The problem is that many laws are written with this language changed from sexual conduct to violence (or violence towards people) and still getting shot down in their own state Supreme Courts. Granted, this would vary from state to state, and we have yet to have one of these laws tested at the federal level. Also, trying to equate pornography and violence in this country is a joke. America tends to be quite prudish after all.
This is really an attempt to try to control a relatively young media. People are complaining about a lack of self-regulation, but it is much harder for a group to go through many hours of gameplay (sometimes in the 15-20+ range) versus the MPAA rating movies, which typically are no longer then four hours. In fact, the MPAA rating system has not been without its critics but they stayed out of the way when the system came into place because we hadn't created this lame ass "significant literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" standard yet. A standard which is poorly defined, and I am sure searching through case law long enough, you will find places where it is applied differently from state-to-state and maybe even applied differently by SCOTUS.
Um, yeah it does. No state constitution can abridge a freedom guaranteed under the US Constitution. The 10th Amendment states that: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
That more or less reads, if we do not specifically say something here, then it is up to the states or the people to make up their own laws/rights in regard to the issue. Now, what constitutional clause does it violate? Freedom of speech. This is the argument that has been used to help relieve other states of these horribly vague bills. You see, most state Supreme Courts have ruled them unconstitutional because they use language that is non-determinate and that requires an individuals (or small group of individuals) to make a judgement call on what is deemed "inappropriate violence."
The problem with these vague terminology is that you run into cases that parallel problems you see in movies as well. There are parents who in a million years refuse to let their kids see R-rated movies, but how many of those same parents do you think may have dragged their kids to see "The Passion of the Christ"? Is that movie "inappropriately violent"? In the minds of Christians, it might not be. While a viewer who does not share their beliefs might find some of the depictions grotesque and violent.
Would we run into this same problem if someone created a "violent" video game that was based on the bible? I mean there are parts of that book that are pretty grotesque. I can only hope that this sort of thing gets knocked down by a court with enough common sense to see it for what it is...
I am really wondering about this. I mean I am sure it is on the list of things to do, but I would think the OpenDocument Format would have been a bit easier to implement then working with XLS would have been. Granted more people use Excel then OOo, but I still find it strange that ODF wasn't in the list of early supported file formats.
An article about a patent that actually links to the patent. I nearly died when I saw that. Now, on to the patent at hand.
For some of the nitty gritty first, they filed a provisional application on May 31, 2000, which means they have priority to this date. It is also important to remember with the current patent laws in the US the system is based on a first to invent, which means any prior art could have to pre-date the May 31, 2000 date as well.
I have one grand problem with the arstechnica article. It is in the very end, where the author says:
Even though Nintendo applied for this patent in 2000, independently developed technologies that have emerged in the interim resemble it in many ways.
Unfortunately, this does not fly in any countries patent system. This argument is good for trade secrets, where independently inventing a similar or the same item is okay. In patents, whether or not someone invented something similar while you were waiting for you patent is immaterial. Also, the application would've been published no later then May or so of 2002, meaning any technology after that date could easily see the claims and know what Nintendo was seeking a patent for.
I seriously doubt Nintendo will go sue happy with this, but they may hold onto it just in case their console market goes south like Sega's did. Remember, they wouldn't really be trolling if they actually did make a real attempt to implement a system using the patent they received.
it should be noted that the same people who say Citizen Kane is the best movie ever are the same people who say it is the most overrated movie ever. And before you ask here is one source.
So, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for FF7 to be the same way, afterall when something is hyped up so much, it is bound to be viewed down a bit too...
1) Yes bandwidth is plentiful, and the idea is that ISPs want to charge content providers for the bandwidth. Verizon, Comcast, or whoever want to be able to charge Google for me downloading content from their sites. The idea is stupid because I am already paying for the bandwidth, and this basically amounts to double dipping. They are wanting to get paid twice for the bandwidth.
2) Yes, they pay for their bandwidth and hosting (if they do not host on their own, and most smart and big companies do) from the ISP they get their services through. We are talking about double, triple, quadruple billing companies just so they can have guaranteed access to customers.
3) You are joking right? If you transfer the cost to the content providers, you will be lucky to see any cost drops in user services. Why? Because most telecoms are already having trouble with old business models. They will continue to charge current rates, which honestly may be reaching their minimums sooner rather then later. It will actually probably mean in increase in services we currently pay for online too. If the content providers are paying the ISPs extra money, they will need more money to cover their cost and this ultimately comes from the consumers.
4) Yes, because so many people ISP hop. You know that the reason many people never switch services is because of e-mail addresses? It is similar to the reason people would never leave cell phone companies until after the government said you have to allow people to take their numbers with them. Once this happened, people began becoming cell phone company hoppers and the wars for customers began anew, because now people can change at the end of their contract and have nothing to hold them there.
