The fact that making backup copies of vinyl has always been impractical doesn't change the principle. Music has always been priced according to a formula that bears resemblance to (cost of physical pressing + distribution/shipping + studio time + artist cut + marketing + profit). If you already paid for the last five pieces, there's no reason why the sixth couldn't be considered separately. You paid for the record to be recorded, marketed, and for the artists and suits to support their coke habits. Just because the physical media was damaged doesn't negate that, so it's always stood to reason that one should be able to pay a significantly lower cost for a replacement physical media. However, up until the 80's it was highly impractical for people to do so, because a machine for pressing vinyl at home never really caught on in any meaningful capacity.
In the 80's, we had dual-deck cassette recorders, and that allowed us to make backups much more readily, but even that was hampered due to the requirement of real-time duplication. It was here, though, that the mixtape was born.
In the 90's, we had CD burners, and duping a CD took about 20 minutes at first...then 10...then 5...then 2.
People have always wanted the same thing - to buy music once and play it whenever they want. When personal duplication was impractical, it was never considered a desirable trait. Later, that ability was given to us, and now it's being taken away again.
Personally, I have never bought a song from iTunes whose first stop wasn't a CD-R for re-ripping. First, I simply appreciated the irony of iTunes wrapping the AAC file in DRM, then burning the song to disc in iTunes, then having iTunes volunteer to re-rip it for me. But second, it gave me both a physical backup of the song, as well as an MP3 that plays everywhere. No one is expecting Apple/EMI/Whoever to buy them new iPods or computers because it breaks. It's more like if a record refused to play without a specific needle, but could be altered to play with any needle, then the record self-destructing without being replaced.No one would have stood for that back then, but again, it simply wasn't practical.
If you're spending 2 grand every six months to play the latest game, you're doing it wrong. GPUs that can run Crysis to a playable extent are inside $200 now. 4GB of DDR2 RAM is about $70 on Newegg. If you bought a dual-core or quad-core processor within the last three years, again, you'll probably still be set. Building a capable gaming machine can be done for under a grand these days; most will get you at least a year or two before needing any kind of upgrade to play a new game. At that, most games will still work with the older hardware; you'll just have to notch down the AA or display resolution.
Now, I do agree with you that the graphics have become more of the selling points of the game than actual gameplay, but even at that I think is starting to turn around. Bioware has been very successful with Mass Effect 1&2, DragonAge:Origins, and other games that have received both critical and market success. On the other end of the spectrum, PopCap, Zylom, and other casual publishers have made a fortune of fun-to-play but storyless games.
Oh I'm fully aware of how awesome Synaptic/Yum/$PACKAGE_MANAGER is, but unfortunately I doubt that a full-blown software repo will ever happen on Windows, because ultimately, it will end up as one of two scenarios:
1.) Microsoft requires all software added to the repo to have a specific digital certificate, and/or additional repos themselves will have to be signed and secured. These certificates will cost $$$$. Some indi dev will want to get their software in the repo, won't be able to afford it, and Microsoft will find itself in court faster than a hooker running out of church. That, or some shady software dealer will find itself being unsigned 'cuz someone at MS doesn't trust them or they sue...the details may change, but the bottom line is that if Microsoft discriminates who gets in and who doesn't, regardless of whether they have a legit reason to do so, they'll end up in court.
2.) Microsoft allows any repo, signed or unsigned, to be added to the repo/update tree. Malware attacks shift from "click here to remove the 638 trojans our fake virus scanner found" to "click here to add our repo and install our fake virus scanner". Status quo remains unchanged, and the point of adding repos in the first place gets mitigated.
I love the entire concept of package managers and would LOVE to see Synaptic on Windows. The problem is, the Windows platform is just too entrenched to make a package manager work there.
Microsoft is going to create a need for a WinPhone Dev Team to figure out how to jailbreak Windows Mobile phones?
I mean seriously, it's like they're taking everything that I like about owning a WinMo phone and throwing it away. I *like* having a file browser on my phone. I *like* having native applications. I *like* HTC's SenseUI. I *like* being able to use my phone as USB mass storage. I *like* being able to HardSPL my phone and use a custom ROM from HTCpedia or xda-developers. I *like* being able to tether my phone using a standard data plan. I *like* Opera Mobile. These are all features that WinMo had and the iPhone didn't. Between these and the dropped calls (oh, and iTunes), I ditched my iPhone and couldn't be happier. Now they're taking away even the possibility of all of these features? Sure, I could completely understand hiding the file browser by default. I could understand not allowing HTC to ship SenseUI enabled by default. I could understand wanting to streamline the process and moving away from scouring the internet for CAB files and shifting toward a more standardized development process. But seriously Microsoft, don't try to copy Apple's shortcomings at the expense of the very reasons why I chose a WinMo phone.
I'm a DJ, so I've got lots of various audio gear lying around. I've got a Numark mixer with USB out/in, an M-Audio MobilePRE USB, an M-Audio Connectiv, a Stanton ScratchAmp, a Creative X-Fi Notebook Expresscard, and an old Creative Extigy...and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM sounds orders of magnitude better than the integrated audio chipset in my laptop when it comes to recording audio. While I agree with some of the other posters that many laptops these days have ports that pull double duty based on software, if you're looking for any sort of fidelity to your audio, you're going to want an external solution anyway.
Of all of the laptops I've used, the best noise floor I've ever gotten was -35db. there's this hiss that's present in every single one of the recordings I've made. In some recordings that have a very low dynamic range and are recorded at around -0.5db with a decent amount of loudness, the hiss is somewhat hidden and I can get away with it. In recordings with ANY amount of dynamic range at all, the hiss is audible and drives me up a wall. If you've ever heard the audio from a $200 handheld camcorder, you'll know what i'm talking about. On the other hand, the worst offender on the list above is the Numark mixer. My guess is that it is largely based on the fact that it has an integrated power transformer, unlike the rest of the list there. Even at that, the worst noise floor I've ever gotten from that mixer is -70db. You'd have to crank your stereo to about 8.5 to hear the hiss out of that thing. The MobilePRE USB is probably the best, with a floor of around -90db. You can crank your stereo to 11 and you'll hear hiss from your amp before you hear hiss from its recordings. Finally, the higher end stuff here (MobilePRE, Connectiv, Numark Mixer) all have inputs that inherently provide a better signal (XLR and/or RCA) than an 1/8" cable. Simultaneously, if you're recording from most sources other than an iPod, you'll need an adapter to make it fit an 1/8" jack anyway.
