Well, I must say that the old axiom 'the grass is always greener on the other side' must hold true here. Yes, Canada has said no to the DMCA - this is a good thing (tm).
HOWEVER, Canada has far more draconian free speech rules than in the United States. This is small fries compared to other things that have happened in Canada. The case of Ernst Zundel is an excellent case in point. While not a Canadian citizen, he was deported under a national security order for his views. The article was carried here,, and I'd suggest you look into it.
That being said, I am a Canadian and this is an excellent move in my opinion. I just wish we could combine some elements of your system of government and your essential freedoms that are lacking up here. We don't even have a concrete bill of rights that can't be overriden in many regards by our legislature.
Ahh, there's the realization of De Toqueville's Tyranny of the Majority - a majority (Mormons in this case), running willy nilly over silly things like 'constitutional rights' that might do something dastardly like supporting unpopular minority rights.
Meh, unfettered democracy is a stupid, dumb idea and this is a perfect case study - the tyranny of the Mormons.
Hard to take that seriously, perhaps, but it is chilling...
Is justified! This is a free speech issue. From the article:
The controversial bill . . . will require ISPs to block access to websites deemed "harmful to minors" on request. This blacklist will be drawn up by the state's Attorney General.
Poppycock. Clearly, the first amendment protects free speech - and this is a clear abridgement of this right. Just because perhaps most of the good citizens of Utah don't agree with their children being able to view pornography does not justify this move. Of course, I'm not the only one to think this way and hopefully this law will be struck down as in these other cases:
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union go further and warn the bill violates the US Constitution's First Amendment on free speech and the Commerce Clause. Six other states have had similar legislation ruled unconstitutional, resulting in huge legal bills for residents, Media Coalition director David Horowitz told the Salt Lake City Tribune.
Meh, thank goodness I don't pay taxes in those states. Stupid legislators.
Speaking of internet porn, my friend works in a computer store and they received one pc yesterday. He looked into it and it was full of viruses. That's not all as there was also lots of pr0n. He burned the porn for himself and formatted the man's pc and performed a clean install.
Hah, reminds me of a friend who worked at a big box computer store - they got a PC full of dog-man sex pictures. Needless to say, the entire store got a great laugh out of it. Hmm, rather disturbing..
Anyways, the icing on the cake is that they made 'barking' sounds when he went in to pick up the computer, wonder if he caught on. He was an old bloke afterall.
Obviously, I thought the study was biased, looking at the list of supporting companies. But then I RTFA:
The alliance comprises a group of IT hardware and software firms that have combined their expertise and products to help EDS create 'best of breed' solutions and compete with the likes of IBM Global Services and Hewlett-Packard for the most lucrative government and enterprise contracts.
Well, if Microsoft wants a lucrative government contract, clearly the organization that is supporting this move is going to decry the competition to push its own agenda.
Why do people even listen to these organizations? I suppose you know their bias from the outset, rather than having to 'read between the lines' of other organizations.
Meh, I can buy a sticker that promises to do most of this, and all for a few small payments. Heck, it was even covered on Slashdot so it has to be true!
So the company wants "Apple [to] pay 'a reasonable license fee, 12% of gross sales of iTunes music tracks and iPods."
Hmm, who wants to bet that their version of reasonable differs from their view? That is an outrageously large amount. Let's examine their claim.. From the blog (complete with poorly written English):
It is related to using a payment account information to verify the identity of a user, the payment account may be a credit account, before providing the user access to computer software/apparatus.
Probably you have use it before.
Certainly sounds like their dubious claim is worth 12%, eh? Does anybody think this is legitimate, and shouldn't be laughed out of court ASAP? Basically, they can't even be bothered to formulate their case well - the article is actually worth reading in this case, if only for a chuckle.
Michael Geist comes out every once in a while with a "The Sky is Falling!" piece about how government is trying to super-regulate the Internet in Canada or some other country.
Hmm, hopefully our privacy commissioner will step up to the plate on this issue. A few weeks ago, Slashdot was trumpeting the privacy commissioner as a good thing for Canada - now I see a few other posters desparaging Canada. This is good, but hopefully if people raise enough awareness (the Star article will help), and word gets out things can change.
