I choose Windows over Linux because I think Windows is better.
And when I recently purchased a new computer I wanted to buy an iMac but after using one for a few hours I realised that OSX is basically an untidy, nonsensical wannabe, so I got a PC instead. I use WinXP and despite a few grumbles I'm happy with it.
This week I lost three days to a corrupted driver. I had to spend one day running diagnostic tests, a second day running multiple repair attempts, and a third day reinstalling from scratch. So after three days of cursing Microsoft, which OS would I say is the best? Windows. Because despite its faults, it does much more right than other OS's and much less wrong.
Re:A better solution....
on
Review: EyeTV
·
· Score: 2
Unfortunately the Studio is very low quality and suffers from bad colour shifting. I sent mine back within a couple of days. I use a Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge which does have one major problem, in that it suffers from environmental electrical interference and is therefore unstable, but the quality when it works is superb. Even with the instability I'd recommend it over the Studio without a doubt.
the 400 Million dollar blockbuster movie Spiderman
It actually took $800 million worldwide, plus any video and DVD sales and eventually the revenue from TV licensing rights. (And what about merchandise?) The $400m figure is just for the US box office takings.
I'm sure I'm in a very small minority but I understand and agree with the perspective of the music companies. People steal their 'product' and they want to stop it. Fair enough.
Rather than slamming the music companies for trying to defend their livelihood (which they are entitled to do, however rich they are and however many lawyers they have) wouldn't it be better to slam the pirates that are causing the problem in the first place? But no, we have countless pro-piracy stories here on Slashdot and all over the web.
Here's what annoys me: I love downloading my CDs onto my portable MP3 player. I'm legally allowed to do this. But soon, probably within a year, I won't be able to do this with any new CDs without resorting to awkward cracking tools. This is the fault of *pirates*, not the music industry, and yet every time I hear/see the issue being discussed, people are blaming the industry and hardly even mentioning the pirates.
I'm a legitimate consumer. Anti-piracy measures are anti-consumer. But they are a necessary evil and despite the inconvenience they will cause me I fully support them.
Thanks for the info, I didn't know that. I'm still pretty sure that Sky+ uses NDS (because it definitely used to and I haven't heard different) but I didn't know any TiVo-based systems recorded the bitstream. Actually I didn't even know there were any TiVo-based systems apart from TiVo so I guess I'm outta the loop!:-)
In the UK BSKYB have licensed the TiVo technology to make their Sky+ boxes.
Sorry but you're wrong. Sky+ boxes use NDS technology, not TiVo. There are many differences, the main one being that TiVo records video/audio data as an MPEG file which can then be played back, whereas Sky+ records the actual satellite bitstream and then decodes on playback.
What might have confused you (gah that sounds awful, sorry, don't mean to be rude!) is that BSkyB does some of the marketing for TiVo in the UK and also handles customer service.
If it's on-topic to talk about silly EULA's and not just long ones then the silliest clause I've ever seen was for iBill's Commerce Management Interface. It's changed now but at the end of the disclaimer it used to say that you agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions if you either (a) click agree or (b) "close this browser window".
Finally though let us talk a bit about one of the most long awaited games ever, Duke Nukem Forever. As the saying goes, he who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it.
The author of the article should take some of his own advice. Look at 3DR's history and it's plain to see that they consistently come up with the goods. Some are mass-market titles, some are niche titles, but the rule seems to be that they take as long as they want to develop a game and when it comes out it's good and it sells well. (And please don't read this as a fanboy comment because in no way am I a fan of 3DR. Just trying to be objective.)
And Duke Nukem looks a lot like Daikatana from where I sit. It has suffered huge delays. It has an ambitious design, probably unrealisable.
Firstly, the author of the article has virtually NO knowledge of DNF's design so he can't comment on it being either ambitious or unrealisable. He can only guess.
Secondly, he can't say that it has suffered huge delays because 3DR has never set a release date. The 'delays' are only in the perception of the waiting public.
