Until I've seen how the policy is written (and enforced), I have to proceed with caution and assume this is just another trick they've copied from Facebook (i.e. the trick where they announce theoretically improved privacy to the public, but maintain the status quo in practice (and in the fine print)).
It's true that the subjects don't have to be in on it, not all of them anyway. What's astounding is how little actual content it takes.
Top Gear faked an attack (rock-throwing) at an Alabama gas station, and convinced a lot of people that it really happened. They did it without showing a single attacker throwing a rock, without showing a single attacker threatening them, really without even showing a single attacker's face.
And if today you asked the people who were fooled by it years ago, I'm sure most would say they saw all those things.
. . . then Apple still has only themselves to blame. They willfully demonstrated previously that they're willing to censor content for their own petty and arbitrary reasons, and now they can't (easily) back out of that. They've therefore opened themselves up to substantive criticism regarding the consistency of their censorship.
They put WD Raptors in RAID 0 to form a high performance (yet still affordable) platter drive setup, and then faced them off against Western Digital's new (at the time, first) SSD. Makes sense, right? Except that WD's first SSD was a complete joke, an underperforming, laughably expensive POS that I forgot about a couple days after Anand's review. When I first read about it I couldn't help but think that WD was deliberately setting it up to fail. It was at the bottom of every benchmark yet priced higher than any other (MLC) SSD. They even put a jmicron controller in it for fuck's sake (not the infamous original one, but still . ..)! Storage Review's calling it a "mid-range" SSD is very generous at best.
Even so, this supposedly screaming platter drive setup could only occasionally hang with the bottom of the barrell of SSDs, and mostly lagged behind it. And as I said, this was over a year ago. It goes without saying that they didn't worry much about heat, noise, reliability (of RAID 0), or power consumption.
Anand doesn't even list platter drives in his benchmark results anymore because they'd skew the charts so badly.
As a previous poster said, a winning strategy is to get a SSD boot drive just big enough for your OS and programs, and use platter drives for everything else. And since the SSD takes care of your performance needs, you can get the cheapest, slowest, coolest, quietest platter drives. There are some cases where both high performance and high capacity are needed at once (like video editing) but they're not the norm.
. . . imagine if the Ubisoft always-on DRM were an inherent, unremoveable aspect of the game system rather than just something tacked on to a few individual games after the fact, such that Ubisoft couldn't even begrudgingly neuter it in a patch. Well, Onlive is even worse than that would be.
The game doesn't even run remotely. All you get is streaming video/audio and all the lag you'd expect (including controller lag), which is a recipe for disaster in North America.
Let's say you're lucky enough to have a 30mb/s connection. Why would you want to use it to transfer your game's video instead of, uh, a DVI cable, which is capable of 4 Gb/s? The people who developed DVI apparently understood that that 1920 x 1200 pixels w/ 24 bits/pixels @ 60Hz results in bandwidth well over 3 Gb/s. The people who developed Onlive seem very, very confused (at best).
Some people consider IPS monitors unsuitable for games requiring fast reflexes (i.e. FPSes) due to their double-digit response times. Internet latency is often worse and certainly more unpredictable than LCD monitor response time, and with Onlive it applies to audio and keyboard/controller/etc input too.
Those of us who know anything about bandwidth and compression and (especially) latency can see the enormous technical obstacles facing a service like this, and Onlive has never done anything to explain how they intend to solve them. Instead, they've done everything they can to lock out independent reviewers with NDAs and closed demonstrations. A friend of mine described it as the gaming equivalent of the perpetual motion scam, and IMO that's spot on (except that Onlive would still have the draconian DRM issues even if it worked perfectly)..
BTW, you pay a monthly fee for the service and then you STILL have to "buy" the games (which of course become useless if your subscription lapses, giving them another leash to choke you with). I'm not kidding.
Onlive appears designed from the ground up to benefit the game publishers and fuck the customers, exactly what you'd expect from any DRM system.
I haven't heard many people going to a DVD-only plan. Most people were planning on canceling, or doing the streaming plan +Redbox. Does this change anyone's plans?
I went to DVD-only after the latest price hike (which turned out to be a cut for me). I posted here about it (accidentally as AC) here:
I never cared much about streaming, only DVDs, so for me this amounts to a price cut of $4/month (and gives me an idea of how much I've been paying for the streaming I never wanted). Here's the email I got (I'm on the 3 at a time plan for $20/mo).
