I could go on and on about their business practices.
Not to mention that you could hold Jerry Springer auditions at almost any Walmart in the US...
I fundamentally find it ironic that Walmart is used as an example... a very profitable retail chain that is widely hated... that has many questionable business practices... that crushes and destroys the small "mom and pop" retailers in smaller communities.... then again, maybe it is the perfect example?
What? "breeching" a contract for a new and better contract?
I often wonder about these EULAs... most apps do not give the user easy access to the agreement once it is accepted. As an example, here is the licensing agreement for IE, that I had to search for under help:
"Supplemental End User License Agreement for Microsoft Software
Your use of Microsoft products is governed by the terms of the End User License Agreement (EULA), as well as by copyright law. The EULA is the contract regarding your use of the licensed product, and it grants you certain rights to use Microsoft software on your computer.
To View the EULA for Internet Explorer
If you are using Windows NT or Windows 98, you can view the EULA by double-clicking license.txt in the directory where you installed Internet Explorer. The default location for installing Internet Explorer is C:/Program Files/Internet Explorer.
If you are using Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, see Windows Help for more information about the EULA.
Note
If you are not sure where to find the EULA for Internet Explorer, you can search for license.txt, and then open the version of license.txt in the directory where you installed Internet Explorer. For more information about searching in Windows, see Windows Help. "
Now a text file isn't exactly the most secure way to store a "legal document."
The actual license of this "free" browser are, of course, more than mildly amusing.
It is also amusing how these EULAs usually refer to the "rights" of the user.... well these rights are generally the RIGHT TO USE THE PRODUCT! Imagine selling shoes that way...
I somehow don't think it is an accident that it is difficult to access the EULA once the software is installed or that most of those UNRESIZEABLE agreements that cannot be COPIED and PASTED for readability or reference or that they come in those tiny boxes that more often than not lack a print button or that they are written in legalese mumbo jumbo or that they all but DISCOURAGE you from installing the software lest it "damage" you in any way.
It's ironic- I was fooling around with win XP- and my admin password file was somehow corrupted- the machine wouldn't even boot... and I couldn't recover or repair (since my password no longer worked)- way more security than any home user needs. Anyway, it required a reformat/reinstall... a headache that's over and done with. Thank god MS can protect me from myself.
The issue with something so small and portable as the Metapad becomes the physical security of the device itself. The entire unit becomes insecure as it is lying around. Anyone can walk off with it... sneak it out in a pocket, etc...
I also hope it is more rugged than my palm- the display cracked after falling off my knee while I was sitting... fell maybe two feet. Since the display is the input, the entire thing was inoperable.
It's just a microcosm of the PC biz in general- using brute force rather than a coordinated effort.
PC architecture doesn't take into account the big picture, the total design as a whole. Performance ends up being the sum of a bunch of different parts working relatively independently- each overpowered with tons of traffic jams... like driving your turbocharged sports car in city traffic- at rush hour no less. We fear the disruption of tearing up the roads and redesigning them from scratch because we already have so much invested in them and we are dependent on them.
We've come to appreciate (and expect) the modularity of picking and choosing our parts, but at what cost?
Add the bloated OS overhead into the equation and if anything it feels like we are losing ground.
Oh well... it isn't like it is going to change anytime soon.
It's ironic that at Employment and Economic Assistance they now ask email for addresses, and half the folks on welfare seem to have cell phones. Oh how "life's necessities" change over time! I guess some things are more important than food... or housing...
Does anyone use these cards for anything other than games?
These cards cost as much as a decent CPU... or a console game system- yet are the fraction the cost of a CAD card. Their shelf life seems pretty limited as well. In a year or two they will all have a half gig of Rambus or DDR and we'll have 16X AGP? Then we'll all need high definition monitors because today's pixels will all look "blocky" by comparison. Then we'll be right back to unusable framerates at higher resolutions... it all goes full circle.
