People making comments like yours are what killed the good kind of caddies... You know, take the disc with the permanent caddy out of it's case and insert it into the machine? Guaranteed scratch free media...
Some CD-ROM manufacturer does one stupid thing, and caddies have a bad name forever. 3.5" floppies had a "caddie" too, and nobody bitched about those...
Regardless. There isn't a chance in hell that's what this is about. Didn't you read about the slick multi-sized disc loader?
Of course it is, because Microsoft is a software company. What do you think the margins from just the Xbox division look like (hint: they're in the red)?
They could spend as much as they do now, make almost a third less revenues, and still break even.
Tell that to their shareholders. What do you think they would say if Microsoft said it would blow it's cash on hand, and it's profits to chase a new segment that is lucky to see 4% margins.
The numbers don't tell the tale you think they do.
Looks to me like Sony has twice the revenue and twice the quarterly growth of Microsoft, and is turning a healthy profit. With the PS2 still outselling the 360, they could lose as much money as Microsoft did over the entire life of the original Xbox every year on the PS3 and still have their heads above water.
The sad truth of the matter is that MS has the financial resources to manhandle Sony (especially given Sony's miscalculations regarding the PS3's costs and schedule)
That doesn't seem clear. I don't think Microsoft has the shareholder will to look the other way on another money losing console, while the Playstation brand is part of the core of Sony's portfolio and the Sony shareholders will ride the Playstation into the ground if need be. It's also a stretch to call Sony's moves a miscalculation. The costs will most likely be way more than recouped over the life of the technology, and the one year later release date has worked for them in both of the last two generations. The "first to market" advantage is a rediculous myth. The first to market has lost the last three times (Dreamcast, Saturn, Genesis).
How do you know it's not some chip you plug into the back? A small self contained attachment can be anything. Wait and see what it's actually like before bitching about how much it sucks.
Anyway perhaps linux users are even worse. How many of use just install packages from your distro without ever checking who actually wrote them?
Who cares who wrote them? The packages should be signed by the distributor. Presumably you trust the distributor or you wouldn't be running that distribution.
There are plenty of consumer electronics manufacturers that don't have content industry links. So, yes, it does count for something that it is in the interests of the consumer. I'll take bets on when it happens. My bet is 9 months after the launch of whichever format comes out second.
You're under the mistaken impression that you have to check ever key in the keyspace. You're not doing a sequencial search. You don't think Microsoft runs a brute force key generation program to generate their keys, do you? There is a simple algorithm for generating candidate keys. Once you have a list, you don't need to wreck every one. 10% would be fine.
I don't know what algorithm Microsoft uses to generate windows keys, but it's clear that somebody has figured it out, otherwise Windows Genuine Advantage would be pointless.
When you lose a trademark infringement suit, you have to stop using the mark. When you lose a patent suit you have to pay. Also, you can use the same mark as somebody else as long as you're using it for something different.
You don't need a reason to file a civil lawsuit, so that's a pretty dumb point.
No matter what the Intellectual Property industry would have you believe, trademarks, patents, and copyright aren't the same thing.
That "TM" on the end there means that they consider it to be their trademark. It doesn't hold any legal weight. If they had a registered trademark, that would be an ®, it would have legal weight, and it still wouldn't be a patent.
Perhaps you were trying to be funny, but mis-information isn't humorous.
Standalone players are not going to be expensive for very long. It will work out like DVD player prices did. They'll start outrageous, and then drop to the sub-$100 by the second Christmas. Nobody will care about either format enough until standalone players are cheap, which causes a chicken and egg problem with the Media Center PC theory.
Your problem set is reduced by several orders of magnitude by the fact that a vast majority of the keys you can represent in 24 characters are invalid. Any recent PC can test the validity of thousands of those keys per second. Depending on the algorithm they use to distinguish valid keys from invalid, it may well be possible.
That was true... They changed to the blue laser during early talks to try and merge the formats, and Blu-Ray added a red laser for DVD backwards compatability. So now both formats use a blue and a red laser.
The media for Blu-Ray is slightly more expensive, but that should be offset by the accelerated transition to high volume manufacture due to the PS3 launch in November. The hardware components required to make the players are identical at this point.
