If it means I can get DirecTV feeds and QAM via CableCard into my computer, I'll put up with it. I don't own a modern PC -- I have a cobbled together six year old system running MCE 2005 I got from my MSDN account just to see how it works with my 360. Very well, I have to say.
From the standpoint of someone who ran Linux as his primary desktop OS since 1992/1993 (until switching to OSX), I still just don't care. DRM sucks. But I am neither in a place to do anything about it, nor do I have enough free time to worry about that. If it means I can't load software that has the primary purpose of stealing media content (regardless of the BS the people who make excuses spout), so be it. At least I'll be able to watch TV once in a while without being subjected to the crap Comcast and DirecTV offer right now.
Its been available period for some time.
on
IE7 Leaked
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· Score: 2, Informative
Its not a big deal, its been available to MSDN members for quite a while. I haven't updated this machine in a month or more and IE on here shows 7.0.5112.0 (Vista Beta 1 5112)
Unless of course the other half of climatologists are right and global warming shuts down the north atlantic current and "buried under ice" is what they get instead of "hot and dry".
You haven't been in very many race cars then. Most sanctioning bodies explicitly disallow them, as they can be dangerous in a crash if the unclipped buckle hits you.
And where harnesses are concerned, as far as I know there is only one >3 pt harness that is legal to operate on the public roads and FIA-legal in the US, because a DOT legal restraint must have a push-button release and not a camlock and FIA hasn't approved any other 3" harnesses with push button releases.
Not to get off the topic here, but its funny when I see people complaining about the product activation in XP and how it only impacts legitimate users of the software.
With the huge amount of time and effort it takes to make internal hardware changes to a computer such that it needs to be re-activated (ie, searching for drivers, rebooting 50 times in safe mode when the XP drivers aren't right, etc), the five minutes it takes to re-activate Windows seems pretty minor.
Your statement also suggests that illegitimate users all know how to bypass it -- and I would argue that is, in fact, not the case. Technically knowledgable people stealing Windows can do it pretty easily, but it IS effective in preventing counterfeit or duplicate versions being in installed on white-box systems out of dinky shops, and prevents casual breaching of the license ("I got this new computer with XP, and I'm going to install it on my old one so I can use it as a file server")
Its a sign of how biased Slashdot, and how bizarre someone from MS would waste time on this audience that your dig was moderated +5 insightful and not troll.
Its also a sign, since this one will likely be modded "off-topic" and "troll".
Mine too, which is why it was a good analogy, only most of the time my turn signals don't, in fact, work, I don't have seatbelts, just the harnesses and by any reasonable estimate it probably shouldn't be street legal.
Its always good to know the right inspection shops...
Thats a bad analogy. Its more like buying a race car and deciding you really want to have turn signals, seat belts, emergency brake and other stuff you need to drive your vehicle once in a while on the same roads everyone else is on.
Well look at it this way. We have all that technology now, and yet a quarter of the world is still starving.
Will the rich of the world be able to solve the problem and adapt? Perhaps, although some of the people in places that will be unlivable have nukes, so who knows...
When resources become scarce, you better believe the amount of humanitarian aid is going to go down. Instead of a billion starving, there'll be four billion dead, wars as two or three billion are displaced, and a billion people will be living just fine.
When 2/3 of the current food-producing land in the world no longer can produce food, I think the billions who starve to death may beg to differ about "feel[ing] the pinch", but that might just be me. After all I was miserable in my last meeting because it went a half hour into lunch and I was starving.
Thats nothing, my CURRENT car has none of that, 150-160hp and the engine is largely behind the rear wheels! Its got so little electronics all its got is a 35 amp alternator.
What the US needs to do is enforce driving laws like the rest of the world -- where that driver is appropriately deemed a hazard and ticketed at a rate far higher than a speeder would've.
Re:Big Brother and the iTunes Company
on
iTunes is Malware?
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· Score: 4, Informative
And I've always suspected my local grocery store of profiling me. Afterall, I hand them a little tag on my keychain for my discount, they scan it and suddenly my name is on the reciept. I'd be naive to think they aren't generating statistics about me and secretly making note that I buy far more long grain wild rice than the average consumer.
