*IF* kids suffer behavioural problems because of (so-called) "violent video games", then the blame for that can be laid at the feet of those irresponsible parents who use video games consoles and/or PCs as electronic baby-sitters in order to relinquish their own duties of spending quality time with their kids.
A kid that comes from a loving home built around caring parents who provide positive emotional reinforcement to counteract any negative emotions experienced by the kid will simply end up being a well-balanced individual that is entirely capable of separating fact from fiction.
Unfortunately, your entire shallow viewpoint can only be derived from our fearmongering media who's only goal is to increase the viewing figures and sell more newspapers. The fact is, if the news was filled with stories about the majority of well-behaved, sensible kids who don't binge-drink and don't have a criminal record, it would be pretty boring stuff and nobody would be in the slightest bit interested.
If you are one of these "liberal lefties" that blames every problem on some external factor with a total denial of any personal responsibility and a demand that the authorities create some false, protective, nanny-state cocoon around you, then that is your choice. However, in such a case, can I thus suggest that you and any like-but-weak-minded individuals go find an uninhabited island somewhere, emigrate to it, elect your own set of dictatorial politicians to govern you as you wish, and leave those of us who to take personal responsibility for ourselves behind?
I really get sick-and-tired of the minority of lilly-livered idiots like you who believe it is their task in life to inflict their personality disorders upon the rest of us by imposing more stupid laws and an ever-increasing blame-culture on me and people like me.
And as for the dribbling, the only dribbling going on around here is the accumulation of spittle in the corner of your mouth as a result of your manic ranting...
but to say it's not got a prominent place in IT is even more
Sorry, at which Slashdot reader are you directing this comment? Because I don't believe I said anything like this.
What I did say was I refuted the claim that Vista is automatically the "second most popular OS" simply because, in my experience, fewer people are using it than do Ubuntu, for example. Neither did I deny that Windows (primarily XP) is the most popular desktop OS but what I did draw your attention to is the fact that people forget that the core backbone of the Internet is driven by servers usually UNIX based - and no, not necessarily Linux but for the real *BIG* stuff probably Solaris or HPUX.
Desktop usage is only a subset (and when you take every computing device there is, a *MINORITY* subset) of global computing - and I would refute, again from my experience, that whilst XP *IS* undeniably the most used desktop OS globally, I do not believe that Vista is second place currently, despite what MS's figures would have you believe.
10% of the world's population owns 90% of the wealth meaning that 10% can afford to buy new PCs every year with the latest OEM OS on it - but for most of the world's population, this is not the case and I suggest to you that in the poorer countries of South America, Asia and Africa, Vista usage will still be minimal.
Unlike XP (or 2000 or NT), rarely has Vista been an 'out of the box' solution to a new install.
Can I just add that as a mainly Linux user who "quite likes XP", even XP is totally unusable from a default install with the "kindergarten" default Windows interface it gives you as well as all the other default rubbish.
Sure, an hour or two later with the "classic" interface in place and a few registry changes to turn off all the sycophantic MS hand-holding, it works pretty good and stays out of my way so I can just use it to do what I need to.
Fortunately, I've only heard of (and not experienced) the "delights" of Vista's UAC but if nothing else, as XP disappears it just gives me more of an incentive to wean myself off of modern PC games and just go to Linux full time.
Quite frankly, having repaired a few laptops of friends with Vista on it without having used it myself, my first impression is it's just bloody horrific!
It is clear now that Microsoft is scared witless by Linux, and the furious adoption that utter disasters such as Vista are creating.
Actually, whilst MS have done nothing particularly to open up their proprietary interfaces and standards to Linux and other OSes, I get the impression that they do accept now that Linux "is what it is". I'm sure they're far more worried about the rise of Google and web applications now.
I kind of feel for people who use Vista legitimately and either like it or don't like it.
But I utterly despise gutless idiots who have no courage of their convictions and brag about about how "l33t" they are being able to steal something free of charge meaning that honest users like me have to put up with all manner of stupid protection mechanisms on software, music, etc. etc. because dickheads like you do what they do.
Please don't brag about being a thief. If you don't want to pay for something that should be bought, then nothing sends a clearer message to whomever made it than just not buying it and not using it.
And in the case of operating systems, if you don't choose to investigate suitable free or low cost alternatives, then bragging about piracy does nothing more than show your total lack of conviction and intelligence.
Most people have no trouble with service pack upgrades, as they've been tested a long time before getting released.
