Is it just me, or don't most gamers have the knowledge to build their own system with parts from newegg, or get a real gamers system from Alienware? Dell is a joke, and I wouldn't expect their gaming PCs to be any better then their business PCs. Their first mistake is not using AMD64, their second mistake is "Dude, it's a Dell"
In all seriousness though, I don't see this tech taking hold. There are just too many question marks involved. Like how could you proove that you're not you, and you're actually somebody else? (e.x. friend or family member using your PC) I'm beginning to feel the "big brother" syndrome when I think about cookies and IP sniffing on the server side. I never used to either. (Guess I've been spending too much time reading slashdot articles). *Leaves to go put tin foil cap on*
"How long do LCD TVs last? I know CRTs are pretty reliable, but is the lifespan of an LCD comparable?"
Depends on the brightness of the LCD and when it was made, as recent models of LCD are better then older ones. A typical LCD TV probably has a lifespan of 60,000 hours. If you left your TV on 24/7, then theorteically it would burn out in apporximately 6.8 years. If you have your TV on for say...8 hours a day, it could potentially last you for 20.5 years. That of course is the actual expected lifespan of the backlight before it burns out, so it doesn't arrount for other factors like contrast getting poorer as the years go by ect. This is all an estimate based on probibility anyway. LCDs, like any lighting appliance, will dim over time and with use. The picture you see will dim ever so slightly as the lamp itself dims. However, in general an LCD TV will last you longer then any Plasma TV.
What is the problem with Microsoft supplying WMP and MSN Messenger bundled with XP? Apple jams QuickTime and iChat down your throat with OS X, but they aren't being sued. WTF is the problem? If you don't like it, then don't buy it.
"Basically we'll be completely rewriting Internet Explorer from the ground up using the existing Mozilla Firefox source code. Then we will add in support for our new version of ActiveX. What this latest version of ActiveX does is cripple security, allowing a hacker to remotely execute code that will hijack your browser."
Instead of jamming more things like Flash into PDF documents, Adobe should be working on ways to streamline it's bloated PDF format. The stupid PDF reader already takes 10 minutes to load up. They should make it more like a live TeX renderer or something. PDF just seems so bloated and slow.
Never did like Dreamweaver. Go-Live is much better IMO. Like you said it produces cleaner code and perfect CSS. I hope Adobe just stomps out Macromedia and just takes their good programmers with them. I'm sure Adobe is interrested in fully integrating Flash into Go-Live etc. I hope that's all they try to do with it. The Creative Suite is in danger of becoming bloatware.
I don't know what OS you were running, and I'm sorry that you weren't able to play your legally rented DVD on your legally owned DVD player. It's not right of the MPAA to do this. Besides anybody that is determined to bootleg the content will find a way around the copy protection. Meanwhile, the only people that are being hurt by the MPAA's decision to copy protect DVDs are the average users that are paying to legally watch the content on their legal machines. Something needs to be done about this.
I think that Microsoft should bundle DVD Decryptor in the next release of Windows, and tell the MPAA to go screw. Oh course this will never happen.
Global warming!!! We.. we didn't listen!!! Gotta love South Park;-)
[A highway, bumper to bumper traffic on the way out. A lot of drivers beep their horns hoping other drivers in front of them start moving]Randy:[beeping his own horn] Come onnn, come on!
Sharon: It's useless. This traffic isn't moving!
Stan: Dad, isn't it possible the flood wasn't caused by global warming? I, I mean, the water was held back by a giant beaver dam, after all.
Randy: No, Stan, I'm afraid us adults just let you children down. We didn't take care of our earth, and now you've inherited our problems.
Another Driver: We didn't listen!
Randy:[hears this and rolls down his window] Weh, we didn't listen! [rolls up his window]
...to pump LightTPD as a lightweight and simpler web server solution alternative to Apache. LightTPD has a smaller memory footprint then Apache does as well. Apache processes had greater than 10% of my system memory used while running a personal web server. Running the same setup with lighttpd showed around 0.3% CPU used. Configuration is still a little confusing to the average newb, but IMHO setup was easier with LightTPD.
[A highway, bumper to bumper traffic on the way out. A lot of drivers beep their horns hoping other drivers in front of them start moving]Randy:[beeping his own horn] Come onnn, come on!
Sharon: It's useless. This traffic isn't moving!
