Most people do not sell their laptops, they run them into the ground or hang onto them for so long that they have little residual value. I sold an Apple G4 desktop after owning it for 4 years and got 150 for it. Better than a PC I suppose but hardly justified by the honking premium the box commanded to begin with. Same for laptops. I doubt you would get anywhere close to 70-80% unless you replaced your laptop every year, which frankly doesn't make any sense either for all the hassle involved.
Mac 13" 2Ghz Core Duo, 2gb, 160Gb - $1299. Lenovo IdeaPad U330 13.1" 2Ghz Core Duo, 2gb, 250 HDD $1199. Samsung Q310-34G 13.3" 2Ghz Core Duo, 3Gb, 250Gb - $1099. Asus F6 13.3" 2.26Ghz, 4Gb, 320Gb HDD - $1199 etc. Prices sourced from Apple.com, Lenovo.com and NewEgg.com. There are plenty of similar specced laptops available at or below the price of even the cheapest MacBook.
Not surprising really when there are 10x the number of PC laptops for sale and consumers have the freedom to buy their computers from any store they like. PC prices also head south (or the specs improve) while the Apple price doesn't until the next refresh which could be 6 months.
So yes Apple computers are obviously more expensive than their counterparts and represent terrible value as time advances. Maybe the gulf is not as wide as it once was but its still there.
Unbelievable isnt it. $85.95 to have your paid for and under contract toy taken away from you for 3 days and have the data wiped while you get the battery replaced and have to re sync everything. How have Apple managed to persuade people this is what passes for "it just works" in this day and age?
Exactly. If one didn't know any better, one might think Apple was paying lip service to battery replacement, knowing full well that the price, the time it takes and the potential repercussions of the service will scare everyone off. At the end of the day, the ONLY reason Apple seal in batteries is for planned obscelesence. They know doing this will cause more people to throw away their otherwise functional devices than if you could just pop the cover off the back and replace the battery.
Good for the EU if they force this through. Next step might be to impress on the industry to design and adopt a common standard for chargers and data transfer cables.
I'm surprised something like VLC doesn't add extensions that allow you to preserve the menu structure of DVD but play content from MKV files instead of VOBs. Then it would be a matter of ripping all of the content from each VOB to MKV, transcoding down to H264 along the way and fixing up the menus to point to the new files. Should be pretty straightforward I thought as long as tools existed to automate the process.
Still, for the time being I'm quite happy to rip the main feature and be done with it.
When you watch the start of the clip you think big deal, there's probably a script doing the addition or something. Then it starts panning up and you just see hundreds of ropes, pulleys and levers which are all wired together. A simple interface hides a horribly complex set of mechanics.
Even more impressive that all this is modelled in a game using a level edito. The accuracy of the physics and the sheer number of interactions is deeply impressive. The sheer quality and variety of levels in the beta phase shows how awesome this game is going to be. Two weeks to go.
Yes I know it will, but there should be a single development platform that works across all operating systems and pushed as part of the Mono platform. MonoDevelop was spawned from SharpDevelop, presumably because someone thought Gtk# was more desirable than Windows.Forms. Back in the day where Mono pulled in winelib maybe it was too, but now its just caused one IDE to fork into two for no justifiable reason.
So now Mono has two IDEs, neither compatible and neither that work across all target platforms. They really need to sort themselves out. Eclipse dominates Java to the extent that virtually all development uses it or a variant (e.g. WebSphere). Mono really needs something similar, something so compelling that devs really have no reason to fork out for DevStudio. When that happens, it's game over. If they let MS continue to run the show they will forever play catchup and will be running behind picking up the scraps. Most.NET developers probably don't know or even care about Mono. That has to change and the easiest way is to put a tool under their noses which makes them care.
I'm talking about ripping the movie out for a portable copy. If you want to backup a movie then just use DVD Decrypter and your favourite burner to make a copy. If you want to shrink it first to a single layer, google for "DVD Shrink".
Tweak bitrate and other settings and / or pick a target device (iPod, PS3, 360 etc.)
Click Start
Wait a bit, shiny digital copy pops out
Handbrake is a front end over xvid and x264 encoders so you get either an MPEG-2 ASP (DiVX) or H264 AVC file from the process. Depending on your target device you might want to choose one or the other or fiddle with the other settings but the defaults are pretty sane if you don't know what you are doing.