5) If service providers create a tiered system, where they decide who and what gets the traffic, then your P2P will be shot to hell. Most cable companies will start finding ways to block or increase the cost for VoIP providers to their customers. Remember, most these companies are owned by larger corporations with a variety of interests that conflict with consumer interests. A tiered internet is basically going to turn into a bidding war for what content providers can pay the ISPs the most money. It will kill the concept of a free internet by giving the people with money a means to ensure they are the most accessible and usable sites.
6) I hate government regulation, but before this bill amendment there were regulations in place that helped to ensure this would stay free. I really have a hard time seeing how the concept of net neutrality is ever a bad thing, but I welcome someone to give me an example.
7) What extra bandwidth? What half the cost? Has anyone but a telecom said they will offer you more bandwidth with lower costs if they can spread the charges around? I really do not believe most of what Verizon, AT&T or any of the other companies tell me. Besides, your ToS and EULA are probably already much more restrictive then you realize...including the ability to shut off your connection for abusing the bandwidth, hosting a server (in many contracts for home users), or for using P2P networking, even if you are not breaking the bandwidth abuse.
8) No. The problem is they do not trust the telecoms to self-regulate. Seriously, the telecom industry has to be one of the most untrusted industries, right up there with the oil companies. We have a group that charges mysterious fees (look at your phone bill) and has no real competition. VoIP is hardly competition, since it has its own array of problems and deficiencies.
9) This problem boils down to a lack of competition in most areas. In some cases, the monopolies over the phone lines are locally approved, while in other cases it is just a lack of companies willing to setup their own userbase for DSL services. This could also relate to a name recognition problem. I mean it is sort of hard to compete against Telecos and cable companies for recognition...I mean in some areas t
My guess would be pretty high. And after I type that I pretty much confirmed it. Besides, these things are microscopic in size (electron microscopes even). I would believe that by the time you were damaging these, you would probably already be doing some serious damage to the electrodes of the capacitor/battery.
Lenovo and IBM have a strategic alliance designed to provide a best-in-class experience for enterprise customers. The companies have entered into significant, long-term agreements that give customers preferred access to IBM's world-class customer service organization and global financing offerings, and that enable Lenovo to take advantage of IBM's powerful worldwide distribution and sales network. Lenovo's customers are able to count on the entire IBM team - including sales, services and financing - for access to IBM's legendary end-to-end IT solutions. As part of a five-year commitment, IBM will also provide Lenovo with warranty services and offer Lenovo customers leasing and financing arrangements. Through this long-term relationship, customers will receive the best products with the lowest total-cost-of-ownership.
I think IBM still has some influence in this relationship. Their reputations are somewhat linked in this regard and they would defend their interests.
IBM: "We won't let you keep using the names and trademarks we made famous if you do not support Linux."
Lenovo: "We will support Linux."
The only thing missing is a little ass kissing...
Is everyone too young or just amnesiac?
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Just Let Me Play!
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Can someone tell me what I am missing? Haven't games had hidden content and unlockable features since the early days? Even Wolfenstein 3D had hidden areas, and later games (and maybe Wolf3D) began adding the "secrets" % to tempt you to find it all. They even had the "par" times to see if you could blitz through the levels in the times they give. The true test of a game has almost always seemed to be its replayability, which is what makes games "everlasting."
I have seen posts complaining that people are simply making crappy games and adding this hidden content to make it "better." This makes no sense. If a game sucks, people are not going to keep playing it to get all the hidden extras. The other argument seems to be, "Give me the game I paid for." Well got it, but this does not mean that we cannot give you extras that people will want to attempt. Hell, difficulty levels are even a form of replayability. I know plenty of people who beat the game once on low or medium difficulty and then replay at the really hard.
Simply put, this is a rant by a person who is lazy. You do not want the extras, then only play to beat the game. There are plenty of good games out there with extras that can add hours to your game experience. Have you thought there are extras, not because the game sucks, but that instead to add playing time for people who have the time to enjoy it?
I was doing IT work once at a cancer research center. A great many of the doctors and labs used Macs instead of PCs. Some of this was simply preference because the majority of the SW was available on both platforms; however, a lot of the work some of these doctors did was also very graphical in nature. I believe that when you get into sciences that require a bit more visuals and maybe even some photo editting, you begin to see more Macs used.
Now in the engineering world, I see a lot fewer Macs. In college, the EE labs that did not run windows were HP-UX machines running on PA-RISC processors. CIS for the longest time was running nothing but Solaris thin clients in the labs connected to some serious slow servers. They later changed to mostly windows, but a lot of the work was still done using SSH to connect to the Solaris systems.
