This reminds me of an story. A friend and I were moving a heavy couch and at an inopportune time he got flustered and said 'Hold on, we need to put this down and take a break'. We did, finished moving it later and that was that.
About 6 months later out of the blue he explained to me that he had to put the couch down because the apparently strained a bit too hard and pooped his pants.
I have no idea why he told me, much less told me 6 months later. He was kind of a weird guy.
The moral of this story is:
If you do something embarassing or stupid and privately get away with it, don't tell anyone.
The internet, much like the real world is not a safe place for kids. It's not even a safe place for adults most of the time. Probably more dangerous since most kids don't do their banking online, instead relying on Snoopy coin banks.
You cannot 'blacklist' through configuration parts of the internet, your best chance is to whitelist what you think is 'ok' and just block everything else at your firewall to and from that computer. Heavy handed? Sure. But it's the only reliable way. Unrealistic? Definitely!
Also, talk to your kids, educate them about WHY things are bad, don't be afraid to let them find out on their own. Forbidden apples taste pretty good.
The type of parent that lets their kid freely roam around on the internet is the same type of parent that will drop their kid off at Chuck-E-Cheese and say 'I'll be back when I'm done with what I'd rather be doing'. If you don't care enough to supervise, don't act surprised when they do a bunch of stuff that horrifies you.
No, that's not really amazing because it's apples and oranges.
Stealing a single CD from a retailer is simply shop-lifting, redistributing pirated copies is another kettle of fish. You can't defend this guy on the argument that he's being treated harsher than a shoplifter, completely different situation.
Use your scientific mind and analyze what actually happened, don't pick up random causes to defend because you believe in 1% or 100% of what you THINK the "victim" believes in.
Don't just give a free pass to anyone who pirates, there are many subtle shades of grey that you probably wouldn't want to be associated with.
If you don't like what corporations sell, don't buy it. If you're not buying what they make. It's the same argument I'd use with someone who thinks that TV is too violent or sexual -- nobody's putting a gun to your head saying 'CONSUME THIS CONTENT'. Or HIS head. He made a dumb choice.
Change the channel or turn it off completely, Don't buy the CD, Don't goto the movie, Don't read the magazine,
Reject the content and find yourself magically free of any negative repercussions and these trivial aarguments trying to prove that 'stealing' is ok or acceptable in some forms but not others.
Stealing is stealing until the law says different.
The manta of 'It's ready when it's ready' should always apply in scientific efforts like this -- it's a life and death gamble with millions of variables for the astronauts not to mention the far less important but still relevant raw costs of researching, constructing, testing the shuttle.
It's worth the time to make sure everything is working right. Everyone who takes the risk to go into space and work on the tax-payer's dime deserves to come home to their family.
Vigilantes don't usually file paperwork with the court system. He's not taking the law into his own hands, he's serving his community by enforcing the law correctly. He didn't evict people from their homes because he legally didn't have to in the context that the banks hadn't contacted them -- just the landlord.
In this case, while he's probably giving craigslist a bit much credit for the reach of their impact -- it has been used for criminal activity just like anything else that allows you to pseudo-anonymously propagate communications.
I appreciate his sentiment and that he thinks he's doing the right thing.. but I'm pretty sure that prostitution will figure out a way to exist without craigslist if he wins. But, he won't.
Pretty sad overall I guess. Maybe his goal is simply to call attention to it to garner the support of the people? Everyone loses except criminals.
How often do you print things out? I only print out things once every couple of weeks. With printer ink costing more than champagne (circa 2003).. Why not explore new ways of eliminating waste, saving money, and recycling otherwise unused materials.
If you're printing out enough that you fear RSI, I'm more concerned about the trees than I am for your wrist and ink.
I think you're vastly overestimating the bus and CPU speed on a $10 laptop. A $10 laptop will most likely be architecturally similar to a mobile phone with a large screen.
And, if you wanted to run a bunch of virtual machines you wouldn't need a screen at all right? So just wait for them to come out with their $5 server edition!
1) Just because you don't see the value in the first blush doesn't mean it's valueless.
2) Microsoft does all sorts of crazy projects and I personally am ever-thankful that they do support fringe ideas like this, it shows that they've still got an ounce of creativity left in their blackened veins. Say what you will about your perception of the quality of Songsmith, but apparently they've been paying two guys to work on it. Not a bad job in this economy. Consider that they're probably engineers like anyone else, passionate about what they do, have to pay their rent, maybe even have family or pets. You know, normal people. Not faceless stormtroopers. Hopefully not laid off in the recent cuts, but with this type of press I wouldn't be surprised if they end up that way.
