No. OS X is Unix, and Apple's X11 implementation is fine. X apps don't 'behave' as well as native applications, but all the stuff you love about X, e.g. network transparency, works great.
I'm all for a complete change in the way music is published and distributed, but I hate seeing advise like the above.
Some people don't care about producing, publishing, and distributing their music. They just want to make it. Besides, how can anybody focused on their art be expected to keep up with the latest trends in these fields?
Now one could argue that such people "deserve" whatever crappy deal the major labels give them. I reject this argument, instead believing that people should be rewarded for hard work and talent, and always treated fairly.
Anyone who brings up "free markets" during a discussion about outsourcing needs to take an economics class. In a free market, it's true that jobs can move overseas... but so can the people seeking them. There is no free market, and as long as money buys influence, there never will be.
Not that I care much about tech support jobs, but I'm getting *really* tired of these uninformed libertarian rants.
Christianity falls flat when we meet other intelligent beings. Why? Because Jesus died for *our* sins (and the "original sin" for which we can thank Adam and Eve).
So we meet these intelligent aliens, and you know *some* nutjobs are gonna try to convert them. On what grounds? "Jesus died for our sins, but if you don't believe him you'll go to hell anyway"?
What if these aliens are smarter and stronger and better than us in every way? That's gonna throw a monkeywrench in the whole "made in God's image" thing, isn't it? I can already see the televangelists claiming that they're minions of Satan.
The problem is that human hearing is not yet perfectly understood, and varies between individuals. Never mind the fact that today's consumer-end equipment isn't anywhere close to being "more accurate than human hearing".
I tend to trust recording engineers. These folks make their living with their ears, and (the independent ones, at least) would probably be happy to spend less money on equipment if they could.
Windows is changing rapidly, in ways that are likely to make programs incompatable with older versions (the better to force upgrades with, I'm sure).
Okay, I'm following you so far...
If they want to work on it as a hobby and have fun doing so, more power to them. I just don't see it as being something overly useful.
HELLO! You already explained exactly why this is useful. In 10 years, when I want to run some "ancient" program that doesn't work with the latest version of Windows, I'll either have to dig up an old copy of XP or I could just download and use ReactOS for free. I already use FreeDOS for similar reasons.
If you're ultra paranoid, you'll only get files from and send files to your friends... and you have something like WASTE. If you're not worried, you'll trade with everyone... and you have something like Gnutella. Seems like this would also result in a pretty robust decentralized network, since each node will increase its connectivity on its own.
If intelligent extraterrestrials exist, that's obviously no reason to think God doesn't exist either. He made us, He made them, He made everything. However, Christianity isn't about God, really... it's about Christ: more specifically it's about Him dying for our sins.
Did the alien Adam and Eve commit original sin... or have they not been cast from their own Eden? If not, there's no reason for them to accept Christ as a savior, because He saves them from nothing! Or did God again appear before them as flesh, killing a second son for their sins? If so, there is again no justification for converting them, because they've already accepted their own Christ as their savior.
This leaves only one combination of circumstances under which conversion makes sense: (1) the aliens have also committed original sin (not a stretch; I can't imagine a race building an interstellar ship without eating from the tree of knowledge) and (2) Christ also died for their sins here on Earth, and they just haven't found out about it. Would God damn these children of His for so many millenia? Are Earthlings the only race that He saw fit to offer salvation?
Furthermore, if we meet aliens, and they're better than us (smarter, stronger, more compassionate, etc.), what does that say about God making us in His image? You're right: meeting aliens is no reason to lose faith in God... but that doesn't mean the specifics of that faith can go unchanged.
True, but VCs have gained a reputation as being ruthless jerks who will screw over anyone for money. How do I approach a venture capitalist without worrying about having my idea/most of the profits from it stolen?
Furthermore, as I said earlier, people all over the world have recounted stories of a great flood, the native americans had such a myth, the natives of the mid-atlantic ridge had such a myth, the natives of Australia had a myth, etc.
There are many common folk motifs across cultures who had no known contact. Some researchers, usually on the fringes, believe they serve as proof that these cultures did have contact; most people believe there's something about these stories that make them universal.
Using the flood myth as an example, remember that we're talking about a time when different cultures were just becoming agricultural. It makes sense that a whole bunch of brand new farmers would make up stories about floods. That doesn't mean there wasn't a great flood, but I wouldn't use folk motifs as evidence.
I'm not sure why this is (I have some hypotheses), but I don't think Americans will give up their cars any time soon. Rather than abandoning cars for public transportation, I believe cars will eventually *become* public transportation. Cars will drive autonomously on controlled highways at first, and eventually take on urban traffic later.
