If there is a console monopoly, there will be no advancement in the console game market. If the PS2 were the only console available, we'd have nothing but PS2 for years to come. I don't know about you, but I like it when technology advances. Monopolies are almost never a good thing.
How can you expect to post an address like that to Slashdot without causing flame to be sent? If you really believe that your post did not result in flame, you are more of an idiot than I thought. You knew perfectly well when you posted that address that you were encouraging flame.
And my other point which you failed to address: If anyone here is qualified to be sending their comments to Nintendo, they don't need you to help them get the address. You don't know enough about this case to be telling Nintendo that they are wrong. I don't know enough about this case to be telling them that they are right (though that is my opinion, based on what I have heard).
I have no tollerance for those who willfully encourage flame.
OK, hello? Do you know Slashdot readers? Many (not all) of them absolutely LOVE to act before they think. They jump to conclusions about any conflict, and then flame the other side.
I strongly doubt that anyone here (myself included) has anywhere near enough knowledge about what is going on to be mailing Nintendo about it. At least, if anyone does know enough, they know that there are two sides to the issue. Let me re-state that...
ATTENTION ALL FLAMERS, ZEALOTS, AND ANYONE WHO IS PLANNING TO MAIL NINTENDO: You DO NOT know enough about this issue to be stating your opinion on it. There are TWO SIDES to every issue. NOT ALL LAWSUITS ARE BAD. DO NOT JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS. If you flame Nintendo for this, not only are you a moron, but you have not helped the issue. You will only be hurting things.
As for you, Alien54, you have no idea how much hardship you have caused to Mr. Kaplan, who probably has nothing to do with this lawsuit? Worse yet is all the people who answer e-mail at Nintendo, who will now have to read mindless hate mail (yes, HATE mail) directed at them when they haven't done anything wrong. Are you proud of this achievement? Do you like it when people suffer? Do you know jack shit about this case, who is involved, what laws were broken, etc.? If the answer were really so obvious, the judge would throw out the case!
And moderators -- next time someone posts contact info for the sole purpose of getting someone flamed, mod them down as "stupid". Oh, wait, there is no "stupid"... Well, take your pick then, but do NOT mod this shit up.
If there is anything I truely hate in this world, it's zealots and flamers. People who believe that there is one right answer in an issue like this, and violently support that side. The ironic thing is that the ones on Slashdot think that they are smart just because they are computer geeks.
No, I want the program to quit when I close the window. It's what I'm used to. I'm not saying that the Mac interface is worse, but since I'm quite used to programs closing when I close the window, it bothers me that they don't in OSX.
I've been using Linux as my primary OS and developing (open source) software for it for over two years. I also use Win2k (don't dis it if you haven't used it) and BeOS.
Just recently, I aquired a dual-G4/500MHz machine and MacOSX beta. I started up the machine (which shipped with OS9 installed), and the first thing it did was crash. Then I installed OSX.
First of all, OSX is *beautiful*. You'd be hard-pressed to pick out an individual pixel on the screen with OSX running. The anti-aliasing is done very well (does not look blurry), and I haven't noticed any slowness in any of the rendering.
The interface isn't extremely different from previous MacOS's (note that I haven't used previous MacOS's much). The menu bar still stays at the top of the screen, and programs still don't quit unless you choose "quit" from the file menu, which bothers me. The rest of the interface is very nice, however. Lots of drag-and-drop, which I like.
I could see myself switching to OSX as soon as it goes mainstream and gets more applications to support it. You can run OS9 programs now, sort of, but it's slow. OSX is stable, though, and POSIX-compliant, which means it beats Windows in my book. And since I really like things that are well-designed and thought out, I like it better than Linux, at least on principle. We'll see about usability.
Oh, and I absolutely LOVE the G4 hardware. The instant I openned the case, I thought "Damn, why didn't anyone else think of this!?" You really have to see it to understand, though.
