How do you think Microsoft is gonna respond? With a court case of course.
Actually, back in the day I worked at blockbuster video and we were bound to release dates too. One day a couple movies were put on the shelves like 2 days early and corporate freaked. Turns out what the movie industry does (or did) was, IMO, far more sinister than a lawsuit. If the studios found that we put out one of their movies early they postponed their shipments by 90 days for a period of time (the period, i forget) but can you imagine a store (or franchise) being denied shipments of games for 90 days? Gives everyone else a bit of a competitive edge and completely screws the people who screwed up.. I think this is far more effective, and a better deturant than a lawsuit.
Personally my favorite part is -- That shows that not everybody solves everything in a court, and I love it.
I mean, what GBA-owning, old-school, adventure game-playing, nerd wouldn't lay down a heap of money on a collectors edition box set of Space Quest for the GBA? It's like printing money.
Shit, I don't even OWN a GBA, but you can bet that if they released the QFG series, Space Quest, LSL games for it? You can bet I'd buy the games AND a GBA. Those games were worth it.
x86 is only cheaper than mac if your time has no value.
I will be your case study for this comment. I've had a g3 powerbook since '99, used it, a windows desktop, and a gentoo server/desktop until about 3 months ago when it finally died. Luckily I still had my linux and windows desktops as well, but my productivity was shot straight to hell.
I ended up with a new 12" powerbook, and now I'm kickin' ass better than ever before.
I don't mind spending some cash on a mac because for me, it's 110% worth it. With the productivity boost I get out of it, it pays for itself.
That being said -- I saw this upgrade coming a mile away, I just got a new powerbook, so the G5s must be right around the corner;)
No the Xbox only became successful because M$ threw hundreds of millions of dollars at it till it had some sort of success. This included taking huge losses on hardware, buying up game companies and pouring the money into advertising. Devmage
Yup, just brute forced it in there. I was the UberSonyFanboy when I got my ps2, hated the Xbox, that POS couldn't compare.
Now I own both, use the ps2 for DVDs and a few old games that I enjoyed, everything new I get is XBox and I love the hell outta both of 'em.
I will say though, I'm impressed by the elegence of the PS2, designed their own proprietary chips and all to obtain magnificent results. I love the XBox, but they did just take a brute force approach to it. And it worked.. (IMO)
"Kids are free to close their eyes and pray whenever they want"
And I believe that Publically they should be able to as well. They should be able to pray to themselves, pray aloud, pray into a bullhorn if they want. But nobody should be forced to pray by a 'teacher saying a prayer at the begining fo the school day' A teacher asking a divine power for the ability to teach is fine, but if he/she is leading the class in a prayer such as they did for us using the pledge of alegience before every school day -- then I am TOTALLY against that. What if you're a different religion? What if you're agnostic, athiest, buddhist, islamic? You should NOT be forced to pray to a god that you do not believe in. That's not right.
I'm not sure whether or not this is the right post to reply to, but I think I got the thread right;)
I think mob rule is just fine, so long as it doesn't conflict with the constitutional rights of others.
As far as the forcing prayer in schools, it should be a non-issue, they shouldn't even be allowed to vote on it due to that line about seperation of church and state. Schools are funded by taxes collected by the govt, so if someone says "I vote we put prayer in schools" the govt should step in and say, "too bad, you can't have THAT even if you DO want it, but if you want to send your kid to a privately funded school that accepts religion, feel free!"
As for the gay rights thing, they should have the same rights as anybody else due to anti-descrimination. Whether that would include marraige or not, I'm not sure...
Not to stray too far off topic -- Is marraige a 'binding contract between two people under the eyes of the govt'? or is it 'a joining of two people under god'? I think we need to solve that one before we can decide whether or not gay marraige should be acceptable. I'm all for it, I don't think we should descriminate about anyone.. but the religious zealots who see marraige as a 'joining of two people under god'? are going to disagree...
