I think you're missing the point. If the IIHS wanted to quantitatively figure out which car would score better in a crash test, they would have destroyed another dozen '59 Bel Air's by putting them through the modern crash testing process and then compared results with the Malibu.
The point wasn't purely scientific, however. The point was to do exactly what they've done: get press coverage, mind-share, and some recognition for the improvements in automotive safety that would likely not have occurred without a regulatory shove in the right direction.
/* I should really start buying all my ties overseas. I could wear them and then throw them in a duty-free bag. Nobody ever gets stopped at customs over ties. */
So, uh, are we done here? It's been great talking to you.
Are you blind? Since the release of Guitar Hero, all of the bands whose songs were included suddenly saw spikes in record sales. Were it not for Guitar Hero, they would have sold even more records! Stupid, free-loading videogames. The record companies have to recoup all of those lost sales somehow.
On a serious note, though, these games pay you to include your music, and then increase your record sales. If you don't think they're paying you enough for the "privilege", move along because there are plenty of other record labels in town.
I agree. There seems to be a lot of ego attached to distro communities, where the self-proclaimed 1337 Linux users put down Ubuntu as only for "newbies". To be honest, I've used a lot of Linux distros, and I can truly appreciate the amount of work that has gone into making Ubuntu easy to use and simple. There's something to be said for the "just works" philosophy. You know what? Sometimes I just don't want to have to dick around with the low-level details of every mundane task and function.
Internet Forum Trolls File Patent for Web Browser that Rick Roll's Itself.
Too late. That one's mine: "A method of hyperlink substitution, whereby the seemingly intended URL is replaced with that of a cheesy 1980's music video."
You may not personally watch any of the Viacom channels but I guarantee you that a very large portion of homes with TWC cable service do watch them. We're talking at minimum all Nick, VH1, MTV, and Comedy Central channels.
Viacom knows this and has TWC by the balls. The last few days all of these channels had non-stop banners that made it sound like the big bad giant CableCo was going to cut the channels out of spite. In my opinion, TWC seemed to have done about as well as they could in the business sense: they held out as long as they could without incurring a loss, and probably made the best deal they could get. Remember, this is a business, i.e. having "balls" just as often means getting kicked in them.
I have an LG phone and I hate the T9 implementation that it uses. It's more effective for me to punch ~30% more keys than to deal with the mostly inaccurate recommendations. T9 only makes typing more efficient when you can accurately predict what it's going to recommend, and it actually recommends appropriate words.
Why is it that every time I open a fresh installation of OpenOffice.org Writer I have to find and disable automatic word completion. Maybe it's just me, but on a full-sized keyboard this feature does far more harm than good for users who already type efficiently. For example, if I'm typing a ten-letter word it's much faster and easier for me to just type the ten letters than it is to wait for the software to make a recommendation, hope that it's the right one, acknowledge the word as correct and accept it, and then return to my train of thought.
I worked Loss Prevention for a department store. We had four Intellex DVR's: rack-mounted PC's running Win2000 + a special interface. They're a huge scam, but it beats the hell out of analog tape. The video is automatically stored in a loop, with the oldest video being overwritten. At 320GB per box, we had about 30 days of reviewable footage and a search function to quickly find and watch a certain feed at a given time without interrupting recording.
When video of interest is discovered that should be retained, you manually burn the data to a CD-R. Other than that, no need for anything other than HDD storage.
Or decompressing large.zip files in Explorer. Granted, I like a lot of what they've done with the UI in Vista, but this was enough to drive me crazy. Per their support site, they've acknowledged the bug but have yet to do much about it.
As far as UI's go, I seem to like openSUSE's version of GNOME. I much prefer Vista's file manager to Nautilus, though. Especially when it comes to the address/hierarchy "bar". Don't even get me started on XP's file manager...
Vista > Dolphin > Nautilus > XP
Running web content in a sand boxed environment is exactly one of the features Google emphasized with Chrome. Web content is inherently untrustworthy so this is a smart move. It's sort of like wearing a web-condom: used to be that going bare-browser was mostly safe as long as you were careful who you interacted with, but nowadays even the pretty ones can burn you, so your best bet is to just wrap your tool... with a sandbox. (I'm still working on the analogy)
Now that someone is actually assuming customers are not criminals, its worth supporting the effort.
Hardly. The point is to release a game without DRM and then massage the numbers so they can turn around and say that the lack of DRM drove piracy up significantly. The point will be moot, because how do you gauge losses due to piracy? The same way Microsoft does: (Every single theoretical download) * (Retail price) = (OMGthehorror$$$)
Alternatively, if they can skew the numbers to say that Prince of Persia was pirated on a larger scale than any of their other games, it will be the poster boy for DRM-pushers.
