Whilst I agree entirely with your sentiments, I think you're missing the point - and I'm an avid anti-DRM PC gamer myself.
Ubisoft and other major games companies do not want to make PC games any more because as long as they allow their games to be played on an open platform like the PC, then there are tools and utilities that can be run to crack those games, install no CD cracks etc.
However, the PC gamer base is still a very large one that they don't want to lose - therefore their theory is to make life as difficult as possible for PC gamers so that they eventually give up and buy a console instead to play their games on.
It reminds me of the famous scene in the Spinal Tap movie:
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and... Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten? Nigel Tufnel: Exactly. Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder? Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? Marty DiBergi: I don't know. Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven. Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder. Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder? Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
Oh, I see. So in other words, in order to get down to the command line, I need *TWO* machines to do it, one the SSH server and the other the client to connect to it... because presumably there's not an SSH client program for it.
Re:Don't Support Closed Systems...
on
Apple iPad Reviewed
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
That's a pathetically weak response, I'm sorry to say.
Firstly, RAM detection is done by the BIOS in the machine, not by the OS.
Secondly, if you're hinting at the RAM memory limited on 32-bit processors, that's a 3.2GB hardware restriction based around what the CPU can physically address and is the same whether you use 32-bit Windows or 32-bit Linux.
Other than that, I do recall some memory limitations in Windows 98, something about it having problems running with more than 512MB RAM, but that's an OS from 12 years ago.
Incidentally, personally I'm more Linux than Windows user these days so I'm no MS fanboi - but I hate seeing incorrect comments from people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about.
Re:Here come the DRM whiners
on
Apple iPad Reviewed
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Let me ask you something in advance of the inevitable comments, for a chance: do you complain because the firmware in your TV set, microwave oven, and dishwasher is "locked down," too?
If any of them were TCP/IP or network enabled then, yes, I would.
...people who stay faithful to one partner, use proper contraception & have enough responsibility to not inflict more screaming brats on the social support system won't get it and therefore won't die of it.
So where's the problem? Natural Selection in action, folks...
The issue with computer gaming today is that it needs a business model that sits halfway between commercial games companies and those who contribute to game-related projects freely.
The game companies are only interested in quick high-volumes sales within the first couple of weeks of a games launch...
Game programmers who write mods and levels often start off with great ideas but so few mods get fully finished, due mainly to under-estimation of the free time and resource that will ultimately be needed to complete the project...
The compromise would be for games companies to be more supportive of mod programmers and allow them to sell their mods at low cost whilst taking a cut themselves - maybe even sell third-party mods on their web sites. Hopefully, the remuneration that the games programmers would receive would be encouragement to complete more projects.
Of course, it will never happen in the real world because greedy games companies will see this as extending the shelf-life of games and won't want gamers buying mods instead of new games...
But just because you have the option of accessing your bank through a bootable Linux CD does not mean that all the other ways of accessing your bank have to be discarded.
And it could be argued that it's pure financial greed that stops Microsoft allowing users to boot their PCs from a bootable Windows disk...
I just put Gentoo Linux on my little Asus 1001HA netbook this week and I discovered to my amazement that I could drop the uvesafb driver because the Intel one support Kernel Setting Mode right from the word go - so my system boots in a 1024x600 framebuffer console just like that.
Presumably this has all happened because Intel supported the code going into the Kernel in the first place - I think NVidia could learn something from them...
I'm not defending what this Ukrainian company did by any means - but it strikes me as somewhat hypocritical that this company gets shut down yet billionaire Russians can happily buy English football clubs, send their kids to the best private schools in the UK and snap up second homes in Turkey and other parts of Europe.
Are you *REALLY* trying to tell me that after years of Communist rule and oppression, the money suddenly being wielded by all these "nouveau riche" Russians *ISN'T* dirty money?
I've been to the US many times but never to Washington DC, so I don't know how "authentic" Fallout 3 was in terms of locations in the game and in real-life Washington DC - but I should say that the post-nuclear wreckage in the game was absolutely superb, especially around The Mall and Washington Monument areas where you *REALLY* got the impression of a once huge city now completely destroyed.
