Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration
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Diablo III Released
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Not to mention it is NEVER the pirates that get bit in the ass by this, its the players who paid good money. For everyone who wants to see a player getting bit in the ass by DRM in just watch this video (warning language NSFW) and watch as someone who bought a $60 game finds out how DRM bites.
BTW look at his shelves behind him, there are thousands of dollars worth of legitimate games, more than half of which he says no longer work because of DRM. I have found this out as well, because ever since I switched to 64 bits with Win XP X64 in 2006 I have found many of my games won't work, not because they won't run on a 64 bit OS, but because the shitty DRM doesn't. Oh a word of warning...DO NOT install older Starforce and SecuROM games on a 64 bit OS without cracking it before first launch! I have found that some versions of SecuROM and Starforce will try to embed 32 bit kernel hooks into a 64 bit kernel for disastrous stability and crashing problems. Oh and their "removal tools" WILL NOT WORK on a 64 bit OS! If you don't have a recent image backup or another OS to boot into so you can scrub it like malware (which it is) then you are fucked.
this is why I'm telling those that ask about D3 to buy Torchlight II instead. Not only is it a better deal, with Steam offering BOTH TL I & II for $20 or a 4 pack for $60, but it doesn't require always on Internet just to play SP.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration
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Diablo III Released
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· Score: 1
Not to mention the Steam pack gives you not only Torchlight II but TL I as well! I hope it'll be coming out soon as my youngest has a BDay coming up and having me and his brother join in for a big loot fest across the net sounds like a blast! Go Torchlight!
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration
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Diablo III Released
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· Score: 2
Not to mention everyone here seems to be forgetting that D1 and D2 and their crazy support lengths were both PRE ACTIVISION BUYOUT and now that they are owned by a company with a giant douchenozzle for a CEO will that stay the same? Considering how Bobby Kotick looks at his customers with such contempt that typing his name into google the first search that popped up was "Bobby Kotick is the devil" really doesn't give me much warm fuzzies when it comes to the lifespan for D3.
This man has made it clear he will milk a franchise for every plug nickel he can squeeze out of the property and having long support lengths (unless he decides to charge monthly like an MMO) simply won't fit into his "maximize monetiziation potential fuck the customers and make them pay" attitude. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't end up treating the property like EA Sports, where they kill the servers after a year and a half so you'll have to buy the latest version.
There is an even more relevant point you are missing. the ONLY reason TiVo was allowed to exist at all was that you couldn't just copy off the content. The reason you couldn't was the very code in question being locked to the flash meant one couldn't just make a version that say output a DivX file instead of sending the output to the audio and video jacks.
So if they would have done as RMS wanted TiVo would have been banned for sale in the USA not a month after they complied because it would be labeled a piracy tool, no different than you can't sell stand alone units that will rip copy protected DVDs and make copies. Sure you can buy devices that will play pirated content at places like China mart but you sure as hell ain't gonna find those at your local Best Buy.
But this is why I call those that treat GPL as sacred as "FOSSies" because like Moonies if one stopped for even a few moments to think about their position logically it simply doesn't hold. They say they are for freedom and the common man yet by doing as RMS wanted TiVo would have been put out of business and frankly there would be NO way for users to actually pause live TV or replay a show short of using an old fashioned VCR. But this shouldn't be surprising when RMS himself will only use a Loongson MIPS netbook that isn't sold in the USA (most likely because of the patents they are stepping on) because that is the ONLY device that fits his definition of "free".
This is why extremism simply doesn't work, because taken to its logical conclusion to measure up one would have to jump through so many hoops and deal with so much bullshit frankly you wouldn't have time for anything else. Try the only Linux distro RMS himself promotes which is GNUSense some time, its had so much ripped out of it that doesn't fit with his dogma it is frankly unusable on the vast majority of systems out there. I find that a perfect example of why one has to compromise, because if you don't then all you get is a broken mess.
1.-I don't bother with conspiracy theories so I was basing it on the job he was HIRED to do, which is run SCO and I think we can both agree in that position he was a giant failure. And I don't agree there was no hope for SCO, they did have a solid Unix and could have worked with ODMs to build net appliances that used it. Sure they would have never made iMoney out of it but it could have been a successful business niche.
2.- don't know much about either of those CEOs and haven't looked at Chrysler since they quit making their excellent slant 6 and rock solid 318 (both of which were built like tanks) so i can't really comment on them other than my construction friends laugh at the Depot for their bad prices and green wood, and everyone I've known with a newer Chrysler product has regretted it.
As for your final point you might want to watch this video because as someone who set up a pretty bog standard desktop (Intel Pentium D, 2Gb of RAM) running Win 8 CP in my shop for the customers to play with it pretty much nails the average users experience with Win 8. you have to remember the teeners and tweeners that spend all their time on FB and Twitter frankly don't give a shit about Windows because they are always on their phones. My oldest is in college and while he has a nice 6 core desktop at home for gaming and online courses, and a nice laptop for taking notes, I'd say a good 80% of his non school web interaction involves him working them thumbs on his cell. Hell if he or his buddies wanted Win 8 I'm sure that a pirate version would be floating around the campus network soon enough.
The ones that actually BUY those OEM machines are the parents, the businesses, the ordinary folks. Frankly they had NO problems getting to FB on Win 7 or even XP and there have already been easy to use desktop gadgets for both Vista and 7 that offer the same functionality as the metro UI and looking at the number of times they have been downloaded it is easy to see nobody cares.
But please, download the Win 8 CP and fire up a VM and give it a go. I know you don't like Windows but believe me, you fire that thing up and you'll see why Gabe at Valve said Win 8 was "Not just the worst OS MSFT has ever done, but the worst thing period". It gets in your way, it hampers your flow, the constant switching between metro and desktop is jarring and NOT smooth, it is just not an enjoyable experience. Since Win2K I have ALWAYS had the beta versions running at the shop to give people a taste of what is next and NEVER have I gotten such an overwhelming negative reaction, even for Vista. With Vista they were curious (until they saw all the bugs) and with 7 they wanted to know if it had Vista's flaws. Not with Win 8, in fact the question i got more than any was "But YOU will be able to get me Win 7 if I need it, right?". I must have had hundreds, both young and old, play with Win 8 in my shop and not one, not a single one, said "I would like to have this". That to me says all that needs to be said, and it is why I converted my entire family to Win 7.
Well I was going by the pics but for the sake of argument say it IS a quarter inch. My AMD netbook is 12 inches and weighs just 2.8 Lb AND has an Ethernet jack so I'd have to ask Apple "Why can't YOU do that?" because if they can do it with an AMD CPU they sure as hell can do it with an Intel one since they are much less hot.
Hell an Ethernet port isn't exactly this big bulky thing you know so I don't see any way this makes since EXCEPT...if all they care about is pushing thunderbolt. But as we have already seen the rest of the industry doesn't seem to give a crap about TB, they are going USB 3. this makes sense as it allows one port to both handle all the legacy USB 1 and 2 devices out there WHILE also handling the faster throughput of USB 3. Add in the fact that most of the USB models also let you charge all those USB devices like cell phones and its pretty obvious, at least to me, that TB is probably gonna end up another proprietary dead end like Firewire.
