The most egregious product placement I've ever seen is easily in Sneakers, with the asprin bit.:-)
If you want egregious product placement, look at the corporate sponsor bit in Wayne's World. Oh, you meant serious product placement! Well, Spielburg seems to be king in that area. Look at the Reeses placement in ET. Or the potato chip placement in Poltergeist (Pick up bag and hold it square in front of camera for three seconds. Then shake a few chips out into hand while the bag remains in front of the camera). Etc etc.
DVDs and the region codes got in without much complaaint. DVDs also don't allow skipping certain parts, like the FBI copyright warning, and some trailers and advertising. The public has accepted them.
To a certain extent. When Disney released DVDs with commercials that couldn't be skipped, the uproar was loud enough to convince Disney to change its policy and allow commercial skipping. But usually there's no way to fast forward through the much-shorter FBI warning. Thus, they have learned that you can't impliment a sudden change that is extremely obnoxious to the average consumer. You have to take baby steps over a time frame. A little here, a little there. Careful erosion is the key.
If they want to sell mp3 players that force you to use DRM - and I'm reasonably sure companies will be offered incentives to do just that - then they'll just dream up another "must have" feature, and market it.
They don't even need to go that far. One extremely easy way to guarentee adoption would be to convince the RIAA or MPAA to adopt a new format. Since virtually all new content (either music or movies) coming out would be offered in this new format, consumers would jump at it.
Now... this is something that wouldn't be done overnight. If the RIAA stopped selling CDs tomorrow and started only selling DVD-audio with special DRM requiring a new player, there'd be rioting in the streets. But not if the entire process was spread out over the space of... say, a decade. DVDs are close to completely replacing (and phasing out) VHS, but they're not quite at that point yet... but DVDs are still young. The MPAA can afford to be patient.
so let me see... that would be about 34 years of 24/7 operation.. If you use it for 8 hours a day (a lot in my opinion).. that would be about 102 years. That seems a little absurd.. but that's what absurd benchmarks get you.
I don't believe that's what MTTF refers to. That's more likely what will happen if the drive is left on continuously with no motion and little or no disk activity. Actually USING the disk will alter that number significantly. Powering down the drive on a frequent basis will lower that number even more. Those numbers are basically meaningless for hard drives.
Try this logic out by going to a self-service, pay at the pump gas station. Use your card to gas up, and note that you need not agree to anything at all (not even a "push this button to agree") to use your credit card. Now, since you didn't sign anything, you're not bound by the agreement to pay the bill!
Really? I seem to remember signing a form when I signed up for my credit card stating that I -would- have to pay for any transaction I made using my credit card. In fact, I believe we all did! Imagine that!
This isn't even a case of shrinkwrap terms of use. If you don't sign something (hell, the playstation doesn't even have a "click here to agree"), you can't be bound to it. They can't just bind you to arbitrary contracts. They could write in the manual "Please do not use between the hours of 2 am and 5 am," but again, just because it's in the manual doesn't make it valid or enforceable.
Check the manual, which is where the person I know who owns it claims to have seen it. It's also on the SONY web site, for what that's worth.
So? It doesn't matter what the manual or the website says. What matters is what is legally enforcable, and a "please don't do this" in a manual is not.
Uh oh, if they read this we'll lose out encoder cards. Nevermind! Nothing to see here, nope, not a thing.. move along.
Sorry, but the "copyright bit" plan includes a phasing out of video encoder cards. That is, once the copyright bit is introduced (and enforced), that encoder card will be useless for recording copyright-bit broadcasts without some type of intermediary.
galadriel gives the hobbits elven brooches, which are later used to help find the two captured hobbits. Im not sure how peter jackson is going to get round this one as afaik (havent seen the film in a while), hes made no mention of these brooches outside the extra dvd only features..
Shouldn't be hard. They were seen wearing the brooches later in the film. Aragorn would probably say something like "an elven brooch! The hobbits were wearing them. One of them must still be alive..."
That's not necessarily indicative of the content. Some directors have enough clout with the MPAA to bend (or completely break) the ratings rules in their favor, to get the ratings of films lowered so they can be shown to larger audiences. Poltergeist was originally given either a PG-13 or R rating (I can't remember which), but Spielburg fought tooth and nail and got the MPAA to rate it as PG. That's Spielburg though, can Jackson do this?
