"Which is why "playing ball and stick" or "bounceing ball in hoop" pays significantly more than playing "guns of shooting" or "weapons of blasting" or whatever of whatever the latest fps is (I love video games too)." "There's a bit of a difference there. (oh say 30-90K live audience that is willing to drop a decent amount of money on a ticket, and some seriously overpriced concessions...not to mention the TV take, which is where the NFL/NBA/MLB really make their money)"
I know . My point was at the bottom.
People decide what stuff is worth paying someone tons of cash to do. Gaming has an audience. Small as it is, it is able to pay these few guys as ton of money even though it is boring as hell to watch on TV. If the gaming league was able to get as big as even the smallest televised sport there would be guys making upwards of 5-10 million.
In any case TV and competitive FPS gaming do not mix. If MLG wanted they could( and I think should) get the devs of the big tourney games (Hollow 3, Shotguns of War,RTS#35) to create online "Stadiums" which people could use to move freely about the map and watch how they want( follow a player and view his/her(HER who am I kidding for the most part competitive gaming is a total sausage party) current/overall stats and support it with small ads or implanted ads that the competitors can't see but spectators can.
Fighting games / RTS can be televised the problem comes in finding the best way to present the match. There is no John Madden for color commentary to any FPS at least not on TV.
when does Guns of Shooting come out it sounds AWESOME.
It would be interesting to see but what of the telco's move toward tiered pricing and low usage caps. I can't imagine someone wanting to pay even more to download COD 9 - OUT OF AMMO if it comes in at 8GB (~2 dvds).
"but I don't think Mac users should get too upset that they won't have a 64-bit version for a few months."
While the first part is true ; users shouldn't but will be upset because mac native 64-bit CS will take years not months to rewrite ( Over 1 mil. lines and 6+ years of now outdated code rewritten is not a small task and to date would be the largest scale reworking of an app in apple-land even bigger than the PPC-intel switch)
Apple is more concerned with the sales hit they will take as some ( maybe not an enormous number but enough ) users revert to Windows to do what they perceive they must to stay current.
"Photoshop works really nicely in OSX as it is"
It does until you open a 256MB Tiff and make more the 6 layers each with their own subset of layer/filter/layer-style sets. Sounds like you don't see very many 1GB+ PSDs. Sadly when you work on larger files frequently you see where Adobe cut back.
Not taking anything away from you but some people would benefit from adobe getting with the times. 64-bit hardware has been around for a while and adobe sat back Milking the old code for all they could get. Carbon was never meant to be a long term thing and adobe figured ( while drinking the apple flavoured kool-aid in so far as 64-bit cocoa ) they could get away with it.
"Assuming I pay for my internet in kb sent/received, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. "
Aren't the infected already paying the increased cost of the botnets running on their systems.
"Also, using a worm to 'force' people to patch is likely to seriously screw up patch management"
Aren't they already being "forced" to dole out spam. I'd rather force them to keep a clean system then sit back and let the runners of the botnets win.
Also i'd argue that Patch management doesn't exist for the people who are infected. They don't even know what a patch is let alone a botnet. They don't know how they get infected. They don't know how to help themselves. And no one seems to really want to fix the problem.
Unless the patch comes in the form of a LOLcat saying "teh botnet iz Fuking u up I iz her to Halp" It ain't gonna get fixed.
"Healing worms are a bad idea."
Botnets are a worse idea.
Something has to be done and we ( people who know at least some things ) should be trying everything we can to at least slow down these abusive networks. If not a "halpful" worm then something more proactive then just saying help your self cause we are seeing what that mantra is doing.
Yes of course it'll get caught by AV/Anti spy ware. Those people are the ones who you don't ( usually ) have to worry about. And since the worm is closing the doors ( and subsequently killing itself on the host side ) the propagation will eventually go to zero ( or as close to 0 as you can realistically get ) as the network is " healed "
"And from the user standpoint: do you really want anything that propagates as a worm doing whatever it wants on your box?"
