I disagree for a fundamental reason - at some level or some place the system must output both the video and audio to be viewed by the user. At that point, a screen can be scraped and audio intercepted. It only ramps up the time to get a good movie rip, but if you want to show the content to users, there is a way to steal said content.
Moreover, Blu-Ray *was* cracked. The updated BD+ is taking some time, but once they figure out how to emulate the virtual machine better, it will again fall. The downfall of Blu Ray is built in - accurately emulate an official virtual machine, and the disc will decrypt itself for playback.
Shouldn't any company, investing in any solution, consider regular virus/malware checks and security audits? Just because a company chooses to go open source doesn't change their responsibility to check for viruses/exploit (though rare, still possible). Especially when considering large scale deployment for a company, the responsibility to check the system's sanity is still important enough that a vendor's solution will/should need to be purchased for either system.
One of the guys here was trying DisplayLink over wireless USB - driving a high res picture at close to real time. It actually does a pretty good job, though the drivers are still a mess and really hack around the display stack.
They are not providing a service nor selling a good. TPB guys have a debt to pay, and in the US, at least, all Federal Reserve minted money is legal for all debts, private or public.
I see this claim a lot, but I call it baseless FUD. If DRM were off pre RTM, you wouldn't be able to play protected content. Why spread rumors and lies, the very FUD that is often claimed to come from MS, then try to claim the higher moral ground?
That "outdated" engine does one thing extremely well: people. In many ways, that makes it a better engine than the latest gee-whiz (saying that makes me feel old, I'm young! I promise!) shader deformation cool effect.
Games are often and increasingly about telling a story, and I think Source does that very well.
I often prefer the theater cut to the "extended" or "unrated" or "special" edition. Most of the time, the material that I see in the extra scenes drags on, and it is readily apparent WHY that material was left out in the first place.
You're a bit off on your numbers, because they quote in bits/second, not bytes per second (nice little marketing trick, that).
If you were downloading at 512kb/s, that would be 64kB/s.
28 days * 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour * 60 seconds/minute = 2419200 seconds * 64kB/s = 154828800 kB, or 154.8 gB. This is still well over their caps, but not as ludicrously as stated.
Also note that cable modems operate as, essentially, time sliced systems. It's less efficient from their standpoint if you're downloading 24/7 at 512kb/s than if you download for a couple hours at whatever the max symbol rate they can support. In the first scenario, a slice of time always must be given to you, but in the second, there are hours when you wouldn't realistically be using the system, allowing them to somewhat overpopulate their network. This is a necessity to make the prices "reasonable."
I can comment in regards to the feature put out by my team: it works a lot better for any user who has multiple monitors or a laptop where they use projectors a lot. I'm also fond of the superbar, as I find it makes keeping various tasks grouped easier.
There are tons of other things that increase productivity, but you're probably right in that there's that first week of "hm, this is new" before realizing those benefits. From a corporate side, there's also a lot of other vertical benefits in terms of client-server relations.
*shrug* All I can say is "give it a try before you pan it."
You obviously don't work here. It's an office and a fridge full of beer, not a cubicle;).
Post XKCD's "ballmer effect" strip, there was a Q&A session where someone asked about how the ballmer effect is being addressed here. The response was something like "We tried pumping alcohol through the air vents, but that just created vaporware. Then we decided to put it in the water coolers, only to find out none of the engineers drink water. In the end, we just decided that we'll see you at the next morale event."
Insightful? Really? It's an easy test - try running DRM protected content on a non DRM protected source and see if it works in Win7 (beta). What? It does. So you're the one spreading FUD this time? Shocking!
Then there's the third class: those that bitch about Windows not being backwards compatible while simultaneously saying how much backwards compatibility hobbles the OS. Those are the really fun people to talk to.
If you have a 1Ghz, 1GB (of RAM) netbook with the equivalent graphics card as your 600Mhz 512MB desktop, it should run Windows better than the 600MHz, 512MB (of RAM) desktop.
I'm not sure what you're saying. Did you miss that netbooks won't be shipping with Starter unless you're living in, say, Nigeria?
Unless you're making the tired troll about how new OSes from MS don't run on old hardware, therefore they must suck. As someone on/. has in their signature: anything that isn't direct calls to the bios must be unacceptably slow, as it has to pass through an intermediary. At least for me, I'd rather the computer make use of the billions of clock cycles and bytes available than sit there idle all day. Index my movies or music or source code, cache my files, et cetera, please!
Or, are you saying that only one version should be released, and it should have everything, regardless of cost of additional engineering to produce (and support) the additional features?
The truth is: business. By your logic, why not just give the product away? Fire all the engineers, support, et cetera. Who cares about the number of jobs lost, the number of mouths unfed because of laid off computer engineers?