So to me this thing doesn't look to be making things lighter for the females, it seems to be all about pushing their own "standard" witrh Intel that nobody else seems to be getting on board with, ala FW. after all look at the Intel ultrabooks, THEY are light and THEY have Ethernet. And as I posted earlier i have to wonder if this isn't part of a larger push by Cook to run off the Pro market. You look at the sales numbers of the Pro lines compared to the rest of the line and they really are tiny, and frankly the pros need faster refreshes and more work than the other lines. hell look at how apple has no problem selling their current line that is using positively ancient Core2 chips to consumers.
Unless their goal is only to push TB as the next FW it just doesn't make any sense, at least to me. the savings in space is really minuscule compared to the performance hit or the PITA of having to carry around adapters just to use Ethernet which really has nothing else that compares. hell at this point if you simply want OSX frankly I'd say get one of the Ultrabooks and follow the simple instructions to make a Hackentosh, you'll get a unit that is just as lightweight and probably save hundreds compared to this thing. its just a bad idea friend, no really way of changing that. If Apple thinks they are gonna get the entire industry to pick TB over USB 3? I'm sorry, not gonna happen. It'll be FW all over again, with very few things that support it and all WAY overpriced.
Re:Hate to put a damper on the celebration
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Diablo III Released
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· Score: 1
Oh don't worry...in a couple of months a pirate version with any DLC released will be put out and yet again, as we have seen over and over AND OVER....the pirate version will be better.
And this is why I don't mess with games that don't use anything more than Steam DRM. the Steam DRM is like the old CD checks, its just enough that Billy Bob can't just slap his games on a disc and pass them around but go to any crack site and they have dozens of cracks for the various Steam games.
But as long as you'll get people who'll camp out all night just to get screwed by an always on Internet DRM crapfest then thing will never change. i do have to give them credit, using a game like Diablo to push this shit is like using Madden, there is just no way it'll flop. Hell they could cover game boxes with broken glass and give everyone who purchased a punch in the crotch and they'd STILL sell millions.
Sorry friend but you are forgetting something...dorm rooms. talking to my oldest he said the dorm rooms are FILLED with those "baby TVs" because they are small enough they can plug in some headphones and not disturb their roomie.
so i wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the college and youth market. Most of my oldest boy's college buddies are all watching on those dorm TVs and were more than a little jealous that he and his brother have 22 inch 1600x900 monitors they use for TVs, but in those little campus dorms space is a premium and the smaller sets are an easier 'fit". although some are taking my advice and buying USB dongles for HDTV so they can just use their laptops instead.
I just don't get those that are actually cheering a downgrade....for a 16th of an inch? Are people that use macbooks really so damned puny that a fricking 16th of an inch matters? it is THAT part I don't get.
When Jobs tossed the floppy they were error prone and there was a vastly superior replacement in flash sticks but that is simply not the case here. here you will have to shell out MORE cash for a MUCH bulkier docking station that you will have to either leave at your desk (which means you are screwed if you are out and need it) or have to drag it along (thus taking up a LOT of space in your bag) for...a 16th of an inch.
To me it smells like a way to sell more accessories and to plug Thunderbolt than to actually do something useful for the customer.
The simple fact is in BOTH parties the fiscals and moderates were chased out by the radicals. People keep on about the tea party but frankly the fiscal conservative were drummed out of the Reps under Reagan and the "moral majority" types while on the left the fiscals were run out during the 90s for the Pelosi type "throw more money at a failing program and it'll work!" liberals.
That is why more than ever we need a real third party because most Americans now simply have no choice. both the Ds and Rs have gotten so bedded down with the big money that frankly its just two sides to the same coin. This is why the tea party is so pissed because they see all they get is lip service but all their rage changes nothing, because the same checks get written either way. Both tea party and occupy are born of the same frustration, the same realization that so many of us have accepted which is that the system as it is is simply broken.
Uhhh...dude? you might want to Google "Solyndra tip of iceberg" to see that while Bush paid lip service (and gave VERY little money) to "green" projects Obama used the green projects to do his his own little payback parade. We are talking billions of dollars to several different groups with only ONE thing in common....they all gave large sums of money to Obama during his campaign in 2008.
So I'm sorry but replacing a shitty president with an R after his name with a shitty president with a D after his name still leaves you with the shitty president part. hell Bush and Obama have been pretty damned interchangeable when it comes to shittiness, the only difference is...well not much.
And how much is a Macbook Air? $2000? the iPad is $600 last i checked for the top one. Now compare this to the X86 market for Windows where the average selling price is $400 or less. Hell Tiger has been selling Fusion laptops for $350 and the local Walmart has a big seller in a $250 Atom dual core netbook.
MSFT can't just magically turn Windows into an upscale brand because the market simply isn't there and won't tolerate it. To use a/. car analogy it would be like Ford slapping a $100,000 sticker on the Mustang and expecting it to cut into the Ferrari sales, it just ain't gonna happen. As we saw with netbooks if MSFT gives the OEMs too much shit they WILL go with their own Linux version and as i pointed out the margins are simply too tight to support capacitive touchscreens at the current price point and it would be suicide to try raising the prices in a dead economy. All it would take is Walmart and Tiger selling a cheaper version to reap the rewards and leave everyone else with models they'd have to take a loss on just to get rid of.
In the end MSFT seems to be sticking their fingers in their ears and going "La la la...touchscreen!" while ignoring the fact that the REASON why laptops are so cheap is because the screens are being massed produced for HDTVs and this gives even the smaller OEMs huge economies of scale. this is why you don't see hardly any 4x3 laptops anymore, because the HDTVs are being made for TV and movies which is in widescreen format. But NOBODY is gonna start cranking out HDTVs cheap with capacitive touch because it would be idiotic. Why would you want to poke your TV when you have a remote right there? it is THIS market reality MSFT seems to be willfully blind to and I predict it WILL bite them in the ass. Because in the end if the consumer is offered a unit for $350 without touch and the same unit is $600+ with touch...which do YOU think the majority will pick?
Normally I'd disagree but...my XP Home nettop i have in the shop has been running for EIGHT YEARS now...you know how damned many programs I'd have to reinstall? Its data is saved on a separate drive and the OS is imaged weekly so when 2014 rolls around if the old gal is still running I can't honestly say I'd go through the major headache of reloading THAT damned many programs.
So I wouldn't be surprised if you are 100% correct, after all I had a customer that only retired his Win2k box about a year ago and only then because i gave him a good deal on a dual core. If it ain't broke? I know i still have no problem selling XP desktops and the shop down the road installs XP on the majority of hardware that comes through.
The only real problem I can see for a firewalled XP box would be if browsers all dropped support but I have no doubt that FOSS will come to the rescue, same as how Kmeleon has instructions on how to install to Win98. But as long as it does its job, which is download drivers and research problems I can't see myself giving up the little nettop, its just too handy.
Uhhh...I hate to break the news to ya friend but when Apple turned FCP into iMovie pro it was pretty obvious, at least to me, they are trying to ditch their "pro" users.
If you think about it it makes sense....where does Apple get the highest margins? Where do they get the most profits? That would be consumer devices like the iPad and iPhone. With those devices they own everything from the chip up so when and how updates to the line are carried out is controlled by Apple. that is not the case in X86 because if Apple left Intel for AMD tomorrow it wouldn't even rate a blip on Intel's radar as they are simply too massive. Look at Intel slitting Nvidia's throat in the chipset market which hurt Apple because they used more powerful Nvidia chipsets with Intel CPUs. Can't do that now and Intel frankly didn't care whether that move affected Apple or not because again Apple is small potatoes in X86.
