hey dude... wanta see some new cards... they just released an expansion to Ice Age.... you really need to check it out. Come on a pack of cards is only a few bucks... You know you want to try it out..
they need to open up all their code and do a massive sync with the Wine/Darwin, React, & Crossover groups. Between the groups they just about have the whole windows clone thing whipped. If you put all the programmers together from the groups, they could just about lick this thing. And that would make MS really happy!!!
and one of the most popular movies right now glorifies the days of piracy, when lawless men whored with slaves, raped and pillaged, and mamed and tortoured for fun... Or how about those 24/7 news chanels showing how the US kills, embargos, bombs childeren, ets, while showing the president balled faced lie about it.. How about the corporations that make parents work lots of OT in openly hostile environments, then when the boss runs off with the pension funds, the kids parents are now broke and mean. I don't think kid are learning bad things from video games...they usually have a pretty good handle on bad things before they're old enough to care about GTA.
As anybody who's got MIP, Minor in Posession, for alchol, when you're 16+ it usually goes on your ADULT record... even though it's a punishment for being a MINOR... even more silly when you're 18 and legally an adult but can't "posess" alchol... but can man the 24 hour quicky mart for corporations or serve the stupid drunks!!!
actually here in the US most states don't have laws about movie/video rating including fines. Now there are penalties for "adult" (i.e. pornographic) material, but for "R" rated movies, generallyh not. The catch to this is that the laws are always "in the wings" ready to be passed, so the movie companies created the MPAA to rate the movies.. as long as the theaters respect the guidlines...mostly... the law leaves them alone. That approach hasn't worked for video games mostly because parents don't respect the guidelines like they would with movies. What parent would send a 10 year old into "Friday the 13th" unattended, but got no problem with sending them to the store for Doom 3 then leaving them alone with it for 10 hours a day. The recent fiascos with GTA have just made the matters worse.. Unlike the theaters, the video game retailers just don't "get it". Made worse by the "Wal-marts" of the world that want to stock everything 24/7 and not deal with "moral" issues. Games aren't equivelant to guns, smokes, or liquor, but there need to be some reason about what ages get certian materials... Just like you wouldn't let a 10 year old purchase a box of ammo....even if they were your little brother and they were going hunting with your dad... it's just common sense.
how could the keys "match" if the person reported it stolen with at least one in his hand? If the insurance company is citing Ford serial number, or engine computer records, they are dangerously incompetent. If the keys in Ford records matched the set driving the car, then somebody inside the dealer illegally transfered those keys and is helping organized theft of vehicles. That the insurance agent did't immediately present that info to the police is negligent.
but that's how many cops and procutors feel. They want enough laws on the books to bury the "bad guys" when they need to. We have to trust them to do the "right thing". Why do you think so many people are charged with multiples of minor offences when they so something stupid like rob a bank. The way the legal system works, the minor charges can all be tried together or seperately, if you try to get of on the bank robbing, they'll keep you in court for years on trivial charges one-at-a-time. That's where the real treasonous behavior really is nodays.
I'm picking on the fact that the construction crew and management are not following the engineers and manufactures instuctions for using the building materials. That's neglegent, and arrogant.. but typical of govt projects and middle age contractors. We won't know if the Engineers were right or not because they don't have reliable, accurate records of the inspections showing the correct materials and processes being used.
This just like when you implement changes to software and the users don't RTFM before they start bitching that the software is crap. So they keep trying to do things their old way in spite of changes to the process made in writing.
but Vista is late "on purpose". The management spent too many development hours on marketing and all the new cool toys to lock you into Microsoft video, and Microsoft 3D and Microsoft DRM, etc that they failed to actually make the PRODUCT. It's like not feeding your hamster 10 days in a row and wondering why it died. Sure each day you didn't mean to starve the poor thing to death, but you didn't focus on the little guy when you should have and now he's dead..that's how it works. MS Vista is the same thing. They ran all over the place saying how great it would be..how much money they'd be making, but never actually made sure the product was really working. I know it's not trivial to make a project like that, but I'm not the one collecting collecting several billion dollars a month in PROFIT selling Windows. In capitalism, lots of money means your good at something... so MS should be a diety, they act like it. Bill and Steve have fired managers for less, maybe it's time to fire MS because they can't perform for their money either.
