The cost of Windows Media Player is built into Windows. You are fooling yourself if you think MS developed.wma out of their own pocket. This cost gets added onto windows, that's why they have a huge cash reserve. You didn't explicitly pay for it, but you did pay for it. MS has put quite a lot of money into developing their own audio and video formats, and this stuff ain't free.
Quicktime asks you to upgrade... I guess it is pretty annoying. Personally I think being able to encode in.H264 for basically perfect web streams at resolutions of NTSC D1 is pretty damn nifty, but to each his own I suppose. To me it is worth the $30. To be fair, most shareware has similar notices, and is usually in the $20-30 price range. The thing that makes it truly annoying with Quicktime is that it is a very refined format and player so it seems out of place.
If you look really hard on their web page, there is a standalone install for Quicktime instead of the iTunes bundle. Just gotta actually try to find it, it's not in a good place for easy viewing so for us PC users it can be hard to find.
Lastly Macs are mainly used in the digital art and video field. It makes sense that quicktime comes with OSX, but the real issue here isn't that. You can uninstall quicktime from OSX, you cannot uninstall windows media player from windows.
Re:Neils Ferguson - seems to know his stuff
on
No Backdoor in Vista
·
· Score: 1
If it were not for the ethical people working in the unethical environments, how would we ever find out about misuse and abuse in this day and age?
I am not refuting your post but it would seem that if all the ethical people left those environments, we would have superpower states and corporations with no scruples whatsoever, and no one would ever know.
Upon reflection, the officer comment I made above gave me an idea. If they could see who was driving a vehicle with the RFID scanner, and have an automatic camera take pictures when you break the law while driving, what we have a an ironclad case against the driver of the car. It could be that they are going to use it as a means of generating revenue in the form of tickets while simultaneously reducing the number of cops on the road for that task.
Sounds more plausible that a national network for finding citizens, though it could certainly be a by-product.
I cannot think of a use for it other than surveillance/tracking. I tried.
I have heard people mention that it can help rescue teams find you if you are lost in the woods, or buried in a snowdrift. Sure, I guess it could. Considering that the majority of people don't have this happen to them on a regular basis, I concluded that was not it's intended purpose.
Maybe the RFID makers greased lawmakers to make more money. Could happen. Maybe we are all getting tagged so that we can be 'found' easily. Could also happen.
I wonder why this is happening when the funds could serve the citizens better by say rebuilding New Orleans or fixing our crumbling infrastructure of roads and bridges.
Who really knows what our gov'ts real priorities are? Certainly not I.
It is of no consequence to me as I would microwave any RFID chips I was 'forced' to wear. "Sorry officer, I really don't know why I have a huge burn hole in my ID card, but I am a really terrific driver, let me tell ya."
Seems like all a competitor has to do is make the ability to name your own players and this is easily sidestepped. I guess it would be a minor pain in the ass but die hard fans would probably even like it. (Changing the names of thier least favorite players -> Jerry Lice.)
Soon, they are opening a 'location' in China to outsour^H^H^H^H^H^H^H tap into that market as well. One thing I have noticed about them is that they have many layers of management, who really are business people and know nothing about the game field. Stepping on too many toes can definately backfire, and all it takes is for people not to buy the games when they come out during the hollidays.
I am miffed at them for completely destroying the offline Ultima series. Ultima 9 shipped with a bug that basically made the game completely unfinishable. A month or two later, when they finally got around to patching it, it was found that using the patch would make all your previous save games unusable. Bummer.
After this game created SERIOUS backlash in the Ultima community, and EA closed down the Texas location and moved the Origin team to a building at EA main in Redwood City. Rumor has it *wink wink* that they are very unhappy in the Bay area, and have been basically relegated to the lowest level building there. Appearantly, in EA they organize the floors with names to donate rank (sorta). There is the Tiger floor, etc etc. and the Origin team is considered at the bottom of that food chain internally. (Sad because I always loved thier games.)
However, this is the reason I too have boycotted EA games, and will never buy them again. Its a shame too, because by doing that I am also slighting a company that I had previously been a huge fan of.
