You cite a 2001 issue as one of the earliest examples? Poor form.;) Go back another 4 years. nVidia released the Riva 128 which started winning most benchmarks against ATI's Rage Pro (and Rendition Verite etc). Well, a few publications started noticing that the speed advantage was due to the image quality being much worse with no tri-linear filtering, no fog (at least for a few iterations of drivers) and some sort of compressing the textures that made rendered text on some games illegible (a couple of games had the misfortune of having that problem even with their menu system). I remember the comparison images for the nicest benchmark/demo of the day called "Final Reality" were quite telling of the IQ difference. However, most publications of the time just went with fps numbers, so that left ATI with no choice but to "optimize" their new driver set (called "Turbo") especially for 3D benchmarks:)
Oh, my god, we're in deep trouble if they patent time based software licensing! Imagine a world where nobody else has the right to sell limited time licenses - just MS! Death to us all I say!
We had some patent lawyers working for us. They were charging $600/h (with impressive and detailed invoices e.g. "Reading your MM/DD email: 15m") for their lawyer's time, and $200/h for their assistants/paralegals/i don't know how non-associate types who do the chores are called. Anyway, while the former where ridiculously expensive per hour, it was the $200/h guys that were even more annoying, as they were charging several hours for simple tasks. The most vivid example: My boss sends them a 100 page document in pdf that they needed to sign on the last page and return via email fast, to make a deadline that was about 2 h away. The 2h were almost up and there still was no email. So, my boss calls them and it went like this:
-Sorry, but the document was too many pages so it took us a lot of time to scan it, we are now finishing up... -But... um... I sent you a pdf document, you already had a file... -Well, we had to sign it so we had to print it and scan it, duh -But... um... you only needed to scan the last page and replace the last page of the pdf, why the whole document??? -(with genuine interest) Reeeaaally? You can do that? We definitely have to look into that! Anyway, just a few pages left now, we'll email soon - don't worry.
There you go, $400 to sign a document.
Re:I'm reminded, surreally of Space: 1999
on
Stargate Universe
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· Score: 1
Space: 1999, a British sci-fi (60s or 70s, I'd guess) had a similar setup but it was based on the slightly more bonkers-sounding premise that the crew were stuck on a moonbase and that the entire moon had been catapulted across the galaxy. When the moon went through an interesting neighbourhood they'd sometimes hop off and take a look around, then they'd jump back on again before it left. Surreal stuff! Despite the dodgy science and costumes they actually had some quite good episodes with interesting plot ideas.
What do you mean 60s or 70s? Space: 1999 is as seventies as you can get! I haven't seen SG:U yet either, but if your description of the premise is accurate, I would consider the premise sillier than what the S:1999 premise was for mid-70s audience. I mean, apart from the "ship stuck on auto pilot" convenience, using a Stargate to visit "interesting things you get near to" is the lamest use for a wormhole that I have heard of. Ok, it could still be a good show though, silly/convenient premises are sometimes put to good use.
PS. When comparing a show to Space:1999 be aware that the latter will always win in at least one category. The opening sequence of the funkiest 70's beat alternating with the pompous symphonic theme and all that over the preview scenes of the current episode, cannot be topped!
I always found ATI cards work better for me (HTPC setups - I am not a gamer), however even I am not a "fanboi", so I can easily see Charlie's strong bias. It is not that he makes up facts, as far as I have seen, he bases his articles on information that turns out to be true or mostly true. However, he blows things way out of proportion, and his sarcastic style of writing is most definitely not proper for journalistic use.
In this case, he does have a good point. Go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/fermi_architecture.html and click on the announcement video. At around the middle, he says "I have one sitting right here. This, ladies and gentlemen, this puppy here is Fermi". Well, they now admit it wasn't. Yes, they probably had an engineering sample with cables coming out running somewhere in the back, but showing it as a polished product in their presentation is dishonest, since it just tries to make people believe the release is just around the corner. If they held up just the gpu and declared "this is fermi", it would be honest but would do anything about the impression that ATI has their latest generation out while nVidia is far from a release.
However, "paper launches" like these are common, and they often are dishonest - this is the corporate world after all, they will try and beat the competition with any means. So, while this is fine for a front page news for an anti-nVidia website, it is not an event of huge proportions. There is no point badmouthing Charlie, he did what he does well (bashing nVidia), he did it with accurate information, it is just that the issue is not really worth that much discussion. Of course Slashdot usually picks up articles that are MUCH, MUCH worse than this, so, we shouldn't be surprised this made front page;)
They were probably too busy getting two N270s on one board to go through Intel's product catalogs.
