They'll do this, effectively crushing OpenGL on Windows. It will force game/application developers to write windows-only apps instead of cross-platform. OpenGL made is quite a bit easier to do that.
Then, when the EU or whomever else comes knocking four years later, it won't matter. Pay another few billion dollars and you're scott-free.
Microsoft has such a huge bank-roll that they could continue to operate like this for a long time, until finally someone says "Microsoft Windows is BANNED." Which would never happen, because they're a monopoly and many people depend far too heavily on it.
I've never seen a news report that goes something like this "Area man purchases new TV. He pays for it with a check that was backed by the proper amount of money in his own account. The transaction went smoothly and he enjoys his new TV."
Don't be fooled by the media. While retail outlets are the victims of theft and other types of criminal activity, the vast majority of transactions are not faudulent. Store returns have long been allowed because it brings people into the stores. With the behemoth corporations like WalMart taking over, they don't really need to do anything to draw people in anymore. They'll use whatever excuse they need to to make it sound like they're only doing it because they've been forced into it.
So, hopefully the 939's become the only Semptron available soon enough. I'd really like to see as many x86-64 processors installed as possible.
I'm guessing the new Semptrons overclock as well as they do is because of the lower cache. It's almost always memory that can't handle the faster clock speeds, so with less of it you're more likely to get a better overclock. But there will still be Semptron 64's that don't overclock any better then an Athlon 64 because someone's eventually going to get the more tempermental RAM at some point.
I don't think so - I'm sure they're counting on the low end chips being supported by Via, SiS, and other chipset makers like they have been for two decades.
AMD doesn't make any of their own chipsets and AMD chips are selling better and better every day.
Unfortunately, the Pentium-M doesn't support x64. And I sure hope AMD dumps the Semptron soon- by the looks of it they will, since the AthlonXP architecture it's based on isn't going to scale much further.
Well, I work at a prison complex with over 1,000 users - and a great deal of them are the likes of guards, wardens, and maintenence personell. Most of these people have zero computer skills.
Don't get me wrong, help desk gets calls every day for *really* stupid things. But it's almost always the same group of users that call over and over. It makes it seem like all the users are idiots, but you just don't notice all the users that don't have trouble.
But even in your case, if you do work with real computer newbies, I don't think it's fair to call them stupid, or morons, or whatever else a lot of techies feel the need to call people. Although, some of them really are =)
But more specifically, in the case of DRM, the attitude seems to be "people won't care, they'll just feed money to the MPAA/RIAA and take it in the ass like the morons they all are." As we both agree, this isn't because people knowingly give up their right to own - they DON'T KNOW they are giving up their right to own. How would they?
If I really cared about DRM, I wouldn't run Windows NOR MacOS. Their very nature of being single-vendor closed-source operating systems lends itself very easily to restrictions imposed by DRM.
It doesn't matter if MacOSX is based on a BSD kernel, it's still just as easy for them to lock the whole thing down since there's no GPL.
I really don't like the MacOS GUI. I never have. A lot of people don't - I mean, it works and it's easy but I still don't like it. Don't assume everyone adores it because some loud people on Slashdot proclaim it's the end-all.
I'd probably rather have 90% of all PC's running MacOSX then Windows XP, but I'd RATHER have be 90% on some sort of open system.
People DO care about DRM. It's just that a lot of people simply don't know about it. There's no "HEY THIS CD HAS DRM! You are basically renting it!" stickers on things, there's no commercials about it, and there's not enough of us techies to explain it to everyone.
I give more credit to the general computer user population then a lot of people on Slashdot. I find it somewhat condescending; the attitude towards them. Just because someone's not a career computer user doesn't mean they're stupid. Even the "cryptic and difficult" Windows XP does not present a very difficult chalenge to perform most basic tasks including using the Explorer.
I'm going to agree with you on this one. I guess I just don't do enough activities that have little communities like bikers or clubbers. So, when I moved to someplace where I knew nobody, I made connections through people at work.
You might hang out with a guy from the office, meet some of his friends, and get your start that way.
It *may* be a bad idea to get too friendly with the boss, because it would hurt even more when they fire you/lay you off/close the position/whatever. But for your peers, I don't see a problem at all.
Work is such a big part of our lives and to keep is seperated TOO much is a bad idea IMO. I think you'd end up resenting work even more. Going out for some beers after work on Friday allows you to get more familiar with the people you work with and it does help you get along when you return to the office. We're all in this shit together, we might as well enjoy each others' company as much as we can.
Where does the progress come from? If it weren't for w3c and the new competition to browsers from the likes of Mozilla/FireFox, there wouldn't BE any progress. Since when does Microsoft do anything besides release minor updates to software when there's no competition?