I can also attest that the at least a few of the stats professors as my alma mater used Sun workstations. I really think when you want number crunching power people used to lead more towards these systems because of the architectures used and maybe even the 64-bit computing. The latter isn't really an advantage anymore, since most mainstream PCs can be had with 64-bit processors. But, in the end, yes Macs do get some use...and it may be because of a Power issue as well. PPCs were a might nice processor, too bad you will soon only be able to get them in workstations and servers that make the PowerMacs look cheap.
things that can be used to control the changes made to documents and that will do enough control for most companies. At my office, we use a web-based front-end for what I am pretty sure is CVS. It manages are various projects and their associated documents. It logs updates people make and saves the old revisions as well, so we can always go back and determine what prior versions said versus the now.
Granted, this does require people to actually use the system. We have a long list of policies regarding the system, including when important documents should be updated back to the server. Considering that I have seen many places where people still insist on saving important documents to their desktop with no backups when they have ample file storage on a server that is backed up (and in one instance was doubly backed up to a remote location), I really do not expect your average user to be able to cope with this sort of system.
Ok, well over-selling with Cable can be a problem. The downside of cable is that you are somewhat prone the the usage around you, which is why we noticed slower speeds in our campus apartment during the early evening hours when everyone was at home. This is somewhat noticeable in any area with a condensed population (ie apartment complex). Most people will not notice it and will not care.
The joy about DSL is supposed to be you do not have this problem. However, you are more susceptible to line quality and your distance from service. Your comparison of DSL providers in the manner you use is poor because you do not take into consideration this distance. Remember, this is more complex then who you are subscribed to and also remember in most areas people only have one or two choices. You get Cable from the cable provider or DSL from your phone company, which limits most areas anyway.
I still think most the people complaining 'round here, including the original story, are oversimplifying the issue and have no idea how the technology they are using actually works.
I am going on the assumption, right now since all my reference material isn't at work with me, that the phone company gives you a smaller frequency range to work with at the lower speeds of DSL. If this is the case, the line will still have lower then optimum speeds at the lower speed as well, and almost proportional to that at the higher speed, because they have not improved the line quality or their distance to service.
You see, the phone company is cutting your bandwidth and the crappy signal is still going to be crappy, so less bandwidth minus many of the same error and speed reducing causes as before and you have even slower DSL.
His logic was flawed and only proves this guy really needs to shutup and research before complaining. Another poster was right, cable and phone companies do not guarantee you your speeds, and they surely mention that in their advertising and contracts. If you want guaranteed speed there are rather expensive services available that provide dedicated lines and service.
this is absurd. Of course your speeds with DSL might suck depending on your location, and the way they determine what speed you get, of course a speed decrease will lower your actual bandwidth. You'll note the speed decrease is actually a bit less with the lower speed, but they are actuall still comparable and probably somewhat attributable to other networking factors.
Before complaining about your DSL line being slow, I think you really should read up on how DSL (and most likely ADSL to be specific) works. You are hardly ever going to get max bandwidth out of a service line though I honestly cannot complain about the speeds I am getting with Cable. So, remember, before starting a bitch-fest...know what the hell you are talking about...
check out the other game laws passed in other states, most have been defeated in state supreme courts or are currently heading there as we speak...no i think i read the news...
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least: Which in English means recommended configuration.
+1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor. Not too bad for modern machines, but this is starting to get crazy for just an OS
+1 GB of system memory. I know a few gamers still running 512 MB and most systems are still coming 256/512 as the default.
+A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero.
+128 MB of graphics memory. So like 90% of machines that the big three sell will not run Aero? Most still default to 64MB or built-in cards and right now most people do not want/need more.
+40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space. This is nearly 10x the install for XP pro. Does anyone else find this a bit crazy?
+DVD-ROM Drive With a 15GB install, I damn well hope it install off of a DVD and not a CD-ROM or I might die switching out CDs.
This is just plain silly for an OS. And I am supposed to play games on top of all this? I love how more and more system resources are being hogged away by Windows. I have already verbally committed to Windows XP being my last Windows OS. M$ has done enough for me to ensure, despite the headaches it might cause, my relatives whose computers I support will be running Linux when XPs support runs out.
I think many of the features of the OS are over-hyped. Some of them (IE7, WMP11, etc.) will be available to XP anyway. Some of these features are also things that either OS X or Linux (or sometimes both) have had for a while. They eye-candy hardly impresses me either. I have gnome as pretty as I want it, and I have no complaints. I really did not like the XP visual changes that much and a lot of people I know still use the traditional appearance and old-style Start Menu.
While I will commend Microsoft for trying to add security, it is almost too little too late. I also do not like the "cost" of upgrading either. There are two many requirements that make older PCs out of reach for running even a trimmed down version of Vista. It seems like these requirements have grown almost exponentially from 2K->XP->Vista. BTW, my sources for Vista's Requirements and XP's.
this will be defeated quickly in the courts. The problem they have consistently had from state-to-state is that the terms used are vague and do not make it clear what is and is not acceptable. It relies heavily on individual perception of certain games and quite possibly misuses the term "game as a whole", since they are probably saying, if one piece is bad the whole thing is bad and not that if the whole game is okay minus one little piece it is okay.
