I suppose that such games would have to share and synchronize their physics data with each other. Every machine with a physics co-processor would improve the quality of the physics for all machines playing the same game.
Eventually, when physics co-processors are commonplace, they might have to act like a distributed parallel computer for multiplayer games. Instead of each machine individually simulating the same world redundantly, the networked machines would co-operatively simulate the game world together.
Just my guesses. Maybe someone familiar with the technology has better suggestions.
There are numerous OS X Bit-torrent apps, but it took me a while to find one that's fast and connects to as many peers as Azureus. Transmission (http://transmission.m0k.org/) seems to be the ticket. It's simple and Cocoa-based. I'm using a recent SVN build of it. I'm glad to be rid of Azureus, with its resource hogging and its Mac-inconsistent interface.
Not as far as I can tell. In fact, Japanese has no way of writing the "we" sound, and most Japanese will have trouble pronouncing it, saying something like oo-eee instead. Needless to say, Wii resembles no Japanese word. I guess it would be meaningful to the French, though!
To be sure, there are a lot of poor, arbitrary, or economically inaccurate accusations hurled at Wal-Mart, the "evil corporation that steals jobs from Americans" (for example). Some people have probably reasoned out their arguments; most haven't. I personally have no problem buying inexpensive Chinese-made goods, or shopping at a store that pays minimum wage, or shopping at a store that hires immigrants. I do have the choice to buy local goods from better-paying mom-and-pop stores, and I exercise that choice often.
One heinous crime committed by Wal-Mart that I can't excuse, though, is property theft. Going by the euphemistic "eminent domain", Wal-Mart frequently colludes with corrupt city administrations to seize land from its legitimate owners and give it to Wal-Mart for stores and parking lots. Wal-Mart slips some thick envelopes under city councillors' doors and promises to generate more property tax revenue, and Bob's-your-uncle, Wal-Mart gets permission to tear down your building and take your property. The whole damn lot of their management should be thrown in jail or worse.
"What is really needed is an education effort on IP reform. Not just for the politicians, but for the public at large, so they can elect forward thinking leaders."
I understand your sentiment, but do you really think the public at large cares about or can be made to understand patents? Even if they did, it would be the last thing on their minds come election time. Majoritarian government ("democracy") is all about reducing elections to one or two media-trumpeted issues, with the goal of convincing 51% of voters (i.e. 25% of the public) that they can get something at another's expense by casting the right vote. Patents will never be an election issue, and even if they were, the issue would be spun so that people would vote the wrong way.
I agree with the parent. How many people called PCMCIA by its full acronym? And notice how to regular people, people ignore the acronym "VHS" in favour of "video"? Even commercials for movies say "own it on video and DVD!"
Wow, I'd forgotten how lame installing and un-installing software in Windows is. If I want the latest developer version of Safari (or any program, for that matter), I just drag it to my Applications folder.
I hadn't seen that Albini article, but the one I'm referring to is definitely more recent and has different details. I have no idea how to find the link, unfortunately -- assuming it's still online in the New York Times archive.
Indeed. I read an article in the New York Times a year or so ago about a band that managed to have a record go gold that year -- In other words, of 100,000 or so albums released that year, they achieved what only 130 bands and performers could. They were the best of the best.
Then the article gave the break-down of where their CD sales went. It went to the label, the distributors, the RIAA, the marketers, the recording studios, and so on. In the end, each band member made about 40 grand. We're talking superstars, the cream of the music industry here, making less for two years of work than a garbage man.
My point isn't that the poor artists deserve better. My point is that all the anti-bootlegging "you owe it to the artist to buy the CD" types don't know how little the artist gets from a CD (a negative amount, in some instances), and how much goes into the pockets of lawyers and Congressmen who pass more laws taking away your freedom (I say "your", because I'm not American).
If you want to support the artist, bootleg his music and send him a dollar. It's *far* more than he'd get if you bought the CD. Or go to a concert, or order a t-shirt, or whatever. Or, alternatively, don't support any RIAA-owned artists, and let a corrupt industry get what it deserves.
