Take a look at the software that runs on x86 Linux and PPC Linux. You'll find quite a bit of it doesn't not compile cross-platform without some help. I also thought 'Linux is Linux' at one point, too, but it's not.
And yes, that analogy does make a point of PCs. (No apostrophe, please.) The CF competes with the dance pad by being MUCH better. (Apparently like 23 as good.) The Four Seasons competes by being that much better than the Motel 6. Can you honestly say you think it's possible to build a PC that many times better than an x86? If you could make it twice as good then I'd be extremely surprised. 10x? Not a chance in hell. (Good being relative, of course, but most people will think 'useful, user-friendly and fast' when you talk about a computer being good.)
"Or did I just reveal complete ignorance of the computer industry?"
Did you seriously just say that designing a computer system and porting a ton of software to it would be easier than creating a controller for a gaming system?
If by 'off the shelf' you mean x86, you haven't done ANYTHING new. If you mean a non-x86, non-PPC processor... You're crazy.
And as your example, you chose a controller for a game system that this company somehow manages to sell for $350, despite competition that sells one for $15. http://store.gameasylum.us/1ddrdapadmat.html
I mean sure, if you're willing to sell your exclusive odd-architecture personal computer with only the software your company has managed to port for $10k a piece... Yeah, it'd work. I'm not sure who'd buy it, though. And you'd have to sell quite a few to just break even on the cost of your programmers porting to this architecture.
Yes, they can. They can simply say that they are suing you in TX or WA, wherever they have an office, and especially where you signed the papers, and make you go to that court for the lawsuit.
You haven't met Mr. Willoby, then. He's a leech. He never gives back, and he never buys anything that he can download. Sure, he shares with his neighbor, but only so he can borrow his neighbor's DVD and copy it, then use the copy to trade content with others.
It used to be that Mr. Willoby was a rare person, and hard to find. He was quite popular and outgoing. Now, there's so many of him that every small community has at least 1. It's too easy to get the stuff online now. You can even get it online quicker and easier than going to the store, and have all the quality and often the unwanted content such as commercials and previews are already edited out.
Content produces need to start thinking about what people want again, instead of how to make money off people.
I finally subscribed to cable. Why? Because that ugly little box under my TV will download High Def episodes of my favorite shows when they are aired. I do not have to wait for someone to post it. I do not have to settle for crappy resolution or some idiot's coax-rip of a video that's missing the end. Cable now provides what I want, faster than I can 'steal' it. It's a little on the expensive side, but I'm willing to pay to have what I want.
DVD and Music need to get on track with this. (I guess they've already tried with on-demand movies, really. Still too expensive for me, and I can't take it to my Mom's house.)
Maybe if I scream they'll hear me: GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND I'LL PAY YOU FOR IT.
Define major crime. What is legal today may be a 'major crime' tomorrow. For instance, if the RIAA had its way, IP theft would be a major crime.
Don't get me wrong. I like cameras watching the streets. It forces the crime into the poor neighborhoods, where I don't go. Wait... Did I say that out loud?
Whew... I gotta be careful... I almost made a point there. It's a good thing sarcasm is easily identifiable over the internet.
Odd as it may be, some people don't have insurance and don't report accidents unless they HAVE to. These people actually find it cheaper to replace the bumper that got dinged or bandage that cut on their arm themselves, instead of paying insurance for years in the hope that some day they'll have a use for having spent all that money.
These people do not report accidents if they don't have to. Cameras force them to report it or face possible repercussions.
Is that the only reason for the increase? Probably not. Someone else made a note that people drive differently if they believe they are on camera, sometimes doing really stupid things like breaking hard for a stoplight, instead of slowing properly or running the red when it's safer to do so... And the people behind them aren't always driving properly either, and can't (or just don't) stop in time.
The problem in that case isn't the camera. It's the drivers. Teach them to drive properly.
"How can 15% spent on R&D justify a markup by 10,000% on the final product?"
I'll bite. Because 15% of that 10,000% markup is used for research. The initial research is NOT CHEAP. When someone comes along and 'creates a cheaper version' they are not starting from scratch. They know how the new drug works, and what it does. Then they just have to modify it slightly, or find something else that does the same thing. That's quite a bit easier than starting from scratch and finding something to do the job.
I don't like drug companies, but railing against them as if they are evil and claiming everything they do is to screw the public is going too far.
