As a someone who is relatively new to/., the 'geek scene', and alternative software, I'd just like to point out to many people I don't think that OSS is a very simple, obvious concept. I haven't finished reading the article yet, but I think the idea of explaining OSS simply to 'non-geek' people is a good one, considering the "if you don't know what it is, figure it out yourself, we're not pandering to anyone" attitudes I've seen every once in awhile. Well, off to finish reading...
Good point, I always make sure to close all my programs, as well as all non-essential memory-resident progs, system-tray doodads and such before gaming.
I was just stating my surprise at the hype about "breaking the 4GB barrier" which did not seem to solely directed at the CAD/Photoshop/video editing/DB/scientific applications crowd that has been posting above. They seemed to be pushing this as hard as they used to (and still do) push their "consumer"-oriented user-friendly interface without noting that this new improvement is geared towards a somewhat different market.
But in each of those cases there are late fees. It's more as if you paid a certain amount each year and you were given a new car which you could return whenever you wanted to get a new one.
Maybe it's not revolutionary, but it's a pretty smart, novel concept.
I'm going to patent the idea of letting someone I know and trust use something for a short time for no cost, and if they don't give it back in that time, giving them some more time if like them or beating them up if I don't.
Benchmarkers are probably waiting for Doom III, Carmack has been known for writing kickass highly-efficient and optimized engines with good cross-platform support. But yeah, I'd like to see at least some UT2003, EQ, unpatched Battlecruiser 3000 (just kidding), etc. specs, too.
Yeah, I'm probably going to upgrade some of my components for Doom III, DX2, and (most importantly) Half-Life 2. But I still don't think I'm going to need 4 or even 2GB to run those (I just can hear the clueless parents now: "So litte Jimmy wants me to get him this Doom III game, huh? Well lets look at the requirements. What?!? Typo! I can't believe this won't run on my $800 eMachine!")
My favorite example of this was an ad in Nintendo Power way back in the days of the 8bit NES for that crazy light-gun thing (the Super Shooter 6?) that said in gigantic text "LESS THAN $60!!!" and then in tiny text: "msrp: $59.99".
Alright, I've been wondering about this for a while. Exactly what kind of programs, and what programs, have a need for more than 2GB of RAM? (I assume that's what you mean by 'data')
I have 256 RAM on my athlon/winxp machine at home, and it runs all modern games and office-type programs fine. Is that kind of ram more useful for Photoshop-type apps? If so, why should a person like me (who doesn't use photoshop/video editing/sound mixing software, I have no artistic talent =) get a G5. I can think of two reasons: pretty OS and iTunes (I'm waiting for the windows verson of that).
Absolutely correct. I was somewhat bemused by all the hoopla yesterday about the G5 and it's 'speed'. I need to know how it will run programs that I will use. I don't run benchmark software very often. =)
I'm not a graphic artist, so Photoshop is unimportant to me. I don't render video, or manipulate sound, so that's not for me. I actually mostly use my home comp for games, the internet, watching movies and listening to music. Maybe it was optimistic of me to think that I was going to find a Mac that would fit my needs, but with all the hype about the G5, I thought I would finally have some reason to be interested in Macs. Does anybody have any numbers for any other programs other than Photoshop? At least some fps in Quake 3? (I don't play it, but it's a good game benchmark)
I agree with no patents on business models, unless someone can come up with an example of when this was actually innovative and helpful? As for the "state-of-the-art", I'm still not exactly sure what this means. How is it defined by the courts?
I mean, what if the "laser pointer as a cat exercise tool" is actually a really innovative idea based on a great amound of solid research that cats respond favorably to concentrated light of a certain wavelenth and that light-based exercise is superior to other excercise methods? (alright, it's a far-fetched example, but bear with me).
Lastly, I didn't know there were quotas on patents in the US. What's the number?
All in all, a well-thought out response, I was expecting a far more typically slashdot rambling "SCO sucks"-type response. =)
Well, no, the FBI investigates crimes on a federal level. You analogy doesn't work either. The FBI won't be just sitting at every P2P node, they'll more likely be doing period searches and "stings", much like your local police cruise around and if they see you breaking a law, they ticket you.
Ah, don't you know that all the terrorists are communicating through specially encoded P2P files? The FBI know what they're up to, and by gorsh, they're gonna stop it!
I intended this to be just funny, but come to think of it, it's not impossible (remember all the hoopla after 9/11 when the media found out that Atta and Co. were communicating through email and such?)
Well, I remember reading that they intended to do this in some article quite awhile ago, so I may not be remembering correctly, or maybe it just didn't work out.
