The difference is, that Google and other free email services have a commercial interest in it, while said third parties, with all probability, have not.
Nobody HAS to use GMail so what is the real problem here? Don't send mail to people with gmail.com accounts if you don't want it archived and scanned. Duh.
You've never heard of an MMORPG before? Nearly all of them charge a monthly fee.
I've heard of Everquest and Ultima Online, but I never played them because they had a monthly fee. So this isn't an uncommon thing?! I thought it was just odd that someone had a multiplayer game that they had the balls to charge full price for and then tack on a monthly fee to boot.
If they were to let you download the game for free and THEN charge you $15/month I might go along with that, but my attention span is usually a couple months for a good game. Perhaps I'm just sick of being nickle-and-dimed to death by random fees that I owe to dozens of different companies?
Phone company, gas company, electric company, water company, sewer company, cell phone company, mortgage, city taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, car loan, car insurance, house insurance, ADSL fees and taxes, etc., etc. Now someone wants me to pay a monthly fee to play fscking video games after I plunked down $50 for it? You've got to be kidding me.
Like I said, I'll stick to playing FPS games then where users can put up their own servers to let people come play. $50 should at least buy you 6 months of free play time if nothing else.
Why charge your loyal customers another $30 for something that should have been in the last bloody expansion!
Hell, I was all set to go buy City of Heroes because it sounded like an awesome game until I noticed there is a monthly fee to play! WTF? Is this getting more common with online games? If I start paying a monthly fee for a game it goes from being a quaint weekend diversion to something I feel obligated to play every day just to get my damn money's worth. If I miss a few days then I'll feel cheated out of that time. I'm not interested in becoming an addict like Evercrack players so I guess City of Heroes is out of the picture for me. That's too bad since it looked like it'd be fun to play superhero on the weekends once in awhile when I'm bored.. I guess I'll stick with killing Iraqis in Desert Combat.
Computers have become a consumer product, but unlike other consumer devices (TVs, VCRs, Microwaves) they can actually fuck things up if they do something wrong, or something different...
Computers are NOT consumer products no matter how much the industry would like to pretend they are. They are complex programmable machines. If people want a consumer product then they would've bought any of the various web terminals that tried to come to market in the late 1990's like WebTV. They all failed because people want a computer, yet they also want to bitch when their complex programmable machine's complex operating system is difficult to use. It's a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. If someone is uncomfortable using a computer without being handheld through it then they should go find another line of work or hobby. The absolute minimum requirements of a computer user should be capabilities to build a system from scratch, install an operating system, and do at least some fundamental systems programming... even friggin batch scripting. SOMETHING. Ignorant people should not be using computers!
Yes, the AMD Athlon 64 3400+ would be considerably faster than a similar single processor G5 system.
C) Chips so hot, "you can fry an egg on it".
You do realize there's a reason a G5 system has 9 fans in it don't you? They're not exactly known for running cool. I'm sure you could grill hamburgers on one easily.
D) Can you run OSX on it?
No, but I can run Linux on it. Same thing. I can't afford any of the Mac software for my iBook so I'd either have to run pirated software or open source stuff. Most of the open source stuff runs better under Linux.
I would suspect that with a $50 pricetag, Micro$oft is losing some amount of money per unit. They want to make the money on the music sales. Like razors or cameras - make money on the blades/film.
The trouble with Microsoft is, invariably some bastard will come along and put Linux on it so it can play music files without DRM restrictions and they'll lose $150 per box because nobody will buy their songs off their store.
Wow, the gasoline I just bought must be super extra-special gasoline that's better than the stuff I bought 6 months ago cause I'm sure paying a lot more for it.
Now, don't be silly, just because something costs more doesn't make it a superior product. Take Macintoshes for instance. A $1000 Athlon system will wipe the floor with a top of the line G5 system costing over $3000.
I usually thought of spammers as such nice honest, wholesome people. Who would've ever thought one of them would be involved in such blatantly illegal activities like identity theft? Next thing you're going to tell me spammers are involved with hijacking home machines via worms and trojans to use as spam relays. *rolls eyes*.
if you find out too much, they hire someone to hold a gun sideways and point it at you.
Then they spraypaint your walls with racist grafitti after they kill you to make it look like some street thugs broke in. They were really only pissed at you because you didn't accept their offer to come work for them on their satellite network that can broadcast to any device. Thankfully your friend avenges your death by finding the secret console for this evil satellite network in the day care center of all places! How evil is that!?
