Yes but did they pay Immersion for the dubious privilege, especially since they had rumble for their N64 1996/7 as did Sony for their dual-shock 1997 before Immersion got their patent in 2000.
Simply put CD's are normally used for music , DVD's are normally used for Standard Def videos, Blu-Ray/HDDVD is going to be used for High Def Movies and HVD is going to be targeting the backup market which is worth Billions of dollars.
I know I am simplifying this but people still prefer a physical entity when they purchase something and until people are brainwashed into accepting something that is non-tangible such as video on demand then this will be the case. Of course video on demand means you need massive network bandwidth that really is not yet viable except in a few areas.
One thing that is a real wild card is the PS3 in that the latest firmware will allow up-scaling of your DVD's to 720p, 1080i and 1080p (automatic or selectable) via HDMI and if you have PS2 games they get up-scaled as well (component or HDMI) with a definite improvement in graphics so much so you can afford wait for PS3 games by playing new or old PS2 games which will save you money. You can even play old PS1 games and get upscaled acceptable graphics to the point of enjoyably replaying some old favorates. Of course this assumes you have PS2 and PS1 games.
If you have a smaller HDTV (less then 32") then DVD's especially upscaled display really well. For HDTV above 32" (depends what you can afford) then upscaled DVD still looks good but looses out when compared to a HD movie however this is not overly noticeable until you get over 42".
If I am reading this correctly Google is showing "trends" in search volume statistics for different Linux distributions. Also what is the search volume number? I would assume a value should be given otherwise the graph only shows what I would hope is the normalised relativity of the searches on different distributions.
Just because people may search for a particular Linux distribution does not actually mean that this indicates something like the total number of installed platforms out there. Now that IMHO would be much more interesting and could give certain Linux distributions some bragging rights.
While it is not difficult to put spyware in the Linux kernel it is also very easy to replace or recompile that kernel from source unlike other proprietary software.
Any government contemplating putting spyware in the Linux kernel would have to be very stupid because to be found out and they will, would effectively result in a ban on all their computer exports, not to mention the embarrassment. I would not be surprised if Microsoft was one of the first companies to provide support to the GPL to actually achieve this ban, since they have the most to loose from cheap Linux computers
Well you can do like I did and look arround for a good bargin on the PS3 since I got mine for AU$499 (approx US$410) with a working PS2 plus 10 PS2 games. Granted there are not many PS3 games I am intersted in but then again there are not many games I am interested in for the Wii or the Xbox360 either.
It may come as a shock to many but there are plenty of used and new games for the PS2 and since firmware update 1.8 most PS1/2 games work (Australian PS3 uses emulation unlike the US/Japan one that uses hardware). In fact if you have a HDTV the PS3 will upscale your PS1 and PS2 games to 720p, 1080i or even 1080p and the result can be impressive.
If you are interested in a PS3 or even Xbox360 you should also consider a HDTV at 32" minimum or more (depends how much you can afford) may stores will reduce the PS3 price on package deals. Of course the Wii will work on a HDTV as well but it won't look as good. Still good graphics don't make up for a bad game.
This is posted from my PS3 using a wireless keyboad.
It is far to easy to misdirect public opinion with catchy words such as "Save/Think the Children" or "Speed Kills" or "Drinking/Smoking kills" and the list goes on. What people in general have to realise is that the government should not mandate what is a social responsibility.
Banning violent video games IMHO is stupid and counter productive since a violent game will most likely enable a person to take out their aggression on the game rather than actually take out their anger on real people. Most people who play violent games (good grief what game isn't in some way) would never even contemplate mass murder and would even find this very thought in real life repugnant even though they could happily butcher virtual enemies. You are always going to have the "nutters" and "fanatics" who are in a very tiny minority and hopefully they can be stopped before they commit a crime.
For people to give up their rights for some perceived security is IMHO very short sighted. What will the politicians want to to do next ban violent cartoons such as "Bugs Bunny" or "The Road Runner" (think of the children) maybe we should ban smoking or alcohol (again) after all they kill more people than some madman with a gun. Do this and all you succeed in doing is driving the problem underground as the Prohibition era in the USA did and effectively made many law abiding adults into criminals.
Unfortunately many projects define their tools first without taking the time to understand what is required and achievable in the first place. An interesting balancing act between design by committee and practicality, since "required" may not actually be correct.
Operating Systems, programming languages, compilers, debuggers and even editors are tools to help you achieve your goals and they must not dominate the project in it's planning stages otherwise to quote "forever down the dark path you will go".
Actually what is even worse in the case of software development is coding before an appropriate solution and direction is fully defined. I actually call this the "Shotgun Approach to Programming", granted you may achieve some of your directives but in many cases you are going to have collateral damage which could be quite costly and embarrassing over the long term.
Do a Google search on "voice recognition" and as a starting point try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition however I don't think a patent is justified since a quick Google search with "patent" added on will give you 1,140,000 hits. Still it appears if you patent anything in the US and have the money it normally gets granted.
I have a VW diesel car and it would cost me almost double to fill up with vegetable oil compared to ordinary diesel, so I obviously don't do this and even if it was cheaper I would void my warranty if I did. I would like to try biodiesel which is 6% cheaper than normal diesel but VW in Australia has not to my knowledge sanctioned it so you void your warranty if you do, hence the "No Biodiesel" sticker on my fuel-cap. What is annoying is that VW in the US allows for 5% (B5) mix while in certain parts of Europe up to 20% (B20) mix is acceptable.