I've never been able to justify the cost, but then again I don't game. The ironic thing is that "fun and games" arguably stress the hardware more than any other apps for most general home users.
I can't argue with a word you said... however even Tom's still uses Quake as a benchmark... a first person shootup that requires a 3D card... not my style of game, but it will stress the system a bit more than Sim City. So when I think of a hardware intensive game, I'm not talking minesweeper.
The other issue is a hardcore gaming box can easily run $2000. Granted a monitor will look better than a TV set, the PC can do things other than games, but I'm curious to know how much money must be spent on a PC before it equals the performance of a game console.
I beg to differ... I'm not cheerleader for MS (caveat over) but you can't exactly write a benchmark of a game system. Regardless how you feel, it is quite amazing that this product actuall ships at this price, and MS used good sense with the actual manufacture of the box.
The box is a closed system, and slashdot seems very "pro-open source." This box (and the other boxes for that matter) seem to prove a point that there are payoffs to a closed proprietary system. I'll bet this box offers smoother gameplay than many PCs that cost 3X as much with twice (to three times) the CPU muscle.
PCs clearly use a "brute force" method to achieve smooth gameplay. Integrated game consoles have always rivaled PCs... and a decent graphics card ALONE costs as much as this little toy. The downside of course is that it is largely a one-trick pony... although credit goes to MS for adding other features (DVD, etc)... and the box is not upgradeable, user serviceable, blah, blah, blah.
The article makes me wonder what performance we would see out of a PC if performance was driven from design that took into account "the big picture"- of designing the "whole" computer, rather than today's version where it is based on the "sum of its parts"- where each component is trying to brute force its way past the various bottle-necks.
Again, I've given it more of a philosophical read. I'm sure plenty of readers would be less negative about the box if it wasn't MS... and why anyone would want to run linux on it is beyond me. My wife is from Europe... I don't feel bitter about buying a US VCR that can't play PAL. I don't feel that it "should." It is just the way it is. If you drive a little Toyota, is it an injustice that you can't put a V8 engine in it? There are all sorts of proprietary systems that are relatively closed in products we purchase every day. Sometimes this is just part of good design, safety, efficiency, you name it... I think we PCs we are spoiled into thinking we have the right to tinker with everything... or at the very least that it should be easy. I personally appreciate it when it is there, but I do not expect it.
I'm always amused when the Doritos are eaten out of a wrinkle-free bag with the complete logo visible at all times... or the Pepsi can held "just so" that the entire logo can be seen... On the flip side, it annoys me that MTV/VH1 blurs out logos on clothing (always in rap videos no less).
I'd prefer product placement be very natural and realistic. It is boring seeing generic products in movies.
My biggest pet peeve is how EVERY phone number has to begin with "555"- what kind of idiots do they think we are? Or rather "what kind of idiots watch movies."
I've seen it happen... randomly snooping around the "show all files shared by user" of someone who had EVERYTHING shared (Windows and all).
You know, I run Morpheus- I have it on a third PC that is relatively isolated. It sits behind a firewall/NAT... I'm sure there are legitimate security holes in it anyway, but it don't care since I'm set up to minimize any damage anyone can do. I never was all that comfortable with Napster either. Where there is file sharing, there will be security issues. If MS built Morpheus, an army of MS-hating hackers would be exploring exploits around the clock... but Morpheus rather fits the spirit of going "against the system" and has likely not received the same scrutiny of other apps.
The article itself was too vague for me to take seriously. Give me details!
I was young and naive... I use a rocketmail account now for all registrations, but again, rocketmail was swallowed by yahoo- although I was able to keep my address. How do you know sneakermail will be there for you in the long haul? Or that they won't suddenly start charging you money. Even hotmail was swallowed up.
I don't know about that- having grown up near Clear Lake. Simply put, it is easier installing the infrastructure in a relatively large state with maybe 2 million people. It is cheaper dropping 100 miles of fiber through rural farmland than 2 miles through downtown (major US City). We had cable decades before a city like DC... the other issue was the nearest NBC was 70 miles away in smalltown IA.