They have so much in common though... The laser is the same, the lens is the same, the disc size and thus the tray, motors, and mechanicals are the same, the outputs are the same, the processing power requirements are the same... All that's different from the player's perspective is the focus and the software.
All you are going to learn is that players are going to cost $LICENSING_FEE more than they would have, and the players will play both.
If you are using a straight rectangular keyboard that isn't at the proper height, pounding on it with your fingers and strained wrists, and feel you need to type 100 wpm in order to be productive, then its your own damn fault!
Sorry, but no. Even that doesn't cause CTS. (summary if you don't want to pay) Occurances, by percentage, of CTS in computer users is not elevated. Most computer users who have signifigant pain which they call CTS is really either something else, or caused by some other activity. Repetitive strain injuries are not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! Surgery won't fix them. You have to fix your bad habits.
You can give yourself some nasty RSIs if you have poor posture and habits, but typing fast or using a regular keyboard don't imply that you are doing either of those things. Fancy ergonomic devices are just aids, not solutions. Think of them like the little rubber thing your elementrary school teacher used to use to get you to hold your pencil properly.
NO employer should refuse to let you bring in your own keyboard, mouse, even chair, if they do, find other employment.
Corporations, whose customer base is profit-seeking stockholders, will go for cheap labor every time- they're pre-programmed to do so.
That's only true if you turn a blind eye to all but the largest and most institutional of publically traded corporations... And even some of those aren't that way. The assumption that corporations are profit driven is fairly accurate, but the assumption that cost cutting increases profits is not. Good, happy employees are essential to most corporations. Good public rapport is essental for many companies.
Corporations only have the power of government over us because people are lazy and don't bother to learn about what is important, who is in who's pocket, and vote on those issues. They'd rather pick some stupid-assed 'moral' issue and vote on abortion or gays or some other nonsense with utter disregard to corporate law, etc. That allows every politician on the ticket to be in the pocket of some corporations. An uninformed, passionate electorate is the enemy.
but they've got 80 million new people *each and every year* elsewhere than the United States to find those employees, most of whom are willing to work for under $2/day because there are no "basic human rights" in those countries. If we're going to compete with them for employment, we will have to sink to the same level.
There is no reason to have free trade with countries that are not on the same level with us human rights wise. You don't have to be isolationist to have standards.
You're right that we can't let corporations have *everything* they want, but there is middle ground. You don't have to run to the extremes.
The Chinese don't take basic human rights into account. Mexicans don't. The Hindus don't. The Moslems don't.
Ever hear the saying "Two wrongs don't make a right"?
Basic human rights are a LUXURY- one that we can't afford in a globalist economy.
We can afford them, but we won't be able to for long if we become isolationists... Unless, that is, you'd like to be a farmer. You and everybody else...
We MUST afford them. Otherwise we won't have them for ourselves.
you can't depend on ANYBODY else to do it for you. Trust nobody- they're all trying to steal from you. Especially the ones wearing suits saying "Trust me".
The world isn't black and white. Perhaps trusting nobody is a reasonable default policy, but you have a brain and five senses that you can use to refine that outlook on a case by case basis. Not everybody is trying to steal from you. Corporations need employees just as much as citizens need corporations. Many corporations even realize that. You can't do *everything* for yourself and continue to live in a modern world.
No, I propose we lead by example so they can understand that work can be enjoyable... if they're willing to put the effort in up front to get that enjoyable job.
A quick bit of math tells me that if they spun all those drives up at the same time the ting would draw at least 300 amps at 220V. Since this thing probably plugs into a 30 amp circuit, I wonder how long it takes to complete the staggered spinup... I wonder how long it takes for the power usage costs to exceed the purchase price...
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People making comments like yours are what killed the good kind of caddies... You know, take the disc with the permanent caddy out of it's case and insert it into the machine? Guaranteed scratch free media...
Some CD-ROM manufacturer does one stupid thing, and caddies have a bad name forever. 3.5" floppies had a "caddie" too, and nobody bitched about those...
Regardless. There isn't a chance in hell that's what this is about. Didn't you read about the slick multi-sized disc loader?
