I'm certainly not pulling it from my ass. Of the 800, around 100 are directly handling incoming requests. These hand off to threaded execution engines which further paralellise (sp?) the request processing. Those engines account for maybe another 300 threads. Then you have system threads, cullers for caches, messaging transceivers, and the like. It's not a game for sure (no vsync to worry about!), but we certainly do have areas of sensitivity to locking, sync, etc where multiple threads share state.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, what is it with the slashdot fear of threading? Otherwise intelligent people seem to consider it (a) amazingly hard (b) brand new and cutting edge (c) only any use if you have multiple cores and (d) not really very useful at all to be honest. All four are false.
Using an appropriate language (for example, Java), and provided you know what you're doing, threading is not hard. One of the apps I am responsible for routinely runs 800+ threads on 16 processor boxes. I'm no rocket scientist, but it works. Threading is also not new, or rare. Taking a look at task manager on the XP box I'm using right now shows over 300 threads running, with some apps taking as many as 50. This is on a single processor box - threading works on a single processor because it allows you, the application programmer, not to have to write your own scheduler (for example, to handle blocking IO without locking up the GUI). The OS is usually better at these things than you.
It's a good idea but the no-cd EXE will leak The no-cd EXE has already leaked (or rather, will very soon be created). This kind of dumb copy protection doesn't stop piracy but it does annoy customers. There are several games which I haven't bought simply because I've heard of people having trouble making it work due to some protection mechanism.
So, what happens when the readership of blogs is 1/3 of newspapers?
Then we'll talk.:) I don't think this'll happen for some time, if ever, so I may never have to answer the question!
According to this page, boingboing - a pretty popular blog - gets around 300k readers a day. That's three times the previously quoted LA daily newspaper. So - answer the question. Are the people who contribute to boingboing journalists?
A bunch of university physicists and rocket scientists write a comic to explain the science of the ionosphere to 11 year olds by inventing a story of electrically charged robot space-dogs (who vomit "energy biscuits") and the first thought in your head is "that's not manga - it was written by am American!".
Man, you need to put down the comics and step outside for a break.
Me. What would I want a harddrive on it for exactly? It is designed to sit on a wireless network. Mine won't leave my apartment, it's a small, easy to use, handheld web client. If I need access to storage I'll point it at my fileserver. This is not a PDA, it's not a "true palmtop computer", it's not an mp3 player, it's a thing for getting on the web easily without a big hulking laptop.
I don't see this as being for carrying around at all. I want one to sit on my coffee table and allow quick and easy access to the web and my local network without a laptop. One of my main planned uses is as a uber-remote control for my networked audio system.
A few years back Nokia ignored the flip phone trend and as such I can't even buy a Nokia from Cingular, the largest retailer of phones in North America.
Apart of course from the Nokia 6010, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3220, and Nokia 6102. All of which are listed on their website. Last phone I bought was a couple of months ago, from Cingular, in a store, and it's a Nokia.
Amusing, but wrong. A copy if Linux is just like a copy of any other work, be it from Microsoft, Britney Spears or Cory Doctrow. You own the physical medium (a CD, a book, a piece of hard disk space, whatever), but you do _not_ own the actual content (the words, notes or bytecode) - it's licensed to you. The same holds for Linux, Windows, Hit Me Baby One More Time and anything else you can think of. The terms of the license differ, but the existence of the license is consistent.
I think what we're trying to point out here is that you "own" Linux in exactly the same way as you "own" windows. Both are licensed to you, under somewhat different terms, you don't own copyright on either. So whatever you consider to be the definition of "own" - the same holds for both platforms.
The main problem with reselling PC games is that many of them use CD keys which register with some server and cause the subsequent purchaser all sorts of problems. That in turn causes the store problems, so they stop carrying them (the sales are pretty low compared to consoles anyway). There's no legal issue, provided it's a genuine copy (and you've uninstalled it) you're fully entitled to resell it.
Can you make a copy of a car, download a 'car crack', then sell the car while still retaining the full use of said car? No? Then stop comparing this with selling a used car. A slightly closer analogy would be buying Harry Potter, then scanning / photocopying it before reselling it. And even that's a poor comparison because it takes a lot of effort to scan a huge novel and the resulting copy is less convienent to use than the original. Ok, lets look at something which is even easier to copy than games - music CDs. Do you think that used CD stores (like, I dunno, Amazon) should donate money to EMI? Or DVDs. Or whatever. First sale is an exceptionally important concept which really defines what it means to own something. If we lose that we're really screwed.
