Uhhh...FUD much? Why didn't you just scream "DRM kills kittehs!" and "information wants to be free, like a bird!" while you're at it? Netflix movies are rentals and they have to have at least some token something or there would be instant copy software released an then bye bye Netflix. You also have NO choice on broadcast, and it comes with commercials, a whole shitload of them, and it is also cut. You don't get those things with Netflix.
BTW, the reason Netflix don't (and never will) work on Linux? it requires a proprietary kernel driver and no way Linus will allow that. It works in OSX, iOS, and Windows because they have support for Janus DRM (the same one that has been around for years with no major hacks) which hooks into the kernel thus making it damned near impossible to hack without turning the data to garbage.
I've set up several Netflix accounts for clients on their new HTPCs and the service is just wonderful IMHO. When paired with Windows 7 WMC and all the free Internet channels it makes a "one stop shop" for just about anything you want to see. Of course you are free to choose not to buy it or watch movies, that's YOUR choice but I WANT to watch movies then I should be able to choose whether or not to take DRM, yes? Hell I find Netflix less irritating than the new DVDs where you can't pass the BS in front.
As for TFA, I guess I should have made it more clear what I was going for. With Mono on Android you can now run C# on Android, iPhone (MonoTouch), WinPhone (.NET) and on the desktop you can work in Windows (.NET) or OSX or Linux (Mono) so with C# you can pretty much cover ALL the bases. Does this have a chance of taking the "write once, run everywhere" idea of Java and making it work? Or will the bad blood between F/OSS advocates (who still scream "its a trap!" even though its been eleven years now and the patents still haven't shown up) keep it from being used?
Who knows? I've seen people that love and those that hate C#, and a whole bunch of the "its a trap!" FUD as well. I figured with so many coders and mobile developers here at/. they might like to know there is another tool in the toolbox so to speak. Whether you choose to use it or not is up to you.
That nobody reads your crazy rants, yes? I mean posting as AC, linking to your own AC posts, it is just a big giant waste of fail. hell even I don't read your horseshit Petey, I just like laughing at you and bitchslapping you around. Just watching you follow me around like my personal bitch, crying and moaning about getting beat down like a whore who didn't have the money, I find that...scrumptious.So keep kissing my ass Petey, and dance monkey boy! Enjoy some of your failures "greatest hits"...
I have also shown repeatedly that at the absolute reported minimum number of new pieces of malweare and infections, which you are free to pick whichever reputable website you like Securina, MSFT's malware reports, AVG, which ever, that at an absolute minimum we are talking about 1.2 million sites PER DAY with that number changing by 15,000+ PER HOUR which means even if you typed at 1 IP address PER SECOND, and never slept, and had a perfect list (which doesn't exist) you would be 14 days behind by the very first day with that number growing linearly every single day, making Petey farther and farther behind.
But if you weren't completely batshit insane Petey I wouldn't have to explain this, because this is why everyone makes fun of you. It is so obvious it is like someone arguing gravity is actually invisible pants gnomes trying to steal your underwear. It is the classic "default allow" which has NEVER EVER worked. Because if a piece of malware isn't in magical HOPES file Petey you are royally fucked, and yet again I have shown that it is simply a roll of the dice whether you get creamed or not, simply because you will always be behind.
So it is all on you Petey and your magical HOPES woobie now. You made the extravagant claims, back them up with the math. If you can't? Well then you are full of shit, case closed. Notice how ALL YOU CAN DO PETEY is throw insults and trollbomb? Why is that? I'll tell you why, because math doesn't lie and you just can't show the math You just can't, it would be like trying to mathematically prove you are not an idiot. It just can't be done.
But that doesn't really matter as long as FF shows you that policeman with the giant GET ME OUT OF HERE! button like you just walked into a goat porn site, does it? When I went to their website and saw the FF policeman I just walked away because I knew that is EXACTLY what my customers would do.
And THAT is the real power of CAs and why them just throwing certs to anybody for anything is dangerous. The average Joe isn't gonna check details, he is just looking for the little policeman. If he sees the policeman he is outta there. I'd love for someone to use something like CaCERT and then check the pass through, I bet a good 80% of the average Joe users split when they spot the cop.
So you've taken that which was free for all and made it by the corporation for the corporation? Hell then why bother with GPL, if you are only gonna support the corps you might as well stick with proprietary and get paid for your work.
Do you even know why the GPL was written? RMS had a printer which would hang, on the previous model he wrote a driver which would shoot a heads up to the nearest workstation that the printer hung, so someone could unstick it before the jobs lined up. The new model wouldn't run on the old driver and they wouldn't let him have the code for the new and that is why he wrote the GPL which by your very own definition would be pointless now because having the driver code would be worthless unless RMS has a fab lying around.
So to me yours is a perfect example of why everyone should be pushing for GPL V3, because GPL V2 has been so subverted from its original purpose to be worthless. You have to have ALL the four freedoms for the GPL to work, remove one? And the other three are pointless. And that is what we have with GPL V2, in that you can look all day, even touch, but run? Nope sorry, not your device, it belongs to the corp you're just renting it.
And please ignore APK, aka trollie. He got butthurt several months ago when I pointed out 16Mb HOSTS files wouldn't magically protect you from a dynamic target like malware and he has been following me ever since. Mind the drool, he isn't very clean.
It is when it completely breaks immersion and ruins the game for the player. I mean when you have a fricking grunt walking towards you and you empty a Tommy gun into his face and he doesn't even act like he has a flesh wound? Hell even the fricking Terminator would at least get knocked onto his ass from the impact!
And the reason why I label this rubber banding is because that is what it reminds me of, them strapping layers of armor and infinite health onto a guy with rubber bands and going "tada!", and yes I know about EA racing rubber bands, and they suck just as bad as FPS rubber banding and also breaks immersion. How many times have you seen a NASCAR driver be 27th with three laps to go and win the thing? Try NEVER.
If they wanted to make the games harder and are too cheap to pay for decent AI (seriously, if you can't write it yourself there are others that have written good AI. Buy it from them) then add more enemies or make ammo more scarce but having every grunt be able to see you through ANY cover and take more hits than a T-800 just ruins the game, and playing on normal equals having bad guys line up to die.
And while I'm on a rant...balance...could SOMEBODY PLEASE try the fricking weapons before handing them to us to make sure they don't COMPLETELY break the game, please? A great example: Bioshock II, where once you boosted the rage plasmid to where you could befriend Big Daddies it was ALL over. Protecting the Little Sister went from a fight to watching Big Daddy do all the work while I sat in the corner. Hell my oldest beat the game without ever using a single plasmid but electricity, because once that was beefed up a single shot could paralyze the entire room!
Look, I'm not asking for every game to be HL2 here, just don't destroy the mood by making the shit so unreal it breaks immersion, okay? Suspension of disbelief will only stretch so far before snapping and grunts that take more hits than a tank without even slowing down, while pulling perfect shots from a half mile away with iron sights? Yeah that throws my bullshit o' meter straight into the red.
Oh please don't forget the rubber band AI, mustn't forget that. I actually had hope when I played the first Far Cry that finally, Jesus tap dancing Christ, FINALLY we'd have some AI that would put up a good fight. But I have noticed that multiplayer seems to give the developer a free pass to use rubber band AI which frankly breaks a game bad.
And what I mean by rubber band AI, which I'm sure every FPS player has run into, is where on normal level you have grunts that will line up to die and not seem to even notice the huge body pile in front of them. So does ramping up the difficulty make them behave ANY smarter? Nope instead what you get is grunts that can take a half a dozen 20mm to the face while hitting you from half a map away with a crappy bolt action while you're behind cover.
And I have to agree with what the other poster said, good luck finding anybody to play with even 6 months later if they let you play at all, because some like EA simply shut down the servers on all games more than a year old so tough shit.
So there are plenty of us that like single player games developers, hell I bought Bioshock II knowing it would suck just to see where they went with the story! Not all of us are Halo fratboys, and those that are frankly aren't playing YOUR game, they're playing Halo or the latest CoD. So don't abandon us developers, because while I appreciate how many games I have yet to play that doesn't mean I only want to play old games. But personally I have had enough trolls and campers for one lifetime, keep your MP mode, thanks anyway.
