I've got a nice little swiss army knife I carry around everywhere...
The blade is a little on the short side, but it's plenty sharp. It's also got scissors that are again small but incredibly sharp. They'll cut through zip ties, most plastic packaging, and even CAT5. It's got a flat screwdriver, and a flashlight, and even a USB memory stick.
After an hour? No. After 12 hours a day, 5 days a week? Yes. If I've been sitting in front of a computer screen for several hours and close my eyes I can feel the muscles unwinding. It's not something I'm conciously away of until I look away from the screen, but the muscles of and around my eyes are constantly tense when reading off a monitor.
Visit an eye doctor / optometrist please. Seriously. People with healthy eyes don't have that problem.
It's called eye strain and it's a real thing. When you focus on relatively small and close things, like text, the muscles around your eyes tighten. Any muscle, when worked for long periods of time, tires out. This doesn't mean you've got some horrible disease. It isn't a sign of impending blindness, or glaucoma, or a cataract. It's just muscle fatigue.
Sure, yes, random problems with your eyes can be indicative of something bigger... But if you spend all day long helping your friends move and wake up the next morning to find that your muscles ache it probably isn't a symptom of some horrible disease - it's just muscle fatigue. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now, cue the jackasses thinking they did the right thing. I'll cut out my kidney with a disposable drinking straw if anyone can reasonably argue this as ethical.
They were just thinking about all the folks stuck behind a crappy dial-up connection who wanted to be able to get the DLC too...
You mean the LCD's I read off of 10 hours a day at work are completely unacceptable for reading now?
Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinions and preferences and whatever else... And there's certainly room for individual variation in how your eyes perform at different tasks...
But, from what I've seen, most of the folks who claim that they're reading for 10 hours a day at work, aren't actually reading for 10 hours a day at work.
If you actually look at their workflow, it doesn't generally involve staring at a screen containing nothing but text for a full 10 hours. Usually it involves looking at a screen running some kind of GUI that contains text elements. Usually it involves navigating through that GUI in order to display different text elements. Normally it involves looking at various images and diagrams in addition to text. Normally it involves periodic breaks to type or click buttons or answer the phone or speak with a co-worker or whatever.
Which is actually pretty similar to what my workflow looks like. And in the average day I don't have any problem working off my LCD at work for 10 hours either. But that's a very different experience from when I'm curled up with a good book and reading for fun.
When I'm reading for fun I'll attempt to remove as many distractions as possible. I will, hopefully, not be distracted from my book for many hours. I might very well spend 10 hours staring at text.
I've been reading ebooks on various devices for years now. First a Handspring Visor... Then a Palm PDA... Then an assortment of netbooks and laptops and desktop computers... And now I'm reading them on a nook...
And I'll tell you right now that when I wind up reading something engaging - literally staring at text for multiple hours with no distractions - on an LCD I definitely experience eyestrain. There have been days when I wound up doing literally what you suggest in your post - staring at text for 10 hours straight - and by the time I get home in the evening my eyes basically refuse to focus. It becomes impossible to read much of anything.
No, I don't have some kind of degenerative eye disease... It's just eye strain, nothing more. And it can happen reading off of paper or watching TV or anything else. It just so happens that for me an LCD causes more strain than printed paper, or an e-ink display.
Now, I'm not going to call you a liar simply because I disagree with you...
And I personally agree that the Kindle has a less-than-wonderful display - which is why I bought a nook, which has better contrast in my opinion.
But I suspect that you don't spend quite as much time staring at text on a screen as you suggested in your post.
Am I the only one who *doesn't* get eye-strain reading text on LCD's hour after hour ?
I'm beginning to wonder whether the difference is actually Mac vs PC and the font rendering [codinghorror.com] technologies. I use a Mac all day, reading text on LCDs, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Perhaps it's because the fonts look nicer (yeah, I know, it's an opinion, not a fact) to my eye on the Mac. I've lost count of the number of times I've spent days poring over PDFs and somehow managed to not notice this 'eye strain' that LCDs apparently cause. I actually *prefer* to read documents on the screen rather than printed out on paper...
Well, I guess YMMV and all that...
I personally spend a good amount of my day reading text on an LCD. But it isn't the same as reading a novel recreationally.
When I'm reading stuff at work I'm not generally staring at pure text on an LCD for hours at a time. I'm generally being interrupted by phone calls... Or having to answer an IM or an email... Or I'm switching between multiple documents... Or I'll be navigating through something's GUI... Or a co-worker will stop by to ask a question...
Normally none of that generates any eyestrain. I've got plenty of chances throughout the day to let my eyes rest and refocus and whatever they need to do.
When I'm reading recreationally, however, it isn't unusual to get completely sucked in to a good book. Hours can go by without my notice. I will literally be staring at text for hours at a time - no interruptions, no breaks, no rest for my eyes.
This can cause me eyestrain.