Also, on the 50% being used for marketing that was mentioned earlier... The goal of a company is to maximize profit. If spending that much on marketing didn't generate more profit for them, they wouldn't do it. And more revenue means that 15% is bigger, too. Anyone who thinks they could take that 50% used for marketing and put it directly to R&D is dreaming. In all likelihood, there would be LESS for R&D if they dropped the marketing, and not more.
As for the alternatives, I submit they are worse than the current system. They ALL rely on the government doling out money. That's MY money. The only thing worse than paying too much for something is paying for something I didn't get. No thanks. Besides that, I don't trust the government to correctly figure out what research is worthwhile. The current market decides that by simply putting a value on the drugs. People pay more for drugs that are worth more to them.
And what about incentive? There's GREAT incentive in the profits these companies make. If the government were doling out the money, there'd be more researching going on, but it would be restricted and the massive-profit incentive, which drives most people in the US, would be gone. There's every chance those 'star scientists' would just go find better paying work.
No, I'm for fixing the current system instead of replacing it.
Only 2 in 5? Either my definition of 'lie' is different, or it's a LOT higher than 2 in 5.
"To tell an untruth." ?
I looked it up: "to speak falsely or utter untruth knowingly, as with intent to deceive." That's pretty close.
I like to think of myself as a paragon of virtue, and even -I- lie. It's unavoidable sometimes, and it's just plain polite other times.
"How are you today?"
"My stomache hurts, I feel like I'm going to puke on your shoes." -> "Fine, thanks for asking." ---- LIE!!!
If you just go for "don't hold their word", I still think 2 in 5 is a pretty good number, but absolutely reprehensible for someone that holds something as important as my paycheck.
Advocating studying something before willy-nilly removing it from our diet is absurd? What planet do you live on?
You assume that I assume that 'natural implies being better'. I said no such thing. I said that removing something that is natural doesn't sound like a good idea. Yes, I forgot to qualify that with a ton of other statements. I erroneously assumed people would know those statements without my help. I was wrong, and for that, I apologize. In the future, I will endeavor to point out every little detail so that people can follow what I'm writing.
Read it again, troll. I said we need to determine what they do first. I didn't predict anything. I simply stated that they'd be fools to mess with things they don't know anything about yet. That's pretty much 'common sense'.
The common cold is natural, too. In fact, everything is 'natural' if you want to define it that way.
Tumors are the body destroying itself. It may be 'natural', but it's not helpful at all to the organism.
Prions... Well, we dunno wtf they are, except that they are a protein. Proteins were good things, last I checked, and your body needs many, many different ones to function. Until they know what it does and doesn't do, they'd be fools to release prion-free beef onto the market.
So how long until we get a new study that says Prions were indeed good things, and should have been left in our meat.
From TFA: "Prions are proteins that are naturally produced in animals."
Hmm... Removing natural things... Nope, doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I just can't wait until they find out that Prions actually helped prevent cancer or something and everyone on the planet now has a timebomb in their body.
Seriously, they'd better do some SERIOUS studies on this before feeding this crap to me.
Re:I failed to see how this'll help
on
HTML Encoded Captchas
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I should have added this disclaimer to the post:
Yes, I see that they recommend adding in random divs and crap. If it's still a table, it's still very very easy to parse, even without a parser. If they intend for you to replace the table with 'random elements'... Do you KNOW how hard it would be to get it to show up correctly on each different browser? Another nightmare.
Re:I failed to see how this'll help
on
HTML Encoded Captchas
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Even worse, this catcha would be -easier- than a regular one. It lists every pixel as a TD, in rows... So easy to render that it's idiotic. And the image itself is simple as well... The background letters are much lighter in color and could easily be filtered.
Add in the huge size of the html and the annoyance factor of captchas in general, and this is amazingly stupid.
While this is partly a dupe, at that time, the source code had not been released. It has now. So the headline really should have reflected that, instead.
Exactly. That was the parent's point. The GTO was NOT supposed to be 'feature-rich', but people bitched about it not being 'feature-rich'. Americans just didn't get it. We're all about 'new features' like On-Star and computers in our dashboards. I fall into the same hype, too, unfortunately... When I saw this, I immediately thought 'neat... I might buy a new car for the first time.'
Then I remembered how much new cars cost, how big a pain in the butt the first year of a new car is, and how I can simply wait a few years and it'll be cheap. Or I could rig up something myself, instead, in my 1997 Cavalier and keep my manual door-locks and windows. (I hate the electric ones and always have.)
