Isn't actually making the meme-image pretty superfluous in this case?
Unfortunately, given that the original "Yo Dawg" was marked as "offtopic" by twice as many people as thought it was funny, it probably *is* necessary.
Shame, as the minimalism of the original poster's joke worked- for me- because it assumed that most of us were familiar with a long-established meme to be able to dispense with the full text (i.e. playing off its clichedness rather than it being a boring rehash of a now-tired cliche) and also that we were smart enough to figure out its relevance to the headline story.
Not sure if the moderators didn't get the reference, or just couldn't figure out how it applied. This is why we can't have nice, minimalist jokes on Slashdot without it being necessary for someone else to overegg the pudding and explain them.:-(
With all of Java's other early problems, a price tag would have ended it before it could gain any momentum.
Pretty much the same thought I had -- I was wondering what technology would occupy java's current space if they had done that.
Flash on steroids most likely as it displaced Java in a lot of areas anyway.
I always thought that ultimately, Flash all but filled the role that Java Applets were supposed to meet on the browser, but didn't.
FWIW, I'm not sure I'd blame Flash for the failure of Applets, as by the time it started to become more than a simple animation player, the latter had already had plenty of time to take off, but never had.
I suspect that this was because Java Applets were too heavyweight and slow to start at the time, whereas Flash was more in sync with what computers were capable of back then.
Of course, it's possible that in the absence of Flash, Applets might have become more popular as computers grew more powerful, but essentially I'd say they weren't so much displaced as never having succeeded on their own merits. Yes, there was (and still is, to a limited extent) some use of browser-based Java, but it never dominated like it was meant to. Flash may be in decline now, but it's enjoyed a decade- if not 15 years- as a major success.
Not that I'm saying that Java was a failure, just that- ironically- the aspect that gained *by far* the most hype at its mid-90s launch was the one it ultimately failed in.
1. If the ToS also says, "your use of this site signifies your acceptance of these terms", how do you signify that you don't accept? Never visit the site again?
2. If you never "use" the site again, will UserContentEncyclopedia.com realize this, and refrain from using your past contributions commercially since you haven't signified acceptance of the terms? Or will UserContentEncyclopedia.com assume that the continued presence of your past contributions constitutes "use"?
3. Does any site with ToS actually keep track of which registered users have accepted updated ToS?
4. Have ToS clauses such as (1) ever been tested in court, and judged to form the basis of a legally binding contract?
5. What if I don't accept the implied contract that merely visiting a website constitutes acceptance of its ToS?
6. Could someone use the reasoning in (5) to claim they don't accept the implied contract that signing their name on a physical paper contract constitutes acceptance of the terms therein?
These are some very good points; you should at least get an account so that they start at a Score of +1 or +2 instead of 0, and are more likely to be seen.
I wasn't aware of TV Tropes' attempt to change the licensing terms a couple of years back. Had I known, I would already have had a contemptious view of them (since *my* first thought too was that "you can't simply (legally) relicense CC content under new terms unless the contributors agree or you make it clear"- and, as the article writer pointed out, no such terms were presented or agreed to by me when adding edits.)
Even so, I was already unimpressed with a trick I caught them using a couple of months or so back. I noticed that they had added small, square pictures containing links to other articles at the bottom of some pages. Nice, you might think, but mixed in with these pictorial links (alternating in a checkerboard pattern) were links to external sites, i.e. adverts.
What made this morally dubious was that the advertising links and internal article links were of very similar style, both image and caption-wise, and it was quite clear that they were being intermingled with the intent of looking like links to TV Tropes articles and getting people to click on them.
Not in the same ballpark as their attempt to re-appropriate (i.e. steal) people's work for their own use only, but still an indicator of how sleazy the people who run this apparently friendly site are.
Because I needed a new pair of running shorts (as in, I'd just noticed the other ones were literally starting to come apart), didn't have that much time to buy them, didn't expect that the other shop would be *that* much cheaper (*). And maybe because I was both slightly lazy and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, while still retaining some doubt as to whether they were actually worth the price...
(*) They typically are, but "cheaper" on the branded stuff *they* sell still isn't that cheap, there's so much useless crap aimed at parents of kids wearing "sportswear as fashion" that it's impossible to find what one wants in a reasonable amount of time, and the staff are useless.
IIRC, my latest pair of running shorts apparently contain bamboo fibre. Whether or not this is a good thing or not, or even just an excuse to justify their overinflated price, I've no idea.
Of course I didn't mean that. Any stupidity was in your interpretation of my post.
On the contrary, I was the only person to guess you *might* not have meant that (*). That's what everyone else thought... quite reasonably, as it *would be* the most sensible interpretation assuming you'd actually bothered to read the summary!! That makes clear that the magazine hasn't been sold in printed form for almost a decade. In that context, saying "I'm not sure what a gamer would need a magazine for" serves no purpose unless it referred to the years it *was* being published (i.e. 1981 to 2004).
That's why everyone else thought you were utterly clueless. I was the only one who figured out that your comment was somewhat less stupid *if* you'd made the mistake others did of not properly reading the summary and assuming the printed magazine was still going (rather than it being the offshoot website under threat as is made clear).