We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.
Your current $19.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:
Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 3 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $15.99 a month
Your price for getting both of these plans will be $23.98 a month ($7.99 + $15.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.
These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.
My take on it is that due to the threats to net neutrality (ISP bandwidth caps and MAFIAA), Netflix's streaming business is getting squeezed all around. Its costs are rising and there's every reason to believe things are going to get even worse in the future.
By all rights, streaming should cost almost nothing compared to mailing physical DVDs. Netflix's original plan was to piggyback (i.e. force) streaming onto everyone's DVD plan, under the assumption that the more DVD rentals it rendered unnecessary, the better. Eventually it might have even become Netfix's primary business.
But streaming is probably becoming so expensive that this piggybacking isn't viable anymore. They know they have to raise prices on the bundled plans, and that makes two price hikes in one year (my plan was $17/mo until February). Customers will scream bloody murder over that, so in an attempt to lessen the fallout they're separating the two services, limiting the (perceived) price hike by allowing customers to pay for only what they use. This means neither DVD-only nor streaming-only folks have to subsidize the other side so much anymore, but the tradeoff is that there's no longer any money to be saved by bundling. So the customers hurt the most are those who use both services, and I bet this really sticks in Netflix's craw because those are exactly the kind of customers they've always wanted to attract (and create) the most.
We have to ask ourselves: Why do we develop green technology? How much money are we willing to waste? What sacrifices are we willing to make? What do we expect to get in return? Those are the most important questions that we should at least try to answer.
I agree, but unfortunately anyone who tries to ask (much less answer) such questions in a global warming debate gets themselves labeled a "denier." There's far too much overstated alarmist demagoguery and too little honest cost/benefit analysis for my taste.
And even if it was a hurricane at landfall, it's the first to hit the US in 3 years, which is unusual. Perhaps climate change is to blame for weakening our storms? Will this finally wake people up?
Nowadays, I travel to conferences and jobs with my equipment packed exclusively in metal cases that are secured with heavy-duty padlocks that are resistant to cutting, prying, and picking. Many people express surprise when they learn that such locks are legal for air travel. There is no secret trick, really all one has to do is fly with firearms.
Yes, traveling with firearms in checked baggage is not only easy and relatively hassle-free, but it also results in very strong security due to the wording of federal laws.
If you are traveling by air with firearms, federal law allows (in fact, it compels) you to secure your luggage with a non-TSA approved lock. Naturally, they must be unloaded (although transportation of ammo is also possible, if one follows airline policies), packed in a hard-sided case, and declared. Once the check-in process has been completed and the bag has been locked, no one is allowed to unlock the bag (or even possess the key or combination) outside of your presence. (Although some airports fail to comply 100% with this policy... read the traveler accounts to hear more about that.)
He is admittedly my only source for this info (though I will definitely do some more research now), but are you sure he is wrong?
So, are you telling me it's now easier to fly with a firearm than it is with an acoustic guitar?
It has been much easier (in the US) to fly with guns than with many other things for a while now. There are unique advantages to doing so; for example, AFAIK it is the only way to ensure your bags aren't searched unless you are present.
Spare us the partisan grandstanding. If conservative politics were so integral to this abuse of police power, then why are the worst relevant laws found in Massachusetts and Illinois? They're the only two states where expectation of privacy is not a prerequisite to a wiretapping charge.
Me. I enjoyed the flow of Diablo 2's campaign, through all 3 difficulties (who knows, maybe D3 isn't designed as well to provide a continuous challenge). I appreciated the lack of lag vs. playing on battle.net (and yes, I could tell the difference even on a top notch internet connection).
Blizzard's excuse that they're forcing everyone online to prevent cheating or preserve access to "new features" is horseshit. Those features are (by defininition) worthless to someone only interested in singleplayer, and cheating is irrelevent to singleplayer as well. This decision has nothing to do with improving the end user's experience, and everything to do with exerting control over it.
They don't, and haven't as of yet, they want your "common name". Here's their remarkably readable brief policy.
from that page:
Google Profiles requires you to use the name that you commonly go by in daily life.
Am I missing something? What distinction are you making between a "real name" and a "common name"? What Google is asking for appears to be exactly what the GP doesn't want to give (neither do I). Google does demand your real name.
