Did you say something? I was getting work done here, rather than worrying about Microsoft's next great evil plan... you know, life without walls, yada yada yada...
If this was an outside job, it's quite clever and the timing was perfect.
If nothing else, it's a major wake-up call as to just how much power Amazon has amassed over the media as we know it. If we were looking at an upcoming Orwellian future, Amazon is certainly one possible cornerstone for total information control, right next to sites like Google.
Perhaps it's time to step back a really take a good hard look at how exactly we get all our information and how easily it could be taken away from us.
(That said, I know Amazon doesn't have a monopoly, but their role is still significant, none-the-less...)
Is the submitter suggesting "sin" taxes are a good thing?!
If so, who gets to decide what activities and products are deserving of such penalties? How does this not quality as government-sponsored policing of morality? And who's system of ethics is ultimately the correct one?
Obviously taxes are necessary to fund the cost of government and it's services, but abusing the system to punish those who aren't harming anyone is completely ridiculous. Look at the outlandish cost of cigarettes smokers are subjected to every time they want to get their fix. It's easy to criticize smokers when you don't personally smoke, but you can bet your ass that you'd be complaining about the cost if you did.
Perhaps it's time to shake things up and reverse our ideals on what constitutes a "sin" deserving of taxes... like couples who have children who annoy those of us who don't. Why should all of us pay property taxes that go into the schools that educate children that aren't ours? Maybe couples who have children should foot the entire bill for schools simply because the rest of us find the act of having children objectionable.
After all we only have extra cash because we made an informed choice not to bring another screaming brat into this world. It should be entirely ours to use as we see fit.
Whenever you luddites stop shivering, maybe you could actually try to understand that such "pointless" innovation is necessary for the survival of the game industry. Game development is a process of continual trial and error. If developers don't keep pushing the envelope, they risk having the user become bored with their products. And if you remember the video game crash of the 1980s, offering too many similar-looking game to users is typically a bad thing.
Sure, we've seen some of these "pointless" innovations fail the first time around on numerous occasions. But, when these innovations are picked up elsewhere and reworked, they can eventually lead to titles that go down in history as being revolutionary.
So yeah... "pointless" innovation might be bad at first, but we f---ing need it!
How about this then... they instead simply keep the "offensive" books in the searches, but offer to include a book of matches and lighter fluid as an add-on for them. Then users who want the books removed can simply buy them all up and burn them by themselves.
Well, what they could do to fix this, is simply offer a method to automate this process once a day within a few seconds, then adjust for whatever penalties would usually accompany playing that long under normal circumstances, and update the player stats accordingly.
Since everyone can do it, it removes much of the desire to "cheat" the system.
but not for DRM protection... it's protecting from litigation.
Offer a data plan that exceeds that of the closest competitor, and you might soon find yourself on the bench defending yourself against charges that you are facilitating piracy by offering unusually high transfer rates compared to the rest of the industry.
In the meanwhile, many foreign countries have data rates commonly available to users that are 5x the fastest speeds you can find here in the US.
... your actual data transfer speeds from your ISP will outweigh the amount of data you can actually transfer. Better choose carefully before clicking that link...
Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on the netbook arena. They're just the only mainstream OS option available without resorting to breaking some EULAs and/or piracy. It's been quite clearly shown that there is a huge desire for Apple's Mac OS X to be made available to the netbook market. As it is, some people have gone to great lengths to install Mac OS X on the machines due to the underwhelming performance of Windows XP and the lack of commercial software support from the linux end.
Getting Mac OS X into the netbook arena resolves both issues, you get a stable, responsive OS with support for commercial produced software, while still having access to most of the open source market as well.
While the MacBook Air is arguably a "netbook", it lacks the size and form factor that has made actual "netbooks" like the Acer Aspire One, such a runaway success.
If Apple ever plans to penetrate the PC market with Mac OS X world-wide, the netbook market would be the best place to start. Netbooks generally aren't modified by end users in the same way desktop computers are, so Apple could easily develop a standard for officially supporting Mac OS X on them.
Once users have experienced Mac OS X on their netbook, they might even consider buying an actual Mac for their desktop machine.
