Actually, Bach would have loved it... P.D.Q. Bach, that is.:-)
What they really should do is put a couple of famous pieces up there, like the Tocatta and Fugue... the famous one from Phantom of the Opera. If they had that sort of thing in the Rennaisance(sp?), it would have been enough to make composers drop classical music altogether.
German courts ruled today that computer manufacturers are alllowed to bundle non-Microsoft software with their computers. Speculation abounds about whether or not this applies to other operating systems as well. If so, this has the potential to allow OEMs to bundle computers with Linux or MacOS against Microsoft's wills. Microsoft is expected to file an appeal later today.
satire=false;
Sheesh. It's amazing that the courts have to uphold what should be common sense. Maybe this says something about our legal system?
Re:Of course! It's the acronym.
on
WAP Under Fire
·
· Score: 1
Well, that's your problem. You need to hold the rubber band right next to the wall. That way, the "wh" of it flying through the air and the "ap" of it hitting the wall are coincidental.
Of course! It's the acronym.
on
WAP Under Fire
·
· Score: 3
I believe that all doomed projects are a direct result of sucky acronyms. WAP is no exception. First off, it sounds like the sound a large rubber fish makes when slammed against the wall. Whap! Secondly, it's too open to defacement. Just off the top of my head, I can think of "Wimpy Application Performance" and "What A Putz!"
Think about more successful acronyms, like GNU. I challenge anyone to think of either a funny new definition _or_ a perverse way of pronouncing it. QED.
I'm not comparing DOS to a 10k UNIX workstation. I'm doing the complete opposite. Sure, a workstation was nice, but mom wouldn't use it to index her recipes, to use a famous example. By bringing the price down to earthly levels, DOS together with IBM made a computer affordable for more people, truly spawning the PC revolution.
Of course, if the Apple ][ predates the IBM PC like you said, the whole thing is moot.
Microsoft brought the computer into the hands of the people. Before Microsoft bought it, CP/M was a piece of crap. After they bought it... okay, well it still sucked, but it sucked less. And by aggressively marketing DOS and the personal computer, they took computers out of the hands of the priesthood and into the hands of the common people. For the first time, one could buy an inexpensive desktop computer and just tweak with it. No longer did one have to shell out in the 10k's for a UNIX workstation. That was the only innovation they ever made; after that, the rest was either stolen (win1.0 was a bad mac clone) or bought and marketed.
So they did one important thing early on, and I respect them for that -- and only that.
Except I think this would just fall under the general category of "meta", which is already in the jargon file. Otherwise, we would also have to make a separate entry for meta-flames (flaming people who generate too much flamage), meta-stories (stories about stories), etc.
To top off those great Fourth of July fireworks with some Jon Katz flame-a-thon fireworks.
There is just one thing I want from slashdot, and that is to have a thoughtful discussion on what Jon Katz is trying to say. Is that too much to ask? Instead, the article will be filled with "Jon Pu^H^HKatz doesn't belong on/.!" How about we focus on the real issue he's trying to raise instead of mindlessly flaming?
Remember, denial always comes right before going kaputski. Remember the disney movies? The Humorous Sidekick always tells the bad guy: "Umm... what if they Exploit Badguy's One Huge Weakness?" The Generic Evil Bad Guy will then laugh and say: "Nonsense. They would never be able to... " At that point, he is obliterated.
This can be extended as an analogy to the recording industry. First, they think "nobody will ever like this mp3 stuff". Then they pretend to ignore its spread. Once they realize that things are going to hell in the proverbial handbasket, they introduce their weak attempt at mimicking this.
It's very simple. Any music released in this format will never be used. Period. As long as they still sell the CD, people will still get it in mp3 format. And if they only release it in a digital encrypted format, then nobody will buy it. No matter what, the recording industry is doomed.
FYI, HelixCode.Com offers NO, I repeat NO feature enhancements of the standard GNOME desktop. What they have done is taken over the building of GNOME rpms and added a few apps, such as Helix Update. You're probably confusing Helix GNOME with GNOME 1.0. Helix GNOME is based on GNOME 1.2, but you can also compile 1.2 yourself without the helix desktops. So what Helix is doing rocks, but I'm just making sure everyone understands that the new features in GNOME are due to the 1.2 release, not due to HELIX add-ins.
At the server page, it specifically states that files larger than 100k cannot be stored. I quote:
Could the Publius Server Software completely fill my disk with Publius Content? Yes, the Publius Server could completely fill your disk with Publius Content. For this reason you may want to have Publius Content stored on its own partition or own disk. The Publius Server limits the size of individually published files to 100K.