To be blunt, my view was somewhat more charitable than it needed to be, assuming you'd committed the minor stupidity of not reading the summary, rather than the major stupidity implied by most people's understandable interpretation of your comment...
(*) Though I couldn't discount the possibility that you really *were* that clueless!
It is re-emerging. it's just doing it via a medium that isn't measured in dead trees per lunar orbit.
Good grief! Even the bleeding summary makes clear that CVG has been "online only" (i.e. a *website*) since 2004 and it's that "re-emerged" web-based version of the magazine that is now in danger.
Impressive that they lasted this long [..] I'm not sure what a gamer would need a magazine for
If you'd paid attention, you'd have noticed that the "magazine" has been online only (i.e. a website) for the past ten years.
To be fair, if you *had* made that mistake, it would at least make your question a less stupid one, i.e. "I'm not sure what a gamer would need a [printed] magazine for [in this day and age]".
Which is of course perfectly understandable. OTOH, if you really *did* mean this to refer to its entire lifetime from the early-1980s onwards, then yes, it was an utterly stupid question that suggests you're barely old enough to remember the dial-up Internet era, let alone what things were like before the Internet became widely available to the public in the mid-90s.:-O
I didn't realize it was still going. I still have some old issues from the Sinclair Spectrum era lying around somewhere.
Depends what you mean by "still going" as the original magazine ceased publishing almost ten years ago (*) when Future publishing bought the title (apparently it overlapped with their own GamesMaster magazine, which is still going today in its printed form (**)).
I don't know how much continuity there was before and after that takeover, though to be fair, the title had already been sold previously, from its original publishers EMAP, to Dennis Publishing.
(*) Apparently they briefly relaunched it a few years back- or more accurately, reused the name- as "CVG Presents", a short-lived run of magazines each dedicated to a single game series (e.g. Grand Theft Auto). But that's long-defunct too.
(**) Mind you, that was a spinoff from the TV show that finished in the late 90s, so technically that's not *its* original form!
Who claimed anything "with horror"? It was pointing out the obvious as far as I was concerned.
Yes, I agree entirely that the measure was significantly about piracy- though the vast majority of PS pirates are unlikely to pay what Adobe are charging regardless, and they certainly know this.
And yes, even though you define their "illegitimate users" as being separate from their "users", the fact remains that it *is* quite clearly also a money-grab from the non-pirating userbase, as no-one forced Adobe to convert to a subscription-based model.
No, I don't believe that it's costing them all those extra squillions to run things on their servers- which I doubt most existing users would have chosen to go for if they'd had the choice to stay with the old design anyway- especially as the software continues to work for a limited time without an Internet connection. Had they wanted to keep the old licensing model, I'm sure the price would have covered the cost of running the servers.
In short, yes, of course it was about piracy, but it's also quite blatantly about converting existing perpetual-license users into a continuously milkable revenue stream, just as MS are trying to do- albeit in a less forceful manner- with Office 360.
is quite obviously to increase software companies' control over users
No, it only increases Adobe's control over their own software.
The "users" referred to are by implication users of Adobe's software, i.e. the people who chose to and are still using it. Adobe wish to control who uses it and how they use it.
Of course. Do you somehow believe that companies should not be able to determine their own business-model?
You're putting words in my mouth, as I didn't say anywhere that they shouldn't.
The fact that Adobe once offered an unlimited license to their software was their choice at the time. It didn't entitle you to anything regarding their future business.
Again, you're putting words in my mouth- I didn't claim that it did. But the assumptions you made and read into my comment just because I criticised Adobe, and the way you responded to them say a lot.
What I did do is something that I- and anyone else- is something I'm perfectly entitled to. I criticised Adobe and their business model.
Time and time again, when a company, product or service is criticised on Slashdot, someone else answers with a would-be riposte essentially boiling down to "you don't have to buy it, so you have no right to criticise it".
Time and time again I've pointed out that it doesn't work like that. Adobe and friends have the freedom to run their business how they like (within reason). Others have the freedom to criticise their behaviour or anything they don't like about it, even if they're not being forced at gunpoint to use it.
I bet you've never criticised a car model (because you don't *have* to buy it), a company's uncompetitive prices (because you don't *have* to buy there) or the way a business in general is run (because... well, you get the picture). In fact, I bet you're never said a word against *anything* you had the choice to reject (including advising those who might be making the same choice). Right?
It's funny how so many of those who rush to defend the freedom of companies to run themselves how they like in a free market seem to forget that freedom cuts (or rather, should cut) both ways.
Wasn't avoiding the "single point of failure" a large part of the reason for cloud services being pushed in our faces in the first place?
No, that was only the rationale used to justify it to Photoshop users. The *reason* for it in many cases- such as this one- is quite obviously to increase software companies' control over users, and to get them used to a subscription model that provides those companies with a continuous income stream, rather than having the hassle of creating upgraded versions of software (gratuitous or otherwise (*)) and then having to convince users to pay for that upgrade when they might not feel the need for it.
That's not to say that cloud computing (i.e. distributed computing and distributed storage) is a bad idea in itself; of course, it has many theoretical benefits. But the concept has been co-opted and distorted by marketing, who have reduced the meaning of "cloud" to little more than a buzzword that applies to anything with online connectivity, even if that's not designed in a cloud-like way. And they've used that to make a method of control a selling point- or at least to try to sweeten the pill Photoshop users are being forced to swallow (**).
