"Users don't want DRM or proprietry solutions, they want data interchange to be easier. This is the network effect and resistance really is futile."
But DRM really has nothing to do with the operating system. It's mandated by the *media producers*. You want to make and OS that plays Blu-Ray/HD-DVDs? You have to buy a license, and the license requires that you include DRM.
You want to buy music online? The only way to buy it legally is in DRM'd form. And, of course, the codecs require a license, and the license requires that you respect the DRM.
And proprietary solutions? How many people are truly tied to proprietary software these days? Almost every format that anyone regularly deals with is readable by at least ONE other piece of software. Hell, even the MS Office formats are pretty easily dealt with, with the exception of Access. The only proprietary formats left are custom binary formats created for use in shitty, "custom" business software.
Don't get me wrong, Linux is great, and I think that eventually it will be fairly widely used on the desktop. But the "open formats will win the war" argument is dumb. Most formats are already easily converted, or *legally* restricted (thank you, DMCA and USPTO), and hence they can never be open, anyway.
It's not more demanding than contemporary games, really
But remember, the GUI has to work with every other part of the system. It can't be "optimized" in the same way as a game, because it's not really a standalone application.
Or are we all forgetting that OS X's GUI was fairly sluggish until they switched to Intel machines with real graphics cards? The Intel Macs should run Vista pretty well.
"Cover bands" are allowed to play because the venue they are playing at is paying royalties to BMI/ASCAP. If they aren't paying royalties, then they are breaking the law.
And no, a band doesn't need "permission" to play an artist's song. They just need to make sure royalties are paid.
Basically, if you are performing/playing a song in public, royalties have to be paid. As to what defines "public"...well...that's why we have lawyers.
Surgeons have succeeded in transplanting a frog's brain into a cloned copy of The Handsome Prince's body.
This comes after last weeks news that Little Miss Muffet didn't know what a "tuffet" was at the time of the incident with the spider, and that her subsequent testimony was completely fabricated by her lawyers.
Seems there is always a new "zero day" exploit for Windows. Most times, the exploit can be activated simply by visiting a webpage that has been crafted to take advantage of it.
Does anyone actually know anyone that has been affected by any of these exploits? Seems to me that the odds of actually visiting a site that "runs" the exploit is incredibly low.
Well, there is a lot more talk about "code re-use", and programming in general, in "A Deepness in the Sky". Sytem software is something of a major part of the plot.
"A Fire Upon the Deep" doesn't go into nearly as much detail about such things.
Incidentally, I thought "A Fire Upon the Deep" was a much better book, partially because it doesn't obsess over the details like "Deepness" does.
Wirelessly download your favorite clips of teenage morons talking/mugging into their webcam about their incredibly uninteresting lives! All for only $12.95/month! Includes 300 free copies of Kevin Federline's latest hit CD, "Playing With Fire"!
The problem is, even if you were to reverse-engineer the Windows Media codecs, they have patents on the *algorithms themselves*. Which is the same issue with the JPEG patent. You can reverse-engineer it all you want, but if it actually WORKS, it's almost guaranteed to infringe on MS's patents.
It's similar to the old Nintendo tactic from the NES days. The NES system checked each cartridge to see if it had a bit of copyrighted text (Yes, plain text. Not code.)that Nintendo inserted into every cartridge they made. If that copyrighted text wasn't present, the cartridge didn't work. This prevented third-parties from manufacturing NES cartridges, because how could they put Nintendo's copyrighted text into their ROMs legally, without Nintendo's permmission, which they never gave to anyone? They couldn't.
The specs on the graphics hardware were simply INCREDIBLE for that time. The MSX 2, especially, was easily more powerful than the Amiga was (for games, anyway).
Do Google search for some screenshots of some of those games, especially the Konami tiles (Salamander, Vampire Killer, Metal Gear). The MSX machines were unrivaled gaming machines until the SNES was released.
a)a machine powerful enough to run Vista well
b)actually care about upgrading their operating system
The answer is "not many". I can count on one hand the number of people I know that have upgraded the operating system on their PC. Almost everyone just buys a new PC. Especially these days, where every 12 months you can buy an $600 machine that is TWICE as fast as the $600 machine you bought 12 months ago.
Upgrades are pointless, is what I'm saying. And even if NO ONE upgraded to Vista, MS is still going to sell a zillion copies on new machines.
Yeah, and any society that stifles free speech is a society that needs to change.
Let's not pretend that "to each his own" applies when we're talking about governments/religions/societies that restrict basica human freedoms. The reason that "Western culture" is taking over in most of the world is because it is a BETTER CULTURE in many, if not most, ways. Too many people mistakenly wax nostalgiac for the good old days of the Old World, and forget that the Old World was mostly a living hell for the vast majority of the non-ruling class.
