I think this is like the.doc x.odt x.ooxml thing: you can use odt but remember to also save on proprietary formats for interchange with M$-slaves.
Yes, because every "M$-slave", who has an older PC which is enough for an older version of Windows and MS Office and is enough for their work, should have to buy a new PC, install Linux, learn how to use it and then continue doing their work like nothing happened, except that they wasted money (for the PC) and time (for learning a new OS).
Besides, OpenOffice supports.doc good enough. The new document formats are not technically superior than.doc, then why why should one spend money and.or time to use them?
If yours doesn't, then perhaps you went with the wrong vendor. I didn't look for Vorbis support for my phone, but I did look for openness; if that wasn't a factor in your choice of phone, then my sympathy for you is nil.
When I was looking for a phone a few years ago I was looking for: 1. A good camera (the ability to take photo of a A4 sheet and be able to read the text). 2. 3G support with IrDA and Bluetooth support, so I can connect to the internet with my laptop or PDA. 3. An OS, so that I can install software. 4. A media player. 5. Reliable phone. 6. A good keypad with big buttons, so I don't press a few of the buttons at once.
I bought a Nokia N93. I used Nokia phones since a long time ago and know they are reliable. I like my phone, and do not want to replace it (especially not with a phone that does not have a keypad). I don't know if it supports Ogg audio, since most of my digital music collection is mp3. I only wish that this phone supported HS(D|U)PA, since it only supports UMTS. Would I buy the same exact phone but with Ogg and theora support? Probably, if it was available at the time, since more supported formats = better. Would I sacrifice the optical zoom to get theora support? No.
It is interesting to me how the FOSS crowd does not want to pay money for anything, but fully expects other people to pay money to be compatible with the FOSS crowd.
MP3 was the best format available at the time. When it became mainstream, it became very hard to replace it, because doing so would require replacing all of the mp3 players that did not support the new format (AAC or whatever). Also, to most people mp3 is good enough, so we have a lowest common denominator - mp3. I can publish the audio in mp3 and almost guarantee that everybody will be able to play it, or I publish it in Vorbis or flac and provide the mp3 version for those that do not support the better format.
Now let's say that AAC was invented before MP3. Who in their right mind would replace their AACPlayer with a MP3Player to support the new format, when it's worse than the current one?
VHS beat Betamax because of convenience (longer tapes) and because both formats were introduced at around the same time. If Betamax was introduced, for example, 5-7 years before VHS, it would have already become a de-facto standard and VHS wouldn't have been able to compete as it did, since people would think "well, VHS tapes are cheaper, but I have to buy a new VCR, which is expensive, I can buy a lot of tapes for the price. I would then have to have two VCRs - one to play my old tapes and one for new tapes".
The same is with h264 vs Theora. To support Theora, I would have to buy a new cellphone, others would have to buy new bluray players (I don't have a bluray player). And on top of that, the format is inferior. I can see the reason for upgrading from xvid to h264 (better quality+smaller files), but h264 to Theora? Worse quality, less supported and only really useful to a few people, who are not me.
Hardly. If you assume that things must lose because they are technically inferior, you must conclude that the technically superior option will win.
If both h264 and Theora codecs were created yesterday the technically superior codec may win, but it also may not, becasue the other codec if "free" or because of the marketing. Betamax was a higher quality format, but VHS still won the format war, but both formats were introduced at around the same time.
Now, however, we have h264, which is a defacto standard. It is used in digital TV (in some countries, in others it's mpeg2), cell phones can play it (I don't know if newer cellphones can also record it, mine records in divx), bluray players can play it, flash can play it, a lot of video websites have their videos in this format.
To replace all this, the new codec has to be technically superior and by a large margin. For example, h264 is replacing divx/xvid, but still has not managed to do so, despite it being a superior format.
But now it comes down to "yea, let's buy new cellphones, bluray players and make youtube and others to transcode their videos, all this so that a few* people could be satisfied by not having to get a patented codec".
*few = those, who: 1.Have Windows version older than 7 or other OS. and 2.Do not have the codec already (don't watch any h264 encoded videos). and 3.Live in a country that recognizes the patents on h264. and 4.Care about not violating the patent law of their country.
Though I'll be happy with just GStreamer (especially since this has already been coded and available as a patch, and isn't in Firefox desktop builds only because of their political POV-pushing).
