I, for one, think this is a big mistake. At the risk of sounding like a troll, I'm going to tell the truth for once. Sony is appealing to all the little boys out there that are not secure with the image of video games as toys - it's the same situation as the whole "action figure/doll" thing.
In TFA, Kutaragi says "even though we're making something that has the capability to be recognized as a supercomputer and requires paperwork when exporting or importing, the government sees it as a 'toy.'" Obviously, this is a ridiculous statement. The new consoles are extremely powerful, but Kutaragi completely ignores the fact that the lack of memory in all three consoles reduces them to just above the status of today's computers - nowhere near a supercomputer.
The problem here is that Sony is pushing video game systems as "entertainment supercomputers." That's not what they should be for, and that's why the quality of Sony games really hasn't improved. They're not pushing innovation. The EyeToy is a neat idea, but every game for it is basically an oversized minigame. And that's been pretty much all their innovation since... well, since they decided to make the PS1.
However, Sony's business model is obviously the most successful. I have a feeling that, unfortunately, Nintendo may die out in this or the next generation of consoles. They may last longer in the handheld industry, but kids these days want hookers, blood, and gore in their games, rather than fun, replayability, and innovation. Microsoft will increase its market share, and the competition between Sony and MS will drive gaming to a low point, as the market becomes saturated with racers, shooters, and dull, homoegeneous platformers. Eventually consumers will realize what they've done and - I hope - there will be an upwelling of creativity in games.
Stop this madness. I know it's good fun and all, and for a while I got a kick out of it, but it's just gotten ridiculous.
CmdrTaco: "I know! Let's post stories so implausible our readers will never even think they're funny!" CowboyNeal: "Even better, let's fill up the entire front page with them. That way, if there's nothing else to see, maybe they'll think some of them are real!"
I really hate to sound like a troll (really I'm not!), but how about something a bit more well thought out? Perhaps change the entire page to make it look like you guys were purchased by Microsoft (kind of like Maddox did his page that one time). It's gone from cute to childish to downright annoying.
The professor is careful to point out that he's not out to bash Microsoft. But he says the company is spending too much energy on extraneous capabilities, while neglecting core features such as the grammar checker.
It strikes me that the grammar checker is, in fact, an extraneous capability. As much as it pains me to defend Microsoft, I have to say that I appreciate the fact that they're working to make their software more stable (well, I would hope they are) rather than trying to make a perfect grammar check. I'd much rather have to read over a paper twice than go through thousands of lines of source code to find a bug that's crashing Word (and besides, it's not like I could, anyway).
What exactly is the patent? Is it on something like "input devices using vibration technology to provide tactile feedback in applications" or something like that? And if that's the case, wouldn't Nintendo's Rumble Pak easily be prior art? I can't help but notice they haven't sued Nintendo yet (at least to my knowledge).
Really, now? Where did you find the number, exactly, since, quoth the article:
the exact exponent of the new find has not yet been made public
All that's been verified is that its exponent is between 24,036,584 and 33,219,253. If you don't know the exponent for the Mersenne number then you obviously can't tell what it is, now can you? So, uh, how could you tell it's divisible by 3? Assuming you're trying using the good old "add the digits" method, I think it's worth noting that this number has between 7.2 and 10 million digits, making that method effectively useless, especially with a "quick glance."
Comment-less source code would be worthless to developers, though. Could you imagine trying to handle all that without knowing anything that's going on? Even the best programmers would find that a massive challenge, and pretty much any sensible programmer would refuse to even work with such code.
The criminals' first accomplice is none other than
on
DDOS Mafia On The Loose
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, who, via his massively popular website Slashdot, has been crushing other, weaker websites for years. Prosecutors have a great deal of evidence, but are still looking for motives.
Rewards are expected to be offered to anyone with information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Mr. Malda.:)
Except that the speed isn't 8MB/sec. It's 8Mb/sec, or 1MB/sec. Bytes, abbreviated with a capital "B", are equivalent to 8 bits, abbreviated with a lowercase "b." So, multiply 17.36 by 8 and divide by 24 and you get 5.786 days, a little under 6.
I can see how you misspelled "Avogadro" in your name.
The reason that everyone is opposing EA lately is because of the slave-like conditions that their employees are forced to work under. That, and their ridiculously unfair business practices with the NFL, forcing Sega (which, in my honest opinion, has much better sports games and has been the only company to take a multiplatform stance) to shut down their sports division.
