The nVidia blobs and kernel stub are not GPL. The GPL Linux kernel contains no code for accessing the NVIDIA blobs.
The process of installing the nVidia Kernel stub combines GPL and non-GPL code and compiles it on your machine. The resulting binary is NOT re-distributable under any licence. This is why Linux distributions do not come with the nVidia and ATI drivers built in, but you must install them separately.
This workaround works because the GPL only comes into effect when you copy a program not when you use it, as long as you are not copying (i.e. redistributing) the results you are not bound by its terms.
iChessU could use the same trick. Download the standard JIN source, download the iChessU patch and binary and compile them yourself - noone is copying the result, so the GPL is not violated. Though the resulting program contains GPL and non-GPL code and so can never be copied under any licence.
Same amount of work, not the same amount of energy.
Consider a space elevator where someone pushed the emergency stop button half way up. The elevator is sitting still doing no work and consuming no energy - so if they fitted emergency stop buttons to rockets could they hover indefinitely?
As space tourists usually want to come back, the net work of a return journey on the elevator is actually zero. If space mining took off and we started returning more mass then we launched then the elevator would double as a nice power station.
These are artwork mock-ups not a final design even if they are genuine. No way Amazon is having its menu jump around like that.
I have no doubt that Amazon will do this service, however I seriously hope 5GB is not enough to store all my downloads (though if they stick to Windows 0GB would do).
I am not so sure. I loved the graphics of Carrier Command and don't feel they need updating (though tcp/ip networking might be good). Okay I will admit it, I also liked Tron, but the is something very clean about the lack of textures. Anything short of totally photorealism really wouldn't be an improvement for me.
DosBox can run CC and you can find a download over at www.the-underdogs.info if you don't have a floppy drive any more.
Populous graphics we serviceable at the time but any raster graphics look better redrawn for a higher resolution and larger pallet. However I feel a remake could go further, will true 3d, adjustable camera angles, and the ability to shape the terrain on a more granular level, not simply raise an lower large sections. I do feel B&W2's engine with the basic gameplay of Populous but with more control over the land could be amazing fun.
But you would need pointers to that infinite amount of memory (which HDD did we store what on). Unfortunately a pointer in an infinite address space needs and infinite amount of storage meaning you would have converted all matter in the universe into HDD before you had finished storing the first pointer.
It is important to remember that Linus has painted himself into a corner anyway. The terminology used on most of the Linux copyright notices, coupled with the lack of complete records of who owns the copyright on which portions (or the lack of centralised copyright assignment) mean that nether Linus nor anyone else can ever change the Linux license to the GPLv3 or any other licence.
Whilst I personally agree with Linus' reservations about the GPLv3 DRAFTS, he really has little choice but to criticise them. If the GPLv3 was perceived as superior by the majority of the Linux community, and Linus was unable to adopt it, he would have a serious face saving exercise on his hands.
Disclaimer: I am from the UK so this may not apply. I also decided to skip university myself so I may be biased.
However with several years playing with hardware and software and a natural aptitude for IT you should be most of the way there. Get a book or go to an evening class to learn enough SQL and your preferred programming language to write something simple like a shopping basket. Then you should be able to get a job that can match a 'mundane college job' wage and learn the rest as you go.
IT moves so fast that you always have to learn on the job anyway, ability to learn new stuff outweighs the value of the stuff you have already learnt. Your degree shows you can learn, and stick at something, not many people will care it is not in CS if you can show you could do the job.
Holtzman effect generated by a Holtzman Generator!
Though as the sheilds also had the small drawback of attracting Worms and the slightly larger drawback of triggering a cascading nuclear fusion reaction when hit by the most common weapon of the time the lasgun. The shields weren't actually used much.
Actually the JPEG issue was a buffer overflow problem, the is no intentionly executable code in the JPEG standard or Microsoft's implementation. (the WMF thing was just very bad design).
Nobody mentioned "exponentially worse", just that it was as likely and this network should expect to be targeted.
The fact that the have been two critical vulnerabilities (JPEG and WMF issues were unrelated) in relatively simply 2D decompression code means it is reasonable to expect the may be vulnerabilities in 3D code as well.
