This is what you get for making a phone "more than a phone".
Well that and price gouging. For example, a "quad-band GSM" phone often cells for $300 more than the average dual-band. However, going quad-band is mostly a small change in terms of the radio/hardware as it's just off by 50Mhz [e.g. the SWR won't be that high].... so how do they justify the hike? Oh they add in Java, cameras, ring tones, etc... You want a toy? Buy a gameboy. A phone should be phone.
I own an AMD64 and I don't run Windows. I'm not missing much. In fact I'm appreciating running in lm instead of pm.
I don't disagree that the flash of studio isn't neat and perhaps "useful". I'm just saying it's not needed. Not even for productive work.
If you want a code graph and other cool tricks doxygen is a hell of a lot better. Sure it's not on the fly but it gives you call graphs, parameter/return comments, inline sourced with cross-referencing, etc..
Re-factoring code is as much about good design as it is good tools. If you can't break a problem into several smaller problem/solution sets you don't deserve to wear a developers hat.
The debuger in MSVC is sweet. No arguing that. GDB isn't horrible but it is harder to use.
Context help... no need if you comment, design and implement sanely and consistently. For example, from my API [in LTC] I usually only need the argument list and I can use functions [some of which have over 11 parameters!]. No need to check the manual [which I also wrote] or the source code.
"Which is great, I'm sure, until you screw up your link order because your automatic tool screws up. Or you end up linking in debug files."
Um first the link order doesn't matter much since all the files are in one archive. Second "debug files" are the same names as normal files. Just a change to a CFLAGS
"Besides, why are you using a tool to do this? I thought your point was that Real programmers edit those make files by hand. Why are you using such an obvious crutch?"
That exactly wasn't my point. My point was that real developers know the underlying tools. Any competent developer really ought to know make/perl/sed/etc. Not just "21 days till C++".
My system is very simple to work with and allows code base changes to occur without great troubles. It's also portable. By using tools that are commonplace [even in Windows for cygwin users] I don't lock people into one OS.
"I know how they work, thanksmuch. Editing a makefile does NOT give you any greater insight into the compiler or the linker, the libraries you use or the language you program in. All it tells you is how make files are written."
I guess you'd be surprised to learn how many "windows developers" couldn't call CL, LIB, LINK, etc on their own to save their lives.
You say "so what". I say it's a big deal. If some person knows how to piece together a working build system in windows they're more likely to piece together a working build in linux. Compare that to the "windows developer" who solely uses the GUI. They're not "upgradeable".
Also how much do you really know about the whole process if you can't invoke your compiler? Can't read a makefile? etc...
There is more to development and computer science than piecing together "enough functions" to finish a program.
"You appear to be under the highly misguided impression that anyone who uses an IDE is a VB jockey who doesn't know what they're doing and drags and drops controls onto forms all day."
It's not hard to lie about development credentials nowadays. I mean just look how many developers are out there with 7+ years of.net experience, mastery of MFC, etc...
"So manually editing a makefile because you're a masochist makes you a better programmer?"
My software builds out of the box without configuration on *ANY* GCC equipped platform [64/32 bit, big/little endian, etc, etc, etc]. I'd say spending the little extra time to write sane makefiles and learning how to actually use the tools is a good idea.
Also it's about being clever.
For instance, there are 172 object files in my current project. I don't add them to my makefile manually. I wrote a 6 line script and a 10 line perl program that not only finds all the objects for the build, it also line wraps it at 80 chars for me automatically.
Of course that's because I'm smarter than you.
IDEs and RAD are good for proof of concept and/or short-term inhouse tools. They're totally not a requirement for anything else though. I'm sure you CAN write good software with MSVC studio. You CAN also write good software with bash, perl, make, gcc and gedit.
There is no need to "cave in" to their tools just because you're too lazy to learn how development tools work.
IDEs are lame. Sorry dude. I get syntax highlighting and multiple tabs with gedit. I get help from man and use multiple shells to help build. I don't need to buy a $950 suite so I can have tab completion and 12GB less disk space.
I suppose if you never want to learn how your development tools work and how to be more proficient with them an IDE is a great tool. Sadly most MSVC users I know don't know what makefile is let alone what nmake is.
