Get over yourselfs Plan 9 and BSD trolls - I'm seeing more of you fall out of the wood work in/. comments and it is getting annoying...Guess what; I have games (HL2, UT2k4, Q4, EVE, etc) and XGL (transset over xcompmgr) with fully compatible nvidia binary drivers and every bit of hardware on my computer supported, nearly, all under gpl compared to your what? Firefox suport? To put it simply there is need for Plan 9 and smaller BSDs to exist and that is so they spur Linux to continue to better itself and they provide good server OSes.
So bugger off and let people use their favourite OS in peace or don't bitch when the next major Plan 9 feature is reported and every one else just sighs and says 'use linux'.
End users have been downloading large content for years now; starting with small music media (3-5meg), then moving onto small games and similar (150-400meg), jumping up to good old linux isos (650-700meg) as well as dvd media (4.7gig), and most recently bit torrent which can include series of data not just one or two files (upto 20gig).
So while ipv4 may have routing issues with such large long term streaming it isn't like we haven't been hammering the internet with large data transfers before and I highly doubt HD streaming will bring many more to the fold of heavy net usage than already exists. Besides bit torrent by nature should be more painful for isps than streaming; so get over it or charge us more to upgrade your networks to handle the load like you should be.
Well as a student who's been hanging out for a new console for around a year now I've now seen (almost) clearly what my options are. 1) An expensive and shitty console by ms that is designed to take advantage of my 100" plasma and 2) An expensive and shiny console by sony that is designed to take advantage of my 100" plasma...Oh wait...I'm a poor uni student who can't afford anything more than a 51cm tv and nothing like either of these consoles plus games. All I want to do is play well thought out games that play smoothly and are playable for hours.
Guess it's all up to you now nintendo; provide me with a reasonably priced funbox before the end of the year before I loose faith in the games industry!
This really brings out the lust for pure flaming in me...
As net users we pay to be connected to the internet and for the price we pay we get a speed and (in the case of us australia users) a download limit. And as companies groups like google and yahoo pay for their connections and data they send to the internet.
So both groups have paid their dues to those who control the networks...So all of this bullshit (and lets not beat around the bush here) is that network providers want to double dip without raising their existing connection fees. Now the problem with is is that companies will end up biding huge amounts just to use the net - imagine yahoo and google in a auction style fight to exist - the networks demandinig this are just creaming their pants at that thought.
To be honest as a net user paying a fair price for a service I think these people should just fuck right off and I cheer google and others for standing up to them and serving them one.
PC, VHS are good examples of this as end users tend to use the words 'Computer' and 'Video' instead of their names. Though notice how people say DVD when they talk about DVDs? This is because it flows, it sounds remotely sexy, and it quick to get out in a sentence. Now try and say Haych Dey-DVD in a sentence ten times fast...
Compare this to BlueRay where end users will see it and say it like that. They will then probably go with it based on its non-excluding non-geeky name and just that it looks a lot nicer than many other names out there. Of course no one will ever say BlueRay in conversation so they will say 'video' which for those of us around only six years ago will notice that 'hey that is what users are used too' and that is comfy for them. So purely on the type of name I'd say those behind BlueRay did their research and they expect it to be some thing that will help them: BlueRay becoming synonymous with Video.
Movements always need a strong leader or they fail. In the free software group it is a god send to have one or two (or three) people that, while people don't always agree with/die listening to via boredom, toe a very specific and non changing line; they provide focus and direction. So for all of the horror of hardcore idealist dullness and jokes I will happily lay on RMS (and the like) I still hold a great deal of respect for him and as a member of the movement roughly follow his guidance on issues....Keep being that stickler for all of our sakes.
When it came time to look into getting more UNIX based servers at work we took a new path over RedHat/AIX/SCO and settled on GNU Debian Linux. We are now running three new servers (in the 2005 year) using UNIX(-like) on top of our existing UNIX/Windows setup.
So really sales figures can no longer really be an indicator of what is really out there now that businesses are happy to buy blank servers and load their favourite Linux/BSD distro...unless many corporation's are running pirated versions of Windows on their servers. Which I for one would seriously doubt.
As a long time GNOME user, I used KDE for the first few months of Linux and switched to try and never went back - some three years ago, I have to agree. Sure Windows has stupid names for programs but I'm really sick of this whole 'we must follow Gates' - I think Linux has come into its own and should work on its own style now - so that is no excuse...More so that Apple can pull off decent names. Case in point GNOME Meeting was a very descriptive term and really...Ekiga...What, how do I sell that to the family?
