Nope. It reclaims the vertical header space. Scrolling the menu along with it is just a bonus. I don't need you goddamn menu scrolling with me as I read. If I need to access something from the menu, I'll go back to the top of the page.
And Slashdot has now gotten on the "waste your screen space with bullshit" fixed-position bandwagon. Luckily this is easily solved. Install Stylish and add the following to a new user style:
@-moz-document domain("slashdot.org") {
div.col_1 { position: absolute !important; }
header.h { position: absolute !important; }
}
Now the sidebar/header scroll with the page, rather than remaining fixed in place.
Stop blaming the victim. It's Amazon's fault if a book goes away. Your attitude is the exact same one that allows this kind of shit to go on.
On the other hand, if you know that Amazon pulls this crap and you buy from them anyway, you no longer have anyone to blame if they killbit your file and you didn't liberate it and back it up first. It's not blaming the victim when the victim intentionally walks causes the crime to happen and then complains about it. This is not a case of, "She was wearing a short skirt and thus was asking for it," but instead a case of, "She consented to sex, we did the deed possibly multiple times, and then when I decided to break up with her she cried rape."
If what you want is an e-reader, you _really_ should get something e-ink based. Get a new Kindle or anything with the new "Pearl" e-ink (Sony also has readers using it).
I read exclusively on my iPhone, with it's 3.5" 320x480 screen and I'm perfectly happy with it. The problem is not LCD vs. e-ink or backlight vs. no backlight. Instead, it's a question of pixel density. A higher pixel density is more comfortable to read, regardless of everything else. This is super obvious comparing e-ink to a standard laptop display -- a 6" 480x800 like the Kindle has a PPI of 155, while a 15.6" 1366x768 laptop display has a terrible PPI of 100. The iPhone in comparison has a PPI of 164, and the Nook Color has a PPI of 169. The laptop will be painful to read on for long stretches. The iPhone, Kindle, and Nook Color will be just fine. Of course more PPI is better, so a 4.3" 480x800 like on the HTC Evo with 216ppi will be even more comfortable, and an iPhone 4 with its 3.5" 640x960 @ 330ppi screen will be even better. This is also where the iPad fails. It's 9.7" size and 768x1024 resolution leads to a paltry 132ppi. Better than a laptop, but not by much.
In general, anything with a ppi over 150 should be comfortable to read on, regardless of LCD vs. e-ink, backlight vs. none. E-ink does have the benefit of having slightly less uniform pixels which leads to a more paper-like reading experience, but it also doesn't have a backlight which means reading in bed without disturbing your partner is difficult or impossible.
Yes, it is, which is silly. Of course you're also quite unlikely to get caught unless you do something stupid like distribute your liberated copy. Obviously you have to make your own judgment call on this one. I'm just pointing out the options.
Kindle DRM has been broken for some time now. It's trivial to liberate your books. If you purchase anything from Amazon and don't liberate it, you have only yourself to blame when they kill-bit your book.
So long as ebooks are sold at paper prices, they should be treated like paper books. You own them. You can loan them to other people, sell them to a used bookstore, etc. Some of that doesn't necessarily translate well to the digital world (what does it mean to sell a used ebook?), but the point is that if you're going to have to pay $10 or $12 (or even $20, since ebook prices are based off of the lowest-priced paper book and if only a hardcover is available you'll get a ridiculous ebook price) for an ebook it should be yours to keep. Amazon can't reach out and destroy a paper book you bought from them, and so they should not be allowed to do the same to an electronic book. For now, the only way to do this is to liberate your books after purchase. If Amazon (and other ebook sellers) want to treat ebook purchases as rentals, the prices should reflect that.
The internal OS is WinCE, so the interface is either serial or USB.
The internal OS of what? The Kinect? Unlikely. Check the iFixit teardown. The device is pretty basic in terms of processing capabilities, relying on the Xbox to do most of the heavy lifting. Or are you referring to the Xbox? If so, you're still wrong. The Xbox 360 OS is not Windows CE. About the closest you can come to comparing it to another existing OS is by looking at its lineage. The Xbox 360 OS was derived from the original Xbox OS, which in turn was derived from Windows 2000. The extent that the Xbox 360 OS resembles Windows 2000 is almost certainly miniscule at this point, as it runs on an architecture that is not supported by the Windows codebase and does not need most of the core functionality of a Windows OS (shell, explorer, etc). There are probably some bits and pieces of Windows 2000 kernel code still lurking around somewhere, but aside from exposing DirectX and some minimal win32 functionality that's really about it.
