Erm, this is getting frightening. First we had nice, normal products. 80286. Windows 3.0. DOS 6.2. Simple to note differences, no? Then we had products which were easier to copyright the names of. Pentium. K6. Windows 95 (OK, that wasn't really for copyright; that was just for misleading people). Now we're seeing a return to the old days, except without the clarity. Office XP. Windows XP. Athlon XP. See, now companies appear to be marching in lockstep. Have the same name, and confuse the customer. I can hardly wait for the "Pentium XP" . . .
I don't honestly see Linux game porting companies as being successful anytime in the near future. This is for several reasons. The easiest way to explain this is to draw a parallel between Loki and another company, say, Wildcard Design (dead link, I know; it went out of business a couple of months ago, but you can find some info on it via a Google search).
Wildcard Design was a company that was founded to port games to BeOS. Despite the high licensing fees and restrictive NDAs the founder had to surmount to obtain the source code to the games he wanted to port, he decided to give it a go. Needless to say, he failed, the main reason for which is this:
There are not enough users of non-Microsoft operating systems to make profitable a company dedicated only to porting high-profile games to them. The cost is simply too high for the authors to recoup. A few games might turn a profit, but eventually, after even one poorly-received game, perhaps, the company will find itself deep in the red. It cannot sell games to nearly the scope of audience that Windows ports sell to because the gaming types generally are not comfortable enough to migrate away from the operating systems they are used to, which in most cases means Windows. Hence, sales of ported games will barely be a dent in the overall sales of said games.
Erm, don't many search engines (go.com comes to mind) that sell ranking space clearly state this? Then again, they shouldn't really be calling themselves "search engines" . . . Maybe "big-bucks corporation search engines" or something that sounds a little better than that.
A judge today ordered auto manufacturers to halt production until fuel efficiency can be increased to 100%.
OK, aside from the sarcasm, how does the judge expect this to be possible, let alone feasable? Statistically, it is a near-zero chance that Napster could block every single possible variance of an MP3. There's encryption, renaming, file-splitting, adding a few seconds of silence to the end, etc., so the checksums, filename checks, fingerprints, or whatever else they're using will not work. If this order stands, Napster will cease to function indefinitely.
Why not go one better and let you select the categories of ads you want to see (like you can do for some online advertising agencies)? Ad agencies are making a big deal about how to determine the ads I want to see.
Why not just ask me?
If it means I wouldn't have to listen to ads for breast enhancement drugs, proescription drugs over the phone, sports games that I really couldn't care less about, etc., I'd be quite willing to tell them what I'd rather see, and what I would be more likely to buy.
Actually, you probably didn't. Slashcode has the annoying tendancy to insert spaces randomly in long strings of unbroken ASCII characters (it happens a lot with URLs).
Interesting post, and one that covers a topic I've thought much about. A couple of minor points, however.
The phrase "legal tender" does not mean something issued by the Federal Reserve. "Legal tender" means a unit of currency that, by law, must be accepted as payment for a purchase, a debt, etc. The government could make Slashdot karma legal tender, if they wanted . ..
Also, it's good to notice that the "Federal Reserve Note" is short for "Federal Reserve Note of Credit". Pointing that out helps to emphasize that our paper currency (and our coined currency, as well) has all been borrowed . ..
The article mentions that this may eliminate the need for seperate access cards (just have some card servers). If this was widely implemented, what would happen to all the people selling "1337 h4x0r c4rd$" (i.e., hacked cards that'll probably be disabled at some point, anyway)? Would this actually cut down some of the activities that DirecTV doesn't like? Granted, the numbers of people viewing for free would go up, but, since they wouldn't all need access cards, this could drive some of the underground market out of business.
Next point: valid servers. Because DirecTV continually changes codes/kills hacked cards ("GAMEOVER", anyone?), would there be people who use their cards to subscribe to the whole package of channels (thus having a "valid" card at all times), and then charge other people to use their servers? It wouldn't be free for the people who use it, but it would be cheaper than paying for all the channels themselves (although if you really want cheap channels, get a TVRO system . ..).