My data is valuable, and the latest and greatest versions of ALL my digital efforts, logs, spreadsheets, documents, text files, scripts, are always where I am.
My data is valuable as well, to my employer. Not to me. They provide SAN storage with multiple redundant levels of backup archived for 10 years. I don't really see how a $30 thumbdrive is going to add a great deal of reliability there. Additionally, the likleyhood of it falling into "unfriendly" hands increase very greatly when I take it out of the building. I'm amazed your employer allows you to walk around with company data in your pocket.
I agree. I'm not sure exactly what it is that people carry around on their flash drives and whatnot. My work data stays at work, I have no real desire to access it at home, and if I do need to (like if I decide to work at home for a day) I just use the VPN. Likewise, my home data stays at home, with the notable exception of music which is on my DAP. I guess that's a portable drive really, but I only ever use it for music and it only ever docks with my home PC. If there's the odd file which I do need to transfer, I either email it or throw it on a web server.
I'm sure if you do need to carry around 100's of megs all the time they're very useful, but I just don't see how many people need to do that. Not to mention all our USB ports are locked down at work for security.
Agreed. Usually at least once a day my computer starts really grinding and swapping like crazy, which is when I realise Firefox has eaten up over a gig of ram, ground to a halt, and needs to be killed. It's a shame, because I love everything else about it - but it just isn't stable or lightweight.
Copyright governs what you can do with a copy of a work. When you obtain such a work it is under some kind of license. For example, if you buy a DVD in a store you have various rights, such as the right to lend or sell the disc to someone else, provided you haven't made any copies yourself of course. In the case of a screener, the DVD is not bought in a store, it is provided under a very strict license which prohibits any redistribution.
As others have pointed out, those are ingame screens (xbox anyway, I haven't seen it on other consoles). I agree it would be nice to include some from the regular race mode with HUD etc, but they're not that different.
As for the PSP, you don't have Burnout: Revenge for the PSP, because it doesn't exist. You have Burnout: Legends. Legends is billed as a combination of the best bits of Burnout 1, 2 and 3. It doesn't include the new stuff from Revenge (Burnout 4).
Well it is the case. I've got gold a number of times and only ended up with 3 stars, because I didn't do enough fancy stuff. Awesome is 4 stars, Gold is +1, Bronze is -1, the only way of getting 5 (=Perfect) is Awesome + Gold. No stars at all for no medal, regardless of rating.
I don't watch anime, but I do like a lot of european movies (french, spanish, etc) and my language skills are rarely up to the job. I refuse to watch a dubbed version, as not only is the lack of lip sync distracting but the original voice (and language) gives you so much in the way of expression and emotion which is always lost when some $20/hour "voice talent" butchers it.
You really want me to go through all these scenarios? None of them are exactly original. I'll bite...
What if a child used a microphone to record music played over the loudspeakers at a retail record establishment and didn't pay? You know, like when you walk into Tower and some record they are trying to push is being blasted over the storewide sound system. What if a kid recorded that and didn't pay?
Copyright infringment of the recording.
What if they did that in the lobby of Universal Music's corporate office?
Exactly the same.
What if they did it through the headphones of a sampling kiosk?
Likewise, same again. Duplication of a copyrighted sound recording without permission.
What if the kid had perfect memory and pitch and heard the song at a record store, memorized it, and recorded their own version at home?
That's their own performance, no problem. Unless they wanted to distribute the recording, in which case they'd need to pay royalties to the owner of the music's copyright (note that is NOT usually the label). The owner of the original recording's copyright (the label) is not involved.
What if they gave copies of that song to their friends? What if they put it on the internet? See above. They should pay royalties, but there's no permission required.
What if some kid transcribed notes out of the sheet music offered for sale of that same song, at that same store? Same as above.
What if some kid brought a midi keyboard and played along to the song at the store while recording the notes played to disk? What if they played from the sheet music instead? Please get more original - these are all the fricking same.