3) Innovation doesn't necessarily come from the goal of the project you're working on. Sometimes you come up with stuff on the way to your goal that ends up being more important than what you set out for -- go watch some of the 'Connections' series by James Burke if you disagree.
4) Any neck-beard can point out flaws in someone else's project -- what have any of you done that's so great?
Microsoft paid them to make this, and yeah, the music is cheesy, but I'm personally amazed that it managed to match up the timing to _analog_ recorded vocals from older songs and do reasonable key changes.. This isn't trivial code.
Ever try syncing up an analog recording from the 60s with a looped drum beat? It's not so easy! This and this alone is amazing to me.
If you look at this project and think 'Oh man this sucks!' you're ignorant of the logic necessary to make ANY of it fly.
Synthmaker, a music DSP authoring utility which allows 'full version' owners to export VSTs (virtual instruments) which they can then redistribute / sell had an interesting post a couple months ago from one of the users talking about how a VST they had offered for something like $10 ended up being posted with a crack on usenet.
Stuff like that happens all the time and directly affects the little guy even more than it does the big faceless corporations.
So it's tough for me to think that any company would take the immense risk of doing something as stupid as distributing a virus, whereas a disgruntled independent developer with spare time and a personal axe to grind against piracy might not care as long as some homebrew justice gets metered out.
While we haven't seen it yet, I think it'd be a twist worthy of a Gibson novel to have an author of a useful program intentionally infect computers, granted, it'd destroy their reputation but nobody would see it coming.
If you're going by the Roman definition, modern definition such as 'decimation in time' can mean any size reduction of a set, although I don't think down to zero.
Although, Lindsay Nagel would disagree, since zero is a percent.
You're either a shill for the music industry, or you're an idiot who drank their kool-aid. They may try to tell you that you don't really own the music you buy, but you do! And nothing you or anyone else could possibly say will change that fact!
I'm not a shill, nor am I an 'idiot' drinking koolaid. Intellectual property is a tough subject but when it comes down to it I have two choices:
1) Support people for the work they produce, in doing so having to agree to the rules they apply to the transaction
2) Not support them and not get the benefits of their creativity.
If I purchase/license something from someone, and as part of the sale they have a list of criteria that I must agree to to purchase, if I think their criteria are too ridiculous I'm free not to buy anything from them.
I don't buy stuff from all sorts of people for this specific reason. But, I do respect the rights of the people I buy from when I make the commitment / agreement with them that I'll honor their wishes.
The great thing about capitalism is that _anyone_ is free to come along and offer a sweeter deal and usurp whoever is dominant. I support artists, companies, and people who have priorities in support of extending my freedom.
That's how you make change. Vote for the politicians that think like you and you vote with your dollars when you go shopping.
I'm not upset at companies who want to limit my freedoms, they're just doing what companies are built to do -- make money. It's not personal. They don't hate me, I don't hate them. I just don't buy anything from them.
Capitalism goes both ways, you don't actually own what you think you do. Just because you buy some music doesn't give you the right to do with it what you please -- contrary to 'fair use' laws, simply because you enter into an agreement with Apple with their EULA.
But, like I said -- it goes both ways. We're free to not purchase from them. You could live in a shack out in the mountians and never purchase anything, live off the land, etc.
What we pay for is convenience. It doesn't just cost money, it costs your rights as well.
DVD region codes are a copy protection mechanism if you misunderstand them -- it's so they can do staggered releases in different geographic areas. Probably also due to the fact that MPEG2 is a licensed codec. If you generate a DVD in a region where the economy is cheap (India) and then shipped it over to the US to sell it without paying for the per-unit costs, then you'd be taking advantage of the lower licensing fees in India and then the lower IP costs allowed to economies that can't hold-up those costs would be forced to pay the same as America, and nobody could afford that.
It's all about copy protection. I don't agree with all of it myself, but I can definitely understand _why_.
With technology moving as fast as it is these days, DRM makes complete sense even if you don't see it.
It's a speed-bump or deterrent to maintain a closed eco-system, it's not a jail, it's not a 100% solution. Everyone knows this, especially the people who implement it.
The people who jail-break their phone will be the small subset of users who 1) care enough to 2) understand the problems involved 3) willing to deal with the consequences
Down the road they'll get bricked phones with updates, or no updates, meaning they'll be susceptible to bugs and security flaws that 'normal' users will not. This is part of the strategy.