Can you provide a link?
I'd love to make a h264 compatible firefox version, assuming I'll be able to get the compilers and everything working. As I understand almost nothing about C++ this will be interesting.
sharing libraries (as it is done in Linux distros) is better than local-copy-for-every-app as as typical in Windows as OS X.
This is the part about linux that I hate the most.
If I have a PC that is not connected to the internet and want to install some program, if that PC is running Windows, I can buy or download the program, write it to a CD or DVD, carry the disc to the computer without connection, put the disc in and install the program. I may be asked to also install.NET, DirectX or some other big part. I can install them, actually, I probably should install them, they are available for download, I can get them, write them to a CD...
This would at most cause me two trips (I arrive with the CD and find out that I need.NET, time to go back and download.NET).
On Linux it's different. I can download the program (be it as a source or.rpm or whatever), write it to a CD, go to the PC without internet connection, try to install it and find out that it needs lib01. Go back, get lib01, try to install it, find out that it needs lib02 and continue until finding out that lib37-127.0.0.1 conflicts with pretty much every program on that PC.
tools like apt-get and yum reduce this problem, assuming you have internet connection, and the program is in the repository.
You pay in other ways as well, restricted freedom, barriers to entry that prevent competition, etc.
Yea, like for example, my phone won't be able to play the videos, or my bluray player. No hardware chips that can decode it, no GPU acceleration. That's why we need h264 - it's more widely supported.
I also turn on the subtitles in games, my reason being that while I usually can understand what is being said (unless the speaker is almost deliberately trying to sound bad, for example, by having a weird accent, also English is my second language so I might have more trouble understanding than others), but I might miss some part of the dialogue, for example, by concentrating on some detail on the screen or whatever. In that case, I usually can still read the subtitles to find out what I missed.
I don't use subtitles for English movies, because if I miss some part I can rewind a few seconds of the movie to listen to it again.
It's not like the tape recorder being >30 years old affects its function. The one I had appears to be lightly used, so it's not worn out or anything. I had to replace a bunch of shorted electrolytic capacitors when I got it but that wasn't a problem to me.
Has 4 speeds (19; 9.5; 4.75; 2.38 cm/s) can record in 4 track stereo (or 4 track mono), runs on 5 D batteries or a rechargeable 6V 3.3Ah lead-acid battery. Can hold reels of up to ~12cm diameter. 275m reel (long play tape) is enough for 3 hours on one track at the slowest speed (which is enough for speech), a 550m reel of triple play tape is enough for 6 hours/track, which is 24 hours per reel.
If I was in school today I might use a notebook as a speech recorder (lots of students then used tape), but a notebook ban wouldn't bother me, I can record on my phone as easily as on a notebook.
I bought a portable reel to reel tape recorder for this purpose. It runs on its battery longer than my laptop (laptop; ~3h when new, 30min now; tape recorder: ~10h), I can use it without taking it out of my bag and the tapes are cheaper (per minute) than microcassette and hole 3-6 hours per side, meaning that i do not have to flip the tape in the middle of the lecture (what would be if I used a C-90 cassette).
On my paper notebook I write the start of the lecture (lecture, date, tape no., track no., tape counter) and then write the topics (what the lecturer was talking about).
All in all, this is much better than trying to write what the lecturer says because then i either write every second or every third word or write everything but cannot decipher it afterward.
I do not diet, but I found out that if I am doing something with the computer (browsing the 'net, coding, writing/. comments) or not (fixing a broken tape recorder or other device) I want to eat less. Maybe it's because I have something to do and am too lazy to get up and grab something to eat.
On the other hand, if I am watching a movie (on the computer, I don't have a separate TV), then I am basically doing nothing and start thinking "what else could I do while watching this movie", then I remember that I want to eat. Or I get the idea after seeing the characters eat something I consider tasty.
I bought many games because I couldn't find a working cracked copy in a reasonable time. Dark Asylum comes to mind, the initial crack was shitty, I couldn't save properly, rather than dicking around on forums and waiting for new patches I just bought it.
The whole argument of "downloaded game is not a lost sale" is rather flaky by the way.
And I downloaded Fallout 3, which kept freezing every few minutes. I don't know, maybe the game was buggy, maybe the crack was buggy. In any case, I uninstalled the game and did not buy it.
