Perhaps I'm just a cynical bastard, but most television shows on the major networks are pretty much complete crap. I'll catch the occasional Seinfeld/Simpsons re-run and only actually follow a handful of shows (Sopranos, South Park, Chapelle's Show, and 24), but these networks don't have any sense of what's good and what's not. Nor do they care. It's all about $$ instead of quality entertainment.
A good example is this Reality TV junk. For some reason, people enjoyed Survivor. At that point, I came to a realization that everyone is stupid. The whole Reality TV (aka unscripted tv) caught on like wildfire after that. Now we have shit like American Idol, Average Joe, Tempation Island, and all that other junk. It's old. It was never REALITY tv.
Stick 10 people on an island, leave them for a month or two, then come back and give the survivors 1 million dollars. THAT would be some good reality tv. Then we'd be betting on who gets killed/eaten next.
Here, let me draw a picture of a diamond ring... store it in this database here. Now, I'll have you and a few others sign up as members to this database.
You pay me $$, I will do a simple "INSERT INTO" statement and associate the diamond ring record with the recipient's user ID. You will feel good because you sent them a "gift", they will feel happy because they think they will have received a real gift.
You will think it's fun, I will think it's funny. I will be rich, you will be paying me to alter my data in my database.
At least this gives hope to people trying to make money out there.
I have an idea. I have a website filled with members and their email addresses. When you want to send a gift, YOU draw the gift using MS Paint. Upload the picture, I will email it to the recipient of your choice, and I will only charge $1.99. See, because YOU drew it and it would be from YOU! (The sad thing is, people would probably go for it)
A simple, "Look, I know you're struggling, but you can't patent subdomains. Please go find a job and move on" will do just fine.
These people must be living in alternate realities. That's like me trying to patent the letter I and making everyone who ever uses it pay me $100 per occurrance.
Ah well, it's good to know that we can sit back and laugh at these idiots as they waste their energy, time, and money blindly believing they can even remotely get away with it.
What are the legal ramifications of using something like Mono? I'm guessing there isn't, as I'm sure Novell would've taken it into consideration any possibility of Microsoft trying to patent.net technology.
I don't know if it's just heresay, but could MS patent.net and totally screw over any open source projects that use Mono?
How is it too much choice? If you have a PC, your main choices are relatively simple: Windows or Linux.
Windows: $100 for XP Home, $200 for XP Pro. Finds most of your hardware with ease, but is often a frequent target for exploits, worms, and other quick spreading viruses. Comes with a firewall which might not appeal to advanced users, but works just fine for all others. Can be quite unstable at times. If you're just checking email or viewing web pages and don't really care to learn much about the machine you're using then this is for you.
Linux: Free. Improvements are always being made. Quite touchy with hardware detection. Multiple choices for windows environments. Most of the software you use for everyday tasks (and security) are free. Very stable, but intimidating for a beginner to use due to lack of user friendliness. Tons of documentation and help online. Ability to customize the system to fit YOUR computer hardware (grandma won't care about this).
It's not a hard choice. You can either pay money and use an OS where you don't really have to learn the inner workings, but will sacrifice security and stability, or you can use a free OS that's harder to learn that's more solid in security and stability.
If Microsoft makes leaps and bounds regarding security and what they leave open by default, then they might have Linux beat for the time being in trying to win over the average everday computer user (like the age old example of Grandma).
Back in the days of the NES, the only good RPGs were Final Fantasy and the Dragon Warrior series.
Final Fantasy was cool and all, but... compared to games like Dragon Warrior 3 and 4, it didn't stand a change. Those games were HUGE, chock-full of dungeons, monsters, stories with twists and turns, hidden quests, and more.
Not only that, but the Final Fantasy games were pretty short (the early sequels, anyway). Aside from the first, the DW games were LONG. I think DW7 was the longest clocking in at at least 100 hours.
It might not've had the fancy backdrops/cutscenes like FF7/8/9 had, but that was probably the BEST RPG I ever played for PSX.. just because it was so true to its roots.
Why the series never caught on is beyond me.
What's even more strange is the amount of people who are hardcore RPG fans who have NEVER played a single Dragon Warrior game. That is just insane. That's like being a Quake/Unreal fanatic without ever having played Wolfenstein 3D.
What also irritates me is that these companies think there's no market for it when there is. If you already made the game for Japan, how much harder is it to translate the text and ship it to the US for those who want it?