I wish they'd stop sending me movies in the mail. I never use them. I've been sitting on the same DVD for several months because of this. Just as soon as they roll out a streaming-only plan, I'm upgrading.
When I first got the PS3 disc, it was a piece of crap compared to Netflix on the 360. Hopefully, they've improved it substantially.
Sorry, it's still a piece of crap. It's better than the BD-Live disc implementation, but not by very much. The 360 interface is still much nicer and more usable IMHO. Of course it currently lacks 1080p/DD5.1 support, but the PS3 version doesn't tell you what movies have that anyway so it's not really that useful.
When I use the Netflix application, trying to fast forward or reverse more than a few seconds leads to probably about a 30% chance of being kicked out of the movie and back to the screen you were on when you selected it.
This sounds like network troubles. The only time I've ever seen that happen is when there are network issues either on my side or Netflix's. This is usually accompanied by the inability to stream at more than 2 bars when my connection otherwise can stream multiple Netflix HD streams at once. While it would be nice for the Xbox app to be a little bit more lenient with buffering, I'd much rather it die than sit forever trying to buffer when the network is all screwed up.
Personally, I still find the Xbox interface the most pleasing out of the three. The PS3 interface is just too blocky and ugly, and the Wii app simply has no reason to exist. The only reason I'd even bother to use the PS3 app right now is because they have 1080p and DD5.1 streams while the Xbox doesn't (yet!), but on the other hand there's no UI indicator that a stream supports 1080p or DD5.1 (or even HD at all!).
I totally agree with you, but then I love driving. You'll get my manual transmission, internal combustion engine, raw driving machine (well, as raw as a 2005 car can be, with all of its government-required airbags and traction control and other BS) when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. For the OP that hates driving, mass transit is a better option. His city may have terrible transit, but if he hates driving so much he can lobby to fix that.
Also, the point of bus-based transit is not necessarily to go faster than cars, but to move more people at once. In theory, if more people rode buses there would be fewer individual cars on the road and thus traffic would ease up and the bus would go faster. But that leads to a chicken-and-egg issue -- the bus is slow because of cars, so I'll drive my car, which causes the bus to be slow.
Sony provides firmware for free, not firmware installation. Your words wrongly intimate that they are the same. Even more absurdly, you intimate that Best Buy should pay for the labor of installing people's firmware.
Wow. Just wow. You realize that the act of providing the firmware includes installation, right? This is not a DVD player circa 2000, where you had to find the firmware update ROM online, burn it to a DVD, put it in the drive, hit a series of buttons on the remote, and then hope it doesn't die. With this scenario, you turn on your PS3, it says, "Hey, there's an update! Want to install it (yes/no)?" When you hit "yes", it downloads, installs, and you're done. It might take you 30 minutes depending on the size of the firmware and the speed of your internet connection, so go take a long shit or post to slashdot or something while it's downloading.
Since "it's" "free" why don't YOU install people's firmware without receiving compensation.
Done. Here we go -- Hey everybody with a Playstation 3! Listen up! When the Playstation tells you that there's an update and asks if you want to install it, click "Yes" (X button). Now wait for it to finish. Congratulations, you've just updated your firmware and saved $30.
On the other hand, to Johnny Layman, perhaps 'installing firmware' brings to mind Druidic runes and rituals beyond comprehension - so he takes it to his Best Buy and pays a fee to avoid having to do the work himself. The process is still simple, but what Mr. Layman is paying for is the peace of mind knowing that it is being done by 'professionals' (at least, supposedly)
People are upset in this specific scenario because it's something the device does automatically. Johnny Layman doesn't have to do shit besides click "OK" and wait a couple of minutes. If he connects the device to the internet at home (and these days, with idiot-proof home routers provided by ISPs, that's trivial -- and even if it weren't, all of few steps to do so are both provided in the box in big, diagrammed steps as well as with idiot-proof onscreen instructions), it just works. If he doesn't connect it to the internet, he has no need for the update anyway.
However Best Buy is selling it with terminology like "Plays all Blu-Ray movies and games", as if that wasn't the case without the firmware update. While it's true some movies won't play (blame Blu-Ray for that), if a game requires an update it will ship with that update on the disc and update the console if needed. The sales tactic here is pure FUD.
