Probably the latter.IIRC suse is a german, or at least european distro and it makes good sense to put your best foot forward at home and save a bit on foriegn markets.
It definately isn't always shrinkwraped here, I believe anywhere I saw it shrinkwraped it had the look of an in-store job. While not completely matt, it's definately not a glossy finish on the box, semi-gloss at best. Usually just a single color box, with plain text printing and thier logo in the upper left corner taking up maybee 1/6 the width and 1/8 the heihgt of the box. The color is usualy one of the duller colors , including a kind of sickly pea soup green.
But if it's packaging is more decorative In germany it's just a case of focusing on the home market most likely.
Any way just sharing an impression that suddenly struck me.
First I'm going to say I understand COMPLETELY how stupid this may sound, and in reality IS. But please show some patience and try not to mod me into oblivion.
I've seen suse boxes at local computer stores several times and they always look low grade to me, like buying a music cd with an obviously injet on paper insert.
Now one shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and all. But joe sixpack will quite often do just that.
I was just wondering if suse wouldn't do alot better with a snazzier box.
The reason I'm responding to the above poster is because he called it polished and I've always had the impression Suse wasn't so focused on desktop slickness and ease of use so much as underlying tech solidness. It took me a while to realize the box is why I'd made that (quite possibly wrong, deffiniately groundless from my knowledge of suse) assumption.
Well I'm just being silly and probably readin my own personal impressions into the general case. But I thought I'd throw it out and see if was just me.
Mandrakes box looks like polished and red hat like stuffy bussiness software to me fwiw.
Maybee thier brains are being addled for sitting in the focus point.
Or maybe thier sexy new pad has attrated some new friends who are a bad influence.:)
IIRC raven=crow. not positive, but if thier different it's a tiny thing. like one is slightly larger than the other. I just remember checking once and conluding they were the same. Like violin vs fiddle.
I wrote more lines in ONE class in my first semester. at least 3 of the class asssignments were bigger than 50 lines.
I would seriously question how 'good' your school (or at least the cs dept) was considering at the time I was in a community coll.
I did get the department head to waive a bunch of intro courses, but none were actuall degree courses, just intro courses and pre-req's for the degree courses.
It could. that's the simple answer. whether it will be used like that I don't know. But seeing as how 3d software has already had options to reduce polly count based on detail level for quite some time I don't see how it hasn't already been used unless this is some significant improvement on what is already done.
While shrek and it's ilk are all pre-rendered and not done in the movie theatre, that doesn't mean there is no correlation between this and that.
What this would do in the case of Shrek 3 et al is reduce how long it takes to pre-render the movie, and possibly reduce the quality of the render. Assuming this level of 'compression' used is settable like J-peg, then it might be possible to save some render time on background objects and less important details to spend more time on the important parts. Movies don't have to be done realtime, but they still have deadlines.
This sounds alot like the 'optimize mesh' routines in many 3d products such as 3d max.
What have they done that's different I wonder. Hopefully somthing that does a LOT better job of keeping the shape with respect to the number of pollies removed and or leave a more workable mesh. the mess Optimize leaves sometimes is atrocious if you want to do more work on a model.
I see your argument, however the matter is complicated by the facts not advertised.
There are CIVILIANS in the military chain of command (suprised my brother when he had to learn that in boot).
Also if the President is head of the military, and counts as military, why not the guy who automatically replaces him on his death (ie the VP).
Like I said I'm still thinking this one out because of the grey issues.
Ahh your the landlord, not the new tennant. does change a few things.
Well if it's been there long enough it may be yours anyway. Besides if it's been there long then I doubt anyone but you cares if even that.
Still in that case should it ever become a serious issue (don't know how how it could unless the Dish comes for it and damages the roof badly enough) you'd want to double check with a I lawyer anyway.
In the meantime you make the crows happy:)
Even if a safe, unobtrosive, copy protection were devised, it would still raise the cost of anything it was added to. And would be useless (as it is now) for it's intended purpose without hardware drm and laws like the dmca. Both of which limit my rights and endanger such things as open source. This is ignoring my rights concerning the software itself.
This stuff is snake oil that only harms the customer buying such damaged goods.
If macrovision was telling the truth, then yes it might be o.k. if thier crap didn't screw up peoples computers from time to time. Not shure if thier specific products have, only that many products in thier field have.
