I, of course, do not encourage, nor am I telling you what to do with my obviously tongue-in-cheek response. If you choose a questionable tactic such as this, it is up to you to determine if this is in your best interests or not. I simply offer the suggestion as as part of this light hearted medium we all love, called Slashdot.
I'll go you one better: If you're considering paying off criminals in relation to such an attack, consider paying for some nice men to seek out and visit this guy personally, rather then paying the extorter.
What do you think will have more of an impact, a payoff to a bully who's threatening you, or a payoff to a guy who'll beat the bully within an inch of his life, and make him aware that if there's any further attacks, than there'll be more such visits?
And realistically, the beating, and any neccesary investigative work for the beating, will likely be cheaper than paying the attacker in these cases, and will be far more likely to help alleviate future attacks.
Just to be clear here, I'm saying this only applys if you've already decided to go down the road of paying a fee to stop such attacks, and all other methods of handing this have failed.
Besides, what's the guy going to do after such an attack? Go to the police and say "Since I was hacking this multi million dollar website, and extorting the owners cash, he hired a bully to beat me up"? Let him... Then as he tries to assemble money to make his case against you and your "help", you turn around and hit him with the original hack attempts in a court of law.
I'm fairly certain that the kind of "help" we're talking about here could resolve the problem a lot faster, and cheaper than law enforcement, and a lengthy trial.
Just a thought...
And now the neccesary disclaimer: I, of course, do not encourage, nor am I telling you what to do with my obviously tongue-in-cheek response. If you choose a questionable tactic such as this, it is up to you to determine if this is in your best interests or not. I simply offer the suggestion as as part of this light hearted medium we all love, called Slashdot.
If you do however go down this road, I look forward to applauding you after your story winds up pasted on Fark with a "Hero" tag next to it. 8)
But I more or less agree with Mr. Dvorak. I still remember staying up all night playing Doom 1 when it came out, thinking it was the coolest, and most immersive game I'd ever played. And it was at the time.
But after getting all the way through the game, playing it at different difficulty levels didn't interest me too much. Same old levels, with a bit more speed, and a few more creatures... Playing multi-player online was also interesting for a little while, but it too got boring fast (this was admittedly before todays technologies, wherein you can talk and interact with the other players more fluidly).
I was all geeked about Doom2 when it came out, but after playing it awhile, I quickly got bored with it. New graphics and a new(er) storyline didn't make up for the fact that the game looked and felt like Doom 1.2.
Other FPS games also felt the same to me. Half Life 1 has got great graphics, and a rather involved plot, but other than this, it feels like every other FPS out there, to me at least. Half Life made me think a bit more, as opposed to the hack and slash mentality of the aforementioned Doom series, but it didn't really draw me into the game.
For the record, I've never played Half Life 2 - The whole Steam thing turned me off... I don't think I should have to be connected to the Internet just to play a game myself (non-multi player), and the horror stories of Steams reliability made it something I've avoided ever since.
Long story short, all FPS games have similar controls, similar graphics - They obviously use different graphics, but nothing is spectacularly different in the implementation of the graphics. You're still walking along, with a bobbing hand, or weapon in front of you.
Plus, as these games have tried to get more realistic, the key combinations of them have gotten so out of hand. There just has to be a better way of handling all of the complexities of a 3-D game, without adding 50+ key combinations to do things. No, I don't have a solution to the problem, but neither do I like having to either memorize so much information just to play the game.
Speaking of that bobbing hand/weapon which FPS games always seem to have, some of the implementations of this have gotten so out of hand that it gives me motion sickness just to play the damn things. Although it's not a great game, a good example of this is the South Park FPS - I played this for 5 minutes, watching the bobbing hand, holding a snowball, and felt like I was going to throw up!
How game developers came to the conclusion that there has to be some viewable, hand-related element on screen at all times is beyond me. For instance, using the South Park game as an example, how many of us really hold our hands out in front of us when having a snowball fight? We also don't hold our weapons outstretched at all times, but in these games we do! It all seems to detract from that feeling of realism for me, and when they make these items move as we walk, it just throws the whole "look" of the game off. Yes, I can understand seeing the barrel of a rifle, if I'm carrying one, as it'll stick out in front of me, but why all weapons have to be handled this way is beyond me.