People who play with Apple and within the rules will get updates, access to all the stuff users get. etc.
Apple knows that DRM doesn't stop people, but when software is being updated every couple of months and new technology solutions are coming out _WEEKLY_ in this area, I think any way to slow down the enemies before they reach the gate is welcome.
It doesn't play into what you want, don't buy it. Go get an android phone. Vote with your dollars.
Apple uses DRM so that they can appease the music-providers of iTunes and the phone-providers for iPhone. If people paid for everything they got, and there was no piracy -- there wouldn't be DRM. But, people do steal, so, normal people get speed bumps like DRM to deal with.
DRM isn't a cause, it's a symptom. If you have a better way of dealing with it offer it up.
And.. unfettered access to my phone via programs? No thanks. I'd rather someone be vetting the software, who wants unchecked cellular-mobile viruses? The reason it hasn't killed other phones is that J2ME is neutered and has all sorts of security blocks that make programs _less_ powerful.
I'm not attacking you here, just the idea that Apple's doing something dumb by protecting their assets and their market. That's capitalism for better or for worse.
Even though the source code is ugly as sin (sorry comskip author, but it is, it's one big C file that's nearly impossible to dissect) -- a nice addition to CCExtractor is comskip.
Let me preface this by saying, I agree. People can be dumb. However, I have found a way to look past it and truly love my IT job. Here's a couple tenets I suggest you consider:
1) If it wasn't for people doing stupid things, IT/helpdesk people wouldn't have jobs. Granted, it can be like babysitting sometimes, but I have come to appreciate the ignorance that some people have simply because they know that they can come to me and I can fix it. That makes me a valuable resource.
2) Smart people don't know easy things about computers. I work for a company that does very low level computer science stuff, we have many PhD types who know their niche of computers inside and out, but if you stray them 10 feet from the path they know they're completely lost. Those guys need me because even though I don't know how to design a microchip or synthesize FPGA code, I do know how to fix their terminal when they've hit Control-Q. (Not to say I'm not a technical guy, but this is the type of stuff that you gotta fix for them sometimes.)
3) Everyone says or does stupid things every day of their life. It's unavoidable. By treating customers/users with respect (even if at the moment you don't feel like they deserve it) it endears you to them. You don't know what's going on in their lives that might have them distracted from the technical aspects of their job.
More than once I've felt 'Aww come on, you should know this!' only to find out that the user has some terrible event going on in their life and they couldn't care less about researching the problem or extending their computer knowledge -- they don't want to be in the office but they have to be, they're up against a deadline, they just want it to work now and they send up a signal flare for the IT guys to come and make everything better.
Enjoy those moments, if you're a typical shy nerd like me it's one of the brighter moments you'll get in your professional life to be the hero to someone whos at their wits end.
The '10 awesome hours vs. 40 hours of padded crap' reminds me of when I shut my xbox360 down (and stopped playing)
After getting into Hexic and playing it fairly regularly, I checked the leader boards and someone had clocked a cumulative 2 week game of Hexic with a score that was probably close to MAXINT on a 64bit system.
I realized that, there's someone out there who's monomaniacally going to become the world's best at whatever video game and no matter what I do I will never, ever, be as good as them. Probably because I couldn't be, but more likely -- I don't want to sacrifice my time to something so trivial.
Which brings us back to 10 awesome hours vs. 40 frustrating ones. Yeah, I guess hard games are cool if you want that kind of performance stress during your gaming time. I'd rather play some ETQW to get that type of excitement.
Single player games should be interactive movies as far as I'm concerned. Don't punish me for buying your game. Reward me by showing me the cut-scenes. Give me cheats so that if I get bored with the overall effort I can just zip through and see the end.
I'll leave it to the poop-sockers to be the world's best hexic players.
Yes, you can skin your program in Windows (And OSX, and whatever else), but there's a level of 'ease' in which it's unattainable to most folks.
I wouldn't be surprised if we at some point see the concept from NeXT where the UI is structured drawing, NeXT tried postscript, I think they'd try SVG this time around. All old ideas become young again when reinvented.
And thanks for the clarification on Office 2007, I misunderstood.
Slashdot Mirror
The entertainment industry: When it comes to recycling, they're blazing the trail.
It's a well known fact that GMs bend over backwards to help EVE Players..
Just google for -> BoB EVE GM
This reminds me of an story. A friend and I were moving a heavy couch and at an inopportune time he got flustered and said 'Hold on, we need to put this down and take a break'. We did, finished moving it later and that was that.