Actually, there is always a big hooha around incompatibility issues with any MS Service Pack - that was even the case for XP SP2, even though XP was all the better for SP2 and that hooha has now died off.
To avoid any confusion with Leopard they made the letters VISTA really big on the background screen.
Thank god for that! Given the choice of those two evils then I'm afraid it would be "Big Bill" rather than "Small Steve" to whom I would have to offer my rectum for a "right royal shafting"! If there's a warning to direct me in the direction of Vista, rather than Leopard, even better!
Fortunately, with trusty Linux and a smidgeon of XP, I don't have to choose either of the damned things...
I think if you were to take into account physical number of computers in use today including those infrastructure servers that run within ISPs and out on the Internet, you could probably make a case for a UNIX being second place, maybe even first.
If you include all manner of embedded OSes in use as well, you may discover that whilst no single OS would beat, say, XP, for sheer number of presences on computing devices, I think you would find that under that definition, there are more computing devices globally that don't run Windows than those that do (especially when you take into account Symbian mobile phones and Apple iWanks).
In addition, as someone who works in server security, just about everyone I know runs XP, myself included. However, I know of four people running Vista and a dozen who are running Linux, mainly Ubuntu, even if they are only dual-booting it.
And let me also add that those non-geek Linux users chose to give Ubuntu/Fedora a try whereas those that run Vista had it as OEM on new machines they bought recently and constantly moan about it.
I pay my 5 bucks, and now Steve Jobs will let me download as much as I want from iTunes for free!!!
I wish people wouldn't use the term "download" for getting stuff from iTunes. "Download" implies that you bring something to your local hard disk which is then yours to do with as you wish.
iTunes tracks are so riddled with DRM that that's definitely not the case - I suggest "borrow" or "loan" are more appropriate in this instance.
Rubbish! If you're a politician you may buy your music this way but a true music fan doesn't give a toss about whether or not an album is released by a big label or not! It's just the content of the album that matters and whilst I will agree that the big labels churn out a whole heap of dross, not all their stuff is bad.
As a (mainly) 60s and 70s psychedelia/progressive rock fan myself, Mercury are doing some great things at the moment rereleasing and remastering old obscure rock albums that were on labels like Vertigo three decades ago and EMI is doing some fantastic stuff rereleasing and remastering a lot of their old back catalogue at near-budget prices.
Yes, there are good independent musicians out there but, quite frankly, there are as many of them who are duffers as there are in the big label artists.
You can blame "Metallicock" for the downfall of Napster - after all, it got to a bad state of affairs when their drummer Lars "I'm not a loud-mouthed arrogant little twat" Ulrich couldn't change his Learjet after the ashtrays were full.
I'm a huge music fan, it's number one for me over films, TV and PC gaming - some months I'll buy 10-20 CDs.
I use BitTorrent and Usenet to download and listen to music that might be eof interest to me because I probably can't hear the stuff I like on the radio. If what I've downloaded is good, then I buy it. Otherwise I delete what I've downloaded because it's not even worth the storage space on the disk.
If I couldn't preview my music, then I wouldn't buy it - believe me, I've been listening to good music far too long to know that most of the stuff that's advertised or recommended is probably crap on the basis of having bought many CDs in the past without hearing them first and them turning out to be turkeys.
So if they want to start charging for P2P, then I'm more than happy to pay it *PROVIDED THAT* they refund my money when I go buy a CD. And, of course, because I'm being charged for P2P, I'll be a lot more selective in what I download, won't take any "risks" and will therefore probably end up buying a lot fewer CDs. (In other words, the music industry gains £5 from me and loses around £50 a month in CD sales - go figure!)
Incidentally, because I buy my music this way, and search for the cheapest prices before I buy anything, I consider my music at about £10 average per CD to be *GREAT VALUE FOR MONEY*. I don't own CDs with only one or two good tracks on them and considering I'll listen to a £10 music CD a lot more than I would watch a £15 DVD or play a £35 PC game, the sums work out pretty reasonable for me.
...some dumbass Mac user who is so totally full of himself that he cannot be bothered to check in for his flight in reasonable time, then has a hissy fit because the "pose box" he bought purely to force down everyone else's throat that he stands out from the crowd is more carefully examined by security than a bog-standard laptop would be. So what's the problem?
If it was me on security, I'd have had the guy up against the nearest wall with his trousers down and his hands grabbing his ankles whilst my most "sausage-fingered" and long-nailed work colleague gave him a rectal examination for smuggled iPhones.
PS. It's amazing how easy it is to avoid making a total ass of yourself if you spend a minute on Google to get your facts straight.
