This should have been done years ago when Windows first came out, not now when the Vista name will soon be replaced by Windows 7. Of course there are many (including myself) who believe that Windows 7 is just Vista with a new skin and a new name. Microsoft showed us that they would do this if we didn't buy Vista with the "Mohave" commercials, and I'm certain they are laughing their heads off that people who bought Vista are about to buy it again in the hope of fixing their problems just because they have renamed it. What the law should say is that XP can't be upgraded to any newer Microsoft OS without legislature permission. Even if you do believe that it is a different OS, based on the Vista disaster, I would hope that you can see that the law (if such a law is to be written) should stop migration to any new unproven Microsoft OS, not just one with the Vista name.
Lets also remember that Microsoft announced when Vista first came out that it would be the last 32 bit Microsoft OS and that the next version after Vista would be 64 bit only. "Windows 7" is 32 bit. Therefore Windows 7 isn't the successor to Vista. Therefor it is Vista with a different look and a different name.
Well, the good thing about this would be that if someone actually buys a MP3 encoded this way they wouldn't be paying prime dollars for low quality lossy audio like they do now. But the bad news is that all mp3 appliances, as well as any current mp3 player that you have on your computer, will only play the low quality sound, the lossless track is rather hidden. And if you copy these mp3 files to your mp3 player, they end up wasting most of the space for something that will not be heard.
And, of course, this just muddies the waters. Some people may come to think that mp3 is decent quality (a few tracks might be), and then unknowingly buy low quality mp3 files without the extra hidden high quality track.
A far better "fix" to the problem would simply be to sell tracks in a high quality format, perhaps including a lower quality mp3 file with a lossless copy, although even if the mp3 were not included it should be able to be created as long as objectionable DRM were not part of the deal. There just seems to be no justification to packing both copies of the audio into the same file. Except, of course, as a marketing point. Lets take care of marketing right after we deal with the lawyers and politicians.
So what they are saying is that they don't call it DRM any more, but it is still DRM and still requires connecting to Steam to play the game, and they want to know if that will satisfy those who object to DRM? As far as I'm concerned, absolutely not.
Let me say first of all, that I have used Steam. I was forced into using it when I tried to reinstall my perfectly legal copy of Half-Life (that didn't use Steam when I bought it) and play on-line. Overall the experience went OK. I even got a copy of "Blue Shift" out of the deal, which was not part of my original Half-Life package. And I've used Steam for a few demos' such as the Bio-Shock demo.
But I've also refused to buy any game that would require me to use Steam. At ANY price, even some otherwise very attractive Steam prices. I simply will not buy into DRM, and certainly not in this form that requires me to connect to a website to use a product that I "own". I certainly would have purchased Portal if it was DRM free (and did play the Steam powered Portal Demo). But I'm not going to buy any software that depends on DRM and the existence of a third party for me to be able to continue to use the program.
While DRM itself is a problem for many users, just calling it something else doesn't fix the issue and is an added insult to the intelligence of the customer. I'm never going to buy any software that depends on a third party to continue to exist for me to be able to use it. If Steam should go under and no longer operate their website, I have no intention to be stuck with hundreds of dollars worth of games that I can't play or reinstall, and to those who do get burned I can only offer the advice of the great philosophers Nelson and Mr. T. And while I've never resld a video game and don't expect that I ever will, I refuse to give up my right of first sale on such a product just because some company like Steam wants a cut of the profits and is willing to help publishers prevent the honest resale trade.
To those fools who say that Steam is too big to go under, did you think that about Circuit City too? Did you think that about the large banks (some of who have) and about AIG? Do you expect that Obama will think bailing out Steam is as important as bailing out Wall Street, and that the federal government will be in any shape to do it after he is finished with the destruction of the economy that Bush started? Any company can fail, and buying a product that depends on someone else's continued existence to keep using it is very foolish. And, of course, it promotes the system. People need to continue to say "NO" to DRM in all of it's forms.
