old and new could be given to people on battlenet.
people may be to apathetic to boycott blizzard but they could be convinced to download blizzards
games for free and give them to there friends, this would annoy and hurt blizzard . I can imagine spam bots logging into bnet channels and posting urls amongst other things.
My point thow is not an advocation of piracy or dos attack's
The reason why I will not be using blizzard products is because I dislike the concept of the precedent this sets with regards to blizzard products, basicly what they are doing is calling into question people who make modifications for games and I think this takes away on the whole from the value of there products.One of the main reasons I bought quake3/quake/quake2/doom and most Id products , is because there is a great community behind them and this community is incouraged and helped by john carmack and Id software.
I like games which foster a community and I
like companys that allow and encourage there community's to grow
Personaly I do not need what blizzard has to offer enough for me to ignore what they are doing to bnetd and even thow I am sure blizzard will
survive the disaster that is me not buying there games
I am not attempting to justify this document, in my opinion ,(and I am not the most knoweledgable when it comes to copyright/trademark/patent law),This whole proposal seems very vague and I am merly wondering what benifits,(if any), this proposal offers me.
Taken from Ec faq
"Isn't software different to other technologies in that patents can be used to block legitimate independent innovation?
The Commission has seen little evidence that this has been a problem in practice in the present environment. This would be the case only if the scope of protection granted by patents were extended to software as such and, for instance, blocked the use of an algorithmic idea in other
technical fields from the one in which a patent is granted. Since the proposed Directive would not extend the scope of what can be patented, nor the scope of the protection granted by a patent, there should be nothing to fear on this front"
microsoft seems to spring to mind.
"Would the proposed Directive restrict the interoperability of computer programs?"
"..These exceptions include acts performed for the purposes of studying the ideas and principles underlying a program and the reproduction or translation of code if necessary for the achievement of the interoperability of an independently-created computer program. It is also specified that the making of a back-up copy by a lawful user cannot be prevented. Such provisions are necessary in the context of copyright law because copyright confers the absolute right to prevent the making of copies of a protected work. All the acts mentioned involve making copies and would therefore infringe in the absence of any exception."
This part seems to have implications for ebooks among other things, am I allowed make backups of the digital books I own, if I have to circumvent some copy protection to do it ?
"Why would claims to computer programs on their own not be permitted under the proposed Directive?
In recent decisions, patents have under certain conditions been allowed which contain claims for computer programs on their own, for example on a disk or even as a signal transmitted over the internet. In the course of consultations, fears were expressed that if enforced, patents including such claims may be used to prevent "reverse engineering" and other activities considered legitimate in respect of computer programs already protected under copyright law. Moreover, such claims could be said to be contrary to the EPC, which does not allow patents for computer programs "as such". In response to these concerns, the Commission has decided not to follow the direction taken by case law in this important respect. Accordingly, the proposal would not allow claims of this type to be considered valid."
It would seem that I can legitamtely make backups according to this, this also seems to have implications for the windows xp licence among other things.
I would rather have a one of these babies These babies
I can not see what makes lindows special , I read the review of it on newsforge and it sounded crap.
wtf does lindows really offer that wine does not ? Lindows looks to me just like a repackaged version of wine with a catchy name and some superficial features. can any one explain to me what makes it a unique product worth
buying ? The review on newsforge just seemed to show how little it ran and I felt that the review went extremly light on them,I can understand the version they had was a test but still what is the point of sending something which is essentially not very usefull or different to wine running on some other linux varient at this stage of development for review ?
Human nature and it's relationship with science
,(in most cases and in my opinion), inovation , people's rights and in some cases,( in my opinion ), the flow of culture.These news pieces make me sad but I can understand the motivation behind them , I can guess why in most cases the film/music industry is worried about the internet and I appreciate why they would want to restrict what people do.The Things on slashdot which makes me realy sad are some people's comments and the attitude they reflect.
,but I have never heard any one on slashot when critiquing chomsky a) make a constructive comment, b) make specific examples , based on facts he gave/books he wrote/
,I believe that no technological advance will really solve this problem ,I think that in many ways it will make this problem worse.I Think Mr pearson should have taken human nature more into account when when he was wrighting his bold predictions for the future.
is something which fascinates me. Even if you could build some magic floating orb that took care of all a persons food and entertainment / communications needs I am positive that human's would find some way to annoy one another.