First, Companies are not spending enought time getting the hardware correct the first time around. I remember older hardware had few driver "issues". When you couldn't "just download" stuff, manufactures had to try a lot harder to make sure when you opened that box it was RIGHT or you were sending the whole thing back for refund. Now new hardware (CPU, motherboard, video, the whole lot) often requires downloading patches before the product is ON retail shelves... that's just really sloppy work.
Second, from a OSS or any programmer point of view, the idea that drivers should have that much effect on hardware is absolutely awful! That's the whole point of having APIs to follow them. I love 3D games, but almost never get to play them.. too much time keeping up drivers, updating games for the new drivers, etc.. then it's time to share the machine with the kids. Consoles manage to put API into firmware all the time. That a modern $1000 PC is still being beat in games by $300 trash boxes, for usability (not specs but how well and fun it actually PLAYS the games) is deploarable. What ATI and Nvidia are getting to is boarder line consumer fraud, because they're making up the features in drivers instead of committing it to something more "real". Look at the whole Nvidia "Pure Video" buy extra features thing. That stuff was SUPPOSED to be part of the cards we purchased.. like having a channel on the TV then finding out #7 wasn't ready so we'll let you pay for it later. Pure video was supposed to be out 3 years ago with the 6000 series, but it was "on the chip" so they didn't get in trouble for fraud.. now they want money for it. When things are in hardware it makes everybody more honest. I don't know how you'd implement 3D drivers in firmware, that's not my job, there's several multi-Billion dollar companies that should know how to do that! I just know there has to be a better way to enable hardware to be modular and work where I need it to work without the constant misadvertizement, misdirection and poor quality we have now.
I understand exactly what I'm saying... DVI is supposed to send uncompressed frames across the wire, that's the point. Mine is pushing a 1280x768 resoluton image by 60 full frames a second. It's rated for better than the Apple Cinema at 2560 x 1600! That's a lot of bits. I understand where the other guy is comming from, thinking in terms of having a server on the computer that generates ouput, kinda like the old mainframe, but that's really expensive use of CPU and you don't gain anything. Even if I had an Xterm like the other poster wanted, it would still have to output those pixles to the screen from a 3D video card somewhere even if that was in the same box as the picture.. like a laptop! Now the video is just sent from the card to the monitor, he's talking about adding a whole new layer of complexity to the problem, but not really addressing the problem at all, because now the monitor has to run something you can modify if your getting at the whole OSS thing.
I've seen that box on the shelvs and that's exctly what I'm whining about. Out of the 805 pices 100-150 are the really small 1x1 or 1x2 pieces, another 100-150 are 2x2. There's only about 100 or so of the classic 2x4 (or better) blocks in the package. Half of the package of smaller stuff is filler I'm not really going to use. when I was a kid, I used to routinely make creations several feet high or square, (we split the old pile 4 ways when we "grew up") it would take 6-8 of those boxes (at $20 USD each) to get that many of the classic blocks again.
As far as the technic pieces, the new "no studs" policy may help. Everything will be conneted with "pins" or "axles" so it should make better stuff. I'm not wanting to make life-size things, but even "volumous" (but fairly light) things like you can make out of a simple Kinex or Erector set are really difficult from Lego technic. Think Draw Bridge, Robot Arm, Ferris wheel, etc. The new system has great processing power for some elaborate stuff, but the plastic pieces may be the limiting factor.
The first version of this section had it correct. Manufactures had to give you the source code and the keys to allow it to operate on the hardware. That would be an almost direct reference to the TiVo case.
Where I feel it goes wrong is in the changes in this new draft. If you are not running their version of the code, why do they need to allow you access to their media or their online serivices?
Let me change to an example of a GPL'd version of World of Warcraft. While the game engine code maybe GPL, there are still seperate copyright terms for the images and music as well as seperate TOS to play online. If I was to create a game like that and offer it as a service, I would need to authorize users that have paid to be online on MY servers, and that they have legal copies of the game and are not cheating. I would need to have signed copies of my program out there for my subscribers. Those keys could not be public. Under the orginal wording, I could release different keys for the source code version. They would allow the code to compile and function.. but it wouldn't (nor should I be compelled to) be allowed access to my network or maybe even my game images and music. If you think about it, that is exactly how Quake 3 is licensed right now. In another Blizzard case, look at Bnet.d written a few years ago, or the SW Galaxy project. This is shows exactly what would be protected under the first version of the wording. Those programmers are creating their own game data and running their own servers.. that should be allowed. What would be unfair is to force operators to allow unpaid, uncontrolled agents on their networks.