The result will evoke a massive, distributed train system.
You didn't read the article. Nobody said that CBS was violating the constitutional protection of free speech (they obviously aren't), merely that their actions serve as an "abridgment of free speech" (they do).
Imagine a constitutional amendment: congress can't call people names. If Tom DeLay called me up and called me a pathetic geek, it would be a violation of my constitutionally-protected right. If *you* called me a pathetic geek, you wouldn't be violating this amendment, but you'd still be calling me a name. Likewise, CBS (or anyone else) can do things that stifle free speech, even though they're not the government.
Big deal, it's a qualitative graph. The "ridiculous graphs" are a great way to concisely explain the concept: "things that look similar to humans but are noticably 'off' freak people out more than things that don't look like humans at all." The picture isn't scientific, but it's still worth 1000 words.
I haven't seen anyone break down the prices yet, so I hit pricewatch and did the math myself. Obviously there are some tradeoffs, and I'm sure someone more experienced in purchasing expensive equipment for their employer could get a better deal (if you're such a person, I'd love to see your quote).
That said, if *I* wanted to build a dual-opteron-based system similar to the dual 2 GHz G5 *right this minute*, here's what I'd get:
AMD Opteron 246: $770 * 2 = $1540 Tyan K8W (S2885) dual opteron motherboard (similar specs to G5 but with support for more memory and built-in raid, but only uses PC2700 vs PC3200 ram): $450 ATI Radeon 9600 Pro: $180 160 GB Serial ATA: $120 512 MB PC2700: $50 4X DVD burner: $80 Quiet power supply(ies): ~$100 Nice Aluminum Case: ~$200 Total: $2720
This doesn't include the "cost" of the time spent building the machine or installing the (free) OS, nor does it include the intangible value of only having to deal with one vendor if something breaks. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I have to admit that the G5 for $3000 compares favorably to the above. If anyone wants to send me $6000, I'll *gladly* set up both systems and do some thorough benchmarks.
You can't categorise people like that; it never works.
False. Perhaps you meant, "it usually works, but there are quite a few exceptions." This happens to be the case for just about anything that "works", e.g., cars "work" for getting people from point a to point b, except when they break down or crash into things; computers (as we all know) "work" for just about anything you can imagine, except when they don't.
No offense, but I believe your perceptions about what is possible have been shaped by what's already out there. Don't take it personally -- it happens to *all* of us.
Just off the top of my head, you could move your "fantasy" world away from a Eurpean mythology/Tolkien/D&D universe to other regions and time-periods (disclaimer: I don't know much about history); e.g. pre-Meiji Japan, ancient China, "Arabia", etc.
You could set your MMORPG (or RTS) on an entirely alien preindustrial world, and they use, I don't know, plants for weapons. Maybe they are plants. Plants would be cool.
Maybe they're beings of pure energy, and the landscape is the surface of a burning star. Maybe robots have taken over the world, and only fight hand-to-hand because using more powerful weapons would result in the destruction of space and time itself (there -- I just gave away the ending of a game that doesn't even exist!).
Look, maybe my ideas are crappy, but a good game designer should be able to come up with *something* other than warriors and wizards and elves. Some of us are ready for something different.
Re:Give us drivers...
on
The Return of S3
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I see where you're coming from, but not that many people (including the majority of Linux users) will eschew hardware just because they can't fix their own driver. Maybe there are a couple thousand such people in the entire world, definitely not "hundreds of thousands".
Don't get me wrong -- I'd love to see a completely open driver from NVidia, but because of patent issues and licenses they have with other companies, it simply will not happen. Ever. But I need to do actual work on my computer that requires the use of a working graphics card, and the status of the source code is secondary to the performance of the binary.
Re:Give us drivers...
on
The Return of S3
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
If you want to make it a political issue, that's fine -- more power to you. But recognize that you're among a minority. I'm not sure I believe that there are "hundreds of thousands" of *desktop* Linux users, I refuse to believe that any preponderance of them "are more interested in non-proprietary kernel modules than raw performance."
I'm a Linux user, and I believe in/contribute to "the open source movement". When it comes down to it, however, I care a lot more about things working right than whether or not I have the source code.
NVidia's drivers work (relatively) well, and they've been writing Linux drivers longer than most hardware vendors. For this reason, they'll continue getting my money until somebody beats them in Linux support. Maybe it could be S3.
What Xandros has that other Linux distros lack is my favorite feature in OSX 10.3 and WinXP -- fast user switching. Am I the only Linux user who lives in a house with more people than computers? Sure, it's possible to start X as a different user on a different display, but it's not the kind of thing you can expect a non-zealot to be comfortable with.