Stan: Dad, isn't it possible the flood wasn't caused by global warming? I, I mean, the water was held back by a giant beaver dam, after all.
Randy: No, Stan, I'm afraid us adults just let you children down. We didn't take care of our earth, and now you've inherited our problems.
Another Driver: We didn't listen!
Randy:[hears this and rolls down his window] Weh, we didn't listen! [rolls up his window]
If you want a small USB drive (size of 2 pennies next to each other) that holds up to 1 GB, and comes with a credit card holder that can fit 2 memory sticks in your wallet, then check out the intelligent stick by PQI. You can find it on newegg here. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16820214009. I swear by this thing, it is so convienent to fit in your wallet with the credit card sized holder that it comes with. I have had mine for almost a year now and I absolutely love it. Like you said, these thumb drives could be a lot smaller then the're being made to be. PQI seems to be the only company that makes them this small. You can find a review here complete with specs. http://www.extrememhz.com/Intellistick20-p1.shtml (I'm probably gonna get modded down for being offtopic, but I figured since we're talking about thumb drives, I might as well mention it. Cheers.
That's great. Now some nervous person is gonna have to go into a room for further questioning, while the real terrorist that's trained to pass a lie detector is all-aboard. Nice.
I think what you ment to say is that Photoshop is the bread and butter of Adobe systems, and that it is by far the greatest photo editing software in existance to date. Aperture doesn't even come close to it (but that's ok, because like you said, Aperture wasn't even designed to compete with Photoshop anyway).
No doubt that Microsoft will be with us for a long time, but some of these directions they have taken are questionable to me as an end-user. Support for 64 bit processing is excellent, and they're not talking about Windows Vista requiring 64-bit processors only, which is also good. Then there is the whole DRM thing, which unfortunately is an innevitable future in our lives no matter who is providing the software (except maybe Linux and open-source solutions). Then there is the news that Microsoft will freeze their support for OpenGL in Windows Vista at version 1.4, focusing their attention on using their propritary Direct3D engine. But here is the kicker, they will layer their OpenGL support over the top of Direct3D. This basically is an emulator that can run OpenGL. So if I understand correctly, OpenGL performance on Windows will take a major hit, and no extensions will be possible to expose future hardware innovations. Now all these decisions make good sense from a business point of view, but from the consumer's point of view, it absolutely sucks! From the public beta of Vista, you can see things like softlinks and a "Users" directory instead of C:/Documents and Settings/. Also MS plans on getting rid of drive letters. So while they're leaning towards a *NIX ish apporach to things, which is a good thing, they're also screwing us with more "features" that cripple open software and portibility between OSes. Which makes me have many mixed feelings about the whole thing. That said, I will be waiting until SP1, and probably until MS drops support of XP before I make any kind of consideration on switching to Vista. For a final thought, since Windows 3.11 for workgroups, all of these stupid names like XP and Vista should stop. I think that Microsoft should go back to a version naming convention. What would it be at now? Windows 7.0 or something like that. Sorry for going so so far offtopic, but I had to get this off my chest.
That the UN is just a figure head with no real power whatsoever. I am a US Citizen and I agree with the UN's stance that control should be deligated to an international committe of some sort. On the other hand, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind. ICANN doesn't have any real power anyway. The standards have been set, and that's that. IPv6 will never take off. We'll be using IPv4 until the end of time, which is not such a bad thing, besides the shortage of addresses.
Heh. At least Blu-ray is up front about their DRM plans. You know that HD DVD will be DRMed one way or another (be it standard or non-standard methods) The double-edged sword with the new formats are that the main reason the movie studios are interrested in them besides higher capacity is the content protection schemes. Paramount, Warner Bros, and the rest of them do not want their content pirated, so they naturally prefer the device that has a solid DRM employed. The very same reason that you lean towards HD DVD is the reason that content providers lean towards Blu-ray. When you get right down to it, DRM or not, Blu-ray is the superior format with higher capacity, and I believe that it will be a win/win in the long run for content providers as well as consumers.
Hmm I can't imagine why Sony wouldn't want to deliver their Rootkit back to the open-source community... Let's look at it this way, Sony broke the law by distributing the rootkit at 'DRM software' then they apparently broke the law again by not redistributing their source that they modified from an LGPL project to make the rootkit. I know this is wrong, but I am glad that they didn't give back to the open-source community on this one. I mean, source code to make a rootkit that could infect all the Windows systems out there being freely distributed under the LGPL is enough to make me sick. A worm has already been written without the source code. Just imagine how many rootkit varients would be floating out there if this were open source. Yikes!
