There is just no way we could build enough windmills to affect the Earth's climate.
Sure we could. Reforestation or city building would affect the climate in the same way.
The way it looks, we'll "affect the climate" no matter what we do.
I mean, anything that blocks wind or messes with ocean currents can affect climate. A natural or artificial reef could slow water current and affect the climate.
The question to ask is: Will "affecting the climate" slightly really be that big a deal? I mean, the earth is supposed to be hot at the equator and cold at the poles, right?
An XBox mod chip is essentially just replacing the BIOS with another one.
So the hardware itself is just commodity parts. Even if some crazy US law says you cant sell it for the "intent" of piracy, you can get the parts legally at the local electronics shop. Kind of like smart card readers are perfectly legal - unless you use them to pirate satellite, then DirecTV drops "da hammer".
Microsoft hasnt really raised a stink about it and has pretty much left the modding scene alone.
Of course, the BIOS image you use may or may not be illegal. It'll either be a XBox bios hacked to play warezed games (illegal, copyright MS code), but theres the Cromwell bios, a GPLed replacement to boot linux up (legal). Chips either ship blank or with Cromwell.
There's no reason at all BattleZone couldn't exist on a console. Maybe instead of using F1-F12 to order my troops around, I use a pulldown menu or something.
PC '37337' gamor d00dz blame every shitty title on "consoleification" for no good reason.
The game sucks because the formula was "anything with a Star Wars label makes money, so don't knock yourself out making a good game".
Ultimately, I like it for the same reason you do. But it could have been so much more. I was hoping for something like Battlezone II meets Star Wars, actually.
I really wanted to like Battlefront, I mean, I've been waiting for that game my whole life. Who wouldn't want to be a stormtrooper in an AT-ST mowing down waves of Ewoks on Endor?
Who doesn't want to take a crack at Jar-Jar with a sniper rifle?
Who doesn't want to cause damage to a squad of Jawas with a wookie bowcaster?
Who doesn't want to command a squad of B-Wings to do a tactical strike against that damned AT-AT?
The game missed completely on all the strategy and command elements I expected it to have. It was just pick one of four classes, run around and shoot all the bad guys. And why can't I be a Jedi/Sith? I want to do some lightsabering too.
The game lacked depth. It lacked AI. No matter how many times I'd order my guys to stay and protect a base, they'd just mindlessly stream out into the open and get mowed down by the opposition.
The goal of the game was really "can you kill 100 of the other armies soldiers, before the 100 special ed kids that make up your force manage to walk into laser fire?"
I wouldn't call it awful. As soon as I see it on sale for 10 bucks, I'll get a copy, because once in awhile I get the itch to toss some concussion grenades at a group of meandering Gungans.
I guess that's lucasarts these days, they make games that look really fun and promising, until you play them.
I liked the concept of the game, but when playing it there was no real strategy element to it. You could "command" your troops, but they wouldn't listen or do what you told them to.
Here's what to do LucasArts: Go get a copy of Battlezone II: combat commander. Replace humans/scions with rebels/imperials, and you've got a winner.
Oh, and you need much bigger maps if you're going to include vehicles like X-Wings or Tie fighters. Every two seconds you run into the imaginary wall at the end of the map. While you're at it, you might want to think of actually giving the player a reason to get into an X-Wing (ie; some sort of aerial battle)
Battlefront so could have been the game I've been waiting for since I realized Activision are too pinheaded to make another Battlezone title.
Oh yeah, more flight/shooter games. More Rogue Squadron (take out that run around on the ground crap), and more Starfighter titles. Make the quality of the Starfighter titles match the quality of the Rogue titles, too.
There's no reason to have made Jedi Starfighter suck just to match the suckiness of the prequel films.
Star Wars is such fertile grounds for really good video game ideas. So why don't you actually execute some of them, start to finish. Star Wars games are perpetually "almost" good, it seems.
