I never bought a single CD before MP3s...I just didn't listen to music. Now, I have some MP3s that I listen to. If those MP3s went away, I'd just go back to not listening to music.
Because "10.1% of people downloading music are not buying music" does not mean that the music industry is losing sales from all those (though I'm sure it is from some).
I wonder how feasible it would be for someone like Borders (trying to compete with Amazon as a music retailer) to directly sign for tracks with artists. Then they maintain at each location a fat data pipe (if this isn't economically feasible, it will be -- small credit-check data lines are already in place and data gets cheaper and cheaper, whereas CDs stay the same). Then they have a really fancy burner or press or whatever at the location. They download losslessly compressed tracks from the Borders central server and cache them at local locations (to avoid retransferring popular tracks). Then people can simply say "I want a CD and I want track X, Y, and Z on it". The money goes directly to the artist, aside from Border's profit.
So lets see why this makes sense:
* Artist gets money, users have less incentive for piracy. * User gets to specify what tracks they want/don't want and get better quality than they would pirating MP3s. * The user can buy CDs more cheaply -- by eliminating the middleman, they pay maybe $3 to Borders per CD (you automate the thing, with a little Borders card reader, and there's very little per unit cost) and 10 cents to the artist per track (hell of a lot more than the artists are currently making), and you get a full-quality CD where you're supporting the artist for $5 tops. * Users would have a much broader selection, not limited to the few hundred titles that might be in the store. * Borders makes money -- I suspect unit costs after amortization would be about 50 cents per CD, so they get a healthy $2.50 in profit per CD, which is probably more than they currently make. * Borders risks far less than they currently do -- adding an artist to their central database is cheap cheap cheap. They don't have to risk warehousing and blowing shelf space on CDs that people don't want. * New artists can break into the market easily -- they simply register with Borders, send in their music to the main server, and start getting money. They don't have to convince much of anyone of their music quality, since there's no massive production/warehousing costs for all the CDs.
There are two drawbacks. One, you don't get extras in the CD. You might be able to print out the cover and the CD label, if this "Borders mini-CD maker" machine was fairly capable, but you might not get other stuff jammed in the case. Second, even with a hefty local cache, Borders still has to transfer 300MB per full CD (assuming lossless compression averaging 2:1) for infrequently requested CDs. This may not yet be feasible -- however, data lines keep getting cheaper, and CD prices stay the same.
Finally, a $100 80GB HD can store about 160 fairly full CDs, and 300 with lossless 2:1 compression. That's a one-time cost -- like incredibly cheaply expandable floor space. At those prices, Borders can afford to have enormous local caches -- one sale of a CD much more than makes back the cost of storing that CD locally.
Why do people never seem to open-source mods (and emulators)? The chance of them being able to make money off the code is extremely low, and it would let people help out and enjoy the work more.
I understand an individual doing this, but it seems like the community at large doesn't release source to anything.
TA is easily the most impressive RTS I've ever played. It gives the player an incredible amount of control and eliminates most mandantory micromanagement.
Well, most computers hide the difficulty of things like detecting hardware and whatnot. Sometimes putting a layer on top of things make sense, though I see your point.
Hmm. I've been working on a perl scrip that does heuristic name detection based on the filename, the id3 tags and (not yet in) the freedb info. Unfortunately, last I looked the freedb protocol specified searching as a valid operation, but when I tried sending the command, the freedb server spat back "not implemented yet".
I'm kind of surprised. Ext3 has the reputation for being the most "recoverable" of the three big stable Linux journalling FSes. Of course, performance with massive numbers of files is not up to Reiser...
Open source software is never better than commercial software
Take a look at GNU's grep or the Linux kernel. Hell, most of GNU's POSIX utilities are better implementations than, say, Sun's. (For example, I have a shell script that deletes things and lists the things deleted as it goes, using the --verbose flag to rm. Solaris's rm doesn't have --verbose or any sort of equivalent.)
And try and find a better text editor than emacs (or vi, if that's the way you swing).
Right. YOU will be able to fix bugs in the driver that the developersan't fix. Of course. You are smarter than all of the Nvidia and ATIengineers, and have more expertise in the field of graphics carddrivers than all of them combined. Yeah right.