And yes, I work on projects of significant complexity. I get around just fine without kdevelop or MSVC.
Also you missed a huge point. MSVC is LARGELY geared towards writing.net/MFC/etc code. Sure you CAN write portable C code with it but the support is largely not there [mostly because building things like GTK or whatever with non-standard tools is annoying]. Well that and Windows isn't POSIX.1 so many small things break [pthreads, sockets, etc...]
From my experience though [say from talking with RiM engineers] most people settle on Windows without really taking a tour through the alternatives. To quote RiM they stick with windows for their blackberry development because it "has advanced technologies".
Um a fresh Gentoo install gives you the basic tools you need to work in Linux. Nothing more, nothing less. No X, no desktop, no openoffice, no mozilla, no xmms, no...
Most people don't bitch because they think there isn't an alternative.
I mean you don't often bitch that the earth revolves the sun do you? In our minds there isn't much you can do about that.
Well to them they think that boggled down operating systems, crappy foreign made [by the lowest bidder] electronics and license inundated media is "the way things are".
I mean do you go around and post-bitch about people who say "don't buy Dell buy Compaq"? [or whatever]? I mean why should they have a choice there if we don't have a choice with OSes and media.
I'm saying people are stupid because they choose to be ignorant. If that makes me "an ass" then so be it. At least I'll be an ass who is smart enough to at least think about looking for alternatives.
I don't understand your post. "we all deserve each other"? I use Gentoo linux. I promote it's use amongst my friends. I also talk to my friends about how lame the entertainment business is. It's up to my friends to either follow my advice or not.
If other people are too stupid to reason "this sucks, is there better?" that's not my fault.
I sought out good Linux distros because I didn't want to use Windows anymore. I've tried redhat, debian, knoppix and finally gentoo. OSS and the Indy scenes biggest enemy is the brainwashing that goes on in the coporate world. E.g. "win2k3 TCO is lower than Linux", "Hillary Duff with her new [self-labeled] #1 hits!", etc...
The fact that people aren't smart enough to see through propatainment [thanks daily show] isn't my fault.
Most people who I know who resist Linux usually do so they can play "the latest FPS hits" or some such. They don't realize that the content providers will move to the OS of choice. If they stopped using Windows they could get more Linux games...
Finally, my 100s of "re: your document" emails a day is a good example of them showing contempt for us OSS users. I mean I don't even run a system capable of being infected with the damn virus in the first place [I'm elf-x86_64].
So if I offend any serfs with my posts, well they can go suck my balls for all I care. Don't whine and bitch when you get treated like a door mat when you act as one.
My experience has taught me aside from the old [who are always bad drivers] most people suck at driving.
Mostly it's because they suffer from "center-of-world-itis". It's easy to be a bad driver when you don't care about the welfare of anyone around you. Makes speeding, cutting off and other unsafe driving practices very easy.
Oddly enough how people drive and how they push shopping carts in Walmart are often very similar.
The solution is one person will get a license, rip the movie, post it on a P2P and voila. Instant anti-drm.
Of course for the rest of the users who don't venture on P2P they're screwed messing with license agreements and shit. This of course won't stop them from buying it. Afterall a commercial on TV told them to buy it. They must obey. Stupid serfs.
You know what the real cause of all the **AA problems are? Too much sun. See they're all the way down in California too much where their brains get bleached and then they come up with these random ideas that you can really make bits uncopyable. They get annoyed at the reality of the situation so they write and push for laws that support their "version of reality".
The real solution is not to be predictable. Sure keep seeing movies, just don't see them on their time. Keep the execs up at night trying to strategerize and eventually they'll die off one by one from fatigue.
I don't seeing that happen any time soon [sadly]. There are still quite a bit of "win32" only users out there that like inferior computing environments.
Though eventually FOSS OS'es will erode win32's hold sufficiently that they will lose critical mass.
All in all my biggest gripes with Windows iare
1. It's too expensive. 300$ for an OS is what I paid for my CPU [thereabouts]. I value my AMD64 more than windows.
2. It's too "feature bundled". I'd prefer a smaller install of the core components and let me pick up additional programs as I choose
3. Lack of good development environment. No good shell, no POSIX.1 and the MSFT tools [visual studio] are huge, slow and really specific to windows [what if I want to make a cross-platform GTK application?]