According to this "Harvard Unversity that just happens to be in the USA" link Jonathan Zittrain is a visiting professor at Oxford - it looks like he's just another "know-it-all" Yank after all.
The only people more fearful than American news are the British.
I wish I understood this sentence. I've been racking my brains for five minutes trying to work out what you're saying and I just can't get it.
Incidentally, we may have been stupid enough to vote in a lying fearmonger like Tony Blair, but what's your excuse for voting in a lying HALFWIT fearmonger like "Dubya"?
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A kid that comes from a loving home built around caring parents who provide positive emotional reinforcement to counteract any negative emotions experienced by the kid will simply end up being a well-balanced individual that is entirely capable of separating fact from fiction.
Unfortunately, your entire shallow viewpoint can only be derived from our fearmongering media who's only goal is to increase the viewing figures and sell more newspapers. The fact is, if the news was filled with stories about the majority of well-behaved, sensible kids who don't binge-drink and don't have a criminal record, it would be pretty boring stuff and nobody would be in the slightest bit interested.
If you are one of these "liberal lefties" that blames every problem on some external factor with a total denial of any personal responsibility and a demand that the authorities create some false, protective, nanny-state cocoon around you, then that is your choice. However, in such a case, can I thus suggest that you and any like-but-weak-minded individuals go find an uninhabited island somewhere, emigrate to it, elect your own set of dictatorial politicians to govern you as you wish, and leave those of us who to take personal responsibility for ourselves behind?
I really get sick-and-tired of the minority of lilly-livered idiots like you who believe it is their task in life to inflict their personality disorders upon the rest of us by imposing more stupid laws and an ever-increasing blame-culture on me and people like me.
And as for the dribbling, the only dribbling going on around here is the accumulation of spittle in the corner of your mouth as a result of your manic ranting...
Sorry, at which Slashdot reader are you directing this comment? Because I don't believe I said anything like this.
What I did say was I refuted the claim that Vista is automatically the "second most popular OS" simply because, in my experience, fewer people are using it than do Ubuntu, for example. Neither did I deny that Windows (primarily XP) is the most popular desktop OS but what I did draw your attention to is the fact that people forget that the core backbone of the Internet is driven by servers usually UNIX based - and no, not necessarily Linux but for the real *BIG* stuff probably Solaris or HPUX.
Desktop usage is only a subset (and when you take every computing device there is, a *MINORITY* subset) of global computing - and I would refute, again from my experience, that whilst XP *IS* undeniably the most used desktop OS globally, I do not believe that Vista is second place currently, despite what MS's figures would have you believe.
10% of the world's population owns 90% of the wealth meaning that 10% can afford to buy new PCs every year with the latest OEM OS on it - but for most of the world's population, this is not the case and I suggest to you that in the poorer countries of South America, Asia and Africa, Vista usage will still be minimal.
Isn't that kind of like saying "I would have gone on the Titanic, just for the free lifebelt"?
Can I just add that as a mainly Linux user who "quite likes XP", even XP is totally unusable from a default install with the "kindergarten" default Windows interface it gives you as well as all the other default rubbish.
Sure, an hour or two later with the "classic" interface in place and a few registry changes to turn off all the sycophantic MS hand-holding, it works pretty good and stays out of my way so I can just use it to do what I need to.
Fortunately, I've only heard of (and not experienced) the "delights" of Vista's UAC but if nothing else, as XP disappears it just gives me more of an incentive to wean myself off of modern PC games and just go to Linux full time.
Quite frankly, having repaired a few laptops of friends with Vista on it without having used it myself, my first impression is it's just bloody horrific!
Actually, whilst MS have done nothing particularly to open up their proprietary interfaces and standards to Linux and other OSes, I get the impression that they do accept now that Linux "is what it is". I'm sure they're far more worried about the rise of Google and web applications now.
I kind of feel for people who use Vista legitimately and either like it or don't like it.
But I utterly despise gutless idiots who have no courage of their convictions and brag about about how "l33t" they are being able to steal something free of charge meaning that honest users like me have to put up with all manner of stupid protection mechanisms on software, music, etc. etc. because dickheads like you do what they do.
Please don't brag about being a thief. If you don't want to pay for something that should be bought, then nothing sends a clearer message to whomever made it than just not buying it and not using it.
And in the case of operating systems, if you don't choose to investigate suitable free or low cost alternatives, then bragging about piracy does nothing more than show your total lack of conviction and intelligence.
Ho hum...