We've been jacked out of tons of great games because of this.. like the Mother series. Earthbound was the only release the USA ever had of it. Final Fantasy V never saw the light of day till the Anthology was released. FFII didn't have a US release until not even a year ago! (April 9, 2003). What about FF3?
Square definitely found a nice niche in the market for porting the unreleased games. I was disappointed to find out that Enix never considered it, but after Squaresoft bought Enix, it looks like it's becoming a reality.
While remakes are good, I'd be happier than hell to even play the ORIGINAL games ported to PSone/2. It kinda sucks to play the translated versions through an emulator.
You read stores like this and think, "Oh, it was just error."
But you fail to realize that a big heist probably took place. I saw George Clooney and Matt Damon do it to Las Vegas. They let off this big ass EMP and shut down the power to the whole city! Long story short, they stole a shitload of money and got away with it.
Don't let these stories fool you, that is exactly what happened here.
Nothing is more disappointing than reading something like this.. then snapping back into reality and realizing that we'll never see it take place in our lifetime. We probably won't even see the beginning stages of it considering it would take decades to even map out actually following through with something of this magnitude.
It's not like you can build a car-sized machine that transforms CO2 -> O2, just toss it up there, and then expect to get a habitable planet after a few years.
Think about it. You're talking about taking an entire PLANET and transforming the atmosphere into something that can support life. We can't even fix the ozone, let alone find cures for our most deadly diseases.. and you think we have the technology and the know how to do this? Hah.
When it does, it'll be too late. Hell, you'd figure you could at least get most (if not all) apps that could run in Windows 98 to work in wine.
Six years and they still can't FULLY emulate a win9x core? What about NT? By the time they get NT fully working, we'll be a few years into Loghorn, hell, possibly even on the release AFTER it.
Not to burst anyone's bubble, but I don't think there will ever be full windows interoperability to the point where you can use windows apps under Linux.
I wouldn't really count DSL as viable broadband since you have to be so far from a covad to get service, so I'll just be referring to cable.
We have 2 companies in this area competing for broadband: Comcast and Wide Open West. Prices for 4 Mbps broadband are upwards of $60. That might sound reasonable to most people, but honestly what they don't realize is that $60 is still overpriced.
The more companies that we allow to compete with each other, the more the prices will drop to what they should be.
Kinda like when dial-up became fairly popular. Before it caught on, people were being royally screwed.. paying upwards of $4 an hour (even more!) for service. Once more ISPs started joining the fray, the more prices dropped and better services were offered. Hell, most ISPs GIVE their first few months of access away.
Broadband is no different. This technology is old. I've been paying $50 for service for the past few years (granted, went up from 1.5 Mbps to 4). It's about time that changed and dropped.
At least this way we can start making the next-generation high-speed internet (way beyond broadband) a reality.
Reactor 4 exploded, but to what degree? Was it a contained explosion that resulted in the spread of radioactive materials or was the explosion equivalent to that of an a-bomb where it just decimated everything within a few mile radius?
There's a different between use and abuse. This applies to everything from gambling to drug use.
Not everyone who gambles ends up broke, not everyone who drinks ends up an alcoholic. Likewise, not everyone who uses coke/marijuana/etc ends up a dead brainless junkie.
If someone wants to gamble, who cares? What business is it of yours to tell them what they can/cannot do? Let them smoke weed and snort coke and you worry about YOU.
Yes, it is the "good" of society to look out for one another, but to a POINT. By all means, don't tell me what I can/cannot do to my own body, and gambling... who cares? It's a method of entertainment. You spend a little money in hopes that you make more. It's everywhere. Lottery? Scratch offs? How's plugging that $$ into an online slot machine any different (as long as it's not rigged)?
That's like saying alcohol should be outlawed because a few people abuse it by acting irresponsibly and driving while intoxicated. Gambling/drugs are no different. Most people are smart enough to know when to stop, however, there will ALWAYS be those who don't know when to say when. There's nothing you can do about it. If someone wants to do it, they will do it whether it's illegal or not. There's no point in making it a law that deems them a "threat to society" if they follow through with it.
You complain about taxes going toward public help programs, welfare, etc, but you don't realize that more of your tax dollars are (and have been) going to a lot more ridiculous uses that the govt. seems fit. $80 billion to the military, for instance.
The govt could easily start teaching people to be responsible, but they choose not to
Uh... what? Your response made no sense. What the fuck does an iPod have to do with super-sizing?
I can't believe all the people who responded to my post tried to argue against it.
How can you even begin to justify spending $250 on 4 GB when you can get 30 GB for $500? It's not like these things are JUST mp3 players, they're also external HDs that can be used for storage.
