There's been some speculation that CenturyLink might step up to buy T-Mobile. They're the third largest telecommunications company in the US and the only major one without cellular service.
Speaking as a T-Mobile customer I've been ecstatic at the FCC's action here and I view the purchase of T-Mobile by almost anyone other than AT&T or Verizon with far less trepidation than I had previously. It would be nice if Deutsche Telekom changed their mind about the whole thing, that has been known to happen, but I can't really see a downside here.
Look past the rhetoric for a moment - 90% of the comments here are going to be pointing out that people don't buy Ubi games for other reasons, or that piracy doesn't account for lost sales to the degree that they're saying, or that this or that DRM is better. Just stop and think about what's going on for a moment: piracy is common on the PC. Prior to the internet it was an issue but not a showstopper, easy file distribution has made it much more pervasive. We can all agree, at least, that piracy is prevalent, whether or not you agree that it is a problem. We can also all agree, I hope, that piracy via internet distribution ignores software DRM, games are cracked and uploaded within hours. Only hardware DRM (consoles) has shown itself to be an effective deterrent.
Okay, so that's the setup. Now let's assume that management at Ubi is not stupid. It's hard, the impulse is to think that these people are being honest when they blame piracy for this sort of behavior - they just can't put together the above reasoning for themselves and if only someone would talk to them and show them that their draconian DRM isn't helping and is, in fact, driving away the vocal minority... No. They're not stupid, they know this. So now we have to speculate: what are they really doing?
One possibility is that while their DRM doesn't effect the bulk of people who do their pirating via the internet, it may deter the old style of piracy - passing the disc to your friend. That's the most generous interpretation that I can think of but it seems improbable, local piracy is a tiny fraction of the total. Another far more likely possibility is that it's there to keep you from giving the game to your friend or selling it used. A few high-ups in the industry have come out against used sales but that generates a lot of heat from the public, people get angry when you tell them what they can and can't do with their stuff, so piracy works as a convenient excuse to suppress the used games market. A third possibility is that they're styling themselves after Blizzard with Diablo 3: it's not about piracy or used sales, it's about controlling those people who purchased the game - ensuring an ongoing revenue stream through an in-game store by preventing them from installing mods or tampering with the market that they've set up.
Now, given all that, why are they taking their ball and going home? I'm guessing that they aren't. This is a publicity stunt and they'll be back to releasing PC games in the future, only they're hoping that by drawing attention to it in this way they'll get less flack for their DRM. People will point and say, "Well, at least we're getting something. Damn pirates forcing poor Ubisoft to use this horrible activation scheme." In other words they're not doing this because of piracy, they're doing this to try to convince us to accept their DRM.
I'm not trying to be overly negative but that article (yes, I read it) didn't seem to go anywhere. The author correctly points out that nothing is free and then... stops. No conclusion, no message, just one obvious statement and then nothing. Maybe he's trying to point out the need for reduced population growth? Maybe he's one of those "nothing works, so I'll do whatever I want" doomsayers? Maybe he's trying to encourage further energy research? I have no idea. The article just stopped.
Yeah, I don't see the problem with Android. I set up a separate Google account just for my phone, turned off syncing before inputting any personal information, and installed Droidwall to block third party software. I also, and this is taking things further than probably needed, bought a disposable pre-paid credit card for all of my Android market purchases.
A firewall is an absolutely necessary step if you intend to install anything on your phone. Almost everything in the Android marketplace seems to want internet access for no discernible reason, and I'm sure that the situation is no different with iOS - permissions just aren't visible there. This is so ubiquitous that I wouldn't even consider a smartphone platform at this point that didn't have some similar firewall available. Frustrating, because I really wanted a Nokia N9.
"antibiotics are a very temporary solution to aid humans in combating bacteria"
The problem is overuse - factory farming is unsustainable for this reason alone, but putting an end to high density meat production and doing a better job with limiting antibiotic use among humans would not only stop the development of antibiotic resistance, it would reverse the process. Evolution cuts both ways, bacteria may evolve a resistance to antibiotics but they give something up in the process. If you remove the stimulus then, given time, the process will reverse.
