Probably more like to 20% of their potential customer base. If you consider that this is a fairly technical service, geared towards early adopters, and most tech savvy early adopters use Firefox (or Safari or Opera), they've really screwed themselves by limited thinking.
You would think after 30 years of companies trying to protect their products--be it software, music, movies--via digital encryption of one sort or another, they would realize they're just wasting money. Blu-ray and HD-DVD were "uncrackable", until they were released to the public. How much did Sony and Toshiba waste on developing those encryption technologies? 10 million USD? 50 million USD?
A universal DRM that everyone uses? Yeah, right. Companies won't go for it, it'll cost too much, and it'll be broken in about a month.
I say you want to copy something, copy it. If you get caught, you're breaking the law and you either go to jail or pay a hefty fine. Put a personalized watermark on it or something that's hard to remove, maybe baked into the video or encoded in the music stream and leave it at that. Let the law handle the rest.
Re:Zork and other Infocom games past
on
Hotel Dusk Review
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· Score: 1
Dude, trust me, you'll love this game. You sound like me--I play for around 30 minutes at a time before life gets in the way. This game is totally for you. You can play for short bursts and save whenever you like, and the story is compelling enough that you can play for only 30 minutes and still remember what was going on 3 days later.
I would argue that Hotel Dusk is the closest thing to interactive fiction we've seen in the stores since Beyond Zork hit the shelves. This is as close as you're going to get these days. No, the story isn't Maltese Falcon, but it's a start. And it's damn better than anything else out there (i.e. "Oh no, the aliens are going to destroy humanity's last hope for survival. You've got to stop them!" God, please save me from another Doom clone!).
A couple of caveats, for the wary: I am a big fan of the old text adventures, both Infocom and Scott Adams. I grew up playing Zork, Pirate's Adventure, and the like. While I recognize the accomplishments of designers who have pushed graphics to the edge of the envelope, I prefer a damn good story that resonates with the audience.
Hotel Dusk is just a fun, relaxing game. It's all about the mystery, and uncovering the story. A little like the TV show Lost, where everyone in the hotel is related somehow but you dont' quite know how (granted, I'm only on chapter 3, so I may be incorrect). Reminds me a lot of Infocom's Witness, Suspect, and the like. Very creative use of the dual-screen DS, and the touch screen (you hold it like a book). I highly recommend it for gamers who are interested in something with a little more story than, say, Gears of War or Lost Planet (yes, I own an XBox 360 as well, and both these games need desperately to buy a story--any story! Ugh! Heck, how about just a plot device!).
It's not a book, and it's not a typical RPG adventure (by the way, for a more traditional, Ultima-style RPG, Final Fantasy III for DS is awesome, but this is nothing like it). Hotel Dusk is more for the Brain Age, adult crowd that wants a good story, interesting gameplay, great characters, and compelling narrative, without the hack-and-slash so typical with today's video games.
If you grew up playing tradtional adventures (I'd say around 30-40 years old; I'm 35), you'll love this game. I'd venture, if you don't own a DS, it's enough to buy one to play this (and others like Phoenix Wright). I'm no Nintendo fan-boy, but the DS will take you back to the days when games were just fun, and nobody worried about the graphics. If you want great graphics but crappy games, buy a Sony PSP or PS3 (I said I was biased).
The thing that bugs me about downloads is ownership. I could care less about download speed. If I have to leave my XBox 360 on all night to download a movie, that's fine. It's still faster than Netflix. My problem is how do I get it off the hard drive? How do I save it for later? How do I watch it on the TV that's not attached to the XBox? How do I watch it on my computer?
I own a ton of DVDs, most of which I won't replace with HD-DVD. I like to feel like I own the movie if I pay for it. I don't get that feeling when it's locked in an XBox or even on a PC. I don't want to get screwed by Microsoft or Apple charging me again if my hard drive crashes, or deciding that I can't migrate my movies to another PC for backup. What happens in a couple of years when I upgrade to an XBox 720? Or something by another manufacturer? What's to prevent Microsoft or Apple from deleteing my movies when they think I'm done with them?
At least with iTunes I can burn songs to a CD and transfer them away from my computer. I just don't get that feeling from the film studios that they're going to want me to do that, so I doubt my XBox--or any other download service--is going to support it either.