If you don't have any use for it, let the CS majors use it. They NEED those cycles and storage. The students-at-large probably don't. They can get all those services for free from some other website.
Why try to re-invent the wheel (and then have to *support* that wheel)?
What I'm saying is, make all the stuff you currently have work better, maybe add a feature that people have been asking about, but don't bother with stuff that you don't need.
Why would you want your RAM to be unused? Unused RAM is useless RAM. Seriously.
I'm sure that Vista is smart enough to free up the RAM that SuperFetch is using if it could be better used for something else. It's really nothing more than a more pro-active version of the disc-cacheing that every operating system already uses.
I had installed plain-old Ubuntu a few months back, and was fairly impressed.
But Kubuntu....well, it sucks. The interface is cluttered as hell. I actually had a couple of apps FREEZE, which I've never seen before. It's slower than Gnome on my machine. File management is goofy. The themes are ugly. And, honestly, it seems to me that most of the cooler applications are written for Gnome/GTK, and don't fit in very well under KDE.
I was suprised at how bad it was, actually. I used KDE way back when, because it was better than Gnome. But I think the tide has turned.
Now if the Gnome guys (and KDE guys, too) could just figure out a way to have decent fonts installed by default, with the correct anti-aliasing and hinting. I *hate* all the screwing around you have to do to get fonts to look good on Linux. It's retarded. Everything else is a few clicks away, but to get fonts looking good you have to hand edit multiple config files.
If you could run TCP/IP wireless connections over the VHF spectrum, it would be HUGE.
Imagine high-speed wireless internet with the range of broadcast TV.
The problem is, neither the cell phone companies, the DSL providers, or the cable providers will EVER allow it to happen. It would nearly kill their internet service sales in a lot of markets. I fully expect the FCC/feds to announce that the spectrum is open for aything "except data services" or something equally stupid.
I generally like Microsoft's products. I even defend them, and think that they are in the position they are in because they make better products than the competition.
But these new license terms are bullshit. Even worse, Vista is going to have all kinds of crappy DRM stuff.
And what does the future hold? Is the next version of Windows going to require a monthly fee to keep it working? Am I going to have to pay the RIAA and MPAA a few bucks every time I watch a movie, listen to a song, or burn a CD/DVD?
I really am beginning to think the answers to those questions are "YES". It's actually scary.
Needless to say, I don't plan on buying Vista. I'll keep using XP until I can't anymore, and then it's Ubuntu from then on.
I imagine that ICANN will say "Uh...no" if they actually do get that court order. I mean, ICANN is kind of evil, but I guarantee they hate spammers AT LEAST as much as everyone else.
Sounds like it's one of those super-realistic FPSs, where you have to really aim and work with your team and stuff.
I could never get into those, personally. I just want to kill things. Isn't the full "simulation"-type FPS more of a PC thing? Isn't the console market more about "fast action", like Halo (which isn't that fast, but you know what I mean)? I'm curious how 360 owners will respond.
So far, the 360 really seems like a cheap(er) way to play high-end PC games. It doesn't have many traditional console-y games, in my opinion.
Seriously, isn't Ubuntu basically the "winner" of the "desktop Linux distro" wars?
It's just so much better than anything else, mostly because of apt/Synaptic. Plus, it has momentum, so the repositories have lots of new/exotic packages that most other distros don't. And, even better, they keeep the distro as a whole very up-to-date.
I just can't think of a reason to use anything *but* Ubuntu on the desktop. Well, if you're talking about Linux destkops, anyway.
When the source code is available to everyone, that also means that it's easier for the enemy to find security holes to exploit.
"Security through obscurity" isn't a bad thing. If you can manage to keep tight control over who has access to the source code, you've eliminated one more security issue. Obviously, the quality of the code is more important. But still.
If you can't PROVE that you purchased (or otherwise legally own) the actual physical media and at one time actually had it in your possession, then you don't really "own" it, as far as the law is concerned.
Which makes backups pretty pointless, unless you keep all of your receipts.
And no, your daughter can't have MP3s of CDs that are in YOUR possession, and that you purchased. At least, not after she moves out of your home.
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"Users don't want DRM or proprietry solutions, they want data interchange to be easier. This is the network effect and resistance really is futile." But DRM really has nothing to do with the operating system. It's mandated by the *media producers*. You want to make and OS that plays Blu-Ray/HD-DVDs? You have to buy a license, and the license requires that you include DRM.