The problem is it's NOT TRUE except for the first two weeks after the FIRST title using a new version that's significantly different that the last version. And that assumes no inside leaks at macrovision, any of the companies developing the game, or any of the companies distributing the game. Those last two on some games I have make about 5-8 companies. sheesh how many logo movies can they put on one cd.
Once a new system is cracked, it's a matter of hours after it's known what a new game is using before the crack hits the web. I've even seen notices along the lines of 'just use the same crack for game-x on the new game-y that comes out tomorrow.'
It's snake oil. And you better believe that it not only makes the new game you just bought unreliable, but more expensive.
To bad you can't just tell the publishers to take a hike.
Do tell them you get alot of people complaining about the 'protection' who thing the problems thier computers are having are cause by your code and it's often the protection.
Tell them you can always find a bypass for it within a week of release on the net.
Tell them they are being sold snake oil by "the purveyors of that junk".
That last one is telling. If you can show them how it hurts thier bottom line, they'll stop doing it.
And that's ALL it doese is cost them money. They ARE being sold a bill of goods by the 'protection' people. Most of these schemes are broken withing weeks of thier introduction, and are sold for a year or two for many titles.
Find the article about how one scheme was bypassed by drawing a line with marker on the cd!.(slashdot covered it)
Follow the Money, fix the Problem.
The only serious problem I have with your premis is the fact that many copy protection schemes are BAD for your computer.
The most common issue is software that boots on startup and always runs, stealling cpu cycles. but at least one system not only doese that, but installs itself as a driver, one that till recently conflicted with the usb drivers used by windows to work with usb-memory key type device. I read at least one report by a colledge student who lost a good part of a semesters work while transfering files to such a device.
Then there are copy protection schemes that like to write to areas of the HD in the boot track so that they can hide data and protect it from a format, nevermind that the owner might be dual booting with an os that needs that area to boot properly.
So no, even if they were willing to replace a damaged or defective disc for free, should they be putting that crap on my computer. especially when they don't even tell you thier doing it. If it runs when the program I installed is not running, or it writes to parts of the HD that are NOT in user space, or tinkers with my o.s. without my explicit and informed consent, it's morally the same as hacking in and trojaning my system.
Yes, however I do not believe they mean effective in the sense you or I might use it in.
By effective I believe they basically mean 'works as long as nothing is specifically done to bypass it'.
Ahh, o.k. I see your point a bit better now.
Well it has been shown that the left side is dominant in most people when handling logical and math oriented functions and the right in such things as asthetics and art. But it's usually on the order of a 60-40 to 80-20 split, not a total devide. And the brain CAN compensate for damage by shifting functionality around in many cases, moreso than was traditionally thought.
I find the brain amazing and am not the least bit suprised at how difficult it is to create artificial intelligence, of couse I still believe we can and will some day pull it off.
What is even more interesting about a civil case is it's not just win or loose. But all shades in between and then some.
The plaintif asks for $X and the jurry can (within whatever defined limits the law governing sets if any) decide the issue is worth any $ from 0 to some huge multiple x, and then decide to what percentage the defendant is responsible for it.
Thus even if the plaintiff asks for say $10,000 the jurry could decide $100,000,000 is more apropriate, but the defendand is really only liable for 75% of the award. or decide it's only worth $5,000 and the defendand is only 5% liable.
Though some types of awards are limited by statute, and I believe in many cases judges, especially on apeal, can have some say. Usually if the award is rediculous, or the jury is obviously motivated by somthing other than the evidence. Dunno for certain about that last bit though. IANAL so my explanation in large comes from the one case where I was involved in civil litigation.
Not exactly, at least not in Missuouri. What your refering to is what happens when a RENTER makes a permanent change to a rented dwelling.
If, for example, you were renting a house and added an awning to a porch, that awning would then be a part of the house and belong to the home owner.
Now if the home owner adds somthing to the house that's not his, i.e. leased equipment, he suddenly doesn't gain ownership of the equipment.
The reason, IIRC, for this to to prevent people from making permanent changes to house, then expecting to take the change with them, or have the landlord pay for them. Also if the change is unwanted (by the landlord) he can usually require you to undo them and restore the house to it's previous state, or do so himself and charge you. Thus it's usually best to get permision (hopefully in writing) before making any changes to a rental property, especially if they would be expensive to undo.