A couple of things. From the article, it says the principal had disciplined these kids--plural--on numerous occasions, so this is a recurring problem, thus a greater burden and responsibility should be placed on the parents to monitor their children's activities. Second, given that multiple kids were involved, and kids love to talk (have a daughter just about to become a teenager myself), these parents should have had some warning.
I don't always know exactly what my daughter is doing online, but I know enough to watch for signs of misbehavior. These kids were probably strutting around for weeks, overconfident and completely proud of themselves. If that doesn't throw up warning signs as a parent, you should probably turn in your parenting permit.
I've noticed a number of people complaining that a parent can't possibly police his or her child 100% of the time. As a parent with only one child, I can tell you that this is pretty much true. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for you, I am also 100% responsible for what my child does until he or she becomes an adult (18).
Look at it this way: if my daughter spray paints your house, breaks all your windows, and writes "Dirty Slut!" on your garage door, who do you think pays for that? While my daughter would probably spend some time in community service--which is exactly what these kids should do, probably related to gay rights or antidefamation--the parents should be held financially responsible for restoring this woman's good name, including monetary reward for pain and suffering. It sounds like it's more than just calling her a lesbian online, but disparaging her reputation and putting her name and picture out there when she did not want nor ask for that publicity.
In any case, these kids are just mean little bastards, and if the parents aren't going to take responsibility for them, they should at least reimburse society for having to do it for them.
I've been able to almost completely dump the PC (my daughter still has one, and I play on that now and again) thanks to the PS2, and later this month the XBox 360. Forget upgrading every year for $200-300. The console plays everything perfectly, there's no install step, and the games are great. Now I can use OS X for everything else and life is grand.
By the way, I had a friend ask me the other day, "What about the wait times?" Wait times?!? Yeah, less than I waited between levels of Far Cry and Doom 3, thank you very much. Every game has wait times. Why do I have to spend install an hour installing a game and updates only to have wait times?
This is so completely unconstitutional. You cannot be punished for a crime the courts have found you innocent of.
And for those of you that missed it, the federal courts have ordered the NSA and the President to cease and desist with the unlawful wiretapping of U.S. citizens. Perhaps there is still hope for this country.
Auto manufacturers are dismayed with Consumer Reports crash testing of automobiles. "It's a generally accepted principal in driving not to slam into a wall at 65 mph," commented a spokesman for the industry.
iPod isn't just popular 'cause it's cool. It's popular because it's really easy to get music onto the thing. Buy it, install iTunes, plug in the iPod, and start ripping or downloading music. I just don't see Windows Media Player as competing in that space, especially not without blowing Microsoft's whole market strategy of giving users choices when it comes to Windows audio players.
I have a feeling they'll get thousands of people buying these things. They'll get them home, try to install them, not be able to get music to upload, or the thing will crash all the time, or their PCs won't be able to see it when it's plugged in. Pack it up, take it back, and just go spend the $300 on something that actually works.
Nice thing about this is Apple will probably lower the price of the 30GB iPod to $250 just to stick it to MS. Then I'll dump my mini and finally get a video iPod.
Slashdot has the nice feature though of carrying stories about things other than Slashdot. Ever notice the abundance of stories on digg.com about how great Digg is or how this or that site is copying Digg? Of course, we all know who Digg copied...
How would everyone feel if instead of movies, they were editing the "naughty bits" out of books like Catcher in the Rye and Lady Chatterley's Lover? Wouldn't we all be crying censorship?
I think an artist, actor, publisher, producer, or studio has every right to say, "I don't want you to sell a derivative of my work." Doesn't matter if it's just taking out the bad words, or deleting scenes they don't think are right, such as a scene where a woman gets an abortion; a discussion about evolution; or a character that hates Mormons. It dilutes the value of the original product, or outright changes the story the person is trying to tell, probably to meet a certain religious belief system.
I'm sure if these services worked with the studios to determine what changes were acceptable to both parties, the studios would be more than happy to license these works to them. Heck, they do it on airlines all the time.
I live in Douglas County (see my other post), and the Sheriffs Dept. here is all about serving and protecting. A former California native, I can honestly say I've felt both sides of the good cop/bad cop coin. If more police departments were like the DCSD, we'd all be feeling much better about law enforcement, and maybe a little less cynical.