The first time someone goes to look at/print/copy a photo that they took, and something pops up asking them to pay, they will become instantly "clued in".
People aren't as stupid as slashbots or some execs think. DIVX (the device) failed, because people recognized it as a stupid, intrusive idea.
Imagine you're one of those laywers at Eolas, and it occurs to you that you're owed a dollar for every time someone ever viewed a webpage that "seamlessly loaded a plug-in".
Hell, what lawyer would be able to resist? Having everyone in the computer world consider you evil incarnate is a small trade-off for a potential trillion zillion jillion dollar payday.
OS/2 died, in part, because in those days, IBM was the "big evil computer monopoly", and everyone in the industry couldn't wait to stick it to em by using Microsoft's cheaper alternative. That, and all the killer apps were written for Windows, not OS/2 so there was really no compelling reason (from a business POV) to pay more for it.
It does, but then what happens is some buttfuck cadre of lawyers like the "technical" firm Eolas pulls out some retarded submarine patent on "using software to do stuff", and an even more retarded judge rules in their favor.
Now, technically, anyone who's using IE is a "willfull infringer", are they not? I know using a web browser with seamless plugins is a patent violation, because I've never payed Eolas any licensing fees.
What happens when these assclowns blow the cheque Gates wrote 'em on crack, and decide it would be a really neat idea to go and collect a few bucks from anyone who's ever used IE prior to the new "non-infringing" version?
MS has been hit by some big IP suits lately, the Eolas plug-in horseshit, and now Novell is going to start a bunch of shit because apparently they patented "word processors" when they bought up WP.
The difference is, MSFT is losing them. Linux is a piece of source code, not a company that can be sued.
In corporate minds, MSFT is the one on the hotplate, and linux is the "safe" looking choice. SCO really doesn't have much street cred, at least according to the folks I've talked to.
This is MS trying to preempt or at least slow down a migration towards linux, IMO.
See, I called it.. Flamebait.. Waste some mod points on this message too.
Listen here, no flavor of unix will ever be a "windows killer". Just like no flavor of gameboy will never be a "PS2 killer". Why are you all so friggen blind?
Article Myth: Linux doesn't do P2P networking. Fact: Linux just doesn't have a Net Neighbourhood/Places GUI. There is nothing that requires Linux (or BSD) to have to have a domain controller
It's all about single sign-on and "zero configuration". Sure you can manually configure user lists in 900 linux machines, or you could set up a seperate LDAP for linux and have AD for windows, and manually sync them. But thats not what businesses want. That's twice as much time to add a user in their minds.
As for the Net Neighbourhood thing, it's not even just that. I rarely use it on windows, but I'm always typing stuff like \\SPIKE\Shared\Sourcecode\ into the address bar of explorer.
The closest thing to getting that behaviour to work in linux is that LiSa daemon which I positively can't stand. I shouldn't have to tell some daemon how big my subnet is to be able to browse local shares. There should be no configuration needed to do that, it should work "out of the box".
Similarly, Samba should install with a default config that works out of the box, rather than having HOWTOs tell you to edit the smb.conf file by hand because only morons and idiots use swat. WTF is that? This is how we're trying to entice switchers?
Integration is lacking here. I should be able to right click and select "share via SMB" or something in my file manager to create a new share, just like we do in Windows. Having to edit a text file, then restart the daemons is kind of ridiculous.
Myth: Laptop support is non-existant Fact: There's sites dedicated to it; as long as the hardware is available, for the most part there is no trouble booting linux on a laptop. Rather, the article says that there's just not enough wifi support in laptops...
Wireless is the major selling point of a laptop these days. It's the whole ballgame. IMO, wireless is the only thing a laptop is useful for with their tiny little cramped keyboards and endlessly frustrating touchpads.
Don't you see all those businessmen at the starbucks in the airport all wirelessly doing their important business? They didnt get the company to agree to buy them so they could sit there disconnected and play Tux racer (even if that's what they really are doing).
