What about things that require service that's not provided in the United States? I've heard countless times that we're behind in cell phones AND cell phone service compared to many other nations, for example.
Or things that are region encoded, and/or not available in the English language?
There are certainly ways that the U.S. can lag behind in tech gadgets. Available services and localization account for this.
Yeah, but this could finally make LAN emulation between friends a possibility if both people had the service. Imagine a Hamachi network with all of your friends and PCs sharing media to a media center setup (XBMC or any HTPC). Accessing any of the media would be near instantaneous, as if it were located on the local LAN. The only reason I can't do this now is due to an abysmally capped upstream, but 20/20 would open the flood gates... and that is HUGE to me.
I guess the idea is that although lots of people will download it for free, those people would probably have downloaded it for free (via P2P) anyways. At least in this case, you allow those people who value easy downloading to conveniently "do the right thing" and directly support the artist.
To add to this, they're ensuring that the downloader gets a high quality copy. P2P downloads can be of drastically varying quality. It's possible that a person who downloads a high quality copy from the band/label would be more likely to either support the album with their money and/or attend a concert since what they're hearing is superior to something they might immediately dismiss as garbage due to poor quality.
Ubuntu isn't successful because it's an operating system for advanced users only (like Gentoo). It's successful due to being user friendly to people who are Windows users who are curious about Linux.
I'm tired of this mentality. That's like saying that "OS X isn't successful because it's too easy to use". Just because something isn't difficult to use and administer does not mean that it's "not for advanced users". You can do the same things with Ubuntu that you can with Gentoo, or any other Linux distribution. Let's drop the "Just Works == not for mad phat elite coder dudes" mentality.
Posted too soon. Found info on the USB drive sharing thing on Wikipedia. Here's a snippet of what happened:
On February 12, 2007, a USB drive was found in a bathroom stall during a NIN concert in Lisbon. It contained a high-quality MP3 of the track "My Violent Heart," which quickly circulated throughout the Internet. Another USB drive containing the same track was purportedly found in Madrid.
On February 19, another USB drive was found in Barcelona, containing the track "Me, I'm Not" and an MP3 of static.
On February 25, a third USB drive was found in Manchester, containing the track "In This Twilight" and an image of the Hollywood sign apparently demolished.
Concerning the use of USB drives as a form of promotion, Reznor explains:
" The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want -- DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it.
Didn't Trent also in some way support the distribution of Year Zero in UK rest stops or something? For some reason I vaguely remember reading an article about some kind of USB key download station that was set up, where it would copy the Year Zero album onto a USB key if it was inserted. Supposedly it was part of the "Alternate Reality Game" that Year Zero is shooting for or something.
Or did I entirely dream this whole thing up? Regardless, he won the nerd heart years ago when he did the music for Quake, and moves such as this only make me respect him more.
Whilst reviews are great, it would have been nice if he could've asked a simple question about this on the ubuntu forum - I guess Windows users aren't used to the option of doing that.
Support on the Ubuntu forums is extremely hit or miss. I've posted several problems on the forums and probably received responses to half of them. While I was ultimately able to solve the problems myself (and respond to myself on the forum in case anybody else ever has the same problem), it took several hours for some of them (I shouldn't have had to learn the ins and outs of.asoundrc to select card 0/device 2 and configure a mixer for ALSA; my optical out works out of the box in Windows). I'm sure that the paid support is light years better, but relying entirely on the Ubuntu forums isn't the perfect answer.
Wow, you are excruciatingly ignorant. Every one of your posts in this thread have been absolutely ridiculous.
The Tobacco companies are a bunch of rich white ex slave owners that sell an addictive product that kills people. How anyone connects smoking with cool I will never get.