4. Adding all these bonus-added value features took time away from making the OS stable and secure. It's easy to crash win32 to the point of having to power cycle. It's also easy for "real-time" scheduled tasks [re: games] to hog 100% of the cpu and make it next to impossible to kill them when they go awry [CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE y0!]
So if they just made windows cheaper, smaller, more standards compliant and easier to control it would be a good OS...
that or I could just install a Linux distro [say Gentoo] and give MSFT the finger.;-)
"Following precedents is rather like walking backwards. i would rather there have been a mandate that audio and video codecs be open."
You missed the point. They were "in trouble" because they bundled a media player with their OS. Nobody is saying MSFT can't distribute their media player [crappy as it may be]. Just they can't include it in the OS.
What microsoft has to realize is that if they didn't market 95/98 so poorly [e.g. you can watch movies and play mp3s, etc...] and peddle these half baked programs [stupid backup/anti-virus/etc] and simply focus on a solid core OS.... they would be better off.
They could still sell their other software but if I walked into a store and bought windows I would not be installing 1.5GB of useless software that I'll simply replace with other implementation then pray someone with a net connection doesn't look at my box wrong lest they exploit it.
I'd say exageration. Of the 168 hours in a week maybe I could care to watch roughly 20 hours [usually in the background as I do other work].
Another way to put this roughly 7 out of 8 "shows" on TV are totally not interesting to me [anything "reality", "sitcoms" and "soaps" are classic examples of pure trash] and otherwise "not worthy to watch".
The biggest reason is that media exec's are just not in it for the art. They look at one thing that randomly happened to be interesting than re-run it to death until they squeezed the last dime out of it.
We look to TV to inform and entertain but how entertaining is it to watch shows where you can guess plot in the first 5 minutes, can point out the dozens of technicaly/plot errors, see crappy cliches [JAG comes to mind...], etc...
For instance, I generally like Law and Order [the entire series] for the sole reason that I usually can't guess the plot in the first 10-15 mins. Not every episode is a "classic" and occasionally they do play the cards but more often than not they're original and interesting.
Than compare that to say "survivor" or the other "reality" series First off, hate to break it you guys. Reality is scripted. It's not spontaneous in the least. Second, reality is casted. Ever notice the huge amount of big-titty chicks and otherwise buff guys? Not that I don't mind a good tit show like the rest of you I just don't care much for paying for it in terms of dead brain cells and $$$ to the cable provider. Finally, reality tv is just bad art.
I mean, you can accept that it's scripted. But even for a scripted presentation it's just lame. The dialog is horrible, the editing is usually very terse and otherwise confusingly awkward.
So no, it's not a weak generalization to say "nothing to watch".
I think you missed the part where he said he had money to burn.
If you have debt/family/etc to pay down then free work doesn't make sense. But if you've saved up enough to live a year or two without working I don't see the harm.
I don't know about you... but as a 6'1" dude I can hardly sit in the seat without my knees digging into the seat ahead of me let alone open a laptop.
That goes for planes, trains, and automobiles [well buses, I can use my laptop in my mid-size car just fine... not while driving...].
My understanding is that public transportation is meant to make money and not comfort. So concepts such as "humane leg room" is just ludicrous. I can understand city buses being cramped but 8 hr flights overseas or 9 hour bus rides south are literally painful to the point I get "touchy".
I've yelled at my share of passengers that feel the need to push their seat back [into my legs more], annoying loud kids, etc after a few hours of pain...
As for flights the way you make them interesting is occupying the passengers mind. e.g. put real music/shows on the units instead of "CBSWatch".
First off, they use the same tape. Ever fly twice in a week? Ever watch the same 8 hrs of movies/CVSWatch? I have.
Second, christian country or jazz make selection not.
Third, if I want a fucking drink I'll ask. Quit pestering me! [though that's policy and not personal... I know].
Fourth, to the person ahead of me, don't move your seat back if you don't like my knee cap digging into your lower back. Biatch.