. . . how will they be distributed? Are they going to ship them out in huge crates to the RadioShacks around the country? Are they going to talk IBM into distributing more of them? Are they going to have a big box in front of their former corporate headquarters, trying to pawn them off for a few coins to buy a cup of coffee with?
Their whole distribution scheme hinged on the idea that they would maintain a database of peoples' scanning habits, gain revenue from that, and then be able to pay their distributors with that money. Now there is not income. There will soon be no database. Are they going to sell the user info database outright (highly likely), or are they going to sell the whole company, or perhaps both?
They (literally) can't afford to have piles of CueCats lying around. You have to have some place to put them. Storage is expensive. Even if you own the building, you still have to pay property taxes. I think we'll be seeing some desperate attempts to get rid of them . ..
BTW, does anyone else have one of the USB models? If so, does it scan more slowly for you, too, than the PS/2 model?
I found a use for my CueCats. I ripped my CD collection and wrote a script that takes a barcode as its argument. The script then plays the MP3s from the CD I associated with the barcode. I mostly use the barcodes from the CD cases, but I've got a pack of unchewed gum that I use the barcode from, since I can't find the case for one of my CDs.
According to the RIAA's marketing departments when CDs were introduced, the higher prices compared to, say, tapes were due to the cost of developing the CD format and designing the manufactuing and playback machinery. As soon as the recouped their expenses, CD prices would go dramatically down, since manufacturing them is on par with tapes, maybe even a little bit cheaper. I think that, by now, they've gotten their investments back. Can we see a fulfillment of a pricing promise now? Unlikely. People have gotten used to the pricing schemes of CDs, so most don't care anymore.
I don't see any mention of how they managed to do this. I doubt that it would be with a laser, since a light wavelength is usually measured in the hundreds of nanometers. An electron gun, perhaps? That's about all I can think of . ..
Combine this with a Big Ugly Dish grabbing wild feeds, and you have a simple, relatively cheap way of grabbing high-quality (up to 700-line resolution, I believe) programs for later viewing (and, yes, for distribution, for those of you of that mindset). It'd make it worlds easier to make VCDs in much higher quality, and with no commercials (example: a copy of the Voyager finale which was taken from the satellite feed was turned directly into an MPEG and is being distributed as a set of DVD-quality VCDs on the internet; I can't imagine that was easy or quick with the current generation of PCs, unless the poster had access to a hardware MPEG recorder, which haven't been that cheap).
There are two ways to have an absolutely secure system (or as absolutely secure as possible):
1. A system with an encrypted filesystem (rubberhose, perhaps), no external connectivity, in a room coated with a 10-foot thick layer of lead. Rig the case to dump strong acid on the internals when opened, thus destroying them entirely. Write a custom BIOS to use a specific sector on the hard drive to boot from, without any possibility of changing it. Compile the kernel to run only signed binaries, with a 2,048-bit encryption system for the signature. Etc.
or
2. Take hammer. Pound computer into small pieces. Repeat until satisfied.
Oh, yes. Real good. Office is so good that, instead of putting the bloat their code takes up to any real use, we get dancing paperclips. Oh, yeah, and who can forget Microsoft Bob?
Can't people access the internet from anywhere using a big satellite dish? Sure, it's not portable, but how likely is it that you're going to be travelling somewhere that doesn't have a phone line (I suspect that the charges for this are going to wind up being more per minute than an international call . ..)?
That's like saying that GNOME can run on Windows as long as you get a copy of XFree86 for Windows (which is true; you can, disgustingly enough). Sure, it works, but it's not a truly "native" port.
Slashdot Mirror
Does this "religion" at all involve paying for the same "holy text" over and over again, in varying "special release" formats?
