Yeah if using Crysis as an example on a resolution no video card publicly available is playable on is your only proof that doesn't cut it. I really don't understand the fascination with Crysis as it sold very, very few copies because they targeted a market that doesn't have that many consumers. I love super uber graphics as much as the next guy, but I also want to be able to play it on my 1.5-2 year old "high-end" system and not have to upgrade every year to see the pretty stuff. The fact that Half-Life 2 pulls off better quality vs. performance is telling that something is wrong with the engine in Crysis. You can run HL2 Episodes 1 & 2 maxed out graphically on a lot lower machine than is needed to run the Medium-High settings (not even the max settings) on Crysis.
Go back and look at them again, 9800GX2 trounces the 8800GT as soon as you turn the settings up. It is very comparable to the SLI 8800 GTS 512mb which is 2 8800 GTS cards put together. That will cost you more to do then buying this card will.
I remember a few months ago when information came out about the 9800GX2 it was claimed the MSRP would be $449. Now we know that was merely a pipe dream.. I wonder if Nvidia leaked that low price and changed their mind or if people were just pulling numbers out of thin air for their leak articles.
Either way, $449 would have been a much nicer price, but I guess since they move so few units of these high end cards anyway (i've heard it is well less than 100k units sold for the high-end cards) they need to have a high price to justify any of the R&D costs.
I also was thinking about that too! If they are so dumb as to think sending an e-mail out constitutes private communication as it passes across who knows how many servers that can all make copies of it on the way there, we're screwed. I would think things like Air Force One flight plans and confidential information should be sent through encrypted satellite connections run by the government or for really sensitive items carried in person via diplomatic couriers.
The reason that these are going up is because of stupid users who see an e-mail from their bank (supposedly) that says "Alert, your account has been disabled until you login to this site and enter all of the information that we, as your bank would already know!". I think if we can focus on user education about phishing, and how banks will NEVER ask you for your username and password and account information via an e-mail, the number of fraudulent transactions would go down significantly. Since the main type listed was related to unauthorized online activity, it is because users are being stupid and giving out their username and password to phishing sites.
Now, you may say, "Just add more questions that only the user will know to their online banking logins!". The issue is, the phishers will just pull those same security questions from the banking site. I've even seen ones where they will have you do the initial login then they will login to your banking site and pass the actual security questions to you to answer, allowing them to completely bypass any security measures that your bank has setup. One thing that Chase does that might help a little bit is if you login to your online banking site from somewhere not already verified (different IP address) they will make you send an activation code to your Cell Phone or your registered account e-mail address before they will let you logon and do anything. This might help a little bit, but i'm sure the scammers will find a way around it. Also, those type of security measures are only implemented by large companies, leaving the smaller banks (and their customers) out in the cold when it comes to security.
So basically my point is, we shouldn't focus so much on network security measures as we should on user education. Network security is great, but when your users can be tricked into giving away their most personal information no amount of network security is going to protect them from themselves.
I don't really think Blu-Ray was a better format in any real sense. Yes, initially it had 5-10GB more space allowed, but Toshiba figured out how to top 50GB using HD-DVD discs as the technology got more mature. Also, HD-DVD players and discs were cheaper to produce as far as I can tell, and the HD-DVD spec was finalized long before Blu-Ray's was. This resulted in Blu-Ray players being released that only supported the 1.0 spec and could NOT be upgraded. Basically when all the fancy Blu-Rays come out a couple of years later, the people with 1.0 spec players are hosed. They can't use any of the neato features that HD-DVD had in from the very beginning. As far as I know, Blu-Ray did not have things like dynamic Picture In Picture with real-time overlays etc in the 1.0 spec. They added that stuff in 1.1 and alienated early adopters.
Also, Sony may have "won" by shoving Blu-Ray players into every PS3 and jacking their price up, but how much money are they making off of software sales on the PS3? I'd say not a lot since the software attach rate for PS3 is fairly low (Wii is also not that great - I think many of the casual players just want to play Wii Sports which comes with the console for free!). It also does sound like Sony just was willing to throw more cash into the "pay for exclusive" war. I really am torn at this point as I did not buy Blu-Ray merely because I did not want to support Sony due to their DRM-happiness. Now that i'm stuck with a mostly useless HD-DVD player I guess i'll have to pick up blu-ray eventually if I want 1080p movies for my HD TV.