As well they should. If you're only going a few 100 miles the drive would be easier [or train/bus]. Planes are really good for things like transatlantic and cross continent [e.g. Ottawa to California].
Where this obsession with flying somewhere you can drive in 2 hours came from I can only guess...
Yeah the 9 dozen mario games are all "better than the last" or the 33 MK games...Many video game sequels are cheap plays on name or simply un-original.
Back in the day "Spears of Destiny" [for instance] was cool because there wasn't that many other games to play in the 3d genre.
Personally I prefer games which really add new elements not only for their series but for the industry. Games with more interaction in the environment for example are cool. Nothing like the "walk around the 3ft cliff" in Ghost Recon to make me wonder why the people who wrote the game thought that was a good idea...
As for Doom3 I guess I'm the only one who isn't that impressed. The game is slow [re: inefficient] and at "playable/economic" setups it doesn't look that great. Add in some crappy gameplay [e.g. dark room, shoot shoot, die die, etc...] and we have a "disappointment". I actually play 1980s NES games and Mario64DS about a dozen times more often than UT2K4 or Doom3 [though I like UT2K4 way more than D3].
What planet are you on? I have an LG L1710S LCD display [17" viewable, real viewable unlike CRTs which are usually -1" or so from that] and I can tell you that games look just fine in 4:3 resolutions.
I typically play UT2k4 at 640x480 and it's just fine not all distorted as you're suggesting. Maybe that's because the difference from 960 and 1024 isn't really that much. It's a difference from 4:3 and 4:3.2
Um not quite. I do appreciate that my LCD is smaller than my CRT [well actually the LCD has a larger viewing size despite their both '17" monitors'].
What I REALLY appreciate is that the LCD makes less heat. My room isn't that large and the CRT could heat it up something awful. Specially during the winters when I'm cooped up inside. Well that and the LCD is easier on the eyes than the CRT.
Though truth be told depending on prices my next monitor might not be an LCD. I paid $377 [cdn, plus taxes] for my 17" LG LCD. A 17" CRT around here costs $180-$200.
"You and me both but as long as there is a certain percentage of idiots out there that will buy then we all have to suffer. None of these people would be doing it unless they were making a profit."
Another possibility is there a lot of "new spammers" who haven't learned the no-profit issue to spamming [for smaller time spammers that is]. I mean it's the same thing as pyramid scams [which I haven't really received lately... mmm].
I like your idea involving the bat. I think a "taste of their own medicine" would be better. Cut off their phone, snail mail, net access and glue their mouths shut. See how much they like having to make due with hampered communication mediums.;-)
oh what's that? You want to talk with your friends from around the world? Better learn ASL first because have I an offer for you. Genuine r0ll3xes at half price!!
CAN-SPAM [iirc] defines spam as [other than unsolicited] email with fake headers. If you don't misrepresent yourself in email it's not technically spam as far as CAN-SPAM is concerned.
As for "if he was smart..." do you know how much spam public folk get? Fuck I'm just a small-time OSS developer and I get 100s of spams a day. I can only imagine what other big OSS developers, politicians, etc, get.
Even with a filter I have to at least look at the subject lines. For instance, I recently received an email from Joy Latten [from the linux center at IBM] which was first sent to my junk box until I marked it as not-spam.
What if it had been a job offer or other actually beneficial offer? I can't afford to just "delete all junk" without looking at the lines first.
And the problem isn't "oh block one IP and all your spam disappears". I tried that. A year or so back I had about 200 networks and 700 IPs in my ban list. And I still received a barrage of spam each day.
So yes, suing the larger spam operators is a good idea. It takes the profit motive out of the business. And really while I think spammers should be shot in the streets for ruining such a simple and effective communication medium I don't think prison time is the answer. Civil actions are enough.
Slashdot Mirror
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
... so how do they justify the hike? Oh they add in Java, cameras, ring tones, etc... You want a toy? Buy a gameboy. A phone should be phone.
This is what you get for making a phone "more than a phone".
Well that and price gouging. For example, a "quad-band GSM" phone often cells for $300 more than the average dual-band. However, going quad-band is mostly a small change in terms of the radio/hardware as it's just off by 50Mhz [e.g. the SWR won't be that high].
