Hey, I fully understand... on the other hand, you're currently relying on the Trident rendering engine component being available to you. I don't see that going away anytime soon, but let's say it did... then you'd be up shit creek just as well.
If you did go with e.g. Gecko, OpenAL, etc. then yes that'll take quite a bit of work right now. On the other hand, should you ever decide to port to another platform for which those are available, you should only need minor tweaks, as opposed to "ah crap, there's no Direct3D on OS X.. now what?"
But let's not go overboard here.. we're talking about a document renderer, a relatively small part of any application.. all you are likely to have to replace is the control that houses the renderer and adjust the API calls from your current control to those required by the new control.
Oh and yes, bundling layout engines is generally the entire point of their existence; they aren't a separate browser to download and have the user install.. they're typically a single library, or a collection of multiple libraries.
and the application data folder? what about the localstore? did it place any files in %windir% or %sysdir%? did it make any file extension associations? did it add any environment variables? etc.
crap cleaner won't clean -all- of that up.
That said, the original poster's comment was bunk; an uninstallation isonly as good as the uninstall routine. If it doesn't delete -all- files / remove -all- registry entries, etc. set upon install, then that's an issue with the uninstaller, not with the host OS.
I'm sure that some of the -package managers- do a great job at tracking this (though they're likely to miss run-time file/store changes just as well), but that says far more about the package manager than it does about the host OS.
Your best bet is going to be to take a snapshot of your system, install, run for a while, do a diff, remove known variables from other use (from earlier diffs, presumably) - i.e. e-mail database, temporary files, etc. - store that and use that to remove files/registry settings/etc. later on.
Maybe you shouldn't rely on it, then? Detect whether it's available upon installation. If it is, use it - if not, install and use a different layout engine (gecko, webkit, whatever)
Seriously... from being *blind* (no vision at all, whatsoever, etc.) to not just having say a single signal (dark/light), or 3 signals (enough to determine some direction), but 60??
That's enough not just to make out direction, but also movement.
The only problem I see is that it's not quite like a photo in that it isn't a regular grid.
The last I read about this, it went a little something liek this... They stick all N electrodes into the visual cortex and then activate them, one by one, and ask the user "is this point more left or more right than this one? Is it higher or lower?" The reason for this is... 1. they don't know exactly -what- the user is in fact seeing.. they don't even know what 'direction' an electrode is actually giving a signal. 2. the implantee was blind before. Giving them a single signal and asking them to point roughly into the direction of the illuminated blob they can 'see' is futile - they have no reference.
Once done, they have a map of where the electrodes roughly are in relationship to eachother, as well as a map of which electrodes are weak, which don't work at all, etc. Only -then- can they hook it up to an imaging processor's output, and weeks of training the user begins. I.e. put a lightbulb right in front of them - what they might 'see' is an illuminated blob nearer to the lower-right of their 'vision', seen from our viewpoint. On the up side, if they have always been blind, they can easily be told that the illumination is coming from directly in front of them. If the implantee had lost his sight later in life, however, they're going to have to re-learn their visual processing.
Regardless of all of these 'issues', it remains VERY impressive indeed that we can make some deaf people hear and some blind people see.. even if it's nowhere near the acuity of most people, -any- hearing/vision is an immeasurable improvement over -no- hearing/vision.
[10:01:14] This is the sun that Earth is orbiting. It's a regular main sequence star with a core temperature of about sixteen million degrees and enough hydrogen to burn for another five billion years. [10:01:27] Yeah? [10:01:30] We wanna blow it up. [10:01:38] Wow. [10:01:42] That's, uh... [10:01:47] Ambitious. [10:01:47] Ambitious.
Just to note from that security bulletin: Published: October 14, 2008 Updated: January 13, 2009
This has already been patched for some time. Yes, I know, some are wary of installing patches in case they bring on some other issues, so one word of warning: if you use ZoneAlarm (by jove, why? WHY WHY WHY??), be sure to read the 'list of known issues after applying this patch': http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956803
Okay, so these voxels - with current generation technology - are represented as cubes which of course are 12 tri-polies, so it's not entirely -without- polygons.. but at least it's not based on polygons and it lets you do some pretty cool stuff - such as truly fully destructible environments. No, none of that "we ran a script on all objects (except for those we don't want you to be able to destroy) that pre-fragments them and call the havok engine on the object if the damage model reaches a certain level" crap. I mean *fully* destructible.