I actually have a copy of the original, hockey puck ScratchAmp and Traktor Scratch software. I got it for $5 at a Guitar Center blowout sale. It was ONLY worth that because the vinyl that came with it was very high quality and works with other software like Deckadance that can derive the timecode signal from any record. The interface was nearly useless (was it REALLY that hard to make it a regular class-compliant sound card instead of being specific to Traktor?), and the software was as buggy as a beta copy of Windows ME, but it did pave the way...
Final Cut is Apple's Prosumer video editing software. The context of your post implies Serato, Rane's product that allows the use of timecoded vinyl to manipulate the playback of MP3s, yes?
Standard vinyl has its advantages (no latency), but Serato solves lots of problems that make it convenient enough for the top jocks in the world to have a copy at hand (no buying two of every record, no worrying about scratching one of them, carrying every track ever to every gig, independent pitch/tempo lock, etc.).
As a mobile DJ who has friends all over the industry, I can tell you that MP3 has become the de facto standard here. Sure, you'll find a few jocks who still spin pressed CDs and/or pressed vinyl, but they are a minority.
More often than not, you'll find that you're listening to MP3's anyway. Serato/Traktor/Torq/Virtual DJ have made serious inroads, and they all support timecoded CD and vinyl, so even if they look like they're spinning CDs, if there's a laptop in sight, they're spinning timecode and you're listening to MP3s off their laptop. Even if they have regular discs, companies like PrimeCuts, Promo Only, RPM, etc. also burn MP3 discs, and EVERY DJ-grade CD player plays MP3's nowadays. Finally, services like Crooklyn Clan and Crack4djs.net make their releases exclusively in MP3, so even if they burn Redbook audio CDs, you're still listening to something that started as an MP3.
Yes, that moment. The moment is symbolic of a much longer commitment. It happens all the time.
How many months does it take to save up for a down payment of a car? how many days are spent searching for one? How many hours are spent filling out paperwork and waiting in line at the DMV? How many seconds does turning the key in the ignition for the first time and being able to say "this car is mine" last? When you've found "that perfect car", is what's on your mind going to be "wow, this took forever"?
The other way I look at it is this: If my future wife ever questions if I'd ever cheat on her, my answer would be "I spent the first 23+X years waiting for you. I love you THAT much. I'd be a fool to have an affair now." THAT'S what makes being able to tell her that I waited for her mean as much as it does. There's no replacement for it. It's a gift I can give her for free that all the money in the world can never buy.
As a Christian, and being a virgin by choice (I'm 23 btw, and yes, I've had a girlfriend), the rationale goes something like this: I'm not looking for any legislation pertaining to sexual intercourse*. Actually, I'm rather disappointed as to how many Christians try to legislate morality, when that simply doesn't work, nor do I expect it to. So no, I'm not looking to control and ration sex from the steps of Capitol Hill. If you choose against my belief system, then that's your choice, and comes with both perks and consequences.
Fire is a great thing in a fireplace. It's great in a backyard BBQ grill. It's great on a candle as a light source for a romantic dinner, and it's downright life saving in the middle of the woods on a cold night. It's not, however, a very good thing in the middle of my living room. It's not all that great in my car when I'm driving, and it's not a very good thing underneath my server rack at work. The concept of fire hasn't changed; it's still an exothermic reaction between heat, oxygen, and a fuel source. What has changed is the CONTEXT in which that chemical reaction takes place, and the context determines whether the fire saves a life, or if it takes one.
Similarly, I believe that sex was God's idea. It was a pretty good one, as far as I can tell. The problem is that there is a context for it to happen in where it works best, and that's a marriage bed. There are certainly perks for sex outside of a permanent, monogamous context, but there are also consequences to it as well, and the latter can EASILY be lifelong. I wouldn't wish that on myself, and I wouldn't wish that on any of my female friends or on my ex-girlfriend, just so I could say that we had some fun for a little while.
If this whole God and Christianity thing is as real as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, fine. I will have lived my live believing a complete lie, treating others with respect and dignity, caring for others, donating to charity, paying my taxes, choosing the honest road instead of the easy one...and having the opportunity to lie with my future wife on my wedding night, look into her eyes, and say "I've waited $YEARS for this moment, and you're the only one I'll ever share it with." To me, that moment will be worth every minute of the last 23+however-many years I will spend waiting for her.
*The exception to this is adultery; so long as marriage is considered a legally binding contract, infidelity is a breach of that contract and should carry legal consequences for dishonoring a legal agreement.
Disclaimer: This is from my personal, anecdotal experience. YMWV...
-Microsoft Security Essentials is the current weapon of choice for people too stingy to pay for protection. It does a good job though, and like has been reiterated many times over, it's pretty light on system resources, it doesn't nag unless you have a virus (though it will give you a "yellow signal" if your Windows Update patches aren't current), and it's straightforward in the event the end user actually has to do anything in it.
-Avast is my second choice. In my experience, Avast (at least the 4.8 version) is the only antivirus I know of that has a custom installer that will function properly in safe mode. In the event that the system is already hosed, if you can get into safe mode, you'll probably be able to install Avast (along with their definition updates that also come as a standalone installer if Safe Mode w/Networking doesn't work) and do a boot-time scan to get you back up and running. I haven't played much with version 5, but both 4.8 and 5 seem to have their pros and cons - 4.8 is lighter, but 5 gives a more polished user experience. If you go for this one, try each version. The first-party Avast site offers both for now, but filehippo.com has an archive of older versions if Avast decides to only offer 5 at some point in the near future and remove the 4.8 link.
-Avira is handy to have, and is shipped on the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (www.ubcd4win.com). In that context it works really well, but IMO an antivirus shouldn't be naggy, because then users start to become conditioned to ignore it, and that's something that will NEVER be desirable. As a repair scanner on the UBCD where you can run your scan and reboot, great. There's no reason to have your family get nagged by the virus scanner.