About 6 months later out of the blue he explained to me that he had to put the couch down because the apparently strained a bit too hard and pooped his pants.
I have no idea why he told me, much less told me 6 months later. He was kind of a weird guy.
The moral of this story is:
If you do something embarassing or stupid and privately get away with it, don't tell anyone.
The internet, much like the real world is not a safe place for kids. It's not even a safe place for adults most of the time. Probably more dangerous since most kids don't do their banking online, instead relying on Snoopy coin banks.
You cannot 'blacklist' through configuration parts of the internet, your best chance is to whitelist what you think is 'ok' and just block everything else at your firewall to and from that computer. Heavy handed? Sure. But it's the only reliable way. Unrealistic? Definitely!
Also, talk to your kids, educate them about WHY things are bad, don't be afraid to let them find out on their own. Forbidden apples taste pretty good.
The type of parent that lets their kid freely roam around on the internet is the same type of parent that will drop their kid off at Chuck-E-Cheese and say 'I'll be back when I'm done with what I'd rather be doing'. If you don't care enough to supervise, don't act surprised when they do a bunch of stuff that horrifies you.
No, that's not really amazing because it's apples and oranges.
Stealing a single CD from a retailer is simply shop-lifting, redistributing pirated copies is another kettle of fish. You can't defend this guy on the argument that he's being treated harsher than a shoplifter, completely different situation.
Use your scientific mind and analyze what actually happened, don't pick up random causes to defend because you believe in 1% or 100% of what you THINK the "victim" believes in.
Don't just give a free pass to anyone who pirates, there are many subtle shades of grey that you probably wouldn't want to be associated with.
If you don't like what corporations sell, don't buy it. If you're not buying what they make. It's the same argument I'd use with someone who thinks that TV is too violent or sexual -- nobody's putting a gun to your head saying 'CONSUME THIS CONTENT'. Or HIS head. He made a dumb choice.
Change the channel or turn it off completely,
Don't buy the CD,
Don't goto the movie,
Don't read the magazine,
Reject the content and find yourself magically free of any negative repercussions and these trivial aarguments trying to prove that 'stealing' is ok or acceptable in some forms but not others.
Stealing is stealing until the law says different.
"You can't get there from here."
ZING! Take that people who've given their time for free to a software product!
The manta of 'It's ready when it's ready' should always apply in scientific efforts like this -- it's a life and death gamble with millions of variables for the astronauts not to mention the far less important but still relevant raw costs of researching, constructing, testing the shuttle.
It's worth the time to make sure everything is working right. Everyone who takes the risk to go into space and work on the tax-payer's dime deserves to come home to their family.
garbage_in->garbage_out
Vigilantes don't usually file paperwork with the court system. He's not taking the law into his own hands, he's serving his community by enforcing the law correctly. He didn't evict people from their homes because he legally didn't have to in the context that the banks hadn't contacted them -- just the landlord.
In this case, while he's probably giving craigslist a bit much credit for the reach of their impact -- it has been used for criminal activity just like anything else that allows you to pseudo-anonymously propagate communications.
I appreciate his sentiment and that he thinks he's doing the right thing.. but I'm pretty sure that prostitution will figure out a way to exist without craigslist if he wins. But, he won't.
Pretty sad overall I guess. Maybe his goal is simply to call attention to it to garner the support of the people? Everyone loses except criminals.
>> here's really no other game with the complexity and depth of EVE.
Except "Go".
A minute to learn.
A _lifetime_ to master.
I guess we better stop riding bikes too then.
How often do you print things out? I only print out things once every couple of weeks. With printer ink costing more than champagne (circa 2003).. Why not explore new ways of eliminating waste, saving money, and recycling otherwise unused materials.
If you're printing out enough that you fear RSI, I'm more concerned about the trees than I am for your wrist and ink.
I think you're vastly overestimating the bus and CPU speed on a $10 laptop. A $10 laptop will most likely be architecturally similar to a mobile phone with a large screen.
And, if you wanted to run a bunch of virtual machines you wouldn't need a screen at all right? So just wait for them to come out with their $5 server edition!
That's what luxury taxes are for right?
1) Just because you don't see the value in the first blush doesn't mean it's valueless.