Sadly, this is the only 'worthy' example I've seen and it's still kinda 'meh'... http://voxelstein3d.sourceforge.net/...but it's got me excited for what could be done with voxel-friendly accelerators.
The biggest hurdle, however, is not the accelerators... it's the artists. Suddenly you can no longer get away with 'modeling' a house by simply putting up a façade like they do in movies.. now that house has got to have an interior because some wise-ass IS gonna be spending all of the ammo on the map to chip away at that 10" thick brick wall so they can venture inside the house WITHOUT collecting the key from the bossfight.
So... shot my own excitement down there, again... but at least there's the potential:)
Odds are that if it's antique, it'll fall well outside of copyright legislation (even at 75 years or 95 years, if taking 'antique' as 100+ years old; wiki says 50-100 but I find it difficult to suggest something my dad might have gotten for his birthday as a kid would be considered 'antique'.. old, yes - antique, no. My grandmother (104), on the other hand..)
Except that you get a smooth transition from one VR to the other.
A QuickTime VR - for those who have been living under a rock or just don't care - is a small file with a graphical representation of, typically, the whole environment. So 360 degrees around and 180 degrees up/down. Within a QuickTime VR viewer you can then look in any direction of that environment, zoom in/out, etc.
In some QuickTime VRs (and much better in older PanoTools-based panoramas, or even SmoothMove/etc.), you can click on a hotlink and it would take you to another QuickTime VR taken from that position/area (e.g. click on a door and you would get a VR of the next room).
This is much the same technology as far as that goes, except that instead of clicking (presumably), you move around using whatever you'd use to move around with typically.. such as the keyboard.
The nice part is where they blend smoothly between the panoramas. Sure, they have to take a LOT of them to begin with (hence the camera rig off a grid in the ceiling, probably something like 1 pano every 10 inches or whatever; from the looks of it only in a 2D plane, but 3D should be doable), but even with that you need some nice motion estimation to blend between the two panos as depicted on the screen.
However, there are limitations that they point out... 1. they can't blend in live actors -while- you move. That's an organisational limitation - you'd have to make the actor re-do their steps for every single pano vantage point. Ouch. You could mount a whole grid of cameras, but that's gonna be insanely expensive (not just in material costs but rigging that up for each room as well). Probably their best bet is to 3D digitize the actor and blend that into their panos using standard 3D compositing software. 2. they're limited to a 2D plane at the moment. As I mentioned, this could be made 3D - just means it will take a LOT more time to create 3. they're limited by storage media; granted, they're talking about their hope for a DVD release, so I guess they're stuck on CD, but even DVD or Blu-Ray would be filled up quickly if it was a more involved game than what it currently looks like.
Just slapping "I think", or "In my opinion" in front of things doesn't magically make them immune from slander/libel laws.
i.e. "Bob is an asshole - he is a rapist" -> probable libel as you make a claim of fact. "Bob is an asshole - I think he is a rapist" -> still probable libel because it presupposes you have factual information to base that opinion on. "Bob is an asshole" -> not libel; whether or not a person is indeed an asshole is subjective (even if a thousand people agree).
Although I fully agree with what you're saying, it doesn't work well in the reality of the world.
Say you're hiring somebody and you google two candidates (as they do, these days)...
Candidate A comes up as your average joe. Candidate B comes up as your average joe EXCEPT FOR that completely unsubstantiated claim on facebook from somebody who said they were over at Candidate B's place the other night to have a spliff (do kids still call it that these days?)
Yes, they're unsubstantiated claims. Yes, you shouldn't put much weight on it. But all things else being equal, unless your hiring for a 'coffeeshop', who would be the more likely candidate? Why take the risk?
The 'trivial misbehaviors' one is an even easier target. B misbehaves, A does not.. A it is - unless you put positive value on trivial misbehaviors (e.g. "Candidate A looks okay, but Candidate B looks like he'd be a lot more fun on casual fridays").
Having a -barrage- of these kinds of things posted about people just means that all the others still look better by comparison. The only way it'd work is if these kinds of things were posted about practically every person that would be a potential candidate for a job/invite/whatever it is.
That said, again, I agree with you and kudos to those who do indeed not put much weight on these matters, or find that Candidates A and B are really equal and they'll just both have to be invited for an interview and determine who to hire based on that, rather than google results; best yet, don't even use Google - but that's becoming a pipe dream:)
okay, so you're the only one replying, sadly... where's RedK at?
But I welcome and value your reply!:)
That said.. "Examples?" 1. Adobe Acrobat (Reader)
"How many of those are Windows components?" Zero.
