Many business people complain that so many assume making money has to mean breaking every rule you can and acting amorally. Many companies are run by very good-hearted people that want to make a difference beyond their own wallet. The parent post is not insightful.
On the other hand, with regards to the article, they note that outsourcing to India "saved" the jobs of the workers. I had an experience like that, called "Knowledge Transfer," in which I was laid off from my "saved" job, and it was transferred to India.
An earlier post whined that Microsoft will not be shipping an updated JVM with Windows. That's a good thing:
Applets are one of the worst technologies ever wrought on the Web. ActiveX is about as bad, and Push was bad but at least we didn't have to ever use it. If Applets will now be outdated too, maybe there will be less of them. This is good for Microsoft (less Java) and for Sun (less embarassing Java).
JVMs change constantly. The JVM I write my app for is probably not the one you wrote yours for. Rarely do people deploy Java assuming it ought to run - they specify a JVM it's intended for, and often demand you install that JVM and point to it for their software. JVMs coexist very peacefully. The point is, there's no sense in Windows shipping with a JVM - you're just going to go around it with each Java product you install anyway.
Now, is this deal is actually good for both companies? Microsoft tends to make a very poor bed partner - they give you sweaty sheets for a few months and then throw everything you own out the window. Just look at how they've turned their backs on nVidia after the Xbox partnership - and Microsoft bashers can provide many more historical examples. Sun will need a very strong strategy that leverages the benefits of the combined technology beyond Microsoft's reach if they intend to gain from this - like the way nVidia used Microsoft's money to launch into the motherboard market.
Wait WHAT!? I'm 23! I'm male! I do SO watch a lot of TV! I mean, just this past weekend I watched...
Um....
Well there was that one time I turned on the cable box by accident, then quickly shut it off. I think it went to Comedy Central at the time. Does that count?
Seriously, how can it be so shocking to TV execs that the Internet, which gives us what we want and engages us, could be so much more grabbing than TV which spends about half its time making you wait for more? And no, I don't wait online - I use a tabbed browser;o)
I suppose it's just one of those "the big established companies are dinosaurs" deals, where they can't fathom a computer being a source of entertainment. "How can these Nielsen ratings be accurate? I can't spend more than 10 minutes in front of that irksome monitor, it flickers so much. And damned if I know how to stop the popup ads. My big-screen TV is so much nicer." By moron's extension, my experience must be exactly the same.
It's worth noting that, although Romney's push for Open Source is admirable, there are places it's been taken much too far - particularly, there are existing, perfectly-working systems that he and the CIO are tearing up in the name of Open Source. Big waste of cash.
As an MA resident, don't get me wrong - I like Romney (a Republican) even though I'm a Democrat. He's done a good job in most ways. But I think most Slashdot readers, Open Source junkies or no, would cry murder if they saw the quality code being thrown out by Romney on for example, Mass.gov
I doubt this strategy is for the best for Microsoft. When the Xbox came out, a lot of people dismissed it as a PC you can't upgrade - so why buy it?
The reason was theoretically Xbox-only games, but Halo is on the PC, and GTA was on the PC first. XNA will make games even less likely to be exclusive to Xbox, and if they are, not for long. So why bother getting an Xbox at all?
As for whether XNA itself will be any good - the WinG -> DirectX argument is exactly right. It's generally understood Microsoft does "Piss-poor till Version 4." Look at DOS, Windows, Word, Internet Explorer... the 4th version (regardless of how they number it sometimes) is the great one. A lot of game developers really like Microsoft's game development tools.
After version 5 they get lazy and flag out, so that's down the road too.
Pure research is a cool thing to do in your free-time, but this is a Capitalist Age - they've missed opportunities to profit from their research again and again. Of course they have to slim down - pure research isn't a profit model.
I checked the Brittannica encyclopedia books here for what made the company lose so much money in print sales, but I couldn't find anything. Oh wait - here's the information, on the Internet. I shall learn more about this "Superhighway."