Wow, it's not enough that you have to pay for the unit itself on top of a subscription fee, is it?
Yet another reason to build your own PVR. It's nice to know that they can sell their product to millions of people, then at a whim decide, "Hey, let's make even more by selling AD space!" Greedy pricks.
They aren't suing people who download music. They are suing FILE SHARERS. Downloading != Sharing. Now your whole "Why risk a $3000 settlement when you can just buy the CDs" is useless and irrelevant.
...and what's up with that? You people are weak. Just give in, huh? So it's okay for these entities to continuously rip people off, lie, cheat, but when it's done to them it's suddenly wrong? That's not how it works.
You can go on your moral crusade about "They're right, it's wrong to download", but sorry, it doesn't get you anywhere. If it did, we wouldn't have these assholes like the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, SCO, etc shitting all over the very people that they're trying to coerce into buying their products.
Sorry, but if the RIAA ever fuckin sued me, I wouldn't change my tune and go "Wow, I'll start buying CDs." I'd double up on the downloading/sharing to get that $3000 back.. and hell, I'd put more effort in to giving it to more people. It doesn't teach any lessons. It causes dissent and hate for them. Now those college students who are $3000 less have even MORE reason NOT to buy CDs. "Yeah, this company just sued me, so.. I'll buy a CD and give them even more money." Nope!
Companies need to stop treating consumers like shit. Without us, they wouldn't exist.
This is getting ridiculous. These lawsuits/threats have been going on for ages, yet no one's developed an anonymous p2p client that would allow everyone to share/download files without compromising their address? Right.
Hurry it up! Once something like this is released, the RIAA is done for. It will be a giant thorn in their side that they will never be able to remove and a victory for the rest.
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Perhaps I'm just a cynical bastard, but most television shows on the major networks are pretty much complete crap. I'll catch the occasional Seinfeld/Simpsons re-run and only actually follow a handful of shows (Sopranos, South Park, Chapelle's Show, and 24), but these networks don't have any sense of what's good and what's not. Nor do they care. It's all about $$ instead of quality entertainment.
A good example is this Reality TV junk. For some reason, people enjoyed Survivor. At that point, I came to a realization that everyone is stupid. The whole Reality TV (aka unscripted tv) caught on like wildfire after that. Now we have shit like American Idol, Average Joe, Tempation Island, and all that other junk. It's old. It was never REALITY tv.
Stick 10 people on an island, leave them for a month or two, then come back and give the survivors 1 million dollars. THAT would be some good reality tv. Then we'd be betting on who gets killed/eaten next.
Here, let me draw a picture of a diamond ring... store it in this database here. Now, I'll have you and a few others sign up as members to this database.
You pay me $$, I will do a simple "INSERT INTO" statement and associate the diamond ring record with the recipient's user ID. You will feel good because you sent them a "gift", they will feel happy because they think they will have received a real gift.
You will think it's fun, I will think it's funny. I will be rich, you will be paying me to alter my data in my database.
At least this gives hope to people trying to make money out there.
I have an idea. I have a website filled with members and their email addresses. When you want to send a gift, YOU draw the gift using MS Paint. Upload the picture, I will email it to the recipient of your choice, and I will only charge $1.99. See, because YOU drew it and it would be from YOU! (The sad thing is, people would probably go for it)
A simple, "Look, I know you're struggling, but you can't patent subdomains. Please go find a job and move on" will do just fine.
These people must be living in alternate realities. That's like me trying to patent the letter I and making everyone who ever uses it pay me $100 per occurrance.
Ah well, it's good to know that we can sit back and laugh at these idiots as they waste their energy, time, and money blindly believing they can even remotely get away with it.
Yeah you know me!
What are the legal ramifications of using something like Mono? I'm guessing there isn't, as I'm sure Novell would've taken it into consideration any possibility of Microsoft trying to patent .net technology.
.net and totally screw over any open source projects that use Mono?
I don't know if it's just heresay, but could MS patent
How is it too much choice? If you have a PC, your main choices are relatively simple: Windows or Linux.
Windows: $100 for XP Home, $200 for XP Pro. Finds most of your hardware with ease, but is often a frequent target for exploits, worms, and other quick spreading viruses. Comes with a firewall which might not appeal to advanced users, but works just fine for all others. Can be quite unstable at times. If you're just checking email or viewing web pages and don't really care to learn much about the machine you're using then this is for you.