Suspected? Secretly? They make no secret about it. What do you think those cards are for? They offer you discounts in return for your demographic information and purchasing habits. They print coupons after your sale based on it too. Its not some grand secret conspiracy.
Actually the original reason was because films tended to have staggered releases. A film print costs a LOT of money (low to mid-five figures per copy, once you factor in transportation expenses). Unless something is guaranteed to be a blockbuster, they tend to recycle prints as well as use the time and profits from the initial release to pay for and print additional copies for other staggered releases.
In some cases, DVDs come out in their first market while the movie is still in the theater in secondary markets. Region encoding was intended to prevent someone in Europe from buying a US DVD before the movie was released there.
That is exactly my thought -- Apple likely has lost a pretty lucrative customer, considering the number of people who switched after I did (including a possibility my parents may still...) because of these problems.
To the grandparents question, I didn't bring the system to the Apple store because it was quite a bit out of my way, but I called and asked them about it and they did not mention anything like that.
Annoying... but I'll have to stop in next weekend and see. That may sway my opinion on them if thats in fact the case.
No its a known issue with quite a few iBooks, and Apple covered a very limited subset of those for a period of time that is now over.
Apple has had a very serious problem with iBook logic boards for years now, a problem that continues to current G4 models, and they DO NOT stand behind their products. In their race to get price competitive, quality has gone down the toilet. Sure you can get a G4 iBook for $999, instead of $1399, but you'll wish you bought the $400 AppleCare on it.
When one system after another fails with the same small set of symptoms, there's a real problem there. And they choose to price the replacement parts high enough that its cheaper to buy a new system. (Seriously, last I looked it was almost $800 for a new replacement logic board for my 800mhz G4 iBook... I could buy a new one for that, and it doesn't cover labor!)
Slashdot Mirror
If it means I can get DirecTV feeds and QAM via CableCard into my computer, I'll put up with it. I don't own a modern PC -- I have a cobbled together six year old system running MCE 2005 I got from my MSDN account just to see how it works with my 360. Very well, I have to say.
From the standpoint of someone who ran Linux as his primary desktop OS since 1992/1993 (until switching to OSX), I still just don't care. DRM sucks. But I am neither in a place to do anything about it, nor do I have enough free time to worry about that. If it means I can't load software that has the primary purpose of stealing media content (regardless of the BS the people who make excuses spout), so be it. At least I'll be able to watch TV once in a while without being subjected to the crap Comcast and DirecTV offer right now.
Its not a big deal, its been available to MSDN members for quite a while. I haven't updated this machine in a month or more and IE on here shows 7.0.5112.0 (Vista Beta 1 5112)
First thing I thought was "Does Kate Beckinsale come with 'em?"
Then I realized you were talking about things that grow on rocks.
Man, I'm a nerd. A horny one, at that.
Unless of course the other half of climatologists are right and global warming shuts down the north atlantic current and "buried under ice" is what they get instead of "hot and dry".
You haven't been in very many race cars then. Most sanctioning bodies explicitly disallow them, as they can be dangerous in a crash if the unclipped buckle hits you.
And where harnesses are concerned, as far as I know there is only one >3 pt harness that is legal to operate on the public roads and FIA-legal in the US, because a DOT legal restraint must have a push-button release and not a camlock and FIA hasn't approved any other 3" harnesses with push button releases.
Classic 911 with a race-spec engine.
Thankfully emissions exempt!
Not to get off the topic here, but its funny when I see people complaining about the product activation in XP and how it only impacts legitimate users of the software.
With the huge amount of time and effort it takes to make internal hardware changes to a computer such that it needs to be re-activated (ie, searching for drivers, rebooting 50 times in safe mode when the XP drivers aren't right, etc), the five minutes it takes to re-activate Windows seems pretty minor.
Your statement also suggests that illegitimate users all know how to bypass it -- and I would argue that is, in fact, not the case. Technically knowledgable people stealing Windows can do it pretty easily, but it IS effective in preventing counterfeit or duplicate versions being in installed on white-box systems out of dinky shops, and prevents casual breaching of the license ("I got this new computer with XP, and I'm going to install it on my old one so I can use it as a file server")
Its a sign of how biased Slashdot, and how bizarre someone from MS would waste time on this audience that your dig was moderated +5 insightful and not troll.