There have been other variations on the FPS themes, and one of the more impressive of these is the Quake tournaments, but even these get old for me fast.
The games that keep me coming back the most are actually the Civilization line of games. No, it's not action packed, and sometimes it too can get boring, but the challenge, and the AI of the game keep me coming back for more again and again.
I also can appreciate the online games, such as Everquest, or Ultima Online a bit more than the average FPS, simply because they're different, and feel more "immersive" to me, even if they're not photo quality, or 3-D. I also tend to return to Mame and SNES games (via an emulator) far more often than I do the FPS's.
In fact, I think that the continued (and growing) interest in emulators, and ol
A) You're so anal & smug that you feel the need to correct someone's innocent mistake, making sure to insult them in the process
B) And you're realistic enough to know that doing this is not going to make you popular with the/. readers, so you make your post anonymous.
What's worse? A guy who mistypes a word, while making an otherwise legit post, or someone who feels the need to show their superiority by correcting them, all the while knowing that to do so is both uncool, and a waste of everyones time?
I have to say that the thing I'm really looking forward to w/Tiger, is the Automater app!
I was a big fan/user of Automate , and AutoHotKey for the Windows platform, and was really looking forward to working with AppleScript on the OSX-side of things.
However AppleScript's code/syntax is really difficult for me to get into. It's attempt at being an "easy to read/use" code is SO different than anything I've used before, that it makes i hard for people who've scripted for other languages, be it Perl, Windows-Scripting, or *nix , or whatever, to easily pick it up.
It's a powerful language... I just wish the syntax was a little more... "computer-like", rather than the mix of normal speech, and computer terms that it is.
However Automater promises to make a lot of the simpler things easy, similar to the aforementioned Automate app, for Windows. I may still have to write some code for some of the more difficult operations, but Automater promises to make the simple things a lot easier, I think.
If you use MythTV, an ATI card will not work. I'll go so far as to say that an ATI AIW card isn't reccomended for any Linux-based PVR work. The coders blame ATI, and ATI says "What? We released Linux drivers!". It's a lot of finger pointing, and in the end is just frustrating to any AIW owner, such as m'self.
The Hauppage on the other hand, is the most reccomended PVR card I've seen - Both on the Linux end and the Windows end of things. It has a built in mpeg decoder/encoder, which allows the systems CPU to focus on things other than converting video for playback.
I recently came across the Hauppage 350 for $160 and am seriously considering one, however as we move into the HDTV age, I'm wondering if an HDTV-capable solution might be a better option.
(Yes, I realize there's PC-based HDTV options, but the Mac link was handy)
What are they going to do? They can chuck more lawsuits at the industry as a whole, but to keep doing this is just going to turn their entire agenda into a farce. No one will take them seriously, and they'll kinda end up in the same bucket of credibility as SCO find themselves in.
You can only cry wolf so many times before people stop believing you. To put that in perspective, you can only sue so many people before both your credibility, and your bank book runs dry.
And the music industry's making a lotta money still. Depending on who does the research, online music downloads may actually be helping the industry as a whole. Perhaps not so much the RIAA, but definately artists and labels who were previously shut off from the mainstream due to the RIAA's stranglehold on the entire industry.
So I hope that ISPs collectively thumb their noses at this offer. If nothing else, it's a huge privacy lawsuit just waiting to explode as people find out that their online actions were sent to a non-legal entity without their authorization.
While I still prefer the "beat the tar out of them" method of deterring spammers, this is a step in the right direction.
Althought past studies have proven that most of the worlds spam comes from the good ol' US of A, I have to wonder if punishments such as this will actually slow down the flow of spam, or if it'll push the criminals out of the country, and increase the amount from foreign countries. As much as I hate it, there's still a lot of money in Spam it appears, and I'm sure that there's quite a few countries who would turn a blind eye to the problem for the right cash (I'm looking at you China!)
Instead, use it, provide some constructive criticism, but don't dismiss it.
