Quite a discussion you've started isn't it? Although I get your point about being respectful, I can't say I'm truly sorry in my heart of hearts because I disagree so strongly with your original points. Too much is at stake.
I'm a bit older than you, a father of three and I've taken my share of knocks but it doesn't make me an expert on anything. My reply to your points is flawed and incomplete.
Watching people misquote things, take statements out of context, imply things that were never stated, draw illogical conclusions, etc., has been the most educational thing thats happened to me in a long time.
Ain't freedom of speech great? How did we get that freedom? How do we keep it?
1) Results in instant fragmentation of every country in the world into tiny, competing and opposing units each sporting their own political agenda. Large areas of the world will be controlled by political and/or religious extremists of every stripe, coming to power and enforcing their creed by brutality and murder. Taliban galore!
2) Abide by this and guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.. can do anything they want to their own people. After all it's all "internal affairs" - tienanamen square anyone? Do we really have to wait until they fire up the ovens and gas chambers until we act? Or isn't that enough in your opinion? Perhaps we wait until they amass an ustoppable armada and congratulate ourselves on being ethical as they roll across our borders?
2a) What if they have no desire to negotiate honestly? Pacification only perpetuates the problems. Look at North Korea and the Non-Proliferation treaty. They used it to aquire nuclear technology and pulled out when they decided they wanted to make bombs. Do you really think Saddam was negotiating in good faith? This only works if you have a carrot AND a stick AND you are ready, willing and able to use the stick AND the other guy knows it.
3) Does "predatory" include making a profit? Without the willing concurrance of corrupt local officials who would sell out to ANYBODY, this wouldn't happen.
5) Although I agree that everyone deserves a certain degree of respect owing to fact of their humanity and that we should appreciate differences, there will always be discontent by minorities by virtue of the fact that they ARE minorities. As a white upper middle class guy I can't count the number of ways big and small I've been screwed over by people of all colors. If I was a minority and inclined to shift blame I can see how I might cite racism but in most cases race had nothing to do with it.
If you want a recipe that works, then how about this? Foster democracy to give everyone a voice and get the people to believe in the democratic process as fair. Have a truly free press to expose the bad people who abuse power in every society. Don't tolerate abuses, no matter where they occur. Recognize that there is no end to human shortcoming and that there is no end point, only the process.
It pains me to think about how many of these things do not truly exist in my own country.
Unfortunately resources are limited and we are forced to focus first on those things that affect our own interests, but why shouldn't people and nations be expected to do this?
I really wish the world was as fischer - price / tinker toy simple as you imagine it to be. Live a few more decades, read the news and lots more history and perhaps you will lose your "peace at any cost" mentality.
The whole thing is idiotic. These guys have an inflated sense of the importance of their products.
I can't understand why they don't embrace the hackers/modders. All they do is piss people off, which is arguably (but not necessarily demonstrably) bad for business.
The other theory is that this new paradigm includes a revenue stream from litigation.
These guys might as well be selling the secret carburator that gives 100 mpg to a big block V-8, you know the one that the oil companies don't want you to know about!
Definitely a scam. This should have been posted under "humor".
MS isn't the only one that does this sort of thing.
The trend in electronics in general is to add in lots of flashing lights, beepy noises, etc., that say "look at me and my pimped-out cell phone"
I recently installed a new stereo in my car that runs an ad-like "feature list" on the display when it's turned off, has an entirely useless but very sparkly graphic "output" display that is entirely useless and doesnt reflect the music that's playing. Most annoyingly, it beeps and boops when the engine is turned off. Fortunately it stops after a few seconds but MY GOD IS IT ANNOYING.
Anyway I actually RTFA and the question he should have raised was whether ANY anti-virus or spyware could have fixed the PC, or even if malware was the whole problem. He ends up formatting and re-installing his OS, but sometimes that's not a bad idea even if malware isn't involved.
What happens when all the newbies decide they don't want to play as much as the established hard core gamers? Or that they just don't want to play at all? The servers are there to handle a specific amount of load. I doubt they had more than an estimate of how much server load all these new copies would actually produce. To sink a ton of money into hardware to cover hypothetical use is just bad business. It would also be bad business to ignore the problems and get a bad reputation. The trick is to spit the difference.
Blizzard has a winner on their hands, they know it and they're not going to screw it up.
I think the problems have been overstated. My play experience has been very smooth so far and they have been crediting time to make up for the hiccups and glitches. No system is perfect and as they continue to iron out the bugs things will improve.
It makes me laugh see people get pissed off when a company actually makes money, or when companies don't provide live 24/7 phone support to console you when you get a hangnail.
