Bees are also not the only insects at risk. Use of herbicides/insecticides is also linked to the decline in the butterfly population. While butterflies aren't quite as industrious pollinators as bees, they're certainly valuable to the ecosystem.
I'd imagine there are lots of others besides the bees and butterflies at stake too.
SC1? Certainly you could. The ability to spawn a multiplayer-only install for buddies was one of the best parts. Each disc actually had a full installer and a multiplayer-only copy, which required at least one legit CD-key per X players. SC2 not so much.
However, I believe you missed my point.
If I've bought two copies of Starcraft II, and two copies of Battlefield 2 (or whatever), then with four PC's we could have two people on SC2, and two people on BF3. That's a total of four players (the number of games I have legit copies of). Obviously now EA has jumped on the gaming-platform bandwagon which similarly will restrict simultaneous gaming for newer stuff.
now you're asking for the right to share the games with others as well
Well yes, I did pay for them, after all. If I've got two steam account, each with a copy of L4D2 and AOE2... then we can have a total of... two players (the total number of steam accounts). That's despite the fact that I've paid for all four copies. Not everyone is a hardcore gamer. Some friends don't even game outside of gatherings so it's not likely they'll be buying for the twice-a-year play experience.
Now keep in mind that Valve is apparently pursuing a console. How's that going to work? Thing of the uproar when people hear rumours of always-on DRM and single-console restrictions for Xbox/PS3. Right now I can take a disc to a buddy's place and play (whatever). How's that going to work for Steam? Will my wife be able to play [game that's paid for X] while I'm logged into the same account playing [game that's paid for Y] on a different console?
DRM doesn't get in the way of you legitimately playing it, does it
Yes, yes it does. As per the above, I've paid for the games. Some on sale, some at full price. There were sales before Steam, you know, and a bigger used-game market (essentially Steam-sales somewhat replace that). If I can't simultaneously use two things I've paid for, it's a flaw in the system.
Now should I be able to lend five of my buddies a Steam login so that they can all play L4D2 on one account? No, that's not cool (well, unless Valve allows multiplayer-only spawn) because there's only one paid-for copy.
How could Valve solve this? In days past, individual games had CD-keys, which is essentially a unique identifier for a single copy. The storage of that could be automatic, and Valve could simply disallow having two simultaneous runs of the same unique-ID (the same way as old games used to do if you tried to jump online with two non-unique game copies). Alternately, perhaps allow multiple instances of a single account from single originating public-IP.
I'm not asking for the right to share games with others in different locations - though that would be cool too as long as it's per-license restricted - I'm asking for the right to use the games I've purchased.
Segregate infected PC's, and do fresh installs in a sandbox. If the PC's are of the same make/model (or at least a small number of makes/models) all you really need is a single image per type, patched up with AV, and then to redo the lot of them. Hopefully they'd have a volume license for the OS/software...
But seriously, for most people OS reinstall=like-new PC, depending on the hardware age. Certainly no need to just toss the PC in the bin unless it's got really old hardware.
I'd imagine it's not a straight line, but rather has factors of game type, time-since-release, price, and DRM.
The latter in my case is actually a factor that would drive me to download a cracked version, though generally after purchasing a copy. It's getting particularly bad in the portables market where a lot of games using always-on DRM, thus making them less than portable. Even at the low price-point a game I can't play offline isn't worth paying for...
It is somewhat of a good warning to Devs or others that might be tempted to use a personal card for a large business purchase (in order to get the points or whatever)...
don't do it unless you're 101% sure you'll be reimbursed...
"(or at least not if there's an online component)"
Usually this is in cases where there are a bunch of buddies over and we're playing different games across varying PC's
In the old days you'd have both games installed on multiple PC's, and - though some disc-swapping or logins might be required - two people could play game "A" without impacting another two people playing game "B"
Strange, somehow I would have expected such a rant after seeing some of the idiotics patents that have been approved. It's somehow even more disheartening to find that the rant is in regards to an apparently non-unique patent being rejected (as it should be).
