My point was that whilst nearly all ADSL subscribers use BT infrastructure - only a small majority actually use a BT as their ISP (and hence are exposed to evil adware thingie)
Cable customers get phone and internet without even going near BT.
If you're using BT last mile for your ADSL, then you're probably:
a) Using a third party ISP (i.e. BT does last mile, but from DSLAM you go to ISP switches)
b) Using an unbundled ISP (DSLAM itself doesn't belong to BT).
BT owns a lot of copper, but doesn't actually have that many direct ADSL customers - they're not cheap and has been mentioned service is fucking gash (yes I dialled 13 different numbers in one day just to get me away from them).
Tend to be used by people who 'trust the BT name' - and therefore frankly get what they deserve.
I bought my Audigy2 ZS when I had XP - and I was happy.
Then 'upgraded' to Vista after checking drivers were there and erm it all went to shit a bit.
Now previously (and for every other Vista driver) my hardware did the same thing, but just used a different driver. Creative (and they seem to have partially admitted this) decided that forcing users onto a new driver was a perfect way to make people buy some new Creative hardware, by deliberately hobbling the post-upgrade driver to attempt to force a hardware upgrade.
Legally Creative are right - no question.
Morally they're scum.
What really bugs me is that there's some poor tech guy trying to make a decent Vista driver and f'in marketing have waded in and forced him to screw it up. Creative used to have my loyalty and this whole mess and caused them to lose it. Interesting bit is to see how they respond to it all - hopefully somebody's getting a P45 over this and decent 'official' drivers may appear soon (current lastest driver is from March last year - so prior to all this, they seemingly saw no reason to do anything).
My first soundcards were based on what I could make work without gobbling too much memory.
Now any half-decent motherboard I buy (server apart) has 7.1 onboard for 'free'. If I buy a discrete soundcard now it's for a definite reason. Creative really aren't helping themselves win my loyalty here.
until I saw all of this kick off.
Downloaded them, installed them and my Audigy2 ZS behaves better.
Also my ancient Audigy drivers (also Creative's latest version) were noted as being the reason Vista SP1 refused to install. Swapped out for the modded ones, and next day SP1 pops up for autoupdate.
In all seriousness I'd never touch a Creative soundcard ever again. Had SB1, SB Pro, SB16, AWE32 etc etc - only breaking away for a brief flirtation with a Gravis Ultrasound (lovely lovely card, but software support was a pain in the arse).
In this new age of 'sound being taken for granted' I'd initially just used onboard audio, but then realized it was a bit cheap and nasty (I don't need 7.1 - and the hiss is driving me insane).
Anyhoo - I don't like onboard, creative take the piss out of their customers (ffs they insist on mailing me the most stupidly overpriced 'offers' after a mistakenly gave them my email). What're the alternatives? Xonar?
I'm fine with windows, but feel I should at least try switching to Linux.
I try - and say Ubuntu installs perfectly. Web, email, file shares all easy to work out. I can use the nifty little wizards to install new apps - but that's about it. All the complexity is still there, it just takes you a little bit longer to hit it now.
For example I was trying to get MythTV to work. Asks me for my mysql db settings, which I give and then it tells me that the db isn't available. I check the 'Services' program on the GUI and it says MySQL is running - and that's where I currently am with my Ubuntu machine, poking randomly at stuff without a clue what I'm doing (and probably beaking more than I'm fixing).
but there's just too much missing. Problem isn't so much it doesn't have 3G - it's the current clunky phone I want to get rid of HAS 3G (and for that matter the one before it)... I don't even use 3G that much, just a handy (if pricey) internet connection for my laptop when out and about.
I (like many people) already own an iPod. I love my ipod. I carry it about everywhere with me - but I'm not going to buy an iPhone and still carry my iPod. Sooo if Apple wants to sell me an iPhone that I'll replace my 5G 60G ipod with, then well... I'd like some more memory. I'm not worried too much about the cost, just give me the option..please? 32Gig would at least ease the musical cull..
