We now have a new welfare system for rich bankers, investors, and politicians *plus* the effective cancellation of the widely-lauded Welfare Reform Act signed by former President Clinton for the welfare system we already had.
No, we have a "Space Shuttle" that is launched vertically from a standard-type large rocket launch facility with a monstrously-huge and expensive to build and operate hybrid solid and liquid rocket launch vehicle.
A hybrid spaceplane using both air-breathing and pure rocket propulsion able to take off and land on a runway like an airplane with no Shuttle-type booster rocket system required is a whole other animal.
There will always be a Pirate Bay. If not *this particular* incarnation of that model, then others performing the same general service. If this trial that TPB is currently involved in somehow manages to shut them down, there will be another, and probably many others, to take their place. Located in places (probably multiple places, with multiple mirrors in other similarly-independent-minded countries) where the IFPI/RIAA/MPAA etc etc have zero reach and influence.
If you strike them down, they will become more powerful than you can imagine.
But, I really don't expect the content cartels to get it until they've managed to destroy themselves by basically attacking their own customers in a futile effort to avoid adapting to new realities. It seems they're going for the solid gold and platinum, jewel encrusted, 100-story-tall Darwin Award.
To rephrase a bit on a portion of one of my posts in another article:
Content creation, duplication, distribution, and the business models needed for success of the entities involved have all changed fundamentally in nature.
It doesn't matter what anyone's opinion regarding it is, it's the reality that computers, digital technology, and the internet has brought into existence. It simply IS. Unless governments all over the world decide simultaneously to unplug all the networks, confiscate all the PCs, and remove all rights and all privacy for normal citizens, this will continue to be the case.
Attempting to use legal means to change this is akin to passing laws against gravity, and both will enjoy equal success.
"there is no such climate change, let us keep burning oil".
Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to drive or die. You don't have to be using a computer with all the petroleum-based plastics and huge carbon footprint it creates to make it. Or use electricity from the power grid or natural gas to heat your home, or even live in other than a log home or straw hut. If you're that worried about it, convince enough people to go live a pre-industrial-age lifestyle with you in the wilderness. If you can convince enough to go with you, then demand for these things and hence their manufacture & use will disappear.
Stop attempting to use bad data, bad models, FUD, and propaganda to get government to do your dirty work by using the threats of force & economic blackmail to take away our freedoms (the few we still have left) and destroy our lifestyles and wealth to try to enforce major social changes in a supposed attempt to mitigate something that has not and can not be reasonably determined to be happening at this stage of our understanding and technological abilities to model such complex systems as an entire planets' climatology & ecology to the degree of accuracy necessary.
Or even if it is, that it isn't a natural occurrence of the planets' climate cycle necessary to maintain long-term habitability of the planet. That's because we as yet don't have the technology, the tools, the dataset, or the scientific understanding to be able to make such determinations about the planets' climate or humanities' effects on it as if they were established fact. Don't attempt to use such flawed, pseudo-scientific fear-mongering as an excuse to grow government power and advance a liberal/socialist agenda while making yourselves rich at our expense.
There are only two reasons to use the label "denier" and those are to attempt to advance a near-religious belief & blind faith among the masses, and to silence dissenting opinions, people, and facts.
That's the same as saying that some news channel on TV is a criminal organisation by reporting about mass murder on TV, as they make money with pointing it out...
[sarcasm] But that's *different*!
The media corporations own those and make money. Nice clean corporate money. Not that dirty, filthy, scummy criminal money that individual people want keep to themselves that should be being given to the corporations instead. [/sarcasm]
Hmmm, let me think. My name is Microsoft, and I just sold another copy of Windows Vista to a new customer, who then chose to downgrade to XP. Did I make a profit off this customer?
No, no. Absolutely not! No sir, no way, no how. Nyet, nada, nichts.
(Oh and thanks for the 2 hundred dollars.)
[sarcasm] It will get even better when Windows 7 hits! (Especially if the recent stories about it being a DRM-laden, locked-down POS that makes Vista seem like an OS made by a partnership between aXXo & The Pirate Bay are true.)
First you'll have to pay to upgrade to 7 Professional to be allowed to pay to downgrade *only* to Vista Home, then pay again to be allowed to upgrade Vista Home to Professional, *then*, finally, you'll be allowed to pay once more to down-down-down-grade to XP Professional.
My, isn't it generous of them to "allow" all these things?
But MS and Dell won't be making a dime. No, no. Absolutely not! No sir, no way, no how. Nyet, nada, nichts It's a sacrifice they're willing to make because the casW^customer is their #1 priority!:D [/sarcasm]
When was the last time Sony released one of their non-MMO games on PC?
I know, I know, but I'm rather hoping this seemingly world-wide economic downturn might have the slight silver lining of causing companies like Sony to think outside the box. It would generate revenue without needing to pay a whole development team or to contract for an outside company to write a new game from scratch. After all, how much can KZ1 be making them currently as things stand?
I actually think this would be a smart/profitable move for older popular console games that could generate them some revenue for something that is far, far past the curve on sales in its' original previous-model-console version. How many copies of KZ1 are they currently selling per quarter? Do they think that number will increase with age if they simply do nothing?
Even if they themselves don't want to bother doing the conversion to PC, they could sell rights to sell that PC version to another company to do it for them and make money they wouldn't be making by sitting on it. It might also gain them some goodwill in the gaming community.
