On one hand, we could potentially see more digital content via DRM. On the other, it's kind of like being able to see movies ONLY if we go to the theaters.
*Sigh*
I do have one optimistic hope, though. Wasn't it Princess Leia who said "The more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers"? Well, I think that applies here. If it's such a pain in the butt to have movies on your PC, then Indie movie makers will have an extra boost. "For $5, you can buy our movie DRM free. We'd rather not treat all our customers like they're thieves."
In that light, I kind of look forward to it. I think the content industry is selfish enough that it'll blow up in their faces.
"After all, it's their product that set the stage for all of this."
Microsoft isn't responsible for people's actions. Would you want Redhat to be responsible of an exploit was found in their distro of Linux?
Me personally, I'd want them to be encouraged to fix it (i.e. risk losing sales etc.), but I wouldn't want them liable for somebody else being a shithead.
Liability in a case like this is a double-edged sword. Besides, every time something like this happens, everybody gets stronger. Microsoft (eventually) fixes it, the Linux Community has something they can make sure never happens to them (as well as Apple, etc.), and end users get stung and learn better computing practices. Me personally, I run Windows everywhere. Thanks to all these exploits (though none have hit me yet), I'm much better about making backups and I'm far less dependent on Windows being reliable. If I switch to Mac or Linux, then I'm a smarter user in those cases as well.
So, in short, spare us the 'Microsoft should be responsible' argument. Don't stick Microsoft with a responsibility that you wouldn't want your own favorite OS (developer?) to fall under.
Last time I used Linux (roughly a year ago) I had to go to the command line in order to do things like change the resolution and refresh rate of my monitor. Never mind setting up dual monitor, never did get that working. (Note: I'll happily give the KDE team or whoever works on that credit if they recently changed that, though I can't find those options here on Knoppix today.) I could probably go into more detail if I had a clearer memory of all the bs I had to go through just to get apps installed or sound to work. (Never really did get sound to work.)
"Examples please?"
Just playing with Knoppix here, I can't share a folder. (Maybe it's there, but it's not intuitive. Oops, another shortcoming that we could spend all night discussing...)
"AHA! An example! Mplayer has a graphical user interface, gmplayer. Also you could use Kplayer, which is a graphical version of mplayer designed for KDE."
Fair enough. There are quite a few apps in Linux, though, that require command line crap to install, and editing of.conf files. Sorry bud, this ain't desktop worthy.
"Sure, some things are only available from the command line, same as on Windows. "
Very few apps in Windows are GUI-less. Simple as that.
"You just point to something essential on Linux that doesn't have a graphical equivalent though, and then I'll accept you have a valid point."
Pick any old non-RPM app and install it.
"Every system that people are unused to takes a bit of time to get expert with, but really, stick at it!"
I understand that. I work with computers for a living. However, that's not the disussion we're having here. We're talking in general here. (Note: My original post wasn't all that clear about that, and I apologize, but I was thinking about people in general here. I can use Linux just fine, I just hate it.)
"Then, if anything bad happens or if you just want to move the OS to a new drive, you just blast it over and 30 minutes later or less you're up and running as though nothing changed."
As much as I like Windows, I cannot avoid the fact that Windows gets slower with age. The registry gets bloated and things go wonky. I think the term is "Windows rot". It's a fact of life I've learned to live with. (Certainly beats not being able to play games etc!) In light of that, your option sort of works, but it doesn't avoid the inevitable install problem.
Re:I wouldn't buy the Athlon anyway
on
Is Prescott 64-bit?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"I'll stick with Intel, thanks. Any of you guys actually have a *good* AMD processor?"
Yes. Both my machine at work and at home are dual Athlons. Not only do they work great, but they also were very good price wise. On top of that, Lightwave (3d Rendering App) competes very nicely with the P4s, though LW is heavily optimized for Intel.
I'm not an AMD zealot, but I guarantee you that if I had the problems you did, my AMD'd be in the trashcan in a heartbeat. I can't afford aborted renderings.
"1. You make it sound as if Linux has no GUI available: all of those commands can be done graphically too"
Nope, I make it sound as though Linux doesn't have everything available via GUI.
"2. mkdir and cd are also Windows commands."
They are DOS commands. Windows users never have to worry about them. Having the CLI available is great. Having the CLI as the only point of access for any given function is lame.
". "ls" is even easier than "dir""
Reread my post.
" What on earth is "ll"?"
I'm not sure what its primary function is, I use it for listing files sorted by date. Glad you mentioned it, though, turns out ls has some syntax for that too.
"You don't have to know ANY command line tools to use Linux..."
