Remember the 80s? Remember the fancy cars with digital readouts for speedometers, and some would even talk to you and tell you when the door was open?
Remember when you went in a recent car and saw analog speedometers, and tachometers.
The irony, is they aren't analog - they're displaying a readout of a digital signal. But the "needle" guage is something you can monitor with your peripheral vision. It's safer, people prefer it, and it looks nicer - frankly.
You have to look at a touchscreen, you have to waste seconds analyzing it. You have to read a digital readout, recognize the numbers "72" and realize you're going 72 mph. Whereas I can know if the orange needle gets past "12 o-clock ish", I'm going too fast.
Of course, I can guage my speed by feel like most good drivers, I knwo what gear I'm in and can feel how hard the engine is working, so it's not a perfect example.
But the displays that came with computers are awkward, and unintuitive by nature. The interfaces we have already gotten accustomed to are, in many cases, just perfect as they are.
My A/C is a knob, one side is red, one side is blue. It's easy to reach down and adjust it without taking my eyes off the road.
I can speak to this somewhat, because I am a moon man from the future and have been dialing my phone via touchscreen for a couple years now.
My futuristic moon man technology is called a "Treo 650". You guys arent advanced enough to pronounce that correctly, but trust me, it's a complete rip off of the iPhone in every way. In my time only the richest kings of the undersea realm of europe can afford a true iPhone.
This device I speak of, has a touch screen, and dialing with it requires you to look directly at it.
However, it is fortunate I am so poor and underprivileged, as this device also has an analog keypad, with numbers affixed to some of the keys. The central of these numbers is marked with a little nib, enabling my advanced moon man fingers to dial by my tactile sense alone.
I wish you great success with your iPhone, this is a new technological age for humanity. You are about to behold the awesome power of "a phone that can play mp3s and also has a camera in it".
Do you think the "wii would like to play" campaign has helped this a bunch?
Compare it to the PS3 commercials, where like a creepy baby explodes or... i dunno, i dont know what the fuck I'm looking at. And then it says "its thinking". Maybe that was Dreamcast, they promoted it with nonsense too. I remember the commercial for Jet Grind Radio, and it was a bunch of screaming japanese people, I guess spoofing wacky japanese TV. You wouldn't know what the commercial was for, and the game itself kicked ass - all you needed was to show some ingame footage to sell it.
I see PS3's campaign and MSFT's skip-rope jump in the game campaign, and as a gamer, wonder "what the fuck are they tyring to sell me?"
Nintendo's sort of say "hey, check this out - it has no plans to dominate your whole life or change your lifestyle, or reinvent the way you watch tv - it's just a fun toy that anyone could have a blast with, and it's cheap too"
I guess I'm saying I see Sony and MSFT distancing themselves from selling a "gaming console". They want to pretend they sell obscure services and convergance and other crap people dont understand, or even want.
Now, if they want to avoid Vista, then Linux is their only choice on the PC platform
They can still get XP.
The logic you weave assumes that somebody is sitting there with a non-functional bunch of hardware with no OS, and now has to go shopping for it.
The truth is, if you went out to build a PC using new components today, it would be able to run Vista. If your PC is a year old, it may run Vista or not - but it already runs XP and you really have no reason to upgrade it.
And frankly, the recommended home system has some pretty low specs by modern standards:
* 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* 512 MB of system memory
* 20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
* Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory
* DVD-ROM drive
* Audio Output
* Internet access (fees may apply)
That's copy pasted from MS's official page. A lot is made of the "need for a new video card".. DX9 with 32 megs memory? Whatever.
So who is this market with people with 5 year old PCs, and no use for them, who need to go get an OS? It doesn't exist.
People would want to see all of Vista's razzle-dazzle in linux, before they'd order the linux machine from Dell.
Sh!t like this happens in firefox too, and in Opera, and in links, and any other browser you can think of.
No doubt you aren't a programmer, and wouldn't really grasp how complex a piece of software like a web browser really is, and how complex it's interactions with the rest of the operating system are.
Why do you think linux is so clunky and tied together with string, after 15 years of community effort?