The netbook market is something Apple really should consider embracing while users are still up in the air over which OS they want.
I've been researching DVD ripping solutions for an upcoming project to finally end the horrors of constant disc swapping (Mac Classic relapse anyone?) lately, and one of the discussed issues that kept coming up was problems users had with ripping Disney published movies. Apparently they do something in the process of making the discs that introduces a ton of bad sectors into the finished disc as a form of copy prevention. Some rippers simply can't handle it.
Another possibility is that you are trying to perform a rip straight from the DVD itself. In my experience, ripping directly from the disc itself fails about 75% of the time, even on a desktop machine. If this is the case with you, your best bet is to first find an app that can extract the Video_TS content from the DVD to your hard drive, then use whatever ripping software you have on the extracted dvd content stored on your hard drive to a video file.
I'm not entirely sure they are checking, so much as going by the "honor system". I signed up and was verified within a couple hours... like around 2am CST. If they are actually verifying this stuff, it's probably not being handled by a human.
That said, I'm glad these guys are doing this. The software is interesting and makes for a unique learning experience. Just don't get any funny ideas and try using it for profit though...
If I had to guess, the problem with broadband in the US has far more to do with politics than technological limitations. No one wants to risk getting labeled as being "soft on piracy" and held liable for facilitating large-scale content piracy simply by offering bandwidth speeds far higher than the nearest competitor provides. If anything, many of these companies may be artificially holding back network speeds until the potential liability costs from litigation become lower than the loss of profits due to poor quality service.
Unlike most places, the old addage of "Too much of a good thing is bad for you" really means something here in the US.
... these same news companies would be threatening to sue these same search engines and aggregators if they suddenly stopped including these companies news content in their search results entirely, as well.
So, how do you get out of one of these "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations without handing someone a big check?
wow... there are men this self-conscious about a piece of equipment? A lot of women find the iPod cute, but I don't crack out the sony walkman with the purse, err, sidebag to hold all my cassette tapes in whenever I go anywhere. Computers are just tools. If you carry one around as a status symbol, you might be quite a bit fruitier than you actually imagine yourself to be.
That said, a computer earns more respect based on what's inside the box, versus the outside. You can turn a "cute" machine into an impressive one by modding it to give it unique functionality you can't buy on a stock unit. For example, the Acer Aspire One can be modded to support a built in touch screen. If that doesn't impress anyone, they're probably not bright enough to appreciate the effort involved in such a mod.
Anyway, please don't become yet another Starbucks-based pseudo-author who's only there to look important
Dark, edgy, destroy-everything-while-swearing-like-a-sailor characters were popular in the 80's, scaled back in the 90's and returned at the turn of the millenium after 9/11. It seems to have something to do with the bounce in our collective personality between a sense of rebellion versus the whole "won't anyone think of the children" mindset.
I'm sure once everyone decides they hate democrats again and reverts back to electing the next gun-toting, beer-swilling, secretly gay/publicly straight militant christian president, we'll get our R-rated violence and swearing... which will probably be the new standard for the "PG"-rating in 2016.
Also absent from the list was ProDOS. I never had much reason to use it other than to load games back in my Apple II days, but apparently it was pretty popular from 1983 onward...
You know, the more I hear about this kind of crap, the more I wonder if Sony is actually trying to ruin the PlayStation brand name. Every move they make seems to contradict common sense when it comes to business, almost as though they're afraid that following standard business tactics will make them seem weak to the consumer and their investors.
At the rate Sony is going, the PS3 will be the end of the line for the company as a console manufacturer, just like the Dreamcast did for Sega. Even though a console is technically great, it won't survive if the marketing strategies are poorly executed.
Just think, all of those great remaining PS3 exclusive franchises might become XBox 360 exclusives well before the predicted 10 year life span of the PS3 ends... complete with sony's own logo on the package!
Slashdot Mirror
An incentive to shop even less than we already are now...
... but feel free to mash some buttons while you wait.
Did you say something? I was getting work done here, rather than worrying about Microsoft's next great evil plan... you know, life without walls, yada yada yada...
I honestly don't think we will have an Orwellian future on the internet without it being blocked at the ISP level.