-AVG is almost the de facto standard in freeware antivirus apps; it's the rare week that it's *not* #1 on the download.com download list (ironically enough, Limewire tends to be #2). I used to think it was alright, and did use it for a while, but it started to get a bit "heavy" on the install side, a bit naggy with the "special upgrade offers", and started slipping on the detection/removal rates.
While this is about freeware antiviruses, there's a few noteworthy for-pay applications that I feel are at least worth taking a look at:
-NOD32 is tiny (v.2.7 was written in assembler and has a 12MB installer; even the x64 version is only 35MB). It's fast. Virtually every review I've read has had its detection rates among the highest available. In my experience, that holds extremely true; not one of my friends and/or family who have coughed up for NOD32 have ended up infected without hitting the 'ignore' button. For $40/year (10% discount for typing "LEO22" at checkout; 2-year and multilicense discounts as well), it is really protection worth paying for. Also, v.4.0 includes a widget to burn a bootable CD that will update itself and scan for viruses on the host machine without booting into Windows. That's a really handy feature. If you're really cramped on system resources, the 2.7 version is also available from FileHippo and will be supported through 2012. Amazingly enough, it will install on anything from Windows 95 to Windows 7 x64.
-Acronis just released a security suite called Backup&Security in conjunction with BitDefender. It's not as light as NOD32 (in fact, it's among the heavier apps available and thus not for the faint of RAM), but I've never seen a more full-featured antivirus. Antivirus, Antispam, firewall, parental controls, IM protection, game mode, all the features of Acronis True Image Home for scheduled backups and disk imaging, centralized management across the home LAN, 5GB of online backup, and three licenses for $70. If there are multiple machines in the same household that need to be secured and have enough RAM to handle it, it's seriously worth a look.
Also, as far as on-demand scanning goes, the freeware Combofix app is sheer amazingness. It's not a comprehensive virus/malware scanner,
The Unreal Tournament series (and Half-Life and Doom, etc.) had a pretty solid way about it. They released a quite-playable game and shipped it with dev tools so that players who wanted to could create their own maps and mods. The GOTY edition of UT2004 even included a tutorial DVD to help get you started. From there, DLC was created by the users and was hosted on FileFront and Gamespot and Rapidshare and wherever else users could get their files hosted. It cost the developer nothing while simultaneously increasing value for buyers.
IMO UT3 did everything just about perfectly. The retail key could be entered into Steam, and voila, instant backup. The disc had no copy protection, but your key was tied to your username and password. No internet? no problem. Offline play is always an option, but only one account can use a single key, which can only play online from one IP address at a time. They released five patches for the game, plus the Titan Pack, which added two new gametypes and several new maps. Worth the $40 I paid for the game within a month of its release? you bet. Fair all around? I don't see how much more even handed they could have gotten while still preventing everyone on Pirate Bay from using a single serial.
The flip side to this is that maps and mods wildly varied in quality, and publishers couldn't monetize it outside of creating an incentive for full game sales. If publishers were to create first party DLC at a nominal cost, it would be great to have the choice, but at the same time there would be a disincentive to do both since it's essentially enabling competition.
You think T-Mobile would magically be better than AT&T? Really?
I do, actually. I have both a Verizon phone and a T-Mobile phone. While I know that T-Mo has been near-synonymous with "bad service", I can count on my fingers how many calls I have dropped over the past six months since I got my Touch Pro2. While I'll fully admit that they were late to the game with 3G (i.e. might not have been a good launch partner without a solid ultimatum or a longer wait for a 3G handset), the few times I have used 3G on my Touch Pro2 have been faster than either my Blackberry Curve or my VX6800 on VZ. Every WinMo phone I've seen on their lineup comes with Internet Sharing in the Stock ROM, and they don't charge a premium for tethering at all. With one exception, customer service has been stellar every time I've called over the past six years of being their customer. I don't work for this company and I know that there are areas of this country where their service isn't as good as it here in the NY Metro Area, but I do think that T-Mobile would, in fact, "Magically be better".
WinMo has been a complete and utter failure for a few other reasons...
-Versions prior to 6.5 all assumed that you were using a stylus. The touch screen keyboard on older WinMo devices were neigh impossible to use without one. WinMo 6.5 is much closer to being finger friendly, and HTC and Samsung have added some really slick UI replacements that actually make it nice to use (I own a Touch Pro2 myself). It's too little, too late though.
-There was severe market fragmentation; WinMo supported touch screens, keyboards, trackballs, or combinations thereof. This generally worked alright for the OS, but app developers had to deal with a nighmare of a UI conundrum as to which was supported.
-the iTunes Music Store has dwarfed music sales from just about everyone else, and for a long time involved DRM. This made it a chore to buy/burn/rip to Windows Media Player if one already had a few thousand tracks in their iTunes library...
-...And even if one did the above step, WMP on WinMo is crap. Like seriously, it's outright annoying to use...and still all but mandates the use of a stylus. As much as I loathe iTunes, the media player on my iPhone when I had one still has been the best media player of any phone I've ever owned.
-WinMo devices STILL don't have an official movie/TV purchasing retailer. As far as I know, the only places you'll find broadcast TV and Hollywood content for WinMo devices is Pirate Bay, or ripping your own (using third party apps of dubious legality in the US). Even if people never get more than one or two episodes, the possibility of doing so as easily as they do music makes it attractive for the average consumer.
-WinMo has suffered from the same business-and-bug-ridden mindset as it's desktop sibling, just as Apple has the trendy-and-just-works mindshare. Whether it's warranted or not is of course debatable (I see both sides, personally), but there are plenty more "average consumers" than Slashdotters.
-Again, I see both sides of Apple's App Store. The nice thing for consumers is that it's centralized and users needn't go further than the iTunes desktop application to get what they need. WinMo uses the desktop model of Google-Search,-pay-if-needed,-download,-and-install-the-CAB of desktop Windows. This allows any dev to write any app and distribute it however they want, but it makes getting apps MUCH more difficult than using the App Store. WinMo 6.5 has the Marketplace now, but again, it's largely too little too late again, and personally I'd like to see a desktop app as well.
UAC's issue was that it was TOO thorough. If a user, using the mouse, manually clicks start, control panel, security center, and windows firewall, it will UAC prompt for that. It UAC prompt for running MSCONFIG. It prompts for running under alternate credentials when those credentials are manually typed in. Some applications triggered a UAC prompt every time they ran.