Still it is not that bad since I get approx 30% better fuel economy and sometimes better performance over a similarly sized petrol car.
I run Linux on my laptop (Fedora 7) with Xen for virtualization and since I have 2GB of memory this works well but to run Linux on your PS3 to play a DVD via Xine is a rather pointless exercise unless you want bragging rights which is fine by me. The best way to play a DVD is put the DVD in the PS3 running in native mode and if you have a HDTV and v1.8 of the firmware the DVD will be upscaled via HDMI. As for WiFi and Bluetooth on PS3 Linux I can't really comment but that would be useful although it works well on the native PS3.
Now to no full disk access I think the best way of looking at this is a PS3 can dual boot so you still need some disk space for native PS3 infrastructure. I suppose if you want more disk you could always put in a larger drive which is a supported option but 2.5" drives are normally 5400rpm with 200GB and above being 4000 rpm. Why don't you attach a large disk drive by USB it will be cheaper and you can get 100's of GB and run at higher disk access speeds.
I actually use Linux on my laptop or my son's Windows machine as a media server and the PS3 works well as a media center although not everything works yet. My son did get avi's to work but what looks good on a 20" display does not look good on a 37" HDTV. Issues with codec patents can slow or even prevent the PS3 acting as a full media server.
You are partially right in stating "Basically, the PS3 Linux is merely just for people to use it as a cell developer's kit, nothing more" but you can with Linux do word processing as well as numerous other jobs that don't take up too much memory on the PS3.
I am not a PS3 developer and don't have the time to get involved in designing games but to those that want to do this I think this is great. Personally I think the PS3 offers the greatest amount of flexibility out of the other two consoles although I am not against either one but this does depend on what you use the PS3 for and if you are satisfied with it.
I got mine (v1.8) when it came out and it is IMHO fantastic. I have an Australian PS3 and have only three PS2 games out of fifty that have issues, the rest just work (also includes 20 PS1 games) with smoothing and upscaling to my HDTV. Of course your post comes across as someone who can't afford a PS3 or is very anti PS3 so it is rather pointless explaining how to set up WiFi, Linux, Media Center, Communicating with your PC (Linux and MS Windows), using Flash cards, adding and using usb devices, retrofitting a 80GB, 120GB, 160GB or larger disk and what to do with your old 60GB disk or even suggestions on a good wireless dual shock controller that will rumble when playing your PS1 and PS2 games that support rumble.
I won't deny that some comments in the blog are very trivial and others are from anti Sony people (usually fanboys of other consoles) but they just get ignored or flamed.
The comparison shots IMHO are not very convincing and do look blurry however I do have a PS3 and a 37" 720p/1080i HDTV and the PS3 does upscale my PS1 and PS2 games via HDMI or component. Don't expect PS1 games to come out like PS2 games they won't however the output is such that my PS1 games are pleasing graphically although this does depend on the graphics quality of the game originally. For PS2 games the PS3 does a very good job in smoothing and up-scaling and to me this ads to the re-playability of the game, so much so that I have so many PS1/2 games that will well and truly tide me over till the PS3 games for the PS3 pick up (DQ8, FFX, Balders Gate 1 and 2 etc and even some PS1 games). Of course some bad games even with the best of graphics can still suck, they now just suck with prettier graphics.
If you have a PS3 with v1.8 firmware you can get rumble for your PS1/2 games (if they support it) if you buy the PS2 controller adapter and plug in your dual shock. If you have a wireless PS2 controller like my Logitech 2 (battery life 50+ hours on two AA's) you can control controller registration, stopping and starting your game and even switching off your PS3 from the comfort of your arm chair (my controller uses the "mode" button). Ok you can't start the PS3 like you can with the 6 axis controller however once you put in a game you have full control (well mine does) of the PS3 from your dual shock controller.
Many have slammed the PS3 6 axis controller for not having rumble although we all know (or at least should know) why. From my own personal perspective I find that the 6 axis to be much lighter than the dual shock and when playing RPG's and Action adventure games I actually prefer the lightness of the 6 axis to my heavier dual shock wireless and/or cabled controller. IMHO there are only a few games that benefit from rumble (survival horror comes to mind) and in many ways I prefer not to have it. Obviously many readers will disagree but that is their prerogative.
Now thats funny. Hack does look good on the PS3 with V1.8 firmware and connected to a HDTV though.
I don't know if anyone has played Nintendo's Eternal Darkness there is a Cathedral where you get to kill monsters and possessed humans. I guess that will have to be removed now since the inside looks similar to the inside of many Cathedrals.
Thanks for the correction, you are right it was 1530 to 1540. I must have been tired because the first line was "Henry VIII (28 June 1491 - 28 January 1547)".
Being an Electrical Engineer I actually designed a four terminal resistor as part of a project I was doing for my degree in 1982 and having worked at a Standards Lab were four terminal resistors were very common It was very easy for me to design and build a cheap accurate (parts in a million) and stable one out of what was to me "off-cuts".