Myth: No Terminal Services client Fact: rdesktop worked fine for years now
TFA is talking about a client, not a server. We need to be able to start a windows terminal session from a linux desktop.
I can tell you that I couldn't use linux on my desktop box at work for this very reason, I regulary have to connect to clients machines via Terminal Services, or PCAnywhere.
I may have some techie cred in our office, but I have no say in what OS our clients want to run, and I can't tell them to install VNC or anything.
Linux needs out of the box L2TP, not PPTP. PPTP is insecure and shitty, MS abandoned it. L2TP isn't perfect, but it's better.
Of course, if the OpenVPN client for Windows worked better (no friggin WinPcrap dependencies), and the architecture on both sides better supported dynamic "road warrior" scenarios, it could render the whole issue moot.
The outsourced tech support probably couldn't spell "Windows" either. They don't even have the same letters on their keyboards as you do.
If someone called you up and asked you to spell some random word in Hindi I bet you'd mess up too.
As for the first topic, it should be no shock to any one that linux needs a whole shitload of stuff, Samba and others are great projects, and provide a lot of the desired functionality, but getting them installed and set up and "playing nice" with your Windows network can be a real bitch.
I mean, who here has jumped through the hoops of adding a linux server to an AD domain? Compare to adding a Windows server to an AD domain. Now imagine Betty McOfficeGirl trying to follow some written instructions to set up her fancy new linux desktop. Not all offices have a team of IT guys swarming around taking care of everything. Most people are on their own.
Linux needs to fight this battle in the small businesses of the world. They got a toe in the door as far as POS machines and kiosks, that type of thing. But linux needs to be running on the PC in the back office of every mom and pop grocery store or restaurant or doctors office, etc...
Everytime I criticize linux I get modded down and shouted at by morons for being a MS "fanboy" or "astroturfer". It's all obvious to anyone who cares to look, though.
Frankly, I don't think linux can do it (replace windows). I don't think linux will do it. I don't think we should be trying to shoehorn Windows compatibility into a Unix clone. Linux' strength comes from its Unix roots, and I think it should stay close to them, and stay focused on conquering the backend.
I see something like ReactOS developing into the horse to bet on.
To me, a Windows killer is something you install over some guys copy of Windows, and they never even notice that some of the icons are in different spots, or the Windows logo is replaced with something new. Everything works as it always did, albeit with all the transparency a GPL'ed project gives us.
Just my 0.02. I really don't think linux could ever replace Windows any more than a tractor trailer could replace a honda civic. All those regular non-mechanical folk don't want to drive a tractor trailer, and don't want to learn.
Taking away a judges right to pass sentence is absolutely ridiculous. Manditory sentencing is one of the biggest violations of our rights and corruptions of the constitution that we have going right now.
Really, the whole point of having a judge is to pass sentence. A jury finds him guilty, a judge should be able to take mitigating factors, etc, into account to give an appropriate sentence. Past criminal history is one of those factors a judge looks at.
Californian prisons are now getting full of people who's "third strike" is stuff like vandalism, or muttering threats, or simple posession of marijuana.
And the state isn't one iota safer for it. Another Californian "expirement" in government that was thought up by Bunsen and Beaker. Damn, that's a ridiculous friggin state.
Slashdot Mirror
There is just no way we could build enough windmills to affect the Earth's climate.
Sure we could. Reforestation or city building would affect the climate in the same way.
The way it looks, we'll "affect the climate" no matter what we do.
I mean, anything that blocks wind or messes with ocean currents can affect climate. A natural or artificial reef could slow water current and affect the climate.
The question to ask is: Will "affecting the climate" slightly really be that big a deal? I mean, the earth is supposed to be hot at the equator and cold at the poles, right?
Article says that enough of current windfarm tech to generate 1/10th of our current power needs would have an effect.
Of course, current windfarm tech isn't all that efficent, and to provide 1/10th of the energy is still a fuck of a lot of windmills.