Erm, this is getting frightening. First we had nice, normal products. 80286. Windows 3.0. DOS 6.2. Simple to note differences, no? Then we had products which were easier to copyright the names of. Pentium. K6. Windows 95 (OK, that wasn't really for copyright; that was just for misleading people). Now we're seeing a return to the old days, except without the clarity. Office XP. Windows XP. Athlon XP. See, now companies appear to be marching in lockstep. Have the same name, and confuse the customer. I can hardly wait for the "Pentium XP" . . .
What happened? Did the database count all the comments in it so far, and start numbering from that point onward, or what?
I don't honestly see Linux game porting companies as being successful anytime in the near future. This is for several reasons. The easiest way to explain this is to draw a parallel between Loki and another company, say, Wildcard Design (dead link, I know; it went out of business a couple of months ago, but you can find some info on it via a Google search).
Wildcard Design was a company that was founded to port games to BeOS. Despite the high licensing fees and restrictive NDAs the founder had to surmount to obtain the source code to the games he wanted to port, he decided to give it a go. Needless to say, he failed, the main reason for which is this:
There are not enough users of non-Microsoft operating systems to make profitable a company dedicated only to porting high-profile games to them. The cost is simply too high for the authors to recoup. A few games might turn a profit, but eventually, after even one poorly-received game, perhaps, the company will find itself deep in the red. It cannot sell games to nearly the scope of audience that Windows ports sell to because the gaming types generally are not comfortable enough to migrate away from the operating systems they are used to, which in most cases means Windows. Hence, sales of ported games will barely be a dent in the overall sales of said games.
Erm, don't many search engines (go.com comes to mind) that sell ranking space clearly state this? Then again, they shouldn't really be calling themselves "search engines" . . . Maybe "big-bucks corporation search engines" or something that sounds a little better than that.
This invalidates yet another Voyager plot . . .
A judge today ordered auto manufacturers to halt production until fuel efficiency can be increased to 100%.
OK, aside from the sarcasm, how does the judge expect this to be possible, let alone feasable? Statistically, it is a near-zero chance that Napster could block every single possible variance of an MP3. There's encryption, renaming, file-splitting, adding a few seconds of silence to the end, etc., so the checksums, filename checks, fingerprints, or whatever else they're using will not work. If this order stands, Napster will cease to function indefinitely.
Why not go one better and let you select the categories of ads you want to see (like you can do for some online advertising agencies)? Ad agencies are making a big deal about how to determine the ads I want to see.
Why not just ask me?
If it means I wouldn't have to listen to ads for breast enhancement drugs, proescription drugs over the phone, sports games that I really couldn't care less about, etc., I'd be quite willing to tell them what I'd rather see, and what I would be more likely to buy.
Actually, you probably didn't. Slashcode has the annoying tendancy to insert spaces randomly in long strings of unbroken ASCII characters (it happens a lot with URLs).
Interesting post, and one that covers a topic I've thought much about. A couple of minor points, however.
.
.
The phrase "legal tender" does not mean something issued by the Federal Reserve. "Legal tender" means a unit of currency that, by law, must be accepted as payment for a purchase, a debt, etc. The government could make Slashdot karma legal tender, if they wanted . .
Also, it's good to notice that the "Federal Reserve Note" is short for "Federal Reserve Note of Credit". Pointing that out helps to emphasize that our paper currency (and our coined currency, as well) has all been borrowed . .
The article mentions that this may eliminate the need for seperate access cards (just have some card servers). If this was widely implemented, what would happen to all the people selling "1337 h4x0r c4rd$" (i.e., hacked cards that'll probably be disabled at some point, anyway)? Would this actually cut down some of the activities that DirecTV doesn't like? Granted, the numbers of people viewing for free would go up, but, since they wouldn't all need access cards, this could drive some of the underground market out of business.
.).
Next point: valid servers. Because DirecTV continually changes codes/kills hacked cards ("GAMEOVER", anyone?), would there be people who use their cards to subscribe to the whole package of channels (thus having a "valid" card at all times), and then charge other people to use their servers? It wouldn't be free for the people who use it, but it would be cheaper than paying for all the channels themselves (although if you really want cheap channels, get a TVRO system . .