I've already dismissed it. Any game that requires an internet connection just to play, is a game that I will not purchase. I can understand the net connection for multi-player play, but for any play? No thanks... There's plenty of other games our there to distract myself with, and amazingly, most of those only require a net connection if you want to play multiplayer with someone over the net.
The obvious./ way of saying this would be that you need a net account just to play with yourself. No thanks, I can play with myself Net free, thank you very much! 8)=
Do a google for "Shocking Tanks", and you'll see one of the best presents you can get for someone (including yourself!).
I don't have a link handy, but I got one for my brother from the Johnson Smith company. He and I were laughing our assess off while shocking one another (it's amazing the shock you get, when you consider relatively low power from regular ol' batteries!).
I highly reccomend it! But heed the warning: Not for those with pacemakers! That would be a bad thing.
...I don't think BeOS could come back as BeOS at this point.
BeOS/Zeta still can't even boot on a machine with a gig or more memory. As the world upgrades to more modern machines, BeOS loses more and more potential users.
Coincidentally, I have a 19" LCD here at work, which is kinda on the fritz (unless you like the color blue - The monitor seems to have a fondness for coloring everything blue), and I've requested to go back to a CRT if possible, when they replace it next week.
Why? The LCD display isn't anywhere near as crisp when viewing small details. Also, I'm not a fan of the LCD's fixed resolution. You can go larger or smaller than the default size, but the image is nowhere near as good as it is at its native resolution.
I've got 2 21" Nokias at home, and although the power and heat reduction makes me constantly consider LCD's, the quality, and priciness of the LCD monitors have kept me stuck on CRT's for the time being.
I'm not neccesarily worried about the health effects per se', but I am concerned about eye fatigue! If I'm working at home in dim light for awhile in front of my CRT's, when I look away from the monitors, I'm unable to make out details for a minute or two while my eyes adjust to the dim light from the brightness of the CRT's. Not a huge concern, but it is the one that worries me most...
Don't forget the other important lesson from that movie: Never hide in the outhouse.
You may have to go, and can argue that the outhouse is the appropriate place to be in the event of a T-Rex attack, but don't do it! Bad things will happen!!
... when they pry my cold, dead fingers from around them. So-to-speak, that is.
Why should I as a consumer, lose any rights I have to what I purchase, simply because the big companys have found new ways to limit those rights?
I'm ok with digital watermarking to a point... As long as I can re-use it in any device/medium I see fit, with no limitations, I could learn to live with a watermark. I wouldn't be happy, but I could stomach it.
But to tell me "Give me your hard earned money, and we'll let you play with our toys - But only as we see fit" is laughable!
Such DRM is easily circumvented in most cases. If not 100% digitally, then by sampling the analog output as a new mp3 (or wav, or whatever). True, you'd arguably lose some of the fidelity that the digital copy has, but realistically, that'd be only high quality mp3's we're talking about here (320k). Given a clean analog path (ie, no cheapie no-name soundcard, and good connections/cables) the average 128k mp3 will still sound inferior to a good mp3 ran through such a conversion. It ain't perfect, but it's a foolproof circumvention. Similarly many platforms have software already available to let them sample the output before it ever leaves the PC, negating the need to re-route/sample
I still have to purchase additional equipment to use their DRM'd piece of crap. The day that the big media companies start furnishing me with free audio equipment is the day they can start dictating how I use their media on their equipment. And realistically, it'd be a hard sell to get me to give up my rights just for a free stereo in the 1st place.
There are alternatives already in place to get non-DRM'd tracks. If you force DRM down my throat, I'll just go elsewhere to buy my music. For example, many overseas dealers are offering non-DRM'd tracks. If the RIAA wants to force DRM down our throats, I can guarantee that they'll only hurt American online music retailers, as there' no laws, and likely won't be any, for purchasing music from an international source. True, they may eventually get the whole world to cave to their will (unlikely as that is), but at that time, individual trading, and swap meets would take off. This is something that's already being discussed, and pursued by such software/companies as Delicous Monster's Library app - The next version's supposed to let you see and contact others with similar tastes to swap and trade. And I don't think you'll soon see America limiting public gatherings based on what music they might be listening to, and who might loan a CD to whom
Seriously, this whole DRM thing is so out of hand. You now have Senator Orwin, who already has been proven to be in bed with the big media companies, all set to head a committe which, for better or worse, will determine our future rights. Tell me this isn't proof that our government is currently controlled by big money interests.