It seems that we generally "agree" NOT to exploit the weaknesses of our infrastructure (considering how vulnerable it has ALWAYS been).
On one hand, the terrorists really were not all that creative in their attacks in Sept.- hijacking has been part of terrorism 101... the only twist was deliberately crashing them.
It is one thing to be prepared, another to be paranoid. We all need to trust our neighbors to a certain degree. Any suicidal person could crash head-on into you driving down any road and there is nothing you can do about it... it could happen, and yet we drive by countless cars daily without a problem. All the gloom-and-doom of "Y2K" yielded very little problems- and the billions of dollars spent on the issue may or may not have been spent judiciously.
OK- I do pay for some shareware, but it is rare... but there are some real issues that come into play involving any sort of copyprotection/registration.
I recently purchased a new PC, and I've had nothing short of a nightmare installing software on it. The new box uses win xp, and since I don't like MS's "internet sharing" had been using a paid version of Sygate. The version I had been using doesn't work with XP, so I needed to purchase the newest version (their upgrade path requires extra money and is only good for one year). That stinks!
But that was the least of my problems. Copy protection has caused me to rip my apt apart looking for the original shrinkwrap from a CD... the install required both the serial number that I had dutifully written on the CD jacket AND the code from the wrapper. One CD jacket was missing the serial number which is found after hours of searching- finally found on a card in the manual. Several plug-ins that I had paid for (hundreds of dollars in total) for my DAW won't install in XP because either the installer sees a negative amount of disk space- or -in compatibility mode it accepts the serial number and then cannot find the CD that I'm already installing from... and the downloadable XP-compatible version will only install over the original version that won't install. Another bundle of plug-ins uses that god-awful Mac-style hard disk key, and the installer won't access they key from the floppy. Of course you can always say this is just the issue with XP- and true enough, installs were a breeze on win 98.
Never mind that my ISP changed my email suffix twice before I switched to a local company... and proving my "identity" to recover a serial number or reactivate a product is next to impossible... or that many companies rarely respond to their emails. Ive had a few aborted installs (from original CD)claiming I was installing cracked software.
Another set of plug-ins required a dongle on my old-system- the much despised hardware key... it was recently switched to a "challenge/response" system that required a complicated patch and registry hack to activate in XP... and I haven't even discusses XP's own form of "activation"- or the issues I've had at work adding MS Access to a PC that is not connected to the internet.
All these forms of copy protection have cost me much time and loss of productivity- for a paying customer of retail software. I certainly would not expect a "shareware" company to support my software through an OS upgrade.
Also, most shareware seems to be very niche oriented... like a utility that just has a few more features than something I already own. I have a difficult time measuring the worth of such apps. Most shareware plugins I've used have caused my system to be very unstable or are poor quality.
Shareware sites such as cnet don't disclose the price of shareware or the terms. Often they are not disclosed until the software is actually installed. Maybe this is part of the marketing- to hook someone first... I don't know. I do know that it is very difficult to obtain decent distribution for consumer/retail hardware... and shareware is an alternative. I don't think they have yet shaken their reputation for being "some guys project" that works on his system and that may or may not work for me.
but the case is the least of my concerns. Sure it it the ugliest part of a PC, but what about the monitor, and some sort of input like a keyboard? Cord management? I can always hid the case relatively easily. Let's see some monitor mods that aren't done with a shotgun.
I like the opposite end of the spectrum and wish rackmount cases were cheaper! I'd put everything I own in racks if I could.
I've used ebay to both buy and sell... everything I've sold has sold for much higher than I anticipated- some of it sold for more than I could be purchased NEW!
On one hand, there is the concept of WINNING- that people lose sight of how much they are spending on an item. Next people forget about shipping- which can cost as much as the item itself.
People are also cost conscious, and usually do not want to pay extra for escrow or shipping insurance... which makes little sense if you consider many people packing merchandise are far from shipping pros.