It's stupidity at it's height. Not agreeing to the EULA doesn't put you in a stronger position. Without agreeing to it, you have no right to copy the software, and they'll just sue your ass for copyright infringement.
Wrong.
The law was changed/amended a while back to allow "incidental" copies to be made that would occur in normal use without needing any extra permission from the copyright holder, other than legitimate purchase. This was mentioned in a post above.
The company in question could attempt to sue for breach of contract or similar civil tort, but not under copyright law under the notion that not agreeing to the EULA makes any copy of data into RAM etc a copyright violation.
Of course, that may have changed as I'm not sure anyone has yet determined what all was slipped into the stimulus package at the last minute. Seeing as how the Democrats are famously in the bag for Hollywood & the RIAA/MPAA, it wouldn't surprise me if they added some kind of last-minute paybacks to these folks. As I understand, the text of the stimulus package was initially placed online in a searchable format and then, realizing their mistake, was quickly format-shifted to a non-searchable text. (.pdf? Not sure.)
They could "monetize" KZ1 all over again if they were to release it for PC IMHO. I don't think I'm the only one that would happily buy KZ1 for PC, even with no or limited MP capability. It was great on PS2, but with the control flexibility etc available with a PC, it would rock!
No, not even if you're not doing anything even close to cheating, only having a good run of luck. A friend was recently banned from a casino because he won "too much" at roulette. He was purely gambling, and had never even set foot in a casino or gaming establishment before, and wasn't real sure how to even play. He only played straight bets of the table-minimum.
Nonetheless, after he won about $2500 he was taken by security to the back and told he was "suspected of cheating" and after being searched and nothing found, was brow-beaten verbally in an attempt to intimidate him by a couple large security-types for about a half-hour.
They couldn't even tell him *how* they thought he was cheating, other than he won more than they thought he "should". They even attempted to tell him that he needed to give back his winnings to avoid being arrested and going to jail. When he balked at this and told them to go ahead and call in the cops, they finally relented and let him cash-out and then escorted him out.
Needless to say, he decided that going to a casino won't ever again be on his list of recreation activities.
For me, this just proved what I'd always thought about casinos; the only winning move is not to play.
Have you ever played with Ubuntu Studio? I use it at home for precisely what you are describing here, except you can make high quality recordings and mixes.
Ubuntu studio comes with Ardour, and if you couple that with a good 96kHz 24-bit sound card like an m-Audio 1010LT or something, you'll have a near pro-quality workstation sans any crap from Microsoft...
Thanks, I'm very familiar with all those. I already have a box I put together at the rehearsal studio with an Echo Audio Layla. It's just convenient at home on the old box in my music room to not have to boot into another OS just to essentially take some musical shorthand on a song idea when it occurs.
I guess my point is that the DRM that's being reported in Windows 7 would essentially make it a non-starter for me and many other musicians. Also, other musicians I know only have Windows machines, so if/when they "upgrade" I'm certain I'll be getting SOS calls from many.
don't like the terms, don't partake in the content
this is not an argument over something as much needed as food or water.
granted I feel that my life has been saved by other people's music, but your argument seems to hinge on a claim that a market should provide for all the demands that are present (or at least in a reasonable way)
Thankfully that is not the sort of society that I live in. I would hate to have to spend countless hours searching for the exact thing that I want every time I wanted something. I mean when I really get a hankering for something exotic I don't mind, but if I want steak and potatoes...
then again, I do prefer exotic quite a bit... (my vision of exotic may not be what yours is)
If you're fine with other people deciding what content you consume and when, and you're ok with people putting our culture behind a toll-booth, then I just don't know what anyone could say to you.
I guess some people just aren't suited for freedom and are more comfortable with others making their decisions.
If that's what *you* want, that's fine. Don't go making that decision for everyone though. One size does NOT fit all.
If VistaSE (Win7) doesn't allow (without intentional degradation) soundcard loop-back recording functions, this would seem to throw a huge wrench into using it to do multi-track recording/dubbing, would it not?
I'm a musician and create "scratch tracks" at home of new songs for band rehearsal purposes, etc by recording myself playing one instrument, then playing back that track while simultaneously recording myself playing another instrument, rinse and repeat until I've got the songs' basic instrument tracks recorded, essentially accompanying myself musically.
I know that there are dedicated recording soundcards for this purpose as well as dedicated DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations), but I'm not looking to record high-quality tracks. I only want to create a "rough draft" at home quickly with minimal hardware expense.
If VistaSE kills that functionality, then it kills a major function for which I use a computer at home.
Does anyone know if this is the case, so I may avoid VistaSE like the plague and warn all my musician friends and acquaintances? Thanks in advance.
Actually, I *am* a musician in a band, and I've put our original recordings up on TPB.
You are stealing from the RIAA by not allowing them to profit off of you.
Yes, and I feel so, so badly that my attempts to keep my amps supplied with tubes and my guitars in fresh strings so I may keep playing and writing songs may deprive some needy recording label executive one more lapdance or line of blow.
[in Val Kilmers' 'Doc Holliday' voice from the movie 'Tombstone'] Why, Ah cahn hahdly bear the strain.
The Pirate Bay hurts creators of many different kinds of works, from music to film, from books to TV.