Luckily I'm very happy with how Ubuntu gets around this problem. For those unaware Ubuntu picks an application to do the major task and then names it descriptively; for example Firefox is called 'Internet' and Nautilus is called 'File Browser'. (Disclaimer: I'm a GNU\Debian user.)
WINE supports cd copy protection already, it isn't as good as Cedega's or Xover Offices but it will be in the near future. I'm not sure how you thought I wouldn't know that after I stated that I've been a Linux gamer for several years now... And yes the games I play are not (all) free software so in theory they (to a limited extent) taint my system, though contary to your useless assumptions I'm not a free software nut. My dislike for Transgaming comes from their history with the opensource community and little else.
If you were even slightly smart you would realise I have to use the nvidia binary drivers in the first place to get direct rendering so before I even start my kernel is tainted. Idiot trolls...Really...
Eve runs acceptably if: you have a newer generation nvidia graphics card (I have a 6600gt and I recommend some thing similar or better), a recent version of cedega, and a bit of time to sit down and get it working. These days it basically works out of the box and CCP seem to have altered a few things that make it more playable under Linux (not sure they knew that they were doing it) and the only two major things now is that you cannot press ESC (crashes the game) and the warp graphics aren't as clear as they are in windows (can be an advantage but doesn't look as pretty). Some jump gates still cause crashes if you don't fly in a specific manor around them (there are three currently known to do this out of the 15,000 odd so it's not really a problem). Check the Cedega wiki.
I honestly wonder if the million in prizes makes up for the extra time collectively people spend trying to find the information they need instead of Googling it in the first place?
WINE is still not ready for centre stage in that regard, yet...Though it is looking more like Cedega was just the warm up act as WINE(hq) and Xover Office will both soon have rather impressive implimentations of directx. I say this as a long time Linux gamer (three and a bit years now of no freelancer ): and a long time pirate (and more recently subscriber) to Cedega (I sold my soul in exchange for a stable way to play Eve Online...).
Just an update on gaming in general under Linux - at the last LAN a fellow Debian user and myself managed to keep up with every game the Windows users installed at played using a combination of native games, Cedega 4.x and 5.x, and WINE. I will enjoy the day when I can remove the horrid taint from my system (Cedega) and be able to game with only native or WINE run games.:)
I'm rather sure RAM still costs far more than drive space. In fact I'm sure the 1024meg (2x 512) of DDR400 RAM that I have cost more than my 200gig PATA 8meg cache hdd bought at the same time only what...A month and a half ago. Then again the gig of ram was worth putting off getting two 250gig drives so I guess life is still good!
Look I write my pages in xhtml/css so porting to a small screen/device isn't much trouble at all so it really comes down to if they are going to pay me for it. If they do that's great and I'll do it...Though when you add reality mobile web browsers aren't in common usage because end users find them to hard... Hell they find MSIE on their desktops to hard. So I can honestly see things like the Nokia 770 being the only type of device that really takes off for mobile browsing and it uses full page code anyway - with some extra Opera tweaks for large scale pages.
I personally like the idea of sites working on as many screens, devices, OSes, browsers as possible so I'd do it just for that warm fuzzy feeling that that 1 in 100000000 customers sees that you've thought of them and you gain +1 respect from them which could come in handy for their next purchase of a product like the one you supply.
Seriously man... I was trying to avoid saying that a good percentage of them were hardcore pirates (which is a reasonably accurate thing to say) as we all know the popular image of Australia...
Guess it's time for all the convict jokes then ey?
This is already happening. Take for example a Bond movie (sure not a TV show but this is going into tv shows already) only five years ago a Bond movie wouldn't have any ads at all, now every thing in Die Another Day is product placement. Or for further example the first fourteen minutes of I, Robot. I put to you that the ad reps needed a way around ad skipping and ad placement was a great idea so they have integrated it reasonably well. Now they are fighting to try and keep both revenue streams open for as long as possible which in Australia will be awhile.
Unlike America (I assume?) we don't have a culture of wanting to skip ads as TV stations on the whole tend to space them well and limit how repetitive they are while adding verity (eg not drug ads 24/7). Personally my family has a DVR device that can easily skip ads but we don't bother...The want and effort required just isn't there and this is reflected by every DVR owner that I know.