Of course, ending factory farming would mean more expensive meat (i.e. big government nanny-state), but more importantly would cut into the profits of a few certain companies. So DARPA comes up with this instead.
Every time something like this comes up there are always a bunch of people insisting that we do this or that for the survival of the species, and all I can say to that is: Why do you care about the species so much?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for biodiversity - I get upset every time I hear about a new species gone extinct, and it happens way more often than it should. I also don't particularly want to die myself, nor do I want my friends or family or that stranger on the other side of the world to die. I'll go way out of my way to prevent environmental contamination from effecting people who I will never meet, but the thought of the eventual extinction of humans doesn't wrest any more emotion out of me than the extinction of carrier pigeons. It would be another blow to biodiversity, one of many, and that's all. It's not as though having people out in space would make a plague or meteor strike or environmental collapse any less devastating.
Before you all get upset about this, consider that there's probably more to the story. The source is Commentary Magazine, whose headlines right now are:
"National Cost of “Occupation” to Top $12 Million"
"Toomey Offers Democrats a Way Out of Supercommittee Standoff"
"Warren Backs Away From OWS"
"Police Reportedly Slashed, Attacked With Liquid at OWS"
Etc. I don't know anything about this story myself, but I know enough by this point not to just believe people when they say something bad happened at the hands of "the Obama administration."
This is PETA. They're not exactly known for their rational thought processes.
PETA seems to be best known for the people who slander it. Every single time I read a story about animal abuse, whether it's related to PETA or not, there's someone in the comments talking about how many kitten heads they'll stomp on just to spite stupid PETA. Their real function seems to be as a lightning rod for hate - someone for people to point fingers at and blame every time environmental conservancy requires a sacrifice, and someone to get angry at whenever a genuine story of cruelty makes a person question some of the things that they've done their whole lives.
It's true that their PR could be better sometimes, but they are serving their function. Though it may not be glamorous, it's good that there's someone willing to step up and do it.
The cancer bit is a little weird, but their view on playing during preschool may not be so far off. Planet Money did a story on this a little while back:
The child-child interactions that they talk about in the story would presumably happen more often in a play environment than in one where they have to sit and pay attention. Also, anecdotally, what I recall of the actual lessons that I had during preschool and kindergarten is that they weren't terribly valuable. "What sound does a 'K' make?" etc.
That a EULA shouldn't carry the same weight, if any, that a real contract carries.
You are, doubtless, one of those people who has dedicated most of their lives to reading EULAs. That's admirable. For everyone else, they cause real problems - it's not possible to both keep up on what all they want you to agree to do, and get anything done. Even with a real contract in those instances where you actually do read the agreements and object to what they contain, it's often not possible to find a competing service without those clauses.
Just to give an example: let's say you'd like to open a bank account. You read the contract and figure you can live with it until you get to the bottom and see "Bank X reserves the right to change this contract at any time." So you move on the Bank Y and Bank Z and find that they have the same thing. What do you do now? Be the kook without a bank account? It's not going to work out for you.
This is where the idea came from that there are certain rights that can not be forfeited, no matter what you sign. This allows people to cope with everyday life without needing to worry too much about what the bad people are trying to do to them. Protections are weak in the United States, but consumer protection laws are pretty strong in some countries.
So Phystar acted on the theory that if they bought the software they should be able to use it how they want and not just how Apple wants them to. It's a reasonable assumption and it may have worked in another country, but not in the United States.
They're also made out of fat. Tons of fat - more than half a gram per chip. I agree with GP, the corn stuff and the pedantic use of the word nutrition came out of left field.
I'm seeing a lot of negativity in the comments so far, but with a low latency connection this would be terrific for strategy games or anything really that didn't require lightening reflexes. Reminder: the OnLive client is basically just a way to stream video, the games are all rendered on the servers, so if the client works then every game that OnLive offers would be available this way. No more booting into Windows to play King's Bounty. My own experience with OnLive was disappointingly unresponsive, but I've got my fingers crossed hard that that was simply my poor connection and not an insurmountable problem.