And it's the margins where MS is killing them.
Of course it is, because Microsoft is a software company. What do you think the margins from just the Xbox division look like (hint: they're in the red)?
They could spend as much as they do now, make almost a third less revenues, and still break even.
Tell that to their shareholders. What do you think they would say if Microsoft said it would blow it's cash on hand, and it's profits to chase a new segment that is lucky to see 4% margins.
The numbers don't tell the tale you think they do.
With Sony's poor financial health (go look it up
Ok, I went and looked it up.
Looks to me like Sony has twice the revenue and twice the quarterly growth of Microsoft, and is turning a healthy profit. With the PS2 still outselling the 360, they could lose as much money as Microsoft did over the entire life of the original Xbox every year on the PS3 and still have their heads above water.
The sad truth of the matter is that MS has the financial resources to manhandle Sony (especially given Sony's miscalculations regarding the PS3's costs and schedule)
That doesn't seem clear. I don't think Microsoft has the shareholder will to look the other way on another money losing console, while the Playstation brand is part of the core of Sony's portfolio and the Sony shareholders will ride the Playstation into the ground if need be. It's also a stretch to call Sony's moves a miscalculation. The costs will most likely be way more than recouped over the life of the technology, and the one year later release date has worked for them in both of the last two generations. The "first to market" advantage is a rediculous myth. The first to market has lost the last three times (Dreamcast, Saturn, Genesis).
How do you know it's not some chip you plug into the back? A small self contained attachment can be anything. Wait and see what it's actually like before bitching about how much it sucks.
Anyway perhaps linux users are even worse. How many of use just install packages from your distro without ever checking who actually wrote them?
Who cares who wrote them? The packages should be signed by the distributor. Presumably you trust the distributor or you wouldn't be running that distribution.
There are plenty of consumer electronics manufacturers that don't have content industry links. So, yes, it does count for something that it is in the interests of the consumer. I'll take bets on when it happens. My bet is 9 months after the launch of whichever format comes out second.
You're under the mistaken impression that you have to check ever key in the keyspace. You're not doing a sequencial search. You don't think Microsoft runs a brute force key generation program to generate their keys, do you? There is a simple algorithm for generating candidate keys. Once you have a list, you don't need to wreck every one. 10% would be fine.
I don't know what algorithm Microsoft uses to generate windows keys, but it's clear that somebody has figured it out, otherwise Windows Genuine Advantage would be pointless.
Also, your math is wrong.
When you lose a trademark infringement suit, you have to stop using the mark. When you lose a patent suit you have to pay. Also, you can use the same mark as somebody else as long as you're using it for something different.
You don't need a reason to file a civil lawsuit, so that's a pretty dumb point.
No matter what the Intellectual Property industry would have you believe, trademarks, patents, and copyright aren't the same thing.
That "TM" on the end there means that they consider it to be their trademark. It doesn't hold any legal weight. If they had a registered trademark, that would be an ®, it would have legal weight, and it still wouldn't be a patent.
Perhaps you were trying to be funny, but mis-information isn't humorous.
Standalone players are not going to be expensive for very long. It will work out like DVD player prices did. They'll start outrageous, and then drop to the sub-$100 by the second Christmas. Nobody will care about either format enough until standalone players are cheap, which causes a chicken and egg problem with the Media Center PC theory.
Your problem set is reduced by several orders of magnitude by the fact that a vast majority of the keys you can represent in 24 characters are invalid. Any recent PC can test the validity of thousands of those keys per second. Depending on the algorithm they use to distinguish valid keys from invalid, it may well be possible.
It amuses me that of all our posts in this thread, it's the one that had the wrong information in it that got modded up. :)
That was true... They changed to the blue laser during early talks to try and merge the formats, and Blu-Ray added a red laser for DVD backwards compatability. So now both formats use a blue and a red laser.
Answer: Neither.
The media for Blu-Ray is slightly more expensive, but that should be offset by the accelerated transition to high volume manufacture due to the PS3 launch in November. The hardware components required to make the players are identical at this point.
I think what he meant was that the 360 and the revolution don't play either format.
