If the final product of a redesign of an unfavorably viewed operating system has it's e-mail client be written in such a way that it's seen as bloat, you need to seriously reconsider your design philosophy. How hard could it be Microsoft, make the applications in a way that does NOT mix their files and settings into the operating system, has all the files stored in one folder (per application), and uses no registry settings what so ever. Then it won't be bloat, because it's merely existence on the system will have no affect on total performance. Lead the way to proper application development while making it easy for other developers to do so too and sometime in the future shut off the old way of doing things.
I honestly don't understand why they aren't doing that.
Profit motive is a fascinating thing. It's not in the RIAA's best interest for web radio stations to go offline, because they generate no money from web radio that way. Whatever they charge is going to be the highest possible without alienating their customer base, which is the web broadcasters. It took them long enough to finally admit that their pricing was extraordinary to say the least.
I do find it fascinating that the major labels, via "Independent promotors" actually pay radio stations to broadcast specific songs, whereas they do no such thing for web radio services. I would think that something like the web radio in iTunes would be a perfect target for this.
To paraphrase David Hume: There is no reason to believe that the laws of physics have always been what they are today at all points in space and at all points in time. While it is well within reason, and quite likely, that the Universe follows neat patterns quite specifically, when one runs into really odd data that doesn't fit into your tidy boxes it might be time to rethink things. Dark matter/flow/energy or whatever the new buzzwords scientists come up with are stop gap measures meant to really say, "we haven't the foggiest idea what's going on, but it doesn't quite add up".
There are things they can do, but aren't. UAC doesn't solve anything, all it does is make the user annoyed. The programmer who caused UAC to fire up and tell the user that the program is trying to do something stupid doesn't care if the user is annoyed. He cares about production cost and knows damn well that the user blames Windows instead of the program. Why hasn't Microsoft created a way to do what Application bundles do on OS X? Drag and drop installs with full metadata support for supported files and cross application access of share libs all done on the fly without every loading anything at boot or changing a single thing in the registry. Why can't Windows do that? Why is it still possible to create an application that can only be run by Admin? Why isn't the entire Windows directory structure completely segregated from the application space which is in turn completely segregated from the user space? Why is it even possible for an application to install ANYTHING in your taskbar? Why can't the user have a formal list of launch items to prevent all non operating system elements from loading on login and still have all applications works exactly as intended? OS X is better than Windows for home use not just because of the widget lay out and management services, but because FUBARing the OS actually takes real work on the part of the user and the application developer. The very core of Windows is completely broken, the now failed experiment with UAC was an attempt to dress up pig so that they could buy more time to think the problem out.
HDCP doesn't just affect people using older TVs, it also affects some newer ones. At least once a month I have to explain to someone on the PS3 forums that the HDTV they bought last year doesn't with the PS3 as a Blue ray player because it doesn't do the handshake correctly, hence they get a black screen. Every time the reaction is the same, "OMGWTFBBQ, I JUST WANT TO PLAY MOVIES!!!". No one expects their TV to not work with their PS3 as a Blue-ray player, but at the same time works as a gaming machine over HDMI. I can't wait until BD+ is used to stop playback on players/TVs whose keys have been compromised, then we get to see what happens when a specific movie won't play, but all the other movies will. It will be great.
The best part of all that DRM they are using is that it's has already failed, SlySoft broke it last year and sell AnyDVD HD which can rip Blue rays to your drive 100% unencrypted.
As far as I can see, the only real changes to the interface of Windows since Windows 95 relate to colors of buttons and default display of objects. The objects are still there and you can go back to the old default. Application launch, Window switching, Application layout, System Setting changes, Window/menu placements, and all the other core features of the GUI have not changed at all since Windows 95. It's the same thing with each release. It's a 13 year old interface that is showing its age. I personally think it's high time Microsoft did what Apple did with the release of OS X, try something new because what they have now is garbage.
Depends on what market you're talking about. The United States is vastly behind western Europe and Japan (from what I understand) in HD broadcasts. The United Kingdom is leading the way to HD content with Freeview (also available outside of the UK) and Freesat, If you actually hook up an antenna to a HDTV via a RF switch, you WILL get an excellent signal during prime time. So much so, I have forsaken cable entirely.
Costs of the disks is FAR more important, at least to me.
