I'm sure the fact that Sony gets to ship these PlayStations as 'computers' rather than game consoles if they pre-install Linux helps as well. They tried to do it with the PS2, but it was not close enough. With a HDD and Linux preloaded, I suspect it might be enough to get them past paying var in the UK. Tis OK to be a Linux supporter, if only to save cash, in my book.
Until that perception is corrected, DRM is a fact of life.
Not so sure about that. When everyone markets these things - they call them MP3 players. Folks trying to pitch them as ACC, WMA, or any other format don't do well. They are trying to sneak the DRM in as 'oh, you want to buy music? Here are your options'... I would not touch Apple if it could not play MP3. Pretty sure it would be a dead end if they tried to sell one like that. I buy CD's just because it is the only way for me to get high quality MP3's (without hitting Russian sites, etc).
I'm pretty sure you are not talking about the kit I've worked on, but I sure know the type. My bane is DBA's *love* to screw with stuff because we allow them to manually run the setup if they like. Some claim it is to improve performance, some security... All in all, it makes for obscure errors and headaches later on when additional components are added to the system. It costs money to make a specific environment 'tested' year after year with all the possible permutations. Yes, a special snowflake can get their needs met, but I've found very few willing to pay the real cost (above and beyond the enterprise price tag). You want that type of loving? Add an extra zero to the check. But you can't, your the installer/maintainer. Till then, I'd call you a blocker - and being on the technical side, I'd wine and dine the decision maker who want to run the kit.
Actually, part of the contest rules was that you had to be the first to post the instructions to the onmac.net forums. For the sake of transparency, it's a good idea.
All true. The selfish side in me would not post a partial solution, but wait till I had the full monty then post. There are lots of very clever people pounding on this and if he had an insight that others missed (but lacked some of the more mundane bits others may have working) I'd hold off on posting anything till I could win the pot. $12K is a lot of beer money in my book!
Folks are doing an enormous amount of collaboration to pull this off in spite of that, however. Hope some of the money makes it out to the initial hackers who bricked their machines to noodle out the foundations. Even if it does not, those who figured out the dark magic will have my respect.
If I sorted out the bits of magic to get WinXP up and running on a Mac, I don't think I would post how to the outside world until *after* I collected my bounty. No shock at the lack of details here.
About fracking time a game company figured out that people don't like the CD dongle. One of the reasons CounterStrike was such a huge hit was once you installed it, it just ran. No CD needed in the drive. Anytime I clicked it, I was good to go. I've got a mess of banged up media - three copies of some games - just because they need the physical disk in the drive.
The net dongle (via Steam and their ilk) is OK for multiplayer games, but it still pisses me off when I want to do single player. I got HL2, but don't plan to buy any more stand alone games that have to call home every time they start up.
Lastly, the StarForce stuff can badly munge up a system. I can't see any titles worth building a SCSI only box for just so my other software continues to run after they try to rewrite system drivers. I hope the support calls bury any profit those who opt for this type of 'protection'.
These toxic effects take far to much time for it to be effective as a weapon.
No kidding. By the time they started to try and spray methanol everywhere, I know I would give serious thought to using a low tech "beat the living bejesus out of them" with my old school li-ion battery pack.
I've still got some SBU and DBU mainboards still chugging away. The problem was I made the switch to AMD and SuperMicro waited years to make the transition. To bad because I liked their kit and in the PII/III era, and Asus, Abit, and SuperMicro were solid recommendations to friends and family. They sort of fell off the recommendation list because of the preference of the AMD CPU's. Now that they are working back into the workstation/server market, I'll definitely take a look the next time I do a system update.
Yes, they had a white box label that did AMD stuff. Whatever. I'm glad to see the 'pro' brand get with the program.
If I look at all the MP3 players out there, it is within a few dollars of each other. I bought my 1G shuffle because it was a better deal than the other 512-1G players out there by about $30 at the time. Never bought a single DRM'ed track - and won't as long as I can rip my own high quality MP3 files from CD.
Forget trying to 'out feature' the next player. The first one who can sell a solid plain jane MP3 player for 50% will move units. Everyone is trying real hard to hang on to margins... which Apple could cut if they felt threatened since (in theory) they make a bit on music sales as well as hardware. But that would be the start of a shift.