As for the holding the gun sideways thing.. I'm pretty sure that increases the stopping power. Sort of like adding bigger tailpipes to a Honda Civic. It LOOKS more powerful so it must be.
DOOM was a great game, for sure, but it was more an evolutionary step
Wolfenstein3D was the revolutionary FPS game that I remember. I remember Doom because it was just the game I couldn't play until I upgraded to a 486DX2/66 because my 386DX/33 was too slow. Honestly though, I never played Doom multiplayer. I don't even remember it having multiplayer support! Perhaps over a modem, but I don't remember it having Internet multiplayer. In fact, it didn't!
All of those old games starting to support multiplayer only did Novell IPX/SPX for some reason so it was limited to the local segment on an ethernet. At least, that's how Duke Nukem 3D was and I spent many days playing multiplayer on that that I should've spent in class so I should know.:-) Duke Nukem 3D was by far the best multiplayer FPS game until Quake came along. It put Doom to shame!
The DOD forgot to have mommy write their name on the things. If they are on public land, is there anything besides fear of reprisal (like a law) to stop somebody from taking the things?
Law? I imagine guys with machine guns act as an awfully good deterrent to taking them.
Let's face it, 2D video code is so arcane that any software developer should be able to manipulate it perfectly.
They can, in 640x480x16 colors. Anything higher (including your funky widescreen laptop) requires tracking hundreds, if not thousands of different video card and monitor types. The video card industry really needs to get back together and come to a standard like they did with VGA. Everything since has been a proprietary hack.
I guess Bill thinks it's time to slow the worlds fastest computers to a crawl. Apparently they aren't crashing enough, too.
Well, unless Bill's going to introduce a version of Windows that doesn't have a Windows interface, WTF is the point? How many Beowulf nodes have you seen even plugged into a KVM? Windows is a stupid choice for a headless compute node just as Linux is a stupid choice for a home desktop.
The fan that comes with the processor is garbage. It may be warranted, but I'm not worried about getting a replacement fan. I *am* worried about keeping the heat and noise levels of my computer to a minimum, and stability to a maximum.
Agreed. We had 80% of our AMD CPU fans die on our new systems (about 15 systems in all failed) within 9 months. We replaced them with Zalman copper flower coolers and have been happy ever since. I don't know who AMD outsourced fans to, but they are HORRIBLE.
OTOH, running my own sendmail is fast, effective, and pretty much always works. I don't see how I should be banned from running my own mail server because some people abuse it. With that wonderful logic, it's time to shut down every P2P service, because most people are abusing them
The vast amount of mail coming from dynamic IP addresses is spam. Users like you are few and far between. As for the P2P services... they SHOULD be shut down as well. 99% of P2P users are stealing software, music, and movies. For everybody that legitimately downloads Linux ISO images off of a P2P network there are 10,000 who steal music, videos and software.
Also, on many networks you will also find that IRC is banned as well because of all the kiddies launching DDoS attacks against IRC servers and clients. Is it a bad protocol? No.. it's quite nifty, but the assholes of society infected it and turned it into an evil protocol, just like P2P networks and SMTP unfortunately.
This sucks for people with a laptop who frequently plug in to different networks (starbucks, airports, etc). Having to change what mail server I point to every time I plug in my computer is really painful.
Since you're most likely getting your IP address for these networks from a DHCP server, it sure would be nice if there was a way to get the SMTP server gateway from it like you do DNS servers and WINS servers. That way you could hop on the network and your SMTP relay would automagically get configured. Then just get apps to use this system-wide SMTP relay setting as the server similar to how many Mac web browsers get the system-wide proxy settings from the OS itself.
Reading messages like yours makes me happy I went with Speakeasy ADSL (6Mbps/768kbps), 4 static IP addresses, no blocked ports, servers welcome, etc.:-)
I seem to recall a headline story about the massive power outage in the North-eastern edge of the USA. Why? Because a significant chunk of Slashdotters out there were affected.
50 million people losing power is significant. A guy not able to get his e-mail through a cable provider in Florida is not. I also recall tons of front page articles during the California rolling blackouts. If e-mail is that important to you then register your own domain and setup your own mail system.. or just use hotmail or yahoo for mail. Jesus, if there's anything i've learned it's to NEVER use a cable provider's services for web/dns/mail/usenet... they suck. Use them for bandwidth and find service providers for that shit elsewhere.
Spreadsheets are not originally designed for searching or indexing. Spreadsheets have no good concept of interrelations.