Believe it or not, patches and bugfixes *do* get sent in to open-source software, even if there's an existing paid maintenance team.
The ability to fix a bug doesn't say that you're more experienced and competent than someone else that missed it. A while back, I corrected a bug in a systems programming book that my professor had written. Does that make me more experienced and competent than him, a CS PhD? Nope.
Point #2 will give you a 0.01% improvement. Using open-source drivers that support half the card's features will give you a 40% disadvantage
So *all* of the features should be supported in the open source driver. Furthermore, compiling snes9x myself and setting the compiler flags I wanted sped it up by about 2-3x.
When the card is discontinued, you'll probably throw it away. And if you will be the only person left using that card, drivers won't fix themselves even if they're open source. And I seriously doubt that you can maintain them, given that you probably don't even know how they work.
Open source drivers get maintained. People that modify the kernel and break stuff have to take care of it. No care is given to breaking closed source drivers. Look at the driver list sometime in make menuconfig. There's some *old*, discontinued stuff in there. How are you going to explain this?
ATI will not fund BSD drivers. There isn't enough demand to make it worthwhile to pay the people.
Funding the development of Windows software (partly because MS leaves security holes around) with my tax dollars is definitely high on the "annoying" list.
I say an equal number of dollars be sent to Linux security development.
I know. Now some *other* website will put up a link saying that *Slashdot* says that it's rumored that TurboLinux is dead, and it spreads from there. Slashdot is a major site, and stories on it have been known to jump to AP sites.
Okay, here's the issue. I've set this up myself, and there are good HOWTOs on it, and I've done a bit of testing. First, the problem is not prioritization. The packets are leaving the XP box in perfect order. The problem is that the cable modem has a ridiculously large upload queue, which fills up. Packets then take a hell of a long time to get through. You just want to cap the outgoing data rate *at your computer* to just below the cable modem limit, which keeps the buffer from filling up. You can play with prioritizing various packets if you want, but it doesn't do much of anything for me. The data rate cap massively improves download rate.
Honestly, I'd just get an old box and set up a nice Linux router/mail server/whatnot, which will give you more flexibility and if you decide to add more machines to the network, not require you to have your workstation up 24/7.
Most Americans have reached pretty much the same conclusion. The "War on Terror" was popular at first, but after the Taleban fell and Bush started using it as an excuse to do whatever the hell he felt like, a lot of people (myself included) are getting more than a little frusterated with him.
God, I wish McCain was in the White House instead of this idiot.
I can think of a couple of things to improve in the engine.
Fancy dynamic shadowing makes stuff look better. Doom 3 uses some impressive stuff here.
More tricks like bump-mapping to produce an environment that looks "better" than you can do with the existing number of polygons.
Real-time raytracing (not that far away, anymore, though you'd hardly get high-quality PovRay final render results).
Better physics models. I honestly think that current games should blow a bit less CPU time on traditional graphics tasks and more on physics modeling. Make trees sway and be pushable. Make rocks roll and bounce downhill. Make buildings crumble. Make ice break (not in a scripted manner, but through good physics modeling).
I do agree with your point that a good engine doesn't have that much to do with a good game. Anachronox used the aging Quake 2 graphics engine, with the same tired old effects, and was a ton of fun. Quake 3 was visually impressive (when released), but not that much fun to play.
You're right, but the developers are gone, assimilated by the Microsoft Borg. Any game made by another developer would be just the same in name, not gameplay.
Slashdot Mirror
I never bought a single CD before MP3s...I just didn't listen to music. Now, I have some MP3s that I listen to. If those MP3s went away, I'd just go back to not listening to music.
Because "10.1% of people downloading music are not buying music" does not mean that the music industry is losing sales from all those (though I'm sure it is from some).
I wonder how feasible it would be for someone like Borders (trying to compete with Amazon as a music retailer) to directly sign for tracks with artists. Then they maintain at each location a fat data pipe (if this isn't economically feasible, it will be -- small credit-check data lines are already in place and data gets cheaper and cheaper, whereas CDs stay the same). Then they have a really fancy burner or press or whatever at the location. They download losslessly compressed tracks from the Borders central server and cache them at local locations (to avoid retransferring popular tracks). Then people can simply say "I want a CD and I want track X, Y, and Z on it". The money goes directly to the artist, aside from Border's profit.