But then, a 100% efficient windfarm would take out 100% of the kinetic energy of the wind moving past it.
The information could be sealed for any criminal investigation, not just terrorism.
They could just as easily say its a murder or kidnapping investigation.
An XBox mod chip is essentially just replacing the BIOS with another one.
So the hardware itself is just commodity parts. Even if some crazy US law says you cant sell it for the "intent" of piracy, you can get the parts legally at the local electronics shop. Kind of like smart card readers are perfectly legal - unless you use them to pirate satellite, then DirecTV drops "da hammer".
Microsoft hasnt really raised a stink about it and has pretty much left the modding scene alone.
Of course, the BIOS image you use may or may not be illegal. It'll either be a XBox bios hacked to play warezed games (illegal, copyright MS code), but theres the Cromwell bios, a GPLed replacement to boot linux up (legal). Chips either ship blank or with Cromwell.
And slashdot has reported it exactly 200 times.
Guess what? XBoxes make shitty cluster nodes. Whaddasurprise.
There's no reason at all BattleZone couldn't exist on a console. Maybe instead of using F1-F12 to order my troops around, I use a pulldown menu or something.
PC '37337' gamor d00dz blame every shitty title on "consoleification" for no good reason.
The game sucks because the formula was "anything with a Star Wars label makes money, so don't knock yourself out making a good game".
Ultimately, I like it for the same reason you do. But it could have been so much more. I was hoping for something like Battlezone II meets Star Wars, actually.
I liked the Clone Wars mini-series that Cartoon Network did, but then I liked it for Genndy Tartakovski's animation, not so much for the plotline.
How could you forget:
"That's no moon!"
I really wanted to like Battlefront, I mean, I've been waiting for that game my whole life. Who wouldn't want to be a stormtrooper in an AT-ST mowing down waves of Ewoks on Endor?
Who doesn't want to take a crack at Jar-Jar with a sniper rifle?
Who doesn't want to cause damage to a squad of Jawas with a wookie bowcaster?
Who doesn't want to command a squad of B-Wings to do a tactical strike against that damned AT-AT?
The game missed completely on all the strategy and command elements I expected it to have. It was just pick one of four classes, run around and shoot all the bad guys. And why can't I be a Jedi/Sith? I want to do some lightsabering too.
The game lacked depth. It lacked AI. No matter how many times I'd order my guys to stay and protect a base, they'd just mindlessly stream out into the open and get mowed down by the opposition.
The goal of the game was really "can you kill 100 of the other armies soldiers, before the 100 special ed kids that make up your force manage to walk into laser fire?"
I wouldn't call it awful. As soon as I see it on sale for 10 bucks, I'll get a copy, because once in awhile I get the itch to toss some concussion grenades at a group of meandering Gungans.
I guess that's lucasarts these days, they make games that look really fun and promising, until you play them.
Do it again, but do it right this time!
I liked the concept of the game, but when playing it there was no real strategy element to it. You could "command" your troops, but they wouldn't listen or do what you told them to.
Here's what to do LucasArts: Go get a copy of Battlezone II: combat commander. Replace humans/scions with rebels/imperials, and you've got a winner.
Oh, and you need much bigger maps if you're going to include vehicles like X-Wings or Tie fighters. Every two seconds you run into the imaginary wall at the end of the map. While you're at it, you might want to think of actually giving the player a reason to get into an X-Wing (ie; some sort of aerial battle)
Battlefront so could have been the game I've been waiting for since I realized Activision are too pinheaded to make another Battlezone title.
Oh yeah, more flight/shooter games. More Rogue Squadron (take out that run around on the ground crap), and more Starfighter titles. Make the quality of the Starfighter titles match the quality of the Rogue titles, too.
There's no reason to have made Jedi Starfighter suck just to match the suckiness of the prequel films.
Star Wars is such fertile grounds for really good video game ideas. So why don't you actually execute some of them, start to finish. Star Wars games are perpetually "almost" good, it seems.