I love the addition of the artistic value portion though. Isn't this the phrase SCOTUS created or at least used to determine what falls under free speech? Not that it matters, since Bill of Rights says nothing about artistic value being a necessity for free speech. This in itself is also vague as what is deemed to have artistic value changes over time. I guarantee you many of our grandparents and some of our parents probably would not have called rock and roll artistic 50 years or more ago. Why won't anyone create one based on the ESRB and keep it simple? Oh, that is right, they think the ESRB cannot police itself. Newsflash, most the people buying these games for the kids are the parents...
It has been a while since I have read patent law, but part of the oath or declaration they sign states that they understand a duty to disclose. Usually if it is proven they have failed to disclose prior art, then their patent can be ruled invalid without any argument. The director (and maybe some other individual or body with the power) can revoke the patent outright. I am pretty sure by failing to disclose they technically broke the law since I am pretty sure that it is a part of or hinted at in the actual law.
Don't be lazy and actually, you know, port the code so it works natively without having to use Wine internally to run. This seems like such a lazy thing to do, it almost makes one wonder why it took you so long to do it. On top of that, it also seems pointless. If this runs using wine internally, then couldn't we have run Picasa using Wine before anyway? You really would have done nothing but bundled it up into a neat package, which would be good if most linux users weren't power users and didn't know their OS and apps.
You are also going to take a lot of flak for this not being open source software. Remember, you are releasing to Linux and if you want to keep your Google is not an evil company image with Linux users you are going to have to eventually open up the source and probably GPL it if you actually expect people to use it. So, I by actually creating a Linux version that is free of the internal wine, you will probably have enough code change that you can GPL the code without too much serious worry about your Windows version. I don't want to seem like I am calling Google out, but if you want to keep the community behind you, you really should GPL this.
But does not ConsoleOne provide you with a method as to how these drives map. I am pretty sure it does since we always had certain drives setup to map one way on all machine. This standardized things for users to look at their "K" drive or whatever. If I am wrong, which I suppose is possible it has been almost two years since I used C1, you should be able to setup things with policies. If you have an AD domain, this is simple since you can lay it out as a group policy and have it trickle down to everyone with no real interaction. Otherwise, you will probably need to set it on a machine-by-machine basis, but this shouldn't be too bad since you can do it using remote management and not have to have any real user interaction.
But like I said, I could be wrong. I got away from IT work the second I got my engineering degree, which was almost a year and a half ago.
Schools have been bitching for years that they are underfunded and do not get enough state and federal aid to adequately provide education to students, but they have enough time and/or money to piss away with something pointless like this? I mean you cannot go from bitching that NCLB (No Child Left Behind, in case you are not good with acronyms) is not feasible because you do not have funds and then pull this sort of shit. At this pace I foresee my children being home-schooled, and I have been grossly opposed to that for years because I feel a lot of home schooled children do not get adequate social contact...but compared to them being policed by people not their parents when at home it seems like a reasonable alternative.
The problem truly is that a great many parents are just damn lazy. They would much rather have some great overseer take care of the problem then have to deal with it themselves. I cannot count the number of parents I have seen with their children in public who I watched and wondered, who is really in charge of this situation?
Maybe I was just fortunate enough to have parents who were responsible and actually wanted to know what their kids were doing. I use to complain about my parents monitoring my internet activity at age 14/15 and what I perceived as their paranoia about pedophiles out to get me. They also seemed a bit concerned at first when I started roleplaying online (and not the sexual kind of roleplay). Yes, they eventually backed off, but I know it was their own concern for my well-being that they acted the way they did and not just some techno-phobia.
I see this a lot with my mom today, who even consults me on occassion about items of purchase for my 13 year old brother. She will ask me about games, movies, or websites and even shows some degree of interest in my brothers online activities. He has a myspace account, but I know he is smart enough to not put anything stupid up there and with me listed as a friend, it probably wouldn't last long.
I just wish more parents seemed to show the same concern about their childrens activities. You may not be perceived as the coolest mom/dad ever, but your kids and, hopefully, their kids will be better for it. I learned that line, "You will thank me for this when you are older," isn't the complete bullshit I thought it was. My parents always did what they did because they cared about me, and they were doing what should come naturally to parents, protecting their offspring. So, will the government do us all a favor and leave the parenting to the parents and stop trying to create laws that really accomplish nothing and in many cases have been overturned by courts as unconstitutional anyway.
It will obviously try to take over and kill us all....I mean that has to be the plot for at least a dozen sci-fi movies, a few of which were actually successful...
This isn't quite true. Many places will exchange broken and/or scratched discs. I have heard of Wal-Mart doing this for sure. Heck, I know Wal-Mart will even take back opened PC games without a receipt. I am pretty sure this would fall under Costco's return anything, anytime policy. Not every place will exchange discs, but if you are a good customer places that normally won't will turn a blind eye.
