"Hey, you know how I had to hack your DVD player so you could watch those European import DVDS? With Blu-ray that doesn't work anymore. In fact, any atempt to unlock the player will cause it to shut down. Permanently. Yes, Blu-ray has tamper-resistance built in.
No, don't buy HD-DVDs, either. Those are encrypted and you can only use them with special equipment, which includes a TV which can decrypt the data. Yes, that means you'll have to buy a new TV just to watch HD-DVDs.
I'm pretty sure that those two formats are going to flop, exactly like Betamax. You don't want to be stuck with a useless player again, do you?"
It's all about presentation. Dumb it down for them and they get it. Don't tell them that format X uses an asymmetric encryption scheme with a key length of 225,6 KiB. Tell them that they'll have to buy special TVs with small computers inside, just to watch movies. Tell them how expensive the stuf is and how it does less then what DVD does ("can be copied easily" is part of the "does" list).
They don't need to understand why exactly this stuff sucks. It might be enough if they know that it sucks.
1.) Buy a software with a particularly outrageous EULA.
2.) Let a minor install it. Have witnesses that can testify under oath that a minor accepted the EULA. Record the installation procedure with a camcorder. Do everything humanly possible to ensure that it can be proven without doubt that a minor installed the software and agreed to the EULA.
3.) Do everyhing with the software that the EULA doesn't permit. Make sure that the software's manufacturer notices. Continue until they drag you to court for violation of the EULA.
4.) Point out that you never accepted the EULA. Produce the evidence gathered in step 2.
5.) ???
6.) The BSA lobbies for a new law that makes it illegal to use software you haven't installed yourself.
Okay, maybe this is not that good an idea after all...
That's wha the NASA is currently preparing to deploy the Very Lage Flashlight (VLF), which will give us insight even into quite dark matter.
Unfortunately, they still have problems figuring out how to exchange the twenty million AA batteries powering it once it's in space.
Wait, if one pound weighs 10,000 pounds then each of these pounds weigh 10,000 pounds themselves, so one pound weighs 100,000,000 pounds which each weigh...
I guess I'm just too uneducated to properly understand the mathematics behind recursive mass.
1 up? You mean, one MBit? Hell, over here in Germany you usually have to pay a small fortune in order to convince your ISP to give you 0.3. If you can buy the additional upstream at all. Serving slightly big files is a real pain when the other side receives them at a rate only slightly faster than ISDN. And the only SDSL offering I have ever heard of is only interesting to small companies.
When you look at how Microsoft hat stifled innovation all over the place... What if Gates and Ballmer are actually luddites? What better way to stop innovation from happening than by conquering the high tech market?
The new iTantrum chair, made from highly damage resilient clear plastic and stainless steel. Because Mac users have too much style to throw ordinary furniture.
I was watching kiddie pron, on the PC. Suddenly, police cars in front of my house went all "EEooEEooEEoo", and I was, like: "huh?" And then they seized my PC and they put me in jail and now I have to build up my collection again and I'll have to do it fast so it isn't as good, which is kind of... a bummer.
Quite simple: You write a program that reads one byte of The Software from the hard disk into memory and immediately erases this byte on the hard disk. The byte will then be transferred to a card punch and punched in, then that part of the memory will be zeroed. Repeat until the entire installer has been moved to punch cards. Then you use a similar process to move The Software from the punch cards into the target PC - however you must make sure that every card is thoroughly destroyed before the next one is read, in order to reduce the chance of accidentally creating a copy of The Software.
The grandparent does not want animated vector graphics to disappear and never return, it wants animated vector graphics to be created with an open standard that is not owned by a company. Maybe a binary XML based SVG descendant might kick Flash out of the web. It certainly would be nice.
The same Borland that first tells you that the free version of JBuilder does not require you to register with them but then hide the download behind, yes, a registration page that even accepts e-mail addresses like bob@bob.bob?
Given the fact that modern CPUs usually are capable of handling a GUI and actually useful work I think that most Linux users will be able to live without hardware accelerated graphics for now. And come on: This won't attract Win users that much. Support from sotware companies is much more needed than glitzy graphics or superior operating system quality.
If we want the masses to even consider Linux we must have full or near-full support from the gaming industry and companies like Adobe. Polishing won't get us nearly as much attention.
Application bundles. Pure genius. The only thing that's missing would be some kind of meta-$PATH that gives access to every shell-runnable executable file in every bundle in/Applications.
Any radically different new GUI would be appreciated as an option and only as that. While the GIMP's interface is nt perfect, I like it much better than the approach Photoshop takes (cramming everything down your throat so you either buy a book on how to use the program or spend half an hour trying to find out how to draw a straight line).
The GIMP is intimidating, but I find that once the initial "omg, so many windows!" shock has worn off it's easier to use than certain commercial offerings.
I think that solution might be called "shielded wires". Apparently it's some new bleeding edge technology that allows you to transmit data over a wire without automatically generating lots of noise. However, it's still very experimental and we can't expect widespread adoption within the next few decades.