Hahahahahahaha
Tom
"... what they're missing."
I own an AMD64 and I don't run Windows. I'm not missing much. In fact I'm appreciating running in lm instead of pm.
I don't disagree that the flash of studio isn't neat and perhaps "useful". I'm just saying it's not needed. Not even for productive work.
If you want a code graph and other cool tricks doxygen is a hell of a lot better. Sure it's not on the fly but it gives you call graphs, parameter/return comments, inline sourced with cross-referencing, etc..
Re-factoring code is as much about good design as it is good tools. If you can't break a problem into several smaller problem/solution sets you don't deserve to wear a developers hat.
The debuger in MSVC is sweet. No arguing that. GDB isn't horrible but it is harder to use.
Context help... no need if you comment, design and implement sanely and consistently. For example, from my API [in LTC] I usually only need the argument list and I can use functions [some of which have over 11 parameters!]. No need to check the manual [which I also wrote] or the source code.
Tom
"Which is great, I'm sure, until you screw up your link order because your automatic tool screws up. Or you end up linking in debug files."
.net experience, mastery of MFC, etc...
Um first the link order doesn't matter much since all the files are in one archive. Second "debug files" are the same names as normal files. Just a change to a CFLAGS
"Besides, why are you using a tool to do this? I thought your point was that Real programmers edit those make files by hand. Why are you using such an obvious crutch?"
That exactly wasn't my point. My point was that real developers know the underlying tools. Any competent developer really ought to know make/perl/sed/etc. Not just "21 days till C++".
My system is very simple to work with and allows code base changes to occur without great troubles. It's also portable. By using tools that are commonplace [even in Windows for cygwin users] I don't lock people into one OS.
"I know how they work, thanksmuch. Editing a makefile does NOT give you any greater insight into the compiler or the linker, the libraries you use or the language you program in. All it tells you is how make files are written."
I guess you'd be surprised to learn how many "windows developers" couldn't call CL, LIB, LINK, etc on their own to save their lives.
You say "so what". I say it's a big deal. If some person knows how to piece together a working build system in windows they're more likely to piece together a working build in linux. Compare that to the "windows developer" who solely uses the GUI. They're not "upgradeable".
Also how much do you really know about the whole process if you can't invoke your compiler? Can't read a makefile? etc...
There is more to development and computer science than piecing together "enough functions" to finish a program.
"You appear to be under the highly misguided impression that anyone who uses an IDE is a VB jockey who doesn't know what they're doing and drags and drops controls onto forms all day."
It's not hard to lie about development credentials nowadays. I mean just look how many developers are out there with 7+ years of
"So manually editing a makefile because you're a masochist makes you a better programmer?"
My software builds out of the box without configuration on *ANY* GCC equipped platform [64/32 bit, big/little endian, etc, etc, etc]. I'd say spending the little extra time to write sane makefiles and learning how to actually use the tools is a good idea.
Also it's about being clever.
For instance, there are 172 object files in my current project. I don't add them to my makefile manually. I wrote a 6 line script and a 10 line perl program that not only finds all the objects for the build, it also line wraps it at 80 chars for me automatically.
Of course that's because I'm smarter than you.
IDEs and RAD are good for proof of concept and/or short-term inhouse tools. They're totally not a requirement for anything else though. I'm sure you CAN write good software with MSVC studio. You CAN also write good software with bash, perl, make, gcc and gedit.
There is no need to "cave in" to their tools just because you're too lazy to learn how development tools work.
Tom
IDEs are lame. Sorry dude. I get syntax highlighting and multiple tabs with gedit. I get help from man and use multiple shells to help build. I don't need to buy a $950 suite so I can have tab completion and 12GB less disk space.
.net/MFC/etc code. Sure you CAN write portable C code with it but the support is largely not there [mostly because building things like GTK or whatever with non-standard tools is annoying]. Well that and Windows isn't POSIX.1 so many small things break [pthreads, sockets, etc...]
I suppose if you never want to learn how your development tools work and how to be more proficient with them an IDE is a great tool. Sadly most MSVC users I know don't know what makefile is let alone what nmake is.