I have been reading ebooks for probably a decade now. I started out with an old Handspring Visor... Then moved on to a Palm PDA... I've spent a couple years reading ebooks on laptops and netbooks and desktop computers... And have just recently purchased a nook...
The LCDs have all been harder to read for extended periods of time. The nook, however, doesn't bother me any more than paper does.
I'm also pretty convinced I'd get a lot more wound up over the slow refresh of the e-ink displays than the supposed eyestrain from LCDs...
Lots of folks say this. From my experience, the delay is no different than the delay in turning a page in a paper book. It isn't any more jarring or distracting or time-consuming or derailing or anything else. There's just a momentary pause in your reading as you turn the page - just like if it were a paper book.
If the books were cheaper on the readers by a good amount than what you pay for the paper versions people might jump
Unlikely.
Many titles are already cheaper in ebook format than printed paper. And there are tons of places where I can get my hands on free ebooks.
But folks aren't paying $400 for ebook readers because they're too cheap to pay $8 for a paperback.
The killer app for ebook readers is portability. Yes, a single paperback novel is wonderfully portable... But a multi-volume encyclopedia is much less so... Or a hardcover novel. Or an entire bookshelf full of random novels and stories.
That's just it though...the only reason why it is such a niche product is because they are prohibitively expensive.
No it isn't.
Fine, you think $300 is too much for an ebook reader. You'd run out and buy one tomorrow if they were just $150. That's fine. Some other people would buy them at the lower price too. But you need to realize than an overwhelming number of people will never buy an ebook reader.
Not because they don't like ebooks... Or have some problem with DRM... Or they prefer the smell of old paper... There are tons of people out there who will never read a book for entertainment. Ever.
Reading for entertainment, novels in general, are a niche product.
Ebook readers are a niche within a niche.
Lowering the price will make them more affordable... But it isn't going to dramatically increase the number of people actually willing to read a book.
A few years ago I saw a demonstration by Philips on TV of a bendable e-ink screen. I think bendability is more important than colour. If the screen is bendable it can behave more like a real book.
I'm not sure how much I care about the ability to bend my books.
Yes, paper bends... As I turn a page it bends... But bendability isn't really something fundamental to the function of a book. A book's primary purpose is the display of information.
I mean... Is a magazine somehow better than a 500 page novel just because it's more bendable?
Are hardcover books somehow inferior to paperbacks, simply because they're less bendable?
I have a nook, and I read plenty of books on it. And I have never, ever found myself thinking you know what would make this ereader perfect? If I could just bend it...
Why? Well I'd like to see telco's held to their promised speeds as much as possible. If you are going to advertise one speed but only deliver a lower one, that's false advertising (or something).
This is why I ran their test and submitted the results.
If you go by my ISP's advertising you'll see they're offering 10 Mbps in my area. What you won't see is that regardless of which plan you sign up for, you're lucky if you can actually get 3 Mbps.
So, by running their test, they've got something more accurate than what the ISPs will tell them.
In Louisville KY, the city is considering banning trans fat in restaurants. This just seems crazy.
Good.
Trans-fat is horrible, nasty, awful stuff. The only reason to use trans-fat instead of good ol' animal fat is price. Trans-fat is cheaper to use. It's also absolutely horrible for your body.
Any recipe you're making with trans-fat now can easily be modified to use good ol' regular fats and shortenings. There is literally no need for trans-fat in your diet.
Of course, if you as a little guy always want to get fucked over by the big guys.
Nobody is forcing you to develop anything for any platform. If you want to develop for the iPhone, you can, but you have to agree to Apple's terms. You don't like their terms? You don't get to develop for the iPhone. Well, at least not through the official channels.
It's Apple's phone. They don't have to allow anyone to develop for it. They could keep it a completely closed platform with no 3rd party apps at all if they wanted to. That's their choice to make, not yours (barring jailbreaks/cracks/whatever). Obviously some people don't like such a closed platform... And it will affect their sales... But that's something Apple needs to weigh when making their policies.
Just to let people know, Blizzard also allows for unlimited downloading of the Windows and OS X version of any game you have ever purchased. Even if you bought the game in a store you can still register the CD key online at battle.net and it will be available to download in the future.
Very cool. I did not know this.
Not that it really matters to me, as I have no Mac...
I am aware that Steam contains DRM. It also contains social networking stuff and marketplace stuff and server browser stuff and whatever else.
When Steam goes down, you can't play your games... not even when you're offline. Just last week there was an outage that made all Steam games unplayable for an entire evening.
Obviously, no system is perfect. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying to you.
I have no experienced any problems with Steam. Certainly nothing like the problems I've experienced with some other forms of DRM. Specifically, I've never had any trouble playing a Steam game offline, unless it was in trying to access some on-line component of a game. As far as the outage last week... I personally played games on Steam just about every night last week, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.
And many games you buy on Steam will install additional DRM alongside Steam.
So far, none of the games I've purchased on Steam have included any additional DRM. But, yes, a publisher can certainly include whatever they want.