Our government bowed to public pressure with respects to the American ballistic missile defence programme, and they'd bow to any sort of pressure towards the ISPs with regards to this. Of course, it can't hurt to let the privacy commissioner know that people care about this issue.
Sounds original...
on
Exultant
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Hah, I must admit I was chuckling as I read through this, part of me wondering how this ended up on the front page of Slashdot - but hey, it was better than another dupe.
Some choice snippets really looked great though, especially this one:
Naturally, the rigid doctrinal bureaucracy chooses to prosecute him rather than promote him -- but with a twist.
I liked that. Take a standard literary cliche, but add a 'twist'. Well, it all certainly sounds like a 'tiwst' on convention, what with all the scifi jargon and strange sounding alien names. I know that sounds flippant, but it is cool. I must admit, this following part was funny though too:
One advantage of following Baxter's work is that you rarely have long to wait between novels.
Hah, is that an advantage.. or a disadvantage?
Sounds a little unoriginal and.. weird. But hey, who am I to condemn a book that I haven't read. Oh, slashdot. Maybe if I see it in the bookstore I'll pick it up, I'll see what other readers say.
While Netflix may feel that on-demand Internet-download services are a threat to their business model, it is truly signifigant that Blockbuster viewed Netflix as a threat to their physical-store business model.
I believe the rise of Netflix was instrumental in their adopting their 'no-late-fees' policy (I know some exceptions apply), and this was mentioned by many pundits around the time of Blockbuster's move.
Blockbuster's move and the related coverage for Netflix/zip.ca introduced a lot of people to the whole industry - the people that wondered why Blockbuster would do such a move. Great P.R. for Netflix and zip.ca.
Re:Because there is no market for them...
on
Whereables?
·
· Score: 1
"Joe Q. Shithead"
Hahhahhah, I don't usually post inanities, but that just made me laugh so hard...
Thank goodness that this fell into the lap of a judge with some common sense. Seems like he made some pretty smart comments:
"Selling televisions is not what the FCC is in the business of," Edwards said, siding with critics who charge the rule dictates how computers and other devices should work.
Edwards and one of the other two judges, David Sentelle, agreed with the critics and told FCC lawyer Jacob Lewis that the law does not give the agency specific authority to dictate how electronic devices must be made.
Good call, in my humble opinion. The FCC quite simply had no jurisdiction, they outstepped their boundaries, and they were called on it.
I did a quick look through of the above Wired article, and found this snippet:
for 21-year-old Shawn Woolley the game became deadly serious, and his mother is preparing to sue Sony Online Entertainment over his suicide. . . . Because EverQuest figures so prominently in the last days of her son's life, Elizabeth said she plans to sue the company to find out what role it may have played. She also wants to warn players of its potential for addiction.
I'm not sure if she carried through with the lawsuit, and it does seem that she did have perhaps 'good' motives behind the lawsuit (increased awareness and a measure of closure from discovering if anything did happen within the in-game environment that may have affected her son), but there was certainly talk of a lawsuit from her.
I agree that she is being constructive, and echo your conclusions.
This sounds like a crutch for good, realistic training. From the short article, which leaves a lot of questions in my head:
Quantum3D Inc., which bills itself as a visual-computing vendor, has announced the availability of the Expedition, a combination wearable computer and artificial-reality gear. The Expedition's target market is developers of so-called immersive training. Their products, in turn, are used to train armed services personnel and emergency-response workers.
Hmm.. it sounds bulky and cumbersome. Are soldiers really running around with a wearable VR gear - no, they aren't (at least not the line troops).
Now, I have limited military experience (some basic training and basic courses), but I happen to know that these troops are going to have a crapload of equipment and this will just add an extremely unrealistic element to their training exercise.
Besides, it will be unreliable and probably add a lot of time to various training exercises. I'm not saying it'll be unreliable just because of Windows XP (although it won't help matters.. BSOD in the middle of an exercise?), but because soldiers tend to crash around heavily with their equipment - and equipment, however sensitive, tends to be broken by technically inept people.
Looks cool, but I'm sure it will take a few million tax dollars to do an evaluation of this machine by Quantum3D and discover the flaws.
A Linux enthusiast at the RSA Conference in San Francisco has reluctantly concluded that Microsoft produces more secure code than its open source rivals.