Also, mister RTFA, all this exploit does is crash explorer.
I know CC salespeople were higher paid, not too long ago they were on comission. I know the idea was to have better trained employees to help you make selections, etc.
But you have two factors:
1) Doubling someons hourly rate doesn't make them smart. CC employees are the same as Best Buy, trying to sell me monster power cables and extended warrantees, and unable to answer any of my tech questions.
2) The public is more and more aware of electronics, and has less and less need for someone to talk them through buying a DVD player.
Sucks to be those guys, and it's a shit way to treat employees, but seriously, if that was your career, get used to failure in life.
Paying them more simply wasn't producing a better service, at least not in Annapolis, MD.
Nearly everything is cheaper at BB too, so that can't help.
You dispute all charges, say you didn't make 'em, and you do this as soon as you find out, before anything can go to collections, and end up on a credit report. You have to be pretty negligent of your own finances to let it go that far.
I have no pity for someone who doesn't at least look at their monthly statements.
The risk to your credit is absolutely minimal if you pay attention, and call the 1-800 number on the back of the card to dispute the claims immediately.
As for suing TJX, you wouldnt. You just get your money back, and the CC company goes after the guy who fraudulently used your card.
I've had my credit card stolen (physically) and dealt with this. At first I was freaked out, "o noes identity theft" and all, but after a phone call I had my money back the next day.
As an epilogue, the moron who took it worked with me, and used it at the gas station across from my work - the station manager had no problem letting our company pres and I check out the tape, and there's dumbass.
In my case he didn't get a chance to spend more than a grand before I phoned the card in, so it was just petty theft. I never had to follow up on it, though, BoA did that.
The 360 can, but it has to be FAT formatted, so something like partition magic comes in handy if you want a big external. I don't get why it can't use NTFS, but I guess they were just thinking thumbdrives. I would expect to see a system update support it, now that marketplace is a big deal.
I have a 250 gig iomega drive attached to mine, full of mp3s and wmv's. It works fine. The PS3s drive is user replacable/upgradable.
I like that the 360 can operate (play games, thats what I bought it for - convergence is and always has been pure marketting drivel to me) without a HDD at all, it's not bricked if the drive dies.
KDE looks so tinker-toy with all its icons and crap.
Though, they both seem to have issues with me customizing them. Yeah, it's possible, but the options I want are always hidden in some gconfedit.cf.conf.1.3 bullcrap file somewhere.
I don't want a new window every time I click a folder. I like to store my files heirarchically, and nest directories. I don't see how this makes me a bad person. Don't bury the option to turn that shit off. It was annoying in Windows 3.1, it's just as annoying on a linux box.
And KDE really needs a "lite" checkbox somewhere, to turn off all the bling blang for those of who choose not to "keeps it real".
Slashdot Mirror
Star Trek ,Star Wars, the list goes on buddy.
Can that many science fiction shows be wrong?
(not that 'two suns' has just become a cliche "this is an alien world, not new mexico, really" sort of backdrop)
You're shocked that theres no AM-only radios out there?
You do realize that that market consists of only you, don't you?
Go to a nice stereo shop, you can still find a decent headunit with the knobs you're accustomed to.
Remember the 80s? Remember the fancy cars with digital readouts for speedometers, and some would even talk to you and tell you when the door was open?
Remember when you went in a recent car and saw analog speedometers, and tachometers.
The irony, is they aren't analog - they're displaying a readout of a digital signal. But the "needle" guage is something you can monitor with your peripheral vision. It's safer, people prefer it, and it looks nicer - frankly.
You have to look at a touchscreen, you have to waste seconds analyzing it. You have to read a digital readout, recognize the numbers "72" and realize you're going 72 mph. Whereas I can know if the orange needle gets past "12 o-clock ish", I'm going too fast.
Of course, I can guage my speed by feel like most good drivers, I knwo what gear I'm in and can feel how hard the engine is working, so it's not a perfect example.
But the displays that came with computers are awkward, and unintuitive by nature. The interfaces we have already gotten accustomed to are, in many cases, just perfect as they are.
