Unless the actual laptop owners get to set/change the codes themselves - as well as disabling the feature completely - in which case it won't be any worse than SSH/remote_desktop/et al.
None of what you said invalidates the arguments against the the conclusions in TFA. In fact it could have come out the opposite with TFA claiming that Win7 is slower than Vista, and aside from a number of horrid jokes much of Slashdot would be making similar arguments to what they are now. MS still has plenty of time to work on and optimize it, etc. MS has gotten itself in lose-lose situations with Slashdot before (eg: IE8 compatibility stuff), but here it's just that there isn't much that can be seriously concluded performance-wise from an early $SOFTWARE build, good or bad.
Just because the arguments made from a group of people happen to echo previous things they've said does not necessarily make the arguments any less solid.
When explaining complex concepts, it's often better to keep things as simple as possible. I would simply ask the man: "Don't charitable organizations exist to give away free tutoring to students, free food to the hungry, and other volunteer work?" "Yeah." "Well the same organizations exist in the world of computers. They give-away free software to benefit the community." I'd then leave him to think about that for awhile.
While I agree with the principle here, that's not a very good example. That gives the impression that F/OSS is only for people who, well, need charity. People who can not afford preferable non-F/OSS. People who are willing to put up with less.
Be careful with analogies. While it can be more complex, I usually prefer to explain the actual situation in the simplest terms I can:
There's a number of ways in which F/OSS can be legitimately free and capable. A couple examples: Some companies, like Redhat, want you to use their software free of charge at home. This way you become accustom to it and will want to use it at work, where the Redhat can then charge for support and "CYA" insurance. Microsoft did something similar back in the day, which was a large part of why it's so big right now (just they were a bit less straight-forward about it). This way companies like Redhat want to give you the absolute best stuff they can, free of charge, because they know it will benefit them in the long term. Another example: Consider the fact that a company whose sole purpose is to make money will want to cut corners where they can and will not fix a problem if they don't believe the benefits of doing so will outweigh the costs. However, someone who is making the software because they want to create something useful - even if it's just for his/her own use - will try to make it the best he/she can if the time is available. The fact that other people can use it free is just a side-effect.
Yes, these are more complicated and harder for Joe Sixpack to relate to. However, they're less likely to be misinterpreted, because those are actual reasons.
This attitude is common with the older generation who aren't used to the net
A week ago I helped a-friend-of-a-friend fix up his computer. Fairly standard: XP machine absolutely brimming with malicious software. It was to far gone - boot into Linux off of a USB stick, back everything up, reinstall XP, find drivers (on another computer and copy over because this included Ethernet drivers) because he lost the disks, reinstall software.
He was repeatedly impressed at Linux's advantages here (boot off another medium, things like Ethernet work without hunting for drivers, etc). He asked me how much Linux cost, and then lost all interest after my response. I explained how businesses (eg, Redhat) could work here but nothing sunk in after I said the word "free".
One of the requirements is that there will be an extremely large number of possible questions (and answers) to keep attackers from making a small database for every question or simply brute forcing it too quickly. As a result it is preferable not to need human interaction to create the question/answer sets. Varying pictures of animals/etc are not something computers can generate on their own, but would require human beings to collect. The amount of additional manpower needed using such a method over what we use today is substantial... too much.
On Debian-based distros like Ubuntu,/dev/shm is a ramdisk which will automatically resize, compared to/dev/ramX which gets a bit weird about changing size.
Just to clarify for anyone who misunderstood this, I believe bluefoxlucid was referring to a swap partition *on a local hard drive* and not on the USB flash drive. For example, if you're booting on what typically is a Linux machine there is a very good chance that there is already a local swap partitioned off. Just be wary about what you may leave behind if you're not careful.
One thing I've found really, really helps is to use smaller programs et al. While the difference in how long it takes to start up gnome-terminal vs rxvt or nautilus vs pcmanfm is minimal on a normal/modern desktop or laptop, the difference is substantial on a cheap USB flash drive. There's plenty of lists for lightweight applications, window managers etc for linux around online. In fact, I'll often just stick with terminal applications (moc, for instance).
Another option, if you're booting on a box which has a good internet connection, is to ssh -X things over a network. Not only does this save a large amount of space, but I've found it's often faster to have a program like Firefox start on my snazzy box at home and ssh -X over than waiting for it to load off of my crappy usb drive.