Before anyone mentions the "modes" that page describes, they control who you appear to be to other people, not Google itself. And "other people" might not mean all third parties, just the other common users like you. And even if you like the idea of these "modes" then you still have to trust Google's intentions and competence to keep them from leaking.
Pretentious college students still act like owning an Apple makes than freedom fighters. Most people still associate buying an Apple with sticking it to the man, somehow.
Here's the most jawdropping instance I've ever seen of this phenomenon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q6KAg6qEGY
How many years' worth of "corporate water" could you buy for the cost of just one of those macbooks?
I've always been impressed with NearlyFreeSpeech.Net's (they sell hosting/domains) privacy policy:
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/privacy
Check it out if you want an example of one that's serious about earning your trust, not just tricking you. It's clearly written with very little legalese or boilerplate cut&paste.
You remind me of another relevant story called Thinking Inside the Box, which is Act I (@9:00) of this episode:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/283/Remember-Me
It is also about a dying mother leaving a (video) letter to her daughter, but it has a much different effect (read: no effect) because the daughter is incapable of remembering . . . for better or for worse.
From TFA: ``Nowhere else in the free world is this happening,'' said Helena Kennedy, a human rights lawyer who also is a member of the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. ``The American public would find such inroads into civil liberties wholly unacceptable.''
Yeah . . . right.
Of course we'll accept it, and gladly, too. Hell, as long as it's a "right" that some individual doesn't personally exercise and find valuable, then he may even help them, and campaign for them while they strip him of it.
Drugs, guns, even junk food . . . it is a story repeated with one "freedom" after another.
If you're gonna try to eliminate free speech that you don't like, then do it for a really, really good cause and avoid the backslash.
Doesn't hurt to be a Democrat, either.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdOpKv9D7rA
Until I've seen how the policy is written (and enforced), I have to proceed with caution and assume this is just another trick they've copied from Facebook (i.e. the trick where they announce theoretically improved privacy to the public, but maintain the status quo in practice (and in the fine print)).
It's true that the subjects don't have to be in on it, not all of them anyway. What's astounding is how little actual content it takes.
Top Gear faked an attack (rock-throwing) at an Alabama gas station, and convinced a lot of people that it really happened. They did it without showing a single attacker throwing a rock, without showing a single attacker threatening them, really without even showing a single attacker's face.
And if today you asked the people who were fooled by it years ago, I'm sure most would say they saw all those things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdOpKv9D7rA
. . . then Apple still has only themselves to blame. They willfully demonstrated previously that they're willing to censor content for their own petty and arbitrary reasons, and now they can't (easily) back out of that. They've therefore opened themselves up to substantive criticism regarding the consistency of their censorship.
. . . a Storage Review experiment from over a year ago:
http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_velociraptors_raid_ssd_alternative
They put WD Raptors in RAID 0 to form a high performance (yet still affordable) platter drive setup, and then faced them off against Western Digital's new (at the time, first) SSD. Makes sense, right? Except that WD's first SSD was a complete joke, an underperforming, laughably expensive POS that I forgot about a couple days after Anand's review. When I first read about it I couldn't help but think that WD was deliberately setting it up to fail. It was at the bottom of every benchmark yet priced higher than any other (MLC) SSD. They even put a jmicron controller in it for fuck's sake (not the infamous original one, but still . . .)! Storage Review's calling it a "mid-range" SSD is very generous at best.
Even so, this supposedly screaming platter drive setup could only occasionally hang with the bottom of the barrell of SSDs, and mostly lagged behind it. And as I said, this was over a year ago. It goes without saying that they didn't worry much about heat, noise, reliability (of RAID 0), or power consumption.
Anand doesn't even list platter drives in his benchmark results anymore because they'd skew the charts so badly.
As a previous poster said, a winning strategy is to get a SSD boot drive just big enough for your OS and programs, and use platter drives for everything else. And since the SSD takes care of your performance needs, you can get the cheapest, slowest, coolest, quietest platter drives. There are some cases where both high performance and high capacity are needed at once (like video editing) but they're not the norm.
. . . imagine if the Ubisoft always-on DRM were an inherent, unremoveable aspect of the game system rather than just something tacked on to a few individual games after the fact, such that Ubisoft couldn't even begrudgingly neuter it in a patch. Well, Onlive is even worse than that would be.
The game doesn't even run remotely. All you get is streaming video/audio and all the lag you'd expect (including controller lag), which is a recipe for disaster in North America.