My A/C is a knob, one side is red, one side is blue. It's easy to reach down and adjust it without taking my eyes off the road.
ETC
No, I don't want voice recognition. It's annoying, and it's hard to have a conversation with your passenger when you have to talk to your car.
I can speak to this somewhat, because I am a moon man from the future and have been dialing my phone via touchscreen for a couple years now.
My futuristic moon man technology is called a "Treo 650". You guys arent advanced enough to pronounce that correctly, but trust me, it's a complete rip off of the iPhone in every way. In my time only the richest kings of the undersea realm of europe can afford a true iPhone.
This device I speak of, has a touch screen, and dialing with it requires you to look directly at it.
However, it is fortunate I am so poor and underprivileged, as this device also has an analog keypad, with numbers affixed to some of the keys. The central of these numbers is marked with a little nib, enabling my advanced moon man fingers to dial by my tactile sense alone.
I wish you great success with your iPhone, this is a new technological age for humanity. You are about to behold the awesome power of "a phone that can play mp3s and also has a camera in it".
I pray you use this technology wisely.
Do you think the "wii would like to play" campaign has helped this a bunch?
... i dunno, i dont know what the fuck I'm looking at. And then it says "its thinking". Maybe that was Dreamcast, they promoted it with nonsense too. I remember the commercial for Jet Grind Radio, and it was a bunch of screaming japanese people, I guess spoofing wacky japanese TV. You wouldn't know what the commercial was for, and the game itself kicked ass - all you needed was to show some ingame footage to sell it.
Compare it to the PS3 commercials, where like a creepy baby explodes or
I see PS3's campaign and MSFT's skip-rope jump in the game campaign, and as a gamer, wonder "what the fuck are they tyring to sell me?"
Nintendo's sort of say "hey, check this out - it has no plans to dominate your whole life or change your lifestyle, or reinvent the way you watch tv - it's just a fun toy that anyone could have a blast with, and it's cheap too"
I guess I'm saying I see Sony and MSFT distancing themselves from selling a "gaming console". They want to pretend they sell obscure services and convergance and other crap people dont understand, or even want.
They can still get XP.
The logic you weave assumes that somebody is sitting there with a non-functional bunch of hardware with no OS, and now has to go shopping for it.
The truth is, if you went out to build a PC using new components today, it would be able to run Vista. If your PC is a year old, it may run Vista or not - but it already runs XP and you really have no reason to upgrade it.
And frankly, the recommended home system has some pretty low specs by modern standards:
That's copy pasted from MS's official page. A lot is made of the "need for a new video card".. DX9 with 32 megs memory? Whatever.
So who is this market with people with 5 year old PCs, and no use for them, who need to go get an OS? It doesn't exist.
People would want to see all of Vista's razzle-dazzle in linux, before they'd order the linux machine from Dell.
It was supposed to be a unix clone, but actually came out useful in the end.
Sh!t like this happens in firefox too, and in Opera, and in links, and any other browser you can think of.
No doubt you aren't a programmer, and wouldn't really grasp how complex a piece of software like a web browser really is, and how complex it's interactions with the rest of the operating system are.
Why do you think linux is so clunky and tied together with string, after 15 years of community effort?
Also, mister RTFA, all this exploit does is crash explorer.
Who cares about the performance hit? People have quad core 3 gigahertz processors, and you're worried about an animated mouse.
We aren't all runnign linux on 486's we found in a dumpster.
Who knows what half of those listening services actually do and what depends on them.
I do, lots of people do.
Which one do you have a question about?
It's not that hard to learn Windows.
As far as straight-out-of-box conditions go, both Microsoft's Windows and Apple's OS X are ripe with remotely accessible vulnerabilities
The difference is, the exploits for the mac just work, but you have to trick a stupid windows user into running them to hack XP.
Also, Macs are Jimmy Fallon-esque metrosexuals.
I'm sick of hearing hom0s talk about their magical fairy wands and phaser devices and nanoo nanoos.