Sorry, that day isn't here yet. Mplayer comes to mind. Kudos to Knoppix, though, it's damn near there.
Nope. I like sitting down and using my computer, dun have time to endlessly poke at it. I don't intend to sound like I'm Linux bashing here, but it is an important point of using Windows or OSX. It's nice to have a UI tied to everything you want to do. I don't like having to know a bunch of commands that don't really indicate what they do. Ls, ps, mkdir, kill, ll, cd, etc. If it weren't for Midnight Commander, I'm not sure I would have gotten into using Linux at all.
"Slightly off topic, but why is it that a company can pass the charges on to the end user whenever they have to pay a fee/fine?"
I have a feeling this will erupt soon. Many people, including myself, pay $39.99 for cell phone service, and then all these stupid little fees and taxes appear on top of it. My bill's really like $45. Back in Kansas a few years ago, it was worse than that. I think it was something like $10-$15 in taxes and fees on top of that.
At some point, somebody's going to have 'free' services that have a bunch of little fees and taxes on top of it. My gf's mom had to pay a $17 'special tax' on renting a Ryder truck last week. Fun, eh? I think she should have qualified for a special discount.
" Why isn't Linux and Macintosh turning this into a big propaganda opportunity? Both OS's can hold up the 'come to us, we've had our shots, we'll never get worms' flags and pray that the big media mentions it. "
The cost of switching for that reason alone isn't necessarily worth it on a massive scale. You switch because you're worried if your computer stops working, right? Well if the cost of the switch is that your games and some other apps stop working, then you've traded one failure for another.
I wouldn't call that a great marketing opportunity. It's one thing to draw attention to those OS's being 'virus free', it's another to urge people to switch over it. Besides, if somebody does cause that kind of havoc on either of those machines, then you'd have a lot of unhappy peeps.
It may not be worth drawing attention to that aspect of those machines. All you need is for an inexplicably popular app to have an exploit in it, and millions of people using it. (Kazaa, ICQ, Winamp, you name it.) There's not a bean that Linux or Mac can do to stop that.
(Note: Please don't read that as "Kazaa, ICQ, and Winamp have exploits." I just meant that they're really popular.)
"I suggest all Windows users go to http://www.knoppix.net/ and burn the CD."
I know this is marked as funny, but Knoppix is pretty damn useful. I've never particularly liked Linux, but I can tell you that my respect for that OS went way up after trying Knoppix out. I burned a couple of copies to keep around the office in case something like a worm lays waste to the network.
On a side note, it'd be nice if other Linux distros paid more attention to how Knoppix works. It auto-detects everything and doesn't require an install. Just pop in the disc, have it copy a few files over as read-only, and reboot. System corrupt? No prob, just copy the disc over again.
"I feel pretty damn safe under Linux, how do you feel worrying about when the next worm will take over your entire machine? How do you feel about viruses, hows that Zone Alarm treating you?"
How do you feel when you walk into Electronics Boutique?
"If it is for people that have never been through a hurricane, it is a weak depiction of their power. "
Somebody got photos of it and put it on the net for all to see. This is fairly significant in regards to the fact that there's no media spin. If this had been an invasion as opposed to a hurricane, the value would be much brighter.
Don't get me wrong, I sort of see your point, but I just liked this because it came from the PoV of somebody who was there as opposed to a sensationalist reporter.
"Ummmmmm. Since when have banner ads proved any source of significant income? Still living 1999 dotcom days? "
Playing devil's advocate here, that would be a prime place to advertise new games coming out for the XBOX. I doubt there is billions to be made there, but I'm sure the game developers would like it.
I hope that whatever standard they go with (does it really need to be smaller?) they'll make it a standard for desktops as well. Frankly, I'm sick of PCI. Lots of devices these days really don't need to be screwed in directly to the motherboard.
Maybe putting these particular bays on desktops isn't all that important, though it would be nice to have interoperable devices between desktop and laptop. But I would like to see PCI/AGP slots replaced with some sort of easy to install cartridge'esque approach. Imagine hot-swappable network and sound cards. Imagine popping that new Sound Blaster card into your laptop. I could keep going 'imagining', but I think the point is clear. Wouldn't it be nice if the peripherals that worked on a desktop also worked on a laptop? That's more than possible today.
Last time I was on Kazaa (like two weeks ago) there were thousands of gigabytes being shared.
"Thats why if I use networks like direct connect that force people to share. People still try and get around that though.. its kinda sad. "
Normally I'd agree with you except for the RIAA's legal tactics. If I share anything, it's going to be Chumba Wumba's 'Pass it Along' song. Listen to it, you'll see what I mean.
