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61
Like Ism said, if you believe that, you believe in a conspiracy. Not that you're wrong, just that I don't share that view. The only intention is to keep themselves in power (like any politician), and indirectly that reduces everyone's freedom. Look at Obama - he promised American voters so much, and now he's in power, he's so afraid of being criticised or losing votes that he won't introduce any real change at all. Consequence: health system stays broken, US Govt. supports ACTA, etc.
I'm not against Americans; if I meet one, and they will talk to me like a human being even though I'm not Christian and born in America, then that's perfectly fine. Sadly, the vast majority of people I met there were as bad as I said, especially those in a position to make my life difficult with their attitude (police, teachers, shop staff, elected representatives).
I saw FAR more racism from the Americans. We lived in an all-white neighbourhood and had an all-white school; most of the black population lived in a run-down and crime-ridden part of town well away from us; and Mexican people cut the grass. Completely segregated, by social pressure rather than legislation.
But I'm only against that specific mindset, and the people that share it.
The way it can be fixed is education. If more Americans knew something about outside their own borders (a minority of my state even owned a passport) then they would see why the rest of the world is different and learn to live with that.
The only conspiracy is unchecked self-interest, and mandated transparency and accountability would help with that.
I'm not against Americans; if I meet one, and they will talk to me like a human being even though I'm not Christian and born in America, then that's perfectly fine. Sadly, the vast majority of people I met there were as bad as I said, especially those in a position to make my life difficult with their attitude (police, teachers, shop staff, elected representatives).
I saw FAR more racism from the Americans. We lived in an all-white neighbourhood and had an all-white school; most of the black population lived in a run-down and crime-ridden part of town well away from us; and Mexican people cut the grass. Completely segregated, by social pressure rather than legislation.
But I'm only against that specific mindset, and the people that share it.
The way it can be fixed is education. If more Americans knew something about outside their own borders (a minority of my state even owned a passport) then they would see why the rest of the world is different and learn to live with that.
The only conspiracy is unchecked self-interest, and mandated transparency and accountability would help with that.
62
I don't believe in some vast conspiracy to reduce our freedom - however our respective governments, acting purely in self-interest and ignorance of what measures would actually work, have the net effect of reducing freedom.
Having lived in the US and UK for a number of years though, I can say that the UK has greater personal freedom. The US believe they have more of it though. But American culture was conformist - if you didn't fit in in some small way you were socially excluded and the authorities would work against you.
Examples:
- I questioned why we weren't being taught evolutionary biology, since it is a major part of science. Result: all other kids in class bullied me, calling me a 'non-believer' (as if that was a bad thing), and I never was able to have friends there.
- The school refused to provide support for my disability, even though the law required them to. Their reasoning was essentially that it would be giving me special treatment and they were afraid of complaints from other parents. I had to leave school after 2 years of trying to make them help, because they just would not do it (and not for lack of resources).
- No-one on our (suburban, relatively wealthy) street would talk to us since we did not attend church. The only Americans who would were a Jewish family not even from the state.
Having lived in the US and UK for a number of years though, I can say that the UK has greater personal freedom. The US believe they have more of it though. But American culture was conformist - if you didn't fit in in some small way you were socially excluded and the authorities would work against you.
Examples:
- I questioned why we weren't being taught evolutionary biology, since it is a major part of science. Result: all other kids in class bullied me, calling me a 'non-believer' (as if that was a bad thing), and I never was able to have friends there.
- The school refused to provide support for my disability, even though the law required them to. Their reasoning was essentially that it would be giving me special treatment and they were afraid of complaints from other parents. I had to leave school after 2 years of trying to make them help, because they just would not do it (and not for lack of resources).
- No-one on our (suburban, relatively wealthy) street would talk to us since we did not attend church. The only Americans who would were a Jewish family not even from the state.
63
ACTA is the single scariest piece of legislation ever devised.
My country's Parliament (UK) doesn't even get to decide whether it is implemented or not. The decision is taken by EU bodies which are unelected, undemocratic and behind closed doors.
I was going to write to my MEP (even though the European Parliament has no power over it) but they've already passed a near-unanimous resolution saying they don't like it very much. But that isn't binding or anything, it won't stop it.
The hilarious part is that it won't actually hinder committed pirates who always download stuff. It'll just reduce freedom for the rest of us, like the DMCA did in the US.
My country's Parliament (UK) doesn't even get to decide whether it is implemented or not. The decision is taken by EU bodies which are unelected, undemocratic and behind closed doors.
I was going to write to my MEP (even though the European Parliament has no power over it) but they've already passed a near-unanimous resolution saying they don't like it very much. But that isn't binding or anything, it won't stop it.
