Actually, my windows Vista from Dell came with DVD burning software (Nero), Picture Management software (built in), Music/Video Tools (Microsoft Movie Maker, not 100% sure on what is meant by music tools, as its not a field I'm proficient in), backup software (Microsoft Backup), and a lot of etc. (usually referred to as bloat).
I mean, either you like having the extra stuff installed, and its "software you don't have to buy", or you don't like the extra stuff, and its "bloat". I'm not sure its a terribly honest position to refer to company A's preinstalled software as 'bloat' and company B's preinstalled software as 'useful utilities' when they mostly do the same thing.
As a disclaimer, I am NOT referring to some of the stuff that winds preinstalled up on Vista, like PopCap games and Google Toolbar and the like, as that's hardly the fault of the O/S.
As much fun as it is to bash vista, I'd have to stand and be counted with the whole "had XP, and went out and bought Vista" crowd. For whatever reason, I actually LIKE the whole 'cancel/allow' mechanism that is UAC. I like getting buzzed when someone like Adobe Acrobat Reader decides that they own my system and just sets about installing crap. I like getting alerted with a little dialog box saying 'are you sure you want to do this' when mucking about with system settings. I have all kinds of network activity and computer monitoring gadgets in the Windows Sidebar. The whole Media Center thing is quite handy for watching TV and listening to music, which I store on one PC and can stream from every other PC, transparently, through the media player interface. Finally, Vista Home Premium came with IIS7, which is turning out to be quite handy and easy to use for my 'hobby' website. I have 4 computers in my home. 2 came with Vista. All 4 have legal Vista installs at this point.
EVE Online has some of what you're talking about, although its obviously not a fantasy-based game (its about spaceships. pew pew pew). The trouble with the approach you've laid out is that there are a lot of players, and MOST of them suck at the game, relative to the few that are trying to 'win'. So in your example, if a dedicated employee sat there spinning out quests, about 1% of any given server would actively do them at a breakneck pace, whereas for the other 99%, this content is completely inaccessible (due to it being already completed) or yet another quest-that-everyone-and-his-brother-has-done-and-has-the-walkthrough for. For the latter, see WoW. For the former, any company that panders to 1% of its consumer base is obviously doing something wrong.
To contrast the horror stories of noncomplete clauses, the company I work at (large insurance company) has written into their contract that anything I do at home is explicitely mine, and if I want another job after this one, I am only restricted from using customer data and source code from here when I go there, which is perfectly reasonable.
I have and use OpenOffice, but frequently wind up writing stuff that I'm going to want to send to a friend or allow him to grab off my share or whatnot. Rather than dick around with the whole format thing, its easier to just use.doc. Saves time and hassle.
This is awesome. I have a 'digital plus' cable package with over 200 channels, which I had to buy because the 4-5 channels I regularly watch were on that list. I would love to get rid of the other 190 channels or so, (200-(5 I watch)-(5 or so others I occasionally use/check)) and if I could get a price cut at the same time, that'd be even better.
I'm fairly certain the 'heart attack' plug is something Zonk or someone added afterwards, and is not, in fact, an insidious profit-making scheme on the behalf of the "GamerDad" in question.
Each of the links you supplied seems to indicate that the user was able to 're-enable' said features in a relatively straightforward way (although the initial outlook patch was missing this, it was added). Is this the case for the Apple feature in question? I have no idea.
The reason Apple disables features where Microsoft doesn't has more to do with their target audience than any kind of company 'ethos'. If MS advises people that vulnerabilities exist with and , and proceeds to disable them, actual businesses that rely on features and will be very upset and potentially out a pile of money. Instead, MS advises of the vulnerability, so that these businesses can instead rely on their IT guy hardening the system against the vulnerability (seal the appropriate port on the firewall, disable the services on the machines that don't need it, isolating the machines that do use it from outside attack, etc.) whereas the odds of anybody's business being affected by the loss of are minimal, and they need to assume that their device is not administered by a technical person in any way. I mean, imagine the fallout if there was a bug that allowed malformed MS word documents being loaded by Office 2007 to result in security issues, and Microsoft responded by disabling the load feature.
Does this mean that once the effect shows up in the one light beam, before he does it in the other light beam, he is somehow locked in to his future actions? If not, what happens if he just turns off the device?
I used to define myself as a 'hardcore' gamer. In college, all night-lan parties every weekend were the norm. Games had to have ludicrous depth and complexity before we'd consider including them.
Times change. I'm married. 2 kids. 9-6 job in a cube. I now love the fact that so many games that are available are simple 'pick-up-and-play-in-the-evening'. In a way, Nintendo's game console has evolved to match my needs just as my needs changed. I imagine I'm not alone.
Does this mean that the guy I saw at the Best Buy buying 3 spindles of blank DVDs was, in fact, about to record 160 discs full of porn? I'd think he'd get carpal tunnel....
From changing out the discs repeatedly, of course.