So why the hate for OnLive, where the equivalent service for movies and TV shows, Netflix, gets tons o' love? In addition to OnLive's all-you-can-eat service with a monthly fee, they also offer a BS option to purchase a lifetime subscription to individual games. This is, obviously, ridiculous. So rather than wasting our energy complaining about it, we ignore that part and recognize the positive for what it is.
Read the Ars article for an better explanation, but I'll quote the relevant bit here:
So how did these criticisms slip by the paper's initial reviewers? According to Wagner, the paper was reviewed by three investigators who are sympathetic to Spencer's views. This isn't unheard of, but it seems unlikely to be a matter of chance, given that those sympathetic to Spencer's views constitute a small minority of the climate sciences community. More probably, Spencer was informally given the chance to suggest people who would be qualified to review the material.
Or... anyone. Not everyone is a brilliant geologist like the GP, but most people know that the world isn't made out of concrete. Even people in New York, who are obviously all drooling morons. Thank you for pointing that out GP.
The last time tablets came up I pointed out that their success has been about marketing and Apple's momentum, not about any real utility. Got downrated for that.
Let's try again: I'm speaking from experience here. I have a Motion M1400 and have had it since it was released, about seven years ago. It's a tablet, running Windows XP Tablet Edition.
I was really enthusiastic when I got it, thinking of all the myriad possibilities that the new interface could provide. I was going to use it as a sketchbook and start drawing for totally serious this time. I was going to play games with it, think about RTS games with a stylus - how intuitive! What other clever ideas would people think up?
I was naturally excited at first, then I forced some enthusiasm when it stopped coming so readily. Eventually my tablet found the niche that current tablets seem to be settling into - light web browsing on the couch. The fact is, the crook of your arm is just an inconvenient place to do any serious computing. It hurts your neck if you do it too long.
I actually have gotten a fair bit of use out of my M1400, it is a real computer after all, capable of running anything. None of this "apps" crap. But I've wound up using it the most on a stand with a wireless keyboard, like a tiny desktop. The tablet functionality has mostly gone to waste.
I'm with Acer man - people are going to eventually come to realize that the shiny thing they've bought is just a toy. Some cheap versions will continue to sell, a couch web browser is useful after all, but the $500-$600 models that we've got now are not going to last. Especially with the Wii U coming next year, a vastly more capable machine that offers the same walled garden couch experience at half the price.
I set up Zimbra on a server for our office (small office, ~500 emails/day) with CentOS and haven't touched it for a year. No spam management (handled automatically), no excessive security (I use SELinux, for the record, which was a small pain during setup but is fine now), no issues at all.
One thing: Zimbra requires 2 GB of RAM, which is high for an email server. You must have this though, or it will run slow as dirt.
This is a little inflammatory, but I think Apple's dominance in tablets can be attributed to the fact that tablets have no real function. With the iPhone they had an innovative product, one worth copying, but people who buy iPads do so because they're Apple's new thing, not because they really need a laptop/cellphone hybrid that can't do as much as either one. So people who aren't Apple people, the market for non-Apple tablets, have no compelling reason to purchase one of these.
Re:Most economists think this isn't enough?
on
Debt Deal Reached
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· Score: 1
This was the whole point behind the stimulus money - an attempt to avert a worse recession through deficit spending. And, to an extent, it worked: the recession was easing until the stimulus money ran out. Hence the "double-dip" recession.
I don't see how cutting spending is better now than it would be later. The idea is that you go into debt in the bad times, to boost your economy, and then pay off the debt in the good times. Right now is the bad times. Granted, we don't have a good track record for paying back the debt later - the last time we had some money we ended up spending it (and then some) on enormous tax cuts rather than paying down the debt - but trying to pay it off now, when we're at our poorest, is only going to make a bad thing worse.
Slashdot Mirror
There's been some speculation that CenturyLink might step up to buy T-Mobile. They're the third largest telecommunications company in the US and the only major one without cellular service.
Speaking as a T-Mobile customer I've been ecstatic at the FCC's action here and I view the purchase of T-Mobile by almost anyone other than AT&T or Verizon with far less trepidation than I had previously. It would be nice if Deutsche Telekom changed their mind about the whole thing, that has been known to happen, but I can't really see a downside here.