I've been trying to figure out the best way to introduce polished fast user switching into Linux, and the best way I can think to do it is at the display manager level.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent funny.
No. OS X is Unix, and Apple's X11 implementation is fine. X apps don't 'behave' as well as native applications, but all the stuff you love about X, e.g. network transparency, works great.
AFAIK, they cannot deny your request for a provisional ballot. I believe what needs to be done next varies from state to state.
It's a sad day for democracy when it's considered 'partisan' to encourage people to vote.
I'm all for a complete change in the way music is published and distributed, but I hate seeing advise like the above.
Some people don't care about producing, publishing, and distributing their music. They just want to make it. Besides, how can anybody focused on their art be expected to keep up with the latest trends in these fields?
Now one could argue that such people "deserve" whatever crappy deal the major labels give them. I reject this argument, instead believing that people should be rewarded for hard work and talent, and always treated fairly.
Anyone who brings up "free markets" during a discussion about outsourcing needs to take an economics class. In a free market, it's true that jobs can move overseas... but so can the people seeking them. There is no free market, and as long as money buys influence, there never will be.
Not that I care much about tech support jobs, but I'm getting *really* tired of these uninformed libertarian rants.
Christianity falls flat when we meet other intelligent beings. Why? Because Jesus died for *our* sins (and the "original sin" for which we can thank Adam and Eve).
So we meet these intelligent aliens, and you know *some* nutjobs are gonna try to convert them. On what grounds? "Jesus died for our sins, but if you don't believe him you'll go to hell anyway"?
What if these aliens are smarter and stronger and better than us in every way? That's gonna throw a monkeywrench in the whole "made in God's image" thing, isn't it? I can already see the televangelists claiming that they're minions of Satan.
God, I hope we never meet intelligent aliens.
The problem is that human hearing is not yet perfectly understood, and varies between individuals. Never mind the fact that today's consumer-end equipment isn't anywhere close to being "more accurate than human hearing".
I tend to trust recording engineers. These folks make their living with their ears, and (the independent ones, at least) would probably be happy to spend less money on equipment if they could.
Okay, I'm following you so far...
HELLO! You already explained exactly why this is useful. In 10 years, when I want to run some "ancient" program that doesn't work with the latest version of Windows, I'll either have to dig up an old copy of XP or I could just download and use ReactOS for free. I already use FreeDOS for similar reasons.
This would be pretty cool.
If you're ultra paranoid, you'll only get files from and send files to your friends... and you have something like WASTE. If you're not worried, you'll trade with everyone... and you have something like Gnutella. Seems like this would also result in a pretty robust decentralized network, since each node will increase its connectivity on its own.
If intelligent extraterrestrials exist, that's obviously no reason to think God doesn't exist either. He made us, He made them, He made everything. However, Christianity isn't about God, really... it's about Christ: more specifically it's about Him dying for our sins.
Did the alien Adam and Eve commit original sin... or have they not been cast from their own Eden? If not, there's no reason for them to accept Christ as a savior, because He saves them from nothing! Or did God again appear before them as flesh, killing a second son for their sins? If so, there is again no justification for converting them, because they've already accepted their own Christ as their savior.
This leaves only one combination of circumstances under which conversion makes sense: (1) the aliens have also committed original sin (not a stretch; I can't imagine a race building an interstellar ship without eating from the tree of knowledge) and (2) Christ also died for their sins here on Earth, and they just haven't found out about it. Would God damn these children of His for so many millenia? Are Earthlings the only race that He saw fit to offer salvation?
Furthermore, if we meet aliens, and they're better than us (smarter, stronger, more compassionate, etc.), what does that say about God making us in His image? You're right: meeting aliens is no reason to lose faith in God... but that doesn't mean the specifics of that faith can go unchanged.
True, but VCs have gained a reputation as being ruthless jerks who will screw over anyone for money. How do I approach a venture capitalist without worrying about having my idea/most of the profits from it stolen?
This is a genuine, non-rhetorical question, BTW.
There are many common folk motifs across cultures who had no known contact. Some researchers, usually on the fringes, believe they serve as proof that these cultures did have contact; most people believe there's something about these stories that make them universal.
Using the flood myth as an example, remember that we're talking about a time when different cultures were just becoming agricultural. It makes sense that a whole bunch of brand new farmers would make up stories about floods. That doesn't mean there wasn't a great flood, but I wouldn't use folk motifs as evidence.
Apparently, it does.
I'm not sure why this is (I have some hypotheses), but I don't think Americans will give up their cars any time soon. Rather than abandoning cars for public transportation, I believe cars will eventually *become* public transportation. Cars will drive autonomously on controlled highways at first, and eventually take on urban traffic later.
