Erm, quite a lot? Intel use it as one of their distinguishing factors between upper and lower tier chips (albeit one that they put in data sheets but don't make overly obvious).
Lugaru is going for GPL code and closed graphics/other assets. Not quite sure what the others are doing yet. Also, World of Goo has some of its source code publicly available, although I'm not sure if that is just the engine and how much of the game that includes.
And? Nothing that they're "nickel and diming" with (the extras in the online store) is a requirement. The "stuff" isn't a requirement either. The expansions add features, but they're not consecutive (with Sims 2 you could mix and match them).
Also, WTF is so important about the hot tub? So your Sims can't get in a hot tub unless you get it separately (either from EA or from a third-party). So what? Not a huge loss, just one of many items.
IMO, "nickel and diming" with Sims would be making jobs a chargeable extra, and children, and more than one controllable Sim per household, and buildings of more than one story. Having completely optional extras available for those who want to get specific extras is just tailoring to a market.
Ditto for Sims 3. My wife wanted it, bought it, got a "free download" code that gave her about £6 in the shop and an extra town to play. If they're going it that way ('extras' that aren't necessary but provide benefit to first-time purchasers) then I don't have a problem with it and it is good to see them doing an "encourage legit purchases" effort that actually benefits the legit purchaser instead of DRM harming them. If they start putting vital parts of the game (like final levels or vital equipment) behind this kind of system then they're taking the mick and just crippling a legitimate purchase so that it is more of a "rental" license with a one-time fee that you haven't actually bought so you don't own it.
People generally know better than the state what an appropriate speed limit is on a road.
You obviously know a better set of people than those who drive near me. Speeding through residential roads and whizzing around corners or overtaking above the speedlimit just because you couldn't make it if you didn't is common in the UK from what I've seen. We're not talking big long roads, we're talking narrow, single-lane roads a lot of the time, or residential roads where the path is right up against the road and there are cars parked to the kerb.
Even speeding on the motorway, which is as close as we get to "lots of lanes and big long stretches" doesn't work because a) you've always got one idiot who pulls out without indicating, causing someone to break and b) the junctions are comparatively close together, so you've always got people having to move lanes. Watching someone idiot fly down the outside lane at 90+ and then have a car pull out in front of them going at ~75 while overtaking something doing 65 is not something I want to be close to as often as I have been (the motorway speed limit is 70).
I've yet to find a speed limit that isn't sensible for the area. There's no way in hell that going 40 on a 30 makes sense (although that's not where you're likely to find the cameras). 60 Mph is the standard "single carriageway" speed in the UK, but some parts are 50. Every time I've seen a 50 zone in the middle of a long stretch of 60 then it made sense because there was some awkward get-out or the very edge of a village or something.
speeding cameras are really about making money and do little to increase public safety.
Surely that depends on how stupid your populace are? If you're dumb enough to repeatedly get caught speeding and not learn from it then yeah, they're not going to improve things. If, however, people go "there's a speed camera - what speed should I be doing? Better make sure I don't exceed the limit" then you're fine. They're only a money making scheme because people are too stupid and arrogant to keep to the speed limit.
Red light cameras are a bit different - they've got a variable you can tweak. Speed cameras allow a threshold (although they don't have to in the UK, by law) and can be tested and calibrated.
(Said as a former driver who now mainly cycles - but it applies to both parts of my commuting life)
You do realise that a) we're talking about speed cameras here and not CCTV and b) it was CCTV that helped capture the man behind the recent bomb attempt in New York by catching pictures of him, don't you? Guns wouldn't have helped in either of those situations.
Yeah, because if the current Gigabyte mobos are anything to go by then you'll get faster occasional external drive transfer and slower graphics!
(At least, that's what I found when investigating my latest purchase - I wanted to pay a little more a "future-proof" with a USB3 mobo, but enabling USB3 or their new SATA dropped the PCIe16 down to an x8)
You get charged for using ATMs that aren't from your own bank? What weird kind of economy is that? The only way you generally get charged in the UK is a) if you're using a credit instead of a debit card (and then it is your card company charging you "cash advance" fees), b) if you're using one of those "convenience" ATMs that are in a pub etc or c) if you're not in the UK, at which point it is to "cover" international fees and talking with other banks in other countries (apparently).