Its also a sign, since this one will likely be modded "off-topic" and "troll".
Heh, my car wouldn't smog fine. No cats, and runs so rich I blow flames out the exhaust when I upshift.
Mine too, which is why it was a good analogy, only most of the time my turn signals don't, in fact, work, I don't have seatbelts, just the harnesses and by any reasonable estimate it probably shouldn't be street legal.
Its always good to know the right inspection shops...
Thats a bad analogy. Its more like buying a race car and deciding you really want to have turn signals, seat belts, emergency brake and other stuff you need to drive your vehicle once in a while on the same roads everyone else is on.
Personally I'm going to try to be an ice pirate if I can avoid getting the space herpies.
Well look at it this way. We have all that technology now, and yet a quarter of the world is still starving.
Will the rich of the world be able to solve the problem and adapt? Perhaps, although some of the people in places that will be unlivable have nukes, so who knows...
When resources become scarce, you better believe the amount of humanitarian aid is going to go down. Instead of a billion starving, there'll be four billion dead, wars as two or three billion are displaced, and a billion people will be living just fine.
When 2/3 of the current food-producing land in the world no longer can produce food, I think the billions who starve to death may beg to differ about "feel[ing] the pinch", but that might just be me. After all I was miserable in my last meeting because it went a half hour into lunch and I was starving.
'68
Thats nothing, my CURRENT car has none of that, 150-160hp and the engine is largely behind the rear wheels! Its got so little electronics all its got is a 35 amp alternator.
What the US needs to do is enforce driving laws like the rest of the world -- where that driver is appropriately deemed a hazard and ticketed at a rate far higher than a speeder would've.
And I've always suspected my local grocery store of profiling me. Afterall, I hand them a little tag on my keychain for my discount, they scan it and suddenly my name is on the reciept. I'd be naive to think they aren't generating statistics about me and secretly making note that I buy far more long grain wild rice than the average consumer.
Suspected? Secretly? They make no secret about it. What do you think those cards are for? They offer you discounts in return for your demographic information and purchasing habits. They print coupons after your sale based on it too. Its not some grand secret conspiracy.
Actually the original reason was because films tended to have staggered releases. A film print costs a LOT of money (low to mid-five figures per copy, once you factor in transportation expenses). Unless something is guaranteed to be a blockbuster, they tend to recycle prints as well as use the time and profits from the initial release to pay for and print additional copies for other staggered releases.
In some cases, DVDs come out in their first market while the movie is still in the theater in secondary markets. Region encoding was intended to prevent someone in Europe from buying a US DVD before the movie was released there.
you're the young'in
*blank stare*
Um...
Hmmmm... Cable.... Cards.... Cable... Cards... Cable..Cards.. Cable.Cards.
CableCards?
I wonder why the word Cable would be in there?
And no, they won't ever support CableCards
Most do, if not all, but it sometimes takes a few calls to the cable company to get someone who a) knows they do and b) knows how to get it for you.
I've had one for over a year in my TV.
Okay, I know 99% of you are thinking this but didn't want to be the one to say it, so I'll take the hit for the team:
WTF are you talking about? I don't get it.
That is exactly my thought -- Apple likely has lost a pretty lucrative customer, considering the number of people who switched after I did (including a possibility my parents may still...) because of these problems.
To the grandparents question, I didn't bring the system to the Apple store because it was quite a bit out of my way, but I called and asked them about it and they did not mention anything like that.
Annoying... but I'll have to stop in next weekend and see. That may sway my opinion on them if thats in fact the case.
No its a known issue with quite a few iBooks, and Apple covered a very limited subset of those for a period of time that is now over.
Apple has had a very serious problem with iBook logic boards for years now, a problem that continues to current G4 models, and they DO NOT stand behind their products. In their race to get price competitive, quality has gone down the toilet. Sure you can get a G4 iBook for $999, instead of $1399, but you'll wish you bought the $400 AppleCare on it.
When one system after another fails with the same small set of symptoms, there's a real problem there. And they choose to price the replacement parts high enough that its cheaper to buy a new system. (Seriously, last I looked it was almost $800 for a new replacement logic board for my 800mhz G4 iBook... I could buy a new one for that, and it doesn't cover labor!)