...if my biggest problem with the article is that the 1000-pixel wide photo of the chick in the pac-man t-shirt is that IT'S A FUCKING GIF!?
Seriously, she may be the "sexiest gamer," but whoever built the article is the world's stupidest designer. It's 920 fucking k! I feel dirty for even looking at it.
A big problem I have with d/ling BT stuff is that it'll stop or get real slow at about 98%. I assume this is because most people close it after it's downloaded, and the number of people who have the bit you're on gets progressively smaller as you near the end of the download. So why not make BT download a random percentage of each file? So it might do the fifth percentile, then the 96th, then the 48th, etc... This way, there's an equal chance getting the part you still need.
I imagine this would make it less bad when people don't leave the window open, but for all I know, they're already doing it, and it still isn't working...
This might not be as bad an idea as we think, for one reason: I expect a lot of driving drunk happens not because the person hates the idea of cabbing around, but because they want to sortof prove to their friends that they're fine to drive even after drinking a lot. "That whisky was nothing," "I drive fine drunk," etc. But putting the control in the hands of the device would let them save face, as it were ("man, I was fine to drive, but the fuckin car wouldn't start. Mind if I crash at your place?").
Of course, I sure wouldn't want one in my car, but maybe the same thing can be done by installing breathalizers in cars that don't connect to the ignition, just provide information. I wouldn't mind one of those -- I tend to have no more than one beer the whole night, though I'm pretty sure that puts me way under the legal limit. It'd be nice to know my blood alcohol level for sure, and if I could safely have another.
Oh yeah, I now remember hearing about those. And I also remember learning that the cheap one costs as much as a G5, and promptly forgetting about them;)
As a graphic designer, I can say that the prospect of drawing directly on the screen is a holy fucking grail. It would make so many things so much nicer. I don't care if it comes in the form of a laptop or just an LCD that you plug into your desktop that you happen to be able to draw on, but dammit, I want one.
Gabe of Penny Arcade got one (hp, IIRC), and he loves it. His workflow is now entirely digital.
In theory at least, that's a very compelling reason to get one.
I dunno, I'm not too satisfied with my iBook. I've had it for just over a year, and already:
-The power supply died. Not in the laptop, but the external one atached to the cable. Nevertheless, the Apple store wouldn't replace it, making me either give them my whole laptop or order one from Applecare, which I did and had a bitch of a time returning the old one to them, and ended up having to pay at least $20 for, even though it was still under warranty.
-The display flickers. This may or may not be the logic board, and may or may not be free to fix. A bit of research leads me to believe it's shoddy wiring.
-And just last week, my battery died. No warning, just died. As in, I may as well be trying to store a charge in a block of cheese, cause it's just not happening.
I want to love it, but I'm sorta just pissed off. If I was gonna recommend a laptop, I'd say, fork over the extra $600 or so and get the 12" powerbook. But maybe I just had some bad luck.
Because the big 5 labels make.5 - 17 cents on the dollar.* If they started charging less for really old albums, they might not be profitable at all. Of course, this could be due to those middle-men's Porche payments...
* Source: "Confessions of a Record Producer," Moses Avalon
Okay, IANAL, but isn't this grounds for a massive lawsuit against MS? Shit, someone in the know needs to check out this source code and do a diff with gzip and gnumakefile and see if MS really did rip off GNU. Of course, it's illegal for them to look at it, but maybe there's grounds for a subpoena? You know, to look at the code... that's already been seen.
How about doing the same for Logic users? I bet there's a lot more quality material out there. Of course, I use Pro Tools, but I'm definitely curious about giving Logic a try. Unfortunately, I can't seem to even find a demo...
I wouldn't be suprised if there was a direct correlation between how much you use p2p and how wealthy you are. I'm sure a high-school kid who wants to mess around with some digital pictures he took isn't going to plop down $600 for a copy of photoshop. I don't see this as a huge problem for Adobe though, because he wouldn't have bought it anyway. By the same token, I doubt a graphics professional would spend hours on p2p networks trying to get an iso of photoshop -- if he's making $50/hr, his time is worth much more than that, and that's not even taking into account the illegality and the good feeling you get from supporting your favorite software.
Thing is, I'd like to see a study that took that "90% of copyrighted material," and told me what percentage of that was actually hurting sales.