So I wouldn't be surprised if Apple releases one or two more X86 models before Cook holds a press conference and declares the iPad the "new mac" and that will be the end of that. They may keep the bottom of the line Macbook and iMac because they can keep the upgrade schedule positively anemic and not really hurt sales in that sector. Home users frankly aren't even using half the power of current multicores so whether a chip is 2 years old or not won't really matter to that market.
But that isn't the pro market, just the opposite. the pros NEED the fastest chips because they are creating and editing HD content and that kind of work stresses the hell out of a system. That is why i think they are dropping features and programs that pros use as it costs too much time and effort for too small a niche.
Anyway if the rumors are true and they toss Ethernet we will know that is the direction they are going as USB and WiFi is just too damned slow for high def content creation.
Isn't it sad? Ethernet isn't like floppies, which were slow, error prone, and already on the way out when Apple pulled the plug. Gigabit Ethernet is currently faster than any wireless than I know of yet if Apple says "You don't need that" we get dozens of posts saying "They must be right! Apple is genius!".
So I gotta give Jobs credit, he built an RDF so damned powerful it even survived his death. that is pretty damned impressive. And to all the Appleites out there...why would you give up Gigabit Ethernet for less than a 16th of an inch? Look at the pictures, that's it. A 16th of an inch savings costs you a useful feature. Why would you say such a tiny savings would be worth losing Gigabit?
Uhhh...Dell tried that recently with a convertible tablet, remember? The problem is a 17 inch touchscreen runs $300+ at retail and a 24 inch non touch runs $150. Now which do YOU think the customers will choose? The simple fact is capacitive touchscreen tech is NOT cheap ATM and there is no way in hell the OEMs are gonna eat that cost and as we all know resistive screens suck.
The mistake, which i believe will be a fatal one for Win 8, is that the vast majority of panels being sold on desktops and laptops were built originally for HDTVs and people aren't gonna want to get their greasy fingers all over their HDTV when they have a remote. this is why you have seen the resolution for laptops fall, as all these small panels are built for everything from dorm HDTVs to headrests for SUVs so it saves the OEMs money to simply use the economies of scale. That isn't gonna change simply because MSFT releases an OS, nor will it get people to shell out larger sums of money, not when the competition will sell them a non touch screen laptop at hundreds cheaper.
As you have pointed out we have had convertibles so long its "a blast from the past" yet they have NEVER caught on, even though both Vista and 7 had frankly damned good touch support...why? because given the choice of two laptops, one with a touch screen at $200 ore more higher than the one next to it without most will choose without. Ask Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, etc what their best selling units are and i bet my last dollar they are the $400 and under units. Makes sense because for most users even an Atom or E350 will do the vast majority of tasks they have such as FB and webmail.
If the rumors are correct Win 8 is as high as Win 7 to OEMs so we are talking $35 for Starter and $50 for Home so where are they gonna get the money to still hit the price points they need? Dell makes on average $8 a sale for the low end so there isn't any fat to be trimmed friend and MSFT can't just "demand" they all switch to touch because as they saw with netbooks if they act like dicks the OEMs WILL go to Linux.
So I'm sorry friend but I just don't see it happening. MSFT has been pushing touch support for years and their numbers don't register. I personally believe this is Ballmer's "Hail Mary" trying to literally force his way into the ARM market because every previous attempt has been a flaming failure. But trying to get there by forcing the users of every non touch device to have a worse experience simply isn't the way to go and frankly i wouldn't be surprised if this fails if it ends up Ballmer's swan song at MSFT. Because honestly i just don't see the board putting up with another billion dollar failure with his track record.
Not to mention TFA left out the little fact that the man has cancer which would be a pretty damned good "personal reason' to step down. After all if his doc is recommending an aggressive treatment plan he is simply gonna be too sick to do his day to day work.
Another one is #9, split screen apps....uhhh...did nobody tell them you can just "smack" a program to one side or the other in Win 7 and it automatically takes up half the screen? Funny enough the one major program i found that doesn't work like that in windows is WMP 12, but since it has both basic controls in the jumplist when minimized and a desktop gadget you can use i didn't figure it was important. The rest seems to be either 1.-Stuff you could get from third parties (such as free AV) or 2.-Appstore centric crap (which I haven't met anybody jazzed about appstores except on mobile phones) so...meh.
when are they gonna give us the stuff they promised a decade ago, namely WinFS? I want to be able to type "yellow shirt" and have the OS show me every picture or video i have that has a yellow shirt in it. Now THAT would be worth upgrading for! But at least win 8 is good for something, namely funny parody videos!
I have to agree, after running both the dev and consumer previews, as well as setting up a machine with consumer preview in the shop to let common folks try it there is one thing we could all agree on and that is "Metro UI sucks on desktops".
Maybe it'll be nice for tablets and smart phones, who knows, but considering that MSFT owns less than 5% of the smartphone and tablet market and 90% of the desktop taking a big old dump on the desktop for a shot at smartphones is a DUMB fucking idea. I ran it for nearly a month on my home desktop before I wiped it, Metro UI just seemed to be fighting me every step of the way. And I agree with you on the suckage of resources as well, all the updates of those stupid always on metro "apps" slammed my network constantly and the thing was blowing through more than 2.2Gb of memory. Compare this to win 7 with all the bling, aero, AND more than a half a dozen tray apps and it would top out at a little over 1.3Gb.
So please, everyone who doesn't believe, try it for yourself here and you'll see what all the hate is about. Some have pointed out I hated the QL on win 7 but TBH after seeing what a slow uptake there was on Vista i didn't think companies would jump to support the new QL like they did. Without practically every application supporting jumplists the Win 7 tasklist would have been IMHO a serious step back over the XP QL but I'll be the first to admit now that its widely supported the Win 7 way is nice.
There is just NO way that I can see that one can take a cell phone touch based UI like win 8 and make it a nice experience for your average laptop or desktop user, the differences between designs is just too steep. Watch the MSFT videos talking about win 8 for yourself and count how many times they say "touchscreen". last one i saw i quit counting at 30. Now does ANYBODY think with the x86 PC business being so damned cutthroat they are just gonna eat the $100+ cost per unit to include touchscreens?
I'm sorry but win 8 is a BAD design and I'm just glad I've gotten the majority of my customers as well as my family onto Win 7 so we can all just skip win 8 completely. Touch UI is fine and dandy for a tablet, much better than the pen approach, but I have NO desire to poke my netbook or desktop all damned day. As for TFA frankly I don't see much there that can't be had for free with third party products such as process explorer for Task manager. BTW check out #4, even for the "old kit" they used for Win 8 was a touchscreen laptop! Seriously how many current laptops and desktops are touchscreen? 2%? 3%? Kinda sad when even the ones plugging the OS aren't putting it on non touch devices...hmmm...wonder why?
Normally i don't respond after the first day but since you seem to be confused and have missed the previous post I will explain. if you have ever played DM in a game that allows chat you quickly find that there are trolls that love to spam the words nigger and faggot to the point of absurdity. It doesn't matter what is going on in game, or what is done or isn't, because no matter what you WILL hear constant strings of profanity with either of those two words or both in the sentence.
Since you missed the earlier post I was using this behavior as a metaphor with what we are currently seeing on Slashdot, where it doesn't matter what the topic is, whether the person is upmodded or down, because within the first 5 post you WILL get the/. equivalent of those DM players with their "nigger faggot" garbage only in the case of/. it is the "shill astroturfer' posts which just break the flow and will derail the conversation just as having some 14 year old screaming "you damned nigger faggot!" can break the gameflow and ruin what was otherwise an enjoyable afternoon of game play.