Agreed - of the 1.5 metric tons of water, some very small part is likely to be polluted and actually "used" - the rest just passes through the various plants to cool them and back into the ocean. That's one lie.
Starting up many of the plants in this process involves the initialization procedure of any number of robots in Fabs or kettles, ovens, etc. Starting up each plant is required to make the first PC or monitor, but it isn't required for the second. Much of the fossil fuels spent in particular suggest they've included initialization costs. That's two lies.
At least in the US, very few people buy CRT monitors anymore. It's too cheap and easy (and cool) to get an LCD. That's 3 lies.
And much of the energy loss is in whatever powerplant runs all of these processes - it's not like AMD burns coal alongside their Fab to keep the thing running. What kind of power plant did they assume? Obviously not the most efficient - Nuclear - or most of the fossil fuels spent would not have made it into the numbers, and some mention of radioactive waste would be included instead. That's 3 lies and a pulled-the-wool-over-your-eyes.
And who knows how many other websites Infinium Labs or other companies under the control of this man have been sued for publishing less-than-glowing reviews? HardOCP has been brave enough to post the lawsuit on its website, and find justice in court. But it's very possible several websites have just received the notice, not understood it except to feel scared, and quietly taken articles down. Maybe HardOCP's fight will get noticed by those damaged sites and we'll have a more secure, unbiased press for it.
Is this possible in the US?
on
Germany Muzzles SCO
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
If there is any possibility of injunction against SCO here in the US, it ought to be pursued. "Burden of proof" is a legal issue that lies with the Plaintiff in the US as well, but given IANAL, I don't know whether you can stop SCO from, for example, creating business harm via sabre-rattling that amounts to libel until they prove anything.
If "life is a lot more resilient", why do we need to work so hard to predict the next virus in the first place?
Here's what's really going to happen:
A few very troubling virii are created.
DARPA obtains access to some or all of these strains, by a mix of buying data, and hiring in scientists who developed them.
Some of the original scientists really think they're being noble by having created this, and work on a vaccine.
Other scientists believe they're being noble by "enhancing the defense capabilities of America" by helping DARPA develop deliverable, targeted strains of the deadly virus.
Eventually, someone somewhere blows it, and the virus gets out - probably used to attack someone.
That's reality - this scenario has already gone through all its steps with Anthrax. Why is it helpful to develop this thing again?
I'm a little surprised more people aren't hopping on here to howl with delight. Maybe they're off disconnecting their phone lines and signing up for Qwest DSL though.
Comcast doesn't let you host a site or server of any kind on any Residential connection. That said, they'll never bother you, judging from those I know who have Comcast (myself included), unless you suck a lot of bandwidth - then, they'll start poking. If what's your hosting is important to you, this could really hurt whatever business you're maintaining online.
The sad thing is I wanted to upgrade my connection to Business so that I could legitimately host a website or 2 from home, and the only upgrade Comcast cable internet offers is a very small upload bandwidth upgrade - still too hopelessly small to host a legitimate site - for more than double the price.
So, DSL will offer you higher upload rates. If the site(s) you want to host aren't crucial, Residential DSL or Cable won't matter much as you're probably using little upload for the site(s). If they are crucial, I'd recommend a high-end Business DSL connection, both for the site's speed, and so you can sleep at night knowing your site's not being taken down and replaced by a breach of TOS page.
We have restored service at Equinix's Chicago Data Centers.... The FBI has begun retuning equipment to CIT which is being shipped to our new facilities in Chicago. At this time CIT will continue to provide dedicated DDOS Protected web hosting only.
The rest of the page is chaff about who the company is, and things already quoted here.
This puts the downtime they experienced at about 2 weeks - which must have been very disruptive to their business, but not in line with most "the FBI is here" horror stories. Though I understand the FBI agents in this case not wanting to be any more disruptive than they have to be, it is incompetent of the FBI as an organization to not have a more unitrusive means of auditing large datahouses unannounced - although the companies they arrive at cannot possibly be prepared, the FBI must anticipate this frequent eventuality.
Yes - there should definitely be fine for excessive car alarms. It should amount to crying wolf, because when I hear a car alarm I do what I can to move away from the car rather than towards it.