Valve is making some awesome PC games, at good prices, and with a good delivery platform. But don't forget that this all comes at the cost of some nasty DRM which is nearly as bad as the recent Ubisoft fiasco.
I fail to see how a DRM package that allows me to play games offline is nearly as bad as a DRM package that renders your single-player game completely unusable if your Internet goes down. Never mind the fact that I can download and re-install my Steam games as many times as I want... And I can burn backup copies of my games... And install them on as many different computers as I want...
Steam is one of the biggest DRM lock-in distribution systems ever invented.
That doesn't make it good or bad, but are you sure you know what you're talking about here?
I own a number of Steam games.
I also own Overlord for the PC, and not the Steam version.
Which means I know very well what I'm talking about.
Yes, Steam is just another DRM platform... But I can download & install my Steam games on as many different computers as I want to. The only restriction is that I have to enter my username & password to play... Which means I can't be playing on two different computers simultaneously. Steam even lets me burn backup discs so I don't have to download everything again.
Overlord, on the other hand, only allowed a very small number of installations. After I had installed it three times it refused to work. I call technical support and they explained that it was a copy protection mechanism and there was absolutely no reason why I could possibly have needed to re-install the game that many times. Granted, it's a little unusual to re-install a game four total times in a matter of weeks... But that's what happens when you're building a brand new computer, messing around with an OS install, breaking drivers, and things like that.
Ultimately their suggestion was that I should go buy a new copy of the game. I'm sure I could have argued further and gotten through to some supervisor or something like that... I probably could have convinced someone to unlock my game... But I was just too angry to bother. I haven't tried to re-install the game since then.
and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions.
In an age where publishers are doing everything in their power to tie your hands when it comes to their software, this simply amazes me.
We've got publishers who user DRM that renders a game useless after a half-dozen installs... And valve is going to let you run your games on two entirely different platforms?! Not two different computers... But wholly different platforms. Amazing.
What I don't get is, why doesn't Kenya and all these other 3rd world countries build a real sewer system?
That's kind of like asking why doesn't the USA build a telecommunication system.
There's certainly room for government direction, funding, and oversight... But you aren't talking about a single place where you have to lay a few pipes. We're talking about an assortment of cities, towns, and villages... Each with their own local governments... Each with their own unique geography...
I'm sure some places in Kenya have a sewer system. But I'll tell you right now there are places in the USA that don't have a sewer system yet.
It's not rocket science; the Romans did it over 2000 years ago using nothing but hand tools, rocks and some volcanic cement. Yes it was labor intensive, but AFAIK labor shortage isn't a problem in most 3rd world countries, is it?
Neither labor nor know-how are generally the problem.
Generally the problem is a lack of funds and/or interest to build and maintain the system.
Imagine trying to convince someone in rural Minnesota, who's never owned a computer or done anything on the Internet, that they really ought to chip in some money with their neighbors to run a big ol' fiber-optic cable out to their town; so that they can all have blazing fast Internet connections.
Besides they should be able to get access to some heavy diesel equipment on loan through UNICEF or World Bank or some such organization.
Generally speaking, more debt is the last thing these countries need.
It's hardly going to "save the world".
Public sanitation, or lack there-of, is a huge issue - everywhere.
Contaminated water is a fantastic way to transmit disease.
One of the first concerns after any major disaster is to establish a supply of clean water. That's why you always see the huge crates of bottled water, and the tanker trucks, and everything else.
If you can contain and/or properly treat this human waste, instead of leaving it to contaminate the water and spread disease, you are certainly taking steps in the right direction.
Ok, so please inform us how you would had hardened their systems against the DDoS if there was one.
I've never worked on a system of that scale... So I really can't tell you how I would have hardened their systems against DDoS. I suspect you can't either.
But, back to the original question: Does it really matter?
To a very large degree, it is irrelevant whether it is a DDoS or not. Certainly, a DDoS implies malicious intent, likely on the part of some crackers trying to make a point...
But either way the servers are down and people can't play.
It wouldn't be any different if some patch had gone bad and hosed the servers themselves, or if the Internet at Ubisoft had gone bad, or if there'd been a fire, or a lightning strike, or a power outage.
The fact of the matter is that Ubisoft built a game that requires a constant Internet connection in order to play, and obviously did not contemplate the ramifications of their actions.
The Internet is unreliable at best. Sure, generally speaking your packets get where they're going... But it only takes one bad router between you and the destination to screw things up. I may find myself completely unable to access Ubisoft's servers because of some random glitch somewhere between me and them... Not my fault, not Ubisoft's fault, but I can't play.
We're seeing thousands of people complaining at one time, which amplifies the volume and makes it easier to hear what they're saying... Which is a good thing. If Ubisoft's servers hadn't failed completely we'd just be hearing from a few voices here and there... And they'd be much easier to ignore.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not endorsing a DDoS if that is what this is... But I'm glad that the failure, whatever the source, happened on this scale. It's likely the only way anybody will realize what a phenomenally bad idea this was.