Assuming that they allow you to use your own favorite media player to play these free shows, then the file format will be something that is non-propritary and therefor most likely will be able to be edited (commercials removed) with the right software (avisynth, virtual dub, etc.) They could go through great lengths to make their own player and propriatary format for theses videos, but that seems like too much effort for something that will be free, and for classic shows that are already paid for.
The obvious guess would be the slowly-dieing AVI container format, or an MPEG varient. I wonder if these free shows will be viewable in the iPod, or sony PSP with some tweaking?
Due to this inevitable release of a trojan using the Sony DRM Rootkit, the antivirus companies will be forced to write virus definition protections against it. So comically we'll be seeing the "Virus Alert!" warning message when we load up one of the Sony DRM CD's. Sony shouldn't be able to sue antivirus companies for this, because by definition their "DRM" is in fact a virus. Sony has successfully taken DRM to the next level, which is installing malware on the user's system. This case should do nothing but strengthen the opposition against DRM. I really hope this shows people just how ridiculous DRM is, and that digital content purchased for private use by the consumer should not have DRM, as it is against fair use. Some of these EULAs are garbage as well, because companies throw ridiculous clauses in there that would never hold up in a cort of law, and then these companies hide behind their EULAs that essentially say "By installing this software, you agree to be Rootkitted up the ass and fux0red by our DRM" which is total BS.
Rootkits are unacceptable forms of DRM. Any program that modifies a users system without their knowledge is considered a virus. This form of DRM will not be tolorated, and shouldn't be. I have a feeling Sony will have to pay for this one (which stinks because I have $$$ invested in them because I thought PS3 and Blu-ray would really help their bottom line.)
P.S. Don't worry about Blu-ray's copy protection. It looks impossible to overcome now, but it will be hax0red sooner or later. The tough copy protection on Blu-ray is what makes it so appealing to the big moive companies anyway, kind of a catch-22.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it just me, or don't most gamers have the knowledge to build their own system with parts from newegg, or get a real gamers system from Alienware? Dell is a joke, and I wouldn't expect their gaming PCs to be any better then their business PCs. Their first mistake is not using AMD64, their second mistake is "Dude, it's a Dell"
Now we can really stick it to Safari for using that goofy blue RSS icon. What was Apple thinking?
...Has come 22 years late.
In all seriousness though, I don't see this tech taking hold. There are just too many question marks involved. Like how could you proove that you're not you, and you're actually somebody else? (e.x. friend or family member using your PC) I'm beginning to feel the "big brother" syndrome when I think about cookies and IP sniffing on the server side. I never used to either. (Guess I've been spending too much time reading slashdot articles).
*Leaves to go put tin foil cap on*
"How long do LCD TVs last? I know CRTs are pretty reliable, but is the lifespan of an LCD comparable?" Depends on the brightness of the LCD and when it was made, as recent models of LCD are better then older ones. A typical LCD TV probably has a lifespan of 60,000 hours. If you left your TV on 24/7, then theorteically it would burn out in apporximately 6.8 years. If you have your TV on for say...8 hours a day, it could potentially last you for 20.5 years. That of course is the actual expected lifespan of the backlight before it burns out, so it doesn't arrount for other factors like contrast getting poorer as the years go by ect. This is all an estimate based on probibility anyway. LCDs, like any lighting appliance, will dim over time and with use. The picture you see will dim ever so slightly as the lamp itself dims. However, in general an LCD TV will last you longer then any Plasma TV.
What is the problem with Microsoft supplying WMP and MSN Messenger bundled with XP? Apple jams QuickTime and iChat down your throat with OS X, but they aren't being sued. WTF is the problem? If you don't like it, then don't buy it.
And build a fucking wind tunnel around all Playstation 3 consoles, to prevent overheating.
"Basically we'll be completely rewriting Internet Explorer from the ground up using the existing Mozilla Firefox source code. Then we will add in support for our new version of ActiveX. What this latest version of ActiveX does is cripple security, allowing a hacker to remotely execute code that will hijack your browser."
Instead of jamming more things like Flash into PDF documents, Adobe should be working on ways to streamline it's bloated PDF format. The stupid PDF reader already takes 10 minutes to load up. They should make it more like a live TeX renderer or something. PDF just seems so bloated and slow.
