hardly something you should blam "you're full of shit" to someone for
Yeah, that was a little over the top. He was the straw that broke the camel's back though. 99 out of 100 people who claim to know how business software, or even hardware and system administration work in slashdot comments are pulling it out of their asses. It was clear from that guy especially though, since his resume is online, he's fresh out of college, and works for a *tiny* company.
These software packages OF [COURSE] fit the description of a major piece of software, intended for businesses
No they don't. A major piece of software is one that a business selects all the rest of their components and utilities around. It's the critical piece, and all those other little things would be replaced by something else were the situation to change. Those other things, while being business software, aren't *major*, they're auxillary.
Also, most of those smaller pieces of software, the ones that get used anyway, don't actually call home, If they do, they typically have a way to work without calling home too. Hardware dongles are still very popular.
One of the BFD's about Aero is that apps can be rescaled etc.
Yeah, right. That'll never happen.
Many Windows apps do their own thing. "Common" widgets aren't even used regualrly by Microsoft themselves. Things will be scalable on Vista the way that window decorations, colors, and font sizes are system wide under XP. In other words, some things will scale, and most things won't, and unless you use the default setting everything will look like ass.
You clearly have no idea what qualifies as a major piece of business software. Here's a hint. You can't order them online, and they don't come in a shrinkwrapped box. They come with a sales engineer and a five or six digit pricetag. They don't call home, or they don't get bought, because major, business-critical servers don't have internet access.
High-end gear; top notch performance Upgradeable, industry standard components for easy upgrading Reliability Tuned software as well as tuned hardware. (No Adware, OEM "partner" software, etc...) Durability (for lugging to LAN parties) Flashy case design
Dell can handle the first one, but they're notoriously bad at all the rest. If any of the last five of those things change about Alienware, every Alienware customer is going to know. Even if none of those things change, gamers all know that Alienware *is* Dell now. These people all read internet forums and tech news. They're not going to be fooled by a Dell with a different sticker on the front.
Here's an idea for Dell: instead of trying to buy somebody else's reputation, how about you start making PCs that don't suck for gaming. Then, perhaps, gamers will consider buying your PCs.
Last time I called them (about a year ago), 3M sold a sample quantity of conductive/resistive transparent film for $900. It was a decent deal if you wanted touch sensitive displays in bulk, but for one-off projects of a custom size it seems like you're out of luck.
Digikey has all sorts of driver ICs, but I don't see anything to actually make the touch sensitive surface there. Am I missing something?
Just because the DRM has been broken doesn't change anything.
Why not? The DRM is no longer restricting you in any way.
The whole issue here was the rights issue inherent in companies' use of DRM.
What? Inherent? Are you trying to say that just because there's some half-assed attempt at controlling your usage on there, you should take some moral stance? That's rediculous. Do you claim to know the intentions of the manufacturers of every product you interact with, and if you disapproved of them, would you not use those too? To what end?
All that matters is what's reality. Reality is that you can do whatever you want with a DVD. As soon as there is a media that has un-broken DRM, not only can you justafiably take a principled stance on the matter, but people who aren't technically savvy enough to take the principled stance will refrain from purchasing the media as well because they won't be able to do what they want with it.
The original argument is that companies are screwing their customers by trying to stop them from [...]
Absolute total bullshit. They only screw their customers if they succeed... And even then, if they succeed the joke will be on them because they won't have any customers.
They're not illegal everywhere, and they're not hard to find. Anybody I've ever heard of who cares to anything with a DVD that would require one of those tools has had no trouble finding them. That includes people who are decidedly not tech savvy, but decided that having a DVD burner in their PC meant they could make copies.
Try searching google for "DVD copy". You can find easily obtained versions of DeCSS packaged up to be user friendly at all but two of the first page of results.
Yes, but they effectively have no DRM. Yes I've tried to make a backup of a DVD. Since the DRM has been so completely broken, it's not only easy, but it's free.
There's a big gaping analog hole that is the source of most meaningful piracy.
You see, media is generally distributed on optical discs right now. You don't need to know what the features of the surface, or the bits themselves mean to make an identical copy of the physical object. Until they can control who can see the light reflected off the surface of a disc, people will make copies of them in big mass-production duplication facilities in areas of the world the content producers either don't control or don't know about.
I'm sick of that comment getting modded insightful. It's a troll.