Yeah, the RSS 2 specification could do with cleaning up and clarification. No, it's not feasible because of too many people doing stupid things like announcing new versions of RSS all on their own and fragmenting the community.
As a matter of fact, I will shortly announce RSS 6.2. The Initial Private Community Draft will be released once I have pasted my name into the Atom specs.
VMWare Workstation. Or VirtualPC, if you're on a Mac.
There often are situations when you need a program but don't need it badly enough to write a Linux port, especially if some shareware program does exactly what you need (like graphically simulating and remotely controlling a CNC milling/turning machine), so you don't have to buy anything anyway. Emulating Windows might turn out to be useful in these situations, especially if you have a legal license (e.g. because you turned your Win box into something less frustrating).
Sure, emulating Windows is not the same as using it as the main OS, but I have never been able to completely ditch it. Having it in a controlled environment with snapshots to revert to, should shit happen, strikes a good balance between being backwards-compatible to the Windows world and having a secure machine. Of course that's all IMO, YMMV, IANA security expert etc.
Besides, we all know that Windows ships with action-packed games such as Minesweeper or FreeCell. I can see why the reviewer was disappointed by (the IMO quite entertaining) Marbe Blast Gold. You just can't expect to keep up with the apex of modern gaming technology that is Solitaire.
True. GUI-wise, Linux already has surpassed Windows, except for a few issues like GTK/Qt integration. When I have to use a Win box, the lack of middle-click pasting always annoys me (this is missing in OS X, too). Windows only has one taskbar - with KDE I never use fewer than three. And the one taskbar can't even hold applets. The icons are small and don't scale well, unlike the SVG stuff I'm used to. The control panel is almost unnavigable in "easy" mode. User/Administrator separation is a true PITA. The Start Menu is a mess - all apps are put into one directory while my K menu is nicely sorted - by default. Gentoo even puts apps in logical places when I install them.
Compared to modern Linux distros, Windows' GUI shows that there have hardly been any major improvements since '95. While the interface felt slick and refined ten years ago, colouring the buttons blue isn't going to cut it anymore today.
Slashdot Mirror
"Hey, you know how I had to hack your DVD player so you could watch those European import DVDS? With Blu-ray that doesn't work anymore. In fact, any atempt to unlock the player will cause it to shut down. Permanently. Yes, Blu-ray has tamper-resistance built in.
No, don't buy HD-DVDs, either. Those are encrypted and you can only use them with special equipment, which includes a TV which can decrypt the data. Yes, that means you'll have to buy a new TV just to watch HD-DVDs.
I'm pretty sure that those two formats are going to flop, exactly like Betamax. You don't want to be stuck with a useless player again, do you?"
It's all about presentation. Dumb it down for them and they get it. Don't tell them that format X uses an asymmetric encryption scheme with a key length of 225,6 KiB. Tell them that they'll have to buy special TVs with small computers inside, just to watch movies. Tell them how expensive the stuf is and how it does less then what DVD does ("can be copied easily" is part of the "does" list).
They don't need to understand why exactly this stuff sucks. It might be enough if they know that it sucks.
1.) Buy a software with a particularly outrageous EULA.
2.) Let a minor install it. Have witnesses that can testify under oath that a minor accepted the EULA. Record the installation procedure with a camcorder. Do everything humanly possible to ensure that it can be proven without doubt that a minor installed the software and agreed to the EULA.
3.) Do everyhing with the software that the EULA doesn't permit. Make sure that the software's manufacturer notices. Continue until they drag you to court for violation of the EULA.
4.) Point out that you never accepted the EULA. Produce the evidence gathered in step 2.
5.) ???
6.) The BSA lobbies for a new law that makes it illegal to use software you haven't installed yourself.
Okay, maybe this is not that good an idea after all...
I really should get myself a TV again...
That's wha the NASA is currently preparing to deploy the Very Lage Flashlight (VLF), which will give us insight even into quite dark matter.
Unfortunately, they still have problems figuring out how to exchange the twenty million AA batteries powering it once it's in space.
Wait, if one pound weighs 10,000 pounds then each of these pounds weigh 10,000 pounds themselves, so one pound weighs 100,000,000 pounds which each weigh...
I guess I'm just too uneducated to properly understand the mathematics behind recursive mass.
1 up? You mean, one MBit? Hell, over here in Germany you usually have to pay a small fortune in order to convince your ISP to give you 0.3. If you can buy the additional upstream at all. Serving slightly big files is a real pain when the other side receives them at a rate only slightly faster than ISDN. And the only SDSL offering I have ever heard of is only interesting to small companies.
I don't like the US American politicians, but your train technology is beyond amazing.
When you look at how Microsoft hat stifled innovation all over the place... What if Gates and Ballmer are actually luddites? What better way to stop innovation from happening than by conquering the high tech market?
The trick to beating Microsoft, I suspect, lies in understanding it's mindset.