Really, what major cloud-like benefit does the latest Photoshop offer users? Does it let them harness the enormous power of a distributed computer network to massively speed up processing times on slow operations (vs. doing it on their own computer) in short bursts?
(*) Canonical example, Microsoft Word, which reached what most people needed several versions ago, but had to force upgrades to keep it selling, so kept adding new features, which also force other users who want to interoperate with those using the latest versions to *also* upgrade.
(**) Along the lines of (*) above, while some may argue that "you don't *have* to upgrade", those in industry who wish to interoperate with others and keep up with latest developments probably *will* need to upgrade eventually
Oh yes. The quality is absolutely better than DVD, and still much better than streaming.
That's nice- but it's not what was being asked.
The question is, was Blu-Ray ever really *popular* (i.e. popular in the mass-market sense) as Sony claimed? And the answer has to be... certainly not to anything like the extent that DVD was, and arguably far less than might have been expected when it was launched.
The media is very affordable now- you can actually get packs of 10 discs for the equivalent of 27p each- but while £60 for a drive isn't much if you *really* want one, it's still too expensive to be a "no brainer" replacement for a DVD writer (*) for customers who might go for it if it was only a few quid extra- in much the way that DVD writers did when they got to be only a few quid more than a CD writer. Even a £40 premium on a computer (**) is a big increase on a low-end model if the person really isn't *that* bothered about Blu-Ray anyway.
Personally, I could easily afford to go out and buy a £60 Blu-Ray drive, but I'm not really into films, 25GB really *isn't* that big for data storage or backup any more (it's piggy in the middle between the stuff I can store on DVD-R and stuff that needs HDD capacities) and I don't even burn many DVDs these days. Why bother?
(*) eBuyer are selling an LG *writer* for under £12!
(**) I suspect most of these people would only be upgrading their drive as part of a new computer, probably a laptop. I'm assuming that £40 would be the bulk wholesale price differential- ironically, since that's still too expensive to include a BD writer in the cheapest laptops, I suspect manufacturers would probably market it as a "premium" feature and increase the price *more* (to make a profit-increasing virtue out of a drawback).
I think your bank is probably more tired of it than you are as by law they are required to eat most of the liability. The good banks give you zero liability (as in, you aren't ever responsible for losses.)
No, the banks don't have to cover the cost of fraudulent credit card transactions (although I bet they love basking in the warm glow of the widespread misconception that they do). It's the retailers who get screwed when that happens, both in the US (I assume that reference to Newegg means it's American) and in the UK.
As I posted in this comment, the banks don't give a **** because they don't have to; they're not the ones paying for it. Fraud report? Yank the money back from the retailer (even if they've performed reasonable diligence (*))
Even though chip and pin is very common in the UK (I can't remember the last time I used a swipe-and-signature terminal), credit card fraud still exists and it's the retailer that gets screwed.
(*) In fact, as far as I'm aware, retailers- in the US, at least- are suposedly *prohibited* from checking ID, which makes this even worse
(Still don't know if you're the same guy/girl/whatever that posted the original comment, it's hard to have a conversation with an AC...)
Sorry, but an Access Virus digital synth smokes the fuck out of any overpriced analog cack.
The whole point of an analogue-modelling digital synth like that is that it's designed to replicate the sound of an analogue synth by mimicking its operation! If people want to buy digital synths that imitate classic analogue models (without their unreliability!), I'd say that proves that most buyers think there's a clear difference in sound between analogue and "classic" digital (FM/wavetable) synths that the latter can't entirely bridge. And vice versa, but that wasn't the point.
The original complaint was that analogue synths were allegedly preferred purely because they were "analogue" and their "warmth" was spurious romanticism. Well, "warmth" and preference for sounds is in the eye of the beholder, but it's pretty obvious that the two types sound different!
Most of the analog synth companies went out of business in the 80s because they were run by retards who may have been good engineers but didn't know dick about running a company
Whether that's true or not, it says bugger all about the quality of the synths they made and/or whether analogue was better than digital, which is what was being discussed.
Hello fellow fountain pen heads! I don't like to write with a ball point - too much resistance on the page.
When I was at university (just over ten years ago) I used to do quite a lot of my writing with a cheap cartridge-based fountain pen I got out of Woolworths for something like £1 or £2. I can't remember why I got into the habit, I just found them nicer to write with than a ballpoint (biro). (Nothing to do with snobbery or credibility when the pen itself was clear luminous yellow plastic!)
I don't use them much nowadays, but that's probably because I don't do remotely as much handwriting full stop, mainly just short notes, and it's easier to just to grab a ballpoint. I have a lot of respect for the ballpoint, as it's a good example of the benefits of mass production, and very convenient, but I do agree with the "resistance" bit above... well, maybe it's not so much "resistance" unless you're using one of the fine-lined ballpoints, so much as the cartridge/fountain pen just felt more fluid and pleasant for extended use.
(I'm assuming you're the same AC that posted the original comment above, so see my answer to that also).