Linux: Free. Improvements are always being made. Quite touchy with hardware detection. Multiple choices for windows environments. Most of the software you use for everyday tasks (and security) are free. Very stable, but intimidating for a beginner to use due to lack of user friendliness. Tons of documentation and help online. Ability to customize the system to fit YOUR computer hardware (grandma won't care about this).
It's not a hard choice. You can either pay money and use an OS where you don't really have to learn the inner workings, but will sacrifice security and stability, or you can use a free OS that's harder to learn that's more solid in security and stability.
If Microsoft makes leaps and bounds regarding security and what they leave open by default, then they might have Linux beat for the time being in trying to win over the average everday computer user (like the age old example of Grandma).
Back in the days of the NES, the only good RPGs were Final Fantasy and the Dragon Warrior series.
Final Fantasy was cool and all, but... compared to games like Dragon Warrior 3 and 4, it didn't stand a change. Those games were HUGE, chock-full of dungeons, monsters, stories with twists and turns, hidden quests, and more.
Not only that, but the Final Fantasy games were pretty short (the early sequels, anyway). Aside from the first, the DW games were LONG. I think DW7 was the longest clocking in at at least 100 hours.
It might not've had the fancy backdrops/cutscenes like FF7/8/9 had, but that was probably the BEST RPG I ever played for PSX.. just because it was so true to its roots.
Why the series never caught on is beyond me.
What's even more strange is the amount of people who are hardcore RPG fans who have NEVER played a single Dragon Warrior game. That is just insane. That's like being a Quake/Unreal fanatic without ever having played Wolfenstein 3D.
What also irritates me is that these companies think there's no market for it when there is. If you already made the game for Japan, how much harder is it to translate the text and ship it to the US for those who want it?
We've been jacked out of tons of great games because of this.. like the Mother series. Earthbound was the only release the USA ever had of it. Final Fantasy V never saw the light of day till the Anthology was released. FFII didn't have a US release until not even a year ago! (April 9, 2003). What about FF3?
Square definitely found a nice niche in the market for porting the unreleased games. I was disappointed to find out that Enix never considered it, but after Squaresoft bought Enix, it looks like it's becoming a reality.
While remakes are good, I'd be happier than hell to even play the ORIGINAL games ported to PSone/2. It kinda sucks to play the translated versions through an emulator.
"We've replaced these slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice the difference!"
It certainly isn't anything Microsoft made. Otherwise I'm sure there'd be constant mass hysteria with 911 being down several times per week.
You read stores like this and think, "Oh, it was just error."
But you fail to realize that a big heist probably took place. I saw George Clooney and Matt Damon do it to Las Vegas. They let off this big ass EMP and shut down the power to the whole city! Long story short, they stole a shitload of money and got away with it.
Don't let these stories fool you, that is exactly what happened here.
Nothing is more disappointing than reading something like this.. then snapping back into reality and realizing that we'll never see it take place in our lifetime. We probably won't even see the beginning stages of it considering it would take decades to even map out actually following through with something of this magnitude.
It's not like you can build a car-sized machine that transforms CO2 -> O2, just toss it up there, and then expect to get a habitable planet after a few years.
Think about it. You're talking about taking an entire PLANET and transforming the atmosphere into something that can support life. We can't even fix the ozone, let alone find cures for our most deadly diseases.. and you think we have the technology and the know how to do this? Hah.
When it does, it'll be too late. Hell, you'd figure you could at least get most (if not all) apps that could run in Windows 98 to work in wine.
Six years and they still can't FULLY emulate a win9x core? What about NT? By the time they get NT fully working, we'll be a few years into Loghorn, hell, possibly even on the release AFTER it.
Not to burst anyone's bubble, but I don't think there will ever be full windows interoperability to the point where you can use windows apps under Linux.
There needs to be more competition in this area.
.. paying upwards of $4 an hour (even more!) for service. Once more ISPs started joining the fray, the more prices dropped and better services were offered. Hell, most ISPs GIVE their first few months of access away.
I wouldn't really count DSL as viable broadband since you have to be so far from a covad to get service, so I'll just be referring to cable.
We have 2 companies in this area competing for broadband: Comcast and Wide Open West. Prices for 4 Mbps broadband are upwards of $60. That might sound reasonable to most people, but honestly what they don't realize is that $60 is still overpriced.
The more companies that we allow to compete with each other, the more the prices will drop to what they should be.
Kinda like when dial-up became fairly popular. Before it caught on, people were being royally screwed
Broadband is no different. This technology is old. I've been paying $50 for service for the past few years (granted, went up from 1.5 Mbps to 4). It's about time that changed and dropped.