Often times a customer will gladly pay the 40 bucks for a laptop with no trial software, a full battery charge and all updates,
In which case you've already lied to them. It's been well-established that Geek Squad doesn't actually remove trial software. They just delete the desktop icons (well, except in the case of useful stuff like antivirus, but only because that conflicts with their ability to upsell their own antivirus software). Every laptop I've purchased in the last 5 years has come with a pre-charged battery, and Windows Updates aren't terribly difficult to do yourself (and if you're doing them in "an hour", you're not getting everything anyway). I'm sure there are some suckers willing to pay $40 for that, but if it were me and the last unit was pre-"optimized", not only would I make sure the $40 is taken off, I'd also want an extra 10-20% for buying open-box merchandise (many documented cases of Geek Squad mixing up internals, swapping power supplies between different laptop makes and models, missing manuals, etc).
15 years ago when I worked for Best Buy, none of that crap would fly. But then that was before Geek Squad. The worst we ever had to deal with was pushing craptastic warranties and trying to get people to buy overpriced printer cables. Doing that turned my stomach back then as a high school/college student. I don't know how anybody could push Geek Squad "services" with a clear conscience these days.
In the pre-installation case? They're selling open-box hardware at premium prices? And yes, it should be considered open-box, because who knows what they did once it was opened? They could have dropped it, lost cables and manuals, swiped free software/coupons, etc. Once the manufacturer's seal is broken, you can't be 100% sure what you're getting and thus the merchandise should be discounted appropriately.
And even if that were the case, I'd be willing to bet if Best Buy screwed up your PS3, they'd replace it right then. Nobody would be okay with waiting weeks for their PS3 to come back because of someone else's mistake.
But only if you bought the Product Replacement Plan. If you didn't, too bad. Read the fine print -- they're not responsible for anything once you've given them your hardware.
So how do justify pre-optimization services, where you physically open the box of an unsold item, fuck with it, often lose or mix up parts in the process, close it back up, and then have the balls to sell it at a premium like you've actually made it better somehow? If people want to be idiots, fine, let them be idiots. You're even welcome to milk them for $30 (or $60 or $100) when they ask you for it. Opening unsold merchandise, "optimizing" it, and then telling people that they have to pay for a service that they didn't want if they want the product is just wrong.
Not saying that's happening in the case of PS3s, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. And if it's not right now, it surely will be soon once Best Buy takes this to its logical conclusion.
If this is anything like their PC "optimization" BS, you may not get a choice. They pre-optimize a fair amount of their stock and when the non-optimized stock sells out you either pay for the "optimization" service they've already performed or you don't buy the item. Never mind the fact that as soon as they opened the box it should become open-box merchandise and sell at a discount, not a premium.
Most of those services remove the default useless bloatware from your new PC for you -- which means, yes, it can go faster.
Many, yes. But not Geek Squad. Their concept of "removal" is to delete the program icon from the desktop without actually uninstalling it. Unless the software is something that competes with their own offerings, so that they can upsell you a piece of crap antivirus solution after removing the norton or mcafee trial that came with the computer (never mind that you're better off installing something free like Microsoft Security Essentials). There's also the problem that as soon as they take your new computer into the back room where they do the work, you have no idea what you'll get back. Will it be missing RAM? Will it have the right power adapter (or any power adapter)? Will you get the right Windows license paperwork and other bits and pieces that came in the box? Honestly, Best Buy should give you a discount if you use their Geek Squad service, since at that point you're essentially buying an open box computer of unknown completeness.
And just a note... that bloatware is not installed by Retailers -- it is installed by the PC manufacturer
Well, yes and no. Yes, the bloatware is installed by the manufacturer, but if the retailers really didn't want it they could exert pressure on the manufacturers to sell clean PCs. Microsoft does this in their two retail stores (and online) -- you can buy the exact same HP or Gateway or whatever as you'd get from Best Buy, but without any of the bloatware crap. And without the Microsoft store folks having to do any of the cleanup. They get the machines that way from the manufacturers. Best Buy, etc, actually prefer PCs with bloatware because it means they get to upsell their customers. Thus while it's correct to blame the manufacturers for putting this crap on their PCs in the first place, the retailers should receive just as much blame.
MS tried to make XBL a service for PC and Xbox combined, and let people from either platform play together in the same gamespace. The plan was scrapped though when all the keyboard + mousers mercilessly slaughtered the xbox joystickers.
They did that, and they released it. The game was Shadowrun and you can still play it. I never did, but IIRC they did a lot of tweaking to balance gamepad vs. keyboard and mouse players, and ultimately were criticized that they made the mouse aiming too sloppy to compensate.
Xbox Live still exists for PC gamers as Games for Windows Live and uses the same gamertag, achievements system, DLC, etc. However no other game besides Shadowrun has tried to get console and PC players together.
