Ow wow, a Linux fanboi doesn't have the fucking common sense to read what he is posting to and spews bullshit! Surprise surprise. In case you didn't bother to read the parent post, which is obvious either you didn't or just didn't have enough cells to comprehend, let me break it down for you: Mr Coward wrote that if a company for whatever reason wouldn't take a "FOSS solution" he would "stick it to the man" by giving them hot Windows and illegal software, and then went on a rant about how copying isn't stealing and its all just bits and then told me to go fuck myself, just like you drooling fanoi that you are.
So I then pointed out that he (and you) are complete and total hypocrites because you have a shitfit when a corp steals GPL code but think it is just hunky dory to steal from corps you don't like. Well you can't have it both ways fanboi, either it is wrong to take from both, or it isn't wrong to take GPL code and stick behind a paywall because "it is just copying" and licenses don't mean shit.
So which is it? Since you jumped in with support for the AC I'm sure you agree with him that piracy in the workplace is cool as long as you are "sticking it to the man" right? So you don't mind if corps take the hard work of GPL volunteers and lock it up right? Its just copying?
NOW do you see your own blatant hypocrisy Alex? You are all for protections when it comes to GPL but deny those same protection when it comes to a company you don't like. It is THIS, this right here, that has turned me off from FOSS. The fanboyism, the elitist and hypocritical bullshit that infects the entire community that turned me off of it. So you go right ahead and call me names, and convince yourself that it is all a conspiracy and that nobody would choose anything but your precious GPL. Nope it couldn't be that many are tired of your bullshit and failed promises, nope couldn't be that.
Wow check out the total blind hatred! Do ya think if the article replaced MSFT with Apple, IE 9 with Safari, and
Xbox with AppleTV your reaction would be the same? Is having plenty of competition REALLY so damned bad Eldavojohn? Personally I'd be happy if we end up with a nice healthy ecosystem with WebOS, WinPhone,Android, and iOS all competing thus making things better for us, the consumer by giving us plenty of choice.
Call me weird but I actually like competition and a free market. That way if ANY of the companies have serious breakdowns like you describe I can simply vote with my dollars. Strange concept but it is better IMHO than rampant fanboyism.
And finally I would just like to point out I got labeled a troll for daring to point out this very thing was the whole point of the Xbox to get MSFT into the living room where they could then offer integrated solutions such as X360+Windows 7+WinPhone. Wow, is the Hairyfeet psychic? Nope, if I was I'd have already picked the correct numbers for powerball. Nope it is just a little thing known as common sense and looking at things from a business perspective instead of blind fanboyism.
It is simple: People like seamless, people like simple, people like "it just works" which is why Apple is making out like bandits. MSFT has already made integration between the X360 and the Win 7 desktop simple and seamless, this was the final piece in the puzzle. This lets you carry lower res versions or minigames with you than then affect your game at home, will let you hook into and access your media from Win 7, it will all be nice and smooth and seamless.
Will it sell? Who knows, MSFT still has a seriously big hill to climb and Apple still puts out great devices that everybody wants. There is also the fact that those burnt on WinMo in the past may not be willing to give them another chance, but in that respect having the name tie into Windows 7, which is a very good and popular OS, was a smart move. this fight is still too early to call, the only sure bet I'd make right now is RIM is probably toast. But we have iOS, Android, WinPhone 7, and soon to be WebOS all duking it out for a piece of the pie and that sounds like a win for the consumer. Choice is always good, right?
Because unlike PCs where thanks to DOS and other primitive OSes the people got conditioned to expect random fuckups and freezes they are used to their phones working which if you try any of these CCC devices they most certainly DON'T.
Hell I'll give you a perfect example you can hold in your hand and try yourself. Got a Walgreen's or Walmart nearby? Go check out the sub $150 aPads and see for yourself. These devices are being pushed as a "portable Internet device" yet the browser doesn't work and will often crash the device or lock it hard when you simply launch it. That doesn't count the wifi chip that almost never works, even if you are 15 feet from the router, or the "apps" half of which either don't run or run so slow they are unusable for ANY purpose.
So I think you are vastly underestimating the shitty quality we are talking about here, thanks to Google not setting minimum standards the OEMs have been putting out garbage that even Linux guys wouldn't attempt to hack. And of course the big "gotcha" for Google is people only go by name which on every single one of these CCCs is ANDROID in giant letters with a big droid logo on them. To use a/. car analogy: What do you think would happen to Toyota if they allowed any company to put out any POS and call it a Toyota? Do you think it would help or hurt the brand? It really is just common sense.
Good so copying isn't stealing which means I can lock up GPL code in my apps and you're totally cool with that, right? It is just copying some bits, fuck the GPL!
Oh but you don't like that do you? Well I hate to break the news to ya but whether GPL or proprietary you are STILL ripping someone off.
And lets be honest MR Coward, your "solutions" suck except for a couple of little niches like web servers. Where is my FOSS QuickBooks? Where is my FOSS PhotoShop? Where is my FOSS version of the 50 million specialized apps, everything from nursing assistants to parts inventory? Oh right they don't exist, because everyone in FOSS seems to think all you need is a desktop and a web browser...riiight.
So in conclusion MR Coward it isn't some "conspiracy" why FOSS is at 1% and frankly stagnant, it is because you don't give the people what they want and the proprietary companies do. People say they want a CLI free desktop they get told by you "RTFA noob!" while Apple and MSFT are more than happy to take that business. They ask where the apps they require to do their job or the driver the need for their equipment is and get told "write it yourself", meanwhile other companies are happy to write them precisely because they can get paid to do it.
So please, go right ahead and push illegal software so you can "stick it to the man", I just hope you are ready for the "fun" of a BSAA audit when someone who gets pissed at your little solution decides to cash you in.
But I hate ta break the news to ya Danny boy, but I believe in the right tool for the job and for me and my customers that is Linux on web servers and embedded projects, Windows on the desktop and on the internal server running AD and Exchange. I unlike you don't think I "rule teh web" or try to force my services onto those that don't want them, I let the market decide. you know, the thing that has made MSFT #1 on the desktop for nearly 30 years?
But you go right ahead Danny, follow me around and talk about how you Linux users are gonna rule teh web, meanwhile everyone who isn't blind will be smart enough to pay attention to history. While you may think Android has already won (which BTW thanks to the "TiVo Trick" is BSD and NOT Linux, since they can lock it down all they want) I am smart enough to remember not 4 years ago everyone was making fun of Apple for getting into smartphones and Android wasn't even a thought, yet look at it now. You can't just call such a fast moving market, not even a "ruler of teh web" such as yourself. BTW did you tell your boss you won't support iDevices yet? Thought not.
Notice how I got modded down for daring not to jump on the FOSSie "Boo MSFT!" groupthink wagon? And eyeballs don't make money? Better tell that to Google, who seem to have made out like bandits by controlling eyeballs.
As for what ties would make sense? Where have YOU been? Never hear of a little thing known as Tegra? imagine an RPG where you have a group of fun "mini games" you can take on the road with you on your phone which will level up and affect your character when you got home. Hell from watching some of the demos Tegra can do Doom 3 style graphics with ease, so you could even reuse much of the code and just have a cut down lower res version of a game as an app on the disc.
Now add to that these chips can do hardware acceleration and Dx9 and you have all kinds of ways you can tie the X360, Nokia WinPhone (which it seems like TFA was correct that Nokia is gonna be the hardware division of MSFT Mobile, as you don't spend billions just to get some designs) and Windows 7. As I said imagine not only being able to watch shows you recorded on your Win 7 Media Center on the X360 but have it streamed and automatically resized for your WinPhone.
And finally don't forget when talking about the X360 that every single device and game made for the X360 equals a check cut to MSFT for licensing. Look at ANY top ten game list, see how many slots are held by the X360. And don't forget that Janus DRM hasn't been truly cracked despite being out for years, which will make content providers more comfortable going with MSFT.
So I'd say this is the first real sign we've seen that MSFT is gonna take mobile seriously and step up to the plate. I have a feeling it'll end up with a three way race between Apple, MSFT, and Google, with Apple on top. While everyone here still sings about Android seeing the glut of CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) being shoved down the channel all being pushed with the droid I believe there will be a backlash within a year if Google doesn't crack down and demand minimum specs for the droid, which we haven't seen any indication of.
Both Apple and MSFT will control the whole smash so when you buy a WinPhone or iPhone it "just works" and that to me will make a difference, how much so is yet to be seen. And the fanboys here can bleat or bury their heads in the sand all they want, but those that ignore history are doomed to be blindsided by it yet again. And let us not forget that the SOP of MSFT is to watch a competitor, learn from them, and then eventually dominate a market using money and marketing. MSFT has the R&D and the cash to make inroads into any arena they choose to, it all comes down to drive and the willingness to try new things, which Ballmer seems to be ready and willing to do and this is coming from someone who said he should have been fired years ago.
But then the spoiled rotten "what about me?" generation might actually have to...oh I don't know...RAISE THEIR OWN DAMNED KIDS instead of handing them over to mommy government! Gasp! they might actually have to get involved and shit instead of just plopping them in front of electronic babysitters! The horror!
Sadly I wish that was a fricking joke, but it ain't, as I have seen waaaaaay too many of my boys little school chums being raised by electronic babysitters. No books in the home, no real meaningful interaction, just plop them in front of (insert DVD, X360,PC,etc) and let it "keep them out of my hair".
When my sister was struck down by MS and her husband decided that "taking care of a sick wife and two kids ain't for me" and skipped town I took it upon myself to be the best damned parent I could be despite deciding years ago not to have kids, and by God that is what I did, even when my back was so messed up from a car wreck they had to climb on a table just to get a hug or picked up.
I didn't care about them playing violent games because I sat down and educated them by showing how what they saw was created on screen**, how scripting created the illusion of AI, how DOOM wads (dating myself here) could be edited to stick pictures of them in the game. I also didn't just stick them in front of a damned screen, even though many nights the pain in my back was terrible. I sat there and actually engaged their growing minds by reading Asimov to them (just like mom did to me when I was little) or watching Nova with them and teaching them how to research answers on the net when I didn't know the answer to one of their questions.