I was once a great customer to our local Software, Etc. during my high school years. I purchased the first major league baseball game from Dreamcast that most people will tell you sucked pretty hard. I took it back and actually got a store credit (hey better then the nothing I should've gotten) for the full price, instead of the buy back that would've only be like in the teens, if even that.
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The problem is that many laws are written with this language changed from sexual conduct to violence (or violence towards people) and still getting shot down in their own state Supreme Courts. Granted, this would vary from state to state, and we have yet to have one of these laws tested at the federal level. Also, trying to equate pornography and violence in this country is a joke. America tends to be quite prudish after all.
This is really an attempt to try to control a relatively young media. People are complaining about a lack of self-regulation, but it is much harder for a group to go through many hours of gameplay (sometimes in the 15-20+ range) versus the MPAA rating movies, which typically are no longer then four hours. In fact, the MPAA rating system has not been without its critics but they stayed out of the way when the system came into place because we hadn't created this lame ass "significant literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" standard yet. A standard which is poorly defined, and I am sure searching through case law long enough, you will find places where it is applied differently from state-to-state and maybe even applied differently by SCOTUS.
Um, yeah it does. No state constitution can abridge a freedom guaranteed under the US Constitution. The 10th Amendment states that: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
That more or less reads, if we do not specifically say something here, then it is up to the states or the people to make up their own laws/rights in regard to the issue. Now, what constitutional clause does it violate? Freedom of speech. This is the argument that has been used to help relieve other states of these horribly vague bills. You see, most state Supreme Courts have ruled them unconstitutional because they use language that is non-determinate and that requires an individuals (or small group of individuals) to make a judgement call on what is deemed "inappropriate violence."
The problem with these vague terminology is that you run into cases that parallel problems you see in movies as well. There are parents who in a million years refuse to let their kids see R-rated movies, but how many of those same parents do you think may have dragged their kids to see "The Passion of the Christ"? Is that movie "inappropriately violent"? In the minds of Christians, it might not be. While a viewer who does not share their beliefs might find some of the depictions grotesque and violent.
Would we run into this same problem if someone created a "violent" video game that was based on the bible? I mean there are parts of that book that are pretty grotesque. I can only hope that this sort of thing gets knocked down by a court with enough common sense to see it for what it is...
I am really wondering about this. I mean I am sure it is on the list of things to do, but I would think the OpenDocument Format would have been a bit easier to implement then working with XLS would have been. Granted more people use Excel then OOo, but I still find it strange that ODF wasn't in the list of early supported file formats.
For some of the nitty gritty first, they filed a provisional application on May 31, 2000, which means they have priority to this date. It is also important to remember with the current patent laws in the US the system is based on a first to invent, which means any prior art could have to pre-date the May 31, 2000 date as well.
I have one grand problem with the arstechnica article. It is in the very end, where the author says:
Unfortunately, this does not fly in any countries patent system. This argument is good for trade secrets, where independently inventing a similar or the same item is okay. In patents, whether or not someone invented something similar while you were waiting for you patent is immaterial. Also, the application would've been published no later then May or so of 2002, meaning any technology after that date could easily see the claims and know what Nintendo was seeking a patent for.
I seriously doubt Nintendo will go sue happy with this, but they may hold onto it just in case their console market goes south like Sega's did. Remember, they wouldn't really be trolling if they actually did make a real attempt to implement a system using the patent they received.
it should be noted that the same people who say Citizen Kane is the best movie ever are the same people who say it is the most overrated movie ever. And before you ask here is one source.
So, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for FF7 to be the same way, afterall when something is hyped up so much, it is bound to be viewed down a bit too...
1) Yes bandwidth is plentiful, and the idea is that ISPs want to charge content providers for the bandwidth. Verizon, Comcast, or whoever want to be able to charge Google for me downloading content from their sites. The idea is stupid because I am already paying for the bandwidth, and this basically amounts to double dipping. They are wanting to get paid twice for the bandwidth.
2) Yes, they pay for their bandwidth and hosting (if they do not host on their own, and most smart and big companies do) from the ISP they get their services through. We are talking about double, triple, quadruple billing companies just so they can have guaranteed access to customers.
3) You are joking right? If you transfer the cost to the content providers, you will be lucky to see any cost drops in user services. Why? Because most telecoms are already having trouble with old business models. They will continue to charge current rates, which honestly may be reaching their minimums sooner rather then later. It will actually probably mean in increase in services we currently pay for online too. If the content providers are paying the ISPs extra money, they will need more money to cover their cost and this ultimately comes from the consumers.