You want to buy music online? The only way to buy it legally is in DRM'd form. And, of course, the codecs require a license, and the license requires that you respect the DRM.
And proprietary solutions? How many people are truly tied to proprietary software these days? Almost every format that anyone regularly deals with is readable by at least ONE other piece of software. Hell, even the MS Office formats are pretty easily dealt with, with the exception of Access. The only proprietary formats left are custom binary formats created for use in shitty, "custom" business software. Don't get me wrong, Linux is great, and I think that eventually it will be fairly widely used on the desktop. But the "open formats will win the war" argument is dumb. Most formats are already easily converted, or *legally* restricted (thank you, DMCA and USPTO), and hence they can never be open, anyway.
It's not more demanding than contemporary games, really
But remember, the GUI has to work with every other part of the system. It can't be "optimized" in the same way as a game, because it's not really a standalone application.
Or are we all forgetting that OS X's GUI was fairly sluggish until they switched to Intel machines with real graphics cards? The Intel Macs should run Vista pretty well.
You're basically wrong on all counts.
"Cover bands" are allowed to play because the venue they are playing at is paying royalties to BMI/ASCAP. If they aren't paying royalties, then they are breaking the law.
And no, a band doesn't need "permission" to play an artist's song. They just need to make sure royalties are paid.
Basically, if you are performing/playing a song in public, royalties have to be paid. As to what defines "public"...well...that's why we have lawyers.
Surgeons have succeeded in transplanting a frog's brain into a cloned copy of The Handsome Prince's body.
This comes after last weeks news that Little Miss Muffet didn't know what a "tuffet" was at the time of the incident with the spider, and that her subsequent testimony was completely fabricated by her lawyers.
Yup. Just like ethernet is becoming the new AT&T.
Your analogy sucks. You are an idiot.
Seems there is always a new "zero day" exploit for Windows. Most times, the exploit can be activated simply by visiting a webpage that has been crafted to take advantage of it.
Does anyone actually know anyone that has been affected by any of these exploits? Seems to me that the odds of actually visiting a site that "runs" the exploit is incredibly low.
Well, there is a lot more talk about "code re-use", and programming in general, in "A Deepness in the Sky". Sytem software is something of a major part of the plot.
"A Fire Upon the Deep" doesn't go into nearly as much detail about such things.
Incidentally, I thought "A Fire Upon the Deep" was a much better book, partially because it doesn't obsess over the details like "Deepness" does.
They could call it the YouTard.
Wirelessly download your favorite clips of teenage morons talking/mugging into their webcam about their incredibly uninteresting lives! All for only $12.95/month! Includes 300 free copies of Kevin Federline's latest hit CD, "Playing With Fire"!
The problem is, even if you were to reverse-engineer the Windows Media codecs, they have patents on the *algorithms themselves*. Which is the same issue with the JPEG patent. You can reverse-engineer it all you want, but if it actually WORKS, it's almost guaranteed to infringe on MS's patents.
It's similar to the old Nintendo tactic from the NES days. The NES system checked each cartridge to see if it had a bit of copyrighted text (Yes, plain text. Not code.)that Nintendo inserted into every cartridge they made. If that copyrighted text wasn't present, the cartridge didn't work. This prevented third-parties from manufacturing NES cartridges, because how could they put Nintendo's copyrighted text into their ROMs legally, without Nintendo's permmission, which they never gave to anyone? They couldn't.
Is the fact that that of those 100 million, *at least* 99 million are porn sites.
God Bless the Internet.
"I started to buy the albums I wanted on vinyl and just downloaded the MP3s of the music separately."
You do realize that simply owning the vinyl version doesn't make it legal for you to download the MP3s from somewhere, right?
To be completely legal, you'd have to make your own MP3s directly from your vinyl recording.
Not that anyone would ever care, but still.
Seriously. Check out the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX
The specs on the graphics hardware were simply INCREDIBLE for that time. The MSX 2, especially, was easily more powerful than the Amiga was (for games, anyway).
Do Google search for some screenshots of some of those games, especially the Konami tiles (Salamander, Vampire Killer, Metal Gear). The MSX machines were unrivaled gaming machines until the SNES was released.
Pretty awesome, actually.
I only wrote five words. Shit.
Agreed. How many people have:
a)a machine powerful enough to run Vista well
b)actually care about upgrading their operating system
The answer is "not many". I can count on one hand the number of people I know that have upgraded the operating system on their PC. Almost everyone just buys a new PC. Especially these days, where every 12 months you can buy an $600 machine that is TWICE as fast as the $600 machine you bought 12 months ago.
Upgrades are pointless, is what I'm saying. And even if NO ONE upgraded to Vista, MS is still going to sell a zillion copies on new machines.
