Good god. It'd be like fifty cubic miles of tire fire compressed into some degenerate phase of matter wearing size 59 pants. You'd probably kill every bird in the county.
Actually, I speak from personal experience on that one. Earlier this year my Internet went out, and I figured I'd play HL2 while they worked on it. Steam wouldn't let me, since it couldn't contact the activation servers. Reading some of the other replies, I gather that was a bug that's since been fixed, but it still sticks in my craw.
Steam is DRM. It controls what you can and can't do with a product you have bought and paid for. It's dependent on activation servers, which it contacts every time you launch a game, just like Spore was going to before the outcry.
In a very meaningful sense it's less abhorrent than SecuROM, as it doesn't go out of its way dig its tendrils into the OS, breaking random things and throwing hissy fits if it finds innocuous software it doesn't like. There's no bullshit "activations" to use up, and it doesn't leave bits of itself behind when you uninstall it.
But in other ways it's worse. You don't really own a Steam game. You can't loan a copy of a Steam game to a friend, or sell it to someone, or even give it away for free, except in specific cases where Valve decides to let you. If something happened to Valve, or they just decided they didn't like the cut of your jib and aren't going to let you play your game anymore, you'd be shit out of luck.
Actually, the download is the demo version, which is unlocked by the serial number you get. So if you can't get through to that server today, you're outta luck.
Personally I think it's worth sacrificing that old trope in exchange for the possibility that any mall anywhere in America could spontaneously be invaded by radio-controlled cows.
Good Call, Microsoft. With five editions of Vista competing with three editions of XP and nine editions of Server 2008 (including three that are just the regular versions without the hypervisor software), plus separate 64-bit versions of everything, the Windows product line wasn't nearly diffuse enough.
And why is "fridge can reorder beer for you" drivel? Is there some reason that a fridge SHOULDN'T reorder your beer?
Man, all kinds of reasons.
Because I got two cases last time I was at the store, and the fridge only knows about the one that's cold.
Because I already got some on the way home.
Because my buddy gave me some that he brewed.
Because I want a different kind this time.
Because I threw a party and had ten times as much in my fridge as I normally want.
Because money's tight this month, and I have to decide between beer and electricity.
Because it's on sale at the store up the road if you also buy chips and dip.
Because the place I like to shop doesn't do online orders.
Because I'm going on a cruise and don't need to order more beer for a month.
My refrigerator—indeed every device I own—are too damn stupid for me ever think it'd be a good idea to let them spend my money. Especially when it's something I could effortlessly do myself.
Yeah, when I saw that, lock-in wasn't even the sort of walls that came to mind. I've got a fair number of devices running some variant of Windows, and what strikes me about them is how the most recent offerings have gone from "Where do you want to go today?" to "You can't get there from here."
Vista Business can't play DVDs. You need third-party software. Vista Premium can't use a scanner or a fax modem. You need third-party software. And it can't ever join a domain. Vista Basic won't let you use Aero, so you can't change the freaking color scheme. XP can't play DX10 games, including Halo 2, which is only a DX10 game so that it won't work on XP. OEM versions freak out if you upgrade too much, and you have to call for permission to keep using it. And the 64-bit versions of everything are an entire separate product, so upgrade enough and you're buying another copy regardless.
Office is subdivided a dozen different ways, with no apparent rhyme or reason. If you want a word processor, a spreadsheet and a desktop publishing app, you either buy them separately or get the "Small Business" suite that costs $450 because it also has PowerPoint, Outlook and Accounting bundled in.
The Windows on my phone arbitrarily doesn't have Pocket Office. It syncs with Outlook, but not with the PIM apps included with Vista. And even if you have Outlook, it doesn't have a notepad, so it doesn't sync Outlook notes.
Then there's their products whose entire raison d'être is to keep you from using your software. There's PlaysForSure, which was unceremoniously dropped in favor of the Zune's new DRM. They turned the servers off, so the computer your PlaysForSure music is on now is the last one it'll ever be on. And there's Windows Genuine Advantage, literally designed to make your OS break if it suspects you shouldn't be running it, or even just at the whims of the authentication servers.
And the worst of it is, that's just first-party stuff. All barriers Microsoft has erected between their own freaking products. Life without walls, indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, lovely. You've invented loliticians. As though there weren't enough things on the Internet with captions glued to them.
Good god. It'd be like fifty cubic miles of tire fire compressed into some degenerate phase of matter wearing size 59 pants. You'd probably kill every bird in the county.