Actually, I *am* a musician in a band, and I've put our original recordings up on TPB. Recordings have become a promotional tool, not a main means of income. It doesn't matter what anyone's opinion regarding it is, it's the reality that computers, digital technology, and the internet has brought into existence. Unless governments all over the world decide simultaneously to unplug all the networks, confiscate all the PCs, and remove all rights and all privacy for normal citizens, this will continue to be the case.
Attempting to use legal means to change this is akin to passing laws against gravity, and both will enjoy equal success.
If Copyright were only 1 year, do you really think that people wouldn't still be pirating films by aXXo the day of DVD release?
If copyright was only 1 year or even just the original period before extensions, AND prices actually reflected the market while DRM and similar value-robbing things were done away with, then I'd argue the Pirate Bay and the other examples of questionably-legal distribution wouldn't exist in any meaningful way.
People are lazy. If they could buy an unencumbered product at what are perceived to be low & fair prices, they wouldn't bother to pirate and there would be no Pirate Bay or its' ilk.
Massive piracy and disregard for copyright laws happens because consumers find it the only avenue to get the product they want, at non-extortionate prices, and in unencumbered formats that don't hinder their enjoyment and fair use. Remove these obstacles and piracy would go back to meaning something that occurs at sea.
I suppose you're somehow showing the the poor old rich guys are getting beaten over the head with high taxation and the such, but you fail to explain or elaborate on how this hurts society as a whole?
It (raising taxes to punitive levels on the wealthy & corporations) hurts society on myriad levels.
The corporations don't pay taxes. Their customers do. Tax, like any business expense, is rolled into the price charged for products and services. This hurts the people who depend on the corporations' products and services.
If taxes & regulations rise to where the corporation must raise prices to the point where they become uncompetitive in the world economy, they simply leave the country in question for less-costly locations, taking all their jobs and tax revenue with them. This is why so many US corporations are either outright leaving, or moving operations out of the country and outsourcing jobs.
Individual rich people have even less reason to stay in a country where they must pay high tax rates. They simply move their money and then themselves away.
Eventually there is not enough of a tax base left able to pay taxes, the country finds itself with nobody willing to buy treasury notes to finance more debt, and the countries' economy collapses and the government soon follows. The US is currently in the run-up stage for the economic collapse portion as politicians continue to spend more money to buy votes to get re-elected, more and more rich people and US corporations flee to remain competitive and protect what they've worked hard for, and the available tax base shrinks.
Politicians, rather than attempting to correct the problems, borrow huge sums against future generations' livelihood in an attempt to prop up the house of cards long enough for them to extract their share of wealth, after which they simply don't care. Meanwhile they keep the population distracted with political sideshows, meaningless wedge issues, drugs, and bread & circuses. When it all comes crashing down, they'll be residing in mansions in a warmer clime, sipping drinks and enjoying the wealth they stole.
Unless people wake up, stop listening to the politicians' empty promises, storm the capitols with force of numbers, and take back their country. Being that most are too lazy, disconnected, cowardly, and distracted I have little faith this will happen.
Me: I'm quite familiar with the history and science of spaceflight, and how knowledge and skills in this area are gained. I worked in aerospace for many years.
You: You really have no clue about robotics or technology. Go back to reading science fiction novels and leave science and engineering to people who actually know something about it.
I guess reading isn't fundamental for you, eh?
Add to that I've also been in the technical side of the automation & robotics industry for many years. I'm very aware of what current tech is capable of. More so than you apparently.
I know I'm wasting my breath, so go ahead have the last word. It wouldn't matter what anyone said or did or proved. You wouldn't change your views under any circumstances.
In 50 years, manned space flight will be easy even if we don't invest a dime in it until then, because a lot of necessary technologies will have been developed for other uses.
What you're overlooking here is that it isn't *just* hardware & tech that's involved here. It's learning how humans themselves react to long periods in space and how best to make sure the people not only arrive at their destination, but arrive alive, healthy, and sane. There is no way to reliably model or simulate how humans may react to long interplanetary journeys or how to protect them far outside the protections of Earths' Van Allen belts and gravity well.
We have learned little that is relevant to the future of manned space flight because developments in material science, propulsion, biotech, and AI are making the technologies that our manned space program has been built on so far obsolete.
No, we have been slow in acquiring the knowledge because we haven't had the manned spaceflight occurring in the first place (outside of LEO). You can have all the materials science, propulsion, and biotech theoretical knowledge you want, but it's the practical application that proves or disproves viability and safety and improves and perfects the theoretical ideas.
(unmanned drones and satellites)..they are cheap, effective, and can do anything a human can do--and better.
They cannot think outside their programming. They cannot adapt to unforeseen problems and emergencies (see: Apollo 13). They are unable to interpret what they encounter, and change to meet new and unexpected circumstances.
The facts plainly contradict your position. You just don't see it because you are evidently ignorant of the history of science and the economics of innovation. You're apparently being driven by some kind of Star Trek fantasy.
So far, I don't see where you've backed up any of your claims. I'm quite familiar with the history and science of spaceflight, and how knowledge and skills in this area are gained. I worked in aerospace for many years. Your repeated attempts to label me as some kind of Sci-Fi crackpot only hurts your position, as it makes clear you have nothing to back up your assertions with.
It's quite apparent that you have no practical knowledge on this subject or you wouldn't be making such obvious errors. Unless, of course, you have a political/ideological agenda that has nothing to do with spaceflight. Which at this point, considering your blind belief that somehow we can learn to send men on interplanetary voyages with no practical experience in how to do this successfully, I feel is the likely reason for you to stubbornly fly in the face of all previous knowledge and experience in how a manned spaceflight program is accomplished and what it requires.