I have a big problem with salaries in the U.S. -- employees believe they have a right to a raise every year, even if they are not providing more service or helping the company with added efficiency.
Lets say I put in 110% for the company. Good for me, I get a bonus. The next year I put in that same 'above and beyond' level of effort - but now my effort only pays out bonus - cost of living. Do this for five years and I'm probably better off putting that extra energy into your competitor's company.
I'd argue that a cost of living increase is not a raise. While I agree many folks do not deserve a raise - or even the current salary they draw - I know I have the expectation that all things being equal my salary should also match the inflation rates. If not, I make that much less every year I work for the shop. If you are running a shop based on strict profit %, than I'd hope the profits will reflect the inflation, thus covering the cost of living increases as I'm sure your bill rates, etc, are also taking into account that money printing thing... If not, yikes! Or worse - I have to be more creative, put in longer hours, etc, just to keep up with my taxes and other costs just to tread water from a financial standpoint. Must be counting on turn and burn from an employment standpoint, because a highly motivated talent would be boned in less than a decade.
And yes, I would blame my boss for not sorting this, then the company. Then someone at the company gets to figure out what the efficiency loss is when you replace a dedicated employee who has been caring for your customers and making real profits for the company for the last 8 years finds a better gig somewhere else... because even though the government may be fraking things up, it is still your problem to resolve. Otherwise, it is mine, and trust me - you won't like my answer.
I twice have purchased a new car at the dealer by writing a five-figure check for the full amount before driving away. I had no problems either time.
You wired the money... Two cars ago I paid for a nice car with cash. I had the money at hand, depositing checks from multiple accounts, only to have some clown try to charge me for a cashiers check and hassle me about when funds were ready (moving from accounts within the same bank) because they had to certify things. I was certified or at least fit to be tied - so I said fine - I'm not paying for a check, give it to me in cash. (for the record, my bride said it was a bad idea) I expected hassles from the bank, who delayed, had me fill out forms, and do a thumbprint.
The car dealership were the once that surprised me. Seems spending a healthy amount of cash for a car set off flags there as well. They asked if I could deposit the money and write a check! Several forms later, and a 'I told you so...' I had the car. Pre-war on Eurasia, so I suspect things are worse today.
First off, I'm not making a case that people should do whatever they want if it makes for a safety issue. So going with the assumption it does not cause problems with the aircraft.
I'm in it for the data feed... I suspect the cost per minute will limit calls to "guess where I am calling from" and those of us who actually need to get something done on in the air. And yes - I get those emails, as does my wife when she is on her home computer. Her cell does not do email however and they have yet to figure out the joy of SMS yet. If this is not a safety/technology reason, a phone call can go a long way. Forget being late, how about calling to let her know if I got supper on the plane.
Even if there wasn't an interference issue, I'd still advocate a cell-phone ban on planes.
And I'm on the other side of the fence. I also fly over 600k miles a year for work, so a *lot* of time in the air. I don't care to fly with children, people who insist they must push the seat in front of me so far back I cannot work on my laptop, or sit next to folks that are too big for the seat either. Don't see bans on those issues, so mickey mouse issues like someone next to you talking on a cell does not really matter.
If you can talk on a cell phone, odd are you can also do CDMA speed data on it as well. While you might not want to yack on the phone, I sure as hell want to surf the net while flying home from Tokyo to Minneapolis... A week or two ago I was flying back from DC and we hit a really strong headwind. The flight was only making about 350 on actual groundspeed, but we did not know when I called my wife just before they closed the plane door. Had my cell phone worked in the air, I could have called them and let them know I was running late even though the flight left on time
While you learned a fair bit installing Gentoo the old way, I really welcome the new installer. The cool bit about Gentoo for me was it was very easy to maintain once you got the bloody thing installed and running. I use Linux as an OS, and code. Don't care to ever become a dark master at any OS. This just makes it easier for more ding dongs like me to get a source based distro running. I'll have to give the new installer a whirl on a VM and see how it goes.
Kudos to all you who made it easier on n00bs like me!