Sure, two N270s cost about twice as much as a 330, offer similar performance and only save 3W (5W vs 8W), but a 330 would just be too easy wouldn't it?:) Plus they now have free slashvertisement!
You won't get such an app passed. Mine got rejected for having an "adult theme". I mean, come on, how are explosions adult only? Anyway, I had a much nicer app name picked, iExplode is too long. iBlow on the other hand...
You are obviously a troll. My employer gave me a free Macbook (they asked me to develop for the iphone, so they had to I guess) and it is great... oh wait, it is great because I gave it back! Compared to a $400 Lenovo (after coupon) I bought at about the same time, it proved slower, heavier (with smaller screen at the same time!), hotter and with a retarded power adapter that falls off most of my (US) outlets and is a pain to unplug from the laptop side (when the plug is tiny and slippery, magnetic does not help much). Oh, did I mention you have to do silly tricks (closing the lid etc) to get the dual screen setup to work? The only thing on par with the Lenovo was the sharp edges you mention, which, sadly, the Lenovo did not avoid either (seriously, is that a new trend? I don't remember my older laptops trying to slit my wrists). As for development, I had them get me a new mac mini. It is not faster, it is only marginally less expensive, but it works adequately on a KVM with the same dual monitor & keyboard/mouse setup I have for my Linux machines and does not drive me nuts near as much as the Macbook (well the OS still annoys me greatly at times, but I guess it is not the hardware's fault - I could run Linux if only I did not have to develop on Xcode...).
...It is just so foreigners _who_study_in_the_United_States_ can find a job since employers seem to be under the impression that hiring a foreigner is a hassle....
This reminds me of my first job interview for a software engineering position after getting my Masters in the US (so I had an F1 Visa with OPT). I had an interview with the potential project manager and had to write some tests. It so happened that the position was at exactly where I am good at (and where I am good... I am good! heh), including the tests being a piece of cake. I am also a rather pleasant person so, overall, the manager was very enthusiastic about hiring me. He asked me whether I would be willing to travel often abroad and I said I would actually enjoy that, and with that he sent me to their HR to get an offer. There, a lady opened my file and immediately said oh! you have an F1 Visa? I'm sorry but the position requires travel abroad and your Visa is not good for that. I asked her what she meant, as I never had a problem traveling traveling out of the country with that Visa and, in fact, my European Union passport was more welcome in many places than a US one. She said that it is just a problem and they can't offer me the position. Oh well, their loss;)
Nope, "The Shag" is much easier to go to. Actually "The Shag" would be a pretty cool name. "Welcome to the most shagadelic retail chain" "Will you shag now or later?" etc, so they should forget about that Shack nonsense and move to The Shag themselves.
I don't see why people consider the GP analogy "insightful". Of course, calling the unlicensed book copies "stolen goods", is also taking the analogy too far the opposite side, however this book case (not the wooden kind) is somewhere in the middle, the books were sold illegally by someone posing as the rights holder. In the case of physical books it would be hard to return the book to the seller, however with a proper warning to the users that the books will be deleted and refunded after X time, perhaps even a coupon for the legal version, I would not consider the electronic recall an improper procedure. The mistake was mostly the lack of warning, explanation etc, otherwise deleting and refunding unlicensed copies is nowhere the same as say DRM servers going offline rendering purchased content obsolete. Now, the only problem is that while for this particular case I would call deletion fair, it certainly is not good for Amazon to be able to delete content for any other situation. So, while I don't think Amazon has done wrong so far, it would be a good thing to ensure they can't do bad (i.e. delete legally purchased content) in the future. As for the homework kid, Amazon should send him a paper copy and give him compensation for the 5 hours he will spend matching the notes (that apparently were not deleted) to the paper version. Although I doubt he made that many notes;)
Wow, and you have a 4 digit id... While on both my SuSE box and the Mac, piping to nslookup works, if it doesn't work for you and things like "for loops" are too complicated (!?), there alternatives like good ol' xargs.
True, but there is a difference. In the case of Bush the video would go on with him wiping his glasses with the girl's dress, then bumping his head somewhere, or trying to open the wrong door etc...
Oh, I thought you were going to say "vor versions 6, 7..." is the typo. Well, I guess that is an attempt at some fake-Dutch-speak humor then... sorry for missing that!;)
So, since she was charged for hacking/violating TOS, can't she now be charged of harassing a minor leading to her death? I mean, I do find setting up fake accounts a different action than harassing someone (even while using the fake accounts).
