But then that's a fault of UNIX allowing an application to bring down the system.
> No freedom.
Pray tell how a UNIX port would give you LESS freedom?
> Don't be surprised if you
> will need a Passport account just to run Word.
That's just ridiculous.
> Why would anyone work on improving Koffice,
> StarOffice, or LaTeX if MS Office exists on
> the UNIX platform?
You must be forgetting that Microsoft would still charge hundreds of dollars for Office/UNIX...
Even if Microsoft does sell a lot of Office/UNIX, then the Koffice/StarOffice people will have a whole lot of customers available to directly lure -- right now they have to convince many people to change platforms!
> User friendliness.
Don't make me laugh. Every new iteration brings a new really really stupid and annoying 'feature'... (e.g., clippy, smart menus, smart tags)
As an Australian and a domain name owner, I can say that I've been pleased with the way domain name registrations have been run so far. We're one of the few (the only?) country to have any sort of business name validation on our business domains (.com.au and.net.au).
And we're the only one who's had a community domain that has been protected from big business (.org.au).
If any of this changes, I'll be severely disappointed!
I don't know about you, but my SuperBeta deck shits all over VHS in image quality. It's on par with SVHS in fact.
One thing VHS doesn't have that Beta always had is a FAST TRANSPORT. That's right, Betas take about half the time to start playing, and they're able to seek back and forth on the tape with almost no delay.
> If slashdot had a clue, they would mirror XYZ
> site before posting, using xxx.slashdot.org, ie
> overclockers.com.au.slashdot.org or something.
> Keep it mirrored for 1week then flush it.
I doubt any site that was funded by banner advertising would appreciate that.
Plus, I doubt that the person who pays Slashdot's bandwidth bill would appreciate either.
Not to mention the murky copyright issues involved...
Could they make a simple detector system that worked out the position of your head, so that it could move the illumination plate to compensate? Then you'd be able to move your head around a little.
It could even feed the head angle information through the serial port into software, so that programs could 'move' the image. So if you moved your head to the left, you actually reveal more of the left side of the object!
Not particularly surprising, given that an NTSC television has a maximum pixel resolution of 720x480 (non-square pixels; this is the resolution of DVD). Even high-definition TV can't compete once you set your computer past 1024x768.
I'm guessing that a GF3 set to 640x480 or 800x600 would provide similar gaming performance to the xbox.
The catch is -- game developers will add extra levels of detail to the xbox to make up for the loss in resolution. Whether you'll be able to 'enable' this extra niceness in the PC releases is up to the developer, I guess. I can hardly see Carmack not offering comparable dosh to the PC crowd when its already programmed.
On the more general issue:
TV's might be bigger, but they're really low res, flickery and interlaced. No finely detailed health and weapon displays here!
Games like Tribes 2 will demand steady, high resolutions for maps and prescision game control, it'll need a mouse for organizing your team games, it'll need a keyboard for communication. Xbox versions won't offer this.
I can't imagine anyone seriously trying to snipe another player using a TV and analog joypad. Some things just DON'T happen.
Broadband in Australia is actually pretty darn good. For a fee about twice that of a good dial-up service, you can get fast cable internet which is not heavily restricted (considering we don't have uberpipes to America fully running yet).
Both major cable services let you download a few hundred megs per day without worry -- a pretty sweet deal imho. Optus@Home is not download capped, but is upload capped at 8k/sec. Big Pond Broadband's 'Freedom' plan is capped at 64k/sec(16k/sec up), which is still pretty good.
There are also various ADSL and sattelite services running.
As an Australian, I'm pretty darn satisfied with our broadband availability. You can check out my site here: http://whirlpool.net.au
On a not-so-related note, here is an article of mine that got rejected recently:
-----------
In late 1999, the Federal Parliament of Australia passed a piece of legislature, widely touted as the 'internet censorship bill'. One year later, it has been interesting to see what this bill has achieved: aside from a couple of locally hosted porn sites moving overseas, not much at all. Recently, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (the body responsible for implementing this bill) has acted on a number of complaints from users about various newsgroups, particularly those involving child pornography. Satisfied that the content is locally hosted, it has used this bill to issue a final take-down notice against Australia's largest ISP and phone co, Telstra. This has garnered a mixed reaction from Australian net users.
We might not be able to stop the drive manufacturers from adding this unique identifier to storage devices, but there is a clear and simple way of stopping it from becoming mainstream -- pressure Apple Computer Inc. to ensure that the CPRM system is not enablable on their computers. This is an easy way to ensure that the control system doesn't work (or more importantly, CAN'T work) on 99% of consumer computers.
Easier still -- just get the device drivers to intercept any calls to inspect the key section, and replace it with a "generic key". This means anyone with a driver using the "generic key" will be able to use the file.
Slashdot Mirror
ROLF, how naive
> Bloat.
And Linux isn't bloated?
> MS Office defies the basic principles of UNIX.
Of course it does. It's not a UNIX app.
> It will probably need to run as root
How do you figure?
> and make our systems unstable
But then that's a fault of UNIX allowing an application to bring down the system.
> No freedom.
Pray tell how a UNIX port would give you LESS freedom?
> Don't be surprised if you
> will need a Passport account just to run Word.
That's just ridiculous.
> Why would anyone work on improving Koffice,
> StarOffice, or LaTeX if MS Office exists on
> the UNIX platform?
You must be forgetting that Microsoft would still charge hundreds of dollars for Office/UNIX...
Even if Microsoft does sell a lot of Office/UNIX, then the Koffice/StarOffice people will have a whole lot of customers available to directly lure -- right now they have to convince many people to change platforms!
> User friendliness.
Don't make me laugh. Every new iteration brings a new really really stupid and annoying 'feature'... (e.g., clippy, smart menus, smart tags)
> Hackability.