Hang on? What? Aquaria does support Linux? I know it says it on the Humble Indie page, but the website says "maybe soon, but it looks a bit complex" and the demo is Windows only:\
Not that I have a clue what Aquaria is about yet...Or GISH! Rather minimal information on both sites. I've got World of Goo and that was (still is) fun, though, so maybe I'll take a look.
When I bought my handset, the pay-as-you-go carriers didn't have smartphones, and U.S. residents can't buy a CDMA handset and plan separately because U.S. CDMA carriers don't use removable CSIM cards.
It isn't a smartphone, I've just got a standard phone. You can get them, but they're expensive in the UK. The comment was based on a comment of "messaging being available anywhere", which includes SMS, which any mobile in the last 15+ years probably had.
Moore's Law isn't exactly "a law". It isn't like "the law of gravity" where it is a certain thing that can't be ignored*. It's more "Moore's Observation" or "Moore's General Suggestion" or "Moore's Prediction". Any of those are only fit for a finite time and are bound to end.
* Someone's bound to point out some weird branch of Physics that breaks whatever law I pick or says it is wrong, but hopefully gravity is quite safe!
Mine is £free per month (or $free per month, if you only work in dollars). I don't get X free messages/minutes per month, but given the length of time that credit lasts then why get a contract? Computers do all I need, or I'm already at home with my family. Communication in those situations is already catered for.
Unless this in itself can be extended using plugins, this means a great majority of people who browse the web will be limited to viewing those h.264 datastreams.
I wonder how many of those viewers and publishers will be correctly licensed? There have been blog posts from mainstream sites pointing out that some licenses (even for very expensive video editing software) don't actually cover people for everything they think it covers them for in h.264 production and distribution.
IIRC there was even some real stupidity where one end violated their license if the other end had been done without an official license (license violations when viewing with a licensed viewer videos that were made without a license?)
Part of the game is generating and organizing a large social network. If you want to be safe from attack, you need to be bigger and more organized than the next guy.
That sounds a bit like school yard bullying (and, worryingly, international diplomacy). "The only way to be safe is to spend time ganging up against everyone else, and you need to watch your back the whole time". Or you could, you know, go for fun and entertainment without the "I may be in the strongest group, but what if they turn against me?" paranoia.
You can't conflate free software users with pirates, or say they operate the same.
I didn't realise I had. Someone said that music/film was more like niche games and that niche games were equally strong on inconveniencing the legitimate customer for the sake of delaying the pirates by a few hours or so. I wondered which those "niche" games were and pointed out two examples of non-mainstream games/developers that were not pro-DRM.
Their reason for not using DRM is that they don't want to inconvenience their actual customers.
That'd be "customers are customers and should be treated as such". That was more just a general commentary, though, rather than any claim to it being their specific claim on what their view is.
I've not played it, but I thought Sins of a Solar Empire was quite popular amongst strategy gamers. I just picked them because they're the other company I know of who doesn't do DRM (or, from a bit of reading up, does absolute minimal DRM in terms of some kind of link of CD keys to allowing access to updates on up to three machines, which is presumably all remote and doesn't stop you doing anything with your game other than updating it).
If you want to compare the industries, it makes sense to compare the media industry to the niche game software industry. But here you'll find very similar actions. Anti-piracy is the norm. Expensive packaged software (or downloadable paid software) and expensive CDs/DVDs are analogous. Even the antagonistic attitude between the customers and the producers is similar. It's just inherent in any industry that needs to protect its IP because that is precisely what it is selling.
Which "niche games" market is that? Presumably not the independent-yet-original-and-good games market like 2dBoy (World of Goo) and Stardock (Sins of a Solar Empire) compete in, where they're happy to have no or minimal DRM because pirates could be customers and customers are customers and should be treated as such.
That's also something that can't be done with music or movies. You can't give away movie sets, cameras or unmixed multi-track recordings for free.
That depends. Some of the Blender movies do it. You can't give away physical props so easily, since they're physical, but that's a fundamental difference with physical versus digital.
(yes, I realise CentOS is still based off "enterprise", but RHEL is short-hand for a full name where as CentOS is its name)
That'd be what I said - I've never seen anyone call CentOS anything but CentOS. As in "CentOS is called CentOS but no-one ever uses 'enterprise' in its name, even if the 'ent' comes from Enterprise, but RHEL is not just RHEL but Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which people shorten to RHEL because it is too long to say in full".