I stated above the reason for a ultra cheap version. It attempts to provide some comparative parity to the black market, without sabotaging the main product. Many ask "why not just get a fully featured product from the guy selling it illegally?" I think the reason is pretty clear: those willing to take without payment will do so regardless. There's no way to eliminate that black market. However, providing the lower tier for those people who will pay at a smaller price, but at a price that is not uniformly sustainable for the company (yet still greater than zero), captures that consumer demand.
The fact is that the world operates on balance and trade-offs. Trying to provide a one-size-fits all utopia to different demands (both consumer and business side) only results in bankruptcy. Hence, the various versions, of which only a couple are actively shown to the developed world.
On a side note, the versions of Win7 are similar to those of XP. XP came in Starter, Home, Professional, Media Center, and Tablet. There was also Windows XP embedded, Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, and WEPOS, a version of embedded specifically targetted for point of sale systems. This is really a historical curiosity, but I point it out to show that having many various versions of Windows isn't new. Now, it's just much better thought out than in the past, with a Russian doll model instead of a multi-domain model for features.
Concerned with profits, perhaps. That would be the basis of a for-profit company. I don't see how it makes us out of touch with reality.
The current reality is that, in many third world countries, it's not the guy torrenting windows off of the pirate bay that is a problem. It's the guy selling copies on the street corner for ten bucks. This looks to address that issue. It won't solve it, but it at least give some form of meaningful competition.
How is it kicking any customer in the nuts to say "there's a stripped down version available only to OEMs who want to make a highly discounted product for third world deployment."? It's not even offered to the "loyal customers" you say we spite. To those people, there are two main versions offered, and a third if you "gotta have it all." Home Premium is like XP Home - has most stuff that people need, doesn't have domain join capabilities. Professional is like XP Pro - domain join and a few other features that benefit small and medium business. Ultimate/Enterprise are the same with different licensing terms (retail versus volume). They provide extras like full disk encryption, direct access networking, etc. These target large companies and/or enthusiasts.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree for a fundamental reason - at some level or some place the system must output both the video and audio to be viewed by the user. At that point, a screen can be scraped and audio intercepted. It only ramps up the time to get a good movie rip, but if you want to show the content to users, there is a way to steal said content.
Moreover, Blu-Ray *was* cracked. The updated BD+ is taking some time, but once they figure out how to emulate the virtual machine better, it will again fall. The downfall of Blu Ray is built in - accurately emulate an official virtual machine, and the disc will decrypt itself for playback.
Shouldn't any company, investing in any solution, consider regular virus/malware checks and security audits? Just because a company chooses to go open source doesn't change their responsibility to check for viruses/exploit (though rare, still possible). Especially when considering large scale deployment for a company, the responsibility to check the system's sanity is still important enough that a vendor's solution will/should need to be purchased for either system.
For slashdot readers, the not so hidden cost of using microsoft software is the stream of FUD coming from editor kdawson.
Is that like a buffer overflow?
For 3, I would point out that it's become a LOT better with Vista and Win7 to create software images.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Imaging_Format
One of the guys here was trying DisplayLink over wireless USB - driving a high res picture at close to real time. It actually does a pretty good job, though the drivers are still a mess and really hack around the display stack.
They are not providing a service nor selling a good. TPB guys have a debt to pay, and in the US, at least, all Federal Reserve minted money is legal for all debts, private or public.
I see this claim a lot, but I call it baseless FUD. If DRM were off pre RTM, you wouldn't be able to play protected content. Why spread rumors and lies, the very FUD that is often claimed to come from MS, then try to claim the higher moral ground?
That "outdated" engine does one thing extremely well: people. In many ways, that makes it a better engine than the latest gee-whiz (saying that makes me feel old, I'm young! I promise!) shader deformation cool effect.
Games are often and increasingly about telling a story, and I think Source does that very well.
I often prefer the theater cut to the "extended" or "unrated" or "special" edition. Most of the time, the material that I see in the extra scenes drags on, and it is readily apparent WHY that material was left out in the first place.
You're a bit off on your numbers, because they quote in bits/second, not bytes per second (nice little marketing trick, that).
If you were downloading at 512kb/s, that would be 64kB/s.
28 days * 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour * 60 seconds/minute = 2419200 seconds * 64kB/s = 154828800 kB, or 154.8 gB. This is still well over their caps, but not as ludicrously as stated.
Also note that cable modems operate as, essentially, time sliced systems. It's less efficient from their standpoint if you're downloading 24/7 at 512kb/s than if you download for a couple hours at whatever the max symbol rate they can support. In the first scenario, a slice of time always must be given to you, but in the second, there are hours when you wouldn't realistically be using the system, allowing them to somewhat overpopulate their network. This is a necessity to make the prices "reasonable."
Upgrading from XP is not supported. Only Vista SP1 is supported for upgrade.
That's why you read kdawson articles only for the humor. Facts are to be found elsewhere.