Back to my orginal point however, simply creating the ability to choose team colors and pick names will sidstep this new deal that EA has made and will probably even add more to the game. EA doesnt understand that realism does not equal fun, and would not even think of it as a positive for the other company.
I currently attend the Academy of Art College in San Francisco studying video games. A few weeks ago, we had a field trip to the EA offices in Redwood City, nearby. The goal of this fieldtrip was to give us an idea of what we could expect when we go out into the field here, especially at the big name houses. We pull up the main loop in these old crappy black school busses and the PR person comes out looking a bit wideeyed at the number of us.
We enter the main building and immediately to our right is the EA 'store' where you can buy PC games for like 10 bucks and PS2 games for 20 or so. You enter the main foyer and on the wall to the right down a long hallway are the original games that made EA what it is. Bard's Tale was one of the first on the wall. I fondly remembered how lost I was when i first played that game. I also recalled trying to search the buildings from the start location, an action that got me killed almost immediately. Boy those were the days. I don't remember a thing she said as I looked at all the old releases that I had played since even Commodore 64 days.
She's giving us the standard prepackaged tour, we see the game room, the basketball courts, some nerds playing card games. We see their kick ass arcade complete with 4 sound proof rooms with anything you could imagine. They had a game library that literally has every game from every company you ever heard of. All in all, the beginning was quite literally, awesome.
We head outside to go to the building that contains the auditorium where a member of HR is going to come in a talk to us about the kinda of things they want to see on our reels and blah blah blah. I look up at the windows that I could see through and see more cubicles in a row than I have ever seen. Clark Kent, eat your heart out the Daily Planet was nothing compared to this place. And that was just 1 of 3 or more floors or workers.
Enter the auditorium. We sit, the HR guy is late, real late. The PR lady is starting to get sick of us, the prepacked tour she has memorized so well is over, and now she has kinda make it up as she goes. You can tell she's not into this. One of the first things she mentions is that they are going to be opening a 'location' in China very soon. The silence is deafening. Sensing over 50 glares in her direction, she quickly starts talking about the work environment at this EA location. She tells us about the big projects like Lord of the Rings, that had 170 people on it. She tells us of the smaller projects like Sims2 that had up to 30 or so people on it. She immediately begins to describe crunch time. She explains that one thing you have to remember while working at EA is that there is always at least 2 other people who want your job. I'm starting to sense that FUD is the main motivator at EA, the primary reason that the employees work as they do. She even explains that sometimes you have to work from 8 am to 10 pm.
We were definately running out of material to cover. At this point my teacher asks her if she will critique some of the students demo reels. You can tell she doesnt want to, but she does anyway. One thing the people at EA stressed was not to mix too many jobs into one reel. In the world of game at big companies, generally you break the development up into chunks, so a modeling person only does models, etc. At smaller companies people generally do more tasks because you have to. Large companies on the other hand in a way operate like a fast food chain, if you lose a matte painter, you just plug another one in.
The thing I learned most from this trip is that fear is the main motivator at EA. If the PR lady is telling us about a new location in China, I can only imagine the emotions and feelings goin on inside the place as the artists basically throw their lives away for 2 years until they are dried up. Average job lasts 2 years in the game world, as you don't really get raises internally. You make your money by leaving to a higher paying job, then coming back
I asked my mother and father if this was a new idea or if they did this in the 60s as well. Both of them agreed that this is an old idea and they were both subjected to it in the 60s and 70s.
I am not saying it's right or wrong nor am I disagreeing with you on it's weirdness, just that it is an idea that has been around for a while.
Vox
Re:journalists
on
Meet Joe Blog
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I feel that the state of current media is in such a sorry state that I don't even trust the traffic reporter guy. I agree with grandparent in that there is little remaining journalistic integrity in the field of media. If they can fuck things up this bad, why in the world should we then assume them to be trustworthy at all? At least with blogs you can click the links to check thier sources and decide for yourself. This is in my opinion a hell of a lot better than 'an insider to the Whitehouse reports that...'. So in that particular regard, I would put the college hacks one step above the mainstream media. (New York Times comes immediately to mind.)