Also, there is usually no return policy at ebay... one person's "like new" condition is another person's, "almost trash," and some sellers don't even know what they are selling (ie. a photo of a Slot 1 CPU listed as a socket chip), blah, blah, blah.
Bottom line, the mantra at ebay true is "buyer beware." I think it is great these people are going after this seller, but the fact remains, if they were truly safety conscious buyers, they could have taken additional steps to protect their purchase. I wouldn't blame ebay for only reimbursing $200. If they guaranteed every purchase, it would actually encourage fraud!
No, the sky is not falling... as I sit here with my 500+ channels of digital cable (and still usually end up watching Law & Order or the History Channel [have you seen all that new color WWII footage?]) while surfing on DSL.
I think the real issue is that people today have too much control over their stimuli- channel surfing and web surfing.... if you don't like what you see, change is only one click away. Unfortunately reality doesn't exactly work that way.
I look at the number of kids today who are diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and aside from the toxic parenting these kids endured, the kids' poor coping skills are arguable reinforced by the infinite options they are given when "surfing" whatever they are viewing. Most parents end up NOT giving the kid an "option" whether to "clean their rooms" or whatever simple task, and the entire household explodes for an evening of a police visit, a possible fifth degree domestic assault, and a trip to a shelter for some kid. This happens all the time in surburbs all over the place. (I moonlight in emergency social services with the County- so this is first hand info.).
I haven't even mentioned ADD or ADHD- two diagnoses that I feel are more or less environmentally conditioned- but that would take us way off-topic. But both "attention" disorders could as easily be characterized as involving kids who have the ability to pay close attention to what they "choose" to pay attention to- they simply lack skills to pay attention to what they are "required" to (such as authority, teachers, etc.).
I really believe technology changes the way the mind operates. On a grand scale, we certainly feel more connected to the world at large with air travel, international long-distance, email, cable TV, etc... vs. living on a "flat world" with an ocean that extends infinitely filled with sea monsters. On a smaller level, I've lost my capacity to easily remember phone numbers in the days of speed dial, my cell phone that holds hundreds of numbers, and five times as many local area codes to keep track of.
Getting back to TV- watch some old movie on TCM... it is like watching a play. Each scene can last for several minutes before there is a cut, and shadows are often projected on the wall behind the actors. These movies really stand out as being "staged" compared to an MTV video where I'm lucky to catch a camera shot that lasts more then two seconds- even though many videos are literally shot on a stage. It seriously would not surprise me if this affects how we think and process the world- it is almost digital vs. analog- that we receive the world in a billion still images vs. drawn out and linear. Movies use jumbled time... beginnings/middles/ends have lost their meaning. In personal relationships, people often start out in what would once be considered the middle of a relationship.... courtship is either redefined or non-existent, depending on your definitions. I could go on and on.
Whether there is any causality here is open to debate- but if you believe at the very least that TV/media gives people what they want, it definitely has changed over the last 40 years.
First of all:"A multimeter reading of the batteries' voltage before the device started up showed a total of 48.9 volts. When it was switched off, a second reading showed 51.2 volts, indicating that, somehow, they had been reimbursed. "
This makes absolutely no sense... a stun gun powered by a 9 volt battery can put out thousands of volts... and it really can cause quite a bit of discomfort- but it isn't putting out more energy than it had in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
"When it comes to managing high-impact innovation, there is no contest--Sam Walton still matters more than Bill Gates. "
What the article doesn't mention is that many metro and suburban communities VIGOROUS oppose (if not block) the openings of new Walmarts.
There have been huge union issues related to Walmarts the sell groceries.
At a more immediate level, it is downright depressing seeing retirees slaving away minimum wage.
There are a TON of sites about the evils of Walmart:
Walmart Memoirs
Walmart Trash Page
Yahoo stuff
And lest you forget all the censorship that Walmart does regarding music....Censorship at Walmart on Yahoo
I could go on and on about their business practices.