I can comment in regards to the feature put out by my team: it works a lot better for any user who has multiple monitors or a laptop where they use projectors a lot. I'm also fond of the superbar, as I find it makes keeping various tasks grouped easier.
There are tons of other things that increase productivity, but you're probably right in that there's that first week of "hm, this is new" before realizing those benefits. From a corporate side, there's also a lot of other vertical benefits in terms of client-server relations.
*shrug* All I can say is "give it a try before you pan it."
You obviously don't work here. It's an office and a fridge full of beer, not a cubicle ;).
Post XKCD's "ballmer effect" strip, there was a Q&A session where someone asked about how the ballmer effect is being addressed here. The response was something like "We tried pumping alcohol through the air vents, but that just created vaporware. Then we decided to put it in the water coolers, only to find out none of the engineers drink water. In the end, we just decided that we'll see you at the next morale event."
er doesn't... (to nonprotected source)... no more alcohol tonight...
Insightful? Really? It's an easy test - try running DRM protected content on a non DRM protected source and see if it works in Win7 (beta). What? It does. So you're the one spreading FUD this time? Shocking!
As someone else mentioned, an imperial gallon is greater than a US gallon.
40MP(imperial)G * .8327(US)G/(imperial)G = ~33.3 MP(US)G.
Mp3.com lost this lawsuit, as making a copy for your own use isn't the same as getting a copy from another source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMG_v._MP3.com
Then there's the third class: those that bitch about Windows not being backwards compatible while simultaneously saying how much backwards compatibility hobbles the OS. Those are the really fun people to talk to.
Dumb misspelling on my part, brilliant marketing for Volkswagen. "The Volkswagen Voltswagen - you can't spell it, but we sure can sell it!"
Okay, that was lame. I'll put down the bottle o' booze and leave now.
It's like opting in to unprotected anal sex in the back of a voltswagen, then freaking out at the small back seat size when in post-coital cuddling?
If you have a 1Ghz, 1GB (of RAM) netbook with the equivalent graphics card as your 600Mhz 512MB desktop, it should run Windows better than the 600MHz, 512MB (of RAM) desktop.
I'm not sure what you're saying. Did you miss that netbooks won't be shipping with Starter unless you're living in, say, Nigeria?
Unless you're making the tired troll about how new OSes from MS don't run on old hardware, therefore they must suck. As someone on /. has in their signature: anything that isn't direct calls to the bios must be unacceptably slow, as it has to pass through an intermediary. At least for me, I'd rather the computer make use of the billions of clock cycles and bytes available than sit there idle all day. Index my movies or music or source code, cache my files, et cetera, please!
Or, are you saying that only one version should be released, and it should have everything, regardless of cost of additional engineering to produce (and support) the additional features?
The truth is: business. By your logic, why not just give the product away? Fire all the engineers, support, et cetera. Who cares about the number of jobs lost, the number of mouths unfed because of laid off computer engineers?
I stated above the reason for a ultra cheap version. It attempts to provide some comparative parity to the black market, without sabotaging the main product. Many ask "why not just get a fully featured product from the guy selling it illegally?" I think the reason is pretty clear: those willing to take without payment will do so regardless. There's no way to eliminate that black market. However, providing the lower tier for those people who will pay at a smaller price, but at a price that is not uniformly sustainable for the company (yet still greater than zero), captures that consumer demand.
The fact is that the world operates on balance and trade-offs. Trying to provide a one-size-fits all utopia to different demands (both consumer and business side) only results in bankruptcy. Hence, the various versions, of which only a couple are actively shown to the developed world.
On a side note, the versions of Win7 are similar to those of XP. XP came in Starter, Home, Professional, Media Center, and Tablet. There was also Windows XP embedded, Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, and WEPOS, a version of embedded specifically targetted for point of sale systems. This is really a historical curiosity, but I point it out to show that having many various versions of Windows isn't new. Now, it's just much better thought out than in the past, with a Russian doll model instead of a multi-domain model for features.
Concerned with profits, perhaps. That would be the basis of a for-profit company. I don't see how it makes us out of touch with reality.
The current reality is that, in many third world countries, it's not the guy torrenting windows off of the pirate bay that is a problem. It's the guy selling copies on the street corner for ten bucks. This looks to address that issue. It won't solve it, but it at least give some form of meaningful competition.
How is it kicking any customer in the nuts to say "there's a stripped down version available only to OEMs who want to make a highly discounted product for third world deployment."? It's not even offered to the "loyal customers" you say we spite. To those people, there are two main versions offered, and a third if you "gotta have it all." Home Premium is like XP Home - has most stuff that people need, doesn't have domain join capabilities. Professional is like XP Pro - domain join and a few other features that benefit small and medium business. Ultimate/Enterprise are the same with different licensing terms (retail versus volume). They provide extras like full disk encryption, direct access networking, etc. These target large companies and/or enthusiasts.