Effectively, DVDs have no DRM. That's just as good as them actually having no DRM, because there is nothing about a DVD that prevents me from using it any way I like.
The level scaling isn't as bad as all those internet threads have lead you to believe. The only thing wrong with Oblivion is the UI, which is terrible, and made only slightly less so by the UI mod. Bartering just isn't implemented. Everything takes way more clicks then it needs to, etc...
BUy it. It's worth it, even if it doesn't live up to Morrowind.
I'd love to know why level scaling doesnt suck because I haven't seen any reasons yet.
The concept isn't terrible. It's the ballance that is broken.
You're having trouble because you're not an all-out combat mage. Your magic and magic regeneration scale up when you level, so if you had been using destruction magic all this time you'd still be taking those guys out easy. If you want to be any other type of character, well... Sorry, you're out of luck.
Assuming you're actually planning to spend the marginal money you earn..
Going off on a bit of a tangent here, but..
If you're in the 35% bracket, you're probably not spending that money. You're probably investing it. Even if that means putting it into a bank account. You can bet that the capatalistic marketplace that answers to people's wallets instead of to bleeding heart votes, is going to use that money in a better way than the governement...
Unfortunatly, the government knows that people making that much money don't need a few extra percentage points of financial incentive to work harder. Their stron work ethic will push them enough to do it anyway, so they take the money and spend it on all sorts of things the government has no business doing, or spends it in a way that is minimally efficient so the right districts get the funds. Oh well.
I wonder how much our defence budget would be if appropriations weren't a political process...
I'm not sure, but I'd be surprised if they weren't close. They learned their lesson from the original, and it's clear they put their money into things that seem pricy instead of things that are actually pricy this time.
Not only that, but from what I hear on the retail front, there's actually a decent margin on them. Microsoft wouldn't let the retailers profit on them at their expense, especially since retailers are used to only makeing a couple dollars on the hardware sales.
I still think it'll cost exactly $400... Or $399 anyway. It remains to be seen.
I can't imagine the PS3 costing less to manufature than the 360 either. Especially not with such new hardware like the Cell chip and Blu-Ray.
Neither can I, except for the fact that they have a year of cost reductions over what Microsoft's got right off the bat... I still think It'll cost more for them though. But I think Microsoft is breaking even on the 360 hardware already.
What really gets me is this "Cell & Blu-Ray" stuff everybody keeps spouting. Blu-Ray players are going to be expensive because they have something like a Cell in them. The actual Blu-Ray reader isn't going to cost very much at all, and thus won't increase the price over what DVD would have cost anyway.
thus sayeth the naieve slashdotter. fax's aren't dead.
I didn't say faxes are dead. They aren't even close to dead. Read my other comments in this story and you'll see I understand that.
What I said is that fax machines sitting around printing out incoming faxes are dead. Almost nobody doesn't have a fax server, a fax service, or a digital fax machine. There's just no sense in wasting the paper.
Governments will give up on it before big businesses. Governments typically don't have any trouble telling their citizens that they have to move on technologically when they do. Businesses will keep the old tech online as long as there is a chance it will generate more business than it costs to maintain it. Even with digital signature technology, businesses will keep their fax machines plugged in until they don't work anymore. That's why lots of these big businesses kept their Telex machines online until the '90s even though government had long since given up on them, and they already had fax machines too.
Business to business transactions where the seller is extending credit to the buyer (a Purchase Order sale) is still handled over fax almost exclusively. Up until the last few months, insurance business was conducted via fax. Many local governments haven't gotten around to upgrading their fax based systems.
It's almost dead, but it's not dead yet. Luckily, for the most part, the fax machine is obsolete... At least on the receiving end.
It's not like anybody paid attention to the current fax rules.
Besides, who uses a fax machine for incoming faxes anymore? Fax is a paperless process now. Incoming junk faxes don't cost the recipient money like they used to when they would use up your thermal paper.
Slashdot Mirror
hardly something you should blam "you're full of shit" to someone for
Yeah, that was a little over the top. He was the straw that broke the camel's back though. 99 out of 100 people who claim to know how business software, or even hardware and system administration work in slashdot comments are pulling it out of their asses. It was clear from that guy especially though, since his resume is online, he's fresh out of college, and works for a *tiny* company.
Knowing Microsoft, they'll end-of-life it two years after Vista comes out, and everybody will keep using it anyway until their machine smokes itself.
