Oh they will -- I am certainly still excited about this game but there is no way they are going to be able to retain the complexity of the old games with an X360 controller. Not to mention the fact that the video game market has blown up to a much larger percentage of the greater population, most of whom are total idiots.
"IMO, there's a double standard for "moral legislation." On one side, people don't want to be offended by someone telling them they are wrong to do this or that; on the other hand, they have no problem offending people that don't want to see, for example, obscenity."
Where in America is this happening? There is no right to not be offended, and I would not try to create one. If I say something which is offensive, people have the right to not hear it. If I am forcing them to hear it, it becomes illegal but only because it would either be harassment or disturbing the peace, not because the content was offensive.
Conversely, if something offends me (very little does, especially now that Jerry Falwell is worm food), I will simply not listen to it. It is very simple, and everyone's rights are protected.
Bill Gates didn't pioneer anything -- he was a business man, that's all. He managed to take ideas that were being used very effectively by his competition and market them better. As a side-note, when is Ballmer gonna take Gates's place on the Borg pic?
I for one would consider this to be an incredibly positive development -- two people that love each other can now have a child that is the sum of themselves, rather than having to either go to the local sperm bank and incorporate the genetic information from a stranger. I know that religious folks will be all up in arms, and they have a right to feel what they want about it, but in the end, they can go screw. They have no right to deny others the rights that they freely enjoy because it makes them feel 'icky'.
Well, first of all, that would absolutely not be human cloning.
Second of all, I am confused by your immediate assumption that human cloning is immoral. Why? A cloned human is no different than an identical twin -- I fail to see what would be so monstrously offensive to our sensibilities about that. It is not like in the movies when a man steps into a machine and a perfect copy of him steps out the other end; the cloned person will still be a unique (albeit very similar) human being. Human clones would still have to be incubated and born just as any other human.
It seems to me that the only reason anybody has a problem with it is that they think it will make Jeebus angry and that it makes them feel icky, but there really is no logical reason for it to be such an offensive proposition. Surely if it were taking place on a mass scale we would see problems -- disease and parasites would be able to run more freely through a population where all of the individuals shared a nearly identical genetic makeup, but I can't see why human cloning would ever need to grow beyond a very small niche market, at which point there would be virtually no dangers as far as reduced disease resistance.
I see this one all the time -- using volts as a unit of energy is like measuring the flow of a river by how fast it flows without measuring the volume of the flow -- voltage is the electromotive force, which when multiplied by the current (measured in amperes, or amps), will give you the power, which you measure in watts. Very simple, but a huge number of people fail to grasp this.
I for one will not be using Pandora anymore if they decide that I ought to be charged. I am clearly not at all opposed to the fee, 99 cents is dirt cheap for what you get from Pandora. What worries me about all this micropayment nonsense is having to give out my credit card number ALL THE FRAKKIN TIME. I hate giving out my CC number. This is an especially large concern for Windows users, where keyloggers are rampant. When people get more and more used to giving out their CC numbers, you can expect phishing to become even more prevalent than it already is. I don't want to have to pay for everything I see and use on the web. It is obnoxious. Even if the price is more than worth it in the actual dollars and cents definition of the word, it is still not worth HAVING to pay for it. At least that is my $0.02 (which you all now owe me btw, please reply with your credit card number).
I for one am happy on one hand that GNU/Linux will be getting a little bit of mainstream exposure, but I think it is really dumb to do it like this, ie, making everything so damned proprietary. You always need the element of choice in Linux, that is one of its main draws, but on the other hand, a degree of standardization is absolutely necessary for widespread adoption. I think Google would do very well by adopting some of the standards already out there rather than confusing the field even more with a new window manager. Why not just use Gnome for the Window manager? If we are going to bring new users in, we need to have a degree of standardization.
Oh, and I would like to preemptively strike down the elitist "let the n00bs use Windows" arguments, I would like to make a case for why we would all benefit from a greater market share.