Set an example, my ass. In most places tampering with evidence is a setups crime. It's not about going after somebody harder than normal, but rather treating them the same as you our I would be.
While I love Steam, I have one complaint about their DRM/gameplay model. It only allows 1-game-per-account to be played simultaneously. If I've got an account with 50 games, I want to play game A and my buddy who's over wants to play game B, it won't happen (or at least not if there's an online component).
If Steam is going to be looking at game consoles etc, they need to fix it to be
1-simultaneous-play-per-game rather than
1-simultaneous-play-per-account
Consider that this outage comes after some of their exams were found to be scoring incorrectly
Not just scoring. When I took the LPIC exam, some of the ("correct" answers to) questions were either very misleading or just factually incorrect. Mostly, this was due to the test being massively out-of-date, but still having answers based on extremely dated versions of Linux.
If they're targeting it, I'd imagine that they may have some idea of the email account(s) used by persons of interest, if perhaps not the contents of all emails.
Let's just boil this down to what most of the current argument is about: Netflix.
Java is supposed to be cross-platform, and able to do all sorts of media stuff. Netflix already runs on a bunch of Blu-Ray players etc, presumably running on java-based software.
While Java browser-plugs are quite a PITA lately, I still have yet to discover why Netflix hasn't been made to run on PC's using Java. I'd assume there are DRM options available, code could probably be re-used, and if the browser-plugin is a security issue then I'm sure a dedicated application could be made available.
Eh? I prefer routes where the air is a bit fresher and there's nice scenery, but I can get that with a nice 100km stretch of near-flat biking it sounds great to me!
What is their physical location? Head office? Warehouse?
This ultimately ends up with them moving to wherever they're subsidised to near no taxation (which only lasts until the taxes rise, then they move). You end up with some town in b**f**k nowhere that serves as the distribution point because they don't charge any tax, and a head-office in India/China/Kerplekistan/etc. Another county or another country, it won't matter so long as they can dodge the tax-man.
Indeed. While those little smartphone cameras still aren't a match for a real camera in many cases, in decent light they still beat the pants off CCTV cameras etc.
In the era when pretty much everyone has a 5+ megapixel camera or even 1080p video-camera in their pocket - with no worries about wasting film on random shots - on-site photography is going to be very valuable in situations like this.
To the GP... Or the more recent movie-theatre shooting, or the various school shootings, etc. I suppose it's "difference" because those evil [insert religion/race] use bombs instead of going on shooting rampages?
The only difference I see between a shooting spree and a bomb is that shooters seem to get ID'ed and caught/shot a bit sooner than bombers.
From the videos I saw, the one guy at least looked pretty light-skinned to me. The other guy may have been been darker, but it was hard to tell what with the hat, sunglasses, and grainy photo.
Actually one of the first things I remember thinking is "white guys, I hope they're local so that this doesn't result in another war or a bunch more racial paranoia".
So who would you consider a good source of DDOS information then?
I'd expect a statement that the # of DDOS attempts is going up would be targeted at increasing business, not so much that the bandwidth is increasing. Regardless of whether you're being DDOS's at 9GBPS or 50GBPS, either one isn't going to be pleasant for many companies out there. However, it may matter to DDOS providers as I'd imagine there's an upper-limit to what even they can filter.
For example, in the Rehtaeh Parsons case (Canada), Anon basically showed the RCMP (police) as having put little effort into the case, and have proceeded to dig up evidence and essentially revive the case.
As with the link above, major news outlets in Canada have carried this story, and the reputation of anon seems to be improving in regards to revealing similar issues in gov't or law enforcement.
So long as they can tame the "lulz" area of things, an official news site might be a good/popular reference for some things.
Slashdot Mirror
Bees are also not the only insects at risk.
Use of herbicides/insecticides is also linked to the decline in the butterfly population. While butterflies aren't quite as industrious pollinators as bees, they're certainly valuable to the ecosystem.
I'd imagine there are lots of others besides the bees and butterflies at stake too.
SC1? Certainly you could. The ability to spawn a multiplayer-only install for buddies was one of the best parts. Each disc actually had a full installer and a multiplayer-only copy, which required at least one legit CD-key per X players.
