Except.... that's an oversimplified view of it.
Look at a full list of 802.11 standards and amendments.
Yes, your average consumer knows their alphabet, and can probably figure out that 802.11ac is better than 802.11n. But it isn't clear or concise, and the other IEEE 802.11 standards could get in the way. 'Oh, I heard about 802.11ad, WiGig - isn't that faster and newer?'
If these versions functionally act as the yearly rollup meta-standards as well (for example, IEEE 802.11-2016 rolls up ae, aa, ad, ac, and af), then this makes a lot of sense.
Also, throw in 802.11bb - Light-based wireless data communication aka LiFi - and it breaks the 'bigger letters are better and backwards-compatible' scheme entirely.
In my house, yes. We're actually up to a number of Google Homes in my home.
Direct control of Philips Hue lights and Wemo/TPLink Kasa outlets is surprisingly handy.
Nest thermostat control is nice.
Streaming music from Google Play Music on demand is pretty nice.
The alarm/timer functions are nice when cooking.
My wife (a SW tester) asks it the weather in the morning so she knows whether or not to take a jacket.
Adding things to the shopping list is easy.
I'm also running Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/) to try to beef it up. Some of the projects I'd like to tackle:
When the washer or dryer finish, announce it in rooms that have lights on.
Announce package deliveries via the email notifications (HA has UPS and Fedex hooks that work, but the USPS is only web-scraping, and apparently they DO ban...)
I absolutely agree with this.
Yes, it's updates in this case, not drivers. But the number of edge cases to test and the cost to do so is substantial, and the number of affected users is relatively small. Meanwhile, this means they can make it so they don't need to backport patches that have odd forks, etc. for new processors.
Right now, I'd say a substantial part of the problem is insurance protection against cyber attacks.
If a company can go to a bog-standard insurance company like Travelers or AIG and spend a small fraction of both the real breach cost and the cost of actually securing things, they will - the profit motive demands it.
What the profit motive DOESN'T demand is the insurance company look at their costs with a blind eye. Right now, I'm sure a large number of those policies are untriggered, so in aggregate, they are still profitable. But when those costs become comparable, and a company factors in the lost productivity and PR issues (both of which are hard to quantify), they will actually secure things. Partially to save money on or qualify for their cyber insurance.
That's part of why news coverage of breaches and forced disclosure laws are so important - right now, to both businesses and insurers, the productivity and PR costs are too easy to ignore, and the insurer has little motive to force compliance. (In fact, it's theoretically more profitable to 'prove' to their customers that attacks happen and no tightening will prevent all attacks - both of which are absolutely true no matter what happens.)
This!
Mind you, it's a bit worse than that - ie, Intel won't make a signed driver package that will allow Kaby Lake to work on Windows 7/8/8.1, because Microsoft will not make new drivers.
But let's play devil's advocate for a second - is this just Microsoft pushing Windows 10 for the sake of Windows 10? Or... is this because the driver model has changed since Win7/8 and supporting both is a higher cost for driver makers (who, by definition, would have to spend more or split quality/features to support all of these platforms)? Is it because Microsoft doesn't want to sign a driver unless it goes through the whole WHQL certification process (to ensure it's a clean build, it's stable, it's malware-free, etc.), and Microsoft can't financially justify/support keeping up the WHQL pipeline given Win7/8's current levels of popularity and general downward trend (since they no long sell or support Win7/8, Win 10 doesn't necessarily have to grow, but Win 7/8's installed base will drop due to natural attrition)?
But there's nothing here stopping manufacturers from making Linux or Mac drivers, nothing here preventing third-party, open-source drivers (albeit requiring users to allow unsigned drivers and the inherent security risks), and nothing here about Microsoft artificially pushing Win10 for the sole sake of pushing Win10.
Even with a stable framerate, this technique intentionally delays the next frame to add compensation frames.