(emphasis mine)
It looks like this was designed to specifically avoid mp3s and pr0n. Probably, they wanted this to be more similar to the original, anonymous federalist papers in that it is more intended for writings that may be offensive to the government of the writers' respective countries. Of course, in the U.S. it will probably just fill up with instructions for bombs and drugs. But one of the prices you pay if you host anonymously is that you take the chaff together with the wheat.
You're probably right, of course. Still, they first have to:
1) Find out a way to make browsing easier. Don't get this confused with searching, which is _much_ easier on the computer because you don't have to look things up in first the contents, then the index, while spending 10 sec. inbetween each step to find the page. Browsing, OTOH, is a _lot_ easier in a book, where you can just flip through and look for interesting stuff. As a programmer, I have no clue how this would be implemented, but it would help a lot.
2) Make it easier to read. Despite all the hype recently surrounding e-books, they still strain your eyes after a few hours.
3) Figure out how to display the manual without flipping away from a fullscreen game, something that will never be possible due to the nature of the beast. This is the biggest time when print manuals still rock.
Of course, the obvious solution is just to make the learning curve shallower... but hey:-)
No matter what's supposed to happen with the "paperless office" yak yak yak, I for one will not buy a game with an on-line only manual. It's just impossible to read things on the computer; for short articles it's ok, but not for full manuals. And plus, it's nearly impossible to skim an online manual. I like being able to hold the book in my hands and just flip through looking for info. The CivII and SMAC manuals were perfect for this.
In addition, the manual is very hard to use in full-screen applications, such as most modern retail games. In Outpost 2, their print manual was thin compared to the online one, which meant that everytime I wanted to get help, I had to alt+tab over, which was a big pain in the middle of a high-tension game.
1. Be polite. The last thing we need is for representatives' mailboxes to overflow with hundreds of YOU SUCK FOR VOTING FOR UCITA!!! messages.
2. Speling counts (pun intended). We want to present the impression of responsible, concerned people who are worried about how this law may affect them. a bunch of peoplz riting like this wil get no responses. We don't want to make the impression that the opposition consists only of crackers and 14-year-olds.
3. Almost without a doubt, someone will post an example letter showing the correct way of showing your opposition. Use this, but don't copy it word for word. Hundreds of identical letters will inevitably be dismissed as a campaign. Be unique and your voice will count.
4. State the facts. Using plain english, explain why this bill is bad. No technical terms, no hyperbole, and no distortion of the facts. We have enough evidence that there is no need to make something up, and the negative results from that could be devastating.
5. And again, be polite. I've said it once before but I'm saying it again, in order to get it thoroughly drilled into people's heads. I cannot stress this enough.
RAMBUS royalties are a tiny percentage. Most consumers won't even know the difference; RAMBUS is counting on volume (almsot every new Intel motherboard uses SDRAM or RDRAM) to make them money.
So your answer is yes, they will have to pay royalties, but not, it won't make it that much more expensive.
Worse than that, the Duron is now beginning to eat up the marketshare of their once-unique Celeron.
Intel basically was untouched in four areas: High-end server, desktop, low-end desktop, and laptop. No, for our purposes, Cyrix and the K6-2 do not count as competition:-). Now, they compete with the Athlon in the desktop, the Duron in the low-end desktop, and Crusoe in the laptop. And their only remaining area of exclusitivity is only temporary wile AMD gets its act together with the dual Athlon. And this area was already one of their weaker spots, with competition from Solaris and Alpha in the very high-end we-don't-care-how-much-it-costs department.
I give you proof: Comments #12, #2, #11, #15, #17, #16, #13, etc.
The only comments so far that did not fit into these categories are ones that say "Even I understand it!" And this while a bunch of trolls are still at 0 or 1 (although they will probably be at -1 by the time you read this). Please, moderators, spend your time shoving down the trolls before wasting points on borderline stuff that you may not like but someone else might.
Of course IBM would be able to develop this without being sued by someone else. That was not the issue in question for me.
The real problem is how the free software movement should react to things ilke this in general. Do the same ethics apply in the hardware areas as well as in the software? Obviously, we can't abstain from using any software that's patented, but we can still fight against ridiculous ones such as the one-click.
Ha ha. Then what do you suppose to replace silicon with?
Look at it this way: If a technology existed that was good enough, people would use it. That's the way free market works.
You could argue that the big manufacturers don't want to retool or are scared of the change, in the same way that the RIAA is scared to death of electronic music. In that case, upstarts with cost of retooling = $0 will take over with the new technology in the same way that Napster, Gnutella, and Freenet are taking over music distribution from the RIAA.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Bach would have loved it... P.D.Q. Bach, that is. :-)
What they really should do is put a couple of famous pieces up there, like the Tocatta and Fugue... the famous one from Phantom of the Opera. If they had that sort of thing in the Rennaisance(sp?), it would have been enough to make composers drop classical music altogether.
