Oh yeah, that monthly fee is totally going towards maintenance costs, just like they said. That much is apparent.
Seriously, I still can't believe how easily people took to paying monthly subscription fees to play games that already cost $60 and, without paying the fee, are completely useless. It's kinda like giving cold, hard cash to a charity. You have no idea where that money is going, and you sure as hell can't trust Blizzard's PR department to give you the whole truth.
I stand fast in my assertion that I will not pay a monthly subscription to play any game except under one of two circumstances: 1) the game must have an equally fun single player mode (and it better be damn good), or 2) the game itself is free, and the monthly subscription is the only cost.
Call me anal, but it's bad enough when I pissed half my college years away playing Diablo II online for free. I don't see the point in having to pay for the privilege to waste my time.
I think that may be a little extreme. Doctors and lawyers play active roles in the ultimate direction of people's lives, and can possibly be the difference between life and death. I can't think of any CS area that has a direct affect on people's lives in this manner. Indirectly, perhaps, with air traffic control software, medical record-keeping (big software market there), and the like. Still, to say we deserve as much money as the people who have to use those devices may be a stretch.
I do agree though that, on the whole, we as computer scientists are often taken for granted and are drasticly underappreciated. There seems to be a new age mentality that people with a CS degree are a dime-a-dozen. This simply isn't true. But, so long as we're the ones working in the background, the harsh truth of the matter is that the people that use our creations are the heroes.
Do the vast majority of people working in a CS-related field deserve a raise? Absolutely. But let's not get greedy. Look at what happened to baseball. It used to be American's pastime. Why do you think it's lost so much publicity? Because all the players do now is whine and complain about how much more money they deserve.
Promise of a larger payroll might not be the best way to spark interest in CS-related fields. Education and exposure to those fields are what children need to incite interest in pursuing a CS degree. I simply don't think throwing money at this problem will solve it.
The more they tighten their grasp, the more of the internet will slip through their fingers....
Microsoft: Not after we demonstrate the power of this new operating system. In a way, you have determined the choice of the market that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with control over the Internet, we have chosen to test this operating system's destructive power on your home PC!
Consumers: No! We are peaceful! We have no weapons, you can't possibly...
Microsoft: You prefer another target, a server-based target? Then name the company!
Consumers:...
Microsoft: We grow tired of asking this, so it'll be the last time. What can we do to control the world?
Had to have existed in the first place for something to have happened to it.
$250 for ANY concert ticket (I don't give a damn if it's front row) is ridiculous. I seriously hope no one pays for this. I just don't understand how artists and record labels and agents are getting the idea that raising the prices of their respective products will combat piracy or ease the "negative effects" piracy is having on their sales (for now, let's just ignore all the publicity artists get from P2P). That's just completely counterintuitive in my mind. If they want their loving fans back, they should get their attention with reasonable prices. Nothing says "I appreciate my fans" better than lowering your concert ticket prices, just a smidge, so that everyone once and a while Average Joe can afford to enjoy your music.
I guess this is why I stopped buying record label music years ago. I've bought a few local band CDs, but I bought those in person from the band itself. Not just because I wanted to have their music handy, but because they rock, and they don't charge admission. They appreciate their fans enough that during intermissions, they'll get down off the stage and mingle. Now those are musicians.
I didn't even actually notice the missing return statement. I'm too used to have "void main".
We all know it was a joke (at least, I hope I can speak for "we"). But, think about what you did. You posted code on/. and claimed it had "no security holes." Even in jest, that's just asking to get slammed.:)
I own the patent that defines what is not patentable. If my patent isn't held up in court, Microsoft loses to David Colvin. If it is, Microsoft loses to me.
Until someone comes along and messes with your header files. Then that harmless "printf" function you rely on so much suddenly does some pretty nasty stuff when it gets called.
Within the realm of this utterly simple program, yes, it's an "easy to use, accessible, and reliable application that has no security holes". But an application is only as strong as its weakest dependency...in this case, stdio.h, which cannot be guaranteed to be an "easy to use, accessible, and reliable application that has no security holes".
I'm not trying to imply that all Microsoft employees are like that. As far as I know, he still works there, though. Not for sure, it's been a coupla years.
Either way, sell-out or not, it was still downright scary at the time.
My friends and I knew a guy at our college (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) that was hired on at Microsoft. Prior to leaving, he was always very open-minded about software usage, willing to try various options, be they proprietary or open source. After a while, he came back a changed man. He simply couldn't fathom how it was that we (as students) were using anything but Microsoft products, and would argument, sometimes vehemently, that we shouldn't be using *NIX or anything of that nature. It was truly scary.