Actually, there is always a big hooha around incompatibility issues with any MS Service Pack - that was even the case for XP SP2, even though XP was all the better for SP2 and that hooha has now died off.
Thank god for that! Given the choice of those two evils then I'm afraid it would be "Big Bill" rather than "Small Steve" to whom I would have to offer my rectum for a "right royal shafting"! If there's a warning to direct me in the direction of Vista, rather than Leopard, even better!
Fortunately, with trusty Linux and a smidgeon of XP, I don't have to choose either of the damned things...
If you include all manner of embedded OSes in use as well, you may discover that whilst no single OS would beat, say, XP, for sheer number of presences on computing devices, I think you would find that under that definition, there are more computing devices globally that don't run Windows than those that do (especially when you take into account Symbian mobile phones and Apple iWanks).
In addition, as someone who works in server security, just about everyone I know runs XP, myself included. However, I know of four people running Vista and a dozen who are running Linux, mainly Ubuntu, even if they are only dual-booting it.
And let me also add that those non-geek Linux users chose to give Ubuntu/Fedora a try whereas those that run Vista had it as OEM on new machines they bought recently and constantly moan about it.
Otherwise, it would have to be the Gelatinous Cube from D&D.
It's obvious those "jerks" have all the negative mod points today also - if it's any consolation, I fully agree with you.
I wish people wouldn't use the term "download" for getting stuff from iTunes. "Download" implies that you bring something to your local hard disk which is then yours to do with as you wish.
iTunes tracks are so riddled with DRM that that's definitely not the case - I suggest "borrow" or "loan" are more appropriate in this instance.
Well, you get 10/10 from me for saying "I can't get a record contract" in such a roundabout way.
W00T!
As a (mainly) 60s and 70s psychedelia/progressive rock fan myself, Mercury are doing some great things at the moment rereleasing and remastering old obscure rock albums that were on labels like Vertigo three decades ago and EMI is doing some fantastic stuff rereleasing and remastering a lot of their old back catalogue at near-budget prices.
Yes, there are good independent musicians out there but, quite frankly, there are as many of them who are duffers as there are in the big label artists.
You can blame "Metallicock" for the downfall of Napster - after all, it got to a bad state of affairs when their drummer Lars "I'm not a loud-mouthed arrogant little twat" Ulrich couldn't change his Learjet after the ashtrays were full.
I use BitTorrent and Usenet to download and listen to music that might be eof interest to me because I probably can't hear the stuff I like on the radio. If what I've downloaded is good, then I buy it. Otherwise I delete what I've downloaded because it's not even worth the storage space on the disk.
If I couldn't preview my music, then I wouldn't buy it - believe me, I've been listening to good music far too long to know that most of the stuff that's advertised or recommended is probably crap on the basis of having bought many CDs in the past without hearing them first and them turning out to be turkeys.
So if they want to start charging for P2P, then I'm more than happy to pay it *PROVIDED THAT* they refund my money when I go buy a CD. And, of course, because I'm being charged for P2P, I'll be a lot more selective in what I download, won't take any "risks" and will therefore probably end up buying a lot fewer CDs. (In other words, the music industry gains £5 from me and loses around £50 a month in CD sales - go figure!)
Incidentally, because I buy my music this way, and search for the cheapest prices before I buy anything, I consider my music at about £10 average per CD to be *GREAT VALUE FOR MONEY*. I don't own CDs with only one or two good tracks on them and considering I'll listen to a £10 music CD a lot more than I would watch a £15 DVD or play a £35 PC game, the sums work out pretty reasonable for me.
I'm just not sure that most of the trash being churned out by Hollywood is even worth the price of a blank disk, that's all.
Why?
It sounds like you might want to read this.
So why pay extortionate sums of money to buy good music in a format that you cannot share with others after you have legally bought it?
Purchased downloads are for plastic throwaway crap, not for proper music that you will want to cherish for decades to come.
If it was me on security, I'd have had the guy up against the nearest wall with his trousers down and his hands grabbing his ankles whilst my most "sausage-fingered" and long-nailed work colleague gave him a rectal examination for smuggled iPhones.
According to this "Harvard Unversity that just happens to be in the USA" link Jonathan Zittrain is a visiting professor at Oxford - it looks like he's just another "know-it-all" Yank after all.
I wish I understood this sentence. I've been racking my brains for five minutes trying to work out what you're saying and I just can't get it.
Incidentally, we may have been stupid enough to vote in a lying fearmonger like Tony Blair, but what's your excuse for voting in a lying HALFWIT fearmonger like "Dubya"?