TLDR? PARENTING IS HARD! And if you aren't willing to step up to the plate then don't fricking have kids! they ain't dolls, or little vanities for your ego, they are little human beings that need plenty of love and attention if they are gonna have a decent shot at a future. Now the oldest is started his first year of premed I'm proud to say, and the youngest still hasn't decided whether he wants to become a chef or do graphic arts. It has been damned hard but worth every second.
**-This had a funny and unintended "side effect" whereas my boys have a unique method of "cursing" at a game, such as "Who made this thing? Look at all the tearing! What is this 1997? And what idiot wrote the AI routines for this thing? DUCK YOU STUPID ENEMY!!!
Re:A Microsoft Nokia bad-analogy award
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Why Nokia Is Toast
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· Score: 1, Troll
Wow, way to miss the entire point of the Xbox! look up interviews at the start of the Xbox and you'll see that the Xbox making profits weren't the goal although now I understand they are making good money with it.
So what was the goal you ask? Simple to have control of the living room which many would argue has been a smashing success for MSFT. Very few buy HTPCs but households all across the land have the X360 and ALL those eyeballs belong to MSFT now. They can also promote other products by tying with the X360, like how well Windows 7 Media Center integrates with the X360. So I'd call the X360 a serious win, as it did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do, get MSFT from the office into the living room. If you want to talk fail bring up the Zune or Kin.
As for TFA if the second FL is correct I'd say it is the first damned smart mobile move MSFT has made in some time. Nokia makes kick ass hardware but their OS sucks, and by making the killer Nokia hardware exclusively WinPhone 7 MSFT will make it MUCH easier to make a powerful smartphone with the features and battery life folks want. One of the reasons Apple kicks butt in this area is the well known fact that by controlling the entire chain, from the OS down to the hardware, they can specifically optimize the OS for the specs and make a much better running device. From what I've seen WinPhone 7 is a nice OS but could be better, and with Nokia hardware powering it they lower support costs and make more tightly integrated phones that make better use of the hardware.
Sounds like win/win to me, especially if they then tie into the X360, like having a portable version of popular games you can take with you. Then you could have a top to bottom integrated solution like MSFT does in the office with AD+Exchange+Sharepoint by having Windows 7+X360+Nokia WinPhone all integrated nicely. Imagine built in easy to use Windows 7 RD so you could access your media at home through the phone, or to use your phone or tablet as a media controller for the X360/Win 7 combo. Sounds nice to me.
BULLSHIT Airdorn. Have you ever been in some of these shops? Let me tell you how it works: They expect YOU to spend all day installing hot software which they will then blame YOU if anybody catches them on it. Does it seem like there is any upside for YOU? Nope, not a bit.
Hell I even had an interview that went like this: Owner "It says here you know how to setup Windows and Linux servers, is that right?" Me- yes sir not a problem. Owner "Can you set up a Windows machine so it updates from our server instead of Windows Update?" Me-Why would you want to do that? Owner "So we can use this with all our clients and field offices" and then plops out a "Razor1911 Vista Ultimate all version no activation" DVD on the desk. Needless to say I just laughed and walked away, but what about the guy who has no choice but to take the job because he is hurting for work?
So don't be pushing that sour grapes bullshit because a lot of these guys don't want to be pushing illegal software but are told "Do this or walk" by their bosses. Hell there was about 3 years there where damned near every office machine that crossed my desk all had the exact same key which was the "Razor1911 XP Pro SP2" serial key. The reason? Because there were a ton of PHBs in middle management and owners of SMBs that wanted free upgrades for the Win2K boxes they had.
So don't make this out to be some disgruntled employee, because I bet if you were to check back with them a lot quit over hot software in the first place. Or do you think it is okay to steal, as long as it is from companies you don't like?
Riiiiight. Something that sucks the living hell out of a battery, that has ZERO hardware acceleration on mobile, which frankly makes it worthless to a large majority of devices, isn't supported by the vast majority which means you'll have to give them a pop up anyway or bake in a half ass "solution" that runs like ass on all because it is optimized for nothing. oh and has the number of websites actually using it numbering less than the amount of digits on RMS. Yep, that'll work...not.
Why FOSSies are bound and determined to keep getting into fights they have NO chance of winning is beyond me. Hell look at Vorbis, when they launched it was there ANYONE that thought they had a snowball's chance in hell of unseating MP3 at that late stage of the game? Nope, but all that effort was wasted anyway, same as with Theora. It isn't like your "solution" is some kick ass product that brings new and powerful features to the table it isn't evenas good as what is currently in use!
My prediction? All this WebM bullshit will simply kill HTML V5 video tag deader than Dixie and entrench flash for the foreseeable future which I'm sure you and Adobe are REAL happy about. Hell if I was Adobe I'd have "We heart Google!" week and send Brin a nice cake. Because thanks to Google the easiest thing to do will be to simply serve up the raw H.264 for iDevice and those of us that have the codec and for everyone else wrap it in a flash. Tada! I just covered a good 90% of the web with almost NO effort! So I hope you like flash, because thanks to Google trying to start another format war it is here to stay.
And I'm afraid you are what is commonly known as a "FOSSie" which unlike FOSS users think they can force their views upon the world, but the world has spoken in a loud and clear voice Danny, they don't want to play your little reindeer games. No GPL, no "four freedoms" and the saddest part? The one that the FOSSies has been trumpeting as their savior is fucking them like a $20 whore and they are too fricking clueless to know! It is just TOO funny! Can you guess who, starts with a G and rhymes with Moogle?
Notice Google won't touch GPL V3 with a 50 foot pole? Know why that is? It is because they know they can "TiVo trick" your ass and there isn't a damned thing you can do about it except bitch and whine on some forum because yet again you have NO power
So come back when you actually have a VALID argument, something that consists of more than "Free as in freedom man! Fight the power, woo!" because as we have seen time after time after time the rest of the planet by hugemajorities could not care less about your "free as in freedom man, woo!" BS and would rather have things that actually...oh what is the concept? oh yeah...work well. So you can keep your CLI heavy mess of an OS, your not even as good as H.263 Theora and its soon to be stuck in court for a decade cousin WebM, because if all you have to offer the consumer is "free as in freedom man, fight the power!" then frankly you have nothing to offer.
So you can get off your "we Linux guys rule the web" bullshit, because I just provided links that show you have no power whereas you like the rest of the FOSSies only have words on a forum, that's all. No power, no large installed base, no voting stock, nada zip zero zilch. Like I said I dare you to walk into your bosses office tomorrow and tell him you won't support iDevices on anything you touch, go right ahead, put your money where your mouth is. I'm sure there are quite a few guys that will be happy to have your job, and hell will probably do it for less money to boot.
Yeah too bad you don't have any power because it is the actual PHBs and owners of said sites that WILL dictate what you do or your ass will be fired and they have spoken: It is H.264. As long as iDevices don't support WebM (and I seriously doubt they ever will, as Steve don't just change horses like that) then you have the choice of A-Cutting your nose off to spite your face by killing support for the hottest devices out there (which MSFT will jump in with a "Me too!" so that kills about 94% of the smart device users right there) or B-STFU and do what your boss says and keep your job from being shipped to Bangalore. We know which answer it will be, right Daniel?
Like it or not you have NO power because if you did Windows wouldn't own the desktop, MP3 wouldn't own the music formats, and H.264 wouldn't own the web and BD players. The very fact that they do proves you have NO power so you can keep your self righteous bullshit because that and an empty sack is worth the sack. You have NO power over OEMs, you have NO power over device manufacturers, and you have NO power over the vast majority of the public. Finally you have NO power over the CxOs, who all just got new iShiny devices and will be more than happy to fire your ass when they find their iShiny don't work.
If your group had ANY power then after FIFTEEN YEARS you would have better than a lousy 1% share which sadly was trumpeted as some sort of win here, when for anyone else the doors would have been closed and the assets sold off for such a shitty performance in that length of time. So you can just get off that high horse because as Vorbis, Theora, and soon to be WebM will prove like a slap to your face Daniel you have NO power and are just a little drone like everyone else.
Go ahead, tell your boss you're gonna make sure no iDevice works on anything you touch. I'm sure there are plenty of guys that will be more than happy for your job.
Actually YOU should be modded down because WebM offers NOTHING but "Free as in freedom man!" which as we have seen time and time again (Vorbis and Theora) mean exactly jack and squat unless you can bring something better to the table which it is pretty damned clear WebM DOES NOT.
Does it give a better picture than the current standard H.264? No, not even close. In fact you'd probably have to add 40%+ to the filesize and an equal amount to the bandwidth to equal H.264 AVC Baseline
Does it give better performance and battery life than H.264? Again no, in this case just the opposite in fact. WebM will suck a battery dry as it uses more CPU and RAM for the same job and that isn't counting the fact that nearly every device sold in the last 4 years, from your mobile phone to GPUs in your PC have built in hardware support for H.264.
And before anyone says "They can add it in firmware!" that is not only not possible in many devices like the cell phones and DVD players due to lack of resources, but it is also a catch-22: If it is easy to drop in WebM by using a few simple transforms in the firmware then it DOES fall afoul of H.264 patents, as they have pretty much the entire process from start to finish patented up the ying yang. If it isn't then it means all that work and all those chips are gonna have to be shitcanned, which will raise costs as well as obsolete many devices before their time.
So I'm sorry but all WebM has going for it is a bunch of FOSS users (which last I checked is less than 3% of the market) screaming "Free as in freedom!" and a single ad company (Google) that wants to control web video the way MSFT did with WMV, since they control the direction of WebM.