Take a look at this patent (2007) http://www.freepatentsonline.com/RE39660.html (Surface mounted four terminal resistor - United States Patent RE39660). The organisation I worked for had these going back to the early 1960's. It looks like you can patent prior art and obviousness in the USA now even though the US National Standards Laboratory has papers on four terminal resistors going back earlier than the 1970's (I did not look back any further). At least some of the "built on" patents were named as far back as 1984 although I can't see how you can build a patent on top of a patent especially something like a four terminal resistor. Maybe they added more of the Periodic table to the resistor and to them it was innovative.
Now software patents (sigh!) I actually refuse to look since I don't want a headache.
The Church of England was actually started between 1330 and 1340 when Henry the VIII of England was excommunicated by the Pope. See the following URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England #Major_Acts_in_the_Kingdom. You are spot on when you state "Maybe the Bishop should tend to his violent flock instead of abdicating responsibility to a video game".
It is very sad that after the game has been out over seven months that the Bishop of Manchester Cathedral is now upset using words such as "highly irresponsible" because virtual weapons using virtual bullets were used in a virtual cathedral that looks like Manchester Cathedral against virtual creatures which are basically trying to virtually kill you.
While I don't normally play FPS and tactical shooters (eg Medal of Honor...) I don't think it will be long before other people start pointing out important landmarks and shouting "Heresy!". I hate to think what will happen if Grand Theft auto had a recognisable virtual Church and while we are at it I guess all RPG's games will now have to take out those churches as well.
If you have a person who wants to kill then it is very easy for them to come up with some weapon be it guns, knives or explosive. A gun is the easiest to use in that you just point and pull the trigger, however a gun/rifle can be much harder to get hold of in some many countries but it is not impossible. A knife or just about any hand weapon is very easy to obtain and use however its potential killing power is limited to a few victims. Explosives are very easy to use and their killing potential is huge but fortunately they are much harder to obtain but if you know a little about chemistry they are not that difficult to make. The major problem with explosive is that it can kill the user as well but if you have a fanatic who is not afraid to die then then you are going to have a massacre on your hands that makes a shootout looks like a family picnic. Lets not go in the potential of poison and germ warfare.
Unfortunately killers can be quite ingenious in their chose of weapons and it is very difficult to stop them until they are committing or have committed the crime.
I have a HDTV (only 37") that will display and enhance standard definition input (composite or AV and S video) so if I play a GameCube game the graphics comes out as "good" to "not bad" and the same is true for my PS2 games. From my personal perspective it can be quite hard to pick the difference although I would definitely concede that the GC graphics for the games I have are marginally better than some of my PS2 games but not all.
Enter the 60GB PS3 (Australian) which I recently purchased for a very good deal (US$400 + PS2 and 10 PS2 games trade-in). Put on V1.7 firmware and most of my PS2 games still played but I could not notice any graphical enhancement. A few days later I put on the V1.8 firmware and the graphical improvement on my PS1 and PS2 games (all except 2 of my games play now) was remarkable since they were now upscaled with smoothing to 720p or 1080i via component or HDMI. Even DVD's are upscaled via HDMI and the result is also remarkable. With the V1.8 firmware the PS3 will now upscale PS1/2 games to 1080p but my HDTV does not support that so I cannot comment.
I still play the GC (Metroid and Zelda) but if you compare it's graphics against the PS3 upscaled PS2 games it is now no contest since the PS2 games just look better to the point that I am now replying many of my favourate PS2 games. IMHO the only downside of the PS3 is it's lack of PS3 games but since I can play graphically enhanced PS2 games I can wait. Even some of my PS1 games are now graphically acceptable on my HDTV.
The problem many people have with the PS3 and the Xbox360 is choosing a decent HDTV and I would be very wary of "HD ready" because your TV must support 720p at the minimum to qualify as a HDTV. Just because you have a large screen does not necessarily mean it is a HDTV in-fact once you look at getting a HDTV over 47" you really should look at 1080p but that is going to be more expensive. Re your post I cannot comment on screen flickering since I have never seen it on my TV but then I prefer RPG's and Action Adventure games.
My recommendation to anyone at the moment is if you have the money and want a gaming/home entertainment system get a decent HDTV first but do some serious homework before you buy and I can't repeat this often enough make sure your HDTV has HDMI and supports as a base minimum 720p. IMHO any HDTV less than 32" should be relegated to the kids room (if you have any) but then this does depend on your disposable income.
I actually got a 60GB PS3 (Australia) for approx US$400 (not bad considering it is normally worth about US$800 in Australia) after I traded in my 5 year working PS2 plus 10 PS2 games I was never going to play again. I was not even in the market for a PS3 until I saw the deal and it was genuine and legitimate.
From my point of view I have not been overly impressed with most of the games that came out with all the next generation consoles, considering them to be mainly clones with graphical enhancements of earlier games. The exception is the Wii with Twilight Princess but then I have always been a sucker for Zelda games, but one game is not going to make me buy a console, even though I could easily afford to buy all of them.
I did get Oblivion but have hardly played it (my son does though) since I still have plenty of PS2 games I have not finished. With version 1.8 of the PS3 firmware playing a PS2 game looks even better on my 37" HDTV. All except two of my PS2 games and all of my PS1 games play without incident and considering PS1/2 playback with smoothing and up-scaling to 720p and 1080p via HDMI or component is done in software this is great. In fact the PS3 will upscale DVD movies as well via HDMI and the result is very impressive.