The first time someone goes to look at/print/copy a photo that they took, and something pops up asking them to pay, they will become instantly "clued in".
People aren't as stupid as slashbots or some execs think. DIVX (the device) failed, because people recognized it as a stupid, intrusive idea.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of retarded computers?
Ever wanted to see inside a Cray T3D MPP, or maybe the gargantuan machine that is the T90? Now is your chance!
You mean now as in tomorrow when the slashdotting is over.
Nope, for the reasons they state. They don't control the source from start to phone.
I'll indemnify you against any potential wrongdoing on my part, but anly a fool is going to vouch for the friggin telecom industry!
Imagine you're one of those laywers at Eolas, and it occurs to you that you're owed a dollar for every time someone ever viewed a webpage that "seamlessly loaded a plug-in".
Hell, what lawyer would be able to resist? Having everyone in the computer world consider you evil incarnate is a small trade-off for a potential trillion zillion jillion dollar payday.
OS/2 died, in part, because in those days, IBM was the "big evil computer monopoly", and everyone in the industry couldn't wait to stick it to em by using Microsoft's cheaper alternative. That, and all the killer apps were written for Windows, not OS/2 so there was really no compelling reason (from a business POV) to pay more for it.
Windows could die the same way.
They're filing a giant ass multi jillion dollar lawsuit based on patent claims related to WP.
It was on slashdot a couple days ago. We all decided "yay for a ridiculous patent system because MSFT is a bad guy!"
It does, but then what happens is some buttfuck cadre of lawyers like the "technical" firm Eolas pulls out some retarded submarine patent on "using software to do stuff", and an even more retarded judge rules in their favor.
Now, technically, anyone who's using IE is a "willfull infringer", are they not? I know using a web browser with seamless plugins is a patent violation, because I've never payed Eolas any licensing fees.
What happens when these assclowns blow the cheque Gates wrote 'em on crack, and decide it would be a really neat idea to go and collect a few bucks from anyone who's ever used IE prior to the new "non-infringing" version?
MS has been hit by some big IP suits lately, the Eolas plug-in horseshit, and now Novell is going to start a bunch of shit because apparently they patented "word processors" when they bought up WP.
The difference is, MSFT is losing them. Linux is a piece of source code, not a company that can be sued.
In corporate minds, MSFT is the one on the hotplate, and linux is the "safe" looking choice. SCO really doesn't have much street cred, at least according to the folks I've talked to.
This is MS trying to preempt or at least slow down a migration towards linux, IMO.
See, I called it.. Flamebait.. Waste some mod points on this message too.
Listen here, no flavor of unix will ever be a "windows killer". Just like no flavor of gameboy will never be a "PS2 killer". Why are you all so friggen blind?
Article Myth: Linux doesn't do P2P networking.
Fact: Linux just doesn't have a Net Neighbourhood/Places GUI. There is nothing that requires Linux (or BSD) to have to have a domain controller
It's all about single sign-on and "zero configuration". Sure you can manually configure user lists in 900 linux machines, or you could set up a seperate LDAP for linux and have AD for windows, and manually sync them. But thats not what businesses want. That's twice as much time to add a user in their minds.
As for the Net Neighbourhood thing, it's not even just that. I rarely use it on windows, but I'm always typing stuff like \\SPIKE\Shared\Sourcecode\ into the address bar of explorer.
The closest thing to getting that behaviour to work in linux is that LiSa daemon which I positively can't stand. I shouldn't have to tell some daemon how big my subnet is to be able to browse local shares. There should be no configuration needed to do that, it should work "out of the box".
Similarly, Samba should install with a default config that works out of the box, rather than having HOWTOs tell you to edit the smb.conf file by hand because only morons and idiots use swat. WTF is that? This is how we're trying to entice switchers?
Integration is lacking here. I should be able to right click and select "share via SMB" or something in my file manager to create a new share, just like we do in Windows. Having to edit a text file, then restart the daemons is kind of ridiculous.