I agree, it's not Yahoo's job to change how the Chinese government operates. However, it's definitely not Yahoo's job to assist the Chinese government in persecuting people. Your comment is essentially irrelevant. Likewise, it's not Yahoo's job to clean up crime, but that doesn't mean they can go around killing people.
I'll go with whatever format Apple ends up putting in their laptops. At this point, Blu-Ray is likely to be that format.
For the record, Holographic Versatile Disc sounds quite a bit superior; if only it were ready now. And I hate all that DRM crap -- we'd all benefit if some Asian companies got together and presented an open, extensible, non-DRM media disc. Even if I was stuck buying Chinese, Bollywood, and independent films for the first few years, I'd support it.
'When all is said and done, it is the market that will ultimately decide whether DRM is a "good" idea.'
That's only true when the market's allowed to decide. When the government (men with guns) steps in to mandate DRM, outlaw non-DRM technologies, and criminalize circumvention (as with the DMCA), people have no choice.
"What if MS is actually learning something from Apple's success and trying that strategy out?"
That probably wouldn't work because of their sales strategy. They sell companies expensive 3-year subscriptions with the promise that they'll get Microsoft's latest and greatest when it's ready; to make the sale, naturally, they have to hype the products in the pipeline.
If I recall correctly, Vista/Longhorn was supposed to be out in 2004, 3 years after XP. Some corporations paid a lot of money for a lot of nothing in 2001 and the following years, based on empty promises and grossly miscalculated shipping dates.
"As the rich and powerful gateher in Redmond, ask yourself where the rhetoric of freedom has gone and why your boss is dining with a Communist."
I can't help but wonder if Yahoo will be there. Maybe they have more data on political dissidents they want to help Mr. Hu imprison. Alternatively, maybe collecting data on dissidents will be a new feature of Vista. I'm sure the US government would also happily take advantage.
Well, generally you don't pay taxes for purchases made from a business in another country or state, since that jurisdiction doesn't have "authority" to tax you. (not that I believe in taxation at all)
Re:IE and Firefox only for now
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I certainly agree with your sentiment; but for what it's worth, "anyways" is dialectic English, common in Canada at least. I used to have to make a conscious effort not to say it. Heck, I know people from my neck of the woods who say "anywheres" too!
I don't know if Slackware is special, but I had Mandrake 9.2 on my Pentium II-500 Thinkpad with 96 MB of RAM, and it was intolerably slow. One application at a time was all it could handle, and even having a file browser and Firefox open at the same time resulted in paging and very slow performance. If I opened too many Firefox tabs, the whole thing just locked up.
"Oh, and I like Celtic folk, Afro-Celtic world music, blues, prog, electronica, choral and a bunch of other minority genres."
Holy crap, I think you've either made a complete copy of my iTunes library, or you're me from a parallel universe. And I thought my tastes were weird...
--
(By the way, editors, Slashdot is really messed up right now. I had to hit "cancel" halfway through loading the reply page, because all Slashdot links seem to redirect to a Xerox advertisement after a second.)
"And as for energy-efficient appliances, the sticker shock is too much for many people, even when the appliance is cheaper in the long run."
A small part of the problem is that appliances and vehicles that are more expensive up front and cheaper over time would actually be worthwhile, were it not for inflation and monetary interference. With the US government ramping up currency production (the only thing it's good at producing) and the price of living going up by 4% a year in dollar terms*, the benefits of an otherwise-lucrative 5% cost reduction per year disappear. (for example)
* Note that real inflation outpaces the CPI, which is constantly adjusted to look lower than it should be.
My wife's new iMac G5 developed a start-up problem in December. I called Apple and a delivery man came to pick it up. Four days later, they returned it fixed -- on what happened to be Christmas Eve. They even kept her data untouched; by contrast, every PC shop I've ever dealt with started their "repairs" by wiping the hard disk.
Slashdot Mirror
Oddly enough, a lot of people use Google to search for Yahoo. (And for some reason, those Turks are absolutely reliant on Google for locating MSN.)
+ msn%2C+aol&ctab=1&date=all&geo=all
http://www.google.com/trends?q=google%2C+yahoo%2C
So Microsoft will censor blogger posts, and then yahoo will help jail the bloggers for the posts no one could read? :) Ouch.