German courts ruled today that computer manufacturers are alllowed to bundle non-Microsoft software with their computers. Speculation abounds about whether or not this applies to other operating systems as well. If so, this has the potential to allow OEMs to bundle computers with Linux or MacOS against Microsoft's wills. Microsoft is expected to file an appeal later today.
satire=false;
Sheesh. It's amazing that the courts have to uphold what should be common sense. Maybe this says something about our legal system?
Well, that's your problem. You need to hold the rubber band right next to the wall. That way, the "wh" of it flying through the air and the "ap" of it hitting the wall are coincidental.
I believe that all doomed projects are a direct result of sucky acronyms. WAP is no exception. First off, it sounds like the sound a large rubber fish makes when slammed against the wall. Whap! Secondly, it's too open to defacement. Just off the top of my head, I can think of "Wimpy Application Performance" and "What A Putz!"
Think about more successful acronyms, like GNU. I challenge anyone to think of either a funny new definition _or_ a perverse way of pronouncing it. QED.
I'm not comparing DOS to a 10k UNIX workstation. I'm doing the complete opposite. Sure, a workstation was nice, but mom wouldn't use it to index her recipes, to use a famous example. By bringing the price down to earthly levels, DOS together with IBM made a computer affordable for more people, truly spawning the PC revolution.
Of course, if the Apple ][ predates the IBM PC like you said, the whole thing is moot.
Microsoft brought the computer into the hands of the people. Before Microsoft bought it, CP/M was a piece of crap. After they bought it... okay, well it still sucked, but it sucked less. And by aggressively marketing DOS and the personal computer, they took computers out of the hands of the priesthood and into the hands of the common people. For the first time, one could buy an inexpensive desktop computer and just tweak with it. No longer did one have to shell out in the 10k's for a UNIX workstation. That was the only innovation they ever made; after that, the rest was either stolen (win1.0 was a bad mac clone) or bought and marketed.
So they did one important thing early on, and I respect them for that -- and only that.
:-)
Except I think this would just fall under the general category of "meta", which is already in the jargon file. Otherwise, we would also have to make a separate entry for meta-flames (flaming people who generate too much flamage), meta-stories (stories about stories), etc.
To top off those great Fourth of July fireworks with some Jon Katz flame-a-thon fireworks.
/.!" How about we focus on the real issue he's trying to raise instead of mindlessly flaming?
There is just one thing I want from slashdot, and that is to have a thoughtful discussion on what Jon Katz is trying to say. Is that too much to ask? Instead, the article will be filled with "Jon Pu^H^HKatz doesn't belong on
Remember, denial always comes right before going kaputski. Remember the disney movies? The Humorous Sidekick always tells the bad guy: "Umm... what if they Exploit Badguy's One Huge Weakness?" The Generic Evil Bad Guy will then laugh and say: "Nonsense. They would never be able to... " At that point, he is obliterated.
This can be extended as an analogy to the recording industry. First, they think "nobody will ever like this mp3 stuff". Then they pretend to ignore its spread. Once they realize that things are going to hell in the proverbial handbasket, they introduce their weak attempt at mimicking this.
It's very simple. Any music released in this format will never be used. Period. As long as they still sell the CD, people will still get it in mp3 format. And if they only release it in a digital encrypted format, then nobody will buy it. No matter what, the recording industry is doomed.
What's more, notice how the AC said "so you know how to use a tracert"? That can only mean one thing...
:-)
This guy is a DOSalyte!!!
Only dos uses tracert due to its eight-character limit. All the Unixen instead use traceroute in its correct, spelling-enhanced form.
Because it's the closest thing to Mars we have. (rimshot)
FYI, HelixCode.Com offers NO, I repeat NO feature enhancements of the standard GNOME desktop. What they have done is taken over the building of GNOME rpms and added a few apps, such as Helix Update. You're probably confusing Helix GNOME with GNOME 1.0. Helix GNOME is based on GNOME 1.2, but you can also compile 1.2 yourself without the helix desktops. So what Helix is doing rocks, but I'm just making sure everyone understands that the new features in GNOME are due to the 1.2 release, not due to HELIX add-ins.
hahaha
Isn't it funny, though, that wine ran the program better than WinNT itself? Use that against your microsoft lovers!
Slashdot users run ps2 games under an emulator under wine under vmware, just for the sheer thrill of it all! :-)
Of course, it takes ten seconds to update when you hit a key, but so what...
... fluorinert? bath (Fluorinert? is an electronic testing fluid manufactured by 3M?) ...</i>
Everyone seems? to be complaining? about the question marks? in this story?. But I don't? see it?. Sheesh?! What's? everyone mad about??