Let's say you're lucky enough to have a 30mb/s connection. Why would you want to use it to transfer your game's video instead of, uh, a DVI cable, which is capable of 4 Gb/s? The people who developed DVI apparently understood that that 1920 x 1200 pixels w/ 24 bits/pixels @ 60Hz results in bandwidth well over 3 Gb/s. The people who developed Onlive seem very, very confused (at best).
Some people consider IPS monitors unsuitable for games requiring fast reflexes (i.e. FPSes) due to their double-digit response times. Internet latency is often worse and certainly more unpredictable than LCD monitor response time, and with Onlive it applies to audio and keyboard/controller/etc input too.
Those of us who know anything about bandwidth and compression and (especially) latency can see the enormous technical obstacles facing a service like this, and Onlive has never done anything to explain how they intend to solve them. Instead, they've done everything they can to lock out independent reviewers with NDAs and closed demonstrations. A friend of mine described it as the gaming equivalent of the perpetual motion scam, and IMO that's spot on (except that Onlive would still have the draconian DRM issues even if it worked perfectly)..
BTW, you pay a monthly fee for the service and then you STILL have to "buy" the games (which of course become useless if your subscription lapses, giving them another leash to choke you with). I'm not kidding.
Onlive appears designed from the ground up to benefit the game publishers and fuck the customers, exactly what you'd expect from any DRM system.
I haven't heard many people going to a DVD-only plan. Most people were planning on canceling, or doing the streaming plan +Redbox. Does this change anyone's plans?
I went to DVD-only after the latest price hike (which turned out to be a cut for me). I posted here about it (accidentally as AC) here:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2341822&cid=36843532
I never cared much about streaming, only DVDs, so for me this amounts to a price cut of $4/month (and gives me an idea of how much I've been paying for the streaming I never wanted). Here's the email I got (I'm on the 3 at a time plan for $20/mo).
We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into two separate plans to better reflect the costs of each. Now our members have a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan, or both.
Your current $19.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans:
Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month
Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 3 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $15.99 a month
Your price for getting both of these plans will be $23.98 a month ($7.99 + $15.99). You don't need to do anything to continue your memberships for both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs.
These prices will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.
My take on it is that due to the threats to net neutrality (ISP bandwidth caps and MAFIAA), Netflix's streaming business is getting squeezed all around. Its costs are rising and there's every reason to believe things are going to get even worse in the future.
By all rights, streaming should cost almost nothing compared to mailing physical DVDs. Netflix's original plan was to piggyback (i.e. force) streaming onto everyone's DVD plan, under the assumption that the more DVD rentals it rendered unnecessary, the better. Eventually it might have even become Netfix's primary business.
But streaming is probably becoming so expensive that this piggybacking isn't viable anymore. They know they have to raise prices on the bundled plans, and that makes two price hikes in one year (my plan was $17/mo until February). Customers will scream bloody murder over that, so in an attempt to lessen the fallout they're separating the two services, limiting the (perceived) price hike by allowing customers to pay for only what they use. This means neither DVD-only nor streaming-only folks have to subsidize the other side so much anymore, but the tradeoff is that there's no longer any money to be saved by bundling. So the customers hurt the most are those who use both services, and I bet this really sticks in Netflix's craw because those are exactly the kind of customers they've always wanted to attract (and create) the most.
.nt
We have to ask ourselves: Why do we develop green technology? How much money are we willing to waste? What sacrifices are we willing to make? What do we expect to get in return? Those are the most important questions that we should at least try to answer.
I agree, but unfortunately anyone who tries to ask (much less answer) such questions in a global warming debate gets themselves labeled a "denier." There's far too much overstated alarmist demagoguery and too little honest cost/benefit analysis for my taste.
And even if it was a hurricane at landfall, it's the first to hit the US in 3 years, which is unusual. Perhaps climate change is to blame for weakening our storms? Will this finally wake people up?
This is a page authored by the same guy in the video:
http://deviating.net/firearms/packing/
Nowadays, I travel to conferences and jobs with my equipment packed exclusively in metal cases that are secured with heavy-duty padlocks that are resistant to cutting, prying, and picking. Many people express surprise when they learn that such locks are legal for air travel. There is no secret trick, really all one has to do is fly with firearms. Yes, traveling with firearms in checked baggage is not only easy and relatively hassle-free, but it also results in very strong security due to the wording of federal laws.