As we have seen time after time after time you can't just jump into the game years down the road with nothing to offer but the four freedoms because the vast majority of the world isn't coders and really don't care. The users don't care because H.264 works and gives them nice videos without killing the battery or hitting their caps, the OEMs don't care because H.264 support is already a sunk cost on their chips and thanks to MPEG-LA is perceived rightly or wrongly as not having a risk of patent trolling (which with Google refusing to indemnify those that use WebM despite their huge money and army of lawyers smells funny right off the bat) so frankly you have NOTHING compelling to offer: Not file sizes/picture quality, not bandwidth nor battery life, ALL YOU HAVE is "free as in freedom man!" which if that would work Windows wouldn't still own 90%+ of the market and iDevices wouldn't be flying off the shelves.
Sorry, but if you think freedom alone will win this you might want to talk to the Vorbis guys and see how much good it did them over MP3.
You might want to look at this comment by a fellow/. users to see EXACTLY what is happening right now: Consumers getting burnt by CCC and by funky carrier add on crap and ALL of it being pushed by the Android Droid.
But hell, don't take MY word for it, Google "Android retailer burnout" to see for yourself, my friends aren't the only ones reporting this by a long shot. Android will continue to climb for a while on the geek factor and all the positive press by those same geeks, but most families don't have geeks to guide their purchases.
I get offered a CCC android device probably 3 times a week in my shop by people that got burnt. When I tell them no thanks I get told they are gonna probably shitcan the thing and go to iPhone/iPad. And of course every singe one of them that got burnt are now telling their friends/family/coworkers that Android is shit and they should get an iPhone.
It is just common sense: You can't flood a market with truly festering turds like the $99 aPads being sold at all the local retail shops along with $150 aPhones that frankly can't even make a decent phone call and expect people to wade through mountains of shit to find the few pearls and consider it sustainable. For every HTC Desire you got 100 CCCs being pushed by carriers as "just like the iPhone!" (according to my friends that is what they are being told to say by their bosses to get people to sign up) and when they find it a horrible experience are spreading the word far and wide. Again this is just common sense.
Then all they would have to do is pop up a screen that says "Hi! We're afraid the video isn't working because you are lacking a common codec. If you are on Linux please go to your distro's forum to find out where to enable the universe repository for your distro and download the codec, if you are on Windows please click this link to go to Ninite and check the box that says "Klite Codec Pack" which will give you all the common DirectShow codecs required to play any content on Windows. Thanks"
See how easy that was? If they didn't want to link to a codec pack (which frankly would be the easiest and IMHO best solution, as it allows the users to play all the major formats both offline and on, and with Ninite they don't even have to "clicky clicky" just pick install and it is all unattended) they could provide a link to VLC which plays everything under the sun OOTB and then just call VLC.
No this is just BAD ATTITUDE on the part of the FF developers, which they have been showing for quite some time. Look at how they first tried to claim there weren't major memory leaks in the 2.xxx branch, or how it had to be the user's fault because they MUST have installed a dodgy extension. Now they show the same BAD ATTITUDE when it comes to codecs and adding support for low rights mode (which both IE and the Webkit based have had for some time). Hell last I checked their forums their attitude was "don't care since low rights isn't in Linux". Well duh, Linux is a completely different arch A, it is less than 4% compared to nearly 45% for Vista/7 B, and C if Webkit which works on all arches can support it easily so should they.
Frankly the quality of Firefox IMHO has been going seriously downhill of late, and their bad attitude doesn't help things. The last two releases have been slow as ass on the 1.8GHz Sempron I use as a Nettop and as a baseline tests for apps (since it is roughly on par with your average Netbook) and the last 2 builds of FF have been sucking up 500MB+ of RAM with 4 or 5 tabs open for any length of time, and when launching a new tab will spike the living hell out of the CPU, punching it to 100% and leaving it there for as long as 15 seconds at a time. The new Chromium doesn't do this even using the same extensions (ABP and ForecastFox) so something is up.
So they really need to lose the attitude, make it easy on users with regards to codecs, and start worrying more about their code and less about funky formats like WebM which don't have a snowball's chance in hell. Because more and more folks I see coming into the shop are running Chrome or some other Chromium based, and even I whom have been a diehard FF supporter has started including Chromium based browser on my builds. FF has just become a mess of late and their bad attitude isn't helping things, this codec mess is just another in a long line of bad attitude moves by FF. Not simply using what is installed on the system (which is better optimized than any generic browser plugin) is just stupid IMHO, and a waste of resources by a browser that frankly wastes resources too much already.
Well considering that Nokia is a handset maker not a distro developer I doubt they'll be supporting QT for much longer. But hey, the whole point of FOSS is you can "DIY" right? I'm sure someone else (maybe Canonical?) will take it if Nokia tosses.
As for TFA I think it is a good idea from a retail standpoint. Talking with friends that deal with handsets in retail they are starting to see "Android burnout" as customers have been warned away from Android by the glut of CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) running Android and frankly barely functional. There is no way the average consumer would know the difference between a "good" android device and a "bad" one just by looking at the thing and when they get burnt they tell their families, coworkers, friends, etc. And honestly the market is beyond flooded with android devices right now, there is just no where to go with it.
So that just leaves WebOS, iOS, and RIM. RIM is likewise losing share although they have enough loyal CxOs that it will just be a slower fall, and Apple and HP won't be selling to outsiders. So that leaves WinPhone 7 which if you look at the specs is pretty damned decent for a smartphone and those are the bare minimum specs you are allowed to run. This means that unlike Android a consumer can be confident that his WinPhone will be a "good" one without having to learn a bunch of specs that frankly most of them won't understand, and now that Ballmer is chopping heads at MSFT and hiring engineers again with a focus on mobile there is a good chance that WinPhone will be pretty decent, especially with the top notch Nokia hardware.
As for MSFT "paying" Nokia? I doubt it, MSFT knows Nokia has nowhere to go. Most likely they gave Nokia a standard OEM license with perks like advertising in return for Nokia accelerating their top of the line hardware over to WinPhone. In the end unless WebOS in the hands of HP turns out brilliant (which is possible, but I haven't seen any "wow!" hardware from HP in awhile) it will most likely end up Android on the CCC, with iOS and WinPhone splitting the middle and top end, with Apple on top.
Like before MSFT will have the cheaper priced product, but with phones being status symbols as much as devices I don't think that'll make as much a difference this time around. Since WinPhone has higher specs than Nokia can afford to use on the low end, they will probably keep Symbian or Maemo for the new "smarter but not smart" phones which seems to be the way the low end market is headed. Only time will tell if they succeed but from where I sit and the choices they had it seems like Nokia went the only way they had to go.
That is EXACTLY what I'm saying buddy, as I have seen these things overheat just from having 3 PCs pumping so yeah, those "12 bytes" will kill it pretty dead. You should really take a look at the code for one of these things, IIRC some of the old Trendnet code is floating around the web. They literally have maybe 2 bytes worth of "wiggle room" for flashing the firmware and that is pretty much it.
I'm running a sub $25 Trendnet right now (the most popular by a long shot for SMBs around this part BTW, similar in popularity to the Linksys wireless) and just pumping two PCs full bore for an hour or two will heat that little sucker up, although it won't drop packets. Just look at this page at some of the routers and try Googling their specs, they are really bargain basement. BTW notice that even after all the big talk about IPV6 they are STILL selling these things? Talk about premade garbage!
The simple fact is these things have almost no CPU, almost no RAM nor NVRAM, there just ain't no room at the inn bud. For the job they were designed for? They work great. They are tough, they are dependable, I have had a couple of Trendnet wired routers pulling in the middle of a lumber mill where the foulness of these things are unbelievable, yet they keep on humping year after year.
But when the switch is flipped nobody is gonna try to update these things, there just isn't any room. Hell take the one on top (which is the same model I use and the one in many SMBs) and see if you can find squat for it...you won't. Not wwdrt, not tomato, hell I doubt Trendnet has even put out a single flash for them. They just have enough juice to do that single job and when that job no longer cuts the mustard some poor family in Africa is gonna be sitting on a bonfire made out of a mountain of these things.
It is a damned shame but what I knew this would happen years ago when it came out that IPV6 wouldn't be backwards compatible. If it did these machines could be saved from the landfill and slowly replaced by IPV6 capable over time, instead they will poison the environment. Between that and refusing to allow NAT thanks to engineering prejudice (which IMHO will leave MANY networks waving in the breeze when their addresses are all public when they meant private) IPV6 is just a clusterfuck all around, and I'm damned glad I don't work corporate consulting anymore so I don't have to try to clean up the mess. Either way it is gonna be fucking nasty.
It seems through all that (interesting and insightful though it was) you seemed to miss my point, which is that computers don't think like a human and probably never will. I mean you have a million chess computers that can play at grand master level but not a single one thinks like Bobby Fisher and most wouldn't have ever used some of his unorthodox moves.
So the problem isn't so much "whether we live in a simulation or not" which if you want to get technical we ALL live in a little bubble created by how our brains interpret our sense, it is the fact that to get a human into the machine you'll have to translate human into machine code, which as I said nuances would be lost.
A machine might know that I like to walk the streets at night, but would it be able to create the random musings that flow through my head? The sense of wonder I get from the stars, or the random memories that float by based on a familiar sight, smell, sound, or just nothing at all? I highly doubt it.
So it isn't that I'm saying the human is some sort of wonderous creature that can't be replicated, or that our fuzzy brains can't one day be probably fit with our entire knowledge into a box the size of a toaster, it is that humans and machines are so alien to each other that expecting to be able to translate from one to the other and get anything more than a bad simulacrum of the original would be like you having sex with a dolphin and wondering why you can't have kids because you're both mammals. At the core of it they are binary and we are probably the worst kind of fuzzy analog one could make, and in this case I just don't see anyway to translate one to the other anymore than saying a grand master level chess computer is Bobby Fisher. They play the same game but that is where the story ends.
But, and just to be fair since nobody seems to believe the numbers unless it suits them, lets say 3% of the desktop/netbook/whatever are using Linux (/. reported it at 1% not to long ago, but we'll say 3%) that leaves another 97% that don't care and frankly don't have a clue about any of this crap for the most part, they just want the nice video.