Actually analog synths go out of tune if it's too cold or hot. this is a horrible problem but now they turned it from a bug a to a feature! hey, if your synth is cold from being in a van driving to the gig or the club is 110 degrees because the promoter is too cheap to air condition the venue you instrument can go horribly out of tune! CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW! can you imagine a guitar or piano maker bragging about how their instrument will randomly go out of tune depending on the temperature? they wouldn't sell one instrument, but with "analog" suddenly having a shitty out of tune instrument is a sign of "soul"!
Nice strawman you're constructing there. While I've heard many musicians extolling the virtues of how analogue synths *sound*, I can't recall any of them *ever* having claimed that the reliability issues that some vintage models undoubtedly suffer from were A Good Thing, as opposed to something that had to be tolerated and lived with if you enjoyed those synths and the sound they produced.
The only person I can imagine claiming that this is a virtue (I've never actually heard this argument made) might be the sort of hipster who buys old equipment for its retro-cachet and overstates its flaws as a virtue as a reaction against more modern technology (*() and doesn't actually produce anything of note with it.
(*) A la Lomography a few years back, people buying overmarketed low-quality point-and-shooters at a premium price and taking photos with intentionally wonky "analogue" colours and contrast. I assume that this *must* be passe now, as the underground cachet of such photographs was probably blown to bits when Instagram took that whole aesthetic mass-market (ironically via entirely digital means on the ultimate manifestation of digital technology, smartphones on the Internet). And even Instagram must surely have peaked by now?
- something which I assume is passe since Instagram took that whole "crappy old photo" aesthetic mass-market, ironically via all-digital-means
Do you actually like synths, or are you just using this as an excuse for an anti-analogue rant? Yes, I agree that much analogue festishism is just as tedious, smug and wrongheaded as the early "digital is always better" hype it was reacting against, but anyone who actually likes synth music could tell you that analogue and digital synths sounded different, at least until "analogue-modelling" ones came along (*).
That's not to say that digital synths don't have their advantages- that's why they were very popular when the first came out in the mid-80s until the early-90s. They can generate sounds that analogue synths couldn't, and have a very "clean" feel.
Analogue synths made a comeback when it turned out that digital ones (or at least the first generation) couldn't entirely replicate the sound and fluidity of analogue ones either, and that polished-bordering-on-clinical late-80s production (all crystalline digital synths, fake piano and digital recording) started to go out of fashion.
(*) The whole point there being that people *did* want the sound and fluidity of analogue synths that the early digital synths couldn't provide- so they intentionally mimicked the way analogue synths worked, with increasing degrees of success. Fact remains that they were trying to mimic analogue because it *did* sound different to (e.g.) FM and "ROMpler" digital synths.
Why is the price tag more important than the technical details? A diamond and gold encrusted Raspberry Pi in a large warehouse could cost 2.2 billion...
Yes, it could. And if such a Raspberry Pi would exist, much like the data center designs of the largest providers in the world, you would know very little about it for security reasons.
The price tag is more important in this case because it probably *does* reflect the scale and possible power of the project. It's not likely to be being expensive for the sake of being expensive
The hypothetical Raspberry Pi isn't a good comparison, since it was contrived for the sake of being expensive and none of that expense has much effect on the core function. Real-world examples of such devices- i.e. much, *much* cheaper devices with masses of expensive trim glued on (such as "the world's first Arab supercar", (*) Vertu phones et al) would only ever be made as status symbols, so they're not likely to be kept secret, and the type of people who own them would probably be able to keep them secure when not in use (**), you just lock them away.
By contrast, the data centre is expensive for a reason, serves a purpose and can't be locked away. Not really that good a comparison.
(*) Where I already criticised the ludicrous contrived expense of such tacky bling-ified items by pointint out that one could make the world's most expensive car by gluing the Koh-i-Noor diamond to an ageing Vauxhall Corsa, yet its "value" would say sod all about its core function as a car itself.
(**) "In use" being when they want to impress someone who's as much of a bell-end as they are, or lure some gold-digger into bed.
Anyone who's seen Back to the Future knows hoverboards are just around the corner.
Given that the title of the thread is "Google Looked Into Space Elevator, Hoverboards, and Teleportation", my suspicion is that Google got their inspiration from "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator", "Back to the Future II" and "Star Trek" respectively.
They abandoned the "space elevator" idea because they were worried about cosmic rays and Vermicious Knids.
What's your point? That he's not entitled to criticise Apple for not offering the option- whether you agree with that criticism or not- simply because he's free to write his own and/or because Apple put a lot of effort in to theirs and have the right to offer what options they want?
Of course they do, and of course he has the right to criticise that behaviour.
This is just a variant of the stupid, flawed argument that repeatedly comes up on the supposedly intelligent Slashdot where someone rebuts a criticism of a product with something like "you're free not to buy it", as if that freedom somehow negated anyone else's moral entitlement to criticise that product or company, whether or not they bought it.
Quite how much it was "satire" upon that point or that it was simply a catchy- but still obviously non-literal- visual metaphor (as I commented above) is open to question.
Either way, it's definitely not meant to be taken straight. I mean, I doubt this computer magazine is literally suggesting that one can squeeze more data into their computer by robot hand forcing it in!
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't actually making the meme-image pretty superfluous in this case?
Unfortunately, given that the original "Yo Dawg" was marked as "offtopic" by twice as many people as thought it was funny, it probably *is* necessary.