So lets see why this makes sense:
* Artist gets money, users have less incentive for piracy.
* User gets to specify what tracks they want/don't want and get better quality than they would pirating MP3s.
* The user can buy CDs more cheaply -- by eliminating the middleman, they pay maybe $3 to Borders per CD (you automate the thing, with a little Borders card reader, and there's very little per unit cost) and 10 cents to the artist per track (hell of a lot more than the artists are currently making), and you get a full-quality CD where you're supporting the artist for $5 tops.
* Users would have a much broader selection, not limited to the few hundred titles that might be in the store.
* Borders makes money -- I suspect unit costs after amortization would be about 50 cents per CD, so they get a healthy $2.50 in profit per CD, which is probably more than they currently make.
* Borders risks far less than they currently do -- adding an artist to their central database is cheap cheap cheap. They don't have to risk warehousing and blowing shelf space on CDs that people don't want.
* New artists can break into the market easily -- they simply register with Borders, send in their music to the main server, and start getting money. They don't have to convince much of anyone of their music quality, since there's no massive production/warehousing costs for all the CDs.
There are two drawbacks. One, you don't get extras in the CD. You might be able to print out the cover and the CD label, if this "Borders mini-CD maker" machine was fairly capable, but you might not get other stuff jammed in the case. Second, even with a hefty local cache, Borders still has to transfer 300MB per full CD (assuming lossless compression averaging 2:1) for infrequently requested CDs. This may not yet be feasible -- however, data lines keep getting cheaper, and CD prices stay the same.
Finally, a $100 80GB HD can store about 160 fairly full CDs, and 300 with lossless 2:1 compression. That's a one-time cost -- like incredibly cheaply expandable floor space. At those prices, Borders can afford to have enormous local caches -- one sale of a CD much more than makes back the cost of storing that CD locally.
Why do people never seem to open-source mods (and emulators)? The chance of them being able to make money off the code is extremely low, and it would let people help out and enjoy the work more.
I understand an individual doing this, but it seems like the community at large doesn't release source to anything.
TA is easily the most impressive RTS I've ever played. It gives the player an incredible amount of control and eliminates most mandantory micromanagement.
:-)
And the music was great.
A mod being commercial is a serious impediment to its adoption by the critical mass of people.
Hide the flaws instead of fixing them
Well, most computers hide the difficulty of things like detecting hardware and whatnot. Sometimes putting a layer on top of things make sense, though I see your point.
Hmm. I've been working on a perl scrip that does heuristic name detection based on the filename, the id3 tags and (not yet in) the freedb info. Unfortunately, last I looked the freedb protocol specified searching as a valid operation, but when I tried sending the command, the freedb server spat back "not implemented yet".
I'm kind of surprised. Ext3 has the reputation for being the most "recoverable" of the three big stable Linux journalling FSes. Of course, performance with massive numbers of files is not up to Reiser...
If Freenet isn't significant, innovative, and open source, I don't know what is. Some amazing ideas there.
Most software (including closed source) fits into established genres. What particularly amazing closed source project were you thinking of?
Why on earth did you use CBR? VBR MP3s get a significantly better quality/size ratio. I'd rerip.
I can't figure out why *anyone* still uses CBR except the shoutcast/icecast people, who need a constant bitrate for streaming.
Frankly, I don't *like* forms saving fields. Major security issue on web kiosks and the like.
Open source software is never better than commercial software
Take a look at GNU's grep or the Linux kernel. Hell, most of GNU's POSIX utilities are better implementations than, say, Sun's. (For example, I have a shell script that deletes things and lists the things deleted as it goes, using the --verbose flag to rm. Solaris's rm doesn't have --verbose or any sort of equivalent.)
And try and find a better text editor than emacs (or vi, if that's the way you swing).
Wow, you thought he looks evil too?
It must not just be me.