(emphasis mine)
It looks like this was designed to specifically avoid mp3s and pr0n. Probably, they wanted this to be more similar to the original, anonymous federalist papers in that it is more intended for writings that may be offensive to the government of the writers' respective countries. Of course, in the U.S. it will probably just fill up with instructions for bombs and drugs. But one of the prices you pay if you host anonymously is that you take the chaff together with the wheat.
You're probably right, of course. Still, they first have to:
:-)
1) Find out a way to make browsing easier. Don't get this confused with searching, which is _much_ easier on the computer because you don't have to look things up in first the contents, then the index, while spending 10 sec. inbetween each step to find the page. Browsing, OTOH, is a _lot_ easier in a book, where you can just flip through and look for interesting stuff. As a programmer, I have no clue how this would be implemented, but it would help a lot.
2) Make it easier to read. Despite all the hype recently surrounding e-books, they still strain your eyes after a few hours.
3) Figure out how to display the manual without flipping away from a fullscreen game, something that will never be possible due to the nature of the beast. This is the biggest time when print manuals still rock.
Of course, the obvious solution is just to make the learning curve shallower... but hey
No matter what's supposed to happen with the "paperless office" yak yak yak, I for one will not buy a game with an on-line only manual. It's just impossible to read things on the computer; for short articles it's ok, but not for full manuals. And plus, it's nearly impossible to skim an online manual. I like being able to hold the book in my hands and just flip through looking for info. The CivII and SMAC manuals were perfect for this.
In addition, the manual is very hard to use in full-screen applications, such as most modern retail games. In Outpost 2, their print manual was thin compared to the online one, which meant that everytime I wanted to get help, I had to alt+tab over, which was a big pain in the middle of a high-tension game.
Why not just Ask Jeeves and be done with it?
1. Be polite. The last thing we need is for representatives' mailboxes to overflow with hundreds of YOU SUCK FOR VOTING FOR UCITA!!! messages.
2. Speling counts (pun intended). We want to present the impression of responsible, concerned people who are worried about how this law may affect them. a bunch of peoplz riting like this wil get no responses. We don't want to make the impression that the opposition consists only of crackers and 14-year-olds.
3. Almost without a doubt, someone will post an example letter showing the correct way of showing your opposition. Use this, but don't copy it word for word. Hundreds of identical letters will inevitably be dismissed as a campaign. Be unique and your voice will count.
4. State the facts. Using plain english, explain why this bill is bad. No technical terms, no hyperbole, and no distortion of the facts. We have enough evidence that there is no need to make something up, and the negative results from that could be devastating.
5. And again, be polite. I've said it once before but I'm saying it again, in order to get it thoroughly drilled into people's heads. I cannot stress this enough.
RAMBUS royalties are a tiny percentage. Most consumers won't even know the difference; RAMBUS is counting on volume (almsot every new Intel motherboard uses SDRAM or RDRAM) to make them money.
So your answer is yes, they will have to pay royalties, but not, it won't make it that much more expensive.
Worse than that, the Duron is now beginning to eat up the marketshare of their once-unique Celeron.
:-). Now, they compete with the Athlon in the desktop, the Duron in the low-end desktop, and Crusoe in the laptop. And their only remaining area of exclusitivity is only temporary wile AMD gets its act together with the dual Athlon. And this area was already one of their weaker spots, with competition from Solaris and Alpha in the very high-end we-don't-care-how-much-it-costs department.
Intel basically was untouched in four areas: High-end server, desktop, low-end desktop, and laptop. No, for our purposes, Cyrix and the K6-2 do not count as competition
I give you proof: Comments #12, #2, #11, #15, #17, #16, #13, etc.
The only comments so far that did not fit into these categories are ones that say "Even I understand it!" And this while a bunch of trolls are still at 0 or 1 (although they will probably be at -1 by the time you read this). Please, moderators, spend your time shoving down the trolls before wasting points on borderline stuff that you may not like but someone else might.
Of course IBM would be able to develop this without being sued by someone else. That was not the issue in question for me.
The real problem is how the free software movement should react to things ilke this in general. Do the same ethics apply in the hardware areas as well as in the software? Obviously, we can't abstain from using any software that's patented, but we can still fight against ridiculous ones such as the one-click.
Ha ha. Then what do you suppose to replace silicon with?
Look at it this way: If a technology existed that was good enough, people would use it. That's the way free market works.
You could argue that the big manufacturers don't want to retool or are scared of the change, in the same way that the RIAA is scared to death of electronic music. In that case, upstarts with cost of retooling = $0 will take over with the new technology in the same way that Napster, Gnutella, and Freenet are taking over music distribution from the RIAA.