Your second paragraph kinda shows my point perfectly...what good is the code if you can't run it on anything but some PC emulator?
If the pundits are correct and cell phones are the new PCs then with GPL V2 we'll ALL lose because the code will be just as worthless to you as if someone gave you the code to iOS. Without access to their bootloader and/or an uncrippled phone (which they will be liable to label a 'developer's phone" and charge out the ass) then your four freedoms are just smoke and mirrors.
And how EXACTLY are you just gonna run custom ARM code on your MythTV box anyway? from the looks of things the future won't even be as free as Windows (where you can at least choose to run FOSS or anything else without permission) but instead "app stores" where ONLY code approved by the owners (which is NOT you, you are just a consumer in their eyes) will be allowed to run and without the four freedoms GPL might as well be PD. BTW have you seen the new preview for Windows 8? App Store.
So I'd say with a giant YES it is a VERY big deal. There is a reason why GPL came out with V3, and it is because corps wipe their ass with the "spirit" of the GPL and only care about what they can legally get away with. TiVo showed them as long as you stick to GPL V2, then you can give them...hell anything you want, it is not like they can actually run it to see if it works or not. Is that REALLY the future you want?
Because without NN they are using the caps to force you to their offerings by "punishing" those who don't take their crap! Do you REALLY think they'd have caps so low if Netflix and anybody else was allowed a fair deal? nope the caps make sure you stay in the garden like an electric fence does to cattle buddy!
The WHOLE DAMNED POINT is that the Internet has had an explosive growth of innovation, which these ISP want TO KILL DEAD because that innovation doesn't line their pockets. Without NN the easiest way to keep you in the garden is simply to cut you off at the knees if you ever leave! Do you think I'd touch Vonage or Netflix now? Nope, any VoIP or PPV will be strictly Cox ONLY, and THAT is the point!
I'd say the next big battle on the Linux front will be the freeists VS the corporatists, in that thanks to TiVo showing corps how to have their cake and eat it too (in that they can have all the hard work of FOSS developers and then just lock it down with eFuses or code signing) the GPL V2 is officially worthless, yet Linus and others insist on keeping it out of a rivalry with RMS.
So I'd say the gains that Linux has "won" in the mobile market will quickly disappear thanks to TiVo tricking (notice how Google is VERY careful not to allow any GPL V3 code near Android?) so those devices will be out, since they will be as locked down as iOS and WinPhone, server side will gain simply because the MSFT licensing schema is a giant clusterfuck, and the desktops will stay Windows as that is what everybody and their dog uses and the programs are there.
So the big question is will Linus and the corporatists win and make GPL just BSD with a few extra code rights but NO right to modify or run the code on the device, or will RMS win and make Linux free to run and modify but at the same time run off any corporate sponsors, who won't have what they can't control?
Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation, but the choice does have to be made. Now that TiVo has shown the way the GPL V2 is pretty much worthless, and any that are pushing for projects to stay GPL V2 (like Google) should be looked upon as suspect.
Because that is exactly what you have without net neutrality. look upon my present and see your future! i'm on Cox (perfect name since they're dicks) and the caps are 36Gb residential, 76Gb commercial and the commercial line is nearly $200 a month, any going over? That's $1.50 per Gb please. Oh and Vonage, Linux and Mac updates? They all count against your cap. The "offerings" by Cox and Windows? they DO NOT.
So I hope you like walled gardens ala the old AOHell, because at $1.50 a Gb it doesn't take too many $200+ bills to put your ass in your place. And before anyone uses the old "vote with your dollars!" meme I'd point out my choices are Cox, AT&T DSL that MAXES at 756Kbps and which they've said they have NO intention of ever upgrading, or a WISP whose security is so damned bad you can surf the shares of everyone on a node through network neighborhood (and the head tech is so dim I never could get him to understand why that's bad, he still swears its a "feature") and who has a worse TOS than HughesNet.
So all you Time Warner and Comcast users, better be filling your boots, your time is running out. Once Cox rolls this out nationwide and the others see they get away with it? that's your ass Mr User, you are well and truly fucked. While the rest of the world surfs the information superhighway we are gonna be on the short bus to walled garden shittown. But hell the corps won't be happy until the USA is a third world country, so why not just pull the plug? More profits in walled gardens anyway!
No I'm saying it wouldn't have mattered if Osama would have been in Italy we were gonna hit Afghanistan and Iraq, period. You might want to look up "Aaron Russo on 9/11" where the guy calls BOTH wars nearly 3 years before they happen, hell he died before Iraq got underway, and he wasn't psychic he was told by the bankers which countries would be targeted because it was part of their new layout to include the oil and natural gas pipelines which...gasp! need Iraq and Afghanistan and neither Saddam nor the Taliban wanted to play ball. Shame on them!
Those that now rule at the very top, known as the 1%, already have more money than God, so where can their greed go? The answer is simple my friend, power and the consolidation thereof. It is no accident why their profits are all private and their failures are all paid by the public, it is no accident why when the need a pipeline or shipping route it suddenly becomes a "strategic interest" it is because they have been consolidating power for years and they have NO problem with wielding it. Hell if they point their speculation computers at the oil markets your gas would be $10 tomorrow, so play nice!
So don't buy the bullshit, the neocons hand in hand with the bankers have been planning their Mideast strategy since the 80s. look up Wolfowitz (sorry if I spelled his name wrong) who was Bush's foreign adviser and see what he was saying way back in the 80s with regards to the Mideast. Hell the man even outlined using false flag tactics like "Running a couple of planes into buildings" to get the public behind the administration! If you think causing the deaths of a few thousand Americans for the "greater good" would cause them to lose a moment's sleep I have a bridge to sell you.
Knowing that everyone is seeing what a complete failure you are, hell they don't even respond to your crazy rants anymore, does it make you cry? Does it hurt, alone in the dark, to know what a miserable failure you are? How you have to keep MEK_Lovebug and Kingsjowkers as you sockpuppet pals, and even then the only time anyone responds is to make fun of you? Does it make you feel lonely, there in the dark? I find that....delightful. So enjoy some nice laughs at your complete failures, enjoy!
I have also shown repeatedly that at the absolute reported minimum number of new pieces of malweare and infections, which you are free to pick whichever reputable website you like Securina, MSFT's malware reports, AVG, which ever, that at an absolute minimum we are talking about 1.2 million sites PER DAY with that number changing by 15,000+ PER HOUR which means even if you typed at 1 IP address PER SECOND, and never slept, and had a perfect list (which doesn't exist) you would be 14 days behind by the very first day with that number growing linearly every single day, making Petey farther and farther behind.
But if you weren't completely batshit insane Petey I wouldn't have to explain this, because this is why everyone makes fun of you. It is so obvious it is like someone arguing gravity is actually invisible pants gnomes trying to steal your underwear. It is the classic "default allow" which has NEVER EVER worked. Because if a piece of malware isn't in magical HOPES file Petey you are royally fucked, and yet again I have shown that it is simply a roll of the dice whether you get creamed or not, simply because you will always be behind
I would be happy to give you the figures, feel free to check. Comodo AV = 98% hit rate and ZERO infections, Malwarebytes? 97% and ZERO infections. Type both into Youtube and feel free to watch Petey. I have also shown repeatedly, again feel free to choose ANY figures from ANY reputable site you like, you are talking on average 180,000 PER DAY of infected websites PLUS 1.8 million current PLUS 15,000 pieces of malware PLUS anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 websites revolving from the list. You see the difference between actual solutions and Petey's magical woobie is a little thing known as heuristics, along with a nice word known as sandboxing, neither of which his magical.txt file can do.
So it is all on Petey and his magical HOPES woobie now. He made the extravagant claims, back them up with the math. If he can't? Well then he is full of shit, case closed. Notice how ALL PETEY CAN DO is throw insults and trollbomb? Why is that? I'll tell you why, because math doesn't lie and he just can't show the math He just can't, it would be like trying to mathematically prove PETEY is not an idiot. It just can't be done.
I don't mess with CS but if its anything like that God damned bastard child from hell QuickBooks there is no way in hell to keep the old version because they tied a bunch of old shit that will NOT run in a newer OS to it!