Then I'm running TomTom on my current phone, so well GPS would be nice on an iphone. Otherwise I'm going to end up lugging around my current phone as well as my iPod.
I just get the idea that the iPhone is never actually going to deliver what I want. It's just going to be a continual drip-feed of features.
If anybody is listening. GPS (with decent software available), 3G, 32G+, ability to install all manner of funky apps etc would sway me. Anything less just frustrates me (as the UI is so pant-dribbling gorgeous).
because if she was to start like 'praying' for stuff she'd have totally passed over into a different place.. I mean blasphemy and all that. I'd be tying her to a stake down the garden within seconds.
but I do like the idea.
Current thinking is 'there's too much heat in your box, therefore add another (heat generating) electrical component to help cool it.
There's something nice about 'turning the heat on itself' - even ignoring the cooling effect of the fan, the stirling engine itself is using some of that excess energy just to power itself (and therefore cooling even without the fan).
Not too hard a problem.
Grab a Nokia N95 for your GPS, Music, 5Mp camera (which actually takes decent pictures) and GSM 3G access.
For your laptop just grab whatever you actually need as long as it has Bluetooth to plug into the phone.
Although you've not mentioned it, the bit that you really need is a GSM SIM with reasonable roaming data charges. Your options are to work out where you're going to be going and to pick up a SIM that offers the best roaming over all regions, or to pick up a PAYG SIM in each area (which usually works out far far cheaper) - so just make sure your phone is unlocked.
Maybe.
But just imagine an office full of people who've wandered off to lunch leaving their clients locked. Shove in a small USB key and hit the power button - grabs keys and dumps drive to disk in a reasonably short time (and you can just wander off out the way whilst it's dumping).
They come back and all they notice is that their machine has mysteriously rebooted. Alternatively you could just install an FTP client that'll happily trickle out the contents of their machine throughout the afternoon.
Brute force decryption, as far as I'm aware the only previous way of cracking the HD would involve removing the machine and making the theft easily visible ("Where's my laptop gone?").
I'm not quite sure why the linked article was so excited about cooling the memory to keep it stable for minutes - yes it's very clever being able to move it to another machine, but somewhat pointless. Should've just focussed on "I can rip off your encrypted drive with a reboot"
I've got an oldish thinkpad which I was planning to turn into a STB. My choices were MS MediaCenter on XP or vista, or MythTV.
I'd installed Ubuntu and that was quite happily running my email, web and music. Hardware - wifi, grphics and sound were all working etc (and might I add all out the box with no issues at all).
So off I go to find this MythTV thing... Finally spot it in the repository and select it, it selects dependencies and off it installs - so far so good.
Loads up the installer, says it needs a MySQL db (fair enough) and then it says it can't find it. I know MySQL is installed, the little services app says it's running, ports and all the rest of that stuff are correct, but it still denies me. This is where it all goes wrong, I spend 10 minutes trying to work out where all this stuff is installed, try to find config files, see if anything in them is wrong and then... I've got no idea what to do next.
Linux has got much much more user friendly over the last few years - as far as to get you up and running initially. For devices with limited functionality or where change isn't going to be common, this is wonderful (OLPC etc). The problem is if you ever want to try and do something interesting you're just left hanging clueless (not saying it's worse than windows, but I'm familiar with windows and not Linux).
Not sure what the answer is, but *shrugs*
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/15/tiscali_bpi_agreement/ is the latest story I've read about progress here in the UK.
More to the point and as I believe has probably been metioned, exactly legitimate use do they think I have for the 20 Meg connection they've sold me. (especially as they make it very clear that this is a domestic, rather than business service - usually when it's broken).
They have a duty to their shareholders to do so. If MS decided to register in Washington tomorrow, due to a sudden urge to pay more tax, they'd be being sued by their shareholders the next day for squandering their money.
MS DO make some good products.
Console division keeps on being dragged up as an example of them messing up, but honestly I like their consoles.
Original Xbox was a bit rough around the edges (and an ugly great brick of off the shelf components) - but it did bring proper networking to consoles (something PC users had taken for granted for years and pretty much ignored through 2 (and possibly 3) generations of Playstation).
