"I tried to {do something with a Sony device that was advertised as possible when I purchased it}, but my {Sony Device} crapped out on me and Sony won't answer support mails."
Welcome to the wonderful world that is Sony. I used to be a big fan of all that was Sony, even to the point of recommending Sony products to many many friends and family. Now, I don't even consider Sony with regards to my purchases due to their complete contempt for their "consumers" in all divisions of their business (not just SOE or Sony Music etc.). Sony is working diligently at becoming irrelevant.
I used to be a big RH fan until my personal subscription was cancelled early around the end of RH9 days. I struggled with Fedora for a while, but it was always flaky and updates seemed to break more than they fixed. I moved to Slackware... which I liked for the same reasons I really liked Gentoo -- it was easy to install packages from source; however neither of those distros is as easy to manage in a commercial setting as other more popular distros.
Then a colleague mentioned CentOS and I have not looked back. CentOS3 is still 2.4 kernel based and would be a good replacement for the older RH7x/8x/9x versions. CentOS4 is 2.6 kernel based and a great distro. I have moved everything I had from RH to CentOS and not looked back.
I even use CentOS4 on my work desktop with the KDE-RedHat repository and the Dag Wieers repository supplying packages for software that RH/CentOS do not.
I think I am going to revisit Kubuntu in the near future though, because I do like apt, I simply cannot stand Gnome (no offense - I simply prefer KDE).
(i.e. more compliant to the spec, as opposed to just trying to mimic whatever OO.o does)
You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Seriously, it has almost never been in MS best interest to adhere to standards and MS has a long history of bastardizing standards. While I fully expect them to "extend" functionality in the specification, I am pretty sure that will not be "compliant" with the specification.
FTFA: "Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, originally proposed legislation (click here for PDF) in April that would require Internet service providers to retain activity logs to aid in criminal investigations, including ones involving child abuse.
Now DeGette and some of her colleagues in the House of Representatives are suggesting that social-networking sites should be required to do the same thing."
From your post: The "Republicans" are happy to erode our media's rights to disseminate important information being withheld and to chastise them using "their" news outlets while the rest of us sit here whining in near silence.
Please berate the appropriate (Democrat) assholes.
Actually, from an enduser perspective, I wasn't that impressed with Win2K as it was a pretty incremental upgrade from NT 4.0.
That is because W2K was not designed solely with the end user in mind. It was designed for the administrators. Active Directory and the Device Manager are light years ahead of where NT 4.0 was in that regard. In fact, those subsystems remain virtually unchanged in WinXP/Server 2003. Do you remember installing devices/drivers in NT? What a nightmare. Also, and I could be wrong (I have very little experience with NT, intentionally) I don't believe NT had any type of SysPrep functionality nor could you slipstream service packs into NT.
NT was the first step in the right direction for MS but W2K was the polish that NT needed. Now as far as XP goes, there are a couple little tools that could easily have been added on to W2K that would have provided the exact same OS as XP (msconfig - which was in NT 4 incidently, system restore, network usage in task manager and remote desktop are the only things I can think of). There is a reason that XP is NT 5.1 and not NT 6.0. XP is to W2K what 98SE was to 98.
"It reminds me of a mob movie, you either pay their protection money (opening up the source code and unbundling media player) or bad things will happen to you (2.5 mill a day in fines)."
No one has asked that MS open *ANY* source code. Please do not spread such FUD; or are you astroturfing? The reason I ask is that this is the *exact* argument MS has been known to use.
Actually, I think I am seeing the bigger picture. If MS were to do such a thing as deny updates to their insecure products, do you think the EU would hesitate for one second to allow (if they didnt set them up themselves) independent (from MS) update servers? As far as disabling existing installations, that would be pretty ballsy even for MS. MS would incur the wrath of the WTO at a minimum; not to mention there are already (illegal) patches to bypass Windows authentication et al. In fact, should MS go that far, I believe that the EU would find a way to put all MS software into the public domain (in the EU) and even provide the patches to bypass any and all authentication. That is the worst scenario for MS; rather than just losing business in the EU, they have essentially removed any value at all from their own software. Who is going to pay for any kind of license from MS when it is perfectly legal to download and install a public domain version?