As an example, let's have a magic VR helmet running at 120Hz and instant processing (ie, 0ms GTG time, which doesn't exist) and a video card capped at a perfectly stable 30 FPS (aka 30Hz).
We will split a second into ticks - we'll use the VR helmet's frequency of 120 Hz, so we have 120 ticks, numbered 1 to 120. (Just to annoy my fellow programmers!)
We therefore get a new actual frame every 4th tick - 1st, 5th, 9th, etc.
Without motion compensation, we would display a new frame every 4th tick - 1st, 5th, 9th, etc.
With ideal (instant) motion compensation, we can't compute a transition frame until we have the new frame. So we could, theoretically, go real frame #1 on 1st tick, computed frame based on #1 and #2 on 5th tick, real frame #2 on 6th tick, computed frame based on #2 and #3 at 9th tick, etc.
This would also be jerky - 2 motion frames then 3 at rest? We could push the frames back a tick and fill the interval with three compensation frames, but then we increase the delay, which is always higher than this example (and is multiplicative). So we'd have frame #1 at 5th tick, computed frames at 6th/7th/8th, frame #2 at 9th tick, etc. You've now introduced a minimum 4 tick delay, which at 120Hz is 1/30 of a second, or 33ms! To an otherwise impossibly-perfect system!
What about historical frames instead to PREDICT the next blur? Well, then, when something in-game (or, really, on screen) changes velocity, there would be mis-compensation. (Overcompensating if the object slows, undercompensating if it speeds up, and miscompensation if direction changes).
There's more problems, too:
- This doesn't help when the video card frameskips/dips.
- Instant GTG and instant motion frame computation do not exist. At best, they're sub-tick, but you'd still operate on the tick.
- Input delay already exists for game processing, etc.
- Increased input delay perception would be exponential to the actual length of the delay. For example, 1-2ms between keypress and onscreen action? Hardly notable. 50ms delay just to start registering a motion on screen and course correct? Maybe OK, maybe annoying. 150-200ms? Brutal.
No, there's another big difference. First time visitors, if they are visiting a site with a non-trusted key, are asked about it, right? Sounds good, right?
The point of SSL is to ID a server as a certain server. Let's say you do ecommerce, and your very own pages explain this behavior away. Great idea, until your domain get hijacked (registrar isn't paid, DNS spoof, etc). Lo and behold, users come to expect this behavior, and click away.
This is the key fact, however. You need someone you can trust - a third party that puts a huge amount on the line - to certify that the server is who it says it is.
CACERT is a potential answer, but it needs to be integrated into Firefox and IE. But you do need that 3rd party authority. Otherwise, you it's like someone sending you an IM saying, "Hey, I'm me. What's you password/credit card/SSN?"
I'd kinda have to question this. I mean, either way, the compiler should flag them as different types. They have different class members (namely, the Xbox/360 has subobjects for advanced media playback and code signing), and is generally much more rounded out and stable.
I've always considered the Xbox (orig.) to be Dreamcast 2.0 - the Dreamcast ran WinCE, and it's a safe bet MS was already working hard to jump in the market through them. I think the best way to describe the relationship is as versions of a class. The designers, however, are pretty poor - the first official version had no backward compatibility with the DC public beta, and they are now offering some, but not all, compatibility with the new, oddly numbered, v3.60.
This could be useful. I work as a hardware tech, and it's a pain to find a motherboard to test CPUs on. If the daughterboard could be made to support other processors, and preferably have some sort of protection, so it wouldn't damage the rest of the system, it could save a ton of time and money.
I'm not a big fan of racing games, but I can't put it down. It has this draw. It was so powerful, it stole back after only one week of Halo 2. I buy new games, and then ignore them.
However, it is truly satisfying to score air (in a cutlass ciera, no less!) or successfully drift a turn when you can't even parallel park. I know I'm driving faster because of the game, but I'm also driving a tad bit smarter, thinking about the physics of the car (and which ones are safe to rear end.)
