I'm sure you're a much better programmer than I am, so I have to ask... why does using the form designer makes someone write bad database access? I'm also curious about what makes VB a poor language. I hear this pretty frequently, but have never gotten a honest explanation of why. Personally, I don't think I've ever encountered a task accomplished, or bit of code written in C# that I couldn't easily translate to VB, and vice-versa. Someone once told me there was some limitation on utilizing System.Reflection, but I just haven't encountered any problems yet. Also, don't the both compile to the same runtime language? I've always assumed it was a "6 and one half dozen" situation, and had more to do with syntax preference than anything.
It seems that in Redmond you could hit the bug by firing a single electron at random into a mural of code the size of Building 17... without the double slit barrier.
"He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it."
While I'd prefer to agree with you, I don't think he's missed a thing. I think he's looked at iTunes and seen dollar signs. And what does iTunes sell? DRM'd music... and shit-tons of it. Why? Because "it's easy and convenient enough". I don't think most consumers even know they should give a damn about DRM. They know they want 1 song, not 20, and they want it right now. iTunes provides that, and that's enough to be successful. These dinosaurs just want their grubby fingers in that model as much as possible, despite being late to the game. They're not interested in coming up with something wholly new, clever and equitable for both sides.
And there probably never will be. If you've ever contacted MS IP Licensing you know that you can't even discuss licensing their technologies until after you're under NDA.
People really only insist that their ipod plays music, looks nice, and is easy enough to use. Not necessarily in that order.
People insist that their mobile phones do virtually every task known to modern computing. With Apple being openly hostile to tinkerers, hobbyists, developers and deathly allergic to competition... they're doomed in the business phone market. They've been like this for decades, and as such I sincerely doubt they'll change things up just so they can fight every dug-in mobile phone and mobile phone OS manufacturer in the world. Seriously, are they going to write world-class integration with Exchange to simultaneously compete with, and support, Microsoft? Hell no. Will someone write it for Andriod? You can bet your ass.
I'll bet that more than one group are already working on the prize money from Google writing a mobile outlook work-alike.
I don't know nearly as much about this as you do, but I figured there was no way auto manufacturers were making our steering such that an chip failure would make the car impossible to control. I can't even imagine all the lawsuits over an engineering decision like that, without the Police departments' EMP.
I think it actually is wrong, not just illegal, to download music and movies without paying for them. Making those things costs money, and without people paying for content, nobody gets paid and nothing gets made. I suppose a lot of people have some kind of faith in the notion that generous, creative people will somehow fill the void, but I'm not so sure. I admit, I like those ridiculous, high-budget movies that Hollywood makes. If the industry plays by the rules, makes the movies, pays everyone for their services to do so, distributes the work so they can be reimbursed at a profit, and offers options for us to be able to watch their movies over and over again at home, it seems that circumventing the system just to avoid paying is a bogus thing to do.
On the other hand, I don't think downloading a movie is exactly the same as running a dvd cloning factory. At worst, I'd think it's fair to be fined along the same lines as a seatbelt violation. The many thousands of dollars in penalties that people get hit with is out of control, which makes it impossible for me to even hear the industry's side of the story. I don't buy the whole, "It's costing us TRILLIONS!", for all the reasons everyone here is already familiar with. I also don't like the idea that I can't make copies of the movies I've bought. But I just don't think it's ok to take a copy and put it online for everyone to view without paying, unless the movie's maker said it's ok.
I guess I think of it like I think of software. I try to respect all software licenses. If it's closed source, I don't download without purchasing and I never redistribute. If it's OSS, I respect the author's choice of licenses, try to contribute when I'm capable enough to do so, and while irrelevant to all this, I often donate. Now if I don't like the conditions under which a piece of software is provided, I simply choose something else. I don't circumvent the whole process. Now, if someone started offering movies for download, at a lower cost, in a timely way and in a format that works equally well on all of my equipment (dvd player, windows pc, linux lappy), I'd gladly take my money elsewhere and buy that instead. I suppose that pipe-dream would require a method by which you could consistently enforce the seatbelt-ticket-type fine... which may never happen.
So anyway, maybe it makes me the chump, but I guess it is a case of right and wrong for me.
That's good to know. I'd always thought that ultimately those non-competes that extended beyond existing company IP constituted "right-to-work" infringements.
I'm not sure we are lining up like cattle. I don't know anyone who owns a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player, and if you look at the offerings at your local Best Buy, Circuit City, Sams Club, etc., you'll notice the two formats only represent a small fraction of the DVD's, combined.
However, there is one thing that I can see changing this soon in the homes of people I know... the XBox, which is selling well. People I know either have XBox, or wouldn't mind having one. An add-on for something they already have (which costs little more than buying a decent DVD player) could easily tip the scales.
...but not because of K-Mart. HD-DVD won the day they named it that.
People don't know anything about one format or the other, or even care, but they know HD is good and DVD sounds familiar and easy to use. HD-DVD was a great move because it leveraged the gajillions of dollars that have already been pumped into marketing "HD" and "DVD", and the familiarity that goes with both.