If you are traveling by air with firearms, federal law allows (in fact, it compels) you to secure your luggage with a non-TSA approved lock. Naturally, they must be unloaded (although transportation of ammo is also possible, if one follows airline policies), packed in a hard-sided case, and declared. Once the check-in process has been completed and the bag has been locked, no one is allowed to unlock the bag (or even possess the key or combination) outside of your presence. (Although some airports fail to comply 100% with this policy... read the traveler accounts to hear more about that.)
He is admittedly my only source for this info (though I will definitely do some more research now), but are you sure he is wrong?
So, are you telling me it's now easier to fly with a firearm than it is with an acoustic guitar?
It has been much easier (in the US) to fly with guns than with many other things for a while now. There are unique advantages to doing so; for example, AFAIK it is the only way to ensure your bags aren't searched unless you are present.
This is a long but very informative video: http://www.vimeo.com/3923535
Flash is an external process and thus bypasses browser settings.
Flash is an external process and thus bypasses browser settings
So disable it during private browsing. Better to have real security with some limited functionality than a false sense of security.
Some limited functionality? Do you realize how many surprise-birthday-planning sites require Flash?
And in Cyberia years before that.
Spare us the partisan grandstanding. If conservative politics were so integral to this abuse of police power, then why are the worst relevant laws found in Massachusetts and Illinois? They're the only two states where expectation of privacy is not a prerequisite to a wiretapping charge.
Who plays Diablo offline?
Me. I enjoyed the flow of Diablo 2's campaign, through all 3 difficulties (who knows, maybe D3 isn't designed as well to provide a continuous challenge). I appreciated the lack of lag vs. playing on battle.net (and yes, I could tell the difference even on a top notch internet connection).
Blizzard's excuse that they're forcing everyone online to prevent cheating or preserve access to "new features" is horseshit. Those features are (by defininition) worthless to someone only interested in singleplayer, and cheating is irrelevent to singleplayer as well. This decision has nothing to do with improving the end user's experience, and everything to do with exerting control over it.
No sale.
...but if they're requiring real names...
They don't, and haven't as of yet, they want your "common name". Here's their remarkably readable brief policy.
from that page:
Google Profiles requires you to use the name that you commonly go by in daily life.
Am I missing something? What distinction are you making between a "real name" and a "common name"? What Google is asking for appears to be exactly what the GP doesn't want to give (neither do I). Google does demand your real name.
Before anyone mentions the "modes" that page describes, they control who you appear to be to other people, not Google itself. And "other people" might not mean all third parties, just the other common users like you. And even if you like the idea of these "modes" then you still have to trust Google's intentions and competence to keep them from leaking.
Pretentious college students still act like owning an Apple makes than freedom fighters. Most people still associate buying an Apple with sticking it to the man, somehow.
Here's the most jawdropping instance I've ever seen of this phenomenon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q6KAg6qEGY How many years' worth of "corporate water" could you buy for the cost of just one of those macbooks?
I've always been impressed with NearlyFreeSpeech.Net's (they sell hosting/domains) privacy policy: https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/privacy Check it out if you want an example of one that's serious about earning your trust, not just tricking you. It's clearly written with very little legalese or boilerplate cut&paste.
You remind me of another relevant story called Thinking Inside the Box, which is Act I (@9:00) of this episode: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/283/Remember-Me It is also about a dying mother leaving a (video) letter to her daughter, but it has a much different effect (read: no effect) because the daughter is incapable of remembering . . . for better or for worse.
I wonder if one of the people responsible asked /. for help a while back:
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/17/2326255
If so, he either ignored some of the good advice or got overruled by his bosses.
The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation that required broadcast media to present controversial issues in an honest, equal, and balanced manner.
I am the US government, and I approve this message.
From TFA:
``Nowhere else in the free world is this happening,'' said Helena Kennedy, a human rights lawyer who also is a member of the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. ``The American public would find such inroads into civil liberties wholly unacceptable.''
Yeah . . . right.
Of course we'll accept it, and gladly, too. Hell, as long as it's a "right" that some individual doesn't personally exercise and find valuable, then he may even help them, and campaign for them while they strip him of it.
Drugs, guns, even junk food . . . it is a story repeated with one "freedom" after another.
If you're gonna try to eliminate free speech that you don't like, then do it for a really, really good cause and avoid the backslash. Doesn't hurt to be a Democrat, either.