Another thing: there's a great reason for downloading pirated versions of the apps you legally own: copy protection. I can't stand being forced to have a CD in the drive when I'm using a product (Propellerhead's Rebirth, I'm talking to you). I made myself an image of the CD, but it sucks to have a few hundred megabytes of space gone (not to mention the time it takes to mount the image) just to thwart copy protection. One of these days, I'll try to find a no-CD crack. I can't imagine how angry I'd be if I bought an app that made me use a USB port for a dongle (rumor has it that Logic works this way -- thankfully I use Pro Tools). Cracking the apps you bought and paid for... what's this world coming to?
Go out and get yourself a Microsoft 5-button (w/scroll wheel) mouse. The forth button goes back (you don't evven have to configure it) and the 5th goes forward. It improves your web browsing experience like, eighteen fold. Best 30 bucks or so you could spend on your mac.
In other news, the Montana Evergreen Forst Council was fined $50 mil for providing the wood that was used to make the paper that was used to advertise the sporting goods store that sold the gun that was used to shoot and kill a man. Says the spokestree, Great Pine, "it's really not our fault -- the blame lies with God for making us the way we are." Attempts to subpoena this "God" have been largely unsuccessful, due to his unproven existence.
Man, I like to blame by burnt breakfast on MS, but I think they can count on support from even the Slashdot community on this one.
Unless of course they're talking about their new suite of office products, "TeraRist XP," which comes complete with a searchable database on the best ways to torture someone, and 3 bonus pdfs, "1001 More Uses for a Chinese Peasant," "Rice: The Only Food They'll Ever Need," and "14 Ways to Keep the Little Bastards from Revolting."
What are they smoking? One of the best superbowl commercials ever is "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker." I even like it better than the Apple one. I don't know where the original one is, but you can watch some sequels (also really funny) here. You'll probably have to log in:
username: azsxdc@azsxdc.com
password: password
I have the original commercial on my drive, but I don't think my server can handle a slashdotting - if anyone wants to host it, I'll send it to them.
The pinouts are likely different. I have a sawtooth, and I'm about to try swapping the noisy stock PSU with a Zalman one, following these directions (and double-checking voltages myself). You probably want to google for someone else who's done the same thing with a quicksilver, or at least get yourself a multimeter.
I wish I could've used all 5 of my mod points on this to up it to +6. Or maybe, for every 20 or so people mod something up past 5, it goes up one. Then there could be a section on the home page for the latest "over 5" comments. That way, even someone who wasn't interested in Chaucer or astrolabes would still get the opportunity to laugh his ass off for 5 minutes like I just did.
I was just looking at an article in the paper about this, and similar devices by other manufacturers weren't very much less, and in many cases had much less HD space. And objectively speaking, they weren't nearly as cool. So I won't begrudge Apple their pricing scheme.
But still, it's not like it's wristwatch-size. When I heard the rumors of a small iPod, I shrugged and said "it's already small." It's like hearing about a new version of Photoshop. I was happy with version 6.
I think there should always be different standards for individuals and corporations. For instance, if Bono saw you selling illegally produced copies of "Achtung Baby" and he called you names and took the CDs, and you took him to court for theft, I think a judge would throw the case out. At least, Judge Judy would;) But if someone took the RIAA to court for the same thing, they (the RIAA) should get penalized to the full extent of the law.
So if it's "Individual vs. Corp," then Ind. pays own fees if he loses, but Corp pays his fees if he wins, and Corp pays their own fees either way.
If it's "Corp vs. Corp" or "Ind vs. Ind," then loser pays the fees.
So things are biased in favor of the individual, but so many other things are biased in favor of the corporation, it works out alright. And that's the way it should be. I mean, I can't find anything wrong with this reasoning, and I've been thinking about this for a full 10 minutes or so.
Gollum was the first CG character I've ever been convinced of. RotK would deserve the best FX award even if the whole movie was of him.
And I really think Andy Serkis should get nominated for something. I saw a split-screen of him acting as the body model of Gollum, and the performance just about exactly matched the final CG shot; it almost would've been believable if they'd just used that!
Slashdot Mirror
...if my biggest problem with the article is that the 1000-pixel wide photo of the chick in the pac-man t-shirt is that IT'S A FUCKING GIF!?
Seriously, she may be the "sexiest gamer," but whoever built the article is the world's stupidest designer. It's 920 fucking k! I feel dirty for even looking at it.
