Google made a big mistake when they chose the "don't be evil" motto. Now every negative press article about them quotes the motto, in a context that makes it look hypocritical. Just look at TFA, which begins "... Google, known for its mantra "don't be evil"
And there I was, thinking that Google was known for its search engine...
Come on. I bet 90% of Google users have no idea what Google's motto is. And "Don't be evil" is pretty much a no brainer. What public company would willingly admit to being evil.
I agree that if I want to put a label in a window, I dont want to have to handle its deallocation, i.e. I want a "fire-and-forget" feature. I accomplished this in my wrapper by letting the parent deal with its children.
Well, that is exactly what Qt does. Every time you create a widget, you pass a pointer to its parent, and then you can forget about the widget. When the parent dies, it'll kill all of its children, and then they'll kill their children too in cascade. I do tons of Qt programming (that's what we use where I work), and memory management of Qt widgets is a breeze, every widget is hierarchically created, and I just need to kill the window when I don't need it anymore to have it kill all its widgets and sub-widgets. No need for a custom-made wrapper, it's all in there already.
So you're telling me that only companies big enough to sell things should be allowed to patent something? A guy can't just come up with a good idea and sell it to someone anymore?
No, but then why wait 6 years before suing? They can hardly claim they never heard of either the XBox or the GameCube since then. Did they purposefully wait until Microsoft and Nintendo had sold a whole lot of units before going with the suit, to make sure the settlement was as big as possible (they are suing quite close to both products end of life, neither will sell a whole lot more than what is already sold at the moment).
This looks like submarine to me. Submarining is bad, whether you are a big comapny or the little guy.
Gaming with a compelling story, high production values, and controls that are not overly simplified. I like gaming the way it has been since the days of the NES
Somehow, most people agree that "the days of the NES" was the "good ol' days", and that the first Mario side scroller was awesome (for its time, but still very good by retro standards). Let's see what it had, shall we?
Compelling story : Big dragon kidnapped princess, italian plumber must save princess
High production values... what the heck does that mean?
Controls that are not overly simplified : 90% of the game is half of the D-pad (left and right), one button to jump, one button to either dash or shoot fireball.
Man, that game sure was boring, no wonder it didn't sell so well and nobody wants to play a similar game now.
A compelling story is what makes a movie good, not a game. I played Final Fantaxy X last month... it is indeed one very good movie, but I don't think I spent more than 40% of the time actually playing.
Seriously though, affect/effect is just about the best known common error - how hard is it to pay attention when you post? What's next, confusing then and than?
Ah, dont be so harsh... their not teh worst mistakes one's could make.
Most of the Linux users in your market probably dual boot Windows anyway
I do indeed dual-boot Windows to play games now. However, that doesn't mean I don't want to see many more games have a native Linux port. A couple of years from now, when MS finds a way to make games require Vista rather than XP, I'll be out of luck because there is no way in hell I'm forking any money for Vista. People dual-boot now, but they won't do so forever.
Linux may never be reasonable. What company wants to go through all the added work, for little profit, and a very good chance that their games will just be pirated anyways.
It's funny how people suppose that, because Linux users get their OS for free, they are a bunch of pirates that want to get everything for free, while Windows users, being used to pay for their computer, are willing to buy their software. Have a look around, your friends, your family, your co-workers... how many of them use MS-Office at home? How many of them actually paid for MS-Office at home?
Now consider which platform's users are more willing to pirate stuff.
* Doom III (plus the Resurrection of Evil Expansion Pack)
* Quake 4
* Unreal Tournament 2004
We all know that Linux isn't a platform for gamers, but still there are a few games for GNU/Linux.
I don't happen to enjoy FPS as my favorite type of game. Doom 1 to 3, Quake 1 to 3 and several versions of Unreal, that's all the same game to me. Thank god games aren't limited to FPS...
I have rarely used a speech-recognition software before, but all the experience I've had thus far is that one needs to speak in a very artificial way in order to use those. I've heard about this Dragon thing being very good now, but does it allow you to speak naturally (as you would to your buddies), or do you still need to adapt your speech to the machine and sound like a retard when you dictate?
I don't think that's correct. According to Wikipedia, Barbara Blackburn, the world's fastest typist, has hit a peak speed of 212 wpm, with a sustained speed of 170 wpm. Conversations happen at about 200 wpm.
I really doubt any speech-recognition application will ever be able to deal with 200 wpm. With all these softwares, even the best ones, you have to articulate every word and speak much slower than a regular conversation. Try having a conversation at the pace to which you talk to a computer, you'll look like a retard.