Not to mention that you could hold Jerry Springer auditions at almost any Walmart in the US...
I fundamentally find it ironic that Walmart is used as an example... a very profitable retail chain that is widely hated... that has many questionable business practices... that crushes and destroys the small "mom and pop" retailers in smaller communities.... then again, maybe it is the perfect example?
um that's my point...
Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment. It's been 12 seconds since you hit 'reply'!
I'm just happy when it is in FOCUS... you know how those stoner 16 year old projectionists at the megaplex can be....
or the film is physically damaged (scratched up, etc...) Look at the difference between the dollar theater and the first night shown.
What? "breeching" a contract for a new and better contract?
I often wonder about these EULAs... most apps do not give the user easy access to the agreement once it is accepted. As an example, here is the licensing agreement for IE, that I had to search for under help:
"Supplemental End User License Agreement for Microsoft Software Your use of Microsoft products is governed by the terms of the End User License Agreement (EULA), as well as by copyright law. The EULA is the contract regarding your use of the licensed product, and it grants you certain rights to use Microsoft software on your computer. To View the EULA for Internet Explorer If you are using Windows NT or Windows 98, you can view the EULA by double-clicking license.txt in the directory where you installed Internet Explorer. The default location for installing Internet Explorer is C:/Program Files/Internet Explorer. If you are using Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, see Windows Help for more information about the EULA. Note If you are not sure where to find the EULA for Internet Explorer, you can search for license.txt, and then open the version of license.txt in the directory where you installed Internet Explorer. For more information about searching in Windows, see Windows Help. "
Now a text file isn't exactly the most secure way to store a "legal document."
The actual license of this "free" browser are, of course, more than mildly amusing.
It is also amusing how these EULAs usually refer to the "rights" of the user.... well these rights are generally the RIGHT TO USE THE PRODUCT! Imagine selling shoes that way...
At least let me copy and paste... I saw a hilarious EULA the other day that I wanted to send to a friend!
I somehow don't think it is an accident that it is difficult to access the EULA once the software is installed or that most of those UNRESIZEABLE agreements that cannot be COPIED and PASTED for readability or reference or that they come in those tiny boxes that more often than not lack a print button or that they are written in legalese mumbo jumbo or that they all but DISCOURAGE you from installing the software lest it "damage" you in any way.
It's ironic- I was fooling around with win XP- and my admin password file was somehow corrupted- the machine wouldn't even boot... and I couldn't recover or repair (since my password no longer worked)- way more security than any home user needs. Anyway, it required a reformat/reinstall... a headache that's over and done with. Thank god MS can protect me from myself.
The issue with something so small and portable as the Metapad becomes the physical security of the device itself. The entire unit becomes insecure as it is lying around. Anyone can walk off with it... sneak it out in a pocket, etc...
I also hope it is more rugged than my palm- the display cracked after falling off my knee while I was sitting... fell maybe two feet. Since the display is the input, the entire thing was inoperable.
It's just a microcosm of the PC biz in general- using brute force rather than a coordinated effort.
PC architecture doesn't take into account the big picture, the total design as a whole. Performance ends up being the sum of a bunch of different parts working relatively independently- each overpowered with tons of traffic jams... like driving your turbocharged sports car in city traffic- at rush hour no less. We fear the disruption of tearing up the roads and redesigning them from scratch because we already have so much invested in them and we are dependent on them.
We've come to appreciate (and expect) the modularity of picking and choosing our parts, but at what cost?
Add the bloated OS overhead into the equation and if anything it feels like we are losing ground.
Oh well... it isn't like it is going to change anytime soon.
It's ironic that at Employment and Economic Assistance they now ask email for addresses, and half the folks on welfare seem to have cell phones. Oh how "life's necessities" change over time! I guess some things are more important than food... or housing...
Does anyone use these cards for anything other than games?