I'm an Australian and I know of four police officers who are absolutely aware of my mp3(/ogg) collection. My collection is ripped from cd's that I legitimately own using sound-juicer and put onto my ipod using gtkpod. The police officers that have knowledge of this have part-taken in usage of my ipod to play these 'illegal' tracks and in three cases the officers themselves have children (or personally) who have mp3's both legal and illegal.
So I ask; how can the police enforce a law/requirement that they themselves do not respect? Further more I welcome this ruling from our great overlords (who I voted against) as it will stop most of the population being made criminals for using some thing (fairly) that they paid for. Kudos.
PS. Please don't arrest me and use this post* in court as an admittance of breaking the law!
*In the event that this post is used in the above fashion it is a complete fabrication! *Hides in his Bunker!
If AMD sells out in this way my loyalty would quickly be eroded. I'm not sure when the term 'loyal' took on this fanboy idea of 'to the death' and I don't imply it when I say things.
Yay Intel finally dropped the child like hanging 'e' in their logo; at least going by the one I see on that page. Thank god for that, it made them look unprofessional; to bad it won't get my custom back. After a horrid run of over priced underpowered cpu's in the 90's I've been an AMD man. (And if the pathetic performance of our two dual cpu Xeon servers here at work (the rest are AMD) is anything to go by I'll stay a loyal AMD fanboy.)
You guys are the lucky ones as you can just ignore this lump of coal. Us poor Linux users will be up all Christmas night hacking away at wine to get this worm emulated so we don't feel left out.
Convincing the Windows crowd that we are compatible is such a pain...:(
...Is to use Gnome with KDE apps or the other way around. I personally cannot stand KDE; though I can't live without some of its apps like K3B (the best gui burning program on the planet imo). So for me it is simple; I choose to use both and Linus can go screw himself if he wants to go against one of the primary ideals of this whole community - choice.
Last time I checked proprietary software ran on OSS systems. My point is that when schools understand what OSS offers them as a development model this rubbishy system of contract coders doing their allocation systems and the like could easily be cleaned up. The advantages are there.
Slashdot Mirror
Get over yourselfs Plan 9 and BSD trolls - I'm seeing more of you fall out of the wood work in /. comments and it is getting annoying...Guess what; I have games (HL2, UT2k4, Q4, EVE, etc) and XGL (transset over xcompmgr) with fully compatible nvidia binary drivers and every bit of hardware on my computer supported, nearly, all under gpl compared to your what? Firefox suport? To put it simply there is need for Plan 9 and smaller BSDs to exist and that is so they spur Linux to continue to better itself and they provide good server OSes.
So bugger off and let people use their favourite OS in peace or don't bitch when the next major Plan 9 feature is reported and every one else just sighs and says 'use linux'.
...Pull the other one.
End users have been downloading large content for years now; starting with small music media (3-5meg), then moving onto small games and similar (150-400meg), jumping up to good old linux isos (650-700meg) as well as dvd media (4.7gig), and most recently bit torrent which can include series of data not just one or two files (upto 20gig).
So while ipv4 may have routing issues with such large long term streaming it isn't like we haven't been hammering the internet with large data transfers before and I highly doubt HD streaming will bring many more to the fold of heavy net usage than already exists. Besides bit torrent by nature should be more painful for isps than streaming; so get over it or charge us more to upgrade your networks to handle the load like you should be.
Well as a student who's been hanging out for a new console for around a year now I've now seen (almost) clearly what my options are. 1) An expensive and shitty console by ms that is designed to take advantage of my 100" plasma and 2) An expensive and shiny console by sony that is designed to take advantage of my 100" plasma...Oh wait...I'm a poor uni student who can't afford anything more than a 51cm tv and nothing like either of these consoles plus games. All I want to do is play well thought out games that play smoothly and are playable for hours.
Guess it's all up to you now nintendo; provide me with a reasonably priced funbox before the end of the year before I loose faith in the games industry!
This really brings out the lust for pure flaming in me...
As net users we pay to be connected to the internet and for the price we pay we get a speed and (in the case of us australia users) a download limit. And as companies groups like google and yahoo pay for their connections and data they send to the internet.
So both groups have paid their dues to those who control the networks...So all of this bullshit (and lets not beat around the bush here) is that network providers want to double dip without raising their existing connection fees. Now the problem with is is that companies will end up biding huge amounts just to use the net - imagine yahoo and google in a auction style fight to exist - the networks demandinig this are just creaming their pants at that thought.