Perhaps he is just a pimply faced boxer wearing college nobody, however, I recall at that time of my life being far more proactive in hunting things down than I am now. He might just have the zeal and time/"nothing to lose" to go for it and find something that the 'mass mediated masses' might have missed.
It's funny you should mention that, all the reading Ive done points to porn as the main reason that we are so disrespected in the Arab world. It is considered abomination to them from what I understand. (They still cover thier women.) I don't know who Art Bell is, but he sounds like a pompous ass to me from your description.
I still don't understand how your plan wouldn't create more terrorists than it kills. When the major nuclear superpowers goes "proactive" in war, its a scary sign no matter which side of the fence you are on. Honestly, considering the recent event at the wedding party, what children that survived that event WON'T grow up to be terrorists? And we won't feel the repercussions for 20 years (arbitrary number) after the event and this person has prepared.
If baystar is really funded by MS (as many here claim) how could they possibly have an issue with No. 3?
"There was a disparity between press releases and the truth."
MS having a problem with misinformation? Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. I bet it plays out something like this...
In my life I don't recall the Pope ever promoting war. What does extremist mean exactly in this context? I never heard the Pope say that God is with us so lets kill people, I hear GWB say it all the time. I'm not trying to flame I am just a little confused on how GWB and the Pope can be compared on any level.
If I recall correctly, its +15-20% not MPH, that you could go over the posted speed limit.
going 20 to 25 in a 5 is simply not ok, going 6 or 7, should be.
You are due for the manufacturing of a knuckle sandwich for the ignorance of your post. I shall combine fisted hand with velocity to manufacture you a fat lip.
from dictionary.com
manufacture P Pronunciation Key (mny-fkchr)
v. manufactured, manufacturing, manufactures
v. tr.
To make or process (a raw material) into a finished product, especially by means of a large-scale industrial operation.
To make or process (a product), especially with the use of industrial machines.
To create, produce, or turn out in a mechanical manner: ?His books seem to have been manufactured rather than composed? (Dwight Macdonald).
To concoct or invent; fabricate: manufacture an excuse.
v. intr.
To make or process goods, especially in large quantities and by means of industrial machines.
n.
The act, craft, or process of manufacturing products, especially on a large scale.
An industry in which mechanical power and machinery are employed.
A product that is manufactured.
The making or producing of something.
So unless the burger flipping "manufacturing" people are making some 5000 bugers at a time, it's not really manufacturing is it?
Slashdot Mirror
The cost of Windows Media Player is built into Windows. You are fooling yourself if you think MS developed .wma out of their own pocket. This cost gets added onto windows, that's why they have a huge cash reserve. You didn't explicitly pay for it, but you did pay for it. MS has put quite a lot of money into developing their own audio and video formats, and this stuff ain't free.
.H264 for basically perfect web streams at resolutions of NTSC D1 is pretty damn nifty, but to each his own I suppose. To me it is worth the $30. To be fair, most shareware has similar notices, and is usually in the $20-30 price range. The thing that makes it truly annoying with Quicktime is that it is a very refined format and player so it seems out of place.
Quicktime asks you to upgrade... I guess it is pretty annoying. Personally I think being able to encode in
If you look really hard on their web page, there is a standalone install for Quicktime instead of the iTunes bundle. Just gotta actually try to find it, it's not in a good place for easy viewing so for us PC users it can be hard to find.
Lastly Macs are mainly used in the digital art and video field. It makes sense that quicktime comes with OSX, but the real issue here isn't that. You can uninstall quicktime from OSX, you cannot uninstall windows media player from windows.
If it were not for the ethical people working in the unethical environments, how would we ever find out about misuse and abuse in this day and age?
I am not refuting your post but it would seem that if all the ethical people left those environments, we would have superpower states and corporations with no scruples whatsoever, and no one would ever know.
Responding to my own thread, how tacky.
Upon reflection, the officer comment I made above gave me an idea. If they could see who was driving a vehicle with the RFID scanner, and have an automatic camera take pictures when you break the law while driving, what we have a an ironclad case against the driver of the car.
