Every time I see one of these articles, this one in particular, it reminds me of the blokes who spend thousands of pounds to put UV tubes under their cars
However, the main difference I can see between the two is that when the car modders have finished, they drive around town and OCCASIONALLY some girl stops, thinks its cool, and gets in with them, while mouse modders can only use their accomplishment to click on "sign me up" for yet another porn site
but I have to question the business heads of those who cancel a product DAYS BEFORE THE LAUNCH...
Sure, it must have been a hard decision, but unless they made some huge fkup working out the per-device costing (did they forget to license windows?;) ) then surely its worth showing your stock holders that you HAVE something for the millions spent on R&D
But, as I said at the start of the article... good luck to them Now, not only have they "wasted" millions, they will probably have the beast on their back
It seems a programmer named Jetro Lauha, for his submission to the Assembly 2002 competition, decided to explore the realm of solid body physics simulations
thats what HE wants us to believe....
Its quite interesting that the stairs were based on his local library and that he recently had an big argument with the librarian (who was, coincidently, sleeping with Jetro's partner)
But, of course, last sundays accident was a horrible coincidence and he honestly didnt mean to stumble and push the librarian on the upper left arm at a 37.6 degree angle or anything...
Which is another amazing coincidence because thats precisely how the highest (non-buggy) score submitted to his website was achieved!
The UK government recently (relatively) spent a lot of money with microsoft to introduce a "gateway" system for several things for use by the UK population (I dont know if it is implemented, but a good example is tax returns)
I wonder if how to solve "initiatives" like that will be taken into consideration - since afaik there is no OSS solution for the existing implementation, and their gateway would have to be rethought/designed/implemented to move to OSS
One the whole, users will use whatever they are given
It "just goes with the job" Sure, its great if you already have experience with the particular OS or the particular application that your using - but usually you just have to get used to what is there
The big question is whether the cost saved by going OSS is outweighed by the cost of users becoming sufficiently effective on the new platform
Technology similar to clippy?
on
Smart Pool Table
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
What exactly does that mean - and surely they could have come up with a better example...
I'm assuming that they mean that they use bayesian networks to help in their decision making about what type of shot the player is trying to make? heck, thinking about it, I just cant see how that would work
Perhaps they just mean they have a picture of james (as it shows in the slide show and thats what is similar to clippy...
Sure, I'm all in favour of being able to play more movies on my linux system - even though I'm unlikely to own (m)any wmv movies...
But my question is how legal is this?
What is to stop MS attacking open source in the same way as RIAA attacked - and closed - napster?
yes, yes, one is a concept, the other is a program - but RIAA wants to make ANY file sharing program which is similar to napster illegal, and their certainly making progress toward that goal...
If a percentage of open source developers ignore the law - such as a percentage of napster users did - whats going to happen in the future?
Too many HTTP requests to processor intensive dynamic content pages could deny service well before you are serving at your bw limit.
A webpage that I have written has suffered this problem on many of its mirrors... (background, Its a very computationaly intensive page designed to work out the outcome of battles in an online game called planetarion)
Apart from upgrading the processor and imposing restrictions on the size of the computation thats requested, are there any other precautions I can take?
Anyway, for the record, I play RPGs, I don't have a job, I watch lots of anime. According to you I "have no life". Why is it that I am blissfully happy then ?
COULD it make it illegal to "reverse engineer" the document format? I can very easily see that if it could, microsoft could include a clause that explicitly prohibits GPL programs from interpreting the XML...
I wouldnt put anything past microsoft when their trying to keep their formats closed...
Now not only can you get your business cards upside down, but you also have trouble telling if the company name really IS japanese, or if your just looking at it from the wrong side
Seriously though - I can really see this sort of technology being used on phone booths (if it can be made cheep enough not to matter if its vandalised now n then) to make them display moving images while still being able to see through the glass to see that theres someone inside
It reminds me of a scene from The Time Machine where the hero blokey was talking to the hologram-type-librarian who was shown walking around "inside" pieces of glass...
Was it due to a principle, or was it due to the cost associated with the record keeping?
Sure, its easy enough to say "well done" and "finally some sense" - but do we really know what motivated them to say no to the voluntary retention of data?
They say it's to be more competitive, which is a lie - if everyone does it, there's no competitive advantage.
Being more competitive is not about having a larger profit margin than your competitors
Its about using the money that you do have in a way which moves your products futher than the competitors
Lack of money can prevent a single company from being competitive, but if all companies get more money, then they all have the potential to become more competative
So let me get this straight. Their productivity software, Office, that uses de facto document standards and which can currently be sold for a profit, they have no intention of porting to Linux.