The hilarious part is that it won't actually hinder committed pirates who always download stuff. It'll just reduce freedom for the rest of us, like the DMCA did in the US.
64
Announcements / Re: Collisions
« on: March 27, 2010, 10:56:09 am »a global array of things GM users don't understand
This gave me an awesome and disturbing mental image. So this array encircles the world and contains everything that every GM user doesn't understand? Everything? Including Yoyo's business model, how their computer works, cheesy Wotsits, how to code multplayer that doesn't fail, the Central Limit Theorem, and quantum mechanics?
(Yes, I do understand what you really meant)
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Announcements / Re: Collisions
« on: March 27, 2010, 08:56:40 am »
Where is the list of implemented functions in SVN? The one on the website isn't up to date (I think) and I remember an earlier testing release had a list of functions in a text file.
66
Announcements / Re: Summary
« on: March 26, 2010, 02:20:53 pm »
Retro, it's not a requirement. You can choose either term, and no one's yet 'proved' you have to use one over the other.
RMS is an outspoken idiot. He could use his high profile to actually push Linux adoption rather than petty naming conflicts.
RMS is an outspoken idiot. He could use his high profile to actually push Linux adoption rather than petty naming conflicts.
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Announcements / Re: Summary
« on: March 26, 2010, 11:52:39 am »
GM: 260, 5-6 fps
Enigma: 1940, 11.13 fps
Fantastic work, Josh. Are we expecting more speedups in future (not that it needs it) from other work?
I was also impressed by the loading time vs. GM.
Enigma: 1940, 11.13 fps
Fantastic work, Josh. Are we expecting more speedups in future (not that it needs it) from other work?
I was also impressed by the loading time vs. GM.
68
Off-Topic / Re: Laptop Recommendations?
« on: March 25, 2010, 04:50:25 pm »
Go for it then. You could possibly get a better graphics card, but either power use would go up or you'd be getting an ATI 5xxx card (which only sometimes works in Linux). It's a good deal.
Battery life is atrocious on the quad though. On battery only, it will last about an hour, and much less under full gaming load.
Battery life is atrocious on the quad though. On battery only, it will last about an hour, and much less under full gaming load.
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Off-Topic / Re: Laptop Recommendations?
« on: March 25, 2010, 03:29:46 pm »
What are you using it for? Gaming (Linux or Windows)? 3D Rendering? Media Encoding?
Because your CPU and GPU needs will change accordingly. For example, that GT 240M is slightly weaker than a desktop GT 240, meaning it can handle games well at the native resolution of the laptop. But Nvidia screws with mobile GPU naming a lot, for example a GTX 280M is less than half the power of a GTX 280 and a GT 330 is actually less than a 9800 GT.
With the CPU, unless you need a quad, I would recommend Intel's 32nm duals if you care about battery life. You won't use the other two cores much, clock speeds are higher so 1- or 2-threaded apps will run faster, and it will use about a third of the power (half the cores and a die shrink) so it will last a lot longer.
But you can get FAR more value by buying a small-form-factor desktop. If that would suit your needs then you could get 1.5x the CPU power and 2-3x the graphics power for the same money...
Because your CPU and GPU needs will change accordingly. For example, that GT 240M is slightly weaker than a desktop GT 240, meaning it can handle games well at the native resolution of the laptop. But Nvidia screws with mobile GPU naming a lot, for example a GTX 280M is less than half the power of a GTX 280 and a GT 330 is actually less than a 9800 GT.
With the CPU, unless you need a quad, I would recommend Intel's 32nm duals if you care about battery life. You won't use the other two cores much, clock speeds are higher so 1- or 2-threaded apps will run faster, and it will use about a third of the power (half the cores and a die shrink) so it will last a lot longer.
But you can get FAR more value by buying a small-form-factor desktop. If that would suit your needs then you could get 1.5x the CPU power and 2-3x the graphics power for the same money...
70
Announcements / Re: Another quickie
« on: March 25, 2010, 11:36:32 am »
@Rusky
So you mean display h.264 video in the browser with the existing codec on Win/Mac machines? I agree that would solve the licensing, but isn't the point of <video> to avoid relying on an external and proprietary plugin for media (as Flash is now)? If I understand you, you want to replace the Flash plugin with some kind of Windows Media plugin.
MPEG-LA's terms do not care whether Mozilla is commercial or not. They specify that royalties are payable for any project above a certain number of users, which Mozilla and probably a lot of semi-forks like Linux FF versions are definitely above. What's more, if the version of FF you use hasn't had the fee paid on it then end users are liable for all damages.