The first is obvious -- wider adoption means greater hardware and software support. I am forced to keep a Windows install on my desktop to run ProTools. It sucks. I would much rather run ProTools on a machine that can recognize more than 3 GB RAM, and that does not need an anti-virus program. If Linux had a 30% market share (or Hell, even 10%) Digi would be forced to create a Linux version of ProTools. The same with all of the hardware issues we all have, many more devs would be forced to create dedicated Linux drivers. The only objection I can see from this are those who hold stock in Tylenol.
Another thing that needs to be considered is that n00bs are GREAT at crashing systems and finding bugs. Anyone who doesn't know this clearly has never worked in IT before. If we adopted a (opt-in, of course -- we don't want ) error reporting system to automatically upload log files from crashes, the community would be able to ferret out all sorts of issues. This is not even to mention the "n00bs" who will go on to become Linux gurus, many of whom probably never realized that they were as interested in computers. I know that before I converted to Linux, my computer was simply another tool. If it weren't for the extremely user-friendly nature of Ubuntu, I would have never gotten into it. I am certainly not a guru yet, but I am doing everything I can to absorb as much information as I can and do everything I am capable of to help the community.
Finally, simply getting the idea into the heads of the masses that open-source works would be a monstrously good thing. It would create pressure on all aspects of the tech world (and beyond), to adopt open policies. Devs would be pressured to create open source drivers (I'm looking at you ATI and NVidia), and even paid software would become increasingly open source as customers began demanding it.
Sorry for the long rambling post, but the main point here is that I think Google is frakking up big time in some of the specifics of their implementation here, but I really like that they are getting GNU/Linux and OSS out into the mainstream. Only good things can come of that.
"If they did a double blind test between LPCM, FLAC, Apple Lossless, TrueHD and DTS-HD Master I swear they'd find a ton of differences."
This may not be entirely untrue, but for different reasons than you might imagine. Lossless means lossless, yes, but I hear rumors (definitely don't take my word for this) that DTS does apply some sweetening to the signal when they process it (boost the bass, widen the surround field). Not sure if this is true or not (and if it is true it is a really dumb idea), but for all intents and purposes, lossless is lossless and I can prove it -- with science!!
1. Step 1 -- Take an audio track, rip it as WAV, and dump it into any sound editing software.
2. Step 2 -- Duplicate that track and flip the phase on it.
What you are (not) hearing is perfect digital silence, as the waveforms are 100%, perfectly identical and cancelling each other out. This same trick sort of works in the analog realm (ie noise cancelling headphones), but you can never really get a perfectly opposing waveform and the effect thereby never works perfectly. In the digital realm however, the effect is flawless.
When two waveforms are similar, however, all of the similar parts of the waveform will cancel out, leaving only the differing bits. If you extrapolate this out, we can figure out what (if anything) is lost to different encoding processes. If you rip that same track as a 128k MP3 and repeat the experiment, you will hear everything that is lost to the encoding (that's where that hi-hat went!). When you repeat this same experiment (I know, I have done it) with Apple Lossless or FLAC, you will again get perfect digital silence, as the lossless track is bit-for-bit identical to the CD track. Science FTW!
The magic copy would also not be painted, have vinyl seats instead of leather, would have no A/C, and would have a (shudder) AM/FM radio instead of a CD player, meaning that the car rental business would STILL not be in danger of going under as people STILL have a reason to rent the original car. When you buy a CD you get album art and higher quality sound. I have downloaded many a song and then gone back later to buy the CD. Well, that was until the RIAA sent me a nice little letter. Now I don't illegally download anymore, and I don't buy the +/- 3 CDs per week that I was buying before. Good job assholes.
It is all well and good to say that you want to do something -- but what really can be done? I don't know too much about the government in the UK so I will cover the situation here in the US --
1. Ballot Box -- There are realistically only two parties that can be elected to office in America -- both of which are 100% in the pocket of the major corporations.
2. Soap Box -- Nobody is listening. Really. The information is out there for people to find, but they don't want to. Such a large majority of Americans think that 'being informed' is watching the O'Reilly Factor that it really is futile. I have had people almost come to physical violence when trying to tell them what a raw deal they are getting, so committed are Americans to the status quo.
3. Jury Box -- Not sure where you are going with this one, but the American court system is run by the Golden Rule -- those who have the gold make the rules. Just look at how many more drug dealers than CEOs are in prison. Even if you do voice your just opinion as a member of a jury, there are still 11 other people there with you. See point #2.