Anyone remember when someone did this for Blaster and created the "Welchia" worm variant? An article on it is located here: White Hat Worm and Microsoft even complained that it "generated excess network traffic". Now they are proposing to do the same thing? How are they going to make the worm spread, through vulnerabilities like Welchia did? Hope they don't use an RPC vulnerability and cause your system to crash like it did!
I guess this goes with all of the tags we've seen today on articles of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong?".
But does it crash less with the quicktime plugin? I know every time someone reports it on Bugzilla the devs claim it is Apple's fault that the quicktime plugin crashes. However, Internet Explorer works on the same sites that Firefox 2 crashes on with Quicktime! Also, if a plugin crashes, why should the whole browser go down!?!? I'm seriously really close to going back to IE because everytime I get anywhere near Apple's website or any web page that embedded a quicktime movie or audio file the entire browser crashes. "Restore session" is a farce in that case too because you usually can't close the page that has the quicktime on it fast enough to stop it from crashing again.
This bug has been reported at least 15 times on Bugzilla and has never been fixed even though it is usually listed as "Critical - Crashes". At one point I thought I was good to go, once I got Quicktime 7.3 installed but then it started crashing again. Now I will go to Quicktime 7.4 and see if that magically fixes the fact that Firefox crashes every time a plugin misbehaves!
Ignoring the missing option like we do in the Slashdot polls all the time..
Ron Paul I think is the best choice because it would be a return to someone who actually thinks that the Constitution is relevant to today as much as it was 200 years ago. He also wants smaller government, less intrusion into our privacy, bring the troops home and stop our "police the world" policies of interventionism. Yes, some of his supporters are a bit odd and can be zealot at times, but there are many others who are normal people who support someone who sticks up for their positions (just look at his voting record over 10-terms - he does not waver from supporting the constitution!).
Can Jack Thompson really afford their services? I wonder how much it costs to fix a reputation that is currently sitting somewhere near negative infinity?
I think Microsoft probably has hundreds of patents for things they don't ever intend to actually make, but just in case someone else does they want to be there to make a buck off of licensing. I highly doubt that they actually think this type of software would currently be accepted in today's climate, at least not unless they call it something innovative like "The USA Health-watch Patriot Software". I've found that its important to include the word "Patriot" in all aspects of your life, it really just gets you instant approval to do whatever you want!
Well, i'm off to use my iPatriot computer and drive my Patriot Chevy to the Patriot Meeting this afternoon. Come to think of it, thats probably why New England is winning so much, everyone else just needs to put Patriot in their team name!
Now, let's be honest. We get some...insightful...commentary posted here on the site, so I can only imagine what comments submitted to the FCC are going to read like.
Slashdot users have been known to be confrontational at times, and I can't imagine that we will be doing our case any good by submitting nasty, derogatory comments to the FCC. I'm also with the conspiracy theorists that Comcast could just block the connections to that FCC page with some unfortunate "network packet loss" so keep people from submitting comments.
I guess we're screwed either way, since I doubt the FCC will do anything meaningful once Congress finishes neutering them after their "SuddenOutbreakOfCommonSense".
If you've worked at a University job before, how many CIOs do you know that started out as rank and file good little IT employees and moved their way up? I haven't had any like that and we've been through 3 so far. They always come from business backgrounds of some sort or are firmly entrenched in academia (Doctorates, faculty experience etc - often with little IT experience!). It is amazing how much faculty politics can play into a decision which should really be based on competency, not political gain. You also can almost never promote from within once you get to a certain level, you have to bring in outside people so that they can provide "fresh viewpoints".
In the end in order to get promoted with a State job, you have to move between positions, then eventually move to another University in order to move back to your original one at a higher-level job (talking about if you want to make the move to CIO or Associate CIO eventually).
11 holidays a year (3 of which are at Christmas on years it falls on a Tuesday or Wednesday, 2 days other years). Stress is somewhat lower (i've worked in corporate world as well before) and time in the office is 40 hrs/week but overtime happens at least once a month usually and you don't get PAID overtime, you get "compensatory time off" later which you never have time to use because you are so busy. Most of us have months of vacation / comp time built up.
The review stuff you're right, you basically have to be grossly incompetent to get fired, but at the same time even if you are the best IT worker ever you will NEVER get a pay raise from a performance review which sucks. There is zero incentive to do more work than the guy next to you because the slacker gets the same raise as you at performance review time - NOTHING. And, when you do get a raise it is state-wide and everyone gets it equally so how hard you worked doesn't matter. That is a bit depressing..
