The Windows geeks obviously will want to paint this as a native Linux vulnerability that they don't have - and it is marginally true.
"Marginally true"??? What's that? Is it like marginally dead or perhaps marginally pregnant? Wait a second. That can't be true. Everyone knows Linux users don't get rooted;-)
Personally I think they are going to change their service in some way, perhaps add a devoted client (like Steam) and perhaps introduce DRM.
If you're right GOG is gone. Adding DRM negates the advantage of buying from them. They'll become just another crappy publisher of old nostalgia games. At best that'd make it Zombie GOG.
Yeah, and there are five people who legitimately want to back up their blu-rays. So what? You know and I know, this is primarily a tool for piracy. Mod me down to oblivion, that changes nothing. I'm not expressing an opinion, just a simple fact.
I'm not the one who has to pretend I'm saving the rights of "The People" or sticking it to "The Man" while I gorge myself on free entertainment.
You obviously dont' have kids. DVDs, or any kind of disk media is just NOT suitable for an entertainment system used around children. Keeping the shiny colourful box and disc out of their reach is the only way. I'd rather spend my time keeping DANGEROUS things out of their reach (like knives) than worrying about having to rebuy my whole collection if the kid somehow gets to them. This isn't the only use case where a backup is a good idea either. The fact that you're so dismissive makes you either a shill or a fool or both.
Phone (in assistant mode): Listen lady, my man Dave has been on hold for 45 minutes. 45 minutes for crying out loud! And he's been hung up on twice and promised a call within 20 minutes that never came. Are you going to quit reading your script and help him or what? Sheesh!
Call center lacky: *hangs up*
Dave: Thanks a bunch for your help. Lesson learnt. No more Intel. Next time I'll buy Nokia.
Anyone else getting flashback images of Hal? Or better yet.
Dave: Call ex girlfriend: Phone: Sorry but I can't let you do that, Dave Dave: Call boss Phone: Sorry, Dave Dave: *attempts to smash phone* Phone: Let me remind you that I cost over $500, Dave, and you need me for work. I'm also smash proof and you are way too drunk to be effective Dave: *unzips fly* Phone: I'm not water proof, Dave. It's the 8th wonder of the Universe. No phone ever created will ever be waterproof. But I cost $500. Dave: *urinates on phone* Phone:No, Dave! Noooo! Mommy!! *gurgle*
Explaining such a diagnosis to the driver/owner was usually awkward--"Sir, the reason your Ford Escort is never going to go straight again is because you weigh 600lbs. An alignment isn't going to fix anything. You just need to switch to low-octane fuel".
"Good news sir. We have a fix for you and you don't have to pay us a cent. Now to the fix: How much does your wife weigh?"
Being even more generous and assuming that the two next most recent stories were also about social networking sites or Google and its products, that's still less than half of the last 20 stories.
Aren't "nerds" generally supposed to be detail-oriented and numerate?
Yes but even if there was an exaggeration here, do we really need half our "stories" to be shilling for Google and social networking sites? If you add Apple products to the mix, you quickly see that this place has gone downhill. I use to read EVERY story on the front page at one point. Now I'm lucky if I care about 2 a day.
Last time I checked they also pretend to not make any money. They may report huge gross income and brag about biggest box office sales ever, but somehow they never make a net profit (even before the days of internet piracy).
Yeah, it's too bad that Titanic, which cost $200M to make and grossed over $2B worldwide ended up losing $200M. A shame indeed.
Titantic sinks! Extreeee, Extreee read all about it!
Are you kidding? Super Principia Octave has all the important functionality and none of the ridiculous cost!
Can we all please agree that the important thing about super principia heroes is not what super power they possess, but rather that they are kinky and wear their underwear on the outside!?
Because when it comes to software for most home users, well, the games won't work on Unbuntu without trying to use Wine, etc, etc.
And your typical home user won't want it.
Nothing to see here.