4) Yes, because so many people ISP hop. You know that the reason many people never switch services is because of e-mail addresses? It is similar to the reason people would never leave cell phone companies until after the government said you have to allow people to take their numbers with them. Once this happened, people began becoming cell phone company hoppers and the wars for customers began anew, because now people can change at the end of their contract and have nothing to hold them there.
5) If service providers create a tiered system, where they decide who and what gets the traffic, then your P2P will be shot to hell. Most cable companies will start finding ways to block or increase the cost for VoIP providers to their customers. Remember, most these companies are owned by larger corporations with a variety of interests that conflict with consumer interests. A tiered internet is basically going to turn into a bidding war for what content providers can pay the ISPs the most money. It will kill the concept of a free internet by giving the people with money a means to ensure they are the most accessible and usable sites.
6) I hate government regulation, but before this bill amendment there were regulations in place that helped to ensure this would stay free. I really have a hard time seeing how the concept of net neutrality is ever a bad thing, but I welcome someone to give me an example.
7) What extra bandwidth? What half the cost? Has anyone but a telecom said they will offer you more bandwidth with lower costs if they can spread the charges around? I really do not believe most of what Verizon, AT&T or any of the other companies tell me. Besides, your ToS and EULA are probably already much more restrictive then you realize...including the ability to shut off your connection for abusing the bandwidth, hosting a server (in many contracts for home users), or for using P2P networking, even if you are not breaking the bandwidth abuse.
8) No. The problem is they do not trust the telecoms to self-regulate. Seriously, the telecom industry has to be one of the most untrusted industries, right up there with the oil companies. We have a group that charges mysterious fees (look at your phone bill) and has no real competition. VoIP is hardly competition, since it has its own array of problems and deficiencies.
9) This problem boils down to a lack of competition in most areas. In some cases, the monopolies over the phone lines are locally approved, while in other cases it is just a lack of companies willing to setup their own userbase for DSL services. This could also relate to a name recognition problem. I mean it is sort of hard to compete against Telecos and cable companies for recognition...I mean in some areas t
My guess would be pretty high. And after I type that I pretty much confirmed it. Besides, these things are microscopic in size (electron microscopes even). I would believe that by the time you were damaging these, you would probably already be doing some serious damage to the electrodes of the capacitor/battery.
I think IBM still has some influence in this relationship. Their reputations are somewhat linked in this regard and they would defend their interests.
Lenovo: "We will not support Linux."
IBM: "We won't let you keep using the names and trademarks we made famous if you do not support Linux."
Lenovo: "We will support Linux."
The only thing missing is a little ass kissing...
Can someone tell me what I am missing? Haven't games had hidden content and unlockable features since the early days? Even Wolfenstein 3D had hidden areas, and later games (and maybe Wolf3D) began adding the "secrets" % to tempt you to find it all. They even had the "par" times to see if you could blitz through the levels in the times they give. The true test of a game has almost always seemed to be its replayability, which is what makes games "everlasting."
I have seen posts complaining that people are simply making crappy games and adding this hidden content to make it "better." This makes no sense. If a game sucks, people are not going to keep playing it to get all the hidden extras. The other argument seems to be, "Give me the game I paid for." Well got it, but this does not mean that we cannot give you extras that people will want to attempt. Hell, difficulty levels are even a form of replayability. I know plenty of people who beat the game once on low or medium difficulty and then replay at the really hard.
Simply put, this is a rant by a person who is lazy. You do not want the extras, then only play to beat the game. There are plenty of good games out there with extras that can add hours to your game experience. Have you thought there are extras, not because the game sucks, but that instead to add playing time for people who have the time to enjoy it?
I was doing IT work once at a cancer research center. A great many of the doctors and labs used Macs instead of PCs. Some of this was simply preference because the majority of the SW was available on both platforms; however, a lot of the work some of these doctors did was also very graphical in nature. I believe that when you get into sciences that require a bit more visuals and maybe even some photo editting, you begin to see more Macs used.
Now in the engineering world, I see a lot fewer Macs. In college, the EE labs that did not run windows were HP-UX machines running on PA-RISC processors. CIS for the longest time was running nothing but Solaris thin clients in the labs connected to some serious slow servers. They later changed to mostly windows, but a lot of the work was still done using SSH to connect to the Solaris systems.
I can also attest that the at least a few of the stats professors as my alma mater used Sun workstations. I really think when you want number crunching power people used to lead more towards these systems because of the architectures used and maybe even the 64-bit computing. The latter isn't really an advantage anymore, since most mainstream PCs can be had with 64-bit processors. But, in the end, yes Macs do get some use...and it may be because of a Power issue as well. PPCs were a might nice processor, too bad you will soon only be able to get them in workstations and servers that make the PowerMacs look cheap.
things that can be used to control the changes made to documents and that will do enough control for most companies. At my office, we use a web-based front-end for what I am pretty sure is CVS. It manages are various projects and their associated documents. It logs updates people make and saves the old revisions as well, so we can always go back and determine what prior versions said versus the now.