In an academic study due to be released next month Dr Richard Ford, from the Florida Institute of Technology, and Dr Herbert Thompson, from application security firm Security Innovation, analysed vulnerabilities and patching and were forced to conclude that Windows Server 2003 is more secure than Red Hat Linux.
Now, I'll concede that Dr. Ford and Dr. Thompson do sound reputable, but one is an admitted Windows enthusiast and while the other one is a Linux fan who changed his minds, this hardly sounds like a study.
It's an interesting question, and I'm sure there is no clear cut answer, but a more systematic study (with more parties, rather than just two scientists) is going to be needed to answer this sort of question before the 'results' are trumpetted. I'm sure Microsoft will pick this one up and run with it, however.. more of those annoying ads that seem peppered throughout Slashdot.
The list includes some pleasantly surprising decisions, such as the inclusion of the quirky Katamari Damacy in the running for Best Game of the Year.
We keep beating this drum - I think Katamari Damacy looks like a cool game, but believe it or not, most of my friends think that as well. While my friends are nerds (engineers, mostly), they aren't slashdot fans and such. I should ask my far younger brothers and sisters...
What I'm trying to say is that Katamari Damacy is pretty mainstream now, and although it looks like a victory for the 'little guy', I think that victory came a long time ago.
Meh, good call for the awards people anyways, just chippin' in my two cents.
This is outrageous. The funding came from two sources: public and private. The article addresses both. First public:
The city's $270 million is mostly coming from bonds backed by revenue from the underground parking garages, said Lisa Schrader, a spokeswoman in the city's budget office.
Paid for by the citizenry of Chicago. Now, there was also the private source:
In all, about $200 million of the funding came from private contributors whose names are sprinkled throughout the park -- Wrigley Square, Bank One Promenade, BP Pedestrian Bridge, McCormick Tribune Plaza, the Lurie Garden.
Boom, they have their recognition and return on their investment.
My point is that these works of art are being errected in a public place, paid for by public funds and through private sponsorship (that has recieved its due return - free advertising in the form of building nomenclature). It is absolutely absurd that the citizens would be charged money to take pictures in their own damn park! Because that's what it is, they all own it through their tax dollars. Therefore, they should be able to take their damn pictures for free. Otherwise, can the city of Chicago really be providing the best government to its citizens?
Wow, on one level the URL leads to a press release-esque article, trumpeting the successes of Doom III and predicting great things for the future. No criticism or critical thought is apparent there, but I have some problems.
I've seen screenshots of the doom III proposed port to the XBox, and I've also wondered how the XBox will run Doom III - given the XBox's technical inferiority to top-end systems.
My money would say that Doom III will be a failure as an Xbox port, after the intial surge of players that are interested in playing. Any opposing thoughts, or insight into the Xbox graphical system that would allow Doom III on Xbox to look anywhere near as good as it does on a top-end PC?
Hmm, I wonder if this is why I can't use Google Maps with Safari:
I also think it bears noting that Google is pulling out all the stops to build rich web apps, no matter how weirdly they have to hack the browser to make them go. And I strongly believe that this is a trend that is here to stay -- XHTML Strict/CSS/etc be damned. At the end of the day, what really matters to users is compelling apps that let them get their work done quickly.
I'm not necessarily complaining, as I can use Firefox, but it is too bad that even Google can't get a webpage to render properly on any modern browser, such as Safari.
Oh well, I don't know that much about any of these 'browser hacks' that Google is doing, but hopefully their promised Safari support will come soon.
From TFA, with the bolded text added for empthasis:
Microsoft recently completed a million dollar deal to secure the services of Alex Garland, 28 Days Later and The Beach writer, who is now in the process of penning a screenplay for Halo The Movie.
Is this a first for Microsoft, diversifying beyond simple computers to reach the unwashed masses, but moving into making some money off the big screen?
Not that it's a bad thing, I'm not anti-Microsoft in the business sense (well, perhaps anti-Microsoft in the anti-craptacular products sense), but it's interesting.