You guys are all off base talking about fm transmitters and docking ports. Radio Shack carries a simple Y adapter so you can run a wire from the headphone output jack of ANY portable music device and the AUX RCA jack on the back of a stereo. Costs about $5. I use one to run the output of my computer sound card to a small stereo, giving me great sound and desktop hardware control of the sound level. (a "volume knob" in archaic parlance)
I also just had a nifty AIWA stereo installed in my car that has an input jack to plug in any player you like. Basically for about $5 I can play my mp3 player, cd player, etc., through any stereo with higher quality sound than that produced by those crappy mini-transmitters.
This seems to be a somewhat above average troll, but in case you're as silly as your post it seems necessary not illustrate a few facts.
You seem agitated by the fact that people make money from private enterprises that bid on public works contracts. Some of them make a lot of money. Politicians, whores that they are, use people like this as as a source of campaign funds to get re elected. To this end they use any tactics available. Some politicians are worse or better as are some businessmen. Hence the whole process is corrupted from the start. After all, it's not *their* money, it's *yours* and if there isn't enough they either tax you some more or steal it from some other government program that nobody is watching.
Pure private enterprise at least has built in efficiency in that if the venture doesn't make money, neither do the owners. Getting stuff done on time and on budget become priorities.
If none of this makes sense to you, just look at the history of the "big dig" up in Boston or the current influence peddling scandal in Philadelphia.
That's it for today's lesson. Tomorrow: why porn in the internet isn't really FREE!
The only really important thing that CAN NOT be replaced is the data. Hence, a network connection is critical to offload anything important to another pc in another locaton.
The key is not to worry about the pc breaking - something WILL break in that environment.
The real weak link is the cd player since that is the component most likely to be function-impaired in the presence of dust. The can of air and a cheap cd player cleaning kit will help but used components are dirt cheap anyway.
Fuck you, asshole. Shut me up if you can, but $15 Million is NOTHING.
My point, which you seem too dim to comprehend and too cowardly to confront except anonymously, is that $15M (which was the amount being reported at the time of my post) is about enough to rebuild a gas station and a post office or perhaps an M1A1 Abrams tank. Our society pays more to jackasses who kick little balls down a field. The scope of this tragedy is incredibly huge. I already donate more than a third of my very hard earned income to the government as taxes and I have to watch it being pissed away on irrelevant nonsense. I'm ashamed and embarrassed that significantly more aid isn't forthcoming.
$15 Billion would barely put a dent in the damage caused and the only reason it's not higher is that many of these people were dirt poor to begin with.
To call you a cock-smoker would be an insult to all the hard working, tax paying cock-smokers of the world.
No, I'm blaming the shift in technology centres to lawsuits, labor costs, and regulation. The commies view capitalism as a means to make lots of money and gain power. They don't give a damn about anything else. From what I understand it's still a bitch to be in business in china as everyone's palms need greasing, but you don't have to worry about legal or regulatory problems if you're willing to grease enough palms. Think of it as predictable cost control.
If there was any doubt about it, this is more proof the US (and the rest of the western world for that matter)is losing the edge in technology. China and India continue to develop their industrial bases and accumulate the critical masses of professional expertise needed for a self sustaining tech economy.
With cheap labor and a friendly legal and regulatory environment, not to mention a huge domestic market, these countries are taking the tech lead.
We, on the other hand, sit back and cluck our tongues as every nitwit who gets a hangnail is allowed to sue the evil profit sucking corporations who obviously conspire to kill us all for profit.
I for one welcome our new asian technology masters.
Anti virus programs NEVER prevent infection for the simple reason that the newest viri to hit won't be in the definitions file.
Safe computing practices are a far more effective virus prevention tactic than blind reliance on a outdated software.
The only times I've been infected is when I do something stupid, like if I click on an attachment accidentally. THEN I install an up to date virus scanner, remove the virus and uninstall it again so it doesn't hog resources. Usually by that time I'm due for an f-disk/format/reinstall anyway so I just do that instead.
But copper mesh would show on airport xray equipment, instantly identifying you to security personnel as a US passport holder, even when hidden in a checked bag.
Does the US Govt assume that every other govt will always be friendly to US citizens?
Does this make sense when about half the world seriously hates the US right now?
What's the difference if you destroy my property by coming into my house and wrecking something versus doing so electronically? You argument seems to be that it's nasa's fault for not having perfect security. A lock or a firewall is only as good as the guy who's trying to defeat it. Is it my fault if someone robs my house because I "only" use a deadbolt and not a jimmy proof steel door? If the INTENT is to illegally enter someplace they don't belong, then it's no different from someone using your garage to sell pirated DVD's. Server space and bandwidth isn't free.
