I read the original bulletin, too. They clearly stated that patches for Win2K, Win98, etc. were not available yet, but would appear soon. Which they did, apparently, 24 hours later.
Funny, perhaps, but the number of colors you can display at one time is irrelevant. What's important is the number of colors you have to choose from, since any particular image can only make use of a small fraction of them. If you're rendering a portrait, for example, 1600 shades of skin tone are a lot better than 100.
I'll add another reason: movies are frequently released quite a bit later in Europe than in the US.
Correct, that is actually the main reason for region coding. (Well, that, and the fact that a bit-for-bit bootleg made in Hong Kong can't be imported to the U.S.)
As to why movie releases are delayed outside the U.S., there's another factor that you didn't mention: It may be hard to grasp this in today's digital world, but duplicating a film is not a trivial process. It takes time and money, and only a certain number of copies can be made before the master deteriorates and the quality is no longer acceptable. So Australia has not yet been subjected to Goldmember, for example, because we're still using it here. As the prints leave theaters in the U.S., they'll be shipped out to the rest of the world.
I have to say, I know I've heard the above explanation before, but now it sounds like bullshit to me. If anyone has any evidence to the contrary, please let me know.
Not a chance... in TV guide a while ago it said that the cartoon costs Fox around $1,000,000 an episode. And Cartoon Network recently shitcanned Mission Hill due to $400,000 an ep figures.
Actually, to me, that sounds very encouraging. I thought the difference would be much greater.
I don't know much about the TV business, but I'm sure that "Futurama" is much more marketable and mainstream than "Mission Hill". I'm also sure that the "Futurama" people could shave quite a bit off that budget, if they're willing. (Groening calls "Futurama" a "gift to animators"... You can tell just by looking at it that it's a flashy show, but they could cut 80% of the flash, and the average viewer wouldn't even notice.)
IMO, CN should pony up the money to start making new episodes on a more reasonable budget, and make it the anchor of their whole Adult Swim block. It would be the best decision for all parties concerned. (Except maybe Fox, but screw 'em.)
I've always felt that the proper definition of "OS" is "the minimum set of services that an application developer can expect, or demand, from a particular platform." I realize that the definition I'm proposing is somewhat circular, but I still think it's a useful starting point.
For example, if I write an app that somehow depends on MS Mediaplayer (the player itself, not DirectShow et al,) that's an additional system requirement, and users who don't have a working copy of Mediaplayer installed have a valid complaint.
On the other hand, if I write a program that makes use of, say, the Windows taskbar, and a user complains that it's incompatible with his third-party replacement shell, that's his problem. If you're not running explorer.exe, you're not running Windows. (Of course, the boundary changes as the market changes, as edremy points out in his post.)
According to this guideline, Internet Explorer is right in the middle. In some respects, it can be considered a component of the basic OS (almost all Windows apps use it to display help, for example.) As a web browser, though, it is not yet a feature that developers can take for granted.
Of course, even if a component is "part of the OS," such as explorer.exe, that doesn't mean it can't be replaced by a third-party. However, it's still up to the OS to abstract the differences and handle communication between apps and the third-party OS component, which is a model that neither MS nor its competitors seem terribly interested in these days.
I've been looking for an alternative to dial-up for my beach house for a while now. (It's in southern New Jersey, served by Comcast, not that I'm fishing for advice...) I need unlimited usage, but I really don't care about speed... anything at least as fast as my noisy, pseudo-56k connection would be adequate.
As it stands, I'm paying $21/month for local dial-up (which is already a lot.) I believe that cable modem service would be something like $45/month, which I can't justify. We really need another option, something in the $20-$30 range, for people who just want a stable connection. The CNET article implies that AT&T will try to fill that niche, but it doesn't give any details... I hope the idea catches on.
She still gets confused when the mouse on the home computer starts moving around on it's own while I'm at work.