:-(
Shame, as the minimalism of the original poster's joke worked- for me- because it assumed that most of us were familiar with a long-established meme to be able to dispense with the full text (i.e. playing off its clichedness rather than it being a boring rehash of a now-tired cliche) and also that we were smart enough to figure out its relevance to the headline story.
Not sure if the moderators didn't get the reference, or just couldn't figure out how it applied. This is why we can't have nice, minimalist jokes on Slashdot without it being necessary for someone else to overegg the pudding and explain them.
With all of Java's other early problems, a price tag would have ended it before it could gain any momentum.
Pretty much the same thought I had -- I was wondering what technology would occupy java's current space if they had done that.
Flash on steroids most likely as it displaced Java in a lot of areas anyway.
I always thought that ultimately, Flash all but filled the role that Java Applets were supposed to meet on the browser, but didn't.
FWIW, I'm not sure I'd blame Flash for the failure of Applets, as by the time it started to become more than a simple animation player, the latter had already had plenty of time to take off, but never had.
I suspect that this was because Java Applets were too heavyweight and slow to start at the time, whereas Flash was more in sync with what computers were capable of back then.
Of course, it's possible that in the absence of Flash, Applets might have become more popular as computers grew more powerful, but essentially I'd say they weren't so much displaced as never having succeeded on their own merits. Yes, there was (and still is, to a limited extent) some use of browser-based Java, but it never dominated like it was meant to. Flash may be in decline now, but it's enjoyed a decade- if not 15 years- as a major success.
Not that I'm saying that Java was a failure, just that- ironically- the aspect that gained *by far* the most hype at its mid-90s launch was the one it ultimately failed in.
1. If the ToS also says, "your use of this site signifies your acceptance of these terms", how do you signify that you don't accept? Never visit the site again?
2. If you never "use" the site again, will UserContentEncyclopedia.com realize this, and refrain from using your past contributions commercially since you haven't signified acceptance of the terms? Or will UserContentEncyclopedia.com assume that the continued presence of your past contributions constitutes "use"?
3. Does any site with ToS actually keep track of which registered users have accepted updated ToS?
4. Have ToS clauses such as (1) ever been tested in court, and judged to form the basis of a legally binding contract?
5. What if I don't accept the implied contract that merely visiting a website constitutes acceptance of its ToS?
6. Could someone use the reasoning in (5) to claim they don't accept the implied contract that signing their name on a physical paper contract constitutes acceptance of the terms therein?
These are some very good points; you should at least get an account so that they start at a Score of +1 or +2 instead of 0, and are more likely to be seen.
I wasn't aware of TV Tropes' attempt to change the licensing terms a couple of years back. Had I known, I would already have had a contemptious view of them (since *my* first thought too was that "you can't simply (legally) relicense CC content under new terms unless the contributors agree or you make it clear"- and, as the article writer pointed out, no such terms were presented or agreed to by me when adding edits.)
Even so, I was already unimpressed with a trick I caught them using a couple of months or so back. I noticed that they had added small, square pictures containing links to other articles at the bottom of some pages. Nice, you might think, but mixed in with these pictorial links (alternating in a checkerboard pattern) were links to external sites, i.e. adverts.
What made this morally dubious was that the advertising links and internal article links were of very similar style, both image and caption-wise, and it was quite clear that they were being intermingled with the intent of looking like links to TV Tropes articles and getting people to click on them.
Not in the same ballpark as their attempt to re-appropriate (i.e. steal) people's work for their own use only, but still an indicator of how sleazy the people who run this apparently friendly site are.
Because I needed a new pair of running shorts (as in, I'd just noticed the other ones were literally starting to come apart), didn't have that much time to buy them, didn't expect that the other shop would be *that* much cheaper (*). And maybe because I was both slightly lazy and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, while still retaining some doubt as to whether they were actually worth the price...
(*) They typically are, but "cheaper" on the branded stuff *they* sell still isn't that cheap, there's so much useless crap aimed at parents of kids wearing "sportswear as fashion" that it's impossible to find what one wants in a reasonable amount of time, and the staff are useless.
IIRC, my latest pair of running shorts apparently contain bamboo fibre. Whether or not this is a good thing or not, or even just an excuse to justify their overinflated price, I've no idea.
Of course I didn't mean that. Any stupidity was in your interpretation of my post.
On the contrary, I was the only person to guess you *might* not have meant that (*). That's what everyone else thought... quite reasonably, as it *would be* the most sensible interpretation assuming you'd actually bothered to read the summary!! That makes clear that the magazine hasn't been sold in printed form for almost a decade. In that context, saying "I'm not sure what a gamer would need a magazine for" serves no purpose unless it referred to the years it *was* being published (i.e. 1981 to 2004).
That's why everyone else thought you were utterly clueless. I was the only one who figured out that your comment was somewhat less stupid *if* you'd made the mistake others did of not properly reading the summary and assuming the printed magazine was still going (rather than it being the offshoot website under threat as is made clear).
To be blunt, my view was somewhat more charitable than it needed to be, assuming you'd committed the minor stupidity of not reading the summary, rather than the major stupidity implied by most people's understandable interpretation of your comment...
(*) Though I couldn't discount the possibility that you really *were* that clueless!