Oh, bah. I'm sure when the CD-ROM came out, people liked to roll their eyes at people filling up 540 MB of storage. Even TFA answers your argument, and does a damn good job of it IMHO:
If history is an indication, consumers will fill the disc up. High-definition broadcasting and gaming are also expected to add a heavy burden to existing home storage systems because of the size of the files. Two hours of HD programming takes up about 15GB to 25GB.
There you go, if we do a wholesale switch over to HD TV, finally a terabyte of storage doesn't seem that outlandish does it?
HVD is a possible successor to technologies such as Blu-ray and HD DVD. Single layer Blu-ray discs hold about 25GB of data while dual-layer discs hold 50GB. Ordinary DVD discs, meanwhile, hold about 4.7GB. HVD technology will be pitched at corporations and the entertainment market, the HVD Alliance said.
Hmm, there's a format war going on with the Blu-ray and HD DVD, and they're already plotting the successor. Of course, they don't give a date in the article or anything firm at all, so perhaps it is a bit of a pipe dream. I must admit, I liked this quip from the article:
If history is an indication, consumers will fill the disc up.
Considering when I got my first computer, and the salesperson chuckled and said 'there was no way in hell I'd ever fill up a 40 megabyte hard drive', it's nice to see that people finally understand the capacity of users to fill up every nook and cranny of a storage medium!
Mod Parent Up and Listen to Ward Churchill
on
State of the Union
·
· Score: 1
Wow, if I had mod points I would have modded you up but I'll just have to give you my agreement here.
That's exactly how I feel, and I wish people would realize that they had blood on their hands.
I like Firefox, and occasionally use it in lieu of Safari on my iBook. However, it has one major shortcoming IMHO: the lack of built in functionality for the middle scroll button. Now, I know you can program it in using a driver program, but that's unsatisfactory and leaves it lacking.
I've heard promises of future compliance w/ the middle click to open a new tab, but I hope they pull through and it does happen. Until then, Firefox just can't hold its own with Safari, as the middle-click button is a feature that many users love. Instead, we have to right click + open in new tab to get a new tab [hee hee, luckily Mac OS X does support a two-button mouse!].
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I must say that the old axiom 'the grass is always greener on the other side' must hold true here. Yes, Canada has said no to the DMCA - this is a good thing (tm).
HOWEVER, Canada has far more draconian free speech rules than in the United States. This is small fries compared to other things that have happened in Canada. The case of Ernst Zundel is an excellent case in point. While not a Canadian citizen, he was deported under a national security order for his views. The article was carried here,, and I'd suggest you look into it.
That being said, I am a Canadian and this is an excellent move in my opinion. I just wish we could combine some elements of your system of government and your essential freedoms that are lacking up here. We don't even have a concrete bill of rights that can't be overriden in many regards by our legislature.
Ahh, there's the realization of De Toqueville's Tyranny of the Majority - a majority (Mormons in this case), running willy nilly over silly things like 'constitutional rights' that might do something dastardly like supporting unpopular minority rights.
Meh, unfettered democracy is a stupid, dumb idea and this is a perfect case study - the tyranny of the Mormons.
Hard to take that seriously, perhaps, but it is chilling...
Is justified! This is a free speech issue. From the article:
The controversial bill . . . will require ISPs to block access to websites deemed "harmful to minors" on request. This blacklist will be drawn up by the state's Attorney General.
Poppycock. Clearly, the first amendment protects free speech - and this is a clear abridgement of this right. Just because perhaps most of the good citizens of Utah don't agree with their children being able to view pornography does not justify this move. Of course, I'm not the only one to think this way and hopefully this law will be struck down as in these other cases:
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union go further and warn the bill violates the US Constitution's First Amendment on free speech and the Commerce Clause. Six other states have had similar legislation ruled unconstitutional, resulting in huge legal bills for residents, Media Coalition director David Horowitz told the Salt Lake City Tribune.
Meh, thank goodness I don't pay taxes in those states. Stupid legislators.
Speaking of internet porn, my friend works in a computer store and they received one pc yesterday. He looked into it and it was full of viruses. That's not all as there was also lots of pr0n. He burned the porn for himself and formatted the man's pc and performed a clean install.
Hah, reminds me of a friend who worked at a big box computer store - they got a PC full of dog-man sex pictures. Needless to say, the entire store got a great laugh out of it. Hmm, rather disturbing..
