What would make more sense to me was if SETI was doing concrete earth based research first. Namely how about analysing common earth based signals e.g. cell phone signals. How would you go about writing an algorithm to search within a data stream for intelligent signals (language) then how would you extract those signals into meaning (translation).
Essentially I think we should be using the many languages/signals that exist on earth to perform research, this would be of great use in the here and now; while learning a lot that would apply upon detecting a signal. Research in this area could impact information theory, cryptography, compression etc.
Also as other posters have pointed out how about studying exotic communication ideas (faster than light communication) equally fanciful but potentially very useful in the here and now. When we better understand both how to send fast signals and what constitutes an intelligent signal... then we'll be in a much better place to actually look for them and we'll have done some useful research in the meantime.
The thing can practically be powered by an energetic hamster in a spinning wheel. At a time when the world is hopefully trying not to destroy the planet so we can actually carry on playing games. I find myself wanting to buy a Wii over an Xbox360 or PS3 simply because it is the responsible thing to do.
I know many people on here probably don't think about that too much, I'm as sucked in by the thought of a 50" lcd tv as the next geek. Though I don't want to live in a smog filled, flooded, hurricane battered future. So I'm still going to get a big tv and game console I'm just going to factor in how much power they use. And offset the energy they use in other ways, recycling, getting a hybrid car etc.
I think if we all made slightly more thoughtful choices when making our purchases we could still have what we want and make the world a better place for us all to live in.
It would be great if all products displayed openly how much power a device needed. The Wii should proudly display that it takes much less power than an XBox360/PS3, I really feel we can make a difference I already see how as people increasingly buy healthier food choices companies rally to promote healthy foods to consumers. If we buy green products companies will tailor their products to be greener i.e. buy more hybrids, more hybrids get made its that simple. If we buy devices that consume less power it becomes a marketing factor and becomes important to large companies bottom lines.
Anyone any ideas how much these discs are going to cost? A large part of who wins is decided by the hit the consumer takes in his pocket. I think DVD-RAM almost died out due to the high cost of discs early on though now they've dropped in price the extra features over DVD-RW seem to be helping it to make a comeback.
I seem to recall reading a study somewhere that mentioned that people who spend more time on the internet watch less TV as a general rule of thumb. This makes sense to me as we're trading a passive tool for a more useful interactive tool. I watch much less TV than I ever used to and thanks to DVRs its also much more focused when I do. Though most of the time I get my news/information/entertainment from the computer as I like being able to direct it myself. Personally I'd use the word compulsive for my habits I have a large appetite for information and do feel compelled to read/watch/surf to fulfill my desire for new information.
Its good to maintain a balance though and it's good to get out to the gym or go for a walk or whatever to 'switch off' for a while. Though we're not helping ourselves by having mobile phones to interrupt my quiet walk in the country or a TV screen in my running machine to let me watch the news while I run. Guess it just comes with living in the information age.
If engineers built buildings the same way software engineers make software the first woodpecker to come along would bring down society.
While I don't think the comparison is strictly fair, I think the point the original quote was trying to make is apt, that software could do to be much more fault tolerant than it currently is.
Though I recall reading something that stated that making something fault tolerant is more a matter of time/money than anything else, making software 90% error free is easy making it 99% error free is hard and making it 99.999% error free will cost you an arm and a leg.
I would imagine that how error free a software package is is actually more reflective of the time/money a company is willing to invest in its development than what fancy shmancy tool/paradigm was used to create it. Though obviously better tools will also have an impact on reducing the error rate.
> get pie bag Ok > eat pie You are no longer hungry > drink bottle You are no longer thirsty > sleep You sleep > wake You stand up > wash Command not recognised.
I like the look of this, I can imagine using it as an eReader in the lounge to read docs/internet/pdfs if that all works ok. It could also be very useful for quick fact checking e.g. cinema times/weather etc. without having to go to the computer personally I'd be quite keen for one of these. Could have some interesting homebrew projects to turn it into a home remote etc. Short battery life wouldn't matter as it would probably never be far from a power socket and if the price is an issue which I don't think it is even this is sure to come down in price. Or am I missing something??
IMHO its a shame because SGI have always been visionaries in computing architecture, and if you look at a modern PC alot of what it is doing for the 'first' time was done years ago by SGI. I think I'm right in saying that many of the people working for ATi/Nvidia/Microsoft etc. are ex SGI guys and have carried the seeds of great ideas to places that are perhaps better at executing commercial designs.