At least where I work, the IT workers (myself included) are paid 40% less than the market rate so there is a reason everyone has low morale and the turnover rate is around 25% or more each year. I don't think there has been a time since I started working there in the last 4 years where there has been every position in the department actually staffed at the same time. This IT department is around 75 people.
Now, maybe that is just working for the State is not very well paying, but it is a problem affecting thousands of employees not just the younger ones. I guess when it comes down to it though, people need to get off their tails and apply for other jobs that pay more if we want to leave. The problem is often that you like the area you are living in, just not the pay rate you are making working there...
I did not mean to imply that I condone software piracy, I really don't. I too am a software developer but have also worn the IT guy hat on many occasions. The issue is that some of these people reporting the "violating" companies were in fact the ones who helped or suggested pirating the software in the first place. It is that which I find detestable. Yes, the BSA claims that a stipulation for compensation is that you were not involved in the piracy in the first place, but that is often extremely hard to prove and often would just become a case of "he said, she said".
The "up to $1 million" that they always talk about is such a misleading advertisement. The BSA bases the amount of reward money based on the amount of fine that they level against the offending company. Don't think for one second that the BSA is going to give you $1 million for reporting a mom and pop corporation that has 10 copies of Windows XP stolen and faces a fine of $10,000 or so. The $1 million reward is only for cases where the fine levelled (and collected) is in excess of $15 million dollars! The BSA also reserves the right to not pay you anything if they don't feel like it.
Just some thoughts for any greedy ex-IT people on Slashdot..selling your soul may not be worth as much as it first appears!
Doing some actual research into how they do the rewards, it is hardly ever a $1 million reward as they advertise. It is actually scaled based on the settlement the BSA makes with the offending company. If the settlement is $15,000-$100,000 you are only eligible for a $5,000 reward. Not as much motive there when you read the fine print. The company has to pay a settlement of $15 MILLION or more for you to be eligible for the $1 million reward. Also there are all kinds of stipulations and abilities for the BSA to back out of paying you anything whenever they feel like it. Sounds to me like a sham and I bet people hardly ever get any reward money while the BSA rakes in the cash from settlements.
I got a hold of a Wii from a friend for "long-term" borrowing pretty early on after launch and kept it for about 5 months. Initially I had a ton of fun playing Wii Sports just about every night, I even rented games like Red Steel and Wario etc to try out the software for the system. I was unimpressed in general with the types of games they were putting out on the system, just like when I owned a Gamecube and only loved Rogue Squadron and Eternal Darkness for it. Not being a huge modern metroid game fan, and finding that I was unimpressed with Zelda on the Wii, I eventually passed the console back to my friend and went back to playing my 360 / PC.
I guess it all boils down to the type of software made for a particular system, but the article's analysis of software attach rate was interesting in that the Wii's is so low. I do continue to buy games for my 360 even 2 years later (Gears of War, PGR 4, Halo 3, Bioshock, Mass Effect, AC etc) yet nothing but Mario would interest me on the Wii right now. Many of my friends have the same opinions and the initial fad of playing Wii sports has worn off. Plus, its pretty bad that the most popular game on your system is the one you give away for free with the system (yes, everyone has it so they likely try it, but still, in my experience it was by far the most fun to be had on the Wii at least through when I gave the console back to my friend).
There isn't anything about Blu-Ray players that I see worth getting for "merits". As others have pointed out, the space differences don't matter a whole lot when there isn't any more content to put on the discs. I own about 20 HD-DVDs so far and what i've noticed is almost all of the extras are just the DVD extras so they aren't even in high-def anyway. Only on newer movies do you also get HD extras since they are filming them with higher-res cameras instead of your typical hand-held camera that a lot of the "behind the scenes" type stuff is filmed with.
Also, HD-DVD's format specification was finalized a long time before Blu-Ray (is Blu-Ray's spec even finalized yet!?). That allows for all HD-DVD players to support a standard set of features when some early Blu-Ray players won't be able to play later Blu-Ray features because the spec wasn't (or still isn't) finalized. Also, HD-DVD has an overlay layer so they can do some neat things with running special features in Picture in picture or sliding menus up on top of the movie so you can browse around without pausing the movie or having to go to a "root" menu.