Sure the process might skip supplementals and there may be edge cases with alternate tracks or subtitles that require more effort but x264 is an excellent encoder and the quality is very good. I really don't see why anybody would want to use RealDVD when it DRMs the resulting movie in the process.
Monodevelop is a good IDE, and I don't think having GTK and related libs installed is going to steal your masculinity or anything.
It's too bad that its primarily for Linux and other platforms have varying levels of support. Considering Mono is supposed to be a cross-platform runtime, it doesn't instil much confidence that an IDE written in.NET expressly for Mono development can't even run everywhere. SharpDevelop (which MonoDevelop was ported from) isn't much better either. Why is it so hard to make an IDE that runs everywhere?
I'm surprised that more effort isn't going into MonoDevelop. At the moment the defacto.NET development platform is DevStudio. This automatically means that developers develop against Microsoft's runtime, not Monos and also encourages all sorts of bad practice such as DllImports, embedding ActiveX controls, dependencies on other MS tech like SQL Server etc. Perhaps if MonoDevelop were to.NET development what Eclipse is for Java development it would gain a lot more traction. Eclipse manages to be cross-platform. It even runs on different JVMs including (surprisingly gcj). This is where MonoDevelop needs to be.
Much though people would wish otherwise, XP and Vista are still easier to use for most people. It's not the general behaviour which is the problem but all the edge cases where the usability falls through the floor or the dist just doesn't handle something properly. A case in point - my Eee 701 PC doesn't support 3G modems so I had to rebuild a kernel module and spend hours to make it work. It took hours to get it working properly whereas its literally plug and plug on Windows. Maybe I have the time and knowledge to make it happen but it is completely and totally unacceptable as far as regular users go. Wifi configuration is another area where Linux stumbles badly. The wireless configuration and network managers in most dists are horrible.
I got so sick of the Asus Linux that I installed Ubuntu. Generally the experience is much nicer but the wifi UI is just dreadful and it still didn't support 3G modems. I hope 8.10 is much better and I'm looking forward to it.
On the flip side, a Linux install comes with an insane amount of free stuff - games, browsers, email, office applications, skype, aim etc. MSI, Asus et al should be pointing this out. In some cases even the hardware is better.
The best Linux dist I've seen in a Netbook so far is Acer's. This appears to run Xfce but looks very windows like and it's very slick too, much better than my experiences with the Eee PC.
The PS3 has an option to allow/disallow Blu-Ray discs to connect to the Internet. It might be for just this sort of thing?
It does which goes some way to a solution but IIRC even if you disable BD-Live it still asks you each time you play a disk if you want to enable it. The BD-Live enable setting should have three values - Ask, Always and Never. Setting Never should mean BD-Live is turned off.
On top of that it should be possible to hit triangle on an inserted disk icon and manually configure just that disk. For example to disable Iron Man even if the global settings allow BD-Live.
Paramount decided that every BD-Live player should automatically connect to their servers as soon as it was played. With every PS3 offering BD-Live it meant they were deluged with requests. On top of that, they never bothered to make the disks indicate progress or gracefully handle timeouts so lots of people thought their disks had frozen.
There is nothing in the spec that requires this. If they had wanted they could have tested if the player supported networking and added a new menu which allowed users to manually connect to their servers for extra content.
Frankly this is all Paramount's own fault. Aside from the technical fuckup, I have to question the whole ethic of a disk that automatically "phones home" just by inserting it. For starters it means Paramount are tracking usage of this title. It also means the experience could change every time its loaded. Could we see adverts or new trailers being inserted onto disk? Or studios prominently promoting their own online stores or other content? What happens in 10 years if the website bitrots? Will the disk even play any more or will it hang like it did here?
I think it's very telling that the first prominent user of BD-Live immediately abuses it. BD-Live is IMO a waste of time and will continue to be while it used in such superficial and intrusive ways. Every 2.0 player should have the option to disable internet on a global and per-disk basis. Maybe some day a disk will produce a compelling use for it but nothing comes close yet.
Hey, this is awesome! Screw electronic voting. Screw pre-printed ballots in general! Just think -- if candidates were forced to rely on a write-in only process, voting participation would drop like a stone because the average American couldn't be bothered. Only the activists would show up, and the polls wouldn't be tainted by idiots who know nothing other than the contents of TV ads.