I actually spent some time with Foldit. I learned very very little. Then they introduced awful music that was like fingernails on the chalkboard to me. Requests to provide a feature to disable the "music" without completely muting the program were ignored and unresponded to (muting was not a solution since audio feedback for some operations is critical). It drove me to kick the cat, beat the wife and abuse the children. I can no longer run foldit, and suggest that for the sake of world peace others avoid it too.
And at 65,000 feet, these will spy on who? I'm not really buying the "safe from missiles" claim, but even if it were true a slow moving blimp would not be very safe over foreign soil, it could even be attacked by an attack blimp with a pointed stick on the front. They claim this is a project of the Pentagon, but it sure seems like this is being designed to spy on the country's own citizens.
What surprises me is that people still buy into this bad idea. While I really wish that I really could burn quality discs at high speed, I've learned the hard way that the higher the burn speed, the worse the quality of the burn. I don't care how fast a burner will burn a disc, I never burn faster than 4x. It took me a long time to convince myself that there was really any problem with high speed burns, after all, if these knowable manufacturers like Sony and Lite-on make the drives they must be good, right? But I've come to find that just isn't the case. Fortunately for the manufacturers, discs usually contain as much as 20% error recovery data, and this error recovery data can hide marginal burns. But I don't want error recovery information covering up bad burns, I want good burns in the first place, and I want that error recovery information to be available to correct later fine scratches, deteriorating optics, differences in the optics between drives, and just plain old "bit rot". You give that up when you burn at high speed, and in some cases the disk may not work at all, even if it passed a "verification" pass from the burning software.
I wish this wasn't the case, I really do. I've dome thousands of burns and the combined time increase to do those at low speed is not insignificant. But I've seen way too many problems from high speed burns that can be avoided completely by simply doing low speed burns. It is far better to take 15 minutes and get a good burn than to rush the burn in a couple of minutes but maybe have problems with it immediately, but even worse to have problems with it after the original data has been deleted and you find that you can no longer read the high speed burn.
Thanks. This does indeed seem to be what the/. summary was talking about, but I was hoping for a fix-it that just corrects the autorun problems in XP, which would prevent many of the viruses that are transmitted by USB flash drives and other autorun things automatically starting and infecting you before you can even inspect them. I guess I have to admit that if you completely muck things up so that a USB storage device can't be used at all that this might also "fix" the Microsoft created problem, at least in Microsoft's mind, but it turns out to not really be the fix-it that I was hoping for.
including one that prevents users from connecting a USB storage device
OK, I've read the blog, still can't find the UBS autorun fix. Considering that it is well knows that just turning off Autorun in XP doesn't really work, it very well might be nice to have this fix. Anyone know where the "fix it" link to this is?
Yea, this is stupid in so many ways. Telling a TV station that they can turn off their analog signal if they want, but that their competition will leave theirs on, is pretty much an assurance that even those who want to make the change in February will wait it out rather than risk the loss of some fools who have not upgraded.
And if we have to move the switchover because some dolts are still not ready after a decade of notice and an intense year of in-your-face messages that no one who watches TV could have missed, then we might as well not ever turn off analog, those same people will still not be ready in four months or even four years (unless their old set dies and they manage to buy a new digital ready set).
Yea, they may extend the deadline because some idiots didn't get ready for it and might be inconvenienced. And those exact same idiots will not be ready in 3 months, 6 months or 2 years when they eventually get around to doing the analog cut-off.
Older refrigerators had locking doors that could only be opened from the outside. Some still exist, and are good candidates to be discarded and abandoned. And kids, they are really really fun to play in and the grownups just don't want you to have fun.
This explains the problem that I have trying to use a stasis field in place of a refrigerator. Every time that I shut down the field the food comes flying out of it real fast! (but fresh)
Actually, I do own them, no matter what some bullshit "license" says. And I have the right of first sale, in other words, the right to resell them if I want and if a buyer wishes to buy them completely (with no copy remaining on my system or as a "backup"), something else one gives up when using Steam.
First of all, let me say that Steam has offered some great bargains. And I have used Steam, since my original pre-Steam copy of Half-Life finally had to be updated with Steam. And I've used them for some free demos. But I absolutely never ever will buy a game that depends on my using Steam. If Valve and Steam go away (not that hard to imagine in a world of financial and auto company bailouts and even Circuit City going belly up), then I still want to own what I paid for, not be dependent on some server somewhere still running to let me play or even install something that I've paid money for.