Both formats have slow booting players right now though. When you turn on your HD or Blu-Ray player, it will be at around a minute and a half before you are watching the movie because of how slow the players are to first boot up, then to actually load the movie. This problem is still there even on the third-gen HD-DVD players that are out now (I have the Toshiba 1080p HD-DVD player that came out last month ~ $320 on Amazon).
One big thing in HD-DVDs camp though is the price, the cheapest blu-ray player is the PS3 at $400 and it doesn't have all of the same level of functionality as a high-end stand-alone player would. You can get an HD-DVD player for around $150 now and they're rumored to be even cheaper at Christmas.
As for the movies, it is hit and miss on how good a job they did of cleaning up the image and re-scanning the original film on older movies. Some have the occasional dust pop from where the film they scanned from was dirty. The newer movies do look really good though, and you notice the HD in the finer details (facial hair, textures on clothing and faces). The funny thing is, HD basically lets you see more blemishes where clothing might have lint on it or there is a blemish on an actor or actresses face! Also, the movies are pretty expensive, the cheapest you will find HD-DVDs that are new is around $24 compared to $12-15 for the same movie on DVD.
Ultimately, I think the winner will be whoever strikes some more "We give you $50 million in cash and you only release on our format for minimum of 2 years" type deals. There are very few movies out on Blu-Ray right now that I really miss having other than Spider Man and Pirates of the Carribean. There are a LOT more that are exclusive to HD-DVD that I wouldn't want to miss having: Shrek 3, Transformers, Oceans Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen, some Jet Li movies, Unforgiven, The Searchers and about 30+ more.
The summary here is misleading (On/. Imagine That!). Sending something to committee is like calling your trashcan the inbox. He introduced something that didn't have enough support so it got referred to committee where it can be squashed into oblivion. Only if he could have gotten an open house vote on it would it have been a "success", now it will die quietly as have his other attempts to impeach Cheney.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah if using Crysis as an example on a resolution no video card publicly available is playable on is your only proof that doesn't cut it. I really don't understand the fascination with Crysis as it sold very, very few copies because they targeted a market that doesn't have that many consumers. I love super uber graphics as much as the next guy, but I also want to be able to play it on my 1.5-2 year old "high-end" system and not have to upgrade every year to see the pretty stuff. The fact that Half-Life 2 pulls off better quality vs. performance is telling that something is wrong with the engine in Crysis. You can run HL2 Episodes 1 & 2 maxed out graphically on a lot lower machine than is needed to run the Medium-High settings (not even the max settings) on Crysis.
Are you looking at the same benchmarks I am?
Go back and look at them again, 9800GX2 trounces the 8800GT as soon as you turn the settings up. It is very comparable to the SLI 8800 GTS 512mb which is 2 8800 GTS cards put together. That will cost you more to do then buying this card will.
I remember a few months ago when information came out about the 9800GX2 it was claimed the MSRP would be $449. Now we know that was merely a pipe dream.. I wonder if Nvidia leaked that low price and changed their mind or if people were just pulling numbers out of thin air for their leak articles.
Either way, $449 would have been a much nicer price, but I guess since they move so few units of these high end cards anyway (i've heard it is well less than 100k units sold for the high-end cards) they need to have a high price to justify any of the R&D costs.
I also was thinking about that too! If they are so dumb as to think sending an e-mail out constitutes private communication as it passes across who knows how many servers that can all make copies of it on the way there, we're screwed. I would think things like Air Force One flight plans and confidential information should be sent through encrypted satellite connections run by the government or for really sensitive items carried in person via diplomatic couriers.
The reason that these are going up is because of stupid users who see an e-mail from their bank (supposedly) that says "Alert, your account has been disabled until you login to this site and enter all of the information that we, as your bank would already know!". I think if we can focus on user education about phishing, and how banks will NEVER ask you for your username and password and account information via an e-mail, the number of fraudulent transactions would go down significantly. Since the main type listed was related to unauthorized online activity, it is because users are being stupid and giving out their username and password to phishing sites.
Now, you may say, "Just add more questions that only the user will know to their online banking logins!". The issue is, the phishers will just pull those same security questions from the banking site. I've even seen ones where they will have you do the initial login then they will login to your banking site and pass the actual security questions to you to answer, allowing them to completely bypass any security measures that your bank has setup. One thing that Chase does that might help a little bit is if you login to your online banking site from somewhere not already verified (different IP address) they will make you send an activation code to your Cell Phone or your registered account e-mail address before they will let you logon and do anything. This might help a little bit, but i'm sure the scammers will find a way around it. Also, those type of security measures are only implemented by large companies, leaving the smaller banks (and their customers) out in the cold when it comes to security.