Even my wife is very impressed with the PS3 since she can play up-scaled DVD or even Blu-ray movies and as an extra bonus she can surf the web and display all our photos to her friends all in the comfort of the lounge room. The downside of this means I have to adopt a time share on the PS3 - oh well.
To get the best out of your Xbox360 or PS3 (the Wii will not look as good but will still be very playable in standard definition) you really should have a HDTV that can display 720p, 1080i and/or 1080p and your screen should be at least 32" with bigger meaning better but pricier. Lets put it this way if you can afford a 47" or bigger 1080p HDTV, then US$600 for a PS3 is IMHO justified, considering many people spend thousands on stereo equipment as well and even a good practical and functional TV cabinet can cost over US$600.
As far as justifying buying anything if you have the money and you like the product you can buy it. If you are on a very tight budget then it does not matter how much you like and want the product you cannot or should not buy it. I do agree with you on PS3 games since I was waiting till the PS3 had more games I was interested in but the deal I got was to good to resist.
Even though I live in Australia I would not be surprised if you are willing to wait and look around that you cannot find deals like I have. In fact I have found that many stores are willing to deal if you are going to spend a few thousand dollars. This applies to all countries.
Why would you want to do this? Your disk becomes a single point of failure. Not to mention the costs for paying for a MS Windows and Mac OSX license. Personally I would never trust an air traffic control system to a single PC no matter what OS it is running. Also why would you think that a desktop PC is critical in the armed forces, the clerical people may think so but that is not that case. If a desktop PC is used for critical work then you have a massive security hole and I would not want to be the one explaining this to the Military Police in the event of a loss or failure.
As far as applications are concerned if a vendor says to the Department of Defense "My application will only run on a Microsoft OS". All the Department has to say "We want it to run on our "name_your_FOSS" platform and the contact will be for $20M+" then I know that vendor will get his application ported to that platform very quickly. You can even wave a bigger stick if you know there are alternative applications so the respective vendors have to compete.
Even Microsoft would have to come to the party if the Department of Defence wants a particular solution because contracts can be worth millions. Yes they could lobby and they do this well but the DoD has highly skilled and dedicated people who will try to do what is best for their country and not for some Commercial Company.
I sympathise with tapes and the old vinyl records since they do have a tendency to wear out, but CD's, DVD's and now Blu-ray and HD-DVD can last a very long time with no degradation in performance unless you damage them.
I do find that HDD/DVD recorders are now the way to go compared to VHS/Betamax tape devices but anything that has moving parts will eventually fail as will electrical devices. With digital optical media you can duplicate (DRM not withstanding) what is on it without data loss. If you have a HDD recorder be prepared to loose all your data one day unless you save your favourate recorded shows to DVD. This also applies to media centers although backing up 300+ GB presents interesting issues.
Blu-ray and HD-DVD are targeting the rapidly growing High Definition TV market while DVD targets the Standard Definition TV market, although DVD displaying on a HDTV (especially with an up scaler) is acceptable for now. If you look at 47" and above HDTV's (1080p) which are not cheap but they are dropping in price, you really can pick the difference between a good quality DVD movie and the same movie on a High Def disk and over time the price between HD and DVD movies will converge.
Just run "updatedb" which may take a few minutes but should be ran regularly on a daily? or hourly? basis then run "locate" with a search string and it is very fast. Nothing wrong with "find" since you can do so much more with it, it is just that "locate" will be faster (usually within a second) to find a pattern over all file-systems.
Actually "which", "whence" and "whereis" may not be very helpful since in the majority of cases these depend on your PATH variable and different people may have different paths. This is not to say that these commands are useless but they have their limitations. Being aware of and using the appropriate tools is what Unix and Linux is about.
NT ran on Alphas under a compiler called FX!32 which actually took Intel 32 bit code and translated it to 64 bit Alpha code. Basically you could take your standard NT install CD and install it on the Alpha and FX!32 took care of it. It was not till late 1990's that a true 64 bit NT became available for the Alpha but by then Intel came out with their very fast 32 bit cpu's which enabled NT to perform better on the Intel platform than on the lower clock speed Alphas so 64 bit NT was shelved. Not much later Compaq took over DEC which was the beginning of the end for the Alpha so most of the chip designers went to Intel or AMD.
If you have MS Windows Vista Ultimate you have 64 bit but the others from what I can gather are still 32 bit This means that for many laptops which are now predominately dual core 64 bit, you are running a 32 bit OS. Sort of like the old Alpha days except 64 bit Intel/AMD chips can run native 32 Wintel code.
I would state that prior art and obviousness should be brought out for this case but like I have said before the trough is large and we have a lot of very greedy pigs. No one wins and this case could easily be applied to DVD and HD-DVD. Most of all the consumer is the main looser with IMHO stupid cases like this.
If you like to see an exercise in obviousness. Go to your hardware store and just look at "box cutters" and associated "knives" then carefully look at the packages and you will most likely see "patent pending" and possibly a patent number. Now for fun look at hammers and screwdrivers.
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Yes but did they pay Immersion for the dubious privilege, especially since they had rumble for their N64 1996/7 as did Sony for their dual-shock 1997 before Immersion got their patent in 2000.
And lets not forget "by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty" :-)
Simply put CD's are normally used for music , DVD's are normally used for Standard Def videos, Blu-Ray/HDDVD is going to be used for High Def Movies and HVD is going to be targeting the backup market which is worth Billions of dollars.