Who'd bother to hack a hack?
Simon.
That's a lot of movies.
> The problem there is that you will exfoliate
> onto the stool, and MS will be able to trace
> your DNA back to you. Then you're really fscked!
just claim it was stolen
chewing gum, a toy slingshot, two day-old salmon, and a ball of twine
Wow, just imagine a beowul....
Enjoy!
http://whirlpool.net.au/mirror/freeme.zip
Simon
Infunnytive?
Bill Clinton is in Australia at the moment.
Oh, and the Australian Prime Minister is currently in Washington.
(...hmmm, sounds like a fair swap to me...)
As an Australian and a domain name owner, I can say that I've been pleased with the way domain name registrations have been run so far. We're one of the few (the only?) country to have any sort of business name validation on our business domains (.com.au and .net.au).
And we're the only one who's had a community domain that has been protected from big business (.org.au).
If any of this changes, I'll be severely disappointed!
Simon Wright
I don't know about you, but my SuperBeta deck shits all over VHS in image quality. It's on par with SVHS in fact.
One thing VHS doesn't have that Beta always had is a FAST TRANSPORT. That's right, Betas take about half the time to start playing, and they're able to seek back and forth on the tape with almost no delay.
Apple Pie isn't an American dish.
--
Ahem, there is also an eject disk menu command.
BAM!
--
wouldn't that be "last post!"??
--
> If slashdot had a clue, they would mirror XYZ
> site before posting, using xxx.slashdot.org, ie
> overclockers.com.au.slashdot.org or something.
> Keep it mirrored for 1week then flush it.
I doubt any site that was funded by banner advertising would appreciate that.
Plus, I doubt that the person who pays Slashdot's bandwidth bill would appreciate either.
Not to mention the murky copyright issues involved...
Simon
--
Could they make a simple detector system that worked out the position of your head, so that it could move the illumination plate to compensate? Then you'd be able to move your head around a little.
It could even feed the head angle information through the serial port into software, so that programs could 'move' the image. So if you moved your head to the left, you actually reveal more of the left side of the object!
Just thinking...
Simon Wright
http://whirlpool.net.au - Australian Broadband News
--
Only one problem -- Laserdisc video is not digital.
Simon
--
As I said...
Even high-definition TV can't compete once you set your computer past 1024x768.
--
What about Mac OS X on a Powerbook G4? It has the *nix, and it has the sex, according to Steve Jobs... :)
--
> Given that xbox is more powerful than a GF3
Not particularly surprising, given that an NTSC television has a maximum pixel resolution of 720x480 (non-square pixels; this is the resolution of DVD). Even high-definition TV can't compete once you set your computer past 1024x768.
I'm guessing that a GF3 set to 640x480 or 800x600 would provide similar gaming performance to the xbox.
The catch is -- game developers will add extra levels of detail to the xbox to make up for the loss in resolution. Whether you'll be able to 'enable' this extra niceness in the PC releases is up to the developer, I guess. I can hardly see Carmack not offering comparable dosh to the PC crowd when its already programmed.
On the more general issue:
TV's might be bigger, but they're really low res, flickery and interlaced. No finely detailed health and weapon displays here!
Games like Tribes 2 will demand steady, high resolutions for maps and prescision game control, it'll need a mouse for organizing your team games, it'll need a keyboard for communication. Xbox versions won't offer this.
I can't imagine anyone seriously trying to snipe another player using a TV and analog joypad. Some things just DON'T happen.
--
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://validator .w3.org/check?uri=http://validator.w3.org/check?ur i=http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://validat or.w3.org/check?uri=www.slashdot.org
;)
Wow, it works!
--
Broadband in Australia is actually pretty darn good. For a fee about twice that of a good dial-up service, you can get fast cable internet which is not heavily restricted (considering we don't have uberpipes to America fully running yet).
Both major cable services let you download a few hundred megs per day without worry -- a pretty sweet deal imho. Optus@Home is not download capped, but is upload capped at 8k/sec. Big Pond Broadband's 'Freedom' plan is capped at 64k/sec(16k/sec up), which is still pretty good.
There are also various ADSL and sattelite services running.
As an Australian, I'm pretty darn satisfied with our broadband availability. You can check out my site here: http://whirlpool.net.au
On a not-so-related note, here is an article of mine that got rejected recently:
-----------
In late 1999, the Federal Parliament of Australia passed a piece of legislature, widely touted as the 'internet censorship bill'. One year later, it has been interesting to see what this bill has achieved: aside from a couple of locally hosted porn sites moving overseas, not much at all. Recently, the Australian Broadcasting Authority (the body responsible for implementing this bill) has acted on a number of complaints from users about various newsgroups, particularly those involving child pornography. Satisfied that the content is locally hosted, it has used this bill to issue a final take-down notice against Australia's largest ISP and phone co, Telstra. This has garnered a mixed reaction from Australian net users.
----------
--
We might not be able to stop the drive manufacturers from adding this unique identifier to storage devices, but there is a clear and simple way of stopping it from becoming mainstream -- pressure Apple Computer Inc. to ensure that the CPRM system is not enablable on their computers. This is an easy way to ensure that the control system doesn't work (or more importantly, CAN'T work) on 99% of consumer computers.
--
Oh, and first post!
/comments.pl in order to allow everyone to have a fair chance to post.
ACTUAL ERROR:
--------------
Slow down cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait 1 minute between each submission of
It's been 1 minute since your last submission!
--
Can't get to page, it says the page doesn't exist.
--
Easier still -- just get the device drivers to intercept any calls to inspect the key section, and replace it with a "generic key". This means anyone with a driver using the "generic key" will be able to use the file.
--