"How many of those are Microsoft products?" Zero.
So this is where Microsoft is in no way to blame.
There's two situations to go from, from here.. A. You have IE as your standard browser. In this case, it's doing exactly what it should be doing - opening IE.
B. You have a different browser as your standard browser. In this case, Adobe Acrobat (Reader) has a coding error in that it has been hardcoded to open Internet Explorer. Write to Adobe telling them you do not appreciate their software ignoring your default browser.
IRC is great for one-on-one support chats... there's tons of support for it out there in terms of utilities (log file handling, e-mail transcripts to clients, etc.), web-based front-ends (java and 'ajax'), IM client support (all the does-it-all IM clients have an IRC component available), etc.
Sure, you COULD just open up an MSN hotline (do they still charge for this?), but then all your Yahoo-using clients will complain that they have to first install MSN (though Yahoo! does MSN now, I suppose), and vice-versa (and that's ignoring AIM and the like).
We've been using IRC for internal and client chats for years now and so far haven't seen a good alternative.
That said.. IRC itself is pretty archaic.. the network simply isn't set up for e.g. voice chats, whitewalls or even sharing files (DCC can not be relied on as working - instead, we have an HTTP upload form and an FTP; any files uploaded from there will be displayed to the support persons working the account on IRC itself, from where they can go to the file, etc.)
besides, opera is kicking ass in the mobile browser market (iPhone notwithstanding); even the traditional WM device makers are largely choosing to install Opera. Opera actually makes some money from this - as opposed to the desktop browser which is $0.
Don't get me wrong, I find this decision utterly ridiculous. I also think that the vast majority of the complaints would be about the *browser* and you can *already* replace that and *remove* from the system as far using the browser directly goes.
However... Explorer itself invokes IE when you type in a URL instead of a directory path, applications that include a web browser component will often choose to go with IE (well, Trident, but the backend and scripting support etc. is the same), etc. So anytime you might land on some malware site with *those*, you'd still be screwed.
Moreover, and aside from the whole malware angle, the people complaining would like for there to be an easy way to essentially replace IE-the-engine so that the aforementioned (Explorer, Steam's browser, etc.) would use e.g. the Firefox engine instead.
Personally I don't give a crap - I use FF as a browser and I'm not in the habit of opening sites from Explorer/etc. - but I can see the argument.
But this decision does nothing to resolve that issue... all it does is give free advertising/distribution/etc. to, essentially, Microsoft's 'competition' (as far as browsers go). I hope it's not so much a decision as a 'plan' and that it will be struck right-quick in favor of letting the OEM choose what browser to pre-install without penalty from Microsoft; leave the Windows install CD offering either IE or nothing, and let Mozilla etc. offer CDs/DVDs with their browser installer for those people who choose not to install IE when installing fresh.
Well sure, they get Vista - and I definitely agree in principle and think people should quit being lazy and do a little research, themselves, before paying good chunks of money for anything.
I do think, however, that in most countries they might have gotten a slap on the wrist from whichever organization regulates -advertising- as their advertising was misleading.
If you go around showing off things like Aero, Previous Versions, etc. label that as 'Vista' and people buy 'Vista' and find out that 'Vista' can't actually do that, I don't think you should be allowed to counter that with "Oh, but when -we- say Vista, we mean Vista Ultimate. You bought Vista *Home Basic*." They should have had the little asterisky thing in the bottom of the screen/page ad saying "* Only available in Vista Ultimate" or "Only available in Vista Home Professional, Business and Ultimate" depending on the actual features shown.
"I can go right now to three local bars and listen to bands perform songs, and a fair number of 'em will probably be covers, copyrighted work by someone else."
Yes, you can. However, that doesn't mean that nobody's paying for it. Odds are that the establishment in which they are performing is paying a license fee for the songs played specifically, or have a renewable contract (if cover bands perform often enough that mucking about with all the paperwork warrants just getting an N-month or N-year license covering any performances).
That's not to say that some bar on the outskirts of town IS paying for such a license, but you'd be wrong to assume that some band performing another band's song is free in any and all cases.
haha - The line I heard about the men-on-the-curb-side was because the other way around was accustomed by pimps, offering their 'merchandise' to those venturing past in their cars. Either sounds like a good reason to keep your date off the curb side, I suppose; as long as it's not obsessively so %)
Back on-topic (insofaras it CAN be on-topic.. it's off-topic from the story, to be sure) - yes, hopping your bike is a very good skill to learn and is often much safer than a last-minute flick-of-the-handlebars. It's also great if you need to get up on/off of curbs/whatever and there's no ramp - just crashing into the things is gonna kill a wheel, or at least an inner tube, sooner or later.