Seriously? Do you realize how old these people would need to be in order to be "ex slave owners"? Slavery may have played a part in the cultivation of tobacco in GENERATIONS past, but that's hardly the case now. The reason that the tobacco companies are able to deny that tobacco causes cancer is because it's impossible to prove a direct cause/effect correlation due to life involving infinite outside factors. Yet, everybody KNOWS that it causes cancer. It's not a secret, and hasn't been for a long time. People still choose to smoke; do you really believe it's because they once marketed Camel cigarettes with a happy cartoon character several decades ago? People smoke because they choose to, and have for a VERY long time now. If tobacco were outlawed, people would still find ways to smoke (only, this time, they'd be considered criminals).
Outlawing guns does nothing. People who are going to do harm with firearms don't care if they're legally doing so (They're about to cause crime anyway). This can lead to a situation where only the "bad guys" have guns, while the "good guys" can't protect themselves.
Alcohol can be used in moderation, and any damage caused to others due to the misuse of alcohol should absolutely be punishable. They tried making alcohol illegal once, and I'm sure you've read all about how well that worked out.
The point is to focus more on outlawing the actions that people do with guns/alcohol/whatever, not the item/substance itself.
I wouldn't personally worry about Hillary. I don't think that she has a snowballs chance. What with the way that large parts of the country hating her and all.
You're right, but I'm curious why most of the nation doesn't like her. I took the time to read the entire Wikipedia article on the lady, and there's nothing overly dirty on her. I realize she's trying to impose further regulations on video game ratings and is a woman... are those the two main reasons? Honestly?
And yes, I do fully expect that someone can elaborately explain valid reasons to detest Hillary. I've just never been a huge follower of politics outside of the current administration, so I'm genuinely curious why so many people (and nerds in general) hate the woman.
The answer is for the RIAA to just be more adaptable to their situation. Instead of fighting the futile battle against consumers, they should spend their time on figuring out ways to give people what they want for what they're willing to pay.
Music is a HUGE part of my life. I rarely buy CDs anymore, and I don't pirate. My solution is to pay the $15/month for Rhapsody, which gives me immediate access to millions of tracks that I can even load on my portable MP3 player. Rhapsody may not be ideal for everyone, but since I'm in front of a computer all day for work and have a compatible portable player it's ideal for me.
This is an example of a filled niche. If the RIAA focused their efforts on providing similar solutions for people in other situations then they could have their cake and eat it too. They need to focus more on WHY people pirate, and provide an alternative that's reasonable for themselves AND the consumers.
This is pretty much what I had come to post. I've shown this movie to lots of friends, and rather than commenting first on how funny the movie is (which they all do), I normally hear them say, "Wow, that's scary". It is.
The movie pretty accurately depicted my home town, with the more intelligent types not reproducing even near the rate of the impoverished high school drop outs. Which makes some sense; those that do things like drop out of high school might not think of the consequences of their actions (they did drop out of basic education, after all) as much as someone who is educated and understands cause and effect a bit better. The offspring aren't necessarily doomed, but they're certainly not given an ideal starting point and are given role models (their parents) who, more often than not, won't try to push them to educate themselves. Again, I'm not saying that this is ALWAYS the case, but I've witnessed it firsthand enough.
Being intelligent doesn't mean that you don't get to have sex. It means that you understand where babies come from and will take necessary precautions to deter unwanted pregnancies. Some of the uber intelligent types may have less sex, which may come from them being able to interact better with a book or MMORPG than a face-to-face person. Spend the majority of your time shunning direct social situations and talking through an online persona and you eventually lose (or, never gain) normal social skills that your peers have.
That's like saying that if you've never bought a car (yup, it is a car analogy), and then steal one that you can't be held accountable since you weren't likely to buy it. I realize that there is a difference between the car being tangible goods whereas digital media is not, but you're still dealing with what the law considers "property" in both cases.
If someone stole a piece of candy from me and I wanted to sue them for one hundred billion dollars, I should have the right. It's not unconstitutional, it's just absurd and the court would laugh you out of the courtroom for trying. That's exactly what is happening here: the RIAA is suing for 750% of the perceived value of the good stolen. This is absurd, and there are probably some judges who would agree.