Long story short, No DRM for me, thank you. If you force it on me, you'll force me to get my media from alternative sources, from which you may, or may not see a profit.
Isn't Bill always like this?
on
The PC Is Not Dead
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It seems like every interview I see with the guy, he's going on about how computing's future is so bright ya gotta wear shades, so-to-speak.
And then shortly after such claims, he always follows them up by pointing out that Windows will, of course, be there, paving the way for the next wave of computing.
There's something about overly optimistic people that make me immediately doubt what they're claiming. Bill's no exception... By always ignoring the bad (Windows exploits, virii, etc), and gushing about the very operating system which is causing most of these problems, he really paints a picture of someone who's totally out of touch with the modern computing scene.
...It's awful hard to live up to the standards set by Firefox & Safari on the Mac!
I'm a Firefox diehard, but I find myself still launching Safari on occassion, either due to a neccesaiity (For instance, I don't fee; that DEVONthinks applescripts integrate as well with Firefox as they do with Safari), or just out of the "Wow, it feels so 'lightweight'" feeling that it brings to the table. And this is Firefox we're talking about here! It ain't no slouch when it comes to speed.
In fact, until v1 of Firefox came out, Safari was my number one browser when on the Mac (which is basically any non-work related computer time). But since v1 hit the streets, and especially since the (newish) Saferfox theme came out, Firefox is my browser of choice, just like it is under Linux & Windows.
The reason? The plugins! If Safari supported Firefox's plugins, I would be in a major dillemma(sp?) about which to use.
But this thread's about Camino, and the whole point I started out to make was that Camino's always felt like it was somehow a couple of versions, feature-wise, and stability-wise, behind Safari and Firefox. It is slick, but it's not as feature laden as Firefox, and the last release I used wasn't able to use Firefox's plugins. I hope that changes soon.
Hopefully this new site signals a more active development cycle for Camino. It's goals are to basically convert Firefox/Moz over to a more polished "native app" like look n' feel, which I think would/will be a great thing, if they can accomplish it.
On the other hand, if Safari follows KDE's lead (Safari's still based off Konqueror/KDE code, I believe), and ports the Moz rendering engine for use with Safari, they could, in theory at least, also make Firefox's plugins work also...
Suffice it say that Camino has its work cut out for it! Give me Firefox, the Adblocker, and Tabclick extensions, as well as the aforementioned Safefox theme, and it'll take something revolutionary to make me consider switching. After all, if I need something a little more Native app-like, I can always fall back on Safari! 8)=
After finally making the plunge last year to buy a Mac, I found myself giving more and more consideration to getting an ipod (something I'd previously wrote off as being overpriced, and unneccesary).
A year later, my ipod's with me daily, and serves up more than just music, via the amazing Pod2Go software. The only regret I have is not taking the plunge earlier than I did!
I went from hours and hours of tweaking, and modding my systems to behave in a somewhat intelligent manner, to just having a computer work the way I want it to. Someone in a different thread once put it best: "If I want to tweak and play, I can do so, but when I need to knuckle down and do real work, it just works, no tweaking needed". I couldn't have said it better myself.
Now maybe all you iPod owner wannabe's can remove the "Get a free ipod" link from your signature lines? For that matter, why not remove the free mini mac offers while we're at it?
Slashdot Mirror
But this is largely what I was trying to achieve when I initially started storing videos in iTunes.
This was my solution (different nickname... Same dull, boring guy). I'm glad to see that Apple's taken my lead and is running with it! 8)=
And I repeat:
I, of course, do not encourage, nor am I telling you what to do with my obviously tongue-in-cheek response. If you choose a questionable tactic such as this, it is up to you to determine if this is in your best interests or not. I simply offer the suggestion as as part of this light hearted medium we all love, called Slashdot.