Now as we saw before with Vorbis free don't mean shit if the public and the OEMs don't hop on board and right now the smart money is on H.264 winning, probably by a lot. After all thanks to flash (which by dropping H.264 support in Chrome Google handed the win to) you can take a single video encoded once and simply serve it "raw" to iDevice users and add a flash wrapper to everyone else. Tada! I have 97% of the audience right there with minimal effort, probably closer to 100% because despite their bitching about the quality most Linux guys do have flash or gnash installed.
This is of course not even counting the fact that all the device manufacturers have H.264 decoder chips that work real well, that WebM currently sucks more power from devices and more bandwidth for the same quality, and just like flash the H.264 software is mature and so easy to use your grandma could make H.264 videos.
So I'm really sorry Linux guys, but if you want to win you need to get ahead of the game not to try to jump in years after the game has started and think you'll change things. Sorry but you ain't Apple and don't have that kind of pull, as Vorbis and Theora should have proven to everyone. If you want the next big thing (I'd vote on 3D, but it might be another fad, or maybe SuperHD 4k+ resolution) then you need to start NOW, as in right now. As it is you are fighting a battle that is pretty much already o over, the fat lady is down the street having a sandwich.
Nobody is gonna give up their iShiny for "free as in freedom man!" and where Apple goes goes MSFT with a hearty "Me Too!" so unless Google thinks they can take over the desktop AND the mobile space (which from talking to retailers they think Android is gonna crash and burn thanks to all the CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) running older Android flooding the market and burning consumers) then this race like the race between AAC VS MP3 VS Vorbis is done over, sorry. I mean did you see people run away from Apple when they starting locking things down tighter than a nun's thighs? Hell no! If anything they sold MORE than ever! And unless Apple does a 180 and supports WebM (not likely in this universe) then its over, give it up.
And while the distros can't legally install H.264 (I bet most do a "wink wink"let the user install codecs from countries that don't give a shit like Ubuntu does) what they CAN install is flash, as Adobe is happy to let anybody bundle flash with anything, which just proves my point: The future will be flash+H.264 thanks to Google trying to start another format war so soon after HD-DVD VS Blu_Ray. Nobody wants to go down that road again and H.264 has a hell of a lot less ? surrounding it, as TFA proves. Thanks to the USPTO handing out patents like beads at Mardi Gras I'm sure there is enough patents that even invalidated will tie WebM up in court until H.264 is PD, which by then who cares?
But the problem is the Matrix "How do machines know what chicken tastes like?" bit, in that machines don't do nuances and it is the nuances that make us who we are.
I mean I'm sure if we followed you around for a year filming and then threw a couple of thousand IBM programmers on it they could make a pretty damned perfect simulation of you running on Blue Gene. It would have your mannerisms, have your laugh, to those interacting with it, even those that knew you, it would probably be pretty lifelike and "real". But we tech guys would know that underneath the glossy exterior you would have path finding subroutines and an AI not much different than a chess computer, yet you don't think that way, do you?
While I wouldn't mind having some of these old limbs replaced with cybernetics in the future, the problem with replacing bits of the brain is at what point does it cease to be you and just becomes a simulation. We organics are illogical gut reacting seat of our pants kinds of creatures and machines just don't do that well, and I don't see shrinking the diodes to nanoscale changing that At what point does it go from you laughing because you thought something was funny to because the programs say that would be your typical response?
As for TFA as someone who has lost relatives to cancer and seen first hand what it can do to the human body anything we learn that helps us to place cancer alongside polio is in the history books is great in my book. Hell there are so many different ways to kill us from car wrecks to heart attacks I'm sure losing one won't be a big deal and that one is pure nasty. Not to mention with all the chemicals now in our systems (last I read even newborns test positive for plastics in the blood) cancers seem to be on the rise, so anything that can take cancer out of the equation is a big win in my book.
I just hate bullshit and trolls for BOTH sides equally. Both Thurott and Nichols are classic trolls, stirring up the shit with outlandish claims to stir up epic flamewars and score page views.
Just like you can be counted on for Thurott to say "I'm telling you that (insert name of MSFT product) is fricking wonderful! Linux sucks RMS's balls compared to this!" so can you count on Nichols to say "It is all a conspiracy by MSFT man! Linux can cure cancer while running on a 486SX while serving files to a fortune 500 company AND do all this while only using 2 watts of power! MSFT's software isn't fit to run a toilet!"
In both cases everything written is total bullshit carefully written and designed to piss one group or another off and cause epic flamewars, just classic troll bullshit. I've always been a "right tool for the job" guy myself and like you couldn't care what OS a person runs, but I fricking HATE pro trolls and shills. You probably can't find a single line by Thurott badmouthing Vista, just as you'll never see Nichols admit that Linux isn't for everybody. BOTH are shills and trolls of the worst order and the world would be a better place if neither were ever read again.
We have enough amateur trolls out there and here on/. for anyone to bring articles that are using the views of either Thurott or Nichols, thanks anyway.
I'd say several reasons, and not just nostalgia. 1.-It was one of the first games (and there have been few recently) that threw in copious amounts of pop culture references which was fun. IIRC Bruce Campbell tried to sue for all of his lines they blatantly ripped.
2.-It was one of the first 3D shooters that didn't take itself seriously and this age of CoD MoH WWII "lets storm Normandy AGAIN!" we really really REALLY need that. Realism is fine occasionally but it is a game and games should be above all FUN with a capital F. That is why I have been recommending "Just Cause 2" to my friends, as it is the most unrealistic GTA style game ever created, and it is refreshing to be pulling moves that would make Batman yell "bullshit!". I'd love for me some Duke Nukem total insanity like guns that shrink bad guys so you can squish them like little bugs. Crazy is fun!
3.-Yes there was the crude sexist humor, but that was part of the charm because old Duke was supposed to be a throwback. He was a classic action hero, a Rambo mixed with Terminator and spouting Bruce Campbell style (or often just Bruce Campbell's) typical action hero smart mouths. It is like in Last Action Hero when Arnold does Shakespeare "To be or not to be.../castle explodes, Arnold lights cigar/... not to be". that would be a classic Duke scene, and despite all the games focusing on "the cinema experience" they seem to lose the attitude in favor of realism, but attitude is fun!
I could go on, but you get the idea. Sometimes it is just a blast to have some good mindless destructive fun while being rewarded with smartmouth attitude in classic action hero fashion. It is the same over the top attitude that made Evil Dead or They Live cult classics. If you don't own it Good Old Games has the original Atomic Edition for just $6, works on XP-Windows 7 X64, even runs on Linux, and has all the mods linked below it (including the high res mod, must have IMHO) all in one handy spot. Try it and enjoy some mindless sexist fun today!
Well good Lord, look who the guy who wrote the article in TFA is listening too, fricking Stephen J Nichols! Read some of his past "work" and it is pretty obvious he is a professional Linux troll. All he does is come up with one outlandish theory after another, all designed to stir up the shit and score page views no matter how crazy.
If you read Nichols history it can be summed up as thus: "X (insert Linux distro or Linux itself) is dying" "it is all a conspiracy by (insert usually MSFT but sometimes Apple or someone else) to kill Linux!" or "Because of X (insert product he's shilling for) THIS year will be the year of Linux on the desktop!"
He is just the Linux equivalent of Paul Thurott, professional Windows troll. The same way Thurott can be counted on to say anything that makes Windows debates epic troll threads with his total bullshit (Vista is great AND low resource? Really Paul?) the same can be said of Nichols and Linux. Everyone knows Debian isn't going anywhere, hell they've outlasted just about everyone that started at the same time for the love of Pete. This is just Nichols stirring up the shit, and the guy who wrote TFA either took the trollbait or was desperate for some page views.
Street bike actually, summer of my 16th year I hit a dog at 60MPH plus coming back from swimming wearing nothing but a pair of PE shorts...ouch. Didn't break a bone but knocked out all the front teeth, ripped the jaw just like the Joker, and peeled the hide off from top to bottom (Thank God for those PE shorts!) which left me prone to infections and unable to do much more than lay around when not in rehab for nearly two years.
But I have to say in a way it was one of the best things that could have happened to me, because while the other kids got a cookie cutter education I got MS Edwards who was frankly one of the best teachers a kid could have, her and Mr Stone really knew how to make a kid think. Mr Stone had his own version of "six degrees" only he was an old hippie and his focal point was Woodstock. He could tie ANY event in American history to Woodstock in 6 moves or less. I don't know how many hours I spent pouring over American history trying to find an event that would stump him, and I never did.
Sadly he also taught JHS history and ended up fired soon after I got better because he showed the class Woodstock as a reward for all the hard work they had put in, and they fired him for "showing an inappropriate movie with drug references" in class. But what do you expect from a "football school" where they dumb things down to make sure little Johnny can keep making those 30 yard passes. They may have lousy equipment everywhere else, but the gym is always top notch and stocked as well as any AAA college athletic program.
I hate to say it but it was your own fault. no man should get his hair done and want of them boutique shops, it just ain't right. I don't care where you are in the USA there is a little old barbershop around nearby, ask the old guys if you can't find it. The service is better, no fancy shmancy BS that they need to charge you for like "Atmosphere", just a good man's haircut at a fair price.
And just like in the movies they are a good place to have a cup of coffee (coffee flavored coffee only as Dennis Leary put it) and hear about local events while you wait. A hell of a lot nicer than them damned chain stores.
As for TFA, good for them! I wish more states would enact that. It is fricking ridiculous how many places want practically your whole life story when all you want to do is buy something and get out of there. People have gotten too damned passive and will put up with way too much crap like that nowadays but I won't do it. Like you if a place starts asking for info that is none of their business I just walk out and refuse to shop there. I'm a firm believer in voting with your dollars and if more people would just say "screw this, I'm not shopping here" maybe we could see this practice die once and for all. We have enough government in our business without the corps adding to the already insane amount of data on us.