Part of being an adult is having the ability to live in a world where people aren't all exactly like how you want them to be.
Part of being a good parent is teaching your children how to deal with living in that same world.
Part of living in a society is setting rules and laws that most approve(1) and that everybody must follow for the greater good of everybody.
(1) Whether this applies or not to current America is another topic
You know, some parents raise their kids in a religion that I don't agree with.
Freedom of religion. The people's law allows this, and I believe that most of the western countries' cultures allow that.
They let them read books I don't agree with. Or even discuss political topics I don't agree with.
Freedom of speech. The people's law allows this, and I believe that most of the western countries' cultures allow that.
Compare that to :
These are the kids that go to school and bully other kids around.
Violence and assault. The people's law doesn't allow this (except in very specific circumstances, a schoolyard is not one of them). It is a crime by law, and immoral by culture.
They steal and fight and act with impunity
Once again. Stealing is not allowed by the law, and not acceptable by culture.
Do we have a right to be subjected to those children who are not raised the way I think they should be raised, or can we do something about it!
There is a huge difference between what the GP said (violence and crime) and what you said (culture, religion and free speech).
Common sense tells me not to use Windows to go online. Many Windows apps require admin mode for no particular reason, so I would need to run Windows in admin mode. Going online in admin mode is risky in this day and age when getting a virus no longer requires you to double-click on an email attachement, but to simply view a web page that has the wrong image, or the wrong javascript. I don't trust Firefox in admin mode any more than I trust IE, so "use another browser" is not an option either.
Linux doesn't, it's just a kernel.
Ok... I shouldn't have said "Linux", I should have said "Ubuntu", or "Fedora", or "SuSE", pick one. Happy now? Let's just use the generic term "Linux distribution", or, for short, "Linux".
Use a better AV package.
Yep, that's what I do, and that better AV package is Linux. For the very same reason Kaspersky has a better hit rate than Symantec or McAfee, Linux is less virus prone than Windows (and many other reasons too, but that's off topic).
No, techinically it only requires Windows. You have yet to state any reason at all for installing Linux.
I can program, browse the web, send emails, listen to music etc.
Yes, you can do all that with Windows, but you would do so at your own risk. It is well known that Windows online experience is risky and security is sub-par. I for one don't enjoy spending hours cleaning after spyware and viruses, and I don't enjoy having a powerful CPU just to have half its cycles wasted by an anti-virus.
Windows also provides software to listen to music... said software has a very strange EULA that allows Microsoft to basically do whatever it like with it and there's nothing you can do about it.
Linux does all (almost, as I mentionned, I use Windows for games) I want to do at low cost and high freedom. Windows *could* probably do all of it too, but at high cost and low freedom. For me, that is reason enough to install Linux.
French version is sold under the name "Brain Training - Programme d'Entraînement Cérébral du Dr Kawashima : Quel âge a votre cerveau ?" (english name "Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!", original name "Tôhoku Daigaku Mirai Kagaku Gijutsu Kyôdô Kenkyû Center Kawashima Ryûta Kyûju Kanshu - Nô o kitaeru Otona no DS Training").
Thanks for the pointer. Unfortunately, Amazon.fr can only ship it in the UE, and I'm in Quebec, Canada. I'll keep an eye for it though.
Dual booting is for people who can't really decide why they bought a PC in the first place.
Guess what... a PC is multi-purpose machine. With my PC, I can program, browse the web, send emails, listen to music, watch movies and play games. I can do all of the above on Ubuntu except one thing, play games. Games is the only reason most people dual-boot. I know why I bought a PC in the first place, and I know which tools I need to accomplish the tasks I want to accomplish, and that requires dual-booting.
If you want to get one and your spouse gives you a wary eye, go get it and get Brain Age at the same time. You'll be a hero. But you may wind up arguing who gets to play with it.
I have heard a lot of good stuff about Brain Training for the wife, but I have never tried it yet. One thing I would like to know though is, is the game more like "Any-Brain Training" or "Brain-that-speaks-English-fluently Training"? My wife's mastery of English is far from perfect, and losing points because of that would suck (not speaking English doesn't make you dumb after all). Anybody knows of a French version of that game?
I'd say that depends largely on which virus scanner you end up choosing.
Kapersky was noted as having a 90% hit rate, for example.