I had to set up a ton of dual boots and XP modes around here because QB is God in these parts, and I quickly learned to hate that POS! It ties itself to flash player 7 that's right, flash 7, which is no longer supported and won't run on anything higher than XP. It doesn't matter if you have a newer version either, nope it has to be flash 7.
So frankly it really wouldn't surprise me if Adobe did something similar. I know I had to build an NOS (new, old stock) PC for a graphics client and set him up a KVM and networks shares, all so he could keep Macromedia Xres going, so it wouldn't surprise me if Adobe (who bought Macromedia) is likely to be just as big a PITA.
So let me get this straight, you are bitching because MSFT doesn't support a long EOLed configuration that is trivial to fix? You DO know that Sp2 has been EOL for a couple of years now, yes? It is a dead duck, same as Win2K. Might I suggest next time you either simply update your disc (which is not only trivial to do with free tools such as XP ISO Builder or NLite, but actually will lower your install time) and if you really want to cut down on your time use WSUS Offline which will let you keep ALL the updates (including service packs if you like) all on a single DVD or thumbstick, thus making updates as easy as "clickly clicky reboot"?
So the problem is you are trying to run WGA on an unsupported platform...well that's the breaks. SP2 was released nearly 7 years ago, and there have been a LOT of changes since then, some of which affect WGA. As for Win 7 actually I've found that the switch to Win 7 has been easy peasy with my customers. You simply show them how WinSearch works and where WMC is and they are happy little campers. The key to switching users is the carrot not the stick. I've found simply showing them all the free Internet channels in WMC makes it an easy sale, and then they are soon figuring out all the extra goodies easily since Win 7 is more intuitive than XP.
Either way there is simply so much tech that can't be bolted into an 11 year OS that at some point you have to set a minimum. Having a minimum of SP3 (which was released in 08 so it is still 3 years old) seems to be a pretty reasonable thing, especially since service packs are free and trivial to download/install. That said you can't bolt DX 10, NCQ for SATA drives, Superfetch and Readyboost, etc, so there comes a time when one does need to be looking at a migration plan. After all XP is 3 generations behind already, and most likely will be 4 generations behind before being EOLed.
So I'd say you can't really blame them for not supporting an 8 year old configuration anymore. After all both OSX and Linux don't support anywhere near that age of configuration, and MSFT IS giving XP until 2014 which will be 13 years of support so updating your image occasionally really isn't so much to ask. It isn't like your average Joe installs OSes anyway, they take it to a relative or someone like me that does it for a living and know how to slipstream a service pack. Frankly that you have the ability to install but haven't heard of slipstreaming I find puzzling, as usually knowledge of one includes the other.
Look up "Afghanistan pipeline" and you'll see what we're doing there. We are securing the route for a pair of pipelines, one oil the other natural gas, so the corps will have a way to route it through to India and the sea. pipelines are a hell of a lot cheaper for the corps, and less likely to get jacked, so what if some Americans die for it right?
Anyone who thinks we're there to fight some "war on terror" might want to read or watch something besides the MSM once in a while. As in every single fight since the end of WWII we are in there for "strategic" (read corporate) interests, nothing more.
But the bigger question to me is this: do we try to "baby proof the world" to simply protect the lazy and the stupid? Because nearly all if not all games now have nice little labels that any parent can tell at a glance what content it has. If the parent simply refuses to do their job or supervise their kids in ANY way, should I have to play kiddie games because they failed to do their job?
I let my boys play any violent game they wanted and didn't worry about it because I did my job and taught them the difference between what was on the screen and reality. I showed them how editing DOOM wads (boy I'm dating myself there) would change what they saw on the screen, how any illusions of intelligence was just scripting, how the world was drawn with a level editor, etc.
Now one is in college and the other deciding what he wants to go to college for and BOTH are kind, decent, and gentle human beings. Sadly though I have seen the flip side in some of their school friends homes, places where as long as the kid isn't "bothering them" they can pretty much run amok. No reading, no real family time, no real discussions between child and parent.
So frankly if we try to go with the "baby proof the world" approach you better be ready to have a great firewall, since they don't care what their kids do on the net, make all shows targeted to the average 8 year old because they don't care what they watch on TV, and make all games except Nintendo outlawed since they don't care what their kids play either, again as long as they aren't "bothering them".
So where does it end? At what point do we tell these people that raising a kid involves work that they need to do? Are we gonna take away the rights of adults to play games that are mature just because little Joey has a mom that doesn't read the label? Because I'd say the baby proofing is getting kinda ridiculous. We already have given parents unheard of power, from the V-chip to ratings that practically break it down into every possible thing a parent can get pissed over, yet people still hand their kids GTA if they think it'll get them off their backs.
Man I hope not, as GS is one of the few B&M that actually still have a decent selection of PC games (at least in my area) and gamers actually working the desk that will tell you if a game sucks (again at least in my area) so it makes it a great place to take the teens when they want a new console title.
That said the triple punch of MMOs,games tied to accounts and Steam will probably kill it dead. If the consoles tie games to accounts that will kill first sale and wipe out the used games market, pretty much the only reason anyone uses GS anymore. I've already noticed that while my local GS used to be full there are less and less there when I show up, and while the youngest still uses them the oldest moved to a MMO which pretty much killed his buying from GS.
So while I'll probably miss it, as they usually had good sales on the PC games between Amazon, Steam, and GOG if the youngest doesn't want to swing by the GS frankly I have no reason to go anymore. The sales on Steam and GOG are just nuts, and often I find it cheaper to add a game to my cart at Amazon to get free shipping than to pay shipping costs, so now I have a pile of games I haven't even gotten around to yet. To me that is one of the nice things about being a PC gamer, frankly we have a glut of dirt cheap games and if all I did was game for the next 6 months I'd probably not be caught up!
No, you are mistaken. You are allowed up to three activations in a year, more if you simply talk to the operator and explain your problem. I've NEVER had an issue with activation, and a good 99.995% of the time it is a simple clicky clicky operation.
So frankly activation isn't an issue. Activation is calculated by a hash anyways, with some parts getting a higher hash than others so you have to change a LOT of parts before even getting asked to reactivate. For an example I'll use myself, so far I've gone from a 200Gb OS drive to a 500Gb, switched out my CPU from an Athlon 7550 to a Phenom II X4 925, and switched out my HD4650 for an HD4850 and NO activation. That goes for XP 32bit and Win 7 X64.
So the odds that the average person is ever gonna need to reactivate, much less that they'll hit three re-activations in a year, is pretty darned low. Not to say there aren't the occasional false positives, as I did have to talk to an operator once over a shipment of used P4 desktops (it turned out they had been in a school and everyone and their dog had copied the serials off the side) but it took them less than 5 minutes to give me new codes and have them all activated just fine. MSFT knows that being dickish and burning customers over activations simply isn't in their best interest, so they are usually pretty good about getting your machine back online if you do have a problem.
Tell me Petey, does it hurt? Does it eat and your mind, knowing that on every single post I make I not only insult your idiocy but I give a link to a laundry list of your failures? Does it keep you up at night? Does it hurt? I find that....marvelous. Now enjoy some nice insults mixed with the broken glass that is reality, something you sadly can't seem to grasp. Now wallow in your failure monkey boy, and do the dance of humiliation!
And this coming from poor wittle APK, known script kiddie and troll, also know as "Petey, the idiot HOPES file guy"? As in you HOPES that one of the 300,000+ constantly changing array of websites that are infected doesn't happen to be the one you visit today? Or that you HOPES that nobody notices after repeatedly being asked you have FAILED to show even the tiniest shred of mathematical proof that your magical woobie can scale? That you HOPES nobody notices your only "proof" is anecdotes, often by your own sock puppets like Kingsjester and MEK_Lovebug?
If there is ANYONE that should be LOLing it is me, for pointing out there are still morons that believe 16Mb HOPES files can do anything but block ads since ad servers are...what do you call it...oh yeah STATIC, just like your HOPES file, but really you are just kinda pathetic. You're like the idiot that just keeps hanging onto that three years out of date copy of Norton, because he is just so damned sure it still works, only the Norton guy is actually better protected than you are, since it did used to work in the past 5 years.
So please, keep posting APK, I do so enjoy pointingoutthe totaluber fail of your magical woobie so. I also personally consider it a public service to point people to solutionsthat actuallywork instead of relying on magical woobies and anecdotes. And of course bitch slapping your around is also quite fun!
