Slashback: Drivers, Bodycomputing, Farscape

Slashback with news on ATI drivers for non-ATI branded cards, the viewer-led movement to save Farscape, wearable computing from MIT, text-to-facial-expression software, and more. Read on for the details

Maybe customer service isn't dead. On November 28th, we posted a report that OEM cards using ATI chips had trouble with the official drivers from ATI. Terry Makedon (Senior Product Manager, Software for ATI Technologies) writes "Last week we posted a set of unified Linux drivers. These drivers were only loading up on 'Built by ATI' cards. Through our various feedback mechanisms we have determined that there is a large community of 'Powered by ATI' Linux users that did not benefit from our Linux drivers. At this point we are happy to announce an update to our Linux driver (ver. 2.5.1) which will work on both 'Powered by' and 'Built by.' ATI's driver and software strategy is firmly based on responsiveness and we greatly appreciate the feedback our Linux users have provided. Please use http://apps.ati.com/linuxDfeedback/ for a direct feedback line to ATI.

Thanks again for the feedback."

But what if we put the show into this Interdimensional Fungubulon, and then jumped through this here "wormhole"? xagon7 writes "David Kemper, the producer/writer of Farscape, mentioned that it would be theoretically and legally possible for a group to set up a non-profit organization for fans to donate money to, in order to finance an episode and make Farscape all that much tastier to Sci-Fi for the 5th season. They have done just that. They have $200,000 worth of pledges and only need $800,000 total....I hope this gets Slashdotted. Read the story here and you can pledge here."

You're getting less happy to see me? man_of_mr_e writes "Check out MIThril, the next generation research platform for context aware wearable computing. It's been about 18 months since this was last talked about here on Slashdot, and it's kind of cool to see how far the technology has come since then. For those that aren't aware of what it is, it's essentially a project to prototype human wearable computers, complete with schematics, pictures, and a cvs repository for software. Now you too can be like that guy in the IBM commercials trading stock while feeding the pigeons."

Flattening the slope to entry. Catskul writes "You don't need the libwine hack, mentioned in the previous news entry. Just follow the New QT Howto, download the codecs and start MPlayer."

Don't look at me in that tone of voice! 1010011010 writes "On Nov. 26, you ran a story on SpeechView, 'software that translates the voice on the other side of the line into a three dimensional animated face on the computer.' The North Carolina State University Department of Computer Science's 'Voice IO Group' is also working on that problem. Their software looks like it might be better. Read about it here. Includes quicktime movies of the results."

Victory, or a reprieve? A non moose cow writes "Just noticed that a couple of my favorite "Killed by the RIAA" webcast stations are back... like Soma-FM and Monkey Radio (get the streams at Shoutcast). The saving grace came via the recent passage of HR5469 [PDF] by the US Legislature. Thank you to all that sent letters and/or money to fix this problem. If you have been yearning for the resurrection of your favorite stream, go check, it might be back. If you would like to trace the chronology of this mess, check out the Soma-FM news page."

Donate..

[Forkenhoppen]

And while you're donating $800,000 so a bunch of guys 'n gals can run around in rubber and vinyl while stuff blows up around them, why not donate a few bucks to charity so a few kids can eat for a year?

No, seriously.. you'll feel better about yourself. :)

A word of caution...

[The Bungi]

I think it's very cool that there are people out there who feel passionately enough about a goot TV program to fork over money and keep it running.

However, if this actually takes off, I believe it will not set a good precedent (AFAIK this is not being done anywhere else, unless I'm mistaken, please feel free to correct me).

Think about it - the SciFi channel is not free. I already pay ~$50 for cable... and in order to enjoy a show I like I have to pay even more??? What's next? Viewer-supported Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Does anyone think low-life TV execs (which are no better than record company ones) are not going to see this and go oooohh! Let's threaten to cut Zim The Invader and start raking up the dough!!!

It's a noble cause, assuming I can pick it up using an antenna. Otherwise it's a bad idea.

Rant off.

