On what grounds can Microsoft even begin to claim any sort of right to restrict reverse engineering this product?
If they are hoping to invoke the DMCA for circumventing a content protection mechanism, I'd like to point out that these things are essentially a couple of cameras and a mic shoved in a plastic housing. Any content captured by these cameras is, in no uncertain terms, mine as it is me 'performing' in front of them.
Which only occurred after you didn't return it for a week! Did you think they were just going to let you keep the movie forever?
Yes! I've had Hurt Locker sitting on top of my DVD player for three months now (I'll watch it, I swear!) - Netflix hasn't charged me for it.
Considering the old late fees didn't kick in until after the 3-5 day rental period, you're not getting much grace if they ding you the purchase price after only 7 days. They didn't eliminate fees, they changed the way they charged for them. Instead of "$1 per day indefinitely", it's "$20-$30 after 7 days".
So far I've only seen it in the wild three times: Photosynth, the Feynmann Lectures (posted by MS...), and some random video at MSNBC or similar news site.
You need it for Netflix streaming. I know that's the only reason I have it installed on two of my computers, and that's the only thing it's used for.
SNL has always been a better as a memory than when you watch it. During that very season when Shatner was on, people were saying "years ago when it was funny..."
Well, to be fair, when looking at the constant downward slope of quality over the life of SNL, that statement is true no matter which point on the X axis you choose...
I tryed to play LOTR games with bad / poor flipper buttons / flippers and that just kills the game a few years ago I was in reno NV and there 3 of them all with bad flippers one place did have a roller games that I think was working good for it's age. The VP + VPM ver is not as good the real game but it's better then the beat down game on site.
It's a great game - chock full of complicated bits that can go wrong, and when any of the bits go wrong, it's a terrible game:)
It's to bad most games on site are beaten to death and they don't get fixed as well.
I never really understood pinball or enjoyed it much up until a few years ago. In my mind, the premise of pinball was to bang the ball around, cross your fingers and hope it didn't go down the drain. Repeat for three balls, insert more coins.
Then, a few year ago I had a friend who worked at a bar where the manager was into pinball. This manager made sure that there were always a couple of well maintained pinball cabinets with good gameplay. The staff would finish a night shift and play pinball until dawn on many occasions, which hooked my friend.
He in turn explained to me that there was actually strategy to these things. You didn't just bang the ball around - you made sequences of shots to advance a game. You calculated your shots. You aimed. There was a process to gaining a multiball - and more importantly, there were times when triggering the multiball was much more advantageous in terms of your score.
Once enlightened, I was hooked. At one point, I used to be able to plop two bucks into The Lord of the Rings for the 5 credits and play for a couple of hours off the replays. Regrettably, that manager moved on and the cabinets fell into disrepair. Nothing kills a good game of pinball quite like a dead switch making it impossible to advance the story. I quit playing there, and they lost my beer money. There are currently zero places in town now where I can get a quality round of pinball.
This is the tragedy of pinball as I see it. The money required to manufacture and maintain these things is so large compared to the income derived that it's not surprising, to be honest. Even worse, your target market actually becomes less profitable as they improve and earn free games. Basically, you're hoping to capture the 'bang the ball around' crowd as your primary income source - which runs counter to making good, deep games.
My long term goal is to buy a cabinet for myself. I'm actually looking forward to the maintenance as a hobby!
I disagree with the notion that the new Mini is aimed at the living room, because this $699 box is $300-$400 more than the Boxee Box, Popcorn Hour and other less-expensive media players. It's more likely that the Mini's primary market is education and home users who want a desktop Mac for under $1K.
Neither of the media boxes you suggest can also function as your file server, backup server, gaming platform or whatever else you choose to install on your mini since it's, you know, a full on computer.
In addition to that, email and IM allow a logged 'task' to stick around longer than an ephemeral phone call. Any time I get folk on the phone who want me to do things, I always type what they're asking in an email and send it to them, any other relevant people and myself. That way I get the CYA aspect as well as a task sitting in my inbox.
Some people just don't seem capable of expressing their ideas in IM or email. I get that, and can work around it. However, I expect the same consideration in return. I'm willing to adapt to your preferences, the least you can do is make an effort to adapt to mine.
