I think youre very right, there will be all kinds of little finicky problems, and that will be the death of Palladium. Users do not want to reboot just to listen to an mp3. DiVX died because people were too lazy to even want to hook a phone line one time to their DVD player. The average Joe will not reboot, boot, reboot all the time flipping BIOS switches just to listen to N*Sync. So it will go away. Things like this have happened before, but convenience is always the death of hairbrain ideas like this. Lazy people rule.
Someone explain to me again how Palladium will NOT be crackable? I mean, I understand hardware is hard to crack, but, if the "software", say the latest copy of Adobe Photoshop is still just "software" that makes calls to a chip or whatever, that can still be removed/rerouted/patched/cracked, whatever right? Unless both Photoshop AND your computer are pieces of hardware, I dont see how Palladium will be any more effective than the hardware dongles that never stopped crackers either.
I am a fan of low-carb diets because I personally know they work. I don't care what the "long term effects" of low-carbing are, the long-term effects of being 100 lbs overweight are far worse.
Anyway, Im 6'2" and after highschool years ago somehow found myself at almost 280 lbs. I read about Atkins, bought the book, did the diet. A few months later I was all the way down to 193. That's a LOT of weight. And it worked very well. Weight was practically a pound a day many days. Nothing is more motivating than seeing ACTUAL weight loss on an almost daily basis.
But, near the last portion of my Atkins weight loss I suddenly had a kidney stone. WOW do they seriously suck. I was wary of them anyway, so I drank plenty, and almost exclusively water. But I got one, and let me tell you, to this day I can still remember the pain.
I was at my goal weight, so I drifted on and off the diet for a year or so. Within that year (maybe 6 months later), I got another kidney stone. That one sucked too.
I drifted completely off the diet, but have ever since just been more careful about what I eat. Within a year I was at 215, but that's where I've stayed almost to the pound for 4-5 years now. It's not ultra heatlhy, but its no 280. I also haven't had a kidney stone since.
So, could it have been coincedence? Maybe. Probably not. If you hardcore low-carb, drink 10 gallons of water a day, that's all I can say. I'd still trade the pain of a kidney stone for the practically instant drop of almost 100 lbs, its worth it. But just be prepared.
Windows2000/XP is plenty stable for the average user. Cost? Know anyone who's paid for Windows in their lifetime? And don't say "they paid for it with the price of their desktop", but then Ill say "know anyone who's bought a desktop that didnt come with Windows in their lifetime?"
Um, I dont see how that makes me incorrect. They would happily dump 1.5 million per episode into it, if they made their money back. And how does a show make money back? Advertisers. And how does a show get advertisers? Audience! IF they had triple the size audience, they'd make their money back. See how easy that is?
Can someone please explain to me the mentality of "Save __(insert cancelled show here)__". It's getting cancelled because the viewership is too low. Anyone that signs a petition, or hangs out on Save Farscape website or mails letters are obviously existing viewers, and probably only hardcore ones at that. Existing viewers aren't the problem. What there needs to be is a "Tell your friend about Farscape" drive. Then beg the networks to re-examine the viewership numbers a few episodes later. It still won't work, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
I agree. All of this kind of talk is just like everyone standing around cheering for a car that gets 50 mpg instead of 40 mpg. In the end, that is not the solution. 100 years from now we won't be in paradise because we all used shorter html form variable names. It was the ease of HTML that made it popular anyway. In addition, its like trying to put out a forest fire with a small blanket. While all the geeks are clapping their hands as they save 1% bandwidth by putting all their HTML on one line with no line breaks, the rest of the world is forging ahead with new ideas like remoting, and XML, etc, etc.
Focus on making the NEXT technologies the best they can, not retarding the ones we have.