I'm a bit surprised my original post got rated flamebait but then again I'm not really in favor of flogging. It's not severe enough of a punishment.
Here come all of the nitwits claiming that this is excessive for a "victimless crime". I personally support flogging but what the hell. I don't really see any difference between this and real world breaking and entering.
How thin is thin? The primary thing I use my laptop for is email, internet and light word processing. I had a relatively new (p850) laptop with a broken hinge and dead HDD. Got a new hinge online and a 12 gb hdd secondhand at a hardware show both for about $75. Slap in a copy of winme and it runs firefox just fine. I really don't see the need to install any other software.
I don't forsee this machine losing functionality so long as it can run a reasonably modern browser.
The silly thing is, if these guys find irregularities you know people will blow it sky high and make a huge stink.
Fact is there are irregularities in every election everywhere, favoring both (or all) sides about equally that roughly cancel each other out. I know people involved in american politics that say that the democratic wards will have errors favoring the dems and vice versa.
The most important thing is that the country survived the 2000 election, that we are still playing by the rules and are TRYING to learn from our mistakes.
Passwords in and of themselves are USELESS for security, in most cases. If you force people to use big, complicated passwords and change them frequently they'll just write them down, tape them to the side of the monitor and forget about it. Besides, if someone manages to slip a keylogger into your system you could use the complete works of Shakespear and it wouldn't matter. All a password does is keep the casually criminal honest. Think of it this way; in the days of combination safes they spent a lot of money making crack-proof combination locks. What do you do to gain entry? Steal the combo, cut a hole in the side, steal the entire safe? Any one of the above could potentially work. Measure/countermeasure!
A serious cracker will find some way of obtaining access.
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And if the people of China don't like their government they can simply go to the polls and vote.
Quite a discussion you've started isn't it? Although I get your point about being respectful, I can't say I'm truly sorry in my heart of hearts because I disagree so strongly with your original points. Too much is at stake.
I'm a bit older than you, a father of three and I've taken my share of knocks but it doesn't make me an expert on anything. My reply to your points is flawed and incomplete.
Watching people misquote things, take statements out of context, imply things that were never stated, draw illogical conclusions, etc., has been the most educational thing thats happened to me in a long time.
Ain't freedom of speech great? How did we get that freedom? How do we keep it?
1) Results in instant fragmentation of every country in the world into tiny, competing and opposing units each sporting their own political agenda. Large areas of the world will be controlled by political and/or religious extremists of every stripe, coming to power and enforcing their creed by brutality and murder. Taliban galore!
2) Abide by this and guys like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.. can do anything they want to their own people. After all it's all "internal affairs" - tienanamen square anyone? Do we really have to wait until they fire up the ovens and gas chambers until we act? Or isn't that enough in your opinion? Perhaps we wait until they amass an ustoppable armada and congratulate ourselves on being ethical as they roll across our borders?
2a) What if they have no desire to negotiate honestly? Pacification only perpetuates the problems. Look at North Korea and the Non-Proliferation treaty. They used it to aquire nuclear technology and pulled out when they decided they wanted to make bombs. Do you really think Saddam was negotiating in good faith? This only works if you have a carrot AND a stick AND you are ready, willing and able to use the stick AND the other guy knows it.
3) Does "predatory" include making a profit? Without the willing concurrance of corrupt local officials who would sell out to ANYBODY, this wouldn't happen.
5) Although I agree that everyone deserves a certain degree of respect owing to fact of their humanity and that we should appreciate differences, there will always be discontent by minorities by virtue of the fact that they ARE minorities. As a white upper middle class guy I can't count the number of ways big and small I've been screwed over by people of all colors. If I was a minority and inclined to shift blame I can see how I might cite racism but in most cases race had nothing to do with it.
If you want a recipe that works, then how about this? Foster democracy to give everyone a voice and get the people to believe in the democratic process as fair. Have a truly free press to expose the bad people who abuse power in every society. Don't tolerate abuses, no matter where they occur. Recognize that there is no end to human shortcoming and that there is no end point, only the process.
It pains me to think about how many of these things do not truly exist in my own country.
Unfortunately resources are limited and we are forced to focus first on those things that affect our own interests, but why shouldn't people and nations be expected to do this?
I really wish the world was as fischer - price / tinker toy simple as you imagine it to be. Live a few more decades, read the news and lots more history and perhaps you will lose your "peace at any cost" mentality.
The whole thing is idiotic. These guys have an inflated sense of the importance of their products.