360 itself is a very nice console - and whilst the piss may be taken out of the red ring of death, I do seem to remember a whole load of PS1s having to be run on their sides, upside down and eventually packing up completely (and that's putting aside the shading bug on early models that Sony never admitted to).
Console division was losing money yes, but that's a problem for MS, not for the end users - my only worry would be if I felt MS was going to bail out of the market and leave me clutching one of their worthless consoles. Same with the Zune, it's not an ipod beater yet, but I like the fact that it's there and getting better with every generation (as Apple has added f'all the original apart from a colour screen and a larger HD).
The appeal of the Thinkpad (to me at least) is the complete lack of any gimmicky styling. It looks like a thinkpad. My thinkpad from 5 years ago looks like a thinkpad and the one I buy in 5 years will also just look like an f'in thinkpad.
Also I love the 'nipple' pointer. So much nicer to use than a trackpad (although mysteriously I find myself in a greater minority on this every day). If I want to move the cursor across the screen, it's easier/faster and doesn't leave me pawing away like a cat at a window.
Here's where I am. I pirate video audio. I'm not entirely sure I want copyright law to be altered that much.
Just putting myself on the other side. If I'd created a film, recorded an album etc - I'd want to sell it and make a bit of cash back (if only to cover my costs). If somebody downloaded it I'd be a bit pissed off. If I saw it sat on YouTube with google making money off the adverts around it, I'd be really pissed off.
On the flip side I hate the DRM laden 'legit' digital media and I'd have no objection to somebody dubbing my music over some machinima video they'd made and weren't selling on themselves (if they were, I'd happily negotiate a small cut).
Sensible solution to this is just to create a series of different licenses - like OSS, but very easy for the average person to understand.
For examle:
Back of a DVD might contain a notice that you're entitled to create works derived from this media for your own personal use (i.e. copy it onto your ipod, psp, NAS etc), whilst you retain ownership of this license. (i.e. if sell the DVD, you have to get rid of any copies). If you want to sell this nice idea, no reason studios couldn't bundle a nice Windows/OSX app on the DVD that'll help you put it on your ipod etc (we're doing it anyway).
Back of CD might allow you to use use and distribute in your own works for non-commercial use. You could put it over your machinima video as long as you weren't asking for money (and that includes putting it on youtube and giving google money - although if they wanted to run it without adverts, I'd be happy).
In summary I hate the constraints that're put on us the consumer, but I cannot join the seemingly popular clamour of demanding that all media wants 'to be free'. If it's yours you can make it free, but if I don't want it to be free you can't decide it is.
My Cable ISP in the UK provides me with a 20Meg connection. If I download over about 5 gig (about) during peak hours (4pm-midnight I think) my bandwidth gets throttled down to 5 Meg. Throttle is removed a few hours after it was imposed and off-peak.
When this was introduced I was spitting feathers, but after a bit of thought, it's really not too bad - and better than the alternatives. Internet doesn't vanish on me, my bill doesn't go up and I don't have to 'do' anything to deal with it.
Obviously I'd like the cap to be raised, the off-peak hours to be relaxed etc, but the general idea is OK.
Only alterations I'd like would for there to be some sort of exception system for when you need to download something big and you need it right now during peak hours. No idea how it'd work though. You get three 'free days' a month and you click a button on a webapp somewhere to use one and remove your cap for a day?
First of all I'll say I like Windows - I use windows. I've tried the alternatives and I'm sticking with it.
OK, for those still reading I'll qualify that - I use it, but it does stifle the alternatives (and the same could be said to a lesser extent about OSX).
Secondly, when you run an OS it takes an overhead and that overhead is getting bigger every day. If you look at the original Xbox and compare with a PC with equivalent spec (they're all the same parts) it's an awful lot faster.
With most apps you want an OS to hold stuff together. I don't want to have to close Final Cut and wait a minute to check my email etc. Games are the exception to this - it's full screen and you don't want anything running in the background and you're not going to play for 30 seconds.