Here's my set up: HC1500 ($700 when the HC1600 was announced), LHT734 ($120 with product replacement play at Radio Shack), plastic laminate screen ($15 as advised at the AVS forums), PS3 ($400). Not high end by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn't consider it cheap either. Certainly cheaper than most "recommended" Blue-ray set up and much cheaper than the perceived cost of getting a good image out of Blue-ray. I play video games and watch DVDs on it. I've watched Blue-rays with it and they look amazing. In terms of image quality, it's painfully obvious that it's better than DVD. I don't care, because when it comes down to it, I can buy a DVD at a MUCH lower price than a Blue-ray in a clear majority of the cases and DVD still looks good. Not exceptional, or jaw dropping better, but good. I'm okay with that. If the Blue-rays were the same exact cost as a DVD and there were a $5 bin at Walmart with Blue-rays, well it would be a different story altogethor.
I have a home theater and I don't care about Blue-ray. Until the prices of movies comes down and the selection goes through the roof, I'm sticking with DVDs.
I had this conversation recently. My best friend of over a decade was talking about how he uses Pirate Bay for all his movies. Not but 30 minutes later, I was talking about how Blue-ray was going to fail using the standard points you've read a thousand times over and downloads was the future. "Blue-ray will just be forced on us and DVD will be taken off the shelves, we don't have a choice", he tells me.
Problem with that is downloads is already winning, via piracy. The demand is real and unavoidable and the studios need to figure out a way to make downloads as easy to use as the Pirate Bay. I used to download single music tracks via illegal services, then the iTunes store opened and let me burn the music to CD at a guaranteed price and quality. I haven't bought a CD since, nor have I downloaded a single track from an illegal service. I burn my music to CD now and put it on the shelf as back up. If I could download a compressed movie as an ISO that could be burned an unlimited number times to something that was cheap (like say a DVD) and it would work with something I could buy anywhere from multiple venders, I would NEVER walk into another store again to buy a DVD or Blue-ray.
I don't care what anyone does with their page. Cookies, javascript, whatever. The "politics" of technology don't matter to me, at all. I just don't go to sites that don't work, it's really just that simple. The entire time I've used a web browser has been on an operating system other than Windows. Starting with OpenVMS (seriously, that was the first OS I used on the web), Linux (back in the hand compile days off a floppy), MacOS (system 6), then a huge selection of Unix machines. I have NEVER used Internet Explorer for personal or work use. Seriously, never.
These guys wanted her to quit linking. Whatever, they can want the heavens for all I care. They were supreme jackasses about it and tried to scare her into changing her site via an abuse of the law. If it means THAT much to them, if it's that important that this one women in her one little corner of the web change her web site, they had alternatives available that weren't possibly illegal (unlike the option they chose). Examining referrer headers is a valid option and sites use it without causing an uproar.
an a city (or any business or Web property) stop people from posting a link to its site?"
The cities sysadmin should be fired. Check the referrer, then redirect to the main page when "needed". A couple minutes set up time and *poof* no more "deep linking" from other sites.
How is this any different than a town building a road. A solid internet infrastructure is just as important to city/state growth as a the transportation system. It's just simple.
"No fair, I can't compete with the state." is not a good enough reason for me to care about your problem. Things like this would have been used to stop building the Interstate system in late 50s. Reasoning like this has allowed the infrastructure of the US to suffer, because someone companies are magic beings that solve problems and the government just ruins your life.
I've noticed that HDTVs don't interpolate. Look at the ratio differences from 480 to 720 to 1080. When you down scale from 720 to 480, you can just drop I out of every three scan lines. When you go from 1080 to 720, you drop 1 out of every three scan lines. From what my eyes have told me, they are merely skipping scan lines for display of lower res signals than native or quite literally omitting scan lines for display of higher resolutions than native. No interpolation what so ever. I'm sure there's TVs that do proper interpolation, I haven't seen them.
With an upscaling DVD player, at least with my PS3, you get interpolation and noise filters (as you interpolate noise is pushed to the higher frequencies, you can then do a low pass filter in fourier space at the true res). As a result you get the illusion of higher contrast without graininess. The PS3 does a solid job of fooling your eyes into thinking it looks better than it does. So much so, the blue-ray part of my PS3 is irrelevant to me. The only real difference I'm seeing between Blue-ray and DVD on my 720p native HC1500 projector (36 x 64 inch screen) is better colors. The color difference is obvious, but not striking. Nothing to call home about.