No "spellings" of "letters". Example: Why is "en" in the Scrabble Dictionary as a "spelling" of the pronounciation of the letter "n" ??!?
For the record, 'em' and 'en' are typography terms. Granted, they are derived from the 'spelling' of letters, but they're honest-to-god words at this point.
I don't understand how someone can say that it doesn't exploit a reader to operate. That implies that opening the file in, say, a text editor will somehow trigger the exploit. I find that claim highly dubious. What about a hex editor? Running 'cat'?
At some point, in order for the exploit to trigger, some executable must operate on the data enclosed in the file. It is therefore an exploit in an executable, and thus it is important to know which executables are vulnerable. Saying anything else is disingenuous and nothing but rampant fear mongering.
I made the switch to whiteboard, which I keep on the wall next to my desk.
I went one further and also have a 2 foot by 3 foot portable whiteboard that I can use on my lap or desk - or wander around with. I find that being able to treat it like a large notepad helps me recapture the 'doodle vibe'. I also have a large one on the wall, of course - but it tends to have longer term stuff on it.
Some day I'll just paint my office with whiteboard stuff.
The one that has never been proven.
That would be BOTH.
By your definition, then, there is no more science.
Simply put, the entire concept of science - grown directly from inductive logic - is that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Instead you whittle away what's verifiably false and declare that what remains must contain the truth. Religion, on the other hand, simply takes a stance based on faith and calls it truth.
Because of this, I can show a scientist that he is wrong. The same is not true of the devout.
While it is an interesting outgrowth of teaching science in school that children will learn things that we consider to be true; it's generally useful for a person to know the best answer as to why the sky is blue. The more important lesson being taught by science curriculum is the logical process that goes into understanding our world.
You're advocating that we remove critical thought from the classroom. While you're more than welcome to take that position, please don't pretend that you're teaching science.
People are looking for the iPad to free them from needing a computer in some situations.
These people don't want an iPad then. It is a peripheral, not a computer. You still need a computer in order to fully utilize the device (just like an iPod touch or iPhone).
That's funny - I thought 'grout puns' were somewhat unique to my local pub men's room. Except our graffiti is all literary references:
Grout Expectations
The Grouting of the Shrew
The Grout Gatsby
And no, it's not like we're near the university or anything. It's a pretty low-brow suburban pub in a strip mall, so I was surprised to see graffiti veer in a literary direction.
Now, if a best selling author like King couldn't make this model work, what makes you think it's viable?
It also could be that people don't really want to read a book in serial installments. Or maybe the book sucked. Or that he attempted this 'experiment' at a time when the only reasonable reader was your desktop computer. Or maybe people didn't want to repeatedly pay a small amount chapter by chapter.
As a consummate book reader, any one of those would be enough to put me off. Hardly a reasonable experiment.
Alrighty then, given that English is my second language, how would you peck out the following on your keyboard using modern American English punctuation rules and regulations?
It's interesting to see a non-native speaker break that paragraph up into sections. I'll offer my take on it as a native speaker.
some say {short pause} that Idiocracy was a documentary...
I don't hear a pause here at all. Not even a little one. I can't guess as to where the pause is coming from, but in recalling my old German lessons I think that cadence was common.
sent back from the future {long pause} and that The Man needs a dumbed-down populace
Also, no pause here at all. This one I believe is coming from wanting to put a pause between the parts of a compound sentence. That's what the 'and' does (at least in my head). Again, I recall the cadence being quite different in German.
to keep the likes of Walmart and the current political system in business {pause} all we know is that popular culture emphasizes dumbness over intelligence {pause} welcome to 2010
Both of those pauses are periods and are correct.
I feel terrible for anyone trying to learn English as a non-native speaker. A large portion of the language defies any sort of structured ruleset and ends up falling back on exceptions and accepted idioms. On the other hand, I never could get the hang of remembering the gender of inanimate objects. I just think that gaining mastery of any language eventually requires large amounts of rote memorization to get past the warty bits.
I have tremendous respect for anyone who learned English and can speak and write it as well as you can. Most of our own citizenry could learn a thing or two from you.
Really? I have found the multiplayer is next to impossible. You just end killing each other. The more players you have the harder the game becomes, even when your not trying to do each other in. If you try t kill each other, its hard to get anything done.