Actually, I speak from personal experience on that one. Earlier this year my Internet went out, and I figured I'd play HL2 while they worked on it. Steam wouldn't let me, since it couldn't contact the activation servers. Reading some of the other replies, I gather that was a bug that's since been fixed, but it still sticks in my craw.
Steam is DRM. It controls what you can and can't do with a product you have bought and paid for. It's dependent on activation servers, which it contacts every time you launch a game, just like Spore was going to before the outcry.
In a very meaningful sense it's less abhorrent than SecuROM, as it doesn't go out of its way dig its tendrils into the OS, breaking random things and throwing hissy fits if it finds innocuous software it doesn't like. There's no bullshit "activations" to use up, and it doesn't leave bits of itself behind when you uninstall it.
But in other ways it's worse. You don't really own a Steam game. You can't loan a copy of a Steam game to a friend, or sell it to someone, or even give it away for free, except in specific cases where Valve decides to let you. If something happened to Valve, or they just decided they didn't like the cut of your jib and aren't going to let you play your game anymore, you'd be shit out of luck.
I found a handy visual aid. Metric system on the left, imperial on the right.
Clearly spoken as someone who's never seen one of the Smiling Bob commercials.
Indeed. This technology has vastly more important applications for making really cool videos and putting them on YouTube.
I think I can help you with that last one:
Oh my. You guys were either using your pagers wrong, or very, very wrong.
...You hiring?
Actually, the download is the demo version, which is unlocked by the serial number you get. So if you can't get through to that server today, you're outta luck.
I think you'll find that Chuck Norris can exist in any universe he damn well pleases.
What? The C64 port has been out for ages.
You're making things too hard for yourself. Use a full sentence instead of just a password. Easy to remember, hard to guess.
It's gonna be hilarious to watch NASA's two billion dollar engine of nuclear laser death get KO'd in five seconds by a $60 ramp on wheels.
Personally I think it's worth sacrificing that old trope in exchange for the possibility that any mall anywhere in America could spontaneously be invaded by radio-controlled cows.
You do realize cattle can be sold, right?
Good Call, Microsoft. With five editions of Vista competing with three editions of XP and nine editions of Server 2008 (including three that are just the regular versions without the hypervisor software), plus separate 64-bit versions of everything, the Windows product line wasn't nearly diffuse enough.
Well, that would certainly explain a few things.
Man, all kinds of reasons.
My refrigerator—indeed every device I own—are too damn stupid for me ever think it'd be a good idea to let them spend my money. Especially when it's something I could effortlessly do myself.
Oh, they can still rampage. It's just hard to notice since you can rebuild things as quickly as they can destroy them.
You're kind to offer, but I think it's too late for me. At this point I can only hope to serve as a warning for others.
Yeah, when I saw that, lock-in wasn't even the sort of walls that came to mind. I've got a fair number of devices running some variant of Windows, and what strikes me about them is how the most recent offerings have gone from "Where do you want to go today?" to "You can't get there from here."
Vista Business can't play DVDs. You need third-party software. Vista Premium can't use a scanner or a fax modem. You need third-party software. And it can't ever join a domain. Vista Basic won't let you use Aero, so you can't change the freaking color scheme. XP can't play DX10 games, including Halo 2, which is only a DX10 game so that it won't work on XP. OEM versions freak out if you upgrade too much, and you have to call for permission to keep using it. And the 64-bit versions of everything are an entire separate product, so upgrade enough and you're buying another copy regardless.
Office is subdivided a dozen different ways, with no apparent rhyme or reason. If you want a word processor, a spreadsheet and a desktop publishing app, you either buy them separately or get the "Small Business" suite that costs $450 because it also has PowerPoint, Outlook and Accounting bundled in.
The Windows on my phone arbitrarily doesn't have Pocket Office. It syncs with Outlook, but not with the PIM apps included with Vista. And even if you have Outlook, it doesn't have a notepad, so it doesn't sync Outlook notes.
Then there's their products whose entire raison d'être is to keep you from using your software. There's PlaysForSure, which was unceremoniously dropped in favor of the Zune's new DRM. They turned the servers off, so the computer your PlaysForSure music is on now is the last one it'll ever be on. And there's Windows Genuine Advantage, literally designed to make your OS break if it suspects you shouldn't be running it, or even just at the whims of the authentication servers.
And the worst of it is, that's just first-party stuff. All barriers Microsoft has erected between their own freaking products. Life without walls, indeed.
Heck yeah. You'll like it. There's built-in spelling and grammar-checking in every text box!
I dunno. As someone who's suffered Vista for a year now, I find watching Microsoft spastically flail around like this pretty amusing.
Since when would the RIAA let a little thing like copyright law keep them from their royalties? What crazy ideas you have!