For all the cynics out there who think this is paid for by someone other than taxpayers, we also have a service whereby you can call in to the Sheriffs Dept. and let them know you'll be out of town, and they'll send extra patrols by your house on a daily basis to watch for suspicious activity.
I've lived in Douglas County for almost ten years now, and let me just say it's a great place to live. I was not surprised to see this story, though a little worried that the secret of our little county south of Denver will get out to the rest of the world.
Douglas County Sheriff's motto should be, "We still remember when the police used to care." They aren't about pulling over speeders. They nod, smile, and say hello when you walk by, and are always happy to have a chat in the local Starbucks (especially if you're buying:-). They pull over to help stranded motorists. A couple of winters ago we dug through the feet of snow from our end while they dug from their's in the middle of the night to get a pregnant neighbor to the hospital to give birth. They help out with traffic control in front of the churches on Sundays. They provide patrol for the local movie theaters, and are always friendly and helpful. I even had one hold my drink and help me figure out the right theater screen one night! Plus they offer a service where if you're going out of town, let them know and they'll send extra patrols on a daily basis by your house to make sure everything is safe.
It's not just the Sheriff's Dept., though. We also have great schools and libraries. My daughter is starting middle school in the fall, and we found out that she gets a set of books for school and a set for home, so her backpack doesn't get too heavy. Our libraries carry the latest and greatest books, not only fiction, but--as a programmer, this is a plus--the latest computer books as well (Lucene in Action, Learning Cocoa with Objective C, etc.). Latest DVDs available also.
Along with great services, we've got outstanding bike trails, golf courses, a small but decent lake, and horse ranches. Something for everyone.
This is the place people talk about when they're looking for a great place to raise a family.
P.S. No, I don't personally know and deputies or their families, nor do I know any real estate brokers. Having come out here from California, I know how to appreciate a good thing when I see it.
I hope the video game companies, especially the onces that make racing-oriented games (cars, boats, motorcycles, etc.) are listening to all these comments! I will not buy another Gran Turismo or Burnout game unless either (a) there are no locks on the vehicles or maps--at least in multiplayer mode, or (b) there are available cheat codes I can use to unlock everything. It's just a total pain in the ass waste of time when my daughter and I just want to race a few laps together. I know Gran Turismo 4 has more than five or six levels, but I've never seen them. Same goes for the cars. I just don't have the time to race through a bunch of stupid, boring races, proving that I can make a drift turn in 3.5 seconds to beat a 4 second clock with a joystick.
Doesn't it make more sense if they leave everything unlocked in the multiplayer or practice mode, then let you unlock them during gameplay? At least you'll get a taste of what's out there if you're into the competition. If you're not, you can still play all the cool cars. This arbitrary lockdown is the stupidest idea they ever came up with. I have absolutely no impetus to play Gran Turismo to unlock more cars or tracks, 'cause I don't know what the hell they are, or how many there might be!
Accept the first point being erroneous, but the second one is still valid. What I'm saying is that the software on the iPod is tied tightly to the computer. If you "rented" a movie or song on your iPod and a third party software package injected it into your playlists, when you sync with iTunes, your library database would be reset by the software on your computer. Your movie file might still be there, but the way Apple's DRM works does not allow for you to load information into your iPod from another machine and bring it back to your computer. It'll wipe out any changes you made while away from your "home" iTunes.
It's not that you need to load the music or movie onto your computer. It's that iTunes is really the one in control of your iPod playlist, and it's going to destroy anything you try to do when it syncs. Don't believe me? Look around for software to load music onto your iPod from two different computers, even if they have the same FairPlay registration info.
From what little I know about the FairPlay algorithms and how they're implemented in iTunes, it's a DRM thing. Won't happen unless Apple gives up FairPlay. I mean, c'mon. One of the most asked for features is a way load music onto your iPod from any computer in the house. We don't really care about moving the music from one machine to another. We just want to load Barry Manilow from our desktop and Motley Crue from our laptop without having the damn thing ask, "This iPod is tied to a different computer. Would you like to wipe out 45GB of data to load this one song?"