Thirdly, there's no real correlation between a game taking a long time to develop and the end result being a poor quality game. Logic dictates that the game will have more features, be larger, and be better tested, which doesn't strike me as a recipe for a poor game. You could argue that an inexperienced team of developers could have problems if they were continually adding new features and making changes, to the point that their game took 5+ years to develop, but again you have to look at who you're talking about and 3DR are clearly not inexperienced.
[...]
Two, if it is not out by the end of the second quarter 2003 then Doom 3 will be all too nigh on the horizon. And if the brief history of computer games has told us one thing it's that nobody can beat John Carmack on his own turf.
This is one of those bizarre theories that exists within the games community, generally goes unchallenged, but isn't supported by reality. True, most big PC games come out when there is little competition, but often you have several big console games that come out around the same time and the good ones sell well.
Games are purchased largely by two groups of people: Enthusiasts, and those with a reasonable amount of spare cash. If it turns out that DNF and DOOM III come out at around the same time, and they are both good, then they'll sell. One may sell slightly slower than the other but in the end they'll both do good business.
I wish I could mod your comment up but I can't at the moment so I'll just say that I think you make good points and you make them well. I also agree with what I believe were the underlying points of your original comment.
"That's the PayPal news. Now it's time for the PayPal news..."
Jeez, lots of people bitch and whine about duplicate stories being posted, but when the same news is posted twice in the *same* story, you gotta laugh...
The reason that ISPs don't want to help the police in monitoring the activities of their users is that they know illegal activity is an attractive part of the Internet.
The default Win95 install included a desktop icon for "The Internet" which was just a shortcut to MSIE if I remember correctly. If you dragged it to the recycle bin you got the message: "Are you sure you want to delete The Internet?"
supposedly holds more music because it supports WMA (though why someone would want to use WMA is beyond me)
I bought my first MP3/WMA player about a week ago and #1 on my list of must-have features was WMA support. Why? Because I use Media Player for ripping so I rip to WMA format. It's just more convenient.
Media Player does support MP3 but only at a max of 64kbps. That's a whole other issue though, and one I'm surprised hasn't been covered by Slashdot. The short version is that Microsoft used to have a page on their web site claiming that WMA is better quality than MP3 with the 'proof' being a comparison between WMA at 128kbps and MP3 and 64kbps.
Hey you're right. June 96 apparently. I quickly worked it out as the 6 years where I'm living now plus another couple of years, so I guess I haven't been living here as long as I thought!
Is this the same andy smith that made some quake maps like The Elektra Complex?
Okay now I'm worried...:-)
Yeah it's me. Who are you? Address is andy at meejahor dot com if you want to drop me a line.
Let me state that I realise this is necessary and I approve of it because I'm anti-piracy and anti-pirate, but I do think it's sad.
A games publisher sees its product as just that, a "product". They ship it to stores, sell however many copies in month, sell a few more thousand over the next year, and that's it.
But games become a part of people's lives. There are some games that are an important and beautiful part of my life and history. If those special games such as Head Over Heels (15 years old?) and Quake (8 years old?) could only survive for the lifetime of their original physical storage medium, people like me would be losing something which is very special to them.
That all sounded kinda wussy and no I'm not some games junkie with no friends and no life, but occasionally a game comes along that has the little 'something' that sparks a fire in my soul. I'd like to know I can look back on that game in years to come, just as I look back on a photo album, and relive all of the memories. I'd hate to lose that because of an anti-piracy system and the pirates that it is intended to defeat.
Lots of people have said that your idea probably isn't new and I'd like to expand on that with some personal experience.
One of the areas of programming that interested me most at college was sorting algorithms, but I never did much research into the subject. A couple of years ago I was looking for a fun little programming project to challenge myself with, so I decided to see if I could come up with a really fast sorting algorithm. It was an interesting project because (a) I was interested in the subject but (b) I was approaching it from a position of pretty much zero knowledge.
Now as boastful as this may sound I promise it's true, but the first idea I tried took about two hours of programming and was blisteringly fast and efficient. On a P2-233 with 128Mb it could take 100,000 lines of text (up to 255 chars in tests) and sort them into alphabetical order in less than a second. Not bad eh?