So London, with it's wealth of historical locations and landmarks would be a great setting for Fallout also...
Since the OP clearly has never used Ubuntu because he/she feels the need to make very generic comments based on FUD, I have just conducted a real world test with a Ubuntu 9.10 bootable disk and discovered the following:
Desktop with Netcore 330GU USB wireless dongle - detected on boot Desktop with D-Link DWL -G122 wireless dongle - detected on boot Dell D620 laptop - detected on boot Lenovo T500 Thinkpad - detected on boot Dell XPS M1710 laptop - detected on boot HP 6735s laptop - detected on boot Asus EEEPC 1001HA - not detected on boot
So out of the seven combinations I tried, 1 didn't work - thats a > 85% success rate.
As for the driver on the netbook, it's based on a Ralink RA2860 chip, there's a Linux driver for it on the Ralink web site, since I'm a mainly Gentoo Linux user (who has yet to put Gentoo on the netbook), I assume I need to download the source for the driver and compile it - no idea what happens on Ubuntu.
But please stop talking rubbish, okay? Yes, a newbie user should not be expected to compile a driver from source but presumably if the driver is available, then the good people at Ubuntu will do their best to include it as an update at some point.
And sorry for being so blunt - but if you cannot be bothered to research your hardware a bit before booting up Linux, then you're probably too stupid to use Linux... please remember, most home users *NEVER* have to find or install a driver on Windows because it comes on their PC already configured.
Yes, and presumably played by people like you who do nothing more than play games and read the gutter press.
The UK has it's problems just like any other nation on this earth but actually most people here (like anywhere else) are law-abiding, tolerant people who just want to live crime-free, religion-free lives in a safe world.
Unfortunately, news of multiracial communities living in peace and harmony, or kids becoming scientists or doctors does not sell newspapers; I don't know where you're from but suggest you take time to visit London one day because, despite being a tourist rip-off and scruffy in parts, it must be one of the most multiracial cities on this planet.
This may come as a shock to you but I am in good health, have a great partner, lots of good friends and a job that pays well... but out of all of those the job is the least important to me and if I lose it, then I'll survive.
Sorry, my friend, I'm too old now to want to have anything to do with people who are money-obsessed, take your money and invest it where the sun doesn't shine and if it makes you half as happy as me with my moderately comfortable earnings but great life and people around me, then good luck to you.
Perhaps they are doing more good by spurring economic development in china.
Please don't put any morality reasoning around why Microsoft or any other company sends jobs to Asia - the only reason it's done is to make more profit for a few rich fat people, and outsourcing has only been seen as a viable solution because CEOs and their bonus schemes allow for short-termism.
Unfortunately, this cannot continue indefinitely because wage demands in Asia will get higher and higher, but long before that the rich Western countries will have got a lot poorer and will have long stopped buying "luxuries" like new Microsoft operating systems.
Incidentally, despite hanging on to my job in an American technology company here in the UK, I don't actually see this as a bad thing - we've got far too obsessed with money and gadgets, the whole system needs a reboot.
One thing that has always annoyed me about Windows, it even happens on the XP machines I use at the moment, is that it will quite happily steal the focus from what you are doing whenever if feels like it.
So, for example, in Windows Explorer you can be renaming files in a directory into which other files are being downloaded and if a new file appears in there while you are changing its name, Windows Explorer steals the focus and your rename fails.
Or the other one is with my work laptop where I log into my VPN connection for work from a dialogue box but if other applications are also loading, you get halfway through putting in a name and password and discover the OS has stolen away the focus once again.
In the latter case, I think much has to do with Microsoft cutting corners on trying to make XP look like it boots to a loading state much quicker than it actually does - so whilst you have your desktop session on the screen and ready to go, it's still loading a lot of stuff in background.
And to be honest, this is something that I've never seen Linux do.
I don't think the US should give up on him either - every single item he makes in China in the future that gets shipped into the US has a huge import duty applied to it so that he can make a contribution to the welfare state bill his greed has only increased.
And you are *PRECISELY* what is completely wrong with 21st century management!