Competing for the best back-end technologies is easy. Your users don't need to have a special client if you use ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion, SQL, Oracle, whatever. It doesn't make a difference, and thus the back-end development is much more smooth compared to developing a working UI for the browsers to render.
Just saying "progress will be made" sounds awfully ignorant to me. And to make you sound even more condescending, if even possible, you end your statement with that line about high school.
You're an example of the same "my shit is better then yours" or "my shit is more important then yours" bullshit that goes around every day. BOTH technologies are important - client and back-end.
Being a little extra-cautious is a good idea when there's lives at stake. With the current track history of shuttle problems and the fact that the entire world wants to know what's going to happen, I think it's in order.
All of these things will give them valuable data for future missions. They'll try to repair the thing, and even if they aren't successful they'll know what they'll need to do next time. If it works, they'll have a better understanding on what needs to be done to prevent the damage and/or how to fix it faster.
Despite the fact that the moon landing was several decades ago, space exploration is in it's infancy and there's so many unknowns. You shouldn't take it lightly - NASA obviously doesn't.
Not sure how your comparison of the "browser wars" is like the Cold War - how does the cold war mean "you get garbage output?"
"Microsoft is clearly saying they're working on standards"
Ohh, shit then. Let's believe it. Especially because you can't see it yet. I'm not saying that they AREN'T working on standards but Microsoft doesn't have a very good track record in this regard. You can't blame people for being just a little skeptical.
Now, Bill Gates might not be coding the browser but he's involved with the high level descision making and if he gets together with Ballmer and says "let's make IE *almost* standards compliant to keep people locked into IE" then guess what the programmers do?
A lot of great software has been produced by Microsoft - anyone that denies that has an agenda. Unfortunately, every single peice of MS Software - Every package - is marred with *something* that tries to lock you in. It's very unfortunate.
I think that's funny too. While I don't smoke, I have done so on numerous occations while growing up and I find that Alcohol is a much worse drug then pot. It really messes you up and if you take too much, you actually vomit. Talk about bad stuff.
Yet, because it's got the stamp of approval of the law, it's totally socially acceptable. It's even okay in many workplaces to come in late or not at all because of a hangover. "Aww, boss I drank WAY too much at that party, I need to take the day out." "Okay Joe, no problem, hope you feel better."
Ohh, but weed is a "gateway" drug.. yea, my ass. If you had tendencies to do other drugs you'd have done it without weed. I think the only reason it might be more "gateway" then alcohol is because it's illegal - once you do one illegal drug, why not try others? If it were legal, that would no longer be the case.
You do realize that firmware is just software on embedded devices? It's usually stored in some sort of non-volatile memory. This doesn't make it any faster then software stuck on a hard or floppy disk.
And That Old Pentium's 66Mhz backplane is so much more then enough to push around a cablemodem's maximum throughput.
If you actually read the article, you'd see that this is a distribution of one of the BSD's that is trimmed down and web-interfacified making it extremely easy to install and configure. Install two network cards, load up the CD, and you're pretty much good to go. I don't think installing some network cards is a big deal for a lot of gamers that build their own machines.
I don't know about "l33t" but I think it's fun doing these things, and it can save you some money if you have the extra hardware and you could really use the features that are normally found in more expensive "pre-made" solutions.
Look around the net. I got a new one from eBay - it was indeed new (you have to be careful sometimes) and I've seen them online by searching around for anywhere from $800 - $1000.
The warranty is superb! I had a few dead pixels in the middle of the screen, so I called them up, gave them the serial, and they shipped me a new one. Got it in two days. I put the old one in the box and shipped it back, free of charge. Three year support on this baby.
So even if you got a used one, you should have no trouble getting a replacement if there's any problems with it. I didn't have to provide any proof of purchase or anything. It's considered a "business" item so the support is much better.
I work at a jail and it was be pretty funny if this guy was put in with the rest of the inmates - "what are you in for?" "Well, I disclosed a serious security flaw. You?" "Rape, drugs, you know."
Somewhat off-topic here, but many of the "photo" inkjets these days can produce more correct color then most consumer/office color laser printers. You really gotta get into the heavy duty expensive color lasers before they get good.
It's a nightmare trying to get correct colors out of any of the HP color lasers I've used, yet I can get damned good color prints from a $40 HP inkjet.
Obviously, color lasers are awesome because they won't bleed or fade like inkjet, and they're great for printing things like charts and color documents that don't need correct colors. But that's all beside the point.