I'll second that - I would not trust you with C++, but I would let you do a bit of HTML or other non critical web work (JSP, ASP, PHP all good). Another bonus was to know a little about CVS or the like - just checkout/checkin.
and it costs 300k to buy a bogus license, and several million to (possibly) invalidate a patent I think is bogus - buying the license is usually the better option. Folks like IBM have an axe to grind with SCO, but usually people settle.
Hell, I've seen employees that were busted for theft - after stealing a fair bit of stuff, got recorded on video, got a confession, etc. - have the balls to sue for wrongful dismissal and watch HR settle with them for a few thousand. All about risk management, not about right or wrong, in most cases.
Shows what you know! I put in a preorder at Gamestop a few years. Yeah, they have my $600, but I'm guaranteed to be one of the first people with a console when it's released...
You did order it with all the bundled goodies, right? Might be delayed a bit longer if you just picked up the base system.
Non Disclosure Agreements and Really Good Lawyers, that's what it's all about.
Spot on. With that in place, no real reason to worry about the source code. The Java decompilers out there (try JAD for instance) are good enough I stopped bringing source with me and would just decompile the class files if I needed to look at something. If you think a Java class file will keep code out of your competitor's hands - you are in for a real shock.
This is a horrible idea. Crime in the area around my first college was bad, I'd hate to think what it would be like with _every_ student carrying several hundred dollars worth of pawnable hardware.
Heh. Reminds me of a customer site where folks would chain their thinkpad to the desk using one of those laptop lock cables. All safe and secure, right? Came back after a three day weekend and found the bones of several laptops - battery, hard drive, DVD, and keyboard removed with the RAM missing. Not unlike a nice car left in a bad neighborhood.
I cannot believe that it is possible to repeatedly drive blind for 10 seconds at 60mph without incident.
I find reading and sending emails on the blackberry while driving does wonders to prep you for working the navi . (kidding, kidding)
Most of the ones I work with use an audio navigation as well as the normal visual interface. When driving usually program the navi by ear. I'll glance at the map to get a feel for where I am at, but not near the amount of time they would have you believe from the article. Course, some folks will put mascara on while driving an SUV, so I suppose it may be natures way to clean up the gene pool.
Yup - I'm one of those who don't bother to check the route before I go. I'm a road warrior, and with a GPS in the car it takes all the stress out of moving through an unknown city. This week it is Washington DC, next week a couple cities near San Jose. I may google a map and print it, but that is only a precaution that the rental shop horked up the reservation. So yah, I trust the technology... not sure why that is a problem. For the most part, it just works.
The danger is getting a feel for the navi. It is not uncommon for it to yammer on about turning in a complex intersection - usually making you swerve at the last moment, and then swerve again because you (or the navi) made the wrong turn. Never forget that you are the PIC, even if you have no clue where you are. I'll joke with my wife that the navi is just trying to kill me, not get me lost.
If they ship this only via steam, there will be no bargain bin like you see in the retail channels. I've been burned a few too many times when they charge an extra $30 for five to seven missions as an add on - at this point, I just wait for the add on to hit the cheap deals. Poke around on Steam's web site. You would be silly to buy the backlog of the titles, plus HL2, for $80 when you can pick up the entire anthology for $20 or less, plus whatever price you can get the full cut of HL2 for $20-30 at the store. If they go download only, there is very little chance they will hit that level.
The other bit is games tend to be way to short these days. C&C: Generals really needed the add-on pack, as did Warcraft 3, as did many others to feel like a 'real' top tier game. You get what, 7 missions per nation/race/etc, with the several being unit trainers? HL was worth every penny. Opposing Forces was ok and added a lot of fun to multiplayer. Blue shift left me feeling robbed. I waited on HL2 until it hit the bargain bin, and if not for Counter Strike, would have felt shorted had I paid full retail. (lord knows I'm still bitter about Doom3) The point being, while they may be honest - this bit is a mere chapter or so in a longer story - I really resent the current trend to shorten games to generate a better revenue flow and try to price it for optimum wallet extraction. Maybe it works... Won't with me. I won't give them $10 for each three hours of game play.
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I'm sure the fact that Sony gets to ship these PlayStations as 'computers' rather than game consoles if they pre-install Linux helps as well. They tried to do it with the PS2, but it was not close enough. With a HDD and Linux preloaded, I suspect it might be enough to get them past paying var in the UK. Tis OK to be a Linux supporter, if only to save cash, in my book.