I'll go you one better: If you're considering paying off criminals in relation to such an attack, consider paying for some nice men to seek out and visit this guy personally, rather then paying the extorter.
What do you think will have more of an impact, a payoff to a bully who's threatening you, or a payoff to a guy who'll beat the bully within an inch of his life, and make him aware that if there's any further attacks, than there'll be more such visits?
And realistically, the beating, and any neccesary investigative work for the beating, will likely be cheaper than paying the attacker in these cases, and will be far more likely to help alleviate future attacks.
Just to be clear here, I'm saying this only applys if you've already decided to go down the road of paying a fee to stop such attacks, and all other methods of handing this have failed.
Besides, what's the guy going to do after such an attack? Go to the police and say "Since I was hacking this multi million dollar website, and extorting the owners cash, he hired a bully to beat me up"? Let him... Then as he tries to assemble money to make his case against you and your "help", you turn around and hit him with the original hack attempts in a court of law.
I'm fairly certain that the kind of "help" we're talking about here could resolve the problem a lot faster, and cheaper than law enforcement, and a lengthy trial.
Just a thought...
And now the neccesary disclaimer: I, of course, do not encourage, nor am I telling you what to do with my obviously tongue-in-cheek response. If you choose a questionable tactic such as this, it is up to you to determine if this is in your best interests or not. I simply offer the suggestion as as part of this light hearted medium we all love, called Slashdot.
If you do however go down this road, I look forward to applauding you after your story winds up pasted on Fark with a "Hero" tag next to it. 8)
But I more or less agree with Mr. Dvorak. I still remember staying up all night playing Doom 1 when it came out, thinking it was the coolest, and most immersive game I'd ever played. And it was at the time.
But after getting all the way through the game, playing it at different difficulty levels didn't interest me too much. Same old levels, with a bit more speed, and a few more creatures... Playing multi-player online was also interesting for a little while, but it too got boring fast (this was admittedly before todays technologies, wherein you can talk and interact with the other players more fluidly).
I was all geeked about Doom2 when it came out, but after playing it awhile, I quickly got bored with it. New graphics and a new(er) storyline didn't make up for the fact that the game looked and felt like Doom 1.2.
Other FPS games also felt the same to me. Half Life 1 has got great graphics, and a rather involved plot, but other than this, it feels like every other FPS out there, to me at least. Half Life made me think a bit more, as opposed to the hack and slash mentality of the aforementioned Doom series, but it didn't really draw me into the game.
For the record, I've never played Half Life 2 - The whole Steam thing turned me off... I don't think I should have to be connected to the Internet just to play a game myself (non-multi player), and the horror stories of Steams reliability made it something I've avoided ever since.
Long story short, all FPS games have similar controls, similar graphics - They obviously use different graphics, but nothing is spectacularly different in the implementation of the graphics. You're still walking along, with a bobbing hand, or weapon in front of you.
Plus, as these games have tried to get more realistic, the key combinations of them have gotten so out of hand. There just has to be a better way of handling all of the complexities of a 3-D game, without adding 50+ key combinations to do things. No, I don't have a solution to the problem, but neither do I like having to either memorize so much information just to play the game.
Speaking of that bobbing hand/weapon which FPS games always seem to have, some of the implementations of this have gotten so out of hand that it gives me motion sickness just to play the damn things. Although it's not a great game, a good example of this is the South Park FPS - I played this for 5 minutes, watching the bobbing hand, holding a snowball, and felt like I was going to throw up!
How game developers came to the conclusion that there has to be some viewable, hand-related element on screen at all times is beyond me. For instance, using the South Park game as an example, how many of us really hold our hands out in front of us when having a snowball fight? We also don't hold our weapons outstretched at all times, but in these games we do! It all seems to detract from that feeling of realism for me, and when they make these items move as we walk, it just throws the whole "look" of the game off. Yes, I can understand seeing the barrel of a rifle, if I'm carrying one, as it'll stick out in front of me, but why all weapons have to be handled this way is beyond me.
There have been other variations on the FPS themes, and one of the more impressive of these is the Quake tournaments, but even these get old for me fast.