To be honest as a net user paying a fair price for a service I think these people should just fuck right off and I cheer google and others for standing up to them and serving them one.
End users hate ugly names.
PC, VHS are good examples of this as end users tend to use the words 'Computer' and 'Video' instead of their names. Though notice how people say DVD when they talk about DVDs? This is because it flows, it sounds remotely sexy, and it quick to get out in a sentence.
Now try and say Haych Dey-DVD in a sentence ten times fast...
Compare this to BlueRay where end users will see it and say it like that. They will then probably go with it based on its non-excluding non-geeky name and just that it looks a lot nicer than many other names out there. Of course no one will ever say BlueRay in conversation so they will say 'video' which for those of us around only six years ago will notice that 'hey that is what users are used too' and that is comfy for them. So purely on the type of name I'd say those behind BlueRay did their research and they expect it to be some thing that will help them: BlueRay becoming synonymous with Video.
In fact it is just one of his Noody Appendages that got compressed under the pressure of the ocean.
Movements always need a strong leader or they fail. In the free software group it is a god send to have one or two (or three) people that, while people don't always agree with/die listening to via boredom, toe a very specific and non changing line; they provide focus and direction. So for all of the horror of hardcore idealist dullness and jokes I will happily lay on RMS (and the like) I still hold a great deal of respect for him and as a member of the movement roughly follow his guidance on issues. ...Keep being that stickler for all of our sakes.
When it came time to look into getting more UNIX based servers at work we took a new path over RedHat/AIX/SCO and settled on GNU Debian Linux. We are now running three new servers (in the 2005 year) using UNIX(-like) on top of our existing UNIX/Windows setup.
So really sales figures can no longer really be an indicator of what is really out there now that businesses are happy to buy blank servers and load their favourite Linux/BSD distro...unless many corporation's are running pirated versions of Windows on their servers. Which I for one would seriously doubt.
As a long time GNOME user, I used KDE for the first few months of Linux and switched to try and never went back - some three years ago, I have to agree. Sure Windows has stupid names for programs but I'm really sick of this whole 'we must follow Gates' - I think Linux has come into its own and should work on its own style now - so that is no excuse...More so that Apple can pull off decent names. Case in point GNOME Meeting was a very descriptive term and really...Ekiga...What, how do I sell that to the family?
Luckily I'm very happy with how Ubuntu gets around this problem. For those unaware Ubuntu picks an application to do the major task and then names it descriptively; for example Firefox is called 'Internet' and Nautilus is called 'File Browser'. (Disclaimer: I'm a GNU\Debian user.)
WINE supports cd copy protection already, it isn't as good as Cedega's or Xover Offices but it will be in the near future. I'm not sure how you thought I wouldn't know that after I stated that I've been a Linux gamer for several years now... And yes the games I play are not (all) free software so in theory they (to a limited extent) taint my system, though contary to your useless assumptions I'm not a free software nut. My dislike for Transgaming comes from their history with the opensource community and little else.
If you were even slightly smart you would realise I have to use the nvidia binary drivers in the first place to get direct rendering so before I even start my kernel is tainted. Idiot trolls...Really...
Eve runs acceptably if: you have a newer generation nvidia graphics card (I have a 6600gt and I recommend some thing similar or better), a recent version of cedega, and a bit of time to sit down and get it working. These days it basically works out of the box and CCP seem to have altered a few things that make it more playable under Linux (not sure they knew that they were doing it) and the only two major things now is that you cannot press ESC (crashes the game) and the warp graphics aren't as clear as they are in windows (can be an advantage but doesn't look as pretty). Some jump gates still cause crashes if you don't fly in a specific manor around them (there are three currently known to do this out of the 15,000 odd so it's not really a problem). Check the Cedega wiki.
I honestly wonder if the million in prizes makes up for the extra time collectively people spend trying to find the information they need instead of Googling it in the first place?
WINE is still not ready for centre stage in that regard, yet...Though it is looking more like Cedega was just the warm up act as WINE(hq) and Xover Office will both soon have rather impressive implimentations of directx. I say this as a long time Linux gamer (three and a bit years now of no freelancer ): and a long time pirate (and more recently subscriber) to Cedega (I sold my soul in exchange for a stable way to play Eve Online...).