I'll be sad to see SGI go because they've never seemed as tied to consumer demands and as such look to be a place where elegant/correct designs are valued over whatever can be thrown together in six months and stamped out on a production line to make some quick bucks.
Perhaps I'm just getting older but it seems like a modern version of an older problem, namely that we no longer value artisans. We value mass production and whats cheap, we live in carbon copy houses (watch MTV cribs for a few minutes) and buy the same mass produced items. Though there are some inklings that we are starting to get fed up of it with more people these days focusing on individual fashion and customising everything to their own tastes. What were really saying is we want something unique/crafted/personal just look at all the case modding going on.
Sadly by the time we value something it can be lost for good, many old techniques have been lost over the ages only for modern historians to bemoan and endeavour to recover. And even if we can flawlessly record the techniques used does that prevent them dying out, I'm thinking of bruce lee recording the techniques he used or a japanese sword maker recording his techniques. When not practiced these techniques become 'sterile' and are much better passed on to an apprentice. Maybe it doesn't matter if these techniques die out after all who needs japanese swords and martial arts? Though you can't help feeling the world is a poorer place without them.
I don't know I could be way off the mark and if so I'm sure someone will shortly correct me, but I for one would be sad to see SGI go (looks around and steps down off soapbox wondering how he got up here).
I think this article shows very well why we should fight against overly restrictive DRM/Closed Source etc. I suspect that this type of inventiveness would be much harder with a more restrictive product, so I say kudos to Apple for not treating all their users as guilty till proven innocent. In the end overly restrictive formats make us all lose out in more than just the most obvious ways.
Yes and no after running it there was some source code installed though no compiled module to speak of and I checked the requirements were all met beforehand. Kept saying something like the kernel source doesn't match the installed kernel, even though it did *shrugs* I'll keep trying I've found plenty of useful instructions it's just going to take some time and patience.
My point was until this kind of thing is point and click your not likely to see many 'average' computer users who can figure out how to configure their drivers on linux.
Personally I think the hardest task for an average user to perform on linux at the moment is driver installation, and lets face it for most people getting all their hardware working is the first step towards adopting a new system. I recently tried installing drivers for my ATi Radeon 9800 Pro a pretty mainstream card from a well known manufacturer, needless to say it's not straight forward by any stretch of the imagination. You simply can't expect joe public to ever learn how to compile his kernel and even messing around with kernel modules is probably asking too much.
Linux is certainly making progress synaptic does a great job of alleviating dependency hell and almost entirely masking it from the end user. I'd like to see the linux community not necessarily looking to emulate the functionality in Windows or Mac OS X but instead looking for what would be the most elegant solution. Perhaps something like an online database of drivers that manufacturers could update, which could be automatically 'pushed' onto your computer overnight and silently rebooted (with your permission in a preferences box) so that you don't even have to worry about having the latest drivers it all becomes automatic would be neat, in the event it failed to reboot it could roll back to the previous driver and notify you in the morning of its attempt.
You could allow users to rate drivers and add the ratings to the database, this way you could specify you only want to automatically update to new drivers that are rated 3/5 or higher for example. This could be like linux's answer to Windows update only better.
It's not like they've thrown away the blueprints and with all the extra money from Virgin their going to be able to quickly fabricate many more with all the kinks from SpaceShipOne worked out, after all it is a prototype albeit a very good one. I can't wait to see the new version they make that comes with cup holders and leather trim interior.
Besides they probably felt they had a good chunk of flight data to analyze and could further refine the engine on the ground, traded against the risk of pushing it further to the limits and losing the ship and possibly pilot, at which point everyone would berate them for destroying a piece of history. Nope sounds like they made the right call to me.
As my uncle who worked for a large engineering firm used to tell me, next time you feel like your indispensable go and fill a bowl with water, stick your finger into it, remove it and the hole thats left is how indispensable you are;-)
Good point, it's the Borg theory, faced with competition that doesn't understand why you wouldn't want to become part of it's own perfection your only choice is to fight back OSS style.
Well you've convinced me, though I still maintain that the Borg aren't truly evil they just can't understand why everyone wouldn't wish to join them, guess you'd call it blindly evil *shrugs*
Guess we'll find out if the Federa... I mean OSS will win through;-)
Good point, it's the Borg theory, faced with competition that doesn't understand why you wouldn't want to become part of it's own perfection your only choice is to fight back OSS style.