And Ubisoft really should have put more thought into this. If you're going to require a constant connection to your servers in order for people to play, you better make damn sure you can keep your servers up through just about anything. And if you can't, you may want to reconsider your plan.
All internet connection arguments aside, let's not lose sight of two simple facts:
- The only people who can play the game right now are pirates.
- The only people who are blocked from playing the game right now are those who legally purchaced the game.
Which group would you rather be in?
Welcome to Bizarro World...
This is the whole problem with DRM of any kind.
It only ever works against the folks who actually paid for your game.
The pirates have cracked the DRM, they've removed it or bypassed it or whatever. Your DRM is completely and totally irrelevant to the pirates. At best it'll take a day or two before it is cracked, so a few very impatient folks will pay for the game rather than pirate it... But that's the best you can hope for.
Your paying customers, however, have to put up with whatever awful DRM you've wrapped your product in. They've chosen to do the right thing... To shell out their hard-earned cash for your product... Even though, generally speaking, they are able to get their hands on a pirated version. And you repay them by taking a big ol' dump on their computer.
Others assumed that it would be immediately cracked, as is usually the case, leaving the inconvenience for paying customers and resulting in a superior product for pirates.
Well, I never assumed it would be immediately cracked... But it was only a matter of time. Eventually some bored or determined person out there is going to get around to cracking it. It may take long enough for some impatient people to go out and buy the game instead of pirating it... But it is going to be cracked.
And when that happens, you've got a choice of either paying cash for a game that won't work when your Internet goes down... Paying cash and then breaking the law to crack that game you just bought... Or pirating the game from the start so that you've got a game that works with no Internet for free.
I don't know why any office with more than 1 computer wouldn't have a file server
We do outsourced IT for various small/medium businesses in the area. Lots of little places with 3-10 workstations. And this is always something that's nigh-impossible to hammer into their heads.
Hell, you don't even need a real server for that many users. Just a NAS would be better than scattering everything across a pile of workstations. Get everything in one place, with a big ol' RAID array and something to do backups.
Disable file sharing on the workstations, go to a file server, tell the other guys to copy their own files over to do their work and let fuck brain fuck with the stuff on the file server. If you need a rationale, just say "We need to centralize our file store for better security and backups."
This was my first thought as well.
Scattering everything across the network on various workstation is asking for problems. You really want to get everything consolidated in a single location, on a big ol' RAID array, with some kind of backup. Otherwise it'll only take a single failed HDD to lose something important.
You don't necessarily need a genuine fileserver either... If you've been getting along with files scattered across workstations, your needs probably aren't that great. You could get yourselves a nice little NAS relatively cheaply.
Now you don't have to worry about the stupid kid working off of someone else's drive... Everything is sitting on a big ol' RAID... You've got a single data store to back up... You can, depending on the hardware/software, centrally manage permissions... You've got less duplication of data across the network... Everyone knows where to look for the files they need...
The typical home user running Windows faces the 'unreasonable' task of patching software an average of every five days
Only once every five days? That seems rather mild to me...
Between Windows, Firefox, Office, Java, Adobe Reader, my antivirus, VLC, Pidgin, VirtualBox, EVE, Songbird, and Steam it seems like I'm patching something on a daily basis. And that's just my home machine.
Throw in the fileserver at home... My workstation at the office... My work netbook... And the assortment of servers I'm responsible for... And I'm definitely patching something on a daily basis.
Just when large CRT monitors became affordable albeit heavy, the companies rolled out smaller flat panels. Not only where they cheaper for them to make, they were cheaper to ship and had much lower field defect rates. So of course they charged more for them.
And people happily paid the premium for large displays that didn't crush their desks.
And after a few years the prices came down, and now it's virtually unheard-of to buy a big ol' CRT unless you're doing some fancy graphics work.
Similarly right when magnetic drives are near-free, the companies roll out smaller, and in some cases slower SSD's which are less expensive to make, cheaper to ship and over the long run (probably) have lower field defect rates born of their no moving parts. So of course they will charge more for them.
Similarly, people are happily paying the premium for faster drives that use less power and have fewer moving parts to break.
And after a few years the prices will come down and it'll be virtually unheard-of to buy a traditional HDD.
Any word about the write cycles limit? That's one thing everyone seems to be forgetting.
I don't think anybody is forgetting anything. With wear leveling and whatnot the MTBF is pretty comparable to that of a traditional HDD. Especially given how quickly capacities are growing and how often drives get upgraded or replaced.
The odds of you burning out an SSD by hitting the write cycle limit before you want to replace it anyway are fairly slim.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got a nice little swiss army knife I carry around everywhere...
The blade is a little on the short side, but it's plenty sharp. It's also got scissors that are again small but incredibly sharp. They'll cut through zip ties, most plastic packaging, and even CAT5. It's got a flat screwdriver, and a flashlight, and even a USB memory stick.