My proposal is a very very lightweight linux (or whatever, windows if MS would let it) OS that you could bundle with the game and would sit in it's own partition. User wouldn't even be aware it was there. They'd just know that when they started it on their OS of preference their machine would reboot. Once they quit out of the game, it'd boot them back into their OS of choice.
Now that's the 'I'm not sure if people would like it bit' - but on the flip side when they started their PC, they'd get the 'game OS' option popping up and could be playing faster than if they had to load Vista or OSX and would run faster with the lower overhead.
Reading through what I'm typing, it would seem I'm suggesting that Linux made their own 'console system' that runs on commodity hardware - and I think that's what I mean
Reading back through that again, I realize that I'm off on a tangent of improbability, but it's a nice idea. If you wanted to pull it back into reality, then think where money could be made. I run Steam on my PC and buy games through it. I prefer the whole idea over tracking into town, picking up an overpriced DVD and dealing with patches from each game maker. Lightweight OS that'd just run my screen, sound, network and input devices would be nice. It it updated drivers for my hardware and patched the games that'd be dandy. I'd then cough up for the games that ran on this new system.
Game makers could sell one version of their games to anybody with an x86 system. Users would get better performance from their hardware. OSS people would be chuffed at breaking MS monopoly.
Anyway, just ideas..
You have a point - although I'm sure an exception can be made for games. Not as if you're going to be wanting to check your email or run other apps as you frag away.
and we had an 'offer' from MS, basically we could get a copy of Office 2007 to use at home for about £10/$20. Was never quite sure what the intention of this was, but interesting..
the BBC isn't free. I (as an owner of a piece of equipment capable of receiving the BBC), have to pay a license fee each year (whether I actually decide to watch it or not).
Now personally I'm more than happy to pay, but it does mean it can't just be broadcast free to anybody on the planet with an internet connection.
I've got a VMWare XP instance on my home machine, for the situations where Vista is being difficult.
In all fairness (which I know isn't popular round here) Vista is pretty good - only thing I need VMWare for are when I want to use my old Canon scanner or for the odd exotic thing that doesn't have any Vista drivers.
I think the problem vista has is that it doesn't allow you to do anything you couldn't before. Yes the GUI looks nicer, but apart from that there's nothing obviously better - look carefully and there's loads of stuff, but that doesn't help address the casual 'why should I upgrade?' comment.
MS have made it even worse by adding 'fake' improvements - for example switching off DX10 modes in games purely as they're not running on Vista (which makes them look very silly when little tweaks turn them back on in XP).
Anyway, installed SP1 RC1 last night, it's a bit faster.. not quite sure what else to say, or what else I was expecting *shrugs*
Of course he's right that food is more important to a starving person than a dinky laptop, but it's going to take all sorts to sort out the world - and in my humble opinion the more things that are tried, the more likely we are to find genuine solutions (last 50 years of sending food around the world doesn't seem to have produced a noticable shift in geo-ecconomics).
Purely playing devil's advocate:
I don't see how you can argue that only primary aid should be given to people, neither do you and neither do your government. If that were the case then we 'in the western world' wouldn't bother trying to provide education for all. I mean what's the point in wasting money on educating people on the poverty line who cannot adequately afford food and shelter, in our own countries? Now I'm not going to be stupid enough to say that the current system works, that people actually receive the same quality of education, but I believe we all like the theory and would like it to eventually make it into practice.
Secondly just looking at the laptops, they will help - it's just we cannot be sure in what way, yet. Just putting aside the purely educational component, interesting sites are going to appear. Whereas we may have sites that let us know the price of a consumer trinket form 500 competing sites, I see no reason why something won't emerge that'll let people know the price of a particular subsistence crop at the 10 surrounding markets (both to buy and sell). Now that's just one example, but if anybody is feeling dubious, then they should just look at how GSM has changed many parts of the world (quite often POTS has been skipped completely).
To sum up, communication is 'good' and makes things 'better' - and everything that can be done to help this is therefore a good thing. Nobody nowadays criticizes Caxton for pissing about with printing presses amidst the egalitarian fun of the 15th century.