As a user who knows how to protect themselves. No . But as we all know the users who don't know any better don't even know that they themselves are the reason that the botnets exist. So using them to fix the problem as a whole is not only doing them a service it is doing us all the favor also.
Also in my ideal version of this fix the spreading of the worm is a one shot deal on the host side. It sends itself once then closes the door thus preventing future infections from the same vector.
"Basically we call the solution to the virus problem a 'patch' and give people the option of whether and when to install it."
And how has that been working for all of us. I'd say not very well since the botnets still exist. If all the users were patching as often as you and most slashdotters were in theory the botnets would not exist at all.
"As a sysadmin, do you want something unauthorized eating up network resources?"
If your doing your job you will never have to worry about since you wouldn't get infected in the first place.
I have been trying to figure out the easiest and most transparent way to close down botnets and the only thing I could think of was to write a "virus"-like patch that uses the already open door that the botnets use to infiltrate the infected machines and then have them automatically close the doors and send them selves around just like worms do now.
Kind of a Helpful worm "infecting" the net with happy healing and all that crap.
I figure that like all connected things you need to have an Auto-immune system that cleans the net as new vulnerabilities are discovered. Since people cannot be relied upon to protect themselves the white hats ( who have the skills required to create these immunizations ) could be like med-techs making shots for the network. The people who are infected get healed and don't even know that they were sick in the first place.
But I'm not that cool ( and by cool I mean I can't code my way out of a wet paper bag )
It does suck and if the guys on top were willing to use some of their profits ( and we would all be "willfully ignorant" to think they are not making money ) then we might all actually have a better situation. The problem is greed plain and simple.
The execs don't want to pay for better infrastructure with their own money they want us to pay for it and then pay them again for the "privilege" to use the line we paid for.
"Of course new hardware can be added, but it has to be paid for, and as bandwidth usage goes up so do costs. If you actually need to install new cable, that gets very expensive indeed."
Is this a problem for the users or the ISPs ?
Isn't reinvesting in your business the way you actually grow your business (making more money by attracting new clients with increased capacity to provide equal service across the board ) instead of milking your existing customers for more money all the while providing less service. Over time consumer costs are supposed to go down for utilities . And despite what some think Internet access is fast becoming a utility especially as more people come to depend on the net to get business done.
The phone started in a similar manner and technology and demand helped reduce the overall costs. As more people wanted the phone in their homes upfront costs to Ma-bell were lowered and technology (multiplexing etc) provided a way to increase service with no reduction of quality so the lines that were in place could do more.
If comcast is only worried about the short term gains they get with their current practices then they deserve what they will get as soon as fiber oversells cable by provide what people actually want. Better service with no caps and better quality since no one is going to cut them off for using what they are buying from the provider.
You are forgetting the second part of the unlimited plan. Mainly the part of 5 mbps a month or what ever it is. Mbps stands for millions of bits per second or megabits per second and is a measure of bandwidth (the total information flow over a given time) on a telecommunications medium.
We are all sold a bandwith and a time frame. In the above case 5mbps for an entire month. Every second of every day I am allowed to grab Up to 5mbps
If they are not able to provide that it is not the fault of people who are using what they paid for it's the providers fault for over-selling capacity they claim they don't have.
You buy "unlimited" electricity from the electric company they don't "throttle" you when you run your A/C in the summer right. This is no different.
By your example you would be fine with the electric company shutting your A/C down for taking away power from your good neighbors who despite wanting to be cool don't run A/C cause the HF(Hand-Fan)-IAA say that A/Cs are hurting their sale of hand-powered fans. You know the fans that people convert in to new whiz-bang electric fans that do exactly what they want ; mainly provide cooling in a way the the HF-IAA has no plan of providing to users who want to stay cool but want to do so in their own way not in the restricted way the HF-IAA want .
You should be able to get the specs from the makers site. Always make 2 trips when you go to get anything like this. First to see the models available and then after checking the specs of the one/s you were interested in.