Everyday I hear about tech advance x and discovery y but everyday I also hear an unending stream of new's which just makes me sad.Most of the new's which makes me sad is to do with copyright and the efforts of groups to restrict
When ever there is a story concerning Theo de Raadt, richard stallman or even noam chomsky. Certain people give out about these characters, they go on and on and on , they spout so much bitterness and bile , but at the end of the day
These commentators, these amazingly knowledgeable
people , have not one productive or constructive criqique to make, they say things like "chomsky is a crazy leftwinger" or "his comments completly missrepresent facts", this is all fine maybe he is completly left wing maybe his comments do the things you say they do
debates he spoke at / points he made,of why what he said was wrong and or what was wrong with it specifically.
With people like stallman and theo de raddt There may be more specific complaints but still I find little or no constructive commentary all I find in general is people jumping on a band wagon people pissing on these people and making vague complaints which alot of the time basily boil down to "he is an asshole and I do not like him".When people make these comments , when people flame these people after making in some cases no attempt what so ever to find out about the person they are verbally assaulting , to find out what they have done and why they did it , they forget something.They forget that whether you like or disslike these people they contribute A HUGE amount of there time and effert and skill to the public good.
People forget the amount of work theo de raadt does which is freely available , they forget the amount he has given to people and they forget the
huge portion of his life which he has pored into projects like open bsd,no all they can seem to remember is "theo is a dick and he is not nice to his users", all theo's work, all of his efforts is of course in there eyes is secondary to the fact that theo is not particulalry nice to his users, never mind the fact that the people who complain about theo being a dick may not be the best examples of nice polite people who provide constructive advice which actualy help people in there day to day activites.
Then we have people's attitudes to stallman much of which envoles slagging his appearance , calling him a "commie", every dam thing,people
forget the amount of things he has done and the amount he continues to do for the public good
,all they seem to remember is that in certain
circles on slashdot it is fun to take a poke at him never mind the amount of time he devotes to
the cause of free software and his efforts to promote a cause which help's rather than hinders
the majority of people it touches,(if you want to debate the last point please do it in a constructive and informed mannor).
My point is the attitude of people toward's other people and how horribly selfish and inconsiderate people can be
With out a dought, the western world is going to be completly changed in the next few years by new technology and that technology's social implications, the question in my view is will the way people treat people change? will
leaps and bounds in communications matter a dam if all the majority of people can say is "you're a dick", and or some other negative remark.
The problem with online gaming reviews is that there is to much choice.Bettween the sheer amount of reviews and gamers comments on even one site it can be hard to make a decision as to whether a game is worth hard currency.
,(say for example pc gamer uk ),has is that in most cases it comes with a demo cd and a whole lot of software of varying standards and values.Depending on who you are and what sort of net connnection you have this bundle of software/demos/crap may prove very usefull or as was the case for me a nice source for cd cases for my cdr collection.
,(not me).
,prime among which was the occasional complete bullshit review's , which they gave months and months in advance of a title which would be plagued by delays and bugs and in the end would be shipped with some of the features mentioned in the review missing.Also the other thing pc gamer did which really pissed me off was to purposly late review one game while reviewing another game which was in competion with it early.All of the above reasons were precisely why I stopped buying pc gaming magazines.
,I turned more and more to either word of mouth , or online reviews.Being as I live in Ireland and most games
,finding out if I would like a game or not based on the gamers comments and or main review given on even just one site can be difficult. Any one who does not believe this should go to gamespot and look at the readers reviews of any final fantasy game, alot
.I Wish that there was a game site which had a huge list of games on it , I would click on the ones I liked and would be able to read reviews posted by people who liked similar things to what I like.I would then be able to vote for the review I thought I liked
The advantage a gaming mag
In general Pc gamer gave reviews of a reasonable standard and seemed to have a lot of good first hand info concerning up and coming games releases
,also it had a sort of writing humor/style which some people enjoyed
Why I stopped buying pc gamer was for a number of reasons
After I stopped purchasing pcgamer
come out first else where Online reviews were and
are my main source of info when it comes to deciding if I am going to get a game.As I mentioned at the start
of people have VERY different and strong opinions about what makes a good ff game.
Now in my opinion the answer to this problem of over information online in relation to game reviews is profiling
best and I would also be able to see through the miricale of like minded moderating the reviews
that people who like simlar games to me liked thought were the best.