MPlayer

[jfedor]

Glad to see it plays Sorenson movies now, but I always wondered how the MPlayer folks are distributing various binary-only win32 dlls without saying where they took them from. Where are those QT5/QT6 dlls from? Are they from the freely available Quicktime Player I can download from www.apple.com? I assume so, but they should try to make such things clear.

-jfedor

Re:Donate..

[shiffman]

And what makes you think we don't already donate a few bucks, or more than a few, to deserving charities?

Or do you think museums and symphonies should be plowed under to make way for soup kitchens? Supporting the arts, and I do consider Farscape to be art, shouldn't have to apologize for not being about subsistance.

Saving farscape

[KlippoKlondike]

Is television really THAT important? I mean, farscape is entertaining and all, but that's all it is. Entertainment. Aren't their more important things to worry about? I'm not saying it's impossible to care about a tv show, just that there's things out there that matter a lot more. You know, like that group of people that lives in your house and pays all your internet and cable bills and feeds you coffee and pixie stix all day? That's your family, give them money, they deserve it more than hollywood.

Re:that's pathetic

[Remik]

Everyone has priorities. Your logic is headed down a very slippery, liberal slope.

Before you suggest that we have a responsibility to donate to the lowest/needest rung, think for a second on what a race to the bottom looks like. If you're having trouble, read Atlas Shrugged.

-R

Re:that's pathetic

[plasm4]

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your media conglomerate.

Re:Donate..

[Forkenhoppen]

If you do, then I commend you for it. It's people like you who make this world a better place.

I respect the arts. I just felt obligated to put it into perspective, that's all. $1,000,000 is an awful lot of money, and the first thing that came to mind is that an amount like that could feed a fair number of mouths. (It may have had something to do with my just having listened to the evening news.)

I apologize if I came across as heavy-handed.

Re:A word of caution...

[susano_otter]

Well, the cable system has some obvious flaws...

With network TV, you pay for shampoo, and the shampoo manufacturer pays for your TV programs.

With "perfect" cable TV, you pay for shampoo, and you also pay for your TV programs, but at least you don't have to watch shampoo commercials.

With "typical" cable TV, you pay for shampoo, and programs, and you still get shampoo commercials.

You can't expect to fix the whole problem at once, but viewer-supported cable programming is a step in the right direction.

If this works, and becomes widely adopted, it could shift the whole paradigm for television programming. In time, viewers and cable stations would renegotiate the arrangement to be more efficient and profitable for all parties concerned.

In the mean time, threatening to cancel a show would be a great market metric. If nobody offers to save it, you probably weren't picking up any viewers for it to begin with. And that, of course, is bad business in the first place.

ATI Fruit Baskets.

[Grendel Drago]

Where do we send thank-you cards or fruitbaskets? Emails, too, of course, but it's important to let the folks at ATI know that we appreciate their support of the Linux community, and somehow fruitbaskets seem to speak louder than electrons.

--grendel drago

Re:that's pathetic

[Remik]

It sounds to me like you just want everyone else to accept your priorities. Funny though, they haven't landed you in a very tenable position, so I'd think they'd be some of the last for society to adopt as a whole.

Some people need a helping hand, but the epidemic is not at such a level as to begin to decry any spending which does not have immediate and obvious charitable effects (the net effect of your initial post). Even accepting your ethos, you're forgetting that there are hundreds of people who will be losing their jobs if Farscape is canceled. Not just overpaid actors, but average Joe set builders &c.

Your worldview is too narrow. I don't think your initial post was well thought out. If you still hold by the tenets put forth there, then I don't think I have the power or desire to continue to show the error of your ways.

-R

Ransom

[Myco]

It seems that the recent innovation of ransoming software into the public domain may have applications in other media. And why not? If the audience for something like Farscape is a devoted corps of fans who are willing to pay up to make it happen, who needs the network after all? Sick of network execs telling you what to watch and calling you a thief if you don't watch every commercial with rapt complicity? Then organize and buy your entertainment direct from its makers. You cut out the middlemen and you get what you want, period.