SC2 not so much.
However, I believe you missed my point.
If I've bought two copies of Starcraft II, and two copies of Battlefield 2 (or whatever), then with four PC's we could have two people on SC2, and two people on BF3. That's a total of four players (the number of games I have legit copies of). Obviously now EA has jumped on the gaming-platform bandwagon which similarly will restrict simultaneous gaming for newer stuff.
now you're asking for the right to share the games with others as well
Well yes, I did pay for them, after all. ... two players (the total number of steam accounts). That's despite the fact that I've paid for all four copies. Not everyone is a hardcore gamer. Some friends don't even game outside of gatherings so it's not likely they'll be buying for the twice-a-year play experience.
If I've got two steam account, each with a copy of L4D2 and AOE2... then we can have a total of
Now keep in mind that Valve is apparently pursuing a console. How's that going to work?
Thing of the uproar when people hear rumours of always-on DRM and single-console restrictions for Xbox/PS3. Right now I can take a disc to a buddy's place and play (whatever). How's that going to work for Steam? Will my wife be able to play [game that's paid for X] while I'm logged into the same account playing [game that's paid for Y] on a different console?
DRM doesn't get in the way of you legitimately playing it, does it
Yes, yes it does. As per the above, I've paid for the games. Some on sale, some at full price. There were sales before Steam, you know, and a bigger used-game market (essentially Steam-sales somewhat replace that). If I can't simultaneously use two things I've paid for, it's a flaw in the system.
Now should I be able to lend five of my buddies a Steam login so that they can all play L4D2 on one account? No, that's not cool (well, unless Valve allows multiplayer-only spawn) because there's only one paid-for copy.
How could Valve solve this? In days past, individual games had CD-keys, which is essentially a unique identifier for a single copy. The storage of that could be automatic, and Valve could simply disallow having two simultaneous runs of the same unique-ID (the same way as old games used to do if you tried to jump online with two non-unique game copies).
Alternately, perhaps allow multiple instances of a single account from single originating public-IP.
I'm not asking for the right to share games with others in different locations - though that would be cool too as long as it's per-license restricted - I'm asking for the right to use the games I've purchased.
People in threat waving around Fdisk and re-install media saying 'they could fix this
And just buying new machines solves those issues how?
Segregate infected PC's, and do fresh installs in a sandbox. If the PC's are of the same make/model (or at least a small number of makes/models) all you really need is a single image per type, patched up with AV, and then to redo the lot of them. Hopefully they'd have a volume license for the OS/software...
But seriously, for most people OS reinstall=like-new PC, depending on the hardware age. Certainly no need to just toss the PC in the bin unless it's got really old hardware.
I wonder what's the average conversion rate
I'd imagine it's not a straight line, but rather has factors of game type, time-since-release, price, and DRM.
The latter in my case is actually a factor that would drive me to download a cracked version, though generally after purchasing a copy. It's getting particularly bad in the portables market where a lot of games using always-on DRM, thus making them less than portable. Even at the low price-point a game I can't play offline isn't worth paying for...
It is somewhat of a good warning to Devs or others that might be tempted to use a personal card for a large business purchase (in order to get the points or whatever)...
don't do it unless you're 101% sure you'll be reimbursed...
"(or at least not if there's an online component)"
Usually this is in cases where there are a bunch of buddies over and we're playing different games across varying PC's
In the old days you'd have both games installed on multiple PC's, and - though some disc-swapping or logins might be required - two people could play game "A" without impacting another two people playing game "B"
Strange, somehow I would have expected such a rant after seeing some of the idiotics patents that have been approved. It's somehow even more disheartening to find that the rant is in regards to an apparently non-unique patent being rejected (as it should be).
Set an example, my ass. In most places tampering with evidence is a setups crime. It's not about going after somebody harder than normal, but rather treating them the same as you our I would be.
While I love Steam, I have one complaint about their DRM/gameplay model. It only allows 1-game-per-account to be played simultaneously.