. . . how will they be distributed? Are they going to ship them out in huge crates to the RadioShacks around the country? Are they going to talk IBM into distributing more of them? Are they going to have a big box in front of their former corporate headquarters, trying to pawn them off for a few coins to buy a cup of coffee with?
.
Their whole distribution scheme hinged on the idea that they would maintain a database of peoples' scanning habits, gain revenue from that, and then be able to pay their distributors with that money. Now there is not income. There will soon be no database. Are they going to sell the user info database outright (highly likely), or are they going to sell the whole company, or perhaps both?
They (literally) can't afford to have piles of CueCats lying around. You have to have some place to put them. Storage is expensive. Even if you own the building, you still have to pay property taxes. I think we'll be seeing some desperate attempts to get rid of them . .
BTW, does anyone else have one of the USB models? If so, does it scan more slowly for you, too, than the PS/2 model?
I found a use for my CueCats. I ripped my CD collection and wrote a script that takes a barcode as its argument. The script then plays the MP3s from the CD I associated with the barcode. I mostly use the barcodes from the CD cases, but I've got a pack of unchewed gum that I use the barcode from, since I can't find the case for one of my CDs.
According to the RIAA's marketing departments when CDs were introduced, the higher prices compared to, say, tapes were due to the cost of developing the CD format and designing the manufactuing and playback machinery. As soon as the recouped their expenses, CD prices would go dramatically down, since manufacturing them is on par with tapes, maybe even a little bit cheaper. I think that, by now, they've gotten their investments back. Can we see a fulfillment of a pricing promise now? Unlikely. People have gotten used to the pricing schemes of CDs, so most don't care anymore.
BEGIN SARCASM
.
What, and nobody's pushing Bluetooth for these things? I though Bluetooth was going to be the killer wireless protocol . .
END SARCASM
I don't see any mention of how they managed to do this. I doubt that it would be with a laser, since a light wavelength is usually measured in the hundreds of nanometers. An electron gun, perhaps? That's about all I can think of . . .
> Modem users need not apply for the service, however.
.
Anyone remember the Dvorak article a few days ago about how dialup was the standard . . . ? A bit ironic . .
Combine this with a Big Ugly Dish grabbing wild feeds, and you have a simple, relatively cheap way of grabbing high-quality (up to 700-line resolution, I believe) programs for later viewing (and, yes, for distribution, for those of you of that mindset). It'd make it worlds easier to make VCDs in much higher quality, and with no commercials (example: a copy of the Voyager finale which was taken from the satellite feed was turned directly into an MPEG and is being distributed as a set of DVD-quality VCDs on the internet; I can't imagine that was easy or quick with the current generation of PCs, unless the poster had access to a hardware MPEG recorder, which haven't been that cheap).
There are two ways to have an absolutely secure system (or as absolutely secure as possible):
1. A system with an encrypted filesystem (rubberhose, perhaps), no external connectivity, in a room coated with a 10-foot thick layer of lead. Rig the case to dump strong acid on the internals when opened, thus destroying them entirely. Write a custom BIOS to use a specific sector on the hard drive to boot from, without any possibility of changing it. Compile the kernel to run only signed binaries, with a 2,048-bit encryption system for the signature. Etc.
or
2. Take hammer. Pound computer into small pieces. Repeat until satisfied.
Maybe they read Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell.
Please tell me they won't try to encrypt the ruling . . .
What is this, "If you strike us down, we will post code more powerful than you can imagine."?
Oh, yes. Real good. Office is so good that, instead of putting the bloat their code takes up to any real use, we get dancing paperclips. Oh, yeah, and who can forget Microsoft Bob?
Can't people access the internet from anywhere using a big satellite dish? Sure, it's not portable, but how likely is it that you're going to be travelling somewhere that doesn't have a phone line (I suspect that the charges for this are going to wind up being more per minute than an international call . . .)?
That's like saying that GNOME can run on Windows as long as you get a copy of XFree86 for Windows (which is true; you can, disgustingly enough). Sure, it works, but it's not a truly "native" port.