What if "what ifs" weren't so much fun? You call that fun? Here's one. How about I open up the Linux codebase, read a chunk and memorize it. Then I open up my emacs and retype it, but neglecting the GPL statements, copyright notices, etc. Then I bundle that up into a commercial, closed source app and sell it for $$$. Is that OK? If so then I apologise and accept your views on copyright as being different from mine, but perfectly valid. Otherwise....
If someone went into a record store, copied a CD, and then put the CD back and left, they would not be arrested for theft. Something else maybe, but not theft.
Did I mention theft? No. Is the girl in the story being sued for theft? No. What's theft got to do with anything? By downloading/copying stuff without the copyright holder's permission you break the law. Call it piracy, call it unauthorized copying, call it whatever you like. Still illegal. Of course whether it should be illegal is another matter. But that's not the RIAA's job to decide, it's yours (via the ballot box).
I happen to agree that the penalties given in such cases are absurd, and that the RIAA is doing a shitty PR job in going after people like this, but it's their right to do so and I support it, however much I think it's a dumb thing to do (much like I support the KKK's right to spout off offensive garbage). I and many of my friends make their living from creating things (music, visual art, software, etc) and without copyright we'd all be much worse off and probably working at McDonalds. So I support the idea of copyright, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I just wish people would stop passing off using Kazaa as some kind of alturistic civil disobedience when it's just being a greedy ass. If you like the music buy it, if not, don't.
If the kid didn't have any money to buy it in the first place, then who gives a fuck? You do? Yes I do. I don't care about it if one kid does it, in fact I'd think it was quite enterprising. But if it became popular (which it obviously would if allowed to continue) then I think we'd see some negative effects. Record stores would lose money, which would cause them to either (a) keep all the stock behind the counter making it harder to browse (kind of like DRM'ing your downloads) or (b) just go out of business. I'm all for fair use, I'm fully against DRM (and spend mucho cash on non-DRM legal downloads) but when it comes down to it I also believe in an artist's right to be paid for their work via whatever mechanism they choose. Finally, I believe in your right to choose not to buy their product. That DOES NOT give you the right to take a copy without paying.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm certainly not pulling it from my ass. Of the 800, around 100 are directly handling incoming requests. These hand off to threaded execution engines which further paralellise (sp?) the request processing. Those engines account for maybe another 300 threads. Then you have system threads, cullers for caches, messaging transceivers, and the like. It's not a game for sure (no vsync to worry about!), but we certainly do have areas of sensitivity to locking, sync, etc where multiple threads share state.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, what is it with the slashdot fear of threading? Otherwise intelligent people seem to consider it (a) amazingly hard (b) brand new and cutting edge (c) only any use if you have multiple cores and (d) not really very useful at all to be honest. All four are false.
Using an appropriate language (for example, Java), and provided you know what you're doing, threading is not hard. One of the apps I am responsible for routinely runs 800+ threads on 16 processor boxes. I'm no rocket scientist, but it works. Threading is also not new, or rare. Taking a look at task manager on the XP box I'm using right now shows over 300 threads running, with some apps taking as many as 50. This is on a single processor box - threading works on a single processor because it allows you, the application programmer, not to have to write your own scheduler (for example, to handle blocking IO without locking up the GUI). The OS is usually better at these things than you.
It's a good idea but the no-cd EXE will leak
The no-cd EXE has already leaked (or rather, will very soon be created). This kind of dumb copy protection doesn't stop piracy but it does annoy customers. There are several games which I haven't bought simply because I've heard of people having trouble making it work due to some protection mechanism.
So, what happens when the readership of blogs is 1/3 of newspapers?
:) I don't think this'll happen for some time, if ever, so I may never have to answer the question!
Then we'll talk.
According to this page, boingboing - a pretty popular blog - gets around 300k readers a day. That's three times the previously quoted LA daily newspaper. So - answer the question. Are the people who contribute to boingboing journalists?
So let me get this straight:
A bunch of university physicists and rocket scientists write a comic to explain the science of the ionosphere to 11 year olds by inventing a story of electrically charged robot space-dogs (who vomit "energy biscuits") and the first thought in your head is "that's not manga - it was written by am American!".
Man, you need to put down the comics and step outside for a break.