This is what makes the game incredible, in my opinion. As a single player game, it's a really good remake of the original Super Mario Brothers. Every time you add another player, it becomes a slightly more diabolical party game. By the time you're made it to four players, you're constantly screaming at the rest of the idiots to "JUST FUCKING BUBBLE AND I'LL DO IT" and to "STOP FUCKING PUSHING ME".
Any Mario game where "stop pushing" and "you bounced me into the lava" are common utterances is a great one. Teamwork and coordination are critical in four player mode - much more so than any coop version of any shooter I've ever played.
Slashdot Mirror
On what grounds can Microsoft even begin to claim any sort of right to restrict reverse engineering this product?
If they are hoping to invoke the DMCA for circumventing a content protection mechanism, I'd like to point out that these things are essentially a couple of cameras and a mic shoved in a plastic housing. Any content captured by these cameras is, in no uncertain terms, mine as it is me 'performing' in front of them.
No, you can't. You get the audio profiles only as a third party developer. Not even HID. This is indeed news.
Yes! I've had Hurt Locker sitting on top of my DVD player for three months now (I'll watch it, I swear!) - Netflix hasn't charged me for it.
Considering the old late fees didn't kick in until after the 3-5 day rental period, you're not getting much grace if they ding you the purchase price after only 7 days. They didn't eliminate fees, they changed the way they charged for them. Instead of "$1 per day indefinitely", it's "$20-$30 after 7 days".
That's cool. I tried to install the Netflix app from the app store on my home theatre system, but it wouldn't run. Go figure.
You need it for Netflix streaming. I know that's the only reason I have it installed on two of my computers, and that's the only thing it's used for.
Well, to be fair, when looking at the constant downward slope of quality over the life of SNL, that statement is true no matter which point on the X axis you choose...
It's a great game - chock full of complicated bits that can go wrong, and when any of the bits go wrong, it's a terrible game :)
Every time I see a car driving down the road with a sticker of Calvin kneeling in front of the cross, I die a little inside.
I never really understood pinball or enjoyed it much up until a few years ago. In my mind, the premise of pinball was to bang the ball around, cross your fingers and hope it didn't go down the drain. Repeat for three balls, insert more coins.
Then, a few year ago I had a friend who worked at a bar where the manager was into pinball. This manager made sure that there were always a couple of well maintained pinball cabinets with good gameplay. The staff would finish a night shift and play pinball until dawn on many occasions, which hooked my friend.
He in turn explained to me that there was actually strategy to these things. You didn't just bang the ball around - you made sequences of shots to advance a game. You calculated your shots. You aimed. There was a process to gaining a multiball - and more importantly, there were times when triggering the multiball was much more advantageous in terms of your score.
Once enlightened, I was hooked. At one point, I used to be able to plop two bucks into The Lord of the Rings for the 5 credits and play for a couple of hours off the replays. Regrettably, that manager moved on and the cabinets fell into disrepair. Nothing kills a good game of pinball quite like a dead switch making it impossible to advance the story. I quit playing there, and they lost my beer money. There are currently zero places in town now where I can get a quality round of pinball.
This is the tragedy of pinball as I see it. The money required to manufacture and maintain these things is so large compared to the income derived that it's not surprising, to be honest. Even worse, your target market actually becomes less profitable as they improve and earn free games. Basically, you're hoping to capture the 'bang the ball around' crowd as your primary income source - which runs counter to making good, deep games.
My long term goal is to buy a cabinet for myself. I'm actually looking forward to the maintenance as a hobby!
No mention of the new iMac? New 27" display? And the completely out of nowhere $29 battery charger?
Neither of the media boxes you suggest can also function as your file server, backup server, gaming platform or whatever else you choose to install on your mini since it's, you know, a full on computer.
By the very nature of how they acquire their content, Netflix on demand doesn't have the current season of shows. Hulu does.
In addition to that, email and IM allow a logged 'task' to stick around longer than an ephemeral phone call. Any time I get folk on the phone who want me to do things, I always type what they're asking in an email and send it to them, any other relevant people and myself. That way I get the CYA aspect as well as a task sitting in my inbox.