Spreadsheets store data. Databases store data. ASCII text files store data. Use whatever you want, but don't go overly complex just for something as simple as cataloging a list of old crap. Tons of my "databases" are ASCII text files that I've just added onto over the years and search through with grep. Databases are a PITA to setup properly and a poorly setup database is no more efficient that a spreadsheet.
Be careful with those little buggers. They multiply if you keep them in a box together. I always seem to have about 10 times as many power cords as I do equipment which needs a power cord.
My wife helped me to catalog a lot of my old computer equipment when we moved. Err, wait.. no that's not the right word... trash. Yes, she helped me to trash a lot of my old computer equipment (and comic books) when we moved. I get those two words confused when dealing with her and my fond memories of being a bachelor.
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Nobody HAS to use GMail so what is the real problem here? Don't send mail to people with gmail.com accounts if you don't want it archived and scanned. Duh.
I've heard of Everquest and Ultima Online, but I never played them because they had a monthly fee. So this isn't an uncommon thing?! I thought it was just odd that someone had a multiplayer game that they had the balls to charge full price for and then tack on a monthly fee to boot.
If they were to let you download the game for free and THEN charge you $15/month I might go along with that, but my attention span is usually a couple months for a good game. Perhaps I'm just sick of being nickle-and-dimed to death by random fees that I owe to dozens of different companies?
Phone company, gas company, electric company, water company, sewer company, cell phone company, mortgage, city taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, property taxes, car loan, car insurance, house insurance, ADSL fees and taxes, etc., etc. Now someone wants me to pay a monthly fee to play fscking video games after I plunked down $50 for it? You've got to be kidding me.
Like I said, I'll stick to playing FPS games then where users can put up their own servers to let people come play. $50 should at least buy you 6 months of free play time if nothing else.
Denmark, Norway, and Holland make up the Netherlands right?
Hell, I was all set to go buy City of Heroes because it sounded like an awesome game until I noticed there is a monthly fee to play! WTF? Is this getting more common with online games? If I start paying a monthly fee for a game it goes from being a quaint weekend diversion to something I feel obligated to play every day just to get my damn money's worth. If I miss a few days then I'll feel cheated out of that time. I'm not interested in becoming an addict like Evercrack players so I guess City of Heroes is out of the picture for me. That's too bad since it looked like it'd be fun to play superhero on the weekends once in awhile when I'm bored.. I guess I'll stick with killing Iraqis in Desert Combat.
Computers are NOT consumer products no matter how much the industry would like to pretend they are. They are complex programmable machines. If people want a consumer product then they would've bought any of the various web terminals that tried to come to market in the late 1990's like WebTV. They all failed because people want a computer, yet they also want to bitch when their complex programmable machine's complex operating system is difficult to use. It's a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. If someone is uncomfortable using a computer without being handheld through it then they should go find another line of work or hobby. The absolute minimum requirements of a computer user should be capabilities to build a system from scratch, install an operating system, and do at least some fundamental systems programming... even friggin batch scripting. SOMETHING. Ignorant people should not be using computers!
Yes, the AMD Athlon 64 3400+ would be considerably faster than a similar single processor G5 system.
C) Chips so hot, "you can fry an egg on it".
You do realize there's a reason a G5 system has 9 fans in it don't you? They're not exactly known for running cool. I'm sure you could grill hamburgers on one easily.
D) Can you run OSX on it?
No, but I can run Linux on it. Same thing. I can't afford any of the Mac software for my iBook so I'd either have to run pirated software or open source stuff. Most of the open source stuff runs better under Linux.
The trouble with Microsoft is, invariably some bastard will come along and put Linux on it so it can play music files without DRM restrictions and they'll lose $150 per box because nobody will buy their songs off their store.
Wow, the gasoline I just bought must be super extra-special gasoline that's better than the stuff I bought 6 months ago cause I'm sure paying a lot more for it.
Now, don't be silly, just because something costs more doesn't make it a superior product. Take Macintoshes for instance. A $1000 Athlon system will wipe the floor with a top of the line G5 system costing over $3000.
I usually thought of spammers as such nice honest, wholesome people. Who would've ever thought one of them would be involved in such blatantly illegal activities like identity theft? Next thing you're going to tell me spammers are involved with hijacking home machines via worms and trojans to use as spam relays. *rolls eyes*.