I'ts not just the games, though they are important (certainly to me! I live on Chessmaster, Realflight and MS Flightsim). It's the entire myriad of software. That's what's got the PC such incredible sustained market share. You can do a busload of things with it and there are less things you can run with Linux but not WIndows than vice versa....and as a geek I HATE Ubuntu. I like to be able to build kernels etc. I want the best of both worlds - a system that you can tweak, but that works right out of the box. I'd rather use Debian or Centos (or Scientific Linux)...and I've installed and run a number of distros through the years. These days my home network is run on Windows and I use Virtualbox for Linux.
"Sorry honey, you're about to cut out, just let me move closer to the traffic....hang on a sec, if I jump out in front of this car right here it'll honk and I'll get a power boost.....okay now that that's under control can you please talk a little louder? The traffic here in the middle of the highway is just shocking" *THUD*.
No thanks. Sounds like a bad idea. How efficient could the conversion be anyway? I'd rather a phone that was powered by my own farts. (Can you imagine an amorous conversation on that one?) I think i'll stick to my current phone.
If you buy a DVD player from the back of a pub and it turns out to be stolen, then you have to give it back and would be lucky not to be charged with being in reciept of stolen goods.
If you buy a DVD player from the back of a pub, you have to give back your remaining brain cell, because it turns out that your brain is faulty. You can buy a damn DVD player from K-Mart for $35 (Aussie Dollars). I'm sure there's even cheaper out there.
I do understand the point you're making but your example's a bit dated.
If you can't hack using a standard 4 function calculator, than you can't hack physics either.
I wouldn't touch a standard calculator given a choice. I would much rather spend time learning to use Octave, Scilab or other advanced software than waste it on junk calculators from the 70s and 80s.
I did a lot of my Astronomy homework and exams (Masters completed circa 2002) using Excel. (Yes I'm aware of its limitations, but used sensibly it's an awesome tool).
Using software gives you repetability and if you discover an error you don't have to redo a bunch of calculations by hand. Both hand calculation and software computation have led to many blunders in the history of science. Computer errors, when not made in real time or on a critical system, are more likely to allow you to recover the work. People who have time to waste doing calculations by hand and learning to get low error rates by definition have less time to do actual science. Just look at the history of subjects like Astronomy before the modern computer. Do you think half the simulations we do would be remotely possible by hand? Care to hand calculate draw a large particle simulation? Even if it's your dream job no one will pay you to do it today.
Good for you. I also hold qualifications (Astronomy, Computer Science) and have taught at University (Computer Science). But I don't bandy about my qualifications to bring legitimacy to my arguments.
-A pen is enough.
I would at least want some paper. It's pretty hard to take home 30 or 40 desks to mark.
In physics exams students should prove they can transform formulas symbolically.
Yes they should. But there's more to physics than symbolic math.
Typing in number can be done by people at the cashier desk.
And it's an essential skill. There's no need for snobbery.
Graphing calculators are a disease.
That disease you speak of many an 18th Century mathematician or scientist would have committed bloody murder to obtain.
-Everybody who wants, can take in a standalone mp3-player - these are cheap.
...and just as useful for cheating.
-Regarding the dictionary - these exist in paper and are cheap - and faster than an ipod.
Luddite! iPods are awful for entry, but there are decent and much faster ways to look up a word than a paper dictionary. The one stored on a device can be MUCH larger and more detailed without taking up room or breaking your back.
Most important: who uses sophistication to cheat and i caught should be removed from the studies immediately.
He comes back in the shop and complains that the turbo mode doesn't work anymore and we tried to explain with the new models that it was way faster than the 386 even in turbo mode but he didn't seem to understand.
So one of us takes it into the back rigs the button to simply light up the turbu LED when you press it. He seemed pretty happy with the results.
You should have sold it as a 486 special edition. Would have been cool if you could rigged it up with a speaker to have an extra loud fan noise too;-)
One particularly sadistic (but awesome) professor asked a question like this "Suppose you're stuck in the middle of a frozen pond with a perfectly smooth (frictionless) surface. Propose a way to escape the pond." My (correctly marked) proposal was throw away a shoe.