Firstly, you and your ilk created precisely the situation you are now running away from - you offered us the high salaries and benefits (which of course we took) to get us working for your company in the first place. You built huge industrial parks and that got new housing built around them so that we could live close to our places of work. You pocketed the profits in the good times, but now times are hard and your workers are taking home less money, you have decided to use it as an excuse to take more money by sacking us, employing cheaper workers overseas and pocketing the difference... plus you leave areas full of high unemployment because you all desert like rats leaving a sinking ship and those industrial parks you helped build.
Secondly, your corporations hold our governments in your pockets & therefore you need *MORE* regulation of private enterprise to force you to adopt the morals you are incapable of introducing on your own. The best way of doing this is very simple - if you employ people in a country then the total of their salaries and costs is money you put into the country; the stuff or services you sell in the country is money you take out from it. Therefore, subtract the former from the latter and tax the remainder *HEAVILY*, thus making it extremely expensive for you to outsource.
Thirdly, and finally, you and your CEO "Boys' Club" do not get bonuses for 5 years. That will encourage you to be more longer-term in your thinking and not just chase quick bucks - likewise you are forced to stay working in a company, and to manage it properly, rather than disappearing somewhere else when one of your golf buddies gets a new CEO post and brings in all his old friends to work with him.
I don't know if you're trolling or genuine but then it doesn't matter because there are too many people already behaving exactly in the way you describe above - and those same people need to be brought into line so they do not have the opportunity of running away as quickly as possible with huge bonuses in their pockets while leaving utter decimation behind them.
Nope, I'm afraid your wrong, it's crazy outside the US as well...
If you're in the UK, a normal (non-business) bank customer and transferring anything more than a couple of thousand pounds to a foreign bank account, not only do you have to go into the bank branch sit with a member of staff filling in computer details for a half hour, but also the money literally just *disappears* for a couple of days going through some kind of money laundering checks somewhere - oh, and of course the organisation making those checks is, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER, investing that money while they have it and making some interest on it!
Slashdot Mirror
Whilst I agree entirely with your sentiments, I think you're missing the point - and I'm an avid anti-DRM PC gamer myself.
Ubisoft and other major games companies do not want to make PC games any more because as long as they allow their games to be played on an open platform like the PC, then there are tools and utilities that can be run to crack those games, install no CD cracks etc.
However, the PC gamer base is still a very large one that they don't want to lose - therefore their theory is to make life as difficult as possible for PC gamers so that they eventually give up and buy a console instead to play their games on.
So what Ubisoft is doing is very deliberate...
Uncle Steve isn't going to let you have MAME.
That's because you might be tempted to download and play illegal ROMs on his... sorry, I mean your iPad.
It reminds me of the famous scene in the Spinal Tap movie:
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
Oh, I see. So in other words, in order to get down to the command line, I need *TWO* machines to do it, one the SSH server and the other the client to connect to it... because presumably there's not an SSH client program for it.
That's a pathetically weak response, I'm sorry to say.
Firstly, RAM detection is done by the BIOS in the machine, not by the OS.
Secondly, if you're hinting at the RAM memory limited on 32-bit processors, that's a 3.2GB hardware restriction based around what the CPU can physically address and is the same whether you use 32-bit Windows or 32-bit Linux.
Other than that, I do recall some memory limitations in Windows 98, something about it having problems running with more than 512MB RAM, but that's an OS from 12 years ago.
Incidentally, personally I'm more Linux than Windows user these days so I'm no MS fanboi - but I hate seeing incorrect comments from people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about.
Let me ask you something in advance of the inevitable comments, for a chance: do you complain because the firmware in your TV set, microwave oven, and dishwasher is "locked down," too?
If any of them were TCP/IP or network enabled then, yes, I would.
Oh yeah? So where's the command-line shell then?
...let me know if and when they find a giant Miner Willy on Titan or something.
...people who stay faithful to one partner, use proper contraception & have enough responsibility to not inflict more screaming brats on the social support system won't get it and therefore won't die of it.
So where's the problem? Natural Selection in action, folks...
The issue with computer gaming today is that it needs a business model that sits halfway between commercial games companies and those who contribute to game-related projects freely.