So i hope that clears things up, its not a slur against any race or sexual preference but just an easy to understand (at least for those of us who DM) metaphor for derailing something with pointless insults. Lets face it, considering how damned obvious corporate paid shills and astroturfers are, with their using key talking points like "synergy' or "vertical integration" or other marketing drone buzzwords there really is NO point in the constant screaming of those words yet in article after article that is EXACTLY what one gets here now. Frankly its no wonder readership is going down because again to use a game analogy its like those MP games that do nothing to discourage wall hacks or aimbots, the BS quickly reaches a point most would rather be elsewhere than deal with the shit.
Sadly as someone who lives within 6 blocks of a major conservative college that gets a lot of insiders and being invited to their lectures I can tell you why we will end up in proxy wars...Jesus won't come back. I swear that talking to them ALL of our ME policies can be boiled down to that simple sentence and the fact that those in command of such insane power base decisions that can affect the lives of millions on a couple of lines in a 2000 year old book frankly scares the piss out of me. Personally I agree we should "Be Switzerland" which was said by of all people Glenn Beck but I have to agree, the vast majority of battles we have fought in the last 50 years we should have stayed the fuck out of.
And while I agree the F18 isn't the greatest fighter a LOT of the problem can be boiled down to the fucked up way we divide our military, with each little group carving out their own niches. Look at the Marines still running the Cobra (which was a badass weapon system but they are seriously old and gonna cost more and more just to keep in the air) and the Harrier. Its stupid, they should be given the Apache and a plane similar to the Hog to give them the ability to back up the guys on the ground. hell given the kind of missions they are given a more modern version of the Vietnam era Sandy Skyraiders would probably be a better fit long term than trying to keep VTOL capability which is expensive and a PITA.
And while I agree it should never be one's only quality there is something to be said about reliable and easy to maintain machinery. lets face it, battlefields simply aren't clean and aren't nice to machinery yet too many of our current designs are simply too "fussy' for want of a better term. take the Catalina for example, it was easy to work on in even the worst conditions in the Pacific, with nice little touches like a scaffold that allowed easy access to the engines, it was rugged, and it could do multiple jobs. everything we have now seems specialized to the point of absurdity.
As a final not i agree 100% that now that the wall has fallen we should be getting the stories of those on the other side. Why must we always hear about MiG Alley or the 6 day war from only the western side? i only hope someone is recording their stories for the future because as these events become nothing but footnotes in history the stories die with the men. Just because a side ultimately lost a conflict doesn't make their stories any less compelling, at least to me.
Actually playsforsure (or PFS) worked quite well and was VERY popular, especially with the "all you can eat" style music sites where you would often get 10 to 15 downloads plus access to the entire catalog for $10 a month. simply plug in your device once a month and load up, hell most even had lists based on genre so that you could catch up on the latest tunes of your favorite style or hear artists you may not have heard in your area.
The problem with PFS is that Steve Ballmer is a MASSIVE dipshit and makes the Pepsi guy at Apple look like Steve Jobs so he said "Herp Derp, apple has a player and controls their market so WE must have a player and control OUR market! Ask Toshiba how much they want for the gigabeat, and can they make it shit brown?" and thus the Zune was born and completely killed all the work that had gone into PFS and the large communities that had sprung up around it, thus proving it is ALWAYS possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
So personally I'm all for totally retarded dumbshit moves like this, because when Win 8 becomes such a billion dollar failwhale it gets added to that list with the CueCat and Realplayer as a "WTF were they smoking?" even being gates little buddy hopefully won't save him and they'll punt his stupid ass like a 30 yard field return. Remember this is the dumbass that gave us Zune, Kin, X360 rushed out with a fatal hardware flaw, GFLW, WinCE, paying an insane amount of Yahoo Search, paying ANOTHER insane amount to Nokia only to hang them out to dry with WinPhone 7 not having an upgrade path to Win 8, hell the man's resume is one failure after another.
if anyone needed proof that a piss poor CEO could run even the largest corp right off the cliff look no further, here is Steve Ballmer. stupid shit like TFA has been part and parcel of Ballmer's reign at MSFT and I have NO doubt that history will look at him as one of the worst CEOs, right up there with Mcbride and the retard at HP that spent all that money for WebOS.
Because given an easy excuse there are many cops that will fuck with people just to show that they are in control? try driving in a car as a white man with a black man in the vehicle in certain states and you'll quickly find out how many excuses they can come up with to fuck with you, I still have a scar on the back of my head from driving a black minister to a tent revival thanks.
Or you can just watch this video and learn what many of us already know, which is for every one decent cop you got a dozen "bullies with badges" that are frankly no better than a Crip or a Blood.
Don't know if it is the same in 2K10 but in 2k7 it is pretty easy to make your own menu with the quick access toolbar and the track changes icon, while also supposedly being a document with a pen, actually looks like a check thanks to it being a smaller icon. personally i prefer having my own custom quick access as it is 1.-At the top of the screen thus Fitt's Law comes in to play, 2.-because it is static and in the order i chose quicker for me to hit the one i need and 3.-Gives me more real estate for the actual document.
I hear you though, most of this new crap is just change for the sake of change instead of looking at how the user actually works and conforming to them. that's why after using Win 8 CP for nearly a month I'm sticking with Win 7 as I found the new UI to get in my damned way more often than it helped.
its like this article, the icons in question are simple, consistent across applications, easy to read on pretty much any screen so...lets get rid of them!/Facepalm/..Who gives a rat's ass about whether or not the symbolism behind an icon works, as long as the icon itself serves its function? I'm shocked the guy didn't bitch about the power button while he was at it, after all how many read engineering specs? Doesn't change the fact that the icon itself is easy to read across multiple designs and is simple to implement...nahh we should replace it with Trollface! Is it just me or are the young ones getting dumber as we go along?
Uhhh...you DO know that RMS has his own site, right? And that he gives out his views pretty much constantly? One doesn't have to "read Richard's brain" because the man hasn't be silent on the subject. If you want to know his thoughts Google "RMS On Android" and you'll find about 40 articles where he lays it out and its the same as red hat, RMS treats his friends as enemies.
And your second point is a perfect example of what is wrong with ALL religions, and that is religious zealotry. Taken to its logical conclusion according to you if NOBODY used FOSS as long as it was 'pure" that would be just fine. that is the same attitude held by cults all over the world and frankly? More than a little scary.
In the end I would argue it is THAT attitude as well as the increased militancy of RMS that is turning more and more away from the GPL because frankly the entire community is becoming toxic with this kind of religious extremism. you read the blogs by Torvalds and Perens and most of these guys that have been FOSS since the early days and you know what? NOT extremists, they just wanted to make nice software that others could use and could contribute to. if anything as RMS becomes more polarizing and extreme in his views he seems to be holding back the movement more than helping it, again see his attacks on RH or Android or his targeting a single company with an entire section of GPL V3.
You simply can't have one person with extremist views touting there is only "one true way' without having exactly what we are seeing now, which is a large divide splitting the community. Personally i predict more and more will end up going to non GPL licenses simply because this will allow them to offer their programs in the appstores which have made it pretty clear GPL V3 is verbotten. if RMS wanted to make sure that only "true believers' used GPL it looks like he may get his wish, only it isn't gonna switch masses over to his way of thinking but drive them away instead.