When fools who endorsed and supported DRM schemes for low quality digital music loose access to their DRM controlled music because those who are enforcing DRM on them no longer want to run the server, I laugh and think "serves them right for supporting the DRM scheme in the first place". When the same comes around and affects the gaming industry as well, I'm not going to be a victim and a hypocrite by acting surprised.
So we have a program (paid for by all tax payers when the government is already hard at work trying to bankrupt the whole country) that rewards the people who have been running around in gas guzzlers, but is not available to fuel efficient car drivers (let alone those peddling bikes or otherwise not wasting fuel). Am I the only one that sees this as vastly unfair?
Just the fact that you're not seeing "IBM sues little guy who stood up against their patent claim and unlimited supply of lawyers" on Slashdot does not make all of the patents that they get legitimate (and I bet that more than a couple just might be software patents, and I would say the vast majority of those are far from legitimate and "earned").
I question the use of the word "earned" here. Paid a bunch of lawyers to get stuff past the patent examiners is one thing, actually earning a patent is quite another.
Microsoft told us that that Vista would be their last 32 bit OS and that future OSs would be 64 bit. So this is coming out in both a 32 bit and a 64 bit version to further confuse the market, to keep driver writes on their toes wondering which one they have to focus support on (sure, the answer is both, but look at 64 bit XP and 64 bit Vista to see that just ain't gonna happen) and to remind us that you can never trust what Microsoft says.
Interesting. I very well remember the reports that Vista would be the last 32 bit OS in the line and that future OSs would be 64 bit only. Not that you can believe a word that they say.
Slashdot Mirror
This should have been done years ago when Windows first came out, not now when the Vista name will soon be replaced by Windows 7. Of course there are many (including myself) who believe that Windows 7 is just Vista with a new skin and a new name. Microsoft showed us that they would do this if we didn't buy Vista with the "Mohave" commercials, and I'm certain they are laughing their heads off that people who bought Vista are about to buy it again in the hope of fixing their problems just because they have renamed it. What the law should say is that XP can't be upgraded to any newer Microsoft OS without legislature permission. Even if you do believe that it is a different OS, based on the Vista disaster, I would hope that you can see that the law (if such a law is to be written) should stop migration to any new unproven Microsoft OS, not just one with the Vista name.
Lets also remember that Microsoft announced when Vista first came out that it would be the last 32 bit Microsoft OS and that the next version after Vista would be 64 bit only. "Windows 7" is 32 bit. Therefore Windows 7 isn't the successor to Vista. Therefor it is Vista with a different look and a different name.
Well, the good thing about this would be that if someone actually buys a MP3 encoded this way they wouldn't be paying prime dollars for low quality lossy audio like they do now. But the bad news is that all mp3 appliances, as well as any current mp3 player that you have on your computer, will only play the low quality sound, the lossless track is rather hidden. And if you copy these mp3 files to your mp3 player, they end up wasting most of the space for something that will not be heard.
And, of course, this just muddies the waters. Some people may come to think that mp3 is decent quality (a few tracks might be), and then unknowingly buy low quality mp3 files without the extra hidden high quality track.
A far better "fix" to the problem would simply be to sell tracks in a high quality format, perhaps including a lower quality mp3 file with a lossless copy, although even if the mp3 were not included it should be able to be created as long as objectionable DRM were not part of the deal. There just seems to be no justification to packing both copies of the audio into the same file. Except, of course, as a marketing point. Lets take care of marketing right after we deal with the lawyers and politicians.
Will this be enough to satisfy anti-DRM players?
So what they are saying is that they don't call it DRM any more, but it is still DRM and still requires connecting to Steam to play the game, and they want to know if that will satisfy those who object to DRM? As far as I'm concerned, absolutely not.
Let me say first of all, that I have used Steam. I was forced into using it when I tried to reinstall my perfectly legal copy of Half-Life (that didn't use Steam when I bought it) and play on-line. Overall the experience went OK. I even got a copy of "Blue Shift" out of the deal, which was not part of my original Half-Life package. And I've used Steam for a few demos' such as the Bio-Shock demo.