Port office to linux now and theres much fewer real reason for people NOT to switch to linux from windows
But a broken, hole-y DRM/anti-privacy schema, accepted by only a few and generally looked on with suspicion, being developed with no profits in the near future to -- that, they're porting to Linux.
Linux is a threat to Microsoft - if they can persuade people to use their authentication services, then in 5 years support can be slowly withdrawn because linux "isnt as secure" as their palladium future... Guess what? So many services use passport that people feel they have no choice but use windows
Passport being on linux isnt going to persuade people that a move to linux is viable - but it might just persuade a few linux users to sign up - which just increases microsofts power for the future
Your forgetting one important factor in the computer-upgrade cycle
microsoft.
Sure, current computers will run word of 2 years time without (m)any worries, BUT, "innovation" has bumped up the required specs for every single windows/office release
Of course its not just microsoft which bumps up required specs, but their the driving force behind most hardware upgrades
As processors get faster, software gets both lazier and "smarter"... lazier 'cause theres less optimization and "smarter" 'cause, for example, 15 years ago no one would have ever implemented some of the stuff thats present in todays computers (fex image thumbnails in explorer)
While I probably just stated the obvious above, all I can say is that the sound improvement of DVDA (or whatever) over CD is no where near as "noticable" as that of CD over Record/Tape, thus as long as they are more expensive than CD's, they wont be adopted by Joe Consumer
I doubt they will even be adopted by the high end of the market, since their more into something else (is it digital tapes? I cant remember)
Computers these days can, and do, give out better-than-CD quality if hooked up to the right equipment and the pro's will probably use that any day in preference
IMO, I dont see that this format has much of a chance of success
Slashdot Mirror
Fifteen black-and-white photos from the era where computers were still heading for 1.5 ton benchmark
Its amazing that all those years ago people knew that mhz was a useless "benchmark"...
Every time I see one of these articles, this one in particular, it reminds me of the blokes who spend thousands of pounds to put UV tubes under their cars
However, the main difference I can see between the two is that when the car modders have finished, they drive around town and OCCASIONALLY some girl stops, thinks its cool, and gets in with them, while mouse modders can only use their accomplishment to click on "sign me up" for yet another porn site
but I have to question the business heads of those who cancel a product DAYS BEFORE THE LAUNCH...
;) ) then surely its worth showing your stock holders that you HAVE something for the millions spent on R&D
Sure, it must have been a hard decision, but unless they made some huge fkup working out the per-device costing (did they forget to license windows?
But, as I said at the start of the article... good luck to them
Now, not only have they "wasted" millions, they will probably have the beast on their back
No need. works great on WINE.
Assuming you were responding to the comment on the site about them releasing a linux version, Yes there IS a need
If we just accept everything that works great on WINE, then why would anyone bother writing applications for linux?
WINE is a two edged sword...
at the moment, it provides a great service - BUT its one that may very well come back n bite us in our shiney metal's...
We need to encourage developers to write FOR LINUX - not for windows-that-works-on-wine-aswell
It seems a programmer named Jetro Lauha, for his submission to the Assembly 2002 competition, decided to explore the realm of solid body physics simulations
thats what HE wants us to believe....
Its quite interesting that the stairs were based on his local library and that he recently had an big argument with the librarian (who was, coincidently, sleeping with Jetro's partner)
But, of course, last sundays accident was a horrible coincidence and he honestly didnt mean to stumble and push the librarian on the upper left arm at a 37.6 degree angle or anything...
Which is another amazing coincidence because thats precisely how the highest (non-buggy) score submitted to his website was achieved!
that server has very limited bandwidth - so make a mirror if you can - tx :)
www.beginners.org.uk/LH3683PreviewLong-WiNBETA.avi
asdf
The UK government recently (relatively) spent a lot of money with microsoft to introduce a "gateway" system for several things for use by the UK population (I dont know if it is implemented, but a good example is tax returns)
I wonder if how to solve "initiatives" like that will be taken into consideration - since afaik there is no OSS solution for the existing implementation, and their gateway would have to be rethought/designed/implemented to move to OSS
One the whole, users will use whatever they are given
It "just goes with the job"
Sure, its great if you already have experience with the particular OS or the particular application that your using - but usually you just have to get used to what is there
The big question is whether the cost saved by going OSS is outweighed by the cost of users becoming sufficiently effective on the new platform
What exactly does that mean - and surely they could have come up with a better example...
