Once upon a time when I did network backups overnight, users would turn off their machines when they left (even though they weren't supposed to). In the backup script, you wake up the machines with the 'magic packet', then back them up. =]
Could be damaging? There are lots of other things that could be harmful to a minor (real, phyical things). Do we get rid of those too? A child could hurt themselves with a shovel or hammer. Should OK pass a law requiring ID to buy those things too?
I dunno, I got proofed at Lowe's the other day buying replacement blades for my lawn tractor. Apparently they no longer sell sharp stuff to people under 18. (The clerk actually said anything "that could be dangerous").
Long ago, in the days of modem based BBS systems (a Citadel syetem, if you remember those). We used to do song parodies and what not. Anyway, a friend of mine re-did "Cop Killer" as "Clinton Killer". The sysop did indeed receive a visit. Though we later learned that one of the more fanatical system users (one of those "fur sticker" people) had placed an anonymous phone call about the whole thing.
Lets not forget the whole purpose of Netflix, which is, of course, to generate a PROFIT. Try and stick with me on that for a second, we'll come back to this concept. Remember that businesses don't exist to serve the customer, only the owners/shareholders. It's the way it works.
Now, it's 39 cents one way for a letter here in the US, add in an envelope and some processing overhead, and we can safely assume $1 per rental COST to Netflix to rent you a DVD.
Now, if you pay $18/month, as soon as you hit 18 rentals, you are costing the company money, which, referring back to the 1st axiom of business, is contrary to its purpose, and hence a Very Bad Thing
Now I know a metric ton of you are going to come out saying "but they promised unlimited..." yadda yadda yadda. Let's be real, you aren't morons, you know that unlimited means no such thing. There is NO FREE LUNCH! if you think otherwise, go click on the free ipod/punch the monkey/whatever banners...
Further, I think we can reasonably assume that most of us can do math, and work out the profit point as above.
When a business run by competent individuals is failing to generate a profit, there are 2 options, 1) cease operations, or 2) change business practices.
Now I ask you, which would you rather have Netflix do?
And 11 discs for $18 bucks is still a heck of a bargain.
Almost every retail entity works on razor thin margins, really! Were talking 1 or 2 percent. When I was in retail, we were happy if we made 1 cent on a 20oz Pepsi. It's not some bizarre phenomenon specific to new computer games, its just the way it is. To be successful, you have to sell a LOT of sodas! (ne: Wal-Mart).
As for the 'insane margins' on used games... Clue time, the same thing happens in other used areans. The used music stores here in New York, for example, may give you a dollar or two for a CD, and sell it for $5 and up. It's how used works.
No need to get all crazy about GameStop and their ilk. They'd be poor businessmen if they weren't doing exactly what they are doing.
In the United States, married couples often pay more taxes than unmarried people with the same income. Many married couple file separate tax returns for this very reason.
For what it is worth....
My EPIC programmer at work runs very happily under Windows XP SP2.
That said, I do agree that there ARE things that require a certain OS.
At home, I'm still using my vintage 1984 IBM "Type-M" keyboard. Very nice to type on! IMHO, the best keyboard ever made (just don't drop it, they are made of Real Metal!) At work I lucked out, someone threw one out, and I quickly replaced my cheesy plastic Dell job.
Persons in the military, or doing work for them as civilians, are specifically instructed NOT to lie about stuff. They are told not to talk about stuff to begin with.
The take away here is that DRI never had a really successful product after GEM, leaving the company vulnerable to Microsoft's own brand of hostility. If Apple hadn't succeeded in squashing GEM, DRI would have been a much stronger company, and less vulnerable to attacks by other companies.
You can pick apart this case all you like, but if not for Apple, DRI might still be with us today.
For what it's worth, I'm keenly aware of the whole DRI/Apple mess, as I was developing ST software when it all went down. We were VERY concerned that Apple's lawsuit would affect the Atari version of GEM and force us to re-write our code. Thankfully, the ST GEM escaped injury.
Well, we can split hairs about grammar all day. The point is thus: DRI made GEM, which by accounts was a very capable windowing environment, far superior to any version of Windows at the time. Apple comes along, and squashes GEM, rendering it nearly useless (come on, 2 static windows, no trash can, yadda yadda).