Only disappointment I have is the Axe deoderant ads. Ugh...
*sigh*
Openness and transparency are primary responsibilities of any organization. If a company, etc. doesn't practice these standards, then it is hard to maintain any sense of accountability to investors, customers, and others.
While I agree that it is not the popular standard, it is the moral one.
This is directed toward Sean.
Great explanation of the events leading up to the hiccups. All-in-all, it sounds like you guys did a bang up job. I'm a bit curious, however: Roughly how long was that USB extension, and how much did the USB repeater cost? I've been a bit interested in that.
And, as said above, cell phone fan is being, at a minimum, unduly harsh. I could almost understand a post like that if the reason for a failure was "we forgot to test" or "the media center PC had spyware".
It was a live show. I've done live shows and demos, I've taught multiple classes, and I know how things love to go wrong. (Ugh... that senior citizen's MS Office class.... bad memories...)
None the less, it sounds like you and your team handled it gracefully, with a witty ad-lib recovery (which, I might add, was appropriate because of Conan's presence).
And right now, you're doing what Microsoft as a whole should be doing: being open and transparent, and explaining everything that could get wrong.
I have been permitted to inform you that, because of the following transgression:
INSTALLING SPYWARE ON PARENT'S PC
that the Slashdot Armada. 7th Squadron is currently en route.
The Slashdot Armada, 7th Squadron is a variable fighting force, equipped with a minimum of:
gauss cannons, over-heating laptop batteries, Natalie Port(69)man, Trolls, *Zilla, a penguin army, RFID launchers, cease-and-desist letters, virri, overbearing patents, seven senators, a Borg cube, 10^7 D&D manuals, hacked vodka, goatse.cx, a cyclotron, seven outdated linux distros freshly downloaded from the CVS last night, mobile wiMax grid, conspiracy theories, lasers, wild speculation, off-topic comments, and flames.
We recommend that you and the other child poster (who also has been prosecuted without indictment or trial) respond with feverish apologies, a repaired family computer, and free goodies for us.
Shawn McNaughton
Battle Commander, 7th Squadron, Slashdot Armada
I had always been told that Sony was the best by friends. I had been debating one to replace my nice yet newly slow Pacific Digital 4x dual-format burner which I got for $23. (Side note: Older, cheap DVD burners will be hot Christmas gifts this year.)
Just today, about 2:30PM, I was looking at new dual-layer drives. I had a crazy scheme (younger brothers, 11, 10, and 8) would like a cd burner for Christmas. I'll do one better - I'll give them a barely used DVD-burner which costs less than a new CD-RW almost anywhere.
I look at new egg, I want one to match my case a bit, and I see the NEC ND3500-A. It looks nice, so I get it, seeing that it had some good reviews and was pretty cheap.
I accidentally got, debatably, the best 16x, dual-layer DVD burner out there.
Actually, I'm not sure about you, but I add a layer of abstraction to phone numbers. I use my cell for everything, and just have contacts.
Changing a DNS record isn't hard, if you know what you're doing. But, considering that even a simple point-and-click change of a domain or two could cause outages *unless* you spend hours and money on transition preparation, I'd rather have a different system, or at least some control.
(I know that in September those outages will start to become a thing of the past, but still... if I ran an e-commerce site, think of all the potential lost business and switchover work...)
A similar method is employed by the webcomic Sluggy Freelance (www.sluggy.com). They have the 'Defenders of the Nifty' program - a small donation gets you one year without ads.
If, for example, one small text ad were to be shown, and by request you could add a couple more text ads or make a small donation and eliminate all of the ads, you could dramatically increase the effectiveness of such ads.
Think about it: We all fought for cell phone number portability, but we hate IP number portability.
To the average non-technical person, wouldn't they seem to be a similar right? More importantly, shouldn't we be able to keep IPs? So lazy ISPs have to rewrite software due to lazy Admins... It's a similar right, so if I pay for a static IP, I pay for a static IP.