Also laptop screens are not really built with color, contrast or response time in mind so you're usually better off not getting wound up about color fidelity when you shop for a laptop. If it looks good enough for what you plan to use it for get it. Also you should be using an external monitor for color critical stuff anyway as no laptop screen will come close to the quality of even some of the cheapest stand alone monitors.
Anyone who works in any color-critical business knows to NEVER-EVER buy any apple branded monitor if color quality is your goal. They are the worst bang for your buck on all fronts. Even a cheap panasonic (sub $400) after calibration will yield better color than its apple counterpart with the same calibration. The only reason people buy the apple monitor is so their setup "matches" like you match your shoes to your belt.
It's sad but very true. As a professional in digital photography we carry 30in cinema displays and take note that the people who rent them only do so for 3 reasons.
They are big and honestly are a great gimmick to impress clients who work on shitty setups at their offices.
Their shooting style is such that color accuracy is not relevant at the time of capture.
They are ignorant to the nature of color and how it can potentially screw up their workflow. Both during and after capture.
And the forth ( I know I said 3 ) In the business of digital capture you have to offer what the other guys offer or you risk losing clients who don't want to pay for the top of the line ( ie any EIZO monitor )
AIM that you have to check like 80's style voicemail ( no "you have mail" type alerts) is not AIM. I'm sorry but its not especially since kids have have been using aim on their sidekicks for like 4 years there is no reason that the iphone/touch can't do the same. Like other people have said already apple has been using the battery excuse far to much to excuse themselves from actually opening up the platform (IIRC they did say they were creating a platform with the iphone ) Iphone AIM in the way described above would be one of the poorest implementations of IM and I will gladly load a " battery hogging" version of AIM ( if i actually needed AIM ) over the gimped version any day of the week.
While your #1 might be correct turning on background processes will ban you from using the itunes app download service that apple is forcing devs to use to distribute their apps. And according to apple that service will be the only official ( ie won't kill your warranty ) way to gets apps on your iphone/touch. So it is effectively off limits.
" I really like the idea of a randomized default SSID and WPA key out of the box. Since most people would keep them at defaults it might actually make support easier then if you had people playing around with their own settings."
I like it too . So when I get a call from pops saying he forgot his password and that he doesn't have the paper with it either I can just say buy a new one. Unless of course it's printed on the router itself.
And just in case you actually were considering the X-Arcade - Don't.They are laggy at best ( for fighters a no-go ) You are better off pad-hacking a stick using official Sony or Microsoft pads and buying actual cabinet parts. They aren't very difficult to build ; some soldering and if you can have the wood or board cut for you even easier.
"Nah, if they were going to copy Apple, they'd also needlessly break backwards compatibility."
Not for nothing but breaking BC is actually a good move in the long run. It forces devs to not rest on old code. It pushes apps up to date and brings with it more stable better looking and less intensive apps than their predecessors ( after learning the new system and how to deal with it of course ) . The best thing MS could do for computing in general is to destroy legacy BC allowing for hardware to modernize ( and software to slim down trimming the fat of legacy support ) and force devs to get with the program..literally. Yes alot of people will not be happy by it but keeping BC is crippling windows. They need to say XP will be the last to have legacy support for the laundry list of things that 99% of people never heard of ( cause they are so old) or have no desire to dig up out of the closet. Windows 7 should start a new era of computer use insofar as MS is concerned.
It is the major reason OS X is where it is now. Apple has no qualms about saying if you want BC for os 9 you wont be upgrading to leopard. Also you know if you are still running os 9 apps you either
A. Should stay in os 9 ( classic support doesn't really cut it for some classic apps) B. Pay the extra cash and upgrade to newer Software versions C Ditch the old hardware that is requiring you to run OS 9 ( at that point your hardware is probably outdated and has been replaced with better cheaper stuff anyway.