-matt
Re:um... I'd have a different perspective
on
Less Might Be More
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· Score: 1
I wasn't sure which of these comments to respond to, it's more to just agree with the entire thread when it comes to your mac. I am -just- replacing due to its death, and this time it's the entire computer that died, my 1999 Lombard Powerbook. It has never had a faild HDD, RAM, video, anything. This thing has been rock solid, and totally adequate for the past 5 years. I'd still be using it today had I been able to. But I picked up a nice 12" Aluminum replacement to keep me from mourning.:) Hopefully I have the same luck with this one.
Anyhow, I just thought it was in poor taste to basically tell his entire audience to piss off. I think most would agree that it could have been put better than "If you want it, go get it on VHS". A decaying medium which is a lot harder to find than the DVD, and it's even hard to find the non-SE versions on VHS these days anyway. So even if you do go get it on VHS, you're probably still getting SE.
Before SE was created, there WAS a "Digitally Remastered" version of SW Trilogy released on VHS, why can't he just use that and put it on DVD? Anyhow, I'm digressing, the point of this post was that I didn't like his response, it seemed like he was being a cocky prick. And -that- is why I wasn't happy with the story on Friday, even if I did drift into a rant on his need to release the original movie or my opinions on the changes made in SE;)
You know, I have been cutting Lucas a break on the SE movies. I didn't think they were so bad actually, the THX remastering is cool, the cleanup on the visuals was cool.. It was the rewriting that I didn't like. You mention Apocolypse Redux, which has about 45 min of additional footage.. Which brings up a good point. "Stone did it and you don't give him hell, cut Lucas a break" Which, to that all I can say is "good point, you caught me".. However, they didn't really add anything to Redux that wasn't in the original cut of the film, it's all stuff that was stripped out to satisfy the studio's want to have it play more times per day in the theaters. But you're right, there are a lot of remakes, and they've all been pretty good. It just seems like Lucas half-assed a couple scenes. For instance Greedo vs. Han and Han's discussion with Jabba which did enhance the story, but could have been done better. It just looked rushed to me.
Anyhow, I normally look forward to SE movies with added footage, I couldn't wait for Redux, the only LOTR movies I get are the extended versions, I love seeing the film how it was intended. But usually these 'remakes' are just adding stuff from the cutting room floor, back into the movie. Lucas seems to have changed his whole life view, and it shows in his movies. He's adding new footage to satisfy the parents it seems, or to push merchandising.. which god knows SW doesn't need any help with that.
That's just my stance on that. What really pissed me off in the article was the fact that he basically told everyone who wants the original edition to F'off. How hard would it be to take the SE versions of SW, cut out the added footage, and end up with a digitally remastered, THX edition of the ORIGINAL cut of SW. Piece of cake. And he can even put it on the SE discs as a bonus. I'd buy it. I just don't appreciate his attitude of "I don't want anyone to see those, if you want it, go find it on VHS" He sure didn't have that "I don't want anyone to see those" attitude when he was making millions off of it in the 70s. I thought that was a bit uncalled for.
"F-ck you all, I never wanted to make star wars in the first place. The special additions are as close as I can now get to what I realy wanted. I wont release the originals because the millions of fans that want to buy them wouldn't (or so the force tells me). Just buy my crap and shut the hell up."
Well put, I got the feeling those were the exact words he was looking for, and would have used in private had he been assured his statement wouldn't go public;)
I agree with you, I see where he's coming from, but people aren't ASKING for a THX version or a digital touch-up (although it would be nice) hell, he could just put an original copy with poor sound and all as an 'extra' on the DVD and I'm sure he'd satisfy a lot of people.
I wonder... He says it's too expensive to touch up the version he doesn't want anyone to see (which is silly to be embarassed about something so widely in demand, obviously people like it) but I think it may be beneficial costwise.. I think even not-so-hardcore fans would buy a retouched "This is the ORIGINAL Star Wars digitally remastered!" version. Hell, I'd probably break down and get -that-.
Some scenes in the new Star Wars movies make me wonder if Lucas is really thinking outside the box. One scene that comes to mind is where Obi Wan goes to visit an old friend who runs a diner that looks waaay too much like a typical American roadside diner.