These software packages OF [COURSE] fit the description of a major piece of software, intended for businesses
No they don't. A major piece of software is one that a business selects all the rest of their components and utilities around. It's the critical piece, and all those other little things would be replaced by something else were the situation to change. Those other things, while being business software, aren't *major*, they're auxillary.
Also, most of those smaller pieces of software, the ones that get used anyway, don't actually call home, If they do, they typically have a way to work without calling home too. Hardware dongles are still very popular.
So, basically, you're giving an example of me being right?
If that's not possible, CA will pay you a visit to make sure everything's on the up and up.
One of the BFD's about Aero is that apps can be rescaled etc.
Yeah, right. That'll never happen.
Many Windows apps do their own thing. "Common" widgets aren't even used regualrly by Microsoft themselves. Things will be scalable on Vista the way that window decorations, colors, and font sizes are system wide under XP. In other words, some things will scale, and most things won't, and unless you use the default setting everything will look like ass.
You're totally full of shit.
You clearly have no idea what qualifies as a major piece of business software. Here's a hint. You can't order them online, and they don't come in a shrinkwrapped box. They come with a sales engineer and a five or six digit pricetag. They don't call home, or they don't get bought, because major, business-critical servers don't have internet access.
... If I pirate the next version of windows, the first thing I would have disabled after installation will be disabled automatically?
Sweet.
Gamers want (in roughly this order of priority):
High-end gear; top notch performance
Upgradeable, industry standard components for easy upgrading
Reliability
Tuned software as well as tuned hardware. (No Adware, OEM "partner" software, etc...)
Durability (for lugging to LAN parties)
Flashy case design
Dell can handle the first one, but they're notoriously bad at all the rest. If any of the last five of those things change about Alienware, every Alienware customer is going to know. Even if none of those things change, gamers all know that Alienware *is* Dell now. These people all read internet forums and tech news. They're not going to be fooled by a Dell with a different sticker on the front.
Here's an idea for Dell: instead of trying to buy somebody else's reputation, how about you start making PCs that don't suck for gaming. Then, perhaps, gamers will consider buying your PCs.
Last time I called them (about a year ago), 3M sold a sample quantity of conductive/resistive transparent film for $900. It was a decent deal if you wanted touch sensitive displays in bulk, but for one-off projects of a custom size it seems like you're out of luck.
Digikey has all sorts of driver ICs, but I don't see anything to actually make the touch sensitive surface there. Am I missing something?
If the Linux community had any backbone, he would've been booed off the stage after he finished speaking.
And throw away all their principles? Do you remember what the 'Free' in Free Software stands for?
If you don't like it, don't run it, don't use it, whatever... But somebody implementing it should have every right to do so defended.
Just because the DRM has been broken doesn't change anything.
Why not? The DRM is no longer restricting you in any way.
The whole issue here was the rights issue inherent in companies' use of DRM.
What? Inherent? Are you trying to say that just because there's some half-assed attempt at controlling your usage on there, you should take some moral stance? That's rediculous. Do you claim to know the intentions of the manufacturers of every product you interact with, and if you disapproved of them, would you not use those too? To what end?
All that matters is what's reality. Reality is that you can do whatever you want with a DVD. As soon as there is a media that has un-broken DRM, not only can you justafiably take a principled stance on the matter, but people who aren't technically savvy enough to take the principled stance will refrain from purchasing the media as well because they won't be able to do what they want with it.
The original argument is that companies are screwing their customers by trying to stop them from [...]
Absolute total bullshit. They only screw their customers if they succeed... And even then, if they succeed the joke will be on them because they won't have any customers.
illegal tools [...] hard to find
They're not illegal everywhere, and they're not hard to find. Anybody I've ever heard of who cares to anything with a DVD that would require one of those tools has had no trouble finding them. That includes people who are decidedly not tech savvy, but decided that having a DVD burner in their PC meant they could make copies.
Try searching google for "DVD copy". You can find easily obtained versions of DeCSS packaged up to be user friendly at all but two of the first page of results.
Yes, but they effectively have no DRM. Yes I've tried to make a backup of a DVD. Since the DRM has been so completely broken, it's not only easy, but it's free.
They can't close the analog hole.
There's a big gaping analog hole that is the source of most meaningful piracy.