The problem of course is that activists are often blinded by a single issue and therefore vote more stupidly than the general public. They vote on an issue (e.g abortion), not necessarily for a candidate's experience or overall policies.
I would favour mandatory voting accompanied by a weighting score. Everyone gets a vote but the ballot is accompanied by 5 non-partisan muliple choice questions randomly drawn from 20 or so. The weight of your vote depends on your score. It naturally favours well informed voters and diminishes the effect of ignorant / stupid ones.
Sony are notorious control freaks and DRM stalwarts
This is unlike Amazon, TIVO, Microsoft, Apple how? Every single digital download provider locks you into a proprietary player, a proprietary service and a proprietary format. It's the main reason that you'd have to be a moron to build a collection of movies or shows in the current climate. An industry wide standard for digital downloads is an absolute necessity for the format to take off, otherwise it will be the usual gorillas slugging it out with their proprietary solutions and getting nowhere. At least a common platform means you can confidently build a collection with the reasonable expectation that you can play it on any of your compatible devices. It also means that if one online store has a sale on you can buy some titles from there because you are not locked into a single vendor. The problem of course is that unless every studio and manufacturer buys into the platform it might be a damp squib.
Personally I think they should junk the DRM altogether and use passive techniques like watermarking. After all, it's not like people don't already file share so what's the point of hobbling the legitimate purchase when the pirate copy is unencumbered. It's just stupid. Let people buy a file and do whatever the hell they like with it for personal use. Doubly stupid seeing as the music industry have just realised this themselves and here some of the same players are trying to inflict even more objectionable conditions on movies.
In summary, the whole industry sucks, not just Sony. The best way to build a collection at the moment is to buy a DVD, Blu Ray or HD DVD disc and rip it. The HD formats are complex to rip so it's not 1-click by a mile but it is quite achievable with some patience and experience.
The point of bringing it up is to show the Linux trademark is protected and so is the Firefox trademark. Each is protected in a way their respective holder feels suitable. I really don't see why why anyone is ragging on Mozilla for wishing to protect their trademark. It doesn't stop you taking the browser's source, calling it (for example) Iceweasel and doing whatever the hell you like with it. Mozilla's beef is with people who build tweaked versions of Firefox, changing the default settings (e.g. search urls, homepages etc.), and then try and palm it off as Mozilla Firefox which it isn't.
Why they show an EULA is a question you would have to ask Mozilla's legal team but having read it myself, it appears to be nothing more than saying: a) You can get the browser source at mozilla.org and build it yourself, b) by using this software you agree to the following disclaimer and limitation of liability, c) you can't mess with the trademark or reuse it for your own products. Big deal. Maybe in the light of the "outcry" they'll modify how the EULA is displayed or work to show it some other way, but it really isn't the end of the world.
What a stupid question. Its up to the trademark holder how they protect their trademark. As it happens you do need to apply and agree to terms to sub licence the Linux trademark.
The only good argument for cramming linux down people's throats that I can think of is that it will foster adoption of standards. Even that doesn't satisfy me. I'm with arth1...I think linux needs more people who appreciate it for what it is, and can code. Not more MS refugees (there's enough Unix refugees as it is).
And its elitist attitudes like this that have confined Linux to a niche for so long. Why should Linux be so hard that you need coding skills to use it? Why should someone be forced to spend hours trying to do something that takes minutes to do in Windows or OS X? Why would a Linux coder even be upset that more people are using Linux? That just means your skills as a coder are in higher demand and you can get paid for working on open source.
I consider myself to be a power user and frankly the faster and simpler it is for me to configure the system the better. I didn't install it to tinker with it, but to use it. If that means the GUI lets me configure my wlan from a dialog box instead of fucking around for hours reading HOWTOs, editing config files and rebuilding modules then great.
If you find Ubuntu to be unbearably usable and friendly, install Ubuntu Server which doesn't even install X by default, or go find another dist. There are dozens of them to choose from. If the thought of even using a dist is too high brow, you can even build your own from scratch.
If you want mass-market hardware and software to support Linux you have to make Linux a mass-market OS. If you insist that Linux should be for techical users only you confine it to that niche and substantially lower any interest companies outside that niche have in supporting it (after all, writing printer drivers for an OS that's never going to have more than 1% market share on the desktop is less profitable han telling Linux users to just buy a PostScript-compatible laser printer).