The game companies are only interested in quick high-volumes sales within the first couple of weeks of a games launch...
Game programmers who write mods and levels often start off with great ideas but so few mods get fully finished, due mainly to under-estimation of the free time and resource that will ultimately be needed to complete the project...
The compromise would be for games companies to be more supportive of mod programmers and allow them to sell their mods at low cost whilst taking a cut themselves - maybe even sell third-party mods on their web sites. Hopefully, the remuneration that the games programmers would receive would be encouragement to complete more projects.
Of course, it will never happen in the real world because greedy games companies will see this as extending the shelf-life of games and won't want gamers buying mods instead of new games...
No, of course not.
But just because you have the option of accessing your bank through a bootable Linux CD does not mean that all the other ways of accessing your bank have to be discarded.
And it could be argued that it's pure financial greed that stops Microsoft allowing users to boot their PCs from a bootable Windows disk...
"Loony clod" more like!
I just put Gentoo Linux on my little Asus 1001HA netbook this week and I discovered to my amazement that I could drop the uvesafb driver because the Intel one support Kernel Setting Mode right from the word go - so my system boots in a 1024x600 framebuffer console just like that.
Presumably this has all happened because Intel supported the code going into the Kernel in the first place - I think NVidia could learn something from them...
I'm not defending what this Ukrainian company did by any means - but it strikes me as somewhat hypocritical that this company gets shut down yet billionaire Russians can happily buy English football clubs, send their kids to the best private schools in the UK and snap up second homes in Turkey and other parts of Europe.
Are you *REALLY* trying to tell me that after years of Communist rule and oppression, the money suddenly being wielded by all these "nouveau riche" Russians *ISN'T* dirty money?
I've been to the US many times but never to Washington DC, so I don't know how "authentic" Fallout 3 was in terms of locations in the game and in real-life Washington DC - but I should say that the post-nuclear wreckage in the game was absolutely superb, especially around The Mall and Washington Monument areas where you *REALLY* got the impression of a once huge city now completely destroyed.
So London, with it's wealth of historical locations and landmarks would be a great setting for Fallout also...
...charge the students the same as it costs the college to print each page - then see how much they *DO* actually print.
Since the OP clearly has never used Ubuntu because he/she feels the need to make very generic comments based on FUD, I have just conducted a real world test with a Ubuntu 9.10 bootable disk and discovered the following:
Desktop with Netcore 330GU USB wireless dongle - detected on boot
Desktop with D-Link DWL -G122 wireless dongle - detected on boot
Dell D620 laptop - detected on boot
Lenovo T500 Thinkpad - detected on boot
Dell XPS M1710 laptop - detected on boot
HP 6735s laptop - detected on boot
Asus EEEPC 1001HA - not detected on boot
So out of the seven combinations I tried, 1 didn't work - thats a > 85% success rate.
As for the driver on the netbook, it's based on a Ralink RA2860 chip, there's a Linux driver for it on the Ralink web site, since I'm a mainly Gentoo Linux user (who has yet to put Gentoo on the netbook), I assume I need to download the source for the driver and compile it - no idea what happens on Ubuntu.
But please stop talking rubbish, okay? Yes, a newbie user should not be expected to compile a driver from source but presumably if the driver is available, then the good people at Ubuntu will do their best to include it as an update at some point.
And sorry for being so blunt - but if you cannot be bothered to research your hardware a bit before booting up Linux, then you're probably too stupid to use Linux... please remember, most home users *NEVER* have to find or install a driver on Windows because it comes on their PC already configured.
Yes, and presumably played by people like you who do nothing more than play games and read the gutter press.
The UK has it's problems just like any other nation on this earth but actually most people here (like anywhere else) are law-abiding, tolerant people who just want to live crime-free, religion-free lives in a safe world.
Unfortunately, news of multiracial communities living in peace and harmony, or kids becoming scientists or doctors does not sell newspapers; I don't know where you're from but suggest you take time to visit London one day because, despite being a tourist rip-off and scruffy in parts, it must be one of the most multiracial cities on this planet.
This may come as a shock to you but I am in good health, have a great partner, lots of good friends and a job that pays well... but out of all of those the job is the least important to me and if I lose it, then I'll survive.