It is due to delta compression, and all the other complex mathematical filters applied to video that makes a vulnerability so likely. If loading a "single frame" bitmap off the disk into memory exposes a buffer overflow you have a very bad programmer. A complex system of highly speed optimised code covering network caching, decryption, decoding, decompression, and post processing is a very different matter.
The high number of MPEG4 players dose not equate to a high number of MPEG4 codecs; as the JPEG and WMF vulnerabilities showed by effecting very nearly all Windows programs that used these formats.
Even if you assumed that the 5% efficiency was constant at any absolute value (it is highly likely that it is 5% peek at some specific temperature) and the solar panel did not reduce the efficiency of your heat collector (it is also likely that a solar panel reflects and radiates more energy then a dedicated collector) then you would only get a combined efficiency of ~24% as the collector can't get the 20% the solar panels are converting Either way solar is very rarely constrained by size, but rather cost of installation. I expect that in most situations installing a solar cell with 120% of the service area is more cost effective then installing another complex system that would need additional maintenance.
Sony would easily be able to offer eBay more money then their fees for what is a relatively tiny number of auctions. However eBay would NEVER take the money even if Sony offered an extra £1M sweetener. If eBay ban the auctions then people will simply go somewhere else, eBay will do whatever it takes to ensure that this never happens. eBay isn't the best or cheapest auction house, they are only the one that everyone uses and they realise how precarious this could be.
The is absolutely no way a high deposit will have any effect on the resellers, this is their business they are going to be logical and realise that the deposit has no effect on the business equation. They look at the price they pay (full retail) and the price they can sell and nothing else.
If anything a high deposit is more likely to discourage consumers from pre-ordering, whilst reinforcing the perceived value of the console; hence giving the resellers a bigger and more receptive market.
The reason two reasons for the high deposit:
Sony wants people to be totally committed before the Wii can launch and steel any if their thunder.
Sony are (beginning) to realise that very few people are actually going to be able to afford the PS3, splitting it into two payments makes it a bit more approachable.
Robot researcher are working on "don't bing into walls" and "don't fall over", "Robots shall not (knowingly) harm another scentient being" is a very long way off.
Human grade intelegence has only really mastered the third law, with selective aderance to the first and second, and almost total disregard for the zeroth.
Scenario 4
- Small business owner follows Scenario 3 and dose nothing (trust me, spending $5K replacing working machines is nearly as unlikly as your Senario 1)
- The entire network gets pwnd by some script kiddy (enough that they stop working, they will have been riddled with spyware for years).
- Boss calls his mate/random guy from the pub who 'knows computers' to come an sort it out for a beer.
- Pub guy explains that the is no point reinstalling 98 (expecially as they will have lost the disks and licence keys aproximatly 8 years ago)
Boss has two choices:
- Let pub guy install Linux and get back to work by the afternoon.
- Spend $5K he hadn't budgeted for and shut the business down for a few days till his shinny new DELLs arrive.
Apart from the fairly obvious point that Microsoft would not tell this to a fount tier support tech before they had sounded out their corporate clients, this would be mind numbingly stupid.
Microsoft make a lot of money because Windows is a monopoly, they know this, we all know this; they are not going to do anything to stop anyone using Windows, irrespective of whether that person's OEM paid the $10 Microsoft tax.
I can forgive the ZD-net journalist for submitting such a stupid story (he had just been on the phone to Microsoft Support!) but why on earth did they run it??? (no need to ask why/. picked it up)
The system shock engine was much enhanced (they had two years) over the original UU engine. Moore's law alone might well have made if fast enough. (System Shock supported 640x480 on high-end machines, UU's window was fixed at 172x112)
It did not take the Doom clones long to catch up technically and (depending on you tasts) surpass it's gameplay. But my point stands; the Doom engine was better than anything that had come before.
Only partially true. Yes UU was two years earlier and had the same textured walls, sprite based items, and more advanced geometry then Doom. But it ran dog slow in a quarter-screen window with a tiny maximum viewing distance. The full screen, open, light and above all FAST Doom engine was altogether a new game.
Then you add the one and only thing that made Doom worth playing - network play.
I loved both UU games, but I went 13.5 hours without a toilet or food break in a Doom deathmatch.