I know I am simplifying this but people still prefer a physical entity when they purchase something and until people are brainwashed into accepting something that is non-tangible such as video on demand then this will be the case. Of course video on demand means you need massive network bandwidth that really is not yet viable except in a few areas.
One thing that is a real wild card is the PS3 in that the latest firmware will allow up-scaling of your DVD's to 720p, 1080i and 1080p (automatic or selectable) via HDMI and if you have PS2 games they get up-scaled as well (component or HDMI) with a definite improvement in graphics so much so you can afford wait for PS3 games by playing new or old PS2 games which will save you money. You can even play old PS1 games and get upscaled acceptable graphics to the point of enjoyably replaying some old favorates. Of course this assumes you have PS2 and PS1 games.
If you have a smaller HDTV (less then 32") then DVD's especially upscaled display really well. For HDTV above 32" (depends what you can afford) then upscaled DVD still looks good but looses out when compared to a HD movie however this is not overly noticeable until you get over 42".
If I am reading this correctly Google is showing "trends" in search volume statistics for different Linux distributions. Also what is the search volume number? I would assume a value should be given otherwise the graph only shows what I would hope is the normalised relativity of the searches on different distributions.
Just because people may search for a particular Linux distribution does not actually mean that this indicates something like the total number of installed platforms out there. Now that IMHO would be much more interesting and could give certain Linux distributions some bragging rights.
While it is not difficult to put spyware in the Linux kernel it is also very easy to replace or recompile that kernel from source unlike other proprietary software.
Any government contemplating putting spyware in the Linux kernel would have to be very stupid because to be found out and they will, would effectively result in a ban on all their computer exports, not to mention the embarrassment. I would not be surprised if Microsoft was one of the first companies to provide support to the GPL to actually achieve this ban, since they have the most to loose from cheap Linux computers
Well you can do like I did and look arround for a good bargin on the PS3 since I got mine for AU$499 (approx US$410) with a working PS2 plus 10 PS2 games. Granted there are not many PS3 games I am intersted in but then again there are not many games I am interested in for the Wii or the Xbox360 either.
It may come as a shock to many but there are plenty of used and new games for the PS2 and since firmware update 1.8 most PS1/2 games work (Australian PS3 uses emulation unlike the US/Japan one that uses hardware). In fact if you have a HDTV the PS3 will upscale your PS1 and PS2 games to 720p, 1080i or even 1080p and the result can be impressive.
If you are interested in a PS3 or even Xbox360 you should also consider a HDTV at 32" minimum or more (depends how much you can afford) may stores will reduce the PS3 price on package deals. Of course the Wii will work on a HDTV as well but it won't look as good. Still good graphics don't make up for a bad game.
This is posted from my PS3 using a wireless keyboad.
It is far to easy to misdirect public opinion with catchy words such as "Save/Think the Children" or "Speed Kills" or "Drinking/Smoking kills" and the list goes on. What people in general have to realise is that the government should not mandate what is a social responsibility.
Banning violent video games IMHO is stupid and counter productive since a violent game will most likely enable a person to take out their aggression on the game rather than actually take out their anger on real people. Most people who play violent games (good grief what game isn't in some way) would never even contemplate mass murder and would even find this very thought in real life repugnant even though they could happily butcher virtual enemies. You are always going to have the "nutters" and "fanatics" who are in a very tiny minority and hopefully they can be stopped before they commit a crime.
For people to give up their rights for some perceived security is IMHO very short sighted. What will the politicians want to to do next ban violent cartoons such as "Bugs Bunny" or "The Road Runner" (think of the children) maybe we should ban smoking or alcohol (again) after all they kill more people than some madman with a gun. Do this and all you succeed in doing is driving the problem underground as the Prohibition era in the USA did and effectively made many law abiding adults into criminals.
Unfortunately many projects define their tools first without taking the time to understand what is required and achievable in the first place. An interesting balancing act between design by committee and practicality, since "required" may not actually be correct.
Operating Systems, programming languages, compilers, debuggers and even editors are tools to help you achieve your goals and they must not dominate the project in it's planning stages otherwise to quote "forever down the dark path you will go".
Actually what is even worse in the case of software development is coding before an appropriate solution and direction is fully defined. I actually call this the "Shotgun Approach to Programming", granted you may achieve some of your directives but in many cases you are going to have collateral damage which could be quite costly and embarrassing over the long term.
Do a Google search on "voice recognition" and as a starting point try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition however I don't think a patent is justified since a quick Google search with "patent" added on will give you 1,140,000 hits. Still it appears if you patent anything in the US and have the money it normally gets granted.
The same thing happened in the UK (Wales) http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/footnmouth/ biofuel.html except the people caught were given the option to pay the fuel tax or get fined or have their car impounded.
I have a VW diesel car and it would cost me almost double to fill up with vegetable oil compared to ordinary diesel, so I obviously don't do this and even if it was cheaper I would void my warranty if I did. I would like to try biodiesel which is 6% cheaper than normal diesel but VW in Australia has not to my knowledge sanctioned it so you void your warranty if you do, hence the "No Biodiesel" sticker on my fuel-cap. What is annoying is that VW in the US allows for 5% (B5) mix while in certain parts of Europe up to 20% (B20) mix is acceptable.