Ever see a ceiling mounted projector? HDMI is perfect for such an application.
Cables are cheap, and the overpriced monster cables and extended warrantees are the cash cows circuit city and best buy keep on milkin'.
When did the first of the trilogy movies come out? EA has been pushing out the video game tie-ins since then.
I know CC salespeople were higher paid, not too long ago they were on comission. I know the idea was to have better trained employees to help you make selections, etc.
But you have two factors:
1) Doubling someons hourly rate doesn't make them smart. CC employees are the same as Best Buy, trying to sell me monster power cables and extended warrantees, and unable to answer any of my tech questions.
2) The public is more and more aware of electronics, and has less and less need for someone to talk them through buying a DVD player.
Sucks to be those guys, and it's a shit way to treat employees, but seriously, if that was your career, get used to failure in life.
Paying them more simply wasn't producing a better service, at least not in Annapolis, MD.
Nearly everything is cheaper at BB too, so that can't help.
You dispute all charges, say you didn't make 'em, and you do this as soon as you find out, before anything can go to collections, and end up on a credit report. You have to be pretty negligent of your own finances to let it go that far.
I have no pity for someone who doesn't at least look at their monthly statements.
The risk to your credit is absolutely minimal if you pay attention, and call the 1-800 number on the back of the card to dispute the claims immediately.
As for suing TJX, you wouldnt. You just get your money back, and the CC company goes after the guy who fraudulently used your card.
I've had my credit card stolen (physically) and dealt with this. At first I was freaked out, "o noes identity theft" and all, but after a phone call I had my money back the next day.
As an epilogue, the moron who took it worked with me, and used it at the gas station across from my work - the station manager had no problem letting our company pres and I check out the tape, and there's dumbass.
In my case he didn't get a chance to spend more than a grand before I phoned the card in, so it was just petty theft. I never had to follow up on it, though, BoA did that.
You got stinky breaches
stinky stinky breaches
you got stinky breaches
Paper ain't all that strong. Hanging chads and whatnot. I'm sure electoral fraud goes all the way back to the first elections in greece.
We should elect a supreme ruler like Iran, the greatest nation on earth.
The 360 can, but it has to be FAT formatted, so something like partition magic comes in handy if you want a big external. I don't get why it can't use NTFS, but I guess they were just thinking thumbdrives. I would expect to see a system update support it, now that marketplace is a big deal.
I have a 250 gig iomega drive attached to mine, full of mp3s and wmv's. It works fine. The PS3s drive is user replacable/upgradable.
I like that the 360 can operate (play games, thats what I bought it for - convergence is and always has been pure marketting drivel to me) without a HDD at all, it's not bricked if the drive dies.
What do you think ASP/.Net means? VB is covered there.
KDE looks so tinker-toy with all its icons and crap.
Though, they both seem to have issues with me customizing them. Yeah, it's possible, but the options I want are always hidden in some gconfedit.cf.conf.1.3 bullcrap file somewhere.
I don't want a new window every time I click a folder. I like to store my files heirarchically, and nest directories. I don't see how this makes me a bad person. Don't bury the option to turn that shit off. It was annoying in Windows 3.1, it's just as annoying on a linux box.
And KDE really needs a "lite" checkbox somewhere, to turn off all the bling blang for those of who choose not to "keeps it real".
They are both attempts to defraud the US government for financial gain.
Go ahead and try it, if you're so sure there's no possible come-uppance for misrepresenting your application.
POSSIBLE DOESNT MEAN EASY
How is that condescending?
I have asshat managers come to me every day telling me how "easy" it will be to integrate some third party code, or port something to some other OS.
"durr they both use stdlib, right? they're partically teh same thing! it most be vary easy lets git crackin u gots a week"
even trivial java apps aren't necessarily "easy" to get running on more than on OS.
Maybe because IBM, Novell, and other big boys decide they don't like GPLv3, so they abandon it.
Why did X.org kill the original project? All the big guys left. They didn't like the license.
I could envision Linus sitting around twiddling his thumbs waiting for patches to rubber stamp, while cobwebs grow on his inbox.