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Not to mention it is NEVER the pirates that get bit in the ass by this, its the players who paid good money. For everyone who wants to see a player getting bit in the ass by DRM in just watch this video (warning language NSFW) and watch as someone who bought a $60 game finds out how DRM bites.
BTW look at his shelves behind him, there are thousands of dollars worth of legitimate games, more than half of which he says no longer work because of DRM. I have found this out as well, because ever since I switched to 64 bits with Win XP X64 in 2006 I have found many of my games won't work, not because they won't run on a 64 bit OS, but because the shitty DRM doesn't. Oh a word of warning...DO NOT install older Starforce and SecuROM games on a 64 bit OS without cracking it before first launch! I have found that some versions of SecuROM and Starforce will try to embed 32 bit kernel hooks into a 64 bit kernel for disastrous stability and crashing problems. Oh and their "removal tools" WILL NOT WORK on a 64 bit OS! If you don't have a recent image backup or another OS to boot into so you can scrub it like malware (which it is) then you are fucked.
this is why I'm telling those that ask about D3 to buy Torchlight II instead. Not only is it a better deal, with Steam offering BOTH TL I & II for $20 or a 4 pack for $60, but it doesn't require always on Internet just to play SP.
Not to mention the Steam pack gives you not only Torchlight II but TL I as well! I hope it'll be coming out soon as my youngest has a BDay coming up and having me and his brother join in for a big loot fest across the net sounds like a blast! Go Torchlight!
Not to mention everyone here seems to be forgetting that D1 and D2 and their crazy support lengths were both PRE ACTIVISION BUYOUT and now that they are owned by a company with a giant douchenozzle for a CEO will that stay the same? Considering how Bobby Kotick looks at his customers with such contempt that typing his name into google the first search that popped up was "Bobby Kotick is the devil" really doesn't give me much warm fuzzies when it comes to the lifespan for D3.
This man has made it clear he will milk a franchise for every plug nickel he can squeeze out of the property and having long support lengths (unless he decides to charge monthly like an MMO) simply won't fit into his "maximize monetiziation potential fuck the customers and make them pay" attitude. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't end up treating the property like EA Sports, where they kill the servers after a year and a half so you'll have to buy the latest version.
There is an even more relevant point you are missing. the ONLY reason TiVo was allowed to exist at all was that you couldn't just copy off the content. The reason you couldn't was the very code in question being locked to the flash meant one couldn't just make a version that say output a DivX file instead of sending the output to the audio and video jacks.
So if they would have done as RMS wanted TiVo would have been banned for sale in the USA not a month after they complied because it would be labeled a piracy tool, no different than you can't sell stand alone units that will rip copy protected DVDs and make copies. Sure you can buy devices that will play pirated content at places like China mart but you sure as hell ain't gonna find those at your local Best Buy.
But this is why I call those that treat GPL as sacred as "FOSSies" because like Moonies if one stopped for even a few moments to think about their position logically it simply doesn't hold. They say they are for freedom and the common man yet by doing as RMS wanted TiVo would have been put out of business and frankly there would be NO way for users to actually pause live TV or replay a show short of using an old fashioned VCR. But this shouldn't be surprising when RMS himself will only use a Loongson MIPS netbook that isn't sold in the USA (most likely because of the patents they are stepping on) because that is the ONLY device that fits his definition of "free".
This is why extremism simply doesn't work, because taken to its logical conclusion to measure up one would have to jump through so many hoops and deal with so much bullshit frankly you wouldn't have time for anything else. Try the only Linux distro RMS himself promotes which is GNUSense some time, its had so much ripped out of it that doesn't fit with his dogma it is frankly unusable on the vast majority of systems out there. I find that a perfect example of why one has to compromise, because if you don't then all you get is a broken mess.
1.-I don't bother with conspiracy theories so I was basing it on the job he was HIRED to do, which is run SCO and I think we can both agree in that position he was a giant failure. And I don't agree there was no hope for SCO, they did have a solid Unix and could have worked with ODMs to build net appliances that used it. Sure they would have never made iMoney out of it but it could have been a successful business niche.
2.- don't know much about either of those CEOs and haven't looked at Chrysler since they quit making their excellent slant 6 and rock solid 318 (both of which were built like tanks) so i can't really comment on them other than my construction friends laugh at the Depot for their bad prices and green wood, and everyone I've known with a newer Chrysler product has regretted it.
As for your final point you might want to watch this video because as someone who set up a pretty bog standard desktop (Intel Pentium D, 2Gb of RAM) running Win 8 CP in my shop for the customers to play with it pretty much nails the average users experience with Win 8. you have to remember the teeners and tweeners that spend all their time on FB and Twitter frankly don't give a shit about Windows because they are always on their phones. My oldest is in college and while he has a nice 6 core desktop at home for gaming and online courses, and a nice laptop for taking notes, I'd say a good 80% of his non school web interaction involves him working them thumbs on his cell. Hell if he or his buddies wanted Win 8 I'm sure that a pirate version would be floating around the campus network soon enough.
The ones that actually BUY those OEM machines are the parents, the businesses, the ordinary folks. Frankly they had NO problems getting to FB on Win 7 or even XP and there have already been easy to use desktop gadgets for both Vista and 7 that offer the same functionality as the metro UI and looking at the number of times they have been downloaded it is easy to see nobody cares.
But please, download the Win 8 CP and fire up a VM and give it a go. I know you don't like Windows but believe me, you fire that thing up and you'll see why Gabe at Valve said Win 8 was "Not just the worst OS MSFT has ever done, but the worst thing period". It gets in your way, it hampers your flow, the constant switching between metro and desktop is jarring and NOT smooth, it is just not an enjoyable experience. Since Win2K I have ALWAYS had the beta versions running at the shop to give people a taste of what is next and NEVER have I gotten such an overwhelming negative reaction, even for Vista. With Vista they were curious (until they saw all the bugs) and with 7 they wanted to know if it had Vista's flaws. Not with Win 8, in fact the question i got more than any was "But YOU will be able to get me Win 7 if I need it, right?". I must have had hundreds, both young and old, play with Win 8 in my shop and not one, not a single one, said "I would like to have this". That to me says all that needs to be said, and it is why I converted my entire family to Win 7.
Well I was going by the pics but for the sake of argument say it IS a quarter inch. My AMD netbook is 12 inches and weighs just 2.8 Lb AND has an Ethernet jack so I'd have to ask Apple "Why can't YOU do that?" because if they can do it with an AMD CPU they sure as hell can do it with an Intel one since they are much less hot.
Hell an Ethernet port isn't exactly this big bulky thing you know so I don't see any way this makes since EXCEPT...if all they care about is pushing thunderbolt. But as we have already seen the rest of the industry doesn't seem to give a crap about TB, they are going USB 3. this makes sense as it allows one port to both handle all the legacy USB 1 and 2 devices out there WHILE also handling the faster throughput of USB 3. Add in the fact that most of the USB models also let you charge all those USB devices like cell phones and its pretty obvious, at least to me, that TB is probably gonna end up another proprietary dead end like Firewire.