This is all very hypothetical of course because the chances of MS pulling out of the EU (and a substantial part of their bottom line) are pretty close to zero. Not to mention, should MS attempt any of the "coups" that you mention, that pretty much puts the last nail in the coffin with regard to *ever* returning to the EU to do business.
"They should be more willing to open up some things as a good citisen, but its there product."
I mostly agree with your post with the exception of that last sentence. MS should be forced to open their network and filesystem protocols along with actual file specs (.doc etc) to competitors, including but not limited to open source competitors, not because I think so but because that is what was ordered of them by the EU. That is the part of the EU judgement that is most important and it is also the part that MS has consistently and continually balked at complying with; almost to the point of thumbing their nose at the EU.
Please note: I did not mention anything about source code. That was not part of the settlement and that is not what competitors need to compete. That is however, part of the fallacy that MS creates by playing on the ignorance of most people involved in the issue. There is a subtle but very important distinction to be made: we want (and the EU demanded) the documentation for protocols etc, we do *not* want the source code of said protocols.
"Sure, while it would seriously promote alternate OSes in EU, could the EU stand to have the carpet pulled out from under them in this manner considering how entrenched MS is in the world of computing..?"
I agree that it would hurt with regard to new computer sales etc... however MS cannot stop existing installations from working. I also assume that should MS decide that they do not want to offer updates to existing software in the EU, while providing them for the rest of the world, that the EU would sanction "illegal" copies of said updates within the EU.
Also, and probably more importantly, if MS did this (I am gonna take my ball and go home!) do you think that would be soon forgotten in EU countries? At that point MS becomes more of an enemy to the EU computing world than simply an 800lb gorilla. I think that should MS follow through with pulling out of EU it will probably result in MS not ever being able to re-enter that market; not due to political/legal problems but because people would not forget the way they were shunned by MS while MS was trying to make a point. In other words, if MS pulls out of EU, they have to consider the consequences with one of the most likely being that they could never re-enter that market in a substantial way again.
Now before the MS apologists vent let me say a couple things. No, right now there is no equivilant replacement to MS. As a result, how long do you think it would be before either emulation (aka wine) was improved to the point of being transparent to the end user or how long before a lot of other software manufacturers start porting to Linux*? The EU has too many potential sales to ignore which most likely means that MS can no longer convince software houses to remain loyal to the MS world view of software.
*I say Linux because it is the most sensible alternative. OSX does not run on generic (aka non-Apple) i386 and there are too many machines in place already. The BSDs are behind Linux in compatibilty with hardware and the amount of software written for Linux. I cannot think of any other OS that even approaches the maturity of Linux at this point.
I don't know if you ever played SWG pre-CU or even pre-NGE, but the game was a lot more fun back then. I played SWG for over 2 years with 2 accounts (3 at one point). The games dynamics were great, the social aspects of the game have yet to meet their equivilent etc etc. The "CU" was basically just a reworking of the UI (ie add tons of bugs and less options) and a move from a talent based system of game play to a level based system. The CU also involved the removing of character attributes (I dont remember the in game term now) which would allow you to tailor your character to your play style.
After the first month or so of playing CU I got used to it and even began to enjoy it again, however the game had been dumbed down and was not as much fun as a result. Queue the NGE (Next Great Experiment) where the game was turned into a piss-poor ripoff of WoW with some extremely poor pointy-clicky combat style that is neither FPS or traditional MMO. In fact the NGE could quite possibly be referred to as the worst abomination of a game the industry has yet to produce. Pong offered more depth. I gave the NGE the best chance I could -- 2 months -- and then cancelled both accounts (1 with a jedi).
