It is clear that Google still does not "get" open source.
They "get" it just fine. They claim a project is open source to cash in on the goodwill and momentum of open source, and then violate the principles to their own benefit as it suits them.
See also, for example, Chrome. Touted as an open source browser, it comes as a binary blob with proprietary auto-update and phone-home functionality. The real open source project is Chromium, which doesn't include the above proprietary bits.
it's damned annoying that Google seems to be thinking the same way as Apple.
Google has turned into a bunch of corporate assholes years and years ago. They still have some residue of doing good and not being evil, but any idea that they should be trusted to do the right thing by default hasn't been valid for quite some time.
By the way, this comment isn't really directed at you. I just found this a nice place to hang my hat, so to speak.
What makes you think things were so different in previous decades? Even the Beatles, early in their career, were cookie-cutter. You can go back to the 80s to bands like New Kids on the Block (*shudder*).
There's always been trash on the radio, mixed in with a few gems. If you never find a song you like then you just have grown old and have a selective memory.
I guess it's predicable that some people are focused on the whole "murder simulator" thing, which can't seemingly be separated from GTA. Since I was at DMA at the time (I'm mentioned in the first paragraph on pg 4), I can tell you that nothing like that was in our minds. What no-one seems to get - or remember - is that GTA was in large part a pisstake.
I never played the first two games, so maybe it isn't true for those, but the first time I played GTA3 I was just in awe of the realistic feel of the city. I remember car surfing just to take in the scenery and layout of the city.
I also remember the first time I used the sniper, and the perverse pleasure I got from popping somebody's head off from afar while blood spouted of their neck. Yeah, don't call the Feds, you guys know you did it too.
I remember the first time I drove in the game I actually tried to follow traffic laws, and then the liberating feeling of learning to cut across property in insane fashion. I remember getting urges, after playing the game for a while, to do the same while driving in real life.
In the end, it's still just a game, but it was my first experience with a game where the world had a realistic feel to it.
Typical ignorant American viewpoint. Here's an idea: why don't you try asking some, you know, actual Chinese people if they want to overthrow their government?
Should we ask the ones in jail? Surely they wanted reforms, even if it didn't mean overthrowing the government.
Are you saying the Chinese are happy to be censored in their web searches and communications? Are you standing up for that? And what about the nationwide protests in 1989, highlighted by Tiananmen Square? Are you in China? Can the Chinese people visit this page? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989
But please, keep on singing the praises of the murderous tyrant Mao, you jingoistic asshole.
I think they make women look ridiculous, and it pains me to see them walking around uncomfortably. Sneakers and jeans are plenty sexy for me -- if the girl's cute. Heels can't change looks.
Because this isn't the easy-going days of gaming (as in the 90's)
Gaming in the 90s had controversy, too, stuff like Mortal Kombat. In fact, it wasn't even until the early 2000s that you could find swearing or boobs in a game.
It's sadly wasted on the people like "LordLimecat" and "0111 1110" that replied. " 0111 1110" in particular reminds me of the guy in Pointland:
"Look yonder," said my Guide, "in Flatland thou hast lived; of Lineland thou hast received a vision; thou hast soared with me to the heights of Spaceland; now, in order to complete the range of thy experience, I conduct thee downward to the lowest depth of existence, even to the realm of Pointland, the Abyss of No dimensions.
"Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self- contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
Penn and Teller are fun to watch, but they admit their show is for entertainment not education.
Citation, please. I've watched plenty of their shows, and the spirit is clearly to uncover, well, bullshit. Of course they try to do it in an entertaining manner, but that doesn't mean they don't believe in what they are doing.
Ron Paul strikes me as a man who is *very* certain of his beliefs and, as such, is prone to extremism. In this case, being "principled" means that you're not open to compromise.
Actually, I've seen before where he said wouldn't be able to implement his extreme ideals as President, and that he mainly would be a moderating force.