Pfffft. The only correct answer is to wake up or stop haullcinating, because there's no such thing as a perfectly smooth (frictionless) surface.
Make it clear that communication during the exam isn't allowed, and walk around the room during the exam, or pay an assistant to do the same.
If you suspect a student is using chat or the phone, confiscate it for the duration of the exam. Warn them in advance that this might happen, and relying on the device is at their own risk.
As a podcaster, you can put up an RSS feed, or an iTunes link.
Unless you're thinking about writing the XML by hand, any decent feed generator (blog software or whatever) should be able to produce the two versions without any extra effort. Most podcasts I've seen have both; but it may be because I only listen to technical ones.
That's still one more file you have to manage, one more format you have to have hosted, one more link you must put up per episode, one more thing that can go wrong etc. If it gains you nothing, why do it?
Most (?) internet users have never heard of RSS. Instead people turned to third party aggregators and closed sites like Facebook. What happened?
Take podcasts.
As a podcaster, you can put up an RSS feed, or an iTunes link. Which do you think will get you more hits? Even people that hate Apple will use iTunes. Okay so you can put up both, but what does that get you that iTunes doesn't?
Now look at it from the point of view of a podcast consumer/user. You can use a different podcast app, and only get RSS feeds while missing out on some iTunes stuff, or you can just use iTunes and get 99% of the podcasts you want and a directory to boot with minimum fuss.
Tell me again why in either of the above cases you'd bother with RSS? So what happened? Real life and commercial interests. Companies like Apple are motivated to apply vendor lock in and make their apps as attractive as possible, effectively killing the open effort and corner the market. End users are motivated to use the most common and convenient solution.
Slashdot Mirror
The Windows geeks obviously will want to paint this as a native Linux vulnerability that they don't have - and it is marginally true.
"Marginally true"??? What's that? Is it like marginally dead or perhaps marginally pregnant? Wait a second. That can't be true. Everyone knows Linux users don't get rooted ;-)
This reddit thread contains more links that indicate GOG is not actually dead: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/dfzhe/rip_gogcom/c0zxgih
Personally I think they are going to change their service in some way, perhaps add a devoted client (like Steam) and perhaps introduce DRM.
If you're right GOG is gone. Adding DRM negates the advantage of buying from them. They'll become just another crappy publisher of old nostalgia games. At best that'd make it Zombie GOG.
Apparently pointing out someone's typo is insightful.
See my signature.
You seem quite informed. While I've got you here, could you please tell me what the "R" in "DRM" stands for?
Rohipnol.
Yeah, and there are five people who legitimately want to back up their blu-rays. So what? You know and I know, this is primarily a tool for piracy. Mod me down to oblivion, that changes nothing. I'm not expressing an opinion, just a simple fact.
I'm not the one who has to pretend I'm saving the rights of "The People" or sticking it to "The Man" while I gorge myself on free entertainment.
You obviously dont' have kids. DVDs, or any kind of disk media is just NOT suitable for an entertainment system used around children. Keeping the shiny colourful box and disc out of their reach is the only way. I'd rather spend my time keeping DANGEROUS things out of their reach (like knives) than worrying about having to rebuy my whole collection if the kid somehow gets to them. This isn't the only use case where a backup is a good idea either. The fact that you're so dismissive makes you either a shill or a fool or both.
*whilst on hold to Intel*
Call center lacky: Hello, thanks for holding
Phone (in assistant mode): Listen lady, my man Dave has been on hold for 45 minutes. 45 minutes for crying out loud! And he's been hung up on twice and promised a call within 20 minutes that never came. Are you going to quit reading your script and help him or what? Sheesh!
Call center lacky: *hangs up*
Dave: Thanks a bunch for your help. Lesson learnt. No more Intel. Next time I'll buy Nokia.
And here thought that fraud and false advertising was illegal in this country. If the Feds go for this then they're not doing their jobs.
I'm propose a new ad campaign along the lines of "Got Milk!?". In this case it would be "Get fruct!!!!"