I'm fortunate enough that in my new condo I was able to decide between Comcast, AT&T, WOW, and "the dish companies". It turned out that WOW (which JDPowers says is #1 in customer service in our area) was much cheaper*. Plus, I consider it my duty to avoid putting money in Comcast's pocket. WOW did all my install work, including three jacks in the unit and whole new runs from the ground to the third floor, for free, and inside a week.
The ability to choose can be a beautiful thing!
* 2mb cable modem and basic cable (~100 channels + 50 music + 6 HD, no box, no dvr) was about $67/mo
The real sick part of all this is that some part of me really wants to accidentally knock a big chip out of that cylinder just to throw everyone for a loop.
Not to mention this demand is increasing the cost of useful coders in those countries already. India is not nearly as cheap as it used to be, and it's only going to get worse. Besides which, many argue that India managed to create the right workers at the right time, with the right economic focus. I've heard many say that we're unlikely to see another talented workforce like India's emerge in the near future, even as the cost of doing business with them increases. Not even in China.
Wow, I didn't know this. So basically, I don't have to worry about non-HP brand toner and ink voiding warranties unless the consumable was clearly at fault?
I think the big problem is not that people don't understand the pitfalls of proprietary drivers. I think it's more that people buy hardware first, and opt to install an alt OS down the line. Aside from myself, I don't know anyone who was careful to purchase a computer that would be well supported by anything other than Windows.
The net result is that a LOT of people end up with ATI video cards, not wanting to buy replacements, and aggravated that driver support sucks. It's a crappy situation all the way around.:(
I disagree. People who care are generally able to swap out an OS like they're changing socks... and there are options many people would consider equal to (or greater than) OSX freely available for that laptop.
My point is you're stuck with the hardware you buy, not the OS. Swapping out the engine on a car is closer replacing the motherboard and processor.
You know what else I find totally unbelievable? That a civilization so advanced that it could send an orbiter all the way to other planets would manage to crash it when it got there... and over something as retarded as metric vs. standard.:)
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I'm sure you're a much better programmer than I am, so I have to ask... why does using the form designer makes someone write bad database access? I'm also curious about what makes VB a poor language. I hear this pretty frequently, but have never gotten a honest explanation of why. Personally, I don't think I've ever encountered a task accomplished, or bit of code written in C# that I couldn't easily translate to VB, and vice-versa. Someone once told me there was some limitation on utilizing System.Reflection, but I just haven't encountered any problems yet. Also, don't the both compile to the same runtime language? I've always assumed it was a "6 and one half dozen" situation, and had more to do with syntax preference than anything.
It seems that in Redmond you could hit the bug by firing a single electron at random into a mural of code the size of Building 17... without the double slit barrier.
"He thinks that if the record labels just give everybody music pre-made in the formats that they want, even if it comes saddled with DRM and even if consumers need to buy the same music over and over, that they will buy it as long as it's easy and convenient enough for them to get it."
While I'd prefer to agree with you, I don't think he's missed a thing. I think he's looked at iTunes and seen dollar signs. And what does iTunes sell? DRM'd music... and shit-tons of it. Why? Because "it's easy and convenient enough". I don't think most consumers even know they should give a damn about DRM. They know they want 1 song, not 20, and they want it right now. iTunes provides that, and that's enough to be successful. These dinosaurs just want their grubby fingers in that model as much as possible, despite being late to the game. They're not interested in coming up with something wholly new, clever and equitable for both sides.
And there probably never will be. If you've ever contacted MS IP Licensing you know that you can't even discuss licensing their technologies until after you're under NDA.
People really only insist that their ipod plays music, looks nice, and is easy enough to use. Not necessarily in that order.
People insist that their mobile phones do virtually every task known to modern computing. With Apple being openly hostile to tinkerers, hobbyists, developers and deathly allergic to competition... they're doomed in the business phone market. They've been like this for decades, and as such I sincerely doubt they'll change things up just so they can fight every dug-in mobile phone and mobile phone OS manufacturer in the world. Seriously, are they going to write world-class integration with Exchange to simultaneously compete with, and support, Microsoft? Hell no. Will someone write it for Andriod? You can bet your ass.
I'll bet that more than one group are already working on the prize money from Google writing a mobile outlook work-alike.
I don't know nearly as much about this as you do, but I figured there was no way auto manufacturers were making our steering such that an chip failure would make the car impossible to control. I can't even imagine all the lawsuits over an engineering decision like that, without the Police departments' EMP.
I'm bothered by both sides of this argument.
I think it actually is wrong, not just illegal, to download music and movies without paying for them. Making those things costs money, and without people paying for content, nobody gets paid and nothing gets made. I suppose a lot of people have some kind of faith in the notion that generous, creative people will somehow fill the void, but I'm not so sure. I admit, I like those ridiculous, high-budget movies that Hollywood makes. If the industry plays by the rules, makes the movies, pays everyone for their services to do so, distributes the work so they can be reimbursed at a profit, and offers options for us to be able to watch their movies over and over again at home, it seems that circumventing the system just to avoid paying is a bogus thing to do.