2) Microsoft does all sorts of crazy projects and I personally am ever-thankful that they do support fringe ideas like this, it shows that they've still got an ounce of creativity left in their blackened veins. Say what you will about your perception of the quality of Songsmith, but apparently they've been paying two guys to work on it. Not a bad job in this economy. Consider that they're probably engineers like anyone else, passionate about what they do, have to pay their rent, maybe even have family or pets. You know, normal people. Not faceless stormtroopers. Hopefully not laid off in the recent cuts, but with this type of press I wouldn't be surprised if they end up that way.
3) Innovation doesn't necessarily come from the goal of the project you're working on. Sometimes you come up with stuff on the way to your goal that ends up being more important than what you set out for -- go watch some of the 'Connections' series by James Burke if you disagree.
4) Any neck-beard can point out flaws in someone else's project -- what have any of you done that's so great?
Microsoft paid them to make this, and yeah, the music is cheesy, but I'm personally amazed that it managed to match up the timing to _analog_ recorded vocals from older songs and do reasonable key changes.. This isn't trivial code.
Ever try syncing up an analog recording from the 60s with a looped drum beat? It's not so easy! This and this alone is amazing to me.
If you look at this project and think 'Oh man this sucks!' you're ignorant of the logic necessary to make ANY of it fly.
Synthmaker, a music DSP authoring utility which allows 'full version' owners to export VSTs (virtual instruments) which they can then redistribute / sell had an interesting post a couple months ago from one of the users talking about how a VST they had offered for something like $10 ended up being posted with a crack on usenet.
Stuff like that happens all the time and directly affects the little guy even more than it does the big faceless corporations.
So it's tough for me to think that any company would take the immense risk of doing something as stupid as distributing a virus, whereas a disgruntled independent developer with spare time and a personal axe to grind against piracy might not care as long as some homebrew justice gets metered out.
While we haven't seen it yet, I think it'd be a twist worthy of a Gibson novel to have an author of a useful program intentionally infect computers, granted, it'd destroy their reputation but nobody would see it coming.
Imagine if Putty were backdoored on purpose?
If you're going by the Roman definition, modern definition such as 'decimation in time' can mean any size reduction of a set, although I don't think down to zero.
Although, Lindsay Nagel would disagree, since zero is a percent.
You're either a shill for the music industry, or you're an idiot who drank their kool-aid. They may try to tell you that you don't really own the music you buy, but you do! And nothing you or anyone else could possibly say will change that fact!
I'm not a shill, nor am I an 'idiot' drinking koolaid. Intellectual property is a tough subject but when it comes down to it I have two choices:
1) Support people for the work they produce, in doing so having to agree to the rules they apply to the transaction
2) Not support them and not get the benefits of their creativity.
If I purchase/license something from someone, and as part of the sale they have a list of criteria that I must agree to to purchase, if I think their criteria are too ridiculous I'm free not to buy anything from them.
I don't buy stuff from all sorts of people for this specific reason. But, I do respect the rights of the people I buy from when I make the commitment / agreement with them that I'll honor their wishes.
The great thing about capitalism is that _anyone_ is free to come along and offer a sweeter deal and usurp whoever is dominant. I support artists, companies, and people who have priorities in support of extending my freedom.
That's how you make change. Vote for the politicians that think like you and you vote with your dollars when you go shopping.
I'm not upset at companies who want to limit my freedoms, they're just doing what companies are built to do -- make money. It's not personal. They don't hate me, I don't hate them. I just don't buy anything from them.
Capitalism goes both ways, you don't actually own what you think you do. Just because you buy some music doesn't give you the right to do with it what you please -- contrary to 'fair use' laws, simply because you enter into an agreement with Apple with their EULA.
But, like I said -- it goes both ways. We're free to not purchase from them. You could live in a shack out in the mountians and never purchase anything, live off the land, etc.
What we pay for is convenience. It doesn't just cost money, it costs your rights as well.
DVD region codes are a copy protection mechanism if you misunderstand them -- it's so they can do staggered releases in different geographic areas. Probably also due to the fact that MPEG2 is a licensed codec. If you generate a DVD in a region where the economy is cheap (India) and then shipped it over to the US to sell it without paying for the per-unit costs, then you'd be taking advantage of the lower licensing fees in India and then the lower IP costs allowed to economies that can't hold-up those costs would be forced to pay the same as America, and nobody could afford that.
It's all about copy protection. I don't agree with all of it myself, but I can definitely understand _why_.
With technology moving as fast as it is these days, DRM makes complete sense even if you don't see it.
It's a speed-bump or deterrent to maintain a closed eco-system, it's not a jail, it's not a 100% solution. Everyone knows this, especially the people who implement it.