MS is so afraid of losing legacy customers that its been retarding its' own growth ( compromising their obvious dominance of the os market ) to keep people who are hanging on to software and hardware so old it probably is still archived on punch cards and reel to reel tape.
The only problem with trying to revert to pay as you go is that no one will do it. We did it already with aol and like services. They started as pay as you go and when they went unlimited they exploded. People do not want pay as you go and the broadband industry would never have existed based on that model. To even attempt to do it would only make people go to the one smart company that decided against going pay as you go and will eventually lead us back here to providers who refuse to upgrade and increase capacity.
I can see that they are trying to force it on people but the truly smart company will start to secretly increase capacity and then suddenly reduce customer pricing ( by a token amount of course, nothing profit breaking ) advertise it at the "Truly Unlimited Internet" and see the pay as you go model sent to the trash along with all the aol disks.
"If the problem with BitTorrent and other P2P apps (from your perspective, anyway) is disproportionate bandwidth usage, why not just charge more from the people using more than their fair share?"
The word Disproportionate should only apply to situations where you are expected to use an alloted amount. "unlimited" data plans imply by their name that you are paying for the right to use all you want.
Also don't forget that if their advertising is saying Unlimited and your contract says unlimited then Unlimited is consider to be my fair share. In the US companies are ( usually ) held to what they advertise. Unless AT&T and the other providers are going to change advertisement to reflect the removal of "unlimited" service ( and the subsequent loss of customers ) They should be forced to increase bandwith supply to meet the demand placed on that bandwith through the sales of "unlimited" service. If they can't meet their end of the contract they shouldn't be allowed to now; after overselling service, say that they have to limit certain types of traffic to prevent their network from collapsing. Either that or they should refund money for our loss of the contractually obligated unlimited access service we signed up for.
"What makes it better than proposing Creationism?"
The fact that evidence can be presented to at least partially support the theory instead of pointing to the bible and saying "Look no further than the words in this book for proof"
A book that has no scientific basis. The bible for all the power people like to give it is nothing more than the collected writings of a cult ( for its time the followers of Jesus must have been considered cultists ) about their cult leader. Nothing more nothing less. The teachings of Jesus were meant to ease the troubled minds of a people who were gradually becoming more and more oppressed by a steadily growing ruling class. Lessons like turn the other cheek and blessed are the meek for they shall be rewarded in the kingdom of heaven are just ways to slowly ease the masses minds into submission . Submission at the hands of a "Great Power" . A power that you have no control over. One that in fact RULES YOU. Notice how when something good happens to a deeply religious person they are quick to thank god but the instant something bad happens they blame themselves because they must have brought this on themselves. The church; at least in catholic and christian franchises is nothing more than a control scheme that takes away any sense of self accomplishment and replaces it with S+M style self loathing and low self worth.
Evolution for all it assumes is still more provable( if thats a real word) than the writings of a few guys blindly following another guy around the sand 2000 years ago.
Although scientists claim to always be right. When presented with evidence that shows proof of a contradictory theory most good scientists will take the information and at least consider it's validity unlike most creationists who's answer to any contradictory evidence seems to be either.
A. The bible says otherwise - case closed B. Your in league with the devil and all science is an abomination against god. C. LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.
"God and evolution are not mutually exclusive."
To the creationists they most certainly are. To a large majority it seems that for god to exist there has to be a literal "garden of eden" Noah had to really have built an arc and really loaded it will all the animals EXCEPT the extinct ones. And there is no way in hell that any species existed before man because we were the first.
Slashdot Mirror
"Which is why "playing ball and stick" or "bounceing ball in hoop" pays significantly more than playing "guns of shooting" or "weapons of blasting" or whatever of whatever the latest fps is (I love video games too)."
"There's a bit of a difference there. (oh say 30-90K live audience that is willing to drop a decent amount of money on a ticket, and some seriously overpriced concessions...not to mention the TV take, which is where the NFL/NBA/MLB really make their money)"
I know . My point was at the bottom.