Still it is not that bad since I get approx 30% better fuel economy and sometimes better performance over a similarly sized petrol car.
I run Linux on my laptop (Fedora 7) with Xen for virtualization and since I have 2GB of memory this works well but to run Linux on your PS3 to play a DVD via Xine is a rather pointless exercise unless you want bragging rights which is fine by me. The best way to play a DVD is put the DVD in the PS3 running in native mode and if you have a HDTV and v1.8 of the firmware the DVD will be upscaled via HDMI. As for WiFi and Bluetooth on PS3 Linux I can't really comment but that would be useful although it works well on the native PS3.
Now to no full disk access I think the best way of looking at this is a PS3 can dual boot so you still need some disk space for native PS3 infrastructure. I suppose if you want more disk you could always put in a larger drive which is a supported option but 2.5" drives are normally 5400rpm with 200GB and above being 4000 rpm. Why don't you attach a large disk drive by USB it will be cheaper and you can get 100's of GB and run at higher disk access speeds.
I actually use Linux on my laptop or my son's Windows machine as a media server and the PS3 works well as a media center although not everything works yet. My son did get avi's to work but what looks good on a 20" display does not look good on a 37" HDTV. Issues with codec patents can slow or even prevent the PS3 acting as a full media server.
You are partially right in stating "Basically, the PS3 Linux is merely just for people to use it as a cell developer's kit, nothing more" but you can with Linux do word processing as well as numerous other jobs that don't take up too much memory on the PS3.
I am not a PS3 developer and don't have the time to get involved in designing games but to those that want to do this I think this is great. Personally I think the PS3 offers the greatest amount of flexibility out of the other two consoles although I am not against either one but this does depend on what you use the PS3 for and if you are satisfied with it.
I got mine (v1.8) when it came out and it is IMHO fantastic. I have an Australian PS3 and have only three PS2 games out of fifty that have issues, the rest just work (also includes 20 PS1 games) with smoothing and upscaling to my HDTV. Of course your post comes across as someone who can't afford a PS3 or is very anti PS3 so it is rather pointless explaining how to set up WiFi, Linux, Media Center, Communicating with your PC (Linux and MS Windows), using Flash cards, adding and using usb devices, retrofitting a 80GB, 120GB, 160GB or larger disk and what to do with your old 60GB disk or even suggestions on a good wireless dual shock controller that will rumble when playing your PS1 and PS2 games that support rumble.
I won't deny that some comments in the blog are very trivial and others are from anti Sony people (usually fanboys of other consoles) but they just get ignored or flamed.
The comparison shots IMHO are not very convincing and do look blurry however I do have a PS3 and a 37" 720p/1080i HDTV and the PS3 does upscale my PS1 and PS2 games via HDMI or component. Don't expect PS1 games to come out like PS2 games they won't however the output is such that my PS1 games are pleasing graphically although this does depend on the graphics quality of the game originally. For PS2 games the PS3 does a very good job in smoothing and up-scaling and to me this ads to the re-playability of the game, so much so that I have so many PS1/2 games that will well and truly tide me over till the PS3 games for the PS3 pick up (DQ8, FFX, Balders Gate 1 and 2 etc and even some PS1 games). Of course some bad games even with the best of graphics can still suck, they now just suck with prettier graphics.
If you have a PS3 with v1.8 firmware you can get rumble for your PS1/2 games (if they support it) if you buy the PS2 controller adapter and plug in your dual shock. If you have a wireless PS2 controller like my Logitech 2 (battery life 50+ hours on two AA's) you can control controller registration, stopping and starting your game and even switching off your PS3 from the comfort of your arm chair (my controller uses the "mode" button). Ok you can't start the PS3 like you can with the 6 axis controller however once you put in a game you have full control (well mine does) of the PS3 from your dual shock controller.
Many have slammed the PS3 6 axis controller for not having rumble although we all know (or at least should know) why. From my own personal perspective I find that the 6 axis to be much lighter than the dual shock and when playing RPG's and Action adventure games I actually prefer the lightness of the 6 axis to my heavier dual shock wireless and/or cabled controller. IMHO there are only a few games that benefit from rumble (survival horror comes to mind) and in many ways I prefer not to have it. Obviously many readers will disagree but that is their prerogative.
Now thats funny. Hack does look good on the PS3 with V1.8 firmware and connected to a HDTV though.
I don't know if anyone has played Nintendo's Eternal Darkness there is a Cathedral where you get to kill monsters and possessed humans. I guess that will have to be removed now since the inside looks similar to the inside of many Cathedrals.
Thanks for the correction, you are right it was 1530 to 1540. I must have been tired because the first line was "Henry VIII (28 June 1491 - 28 January 1547)".
Being an Electrical Engineer I actually designed a four terminal resistor as part of a project I was doing for my degree in 1982 and having worked at a Standards Lab were four terminal resistors were very common It was very easy for me to design and build a cheap accurate (parts in a million) and stable one out of what was to me "off-cuts".
Take a look at this patent (2007) http://www.freepatentsonline.com/RE39660.html (Surface mounted four terminal resistor - United States Patent RE39660). The organisation I worked for had these going back to the early 1960's. It looks like you can patent prior art and obviousness in the USA now even though the US National Standards Laboratory has papers on four terminal resistors going back earlier than the 1970's (I did not look back any further). At least some of the "built on" patents were named as far back as 1984 although I can't see how you can build a patent on top of a patent especially something like a four terminal resistor. Maybe they added more of the Periodic table to the resistor and to them it was innovative.