Yeah, open source and free software is always inferior to the expensive proprietary stuff. Linux users sure are cheapskates for not paying for much more expensive (= "obviously" better) solutions (Vista perhaps?). I don't know about you, but most people's time is much more expensive than any software (ok, some might call me on that and claim CS4 Suite is more expensive than their time - but anyway), so productivity is more important than price. I use a combination of free & non-free software, since I simply choose the best. It is actually our CEO's dogma that engineers are more expensive than machines & software, so I am encouraged to buy whatever will do my job better. If it happens to be a free solution (which of course is often but not always), that's just a bonus. Talking specifically about Open Office, it is definitely not one of my favorite open source projects, so I never use it as a "hey guys, why do you give all your $$ to MS when you can get this great thing for free" example...
I didn't really have to read the privacy report which ranks Greece at a comfortable #1. I come from Greece and I happen to know first hand how obsessed the "Personal Data Protection Agency" is with privacy. I actually find it silly that they won't even allow google street view, or even police cameras in public spaces. The only area where Greece does not rank higher in privacy is telecommunications, my guess is due to the fact that there was a well known wiretapping case. Of course the fact that the wiretaps were on politicians of all parties and especially of the governing party kind of tells you that it was not the Greeks who were doing the wiretapping (if you get my drift). But I digress. Anyway, after 6 years in NYC I am going back to Greece as well. My wife especially is sick of the feeling she gets that she is in "1984" (your belongings are subject to search, thumbprints please etc), and of course the climate is really annoying to both of us. We briefly considered going to the UK, however we have the same concerns you have, plus the Greek climate cannot be beat. Well, actually it can be equaled by Spain and Italy, but people don't speak English there, whereas most not too old people speak English in Greece. Now, the wages are much lower than the UK, however people manage to have a much better quality of life than, for example, most parts of the US, and housing, services etc are not as expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
You cite a 2001 issue as one of the earliest examples? Poor form. ;) :)
Go back another 4 years. nVidia released the Riva 128 which started winning most benchmarks against ATI's Rage Pro (and Rendition Verite etc). Well, a few publications started noticing that the speed advantage was due to the image quality being much worse with no tri-linear filtering, no fog (at least for a few iterations of drivers) and some sort of compressing the textures that made rendered text on some games illegible (a couple of games had the misfortune of having that problem even with their menu system). I remember the comparison images for the nicest benchmark/demo of the day called "Final Reality" were quite telling of the IQ difference. However, most publications of the time just went with fps numbers, so that left ATI with no choice but to "optimize" their new driver set (called "Turbo") especially for 3D benchmarks
He's modded +1 Informative. I guess that's proof enough! :D
Oh, my god, we're in deep trouble if they patent time based software licensing! Imagine a world where nobody else has the right to sell limited time licenses - just MS! Death to us all I say!
We had some patent lawyers working for us. They were charging $600/h (with impressive and detailed invoices e.g. "Reading your MM/DD email: 15m") for their lawyer's time, and $200/h for their assistants/paralegals/i don't know how non-associate types who do the chores are called. Anyway, while the former where ridiculously expensive per hour, it was the $200/h guys that were even more annoying, as they were charging several hours for simple tasks. The most vivid example:
My boss sends them a 100 page document in pdf that they needed to sign on the last page and return via email fast, to make a deadline that was about 2 h away. The 2h were almost up and there still was no email. So, my boss calls them and it went like this:
-Sorry, but the document was too many pages so it took us a lot of time to scan it, we are now finishing up...
-But... um... I sent you a pdf document, you already had a file...
-Well, we had to sign it so we had to print it and scan it, duh
-But... um... you only needed to scan the last page and replace the last page of the pdf, why the whole document???
-(with genuine interest) Reeeaaally? You can do that? We definitely have to look into that! Anyway, just a few pages left now, we'll email soon - don't worry.
There you go, $400 to sign a document.
Space: 1999, a British sci-fi (60s or 70s, I'd guess) had a similar setup but it was based on the slightly more bonkers-sounding premise that the crew were stuck on a moonbase and that the entire moon had been catapulted across the galaxy. When the moon went through an interesting neighbourhood they'd sometimes hop off and take a look around, then they'd jump back on again before it left. Surreal stuff! Despite the dodgy science and costumes they actually had some quite good episodes with interesting plot ideas.