Here's the problem: ATI and NVidia have diverged a bit. They get performance upgrades from different optimizations/workflows. For this reason, performance is more a question of which card the game developer favors than it is about which card is better. Granted, what I'm saying isn't quite as black and white as that, but it's worth considering that if the benchmark uses an optimization that the game doesn't, then the benchmark is misleading.
I don't find video card benchmarks interesting, but I do enjoy CPU benchmarks. I'm a 3D artist, so render speed is very important to me. I recently had to go through the "Do I want a P4 or Athlon?" debate. Lightwave comes with benchmark scenes. You're supposed to load the scene, hit the render button, and write the number down. Some decent sites actually do the benchmark that way. That is a selling point for me, not the rest of those idiotic benchmarks that they throw in there. Yeah, like I care about how fast Office is.
I hope my point got across. Real world numbers are gold, theoretical numbers are pyrite.
This is true. Once you click on a movie to look up, the domain switches to doubleclick. I wonder if this is a clever way of getting people to remove doubleclick.net from their firewalls.
I went to go update our machines today, and I used the scan tool that somebody found and linked to in this discussion. Found a machine that was infected with Welchia, which is related to Blaster. We thought we had gone through all of the machines, but there was one on the rack that we missed. Oops. It's fixed and patched now.
I just hope Slashdot isn't ignoring the Linux patches that need to be done for fear it'd make a negative impression on those interested in switching to Linux. We've got a few Linux machines and a reminder that they need to be kept up to date is invaluable.
"Didn't you get it? That whole battery thing was a lie that people like Morpheus and others who had been unplugged were told, just so they'd stop asking further questions. "
No, it was a shortsighted ingredient by the Wachowski Bros. that they were called on and had to fix in the next movie.
I'm glad you enjoyed that movie, but I can't get past what a hack and a half it is. It really would have been a good idea for those guys to novelize that trilogy before making a movie of it.
Slashdot Mirror
On one hand, we could potentially see more digital content via DRM. On the other, it's kind of like being able to see movies ONLY if we go to the theaters.
*Sigh*
I do have one optimistic hope, though. Wasn't it Princess Leia who said "The more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers"? Well, I think that applies here. If it's such a pain in the butt to have movies on your PC, then Indie movie makers will have an extra boost. "For $5, you can buy our movie DRM free. We'd rather not treat all our customers like they're thieves."
In that light, I kind of look forward to it. I think the content industry is selfish enough that it'll blow up in their faces.
"After all, it's their product that set the stage for all of this."
Microsoft isn't responsible for people's actions. Would you want Redhat to be responsible of an exploit was found in their distro of Linux?
Me personally, I'd want them to be encouraged to fix it (i.e. risk losing sales etc.), but I wouldn't want them liable for somebody else being a shithead.
Liability in a case like this is a double-edged sword. Besides, every time something like this happens, everybody gets stronger. Microsoft (eventually) fixes it, the Linux Community has something they can make sure never happens to them (as well as Apple, etc.), and end users get stung and learn better computing practices. Me personally, I run Windows everywhere. Thanks to all these exploits (though none have hit me yet), I'm much better about making backups and I'm far less dependent on Windows being reliable. If I switch to Mac or Linux, then I'm a smarter user in those cases as well.
So, in short, spare us the 'Microsoft should be responsible' argument. Don't stick Microsoft with a responsibility that you wouldn't want your own favorite OS (developer?) to fall under.
Still watching this comment?
"Examples please?"
.conf files. Sorry bud, this ain't desktop worthy.
Last time I used Linux (roughly a year ago) I had to go to the command line in order to do things like change the resolution and refresh rate of my monitor. Never mind setting up dual monitor, never did get that working. (Note: I'll happily give the KDE team or whoever works on that credit if they recently changed that, though I can't find those options here on Knoppix today.) I could probably go into more detail if I had a clearer memory of all the bs I had to go through just to get apps installed or sound to work. (Never really did get sound to work.)
"Examples please?"
Just playing with Knoppix here, I can't share a folder. (Maybe it's there, but it's not intuitive. Oops, another shortcoming that we could spend all night discussing...)
"AHA! An example! Mplayer has a graphical user interface, gmplayer. Also you could use Kplayer, which is a graphical version of mplayer designed for KDE."
Fair enough. There are quite a few apps in Linux, though, that require command line crap to install, and editing of
"Sure, some things are only available from the command line, same as on Windows. "
Very few apps in Windows are GUI-less. Simple as that.
"You just point to something essential on Linux that doesn't have a graphical equivalent though, and then I'll accept you have a valid point."