I was in his shoes all throughout grade school and up until about 10th grade. I know full well how cruel children can be. That cruelty taught me to be decisive and to stand by my actions and decisions, and helped me become more outgoing. The fun thing about it was that because of this, the ones who had previously found amusement in torturing me had a new respect for me afterwards. I can only say that if I had continued to back down and be reclusive, I'd probably be like Milton from Office Space today. Thank God I'm not.
Some kids never grow up. There will undoubtedly be people who will never stop teasing Ghyslain over this whole situation. The best he can do is take it in stride. Hiding from it certainly isn't going to solve anything.
I keep hearing people refer to th SWK videos as Ghyslain's "problem." I mostly disagree with this. It doesn't have to be a problem. The real problem stems from what I'm assuming is a personality quirk of his: reclusiveness. Call it what you will, lots of people have trouble stepping forward and saying, "Yeah, this is me, I did that, and I'm damn proud of it."
The best thing Ghyslain could have done is to just make the best of the situation (and I won't call it a "bad" situation). He obviously took some enjoyment from filming himself wielding a saber staff, why should that change just because of the opinions of others? IMHO, he should have stood by his actions rather than hiding from them.
I can't blame him, though. I suspect he had little to do with the counterattack. I expect the parents were responsible for sheltering him after the video went public.
Were it me, I'd have been proud to make so many people laugh. I only wish I could have an opportunity such as his.
I like all the subtle little messages in this article, further reinforcing the fundamentalist Christian conservative stereotype and implying that the Christians are the ones feeding fuel to the ICANN vs. Europe dispute.
Seriously, this debate already has enough touchy issues to keep both sides warring with each other. Looking at the situation objectively, I don't think ICANN can make any kind of intelligent decision now without sparking accusations from European protesters. So what, then, makes this.xxx domain decision any different than any other domain decision made by ICANN? Easy...it's a touchy issue with Christians. Christians who, by stereotype, are all conservative, and therefore are an easy target for the liberal media (yeah yeah, "liberal media", buzzword, I know).
Personally, I see this article having little to do with the.xxx domain decision at all.
Let's not forget that the escape velocity from the moon is minimalistic compared to that of the old mud ball. It wouldn't surprise me if, in a few decades, most manned spaceflight (American, at the very least, if not others) originates from the moon. Of course, this is all still just speculation. They still need an efficient means of getting the fuel for the spacecraft from Earth to the moon, otherwise the only thing they're really gaining is distance. Still, I'll bet that one Earth-to-moon flight carrying fuel would power more than one launch from the moon, though. Any positive gain is good positive gain, I guess.
I agree. I didn't particularly want to delve into the issue of the bad PR he creates by making such a statement. So, I just made my simple point and left it at that. Concerning his public image, Ballmer's actions speak for themselves.
I have to say that the summary given for this article isn't at all representative of the article as a whole. That being said, I have to say this. How Ballmer deals with his kids is a private matter. It should stay a private matter, and he should have known this. As CEO of a company like Microsoft, he should know that his private home practices are not justification of his proposed business models.
If he doesn't allow his kids to use Google or have iPods, that's his business. He shouldn't make it ours. That kind of preachiness can come back to bite one in the ass.
??? When did I ever claim to have saved time? I thought I stated quite the opposite, in fact. I probably put more time into goofing with nLite then maybe was necessary for my particular needs.
As for benchmarks, I don't have access to my computer at the moment, nor would I take the time to generate any statistics if I did. I don't need to impress anyone. I passed along a nod towards nLite being a nifty thing to tinker with, nothing more. Their website has more than enough info about how it functions. If you think I'm just making this stuff up, well, try it for yourself and find out. Besides, anything posted anywhere can be fabricated, so chances are you'd choose not to believe any stats I posted anyways. I ain't gonna be your monkey.
When you don't engage in risky behaviour, the PC's condom doesn't need to fit so tight.
Haha, I like that...
But yes, I entrust most of my security to my router's firewall (it's a FC3 box, uses Firestarter). The way it's set up right now is the very definition of "paranoid." Not to say I don't keep my Windows firewall running, but I don't rely on it. Mostly I just keep it on so it won't bitch at me about it being off.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeah, that monthly fee is totally going towards maintenance costs, just like they said. That much is apparent.
Seriously, I still can't believe how easily people took to paying monthly subscription fees to play games that already cost $60 and, without paying the fee, are completely useless. It's kinda like giving cold, hard cash to a charity. You have no idea where that money is going, and you sure as hell can't trust Blizzard's PR department to give you the whole truth.
I stand fast in my assertion that I will not pay a monthly subscription to play any game except under one of two circumstances: 1) the game must have an equally fun single player mode (and it better be damn good), or 2) the game itself is free, and the monthly subscription is the only cost.