Would you mind sharing what software you use? All of the antivirus software I'm aware of for Linux or *BSD is designed to look for Windows viruses/malware. Good for cleaning up my neighbor's computer from a live USB but not so useful for protecting any of my *nix boxen.
Why do people want to do things with a PHONE that will make it so that they can't use it as a PHONE?
You've seriously never had a situation where you were idling, wishing you brought a book? Say, waiting at a dentist's office or during a 45min break between classes because of scheduling issues?
Having entertainment on-hand can be pretty damn useful, even if it comes at the cost of limiting the phone's usefulness before the next charge. Pre-smartphone I did my best to keep a book on my person 24/7, but now I can just pull out my blackberry and browse slashdot et al, even though that eats into my battery pretty quick.
I plunked down the USD$50 back when it was still fresh and played through it a half dozen times since. The difficulty is in trying to convince my friend, et al that it is worth going without coffee for a day.
I've been waiting for and watching Black Mesa since it's inception, and with it's history of set backs and (relatively) slow progress I'll keep my original plan of recommending the original to my friend. If BM is even half as good as the original HL it'll be worth another go through anyways when it's released. I the BM team luck and mean them no offense, it's just they're no where near close enough to justify waiting for the original any longer.
I've got some friends who haven't played it. It's not so unheard of for people to miss classics and just never get the chance to go back to 'em, or for people to gain interest in gaming after Half Life's time has started to fade.
Why do we care about the "spread of communism"? Why do we care about "defending Israel"? There are a lot of humanitarian causes far more dire and we leave those tragedies alone with a clear conscience. Can someone tell me why we spend SO much money and so many human lives on "expanding democracy" and "defending Israel"?
Historically, it's nearly unheard of for democracies to fight other democracies. Hence, the more democracies there are, the less of a chance that the US will be attacked by another organized government.
Israel, for all it's faults, is a US-backing democracy in a part of the world that isn't exactly friendly with the US nor very much democratic. It's advantageous for the US to have a friendly presence in the Middle East as it does with Israel.
Humanitarian aid doesn't have a very good rate-of-return. People who are busy killing each other and/or starving and/or dieing of disease offer little threat to the US. It's not going to benefit the US to help them.
Now I'm not saying that spreading democracy etc is the best way to strength the US's well being, but there is a fair bit of logic saying that it helps.
I mean, I'm all about open source but nobody developing or promoting proprietary software?
I agree that F/OSS isn't quite apt to replace all proprietary software. There are situations where proprietary software would be better off.
What about the business world and the wide variety of custom made software tailored to specific business segments?
In fact, this is an area I believe a F/OSS business model would work best. The business which wants it's custom-tailored software can pay people to make it just as they would proprietary stuff, but have it GPL'd. That could even reduce the price, being able to build off other F/OSS stuff instead of from scratch. And because it's tailored to the one company, there's little chance of competition taking advantage of it. Win-win.
What about gaming?
Aye, that's where the problems that I see are. When you have one unified group of people who want software and can pay for the whole development of it, GPL'd stuff is great as it helps lower the initial cost. However, when the funds for development are scattered, it can be extremely difficult to get all the money together where it needs to be. Few will want to contribute if they know that, once everyone else does and the project is done, they can just compile it themselves free of cost.
There are ways around that, though. Companies can easily fund the creation of F/OSS that will benefit them even if they can't sell it. Consider Google's relationship with Firefox and Android. This does not cover every possibility, and games are one area that a GPL business model doesn't hold up quite as well as proprietary. As F/OSS grows in popularity, hopefully others will think of successful ways to get F/OSS to work where I couldn't.
Consider: Straight men don't have as much fun as gay men because they have to have sex with women.
Personally, I haven't found WoW to be fun at all, either rushing through it or taking my time. However, that's not to say that by not playing WoW I'm having more fun than either you or the people in TFA.
I play other games - like Super Smash Bros Melee and StarCraft - competitively. I've gone to tournaments and watched replays and managed to snag some games with pros. I find pleasure in the competition, the challenge, as well as gain pleasure from acknowledgment of my improvement. I have been regularly surprised by many casual Melee/SC players who try to argue that *not* competing is more fun. It's as though they're trying to, well, compete at having more fun. Somehow the irony is often lost on them.