There should definitely be a fine for them - cop sees it, writes down plate, and the owner gets a bill the next day based on the car's Registration.
It sucks to play the Geeks-Told-You-So card, but this quote from the article is tough to beat:
The suggestion that a law designed to contain a problem could actually be helping it grow stunned me.
How many times was it stated here on Slashdot and on several other geek-sites that this law would help spammers? Why is this reviewer shocked!?
There's a "Center" for just about everything - maybe some Slashdotters need to form a Center for Evaluating Technical Subjects of Public Importance. The great cetspi.
Then we need P2P software that truly emphasizes the artists, and completely circumvents the RIAA. Maybe an add-on interface for Kazaa, MUTE or WASTE.
If the average user sees they can get at the artists directly, legally, and still get all the music they want... sounds like a pretty high-selling idea to me.
But - that lie could catch you if you intend to use any references from the 5-weeker, or if they happen to know anyone from that company (we've caught liars applying here that way).
The no-strings-attached way is to just approach the sorrow of your recent job history with a sense of humor. In all things crappy there's irony, and in that an opportunity to laugh it off, and let others laugh with you at your despair. Making friends in the interview can really put your foot in the door.
Although icebergs appear solid, they and nearly all naturally-formed ice are in constant transition between liquid and solid. As small portions transition to liquid, the super-cool water is extremely capable of dissolving gases - like CO2. When it refreezes not all of the gas escapes. Over time, CO2 is consumed and trapped. That's where it goes.
Were nature allowed to take its course, it sounds like this spiral would lead to a dominance of plant life that maximizes growth (CO2 consumption) and minimizes need for sunlight (see Global Dimming). Basically, plants normally found in the Tropics would spread north and south. Another Carboniferous Era. However, our hedging of the rainforests may just lead us to an overabundance of CO2.
It's worth noting that as the CO2 is released from the ice, it should reduce the mass of the ice - which is just part of the ocean. So, a great deal of ocean mass would transfer to the atmosphere, increasing atmospheric pressure and lowering sea level. This lowering may conflict with melting glaciers, keeping sea level constant.
This is a common misconception of American politics. Although multiparty systems are possible, the American Presidency - the only poll Americans frequently vote in - is not. It demands that any winning candidate receive at least 50% of the Electoral College's votes. This means that any number of parties more than 2 in America would enter us into a cycle where votes occur over and over until one party receives more than 50% - probably squashing out all other party votes except maybe just 1 other - and restoring our 2-party system.
So, yes, voting for an Independent really is throwing your vote away. If you want it different, vote for a Democrat or Republican who wants to ditch the Electoral College in favor of popular vote, who wants to ditch the 50% requirement, and who wants to allow you to assign your votes (plural) to more than one candidate.
Until then, take your pick - Republican or Democrat - or don't bother.
The shift will be less on the technology, and more on the quality of the models. Today's technology already offers gamemakers the opportunity to create life-like faces and expressions, that convey a great deal of info - for plot, storyline and character build-up.
Trivial games like Tetris and Snood have lost their graphics emphasis a long time ago.
In the world of serious games, the demand for modelers capable of delivering quality content will be insatiable, and so only the gamemakers aware of this need will release games people will find appealling.
There are a couple of waves of "graphics technology matters" still to come though - faces, skin and clothes that can be mistaken for real, and someday, fully 3D representations.
Between those waves, and after, competition between 3D engine license-holders will reduce the cost to create solid, concept-heavy, story-heavy games - resulting in many, many games in the field, most of which are trash, but a few of which hold "I'm in the movie" stories unmatched by any game in history - approaching the quality of the cream of the crop one can find in books today. Half-Life is an example of the beginning of this phenomenon. This story emphasis and general rise in quality of available storylines will attract more females to mainstream gaming.
I don't think this is a good place for games to go. As an avid gamer, I'm increasingly learning to appreciate the timelessness of games like Quake 3, in which you can shift in or out of the gameworld at any instant. A game with such involved drama goes directly against this.