It is re-emerging. it's just doing it via a medium that isn't measured in dead trees per lunar orbit.
Good grief! Even the bleeding summary makes clear that CVG has been "online only" (i.e. a *website*) since 2004 and it's that "re-emerged" web-based version of the magazine that is now in danger.
Impressive that they lasted this long [..] I'm not sure what a gamer would need a magazine for
If you'd paid attention, you'd have noticed that the "magazine" has been online only (i.e. a website) for the past ten years.
:-O
To be fair, if you *had* made that mistake, it would at least make your question a less stupid one, i.e. "I'm not sure what a gamer would need a [printed] magazine for [in this day and age]".
Which is of course perfectly understandable. OTOH, if you really *did* mean this to refer to its entire lifetime from the early-1980s onwards, then yes, it was an utterly stupid question that suggests you're barely old enough to remember the dial-up Internet era, let alone what things were like before the Internet became widely available to the public in the mid-90s.
I didn't realize it was still going. I still have some old issues from the Sinclair Spectrum era lying around somewhere.
Depends what you mean by "still going" as the original magazine ceased publishing almost ten years ago (*) when Future publishing bought the title (apparently it overlapped with their own GamesMaster magazine, which is still going today in its printed form (**)).
:-)
I don't know how much continuity there was before and after that takeover, though to be fair, the title had already been sold previously, from its original publishers EMAP, to Dennis Publishing.
Isn't Wikipedia wonderful?
(*) Apparently they briefly relaunched it a few years back- or more accurately, reused the name- as "CVG Presents", a short-lived run of magazines each dedicated to a single game series (e.g. Grand Theft Auto). But that's long-defunct too.
(**) Mind you, that was a spinoff from the TV show that finished in the late 90s, so technically that's not *its* original form!
I suspect that what happened here was the authors put a backdoor into their backdoor software...
Yo dawg, I herd you like backdoors, so we put a backdoor in your backdoor so you can.... er, sod it, you can probably guess the rest yourselves. :-/
Who claimed anything "with horror"? It was pointing out the obvious as far as I was concerned.
Yes, I agree entirely that the measure was significantly about piracy- though the vast majority of PS pirates are unlikely to pay what Adobe are charging regardless, and they certainly know this.
And yes, even though you define their "illegitimate users" as being separate from their "users", the fact remains that it *is* quite clearly also a money-grab from the non-pirating userbase, as no-one forced Adobe to convert to a subscription-based model.
No, I don't believe that it's costing them all those extra squillions to run things on their servers- which I doubt most existing users would have chosen to go for if they'd had the choice to stay with the old design anyway- especially as the software continues to work for a limited time without an Internet connection. Had they wanted to keep the old licensing model, I'm sure the price would have covered the cost of running the servers.
In short, yes, of course it was about piracy, but it's also quite blatantly about converting existing perpetual-license users into a continuously milkable revenue stream, just as MS are trying to do- albeit in a less forceful manner- with Office 360.
is quite obviously to increase software companies' control over users
No, it only increases Adobe's control over their own software.
The "users" referred to are by implication users of Adobe's software, i.e. the people who chose to and are still using it. Adobe wish to control who uses it and how they use it.
Of course. Do you somehow believe that companies should not be able to determine their own business-model?
You're putting words in my mouth, as I didn't say anywhere that they shouldn't.
The fact that Adobe once offered an unlimited license to their software was their choice at the time. It didn't entitle you to anything regarding their future business.
Again, you're putting words in my mouth- I didn't claim that it did. But the assumptions you made and read into my comment just because I criticised Adobe, and the way you responded to them say a lot.
What I did do is something that I- and anyone else- is something I'm perfectly entitled to. I criticised Adobe and their business model. Time and time again, when a company, product or service is criticised on Slashdot, someone else answers with a would-be riposte essentially boiling down to "you don't have to buy it, so you have no right to criticise it".
Time and time again I've pointed out that it doesn't work like that. Adobe and friends have the freedom to run their business how they like (within reason). Others have the freedom to criticise their behaviour or anything they don't like about it, even if they're not being forced at gunpoint to use it.
I bet you've never criticised a car model (because you don't *have* to buy it), a company's uncompetitive prices (because you don't *have* to buy there) or the way a business in general is run (because... well, you get the picture). In fact, I bet you're never said a word against *anything* you had the choice to reject (including advising those who might be making the same choice). Right?
It's funny how so many of those who rush to defend the freedom of companies to run themselves how they like in a free market seem to forget that freedom cuts (or rather, should cut) both ways.
Wasn't avoiding the "single point of failure" a large part of the reason for cloud services being pushed in our faces in the first place?
No, that was only the rationale used to justify it to Photoshop users. The *reason* for it in many cases- such as this one- is quite obviously to increase software companies' control over users, and to get them used to a subscription model that provides those companies with a continuous income stream, rather than having the hassle of creating upgraded versions of software (gratuitous or otherwise (*)) and then having to convince users to pay for that upgrade when they might not feel the need for it.
That's not to say that cloud computing (i.e. distributed computing and distributed storage) is a bad idea in itself; of course, it has many theoretical benefits. But the concept has been co-opted and distorted by marketing, who have reduced the meaning of "cloud" to little more than a buzzword that applies to anything with online connectivity, even if that's not designed in a cloud-like way. And they've used that to make a method of control a selling point- or at least to try to sweeten the pill Photoshop users are being forced to swallow (**).