Never did like Dreamweaver. Go-Live is much better IMO. Like you said it produces cleaner code and perfect CSS. I hope Adobe just stomps out Macromedia and just takes their good programmers with them. I'm sure Adobe is interrested in fully integrating Flash into Go-Live etc. I hope that's all they try to do with it. The Creative Suite is in danger of becoming bloatware.
I don't know what OS you were running, and I'm sorry that you weren't able to play your legally rented DVD on your legally owned DVD player. It's not right of the MPAA to do this. Besides anybody that is determined to bootleg the content will find a way around the copy protection. Meanwhile, the only people that are being hurt by the MPAA's decision to copy protect DVDs are the average users that are paying to legally watch the content on their legal machines. Something needs to be done about this. I think that Microsoft should bundle DVD Decryptor in the next release of Windows, and tell the MPAA to go screw. Oh course this will never happen.
Global warming!!! We.. we didn't listen!!! Gotta love South Park ;-)
[A highway, bumper to bumper traffic on the way out. A lot of drivers beep their horns hoping other drivers in front of them start moving] Randy: [beeping his own horn] Come onnn, come on! Sharon: It's useless. This traffic isn't moving! Stan: Dad, isn't it possible the flood wasn't caused by global warming? I, I mean, the water was held back by a giant beaver dam, after all. Randy: No, Stan, I'm afraid us adults just let you children down. We didn't take care of our earth, and now you've inherited our problems. Another Driver: We didn't listen! Randy: [hears this and rolls down his window] Weh, we didn't listen! [rolls up his window]
...to pump LightTPD as a lightweight and simpler web server solution alternative to Apache. LightTPD has a smaller memory footprint then Apache does as well. Apache processes had greater than 10% of my system memory used while running a personal web server. Running the same setup with lighttpd showed around 0.3% CPU used. Configuration is still a little confusing to the average newb, but IMHO setup was easier with LightTPD.
[A highway, bumper to bumper traffic on the way out. A lot of drivers beep their horns hoping other drivers in front of them start moving] Randy: [beeping his own horn] Come onnn, come on! Sharon: It's useless. This traffic isn't moving! Stan: Dad, isn't it possible the flood wasn't caused by global warming? I, I mean, the water was held back by a giant beaver dam, after all. Randy: No, Stan, I'm afraid us adults just let you children down. We didn't take care of our earth, and now you've inherited our problems. Another Driver: We didn't listen! Randy: [hears this and rolls down his window] Weh, we didn't listen! [rolls up his window]
If you want a small USB drive (size of 2 pennies next to each other) that holds up to 1 GB, and comes with a credit card holder that can fit 2 memory sticks in your wallet, then check out the intelligent stick by PQI. You can find it on newegg here. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16820214009. I swear by this thing, it is so convienent to fit in your wallet with the credit card sized holder that it comes with. I have had mine for almost a year now and I absolutely love it. Like you said, these thumb drives could be a lot smaller then the're being made to be. PQI seems to be the only company that makes them this small. You can find a review here complete with specs. http://www.extrememhz.com/Intellistick20-p1.shtml (I'm probably gonna get modded down for being offtopic, but I figured since we're talking about thumb drives, I might as well mention it. Cheers.
LOL that line about overlords never gets old. It works with just about every topic on /. too!
That's great. Now some nervous person is gonna have to go into a room for further questioning, while the real terrorist that's trained to pass a lie detector is all-aboard. Nice.
I think what you ment to say is that Photoshop is the bread and butter of Adobe systems, and that it is by far the greatest photo editing software in existance to date. Aperture doesn't even come close to it (but that's ok, because like you said, Aperture wasn't even designed to compete with Photoshop anyway).