So basically my point is, we shouldn't focus so much on network security measures as we should on user education. Network security is great, but when your users can be tricked into giving away their most personal information no amount of network security is going to protect them from themselves.
I don't really think Blu-Ray was a better format in any real sense. Yes, initially it had 5-10GB more space allowed, but Toshiba figured out how to top 50GB using HD-DVD discs as the technology got more mature. Also, HD-DVD players and discs were cheaper to produce as far as I can tell, and the HD-DVD spec was finalized long before Blu-Ray's was. This resulted in Blu-Ray players being released that only supported the 1.0 spec and could NOT be upgraded. Basically when all the fancy Blu-Rays come out a couple of years later, the people with 1.0 spec players are hosed. They can't use any of the neato features that HD-DVD had in from the very beginning. As far as I know, Blu-Ray did not have things like dynamic Picture In Picture with real-time overlays etc in the 1.0 spec. They added that stuff in 1.1 and alienated early adopters.
Also, Sony may have "won" by shoving Blu-Ray players into every PS3 and jacking their price up, but how much money are they making off of software sales on the PS3? I'd say not a lot since the software attach rate for PS3 is fairly low (Wii is also not that great - I think many of the casual players just want to play Wii Sports which comes with the console for free!). It also does sound like Sony just was willing to throw more cash into the "pay for exclusive" war. I really am torn at this point as I did not buy Blu-Ray merely because I did not want to support Sony due to their DRM-happiness. Now that i'm stuck with a mostly useless HD-DVD player I guess i'll have to pick up blu-ray eventually if I want 1080p movies for my HD TV.
Anyone remember when someone did this for Blaster and created the "Welchia" worm variant? An article on it is located here: White Hat Worm and Microsoft even complained that it "generated excess network traffic". Now they are proposing to do the same thing? How are they going to make the worm spread, through vulnerabilities like Welchia did? Hope they don't use an RPC vulnerability and cause your system to crash like it did!
I guess this goes with all of the tags we've seen today on articles of "whatcouldpossiblygowrong?".
But does it crash less with the quicktime plugin? I know every time someone reports it on Bugzilla the devs claim it is Apple's fault that the quicktime plugin crashes. However, Internet Explorer works on the same sites that Firefox 2 crashes on with Quicktime! Also, if a plugin crashes, why should the whole browser go down!?!? I'm seriously really close to going back to IE because everytime I get anywhere near Apple's website or any web page that embedded a quicktime movie or audio file the entire browser crashes. "Restore session" is a farce in that case too because you usually can't close the page that has the quicktime on it fast enough to stop it from crashing again.
This bug has been reported at least 15 times on Bugzilla and has never been fixed even though it is usually listed as "Critical - Crashes". At one point I thought I was good to go, once I got Quicktime 7.3 installed but then it started crashing again. Now I will go to Quicktime 7.4 and see if that magically fixes the fact that Firefox crashes every time a plugin misbehaves!
Ignoring the missing option like we do in the Slashdot polls all the time..
Ron Paul I think is the best choice because it would be a return to someone who actually thinks that the Constitution is relevant to today as much as it was 200 years ago. He also wants smaller government, less intrusion into our privacy, bring the troops home and stop our "police the world" policies of interventionism. Yes, some of his supporters are a bit odd and can be zealot at times, but there are many others who are normal people who support someone who sticks up for their positions (just look at his voting record over 10-terms - he does not waver from supporting the constitution!).
Great comment!
Can Jack Thompson really afford their services? I wonder how much it costs to fix a reputation that is currently sitting somewhere near negative infinity?
I think Microsoft probably has hundreds of patents for things they don't ever intend to actually make, but just in case someone else does they want to be there to make a buck off of licensing. I highly doubt that they actually think this type of software would currently be accepted in today's climate, at least not unless they call it something innovative like "The USA Health-watch Patriot Software". I've found that its important to include the word "Patriot" in all aspects of your life, it really just gets you instant approval to do whatever you want!
Well, i'm off to use my iPatriot computer and drive my Patriot Chevy to the Patriot Meeting this afternoon. Come to think of it, thats probably why New England is winning so much, everyone else just needs to put Patriot in their team name!