It could be that they are going to use it as a means of generating revenue in the form of tickets while simultaneously reducing the number of cops on the road for that task.
Sounds more plausible that a national network for finding citizens, though it could certainly be a by-product.
Just a thought,
24BV
I cannot think of a use for it other than surveillance/tracking. I tried.
I have heard people mention that it can help rescue teams find you if you are lost in the woods, or buried in a snowdrift. Sure, I guess it could. Considering that the majority of people don't have this happen to them on a regular basis, I concluded that was not it's intended purpose.
Maybe the RFID makers greased lawmakers to make more money. Could happen. Maybe we are all getting tagged so that we can be 'found' easily. Could also happen.
I wonder why this is happening when the funds could serve the citizens better by say rebuilding New Orleans or fixing our crumbling infrastructure of roads and bridges.
Who really knows what our gov'ts real priorities are? Certainly not I.
It is of no consequence to me as I would microwave any RFID chips I was 'forced' to wear. "Sorry officer, I really don't know why I have a huge burn hole in my ID card, but I am a really terrific driver, let me tell ya."
Regards,
24BV
You should have also turned off Remote Registry Service if you didn't want to reinstall in another 5 months. Regards, Vox
Based on your attitude one can only hope you get hit by a truck and then need them to 'do something for you'.
Cheers
Seems like all a competitor has to do is make the ability to name your own players and this is easily sidestepped. I guess it would be a minor pain in the ass but die hard fans would probably even like it. (Changing the names of thier least favorite players -> Jerry Lice.)
Soon, they are opening a 'location' in China to outsour^H^H^H^H^H^H^H tap into that market as well. One thing I have noticed about them is that they have many layers of management, who really are business people and know nothing about the game field. Stepping on too many toes can definately backfire, and all it takes is for people not to buy the games when they come out during the hollidays.
I am miffed at them for completely destroying the offline Ultima series. Ultima 9 shipped with a bug that basically made the game completely unfinishable. A month or two later, when they finally got around to patching it, it was found that using the patch would make all your previous save games unusable. Bummer.
After this game created SERIOUS backlash in the Ultima community, and EA closed down the Texas location and moved the Origin team to a building at EA main in Redwood City. Rumor has it *wink wink* that they are very unhappy in the Bay area, and have been basically relegated to the lowest level building there. Appearantly, in EA they organize the floors with names to donate rank (sorta). There is the Tiger floor, etc etc. and the Origin team is considered at the bottom of that food chain internally. (Sad because I always loved thier games.)
However, this is the reason I too have boycotted EA games, and will never buy them again. Its a shame too, because by doing that I am also slighting a company that I had previously been a huge fan of.
Back to my orginal point however, simply creating the ability to choose team colors and pick names will sidstep this new deal that EA has made and will probably even add more to the game. EA doesnt understand that realism does not equal fun, and would not even think of it as a positive for the other company.
Vox
Go fuck yourself.
We enter the main building and immediately to our right is the EA 'store' where you can buy PC games for like 10 bucks and PS2 games for 20 or so. You enter the main foyer and on the wall to the right down a long hallway are the original games that made EA what it is. Bard's Tale was one of the first on the wall. I fondly remembered how lost I was when i first played that game. I also recalled trying to search the buildings from the start location, an action that got me killed almost immediately. Boy those were the days. I don't remember a thing she said as I looked at all the old releases that I had played since even Commodore 64 days.
She's giving us the standard prepackaged tour, we see the game room, the basketball courts, some nerds playing card games. We see their kick ass arcade complete with 4 sound proof rooms with anything you could imagine. They had a game library that literally has every game from every company you ever heard of. All in all, the beginning was quite literally, awesome.
We head outside to go to the building that contains the auditorium where a member of HR is going to come in a talk to us about the kinda of things they want to see on our reels and blah blah blah. I look up at the windows that I could see through and see more cubicles in a row than I have ever seen. Clark Kent, eat your heart out the Daily Planet was nothing compared to this place. And that was just 1 of 3 or more floors or workers.
