I'll bet programming the Cell would be so much fun if you were working in a scientific or graphics research lab at a university. It has "wouldn't it be cool if..." written all over it, but I feel sympathy for the developers who will have to make code run on this thing and make deadlines.
"Plans call for the missing children's center to collect known child-porn images and create a unique mathematical signature for each one based on a common formula. Each participating company would scan its users' images for matches....Representatives will begin meeting next month to evaluate their technologies, determining, for instance, whether cropping an image would change its signature and hinder comparisons..."
I realize that this is mostly being done for Think of The Children(TM) political points, but if they need to have a conference to figure that out, they have a long, disappointing struggle ahead of them. I mean that is just embarrasing to admit publicly- again I realize this is 99% for PR, but to just come out and admit to planning something so completely worthlessly fallible? Do they really think people are that tech illiterate after 15 years of the web? I'd love to see the looks on their faces when someone tells them about XOR.
Of course new 360s using a shrunk CPU will have the same clock speed as the current model.
Console manufacturers refactor hardware all the time. They do it to make the hardware better, cheaper, slimmer, cooler but NOT faster. Oh you thought the GBA, GBA Micro, GBA SP and the DS's GBA support were identical? Ditto the original PS2 vs the slim model? The Playstation vs. PSOne?
Don't you guys remember what consoles are? It's bad enough that both Sony and Microsoft have gone down the dark path of firmware and game patches, there's no way they'll start changing the core hardware platform after shipping.
Sometimes I have to remind myself this is a tech enthusiast site with the wild speculation and lack of rationality. I can't believe how the OP has been indulged.
This sounds like an idea that would better be applied to music and movies... Tax them 25% and use the money to fight piracy and P2P filesharing networks.
At least there'd be a causal link between these industry's products and the crimes, and they are always whining and wasting taxpayer money enforcing their unsistainable business models.
See also the Japanese film "Ring", which was popular a few years ago. These people insisted on calling it "Ringu", despite the fact that the title was an English word and was only written in Japanese characters for the benefit of viewers who couldn't read English.
But a Japanese movie, by definition, is released to an audience of 125 million people who can't speak English. So even if they can read the word "Ring" they will say "Ringu." They will do this even if it offends your sensibilities as an English speaker!!!
Just try going to Japan and pronouncing words that are written in English (on signs, menus, etc.) properly. See how far it gets you.
Check out the Japanese characters on the cover. The one on the right is pronounced "damashii." When a Japanese speaker reads that character it sounds nothing like the way an English speaker pronounces "Damacy."
Slashdot really needs an icon for Apple recalls, or even Powerbook bettery recalls considering how frequent they are. Use the same Powerbook logo but have the thing burning.
I recently finished a product that my company inherited from another developer that was going out of business. In the midst of some of the worst code I've ever seen were comments like this:
//here again we continue with the hack we don't understand
No joke, that was in production code from developer that I'm sure a lot of you would recognize. There was also something in there to the effect of:
Last week I told myself I was quitting slashdot cold-Turky after the late Febuary posting of a "news" story about Dell entering the HDTV market with a plasma panel that was reviewed by CNET in November. I thought that story making the front page pretty much embodied everything that has come to suck about Slashdot.
I lasted about a day, and then I thought "oh hell, I've been reading Slashdot for years, I can't stop so I'll just read it once a day or something."
Now this story makes me realize that Slashdot has simply evolved and I've taken too long to catch up. This isn't a new site anymore, it's a comedy site. It's pure comedy to watch the bumbling idiots who run this site post same-day dupes, fake stories, last year's news today, etc. etc.
So while I used to read slashdot as a news site and get exasperated at it's terrible execution as such, now I read it as a comedy show and laugh my ass off. It's like reading the class clown's blog.
Not to point out the obvious or anything, but hasn't Dell been selling plasma "HDTVs" (that is to say, TVs with less than HD res that are marketed as HDTVs) for some time?
I've been fantasizing about buying and HDTV for years now, and unless I'm crazy Dell's plasmas are nothing new. I've simply known and accepted that Dell sells plasmas for so long that I can't even remember how long it's been.