A big problem I have with d/ling BT stuff is that it'll stop or get real slow at about 98%. I assume this is because most people close it after it's downloaded, and the number of people who have the bit you're on gets progressively smaller as you near the end of the download. So why not make BT download a random percentage of each file? So it might do the fifth percentile, then the 96th, then the 48th, etc... This way, there's an equal chance getting the part you still need.
I imagine this would make it less bad when people don't leave the window open, but for all I know, they're already doing it, and it still isn't working...
Without looking above here is the number set: 1307877299220713442
;)
Woah! How'd you do that?!?
This might not be as bad an idea as we think, for one reason: I expect a lot of driving drunk happens not because the person hates the idea of cabbing around, but because they want to sortof prove to their friends that they're fine to drive even after drinking a lot. "That whisky was nothing," "I drive fine drunk," etc. But putting the control in the hands of the device would let them save face, as it were ("man, I was fine to drive, but the fuckin car wouldn't start. Mind if I crash at your place?").
Of course, I sure wouldn't want one in my car, but maybe the same thing can be done by installing breathalizers in cars that don't connect to the ignition, just provide information. I wouldn't mind one of those -- I tend to have no more than one beer the whole night, though I'm pretty sure that puts me way under the legal limit. It'd be nice to know my blood alcohol level for sure, and if I could safely have another.
Oh yeah, I now remember hearing about those. And I also remember learning that the cheap one costs as much as a G5, and promptly forgetting about them ;)
As a graphic designer, I can say that the prospect of drawing directly on the screen is a holy fucking grail. It would make so many things so much nicer. I don't care if it comes in the form of a laptop or just an LCD that you plug into your desktop that you happen to be able to draw on, but dammit, I want one.
Gabe of Penny Arcade got one (hp, IIRC), and he loves it. His workflow is now entirely digital.
In theory at least, that's a very compelling reason to get one.
I dunno, I'm not too satisfied with my iBook. I've had it for just over a year, and already:
-The power supply died. Not in the laptop, but the external one atached to the cable. Nevertheless, the Apple store wouldn't replace it, making me either give them my whole laptop or order one from Applecare, which I did and had a bitch of a time returning the old one to them, and ended up having to pay at least $20 for, even though it was still under warranty.
-The display flickers. This may or may not be the logic board, and may or may not be free to fix. A bit of research leads me to believe it's shoddy wiring.
-And just last week, my battery died. No warning, just died. As in, I may as well be trying to store a charge in a block of cheese, cause it's just not happening.
I want to love it, but I'm sorta just pissed off. If I was gonna recommend a laptop, I'd say, fork over the extra $600 or so and get the 12" powerbook. But maybe I just had some bad luck.
Because the big 5 labels make .5 - 17 cents on the dollar.* If they started charging less for really old albums, they might not be profitable at all. Of course, this could be due to those middle-men's Porche payments...
* Source: "Confessions of a Record Producer," Moses Avalon
from the who-needs-a-valentine? dept.
(in Apu voice): "I dooooooo..."
Okay, IANAL, but isn't this grounds for a massive lawsuit against MS? Shit, someone in the know needs to check out this source code and do a diff with gzip and gnumakefile and see if MS really did rip off GNU. Of course, it's illegal for them to look at it, but maybe there's grounds for a subpoena? You know, to look at the code... that's already been seen.
How about doing the same for Logic users? I bet there's a lot more quality material out there. Of course, I use Pro Tools, but I'm definitely curious about giving Logic a try. Unfortunately, I can't seem to even find a demo...
I wouldn't be suprised if there was a direct correlation between how much you use p2p and how wealthy you are. I'm sure a high-school kid who wants to mess around with some digital pictures he took isn't going to plop down $600 for a copy of photoshop. I don't see this as a huge problem for Adobe though, because he wouldn't have bought it anyway. By the same token, I doubt a graphics professional would spend hours on p2p networks trying to get an iso of photoshop -- if he's making $50/hr, his time is worth much more than that, and that's not even taking into account the illegality and the good feeling you get from supporting your favorite software.
Thing is, I'd like to see a study that took that "90% of copyrighted material," and told me what percentage of that was actually hurting sales.