Enter the auditorium. We sit, the HR guy is late, real late. The PR lady is starting to get sick of us, the prepacked tour she has memorized so well is over, and now she has kinda make it up as she goes. You can tell she's not into this. One of the first things she mentions is that they are going to be opening a 'location' in China very soon. The silence is deafening. Sensing over 50 glares in her direction, she quickly starts talking about the work environment at this EA location. She tells us about the big projects like Lord of the Rings, that had 170 people on it. She tells us of the smaller projects like Sims2 that had up to 30 or so people on it. She immediately begins to describe crunch time. She explains that one thing you have to remember while working at EA is that there is always at least 2 other people who want your job. I'm starting to sense that FUD is the main motivator at EA, the primary reason that the employees work as they do. She even explains that sometimes you have to work from 8 am to 10 pm.
We were definately running out of material to cover. At this point my teacher asks her if she will critique some of the students demo reels. You can tell she doesnt want to, but she does anyway. One thing the people at EA stressed was not to mix too many jobs into one reel. In the world of game at big companies, generally you break the development up into chunks, so a modeling person only does models, etc. At smaller companies people generally do more tasks because you have to. Large companies on the other hand in a way operate like a fast food chain, if you lose a matte painter, you just plug another one in.
The thing I learned most from this trip is that fear is the main motivator at EA. If the PR lady is telling us about a new location in China, I can only imagine the emotions and feelings goin on inside the place as the artists basically throw their lives away for 2 years until they are dried up. Average job lasts 2 years in the game world, as you don't really get raises internally. You make your money by leaving to a higher paying job, then coming back
I asked my mother and father if this was a new idea or if they did this in the 60s as well. Both of them agreed that this is an old idea and they were both subjected to it in the 60s and 70s. I am not saying it's right or wrong nor am I disagreeing with you on it's weirdness, just that it is an idea that has been around for a while. Vox
Perhaps he is just a pimply faced boxer wearing college nobody, however, I recall at that time of my life being far more proactive in hunting things down than I am now. He might just have the zeal and time/"nothing to lose" to go for it and find something that the 'mass mediated masses' might have missed.
YAHOOO! *Bang, bang* /fires his PC into the air.
I thought it was notoriously good at running on our 'dead horses', aka 386's and 486's of yesteryear.
Well put.
It's funny you should mention that, all the reading Ive done points to porn as the main reason that we are so disrespected in the Arab world. It is considered abomination to them from what I understand. (They still cover thier women.) I don't know who Art Bell is, but he sounds like a pompous ass to me from your description.
An eye for an eye and such...
I've had much the same thought. Im right behind you. 1 year and counting. (have to finish school first.)
(phone rings)
KETTLE: Uh, hello?
POT: Hey Kettle, this is Pot. You're black!
(fade to kettle)
(applause)
I live in Silicon Valley, and from here all we heard was a distinct "pffft" sound.
In my life I don't recall the Pope ever promoting war. What does extremist mean exactly in this context? I never heard the Pope say that God is with us so lets kill people, I hear GWB say it all the time. I'm not trying to flame I am just a little confused on how GWB and the Pope can be compared on any level.
If I recall correctly, its +15-20% not MPH, that you could go over the posted speed limit. going 20 to 25 in a 5 is simply not ok, going 6 or 7, should be.
from dictionary.com
manufacture P Pronunciation Key (mny-fkchr) v. manufactured, manufacturing, manufactures v. tr. To make or process (a raw material) into a finished product, especially by means of a large-scale industrial operation. To make or process (a product), especially with the use of industrial machines. To create, produce, or turn out in a mechanical manner: ?His books seem to have been manufactured rather than composed? (Dwight Macdonald). To concoct or invent; fabricate: manufacture an excuse.
v. intr. To make or process goods, especially in large quantities and by means of industrial machines.
n. The act, craft, or process of manufacturing products, especially on a large scale. An industry in which mechanical power and machinery are employed. A product that is manufactured. The making or producing of something.
So unless the burger flipping "manufacturing" people are making some 5000 bugers at a time, it's not really manufacturing is it?
Zing!
Im sorry but i dont get it. Its not like they elected him, why would you punish the weak?
I think we all know that the true answer was 42, not 23. So long, and thanks for...