(UU does pre-date Wolfenstine 3D and Carmack has acknowledged it as an inspiration)
I am for in game adds (if they lower the cost of gaming), but the have to be done well, this is exactly how to ruin them. Decoding the marketing speak his points are:
1 very intrusive: subtle 2 stick them anywere: but some effort into placing them at logical points. 3 invade your privacy: measure ROI without destroying privacy. 4 dup. of point 2. 5 marketing executives place ads (seemingly at random to us lesser mortals): games developers carefully integrate adverts into the games environment without destroying suspension of disbelief.
The are two rules to making good in-line adverts: don't be intrusive and done break the suspension of disbelieve.
If you can create a standard API which allows a brand of suger water to sponsor the tournament in X sports sim, and create large flashing billboards for BladeRunner MMOG (maybe this will prompt them to actually make this), appear as a faded fly poster in X FPS, an in game item in the SIMS, and never show up in World of Warcraft then you should be programming something more important than an in game ad server.
Whilst a don't think that it is set in stone, the Geode chips the OLPC project are planning to use include a south and northbridge along with graphics in one package (IIRC 1.1W for a 533Mhz PIII equivelent with direct pin out to an LCD sounds ideal for a very cheep laptop).
The Efficion has an integrated nothbridge, but the extra chips needed for a southbridge/graphics package would be bound to up the costs. (Not to mention the Efficions are more like a 1Ghz Pentium-M with AMD64 added on for good luck, and they suck 5W of power).
Slashdot Mirror
The nVidia blobs and kernel stub are not GPL. The GPL Linux kernel contains no code for accessing the NVIDIA blobs.
The process of installing the nVidia Kernel stub combines GPL and non-GPL code and compiles it on your machine. The resulting binary is NOT re-distributable under any licence. This is why Linux distributions do not come with the nVidia and ATI drivers built in, but you must install them separately.
This workaround works because the GPL only comes into effect when you copy a program not when you use it, as long as you are not copying (i.e. redistributing) the results you are not bound by its terms.
iChessU could use the same trick. Download the standard JIN source, download the iChessU patch and binary and compile them yourself - noone is copying the result, so the GPL is not violated. Though the resulting program contains GPL and non-GPL code and so can never be copied under any licence.
Same amount of work, not the same amount of energy.
Consider a space elevator where someone pushed the emergency stop button half way up. The elevator is sitting still doing no work and consuming no energy - so if they fitted emergency stop buttons to rockets could they hover indefinitely?
As space tourists usually want to come back, the net work of a return journey on the elevator is actually zero. If space mining took off and we started returning more mass then we launched then the elevator would double as a nice power station.
These are artwork mock-ups not a final design even if they are genuine. No way Amazon is having its menu jump around like that.
I have no doubt that Amazon will do this service, however I seriously hope 5GB is not enough to store all my downloads (though if they stick to Windows 0GB would do).
I am not so sure. I loved the graphics of Carrier Command and don't feel they need updating (though tcp/ip networking might be good). Okay I will admit it, I also liked Tron, but the is something very clean about the lack of textures. Anything short of totally photorealism really wouldn't be an improvement for me.
DosBox can run CC and you can find a download over at www.the-underdogs.info if you don't have a floppy drive any more.
Populous graphics we serviceable at the time but any raster graphics look better redrawn for a higher resolution and larger pallet. However I feel a remake could go further, will true 3d, adjustable camera angles, and the ability to shape the terrain on a more granular level, not simply raise an lower large sections. I do feel B&W2's engine with the basic gameplay of Populous but with more control over the land could be amazing fun.
But you would need pointers to that infinite amount of memory (which HDD did we store what on). Unfortunately a pointer in an infinite address space needs and infinite amount of storage meaning you would have converted all matter in the universe into HDD before you had finished storing the first pointer.
It is important to remember that Linus has painted himself into a corner anyway. The terminology used on most of the Linux copyright notices, coupled with the lack of complete records of who owns the copyright on which portions (or the lack of centralised copyright assignment) mean that nether Linus nor anyone else can ever change the Linux license to the GPLv3 or any other licence. Whilst I personally agree with Linus' reservations about the GPLv3 DRAFTS, he really has little choice but to criticise them. If the GPLv3 was perceived as superior by the majority of the Linux community, and Linus was unable to adopt it, he would have a serious face saving exercise on his hands.