I don't recall any other games that I could not play because I could not find a crack.
Of course you can verify battery performance safely. My UPS has battery test (checks if the batteries can still be used, if it fails, batteries need replacing) and run time calibration (discharges batteries to 25% and monitors how long it took, based on that it can estimate how long will it be able to hold the load). The whatever system google is using should be able to check the batteries while power is on, so that you don't end up with batteries that have 20% of their original capacity when the power goes down.
Pirating on consoles requires getting your console physically modified which costs money, voids the warranty and carries a high risk of getting your console permanently banned from online services.
When I helped my friend mod his xbox360, I told him about the warranty. He said that if he downloaded 10 or so (I don't remember the exact number) games he would have saved enough money for another xbox360. As for online services - pirated PC games also usually don't work online, not that it matters for single player games.
That will stop game piracy. Also, this year I should get a fiber connection with ~80mbps bandwidth (unlimited* data amount) to other countries, so I should probably be able to use it. It would be interesting to see an average American on an average American connection try to use it. I hope they do not run into any bandwidth caps.
* it is still limited by the speed, so 80mbps = ~26TB/month
It's an audio watermark, supposed to be inaudible. I wonder if it would survive being recorded to a cassette or a reel tape. Or maybe just adding some random wow&flutter digitally would distort the watermark.
I don't have a PS3 or I would try to hack this myself. If I watch the movie on my PC it would play and the DRM would be ignored.
Management: Let's put this DRM to guarantee that the game isn't pirated. Developers: Great! Let's do it! Crackers: Let's crack the DRM. Pirates: Let's wait for the crack....a day later... Crackers: Done! Pirates: Great! Customer: This stupid game doesn't work on my computer. Maybe my friend can help me make it work... Friend: Oh that's because of the DRM, just go to site x and download the cracked copy. Customer: Thanks! Oh, there are more games there and they all are available for free, nice!
The bottom line is that pirates still get the game for free whether it has DRM or not. The only difference is that putting the DRM in costs the company some money.
Your argument would be valid if the DRM worked. It doesn't, so, for the pirates, it's the same, just the paying customers are inconvenienced.
Yes, they didn't, but that's not the reason why the pirated version is superior. It is superior because it does not ave the DRM. If Ubisoft offered both versions for sale at the same price, the non-DRM version would be bought more than the DRM version.
How could businesses possibly match that and make money?
Mozilla, Opera, various Linux companies somehow manage that, though I don't know how.
But in that case they didn't need such massive DRM. They could have made a regular CD check or whatever. It would still be cracked in a day and it would still require pirates to download the crack, so the lazy (as you said) users would still have to buy the game.
I don't know if there's any software that can do this automatically, but you can rip the CD with EAC and compress the audio with Audacity (Effect->Compressor).
Though I very much enjoy symphonic and orchestral music (though I am more into modern and romantic than classical), there is no way I can get a half decent experience of the piece if it was recorded with wide dynamic range, which is so often the case.
In which case you should get a car stereo that has integrated compressor or rip the cd and make a compressed version. Both options are doable. If, however, the studio releases the CD already compressed, there is no way I can restore the dynamic range.
Movies got it right. Movies are released with high dynamic range soundtracks, but all AC3 decoders have an option of compression (they call it "night mode" IIRC).
Yes, and when Tchaikovsky wrote 1812 he intended the canons to be about as loud as the triangle.
Anyway, if you do not like wide dynamic range in a recording, you can get a player that has integrated compressor or get an external compressor. It is much easier to compress than to expand, meaning that while I have an expander (dbx 3BX-DS) I cannot restore the dynamic range back to original if I have a crappy compressed CD.
While we will never know how Mozart intended his compositions to sound (unless someone invents a time machine, goes back in time and asks him) I prefer higher dynamic range over lower. Yes, when you are listening to music as a background while doing something else it may be better to compress the dynamic range and play a a consistent, but low level, but if you are listening to music not as a background, wide dynamic range is much better.
Tricking me into cranking up the volume with quiet parts just so that you can hurt my ears with other parts is childish.
See, the quiet parts are supposed to be quiet. You have to set the volume so that the quiet parts can be heard, but not be loud, then your ears won't hurt when the loud part comes. The dynamic range of human hearing is 120dB, the theoretical CD dynamic range is 96dB, tape and records have lower dynamic range and CDs usually are recorded with lower dynamic range too, so it shouldn't hurt your ears.