Let me clarify. Are there scientists who hold on to personal beliefs even that fly in the face of reason and experiment? Yes. Are there religious zealots who change their spiritual beliefs on a whim? Sure. However, neither of these types of people are what I would consider the norm. If someone calls themself a "scientist", and tomorrow strong, pure, tested and experimented data came out that showed something really crazy to be true (think Quantum Physics), if they "refuse" to believe it even after experiment after experiment show it to be true, I think they would be pretty lonely in the scientific field, and they should rethink calling themselves a scientist. The argument can be made that "scientists" are resistant to change, but I think that's usually when it's in their favor, as in "extrodinary claims require extrodinary". But once proof is provided, a true scientific mind will accept it as the truth "for now". Now let's compare it to religion. You can take the average person who normally has a very logical rational mind, and run a dozen of the absolutely irrational, contradictory to both logic AND physical evidence of any kind, stories in the Bible (or Koran), and they'll just say "Oh, but it's all true. It doesn't have to make sense. It takes no proof and I'll buy it all!" That is so dangerous, and quite different than science. So can we quit saying science is a religion and scientists are just like religious zealots? Pure science excludes nothing as a possible truth, and nothing as a possible lie. Pure religion dictates it all to you, and insists you don't ask questions or make sense of it.
The difference is, Scientists will eventually admit they were wrong and their "beliefs" will morph and change over time based on evidence. Religion will not. Every contradictory religion is "THE" right one, and no matter how ludicrous the "beliefs" are, they will never be abandoned. One such example would be flying planes into buildings and receiving 100 virgins as payment from God.
This must be the latest way to get free publicity. How many articles in the last few months said something to the effective of "IT's ALIVE!". Robots that have "learned" how to fly all by theirselves (yea right), game AI that is developing it's own language (yea right). Apparently it works, Slashdot falls for it everytime and publishes the story.
What about the north pole? If we could get an asteroid to land on the giant snow and ice mass of the north pole, would that be better? No waves, no dust seems good.
I mean seriously. If software developers are going to make CD-ROM's that only play in new drives, so we have to buy one every year, and we have to use a special hardware key, and we have to listen to our music through digital players with audible sonic watermarks, and only so many times before we have to hook it to a phone line to dial into a main server and bill our credit card, how long before the average person just says "Man, fucking nevermind. It's just Britney Spears, or another lame fucking first person shooter!" I mean seriously, is all this effort worth trying to protect some flash in the pan teen idol one hit wonder? Make things any more difficult and people will finally realize The Sim's is retarded and go back to other forms of entertainment that don't require so much effort on the part of the consumer.
And the even better part about it is, the people who actually download and use pirated copies won't have to buy anything special. The crackers will simply be the ones to break the mechanism, even if it means building a modded CD-ROM drive, but once they dupe the CD, special encryption keys and all, they'll crack it and distribute a "patched" version that doesn't require any special hardware at all. So it's not like all the people that want to use pirated disc images will have to have a modded CD-ROM drive, only the heads of warez groups will have them to rip and crack original copies, then they'll distribute the same thing they have been for decades.
What is the one mechanism that currently works to get people to buy CDs? Servers! Games use servers that we all want to play on against each other, and since you have to authenticate with the server, you need your own valid key.
So... all we need to do is to turn every application into a player vs player shooter! Microsoft Word should require you to log into the Microsoft server, and play "against" someone to type up your term paper. As you type letters, they can backspace over them! Deathmatch Photoshop maybe? How about Team Capture the Flag Macromedia Flash?
If a company pays a development team $50,000 to develop something for them, the large amount of money makes someone very responsible if things fail or have problems. Someone can come down on the developer hard when there's a bunch of money at stake. However if a company just implements some free solution, or a really low dollar solution, it just doesnt have the same effect to kick down the meeting room door and say "DAMMIT, WE PAID $5.29 FOR THIS SOFTWARE, WHY ISNT IT WORKING RIGHT AND ON SCHEDULE?!"
You say you've had that Dell for "a few years", and in that time have had to wipe it a "few times". Yet haven't had to do that with Aqua. Have you had Aqua a "few years"? Has Aqua been OUT a "few years"? How many apps are you running on Aqua? Im not talking little 5 lines of code freeware proof of concept apps. Im talking big apps like Outlook and Flash. And is Aqua (OSX I guess I should say), running the 30 services that a Win2K box does by default? Less to break, less will be broke. Pile all that stuff on OSX, then run it for a few years, see if its slower.