Wait a second... I haven't been following these new DVDs being released... I thought it was just the Special Editions that were released in the theaters before the prequils came out... Are you saying they added -more-!?
Ugh, I had respect for the guy.. well, some, but it's been steadily declining, and quickly.
First, OK, so the technology wasn't available to make the movies he wanted to make. I'll buy that, the DS explosion was a lot cooler.. The fact that you can't see through the ships now is cool. He says he wants Han to talk to Jabba at the begining of EP I, OK, I'll buy that too, albeit poorly done. Is he saying that he didn't have the technology to allow greedo to fire first when he made the original EP IV? That's BS, he's rewriting it now as a 'big hollywood name' as opposed to creating a vision and running with it as he did in the first making of the movie.
Also, What the hell is this "It's my movie, It's going to be how I want it, if you guys want the original it's on VHS!" attitude? He's like a spoiled kid, only he's 'rich and powerful' so he's even worse. Don't alienate the people who got you to where you are, it's poor business practice. VHS copies of Star Wars (original edition) are about 10+ years old now and probably don't even play well. Not many people (as said before) are going to buy a LD player in order to play the LD editions, and lucas knows it. He can do what he wants I guess, but it could have been said a lot better. He basically told everybody who wants the original versions of SW to f'off. He's trying to drown the original out of existence, and force people to buy the new versions even though there's a major demand for the originals. They're what made him. Now that I think about it, it surprises me that with his greed (releasing and rereleasing the same thing in a different box to make a buck) that he won't release the originals, people are asking for it, he'd make a mint off of slashdot alone;) and he refuses to do it..
F' him, I wouldn't buy the trilogy now even if he DID include the originals because he's already butchered it to a point where you don't know WHAT point he's trying to get across. Is it the original? second edition? third? tenth!? Seriously, this movie has been released and edited and rerelased so many f'ing times it's ridiculous. Make up your f'ing mind, take a stance and stand by it.
I swear to god it reminds me of Spielberg's role in Goldmember...
Austin: "That being said I do have a few suggestions" Lucas (pointing at his emmy): "Really? My friend here thinks it's fine just the way it is."
Lucas has gotten too big and cocky, and his attitude is terrible. He changes these movies to make everything more of what people want (making Han a good guy from the start instead of growing a scoundrel into one through heroism) while telling people he's not going to give them what they want (an original version for the sentamentalists and hardcore fans).... Pick a friggin' side.
-matt
Re:Gnome ui style is TOO BIG
on
GNOME 2.8 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
I agree with you about big being clumbsy, annoying, and just plain clutter. However, Gnome does make it easy enough to change the size of your toolbars, hell, mine are TINY. In fact, I think that's the size option that I use in the preferences, 'tiny'. I'm at 1280x1024 and my taskbar, I believe is about 24 pixels... and I love it that way:)
Just because you wish that employees be treated as automatons with no ability to make intelligent choices doesn't mean you should.
I don't think that's what he was saying. I think what he meant was, the company shouldn't be expected to make sure you have the ability to muck up company equipment, because that's what company computers and networks are. Allowing people to use portable storage to bring things in from home, or take things off of the network does in fact put the company at risk. Sure, it's probably harmless usually, but they could bring a virus from home on accident, or they could be bringing confidential documents home to work on, and then you've got copies of confidential company information offsite, and then you've got another potential risk.
A USB drive is not a gun. And I don't think guns have much utility in the typical workplace...
Ahh, but it could be potentially far more dangerous. That USB drive can be used to steal extremely sensitive company information in order to kill an entire company. That's bad.
If you want employees to be effective and efficient they need to be empowered to do their work. Putting in artificial roadblocks is just red tape. You need to justify that policies will do what you want them to do. Otherwise, they just get in the way of good people trying to do their work.
Nobody's saying to put things in to step in the way of people's ability to work. They just want to give administrators the proper tools to lock down a network to actually make it secure. As far as I can remember, that's not a bad thing at all. These tools can be implimented in a way that does not inconvenience anybody when it comes to their ability to work. If it inconveniences the thief who's trying to steal from your company, or the people trying to bring files from home onto the network that can lead to a virus, then good for that. I'm all for it.