The games that keep me coming back the most are actually the Civilization line of games. No, it's not action packed, and sometimes it too can get boring, but the challenge, and the AI of the game keep me coming back for more again and again.
I also can appreciate the online games, such as Everquest, or Ultima Online a bit more than the average FPS, simply because they're different, and feel more "immersive" to me, even if they're not photo quality, or 3-D. I also tend to return to Mame and SNES games (via an emulator) far more often than I do the FPS's.
In fact, I think that the continued (and growing) interest in emulators, and ol
Makes you look like an idiot!
/. readers, so you make your post anonymous.
A) You're so anal & smug that you feel the need to correct someone's innocent mistake, making sure to insult them in the process
B) And you're realistic enough to know that doing this is not going to make you popular with the
What's worse? A guy who mistypes a word, while making an otherwise legit post, or someone who feels the need to show their superiority by correcting them, all the while knowing that to do so is both uncool, and a waste of everyones time?
NEWSFLASH: Nobody fucking cares!
bitchecker?? Isat u?
I have to say that the thing I'm really looking forward to w/Tiger, is the Automater app!
I was a big fan/user of Automate , and AutoHotKey for the Windows platform, and was really looking forward to working with AppleScript on the OSX-side of things.
However AppleScript's code/syntax is really difficult for me to get into. It's attempt at being an "easy to read/use" code is SO different than anything I've used before, that it makes i hard for people who've scripted for other languages, be it Perl, Windows-Scripting, or *nix , or whatever, to easily pick it up.
It's a powerful language... I just wish the syntax was a little more... "computer-like", rather than the mix of normal speech, and computer terms that it is.
However Automater promises to make a lot of the simpler things easy, similar to the aforementioned Automate app, for Windows. I may still have to write some code for some of the more difficult operations, but Automater promises to make the simple things a lot easier, I think.
Same here... Jedit no longer runs, resulting in a segmentation fault.
Anyone have any solutions for this problem?
If you use MythTV, an ATI card will not work. I'll go so far as to say that an ATI AIW card isn't reccomended for any Linux-based PVR work. The coders blame ATI, and ATI says "What? We released Linux drivers!". It's a lot of finger pointing, and in the end is just frustrating to any AIW owner, such as m'self.
The Hauppage on the other hand, is the most reccomended PVR card I've seen - Both on the Linux end and the Windows end of things. It has a built in mpeg decoder/encoder, which allows the systems CPU to focus on things other than converting video for playback.
I recently came across the Hauppage 350 for $160 and am seriously considering one, however as we move into the HDTV age, I'm wondering if an HDTV-capable solution might be a better option.
(Yes, I realize there's PC-based HDTV options, but the Mac link was handy)
Nothing...
What are they going to do? They can chuck more lawsuits at the industry as a whole, but to keep doing this is just going to turn their entire agenda into a farce. No one will take them seriously, and they'll kinda end up in the same bucket of credibility as SCO find themselves in.
You can only cry wolf so many times before people stop believing you. To put that in perspective, you can only sue so many people before both your credibility, and your bank book runs dry.
And the music industry's making a lotta money still. Depending on who does the research, online music downloads may actually be helping the industry as a whole. Perhaps not so much the RIAA, but definately artists and labels who were previously shut off from the mainstream due to the RIAA's stranglehold on the entire industry.
So I hope that ISPs collectively thumb their noses at this offer. If nothing else, it's a huge privacy lawsuit just waiting to explode as people find out that their online actions were sent to a non-legal entity without their authorization.
While I still prefer the "beat the tar out of them" method of deterring spammers, this is a step in the right direction.
Althought past studies have proven that most of the worlds spam comes from the good ol' US of A, I have to wonder if punishments such as this will actually slow down the flow of spam, or if it'll push the criminals out of the country, and increase the amount from foreign countries. As much as I hate it, there's still a lot of money in Spam it appears, and I'm sure that there's quite a few countries who would turn a blind eye to the problem for the right cash (I'm looking at you China!)
Instead, use it, provide some constructive criticism, but don't dismiss it.