Over the past few years, Apple has really changed. Basically everything that was wrong about them before has been fixed, and in many cases made *better* then the competition. The only problem remaining is price. G4 hardware is still on the expensive side, though not so much so as I rembered. Also, if you know what you are doing, you can bring the price down by buying just the case and mobo and using standardized parts for everything else (ATA/66 hard drives, PC100 RAM, AGP video (ATI cards), USB keyboard/mouse, etc.).
There's more to it. CSS-auth, which is one utility included in DeCSS, actually issues special commands (which have to be supported by the kernel) to the DVD drive which cause it to unlock. These commands involve certain encryption keys and such. I don't know all the details, but DeCSS does more than just decrypt the data stream.
This technology is already in your DVD drive! Believe it or not, you actually *can't* copy a DVD without using DeCSS, despite what the zealots say.
If you want to try it out for yourself, try this: Mount up "The Matrix". Now, *without* using CSS-auth, go to the directory with all the.vobs, and try to cat one of the bigger ones. You'll get a big, fat I/O Error. No, that isn't Linux that is preventing you from reading that file. It's your DVD drive. And it won't let you read it until you run css-auth, which is part of DeCSS.
In order to actually copy a DVD without DeCSS, you need a non-compliant drive. Good luck finding one.
What really annoys me is that the last time I pointed this out, someone responded to me and said essentially "No, you're wrong", and he got modded up and I got modded down. I'm not kidding, folks! Try it!
It depends on if you need fast 3D or not. As much as open source zealots hate to admit it, NVidia has the best Linux 3D support out there right now. I've been using their drivers since they were released, and they haven't crashed in months (since the latest version was released). Setting up the drivers can be a pain, however, unless you've done it before. So, if you just want 2D, and maybe limited 3D, then go for Matrox. Once the ATI Radeon drivers are available (I'm not sure if the 4.0.2 ones support 3D), you may want to try that, too.
Basically, any vertex which faces backwards from the direction of movement is transformed by the previous frame's matrix. Then, you put in some alpha blending and you've got motion blur. NVidia has a demo of this on their page, and it looks great in action. It actually looks like a blur rather than four transparent images of an object. And it doesn't require four complete rendering passes, either.
The one problem is that it requires alpha blending on moving object, which means that you have to sort the objects by z-distance before rendering. Not too hard to do if you take a few shortcuts, but doing it perfectly can be very difficult depending on the situation.
I am a big NVidia fan (as many of you know). I really think they have better hardware and I love working with the special features they add to their stuff in my 3D game engine. But this news worries me.
I hope NVidia will continue to advance the industry at the same rate as they did in the past. Without 3dfx as competition, their incentive may not be so great as it was before...
However, there is plenty of reason to believe that these concerns are misplaced. The ATI Radeon is a good card, having some features (like the third TMU) which not even the GeForce 2 has. Also, NVidia hardware is now being used in consoles as well as computers. Tough competition in the console arena is pretty much gaurenteed for them. So, as long as they continue to use their console gaming hardware in their video cards, we can continue expect new, better hardware from them.
This really could go either way. We'll have to watch and see what happens. If they do stop advancing their hardware, or charge too much for them, I will stop supporting them. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
By your logic, the United Nations should start killing Iraqi men, women, and children until Sadam Hussein steps down. Hey, it would work. Once all the citizens are dead, Sadam will have no one to rule over, and will thus no longer have power.
By your logic, it is perfectly reasonable for the RIAA to shut down Napster. After all, Napster is harboring far more copyright infringers than Media3 is hosting spammers.
By your logic, if I go on a shooting rampage and kill 14 people in my dorm, not only am *I* to blame, but so is everyone else in the dorm, as well as the dorm supervisor, the University of Minnesota, my parents, my friends, and, hell, Slashdot even.
I mean, I've seen double-standards, but this is rediculous. And you got score 5, even. Huh.
What if I write parts of a GPL licensed code which is then used to bomb my people back to stone age?