Erm, I think I'm with your wife on that one. If my mouse ever starts moving on its own, it's going right back to Microsoft (again.) On the other hand, maybe that's why the battery has been draining so fast...
Why not just get one of these, and hack together some software? Marginally cheaper, but much cooler, and potentially useful for more than just phone calls.
Personally, I can't wait until I can get CD-quality stereo out of two little earpieces like that. I guess the bandwidth is a bit low now, but surely Bluetooth 2.0 could do it.
(No, I haven't read the article. It's conveniently slashdotted right now, so I can use that as an excuse to let other people read it for me.)
I've had nothing but trouble with Creative Labs products, mostly due to really terrible and/or non-existent software. I'm pretty sure that CL's programmers stopped writing new drivers and applications years ago, and have since devoted all their time to cramming more advertisments and spyware into existing products.
I've been trying achieve a CL-free system for years, and I'm down to two components now: My Nomad Jukebox (which will be replaced just as soon as there's something worth replacing it with,) and my Sound Blaster Live. I keep the SBLive because it's the only way that I know of to output six channel SP/DIF digital audio. Call it a fetish if you want to, but I just like not having to care about noise until the signal reaches my speakers.
So, does anyone know of any sound card and speaker combination that would get six channel, real-time digital audio out of my computer, without using some form of Sound Blaster?
That "magnetic boots" crap has always stuck out in my mind because, after they went to a lot of trouble to establish that silly device in in the film (instead of just spending a few bucks to simulate zero-g movement,) I distinctly remember one of the characters putting his phaser "down" on the surface of the ship. Presumably it was wearing "magnetic boots" as well.
Incidentally, another thing that has always bugged me about First Contact (and in fact, just about every appearance of the Borg): The Borg have a highly advanced hive mind that rapidly adapts to defend them against any form of attack. Their magical shields can stop phasers, photon torpedoes, bullets, and anything else that they've ever encountered in their long history... yet they're still rendered helpless by a solid uppercut to the jaw.
You know, as someone who has spent most of his life trapped on the wrong side of Manhattan, that artist's conception of the Gibraltar bridge over NYC doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
Of course, a similarly impresive tunnel under the Long Island Sound would be much more practical. As I understand it, it would be a very reasonable undertaking from a financial and technical standpoint (unlike other crossings mentioned here), but it's being blocked by NIMBY issues. Idiots.
I think you are reading into it to much. The BSA and people asked a pretty vague question, but the intent is pretty clear. In the context of piracy, I think the question was probably intended to reference "shareware" or other software where the author asks for payment.
In other words, the gap between the 12% who admitted "acquiring pirated software" and the 25% who "never pay for the copyrighted software they download" represents those that copy shareware or other honor system software, but not boxed software? Perhaps. But that's a pretty convoluted interpretation, especially considering that there's no legal distinction between failing to pay for shareware and pirating commercial software (though IANAL.) I think Occam's Razor favors my reading.
the group found that 57 percent of respondents never or seldom pay for copyrighted works they download. And 12 percent admitted to pirating software.' How much do you want to bet that 45 percent gap is freeware and/or open source?
I've been trying to fight the urge to post to Slashdot lately, but when I read that quote, I was all set to rant about it. Surely, by "copyrighted works" the researchers meant "unlicensed, commercial copyrighted works", and someone had stupidly or deceptively misinterpreted their point.
So, I checked the ZDNet article. It said the same thing. "Ah," I thought, "typical ZDNet incompetence, twisting the words of the press release."
Next, I checked the press release, and found the same claim yet again. Now I was starting to get worried, but at least the press release provided a link to the actual report (PDF). The report says,
A significant percentage of Internet users knowingly violate copyright laws. 57 percent of downloaders either seldom pay or never pay for the copyrighted software they download. And 36 percent of all Internet users say it is not likely they will ever pay for software they download. Of all Internet users, 12 percent admit to acquiring unlicensed commercial software.