Exactly, the more accessible and usable Linux becomes, the more mainstream the support from vendors becomes. I really don't understand why anyone whines about Ubuntu aspiring to that goal. If Ubuntu is too easy, use another dist. If the GNOME desktop is too easy and consistent, rip it out and use Enlightenment, WMaker, XFCE or whatever.
Maybe some people really do enjoy living in their command prompt, spending hours learning how to build and load some kernel driver to make something work, endlessly tinkering with settings. But they are a tiny minority. The vast majority of computer users buy the computer to do stuff, be it browse the web, IM, chat, email, play games. If something is a 1 minute task in Vista or OS X then it should be in Linux. There is no excuse for making things hard aside from sheer arrogance and obstinacy.
I am glad Linux is finally maturing and that at least one dist has gotten a clue to address them. I hope Ubuntu continues to make inroads into the laptop market and capitalises on their success.
I assume the EULA is to protect their brandname. Firefox is still open source and you could this very minute grab every single line of the tri-licenced Firefox source and rebuild it for yourself. That's exactly what Iceweasel does.
Where Mozilla seems to be coming from is that Firefox and its artwork are a registered trademark and that they are keen to protect how its name is used, how the browser is packaged, what its default settings are. The source is open (and GPL'd) but the name isn't. The same could be said of most commercial open source - the owners are protective of their branding - which would be why gNewSense is called gNewSense and not Ubuntu Free Speech or similar.
Anyway yes you could use iceweasel if you so object to Mozilla protecting their brand. But then you are reliant on the iceweasel group to track Firefox and release timely bugfixes and security updates on their own. For the sake of an EULA I think I would prefer the official packages.
I never said they were the same group of people. I said that these people share the same mindset. Namely, the obstinate, incredulous belief in something despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't mean there is any overlap between creationists, 9/11 truthers, holocaust deniers, moon hoaxers etc. although in some cases there may actually be.
There has NEVER been an credible physics/technical explaination of why the 60+ stories below the area exposed to extreme heat and crash energy failed the way they did.
So you don't consider several hundred thousand tonnes of gravity assisted building crashing into the remainder to be a credible physics explanation? If that's too simple for you, here is a link to a report that explains it to you in excruciating detail. I fully expect you to pretend it doesn't mean anything. Must...protect...precious...conspiracy...delusions.
I'm not going to be your conspiracy monkey, to paraphrase jon stewart. But will fill in some of your more glaring statements.
How convenient. When asked to provide specifics you clam up. For you its enough to insinuate the conventional explanation is wrong but never say what you think happened instead.
There have been accounts of witnesses, firefighters included that heard loud explosions in the second tower BEFORE the aircraft hit it. Thing is, people now ignore them and call them crack addicts and conspiracy nuts.
Where are the links to these accounts, such as where these people were standing. For example if I was stood in the lobby of the WTC when the first plane hit is it possible that I feel the impact or see a fireball shoot into the lobby before I see debris or even the noise from outside? Also explain why explosions would be going off before the planes hit and why video records do not show these explosions.
Well, the fact that nobody was allowed to LOOK for evidence in ground zero while they were hurriedly cleaning the thing up can be blamed partially for it. But there were abnormally high temperature spots that indicated the presence of molten metal, such as produced by thermite steel cutting devices, long after the towers crashed. That was also ignored by the Commission.
Please link to some reputable scientist or other person of standing complaining that they approached the New York port authority or whoever and were denied the opportunity to conduct their own investigation.
Also explain why you've flipped from high explosives to thermite. Also explain what magic thermite this is that you believe continues to give off energy long after the towers crashed. Could it just be that a pile of combustible materials packed in rubble can burn for a very long time?
And don't group people who ask tough questions about 9/11 and holocaust deniers, I am not one and resent such dishonest sensationalist comparisons which have no value in an argument. Aren't you convinced of your explanation? No reason not to keep it classy, right?
Why not? 9/11 "truthers", creationists, holocaust deniers, flat earthers, moon hoaxers etc. all use extremely similar tactics to promote their "theories". Quite possibly because their "theories" consist of denying the conventional explanation rather than advancing a viable alternate explanation. This might explain why they all resort to misquotation (quote mining), similes, nitpicking, incredulity, misdirection, pseudoscience, and generally doing anything except confront the evidence.