Quick comment: While what you say about singles is true for most artists, one specific example is Radiohead actually. They decided that their album Kid A should be only taken as a whole, and so AFAIK they did not release any singles and refused to allow radio stations to play only a single track off the album (despite being a very popular, high-selling band that I'm sure a number of radio stations would love to be able to play). So I'm willing to chalk their no-one-song downloads as less of whining hypocrasy and more of a extension on their established beliefs.
Very true. Hopefully once the music business turns more iTunes-like, some functions of the record company will become less important, but until then they will be necessary for most artists.
Alright, this isn't exactly a reply, more of a question to the anti-copyright faction of/.
Why, exactly do you think that copyrights are *wrong*? I don't mean the specifics -- "xx years is too many, xx would be better", "xxx company abuses it" -- but why is the actual concept the use of an idea being controlled by the person who thought up the idea (and if anybody has a better def of copyright, feel free to tell me) not good?
In other words, if I, say, write a novel and publish it (which I hope to do some day), why shouldn't have some control of how it is sold, what is done with the story, and how profits are made off it?
I have my own thoughts about the matter, and my beliefs on the matter are not set in stone, I'm still unsure of my position, but those who argue about tossing away the entire idea of copyrights have yet to make a really convincing argument to me.
Given that the copyright law is unfair (and amoral but that's a different matter) it may very well be fair for people to do this.
So you think that copyright law is "unfair" and "amoral" (I disagree, but that's a different post), and you suggest that instead of hurting the people who made copyright law unfair -- the legistators -- you advocate we all do something that will hurt people such as the studio sound boys, the CD factory foreman, the artists, etc., as well as -- as the parent pointed out -- us, because we'll have to put with more and more draconian copy protection schemes. Riiiiiggghhhht.
Slashdot Mirror
Or something to jump off of. =)
As a someone who is relatively new to /., the 'geek scene', and alternative software, I'd just like to point out to many people I don't think that OSS is a very simple, obvious concept. I haven't finished reading the article yet, but I think the idea of explaining OSS simply to 'non-geek' people is a good one, considering the "if you don't know what it is, figure it out yourself, we're not pandering to anyone" attitudes I've seen every once in awhile. Well, off to finish reading...
Good point, I always make sure to close all my programs, as well as all non-essential memory-resident progs, system-tray doodads and such before gaming.
I was just stating my surprise at the hype about "breaking the 4GB barrier" which did not seem to solely directed at the CAD/Photoshop/video editing/DB/scientific applications crowd that has been posting above. They seemed to be pushing this as hard as they used to (and still do) push their "consumer"-oriented user-friendly interface without noting that this new improvement is geared towards a somewhat different market.
But in each of those cases there are late fees. It's more as if you paid a certain amount each year and you were given a new car which you could return whenever you wanted to get a new one.
Maybe it's not revolutionary, but it's a pretty smart, novel concept.
I'm going to patent the idea of letting someone I know and trust use something for a short time for no cost, and if they don't give it back in that time, giving them some more time if like them or beating them up if I don't.
I'll call it "lending" or "borrowing"
Benchmarkers are probably waiting for Doom III, Carmack has been known for writing kickass highly-efficient and optimized engines with good cross-platform support.
But yeah, I'd like to see at least some UT2003, EQ, unpatched Battlecruiser 3000 (just kidding), etc. specs, too.
Yeah, I'm probably going to upgrade some of my components for Doom III, DX2, and (most importantly) Half-Life 2. But I still don't think I'm going to need 4 or even 2GB to run those (I just can hear the clueless parents now: "So litte Jimmy wants me to get him this Doom III game, huh? Well lets look at the requirements. What?!? Typo! I can't believe this won't run on my $800 eMachine!")
Um, now that I think of it, the super shooter, or whatever it was called, was actually for the SNES. Oh well. Memory's blurring =)
Still could never beat Duck Hunt.
My favorite example of this was an ad in Nintendo Power way back in the days of the 8bit NES for that crazy light-gun thing (the Super Shooter 6?) that said in gigantic text " LESS THAN $60!!! " and then in tiny text: "msrp: $59.99".
Ah, good old Nintendo Power...
In a way, it almost looks like more, three zero's looks somewhat 'cleaner' than 999 to my eyes. Oh well, a buck saved here a buck saved there... =)
Alright, I've been wondering about this for a while. Exactly what kind of programs, and what programs, have a need for more than 2GB of RAM? (I assume that's what you mean by 'data')
I have 256 RAM on my athlon/winxp machine at home, and it runs all modern games and office-type programs fine. Is that kind of ram more useful for Photoshop-type apps? If so, why should a person like me (who doesn't use photoshop/video editing/sound mixing software, I have no artistic talent =) get a G5. I can think of two reasons: pretty OS and iTunes (I'm waiting for the windows verson of that).