Things like these are why, in the late 80's, mothers of murderers were indicted for their part in the murder: giving birth to the murderer. Then in the late 90's, when the slope had become so slippery it might as well have been teflon-coated, when the grandparents of that dude who married that woman, the divorced her, causing her to seek out another man, had a child with him, and that child ended up raping a girl were found guilty for their part.. and his employer was sued for civil damages because they let him take that day off... remember that?
Yeah, neither do I.
You're fishing with a sawed-off here. Wake me when...
Microsoft includes links to illegal torrents* in Windows itself, presenting them to the user. The media prints the URLs to such torrents. Hard disk makers include the URLs to such torrents and present these to the user with the intent of them seeing them (otherwise, no, I don't think they should be liable; even though I'd be a little curious why the files would be on there once I'd find them.).. I think the rest pretty much fall under the same as the above, so I won't bother with those.
I understand the slippery slope argument you're trying to make, but it just doesn't work that way in real life (that's not to say that some wouldn't like to see real life be that way). But a better slippery slope argument would have been "if somebody links to TPB, would that be illegal?" and "What if somebody links to -that- site.. would that be illegal?". For which the judge would, assuming here that linking to illegal torrent files were to be deemed illegal, basically just have to test "is that site linking to the torrents itself? No? Case dismissed." and have industry interests ponder some other method of shutting down, or preventing access to, that popular site in Cambodia; such as what the IFPI are trying in Denmark. I find *that* a lot more scary, but it's not part of any slippery slope.. that's just weasels weaseling themselves out of the situation-that-is-reality they don't like.
Now if you were trying to pick an analogous target, you should have picked Google or something with the 'filetype:.torrent' (or whatever that tag is) search. At least there you can argue that Google does end up linking straight to the file, and you have to fall back to arguments of what makes TPB and Google so different that one is targeted while the other is not, and put some limitations of the applicability of any such a law as per the aforementioned.
* When I say 'illegal torrents', I mean those torrents referring to a file or multiple files which the torrent hosters (those who have the data packets) hold no distribution rights / to which the downloader has no download rights under applicable laws of whichever the hell state we're talking about.
Sorry for the incoherent thoughts... haven't had my coffee yet:)
oh I'm quite the skilled biker... the problem isn't -me- potentially running through horse shit. Hell, worst thing that happens there is I'm on my race bike instead of the city/mountainbike and I fling it on my back or something. The problem is the other traffic going through and splatting it up at whoever and whatever is behind them; me and my face. Heck, with the Frysian horses' ginormous loads, even people on the sidewalks have to be careful.
cats that have been taught to go do their business on a toilet *and* flush afterward are indicative that you very well -can- teach a cat things. Maybe it's more difficult, but does that automatically mean the owner should be exempt of responsibilities?
3 cats, have a dog. Want to see me riled up over animals and their owners not taking responsibility? Just mention horses, public roads and an affinity for cycling (me, not the horses). 'nuff said.
"rather than using USB for power and data, a headphone jack for audio output, and who knows what proprietary arrangement for audio input and video output."
as opposed to Apple's standards-compliant connector?
Oh wait - this whole discussion was about there being -no standard-. So I suppose that makes Apple's proprietary as well, huh?
Now, I agree that at least it's executed pretty well. But who else gets to use it?
I know plenty of *docks* do... they pay Apple a hefty license fee to be allowed the privilege of adding it to their devices so that people can plug The Most Popular 'mp3 player' into the thing and have it look all stylish to boot. But what other device as the other end of that equation, the bit that's actually in the iPod/iPhone?
Though, granted, I think I saw a 3.5mm to iPod connector type deal somewhere (might have been from a thread around here) that you could then plug into an iPod-/iPhone-dock so you could use any ol' player that had a 3.5mm jack. Be darned if I can find it now, though.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand... you don't worry that the vendor will simply *stop* offering their game through Steam? Or that steam itself goes belly-up? etc.
I'd much rather have both the physical media -and- the download service.
Hey, I fully understand... on the other hand, you're currently relying on the Trident rendering engine component being available to you. I don't see that going away anytime soon, but let's say it did... then you'd be up shit creek just as well.
If you did go with e.g. Gecko, OpenAL, etc. then yes that'll take quite a bit of work right now. On the other hand, should you ever decide to port to another platform for which those are available, you should only need minor tweaks, as opposed to "ah crap, there's no Direct3D on OS X.. now what?"