People decide what stuff is worth paying someone tons of cash to do. Gaming has an audience. Small as it is, it is able to pay these few guys as ton of money even though it is boring as hell to watch on TV. If the gaming league was able to get as big as even the smallest televised sport there would be guys making upwards of 5-10 million.
In any case TV and competitive FPS gaming do not mix. If MLG wanted they could( and I think should) get the devs of the big tourney games (Hollow 3, Shotguns of War,RTS#35) to create online "Stadiums" which people could use to move freely about the map and watch how they want( follow a player and view his/her(HER who am I kidding for the most part competitive gaming is a total sausage party) current/overall stats and support it with small ads or implanted ads that the competitors can't see but spectators can.
Fighting games / RTS can be televised the problem comes in finding the best way to present the match. There is no John Madden for color commentary to any FPS at least not on TV.
when does Guns of Shooting come out it sounds AWESOME.
It would be interesting to see but what of the telco's move toward tiered pricing and low usage caps. I can't imagine someone wanting to pay even more to download COD 9 - OUT OF AMMO if it comes in at 8GB (~2 dvds).
Oh please, Like playing ball and stick or bouncing ball in hoop is worth 24 million.
http://www.insidehoops.com/nbasalaries.shtml
I would rather watch someone run a map with 20-30 kills and no deaths over shaq consistently missing freethrows 9 out of 10 times.
The market( you and me ) decide what is worth what.
"...even bigger than the PPC-intel switch"
After some more looking around that might not be right.
Please correct me if I am not.
"but I don't think Mac users should get too upset that they won't have a 64-bit version for a few months."
While the first part is true ; users shouldn't but will be upset because mac native 64-bit CS will take years not months to rewrite ( Over 1 mil. lines and 6+ years of now outdated code rewritten is not a small task and to date would be the largest scale reworking of an app in apple-land even bigger than the PPC-intel switch)
Apple is more concerned with the sales hit they will take as some ( maybe not an enormous number but enough ) users revert to Windows to do what they perceive they must to stay current.
"Photoshop works really nicely in OSX as it is"
It does until you open a 256MB Tiff and make more the 6 layers each with their own subset of layer/filter/layer-style sets. Sounds like you don't see very many 1GB+ PSDs. Sadly when you work on larger files frequently you see where Adobe cut back.
Not taking anything away from you but some people would benefit from adobe getting with the times. 64-bit hardware has been around for a while and adobe sat back Milking the old code for all they could get. Carbon was never meant to be a long term thing and adobe figured ( while drinking the apple flavoured kool-aid in so far as 64-bit cocoa ) they could get away with it.
Not after 07 WWDC.
"Assuming I pay for my internet in kb sent/received, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. "
Aren't the infected already paying the increased cost of the botnets running on their systems.
"Also, using a worm to 'force' people to patch is likely to seriously screw up patch management"
Aren't they already being "forced" to dole out spam. I'd rather force them to keep a clean system then sit back and let the runners of the botnets win.
Also i'd argue that Patch management doesn't exist for the people who are infected. They don't even know what a patch is let alone a botnet. They don't know how they get infected. They don't know how to help themselves. And no one seems to really want to fix the problem.
Unless the patch comes in the form of a LOLcat saying "teh botnet iz Fuking u up I iz her to Halp" It ain't gonna get fixed.
"Healing worms are a bad idea."
Botnets are a worse idea.
Something has to be done and we ( people who know at least some things ) should be trying everything we can to at least slow down these abusive networks. If not a "halpful" worm then something more proactive then just saying help your self cause we are seeing what that mantra is doing.
Yes of course it'll get caught by AV/Anti spy ware. Those people are the ones who you don't ( usually ) have to worry about. And since the worm is closing the doors ( and subsequently killing itself on the host side ) the propagation will eventually go to zero ( or as close to 0 as you can realistically get ) as the network is " healed "
"And from the user standpoint: do you really want anything that propagates as a worm doing whatever it wants on your box?"