I would like to say though, that I don't condone locking these things down to a useless state. I think you should be able to set up your computer to your own liking. Especially if it makes you more comfortable at work, I mean seriously, that'll just make you happier and a better worker, but there has to be limits, and ways to enforce these limits against those who would break policy. And you yourself said that policy was good.
If they are the small percentage with bad intent, actually looking to do damage, you're fighting a lost cause. Managers need to know, monitor, and demand that policy be followed. An important aspect of that is not making pointless policies that don't solve a real problem.
I don't think there's any ifs about it, there are the small percentage with bad intent. It may seem like a lost cause to fight against them, but does that mean we should just roll over for them? Hell no, why not just give them the company at that point?
I agree, Managers need to know monitor and demand that policy be followed. But having these tools in place makes it so that managers know that someone is TRYING to break policy, and then they can take care of it before it becomes a problem. Once that guy makes off with your critical data and you find out about it, it's really too late isn't it? If you see them trying to get the information in the first place, you can take care of the offender before it even becomes a problem.
OK, I may be reaching with this assumption, but in thinking over different companies and positions I was entertaining a sysadmin position at, this actually came up.
Thinking, well, working at company A, I have total flexibility, lack of control for anything IT related, I can do what I want and nobody would be the wiser. Then it hit me, company B has tight security, they'd be the type to impliment this USB drive thing, and I thought, wait a second, I'D be the guy implimenting it.
I'm posting this only to offer another point of view to when you say "But you're missing the fact that these schemes don't work for folks that know what they're doing, which is who you are trying to control."
In my opinion, the people who it would affect, the people you're trying to control, are the sales people bringing in pictures of their latest fishing trip or the receptionist with pictures of her kid. The people who 'know what they're doing' are going to be your programmers who need access to more than the avg joe from the start, or the admins who will have administrative access and the ability to make exceptions for themselves anyway. I do realize the risks of taking things AWAY from work, too, plans, specs, code, whatever, and yes, the determined person will find another way out just as you demonstrated with your list of alternatives. They can use things such as ftp or floppies or printers or something, but does that mean that closing this hole is a bad thing? Sure it doesn't solve all of your security needs, but you cannot deny that it's a step in the right direction.
I'm normally as critical of MS as anyone else here, but recently i've been more and more impressed with them, and this is just one reason.
Again, I may be off base and missing something, but in my decafinated state, that was the raw opinion that jumped into my head;)
Some people will only want the digital camera for special events like a hiking trip, geocaching, a birthday, camping, Christmas, etc.
Sounds to me like they've got a pretty solid market.
And some other people will voice the concern of my g/f when I suggested she took my olympus with her to Italy. A lot of people won't want to bring a $300/$400 or even more expensive camera with them when they're just going to be taking snapshots to show off what they did and where they were and other touristy stuff. I think they've got a solid market as well. This would be perfect for people worried about losing their camera on a big trip like that.
If the problem remains unresolved (and the domain unusable for the original purpose) maybe selling katie.com to a porn company would be a good way to get both some remuneration for the trouble and some one-upmanship at Penguin and Katie Tarbox. I'm guessing that domain might be hot property by now.
Precisely,
Between a) "Give us your domain now!" and b) "We'll give you $xx,xxx for your domain" I think I'd tend to be more receptive to party B....now, if only someone would make a book or a movie out of one of MY domains:/
I'll leave the Profit! jokes to you. And for once they'd be applicable!
If these people are going to be asses and demand you turn over your domain beause they aren't creative enough to come up with a new name, you're going to get free advertising. With this comes value, and if you look, you'll find that SOMEONE will be interested in that traffic. I do like your idea, though;)
Slashdot Mirror
How do you think Microsoft is gonna respond? With a court case of course.