Also I think if someone rented a house and attached leased equipment to it, the landlord wouldn't necessarily get to keep it. But he would probably be within his rights in keeping enough of the deposit to fix any damage or other issues caused by it's removal. A renter wouldn't have the leagle right to transfer ownership. It would be like me renting a U-Hall truck then trying to sell it my neighbor. U-Hall could still come get the truck even if my neighbor had already paid me for it.
Now IANAL, and this is by no means a full summary of the situation. Especially as jurisdictions,case law, and nuances I may have missed or elements I've forgotten or remembered wrong could be significant. So check with appropriate leagle council BEFORE assuming anything.
that one line was supposed to read I do like that your official (just curious, official how, dictionary, us law, international law?) deffinition matches, and better states, my general opinion.
That's pretty much the main reason I pointed out it was my point of view, to warn people it wasn't necessarily broad viewpoint or in any way 'official'. So yeah it's meaningless other than as reference to one random persons thinking.
I do like that your official (just curious, official how, dictionary, us law, international law?).
My real focus was on whether or not attacking the civilian leadership would be terrorism, or somthing more legitimate. IE if someone attacks attacks a tank on the battlefield, thats hardly terrorism, if they blow up a highschool it is. But what if they make a try for congress or the president?
I got a buddy who keeps his AOL for ONE reason, desperate single women he meets in the chat room. Don't completly get him wrong, he's a decent guy, just doesn't like how women typically hold all the cards, he's a 0 stress oriented person.
Not to mention that if you loose the key but still have the disk you are suddenly without access to somthing you paid good money for.
I have a game that's fun to play, but I don't play it often cause it's only fun when I'm in the right mood. well somewhere in a move I lost the 'quick start guide' which is the only place that had the key on it. Now I can only play one demo level and that's it. I've searched for a key or keygen but not recently, need to do so again.
If you absolutely insist on cd keys then PRINT them ON the cd. I've since learned my lesson and have my cd keys ON the cd's themselves via a cd-marker.
Slashdot Mirror
Probably the latter.IIRC suse is a german, or at least european distro and it makes good sense to put your best foot forward at home and save a bit on foriegn markets.
It definately isn't always shrinkwraped here, I believe anywhere I saw it shrinkwraped it had the look of an in-store job. While not completely matt, it's definately not a glossy finish on the box, semi-gloss at best. Usually just a single color box, with plain text printing and thier logo in the upper left corner taking up maybee 1/6 the width and 1/8 the heihgt of the box. The color is usualy one of the duller colors , including a kind of sickly pea soup green.
But if it's packaging is more decorative In germany it's just a case of focusing on the home market most likely.
Any way just sharing an impression that suddenly struck me.
Mycroft
First I'm going to say I understand COMPLETELY how stupid this may sound, and in reality IS. But please show some patience and try not to mod me into oblivion.
I've seen suse boxes at local computer stores several times and they always look low grade to me, like buying a music cd with an obviously injet on paper insert.
Now one shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and all. But joe sixpack will quite often do just that.
I was just wondering if suse wouldn't do alot better with a snazzier box.
The reason I'm responding to the above poster is because he called it polished and I've always had the impression Suse wasn't so focused on desktop slickness and ease of use so much as underlying tech solidness. It took me a while to realize the box is why I'd made that (quite possibly wrong, deffiniately groundless from my knowledge of suse) assumption.
Well I'm just being silly and probably readin my own personal impressions into the general case. But I thought I'd throw it out and see if was just me.
Mandrakes box looks like polished and red hat like stuffy bussiness software to me fwiw.
Mycroft
Maybee thier brains are being addled for sitting in the focus point. :)
Or maybe thier sexy new pad has attrated some new friends who are a bad influence.
IIRC raven=crow. not positive, but if thier different it's a tiny thing. like one is slightly larger than the other. I just remember checking once and conluding they were the same. Like violin vs fiddle.
Mycroft
I wrote more lines in ONE class in my first semester. at least 3 of the class asssignments were bigger than 50 lines.
I would seriously question how 'good' your school (or at least the cs dept) was considering at the time I was in a community coll.
I did get the department head to waive a bunch of intro courses, but none were actuall degree courses, just intro courses and pre-req's for the degree courses.
Mycorft
It could. that's the simple answer.
whether it will be used like that I don't know. But seeing as how 3d software has already had options to reduce polly count based on detail level for quite some time I don't see how it hasn't already been used unless this is some significant improvement on what is already done.
Mycroft
While shrek and it's ilk are all pre-rendered and not done in the movie theatre, that doesn't mean there is no correlation between this and that.