With things like DVD it again gets sticky. I understand why they put it there, BUT... like in my other examples, with normal GPL'd DVD players you can read DVDs, just not protected ones without the key. To get the key, you have to agree to certian legal conditions. Linux can burn video DVDs just fine and read them just fine without that key.. so the functionality is equivelant, the owner of the media content wishes their stuff to have more restrictions... that should be permitted. Under the first draft, the current situation is correct, as long as your changed version can read and write to the hardware you're legal. Under the new wording, it's requiring them to give you keys to the other people's media also....
On a side note, what's missing here is the concept of security software being under GPL. They're makeing changes this round almost pro-consumer, anti-corperation which is foolish. Security software is a great example of where this new wording is a huge problem. Suppose I write a program that creates private networks, like my WOW clone, only for financial applications. If My employer bank gives that software away and releases the source code under GPLV3 do you see the problem? I need every bit signed on both ends to ensure security of my network... It's no trouble to give the general public a different key with the source code so other banks can use it too, but under these new terms they're saying I have to give THE keys and they have to access my same network, now I can't control what people are doing.
I understand RMS and buddies to be pro-consumer about this new draft, but they're not thinking about what they're really saying. Things like cable boxes and Tivos ARE going to be a real problem. But the GPL license is not (and cannot legally be) the place to fix the contractual end of the problem. The first draft got it correct, I could take my cable box, Tivo, etc and and be FREE to create my own network of my own stuff if I wanted, the new version forces service companies to allow me to operate unauthorized equipment without compensation. See the difference.
MONO is not.Net... not by a long shot..net is the replacement for VB studio and all the interfaces and controls that go with it. Mono is just an implementation of the C# language. Mono cannot legally implement a lot of stuff in a way that would interface with the Microsoft version. Debate is raging that they could run into legal trouble for even trying to write the same API call names to make their code compatible with interfaces and communications stacks, ets.. and without the same names.. well, it's not.net compatible, is it. Mono stuff can be run with.Net tools because it's valid C# code, but.Net code, and all the API calls and stacks and tools, cannot run on a Mono implementation.
Yes, there's lots of cool.Net projects out there under GPL, but they might as well be in Visual basic, because they're not remotely cross-platform. Geeks notice the difference, PHBs only care about being free as in beer.
Actually, I like your idea of sending represenatives from a state based on over all votes in the state, not just the winner of one district. I believe that the idea of "districts" is not actually in the consitution anyway, I believe the states can send representitives however they choose, but federal election law may define some of that. it's an artificial construct to make people think things are more "fair" when it really maintains the status quo. If reps were elected your way, it would be more like the parlimentary systems. The voters would vote for parties or for a list of 15 spots and the highest spots would win. That would remove a lot of party power because many districts re-elect the same incumbant, often unopposed, and the Parties get to choose that person, not the voters. Many good people don't get into office because they have to "pay their dues" to the party and the voters are denied the opportunity to even choose them. Also, "third" parties would emerge because in states with 15, 25, 45 seats they can't lock all the seats to only 2 parties. The districting system perpetuates that because the minority party voters in one spot are always aginst the "mobs" so that continues the myth of throwing your votes away if you don't vote for the parties.
That's why we have electors. That allows the States to choose the president seperately of the Congress. The key is that Electors were not meant to be chosen by popular ballot. States should choose their own people to send from some other already elected branch. That way, informed people can see thru the BS, but also be accountable for their own jobs too.
about the patent thing, not really, in fact better on-board api would allow them to maintain the patent secrecy even better. What you want is a card that responds to the API.. similar to how serial modems used to respond to command sets. You don't care what goes on inside, just that the harware accepts a certian set of commands. Part of that is why 3D can be so cheap.. because graphics cards are like winmodems.. all the heavy lifting is done on the host CPU.. the GPU just crunches numbers fed to it really fast, it doesn't know anything about them. Driver concerns go away because you only have to implement the API, and the software/hardware vendors can't hide behind patents because you're "using" the hardware not "hacking" into or "reverse engineering" it. It would also firmly plant the idea that the patents in question go with the physical hardware instead of being under some vague EULA with crazy illegal terms tied to the OS, spyware, etc.