I see that there's no reasoning with you on a rational, logical basis as your beliefs are political/ideological in nature, and therefor are immune to logic and factual arguments.
I leave you to bask in the light of your own political/ideological blindness and ignorance.
I live in Europe and hate the French just as much as anyone, but you have to admit that their stance on the Iraq war was both profitable and corrupt/corrupting.
It's people like you that condemned us to a failed space shuttle program and "space stations" and that have held back space exploration by decades. If it weren't for your irrational insistence on constantly putting men into tin cans, we probably would have orbiting space habitats and manned interplanetary travel right now.
So, tell me O wise one, how the frak do you expect to keep anyone alive in a space habitat or how do we insure men would be able to successfully survive & complete an interplanetary mission with no practical experience in how to do those things and with no man-proven tech to do it with? As someone who has worked in aerospace & defense, I'd really like to hear that one. Because nobody knows how to do that. Not even for normal aircraft.
And just for the record, I was against halting moon & other extra-orbital exploration and shifting exclusively to the shuttle program. It's already cost us immeasurably in lost skills, knowledge, and trained personnel...not to mention boatloads of money. Yet now you want to repeat that mistake in spades??
If we had kept an extra-orbital manned program while adding a LEO transport system like the shuttle, we *would* almost certainly already be well into a manned Mars exploration program by now, and probably have a habitat-construction occurring on the surface of Mars and a base well-established on the moon. We would also be enjoying the benefits to our economy, technology, and society rather than facing such economic and social instability as we have now.
Again, are you proposing sending up some robot probes and then jump straight into sending a live crew on these missions? Like it or not, sending any number or type of automated probes into space will not tell us the things we need to know to make those missions successful or even reasonably-survivable for people. You'd be sentencing those people to death to re-learn the skills we now have, but also have been steadily losing since the end of the Apollo program.
You're the monster, because you want to continue to send astronauts into space using flaky, dangerous 1960's technology,
As far as using '60s technology, why would anyone want to do that? I never stated that, and that's precisely what I'm trying to avoid and precisely what your ideas would have happen. After only a few years (5 to 10 or more) of having no manned spaceflight program we'd be back to *'50s* tech rather than '60s, as far as knowing how to keep people alive in space and return them safely.
That's the whole point of having a manned spaceflight program...to improve the state of the art and keep the knowledge we've already gained current without having to sacrifice people needlessly to re-learn everything again. No amount of automated probes or planet-bound simulations can teach us how to successfully achieve & maintain manned spaceflight over time. Only a manned spaceflight program can do that.
We've already progressed past '60s tech...or did you miss the shuttle program? If we let what we've learned atrophy from disuse, then we'll be in exactly that situation...using old tech with no practical experience at it. People will die. People that didn't need to. Many times the money that was "saved" by not having a manned spaceflight program will be wasted, along with years or even decades of time.
I can only assume you're holding to these views out of some sort of political or ideological beliefs, as the facts plainly contradict your ideas as you've stated them here. Please try to think beyond whatever political/ideological biases you have against manned spaceflight. You're not exactly coming across as being logical, rather it seems more like you've tied your beliefs to some politicians' or political parties' agenda and are either knowingly or unknowingly regurgitating talking points.
Whether you like it or not, there *will* be a manned spaceflight program. It may end up being the Russians or the Chinese that end up controlling space and therefor the planet though if the US follows your ideas. If that's preferable to you, why not just come clean and say you want the US to become a second- or third-world nation?
There is no "fully funded" in unmanned space exploration.
There's actually never any "fully-funded" for any type of research or exploration. There are always more things that could be done.
There are hundreds of targets we should be exploring and that we are technologically ready to explore, and we should be working our first interstellar probe.
This is not an either/or problem. There's no reason other than political posturing and pork-barrel spending why both manned and unmanned programs couldn't be seriously pursued.
We'd do well to go entirely unmanned for a few decades and then restart from scratch. If all the "skills and experienced personnel" from the programs that exist today are gone by then, that's not necessarily a bad thing; those people tend to think in old, expensive ways.
Well, I guess that means that you or your children or grandchildren can be the first guinea-pig(s) to get launched on the first re-entry to manned spaceflight and die horribly when the thing blows up.
If you're that much of a monster that you're ok with sentencing a whole new crop of poor schmoes to repeat what we've already achieved and die in the process as well as make all the deaths suffered so far meaningless just to save a tiny fraction of the money that was just spent on pork so you can suck up to the government teat, you can be the first in line.
I'm sorry, but your type of view and attitude is the type of short-sighted Luddite-thinking that would still have people riding horses and reading by candle light.
Slashdot Mirror
We already have a welfare system.
We now have a new welfare system for rich bankers, investors, and politicians *plus* the effective cancellation of the widely-lauded Welfare Reform Act signed by former President Clinton for the welfare system we already had.
Strat
We have a space plane [wikipedia.org].
No, we have a "Space Shuttle" that is launched vertically from a standard-type large rocket launch facility with a monstrously-huge and expensive to build and operate hybrid solid and liquid rocket launch vehicle.
A hybrid spaceplane using both air-breathing and pure rocket propulsion able to take off and land on a runway like an airplane with no Shuttle-type booster rocket system required is a whole other animal.