A game like this is, it seems, an alternate model to what EverQuest could become, should the authors have the ambition - a game complete with virtual friends (the virtual characters are rather lifeless today). This idea, it seems to me, just reaches out to closet cases that prefer predictable machines to people, and widens their opportunity to avoid the world. This is not a good thing to offer. At least reading a book or writing some software is good instruction and experience - what's 16hrs a day for 3mos with an electronic friend going to give you?
The movement may be a profitable, effective policy for some - but my experience is a sharp contrast.
Although this article does a good job of talking about Hexaware, and their mission, it isn't reflective of the overall India outsourcing movement. I won't say my company or who we're outsourcing with, but the quality of Indian programming experienced by us here in the US is bottom of the barrel - the very accurate description used in our hallways is "You get what you pay for." Though we may save money in paying Indians lower wages, we are losing money in forcing expensive US developers to divert their time to fixing and addressing problems created by shoddy Indian work.
Something can be done about outsourcing - John Edwards offers one such economic plan, in which companies who employ in the US receive tax breaks, while those who outsource are taxed to the maximum. That way, through spent wages or taxation, American money stays in America.
One major difference is that GPUs were built using whatever architecture they cared to use, and the GPU's entire architecture can be turned upside-down in every version if the hardware manufacturer cares to. There's a powerful preprocessor - your CPU - running on the nVidia or ATI drivers to ensure that what goes in is right, and optimal.
This idea isn't new to CPU manufacturers. This is exactly what Intel tried to accomplish with Itanium by doing the preprocessing at compile-time by the software distributor, and sure enough, Itanium blows the P4's doors off.
It is telling though that nVidia's entry into the motherboard domain drastically increased system memory bandwidth, something they've needed to focus on in the "machine in an AGP card" videocards they've made.
It would be interesting to compare the performance of an FX GPU running a shader, and an Itanium on a crossbar memory controller running the same. I bet it would be comparable, and in some cases the FX GPU would lose.
The collapse of high-bandwidth ISPs didn't compete the market out of existence - it left a few high-priced giants behind and prices soared. Let's hope that's not what happens to music.
Considering HP/Compaq were one of the big-bidders on the name "eServer," as opposed to the ones that run on Wizard's dust, one has to wonder whether the e in Apple's name will give them "that edge" or if Appl's lighter load will carry him to the finish.
Slashdot Mirror
Many business people complain that so many assume making money has to mean breaking every rule you can and acting amorally. Many companies are run by very good-hearted people that want to make a difference beyond their own wallet. The parent post is not insightful.
On the other hand, with regards to the article, they note that outsourcing to India "saved" the jobs of the workers. I had an experience like that, called "Knowledge Transfer," in which I was laid off from my "saved" job, and it was transferred to India.- Applets are one of the worst technologies ever wrought on the Web. ActiveX is about as bad, and Push was bad but at least we didn't have to ever use it. If Applets will now be outdated too, maybe there will be less of them. This is good for Microsoft (less Java) and for Sun (less embarassing Java).
- JVMs change constantly. The JVM I write my app for is probably not the one you wrote yours for. Rarely do people deploy Java assuming it ought to run - they specify a JVM it's intended for, and often demand you install that JVM and point to it for their software. JVMs coexist very peacefully. The point is, there's no sense in Windows shipping with a JVM - you're just going to go around it with each Java product you install anyway.
Now, is this deal is actually good for both companies? Microsoft tends to make a very poor bed partner - they give you sweaty sheets for a few months and then throw everything you own out the window. Just look at how they've turned their backs on nVidia after the Xbox partnership - and Microsoft bashers can provide many more historical examples. Sun will need a very strong strategy that leverages the benefits of the combined technology beyond Microsoft's reach if they intend to gain from this - like the way nVidia used Microsoft's money to launch into the motherboard market.Wait WHAT!? I'm 23! I'm male! I do SO watch a lot of TV! I mean, just this past weekend I watched...
.
;o)
Um...