Granted, this does require people to actually use the system. We have a long list of policies regarding the system, including when important documents should be updated back to the server. Considering that I have seen many places where people still insist on saving important documents to their desktop with no backups when they have ample file storage on a server that is backed up (and in one instance was doubly backed up to a remote location), I really do not expect your average user to be able to cope with this sort of system.
Ok, well over-selling with Cable can be a problem. The downside of cable is that you are somewhat prone the the usage around you, which is why we noticed slower speeds in our campus apartment during the early evening hours when everyone was at home. This is somewhat noticeable in any area with a condensed population (ie apartment complex). Most people will not notice it and will not care.
The joy about DSL is supposed to be you do not have this problem. However, you are more susceptible to line quality and your distance from service. Your comparison of DSL providers in the manner you use is poor because you do not take into consideration this distance. Remember, this is more complex then who you are subscribed to and also remember in most areas people only have one or two choices. You get Cable from the cable provider or DSL from your phone company, which limits most areas anyway.
I still think most the people complaining 'round here, including the original story, are oversimplifying the issue and have no idea how the technology they are using actually works.
I am going on the assumption, right now since all my reference material isn't at work with me, that the phone company gives you a smaller frequency range to work with at the lower speeds of DSL. If this is the case, the line will still have lower then optimum speeds at the lower speed as well, and almost proportional to that at the higher speed, because they have not improved the line quality or their distance to service.
You see, the phone company is cutting your bandwidth and the crappy signal is still going to be crappy, so less bandwidth minus many of the same error and speed reducing causes as before and you have even slower DSL.
His logic was flawed and only proves this guy really needs to shutup and research before complaining. Another poster was right, cable and phone companies do not guarantee you your speeds, and they surely mention that in their advertising and contracts. If you want guaranteed speed there are rather expensive services available that provide dedicated lines and service.
this is absurd. Of course your speeds with DSL might suck depending on your location, and the way they determine what speed you get, of course a speed decrease will lower your actual bandwidth. You'll note the speed decrease is actually a bit less with the lower speed, but they are actuall still comparable and probably somewhat attributable to other networking factors.
Before complaining about your DSL line being slow, I think you really should read up on how DSL (and most likely ADSL to be specific) works. You are hardly ever going to get max bandwidth out of a service line though I honestly cannot complain about the speeds I am getting with Cable. So, remember, before starting a bitch-fest...know what the hell you are talking about...
check out the other game laws passed in other states, most have been defeated in state supreme courts or are currently heading there as we speak...no i think i read the news...
A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:
Which in English means recommended configuration.
+1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.
Not too bad for modern machines, but this is starting to get crazy for just an OS
+1 GB of system memory.
I know a few gamers still running 512 MB and most systems are still coming 256/512 as the default.
+A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero.
+128 MB of graphics memory.
So like 90% of machines that the big three sell will not run Aero? Most still default to 64MB or built-in cards and right now most people do not want/need more.
+40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
This is nearly 10x the install for XP pro. Does anyone else find this a bit crazy?
+DVD-ROM Drive
With a 15GB install, I damn well hope it install off of a DVD and not a CD-ROM or I might die switching out CDs.
This is just plain silly for an OS. And I am supposed to play games on top of all this? I love how more and more system resources are being hogged away by Windows. I have already verbally committed to Windows XP being my last Windows OS. M$ has done enough for me to ensure, despite the headaches it might cause, my relatives whose computers I support will be running Linux when XPs support runs out.
I think many of the features of the OS are over-hyped. Some of them (IE7, WMP11, etc.) will be available to XP anyway. Some of these features are also things that either OS X or Linux (or sometimes both) have had for a while. They eye-candy hardly impresses me either. I have gnome as pretty as I want it, and I have no complaints. I really did not like the XP visual changes that much and a lot of people I know still use the traditional appearance and old-style Start Menu.
While I will commend Microsoft for trying to add security, it is almost too little too late. I also do not like the "cost" of upgrading either. There are two many requirements that make older PCs out of reach for running even a trimmed down version of Vista. It seems like these requirements have grown almost exponentially from 2K->XP->Vista. BTW, my sources for Vista's Requirements and XP's.
this will be defeated quickly in the courts. The problem they have consistently had from state-to-state is that the terms used are vague and do not make it clear what is and is not acceptable. It relies heavily on individual perception of certain games and quite possibly misuses the term "game as a whole", since they are probably saying, if one piece is bad the whole thing is bad and not that if the whole game is okay minus one little piece it is okay.
I love the addition of the artistic value portion though. Isn't this the phrase SCOTUS created or at least used to determine what falls under free speech? Not that it matters, since Bill of Rights says nothing about artistic value being a necessity for free speech. This in itself is also vague as what is deemed to have artistic value changes over time. I guarantee you many of our grandparents and some of our parents probably would not have called rock and roll artistic 50 years or more ago. Why won't anyone create one based on the ESRB and keep it simple? Oh, that is right, they think the ESRB cannot police itself. Newsflash, most the people buying these games for the kids are the parents...