Strat
The renderings in the article show round or hexagonal collectors that seem to be radially divided into identical slices.
Pie in the sky?
Lies!
No no no!
The cake is a lie!
C'mon, get it right!
..That someone built a spaceplane. Too bad the US is busy cutting NASA budgets to fund a new welfare program.
Strat
>See ye and thee at th' bay laddies!
Not for much longer, sad to say.
There will always be a Pirate Bay. If not *this particular* incarnation of that model, then others performing the same general service. If this trial that TPB is currently involved in somehow manages to shut them down, there will be another, and probably many others, to take their place. Located in places (probably multiple places, with multiple mirrors in other similarly-independent-minded countries) where the IFPI/RIAA/MPAA etc etc have zero reach and influence.
If you strike them down, they will become more powerful than you can imagine.
But, I really don't expect the content cartels to get it until they've managed to destroy themselves by basically attacking their own customers in a futile effort to avoid adapting to new realities. It seems they're going for the solid gold and platinum, jewel encrusted, 100-story-tall Darwin Award.
To rephrase a bit on a portion of one of my posts in another article:
Content creation, duplication, distribution, and the business models needed for success of the entities involved have all changed fundamentally in nature.
It doesn't matter what anyone's opinion regarding it is, it's the reality that computers, digital technology, and the internet has brought into existence. It simply IS. Unless governments all over the world decide simultaneously to unplug all the networks, confiscate all the PCs, and remove all rights and all privacy for normal citizens, this will continue to be the case.
Attempting to use legal means to change this is akin to passing laws against gravity, and both will enjoy equal success.
Strat
"there is no such climate change, let us keep burning oil".
Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to drive or die. You don't have to be using a computer with all the petroleum-based plastics and huge carbon footprint it creates to make it. Or use electricity from the power grid or natural gas to heat your home, or even live in other than a log home or straw hut. If you're that worried about it, convince enough people to go live a pre-industrial-age lifestyle with you in the wilderness. If you can convince enough to go with you, then demand for these things and hence their manufacture & use will disappear.
Stop attempting to use bad data, bad models, FUD, and propaganda to get government to do your dirty work by using the threats of force & economic blackmail to take away our freedoms (the few we still have left) and destroy our lifestyles and wealth to try to enforce major social changes in a supposed attempt to mitigate something that has not and can not be reasonably determined to be happening at this stage of our understanding and technological abilities to model such complex systems as an entire planets' climatology & ecology to the degree of accuracy necessary.
Or even if it is, that it isn't a natural occurrence of the planets' climate cycle necessary to maintain long-term habitability of the planet. That's because we as yet don't have the technology, the tools, the dataset, or the scientific understanding to be able to make such determinations about the planets' climate or humanities' effects on it as if they were established fact. Don't attempt to use such flawed, pseudo-scientific fear-mongering as an excuse to grow government power and advance a liberal/socialist agenda while making yourselves rich at our expense.
There are only two reasons to use the label "denier" and those are to attempt to advance a near-religious belief & blind faith among the masses, and to silence dissenting opinions, people, and facts.
Strat
That's the same as saying that some news channel on TV is a criminal organisation by reporting about mass murder on TV, as they make money with pointing it out...
[sarcasm]
But that's *different*!
The media corporations own those and make money. Nice clean corporate money. Not that dirty, filthy, scummy criminal money that individual people want keep to themselves that should be being given to the corporations instead.
[/sarcasm]
Strat
>>>No, actually, they're selling Vista licenses.
(revised)
Hmmm, let me think. My name is Microsoft, and I just sold another copy of Windows Vista to a new customer, who then chose to downgrade to XP. Did I make a profit off this customer?
No, no. Absolutely not! No sir, no way, no how. Nyet, nada, nichts.
(Oh and thanks for the 2 hundred dollars.)
[sarcasm]
It will get even better when Windows 7 hits! (Especially if the recent stories about it being a DRM-laden, locked-down POS that makes Vista seem like an OS made by a partnership between aXXo & The Pirate Bay are true.)
First you'll have to pay to upgrade to 7 Professional to be allowed to pay to downgrade *only* to Vista Home, then pay again to be allowed to upgrade Vista Home to Professional, *then*, finally, you'll be allowed to pay once more to down-down-down-grade to XP Professional.
My, isn't it generous of them to "allow" all these things?
But MS and Dell won't be making a dime. No, no. Absolutely not! No sir, no way, no how. Nyet, nada, nichts It's a sacrifice they're willing to make because the casW^customer is their #1 priority! :D
[/sarcasm]
Strat
When was the last time Sony released one of their non-MMO games on PC?
I know, I know, but I'm rather hoping this seemingly world-wide economic downturn might have the slight silver lining of causing companies like Sony to think outside the box. It would generate revenue without needing to pay a whole development team or to contract for an outside company to write a new game from scratch. After all, how much can KZ1 be making them currently as things stand?
I actually think this would be a smart/profitable move for older popular console games that could generate them some revenue for something that is far, far past the curve on sales in its' original previous-model-console version. How many copies of KZ1 are they currently selling per quarter? Do they think that number will increase with age if they simply do nothing?
Even if they themselves don't want to bother doing the conversion to PC, they could sell rights to sell that PC version to another company to do it for them and make money they wouldn't be making by sitting on it. It might also gain them some goodwill in the gaming community.