Someone ought to make this document into toilet paper, since its now officially useless otherwise :)
With the way things are being interpreted, I figured this was more of what you had in mind...
Until that perception is corrected, DRM is a fact of life.
Not so sure about that. When everyone markets these things - they call them MP3 players. Folks trying to pitch them as ACC, WMA, or any other format don't do well. They are trying to sneak the DRM in as 'oh, you want to buy music? Here are your options'... I would not touch Apple if it could not play MP3. Pretty sure it would be a dead end if they tried to sell one like that. I buy CD's just because it is the only way for me to get high quality MP3's (without hitting Russian sites, etc).
Here is an honest answer...
I'm pretty sure you are not talking about the kit I've worked on, but I sure know the type. My bane is DBA's *love* to screw with stuff because we allow them to manually run the setup if they like. Some claim it is to improve performance, some security... All in all, it makes for obscure errors and headaches later on when additional components are added to the system. It costs money to make a specific environment 'tested' year after year with all the possible permutations. Yes, a special snowflake can get their needs met, but I've found very few willing to pay the real cost (above and beyond the enterprise price tag). You want that type of loving? Add an extra zero to the check. But you can't, your the installer/maintainer. Till then, I'd call you a blocker - and being on the technical side, I'd wine and dine the decision maker who want to run the kit.
Actually, part of the contest rules was that you had to be the first to post the instructions to the onmac.net forums. For the sake of transparency, it's a good idea.
All true. The selfish side in me would not post a partial solution, but wait till I had the full monty then post. There are lots of very clever people pounding on this and if he had an insight that others missed (but lacked some of the more mundane bits others may have working) I'd hold off on posting anything till I could win the pot. $12K is a lot of beer money in my book!
Folks are doing an enormous amount of collaboration to pull this off in spite of that, however. Hope some of the money makes it out to the initial hackers who bricked their machines to noodle out the foundations. Even if it does not, those who figured out the dark magic will have my respect.
If I sorted out the bits of magic to get WinXP up and running on a Mac, I don't think I would post how to the outside world until *after* I collected my bounty. No shock at the lack of details here.
About fracking time a game company figured out that people don't like the CD dongle. One of the reasons CounterStrike was such a huge hit was once you installed it, it just ran. No CD needed in the drive. Anytime I clicked it, I was good to go. I've got a mess of banged up media - three copies of some games - just because they need the physical disk in the drive.
The net dongle (via Steam and their ilk) is OK for multiplayer games, but it still pisses me off when I want to do single player. I got HL2, but don't plan to buy any more stand alone games that have to call home every time they start up.
Lastly, the StarForce stuff can badly munge up a system. I can't see any titles worth building a SCSI only box for just so my other software continues to run after they try to rewrite system drivers. I hope the support calls bury any profit those who opt for this type of 'protection'.
These toxic effects take far to much time for it to be effective as a weapon.
No kidding. By the time they started to try and spray methanol everywhere, I know I would give serious thought to using a low tech "beat the living bejesus out of them" with my old school li-ion battery pack.
I've still got some SBU and DBU mainboards still chugging away. The problem was I made the switch to AMD and SuperMicro waited years to make the transition. To bad because I liked their kit and in the PII/III era, and Asus, Abit, and SuperMicro were solid recommendations to friends and family. They sort of fell off the recommendation list because of the preference of the AMD CPU's. Now that they are working back into the workstation/server market, I'll definitely take a look the next time I do a system update.
Yes, they had a white box label that did AMD stuff. Whatever. I'm glad to see the 'pro' brand get with the program.
Why would anyone choose it over the Nano itself?
Price. (which makes this not a killer)
If I look at all the MP3 players out there, it is within a few dollars of each other. I bought my 1G shuffle because it was a better deal than the other 512-1G players out there by about $30 at the time. Never bought a single DRM'ed track - and won't as long as I can rip my own high quality MP3 files from CD.
Forget trying to 'out feature' the next player. The first one who can sell a solid plain jane MP3 player for 50% will move units. Everyone is trying real hard to hang on to margins... which Apple could cut if they felt threatened since (in theory) they make a bit on music sales as well as hardware. But that would be the start of a shift.