Actually, back in the day I worked at blockbuster video and we were bound to release dates too. One day a couple movies were put on the shelves like 2 days early and corporate freaked. Turns out what the movie industry does (or did) was, IMO, far more sinister than a lawsuit. If the studios found that we put out one of their movies early they postponed their shipments by 90 days for a period of time (the period, i forget) but can you imagine a store (or franchise) being denied shipments of games for 90 days? Gives everyone else a bit of a competitive edge and completely screws the people who screwed up.. I think this is far more effective, and a better deturant than a lawsuit.
Personally my favorite part is -- That shows that not everybody solves everything in a court, and I love it.
-matt
I mean, what GBA-owning, old-school, adventure game-playing, nerd wouldn't lay down a heap of money on a collectors edition box set of Space Quest for the GBA? It's like printing money.
Shit, I don't even OWN a GBA, but you can bet that if they released the QFG series, Space Quest, LSL games for it? You can bet I'd buy the games AND a GBA. Those games were worth it.
-matt
No chance of intelligent conversation in this thread. At all.
:)
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Or uncommon
-matt
x86 is only cheaper than mac if your time has no value.
;)
I will be your case study for this comment. I've had a g3 powerbook since '99, used it, a windows desktop, and a gentoo server/desktop until about 3 months ago when it finally died. Luckily I still had my linux and windows desktops as well, but my productivity was shot straight to hell.
I ended up with a new 12" powerbook, and now I'm kickin' ass better than ever before.
I don't mind spending some cash on a mac because for me, it's 110% worth it. With the productivity boost I get out of it, it pays for itself.
That being said -- I saw this upgrade coming a mile away, I just got a new powerbook, so the G5s must be right around the corner
Running MacOS using CherryOS on Windows using VMWare on FreeBSD using Linux binary compatibility.
I was thinking running MacOS X using CherryOS on VPC on OS X.. heh
No the Xbox only became successful because M$ threw hundreds of millions of dollars at it till it had some sort of success. This included taking huge losses on hardware, buying up game companies and pouring the money into advertising. Devmage
Yup, just brute forced it in there. I was the UberSonyFanboy when I got my ps2, hated the Xbox, that POS couldn't compare.
Now I own both, use the ps2 for DVDs and a few old games that I enjoyed, everything new I get is XBox and I love the hell outta both of 'em.
I will say though, I'm impressed by the elegence of the PS2, designed their own proprietary chips and all to obtain magnificent results. I love the XBox, but they did just take a brute force approach to it. And it worked.. (IMO)
Hey sony fanboy, give up. Nintendo designed the great product. Sony just put together some powerful hardware, praying that it would work.
;)
Worked for the XBox
Agreed on all counts.
-matt
I agree with the parent here...
"Kids are free to close their eyes and pray whenever they want"
And I believe that Publically they should be able to as well. They should be able to pray to themselves, pray aloud, pray into a bullhorn if they want. But nobody should be forced to pray by a 'teacher saying a prayer at the begining fo the school day' A teacher asking a divine power for the ability to teach is fine, but if he/she is leading the class in a prayer such as they did for us using the pledge of alegience before every school day -- then I am TOTALLY against that. What if you're a different religion? What if you're agnostic, athiest, buddhist, islamic? You should NOT be forced to pray to a god that you do not believe in. That's not right.
-matt
I'm not sure whether or not this is the right post to reply to, but I think I got the thread right ;)
I think mob rule is just fine, so long as it doesn't conflict with the constitutional rights of others.
As far as the forcing prayer in schools, it should be a non-issue, they shouldn't even be allowed to vote on it due to that line about seperation of church and state. Schools are funded by taxes collected by the govt, so if someone says "I vote we put prayer in schools" the govt should step in and say, "too bad, you can't have THAT even if you DO want it, but if you want to send your kid to a privately funded school that accepts religion, feel free!"
As for the gay rights thing, they should have the same rights as anybody else due to anti-descrimination. Whether that would include marraige or not, I'm not sure...
Not to stray too far off topic -- Is marraige a 'binding contract between two people under the eyes of the govt'? or is it 'a joining of two people under god'? I think we need to solve that one before we can decide whether or not gay marraige should be acceptable. I'm all for it, I don't think we should descriminate about anyone.. but the religious zealots who see marraige as a 'joining of two people under god'? are going to disagree...