But let's not go overboard here.. we're talking about a document renderer, a relatively small part of any application.. all you are likely to have to replace is the control that houses the renderer and adjust the API calls from your current control to those required by the new control.
Oh and yes, bundling layout engines is generally the entire point of their existence; they aren't a separate browser to download and have the user install.. they're typically a single library, or a collection of multiple libraries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_layout_engines
yeah and what's to stop Apple from re-offering to install Safari in their software updates (only using QuickTime) after I uninstall Safari?
*yawn*
The same would apply to Firefox is Firefox was getting peddled somewhere that I knew of.. is Chrome being peddled by Google Earth updates yet?
and the application data folder?
what about the localstore?
did it place any files in %windir% or %sysdir%?
did it make any file extension associations?
did it add any environment variables?
etc.
crap cleaner won't clean -all- of that up.
That said, the original poster's comment was bunk; an uninstallation isonly as good as the uninstall routine. If it doesn't delete -all- files / remove -all- registry entries, etc. set upon install, then that's an issue with the uninstaller, not with the host OS.
I'm sure that some of the -package managers- do a great job at tracking this (though they're likely to miss run-time file/store changes just as well), but that says far more about the package manager than it does about the host OS.
Your best bet is going to be to take a snapshot of your system, install, run for a while, do a diff, remove known variables from other use (from earlier diffs, presumably) - i.e. e-mail database, temporary files, etc. - store that and use that to remove files/registry settings/etc. later on.
Maybe you shouldn't rely on it, then? Detect whether it's available upon installation. If it is, use it - if not, install and use a different layout engine (gecko, webkit, whatever)
Seriously... from being *blind* (no vision at all, whatsoever, etc.) to not just having say a single signal (dark/light), or 3 signals (enough to determine some direction), but 60??
That's enough not just to make out direction, but also movement.
The only problem I see is that it's not quite like a photo in that it isn't a regular grid.
The last I read about this, it went a little something liek this...
They stick all N electrodes into the visual cortex and then activate them, one by one, and ask the user "is this point more left or more right than this one? Is it higher or lower?" The reason for this is...
1. they don't know exactly -what- the user is in fact seeing.. they don't even know what 'direction' an electrode is actually giving a signal.
2. the implantee was blind before. Giving them a single signal and asking them to point roughly into the direction of the illuminated blob they can 'see' is futile - they have no reference.
Once done, they have a map of where the electrodes roughly are in relationship to eachother, as well as a map of which electrodes are weak, which don't work at all, etc. Only -then- can they hook it up to an imaging processor's output, and weeks of training the user begins. I.e. put a lightbulb right in front of them - what they might 'see' is an illuminated blob nearer to the lower-right of their 'vision', seen from our viewpoint. On the up side, if they have always been blind, they can easily be told that the illumination is coming from directly in front of them. If the implantee had lost his sight later in life, however, they're going to have to re-learn their visual processing.
Regardless of all of these 'issues', it remains VERY impressive indeed that we can make some deaf people hear and some blind people see.. even if it's nowhere near the acuity of most people, -any- hearing/vision is an immeasurable improvement over -no- hearing/vision.
[10:01:14] This is the sun that Earth is orbiting. It's a regular main sequence star with a core temperature of about sixteen million degrees and enough hydrogen to burn for another five billion years.
[10:01:27] Yeah?
[10:01:30] We wanna blow it up.
[10:01:38] Wow.
[10:01:42] That's, uh...
[10:01:47] Ambitious.
[10:01:47] Ambitious.
seeing as the submitted didn't link it (or the 'editors' removed it?)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS08-066.mspx
Just to note from that security bulletin:
Published: October 14, 2008
Updated: January 13, 2009
This has already been patched for some time. Yes, I know, some are wary of installing patches in case they bring on some other issues, so one word of warning: if you use ZoneAlarm (by jove, why? WHY WHY WHY??), be sure to read the 'list of known issues after applying this patch':
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956803
Okay, so these voxels - with current generation technology - are represented as cubes which of course are 12 tri-polies, so it's not entirely -without- polygons.. but at least it's not based on polygons and it lets you do some pretty cool stuff - such as truly fully destructible environments. No, none of that "we ran a script on all objects (except for those we don't want you to be able to destroy) that pre-fragments them and call the havok engine on the object if the damage model reaches a certain level" crap. I mean *fully* destructible.