I suppose that such games would have to share and synchronize their physics data with each other. Every machine with a physics co-processor would improve the quality of the physics for all machines playing the same game.
Eventually, when physics co-processors are commonplace, they might have to act like a distributed parallel computer for multiplayer games. Instead of each machine individually simulating the same world redundantly, the networked machines would co-operatively simulate the game world together.
Just my guesses. Maybe someone familiar with the technology has better suggestions.
In addition to what the parent said, they're insulting to your customers. Do you really want to be a bully?
There are numerous OS X Bit-torrent apps, but it took me a while to find one that's fast and connects to as many peers as Azureus. Transmission (http://transmission.m0k.org/) seems to be the ticket. It's simple and Cocoa-based. I'm using a recent SVN build of it. I'm glad to be rid of Azureus, with its resource hogging and its Mac-inconsistent interface.
"Maybe it sounds clever in Japanese"
Not as far as I can tell. In fact, Japanese has no way of writing the "we" sound, and most Japanese will have trouble pronouncing it, saying something like oo-eee instead. Needless to say, Wii resembles no Japanese word. I guess it would be meaningful to the French, though!
"Maybe Walmart isn't the great satan afterall"
To be sure, there are a lot of poor, arbitrary, or economically inaccurate accusations hurled at Wal-Mart, the "evil corporation that steals jobs from Americans" (for example). Some people have probably reasoned out their arguments; most haven't. I personally have no problem buying inexpensive Chinese-made goods, or shopping at a store that pays minimum wage, or shopping at a store that hires immigrants. I do have the choice to buy local goods from better-paying mom-and-pop stores, and I exercise that choice often.
One heinous crime committed by Wal-Mart that I can't excuse, though, is property theft. Going by the euphemistic "eminent domain", Wal-Mart frequently colludes with corrupt city administrations to seize land from its legitimate owners and give it to Wal-Mart for stores and parking lots. Wal-Mart slips some thick envelopes under city councillors' doors and promises to generate more property tax revenue, and Bob's-your-uncle, Wal-Mart gets permission to tear down your building and take your property. The whole damn lot of their management should be thrown in jail or worse.
"What is really needed is an education effort on IP reform. Not just for the politicians, but for the public at large, so they can elect forward thinking leaders."
I understand your sentiment, but do you really think the public at large cares about or can be made to understand patents? Even if they did, it would be the last thing on their minds come election time. Majoritarian government ("democracy") is all about reducing elections to one or two media-trumpeted issues, with the goal of convincing 51% of voters (i.e. 25% of the public) that they can get something at another's expense by casting the right vote. Patents will never be an election issue, and even if they were, the issue would be spun so that people would vote the wrong way.
I agree with the parent. How many people called PCMCIA by its full acronym? And notice how to regular people, people ignore the acronym "VHS" in favour of "video"? Even commercials for movies say "own it on video and DVD!"
Wow, I'd forgotten how lame installing and un-installing software in Windows is. If I want the latest developer version of Safari (or any program, for that matter), I just drag it to my Applications folder.
I hadn't seen that Albini article, but the one I'm referring to is definitely more recent and has different details. I have no idea how to find the link, unfortunately -- assuming it's still online in the New York Times archive.
Indeed. I read an article in the New York Times a year or so ago about a band that managed to have a record go gold that year -- In other words, of 100,000 or so albums released that year, they achieved what only 130 bands and performers could. They were the best of the best.
Then the article gave the break-down of where their CD sales went. It went to the label, the distributors, the RIAA, the marketers, the recording studios, and so on. In the end, each band member made about 40 grand. We're talking superstars, the cream of the music industry here, making less for two years of work than a garbage man.
My point isn't that the poor artists deserve better. My point is that all the anti-bootlegging "you owe it to the artist to buy the CD" types don't know how little the artist gets from a CD (a negative amount, in some instances), and how much goes into the pockets of lawyers and Congressmen who pass more laws taking away your freedom (I say "your", because I'm not American).
If you want to support the artist, bootleg his music and send him a dollar. It's *far* more than he'd get if you bought the CD. Or go to a concert, or order a t-shirt, or whatever. Or, alternatively, don't support any RIAA-owned artists, and let a corrupt industry get what it deserves.
