On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 01:05 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 22:51 -0700, Thomas Vecchione wrote:
> > > Yeah it's unfortunate. Maybe the rise of these cheap knockoffs is what
> > > drove a company like Creative, who were one of the first to open their
> > > drivers in the mid 1990s, to their current position of not releasing any
> > > hardware specs or Linux drivers at all.
> >
> > Well truth be told, not much has changed quality wise since then;) Ok I
> > jest some, but I dont really find creative to be all that great anymore
> > myself. Not even a big fan of the EMU line;)
> >
>
> Oh, it sure has changed - it's gone down the shitter. Creative's new
> stuff is garbage compared to the SBLive! which IMHO was a brilliant
> piece of hardware.
>
> I wouldn't know about the EMU line because it can't be used with Linux.
>
> > But that has little to do with your point I suppose. I agree things
> > like that above happening are quite unfortunate, though sometimes I
> > wonder if there was a bit more to it than just that in their case.
> >
>
> The trend since then has been to make cheap junk cheaper every year and
> move as much logic as possible into the driver which makes supporting
> Linux more work with each generation of devices.
>
> It's not just PC hardware, it's the whole damn economy. For example new
> houses are bigger and more expensive than ever but they're basically
> made of cardboard. Where they used to use 2x4s for interior walls they
> use 2x2s now. In 10 years they'll be twice as big, 5x more expensive,
> and made out of paper.
>
Living at ground zero for Katrina (7 blocks off the beach in Long
Beach, MS) I can testify to this. I also ran the local harbor surveys
for the Navy. The only structures that survived were the old buildings.
Bay St. Louis had about 5 buildings near the beach that are still
standing - they were all built pre-1940. There was a lot of "corner
cutting" going on prior to Katrina. Many of my neighbors 3 tab shingles
were put on using only three nails. Needless to say, their roofs were
stripped and their ceilings came down early on in the storm.
--
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
The Fuzzy Dice
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/fuzzy.html
"As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and
this we should do freely and generously."
Benjamin Franklin, on declining patents offered by the governor of
Pennsylvania for his "Pennsylvania Fireplace", c. 1744