Perhaps the current economic model and technology behind IP routing is flawed in this respect, but does that really mean that they should be, in fact, locked in? It's a pain to change DNS info. What if you are a site owner but not the admin? What if it's some long gone web design firm? Can the average user really change an IP address, even using most registrar's friendly web interfaces?
This is amazing. We're shouting the same problems that cell phone companies did - too great an expense, need time, not set up for it, unnecessary - but only because it is convenient.
Why even bother arguing a point when you contradict yourself on a mostly parallel point?
I imagine this will start drawing flames, but it's an important point at how hypocritical we, in the technical community, have become when we go from end-user asking for a service to admin denying a similar service. It's just my two cents, so if you don't like it, give me a refund. I'll be waiting.
...as long as the price is right. Maybe ten wasn't enough, but it appears to me that it's Telecom's responsibility to leave themself a large buffer in their projections, then dropping the price if feasible.
Hell, it beats the US. You can buy a 500 msg plan for ~$8, sure, but what if you don't use that much? If I send a msg from my Cell One phone to my mom's Verizon phone, I get charged a dime to send and she a dime to recieve. But if she sends and I receive, it's free for both of us. Why?
But then again, text messaging isn't as widespread in the US. Personally, I'm waiting on phones that have reasonably working IM. They exist, but not around here. I have DSL, so whip up a gateway (not too hard, really, using Trillian) and you're good to go.
As soon as RIAA - those concerned with piracy - change their mind, it loses the 'illegal' status that sticks in many people's minds. Many don't download music because it is illegal and actively sued for. I personally know people who won't even download music, and it's sad.
If the RIAA were to change positions, CDs and DRMed music would lose their one big advantage - that fact that they won't get you sued.
It's not a matter of right or wrong - RIAA has to look as if they make an effort against the big fish to keep the little people from downloading. The big downloaders may have every right to download music - if I heard it on the radio, can't I get the song out of my head? (Pun intended...) Did I get a license by having heard and hence knowing the song?
But - and this is the key point - these deviants, or rebels, or wolves in consumer-sheep clothing, are not generating profit, but may not have if piracy was unviable. They may not buy anything anyway!
It is the consumer-sheep that generate profit, for they are great in number and less rebellious and aberrant in their behavior, so by making a half-hearted effort against the big guys the small frys get scared. Isn't this true in many other situations? Drugs and pron would top this list, but what about artists? If a big name 'modern' artist makes something offensive and all of his federal funding dries up, won't the smaller ones get tamer?
The RIAA is not about money or control - unlike what many posters think. It is about security - they do not care if some aberrants exist so long as they are promised a certain large revenue stream for their vacation home expansion projects. Even the 'dwindling sales' theory doesn't bother them - they are a large part of the total consumer market, so any losses they have get passed on to the rest of the market in lower relative wages and salaries for peons, among other things.
So, why should the RIAA care about real sales effects?
Re:Why is the GBA the center of portable gaming?
on
GPS for GBA
·
· Score: 1
Um... I love my dreamcast too. The ability to run homebrews is awesome, the graphics are great, and it's pretty damn fun.
That said, there is a point in every console's life where it cannot keep going on. Perhaps it is cut down in it's prime like so many before it. Perhaps it never got the support it needed. The Jaguar, Neo-Geo, Turbo-Grafix, and 3DO fall in this category in how they left this world.
Then there are those that die of old age. They may have life-supporting emulation, but truly they are dead. SNES, Genesis, Game Gear, N64 - they lived good lives.
Our beloved Dreamcast is unique - it struggled violently, but could not win its battle. Sega's acquiescence to defeat wounded it, and old age finished it.
As a certified minister through a small church in Arizona, I know such things well - or at least have for a few minutes. Anyway, I am here to help you grieve - and you are grieving. You are in an early phase - denial. Do know that the DC is surely dead, and remember the good times you had with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget: Write once, breaks everywhere. Actually, it's funny, I had the Java, Java, Java Java Jing Jing Jing song stuck in my head this morning.