You guys just don't get it. The FSF protects software. Then Cisco went and muddied it all up like your sister's proprietary, tattooed boyfriend. Now every time you use GCC, it'll be thinking of Cisco.
Honestly, you have to look at the target audience that this information is going to reach. Try explaining to Average Joe that, while there aren't any viruses aimed at Mac to speak of, your Mac can act as a carrier for Windows viruses, which isn't good for you, but definitely bad for Windows computers that you might theoretically interact with. Odds are good that all they will get out of that is "Macs can sort-of get Windows viruses".
It's easier to just keep a distance and say "nope, no need for antivirus, move along". Besides, the more infected Windows machines, the greater the market pull towards Apple. It's a win-win for them, really.
that one day on the red hills of Silicon Valley, the sons of former Pac-Men and the sons of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day play a game where they will not be judged by the color of their avatar, but by the content of their player stats.
But, look, the concentration of oxygen in the blood that runs through our capillaries is only 2 or 3 percent. We're almost dead already! So what if we turn down the candle's need for oxygen? What if we dim the candle so much that we don't even have the energy to die?
The weakest security link in any current OS is the user.
Absolutely. I've had my current installation of XP Pro running for about 18 months with AVG Free and have never gotten anything worse than tracking cookies. Alternatively, I've got family members that need to run a complete System Restore to OEM every few months because they can't help but download the most ridiculous stuff they can find. Ultimately, there are only two ways you can minimize this risk: you can educate the end users, or you can design the OS to babysit them.
alert("You are attempting to insert Clippy into Electrical Socket. Cancel or Allow?")
I own a legit copy of XP Pro and it bothers me how frequently MSFT releases that Genuine Advantage garbage. If only they put that kind of enthusiasm into the rest of their products.
Slashdot Mirror
Considering all manner of things that we've been lead to believe in the past, I don't imagine it would be a stretch to "prove" it came from Iran.
Note: I'm not saying this to troll. It just wouldn't be the first time that facts were creatively interpreted.
I think you're missing the point. If the IIHS wanted to quantitatively figure out which car would score better in a crash test, they would have destroyed another dozen '59 Bel Air's by putting them through the modern crash testing process and then compared results with the Malibu.
The point wasn't purely scientific, however. The point was to do exactly what they've done: get press coverage, mind-share, and some recognition for the improvements in automotive safety that would likely not have occurred without a regulatory shove in the right direction.
/* I should really start buying all my ties overseas. I could wear them and then throw them in a duty-free bag. Nobody ever gets stopped at customs over ties. */
So, uh, are we done here? It's been great talking to you.
Are you blind? Since the release of Guitar Hero, all of the bands whose songs were included suddenly saw spikes in record sales. Were it not for Guitar Hero, they would have sold even more records! Stupid, free-loading videogames. The record companies have to recoup all of those lost sales somehow.
On a serious note, though, these games pay you to include your music, and then increase your record sales. If you don't think they're paying you enough for the "privilege", move along because there are plenty of other record labels in town.
My name is Mike and I use a proprietary ATI driver.
"I am a pragmatist, not an evangelist."
I agree. There seems to be a lot of ego attached to distro communities, where the self-proclaimed 1337 Linux users put down Ubuntu as only for "newbies". To be honest, I've used a lot of Linux distros, and I can truly appreciate the amount of work that has gone into making Ubuntu easy to use and simple. There's something to be said for the "just works" philosophy. You know what? Sometimes I just don't want to have to dick around with the low-level details of every mundane task and function.
Internet Forum Trolls File Patent for Web Browser that Rick Roll's Itself.
Too late. That one's mine:
"A method of hyperlink substitution, whereby the seemingly intended URL is replaced with that of a cheesy 1980's music video."
Cease and desist or that'll be $1 billion, kthx.
You may not personally watch any of the Viacom channels but I guarantee you that a very large portion of homes with TWC cable service do watch them. We're talking at minimum all Nick, VH1, MTV, and Comedy Central channels.
Viacom knows this and has TWC by the balls. The last few days all of these channels had non-stop banners that made it sound like the big bad giant CableCo was going to cut the channels out of spite. In my opinion, TWC seemed to have done about as well as they could in the business sense: they held out as long as they could without incurring a loss, and probably made the best deal they could get. Remember, this is a business, i.e. having "balls" just as often means getting kicked in them.