Look past the rhetoric for a moment - 90% of the comments here are going to be pointing out that people don't buy Ubi games for other reasons, or that piracy doesn't account for lost sales to the degree that they're saying, or that this or that DRM is better. Just stop and think about what's going on for a moment: piracy is common on the PC. Prior to the internet it was an issue but not a showstopper, easy file distribution has made it much more pervasive. We can all agree, at least, that piracy is prevalent, whether or not you agree that it is a problem. We can also all agree, I hope, that piracy via internet distribution ignores software DRM, games are cracked and uploaded within hours. Only hardware DRM (consoles) has shown itself to be an effective deterrent.
Okay, so that's the setup. Now let's assume that management at Ubi is not stupid. It's hard, the impulse is to think that these people are being honest when they blame piracy for this sort of behavior - they just can't put together the above reasoning for themselves and if only someone would talk to them and show them that their draconian DRM isn't helping and is, in fact, driving away the vocal minority... No. They're not stupid, they know this. So now we have to speculate: what are they really doing?
One possibility is that while their DRM doesn't effect the bulk of people who do their pirating via the internet, it may deter the old style of piracy - passing the disc to your friend. That's the most generous interpretation that I can think of but it seems improbable, local piracy is a tiny fraction of the total. Another far more likely possibility is that it's there to keep you from giving the game to your friend or selling it used. A few high-ups in the industry have come out against used sales but that generates a lot of heat from the public, people get angry when you tell them what they can and can't do with their stuff, so piracy works as a convenient excuse to suppress the used games market. A third possibility is that they're styling themselves after Blizzard with Diablo 3: it's not about piracy or used sales, it's about controlling those people who purchased the game - ensuring an ongoing revenue stream through an in-game store by preventing them from installing mods or tampering with the market that they've set up.
Now, given all that, why are they taking their ball and going home? I'm guessing that they aren't. This is a publicity stunt and they'll be back to releasing PC games in the future, only they're hoping that by drawing attention to it in this way they'll get less flack for their DRM. People will point and say, "Well, at least we're getting something. Damn pirates forcing poor Ubisoft to use this horrible activation scheme." In other words they're not doing this because of piracy, they're doing this to try to convince us to accept their DRM.
I'm not trying to be overly negative but that article (yes, I read it) didn't seem to go anywhere. The author correctly points out that nothing is free and then... stops. No conclusion, no message, just one obvious statement and then nothing. Maybe he's trying to point out the need for reduced population growth? Maybe he's one of those "nothing works, so I'll do whatever I want" doomsayers? Maybe he's trying to encourage further energy research? I have no idea. The article just stopped.
Red phosphorus isn't particularly dangerous. Some of the list 2 chemicals really pop out though - acetone? Hydrochloric acid? That's nuts.
Yeah, I don't see the problem with Android. I set up a separate Google account just for my phone, turned off syncing before inputting any personal information, and installed Droidwall to block third party software. I also, and this is taking things further than probably needed, bought a disposable pre-paid credit card for all of my Android market purchases.
A firewall is an absolutely necessary step if you intend to install anything on your phone. Almost everything in the Android marketplace seems to want internet access for no discernible reason, and I'm sure that the situation is no different with iOS - permissions just aren't visible there. This is so ubiquitous that I wouldn't even consider a smartphone platform at this point that didn't have some similar firewall available. Frustrating, because I really wanted a Nokia N9.
"antibiotics are a very temporary solution to aid humans in combating bacteria"
The problem is overuse - factory farming is unsustainable for this reason alone, but putting an end to high density meat production and doing a better job with limiting antibiotic use among humans would not only stop the development of antibiotic resistance, it would reverse the process. Evolution cuts both ways, bacteria may evolve a resistance to antibiotics but they give something up in the process. If you remove the stimulus then, given time, the process will reverse.
Of course, ending factory farming would mean more expensive meat (i.e. big government nanny-state), but more importantly would cut into the profits of a few certain companies. So DARPA comes up with this instead.