I don't think I've ever heard of an inkjet printer watermarking the page like these laser printers, although I have heard of them not printing currency.
As you know, the response times usually handed out are the time it takes for a pixel to go from black (0) to white (255) or white to black. LCD pixels can do this much faster then they can go from black to grey (128.) Another interesting attribute of LCD pixels is that they can go from white to grey faster then black to grey.
Some new LCD panels take advantage of this knowledge. To turn grey, it will push the pixel to full on, from black (0) to white (255), and then back down to grey (128)- and the whole process takes less time then going from black to grey. Unfortunately, in some circumstances you can see it and it might produce a "sparkle" effect on the video. But it's not distracting.
Anyways, to my original point, manufacturers are recording the response time from black to white, which isn't generally representative of the real performance of the LCD, which may be dismal when going from white/black to grey, or even grey to grey.
However, there's been advances in the manufacturing process and many new LCD screens reduce the ghosting to "can't even notice it" levels even without using tricks.
Friend of mine has a Samsung 19" LCD screen that claims 12ms response. I have a 24" HP 2335 widescreen that claims 12ms. My screen is a gem - it's an underrated screen for the price (You can get them new for $800) and it's in the "can't even notice it" category. Meanwhile, the Samsung is difficult to use for fast paced FPS type games.
I guess my point is that even though the manufacturer might claim 8ms or 10ms or 12 - they might not be bullshitting =) It could be a really awesome screen. But the only way to tell is by actually using the screen, because the current system of measurement doesn't take into account the TTG - time to grey.
You're about the 30th person to say this, so I'm thinking you're joking. If not, please, proceed to the nearest highway and lay across the left lane at night.
Well no shit. But it's a pain in the ass. I'm not sure why you're intent on defending this lack of ethernet support like this?
I made my own USB - PS2 connector for the Xbox ports and that was enough for me. I don't need to spend more time on it then that. If BSD isn't going to run on the machine properly, it's not a big deal. I hardly run Linux on it anymore either (which, incidently, has always worked just fine with the network card.)
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They'll do this, effectively crushing OpenGL on Windows. It will force game/application developers to write windows-only apps instead of cross-platform. OpenGL made is quite a bit easier to do that.
Then, when the EU or whomever else comes knocking four years later, it won't matter. Pay another few billion dollars and you're scott-free.
Microsoft has such a huge bank-roll that they could continue to operate like this for a long time, until finally someone says "Microsoft Windows is BANNED." Which would never happen, because they're a monopoly and many people depend far too heavily on it.
The problem is, the people responsible for abusing such a system would probably be well known - government leaders that you elected. Go figure.
Probably fossil fuels! Especially because of the bad rep that nuclear power, a clean and effecient power system, has..
I agree, it's quite silly to claim this is a clean burning fire.
I've never seen a news report that goes something like this "Area man purchases new TV. He pays for it with a check that was backed by the proper amount of money in his own account. The transaction went smoothly and he enjoys his new TV."
Don't be fooled by the media. While retail outlets are the victims of theft and other types of criminal activity, the vast majority of transactions are not faudulent. Store returns have long been allowed because it brings people into the stores. With the behemoth corporations like WalMart taking over, they don't really need to do anything to draw people in anymore. They'll use whatever excuse they need to to make it sound like they're only doing it because they've been forced into it.
Don't believe the hype.
So, hopefully the 939's become the only Semptron available soon enough. I'd really like to see as many x86-64 processors installed as possible.
I'm guessing the new Semptrons overclock as well as they do is because of the lower cache. It's almost always memory that can't handle the faster clock speeds, so with less of it you're more likely to get a better overclock. But there will still be Semptron 64's that don't overclock any better then an Athlon 64 because someone's eventually going to get the more tempermental RAM at some point.
I don't think so - I'm sure they're counting on the low end chips being supported by Via, SiS, and other chipset makers like they have been for two decades.
AMD doesn't make any of their own chipsets and AMD chips are selling better and better every day.
Unfortunately, the Pentium-M doesn't support x64. And I sure hope AMD dumps the Semptron soon- by the looks of it they will, since the AthlonXP architecture it's based on isn't going to scale much further.
It would be better for AMD and all of us if Intel would put x86-64 on all their new offerings, instead of just the very high end chips.
Well, I work at a prison complex with over 1,000 users - and a great deal of them are the likes of guards, wardens, and maintenence personell. Most of these people have zero computer skills.
Don't get me wrong, help desk gets calls every day for *really* stupid things. But it's almost always the same group of users that call over and over. It makes it seem like all the users are idiots, but you just don't notice all the users that don't have trouble.