Except.... that's an oversimplified view of it.
Look at a full list of 802.11 standards and amendments.
Yes, your average consumer knows their alphabet, and can probably figure out that 802.11ac is better than 802.11n. But it isn't clear or concise, and the other IEEE 802.11 standards could get in the way. 'Oh, I heard about 802.11ad, WiGig - isn't that faster and newer?'
If these versions functionally act as the yearly rollup meta-standards as well (for example, IEEE 802.11-2016 rolls up ae, aa, ad, ac, and af), then this makes a lot of sense.
Also, throw in 802.11bb - Light-based wireless data communication aka LiFi - and it breaks the 'bigger letters are better and backwards-compatible' scheme entirely.
I'm also running Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/) to try to beef it up. Some of the projects I'd like to tackle:
So, except for that first bullet point, we are in the worst USB timeline. Still, even as bullet points, it's describing a mess.
Thank you for saying it so I don't have to. Good grief, even the article says it... but only in the last paragraph.
I absolutely agree with this. Yes, it's updates in this case, not drivers. But the number of edge cases to test and the cost to do so is substantial, and the number of affected users is relatively small. Meanwhile, this means they can make it so they don't need to backport patches that have odd forks, etc. for new processors.
Right now, I'd say a substantial part of the problem is insurance protection against cyber attacks.
If a company can go to a bog-standard insurance company like Travelers or AIG and spend a small fraction of both the real breach cost and the cost of actually securing things, they will - the profit motive demands it.
What the profit motive DOESN'T demand is the insurance company look at their costs with a blind eye. Right now, I'm sure a large number of those policies are untriggered, so in aggregate, they are still profitable. But when those costs become comparable, and a company factors in the lost productivity and PR issues (both of which are hard to quantify), they will actually secure things. Partially to save money on or qualify for their cyber insurance.
That's part of why news coverage of breaches and forced disclosure laws are so important - right now, to both businesses and insurers, the productivity and PR costs are too easy to ignore, and the insurer has little motive to force compliance. (In fact, it's theoretically more profitable to 'prove' to their customers that attacks happen and no tightening will prevent all attacks - both of which are absolutely true no matter what happens.)
Whoops, made a mistake there: "Microsoft will not make new drivers" should be "Microsoft will not sign new driver packages".
This! Mind you, it's a bit worse than that - ie, Intel won't make a signed driver package that will allow Kaby Lake to work on Windows 7/8/8.1, because Microsoft will not make new drivers.
But let's play devil's advocate for a second - is this just Microsoft pushing Windows 10 for the sake of Windows 10? Or... is this because the driver model has changed since Win7/8 and supporting both is a higher cost for driver makers (who, by definition, would have to spend more or split quality/features to support all of these platforms)? Is it because Microsoft doesn't want to sign a driver unless it goes through the whole WHQL certification process (to ensure it's a clean build, it's stable, it's malware-free, etc.), and Microsoft can't financially justify/support keeping up the WHQL pipeline given Win7/8's current levels of popularity and general downward trend (since they no long sell or support Win7/8, Win 10 doesn't necessarily have to grow, but Win 7/8's installed base will drop due to natural attrition)?
But there's nothing here stopping manufacturers from making Linux or Mac drivers, nothing here preventing third-party, open-source drivers (albeit requiring users to allow unsigned drivers and the inherent security risks), and nothing here about Microsoft artificially pushing Win10 for the sole sake of pushing Win10.
This!
Even with a stable framerate, this technique intentionally delays the next frame to add compensation frames.
As an example, let's have a magic VR helmet running at 120Hz and instant processing (ie, 0ms GTG time, which doesn't exist) and a video card capped at a perfectly stable 30 FPS (aka 30Hz).