to clarify my last post... current GPUs are like super fancy WinModems. We all remember when those became popular. That's why professional 3D apps won't/can't touch them with a ten-foot pole.
not really, Nvidia uses it's own super-secret code to talk to it's own chips in assembler, that's why they won't ever let the drivers be open. They're not sending just polygons to the GPU but the actual programming is being compiled on your CPU first then sent over. It's horribly wasteful of resources, and Nvidia doesn't want you to see how all the fancy features are just "hacks" to old ones, or how it's not processing the instuctions from the game program exactly how they tell the developers it should be.
USB keyboards and mice, and probably other stuff, had a spec since the mid-90s... pre-windows 98. I had motherboards in 97 with USB that never quite worked correctly because MS wanted different drivers than the spec built into the boards. So yes, the MS monopoly clearly held back proper adoption, maybe not thru malice, but thru laziness. I've found MS plays the "techincal difficulty" card quite well over the years. They're a company with more money than god, and some of the best programers in the world.. if they don't do something correctly the first time it's ALWAYS on purpose...neglect or malice... never forget that.
you realize that DVI dual_channel is several GIGABYTES per second (the number 19 seems to pop up from somewhere) throughput, where gigabit ethernet is only one GIGABIT per second (122 megabytes/s) throughput. Video cards do a lot of work to get the graphics on screen... even more for games. In 3D shooters, more bits are being processed on the video card's internal processor and ram and fed straight to the monitor, than any other part of your system.
please, so dramatic, that's what I2C is for! and every PCI spec card has a line to it for just this purpose. There's video bios hacks out there right now, but it's off the radar because card bioses have gotten better, and cards are sticking to vendor spec more, so we don't need to hack them as much.
Apple hardware does some of this. Add in cards have to provide basic functions to the Apple OS that's one reason Apple's hardware works so well together, the boards have to match what the OS expects to see. That's the real reason Apple add-in cards cost more. They usually have 2x or more bios memory built into the hardware. A while ago there were write ups on the cross platform ATI9600 http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2502&p=9 (anandtech) that could handle the 30" displays. All the reviews were commenting on how cool it was to finally have cross platform cards so they commented on how ATI did it. Basically, the only reason more cards aren't like that is that it costs a dollar or two more for the extra ram and coding time, when they can make cards that work just fine in windows only and expect you to download resource hogging drivers later. All OSes would work better if the drivers were on hardware... for a matter of fact, that's actually part of the PCI spec to have object level card bios... for all the platforms EXECPT x86 where they allow and exception for binary only. The specs require a neutral language like Forth or something that's simple for any platform to quickly decode and run.
The Poster is correct, think of all the time and energy wasted, not to mention monopolies locked in, just because people cut corners. When modem manufactures stopped putting firmware and controllers onboard modems we had a great resource hogging fiasco on our hands. If graphics card vendors would put the open gl routines right on the card, we wouldn't need to skirt around the GPL to get drivers that were "legal". IF wireless cards put the firmware on the cards, then they wouldn't have to "hide" the code to maintaing FCC compliance.
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hey dude... wanta see some new cards... they just released an expansion to Ice Age.... you really need to check it out. Come on a pack of cards is only a few bucks... You know you want to try it out..
they need to open up all their code and do a massive sync with the Wine/Darwin, React, & Crossover groups. Between the groups they just about have the whole windows clone thing whipped. If you put all the programmers together from the groups, they could just about lick this thing. And that would make MS really happy!!!
and one of the most popular movies right now glorifies the days of piracy, when lawless men whored with slaves, raped and pillaged, and mamed and tortoured for fun... Or how about those 24/7 news chanels showing how the US kills, embargos, bombs childeren, ets, while showing the president balled faced lie about it.. How about the corporations that make parents work lots of OT in openly hostile environments, then when the boss runs off with the pension funds, the kids parents are now broke and mean. I don't think kid are learning bad things from video games...they usually have a pretty good handle on bad things before they're old enough to care about GTA.