Call me anal, but it's bad enough when I pissed half my college years away playing Diablo II online for free. I don't see the point in having to pay for the privilege to waste my time.
I think that may be a little extreme. Doctors and lawyers play active roles in the ultimate direction of people's lives, and can possibly be the difference between life and death. I can't think of any CS area that has a direct affect on people's lives in this manner. Indirectly, perhaps, with air traffic control software, medical record-keeping (big software market there), and the like. Still, to say we deserve as much money as the people who have to use those devices may be a stretch.
I do agree though that, on the whole, we as computer scientists are often taken for granted and are drasticly underappreciated. There seems to be a new age mentality that people with a CS degree are a dime-a-dozen. This simply isn't true. But, so long as we're the ones working in the background, the harsh truth of the matter is that the people that use our creations are the heroes.
Do the vast majority of people working in a CS-related field deserve a raise? Absolutely. But let's not get greedy. Look at what happened to baseball. It used to be American's pastime. Why do you think it's lost so much publicity? Because all the players do now is whine and complain about how much more money they deserve.
Promise of a larger payroll might not be the best way to spark interest in CS-related fields. Education and exposure to those fields are what children need to incite interest in pursuing a CS degree. I simply don't think throwing money at this problem will solve it.
The more they tighten their grasp, the more of the internet will slip through their fingers....
...
Microsoft: Not after we demonstrate the power of this new operating system. In a way, you have determined the choice of the market that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with control over the Internet, we have chosen to test this operating system's destructive power on your home PC!
Consumers: No! We are peaceful! We have no weapons, you can't possibly...
Microsoft: You prefer another target, a server-based target? Then name the company!
Consumers:
Microsoft: We grow tired of asking this, so it'll be the last time. What can we do to control the world?
"making music for the purpose of making music?"
Had to have existed in the first place for something to have happened to it.
$250 for ANY concert ticket (I don't give a damn if it's front row) is ridiculous. I seriously hope no one pays for this. I just don't understand how artists and record labels and agents are getting the idea that raising the prices of their respective products will combat piracy or ease the "negative effects" piracy is having on their sales (for now, let's just ignore all the publicity artists get from P2P). That's just completely counterintuitive in my mind. If they want their loving fans back, they should get their attention with reasonable prices. Nothing says "I appreciate my fans" better than lowering your concert ticket prices, just a smidge, so that everyone once and a while Average Joe can afford to enjoy your music.
I guess this is why I stopped buying record label music years ago. I've bought a few local band CDs, but I bought those in person from the band itself. Not just because I wanted to have their music handy, but because they rock, and they don't charge admission. They appreciate their fans enough that during intermissions, they'll get down off the stage and mingle. Now those are musicians.
In summary: to hell with Madonna.
I didn't even actually notice the missing return statement. I'm too used to have "void main".
/. and claimed it had "no security holes." Even in jest, that's just asking to get slammed. :)
We all know it was a joke (at least, I hope I can speak for "we"). But, think about what you did. You posted code on
* stops burning porn DVDs long enough to read /. *
Hey, wait...we're allowed to do this now? Sweet!
* resumes burning porn DVDs *
I own the patent that defines what is not patentable. If my patent isn't held up in court, Microsoft loses to David Colvin. If it is, Microsoft loses to me.
Either way, I win.
Until someone comes along and messes with your header files. Then that harmless "printf" function you rely on so much suddenly does some pretty nasty stuff when it gets called.
Within the realm of this utterly simple program, yes, it's an "easy to use, accessible, and reliable application that has no security holes". But an application is only as strong as its weakest dependency...in this case, stdio.h, which cannot be guaranteed to be an "easy to use, accessible, and reliable application that has no security holes".
I'm not trying to imply that all Microsoft employees are like that. As far as I know, he still works there, though. Not for sure, it's been a coupla years. Either way, sell-out or not, it was still downright scary at the time.
My friends and I knew a guy at our college (Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology) that was hired on at Microsoft. Prior to leaving, he was always very open-minded about software usage, willing to try various options, be they proprietary or open source. After a while, he came back a changed man. He simply couldn't fathom how it was that we (as students) were using anything but Microsoft products, and would argument, sometimes vehemently, that we shouldn't be using *NIX or anything of that nature. It was truly scary.
What!?! The sky is falling? 66 people say so? That's almost like, 666 people! The end times have come! It's every man for himself!!!!
I believe it should read:
An informal Clearware.org poll indicates that 67% of the 66 respondants never or rarely comply to end-user license agreements (EULAs).