...Somehow I just got this feeling that I've been reading too many Shadowrun sourcebooks lately.
Or in hiring a team of runners to take out the top-level execs and getting away with it.
The new iTantrum chair, made from highly damage resilient clear plastic and stainless steel. Because Mac users have too much style to throw ordinary furniture.
...And it doesn't understand AVI, and it doesn't understand anything else except for pure WMV3 files (at least it doesn't on my iBook)...
Yay for the great Windows Media Player! (Well, it does do what it says on the label...)
I was watching kiddie pron, on the PC. Suddenly, police cars in front of my house went all "EEooEEooEEoo", and I was, like: "huh?" And then they seized my PC and they put me in jail and now I have to build up my collection again and I'll have to do it fast so it isn't as good, which is kind of... a bummer.
I'm Fellen Eiss and I'm a pervert.
Quite simple: You write a program that reads one byte of The Software from the hard disk into memory and immediately erases this byte on the hard disk. The byte will then be transferred to a card punch and punched in, then that part of the memory will be zeroed. Repeat until the entire installer has been moved to punch cards. Then you use a similar process to move The Software from the punch cards into the target PC - however you must make sure that every card is thoroughly destroyed before the next one is read, in order to reduce the chance of accidentally creating a copy of The Software.
The grandparent does not want animated vector graphics to disappear and never return, it wants animated vector graphics to be created with an open standard that is not owned by a company. Maybe a binary XML based SVG descendant might kick Flash out of the web. It certainly would be nice.
Of course it's humor. Who would use EMACS or vi if there's ed?
The same Borland that first tells you that the free version of JBuilder does not require you to register with them but then hide the download behind, yes, a registration page that even accepts e-mail addresses like bob@bob.bob?
Now we will surely become market leader within the year!
Given the fact that modern CPUs usually are capable of handling a GUI and actually useful work I think that most Linux users will be able to live without hardware accelerated graphics for now. And come on: This won't attract Win users that much. Support from sotware companies is much more needed than glitzy graphics or superior operating system quality.
If we want the masses to even consider Linux we must have full or near-full support from the gaming industry and companies like Adobe. Polishing won't get us nearly as much attention.
Application bundles. Pure genius. The only thing that's missing would be some kind of meta-$PATH that gives access to every shell-runnable executable file in every bundle in /Applications.
Any radically different new GUI would be appreciated as an option and only as that. While the GIMP's interface is nt perfect, I like it much better than the approach Photoshop takes (cramming everything down your throat so you either buy a book on how to use the program or spend half an hour trying to find out how to draw a straight line).
The GIMP is intimidating, but I find that once the initial "omg, so many windows!" shock has worn off it's easier to use than certain commercial offerings.
I think that solution might be called "shielded wires". Apparently it's some new bleeding edge technology that allows you to transmit data over a wire without automatically generating lots of noise. However, it's still very experimental and we can't expect widespread adoption within the next few decades.
Yeah, the RSS 2 specification could do with cleaning up and clarification. No, it's not feasible because of too many people doing stupid things like announcing new versions of RSS all on their own and fragmenting the community.
As a matter of fact, I will shortly announce RSS 6.2. The Initial Private Community Draft will be released once I have pasted my name into the Atom specs.
VMWare Workstation. Or VirtualPC, if you're on a Mac.
There often are situations when you need a program but don't need it badly enough to write a Linux port, especially if some shareware program does exactly what you need (like graphically simulating and remotely controlling a CNC milling/turning machine), so you don't have to buy anything anyway. Emulating Windows might turn out to be useful in these situations, especially if you have a legal license (e.g. because you turned your Win box into something less frustrating).
Sure, emulating Windows is not the same as using it as the main OS, but I have never been able to completely ditch it. Having it in a controlled environment with snapshots to revert to, should shit happen, strikes a good balance between being backwards-compatible to the Windows world and having a secure machine. Of course that's all IMO, YMMV, IANA security expert etc.
Besides, we all know that Windows ships with action-packed games such as Minesweeper or FreeCell. I can see why the reviewer was disappointed by (the IMO quite entertaining) Marbe Blast Gold. You just can't expect to keep up with the apex of modern gaming technology that is Solitaire.
True. GUI-wise, Linux already has surpassed Windows, except for a few issues like GTK/Qt integration. When I have to use a Win box, the lack of middle-click pasting always annoys me (this is missing in OS X, too). Windows only has one taskbar - with KDE I never use fewer than three. And the one taskbar can't even hold applets. The icons are small and don't scale well, unlike the SVG stuff I'm used to. The control panel is almost unnavigable in "easy" mode. User/Administrator separation is a true PITA. The Start Menu is a mess - all apps are put into one directory while my K menu is nicely sorted - by default. Gentoo even puts apps in logical places when I install them.
Compared to modern Linux distros, Windows' GUI shows that there have hardly been any major improvements since '95. While the interface felt slick and refined ten years ago, colouring the buttons blue isn't going to cut it anymore today.