Every time something like this comes up there are always a bunch of people insisting that we do this or that for the survival of the species, and all I can say to that is: Why do you care about the species so much?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for biodiversity - I get upset every time I hear about a new species gone extinct, and it happens way more often than it should. I also don't particularly want to die myself, nor do I want my friends or family or that stranger on the other side of the world to die. I'll go way out of my way to prevent environmental contamination from effecting people who I will never meet, but the thought of the eventual extinction of humans doesn't wrest any more emotion out of me than the extinction of carrier pigeons. It would be another blow to biodiversity, one of many, and that's all. It's not as though having people out in space would make a plague or meteor strike or environmental collapse any less devastating.
Before you all get upset about this, consider that there's probably more to the story. The source is Commentary Magazine, whose headlines right now are:
"National Cost of “Occupation” to Top $12 Million"
"Toomey Offers Democrats a Way Out of Supercommittee Standoff"
"Warren Backs Away From OWS"
"Police Reportedly Slashed, Attacked With Liquid at OWS"
Etc. I don't know anything about this story myself, but I know enough by this point not to just believe people when they say something bad happened at the hands of "the Obama administration."
"30,000-pound bombs... nearly five tons heavier than the 22,600-pound GBU-43 MOAB surface bomb"
Come on, what? You couldn't say "nearly four tons heavier"? Had to go the extra mile?
I've never seen so much negative press directed at a group of Americans exercising their first amendment rights.
Have a look at the comments in yesterday's story about PETA. Or any story about PETA.
This is PETA. They're not exactly known for their rational thought processes.
PETA seems to be best known for the people who slander it. Every single time I read a story about animal abuse, whether it's related to PETA or not, there's someone in the comments talking about how many kitten heads they'll stomp on just to spite stupid PETA. Their real function seems to be as a lightning rod for hate - someone for people to point fingers at and blame every time environmental conservancy requires a sacrifice, and someone to get angry at whenever a genuine story of cruelty makes a person question some of the things that they've done their whole lives.
It's true that their PR could be better sometimes, but they are serving their function. Though it may not be glamorous, it's good that there's someone willing to step up and do it.
Why do you think it's so easy to leave?
The cancer bit is a little weird, but their view on playing during preschool may not be so far off. Planet Money did a story on this a little while back:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/06/13/137109349/the-friday-podcast-the-case-for-preschool
The child-child interactions that they talk about in the story would presumably happen more often in a play environment than in one where they have to sit and pay attention. Also, anecdotally, what I recall of the actual lessons that I had during preschool and kindergarten is that they weren't terribly valuable. "What sound does a 'K' make?" etc.
That a EULA shouldn't carry the same weight, if any, that a real contract carries.
You are, doubtless, one of those people who has dedicated most of their lives to reading EULAs. That's admirable. For everyone else, they cause real problems - it's not possible to both keep up on what all they want you to agree to do, and get anything done. Even with a real contract in those instances where you actually do read the agreements and object to what they contain, it's often not possible to find a competing service without those clauses.
Just to give an example: let's say you'd like to open a bank account. You read the contract and figure you can live with it until you get to the bottom and see "Bank X reserves the right to change this contract at any time." So you move on the Bank Y and Bank Z and find that they have the same thing. What do you do now? Be the kook without a bank account? It's not going to work out for you.
This is where the idea came from that there are certain rights that can not be forfeited, no matter what you sign. This allows people to cope with everyday life without needing to worry too much about what the bad people are trying to do to them. Protections are weak in the United States, but consumer protection laws are pretty strong in some countries.
So Phystar acted on the theory that if they bought the software they should be able to use it how they want and not just how Apple wants them to. It's a reasonable assumption and it may have worked in another country, but not in the United States.
Both companies? Have Mojang's lawyers done something untoward as well?
They're also made out of fat. Tons of fat - more than half a gram per chip. I agree with GP, the corn stuff and the pedantic use of the word nutrition came out of left field.