This essentailly kills GEM, and by extension, DRI (name a successful post-GEM DRI product). It also removes the most viable competetor to Windows at the time. Had it not been for Apple's lawsuit, all of today's Windows boxes could conceivably have been GEM boxes instead.
I think that meets the criteria of a company that was targeted by Apple, and that as a result of Apple's actions, eventually went out of business.
As an aside, representing Wikipedia as an accurate, authoritative source is a bit sketchy. Wikipedia has a lot of informative, useful information. It also has some incorrect, if not wildly inaccurate entries. How to determine which is which is an interesting exercise that I'll leave for other readers and threads.
Apple sued Digital Research over the appearance of the GEM desktop, forcing DRI to castrate the Desktop, effectively killing GEM. GEM preceeded usable windows by many years, and was licensed to other companies (most notably to Atari for their ST computers in the 80's). GEM was also available on the PC platform.
Ah, another mis-conception about the "Hot-coffee" bit that's getting me angry.
The 'actual game code' does NOT contain nudity. That's right, you get to see Fully clothed polygons dry humping to your heart's delight.
The nudity is a skin that someone made. Many (most, all?) of the mainstream news seems to get this part wrong. If you read the Rockstar statement carefully, you'll see how this distinction makes their response completely accurate (but alas, very misleading.)
We've had an Altix at for work a couple years now, the thing is an animal, and SGI support is fantastic. The hardware bus bandwidth, and huge memory footprint (100's of GIGs) under a single kernel can't be beat.
Yet more insanity. I tell you now, I pay $142 and change every month to Adelphia for cable and internet, and if I miss an episode of House, I'm gonna go find it and download it - I paid for the 'license' to watch the stuff they send to my house, period.
First, the last time I checked, the airwaves belonged to the people. Second, whats my $142 for if it isn't a license to watch House? Third, fair use allows for time shifting, and thats really what these sites allow me to do.
Another bullshit money grab, greedy corporate bastards.
You beat me too it... I have done some work transferring data over Iridium in the past. Agonizingly slow and huge latency issues. Only appy if you've used a 1200 baud modem before, just so you can have flashbacks!
Please, please, please... Let's try to make ourselves a cut (however slight) above the rest of the wailing masses. I am so tired of the anti-MS cattle on/. Are they a big evil corporation? YES. Do they do mean, nasty things, often... YOU BET. Do they occasionally get something right.. (here's the tough one).. YES!
On to SP2. Although I don't work in the IT dept any longer, I know most of the people quite well and hear about when stuff is bad(tm). There are over 300 machines in the dept. that I work in. # of problems with SP2? ZERO. Is it perfect right after install - no way, lots of stuff doesn't work. HOWEVER, once the TCP Limit is fixed (yes, 3rd party fix, and MS should include it, but they, it exists), NX disabled (not ready yet) and assorted registry keys tweaked, it works fine.
Now, for the apostles of Linux - How many of you install the standard base sytem and change nothing? That's right, ZERO! You can't take stuff 'out of the box' and expect perfection. Same with SP2.
Is SP2 perfect, HELL NO. Is a PROPERLY setup install of it, tweaked by IT people with a clue better than SP1, YES.
Considerable improvements exists in SP2 (USB, wireless, etc). Granted, some things are garbage (windows firewall.. hahahaha!) but they are easily dealt with, removed, or ignored. It is foolish to ignore the good parts of SP2 just to complain about a cheesy built in firewall.
Broken apps. I have yet to hear of a broken app that doesn't have a patch, hasn't been replaced by a newer version, or can't be fixed with a couple of tweaks. We author and utilize a lot of in-house software, and the only thing an MS patch or upgrade, including SP2, has broken involved new security permission in.NET (and can be fixed either in the software, or by the blocked requests)
At least be thankful that MS fixes some of it's mistakes.
Slashdot Mirror
Once upon a time when I did network backups overnight, users would turn off their machines when they left (even though they weren't supposed to). In the backup script, you wake up the machines with the 'magic packet', then back them up. =]
I dunno, I got proofed at Lowe's the other day buying replacement blades for my lawn tractor. Apparently they no longer sell sharp stuff to people under 18. (The clerk actually said anything "that could be dangerous").
Scary, eh?blah blah blah.... M.U.L.E., Archon, Seven Cities of Gold
True story...