And yes, I work on projects of significant complexity. I get around just fine without kdevelop or MSVC.
Also you missed a huge point. MSVC is LARGELY geared towards writing
From my experience though [say from talking with RiM engineers] most people settle on Windows without really taking a tour through the alternatives. To quote RiM they stick with windows for their blackberry development because it "has advanced technologies".
Tom
Um a fresh Gentoo install gives you the basic tools you need to work in Linux. Nothing more, nothing less. No X, no desktop, no openoffice, no mozilla, no xmms, no ...
You have to choose to install those.
Know your options dude.
Tom
Most people don't bitch because they think there isn't an alternative.
I mean you don't often bitch that the earth revolves the sun do you? In our minds there isn't much you can do about that.
Well to them they think that boggled down operating systems, crappy foreign made [by the lowest bidder] electronics and license inundated media is "the way things are".
I mean do you go around and post-bitch about people who say "don't buy Dell buy Compaq"? [or whatever]? I mean why should they have a choice there if we don't have a choice with OSes and media.
I'm saying people are stupid because they choose to be ignorant. If that makes me "an ass" then so be it. At least I'll be an ass who is smart enough to at least think about looking for alternatives.
Tom
I don't understand your post. "we all deserve each other"? I use Gentoo linux. I promote it's use amongst my friends. I also talk to my friends about how lame the entertainment business is. It's up to my friends to either follow my advice or not.
If other people are too stupid to reason "this sucks, is there better?" that's not my fault.
I sought out good Linux distros because I didn't want to use Windows anymore. I've tried redhat, debian, knoppix and finally gentoo. OSS and the Indy scenes biggest enemy is the brainwashing that goes on in the coporate world. E.g. "win2k3 TCO is lower than Linux", "Hillary Duff with her new [self-labeled] #1 hits!", etc...
The fact that people aren't smart enough to see through propatainment [thanks daily show] isn't my fault.
Most people who I know who resist Linux usually do so they can play "the latest FPS hits" or some such. They don't realize that the content providers will move to the OS of choice. If they stopped using Windows they could get more Linux games...
Finally, my 100s of "re: your document" emails a day is a good example of them showing contempt for us OSS users. I mean I don't even run a system capable of being infected with the damn virus in the first place [I'm elf-x86_64].
So if I offend any serfs with my posts, well they can go suck my balls for all I care. Don't whine and bitch when you get treated like a door mat when you act as one.
Tom
You sir need an imagination. ;-)
Tom
My experience has taught me aside from the old [who are always bad drivers] most people suck at driving.
Mostly it's because they suffer from "center-of-world-itis". It's easy to be a bad driver when you don't care about the welfare of anyone around you. Makes speeding, cutting off and other unsafe driving practices very easy.
Oddly enough how people drive and how they push shopping carts in Walmart are often very similar.
Tom
The solution is one person will get a license, rip the movie, post it on a P2P and voila. Instant anti-drm.
Of course for the rest of the users who don't venture on P2P they're screwed messing with license agreements and shit. This of course won't stop them from buying it. Afterall a commercial on TV told them to buy it. They must obey. Stupid serfs.
You know what the real cause of all the **AA problems are? Too much sun. See they're all the way down in California too much where their brains get bleached and then they come up with these random ideas that you can really make bits uncopyable. They get annoyed at the reality of the situation so they write and push for laws that support their "version of reality".
The real solution is not to be predictable. Sure keep seeing movies, just don't see them on their time. Keep the execs up at night trying to strategerize and eventually they'll die off one by one from fatigue.
Tom
I don't seeing that happen any time soon [sadly]. There are still quite a bit of "win32" only users out there that like inferior computing environments.
;-)
Though eventually FOSS OS'es will erode win32's hold sufficiently that they will lose critical mass.
All in all my biggest gripes with Windows iare
1. It's too expensive. 300$ for an OS is what I paid for my CPU [thereabouts]. I value my AMD64 more than windows.
2. It's too "feature bundled". I'd prefer a smaller install of the core components and let me pick up additional programs as I choose
3. Lack of good development environment. No good shell, no POSIX.1 and the MSFT tools [visual studio] are huge, slow and really specific to windows [what if I want to make a cross-platform GTK application?]