Very, very handy.
After an hour? No. After 12 hours a day, 5 days a week? Yes. If I've been sitting in front of a computer screen for several hours and close my eyes I can feel the muscles unwinding. It's not something I'm conciously away of until I look away from the screen, but the muscles of and around my eyes are constantly tense when reading off a monitor.
Visit an eye doctor / optometrist please. Seriously. People with healthy eyes don't have that problem.
It's called eye strain and it's a real thing. When you focus on relatively small and close things, like text, the muscles around your eyes tighten. Any muscle, when worked for long periods of time, tires out. This doesn't mean you've got some horrible disease. It isn't a sign of impending blindness, or glaucoma, or a cataract. It's just muscle fatigue.
Sure, yes, random problems with your eyes can be indicative of something bigger... But if you spend all day long helping your friends move and wake up the next morning to find that your muscles ache it probably isn't a symptom of some horrible disease - it's just muscle fatigue. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now, cue the jackasses thinking they did the right thing. I'll cut out my kidney with a disposable drinking straw if anyone can reasonably argue this as ethical.
They were just thinking about all the folks stuck behind a crappy dial-up connection who wanted to be able to get the DLC too...
You mean the LCD's I read off of 10 hours a day at work are completely unacceptable for reading now?
Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinions and preferences and whatever else... And there's certainly room for individual variation in how your eyes perform at different tasks...
But, from what I've seen, most of the folks who claim that they're reading for 10 hours a day at work, aren't actually reading for 10 hours a day at work.
If you actually look at their workflow, it doesn't generally involve staring at a screen containing nothing but text for a full 10 hours. Usually it involves looking at a screen running some kind of GUI that contains text elements. Usually it involves navigating through that GUI in order to display different text elements. Normally it involves looking at various images and diagrams in addition to text. Normally it involves periodic breaks to type or click buttons or answer the phone or speak with a co-worker or whatever.
Which is actually pretty similar to what my workflow looks like. And in the average day I don't have any problem working off my LCD at work for 10 hours either. But that's a very different experience from when I'm curled up with a good book and reading for fun.
When I'm reading for fun I'll attempt to remove as many distractions as possible. I will, hopefully, not be distracted from my book for many hours. I might very well spend 10 hours staring at text.
I've been reading ebooks on various devices for years now. First a Handspring Visor... Then a Palm PDA... Then an assortment of netbooks and laptops and desktop computers... And now I'm reading them on a nook...
And I'll tell you right now that when I wind up reading something engaging - literally staring at text for multiple hours with no distractions - on an LCD I definitely experience eyestrain. There have been days when I wound up doing literally what you suggest in your post - staring at text for 10 hours straight - and by the time I get home in the evening my eyes basically refuse to focus. It becomes impossible to read much of anything.
No, I don't have some kind of degenerative eye disease... It's just eye strain, nothing more. And it can happen reading off of paper or watching TV or anything else. It just so happens that for me an LCD causes more strain than printed paper, or an e-ink display.
Now, I'm not going to call you a liar simply because I disagree with you...
And I personally agree that the Kindle has a less-than-wonderful display - which is why I bought a nook, which has better contrast in my opinion.
But I suspect that you don't spend quite as much time staring at text on a screen as you suggested in your post.
Am I the only one who *doesn't* get eye-strain reading text on LCD's hour after hour ?
I'm beginning to wonder whether the difference is actually Mac vs PC and the font rendering [codinghorror.com] technologies. I use a Mac all day, reading text on LCDs, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Perhaps it's because the fonts look nicer (yeah, I know, it's an opinion, not a fact) to my eye on the Mac. I've lost count of the number of times I've spent days poring over PDFs and somehow managed to not notice this 'eye strain' that LCDs apparently cause. I actually *prefer* to read documents on the screen rather than printed out on paper...
Well, I guess YMMV and all that...
I personally spend a good amount of my day reading text on an LCD. But it isn't the same as reading a novel recreationally.
When I'm reading stuff at work I'm not generally staring at pure text on an LCD for hours at a time. I'm generally being interrupted by phone calls... Or having to answer an IM or an email... Or I'm switching between multiple documents... Or I'll be navigating through something's GUI... Or a co-worker will stop by to ask a question...
Normally none of that generates any eyestrain. I've got plenty of chances throughout the day to let my eyes rest and refocus and whatever they need to do.
When I'm reading recreationally, however, it isn't unusual to get completely sucked in to a good book. Hours can go by without my notice. I will literally be staring at text for hours at a time - no interruptions, no breaks, no rest for my eyes.
This can cause me eyestrain.
I have been reading ebooks for probably a decade now. I started out with an old Handspring Visor... Then moved on to a Palm PDA... I've spent a couple years reading ebooks on laptops and netbooks and desktop computers... And have just recently purchased a nook...