Uhhh...then how in the hell can you not have heard of the butter zone? hell I had a grand total of two economics classes and even I know what that is! To put it simply the butter zone is the price where the market will continue to buy your product at its maximum, after that people will switch to substitutes in ever increasing numbers, margarine in the butter example or piracy in this one.
The butter zone and the fact that curves such as the Laffer curve can be applied to items outside taxation are Econ 101, at least I always thought so. It isn't like the guy was pulling some magic numbers out of his ass here, this is pretty much 101 stuff.
You're missing three VERY important concepts, and that is "impulse buy" and "laziness". I bought a good half a dozen games this week, could I have pirated them? yep, it would have been no problem I'm sure. But like most people I'm a sucker for a sale and frankly at cheap prices it quickly becomes too much of a hassle to pirate and THAT is the point.
The key as in TFA is to hit that "sweet spot" where most will simply consider it cheaper and easier to buy then pirate. the stick NEVER works, because frankly the pirates are smarter than the *.A.As and always will be. it is the classic "smart cow" problem, where all it takes is a single one to figure out how to get through the fence and the rest will follow.
So instead they should be following the Walmart approach, make it cheap, make it easy. For me if the game is under $20 or the movie is under $10 frankly going through the trouble of pirating it simply isn't worth my time. With Amazon, Steam, and GOG I can have a game instantly or at the max 3 days from the time I click to the time the movie or game is dropped at my door, I get all the extras like multiplayer and access to DLC, so why bother?
But the "lets crank the price til it hurts!" model frankly encourages piracy because nobody likes feeling screwed. $50+ for a four hour game? or $30+ for a movie I'd watch maybe once? I just skip them but I can see why a bunch of people would just download them as they simply aren't worth whats being charged and THAT, that right there, is the crux of the matter. Charging the absolute max the market can bear may be business school 101 crap but IRL it rarely makes for maximum profit. look at what Valve found out with L4D, when they found the sweet spot they sold 1100%! more than they did at release!
So in this case it is simply greed cutting off their nose to spite their face. By ignoring there is a sweet spot they are pricing themselves right out of many markets in both the first and third world, and yet again making piracy the better option. Stupid is as stupid does I suppose.
I thought that was what GFs are for? Every once in awhile my GF will take one look and say "too shaggy" and drag my to some stylist where she'll stand next to the gal telling them just how she wants things done, then for a week or so she'll be constantly running her fingers through my hair or playing with it. It makes her happy, as long as I'm not bald I couldn't care less, it works out nicely.
As for TFA in this case AMD had no choice as the new chips are NOT CPUs but APUs, which have a low to midrange GPU built in, which means it needs interconnects which simply don't exist on AM2+/AM3. Considering how many chips are out for the AM2/AM2+/AM3 platform I'm happy, and my customers sure as hell ain't complaining with $100 quads and $75 triples.
I personally think the big change is the fact that for a good 80% of the population PCs passed "good enough" when we hit duals. For FB, movies, light gaming, etc there just isn't as big a reason to upgrade as in the past during the MHz wars, and once the customer gets an AMD triple they really won't see any big gains by going quad or 6 core, simply because the jobs they have don't really slam even the dual.
That is why I think they purposely build laptops to be giant piles of shit, as it keeps people that frankly wouldn't have any reason otherwise buying new PCs. That is why I stress to my customers to have a decent desktop and buy the cheapest POS laptop they can find, as they are gonna have to shitcan it anyway. The parts to repair one are often more expensive than simply buying a new, just another big pile of eWaste created to keep people on the treadmill.
Sure thing friend, here you go. Now this is a review about a documentary covering the Mena CIA drug trade, but I'm sure if you hit the torrents you can find the original source. I know it was pretty common knowledge amongst the cops and my friends working in the military, and it especially pissed off the cops as it caused a shitload of high quality coke to flood the market causing ODs all over the place.
But hell I don't need documentary to tell me what's what, I see it every week. My old building is right in the middle, with the good side of town on the left, bad side on the right. I can set my watch by the cop going down the street to a house about 6 blocks from here. Why? Because he is picking up his payoff from MR Dope Dealer, that's why. hell I've watched as they counted the money in the parking lot, they don't exactly hide that shit. Traveling with a little band all over the south I see the same thing all along the "meth highway" as it is called, pretty common knowledge.
You think the gov would have ANY problem actually find the crooked cops? Hell they live like Tony Montana! Nope the simple fact is they don't give a fuck as you need a way to keep those masses of poor in line, and drugs work great for that. I promise you any place where the peasants are starting to get unruly a flood of cheap drugs will blanket the entire market. It is just an easy way to control, and also to raise money for nasty shit they don't want on the books. Don't delude yourself, we've pretty much been the bad guys since the end of WWII.
Actually I'd say the REAL reason to upgrade would be that you can get a hell of a speed boost cheap which in this dead economy cheap will ALWAYS win!
For example my current PC started with the Athlon X2 7550. Not a bad CPU, I still have it in a drawer and one of these days I'll build a cheap box around it for one of my family. But for a little while last year they had the Phenom II X4 925 for just $110. That is double the cores, quadruple the cache, a hell of a speed boost all around. Now where else am I gonna be able to shave nearly half the time of my video transcoding without having to shitcan and start over?
I already have a TB of HDD space, 8Gb of RAM, I don't want to have to throw all that over my shoulder to gain a speed boost. AMD gives me that instead of playing socket bingo (BTW the TFA is wrong, there are currently FOUR sockets being sold as they forgot Intel still makes and sells chips for the LGA775 platform as well) and if I run across one of those X6 95 watt rare as hens teeth CPUs I'll be snatching that bad boy up!
But I don't see the problem with TFA. There is NO way to keep backwards compatibility with a CPU that has its own GPU because that requires interconnects that currently simply don't exist. You can still drop AM2+ chips into an AM3+ Motherboard IIRC, and it isn't like there isn't a wealth of chips to choose from for the current AM2+/AM3 platform, from the wimpy (but easy to unlock cores from what I've heard, so great for HTPCs) Sargas Semprons all the way up to the 6 Core Thuban huge bastards. I know I've been selling the current quads and all I've been hearing is how happy my customers are with them. It still amazes them coming off late P4s how they can burn a DVD while watching a video AND IMing and have NOTHING skip or glitch, it all "just works" and Windows 7 works beautifully with splitting up the loads.
I just wish the 95w AM3 6 core wasn't as rare as hens teeth. I've got a really nice business class board and don't want to give it up, but like most business class tops out at 95w. The compatibility chart lists three different AM3 95w 6 cores that are compatible, but actually finding one is damned near impossible. Oh well, that is what makes PCs right now such an incredible deal, as my quads will easily last me years with no need for anything but the occasional GPU upgrade (which since my GF got me an HD4850 for my BDay it'll be awhile before I need one of those IMHO) so I can wait until some place like StarMicro (highly recommend BTW, great place to lengthen the life of a machine for cheap. I got a pair of Pentium Ds for just $30 a piece!) gets the OEMs.
So thanks AMD for making the socket last as long as it did, if you can make AM3+ last as long as AM2/AM2+/AM3 I'd be grateful. Oh and can you PLEASE crank out more of the 95w Thuban 6 cores and get them to places like Newegg? Thanks.
Then what about my other solution, which is to use a 19 inch 4x3 for your document and picture work, and then use the widescreen for entertainment? Again this would be MUCH cheaper than trying to find a big ass CRT that still works good and has decent resolution, and every GPU except Intel has supported multimonitor for at least a couple of years now.
The drivers are solid, Windows supports dual screens quite nicely (especially Windows 7) and you don't have to deal with rotation bugs, which frankly so few people rotate monitors it doesn't surprise me they are buggy.
So it seems to me with just a little planning your problem can be solved, and on the cheap to boot. try your local Craigslist, they have 19 inch 4x3 monitors for quite cheap (mine has no less than 4 all under $50 each) and with even a low midrange Nvidia or ATI card (you can get a nice HD4830 for like $60 now) you'll have no problem driving both monitors and bouncing things between them. It sounds like just what you'd need to be able to have 4x3 for documents on the cheap.