I was in his shoes all throughout grade school and up until about 10th grade. I know full well how cruel children can be. That cruelty taught me to be decisive and to stand by my actions and decisions, and helped me become more outgoing. The fun thing about it was that because of this, the ones who had previously found amusement in torturing me had a new respect for me afterwards. I can only say that if I had continued to back down and be reclusive, I'd probably be like Milton from Office Space today. Thank God I'm not.
:)
Some kids never grow up. There will undoubtedly be people who will never stop teasing Ghyslain over this whole situation. The best he can do is take it in stride. Hiding from it certainly isn't going to solve anything.
They just want someone to attack.
Could say the same about you, apparently.
I keep hearing people refer to th SWK videos as Ghyslain's "problem." I mostly disagree with this. It doesn't have to be a problem. The real problem stems from what I'm assuming is a personality quirk of his: reclusiveness. Call it what you will, lots of people have trouble stepping forward and saying, "Yeah, this is me, I did that, and I'm damn proud of it."
The best thing Ghyslain could have done is to just make the best of the situation (and I won't call it a "bad" situation). He obviously took some enjoyment from filming himself wielding a saber staff, why should that change just because of the opinions of others? IMHO, he should have stood by his actions rather than hiding from them.
I can't blame him, though. I suspect he had little to do with the counterattack. I expect the parents were responsible for sheltering him after the video went public.
Were it me, I'd have been proud to make so many people laugh. I only wish I could have an opportunity such as his.
I like all the subtle little messages in this article, further reinforcing the fundamentalist Christian conservative stereotype and implying that the Christians are the ones feeding fuel to the ICANN vs. Europe dispute.
.xxx domain decision any different than any other domain decision made by ICANN? Easy...it's a touchy issue with Christians. Christians who, by stereotype, are all conservative, and therefore are an easy target for the liberal media (yeah yeah, "liberal media", buzzword, I know).
.xxx domain decision at all.
Seriously, this debate already has enough touchy issues to keep both sides warring with each other. Looking at the situation objectively, I don't think ICANN can make any kind of intelligent decision now without sparking accusations from European protesters. So what, then, makes this
Personally, I see this article having little to do with the
I stand corrected. Nevertheless, there's no sense in being a jerk about it. A simple, "No, here's why..." would have sufficed.
Yours. What do you come up with? Would there be any gain at all?
"Sir, are you suggesting that we nuke the moon?"
"Would ya miss it? Would ya?"
Let's not forget that the escape velocity from the moon is minimalistic compared to that of the old mud ball. It wouldn't surprise me if, in a few decades, most manned spaceflight (American, at the very least, if not others) originates from the moon. Of course, this is all still just speculation. They still need an efficient means of getting the fuel for the spacecraft from Earth to the moon, otherwise the only thing they're really gaining is distance. Still, I'll bet that one Earth-to-moon flight carrying fuel would power more than one launch from the moon, though. Any positive gain is good positive gain, I guess.
I agree. I didn't particularly want to delve into the issue of the bad PR he creates by making such a statement. So, I just made my simple point and left it at that. Concerning his public image, Ballmer's actions speak for themselves.
I have to say that the summary given for this article isn't at all representative of the article as a whole. That being said, I have to say this. How Ballmer deals with his kids is a private matter. It should stay a private matter, and he should have known this. As CEO of a company like Microsoft, he should know that his private home practices are not justification of his proposed business models.
If he doesn't allow his kids to use Google or have iPods, that's his business. He shouldn't make it ours. That kind of preachiness can come back to bite one in the ass.
Seems easier to just keep IE around and only use it for updating purposes.
Maybe with the time saved by the parent
??? When did I ever claim to have saved time? I thought I stated quite the opposite, in fact. I probably put more time into goofing with nLite then maybe was necessary for my particular needs.
As for benchmarks, I don't have access to my computer at the moment, nor would I take the time to generate any statistics if I did. I don't need to impress anyone. I passed along a nod towards nLite being a nifty thing to tinker with, nothing more. Their website has more than enough info about how it functions. If you think I'm just making this stuff up, well, try it for yourself and find out. Besides, anything posted anywhere can be fabricated, so chances are you'd choose not to believe any stats I posted anyways. I ain't gonna be your monkey.
When you don't engage in risky behaviour, the PC's condom doesn't need to fit so tight.
:)
Haha, I like that...
But yes, I entrust most of my security to my router's firewall (it's a FC3 box, uses Firestarter). The way it's set up right now is the very definition of "paranoid." Not to say I don't keep my Windows firewall running, but I don't rely on it. Mostly I just keep it on so it won't bitch at me about it being off.
Besides, all stability and performance issues aside, we're missing the true purpose of nLite here. Hacking up Windows is just plain fun.
:)
Yes, I do get out. Quite frequently. Get off my back.