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Ow wow, a Linux fanboi doesn't have the fucking common sense to read what he is posting to and spews bullshit! Surprise surprise. In case you didn't bother to read the parent post, which is obvious either you didn't or just didn't have enough cells to comprehend, let me break it down for you: Mr Coward wrote that if a company for whatever reason wouldn't take a "FOSS solution" he would "stick it to the man" by giving them hot Windows and illegal software, and then went on a rant about how copying isn't stealing and its all just bits and then told me to go fuck myself, just like you drooling fanoi that you are.
So I then pointed out that he (and you) are complete and total hypocrites because you have a shitfit when a corp steals GPL code but think it is just hunky dory to steal from corps you don't like. Well you can't have it both ways fanboi, either it is wrong to take from both, or it isn't wrong to take GPL code and stick behind a paywall because "it is just copying" and licenses don't mean shit.
So which is it? Since you jumped in with support for the AC I'm sure you agree with him that piracy in the workplace is cool as long as you are "sticking it to the man" right? So you don't mind if corps take the hard work of GPL volunteers and lock it up right? Its just copying?
NOW do you see your own blatant hypocrisy Alex? You are all for protections when it comes to GPL but deny those same protection when it comes to a company you don't like. It is THIS, this right here, that has turned me off from FOSS. The fanboyism, the elitist and hypocritical bullshit that infects the entire community that turned me off of it. So you go right ahead and call me names, and convince yourself that it is all a conspiracy and that nobody would choose anything but your precious GPL. Nope it couldn't be that many are tired of your bullshit and failed promises, nope couldn't be that.
Xbox with AppleTV your reaction would be the same? Is having plenty of competition REALLY so damned bad Eldavojohn? Personally I'd be happy if we end up with a nice healthy ecosystem with WebOS, WinPhone,Android, and iOS all competing thus making things better for us, the consumer by giving us plenty of choice.
Call me weird but I actually like competition and a free market. That way if ANY of the companies have serious breakdowns like you describe I can simply vote with my dollars. Strange concept but it is better IMHO than rampant fanboyism.
And finally I would just like to point out I got labeled a troll for daring to point out this very thing was the whole point of the Xbox to get MSFT into the living room where they could then offer integrated solutions such as X360+Windows 7+WinPhone. Wow, is the Hairyfeet psychic? Nope, if I was I'd have already picked the correct numbers for powerball. Nope it is just a little thing known as common sense and looking at things from a business perspective instead of blind fanboyism.
It is simple: People like seamless, people like simple, people like "it just works" which is why Apple is making out like bandits. MSFT has already made integration between the X360 and the Win 7 desktop simple and seamless, this was the final piece in the puzzle. This lets you carry lower res versions or minigames with you than then affect your game at home, will let you hook into and access your media from Win 7, it will all be nice and smooth and seamless.
Will it sell? Who knows, MSFT still has a seriously big hill to climb and Apple still puts out great devices that everybody wants. There is also the fact that those burnt on WinMo in the past may not be willing to give them another chance, but in that respect having the name tie into Windows 7, which is a very good and popular OS, was a smart move. this fight is still too early to call, the only sure bet I'd make right now is RIM is probably toast. But we have iOS, Android, WinPhone 7, and soon to be WebOS all duking it out for a piece of the pie and that sounds like a win for the consumer. Choice is always good, right?
Because unlike PCs where thanks to DOS and other primitive OSes the people got conditioned to expect random fuckups and freezes they are used to their phones working which if you try any of these CCC devices they most certainly DON'T.
Hell I'll give you a perfect example you can hold in your hand and try yourself. Got a Walgreen's or Walmart nearby? Go check out the sub $150 aPads and see for yourself. These devices are being pushed as a "portable Internet device" yet the browser doesn't work and will often crash the device or lock it hard when you simply launch it. That doesn't count the wifi chip that almost never works, even if you are 15 feet from the router, or the "apps" half of which either don't run or run so slow they are unusable for ANY purpose.
So I think you are vastly underestimating the shitty quality we are talking about here, thanks to Google not setting minimum standards the OEMs have been putting out garbage that even Linux guys wouldn't attempt to hack. And of course the big "gotcha" for Google is people only go by name which on every single one of these CCCs is ANDROID in giant letters with a big droid logo on them. To use a /. car analogy: What do you think would happen to Toyota if they allowed any company to put out any POS and call it a Toyota? Do you think it would help or hurt the brand? It really is just common sense.
Good so copying isn't stealing which means I can lock up GPL code in my apps and you're totally cool with that, right? It is just copying some bits, fuck the GPL!
Oh but you don't like that do you? Well I hate to break the news to ya but whether GPL or proprietary you are STILL ripping someone off.
And lets be honest MR Coward, your "solutions" suck except for a couple of little niches like web servers. Where is my FOSS QuickBooks? Where is my FOSS PhotoShop? Where is my FOSS version of the 50 million specialized apps, everything from nursing assistants to parts inventory? Oh right they don't exist, because everyone in FOSS seems to think all you need is a desktop and a web browser...riiight.
So in conclusion MR Coward it isn't some "conspiracy" why FOSS is at 1% and frankly stagnant, it is because you don't give the people what they want and the proprietary companies do. People say they want a CLI free desktop they get told by you "RTFA noob!" while Apple and MSFT are more than happy to take that business. They ask where the apps they require to do their job or the driver the need for their equipment is and get told "write it yourself", meanwhile other companies are happy to write them precisely because they can get paid to do it.
So please, go right ahead and push illegal software so you can "stick it to the man", I just hope you are ready for the "fun" of a BSAA audit when someone who gets pissed at your little solution decides to cash you in.
Hi Danny, or should I say "We Linux users RULE teh web LOL!" and I just looove how it is astroturfing if we don't all drop down and worship the toe cheese munching RMS.
But I hate ta break the news to ya Danny boy, but I believe in the right tool for the job and for me and my customers that is Linux on web servers and embedded projects, Windows on the desktop and on the internal server running AD and Exchange. I unlike you don't think I "rule teh web" or try to force my services onto those that don't want them, I let the market decide. you know, the thing that has made MSFT #1 on the desktop for nearly 30 years?
But you go right ahead Danny, follow me around and talk about how you Linux users are gonna rule teh web, meanwhile everyone who isn't blind will be smart enough to pay attention to history. While you may think Android has already won (which BTW thanks to the "TiVo Trick" is BSD and NOT Linux, since they can lock it down all they want) I am smart enough to remember not 4 years ago everyone was making fun of Apple for getting into smartphones and Android wasn't even a thought, yet look at it now. You can't just call such a fast moving market, not even a "ruler of teh web" such as yourself. BTW did you tell your boss you won't support iDevices yet? Thought not.
Notice how I got modded down for daring not to jump on the FOSSie "Boo MSFT!" groupthink wagon? And eyeballs don't make money? Better tell that to Google, who seem to have made out like bandits by controlling eyeballs.
As for what ties would make sense? Where have YOU been? Never hear of a little thing known as Tegra? imagine an RPG where you have a group of fun "mini games" you can take on the road with you on your phone which will level up and affect your character when you got home. Hell from watching some of the demos Tegra can do Doom 3 style graphics with ease, so you could even reuse much of the code and just have a cut down lower res version of a game as an app on the disc.
Now add to that these chips can do hardware acceleration and Dx9 and you have all kinds of ways you can tie the X360, Nokia WinPhone (which it seems like TFA was correct that Nokia is gonna be the hardware division of MSFT Mobile, as you don't spend billions just to get some designs) and Windows 7. As I said imagine not only being able to watch shows you recorded on your Win 7 Media Center on the X360 but have it streamed and automatically resized for your WinPhone.
And finally don't forget when talking about the X360 that every single device and game made for the X360 equals a check cut to MSFT for licensing. Look at ANY top ten game list, see how many slots are held by the X360. And don't forget that Janus DRM hasn't been truly cracked despite being out for years, which will make content providers more comfortable going with MSFT.
So I'd say this is the first real sign we've seen that MSFT is gonna take mobile seriously and step up to the plate. I have a feeling it'll end up with a three way race between Apple, MSFT, and Google, with Apple on top. While everyone here still sings about Android seeing the glut of CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) being shoved down the channel all being pushed with the droid I believe there will be a backlash within a year if Google doesn't crack down and demand minimum specs for the droid, which we haven't seen any indication of.
Both Apple and MSFT will control the whole smash so when you buy a WinPhone or iPhone it "just works" and that to me will make a difference, how much so is yet to be seen. And the fanboys here can bleat or bury their heads in the sand all they want, but those that ignore history are doomed to be blindsided by it yet again. And let us not forget that the SOP of MSFT is to watch a competitor, learn from them, and then eventually dominate a market using money and marketing. MSFT has the R&D and the cash to make inroads into any arena they choose to, it all comes down to drive and the willingness to try new things, which Ballmer seems to be ready and willing to do and this is coming from someone who said he should have been fired years ago.
But then the spoiled rotten "what about me?" generation might actually have to...oh I don't know...RAISE THEIR OWN DAMNED KIDS instead of handing them over to mommy government! Gasp! they might actually have to get involved and shit instead of just plopping them in front of electronic babysitters! The horror!
Sadly I wish that was a fricking joke, but it ain't, as I have seen waaaaaay too many of my boys little school chums being raised by electronic babysitters. No books in the home, no real meaningful interaction, just plop them in front of (insert DVD, X360,PC,etc) and let it "keep them out of my hair".
When my sister was struck down by MS and her husband decided that "taking care of a sick wife and two kids ain't for me" and skipped town I took it upon myself to be the best damned parent I could be despite deciding years ago not to have kids, and by God that is what I did, even when my back was so messed up from a car wreck they had to climb on a table just to get a hug or picked up.