The question is if this is believable or not. Part of me wants to think so, but you never know. I'd be happier if he just dropped the whole gold standard idea. As for foreign policy, well, he'd have quite a lot of power and discretion, so you'd have to live with the United States pulling out of countries all around the world.
From sources like Fox, you will get nothing that will help you make a better decision - there is no journalism at Fox, just right wing, "money=merit", fear-based propoganda.
I've watched Fox News, the actual news, not their talk shows, and it's a reasonable news source. Of course, it's Fox's fault that the rest of their programming taints their news division into looking like a political hatchet job, but that doesn't make it true.
You're missing the point. I don't dispute the graphics are noticeably better. I'm saying it's not impressive or worth caring that much about compared to previous generations.
Before 2000, if you bought a modern game one year, and then another one 3-5 years later, the difference would have been huge. Look at the jump between the last two console generations, from PS2 to PS3, compared to the PS1 to the PS2. The diminishing returns are blatantly obvious.
Console graphics can't really rival PC graphics. Take a look at this comparison of PC vs Xbox vs PS3 in GTA4 [gamespot.com].
I took a look. Totally underwhelmed at the differences. The problem is we have reached diminishing returns in graphics quality per hardware improvement.
I remember the jumps in each generation of PC and console graphics before 2000, and each one was huge and made the earlier generation look dated. When the PS3 and 360 came out, they were clearly better, but they weren't *that* much better. The same goes for today's PC graphics vs the aging consoles.
I don't see this situation changing until realtime ray tracing with realistic looking people (even the best today look like mannequins) comes about. That is, when you can't tell at a glance that you're looking at a game.
is there any problem advertising their product on their own website? i mean, people choose to go to google, right?
People chose to buy Microsoft, right? They didn't have to. Yet Microsoft has gotten into trouble in both the United States and Europe by bundling IE for free in with their operating system.
Buying out competitors is legal - and I'm pretty sure such buyouts are required to have government approval before they can go ahead.
Yes, they do, but it's rare for the government to prevent a buyout, especially during the Bush era.
Nothing wrong with it, so long as it doesn't lock out competition.
By buying the competition, they have locked out another competitor. One less competitor means less choice, means more market power, and less chance that a company can overtake them. Big fish eating little fish.
I certainly dont think DoubleClick had a monopoly at the time of purchase, and youtube didn't either.
DoubleClick was probably Google's biggest competitor for selling web advertisements at the time of its purchase. YouTube was and still is the huge player in video sites. Those were just a couple of examples, by the way. They've also bought AdMob for mobile, push their services with Android, started a payment service, bought up Blogger (blogspot), tried to enter an exclusive deal to usurp book copyrights, and etc.
They are empire building, just like Microsoft was, by using their near-monopoly position in one area to expand into others.
Google has used their market powers to thwart competitors. For example, they used their dominance in search to advertise Chrome to IE users. Chrome is tied into Google search. They've also bought up competitors like DoubleClick and content providers like YouTube.
If the Feds wanted to knock Google down a size they could do a lot by paring them back into their original form and prohibit anti-competitive practices.
Slashdot Mirror
The first computer-program that actual can really play chess still has to be invented.
Boo hoo, the computer is better at chess than humans. "real chess" my ass.
Keep my fine sport(!) chess, safe from those people.
Typical sports envy. Chess is not a sport. It's a board game.
It is clear that Google still does not "get" open source.
They "get" it just fine. They claim a project is open source to cash in on the goodwill and momentum of open source, and then violate the principles to their own benefit as it suits them.
See also, for example, Chrome. Touted as an open source browser, it comes as a binary blob with proprietary auto-update and phone-home functionality. The real open source project is Chromium, which doesn't include the above proprietary bits.
it's damned annoying that Google seems to be thinking the same way as Apple.
Google has turned into a bunch of corporate assholes years and years ago. They still have some residue of doing good and not being evil, but any idea that they should be trusted to do the right thing by default hasn't been valid for quite some time.
