I think you are missing the point. The techniques you suggest for gaining access to the files are wonderful if you are running Windows or MacOs. Again, I redundandly reiterate: I am running Linux (hence the word Linux in the message title), therefor these options are not available to me.
Now, once again I shall make my point: The actions being taken by Apple have as their direct result the exclusion of anybody not running Windows or MacOS. This is something I would like to see changed, hence my post. Offering my "solutions" that require me to be running QT4 (and therefor Windows or MacOS) are not solutions because I am running Linux.
Do a "copy link location" and paste into a reply to this message. I cannot find the "tab" you refer to to download the movie. Also, are you sure you got the whole movie? The way this QT streaming crap works is you get a little file named foo.mov, but all it is is a pointer to another URL, in a streaming protocol.
Besides, even if you did download the movie, could you watch it with Xanim? Again, it's the fact that Apple has the attitude that, "If you ain't Mac or Windows, you ain't $h!t" (of course, what are you if you ARE Mac or Windows?).
Apple won't support the OSS movement. They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. I'd love to see someone find Apple building some GPL'ed stuff into their new OS, and force Apple to OS it.
The movie isn't just in Quicktime format, it uses the QT streaming extensions, so unless you are running the latest version of QT, you cannot even download the movie; all you get is a "Click here to play" graphic.
Given the non-trivial correlation between comic book reading and Linux use, perhaps it's time to/. Marvel (or Apple) again.
This is nothing but a trial balloon (no pun intended) to see if opening the source would get MS out of hot water. BillG has learned from the master (BillC) that you can say anything and deny it later, saying "That depends on what your definition of "open" is."
So, make a (fake) offer to open the source, and see what happens. If it looks like it would work, you add it to the "possible strategy" list.
Now, if you think they'd open Win2000, you're foolish. They would release Win95 if anything. However, realize that most software runs on Win95, and that with the Win95 API/Bugset, Wine could run almost anything that didn't directly access hardware; i.e. anything that WinNT can run. Even is the Windows code weren't OSS, it would still be enough to clean-room Wine even faster.
However, I won't believe this until I see the codebase on sourceforce.com...
Actually, all the items you list are caught if you use g++ (i.e. compile as C++, not C), and use -W -Wall -pendantic -ansi. And you still get inline functions.
OK, I'm a C++ "bigot", and I don't understand why anyone would program in C when they have a perfectly good C++ compiler handy. The only times I drop back to plain ol' C is when I'm working on a microcontroller or DSP that has no C++.
And remember: You don't HAVE to use objects/inheritance/polymorphism/RTTI/exceptions/s treams/STL just because you threw the C++ switch: You want to pretend you're writing C, go for it.
And to forstall the flames: C++, written by somebody with a clue how to use it and compiled with a good compiler is every bit as efficient as C. The only times I've seen poor size or speed from C++ was when the person writing it had no clue how to design objects, and rather than sticking with plain C they botched the design. No language, not Java, not Ada, not Pascal, not Modula, can save you from an incompetent programmer.
Unfortunately, the site doesn't have the real audio file available for download. The only way they have it is via PNM or RTSP, i.e. streaming.
When will these sites learn that for ARCHIVAL purposes, they should put these streams on an FTP or HTTP server, so that those of us with poor bandwidth can DOWNLOAD the stream and then listen to it at our convenience. I wish that Streambox would release a version of their program for Linux....
NTSC (that's those TV thingies) are more like 378x200 something. If you do the math, it take rediculously less power to drive the same number of polygons around at that resolution
First, NTSC has a vertical rez of 525 lines, and a horizontal rez of about 350 lines if you are going over RF (e.g. tuned to channel 3 via a modulator) or 400 lines over composite video. If you go to YC (seperate lumanace and chromanance), you get about 450 lines.
Second, in most modern rendering chipsets the fill rate (the rate at which pixels can be put into polygons) is grossly higher than it needs to be: it is the polygon rate (the time to compute the position of each polygon) that is limited. Therefor, increasing or decreasing the resolution will have almost no effect on the frame rate, as the system will be limited by how many polygons it can cram onscreen, not how many pixels.