After a while, UAC just became like a car alarm. What was the last time you heard a car alarm activate and you thought to yourself "oh snap! someone's car is getting stolen!"? I can't even remember. If I were walking through a parking lot at the mall and I saw somebody with a coat hangar down the window and an alarm going off, my reaction would be to look at that guy and say "lock your keys in the car, buddy? need to call AAA?" Car alarms go off so frequently that by time there is an actual robbery in progress, we're conditioned to simply ignore it.
Similarly, UAC was so obnoxiously prevalent in Vista that people don't even stop to think about it anymore. It's just an extra step to see the dancing bunnies, nothing more. If it were designed to more correctly respond to attack vectors, I think it'd be more useful. If UAC were limited to software installations (complete with some "disable until next reboot since I'm performing lots of installations since I just bought this computer" mode), scripted/command line changes to control panel options, registry changes independent of a software install, and unsigned ActiveX applets, that would cover the overwhelming majority of ways that things happen without user consent that UAC notifications would actually be noteworthy enough to users that it would cause them to stop and think about what is happening.
Security software has this tendency as well. It nags so much that many users almost have the mindeset of "an invisible virus is less aggrevating than my security suite". Like UAC and car alarms, security suites that flag things like tracking cookies as infections are disengenuous and instill more negative conditioning than positive.
Mod Parent Up! I don't care if it's posted as anon, this is EXACTLY what would happen. About the only other scenario is if a neutral third party (har har) decided what repos were allowed to be added. The issue is that anyone with centralized control will eventually corrupt it. We don't trust Microsoft because they're already corrupt, but who is trustworthy and will remain so without wreaking privacy havoc?
I 100% agree with AC here. Repos in Windows are a good thing, but like most good ideas, the courtroom prohibits action from being taken.
Already there. I don't tell people about what I do for two reasons:
1: they want me to fix their computer.
This is why every IT/Comp Sci major needs to take a marketing class. By time you're done, you'll know that the correct answer will sound like this: "It'll cost you $500" (slightly smaller amounts are acceptable if it is an extremely attractive classmate). This way, you'll have either one of two possible outcomes: Either they'll never ask again, or you'll have robbed them legitimately, right through the front door!
For example, from the post below: "Gay guys who just want to be with eachother doesn't hurt anyone." This applies to marriage to inanimate objects as well.
You can want to be with your toaster, but your toaster can't want to be with you.
-You can't assume that people have PCs with the capacity of adding a PCI card. All slots could be used, or they could be using a gaming laptop. An average user could also simply cringe at the thought of opening their PC, and yes, I do know some like that.
-You can't assume that people would be WILLING to dedicate a PCI slot to play a game without any additional advantage. In my book, that's just as unreasonable as this always-online crap.
-You can't compare adding hardware that provides end user benefits to hardware that only satisfies a DRM requirement. I don't use Cubase, but I have used a Matrox RT-2000. Matrox makes specific plugins for Premiere that will do things like render multiple 3D transitions and overlays with color correction in real-time. While it's a bit less revolutionary today with i7 processors and OpenGL plugins, I remember seeing 700MHz P3's with 128MBytes of RAM and Windows 98 doing stuff like that, and it was only possible because of the proprietary hardware that also had the benefit of reducing piracy. The hardware solution you propose can only have the task of enforcing DRM, which is quite the waste of a PCI slot.
-Making a game work on XP, Vista, and 7 x86 and x64 isn't horrifically difficult. There's not a whole lot of low-level stuff going on, so debugging on multiple operating systems is relatively simple. Add a PCI card into the mix, and now you need drivers for it. Since drivers tend to be among the leading cause of system instability along with viruses on the Windows platform, do you REALLY want a bunch of game designers to start writing device drivers for an unnecessary piece of hardware for at least six different operating systems, all of which have a different driver stack (okay, you can argue that a well-written Vista driver can work on 7 as well, but it will still need to be tested and debugged).
-This post is among the best breakdowns of DRM issues I've read in a LONG time. A PCI card, even if you put half the game data on some onboard flash memory, is still vulnerable to the tell-the-binary-what-it-wants-to-hear problems AND the dump-your-RAM-during-a-playthrough tactics. Oh, and there's likely some means of modding the driver to make the flash memory come up as a regular storage device and just dumping the data that way. No matter how it gets sliced, at the end of the day, putting half the game on a DVD and the other half on a PCI card still puts both halves of the puzzle in the hands of the user.
-Comparing users of Cubase/Protools/Avid to gamers is a problem, because you've got two different user sets. Gamers are in it for personal enjoyment. If they have a game and play it, they're happy, and it doesn't go much further than that (multiplayer, yes, but the point is that use of the product is the reward by itself). Cubase et al users are, in the majority of cases, in a studio environment where they are charging musicians $$$$$$$$$$$ to record their music. Again, the PCI cards required usually provide some advantage (lower latency, accelerated processing, higher bit depth, multiple I/O, XLR I/O, etc.). If a card costs $500, that cost is covered in a fraction of a day's worth of studio time, and getting caught is a huge problem, too. You can't compare people who are spending money to make money, and people who are spending money just to have fun.
Your sarcasm and skepticism is noted, and you're entitled to disbelieve me if you so choose. However, I do in fact purchase video games when I want them. As suggested by another poster, I'm not purchasing this one, nor have I purchased CoD:MW2, nor have I pirated either. In fact, I didn't even download Mass Effect 2 when it was leaked early, even though I'd already paid for it in full. The point I was making was that when it's harder to USE a purchased copy over a cracked one, and more problems arise with the purchased ones, it feels like the publishers are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's like they're saying "We don't want to make PC games anymore because of piracy. Let's make it so challenging to use a legitimate copy that even customers who want to purchase it need to download a crack in order to make it work, then we can show that 90% of customers are using cracked copies to the point where the bean counters in Accounting agree."
Normally I actually pay for my games. In most cases, I do it the old school way - I buy physical discs from physical stores. Lately though, companies like Ubisoft seem like they're treating me like a criminal for giving them my money. At this point, they're really making it more convenient for me to prove them right.