When it comes to things like politics or religion, it is technically possible for one person to be correct and another to be wrong about the best ways to go about things. "Fun," however, is completely, 100% subjective. Different people find different things fun.
Err... which Window Manager are you using? One of Linux's greatest strengths is it's plethora of options. If your running compiz-fusion on top of gnome, then yes there may be some slow down. Try something like openbox and then try to tell me with a straight face that the interface isn't responsive.
They can just attribute your loss in sales to piracy. There's just not enough people willing to stop buying EA's games in protest to actually change EA's minds. If a successful legal attack is practical it may be the best option.
Do you understand that this is largely about preferences, which differ from person to person? Oddly enough, no one else in my family thinks *any* of my music is any what good while I like it all quite a bit. IMO there's only been a handful of decent games since the turn of the millennium, largely because the market is turning away from what I like in games. Or do you also believe that the change of focus from PC to console games is because I'm stuck up as well?
There is a large number of perfectly healthy, sane people such as my self who feel the videogame market is going the wrong way and dislike most games coming out these days. Get off your own high horse, and get it off our lawns.
Re:My advice - don't look for satisfaction in game
on
How Do Games Grow Up?
·
· Score: 1
That's your problem right there. Games only kill time.
I disagree. There is no reason that other media, such as books and movies, is somehow more capable of offering more productivity than games. The only real difference is games offer some sort of interaction.
Games can be used to discuss serious topics and conceptually challenge the player. Consider Deus Ex and it's discussion of the way information and technology is blending in with humanity - literally. It's discussion of government and freedoms (and terrorism).
The problem is that few games genuinely try to do more than deliver shallow entertainment, and of the few that do only a small chunk do it any what well. (I haven't met anyone who's had their views changed by Metal Gear Solid's anti-nuke stuff). This is largely because many people (such as yourself, it seems) can't get passed the idea that a game can have just as much - if not more - depth than other media. As a result there is no market.
However, learning a slightly more challenging real-life task gives you more skills with long-term usefulness; My youngest daughter is learning piano
What? I'm actually quite fond of the piano, but seriously now. With piano it'll be much easier to entertain others; beyond that I fail to see how it is any what more real-world beneficial than, say, the game of Go. Heck, the main reason piano would be better for entertainment is because of this mental stigmata against games - otherwise a discussion of Go could be quite entertaining in it's own right.
I don't mean any offense, but it's your mentality that has largely ensured the gap in games on par with, say, George Orwell's works. Try to open up a little - there is just so much potential there.
"Do you remember where you were when Obama was elected?"
In the basement on the couch in my boxers drinking a beer.
Truly a great moment.
Erm...
Re:Most humans aren't that smart
on
The State of Game AI
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes, increasing the AI could very well make the games fun for many people. What you're talking about is not exactly the kind of AI that's needed. There is a very big difference between being able to beat the human player and being able to outwit the human player. It's not necessarily difficulty or realism that's needed, it's creativity and genuine surprise.
I want a game where the AI is smart enough to send a probe over and throw assimilator over the player's vespene geyser to keep the player behind in tech. I want an AI who will excessively use flash-bang grenades and then suddenly switch to a smoke grenade so the player will look away to avoid being blinded while the AI runs in and shoots him up. I want an AI smart enough to toss a veggie at his partner to give his partner back his up-b and help him recover back to the stage.
These things may be possible today by coding in the exact individual ideas, but human players will quickly learn all the very limited tricks the AI knows and become bored with the AI. Still, it's better than what the vast majority of games have and I'd really love to see such things. What we really need is AI that's creative. That would make games much more fun.
Don't count on it. Plenty of people look at me like I'm from Mars when, after begging me - the local techie - to fix their computer, I try to explain to them they cant do such-and-such because of DRM (and what DRM is, etc). eg: Just recently had to explain to someone why their WMA-DRM'd music won't work on their ipod.
No, most likely Joe Sixpack will accept that there's some technobable reason why it's not working and that the choices are (A) buy another player, (B) have the techie rig up some questionably legal solution, or (C) stop watching the movie/playing the game/etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless the actual laptop owners get to set/change the codes themselves - as well as disabling the feature completely - in which case it won't be any worse than SSH/remote_desktop/et al.