The LCDs have all been harder to read for extended periods of time. The nook, however, doesn't bother me any more than paper does.
I'm also pretty convinced I'd get a lot more wound up over the slow refresh of the e-ink displays than the supposed eyestrain from LCDs...
Lots of folks say this. From my experience, the delay is no different than the delay in turning a page in a paper book. It isn't any more jarring or distracting or time-consuming or derailing or anything else. There's just a momentary pause in your reading as you turn the page - just like if it were a paper book.
If the books were cheaper on the readers by a good amount than what you pay for the paper versions people might jump
Unlikely.
Many titles are already cheaper in ebook format than printed paper. And there are tons of places where I can get my hands on free ebooks.
But folks aren't paying $400 for ebook readers because they're too cheap to pay $8 for a paperback.
The killer app for ebook readers is portability. Yes, a single paperback novel is wonderfully portable... But a multi-volume encyclopedia is much less so... Or a hardcover novel. Or an entire bookshelf full of random novels and stories.
That's just it though...the only reason why it is such a niche product is because they are prohibitively expensive.
No it isn't.
Fine, you think $300 is too much for an ebook reader. You'd run out and buy one tomorrow if they were just $150. That's fine. Some other people would buy them at the lower price too. But you need to realize than an overwhelming number of people will never buy an ebook reader.
Not because they don't like ebooks... Or have some problem with DRM... Or they prefer the smell of old paper... There are tons of people out there who will never read a book for entertainment. Ever.
Reading for entertainment, novels in general, are a niche product.
Ebook readers are a niche within a niche.
Lowering the price will make them more affordable... But it isn't going to dramatically increase the number of people actually willing to read a book.
A few years ago I saw a demonstration by Philips on TV of a bendable e-ink screen. I think bendability is more important than colour. If the screen is bendable it can behave more like a real book.
I'm not sure how much I care about the ability to bend my books.
Yes, paper bends... As I turn a page it bends... But bendability isn't really something fundamental to the function of a book. A book's primary purpose is the display of information.
I mean... Is a magazine somehow better than a 500 page novel just because it's more bendable?
Are hardcover books somehow inferior to paperbacks, simply because they're less bendable?
I have a nook, and I read plenty of books on it. And I have never, ever found myself thinking you know what would make this ereader perfect? If I could just bend it...
The better test would be to give all the parts set on the table along with all the screws.
In their original packaging.
I swear... Some of this stuff, it takes longer to get it out of the plastic than it does to build the server.
Why? Well I'd like to see telco's held to their promised speeds as much as possible. If you are going to advertise one speed but only deliver a lower one, that's false advertising (or something).
This is why I ran their test and submitted the results.
If you go by my ISP's advertising you'll see they're offering 10 Mbps in my area. What you won't see is that regardless of which plan you sign up for, you're lucky if you can actually get 3 Mbps.
So, by running their test, they've got something more accurate than what the ISPs will tell them.
In Louisville KY, the city is considering banning trans fat in restaurants. This just seems crazy.
Good.
Trans-fat is horrible, nasty, awful stuff. The only reason to use trans-fat instead of good ol' animal fat is price. Trans-fat is cheaper to use. It's also absolutely horrible for your body.
Any recipe you're making with trans-fat now can easily be modified to use good ol' regular fats and shortenings. There is literally no need for trans-fat in your diet.
Of course, if you as a little guy always want to get fucked over by the big guys.
Nobody is forcing you to develop anything for any platform. If you want to develop for the iPhone, you can, but you have to agree to Apple's terms. You don't like their terms? You don't get to develop for the iPhone. Well, at least not through the official channels.
It's Apple's phone. They don't have to allow anyone to develop for it. They could keep it a completely closed platform with no 3rd party apps at all if they wanted to. That's their choice to make, not yours (barring jailbreaks/cracks/whatever). Obviously some people don't like such a closed platform... And it will affect their sales... But that's something Apple needs to weigh when making their policies.
Just to let people know, Blizzard also allows for unlimited downloading of the Windows and OS X version of any game you have ever purchased. Even if you bought the game in a store you can still register the CD key online at battle.net and it will be available to download in the future.
Very cool. I did not know this.
Not that it really matters to me, as I have no Mac...
But cool none the less.
First of all, I'll point you to a comment I made elsewhere in this same thread.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1575328&cid=31406066
Steam is DRM.
I am aware that Steam contains DRM. It also contains social networking stuff and marketplace stuff and server browser stuff and whatever else.
When Steam goes down, you can't play your games... not even when you're offline. Just last week there was an outage that made all Steam games unplayable for an entire evening.
Obviously, no system is perfect. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying to you.
I have no experienced any problems with Steam. Certainly nothing like the problems I've experienced with some other forms of DRM. Specifically, I've never had any trouble playing a Steam game offline, unless it was in trying to access some on-line component of a game. As far as the outage last week... I personally played games on Steam just about every night last week, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.
And many games you buy on Steam will install additional DRM alongside Steam.