Strat
It's stupidity at it's height. Not agreeing to the EULA doesn't put you in a stronger position. Without agreeing to it, you have no right to copy the software, and they'll just sue your ass for copyright infringement.
Wrong.
The law was changed/amended a while back to allow "incidental" copies to be made that would occur in normal use without needing any extra permission from the copyright holder, other than legitimate purchase. This was mentioned in a post above.
The company in question could attempt to sue for breach of contract or similar civil tort, but not under copyright law under the notion that not agreeing to the EULA makes any copy of data into RAM etc a copyright violation.
Of course, that may have changed as I'm not sure anyone has yet determined what all was slipped into the stimulus package at the last minute. Seeing as how the Democrats are famously in the bag for Hollywood & the RIAA/MPAA, it wouldn't surprise me if they added some kind of last-minute paybacks to these folks. As I understand, the text of the stimulus package was initially placed online in a searchable format and then, realizing their mistake, was quickly format-shifted to a non-searchable text. (.pdf? Not sure.)
Strat
They could "monetize" KZ1 all over again if they were to release it for PC IMHO. I don't think I'm the only one that would happily buy KZ1 for PC, even with no or limited MP capability. It was great on PS2, but with the control flexibility etc available with a PC, it would rock!
Strat
Oh, so now you're not allowed to win, are you?
No, not even if you're not doing anything even close to cheating, only having a good run of luck. A friend was recently banned from a casino because he won "too much" at roulette. He was purely gambling, and had never even set foot in a casino or gaming establishment before, and wasn't real sure how to even play. He only played straight bets of the table-minimum.
Nonetheless, after he won about $2500 he was taken by security to the back and told he was "suspected of cheating" and after being searched and nothing found, was brow-beaten verbally in an attempt to intimidate him by a couple large security-types for about a half-hour.
They couldn't even tell him *how* they thought he was cheating, other than he won more than they thought he "should". They even attempted to tell him that he needed to give back his winnings to avoid being arrested and going to jail. When he balked at this and told them to go ahead and call in the cops, they finally relented and let him cash-out and then escorted him out.
Needless to say, he decided that going to a casino won't ever again be on his list of recreation activities.
For me, this just proved what I'd always thought about casinos; the only winning move is not to play.
Strat
Have you ever played with Ubuntu Studio? I use it at home for precisely what you are describing here, except you can make high quality recordings and mixes.
Also, check out http://www.ardour.org/ [ardour.org]
Ubuntu studio comes with Ardour, and if you couple that with a good 96kHz 24-bit sound card like an m-Audio 1010LT or something, you'll have a near pro-quality workstation sans any crap from Microsoft...
Thanks, I'm very familiar with all those. I already have a box I put together at the rehearsal studio with an Echo Audio Layla. It's just convenient at home on the old box in my music room to not have to boot into another OS just to essentially take some musical shorthand on a song idea when it occurs.
I guess my point is that the DRM that's being reported in Windows 7 would essentially make it a non-starter for me and many other musicians. Also, other musicians I know only have Windows machines, so if/when they "upgrade" I'm certain I'll be getting SOS calls from many.
Cheers!
Strat
don't like the terms, don't partake in the content
this is not an argument over something as much needed as food or water.
granted I feel that my life has been saved by other people's music, but your argument seems to hinge on a claim that a market should provide for all the demands that are present (or at least in a reasonable way)
Thankfully that is not the sort of society that I live in. I would hate to have to spend countless hours searching for the exact thing that I want every time I wanted something. I mean when I really get a hankering for something exotic I don't mind, but if I want steak and potatoes...
then again, I do prefer exotic quite a bit... (my vision of exotic may not be what yours is)
If you're fine with other people deciding what content you consume and when, and you're ok with people putting our culture behind a toll-booth, then I just don't know what anyone could say to you.
I guess some people just aren't suited for freedom and are more comfortable with others making their decisions.
If that's what *you* want, that's fine. Don't go making that decision for everyone though. One size does NOT fit all.
Strat
If VistaSE (Win7) doesn't allow (without intentional degradation) soundcard loop-back recording functions, this would seem to throw a huge wrench into using it to do multi-track recording/dubbing, would it not?
I'm a musician and create "scratch tracks" at home of new songs for band rehearsal purposes, etc by recording myself playing one instrument, then playing back that track while simultaneously recording myself playing another instrument, rinse and repeat until I've got the songs' basic instrument tracks recorded, essentially accompanying myself musically.
I know that there are dedicated recording soundcards for this purpose as well as dedicated DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations), but I'm not looking to record high-quality tracks. I only want to create a "rough draft" at home quickly with minimal hardware expense.
If VistaSE kills that functionality, then it kills a major function for which I use a computer at home.
Does anyone know if this is the case, so I may avoid VistaSE like the plague and warn all my musician friends and acquaintances? Thanks in advance.
Cheers!
Strat
Actually, I *am* a musician in a band, and I've put our original recordings up on TPB.
You are stealing from the RIAA by not allowing them to profit off of you.
Yes, and I feel so, so badly that my attempts to keep my amps supplied with tubes and my guitars in fresh strings so I may keep playing and writing songs may deprive some needy recording label executive one more lapdance or line of blow.
[in Val Kilmers' 'Doc Holliday' voice from the movie 'Tombstone'] Why, Ah cahn hahdly bear the strain.
(IMO Val Kilmers' best-acted role.)