As a user who knows how to protect themselves. No . But as we all know the users who don't know any better don't even know that they themselves are the reason that the botnets exist. So using them to fix the problem as a whole is not only doing them a service it is doing us all the favor also.
Also in my ideal version of this fix the spreading of the worm is a one shot deal on the host side. It sends itself once then closes the door thus preventing future infections from the same vector.
"Basically we call the solution to the virus problem a 'patch' and give people the option of whether and when to install it."
And how has that been working for all of us. I'd say not very well since the botnets still exist. If all the users were patching as often as you and most slashdotters were in theory the botnets would not exist at all.
"As a sysadmin, do you want something unauthorized eating up network resources?"
If your doing your job you will never have to worry about since you wouldn't get infected in the first place.
Kind of related
I have been trying to figure out the easiest and most transparent way to close down botnets and the only thing I could think of was to write a "virus"-like patch that uses the already open door that the botnets use to infiltrate the infected machines and then have them automatically close the doors and send them selves around just like worms do now.
Kind of a Helpful worm "infecting" the net with happy healing and all that crap.
I figure that like all connected things you need to have an Auto-immune system that cleans the net as new vulnerabilities are discovered. Since people cannot be relied upon to protect themselves the white hats ( who have the skills required to create these immunizations ) could be like med-techs making shots for the network. The people who are infected get healed and don't even know that they were sick in the first place.
But I'm not that cool ( and by cool I mean I can't code my way out of a wet paper bag )
". In the same time they went from lucrative business models to minimal margin (or even below margin in certain cases)"
...... well that's a pretty big claim you're making.
Source please. Cause
It does suck and if the guys on top were willing to use some of their profits ( and we would all be "willfully ignorant" to think they are not making money ) then we might all actually have a better situation. The problem is greed plain and simple.
The execs don't want to pay for better infrastructure with their own money they want us to pay for it and then pay them again for the "privilege" to use the line we paid for.
"Of course new hardware can be added, but it has to be paid for, and as bandwidth usage goes up so do costs. If you actually need to install new cable, that gets very expensive indeed."
Is this a problem for the users or the ISPs ?
Isn't reinvesting in your business the way you actually grow your business (making more money by attracting new clients with increased capacity to provide equal service across the board ) instead of milking your existing customers for more money all the while providing less service. Over time consumer costs are supposed to go down for utilities . And despite what some think Internet access is fast becoming a utility especially as more people come to depend on the net to get business done.
The phone started in a similar manner and technology and demand helped reduce the overall costs. As more people wanted the phone in their homes upfront costs to Ma-bell were lowered and technology (multiplexing etc) provided a way to increase service with no reduction of quality so the lines that were in place could do more.
If comcast is only worried about the short term gains they get with their current practices then they deserve what they will get as soon as fiber oversells cable by provide what people actually want. Better service with no caps and better quality since no one is going to cut them off for using what they are buying from the provider.
You are forgetting the second part of the unlimited plan. Mainly the part of 5 mbps a month or what ever it is. Mbps stands for millions of bits per second or megabits per second and is a measure of bandwidth (the total information flow over a given time) on a telecommunications medium.
We are all sold a bandwith and a time frame. In the above case 5mbps for an entire month. Every second of every day I am allowed to grab Up to 5mbps If they are not able to provide that it is not the fault of people who are using what they paid for it's the providers fault for over-selling capacity they claim they don't have.
You buy "unlimited" electricity from the electric company they don't "throttle" you when you run your A/C in the summer right. This is no different. By your example you would be fine with the electric company shutting your A/C down for taking away power from your good neighbors who despite wanting to be cool don't run A/C cause the HF(Hand-Fan)-IAA say that A/Cs are hurting their sale of hand-powered fans. You know the fans that people convert in to new whiz-bang electric fans that do exactly what they want ; mainly provide cooling in a way the the HF-IAA has no plan of providing to users who want to stay cool but want to do so in their own way not in the restricted way the HF-IAA want .