Those hugely important features like "more colours in your OS icon" and "a name that doesn't include 'Enterprise' so directly" (yes, I realise CentOS is still based off "enterprise", but RHEL is short-hand for a full name where as CentOS is its name).
Damnit, I just upgraded my old Athlon 64 3500+ with a nice new Core i5 750 as well. £320 for processor, mobo and 4GB memory. Good job I was hoping for it to last for a while, cos it sure looks like Intel don't want me to just upgrade my processor when it gets to be lacking.
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Erm, quite a lot? Intel use it as one of their distinguishing factors between upper and lower tier chips (albeit one that they put in data sheets but don't make overly obvious).
Lugaru is going for GPL code and closed graphics/other assets. Not quite sure what the others are doing yet. Also, World of Goo has some of its source code publicly available, although I'm not sure if that is just the engine and how much of the game that includes.
And? Nothing that they're "nickel and diming" with (the extras in the online store) is a requirement. The "stuff" isn't a requirement either. The expansions add features, but they're not consecutive (with Sims 2 you could mix and match them).
Also, WTF is so important about the hot tub? So your Sims can't get in a hot tub unless you get it separately (either from EA or from a third-party). So what? Not a huge loss, just one of many items.
IMO, "nickel and diming" with Sims would be making jobs a chargeable extra, and children, and more than one controllable Sim per household, and buildings of more than one story. Having completely optional extras available for those who want to get specific extras is just tailoring to a market.
Ditto for Sims 3. My wife wanted it, bought it, got a "free download" code that gave her about £6 in the shop and an extra town to play. If they're going it that way ('extras' that aren't necessary but provide benefit to first-time purchasers) then I don't have a problem with it and it is good to see them doing an "encourage legit purchases" effort that actually benefits the legit purchaser instead of DRM harming them. If they start putting vital parts of the game (like final levels or vital equipment) behind this kind of system then they're taking the mick and just crippling a legitimate purchase so that it is more of a "rental" license with a one-time fee that you haven't actually bought so you don't own it.
You obviously know a better set of people than those who drive near me. Speeding through residential roads and whizzing around corners or overtaking above the speedlimit just because you couldn't make it if you didn't is common in the UK from what I've seen. We're not talking big long roads, we're talking narrow, single-lane roads a lot of the time, or residential roads where the path is right up against the road and there are cars parked to the kerb.
Even speeding on the motorway, which is as close as we get to "lots of lanes and big long stretches" doesn't work because a) you've always got one idiot who pulls out without indicating, causing someone to break and b) the junctions are comparatively close together, so you've always got people having to move lanes. Watching someone idiot fly down the outside lane at 90+ and then have a car pull out in front of them going at ~75 while overtaking something doing 65 is not something I want to be close to as often as I have been (the motorway speed limit is 70).
What part of completing chores and commutes necessitates speeding?
I've yet to find a speed limit that isn't sensible for the area. There's no way in hell that going 40 on a 30 makes sense (although that's not where you're likely to find the cameras). 60 Mph is the standard "single carriageway" speed in the UK, but some parts are 50. Every time I've seen a 50 zone in the middle of a long stretch of 60 then it made sense because there was some awkward get-out or the very edge of a village or something.
Surely that depends on how stupid your populace are? If you're dumb enough to repeatedly get caught speeding and not learn from it then yeah, they're not going to improve things. If, however, people go "there's a speed camera - what speed should I be doing? Better make sure I don't exceed the limit" then you're fine. They're only a money making scheme because people are too stupid and arrogant to keep to the speed limit.
Red light cameras are a bit different - they've got a variable you can tweak. Speed cameras allow a threshold (although they don't have to in the UK, by law) and can be tested and calibrated.
(Said as a former driver who now mainly cycles - but it applies to both parts of my commuting life)
You do realise that a) we're talking about speed cameras here and not CCTV and b) it was CCTV that helped capture the man behind the recent bomb attempt in New York by catching pictures of him, don't you? Guns wouldn't have helped in either of those situations.
Yeah, because if the current Gigabyte mobos are anything to go by then you'll get faster occasional external drive transfer and slower graphics!