Um, you do know that certain smartphones have had e-readers (such as Stanza) available for, well, quite a long while now, right?
And by "certain smartphones", you mean "all of them"? Yes, iPhone has e-readers (Stanza, eReader before that, and Kindle, Kobo, B&N eReader, and a bunch more generic and specific ereader apps), but so does Android (check out Aldiko or FBReaderJ for generic readers, or Kindle, Kobo, BN, etc for store-specific), Windows Mobile (Freda seems to be the go-to reader these days, but Microsoft had their own Windows CE e-reader for their.lit format way back in 2000 or earlier), even the old school Palm (that's where MobiPocket got started, which is now the format used by Kindle).
It's great to see e-reading really coming into its own recently, though book sellers haven't quite gotten the message and are charging way too much (at least most DRM is easily broken). However it's not really a new phenomenon. E-readers in various forms (not PCs) have existed since the 80s. I've personally been e-reading for 10 years, and by some accounts I was late to the party.
The comfort issues with LCD screens in general aren't a big deal with phone-sized screens IME, while they are quite noticeable with netbook-size screens, and even more problematic with larger screens. I suspect that the problem is directly related to how much of your visual field is occupied by the bright background, which, even accounting for typical reading distance with each device, is much smaller with a phone than with a netbook, which is smaller than with a larger laptop or big desktop monitor.
Having read dozens of novels on my iPhone, I can tell you that the issue is not the size of the screen but the pixel density. A pre-4 iPhone with a 320x480 3.5" display has a pixel density (or pixels per inch -- ppi) of around 164. Compare that to a 6" Kindle at 600x800 == 167ppi vs. a 10.1" netbook at 1024x600 = 117ppi, or even worse a 15.4" laptop at the now-industry standard 1366x768 == 102ppi (for what it's worth, my 15.4" laptop at 1920x1080 has 143ppi and is only slightly less comfortable to read on than my iPhone). This is why e-ink readers and smartphones are easier to use as ebook readers than a laptop. Higher pixel density directly translates to more comfortable reading.
Also keep in mind that the pre-4 iPhone still has a relatively low ppi. The iPhone 4, with the same 3.5" screen size but 640x960 resolution == 330ppi, and a quality android phone like the HTC Incredible has a 3.8" screen at 480x800 resolution == 246ppi. This is also where Apple went wrong with the iPad. At 9.7" and 768x1024, its pixel density is only 132ppi, bordering on the edge of unreadable. To get an equivalent 330PPI to iPhone 4 at 9.7", the iPad would have to have a resolution of 1920x2560. That's not going to be a cheap LCD panel.
If you want a larger device for reading, stick with a Kindle or other e-ink reader. However for on-the-go reading, it's really hard to beat a smartphone.
Sounds like your problems are specific to bad DBAs. You make a great argument against letting DBAs touch code, not so much against using the full set of features of an RDBMS. When it comes to structure and code, a DBA is useful to help with data layout and optimization, but they shouldn't be writing code (and yes, SQL is code). Your developers should be doing that. If you don't have developers who are competent with SQL or capable of learning SQL, that's a different problem.
Where I work, our DBAs are part of our operations team. They're invaluable for keeping our databases up and running and performing well, and we keep them in the loop during design and development, but design and development is left up to the developers. The DBAs are not allowed to change functionality on running systems (they can tweak statistics and such, but even something like optimizing indexes requires dev contact). If they need to play around, their work is done in scratch databases off of replicas and the feedback gets incorporated into the product by development.
You've seen first-hand what happens if you let DBAs run the system. The same absolutely can happen if you let development run things as well, but at least most dev teams are better about using source control and not changing production systems on the fly. If you can build a good relationship between DBAs and developers, things will run much more smoothly.
1) It means we need to support two languages instead of one, with all that that entails (a proper debugger, expert knowledge, etc)
If you're talking to a SQL database, you're going to have to write SQL eventually. You could scatter it around all of your code in strings here and there, hopefully at least using parameterized queries to help prevent SQL injection, or you could write stored procedures. The only way to get away from the "two language" requirement is not to use a SQL-based database in the first place.
2) Stored procedures cannot do ALL business logic -- there comes a point where the business logic requires something that is near impossible to do within a stored procedure -- better to just keep it all together in your LANGUAGE OF CHOICE, not in some crappy half-assed non-compiled script crap that database vendor X whipped up in an afternoon because it looks good on their feature list
This point is really two points, so I'll address it as such.