Don't worry. If this method is continued then, by natural selection, more and more young people will stop hating classical music and may even start liking it. The cool guys will be those who can finish the graffiti or whatever before running away.
I Can't. I don't know about you, pathetic loser troll. I NEVER access the Net as root. I NEVER click on attachments that claim to be "NAKED PICS OF (female athlete name here)" and my email app, Eudora, never ever automatically opens attachments or open URLs in Internet Explorer.
Let's see... while I access the net as admin, my browsers of choice are Opera and FF. I use IE only for Windows Update (WinXP still does updates using IE). I use Gmail with Firefox (with noscript and abp installed), it also does not open attachments automatically or open URLs in IE.
I don't use 'remote control apps".
I do. Since I did not buy a Mac and I built most of my PCs myself, I have more than one computer. I have a KVM switch, but sometimes it is more convenient to just use remote control. Also, I can use VPN to connect to my network froum outside my home using my laptop.
I NEVER use IRC.
Great. But can your OS distinguish a bad IRC bot from a good one? Unless it can, in that regard it's no better than Windows.
I use Transmission [transmissionbt.com] as my BitTorrent Client and I ALWAYS have Little Snitch [obdev.at] active when online.
And I use uTorrent, but that's not the point of my question. You imply that MacOS is safer and that it cannot have malware. Then it must be able to distinguish between Transmission and some program that steals your data and prevent the program from stealing your data. Unless it does that, it's the same as Windows.
In conclusion, it seems that to be safe with MacOS you need to be careful where you click on, what sites you visit and what programs you run. Just like Windows.
If MacOS had 90% of desktop OS market and the users were the same (who do click on an attachment claiming to be "NAKED PICS OF (female athlete name here)" ) the computers would be infected just as Windows PCs are now.
Yes, and that is why I want my next car to still be mechanically controlled, since software is less reliable. This is also the reason why I still use a VCR to record TV shows and a tape recorder to record music from radio.
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I think this is like the .doc x .odt x .ooxml thing: you can use odt but remember to also save on proprietary formats for interchange with M$-slaves.
Yes, because every "M$-slave", who has an older PC which is enough for an older version of Windows and MS Office and is enough for their work, should have to buy a new PC, install Linux, learn how to use it and then continue doing their work like nothing happened, except that they wasted money (for the PC) and time (for learning a new OS).
Besides, OpenOffice supports .doc good enough. The new document formats are not technically superior than .doc, then why why should one spend money and.or time to use them?
If yours doesn't, then perhaps you went with the wrong vendor. I didn't look for Vorbis support for my phone, but I did look for openness; if that wasn't a factor in your choice of phone, then my sympathy for you is nil.
When I was looking for a phone a few years ago I was looking for:
1. A good camera (the ability to take photo of a A4 sheet and be able to read the text).
2. 3G support with IrDA and Bluetooth support, so I can connect to the internet with my laptop or PDA.
3. An OS, so that I can install software.
4. A media player.
5. Reliable phone.
6. A good keypad with big buttons, so I don't press a few of the buttons at once.
I bought a Nokia N93. I used Nokia phones since a long time ago and know they are reliable. I like my phone, and do not want to replace it (especially not with a phone that does not have a keypad). I don't know if it supports Ogg audio, since most of my digital music collection is mp3. I only wish that this phone supported HS(D|U)PA, since it only supports UMTS. Would I buy the same exact phone but with Ogg and theora support? Probably, if it was available at the time, since more supported formats = better. Would I sacrifice the optical zoom to get theora support? No.
It is interesting to me how the FOSS crowd does not want to pay money for anything, but fully expects other people to pay money to be compatible with the FOSS crowd.
MP3 was the best format available at the time. When it became mainstream, it became very hard to replace it, because doing so would require replacing all of the mp3 players that did not support the new format (AAC or whatever). Also, to most people mp3 is good enough, so we have a lowest common denominator - mp3. I can publish the audio in mp3 and almost guarantee that everybody will be able to play it, or I publish it in Vorbis or flac and provide the mp3 version for those that do not support the better format.
Now let's say that AAC was invented before MP3. Who in their right mind would replace their AACPlayer with a MP3Player to support the new format, when it's worse than the current one?