Apparently, they were completely willing to sanction the movie under the terms of a deal that they and the movie producers had agreed to regarding the ownership of the intellectual property (i.e., Games Workshop's entire universe). Then it turned out that according to German copyright law, the producers are prevented from signing away some of their own rights, which derailed the deal. What I'm curious about is what rights are you prevented from signing away? Does this mean that German developers can't assign copyright to 3rd parties (FSF?)? Does it only apply to movies? Why would it be a problem to willfully and knowingly explicitely sign away your rights to something as nonfundamental as a movie?
You see this kind of thing happen whenever demand for IT professionals goes up because of the common perception that IT people are 'geeks/nerds' who are willing to take compensation in the form of casual wear and beanbag chairs instead of in salary... Given that the company is interested in its own bottom line, which is cheaper, a pinball machine or giving everyone a raise?
No, basically its just an optimization of packet rerouting and timing in hardware, instead of software. So its the same 'old' protocol, but with bits of it implemented in chips for speed, specifically the 'hey should I reroute now and it is ok to send a packet right now' bits.
This idea is excellent. I love using the Wii Virtual Console for the sole benefit of not having to change discs in order to play a game. Adding more games to this category can only be good, and the fact that Nintendo is taking a largely 'hands-off' approach to quality control should provide for a comparatively wide selection.
Won't work. The issue is that SoundExchange, which is the 'collections agency', has gotten the right to collect money "on behalf of" ALL artists, even those not registered with it. So even playing small-name garage-bands has the exact same price. The payments being foisted on the net radio companies have nothing to do with the actual artists at all.
The problem I have with the age variations on a video game is that I was raised to address certain social groups differently. It _totally_ kills my gaming mood when I chew out the squad leader in BF2142 for making a bad call and then have some kid (or worse, some young girl) come on voice comms to apologize. I mean, I would never have used that language if I'd realized it was a kid/girl in the first place, and now I'm an asshole. I realize this is a 'self-inflicted' problem, but the converse (you realize that hard-charging drill-sergeant vocabulary is coming from a 6 year old) is just as disquieting.
I don't see the problem here. Microsoft and Immersion signed a contract that said "If the Immersion case with Sony is settled, Immersion pays Microsoft $XXX". They then settled their case, but chose to call it something other than a settlement. As long as the word 'settle'/'settlement' has a legally definable meaning, and that meaning covers the 'business arrangement' between Sony and Immersion, then Microsoft is owed money. There's nothing insidious or underhanded about it. If Immersion doesn't like it, they should have either not settled or not agreed to those terms in the first place.
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Actually, my windows Vista from Dell came with DVD burning software (Nero), Picture Management software (built in), Music/Video Tools (Microsoft Movie Maker, not 100% sure on what is meant by music tools, as its not a field I'm proficient in), backup software (Microsoft Backup), and a lot of etc. (usually referred to as bloat). I mean, either you like having the extra stuff installed, and its "software you don't have to buy", or you don't like the extra stuff, and its "bloat". I'm not sure its a terribly honest position to refer to company A's preinstalled software as 'bloat' and company B's preinstalled software as 'useful utilities' when they mostly do the same thing. As a disclaimer, I am NOT referring to some of the stuff that winds preinstalled up on Vista, like PopCap games and Google Toolbar and the like, as that's hardly the fault of the O/S.
As much fun as it is to bash vista, I'd have to stand and be counted with the whole "had XP, and went out and bought Vista" crowd. For whatever reason, I actually LIKE the whole 'cancel/allow' mechanism that is UAC. I like getting buzzed when someone like Adobe Acrobat Reader decides that they own my system and just sets about installing crap. I like getting alerted with a little dialog box saying 'are you sure you want to do this' when mucking about with system settings. I have all kinds of network activity and computer monitoring gadgets in the Windows Sidebar. The whole Media Center thing is quite handy for watching TV and listening to music, which I store on one PC and can stream from every other PC, transparently, through the media player interface. Finally, Vista Home Premium came with IIS7, which is turning out to be quite handy and easy to use for my 'hobby' website. I have 4 computers in my home. 2 came with Vista. All 4 have legal Vista installs at this point.
EVE Online has some of what you're talking about, although its obviously not a fantasy-based game (its about spaceships. pew pew pew). The trouble with the approach you've laid out is that there are a lot of players, and MOST of them suck at the game, relative to the few that are trying to 'win'. So in your example, if a dedicated employee sat there spinning out quests, about 1% of any given server would actively do them at a breakneck pace, whereas for the other 99%, this content is completely inaccessible (due to it being already completed) or yet another quest-that-everyone-and-his-brother-has-done-and-has-the-walkthrough for. For the latter, see WoW. For the former, any company that panders to 1% of its consumer base is obviously doing something wrong.
Ballots stuff you?
To contrast the horror stories of noncomplete clauses, the company I work at (large insurance company) has written into their contract that anything I do at home is explicitely mine, and if I want another job after this one, I am only restricted from using customer data and source code from here when I go there, which is perfectly reasonable.
I have and use OpenOffice, but frequently wind up writing stuff that I'm going to want to send to a friend or allow him to grab off my share or whatnot. Rather than dick around with the whole format thing, its easier to just use .doc. Saves time and hassle.