First, you're right, you will run into cases of business logic that you can't do entirely in stored procedures. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's also the exception rather than the rule. Even then, you're still better off doing as much work as you can in your stored procedures so that you can leverage the strengths of SQL (in particular, the fact that it's a set-based language and provides huge benefits if you can model your work as a series of set operations).
Second, if you think SQL is "half-assed non-compiled script crap" you've obviously not done much work with SQL. I'll cede that the major (and minor) db developers have done a piss poor job of implementing the ANSI SQL standard, but if you think stored procedures are "non-compiled" then you obviously don't understand RDBMS engines (or you're using a subpar system like MySQL). For example, Microsoft's SQL Server does in fact "compile" its stored procedures using a JIT process. The engine evaluates the stored procedure at runtime to determine a "plan" based on your data volume and then caches that plan for future calls. To be fair, parameterized queries also have their plans cached so you do get some stored procedure-like benefits from SQL soup in your code as long as you do it right.
Going back to your first point, as long as you're using a SQL database you're going to have to write SQL code somewhere and it's going to have to be database-specific because of your second point. Moving your business logic to app code isn't going to make you any more portable.
3) Because you don't want to have to deal with Oracle's horrid error messages anymore than absolutely necessary
And that explains it. For all of Oracle's power and scalability, their PL/SQL language just plain sucks. Try Microsoft's SQL Server or IBM's DB2 or even PostgreSQL. You might be pleasantly surprised, and learn that the prejudices you built from too-long exposure to Oracle just don't make sense elsewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. It reclaims the vertical header space. Scrolling the menu along with it is just a bonus. I don't need you goddamn menu scrolling with me as I read. If I need to access something from the menu, I'll go back to the top of the page.
And Slashdot has now gotten on the "waste your screen space with bullshit" fixed-position bandwagon. Luckily this is easily solved. Install Stylish and add the following to a new user style:
Now the sidebar/header scroll with the page, rather than remaining fixed in place.
On the other hand, if you know that Amazon pulls this crap and you buy from them anyway, you no longer have anyone to blame if they killbit your file and you didn't liberate it and back it up first. It's not blaming the victim when the victim intentionally walks causes the crime to happen and then complains about it. This is not a case of, "She was wearing a short skirt and thus was asking for it," but instead a case of, "She consented to sex, we did the deed possibly multiple times, and then when I decided to break up with her she cried rape."
I read exclusively on my iPhone, with it's 3.5" 320x480 screen and I'm perfectly happy with it. The problem is not LCD vs. e-ink or backlight vs. no backlight. Instead, it's a question of pixel density. A higher pixel density is more comfortable to read, regardless of everything else. This is super obvious comparing e-ink to a standard laptop display -- a 6" 480x800 like the Kindle has a PPI of 155, while a 15.6" 1366x768 laptop display has a terrible PPI of 100. The iPhone in comparison has a PPI of 164, and the Nook Color has a PPI of 169. The laptop will be painful to read on for long stretches. The iPhone, Kindle, and Nook Color will be just fine. Of course more PPI is better, so a 4.3" 480x800 like on the HTC Evo with 216ppi will be even more comfortable, and an iPhone 4 with its 3.5" 640x960 @ 330ppi screen will be even better. This is also where the iPad fails. It's 9.7" size and 768x1024 resolution leads to a paltry 132ppi. Better than a laptop, but not by much.
In general, anything with a ppi over 150 should be comfortable to read on, regardless of LCD vs. e-ink, backlight vs. none. E-ink does have the benefit of having slightly less uniform pixels which leads to a more paper-like reading experience, but it also doesn't have a backlight which means reading in bed without disturbing your partner is difficult or impossible.
Yes, it is, which is silly. Of course you're also quite unlikely to get caught unless you do something stupid like distribute your liberated copy. Obviously you have to make your own judgment call on this one. I'm just pointing out the options.
Kindle DRM has been broken for some time now. It's trivial to liberate your books. If you purchase anything from Amazon and don't liberate it, you have only yourself to blame when they kill-bit your book.
So long as ebooks are sold at paper prices, they should be treated like paper books. You own them. You can loan them to other people, sell them to a used bookstore, etc. Some of that doesn't necessarily translate well to the digital world (what does it mean to sell a used ebook?), but the point is that if you're going to have to pay $10 or $12 (or even $20, since ebook prices are based off of the lowest-priced paper book and if only a hardcover is available you'll get a ridiculous ebook price) for an ebook it should be yours to keep. Amazon can't reach out and destroy a paper book you bought from them, and so they should not be allowed to do the same to an electronic book. For now, the only way to do this is to liberate your books after purchase. If Amazon (and other ebook sellers) want to treat ebook purchases as rentals, the prices should reflect that.