And as for point number one: I'd bet it's against Steve Job's philosophy to rent media. I believe he sees DRM as a way to restrict people from freely copying copyrighted works. I don't think he's a big believer in the RIAA/MPAA pay-out-your-ass-for-the-rest-of-your-life-for-som ething-you've-already-paid-for business model.
Finally, this will idea is fiscally impossible. It'll never happen. Blockbuster rents DVDs for $4.65 in my neighborhood (which is why everyone I know uses Netflix). iTunes sells TV shows, videos, etc. for $1.99. I can't see Apple renting movies for more than $1.99, and I can't see Blockbuster renting movies for less than $4.65, nor selling movies for less than $9.99. There's no middle ground with these two companies.
1. First, you'd be buying the movie, not renting it. You don't have to return it, you can watch it over and over. 2. Most importantly--Apple doesn't support this. If they did, why don't they do this in record stores (Virgin, Tower) with music? Why can't I drop my iPod into my PC upstairs, then sync with my laptop, then sync with my work computer and share all that music? It's tightly tied to a single computer.
Ain't no way they can do it until they fundamentally change how the iPod and iTunes works.
I still code to Firefox when I build web pages, but I tend to use Safari these days. Works with every site I visit, looks better than Firefox (no Windows 2000-style square buttons), and it's just faster than Firefox. I don't know what happened, but it seems like Firefox is just really slow these days, both in boot time (which I'd be o.k. with) and rendering (which I'm not).
I looked for that too. One of the features I love the most is that I can sit on the couch working on my Powerbook after dinner and work until Leno or Letterman is half over, at which point I go to bed. I feel sorry for those poor souls, including myself, when I buy my own personal MacBook at the end of the year. Maybe I'll just get an iMac and throw my mini on top of the TV. Hack a little FrontRow, buy a remote, a little AppleScript to tie it all together. But I digress...
I'm not sure how it's going to be four times faster, either. Most everything I run on my 1.67 PowerPC seems to run about the same as my old 3.0 P4 w/HT. Maybe with the Mac OS it'll be faster (than Linux or WinXP)...
I've used both Gnome and KDE. Gnome is nice and simple--and rips off Mac OS X left and right--and KDE is very configurable, but rips off Windows left and right.
The thing I really hate about KDE is that while they're trying to be as integrated as OS X with their applications--PIM, Office, etc.--nothing feels finished. It all sort of works, and most of it is there, but there's always one piece missing you really needed, or a preferences dialog that's not quite there yet. It looks pretty, but underneath it feels klunky.
Take this opinion with a grain of salt. I don't feel the need to spend hours tweaking my UI to have this or that pretty look and feel, or make sure that this key does this, or this app is on the toolbar. That's what I love about OS X: it just all works logically. Sure, I had to learn a new keystroke or two, but being able to drag almost anything (including the titlebar of my open Word document) onto the mail app and have it create a new mail message and automatically attach to it is the kind of UI functionality I look for. That's real UI design.
...I can honestly say I avoid PHP at all costs. PHP feels like it was built by committee: there's no consistency in the language. Even with 5 I still feel like I'm hacking together web pages.
I feel like there's a lack of standardized libraries for PHP. I've used PearDB, but it's sure not ActiveRecord or Hibernate. Smarty's o.k., but I'm already developing in a template language for HTML pages, why do I need another one? It's like working with JSP tag libraries (which I find equally wasteful).
Fundamentally, I think the tight coupling between view, controller, and model that PHP naturally engenders is bad. Practically, I've seen where Ruby on Rails has gone in just a single year, and it's further than PHP's gone in the last 5. Things you can do in Rails in a few days take weeks of coding in PHP, even with the help of third-party libraries.
PHP has a strong foothold with small, inexpensive ISPs, which is the only reason I think that people still use it. Unfortunately, the "war" between 4 and 5 has really hurt the credibility of PHP moving forward. Does any ISP support PHP 5?
If PHP wants to compete against Ruby on the low end and J2EE and.NET on the high end, it's going to need new development tools--both for writing the code and useful libraries, stronger leadership, and a clear plan for the future. I don't see any of this happening in its current state. I consider myself to be a PHP outsider these days, and looking in it doesn't look so fun in the pool.