As anybody who's got MIP, Minor in Posession, for alchol, when you're 16+ it usually goes on your ADULT record... even though it's a punishment for being a MINOR... even more silly when you're 18 and legally an adult but can't "posess" alchol... but can man the 24 hour quicky mart for corporations or serve the stupid drunks!!!
actually here in the US most states don't have laws about movie/video rating including fines. Now there are penalties for "adult" (i.e. pornographic) material, but for "R" rated movies, generallyh not. The catch to this is that the laws are always "in the wings" ready to be passed, so the movie companies created the MPAA to rate the movies.. as long as the theaters respect the guidlines...mostly... the law leaves them alone. That approach hasn't worked for video games mostly because parents don't respect the guidelines like they would with movies. What parent would send a 10 year old into "Friday the 13th" unattended, but got no problem with sending them to the store for Doom 3 then leaving them alone with it for 10 hours a day. The recent fiascos with GTA have just made the matters worse.. Unlike the theaters, the video game retailers just don't "get it". Made worse by the "Wal-marts" of the world that want to stock everything 24/7 and not deal with "moral" issues. Games aren't equivelant to guns, smokes, or liquor, but there need to be some reason about what ages get certian materials... Just like you wouldn't let a 10 year old purchase a box of ammo....even if they were your little brother and they were going hunting with your dad... it's just common sense.
how could the keys "match" if the person reported it stolen with at least one in his hand? If the insurance company is citing Ford serial number, or engine computer records, they are dangerously incompetent. If the keys in Ford records matched the set driving the car, then somebody inside the dealer illegally transfered those keys and is helping organized theft of vehicles. That the insurance agent did't immediately present that info to the police is negligent.
but that's how many cops and procutors feel. They want enough laws on the books to bury the "bad guys" when they need to. We have to trust them to do the "right thing". Why do you think so many people are charged with multiples of minor offences when they so something stupid like rob a bank. The way the legal system works, the minor charges can all be tried together or seperately, if you try to get of on the bank robbing, they'll keep you in court for years on trivial charges one-at-a-time. That's where the real treasonous behavior really is nodays.
they're moving out so they can sell it to Halburton to run as a political prison.. .duh.
This just like when you implement changes to software and the users don't RTFM before they start bitching that the software is crap. So they keep trying to do things their old way in spite of changes to the process made in writing.
but Vista is late "on purpose". The management spent too many development hours on marketing and all the new cool toys to lock you into Microsoft video, and Microsoft 3D and Microsoft DRM, etc that they failed to actually make the PRODUCT. It's like not feeding your hamster 10 days in a row and wondering why it died. Sure each day you didn't mean to starve the poor thing to death, but you didn't focus on the little guy when you should have and now he's dead..that's how it works. MS Vista is the same thing. They ran all over the place saying how great it would be..how much money they'd be making, but never actually made sure the product was really working. I know it's not trivial to make a project like that, but I'm not the one collecting collecting several billion dollars a month in PROFIT selling Windows. In capitalism, lots of money means your good at something... so MS should be a diety, they act like it. Bill and Steve have fired managers for less, maybe it's time to fire MS because they can't perform for their money either.
First, Companies are not spending enought time getting the hardware correct the first time around. I remember older hardware had few driver "issues". When you couldn't "just download" stuff, manufactures had to try a lot harder to make sure when you opened that box it was RIGHT or you were sending the whole thing back for refund. Now new hardware (CPU, motherboard, video, the whole lot) often requires downloading patches before the product is ON retail shelves... that's just really sloppy work.