I own a projector, 5.1 surround, and a PS3. I'm skipping Blue-ray. It's not going to succeed because DVD is good enough.
They were also giving the reason that he couldn't have an e-mail address with his name in it was because it was offensive. That's not a valid reason to decline an e-mail address based off a person's name and he was quite reasonably offended by that. It's unreasonable to ban an e-mail address based off the clients name merely because you find a few select letters in his name fit a banned word. I know that, you know that, he knew that and now Verizon realizes their mistake.
You can be cut and dry about what went on, but seriously, life shouldn't be that way. If we all looked at and dealt with each other on that level, I think it would be time for me to find another country to live in.
From Snopes: First of all, the phrase "no va" (literally "doesn't go") and the word "nova" are distinct entities with different pronunciations in Spanish: the former is two words and is pronounced with the accent on the second word; the latter is one word with the accent on the first syllable.
Just like No table and notable are distinct in English. I didn't feel like quoting the entire snopes article to make a point. If people wanted to know, they could look it up.
The Chevy Nova one is an urban legend. Straight from snopes.com Assuming that Spanish speakers would naturally see the word "nova" as equivalent to the phrase "no va" and think "Hey, this car doesn't go!" is akin to assuming that English speakers woud spurn a dinette set sold under the name Notable because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn't include a table
Also from Snope on the "Bite the Wax Tadpole" This representation literally translated as "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice," but it acceptably represented the concept of "something palatable from which one receives pleasure."
The other ones are unconfirmed and seem to exist mainly on sites the quote urban legends as facts.
Or we can do what some in congress proposed. You can't buy oil unless you have room to store it yourself (no renting, no leasing, you must own the storage).
I think you misunderstand something about the Right to Remain Silent. The warning from the police when you are arrested is "anything that you say can and will be used against you" not "anything you say may help exonerate you". It is NEVER helpful to talk to the police when you are a suspect, even if you are innocent. You can say things that are truthful when you are innocent and still make you look like a murderer. Always talk to a lawyer first. Always. No matter what your circumstances are.
You can't observe dark energy or dark matter. They are fill in terms for unobserved matter and energy that must exist based off our limited observations, but we can't see.
I'm of the mind that neither exist and are kludges to stop the leaky pipes of modern science from falling apart, because key parts of our understanding of Cosmology and Astronomy are just plain WRONG.
One of the jobs of the Executive Branch is to enforce the law. One of the best quotes to truly exemplify this is from Andrew Jackson:
"they (the Supreme Court) have made their decision, now let them enforce it".
The Constitution really only has one way to deal with a President who runs amok, Impeachment. Congress has no authority over law enforcement. Ultimately the Supreme Court is powerless over an Administration who doesn't respect their opinion due to Executive Privilege. The chief law enforcement officer works in the Executive Branch (Attorney General). All that can be done is for congress to call a special prosecutor to investigate, but until the President is impeached, there's NOTHING anyone can do about the President's disrespect for the law. The current President knows this. He also knows that appetite for Impeachment in Congress is rather low, so he can do pretty much anything he wants just as long as he doesn't severely piss off Congress and The People. It would really take a lot for the people to hate him more than they do now. At this point, he's so disliked, he's bullet proof.
I don't know how contradictions are dealt with. Obviously, people aren't arrested after their vacation to Amsterdam. I do know that if you are a US citizen and you smuggle cocaine from France to Germany you can and will be tried in a US court if the US authorities arrest you on American soil. If you are a US company and you violate US law on foreign soil, you can be punished by the US government. US even goes further and holds foreign nations to US laws when they are responsible for breaking them across borders. Pay someone to smuggle drugs into the States, but never step on US soil, you can be tried in the States.
I'd like to remind you that Manual Noriega is sitting in a US prison right now.