Sadly, this is the only 'worthy' example I've seen and it's still kinda 'meh'... ...but it's got me excited for what could be done with voxel-friendly accelerators.
http://voxelstein3d.sourceforge.net/
The biggest hurdle, however, is not the accelerators... it's the artists. Suddenly you can no longer get away with 'modeling' a house by simply putting up a façade like they do in movies.. now that house has got to have an interior because some wise-ass IS gonna be spending all of the ammo on the map to chip away at that 10" thick brick wall so they can venture inside the house WITHOUT collecting the key from the bossfight.
So... shot my own excitement down there, again... but at least there's the potential :)
Odds are that if it's antique, it'll fall well outside of copyright legislation (even at 75 years or 95 years, if taking 'antique' as 100+ years old; wiki says 50-100 but I find it difficult to suggest something my dad might have gotten for his birthday as a kid would be considered 'antique'.. old, yes - antique, no. My grandmother (104), on the other hand..)
Except that you get a smooth transition from one VR to the other.
A QuickTime VR - for those who have been living under a rock or just don't care - is a small file with a graphical representation of, typically, the whole environment. So 360 degrees around and 180 degrees up/down. Within a QuickTime VR viewer you can then look in any direction of that environment, zoom in/out, etc.
In some QuickTime VRs (and much better in older PanoTools-based panoramas, or even SmoothMove/etc.), you can click on a hotlink and it would take you to another QuickTime VR taken from that position/area (e.g. click on a door and you would get a VR of the next room).
This is much the same technology as far as that goes, except that instead of clicking (presumably), you move around using whatever you'd use to move around with typically.. such as the keyboard.
The nice part is where they blend smoothly between the panoramas. Sure, they have to take a LOT of them to begin with (hence the camera rig off a grid in the ceiling, probably something like 1 pano every 10 inches or whatever; from the looks of it only in a 2D plane, but 3D should be doable), but even with that you need some nice motion estimation to blend between the two panos as depicted on the screen.
However, there are limitations that they point out...
1. they can't blend in live actors -while- you move. That's an organisational limitation - you'd have to make the actor re-do their steps for every single pano vantage point. Ouch. You could mount a whole grid of cameras, but that's gonna be insanely expensive (not just in material costs but rigging that up for each room as well). Probably their best bet is to 3D digitize the actor and blend that into their panos using standard 3D compositing software.
2. they're limited to a 2D plane at the moment. As I mentioned, this could be made 3D - just means it will take a LOT more time to create
3. they're limited by storage media; granted, they're talking about their hope for a DVD release, so I guess they're stuck on CD, but even DVD or Blu-Ray would be filled up quickly if it was a more involved game than what it currently looks like.
Just slapping "I think", or "In my opinion" in front of things doesn't magically make them immune from slander/libel laws.
i.e.
"Bob is an asshole - he is a rapist" -> probable libel as you make a claim of fact.
"Bob is an asshole - I think he is a rapist" -> still probable libel because it presupposes you have factual information to base that opinion on.
"Bob is an asshole" -> not libel; whether or not a person is indeed an asshole is subjective (even if a thousand people agree).
Although I fully agree with what you're saying, it doesn't work well in the reality of the world.
Say you're hiring somebody and you google two candidates (as they do, these days)...
Candidate A comes up as your average joe.
Candidate B comes up as your average joe EXCEPT FOR that completely unsubstantiated claim on facebook from somebody who said they were over at Candidate B's place the other night to have a spliff (do kids still call it that these days?)
Yes, they're unsubstantiated claims. Yes, you shouldn't put much weight on it. But all things else being equal, unless your hiring for a 'coffeeshop', who would be the more likely candidate? Why take the risk?
The 'trivial misbehaviors' one is an even easier target. B misbehaves, A does not.. A it is - unless you put positive value on trivial misbehaviors (e.g. "Candidate A looks okay, but Candidate B looks like he'd be a lot more fun on casual fridays").
Having a -barrage- of these kinds of things posted about people just means that all the others still look better by comparison. The only way it'd work is if these kinds of things were posted about practically every person that would be a potential candidate for a job/invite/whatever it is.
That said, again, I agree with you and kudos to those who do indeed not put much weight on these matters, or find that Candidates A and B are really equal and they'll just both have to be invited for an interview and determine who to hire based on that, rather than google results; best yet, don't even use Google - but that's becoming a pipe dream :)
okay, so you're the only one replying, sadly... where's RedK at?
But I welcome and value your reply! :)
That said..