Second, from a OSS or any programmer point of view, the idea that drivers should have that much effect on hardware is absolutely awful! That's the whole point of having APIs to follow them. I love 3D games, but almost never get to play them.. too much time keeping up drivers, updating games for the new drivers, etc.. then it's time to share the machine with the kids. Consoles manage to put API into firmware all the time. That a modern $1000 PC is still being beat in games by $300 trash boxes, for usability (not specs but how well and fun it actually PLAYS the games) is deploarable. What ATI and Nvidia are getting to is boarder line consumer fraud, because they're making up the features in drivers instead of committing it to something more "real". Look at the whole Nvidia "Pure Video" buy extra features thing. That stuff was SUPPOSED to be part of the cards we purchased.. like having a channel on the TV then finding out #7 wasn't ready so we'll let you pay for it later. Pure video was supposed to be out 3 years ago with the 6000 series, but it was "on the chip" so they didn't get in trouble for fraud.. now they want money for it. When things are in hardware it makes everybody more honest. I don't know how you'd implement 3D drivers in firmware, that's not my job, there's several multi-Billion dollar companies that should know how to do that! I just know there has to be a better way to enable hardware to be modular and work where I need it to work without the constant misadvertizement, misdirection and poor quality we have now.
I understand exactly what I'm saying... DVI is supposed to send uncompressed frames across the wire, that's the point. Mine is pushing a 1280x768 resoluton image by 60 full frames a second. It's rated for better than the Apple Cinema at 2560 x 1600! That's a lot of bits. I understand where the other guy is comming from, thinking in terms of having a server on the computer that generates ouput, kinda like the old mainframe, but that's really expensive use of CPU and you don't gain anything. Even if I had an Xterm like the other poster wanted, it would still have to output those pixles to the screen from a 3D video card somewhere even if that was in the same box as the picture.. like a laptop! Now the video is just sent from the card to the monitor, he's talking about adding a whole new layer of complexity to the problem, but not really addressing the problem at all, because now the monitor has to run something you can modify if your getting at the whole OSS thing.
As far as the technic pieces, the new "no studs" policy may help. Everything will be conneted with "pins" or "axles" so it should make better stuff. I'm not wanting to make life-size things, but even "volumous" (but fairly light) things like you can make out of a simple Kinex or Erector set are really difficult from Lego technic. Think Draw Bridge, Robot Arm, Ferris wheel, etc. The new system has great processing power for some elaborate stuff, but the plastic pieces may be the limiting factor.
Where I feel it goes wrong is in the changes in this new draft. If you are not running their version of the code, why do they need to allow you access to their media or their online serivices?
Let me change to an example of a GPL'd version of World of Warcraft. While the game engine code maybe GPL, there are still seperate copyright terms for the images and music as well as seperate TOS to play online. If I was to create a game like that and offer it as a service, I would need to authorize users that have paid to be online on MY servers, and that they have legal copies of the game and are not cheating. I would need to have signed copies of my program out there for my subscribers. Those keys could not be public. Under the orginal wording, I could release different keys for the source code version. They would allow the code to compile and function.. but it wouldn't (nor should I be compelled to) be allowed access to my network or maybe even my game images and music. If you think about it, that is exactly how Quake 3 is licensed right now. In another Blizzard case, look at Bnet.d written a few years ago, or the SW Galaxy project. This is shows exactly what would be protected under the first version of the wording. Those programmers are creating their own game data and running their own servers.. that should be allowed. What would be unfair is to force operators to allow unpaid, uncontrolled agents on their networks.
With things like DVD it again gets sticky. I understand why they put it there, BUT... like in my other examples, with normal GPL'd DVD players you can read DVDs, just not protected ones without the key. To get the key, you have to agree to certian legal conditions. Linux can burn video DVDs just fine and read them just fine without that key.. so the functionality is equivelant, the owner of the media content wishes their stuff to have more restrictions... that should be permitted. Under the first draft, the current situation is correct, as long as your changed version can read and write to the hardware you're legal. Under the new wording, it's requiring them to give you keys to the other people's media also....
On a side note, what's missing here is the concept of security software being under GPL. They're makeing changes this round almost pro-consumer, anti-corperation which is foolish. Security software is a great example of where this new wording is a huge problem. Suppose I write a program that creates private networks, like my WOW clone, only for financial applications. If My employer bank gives that software away and releases the source code under GPLV3 do you see the problem? I need every bit signed on both ends to ensure security of my network... It's no trouble to give the general public a different key with the source code so other banks can use it too, but under these new terms they're saying I have to give THE keys and they have to access my same network, now I can't control what people are doing.
