Even accepting your assumptions about ripping time and time taken to organize the files, I still fail to see how doing that is an order of magnitude more difficult than downloading.
Assuming it takes 15 seconds to share an MP3 file, and 15 minutes to rip a CD (you might be able to shave this down by setting up an optimal environment, but I'm talking casual, non-l33t users here), that's 900 seconds. 900 seconds is 2 orders above 15 seconds.
I couldn't get CDDB or FreeDB to work, and I consider myself a technically competent user. I wasn't very persistent, though, and I did most of my ripping on my laptop while at work, so I had no internet connection anyway. I'm not going to spend my valuale home time nursing a machine that's ripping CDs.
look at just about every company that has sold CDs for the last 20 years.
There's a big difference between a shiny disc and a file on your hard drive. With the file, you can share it on your favourite P2P network or send by email with a few mouse clicks. With the CD, you have to leave it in the machine for about 15 minutes, then rename all the files to the names of the tracks, then do a few mouse clicks. That means that a CD is at least 2 orders of magnitude more difficult to share than an MP3.
and the somewhat-legal allofmp3.com for the major-label stuff.
That's being generous! It may be legal in Russia, but it's almost certainly not legal to download from them in Europe or the US.
The rule is that it is legal to import stuff that you acquired abroad, if the production of that item would have been legal had it been done in the country into which you are importing it. allofmp3.com clearly fails this test.
It never found a single virus, yet when I returned my laptop to the manufacturer for repair, they found 8 viruses, blamed the problem on them, and returned the machine to me without having fixed the faulty hard drive. Needless to say I was not impressed, either with Avast! or with them.
This is mainly an interop issue because OOo does not behave in the same way as Excel, but there are some circumstances in which OOo does what many consider to be "the wrong thing".
if you want to watch something "live" the you have to see them anyway. I would think this is how most people with tivo use their TVs; with tivo just as a video-recorder
All you needed for a Doom monster was 5 bitmaps (front, rear, side, and 2 half way in between). The "models" for ATC (Aliens Total Conversion) looked like photographs of an off-the-shelf Alien model from a comic store. They were rough and faded and poor quality but that didn't matter, because it was all dark anyway. In something like Doom 3 you have sophisticated lighting that is almost designed to show off the quality of the models. Fundamentally, expectations were lower.
Once hardware acceleration took over from software, that pretty much ended the days of one rendering engine being substantially any better than another.
This sounds like the least user friendly option available to this problem.
It's inevitable that as games get more sophisticated, equivalent-quality fan mods will be harder. Developing a next-gen game costs millions, no fan mod team can compete with that. So, yes, we will have to get used to fan mods re-using a lot of the game's original content.
The Aliens Total Conversion for Doom II was one of the scariest games I've ever played, but that kind of thing just isn't possible any more, sadly. And not just for legal reasons.
Your point is misleading. Just because every piece of hardware off the shelf works with windows, it still requires that the drivers be installed.
I think it's your post that is the more misleading. Off-the-shelf hardware usually comes with a nice big illustrated step-by-step guide that says something like "1. Insert CD, if auto-run is not enabled then double-click on Explorer, open your CD drive and double-click on Setup.exe; 2. Click Next a few times; 3. Insert the cable into a free USB port; 4. Enjoy!"
That's what I had to do to get my broadband working. It was insultingly easy.
I really don't get the "overpriced" thing. Sure, the MS and Sony consoles are expensive, but there's a lot of cutting-edge kit in there, especially the Sonly Blu-Ray drive. I'd expect a first-generation Blu-Ray player on its own to be about $500, let alone one with (the/one of the two) most powerful games consoles in with it.
Hmmm, I'd say calling the PS3 "vaporware" is a little harsh. Sure, it isn't out yet, but I'm 100% sure that it will exist in some actual, purchasable, playable form, some time in the next 9 months.
I got 100% at SA on the PC with KB and mouse, and that includes flying that ridiculous stunt plane all round the map. And that was on a laptop, with no nuneric pad!
"MkLinux is an Open Source operating system which consists of an implementation of the Linux operating system hosted on the Mach microkernel."
How much of the Linux kernel is there in MkLinux? AIUI, Linux isn't an operating system, it's a kernel. What does "the Linux operating system hosted on the Mach microkernel" actually mean? Should they have said "the GNU operating system hosted on the Mach microkernel"? Or, does it contain parts of the Linux kernel?
LPG has been used commercially - without any subsidies - as a car fuel for some 60 years at about 50% of the price of petrol,
I'm delighted to hear it. What do you mean by 50% of the price though? If it's per litre, please see my earlier comments about the stupidity of comparing fuels by volume, it's as crazy as comparing sugar and sweetex by volume. See the earlier comment that says "I read somwhere that it was 50% less" (miles per litre). This test indicated around 77% for a conversion vehicle.
Thanks, that's interesting. If its mass density is roughly half that of water, then that kind of confirms my supposition that volume is not a useful measure of a fuel, and can't be used to compare fuels.
I don't think cost is the main benefit, it's the enironmental cost. LPG is still in its infancy and so I wouldn't expect it to be a money-saver other than via subsidy or tax breaks. A gallon is a unit of volume; evaporate a gallon of water and you have many, many gallons of water vapor. I'm not really up on the details of LPG and the chemistry involved but I don't think gallons of LPG are directly 1:1 comparable with gallons of petrol.
Okay. The statement "so you're only worried about Democrats" was, in fact, rhetorical, and I thought that was fairly obvious. I apologise for that mistaken assumption. I was pointing out that you were in danger of falling into a trap - or at the very least, carelessly reinforcing the perception that as long as you have two parties, you have a real choice. It seems to me that while you have this lock-out in your political system, with the general assumption that a vote for a non-Republicrat is a wasted vote, you have no real choice at all because the two big parties are only imperceptibly different.