That's the dream, anyway. I'd love to see it happen, but I'm sure you've all got a thing or two to say about blind idealism right about now.

Re:Donate..

[failrate]

Charities have become rather parasitic entities. I worked in a Muscular Dystrophy Association call center... for a day. I was summarily released because I didn't get enough donations. Charitable work.

I'm not the only one who's been exposed to this kind of charitable dirty business... look here, please [kuro5hin.org]

Re:A word of caution...

[LostCluster]

Viewer-supported TV exists. It's called Public Television.

Nova or Frontline would not survive on a typical broadcast network, it simply wouldn't get the ratings in demographics that sponsors would pay for. Those shows exist because donors from individuals to corperations fund the show. (Your PBS station knows what show your pledge can be attributed to... they know what time you called, and specifically if they're sending you the Nova totebag or videotape of John Tesh in Concert and fund programs accordingly.)

I think the clear rule that TVC needs to set from the outset is that when they put money into a show, they want that money to either be lost in a losing-money effort, or if the show rights itself and becomes profitable, they want their share of the profits so they can go save another show. The money they spend goes pay the actors and crew of the show, not into the production company or network's hands.

Responsiveness? Bull.

[Anonymous Coward]

"ATI's driver and software strategy is firmly based on responsiveness"

Oh really? So when thousands of older-ATI-card Macintosh owners(basically, any Macintosh released from about 1998 to about 2000) BEGGED Apple and ATI for drivers(even signing a massive petition), I suppose ATI listened intently, and then released drivers for MacOS X? Hahahaahaha.

For those who don't know, Apple and ATI passed the issue back and forth like a hot potato, and eventually, Apple released rather half-assed(read: you could finally bear using the system in more than 16bit color) drivers for older systems like the iMacs and Powerbook Lombard/Pismo, rolled into a system update; you had to edit a config file buried in the system to even get the driver to load!

I have a Powerbook Lombard, G3/400mhz, and I can't watch movie previews under MacOS X because the thing can't push a frame rate higher than maybe 10-15fps. Text scrolling is slow as molassis and 3D is -completely- unaccelerated. Apple's advice, for taking me back +5 years in graphics performance, is to take me back +10 years in graphics technology: "set it to 16 bit color for better performance."

Folks, this is pure marketing BS/backpedalling(ie, "oops, oh shit, we just screwed a large customer base. Quick, someone do something!") I believe the expression is "knowing which side your bread is buttered on." It has NOTHING to do with warm fuzzy feelings for penguins. I cannot STAND companies that tout how they "listen to the customer"...

Need to get priorities straight

[Anonymous Coward]

David Kemper, the producer/writer of Farscape, mentioned that it would be theoretically and legally possible for a group to set up a non-profit organization for fans to donate money to, in order to finance an episode and make Farscape all that much tastier to Sci-Fi for the 5th season

So let me get this straight- we have a record # of homeless people in the US, food pantries are empty, massive budget cuts for the poor(social services, medicare, etc.)...

...but a bunch of people donated $200,000 to go towards paying to make A TV EPISODE, for a FOR PROFIT cable network?

Time for a SERIOUS priority check.

(nevermind the fact that advertisement revenue is what drives programming decisions; if it wasn't profitable for a season, it's not going to be profitable for season-1 ep.)

Who owns Farscape now?

[lobos]

Since we're always complaining about copyright, if we donate a ton of the money needed to keep farscape going, do those few people own part of it? Do they get any revenue off of it? It's not like they're the exclusive people who are seeing it. If they were, they would be paying to see it. But to me it seems like they're paying to make it so they and others can see it. Therefore, shouldn't they own part of it?

Re:Blender?

[glwtta]

I would think that a few more people know about Farscape than about Blender. Oh, and that's $200,000 in pledges... It took Blender.org about 4 weeks to come up with $100,000 in pledges, if I remember correctly.

Anyway, I love Farscape, but this whole thing just seems a bit weird. If the money went to the writers/actors/etc. of the show I would understand, but giving money to a cable network to keep a show going so they can charge us money for it and air commercials... just seems kinda odd.