I completely agree with you on the emulated LAN. Of course it's possible; I don't see why 360 users couldn't use the same tools that are already available for Xbox for it (XLink Kai, etc). However, as you point out, the lag is insufferable on most games as their netcode is LAN optimized (low latency, enormous bandwidth compared to your standard Internet pipe).
Regarding your second point, however, I don't buy it. Of course synchronizing two environments is a difficult chore, but it's something that has been done many times. In my eyes, Bungie is basically admitting that Epic is better at developing netcode. Gears of War plays flawlessly in co-op, and they face the same challenges as Halo (multiple enemies/scripted events/etc).
I also write plenty of network code and understand the challenges; scalable network code combined with near real-time response and adapting the client UI to deal with it is an extremely difficult task. I concede that it's a difficult problem, but not that it's impossible.
I'll agree with Bungie once they just admit that they're incapable of producing a co-op mode because their coders aren't up to snuff. I don't buy the "it's just not possible!" cop out.
I've never had a problem with my 360. Not a glitch or a freeze at all. HD-DVD isn't dead, and Microsoft doesn't have very much to lose if it does die. Lots of my friends would argue that Halo3 is a "last gen looking dud". I really do enjoy my 360, and especially have a blast on Xbox Live. I had a lot of fun with my original xbox, too.
I'm just trying to point out that, from a consumer viewpoint, the Xbox isn't dead and I hope it doesn't go away.
The billions of dollars that MS has lost on the Xbox does still have the chance to redeem themselves. It's absolutely sizable, but it's still an investment. MS currently holds a substantial lead over Sony, although that could change.
Even if you think things look grim for the Xbox, it's not going away overnight. Worst case is that they decide to not release another console after the 360.
I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet on this tangent, but hunting is actually HUMANE in many cases. Many game animals reproduce by instinct alone, and never realize that their rate of reproduction is creating a food shortage for the entire group in the region. In other words, these animals will create their own starvation, and will often face miserable death for themselves as a result. Controlled hunting helps regulate how many animals can be hunted in order to help level this over-population out, effectively minimizing starvation. Not to mention, some game animals are also varmints which ruin farmer's/rancher's crops and livestock.
To put it bluntly, many of these animals ARE going to die; is it better to have them die miserably by starvation and with no (or at least minimal) benefit to other animals or humans, or is it better to humanely hunt the animal (fast death) and utilize as much of the animal for benefit as possible? The answer is clear, to me. I'll admit bias, though, as I am a hunter.
On a related did you know that we live around half a second in the PAST? That is the delay of the mind. Our brain fakes the memories so we don't notice it practically, but there is a reason why subconscious or gut responses exist.
Really? This fascinates me. Can you please provide a source on this? I've never heard of it before.
I held off as long as possible in creating a MySpace page, because I think the site is atrocious and I'm not a person who cares about trivial personal crap such as people's favorite color and how good their sandwich was for lunch. What finally made me cave in and create one was a gigantic laundry list of non-tech savvy friends who insist on using MySpace to communicate with each other. Since creating a page, I've gotten in touch with a lot of people that I haven't spoken to in years (some I genuinely was interesting in re-connecting with, some that the disconnection was intended). I just don't publish inane details of my own life on the site.
I guess my point is that there is no sweeping generalization for people who have MySpace accounts. There is utility for these sites for everyone, since I would imagine that most people who are technically literate have friends who aren't. Many geeks hate the site and refuse to sign up as a matter of pride (which was my attitude, initially), but it's unfair to classify everybody who uses the site into a single category. Those who truly get angry about social networking sites need to chill out; it's not that big of a deal.
This is an interesting point that I'd like to consider taking one step further. As you point out, we've gone from killing poorly rendered characters to high definition graphics and audio with realistic scenarios/story and environment. Effectively, the gap between realism and gaming was somewhat shortened.