"Different societies have different values"
Yeah, and any society that stifles free speech is a society that needs to change.
Let's not pretend that "to each his own" applies when we're talking about governments/religions/societies that restrict basica human freedoms. The reason that "Western culture" is taking over in most of the world is because it is a BETTER CULTURE in many, if not most, ways. Too many people mistakenly wax nostalgiac for the good old days of the Old World, and forget that the Old World was mostly a living hell for the vast majority of the non-ruling class.
If you don't have any use for it, let the CS majors use it. They NEED those cycles and storage. The students-at-large probably don't. They can get all those services for free from some other website.
Why try to re-invent the wheel (and then have to *support* that wheel)?
What I'm saying is, make all the stuff you currently have work better, maybe add a feature that people have been asking about, but don't bother with stuff that you don't need.
Why would you want your RAM to be unused? Unused RAM is useless RAM. Seriously.
I'm sure that Vista is smart enough to free up the RAM that SuperFetch is using if it could be better used for something else. It's really nothing more than a more pro-active version of the disc-cacheing that every operating system already uses.
I had installed plain-old Ubuntu a few months back, and was fairly impressed.
But Kubuntu....well, it sucks. The interface is cluttered as hell. I actually had a couple of apps FREEZE, which I've never seen before. It's slower than Gnome on my machine. File management is goofy. The themes are ugly. And, honestly, it seems to me that most of the cooler applications are written for Gnome/GTK, and don't fit in very well under KDE.
I was suprised at how bad it was, actually. I used KDE way back when, because it was better than Gnome. But I think the tide has turned.
Now if the Gnome guys (and KDE guys, too) could just figure out a way to have decent fonts installed by default, with the correct anti-aliasing and hinting. I *hate* all the screwing around you have to do to get fonts to look good on Linux. It's retarded. Everything else is a few clicks away, but to get fonts looking good you have to hand edit multiple config files.
If you could run TCP/IP wireless connections over the VHF spectrum, it would be HUGE.
Imagine high-speed wireless internet with the range of broadcast TV.
The problem is, neither the cell phone companies, the DSL providers, or the cable providers will EVER allow it to happen. It would nearly kill their internet service sales in a lot of markets. I fully expect the FCC/feds to announce that the spectrum is open for aything "except data services" or something equally stupid.
I generally like Microsoft's products. I even defend them, and think that they are in the position they are in because they make better products than the competition.
But these new license terms are bullshit. Even worse, Vista is going to have all kinds of crappy DRM stuff.
And what does the future hold? Is the next version of Windows going to require a monthly fee to keep it working? Am I going to have to pay the RIAA and MPAA a few bucks every time I watch a movie, listen to a song, or burn a CD/DVD?
I really am beginning to think the answers to those questions are "YES". It's actually scary.
Needless to say, I don't plan on buying Vista. I'll keep using XP until I can't anymore, and then it's Ubuntu from then on.
I imagine that ICANN will say "Uh...no" if they actually do get that court order. I mean, ICANN is kind of evil, but I guarantee they hate spammers AT LEAST as much as everyone else.
Sounds like it's one of those super-realistic FPSs, where you have to really aim and work with your team and stuff.
I could never get into those, personally. I just want to kill things. Isn't the full "simulation"-type FPS more of a PC thing? Isn't the console market more about "fast action", like Halo (which isn't that fast, but you know what I mean)? I'm curious how 360 owners will respond.
So far, the 360 really seems like a cheap(er) way to play high-end PC games. It doesn't have many traditional console-y games, in my opinion.
Seriously, isn't Ubuntu basically the "winner" of the "desktop Linux distro" wars?
It's just so much better than anything else, mostly because of apt/Synaptic. Plus, it has momentum, so the repositories have lots of new/exotic packages that most other distros don't. And, even better, they keeep the distro as a whole very up-to-date.
I just can't think of a reason to use anything *but* Ubuntu on the desktop. Well, if you're talking about Linux destkops, anyway.
When the source code is available to everyone, that also means that it's easier for the enemy to find security holes to exploit.
"Security through obscurity" isn't a bad thing. If you can manage to keep tight control over who has access to the source code, you've eliminated one more security issue. Obviously, the quality of the code is more important. But still.
Those aren't "grey areas".
If you can't PROVE that you purchased (or otherwise legally own) the actual physical media and at one time actually had it in your possession, then you don't really "own" it, as far as the law is concerned.
Which makes backups pretty pointless, unless you keep all of your receipts.
And no, your daughter can't have MP3s of CDs that are in YOUR possession, and that you purchased. At least, not after she moves out of your home.