Well there was that one time I turned on the cable box by accident, then quickly shut it off. I think it went to Comedy Central at the time. Does that count?
Seriously, how can it be so shocking to TV execs that the Internet, which gives us what we want and engages us, could be so much more grabbing than TV which spends about half its time making you wait for more? And no, I don't wait online - I use a tabbed browser
I suppose it's just one of those "the big established companies are dinosaurs" deals, where they can't fathom a computer being a source of entertainment. "How can these Nielsen ratings be accurate? I can't spend more than 10 minutes in front of that irksome monitor, it flickers so much. And damned if I know how to stop the popup ads. My big-screen TV is so much nicer." By moron's extension, my experience must be exactly the same.
It's worth noting that, although Romney's push for Open Source is admirable, there are places it's been taken much too far - particularly, there are existing, perfectly-working systems that he and the CIO are tearing up in the name of Open Source. Big waste of cash.
As an MA resident, don't get me wrong - I like Romney (a Republican) even though I'm a Democrat. He's done a good job in most ways. But I think most Slashdot readers, Open Source junkies or no, would cry murder if they saw the quality code being thrown out by Romney on for example, Mass.govI doubt this strategy is for the best for Microsoft. When the Xbox came out, a lot of people dismissed it as a PC you can't upgrade - so why buy it?
The reason was theoretically Xbox-only games, but Halo is on the PC, and GTA was on the PC first. XNA will make games even less likely to be exclusive to Xbox, and if they are, not for long. So why bother getting an Xbox at all?
As for whether XNA itself will be any good - the WinG -> DirectX argument is exactly right. It's generally understood Microsoft does "Piss-poor till Version 4." Look at DOS, Windows, Word, Internet Explorer... the 4th version (regardless of how they number it sometimes) is the great one. A lot of game developers really like Microsoft's game development tools.
After version 5 they get lazy and flag out, so that's down the road too.
Pure research is a cool thing to do in your free-time, but this is a Capitalist Age - they've missed opportunities to profit from their research again and again. Of course they have to slim down - pure research isn't a profit model.
I checked the Brittannica encyclopedia books here for what made the company lose so much money in print sales, but I couldn't find anything. Oh wait - here's the information, on the Internet. I shall learn more about this "Superhighway."
Agreed - of the 1.5 metric tons of water, some very small part is likely to be polluted and actually "used" - the rest just passes through the various plants to cool them and back into the ocean. That's one lie.
Starting up many of the plants in this process involves the initialization procedure of any number of robots in Fabs or kettles, ovens, etc. Starting up each plant is required to make the first PC or monitor, but it isn't required for the second. Much of the fossil fuels spent in particular suggest they've included initialization costs. That's two lies.
At least in the US, very few people buy CRT monitors anymore. It's too cheap and easy (and cool) to get an LCD. That's 3 lies.
And much of the energy loss is in whatever powerplant runs all of these processes - it's not like AMD burns coal alongside their Fab to keep the thing running. What kind of power plant did they assume? Obviously not the most efficient - Nuclear - or most of the fossil fuels spent would not have made it into the numbers, and some mention of radioactive waste would be included instead. That's 3 lies and a pulled-the-wool-over-your-eyes.
It's a 3Ghz P4 E. That means it's "extreme" which means it's Prescott which means it's SLOW. So no, not nice.
And who knows how many other websites Infinium Labs or other companies under the control of this man have been sued for publishing less-than-glowing reviews? HardOCP has been brave enough to post the lawsuit on its website, and find justice in court. But it's very possible several websites have just received the notice, not understood it except to feel scared, and quietly taken articles down. Maybe HardOCP's fight will get noticed by those damaged sites and we'll have a more secure, unbiased press for it.
If there is any possibility of injunction against SCO here in the US, it ought to be pursued. "Burden of proof" is a legal issue that lies with the Plaintiff in the US as well, but given IANAL, I don't know whether you can stop SCO from, for example, creating business harm via sabre-rattling that amounts to libel until they prove anything.
Here's what's really going to happen:
- A few very troubling virii are created.