4. Ammo Box -- Are you serious? You really think that that is a feasible option? I could explain to you why that is asinine, but I don't want to waste the energy. Just take a look at the U.S. military expenditures. If you are hoping to get the military on your side, again, reference point #2.
The only issue I will take with this comment (pretty much everything you have stated is spot on), I would like to remove some of the emphasis from George W. Bush. This destructive pattern of behavior started early in the 20th century with the creation of the Federal Reserve. It was greatly accelerated during the Cold War with the help of such upstanding citizens as LBJ and Nixon, and for some reason kept going after the end of the Cold War, through the terms of Reagan and Bush I. Clinton certainly stemmed the tide a bit, but he was still pushing the nation forward in its downward spiral.
That being said, George W. was the worst president that this nation has ever had and has done more damage than any other chief executive in the history of this republic. Unfortunately, however, I see Obama doing precious little to change this... I'm moving to Canada...
Is this really that big of a problem? Are corporations losing millions of dollars a year in downtime due to people typing in their passwords incorrectly? Maybe throwing computers out of windows? It is pretty idiotic to assume that there is no use for password masking -- in my office there are plenty of opportunities for a passerby to take a peek at my screen, I don't want my password visible! Yesterday I started typing my password in the username box and immediately changed my password, lest anyone else saw it. This would be a HUGE security hole and a HUGE step back -- how do idiots like this get to call themselves experts?
Not true -- Linux is FAR less vulnerable to any sort of exploits due to its open nature, the only people that can find and fix weaknesses in the Windows code are M$ employees, whereas any of the millions of Linux nerds out there can find and fix vulnerabilities in the Linux code, coupled with the fact that Linux does not grant root permission to every piece of software that comes across its path. Even if you reversed the market share numbers, you would not see anywhere near the virus/spyware issues on Linux, the code really is far superior. It certainly not is for everyone, as a lot of programs simply aren't available (although Wine is changing this), but it is certainly getting to the point very quickly where you would be a fool to be running Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh they will -- I am certainly still excited about this game but there is no way they are going to be able to retain the complexity of the old games with an X360 controller. Not to mention the fact that the video game market has blown up to a much larger percentage of the greater population, most of whom are total idiots.
"IMO, there's a double standard for "moral legislation." On one side, people don't want to be offended by someone telling them they are wrong to do this or that; on the other hand, they have no problem offending people that don't want to see, for example, obscenity."
Where in America is this happening? There is no right to not be offended, and I would not try to create one. If I say something which is offensive, people have the right to not hear it. If I am forcing them to hear it, it becomes illegal but only because it would either be harassment or disturbing the peace, not because the content was offensive.
Conversely, if something offends me (very little does, especially now that Jerry Falwell is worm food), I will simply not listen to it. It is very simple, and everyone's rights are protected.
Bill Gates didn't pioneer anything -- he was a business man, that's all. He managed to take ideas that were being used very effectively by his competition and market them better. As a side-note, when is Ballmer gonna take Gates's place on the Borg pic?
I for one would consider this to be an incredibly positive development -- two people that love each other can now have a child that is the sum of themselves, rather than having to either go to the local sperm bank and incorporate the genetic information from a stranger. I know that religious folks will be all up in arms, and they have a right to feel what they want about it, but in the end, they can go screw. They have no right to deny others the rights that they freely enjoy because it makes them feel 'icky'.
Well, first of all, that would absolutely not be human cloning.
Second of all, I am confused by your immediate assumption that human cloning is immoral. Why? A cloned human is no different than an identical twin -- I fail to see what would be so monstrously offensive to our sensibilities about that. It is not like in the movies when a man steps into a machine and a perfect copy of him steps out the other end; the cloned person will still be a unique (albeit very similar) human being. Human clones would still have to be incubated and born just as any other human.
It seems to me that the only reason anybody has a problem with it is that they think it will make Jeebus angry and that it makes them feel icky, but there really is no logical reason for it to be such an offensive proposition. Surely if it were taking place on a mass scale we would see problems -- disease and parasites would be able to run more freely through a population where all of the individuals shared a nearly identical genetic makeup, but I can't see why human cloning would ever need to grow beyond a very small niche market, at which point there would be virtually no dangers as far as reduced disease resistance.