Great, methinks, I'm a genius, but I was curious to know how much of a genius so I trawled the web to find info on the fastest sorting algorithms to see how much better they were.
Well, long story short, my algorithm *was* the fastest one, but it was already known about and in common usage. Good for the ego in one way, but disappointing in another.
So back to the point: Are you sure your idea is new?:-)
I get very few telemarketing calls, maybe a dozen or so a year, but I object to them on principle so a couple of months ago I decided not to accept them in future.
About a month ago I got a call and a very polite guy explained briefly who he was, what his company did (market research) and asked if I had a few minutes to answer some questions.
I told him: "Actually I don't like taking part in these things, sorry."
His reaction told me so much. Slight pause, then in a surprised tone: "You don't?"
I imagine lots of people make excuses not to answer the questions, or they just say they don't have time or whatever, but judging from that guy's reaction I bet I was the first person to just say that I didn't want to take part.
Maybe if more people make it clear to cold callers that they aren't welcome, they'll quit doing it. It's not like spam where the sender is pretty much anonymous. The cold caller is right there on the phone! Just tell them that their call isn't wanted.
But remember that the person on the other end of the phone is just someone paid to sit at a desk and dial numbers and ask questions. No need to be rude to them. I'm sure they'd be doing a better job if they could get one.
It isn't just the news sites we have to think about. We should also be asking, when the next big event does happen, will people even be able to get online to access the news sites?
I'm not talking about some sort of damage to the communications network. I'm talking about ISPs that enforce strict rules on how many of their customers can get online simultaneously. They are the real threat to the Net as a primary source of urgent information, and it's all about money. They take on millions of customers but total capacity is measured in tens of thousands.
For example, on September 11th there were a few hours when tall buildings in London and other British cities were being evacuated, but many people over here couldn't get online to access vital information because our ISPs have notoriously low capacity and only allow a small percentage of their customers online at any one time.
Obviously this is a greater threat in rural areas because the only available connection method is dial-up.
Notice that the explanation page says p2p bandwidth is throttled because it is "entertainment traffic", but games are given as much bandwidth as necessary if it's available. Games aren't entertainment?
This argument about the effects of music theft is getting really old. Record companies pay for A&R, studio time, producers, duplication, distribution, etc, and if they don't want people to download their music then quit trying to argue that pirates are actually helping them. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but it isn't the Slashdot editors place to take sides.
I wonder, if people using ad blockers insisted that doing so was actually good for Slashdot and was increasing revenue for the site, would the editors put stories up every day arguing that ad blockers were a good idea?
No, they'd look at the bottom line, see that revenue was down, and do whatever they could to work around the ad blockers. Just like record companies are trying to block p2p networks.
Slashdot Mirror
I choose Windows over Linux because I think Windows is better.
And when I recently purchased a new computer I wanted to buy an iMac but after using one for a few hours I realised that OSX is basically an untidy, nonsensical wannabe, so I got a PC instead. I use WinXP and despite a few grumbles I'm happy with it.
This week I lost three days to a corrupted driver. I had to spend one day running diagnostic tests, a second day running multiple repair attempts, and a third day reinstalling from scratch. So after three days of cursing Microsoft, which OS would I say is the best? Windows. Because despite its faults, it does much more right than other OS's and much less wrong.
Unfortunately the Studio is very low quality and suffers from bad colour shifting. I sent mine back within a couple of days. I use a Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge which does have one major problem, in that it suffers from environmental electrical interference and is therefore unstable, but the quality when it works is superb. Even with the instability I'd recommend it over the Studio without a doubt.
<insert "silly_old_piracy_isn't_theft_excuse.h">
I'm sure I'm in a very small minority but I understand and agree with the perspective of the music companies. People steal their 'product' and they want to stop it. Fair enough.