Anyways, the icing on the cake is that they made 'barking' sounds when he went in to pick up the computer, wonder if he caught on. He was an old bloke afterall.
Hmm, there was no real point to that story. Meh.
Obviously, I thought the study was biased, looking at the list of supporting companies. But then I RTFA:
The alliance comprises a group of IT hardware and software firms that have combined their expertise and products to help EDS create 'best of breed' solutions and compete with the likes of IBM Global Services and Hewlett-Packard for the most lucrative government and enterprise contracts.
Well, if Microsoft wants a lucrative government contract, clearly the organization that is supporting this move is going to decry the competition to push its own agenda.
Why do people even listen to these organizations? I suppose you know their bias from the outset, rather than having to 'read between the lines' of other organizations.
Meh, I can buy a sticker that promises to do most of this, and all for a few small payments. Heck, it was even covered on Slashdot so it has to be true!
So the company wants "Apple [to] pay 'a reasonable license fee, 12% of gross sales of iTunes music tracks and iPods."
.
Hmm, who wants to bet that their version of reasonable differs from their view? That is an outrageously large amount. Let's examine their claim.. From the blog (complete with poorly written English):
It is related to using a payment account information to verify the identity of a user, the payment account may be a credit account, before providing the user access to computer software/apparatus.
Probably you have use it before
Certainly sounds like their dubious claim is worth 12%, eh? Does anybody think this is legitimate, and shouldn't be laughed out of court ASAP? Basically, they can't even be bothered to formulate their case well - the article is actually worth reading in this case, if only for a chuckle.
Michael Geist comes out every once in a while with a "The Sky is Falling!" piece about how government is trying to super-regulate the Internet in Canada or some other country.
The Toronto Star?!?! sensationalistic?
;)
Hmm, hopefully our privacy commissioner will step up to the plate on this issue. A few weeks ago, Slashdot was trumpeting the privacy commissioner as a good thing for Canada - now I see a few other posters desparaging Canada. This is good, but hopefully if people raise enough awareness (the Star article will help), and word gets out things can change.
Our government bowed to public pressure with respects to the American ballistic missile defence programme, and they'd bow to any sort of pressure towards the ISPs with regards to this. Of course, it can't hurt to let the privacy commissioner know that people care about this issue.
Privacy Commissioner: http://www.privcom.gc.ca/
Hah, I must admit I was chuckling as I read through this, part of me wondering how this ended up on the front page of Slashdot - but hey, it was better than another dupe.
Some choice snippets really looked great though, especially this one:
Naturally, the rigid doctrinal bureaucracy chooses to prosecute him rather than promote him -- but with a twist.
I liked that. Take a standard literary cliche, but add a 'twist'. Well, it all certainly sounds like a 'tiwst' on convention, what with all the scifi jargon and strange sounding alien names. I know that sounds flippant, but it is cool. I must admit, this following part was funny though too:
One advantage of following Baxter's work is that you rarely have long to wait between novels.
Hah, is that an advantage.. or a disadvantage?
Sounds a little unoriginal and.. weird. But hey, who am I to condemn a book that I haven't read. Oh, slashdot. Maybe if I see it in the bookstore I'll pick it up, I'll see what other readers say.
While Netflix may feel that on-demand Internet-download services are a threat to their business model, it is truly signifigant that Blockbuster viewed Netflix as a threat to their physical-store business model.
I believe the rise of Netflix was instrumental in their adopting their 'no-late-fees' policy (I know some exceptions apply), and this was mentioned by many pundits around the time of Blockbuster's move.
Blockbuster's move and the related coverage for Netflix/zip.ca introduced a lot of people to the whole industry - the people that wondered why Blockbuster would do such a move. Great P.R. for Netflix and zip.ca.
"Joe Q. Shithead"
Hahhahhah, I don't usually post inanities, but that just made me laugh so hard...
Thank goodness that this fell into the lap of a judge with some common sense. Seems like he made some pretty smart comments:
"Selling televisions is not what the FCC is in the business of," Edwards said, siding with critics who charge the rule dictates how computers and other devices should work.