Strat
The Pirate Bay hurts creators of many different kinds of works, from music to film, from books to TV.
Actually, I *am* a musician in a band, and I've put our original recordings up on TPB. Recordings have become a promotional tool, not a main means of income. It doesn't matter what anyone's opinion regarding it is, it's the reality that computers, digital technology, and the internet has brought into existence. Unless governments all over the world decide simultaneously to unplug all the networks, confiscate all the PCs, and remove all rights and all privacy for normal citizens, this will continue to be the case.
Attempting to use legal means to change this is akin to passing laws against gravity, and both will enjoy equal success.
Cheers!
Strat
If Copyright were only 1 year, do you really think that people wouldn't still be pirating films by aXXo the day of DVD release?
If copyright was only 1 year or even just the original period before extensions, AND prices actually reflected the market while DRM and similar value-robbing things were done away with, then I'd argue the Pirate Bay and the other examples of questionably-legal distribution wouldn't exist in any meaningful way.
People are lazy. If they could buy an unencumbered product at what are perceived to be low & fair prices, they wouldn't bother to pirate and there would be no Pirate Bay or its' ilk.
Massive piracy and disregard for copyright laws happens because consumers find it the only avenue to get the product they want, at non-extortionate prices, and in unencumbered formats that don't hinder their enjoyment and fair use. Remove these obstacles and piracy would go back to meaning something that occurs at sea.
Cheers!
Strat
I suppose you're somehow showing the the poor old rich guys are getting beaten over the head with high taxation and the such, but you fail to explain or elaborate on how this hurts society as a whole?
It (raising taxes to punitive levels on the wealthy & corporations) hurts society on myriad levels.
The corporations don't pay taxes. Their customers do. Tax, like any business expense, is rolled into the price charged for products and services. This hurts the people who depend on the corporations' products and services.
If taxes & regulations rise to where the corporation must raise prices to the point where they become uncompetitive in the world economy, they simply leave the country in question for less-costly locations, taking all their jobs and tax revenue with them. This is why so many US corporations are either outright leaving, or moving operations out of the country and outsourcing jobs.
Individual rich people have even less reason to stay in a country where they must pay high tax rates. They simply move their money and then themselves away.
Eventually there is not enough of a tax base left able to pay taxes, the country finds itself with nobody willing to buy treasury notes to finance more debt, and the countries' economy collapses and the government soon follows. The US is currently in the run-up stage for the economic collapse portion as politicians continue to spend more money to buy votes to get re-elected, more and more rich people and US corporations flee to remain competitive and protect what they've worked hard for, and the available tax base shrinks.
Politicians, rather than attempting to correct the problems, borrow huge sums against future generations' livelihood in an attempt to prop up the house of cards long enough for them to extract their share of wealth, after which they simply don't care. Meanwhile they keep the population distracted with political sideshows, meaningless wedge issues, drugs, and bread & circuses. When it all comes crashing down, they'll be residing in mansions in a warmer clime, sipping drinks and enjoying the wealth they stole.
Unless people wake up, stop listening to the politicians' empty promises, storm the capitols with force of numbers, and take back their country. Being that most are too lazy, disconnected, cowardly, and distracted I have little faith this will happen.
Strat
Right, and the US stance on the Iraq war was neither profitable or corrupt.
I'm so glad we agree! :)
Me: I'm quite familiar with the history and science of spaceflight, and how knowledge and skills in this area are gained. I worked in aerospace for many years.
You: You really have no clue about robotics or technology. Go back to reading science fiction novels and leave science and engineering to people who actually know something about it.
I guess reading isn't fundamental for you, eh?
Add to that I've also been in the technical side of the automation & robotics industry for many years. I'm very aware of what current tech is capable of. More so than you apparently.
I know I'm wasting my breath, so go ahead have the last word. It wouldn't matter what anyone said or did or proved. You wouldn't change your views under any circumstances.
Strat
In 50 years, manned space flight will be easy even if we don't invest a dime in it until then, because a lot of necessary technologies will have been developed for other uses.
What you're overlooking here is that it isn't *just* hardware & tech that's involved here. It's learning how humans themselves react to long periods in space and how best to make sure the people not only arrive at their destination, but arrive alive, healthy, and sane. There is no way to reliably model or simulate how humans may react to long interplanetary journeys or how to protect them far outside the protections of Earths' Van Allen belts and gravity well.
We have learned little that is relevant to the future of manned space flight because developments in material science, propulsion, biotech, and AI are making the technologies that our manned space program has been built on so far obsolete.
No, we have been slow in acquiring the knowledge because we haven't had the manned spaceflight occurring in the first place (outside of LEO). You can have all the materials science, propulsion, and biotech theoretical knowledge you want, but it's the practical application that proves or disproves viability and safety and improves and perfects the theoretical ideas.
(unmanned drones and satellites)..they are cheap, effective, and can do anything a human can do--and better.
They cannot think outside their programming. They cannot adapt to unforeseen problems and emergencies (see: Apollo 13). They are unable to interpret what they encounter, and change to meet new and unexpected circumstances.
The facts plainly contradict your position. You just don't see it because you are evidently ignorant of the history of science and the economics of innovation. You're apparently being driven by some kind of Star Trek fantasy.