We will split a second into ticks - we'll use the VR helmet's frequency of 120 Hz, so we have 120 ticks, numbered 1 to 120. (Just to annoy my fellow programmers!)
We therefore get a new actual frame every 4th tick - 1st, 5th, 9th, etc.
Without motion compensation, we would display a new frame every 4th tick - 1st, 5th, 9th, etc.
With ideal (instant) motion compensation, we can't compute a transition frame until we have the new frame. So we could, theoretically, go real frame #1 on 1st tick, computed frame based on #1 and #2 on 5th tick, real frame #2 on 6th tick, computed frame based on #2 and #3 at 9th tick, etc.
This would also be jerky - 2 motion frames then 3 at rest? We could push the frames back a tick and fill the interval with three compensation frames, but then we increase the delay, which is always higher than this example (and is multiplicative). So we'd have frame #1 at 5th tick, computed frames at 6th/7th/8th, frame #2 at 9th tick, etc. You've now introduced a minimum 4 tick delay, which at 120Hz is 1/30 of a second, or 33ms! To an otherwise impossibly-perfect system!
What about historical frames instead to PREDICT the next blur? Well, then, when something in-game (or, really, on screen) changes velocity, there would be mis-compensation. (Overcompensating if the object slows, undercompensating if it speeds up, and miscompensation if direction changes).
There's more problems, too:
- This doesn't help when the video card frameskips/dips.
- Instant GTG and instant motion frame computation do not exist. At best, they're sub-tick, but you'd still operate on the tick.
- Input delay already exists for game processing, etc.
- Increased input delay perception would be exponential to the actual length of the delay. For example, 1-2ms between keypress and onscreen action? Hardly notable. 50ms delay just to start registering a motion on screen and course correct? Maybe OK, maybe annoying. 150-200ms? Brutal.
No, there's another big difference. First time visitors, if they are visiting a site with a non-trusted key, are asked about it, right? Sounds good, right?
The point of SSL is to ID a server as a certain server. Let's say you do ecommerce, and your very own pages explain this behavior away. Great idea, until your domain get hijacked (registrar isn't paid, DNS spoof, etc). Lo and behold, users come to expect this behavior, and click away.
This is the key fact, however. You need someone you can trust - a third party that puts a huge amount on the line - to certify that the server is who it says it is.
CACERT is a potential answer, but it needs to be integrated into Firefox and IE. But you do need that 3rd party authority. Otherwise, you it's like someone sending you an IM saying, "Hey, I'm me. What's you password/credit card/SSN?"
I'd kinda have to question this. I mean, either way, the compiler should flag them as different types. They have different class members (namely, the Xbox/360 has subobjects for advanced media playback and code signing), and is generally much more rounded out and stable.
I've always considered the Xbox (orig.) to be Dreamcast 2.0 - the Dreamcast ran WinCE, and it's a safe bet MS was already working hard to jump in the market through them. I think the best way to describe the relationship is as versions of a class. The designers, however, are pretty poor - the first official version had no backward compatibility with the DC public beta, and they are now offering some, but not all, compatibility with the new, oddly numbered, v3.60.
This could be useful. I work as a hardware tech, and it's a pain to find a motherboard to test CPUs on. If the daughterboard could be made to support other processors, and preferably have some sort of protection, so it wouldn't damage the rest of the system, it could save a ton of time and money.
Burnout 3 is the devil.
I'm not a big fan of racing games, but I can't put it down. It has this draw. It was so powerful, it stole back after only one week of Halo 2. I buy new games, and then ignore them.
However, it is truly satisfying to score air (in a cutlass ciera, no less!) or successfully drift a turn when you can't even parallel park. I know I'm driving faster because of the game, but I'm also driving a tad bit smarter, thinking about the physics of the car (and which ones are safe to rear end.)
Only disappointment I have is the Axe deoderant ads. Ugh...
*sigh* Openness and transparency are primary responsibilities of any organization. If a company, etc. doesn't practice these standards, then it is hard to maintain any sense of accountability to investors, customers, and others. While I agree that it is not the popular standard, it is the moral one.