You're only worried about Democrats being hauled away, then? Honestly, the republicrats are just a big blurry blob in my eyes. The illusion of choice, how comforting.
Oh, come on, name me one major hollywood movie with more realistic IT in it. This is mass-market fiction, if it was authentic then it would not be as successful. Dan Brown did what he had to. The only example of popular fiction that I can think of that contains a believable depiction of an IT system is Jurassic Park - the novel, not the movie.
Having said that, I read Angels and Demons (which I think is a marginally superior novel to DVC) but seeing the liberties that he took with physics I stayed well clear of Digital Fortress because I knew that my familiarity with the science invoved would have me spitting my own teeth out, so I do sympathize.
Slashdot Mirror
Assuming it takes 15 seconds to share an MP3 file, and 15 minutes to rip a CD (you might be able to shave this down by setting up an optimal environment, but I'm talking casual, non-l33t users here), that's 900 seconds. 900 seconds is 2 orders above 15 seconds.
I couldn't get CDDB or FreeDB to work, and I consider myself a technically competent user. I wasn't very persistent, though, and I did most of my ripping on my laptop while at work, so I had no internet connection anyway. I'm not going to spend my valuale home time nursing a machine that's ripping CDs.
The rule is that it is legal to import stuff that you acquired abroad, if the production of that item would have been legal had it been done in the country into which you are importing it. allofmp3.com clearly fails this test.
It never found a single virus, yet when I returned my laptop to the manufacturer for repair, they found 8 viruses, blamed the problem on them, and returned the machine to me without having fixed the faulty hard drive. Needless to say I was not impressed, either with Avast! or with them.
This is mainly an interop issue because OOo does not behave in the same way as Excel, but there are some circumstances in which OOo does what many consider to be "the wrong thing".
Issue 5658
All you needed for a Doom monster was 5 bitmaps (front, rear, side, and 2 half way in between). The "models" for ATC (Aliens Total Conversion) looked like photographs of an off-the-shelf Alien model from a comic store. They were rough and faded and poor quality but that didn't matter, because it was all dark anyway. In something like Doom 3 you have sophisticated lighting that is almost designed to show off the quality of the models. Fundamentally, expectations were lower.
Once hardware acceleration took over from software, that pretty much ended the days of one rendering engine being substantially any better than another.
The Aliens Total Conversion for Doom II was one of the scariest games I've ever played, but that kind of thing just isn't possible any more, sadly. And not just for legal reasons.
That's what I had to do to get my broadband working. It was insultingly easy.
I really don't get the "overpriced" thing. Sure, the MS and Sony consoles are expensive, but there's a lot of cutting-edge kit in there, especially the Sonly Blu-Ray drive. I'd expect a first-generation Blu-Ray player on its own to be about $500, let alone one with (the/one of the two) most powerful games consoles in with it.
Hmmm, I'd say calling the PS3 "vaporware" is a little harsh. Sure, it isn't out yet, but I'm 100% sure that it will exist in some actual, purchasable, playable form, some time in the next 9 months.
I got 100% at SA on the PC with KB and mouse, and that includes flying that ridiculous stunt plane all round the map. And that was on a laptop, with no nuneric pad!
"MkLinux is an Open Source operating system which consists of an implementation of the Linux operating system hosted on the Mach microkernel."
How much of the Linux kernel is there in MkLinux? AIUI, Linux isn't an operating system, it's a kernel. What does "the Linux operating system hosted on the Mach microkernel" actually mean? Should they have said "the GNU operating system hosted on the Mach microkernel"? Or, does it contain parts of the Linux kernel?
Thanks, that's interesting. If its mass density is roughly half that of water, then that kind of confirms my supposition that volume is not a useful measure of a fuel, and can't be used to compare fuels.
Off-topic yet still Linux related - does anyone know if this is a wind-up or a genuine nutter?
I don't think cost is the main benefit, it's the enironmental cost. LPG is still in its infancy and so I wouldn't expect it to be a money-saver other than via subsidy or tax breaks. A gallon is a unit of volume; evaporate a gallon of water and you have many, many gallons of water vapor. I'm not really up on the details of LPG and the chemistry involved but I don't think gallons of LPG are directly 1:1 comparable with gallons of petrol.
Okay. The statement "so you're only worried about Democrats" was, in fact, rhetorical, and I thought that was fairly obvious. I apologise for that mistaken assumption. I was pointing out that you were in danger of falling into a trap - or at the very least, carelessly reinforcing the perception that as long as you have two parties, you have a real choice. It seems to me that while you have this lock-out in your political system, with the general assumption that a vote for a non-Republicrat is a wasted vote, you have no real choice at all because the two big parties are only imperceptibly different.
Happy? No. Deeply cynical is closer.
You're only worried about Democrats being hauled away, then? Honestly, the republicrats are just a big blurry blob in my eyes. The illusion of choice, how comforting.
Of course I'm sure he's joking
OK, I now realise that ID4 means Independence Day - and therefore that you are either joking, trolling, or having some kind of episode.
Zigactly, never heard of it.
Oh, come on, name me one major hollywood movie with more realistic IT in it. This is mass-market fiction, if it was authentic then it would not be as successful. Dan Brown did what he had to. The only example of popular fiction that I can think of that contains a believable depiction of an IT system is Jurassic Park - the novel, not the movie.
Having said that, I read Angels and Demons (which I think is a marginally superior novel to DVC) but seeing the liberties that he took with physics I stayed well clear of Digital Fortress because I knew that my familiarity with the science invoved would have me spitting my own teeth out, so I do sympathize.