Well you've convinced me, though I still maintain that the Borg aren't truly evil they just can't understand why everyone wouldn't wish to join them, guess you'd call it blindly evil *shrugs*
Guess we'll find out if the Federa... I mean OSS will win through;-)
I see what you're saying and for the most part agree; however, Sony are probably even worse than Microsoft for trying to lock people into standards and other companies have done worse than Microsoft. It just seems a bit unbalanced the anomosity towards Microsoft at times, I guess over the years I find it less likely that the guy at the top is truly malicious and more likely that they just don't fully understand the issue they're trying to take a stand on. You'd find it hard to deny that some form of DRM isn't called for after all if all software was pirated where would we be?
The issue is getting a balanced view which often suffers under corporate greed, though if you have a problem with that you really have a problem with A LOT more than just Microsoft, perhaps its not that people hate Microsoft per se but more that they're the poster child for the capitalist generation that everyones getting a bit sick of *shrugs*
As for the Microsoft wants other companies to fail, again no board member goes into a meeting these days and says "We want less market share" practically all companies look to 'dominate' the market by gaining as much market share and therefore revenue. This is a natural win-lose and not one set up by Microsoft it's across the board. Perhaps you're right and Microsoft secretly do want other companies to fail *shrugs* I can't answer that I just think it's more likely they're just driven by wanting to 'dominate' the market along with everyone else. Isn't the average slashdot reader also wanting Linux to 'dominate' the market??
I see what you're saying and for the most part agree; however, Sony are probably even worse than Microsoft for trying to lock people into standards and other companies have done worse than Microsoft. It just seems a bit unbalanced the anomosity towards Microsoft at times, I guess over the years I find it less likely that the guy at the top is truly malicious and more likely that they just don't fully understand the issue they're trying to take a stand on. You'd find it hard to deny that some form of DRM isn't called for after all if all software was pirated where would we be?
The issue is getting a balanced view which often suffers under corporate greed, though if you have a problem with that you really have a problem with A LOT more than just Microsoft, perhaps its not that people hate Microsoft per se but more that they're the poster child for the capitalist generation that everyones getting a bit sick of *shrugs*
Why is it that for Linux to succeed Microsoft must fail and vice versa? Surely there's room for both of them in the market and competition is a healthy thing to prevent stagnation. No one looks for ATi to destroy Nvidia or wants Sony to put Nintendo out of the market so why the constant desire to see Microsoft fail? I actually like a lot of what Microsoft is trying to acheive with its next round of software. At the same time I love the progress made by Debian, Ubuntu, E17 etc. one spurs the other. If Microsoft fails surely thats bad for the American economy and in the long term means less jobs for people like ourselves, it's almost like wishing another Katrina on yourselves, doesn't make much sense to me.
I find myself wondering what the acceleration on a hydrogen powered car would be like, would the flow of hydrogen from these pellets be able to adapt quickly to driver requirements. That is if I stomp my foot on the accelerator is more hydrogen going to be able to release quickly to match the demand, or is the acceleration on these cars going to suck? *shrugs*
I just tried out the LiveCD for Enlightenment 17 today and that certainly feels like a step forward UI wise. It uses all four corners not that that really bothered me though it makes sense.
More importantly is how 'light' it feels I get so sick of logging onto Windows these days only for my computer to grind for an additional couple of minutes while loads of bloated apps load in the system tray. I mean I've got a dual core AMD, 2GB of Ram and twin Raptor drives and I still wouldn't say Xp feels 'nippy'. Also you get so used to coping with windows little annoyances such as endless tooltip popups that its like turning off a droning fan that your mind has blocked out, suddenly it just seems more peaceful.
Considering its still development code it feels very stable, all in all I'd highly recommend checking it out if you haven't yet.
I'm finding myself increasingly torn between Linux and Windows these days, the techie in me is dying to break free of Windows; however, two things keep me chained to it Games (I know Cedega but its not quite there) but the biggest stumbling block is Visual Studio.
As a developer Visual Studio is the backbone of many a work enviroment and home project and until such day as Microsoft release a Linux version (the same day hell freezes over) or Visual Studio runs fine under WINE (the day before hell freezes over) I'm going to have to keep a Windows partition around. Who knows perhaps VMWare will release the shackles one day though it's a pretty price to pay to cut the ties that bind.