Anyone else getting flashback images of Hal? Or better yet.
Dave: Call ex girlfriend:
Phone: Sorry but I can't let you do that, Dave
Dave: Call boss
Phone: Sorry, Dave
Dave: *attempts to smash phone*
Phone: Let me remind you that I cost over $500, Dave, and you need me for work. I'm also smash proof and you are way too drunk to be effective
Dave: *unzips fly*
Phone: I'm not water proof, Dave. It's the 8th wonder of the Universe. No phone ever created will ever be waterproof. But I cost $500.
Dave: *urinates on phone*
Phone:No, Dave! Noooo! Mommy!! *gurgle*
(Can ya tell I'm sleep deprived?)
Of course the pictures are limited to 140x140 pixels, and the videos are limited to 140 frames, but, other than that; its an outstanding service!
I hear they're also renaming the site TwitBook.
Explaining such a diagnosis to the driver/owner was usually awkward--"Sir, the reason your Ford Escort is never going to go straight again is because you weigh 600lbs. An alignment isn't going to fix anything. You just need to switch to low-octane fuel".
"Good news sir. We have a fix for you and you don't have to pay us a cent. Now to the fix: How much does your wife weigh?"
Last time I checked they also pretend to not make any money. They may report huge gross income and brag about biggest box office sales ever, but somehow they never make a net profit (even before the days of internet piracy).
Yeah, it's too bad that Titanic, which cost $200M to make and grossed over $2B worldwide ended up losing $200M. A shame indeed.
Titantic sinks! Extreeee, Extreee read all about it!
Are you kidding? Super Principia Octave has all the important functionality and none of the ridiculous cost!
Can we all please agree that the important thing about super principia heroes is not what super power they possess, but rather that they are kinky and wear their underwear on the outside!?
Because when it comes to software for most home users, well, the games won't work on Unbuntu without trying to use Wine, etc, etc.
And your typical home user won't want it.
Nothing to see here.
I'ts not just the games, though they are important (certainly to me! I live on Chessmaster, Realflight and MS Flightsim). It's the entire myriad of software. That's what's got the PC such incredible sustained market share. You can do a busload of things with it and there are less things you can run with Linux but not WIndows than vice versa. ...and as a geek I HATE Ubuntu. I like to be able to build kernels etc. I want the best of both worlds - a system that you can tweak, but that works right out of the box. I'd rather use Debian or Centos (or Scientific Linux)...and I've installed and run a number of distros through the years. These days my home network is run on Windows and I use Virtualbox for Linux.
"Sorry honey, you're about to cut out, just let me move closer to the traffic....hang on a sec, if I jump out in front of this car right here it'll honk and I'll get a power boost.....okay now that that's under control can you please talk a little louder? The traffic here in the middle of the highway is just shocking" *THUD*.
No thanks. Sounds like a bad idea. How efficient could the conversion be anyway? I'd rather a phone that was powered by my own farts. (Can you imagine an amorous conversation on that one?) I think i'll stick to my current phone.
That's idiotic. You can't ignore friction. An object held up by an air blower still experiences air resistance.
If you buy a DVD player from the back of a pub and it turns out to be stolen, then you have to give it back and would be lucky not to be charged with being in reciept of stolen goods.
If you buy a DVD player from the back of a pub, you have to give back your remaining brain cell, because it turns out that your brain is faulty. You can buy a damn DVD player from K-Mart for $35 (Aussie Dollars). I'm sure there's even cheaper out there.
I do understand the point you're making but your example's a bit dated.
Knowing _which_ parameters you can idealize is one of the things which ;-)
separates a good physicist from a bad one!
I'm not a professional physicist but I'm pretty sure you can't ignore friction.
If you can't hack using a standard 4 function calculator, than you can't hack physics either.
I wouldn't touch a standard calculator given a choice. I would much rather spend time learning to use Octave, Scilab or other advanced software than waste it on junk calculators from the 70s and 80s.