Is there a realism line where it actually IS reasonable to ban interactive media? What if the future gives us even more realism, further shortening the gap between realism and virtual realism? Do we ban a video game once it's able to replicate the smell of death for the player? The tactile feedback of a knife cutting flesh? Is there a line, and if so, where is it?
I agree that the ban on this video game is uncalled for, but I think the above is an interesting question to ponder and am curious as to what others think about the subject.
But more importantly, you CANNOT just sit in a parking lot and use Wi-fi without deciding to ACTIVELY log on to the access point.
Don't some setups automatically find the nearest unsecured access point and connect to it, without intervention from the user? What if I were to open my laptop in an unfamiliar area, only to have it automatically connect to an access point before I was able to halt the connection? Do we place the blame on the hardware/software maker for configuring their device to do this by default, or the user for not disabling it?
Most of the access points at the coffee shops around here don't mention anything of "Free Wi-Fi access with purchase!". While it could be argued that the "with purchase" is implied in those situations, I think it could be easily argued in a court that since there was no specific mention of it, patronage of the establishment was not required.
IMHO, if an access point is unsecured and available, it should be fair game for public use without any implied fine print.
Are you serious? It really hasn't occurred to you that there are almost always future projects in the pipeline, and simply resorting to calling one the "next" would be completely ambiguous?
Code names are mostly for internal use anyway. It's a way of referring to a project before marketing gets a hold of it and names it something officially.
I can't believe I need to explain the purpose of code names to someone on Slashdot.
Absolutely. I've been a very happy subscriber of Real's Rhapsody for over 3 years now. It's subscription based, but I can also load my MP3 player full of unlimited music (as long as I connect it to the PC once a month to re-license the content). Rhapsody gets albums the same date that stores do, and it's instantly free. If I wanted to burn the track to a CD instead of use it on my MP3 player, I can then pay the small album/track fee and do with it whatever I like. Having access to that vast amount of music on a PC is invaluable, as I'm in front of this idiot box 8+ hours a day for work and I also love music.
Rhapsody made it possible for me to enjoy unlimited music legally, for the price of one CD per month via a subscription model. Maybe the companies that offer subscription models aren't seeing the gold mine that they imagined, but it would be pretty ignorant for Jobs to say that the model, in general, doesn't work.
If this had been true, you probably could have just spoofed user_agent easily enough. I've gotten through several "IE Only" sites by just lying to the web server using Opera (you can identify as IE/etc in the browser's "site preferences"). I'm sure Firefox also has the ability (plug-in?).
If the site uses ActiveX, however, I'm pretty sure you're screwed.
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What about things that require service that's not provided in the United States? I've heard countless times that we're behind in cell phones AND cell phone service compared to many other nations, for example.
Or things that are region encoded, and/or not available in the English language?
There are certainly ways that the U.S. can lag behind in tech gadgets. Available services and localization account for this.
Yeah, but this could finally make LAN emulation between friends a possibility if both people had the service. Imagine a Hamachi network with all of your friends and PCs sharing media to a media center setup (XBMC or any HTPC). Accessing any of the media would be near instantaneous, as if it were located on the local LAN. The only reason I can't do this now is due to an abysmally capped upstream, but 20/20 would open the flood gates... and that is HUGE to me.
That was the first time I had laughed at a video game in literally years, from that line alone. It was hilarious.
To add to this, they're ensuring that the downloader gets a high quality copy. P2P downloads can be of drastically varying quality. It's possible that a person who downloads a high quality copy from the band/label would be more likely to either support the album with their money and/or attend a concert since what they're hearing is superior to something they might immediately dismiss as garbage due to poor quality.
I'm tired of this mentality. That's like saying that "OS X isn't successful because it's too easy to use". Just because something isn't difficult to use and administer does not mean that it's "not for advanced users". You can do the same things with Ubuntu that you can with Gentoo, or any other Linux distribution. Let's drop the "Just Works == not for mad phat elite coder dudes" mentality.