The internal OS of what? The Kinect? Unlikely. Check the iFixit teardown. The device is pretty basic in terms of processing capabilities, relying on the Xbox to do most of the heavy lifting. Or are you referring to the Xbox? If so, you're still wrong. The Xbox 360 OS is not Windows CE. About the closest you can come to comparing it to another existing OS is by looking at its lineage. The Xbox 360 OS was derived from the original Xbox OS, which in turn was derived from Windows 2000. The extent that the Xbox 360 OS resembles Windows 2000 is almost certainly miniscule at this point, as it runs on an architecture that is not supported by the Windows codebase and does not need most of the core functionality of a Windows OS (shell, explorer, etc). There are probably some bits and pieces of Windows 2000 kernel code still lurking around somewhere, but aside from exposing DirectX and some minimal win32 functionality that's really about it.
I wish they'd stop sending me movies in the mail. I never use them. I've been sitting on the same DVD for several months because of this. Just as soon as they roll out a streaming-only plan, I'm upgrading.
Sorry, it's still a piece of crap. It's better than the BD-Live disc implementation, but not by very much. The 360 interface is still much nicer and more usable IMHO. Of course it currently lacks 1080p/DD5.1 support, but the PS3 version doesn't tell you what movies have that anyway so it's not really that useful.
This sounds like network troubles. The only time I've ever seen that happen is when there are network issues either on my side or Netflix's. This is usually accompanied by the inability to stream at more than 2 bars when my connection otherwise can stream multiple Netflix HD streams at once. While it would be nice for the Xbox app to be a little bit more lenient with buffering, I'd much rather it die than sit forever trying to buffer when the network is all screwed up.
Personally, I still find the Xbox interface the most pleasing out of the three. The PS3 interface is just too blocky and ugly, and the Wii app simply has no reason to exist. The only reason I'd even bother to use the PS3 app right now is because they have 1080p and DD5.1 streams while the Xbox doesn't (yet!), but on the other hand there's no UI indicator that a stream supports 1080p or DD5.1 (or even HD at all!).
I totally agree with you, but then I love driving. You'll get my manual transmission, internal combustion engine, raw driving machine (well, as raw as a 2005 car can be, with all of its government-required airbags and traction control and other BS) when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. For the OP that hates driving, mass transit is a better option. His city may have terrible transit, but if he hates driving so much he can lobby to fix that.
Also, the point of bus-based transit is not necessarily to go faster than cars, but to move more people at once. In theory, if more people rode buses there would be fewer individual cars on the road and thus traffic would ease up and the bus would go faster. But that leads to a chicken-and-egg issue -- the bus is slow because of cars, so I'll drive my car, which causes the bus to be slow.
Have you considered taking the bus?
Wow. Just wow. You realize that the act of providing the firmware includes installation, right? This is not a DVD player circa 2000, where you had to find the firmware update ROM online, burn it to a DVD, put it in the drive, hit a series of buttons on the remote, and then hope it doesn't die. With this scenario, you turn on your PS3, it says, "Hey, there's an update! Want to install it (yes/no)?" When you hit "yes", it downloads, installs, and you're done. It might take you 30 minutes depending on the size of the firmware and the speed of your internet connection, so go take a long shit or post to slashdot or something while it's downloading.
Done. Here we go -- Hey everybody with a Playstation 3! Listen up! When the Playstation tells you that there's an update and asks if you want to install it, click "Yes" (X button). Now wait for it to finish. Congratulations, you've just updated your firmware and saved $30.
People are upset in this specific scenario because it's something the device does automatically. Johnny Layman doesn't have to do shit besides click "OK" and wait a couple of minutes. If he connects the device to the internet at home (and these days, with idiot-proof home routers provided by ISPs, that's trivial -- and even if it weren't, all of few steps to do so are both provided in the box in big, diagrammed steps as well as with idiot-proof onscreen instructions), it just works. If he doesn't connect it to the internet, he has no need for the update anyway.
However Best Buy is selling it with terminology like "Plays all Blu-Ray movies and games", as if that wasn't the case without the firmware update. While it's true some movies won't play (blame Blu-Ray for that), if a game requires an update it will ship with that update on the disc and update the console if needed. The sales tactic here is pure FUD.