Really, what major cloud-like benefit does the latest Photoshop offer users? Does it let them harness the enormous power of a distributed computer network to massively speed up processing times on slow operations (vs. doing it on their own computer) in short bursts?
(*) Canonical example, Microsoft Word, which reached what most people needed several versions ago, but had to force upgrades to keep it selling, so kept adding new features, which also force other users who want to interoperate with those using the latest versions to *also* upgrade.
(**) Along the lines of (*) above, while some may argue that "you don't *have* to upgrade", those in industry who wish to interoperate with others and keep up with latest developments probably *will* need to upgrade eventually
Was it even ever popular?
Oh yes. The quality is absolutely better than DVD, and still much better than streaming.
That's nice- but it's not what was being asked.
The question is, was Blu-Ray ever really *popular* (i.e. popular in the mass-market sense) as Sony claimed? And the answer has to be... certainly not to anything like the extent that DVD was, and arguably far less than might have been expected when it was launched.
I bought a BD-DL writer for my NAS when I built it 4 years ago. It was a bit under £50
You must have got a very good price on it then, because even today the typical price of the cheapest Blu-Ray writers still hovers around the £60 mark and they've been stuck there for a long time now. In fact, that's the problem, prices gradually fell for a while... then they didn't.
The media is very affordable now- you can actually get packs of 10 discs for the equivalent of 27p each- but while £60 for a drive isn't much if you *really* want one, it's still too expensive to be a "no brainer" replacement for a DVD writer (*) for customers who might go for it if it was only a few quid extra- in much the way that DVD writers did when they got to be only a few quid more than a CD writer. Even a £40 premium on a computer (**) is a big increase on a low-end model if the person really isn't *that* bothered about Blu-Ray anyway.
Personally, I could easily afford to go out and buy a £60 Blu-Ray drive, but I'm not really into films, 25GB really *isn't* that big for data storage or backup any more (it's piggy in the middle between the stuff I can store on DVD-R and stuff that needs HDD capacities) and I don't even burn many DVDs these days. Why bother?
(*) eBuyer are selling an LG *writer* for under £12!
(**) I suspect most of these people would only be upgrading their drive as part of a new computer, probably a laptop. I'm assuming that £40 would be the bulk wholesale price differential- ironically, since that's still too expensive to include a BD writer in the cheapest laptops, I suspect manufacturers would probably market it as a "premium" feature and increase the price *more* (to make a profit-increasing virtue out of a drawback).
I think your bank is probably more tired of it than you are as by law they are required to eat most of the liability. The good banks give you zero liability (as in, you aren't ever responsible for losses.)
No, the banks don't have to cover the cost of fraudulent credit card transactions (although I bet they love basking in the warm glow of the widespread misconception that they do). It's the retailers who get screwed when that happens, both in the US (I assume that reference to Newegg means it's American) and in the UK.
As I posted in this comment, the banks don't give a **** because they don't have to; they're not the ones paying for it. Fraud report? Yank the money back from the retailer (even if they've performed reasonable diligence (*))
Even though chip and pin is very common in the UK (I can't remember the last time I used a swipe-and-signature terminal), credit card fraud still exists and it's the retailer that gets screwed.
(*) In fact, as far as I'm aware, retailers- in the US, at least- are suposedly *prohibited* from checking ID, which makes this even worse
Sorry, but an Access Virus digital synth smokes the fuck out of any overpriced analog cack.
The whole point of an analogue-modelling digital synth like that is that it's designed to replicate the sound of an analogue synth by mimicking its operation! If people want to buy digital synths that imitate classic analogue models (without their unreliability!), I'd say that proves that most buyers think there's a clear difference in sound between analogue and "classic" digital (FM/wavetable) synths that the latter can't entirely bridge. And vice versa, but that wasn't the point.
The original complaint was that analogue synths were allegedly preferred purely because they were "analogue" and their "warmth" was spurious romanticism. Well, "warmth" and preference for sounds is in the eye of the beholder, but it's pretty obvious that the two types sound different!
Most of the analog synth companies went out of business in the 80s because they were run by retards who may have been good engineers but didn't know dick about running a company
Whether that's true or not, it says bugger all about the quality of the synths they made and/or whether analogue was better than digital, which is what was being discussed.
Hello fellow fountain pen heads! I don't like to write with a ball point - too much resistance on the page.
When I was at university (just over ten years ago) I used to do quite a lot of my writing with a cheap cartridge-based fountain pen I got out of Woolworths for something like £1 or £2. I can't remember why I got into the habit, I just found them nicer to write with than a ballpoint (biro). (Nothing to do with snobbery or credibility when the pen itself was clear luminous yellow plastic!)
I don't use them much nowadays, but that's probably because I don't do remotely as much handwriting full stop, mainly just short notes, and it's easier to just to grab a ballpoint. I have a lot of respect for the ballpoint, as it's a good example of the benefits of mass production, and very convenient, but I do agree with the "resistance" bit above... well, maybe it's not so much "resistance" unless you're using one of the fine-lined ballpoints, so much as the cartridge/fountain pen just felt more fluid and pleasant for extended use.
