I'm with you dude. I see all those statistics touting sales losses in the recording industry, and it makes me wonder about all those independent labels. I'm pretty sure they're not included in the numbers and I know that indie labels usually have a much more rabid and loyal following to their artists and label than the majors do.
Personally, I know if I'm just cruising to burn some money in a record store I check what label a band unknown to me is on before I buy the CD. And I'm pretty sure that most of the labels I buy my music from aren't suffering losses from P2P networks as almost all of the fans understand TANSTAAFL, even if they can't spell it.
Remember folks, 90% of all statistics are bullshit.
I have the random nerd assortment of desktops required to maintain my dork union status and my laptop which is almost four years old and has literally survived two trips to a war zone. The laptop is nice to have and extremely convenient - especially for me being in a situation where a desktop is just plain not workable.
The biggest problem that I have with laptops - and the one that's not getting solved any time soon - is the ability to be easily upgradable. It's just not there yet, because there's no real standard on chassis / case configuration as I see it. And unless you're buying pretty super high-end it's something that's just not attainable for average Joe User, or even above average Joe User.
I think while super cool, this is one of those things that's going to take another couple of years to come into fruition. The laptop / desktop replacement market has made leaps and bounds towards turning out systems that are more than curiosities - especially in the graphics card (I have 32MB shared RAM and it makes me cringe still) but they're still not in any range of affordability when compared to a desktop of a similar configuration.
That being said, I hope all the major graphics card companies keep up withe the innovation, drag the prices down, and come up with a more modular setup for laptop graphics cards. That would be especially noteworthy.
Keeping your OS up to date definitely will help out, and being smart about what you download from who and where. Most people infect themselves, and don't know it because of all of the shady software downloads out there. A good hardware or software firewall solution is easy enough to come by for cheap or free depending on how much time and effort you want to put into it. It's up to you as a user to protect yourself so study up.
Now, who's going to be the first to crack the "But Windows is malware" joke?
Why not suggest that Terri Hatcher uses Nanobatteries in her personal massager, or that you're thinking of Roland naked and petrified?
Actually, I was envisioning a ménage à trois involving ScuttleMonkey, CmdrTaco, and TVs David Letterman. You were spot on about the nonobattery powered personal massager and Ms. Hatcher though. High five.
Everyone stand on top of your building and exhale to the North!
Just build a conference center for politicians directly underneath windmills pointing down, with no roof. Unlimited energy for all! And if you're lucky, an occasional windmill propeller will break loose and make the world a happier place.
I'm sorry, I can only support this solution if you include lawyers. What? Most politicians are lawyers? Well that explains a lot. Carry on then.
Right-o, why do we still care about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as solutions like this become more the norm, and pay-for-rights media becomes more readily available for download?
Leela: I don't know what you did, Fry, but now all the planets in the galaxy are gonna be crackin' wise about our Mommas... Hermes: I'm just glad my fat ugly Mama isn't around to see 'dis day... Professor: Enough about your promiscious mother, Hermes...
I was going to post something very, very similar to this but you've summed that part up for me. The only addition I have is that I hold my friends opinions' in the highest regard. I play mostly FPS, and one of the things I enjoy most is playing with the same people over a select few games. If one of them buys a new game and tells me how amazing it is, and how there's one feature that makes it different from the other multi-player FPS out there (and in his/her opinion better) I can cruise over to their house with a six pack and play the game for myself and form my own opinion rather than relying on a "corporate shill" review online.
Some games have a buzz that's so fantastic that you can believe the reviews, and some just smell fishy by the them. Obviously the only way to tell for sure is to either buy the game or like I do: try it out at a friends house. With the two options being shelling over fifty bucks for a game (assuming my hardware will run it and I don't have to buy a new knuder valve) or a six pack and a night of gaming with a friend... I'll take beer and friends every time.
Well, I wasn't very clear so let me apologize first for that. One of the main reasons that I'm excited about television for download being legitimized by anyone is hopefully it means there will be a increase in quality over what's currently available. It's my thought that there is no reason as connection speeds and drive capacities increase that we cannot start seeing very high res video available for download. Also, media on demand for a television series means you can purchase the entire season for what, twelve bucks? I just like the idea provided by any supplier in a legal form. I think that we're kind of being led astry by the dubious legality of the torrent community... and I don't want that to be a contributor to keeping the expansion of internet video on demand from becoming a reality sooner.
It seems odd that just one post ago we were debating the future of digital media, and now we're talking about downloading TV shows from the internet, and will then have the ability to burn them to DVD.
So, who still cares about Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD? I know that what little inkling of opinion I had before doesn't really seem to matter anymore. As long as I have the source programming that I've downloaded and paid for, I can put it on whatever media I want to - or don't want to. Guess I'll have to build my own media PC now... instead of buying a new HD / Blu-Ray player. I'm very ok with that.