There you have it. In the (distressingly significant) opinion of the Business Software Alliance, any individual who downloads a copy of Linux, Netscape Navigator, the latest Windows Service Pack, or any other software provided without charge, is "knowingly violating copyright law." That's terrifying.
(I apologize for taking so much time just to repeat what was said in the original submission, but accurate hyperbole is so rare on Slashdot that I thought it should be highlighted.)
As an aside, I'm actually very surprised that 41% of those surveyed indicated that they pay for downloaded software "most times" or "every time." I've been on the net since Pipeline NY (those were the days...), and I have paid for downloaded software perhaps 3 or 4 times in my life. Even in today's "internet economy," it's awfully hard to find someone who will sell you software without including an oversized box and ten marketing flyers. I strongly suspect that this survey was poorly designed, and that the results are garbage; however, that only makes the BSA's interpretation of it more disturbing.
-Ruggedness - every Nomad I've seen yet has been kind of flimsy. Until proven otherwise, I'll assume this one is, too.
FWIW, my original NJB is covered in nicks and scratches from all the times that I've dropped it, but it keeps on ticking. I suspect that its less exotic components (e.g. a physically larger hard drive) make it more durable than the iPod, even if it doesn't have titanium armor. (Or whatever.)
I've been pretty happy with my Nomad hardware. The software is another matter entirely...
I already control my cookies via the privacy settings. But i dont want to have a huge list of DO NOT URLS. I want something that i can say "YES I WANT THIS AND ONLY THIS" otherwise im adding and growing this list continuesly.
You could always add the sites that you want to trust to the Trusted Sites zone (after tightening up the default settings for that zone.)
However, you are correct that there is no way to automatically block ActiveX controls based on the author, AFAIK.
Personally, I use the first method: Whenever a site tries to install a malicious ActiveX control, I add it to the Restricted zone. The practice doesn't seem to be that common yet, since I've only had to do that to five or six times in the past year.
You do realize that at some point in the fairly near future, there will undoubtedly be a community of clones to be offended by jokes like that?
I'm being 97% serious. Everyone has been so absorbed in the (mostly silly) cloning debate, but hardly anyone has been thinking about how our society will deal with clones once they're a reality.
Well, Cnet was the original domain squatter... they designed their whole business model around the generic domain names that they managed to get a hold of in the early days of the web. (download.com, news.com, shareware.com, shopper.com, and apparently com.com, among others.)
However, that doesn't explain why they're only using it to redirect a few Cnet sites. I would have expected a typo scam to catch anyone who accidentally enters [foo].com.com. Maybe that was their original plan, but their legal department stopped them.
The "administrator" on a Windows box gets "permission denied" messages all the time.
True, but only because the message is misleading. For example, "permission denied" can also mean that the resource is locked and in use, or that the file is encrypted and you don't have the key. In both cases, the OS simply can't allow you to access the resource, no matter what your permissions are.
Just because code is buried in the OS instead of the application (like it should be) doesn't mean that it isn't part of the application. I beleive that you will also find Office code buried in the OS. Does that mean that Word is part of Windows? I believe that (currently) M$ still says it isn't.
The "real" IE is neither buried in the OS, nor part of the browser app. It's implemented as an object in the shdocvw.dll library. That is where it belongs, since many real applications besides IE use it extensively. Modularity and reusability is a CS 101 concept; if you know a reason why Microsoft "should be" doing it any differently, please let us know.
have sci-fi suck it up and show it uncut with a (frequent) TV-M rating (though many shows would be unfairly labeled as such).
In my experience, the Sci Fi channel is usually much more censored than CN. I swear they once looped out the word "guts". ("I'm going to rip out his <dub>insides.</dub>")
Slashdot Mirror
I read the original bulletin, too. They clearly stated that patches for Win2K, Win98, etc. were not available yet, but would appear soon. Which they did, apparently, 24 hours later.