In which case you've already lied to them. It's been well-established that Geek Squad doesn't actually remove trial software. They just delete the desktop icons (well, except in the case of useful stuff like antivirus, but only because that conflicts with their ability to upsell their own antivirus software). Every laptop I've purchased in the last 5 years has come with a pre-charged battery, and Windows Updates aren't terribly difficult to do yourself (and if you're doing them in "an hour", you're not getting everything anyway). I'm sure there are some suckers willing to pay $40 for that, but if it were me and the last unit was pre-"optimized", not only would I make sure the $40 is taken off, I'd also want an extra 10-20% for buying open-box merchandise (many documented cases of Geek Squad mixing up internals, swapping power supplies between different laptop makes and models, missing manuals, etc).
15 years ago when I worked for Best Buy, none of that crap would fly. But then that was before Geek Squad. The worst we ever had to deal with was pushing craptastic warranties and trying to get people to buy overpriced printer cables. Doing that turned my stomach back then as a high school/college student. I don't know how anybody could push Geek Squad "services" with a clear conscience these days.
In the pre-installation case? They're selling open-box hardware at premium prices? And yes, it should be considered open-box, because who knows what they did once it was opened? They could have dropped it, lost cables and manuals, swiped free software/coupons, etc. Once the manufacturer's seal is broken, you can't be 100% sure what you're getting and thus the merchandise should be discounted appropriately.
But only if you bought the Product Replacement Plan. If you didn't, too bad. Read the fine print -- they're not responsible for anything once you've given them your hardware.
So how do justify pre-optimization services, where you physically open the box of an unsold item, fuck with it, often lose or mix up parts in the process, close it back up, and then have the balls to sell it at a premium like you've actually made it better somehow? If people want to be idiots, fine, let them be idiots. You're even welcome to milk them for $30 (or $60 or $100) when they ask you for it. Opening unsold merchandise, "optimizing" it, and then telling people that they have to pay for a service that they didn't want if they want the product is just wrong.
Not saying that's happening in the case of PS3s, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was. And if it's not right now, it surely will be soon once Best Buy takes this to its logical conclusion.
If this is anything like their PC "optimization" BS, you may not get a choice. They pre-optimize a fair amount of their stock and when the non-optimized stock sells out you either pay for the "optimization" service they've already performed or you don't buy the item. Never mind the fact that as soon as they opened the box it should become open-box merchandise and sell at a discount, not a premium.
Many, yes. But not Geek Squad. Their concept of "removal" is to delete the program icon from the desktop without actually uninstalling it. Unless the software is something that competes with their own offerings, so that they can upsell you a piece of crap antivirus solution after removing the norton or mcafee trial that came with the computer (never mind that you're better off installing something free like Microsoft Security Essentials). There's also the problem that as soon as they take your new computer into the back room where they do the work, you have no idea what you'll get back. Will it be missing RAM? Will it have the right power adapter (or any power adapter)? Will you get the right Windows license paperwork and other bits and pieces that came in the box? Honestly, Best Buy should give you a discount if you use their Geek Squad service, since at that point you're essentially buying an open box computer of unknown completeness.
Well, yes and no. Yes, the bloatware is installed by the manufacturer, but if the retailers really didn't want it they could exert pressure on the manufacturers to sell clean PCs. Microsoft does this in their two retail stores (and online) -- you can buy the exact same HP or Gateway or whatever as you'd get from Best Buy, but without any of the bloatware crap. And without the Microsoft store folks having to do any of the cleanup. They get the machines that way from the manufacturers. Best Buy, etc, actually prefer PCs with bloatware because it means they get to upsell their customers. Thus while it's correct to blame the manufacturers for putting this crap on their PCs in the first place, the retailers should receive just as much blame.
They did that, and they released it. The game was Shadowrun and you can still play it. I never did, but IIRC they did a lot of tweaking to balance gamepad vs. keyboard and mouse players, and ultimately were criticized that they made the mouse aiming too sloppy to compensate.
Xbox Live still exists for PC gamers as Games for Windows Live and uses the same gamertag, achievements system, DLC, etc. However no other game besides Shadowrun has tried to get console and PC players together.
And by "certain smartphones", you mean "all of them"? Yes, iPhone has e-readers (Stanza, eReader before that, and Kindle, Kobo, B&N eReader, and a bunch more generic and specific ereader apps), but so does Android (check out Aldiko or FBReaderJ for generic readers, or Kindle, Kobo, BN, etc for store-specific), Windows Mobile (Freda seems to be the go-to reader these days, but Microsoft had their own Windows CE e-reader for their .lit format way back in 2000 or earlier), even the old school Palm (that's where MobiPocket got started, which is now the format used by Kindle).