Slashdot Mirror
My point was that whilst nearly all ADSL subscribers use BT infrastructure - only a small majority actually use a BT as their ISP (and hence are exposed to evil adware thingie)
Cable customers get phone and internet without even going near BT. If you're using BT last mile for your ADSL, then you're probably: a) Using a third party ISP (i.e. BT does last mile, but from DSLAM you go to ISP switches) b) Using an unbundled ISP (DSLAM itself doesn't belong to BT). BT owns a lot of copper, but doesn't actually have that many direct ADSL customers - they're not cheap and has been mentioned service is fucking gash (yes I dialled 13 different numbers in one day just to get me away from them). Tend to be used by people who 'trust the BT name' - and therefore frankly get what they deserve.
I bought my Audigy2 ZS when I had XP - and I was happy. Then 'upgraded' to Vista after checking drivers were there and erm it all went to shit a bit. Now previously (and for every other Vista driver) my hardware did the same thing, but just used a different driver. Creative (and they seem to have partially admitted this) decided that forcing users onto a new driver was a perfect way to make people buy some new Creative hardware, by deliberately hobbling the post-upgrade driver to attempt to force a hardware upgrade. Legally Creative are right - no question. Morally they're scum. What really bugs me is that there's some poor tech guy trying to make a decent Vista driver and f'in marketing have waded in and forced him to screw it up. Creative used to have my loyalty and this whole mess and caused them to lose it. Interesting bit is to see how they respond to it all - hopefully somebody's getting a P45 over this and decent 'official' drivers may appear soon (current lastest driver is from March last year - so prior to all this, they seemingly saw no reason to do anything).
My first soundcards were based on what I could make work without gobbling too much memory. Now any half-decent motherboard I buy (server apart) has 7.1 onboard for 'free'. If I buy a discrete soundcard now it's for a definite reason. Creative really aren't helping themselves win my loyalty here.
until I saw all of this kick off. Downloaded them, installed them and my Audigy2 ZS behaves better. Also my ancient Audigy drivers (also Creative's latest version) were noted as being the reason Vista SP1 refused to install. Swapped out for the modded ones, and next day SP1 pops up for autoupdate. In all seriousness I'd never touch a Creative soundcard ever again. Had SB1, SB Pro, SB16, AWE32 etc etc - only breaking away for a brief flirtation with a Gravis Ultrasound (lovely lovely card, but software support was a pain in the arse). In this new age of 'sound being taken for granted' I'd initially just used onboard audio, but then realized it was a bit cheap and nasty (I don't need 7.1 - and the hiss is driving me insane). Anyhoo - I don't like onboard, creative take the piss out of their customers (ffs they insist on mailing me the most stupidly overpriced 'offers' after a mistakenly gave them my email). What're the alternatives? Xonar?
I'm fine with windows, but feel I should at least try switching to Linux. I try - and say Ubuntu installs perfectly. Web, email, file shares all easy to work out. I can use the nifty little wizards to install new apps - but that's about it. All the complexity is still there, it just takes you a little bit longer to hit it now. For example I was trying to get MythTV to work. Asks me for my mysql db settings, which I give and then it tells me that the db isn't available. I check the 'Services' program on the GUI and it says MySQL is running - and that's where I currently am with my Ubuntu machine, poking randomly at stuff without a clue what I'm doing (and probably beaking more than I'm fixing).
but there's just too much missing. Problem isn't so much it doesn't have 3G - it's the current clunky phone I want to get rid of HAS 3G (and for that matter the one before it)... I don't even use 3G that much, just a handy (if pricey) internet connection for my laptop when out and about. I (like many people) already own an iPod. I love my ipod. I carry it about everywhere with me - but I'm not going to buy an iPhone and still carry my iPod. Sooo if Apple wants to sell me an iPhone that I'll replace my 5G 60G ipod with, then well... I'd like some more memory. I'm not worried too much about the cost, just give me the option..please? 32Gig would at least ease the musical cull.. Then I'm running TomTom on my current phone, so well GPS would be nice on an iphone. Otherwise I'm going to end up lugging around my current phone as well as my iPod. I just get the idea that the iPhone is never actually going to deliver what I want. It's just going to be a continual drip-feed of features. If anybody is listening. GPS (with decent software available), 3G, 32G+, ability to install all manner of funky apps etc would sway me. Anything less just frustrates me (as the UI is so pant-dribbling gorgeous).