I'm assuming that they mean that they use bayesian networks to help in their decision making about what type of shot the player is trying to make?
heck, thinking about it, I just cant see how that would work
Perhaps they just mean they have a picture of james (as it shows in the slide show and thats what is similar to clippy...
The obvious answer is the MPAA ...
Sure, I'm all in favour of being able to play more movies on my linux system - even though I'm unlikely to own (m)any wmv movies...
But my question is how legal is this?
What is to stop MS attacking open source in the same way as RIAA attacked - and closed - napster?
yes, yes, one is a concept, the other is a program - but RIAA wants to make ANY file sharing program which is similar to napster illegal, and their certainly making progress toward that goal...
If a percentage of open source developers ignore the law - such as a percentage of napster users did - whats going to happen in the future?
Too many HTTP requests to processor intensive dynamic content pages could deny service well before you are serving at your bw limit.
A webpage that I have written has suffered this problem on many of its mirrors...
(background, Its a very computationaly intensive page designed to work out the outcome of battles in an online game called planetarion)
Apart from upgrading the processor and imposing restrictions on the size of the computation thats requested, are there any other precautions I can take?
Anyway, for the record, I play RPGs, I don't have a job, I watch lots of anime. According to you I "have no life". Why is it that I am blissfully happy then ?
Drugs do that to you.
Why these people dont post the no registration required link provided by making minor modifications to the ones provided byGoogle news, I dont know ;)
Would it be feasable?
COULD it make it illegal to "reverse engineer" the document format?
I can very easily see that if it could, microsoft could include a clause that explicitly prohibits GPL programs from interpreting the XML...
I wouldnt put anything past microsoft when their trying to keep their formats closed...
Hrmmmm...
Yesturday, they were looking from one side of the glass, today we're obviously looking from the other side
Now not only can you get your business cards upside down, but you also have trouble telling if the company name really IS japanese, or if your just looking at it from the wrong side
Seriously though - I can really see this sort of technology being used on phone booths (if it can be made cheep enough not to matter if its vandalised now n then) to make them display moving images while still being able to see through the glass to see that theres someone inside
It reminds me of a scene from The Time Machine where the hero blokey was talking to the hologram-type-librarian who was shown walking around "inside" pieces of glass...
The question is, WHY did they refuse?
Was it due to a principle, or was it due to the cost associated with the record keeping?
Sure, its easy enough to say "well done" and "finally some sense" - but do we really know what motivated them to say no to the voluntary retention of data?
They say it's to be more competitive, which is a lie - if everyone does it, there's no competitive advantage.
Being more competitive is not about having a larger profit margin than your competitors
Its about using the money that you do have in a way which moves your products futher than the competitors
Lack of money can prevent a single company from being competitive, but if all companies get more money, then they all have the potential to become more competative
So let me get this straight. Their productivity software, Office, that uses de facto document standards and which can currently be sold for a profit, they have no intention of porting to Linux.
Port office to linux now and theres much fewer real reason for people NOT to switch to linux from windows
But a broken, hole-y DRM/anti-privacy schema, accepted by only a few and generally looked on with suspicion, being developed with no profits in the near future to -- that, they're porting to Linux.
Linux is a threat to Microsoft - if they can persuade people to use their authentication services, then in 5 years support can be slowly withdrawn because linux "isnt as secure" as their palladium future... Guess what? So many services use passport that people feel they have no choice but use windows
Passport being on linux isnt going to persuade people that a move to linux is viable - but it might just persuade a few linux users to sign up - which just increases microsofts power for the future
Your forgetting one important factor in the computer-upgrade cycle
microsoft.
Sure, current computers will run word of 2 years time without (m)any worries, BUT, "innovation" has bumped up the required specs for every single windows/office release
Of course its not just microsoft which bumps up required specs, but their the driving force behind most hardware upgrades
As processors get faster, software gets both lazier and "smarter"...
lazier 'cause theres less optimization and "smarter" 'cause, for example, 15 years ago no one would have ever implemented some of the stuff thats present in todays computers (fex image thumbnails in explorer)
without the full press release is available at the register here
While I probably just stated the obvious above, all I can say is that the sound improvement of DVDA (or whatever) over CD is no where near as "noticable" as that of CD over Record/Tape, thus as long as they are more expensive than CD's, they wont be adopted by Joe Consumer
I doubt they will even be adopted by the high end of the market, since their more into something else (is it digital tapes? I cant remember)
Computers these days can, and do, give out better-than-CD quality if hooked up to the right equipment and the pro's will probably use that any day in preference
IMO, I dont see that this format has much of a chance of success