And thats not being anti Microsoft I just think more and more users these days want to be free to use whatever they feel is the best product without being locked into one particular way of doing things. If Vista turns out to be better than whatever Apple and Linux are offering on a particular day then I want to be able to switch.
Has anyone had chance to run any speed comparisons, with the hard drive already the slowest component in my system I'd be concerned that extra layers for metadata and DRM would just increase the problem of slow data access.
Though on the other hand it seems like metadata layers are the way forward and will enable us to get closer to pieces of software like the librarian out of Snow Crash, though no doubt as soon as it's made someone from Slashdot will ask it to go and collect all the available porn off the internet and bring the whole darn system to it's knees:-P
It does seem a bit odd after all with processing power/storage growing the way it is, the same computer that can generate say 800sq miles of linden land today will be able to generate a much larger sized plot tomorrow, how does that factor into the equation ?
Also it would be more altruistic if they allowed you to host your own server with your own land that you can control who can visit. That way people who provide their own server get the benefit of not having to pay maintenance fees (they would still pay for the software, developers have to eat I agree, being one myself).
Think of it this way many games i.e. Quake, Counterstrike have worked for years by providing networking functionality and people create their own servers etc.
Granted MMO networks need to be much larger and persistent, though why can't they take the BitTorrent approach. Rather than have one central bank of many powerful servers, all computers running the game could connect together to form an adhoc grid with just as much computing power if not more. This would negate the huge maintenance costs required and hence the need for monthly fees. Which is where I see the sinister part, it's like saying rather than lets look for a better solution, lets look for the most expensive solution.
Forgetting storage space for a moment I thought being optical these drives were supposed to have much better bandwidth however a 20-MByte transfer rate seems pretty puny, what gives?
So what do people think assuming speeds continue to leap ahead in the desktop arena, will it simply encourage further sloppy programming. After all if the choice is to optimise your product for a month to save a few Gigaflops or get it out into the market and so what if its a bit resource hungry, I imagine many teams will get pushed to release sooner rather than later.
Slashdot Mirror
What would make more sense to me was if SETI was doing concrete earth based research first. Namely how about
analysing common earth based signals e.g. cell phone signals. How would you go about writing an algorithm to
search within a data stream for intelligent signals (language) then how would you extract those signals into
meaning (translation).
Essentially I think we should be using the many languages/signals that exist on earth to perform research, this
would be of great use in the here and now; while learning a lot that would apply upon detecting
a signal. Research in this area could impact information theory, cryptography, compression etc.
Also as other posters have pointed out how about studying exotic communication ideas (faster than light
communication) equally fanciful but potentially very useful in the here and now. When we better understand
both how to send fast signals and what constitutes an intelligent signal... then we'll be in a much better
place to actually look for them and we'll have done some useful research in the meantime.
The Wii is also much kinder to the environment as articles have shown http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-356-2.h tm
The thing can practically be powered by an energetic hamster in a spinning wheel. At a time when the world is hopefully trying not to destroy the planet
so we can actually carry on playing games. I find myself wanting to buy a Wii over an Xbox360 or PS3 simply because it is the responsible thing to do.
I know many people on here probably don't think about that too much, I'm as sucked in by the thought of a 50" lcd tv as the next geek. Though I don't want
to live in a smog filled, flooded, hurricane battered future. So I'm still going to get a big tv and game console I'm just going to factor in how much power
they use. And offset the energy they use in other ways, recycling, getting a hybrid car etc.
I think if we all made slightly more thoughtful choices when making our purchases we could still have what we want and make the world a better place for us
all to live in.
It would be great if all products displayed openly how much power a device needed. The Wii should proudly display that it takes much less power than an XBox360/PS3,
I really feel we can make a difference I already see how as people increasingly buy healthier food choices companies rally to promote healthy foods to consumers. If
we buy green products companies will tailor their products to be greener i.e. buy more hybrids, more hybrids get made its that simple. If we buy devices that consume
less power it becomes a marketing factor and becomes important to large companies bottom lines.
Anyone any ideas how much these discs are going to cost? A large part of who wins is decided by the hit the consumer takes in his pocket. I think DVD-RAM almost died out due to the high cost of discs early on though now they've dropped in price the extra features over DVD-RW seem to be helping it to make a comeback.