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Uhhh...FUD much? Why didn't you just scream "DRM kills kittehs!" and "information wants to be free, like a bird!" while you're at it? Netflix movies are rentals and they have to have at least some token something or there would be instant copy software released an then bye bye Netflix. You also have NO choice on broadcast, and it comes with commercials, a whole shitload of them, and it is also cut. You don't get those things with Netflix.
BTW, the reason Netflix don't (and never will) work on Linux? it requires a proprietary kernel driver and no way Linus will allow that. It works in OSX, iOS, and Windows because they have support for Janus DRM (the same one that has been around for years with no major hacks) which hooks into the kernel thus making it damned near impossible to hack without turning the data to garbage.
I've set up several Netflix accounts for clients on their new HTPCs and the service is just wonderful IMHO. When paired with Windows 7 WMC and all the free Internet channels it makes a "one stop shop" for just about anything you want to see. Of course you are free to choose not to buy it or watch movies, that's YOUR choice but I WANT to watch movies then I should be able to choose whether or not to take DRM, yes? Hell I find Netflix less irritating than the new DVDs where you can't pass the BS in front.
As for TFA, I guess I should have made it more clear what I was going for. With Mono on Android you can now run C# on Android, iPhone (MonoTouch), WinPhone (.NET) and on the desktop you can work in Windows (.NET) or OSX or Linux (Mono) so with C# you can pretty much cover ALL the bases. Does this have a chance of taking the "write once, run everywhere" idea of Java and making it work? Or will the bad blood between F/OSS advocates (who still scream "its a trap!" even though its been eleven years now and the patents still haven't shown up) keep it from being used?
Who knows? I've seen people that love and those that hate C#, and a whole bunch of the "its a trap!" FUD as well. I figured with so many coders and mobile developers here at /. they might like to know there is another tool in the toolbox so to speak. Whether you choose to use it or not is up to you.
That nobody reads your crazy rants, yes? I mean posting as AC, linking to your own AC posts, it is just a big giant waste of fail. hell even I don't read your horseshit Petey, I just like laughing at you and bitchslapping you around. Just watching you follow me around like my personal bitch, crying and moaning about getting beat down like a whore who didn't have the money, I find that...scrumptious.So keep kissing my ass Petey, and dance monkey boy! Enjoy some of your failures "greatest hits"...
I have also shown repeatedly that at the absolute reported minimum number of new pieces of malweare and infections, which you are free to pick whichever reputable website you like Securina, MSFT's malware reports, AVG, which ever, that at an absolute minimum we are talking about 1.2 million sites PER DAY with that number changing by 15,000+ PER HOUR which means even if you typed at 1 IP address PER SECOND, and never slept, and had a perfect list (which doesn't exist) you would be 14 days behind by the very first day with that number growing linearly every single day, making Petey farther and farther behind.
But if you weren't completely batshit insane Petey I wouldn't have to explain this, because this is why everyone makes fun of you. It is so obvious it is like someone arguing gravity is actually invisible pants gnomes trying to steal your underwear. It is the classic "default allow" which has NEVER EVER worked. Because if a piece of malware isn't in magical HOPES file Petey you are royally fucked, and yet again I have shown that it is simply a roll of the dice whether you get creamed or not, simply because you will always be behind. So it is all on you Petey and your magical HOPES woobie now. You made the extravagant claims, back them up with the math. If you can't? Well then you are full of shit, case closed. Notice how ALL YOU CAN DO PETEY is throw insults and trollbomb? Why is that? I'll tell you why, because math doesn't lie and you just can't show the math You just can't, it would be like trying to mathematically prove you are not an idiot. It just can't be done.
But that doesn't really matter as long as FF shows you that policeman with the giant GET ME OUT OF HERE! button like you just walked into a goat porn site, does it? When I went to their website and saw the FF policeman I just walked away because I knew that is EXACTLY what my customers would do.
And THAT is the real power of CAs and why them just throwing certs to anybody for anything is dangerous. The average Joe isn't gonna check details, he is just looking for the little policeman. If he sees the policeman he is outta there. I'd love for someone to use something like CaCERT and then check the pass through, I bet a good 80% of the average Joe users split when they spot the cop.
So you've taken that which was free for all and made it by the corporation for the corporation? Hell then why bother with GPL, if you are only gonna support the corps you might as well stick with proprietary and get paid for your work.
Do you even know why the GPL was written? RMS had a printer which would hang, on the previous model he wrote a driver which would shoot a heads up to the nearest workstation that the printer hung, so someone could unstick it before the jobs lined up. The new model wouldn't run on the old driver and they wouldn't let him have the code for the new and that is why he wrote the GPL which by your very own definition would be pointless now because having the driver code would be worthless unless RMS has a fab lying around.
So to me yours is a perfect example of why everyone should be pushing for GPL V3, because GPL V2 has been so subverted from its original purpose to be worthless. You have to have ALL the four freedoms for the GPL to work, remove one? And the other three are pointless. And that is what we have with GPL V2, in that you can look all day, even touch, but run? Nope sorry, not your device, it belongs to the corp you're just renting it.
And please ignore APK, aka trollie. He got butthurt several months ago when I pointed out 16Mb HOSTS files wouldn't magically protect you from a dynamic target like malware and he has been following me ever since. Mind the drool, he isn't very clean.
It is when it completely breaks immersion and ruins the game for the player. I mean when you have a fricking grunt walking towards you and you empty a Tommy gun into his face and he doesn't even act like he has a flesh wound? Hell even the fricking Terminator would at least get knocked onto his ass from the impact!
And the reason why I label this rubber banding is because that is what it reminds me of, them strapping layers of armor and infinite health onto a guy with rubber bands and going "tada!", and yes I know about EA racing rubber bands, and they suck just as bad as FPS rubber banding and also breaks immersion. How many times have you seen a NASCAR driver be 27th with three laps to go and win the thing? Try NEVER.
If they wanted to make the games harder and are too cheap to pay for decent AI (seriously, if you can't write it yourself there are others that have written good AI. Buy it from them) then add more enemies or make ammo more scarce but having every grunt be able to see you through ANY cover and take more hits than a T-800 just ruins the game, and playing on normal equals having bad guys line up to die.
And while I'm on a rant...balance...could SOMEBODY PLEASE try the fricking weapons before handing them to us to make sure they don't COMPLETELY break the game, please? A great example: Bioshock II, where once you boosted the rage plasmid to where you could befriend Big Daddies it was ALL over. Protecting the Little Sister went from a fight to watching Big Daddy do all the work while I sat in the corner. Hell my oldest beat the game without ever using a single plasmid but electricity, because once that was beefed up a single shot could paralyze the entire room!
Look, I'm not asking for every game to be HL2 here, just don't destroy the mood by making the shit so unreal it breaks immersion, okay? Suspension of disbelief will only stretch so far before snapping and grunts that take more hits than a tank without even slowing down, while pulling perfect shots from a half mile away with iron sights? Yeah that throws my bullshit o' meter straight into the red.
Oh please don't forget the rubber band AI, mustn't forget that. I actually had hope when I played the first Far Cry that finally, Jesus tap dancing Christ, FINALLY we'd have some AI that would put up a good fight. But I have noticed that multiplayer seems to give the developer a free pass to use rubber band AI which frankly breaks a game bad.
And what I mean by rubber band AI, which I'm sure every FPS player has run into, is where on normal level you have grunts that will line up to die and not seem to even notice the huge body pile in front of them. So does ramping up the difficulty make them behave ANY smarter? Nope instead what you get is grunts that can take a half a dozen 20mm to the face while hitting you from half a map away with a crappy bolt action while you're behind cover.
And I have to agree with what the other poster said, good luck finding anybody to play with even 6 months later if they let you play at all, because some like EA simply shut down the servers on all games more than a year old so tough shit.
So there are plenty of us that like single player games developers, hell I bought Bioshock II knowing it would suck just to see where they went with the story! Not all of us are Halo fratboys, and those that are frankly aren't playing YOUR game, they're playing Halo or the latest CoD. So don't abandon us developers, because while I appreciate how many games I have yet to play that doesn't mean I only want to play old games. But personally I have had enough trolls and campers for one lifetime, keep your MP mode, thanks anyway.