On February 12, 2007, a USB drive was found in a bathroom stall during a NIN concert in Lisbon. It contained a high-quality MP3 of the track "My Violent Heart," which quickly circulated throughout the Internet. Another USB drive containing the same track was purportedly found in Madrid.
On February 19, another USB drive was found in Barcelona, containing the track "Me, I'm Not" and an MP3 of static.
On February 25, a third USB drive was found in Manchester, containing the track "In This Twilight" and an image of the Hollywood sign apparently demolished.
Concerning the use of USB drives as a form of promotion, Reznor explains:
" The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want -- DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it.That's awesome, and makes my nerd heart warm.
Or did I entirely dream this whole thing up? Regardless, he won the nerd heart years ago when he did the music for Quake, and moves such as this only make me respect him more.
Support on the Ubuntu forums is extremely hit or miss. I've posted several problems on the forums and probably received responses to half of them. While I was ultimately able to solve the problems myself (and respond to myself on the forum in case anybody else ever has the same problem), it took several hours for some of them (I shouldn't have had to learn the ins and outs of .asoundrc to select card 0/device 2 and configure a mixer for ALSA; my optical out works out of the box in Windows). I'm sure that the paid support is light years better, but relying entirely on the Ubuntu forums isn't the perfect answer.
Seriously? Do you realize how old these people would need to be in order to be "ex slave owners"? Slavery may have played a part in the cultivation of tobacco in GENERATIONS past, but that's hardly the case now. The reason that the tobacco companies are able to deny that tobacco causes cancer is because it's impossible to prove a direct cause/effect correlation due to life involving infinite outside factors. Yet, everybody KNOWS that it causes cancer. It's not a secret, and hasn't been for a long time. People still choose to smoke; do you really believe it's because they once marketed Camel cigarettes with a happy cartoon character several decades ago? People smoke because they choose to, and have for a VERY long time now. If tobacco were outlawed, people would still find ways to smoke (only, this time, they'd be considered criminals).
Outlawing guns does nothing. People who are going to do harm with firearms don't care if they're legally doing so (They're about to cause crime anyway). This can lead to a situation where only the "bad guys" have guns, while the "good guys" can't protect themselves.
Alcohol can be used in moderation, and any damage caused to others due to the misuse of alcohol should absolutely be punishable. They tried making alcohol illegal once, and I'm sure you've read all about how well that worked out.
The point is to focus more on outlawing the actions that people do with guns/alcohol/whatever, not the item/substance itself.
You're right, but I'm curious why most of the nation doesn't like her. I took the time to read the entire Wikipedia article on the lady, and there's nothing overly dirty on her. I realize she's trying to impose further regulations on video game ratings and is a woman... are those the two main reasons? Honestly?
And yes, I do fully expect that someone can elaborately explain valid reasons to detest Hillary. I've just never been a huge follower of politics outside of the current administration, so I'm genuinely curious why so many people (and nerds in general) hate the woman.
The answer is for the RIAA to just be more adaptable to their situation. Instead of fighting the futile battle against consumers, they should spend their time on figuring out ways to give people what they want for what they're willing to pay.
Music is a HUGE part of my life. I rarely buy CDs anymore, and I don't pirate. My solution is to pay the $15/month for Rhapsody, which gives me immediate access to millions of tracks that I can even load on my portable MP3 player. Rhapsody may not be ideal for everyone, but since I'm in front of a computer all day for work and have a compatible portable player it's ideal for me.
This is an example of a filled niche. If the RIAA focused their efforts on providing similar solutions for people in other situations then they could have their cake and eat it too. They need to focus more on WHY people pirate, and provide an alternative that's reasonable for themselves AND the consumers.
This is pretty much what I had come to post. I've shown this movie to lots of friends, and rather than commenting first on how funny the movie is (which they all do), I normally hear them say, "Wow, that's scary". It is.