No doubt that Microsoft will be with us for a long time, but some of these directions they have taken are questionable to me as an end-user. Support for 64 bit processing is excellent, and they're not talking about Windows Vista requiring 64-bit processors only, which is also good. Then there is the whole DRM thing, which unfortunately is an innevitable future in our lives no matter who is providing the software (except maybe Linux and open-source solutions). Then there is the news that Microsoft will freeze their support for OpenGL in Windows Vista at version 1.4, focusing their attention on using their propritary Direct3D engine. But here is the kicker, they will layer their OpenGL support over the top of Direct3D. This basically is an emulator that can run OpenGL. So if I understand correctly, OpenGL performance on Windows will take a major hit, and no extensions will be possible to expose future hardware innovations. Now all these decisions make good sense from a business point of view, but from the consumer's point of view, it absolutely sucks! From the public beta of Vista, you can see things like softlinks and a "Users" directory instead of C:/Documents and Settings/. Also MS plans on getting rid of drive letters. So while they're leaning towards a *NIX ish apporach to things, which is a good thing, they're also screwing us with more "features" that cripple open software and portibility between OSes. Which makes me have many mixed feelings about the whole thing. That said, I will be waiting until SP1, and probably until MS drops support of XP before I make any kind of consideration on switching to Vista. For a final thought, since Windows 3.11 for workgroups, all of these stupid names like XP and Vista should stop. I think that Microsoft should go back to a version naming convention. What would it be at now? Windows 7.0 or something like that. Sorry for going so so far offtopic, but I had to get this off my chest.
That the UN is just a figure head with no real power whatsoever. I am a US Citizen and I agree with the UN's stance that control should be deligated to an international committe of some sort. On the other hand, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind. ICANN doesn't have any real power anyway. The standards have been set, and that's that. IPv6 will never take off. We'll be using IPv4 until the end of time, which is not such a bad thing, besides the shortage of addresses.
Al Gore. Because according to "Dubya" he invented it!
Heh. At least Blu-ray is up front about their DRM plans. You know that HD DVD will be DRMed one way or another (be it standard or non-standard methods) The double-edged sword with the new formats are that the main reason the movie studios are interrested in them besides higher capacity is the content protection schemes. Paramount, Warner Bros, and the rest of them do not want their content pirated, so they naturally prefer the device that has a solid DRM employed. The very same reason that you lean towards HD DVD is the reason that content providers lean towards Blu-ray. When you get right down to it, DRM or not, Blu-ray is the superior format with higher capacity, and I believe that it will be a win/win in the long run for content providers as well as consumers.
Hmm I can't imagine why Sony wouldn't want to deliver their Rootkit back to the open-source community... Let's look at it this way, Sony broke the law by distributing the rootkit at 'DRM software' then they apparently broke the law again by not redistributing their source that they modified from an LGPL project to make the rootkit. I know this is wrong, but I am glad that they didn't give back to the open-source community on this one. I mean, source code to make a rootkit that could infect all the Windows systems out there being freely distributed under the LGPL is enough to make me sick. A worm has already been written without the source code. Just imagine how many rootkit varients would be floating out there if this were open source. Yikes!
Assuming that they allow you to use your own favorite media player to play these free shows, then the file format will be something that is non-propritary and therefor most likely will be able to be edited (commercials removed) with the right software (avisynth, virtual dub, etc.) They could go through great lengths to make their own player and propriatary format for theses videos, but that seems like too much effort for something that will be free, and for classic shows that are already paid for. The obvious guess would be the slowly-dieing AVI container format, or an MPEG varient. I wonder if these free shows will be viewable in the iPod, or sony PSP with some tweaking?
Due to this inevitable release of a trojan using the Sony DRM Rootkit, the antivirus companies will be forced to write virus definition protections against it. So comically we'll be seeing the "Virus Alert!" warning message when we load up one of the Sony DRM CD's. Sony shouldn't be able to sue antivirus companies for this, because by definition their "DRM" is in fact a virus. Sony has successfully taken DRM to the next level, which is installing malware on the user's system. This case should do nothing but strengthen the opposition against DRM. I really hope this shows people just how ridiculous DRM is, and that digital content purchased for private use by the consumer should not have DRM, as it is against fair use. Some of these EULAs are garbage as well, because companies throw ridiculous clauses in there that would never hold up in a cort of law, and then these companies hide behind their EULAs that essentially say "By installing this software, you agree to be Rootkitted up the ass and fux0red by our DRM" which is total BS.
Rootkits are unacceptable forms of DRM. Any program that modifies a users system without their knowledge is considered a virus. This form of DRM will not be tolorated, and shouldn't be. I have a feeling Sony will have to pay for this one (which stinks because I have $$$ invested in them because I thought PS3 and Blu-ray would really help their bottom line.) P.S. Don't worry about Blu-ray's copy protection. It looks impossible to overcome now, but it will be hax0red sooner or later. The tough copy protection on Blu-ray is what makes it so appealing to the big moive companies anyway, kind of a catch-22.