Now software patents (sigh!) I actually refuse to look since I don't want a headache.
The Church of England was actually started between 1330 and 1340 when Henry the VIII of England was excommunicated by the Pope. See the following URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England #Major_Acts_in_the_Kingdom. You are spot on when you state "Maybe the Bishop should tend to his violent flock instead of abdicating responsibility to a video game".
...) I don't think it will be long before other people start pointing out important landmarks and shouting "Heresy!". I hate to think what will happen if Grand Theft auto had a recognisable virtual Church and while we are at it I guess all RPG's games will now have to take out those churches as well.
It is very sad that after the game has been out over seven months that the Bishop of Manchester Cathedral is now upset using words such as "highly irresponsible" because virtual weapons using virtual bullets were used in a virtual cathedral that looks like Manchester Cathedral against virtual creatures which are basically trying to virtually kill you.
While I don't normally play FPS and tactical shooters (eg Medal of Honor
We are getting a bit off-topic here.
If you have a person who wants to kill then it is very easy for them to come up with some weapon be it guns, knives or explosive. A gun is the easiest to use in that you just point and pull the trigger, however a gun/rifle can be much harder to get hold of in some many countries but it is not impossible. A knife or just about any hand weapon is very easy to obtain and use however its potential killing power is limited to a few victims. Explosives are very easy to use and their killing potential is huge but fortunately they are much harder to obtain but if you know a little about chemistry they are not that difficult to make. The major problem with explosive is that it can kill the user as well but if you have a fanatic who is not afraid to die then then you are going to have a massacre on your hands that makes a shootout looks like a family picnic. Lets not go in the potential of poison and germ warfare.
Unfortunately killers can be quite ingenious in their chose of weapons and it is very difficult to stop them until they are committing or have committed the crime.
I have a HDTV (only 37") that will display and enhance standard definition input (composite or AV and S video) so if I play a GameCube game the graphics comes out as "good" to "not bad" and the same is true for my PS2 games. From my personal perspective it can be quite hard to pick the difference although I would definitely concede that the GC graphics for the games I have are marginally better than some of my PS2 games but not all.
Enter the 60GB PS3 (Australian) which I recently purchased for a very good deal (US$400 + PS2 and 10 PS2 games trade-in). Put on V1.7 firmware and most of my PS2 games still played but I could not notice any graphical enhancement. A few days later I put on the V1.8 firmware and the graphical improvement on my PS1 and PS2 games (all except 2 of my games play now) was remarkable since they were now upscaled with smoothing to 720p or 1080i via component or HDMI. Even DVD's are upscaled via HDMI and the result is also remarkable. With the V1.8 firmware the PS3 will now upscale PS1/2 games to 1080p but my HDTV does not support that so I cannot comment.
I still play the GC (Metroid and Zelda) but if you compare it's graphics against the PS3 upscaled PS2 games it is now no contest since the PS2 games just look better to the point that I am now replying many of my favourate PS2 games. IMHO the only downside of the PS3 is it's lack of PS3 games but since I can play graphically enhanced PS2 games I can wait. Even some of my PS1 games are now graphically acceptable on my HDTV.
The problem many people have with the PS3 and the Xbox360 is choosing a decent HDTV and I would be very wary of "HD ready" because your TV must support 720p at the minimum to qualify as a HDTV. Just because you have a large screen does not necessarily mean it is a HDTV in-fact once you look at getting a HDTV over 47" you really should look at 1080p but that is going to be more expensive. Re your post I cannot comment on screen flickering since I have never seen it on my TV but then I prefer RPG's and Action Adventure games.
My recommendation to anyone at the moment is if you have the money and want a gaming/home entertainment system get a decent HDTV first but do some serious homework before you buy and I can't repeat this often enough make sure your HDTV has HDMI and supports as a base minimum 720p. IMHO any HDTV less than 32" should be relegated to the kids room (if you have any) but then this does depend on your disposable income.
I actually got a 60GB PS3 (Australia) for approx US$400 (not bad considering it is normally worth about US$800 in Australia) after I traded in my 5 year working PS2 plus 10 PS2 games I was never going to play again. I was not even in the market for a PS3 until I saw the deal and it was genuine and legitimate.
From my point of view I have not been overly impressed with most of the games that came out with all the next generation consoles, considering them to be mainly clones with graphical enhancements of earlier games. The exception is the Wii with Twilight Princess but then I have always been a sucker for Zelda games, but one game is not going to make me buy a console, even though I could easily afford to buy all of them.
I did get Oblivion but have hardly played it (my son does though) since I still have plenty of PS2 games I have not finished. With version 1.8 of the PS3 firmware playing a PS2 game looks even better on my 37" HDTV. All except two of my PS2 games and all of my PS1 games play without incident and considering PS1/2 playback with smoothing and up-scaling to 720p and 1080p via HDMI or component is done in software this is great. In fact the PS3 will upscale DVD movies as well via HDMI and the result is very impressive.