I didn't care about them playing violent games because I sat down and educated them by showing how what they saw was created on screen**, how scripting created the illusion of AI, how DOOM wads (dating myself here) could be edited to stick pictures of them in the game. I also didn't just stick them in front of a damned screen, even though many nights the pain in my back was terrible. I sat there and actually engaged their growing minds by reading Asimov to them (just like mom did to me when I was little) or watching Nova with them and teaching them how to research answers on the net when I didn't know the answer to one of their questions.
TLDR? PARENTING IS HARD! And if you aren't willing to step up to the plate then don't fricking have kids! they ain't dolls, or little vanities for your ego, they are little human beings that need plenty of love and attention if they are gonna have a decent shot at a future. Now the oldest is started his first year of premed I'm proud to say, and the youngest still hasn't decided whether he wants to become a chef or do graphic arts. It has been damned hard but worth every second.
**-This had a funny and unintended "side effect" whereas my boys have a unique method of "cursing" at a game, such as "Who made this thing? Look at all the tearing! What is this 1997? And what idiot wrote the AI routines for this thing? DUCK YOU STUPID ENEMY!!!
Wow, way to miss the entire point of the Xbox! look up interviews at the start of the Xbox and you'll see that the Xbox making profits weren't the goal although now I understand they are making good money with it.
So what was the goal you ask? Simple to have control of the living room which many would argue has been a smashing success for MSFT. Very few buy HTPCs but households all across the land have the X360 and ALL those eyeballs belong to MSFT now. They can also promote other products by tying with the X360, like how well Windows 7 Media Center integrates with the X360. So I'd call the X360 a serious win, as it did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do, get MSFT from the office into the living room. If you want to talk fail bring up the Zune or Kin.
As for TFA if the second FL is correct I'd say it is the first damned smart mobile move MSFT has made in some time. Nokia makes kick ass hardware but their OS sucks, and by making the killer Nokia hardware exclusively WinPhone 7 MSFT will make it MUCH easier to make a powerful smartphone with the features and battery life folks want. One of the reasons Apple kicks butt in this area is the well known fact that by controlling the entire chain, from the OS down to the hardware, they can specifically optimize the OS for the specs and make a much better running device. From what I've seen WinPhone 7 is a nice OS but could be better, and with Nokia hardware powering it they lower support costs and make more tightly integrated phones that make better use of the hardware.
Sounds like win/win to me, especially if they then tie into the X360, like having a portable version of popular games you can take with you. Then you could have a top to bottom integrated solution like MSFT does in the office with AD+Exchange+Sharepoint by having Windows 7+X360+Nokia WinPhone all integrated nicely. Imagine built in easy to use Windows 7 RD so you could access your media at home through the phone, or to use your phone or tablet as a media controller for the X360/Win 7 combo. Sounds nice to me.
BULLSHIT Airdorn. Have you ever been in some of these shops? Let me tell you how it works: They expect YOU to spend all day installing hot software which they will then blame YOU if anybody catches them on it. Does it seem like there is any upside for YOU? Nope, not a bit.
Hell I even had an interview that went like this: Owner "It says here you know how to setup Windows and Linux servers, is that right?" Me- yes sir not a problem. Owner "Can you set up a Windows machine so it updates from our server instead of Windows Update?" Me-Why would you want to do that? Owner "So we can use this with all our clients and field offices" and then plops out a "Razor1911 Vista Ultimate all version no activation" DVD on the desk. Needless to say I just laughed and walked away, but what about the guy who has no choice but to take the job because he is hurting for work?
So don't be pushing that sour grapes bullshit because a lot of these guys don't want to be pushing illegal software but are told "Do this or walk" by their bosses. Hell there was about 3 years there where damned near every office machine that crossed my desk all had the exact same key which was the "Razor1911 XP Pro SP2" serial key. The reason? Because there were a ton of PHBs in middle management and owners of SMBs that wanted free upgrades for the Win2K boxes they had.
So don't make this out to be some disgruntled employee, because I bet if you were to check back with them a lot quit over hot software in the first place. Or do you think it is okay to steal, as long as it is from companies you don't like?
Riiiiight. Something that sucks the living hell out of a battery, that has ZERO hardware acceleration on mobile, which frankly makes it worthless to a large majority of devices, isn't supported by the vast majority which means you'll have to give them a pop up anyway or bake in a half ass "solution" that runs like ass on all because it is optimized for nothing. oh and has the number of websites actually using it numbering less than the amount of digits on RMS. Yep, that'll work...not.
Why FOSSies are bound and determined to keep getting into fights they have NO chance of winning is beyond me. Hell look at Vorbis, when they launched it was there ANYONE that thought they had a snowball's chance in hell of unseating MP3 at that late stage of the game? Nope, but all that effort was wasted anyway, same as with Theora. It isn't like your "solution" is some kick ass product that brings new and powerful features to the table it isn't even as good as what is currently in use!
My prediction? All this WebM bullshit will simply kill HTML V5 video tag deader than Dixie and entrench flash for the foreseeable future which I'm sure you and Adobe are REAL happy about. Hell if I was Adobe I'd have "We heart Google!" week and send Brin a nice cake. Because thanks to Google the easiest thing to do will be to simply serve up the raw H.264 for iDevice and those of us that have the codec and for everyone else wrap it in a flash. Tada! I just covered a good 90% of the web with almost NO effort! So I hope you like flash, because thanks to Google trying to start another format war it is here to stay.
And I'm afraid you are what is commonly known as a "FOSSie" which unlike FOSS users think they can force their views upon the world, but the world has spoken in a loud and clear voice Danny, they don't want to play your little reindeer games. No GPL, no "four freedoms" and the saddest part? The one that the FOSSies has been trumpeting as their savior is fucking them like a $20 whore and they are too fricking clueless to know! It is just TOO funny! Can you guess who, starts with a G and rhymes with Moogle? Notice Google won't touch GPL V3 with a 50 foot pole? Know why that is? It is because they know they can "TiVo trick" your ass and there isn't a damned thing you can do about it except bitch and whine on some forum because yet again you have NO power
So come back when you actually have a VALID argument, something that consists of more than "Free as in freedom man! Fight the power, woo!" because as we have seen time after time after time the rest of the planet by huge majorities could not care less about your "free as in freedom man, woo!" BS and would rather have things that actually...oh what is the concept? oh yeah...work well. So you can keep your CLI heavy mess of an OS, your not even as good as H.263 Theora and its soon to be stuck in court for a decade cousin WebM, because if all you have to offer the consumer is "free as in freedom man, fight the power!" then frankly you have nothing to offer.
So you can get off your "we Linux guys rule the web" bullshit, because I just provided links that show you have no power whereas you like the rest of the FOSSies only have words on a forum, that's all. No power, no large installed base, no voting stock, nada zip zero zilch. Like I said I dare you to walk into your bosses office tomorrow and tell him you won't support iDevices on anything you touch, go right ahead, put your money where your mouth is. I'm sure there are quite a few guys that will be happy to have your job, and hell will probably do it for less money to boot.
Yeah too bad you don't have any power because it is the actual PHBs and owners of said sites that WILL dictate what you do or your ass will be fired and they have spoken: It is H.264. As long as iDevices don't support WebM (and I seriously doubt they ever will, as Steve don't just change horses like that) then you have the choice of A-Cutting your nose off to spite your face by killing support for the hottest devices out there (which MSFT will jump in with a "Me too!" so that kills about 94% of the smart device users right there) or B-STFU and do what your boss says and keep your job from being shipped to Bangalore. We know which answer it will be, right Daniel?
Like it or not you have NO power because if you did Windows wouldn't own the desktop, MP3 wouldn't own the music formats, and H.264 wouldn't own the web and BD players. The very fact that they do proves you have NO power so you can keep your self righteous bullshit because that and an empty sack is worth the sack. You have NO power over OEMs, you have NO power over device manufacturers, and you have NO power over the vast majority of the public. Finally you have NO power over the CxOs, who all just got new iShiny devices and will be more than happy to fire your ass when they find their iShiny don't work.
If your group had ANY power then after FIFTEEN YEARS you would have better than a lousy 1% share which sadly was trumpeted as some sort of win here, when for anyone else the doors would have been closed and the assets sold off for such a shitty performance in that length of time. So you can just get off that high horse because as Vorbis, Theora, and soon to be WebM will prove like a slap to your face Daniel you have NO power and are just a little drone like everyone else.
Go ahead, tell your boss you're gonna make sure no iDevice works on anything you touch. I'm sure there are plenty of guys that will be more than happy for your job.
Actually YOU should be modded down because WebM offers NOTHING but "Free as in freedom man!" which as we have seen time and time again (Vorbis and Theora) mean exactly jack and squat unless you can bring something better to the table which it is pretty damned clear WebM DOES NOT.
Does it give a better picture than the current standard H.264? No, not even close. In fact you'd probably have to add 40%+ to the filesize and an equal amount to the bandwidth to equal H.264 AVC Baseline
Does it give better performance and battery life than H.264? Again no, in this case just the opposite in fact. WebM will suck a battery dry as it uses more CPU and RAM for the same job and that isn't counting the fact that nearly every device sold in the last 4 years, from your mobile phone to GPUs in your PC have built in hardware support for H.264.
And before anyone says "They can add it in firmware!" that is not only not possible in many devices like the cell phones and DVD players due to lack of resources, but it is also a catch-22: If it is easy to drop in WebM by using a few simple transforms in the firmware then it DOES fall afoul of H.264 patents, as they have pretty much the entire process from start to finish patented up the ying yang. If it isn't then it means all that work and all those chips are gonna have to be shitcanned, which will raise costs as well as obsolete many devices before their time.
So I'm sorry but all WebM has going for it is a bunch of FOSS users (which last I checked is less than 3% of the market) screaming "Free as in freedom!" and a single ad company (Google) that wants to control web video the way MSFT did with WMV, since they control the direction of WebM.