Now my question is , is there a site out there that fits all of my requirements? If so I would like to know!
jc says geforce4 not good for new doom game: "On the topic of current Nvidia cards: Do not buy a GeForce4-MX for Doom. Nvidia has really made a mess of the naming conventions here. I always thought it was bad enough that GF2 was just a speed bumped GF1, while GF3 had significant architectural improvements over GF2. I expected GF4 to be the speed bumped GF3, but calling the NV17 GF4-MX really sucks. GF4-MX will still run Doom properly, but it will be using the NV10 codepath with only two texture units and no vertex shaders. A GF3 or 8500 will be much better performers. The GF4-MX may still be the card of choice for many people depending on pricing, especially considering that many games won't use four textures and vertex programs, but damn, I wish they had named it something else. As usual, there will be better cards available from both Nvidia and ATI by the time we ship the game. "
Yeah I remember pcgamer in particular used to do things like that a lot , review a crap game,(and give it a good review),which would get delayed and come out months later , but better still were the games that got reviewed way after they were released. This , if I remember right used to happen alot when there were two competing games in the same genre.Pc gamer would give one ,(the one who had the bigger budget presumably),a really good review and then wait for a good 2 months and then review the other, both games would be released about the same time, this used to really piss me off.
I used to spend money on mags like pc gamer and pc zone , but I got pissed off at both the tone and content of there review's and found that on the whole better and more up to date reviews with in depth commentary from gamers and a wider scope of opinions could be found online .I now do not see the point of spending money on pc gaming magazines who constantly have to do a balancing act bettween advertisers and there reader base which often leads to comprimise's in the quality of a review .
"*eww, i feel all dirty after having used that word now - i mean real innovation, not the chomsky-1984-doublespeak that has loaded the word with propaganda." Sorry ,what do you mean I do not understand you?
could some one explain this to me ?
" I just wish they weren't so contemptuous of the masses. If they weren't, they would notice that people are very sensible."
,in general the majority of people do not care about it and will not do any thing signifigant about it.
.Until this happens I do not believe that the public will be given, "fierce accountability measures", in fact I think that in most cases whatever laws or legislation that get's passed will most likely come out heavily in favor of big busines and not the general public.
.What is more likely to happen is a slow eroision of rights that the general public take for granted and are to apathetic to do anything about and by the time they realise, "hey why can't I do that any more ", and decide that maybe they should have done something about that 'crazy russian commie' who cracked adobe's ebook program and that maybe there Privacy is some thing they should care about,it will be to late and The majority of people through apathy and not a lack of inteligence will have, "grant(ed) our servants the tools they claim they need".
I do not think the problem is that the majority of people are stupid more that the majority of people are apethetic and lazy about issues which could effect them in both the long/short run, and unless something is shown to have a very direct immediate negative effect on there day to day lives
"Government power is kept in check by stripping the powerful down and subjecting them to scrutiny in the application of their delegated power, so that abuse of the power can be caught and rapidly dealt with. We are protected by enhancing our ability to see them, not by reducing their ability to see us."
The whole issue of who funds party's running for Government needs to be addressed before we will see truly open and observable government and business
People will not wake up one morning and suddenly find all there rights taken away and a secret police officer at there door enquiring about the printed copy of the anarchists cookbook under there bed
"NET is a "software platform". It's a language-neutral environment for writing programs that can easily and securely interoperate. Rather than targetting a particular hardware/OS combination, programs will instead target ".NET", and will run wherever .NET is implemented."
.net run on all os's where .net is
So will programs incorperating directx which are written for
implimented or will they just run on microsoft os's ?
You make a very good point and the same could be said to a certain extent about the music industry
.Any one who shops on ebay will Have enountered similar problems when dealing with people outside the states or thoese who do not accept pay pal.
,and or do not have a credit card paying for things online can become a real pain in the ass.
and it's methods of distribution.
The problem in my opinion is that there is no good universal form of digital cash or rather , no easy way to pay for some thing anywhere with t the click of a button
Admitedly pay pal works ok if you live in the us or selected countries and have a credit card,(if not you can not acept payment for a product you sell http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr cmd=p/gen/approved_countries-outside cheque here for further details ), but if you are outside the us
I live in ireland and everything I buy online be it from inside europe , australia or the us or else where is bought through my friend who has a credit card,(I give him cash he pays ), pay pal is the prefered method of payment as it does not nessessitate me going in to a bank and paying a ridiculus exchange rate and waiting around in a que for a long time,(the waiting and the effert of going to the bank is the worst ).