MY crime is judging people by what thay say and think, and judging from what good ol Loyd says and thinks, the Hackers Manifesto is nothing but a shit-poor excuse to rationalize his actions because of the "evils of the world". ... The Hacker's Manifesto: Self righteousness masquerading as intelligence.
For God's sake, someone please mod this up. It's something that should be posted every single time someone posts that nonsense that is the "Hackers' Manifesto."
I think if you haven't been convinced, then you'll never be convinced. Special effects are often used when it would be impossible/very difficult to actually film. You probably weren't convinced of the waves in Perfect Storm because you thought to yourself "Nah, that couldn't be shot in real life, it must be CG."
But of course, not all CG is the same. Some movies have excellent CG (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, with the exception of a few shots in the cave troll scene), while others have terrible CG (like the Mummy Returns). Certain types of objects are easy to render (rock, metal, plastics), while others are still notoriously difficult (flesh, fluids).
I would also like to see "source rpms" that take a long time to install, but they automatically unpack the source, configure, make, install, and remove the source (you can save the source with some switch).
You can do rpm --rebuild pkg.src.rpm, I can't remember if this removes the build directory or not. It would be very easy to write a wrapper script to do that though.
How about this? X is very very slow. It's huge. Fonts aren't easy to get working properly. All of these are valid problems which have yet to be solved.
Most of the time you just run a binary file (to install the module) and edit a file to to tell the machine to point to a module on boot-up.
If you're lucky. If you're very very lucky.
That is really about it. The problem is that many people DON'T READ INSTRUCTIONS AND GET FRUSTRATED.
Or sometimes the instructions are incorrect, or errors occur which simply aren't covered by the instructions. Compiling the NVIDIA drivers used to be an exercise in futility, but now they're actually compilable and insertable.
The point of the parent post, and a good one, is that the info often does exist in the docs, but the asker doesn't want to read.
Or maybe the user doesn't want to spend several hours pouring through poorly written and incomplete documentation, when it would take only 30 seconds to ask someone and get an answer?
1) Place CD in drive. 2) Turn on computer 3) Come back in 15 minutes. 4) Get a CD with the drivers for my video card/mouse/printer/sound card/motherboard (which often don't come with the Microsoft CD, can't be trusted, or are outdated). 5) Reboot. 6) Go back to step 4, continue with next CD. Repeat until finished.
The US decided in 1974 (report for NSSM200) that the world's population was unsustainable (specifically, a threat to national security), and (very likely) engineered AIDS as a fix (since it was clear birth control programs would be anti-American in the practical sense that the US couldn't use all the resources any more).
What nonsense. Nature has had deadly sexually transmitted diseases for millions (perhaps billions) of years, but of course it was the US government that created AIDS. Obviously it couldn't be nature. Do you think Ebola is a failed government attempt as well?
If you voted for him, this is what you get for it. Remember, the Clinton administration was coming down hard on MS.
Do you really think Gore would have done any differently?
Remember why MS had to go through the whole deal - not because there was a democrat in the White House. MS didn't "lobby" and "donate" (ie, pay off). Their competators did. Microsoft no longer makes that mistake.
Because if it were not for Linux, Apache and BSD, we would all run proprietary MSN connections and only big corporations could afford going online with webpages.
Actually AOL had far more to do with the failure of MSN than Linux did.
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If you want egregious product placement, look at the corporate sponsor bit in Wayne's World. Oh, you meant serious product placement! Well, Spielburg seems to be king in that area. Look at the Reeses placement in ET. Or the potato chip placement in Poltergeist (Pick up bag and hold it square in front of camera for three seconds. Then shake a few chips out into hand while the bag remains in front of the camera). Etc etc.
To a certain extent. When Disney released DVDs with commercials that couldn't be skipped, the uproar was loud enough to convince Disney to change its policy and allow commercial skipping. But usually there's no way to fast forward through the much-shorter FBI warning. Thus, they have learned that you can't impliment a sudden change that is extremely obnoxious to the average consumer. You have to take baby steps over a time frame. A little here, a little there. Careful erosion is the key.