Rather than slamming the music companies for trying to defend their livelihood (which they are entitled to do, however rich they are and however many lawyers they have) wouldn't it be better to slam the pirates that are causing the problem in the first place? But no, we have countless pro-piracy stories here on Slashdot and all over the web.
Here's what annoys me: I love downloading my CDs onto my portable MP3 player. I'm legally allowed to do this. But soon, probably within a year, I won't be able to do this with any new CDs without resorting to awkward cracking tools. This is the fault of *pirates*, not the music industry, and yet every time I hear/see the issue being discussed, people are blaming the industry and hardly even mentioning the pirates.
I'm a legitimate consumer. Anti-piracy measures are anti-consumer. But they are a necessary evil and despite the inconvenience they will cause me I fully support them.
Thanks for the info, I didn't know that. I'm still pretty sure that Sky+ uses NDS (because it definitely used to and I haven't heard different) but I didn't know any TiVo-based systems recorded the bitstream. Actually I didn't even know there were any TiVo-based systems apart from TiVo so I guess I'm outta the loop! :-)
What might have confused you (gah that sounds awful, sorry, don't mean to be rude!) is that BSkyB does some of the marketing for TiVo in the UK and also handles customer service.
If it's on-topic to talk about silly EULA's and not just long ones then the silliest clause I've ever seen was for iBill's Commerce Management Interface. It's changed now but at the end of the disclaimer it used to say that you agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions if you either (a) click agree or (b) "close this browser window".
Shame their 9/11 security wasn't as tight as their web site T's and C's.
Secondly, he can't say that it has suffered huge delays because 3DR has never set a release date. The 'delays' are only in the perception of the waiting public.
Thirdly, there's no real correlation between a game taking a long time to develop and the end result being a poor quality game. Logic dictates that the game will have more features, be larger, and be better tested, which doesn't strike me as a recipe for a poor game. You could argue that an inexperienced team of developers could have problems if they were continually adding new features and making changes, to the point that their game took 5+ years to develop, but again you have to look at who you're talking about and 3DR are clearly not inexperienced.This is one of those bizarre theories that exists within the games community, generally goes unchallenged, but isn't supported by reality. True, most big PC games come out when there is little competition, but often you have several big console games that come out around the same time and the good ones sell well.
Games are purchased largely by two groups of people: Enthusiasts, and those with a reasonable amount of spare cash. If it turns out that DNF and DOOM III come out at around the same time, and they are both good, then they'll sell. One may sell slightly slower than the other but in the end they'll both do good business.
I wish I could mod your comment up but I can't at the moment so I'll just say that I think you make good points and you make them well. I also agree with what I believe were the underlying points of your original comment.
+1 Insightful
Two facts:
1. I've never used PayPal.
2. I've never lost any money to PayPal.
Somehow these seem connected.
Hmph! Now I look really dumb for repeating what someone else said.
"That's the PayPal news. Now it's time for the PayPal news..."
Jeez, lots of people bitch and whine about duplicate stories being posted, but when the same news is posted twice in the *same* story, you gotta laugh...
The reason that ISPs don't want to help the police in monitoring the activities of their users is that they know illegal activity is an attractive part of the Internet.
The default Win95 install included a desktop icon for "The Internet" which was just a shortcut to MSIE if I remember correctly. If you dragged it to the recycle bin you got the message: "Are you sure you want to delete The Internet?"
Media Player does support MP3 but only at a max of 64kbps. That's a whole other issue though, and one I'm surprised hasn't been covered by Slashdot. The short version is that Microsoft used to have a page on their web site claiming that WMA is better quality than MP3 with the 'proof' being a comparison between WMA at 128kbps and MP3 and 64kbps.
Yeah it's me. Who are you? Address is andy at meejahor dot com if you want to drop me a line.
Let me state that I realise this is necessary and I approve of it because I'm anti-piracy and anti-pirate, but I do think it's sad.
A games publisher sees its product as just that, a "product". They ship it to stores, sell however many copies in month, sell a few more thousand over the next year, and that's it.