I expect some Jews are creationists as are many Christians, Muslims, Raelians and probably many other people from different religions and cults. I doubt race or religion in general has much to do with the mindset required. More important is having an inerrant, obstinate, unshakeable belief in something that is impervious to reason even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Fireproofing is rated by the hour uh? How long did each tower burn? You think the world's biggest skyscrapers were rate for 1 hour of fire? That's a big vote of confidence on the firefighters.;-)
Yes it's rated by the hour. People who sell spray on retardant for the construction industry state it will last N hours in a fire where N is usually 1-4 hours. The fact that building codes demand a fire rating should also put to rest the stupid "truther" assertion that steel must "melt" for a structure to fail or that a fire cannot cause a building failure. Even steel which is treated will fail eventually in a fire because steel conducts heat. And that of course assumes the retardant wasn't knocked off after a large jet smashed into the side of a tower at high speed.
You see, the reason we openly mock those who swallow whole piles of bullshit whole is exactly the same! But factual in this case. Creationists are mocked because they take bible bullshit at face value. Science is conducted independently and can't make it's conclusions official and true by having the government write a book in red, blue and white with a big 9/11 on the cover. See the similarities there? Use the comparison if you like, but makes you look kinda bad.:-)
Creationists and 9/11 truthers and holocaust deniers are mocked because they never advance their own theory about anything. They don't want to believe the conventional explanation despite overwhelming evidence. Therefore instead they must nitpick, deny, handwave, quote mine and generally do anything to pretend the evidence doesn't matter or means something else.
Of course if you are a "truther" yourself, perhaps you can state explicitly and in some detail what you think happened instead. Explain how the towers fell, where the charges were placed (if it was charges), who placed them, how many people are required to rig all three buildings, how long it took to lay, what type of charges we are talking about here, how they were detonated, how nobody saw or heard explosives going off, how nobody found evidence for these explosives after the fact, how all rescue workers, firefighters, FBI investigators, scientists, insurance underwriters were fooled into thinking the towers fell due by being hit by hijacked aircraft. You might also explain why you think your particular conspiracy is correct but all the other wild-eyed variants (thermite, high explosives, nukes, missiles etc.) floating around are wrong. I ask because "truthers" love to insinuate that the conventional explanation is wrong, but they never say what the alternative is let alone supply evidence for it.
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Most people do not sell their laptops, they run them into the ground or hang onto them for so long that they have little residual value. I sold an Apple G4 desktop after owning it for 4 years and got 150 for it. Better than a PC I suppose but hardly justified by the honking premium the box commanded to begin with. Same for laptops. I doubt you would get anywhere close to 70-80% unless you replaced your laptop every year, which frankly doesn't make any sense either for all the hassle involved.
Not surprising really when there are 10x the number of PC laptops for sale and consumers have the freedom to buy their computers from any store they like. PC prices also head south (or the specs improve) while the Apple price doesn't until the next refresh which could be 6 months.
So yes Apple computers are obviously more expensive than their counterparts and represent terrible value as time advances. Maybe the gulf is not as wide as it once was but its still there.
Exactly. If one didn't know any better, one might think Apple was paying lip service to battery replacement, knowing full well that the price, the time it takes and the potential repercussions of the service will scare everyone off. At the end of the day, the ONLY reason Apple seal in batteries is for planned obscelesence. They know doing this will cause more people to throw away their otherwise functional devices than if you could just pop the cover off the back and replace the battery.
Good for the EU if they force this through. Next step might be to impress on the industry to design and adopt a common standard for chargers and data transfer cables.
Still, for the time being I'm quite happy to rip the main feature and be done with it.
When you watch the start of the clip you think big deal, there's probably a script doing the addition or something. Then it starts panning up and you just see hundreds of ropes, pulleys and levers which are all wired together. A simple interface hides a horribly complex set of mechanics. Even more impressive that all this is modelled in a game using a level edito. The accuracy of the physics and the sheer number of interactions is deeply impressive. The sheer quality and variety of levels in the beta phase shows how awesome this game is going to be. Two weeks to go.