These cards cost as much as a decent CPU... or a console game system- yet are the fraction the cost of a CAD card. Their shelf life seems pretty limited as well. In a year or two they will all have a half gig of Rambus or DDR and we'll have 16X AGP? Then we'll all need high definition monitors because today's pixels will all look "blocky" by comparison. Then we'll be right back to unusable framerates at higher resolutions... it all goes full circle.
I've never been able to justify the cost, but then again I don't game. The ironic thing is that "fun and games" arguably stress the hardware more than any other apps for most general home users.
I can't argue with a word you said... however even Tom's still uses Quake as a benchmark... a first person shootup that requires a 3D card... not my style of game, but it will stress the system a bit more than Sim City. So when I think of a hardware intensive game, I'm not talking minesweeper.
The other issue is a hardcore gaming box can easily run $2000. Granted a monitor will look better than a TV set, the PC can do things other than games, but I'm curious to know how much money must be spent on a PC before it equals the performance of a game console.
I'm semi-amused, considering how most software is prematurely released.
Maybe all those XP users who submit error reports should have their names listed on a massive 10G Easter Egg as being "contributers" ?
I beg to differ... I'm not cheerleader for MS (caveat over) but you can't exactly write a benchmark of a game system. Regardless how you feel, it is quite amazing that this product actuall ships at this price, and MS used good sense with the actual manufacture of the box.
The box is a closed system, and slashdot seems very "pro-open source." This box (and the other boxes for that matter) seem to prove a point that there are payoffs to a closed proprietary system. I'll bet this box offers smoother gameplay than many PCs that cost 3X as much with twice (to three times) the CPU muscle.
PCs clearly use a "brute force" method to achieve smooth gameplay. Integrated game consoles have always rivaled PCs... and a decent graphics card ALONE costs as much as this little toy. The downside of course is that it is largely a one-trick pony... although credit goes to MS for adding other features (DVD, etc)... and the box is not upgradeable, user serviceable, blah, blah, blah.
The article makes me wonder what performance we would see out of a PC if performance was driven from design that took into account "the big picture"- of designing the "whole" computer, rather than today's version where it is based on the "sum of its parts"- where each component is trying to brute force its way past the various bottle-necks.
Again, I've given it more of a philosophical read. I'm sure plenty of readers would be less negative about the box if it wasn't MS... and why anyone would want to run linux on it is beyond me. My wife is from Europe... I don't feel bitter about buying a US VCR that can't play PAL. I don't feel that it "should." It is just the way it is. If you drive a little Toyota, is it an injustice that you can't put a V8 engine in it? There are all sorts of proprietary systems that are relatively closed in products we purchase every day. Sometimes this is just part of good design, safety, efficiency, you name it... I think we PCs we are spoiled into thinking we have the right to tinker with everything... or at the very least that it should be easy. I personally appreciate it when it is there, but I do not expect it.
YeahYeahYeah... but why not pick some other unused prefix... or have a few random numbers "reserved" for movies/TV using each prefix
I'm always amused when the Doritos are eaten out of a wrinkle-free bag with the complete logo visible at all times... or the Pepsi can held "just so" that the entire logo can be seen... On the flip side, it annoys me that MTV/VH1 blurs out logos on clothing (always in rap videos no less).
I'd prefer product placement be very natural and realistic. It is boring seeing generic products in movies.
My biggest pet peeve is how EVERY phone number has to begin with "555"- what kind of idiots do they think we are? Or rather "what kind of idiots watch movies."
I've seen it happen... randomly snooping around the "show all files shared by user" of someone who had EVERYTHING shared (Windows and all).
You know, I run Morpheus- I have it on a third PC that is relatively isolated. It sits behind a firewall/NAT... I'm sure there are legitimate security holes in it anyway, but it don't care since I'm set up to minimize any damage anyone can do. I never was all that comfortable with Napster either. Where there is file sharing, there will be security issues. If MS built Morpheus, an army of MS-hating hackers would be exploring exploits around the clock... but Morpheus rather fits the spirit of going "against the system" and has likely not received the same scrutiny of other apps.