I wholly welcome the chance to play the game that I loved again. I have been playing WoW since about January and while I find it enjoyable, there is not near the depth of the world or the quality of player interaction that was prevalent in the original SWG. I know many people still in SWG who would love the chance to start fresh on a new (old) server. No one, even the hardcore and most devoted players I know, think that the NGE is an improvement. Supposedly it is "playable" now but populations are all but extinct and there is no end-game (pvp is about it -- no challenging instances etc...). Don't even get me started on crafting. SWG had probably the most intricate crafting system of any game, bar none. It was rendered useless and all but removed from the game as a result of the NGE. From what I understand, that problem has still not been addressed. Promises have been made on the forum since December with no significant fixes taking place.
Where SOE should have taken a queue from WoW is in content. I have rarely seen bugged quests in WoW and there are quests for all levels. Sony always wanted to charge for more content. All that was really in the game was "grinding" missions for money so that you could get your skills/levels and then pvp. There were a few dungeons, but nothing was instanced up until the Mustafar expansion and almost everything in the game can be soloed.
I believe having some pre-CU servers would generate content on their own -- interested parties are going to create new maps and dungeons. I am not sure what the game mechanics involved in creating instances are, but I assume that could also be addressed. Regardless, the game had a solid foundation software wise (yes there were some balance issues, but isnt there always in an MMO?). No the game was not perfect, but it was a lot of fun and maybe I am being sentimental but I would certainly welcome the old game back, especially if it was out of the controlling grip of SOE (who I will not do business with until they shape up).
You are absolutley right. I could have sworn that I recently read that there was going to be a World of Starcraft in the near future (I even seem to remember screenshots -- must be time for another cup of coffee)... the best I can find now is a/. article stating the opposite. I should have read what I linked a little closer. My apologies:)
Amen brother! I inherited a network of public-IP desktops with all users running as admin. I was ghosting at least one machine a week. I ended up setting up a NAT firewall and an Active Directory domain. Now everyone runs as just a user. Since we are still on Windows 2000, I have also installed VNC on every machine. I hardly ever have to leave my desk for desktop support anymore.
"There's really no way around this. Either we pay for TV, or the broadcasters are going to have to sell commercial time."
Ok, I'll bite. I pay $35 a month for basic cable. Fine -- it is ad encumbered and I am paying for it but whatever, I digress. Then, in order to get the 3 or 4 channels that I actually watch, I have to pay another $15 a mo for the "family pack". Again... I am paying for the channels and still having to watch commercials. And this is if I happen to watch during their normal business hours. If I watch late at night, all I see on these channels are infomercials. What I am saying is, I am already paying for the damn content *plus* being bombarded with advertising.
Not being able to change channels during an advertisement would be the straw that broke the camels back for me. I will either pirate all my content from that point on or just go without and to hell with the cable company and the channels themselves. The 2nd alternative being the most likely being that I havent seen much on TV worth watching anyway.
"..but your TV's controls freezing because a commercial comes on due to a legal mandate? I think people will NOTICE that"
I concur. I am currently paying $50/mo for mediocre programming on only about 4 channels that I actually watch when I do watch TV. The first time I notice I cannot change channels due to this is going to coincide with the exact same moment I find something else to waste my time on and cancel my cable subscription. Fuck that. The DVDs that force me to fast forward through all the marketing bullshit already piss me off to no end.
If the media companies are trying to encourage me to "pirate" their precious IP, they are doing a good job of it. However, the media companies need me a lot more than I need them. And "offering the value-add" of paying to avoid this feature is extortion plain and simple.
No amount of OS "security" can stop the end user from shooting themselves in the foot. The purpose of "anti-malware" software is to give them a chance to dodge the bullet.
It is too bad about the 125 char limit on sigs -- that would have been a great one:)
Slashdot Mirror
OK....
...this must be Slashdot, where HD-TV is defined by accurate representation of butt-zits in pr0n.
*looks around room*
I think I need to go out into the real world now....
Try here and scroll to the bottom.
Wow.... Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
"I tried to {do something with a Sony device that was advertised as possible when I purchased it}, but my {Sony Device} crapped out on me and Sony won't answer support mails."