-matt
I wasn't sure which of these comments to respond to, it's more to just agree with the entire thread when it comes to your mac. I am -just- replacing due to its death, and this time it's the entire computer that died, my 1999 Lombard Powerbook. It has never had a faild HDD, RAM, video, anything. This thing has been rock solid, and totally adequate for the past 5 years. I'd still be using it today had I been able to. But I picked up a nice 12" Aluminum replacement to keep me from mourning. :) Hopefully I have the same luck with this one.
Ahhh, very well put. That's the point I was trying to make (before I drifted into a 4 paragraph rant ;) )
Thanks!
-matt
That's right, an Oscar, I don't know my awards ;)
;)
Anyhow, I just thought it was in poor taste to basically tell his entire audience to piss off. I think most would agree that it could have been put better than "If you want it, go get it on VHS". A decaying medium which is a lot harder to find than the DVD, and it's even hard to find the non-SE versions on VHS these days anyway. So even if you do go get it on VHS, you're probably still getting SE.
Before SE was created, there WAS a "Digitally Remastered" version of SW Trilogy released on VHS, why can't he just use that and put it on DVD? Anyhow, I'm digressing, the point of this post was that I didn't like his response, it seemed like he was being a cocky prick. And -that- is why I wasn't happy with the story on Friday, even if I did drift into a rant on his need to release the original movie or my opinions on the changes made in SE
-matt
You know, I have been cutting Lucas a break on the SE movies. I didn't think they were so bad actually, the THX remastering is cool, the cleanup on the visuals was cool.. It was the rewriting that I didn't like. You mention Apocolypse Redux, which has about 45 min of additional footage.. Which brings up a good point. "Stone did it and you don't give him hell, cut Lucas a break" Which, to that all I can say is "good point, you caught me".. However, they didn't really add anything to Redux that wasn't in the original cut of the film, it's all stuff that was stripped out to satisfy the studio's want to have it play more times per day in the theaters. But you're right, there are a lot of remakes, and they've all been pretty good. It just seems like Lucas half-assed a couple scenes. For instance Greedo vs. Han and Han's discussion with Jabba which did enhance the story, but could have been done better. It just looked rushed to me.
Anyhow, I normally look forward to SE movies with added footage, I couldn't wait for Redux, the only LOTR movies I get are the extended versions, I love seeing the film how it was intended. But usually these 'remakes' are just adding stuff from the cutting room floor, back into the movie. Lucas seems to have changed his whole life view, and it shows in his movies. He's adding new footage to satisfy the parents it seems, or to push merchandising.. which god knows SW doesn't need any help with that.
That's just my stance on that. What really pissed me off in the article was the fact that he basically told everyone who wants the original edition to F'off. How hard would it be to take the SE versions of SW, cut out the added footage, and end up with a digitally remastered, THX edition of the ORIGINAL cut of SW. Piece of cake. And he can even put it on the SE discs as a bonus. I'd buy it. I just don't appreciate his attitude of "I don't want anyone to see those, if you want it, go find it on VHS" He sure didn't have that "I don't want anyone to see those" attitude when he was making millions off of it in the 70s. I thought that was a bit uncalled for.
-matt
"F-ck you all, I never wanted to make star wars in the first place. The special additions are as close as I can now get to what I realy wanted. I wont release the originals because the millions of fans that want to buy them wouldn't (or so the force tells me). Just buy my crap and shut the hell up."
;)
Well put, I got the feeling those were the exact words he was looking for, and would have used in private had he been assured his statement wouldn't go public
-matt
I agree with you, I see where he's coming from, but people aren't ASKING for a THX version or a digital touch-up (although it would be nice) hell, he could just put an original copy with poor sound and all as an 'extra' on the DVD and I'm sure he'd satisfy a lot of people.
I wonder... He says it's too expensive to touch up the version he doesn't want anyone to see (which is silly to be embarassed about something so widely in demand, obviously people like it) but I think it may be beneficial costwise.. I think even not-so-hardcore fans would buy a retouched "This is the ORIGINAL Star Wars digitally remastered!" version. Hell, I'd probably break down and get -that-.