I am so sick of this crap. "It just works, most of the time, which is a huge improvement over every other OS (Windows) out there."
I come from an SGI/IRIX ONLY background. I loved the SGI's, very smooth multitasking, very stable.
Then I went to NT4, it was "okay" but no UNIX.
But now, Im the very definition of multimedia user. I spend every day in everything from Softimage to Sound Forge, from SQL Server to Visual Studio.NET. I program, manipulate and compress video, create Flash animations, write Perl for admin tasks, you name it. And I have no trouble with "Windows". It's a taskbar, and a way to get at files, and some basic services for my applications, but that's it, and it's rock solid. I have every PCI slot in my machine filled with a card, 2 sound cards, 3 video cards (3 monitors), a DV500, etc. 4 harddrives and 2 burners, and I haven't had a blue screen or OS crash of any kind in eons.
For one, Im using a dual CPU Dell Precision workstation, decent, quality hardware, with drivers written by decent companies. I think people (many Slashdotters) build up these cheap ass Celerons with Wang Inc. components, where you have to install the Korean font in order to get to the support section of their website, then complain that "Windows sucks man, It crashes constantly." - how does it go? Garbage in, garbage out?
I just wish, for all the brains on Slashdot more people would admit that around the time of Windows 2000 things got pretty decent. MS may be a monopoly, and have all kinds of dumb ideas, I'm no MS cheerleader, but I just get frustrated when I sit here punishing my workstation and it never has a problem, while everyone insists that Windows sucks because they installed a "TeckNeuvo Parallel Port Modem" they bought for $9 on Pricewatch and it crashes the OS.
I think these people with their 100 gig drives are the ones that NEED DVD-R, actually something far larger. The larger the harddrives get, and the more people are starting to put on them, and really starting to value what they put on them, the more I think we're going to start seeing backup become a hot item. Right now the 100gig drives are new, and people are just getting into filling them up, but put a couple years on the Maxtor 120gig, and watch them start failing all over the place. People who spent countless hours raping Kazaa or downloading movies or storing 5,000 digital camera pics of their child growing up on their 120gig drive with no backup will be an instant DVD-R consumer when the drive fails and they lose "everything".
CDR sucks to back up mp3 collections, or video of any kind. DVD is barely big enough, we need some blue laser, 100gig+ disc something or others.
Slashdot Mirror
I know people who have worked with computers for years and still dont know how to copy a file to a floppy.
I think youre very right, there will be all kinds of little finicky problems, and that will be the death of Palladium. Users do not want to reboot just to listen to an mp3. DiVX died because people were too lazy to even want to hook a phone line one time to their DVD player. The average Joe will not reboot, boot, reboot all the time flipping BIOS switches just to listen to N*Sync. So it will go away. Things like this have happened before, but convenience is always the death of hairbrain ideas like this. Lazy people rule.
Someone explain to me again how Palladium will NOT be crackable? I mean, I understand hardware is hard to crack, but, if the "software", say the latest copy of Adobe Photoshop is still just "software" that makes calls to a chip or whatever, that can still be removed/rerouted/patched/cracked, whatever right? Unless both Photoshop AND your computer are pieces of hardware, I dont see how Palladium will be any more effective than the hardware dongles that never stopped crackers either.
I am a fan of low-carb diets because I personally know they work. I don't care what the "long term effects" of low-carbing are, the long-term effects of being 100 lbs overweight are far worse.
Anyway, Im 6'2" and after highschool years ago somehow found myself at almost 280 lbs. I read about Atkins, bought the book, did the diet. A few months later I was all the way down to 193. That's a LOT of weight. And it worked very well. Weight was practically a pound a day many days. Nothing is more motivating than seeing ACTUAL weight loss on an almost daily basis.
But, near the last portion of my Atkins weight loss I suddenly had a kidney stone. WOW do they seriously suck. I was wary of them anyway, so I drank plenty, and almost exclusively water. But I got one, and let me tell you, to this day I can still remember the pain.