Slashdot Mirror
Probably more like to 20% of their potential customer base. If you consider that this is a fairly technical service, geared towards early adopters, and most tech savvy early adopters use Firefox (or Safari or Opera), they've really screwed themselves by limited thinking.
You would think after 30 years of companies trying to protect their products--be it software, music, movies--via digital encryption of one sort or another, they would realize they're just wasting money. Blu-ray and HD-DVD were "uncrackable", until they were released to the public. How much did Sony and Toshiba waste on developing those encryption technologies? 10 million USD? 50 million USD?
A universal DRM that everyone uses? Yeah, right. Companies won't go for it, it'll cost too much, and it'll be broken in about a month.
I say you want to copy something, copy it. If you get caught, you're breaking the law and you either go to jail or pay a hefty fine. Put a personalized watermark on it or something that's hard to remove, maybe baked into the video or encoded in the music stream and leave it at that. Let the law handle the rest.
Dude, trust me, you'll love this game. You sound like me--I play for around 30 minutes at a time before life gets in the way. This game is totally for you. You can play for short bursts and save whenever you like, and the story is compelling enough that you can play for only 30 minutes and still remember what was going on 3 days later.
I would argue that Hotel Dusk is the closest thing to interactive fiction we've seen in the stores since Beyond Zork hit the shelves. This is as close as you're going to get these days. No, the story isn't Maltese Falcon, but it's a start. And it's damn better than anything else out there (i.e. "Oh no, the aliens are going to destroy humanity's last hope for survival. You've got to stop them!" God, please save me from another Doom clone!).
A couple of caveats, for the wary: I am a big fan of the old text adventures, both Infocom and Scott Adams. I grew up playing Zork, Pirate's Adventure, and the like. While I recognize the accomplishments of designers who have pushed graphics to the edge of the envelope, I prefer a damn good story that resonates with the audience.
Hotel Dusk is just a fun, relaxing game. It's all about the mystery, and uncovering the story. A little like the TV show Lost, where everyone in the hotel is related somehow but you dont' quite know how (granted, I'm only on chapter 3, so I may be incorrect). Reminds me a lot of Infocom's Witness, Suspect, and the like. Very creative use of the dual-screen DS, and the touch screen (you hold it like a book). I highly recommend it for gamers who are interested in something with a little more story than, say, Gears of War or Lost Planet (yes, I own an XBox 360 as well, and both these games need desperately to buy a story--any story! Ugh! Heck, how about just a plot device!).
It's not a book, and it's not a typical RPG adventure (by the way, for a more traditional, Ultima-style RPG, Final Fantasy III for DS is awesome, but this is nothing like it). Hotel Dusk is more for the Brain Age, adult crowd that wants a good story, interesting gameplay, great characters, and compelling narrative, without the hack-and-slash so typical with today's video games.
If you grew up playing tradtional adventures (I'd say around 30-40 years old; I'm 35), you'll love this game. I'd venture, if you don't own a DS, it's enough to buy one to play this (and others like Phoenix Wright). I'm no Nintendo fan-boy, but the DS will take you back to the days when games were just fun, and nobody worried about the graphics. If you want great graphics but crappy games, buy a Sony PSP or PS3 (I said I was biased).
The thing that bugs me about downloads is ownership. I could care less about download speed. If I have to leave my XBox 360 on all night to download a movie, that's fine. It's still faster than Netflix. My problem is how do I get it off the hard drive? How do I save it for later? How do I watch it on the TV that's not attached to the XBox? How do I watch it on my computer?
I own a ton of DVDs, most of which I won't replace with HD-DVD. I like to feel like I own the movie if I pay for it. I don't get that feeling when it's locked in an XBox or even on a PC. I don't want to get screwed by Microsoft or Apple charging me again if my hard drive crashes, or deciding that I can't migrate my movies to another PC for backup. What happens in a couple of years when I upgrade to an XBox 720? Or something by another manufacturer? What's to prevent Microsoft or Apple from deleteing my movies when they think I'm done with them?
At least with iTunes I can burn songs to a CD and transfer them away from my computer. I just don't get that feeling from the film studios that they're going to want me to do that, so I doubt my XBox--or any other download service--is going to support it either.