That would be unfortunate. However, adding an "ethical clause" to the GPL would ruin the license. The GPL currently places no restrictions whatsoever on the usage of a piece of software. The only restrictions are on the distribution. This is a major stength of the GPL (and many other open source licenses) as it means that users don't have to agree to the license to use the software. If they don't agree, they simply have no right to distribute it, but they can use it all they want for whatever they want, no questions asked, and no clicking "I Agree".
Also, when you introduce something like an "ethics clause" into the license, you add a significant amount of ambiguity as to what it means. What is ethical? Most of the US government thinks that everything the US army does is ethical (I disagree, personally). If you put in something like "This software may not be used to kill people," you may be preventing your software from being used to defend against a hostile invasion by people bent on genocide (it has happened before!).
If you really want, however, you can add your own ethics clause, provided that you wrote all the code that you are licensing with the clause, or you have permission from all of the authors. It's your choice. If it is added to the GPL itself, however, then people who use the GPL will be forced to use the ethics clause or find a different license. Personally, I would find a different license for my code, as I do not like to put ambiguous usage restrictions on my software. If my software is used against me, so be it.
Umm... ok, how about the unified internet browser/file manager? And then there's the start menu (which isn't even a very good idea, IMO). Then there's the taskbar in general, etc. Look, we all know that a good portion of the ideas in both KDE and GNOME were taken directly from Windows. And those of us who aren't zealots know that Microsoft didn't steal everything in Windows from Xerox and Apple. Just a large chunk of it.
Methinks the open source community has been capitalizing off of Microsoft's R&D for quite some time. Not that I see anything wrong with that, but we can't complain if they still our ideas.
Pornography and monogamous relationships are not against each other. In fact, pornography has nothing to do with real life relationships, especially monogamous ones. When you realize this, you realize that it isn't so bad, because it's just a bunch of entertaining pictures. It's only bad if you connect the images to reality.
Of course. Anyone who thinks that pornography bears any relation whatsoever to real life is stupid. I just don't connect the two. In real life, sex is not my goal.
Slashdot Mirror
If there is a console monopoly, there will be no advancement in the console game market. If the PS2 were the only console available, we'd have nothing but PS2 for years to come. I don't know about you, but I like it when technology advances. Monopolies are almost never a good thing.
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Did anyone manage to save a copy of this article before it was fixed? If so, can you post the original text here? I missed it...
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My right to wave my hand around wildly ends at your face.
Your right to post contact info for Nintendo executives ends at Slashdot.
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How can you expect to post an address like that to Slashdot without causing flame to be sent? If you really believe that your post did not result in flame, you are more of an idiot than I thought. You knew perfectly well when you posted that address that you were encouraging flame.
And my other point which you failed to address: If anyone here is qualified to be sending their comments to Nintendo, they don't need you to help them get the address. You don't know enough about this case to be telling Nintendo that they are wrong. I don't know enough about this case to be telling them that they are right (though that is my opinion, based on what I have heard).
I have no tollerance for those who willfully encourage flame.
------
I strongly doubt that anyone here (myself included) has anywhere near enough knowledge about what is going on to be mailing Nintendo about it. At least, if anyone does know enough, they know that there are two sides to the issue. Let me re-state that...
ATTENTION ALL FLAMERS, ZEALOTS, AND ANYONE WHO IS PLANNING TO MAIL NINTENDO: You DO NOT know enough about this issue to be stating your opinion on it. There are TWO SIDES to every issue. NOT ALL LAWSUITS ARE BAD. DO NOT JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS. If you flame Nintendo for this, not only are you a moron, but you have not helped the issue. You will only be hurting things.
As for you, Alien54, you have no idea how much hardship you have caused to Mr. Kaplan, who probably has nothing to do with this lawsuit? Worse yet is all the people who answer e-mail at Nintendo, who will now have to read mindless hate mail (yes, HATE mail) directed at them when they haven't done anything wrong. Are you proud of this achievement? Do you like it when people suffer? Do you know jack shit about this case, who is involved, what laws were broken, etc.? If the answer were really so obvious, the judge would throw out the case!