Disclaimer: I am from the UK so this may not apply. I also decided to skip university myself so I may be biased.
However with several years playing with hardware and software and a natural aptitude for IT you should be most of the way there. Get a book or go to an evening class to learn enough SQL and your preferred programming language to write something simple like a shopping basket. Then you should be able to get a job that can match a 'mundane college job' wage and learn the rest as you go.
IT moves so fast that you always have to learn on the job anyway, ability to learn new stuff outweighs the value of the stuff you have already learnt. Your degree shows you can learn, and stick at something, not many people will care it is not in CS if you can show you could do the job.
Holtzman effect generated by a Holtzman Generator!
Though as the sheilds also had the small drawback of attracting Worms and the slightly larger drawback of triggering a cascading nuclear fusion reaction when hit by the most common weapon of the time the lasgun. The shields weren't actually used much.
Actually the JPEG issue was a buffer overflow problem, the is no intentionly executable code in the JPEG standard or Microsoft's implementation. (the WMF thing was just very bad design).
Nobody mentioned "exponentially worse", just that it was as likely and this network should expect to be targeted.
The fact that the have been two critical vulnerabilities (JPEG and WMF issues were unrelated) in relatively simply 2D decompression code means it is reasonable to expect the may be vulnerabilities in 3D code as well.
It is due to delta compression, and all the other complex mathematical filters applied to video that makes a vulnerability so likely. If loading a "single frame" bitmap off the disk into memory exposes a buffer overflow you have a very bad programmer. A complex system of highly speed optimised code covering network caching, decryption, decoding, decompression, and post processing is a very different matter.
The high number of MPEG4 players dose not equate to a high number of MPEG4 codecs; as the JPEG and WMF vulnerabilities showed by effecting very nearly all Windows programs that used these formats.
Even if you assumed that the 5% efficiency was constant at any absolute value (it is highly likely that it is 5% peek at some specific temperature) and the solar panel did not reduce the efficiency of your heat collector (it is also likely that a solar panel reflects and radiates more energy then a dedicated collector) then you would only get a combined efficiency of ~24% as the collector can't get the 20% the solar panels are converting
Either way solar is very rarely constrained by size, but rather cost of installation. I expect that in most situations installing a solar cell with 120% of the service area is more cost effective then installing another complex system that would need additional maintenance.
Sony would easily be able to offer eBay more money then their fees for what is a relatively tiny number of auctions. However eBay would NEVER take the money even if Sony offered an extra £1M sweetener. If eBay ban the auctions then people will simply go somewhere else, eBay will do whatever it takes to ensure that this never happens. eBay isn't the best or cheapest auction house, they are only the one that everyone uses and they realise how precarious this could be.
The is absolutely no way a high deposit will have any effect on the resellers, this is their business they are going to be logical and realise that the deposit has no effect on the business equation. They look at the price they pay (full retail) and the price they can sell and nothing else.
If anything a high deposit is more likely to discourage consumers from pre-ordering, whilst reinforcing the perceived value of the console; hence giving the resellers a bigger and more receptive market.
The reason two reasons for the high deposit:
Sony wants people to be totally committed before the Wii can launch and steel any if their thunder.
Sony are (beginning) to realise that very few people are actually going to be able to afford the PS3, splitting it into two payments makes it a bit more approachable.
The scariest part is that it would probably be better then several of thier recent films!
The problem with Molyneux games is the VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY annoying unskipable intros.
Magic carpet was a great game, but a slightly dodgy CD-ROM drive meant I quite literally spend longer watching the cruddy video then playing the game.
This continued in B&W, where the stupid tutorial wouldn't leave you alone if you wanted to try out different styles of play from the beginning.
Still from the person who brought me Populous and Syndicate (no idea why this was so good, but it truly was) I will forgive a lot.
Robot researcher are working on "don't bing into walls" and "don't fall over", "Robots shall not (knowingly) harm another scentient being" is a very long way off.