I actually looked up some of the comments filed so far and it looks like the FCC needs to employ a spam filter of some sort.
Apparently the FCC is in need of purchasing some new life insurance: Submitted Comment
They also need to buy some new cell phones from Hong Kong!: Submitted Comment
Luckily, there are a few good comments such as this set of form letters (read: petition) found here: Submitted Comment
Ok, there are a few good comments there at least, I like this Rome analogy here: Submitted Comment
Now, let's be honest. We get some...insightful...commentary posted here on the site, so I can only imagine what comments submitted to the FCC are going to read like.
Slashdot users have been known to be confrontational at times, and I can't imagine that we will be doing our case any good by submitting nasty, derogatory comments to the FCC. I'm also with the conspiracy theorists that Comcast could just block the connections to that FCC page with some unfortunate "network packet loss" so keep people from submitting comments.
I guess we're screwed either way, since I doubt the FCC will do anything meaningful once Congress finishes neutering them after their "SuddenOutbreakOfCommonSense".
If you've worked at a University job before, how many CIOs do you know that started out as rank and file good little IT employees and moved their way up? I haven't had any like that and we've been through 3 so far. They always come from business backgrounds of some sort or are firmly entrenched in academia (Doctorates, faculty experience etc - often with little IT experience!). It is amazing how much faculty politics can play into a decision which should really be based on competency, not political gain. You also can almost never promote from within once you get to a certain level, you have to bring in outside people so that they can provide "fresh viewpoints".
In the end in order to get promoted with a State job, you have to move between positions, then eventually move to another University in order to move back to your original one at a higher-level job (talking about if you want to make the move to CIO or Associate CIO eventually).
Forgot to mention, most all of us have at least 3 certifications as well not that they affect salary or mean anything..
11 holidays a year (3 of which are at Christmas on years it falls on a Tuesday or Wednesday, 2 days other years). Stress is somewhat lower (i've worked in corporate world as well before) and time in the office is 40 hrs/week but overtime happens at least once a month usually and you don't get PAID overtime, you get "compensatory time off" later which you never have time to use because you are so busy. Most of us have months of vacation / comp time built up.
The review stuff you're right, you basically have to be grossly incompetent to get fired, but at the same time even if you are the best IT worker ever you will NEVER get a pay raise from a performance review which sucks. There is zero incentive to do more work than the guy next to you because the slacker gets the same raise as you at performance review time - NOTHING. And, when you do get a raise it is state-wide and everyone gets it equally so how hard you worked doesn't matter. That is a bit depressing..
At least where I work, the IT workers (myself included) are paid 40% less than the market rate so there is a reason everyone has low morale and the turnover rate is around 25% or more each year. I don't think there has been a time since I started working there in the last 4 years where there has been every position in the department actually staffed at the same time. This IT department is around 75 people.
Now, maybe that is just working for the State is not very well paying, but it is a problem affecting thousands of employees not just the younger ones. I guess when it comes down to it though, people need to get off their tails and apply for other jobs that pay more if we want to leave. The problem is often that you like the area you are living in, just not the pay rate you are making working there...
I did not mean to imply that I condone software piracy, I really don't. I too am a software developer but have also worn the IT guy hat on many occasions. The issue is that some of these people reporting the "violating" companies were in fact the ones who helped or suggested pirating the software in the first place. It is that which I find detestable. Yes, the BSA claims that a stipulation for compensation is that you were not involved in the piracy in the first place, but that is often extremely hard to prove and often would just become a case of "he said, she said".
The "up to $1 million" that they always talk about is such a misleading advertisement. The BSA bases the amount of reward money based on the amount of fine that they level against the offending company. Don't think for one second that the BSA is going to give you $1 million for reporting a mom and pop corporation that has 10 copies of Windows XP stolen and faces a fine of $10,000 or so. The $1 million reward is only for cases where the fine levelled (and collected) is in excess of $15 million dollars! The BSA also reserves the right to not pay you anything if they don't feel like it.
Just some thoughts for any greedy ex-IT people on Slashdot..selling your soul may not be worth as much as it first appears!