It also depends on which virus scanner you're actually allowed to choose from. Kaspersky might have a 90% hit rate, and we know it's good... but at the office, we had to go with McAfee (which is also a terrible ressource hog) and were not even allowed to evaluate Kaspersky... because... well... you know... Russians are evil... they could be spying through their software...
Sadly, I'm not making this up.
I'm happy though, I am fortunate enough to be working on a Linux box. However, I pity my coworkers that have to endure Windows and McAfee.
Usually, anything sexually obscene, or anything else considered highly controversial with the general population will be censored/banned (ie, movies such as 'Water').
Isn't the same thing happening in the USA, with all the fuss surrounding Janet Jackson's nipple? And it wasn't even "sexually obscene"...
And MS WILL find a way to recoup the money from ALL of us, their customers.
You, maybe, but not me. I haven't been a Microsoft customer for well over a year now. Neither at home nor at the office. Although MS was somehow convicted to have a monopoly, it is possible to live a normal online life without doing business with them.
People here are happy because the EU has the balls to stand up to Microsoft, but what about you having the balls to stand up to it?
Not true. I have a Clie I bought in 2002 that I can't use anymore because the battery is not user replaceable. Heck, it's not replaceable by anyone-- Sony soldered it to the mainboard.
Same goes for the Logitech MX-1000 mouse I use at the office. The rechargeable battery is non-replaceable. Heck, there isn't even a single screw on the damn thing that would allow me to open it up without totally fucking with the casing. It's 18 months old and still alive, but when the battery dies, it's going straight into the trashcan.
For those of you who like to read articles in 1 single page instead of multiple pages to maximise advertising revenu.
Do you hate corporations so much that you need to make sure they make as little money as possible? If you don't want to see the ads, don't read the article. If you want to read the article, don't look at the ads.
allofmp3.com is at least providing a service that people are willing to pay for.
Providing a service that people are willing to pay for doesn't make it any more legal or moral. Hired killers also provide a service that people are willing to pay for, is their business any more legitimate because of that?
I know the analogy is terrible, and that "copyright infringment isn't theft and it isn't a crime", but nonetheless, it is still breaking the law. You have the right to not agree with the law, but you must still abide by it. You can also go the "civil disobedience" way, breaking the law to make a point, but "civil disobedience" also means accepting the consquences, which include to get fined and sued.
Or you can just admit that you are selfish and want everything for free right now and deserve to get whatever you want by whatever means necessary. True, people are actually paying allofmp3.com, but allofmp3.com has no right to sell you what you buy from them, and you know it. Similar to paying someone to go steal a car, since you paid, you bought it, right?
Remember. The RIAA is not forcing anyone to pay them. Nobody forces you to buy CD's, nobody forces you to buy music. If you don't like the RIAA or don't agree with the price they put on CD's, the alternative you have is to not buy the music, not to go and infringe copyright.
That's how the market works. They have something you want (copyrighted music) and you have something they want (money). Either you agree with the terms of the exchange (X amount of money in exchange for the right to own one copy of the song, and use it according to laws, including fair use but also copyright), or you don't. If the deal can't be agreed upon, one of 3 scenarios should happen : They want your money badly enough, so they lower the asking price ; You want their music badly enough so you fork the money they ask ; Neither of you care wants what the other has badly enough, so you don't give them your money, but you don't get the music.
and it is possible to run Linux on it [definitely an appeal to my hardcore geek side].
Someone will have to explain this to me someday. I am a geek and a Linux user, both at home and at the office, and I am quite happy with it. However, I own a NDS and I have no idea why someone would want to try and install Linux on that? What's the point? Is it just the good ol' "I do it because I can", or is there a real use it?
Slashdot Mirror
And there I was, thinking that Google was known for its search engine...
Come on. I bet 90% of Google users have no idea what Google's motto is. And "Don't be evil" is pretty much a no brainer. What public company would willingly admit to being evil.
Well, that is exactly what Qt does. Every time you create a widget, you pass a pointer to its parent, and then you can forget about the widget. When the parent dies, it'll kill all of its children, and then they'll kill their children too in cascade. I do tons of Qt programming (that's what we use where I work), and memory management of Qt widgets is a breeze, every widget is hierarchically created, and I just need to kill the window when I don't need it anymore to have it kill all its widgets and sub-widgets. No need for a custom-made wrapper, it's all in there already.
No, but then why wait 6 years before suing? They can hardly claim they never heard of either the XBox or the GameCube since then. Did they purposefully wait until Microsoft and Nintendo had sold a whole lot of units before going with the suit, to make sure the settlement was as big as possible (they are suing quite close to both products end of life, neither will sell a whole lot more than what is already sold at the moment).