Funny, perhaps, but the number of colors you can display at one time is irrelevant. What's important is the number of colors you have to choose from, since any particular image can only make use of a small fraction of them. If you're rendering a portrait, for example, 1600 shades of skin tone are a lot better than 100.
Of course, if you follow the links, you'll find the original source: http://slashdot.org/yro/02/05/01/2026234.shtml?tid =103
Fortunately, Declan seems to refrain from reporting the same story over and over again, so the feedback loop should end here.
As to why movie releases are delayed outside the U.S., there's another factor that you didn't mention: It may be hard to grasp this in today's digital world, but duplicating a film is not a trivial process. It takes time and money, and only a certain number of copies can be made before the master deteriorates and the quality is no longer acceptable. So Australia has not yet been subjected to Goldmember, for example, because we're still using it here. As the prints leave theaters in the U.S., they'll be shipped out to the rest of the world.
I have to say, I know I've heard the above explanation before, but now it sounds like bullshit to me. If anyone has any evidence to the contrary, please let me know.
I don't know much about the TV business, but I'm sure that "Futurama" is much more marketable and mainstream than "Mission Hill". I'm also sure that the "Futurama" people could shave quite a bit off that budget, if they're willing. (Groening calls "Futurama" a "gift to animators"... You can tell just by looking at it that it's a flashy show, but they could cut 80% of the flash, and the average viewer wouldn't even notice.)
IMO, CN should pony up the money to start making new episodes on a more reasonable budget, and make it the anchor of their whole Adult Swim block. It would be the best decision for all parties concerned. (Except maybe Fox, but screw 'em.)
I've always felt that the proper definition of "OS" is "the minimum set of services that an application developer can expect, or demand, from a particular platform." I realize that the definition I'm proposing is somewhat circular, but I still think it's a useful starting point.
For example, if I write an app that somehow depends on MS Mediaplayer (the player itself, not DirectShow et al,) that's an additional system requirement, and users who don't have a working copy of Mediaplayer installed have a valid complaint.
On the other hand, if I write a program that makes use of, say, the Windows taskbar, and a user complains that it's incompatible with his third-party replacement shell, that's his problem. If you're not running explorer.exe, you're not running Windows. (Of course, the boundary changes as the market changes, as edremy points out in his post.)
According to this guideline, Internet Explorer is right in the middle. In some respects, it can be considered a component of the basic OS (almost all Windows apps use it to display help, for example.) As a web browser, though, it is not yet a feature that developers can take for granted.
Of course, even if a component is "part of the OS," such as explorer.exe, that doesn't mean it can't be replaced by a third-party. However, it's still up to the OS to abstract the differences and handle communication between apps and the third-party OS component, which is a model that neither MS nor its competitors seem terribly interested in these days.
I've been looking for an alternative to dial-up for my beach house for a while now. (It's in southern New Jersey, served by Comcast, not that I'm fishing for advice...) I need unlimited usage, but I really don't care about speed... anything at least as fast as my noisy, pseudo-56k connection would be adequate.
As it stands, I'm paying $21/month for local dial-up (which is already a lot.) I believe that cable modem service would be something like $45/month, which I can't justify. We really need another option, something in the $20-$30 range, for people who just want a stable connection. The CNET article implies that AT&T will try to fill that niche, but it doesn't give any details... I hope the idea catches on.
Why not just get one of these, and hack together some software? Marginally cheaper, but much cooler, and potentially useful for more than just phone calls.
Personally, I can't wait until I can get CD-quality stereo out of two little earpieces like that. I guess the bandwidth is a bit low now, but surely Bluetooth 2.0 could do it.
Just a link, because I'm in a hurry: http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm
(No, I haven't read the article. It's conveniently slashdotted right now, so I can use that as an excuse to let other people read it for me.)
I've had nothing but trouble with Creative Labs products, mostly due to really terrible and/or non-existent software. I'm pretty sure that CL's programmers stopped writing new drivers and applications years ago, and have since devoted all their time to cramming more advertisments and spyware into existing products.