I see this one all the time -- using volts as a unit of energy is like measuring the flow of a river by how fast it flows without measuring the volume of the flow -- voltage is the electromotive force, which when multiplied by the current (measured in amperes, or amps), will give you the power, which you measure in watts. Very simple, but a huge number of people fail to grasp this.
OMG LOLZ let me try mine... erm... sorry I'll shut up...
I for one will not be using Pandora anymore if they decide that I ought to be charged. I am clearly not at all opposed to the fee, 99 cents is dirt cheap for what you get from Pandora. What worries me about all this micropayment nonsense is having to give out my credit card number ALL THE FRAKKIN TIME. I hate giving out my CC number. This is an especially large concern for Windows users, where keyloggers are rampant. When people get more and more used to giving out their CC numbers, you can expect phishing to become even more prevalent than it already is. I don't want to have to pay for everything I see and use on the web. It is obnoxious. Even if the price is more than worth it in the actual dollars and cents definition of the word, it is still not worth HAVING to pay for it. At least that is my $0.02 (which you all now owe me btw, please reply with your credit card number).
I for one am happy on one hand that GNU/Linux will be getting a little bit of mainstream exposure, but I think it is really dumb to do it like this, ie, making everything so damned proprietary. You always need the element of choice in Linux, that is one of its main draws, but on the other hand, a degree of standardization is absolutely necessary for widespread adoption. I think Google would do very well by adopting some of the standards already out there rather than confusing the field even more with a new window manager. Why not just use Gnome for the Window manager? If we are going to bring new users in, we need to have a degree of standardization.
Oh, and I would like to preemptively strike down the elitist "let the n00bs use Windows" arguments, I would like to make a case for why we would all benefit from a greater market share.
The first is obvious -- wider adoption means greater hardware and software support. I am forced to keep a Windows install on my desktop to run ProTools. It sucks. I would much rather run ProTools on a machine that can recognize more than 3 GB RAM, and that does not need an anti-virus program. If Linux had a 30% market share (or Hell, even 10%) Digi would be forced to create a Linux version of ProTools. The same with all of the hardware issues we all have, many more devs would be forced to create dedicated Linux drivers. The only objection I can see from this are those who hold stock in Tylenol.
Another thing that needs to be considered is that n00bs are GREAT at crashing systems and finding bugs. Anyone who doesn't know this clearly has never worked in IT before. If we adopted a (opt-in, of course -- we don't want ) error reporting system to automatically upload log files from crashes, the community would be able to ferret out all sorts of issues. This is not even to mention the "n00bs" who will go on to become Linux gurus, many of whom probably never realized that they were as interested in computers. I know that before I converted to Linux, my computer was simply another tool. If it weren't for the extremely user-friendly nature of Ubuntu, I would have never gotten into it. I am certainly not a guru yet, but I am doing everything I can to absorb as much information as I can and do everything I am capable of to help the community.
Finally, simply getting the idea into the heads of the masses that open-source works would be a monstrously good thing. It would create pressure on all aspects of the tech world (and beyond), to adopt open policies. Devs would be pressured to create open source drivers (I'm looking at you ATI and NVidia), and even paid software would become increasingly open source as customers began demanding it.
Sorry for the long rambling post, but the main point here is that I think Google is frakking up big time in some of the specifics of their implementation here, but I really like that they are getting GNU/Linux and OSS out into the mainstream. Only good things can come of that.
"If they did a double blind test between LPCM, FLAC, Apple Lossless, TrueHD and DTS-HD Master I swear they'd find a ton of differences."
This may not be entirely untrue, but for different reasons than you might imagine. Lossless means lossless, yes, but I hear rumors (definitely don't take my word for this) that DTS does apply some sweetening to the signal when they process it (boost the bass, widen the surround field). Not sure if this is true or not (and if it is true it is a really dumb idea), but for all intents and purposes, lossless is lossless and I can prove it -- with science!!