- DARPA obtains access to some or all of these strains, by a mix of buying data, and hiring in scientists who developed them.
- Some of the original scientists really think they're being noble by having created this, and work on a vaccine.
- Other scientists believe they're being noble by "enhancing the defense capabilities of America" by helping DARPA develop deliverable, targeted strains of the deadly virus.
- Eventually, someone somewhere blows it, and the virus gets out - probably used to attack someone.
That's reality - this scenario has already gone through all its steps with Anthrax. Why is it helpful to develop this thing again?I'm a little surprised more people aren't hopping on here to howl with delight. Maybe they're off disconnecting their phone lines and signing up for Qwest DSL though.
Comcast doesn't let you host a site or server of any kind on any Residential connection. That said, they'll never bother you, judging from those I know who have Comcast (myself included), unless you suck a lot of bandwidth - then, they'll start poking. If what's your hosting is important to you, this could really hurt whatever business you're maintaining online.
The sad thing is I wanted to upgrade my connection to Business so that I could legitimately host a website or 2 from home, and the only upgrade Comcast cable internet offers is a very small upload bandwidth upgrade - still too hopelessly small to host a legitimate site - for more than double the price.
So, DSL will offer you higher upload rates. If the site(s) you want to host aren't crucial, Residential DSL or Cable won't matter much as you're probably using little upload for the site(s). If they are crucial, I'd recommend a high-end Business DSL connection, both for the site's speed, and so you can sleep at night knowing your site's not being taken down and replaced by a breach of TOS page.From their site:
The rest of the page is chaff about who the company is, and things already quoted here.
This puts the downtime they experienced at about 2 weeks - which must have been very disruptive to their business, but not in line with most "the FBI is here" horror stories. Though I understand the FBI agents in this case not wanting to be any more disruptive than they have to be, it is incompetent of the FBI as an organization to not have a more unitrusive means of auditing large datahouses unannounced - although the companies they arrive at cannot possibly be prepared, the FBI must anticipate this frequent eventuality.Yes - there should definitely be fine for excessive car alarms. It should amount to crying wolf, because when I hear a car alarm I do what I can to move away from the car rather than towards it.
There should definitely be a fine for them - cop sees it, writes down plate, and the owner gets a bill the next day based on the car's Registration.How many times was it stated here on Slashdot and on several other geek-sites that this law would help spammers? Why is this reviewer shocked!?
There's a "Center" for just about everything - maybe some Slashdotters need to form a Center for Evaluating Technical Subjects of Public Importance. The great cetspi.Then we need P2P software that truly emphasizes the artists, and completely circumvents the RIAA. Maybe an add-on interface for Kazaa, MUTE or WASTE. If the average user sees they can get at the artists directly, legally, and still get all the music they want... sounds like a pretty high-selling idea to me.
But - that lie could catch you if you intend to use any references from the 5-weeker, or if they happen to know anyone from that company (we've caught liars applying here that way).
The no-strings-attached way is to just approach the sorrow of your recent job history with a sense of humor. In all things crappy there's irony, and in that an opportunity to laugh it off, and let others laugh with you at your despair. Making friends in the interview can really put your foot in the door.
Although icebergs appear solid, they and nearly all naturally-formed ice are in constant transition between liquid and solid. As small portions transition to liquid, the super-cool water is extremely capable of dissolving gases - like CO2. When it refreezes not all of the gas escapes. Over time, CO2 is consumed and trapped. That's where it goes.
Were nature allowed to take its course, it sounds like this spiral would lead to a dominance of plant life that maximizes growth (CO2 consumption) and minimizes need for sunlight (see Global Dimming). Basically, plants normally found in the Tropics would spread north and south. Another Carboniferous Era. However, our hedging of the rainforests may just lead us to an overabundance of CO2.
It's worth noting that as the CO2 is released from the ice, it should reduce the mass of the ice - which is just part of the ocean. So, a great deal of ocean mass would transfer to the atmosphere, increasing atmospheric pressure and lowering sea level. This lowering may conflict with melting glaciers, keeping sea level constant.
