Only the American companies who confuse being hardware manufacturers with being software developers force these NDAs which result in drivers which are basically decompiled blobs. Projects like OpenBSD (and Linux even) have had better experience with Asian companies for example on getting documentation regarding hardware. Blueprints to the hardware are not needed to write a driver; just the op codes and messages you can send to the hardware to control it. For example, CPU architectures are quite documented when it comes to their op codes, so therefore we are able to have open source compilers (e.g., GCC). On the other hand, the op codes for GPUs in NVidia and ATI hardware, are kept completely secret for most likely bullshit reasons (or because they're already infringing on the other company's patents and don't want anyone to know), so therefore we're stuck with blobs or intensive reverse engineering processes that can take over a year to finish.
I think Theo has a better opinion on Free Software than any of the Linux kernel developers do. Now if GNU had actually written a kernel themselves rather than adopted Linux back in the early 90's, we wouldn't have this NDA/blob problem due to RMS. I don't know how far the "GNU desktop" would have come by now, so I don't know how much success they would have in getting hardware companies to provide documentation on how to use the damn hardware.
I believe it's because you mentioned that they are "Two things that a reliable kernel should avoid?" That makes you sound like you know better, so that's the troll-like bit. Also, everyone on/. is assumed to know everything about everything when posting unless said otherwise...
Hmm, I have to fuck around for quite a while to get printing to work in Windows (gotta download bloated, crappy drivers that replace all the native interfaces), or to get codec support (codec? what the fuck is a codec? this is a fucking movie/song!/Joe Sixpack). Nice troll.
And passed by a Republican-controlled Congress. It's not like if Clinton had vetoed it, Congress would have just given up and not tried to override his veto...
In Washington State there is a law against having sex with a virgin under any circumstances (including the wedding night!). Sounds like quite the catch 22 there...
Maybe they can just tick the box that corresponds to whichever one mentions the type of file they're trying to play? Hmm, nah, I guess Joe Sixpack is too fucking stupid to try something like that...
You can have multiple font families installed that will cover most (if not all) of the Unicode characters when union'd together, so as long as the font manager grabs glyphs from a list of available fonts, all characters should be covered. Therefore, you don't really need a complete font family with all the Unicode glyphs.
Well, the way I see it, there are three ways to handle Unicode characters (one of which is wrong): store as full two-byte Unicode values (inefficient when using mostly ASCII characters like in english), store in a UTF character set such as UTF-8 (useful for primarily ASCII text as it is a superset of ASCII), or pretend it isn't Unicode and treat it as two (or three if input is in UTF-8 for example) separate ASCII characters (bad).
So, perhaps if data was all stored and represented in UTF-8, for example, this wouldn't be a problem? Or perhaps stored as raw Unicode characters via wchar_t (or language equivalent like u"" in Python)?
what the hell is wrong with you? do you think that cars, mansions, designer clothes, and heroin pays for itself? what about rehab? what about agent fees? what about lawyers and accountants? these are all very expensive things that help starts live their expensive lives. who's going to pay for all of that stuff? Well, I would guess that the record label would continue to pay for all that, and once she left, unless she was able to make a lot of money in tours, would be broke again.
Once the sattelite channels are devoting as much time to advertising as they are to music, we're right back to where we started - buy now you're PAYING to listen to it, which works out far better for the media companies. You're not naieve enough to think THAT won't happen, are you? Considering how many people dropped XM over the suspension of Opie and Anthony, I can safely say that I wouldn't be alone in dropping satellite radio due to ads on the music channels. XM and Sirius aren't just competition with each other and terresticle radio, but also with iPods and other media jukeboxes. You don't have ads on your own MP3 player, and you control the music on there, so these broadcasters can't really turn to commercials. Of course, they could increase the subscription rate, and I'd rather they did that than resort to ads if it were really necessary.
And if you do get Sirius, I recommend channel 27 for heavy metal (although they play Korn sometimes, and I hate them) and 23 for some 80's hair rock and some metal (e.g., Judas Priest, Black Sabbath).
Also, it has a nice selection of classical and jazz if you like them. I think they use a higher bitrate on those channels due to the nature of the music, so the quality is pretty good for something being streamed.
IANAL of course, but I thought the only way to set legal precedent was in a court of law, generally in the appelate courts or higher. If so, what the hell are you talking about? "Officer, I wasn't speeding; I was just following the precedent set by the driver in front of me. Maybe if you could go catch that speeder first and prosecute him, then I can be indicted of a crime. In the meantime, I've got precedent, so nyah-nyah!"...
Kinda hard to flock to another cell carrier when you're stuck in a 2+ year contract with an absurdly high cancellation fee. And then there's the fact that pretty much all the mobile telcos will do this as well...
I pay XM to provide me with uncensored talk, and I pay them to provide me with the Opie and Anthony show. They no longer perform these tasks. Why shouldn't I have canceled? Because you'd be depriving them of revenue! Won't somebody please think of the corporations? Maybe XM will sue your sorry ass for depriving them of the revenue that could be used to pay their starving employees.
They have been censored by XM, but they aren't censored by anyone else. Of course they are free to go somewhere else to be heard, but there's absolutely no argument that can say that XM hasn't effectively censored Opie and Anthony.