So far, none of the games I've purchased on Steam have included any additional DRM. But, yes, a publisher can certainly include whatever they want.
Valve is making some awesome PC games, at good prices, and with a good delivery platform. But don't forget that this all comes at the cost of some nasty DRM which is nearly as bad as the recent Ubisoft fiasco.
I fail to see how a DRM package that allows me to play games offline is nearly as bad as a DRM package that renders your single-player game completely unusable if your Internet goes down. Never mind the fact that I can download and re-install my Steam games as many times as I want... And I can burn backup copies of my games... And install them on as many different computers as I want...
Uhhh...
Steam is one of the biggest DRM lock-in distribution systems ever invented.
That doesn't make it good or bad, but are you sure you know what you're talking about here?
I own a number of Steam games.
I also own Overlord for the PC, and not the Steam version.
Which means I know very well what I'm talking about.
Yes, Steam is just another DRM platform... But I can download & install my Steam games on as many different computers as I want to. The only restriction is that I have to enter my username & password to play... Which means I can't be playing on two different computers simultaneously. Steam even lets me burn backup discs so I don't have to download everything again.
Overlord, on the other hand, only allowed a very small number of installations. After I had installed it three times it refused to work. I call technical support and they explained that it was a copy protection mechanism and there was absolutely no reason why I could possibly have needed to re-install the game that many times. Granted, it's a little unusual to re-install a game four total times in a matter of weeks... But that's what happens when you're building a brand new computer, messing around with an OS install, breaking drivers, and things like that.
Ultimately their suggestion was that I should go buy a new copy of the game. I'm sure I could have argued further and gotten through to some supervisor or something like that... I probably could have convinced someone to unlock my game... But I was just too angry to bother. I haven't tried to re-install the game since then.
and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions.
In an age where publishers are doing everything in their power to tie your hands when it comes to their software, this simply amazes me.
We've got publishers who user DRM that renders a game useless after a half-dozen installs... And valve is going to let you run your games on two entirely different platforms?! Not two different computers... But wholly different platforms. Amazing.
What I don't get is, why doesn't Kenya and all these other 3rd world countries build a real sewer system?
That's kind of like asking why doesn't the USA build a telecommunication system.
There's certainly room for government direction, funding, and oversight... But you aren't talking about a single place where you have to lay a few pipes. We're talking about an assortment of cities, towns, and villages... Each with their own local governments... Each with their own unique geography...
I'm sure some places in Kenya have a sewer system. But I'll tell you right now there are places in the USA that don't have a sewer system yet.
It's not rocket science; the Romans did it over 2000 years ago using nothing but hand tools, rocks and some volcanic cement. Yes it was labor intensive, but AFAIK labor shortage isn't a problem in most 3rd world countries, is it?
Neither labor nor know-how are generally the problem.
Generally the problem is a lack of funds and/or interest to build and maintain the system.
Imagine trying to convince someone in rural Minnesota, who's never owned a computer or done anything on the Internet, that they really ought to chip in some money with their neighbors to run a big ol' fiber-optic cable out to their town; so that they can all have blazing fast Internet connections.
Besides they should be able to get access to some heavy diesel equipment on loan through UNICEF or World Bank or some such organization.
Generally speaking, more debt is the last thing these countries need.
It's hardly going to "save the world".
Public sanitation, or lack there-of, is a huge issue - everywhere.
Contaminated water is a fantastic way to transmit disease.
One of the first concerns after any major disaster is to establish a supply of clean water. That's why you always see the huge crates of bottled water, and the tanker trucks, and everything else.
If you can contain and/or properly treat this human waste, instead of leaving it to contaminate the water and spread disease, you are certainly taking steps in the right direction.
Ok, so please inform us how you would had hardened their systems against the DDoS if there was one.
I've never worked on a system of that scale... So I really can't tell you how I would have hardened their systems against DDoS. I suspect you can't either.
But, back to the original question: Does it really matter?
To a very large degree, it is irrelevant whether it is a DDoS or not. Certainly, a DDoS implies malicious intent, likely on the part of some crackers trying to make a point...
But either way the servers are down and people can't play.
It wouldn't be any different if some patch had gone bad and hosed the servers themselves, or if the Internet at Ubisoft had gone bad, or if there'd been a fire, or a lightning strike, or a power outage.
The fact of the matter is that Ubisoft built a game that requires a constant Internet connection in order to play, and obviously did not contemplate the ramifications of their actions.
The Internet is unreliable at best. Sure, generally speaking your packets get where they're going... But it only takes one bad router between you and the destination to screw things up. I may find myself completely unable to access Ubisoft's servers because of some random glitch somewhere between me and them... Not my fault, not Ubisoft's fault, but I can't play.