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The fact that making backup copies of vinyl has always been impractical doesn't change the principle. Music has always been priced according to a formula that bears resemblance to (cost of physical pressing + distribution/shipping + studio time + artist cut + marketing + profit). If you already paid for the last five pieces, there's no reason why the sixth couldn't be considered separately. You paid for the record to be recorded, marketed, and for the artists and suits to support their coke habits. Just because the physical media was damaged doesn't negate that, so it's always stood to reason that one should be able to pay a significantly lower cost for a replacement physical media. However, up until the 80's it was highly impractical for people to do so, because a machine for pressing vinyl at home never really caught on in any meaningful capacity.
In the 80's, we had dual-deck cassette recorders, and that allowed us to make backups much more readily, but even that was hampered due to the requirement of real-time duplication. It was here, though, that the mixtape was born.
In the 90's, we had CD burners, and duping a CD took about 20 minutes at first...then 10...then 5...then 2.
People have always wanted the same thing - to buy music once and play it whenever they want. When personal duplication was impractical, it was never considered a desirable trait. Later, that ability was given to us, and now it's being taken away again.
Personally, I have never bought a song from iTunes whose first stop wasn't a CD-R for re-ripping. First, I simply appreciated the irony of iTunes wrapping the AAC file in DRM, then burning the song to disc in iTunes, then having iTunes volunteer to re-rip it for me. But second, it gave me both a physical backup of the song, as well as an MP3 that plays everywhere. No one is expecting Apple/EMI/Whoever to buy them new iPods or computers because it breaks. It's more like if a record refused to play without a specific needle, but could be altered to play with any needle, then the record self-destructing without being replaced.No one would have stood for that back then, but again, it simply wasn't practical.
If you're spending 2 grand every six months to play the latest game, you're doing it wrong. GPUs that can run Crysis to a playable extent are inside $200 now. 4GB of DDR2 RAM is about $70 on Newegg. If you bought a dual-core or quad-core processor within the last three years, again, you'll probably still be set. Building a capable gaming machine can be done for under a grand these days; most will get you at least a year or two before needing any kind of upgrade to play a new game. At that, most games will still work with the older hardware; you'll just have to notch down the AA or display resolution.
Now, I do agree with you that the graphics have become more of the selling points of the game than actual gameplay, but even at that I think is starting to turn around. Bioware has been very successful with Mass Effect 1&2, DragonAge:Origins, and other games that have received both critical and market success. On the other end of the spectrum, PopCap, Zylom, and other casual publishers have made a fortune of fun-to-play but storyless games.
Oh I'm fully aware of how awesome Synaptic/Yum/$PACKAGE_MANAGER is, but unfortunately I doubt that a full-blown software repo will ever happen on Windows, because ultimately, it will end up as one of two scenarios:
1.) Microsoft requires all software added to the repo to have a specific digital certificate, and/or additional repos themselves will have to be signed and secured. These certificates will cost $$$$. Some indi dev will want to get their software in the repo, won't be able to afford it, and Microsoft will find itself in court faster than a hooker running out of church. That, or some shady software dealer will find itself being unsigned 'cuz someone at MS doesn't trust them or they sue...the details may change, but the bottom line is that if Microsoft discriminates who gets in and who doesn't, regardless of whether they have a legit reason to do so, they'll end up in court.
2.) Microsoft allows any repo, signed or unsigned, to be added to the repo/update tree. Malware attacks shift from "click here to remove the 638 trojans our fake virus scanner found" to "click here to add our repo and install our fake virus scanner". Status quo remains unchanged, and the point of adding repos in the first place gets mitigated.
I love the entire concept of package managers and would LOVE to see Synaptic on Windows. The problem is, the Windows platform is just too entrenched to make a package manager work there.
Microsoft is going to create a need for a WinPhone Dev Team to figure out how to jailbreak Windows Mobile phones?
I mean seriously, it's like they're taking everything that I like about owning a WinMo phone and throwing it away. I *like* having a file browser on my phone. I *like* having native applications. I *like* HTC's SenseUI. I *like* being able to use my phone as USB mass storage. I *like* being able to HardSPL my phone and use a custom ROM from HTCpedia or xda-developers. I *like* being able to tether my phone using a standard data plan. I *like* Opera Mobile. These are all features that WinMo had and the iPhone didn't. Between these and the dropped calls (oh, and iTunes), I ditched my iPhone and couldn't be happier. Now they're taking away even the possibility of all of these features? Sure, I could completely understand hiding the file browser by default. I could understand not allowing HTC to ship SenseUI enabled by default. I could understand wanting to streamline the process and moving away from scouring the internet for CAB files and shifting toward a more standardized development process. But seriously Microsoft, don't try to copy Apple's shortcomings at the expense of the very reasons why I chose a WinMo phone.
I'm a DJ, so I've got lots of various audio gear lying around. I've got a Numark mixer with USB out/in, an M-Audio MobilePRE USB, an M-Audio Connectiv, a Stanton ScratchAmp, a Creative X-Fi Notebook Expresscard, and an old Creative Extigy...and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM sounds orders of magnitude better than the integrated audio chipset in my laptop when it comes to recording audio. While I agree with some of the other posters that many laptops these days have ports that pull double duty based on software, if you're looking for any sort of fidelity to your audio, you're going to want an external solution anyway.
Of all of the laptops I've used, the best noise floor I've ever gotten was -35db. there's this hiss that's present in every single one of the recordings I've made. In some recordings that have a very low dynamic range and are recorded at around -0.5db with a decent amount of loudness, the hiss is somewhat hidden and I can get away with it. In recordings with ANY amount of dynamic range at all, the hiss is audible and drives me up a wall. If you've ever heard the audio from a $200 handheld camcorder, you'll know what i'm talking about. On the other hand, the worst offender on the list above is the Numark mixer. My guess is that it is largely based on the fact that it has an integrated power transformer, unlike the rest of the list there. Even at that, the worst noise floor I've ever gotten from that mixer is -70db. You'd have to crank your stereo to about 8.5 to hear the hiss out of that thing. The MobilePRE USB is probably the best, with a floor of around -90db. You can crank your stereo to 11 and you'll hear hiss from your amp before you hear hiss from its recordings. Finally, the higher end stuff here (MobilePRE, Connectiv, Numark Mixer) all have inputs that inherently provide a better signal (XLR and/or RCA) than an 1/8" cable. Simultaneously, if you're recording from most sources other than an iPod, you'll need an adapter to make it fit an 1/8" jack anyway.