Maybe I should do my first Ask Slashdot: What would you recommend as an on-board entertainment system for a car. Preferably Kubuntu-powered (Amarok is great, and I've always been a Debian fan) and using a touch-screen LCD in the dash.
The previous replier has a good point, and I'd like to add to it: You've got twice as many computers as people, and people share computers. I'm betting the computers they shared were all Windows computers, and not Unix. So the majority of the people are touching Windows machines, and those are the machines that had the most issues. If you replaced those machines with Unix, you'd probably see you had about the same amount of trouble with those same machines, PLUS a bunch of whiny windows-only people complaining about having to learn a new interface and that it doesn't have Office, or that Office doesn't run well. (Depending on how you set it up.)
No, I think the setup was pretty much spot-on at that company. The users were given the OS that makes them the most productive (Windows) and the 'real work' was done on very stable machines running Unix.
As a fellow gamer, I agree. I'll be buying Vista (and a shiny new PC to go with it) when there are enough games to warrant the hassle and expense.
I did it with the XBox 360 (waited about 9 months) and I'll do it with the PS3 (NOTHING on the horizon yet... Very sad system) also.
The Wii is my very first launch-console ever. Wii Sports, Excite Truck, Super Swing Golf (not quite launch, but close)... Those alone make it worth the cost. Of course, there were some disappointments like Elebits and Zelda, but oh well. That always happens. I haven't totally given up on them yet, though. And I get to play some of the GameCube games I wish I hadn't sold back. (I bought them again.)
If Vista had a game-title launch like the Wii, it'd be a massive success.
"Microsoft's stubborn belief that they know how I want to use my computer - not the other way around"
You know how they want to use your computer? Err... They how your computer wants to use you? Err...
I'm pretty sure you mean 'they don't know how you want to use your computer'... But I couldn't resist;) Besides which, they DO know that. They just want to market to all the the non-techies that don't know what a computer can do and would never think to try.
Slashdot Mirror
Take a look at the software that runs on x86 Linux and PPC Linux. You'll find quite a bit of it doesn't not compile cross-platform without some help. I also thought 'Linux is Linux' at one point, too, but it's not.
And yes, that analogy does make a point of PCs. (No apostrophe, please.) The CF competes with the dance pad by being MUCH better. (Apparently like 23 as good.) The Four Seasons competes by being that much better than the Motel 6. Can you honestly say you think it's possible to build a PC that many times better than an x86? If you could make it twice as good then I'd be extremely surprised. 10x? Not a chance in hell. (Good being relative, of course, but most people will think 'useful, user-friendly and fast' when you talk about a computer being good.)
"Or did I just reveal complete ignorance of the computer industry?"
Did you seriously just say that designing a computer system and porting a ton of software to it would be easier than creating a controller for a gaming system?
If by 'off the shelf' you mean x86, you haven't done ANYTHING new. If you mean a non-x86, non-PPC processor... You're crazy.
And as your example, you chose a controller for a game system that this company somehow manages to sell for $350, despite competition that sells one for $15. http://store.gameasylum.us/1ddrdapadmat.html
I mean sure, if you're willing to sell your exclusive odd-architecture personal computer with only the software your company has managed to port for $10k a piece... Yeah, it'd work. I'm not sure who'd buy it, though. And you'd have to sell quite a few to just break even on the cost of your programmers porting to this architecture.
Exactly. (I was actually remember the 1+1=3 version, but same difference.)
So, n + 1 = n for large values of n?
Dihydrogen monoxide is dangerous!!
Oh, it's dihydrogen dioxide? Carry on then!
IANAL blah blah blah
Yes, they can. They can simply say that they are suing you in TX or WA, wherever they have an office, and especially where you signed the papers, and make you go to that court for the lawsuit.
Lethyos, I just thought of a New years Resolution for you.
http://www0.us.ioccc.org/years.html - 17th was 2004. 19th is... Hmm... Yeah, 2006. And the contest started in 2006. So yeah, 2006.
You haven't met Mr. Willoby, then. He's a leech. He never gives back, and he never buys anything that he can download. Sure, he shares with his neighbor, but only so he can borrow his neighbor's DVD and copy it, then use the copy to trade content with others.
It used to be that Mr. Willoby was a rare person, and hard to find. He was quite popular and outgoing. Now, there's so many of him that every small community has at least 1. It's too easy to get the stuff online now. You can even get it online quicker and easier than going to the store, and have all the quality and often the unwanted content such as commercials and previews are already edited out.