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ranjit+Mathoda+obama
Oh yes.
because if she was to start like 'praying' for stuff she'd have totally passed over into a different place.. I mean blasphemy and all that. I'd be tying her to a stake down the garden within seconds.
but I do like the idea. Current thinking is 'there's too much heat in your box, therefore add another (heat generating) electrical component to help cool it. There's something nice about 'turning the heat on itself' - even ignoring the cooling effect of the fan, the stirling engine itself is using some of that excess energy just to power itself (and therefore cooling even without the fan).
Not too hard a problem. Grab a Nokia N95 for your GPS, Music, 5Mp camera (which actually takes decent pictures) and GSM 3G access.
For your laptop just grab whatever you actually need as long as it has Bluetooth to plug into the phone.
Although you've not mentioned it, the bit that you really need is a GSM SIM with reasonable roaming data charges. Your options are to work out where you're going to be going and to pick up a SIM that offers the best roaming over all regions, or to pick up a PAYG SIM in each area (which usually works out far far cheaper) - so just make sure your phone is unlocked.
Maybe. But just imagine an office full of people who've wandered off to lunch leaving their clients locked. Shove in a small USB key and hit the power button - grabs keys and dumps drive to disk in a reasonably short time (and you can just wander off out the way whilst it's dumping). They come back and all they notice is that their machine has mysteriously rebooted. Alternatively you could just install an FTP client that'll happily trickle out the contents of their machine throughout the afternoon. Brute force decryption, as far as I'm aware the only previous way of cracking the HD would involve removing the machine and making the theft easily visible ("Where's my laptop gone?"). I'm not quite sure why the linked article was so excited about cooling the memory to keep it stable for minutes - yes it's very clever being able to move it to another machine, but somewhat pointless. Should've just focussed on "I can rip off your encrypted drive with a reboot"
I've got an oldish thinkpad which I was planning to turn into a STB. My choices were MS MediaCenter on XP or vista, or MythTV. I'd installed Ubuntu and that was quite happily running my email, web and music. Hardware - wifi, grphics and sound were all working etc (and might I add all out the box with no issues at all). So off I go to find this MythTV thing... Finally spot it in the repository and select it, it selects dependencies and off it installs - so far so good. Loads up the installer, says it needs a MySQL db (fair enough) and then it says it can't find it. I know MySQL is installed, the little services app says it's running, ports and all the rest of that stuff are correct, but it still denies me. This is where it all goes wrong, I spend 10 minutes trying to work out where all this stuff is installed, try to find config files, see if anything in them is wrong and then... I've got no idea what to do next. Linux has got much much more user friendly over the last few years - as far as to get you up and running initially. For devices with limited functionality or where change isn't going to be common, this is wonderful (OLPC etc). The problem is if you ever want to try and do something interesting you're just left hanging clueless (not saying it's worse than windows, but I'm familiar with windows and not Linux). Not sure what the answer is, but *shrugs*
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/15/tiscali_bpi_agreement/ is the latest story I've read about progress here in the UK.
More to the point and as I believe has probably been metioned, exactly legitimate use do they think I have for the 20 Meg connection they've sold me. (especially as they make it very clear that this is a domestic, rather than business service - usually when it's broken).
They have a duty to their shareholders to do so. If MS decided to register in Washington tomorrow, due to a sudden urge to pay more tax, they'd be being sued by their shareholders the next day for squandering their money.
MS DO make some good products. Console division keeps on being dragged up as an example of them messing up, but honestly I like their consoles.
Original Xbox was a bit rough around the edges (and an ugly great brick of off the shelf components) - but it did bring proper networking to consoles (something PC users had taken for granted for years and pretty much ignored through 2 (and possibly 3) generations of Playstation).