So to me this thing doesn't look to be making things lighter for the females, it seems to be all about pushing their own "standard" witrh Intel that nobody else seems to be getting on board with, ala FW. after all look at the Intel ultrabooks, THEY are light and THEY have Ethernet. And as I posted earlier i have to wonder if this isn't part of a larger push by Cook to run off the Pro market. You look at the sales numbers of the Pro lines compared to the rest of the line and they really are tiny, and frankly the pros need faster refreshes and more work than the other lines. hell look at how apple has no problem selling their current line that is using positively ancient Core2 chips to consumers.
Unless their goal is only to push TB as the next FW it just doesn't make any sense, at least to me. the savings in space is really minuscule compared to the performance hit or the PITA of having to carry around adapters just to use Ethernet which really has nothing else that compares. hell at this point if you simply want OSX frankly I'd say get one of the Ultrabooks and follow the simple instructions to make a Hackentosh, you'll get a unit that is just as lightweight and probably save hundreds compared to this thing. its just a bad idea friend, no really way of changing that. If Apple thinks they are gonna get the entire industry to pick TB over USB 3? I'm sorry, not gonna happen. It'll be FW all over again, with very few things that support it and all WAY overpriced.
Oh don't worry...in a couple of months a pirate version with any DLC released will be put out and yet again, as we have seen over and over AND OVER....the pirate version will be better.
And this is why I don't mess with games that don't use anything more than Steam DRM. the Steam DRM is like the old CD checks, its just enough that Billy Bob can't just slap his games on a disc and pass them around but go to any crack site and they have dozens of cracks for the various Steam games.
But as long as you'll get people who'll camp out all night just to get screwed by an always on Internet DRM crapfest then thing will never change. i do have to give them credit, using a game like Diablo to push this shit is like using Madden, there is just no way it'll flop. Hell they could cover game boxes with broken glass and give everyone who purchased a punch in the crotch and they'd STILL sell millions.
Sorry friend but you are forgetting something...dorm rooms. talking to my oldest he said the dorm rooms are FILLED with those "baby TVs" because they are small enough they can plug in some headphones and not disturb their roomie.
so i wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the college and youth market. Most of my oldest boy's college buddies are all watching on those dorm TVs and were more than a little jealous that he and his brother have 22 inch 1600x900 monitors they use for TVs, but in those little campus dorms space is a premium and the smaller sets are an easier 'fit". although some are taking my advice and buying USB dongles for HDTV so they can just use their laptops instead.
I just don't get those that are actually cheering a downgrade....for a 16th of an inch? Are people that use macbooks really so damned puny that a fricking 16th of an inch matters? it is THAT part I don't get.
When Jobs tossed the floppy they were error prone and there was a vastly superior replacement in flash sticks but that is simply not the case here. here you will have to shell out MORE cash for a MUCH bulkier docking station that you will have to either leave at your desk (which means you are screwed if you are out and need it) or have to drag it along (thus taking up a LOT of space in your bag) for...a 16th of an inch.
To me it smells like a way to sell more accessories and to plug Thunderbolt than to actually do something useful for the customer.
The simple fact is in BOTH parties the fiscals and moderates were chased out by the radicals. People keep on about the tea party but frankly the fiscal conservative were drummed out of the Reps under Reagan and the "moral majority" types while on the left the fiscals were run out during the 90s for the Pelosi type "throw more money at a failing program and it'll work!" liberals.
That is why more than ever we need a real third party because most Americans now simply have no choice. both the Ds and Rs have gotten so bedded down with the big money that frankly its just two sides to the same coin. This is why the tea party is so pissed because they see all they get is lip service but all their rage changes nothing, because the same checks get written either way. Both tea party and occupy are born of the same frustration, the same realization that so many of us have accepted which is that the system as it is is simply broken.
Uhhh...dude? you might want to Google "Solyndra tip of iceberg" to see that while Bush paid lip service (and gave VERY little money) to "green" projects Obama used the green projects to do his his own little payback parade. We are talking billions of dollars to several different groups with only ONE thing in common....they all gave large sums of money to Obama during his campaign in 2008.
So I'm sorry but replacing a shitty president with an R after his name with a shitty president with a D after his name still leaves you with the shitty president part. hell Bush and Obama have been pretty damned interchangeable when it comes to shittiness, the only difference is...well not much.
And how much is a Macbook Air? $2000? the iPad is $600 last i checked for the top one. Now compare this to the X86 market for Windows where the average selling price is $400 or less. Hell Tiger has been selling Fusion laptops for $350 and the local Walmart has a big seller in a $250 Atom dual core netbook.
MSFT can't just magically turn Windows into an upscale brand because the market simply isn't there and won't tolerate it. To use a /. car analogy it would be like Ford slapping a $100,000 sticker on the Mustang and expecting it to cut into the Ferrari sales, it just ain't gonna happen. As we saw with netbooks if MSFT gives the OEMs too much shit they WILL go with their own Linux version and as i pointed out the margins are simply too tight to support capacitive touchscreens at the current price point and it would be suicide to try raising the prices in a dead economy. All it would take is Walmart and Tiger selling a cheaper version to reap the rewards and leave everyone else with models they'd have to take a loss on just to get rid of.
In the end MSFT seems to be sticking their fingers in their ears and going "La la la...touchscreen!" while ignoring the fact that the REASON why laptops are so cheap is because the screens are being massed produced for HDTVs and this gives even the smaller OEMs huge economies of scale. this is why you don't see hardly any 4x3 laptops anymore, because the HDTVs are being made for TV and movies which is in widescreen format. But NOBODY is gonna start cranking out HDTVs cheap with capacitive touch because it would be idiotic. Why would you want to poke your TV when you have a remote right there? it is THIS market reality MSFT seems to be willfully blind to and I predict it WILL bite them in the ass. Because in the end if the consumer is offered a unit for $350 without touch and the same unit is $600+ with touch...which do YOU think the majority will pick?
Normally I'd disagree but...my XP Home nettop i have in the shop has been running for EIGHT YEARS now...you know how damned many programs I'd have to reinstall? Its data is saved on a separate drive and the OS is imaged weekly so when 2014 rolls around if the old gal is still running I can't honestly say I'd go through the major headache of reloading THAT damned many programs.
So I wouldn't be surprised if you are 100% correct, after all I had a customer that only retired his Win2k box about a year ago and only then because i gave him a good deal on a dual core. If it ain't broke? I know i still have no problem selling XP desktops and the shop down the road installs XP on the majority of hardware that comes through.
The only real problem I can see for a firewalled XP box would be if browsers all dropped support but I have no doubt that FOSS will come to the rescue, same as how Kmeleon has instructions on how to install to Win98. But as long as it does its job, which is download drivers and research problems I can't see myself giving up the little nettop, its just too handy.
Uhhh...I hate to break the news to ya friend but when Apple turned FCP into iMovie pro it was pretty obvious, at least to me, they are trying to ditch their "pro" users.
If you think about it it makes sense....where does Apple get the highest margins? Where do they get the most profits? That would be consumer devices like the iPad and iPhone. With those devices they own everything from the chip up so when and how updates to the line are carried out is controlled by Apple. that is not the case in X86 because if Apple left Intel for AMD tomorrow it wouldn't even rate a blip on Intel's radar as they are simply too massive. Look at Intel slitting Nvidia's throat in the chipset market which hurt Apple because they used more powerful Nvidia chipsets with Intel CPUs. Can't do that now and Intel frankly didn't care whether that move affected Apple or not because again Apple is small potatoes in X86.