A couple of things. From the article, it says the principal had disciplined these kids--plural--on numerous occasions, so this is a recurring problem, thus a greater burden and responsibility should be placed on the parents to monitor their children's activities. Second, given that multiple kids were involved, and kids love to talk (have a daughter just about to become a teenager myself), these parents should have had some warning.
I don't always know exactly what my daughter is doing online, but I know enough to watch for signs of misbehavior. These kids were probably strutting around for weeks, overconfident and completely proud of themselves. If that doesn't throw up warning signs as a parent, you should probably turn in your parenting permit.
I've noticed a number of people complaining that a parent can't possibly police his or her child 100% of the time. As a parent with only one child, I can tell you that this is pretty much true. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for you, I am also 100% responsible for what my child does until he or she becomes an adult (18).
Look at it this way: if my daughter spray paints your house, breaks all your windows, and writes "Dirty Slut!" on your garage door, who do you think pays for that? While my daughter would probably spend some time in community service--which is exactly what these kids should do, probably related to gay rights or antidefamation--the parents should be held financially responsible for restoring this woman's good name, including monetary reward for pain and suffering. It sounds like it's more than just calling her a lesbian online, but disparaging her reputation and putting her name and picture out there when she did not want nor ask for that publicity.
In any case, these kids are just mean little bastards, and if the parents aren't going to take responsibility for them, they should at least reimburse society for having to do it for them.
I've been able to almost completely dump the PC (my daughter still has one, and I play on that now and again) thanks to the PS2, and later this month the XBox 360. Forget upgrading every year for $200-300. The console plays everything perfectly, there's no install step, and the games are great. Now I can use OS X for everything else and life is grand.
By the way, I had a friend ask me the other day, "What about the wait times?" Wait times?!? Yeah, less than I waited between levels of Far Cry and Doom 3, thank you very much. Every game has wait times. Why do I have to spend install an hour installing a game and updates only to have wait times?
This is so completely unconstitutional. You cannot be punished for a crime the courts have found you innocent of.
And for those of you that missed it, the federal courts have ordered the NSA and the President to cease and desist with the unlawful wiretapping of U.S. citizens. Perhaps there is still hope for this country.
Auto manufacturers are dismayed with Consumer Reports crash testing of automobiles. "It's a generally accepted principal in driving not to slam into a wall at 65 mph," commented a spokesman for the industry.
iPod isn't just popular 'cause it's cool. It's popular because it's really easy to get music onto the thing. Buy it, install iTunes, plug in the iPod, and start ripping or downloading music. I just don't see Windows Media Player as competing in that space, especially not without blowing Microsoft's whole market strategy of giving users choices when it comes to Windows audio players.
I have a feeling they'll get thousands of people buying these things. They'll get them home, try to install them, not be able to get music to upload, or the thing will crash all the time, or their PCs won't be able to see it when it's plugged in. Pack it up, take it back, and just go spend the $300 on something that actually works.
Nice thing about this is Apple will probably lower the price of the 30GB iPod to $250 just to stick it to MS. Then I'll dump my mini and finally get a video iPod.
Now I won't have to worry about Office viruses on my Mac. Microsoft really is taking the whole virus and security thing seriously. Thanks Redmond!
Slashdot has the nice feature though of carrying stories about things other than Slashdot. Ever notice the abundance of stories on digg.com about how great Digg is or how this or that site is copying Digg? Of course, we all know who Digg copied...
How would everyone feel if instead of movies, they were editing the "naughty bits" out of books like Catcher in the Rye and Lady Chatterley's Lover? Wouldn't we all be crying censorship?
I think an artist, actor, publisher, producer, or studio has every right to say, "I don't want you to sell a derivative of my work." Doesn't matter if it's just taking out the bad words, or deleting scenes they don't think are right, such as a scene where a woman gets an abortion; a discussion about evolution; or a character that hates Mormons. It dilutes the value of the original product, or outright changes the story the person is trying to tell, probably to meet a certain religious belief system.
I'm sure if these services worked with the studios to determine what changes were acceptable to both parties, the studios would be more than happy to license these works to them. Heck, they do it on airlines all the time.
I live in Douglas County (see my other post), and the Sheriffs Dept. here is all about serving and protecting. A former California native, I can honestly say I've felt both sides of the good cop/bad cop coin. If more police departments were like the DCSD, we'd all be feeling much better about law enforcement, and maybe a little less cynical.