But games become a part of people's lives. There are some games that are an important and beautiful part of my life and history. If those special games such as Head Over Heels (15 years old?) and Quake (8 years old?) could only survive for the lifetime of their original physical storage medium, people like me would be losing something which is very special to them.
That all sounded kinda wussy and no I'm not some games junkie with no friends and no life, but occasionally a game comes along that has the little 'something' that sparks a fire in my soul. I'd like to know I can look back on that game in years to come, just as I look back on a photo album, and relive all of the memories. I'd hate to lose that because of an anti-piracy system and the pirates that it is intended to defeat.
Incidentally, spot the similarities?
http://www.securom.com
http://www.uncensored-news.com
Lots of people have said that your idea probably isn't new and I'd like to expand on that with some personal experience.
:-)
One of the areas of programming that interested me most at college was sorting algorithms, but I never did much research into the subject. A couple of years ago I was looking for a fun little programming project to challenge myself with, so I decided to see if I could come up with a really fast sorting algorithm. It was an interesting project because (a) I was interested in the subject but (b) I was approaching it from a position of pretty much zero knowledge.
Now as boastful as this may sound I promise it's true, but the first idea I tried took about two hours of programming and was blisteringly fast and efficient. On a P2-233 with 128Mb it could take 100,000 lines of text (up to 255 chars in tests) and sort them into alphabetical order in less than a second. Not bad eh?
Great, methinks, I'm a genius, but I was curious to know how much of a genius so I trawled the web to find info on the fastest sorting algorithms to see how much better they were.
Well, long story short, my algorithm *was* the fastest one, but it was already known about and in common usage. Good for the ego in one way, but disappointing in another.
So back to the point: Are you sure your idea is new?
good !necessarily= new
... is the people who answer the questions.
I get very few telemarketing calls, maybe a dozen or so a year, but I object to them on principle so a couple of months ago I decided not to accept them in future.
About a month ago I got a call and a very polite guy explained briefly who he was, what his company did (market research) and asked if I had a few minutes to answer some questions.
I told him: "Actually I don't like taking part in these things, sorry."
His reaction told me so much. Slight pause, then in a surprised tone: "You don't?"
I imagine lots of people make excuses not to answer the questions, or they just say they don't have time or whatever, but judging from that guy's reaction I bet I was the first person to just say that I didn't want to take part.
Maybe if more people make it clear to cold callers that they aren't welcome, they'll quit doing it. It's not like spam where the sender is pretty much anonymous. The cold caller is right there on the phone! Just tell them that their call isn't wanted.
But remember that the person on the other end of the phone is just someone paid to sit at a desk and dial numbers and ask questions. No need to be rude to them. I'm sure they'd be doing a better job if they could get one.
It isn't just the news sites we have to think about. We should also be asking, when the next big event does happen, will people even be able to get online to access the news sites?
I'm not talking about some sort of damage to the communications network. I'm talking about ISPs that enforce strict rules on how many of their customers can get online simultaneously. They are the real threat to the Net as a primary source of urgent information, and it's all about money. They take on millions of customers but total capacity is measured in tens of thousands.
For example, on September 11th there were a few hours when tall buildings in London and other British cities were being evacuated, but many people over here couldn't get online to access vital information because our ISPs have notoriously low capacity and only allow a small percentage of their customers online at any one time.
Obviously this is a greater threat in rural areas because the only available connection method is dial-up.
Notice that the explanation page says p2p bandwidth is throttled because it is "entertainment traffic", but games are given as much bandwidth as necessary if it's available. Games aren't entertainment?
This argument about the effects of music theft is getting really old. Record companies pay for A&R, studio time, producers, duplication, distribution, etc, and if they don't want people to download their music then quit trying to argue that pirates are actually helping them. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but it isn't the Slashdot editors place to take sides.
I wonder, if people using ad blockers insisted that doing so was actually good for Slashdot and was increasing revenue for the site, would the editors put stories up every day arguing that ad blockers were a good idea?
No, they'd look at the bottom line, see that revenue was down, and do whatever they could to work around the ad blockers. Just like record companies are trying to block p2p networks.