I actually have a copy of the original, hockey puck ScratchAmp and Traktor Scratch software. I got it for $5 at a Guitar Center blowout sale. It was ONLY worth that because the vinyl that came with it was very high quality and works with other software like Deckadance that can derive the timecode signal from any record. The interface was nearly useless (was it REALLY that hard to make it a regular class-compliant sound card instead of being specific to Traktor?), and the software was as buggy as a beta copy of Windows ME, but it did pave the way...
Final Cut is Apple's Prosumer video editing software. The context of your post implies Serato, Rane's product that allows the use of timecoded vinyl to manipulate the playback of MP3s, yes?
Standard vinyl has its advantages (no latency), but Serato solves lots of problems that make it convenient enough for the top jocks in the world to have a copy at hand (no buying two of every record, no worrying about scratching one of them, carrying every track ever to every gig, independent pitch/tempo lock, etc.).
As a mobile DJ who has friends all over the industry, I can tell you that MP3 has become the de facto standard here. Sure, you'll find a few jocks who still spin pressed CDs and/or pressed vinyl, but they are a minority.
More often than not, you'll find that you're listening to MP3's anyway. Serato/Traktor/Torq/Virtual DJ have made serious inroads, and they all support timecoded CD and vinyl, so even if they look like they're spinning CDs, if there's a laptop in sight, they're spinning timecode and you're listening to MP3s off their laptop. Even if they have regular discs, companies like PrimeCuts, Promo Only, RPM, etc. also burn MP3 discs, and EVERY DJ-grade CD player plays MP3's nowadays. Finally, services like Crooklyn Clan and Crack4djs.net make their releases exclusively in MP3, so even if they burn Redbook audio CDs, you're still listening to something that started as an MP3.
Yes, that moment. The moment is symbolic of a much longer commitment. It happens all the time.
How many months does it take to save up for a down payment of a car? how many days are spent searching for one? How many hours are spent filling out paperwork and waiting in line at the DMV? How many seconds does turning the key in the ignition for the first time and being able to say "this car is mine" last? When you've found "that perfect car", is what's on your mind going to be "wow, this took forever"?
The other way I look at it is this: If my future wife ever questions if I'd ever cheat on her, my answer would be "I spent the first 23+X years waiting for you. I love you THAT much. I'd be a fool to have an affair now." THAT'S what makes being able to tell her that I waited for her mean as much as it does. There's no replacement for it. It's a gift I can give her for free that all the money in the world can never buy.
As a Christian, and being a virgin by choice (I'm 23 btw, and yes, I've had a girlfriend), the rationale goes something like this: I'm not looking for any legislation pertaining to sexual intercourse*. Actually, I'm rather disappointed as to how many Christians try to legislate morality, when that simply doesn't work, nor do I expect it to. So no, I'm not looking to control and ration sex from the steps of Capitol Hill. If you choose against my belief system, then that's your choice, and comes with both perks and consequences.
Fire is a great thing in a fireplace. It's great in a backyard BBQ grill. It's great on a candle as a light source for a romantic dinner, and it's downright life saving in the middle of the woods on a cold night. It's not, however, a very good thing in the middle of my living room. It's not all that great in my car when I'm driving, and it's not a very good thing underneath my server rack at work. The concept of fire hasn't changed; it's still an exothermic reaction between heat, oxygen, and a fuel source. What has changed is the CONTEXT in which that chemical reaction takes place, and the context determines whether the fire saves a life, or if it takes one.
Similarly, I believe that sex was God's idea. It was a pretty good one, as far as I can tell. The problem is that there is a context for it to happen in where it works best, and that's a marriage bed. There are certainly perks for sex outside of a permanent, monogamous context, but there are also consequences to it as well, and the latter can EASILY be lifelong. I wouldn't wish that on myself, and I wouldn't wish that on any of my female friends or on my ex-girlfriend, just so I could say that we had some fun for a little while.
If this whole God and Christianity thing is as real as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, fine. I will have lived my live believing a complete lie, treating others with respect and dignity, caring for others, donating to charity, paying my taxes, choosing the honest road instead of the easy one...and having the opportunity to lie with my future wife on my wedding night, look into her eyes, and say "I've waited $YEARS for this moment, and you're the only one I'll ever share it with." To me, that moment will be worth every minute of the last 23+however-many years I will spend waiting for her.
*The exception to this is adultery; so long as marriage is considered a legally binding contract, infidelity is a breach of that contract and should carry legal consequences for dishonoring a legal agreement.
Disclaimer: This is from my personal, anecdotal experience. YMWV...
-Microsoft Security Essentials is the current weapon of choice for people too stingy to pay for protection. It does a good job though, and like has been reiterated many times over, it's pretty light on system resources, it doesn't nag unless you have a virus (though it will give you a "yellow signal" if your Windows Update patches aren't current), and it's straightforward in the event the end user actually has to do anything in it.
-Avast is my second choice. In my experience, Avast (at least the 4.8 version) is the only antivirus I know of that has a custom installer that will function properly in safe mode. In the event that the system is already hosed, if you can get into safe mode, you'll probably be able to install Avast (along with their definition updates that also come as a standalone installer if Safe Mode w/Networking doesn't work) and do a boot-time scan to get you back up and running. I haven't played much with version 5, but both 4.8 and 5 seem to have their pros and cons - 4.8 is lighter, but 5 gives a more polished user experience. If you go for this one, try each version. The first-party Avast site offers both for now, but filehippo.com has an archive of older versions if Avast decides to only offer 5 at some point in the near future and remove the 4.8 link.
-Avira is handy to have, and is shipped on the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (www.ubcd4win.com). In that context it works really well, but IMO an antivirus shouldn't be naggy, because then users start to become conditioned to ignore it, and that's something that will NEVER be desirable. As a repair scanner on the UBCD where you can run your scan and reboot, great. There's no reason to have your family get nagged by the virus scanner.
-AVG is almost the de facto standard in freeware antivirus apps; it's the rare week that it's *not* #1 on the download.com download list (ironically enough, Limewire tends to be #2). I used to think it was alright, and did use it for a while, but it started to get a bit "heavy" on the install side, a bit naggy with the "special upgrade offers", and started slipping on the detection/removal rates.