So now Mono has two IDEs, neither compatible and neither that work across all target platforms. They really need to sort themselves out. Eclipse dominates Java to the extent that virtually all development uses it or a variant (e.g. WebSphere). Mono really needs something similar, something so compelling that devs really have no reason to fork out for DevStudio. When that happens, it's game over. If they let MS continue to run the show they will forever play catchup and will be running behind picking up the scraps. Most .NET developers probably don't know or even care about Mono. That has to change and the easiest way is to put a tool under their noses which makes them care.
I'm talking about ripping the movie out for a portable copy. If you want to backup a movie then just use DVD Decrypter and your favourite burner to make a copy. If you want to shrink it first to a single layer, google for "DVD Shrink".
Handbrake is a front end over xvid and x264 encoders so you get either an MPEG-2 ASP (DiVX) or H264 AVC file from the process. Depending on your target device you might want to choose one or the other or fiddle with the other settings but the defaults are pretty sane if you don't know what you are doing.
Sure the process might skip supplementals and there may be edge cases with alternate tracks or subtitles that require more effort but x264 is an excellent encoder and the quality is very good. I really don't see why anybody would want to use RealDVD when it DRMs the resulting movie in the process.
It's too bad that its primarily for Linux and other platforms have varying levels of support. Considering Mono is supposed to be a cross-platform runtime, it doesn't instil much confidence that an IDE written in .NET expressly for Mono development can't even run everywhere. SharpDevelop (which MonoDevelop was ported from) isn't much better either. Why is it so hard to make an IDE that runs everywhere?
I'm surprised that more effort isn't going into MonoDevelop. At the moment the defacto .NET development platform is DevStudio. This automatically means that developers develop against Microsoft's runtime, not Monos and also encourages all sorts of bad practice such as DllImports, embedding ActiveX controls, dependencies on other MS tech like SQL Server etc. Perhaps if MonoDevelop were to .NET development what Eclipse is for Java development it would gain a lot more traction. Eclipse manages to be cross-platform. It even runs on different JVMs including (surprisingly gcj). This is where MonoDevelop needs to be.
I got so sick of the Asus Linux that I installed Ubuntu. Generally the experience is much nicer but the wifi UI is just dreadful and it still didn't support 3G modems. I hope 8.10 is much better and I'm looking forward to it.
On the flip side, a Linux install comes with an insane amount of free stuff - games, browsers, email, office applications, skype, aim etc. MSI, Asus et al should be pointing this out. In some cases even the hardware is better.
The best Linux dist I've seen in a Netbook so far is Acer's. This appears to run Xfce but looks very windows like and it's very slick too, much better than my experiences with the Eee PC.
It does which goes some way to a solution but IIRC even if you disable BD-Live it still asks you each time you play a disk if you want to enable it. The BD-Live enable setting should have three values - Ask, Always and Never. Setting Never should mean BD-Live is turned off.
On top of that it should be possible to hit triangle on an inserted disk icon and manually configure just that disk. For example to disable Iron Man even if the global settings allow BD-Live.
There is nothing in the spec that requires this. If they had wanted they could have tested if the player supported networking and added a new menu which allowed users to manually connect to their servers for extra content.
Frankly this is all Paramount's own fault. Aside from the technical fuckup, I have to question the whole ethic of a disk that automatically "phones home" just by inserting it. For starters it means Paramount are tracking usage of this title. It also means the experience could change every time its loaded. Could we see adverts or new trailers being inserted onto disk? Or studios prominently promoting their own online stores or other content? What happens in 10 years if the website bitrots? Will the disk even play any more or will it hang like it did here?
I think it's very telling that the first prominent user of BD-Live immediately abuses it. BD-Live is IMO a waste of time and will continue to be while it used in such superficial and intrusive ways. Every 2.0 player should have the option to disable internet on a global and per-disk basis. Maybe some day a disk will produce a compelling use for it but nothing comes close yet.
The problem of course is that activists are often blinded by a single issue and therefore vote more stupidly than the general public. They vote on an issue (e.g abortion), not necessarily for a candidate's experience or overall policies.
I would favour mandatory voting accompanied by a weighting score. Everyone gets a vote but the ballot is accompanied by 5 non-partisan muliple choice questions randomly drawn from 20 or so. The weight of your vote depends on your score. It naturally favours well informed voters and diminishes the effect of ignorant / stupid ones.