Just because I don't censor the internet for the Chinese doesn't mean it isn't censored in general. In fact, I don't censor anything, so does that mean that nothing in this world is censored? Censorship isn't a "for all people p in world, if p censors some person q, then q is being censored"; it's more of a "there exists..." definition, but the set of all people in the world is usually limited to a select few (e.g., government, press/media/publisher) whom actually have control over the content being published in any form.
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No, he didn't say "Brilliant!", he said, "That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft."
Only the American companies who confuse being hardware manufacturers with being software developers force these NDAs which result in drivers which are basically decompiled blobs. Projects like OpenBSD (and Linux even) have had better experience with Asian companies for example on getting documentation regarding hardware. Blueprints to the hardware are not needed to write a driver; just the op codes and messages you can send to the hardware to control it. For example, CPU architectures are quite documented when it comes to their op codes, so therefore we are able to have open source compilers (e.g., GCC). On the other hand, the op codes for GPUs in NVidia and ATI hardware, are kept completely secret for most likely bullshit reasons (or because they're already infringing on the other company's patents and don't want anyone to know), so therefore we're stuck with blobs or intensive reverse engineering processes that can take over a year to finish.
I think Theo has a better opinion on Free Software than any of the Linux kernel developers do. Now if GNU had actually written a kernel themselves rather than adopted Linux back in the early 90's, we wouldn't have this NDA/blob problem due to RMS. I don't know how far the "GNU desktop" would have come by now, so I don't know how much success they would have in getting hardware companies to provide documentation on how to use the damn hardware.
I believe it's because you mentioned that they are "Two things that a reliable kernel should avoid?" That makes you sound like you know better, so that's the troll-like bit. Also, everyone on /. is assumed to know everything about everything when posting unless said otherwise...
Hmm, I have to fuck around for quite a while to get printing to work in Windows (gotta download bloated, crappy drivers that replace all the native interfaces), or to get codec support (codec? what the fuck is a codec? this is a fucking movie/song! /Joe Sixpack). Nice troll.
And passed by a Republican-controlled Congress. It's not like if Clinton had vetoed it, Congress would have just given up and not tried to override his veto...
What if you're already in a Cingular contract?
This is what things like RAID 5 are for...
Maybe they can just tick the box that corresponds to whichever one mentions the type of file they're trying to play? Hmm, nah, I guess Joe Sixpack is too fucking stupid to try something like that...
Dell flashes their operating systems onto the hard drives after they've been manufactured. The cost of putting Windows or Linux on them is the same.
You can have multiple font families installed that will cover most (if not all) of the Unicode characters when union'd together, so as long as the font manager grabs glyphs from a list of available fonts, all characters should be covered. Therefore, you don't really need a complete font family with all the Unicode glyphs.
Well, the way I see it, there are three ways to handle Unicode characters (one of which is wrong): store as full two-byte Unicode values (inefficient when using mostly ASCII characters like in english), store in a UTF character set such as UTF-8 (useful for primarily ASCII text as it is a superset of ASCII), or pretend it isn't Unicode and treat it as two (or three if input is in UTF-8 for example) separate ASCII characters (bad).
So, perhaps if data was all stored and represented in UTF-8, for example, this wouldn't be a problem? Or perhaps stored as raw Unicode characters via wchar_t (or language equivalent like u"" in Python)?
And if you do get Sirius, I recommend channel 27 for heavy metal (although they play Korn sometimes, and I hate them) and 23 for some 80's hair rock and some metal (e.g., Judas Priest, Black Sabbath).
Also, it has a nice selection of classical and jazz if you like them. I think they use a higher bitrate on those channels due to the nature of the music, so the quality is pretty good for something being streamed.
OK, you can have your opinions, and I'll have mine, but when you insult old-school Metallica, most metalheads will lynch you. Just saying. ;)
Yep. Defective by design if I do say so myself.
IANAL of course, but I thought the only way to set legal precedent was in a court of law, generally in the appelate courts or higher. If so, what the hell are you talking about? "Officer, I wasn't speeding; I was just following the precedent set by the driver in front of me. Maybe if you could go catch that speeder first and prosecute him, then I can be indicted of a crime. In the meantime, I've got precedent, so nyah-nyah!" ...
Nah, we're just trying to keep up with reddit's hot stories from yesterday. ;)
Kinda hard to flock to another cell carrier when you're stuck in a 2+ year contract with an absurdly high cancellation fee. And then there's the fact that pretty much all the mobile telcos will do this as well...
Oh yeah, SMS is real secure...
Uh, that's what .name is for. Example: cmdr.taco.name.
Yes, but they've diverged a bit and the project to merge them back together didn't work so well (Unity).
They have been censored by XM, but they aren't censored by anyone else. Of course they are free to go somewhere else to be heard, but there's absolutely no argument that can say that XM hasn't effectively censored Opie and Anthony.
..." definition, but the set of all people in the world is usually limited to a select few (e.g., government, press/media/publisher) whom actually have control over the content being published in any form.
Just because I don't censor the internet for the Chinese doesn't mean it isn't censored in general. In fact, I don't censor anything, so does that mean that nothing in this world is censored? Censorship isn't a "for all people p in world, if p censors some person q, then q is being censored"; it's more of a "there exists