Absolutely correct. I was somewhat bemused by all the hoopla yesterday about the G5 and it's 'speed'. I need to know how it will run programs that I will use. I don't run benchmark software very often. =)
I'm not a graphic artist, so Photoshop is unimportant to me. I don't render video, or manipulate sound, so that's not for me. I actually mostly use my home comp for games, the internet, watching movies and listening to music. Maybe it was optimistic of me to think that I was going to find a Mac that would fit my needs, but with all the hype about the G5, I thought I would finally have some reason to be interested in Macs. Does anybody have any numbers for any other programs other than Photoshop? At least some fps in Quake 3? (I don't play it, but it's a good game benchmark)
I agree with no patents on business models, unless someone can come up with an example of when this was actually innovative and helpful? As for the "state-of-the-art", I'm still not exactly sure what this means. How is it defined by the courts?
I mean, what if the "laser pointer as a cat exercise tool" is actually a really innovative idea based on a great amound of solid research that cats respond favorably to concentrated light of a certain wavelenth and that light-based exercise is superior to other excercise methods? (alright, it's a far-fetched example, but bear with me).
Lastly, I didn't know there were quotas on patents in the US. What's the number?
All in all, a well-thought out response, I was expecting a far more typically slashdot rambling "SCO sucks"-type response. =)
And the new model would be?
Well, no, the FBI investigates crimes on a federal level. You analogy doesn't work either. The FBI won't be just sitting at every P2P node, they'll more likely be doing period searches and "stings", much like your local police cruise around and if they see you breaking a law, they ticket you.
Ah, don't you know that all the terrorists are communicating through specially encoded P2P files? The FBI know what they're up to, and by gorsh, they're gonna stop it!
I intended this to be just funny, but come to think of it, it's not impossible (remember all the hoopla after 9/11 when the media found out that Atta and Co. were communicating through email and such?)
Hmmmm..
Well, I remember reading that they intended to do this in some article quite awhile ago, so I may not be remembering correctly, or maybe it just didn't work out.
they taste like dead animals :(
And some other "meat products" taste like dead chemicals!
Quick comment: While what you say about singles is true for most artists, one specific example is Radiohead actually. They decided that their album Kid A should be only taken as a whole, and so AFAIK they did not release any singles and refused to allow radio stations to play only a single track off the album (despite being a very popular, high-selling band that I'm sure a number of radio stations would love to be able to play). So I'm willing to chalk their no-one-song downloads as less of whining hypocrasy and more of a extension on their established beliefs.
Very true. Hopefully once the music business turns more iTunes-like, some functions of the record company will become less important, but until then they will be necessary for most artists.
Bottom line: Don't become a musician for money.
I agree, but the sad part is when you can't be a musician for food, or rent.
That would be awesome. OT, but I recently saw the Matrix in IMAX, front row seat... I thought the sound system was going to shake me out of my seat.
Now if one could just BUY an IMAX dome... now I have another reason to want to become rich =)
Really? It sure looks like a seatbelt/harness to me.
Do joysticks regularly come with wide belts to strap them down nowadays? =)
Alright, this isn't exactly a reply, more of a question to the anti-copyright faction of /.
Why, exactly do you think that copyrights are *wrong*? I don't mean the specifics -- "xx years is too many, xx would be better", "xxx company abuses it" -- but why is the actual concept the use of an idea being controlled by the person who thought up the idea (and if anybody has a better def of copyright, feel free to tell me) not good?
In other words, if I, say, write a novel and publish it (which I hope to do some day), why shouldn't have some control of how it is sold, what is done with the story, and how profits are made off it?
I have my own thoughts about the matter, and my beliefs on the matter are not set in stone, I'm still unsure of my position, but those who argue about tossing away the entire idea of copyrights have yet to make a really convincing argument to me.
Given that the copyright law is unfair (and amoral but that's a different matter) it may very well be fair for people to do this.
So you think that copyright law is "unfair" and "amoral" (I disagree, but that's a different post), and you suggest that instead of hurting the people who made copyright law unfair -- the legistators -- you advocate we all do something that will hurt people such as the studio sound boys, the CD factory foreman, the artists, etc., as well as -- as the parent pointed out -- us, because we'll have to put with more and more draconian copy protection schemes. Riiiiiggghhhht.