Indeed. As a brit living in NJ I have come to love the diners. Tick Tock rules :)
Me. What would I want a harddrive on it for exactly? It is designed to sit on a wireless network. Mine won't leave my apartment, it's a small, easy to use, handheld web client. If I need access to storage I'll point it at my fileserver. This is not a PDA, it's not a "true palmtop computer", it's not an mp3 player, it's a thing for getting on the web easily without a big hulking laptop.
I don't see this as being for carrying around at all. I want one to sit on my coffee table and allow quick and easy access to the web and my local network without a laptop. One of my main planned uses is as a uber-remote control for my networked audio system.
A few years back Nokia ignored the flip phone trend and as such I can't even buy a Nokia from Cingular, the largest retailer of phones in North America.
Apart of course from the Nokia 6010, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3220, and Nokia 6102. All of which are listed on their website. Last phone I bought was a couple of months ago, from Cingular, in a store, and it's a Nokia.
Amusing, but wrong. A copy if Linux is just like a copy of any other work, be it from Microsoft, Britney Spears or Cory Doctrow. You own the physical medium (a CD, a book, a piece of hard disk space, whatever), but you do _not_ own the actual content (the words, notes or bytecode) - it's licensed to you. The same holds for Linux, Windows, Hit Me Baby One More Time and anything else you can think of. The terms of the license differ, but the existence of the license is consistent.
I think what we're trying to point out here is that you "own" Linux in exactly the same way as you "own" windows. Both are licensed to you, under somewhat different terms, you don't own copyright on either. So whatever you consider to be the definition of "own" - the same holds for both platforms.
I have 2 of the regular 4:3 20" Dell's and they're great. Fantastic screens for a fantastic price, I'm sure the WS models are just as good.
The main problem with reselling PC games is that many of them use CD keys which register with some server and cause the subsequent purchaser all sorts of problems. That in turn causes the store problems, so they stop carrying them (the sales are pretty low compared to consoles anyway). There's no legal issue, provided it's a genuine copy (and you've uninstalled it) you're fully entitled to resell it.
Can you make a copy of a car, download a 'car crack', then sell the car while still retaining the full use of said car? No? Then stop comparing this with selling a used car. A slightly closer analogy would be buying Harry Potter, then scanning / photocopying it before reselling it. And even that's a poor comparison because it takes a lot of effort to scan a huge novel and the resulting copy is less convienent to use than the original.
Ok, lets look at something which is even easier to copy than games - music CDs. Do you think that used CD stores (like, I dunno, Amazon) should donate money to EMI? Or DVDs. Or whatever. First sale is an exceptionally important concept which really defines what it means to own something. If we lose that we're really screwed.
My data is valuable, and the latest and greatest versions of ALL my digital efforts, logs, spreadsheets, documents, text files, scripts, are always where I am.
My data is valuable as well, to my employer. Not to me. They provide SAN storage with multiple redundant levels of backup archived for 10 years. I don't really see how a $30 thumbdrive is going to add a great deal of reliability there. Additionally, the likleyhood of it falling into "unfriendly" hands increase very greatly when I take it out of the building. I'm amazed your employer allows you to walk around with company data in your pocket.
I agree. I'm not sure exactly what it is that people carry around on their flash drives and whatnot. My work data stays at work, I have no real desire to access it at home, and if I do need to (like if I decide to work at home for a day) I just use the VPN. Likewise, my home data stays at home, with the notable exception of music which is on my DAP. I guess that's a portable drive really, but I only ever use it for music and it only ever docks with my home PC. If there's the odd file which I do need to transfer, I either email it or throw it on a web server.
I'm sure if you do need to carry around 100's of megs all the time they're very useful, but I just don't see how many people need to do that. Not to mention all our USB ports are locked down at work for security.
Agreed. Usually at least once a day my computer starts really grinding and swapping like crazy, which is when I realise Firefox has eaten up over a gig of ram, ground to a halt, and needs to be killed. It's a shame, because I love everything else about it - but it just isn't stable or lightweight.
Copyright governs what you can do with a copy of a work. When you obtain such a work it is under some kind of license. For example, if you buy a DVD in a store you have various rights, such as the right to lend or sell the disc to someone else, provided you haven't made any copies yourself of course. In the case of a screener, the DVD is not bought in a store, it is provided under a very strict license which prohibits any redistribution.
As others have pointed out, those are ingame screens (xbox anyway, I haven't seen it on other consoles). I agree it would be nice to include some from the regular race mode with HUD etc, but they're not that different.