They have so much in common though... The laser is the same, the lens is the same, the disc size and thus the tray, motors, and mechanicals are the same, the outputs are the same, the processing power requirements are the same... All that's different from the player's perspective is the focus and the software.
All you are going to learn is that players are going to cost $LICENSING_FEE more than they would have, and the players will play both.
If you are using a straight rectangular keyboard that isn't at the proper height, pounding on it with your fingers and strained wrists, and feel you need to type 100 wpm in order to be productive, then its your own damn fault!
Sorry, but no. Even that doesn't cause CTS. (summary if you don't want to pay) Occurances, by percentage, of CTS in computer users is not elevated. Most computer users who have signifigant pain which they call CTS is really either something else, or caused by some other activity. Repetitive strain injuries are not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! Surgery won't fix them. You have to fix your bad habits.
You can give yourself some nasty RSIs if you have poor posture and habits, but typing fast or using a regular keyboard don't imply that you are doing either of those things. Fancy ergonomic devices are just aids, not solutions. Think of them like the little rubber thing your elementrary school teacher used to use to get you to hold your pencil properly.
NO employer should refuse to let you bring in your own keyboard, mouse, even chair, if they do, find other employment.
That I'm in total agreement with.
The jack doesn't help if the data is encrypted.
The broadcast stations may not be encrypted, but there's no point in paying your cable company for those. They're free over the air.
Corporations, whose customer base is profit-seeking stockholders, will go for cheap labor every time- they're pre-programmed to do so.
That's only true if you turn a blind eye to all but the largest and most institutional of publically traded corporations... And even some of those aren't that way. The assumption that corporations are profit driven is fairly accurate, but the assumption that cost cutting increases profits is not. Good, happy employees are essential to most corporations. Good public rapport is essental for many companies.
Corporations only have the power of government over us because people are lazy and don't bother to learn about what is important, who is in who's pocket, and vote on those issues. They'd rather pick some stupid-assed 'moral' issue and vote on abortion or gays or some other nonsense with utter disregard to corporate law, etc. That allows every politician on the ticket to be in the pocket of some corporations. An uninformed, passionate electorate is the enemy.
The system came out on time and the game didn't?
If it turned out the same way for the PS3 version, wouldn't you be validating the assertion instead of countering it?
but they've got 80 million new people *each and every year* elsewhere than the United States to find those employees, most of whom are willing to work for under $2/day because there are no "basic human rights" in those countries. If we're going to compete with them for employment, we will have to sink to the same level.
There is no reason to have free trade with countries that are not on the same level with us human rights wise. You don't have to be isolationist to have standards.
You're right that we can't let corporations have *everything* they want, but there is middle ground. You don't have to run to the extremes.
The Chinese don't take basic human rights into account. Mexicans don't. The Hindus don't. The Moslems don't.
Ever hear the saying "Two wrongs don't make a right"?
Basic human rights are a LUXURY- one that we can't afford in a globalist economy.
We can afford them, but we won't be able to for long if we become isolationists... Unless, that is, you'd like to be a farmer. You and everybody else...
We MUST afford them. Otherwise we won't have them for ourselves.
you can't depend on ANYBODY else to do it for you. Trust nobody- they're all trying to steal from you. Especially the ones wearing suits saying "Trust me".
The world isn't black and white. Perhaps trusting nobody is a reasonable default policy, but you have a brain and five senses that you can use to refine that outlook on a case by case basis. Not everybody is trying to steal from you. Corporations need employees just as much as citizens need corporations. Many corporations even realize that. You can't do *everything* for yourself and continue to live in a modern world.
Uh, yeah...
What's it like off the deep end? It's not enough to have ideas you think will work. They have to take basic human rights into account too.
No, I propose we lead by example so they can understand that work can be enjoyable... if they're willing to put the effort in up front to get that enjoyable job.
A quick bit of math tells me that if they spun all those drives up at the same time the ting would draw at least 300 amps at 220V. Since this thing probably plugs into a 30 amp circuit, I wonder how long it takes to complete the staggered spinup... I wonder how long it takes for the power usage costs to exceed the purchase price...