I have a big problem with salaries in the U.S. -- employees believe they have a right to a raise every year, even if they are not providing more service or helping the company with added efficiency.
.. because even though the government may be fraking things up, it is still your problem to resolve. Otherwise, it is mine, and trust me - you won't like my answer.
Lets say I put in 110% for the company. Good for me, I get a bonus. The next year I put in that same 'above and beyond' level of effort - but now my effort only pays out bonus - cost of living. Do this for five years and I'm probably better off putting that extra energy into your competitor's company.
I'd argue that a cost of living increase is not a raise. While I agree many folks do not deserve a raise - or even the current salary they draw - I know I have the expectation that all things being equal my salary should also match the inflation rates. If not, I make that much less every year I work for the shop. If you are running a shop based on strict profit %, than I'd hope the profits will reflect the inflation, thus covering the cost of living increases as I'm sure your bill rates, etc, are also taking into account that money printing thing... If not, yikes! Or worse - I have to be more creative, put in longer hours, etc, just to keep up with my taxes and other costs just to tread water from a financial standpoint. Must be counting on turn and burn from an employment standpoint, because a highly motivated talent would be boned in less than a decade.
And yes, I would blame my boss for not sorting this, then the company. Then someone at the company gets to figure out what the efficiency loss is when you replace a dedicated employee who has been caring for your customers and making real profits for the company for the last 8 years finds a better gig somewhere else.
I twice have purchased a new car at the dealer by writing a five-figure check for the full amount before driving away. I had no problems either time.
You wired the money... Two cars ago I paid for a nice car with cash. I had the money at hand, depositing checks from multiple accounts, only to have some clown try to charge me for a cashiers check and hassle me about when funds were ready (moving from accounts within the same bank) because they had to certify things. I was certified or at least fit to be tied - so I said fine - I'm not paying for a check, give it to me in cash. (for the record, my bride said it was a bad idea) I expected hassles from the bank, who delayed, had me fill out forms, and do a thumbprint.
The car dealership were the once that surprised me. Seems spending a healthy amount of cash for a car set off flags there as well. They asked if I could deposit the money and write a check! Several forms later, and a 'I told you so...' I had the car. Pre-war on Eurasia, so I suspect things are worse today.
First off, I'm not making a case that people should do whatever they want if it makes for a safety issue. So going with the assumption it does not cause problems with the aircraft.
I'm in it for the data feed... I suspect the cost per minute will limit calls to "guess where I am calling from" and those of us who actually need to get something done on in the air. And yes - I get those emails, as does my wife when she is on her home computer. Her cell does not do email however and they have yet to figure out the joy of SMS yet. If this is not a safety/technology reason, a phone call can go a long way. Forget being late, how about calling to let her know if I got supper on the plane.
And, wtf? Overrated? Stupid mods with no M2.
Even if there wasn't an interference issue, I'd still advocate a cell-phone ban on planes.
And I'm on the other side of the fence. I also fly over 600k miles a year for work, so a *lot* of time in the air. I don't care to fly with children, people who insist they must push the seat in front of me so far back I cannot work on my laptop, or sit next to folks that are too big for the seat either. Don't see bans on those issues, so mickey mouse issues like someone next to you talking on a cell does not really matter.
If you can talk on a cell phone, odd are you can also do CDMA speed data on it as well. While you might not want to yack on the phone, I sure as hell want to surf the net while flying home from Tokyo to Minneapolis... A week or two ago I was flying back from DC and we hit a really strong headwind. The flight was only making about 350 on actual groundspeed, but we did not know when I called my wife just before they closed the plane door. Had my cell phone worked in the air, I could have called them and let them know I was running late even though the flight left on time
While you learned a fair bit installing Gentoo the old way, I really welcome the new installer. The cool bit about Gentoo for me was it was very easy to maintain once you got the bloody thing installed and running. I use Linux as an OS, and code. Don't care to ever become a dark master at any OS. This just makes it easier for more ding dongs like me to get a source based distro running. I'll have to give the new installer a whirl on a VM and see how it goes.
Kudos to all you who made it easier on n00bs like me!