You should be able to get the specs from the makers site. Always make 2 trips when you go to get anything like this. First to see the models available and then after checking the specs of the one/s you were interested in.
Also laptop screens are not really built with color, contrast or response time in mind so you're usually better off not getting wound up about color fidelity when you shop for a laptop. If it looks good enough for what you plan to use it for get it. Also you should be using an external monitor for color critical stuff anyway as no laptop screen will come close to the quality of even some of the cheapest stand alone monitors.
Anyone who works in any color-critical business knows to NEVER-EVER buy any apple branded monitor if color quality is your goal. They are the worst bang for your buck on all fronts. Even a cheap panasonic (sub $400) after calibration will yield better color than its apple counterpart with the same calibration. The only reason people buy the apple monitor is so their setup "matches" like you match your shoes to your belt.
It's sad but very true. As a professional in digital photography we carry 30in cinema displays and take note that the people who rent them only do so for 3 reasons.
They are big and honestly are a great gimmick to impress clients who work on shitty setups at their offices.
Their shooting style is such that color accuracy is not relevant at the time of capture.
They are ignorant to the nature of color and how it can potentially screw up their workflow. Both during and after capture.
And the forth ( I know I said 3 ) In the business of digital capture you have to offer what the other guys offer or you risk losing clients who don't want to pay for the top of the line
( ie any EIZO monitor )
AIM that you have to check like 80's style voicemail ( no "you have mail" type alerts) is not AIM. I'm sorry but its not especially since kids have have been using aim on their sidekicks for like 4 years there is no reason that the iphone/touch can't do the same. Like other people have said already apple has been using the battery excuse far to much to excuse themselves from actually opening up the platform (IIRC they did say they were creating a platform with the iphone ) Iphone AIM in the way described above would be one of the poorest implementations of IM and I will gladly load a " battery hogging" version of AIM ( if i actually needed AIM ) over the gimped version any day of the week.
While your #1 might be correct turning on background processes will ban you from using the itunes app download service that apple is forcing devs to use to distribute their apps. And according to apple that service will be the only official ( ie won't kill your warranty ) way to gets apps on your iphone/touch. So it is effectively off limits.
" I really like the idea of a randomized default SSID and WPA key out of the box. Since most people would keep them at defaults it might actually make support easier then if you had people playing around with their own settings."
I like it too . So when I get a call from pops saying he forgot his password and that he doesn't have the paper with it either I can just say buy a new one. Unless of course it's printed on the router itself.
You could always build your own
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=132452
And just in case you actually were considering the X-Arcade - Don't.They are laggy at best ( for fighters a no-go ) You are better off pad-hacking a stick using official Sony or Microsoft pads and buying actual cabinet parts. They aren't very difficult to build ; some soldering and if you can have the wood or board cut for you even easier.
"Nah, if they were going to copy Apple, they'd also needlessly break backwards compatibility."
Not for nothing but breaking BC is actually a good move in the long run. It forces devs to not rest on old code. It pushes apps up to date and brings with it more stable better looking and less intensive apps than their predecessors ( after learning the new system and how to deal with it of course ) . The best thing MS could do for computing in general is to destroy legacy BC allowing for hardware to modernize ( and software to slim down trimming the fat of legacy support ) and force devs to get with the program..literally. Yes alot of people will not be happy by it but keeping BC is crippling windows. They need to say XP will be the last to have legacy support for the laundry list of things that 99% of people never heard of ( cause they are so old) or have no desire to dig up out of the closet. Windows 7 should start a new era of computer use insofar as MS is concerned.
It is the major reason OS X is where it is now. Apple has no qualms about saying if you want BC for os 9 you wont be upgrading to leopard. Also you know if you are still running os 9 apps you either
A. Should stay in os 9 ( classic support doesn't really cut it for some classic apps)
B. Pay the extra cash and upgrade to newer Software versions
C Ditch the old hardware that is requiring you to run OS 9 ( at that point your hardware is probably outdated and has been replaced with better cheaper stuff anyway.