Doing some actual research into how they do the rewards, it is hardly ever a $1 million reward as they advertise. It is actually scaled based on the settlement the BSA makes with the offending company. If the settlement is $15,000-$100,000 you are only eligible for a $5,000 reward. Not as much motive there when you read the fine print. The company has to pay a settlement of $15 MILLION or more for you to be eligible for the $1 million reward. Also there are all kinds of stipulations and abilities for the BSA to back out of paying you anything whenever they feel like it. Sounds to me like a sham and I bet people hardly ever get any reward money while the BSA rakes in the cash from settlements.
Ok here goes.
This
isn't
really
that
big
of
a
deal.
I'm feeling better already, what about you?
I got a hold of a Wii from a friend for "long-term" borrowing pretty early on after launch and kept it for about 5 months. Initially I had a ton of fun playing Wii Sports just about every night, I even rented games like Red Steel and Wario etc to try out the software for the system. I was unimpressed in general with the types of games they were putting out on the system, just like when I owned a Gamecube and only loved Rogue Squadron and Eternal Darkness for it. Not being a huge modern metroid game fan, and finding that I was unimpressed with Zelda on the Wii, I eventually passed the console back to my friend and went back to playing my 360 / PC.
I guess it all boils down to the type of software made for a particular system, but the article's analysis of software attach rate was interesting in that the Wii's is so low. I do continue to buy games for my 360 even 2 years later (Gears of War, PGR 4, Halo 3, Bioshock, Mass Effect, AC etc) yet nothing but Mario would interest me on the Wii right now. Many of my friends have the same opinions and the initial fad of playing Wii sports has worn off. Plus, its pretty bad that the most popular game on your system is the one you give away for free with the system (yes, everyone has it so they likely try it, but still, in my experience it was by far the most fun to be had on the Wii at least through when I gave the console back to my friend).
There isn't anything about Blu-Ray players that I see worth getting for "merits". As others have pointed out, the space differences don't matter a whole lot when there isn't any more content to put on the discs. I own about 20 HD-DVDs so far and what i've noticed is almost all of the extras are just the DVD extras so they aren't even in high-def anyway. Only on newer movies do you also get HD extras since they are filming them with higher-res cameras instead of your typical hand-held camera that a lot of the "behind the scenes" type stuff is filmed with.
Also, HD-DVD's format specification was finalized a long time before Blu-Ray (is Blu-Ray's spec even finalized yet!?). That allows for all HD-DVD players to support a standard set of features when some early Blu-Ray players won't be able to play later Blu-Ray features because the spec wasn't (or still isn't) finalized. Also, HD-DVD has an overlay layer so they can do some neat things with running special features in Picture in picture or sliding menus up on top of the movie so you can browse around without pausing the movie or having to go to a "root" menu.
Both formats have slow booting players right now though. When you turn on your HD or Blu-Ray player, it will be at around a minute and a half before you are watching the movie because of how slow the players are to first boot up, then to actually load the movie. This problem is still there even on the third-gen HD-DVD players that are out now (I have the Toshiba 1080p HD-DVD player that came out last month ~ $320 on Amazon).
One big thing in HD-DVDs camp though is the price, the cheapest blu-ray player is the PS3 at $400 and it doesn't have all of the same level of functionality as a high-end stand-alone player would. You can get an HD-DVD player for around $150 now and they're rumored to be even cheaper at Christmas.
As for the movies, it is hit and miss on how good a job they did of cleaning up the image and re-scanning the original film on older movies. Some have the occasional dust pop from where the film they scanned from was dirty. The newer movies do look really good though, and you notice the HD in the finer details (facial hair, textures on clothing and faces). The funny thing is, HD basically lets you see more blemishes where clothing might have lint on it or there is a blemish on an actor or actresses face! Also, the movies are pretty expensive, the cheapest you will find HD-DVDs that are new is around $24 compared to $12-15 for the same movie on DVD.
Ultimately, I think the winner will be whoever strikes some more "We give you $50 million in cash and you only release on our format for minimum of 2 years" type deals. There are very few movies out on Blu-Ray right now that I really miss having other than Spider Man and Pirates of the Carribean. There are a LOT more that are exclusive to HD-DVD that I wouldn't want to miss having: Shrek 3, Transformers, Oceans Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen, some Jet Li movies, Unforgiven, The Searchers and about 30+ more.
The summary here is misleading (On /. Imagine That!). Sending something to committee is like calling your trashcan the inbox. He introduced something that didn't have enough support so it got referred to committee where it can be squashed into oblivion. Only if he could have gotten an open house vote on it would it have been a "success", now it will die quietly as have his other attempts to impeach Cheney.