Slashdot Mirror
If the final product of a redesign of an unfavorably viewed operating system has it's e-mail client be written in such a way that it's seen as bloat, you need to seriously reconsider your design philosophy. How hard could it be Microsoft, make the applications in a way that does NOT mix their files and settings into the operating system, has all the files stored in one folder (per application), and uses no registry settings what so ever. Then it won't be bloat, because it's merely existence on the system will have no affect on total performance. Lead the way to proper application development while making it easy for other developers to do so too and sometime in the future shut off the old way of doing things.
I honestly don't understand why they aren't doing that.
Profit motive is a fascinating thing. It's not in the RIAA's best interest for web radio stations to go offline, because they generate no money from web radio that way. Whatever they charge is going to be the highest possible without alienating their customer base, which is the web broadcasters. It took them long enough to finally admit that their pricing was extraordinary to say the least.
I do find it fascinating that the major labels, via "Independent promotors" actually pay radio stations to broadcast specific songs, whereas they do no such thing for web radio services. I would think that something like the web radio in iTunes would be a perfect target for this.
To paraphrase David Hume: There is no reason to believe that the laws of physics have always been what they are today at all points in space and at all points in time. While it is well within reason, and quite likely, that the Universe follows neat patterns quite specifically, when one runs into really odd data that doesn't fit into your tidy boxes it might be time to rethink things. Dark matter/flow/energy or whatever the new buzzwords scientists come up with are stop gap measures meant to really say, "we haven't the foggiest idea what's going on, but it doesn't quite add up".
There are things they can do, but aren't. UAC doesn't solve anything, all it does is make the user annoyed. The programmer who caused UAC to fire up and tell the user that the program is trying to do something stupid doesn't care if the user is annoyed. He cares about production cost and knows damn well that the user blames Windows instead of the program. Why hasn't Microsoft created a way to do what Application bundles do on OS X? Drag and drop installs with full metadata support for supported files and cross application access of share libs all done on the fly without every loading anything at boot or changing a single thing in the registry. Why can't Windows do that? Why is it still possible to create an application that can only be run by Admin? Why isn't the entire Windows directory structure completely segregated from the application space which is in turn completely segregated from the user space? Why is it even possible for an application to install ANYTHING in your taskbar? Why can't the user have a formal list of launch items to prevent all non operating system elements from loading on login and still have all applications works exactly as intended? OS X is better than Windows for home use not just because of the widget lay out and management services, but because FUBARing the OS actually takes real work on the part of the user and the application developer. The very core of Windows is completely broken, the now failed experiment with UAC was an attempt to dress up pig so that they could buy more time to think the problem out.
HDCP doesn't just affect people using older TVs, it also affects some newer ones. At least once a month I have to explain to someone on the PS3 forums that the HDTV they bought last year doesn't with the PS3 as a Blue ray player because it doesn't do the handshake correctly, hence they get a black screen. Every time the reaction is the same, "OMGWTFBBQ, I JUST WANT TO PLAY MOVIES!!!". No one expects their TV to not work with their PS3 as a Blue-ray player, but at the same time works as a gaming machine over HDMI. I can't wait until BD+ is used to stop playback on players/TVs whose keys have been compromised, then we get to see what happens when a specific movie won't play, but all the other movies will. It will be great.
The best part of all that DRM they are using is that it's has already failed, SlySoft broke it last year and sell AnyDVD HD which can rip Blue rays to your drive 100% unencrypted.
As far as I can see, the only real changes to the interface of Windows since Windows 95 relate to colors of buttons and default display of objects. The objects are still there and you can go back to the old default. Application launch, Window switching, Application layout, System Setting changes, Window/menu placements, and all the other core features of the GUI have not changed at all since Windows 95. It's the same thing with each release. It's a 13 year old interface that is showing its age. I personally think it's high time Microsoft did what Apple did with the release of OS X, try something new because what they have now is garbage.
Depends on what market you're talking about. The United States is vastly behind western Europe and Japan (from what I understand) in HD broadcasts. The United Kingdom is leading the way to HD content with Freeview (also available outside of the UK) and Freesat, If you actually hook up an antenna to a HDTV via a RF switch, you WILL get an excellent signal during prime time. So much so, I have forsaken cable entirely.
Costs of the disks is FAR more important, at least to me.