We're seeing thousands of people complaining at one time, which amplifies the volume and makes it easier to hear what they're saying... Which is a good thing. If Ubisoft's servers hadn't failed completely we'd just be hearing from a few voices here and there... And they'd be much easier to ignore.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not endorsing a DDoS if that is what this is... But I'm glad that the failure, whatever the source, happened on this scale. It's likely the only way anybody will realize what a phenomenally bad idea this was.
And Ubisoft really should have put more thought into this. If you're going to require a constant connection to your servers in order for people to play, you better make damn sure you can keep your servers up through just about anything. And if you can't, you may want to reconsider your plan.
All internet connection arguments aside, let's not lose sight of two simple facts:
- The only people who can play the game right now are pirates.
- The only people who are blocked from playing the game right now are those who legally purchaced the game.
Which group would you rather be in?
Welcome to Bizarro World...
This is the whole problem with DRM of any kind.
It only ever works against the folks who actually paid for your game.
The pirates have cracked the DRM, they've removed it or bypassed it or whatever. Your DRM is completely and totally irrelevant to the pirates. At best it'll take a day or two before it is cracked, so a few very impatient folks will pay for the game rather than pirate it... But that's the best you can hope for.
Your paying customers, however, have to put up with whatever awful DRM you've wrapped your product in. They've chosen to do the right thing... To shell out their hard-earned cash for your product... Even though, generally speaking, they are able to get their hands on a pirated version. And you repay them by taking a big ol' dump on their computer.
Others assumed that it would be immediately cracked, as is usually the case, leaving the inconvenience for paying customers and resulting in a superior product for pirates.
Well, I never assumed it would be immediately cracked... But it was only a matter of time. Eventually some bored or determined person out there is going to get around to cracking it. It may take long enough for some impatient people to go out and buy the game instead of pirating it... But it is going to be cracked.
And when that happens, you've got a choice of either paying cash for a game that won't work when your Internet goes down... Paying cash and then breaking the law to crack that game you just bought... Or pirating the game from the start so that you've got a game that works with no Internet for free.
And the publishers wonder why piracy is rampant.
I don't know why any office with more than 1 computer wouldn't have a file server
We do outsourced IT for various small/medium businesses in the area. Lots of little places with 3-10 workstations. And this is always something that's nigh-impossible to hammer into their heads.
Hell, you don't even need a real server for that many users. Just a NAS would be better than scattering everything across a pile of workstations. Get everything in one place, with a big ol' RAID array and something to do backups.
Nobody seems to want to centralize anything...
Disable file sharing on the workstations, go to a file server, tell the other guys to copy their own files over to do their work and let fuck brain fuck with the stuff on the file server. If you need a rationale, just say "We need to centralize our file store for better security and backups."
This was my first thought as well.
Scattering everything across the network on various workstation is asking for problems. You really want to get everything consolidated in a single location, on a big ol' RAID array, with some kind of backup. Otherwise it'll only take a single failed HDD to lose something important.
You don't necessarily need a genuine fileserver either... If you've been getting along with files scattered across workstations, your needs probably aren't that great. You could get yourselves a nice little NAS relatively cheaply.
Now you don't have to worry about the stupid kid working off of someone else's drive... Everything is sitting on a big ol' RAID... You've got a single data store to back up... You can, depending on the hardware/software, centrally manage permissions... You've got less duplication of data across the network... Everyone knows where to look for the files they need...
It's a win for everyone!
The typical home user running Windows faces the 'unreasonable' task of patching software an average of every five days
Only once every five days? That seems rather mild to me...
Between Windows, Firefox, Office, Java, Adobe Reader, my antivirus, VLC, Pidgin, VirtualBox, EVE, Songbird, and Steam it seems like I'm patching something on a daily basis. And that's just my home machine.
Throw in the fileserver at home... My workstation at the office... My work netbook... And the assortment of servers I'm responsible for... And I'm definitely patching something on a daily basis.
Just when large CRT monitors became affordable albeit heavy, the companies rolled out smaller flat panels. Not only where they cheaper for them to make, they were cheaper to ship and had much lower field defect rates. So of course they charged more for them.
And people happily paid the premium for large displays that didn't crush their desks.
And after a few years the prices came down, and now it's virtually unheard-of to buy a big ol' CRT unless you're doing some fancy graphics work.
Similarly right when magnetic drives are near-free, the companies roll out smaller, and in some cases slower SSD's which are less expensive to make, cheaper to ship and over the long run (probably) have lower field defect rates born of their no moving parts. So of course they will charge more for them.
Similarly, people are happily paying the premium for faster drives that use less power and have fewer moving parts to break.
And after a few years the prices will come down and it'll be virtually unheard-of to buy a traditional HDD.
Any word about the write cycles limit?
That's one thing everyone seems to be forgetting.
I don't think anybody is forgetting anything. With wear leveling and whatnot the MTBF is pretty comparable to that of a traditional HDD. Especially given how quickly capacities are growing and how often drives get upgraded or replaced.
The odds of you burning out an SSD by hitting the write cycle limit before you want to replace it anyway are fairly slim.