This is unlike Amazon, TIVO, Microsoft, Apple how? Every single digital download provider locks you into a proprietary player, a proprietary service and a proprietary format. It's the main reason that you'd have to be a moron to build a collection of movies or shows in the current climate. An industry wide standard for digital downloads is an absolute necessity for the format to take off, otherwise it will be the usual gorillas slugging it out with their proprietary solutions and getting nowhere. At least a common platform means you can confidently build a collection with the reasonable expectation that you can play it on any of your compatible devices. It also means that if one online store has a sale on you can buy some titles from there because you are not locked into a single vendor. The problem of course is that unless every studio and manufacturer buys into the platform it might be a damp squib.
Personally I think they should junk the DRM altogether and use passive techniques like watermarking. After all, it's not like people don't already file share so what's the point of hobbling the legitimate purchase when the pirate copy is unencumbered. It's just stupid. Let people buy a file and do whatever the hell they like with it for personal use. Doubly stupid seeing as the music industry have just realised this themselves and here some of the same players are trying to inflict even more objectionable conditions on movies.
In summary, the whole industry sucks, not just Sony. The best way to build a collection at the moment is to buy a DVD, Blu Ray or HD DVD disc and rip it. The HD formats are complex to rip so it's not 1-click by a mile but it is quite achievable with some patience and experience.
Why they show an EULA is a question you would have to ask Mozilla's legal team but having read it myself, it appears to be nothing more than saying: a) You can get the browser source at mozilla.org and build it yourself, b) by using this software you agree to the following disclaimer and limitation of liability, c) you can't mess with the trademark or reuse it for your own products. Big deal. Maybe in the light of the "outcry" they'll modify how the EULA is displayed or work to show it some other way, but it really isn't the end of the world.
What a stupid question. Its up to the trademark holder how they protect their trademark. As it happens you do need to apply and agree to terms to sub licence the Linux trademark.
And its elitist attitudes like this that have confined Linux to a niche for so long. Why should Linux be so hard that you need coding skills to use it? Why should someone be forced to spend hours trying to do something that takes minutes to do in Windows or OS X? Why would a Linux coder even be upset that more people are using Linux? That just means your skills as a coder are in higher demand and you can get paid for working on open source.
I consider myself to be a power user and frankly the faster and simpler it is for me to configure the system the better. I didn't install it to tinker with it, but to use it. If that means the GUI lets me configure my wlan from a dialog box instead of fucking around for hours reading HOWTOs, editing config files and rebuilding modules then great.
If you find Ubuntu to be unbearably usable and friendly, install Ubuntu Server which doesn't even install X by default, or go find another dist. There are dozens of them to choose from. If the thought of even using a dist is too high brow, you can even build your own from scratch.
Exactly, the more accessible and usable Linux becomes, the more mainstream the support from vendors becomes. I really don't understand why anyone whines about Ubuntu aspiring to that goal. If Ubuntu is too easy, use another dist. If the GNOME desktop is too easy and consistent, rip it out and use Enlightenment, WMaker, XFCE or whatever.
Maybe some people really do enjoy living in their command prompt, spending hours learning how to build and load some kernel driver to make something work, endlessly tinkering with settings. But they are a tiny minority. The vast majority of computer users buy the computer to do stuff, be it browse the web, IM, chat, email, play games. If something is a 1 minute task in Vista or OS X then it should be in Linux. There is no excuse for making things hard aside from sheer arrogance and obstinacy.
I am glad Linux is finally maturing and that at least one dist has gotten a clue to address them. I hope Ubuntu continues to make inroads into the laptop market and capitalises on their success.
Where Mozilla seems to be coming from is that Firefox and its artwork are a registered trademark and that they are keen to protect how its name is used, how the browser is packaged, what its default settings are. The source is open (and GPL'd) but the name isn't. The same could be said of most commercial open source - the owners are protective of their branding - which would be why gNewSense is called gNewSense and not Ubuntu Free Speech or similar.
Anyway yes you could use iceweasel if you so object to Mozilla protecting their brand. But then you are reliant on the iceweasel group to track Firefox and release timely bugfixes and security updates on their own. For the sake of an EULA I think I would prefer the official packages.
I never said they were the same group of people. I said that these people share the same mindset. Namely, the obstinate, incredulous belief in something despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't mean there is any overlap between creationists, 9/11 truthers, holocaust deniers, moon hoaxers etc. although in some cases there may actually be.