"Examples?"
1. Adobe Acrobat (Reader)
"How many of those are Windows components?"
Zero.
"How many of those are Microsoft products?"
Zero.
So this is where Microsoft is in no way to blame.
There's two situations to go from, from here..
A. You have IE as your standard browser.
In this case, it's doing exactly what it should be doing - opening IE.
B. You have a different browser as your standard browser.
In this case, Adobe Acrobat (Reader) has a coding error in that it has been hardcoded to open Internet Explorer. Write to Adobe telling them you do not appreciate their software ignoring your default browser.
IRC is great for one-on-one support chats... there's tons of support for it out there in terms of utilities (log file handling, e-mail transcripts to clients, etc.), web-based front-ends (java and 'ajax'), IM client support (all the does-it-all IM clients have an IRC component available), etc.
Sure, you COULD just open up an MSN hotline (do they still charge for this?), but then all your Yahoo-using clients will complain that they have to first install MSN (though Yahoo! does MSN now, I suppose), and vice-versa (and that's ignoring AIM and the like).
We've been using IRC for internal and client chats for years now and so far haven't seen a good alternative.
That said.. IRC itself is pretty archaic.. the network simply isn't set up for e.g. voice chats, whitewalls or even sharing files (DCC can not be relied on as working - instead, we have an HTTP upload form and an FTP; any files uploaded from there will be displayed to the support persons working the account on IRC itself, from where they can go to the file, etc.)
besides, opera is kicking ass in the mobile browser market (iPhone notwithstanding); even the traditional WM device makers are largely choosing to install Opera. Opera actually makes some money from this - as opposed to the desktop browser which is $0.
"Right now, it is near impossible to make Windows not pop up IEXPLORE.EXE in certain cases, where it should simply use the default browser"
Examples?
How many of those are Windows components?
How many of those are Microsoft products?
Genuine questions - thanks in advance
"because without actually using IE as a browser"
And therein lays the problem...
Don't get me wrong, I find this decision utterly ridiculous.
I also think that the vast majority of the complaints would be about the *browser* and you can *already* replace that and *remove* from the system as far using the browser directly goes.
However... Explorer itself invokes IE when you type in a URL instead of a directory path, applications that include a web browser component will often choose to go with IE (well, Trident, but the backend and scripting support etc. is the same), etc.
So anytime you might land on some malware site with *those*, you'd still be screwed.
Moreover, and aside from the whole malware angle, the people complaining would like for there to be an easy way to essentially replace IE-the-engine so that the aforementioned (Explorer, Steam's browser, etc.) would use e.g. the Firefox engine instead.
Personally I don't give a crap - I use FF as a browser and I'm not in the habit of opening sites from Explorer/etc. - but I can see the argument.
But this decision does nothing to resolve that issue... all it does is give free advertising/distribution/etc. to, essentially, Microsoft's 'competition' (as far as browsers go). I hope it's not so much a decision as a 'plan' and that it will be struck right-quick in favor of letting the OEM choose what browser to pre-install without penalty from Microsoft; leave the Windows install CD offering either IE or nothing, and let Mozilla etc. offer CDs/DVDs with their browser installer for those people who choose not to install IE when installing fresh.
Well sure, they get Vista - and I definitely agree in principle and think people should quit being lazy and do a little research, themselves, before paying good chunks of money for anything.
I do think, however, that in most countries they might have gotten a slap on the wrist from whichever organization regulates -advertising- as their advertising was misleading.
If you go around showing off things like Aero, Previous Versions, etc. label that as 'Vista' and people buy 'Vista' and find out that 'Vista' can't actually do that, I don't think you should be allowed to counter that with "Oh, but when -we- say Vista, we mean Vista Ultimate. You bought Vista *Home Basic*."
They should have had the little asterisky thing in the bottom of the screen/page ad saying "* Only available in Vista Ultimate" or "Only available in Vista Home Professional, Business and Ultimate" depending on the actual features shown.
"I can go right now to three local bars and listen to bands perform songs, and a fair number of 'em will probably be covers, copyrighted work by someone else."
Yes, you can. However, that doesn't mean that nobody's paying for it. Odds are that the establishment in which they are performing is paying a license fee for the songs played specifically, or have a renewable contract (if cover bands perform often enough that mucking about with all the paperwork warrants just getting an N-month or N-year license covering any performances).