So far, I don't see where you've backed up any of your claims. I'm quite familiar with the history and science of spaceflight, and how knowledge and skills in this area are gained. I worked in aerospace for many years. Your repeated attempts to label me as some kind of Sci-Fi crackpot only hurts your position, as it makes clear you have nothing to back up your assertions with.
It's quite apparent that you have no practical knowledge on this subject or you wouldn't be making such obvious errors. Unless, of course, you have a political/ideological agenda that has nothing to do with spaceflight. Which at this point, considering your blind belief that somehow we can learn to send men on interplanetary voyages with no practical experience in how to do this successfully, I feel is the likely reason for you to stubbornly fly in the face of all previous knowledge and experience in how a manned spaceflight program is accomplished and what it requires.
I see that there's no reasoning with you on a rational, logical basis as your beliefs are political/ideological in nature, and therefor are immune to logic and factual arguments.
I leave you to bask in the light of your own political/ideological blindness and ignorance.
Good day, sir.
Strat
I live in Europe and hate the French just as much as anyone, but you have to admit that their stance on the Iraq war was both profitable and corrupt/corrupting.
There, fixed that for you. For questions on why this correction was necessary, please reference "UN Oil For Food Program". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_for_Food_program
You're welcome! :)
It's people like you that condemned us to a failed space shuttle program and "space stations" and that have held back space exploration by decades. If it weren't for your irrational insistence on constantly putting men into tin cans, we probably would have orbiting space habitats and manned interplanetary travel right now.
So, tell me O wise one, how the frak do you expect to keep anyone alive in a space habitat or how do we insure men would be able to successfully survive & complete an interplanetary mission with no practical experience in how to do those things and with no man-proven tech to do it with? As someone who has worked in aerospace & defense, I'd really like to hear that one. Because nobody knows how to do that. Not even for normal aircraft.
And just for the record, I was against halting moon & other extra-orbital exploration and shifting exclusively to the shuttle program. It's already cost us immeasurably in lost skills, knowledge, and trained personnel...not to mention boatloads of money. Yet now you want to repeat that mistake in spades??
If we had kept an extra-orbital manned program while adding a LEO transport system like the shuttle, we *would* almost certainly already be well into a manned Mars exploration program by now, and probably have a habitat-construction occurring on the surface of Mars and a base well-established on the moon. We would also be enjoying the benefits to our economy, technology, and society rather than facing such economic and social instability as we have now.
Again, are you proposing sending up some robot probes and then jump straight into sending a live crew on these missions? Like it or not, sending any number or type of automated probes into space will not tell us the things we need to know to make those missions successful or even reasonably-survivable for people. You'd be sentencing those people to death to re-learn the skills we now have, but also have been steadily losing since the end of the Apollo program.
You're the monster, because you want to continue to send astronauts into space using flaky, dangerous 1960's technology,
As far as using '60s technology, why would anyone want to do that? I never stated that, and that's precisely what I'm trying to avoid and precisely what your ideas would have happen. After only a few years (5 to 10 or more) of having no manned spaceflight program we'd be back to *'50s* tech rather than '60s, as far as knowing how to keep people alive in space and return them safely.
That's the whole point of having a manned spaceflight program...to improve the state of the art and keep the knowledge we've already gained current without having to sacrifice people needlessly to re-learn everything again. No amount of automated probes or planet-bound simulations can teach us how to successfully achieve & maintain manned spaceflight over time. Only a manned spaceflight program can do that.
We've already progressed past '60s tech...or did you miss the shuttle program? If we let what we've learned atrophy from disuse, then we'll be in exactly that situation...using old tech with no practical experience at it. People will die. People that didn't need to. Many times the money that was "saved" by not having a manned spaceflight program will be wasted, along with years or even decades of time.
I can only assume you're holding to these views out of some sort of political or ideological beliefs, as the facts plainly contradict your ideas as you've stated them here. Please try to think beyond whatever political/ideological biases you have against manned spaceflight. You're not exactly coming across as being logical, rather it seems more like you've tied your beliefs to some politicians' or political parties' agenda and are either knowingly or unknowingly regurgitating talking points.
Whether you like it or not, there *will* be a manned spaceflight program. It may end up being the Russians or the Chinese that end up controlling space and therefor the planet though if the US follows your ideas. If that's preferable to you, why not just come clean and say you want the US to become a second- or third-world nation?
Strat
There is no "fully funded" in unmanned space exploration.
There's actually never any "fully-funded" for any type of research or exploration. There are always more things that could be done.
There are hundreds of targets we should be exploring and that we are technologically ready to explore, and we should be working our first interstellar probe.
This is not an either/or problem. There's no reason other than political posturing and pork-barrel spending why both manned and unmanned programs couldn't be seriously pursued.
We'd do well to go entirely unmanned for a few decades and then restart from scratch. If all the "skills and experienced personnel" from the programs that exist today are gone by then, that's not necessarily a bad thing; those people tend to think in old, expensive ways.
Well, I guess that means that you or your children or grandchildren can be the first guinea-pig(s) to get launched on the first re-entry to manned spaceflight and die horribly when the thing blows up.
If you're that much of a monster that you're ok with sentencing a whole new crop of poor schmoes to repeat what we've already achieved and die in the process as well as make all the deaths suffered so far meaningless just to save a tiny fraction of the money that was just spent on pork so you can suck up to the government teat, you can be the first in line.
I'm sorry, but your type of view and attitude is the type of short-sighted Luddite-thinking that would still have people riding horses and reading by candle light.
Strat