VHS beat Betamax because of convenience (longer tapes) and because both formats were introduced at around the same time. If Betamax was introduced, for example, 5-7 years before VHS, it would have already become a de-facto standard and VHS wouldn't have been able to compete as it did, since people would think "well, VHS tapes are cheaper, but I have to buy a new VCR, which is expensive, I can buy a lot of tapes for the price. I would then have to have two VCRs - one to play my old tapes and one for new tapes".
The same is with h264 vs Theora. To support Theora, I would have to buy a new cellphone, others would have to buy new bluray players (I don't have a bluray player). And on top of that, the format is inferior. I can see the reason for upgrading from xvid to h264 (better quality+smaller files), but h264 to Theora? Worse quality, less supported and only really useful to a few people, who are not me.
Hardly. If you assume that things must lose because they are technically inferior, you must conclude that the technically superior option will win.
If both h264 and Theora codecs were created yesterday the technically superior codec may win, but it also may not, becasue the other codec if "free" or because of the marketing. Betamax was a higher quality format, but VHS still won the format war, but both formats were introduced at around the same time.
Now, however, we have h264, which is a defacto standard. It is used in digital TV (in some countries, in others it's mpeg2), cell phones can play it (I don't know if newer cellphones can also record it, mine records in divx), bluray players can play it, flash can play it, a lot of video websites have their videos in this format.
To replace all this, the new codec has to be technically superior and by a large margin. For example, h264 is replacing divx/xvid, but still has not managed to do so, despite it being a superior format.
But now it comes down to "yea, let's buy new cellphones, bluray players and make youtube and others to transcode their videos, all this so that a few* people could be satisfied by not having to get a patented codec".
*few = those, who:
1.Have Windows version older than 7 or other OS.
and
2.Do not have the codec already (don't watch any h264 encoded videos).
and
3.Live in a country that recognizes the patents on h264.
and
4.Care about not violating the patent law of their country.
Well, they can continue to use flash.
Though I'll be happy with just GStreamer (especially since this has already been coded and available as a patch, and isn't in Firefox desktop builds only because of their political POV-pushing).
Can you provide a link?
I'd love to make a h264 compatible firefox version, assuming I'll be able to get the compilers and everything working. As I understand almost nothing about C++ this will be interesting.
sharing libraries (as it is done in Linux distros) is better than local-copy-for-every-app as as typical in Windows as OS X.
This is the part about linux that I hate the most.
If I have a PC that is not connected to the internet and want to install some program, if that PC is running Windows, I can buy or download the program, write it to a CD or DVD, carry the disc to the computer without connection, put the disc in and install the program. I may be asked to also install .NET, DirectX or some other big part. I can install them, actually, I probably should install them, they are available for download, I can get them, write them to a CD...
This would at most cause me two trips (I arrive with the CD and find out that I need .NET, time to go back and download .NET).
On Linux it's different. I can download the program (be it as a source or .rpm or whatever), write it to a CD, go to the PC without internet connection, try to install it and find out that it needs lib01. Go back, get lib01, try to install it, find out that it needs lib02 and continue until finding out that lib37-127.0.0.1 conflicts with pretty much every program on that PC.
tools like apt-get and yum reduce this problem, assuming you have internet connection, and the program is in the repository.
You pay in other ways as well, restricted freedom, barriers to entry that prevent competition, etc.
Yea, like for example, my phone won't be able to play the videos, or my bluray player. No hardware chips that can decode it, no GPU acceleration. That's why we need h264 - it's more widely supported.
I also turn on the subtitles in games, my reason being that while I usually can understand what is being said (unless the speaker is almost deliberately trying to sound bad, for example, by having a weird accent, also English is my second language so I might have more trouble understanding than others), but I might miss some part of the dialogue, for example, by concentrating on some detail on the screen or whatever. In that case, I usually can still read the subtitles to find out what I missed.
I don't use subtitles for English movies, because if I miss some part I can rewind a few seconds of the movie to listen to it again.
It's not like the tape recorder being >30 years old affects its function. The one I had appears to be lightly used, so it's not worn out or anything. I had to replace a bunch of shorted electrolytic capacitors when I got it but that wasn't a problem to me.