The article itself was too vague for me to take seriously. Give me details!
I was young and naive... I use a rocketmail account now for all registrations, but again, rocketmail was swallowed by yahoo- although I was able to keep my address. How do you know sneakermail will be there for you in the long haul? Or that they won't suddenly start charging you money. Even hotmail was swallowed up.
I don't know about that- having grown up near Clear Lake. Simply put, it is easier installing the infrastructure in a relatively large state with maybe 2 million people. It is cheaper dropping 100 miles of fiber through rural farmland than 2 miles through downtown (major US City). We had cable decades before a city like DC... the other issue was the nearest NBC was 70 miles away in smalltown IA.
It seems that we generally "agree" NOT to exploit the weaknesses of our infrastructure (considering how vulnerable it has ALWAYS been).
On one hand, the terrorists really were not all that creative in their attacks in Sept.- hijacking has been part of terrorism 101... the only twist was deliberately crashing them.
It is one thing to be prepared, another to be paranoid. We all need to trust our neighbors to a certain degree. Any suicidal person could crash head-on into you driving down any road and there is nothing you can do about it... it could happen, and yet we drive by countless cars daily without a problem. All the gloom-and-doom of "Y2K" yielded very little problems- and the billions of dollars spent on the issue may or may not have been spent judiciously.
OK- I do pay for some shareware, but it is rare... but there are some real issues that come into play involving any sort of copyprotection/registration.
I recently purchased a new PC, and I've had nothing short of a nightmare installing software on it. The new box uses win xp, and since I don't like MS's "internet sharing" had been using a paid version of Sygate. The version I had been using doesn't work with XP, so I needed to purchase the newest version (their upgrade path requires extra money and is only good for one year). That stinks!
But that was the least of my problems. Copy protection has caused me to rip my apt apart looking for the original shrinkwrap from a CD... the install required both the serial number that I had dutifully written on the CD jacket AND the code from the wrapper. One CD jacket was missing the serial number which is found after hours of searching- finally found on a card in the manual. Several plug-ins that I had paid for (hundreds of dollars in total) for my DAW won't install in XP because either the installer sees a negative amount of disk space- or -in compatibility mode it accepts the serial number and then cannot find the CD that I'm already installing from... and the downloadable XP-compatible version will only install over the original version that won't install. Another bundle of plug-ins uses that god-awful Mac-style hard disk key, and the installer won't access they key from the floppy. Of course you can always say this is just the issue with XP- and true enough, installs were a breeze on win 98.
Never mind that my ISP changed my email suffix twice before I switched to a local company... and proving my "identity" to recover a serial number or reactivate a product is next to impossible... or that many companies rarely respond to their emails. Ive had a few aborted installs (from original CD)claiming I was installing cracked software.
Another set of plug-ins required a dongle on my old-system- the much despised hardware key... it was recently switched to a "challenge/response" system that required a complicated patch and registry hack to activate in XP... and I haven't even discusses XP's own form of "activation"- or the issues I've had at work adding MS Access to a PC that is not connected to the internet.
All these forms of copy protection have cost me much time and loss of productivity- for a paying customer of retail software. I certainly would not expect a "shareware" company to support my software through an OS upgrade.
Also, most shareware seems to be very niche oriented... like a utility that just has a few more features than something I already own. I have a difficult time measuring the worth of such apps. Most shareware plugins I've used have caused my system to be very unstable or are poor quality.
Shareware sites such as cnet don't disclose the price of shareware or the terms. Often they are not disclosed until the software is actually installed. Maybe this is part of the marketing- to hook someone first... I don't know. I do know that it is very difficult to obtain decent distribution for consumer/retail hardware... and shareware is an alternative. I don't think they have yet shaken their reputation for being "some guys project" that works on his system and that may or may not work for me.
but the case is the least of my concerns. Sure it it the ugliest part of a PC, but what about the monitor, and some sort of input like a keyboard? Cord management? I can always hid the case relatively easily. Let's see some monitor mods that aren't done with a shotgun.