Here's my set up: HC1500 ($700 when the HC1600 was announced), LHT734 ($120 with product replacement play at Radio Shack), plastic laminate screen ($15 as advised at the AVS forums), PS3 ($400). Not high end by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn't consider it cheap either. Certainly cheaper than most "recommended" Blue-ray set up and much cheaper than the perceived cost of getting a good image out of Blue-ray. I play video games and watch DVDs on it. I've watched Blue-rays with it and they look amazing. In terms of image quality, it's painfully obvious that it's better than DVD. I don't care, because when it comes down to it, I can buy a DVD at a MUCH lower price than a Blue-ray in a clear majority of the cases and DVD still looks good. Not exceptional, or jaw dropping better, but good. I'm okay with that. If the Blue-rays were the same exact cost as a DVD and there were a $5 bin at Walmart with Blue-rays, well it would be a different story altogethor.
I have a home theater and I don't care about Blue-ray. Until the prices of movies comes down and the selection goes through the roof, I'm sticking with DVDs.
I had this conversation recently. My best friend of over a decade was talking about how he uses Pirate Bay for all his movies. Not but 30 minutes later, I was talking about how Blue-ray was going to fail using the standard points you've read a thousand times over and downloads was the future. "Blue-ray will just be forced on us and DVD will be taken off the shelves, we don't have a choice", he tells me.
Problem with that is downloads is already winning, via piracy. The demand is real and unavoidable and the studios need to figure out a way to make downloads as easy to use as the Pirate Bay. I used to download single music tracks via illegal services, then the iTunes store opened and let me burn the music to CD at a guaranteed price and quality. I haven't bought a CD since, nor have I downloaded a single track from an illegal service. I burn my music to CD now and put it on the shelf as back up. If I could download a compressed movie as an ISO that could be burned an unlimited number times to something that was cheap (like say a DVD) and it would work with something I could buy anywhere from multiple venders, I would NEVER walk into another store again to buy a DVD or Blue-ray.
1080p can be sent over component, but no Blu-Ray players do that.
With the minor exception of the PS3, sure none of them do that.
I don't care what anyone does with their page. Cookies, javascript, whatever. The "politics" of technology don't matter to me, at all. I just don't go to sites that don't work, it's really just that simple. The entire time I've used a web browser has been on an operating system other than Windows. Starting with OpenVMS (seriously, that was the first OS I used on the web), Linux (back in the hand compile days off a floppy), MacOS (system 6), then a huge selection of Unix machines. I have NEVER used Internet Explorer for personal or work use. Seriously, never.
These guys wanted her to quit linking. Whatever, they can want the heavens for all I care. They were supreme jackasses about it and tried to scare her into changing her site via an abuse of the law. If it means THAT much to them, if it's that important that this one women in her one little corner of the web change her web site, they had alternatives available that weren't possibly illegal (unlike the option they chose). Examining referrer headers is a valid option and sites use it without causing an uproar.
Security? I wouldn't call redirecting incoming links based of referrer as anything resembling security. Some websites find it useful and it works.
an a city (or any business or Web property) stop people from posting a link to its site?"
The cities sysadmin should be fired. Check the referrer, then redirect to the main page when "needed". A couple minutes set up time and *poof* no more "deep linking" from other sites.
How is this any different than a town building a road. A solid internet infrastructure is just as important to city/state growth as a the transportation system. It's just simple.
"No fair, I can't compete with the state." is not a good enough reason for me to care about your problem. Things like this would have been used to stop building the Interstate system in late 50s. Reasoning like this has allowed the infrastructure of the US to suffer, because someone companies are magic beings that solve problems and the government just ruins your life.
I've noticed that HDTVs don't interpolate. Look at the ratio differences from 480 to 720 to 1080. When you down scale from 720 to 480, you can just drop I out of every three scan lines. When you go from 1080 to 720, you drop 1 out of every three scan lines. From what my eyes have told me, they are merely skipping scan lines for display of lower res signals than native or quite literally omitting scan lines for display of higher resolutions than native. No interpolation what so ever. I'm sure there's TVs that do proper interpolation, I haven't seen them.
With an upscaling DVD player, at least with my PS3, you get interpolation and noise filters (as you interpolate noise is pushed to the higher frequencies, you can then do a low pass filter in fourier space at the true res). As a result you get the illusion of higher contrast without graininess. The PS3 does a solid job of fooling your eyes into thinking it looks better than it does. So much so, the blue-ray part of my PS3 is irrelevant to me. The only real difference I'm seeing between Blue-ray and DVD on my 720p native HC1500 projector (36 x 64 inch screen) is better colors. The color difference is obvious, but not striking. Nothing to call home about.