Welcome to the wonderful world that is Sony. I used to be a big fan of all that was Sony, even to the point of recommending Sony products to many many friends and family. Now, I don't even consider Sony with regards to my purchases due to their complete contempt for their "consumers" in all divisions of their business (not just SOE or Sony Music etc.). Sony is working diligently at becoming irrelevant.
Mod parent Insightful.
I used to be a big RH fan until my personal subscription was cancelled early around the end of RH9 days. I struggled with Fedora for a while, but it was always flaky and updates seemed to break more than they fixed. I moved to Slackware... which I liked for the same reasons I really liked Gentoo -- it was easy to install packages from source; however neither of those distros is as easy to manage in a commercial setting as other more popular distros.
Then a colleague mentioned CentOS and I have not looked back. CentOS3 is still 2.4 kernel based and would be a good replacement for the older RH7x/8x/9x versions. CentOS4 is 2.6 kernel based and a great distro. I have moved everything I had from RH to CentOS and not looked back.
I even use CentOS4 on my work desktop with the KDE-RedHat repository and the Dag Wieers repository supplying packages for software that RH/CentOS do not.
I think I am going to revisit Kubuntu in the near future though, because I do like apt, I simply cannot stand Gnome (no offense - I simply prefer KDE).
(i.e. more compliant to the spec, as opposed to just trying to mimic whatever OO.o does)
You keep using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Seriously, it has almost never been in MS best interest to adhere to standards and MS has a long history of bastardizing standards. While I fully expect them to "extend" functionality in the specification, I am pretty sure that will not be "compliant" with the specification.
I hear Google are pretty good at search technology.
:)
Oh really? Do you have a source for that?
Not off the top of my head, but you may want to Googlefor it.
FTFA: "Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, originally proposed legislation (click here for PDF) in April that would require Internet service providers to retain activity logs to aid in criminal investigations, including ones involving child abuse.
Now DeGette and some of her colleagues in the House of Representatives are suggesting that social-networking sites should be required to do the same thing."
From your post: The "Republicans" are happy to erode our media's rights to disseminate important information being withheld and to chastise them using "their" news outlets while the rest of us sit here whining in near silence.
Please berate the appropriate (Democrat) assholes.
Actually, from an enduser perspective, I wasn't that impressed with Win2K as it was a pretty incremental upgrade from NT 4.0.
That is because W2K was not designed solely with the end user in mind. It was designed for the administrators. Active Directory and the Device Manager are light years ahead of where NT 4.0 was in that regard. In fact, those subsystems remain virtually unchanged in WinXP/Server 2003. Do you remember installing devices/drivers in NT? What a nightmare. Also, and I could be wrong (I have very little experience with NT, intentionally) I don't believe NT had any type of SysPrep functionality nor could you slipstream service packs into NT.
NT was the first step in the right direction for MS but W2K was the polish that NT needed. Now as far as XP goes, there are a couple little tools that could easily have been added on to W2K that would have provided the exact same OS as XP (msconfig - which was in NT 4 incidently, system restore, network usage in task manager and remote desktop are the only things I can think of). There is a reason that XP is NT 5.1 and not NT 6.0. XP is to W2K what 98SE was to 98.
"It reminds me of a mob movie, you either pay their protection money (opening up the source code and unbundling media player) or bad things will happen to you (2.5 mill a day in fines)."
No one has asked that MS open *ANY* source code. Please do not spread such FUD; or are you astroturfing? The reason I ask is that this is the *exact* argument MS has been known to use.
Actually, I think I am seeing the bigger picture. If MS were to do such a thing as deny updates to their insecure products, do you think the EU would hesitate for one second to allow (if they didnt set them up themselves) independent (from MS) update servers? As far as disabling existing installations, that would be pretty ballsy even for MS. MS would incur the wrath of the WTO at a minimum; not to mention there are already (illegal) patches to bypass Windows authentication et al. In fact, should MS go that far, I believe that the EU would find a way to put all MS software into the public domain (in the EU) and even provide the patches to bypass any and all authentication. That is the worst scenario for MS; rather than just losing business in the EU, they have essentially removed any value at all from their own software. Who is going to pay for any kind of license from MS when it is perfectly legal to download and install a public domain version?