I agree, it's not Yahoo's job to change how the Chinese government operates. However, it's definitely not Yahoo's job to assist the Chinese government in persecuting people. Your comment is essentially irrelevant. Likewise, it's not Yahoo's job to clean up crime, but that doesn't mean they can go around killing people.
I'll go with whatever format Apple ends up putting in their laptops. At this point, Blu-Ray is likely to be that format.
For the record, Holographic Versatile Disc sounds quite a bit superior; if only it were ready now. And I hate all that DRM crap -- we'd all benefit if some Asian companies got together and presented an open, extensible, non-DRM media disc. Even if I was stuck buying Chinese, Bollywood, and independent films for the first few years, I'd support it.
"The government has neither mandated DRM or outlawed non-DRM technologies."
Isn't that what is happening with mandated broadcast flags and the proposed A-hole law?
'When all is said and done, it is the market that will ultimately decide whether DRM is a "good" idea.'
That's only true when the market's allowed to decide. When the government (men with guns) steps in to mandate DRM, outlaw non-DRM technologies, and criminalize circumvention (as with the DMCA), people have no choice.
"What if MS is actually learning something from Apple's success and trying that strategy out?"
That probably wouldn't work because of their sales strategy. They sell companies expensive 3-year subscriptions with the promise that they'll get Microsoft's latest and greatest when it's ready; to make the sale, naturally, they have to hype the products in the pipeline.
If I recall correctly, Vista/Longhorn was supposed to be out in 2004, 3 years after XP. Some corporations paid a lot of money for a lot of nothing in 2001 and the following years, based on empty promises and grossly miscalculated shipping dates.
"As the rich and powerful gateher in Redmond, ask yourself where the rhetoric of freedom has gone and why your boss is dining with a Communist."
I can't help but wonder if Yahoo will be there. Maybe they have more data on political dissidents they want to help Mr. Hu imprison. Alternatively, maybe collecting data on dissidents will be a new feature of Vista. I'm sure the US government would also happily take advantage.
Well, generally you don't pay taxes for purchases made from a business in another country or state, since that jurisdiction doesn't have "authority" to tax you. (not that I believe in taxation at all)
I certainly agree with your sentiment; but for what it's worth, "anyways" is dialectic English, common in Canada at least. I used to have to make a conscious effort not to say it. Heck, I know people from my neck of the woods who say "anywheres" too!
I don't know if Slackware is special, but I had Mandrake 9.2 on my Pentium II-500 Thinkpad with 96 MB of RAM, and it was intolerably slow. One application at a time was all it could handle, and even having a file browser and Firefox open at the same time resulted in paging and very slow performance. If I opened too many Firefox tabs, the whole thing just locked up.
"Oh, and I like Celtic folk, Afro-Celtic world music, blues, prog, electronica, choral and a bunch of other minority genres."
Holy crap, I think you've either made a complete copy of my iTunes library, or you're me from a parallel universe. And I thought my tastes were weird...
--
(By the way, editors, Slashdot is really messed up right now. I had to hit "cancel" halfway through loading the reply page, because all Slashdot links seem to redirect to a Xerox advertisement after a second.)
"And as for energy-efficient appliances, the sticker shock is too much for many people, even when the appliance is cheaper in the long run."
A small part of the problem is that appliances and vehicles that are more expensive up front and cheaper over time would actually be worthwhile, were it not for inflation and monetary interference. With the US government ramping up currency production (the only thing it's good at producing) and the price of living going up by 4% a year in dollar terms*, the benefits of an otherwise-lucrative 5% cost reduction per year disappear. (for example)
* Note that real inflation outpaces the CPI, which is constantly adjusted to look lower than it should be.
Aside from the pink and the lack of dupes, it does seem to be business as usual today at Slashdot! Particularly in the editing department. :)
My wife's new iMac G5 developed a start-up problem in December. I called Apple and a delivery man came to pick it up. Four days later, they returned it fixed -- on what happened to be Christmas Eve. They even kept her data untouched; by contrast, every PC shop I've ever dealt with started their "repairs" by wiping the hard disk.