The movie pretty accurately depicted my home town, with the more intelligent types not reproducing even near the rate of the impoverished high school drop outs. Which makes some sense; those that do things like drop out of high school might not think of the consequences of their actions (they did drop out of basic education, after all) as much as someone who is educated and understands cause and effect a bit better. The offspring aren't necessarily doomed, but they're certainly not given an ideal starting point and are given role models (their parents) who, more often than not, won't try to push them to educate themselves. Again, I'm not saying that this is ALWAYS the case, but I've witnessed it firsthand enough.
Being intelligent doesn't mean that you don't get to have sex. It means that you understand where babies come from and will take necessary precautions to deter unwanted pregnancies. Some of the uber intelligent types may have less sex, which may come from them being able to interact better with a book or MMORPG than a face-to-face person. Spend the majority of your time shunning direct social situations and talking through an online persona and you eventually lose (or, never gain) normal social skills that your peers have.
No. That's not how it works.
That's like saying that if you've never bought a car (yup, it is a car analogy), and then steal one that you can't be held accountable since you weren't likely to buy it. I realize that there is a difference between the car being tangible goods whereas digital media is not, but you're still dealing with what the law considers "property" in both cases.
If someone stole a piece of candy from me and I wanted to sue them for one hundred billion dollars, I should have the right. It's not unconstitutional, it's just absurd and the court would laugh you out of the courtroom for trying. That's exactly what is happening here: the RIAA is suing for 750% of the perceived value of the good stolen. This is absurd, and there are probably some judges who would agree.
I completely agree with you on the emulated LAN. Of course it's possible; I don't see why 360 users couldn't use the same tools that are already available for Xbox for it (XLink Kai, etc). However, as you point out, the lag is insufferable on most games as their netcode is LAN optimized (low latency, enormous bandwidth compared to your standard Internet pipe).
Regarding your second point, however, I don't buy it. Of course synchronizing two environments is a difficult chore, but it's something that has been done many times. In my eyes, Bungie is basically admitting that Epic is better at developing netcode. Gears of War plays flawlessly in co-op, and they face the same challenges as Halo (multiple enemies/scripted events/etc).
I also write plenty of network code and understand the challenges; scalable network code combined with near real-time response and adapting the client UI to deal with it is an extremely difficult task. I concede that it's a difficult problem, but not that it's impossible.
I'll agree with Bungie once they just admit that they're incapable of producing a co-op mode because their coders aren't up to snuff. I don't buy the "it's just not possible!" cop out.
I've never had a problem with my 360. Not a glitch or a freeze at all. HD-DVD isn't dead, and Microsoft doesn't have very much to lose if it does die. Lots of my friends would argue that Halo3 is a "last gen looking dud". I really do enjoy my 360, and especially have a blast on Xbox Live. I had a lot of fun with my original xbox, too.
I'm just trying to point out that, from a consumer viewpoint, the Xbox isn't dead and I hope it doesn't go away.
The billions of dollars that MS has lost on the Xbox does still have the chance to redeem themselves. It's absolutely sizable, but it's still an investment. MS currently holds a substantial lead over Sony, although that could change.
Even if you think things look grim for the Xbox, it's not going away overnight. Worst case is that they decide to not release another console after the 360.
I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet on this tangent, but hunting is actually HUMANE in many cases. Many game animals reproduce by instinct alone, and never realize that their rate of reproduction is creating a food shortage for the entire group in the region. In other words, these animals will create their own starvation, and will often face miserable death for themselves as a result. Controlled hunting helps regulate how many animals can be hunted in order to help level this over-population out, effectively minimizing starvation. Not to mention, some game animals are also varmints which ruin farmer's/rancher's crops and livestock.
To put it bluntly, many of these animals ARE going to die; is it better to have them die miserably by starvation and with no (or at least minimal) benefit to other animals or humans, or is it better to humanely hunt the animal (fast death) and utilize as much of the animal for benefit as possible? The answer is clear, to me. I'll admit bias, though, as I am a hunter.
Really? This fascinates me. Can you please provide a source on this? I've never heard of it before.