So you don't consider several hundred thousand tonnes of gravity assisted building crashing into the remainder to be a credible physics explanation? If that's too simple for you, here is a link to a report that explains it to you in excruciating detail. I fully expect you to pretend it doesn't mean anything. Must...protect...precious...conspiracy...delusions.
How convenient. When asked to provide specifics you clam up. For you its enough to insinuate the conventional explanation is wrong but never say what you think happened instead.
There have been accounts of witnesses, firefighters included that heard loud explosions in the second tower BEFORE the aircraft hit it. Thing is, people now ignore them and call them crack addicts and conspiracy nuts.
Where are the links to these accounts, such as where these people were standing. For example if I was stood in the lobby of the WTC when the first plane hit is it possible that I feel the impact or see a fireball shoot into the lobby before I see debris or even the noise from outside? Also explain why explosions would be going off before the planes hit and why video records do not show these explosions.
Well, the fact that nobody was allowed to LOOK for evidence in ground zero while they were hurriedly cleaning the thing up can be blamed partially for it. But there were abnormally high temperature spots that indicated the presence of molten metal, such as produced by thermite steel cutting devices, long after the towers crashed. That was also ignored by the Commission.
Please link to some reputable scientist or other person of standing complaining that they approached the New York port authority or whoever and were denied the opportunity to conduct their own investigation.
Also explain why you've flipped from high explosives to thermite. Also explain what magic thermite this is that you believe continues to give off energy long after the towers crashed. Could it just be that a pile of combustible materials packed in rubble can burn for a very long time?
And don't group people who ask tough questions about 9/11 and holocaust deniers, I am not one and resent such dishonest sensationalist comparisons which have no value in an argument. Aren't you convinced of your explanation? No reason not to keep it classy, right?
Why not? 9/11 "truthers", creationists, holocaust deniers, flat earthers, moon hoaxers etc. all use extremely similar tactics to promote their "theories". Quite possibly because their "theories" consist of denying the conventional explanation rather than advancing a viable alternate explanation. This might explain why they all resort to misquotation (quote mining), similes, nitpicking, incredulity, misdirection, pseudoscience, and generally doing anything except confront the evidence.
I expect some Jews are creationists as are many Christians, Muslims, Raelians and probably many other people from different religions and cults. I doubt race or religion in general has much to do with the mindset required. More important is having an inerrant, obstinate, unshakeable belief in something that is impervious to reason even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Yes it's rated by the hour. People who sell spray on retardant for the construction industry state it will last N hours in a fire where N is usually 1-4 hours. The fact that building codes demand a fire rating should also put to rest the stupid "truther" assertion that steel must "melt" for a structure to fail or that a fire cannot cause a building failure. Even steel which is treated will fail eventually in a fire because steel conducts heat. And that of course assumes the retardant wasn't knocked off after a large jet smashed into the side of a tower at high speed.
You see, the reason we openly mock those who swallow whole piles of bullshit whole is exactly the same! But factual in this case. Creationists are mocked because they take bible bullshit at face value. Science is conducted independently and can't make it's conclusions official and true by having the government write a book in red, blue and white with a big 9/11 on the cover. See the similarities there? Use the comparison if you like, but makes you look kinda bad. :-)
Creationists and 9/11 truthers and holocaust deniers are mocked because they never advance their own theory about anything. They don't want to believe the conventional explanation despite overwhelming evidence. Therefore instead they must nitpick, deny, handwave, quote mine and generally do anything to pretend the evidence doesn't matter or means something else.
Of course if you are a "truther" yourself, perhaps you can state explicitly and in some detail what you think happened instead. Explain how the towers fell, where the charges were placed (if it was charges), who placed them, how many people are required to rig all three buildings, how long it took to lay, what type of charges we are talking about here, how they were detonated, how nobody saw or heard explosives going off, how nobody found evidence for these explosives after the fact, how all rescue workers, firefighters, FBI investigators, scientists, insurance underwriters were fooled into thinking the towers fell due by being hit by hijacked aircraft. You might also explain why you think your particular conspiracy is correct but all the other wild-eyed variants (thermite, high explosives, nukes, missiles etc.) floating around are wrong. I ask because "truthers" love to insinuate that the conventional explanation is wrong, but they never say what the alternative is let alone supply evidence for it.
What?