1. Step 1 -- Take an audio track, rip it as WAV, and dump it into any sound editing software.
2. Step 2 -- Duplicate that track and flip the phase on it.
What you are (not) hearing is perfect digital silence, as the waveforms are 100%, perfectly identical and cancelling each other out. This same trick sort of works in the analog realm (ie noise cancelling headphones), but you can never really get a perfectly opposing waveform and the effect thereby never works perfectly. In the digital realm however, the effect is flawless.
When two waveforms are similar, however, all of the similar parts of the waveform will cancel out, leaving only the differing bits. If you extrapolate this out, we can figure out what (if anything) is lost to different encoding processes. If you rip that same track as a 128k MP3 and repeat the experiment, you will hear everything that is lost to the encoding (that's where that hi-hat went!). When you repeat this same experiment (I know, I have done it) with Apple Lossless or FLAC, you will again get perfect digital silence, as the lossless track is bit-for-bit identical to the CD track. Science FTW!
The magic copy would also not be painted, have vinyl seats instead of leather, would have no A/C, and would have a (shudder) AM/FM radio instead of a CD player, meaning that the car rental business would STILL not be in danger of going under as people STILL have a reason to rent the original car. When you buy a CD you get album art and higher quality sound. I have downloaded many a song and then gone back later to buy the CD. Well, that was until the RIAA sent me a nice little letter. Now I don't illegally download anymore, and I don't buy the +/- 3 CDs per week that I was buying before. Good job assholes.
It is all well and good to say that you want to do something -- but what really can be done? I don't know too much about the government in the UK so I will cover the situation here in the US --
1. Ballot Box -- There are realistically only two parties that can be elected to office in America -- both of which are 100% in the pocket of the major corporations.
2. Soap Box -- Nobody is listening. Really. The information is out there for people to find, but they don't want to. Such a large majority of Americans think that 'being informed' is watching the O'Reilly Factor that it really is futile. I have had people almost come to physical violence when trying to tell them what a raw deal they are getting, so committed are Americans to the status quo.
3. Jury Box -- Not sure where you are going with this one, but the American court system is run by the Golden Rule -- those who have the gold make the rules. Just look at how many more drug dealers than CEOs are in prison. Even if you do voice your just opinion as a member of a jury, there are still 11 other people there with you. See point #2.
4. Ammo Box -- Are you serious? You really think that that is a feasible option? I could explain to you why that is asinine, but I don't want to waste the energy. Just take a look at the U.S. military expenditures. If you are hoping to get the military on your side, again, reference point #2.
The only issue I will take with this comment (pretty much everything you have stated is spot on), I would like to remove some of the emphasis from George W. Bush. This destructive pattern of behavior started early in the 20th century with the creation of the Federal Reserve. It was greatly accelerated during the Cold War with the help of such upstanding citizens as LBJ and Nixon, and for some reason kept going after the end of the Cold War, through the terms of Reagan and Bush I. Clinton certainly stemmed the tide a bit, but he was still pushing the nation forward in its downward spiral. That being said, George W. was the worst president that this nation has ever had and has done more damage than any other chief executive in the history of this republic. Unfortunately, however, I see Obama doing precious little to change this... I'm moving to Canada...
Is this really that big of a problem? Are corporations losing millions of dollars a year in downtime due to people typing in their passwords incorrectly? Maybe throwing computers out of windows? It is pretty idiotic to assume that there is no use for password masking -- in my office there are plenty of opportunities for a passerby to take a peek at my screen, I don't want my password visible! Yesterday I started typing my password in the username box and immediately changed my password, lest anyone else saw it. This would be a HUGE security hole and a HUGE step back -- how do idiots like this get to call themselves experts?
Not true -- Linux is FAR less vulnerable to any sort of exploits due to its open nature, the only people that can find and fix weaknesses in the Windows code are M$ employees, whereas any of the millions of Linux nerds out there can find and fix vulnerabilities in the Linux code, coupled with the fact that Linux does not grant root permission to every piece of software that comes across its path. Even if you reversed the market share numbers, you would not see anywhere near the virus/spyware issues on Linux, the code really is far superior. It certainly not is for everyone, as a lot of programs simply aren't available (although Wine is changing this), but it is certainly getting to the point very quickly where you would be a fool to be running Windows.