While this is about freeware antiviruses, there's a few noteworthy for-pay applications that I feel are at least worth taking a look at:
-NOD32 is tiny (v.2.7 was written in assembler and has a 12MB installer; even the x64 version is only 35MB). It's fast. Virtually every review I've read has had its detection rates among the highest available. In my experience, that holds extremely true; not one of my friends and/or family who have coughed up for NOD32 have ended up infected without hitting the 'ignore' button. For $40/year (10% discount for typing "LEO22" at checkout; 2-year and multilicense discounts as well), it is really protection worth paying for. Also, v.4.0 includes a widget to burn a bootable CD that will update itself and scan for viruses on the host machine without booting into Windows. That's a really handy feature. If you're really cramped on system resources, the 2.7 version is also available from FileHippo and will be supported through 2012. Amazingly enough, it will install on anything from Windows 95 to Windows 7 x64.
-Acronis just released a security suite called Backup&Security in conjunction with BitDefender. It's not as light as NOD32 (in fact, it's among the heavier apps available and thus not for the faint of RAM), but I've never seen a more full-featured antivirus. Antivirus, Antispam, firewall, parental controls, IM protection, game mode, all the features of Acronis True Image Home for scheduled backups and disk imaging, centralized management across the home LAN, 5GB of online backup, and three licenses for $70. If there are multiple machines in the same household that need to be secured and have enough RAM to handle it, it's seriously worth a look.
Also, as far as on-demand scanning goes, the freeware Combofix app is sheer amazingness. It's not a comprehensive virus/malware scanner,
I mean, you'd think the break-out-galactic-pledge department would have her on speed dial or something.
The Unreal Tournament series (and Half-Life and Doom, etc.) had a pretty solid way about it. They released a quite-playable game and shipped it with dev tools so that players who wanted to could create their own maps and mods. The GOTY edition of UT2004 even included a tutorial DVD to help get you started. From there, DLC was created by the users and was hosted on FileFront and Gamespot and Rapidshare and wherever else users could get their files hosted. It cost the developer nothing while simultaneously increasing value for buyers.
IMO UT3 did everything just about perfectly. The retail key could be entered into Steam, and voila, instant backup. The disc had no copy protection, but your key was tied to your username and password. No internet? no problem. Offline play is always an option, but only one account can use a single key, which can only play online from one IP address at a time. They released five patches for the game, plus the Titan Pack, which added two new gametypes and several new maps. Worth the $40 I paid for the game within a month of its release? you bet. Fair all around? I don't see how much more even handed they could have gotten while still preventing everyone on Pirate Bay from using a single serial.
The flip side to this is that maps and mods wildly varied in quality, and publishers couldn't monetize it outside of creating an incentive for full game sales. If publishers were to create first party DLC at a nominal cost, it would be great to have the choice, but at the same time there would be a disincentive to do both since it's essentially enabling competition.
You think T-Mobile would magically be better than AT&T? Really?
I do, actually. I have both a Verizon phone and a T-Mobile phone. While I know that T-Mo has been near-synonymous with "bad service", I can count on my fingers how many calls I have dropped over the past six months since I got my Touch Pro2. While I'll fully admit that they were late to the game with 3G (i.e. might not have been a good launch partner without a solid ultimatum or a longer wait for a 3G handset), the few times I have used 3G on my Touch Pro2 have been faster than either my Blackberry Curve or my VX6800 on VZ. Every WinMo phone I've seen on their lineup comes with Internet Sharing in the Stock ROM, and they don't charge a premium for tethering at all. With one exception, customer service has been stellar every time I've called over the past six years of being their customer. I don't work for this company and I know that there are areas of this country where their service isn't as good as it here in the NY Metro Area, but I do think that T-Mobile would, in fact, "Magically be better".
WinMo has been a complete and utter failure for a few other reasons...
-Versions prior to 6.5 all assumed that you were using a stylus. The touch screen keyboard on older WinMo devices were neigh impossible to use without one. WinMo 6.5 is much closer to being finger friendly, and HTC and Samsung have added some really slick UI replacements that actually make it nice to use (I own a Touch Pro2 myself). It's too little, too late though.
-There was severe market fragmentation; WinMo supported touch screens, keyboards, trackballs, or combinations thereof. This generally worked alright for the OS, but app developers had to deal with a nighmare of a UI conundrum as to which was supported.
-the iTunes Music Store has dwarfed music sales from just about everyone else, and for a long time involved DRM. This made it a chore to buy/burn/rip to Windows Media Player if one already had a few thousand tracks in their iTunes library...
-...And even if one did the above step, WMP on WinMo is crap. Like seriously, it's outright annoying to use...and still all but mandates the use of a stylus. As much as I loathe iTunes, the media player on my iPhone when I had one still has been the best media player of any phone I've ever owned.
-WinMo devices STILL don't have an official movie/TV purchasing retailer. As far as I know, the only places you'll find broadcast TV and Hollywood content for WinMo devices is Pirate Bay, or ripping your own (using third party apps of dubious legality in the US). Even if people never get more than one or two episodes, the possibility of doing so as easily as they do music makes it attractive for the average consumer.
-WinMo has suffered from the same business-and-bug-ridden mindset as it's desktop sibling, just as Apple has the trendy-and-just-works mindshare. Whether it's warranted or not is of course debatable (I see both sides, personally), but there are plenty more "average consumers" than Slashdotters.
-Again, I see both sides of Apple's App Store. The nice thing for consumers is that it's centralized and users needn't go further than the iTunes desktop application to get what they need. WinMo uses the desktop model of Google-Search,-pay-if-needed,-download,-and-install-the-CAB of desktop Windows. This allows any dev to write any app and distribute it however they want, but it makes getting apps MUCH more difficult than using the App Store. WinMo 6.5 has the Marketplace now, but again, it's largely too little too late again, and personally I'd like to see a desktop app as well.
UAC's issue was that it was TOO thorough. If a user, using the mouse, manually clicks start, control panel, security center, and windows firewall, it will UAC prompt for that. It UAC prompt for running MSCONFIG. It prompts for running under alternate credentials when those credentials are manually typed in. Some applications triggered a UAC prompt every time they ran.