Another thing: there's a great reason for downloading pirated versions of the apps you legally own: copy protection. I can't stand being forced to have a CD in the drive when I'm using a product (Propellerhead's Rebirth, I'm talking to you). I made myself an image of the CD, but it sucks to have a few hundred megabytes of space gone (not to mention the time it takes to mount the image) just to thwart copy protection. One of these days, I'll try to find a no-CD crack. I can't imagine how angry I'd be if I bought an app that made me use a USB port for a dongle (rumor has it that Logic works this way -- thankfully I use Pro Tools). Cracking the apps you bought and paid for... what's this world coming to?
Go out and get yourself a Microsoft 5-button (w/scroll wheel) mouse. The forth button goes back (you don't evven have to configure it) and the 5th goes forward. It improves your web browsing experience like, eighteen fold. Best 30 bucks or so you could spend on your mac.
Dude, you don't fuck with Strunk. It's like, a given.
In other news, the Montana Evergreen Forst Council was fined $50 mil for providing the wood that was used to make the paper that was used to advertise the sporting goods store that sold the gun that was used to shoot and kill a man. Says the spokestree, Great Pine, "it's really not our fault -- the blame lies with God for making us the way we are." Attempts to subpoena this "God" have been largely unsuccessful, due to his unproven existence.
Man, I like to blame by burnt breakfast on MS, but I think they can count on support from even the Slashdot community on this one.
Unless of course they're talking about their new suite of office products, "TeraRist XP," which comes complete with a searchable database on the best ways to torture someone, and 3 bonus pdfs, "1001 More Uses for a Chinese Peasant," "Rice: The Only Food They'll Ever Need," and "14 Ways to Keep the Little Bastards from Revolting."
Actually, it's "Gates's."
Oops, it's right on their home page. Duh.
Heh, Felcher...
What are they smoking? One of the best superbowl commercials ever is "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker." I even like it better than the Apple one. I don't know where the original one is, but you can watch some sequels (also really funny) here. You'll probably have to log in:
username: azsxdc@azsxdc.com
password: password
I have the original commercial on my drive, but I don't think my server can handle a slashdotting - if anyone wants to host it, I'll send it to them.
The pinouts are likely different. I have a sawtooth, and I'm about to try swapping the noisy stock PSU with a Zalman one, following these directions (and double-checking voltages myself). You probably want to google for someone else who's done the same thing with a quicksilver, or at least get yourself a multimeter.
I wish I could've used all 5 of my mod points on this to up it to +6. Or maybe, for every 20 or so people mod something up past 5, it goes up one. Then there could be a section on the home page for the latest "over 5" comments. That way, even someone who wasn't interested in Chaucer or astrolabes would still get the opportunity to laugh his ass off for 5 minutes like I just did.
I was just looking at an article in the paper about this, and similar devices by other manufacturers weren't very much less, and in many cases had much less HD space. And objectively speaking, they weren't nearly as cool. So I won't begrudge Apple their pricing scheme.
But still, it's not like it's wristwatch-size. When I heard the rumors of a small iPod, I shrugged and said "it's already small." It's like hearing about a new version of Photoshop. I was happy with version 6.
I think there should always be different standards for individuals and corporations. For instance, if Bono saw you selling illegally produced copies of "Achtung Baby" and he called you names and took the CDs, and you took him to court for theft, I think a judge would throw the case out. At least, Judge Judy would ;) But if someone took the RIAA to court for the same thing, they (the RIAA) should get penalized to the full extent of the law.
So if it's "Individual vs. Corp," then Ind. pays own fees if he loses, but Corp pays his fees if he wins, and Corp pays their own fees either way.
If it's "Corp vs. Corp" or "Ind vs. Ind," then loser pays the fees.
So things are biased in favor of the individual, but so many other things are biased in favor of the corporation, it works out alright. And that's the way it should be. I mean, I can't find anything wrong with this reasoning, and I've been thinking about this for a full 10 minutes or so.
not worrying about how much time we spent
I wouldn't worry about it either if I was billing in 15 minute blocks of total time talkig to you, include chit-chat about golf.
At least, that's how a US lawyer I know operates.
Gollum was the first CG character I've ever been convinced of. RotK would deserve the best FX award even if the whole movie was of him.
And I really think Andy Serkis should get nominated for something. I saw a split-screen of him acting as the body model of Gollum, and the performance just about exactly matched the final CG shot; it almost would've been believable if they'd just used that!
Lots of times you can use a credit card statement, or a copy of one, as a receipt.