This looks like submarine to me. Submarining is bad, whether you are a big comapny or the little guy.
Somehow, most people agree that "the days of the NES" was the "good ol' days", and that the first Mario side scroller was awesome (for its time, but still very good by retro standards). Let's see what it had, shall we?
- Compelling story : Big dragon kidnapped princess, italian plumber must save princess
- High production values... what the heck does that mean?
- Controls that are not overly simplified : 90% of the game is half of the D-pad (left and right), one button to jump, one button to either dash or shoot fireball.
Man, that game sure was boring, no wonder it didn't sell so well and nobody wants to play a similar game now.A compelling story is what makes a movie good, not a game. I played Final Fantaxy X last month... it is indeed one very good movie, but I don't think I spent more than 40% of the time actually playing.
Ah, dont be so harsh... their not teh worst mistakes one's could make.
I do indeed dual-boot Windows to play games now. However, that doesn't mean I don't want to see many more games have a native Linux port. A couple of years from now, when MS finds a way to make games require Vista rather than XP, I'll be out of luck because there is no way in hell I'm forking any money for Vista. People dual-boot now, but they won't do so forever.
It's funny how people suppose that, because Linux users get their OS for free, they are a bunch of pirates that want to get everything for free, while Windows users, being used to pay for their computer, are willing to buy their software. Have a look around, your friends, your family, your co-workers... how many of them use MS-Office at home? How many of them actually paid for MS-Office at home?
Now consider which platform's users are more willing to pirate stuff.
* Quake 4
* Unreal Tournament 2004
We all know that Linux isn't a platform for gamers, but still there are a few games for GNU/Linux.
I don't happen to enjoy FPS as my favorite type of game. Doom 1 to 3, Quake 1 to 3 and several versions of Unreal, that's all the same game to me. Thank god games aren't limited to FPS...
I have rarely used a speech-recognition software before, but all the experience I've had thus far is that one needs to speak in a very artificial way in order to use those. I've heard about this Dragon thing being very good now, but does it allow you to speak naturally (as you would to your buddies), or do you still need to adapt your speech to the machine and sound like a retard when you dictate?
I really doubt any speech-recognition application will ever be able to deal with 200 wpm. With all these softwares, even the best ones, you have to articulate every word and speak much slower than a regular conversation. Try having a conversation at the pace to which you talk to a computer, you'll look like a retard.
Part of being a good parent is teaching your children how to deal with living in that same world.
Part of living in a society is setting rules and laws that most approve(1) and that everybody must follow for the greater good of everybody.
(1) Whether this applies or not to current America is another topic
Freedom of religion. The people's law allows this, and I believe that most of the western countries' cultures allow that.
They let them read books I don't agree with. Or even discuss political topics I don't agree with.
Freedom of speech. The people's law allows this, and I believe that most of the western countries' cultures allow that.
Compare that to :
These are the kids that go to school and bully other kids around.
Violence and assault. The people's law doesn't allow this (except in very specific circumstances, a schoolyard is not one of them). It is a crime by law, and immoral by culture.
They steal and fight and act with impunity
Once again. Stealing is not allowed by the law, and not acceptable by culture.
Do we have a right to be subjected to those children who are not raised the way I think they should be raised, or can we do something about it!
There is a huge difference between what the GP said (violence and crime) and what you said (culture, religion and free speech).
Common sense tells me not to use Windows to go online. Many Windows apps require admin mode for no particular reason, so I would need to run Windows in admin mode. Going online in admin mode is risky in this day and age when getting a virus no longer requires you to double-click on an email attachement, but to simply view a web page that has the wrong image, or the wrong javascript. I don't trust Firefox in admin mode any more than I trust IE, so "use another browser" is not an option either.
Linux doesn't, it's just a kernel.
Ok... I shouldn't have said "Linux", I should have said "Ubuntu", or "Fedora", or "SuSE", pick one. Happy now? Let's just use the generic term "Linux distribution", or, for short, "Linux".
Use a better AV package.
Yep, that's what I do, and that better AV package is Linux. For the very same reason Kaspersky has a better hit rate than Symantec or McAfee, Linux is less virus prone than Windows (and many other reasons too, but that's off topic).
I can program, browse the web, send emails, listen to music etc.