Your second paragraph kinda shows my point perfectly...what good is the code if you can't run it on anything but some PC emulator?
If the pundits are correct and cell phones are the new PCs then with GPL V2 we'll ALL lose because the code will be just as worthless to you as if someone gave you the code to iOS. Without access to their bootloader and/or an uncrippled phone (which they will be liable to label a 'developer's phone" and charge out the ass) then your four freedoms are just smoke and mirrors.
And how EXACTLY are you just gonna run custom ARM code on your MythTV box anyway? from the looks of things the future won't even be as free as Windows (where you can at least choose to run FOSS or anything else without permission) but instead "app stores" where ONLY code approved by the owners (which is NOT you, you are just a consumer in their eyes) will be allowed to run and without the four freedoms GPL might as well be PD. BTW have you seen the new preview for Windows 8? App Store.
So I'd say with a giant YES it is a VERY big deal. There is a reason why GPL came out with V3, and it is because corps wipe their ass with the "spirit" of the GPL and only care about what they can legally get away with. TiVo showed them as long as you stick to GPL V2, then you can give them...hell anything you want, it is not like they can actually run it to see if it works or not. Is that REALLY the future you want?
Because without NN they are using the caps to force you to their offerings by "punishing" those who don't take their crap! Do you REALLY think they'd have caps so low if Netflix and anybody else was allowed a fair deal? nope the caps make sure you stay in the garden like an electric fence does to cattle buddy!
The WHOLE DAMNED POINT is that the Internet has had an explosive growth of innovation, which these ISP want TO KILL DEAD because that innovation doesn't line their pockets. Without NN the easiest way to keep you in the garden is simply to cut you off at the knees if you ever leave! Do you think I'd touch Vonage or Netflix now? Nope, any VoIP or PPV will be strictly Cox ONLY, and THAT is the point!
I'd say the next big battle on the Linux front will be the freeists VS the corporatists, in that thanks to TiVo showing corps how to have their cake and eat it too (in that they can have all the hard work of FOSS developers and then just lock it down with eFuses or code signing) the GPL V2 is officially worthless, yet Linus and others insist on keeping it out of a rivalry with RMS.
So I'd say the gains that Linux has "won" in the mobile market will quickly disappear thanks to TiVo tricking (notice how Google is VERY careful not to allow any GPL V3 code near Android?) so those devices will be out, since they will be as locked down as iOS and WinPhone, server side will gain simply because the MSFT licensing schema is a giant clusterfuck, and the desktops will stay Windows as that is what everybody and their dog uses and the programs are there.
So the big question is will Linus and the corporatists win and make GPL just BSD with a few extra code rights but NO right to modify or run the code on the device, or will RMS win and make Linux free to run and modify but at the same time run off any corporate sponsors, who won't have what they can't control?
Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation, but the choice does have to be made. Now that TiVo has shown the way the GPL V2 is pretty much worthless, and any that are pushing for projects to stay GPL V2 (like Google) should be looked upon as suspect.
Because that is exactly what you have without net neutrality. look upon my present and see your future! i'm on Cox (perfect name since they're dicks) and the caps are 36Gb residential, 76Gb commercial and the commercial line is nearly $200 a month, any going over? That's $1.50 per Gb please. Oh and Vonage, Linux and Mac updates? They all count against your cap. The "offerings" by Cox and Windows? they DO NOT.
So I hope you like walled gardens ala the old AOHell, because at $1.50 a Gb it doesn't take too many $200+ bills to put your ass in your place. And before anyone uses the old "vote with your dollars!" meme I'd point out my choices are Cox, AT&T DSL that MAXES at 756Kbps and which they've said they have NO intention of ever upgrading, or a WISP whose security is so damned bad you can surf the shares of everyone on a node through network neighborhood (and the head tech is so dim I never could get him to understand why that's bad, he still swears its a "feature") and who has a worse TOS than HughesNet.
So all you Time Warner and Comcast users, better be filling your boots, your time is running out. Once Cox rolls this out nationwide and the others see they get away with it? that's your ass Mr User, you are well and truly fucked. While the rest of the world surfs the information superhighway we are gonna be on the short bus to walled garden shittown. But hell the corps won't be happy until the USA is a third world country, so why not just pull the plug? More profits in walled gardens anyway!
No I'm saying it wouldn't have mattered if Osama would have been in Italy we were gonna hit Afghanistan and Iraq, period. You might want to look up "Aaron Russo on 9/11" where the guy calls BOTH wars nearly 3 years before they happen, hell he died before Iraq got underway, and he wasn't psychic he was told by the bankers which countries would be targeted because it was part of their new layout to include the oil and natural gas pipelines which...gasp! need Iraq and Afghanistan and neither Saddam nor the Taliban wanted to play ball. Shame on them!
Those that now rule at the very top, known as the 1%, already have more money than God, so where can their greed go? The answer is simple my friend, power and the consolidation thereof. It is no accident why their profits are all private and their failures are all paid by the public, it is no accident why when the need a pipeline or shipping route it suddenly becomes a "strategic interest" it is because they have been consolidating power for years and they have NO problem with wielding it. Hell if they point their speculation computers at the oil markets your gas would be $10 tomorrow, so play nice!
So don't buy the bullshit, the neocons hand in hand with the bankers have been planning their Mideast strategy since the 80s. look up Wolfowitz (sorry if I spelled his name wrong) who was Bush's foreign adviser and see what he was saying way back in the 80s with regards to the Mideast. Hell the man even outlined using false flag tactics like "Running a couple of planes into buildings" to get the public behind the administration! If you think causing the deaths of a few thousand Americans for the "greater good" would cause them to lose a moment's sleep I have a bridge to sell you.
Knowing that everyone is seeing what a complete failure you are, hell they don't even respond to your crazy rants anymore, does it make you cry? Does it hurt, alone in the dark, to know what a miserable failure you are? How you have to keep MEK_Lovebug and Kingsjowkers as you sockpuppet pals, and even then the only time anyone responds is to make fun of you? Does it make you feel lonely, there in the dark? I find that....delightful. So enjoy some nice laughs at your complete failures, enjoy!
I have also shown repeatedly that at the absolute reported minimum number of new pieces of malweare and infections, which you are free to pick whichever reputable website you like Securina, MSFT's malware reports, AVG, which ever, that at an absolute minimum we are talking about 1.2 million sites PER DAY with that number changing by 15,000+ PER HOUR which means even if you typed at 1 IP address PER SECOND, and never slept, and had a perfect list (which doesn't exist) you would be 14 days behind by the very first day with that number growing linearly every single day, making Petey farther and farther behind.
But if you weren't completely batshit insane Petey I wouldn't have to explain this, because this is why everyone makes fun of you. It is so obvious it is like someone arguing gravity is actually invisible pants gnomes trying to steal your underwear. It is the classic "default allow" which has NEVER EVER worked. Because if a piece of malware isn't in magical HOPES file Petey you are royally fucked, and yet again I have shown that it is simply a roll of the dice whether you get creamed or not, simply because you will always be behind
I would be happy to give you the figures, feel free to check. Comodo AV = 98% hit rate and ZERO infections, Malwarebytes? 97% and ZERO infections. Type both into Youtube and feel free to watch Petey. I have also shown repeatedly, again feel free to choose ANY figures from ANY reputable site you like, you are talking on average 180,000 PER DAY of infected websites PLUS 1.8 million current PLUS 15,000 pieces of malware PLUS anywhere from 35,000 to 50,000 websites revolving from the list. You see the difference between actual solutions and Petey's magical woobie is a little thing known as heuristics, along with a nice word known as sandboxing, neither of which his magical .txt file can do.
So it is all on Petey and his magical HOPES woobie now. He made the extravagant claims, back them up with the math. If he can't? Well then he is full of shit, case closed. Notice how ALL PETEY CAN DO is throw insults and trollbomb? Why is that? I'll tell you why, because math doesn't lie and he just can't show the math He just can't, it would be like trying to mathematically prove PETEY is not an idiot. It just can't be done.
I don't mess with CS but if its anything like that God damned bastard child from hell QuickBooks there is no way in hell to keep the old version because they tied a bunch of old shit that will NOT run in a newer OS to it!