This is directed toward Sean. Great explanation of the events leading up to the hiccups. All-in-all, it sounds like you guys did a bang up job. I'm a bit curious, however: Roughly how long was that USB extension, and how much did the USB repeater cost? I've been a bit interested in that. And, as said above, cell phone fan is being, at a minimum, unduly harsh. I could almost understand a post like that if the reason for a failure was "we forgot to test" or "the media center PC had spyware". It was a live show. I've done live shows and demos, I've taught multiple classes, and I know how things love to go wrong. (Ugh... that senior citizen's MS Office class.... bad memories...) None the less, it sounds like you and your team handled it gracefully, with a witty ad-lib recovery (which, I might add, was appropriate because of Conan's presence). And right now, you're doing what Microsoft as a whole should be doing: being open and transparent, and explaining everything that could get wrong.
Dear ArmenTanzarian,
I have been permitted to inform you that, because of the following transgression:
INSTALLING SPYWARE ON PARENT'S PC
that the Slashdot Armada. 7th Squadron is currently en route.
The Slashdot Armada, 7th Squadron is a variable fighting force, equipped with a minimum of:
gauss cannons, over-heating laptop batteries, Natalie Port(69)man, Trolls, *Zilla, a penguin army, RFID launchers, cease-and-desist letters, virri, overbearing patents, seven senators, a Borg cube, 10^7 D&D manuals, hacked vodka, goatse.cx, a cyclotron, seven outdated linux distros freshly downloaded from the CVS last night, mobile wiMax grid, conspiracy theories, lasers, wild speculation, off-topic comments, and flames.
We recommend that you and the other child poster (who also has been prosecuted without indictment or trial) respond with feverish apologies, a repaired family computer, and free goodies for us.
Shawn McNaughton
Battle Commander, 7th Squadron, Slashdot Armada
I must be psychic/psychotic.
I had always been told that Sony was the best by friends. I had been debating one to replace my nice yet newly slow Pacific Digital 4x dual-format burner which I got for $23. (Side note: Older, cheap DVD burners will be hot Christmas gifts this year.)
Just today, about 2:30PM, I was looking at new dual-layer drives. I had a crazy scheme (younger brothers, 11, 10, and 8) would like a cd burner for Christmas. I'll do one better - I'll give them a barely used DVD-burner which costs less than a new CD-RW almost anywhere.
I look at new egg, I want one to match my case a bit, and I see the NEC ND3500-A. It looks nice, so I get it, seeing that it had some good reviews and was pretty cheap.
I accidentally got, debatably, the best 16x, dual-layer DVD burner out there.
I'm sorry, all I can say right now is woohoo!
Oops, my mistake, I can also say YeeHaw!
Actually, I'm not sure about you, but I add a layer of abstraction to phone numbers. I use my cell for everything, and just have contacts.
Changing a DNS record isn't hard, if you know what you're doing. But, considering that even a simple point-and-click change of a domain or two could cause outages *unless* you spend hours and money on transition preparation, I'd rather have a different system, or at least some control.
(I know that in September those outages will start to become a thing of the past, but still... if I ran an e-commerce site, think of all the potential lost business and switchover work...)
A similar method is employed by the webcomic Sluggy Freelance (www.sluggy.com). They have the 'Defenders of the Nifty' program - a small donation gets you one year without ads.
If, for example, one small text ad were to be shown, and by request you could add a couple more text ads or make a small donation and eliminate all of the ads, you could dramatically increase the effectiveness of such ads.
If the spider is embedded in the pants, I think I'll run around naked till they get the bugs worked out.
Think about it: We all fought for cell phone number portability, but we hate IP number portability.
To the average non-technical person, wouldn't they seem to be a similar right? More importantly, shouldn't we be able to keep IPs? So lazy ISPs have to rewrite software due to lazy Admins... It's a similar right, so if I pay for a static IP, I pay for a static IP.