Uher Report 4400 Stereo IC
Has 4 speeds (19; 9.5; 4.75; 2.38 cm/s) can record in 4 track stereo (or 4 track mono), runs on 5 D batteries or a rechargeable 6V 3.3Ah lead-acid battery. Can hold reels of up to ~12cm diameter. 275m reel (long play tape) is enough for 3 hours on one track at the slowest speed (which is enough for speech), a 550m reel of triple play tape is enough for 6 hours/track, which is 24 hours per reel.
If I was in school today I might use a notebook as a speech recorder (lots of students then used tape), but a notebook ban wouldn't bother me, I can record on my phone as easily as on a notebook.
I bought a portable reel to reel tape recorder for this purpose. It runs on its battery longer than my laptop (laptop; ~3h when new, 30min now; tape recorder: ~10h), I can use it without taking it out of my bag and the tapes are cheaper (per minute) than microcassette and hole 3-6 hours per side, meaning that i do not have to flip the tape in the middle of the lecture (what would be if I used a C-90 cassette).
On my paper notebook I write the start of the lecture (lecture, date, tape no., track no., tape counter) and then write the topics (what the lecturer was talking about).
All in all, this is much better than trying to write what the lecturer says because then i either write every second or every third word or write everything but cannot decipher it afterward.
I do not diet, but I found out that if I am doing something with the computer (browsing the 'net, coding, writing /. comments) or not (fixing a broken tape recorder or other device) I want to eat less. Maybe it's because I have something to do and am too lazy to get up and grab something to eat.
On the other hand, if I am watching a movie (on the computer, I don't have a separate TV), then I am basically doing nothing and start thinking "what else could I do while watching this movie", then I remember that I want to eat. Or I get the idea after seeing the characters eat something I consider tasty.
I bought many games because I couldn't find a working cracked copy in a reasonable time. Dark Asylum comes to mind, the initial crack was shitty, I couldn't save properly, rather than dicking around on forums and waiting for new patches I just bought it.
The whole argument of "downloaded game is not a lost sale" is rather flaky by the way.
And I downloaded Fallout 3, which kept freezing every few minutes. I don't know, maybe the game was buggy, maybe the crack was buggy. In any case, I uninstalled the game and did not buy it.
I don't recall any other games that I could not play because I could not find a crack.
Of course you can verify battery performance safely. My UPS has battery test (checks if the batteries can still be used, if it fails, batteries need replacing) and run time calibration (discharges batteries to 25% and monitors how long it took, based on that it can estimate how long will it be able to hold the load). The whatever system google is using should be able to check the batteries while power is on, so that you don't end up with batteries that have 20% of their original capacity when the power goes down.
Pirating on consoles requires getting your console physically modified which costs money, voids the warranty and carries a high risk of getting your console permanently banned from online services.
When I helped my friend mod his xbox360, I told him about the warranty. He said that if he downloaded 10 or so (I don't remember the exact number) games he would have saved enough money for another xbox360. As for online services - pirated PC games also usually don't work online, not that it matters for single player games.
...OnLive..
That will stop game piracy. Also, this year I should get a fiber connection with ~80mbps bandwidth (unlimited* data amount) to other countries, so I should probably be able to use it. It would be interesting to see an average American on an average American connection try to use it. I hope they do not run into any bandwidth caps.
* it is still limited by the speed, so 80mbps = ~26TB/month
That one will go down very fast.
It's an audio watermark, supposed to be inaudible. I wonder if it would survive being recorded to a cassette or a reel tape. Or maybe just adding some random wow&flutter digitally would distort the watermark.
I don't have a PS3 or I would try to hack this myself. If I watch the movie on my PC it would play and the DRM would be ignored.
Management: Let's put this DRM to guarantee that the game isn't pirated. ...a day later...
Developers: Great! Let's do it!
Crackers: Let's crack the DRM.
Pirates: Let's wait for the crack.
Crackers: Done!
Pirates: Great!
Customer: This stupid game doesn't work on my computer. Maybe my friend can help me make it work...
Friend: Oh that's because of the DRM, just go to site x and download the cracked copy.
Customer: Thanks! Oh, there are more games there and they all are available for free, nice!
The bottom line is that pirates still get the game for free whether it has DRM or not. The only difference is that putting the DRM in costs the company some money.
Your argument would be valid if the DRM worked. It doesn't, so, for the pirates, it's the same, just the paying customers are inconvenienced.