As we have seen time after time after time you can't just jump into the game years down the road with nothing to offer but the four freedoms because the vast majority of the world isn't coders and really don't care. The users don't care because H.264 works and gives them nice videos without killing the battery or hitting their caps, the OEMs don't care because H.264 support is already a sunk cost on their chips and thanks to MPEG-LA is perceived rightly or wrongly as not having a risk of patent trolling (which with Google refusing to indemnify those that use WebM despite their huge money and army of lawyers smells funny right off the bat) so frankly you have NOTHING compelling to offer: Not file sizes/picture quality, not bandwidth nor battery life, ALL YOU HAVE is "free as in freedom man!" which if that would work Windows wouldn't still own 90%+ of the market and iDevices wouldn't be flying off the shelves.
Sorry, but if you think freedom alone will win this you might want to talk to the Vorbis guys and see how much good it did them over MP3.
You might want to look at this comment by a fellow /. users to see EXACTLY what is happening right now: Consumers getting burnt by CCC and by funky carrier add on crap and ALL of it being pushed by the Android Droid.
But hell, don't take MY word for it, Google "Android retailer burnout" to see for yourself, my friends aren't the only ones reporting this by a long shot. Android will continue to climb for a while on the geek factor and all the positive press by those same geeks, but most families don't have geeks to guide their purchases.
I get offered a CCC android device probably 3 times a week in my shop by people that got burnt. When I tell them no thanks I get told they are gonna probably shitcan the thing and go to iPhone/iPad. And of course every singe one of them that got burnt are now telling their friends/family/coworkers that Android is shit and they should get an iPhone.
It is just common sense: You can't flood a market with truly festering turds like the $99 aPads being sold at all the local retail shops along with $150 aPhones that frankly can't even make a decent phone call and expect people to wade through mountains of shit to find the few pearls and consider it sustainable. For every HTC Desire you got 100 CCCs being pushed by carriers as "just like the iPhone!" (according to my friends that is what they are being told to say by their bosses to get people to sign up) and when they find it a horrible experience are spreading the word far and wide. Again this is just common sense.
Then all they would have to do is pop up a screen that says "Hi! We're afraid the video isn't working because you are lacking a common codec. If you are on Linux please go to your distro's forum to find out where to enable the universe repository for your distro and download the codec, if you are on Windows please click this link to go to Ninite and check the box that says "Klite Codec Pack" which will give you all the common DirectShow codecs required to play any content on Windows. Thanks"
See how easy that was? If they didn't want to link to a codec pack (which frankly would be the easiest and IMHO best solution, as it allows the users to play all the major formats both offline and on, and with Ninite they don't even have to "clicky clicky" just pick install and it is all unattended) they could provide a link to VLC which plays everything under the sun OOTB and then just call VLC.
No this is just BAD ATTITUDE on the part of the FF developers, which they have been showing for quite some time. Look at how they first tried to claim there weren't major memory leaks in the 2.xxx branch, or how it had to be the user's fault because they MUST have installed a dodgy extension. Now they show the same BAD ATTITUDE when it comes to codecs and adding support for low rights mode (which both IE and the Webkit based have had for some time). Hell last I checked their forums their attitude was "don't care since low rights isn't in Linux". Well duh, Linux is a completely different arch A, it is less than 4% compared to nearly 45% for Vista/7 B, and C if Webkit which works on all arches can support it easily so should they.
Frankly the quality of Firefox IMHO has been going seriously downhill of late, and their bad attitude doesn't help things. The last two releases have been slow as ass on the 1.8GHz Sempron I use as a Nettop and as a baseline tests for apps (since it is roughly on par with your average Netbook) and the last 2 builds of FF have been sucking up 500MB+ of RAM with 4 or 5 tabs open for any length of time, and when launching a new tab will spike the living hell out of the CPU, punching it to 100% and leaving it there for as long as 15 seconds at a time. The new Chromium doesn't do this even using the same extensions (ABP and ForecastFox) so something is up.
So they really need to lose the attitude, make it easy on users with regards to codecs, and start worrying more about their code and less about funky formats like WebM which don't have a snowball's chance in hell. Because more and more folks I see coming into the shop are running Chrome or some other Chromium based, and even I whom have been a diehard FF supporter has started including Chromium based browser on my builds. FF has just become a mess of late and their bad attitude isn't helping things, this codec mess is just another in a long line of bad attitude moves by FF. Not simply using what is installed on the system (which is better optimized than any generic browser plugin) is just stupid IMHO, and a waste of resources by a browser that frankly wastes resources too much already.
Well considering that Nokia is a handset maker not a distro developer I doubt they'll be supporting QT for much longer. But hey, the whole point of FOSS is you can "DIY" right? I'm sure someone else (maybe Canonical?) will take it if Nokia tosses.
As for TFA I think it is a good idea from a retail standpoint. Talking with friends that deal with handsets in retail they are starting to see "Android burnout" as customers have been warned away from Android by the glut of CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) running Android and frankly barely functional. There is no way the average consumer would know the difference between a "good" android device and a "bad" one just by looking at the thing and when they get burnt they tell their families, coworkers, friends, etc. And honestly the market is beyond flooded with android devices right now, there is just no where to go with it.
So that just leaves WebOS, iOS, and RIM. RIM is likewise losing share although they have enough loyal CxOs that it will just be a slower fall, and Apple and HP won't be selling to outsiders. So that leaves WinPhone 7 which if you look at the specs is pretty damned decent for a smartphone and those are the bare minimum specs you are allowed to run. This means that unlike Android a consumer can be confident that his WinPhone will be a "good" one without having to learn a bunch of specs that frankly most of them won't understand, and now that Ballmer is chopping heads at MSFT and hiring engineers again with a focus on mobile there is a good chance that WinPhone will be pretty decent, especially with the top notch Nokia hardware.
As for MSFT "paying" Nokia? I doubt it, MSFT knows Nokia has nowhere to go. Most likely they gave Nokia a standard OEM license with perks like advertising in return for Nokia accelerating their top of the line hardware over to WinPhone. In the end unless WebOS in the hands of HP turns out brilliant (which is possible, but I haven't seen any "wow!" hardware from HP in awhile) it will most likely end up Android on the CCC, with iOS and WinPhone splitting the middle and top end, with Apple on top.
Like before MSFT will have the cheaper priced product, but with phones being status symbols as much as devices I don't think that'll make as much a difference this time around. Since WinPhone has higher specs than Nokia can afford to use on the low end, they will probably keep Symbian or Maemo for the new "smarter but not smart" phones which seems to be the way the low end market is headed. Only time will tell if they succeed but from where I sit and the choices they had it seems like Nokia went the only way they had to go.
That is EXACTLY what I'm saying buddy, as I have seen these things overheat just from having 3 PCs pumping so yeah, those "12 bytes" will kill it pretty dead. You should really take a look at the code for one of these things, IIRC some of the old Trendnet code is floating around the web. They literally have maybe 2 bytes worth of "wiggle room" for flashing the firmware and that is pretty much it.
I'm running a sub $25 Trendnet right now (the most popular by a long shot for SMBs around this part BTW, similar in popularity to the Linksys wireless) and just pumping two PCs full bore for an hour or two will heat that little sucker up, although it won't drop packets. Just look at this page at some of the routers and try Googling their specs, they are really bargain basement. BTW notice that even after all the big talk about IPV6 they are STILL selling these things? Talk about premade garbage!
The simple fact is these things have almost no CPU, almost no RAM nor NVRAM, there just ain't no room at the inn bud. For the job they were designed for? They work great. They are tough, they are dependable, I have had a couple of Trendnet wired routers pulling in the middle of a lumber mill where the foulness of these things are unbelievable, yet they keep on humping year after year.
But when the switch is flipped nobody is gonna try to update these things, there just isn't any room. Hell take the one on top (which is the same model I use and the one in many SMBs) and see if you can find squat for it...you won't. Not wwdrt, not tomato, hell I doubt Trendnet has even put out a single flash for them. They just have enough juice to do that single job and when that job no longer cuts the mustard some poor family in Africa is gonna be sitting on a bonfire made out of a mountain of these things.
It is a damned shame but what I knew this would happen years ago when it came out that IPV6 wouldn't be backwards compatible. If it did these machines could be saved from the landfill and slowly replaced by IPV6 capable over time, instead they will poison the environment. Between that and refusing to allow NAT thanks to engineering prejudice (which IMHO will leave MANY networks waving in the breeze when their addresses are all public when they meant private) IPV6 is just a clusterfuck all around, and I'm damned glad I don't work corporate consulting anymore so I don't have to try to clean up the mess. Either way it is gonna be fucking nasty.
It seems through all that (interesting and insightful though it was) you seemed to miss my point, which is that computers don't think like a human and probably never will. I mean you have a million chess computers that can play at grand master level but not a single one thinks like Bobby Fisher and most wouldn't have ever used some of his unorthodox moves.
So the problem isn't so much "whether we live in a simulation or not" which if you want to get technical we ALL live in a little bubble created by how our brains interpret our sense, it is the fact that to get a human into the machine you'll have to translate human into machine code, which as I said nuances would be lost.
A machine might know that I like to walk the streets at night, but would it be able to create the random musings that flow through my head? The sense of wonder I get from the stars, or the random memories that float by based on a familiar sight, smell, sound, or just nothing at all? I highly doubt it.
So it isn't that I'm saying the human is some sort of wonderous creature that can't be replicated, or that our fuzzy brains can't one day be probably fit with our entire knowledge into a box the size of a toaster, it is that humans and machines are so alien to each other that expecting to be able to translate from one to the other and get anything more than a bad simulacrum of the original would be like you having sex with a dolphin and wondering why you can't have kids because you're both mammals. At the core of it they are binary and we are probably the worst kind of fuzzy analog one could make, and in this case I just don't see anyway to translate one to the other anymore than saying a grand master level chess computer is Bobby Fisher. They play the same game but that is where the story ends.
But, and just to be fair since nobody seems to believe the numbers unless it suits them, lets say 3% of the desktop/netbook/whatever are using Linux (/. reported it at 1% not to long ago, but we'll say 3%) that leaves another 97% that don't care and frankly don't have a clue about any of this crap for the most part, they just want the nice video.