360 itself is a very nice console - and whilst the piss may be taken out of the red ring of death, I do seem to remember a whole load of PS1s having to be run on their sides, upside down and eventually packing up completely (and that's putting aside the shading bug on early models that Sony never admitted to).
Console division was losing money yes, but that's a problem for MS, not for the end users - my only worry would be if I felt MS was going to bail out of the market and leave me clutching one of their worthless consoles. Same with the Zune, it's not an ipod beater yet, but I like the fact that it's there and getting better with every generation (as Apple has added f'all the original apart from a colour screen and a larger HD).
The appeal of the Thinkpad (to me at least) is the complete lack of any gimmicky styling. It looks like a thinkpad. My thinkpad from 5 years ago looks like a thinkpad and the one I buy in 5 years will also just look like an f'in thinkpad.
Also I love the 'nipple' pointer. So much nicer to use than a trackpad (although mysteriously I find myself in a greater minority on this every day). If I want to move the cursor across the screen, it's easier/faster and doesn't leave me pawing away like a cat at a window.
Here's where I am. I pirate video audio. I'm not entirely sure I want copyright law to be altered that much.
Just putting myself on the other side. If I'd created a film, recorded an album etc - I'd want to sell it and make a bit of cash back (if only to cover my costs). If somebody downloaded it I'd be a bit pissed off. If I saw it sat on YouTube with google making money off the adverts around it, I'd be really pissed off.
On the flip side I hate the DRM laden 'legit' digital media and I'd have no objection to somebody dubbing my music over some machinima video they'd made and weren't selling on themselves (if they were, I'd happily negotiate a small cut).
Sensible solution to this is just to create a series of different licenses - like OSS, but very easy for the average person to understand.
For examle:
Back of a DVD might contain a notice that you're entitled to create works derived from this media for your own personal use (i.e. copy it onto your ipod, psp, NAS etc), whilst you retain ownership of this license. (i.e. if sell the DVD, you have to get rid of any copies). If you want to sell this nice idea, no reason studios couldn't bundle a nice Windows/OSX app on the DVD that'll help you put it on your ipod etc (we're doing it anyway).
Back of CD might allow you to use use and distribute in your own works for non-commercial use. You could put it over your machinima video as long as you weren't asking for money (and that includes putting it on youtube and giving google money - although if they wanted to run it without adverts, I'd be happy).
In summary I hate the constraints that're put on us the consumer, but I cannot join the seemingly popular clamour of demanding that all media wants 'to be free'. If it's yours you can make it free, but if I don't want it to be free you can't decide it is.
My Cable ISP in the UK provides me with a 20Meg connection. If I download over about 5 gig (about) during peak hours (4pm-midnight I think) my bandwidth gets throttled down to 5 Meg. Throttle is removed a few hours after it was imposed and off-peak.
When this was introduced I was spitting feathers, but after a bit of thought, it's really not too bad - and better than the alternatives. Internet doesn't vanish on me, my bill doesn't go up and I don't have to 'do' anything to deal with it.
Obviously I'd like the cap to be raised, the off-peak hours to be relaxed etc, but the general idea is OK.
Only alterations I'd like would for there to be some sort of exception system for when you need to download something big and you need it right now during peak hours. No idea how it'd work though. You get three 'free days' a month and you click a button on a webapp somewhere to use one and remove your cap for a day?
First of all I'll say I like Windows - I use windows. I've tried the alternatives and I'm sticking with it.
OK, for those still reading I'll qualify that - I use it, but it does stifle the alternatives (and the same could be said to a lesser extent about OSX).
Secondly, when you run an OS it takes an overhead and that overhead is getting bigger every day. If you look at the original Xbox and compare with a PC with equivalent spec (they're all the same parts) it's an awful lot faster.
With most apps you want an OS to hold stuff together. I don't want to have to close Final Cut and wait a minute to check my email etc. Games are the exception to this - it's full screen and you don't want anything running in the background and you're not going to play for 30 seconds.