./ way of saying this would be that you need a net account just to play with yourself. No thanks, I can play with myself Net free, thank you very much! 8)=
I've already dismissed it. Any game that requires an internet connection just to play, is a game that I will not purchase. I can understand the net connection for multi-player play, but for any play? No thanks... There's plenty of other games our there to distract myself with, and amazingly, most of those only require a net connection if you want to play multiplayer with someone over the net.
The obvious
Do a google for "Shocking Tanks", and you'll see one of the best presents you can get for someone (including yourself!).
I don't have a link handy, but I got one for my brother from the Johnson Smith company. He and I were laughing our assess off while shocking one another (it's amazing the shock you get, when you consider relatively low power from regular ol' batteries!).
I highly reccomend it! But heed the warning: Not for those with pacemakers! That would be a bad thing.
...I don't think BeOS could come back as BeOS at this point.
BeOS/Zeta still can't even boot on a machine with a gig or more memory. As the world upgrades to more modern machines, BeOS loses more and more potential users.
To bad... It was nice in its day.
I think your tinfoil hat's a might too tight! 8)=
Coincidentally, I have a 19" LCD here at work, which is kinda on the fritz (unless you like the color blue - The monitor seems to have a fondness for coloring everything blue), and I've requested to go back to a CRT if possible, when they replace it next week.
Why? The LCD display isn't anywhere near as crisp when viewing small details. Also, I'm not a fan of the LCD's fixed resolution. You can go larger or smaller than the default size, but the image is nowhere near as good as it is at its native resolution.
I've got 2 21" Nokias at home, and although the power and heat reduction makes me constantly consider LCD's, the quality, and priciness of the LCD monitors have kept me stuck on CRT's for the time being.
I'm not neccesarily worried about the health effects per se', but I am concerned about eye fatigue! If I'm working at home in dim light for awhile in front of my CRT's, when I look away from the monitors, I'm unable to make out details for a minute or two while my eyes adjust to the dim light from the brightness of the CRT's. Not a huge concern, but it is the one that worries me most...
Event Name: Do not surf Slashdot on 4/1
Event Schedule: Annually
Repeat: Indefinitely
Reminder: 1 Day Prior to Event
Purpose: To avoid weak-assed attempts at humor
"Oh god, it's everywhere. It's in my T-Rex wounds."
ROTFLMAO
Nice Peter Griffin quote!
Don't forget the other important lesson from that movie: Never hide in the outhouse.
You may have to go, and can argue that the outhouse is the appropriate place to be in the event of a T-Rex attack, but don't do it! Bad things will happen!!
If they start offering free pop3 access to their free accounts, as gmail does, than maybe my yahoo accounts will get more usage.
As it is, the only thing my yahoo account's used for right now is a backup, in case I'm away from my personal pc.
Why should I as a consumer, lose any rights I have to what I purchase, simply because the big companys have found new ways to limit those rights?
I'm ok with digital watermarking to a point... As long as I can re-use it in any device/medium I see fit, with no limitations, I could learn to live with a watermark. I wouldn't be happy, but I could stomach it.
But to tell me "Give me your hard earned money, and we'll let you play with our toys - But only as we see fit" is laughable!
- Such DRM is easily circumvented in most cases. If not 100% digitally, then by sampling the analog output as a new mp3 (or wav, or whatever). True, you'd arguably lose some of the fidelity that the digital copy has, but realistically, that'd be only high quality mp3's we're talking about here (320k). Given a clean analog path (ie, no cheapie no-name soundcard, and good connections/cables) the average 128k mp3 will still sound inferior to a good mp3 ran through such a conversion. It ain't perfect, but it's a foolproof circumvention. Similarly many platforms have software already available to let them sample the output before it ever leaves the PC, negating the need to re-route/sample
- I still have to purchase additional equipment to use their DRM'd piece of crap. The day that the big media companies start furnishing me with free audio equipment is the day they can start dictating how I use their media on their equipment. And realistically, it'd be a hard sell to get me to give up my rights just for a free stereo in the 1st place.