Actually analog synths go out of tune if it's too cold or hot. this is a horrible problem but now they turned it from a bug a to a feature! hey, if your synth is cold from being in a van driving to the gig or the club is 110 degrees because the promoter is too cheap to air condition the venue you instrument can go horribly out of tune! CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW! can you imagine a guitar or piano maker bragging about how their instrument will randomly go out of tune depending on the temperature? they wouldn't sell one instrument, but with "analog" suddenly having a shitty out of tune instrument is a sign of "soul"!
Nice strawman you're constructing there. While I've heard many musicians extolling the virtues of how analogue synths *sound*, I can't recall any of them *ever* having claimed that the reliability issues that some vintage models undoubtedly suffer from were A Good Thing, as opposed to something that had to be tolerated and lived with if you enjoyed those synths and the sound they produced.
The only person I can imagine claiming that this is a virtue (I've never actually heard this argument made) might be the sort of hipster who buys old equipment for its retro-cachet and overstates its flaws as a virtue as a reaction against more modern technology (*() and doesn't actually produce anything of note with it.
(*) A la Lomography a few years back, people buying overmarketed low-quality point-and-shooters at a premium price and taking photos with intentionally wonky "analogue" colours and contrast. I assume that this *must* be passe now, as the underground cachet of such photographs was probably blown to bits when Instagram took that whole aesthetic mass-market (ironically via entirely digital means on the ultimate manifestation of digital technology, smartphones on the Internet). And even Instagram must surely have peaked by now? - something which I assume is passe since Instagram took that whole "crappy old photo" aesthetic mass-market, ironically via all-digital-means
Do you actually like synths, or are you just using this as an excuse for an anti-analogue rant? Yes, I agree that much analogue festishism is just as tedious, smug and wrongheaded as the early "digital is always better" hype it was reacting against, but anyone who actually likes synth music could tell you that analogue and digital synths sounded different, at least until "analogue-modelling" ones came along (*).
That's not to say that digital synths don't have their advantages- that's why they were very popular when the first came out in the mid-80s until the early-90s. They can generate sounds that analogue synths couldn't, and have a very "clean" feel.
Analogue synths made a comeback when it turned out that digital ones (or at least the first generation) couldn't entirely replicate the sound and fluidity of analogue ones either, and that polished-bordering-on-clinical late-80s production (all crystalline digital synths, fake piano and digital recording) started to go out of fashion.
(*) The whole point there being that people *did* want the sound and fluidity of analogue synths that the early digital synths couldn't provide- so they intentionally mimicked the way analogue synths worked, with increasing degrees of success. Fact remains that they were trying to mimic analogue because it *did* sound different to (e.g.) FM and "ROMpler" digital synths.
Why is the price tag more important than the technical details? A diamond and gold encrusted Raspberry Pi in a large warehouse could cost 2.2 billion...
Yes, it could. And if such a Raspberry Pi would exist, much like the data center designs of the largest providers in the world, you would know very little about it for security reasons.
The price tag is more important in this case because it probably *does* reflect the scale and possible power of the project. It's not likely to be being expensive for the sake of being expensive
The hypothetical Raspberry Pi isn't a good comparison, since it was contrived for the sake of being expensive and none of that expense has much effect on the core function. Real-world examples of such devices- i.e. much, *much* cheaper devices with masses of expensive trim glued on (such as "the world's first Arab supercar", (*) Vertu phones et al) would only ever be made as status symbols, so they're not likely to be kept secret, and the type of people who own them would probably be able to keep them secure when not in use (**), you just lock them away.
By contrast, the data centre is expensive for a reason, serves a purpose and can't be locked away. Not really that good a comparison.
(*) Where I already criticised the ludicrous contrived expense of such tacky bling-ified items by pointint out that one could make the world's most expensive car by gluing the Koh-i-Noor diamond to an ageing Vauxhall Corsa, yet its "value" would say sod all about its core function as a car itself.
(**) "In use" being when they want to impress someone who's as much of a bell-end as they are, or lure some gold-digger into bed.
Anyone who's seen Back to the Future knows hoverboards are just around the corner.
Given that the title of the thread is "Google Looked Into Space Elevator, Hoverboards, and Teleportation", my suspicion is that Google got their inspiration from "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator", "Back to the Future II" and "Star Trek" respectively.
They abandoned the "space elevator" idea because they were worried about cosmic rays and Vermicious Knids.
What's your point? That he's not entitled to criticise Apple for not offering the option- whether you agree with that criticism or not- simply because he's free to write his own and/or because Apple put a lot of effort in to theirs and have the right to offer what options they want?
Of course they do, and of course he has the right to criticise that behaviour.
This is just a variant of the stupid, flawed argument that repeatedly comes up on the supposedly intelligent Slashdot where someone rebuts a criticism of a product with something like "you're free not to buy it", as if that freedom somehow negated anyone else's moral entitlement to criticise that product or company, whether or not they bought it.
Quite how much it was "satire" upon that point or that it was simply a catchy- but still obviously non-literal- visual metaphor (as I commented above) is open to question.
Either way, it's definitely not meant to be taken straight. I mean, I doubt this computer magazine is literally suggesting that one can squeeze more data into their computer by robot hand forcing it in!