So I wouldn't be surprised if Apple releases one or two more X86 models before Cook holds a press conference and declares the iPad the "new mac" and that will be the end of that. They may keep the bottom of the line Macbook and iMac because they can keep the upgrade schedule positively anemic and not really hurt sales in that sector. Home users frankly aren't even using half the power of current multicores so whether a chip is 2 years old or not won't really matter to that market.
But that isn't the pro market, just the opposite. the pros NEED the fastest chips because they are creating and editing HD content and that kind of work stresses the hell out of a system. That is why i think they are dropping features and programs that pros use as it costs too much time and effort for too small a niche.
Anyway if the rumors are true and they toss Ethernet we will know that is the direction they are going as USB and WiFi is just too damned slow for high def content creation.
Isn't it sad? Ethernet isn't like floppies, which were slow, error prone, and already on the way out when Apple pulled the plug. Gigabit Ethernet is currently faster than any wireless than I know of yet if Apple says "You don't need that" we get dozens of posts saying "They must be right! Apple is genius!".
So I gotta give Jobs credit, he built an RDF so damned powerful it even survived his death. that is pretty damned impressive. And to all the Appleites out there...why would you give up Gigabit Ethernet for less than a 16th of an inch? Look at the pictures, that's it. A 16th of an inch savings costs you a useful feature. Why would you say such a tiny savings would be worth losing Gigabit?
Uhhh...Dell tried that recently with a convertible tablet, remember? The problem is a 17 inch touchscreen runs $300+ at retail and a 24 inch non touch runs $150. Now which do YOU think the customers will choose? The simple fact is capacitive touchscreen tech is NOT cheap ATM and there is no way in hell the OEMs are gonna eat that cost and as we all know resistive screens suck.
The mistake, which i believe will be a fatal one for Win 8, is that the vast majority of panels being sold on desktops and laptops were built originally for HDTVs and people aren't gonna want to get their greasy fingers all over their HDTV when they have a remote. this is why you have seen the resolution for laptops fall, as all these small panels are built for everything from dorm HDTVs to headrests for SUVs so it saves the OEMs money to simply use the economies of scale. That isn't gonna change simply because MSFT releases an OS, nor will it get people to shell out larger sums of money, not when the competition will sell them a non touch screen laptop at hundreds cheaper.
As you have pointed out we have had convertibles so long its "a blast from the past" yet they have NEVER caught on, even though both Vista and 7 had frankly damned good touch support...why? because given the choice of two laptops, one with a touch screen at $200 ore more higher than the one next to it without most will choose without. Ask Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, etc what their best selling units are and i bet my last dollar they are the $400 and under units. Makes sense because for most users even an Atom or E350 will do the vast majority of tasks they have such as FB and webmail.
If the rumors are correct Win 8 is as high as Win 7 to OEMs so we are talking $35 for Starter and $50 for Home so where are they gonna get the money to still hit the price points they need? Dell makes on average $8 a sale for the low end so there isn't any fat to be trimmed friend and MSFT can't just "demand" they all switch to touch because as they saw with netbooks if they act like dicks the OEMs WILL go to Linux.
So I'm sorry friend but I just don't see it happening. MSFT has been pushing touch support for years and their numbers don't register. I personally believe this is Ballmer's "Hail Mary" trying to literally force his way into the ARM market because every previous attempt has been a flaming failure. But trying to get there by forcing the users of every non touch device to have a worse experience simply isn't the way to go and frankly i wouldn't be surprised if this fails if it ends up Ballmer's swan song at MSFT. Because honestly i just don't see the board putting up with another billion dollar failure with his track record.
Not to mention TFA left out the little fact that the man has cancer which would be a pretty damned good "personal reason' to step down. After all if his doc is recommending an aggressive treatment plan he is simply gonna be too sick to do his day to day work.
Another one is #9, split screen apps....uhhh...did nobody tell them you can just "smack" a program to one side or the other in Win 7 and it automatically takes up half the screen? Funny enough the one major program i found that doesn't work like that in windows is WMP 12, but since it has both basic controls in the jumplist when minimized and a desktop gadget you can use i didn't figure it was important. The rest seems to be either 1.-Stuff you could get from third parties (such as free AV) or 2.-Appstore centric crap (which I haven't met anybody jazzed about appstores except on mobile phones) so...meh.
when are they gonna give us the stuff they promised a decade ago, namely WinFS? I want to be able to type "yellow shirt" and have the OS show me every picture or video i have that has a yellow shirt in it. Now THAT would be worth upgrading for! But at least win 8 is good for something, namely funny parody videos!
I have to agree, after running both the dev and consumer previews, as well as setting up a machine with consumer preview in the shop to let common folks try it there is one thing we could all agree on and that is "Metro UI sucks on desktops".
Maybe it'll be nice for tablets and smart phones, who knows, but considering that MSFT owns less than 5% of the smartphone and tablet market and 90% of the desktop taking a big old dump on the desktop for a shot at smartphones is a DUMB fucking idea. I ran it for nearly a month on my home desktop before I wiped it, Metro UI just seemed to be fighting me every step of the way. And I agree with you on the suckage of resources as well, all the updates of those stupid always on metro "apps" slammed my network constantly and the thing was blowing through more than 2.2Gb of memory. Compare this to win 7 with all the bling, aero, AND more than a half a dozen tray apps and it would top out at a little over 1.3Gb.
So please, everyone who doesn't believe, try it for yourself here and you'll see what all the hate is about. Some have pointed out I hated the QL on win 7 but TBH after seeing what a slow uptake there was on Vista i didn't think companies would jump to support the new QL like they did. Without practically every application supporting jumplists the Win 7 tasklist would have been IMHO a serious step back over the XP QL but I'll be the first to admit now that its widely supported the Win 7 way is nice.
There is just NO way that I can see that one can take a cell phone touch based UI like win 8 and make it a nice experience for your average laptop or desktop user, the differences between designs is just too steep. Watch the MSFT videos talking about win 8 for yourself and count how many times they say "touchscreen". last one i saw i quit counting at 30. Now does ANYBODY think with the x86 PC business being so damned cutthroat they are just gonna eat the $100+ cost per unit to include touchscreens?
I'm sorry but win 8 is a BAD design and I'm just glad I've gotten the majority of my customers as well as my family onto Win 7 so we can all just skip win 8 completely. Touch UI is fine and dandy for a tablet, much better than the pen approach, but I have NO desire to poke my netbook or desktop all damned day. As for TFA frankly I don't see much there that can't be had for free with third party products such as process explorer for Task manager. BTW check out #4, even for the "old kit" they used for Win 8 was a touchscreen laptop! Seriously how many current laptops and desktops are touchscreen? 2%? 3%? Kinda sad when even the ones plugging the OS aren't putting it on non touch devices...hmmm...wonder why?
Normally i don't respond after the first day but since you seem to be confused and have missed the previous post I will explain. if you have ever played DM in a game that allows chat you quickly find that there are trolls that love to spam the words nigger and faggot to the point of absurdity. It doesn't matter what is going on in game, or what is done or isn't, because no matter what you WILL hear constant strings of profanity with either of those two words or both in the sentence.
Since you missed the earlier post I was using this behavior as a metaphor with what we are currently seeing on Slashdot, where it doesn't matter what the topic is, whether the person is upmodded or down, because within the first 5 post you WILL get the /. equivalent of those DM players with their "nigger faggot" garbage only in the case of /. it is the "shill astroturfer' posts which just break the flow and will derail the conversation just as having some 14 year old screaming "you damned nigger faggot!" can break the gameflow and ruin what was otherwise an enjoyable afternoon of game play.