But even in your case, if you do work with real computer newbies, I don't think it's fair to call them stupid, or morons, or whatever else a lot of techies feel the need to call people. Although, some of them really are =)
But more specifically, in the case of DRM, the attitude seems to be "people won't care, they'll just feed money to the MPAA/RIAA and take it in the ass like the morons they all are." As we both agree, this isn't because people knowingly give up their right to own - they DON'T KNOW they are giving up their right to own. How would they?
If I really cared about DRM, I wouldn't run Windows NOR MacOS. Their very nature of being single-vendor closed-source operating systems lends itself very easily to restrictions imposed by DRM.
It doesn't matter if MacOSX is based on a BSD kernel, it's still just as easy for them to lock the whole thing down since there's no GPL.
I really don't like the MacOS GUI. I never have. A lot of people don't - I mean, it works and it's easy but I still don't like it. Don't assume everyone adores it because some loud people on Slashdot proclaim it's the end-all.
I'd probably rather have 90% of all PC's running MacOSX then Windows XP, but I'd RATHER have be 90% on some sort of open system.
People DO care about DRM. It's just that a lot of people simply don't know about it. There's no "HEY THIS CD HAS DRM! You are basically renting it!" stickers on things, there's no commercials about it, and there's not enough of us techies to explain it to everyone.
I give more credit to the general computer user population then a lot of people on Slashdot. I find it somewhat condescending; the attitude towards them. Just because someone's not a career computer user doesn't mean they're stupid. Even the "cryptic and difficult" Windows XP does not present a very difficult chalenge to perform most basic tasks including using the Explorer.
I'm going to agree with you on this one. I guess I just don't do enough activities that have little communities like bikers or clubbers. So, when I moved to someplace where I knew nobody, I made connections through people at work.
You might hang out with a guy from the office, meet some of his friends, and get your start that way.
It *may* be a bad idea to get too friendly with the boss, because it would hurt even more when they fire you/lay you off/close the position/whatever. But for your peers, I don't see a problem at all.
Work is such a big part of our lives and to keep is seperated TOO much is a bad idea IMO. I think you'd end up resenting work even more. Going out for some beers after work on Friday allows you to get more familiar with the people you work with and it does help you get along when you return to the office. We're all in this shit together, we might as well enjoy each others' company as much as we can.
Where does the progress come from? If it weren't for w3c and the new competition to browsers from the likes of Mozilla/FireFox, there wouldn't BE any progress. Since when does Microsoft do anything besides release minor updates to software when there's no competition?
Competing for the best back-end technologies is easy. Your users don't need to have a special client if you use ASP, PHP, Cold Fusion, SQL, Oracle, whatever. It doesn't make a difference, and thus the back-end development is much more smooth compared to developing a working UI for the browsers to render.
Just saying "progress will be made" sounds awfully ignorant to me. And to make you sound even more condescending, if even possible, you end your statement with that line about high school.
You're an example of the same "my shit is better then yours" or "my shit is more important then yours" bullshit that goes around every day. BOTH technologies are important - client and back-end.
Being a little extra-cautious is a good idea when there's lives at stake. With the current track history of shuttle problems and the fact that the entire world wants to know what's going to happen, I think it's in order.
All of these things will give them valuable data for future missions. They'll try to repair the thing, and even if they aren't successful they'll know what they'll need to do next time. If it works, they'll have a better understanding on what needs to be done to prevent the damage and/or how to fix it faster.
Despite the fact that the moon landing was several decades ago, space exploration is in it's infancy and there's so many unknowns. You shouldn't take it lightly - NASA obviously doesn't.
heheh good stuff =)
No, not really. With this system, both Gnome and KDE would be rated as important, popular, quality OSS software.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be both, which is why OSS is so great.
Not sure how your comparison of the "browser wars" is like the Cold War - how does the cold war mean "you get garbage output?"
"Microsoft is clearly saying they're working on standards"
Ohh, shit then. Let's believe it. Especially because you can't see it yet. I'm not saying that they AREN'T working on standards but Microsoft doesn't have a very good track record in this regard. You can't blame people for being just a little skeptical.
Now, Bill Gates might not be coding the browser but he's involved with the high level descision making and if he gets together with Ballmer and says "let's make IE *almost* standards compliant to keep people locked into IE" then guess what the programmers do?
A lot of great software has been produced by Microsoft - anyone that denies that has an agenda. Unfortunately, every single peice of MS Software - Every package - is marred with *something* that tries to lock you in. It's very unfortunate.
I think that's funny too. While I don't smoke, I have done so on numerous occations while growing up and I find that Alcohol is a much worse drug then pot. It really messes you up and if you take too much, you actually vomit. Talk about bad stuff.