4. Adding all these bonus-added value features took time away from making the OS stable and secure. It's easy to crash win32 to the point of having to power cycle. It's also easy for "real-time" scheduled tasks [re: games] to hog 100% of the cpu and make it next to impossible to kill them when they go awry [CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE y0!]
So if they just made windows cheaper, smaller, more standards compliant and easier to control it would be a good OS...
that or I could just install a Linux distro [say Gentoo] and give MSFT the finger.
I prefer the latter.
Tom
"Following precedents is rather like walking backwards. i would rather there have been a mandate that audio and video codecs be open."
You missed the point. They were "in trouble" because they bundled a media player with their OS. Nobody is saying MSFT can't distribute their media player [crappy as it may be]. Just they can't include it in the OS.
What microsoft has to realize is that if they didn't market 95/98 so poorly [e.g. you can watch movies and play mp3s, etc...] and peddle these half baked programs [stupid backup/anti-virus/etc] and simply focus on a solid core OS.... they would be better off.
They could still sell their other software but if I walked into a store and bought windows I would not be installing 1.5GB of useless software that I'll simply replace with other implementation then pray someone with a net connection doesn't look at my box wrong lest they exploit it.
All about choice.
Tom
I'd say exageration. Of the 168 hours in a week maybe I could care to watch roughly 20 hours [usually in the background as I do other work].
Another way to put this roughly 7 out of 8 "shows" on TV are totally not interesting to me [anything "reality", "sitcoms" and "soaps" are classic examples of pure trash] and otherwise "not worthy to watch".
The biggest reason is that media exec's are just not in it for the art. They look at one thing that randomly happened to be interesting than re-run it to death until they squeezed the last dime out of it.
We look to TV to inform and entertain but how entertaining is it to watch shows where you can guess plot in the first 5 minutes, can point out the dozens of technicaly/plot errors, see crappy cliches [JAG comes to mind...], etc...
For instance, I generally like Law and Order [the entire series] for the sole reason that I usually can't guess the plot in the first 10-15 mins. Not every episode is a "classic" and occasionally they do play the cards but more often than not they're original and interesting.
Than compare that to say "survivor" or the other "reality" series First off, hate to break it you guys. Reality is scripted. It's not spontaneous in the least. Second, reality is casted. Ever notice the huge amount of big-titty chicks and otherwise buff guys? Not that I don't mind a good tit show like the rest of you I just don't care much for paying for it in terms of dead brain cells and $$$ to the cable provider. Finally, reality tv is just bad art.
I mean, you can accept that it's scripted. But even for a scripted presentation it's just lame. The dialog is horrible, the editing is usually very terse and otherwise confusingly awkward.
So no, it's not a weak generalization to say "nothing to watch".
Tom
I think you missed the part where he said he had money to burn.
If you have debt/family/etc to pay down then free work doesn't make sense. But if you've saved up enough to live a year or two without working I don't see the harm.
Tom
Fine, put the seat back. Just deal with my knees in the seat.
And FYI I don't slouch on them. Not enough room to slouch.
Asshat.
Tom
I don't know about you... but as a 6'1" dude I can hardly sit in the seat without my knees digging into the seat ahead of me let alone open a laptop.
That goes for planes, trains, and automobiles [well buses, I can use my laptop in my mid-size car just fine... not while driving...].
My understanding is that public transportation is meant to make money and not comfort. So concepts such as "humane leg room" is just ludicrous. I can understand city buses being cramped but 8 hr flights overseas or 9 hour bus rides south are literally painful to the point I get "touchy".
I've yelled at my share of passengers that feel the need to push their seat back [into my legs more], annoying loud kids, etc after a few hours of pain...
As for flights the way you make them interesting is occupying the passengers mind. e.g. put real music/shows on the units instead of "CBSWatch".
First off, they use the same tape. Ever fly twice in a week? Ever watch the same 8 hrs of movies/CVSWatch? I have.
Second, christian country or jazz make selection not.
Third, if I want a fucking drink I'll ask. Quit pestering me! [though that's policy and not personal... I know].
Fourth, to the person ahead of me, don't move your seat back if you don't like my knee cap digging into your lower back. Biatch.