But I've also refused to buy any game that would require me to use Steam. At ANY price, even some otherwise very attractive Steam prices. I simply will not buy into DRM, and certainly not in this form that requires me to connect to a website to use a product that I "own". I certainly would have purchased Portal if it was DRM free (and did play the Steam powered Portal Demo). But I'm not going to buy any software that depends on DRM and the existence of a third party for me to be able to continue to use the program.
While DRM itself is a problem for many users, just calling it something else doesn't fix the issue and is an added insult to the intelligence of the customer. I'm never going to buy any software that depends on a third party to continue to exist for me to be able to use it. If Steam should go under and no longer operate their website, I have no intention to be stuck with hundreds of dollars worth of games that I can't play or reinstall, and to those who do get burned I can only offer the advice of the great philosophers Nelson and Mr. T. And while I've never resld a video game and don't expect that I ever will, I refuse to give up my right of first sale on such a product just because some company like Steam wants a cut of the profits and is willing to help publishers prevent the honest resale trade.
To those fools who say that Steam is too big to go under, did you think that about Circuit City too? Did you think that about the large banks (some of who have) and about AIG? Do you expect that Obama will think bailing out Steam is as important as bailing out Wall Street, and that the federal government will be in any shape to do it after he is finished with the destruction of the economy that Bush started? Any company can fail, and buying a product that depends on someone else's continued existence to keep using it is very foolish. And, of course, it promotes the system. People need to continue to say "NO" to DRM in all of it's forms.
Unless they make it into a Firefox plug-in that checks the flash code before running it, just what good is this?
I actually spent some time with Foldit. I learned very very little. Then they introduced awful music that was like fingernails on the chalkboard to me. Requests to provide a feature to disable the "music" without completely muting the program were ignored and unresponded to (muting was not a solution since audio feedback for some operations is critical). It drove me to kick the cat, beat the wife and abuse the children. I can no longer run foldit, and suggest that for the sake of world peace others avoid it too.
And at 65,000 feet, these will spy on who? I'm not really buying the "safe from missiles" claim, but even if it were true a slow moving blimp would not be very safe over foreign soil, it could even be attacked by an attack blimp with a pointed stick on the front. They claim this is a project of the Pentagon, but it sure seems like this is being designed to spy on the country's own citizens.
This sentence gave me a headache.
You quoted two sentences, not one. Are you trying to make things look worse than they are? Is a compound sentence really that hard for your brain?
What surprises me is that people still buy into this bad idea. While I really wish that I really could burn quality discs at high speed, I've learned the hard way that the higher the burn speed, the worse the quality of the burn. I don't care how fast a burner will burn a disc, I never burn faster than 4x. It took me a long time to convince myself that there was really any problem with high speed burns, after all, if these knowable manufacturers like Sony and Lite-on make the drives they must be good, right? But I've come to find that just isn't the case. Fortunately for the manufacturers, discs usually contain as much as 20% error recovery data, and this error recovery data can hide marginal burns. But I don't want error recovery information covering up bad burns, I want good burns in the first place, and I want that error recovery information to be available to correct later fine scratches, deteriorating optics, differences in the optics between drives, and just plain old "bit rot". You give that up when you burn at high speed, and in some cases the disk may not work at all, even if it passed a "verification" pass from the burning software.
I wish this wasn't the case, I really do. I've dome thousands of burns and the combined time increase to do those at low speed is not insignificant. But I've seen way too many problems from high speed burns that can be avoided completely by simply doing low speed burns. It is far better to take 15 minutes and get a good burn than to rush the burn in a couple of minutes but maybe have problems with it immediately, but even worse to have problems with it after the original data has been deleted and you find that you can no longer read the high speed burn.
Well, it's not Half Life, It's Half Life 2. But it's pretty neat for an amateur effort.
But the /. write up says " the first two episodes ...", anyone have any link to the second of the two episodes? I can only find the first.