Yes, you can do all that with Windows, but you would do so at your own risk. It is well known that Windows online experience is risky and security is sub-par. I for one don't enjoy spending hours cleaning after spyware and viruses, and I don't enjoy having a powerful CPU just to have half its cycles wasted by an anti-virus.
Windows also provides software to listen to music... said software has a very strange EULA that allows Microsoft to basically do whatever it like with it and there's nothing you can do about it.
Linux does all (almost, as I mentionned, I use Windows for games) I want to do at low cost and high freedom. Windows *could* probably do all of it too, but at high cost and low freedom. For me, that is reason enough to install Linux.
Thanks for the pointer. Unfortunately, Amazon.fr can only ship it in the UE, and I'm in Quebec, Canada. I'll keep an eye for it though.
Guess what... a PC is multi-purpose machine. With my PC, I can program, browse the web, send emails, listen to music, watch movies and play games. I can do all of the above on Ubuntu except one thing, play games. Games is the only reason most people dual-boot. I know why I bought a PC in the first place, and I know which tools I need to accomplish the tasks I want to accomplish, and that requires dual-booting.
I have heard a lot of good stuff about Brain Training for the wife, but I have never tried it yet. One thing I would like to know though is, is the game more like "Any-Brain Training" or "Brain-that-speaks-English-fluently Training"? My wife's mastery of English is far from perfect, and losing points because of that would suck (not speaking English doesn't make you dumb after all). Anybody knows of a French version of that game?
Kapersky was noted as having a 90% hit rate, for example.
It also depends on which virus scanner you're actually allowed to choose from. Kaspersky might have a 90% hit rate, and we know it's good... but at the office, we had to go with McAfee (which is also a terrible ressource hog) and were not even allowed to evaluate Kaspersky... because... well... you know... Russians are evil... they could be spying through their software...
Sadly, I'm not making this up.
I'm happy though, I am fortunate enough to be working on a Linux box. However, I pity my coworkers that have to endure Windows and McAfee.
That's what loading times are for...
Isn't the same thing happening in the USA, with all the fuss surrounding Janet Jackson's nipple? And it wasn't even "sexually obscene"...
You, maybe, but not me. I haven't been a Microsoft customer for well over a year now. Neither at home nor at the office. Although MS was somehow convicted to have a monopoly, it is possible to live a normal online life without doing business with them.
People here are happy because the EU has the balls to stand up to Microsoft, but what about you having the balls to stand up to it?
Same goes for the Logitech MX-1000 mouse I use at the office. The rechargeable battery is non-replaceable. Heck, there isn't even a single screw on the damn thing that would allow me to open it up without totally fucking with the casing. It's 18 months old and still alive, but when the battery dies, it's going straight into the trashcan.
Do you hate corporations so much that you need to make sure they make as little money as possible? If you don't want to see the ads, don't read the article. If you want to read the article, don't look at the ads.
Providing a service that people are willing to pay for doesn't make it any more legal or moral. Hired killers also provide a service that people are willing to pay for, is their business any more legitimate because of that?
I know the analogy is terrible, and that "copyright infringment isn't theft and it isn't a crime", but nonetheless, it is still breaking the law. You have the right to not agree with the law, but you must still abide by it. You can also go the "civil disobedience" way, breaking the law to make a point, but "civil disobedience" also means accepting the consquences, which include to get fined and sued.
Or you can just admit that you are selfish and want everything for free right now and deserve to get whatever you want by whatever means necessary. True, people are actually paying allofmp3.com, but allofmp3.com has no right to sell you what you buy from them, and you know it. Similar to paying someone to go steal a car, since you paid, you bought it, right?
Remember. The RIAA is not forcing anyone to pay them. Nobody forces you to buy CD's, nobody forces you to buy music. If you don't like the RIAA or don't agree with the price they put on CD's, the alternative you have is to not buy the music, not to go and infringe copyright.
That's how the market works. They have something you want (copyrighted music) and you have something they want (money). Either you agree with the terms of the exchange (X amount of money in exchange for the right to own one copy of the song, and use it according to laws, including fair use but also copyright), or you don't. If the deal can't be agreed upon, one of 3 scenarios should happen : They want your money badly enough, so they lower the asking price ; You want their music badly enough so you fork the money they ask ; Neither of you care wants what the other has badly enough, so you don't give them your money, but you don't get the music.
Someone will have to explain this to me someday. I am a geek and a Linux user, both at home and at the office, and I am quite happy with it. However, I own a NDS and I have no idea why someone would want to try and install Linux on that? What's the point? Is it just the good ol' "I do it because I can", or is there a real use it?