Lastly, remember that the X-Box will be running DirectX on Windows CE (Control Everything). The intent is to make it very easy to port from the console to the desktop (as long as the desktop has broken glass for an OS, not rotten fruit, flightless waterfowl, or satanic influences;^) )
Lastly, for something like this to sell, the BOM (Bill of Materials, the cost of the parts to make it) would have to be about $75 for it to sell at $150 (the rest is eaten up with manufacturing cost, NRE (non-recurring engineering costs), shipping, stocking, returns (my box just gives me this funky blue screen, I want a new one) etc.) This is even if the whole thing sells at a loss. MS wants to dominate the game market: they sell this as a loss-leader, they get all the hot games made for DirectX, they get all the game programmers indoctrinated into The MicroSoft Way Of Doing Things and they kill all competition. They almost managed this without a game console: look at how many games are DirectX rather than OpenGL. However, today, game companies are starting to realise that if they want to make Mac ports (or Linux/BSD ports, or console ports) they had best program for OpenGL. Case in point: Aliens Vs. Predator is being ported to OpenGL so that they can make a Mac version. Hopefully, the folks at Activision are learning a lesson from this and will do all future games in OpenGL.
Allowing unlimited down moderation would make it too easy for trollers. Log in, play along, get moderation, drop ALL posts down to -1. I could see that happening (through the use of a script or something). Not what we want.
Remember though, that when you have moderation access, you can moderate a given comment only once. If I had moderator access, I can raise or lower your comment by 1 point only, and then I'm locked out.
If I may ask, do you have/. account? Have you ever moderated? If not, may I suggest you get an account? You sound like a person I'd like to see get moderator access.
Allowing unlimited down moderation would make it too easy for trollers. Log in, play along, get moderation, drop ALL posts down to -1. I could see that happening (through the use of a script or something). Not what we want.
Remember though, that when you have moderation access, you can moderate a given comment only once. If I had moderator access, I can raise or lower your comment by 1 point only, and then I'm locked out.
If I may ask, do you have/. account? Have you ever moderated? If not, may I suggest you get an account? You sound like a person I'd like to see get moderator access.
Nope. I can't agree with this one. People should be encouraged to be thoughtful and only post when they truly have something to say. A karma decay as you've described it would encourage continous posting simply to keep your slashdot account "alive".
Consider: If you keep posting and have something worthy of moderation, then my suggestion is working: it is encouraging discussion. If you keep posting blather and not getting moderated up, then your karma decays. My point was that your karma decays no matter what, just posting is not enough to prevent it. You have to earn karma, and keep earning it.
And as for the point another person made that "people have enemies" and that they might lose karma due to bad moderators: You down-moderate me and people feel you were unfair, you get nuked in meta-moderation. That's why I said that being metamoderated as unfair should cost you BIGTIME karma.
As for meta-mod nuking your karma: Remember, a single "unfair" in metamoderation means nothing: a large number of the metamoderators who review your moderation have to agree you were unfair.
After I posted the origonal message, I thought further about it, and would also make the following suggestion: If you lose karma due to a downmod, and the downmod is later found unfair in metamod, you should get your karma back (and your post should lose the downmod).
Now, the question is, "Is anyone at/. reading these comments." Perhaps we, the/. public, need to get a petition together, and ask Rob et. al. to review our suggestions and debate them in an open forum. Perhaps this would be a good "Friday Q&A" article?
Go to score:1 and you will probably never see another Anonymous Coward post again unless the post deserves to be seen.
Sorry, but wrong. I ALWAYS read at 2, unless I am moderating. However, too many ACs get moderated up for no good reason. Additionally, too many people with high karma post junk at 2. I feel this is the real problem: people with high karma abusing it. In theory, the moderation system should fix this, since a person who posts junk gets moderated down and the poster loses karma, however this does not happen.
My analysis of the problems with the moderation system is that plus points need to be a scarce resource, and they are not. People like me, who have moderately high karma, have an unlimited number of plus points (because they post at 2). There are too many moderators moderating junk up.