That's not to say that some bar on the outskirts of town IS paying for such a license, but you'd be wrong to assume that some band performing another band's song is free in any and all cases.
haha - The line I heard about the men-on-the-curb-side was because the other way around was accustomed by pimps, offering their 'merchandise' to those venturing past in their cars. Either sounds like a good reason to keep your date off the curb side, I suppose; as long as it's not obsessively so %)
Back on-topic (insofaras it CAN be on-topic.. it's off-topic from the story, to be sure) - yes, hopping your bike is a very good skill to learn and is often much safer than a last-minute flick-of-the-handlebars. It's also great if you need to get up on/off of curbs/whatever and there's no ramp - just crashing into the things is gonna kill a wheel, or at least an inner tube, sooner or later.
yes, a very slippery slope indeed!
Things like these are why, in the late 80's, mothers of murderers were indicted for their part in the murder: giving birth to the murderer.
Then in the late 90's, when the slope had become so slippery it might as well have been teflon-coated, when the grandparents of that dude who married that woman, the divorced her, causing her to seek out another man, had a child with him, and that child ended up raping a girl were found guilty for their part.. and his employer was sued for civil damages because they let him take that day off... remember that?
Yeah, neither do I.
You're fishing with a sawed-off here. Wake me when...
Microsoft includes links to illegal torrents* in Windows itself, presenting them to the user. .. I think the rest pretty much fall under the same as the above, so I won't bother with those.
The media prints the URLs to such torrents.
Hard disk makers include the URLs to such torrents and present these to the user with the intent of them seeing them (otherwise, no, I don't think they should be liable; even though I'd be a little curious why the files would be on there once I'd find them.)
I understand the slippery slope argument you're trying to make, but it just doesn't work that way in real life (that's not to say that some wouldn't like to see real life be that way). But a better slippery slope argument would have been "if somebody links to TPB, would that be illegal?" and "What if somebody links to -that- site.. would that be illegal?". For which the judge would, assuming here that linking to illegal torrent files were to be deemed illegal, basically just have to test "is that site linking to the torrents itself? No? Case dismissed." and have industry interests ponder some other method of shutting down, or preventing access to, that popular site in Cambodia; such as what the IFPI are trying in Denmark. I find *that* a lot more scary, but it's not part of any slippery slope.. that's just weasels weaseling themselves out of the situation-that-is-reality they don't like.
Now if you were trying to pick an analogous target, you should have picked Google or something with the 'filetype:.torrent' (or whatever that tag is) search. At least there you can argue that Google does end up linking straight to the file, and you have to fall back to arguments of what makes TPB and Google so different that one is targeted while the other is not, and put some limitations of the applicability of any such a law as per the aforementioned.
* When I say 'illegal torrents', I mean those torrents referring to a file or multiple files which the torrent hosters (those who have the data packets) hold no distribution rights / to which the downloader has no download rights under applicable laws of whichever the hell state we're talking about.
Sorry for the incoherent thoughts... haven't had my coffee yet :)
oh I'm quite the skilled biker... the problem isn't -me- potentially running through horse shit. Hell, worst thing that happens there is I'm on my race bike instead of the city/mountainbike and I fling it on my back or something. The problem is the other traffic going through and splatting it up at whoever and whatever is behind them; me and my face. Heck, with the Frysian horses' ginormous loads, even people on the sidewalks have to be careful.
yet dozens of youtube videos seem to disagree...
cats that have been taught to go do their business on a toilet *and* flush afterward are indicative that you very well -can- teach a cat things. Maybe it's more difficult, but does that automatically mean the owner should be exempt of responsibilities?
3 cats, have a dog. Want to see me riled up over animals and their owners not taking responsibility? Just mention horses, public roads and an affinity for cycling (me, not the horses). 'nuff said.
"rather than using USB for power and data, a headphone jack for audio output, and who knows what proprietary arrangement for audio input and video output."
as opposed to Apple's standards-compliant connector?
Oh wait - this whole discussion was about there being -no standard-. So I suppose that makes Apple's proprietary as well, huh?
Now, I agree that at least it's executed pretty well. But who else gets to use it?
I know plenty of *docks* do... they pay Apple a hefty license fee to be allowed the privilege of adding it to their devices so that people can plug The Most Popular 'mp3 player' into the thing and have it look all stylish to boot. But what other device as the other end of that equation, the bit that's actually in the iPod/iPhone?
Though, granted, I think I saw a 3.5mm to iPod connector type deal somewhere (might have been from a thread around here) that you could then plug into an iPod-/iPhone-dock so you could use any ol' player that had a 3.5mm jack. Be darned if I can find it now, though.