Human grade intelegence has only really mastered the third law, with selective aderance to the first and second, and almost total disregard for the zeroth.
Scenario 4
- Small business owner follows Scenario 3 and dose nothing (trust me, spending $5K replacing working machines is nearly as unlikly as your Senario 1)
- The entire network gets pwnd by some script kiddy (enough that they stop working, they will have been riddled with spyware for years).
- Boss calls his mate/random guy from the pub who 'knows computers' to come an sort it out for a beer.
- Pub guy explains that the is no point reinstalling 98 (expecially as they will have lost the disks and licence keys aproximatly 8 years ago)
Boss has two choices:
- Let pub guy install Linux and get back to work by the afternoon.
- Spend $5K he hadn't budgeted for and shut the business down for a few days till his shinny new DELLs arrive.
Finally, the ultimate weapon!
e battler/
http://www.consoledatabase.com/consoleinfo/barcod
I knew I held on to it for a reason.
Apart from the fairly obvious point that Microsoft would not tell this to a fount tier support tech before they had sounded out their corporate clients, this would be mind numbingly stupid.
/. picked it up)
Microsoft make a lot of money because Windows is a monopoly, they know this, we all know this; they are not going to do anything to stop anyone using Windows, irrespective of whether that person's OEM paid the $10 Microsoft tax.
I can forgive the ZD-net journalist for submitting such a stupid story (he had just been on the phone to Microsoft Support!) but why on earth did they run it??? (no need to ask why
The system shock engine was much enhanced (they had two years) over the original UU engine. Moore's law alone might well have made if fast enough. (System Shock supported 640x480 on high-end machines, UU's window was fixed at 172x112)
It did not take the Doom clones long to catch up technically and (depending on you tasts) surpass it's gameplay. But my point stands; the Doom engine was better than anything that had come before.
Only partially true. Yes UU was two years earlier and had the same textured walls, sprite based items, and more advanced geometry then Doom. But it ran dog slow in a quarter-screen window with a tiny maximum viewing distance. The full screen, open, light and above all FAST Doom engine was altogether a new game.
Then you add the one and only thing that made Doom worth playing - network play.
I loved both UU games, but I went 13.5 hours without a toilet or food break in a Doom deathmatch.
(UU does pre-date Wolfenstine 3D and Carmack has acknowledged it as an inspiration)
Odd, my maths says Google would be cheeper for anything under $100.
Buy why O' why no micropayments, wake me up when they have a 10% + $0 option.
I am for in game adds (if they lower the cost of gaming), but the have to be done well, this is exactly how to ruin them. Decoding the marketing speak his points are:
1 very intrusive: subtle
2 stick them anywere: but some effort into placing them at logical points.
3 invade your privacy: measure ROI without destroying privacy.
4 dup. of point 2.
5 marketing executives place ads (seemingly at random to us lesser mortals): games developers carefully integrate adverts into the games environment without destroying suspension of disbelief.
The are two rules to making good in-line adverts: don't be intrusive and done break the suspension of disbelieve.
If you can create a standard API which allows a brand of suger water to sponsor the tournament in X sports sim, and create large flashing billboards for BladeRunner MMOG (maybe this will prompt them to actually make this), appear as a faded fly poster in X FPS, an in game item in the SIMS, and never show up in World of Warcraft then you should be programming something more important than an in game ad server.
Actually IKEA's tax evasion makes them the biggest charitable foundation. Though I would still buy shoddy furniture before I run Windows.
Whilst a don't think that it is set in stone, the Geode chips the OLPC project are planning to use include a south and northbridge along with graphics in one package (IIRC 1.1W for a 533Mhz PIII equivelent with direct pin out to an LCD sounds ideal for a very cheep laptop).
The Efficion has an integrated nothbridge, but the extra chips needed for a southbridge/graphics package would be bound to up the costs. (Not to mention the Efficions are more like a 1Ghz Pentium-M with AMD64 added on for good luck, and they suck 5W of power).
You HDTV numbers look wrong:
1080p is 1920x1080 and 60Hz insted of 30hz. They are pushing 13.5 times as many pixels as NTSC.
720p is more common but even this is 1280x720@60 or 6 times the pixels.