Myth: Laptop support is non-existant
Fact: There's sites dedicated to it; as long as the hardware is available, for the most part there is no trouble booting linux on a laptop. Rather, the article says that there's just not enough wifi support in laptops...
Wireless is the major selling point of a laptop these days. It's the whole ballgame. IMO, wireless is the only thing a laptop is useful for with their tiny little cramped keyboards and endlessly frustrating touchpads.
Don't you see all those businessmen at the starbucks in the airport all wirelessly doing their important business? They didnt get the company to agree to buy them so they could sit there disconnected and play Tux racer (even if that's what they really are doing).
Myth: No Terminal Services client
Fact: rdesktop worked fine for years now
TFA is talking about a client, not a server. We need to be able to start a windows terminal session from a linux desktop.
I can tell you that I couldn't use linux on my desktop box at work for this very reason, I regulary have to connect to clients machines via Terminal Services, or PCAnywhere.
I may have some techie cred in our office, but I have no say in what OS our clients want to run, and I can't tell them to install VNC or anything.
Linux needs out of the box L2TP, not PPTP. PPTP is insecure and shitty, MS abandoned it. L2TP isn't perfect, but it's better.
Of course, if the OpenVPN client for Windows worked better (no friggin WinPcrap dependencies), and the architecture on both sides better supported dynamic "road warrior" scenarios, it could render the whole issue moot.
The outsourced tech support probably couldn't spell "Windows" either. They don't even have the same letters on their keyboards as you do.
If someone called you up and asked you to spell some random word in Hindi I bet you'd mess up too.
As for the first topic, it should be no shock to any one that linux needs a whole shitload of stuff, Samba and others are great projects, and provide a lot of the desired functionality, but getting them installed and set up and "playing nice" with your Windows network can be a real bitch.
I mean, who here has jumped through the hoops of adding a linux server to an AD domain? Compare to adding a Windows server to an AD domain. Now imagine Betty McOfficeGirl trying to follow some written instructions to set up her fancy new linux desktop. Not all offices have a team of IT guys swarming around taking care of everything. Most people are on their own.
Linux needs to fight this battle in the small businesses of the world. They got a toe in the door as far as POS machines and kiosks, that type of thing. But linux needs to be running on the PC in the back office of every mom and pop grocery store or restaurant or doctors office, etc...
Everytime I criticize linux I get modded down and shouted at by morons for being a MS "fanboy" or "astroturfer". It's all obvious to anyone who cares to look, though.
Frankly, I don't think linux can do it (replace windows). I don't think linux will do it. I don't think we should be trying to shoehorn Windows compatibility into a Unix clone. Linux' strength comes from its Unix roots, and I think it should stay close to them, and stay focused on conquering the backend.
I see something like ReactOS developing into the horse to bet on.
To me, a Windows killer is something you install over some guys copy of Windows, and they never even notice that some of the icons are in different spots, or the Windows logo is replaced with something new. Everything works as it always did, albeit with all the transparency a GPL'ed project gives us.
Just my 0.02. I really don't think linux could ever replace Windows any more than a tractor trailer could replace a honda civic. All those regular non-mechanical folk don't want to drive a tractor trailer, and don't want to learn.
Taking away a judges right to pass sentence is absolutely ridiculous. Manditory sentencing is one of the biggest violations of our rights and corruptions of the constitution that we have going right now.
Really, the whole point of having a judge is to pass sentence. A jury finds him guilty, a judge should be able to take mitigating factors, etc, into account to give an appropriate sentence. Past criminal history is one of those factors a judge looks at.
Californian prisons are now getting full of people who's "third strike" is stuff like vandalism, or muttering threats, or simple posession of marijuana.
And the state isn't one iota safer for it. Another Californian "expirement" in government that was thought up by Bunsen and Beaker. Damn, that's a ridiculous friggin state.