We may be closer than you think.
First by file size, next by keyword...
... to run it on mission critical medical equipment?
If this was an outside job, it's quite clever and the timing was perfect.
If nothing else, it's a major wake-up call as to just how much power Amazon has amassed over the media as we know it. If we were looking at an upcoming Orwellian future, Amazon is certainly one possible cornerstone for total information control, right next to sites like Google.
Perhaps it's time to step back a really take a good hard look at how exactly we get all our information and how easily it could be taken away from us.
(That said, I know Amazon doesn't have a monopoly, but their role is still significant, none-the-less...)
Is the submitter suggesting "sin" taxes are a good thing?!
If so, who gets to decide what activities and products are deserving of such penalties? How does this not quality as government-sponsored policing of morality? And who's system of ethics is ultimately the correct one?
Obviously taxes are necessary to fund the cost of government and it's services, but abusing the system to punish those who aren't harming anyone is completely ridiculous. Look at the outlandish cost of cigarettes smokers are subjected to every time they want to get their fix. It's easy to criticize smokers when you don't personally smoke, but you can bet your ass that you'd be complaining about the cost if you did.
Perhaps it's time to shake things up and reverse our ideals on what constitutes a "sin" deserving of taxes... like couples who have children who annoy those of us who don't. Why should all of us pay property taxes that go into the schools that educate children that aren't ours? Maybe couples who have children should foot the entire bill for schools simply because the rest of us find the act of having children objectionable.
After all we only have extra cash because we made an informed choice not to bring another screaming brat into this world. It should be entirely ours to use as we see fit.
Ask that one guy from TRON...
Whenever you luddites stop shivering, maybe you could actually try to understand that such "pointless" innovation is necessary for the survival of the game industry. Game development is a process of continual trial and error. If developers don't keep pushing the envelope, they risk having the user become bored with their products. And if you remember the video game crash of the 1980s, offering too many similar-looking game to users is typically a bad thing.
Sure, we've seen some of these "pointless" innovations fail the first time around on numerous occasions. But, when these innovations are picked up elsewhere and reworked, they can eventually lead to titles that go down in history as being revolutionary.
So yeah... "pointless" innovation might be bad at first, but we f---ing need it!
***insert kindle joke here***
How about this then... they instead simply keep the "offensive" books in the searches, but offer to include a book of matches and lighter fluid as an add-on for them. Then users who want the books removed can simply buy them all up and burn them by themselves.
Well, what they could do to fix this, is simply offer a method to automate this process once a day within a few seconds, then adjust for whatever penalties would usually accompany playing that long under normal circumstances, and update the player stats accordingly.
Since everyone can do it, it removes much of the desire to "cheat" the system.
but not for DRM protection... it's protecting from litigation.
Offer a data plan that exceeds that of the closest competitor, and you might soon find yourself on the bench defending yourself against charges that you are facilitating piracy by offering unusually high transfer rates compared to the rest of the industry.
In the meanwhile, many foreign countries have data rates commonly available to users that are 5x the fastest speeds you can find here in the US.
... your actual data transfer speeds from your ISP will outweigh the amount of data you can actually transfer. Better choose carefully before clicking that link...
Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on the netbook arena. They're just the only mainstream OS option available without resorting to breaking some EULAs and/or piracy. It's been quite clearly shown that there is a huge desire for Apple's Mac OS X to be made available to the netbook market. As it is, some people have gone to great lengths to install Mac OS X on the machines due to the underwhelming performance of Windows XP and the lack of commercial software support from the linux end.
Getting Mac OS X into the netbook arena resolves both issues, you get a stable, responsive OS with support for commercial produced software, while still having access to most of the open source market as well.
While the MacBook Air is arguably a "netbook", it lacks the size and form factor that has made actual "netbooks" like the Acer Aspire One, such a runaway success.
If Apple ever plans to penetrate the PC market with Mac OS X world-wide, the netbook market would be the best place to start. Netbooks generally aren't modified by end users in the same way desktop computers are, so Apple could easily develop a standard for officially supporting Mac OS X on them.
Once users have experienced Mac OS X on their netbook, they might even consider buying an actual Mac for their desktop machine.