What is the deal with putting windows on things? I'm just not buying into this one. What's next? Is Quiznos going to put a window in the bread of my sub so I can see the "meat and cheese performance"? Let's all mod our skulls with plexiglass 4 x 4 inch plexiglass windows! That way... HEY YOU! Put the dremel tool down! And the neon tube too.
French: toutes dames dehors là? German: irgendwelche Damen heraus dort? Spanish: cualquieres señoras hacia fuera allí? Italian: qualsiasi signore fuori là? Portuguese: algumas senhoras para fora lá?
Sadly, it all translates to the same thing: I am a lonely douchebag that is willing to pretend that you're really a hot woman.
I should know. We can smell our own kind.
A lot of U.S. Soldiers use Firefox exclusively. Thanks to websites like portableapps I can get Thunderbird and Firefox installed on my flash so I don't have to go through the bother of dealing with out backwards and semi-retarted IA department to get it installed on the machine I use. After showing it off to most of the people I work with and letting them see all of the great plug-ins and extensions that you can add on, plus custom skinning the browser, these guys were sold.
As to the Army as a whole accpting it, your guess is as good as mine. I only showed the more tech-savvy guys Firefox, some of the dudes around here didn't exactly sign their contract as much as put a bite mark on the dotted line, if you catch my drift. I really don't think that they're the ones that are targeted by Firefox - and that very well could be part of the problem. Most IT/IA soldiers that are outside the Linux / Open Source world see things like Firefox as a waltzing bear. Right or wrong, that's a perception that is going to have to be overcome before this is accepted as a standard, or even as a useable piece of software by those outside "the know".
"Nissan conducted an Internet survey of 2,000 echo boomers, a majority of which said technology and gaming are among the most important attributes in their first car," said Bruce Campbell, vice president of design at Nissan Design America.
Holy crap! Bruce Cambell is the vice president of design at Nissan TOO!?!?! This is my BOOMSTICK!, indeed!
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly what this world needs, a 3-d replica of my face.
So much for us fuglies living in relative anonymity.
I'm with you dude. I see all those statistics touting sales losses in the recording industry, and it makes me wonder about all those independent labels. I'm pretty sure they're not included in the numbers and I know that indie labels usually have a much more rabid and loyal following to their artists and label than the majors do.
Personally, I know if I'm just cruising to burn some money in a record store I check what label a band unknown to me is on before I buy the CD. And I'm pretty sure that most of the labels I buy my music from aren't suffering losses from P2P networks as almost all of the fans understand TANSTAAFL, even if they can't spell it.
Remember folks, 90% of all statistics are bullshit.
I have the random nerd assortment of desktops required to maintain my dork union status and my laptop which is almost four years old and has literally survived two trips to a war zone. The laptop is nice to have and extremely convenient - especially for me being in a situation where a desktop is just plain not workable.
The biggest problem that I have with laptops - and the one that's not getting solved any time soon - is the ability to be easily upgradable. It's just not there yet, because there's no real standard on chassis / case configuration as I see it. And unless you're buying pretty super high-end it's something that's just not attainable for average Joe User, or even above average Joe User.
I think while super cool, this is one of those things that's going to take another couple of years to come into fruition. The laptop / desktop replacement market has made leaps and bounds towards turning out systems that are more than curiosities - especially in the graphics card (I have 32MB shared RAM and it makes me cringe still) but they're still not in any range of affordability when compared to a desktop of a similar configuration.
That being said, I hope all the major graphics card companies keep up withe the innovation, drag the prices down, and come up with a more modular setup for laptop graphics cards. That would be especially noteworthy.
Instead of paying $100 bucks cash they'd probably do well to give free pizza and beer.
Spyware / Adware / Malware stuff is pretty easy to deal with. Check out some of this stuff: it's free, clean and won't trash your computer.
Spybot Search and Destroy.
AdAware
MS Anti-Spyware
Keeping your OS up to date definitely will help out, and being smart about what you download from who and where. Most people infect themselves, and don't know it because of all of the shady software downloads out there. A good hardware or software firewall solution is easy enough to come by for cheap or free depending on how much time and effort you want to put into it. It's up to you as a user to protect yourself so study up.
Now, who's going to be the first to crack the "But Windows is malware" joke?
Why not suggest that Terri Hatcher uses Nanobatteries in her personal massager, or that you're thinking of Roland naked and petrified?
Actually, I was envisioning a ménage à trois involving ScuttleMonkey, CmdrTaco, and TVs David Letterman. You were spot on about the nonobattery powered personal massager and Ms. Hatcher though. High five.
I can't wait for the window hack to come out for them.
You'll go blind.
Everyone stand on top of your building and exhale to the North!
Just build a conference center for politicians directly underneath windmills pointing down, with no roof. Unlimited energy for all! And if you're lucky, an occasional windmill propeller will break loose and make the world a happier place.