The result will evoke a massive, distributed train system.
You didn't read the article. Nobody said that CBS was violating the constitutional protection of free speech (they obviously aren't), merely that their actions serve as an "abridgment of free speech" (they do).
Imagine a constitutional amendment: congress can't call people names. If Tom DeLay called me up and called me a pathetic geek, it would be a violation of my constitutionally-protected right. If *you* called me a pathetic geek, you wouldn't be violating this amendment, but you'd still be calling me a name. Likewise, CBS (or anyone else) can do things that stifle free speech, even though they're not the government.
That said, the article's not the best. Better to read some of Mori's writings directly.
Big deal, it's a qualitative graph. The "ridiculous graphs" are a great way to concisely explain the concept: "things that look similar to humans but are noticably 'off' freak people out more than things that don't look like humans at all." The picture isn't scientific, but it's still worth 1000 words.
I haven't seen anyone break down the prices yet, so I hit pricewatch and did the math myself. Obviously there are some tradeoffs, and I'm sure someone more experienced in purchasing expensive equipment for their employer could get a better deal (if you're such a person, I'd love to see your quote).
That said, if *I* wanted to build a dual-opteron-based system similar to the dual 2 GHz G5 *right this minute*, here's what I'd get:
AMD Opteron 246: $770 * 2 = $1540
Tyan K8W (S2885) dual opteron motherboard (similar specs to G5 but with support for more memory and built-in raid, but only uses PC2700 vs PC3200 ram): $450
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro: $180
160 GB Serial ATA: $120
512 MB PC2700: $50
4X DVD burner: $80
Quiet power supply(ies): ~$100
Nice Aluminum Case: ~$200
Total: $2720
This doesn't include the "cost" of the time spent building the machine or installing the (free) OS, nor does it include the intangible value of only having to deal with one vendor if something breaks. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I have to admit that the G5 for $3000 compares favorably to the above. If anyone wants to send me $6000, I'll *gladly* set up both systems and do some thorough benchmarks.
False. Perhaps you meant, "it usually works, but there are quite a few exceptions." This happens to be the case for just about anything that "works", e.g., cars "work" for getting people from point a to point b, except when they break down or crash into things; computers (as we all know) "work" for just about anything you can imagine, except when they don't.
No offense, but I believe your perceptions about what is possible have been shaped by what's already out there. Don't take it personally -- it happens to *all* of us.
Just off the top of my head, you could move your "fantasy" world away from a Eurpean mythology/Tolkien/D&D universe to other regions and time-periods (disclaimer: I don't know much about history); e.g. pre-Meiji Japan, ancient China, "Arabia", etc.
You could set your MMORPG (or RTS) on an entirely alien preindustrial world, and they use, I don't know, plants for weapons. Maybe they are plants. Plants would be cool.
Maybe they're beings of pure energy, and the landscape is the surface of a burning star. Maybe robots have taken over the world, and only fight hand-to-hand because using more powerful weapons would result in the destruction of space and time itself (there -- I just gave away the ending of a game that doesn't even exist!).
Look, maybe my ideas are crappy, but a good game designer should be able to come up with *something* other than warriors and wizards and elves. Some of us are ready for something different.
Don't get me wrong -- I'd love to see a completely open driver from NVidia, but because of patent issues and licenses they have with other companies, it simply will not happen. Ever. But I need to do actual work on my computer that requires the use of a working graphics card, and the status of the source code is secondary to the performance of the binary.
If you want to make it a political issue, that's fine -- more power to you. But recognize that you're among a minority. I'm not sure I believe that there are "hundreds of thousands" of *desktop* Linux users, I refuse to believe that any preponderance of them "are more interested in non-proprietary kernel modules than raw performance."
I'm a Linux user, and I believe in/contribute to "the open source movement". When it comes down to it, however, I care a lot more about things working right than whether or not I have the source code.
NVidia's drivers work (relatively) well, and they've been writing Linux drivers longer than most hardware vendors. For this reason, they'll continue getting my money until somebody beats them in Linux support. Maybe it could be S3.
I love it when parents ask parenting-related questions on slashdot -- you always get angry teens projecting their father-issues onto the poster.
What Xandros has that other Linux distros lack is my favorite feature in OSX 10.3 and WinXP -- fast user switching. Am I the only Linux user who lives in a house with more people than computers? Sure, it's possible to start X as a different user on a different display, but it's not the kind of thing you can expect a non-zealot to be comfortable with.
I've been trying to figure out the best way to introduce polished fast user switching into Linux, and the best way I can think to do it is at the display manager level.