As far as your comment that this is "certainly not stuff that matters to most people here," this is, in fact, important to a lot of people here. This is news that actually affects people. It's certainly much more significant than "Oregon's Governor Backs Open Source Development" or "Running Windows Viruses Under Linux" as I'm sure the number of people who live in Oregon or the number of people who want to run Windows viruses under Linux is much lower than the number of gamers in the world.
It was all I could manage not to mod you down, as I seriously don't think something so uninformed should be modded +5. However, I really don't like to mod people down, so I'm saving my points to mod up more worthwhile comments.
If I'm not mistaken, one of the basic principles of Special Relativity is that light travels at the same speed in all reference frames. In other words, if you're driving at 50mph and a beam of light passes you, it passes at the same speed (relative to you) as if you were standing still or traveling at 100mph, or even at 1,000,000mph.
I suppose it must mean these gases travel at (nearly) the speed of light with reference to stationary objects. But of course, light itself still moves as fast compared to this stuff as it does compared to us.
Using Opera 8 Beta, I'm able to access the site by identifying the browser as Opera, but not as MSIE (which is the default). Of course, the layout is all broken on their site. Apparently, while they prohibit non-"standards compliant operating system[s] and browser[s]," they do not adhere to web standards themselves.
"Creating life" is a strong way to put it. Life at the level that they're creating is nothing but a simple metabolism; a few reactions occur to sustain a structure while consuming resources. It's hardly what you could call "human" or even conscious. This would be simpler than even the most simple organisms today.
I'd recommend switching to an nVidia card; you could probably sell your Radeon 9800 and get a Geforce 6600/6600GT fairly easily. I know a lot of gamers don't like nVidia these days because of the FX series, but their current midrange cards are a bit ahead of ATI. The 6600GT can usually beat out 9800s with ease, except in certain rare cases (well, and in Half-Life 2).
Of course, that's mainly in DX9 games, which means Windows. However, nVidia's Linux drivers are far ahead of ATI's, so either way you should get some performance increase.
Better yet, why don't more developers program for OpenGL? Granted, DirectX 9 has a lot of good support for pixel shaders and stuff, but OpenGL 2 can do that too. Seriously, DirectX is a completely closed-source solution and MS can do whatever they want with it, breaking games (although, to their credit, DX9 is supposed to be compatible all the way back to DX5 I think), forcing people to update their OS (which is why Windows 95/98 are dead) and, well, anything else.
Take a look at what Apple did with OpenGL and Aqua. Perhaps they should adopt the it like they did BSD and give it a similar overhaul, providing source and giving back to the community. That way, not only Linux gaming but Mac gaming could seriously improve.
MS is using their OS and browser monopoly to create their own standards and maintain control. They're doing it with ActiveX and their poor CSS support in IE, and they're doing it with DX9 by getting hardware designers the make their graphics cards specifically for their API. Something's got to stop them, and porting DX to Linux (which would never happen anyway) is not the solution.
Slashdot Mirror
In TFA, Kutaragi says "even though we're making something that has the capability to be recognized as a supercomputer and requires paperwork when exporting or importing, the government sees it as a 'toy.'" Obviously, this is a ridiculous statement. The new consoles are extremely powerful, but Kutaragi completely ignores the fact that the lack of memory in all three consoles reduces them to just above the status of today's computers - nowhere near a supercomputer.
The problem here is that Sony is pushing video game systems as "entertainment supercomputers." That's not what they should be for, and that's why the quality of Sony games really hasn't improved. They're not pushing innovation. The EyeToy is a neat idea, but every game for it is basically an oversized minigame. And that's been pretty much all their innovation since... well, since they decided to make the PS1.
However, Sony's business model is obviously the most successful. I have a feeling that, unfortunately, Nintendo may die out in this or the next generation of consoles. They may last longer in the handheld industry, but kids these days want hookers, blood, and gore in their games, rather than fun, replayability, and innovation. Microsoft will increase its market share, and the competition between Sony and MS will drive gaming to a low point, as the market becomes saturated with racers, shooters, and dull, homoegeneous platformers. Eventually consumers will realize what they've done and - I hope - there will be an upwelling of creativity in games.
*Oxytocin is a hormone that is known to reach highly elevated levels during the female orgasm. Thank you, AP Biology.
Have comparisons to terrorism become like comparisons to Hitler and Nazi Germany on /.?