The netbook market is something Apple really should consider embracing while users are still up in the air over which OS they want.
I've been researching DVD ripping solutions for an upcoming project to finally end the horrors of constant disc swapping (Mac Classic relapse anyone?) lately, and one of the discussed issues that kept coming up was problems users had with ripping Disney published movies. Apparently they do something in the process of making the discs that introduces a ton of bad sectors into the finished disc as a form of copy prevention. Some rippers simply can't handle it.
Another possibility is that you are trying to perform a rip straight from the DVD itself. In my experience, ripping directly from the disc itself fails about 75% of the time, even on a desktop machine. If this is the case with you, your best bet is to first find an app that can extract the Video_TS content from the DVD to your hard drive, then use whatever ripping software you have on the extracted dvd content stored on your hard drive to a video file.
I'm not entirely sure they are checking, so much as going by the "honor system". I signed up and was verified within a couple hours... like around 2am CST. If they are actually verifying this stuff, it's probably not being handled by a human.
That said, I'm glad these guys are doing this. The software is interesting and makes for a unique learning experience. Just don't get any funny ideas and try using it for profit though...
... until I replaced it with Mac OS X. (Acer Aspire One / 1.5GB RAM / 8GB SSD / Broadcom Networking Card)
If I had to guess, the problem with broadband in the US has far more to do with politics than technological limitations. No one wants to risk getting labeled as being "soft on piracy" and held liable for facilitating large-scale content piracy simply by offering bandwidth speeds far higher than the nearest competitor provides. If anything, many of these companies may be artificially holding back network speeds until the potential liability costs from litigation become lower than the loss of profits due to poor quality service.
Unlike most places, the old addage of "Too much of a good thing is bad for you" really means something here in the US.
I really like my microwave!
I'm sure Bill would spot them a few billion to help out our economy... he is a philanthropist, after all...
... these same news companies would be threatening to sue these same search engines and aggregators if they suddenly stopped including these companies news content in their search results entirely, as well.
So, how do you get out of one of these "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations without handing someone a big check?
wow... there are men this self-conscious about a piece of equipment? A lot of women find the iPod cute, but I don't crack out the sony walkman with the purse, err, sidebag to hold all my cassette tapes in whenever I go anywhere. Computers are just tools. If you carry one around as a status symbol, you might be quite a bit fruitier than you actually imagine yourself to be.
That said, a computer earns more respect based on what's inside the box, versus the outside. You can turn a "cute" machine into an impressive one by modding it to give it unique functionality you can't buy on a stock unit. For example, the Acer Aspire One can be modded to support a built in touch screen. If that doesn't impress anyone, they're probably not bright enough to appreciate the effort involved in such a mod.
Anyway, please don't become yet another Starbucks-based pseudo-author who's only there to look important
Dark, edgy, destroy-everything-while-swearing-like-a-sailor characters were popular in the 80's, scaled back in the 90's and returned at the turn of the millenium after 9/11. It seems to have something to do with the bounce in our collective personality between a sense of rebellion versus the whole "won't anyone think of the children" mindset.
I'm sure once everyone decides they hate democrats again and reverts back to electing the next gun-toting, beer-swilling, secretly gay/publicly straight militant christian president, we'll get our R-rated violence and swearing... which will probably be the new standard for the "PG"-rating in 2016.
Also absent from the list was ProDOS. I never had much reason to use it other than to load games back in my Apple II days, but apparently it was pretty popular from 1983 onward...
You know, the more I hear about this kind of crap, the more I wonder if Sony is actually trying to ruin the PlayStation brand name. Every move they make seems to contradict common sense when it comes to business, almost as though they're afraid that following standard business tactics will make them seem weak to the consumer and their investors.
At the rate Sony is going, the PS3 will be the end of the line for the company as a console manufacturer, just like the Dreamcast did for Sega. Even though a console is technically great, it won't survive if the marketing strategies are poorly executed.
Just think, all of those great remaining PS3 exclusive franchises might become XBox 360 exclusives well before the predicted 10 year life span of the PS3 ends... complete with sony's own logo on the package!