And moderators -- next time someone posts contact info for the sole purpose of getting someone flamed, mod them down as "stupid". Oh, wait, there is no "stupid"... Well, take your pick then, but do NOT mod this shit up.
If there is anything I truely hate in this world, it's zealots and flamers. People who believe that there is one right answer in an issue like this, and violently support that side. The ironic thing is that the ones on Slashdot think that they are smart just because they are computer geeks.
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No, I want the program to quit when I close the window. It's what I'm used to. I'm not saying that the Mac interface is worse, but since I'm quite used to programs closing when I close the window, it bothers me that they don't in OSX.
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Actually, I'm not sure. I'd expect that you can find someplace out there that will do it. It makes sense, after all. But I could be wrong on this one.
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I am aware of that. It's still annoying (at least until I get used to it).
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Just recently, I aquired a dual-G4/500MHz machine and MacOSX beta. I started up the machine (which shipped with OS9 installed), and the first thing it did was crash. Then I installed OSX.
First of all, OSX is *beautiful*. You'd be hard-pressed to pick out an individual pixel on the screen with OSX running. The anti-aliasing is done very well (does not look blurry), and I haven't noticed any slowness in any of the rendering.
The interface isn't extremely different from previous MacOS's (note that I haven't used previous MacOS's much). The menu bar still stays at the top of the screen, and programs still don't quit unless you choose "quit" from the file menu, which bothers me. The rest of the interface is very nice, however. Lots of drag-and-drop, which I like.
I could see myself switching to OSX as soon as it goes mainstream and gets more applications to support it. You can run OS9 programs now, sort of, but it's slow. OSX is stable, though, and POSIX-compliant, which means it beats Windows in my book. And since I really like things that are well-designed and thought out, I like it better than Linux, at least on principle. We'll see about usability.
Oh, and I absolutely LOVE the G4 hardware. The instant I openned the case, I thought "Damn, why didn't anyone else think of this!?" You really have to see it to understand, though.
Over the past few years, Apple has really changed. Basically everything that was wrong about them before has been fixed, and in many cases made *better* then the competition. The only problem remaining is price. G4 hardware is still on the expensive side, though not so much so as I rembered. Also, if you know what you are doing, you can bring the price down by buying just the case and mobo and using standardized parts for everything else (ATA/66 hard drives, PC100 RAM, AGP video (ATI cards), USB keyboard/mouse, etc.).
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There's more to it. CSS-auth, which is one utility included in DeCSS, actually issues special commands (which have to be supported by the kernel) to the DVD drive which cause it to unlock. These commands involve certain encryption keys and such. I don't know all the details, but DeCSS does more than just decrypt the data stream.
------
This technology is already in your DVD drive! Believe it or not, you actually *can't* copy a DVD without using DeCSS, despite what the zealots say.
If you want to try it out for yourself, try this: Mount up "The Matrix". Now, *without* using CSS-auth, go to the directory with all the .vobs, and try to cat one of the bigger ones. You'll get a big, fat I/O Error. No, that isn't Linux that is preventing you from reading that file. It's your DVD drive. And it won't let you read it until you run css-auth, which is part of DeCSS.
In order to actually copy a DVD without DeCSS, you need a non-compliant drive. Good luck finding one.
What really annoys me is that the last time I pointed this out, someone responded to me and said essentially "No, you're wrong", and he got modded up and I got modded down. I'm not kidding, folks! Try it!
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It depends on if you need fast 3D or not. As much as open source zealots hate to admit it, NVidia has the best Linux 3D support out there right now. I've been using their drivers since they were released, and they haven't crashed in months (since the latest version was released). Setting up the drivers can be a pain, however, unless you've done it before. So, if you just want 2D, and maybe limited 3D, then go for Matrox. Once the ATI Radeon drivers are available (I'm not sure if the 4.0.2 ones support 3D), you may want to try that, too.
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The one problem is that it requires alpha blending on moving object, which means that you have to sort the objects by z-distance before rendering. Not too hard to do if you take a few shortcuts, but doing it perfectly can be very difficult depending on the situation.