I understand RMS and buddies to be pro-consumer about this new draft, but they're not thinking about what they're really saying. Things like cable boxes and Tivos ARE going to be a real problem. But the GPL license is not (and cannot legally be) the place to fix the contractual end of the problem. The first draft got it correct, I could take my cable box, Tivo, etc and and be FREE to create my own network of my own stuff if I wanted, the new version forces service companies to allow me to operate unauthorized equipment without compensation. See the difference.
Yes, there's lots of cool .Net projects out there under GPL, but they might as well be in Visual basic, because they're not remotely cross-platform. Geeks notice the difference, PHBs only care about being free as in beer.
Actually, I like your idea of sending represenatives from a state based on over all votes in the state, not just the winner of one district. I believe that the idea of "districts" is not actually in the consitution anyway, I believe the states can send representitives however they choose, but federal election law may define some of that. it's an artificial construct to make people think things are more "fair" when it really maintains the status quo. If reps were elected your way, it would be more like the parlimentary systems. The voters would vote for parties or for a list of 15 spots and the highest spots would win. That would remove a lot of party power because many districts re-elect the same incumbant, often unopposed, and the Parties get to choose that person, not the voters. Many good people don't get into office because they have to "pay their dues" to the party and the voters are denied the opportunity to even choose them. Also, "third" parties would emerge because in states with 15, 25, 45 seats they can't lock all the seats to only 2 parties. The districting system perpetuates that because the minority party voters in one spot are always aginst the "mobs" so that continues the myth of throwing your votes away if you don't vote for the parties.
That's why we have electors. That allows the States to choose the president seperately of the Congress. The key is that Electors were not meant to be chosen by popular ballot. States should choose their own people to send from some other already elected branch. That way, informed people can see thru the BS, but also be accountable for their own jobs too.
about the patent thing, not really, in fact better on-board api would allow them to maintain the patent secrecy even better. What you want is a card that responds to the API.. similar to how serial modems used to respond to command sets. You don't care what goes on inside, just that the harware accepts a certian set of commands. Part of that is why 3D can be so cheap.. because graphics cards are like winmodems.. all the heavy lifting is done on the host CPU.. the GPU just crunches numbers fed to it really fast, it doesn't know anything about them. Driver concerns go away because you only have to implement the API, and the software/hardware vendors can't hide behind patents because you're "using" the hardware not "hacking" into or "reverse engineering" it. It would also firmly plant the idea that the patents in question go with the physical hardware instead of being under some vague EULA with crazy illegal terms tied to the OS, spyware, etc.
to clarify my last post... current GPUs are like super fancy WinModems. We all remember when those became popular. That's why professional 3D apps won't/can't touch them with a ten-foot pole.
not picking on just Nvidia, ATI does it too.
It would be no different than updating drivers now. Heck, the ATI and Nvidia drivers can update code on boards if they need to... it's trivial.
USB keyboards and mice, and probably other stuff, had a spec since the mid-90s... pre-windows 98. I had motherboards in 97 with USB that never quite worked correctly because MS wanted different drivers than the spec built into the boards. So yes, the MS monopoly clearly held back proper adoption, maybe not thru malice, but thru laziness. I've found MS plays the "techincal difficulty" card quite well over the years. They're a company with more money than god, and some of the best programers in the world.. if they don't do something correctly the first time it's ALWAYS on purpose...neglect or malice... never forget that.
you realize that DVI dual_channel is several GIGABYTES per second (the number 19 seems to pop up from somewhere) throughput, where gigabit ethernet is only one GIGABIT per second (122 megabytes/s) throughput. Video cards do a lot of work to get the graphics on screen... even more for games. In 3D shooters, more bits are being processed on the video card's internal processor and ram and fed straight to the monitor, than any other part of your system.
please, so dramatic, that's what I2C is for! and every PCI spec card has a line to it for just this purpose. There's video bios hacks out there right now, but it's off the radar because card bioses have gotten better, and cards are sticking to vendor spec more, so we don't need to hack them as much.
The Poster is correct, think of all the time and energy wasted, not to mention monopolies locked in, just because people cut corners. When modem manufactures stopped putting firmware and controllers onboard modems we had a great resource hogging fiasco on our hands. If graphics card vendors would put the open gl routines right on the card, we wouldn't need to skirt around the GPL to get drivers that were "legal". IF wireless cards put the firmware on the cards, then they wouldn't have to "hide" the code to maintaing FCC compliance.