You see, media is generally distributed on optical discs right now. You don't need to know what the features of the surface, or the bits themselves mean to make an identical copy of the physical object. Until they can control who can see the light reflected off the surface of a disc, people will make copies of them in big mass-production duplication facilities in areas of the world the content producers either don't control or don't know about.
I'm sick of that comment getting modded insightful. It's a troll.
Effectively, DVDs have no DRM. That's just as good as them actually having no DRM, because there is nothing about a DVD that prevents me from using it any way I like.
The level scaling isn't as bad as all those internet threads have lead you to believe. The only thing wrong with Oblivion is the UI, which is terrible, and made only slightly less so by the UI mod. Bartering just isn't implemented. Everything takes way more clicks then it needs to, etc...
BUy it. It's worth it, even if it doesn't live up to Morrowind.
I'd love to know why level scaling doesnt suck because I haven't seen any reasons yet.
The concept isn't terrible. It's the ballance that is broken.
You're having trouble because you're not an all-out combat mage. Your magic and magic regeneration scale up when you level, so if you had been using destruction magic all this time you'd still be taking those guys out easy. If you want to be any other type of character, well... Sorry, you're out of luck.
Assuming you're actually planning to spend the marginal money you earn..
Going off on a bit of a tangent here, but..
If you're in the 35% bracket, you're probably not spending that money. You're probably investing it. Even if that means putting it into a bank account. You can bet that the capatalistic marketplace that answers to people's wallets instead of to bleeding heart votes, is going to use that money in a better way than the governement...
Unfortunatly, the government knows that people making that much money don't need a few extra percentage points of financial incentive to work harder. Their stron work ethic will push them enough to do it anyway, so they take the money and spend it on all sorts of things the government has no business doing, or spends it in a way that is minimally efficient so the right districts get the funds. Oh well.
I wonder how much our defence budget would be if appropriations weren't a political process...
The release of the Bootcamp Beta opens the door for Apple becoming a Windows OEM and shipping dualboot systems with Windows and OS X.
If they did that, what incentive would developers have to release an OSX version of their software? Users go where the apps are.
I predict that Boot Camp lost Apple their Photoshop port.
I'm not sure, but I'd be surprised if they weren't close. They learned their lesson from the original, and it's clear they put their money into things that seem pricy instead of things that are actually pricy this time.
Not only that, but from what I hear on the retail front, there's actually a decent margin on them. Microsoft wouldn't let the retailers profit on them at their expense, especially since retailers are used to only makeing a couple dollars on the hardware sales.
I still think it'll cost exactly $400... Or $399 anyway. It remains to be seen.
I can't imagine the PS3 costing less to manufature than the 360 either. Especially not with such new hardware like the Cell chip and Blu-Ray.
Neither can I, except for the fact that they have a year of cost reductions over what Microsoft's got right off the bat... I still think It'll cost more for them though. But I think Microsoft is breaking even on the 360 hardware already.
What really gets me is this "Cell & Blu-Ray" stuff everybody keeps spouting. Blu-Ray players are going to be expensive because they have something like a Cell in them. The actual Blu-Ray reader isn't going to cost very much at all, and thus won't increase the price over what DVD would have cost anyway.
thus sayeth the naieve slashdotter. fax's aren't dead.
I didn't say faxes are dead. They aren't even close to dead. Read my other comments in this story and you'll see I understand that.
What I said is that fax machines sitting around printing out incoming faxes are dead. Almost nobody doesn't have a fax server, a fax service, or a digital fax machine. There's just no sense in wasting the paper.
Governments will give up on it before big businesses. Governments typically don't have any trouble telling their citizens that they have to move on technologically when they do. Businesses will keep the old tech online as long as there is a chance it will generate more business than it costs to maintain it. Even with digital signature technology, businesses will keep their fax machines plugged in until they don't work anymore. That's why lots of these big businesses kept their Telex machines online until the '90s even though government had long since given up on them, and they already had fax machines too.
Business to business transactions where the seller is extending credit to the buyer (a Purchase Order sale) is still handled over fax almost exclusively. Up until the last few months, insurance business was conducted via fax. Many local governments haven't gotten around to upgrading their fax based systems.
It's almost dead, but it's not dead yet. Luckily, for the most part, the fax machine is obsolete... At least on the receiving end.
It's not like anybody paid attention to the current fax rules.
Besides, who uses a fax machine for incoming faxes anymore? Fax is a paperless process now. Incoming junk faxes don't cost the recipient money like they used to when they would use up your thermal paper.