Content produces need to start thinking about what people want again, instead of how to make money off people.
I finally subscribed to cable. Why? Because that ugly little box under my TV will download High Def episodes of my favorite shows when they are aired. I do not have to wait for someone to post it. I do not have to settle for crappy resolution or some idiot's coax-rip of a video that's missing the end. Cable now provides what I want, faster than I can 'steal' it. It's a little on the expensive side, but I'm willing to pay to have what I want.
DVD and Music need to get on track with this. (I guess they've already tried with on-demand movies, really. Still too expensive for me, and I can't take it to my Mom's house.)
Maybe if I scream they'll hear me: GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND I'LL PAY YOU FOR IT.
-sigh-
"will only be used to prosecute major crimes"
Define major crime. What is legal today may be a 'major crime' tomorrow. For instance, if the RIAA had its way, IP theft would be a major crime.
Don't get me wrong. I like cameras watching the streets. It forces the crime into the poor neighborhoods, where I don't go. Wait... Did I say that out loud?
Whew... I gotta be careful... I almost made a point there. It's a good thing sarcasm is easily identifiable over the internet.
Odd as it may be, some people don't have insurance and don't report accidents unless they HAVE to. These people actually find it cheaper to replace the bumper that got dinged or bandage that cut on their arm themselves, instead of paying insurance for years in the hope that some day they'll have a use for having spent all that money.
These people do not report accidents if they don't have to. Cameras force them to report it or face possible repercussions.
Is that the only reason for the increase? Probably not. Someone else made a note that people drive differently if they believe they are on camera, sometimes doing really stupid things like breaking hard for a stoplight, instead of slowing properly or running the red when it's safer to do so... And the people behind them aren't always driving properly either, and can't (or just don't) stop in time.
The problem in that case isn't the camera. It's the drivers. Teach them to drive properly.
"How can 15% spent on R&D justify a markup by 10,000% on the final product?"
I'll bite. Because 15% of that 10,000% markup is used for research. The initial research is NOT CHEAP. When someone comes along and 'creates a cheaper version' they are not starting from scratch. They know how the new drug works, and what it does. Then they just have to modify it slightly, or find something else that does the same thing. That's quite a bit easier than starting from scratch and finding something to do the job.
I don't like drug companies, but railing against them as if they are evil and claiming everything they do is to screw the public is going too far.
Also, on the 50% being used for marketing that was mentioned earlier... The goal of a company is to maximize profit. If spending that much on marketing didn't generate more profit for them, they wouldn't do it. And more revenue means that 15% is bigger, too. Anyone who thinks they could take that 50% used for marketing and put it directly to R&D is dreaming. In all likelihood, there would be LESS for R&D if they dropped the marketing, and not more.
As for the alternatives, I submit they are worse than the current system. They ALL rely on the government doling out money. That's MY money. The only thing worse than paying too much for something is paying for something I didn't get. No thanks. Besides that, I don't trust the government to correctly figure out what research is worthwhile. The current market decides that by simply putting a value on the drugs. People pay more for drugs that are worth more to them.
And what about incentive? There's GREAT incentive in the profits these companies make. If the government were doling out the money, there'd be more researching going on, but it would be restricted and the massive-profit incentive, which drives most people in the US, would be gone. There's every chance those 'star scientists' would just go find better paying work.
No, I'm for fixing the current system instead of replacing it.
Only 2 in 5? Either my definition of 'lie' is different, or it's a LOT higher than 2 in 5.
"To tell an untruth." ?
I looked it up: "to speak falsely or utter untruth knowingly, as with intent to deceive." That's pretty close.
I like to think of myself as a paragon of virtue, and even -I- lie. It's unavoidable sometimes, and it's just plain polite other times.
"How are you today?"
"My stomache hurts, I feel like I'm going to puke on your shoes." -> "Fine, thanks for asking." ---- LIE!!!
If you just go for "don't hold their word", I still think 2 in 5 is a pretty good number, but absolutely reprehensible for someone that holds something as important as my paycheck.
Advocating studying something before willy-nilly removing it from our diet is absurd? What planet do you live on?
You assume that I assume that 'natural implies being better'. I said no such thing. I said that removing something that is natural doesn't sound like a good idea. Yes, I forgot to qualify that with a ton of other statements. I erroneously assumed people would know those statements without my help. I was wrong, and for that, I apologize. In the future, I will endeavor to point out every little detail so that people can follow what I'm writing.