Long ago, in the days of modem based BBS systems (a Citadel syetem, if you remember those). We used to do song parodies and what not. Anyway, a friend of mine re-did "Cop Killer" as "Clinton Killer". The sysop did indeed receive a visit. Though we later learned that one of the more fanatical system users (one of those "fur sticker" people) had placed an anonymous phone call about the whole thing.
Well, I'm sure I will get flamed for this, but...
Lets not forget the whole purpose of Netflix, which is, of course, to generate a PROFIT. Try and stick with me on that for a second, we'll come back to this concept. Remember that businesses don't exist to serve the customer, only the owners/shareholders. It's the way it works.
Now, it's 39 cents one way for a letter here in the US, add in an envelope and some processing overhead, and we can safely assume $1 per rental COST to Netflix to rent you a DVD.
Now, if you pay $18/month, as soon as you hit 18 rentals, you are costing the company money, which, referring back to the 1st axiom of business, is contrary to its purpose, and hence a Very Bad Thing
Now I know a metric ton of you are going to come out saying "but they promised unlimited..." yadda yadda yadda. Let's be real, you aren't morons, you know that unlimited means no such thing. There is NO FREE LUNCH! if you think otherwise, go click on the free ipod/punch the monkey/whatever banners...
Further, I think we can reasonably assume that most of us can do math, and work out the profit point as above.
When a business run by competent individuals is failing to generate a profit, there are 2 options, 1) cease operations, or 2) change business practices.
Now I ask you, which would you rather have Netflix do?
And 11 discs for $18 bucks is still a heck of a bargain.
Exactly, provided that you didn't have 1% in inventory shrink!
economic rant
Almost every retail entity works on razor thin margins, really! Were talking 1 or 2 percent. When I was in retail, we were happy if we made 1 cent on a 20oz Pepsi. It's not some bizarre phenomenon specific to new computer games, its just the way it is. To be successful, you have to sell a LOT of sodas! (ne: Wal-Mart).
As for the 'insane margins' on used games... Clue time, the same thing happens in other used areans. The used music stores here in New York, for example, may give you a dollar or two for a CD, and sell it for $5 and up. It's how used works.
No need to get all crazy about GameStop and their ilk. They'd be poor businessmen if they weren't doing exactly what they are doing.
/economic rant
In the United States, married couples often pay more taxes than unmarried people with the same income. Many married couple file separate tax returns for this very reason.
Amen! I soooo miss the 6502 and the 68K. x86 is nightmare comparatively.
For what it is worth.... My EPIC programmer at work runs very happily under Windows XP SP2. That said, I do agree that there ARE things that require a certain OS.
At home, I'm still using my vintage 1984 IBM "Type-M" keyboard. Very nice to type on! IMHO, the best keyboard ever made (just don't drop it, they are made of Real Metal!) At work I lucked out, someone threw one out, and I quickly replaced my cheesy plastic Dell job.
For what it is worth...
Persons in the military, or doing work for them as civilians, are specifically instructed NOT to lie about stuff. They are told not to talk about stuff to begin with.
My printers:
B/W: Ancient Epson ActionLaser 1500 (8 ppm, refills for $15)
Color: Tektronix Phaser 560, fast as all hell (after it warms up) decent color, new carts plentiful on Ebay for $20 a pop.
I may replace the ActionLaser with an HP4/5 or an older Lexmark soon.(The 1500 is about 70k pages past its design life)
The take away here is that DRI never had a really successful product after GEM, leaving the company vulnerable to Microsoft's own brand of hostility. If Apple hadn't succeeded in squashing GEM, DRI would have been a much stronger company, and less vulnerable to attacks by other companies.
You can pick apart this case all you like, but if not for Apple, DRI might still be with us today.
For what it's worth, I'm keenly aware of the whole DRI/Apple mess, as I was developing ST software when it all went down. We were VERY concerned that Apple's lawsuit would affect the Atari version of GEM and force us to re-write our code. Thankfully, the ST GEM escaped injury.
Well, we can split hairs about grammar all day. The point is thus: DRI made GEM, which by accounts was a very capable windowing environment, far superior to any version of Windows at the time. Apple comes along, and squashes GEM, rendering it nearly useless (come on, 2 static windows, no trash can, yadda yadda).