By the way, this comment isn't really directed at you. I just found this a nice place to hang my hat, so to speak.
What makes you think things were so different in previous decades? Even the Beatles, early in their career, were cookie-cutter. You can go back to the 80s to bands like New Kids on the Block (*shudder*).
There's always been trash on the radio, mixed in with a few gems. If you never find a song you like then you just have grown old and have a selective memory.
And you wonder why you and most other Americans are fat...
You're so awesome. Do you have a blog I can subscribe to?
I guess it's predicable that some people are focused on the whole "murder simulator" thing, which can't seemingly be separated from GTA. Since I was at DMA at the time (I'm mentioned in the first paragraph on pg 4), I can tell you that nothing like that was in our minds. What no-one seems to get - or remember - is that GTA was in large part a pisstake.
I never played the first two games, so maybe it isn't true for those, but the first time I played GTA3 I was just in awe of the realistic feel of the city. I remember car surfing just to take in the scenery and layout of the city.
I also remember the first time I used the sniper, and the perverse pleasure I got from popping somebody's head off from afar while blood spouted of their neck. Yeah, don't call the Feds, you guys know you did it too.
I remember the first time I drove in the game I actually tried to follow traffic laws, and then the liberating feeling of learning to cut across property in insane fashion. I remember getting urges, after playing the game for a while, to do the same while driving in real life.
In the end, it's still just a game, but it was my first experience with a game where the world had a realistic feel to it.
Typical ignorant American viewpoint. Here's an idea: why don't you try asking some, you know, actual Chinese people if they want to overthrow their government?
Should we ask the ones in jail? Surely they wanted reforms, even if it didn't mean overthrowing the government.
Are you saying the Chinese are happy to be censored in their web searches and communications? Are you standing up for that? And what about the nationwide protests in 1989, highlighted by Tiananmen Square? Are you in China? Can the Chinese people visit this page? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989
But please, keep on singing the praises of the murderous tyrant Mao, you jingoistic asshole.
I think they make women look ridiculous, and it pains me to see them walking around uncomfortably. Sneakers and jeans are plenty sexy for me -- if the girl's cute. Heels can't change looks.
Because this isn't the easy-going days of gaming (as in the 90's)
Gaming in the 90s had controversy, too, stuff like Mortal Kombat. In fact, it wasn't even until the early 2000s that you could find swearing or boobs in a game.
It's sadly wasted on the people like "LordLimecat" and "0111 1110" that replied. " 0111 1110" in particular reminds me of the guy in Pointland:
"Look yonder," said my Guide, "in Flatland thou hast lived; of Lineland thou hast received a vision; thou hast soared with me to the heights of Spaceland; now, in order to complete the range of thy experience, I conduct thee downward to the lowest depth of existence, even to the realm of Pointland, the Abyss of No dimensions.
"Behold yon miserable creature. That Point is a Being like ourselves, but confined to the non-dimensional Gulf. He is himself his own World, his own Universe; of any other than himself he can form no conception; he knows not Length, nor Breadth, nor Height, for he has had no experience of them; he has no cognizance even of the number Two; nor has he a thought of Plurality; for he is himself his One and All, being really Nothing. Yet mark his perfect self- contentment, and hence learn this lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.
I thought the trademark was "Microsoft Windows", not "Windows"
Microsoft sued Lindows over being similar to "Windows". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._Lindows They ended up losing some early battles in court and then bought them out.
They've also bullied/bribed other projects like wxWindows (now wxWidgets). http://www.wxwindows.org/about/name.htm
Those are just the ones I know about off the top of my head.
that cute secretary in those awesome heels
Heels are stupid.
Penn and Teller are fun to watch, but they admit their show is for entertainment not education.
Citation, please. I've watched plenty of their shows, and the spirit is clearly to uncover, well, bullshit. Of course they try to do it in an entertaining manner, but that doesn't mean they don't believe in what they are doing.
Reading Flatland might give you a different perspective.