What is badly needed is a quick and easy way to pay some one for something online that will work any where in the world and does not nessessitate owning a credit card.
I am interested in finding out more aobut different digital payment methods so if any one knows of a particularly good one I am all ears .
Well ,I am in the market for a card that will run the new doom game when it comes out? If you have a non nvidia suggestion I will take it in to account look at some reviews and way up the prices.
Ok thanks I'l take you're word into account and have a look in to it before I decide which card to buy.
Taken from http://webdog.org/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=1&time=2001 0222225435
:"I just got back from Tokyo, where I demonstrated our new engine
John Carmack
running under MacOS-X with a GeForce 3 card. We had quite a bit of
discussion about whether we should be showing anything at all,
considering how far away we are from having a title on the shelves, so
we probably aren't going to be showing it anywhere else for quite a while."
The main reason for me being in the market for a new 3d card and my main requirement for the new 3d card which I intend to purchase is that it be able to play existing john carmack games at a higher graphical standard and my main worry when trying to decide which one to buy and which one is the best value is that the card I buy will not be able to cope with upcoming john carmack games such as the new doom game.
www.newegg.com says
a CardExpert GeForce2 MX 400 64MB SDRAM AGP No TV-Out - RETAIL - costs $46
and
VGA LEADTEK GEFORCE4 MX440 64MB VGA & TV-OUT. RETAIL BOX Part# - costs $122
and
VGA LEADTEK Geforce3 TI500 64MB TV/DVI RETAIL BOX
- $350
(other geforce 3's range from $110 up)
According to the prices shown on this site I can pick up a decent graphics card for just under $130
,(A satisfactory geforce3 can be had for under $130 if the geforce4 price turns out to be a missprint),That is about the price I am willing to pay for a 3d card that will do what I want it to.
"A quick peak over to GameSpot to sneak a peak at the previews. After you remove the previews for games already out, you come up with the following:
0 1. html
.People buy console's for games not to boast about how powerfull there console is .The playstation 2 has
,because for one thing I do not think people are willing to spend money as freely as they once were due to the present economic climet and back when people were willing to spend more
GameCube has around 60 titles previewed.
Xbox was around 140 previewed.
PlayStation2 has more than 300 previewed."
taken from
http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter
I think this really says it all
the huge back library of ps1 games and the most new titels in the works. There are far far more playstation 2's siting in peoples house at the moment than xbox's, hence a far bigger market for
developers to sell to.
By the time the xbox is able to take full advantadge of its enhanced graphical abilities it will be to late and the ps3 will be here which
will raise the ante in terms of tech specs even more.
another point which is this also taken from the afore mentioned site,(actsofgord.com),:
"To date, Sony has sold nearly 100,000,000 PS1's. That's a lot. And for the
sake of the argument, we'll pretend Nintendo sold nearly 30 million N64's
(though sales data suggests between 20 to 24 million, but who cares). So,
assuming every N64 owner also bought a PS1, that means 70% of the market bought ONE console. One console. Just one.
Now, obviously this didn't happen. Somewhere near half of N64 owners bought a PS1. Now, so we have 15 million N64 owners who remained exclusive, and 15 million who were multi-console (and 15 of the 100 million PS1 owners).
So, you've got 85 million PS1's who belong to one system owners, and 15
million N64's who belong to one system owners. That's, well, 100 million.
Add in the 15 million owners who bought multi-systems, and there you are at a market peak of 115 million users.Basic math shows that 87% of owners owned one system."
I think this shows quite clearly that the majority of people will not buy a playstation2 and a xbox
,(ps1 v n64 days), they only bought one console.
Now back in the ps1 v n64 days a console cost alot less,(stating the obvious I know), NOW look at the price i.e back then ps1 + n64 = $200 maybe a little more , now ps2 + xbox = $650 or more and this without any games?
For that sort of money required to buy two consoles you may as well go the extra inch and just buy a gaming pc.What graphics power the xbox appears to have now has already been surpased by the pc (nvidia g4),and this gap will continue to grow as more and more 3d cards are developed by the hardware industry.The upgrade ability of the pc will mean that in the end it will surpass any console currently on the market in terms of graphics.The question I am trying to raise is is there room on the market for the xbox?The xbox will not be bought en mass by playstation2 users
as it does not offer enough NEW and signifigantly different games or features which would make the
averedge ps2 owner fork out the extra money.
I personaly think that the xbox will not gain enough of the market share to pose a serious treat to sonys domination of the console market.