It has been a while since I have read patent law, but part of the oath or declaration they sign states that they understand a duty to disclose. Usually if it is proven they have failed to disclose prior art, then their patent can be ruled invalid without any argument. The director (and maybe some other individual or body with the power) can revoke the patent outright. I am pretty sure by failing to disclose they technically broke the law since I am pretty sure that it is a part of or hinted at in the actual law.
Don't be lazy and actually, you know, port the code so it works natively without having to use Wine internally to run. This seems like such a lazy thing to do, it almost makes one wonder why it took you so long to do it. On top of that, it also seems pointless. If this runs using wine internally, then couldn't we have run Picasa using Wine before anyway? You really would have done nothing but bundled it up into a neat package, which would be good if most linux users weren't power users and didn't know their OS and apps.
You are also going to take a lot of flak for this not being open source software. Remember, you are releasing to Linux and if you want to keep your Google is not an evil company image with Linux users you are going to have to eventually open up the source and probably GPL it if you actually expect people to use it. So, I by actually creating a Linux version that is free of the internal wine, you will probably have enough code change that you can GPL the code without too much serious worry about your Windows version. I don't want to seem like I am calling Google out, but if you want to keep the community behind you, you really should GPL this.
But does not ConsoleOne provide you with a method as to how these drives map. I am pretty sure it does since we always had certain drives setup to map one way on all machine. This standardized things for users to look at their "K" drive or whatever. If I am wrong, which I suppose is possible it has been almost two years since I used C1, you should be able to setup things with policies. If you have an AD domain, this is simple since you can lay it out as a group policy and have it trickle down to everyone with no real interaction. Otherwise, you will probably need to set it on a machine-by-machine basis, but this shouldn't be too bad since you can do it using remote management and not have to have any real user interaction.
But like I said, I could be wrong. I got away from IT work the second I got my engineering degree, which was almost a year and a half ago.
Schools have been bitching for years that they are underfunded and do not get enough state and federal aid to adequately provide education to students, but they have enough time and/or money to piss away with something pointless like this? I mean you cannot go from bitching that NCLB (No Child Left Behind, in case you are not good with acronyms) is not feasible because you do not have funds and then pull this sort of shit. At this pace I foresee my children being home-schooled, and I have been grossly opposed to that for years because I feel a lot of home schooled children do not get adequate social contact...but compared to them being policed by people not their parents when at home it seems like a reasonable alternative.
The problem truly is that a great many parents are just damn lazy. They would much rather have some great overseer take care of the problem then have to deal with it themselves. I cannot count the number of parents I have seen with their children in public who I watched and wondered, who is really in charge of this situation?
Maybe I was just fortunate enough to have parents who were responsible and actually wanted to know what their kids were doing. I use to complain about my parents monitoring my internet activity at age 14/15 and what I perceived as their paranoia about pedophiles out to get me. They also seemed a bit concerned at first when I started roleplaying online (and not the sexual kind of roleplay). Yes, they eventually backed off, but I know it was their own concern for my well-being that they acted the way they did and not just some techno-phobia.
I see this a lot with my mom today, who even consults me on occassion about items of purchase for my 13 year old brother. She will ask me about games, movies, or websites and even shows some degree of interest in my brothers online activities. He has a myspace account, but I know he is smart enough to not put anything stupid up there and with me listed as a friend, it probably wouldn't last long.
I just wish more parents seemed to show the same concern about their childrens activities. You may not be perceived as the coolest mom/dad ever, but your kids and, hopefully, their kids will be better for it. I learned that line, "You will thank me for this when you are older," isn't the complete bullshit I thought it was. My parents always did what they did because they cared about me, and they were doing what should come naturally to parents, protecting their offspring. So, will the government do us all a favor and leave the parenting to the parents and stop trying to create laws that really accomplish nothing and in many cases have been overturned by courts as unconstitutional anyway.
It will obviously try to take over and kill us all....I mean that has to be the plot for at least a dozen sci-fi movies, a few of which were actually successful...
This isn't quite true. Many places will exchange broken and/or scratched discs. I have heard of Wal-Mart doing this for sure. Heck, I know Wal-Mart will even take back opened PC games without a receipt. I am pretty sure this would fall under Costco's return anything, anytime policy. Not every place will exchange discs, but if you are a good customer places that normally won't will turn a blind eye.
I was once a great customer to our local Software, Etc. during my high school years. I purchased the first major league baseball game from Dreamcast that most people will tell you sucked pretty hard. I took it back and actually got a store credit (hey better then the nothing I should've gotten) for the full price, instead of the buy back that would've only be like in the teens, if even that.