The people who jail-break their phone will be the small subset of users who 1) care enough to 2) understand the problems involved 3) willing to deal with the consequences
Down the road they'll get bricked phones with updates, or no updates, meaning they'll be susceptible to bugs and security flaws that 'normal' users will not. This is part of the strategy.
People who play with Apple and within the rules will get updates, access to all the stuff users get. etc.
Apple knows that DRM doesn't stop people, but when software is being updated every couple of months and new technology solutions are coming out _WEEKLY_ in this area, I think any way to slow down the enemies before they reach the gate is welcome.
It doesn't play into what you want, don't buy it. Go get an android phone. Vote with your dollars.
Apple uses DRM so that they can appease the music-providers of iTunes and the phone-providers for iPhone. If people paid for everything they got, and there was no piracy -- there wouldn't be DRM. But, people do steal, so, normal people get speed bumps like DRM to deal with.
DRM isn't a cause, it's a symptom. If you have a better way of dealing with it offer it up.
And .. unfettered access to my phone via programs? No thanks. I'd rather someone be vetting the software, who wants unchecked cellular-mobile viruses? The reason it hasn't killed other phones is that J2ME is neutered and has all sorts of security blocks that make programs _less_ powerful.
I'm not attacking you here, just the idea that Apple's doing something dumb by protecting their assets and their market. That's capitalism for better or for worse.
Even though the source code is ugly as sin (sorry comskip author, but it is, it's one big C file that's nearly impossible to dissect) -- a nice addition to CCExtractor is comskip.
http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/
Let me preface this by saying, I agree. People can be dumb. However, I have found a way to look past it and truly love my IT job. Here's a couple tenets I suggest you consider:
1) If it wasn't for people doing stupid things, IT/helpdesk people wouldn't have jobs. Granted, it can be like babysitting sometimes, but I have come to appreciate the ignorance that some people have simply because they know that they can come to me and I can fix it. That makes me a valuable resource.
2) Smart people don't know easy things about computers. I work for a company that does very low level computer science stuff, we have many PhD types who know their niche of computers inside and out, but if you stray them 10 feet from the path they know they're completely lost. Those guys need me because even though I don't know how to design a microchip or synthesize FPGA code, I do know how to fix their terminal when they've hit Control-Q. (Not to say I'm not a technical guy, but this is the type of stuff that you gotta fix for them sometimes.)
3) Everyone says or does stupid things every day of their life. It's unavoidable. By treating customers/users with respect (even if at the moment you don't feel like they deserve it) it endears you to them. You don't know what's going on in their lives that might have them distracted from the technical aspects of their job.
More than once I've felt 'Aww come on, you should know this!' only to find out that the user has some terrible event going on in their life and they couldn't care less about researching the problem or extending their computer knowledge -- they don't want to be in the office but they have to be, they're up against a deadline, they just want it to work now and they send up a signal flare for the IT guys to come and make everything better.
Enjoy those moments, if you're a typical shy nerd like me it's one of the brighter moments you'll get in your professional life to be the hero to someone whos at their wits end.
The '10 awesome hours vs. 40 hours of padded crap' reminds me of when I shut my xbox360 down (and stopped playing)
After getting into Hexic and playing it fairly regularly, I checked the leader boards and someone had clocked a cumulative 2 week game of Hexic with a score that was probably close to MAXINT on a 64bit system.
I realized that, there's someone out there who's monomaniacally going to become the world's best at whatever video game and no matter what I do I will never, ever, be as good as them. Probably because I couldn't be, but more likely -- I don't want to sacrifice my time to something so trivial.
Which brings us back to 10 awesome hours vs. 40 frustrating ones. Yeah, I guess hard games are cool if you want that kind of performance stress during your gaming time. I'd rather play some ETQW to get that type of excitement.
Single player games should be interactive movies as far as I'm concerned. Don't punish me for buying your game. Reward me by showing me the cut-scenes. Give me cheats so that if I get bored with the overall effort I can just zip through and see the end.
I'll leave it to the poop-sockers to be the world's best hexic players.
I like my sox. They're comfortable.
Except for video games and aliens, it'll be a bunch of crypto guys battling it out with Matlab.
Yes, you can skin your program in Windows (And OSX, and whatever else), but there's a level of 'ease' in which it's unattainable to most folks.
I wouldn't be surprised if we at some point see the concept from NeXT where the UI is structured drawing, NeXT tried postscript, I think they'd try SVG this time around. All old ideas become young again when reinvented.
And thanks for the clarification on Office 2007, I misunderstood.