I own a projector, 5.1 surround, and a PS3. I'm skipping Blue-ray. It's not going to succeed because DVD is good enough.
They were also giving the reason that he couldn't have an e-mail address with his name in it was because it was offensive. That's not a valid reason to decline an e-mail address based off a person's name and he was quite reasonably offended by that. It's unreasonable to ban an e-mail address based off the clients name merely because you find a few select letters in his name fit a banned word. I know that, you know that, he knew that and now Verizon realizes their mistake.
You can be cut and dry about what went on, but seriously, life shouldn't be that way. If we all looked at and dealt with each other on that level, I think it would be time for me to find another country to live in.
From Snopes:
First of all, the phrase "no va" (literally "doesn't go") and the word "nova" are distinct entities with different pronunciations in Spanish: the former is two words and is pronounced with the accent on the second word; the latter is one word with the accent on the first syllable.
Just like No table and notable are distinct in English. I didn't feel like quoting the entire snopes article to make a point. If people wanted to know, they could look it up.
Clearly, I was wrong.
Read the snopes article, I merely quoted a VERY small part of it to accentuate the silliness of thinking Nova means "No go".
The Chevy Nova one is an urban legend. Straight from snopes.com
Assuming that Spanish speakers would naturally see the word "nova" as equivalent to the phrase "no va" and think "Hey, this car doesn't go!" is akin to assuming that English speakers woud spurn a dinette set sold under the name Notable because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn't include a table
Also from Snope on the "Bite the Wax Tadpole"
This representation literally translated as "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice," but it acceptably represented the concept of "something palatable from which one receives pleasure."
The other ones are unconfirmed and seem to exist mainly on sites the quote urban legends as facts.
Or we can do what some in congress proposed. You can't buy oil unless you have room to store it yourself (no renting, no leasing, you must own the storage).
Spectators gone.
I think you misunderstand something about the Right to Remain Silent. The warning from the police when you are arrested is "anything that you say can and will be used against you" not "anything you say may help exonerate you". It is NEVER helpful to talk to the police when you are a suspect, even if you are innocent. You can say things that are truthful when you are innocent and still make you look like a murderer. Always talk to a lawyer first. Always. No matter what your circumstances are.
The box I keep my Slashdot Karma in says any readers of my posts have to give me $10, by contract, every month for the next two years.
You can't observe dark energy or dark matter. They are fill in terms for unobserved matter and energy that must exist based off our limited observations, but we can't see.
I'm of the mind that neither exist and are kludges to stop the leaky pipes of modern science from falling apart, because key parts of our understanding of Cosmology and Astronomy are just plain WRONG.
One of the jobs of the Executive Branch is to enforce the law. One of the best quotes to truly exemplify this is from Andrew Jackson:
"they (the Supreme Court) have made their decision, now let them enforce it".
The Constitution really only has one way to deal with a President who runs amok, Impeachment. Congress has no authority over law enforcement. Ultimately the Supreme Court is powerless over an Administration who doesn't respect their opinion due to Executive Privilege. The chief law enforcement officer works in the Executive Branch (Attorney General). All that can be done is for congress to call a special prosecutor to investigate, but until the President is impeached, there's NOTHING anyone can do about the President's disrespect for the law. The current President knows this. He also knows that appetite for Impeachment in Congress is rather low, so he can do pretty much anything he wants just as long as he doesn't severely piss off Congress and The People. It would really take a lot for the people to hate him more than they do now. At this point, he's so disliked, he's bullet proof.
I don't know how contradictions are dealt with. Obviously, people aren't arrested after their vacation to Amsterdam. I do know that if you are a US citizen and you smuggle cocaine from France to Germany you can and will be tried in a US court if the US authorities arrest you on American soil. If you are a US company and you violate US law on foreign soil, you can be punished by the US government. US even goes further and holds foreign nations to US laws when they are responsible for breaking them across borders. Pay someone to smuggle drugs into the States, but never step on US soil, you can be tried in the States.
I'd like to remind you that Manual Noriega is sitting in a US prison right now.