What this would do in the case of Shrek 3 et al is reduce how long it takes to pre-render the movie, and possibly reduce the quality of the render. Assuming this level of 'compression' used is settable like J-peg, then it might be possible to save some render time on background objects and less important details to spend more time on the important parts. Movies don't have to be done realtime, but they still have deadlines.
Mycroft.
This sounds alot like the 'optimize mesh' routines in many 3d products such as 3d max.
What have they done that's different I wonder. Hopefully somthing that does a LOT better job of keeping the shape with respect to the number of pollies removed and or leave a more workable mesh. the mess Optimize leaves sometimes is atrocious if you want to do more work on a model.
Mycroft
I see your argument, however the matter is complicated by the facts not advertised.
There are CIVILIANS in the military chain of command (suprised my brother when he had to learn that in boot).
Also if the President is head of the military, and counts as military, why not the guy who automatically replaces him on his death (ie the VP).
Like I said I'm still thinking this one out because of the grey issues.
Mycroft
Should be more than good enough for a slashdot discussion. thx
Mycroft
Ahh your the landlord, not the new tennant. does change a few things. :)
Well if it's been there long enough it may be yours anyway. Besides if it's been there long then I doubt anyone but you cares if even that.
Still in that case should it ever become a serious issue (don't know how how it could unless the Dish comes for it and damages the roof badly enough) you'd want to double check with a I lawyer anyway.
In the meantime you make the crows happy
Mycroft
Even if a safe, unobtrosive, copy protection were devised, it would still raise the cost of anything it was added to. And would be useless (as it is now) for it's intended purpose without hardware drm and laws like the dmca. Both of which limit my rights and endanger such things as open source. This is ignoring my rights concerning the software itself.
This stuff is snake oil that only harms the customer buying such damaged goods.
Mycroft
If macrovision was telling the truth, then yes it might be o.k. if thier crap didn't screw up peoples computers from time to time. Not shure if thier specific products have, only that many products in thier field have.
The problem is it's NOT TRUE except for the first two weeks after the FIRST title using a new version that's significantly different that the last version. And that assumes no inside leaks at macrovision, any of the companies developing the game, or any of the companies distributing the game. Those last two on some games I have make about 5-8 companies. sheesh how many logo movies can they put on one cd.
Once a new system is cracked, it's a matter of hours after it's known what a new game is using before the crack hits the web. I've even seen notices along the lines of 'just use the same crack for game-x on the new game-y that comes out tomorrow.'
It's snake oil. And you better believe that it not only makes the new game you just bought unreliable, but more expensive.
Mycroft
good grief, I'd hate to think what the last three words did with that thought in your mind.
Mycroft
To bad you can't just tell the publishers to take a hike.
Do tell them you get alot of people complaining about the 'protection' who thing the problems thier computers are having are cause by your code and it's often the protection.
Tell them you can always find a bypass for it within a week of release on the net.
Tell them they are being sold snake oil by "the purveyors of that junk".
That last one is telling. If you can show them how it hurts thier bottom line, they'll stop doing it.
And that's ALL it doese is cost them money. They ARE being sold a bill of goods by the 'protection' people. Most of these schemes are broken withing weeks of thier introduction, and are sold for a year or two for many titles.
Find the article about how one scheme was bypassed by drawing a line with marker on the cd!.(slashdot covered it)
Follow the Money, fix the Problem.
Mycroft
The only serious problem I have with your premis is the fact that many copy protection schemes are BAD for your computer.
The most common issue is software that boots on startup and always runs, stealling cpu cycles. but at least one system not only doese that, but installs itself as a driver, one that till recently conflicted with the usb drivers used by windows to work with usb-memory key type device. I read at least one report by a colledge student who lost a good part of a semesters work while transfering files to such a device.
Then there are copy protection schemes that like to write to areas of the HD in the boot track so that they can hide data and protect it from a format, nevermind that the owner might be dual booting with an os that needs that area to boot properly.
So no, even if they were willing to replace a damaged or defective disc for free, should they be putting that crap on my computer. especially when they don't even tell you thier doing it. If it runs when the program I installed is not running, or it writes to parts of the HD that are NOT in user space, or tinkers with my o.s. without my explicit and informed consent, it's morally the same as hacking in and trojaning my system.
Mycroft
Yes, however I do not believe they mean effective in the sense you or I might use it in.
By effective I believe they basically mean 'works as long as nothing is specifically done to bypass it'.