Pick any old non-RPM app and install it.
"Every system that people are unused to takes a bit of time to get expert with, but really, stick at it!"
I understand that. I work with computers for a living. However, that's not the disussion we're having here. We're talking in general here. (Note: My original post wasn't all that clear about that, and I apologize, but I was thinking about people in general here. I can use Linux just fine, I just hate it.)
"Then, if anything bad happens or if you just want to move the OS to a new drive, you just blast it over and 30 minutes later or less you're up and running as though nothing changed."
As much as I like Windows, I cannot avoid the fact that Windows gets slower with age. The registry gets bloated and things go wonky. I think the term is "Windows rot". It's a fact of life I've learned to live with. (Certainly beats not being able to play games etc!) In light of that, your option sort of works, but it doesn't avoid the inevitable install problem.
"I'll stick with Intel, thanks. Any of you guys actually have a *good* AMD processor?"
Yes. Both my machine at work and at home are dual Athlons. Not only do they work great, but they also were very good price wise. On top of that, Lightwave (3d Rendering App) competes very nicely with the P4s, though LW is heavily optimized for Intel.
I'm not an AMD zealot, but I guarantee you that if I had the problems you did, my AMD'd be in the trashcan in a heartbeat. I can't afford aborted renderings.
"1. You make it sound as if Linux has no GUI available: all of those commands can be done graphically too"
Nope, I make it sound as though Linux doesn't have everything available via GUI.
"2. mkdir and cd are also Windows commands."
They are DOS commands. Windows users never have to worry about them. Having the CLI available is great. Having the CLI as the only point of access for any given function is lame.
". "ls" is even easier than "dir""
Reread my post.
" What on earth is "ll"?"
I'm not sure what its primary function is, I use it for listing files sorted by date. Glad you mentioned it, though, turns out ls has some syntax for that too.
"You don't have to know ANY command line tools to use Linux..."
Sorry, that day isn't here yet. Mplayer comes to mind. Kudos to Knoppix, though, it's damn near there.
"You don't use Linux, do you? "
Nope. I like sitting down and using my computer, dun have time to endlessly poke at it. I don't intend to sound like I'm Linux bashing here, but it is an important point of using Windows or OSX. It's nice to have a UI tied to everything you want to do. I don't like having to know a bunch of commands that don't really indicate what they do. Ls, ps, mkdir, kill, ll, cd, etc. If it weren't for Midnight Commander, I'm not sure I would have gotten into using Linux at all.
"Slightly off topic, but why is it that a company can pass the charges on to the end user whenever they have to pay a fee/fine?"
I have a feeling this will erupt soon. Many people, including myself, pay $39.99 for cell phone service, and then all these stupid little fees and taxes appear on top of it. My bill's really like $45. Back in Kansas a few years ago, it was worse than that. I think it was something like $10-$15 in taxes and fees on top of that.
At some point, somebody's going to have 'free' services that have a bunch of little fees and taxes on top of it. My gf's mom had to pay a $17 'special tax' on renting a Ryder truck last week. Fun, eh? I think she should have qualified for a special discount.
" Why isn't Linux and Macintosh turning this into a big propaganda opportunity? Both OS's can hold up the 'come to us, we've had our shots, we'll never get worms' flags and pray that the big media mentions it. "
The cost of switching for that reason alone isn't necessarily worth it on a massive scale. You switch because you're worried if your computer stops working, right? Well if the cost of the switch is that your games and some other apps stop working, then you've traded one failure for another.
I wouldn't call that a great marketing opportunity. It's one thing to draw attention to those OS's being 'virus free', it's another to urge people to switch over it. Besides, if somebody does cause that kind of havoc on either of those machines, then you'd have a lot of unhappy peeps.
It may not be worth drawing attention to that aspect of those machines. All you need is for an inexplicably popular app to have an exploit in it, and millions of people using it. (Kazaa, ICQ, Winamp, you name it.) There's not a bean that Linux or Mac can do to stop that.
(Note: Please don't read that as "Kazaa, ICQ, and Winamp have exploits." I just meant that they're really popular.)
"I suggest all Windows users go to http://www.knoppix.net/ and burn the CD."
I know this is marked as funny, but Knoppix is pretty damn useful. I've never particularly liked Linux, but I can tell you that my respect for that OS went way up after trying Knoppix out. I burned a couple of copies to keep around the office in case something like a worm lays waste to the network.
On a side note, it'd be nice if other Linux distros paid more attention to how Knoppix works. It auto-detects everything and doesn't require an install. Just pop in the disc, have it copy a few files over as read-only, and reboot. System corrupt? No prob, just copy the disc over again.