They don't even need to go that far. One extremely easy way to guarentee adoption would be to convince the RIAA or MPAA to adopt a new format. Since virtually all new content (either music or movies) coming out would be offered in this new format, consumers would jump at it.
Now... this is something that wouldn't be done overnight. If the RIAA stopped selling CDs tomorrow and started only selling DVD-audio with special DRM requiring a new player, there'd be rioting in the streets. But not if the entire process was spread out over the space of... say, a decade. DVDs are close to completely replacing (and phasing out) VHS, but they're not quite at that point yet... but DVDs are still young. The MPAA can afford to be patient.
I don't believe that's what MTTF refers to. That's more likely what will happen if the drive is left on continuously with no motion and little or no disk activity. Actually USING the disk will alter that number significantly. Powering down the drive on a frequent basis will lower that number even more. Those numbers are basically meaningless for hard drives.
Really? I seem to remember signing a form when I signed up for my credit card stating that I -would- have to pay for any transaction I made using my credit card. In fact, I believe we all did! Imagine that!
So? It doesn't matter what the manual or the website says. What matters is what is legally enforcable, and a "please don't do this" in a manual is not.
Sorry, but the "copyright bit" plan includes a phasing out of video encoder cards. That is, once the copyright bit is introduced (and enforced), that encoder card will be useless for recording copyright-bit broadcasts without some type of intermediary.
No. Not for a few decades at least. The idea now is that if you injure yourself, it's the company's fault for not protecting you from yourself.
Shouldn't be hard. They were seen wearing the brooches later in the film. Aragorn would probably say something like "an elven brooch! The hobbits were wearing them. One of them must still be alive..."
That's not necessarily indicative of the content. Some directors have enough clout with the MPAA to bend (or completely break) the ratings rules in their favor, to get the ratings of films lowered so they can be shown to larger audiences. Poltergeist was originally given either a PG-13 or R rating (I can't remember which), but Spielburg fought tooth and nail and got the MPAA to rate it as PG. That's Spielburg though, can Jackson do this?
The Hacker's Manifesto: Self righteousness masquerading as intelligence.
For God's sake, someone please mod this up. It's something that should be posted every single time someone posts that nonsense that is the "Hackers' Manifesto."
But of course, not all CG is the same. Some movies have excellent CG (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, with the exception of a few shots in the cave troll scene), while others have terrible CG (like the Mummy Returns). Certain types of objects are easy to render (rock, metal, plastics), while others are still notoriously difficult (flesh, fluids).
You can do rpm --rebuild pkg.src.rpm, I can't remember if this removes the build directory or not. It would be very easy to write a wrapper script to do that though.
alias woman='man'
No thanks. It's not a pleasant surprise to walk to a woman just to have the alias redirect you to a man.
Which doesn't help if the program crashes.
How about this? X is very very slow. It's huge. Fonts aren't easy to get working properly. All of these are valid problems which have yet to be solved.
If you're lucky. If you're very very lucky.
That is really about it. The problem is that many people DON'T READ INSTRUCTIONS AND GET FRUSTRATED.
Or sometimes the instructions are incorrect, or errors occur which simply aren't covered by the instructions. Compiling the NVIDIA drivers used to be an exercise in futility, but now they're actually compilable and insertable.
Or maybe the user doesn't want to spend several hours pouring through poorly written and incomplete documentation, when it would take only 30 seconds to ask someone and get an answer?
That's never been my experience. It's:
1) Place CD in drive.
2) Turn on computer
3) Come back in 15 minutes.
4) Get a CD with the drivers for my video card/mouse/printer/sound card/motherboard (which often don't come with the Microsoft CD, can't be trusted, or are outdated).
5) Reboot.
6) Go back to step 4, continue with next CD. Repeat until finished.
What nonsense. Nature has had deadly sexually transmitted diseases for millions (perhaps billions) of years, but of course it was the US government that created AIDS. Obviously it couldn't be nature. Do you think Ebola is a failed government attempt as well?
Do you really think Gore would have done any differently?
Remember why MS had to go through the whole deal - not because there was a democrat in the White House. MS didn't "lobby" and "donate" (ie, pay off). Their competators did. Microsoft no longer makes that mistake.
Or just as likely, they understand it but want to change its structure.
Actually AOL had far more to do with the failure of MSN than Linux did.