Of course I'm not one to talk, since I got the first 77 episodes strictly off of #farscape-central. (hell, I'm not buying a tv and starting to pay for cable just for one show)

Re:Need to get priorities straight

[kalidasa]

So let me get this straight- we have a record # of homeless people in the US, food pantries are empty, massive budget cuts for the poor(social services, medicare, etc.)... ...but a bunch of people donated $200,000 to go towards paying to make A TV EPISODE, for a FOR PROFIT cable network?

I take it you've never bought a video tape, b ut only give away all your disposable cash to charity?

For the record - I donate $20/paycheck directly to United Way, plus hundreds more throughout the year; I also spent a hundred or two on Farscape this year. Maybe I'll donate an additional $20 to say "screw you" to SciFi.

Re:instead of begware....

[nurightshu]

Why wouldn't they do this? Because then it would be shit, just like most of the programs on SourceForge. (Back off that hair trigger there, all you zealots; I said most of the programs. Yours is the one work of glittering gold in the mounds of crap.)

I don't want some guy who played Chorus Member #2 in the Bumblefuck, South Dakota Community Playhouse's bastardization of Guys and Dolls ham-fisting his way through his performance as John Crichton. I want Benjamin Browder ham-fisting his way through his performance as John Crichton.

If you use volunteer screenwriters, you'll just end up with a bunch of D'Argo/Scorpius gay slash fiction adapted into screenplays. Nobody wants to see tentacle sex on television (except you hentai freaks; don't get me started on you people).

Freelance videographers don't do their work for free, despite the misleading name. And as for donated television-production equipment, I'm sure that there's just huge piles of it lying around the Hollywood hills right now, rusting because nobody's using it.

I can't think of a single render shop that I've ever heard of that would be willing to work unpaid on a 40-minute TV episode, mostly because "bragging rights" don't taste very good and aren't all that warm.

Finally, if you "chunk up" an episode and send it to, for argument's sake, eight editing facilities who are all working on five minutes of the episode for free, you'll have the first five minutes of average quality, the next five great, the five after that completely screwed up, and then twenty-five minutes of static because the other five editing departments couldn't get their portions finished in time for air. Without the fiscal incentive to do quality work, you can't control the quality of the output.

So no, it really doesn't seem as if it were "doable" this way at all, when you actually think about it and don't just reflexively post the standard, "They should open-source x because then it would be magically good and wonderful."

Farscape - not the way to go

[Sprunkys]

This isn't working then. You need between $800.000 and $1.7 million per episode. With a fanbase of 2 million that's less than $1 per episode. That seems about right. What doesn't seem right to me is that a few people pay close to $100 for one episode. That way you're not going to save Farscape, you'll get one episode at the most!

I for one wouldn't mind paying a dollar for every Farscape episode if that finances the show. The only thing is, I don't have a way of paying. This weekend I watched 10 Farscape episodes and no, there wasn't a Farscape-marathon on tv. Even more so, no-one has ever heard of Farscape on this side of the ocean, so I'm stuck with downloading episodes. As I said, I'm perfectly willing to pay for that. But how to?

I guess this goes for a lot of things. Tv series, movies. The European market is apparently not very attractive to the American companies, for I'm lucky if I can get your series/movies within 3 months! Enterprise has already been sold in stores for months, but no-one has aired it so far. Farscape never appeared on Dutch television, I had to wait half a year to see Resident Evil (MJ!).

But concerning Farscape; I think it's a great idea, however, you can't get your wife to agree to the weekly $40 that you pay for other people to watch Farscape. Everyone has to chip in a little bit, that way it's going to work.

Re:Wow, no ATI comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

these are non-Free binary drivers: the whole reason i had for buying an ATI was that i wouldn't have to deal with Nvidia's proprietary drivers.

i'd much rather use the Free DRI drivers (dri.sf.net) the cvs version works great with opengl screensavers, quake3, quakeforge and most importantly, TuxRacer!

So if ATI really wants to help out GNU/Linux users, they should donate money/programers to the DRI project.