This is all very hypothetical of course because the chances of MS pulling out of the EU (and a substantial part of their bottom line) are pretty close to zero. Not to mention, should MS attempt any of the "coups" that you mention, that pretty much puts the last nail in the coffin with regard to *ever* returning to the EU to do business.
"They should be more willing to open up some things as a good citisen, but its there product." I mostly agree with your post with the exception of that last sentence. MS should be forced to open their network and filesystem protocols along with actual file specs (.doc etc) to competitors, including but not limited to open source competitors, not because I think so but because that is what was ordered of them by the EU. That is the part of the EU judgement that is most important and it is also the part that MS has consistently and continually balked at complying with; almost to the point of thumbing their nose at the EU.
Please note: I did not mention anything about source code. That was not part of the settlement and that is not what competitors need to compete. That is however, part of the fallacy that MS creates by playing on the ignorance of most people involved in the issue. There is a subtle but very important distinction to be made: we want (and the EU demanded) the documentation for protocols etc, we do *not* want the source code of said protocols.
"Sure, while it would seriously promote alternate OSes in EU, could the EU stand to have the carpet pulled out from under them in this manner considering how entrenched MS is in the world of computing..?"
I agree that it would hurt with regard to new computer sales etc... however MS cannot stop existing installations from working. I also assume that should MS decide that they do not want to offer updates to existing software in the EU, while providing them for the rest of the world, that the EU would sanction "illegal" copies of said updates within the EU.
Also, and probably more importantly, if MS did this (I am gonna take my ball and go home!) do you think that would be soon forgotten in EU countries? At that point MS becomes more of an enemy to the EU computing world than simply an 800lb gorilla. I think that should MS follow through with pulling out of EU it will probably result in MS not ever being able to re-enter that market; not due to political/legal problems but because people would not forget the way they were shunned by MS while MS was trying to make a point. In other words, if MS pulls out of EU, they have to consider the consequences with one of the most likely being that they could never re-enter that market in a substantial way again.
Now before the MS apologists vent let me say a couple things. No, right now there is no equivilant replacement to MS. As a result, how long do you think it would be before either emulation (aka wine) was improved to the point of being transparent to the end user or how long before a lot of other software manufacturers start porting to Linux*? The EU has too many potential sales to ignore which most likely means that MS can no longer convince software houses to remain loyal to the MS world view of software.
*I say Linux because it is the most sensible alternative. OSX does not run on generic (aka non-Apple) i386 and there are too many machines in place already. The BSDs are behind Linux in compatibilty with hardware and the amount of software written for Linux. I cannot think of any other OS that even approaches the maturity of Linux at this point.
I don't know if you ever played SWG pre-CU or even pre-NGE, but the game was a lot more fun back then. I played SWG for over 2 years with 2 accounts (3 at one point). The games dynamics were great, the social aspects of the game have yet to meet their equivilent etc etc. The "CU" was basically just a reworking of the UI (ie add tons of bugs and less options) and a move from a talent based system of game play to a level based system. The CU also involved the removing of character attributes (I dont remember the in game term now) which would allow you to tailor your character to your play style.
After the first month or so of playing CU I got used to it and even began to enjoy it again, however the game had been dumbed down and was not as much fun as a result. Queue the NGE (Next Great Experiment) where the game was turned into a piss-poor ripoff of WoW with some extremely poor pointy-clicky combat style that is neither FPS or traditional MMO. In fact the NGE could quite possibly be referred to as the worst abomination of a game the industry has yet to produce. Pong offered more depth. I gave the NGE the best chance I could -- 2 months -- and then cancelled both accounts (1 with a jedi).