It's great to see e-reading really coming into its own recently, though book sellers haven't quite gotten the message and are charging way too much (at least most DRM is easily broken). However it's not really a new phenomenon. E-readers in various forms (not PCs) have existed since the 80s. I've personally been e-reading for 10 years, and by some accounts I was late to the party.
Having read dozens of novels on my iPhone, I can tell you that the issue is not the size of the screen but the pixel density. A pre-4 iPhone with a 320x480 3.5" display has a pixel density (or pixels per inch -- ppi) of around 164. Compare that to a 6" Kindle at 600x800 == 167ppi vs. a 10.1" netbook at 1024x600 = 117ppi, or even worse a 15.4" laptop at the now-industry standard 1366x768 == 102ppi (for what it's worth, my 15.4" laptop at 1920x1080 has 143ppi and is only slightly less comfortable to read on than my iPhone). This is why e-ink readers and smartphones are easier to use as ebook readers than a laptop. Higher pixel density directly translates to more comfortable reading.
Also keep in mind that the pre-4 iPhone still has a relatively low ppi. The iPhone 4, with the same 3.5" screen size but 640x960 resolution == 330ppi, and a quality android phone like the HTC Incredible has a 3.8" screen at 480x800 resolution == 246ppi. This is also where Apple went wrong with the iPad. At 9.7" and 768x1024, its pixel density is only 132ppi, bordering on the edge of unreadable. To get an equivalent 330PPI to iPhone 4 at 9.7", the iPad would have to have a resolution of 1920x2560. That's not going to be a cheap LCD panel.
If you want a larger device for reading, stick with a Kindle or other e-ink reader. However for on-the-go reading, it's really hard to beat a smartphone.
Sounds like your problems are specific to bad DBAs. You make a great argument against letting DBAs touch code, not so much against using the full set of features of an RDBMS. When it comes to structure and code, a DBA is useful to help with data layout and optimization, but they shouldn't be writing code (and yes, SQL is code). Your developers should be doing that. If you don't have developers who are competent with SQL or capable of learning SQL, that's a different problem.
Where I work, our DBAs are part of our operations team. They're invaluable for keeping our databases up and running and performing well, and we keep them in the loop during design and development, but design and development is left up to the developers. The DBAs are not allowed to change functionality on running systems (they can tweak statistics and such, but even something like optimizing indexes requires dev contact). If they need to play around, their work is done in scratch databases off of replicas and the feedback gets incorporated into the product by development.
You've seen first-hand what happens if you let DBAs run the system. The same absolutely can happen if you let development run things as well, but at least most dev teams are better about using source control and not changing production systems on the fly. If you can build a good relationship between DBAs and developers, things will run much more smoothly.
If you're talking to a SQL database, you're going to have to write SQL eventually. You could scatter it around all of your code in strings here and there, hopefully at least using parameterized queries to help prevent SQL injection, or you could write stored procedures. The only way to get away from the "two language" requirement is not to use a SQL-based database in the first place.
This point is really two points, so I'll address it as such.
First, you're right, you will run into cases of business logic that you can't do entirely in stored procedures. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's also the exception rather than the rule. Even then, you're still better off doing as much work as you can in your stored procedures so that you can leverage the strengths of SQL (in particular, the fact that it's a set-based language and provides huge benefits if you can model your work as a series of set operations).
Second, if you think SQL is "half-assed non-compiled script crap" you've obviously not done much work with SQL. I'll cede that the major (and minor) db developers have done a piss poor job of implementing the ANSI SQL standard, but if you think stored procedures are "non-compiled" then you obviously don't understand RDBMS engines (or you're using a subpar system like MySQL). For example, Microsoft's SQL Server does in fact "compile" its stored procedures using a JIT process. The engine evaluates the stored procedure at runtime to determine a "plan" based on your data volume and then caches that plan for future calls. To be fair, parameterized queries also have their plans cached so you do get some stored procedure-like benefits from SQL soup in your code as long as you do it right.
Going back to your first point, as long as you're using a SQL database you're going to have to write SQL code somewhere and it's going to have to be database-specific because of your second point. Moving your business logic to app code isn't going to make you any more portable.
And that explains it. For all of Oracle's power and scalability, their PL/SQL language just plain sucks. Try Microsoft's SQL Server or IBM's DB2 or even PostgreSQL. You might be pleasantly surprised, and learn that the prejudices you built from too-long exposure to Oracle just don't make sense elsewhere.