None of what you said invalidates the arguments against the the conclusions in TFA. In fact it could have come out the opposite with TFA claiming that Win7 is slower than Vista, and aside from a number of horrid jokes much of Slashdot would be making similar arguments to what they are now. MS still has plenty of time to work on and optimize it, etc. MS has gotten itself in lose-lose situations with Slashdot before (eg: IE8 compatibility stuff), but here it's just that there isn't much that can be seriously concluded performance-wise from an early $SOFTWARE build, good or bad.
Just because the arguments made from a group of people happen to echo previous things they've said does not necessarily make the arguments any less solid.
When explaining complex concepts, it's often better to keep things as simple as possible. I would simply ask the man: "Don't charitable organizations exist to give away free tutoring to students, free food to the hungry, and other volunteer work?" "Yeah." "Well the same organizations exist in the world of computers. They give-away free software to benefit the community." I'd then leave him to think about that for awhile.
While I agree with the principle here, that's not a very good example. That gives the impression that F/OSS is only for people who, well, need charity. People who can not afford preferable non-F/OSS. People who are willing to put up with less.
Be careful with analogies. While it can be more complex, I usually prefer to explain the actual situation in the simplest terms I can:
There's a number of ways in which F/OSS can be legitimately free and capable. A couple examples: Some companies, like Redhat, want you to use their software free of charge at home. This way you become accustom to it and will want to use it at work, where the Redhat can then charge for support and "CYA" insurance. Microsoft did something similar back in the day, which was a large part of why it's so big right now (just they were a bit less straight-forward about it). This way companies like Redhat want to give you the absolute best stuff they can, free of charge, because they know it will benefit them in the long term. Another example: Consider the fact that a company whose sole purpose is to make money will want to cut corners where they can and will not fix a problem if they don't believe the benefits of doing so will outweigh the costs. However, someone who is making the software because they want to create something useful - even if it's just for his/her own use - will try to make it the best he/she can if the time is available. The fact that other people can use it free is just a side-effect.
Yes, these are more complicated and harder for Joe Sixpack to relate to. However, they're less likely to be misinterpreted, because those are actual reasons.
This attitude is common with the older generation who aren't used to the net
A week ago I helped a-friend-of-a-friend fix up his computer. Fairly standard: XP machine absolutely brimming with malicious software. It was to far gone - boot into Linux off of a USB stick, back everything up, reinstall XP, find drivers (on another computer and copy over because this included Ethernet drivers) because he lost the disks, reinstall software.
He was repeatedly impressed at Linux's advantages here (boot off another medium, things like Ethernet work without hunting for drivers, etc). He asked me how much Linux cost, and then lost all interest after my response. I explained how businesses (eg, Redhat) could work here but nothing sunk in after I said the word "free".
He's 18. Not exactly "older generation."
One of the requirements is that there will be an extremely large number of possible questions (and answers) to keep attackers from making a small database for every question or simply brute forcing it too quickly. As a result it is preferable not to need human interaction to create the question/answer sets. Varying pictures of animals/etc are not something computers can generate on their own, but would require human beings to collect. The amount of additional manpower needed using such a method over what we use today is substantial... too much.
On Debian-based distros like Ubuntu, /dev/shm is a ramdisk which will automatically resize, compared to /dev/ramX which gets a bit weird about changing size.
Just to clarify for anyone who misunderstood this, I believe bluefoxlucid was referring to a swap partition *on a local hard drive* and not on the USB flash drive. For example, if you're booting on what typically is a Linux machine there is a very good chance that there is already a local swap partitioned off. Just be wary about what you may leave behind if you're not careful.
One thing I've found really, really helps is to use smaller programs et al. While the difference in how long it takes to start up gnome-terminal vs rxvt or nautilus vs pcmanfm is minimal on a normal/modern desktop or laptop, the difference is substantial on a cheap USB flash drive. There's plenty of lists for lightweight applications, window managers etc for linux around online. In fact, I'll often just stick with terminal applications (moc, for instance).
Another option, if you're booting on a box which has a good internet connection, is to ssh -X things over a network. Not only does this save a large amount of space, but I've found it's often faster to have a program like Firefox start on my snazzy box at home and ssh -X over than waiting for it to load off of my crappy usb drive.