I was at my goal weight, so I drifted on and off the diet for a year or so. Within that year (maybe 6 months later), I got another kidney stone. That one sucked too.
I drifted completely off the diet, but have ever since just been more careful about what I eat. Within a year I was at 215, but that's where I've stayed almost to the pound for 4-5 years now. It's not ultra heatlhy, but its no 280. I also haven't had a kidney stone since.
So, could it have been coincedence? Maybe. Probably not. If you hardcore low-carb, drink 10 gallons of water a day, that's all I can say. I'd still trade the pain of a kidney stone for the practically instant drop of almost 100 lbs, its worth it. But just be prepared.
Windows2000/XP is plenty stable for the average user. Cost? Know anyone who's paid for Windows in their lifetime? And don't say "they paid for it with the price of their desktop", but then Ill say "know anyone who's bought a desktop that didnt come with Windows in their lifetime?"
The ^H^H^H thing was funny^H^H^H^H^H kind of funny, the first 10^H^H 2 times someone did it. Now it's getting really old.
Um, I dont see how that makes me incorrect. They would happily dump 1.5 million per episode into it, if they made their money back. And how does a show make money back? Advertisers. And how does a show get advertisers? Audience! IF they had triple the size audience, they'd make their money back. See how easy that is?
Can someone please explain to me the mentality of "Save __(insert cancelled show here)__". It's getting cancelled because the viewership is too low. Anyone that signs a petition, or hangs out on Save Farscape website or mails letters are obviously existing viewers, and probably only hardcore ones at that. Existing viewers aren't the problem. What there needs to be is a "Tell your friend about Farscape" drive. Then beg the networks to re-examine the viewership numbers a few episodes later. It still won't work, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Focus on making the NEXT technologies the best they can, not retarding the ones we have.
Know of any books that will blow my... uh... nevermind...
Let me clarify. Are there scientists who hold on to personal beliefs even that fly in the face of reason and experiment? Yes. Are there religious zealots who change their spiritual beliefs on a whim? Sure. However, neither of these types of people are what I would consider the norm. If someone calls themself a "scientist", and tomorrow strong, pure, tested and experimented data came out that showed something really crazy to be true (think Quantum Physics), if they "refuse" to believe it even after experiment after experiment show it to be true, I think they would be pretty lonely in the scientific field, and they should rethink calling themselves a scientist. The argument can be made that "scientists" are resistant to change, but I think that's usually when it's in their favor, as in "extrodinary claims require extrodinary". But once proof is provided, a true scientific mind will accept it as the truth "for now". Now let's compare it to religion. You can take the average person who normally has a very logical rational mind, and run a dozen of the absolutely irrational, contradictory to both logic AND physical evidence of any kind, stories in the Bible (or Koran), and they'll just say "Oh, but it's all true. It doesn't have to make sense. It takes no proof and I'll buy it all!" That is so dangerous, and quite different than science. So can we quit saying science is a religion and scientists are just like religious zealots? Pure science excludes nothing as a possible truth, and nothing as a possible lie. Pure religion dictates it all to you, and insists you don't ask questions or make sense of it.
The difference is, Scientists will eventually admit they were wrong and their "beliefs" will morph and change over time based on evidence. Religion will not. Every contradictory religion is "THE" right one, and no matter how ludicrous the "beliefs" are, they will never be abandoned. One such example would be flying planes into buildings and receiving 100 virgins as payment from God.
How no one that dies is ever a "total asshole, Im glad he's gone"? When was the last time you heard that at a funeral?
I'm invisible! What? Yes I am! Okay, move 4 feet to your right. Okay, NOW I'm invisible, right!?
This must be the latest way to get free publicity. How many articles in the last few months said something to the effective of "IT's ALIVE!". Robots that have "learned" how to fly all by theirselves (yea right), game AI that is developing it's own language (yea right). Apparently it works, Slashdot falls for it everytime and publishes the story.
And Apple makes money on this how?
What about the north pole? If we could get an asteroid to land on the giant snow and ice mass of the north pole, would that be better? No waves, no dust seems good.