After a while, UAC just became like a car alarm. What was the last time you heard a car alarm activate and you thought to yourself "oh snap! someone's car is getting stolen!"? I can't even remember. If I were walking through a parking lot at the mall and I saw somebody with a coat hangar down the window and an alarm going off, my reaction would be to look at that guy and say "lock your keys in the car, buddy? need to call AAA?" Car alarms go off so frequently that by time there is an actual robbery in progress, we're conditioned to simply ignore it.
Similarly, UAC was so obnoxiously prevalent in Vista that people don't even stop to think about it anymore. It's just an extra step to see the dancing bunnies, nothing more. If it were designed to more correctly respond to attack vectors, I think it'd be more useful. If UAC were limited to software installations (complete with some "disable until next reboot since I'm performing lots of installations since I just bought this computer" mode), scripted/command line changes to control panel options, registry changes independent of a software install, and unsigned ActiveX applets, that would cover the overwhelming majority of ways that things happen without user consent that UAC notifications would actually be noteworthy enough to users that it would cause them to stop and think about what is happening.
Security software has this tendency as well. It nags so much that many users almost have the mindeset of "an invisible virus is less aggrevating than my security suite". Like UAC and car alarms, security suites that flag things like tracking cookies as infections are disengenuous and instill more negative conditioning than positive.
Mod Parent Up! I don't care if it's posted as anon, this is EXACTLY what would happen. About the only other scenario is if a neutral third party (har har) decided what repos were allowed to be added. The issue is that anyone with centralized control will eventually corrupt it. We don't trust Microsoft because they're already corrupt, but who is trustworthy and will remain so without wreaking privacy havoc?
I 100% agree with AC here. Repos in Windows are a good thing, but like most good ideas, the courtroom prohibits action from being taken.
Already there. I don't tell people about what I do for two reasons:
1: they want me to fix their computer.
This is why every IT/Comp Sci major needs to take a marketing class. By time you're done, you'll know that the correct answer will sound like this: "It'll cost you $500" (slightly smaller amounts are acceptable if it is an extremely attractive classmate). This way, you'll have either one of two possible outcomes: Either they'll never ask again, or you'll have robbed them legitimately, right through the front door!
You can want to be with your toaster, but your toaster can't want to be with you.
It can in Soviet Russia!
Let's count the fail...
-You can't assume that people have PCs with the capacity of adding a PCI card. All slots could be used, or they could be using a gaming laptop. An average user could also simply cringe at the thought of opening their PC, and yes, I do know some like that.
-You can't assume that people would be WILLING to dedicate a PCI slot to play a game without any additional advantage. In my book, that's just as unreasonable as this always-online crap.
-You can't compare adding hardware that provides end user benefits to hardware that only satisfies a DRM requirement. I don't use Cubase, but I have used a Matrox RT-2000. Matrox makes specific plugins for Premiere that will do things like render multiple 3D transitions and overlays with color correction in real-time. While it's a bit less revolutionary today with i7 processors and OpenGL plugins, I remember seeing 700MHz P3's with 128MBytes of RAM and Windows 98 doing stuff like that, and it was only possible because of the proprietary hardware that also had the benefit of reducing piracy. The hardware solution you propose can only have the task of enforcing DRM, which is quite the waste of a PCI slot.
-Making a game work on XP, Vista, and 7 x86 and x64 isn't horrifically difficult. There's not a whole lot of low-level stuff going on, so debugging on multiple operating systems is relatively simple. Add a PCI card into the mix, and now you need drivers for it. Since drivers tend to be among the leading cause of system instability along with viruses on the Windows platform, do you REALLY want a bunch of game designers to start writing device drivers for an unnecessary piece of hardware for at least six different operating systems, all of which have a different driver stack (okay, you can argue that a well-written Vista driver can work on 7 as well, but it will still need to be tested and debugged).
-This post is among the best breakdowns of DRM issues I've read in a LONG time. A PCI card, even if you put half the game data on some onboard flash memory, is still vulnerable to the tell-the-binary-what-it-wants-to-hear problems AND the dump-your-RAM-during-a-playthrough tactics. Oh, and there's likely some means of modding the driver to make the flash memory come up as a regular storage device and just dumping the data that way. No matter how it gets sliced, at the end of the day, putting half the game on a DVD and the other half on a PCI card still puts both halves of the puzzle in the hands of the user.
-Comparing users of Cubase/Protools/Avid to gamers is a problem, because you've got two different user sets. Gamers are in it for personal enjoyment. If they have a game and play it, they're happy, and it doesn't go much further than that (multiplayer, yes, but the point is that use of the product is the reward by itself). Cubase et al users are, in the majority of cases, in a studio environment where they are charging musicians $$$$$$$$$$$ to record their music. Again, the PCI cards required usually provide some advantage (lower latency, accelerated processing, higher bit depth, multiple I/O, XLR I/O, etc.). If a card costs $500, that cost is covered in a fraction of a day's worth of studio time, and getting caught is a huge problem, too. You can't compare people who are spending money to make money, and people who are spending money just to have fun.
I do not wish to dick around with cracking tools just so I can play a game.
*facepalm* You didn't get the memo? Getting AC2 to function properly IS the game. It just has a long, interactive ending sequence.
Your sarcasm and skepticism is noted, and you're entitled to disbelieve me if you so choose. However, I do in fact purchase video games when I want them. As suggested by another poster, I'm not purchasing this one, nor have I purchased CoD:MW2, nor have I pirated either. In fact, I didn't even download Mass Effect 2 when it was leaked early, even though I'd already paid for it in full. The point I was making was that when it's harder to USE a purchased copy over a cracked one, and more problems arise with the purchased ones, it feels like the publishers are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's like they're saying "We don't want to make PC games anymore because of piracy. Let's make it so challenging to use a legitimate copy that even customers who want to purchase it need to download a crack in order to make it work, then we can show that 90% of customers are using cracked copies to the point where the bean counters in Accounting agree."
Normally I actually pay for my games. In most cases, I do it the old school way - I buy physical discs from physical stores. Lately though, companies like Ubisoft seem like they're treating me like a criminal for giving them my money. At this point, they're really making it more convenient for me to prove them right.
Sports Illustrated and Playboy, but only over 3G.
So am I.