I like the opposite end of the spectrum and wish rackmount cases were cheaper! I'd put everything I own in racks if I could.
I've used ebay to both buy and sell... everything I've sold has sold for much higher than I anticipated- some of it sold for more than I could be purchased NEW!
On one hand, there is the concept of WINNING- that people lose sight of how much they are spending on an item. Next people forget about shipping- which can cost as much as the item itself.
People are also cost conscious, and usually do not want to pay extra for escrow or shipping insurance... which makes little sense if you consider many people packing merchandise are far from shipping pros.
Also, there is usually no return policy at ebay... one person's "like new" condition is another person's, "almost trash," and some sellers don't even know what they are selling (ie. a photo of a Slot 1 CPU listed as a socket chip), blah, blah, blah.
Bottom line, the mantra at ebay true is "buyer beware." I think it is great these people are going after this seller, but the fact remains, if they were truly safety conscious buyers, they could have taken additional steps to protect their purchase. I wouldn't blame ebay for only reimbursing $200. If they guaranteed every purchase, it would actually encourage fraud!
No, the sky is not falling... as I sit here with my 500+ channels of digital cable (and still usually end up watching Law & Order or the History Channel [have you seen all that new color WWII footage?]) while surfing on DSL.
I think the real issue is that people today have too much control over their stimuli- channel surfing and web surfing.... if you don't like what you see, change is only one click away. Unfortunately reality doesn't exactly work that way.
I look at the number of kids today who are diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and aside from the toxic parenting these kids endured, the kids' poor coping skills are arguable reinforced by the infinite options they are given when "surfing" whatever they are viewing. Most parents end up NOT giving the kid an "option" whether to "clean their rooms" or whatever simple task, and the entire household explodes for an evening of a police visit, a possible fifth degree domestic assault, and a trip to a shelter for some kid. This happens all the time in surburbs all over the place. (I moonlight in emergency social services with the County- so this is first hand info.).
I haven't even mentioned ADD or ADHD- two diagnoses that I feel are more or less environmentally conditioned- but that would take us way off-topic. But both "attention" disorders could as easily be characterized as involving kids who have the ability to pay close attention to what they "choose" to pay attention to- they simply lack skills to pay attention to what they are "required" to (such as authority, teachers, etc.).
I really believe technology changes the way the mind operates. On a grand scale, we certainly feel more connected to the world at large with air travel, international long-distance, email, cable TV, etc... vs. living on a "flat world" with an ocean that extends infinitely filled with sea monsters. On a smaller level, I've lost my capacity to easily remember phone numbers in the days of speed dial, my cell phone that holds hundreds of numbers, and five times as many local area codes to keep track of.
Getting back to TV- watch some old movie on TCM... it is like watching a play. Each scene can last for several minutes before there is a cut, and shadows are often projected on the wall behind the actors. These movies really stand out as being "staged" compared to an MTV video where I'm lucky to catch a camera shot that lasts more then two seconds- even though many videos are literally shot on a stage. It seriously would not surprise me if this affects how we think and process the world- it is almost digital vs. analog- that we receive the world in a billion still images vs. drawn out and linear. Movies use jumbled time... beginnings/middles/ends have lost their meaning. In personal relationships, people often start out in what would once be considered the middle of a relationship.... courtship is either redefined or non-existent, depending on your definitions. I could go on and on.
Whether there is any causality here is open to debate- but if you believe at the very least that TV/media gives people what they want, it definitely has changed over the last 40 years.
Put on your critical thinking cap for a moment:
First of all:"A multimeter reading of the batteries' voltage before the device started up showed a total of 48.9 volts. When it was switched off, a second reading showed 51.2 volts, indicating that, somehow, they had been reimbursed. "
This makes absolutely no sense... a stun gun powered by a 9 volt battery can put out thousands of volts... and it really can cause quite a bit of discomfort- but it isn't putting out more energy than it had in the first place.