Edwards and one of the other two judges, David Sentelle, agreed with the critics and told FCC lawyer Jacob Lewis that the law does not give the agency specific authority to dictate how electronic devices must be made.
Good call, in my humble opinion. The FCC quite simply had no jurisdiction, they outstepped their boundaries, and they were called on it.
I did a quick look through of the above Wired article, and found this snippet:
for 21-year-old Shawn Woolley the game became deadly serious, and his mother is preparing to sue Sony Online Entertainment over his suicide. . . . Because EverQuest figures so prominently in the last days of her son's life, Elizabeth said she plans to sue the company to find out what role it may have played. She also wants to warn players of its potential for addiction.
I'm not sure if she carried through with the lawsuit, and it does seem that she did have perhaps 'good' motives behind the lawsuit (increased awareness and a measure of closure from discovering if anything did happen within the in-game environment that may have affected her son), but there was certainly talk of a lawsuit from her.
I agree that she is being constructive, and echo your conclusions.
This sounds like a crutch for good, realistic training. From the short article, which leaves a lot of questions in my head:
Quantum3D Inc., which bills itself as a visual-computing vendor, has announced the availability of the Expedition, a combination wearable computer and artificial-reality gear. The Expedition's target market is developers of so-called immersive training. Their products, in turn, are used to train armed services personnel and emergency-response workers.
Hmm.. it sounds bulky and cumbersome. Are soldiers really running around with a wearable VR gear - no, they aren't (at least not the line troops).
Now, I have limited military experience (some basic training and basic courses), but I happen to know that these troops are going to have a crapload of equipment and this will just add an extremely unrealistic element to their training exercise.
Besides, it will be unreliable and probably add a lot of time to various training exercises. I'm not saying it'll be unreliable just because of Windows XP (although it won't help matters.. BSOD in the middle of an exercise?), but because soldiers tend to crash around heavily with their equipment - and equipment, however sensitive, tends to be broken by technically inept people.
Looks cool, but I'm sure it will take a few million tax dollars to do an evaluation of this machine by Quantum3D and discover the flaws.
Interesting. Some relevant snippets:
.
A Linux enthusiast at the RSA Conference in San Francisco has reluctantly concluded that Microsoft produces more secure code than its open source rivals.
In an academic study due to be released next month Dr Richard Ford, from the Florida Institute of Technology, and Dr Herbert Thompson, from application security firm Security Innovation, analysed vulnerabilities and patching and were forced to conclude that Windows Server 2003 is more secure than Red Hat Linux.
Now, I'll concede that Dr. Ford and Dr. Thompson do sound reputable, but one is an admitted Windows enthusiast and while the other one is a Linux fan who changed his minds, this hardly sounds like a study
It's an interesting question, and I'm sure there is no clear cut answer, but a more systematic study (with more parties, rather than just two scientists) is going to be needed to answer this sort of question before the 'results' are trumpetted. I'm sure Microsoft will pick this one up and run with it, however.. more of those annoying ads that seem peppered throughout Slashdot.
The choice snippet above caught my attention:
The list includes some pleasantly surprising decisions, such as the inclusion of the quirky Katamari Damacy in the running for Best Game of the Year.
We keep beating this drum - I think Katamari Damacy looks like a cool game, but believe it or not, most of my friends think that as well. While my friends are nerds (engineers, mostly), they aren't slashdot fans and such. I should ask my far younger brothers and sisters...
What I'm trying to say is that Katamari Damacy is pretty mainstream now, and although it looks like a victory for the 'little guy', I think that victory came a long time ago.
Meh, good call for the awards people anyways, just chippin' in my two cents.
This is outrageous. The funding came from two sources: public and private. The article addresses both. First public:
The city's $270 million is mostly coming from bonds backed by revenue from the underground parking garages, said Lisa Schrader, a spokeswoman in the city's budget office.
Paid for by the citizenry of Chicago. Now, there was also the private source:
In all, about $200 million of the funding came from private contributors whose names are sprinkled throughout the park -- Wrigley Square, Bank One Promenade, BP Pedestrian Bridge, McCormick Tribune Plaza, the Lurie Garden.
Boom, they have their recognition and return on their investment.