Even my wife is very impressed with the PS3 since she can play up-scaled DVD or even Blu-ray movies and as an extra bonus she can surf the web and display all our photos to her friends all in the comfort of the lounge room. The downside of this means I have to adopt a time share on the PS3 - oh well.
To get the best out of your Xbox360 or PS3 (the Wii will not look as good but will still be very playable in standard definition) you really should have a HDTV that can display 720p, 1080i and/or 1080p and your screen should be at least 32" with bigger meaning better but pricier. Lets put it this way if you can afford a 47" or bigger 1080p HDTV, then US$600 for a PS3 is IMHO justified, considering many people spend thousands on stereo equipment as well and even a good practical and functional TV cabinet can cost over US$600.
As far as justifying buying anything if you have the money and you like the product you can buy it. If you are on a very tight budget then it does not matter how much you like and want the product you cannot or should not buy it. I do agree with you on PS3 games since I was waiting till the PS3 had more games I was interested in but the deal I got was to good to resist.
Even though I live in Australia I would not be surprised if you are willing to wait and look around that you cannot find deals like I have. In fact I have found that many stores are willing to deal if you are going to spend a few thousand dollars. This applies to all countries.
Why would you want to do this? Your disk becomes a single point of failure. Not to mention the costs for paying for a MS Windows and Mac OSX license. Personally I would never trust an air traffic control system to a single PC no matter what OS it is running. Also why would you think that a desktop PC is critical in the armed forces, the clerical people may think so but that is not that case. If a desktop PC is used for critical work then you have a massive security hole and I would not want to be the one explaining this to the Military Police in the event of a loss or failure.
As far as applications are concerned if a vendor says to the Department of Defense "My application will only run on a Microsoft OS". All the Department has to say "We want it to run on our "name_your_FOSS" platform and the contact will be for $20M+" then I know that vendor will get his application ported to that platform very quickly. You can even wave a bigger stick if you know there are alternative applications so the respective vendors have to compete.
Even Microsoft would have to come to the party if the Department of Defence wants a particular solution because contracts can be worth millions. Yes they could lobby and they do this well but the DoD has highly skilled and dedicated people who will try to do what is best for their country and not for some Commercial Company.
I sympathise with tapes and the old vinyl records since they do have a tendency to wear out, but CD's, DVD's and now Blu-ray and HD-DVD can last a very long time with no degradation in performance unless you damage them.
I do find that HDD/DVD recorders are now the way to go compared to VHS/Betamax tape devices but anything that has moving parts will eventually fail as will electrical devices. With digital optical media you can duplicate (DRM not withstanding) what is on it without data loss. If you have a HDD recorder be prepared to loose all your data one day unless you save your favourate recorded shows to DVD. This also applies to media centers although backing up 300+ GB presents interesting issues.
Blu-ray and HD-DVD are targeting the rapidly growing High Definition TV market while DVD targets the Standard Definition TV market, although DVD displaying on a HDTV (especially with an up scaler) is acceptable for now. If you look at 47" and above HDTV's (1080p) which are not cheap but they are dropping in price, you really can pick the difference between a good quality DVD movie and the same movie on a High Def disk and over time the price between HD and DVD movies will converge.
Just run "updatedb" which may take a few minutes but should be ran regularly on a daily? or hourly? basis then run "locate" with a search string and it is very fast. Nothing wrong with "find" since you can do so much more with it, it is just that "locate" will be faster (usually within a second) to find a pattern over all file-systems.
Actually "which", "whence" and "whereis" may not be very helpful since in the majority of cases these depend on your PATH variable and different people may have different paths. This is not to say that these commands are useless but they have their limitations. Being aware of and using the appropriate tools is what Unix and Linux is about.
NT ran on Alphas under a compiler called FX!32 which actually took Intel 32 bit code and translated it to 64 bit Alpha code. Basically you could take your standard NT install CD and install it on the Alpha and FX!32 took care of it. It was not till late 1990's that a true 64 bit NT became available for the Alpha but by then Intel came out with their very fast 32 bit cpu's which enabled NT to perform better on the Intel platform than on the lower clock speed Alphas so 64 bit NT was shelved. Not much later Compaq took over DEC which was the beginning of the end for the Alpha so most of the chip designers went to Intel or AMD.
If you have MS Windows Vista Ultimate you have 64 bit but the others from what I can gather are still 32 bit This means that for many laptops which are now predominately dual core 64 bit, you are running a 32 bit OS. Sort of like the old Alpha days except 64 bit Intel/AMD chips can run native 32 Wintel code.
Finally got a look at the patent, see http://www.google.com/patents?id=Vpl3AAAAEBAJ&dq=7 018696 and then for fun see http://www.google.com/patents?id=Vpl3AAAAEBAJ&dq=7 018696 which is 1984 and some of the patents go back to the 1960's. What seems significant in the first patent is they have made it as broad as possible with very little meat at least from my perspective as an Electrical Engineer.
I would state that prior art and obviousness should be brought out for this case but like I have said before the trough is large and we have a lot of very greedy pigs. No one wins and this case could easily be applied to DVD and HD-DVD. Most of all the consumer is the main looser with IMHO stupid cases like this.
If you like to see an exercise in obviousness. Go to your hardware store and just look at "box cutters" and associated "knives" then carefully look at the packages and you will most likely see "patent pending" and possibly a patent number. Now for fun look at hammers and screwdrivers.