Now as we saw before with Vorbis free don't mean shit if the public and the OEMs don't hop on board and right now the smart money is on H.264 winning, probably by a lot. After all thanks to flash (which by dropping H.264 support in Chrome Google handed the win to) you can take a single video encoded once and simply serve it "raw" to iDevice users and add a flash wrapper to everyone else. Tada! I have 97% of the audience right there with minimal effort, probably closer to 100% because despite their bitching about the quality most Linux guys do have flash or gnash installed.
This is of course not even counting the fact that all the device manufacturers have H.264 decoder chips that work real well, that WebM currently sucks more power from devices and more bandwidth for the same quality, and just like flash the H.264 software is mature and so easy to use your grandma could make H.264 videos.
So I'm really sorry Linux guys, but if you want to win you need to get ahead of the game not to try to jump in years after the game has started and think you'll change things. Sorry but you ain't Apple and don't have that kind of pull, as Vorbis and Theora should have proven to everyone. If you want the next big thing (I'd vote on 3D, but it might be another fad, or maybe SuperHD 4k+ resolution) then you need to start NOW, as in right now. As it is you are fighting a battle that is pretty much already o over, the fat lady is down the street having a sandwich.
Nobody is gonna give up their iShiny for "free as in freedom man!" and where Apple goes goes MSFT with a hearty "Me Too!" so unless Google thinks they can take over the desktop AND the mobile space (which from talking to retailers they think Android is gonna crash and burn thanks to all the CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) running older Android flooding the market and burning consumers) then this race like the race between AAC VS MP3 VS Vorbis is done over, sorry. I mean did you see people run away from Apple when they starting locking things down tighter than a nun's thighs? Hell no! If anything they sold MORE than ever! And unless Apple does a 180 and supports WebM (not likely in this universe) then its over, give it up.
And while the distros can't legally install H.264 (I bet most do a "wink wink"let the user install codecs from countries that don't give a shit like Ubuntu does) what they CAN install is flash, as Adobe is happy to let anybody bundle flash with anything, which just proves my point: The future will be flash+H.264 thanks to Google trying to start another format war so soon after HD-DVD VS Blu_Ray. Nobody wants to go down that road again and H.264 has a hell of a lot less ? surrounding it, as TFA proves. Thanks to the USPTO handing out patents like beads at Mardi Gras I'm sure there is enough patents that even invalidated will tie WebM up in court until H.264 is PD, which by then who cares?
But the problem is the Matrix "How do machines know what chicken tastes like?" bit, in that machines don't do nuances and it is the nuances that make us who we are.
I mean I'm sure if we followed you around for a year filming and then threw a couple of thousand IBM programmers on it they could make a pretty damned perfect simulation of you running on Blue Gene. It would have your mannerisms, have your laugh, to those interacting with it, even those that knew you, it would probably be pretty lifelike and "real". But we tech guys would know that underneath the glossy exterior you would have path finding subroutines and an AI not much different than a chess computer, yet you don't think that way, do you?
While I wouldn't mind having some of these old limbs replaced with cybernetics in the future, the problem with replacing bits of the brain is at what point does it cease to be you and just becomes a simulation. We organics are illogical gut reacting seat of our pants kinds of creatures and machines just don't do that well, and I don't see shrinking the diodes to nanoscale changing that At what point does it go from you laughing because you thought something was funny to because the programs say that would be your typical response?
As for TFA as someone who has lost relatives to cancer and seen first hand what it can do to the human body anything we learn that helps us to place cancer alongside polio is in the history books is great in my book. Hell there are so many different ways to kill us from car wrecks to heart attacks I'm sure losing one won't be a big deal and that one is pure nasty. Not to mention with all the chemicals now in our systems (last I read even newborns test positive for plastics in the blood) cancers seem to be on the rise, so anything that can take cancer out of the equation is a big win in my book.
I just hate bullshit and trolls for BOTH sides equally. Both Thurott and Nichols are classic trolls, stirring up the shit with outlandish claims to stir up epic flamewars and score page views.
Just like you can be counted on for Thurott to say "I'm telling you that (insert name of MSFT product) is fricking wonderful! Linux sucks RMS's balls compared to this!" so can you count on Nichols to say "It is all a conspiracy by MSFT man! Linux can cure cancer while running on a 486SX while serving files to a fortune 500 company AND do all this while only using 2 watts of power! MSFT's software isn't fit to run a toilet!"
In both cases everything written is total bullshit carefully written and designed to piss one group or another off and cause epic flamewars, just classic troll bullshit. I've always been a "right tool for the job" guy myself and like you couldn't care what OS a person runs, but I fricking HATE pro trolls and shills. You probably can't find a single line by Thurott badmouthing Vista, just as you'll never see Nichols admit that Linux isn't for everybody. BOTH are shills and trolls of the worst order and the world would be a better place if neither were ever read again.
We have enough amateur trolls out there and here on /. for anyone to bring articles that are using the views of either Thurott or Nichols, thanks anyway.
I'd say several reasons, and not just nostalgia. 1.-It was one of the first games (and there have been few recently) that threw in copious amounts of pop culture references which was fun. IIRC Bruce Campbell tried to sue for all of his lines they blatantly ripped.
2.-It was one of the first 3D shooters that didn't take itself seriously and this age of CoD MoH WWII "lets storm Normandy AGAIN!" we really really REALLY need that. Realism is fine occasionally but it is a game and games should be above all FUN with a capital F. That is why I have been recommending "Just Cause 2" to my friends, as it is the most unrealistic GTA style game ever created, and it is refreshing to be pulling moves that would make Batman yell "bullshit!". I'd love for me some Duke Nukem total insanity like guns that shrink bad guys so you can squish them like little bugs. Crazy is fun!
3.-Yes there was the crude sexist humor, but that was part of the charm because old Duke was supposed to be a throwback. He was a classic action hero, a Rambo mixed with Terminator and spouting Bruce Campbell style (or often just Bruce Campbell's) typical action hero smart mouths. It is like in Last Action Hero when Arnold does Shakespeare "To be or not to be.../castle explodes, Arnold lights cigar/... not to be". that would be a classic Duke scene, and despite all the games focusing on "the cinema experience" they seem to lose the attitude in favor of realism, but attitude is fun!
I could go on, but you get the idea. Sometimes it is just a blast to have some good mindless destructive fun while being rewarded with smartmouth attitude in classic action hero fashion. It is the same over the top attitude that made Evil Dead or They Live cult classics. If you don't own it Good Old Games has the original Atomic Edition for just $6, works on XP-Windows 7 X64, even runs on Linux, and has all the mods linked below it (including the high res mod, must have IMHO) all in one handy spot. Try it and enjoy some mindless sexist fun today!
Well good Lord, look who the guy who wrote the article in TFA is listening too, fricking Stephen J Nichols! Read some of his past "work" and it is pretty obvious he is a professional Linux troll. All he does is come up with one outlandish theory after another, all designed to stir up the shit and score page views no matter how crazy.
If you read Nichols history it can be summed up as thus: "X (insert Linux distro or Linux itself) is dying" "it is all a conspiracy by (insert usually MSFT but sometimes Apple or someone else) to kill Linux!" or "Because of X (insert product he's shilling for) THIS year will be the year of Linux on the desktop!"
He is just the Linux equivalent of Paul Thurott, professional Windows troll. The same way Thurott can be counted on to say anything that makes Windows debates epic troll threads with his total bullshit (Vista is great AND low resource? Really Paul?) the same can be said of Nichols and Linux. Everyone knows Debian isn't going anywhere, hell they've outlasted just about everyone that started at the same time for the love of Pete. This is just Nichols stirring up the shit, and the guy who wrote TFA either took the trollbait or was desperate for some page views.
Street bike actually, summer of my 16th year I hit a dog at 60MPH plus coming back from swimming wearing nothing but a pair of PE shorts...ouch. Didn't break a bone but knocked out all the front teeth, ripped the jaw just like the Joker, and peeled the hide off from top to bottom (Thank God for those PE shorts!) which left me prone to infections and unable to do much more than lay around when not in rehab for nearly two years.
But I have to say in a way it was one of the best things that could have happened to me, because while the other kids got a cookie cutter education I got MS Edwards who was frankly one of the best teachers a kid could have, her and Mr Stone really knew how to make a kid think. Mr Stone had his own version of "six degrees" only he was an old hippie and his focal point was Woodstock. He could tie ANY event in American history to Woodstock in 6 moves or less. I don't know how many hours I spent pouring over American history trying to find an event that would stump him, and I never did.
Sadly he also taught JHS history and ended up fired soon after I got better because he showed the class Woodstock as a reward for all the hard work they had put in, and they fired him for "showing an inappropriate movie with drug references" in class. But what do you expect from a "football school" where they dumb things down to make sure little Johnny can keep making those 30 yard passes. They may have lousy equipment everywhere else, but the gym is always top notch and stocked as well as any AAA college athletic program.
I hate to say it but it was your own fault. no man should get his hair done and want of them boutique shops, it just ain't right. I don't care where you are in the USA there is a little old barbershop around nearby, ask the old guys if you can't find it. The service is better, no fancy shmancy BS that they need to charge you for like "Atmosphere", just a good man's haircut at a fair price.
And just like in the movies they are a good place to have a cup of coffee (coffee flavored coffee only as Dennis Leary put it) and hear about local events while you wait. A hell of a lot nicer than them damned chain stores.
As for TFA, good for them! I wish more states would enact that. It is fricking ridiculous how many places want practically your whole life story when all you want to do is buy something and get out of there. People have gotten too damned passive and will put up with way too much crap like that nowadays but I won't do it. Like you if a place starts asking for info that is none of their business I just walk out and refuse to shop there. I'm a firm believer in voting with your dollars and if more people would just say "screw this, I'm not shopping here" maybe we could see this practice die once and for all. We have enough government in our business without the corps adding to the already insane amount of data on us.