Total fragmented files: 5,201,039
Total excess fragments: 91,434,108
I mean seriously. If software developers are going to make CD-ROM's that only play in new drives, so we have to buy one every year, and we have to use a special hardware key, and we have to listen to our music through digital players with audible sonic watermarks, and only so many times before we have to hook it to a phone line to dial into a main server and bill our credit card, how long before the average person just says "Man, fucking nevermind. It's just Britney Spears, or another lame fucking first person shooter!" I mean seriously, is all this effort worth trying to protect some flash in the pan teen idol one hit wonder? Make things any more difficult and people will finally realize The Sim's is retarded and go back to other forms of entertainment that don't require so much effort on the part of the consumer.
And the even better part about it is, the people who actually download and use pirated copies won't have to buy anything special. The crackers will simply be the ones to break the mechanism, even if it means building a modded CD-ROM drive, but once they dupe the CD, special encryption keys and all, they'll crack it and distribute a "patched" version that doesn't require any special hardware at all. So it's not like all the people that want to use pirated disc images will have to have a modded CD-ROM drive, only the heads of warez groups will have them to rip and crack original copies, then they'll distribute the same thing they have been for decades.
So... all we need to do is to turn every application into a player vs player shooter! Microsoft Word should require you to log into the Microsoft server, and play "against" someone to type up your term paper. As you type letters, they can backspace over them! Deathmatch Photoshop maybe? How about Team Capture the Flag Macromedia Flash?
If a company pays a development team $50,000 to develop something for them, the large amount of money makes someone very responsible if things fail or have problems. Someone can come down on the developer hard when there's a bunch of money at stake. However if a company just implements some free solution, or a really low dollar solution, it just doesnt have the same effect to kick down the meeting room door and say "DAMMIT, WE PAID $5.29 FOR THIS SOFTWARE, WHY ISNT IT WORKING RIGHT AND ON SCHEDULE?!"
You say you've had that Dell for "a few years", and in that time have had to wipe it a "few times". Yet haven't had to do that with Aqua. Have you had Aqua a "few years"? Has Aqua been OUT a "few years"? How many apps are you running on Aqua? Im not talking little 5 lines of code freeware proof of concept apps. Im talking big apps like Outlook and Flash. And is Aqua (OSX I guess I should say), running the 30 services that a Win2K box does by default? Less to break, less will be broke. Pile all that stuff on OSX, then run it for a few years, see if its slower.
I come from an SGI/IRIX ONLY background. I loved the SGI's, very smooth multitasking, very stable.
Then I went to NT4, it was "okay" but no UNIX.
But now, Im the very definition of multimedia user. I spend every day in everything from Softimage to Sound Forge, from SQL Server to Visual Studio.NET. I program, manipulate and compress video, create Flash animations, write Perl for admin tasks, you name it. And I have no trouble with "Windows". It's a taskbar, and a way to get at files, and some basic services for my applications, but that's it, and it's rock solid. I have every PCI slot in my machine filled with a card, 2 sound cards, 3 video cards (3 monitors), a DV500, etc. 4 harddrives and 2 burners, and I haven't had a blue screen or OS crash of any kind in eons.
For one, Im using a dual CPU Dell Precision workstation, decent, quality hardware, with drivers written by decent companies. I think people (many Slashdotters) build up these cheap ass Celerons with Wang Inc. components, where you have to install the Korean font in order to get to the support section of their website, then complain that "Windows sucks man, It crashes constantly." - how does it go? Garbage in, garbage out?
I just wish, for all the brains on Slashdot more people would admit that around the time of Windows 2000 things got pretty decent. MS may be a monopoly, and have all kinds of dumb ideas, I'm no MS cheerleader, but I just get frustrated when I sit here punishing my workstation and it never has a problem, while everyone insists that Windows sucks because they installed a "TeckNeuvo Parallel Port Modem" they bought for $9 on Pricewatch and it crashes the OS.
CDR sucks to back up mp3 collections, or video of any kind. DVD is barely big enough, we need some blue laser, 100gig+ disc something or others.