I seem to recall reading a study somewhere that mentioned that people who spend more time on the internet watch less TV as a general rule of thumb. This makes sense to me as we're trading a passive tool for a more useful interactive tool. I watch much less TV than I ever used to and thanks to DVRs its also much more focused when I do. Though most of the time I get my news/information/entertainment from the computer as I like being able to direct it myself. Personally I'd use the word compulsive for my habits I have a large appetite for information and do feel compelled to read/watch/surf to fulfill my desire for new information.
Its good to maintain a balance though and it's good to get out to the gym or go for a walk or whatever to 'switch off' for a while. Though we're not helping ourselves by having mobile phones to interrupt my quiet walk in the country or a TV screen in my running machine to let me watch the news while I run. Guess it just comes with living in the information age.
It's something like and I'm paraphrasing here
If engineers built buildings the same way software engineers make software the first woodpecker to come along would bring down society.
While I don't think the comparison is strictly fair, I think the point the original quote was trying to make is apt, that software could do to be much more fault tolerant than it currently is.
Though I recall reading something that stated that making something fault tolerant is more a matter of time/money than anything else, making software 90% error free is easy making it 99% error free is hard and making it 99.999% error free will cost you an arm and a leg.
I would imagine that how error free a software package is is actually more reflective of the time/money a company is willing to invest in its development than what fancy shmancy tool/paradigm was used to create it. Though obviously better tools will also have an impact on reducing the error rate.
Isn't it already ad supported within like 10 minutes of being connected to the internet ???
>> Forget to eat, sleep and wash
:)
That's just silly the commands are right there
> get pie bag
Ok
> eat pie
You are no longer hungry
> drink bottle
You are no longer thirsty
> sleep
You sleep
> wake
You stand up
> wash
Command not recognised.
Ahh ok I see the problem !!
*posts note for admin to add wash facilities*
That should do it
I like the look of this, I can imagine using it as an eReader in the lounge to read docs/internet/pdfs if that all works ok. It could also be very useful for quick fact checking e.g. cinema times/weather etc. without having to go to the computer personally I'd be quite keen for one of these. Could have some interesting homebrew projects to turn it into a home remote etc. Short battery life wouldn't matter as it would probably never be far from a power socket and if the price is an issue which I don't think it is even this is sure to come down in price. Or am I missing something??
IMHO its a shame because SGI have always been visionaries in computing architecture, and if you look at a modern PC alot of what it is doing for the 'first' time was done years ago by SGI. I think I'm right in saying that many of the people working for ATi/Nvidia/Microsoft etc. are ex SGI guys and have carried the seeds of great ideas to places that are perhaps better at executing commercial designs.
I'll be sad to see SGI go because they've never seemed as tied to consumer demands and as such look to be a place where elegant/correct designs are valued over whatever can be thrown together in six months and stamped out on a production line to make some quick bucks.
Perhaps I'm just getting older but it seems like a modern version of an older problem, namely that we no longer value artisans. We value mass production and whats cheap, we live in carbon copy houses (watch MTV cribs for a few minutes) and buy the same mass produced items. Though there are some inklings that we are starting to get fed up of it with more people these days focusing on individual fashion and customising everything to their own tastes. What were really saying is we want something unique/crafted/personal just look at all the case modding going on.
Sadly by the time we value something it can be lost for good, many old techniques have been lost over the ages only for modern historians to bemoan and endeavour to recover. And even if we can flawlessly record the techniques used does that prevent them dying out, I'm thinking of bruce lee recording the techniques he used or a japanese sword maker recording his techniques. When not practiced these techniques become 'sterile' and are much better passed on to an apprentice. Maybe it doesn't matter if these techniques die out after all who needs japanese swords and martial arts? Though you can't help feeling the world is a poorer place without them.
I don't know I could be way off the mark and if so I'm sure someone will shortly correct me, but I for one would be sad to see SGI go (looks around and steps down off soapbox wondering how he got up here).
I think this article shows very well why we should fight against overly restrictive DRM/Closed Source etc. I suspect that this type of inventiveness would be much harder with a more restrictive product, so I say kudos to Apple for not treating all their users as guilty till proven innocent. In the end overly restrictive formats make us all lose out in more than just the most obvious ways.
Yes and no after running it there was some source code installed though no compiled module to speak of and I checked the requirements were all met beforehand. Kept saying something like the kernel source doesn't match the installed kernel, even though it did *shrugs* I'll keep trying I've found plenty of useful instructions it's just going to take some time and patience.
My point was until this kind of thing is point and click your not likely to see many 'average' computer users who can figure out how to configure their drivers on linux.