For all the cynics out there who think this is paid for by someone other than taxpayers, we also have a service whereby you can call in to the Sheriffs Dept. and let them know you'll be out of town, and they'll send extra patrols by your house on a daily basis to watch for suspicious activity.
I've lived in Douglas County for almost ten years now, and let me just say it's a great place to live. I was not surprised to see this story, though a little worried that the secret of our little county south of Denver will get out to the rest of the world.
:-). They pull over to help stranded motorists. A couple of winters ago we dug through the feet of snow from our end while they dug from their's in the middle of the night to get a pregnant neighbor to the hospital to give birth. They help out with traffic control in front of the churches on Sundays. They provide patrol for the local movie theaters, and are always friendly and helpful. I even had one hold my drink and help me figure out the right theater screen one night! Plus they offer a service where if you're going out of town, let them know and they'll send extra patrols on a daily basis by your house to make sure everything is safe.
Douglas County Sheriff's motto should be, "We still remember when the police used to care." They aren't about pulling over speeders. They nod, smile, and say hello when you walk by, and are always happy to have a chat in the local Starbucks (especially if you're buying
It's not just the Sheriff's Dept., though. We also have great schools and libraries. My daughter is starting middle school in the fall, and we found out that she gets a set of books for school and a set for home, so her backpack doesn't get too heavy. Our libraries carry the latest and greatest books, not only fiction, but--as a programmer, this is a plus--the latest computer books as well (Lucene in Action, Learning Cocoa with Objective C, etc.). Latest DVDs available also.
Along with great services, we've got outstanding bike trails, golf courses, a small but decent lake, and horse ranches. Something for everyone.
This is the place people talk about when they're looking for a great place to raise a family.
P.S. No, I don't personally know and deputies or their families, nor do I know any real estate brokers. Having come out here from California, I know how to appreciate a good thing when I see it.
I hope the video game companies, especially the onces that make racing-oriented games (cars, boats, motorcycles, etc.) are listening to all these comments! I will not buy another Gran Turismo or Burnout game unless either (a) there are no locks on the vehicles or maps--at least in multiplayer mode, or (b) there are available cheat codes I can use to unlock everything. It's just a total pain in the ass waste of time when my daughter and I just want to race a few laps together. I know Gran Turismo 4 has more than five or six levels, but I've never seen them. Same goes for the cars. I just don't have the time to race through a bunch of stupid, boring races, proving that I can make a drift turn in 3.5 seconds to beat a 4 second clock with a joystick.
Doesn't it make more sense if they leave everything unlocked in the multiplayer or practice mode, then let you unlock them during gameplay? At least you'll get a taste of what's out there if you're into the competition. If you're not, you can still play all the cool cars. This arbitrary lockdown is the stupidest idea they ever came up with. I have absolutely no impetus to play Gran Turismo to unlock more cars or tracks, 'cause I don't know what the hell they are, or how many there might be!
Accept the first point being erroneous, but the second one is still valid. What I'm saying is that the software on the iPod is tied tightly to the computer. If you "rented" a movie or song on your iPod and a third party software package injected it into your playlists, when you sync with iTunes, your library database would be reset by the software on your computer. Your movie file might still be there, but the way Apple's DRM works does not allow for you to load information into your iPod from another machine and bring it back to your computer. It'll wipe out any changes you made while away from your "home" iTunes.
m ething-you've-already-paid-for business model.
It's not that you need to load the music or movie onto your computer. It's that iTunes is really the one in control of your iPod playlist, and it's going to destroy anything you try to do when it syncs. Don't believe me? Look around for software to load music onto your iPod from two different computers, even if they have the same FairPlay registration info.
From what little I know about the FairPlay algorithms and how they're implemented in iTunes, it's a DRM thing. Won't happen unless Apple gives up FairPlay. I mean, c'mon. One of the most asked for features is a way load music onto your iPod from any computer in the house. We don't really care about moving the music from one machine to another. We just want to load Barry Manilow from our desktop and Motley Crue from our laptop without having the damn thing ask, "This iPod is tied to a different computer. Would you like to wipe out 45GB of data to load this one song?"