What do you mean 60s or 70s? Space: 1999 is as seventies as you can get! I haven't seen SG:U yet either, but if your description of the premise is accurate, I would consider the premise sillier than what the S:1999 premise was for mid-70s audience. I mean, apart from the "ship stuck on auto pilot" convenience, using a Stargate to visit "interesting things you get near to" is the lamest use for a wormhole that I have heard of. Ok, it could still be a good show though, silly/convenient premises are sometimes put to good use.
PS. When comparing a show to Space:1999 be aware that the latter will always win in at least one category. The opening sequence of the funkiest 70's beat alternating with the pompous symphonic theme and all that over the preview scenes of the current episode, cannot be topped!
I always found ATI cards work better for me (HTPC setups - I am not a gamer), however even I am not a "fanboi", so I can easily see Charlie's strong bias. It is not that he makes up facts, as far as I have seen, he bases his articles on information that turns out to be true or mostly true. However, he blows things way out of proportion, and his sarcastic style of writing is most definitely not proper for journalistic use.
In this case, he does have a good point. Go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/fermi_architecture.html and click on the announcement video. At around the middle, he says "I have one sitting right here. This, ladies and gentlemen, this puppy here is Fermi". Well, they now admit it wasn't. Yes, they probably had an engineering sample with cables coming out running somewhere in the back, but showing it as a polished product in their presentation is dishonest, since it just tries to make people believe the release is just around the corner. If they held up just the gpu and declared "this is fermi", it would be honest but would do anything about the impression that ATI has their latest generation out while nVidia is far from a release.
However, "paper launches" like these are common, and they often are dishonest - this is the corporate world after all, they will try and beat the competition with any means. So, while this is fine for a front page news for an anti-nVidia website, it is not an event of huge proportions. There is no point badmouthing Charlie, he did what he does well (bashing nVidia), he did it with accurate information, it is just that the issue is not really worth that much discussion. Of course Slashdot usually picks up articles that are MUCH, MUCH worse than this, so, we shouldn't be surprised this made front page ;)
They were probably too busy getting two N270s on one board to go through Intel's product catalogs.
Sure, two N270s cost about twice as much as a 330, offer similar performance and only save 3W (5W vs 8W), but a 330 would just be too easy wouldn't it? :) Plus they now have free slashvertisement!
Shhhhh! What's the point of a doomsday device if you tell everyone it doesn't work!
And you sir forgot Grand Fenwick, the only other power (along with the Soviet Union it seems from this new revelation) that holds a doomsday device!
You are not replying to a youtube post, it was just a joke ;)
Must be a very popular bad joke, for some reason I've been seeing it all day today.
You won't get such an app passed. Mine got rejected for having an "adult theme". I mean, come on, how are explosions adult only?
Anyway, I had a much nicer app name picked, iExplode is too long. iBlow on the other hand...
You are obviously a troll. My employer gave me a free Macbook (they asked me to develop for the iphone, so they had to I guess) and it is great... oh wait, it is great because I gave it back! Compared to a $400 Lenovo (after coupon) I bought at about the same time, it proved slower, heavier (with smaller screen at the same time!), hotter and with a retarded power adapter that falls off most of my (US) outlets and is a pain to unplug from the laptop side (when the plug is tiny and slippery, magnetic does not help much). Oh, did I mention you have to do silly tricks (closing the lid etc) to get the dual screen setup to work? The only thing on par with the Lenovo was the sharp edges you mention, which, sadly, the Lenovo did not avoid either (seriously, is that a new trend? I don't remember my older laptops trying to slit my wrists). As for development, I had them get me a new mac mini. It is not faster, it is only marginally less expensive, but it works adequately on a KVM with the same dual monitor & keyboard/mouse setup I have for my Linux machines and does not drive me nuts near as much as the Macbook (well the OS still annoys me greatly at times, but I guess it is not the hardware's fault - I could run Linux if only I did not have to develop on Xcode...).
...It is just so foreigners _who_study_in_the_United_States_ can find a job since employers seem to be under the impression that hiring a foreigner is a hassle. ...
This reminds me of my first job interview for a software engineering position after getting my Masters in the US (so I had an F1 Visa with OPT). I had an interview with the potential project manager and had to write some tests. It so happened that the position was at exactly where I am good at (and where I am good... I am good! heh), including the tests being a piece of cake. I am also a rather pleasant person so, overall, the manager was very enthusiastic about hiring me. He asked me whether I would be willing to travel often abroad and I said I would actually enjoy that, and with that he sent me to their HR to get an offer. There, a lady opened my file and immediately said oh! you have an F1 Visa? I'm sorry but the position requires travel abroad and your Visa is not good for that. I asked her what she meant, as I never had a problem traveling traveling out of the country with that Visa and, in fact, my European Union passport was more welcome in many places than a US one. She said that it is just a problem and they can't offer me the position. Oh well, their loss ;)
The big nuclear missiles are on Typhoon class subs that are, presumably, drifting around undetected somewhere in the Barents Sea.