My suggestions are:
People with high karma get a limited number of "plus tokens". For example, I would get 7 "plus tokens" a day (since my karma is currently 79). That way, I would be motivated to think seriously "Does this post deserve a +1?".
Any down-moderation costs you 10% of your karma. Consider: if I get a "-1: offtopic" on this post, it really doesn't effect me greatly: so my karma goes to 78. How does that effect me? However, if a down-moderation dropped me to 60, that might just get my attention. Even if it didn't, I'd quickly lose my automatic +1.
Karma should decay. If I haven't posted anything of note, I should lose a point every 3 days.
Bad moderation should cost BIGTIME karma: If I moderate junk up, and get nailed in metamoderation, I should lose 50% of my karma. Make the moderators think about moderation!
Down-moderating should cost less than up-moderating: again, the goal here is to keep plus points scarce. Trolling works because it costs as much to down-moderate a "grits" post as to up moderate a good post. Make down-moderation free. However, make abuse of the down-moderation cost 75% of the abuser's karma.
Don't let moderators access their points unless they are in "newest first, threshold=-1".
Keep the ACs. Really. This is an important part of/.. Yes, 90% of AC posts are crap. Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. But ACs can and do contribute.
I wonder if they will "film" the event by recording a demo file? At least you wouldn't have the annoyance of the photographer snapping flash pictures during the "I Do"'s.
The home of Frank Phillips (of Phillips Petrolium), and a very cool place to visit.
The Kansas Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS. If you are a/. reader you want to visit. One of the top space mueseums in the world, it has one of the largest collections of Russian space artifacts outside Russia.
As for net access: Go with public libraries, or get an account with somebody like NetZero. Yes, they are Windows only, but they are free. The bad thing about getting an AOL account is they are next to impossible to get rid of: they are like a roach motel - once you check in, you cannot check out.
As for hotel phone lines: Almost all hotels now have a modem jack on the side of the phone so that you won't blow your modem out. However, lots of hotels also try to screw you when you call an 800 number, so be careful.
Lastly, I suggest you look into some good mapping software. I use Delorme's AAA Map N Go, which runs (sort of ) under Wine (and flawlessly under Windows). Add to it their cheap GPS receiver, and you will make your travels a lot nicer.
I wouldn't want to be this guy unless I had asbestos shorts (come to think of it, not even then. Itchy...) because of the level of flames he's going to receive. Perhaps CERN could look for quark-gluon plasma around him: the flame temp should be more than high enough.
However, I think this is A Good Thing. Not because I like patents on software, but, sorry folks, software patents exist. Be in the now. Until the wonderful day when we can strike down software patents, we must arm ourselves to fight on their terms. By patenting RTLinux, and forcing non-OSS (non-free software too, in deference to RMS) to pay for it, we gain a weapon we can use in the eventual fight to end software patents.
I seem to remember only being able to write to the screen during the horizontal or vertical refresh of the monitor
Careful, you're dating yourself there. Modern systems use a technique called double-buffering, where the screen shows one frame of video memory, and the system writes to a second. You then flip on the vertical retrace interrupt. (Acutally, the old Atari 800, Commodore 64, Atari ST, and Amiga all could do this, it was just the PC that was limited to one video frame (at any decent resolution)).
The other limiting factor is memory bandwidth: If you have to pump "N" pixels a second out, that consumes much of the available bandwidth to the video RAM, leaving less for the CPU. However, modern video cards use very wide memory (128 bits or more) to allow more pixels per memory access, thus allowing more bandwidth to the main processor. So this too is less of a limiting factor.
However, I have experienced the very problem described in the article: I run 1600x1200 on my system at home, and certain foolish operating systems *cough*windows*cough* make teeny little icons. However, certain other systems *cough*xwindows*cough* allow me to tell the system the dots per inch, and most things work out well.
The question is, is there an archive?
on
Linus Interview
·
· Score: 2
Did anybody make an archive of the interview, for those of us who did not hear about this until far too late? Otherwise, the only way I can hear the interview would involve pissing off Dr. Einstein.
I am getting so damn sick and tired of all the rants about how/. can no longer be trusted because they sold out to Da Man.