And that would be... porn?
CmdrTaco: "I know! Let's post stories so implausible our readers will never even think they're funny!"
CowboyNeal: "Even better, let's fill up the entire front page with them. That way, if there's nothing else to see, maybe they'll think some of them are real!"
I really hate to sound like a troll (really I'm not!), but how about something a bit more well thought out? Perhaps change the entire page to make it look like you guys were purchased by Microsoft (kind of like Maddox did his page that one time). It's gone from cute to childish to downright annoying.
It strikes me that the grammar checker is, in fact, an extraneous capability. As much as it pains me to defend Microsoft, I have to say that I appreciate the fact that they're working to make their software more stable (well, I would hope they are) rather than trying to make a perfect grammar check. I'd much rather have to read over a paper twice than go through thousands of lines of source code to find a bug that's crashing Word (and besides, it's not like I could, anyway).
What exactly is the patent? Is it on something like "input devices using vibration technology to provide tactile feedback in applications" or something like that? And if that's the case, wouldn't Nintendo's Rumble Pak easily be prior art? I can't help but notice they haven't sued Nintendo yet (at least to my knowledge).
Now, think about the humiliation of going to a club and dancing with your Tablet PC in hand. Seems much less appealing, eh?
All that's been verified is that its exponent is between 24,036,584 and 33,219,253. If you don't know the exponent for the Mersenne number then you obviously can't tell what it is, now can you? So, uh, how could you tell it's divisible by 3? Assuming you're trying using the good old "add the digits" method, I think it's worth noting that this number has between 7.2 and 10 million digits, making that method effectively useless, especially with a "quick glance."
Jeez, if you're gonna be running it on your cat feeder, shouldn't you be using NetBSD? Or is it more horsepower than you need? :P
Until I can get a Netcraft confirmation.
It's short for Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) Bitches' Park.
Comment-less source code would be worthless to developers, though. Could you imagine trying to handle all that without knowing anything that's going on? Even the best programmers would find that a massive challenge, and pretty much any sensible programmer would refuse to even work with such code.
I... I couldn't resist. Forgive me, oh merciful mod-point bearing masters!
Rewards are expected to be offered to anyone with information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Mr. Malda. :)
I can see how you misspelled "Avogadro" in your name.
As far as your comment that this is "certainly not stuff that matters to most people here," this is, in fact, important to a lot of people here. This is news that actually affects people. It's certainly much more significant than "Oregon's Governor Backs Open Source Development" or "Running Windows Viruses Under Linux" as I'm sure the number of people who live in Oregon or the number of people who want to run Windows viruses under Linux is much lower than the number of gamers in the world.
It was all I could manage not to mod you down, as I seriously don't think something so uninformed should be modded +5. However, I really don't like to mod people down, so I'm saving my points to mod up more worthwhile comments.
It's Her Majesty, the Queen of England! I would have never expected her to be a /.er!
I suppose it must mean these gases travel at (nearly) the speed of light with reference to stationary objects. But of course, light itself still moves as fast compared to this stuff as it does compared to us.
Using Opera 8 Beta, I'm able to access the site by identifying the browser as Opera, but not as MSIE (which is the default). Of course, the layout is all broken on their site. Apparently, while they prohibit non-"standards compliant operating system[s] and browser[s]," they do not adhere to web standards themselves.
"Creating life" is a strong way to put it. Life at the level that they're creating is nothing but a simple metabolism; a few reactions occur to sustain a structure while consuming resources. It's hardly what you could call "human" or even conscious. This would be simpler than even the most simple organisms today.
Oh yes, I went there. :P
Whoa, I thought Arthur was a king, awarded a sword by some moistened tart or whatnot.
Of course, that's mainly in DX9 games, which means Windows. However, nVidia's Linux drivers are far ahead of ATI's, so either way you should get some performance increase.
Take a look at what Apple did with OpenGL and Aqua. Perhaps they should adopt the it like they did BSD and give it a similar overhaul, providing source and giving back to the community. That way, not only Linux gaming but Mac gaming could seriously improve.
MS is using their OS and browser monopoly to create their own standards and maintain control. They're doing it with ActiveX and their poor CSS support in IE, and they're doing it with DX9 by getting hardware designers the make their graphics cards specifically for their API. Something's got to stop them, and porting DX to Linux (which would never happen anyway) is not the solution.