They didn't have to pay for it, duh.
Yes, they didn't, but that's not the reason why the pirated version is superior. It is superior because it does not ave the DRM. If Ubisoft offered both versions for sale at the same price, the non-DRM version would be bought more than the DRM version.
How could businesses possibly match that and make money?
Mozilla, Opera, various Linux companies somehow manage that, though I don't know how.
But in that case they didn't need such massive DRM. They could have made a regular CD check or whatever. It would still be cracked in a day and it would still require pirates to download the crack, so the lazy (as you said) users would still have to buy the game.
I don't know if there's any software that can do this automatically, but you can rip the CD with EAC and compress the audio with Audacity (Effect->Compressor).
Though I very much enjoy symphonic and orchestral music (though I am more into modern and romantic than classical), there is no way I can get a half decent experience of the piece if it was recorded with wide dynamic range, which is so often the case.
In which case you should get a car stereo that has integrated compressor or rip the cd and make a compressed version. Both options are doable. If, however, the studio releases the CD already compressed, there is no way I can restore the dynamic range.
Movies got it right. Movies are released with high dynamic range soundtracks, but all AC3 decoders have an option of compression (they call it "night mode" IIRC).
Yes, and when Tchaikovsky wrote 1812 he intended the canons to be about as loud as the triangle.
Anyway, if you do not like wide dynamic range in a recording, you can get a player that has integrated compressor or get an external compressor. It is much easier to compress than to expand, meaning that while I have an expander (dbx 3BX-DS) I cannot restore the dynamic range back to original if I have a crappy compressed CD.
While we will never know how Mozart intended his compositions to sound (unless someone invents a time machine, goes back in time and asks him) I prefer higher dynamic range over lower. Yes, when you are listening to music as a background while doing something else it may be better to compress the dynamic range and play a a consistent, but low level, but if you are listening to music not as a background, wide dynamic range is much better.
Tricking me into cranking up the volume with quiet parts just so that you can hurt my ears with other parts is childish.
See, the quiet parts are supposed to be quiet. You have to set the volume so that the quiet parts can be heard, but not be loud, then your ears won't hurt when the loud part comes. The dynamic range of human hearing is 120dB, the theoretical CD dynamic range is 96dB, tape and records have lower dynamic range and CDs usually are recorded with lower dynamic range too, so it shouldn't hurt your ears.
Don't worry. If this method is continued then, by natural selection, more and more young people will stop hating classical music and may even start liking it. The cool guys will be those who can finish the graffiti or whatever before running away.
I Can't. I don't know about you, pathetic loser troll. I NEVER access the Net as root. I NEVER click on attachments that claim to be "NAKED PICS OF (female athlete name here)" and my email app, Eudora, never ever automatically opens attachments or open URLs in Internet Explorer.
Let's see... while I access the net as admin, my browsers of choice are Opera and FF. I use IE only for Windows Update (WinXP still does updates using IE). I use Gmail with Firefox (with noscript and abp installed), it also does not open attachments automatically or open URLs in IE.
I don't use 'remote control apps".
I do. Since I did not buy a Mac and I built most of my PCs myself, I have more than one computer. I have a KVM switch, but sometimes it is more convenient to just use remote control. Also, I can use VPN to connect to my network froum outside my home using my laptop.
I NEVER use IRC.
Great. But can your OS distinguish a bad IRC bot from a good one? Unless it can, in that regard it's no better than Windows.
I use Transmission [transmissionbt.com] as my BitTorrent Client and I ALWAYS have Little Snitch [obdev.at] active when online.
And I use uTorrent, but that's not the point of my question. You imply that MacOS is safer and that it cannot have malware. Then it must be able to distinguish between Transmission and some program that steals your data and prevent the program from stealing your data. Unless it does that, it's the same as Windows.
In conclusion, it seems that to be safe with MacOS you need to be careful where you click on, what sites you visit and what programs you run. Just like Windows.
If MacOS had 90% of desktop OS market and the users were the same (who do click on an attachment claiming to be "NAKED PICS OF (female athlete name here)" ) the computers would be infected just as Windows PCs are now.
Yes, and that is why I want my next car to still be mechanically controlled, since software is less reliable. This is also the reason why I still use a VCR to record TV shows and a tape recorder to record music from radio.