Thanks. This does indeed seem to be what the /. summary was talking about, but I was hoping for a fix-it that just corrects the autorun problems in XP, which would prevent many of the viruses that are transmitted by USB flash drives and other autorun things automatically starting and infecting you before you can even inspect them. I guess I have to admit that if you completely muck things up so that a USB storage device can't be used at all that this might also "fix" the Microsoft created problem, at least in Microsoft's mind, but it turns out to not really be the fix-it that I was hoping for.
including one that prevents users from connecting a USB storage device
OK, I've read the blog, still can't find the UBS autorun fix. Considering that it is well knows that just turning off Autorun in XP doesn't really work, it very well might be nice to have this fix. Anyone know where the "fix it" link to this is?
Yea, this is stupid in so many ways. Telling a TV station that they can turn off their analog signal if they want, but that their competition will leave theirs on, is pretty much an assurance that even those who want to make the change in February will wait it out rather than risk the loss of some fools who have not upgraded. And if we have to move the switchover because some dolts are still not ready after a decade of notice and an intense year of in-your-face messages that no one who watches TV could have missed, then we might as well not ever turn off analog, those same people will still not be ready in four months or even four years (unless their old set dies and they manage to buy a new digital ready set).
Yea, they may extend the deadline because some idiots didn't get ready for it and might be inconvenienced. And those exact same idiots will not be ready in 3 months, 6 months or 2 years when they eventually get around to doing the analog cut-off.
Older refrigerators had locking doors that could only be opened from the outside. Some still exist, and are good candidates to be discarded and abandoned. And kids, they are really really fun to play in and the grownups just don't want you to have fun.
I call AC. ACs don't get to call BS.
This explains the problem that I have trying to use a stasis field in place of a refrigerator. Every time that I shut down the field the food comes flying out of it real fast! (but fresh)
Actually, I do own them, no matter what some bullshit "license" says. And I have the right of first sale, in other words, the right to resell them if I want and if a buyer wishes to buy them completely (with no copy remaining on my system or as a "backup"), something else one gives up when using Steam.
First of all, let me say that Steam has offered some great bargains. And I have used Steam, since my original pre-Steam copy of Half-Life finally had to be updated with Steam. And I've used them for some free demos. But I absolutely never ever will buy a game that depends on my using Steam. If Valve and Steam go away (not that hard to imagine in a world of financial and auto company bailouts and even Circuit City going belly up), then I still want to own what I paid for, not be dependent on some server somewhere still running to let me play or even install something that I've paid money for.
When fools who endorsed and supported DRM schemes for low quality digital music loose access to their DRM controlled music because those who are enforcing DRM on them no longer want to run the server, I laugh and think "serves them right for supporting the DRM scheme in the first place". When the same comes around and affects the gaming industry as well, I'm not going to be a victim and a hypocrite by acting surprised.
So we have a program (paid for by all tax payers when the government is already hard at work trying to bankrupt the whole country) that rewards the people who have been running around in gas guzzlers, but is not available to fuel efficient car drivers (let alone those peddling bikes or otherwise not wasting fuel). Am I the only one that sees this as vastly unfair?
Just my luck, I get my coffee in bags, not cans.
Just the fact that you're not seeing "IBM sues little guy who stood up against their patent claim and unlimited supply of lawyers" on Slashdot does not make all of the patents that they get legitimate (and I bet that more than a couple just might be software patents, and I would say the vast majority of those are far from legitimate and "earned").
I question the use of the word "earned" here. Paid a bunch of lawyers to get stuff past the patent examiners is one thing, actually earning a patent is quite another.
Microsoft told us that that Vista would be their last 32 bit OS and that future OSs would be 64 bit. So this is coming out in both a 32 bit and a 64 bit version to further confuse the market, to keep driver writes on their toes wondering which one they have to focus support on (sure, the answer is both, but look at 64 bit XP and 64 bit Vista to see that just ain't gonna happen) and to remind us that you can never trust what Microsoft says.
Interesting. I very well remember the reports that Vista would be the last 32 bit OS in the line and that future OSs would be 64 bit only. Not that you can believe a word that they say.
Let us consider the advice of the great philosophers Mr. T and Nelson on this subject.