-matt
Some scenes in the new Star Wars movies make me wonder if Lucas is really thinking outside the box. One scene that comes to mind is where Obi Wan goes to visit an old friend who runs a diner that looks waaay too much like a typical American roadside diner.
Wait a second... I haven't been following these new DVDs being released... I thought it was just the Special Editions that were released in the theaters before the prequils came out... Are you saying they added -more-!?
-matt
Ugh, I had respect for the guy .. well, some, but it's been steadily declining, and quickly.
;) and he refuses to do it..
First, OK, so the technology wasn't available to make the movies he wanted to make. I'll buy that, the DS explosion was a lot cooler.. The fact that you can't see through the ships now is cool. He says he wants Han to talk to Jabba at the begining of EP I, OK, I'll buy that too, albeit poorly done. Is he saying that he didn't have the technology to allow greedo to fire first when he made the original EP IV? That's BS, he's rewriting it now as a 'big hollywood name' as opposed to creating a vision and running with it as he did in the first making of the movie.
Also, What the hell is this "It's my movie, It's going to be how I want it, if you guys want the original it's on VHS!" attitude? He's like a spoiled kid, only he's 'rich and powerful' so he's even worse. Don't alienate the people who got you to where you are, it's poor business practice. VHS copies of Star Wars (original edition) are about 10+ years old now and probably don't even play well. Not many people (as said before) are going to buy a LD player in order to play the LD editions, and lucas knows it. He can do what he wants I guess, but it could have been said a lot better. He basically told everybody who wants the original versions of SW to f'off. He's trying to drown the original out of existence, and force people to buy the new versions even though there's a major demand for the originals. They're what made him. Now that I think about it, it surprises me that with his greed (releasing and rereleasing the same thing in a different box to make a buck) that he won't release the originals, people are asking for it, he'd make a mint off of slashdot alone
F' him, I wouldn't buy the trilogy now even if he DID include the originals because he's already butchered it to a point where you don't know WHAT point he's trying to get across. Is it the original? second edition? third? tenth!? Seriously, this movie has been released and edited and rerelased so many f'ing times it's ridiculous. Make up your f'ing mind, take a stance and stand by it.
I swear to god it reminds me of Spielberg's role in Goldmember...
Austin: "That being said I do have a few suggestions"
Lucas (pointing at his emmy): "Really? My friend here thinks it's fine just the way it is."
Lucas has gotten too big and cocky, and his attitude is terrible. He changes these movies to make everything more of what people want (making Han a good guy from the start instead of growing a scoundrel into one through heroism) while telling people he's not going to give them what they want (an original version for the sentamentalists and hardcore fans).... Pick a friggin' side.
-matt
I agree with you about big being clumbsy, annoying, and just plain clutter. However, Gnome does make it easy enough to change the size of your toolbars, hell, mine are TINY. In fact, I think that's the size option that I use in the preferences, 'tiny'. I'm at 1280x1024 and my taskbar, I believe is about 24 pixels... and I love it that way :)
-matt
Just because you wish that employees be treated as automatons with no ability to make intelligent choices doesn't mean you should.
I don't think that's what he was saying. I think what he meant was, the company shouldn't be expected to make sure you have the ability to muck up company equipment, because that's what company computers and networks are. Allowing people to use portable storage to bring things in from home, or take things off of the network does in fact put the company at risk. Sure, it's probably harmless usually, but they could bring a virus from home on accident, or they could be bringing confidential documents home to work on, and then you've got copies of confidential company information offsite, and then you've got another potential risk.
A USB drive is not a gun. And I don't think guns have much utility in the typical workplace...
Ahh, but it could be potentially far more dangerous. That USB drive can be used to steal extremely sensitive company information in order to kill an entire company. That's bad.
If you want employees to be effective and efficient they need to be empowered to do their work. Putting in artificial roadblocks is just red tape. You need to justify that policies will do what you want them to do. Otherwise, they just get in the way of good people trying to do their work.