Look people, freedom of the press applies only to the man who owns one. If you don't like/trust/., then download the code, set up a server, and run your own damn site with money out of your own damn pocket! Then you will truly have freedom of the press!
If only someone with power would realize the perfection behind many of Heinlein's ideas and put them into practice....
But since that would involve giving the individual the authority to govern his own life, and requiring the individual to take the blaim for his own fsckups (thus rendering the people with power powerless) it is unlikely to happen.
Besides, how could we continue to have the SickFare state if only people with military service could vote...
Many people say, "So what is we are being monitored? Just use encryption and ignore it, nothing much will happen anyway."
Sorry, you are missing the point. As is the case with many extant laws, what happens is this monitoring becomes one more way "the powers that be" can trip you up if you come into their notice.
Consider: Some agency decides they don't like the look of you. So, they go fishing for an excuse. Maybe you use encryption, maybe you don't have your vehicle registration in your car, maybe you aren't carrying your drivers' license while you are out for a walk. Whatever it is, it becomes the hook for further investigations. Given enough time, they WILL find something wrong.
The solution to bad laws is to repeal them as quickly as possible, before they dilute the good laws. As a wise man says, "If you add a bucket of dirty water to a bucket of clean water, you get dirty water."
I know you guys try to keep the # of stories down, but you really should make this latest abomination out of DribbleCluck a new top level story! I almost missed it.
This is the STUPIDEST way to handle this I can think of! "Hmm, I've set my shirt on fire. Perhaps I can run outside and dowse myself in something cold, like liquid oxygen..."
You don't get this stupid by accident. It takes bad genetics, years of practice, and chemical assistance. I've blocked DC for years on my firewall, now I know I made the right decision.
Hear Hear! I suggest that all laws save the Constitution have expiry dates, and require periodic renewals (by the same level of support as was required to pass the law).
The problem is that there is very little acting to remove bad law, and thus they just pile up, clogging the system.
Force every federal law to stand for review every 10 years, and watch the volume of law shrink.
I also say that all laws ought to be required to stand for 1 year public scrutiny, then be voted on as a straight yes/no vote. Any modifications restart the clock.
Basically, let's bring the OSS methodology of "publish early, publish often" to law.
... but I saw no good way to correct Rob Landley about one thing:
Robert Heinlein once wrote a morality tale about how an overly militaristic society can be a bad thing
BZZT! Wrong! RAH was writing about how a society of people who are held responsible for their actions from birth would be a good thing! While I can see how Mr. Landley might get the impression he has if he had only seen the movie, if he had indeed read the book, he would have no such misconceptions.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, once again I shall make my point: The actions being taken by Apple have as their direct result the exclusion of anybody not running Windows or MacOS. This is something I would like to see changed, hence my post. Offering my "solutions" that require me to be running QT4 (and therefor Windows or MacOS) are not solutions because I am running Linux.
I don't wish to sound like a flamer, but....
Besides, even if you did download the movie, could you watch it with Xanim? Again, it's the fact that Apple has the attitude that, "If you ain't Mac or Windows, you ain't $h!t" (of course, what are you if you ARE Mac or Windows?).
Apple won't support the OSS movement. They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. I'd love to see someone find Apple building some GPL'ed stuff into their new OS, and force Apple to OS it.
Given the non-trivial correlation between comic book reading and Linux use, perhaps it's time to
So, make a (fake) offer to open the source, and see what happens. If it looks like it would work, you add it to the "possible strategy" list.
Now, if you think they'd open Win2000, you're foolish. They would release Win95 if anything. However, realize that most software runs on Win95, and that with the Win95 API/Bugset, Wine could run almost anything that didn't directly access hardware; i.e. anything that WinNT can run. Even is the Windows code weren't OSS, it would still be enough to clean-room Wine even faster.
However, I won't believe this until I see the codebase on sourceforce.com...
OK, I'm a C++ "bigot", and I don't understand why anyone would program in C when they have a perfectly good C++ compiler handy. The only times I drop back to plain ol' C is when I'm working on a microcontroller or DSP that has no C++.
And remember: You don't HAVE to use objects/inheritance/polymorphism/RTTI/exceptions/s treams/STL just because you threw the C++ switch: You want to pretend you're writing C, go for it.