Mycroft
And yet, despite the ad-hom. attack, he actually at least presented an argument. Were-as you mearly provided an attack.
Mycroft
Ahh, o.k. I see your point a bit better now.
Well it has been shown that the left side is dominant in most people when handling logical and math oriented functions and the right in such things as asthetics and art. But it's usually on the order of a 60-40 to 80-20 split, not a total devide. And the brain CAN compensate for damage by shifting functionality around in many cases, moreso than was traditionally thought.
I find the brain amazing and am not the least bit suprised at how difficult it is to create artificial intelligence, of couse I still believe we can and will some day pull it off.
Mycoft
What is even more interesting about a civil case is it's not just win or loose. But all shades in between and then some.
The plaintif asks for $X and the jurry can (within whatever defined limits the law governing sets if any) decide the issue is worth any $ from 0 to some huge multiple x, and then decide to what percentage the defendant is responsible for it.
Thus even if the plaintiff asks for say $10,000 the jurry could decide $100,000,000 is more apropriate, but the defendand is really only liable for 75% of the award. or decide it's only worth $5,000 and the defendand is only 5% liable.
Though some types of awards are limited by statute, and I believe in many cases judges, especially on apeal, can have some say. Usually if the award is rediculous, or the jury is obviously motivated by somthing other than the evidence. Dunno for certain about that last bit though. IANAL so my explanation in large comes from the one case where I was involved in civil litigation.
Mycroft
Not exactly, at least not in Missuouri.
What your refering to is what happens when a RENTER makes a permanent change to a rented dwelling.
If, for example, you were renting a house and added an awning to a porch, that awning would then be a part of the house and belong to the home owner.
Now if the home owner adds somthing to the house that's not his, i.e. leased equipment, he suddenly doesn't gain ownership of the equipment.
The reason, IIRC, for this to to prevent people from making permanent changes to house, then expecting to take the change with them, or have the landlord pay for them. Also if the change is unwanted (by the landlord) he can usually require you to undo them and restore the house to it's previous state, or do so himself and charge you. Thus it's usually best to get permision (hopefully in writing) before making any changes to a rental property, especially if they would be expensive to undo.
Also I think if someone rented a house and attached leased equipment to it, the landlord wouldn't necessarily get to keep it. But he would probably be within his rights in keeping enough of the deposit to fix any damage or other issues caused by it's removal. A renter wouldn't have the leagle right to transfer ownership. It would be like me renting a U-Hall truck then trying to sell it my neighbor. U-Hall could still come get the truck even if my neighbor had already paid me for it.
Now IANAL, and this is by no means a full summary of the situation. Especially as jurisdictions,case law, and nuances I may have missed or elements I've forgotten or remembered wrong could be significant. So check with appropriate leagle council BEFORE assuming anything.
Mycroft
Dagnabit, hit the wrong button.
that one line was supposed to read
I do like that your official (just curious, official how, dictionary, us law, international law?) deffinition matches, and better states, my general opinion.
gotta watch what I'm doing better. sorry
Mycroft
That's pretty much the main reason I pointed out it was my point of view, to warn people it wasn't necessarily broad viewpoint or in any way 'official'. So yeah it's meaningless other than as reference to one random persons thinking.
I do like that your official (just curious, official how, dictionary, us law, international law?).
My real focus was on whether or not attacking the civilian leadership would be terrorism, or somthing more legitimate. IE if someone attacks attacks a tank on the battlefield, thats hardly terrorism, if they blow up a highschool it is. But what if they make a try for congress or the president?
Mycroft
I got a buddy who keeps his AOL for ONE reason, desperate single women he meets in the chat room. Don't completly get him wrong, he's a decent guy, just doesn't like how women typically hold all the cards, he's a 0 stress oriented person.
Mycroft
Sure that wasn't meant as "a handfull of small people rejoice"?
Mycroft
Not to mention that if you loose the key but still have the disk you are suddenly without access to somthing you paid good money for.
I have a game that's fun to play, but I don't play it often cause it's only fun when I'm in the right mood. well somewhere in a move I lost the 'quick start guide' which is the only place that had the key on it. Now I can only play one demo level and that's it. I've searched for a key or keygen but not recently, need to do so again.
If you absolutely insist on cd keys then PRINT them ON the cd. I've since learned my lesson and have my cd keys ON the cd's themselves via a cd-marker.
Mycroft