I had to set up a ton of dual boots and XP modes around here because QB is God in these parts, and I quickly learned to hate that POS! It ties itself to flash player 7 that's right, flash 7, which is no longer supported and won't run on anything higher than XP. It doesn't matter if you have a newer version either, nope it has to be flash 7.
So frankly it really wouldn't surprise me if Adobe did something similar. I know I had to build an NOS (new, old stock) PC for a graphics client and set him up a KVM and networks shares, all so he could keep Macromedia Xres going, so it wouldn't surprise me if Adobe (who bought Macromedia) is likely to be just as big a PITA.
So let me get this straight, you are bitching because MSFT doesn't support a long EOLed configuration that is trivial to fix? You DO know that Sp2 has been EOL for a couple of years now, yes? It is a dead duck, same as Win2K. Might I suggest next time you either simply update your disc (which is not only trivial to do with free tools such as XP ISO Builder or NLite, but actually will lower your install time) and if you really want to cut down on your time use WSUS Offline which will let you keep ALL the updates (including service packs if you like) all on a single DVD or thumbstick, thus making updates as easy as "clickly clicky reboot"?
So the problem is you are trying to run WGA on an unsupported platform...well that's the breaks. SP2 was released nearly 7 years ago, and there have been a LOT of changes since then, some of which affect WGA. As for Win 7 actually I've found that the switch to Win 7 has been easy peasy with my customers. You simply show them how WinSearch works and where WMC is and they are happy little campers. The key to switching users is the carrot not the stick. I've found simply showing them all the free Internet channels in WMC makes it an easy sale, and then they are soon figuring out all the extra goodies easily since Win 7 is more intuitive than XP.
Either way there is simply so much tech that can't be bolted into an 11 year OS that at some point you have to set a minimum. Having a minimum of SP3 (which was released in 08 so it is still 3 years old) seems to be a pretty reasonable thing, especially since service packs are free and trivial to download/install. That said you can't bolt DX 10, NCQ for SATA drives, Superfetch and Readyboost, etc, so there comes a time when one does need to be looking at a migration plan. After all XP is 3 generations behind already, and most likely will be 4 generations behind before being EOLed.
So I'd say you can't really blame them for not supporting an 8 year old configuration anymore. After all both OSX and Linux don't support anywhere near that age of configuration, and MSFT IS giving XP until 2014 which will be 13 years of support so updating your image occasionally really isn't so much to ask. It isn't like your average Joe installs OSes anyway, they take it to a relative or someone like me that does it for a living and know how to slipstream a service pack. Frankly that you have the ability to install but haven't heard of slipstreaming I find puzzling, as usually knowledge of one includes the other.
Look up "Afghanistan pipeline" and you'll see what we're doing there. We are securing the route for a pair of pipelines, one oil the other natural gas, so the corps will have a way to route it through to India and the sea. pipelines are a hell of a lot cheaper for the corps, and less likely to get jacked, so what if some Americans die for it right?
Anyone who thinks we're there to fight some "war on terror" might want to read or watch something besides the MSM once in a while. As in every single fight since the end of WWII we are in there for "strategic" (read corporate) interests, nothing more.
But the bigger question to me is this: do we try to "baby proof the world" to simply protect the lazy and the stupid? Because nearly all if not all games now have nice little labels that any parent can tell at a glance what content it has. If the parent simply refuses to do their job or supervise their kids in ANY way, should I have to play kiddie games because they failed to do their job?
I let my boys play any violent game they wanted and didn't worry about it because I did my job and taught them the difference between what was on the screen and reality. I showed them how editing DOOM wads (boy I'm dating myself there) would change what they saw on the screen, how any illusions of intelligence was just scripting, how the world was drawn with a level editor, etc.
Now one is in college and the other deciding what he wants to go to college for and BOTH are kind, decent, and gentle human beings. Sadly though I have seen the flip side in some of their school friends homes, places where as long as the kid isn't "bothering them" they can pretty much run amok. No reading, no real family time, no real discussions between child and parent.
So frankly if we try to go with the "baby proof the world" approach you better be ready to have a great firewall, since they don't care what their kids do on the net, make all shows targeted to the average 8 year old because they don't care what they watch on TV, and make all games except Nintendo outlawed since they don't care what their kids play either, again as long as they aren't "bothering them".
So where does it end? At what point do we tell these people that raising a kid involves work that they need to do? Are we gonna take away the rights of adults to play games that are mature just because little Joey has a mom that doesn't read the label? Because I'd say the baby proofing is getting kinda ridiculous. We already have given parents unheard of power, from the V-chip to ratings that practically break it down into every possible thing a parent can get pissed over, yet people still hand their kids GTA if they think it'll get them off their backs.
Man I hope not, as GS is one of the few B&M that actually still have a decent selection of PC games (at least in my area) and gamers actually working the desk that will tell you if a game sucks (again at least in my area) so it makes it a great place to take the teens when they want a new console title.
That said the triple punch of MMOs,games tied to accounts and Steam will probably kill it dead. If the consoles tie games to accounts that will kill first sale and wipe out the used games market, pretty much the only reason anyone uses GS anymore. I've already noticed that while my local GS used to be full there are less and less there when I show up, and while the youngest still uses them the oldest moved to a MMO which pretty much killed his buying from GS.
So while I'll probably miss it, as they usually had good sales on the PC games between Amazon, Steam, and GOG if the youngest doesn't want to swing by the GS frankly I have no reason to go anymore. The sales on Steam and GOG are just nuts, and often I find it cheaper to add a game to my cart at Amazon to get free shipping than to pay shipping costs, so now I have a pile of games I haven't even gotten around to yet. To me that is one of the nice things about being a PC gamer, frankly we have a glut of dirt cheap games and if all I did was game for the next 6 months I'd probably not be caught up!
No, you are mistaken. You are allowed up to three activations in a year, more if you simply talk to the operator and explain your problem. I've NEVER had an issue with activation, and a good 99.995% of the time it is a simple clicky clicky operation.
So frankly activation isn't an issue. Activation is calculated by a hash anyways, with some parts getting a higher hash than others so you have to change a LOT of parts before even getting asked to reactivate. For an example I'll use myself, so far I've gone from a 200Gb OS drive to a 500Gb, switched out my CPU from an Athlon 7550 to a Phenom II X4 925, and switched out my HD4650 for an HD4850 and NO activation. That goes for XP 32bit and Win 7 X64.
So the odds that the average person is ever gonna need to reactivate, much less that they'll hit three re-activations in a year, is pretty darned low. Not to say there aren't the occasional false positives, as I did have to talk to an operator once over a shipment of used P4 desktops (it turned out they had been in a school and everyone and their dog had copied the serials off the side) but it took them less than 5 minutes to give me new codes and have them all activated just fine. MSFT knows that being dickish and burning customers over activations simply isn't in their best interest, so they are usually pretty good about getting your machine back online if you do have a problem.
Tell me Petey, does it hurt? Does it eat and your mind, knowing that on every single post I make I not only insult your idiocy but I give a link to a laundry list of your failures? Does it keep you up at night? Does it hurt? I find that....marvelous. Now enjoy some nice insults mixed with the broken glass that is reality, something you sadly can't seem to grasp. Now wallow in your failure monkey boy, and do the dance of humiliation!
And this coming from poor wittle APK, known script kiddie and troll, also know as "Petey, the idiot HOPES file guy"? As in you HOPES that one of the 300,000+ constantly changing array of websites that are infected doesn't happen to be the one you visit today? Or that you HOPES that nobody notices after repeatedly being asked you have FAILED to show even the tiniest shred of mathematical proof that your magical woobie can scale? That you HOPES nobody notices your only "proof" is anecdotes, often by your own sock puppets like Kingsjester and MEK_Lovebug?
If there is ANYONE that should be LOLing it is me, for pointing out there are still morons that believe 16Mb HOPES files can do anything but block ads since ad servers are...what do you call it...oh yeah STATIC, just like your HOPES file, but really you are just kinda pathetic. You're like the idiot that just keeps hanging onto that three years out of date copy of Norton, because he is just so damned sure it still works, only the Norton guy is actually better protected than you are, since it did used to work in the past 5 years.
So please, keep posting APK, I do so enjoy pointing out the total uber fail of your magical woobie so. I also personally consider it a public service to point people to solutions that actually work instead of relying on magical woobies and anecdotes. And of course bitch slapping your around is also quite fun!