If I've got an account with 50 games, I want to play game A and my buddy who's over wants to play game B, it won't happen (or at least not if there's an online component).
If Steam is going to be looking at game consoles etc, they need to fix it to be
1-simultaneous-play-per-game
rather than
1-simultaneous-play-per-account
Consider that this outage comes after some of their exams were found to be scoring incorrectly
Not just scoring. When I took the LPIC exam, some of the ("correct" answers to) questions were either very misleading or just factually incorrect. Mostly, this was due to the test being massively out-of-date, but still having answers based on extremely dated versions of Linux.
So which competing Telco passed him a big wad of bills recently?
Nautilus for instance is a nightmare with samba shares
I don't use Unity but I do use Nautilus. What's wrong with SMB shares?
smb://server/share has always worked pretty well for me.
If they're targeting it, I'd imagine that they may have some idea of the email account(s) used by persons of interest, if perhaps not the contents of all emails.
Can the prisoners... er... 'citizens' of every other country say that
If they can, where would they go? Just because they can leave doesn't mean other countries are obligated to take them in.
Let's just boil this down to what most of the current argument is about: Netflix.
Java is supposed to be cross-platform, and able to do all sorts of media stuff. Netflix already runs on a bunch of Blu-Ray players etc, presumably running on java-based software.
While Java browser-plugs are quite a PITA lately, I still have yet to discover why Netflix hasn't been made to run on PC's using Java. I'd assume there are DRM options available, code could probably be re-used, and if the browser-plugin is a security issue then I'm sure a dedicated application could be made available.
Why is HTML5 even needed?
Some businesses still use punch cards or button-operated mainframes for doing core work such as accounting
no joke
Cyclists actively prefer hilly routes
Eh? I prefer routes where the air is a bit fresher and there's nice scenery, but I can get that with a nice 100km stretch of near-flat biking it sounds great to me!
What is their physical location? Head office? Warehouse?
This ultimately ends up with them moving to wherever they're subsidised to near no taxation (which only lasts until the taxes rise, then they move). You end up with some town in b**f**k nowhere that serves as the distribution point because they don't charge any tax, and a head-office in India/China/Kerplekistan/etc.
Another county or another country, it won't matter so long as they can dodge the tax-man.
Not everyone uses the free (cash-wise) services, and beyond that one can pay with more than just money.
If google were totally 100% "free", I don't think they'd be a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.
Indeed. While those little smartphone cameras still aren't a match for a real camera in many cases, in decent light they still beat the pants off CCTV cameras etc.
In the era when pretty much everyone has a 5+ megapixel camera or even 1080p video-camera in their pocket - with no worries about wasting film on random shots - on-site photography is going to be very valuable in situations like this.
To the GP...
Or the more recent movie-theatre shooting, or the various school shootings, etc.
I suppose it's "difference" because those evil [insert religion/race] use bombs instead of going on shooting rampages?
The only difference I see between a shooting spree and a bomb is that shooters seem to get ID'ed and caught/shot a bit sooner than bombers.
From the videos I saw, the one guy at least looked pretty light-skinned to me. The other guy may have been been darker, but it was hard to tell what with the hat, sunglasses, and grainy photo.
Actually one of the first things I remember thinking is "white guys, I hope they're local so that this doesn't result in another war or a bunch more racial paranoia".
So who would you consider a good source of DDOS information then?
I'd expect a statement that the # of DDOS attempts is going up would be targeted at increasing business, not so much that the bandwidth is increasing.
Regardless of whether you're being DDOS's at 9GBPS or 50GBPS, either one isn't going to be pleasant for many companies out there. However, it may matter to DDOS providers as I'd imagine there's an upper-limit to what even they can filter.
For example, in the Rehtaeh Parsons case (Canada), Anon basically showed the RCMP (police) as having put little effort into the case, and have proceeded to dig up evidence and essentially revive the case.
As with the link above, major news outlets in Canada have carried this story, and the reputation of anon seems to be improving in regards to revealing similar issues in gov't or law enforcement.
So long as they can tame the "lulz" area of things, an official news site might be a good/popular reference for some things.