I can't understand why they don't embrace the hackers/modders. All they do is piss people off, which is arguably (but not necessarily demonstrably) bad for business.
The other theory is that this new paradigm includes a revenue stream from litigation.
These guys might as well be selling the secret carburator that gives 100 mpg to a big block V-8, you know the one that the oil companies don't want you to know about!
Definitely a scam. This should have been posted under "humor".
MS isn't the only one that does this sort of thing.
The trend in electronics in general is to add in lots of flashing lights, beepy noises, etc., that say "look at me and my pimped-out cell phone"
I recently installed a new stereo in my car that runs an ad-like "feature list" on the display when it's turned off, has an entirely useless but very sparkly graphic "output" display that is entirely useless and doesnt reflect the music that's playing. Most annoyingly, it beeps and boops when the engine is turned off. Fortunately it stops after a few seconds but MY GOD IS IT ANNOYING.
Anyway I actually RTFA and the question he should have raised was whether ANY anti-virus or spyware could have fixed the PC, or even if malware was the whole problem. He ends up formatting and re-installing his OS, but sometimes that's not a bad idea even if malware isn't involved.
What happens when all the newbies decide they don't want to play as much as the established hard core gamers? Or that they just don't want to play at all? The servers are there to handle a specific amount of load. I doubt they had more than an estimate of how much server load all these new copies would actually produce. To sink a ton of money into hardware to cover hypothetical use is just bad business. It would also be bad business to ignore the problems and get a bad reputation. The trick is to spit the difference.
Blizzard has a winner on their hands, they know it and they're not going to screw it up.
I think the problems have been overstated. My play experience has been very smooth so far and they have been crediting time to make up for the hiccups and glitches. No system is perfect and as they continue to iron out the bugs things will improve.
It makes me laugh see people get pissed off when a company actually makes money, or when companies don't provide live 24/7 phone support to console you when you get a hangnail.
You are right about the BS. I would only add that much of the BS is designed to hide another agenda.
I worked for a company that used everything as an excuse or cover for the fact that they wanted to cut payroll and make everybody work longer hours.
This is true in politics as well as business.
If the words coming out of people's mouths don't describe what is happening on the ground, make sure you keep your orifices well lubricated.
You guys are all off base talking about fm transmitters and docking ports. Radio Shack carries a simple Y adapter so you can run a wire from the headphone output jack of ANY portable music device and the AUX RCA jack on the back of a stereo. Costs about $5. I use one to run the output of my computer sound card to a small stereo, giving me great sound and desktop hardware control of the sound level. (a "volume knob" in archaic parlance)
I also just had a nifty AIWA stereo installed in my car that has an input jack to plug in any player you like. Basically for about $5 I can play my mp3 player, cd player, etc., through any stereo with higher quality sound than that produced by those crappy mini-transmitters.
This seems to be a somewhat above average troll, but in case you're as silly as your post it seems necessary not illustrate a few facts.
You seem agitated by the fact that people make money from private enterprises that bid on public works contracts. Some of them make a lot of money. Politicians, whores that they are, use people like this as as a source of campaign funds to get re elected. To this end they use any tactics available. Some politicians are worse or better as are some businessmen. Hence the whole
process is corrupted from the start. After all, it's not *their* money, it's *yours* and if there isn't enough they either tax you some more or steal it from some other government program that nobody is watching.
Pure private enterprise at least has built in efficiency in that if the venture doesn't make money, neither do the owners. Getting stuff done on time and on budget become priorities.
If none of this makes sense to you, just look at the history of the "big dig" up in Boston or the current influence peddling scandal in Philadelphia.
That's it for today's lesson. Tomorrow: why porn in the internet isn't really FREE!
"Or they just wanted to stick it to microsoft, kind of like how America supported the afghani rebels vs. the ruskies"
My sense is that they know they're not likely to make money off the patents anyway, especially if MS controls the dominant OS.
The only really important thing that CAN NOT be replaced is the data. Hence, a network connection is critical to offload anything important to another pc in another locaton.
The key is not to worry about the pc breaking - something WILL break in that environment.
The real weak link is the cd player since that is the component most likely to be function-impaired in the presence of dust. The can of air and a cheap cd player cleaning kit will help but used components are dirt cheap anyway.
Fuck you, asshole. Shut me up if you can, but $15 Million is NOTHING.
My point, which you seem too dim to comprehend and too cowardly to confront except anonymously, is that $15M (which was the amount being reported at the time of my post) is about enough to rebuild a gas station and a post office or perhaps an M1A1 Abrams tank. Our society pays more to jackasses who kick little balls down a field. The scope of this tragedy is incredibly huge. I already donate more than a third of my very hard earned income to the government as taxes and I have to watch it being pissed away on irrelevant nonsense. I'm ashamed and embarrassed that significantly more aid isn't forthcoming.