This is a common misconception of American politics. Although multiparty systems are possible, the American Presidency - the only poll Americans frequently vote in - is not. It demands that any winning candidate receive at least 50% of the Electoral College's votes. This means that any number of parties more than 2 in America would enter us into a cycle where votes occur over and over until one party receives more than 50% - probably squashing out all other party votes except maybe just 1 other - and restoring our 2-party system.
So, yes, voting for an Independent really is throwing your vote away. If you want it different, vote for a Democrat or Republican who wants to ditch the Electoral College in favor of popular vote, who wants to ditch the 50% requirement, and who wants to allow you to assign your votes (plural) to more than one candidate.
Until then, take your pick - Republican or Democrat - or don't bother.
The shift will be less on the technology, and more on the quality of the models. Today's technology already offers gamemakers the opportunity to create life-like faces and expressions, that convey a great deal of info - for plot, storyline and character build-up.
Trivial games like Tetris and Snood have lost their graphics emphasis a long time ago.
In the world of serious games, the demand for modelers capable of delivering quality content will be insatiable, and so only the gamemakers aware of this need will release games people will find appealling.
There are a couple of waves of "graphics technology matters" still to come though - faces, skin and clothes that can be mistaken for real, and someday, fully 3D representations.
Between those waves, and after, competition between 3D engine license-holders will reduce the cost to create solid, concept-heavy, story-heavy games - resulting in many, many games in the field, most of which are trash, but a few of which hold "I'm in the movie" stories unmatched by any game in history - approaching the quality of the cream of the crop one can find in books today. Half-Life is an example of the beginning of this phenomenon. This story emphasis and general rise in quality of available storylines will attract more females to mainstream gaming.
A game like this is, it seems, an alternate model to what EverQuest could become, should the authors have the ambition - a game complete with virtual friends (the virtual characters are rather lifeless today). This idea, it seems to me, just reaches out to closet cases that prefer predictable machines to people, and widens their opportunity to avoid the world. This is not a good thing to offer. At least reading a book or writing some software is good instruction and experience - what's 16hrs a day for 3mos with an electronic friend going to give you?
The movement may be a profitable, effective policy for some - but my experience is a sharp contrast.
Although this article does a good job of talking about Hexaware, and their mission, it isn't reflective of the overall India outsourcing movement. I won't say my company or who we're outsourcing with, but the quality of Indian programming experienced by us here in the US is bottom of the barrel - the very accurate description used in our hallways is "You get what you pay for." Though we may save money in paying Indians lower wages, we are losing money in forcing expensive US developers to divert their time to fixing and addressing problems created by shoddy Indian work.
Something can be done about outsourcing - John Edwards offers one such economic plan, in which companies who employ in the US receive tax breaks, while those who outsource are taxed to the maximum. That way, through spent wages or taxation, American money stays in America.
One major difference is that GPUs were built using whatever architecture they cared to use, and the GPU's entire architecture can be turned upside-down in every version if the hardware manufacturer cares to. There's a powerful preprocessor - your CPU - running on the nVidia or ATI drivers to ensure that what goes in is right, and optimal.
This idea isn't new to CPU manufacturers. This is exactly what Intel tried to accomplish with Itanium by doing the preprocessing at compile-time by the software distributor, and sure enough, Itanium blows the P4's doors off.
It is telling though that nVidia's entry into the motherboard domain drastically increased system memory bandwidth, something they've needed to focus on in the "machine in an AGP card" videocards they've made.
It would be interesting to compare the performance of an FX GPU running a shader, and an Itanium on a crossbar memory controller running the same. I bet it would be comparable, and in some cases the FX GPU would lose.
The collapse of high-bandwidth ISPs didn't compete the market out of existence - it left a few high-priced giants behind and prices soared. Let's hope that's not what happens to music. Considering HP/Compaq were one of the big-bidders on the name "eServer," as opposed to the ones that run on Wizard's dust, one has to wonder whether the e in Apple's name will give them "that edge" or if Appl's lighter load will carry him to the finish.