I've been trying achieve a CL-free system for years, and I'm down to two components now: My Nomad Jukebox (which will be replaced just as soon as there's something worth replacing it with,) and my Sound Blaster Live. I keep the SBLive because it's the only way that I know of to output six channel SP/DIF digital audio. Call it a fetish if you want to, but I just like not having to care about noise until the signal reaches my speakers.
So, does anyone know of any sound card and speaker combination that would get six channel, real-time digital audio out of my computer, without using some form of Sound Blaster?
That "magnetic boots" crap has always stuck out in my mind because, after they went to a lot of trouble to establish that silly device in in the film (instead of just spending a few bucks to simulate zero-g movement,) I distinctly remember one of the characters putting his phaser "down" on the surface of the ship. Presumably it was wearing "magnetic boots" as well.
Incidentally, another thing that has always bugged me about First Contact (and in fact, just about every appearance of the Borg): The Borg have a highly advanced hive mind that rapidly adapts to defend them against any form of attack. Their magical shields can stop phasers, photon torpedoes, bullets, and anything else that they've ever encountered in their long history... yet they're still rendered helpless by a solid uppercut to the jaw.
You know, as someone who has spent most of his life trapped on the wrong side of Manhattan, that artist's conception of the Gibraltar bridge over NYC doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
Of course, a similarly impresive tunnel under the Long Island Sound would be much more practical. As I understand it, it would be a very reasonable undertaking from a financial and technical standpoint (unlike other crossings mentioned here), but it's being blocked by NIMBY issues. Idiots.
So, I checked the ZDNet article. It said the same thing. "Ah," I thought, "typical ZDNet incompetence, twisting the words of the press release."
Next, I checked the press release, and found the same claim yet again. Now I was starting to get worried, but at least the press release provided a link to the actual report (PDF). The report says,There you have it. In the (distressingly significant) opinion of the Business Software Alliance, any individual who downloads a copy of Linux, Netscape Navigator, the latest Windows Service Pack, or any other software provided without charge, is "knowingly violating copyright law." That's terrifying.
(I apologize for taking so much time just to repeat what was said in the original submission, but accurate hyperbole is so rare on Slashdot that I thought it should be highlighted.)
As an aside, I'm actually very surprised that 41% of those surveyed indicated that they pay for downloaded software "most times" or "every time." I've been on the net since Pipeline NY (those were the days...), and I have paid for downloaded software perhaps 3 or 4 times in my life. Even in today's "internet economy," it's awfully hard to find someone who will sell you software without including an oversized box and ten marketing flyers. I strongly suspect that this survey was poorly designed, and that the results are garbage; however, that only makes the BSA's interpretation of it more disturbing.
How dissappointing. When I saw the subject, I assumed you were going to bring up this. (Best link I could find.)
I've been pretty happy with my Nomad hardware. The software is another matter entirely...
(Props to Sony for using the domain hierarchy correctly, though. You hardly ever see that in a
However, you are correct that there is no way to automatically block ActiveX controls based on the author, AFAIK.
Personally, I use the first method: Whenever a site tries to install a malicious ActiveX control, I add it to the Restricted zone. The practice doesn't seem to be that common yet, since I've only had to do that to five or six times in the past year.
You do realize that at some point in the fairly near future, there will undoubtedly be a community of clones to be offended by jokes like that?
I'm being 97% serious. Everyone has been so absorbed in the (mostly silly) cloning debate, but hardly anyone has been thinking about how our society will deal with clones once they're a reality.
Well, Cnet was the original domain squatter... they designed their whole business model around the generic domain names that they managed to get a hold of in the early days of the web. (download.com, news.com, shareware.com, shopper.com, and apparently com.com, among others.)
However, that doesn't explain why they're only using it to redirect a few Cnet sites. I would have expected a typo scam to catch anyone who accidentally enters [foo].com.com. Maybe that was their original plan, but their legal department stopped them.