"I feel pretty damn safe under Linux, how do you feel worrying about when the next worm will take over your entire machine? How do you feel about viruses, hows that Zone Alarm treating you?"
How do you feel when you walk into Electronics Boutique?
"I'm positively repelled by this, flux you very much. "
I'd laugh if it weren't for being bi-polar.
"If it is for people that have never been through a hurricane, it is a weak depiction of their power. "
Somebody got photos of it and put it on the net for all to see. This is fairly significant in regards to the fact that there's no media spin. If this had been an invasion as opposed to a hurricane, the value would be much brighter.
Don't get me wrong, I sort of see your point, but I just liked this because it came from the PoV of somebody who was there as opposed to a sensationalist reporter.
"Ummmmmm. Since when have banner ads proved any source of significant income? Still living 1999 dotcom days? "
Playing devil's advocate here, that would be a prime place to advertise new games coming out for the XBOX. I doubt there is billions to be made there, but I'm sure the game developers would like it.
"Unable to comply: Error 404"
I don't get it. Are you saying that the Enterprise was Slashdotted?
I hope that whatever standard they go with (does it really need to be smaller?) they'll make it a standard for desktops as well. Frankly, I'm sick of PCI. Lots of devices these days really don't need to be screwed in directly to the motherboard.
Maybe putting these particular bays on desktops isn't all that important, though it would be nice to have interoperable devices between desktop and laptop. But I would like to see PCI/AGP slots replaced with some sort of easy to install cartridge'esque approach. Imagine hot-swappable network and sound cards. Imagine popping that new Sound Blaster card into your laptop. I could keep going 'imagining', but I think the point is clear.
Wouldn't it be nice if the peripherals that worked on a desktop also worked on a laptop? That's more than possible today.
"people dont file share anymore.. "
Last time I was on Kazaa (like two weeks ago) there were thousands of gigabytes being shared.
"Thats why if I use networks like direct connect that force people to share. People still try and get around that though.. its kinda sad. "
Normally I'd agree with you except for the RIAA's legal tactics. If I share anything, it's going to be Chumba Wumba's 'Pass it Along' song. Listen to it, you'll see what I mean.
Just stick to using popular games. Seriously.
Here's the problem: ATI and NVidia have diverged a bit. They get performance upgrades from different optimizations/workflows. For this reason, performance is more a question of which card the game developer favors than it is about which card is better. Granted, what I'm saying isn't quite as black and white as that, but it's worth considering that if the benchmark uses an optimization that the game doesn't, then the benchmark is misleading.
I don't find video card benchmarks interesting, but I do enjoy CPU benchmarks. I'm a 3D artist, so render speed is very important to me. I recently had to go through the "Do I want a P4 or Athlon?" debate. Lightwave comes with benchmark scenes. You're supposed to load the scene, hit the render button, and write the number down. Some decent sites actually do the benchmark that way. That is a selling point for me, not the rest of those idiotic benchmarks that they throw in there. Yeah, like I care about how fast Office is.
I hope my point got across. Real world numbers are gold, theoretical numbers are pyrite.
" nice 30 sec bit of him bumping into Jar Jar "accidently" knocking him off a very high cliff and then saying "oops" and running off."
He could then shout "I've got the conch!"
"There, I've save you $8.00."
Make that $16. My girlfriend made me watch Maid in Manhatten. Episode III is her punishment.
"I don't know about this game, but that Black and White episode of "Star Trek" sure is overrated! "
Jokes about the topic aren't off-topic. The joke wasn't very funny, but it wasn't off-topic.
This is true. Once you click on a movie to look up, the domain switches to doubleclick. I wonder if this is a clever way of getting people to remove doubleclick.net from their firewalls.
I went to go update our machines today, and I used the scan tool that somebody found and linked to in this discussion. Found a machine that was infected with Welchia, which is related to Blaster. We thought we had gone through all of the machines, but there was one on the rack that we missed. Oops. It's fixed and patched now.
I just hope Slashdot isn't ignoring the Linux patches that need to be done for fear it'd make a negative impression on those interested in switching to Linux. We've got a few Linux machines and a reminder that they need to be kept up to date is invaluable.
"Didn't you get it? That whole battery thing was a lie that people like Morpheus and others who had been unplugged were told, just so they'd stop asking further questions. "
No, it was a shortsighted ingredient by the Wachowski Bros. that they were called on and had to fix in the next movie.
I'm glad you enjoyed that movie, but I can't get past what a hack and a half it is. It really would have been a good idea for those guys to novelize that trilogy before making a movie of it.