As for the PSP, you don't have Burnout: Revenge for the PSP, because it doesn't exist. You have Burnout: Legends. Legends is billed as a combination of the best bits of Burnout 1, 2 and 3. It doesn't include the new stuff from Revenge (Burnout 4).
Well it is the case. I've got gold a number of times and only ended up with 3 stars, because I didn't do enough fancy stuff. Awesome is 4 stars, Gold is +1, Bronze is -1, the only way of getting 5 (=Perfect) is Awesome + Gold. No stars at all for no medal, regardless of rating.
I thought it was for my birthday :(
I don't watch anime, but I do like a lot of european movies (french, spanish, etc) and my language skills are rarely up to the job. I refuse to watch a dubbed version, as not only is the lack of lip sync distracting but the original voice (and language) gives you so much in the way of expression and emotion which is always lost when some $20/hour "voice talent" butchers it.
You really want me to go through all these scenarios? None of them are exactly original. I'll bite...
What if a child used a microphone to record music played over the loudspeakers at a retail record establishment and didn't pay? You know, like when you walk into Tower and some record they are trying to push is being blasted over the storewide sound system. What if a kid recorded that and didn't pay?
Copyright infringment of the recording.
What if they did that in the lobby of Universal Music's corporate office?
Exactly the same.
What if they did it through the headphones of a sampling kiosk?
Likewise, same again. Duplication of a copyrighted sound recording without permission.
What if the kid had perfect memory and pitch and heard the song at a record store, memorized it, and recorded their own version at home?
That's their own performance, no problem. Unless they wanted to distribute the recording, in which case they'd need to pay royalties to the owner of the music's copyright (note that is NOT usually the label). The owner of the original recording's copyright (the label) is not involved.
What if they gave copies of that song to their friends? What if they put it on the internet?
See above. They should pay royalties, but there's no permission required.
What if some kid transcribed notes out of the sheet music offered for sale of that same song, at that same store?
Same as above.
What if some kid brought a midi keyboard and played along to the song at the store while recording the notes played to disk? What if they played from the sheet music instead?
Please get more original - these are all the fricking same.
What if "what ifs" weren't so much fun?
You call that fun? Here's one. How about I open up the Linux codebase, read a chunk and memorize it. Then I open up my emacs and retype it, but neglecting the GPL statements, copyright notices, etc. Then I bundle that up into a commercial, closed source app and sell it for $$$. Is that OK? If so then I apologise and accept your views on copyright as being different from mine, but perfectly valid. Otherwise....
If someone went into a record store, copied a CD, and then put the CD back and left, they would not be arrested for theft. Something else maybe, but not theft.
Did I mention theft? No. Is the girl in the story being sued for theft? No. What's theft got to do with anything? By downloading/copying stuff without the copyright holder's permission you break the law. Call it piracy, call it unauthorized copying, call it whatever you like. Still illegal. Of course whether it should be illegal is another matter. But that's not the RIAA's job to decide, it's yours (via the ballot box).
I happen to agree that the penalties given in such cases are absurd, and that the RIAA is doing a shitty PR job in going after people like this, but it's their right to do so and I support it, however much I think it's a dumb thing to do (much like I support the KKK's right to spout off offensive garbage). I and many of my friends make their living from creating things (music, visual art, software, etc) and without copyright we'd all be much worse off and probably working at McDonalds. So I support the idea of copyright, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I just wish people would stop passing off using Kazaa as some kind of alturistic civil disobedience when it's just being a greedy ass. If you like the music buy it, if not, don't.
If the kid didn't have any money to buy it in the first place, then who gives a fuck? You do?
Yes I do. I don't care about it if one kid does it, in fact I'd think it was quite enterprising. But if it became popular (which it obviously would if allowed to continue) then I think we'd see some negative effects. Record stores would lose money, which would cause them to either (a) keep all the stock behind the counter making it harder to browse (kind of like DRM'ing your downloads) or (b) just go out of business. I'm all for fair use, I'm fully against DRM (and spend mucho cash on non-DRM legal downloads) but when it comes down to it I also believe in an artist's right to be paid for their work via whatever mechanism they choose. Finally, I believe in your right to choose not to buy their product. That DOES NOT give you the right to take a copy without paying.
*removes friend*
LOL