Of course that is except the one which that nice Scottish-accented Lithuanian captain handed over to the US in the early nineties.
Nope, "The Shag" is much easier to go to. Actually "The Shag" would be a pretty cool name. "Welcome to the most shagadelic retail chain" "Will you shag now or later?" etc, so they should forget about that Shack nonsense and move to The Shag themselves.
I don't see why people consider the GP analogy "insightful". Of course, calling the unlicensed book copies "stolen goods", is also taking the analogy too far the opposite side, however this book case (not the wooden kind) is somewhere in the middle, the books were sold illegally by someone posing as the rights holder. In the case of physical books it would be hard to return the book to the seller, however with a proper warning to the users that the books will be deleted and refunded after X time, perhaps even a coupon for the legal version, I would not consider the electronic recall an improper procedure. The mistake was mostly the lack of warning, explanation etc, otherwise deleting and refunding unlicensed copies is nowhere the same as say DRM servers going offline rendering purchased content obsolete. ;)
Now, the only problem is that while for this particular case I would call deletion fair, it certainly is not good for Amazon to be able to delete content for any other situation.
So, while I don't think Amazon has done wrong so far, it would be a good thing to ensure they can't do bad (i.e. delete legally purchased content) in the future.
As for the homework kid, Amazon should send him a paper copy and give him compensation for the 5 hours he will spend matching the notes (that apparently were not deleted) to the paper version. Although I doubt he made that many notes
Wow, and you have a 4 digit id...
While on both my SuSE box and the Mac, piping to nslookup works, if it doesn't work for you and things like "for loops" are too complicated (!?), there alternatives like good ol' xargs.
cat foo.iplist |xargs -i nslookup {}
If it was Bush, everyone would be hamming it up.
True, but there is a difference. In the case of Bush the video would go on with him wiping his glasses with the girl's dress, then bumping his head somewhere, or trying to open the wrong door etc...
Oh, I thought you were going to say "vor versions 6, 7..." is the typo. Well, I guess that is an attempt at some fake-Dutch-speak humor then... sorry for missing that! ;)
So, since she was charged for hacking/violating TOS, can't she now be charged of harassing a minor leading to her death? I mean, I do find setting up fake accounts a different action than harassing someone (even while using the fake accounts).
Why is something so sad modded as funny?
Suits won't make a difference. Even in expensive cashmere suits they will still look like a bunch of nuts suffocating on the lunar surface.
Yeah, open source and free software is always inferior to the expensive proprietary stuff. Linux users sure are cheapskates for not paying for much more expensive (= "obviously" better) solutions (Vista perhaps?). I don't know about you, but most people's time is much more expensive than any software (ok, some might call me on that and claim CS4 Suite is more expensive than their time - but anyway), so productivity is more important than price.
I use a combination of free & non-free software, since I simply choose the best. It is actually our CEO's dogma that engineers are more expensive than machines & software, so I am encouraged to buy whatever will do my job better. If it happens to be a free solution (which of course is often but not always), that's just a bonus.
Talking specifically about Open Office, it is definitely not one of my favorite open source projects, so I never use it as a "hey guys, why do you give all your $$ to MS when you can get this great thing for free" example...
I didn't really have to read the privacy report which ranks Greece at a comfortable #1. I come from Greece and I happen to know first hand how obsessed the "Personal Data Protection Agency" is with privacy. I actually find it silly that they won't even allow google street view, or even police cameras in public spaces. The only area where Greece does not rank higher in privacy is telecommunications, my guess is due to the fact that there was a well known wiretapping case. Of course the fact that the wiretaps were on politicians of all parties and especially of the governing party kind of tells you that it was not the Greeks who were doing the wiretapping (if you get my drift). But I digress. Anyway, after 6 years in NYC I am going back to Greece as well. My wife especially is sick of the feeling she gets that she is in "1984" (your belongings are subject to search, thumbprints please etc), and of course the climate is really annoying to both of us. We briefly considered going to the UK, however we have the same concerns you have, plus the Greek climate cannot be beat. Well, actually it can be equaled by Spain and Italy, but people don't speak English there, whereas most not too old people speak English in Greece. Now, the wages are much lower than the UK, however people manage to have a much better quality of life than, for example, most parts of the US, and housing, services etc are not as expensive.