Uhhh...then how in the hell can you not have heard of the butter zone? hell I had a grand total of two economics classes and even I know what that is! To put it simply the butter zone is the price where the market will continue to buy your product at its maximum, after that people will switch to substitutes in ever increasing numbers, margarine in the butter example or piracy in this one.
The butter zone and the fact that curves such as the Laffer curve can be applied to items outside taxation are Econ 101, at least I always thought so. It isn't like the guy was pulling some magic numbers out of his ass here, this is pretty much 101 stuff.
You're missing three VERY important concepts, and that is "impulse buy" and "laziness". I bought a good half a dozen games this week, could I have pirated them? yep, it would have been no problem I'm sure. But like most people I'm a sucker for a sale and frankly at cheap prices it quickly becomes too much of a hassle to pirate and THAT is the point.
The key as in TFA is to hit that "sweet spot" where most will simply consider it cheaper and easier to buy then pirate. the stick NEVER works, because frankly the pirates are smarter than the *.A.As and always will be. it is the classic "smart cow" problem, where all it takes is a single one to figure out how to get through the fence and the rest will follow.
So instead they should be following the Walmart approach, make it cheap, make it easy. For me if the game is under $20 or the movie is under $10 frankly going through the trouble of pirating it simply isn't worth my time. With Amazon, Steam, and GOG I can have a game instantly or at the max 3 days from the time I click to the time the movie or game is dropped at my door, I get all the extras like multiplayer and access to DLC, so why bother?
But the "lets crank the price til it hurts!" model frankly encourages piracy because nobody likes feeling screwed. $50+ for a four hour game? or $30+ for a movie I'd watch maybe once? I just skip them but I can see why a bunch of people would just download them as they simply aren't worth whats being charged and THAT, that right there, is the crux of the matter. Charging the absolute max the market can bear may be business school 101 crap but IRL it rarely makes for maximum profit. look at what Valve found out with L4D, when they found the sweet spot they sold 1100%! more than they did at release!
So in this case it is simply greed cutting off their nose to spite their face. By ignoring there is a sweet spot they are pricing themselves right out of many markets in both the first and third world, and yet again making piracy the better option. Stupid is as stupid does I suppose.
I thought that was what GFs are for? Every once in awhile my GF will take one look and say "too shaggy" and drag my to some stylist where she'll stand next to the gal telling them just how she wants things done, then for a week or so she'll be constantly running her fingers through my hair or playing with it. It makes her happy, as long as I'm not bald I couldn't care less, it works out nicely.
As for TFA in this case AMD had no choice as the new chips are NOT CPUs but APUs, which have a low to midrange GPU built in, which means it needs interconnects which simply don't exist on AM2+/AM3. Considering how many chips are out for the AM2/AM2+/AM3 platform I'm happy, and my customers sure as hell ain't complaining with $100 quads and $75 triples.
I personally think the big change is the fact that for a good 80% of the population PCs passed "good enough" when we hit duals. For FB, movies, light gaming, etc there just isn't as big a reason to upgrade as in the past during the MHz wars, and once the customer gets an AMD triple they really won't see any big gains by going quad or 6 core, simply because the jobs they have don't really slam even the dual.
That is why I think they purposely build laptops to be giant piles of shit, as it keeps people that frankly wouldn't have any reason otherwise buying new PCs. That is why I stress to my customers to have a decent desktop and buy the cheapest POS laptop they can find, as they are gonna have to shitcan it anyway. The parts to repair one are often more expensive than simply buying a new, just another big pile of eWaste created to keep people on the treadmill.
Sure thing friend, here you go. Now this is a review about a documentary covering the Mena CIA drug trade, but I'm sure if you hit the torrents you can find the original source. I know it was pretty common knowledge amongst the cops and my friends working in the military, and it especially pissed off the cops as it caused a shitload of high quality coke to flood the market causing ODs all over the place.
But hell I don't need documentary to tell me what's what, I see it every week. My old building is right in the middle, with the good side of town on the left, bad side on the right. I can set my watch by the cop going down the street to a house about 6 blocks from here. Why? Because he is picking up his payoff from MR Dope Dealer, that's why. hell I've watched as they counted the money in the parking lot, they don't exactly hide that shit. Traveling with a little band all over the south I see the same thing all along the "meth highway" as it is called, pretty common knowledge.
You think the gov would have ANY problem actually find the crooked cops? Hell they live like Tony Montana! Nope the simple fact is they don't give a fuck as you need a way to keep those masses of poor in line, and drugs work great for that. I promise you any place where the peasants are starting to get unruly a flood of cheap drugs will blanket the entire market. It is just an easy way to control, and also to raise money for nasty shit they don't want on the books. Don't delude yourself, we've pretty much been the bad guys since the end of WWII.
Actually I'd say the REAL reason to upgrade would be that you can get a hell of a speed boost cheap which in this dead economy cheap will ALWAYS win!
For example my current PC started with the Athlon X2 7550. Not a bad CPU, I still have it in a drawer and one of these days I'll build a cheap box around it for one of my family. But for a little while last year they had the Phenom II X4 925 for just $110. That is double the cores, quadruple the cache, a hell of a speed boost all around. Now where else am I gonna be able to shave nearly half the time of my video transcoding without having to shitcan and start over?
I already have a TB of HDD space, 8Gb of RAM, I don't want to have to throw all that over my shoulder to gain a speed boost. AMD gives me that instead of playing socket bingo (BTW the TFA is wrong, there are currently FOUR sockets being sold as they forgot Intel still makes and sells chips for the LGA775 platform as well) and if I run across one of those X6 95 watt rare as hens teeth CPUs I'll be snatching that bad boy up!
But I don't see the problem with TFA. There is NO way to keep backwards compatibility with a CPU that has its own GPU because that requires interconnects that currently simply don't exist. You can still drop AM2+ chips into an AM3+ Motherboard IIRC, and it isn't like there isn't a wealth of chips to choose from for the current AM2+/AM3 platform, from the wimpy (but easy to unlock cores from what I've heard, so great for HTPCs) Sargas Semprons all the way up to the 6 Core Thuban huge bastards. I know I've been selling the current quads and all I've been hearing is how happy my customers are with them. It still amazes them coming off late P4s how they can burn a DVD while watching a video AND IMing and have NOTHING skip or glitch, it all "just works" and Windows 7 works beautifully with splitting up the loads.
I just wish the 95w AM3 6 core wasn't as rare as hens teeth. I've got a really nice business class board and don't want to give it up, but like most business class tops out at 95w. The compatibility chart lists three different AM3 95w 6 cores that are compatible, but actually finding one is damned near impossible. Oh well, that is what makes PCs right now such an incredible deal, as my quads will easily last me years with no need for anything but the occasional GPU upgrade (which since my GF got me an HD4850 for my BDay it'll be awhile before I need one of those IMHO) so I can wait until some place like StarMicro (highly recommend BTW, great place to lengthen the life of a machine for cheap. I got a pair of Pentium Ds for just $30 a piece!) gets the OEMs.
So thanks AMD for making the socket last as long as it did, if you can make AM3+ last as long as AM2/AM2+/AM3 I'd be grateful. Oh and can you PLEASE crank out more of the 95w Thuban 6 cores and get them to places like Newegg? Thanks.
Then what about my other solution, which is to use a 19 inch 4x3 for your document and picture work, and then use the widescreen for entertainment? Again this would be MUCH cheaper than trying to find a big ass CRT that still works good and has decent resolution, and every GPU except Intel has supported multimonitor for at least a couple of years now.
The drivers are solid, Windows supports dual screens quite nicely (especially Windows 7) and you don't have to deal with rotation bugs, which frankly so few people rotate monitors it doesn't surprise me they are buggy.
So it seems to me with just a little planning your problem can be solved, and on the cheap to boot. try your local Craigslist, they have 19 inch 4x3 monitors for quite cheap (mine has no less than 4 all under $50 each) and with even a low midrange Nvidia or ATI card (you can get a nice HD4830 for like $60 now) you'll have no problem driving both monitors and bouncing things between them. It sounds like just what you'd need to be able to have 4x3 for documents on the cheap.