Even shipping free software with x264 is liable. Using the copy of x264 on the machine is not because MS and Apple have already paid up and included it in the cost of the OS, but I think that subverts the purpose of <video> per above.
I've seen arguments either way on the quality of h.264 v. Theora. h.264 is probably more practical for now, but Theora will improve which h.264's licensing never will.
So you mean display h.264 video in the browser with the existing codec on Win/Mac machines? I agree that would solve the licensing, but isn't the point of <video> to avoid relying on an external and proprietary plugin for media (as Flash is now)? If I understand you, you want to replace the Flash plugin with some kind of Windows Media plugin.
MPEG-LA's terms do not care whether Mozilla is commercial or not. They specify that royalties are payable for any project above a certain number of users, which Mozilla and probably a lot of semi-forks like Linux FF versions are definitely above. What's more, if the version of FF you use hasn't had the fee paid on it then end users are liable for all damages.
Even shipping free software with x264 is liable. Using the copy of x264 on the machine is not because MS and Apple have already paid up and included it in the cost of the OS, but I think that subverts the purpose of <video> per above.
I've seen arguments either way on the quality of h.264 v. Theora. h.264 is probably more practical for now, but Theora will improve which h.264's licensing never will.
71
Announcements / Re: Another quickie
« on: March 24, 2010, 05:12:33 pm »
Rusky, you're wrong about h.264 and Mozilla. They can't get a license, because i) it would cost them several million dollars and ii) that only covers officially compiled versions. So if you wanted to build it yourself, or a Linux distro wanted to do it, or anyone wanted to fork it, it would not be covered. This does not mesh with open source development. Paying a fee for standards compatibility is not something I'd like to see. What if image tags required a $5M license to implement? Would images have been so successful and universal on the web?
Plus h.264 is only royalty-free for end-users on the internet until MPEG-LA say so. They could turn round and demand a fee as soon as the contract comes around for renewal. They'll wait until all internet video uses h.264 then they can legally charge what they like.
No, the web video used has got to be as freely licensed as possible, for practical reasons as well as ideological. Even if Theora can't do that, what about Google's VP3 (which they could open up) or the BBC's Dirac.
Plus h.264 is only royalty-free for end-users on the internet until MPEG-LA say so. They could turn round and demand a fee as soon as the contract comes around for renewal. They'll wait until all internet video uses h.264 then they can legally charge what they like.
No, the web video used has got to be as freely licensed as possible, for practical reasons as well as ideological. Even if Theora can't do that, what about Google's VP3 (which they could open up) or the BBC's Dirac.
72
Announcements / Re: Another quickie
« on: March 24, 2010, 02:31:19 pm »
I prefer Vista to 7 too. 7, to me, was just Vista with the Mac dock and Libraries, both of which I don't like (same as Josh).
I have Ubuntu and would prefer to use it instead of Windows, if more programs worked with it (Wine or native, don't mind) and Youtube (Flash) performance wasn't abysmal (which HTML5 would fix had they decided not to make Firefox not work with it, by using h.264).
I have Ubuntu and would prefer to use it instead of Windows, if more programs worked with it (Wine or native, don't mind) and Youtube (Flash) performance wasn't abysmal (which HTML5 would fix had they decided not to make Firefox not work with it, by using h.264).
74
Announcements / Re: Another choice.
« on: March 16, 2010, 11:20:30 am »I completely agree with keeping everything compatible with gml but something like that is not a normal scenario, it's irrelevant, noone uses it and noone is supposed to use it.
It's like actively making Enigma return the previous script return value for a non-returning script like GM does. I'm not sure whether it does or not but actively making it do so would be pointless and a hindrance if that functionality is not desired in Enigma. Though it is a feature in GM and someone may perhaps use it stupidly the scenario is just not worth considering.
Will Enigma also include any bugs within GM so it is compatible?
@last part - If they affect visible functionality in any way, I hope so.
If actively returning a script value changed any behaviour I'd expect that too. But I doubt it does, even in the worst-written GM code, so it can be removed.
I know it's not a 'normal' scenario, but which is easier - convincing all possible GM -> Enigma converts to code properly and recode all their old stuff properly, or just make Enigma work with it?
75
Announcements / Re: Another choice.
« on: March 15, 2010, 12:33:13 pm »Quote
Whoever uses that code in gml is retarded, who cares how gml handles it, it shouldn't be written.
Slippery slope to all GM code being retarded, C++ is much better. Which may be true, but that's not the point.
Everything GM does but Enigma doesn't will make a the number of people who switch smaller. No matter how justified the reason for the incompatibility is.