At least this way we can start making the next-generation high-speed internet (way beyond broadband) a reality.
Reactor 4 exploded, but to what degree? Was it a contained explosion that resulted in the spread of radioactive materials or was the explosion equivalent to that of an a-bomb where it just decimated everything within a few mile radius?
There's a different between use and abuse. This applies to everything from gambling to drug use.
Not everyone who gambles ends up broke, not everyone who drinks ends up an alcoholic. Likewise, not everyone who uses coke/marijuana/etc ends up a dead brainless junkie.
If someone wants to gamble, who cares? What business is it of yours to tell them what they can/cannot do? Let them smoke weed and snort coke and you worry about YOU.
Yes, it is the "good" of society to look out for one another, but to a POINT. By all means, don't tell me what I can/cannot do to my own body, and gambling... who cares? It's a method of entertainment. You spend a little money in hopes that you make more. It's everywhere. Lottery? Scratch offs? How's plugging that $$ into an online slot machine any different (as long as it's not rigged)?
That's like saying alcohol should be outlawed because a few people abuse it by acting irresponsibly and driving while intoxicated. Gambling/drugs are no different. Most people are smart enough to know when to stop, however, there will ALWAYS be those who don't know when to say when. There's nothing you can do about it. If someone wants to do it, they will do it whether it's illegal or not. There's no point in making it a law that deems them a "threat to society" if they follow through with it.
You complain about taxes going toward public help programs, welfare, etc, but you don't realize that more of your tax dollars are (and have been) going to a lot more ridiculous uses that the govt. seems fit. $80 billion to the military, for instance.
The govt could easily start teaching people to be responsible, but they choose not to
you're the one wasting money, loser. not me :)
Uh... what? Your response made no sense. What the fuck does an iPod have to do with super-sizing?
I can't believe all the people who responded to my post tried to argue against it.
How can you even begin to justify spending $250 on 4 GB when you can get 30 GB for $500? It's not like these things are JUST mp3 players, they're also external HDs that can be used for storage.
Buying these 4 GB models is a waste of money.
Whoever marked this redundant is an idiot.
The mini IPods aren't all that smaller than the normal ones. Whoever pays $246 for a 4 GB is an idiot. Sorry the truth hurts.
Considering you can get a 30 gig for $500 (probably less now), $249 for 4GB is a flatout ripoff.
Since .net is MS's answer to Java, then why haven't they made it cross platform yet?
Wow, it's not enough that you have to pay for the unit itself on top of a subscription fee, is it?
Yet another reason to build your own PVR. It's nice to know that they can sell their product to millions of people, then at a whim decide, "Hey, let's make even more by selling AD space!" Greedy pricks.
Heh, it takes forever downloading standard images from freenet. I don't think it's quite ready for the masses to start sharing files with.
You need to pay attention.
...and what's up with that? You people are weak. Just give in, huh? So it's okay for these entities to continuously rip people off, lie, cheat, but when it's done to them it's suddenly wrong? That's not how it works.
They aren't suing people who download music. They are suing FILE SHARERS. Downloading != Sharing. Now your whole "Why risk a $3000 settlement when you can just buy the CDs" is useless and irrelevant.
You can go on your moral crusade about "They're right, it's wrong to download", but sorry, it doesn't get you anywhere. If it did, we wouldn't have these assholes like the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, SCO, etc shitting all over the very people that they're trying to coerce into buying their products.
Sorry, but if the RIAA ever fuckin sued me, I wouldn't change my tune and go "Wow, I'll start buying CDs." I'd double up on the downloading/sharing to get that $3000 back.. and hell, I'd put more effort in to giving it to more people. It doesn't teach any lessons. It causes dissent and hate for them. Now those college students who are $3000 less have even MORE reason NOT to buy CDs. "Yeah, this company just sued me, so.. I'll buy a CD and give them even more money." Nope!
Companies need to stop treating consumers like shit. Without us, they wouldn't exist.
Kind of offtopic to the security breach (but not to the release of 2.6 itself), but.. is there a list of changes/updates anywhere?
I'm curious as to what improvements have been made.
This is getting ridiculous. These lawsuits/threats have been going on for ages, yet no one's developed an anonymous p2p client that would allow everyone to share/download files without compromising their address? Right.
Hurry it up! Once something like this is released, the RIAA is done for. It will be a giant thorn in their side that they will never be able to remove and a victory for the rest.