Read it again, troll. I said we need to determine what they do first. I didn't predict anything. I simply stated that they'd be fools to mess with things they don't know anything about yet. That's pretty much 'common sense'.
The common cold is natural, too. In fact, everything is 'natural' if you want to define it that way.
Tumors are the body destroying itself. It may be 'natural', but it's not helpful at all to the organism.
Prions... Well, we dunno wtf they are, except that they are a protein. Proteins were good things, last I checked, and your body needs many, many different ones to function. Until they know what it does and doesn't do, they'd be fools to release prion-free beef onto the market.
So how long until we get a new study that says Prions were indeed good things, and should have been left in our meat.
From TFA: "Prions are proteins that are naturally produced in animals."
Hmm... Removing natural things... Nope, doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I just can't wait until they find out that Prions actually helped prevent cancer or something and everyone on the planet now has a timebomb in their body.
Seriously, they'd better do some SERIOUS studies on this before feeding this crap to me.
I should have added this disclaimer to the post:
... Do you KNOW how hard it would be to get it to show up correctly on each different browser? Another nightmare.
Yes, I see that they recommend adding in random divs and crap. If it's still a table, it's still very very easy to parse, even without a parser. If they intend for you to replace the table with 'random elements'
Even worse, this catcha would be -easier- than a regular one. It lists every pixel as a TD, in rows... So easy to render that it's idiotic. And the image itself is simple as well... The background letters are much lighter in color and could easily be filtered.
Add in the huge size of the html and the annoyance factor of captchas in general, and this is amazingly stupid.
While this is partly a dupe, at that time, the source code had not been released. It has now. So the headline really should have reflected that, instead.
Exactly. That was the parent's point. The GTO was NOT supposed to be 'feature-rich', but people bitched about it not being 'feature-rich'. Americans just didn't get it. We're all about 'new features' like On-Star and computers in our dashboards. I fall into the same hype, too, unfortunately... When I saw this, I immediately thought 'neat... I might buy a new car for the first time.'
Then I remembered how much new cars cost, how big a pain in the butt the first year of a new car is, and how I can simply wait a few years and it'll be cheap. Or I could rig up something myself, instead, in my 1997 Cavalier and keep my manual door-locks and windows. (I hate the electric ones and always have.)
Maybe I should do my first Ask Slashdot: What would you recommend as an on-board entertainment system for a car. Preferably Kubuntu-powered (Amarok is great, and I've always been a Debian fan) and using a touch-screen LCD in the dash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1908_Ford_Model _T.jpg
Now you have!
The previous replier has a good point, and I'd like to add to it: You've got twice as many computers as people, and people share computers. I'm betting the computers they shared were all Windows computers, and not Unix. So the majority of the people are touching Windows machines, and those are the machines that had the most issues. If you replaced those machines with Unix, you'd probably see you had about the same amount of trouble with those same machines, PLUS a bunch of whiny windows-only people complaining about having to learn a new interface and that it doesn't have Office, or that Office doesn't run well. (Depending on how you set it up.)
No, I think the setup was pretty much spot-on at that company. The users were given the OS that makes them the most productive (Windows) and the 'real work' was done on very stable machines running Unix.
As a fellow gamer, I agree. I'll be buying Vista (and a shiny new PC to go with it) when there are enough games to warrant the hassle and expense.
I did it with the XBox 360 (waited about 9 months) and I'll do it with the PS3 (NOTHING on the horizon yet... Very sad system) also.
The Wii is my very first launch-console ever. Wii Sports, Excite Truck, Super Swing Golf (not quite launch, but close)... Those alone make it worth the cost. Of course, there were some disappointments like Elebits and Zelda, but oh well. That always happens. I haven't totally given up on them yet, though. And I get to play some of the GameCube games I wish I hadn't sold back. (I bought them again.)
If Vista had a game-title launch like the Wii, it'd be a massive success.
"Microsoft's stubborn belief that they know how I want to use my computer - not the other way around"
;) Besides which, they DO know that. They just want to market to all the the non-techies that don't know what a computer can do and would never think to try.
You know how they want to use your computer? Err...
They how your computer wants to use you? Err...
I'm pretty sure you mean 'they don't know how you want to use your computer'... But I couldn't resist
Wasn't there a book about this?
p /0671027387
http://www.amazon.com/Deception-Point-Dan-Brown/d
Oh wait, that was the North Pole. My bad!