Nobody's saying to put things in to step in the way of people's ability to work. They just want to give administrators the proper tools to lock down a network to actually make it secure. As far as I can remember, that's not a bad thing at all. These tools can be implimented in a way that does not inconvenience anybody when it comes to their ability to work. If it inconveniences the thief who's trying to steal from your company, or the people trying to bring files from home onto the network that can lead to a virus, then good for that. I'm all for it.
I would like to say though, that I don't condone locking these things down to a useless state. I think you should be able to set up your computer to your own liking. Especially if it makes you more comfortable at work, I mean seriously, that'll just make you happier and a better worker, but there has to be limits, and ways to enforce these limits against those who would break policy. And you yourself said that policy was good.
If they are the small percentage with bad intent, actually looking to do damage, you're fighting a lost cause. Managers need to know, monitor, and demand that policy be followed. An important aspect of that is not making pointless policies that don't solve a real problem.
I don't think there's any ifs about it, there are the small percentage with bad intent. It may seem like a lost cause to fight against them, but does that mean we should just roll over for them? Hell no, why not just give them the company at that point?
I agree, Managers need to know monitor and demand that policy be followed. But having these tools in place makes it so that managers know that someone is TRYING to break policy, and then they can take care of it before it becomes a problem. Once that guy makes off with your critical data and you find out about it, it's really too late isn't it? If you see them trying to get the information in the first place, you can take care of the offender before it even becomes a problem.
-matt
OK, I may be reaching with this assumption, but in thinking over different companies and positions I was entertaining a sysadmin position at, this actually came up.
;)
Thinking, well, working at company A, I have total flexibility, lack of control for anything IT related, I can do what I want and nobody would be the wiser. Then it hit me, company B has tight security, they'd be the type to impliment this USB drive thing, and I thought, wait a second, I'D be the guy implimenting it.
I'm posting this only to offer another point of view to when you say "But you're missing the fact that these schemes don't work for folks that know what they're doing, which is who you are trying to control."
In my opinion, the people who it would affect, the people you're trying to control, are the sales people bringing in pictures of their latest fishing trip or the receptionist with pictures of her kid. The people who 'know what they're doing' are going to be your programmers who need access to more than the avg joe from the start, or the admins who will have administrative access and the ability to make exceptions for themselves anyway. I do realize the risks of taking things AWAY from work, too, plans, specs, code, whatever, and yes, the determined person will find another way out just as you demonstrated with your list of alternatives. They can use things such as ftp or floppies or printers or something, but does that mean that closing this hole is a bad thing? Sure it doesn't solve all of your security needs, but you cannot deny that it's a step in the right direction.
I'm normally as critical of MS as anyone else here, but recently i've been more and more impressed with them, and this is just one reason.
Again, I may be off base and missing something, but in my decafinated state, that was the raw opinion that jumped into my head
-matt
And judging by your current sig, looks like it worked! Congrats! ;)
Sounds to me like they've got a pretty solid market.
And some other people will voice the concern of my g/f when I suggested she took my olympus with her to Italy. A lot of people won't want to bring a $300/$400 or even more expensive camera with them when they're just going to be taking snapshots to show off what they did and where they were and other touristy stuff. I think they've got a solid market as well. This would be perfect for people worried about losing their camera on a big trip like that.
If the problem remains unresolved (and the domain unusable for the original purpose) maybe selling katie.com to a porn company would be a good way to get both some remuneration for the trouble and some one-upmanship at Penguin and Katie Tarbox. I'm guessing that domain might be hot property by now.
...now, if only someone would make a book or a movie out of one of MY domains :/
Precisely,
Between a) "Give us your domain now!" and b) "We'll give you $xx,xxx for your domain" I think I'd tend to be more receptive to party B.
I'll leave the Profit! jokes to you. And for once they'd be applicable!
-matt
Hell, I totally agree with you.
;)
If these people are going to be asses and demand you turn over your domain beause they aren't creative enough to come up with a new name, you're going to get free advertising. With this comes value, and if you look, you'll find that SOMEONE will be interested in that traffic. I do like your idea, though
-matt