Or is it just a slow day and Slashdot decided to conjure a story out of nowhere.
I swear, this place used to actually have NEWs but these days it seems like if it hits the front page, I've already read it somewhere else or known about it for the past year.
Nick
Slashdot Mirror
Cool!
I'll bet programming the Cell would be so much fun if you were working in a scientific or graphics research lab at a university. It has "wouldn't it be cool if..." written all over it, but I feel sympathy for the developers who will have to make code run on this thing and make deadlines.
That's what I was thinking; This should definately be interesting.
I realize that this is mostly being done for Think of The Children(TM) political points, but if they need to have a conference to figure that out, they have a long, disappointing struggle ahead of them. I mean that is just embarrasing to admit publicly- again I realize this is 99% for PR, but to just come out and admit to planning something so completely worthlessly fallible? Do they really think people are that tech illiterate after 15 years of the web? I'd love to see the looks on their faces when someone tells them about XOR.
Nick
Nick
Console manufacturers refactor hardware all the time. They do it to make the hardware better, cheaper, slimmer, cooler but NOT faster. Oh you thought the GBA, GBA Micro, GBA SP and the DS's GBA support were identical? Ditto the original PS2 vs the slim model? The Playstation vs. PSOne?
Don't you guys remember what consoles are? It's bad enough that both Sony and Microsoft have gone down the dark path of firmware and game patches, there's no way they'll start changing the core hardware platform after shipping.
Sometimes I have to remind myself this is a tech enthusiast site with the wild speculation and lack of rationality. I can't believe how the OP has been indulged.
Nick
I knew the industry was in sad shape but I didn't think it was that bad, even after 50,000 Madden games.
Nick
Sweet, the quintessential Slashdot super-obvious comment with != in the subject! It never gets old!
Nick
No, but it will make you want to shove a falafel up your ass.
Nick
At least there'd be a causal link between these industry's products and the crimes, and they are always whining and wasting taxpayer money enforcing their unsistainable business models.
Nick
I'm not selling PCs.
Nick
But a Japanese movie, by definition, is released to an audience of 125 million people who can't speak English. So even if they can read the word "Ring" they will say "Ringu." They will do this even if it offends your sensibilities as an English speaker!!!
Just try going to Japan and pronouncing words that are written in English (on signs, menus, etc.) properly. See how far it gets you.
Nick
You can blame "them" for being inconsistent.
Nick
And for a meta-question, why is feeding a troll worth more mod points that trolling?
Don't encourage me.
Nick
Nick
No joke, that was in production code from developer that I'm sure a lot of you would recognize. There was also something in there to the effect of:
But I didn't find that one, I just heard stories.
Nick
Remember *NEW*s For Nerds?
Only thing left to do is dupe it tomorrow.
Nick
Maybe this story was the last straw.
Nick
I lasted about a day, and then I thought "oh hell, I've been reading Slashdot for years, I can't stop so I'll just read it once a day or something."
Now this story makes me realize that Slashdot has simply evolved and I've taken too long to catch up. This isn't a new site anymore, it's a comedy site. It's pure comedy to watch the bumbling idiots who run this site post same-day dupes, fake stories, last year's news today, etc. etc.
So while I used to read slashdot as a news site and get exasperated at it's terrible execution as such, now I read it as a comedy show and laugh my ass off. It's like reading the class clown's blog.
Nick
C-Net's review of this thing goes back to November.
Why is this on the front page again?
Nick
Not to point out the obvious or anything, but hasn't Dell been selling plasma "HDTVs" (that is to say, TVs with less than HD res that are marketed as HDTVs) for some time? I've been fantasizing about buying and HDTV for years now, and unless I'm crazy Dell's plasmas are nothing new. I've simply known and accepted that Dell sells plasmas for so long that I can't even remember how long it's been. Or is it just a slow day and Slashdot decided to conjure a story out of nowhere. I swear, this place used to actually have NEWs but these days it seems like if it hits the front page, I've already read it somewhere else or known about it for the past year. Nick
Umm...Timbuktu used to recover stolen iMac