Ron Paul strikes me as a man who is *very* certain of his beliefs and, as such, is prone to extremism. In this case, being "principled" means that you're not open to compromise.
Actually, I've seen before where he said wouldn't be able to implement his extreme ideals as President, and that he mainly would be a moderating force.
The question is if this is believable or not. Part of me wants to think so, but you never know. I'd be happier if he just dropped the whole gold standard idea. As for foreign policy, well, he'd have quite a lot of power and discretion, so you'd have to live with the United States pulling out of countries all around the world.
My point still stands- people buying crappy cheap commodity hardware shouldn't be surprised when it has problems.
No it doesn't. Bash commodity hardware made in China all you want, for the most part running a computer under load will not cause it to lock up.
Gilbert Gottfried's jokes on the other hand were tasteless and not funny.
Tasteless, maybe, but I laughed.
From sources like Fox, you will get nothing that will help you make a better decision - there is no journalism at Fox, just right wing, "money=merit", fear-based propoganda.
I've watched Fox News, the actual news, not their talk shows, and it's a reasonable news source. Of course, it's Fox's fault that the rest of their programming taints their news division into looking like a political hatchet job, but that doesn't make it true.
Ah that's why McCain lost:
correlation != cause. McCain got less money because it was obvious he was losing.
Next time forget about voting, just tally the contributions.
Or just watch the polls. The last election wasn't close except for a brief time after the Sarah Palin hail mary.
You're missing the point. I don't dispute the graphics are noticeably better. I'm saying it's not impressive or worth caring that much about compared to previous generations.
Before 2000, if you bought a modern game one year, and then another one 3-5 years later, the difference would have been huge. Look at the jump between the last two console generations, from PS2 to PS3, compared to the PS1 to the PS2. The diminishing returns are blatantly obvious.
Console graphics can't really rival PC graphics. Take a look at this comparison of PC vs Xbox vs PS3 in GTA4 [gamespot.com].
I took a look. Totally underwhelmed at the differences. The problem is we have reached diminishing returns in graphics quality per hardware improvement.
I remember the jumps in each generation of PC and console graphics before 2000, and each one was huge and made the earlier generation look dated. When the PS3 and 360 came out, they were clearly better, but they weren't *that* much better. The same goes for today's PC graphics vs the aging consoles.
I don't see this situation changing until realtime ray tracing with realistic looking people (even the best today look like mannequins) comes about. That is, when you can't tell at a glance that you're looking at a game.
is there any problem advertising their product on their own website? i mean, people choose to go to google, right?
People chose to buy Microsoft, right? They didn't have to. Yet Microsoft has gotten into trouble in both the United States and Europe by bundling IE for free in with their operating system.
Buying out competitors is legal - and I'm pretty sure such buyouts are required to have government approval before they can go ahead.
Yes, they do, but it's rare for the government to prevent a buyout, especially during the Bush era.
Nothing wrong with it, so long as it doesn't lock out competition.
By buying the competition, they have locked out another competitor. One less competitor means less choice, means more market power, and less chance that a company can overtake them. Big fish eating little fish.
I certainly dont think DoubleClick had a monopoly at the time of purchase, and youtube didn't either.
DoubleClick was probably Google's biggest competitor for selling web advertisements at the time of its purchase. YouTube was and still is the huge player in video sites. Those were just a couple of examples, by the way. They've also bought AdMob for mobile, push their services with Android, started a payment service, bought up Blogger (blogspot), tried to enter an exclusive deal to usurp book copyrights, and etc.
They are empire building, just like Microsoft was, by using their near-monopoly position in one area to expand into others.
This is my last reply.
Cool story, huh?
Informative, yes. Cool, no.
Google has used their market powers to thwart competitors. For example, they used their dominance in search to advertise Chrome to IE users. Chrome is tied into Google search. They've also bought up competitors like DoubleClick and content providers like YouTube.
If the Feds wanted to knock Google down a size they could do a lot by paring them back into their original form and prohibit anti-competitive practices.