- There are alternatives already in place to get non-DRM'd tracks. If you force DRM down my throat, I'll just go elsewhere to buy my music. For example, many overseas dealers are offering non-DRM'd tracks. If the RIAA wants to force DRM down our throats, I can guarantee that they'll only hurt American online music retailers, as there' no laws, and likely won't be any, for purchasing music from an international source. True, they may eventually get the whole world to cave to their will (unlikely as that is), but at that time, individual trading, and swap meets would take off. This is something that's already being discussed, and pursued by such software/companies as Delicous Monster's Library app - The next version's supposed to let you see and contact others with similar tastes to swap and trade. And I don't think you'll soon see America limiting public gatherings based on what music they might be listening to, and who might loan a CD to whom
Seriously, this whole DRM thing is so out of hand. You now have Senator Orwin, who already has been proven to be in bed with the big media companies, all set to head a committe which, for better or worse, will determine our future rights. Tell me this isn't proof that our government is currently controlled by big money interests.Long story short, No DRM for me, thank you. If you force it on me, you'll force me to get my media from alternative sources, from which you may, or may not see a profit.
It seems like every interview I see with the guy, he's going on about how computing's future is so bright ya gotta wear shades, so-to-speak.
And then shortly after such claims, he always follows them up by pointing out that Windows will, of course, be there, paving the way for the next wave of computing.
There's something about overly optimistic people that make me immediately doubt what they're claiming. Bill's no exception... By always ignoring the bad (Windows exploits, virii, etc), and gushing about the very operating system which is causing most of these problems, he really paints a picture of someone who's totally out of touch with the modern computing scene.
To me at least...
...It's awful hard to live up to the standards set by Firefox & Safari on the Mac!
I'm a Firefox diehard, but I find myself still launching Safari on occassion, either due to a neccesaiity (For instance, I don't fee; that DEVONthinks applescripts integrate as well with Firefox as they do with Safari), or just out of the "Wow, it feels so 'lightweight'" feeling that it brings to the table. And this is Firefox we're talking about here! It ain't no slouch when it comes to speed.
In fact, until v1 of Firefox came out, Safari was my number one browser when on the Mac (which is basically any non-work related computer time). But since v1 hit the streets, and especially since the (newish) Saferfox theme came out, Firefox is my browser of choice, just like it is under Linux & Windows.
The reason? The plugins! If Safari supported Firefox's plugins, I would be in a major dillemma(sp?) about which to use.
But this thread's about Camino, and the whole point I started out to make was that Camino's always felt like it was somehow a couple of versions, feature-wise, and stability-wise, behind Safari and Firefox. It is slick, but it's not as feature laden as Firefox, and the last release I used wasn't able to use Firefox's plugins. I hope that changes soon.
Hopefully this new site signals a more active development cycle for Camino. It's goals are to basically convert Firefox/Moz over to a more polished "native app" like look n' feel, which I think would/will be a great thing, if they can accomplish it.
On the other hand, if Safari follows KDE's lead (Safari's still based off Konqueror/KDE code, I believe), and ports the Moz rendering engine for use with Safari, they could, in theory at least, also make Firefox's plugins work also...
Suffice it say that Camino has its work cut out for it! Give me Firefox, the Adblocker, and Tabclick extensions, as well as the aforementioned Safefox theme, and it'll take something revolutionary to make me consider switching. After all, if I need something a little more Native app-like, I can always fall back on Safari! 8)=
After finally making the plunge last year to buy a Mac, I found myself giving more and more consideration to getting an ipod (something I'd previously wrote off as being overpriced, and unneccesary).
A year later, my ipod's with me daily, and serves up more than just music, via the amazing Pod2Go software. The only regret I have is not taking the plunge earlier than I did!
I went from hours and hours of tweaking, and modding my systems to behave in a somewhat intelligent manner, to just having a computer work the way I want it to. Someone in a different thread once put it best: "If I want to tweak and play, I can do so, but when I need to knuckle down and do real work, it just works, no tweaking needed". I couldn't have said it better myself.
I look forward to serving our micro-jet overlords...
Now maybe all you iPod owner wannabe's can remove the "Get a free ipod" link from your signature lines? For that matter, why not remove the free mini mac offers while we're at it?