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Err... didn't AOL already do just that?
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When is OpenGL going to be done!? :) (I know you can't answer that... But I really really want to start working with it! :)
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I am a big NVidia fan (as many of you know). I really think they have better hardware and I love working with the special features they add to their stuff in my 3D game engine. But this news worries me.
I hope NVidia will continue to advance the industry at the same rate as they did in the past. Without 3dfx as competition, their incentive may not be so great as it was before...
However, there is plenty of reason to believe that these concerns are misplaced. The ATI Radeon is a good card, having some features (like the third TMU) which not even the GeForce 2 has. Also, NVidia hardware is now being used in consoles as well as computers. Tough competition in the console arena is pretty much gaurenteed for them. So, as long as they continue to use their console gaming hardware in their video cards, we can continue expect new, better hardware from them.
This really could go either way. We'll have to watch and see what happens. If they do stop advancing their hardware, or charge too much for them, I will stop supporting them. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
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Actually, yes I did know that. And it's wrong, is it not?
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By your logic, the United Nations should start killing Iraqi men, women, and children until Sadam Hussein steps down. Hey, it would work. Once all the citizens are dead, Sadam will have no one to rule over, and will thus no longer have power.
By your logic, it is perfectly reasonable for the RIAA to shut down Napster. After all, Napster is harboring far more copyright infringers than Media3 is hosting spammers.
By your logic, if I go on a shooting rampage and kill 14 people in my dorm, not only am *I* to blame, but so is everyone else in the dorm, as well as the dorm supervisor, the University of Minnesota, my parents, my friends, and, hell, Slashdot even.
I mean, I've seen double-standards, but this is rediculous. And you got score 5, even. Huh.
------
That would be unfortunate. However, adding an "ethical clause" to the GPL would ruin the license. The GPL currently places no restrictions whatsoever on the usage of a piece of software. The only restrictions are on the distribution. This is a major stength of the GPL (and many other open source licenses) as it means that users don't have to agree to the license to use the software. If they don't agree, they simply have no right to distribute it, but they can use it all they want for whatever they want, no questions asked, and no clicking "I Agree".
Also, when you introduce something like an "ethics clause" into the license, you add a significant amount of ambiguity as to what it means. What is ethical? Most of the US government thinks that everything the US army does is ethical (I disagree, personally). If you put in something like "This software may not be used to kill people," you may be preventing your software from being used to defend against a hostile invasion by people bent on genocide (it has happened before!).
If you really want, however, you can add your own ethics clause, provided that you wrote all the code that you are licensing with the clause, or you have permission from all of the authors. It's your choice. If it is added to the GPL itself, however, then people who use the GPL will be forced to use the ethics clause or find a different license. Personally, I would find a different license for my code, as I do not like to put ambiguous usage restrictions on my software. If my software is used against me, so be it.
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That way, next time Microsoft forgets to renew Hotmail, I can snatch it away from them and instantly get millions of hits a day!
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Umm... ok, how about the unified internet browser/file manager? And then there's the start menu (which isn't even a very good idea, IMO). Then there's the taskbar in general, etc. Look, we all know that a good portion of the ideas in both KDE and GNOME were taken directly from Windows. And those of us who aren't zealots know that Microsoft didn't steal everything in Windows from Xerox and Apple. Just a large chunk of it.
------
Methinks the open source community has been capitalizing off of Microsoft's R&D for quite some time. Not that I see anything wrong with that, but we can't complain if they still our ideas.
------
Pornography and monogamous relationships are not against each other. In fact, pornography has nothing to do with real life relationships, especially monogamous ones. When you realize this, you realize that it isn't so bad, because it's just a bunch of entertaining pictures. It's only bad if you connect the images to reality.
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Of course. Anyone who thinks that pornography bears any relation whatsoever to real life is stupid. I just don't connect the two. In real life, sex is not my goal.
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I mean, who doesn't like porn?
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