I'm sorry, I can only support this solution if you include lawyers. What? Most politicians are lawyers? Well that explains a lot. Carry on then.
The green solution: Everyone stand on top of your building and exhale to the North!
Right-o, why do we still care about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as solutions like this become more the norm, and pay-for-rights media becomes more readily available for download?
Leela: I don't know what you did, Fry, but now all the planets in the galaxy are gonna be crackin' wise about our Mommas...
Hermes: I'm just glad my fat ugly Mama isn't around to see 'dis day...
Professor: Enough about your promiscious mother, Hermes...
Hey, how's the gmail account working out for ya buddy?
I was going to post something very, very similar to this but you've summed that part up for me. The only addition I have is that I hold my friends opinions' in the highest regard. I play mostly FPS, and one of the things I enjoy most is playing with the same people over a select few games. If one of them buys a new game and tells me how amazing it is, and how there's one feature that makes it different from the other multi-player FPS out there (and in his/her opinion better) I can cruise over to their house with a six pack and play the game for myself and form my own opinion rather than relying on a "corporate shill" review online.
Some games have a buzz that's so fantastic that you can believe the reviews, and some just smell fishy by the them. Obviously the only way to tell for sure is to either buy the game or like I do: try it out at a friends house. With the two options being shelling over fifty bucks for a game (assuming my hardware will run it and I don't have to buy a new knuder valve) or a six pack and a night of gaming with a friend... I'll take beer and friends every time.
Well, I wasn't very clear so let me apologize first for that. One of the main reasons that I'm excited about television for download being legitimized by anyone is hopefully it means there will be a increase in quality over what's currently available. It's my thought that there is no reason as connection speeds and drive capacities increase that we cannot start seeing very high res video available for download. Also, media on demand for a television series means you can purchase the entire season for what, twelve bucks? I just like the idea provided by any supplier in a legal form. I think that we're kind of being led astry by the dubious legality of the torrent community... and I don't want that to be a contributor to keeping the expansion of internet video on demand from becoming a reality sooner.
It seems odd that just one post ago we were debating the future of digital media, and now we're talking about downloading TV shows from the internet, and will then have the ability to burn them to DVD.
So, who still cares about Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD? I know that what little inkling of opinion I had before doesn't really seem to matter anymore. As long as I have the source programming that I've downloaded and paid for, I can put it on whatever media I want to - or don't want to. Guess I'll have to build my own media PC now... instead of buying a new HD / Blu-Ray player. I'm very ok with that.
What is the deal with putting windows on things? I'm just not buying into this one. What's next? Is Quiznos going to put a window in the bread of my sub so I can see the "meat and cheese performance"? Let's all mod our skulls with plexiglass 4 x 4 inch plexiglass windows! That way... HEY YOU! Put the dremel tool down! And the neon tube too.
French: toutes dames dehors là?
German: irgendwelche Damen heraus dort?
Spanish: cualquieres señoras hacia fuera allí?
Italian: qualsiasi signore fuori là?
Portuguese: algumas senhoras para fora lá?
Sadly, it all translates to the same thing: I am a lonely douchebag that is willing to pretend that you're really a hot woman.
I should know. We can smell our own kind.
A lot of U.S. Soldiers use Firefox exclusively. Thanks to websites like portableapps I can get Thunderbird and Firefox installed on my flash so I don't have to go through the bother of dealing with out backwards and semi-retarted IA department to get it installed on the machine I use. After showing it off to most of the people I work with and letting them see all of the great plug-ins and extensions that you can add on, plus custom skinning the browser, these guys were sold.
As to the Army as a whole accpting it, your guess is as good as mine. I only showed the more tech-savvy guys Firefox, some of the dudes around here didn't exactly sign their contract as much as put a bite mark on the dotted line, if you catch my drift. I really don't think that they're the ones that are targeted by Firefox - and that very well could be part of the problem. Most IT/IA soldiers that are outside the Linux / Open Source world see things like Firefox as a waltzing bear. Right or wrong, that's a perception that is going to have to be overcome before this is accepted as a standard, or even as a useable piece of software by those outside "the know".
I'm in Iraq. There's no beer here. What's your excuse?
Lockheed officials have recommended using a handful of widely accepted formats such as the popular Internet software language HTML. . .
Those responsible have been sacked.
Those responsible for the sacking have been sacked.
ZING!
I bow down man, that was truly, truly awe inspiring.
"Nissan conducted an Internet survey of 2,000 echo boomers, a majority of which said technology and gaming are among the most important attributes in their first car," said Bruce Campbell, vice president of design at Nissan Design America.
Holy crap! Bruce Cambell is the vice president of design at Nissan TOO!?!?! This is my BOOMSTICK!, indeed!
Don't worry: cops will still be more worried about you talking on your cell phone while driving. Quick game of GTA anyone?
They already make me wear a beret, now I have to wear some exoskeleton? There must be super secret squirrel stuff going on like Project Douchebag...