My point is that these works of art are being errected in a public place, paid for by public funds and through private sponsorship (that has recieved its due return - free advertising in the form of building nomenclature). It is absolutely absurd that the citizens would be charged money to take pictures in their own damn park! Because that's what it is, they all own it through their tax dollars. Therefore, they should be able to take their damn pictures for free. Otherwise, can the city of Chicago really be providing the best government to its citizens?
Wow, on one level the URL leads to a press release-esque article, trumpeting the successes of Doom III and predicting great things for the future. No criticism or critical thought is apparent there, but I have some problems.
I've seen screenshots of the doom III proposed port to the XBox, and I've also wondered how the XBox will run Doom III - given the XBox's technical inferiority to top-end systems.
My money would say that Doom III will be a failure as an Xbox port, after the intial surge of players that are interested in playing. Any opposing thoughts, or insight into the Xbox graphical system that would allow Doom III on Xbox to look anywhere near as good as it does on a top-end PC?
Cheers.
Hmm, I wonder if this is why I can't use Google Maps with Safari:
I also think it bears noting that Google is pulling out all the stops to build rich web apps, no matter how weirdly they have to hack the browser to make them go. And I strongly believe that this is a trend that is here to stay -- XHTML Strict/CSS/etc be damned. At the end of the day, what really matters to users is compelling apps that let them get their work done quickly.
I'm not necessarily complaining, as I can use Firefox, but it is too bad that even Google can't get a webpage to render properly on any modern browser, such as Safari.
Oh well, I don't know that much about any of these 'browser hacks' that Google is doing, but hopefully their promised Safari support will come soon.
From TFA, with the bolded text added for empthasis:
Microsoft recently completed a million dollar deal to secure the services of Alex Garland, 28 Days Later and The Beach writer, who is now in the process of penning a screenplay for Halo The Movie.
Is this a first for Microsoft, diversifying beyond simple computers to reach the unwashed masses, but moving into making some money off the big screen?
Not that it's a bad thing, I'm not anti-Microsoft in the business sense (well, perhaps anti-Microsoft in the anti-craptacular products sense), but it's interesting.
Oh, bah. I'm sure when the CD-ROM came out, people liked to roll their eyes at people filling up 540 MB of storage. Even TFA answers your argument, and does a damn good job of it IMHO:
If history is an indication, consumers will fill the disc up. High-definition broadcasting and gaming are also expected to add a heavy burden to existing home storage systems because of the size of the files. Two hours of HD programming takes up about 15GB to 25GB.
There you go, if we do a wholesale switch over to HD TV, finally a terabyte of storage doesn't seem that outlandish does it?
Wow, from TFA:
HVD is a possible successor to technologies such as Blu-ray and HD DVD. Single layer Blu-ray discs hold about 25GB of data while dual-layer discs hold 50GB. Ordinary DVD discs, meanwhile, hold about 4.7GB. HVD technology will be pitched at corporations and the entertainment market, the HVD Alliance said.
Hmm, there's a format war going on with the Blu-ray and HD DVD, and they're already plotting the successor. Of course, they don't give a date in the article or anything firm at all, so perhaps it is a bit of a pipe dream. I must admit, I liked this quip from the article:
If history is an indication, consumers will fill the disc up.
Considering when I got my first computer, and the salesperson chuckled and said 'there was no way in hell I'd ever fill up a 40 megabyte hard drive', it's nice to see that people finally understand the capacity of users to fill up every nook and cranny of a storage medium!
Wow, if I had mod points I would have modded you up but I'll just have to give you my agreement here.
That's exactly how I feel, and I wish people would realize that they had blood on their hands.
An article with some similar ideas, by Professor Ward Churchill, entitled Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.
Support free speech, and support Professor Ward Churchill.
I like Firefox, and occasionally use it in lieu of Safari on my iBook. However, it has one major shortcoming IMHO: the lack of built in functionality for the middle scroll button. Now, I know you can program it in using a driver program, but that's unsatisfactory and leaves it lacking.
I've heard promises of future compliance w/ the middle click to open a new tab, but I hope they pull through and it does happen. Until then, Firefox just can't hold its own with Safari, as the middle-click button is a feature that many users love. Instead, we have to right click + open in new tab to get a new tab [hee hee, luckily Mac OS X does support a two-button mouse!].