And to forstall the flames: C++, written by somebody with a clue how to use it and compiled with a good compiler is every bit as efficient as C. The only times I've seen poor size or speed from C++ was when the person writing it had no clue how to design objects, and rather than sticking with plain C they botched the design. No language, not Java, not Ada, not Pascal, not Modula, can save you from an incompetent programmer.
When will these sites learn that for ARCHIVAL purposes, they should put these streams on an FTP or HTTP server, so that those of us with poor bandwidth can DOWNLOAD the stream and then listen to it at our convenience. I wish that Streambox would release a version of their program for Linux....
Second, in most modern rendering chipsets the fill rate (the rate at which pixels can be put into polygons) is grossly higher than it needs to be: it is the polygon rate (the time to compute the position of each polygon) that is limited. Therefor, increasing or decreasing the resolution will have almost no effect on the frame rate, as the system will be limited by how many polygons it can cram onscreen, not how many pixels.
Lastly, remember that the X-Box will be running DirectX on Windows CE (Control Everything). The intent is to make it very easy to port from the console to the desktop (as long as the desktop has broken glass for an OS, not rotten fruit, flightless waterfowl, or satanic influences ;^) )
Lastly, for something like this to sell, the BOM (Bill of Materials, the cost of the parts to make it) would have to be about $75 for it to sell at $150 (the rest is eaten up with manufacturing cost, NRE (non-recurring engineering costs), shipping, stocking, returns (my box just gives me this funky blue screen, I want a new one) etc.) This is even if the whole thing sells at a loss. MS wants to dominate the game market: they sell this as a loss-leader, they get all the hot games made for DirectX, they get all the game programmers indoctrinated into The MicroSoft Way Of Doing Things and they kill all competition. They almost managed this without a game console: look at how many games are DirectX rather than OpenGL. However, today, game companies are starting to realise that if they want to make Mac ports (or Linux/BSD ports, or console ports) they had best program for OpenGL. Case in point: Aliens Vs. Predator is being ported to OpenGL so that they can make a Mac version. Hopefully, the folks at Activision are learning a lesson from this and will do all future games in OpenGL.
If I may ask, do you have /. account? Have you ever moderated? If not, may I suggest you get an account? You sound like a person I'd like to see get moderator access.
Remember though, that when you have moderation access, you can moderate a given comment only once. If I had moderator access, I can raise or lower your comment by 1 point only, and then I'm locked out.
If I may ask, do you have
And as for the point another person made that "people have enemies" and that they might lose karma due to bad moderators: You down-moderate me and people feel you were unfair, you get nuked in meta-moderation. That's why I said that being metamoderated as unfair should cost you BIGTIME karma.
As for meta-mod nuking your karma: Remember, a single "unfair" in metamoderation means nothing: a large number of the metamoderators who review your moderation have to agree you were unfair.
After I posted the origonal message, I thought further about it, and would also make the following suggestion: If you lose karma due to a downmod, and the downmod is later found unfair in metamod, you should get your karma back (and your post should lose the downmod).
Now, the question is, "Is anyone at /. reading these comments." Perhaps we, the /. public, need to get a petition together, and ask Rob et. al. to review our suggestions and debate them in an open forum. Perhaps this would be a good "Friday Q&A" article?
Sorry, but wrong. I ALWAYS read at 2, unless I am moderating. However, too many ACs get moderated up for no good reason. Additionally, too many people with high karma post junk at 2. I feel this is the real problem: people with high karma abusing it. In theory, the moderation system should fix this, since a person who posts junk gets moderated down and the poster loses karma, however this does not happen.
My analysis of the problems with the moderation system is that plus points need to be a scarce resource, and they are not. People like me, who have moderately high karma, have an unlimited number of plus points (because they post at 2). There are too many moderators moderating junk up.
My suggestions are:
Of course, if the "flash" is a BFG....
As for net access: Go with public libraries, or get an account with somebody like NetZero. Yes, they are Windows only, but they are free. The bad thing about getting an AOL account is they are next to impossible to get rid of: they are like a roach motel - once you check in, you cannot check out.