:)
Just an update on gaming in general under Linux - at the last LAN a fellow Debian user and myself managed to keep up with every game the Windows users installed at played using a combination of native games, Cedega 4.x and 5.x, and WINE. I will enjoy the day when I can remove the horrid taint from my system (Cedega) and be able to game with only native or WINE run games.
I'm rather sure RAM still costs far more than drive space. In fact I'm sure the 1024meg (2x 512) of DDR400 RAM that I have cost more than my 200gig PATA 8meg cache hdd bought at the same time only what...A month and a half ago. Then again the gig of ram was worth putting off getting two 250gig drives so I guess life is still good!
Look I write my pages in xhtml/css so porting to a small screen/device isn't much trouble at all so it really comes down to if they are going to pay me for it. If they do that's great and I'll do it...Though when you add reality mobile web browsers aren't in common usage because end users find them to hard ... Hell they find MSIE on their desktops to hard. So I can honestly see things like the Nokia 770 being the only type of device that really takes off for mobile browsing and it uses full page code anyway - with some extra Opera tweaks for large scale pages.
I personally like the idea of sites working on as many screens, devices, OSes, browsers as possible so I'd do it just for that warm fuzzy feeling that that 1 in 100000000 customers sees that you've thought of them and you gain +1 respect from them which could come in handy for their next purchase of a product like the one you supply.
Seriously man... I was trying to avoid saying that a good percentage of them were hardcore pirates (which is a reasonably accurate thing to say) as we all know the popular image of Australia...
Guess it's time for all the convict jokes then ey?
This is already happening. Take for example a Bond movie (sure not a TV show but this is going into tv shows already) only five years ago a Bond movie wouldn't have any ads at all, now every thing in Die Another Day is product placement. Or for further example the first fourteen minutes of I, Robot. I put to you that the ad reps needed a way around ad skipping and ad placement was a great idea so they have integrated it reasonably well. Now they are fighting to try and keep both revenue streams open for as long as possible which in Australia will be awhile.
Unlike America (I assume?) we don't have a culture of wanting to skip ads as TV stations on the whole tend to space them well and limit how repetitive they are while adding verity (eg not drug ads 24/7). Personally my family has a DVR device that can easily skip ads but we don't bother...The want and effort required just isn't there and this is reflected by every DVR owner that I know.
Also, no one watches Joey.
I'm an Australian and I know of four police officers who are absolutely aware of my mp3(/ogg) collection. My collection is ripped from cd's that I legitimately own using sound-juicer and put onto my ipod using gtkpod. The police officers that have knowledge of this have part-taken in usage of my ipod to play these 'illegal' tracks and in three cases the officers themselves have children (or personally) who have mp3's both legal and illegal.
So I ask; how can the police enforce a law/requirement that they themselves do not respect? Further more I welcome this ruling from our great overlords (who I voted against) as it will stop most of the population being made criminals for using some thing (fairly) that they paid for. Kudos.
PS. Please don't arrest me and use this post* in court as an admittance of breaking the law!
*In the event that this post is used in the above fashion it is a complete fabrication! *Hides in his Bunker!
If AMD sells out in this way my loyalty would quickly be eroded. I'm not sure when the term 'loyal' took on this fanboy idea of 'to the death' and I don't imply it when I say things.
Yay Intel finally dropped the child like hanging 'e' in their logo; at least going by the one I see on that page. Thank god for that, it made them look unprofessional; to bad it won't get my custom back. After a horrid run of over priced underpowered cpu's in the 90's I've been an AMD man. (And if the pathetic performance of our two dual cpu Xeon servers here at work (the rest are AMD) is anything to go by I'll stay a loyal AMD fanboy.)
You guys are the lucky ones as you can just ignore this lump of coal. Us poor Linux users will be up all Christmas night hacking away at wine to get this worm emulated so we don't feel left out.
:(
Convincing the Windows crowd that we are compatible is such a pain...
...X.org was touched by His Noodly Appendage!
Million, not billion! ...Else that's a lot of people in the EU.
...Is to use Gnome with KDE apps or the other way around. I personally cannot stand KDE; though I can't live without some of its apps like K3B (the best gui burning program on the planet imo). So for me it is simple; I choose to use both and Linus can go screw himself if he wants to go against one of the primary ideals of this whole community - choice.
Last time I checked proprietary software ran on OSS systems. My point is that when schools understand what OSS offers them as a development model this rubbishy system of contract coders doing their allocation systems and the like could easily be cleaned up. The advantages are there.