Personally I think the hardest task for an average user to perform on linux at the moment is driver installation, and lets face it for most people getting all their hardware working is the first step towards adopting a new system. I recently tried installing drivers for my ATi Radeon 9800 Pro a pretty mainstream card from a well known manufacturer, needless to say it's not straight forward by any stretch of the imagination. You simply can't expect joe public to ever learn how to compile his kernel and even messing around with kernel modules is probably asking too much.
Linux is certainly making progress synaptic does a great job of alleviating dependency hell and almost entirely masking it from the end user. I'd like to see the linux community not necessarily looking to emulate the functionality in Windows or Mac OS X but instead looking for what would be the most elegant solution. Perhaps something like an online database of drivers that manufacturers could update, which could be automatically 'pushed' onto your computer overnight and silently rebooted (with your permission in a preferences box) so that you don't even have to worry about having the latest drivers it all becomes automatic would be neat, in the event it failed to reboot it could roll back to the previous driver and notify you in the morning of its attempt.
You could allow users to rate drivers and add the ratings to the database, this way you could specify you only want to automatically update to new drivers that are rated 3/5 or higher for example. This could be like linux's answer to Windows update only better.
It's not like they've thrown away the blueprints and with all the extra money from Virgin their going to be able to quickly fabricate many more with all the kinks from SpaceShipOne worked out, after all it is a prototype albeit a very good one. I can't wait to see the new version they make that comes with cup holders and leather trim interior.
Besides they probably felt they had a good chunk of flight data to analyze and could further refine the engine on the ground, traded against the risk of pushing it further to the limits and losing the ship and possibly pilot, at which point everyone would berate them for destroying a piece of history. Nope sounds like they made the right call to me.
As my uncle who worked for a large engineering firm used to tell me, next time you feel like your indispensable go and fill a bowl with water, stick your finger into it, remove it and the hole thats left is how indispensable you are ;-)
Good point, it's the Borg theory, faced with competition that doesn't understand why you wouldn't want to become part of it's own perfection your only choice is to fight back OSS style.
;-)
Well you've convinced me, though I still maintain that the Borg aren't truly evil they just can't understand why everyone wouldn't wish to join them, guess you'd call it blindly evil *shrugs*
Guess we'll find out if the Federa... I mean OSS will win through
Good point, it's the Borg theory, faced with competition that doesn't understand why you wouldn't want to become part of it's own perfection your only choice is to fight back OSS style.
;-)
Well you've convinced me, though I still maintain that the Borg aren't truly evil they just can't understand why everyone wouldn't wish to join them, guess you'd call it blindly evil *shrugs*
Guess we'll find out if the Federa... I mean OSS will win through
I see what you're saying and for the most part agree; however, Sony are probably even worse than Microsoft for trying to lock people into standards and other companies have done worse than Microsoft. It just seems a bit unbalanced the anomosity towards Microsoft at times, I guess over the years I find it less likely that the guy at the top is truly malicious and more likely that they just don't fully understand the issue they're trying to take a stand on. You'd find it hard to deny that some form of DRM isn't called for after all if all software was pirated where would we be?
The issue is getting a balanced view which often suffers under corporate greed, though if you have a problem with that you really have a problem with A LOT more than just Microsoft, perhaps its not that people hate Microsoft per se but more that they're the poster child for the capitalist generation that everyones getting a bit sick of *shrugs*
As for the Microsoft wants other companies to fail, again no board member goes into a meeting these days and says "We want less market share" practically all companies look to 'dominate' the market by gaining as much market share and therefore revenue. This is a natural win-lose and not one set up by Microsoft it's across the board. Perhaps you're right and Microsoft secretly do want other companies to fail *shrugs* I can't answer that I just think it's more likely they're just driven by wanting to 'dominate' the market along with everyone else. Isn't the average slashdot reader also wanting Linux to 'dominate' the market??
I see what you're saying and for the most part agree; however, Sony are probably even worse than Microsoft for trying to lock people into standards and other companies have done worse than Microsoft. It just seems a bit unbalanced the anomosity towards Microsoft at times, I guess over the years I find it less likely that the guy at the top is truly malicious and more likely that they just don't fully understand the issue they're trying to take a stand on. You'd find it hard to deny that some form of DRM isn't called for after all if all software was pirated where would we be?