I'm seeing a lot of negativity in the comments so far, but with a low latency connection this would be terrific for strategy games or anything really that didn't require lightening reflexes. Reminder: the OnLive client is basically just a way to stream video, the games are all rendered on the servers, so if the client works then every game that OnLive offers would be available this way. No more booting into Windows to play King's Bounty. My own experience with OnLive was disappointingly unresponsive, but I've got my fingers crossed hard that that was simply my poor connection and not an insurmountable problem.
So why the hate for OnLive, where the equivalent service for movies and TV shows, Netflix, gets tons o' love? In addition to OnLive's all-you-can-eat service with a monthly fee, they also offer a BS option to purchase a lifetime subscription to individual games. This is, obviously, ridiculous. So rather than wasting our energy complaining about it, we ignore that part and recognize the positive for what it is.
Read the Ars article for an better explanation, but I'll quote the relevant bit here:
So how did these criticisms slip by the paper's initial reviewers? According to Wagner, the paper was reviewed by three investigators who are sympathetic to Spencer's views. This isn't unheard of, but it seems unlikely to be a matter of chance, given that those sympathetic to Spencer's views constitute a small minority of the climate sciences community. More probably, Spencer was informally given the chance to suggest people who would be qualified to review the material.
*snip*(despite what New Yorkers think)*snip*
Talk to someone upstate
Or... anyone. Not everyone is a brilliant geologist like the GP, but most people know that the world isn't made out of concrete. Even people in New York, who are obviously all drooling morons. Thank you for pointing that out GP.
The last time tablets came up I pointed out that their success has been about marketing and Apple's momentum, not about any real utility. Got downrated for that. Let's try again: I'm speaking from experience here. I have a Motion M1400 and have had it since it was released, about seven years ago. It's a tablet, running Windows XP Tablet Edition. I was really enthusiastic when I got it, thinking of all the myriad possibilities that the new interface could provide. I was going to use it as a sketchbook and start drawing for totally serious this time. I was going to play games with it, think about RTS games with a stylus - how intuitive! What other clever ideas would people think up? I was naturally excited at first, then I forced some enthusiasm when it stopped coming so readily. Eventually my tablet found the niche that current tablets seem to be settling into - light web browsing on the couch. The fact is, the crook of your arm is just an inconvenient place to do any serious computing. It hurts your neck if you do it too long. I actually have gotten a fair bit of use out of my M1400, it is a real computer after all, capable of running anything. None of this "apps" crap. But I've wound up using it the most on a stand with a wireless keyboard, like a tiny desktop. The tablet functionality has mostly gone to waste. I'm with Acer man - people are going to eventually come to realize that the shiny thing they've bought is just a toy. Some cheap versions will continue to sell, a couch web browser is useful after all, but the $500-$600 models that we've got now are not going to last. Especially with the Wii U coming next year, a vastly more capable machine that offers the same walled garden couch experience at half the price.
most of us are agnostic
Pff. I don't believe in agnostics.
It's an old meme, but never more appropriate than here.
I set up Zimbra on a server for our office (small office, ~500 emails/day) with CentOS and haven't touched it for a year. No spam management (handled automatically), no excessive security (I use SELinux, for the record, which was a small pain during setup but is fine now), no issues at all.
One thing: Zimbra requires 2 GB of RAM, which is high for an email server. You must have this though, or it will run slow as dirt.
This is a little inflammatory, but I think Apple's dominance in tablets can be attributed to the fact that tablets have no real function. With the iPhone they had an innovative product, one worth copying, but people who buy iPads do so because they're Apple's new thing, not because they really need a laptop/cellphone hybrid that can't do as much as either one. So people who aren't Apple people, the market for non-Apple tablets, have no compelling reason to purchase one of these.
This was the whole point behind the stimulus money - an attempt to avert a worse recession through deficit spending. And, to an extent, it worked: the recession was easing until the stimulus money ran out. Hence the "double-dip" recession.
I don't see how cutting spending is better now than it would be later. The idea is that you go into debt in the bad times, to boost your economy, and then pay off the debt in the good times. Right now is the bad times. Granted, we don't have a good track record for paying back the debt later - the last time we had some money we ended up spending it (and then some) on enormous tax cuts rather than paying down the debt - but trying to pay it off now, when we're at our poorest, is only going to make a bad thing worse.