Tom
As well they should. If you're only going a few 100 miles the drive would be easier [or train/bus]. Planes are really good for things like transatlantic and cross continent [e.g. Ottawa to California].
Where this obsession with flying somewhere you can drive in 2 hours came from I can only guess...
Tom
Yeah the 9 dozen mario games are all "better than the last" or the 33 MK games...Many video game sequels are cheap plays on name or simply un-original.
Back in the day "Spears of Destiny" [for instance] was cool because there wasn't that many other games to play in the 3d genre.
Personally I prefer games which really add new elements not only for their series but for the industry. Games with more interaction in the environment for example are cool. Nothing like the "walk around the 3ft cliff" in Ghost Recon to make me wonder why the people who wrote the game thought that was a good idea...
As for Doom3 I guess I'm the only one who isn't that impressed. The game is slow [re: inefficient] and at "playable/economic" setups it doesn't look that great. Add in some crappy gameplay [e.g. dark room, shoot shoot, die die, etc...] and we have a "disappointment". I actually play 1980s NES games and Mario64DS about a dozen times more often than UT2K4 or Doom3 [though I like UT2K4 way more than D3].
Tom
What planet are you on? I have an LG L1710S LCD display [17" viewable, real viewable unlike CRTs which are usually -1" or so from that] and I can tell you that games look just fine in 4:3 resolutions.
I typically play UT2k4 at 640x480 and it's just fine not all distorted as you're suggesting. Maybe that's because the difference from 960 and 1024 isn't really that much. It's a difference from 4:3 and 4:3.2
Tom
Um not quite. I do appreciate that my LCD is smaller than my CRT [well actually the LCD has a larger viewing size despite their both '17" monitors'].
What I REALLY appreciate is that the LCD makes less heat. My room isn't that large and the CRT could heat it up something awful. Specially during the winters when I'm cooped up inside. Well that and the LCD is easier on the eyes than the CRT.
Though truth be told depending on prices my next monitor might not be an LCD. I paid $377 [cdn, plus taxes] for my 17" LG LCD. A 17" CRT around here costs $180-$200.
Tom
Ok. So I email a stranger a bug report that's not spam by that definition. Or if I email a cute girl I met at the office, or etc...
I don't see the slope.
Tom
"You and me both but as long as there is a certain percentage of idiots out there that will buy then we all have to suffer. None of these people would be doing it unless they were making a profit."
;-)
Another possibility is there a lot of "new spammers" who haven't learned the no-profit issue to spamming [for smaller time spammers that is]. I mean it's the same thing as pyramid scams [which I haven't really received lately... mmm].
I like your idea involving the bat. I think a "taste of their own medicine" would be better. Cut off their phone, snail mail, net access and glue their mouths shut. See how much they like having to make due with hampered communication mediums.
oh what's that? You want to talk with your friends from around the world? Better learn ASL first because have I an offer for you. Genuine r0ll3xes at half price!!
Tom
I'm sure most of the spam [I get at least] isn't from the mafia. It's just asshat college dropouts that want to make money by not doing real work.
Tom
What?
CAN-SPAM [iirc] defines spam as [other than unsolicited] email with fake headers. If you don't misrepresent yourself in email it's not technically spam as far as CAN-SPAM is concerned.
As for "if he was smart..." do you know how much spam public folk get? Fuck I'm just a small-time OSS developer and I get 100s of spams a day. I can only imagine what other big OSS developers, politicians, etc, get.
Even with a filter I have to at least look at the subject lines. For instance, I recently received an email from Joy Latten [from the linux center at IBM] which was first sent to my junk box until I marked it as not-spam.
What if it had been a job offer or other actually beneficial offer? I can't afford to just "delete all junk" without looking at the lines first.
And the problem isn't "oh block one IP and all your spam disappears". I tried that. A year or so back I had about 200 networks and 700 IPs in my ban list. And I still received a barrage of spam each day.
So yes, suing the larger spam operators is a good idea. It takes the profit motive out of the business. And really while I think spammers should be shot in the streets for ruining such a simple and effective communication medium I don't think prison time is the answer. Civil actions are enough.
Tom