(At least, that's what I found when investigating my latest purchase - I wanted to pay a little more a "future-proof" with a USB3 mobo, but enabling USB3 or their new SATA dropped the PCIe16 down to an x8)
You get charged for using ATMs that aren't from your own bank? What weird kind of economy is that? The only way you generally get charged in the UK is a) if you're using a credit instead of a debit card (and then it is your card company charging you "cash advance" fees), b) if you're using one of those "convenience" ATMs that are in a pub etc or c) if you're not in the UK, at which point it is to "cover" international fees and talking with other banks in other countries (apparently).
Hang on? What? Aquaria does support Linux? I know it says it on the Humble Indie page, but the website says "maybe soon, but it looks a bit complex" and the demo is Windows only :\
Not that I have a clue what Aquaria is about yet...Or GISH! Rather minimal information on both sites. I've got World of Goo and that was (still is) fun, though, so maybe I'll take a look.
It isn't a smartphone, I've just got a standard phone. You can get them, but they're expensive in the UK. The comment was based on a comment of "messaging being available anywhere", which includes SMS, which any mobile in the last 15+ years probably had.
Moore's Law isn't exactly "a law". It isn't like "the law of gravity" where it is a certain thing that can't be ignored*. It's more "Moore's Observation" or "Moore's General Suggestion" or "Moore's Prediction". Any of those are only fit for a finite time and are bound to end.
* Someone's bound to point out some weird branch of Physics that breaks whatever law I pick or says it is wrong, but hopefully gravity is quite safe!
Mine is £free per month (or $free per month, if you only work in dollars). I don't get X free messages/minutes per month, but given the length of time that credit lasts then why get a contract? Computers do all I need, or I'm already at home with my family. Communication in those situations is already catered for.
I wonder how many of those viewers and publishers will be correctly licensed? There have been blog posts from mainstream sites pointing out that some licenses (even for very expensive video editing software) don't actually cover people for everything they think it covers them for in h.264 production and distribution.
IIRC there was even some real stupidity where one end violated their license if the other end had been done without an official license (license violations when viewing with a licensed viewer videos that were made without a license?)
That sounds a bit like school yard bullying (and, worryingly, international diplomacy). "The only way to be safe is to spend time ganging up against everyone else, and you need to watch your back the whole time". Or you could, you know, go for fun and entertainment without the "I may be in the strongest group, but what if they turn against me?" paranoia.
I didn't realise I had. Someone said that music/film was more like niche games and that niche games were equally strong on inconveniencing the legitimate customer for the sake of delaying the pirates by a few hours or so. I wondered which those "niche" games were and pointed out two examples of non-mainstream games/developers that were not pro-DRM.
That'd be "customers are customers and should be treated as such". That was more just a general commentary, though, rather than any claim to it being their specific claim on what their view is.
It tells me that I don't pay attention to computer games.
I've not played it, but I thought Sins of a Solar Empire was quite popular amongst strategy gamers. I just picked them because they're the other company I know of who doesn't do DRM (or, from a bit of reading up, does absolute minimal DRM in terms of some kind of link of CD keys to allowing access to updates on up to three machines, which is presumably all remote and doesn't stop you doing anything with your game other than updating it).
Which "niche games" market is that? Presumably not the independent-yet-original-and-good games market like 2dBoy (World of Goo) and Stardock (Sins of a Solar Empire) compete in, where they're happy to have no or minimal DRM because pirates could be customers and customers are customers and should be treated as such.
That depends. Some of the Blender movies do it. You can't give away physical props so easily, since they're physical, but that's a fundamental difference with physical versus digital.
That'd be what I said - I've never seen anyone call CentOS anything but CentOS. As in "CentOS is called CentOS but no-one ever uses 'enterprise' in its name, even if the 'ent' comes from Enterprise, but RHEL is not just RHEL but Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which people shorten to RHEL because it is too long to say in full".
Those hugely important features like "more colours in your OS icon" and "a name that doesn't include 'Enterprise' so directly" (yes, I realise CentOS is still based off "enterprise", but RHEL is short-hand for a full name where as CentOS is its name).
Damnit, I just upgraded my old Athlon 64 3500+ with a nice new Core i5 750 as well. £320 for processor, mobo and 4GB memory. Good job I was hoping for it to last for a while, cos it sure looks like Intel don't want me to just upgrade my processor when it gets to be lacking.