Yet, because it's got the stamp of approval of the law, it's totally socially acceptable. It's even okay in many workplaces to come in late or not at all because of a hangover. "Aww, boss I drank WAY too much at that party, I need to take the day out." "Okay Joe, no problem, hope you feel better."
Ohh, but weed is a "gateway" drug.. yea, my ass. If you had tendencies to do other drugs you'd have done it without weed. I think the only reason it might be more "gateway" then alcohol is because it's illegal - once you do one illegal drug, why not try others? If it were legal, that would no longer be the case.
Oh well.
You do realize that firmware is just software on embedded devices? It's usually stored in some sort of non-volatile memory. This doesn't make it any faster then software stuck on a hard or floppy disk.
And That Old Pentium's 66Mhz backplane is so much more then enough to push around a cablemodem's maximum throughput.
If you actually read the article, you'd see that this is a distribution of one of the BSD's that is trimmed down and web-interfacified making it extremely easy to install and configure. Install two network cards, load up the CD, and you're pretty much good to go. I don't think installing some network cards is a big deal for a lot of gamers that build their own machines.
All the ones I worked with at my last contract ran Linux.
I don't know about "l33t" but I think it's fun doing these things, and it can save you some money if you have the extra hardware and you could really use the features that are normally found in more expensive "pre-made" solutions.
Look around the net. I got a new one from eBay - it was indeed new (you have to be careful sometimes) and I've seen them online by searching around for anywhere from $800 - $1000.
The warranty is superb! I had a few dead pixels in the middle of the screen, so I called them up, gave them the serial, and they shipped me a new one. Got it in two days. I put the old one in the box and shipped it back, free of charge. Three year support on this baby.
So even if you got a used one, you should have no trouble getting a replacement if there's any problems with it. I didn't have to provide any proof of purchase or anything. It's considered a "business" item so the support is much better.
I work at a jail and it was be pretty funny if this guy was put in with the rest of the inmates - "what are you in for?" "Well, I disclosed a serious security flaw. You?" "Rape, drugs, you know."
Somewhat off-topic here, but many of the "photo" inkjets these days can produce more correct color then most consumer/office color laser printers. You really gotta get into the heavy duty expensive color lasers before they get good.
It's a nightmare trying to get correct colors out of any of the HP color lasers I've used, yet I can get damned good color prints from a $40 HP inkjet.
Obviously, color lasers are awesome because they won't bleed or fade like inkjet, and they're great for printing things like charts and color documents that don't need correct colors. But that's all beside the point.
I don't think I've ever heard of an inkjet printer watermarking the page like these laser printers, although I have heard of them not printing currency.
As you know, the response times usually handed out are the time it takes for a pixel to go from black (0) to white (255) or white to black. LCD pixels can do this much faster then they can go from black to grey (128.) Another interesting attribute of LCD pixels is that they can go from white to grey faster then black to grey.
Some new LCD panels take advantage of this knowledge. To turn grey, it will push the pixel to full on, from black (0) to white (255), and then back down to grey (128)- and the whole process takes less time then going from black to grey. Unfortunately, in some circumstances you can see it and it might produce a "sparkle" effect on the video. But it's not distracting.
Anyways, to my original point, manufacturers are recording the response time from black to white, which isn't generally representative of the real performance of the LCD, which may be dismal when going from white/black to grey, or even grey to grey.
However, there's been advances in the manufacturing process and many new LCD screens reduce the ghosting to "can't even notice it" levels even without using tricks.
Friend of mine has a Samsung 19" LCD screen that claims 12ms response. I have a 24" HP 2335 widescreen that claims 12ms. My screen is a gem - it's an underrated screen for the price (You can get them new for $800) and it's in the "can't even notice it" category. Meanwhile, the Samsung is difficult to use for fast paced FPS type games.
I guess my point is that even though the manufacturer might claim 8ms or 10ms or 12 - they might not be bullshitting =) It could be a really awesome screen. But the only way to tell is by actually using the screen, because the current system of measurement doesn't take into account the TTG - time to grey.
You're about the 30th person to say this, so I'm thinking you're joking. If not, please, proceed to the nearest highway and lay across the left lane at night.
Well no shit. But it's a pain in the ass. I'm not sure why you're intent on defending this lack of ethernet support like this?
I made my own USB - PS2 connector for the Xbox ports and that was enough for me. I don't need to spend more time on it then that. If BSD isn't going to run on the machine properly, it's not a big deal. I hardly run Linux on it anymore either (which, incidently, has always worked just fine with the network card.)