Perhaps the current economic model and technology behind IP routing is flawed in this respect, but does that really mean that they should be, in fact, locked in? It's a pain to change DNS info. What if you are a site owner but not the admin? What if it's some long gone web design firm? Can the average user really change an IP address, even using most registrar's friendly web interfaces?
This is amazing. We're shouting the same problems that cell phone companies did - too great an expense, need time, not set up for it, unnecessary - but only because it is convenient.
Why even bother arguing a point when you contradict yourself on a mostly parallel point?
I imagine this will start drawing flames, but it's an important point at how hypocritical we, in the technical community, have become when we go from end-user asking for a service to admin denying a similar service. It's just my two cents, so if you don't like it, give me a refund. I'll be waiting.
...as long as the price is right. Maybe ten wasn't enough, but it appears to me that it's Telecom's responsibility to leave themself a large buffer in their projections, then dropping the price if feasible.
Hell, it beats the US. You can buy a 500 msg plan for ~$8, sure, but what if you don't use that much? If I send a msg from my Cell One phone to my mom's Verizon phone, I get charged a dime to send and she a dime to recieve. But if she sends and I receive, it's free for both of us. Why?
But then again, text messaging isn't as widespread in the US. Personally, I'm waiting on phones that have reasonably working IM. They exist, but not around here. I have DSL, so whip up a gateway (not too hard, really, using Trillian) and you're good to go.
If they take a look at it, the game is lost.
As soon as RIAA - those concerned with piracy - change their mind, it loses the 'illegal' status that sticks in many people's minds. Many don't download music because it is illegal and actively sued for. I personally know people who won't even download music, and it's sad.
If the RIAA were to change positions, CDs and DRMed music would lose their one big advantage - that fact that they won't get you sued.
It's not a matter of right or wrong - RIAA has to look as if they make an effort against the big fish to keep the little people from downloading. The big downloaders may have every right to download music - if I heard it on the radio, can't I get the song out of my head? (Pun intended...) Did I get a license by having heard and hence knowing the song?
But - and this is the key point - these deviants, or rebels, or wolves in consumer-sheep clothing, are not generating profit, but may not have if piracy was unviable. They may not buy anything anyway!
It is the consumer-sheep that generate profit, for they are great in number and less rebellious and aberrant in their behavior, so by making a half-hearted effort against the big guys the small frys get scared. Isn't this true in many other situations? Drugs and pron would top this list, but what about artists? If a big name 'modern' artist makes something offensive and all of his federal funding dries up, won't the smaller ones get tamer?
The RIAA is not about money or control - unlike what many posters think. It is about security - they do not care if some aberrants exist so long as they are promised a certain large revenue stream for their vacation home expansion projects. Even the 'dwindling sales' theory doesn't bother them - they are a large part of the total consumer market, so any losses they have get passed on to the rest of the market in lower relative wages and salaries for peons, among other things.
So, why should the RIAA care about real sales effects?
Um... I love my dreamcast too. The ability to run homebrews is awesome, the graphics are great, and it's pretty damn fun.
That said, there is a point in every console's life where it cannot keep going on. Perhaps it is cut down in it's prime like so many before it. Perhaps it never got the support it needed. The Jaguar, Neo-Geo, Turbo-Grafix, and 3DO fall in this category in how they left this world.
Then there are those that die of old age. They may have life-supporting emulation, but truly they are dead. SNES, Genesis, Game Gear, N64 - they lived good lives.
Our beloved Dreamcast is unique - it struggled violently, but could not win its battle. Sega's acquiescence to defeat wounded it, and old age finished it.
As a certified minister through a small church in Arizona, I know such things well - or at least have for a few minutes. Anyway, I am here to help you grieve - and you are grieving. You are in an early phase - denial. Do know that the DC is surely dead, and remember the good times you had with it.
I'm here if you need to cry.