Then they spraypaint your walls with racist grafitti after they kill you to make it look like some street thugs broke in. They were really only pissed at you because you didn't accept their offer to come work for them on their satellite network that can broadcast to any device. Thankfully your friend avenges your death by finding the secret console for this evil satellite network in the day care center of all places! How evil is that!?
As for the holding the gun sideways thing.. I'm pretty sure that increases the stopping power. Sort of like adding bigger tailpipes to a Honda Civic. It LOOKS more powerful so it must be.
Wolfenstein3D was the revolutionary FPS game that I remember. I remember Doom because it was just the game I couldn't play until I upgraded to a 486DX2/66 because my 386DX/33 was too slow. Honestly though, I never played Doom multiplayer. I don't even remember it having multiplayer support! Perhaps over a modem, but I don't remember it having Internet multiplayer. In fact, it didn't!
All of those old games starting to support multiplayer only did Novell IPX/SPX for some reason so it was limited to the local segment on an ethernet. At least, that's how Duke Nukem 3D was and I spent many days playing multiplayer on that that I should've spent in class so I should know. :-) Duke Nukem 3D was by far the best multiplayer FPS game until Quake came along. It put Doom to shame!
Does Canada even have access to the iTunes music store? I thought it was US only.
Law? I imagine guys with machine guns act as an awfully good deterrent to taking them.
You paid $160 for a free operating system!? P.T. Barnum was dead on.
They can, in 640x480x16 colors. Anything higher (including your funky widescreen laptop) requires tracking hundreds, if not thousands of different video card and monitor types. The video card industry really needs to get back together and come to a standard like they did with VGA. Everything since has been a proprietary hack.
Well, unless Bill's going to introduce a version of Windows that doesn't have a Windows interface, WTF is the point? How many Beowulf nodes have you seen even plugged into a KVM? Windows is a stupid choice for a headless compute node just as Linux is a stupid choice for a home desktop.
Agreed. We had 80% of our AMD CPU fans die on our new systems (about 15 systems in all failed) within 9 months. We replaced them with Zalman copper flower coolers and have been happy ever since. I don't know who AMD outsourced fans to, but they are HORRIBLE.
The vast amount of mail coming from dynamic IP addresses is spam. Users like you are few and far between. As for the P2P services... they SHOULD be shut down as well. 99% of P2P users are stealing software, music, and movies. For everybody that legitimately downloads Linux ISO images off of a P2P network there are 10,000 who steal music, videos and software.
Also, on many networks you will also find that IRC is banned as well because of all the kiddies launching DDoS attacks against IRC servers and clients. Is it a bad protocol? No.. it's quite nifty, but the assholes of society infected it and turned it into an evil protocol, just like P2P networks and SMTP unfortunately.
Since you're most likely getting your IP address for these networks from a DHCP server, it sure would be nice if there was a way to get the SMTP server gateway from it like you do DNS servers and WINS servers. That way you could hop on the network and your SMTP relay would automagically get configured. Then just get apps to use this system-wide SMTP relay setting as the server similar to how many Mac web browsers get the system-wide proxy settings from the OS itself.
Reading messages like yours makes me happy I went with Speakeasy ADSL (6Mbps/768kbps), 4 static IP addresses, no blocked ports, servers welcome, etc. :-)
50 million people losing power is significant. A guy not able to get his e-mail through a cable provider in Florida is not. I also recall tons of front page articles during the California rolling blackouts. If e-mail is that important to you then register your own domain and setup your own mail system.. or just use hotmail or yahoo for mail. Jesus, if there's anything i've learned it's to NEVER use a cable provider's services for web/dns/mail/usenet... they suck. Use them for bandwidth and find service providers for that shit elsewhere.
Cox. Cocks. Geddit?
WTF are you smoking? Cox == Cox Cable, one of the largest cable companies in North America.
Spreadsheets store data. Databases store data. ASCII text files store data. Use whatever you want, but don't go overly complex just for something as simple as cataloging a list of old crap. Tons of my "databases" are ASCII text files that I've just added onto over the years and search through with grep. Databases are a PITA to setup properly and a poorly setup database is no more efficient that a spreadsheet.
Be careful with those little buggers. They multiply if you keep them in a box together. I always seem to have about 10 times as many power cords as I do equipment which needs a power cord.
My wife helped me to catalog a lot of my old computer equipment when we moved. Err, wait.. no that's not the right word... trash. Yes, she helped me to trash a lot of my old computer equipment (and comic books) when we moved. I get those two words confused when dealing with her and my fond memories of being a bachelor.