On the other hand, I don't think downloading a movie is exactly the same as running a dvd cloning factory. At worst, I'd think it's fair to be fined along the same lines as a seatbelt violation. The many thousands of dollars in penalties that people get hit with is out of control, which makes it impossible for me to even hear the industry's side of the story. I don't buy the whole, "It's costing us TRILLIONS!", for all the reasons everyone here is already familiar with. I also don't like the idea that I can't make copies of the movies I've bought. But I just don't think it's ok to take a copy and put it online for everyone to view without paying, unless the movie's maker said it's ok.
I guess I think of it like I think of software. I try to respect all software licenses. If it's closed source, I don't download without purchasing and I never redistribute. If it's OSS, I respect the author's choice of licenses, try to contribute when I'm capable enough to do so, and while irrelevant to all this, I often donate. Now if I don't like the conditions under which a piece of software is provided, I simply choose something else. I don't circumvent the whole process. Now, if someone started offering movies for download, at a lower cost, in a timely way and in a format that works equally well on all of my equipment (dvd player, windows pc, linux lappy), I'd gladly take my money elsewhere and buy that instead. I suppose that pipe-dream would require a method by which you could consistently enforce the seatbelt-ticket-type fine... which may never happen.
So anyway, maybe it makes me the chump, but I guess it is a case of right and wrong for me.
As opposed to... what, buying a US made HDD? Where does one acquire those? You can't buy your way out of Chinese manufacturing nowadays.
That's good to know. I'd always thought that ultimately those non-competes that extended beyond existing company IP constituted "right-to-work" infringements.
I'm not sure we are lining up like cattle. I don't know anyone who owns a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player, and if you look at the offerings at your local Best Buy, Circuit City, Sams Club, etc., you'll notice the two formats only represent a small fraction of the DVD's, combined.
However, there is one thing that I can see changing this soon in the homes of people I know... the XBox, which is selling well. People I know either have XBox, or wouldn't mind having one. An add-on for something they already have (which costs little more than buying a decent DVD player) could easily tip the scales.
People don't know anything about one format or the other, or even care, but they know HD is good and DVD sounds familiar and easy to use. HD-DVD was a great move because it leveraged the gajillions of dollars that have already been pumped into marketing "HD" and "DVD", and the familiarity that goes with both.
Something tells me the first thing they'll put on the list is wireshark, airsnort or some similar utility. Politicians + tech = BAD NEWS. Always.
I'm fortunate enough that in my new condo I was able to decide between Comcast, AT&T, WOW, and "the dish companies". It turned out that WOW (which JDPowers says is #1 in customer service in our area) was much cheaper*. Plus, I consider it my duty to avoid putting money in Comcast's pocket. WOW did all my install work, including three jacks in the unit and whole new runs from the ground to the third floor, for free, and inside a week.
The ability to choose can be a beautiful thing!
* 2mb cable modem and basic cable (~100 channels + 50 music + 6 HD, no box, no dvr) was about $67/mo
I always thought so, but no.
Here we have Comcast, WOW and SBC. They all still hate consumers... they just have company.
I was told the customer support for Lenovo customers is handled out of IBM's Atlanta facility. Is that incorrect?
The real sick part of all this is that some part of me really wants to accidentally knock a big chip out of that cylinder just to throw everyone for a loop.
Not to mention this demand is increasing the cost of useful coders in those countries already. India is not nearly as cheap as it used to be, and it's only going to get worse. Besides which, many argue that India managed to create the right workers at the right time, with the right economic focus. I've heard many say that we're unlikely to see another talented workforce like India's emerge in the near future, even as the cost of doing business with them increases. Not even in China.
Wow, I didn't know this. So basically, I don't have to worry about non-HP brand toner and ink voiding warranties unless the consumable was clearly at fault?
I think the big problem is not that people don't understand the pitfalls of proprietary drivers. I think it's more that people buy hardware first, and opt to install an alt OS down the line. Aside from myself, I don't know anyone who was careful to purchase a computer that would be well supported by anything other than Windows.
:(
The net result is that a LOT of people end up with ATI video cards, not wanting to buy replacements, and aggravated that driver support sucks. It's a crappy situation all the way around.
I disagree. People who care are generally able to swap out an OS like they're changing socks... and there are options many people would consider equal to (or greater than) OSX freely available for that laptop.
My point is you're stuck with the hardware you buy, not the OS. Swapping out the engine on a car is closer replacing the motherboard and processor.
That's the nice part about the internet, I have to want to go to a website.
:(
I just don't like the idea of my tax dollars paying for it.
That's bad-ass. I'd love to see a video on your project.
Mac fans are not disturbed by the fact that your cheap-@$$ laptop is only semi-functional.
They shouldn't be celebrating either... his laptop is about as nice as theirs, with a significantly smaller price tag.
But most unfortunately, his operating system is "semi-functional".
There's a fine line between mass mailing and spamming. I believe it has much to do with allowing people to unsubscribe.
You know what else I find totally unbelievable? That a civilization so advanced that it could send an orbiter all the way to other planets would manage to crash it when it got there... and over something as retarded as metric vs. standard. :)