Some people just don't seem capable of expressing their ideas in IM or email. I get that, and can work around it. However, I expect the same consideration in return. I'm willing to adapt to your preferences, the least you can do is make an effort to adapt to mine.
For the record, 'em' and 'en' are typography terms. Granted, they are derived from the 'spelling' of letters, but they're honest-to-god words at this point.
I don't understand how someone can say that it doesn't exploit a reader to operate. That implies that opening the file in, say, a text editor will somehow trigger the exploit. I find that claim highly dubious. What about a hex editor? Running 'cat'?
At some point, in order for the exploit to trigger, some executable must operate on the data enclosed in the file. It is therefore an exploit in an executable, and thus it is important to know which executables are vulnerable. Saying anything else is disingenuous and nothing but rampant fear mongering.
I went one further and also have a 2 foot by 3 foot portable whiteboard that I can use on my lap or desk - or wander around with. I find that being able to treat it like a large notepad helps me recapture the 'doodle vibe'. I also have a large one on the wall, of course - but it tends to have longer term stuff on it.
Some day I'll just paint my office with whiteboard stuff.
So, you're suggesting instead that users want a bloated mish-mash of closed technologies forever chasing an impossible equilibrium?
By your definition, then, there is no more science.
Simply put, the entire concept of science - grown directly from inductive logic - is that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Instead you whittle away what's verifiably false and declare that what remains must contain the truth. Religion, on the other hand, simply takes a stance based on faith and calls it truth.
Because of this, I can show a scientist that he is wrong. The same is not true of the devout.
While it is an interesting outgrowth of teaching science in school that children will learn things that we consider to be true; it's generally useful for a person to know the best answer as to why the sky is blue. The more important lesson being taught by science curriculum is the logical process that goes into understanding our world.
You're advocating that we remove critical thought from the classroom. While you're more than welcome to take that position, please don't pretend that you're teaching science.
These people don't want an iPad then. It is a peripheral, not a computer. You still need a computer in order to fully utilize the device (just like an iPod touch or iPhone).
That's funny - I thought 'grout puns' were somewhat unique to my local pub men's room. Except our graffiti is all literary references:
And no, it's not like we're near the university or anything. It's a pretty low-brow suburban pub in a strip mall, so I was surprised to see graffiti veer in a literary direction.
It also could be that people don't really want to read a book in serial installments. Or maybe the book sucked. Or that he attempted this 'experiment' at a time when the only reasonable reader was your desktop computer. Or maybe people didn't want to repeatedly pay a small amount chapter by chapter.
As a consummate book reader, any one of those would be enough to put me off. Hardly a reasonable experiment.
It's interesting to see a non-native speaker break that paragraph up into sections. I'll offer my take on it as a native speaker.
I don't hear a pause here at all. Not even a little one. I can't guess as to where the pause is coming from, but in recalling my old German lessons I think that cadence was common.
Also, no pause here at all. This one I believe is coming from wanting to put a pause between the parts of a compound sentence. That's what the 'and' does (at least in my head). Again, I recall the cadence being quite different in German.
Both of those pauses are periods and are correct.
I feel terrible for anyone trying to learn English as a non-native speaker. A large portion of the language defies any sort of structured ruleset and ends up falling back on exceptions and accepted idioms. On the other hand, I never could get the hang of remembering the gender of inanimate objects. I just think that gaining mastery of any language eventually requires large amounts of rote memorization to get past the warty bits.
I have tremendous respect for anyone who learned English and can speak and write it as well as you can. Most of our own citizenry could learn a thing or two from you.
I had mod points, but I couldn't find the +1 Too Soon option.
This is what makes the game incredible, in my opinion. As a single player game, it's a really good remake of the original Super Mario Brothers. Every time you add another player, it becomes a slightly more diabolical party game. By the time you're made it to four players, you're constantly screaming at the rest of the idiots to "JUST FUCKING BUBBLE AND I'LL DO IT" and to "STOP FUCKING PUSHING ME".
Any Mario game where "stop pushing" and "you bounced me into the lava" are common utterances is a great one. Teamwork and coordination are critical in four player mode - much more so than any coop version of any shooter I've ever played.
I'm there 100% on the Audi love. Cheers to that!