The issue is getting a balanced view which often suffers under corporate greed, though if you have a problem with that you really have a problem with A LOT more than just Microsoft, perhaps its not that people hate Microsoft per se but more that they're the poster child for the capitalist generation that everyones getting a bit sick of *shrugs*
Why is it that for Linux to succeed Microsoft must fail and vice versa? Surely there's room for both of them in the market and competition is a healthy thing to prevent stagnation. No one looks for ATi to destroy Nvidia or wants Sony to put Nintendo out of the market so why the constant desire to see Microsoft fail? I actually like a lot of what Microsoft is trying to acheive with its next round of software. At the same time I love the progress made by Debian, Ubuntu, E17 etc. one spurs the other. If Microsoft fails surely thats bad for the American economy and in the long term means less jobs for people like ourselves, it's almost like wishing another Katrina on yourselves, doesn't make much sense to me.
I find myself wondering what the acceleration on a hydrogen powered car would be like, would the flow of hydrogen from these pellets be able to adapt quickly to driver requirements. That is if I stomp my foot on the accelerator is more hydrogen going to be able to release quickly to match the demand, or is the acceleration on these cars going to suck? *shrugs*
I just tried out the LiveCD for Enlightenment 17 today and that certainly feels like a step forward UI wise. It uses all four corners not that that really bothered me though it makes sense.
More importantly is how 'light' it feels I get so sick of logging onto Windows these days only for my computer to grind for an additional couple of minutes while loads of bloated apps load in the system tray. I mean I've got a dual core AMD, 2GB of Ram and twin Raptor drives and I still wouldn't say Xp feels 'nippy'. Also you get so used to coping with windows little annoyances such as endless tooltip popups that its like turning off a droning fan that your mind has blocked out, suddenly it just seems more peaceful.
Considering its still development code it feels very stable, all in all I'd highly recommend checking it out if you haven't yet.
http://www.elivecd.org/
I'm finding myself increasingly torn between Linux and Windows these days, the techie in me is dying to break free of Windows; however, two things keep me chained to it Games (I know Cedega but its not quite there) but the biggest stumbling block is Visual Studio.
As a developer Visual Studio is the backbone of many a work enviroment and home project and until such day as Microsoft release a Linux version (the same day hell freezes over) or Visual Studio runs fine under WINE (the day before hell freezes over) I'm going to have to keep a Windows partition around. Who knows perhaps VMWare will release the shackles one day though it's a pretty price to pay to cut the ties that bind.
And thats not being anti Microsoft I just think more and more users these days want to be free to use whatever they feel is the best product without being locked into one particular way of doing things. If Vista turns out to be better than whatever Apple and Linux are offering on a particular day then I want to be able to switch.
Has anyone had chance to run any speed comparisons, with the hard drive already the slowest component in my system I'd be concerned that extra layers for metadata and DRM would just increase the problem of slow data access.
:-P
Though on the other hand it seems like metadata layers are the way forward and will enable us to get closer to pieces of software like the librarian out of Snow Crash, though no doubt as soon as it's made someone from Slashdot will ask it to go and collect all the available porn off the internet and bring the whole darn system to it's knees
It does seem a bit odd after all with processing power/storage growing the way it is, the same computer that can generate say 800sq miles of linden land today will be able to generate a much larger sized plot tomorrow, how does that factor into the equation ?
Also it would be more altruistic if they allowed you to host your own server with your own land that you can control who can visit. That way people who provide their own server get the benefit of not having to pay maintenance fees (they would still pay for the software, developers have to eat I agree, being one myself).
Think of it this way many games i.e. Quake, Counterstrike have worked for years by providing networking functionality and people create their own servers etc.
Granted MMO networks need to be much larger and persistent, though why can't they take the BitTorrent approach. Rather than have one central bank of many powerful servers, all computers running the game could connect together to form an adhoc grid with just as much computing power if not more. This would negate the huge maintenance costs required and hence the need for monthly fees. Which is where I see the sinister part, it's like saying rather than lets look for a better solution, lets look for the most expensive solution.
Forgetting storage space for a moment I thought being optical these drives were supposed to have much better bandwidth however a 20-MByte transfer rate seems pretty puny, what gives?
So what do people think assuming speeds continue to leap ahead in the desktop arena, will it simply encourage further sloppy programming. After all if the choice is to optimise your product for a month to save a few Gigaflops or get it out into the market and so what if its a bit resource hungry, I imagine many teams will get pushed to release sooner rather than later.