I have an LG phone and I hate the T9 implementation that it uses. It's more effective for me to punch ~30% more keys than to deal with the mostly inaccurate recommendations. T9 only makes typing more efficient when you can accurately predict what it's going to recommend, and it actually recommends appropriate words.
Why is it that every time I open a fresh installation of OpenOffice.org Writer I have to find and disable automatic word completion. Maybe it's just me, but on a full-sized keyboard this feature does far more harm than good for users who already type efficiently. For example, if I'm typing a ten-letter word it's much faster and easier for me to just type the ten letters than it is to wait for the software to make a recommendation, hope that it's the right one, acknowledge the word as correct and accept it, and then return to my train of thought.
The Conquistador's do run tight.
I worked Loss Prevention for a department store. We had four Intellex DVR's: rack-mounted PC's running Win2000 + a special interface. They're a huge scam, but it beats the hell out of analog tape. The video is automatically stored in a loop, with the oldest video being overwritten. At 320GB per box, we had about 30 days of reviewable footage and a search function to quickly find and watch a certain feed at a given time without interrupting recording. When video of interest is discovered that should be retained, you manually burn the data to a CD-R. Other than that, no need for anything other than HDD storage.
Or decompressing large .zip files in Explorer. Granted, I like a lot of what they've done with the UI in Vista, but this was enough to drive me crazy. Per their support site, they've acknowledged the bug but have yet to do much about it.
As far as UI's go, I seem to like openSUSE's version of GNOME. I much prefer Vista's file manager to Nautilus, though. Especially when it comes to the address/hierarchy "bar". Don't even get me started on XP's file manager...
Vista > Dolphin > Nautilus > XP
Running web content in a sand boxed environment is exactly one of the features Google emphasized with Chrome. Web content is inherently untrustworthy so this is a smart move. It's sort of like wearing a web-condom: used to be that going bare-browser was mostly safe as long as you were careful who you interacted with, but nowadays even the pretty ones can burn you, so your best bet is to just wrap your tool ... with a sandbox. (I'm still working on the analogy)
Now that someone is actually assuming customers are not criminals, its worth supporting the effort.
Hardly. The point is to release a game without DRM and then massage the numbers so they can turn around and say that the lack of DRM drove piracy up significantly. The point will be moot, because how do you gauge losses due to piracy? The same way Microsoft does: (Every single theoretical download) * (Retail price) = (OMGthehorror$$$)
Alternatively, if they can skew the numbers to say that Prince of Persia was pirated on a larger scale than any of their other games, it will be the poster boy for DRM-pushers.
You guys just don't get it. The FSF protects software. Then Cisco went and muddied it all up like your sister's proprietary, tattooed boyfriend. Now every time you use GCC, it'll be thinking of Cisco.
Replied Cisco, "Curse you, Stallman!"
Honestly, you have to look at the target audience that this information is going to reach. Try explaining to Average Joe that, while there aren't any viruses aimed at Mac to speak of, your Mac can act as a carrier for Windows viruses, which isn't good for you, but definitely bad for Windows computers that you might theoretically interact with. Odds are good that all they will get out of that is "Macs can sort-of get Windows viruses".
It's easier to just keep a distance and say "nope, no need for antivirus, move along". Besides, the more infected Windows machines, the greater the market pull towards Apple. It's a win-win for them, really.
that one day on the red hills of Silicon Valley, the sons of former Pac-Men and the sons of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that my four little children will one day play a game where they will not be judged by the color of their avatar, but by the content of their player stats.
I'm gonna get the Duke, and John Cassavetes, and Lee Marvin, and Sam Peckinpah, and a case of whiskey, and drive down to Texas.
But, look, the concentration of oxygen in the blood that runs through our capillaries is only 2 or 3 percent. We're almost dead already! So what if we turn down the candle's need for oxygen? What if we dim the candle so much that we don't even have the energy to die?
"Can I buy some pot from you?"
The weakest security link in any current OS is the user.
Absolutely. I've had my current installation of XP Pro running for about 18 months with AVG Free and have never gotten anything worse than tracking cookies. Alternatively, I've got family members that need to run a complete System Restore to OEM every few months because they can't help but download the most ridiculous stuff they can find. Ultimately, there are only two ways you can minimize this risk: you can educate the end users, or you can design the OS to babysit them.
alert("You are attempting to insert Clippy into Electrical Socket. Cancel or Allow?")
Systems that do not pass WGA are only allowed access to "critical" updates.
I own a legit copy of XP Pro and it bothers me how frequently MSFT releases that Genuine Advantage garbage. If only they put that kind of enthusiasm into the rest of their products.
Just as the game starts to get boring, the Covenant accidentally release the Flood and all hell breaks loose.