I'll second that - I would not trust you with C++, but I would let you do a bit of HTML or other non critical web work (JSP, ASP, PHP all good). Another bonus was to know a little about CVS or the like - just checkout/checkin.
and it costs 300k to buy a bogus license, and several million to (possibly) invalidate a patent I think is bogus - buying the license is usually the better option. Folks like IBM have an axe to grind with SCO, but usually people settle.
Hell, I've seen employees that were busted for theft - after stealing a fair bit of stuff, got recorded on video, got a confession, etc. - have the balls to sue for wrongful dismissal and watch HR settle with them for a few thousand. All about risk management, not about right or wrong, in most cases.
Shows what you know! I put in a preorder at Gamestop a few years. Yeah, they have my $600, but I'm guaranteed to be one of the first people with a console when it's released...
You did order it with all the bundled goodies, right? Might be delayed a bit longer if you just picked up the base system.
Non Disclosure Agreements and Really Good Lawyers, that's what it's all about.
Spot on. With that in place, no real reason to worry about the source code. The Java decompilers out there (try JAD for instance) are good enough I stopped bringing source with me and would just decompile the class files if I needed to look at something. If you think a Java class file will keep code out of your competitor's hands - you are in for a real shock.
This is a horrible idea. Crime in the area around my first college was bad, I'd hate to think what it would be like with _every_ student carrying several hundred dollars worth of pawnable hardware.
Heh. Reminds me of a customer site where folks would chain their thinkpad to the desk using one of those laptop lock cables. All safe and secure, right? Came back after a three day weekend and found the bones of several laptops - battery, hard drive, DVD, and keyboard removed with the RAM missing. Not unlike a nice car left in a bad neighborhood.
I cannot believe that it is possible to repeatedly drive blind for 10 seconds at 60mph without incident.
I find reading and sending emails on the blackberry while driving does wonders to prep you for working the navi . (kidding, kidding)
Most of the ones I work with use an audio navigation as well as the normal visual interface. When driving usually program the navi by ear. I'll glance at the map to get a feel for where I am at, but not near the amount of time they would have you believe from the article. Course, some folks will put mascara on while driving an SUV, so I suppose it may be natures way to clean up the gene pool.
Yup - I'm one of those who don't bother to check the route before I go. I'm a road warrior, and with a GPS in the car it takes all the stress out of moving through an unknown city. This week it is Washington DC, next week a couple cities near San Jose. I may google a map and print it, but that is only a precaution that the rental shop horked up the reservation. So yah, I trust the technology... not sure why that is a problem. For the most part, it just works.
The danger is getting a feel for the navi. It is not uncommon for it to yammer on about turning in a complex intersection - usually making you swerve at the last moment, and then swerve again because you (or the navi) made the wrong turn. Never forget that you are the PIC, even if you have no clue where you are. I'll joke with my wife that the navi is just trying to kill me, not get me lost.
I've left out about 20 lines because I don't want to give it away when I could advertise in on /. and sell it for $20,000 a pop.
Whew - my secret is safe.
No idea why this is news. I did something like this back in late 80's...
Another option is a blackberry. Not only will they give you the dev kit, but also a collection of emulators. Great if you are coding Java.
If they ship this only via steam, there will be no bargain bin like you see in the retail channels. I've been burned a few too many times when they charge an extra $30 for five to seven missions as an add on - at this point, I just wait for the add on to hit the cheap deals. Poke around on Steam's web site. You would be silly to buy the backlog of the titles, plus HL2, for $80 when you can pick up the entire anthology for $20 or less, plus whatever price you can get the full cut of HL2 for $20-30 at the store. If they go download only, there is very little chance they will hit that level.
The other bit is games tend to be way to short these days. C&C: Generals really needed the add-on pack, as did Warcraft 3, as did many others to feel like a 'real' top tier game. You get what, 7 missions per nation/race/etc, with the several being unit trainers? HL was worth every penny. Opposing Forces was ok and added a lot of fun to multiplayer. Blue shift left me feeling robbed. I waited on HL2 until it hit the bargain bin, and if not for Counter Strike, would have felt shorted had I paid full retail. (lord knows I'm still bitter about Doom3) The point being, while they may be honest - this bit is a mere chapter or so in a longer story - I really resent the current trend to shorten games to generate a better revenue flow and try to price it for optimum wallet extraction. Maybe it works... Won't with me. I won't give them $10 for each three hours of game play.