$15 Billion would barely put a dent in the damage caused and the only reason it's not higher is that many of these people were dirt poor to begin with.
To call you a cock-smoker would be an insult to all the hard working, tax paying cock-smokers of the world.
...and I hear our gov't has pledged all of 15 MILLION dollars! With and estimated 40,000 dead that works out to a whopping $375 per body.
The attitude must be something like the old Jay Leno commercials for Doritos. 40K dead? They'll make more!
No, I'm blaming the shift in technology centres to lawsuits, labor costs, and regulation. The commies view capitalism as a means to make lots of money and gain power. They don't give a damn about anything else. From what I understand it's still a bitch to be in business in china as everyone's palms need greasing, but you don't have to worry about legal or regulatory problems if you're willing to grease enough palms. Think of it as predictable cost control.
Ever hear of Vioxx?
If there was any doubt about it, this is more proof the US (and the rest of the western world for that matter)is losing the edge in technology. China and India continue to develop their industrial bases and accumulate the critical masses of professional expertise needed for a self sustaining tech economy.
With cheap labor and a friendly legal and regulatory environment, not to mention a huge domestic market, these countries are taking the tech lead.
We, on the other hand, sit back and cluck our tongues as every nitwit who gets a hangnail is allowed to sue the evil profit sucking corporations who obviously conspire to kill us all for profit.
I for one welcome our new asian technology masters.
Anti virus programs NEVER prevent infection for the simple reason that the newest viri to hit won't be in the definitions file.
Safe computing practices are a far more effective virus prevention tactic than blind reliance on a outdated software.
The only times I've been infected is when I do something stupid, like if I click on an attachment accidentally. THEN I install an up to date virus scanner, remove the virus and uninstall it again so it doesn't hog resources. Usually by that time I'm due for an f-disk/format/reinstall anyway so I just do that instead.
MS OS's peaked out at DOS 6.22
But copper mesh would show on airport xray equipment, instantly identifying you to security personnel as a US passport holder, even when hidden in a checked bag.
Does the US Govt assume that every other govt will always be friendly to US citizens?
Does this make sense when about half the world seriously hates the US right now?
What's the difference if you destroy my property by coming into my house and wrecking something versus doing so electronically? You argument seems to be that it's nasa's fault for not having perfect security. A lock or a firewall is only as good as the guy who's trying to defeat it. Is it my fault if someone robs my house because I "only" use a deadbolt and not a jimmy proof steel door? If the INTENT is to illegally enter someplace they don't belong, then it's no different from someone using your garage to sell pirated DVD's. Server space and bandwidth isn't free.
I'm a bit surprised my original post got rated flamebait but then again I'm not really in favor of flogging. It's not severe enough of a punishment.
Here come all of the nitwits claiming that this is excessive for a "victimless crime". I personally support flogging but what the hell. I don't really see any difference between this and real world breaking and entering.
Yeah, I agree. Someone should tell Stephen Hawking.
How thin is thin? The primary thing I use my laptop for is email, internet and light word processing. I had a relatively new (p850) laptop with a broken hinge and dead HDD. Got a new hinge online and a 12 gb hdd secondhand at a hardware show both for about $75. Slap in a copy of winme and it runs firefox just fine. I really don't see the need to install any other software.
I don't forsee this machine losing functionality so long as it can run a reasonably modern browser.
The silly thing is, if these guys find irregularities you know people will blow it sky high and make a huge stink.
Fact is there are irregularities in every election everywhere, favoring both (or all) sides about equally that roughly cancel each other out.
I know people involved in american politics that say that the democratic wards will have errors favoring the dems and vice versa.
The most important thing is that the country survived the 2000 election, that we are still playing by the rules and are TRYING to learn from our mistakes.
Remember democracy is a PROCESS.
Passwords in and of themselves are USELESS for security, in most cases. If you force people to use big, complicated passwords and change them frequently they'll just write them down, tape them to the side of the monitor and forget about it. Besides, if someone manages to slip a keylogger into your system you could use the complete works of Shakespear and it wouldn't matter. All a password does is keep the casually criminal honest. Think of it this way; in the days of combination safes they spent a lot of money making crack-proof combination locks. What do you do to gain entry? Steal the combo, cut a hole in the side, steal the entire safe? Any one of the above could potentially work. Measure/countermeasure!
A serious cracker will find some way of obtaining access.