This is awesome. I have a 'digital plus' cable package with over 200 channels, which I had to buy because the 4-5 channels I regularly watch were on that list. I would love to get rid of the other 190 channels or so, (200-(5 I watch)-(5 or so others I occasionally use/check)) and if I could get a price cut at the same time, that'd be even better.
I'm fairly certain the 'heart attack' plug is something Zonk or someone added afterwards, and is not, in fact, an insidious profit-making scheme on the behalf of the "GamerDad" in question.
Unless, of course, "GamerDad" IS Zonk...
Because the rover drivers might use the rover to suicide-bomb.... something. That crater over there, maybe?
Each of the links you supplied seems to indicate that the user was able to 're-enable' said features in a relatively straightforward way (although the initial outlook patch was missing this, it was added). Is this the case for the Apple feature in question? I have no idea.
The reason Apple disables features where Microsoft doesn't has more to do with their target audience than any kind of company 'ethos'. If MS advises people that vulnerabilities exist with and , and proceeds to disable them, actual businesses that rely on features and will be very upset and potentially out a pile of money. Instead, MS advises of the vulnerability, so that these businesses can instead rely on their IT guy hardening the system against the vulnerability (seal the appropriate port on the firewall, disable the services on the machines that don't need it, isolating the machines that do use it from outside attack, etc.) whereas the odds of anybody's business being affected by the loss of are minimal, and they need to assume that their device is not administered by a technical person in any way. I mean, imagine the fallout if there was a bug that allowed malformed MS word documents being loaded by Office 2007 to result in security issues, and Microsoft responded by disabling the load feature.
Does this mean that once the effect shows up in the one light beam, before he does it in the other light beam, he is somehow locked in to his future actions? If not, what happens if he just turns off the device?
Pays much better than my carefree college days did :)
I used to define myself as a 'hardcore' gamer. In college, all night-lan parties every weekend were the norm. Games had to have ludicrous depth and complexity before we'd consider including them.
Times change. I'm married. 2 kids. 9-6 job in a cube. I now love the fact that so many games that are available are simple 'pick-up-and-play-in-the-evening'. In a way, Nintendo's game console has evolved to match my needs just as my needs changed. I imagine I'm not alone.
So... Ping_Of_Death.exe gets ported to .NET?
Does this mean that the guy I saw at the Best Buy buying 3 spindles of blank DVDs was, in fact, about to record 160 discs full of porn? I'd think he'd get carpal tunnel....
From changing out the discs repeatedly, of course.
Apparently, they were completely willing to sanction the movie under the terms of a deal that they and the movie producers had agreed to regarding the ownership of the intellectual property (i.e., Games Workshop's entire universe). Then it turned out that according to German copyright law, the producers are prevented from signing away some of their own rights, which derailed the deal. What I'm curious about is what rights are you prevented from signing away? Does this mean that German developers can't assign copyright to 3rd parties (FSF?)? Does it only apply to movies? Why would it be a problem to willfully and knowingly explicitely sign away your rights to something as nonfundamental as a movie?
I hear there's gonna be a demo on the Brooklyn Bridge. It just so happens I have purchased a deed to said bridge. Where's my cut?
You see this kind of thing happen whenever demand for IT professionals goes up because of the common perception that IT people are 'geeks/nerds' who are willing to take compensation in the form of casual wear and beanbag chairs instead of in salary... Given that the company is interested in its own bottom line, which is cheaper, a pinball machine or giving everyone a raise?
No, basically its just an optimization of packet rerouting and timing in hardware, instead of software. So its the same 'old' protocol, but with bits of it implemented in chips for speed, specifically the 'hey should I reroute now and it is ok to send a packet right now' bits.
Your solution to dissatisfaction with a product is to... spend more money playing it? You must be the definition of the ideal customer...
This idea is excellent. I love using the Wii Virtual Console for the sole benefit of not having to change discs in order to play a game. Adding more games to this category can only be good, and the fact that Nintendo is taking a largely 'hands-off' approach to quality control should provide for a comparatively wide selection.
Won't work. The issue is that SoundExchange, which is the 'collections agency', has gotten the right to collect money "on behalf of" ALL artists, even those not registered with it. So even playing small-name garage-bands has the exact same price. The payments being foisted on the net radio companies have nothing to do with the actual artists at all.
The problem I have with the age variations on a video game is that I was raised to address certain social groups differently. It _totally_ kills my gaming mood when I chew out the squad leader in BF2142 for making a bad call and then have some kid (or worse, some young girl) come on voice comms to apologize. I mean, I would never have used that language if I'd realized it was a kid/girl in the first place, and now I'm an asshole. I realize this is a 'self-inflicted' problem, but the converse (you realize that hard-charging drill-sergeant vocabulary is coming from a 6 year old) is just as disquieting.
I don't see the problem here. Microsoft and Immersion signed a contract that said "If the Immersion case with Sony is settled, Immersion pays Microsoft $XXX". They then settled their case, but chose to call it something other than a settlement. As long as the word 'settle'/'settlement' has a legally definable meaning, and that meaning covers the 'business arrangement' between Sony and Immersion, then Microsoft is owed money. There's nothing insidious or underhanded about it. If Immersion doesn't like it, they should have either not settled or not agreed to those terms in the first place.