MS is so afraid of losing legacy customers that its been retarding its' own growth ( compromising their obvious dominance of the os market ) to keep people who are hanging on to software and hardware so old it probably is still archived on punch cards and reel to reel tape.
The only problem with trying to revert to pay as you go is that no one will do it. We did it already with aol and like services. They started as pay as you go and when they went unlimited they exploded. People do not want pay as you go and the broadband industry would never have existed based on that model. To even attempt to do it would only make people go to the one smart company that decided against going pay as you go and will eventually lead us back here to providers who refuse to upgrade and increase capacity.
I can see that they are trying to force it on people but the truly smart company will start to secretly increase capacity and then suddenly reduce customer pricing ( by a token amount of course, nothing profit breaking ) advertise it at the "Truly Unlimited Internet" and see the pay as you go model sent to the trash along with all the aol disks.
"If the problem with BitTorrent and other P2P apps (from your perspective, anyway) is disproportionate bandwidth usage, why not just charge more from the people using more than their fair share?"
The word Disproportionate should only apply to situations where you are expected to use an alloted amount. "unlimited" data plans imply by their name that you are paying for the right to use all you want.
Also don't forget that if their advertising is saying Unlimited and your contract says unlimited then Unlimited is consider to be my fair share. In the US companies are ( usually ) held to what they advertise. Unless AT&T and the other providers are going to change advertisement to reflect the removal of "unlimited" service ( and the subsequent loss of customers ) They should be forced to increase bandwith supply to meet the demand placed on that bandwith through the sales of "unlimited" service. If they can't meet their end of the contract they shouldn't be allowed to now; after overselling service, say that they have to limit certain types of traffic to prevent their network from collapsing. Either that or they should refund money for our loss of the contractually obligated unlimited access service we signed up for.
"Considering I'm an atheist, never. Thanks for proving my point."
Atheism is nothing more than the religion of being against religion your god is the hate of others gods.
"What makes it better than proposing Creationism?"
The fact that evidence can be presented to at least partially support the theory instead of pointing to the bible and saying "Look no further than the words in this book for proof"
A book that has no scientific basis. The bible for all the power people like to give it is nothing more than the collected writings of a cult ( for its time the followers of Jesus must have been considered cultists ) about their cult leader. Nothing more nothing less. The teachings of Jesus were meant to ease the troubled minds of a people who were gradually becoming more and more oppressed by a steadily growing ruling class. Lessons like turn the other cheek and blessed are the meek for they shall be rewarded in the kingdom of heaven are just ways to slowly ease the masses minds into submission . Submission at the hands of a "Great Power" . A power that you have no control over. One that in fact RULES YOU. Notice how when something good happens to a deeply religious person they are quick to thank god but the instant something bad happens they blame themselves because they must have brought this on themselves. The church; at least in catholic and christian franchises is nothing more than a control scheme that takes away any sense of self accomplishment and replaces it with S+M style self loathing and low self worth.
Evolution for all it assumes is still more provable( if thats a real word) than the writings of a few guys blindly following another guy around the sand 2000 years ago.
Although scientists claim to always be right. When presented with evidence that shows proof of a contradictory theory most good scientists will take the information and at least consider it's validity unlike most creationists who's answer to any contradictory evidence seems to be either.
A. The bible says otherwise - case closed
B. Your in league with the devil and all science is an abomination against god.
C. LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.
"God and evolution are not mutually exclusive."
To the creationists they most certainly are. To a large majority it seems that for god to exist there has to be a literal "garden of eden" Noah had to really have built an arc and really loaded it will all the animals EXCEPT the extinct ones. And there is no way in hell that any species existed before man because we were the first.
What's sourceforge... some kind WoW guild.
Ok I'll leave now.