My proposal is a very very lightweight linux (or whatever, windows if MS would let it) OS that you could bundle with the game and would sit in it's own partition. User wouldn't even be aware it was there. They'd just know that when they started it on their OS of preference their machine would reboot. Once they quit out of the game, it'd boot them back into their OS of choice.
Now that's the 'I'm not sure if people would like it bit' - but on the flip side when they started their PC, they'd get the 'game OS' option popping up and could be playing faster than if they had to load Vista or OSX and would run faster with the lower overhead.
Reading through what I'm typing, it would seem I'm suggesting that Linux made their own 'console system' that runs on commodity hardware - and I think that's what I mean
Reading back through that again, I realize that I'm off on a tangent of improbability, but it's a nice idea. If you wanted to pull it back into reality, then think where money could be made. I run Steam on my PC and buy games through it. I prefer the whole idea over tracking into town, picking up an overpriced DVD and dealing with patches from each game maker. Lightweight OS that'd just run my screen, sound, network and input devices would be nice. It it updated drivers for my hardware and patched the games that'd be dandy. I'd then cough up for the games that ran on this new system.
Game makers could sell one version of their games to anybody with an x86 system. Users would get better performance from their hardware. OSS people would be chuffed at breaking MS monopoly.
Anyway, just ideas..
You have a point - although I'm sure an exception can be made for games. Not as if you're going to be wanting to check your email or run other apps as you frag away.
and we had an 'offer' from MS, basically we could get a copy of Office 2007 to use at home for about £10/$20. Was never quite sure what the intention of this was, but interesting..
the BBC isn't free. I (as an owner of a piece of equipment capable of receiving the BBC), have to pay a license fee each year (whether I actually decide to watch it or not).
Now personally I'm more than happy to pay, but it does mean it can't just be broadcast free to anybody on the planet with an internet connection.
I've got a VMWare XP instance on my home machine, for the situations where Vista is being difficult.
In all fairness (which I know isn't popular round here) Vista is pretty good - only thing I need VMWare for are when I want to use my old Canon scanner or for the odd exotic thing that doesn't have any Vista drivers.
I think the problem vista has is that it doesn't allow you to do anything you couldn't before. Yes the GUI looks nicer, but apart from that there's nothing obviously better - look carefully and there's loads of stuff, but that doesn't help address the casual 'why should I upgrade?' comment.
MS have made it even worse by adding 'fake' improvements - for example switching off DX10 modes in games purely as they're not running on Vista (which makes them look very silly when little tweaks turn them back on in XP).
Anyway, installed SP1 RC1 last night, it's a bit faster.. not quite sure what else to say, or what else I was expecting *shrugs*
if this is the tack he wishes to take.
Of course he's right that food is more important to a starving person than a dinky laptop, but it's going to take all sorts to sort out the world - and in my humble opinion the more things that are tried, the more likely we are to find genuine solutions (last 50 years of sending food around the world doesn't seem to have produced a noticable shift in geo-ecconomics).
Purely playing devil's advocate:
I don't see how you can argue that only primary aid should be given to people, neither do you and neither do your government. If that were the case then we 'in the western world' wouldn't bother trying to provide education for all. I mean what's the point in wasting money on educating people on the poverty line who cannot adequately afford food and shelter, in our own countries? Now I'm not going to be stupid enough to say that the current system works, that people actually receive the same quality of education, but I believe we all like the theory and would like it to eventually make it into practice.
Secondly just looking at the laptops, they will help - it's just we cannot be sure in what way, yet. Just putting aside the purely educational component, interesting sites are going to appear. Whereas we may have sites that let us know the price of a consumer trinket form 500 competing sites, I see no reason why something won't emerge that'll let people know the price of a particular subsistence crop at the 10 surrounding markets (both to buy and sell). Now that's just one example, but if anybody is feeling dubious, then they should just look at how GSM has changed many parts of the world (quite often POTS has been skipped completely).
To sum up, communication is 'good' and makes things 'better' - and everything that can be done to help this is therefore a good thing. Nobody nowadays criticizes Caxton for pissing about with printing presses amidst the egalitarian fun of the 15th century.