So i hope that clears things up, its not a slur against any race or sexual preference but just an easy to understand (at least for those of us who DM) metaphor for derailing something with pointless insults. Lets face it, considering how damned obvious corporate paid shills and astroturfers are, with their using key talking points like "synergy' or "vertical integration" or other marketing drone buzzwords there really is NO point in the constant screaming of those words yet in article after article that is EXACTLY what one gets here now. Frankly its no wonder readership is going down because again to use a game analogy its like those MP games that do nothing to discourage wall hacks or aimbots, the BS quickly reaches a point most would rather be elsewhere than deal with the shit.
Sadly as someone who lives within 6 blocks of a major conservative college that gets a lot of insiders and being invited to their lectures I can tell you why we will end up in proxy wars...Jesus won't come back. I swear that talking to them ALL of our ME policies can be boiled down to that simple sentence and the fact that those in command of such insane power base decisions that can affect the lives of millions on a couple of lines in a 2000 year old book frankly scares the piss out of me. Personally I agree we should "Be Switzerland" which was said by of all people Glenn Beck but I have to agree, the vast majority of battles we have fought in the last 50 years we should have stayed the fuck out of.
And while I agree the F18 isn't the greatest fighter a LOT of the problem can be boiled down to the fucked up way we divide our military, with each little group carving out their own niches. Look at the Marines still running the Cobra (which was a badass weapon system but they are seriously old and gonna cost more and more just to keep in the air) and the Harrier. Its stupid, they should be given the Apache and a plane similar to the Hog to give them the ability to back up the guys on the ground. hell given the kind of missions they are given a more modern version of the Vietnam era Sandy Skyraiders would probably be a better fit long term than trying to keep VTOL capability which is expensive and a PITA.
And while I agree it should never be one's only quality there is something to be said about reliable and easy to maintain machinery. lets face it, battlefields simply aren't clean and aren't nice to machinery yet too many of our current designs are simply too "fussy' for want of a better term. take the Catalina for example, it was easy to work on in even the worst conditions in the Pacific, with nice little touches like a scaffold that allowed easy access to the engines, it was rugged, and it could do multiple jobs. everything we have now seems specialized to the point of absurdity.
As a final not i agree 100% that now that the wall has fallen we should be getting the stories of those on the other side. Why must we always hear about MiG Alley or the 6 day war from only the western side? i only hope someone is recording their stories for the future because as these events become nothing but footnotes in history the stories die with the men. Just because a side ultimately lost a conflict doesn't make their stories any less compelling, at least to me.
Actually playsforsure (or PFS) worked quite well and was VERY popular, especially with the "all you can eat" style music sites where you would often get 10 to 15 downloads plus access to the entire catalog for $10 a month. simply plug in your device once a month and load up, hell most even had lists based on genre so that you could catch up on the latest tunes of your favorite style or hear artists you may not have heard in your area.
The problem with PFS is that Steve Ballmer is a MASSIVE dipshit and makes the Pepsi guy at Apple look like Steve Jobs so he said "Herp Derp, apple has a player and controls their market so WE must have a player and control OUR market! Ask Toshiba how much they want for the gigabeat, and can they make it shit brown?" and thus the Zune was born and completely killed all the work that had gone into PFS and the large communities that had sprung up around it, thus proving it is ALWAYS possible to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
So personally I'm all for totally retarded dumbshit moves like this, because when Win 8 becomes such a billion dollar failwhale it gets added to that list with the CueCat and Realplayer as a "WTF were they smoking?" even being gates little buddy hopefully won't save him and they'll punt his stupid ass like a 30 yard field return. Remember this is the dumbass that gave us Zune, Kin, X360 rushed out with a fatal hardware flaw, GFLW, WinCE, paying an insane amount of Yahoo Search, paying ANOTHER insane amount to Nokia only to hang them out to dry with WinPhone 7 not having an upgrade path to Win 8, hell the man's resume is one failure after another.
if anyone needed proof that a piss poor CEO could run even the largest corp right off the cliff look no further, here is Steve Ballmer. stupid shit like TFA has been part and parcel of Ballmer's reign at MSFT and I have NO doubt that history will look at him as one of the worst CEOs, right up there with Mcbride and the retard at HP that spent all that money for WebOS.
Because given an easy excuse there are many cops that will fuck with people just to show that they are in control? try driving in a car as a white man with a black man in the vehicle in certain states and you'll quickly find out how many excuses they can come up with to fuck with you, I still have a scar on the back of my head from driving a black minister to a tent revival thanks.
Or you can just watch this video and learn what many of us already know, which is for every one decent cop you got a dozen "bullies with badges" that are frankly no better than a Crip or a Blood.
Don't know if it is the same in 2K10 but in 2k7 it is pretty easy to make your own menu with the quick access toolbar and the track changes icon, while also supposedly being a document with a pen, actually looks like a check thanks to it being a smaller icon. personally i prefer having my own custom quick access as it is 1.-At the top of the screen thus Fitt's Law comes in to play, 2.-because it is static and in the order i chose quicker for me to hit the one i need and 3.-Gives me more real estate for the actual document.
I hear you though, most of this new crap is just change for the sake of change instead of looking at how the user actually works and conforming to them. that's why after using Win 8 CP for nearly a month I'm sticking with Win 7 as I found the new UI to get in my damned way more often than it helped.
its like this article, the icons in question are simple, consistent across applications, easy to read on pretty much any screen so...lets get rid of them! /Facepalm/..Who gives a rat's ass about whether or not the symbolism behind an icon works, as long as the icon itself serves its function? I'm shocked the guy didn't bitch about the power button while he was at it, after all how many read engineering specs? Doesn't change the fact that the icon itself is easy to read across multiple designs and is simple to implement...nahh we should replace it with Trollface! Is it just me or are the young ones getting dumber as we go along?
Uhhh...you DO know that RMS has his own site, right? And that he gives out his views pretty much constantly? One doesn't have to "read Richard's brain" because the man hasn't be silent on the subject. If you want to know his thoughts Google "RMS On Android" and you'll find about 40 articles where he lays it out and its the same as red hat, RMS treats his friends as enemies.
And your second point is a perfect example of what is wrong with ALL religions, and that is religious zealotry. Taken to its logical conclusion according to you if NOBODY used FOSS as long as it was 'pure" that would be just fine. that is the same attitude held by cults all over the world and frankly? More than a little scary.
In the end I would argue it is THAT attitude as well as the increased militancy of RMS that is turning more and more away from the GPL because frankly the entire community is becoming toxic with this kind of religious extremism. you read the blogs by Torvalds and Perens and most of these guys that have been FOSS since the early days and you know what? NOT extremists, they just wanted to make nice software that others could use and could contribute to. if anything as RMS becomes more polarizing and extreme in his views he seems to be holding back the movement more than helping it, again see his attacks on RH or Android or his targeting a single company with an entire section of GPL V3.
You simply can't have one person with extremist views touting there is only "one true way' without having exactly what we are seeing now, which is a large divide splitting the community. Personally i predict more and more will end up going to non GPL licenses simply because this will allow them to offer their programs in the appstores which have made it pretty clear GPL V3 is verbotten. if RMS wanted to make sure that only "true believers' used GPL it looks like he may get his wish, only it isn't gonna switch masses over to his way of thinking but drive them away instead.