Sorry, my friend, I'm too old now to want to have anything to do with people who are money-obsessed, take your money and invest it where the sun doesn't shine and if it makes you half as happy as me with my moderately comfortable earnings but great life and people around me, then good luck to you.
Perhaps they are doing more good by spurring economic development in china.
Please don't put any morality reasoning around why Microsoft or any other company sends jobs to Asia - the only reason it's done is to make more profit for a few rich fat people, and outsourcing has only been seen as a viable solution because CEOs and their bonus schemes allow for short-termism.
Unfortunately, this cannot continue indefinitely because wage demands in Asia will get higher and higher, but long before that the rich Western countries will have got a lot poorer and will have long stopped buying "luxuries" like new Microsoft operating systems.
Incidentally, despite hanging on to my job in an American technology company here in the UK, I don't actually see this as a bad thing - we've got far too obsessed with money and gadgets, the whole system needs a reboot.
This is an excellent point.
One thing that has always annoyed me about Windows, it even happens on the XP machines I use at the moment, is that it will quite happily steal the focus from what you are doing whenever if feels like it.
So, for example, in Windows Explorer you can be renaming files in a directory into which other files are being downloaded and if a new file appears in there while you are changing its name, Windows Explorer steals the focus and your rename fails.
Or the other one is with my work laptop where I log into my VPN connection for work from a dialogue box but if other applications are also loading, you get halfway through putting in a name and password and discover the OS has stolen away the focus once again.
In the latter case, I think much has to do with Microsoft cutting corners on trying to make XP look like it boots to a loading state much quicker than it actually does - so whilst you have your desktop session on the screen and ready to go, it's still loading a lot of stuff in background.
And to be honest, this is something that I've never seen Linux do.
I don't think the US should give up on him either - every single item he makes in China in the future that gets shipped into the US has a huge import duty applied to it so that he can make a contribution to the welfare state bill his greed has only increased.
And you are *PRECISELY* what is completely wrong with 21st century management!
Firstly, you and your ilk created precisely the situation you are now running away from - you offered us the high salaries and benefits (which of course we took) to get us working for your company in the first place. You built huge industrial parks and that got new housing built around them so that we could live close to our places of work. You pocketed the profits in the good times, but now times are hard and your workers are taking home less money, you have decided to use it as an excuse to take more money by sacking us, employing cheaper workers overseas and pocketing the difference... plus you leave areas full of high unemployment because you all desert like rats leaving a sinking ship and those industrial parks you helped build.
Secondly, your corporations hold our governments in your pockets & therefore you need *MORE* regulation of private enterprise to force you to adopt the morals you are incapable of introducing on your own. The best way of doing this is very simple - if you employ people in a country then the total of their salaries and costs is money you put into the country; the stuff or services you sell in the country is money you take out from it. Therefore, subtract the former from the latter and tax the remainder *HEAVILY*, thus making it extremely expensive for you to outsource.
Thirdly, and finally, you and your CEO "Boys' Club" do not get bonuses for 5 years. That will encourage you to be more longer-term in your thinking and not just chase quick bucks - likewise you are forced to stay working in a company, and to manage it properly, rather than disappearing somewhere else when one of your golf buddies gets a new CEO post and brings in all his old friends to work with him.
I don't know if you're trolling or genuine but then it doesn't matter because there are too many people already behaving exactly in the way you describe above - and those same people need to be brought into line so they do not have the opportunity of running away as quickly as possible with huge bonuses in their pockets while leaving utter decimation behind them.
Nope, I'm afraid your wrong, it's crazy outside the US as well...
If you're in the UK, a normal (non-business) bank customer and transferring anything more than a couple of thousand pounds to a foreign bank account, not only do you have to go into the bank branch sit with a member of staff filling in computer details for a half hour, but also the money literally just *disappears* for a couple of days going through some kind of money laundering checks somewhere - oh, and of course the organisation making those checks is, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER, investing that money while they have it and making some interest on it!
Okay, so I gave a slightly over-simplistic precis of the task at hand... I can take that as a criticism! :-)