I did a lot of my Astronomy homework and exams (Masters completed circa 2002) using Excel. (Yes I'm aware of its limitations, but used sensibly it's an awesome tool).
Using software gives you repetability and if you discover an error you don't have to redo a bunch of calculations by hand. Both hand calculation and software computation have led to many blunders in the history of science. Computer errors, when not made in real time or on a critical system, are more likely to allow you to recover the work. People who have time to waste doing calculations by hand and learning to get low error rates by definition have less time to do actual science. Just look at the history of subjects like Astronomy before the modern computer. Do you think half the simulations we do would be remotely possible by hand? Care to hand calculate draw a large particle simulation? Even if it's your dream job no one will pay you to do it today.
I hold a PHD in physics.
Good for you. I also hold qualifications (Astronomy, Computer Science) and have taught at University (Computer Science). But I don't bandy about my qualifications to bring legitimacy to my arguments.
-A pen is enough.
I would at least want some paper. It's pretty hard to take home 30 or 40 desks to mark.
In physics exams students should prove they can transform formulas symbolically.
Yes they should. But there's more to physics than symbolic math.
Typing in number can be done by people at the cashier desk.
And it's an essential skill. There's no need for snobbery.
Graphing calculators are a disease.
That disease you speak of many an 18th Century mathematician or scientist would have committed bloody murder to obtain.
-Everybody who wants, can take in a standalone mp3-player - these are cheap.
...and just as useful for cheating.
-Regarding the dictionary - these exist in paper and are cheap - and faster than an ipod.
Luddite! iPods are awful for entry, but there are decent and much faster ways to look up a word than a paper dictionary. The one stored on a device can be MUCH larger and more detailed without taking up room or breaking your back.
Most important: who uses sophistication to cheat and i caught should be removed from the studies immediately.
At least on that we agree.
He comes back in the shop and complains that the turbo mode doesn't work anymore and we tried to explain with the new models that it was way faster than the 386 even in turbo mode but he didn't seem to understand.
So one of us takes it into the back rigs the button to simply light up the turbu LED when you press it. He seemed pretty happy with the results.
You should have sold it as a 486 special edition. Would have been cool if you could rigged it up with a speaker to have an extra loud fan noise too ;-)
One particularly sadistic (but awesome) professor asked a question like this "Suppose you're stuck in the middle of a frozen pond with a perfectly smooth (frictionless) surface. Propose a way to escape the pond." My (correctly marked) proposal was throw away a shoe.
Pfffft. The only correct answer is to wake up or stop haullcinating, because there's no such thing as a perfectly smooth (frictionless) surface.
Make it clear that communication during the exam isn't allowed, and walk around the room during the exam, or pay an assistant to do the same.
If you suspect a student is using chat or the phone, confiscate it for the duration of the exam. Warn them in advance that this might happen, and relying on the device is at their own risk.
Problem solved
Unless you're thinking about writing the XML by hand, any decent feed generator (blog software or whatever) should be able to produce the two versions without any extra effort.
Most podcasts I've seen have both; but it may be because I only listen to technical ones.
That's still one more file you have to manage, one more format you have to have hosted, one more link you must put up per episode, one more thing that can go wrong etc. If it gains you nothing, why do it?
Most (?) internet users have never heard of RSS. Instead people turned to third party aggregators and closed sites like Facebook. What happened?
Take podcasts.
As a podcaster, you can put up an RSS feed, or an iTunes link. Which do you think will get you more hits? Even people that hate Apple will use iTunes. Okay so you can put up both, but what does that get you that iTunes doesn't?
Now look at it from the point of view of a podcast consumer/user. You can use a different podcast app, and only get RSS feeds while missing out on some iTunes stuff, or you can just use iTunes and get 99% of the podcasts you want and a directory to boot with minimum fuss.
Tell me again why in either of the above cases you'd bother with RSS? So what happened? Real life and commercial interests. Companies like Apple are motivated to apply vendor lock in and make their apps as attractive as possible, effectively killing the open effort and corner the market. End users are motivated to use the most common and convenient solution.