Err...one of them was Stallman. I think you're stuck with him.
...there were no voices for the consumer there. Why shoudl we allow them to discuss our future without our participation?
They want a tax on blank media?
I seem to remember a famous phrase: "No taxation without representation..."
Right. YOU will be able to fix bugs in the driver that the developersan't fix. Of course. You are smarter than all of the Nvidia and ATIengineers, and have more expertise in the field of graphics carddrivers than all of them combined. Yeah right.
Believe it or not, patches and bugfixes *do* get sent in to open-source software, even if there's an existing paid maintenance team.
The ability to fix a bug doesn't say that you're more experienced and competent than someone else that missed it. A while back, I corrected a bug in a systems programming book that my professor had written. Does that make me more experienced and competent than him, a CS PhD? Nope.
Point #2 will give you a 0.01% improvement. Using open-source drivers that support half the card's features will give you a 40% disadvantage
So *all* of the features should be supported in the open source driver. Furthermore, compiling snes9x myself and setting the compiler flags I wanted sped it up by about 2-3x.
When the card is discontinued, you'll probably throw it away. And if you will be the only person left using that card, drivers won't fix themselves even if they're open source. And I seriously doubt that you can maintain them, given that you probably don't even know how they work.
Open source drivers get maintained. People that modify the kernel and break stuff have to take care of it. No care is given to breaking closed source drivers. Look at the driver list sometime in make menuconfig. There's some *old*, discontinued stuff in there. How are you going to explain this?
ATI will not fund BSD drivers. There isn't enough demand to make it worthwhile to pay the people.
And they have a link for investors right on the press release? Please.
Funding the development of Windows software (partly because MS leaves security holes around) with my tax dollars is definitely high on the "annoying" list.
I say an equal number of dollars be sent to Linux security development.
I know. Now some *other* website will put up a link saying that *Slashdot* says that it's rumored that TurboLinux is dead, and it spreads from there. Slashdot is a major site, and stories on it have been known to jump to AP sites.
I don't think there's a major Linux distro company out there that hasn't contributed quite a bit to Linux.
Okay, here's the issue. I've set this up myself, and there are good HOWTOs on it, and I've done a bit of testing. First, the problem is not prioritization. The packets are leaving the XP box in perfect order. The problem is that the cable modem has a ridiculously large upload queue, which fills up. Packets then take a hell of a long time to get through. You just want to cap the outgoing data rate *at your computer* to just below the cable modem limit, which keeps the buffer from filling up. You can play with prioritizing various packets if you want, but it doesn't do much of anything for me. The data rate cap massively improves download rate.
Honestly, I'd just get an old box and set up a nice Linux router/mail server/whatnot, which will give you more flexibility and if you decide to add more machines to the network, not require you to have your workstation up 24/7.
Most Americans have reached pretty much the same conclusion. The "War on Terror" was popular at first, but after the Taleban fell and Bush started using it as an excuse to do whatever the hell he felt like, a lot of people (myself included) are getting more than a little frusterated with him.
God, I wish McCain was in the White House instead of this idiot.
And then everyone in the x86 world runs out and starts bragging about their Enlightenment setup. :-)
I can think of a couple of things to improve in the engine.
Fancy dynamic shadowing makes stuff look better. Doom 3 uses some impressive stuff here.
More tricks like bump-mapping to produce an environment that looks "better" than you can do with the existing number of polygons.
Real-time raytracing (not that far away, anymore, though you'd hardly get high-quality PovRay final render results).
Better physics models. I honestly think that current games should blow a bit less CPU time on traditional graphics tasks and more on physics modeling. Make trees sway and be pushable. Make rocks roll and bounce downhill. Make buildings crumble. Make ice break (not in a scripted manner, but through good physics modeling).
I do agree with your point that a good engine doesn't have that much to do with a good game. Anachronox used the aging Quake 2 graphics engine, with the same tired old effects, and was a ton of fun. Quake 3 was visually impressive (when released), but not that much fun to play.
You're right, but the developers are gone, assimilated by the Microsoft Borg. Any game made by another developer would be just the same in name, not gameplay.
How about factoring in eyestrain as a cost of aa text?