I wholly welcome the chance to play the game that I loved again. I have been playing WoW since about January and while I find it enjoyable, there is not near the depth of the world or the quality of player interaction that was prevalent in the original SWG. I know many people still in SWG who would love the chance to start fresh on a new (old) server. No one, even the hardcore and most devoted players I know, think that the NGE is an improvement. Supposedly it is "playable" now but populations are all but extinct and there is no end-game (pvp is about it -- no challenging instances etc...). Don't even get me started on crafting. SWG had probably the most intricate crafting system of any game, bar none. It was rendered useless and all but removed from the game as a result of the NGE. From what I understand, that problem has still not been addressed. Promises have been made on the forum since December with no significant fixes taking place.
Where SOE should have taken a queue from WoW is in content. I have rarely seen bugged quests in WoW and there are quests for all levels. Sony always wanted to charge for more content. All that was really in the game was "grinding" missions for money so that you could get your skills/levels and then pvp. There were a few dungeons, but nothing was instanced up until the Mustafar expansion and almost everything in the game can be soloed.
I believe having some pre-CU servers would generate content on their own -- interested parties are going to create new maps and dungeons. I am not sure what the game mechanics involved in creating instances are, but I assume that could also be addressed. Regardless, the game had a solid foundation software wise (yes there were some balance issues, but isnt there always in an MMO?). No the game was not perfect, but it was a lot of fun and maybe I am being sentimental but I would certainly welcome the old game back, especially if it was out of the controlling grip of SOE (who I will not do business with until they shape up).
You are absolutley right. I could have sworn that I recently read that there was going to be a World of Starcraft in the near future (I even seem to remember screenshots -- must be time for another cup of coffee)... the best I can find now is a /. article stating the opposite. I should have read what I linked a little closer. My apologies :)
This is why I don't think Blizzard will make a Starcraft or Diablo MMORPG.
Ummmm yea.
While I laughed when I read your post, I think if I had mod points I would mod you insightful :)
"I would be happy with an honest apology and handshake, that was earnestly meant."
Good luck with that. When has Microsoft *ever* made a public apology for anything? (not a troll -- honest question)
Amen brother! I inherited a network of public-IP desktops with all users running as admin. I was ghosting at least one machine a week. I ended up setting up a NAT firewall and an Active Directory domain. Now everyone runs as just a user. Since we are still on Windows 2000, I have also installed VNC on every machine. I hardly ever have to leave my desk for desktop support anymore.
Three words: Sender Policy Framework :)
If the email came from a server authorized to send for that domain, no problems, otherwise into the trash.
"I don't know about you, but my cable TV doesn't go out for 8 hours every other night."
Well, it does... they just call it infomercials.
"There's really no way around this. Either we pay for TV, or the broadcasters are going to have to sell commercial time."
Ok, I'll bite. I pay $35 a month for basic cable. Fine -- it is ad encumbered and I am paying for it but whatever, I digress. Then, in order to get the 3 or 4 channels that I actually watch, I have to pay another $15 a mo for the "family pack". Again... I am paying for the channels and still having to watch commercials. And this is if I happen to watch during their normal business hours. If I watch late at night, all I see on these channels are infomercials. What I am saying is, I am already paying for the damn content *plus* being bombarded with advertising.
Not being able to change channels during an advertisement would be the straw that broke the camels back for me. I will either pirate all my content from that point on or just go without and to hell with the cable company and the channels themselves. The 2nd alternative being the most likely being that I havent seen much on TV worth watching anyway.
"..but your TV's controls freezing because a commercial comes on due to a legal mandate? I think people will NOTICE that"
I concur. I am currently paying $50/mo for mediocre programming on only about 4 channels that I actually watch when I do watch TV. The first time I notice I cannot change channels due to this is going to coincide with the exact same moment I find something else to waste my time on and cancel my cable subscription. Fuck that. The DVDs that force me to fast forward through all the marketing bullshit already piss me off to no end.
If the media companies are trying to encourage me to "pirate" their precious IP, they are doing a good job of it. However, the media companies need me a lot more than I need them. And "offering the value-add" of paying to avoid this feature is extortion plain and simple.
Just my 2cents.
No amount of OS "security" can stop the end user from shooting themselves in the foot. The purpose of "anti-malware" software is to give them a chance to dodge the bullet.
:)
It is too bad about the 125 char limit on sigs -- that would have been a great one