As for hotel phone lines: Almost all hotels now have a modem jack on the side of the phone so that you won't blow your modem out. However, lots of hotels also try to screw you when you call an 800 number, so be careful.
Lastly, I suggest you look into some good mapping software. I use Delorme's AAA Map N Go, which runs (sort of ) under Wine (and flawlessly under Windows). Add to it their cheap GPS receiver, and you will make your travels a lot nicer.
Unfortunately, you don't specify this in the config file (a grevious oversight IMHO).
You spec it on the command line, thus:
startx -- -dpi 75
or within the startx file itself:
serverargs="-dpi 75"
However, I think this is A Good Thing. Not because I like patents on software, but, sorry folks, software patents exist. Be in the now. Until the wonderful day when we can strike down software patents, we must arm ourselves to fight on their terms. By patenting RTLinux, and forcing non-OSS (non-free software too, in deference to RMS) to pay for it, we gain a weapon we can use in the eventual fight to end software patents.
Careful, you're dating yourself there. Modern systems use a technique called double-buffering, where the screen shows one frame of video memory, and the system writes to a second. You then flip on the vertical retrace interrupt. (Acutally, the old Atari 800, Commodore 64, Atari ST, and Amiga all could do this, it was just the PC that was limited to one video frame (at any decent resolution)).
The other limiting factor is memory bandwidth: If you have to pump "N" pixels a second out, that consumes much of the available bandwidth to the video RAM, leaving less for the CPU. However, modern video cards use very wide memory (128 bits or more) to allow more pixels per memory access, thus allowing more bandwidth to the main processor. So this too is less of a limiting factor.
However, I have experienced the very problem described in the article: I run 1600x1200 on my system at home, and certain foolish operating systems *cough*windows*cough* make teeny little icons. However, certain other systems *cough*xwindows*cough* allow me to tell the system the dots per inch, and most things work out well.
Did anybody make an archive of the interview, for those of us who did not hear about this until far too late? Otherwise, the only way I can hear the interview would involve pissing off Dr. Einstein.
Look people, freedom of the press applies only to the man who owns one. If you don't like/trust
Besides, how could we continue to have the SickFare state if only people with military service could vote...
Sorry, you are missing the point. As is the case with many extant laws, what happens is this monitoring becomes one more way "the powers that be" can trip you up if you come into their notice.
Consider: Some agency decides they don't like the look of you. So, they go fishing for an excuse. Maybe you use encryption, maybe you don't have your vehicle registration in your car, maybe you aren't carrying your drivers' license while you are out for a walk. Whatever it is, it becomes the hook for further investigations. Given enough time, they WILL find something wrong.
The solution to bad laws is to repeal them as quickly as possible, before they dilute the good laws. As a wise man says, "If you add a bucket of dirty water to a bucket of clean water, you get dirty water."
Hate to break it to you, but go look at "Gun Rights Issues" on Yahoo news. Gun manufacturers are being sued in several states for exactly that reason.
Frightening, where the world is going...
I've tried TheSync's audio feed several times, and it seems /.'ed to the extreme.
Anyone else having better luck?
This is the STUPIDEST way to handle this I can think of! "Hmm, I've set my shirt on fire. Perhaps I can run outside and dowse myself in something cold, like liquid oxygen..."
You don't get this stupid by accident. It takes bad genetics, years of practice, and chemical assistance. I've blocked DC for years on my firewall, now I know I made the right decision.
The problem is that there is very little acting to remove bad law, and thus they just pile up, clogging the system.
Force every federal law to stand for review every 10 years, and watch the volume of law shrink.
I also say that all laws ought to be required to stand for 1 year public scrutiny, then be voted on as a straight yes/no vote. Any modifications restart the clock.
Basically, let's bring the OSS methodology of "publish early, publish often" to law.
BZZT! Wrong! RAH was writing about how a society of people who are held responsible for their actions from birth would be a good thing! While I can see how Mr. Landley might get the impression he has if he had only seen the movie, if he had indeed read the book, he would have no such misconceptions.
OK, go ahead and moderate me down as offtopic...