And as for point number one: I'd bet it's against Steve Job's philosophy to rent media. I believe he sees DRM as a way to restrict people from freely copying copyrighted works. I don't think he's a big believer in the RIAA/MPAA pay-out-your-ass-for-the-rest-of-your-life-for-so
Finally, this will idea is fiscally impossible. It'll never happen. Blockbuster rents DVDs for $4.65 in my neighborhood (which is why everyone I know uses Netflix). iTunes sells TV shows, videos, etc. for $1.99. I can't see Apple renting movies for more than $1.99, and I can't see Blockbuster renting movies for less than $4.65, nor selling movies for less than $9.99. There's no middle ground with these two companies.
1. First, you'd be buying the movie, not renting it. You don't have to return it, you can watch it over and over.
2. Most importantly--Apple doesn't support this. If they did, why don't they do this in record stores (Virgin, Tower) with music? Why can't I drop my iPod into my PC upstairs, then sync with my laptop, then sync with my work computer and share all that music? It's tightly tied to a single computer.
Ain't no way they can do it until they fundamentally change how the iPod and iTunes works.
I still code to Firefox when I build web pages, but I tend to use Safari these days. Works with every site I visit, looks better than Firefox (no Windows 2000-style square buttons), and it's just faster than Firefox. I don't know what happened, but it seems like Firefox is just really slow these days, both in boot time (which I'd be o.k. with) and rendering (which I'm not).
I looked for that too. One of the features I love the most is that I can sit on the couch working on my Powerbook after dinner and work until Leno or Letterman is half over, at which point I go to bed. I feel sorry for those poor souls, including myself, when I buy my own personal MacBook at the end of the year. Maybe I'll just get an iMac and throw my mini on top of the TV. Hack a little FrontRow, buy a remote, a little AppleScript to tie it all together. But I digress...
I'm not sure how it's going to be four times faster, either. Most everything I run on my 1.67 PowerPC seems to run about the same as my old 3.0 P4 w/HT. Maybe with the Mac OS it'll be faster (than Linux or WinXP)...
...but I always recommend people just use OS X.
I've used both Gnome and KDE. Gnome is nice and simple--and rips off Mac OS X left and right--and KDE is very configurable, but rips off Windows left and right.
The thing I really hate about KDE is that while they're trying to be as integrated as OS X with their applications--PIM, Office, etc.--nothing feels finished. It all sort of works, and most of it is there, but there's always one piece missing you really needed, or a preferences dialog that's not quite there yet. It looks pretty, but underneath it feels klunky.
Take this opinion with a grain of salt. I don't feel the need to spend hours tweaking my UI to have this or that pretty look and feel, or make sure that this key does this, or this app is on the toolbar. That's what I love about OS X: it just all works logically. Sure, I had to learn a new keystroke or two, but being able to drag almost anything (including the titlebar of my open Word document) onto the mail app and have it create a new mail message and automatically attach to it is the kind of UI functionality I look for. That's real UI design.
Despite pop-up blocking, I still get tons of pop-under ads these days.
...I can honestly say I avoid PHP at all costs. PHP feels like it was built by committee: there's no consistency in the language. Even with 5 I still feel like I'm hacking together web pages.
.NET on the high end, it's going to need new development tools--both for writing the code and useful libraries, stronger leadership, and a clear plan for the future. I don't see any of this happening in its current state. I consider myself to be a PHP outsider these days, and looking in it doesn't look so fun in the pool.
I feel like there's a lack of standardized libraries for PHP. I've used PearDB, but it's sure not ActiveRecord or Hibernate. Smarty's o.k., but I'm already developing in a template language for HTML pages, why do I need another one? It's like working with JSP tag libraries (which I find equally wasteful).
Fundamentally, I think the tight coupling between view, controller, and model that PHP naturally engenders is bad. Practically, I've seen where Ruby on Rails has gone in just a single year, and it's further than PHP's gone in the last 5. Things you can do in Rails in a few days take weeks of coding in PHP, even with the help of third-party libraries.
PHP has a strong foothold with small, inexpensive ISPs, which is the only reason I think that people still use it. Unfortunately, the "war" between 4 and 5 has really hurt the credibility of PHP moving forward. Does any ISP support PHP 5?
If PHP wants to compete against Ruby on the low end and J2EE and