This essentailly kills GEM, and by extension, DRI (name a successful post-GEM DRI product). It also removes the most viable competetor to Windows at the time. Had it not been for Apple's lawsuit, all of today's Windows boxes could conceivably have been GEM boxes instead.
I think that meets the criteria of a company that was targeted by Apple, and that as a result of Apple's actions, eventually went out of business.
As an aside, representing Wikipedia as an accurate, authoritative source is a bit sketchy. Wikipedia has a lot of informative, useful information. It also has some incorrect, if not wildly inaccurate entries. How to determine which is which is an interesting exercise that I'll leave for other readers and threads.
Apple sued Digital Research over the appearance of the GEM desktop, forcing DRI to castrate the Desktop, effectively killing GEM. GEM preceeded usable windows by many years, and was licensed to other companies (most notably to Atari for their ST computers in the 80's). GEM was also available on the PC platform.
There's one! =PAh, another mis-conception about the "Hot-coffee" bit that's getting me angry.
The 'actual game code' does NOT contain nudity. That's right, you get to see Fully clothed polygons dry humping to your heart's delight.
The nudity is a skin that someone made. Many (most, all?) of the mainstream news seems to get this part wrong. If you read the Rockstar statement carefully, you'll see how this distinction makes their response completely accurate (but alas, very misleading.)Anyway, enough ranting.
OMG asciiprOn is slashdotted!
We've had an Altix at for work a couple years now, the thing is an animal, and SGI support is fantastic. The hardware bus bandwidth, and huge memory footprint (100's of GIGs) under a single kernel can't be beat.
Hell, it looks like this would cover me sending an email from my laptop over 802.11 or bluetooth to someone else with a similar setup.
Yet more insanity. I tell you now, I pay $142 and change every month to Adelphia for cable and internet, and if I miss an episode of House, I'm gonna go find it and download it - I paid for the 'license' to watch the stuff they send to my house, period.
First, the last time I checked, the airwaves belonged to the people. Second, whats my $142 for if it isn't a license to watch House? Third, fair use allows for time shifting, and thats really what these sites allow me to do.
Another bullshit money grab, greedy corporate bastards.
Not that Timeline was a terribly good book, but it was orders of magnitude better than the movie, which was downright horrible.
You beat me too it... I have done some work transferring data over Iridium in the past. Agonizingly slow and huge latency issues. Only appy if you've used a 1200 baud modem before, just so you can have flashbacks!
ahh yes, another page from the slashfud playbook.... #22) I can't refute the comment, therefore I will complain about grammar/punctuation/formatting.
Please, please, please... Let's try to make ourselves a cut (however slight) above the rest of the wailing masses. I am so tired of the anti-MS cattle on /. Are they a big evil corporation? YES. Do they do mean, nasty things, often... YOU BET. Do they occasionally get something right.. (here's the tough one).. YES!
On to SP2. Although I don't work in the IT dept any longer, I know most of the people quite well and hear about when stuff is bad(tm). There are over 300 machines in the dept. that I work in. # of problems with SP2? ZERO. Is it perfect right after install - no way, lots of stuff doesn't work. HOWEVER, once the TCP Limit is fixed (yes, 3rd party fix, and MS should include it, but they, it exists), NX disabled (not ready yet) and assorted registry keys tweaked, it works fine.
Now, for the apostles of Linux - How many of you install the standard base sytem and change nothing? That's right, ZERO! You can't take stuff 'out of the box' and expect perfection. Same with SP2.
Is SP2 perfect, HELL NO. Is a PROPERLY setup install of it, tweaked by IT people with a clue better than SP1, YES.
Considerable improvements exists in SP2 (USB, wireless, etc). Granted, some things are garbage (windows firewall.. hahahaha!) but they are easily dealt with, removed, or ignored. It is foolish to ignore the good parts of SP2 just to complain about a cheesy built in firewall.
Broken apps. I have yet to hear of a broken app that doesn't have a patch, hasn't been replaced by a newer version, or can't be fixed with a couple of tweaks. We author and utilize a lot of in-house software, and the only thing an MS patch or upgrade, including SP2, has broken involved new security permission in .NET (and can be fixed either in the software, or by the blocked requests)
At least be thankful that MS fixes some of it's mistakes.