If I were some American government then I would prefer people to use Linux, too. Sadly I'm not an American government.
Would you mind sharing what software you use? All of the antivirus software I'm aware of for Linux or *BSD is designed to look for Windows viruses/malware. Good for cleaning up my neighbor's computer from a live USB but not so useful for protecting any of my *nix boxen.
Why do people want to do things with a PHONE that will make it so that they can't use it as a PHONE?
You've seriously never had a situation where you were idling, wishing you brought a book? Say, waiting at a dentist's office or during a 45min break between classes because of scheduling issues?
Having entertainment on-hand can be pretty damn useful, even if it comes at the cost of limiting the phone's usefulness before the next charge. Pre-smartphone I did my best to keep a book on my person 24/7, but now I can just pull out my blackberry and browse slashdot et al, even though that eats into my battery pretty quick.
I plunked down the USD$50 back when it was still fresh and played through it a half dozen times since. The difficulty is in trying to convince my friend, et al that it is worth going without coffee for a day.
I've been waiting for and watching Black Mesa since it's inception, and with it's history of set backs and (relatively) slow progress I'll keep my original plan of recommending the original to my friend. If BM is even half as good as the original HL it'll be worth another go through anyways when it's released. I the BM team luck and mean them no offense, it's just they're no where near close enough to justify waiting for the original any longer.
I've got some friends who haven't played it. It's not so unheard of for people to miss classics and just never get the chance to go back to 'em, or for people to gain interest in gaming after Half Life's time has started to fade.
Why do we care about the "spread of communism"? Why do we care about "defending Israel"? There are a lot of humanitarian causes far more dire and we leave those tragedies alone with a clear conscience. Can someone tell me why we spend SO much money and so many human lives on "expanding democracy" and "defending Israel"?
Historically, it's nearly unheard of for democracies to fight other democracies. Hence, the more democracies there are, the less of a chance that the US will be attacked by another organized government.
Israel, for all it's faults, is a US-backing democracy in a part of the world that isn't exactly friendly with the US nor very much democratic. It's advantageous for the US to have a friendly presence in the Middle East as it does with Israel.
Humanitarian aid doesn't have a very good rate-of-return. People who are busy killing each other and/or starving and/or dieing of disease offer little threat to the US. It's not going to benefit the US to help them.
Now I'm not saying that spreading democracy etc is the best way to strength the US's well being, but there is a fair bit of logic saying that it helps.
I mean, I'm all about open source but nobody developing or promoting proprietary software?
I agree that F/OSS isn't quite apt to replace all proprietary software. There are situations where proprietary software would be better off.
What about the business world and the wide variety of custom made software tailored to specific business segments?
In fact, this is an area I believe a F/OSS business model would work best. The business which wants it's custom-tailored software can pay people to make it just as they would proprietary stuff, but have it GPL'd. That could even reduce the price, being able to build off other F/OSS stuff instead of from scratch. And because it's tailored to the one company, there's little chance of competition taking advantage of it. Win-win.
What about gaming?
Aye, that's where the problems that I see are. When you have one unified group of people who want software and can pay for the whole development of it, GPL'd stuff is great as it helps lower the initial cost. However, when the funds for development are scattered, it can be extremely difficult to get all the money together where it needs to be. Few will want to contribute if they know that, once everyone else does and the project is done, they can just compile it themselves free of cost.
There are ways around that, though. Companies can easily fund the creation of F/OSS that will benefit them even if they can't sell it. Consider Google's relationship with Firefox and Android. This does not cover every possibility, and games are one area that a GPL business model doesn't hold up quite as well as proprietary. As F/OSS grows in popularity, hopefully others will think of successful ways to get F/OSS to work where I couldn't.
I've always found it very difficult to chose whether or not to back those who support my own aims for all the wrong reasons.
Which group has more "fun"?
Consider: Straight men don't have as much fun as gay men because they have to have sex with women.
Personally, I haven't found WoW to be fun at all, either rushing through it or taking my time. However, that's not to say that by not playing WoW I'm having more fun than either you or the people in TFA.