I held off as long as possible in creating a MySpace page, because I think the site is atrocious and I'm not a person who cares about trivial personal crap such as people's favorite color and how good their sandwich was for lunch. What finally made me cave in and create one was a gigantic laundry list of non-tech savvy friends who insist on using MySpace to communicate with each other. Since creating a page, I've gotten in touch with a lot of people that I haven't spoken to in years (some I genuinely was interesting in re-connecting with, some that the disconnection was intended). I just don't publish inane details of my own life on the site.
I guess my point is that there is no sweeping generalization for people who have MySpace accounts. There is utility for these sites for everyone, since I would imagine that most people who are technically literate have friends who aren't. Many geeks hate the site and refuse to sign up as a matter of pride (which was my attitude, initially), but it's unfair to classify everybody who uses the site into a single category. Those who truly get angry about social networking sites need to chill out; it's not that big of a deal.
This is an interesting point that I'd like to consider taking one step further. As you point out, we've gone from killing poorly rendered characters to high definition graphics and audio with realistic scenarios/story and environment. Effectively, the gap between realism and gaming was somewhat shortened.
Is there a realism line where it actually IS reasonable to ban interactive media? What if the future gives us even more realism, further shortening the gap between realism and virtual realism? Do we ban a video game once it's able to replicate the smell of death for the player? The tactile feedback of a knife cutting flesh? Is there a line, and if so, where is it?
I agree that the ban on this video game is uncalled for, but I think the above is an interesting question to ponder and am curious as to what others think about the subject.
...and I picked it up along with Zelda TP. Zelda toilet paper? Why would you need that for when you wii?Nintendo is really taking this "casual gamer attraction" thing far, aren't they.
Don't some setups automatically find the nearest unsecured access point and connect to it, without intervention from the user? What if I were to open my laptop in an unfamiliar area, only to have it automatically connect to an access point before I was able to halt the connection? Do we place the blame on the hardware/software maker for configuring their device to do this by default, or the user for not disabling it?
Most of the access points at the coffee shops around here don't mention anything of "Free Wi-Fi access with purchase!". While it could be argued that the "with purchase" is implied in those situations, I think it could be easily argued in a court that since there was no specific mention of it, patronage of the establishment was not required.
IMHO, if an access point is unsecured and available, it should be fair game for public use without any implied fine print.
Are you serious? It really hasn't occurred to you that there are almost always future projects in the pipeline, and simply resorting to calling one the "next" would be completely ambiguous?
Code names are mostly for internal use anyway. It's a way of referring to a project before marketing gets a hold of it and names it something officially.
I can't believe I need to explain the purpose of code names to someone on Slashdot.
Absolutely. I've been a very happy subscriber of Real's Rhapsody for over 3 years now. It's subscription based, but I can also load my MP3 player full of unlimited music (as long as I connect it to the PC once a month to re-license the content). Rhapsody gets albums the same date that stores do, and it's instantly free. If I wanted to burn the track to a CD instead of use it on my MP3 player, I can then pay the small album/track fee and do with it whatever I like. Having access to that vast amount of music on a PC is invaluable, as I'm in front of this idiot box 8+ hours a day for work and I also love music.
Rhapsody made it possible for me to enjoy unlimited music legally, for the price of one CD per month via a subscription model. Maybe the companies that offer subscription models aren't seeing the gold mine that they imagined, but it would be pretty ignorant for Jobs to say that the model, in general, doesn't work.
Stop it. This isn't the GameFAQs forum, and nobody cares if they're the first post here. If you don't have anything to contribute, then don't post.
On topic:
All of this built-in virtualization stuff sounds great. How long, on average, does it take the Ubuntu repositories to receive new kernels?
If this had been true, you probably could have just spoofed user_agent easily enough. I've gotten through several "IE Only" sites by just lying to the web server using Opera (you can identify as IE/etc in the browser's "site preferences"). I'm sure Firefox also has the ability (plug-in?). If the site uses ActiveX, however, I'm pretty sure you're screwed.