I play other games - like Super Smash Bros Melee and StarCraft - competitively. I've gone to tournaments and watched replays and managed to snag some games with pros. I find pleasure in the competition, the challenge, as well as gain pleasure from acknowledgment of my improvement. I have been regularly surprised by many casual Melee/SC players who try to argue that *not* competing is more fun. It's as though they're trying to, well, compete at having more fun. Somehow the irony is often lost on them.
When it comes to things like politics or religion, it is technically possible for one person to be correct and another to be wrong about the best ways to go about things. "Fun," however, is completely, 100% subjective. Different people find different things fun.
Err... which Window Manager are you using? One of Linux's greatest strengths is it's plethora of options. If your running compiz-fusion on top of gnome, then yes there may be some slow down. Try something like openbox and then try to tell me with a straight face that the interface isn't responsive.
They can just attribute your loss in sales to piracy. There's just not enough people willing to stop buying EA's games in protest to actually change EA's minds. If a successful legal attack is practical it may be the best option.
Do you understand that this is largely about preferences, which differ from person to person? Oddly enough, no one else in my family thinks *any* of my music is any what good while I like it all quite a bit. IMO there's only been a handful of decent games since the turn of the millennium, largely because the market is turning away from what I like in games. Or do you also believe that the change of focus from PC to console games is because I'm stuck up as well?
There is a large number of perfectly healthy, sane people such as my self who feel the videogame market is going the wrong way and dislike most games coming out these days. Get off your own high horse, and get it off our lawns.
That's your problem right there. Games only kill time.
I disagree. There is no reason that other media, such as books and movies, is somehow more capable of offering more productivity than games. The only real difference is games offer some sort of interaction.
Games can be used to discuss serious topics and conceptually challenge the player. Consider Deus Ex and it's discussion of the way information and technology is blending in with humanity - literally. It's discussion of government and freedoms (and terrorism).
The problem is that few games genuinely try to do more than deliver shallow entertainment, and of the few that do only a small chunk do it any what well. (I haven't met anyone who's had their views changed by Metal Gear Solid's anti-nuke stuff). This is largely because many people (such as yourself, it seems) can't get passed the idea that a game can have just as much - if not more - depth than other media. As a result there is no market.
However, learning a slightly more challenging real-life task gives you more skills with long-term usefulness; My youngest daughter is learning piano
What? I'm actually quite fond of the piano, but seriously now. With piano it'll be much easier to entertain others; beyond that I fail to see how it is any what more real-world beneficial than, say, the game of Go. Heck, the main reason piano would be better for entertainment is because of this mental stigmata against games - otherwise a discussion of Go could be quite entertaining in it's own right.
I don't mean any offense, but it's your mentality that has largely ensured the gap in games on par with, say, George Orwell's works. Try to open up a little - there is just so much potential there.
"Do you remember where you were when Obama was elected?"
In the basement on the couch in my boxers drinking a beer.
Truly a great moment.
Erm...
Yes, increasing the AI could very well make the games fun for many people. What you're talking about is not exactly the kind of AI that's needed. There is a very big difference between being able to beat the human player and being able to outwit the human player. It's not necessarily difficulty or realism that's needed, it's creativity and genuine surprise.
I want a game where the AI is smart enough to send a probe over and throw assimilator over the player's vespene geyser to keep the player behind in tech. I want an AI who will excessively use flash-bang grenades and then suddenly switch to a smoke grenade so the player will look away to avoid being blinded while the AI runs in and shoots him up. I want an AI smart enough to toss a veggie at his partner to give his partner back his up-b and help him recover back to the stage.
These things may be possible today by coding in the exact individual ideas, but human players will quickly learn all the very limited tricks the AI knows and become bored with the AI. Still, it's better than what the vast majority of games have and I'd really love to see such things. What we really need is AI that's creative. That would make games much more fun.
Don't count on it. Plenty of people look at me like I'm from Mars when, after begging me - the local techie - to fix their computer, I try to explain to them they cant do such-and-such because of DRM (and what DRM is, etc). eg: Just recently had to explain to someone why their WMA-DRM'd music won't work on their ipod.
No, most likely Joe Sixpack will accept that there's some technobable reason why it's not working and that the choices are (A) buy another player, (B) have the techie rig up some questionably legal solution, or (C) stop watching the movie/playing the game/etc.