No joke, right? I forget the exact vulnerability that recently made me install NoScript, but there's been enough cross-site scripting, ajax, and stored-password exploits recently to make anyone paranoid.
"synchronous requests freeze the browser on Firefox." - Indeed. I've heard (but not checked for myself) that javascript runs in the same thread as the UI stuff, and that includes AJAX. It's horribly short-sighted of them.
"So, performance-wise, there most definitely is something wrong with Flash." - I haven't done the tests, and wouldn't disagree anyhow... But Flash isn't for programmers, it's for designers. If there were a way to do all that stuff in straight HTML, then Flash would never have had a reason to exist or get popular. The Canvas stuff can apparently do a lot of it now, but it STILL doesn't do well at tying graphics, audio and interaction together well, from what I've seen. (And it doesn't work on IE, either.) It's not about a single application, it's about enabling non-programmers to use it.
Yeah, it's neat idea, but some of the specifics are... ugly. The fingers don't sense the flex, you have to press a button between finger and thumb... I think the sensor is still in the Wiimote, instead of on the back of the hand, which makes the thing on the back on the hand purely for show and would possibly be in the way of the sensor.
And it's ugly as hell.;) They can an A for effort, though.
Holy crap. I feel like... I've been lied to for years. lol I thought the Power Glove was straight up Nintendo. (I think they encouraged that, what with it being in that 'The Wizard' movie that was about Super Mario Bros 3.) Doesn't make it any less of an accessory, though. I'm looking forward to the day they (or Mattel!) make one for the Wii and put Super Glove Ball on the VC. (Or remake it... -drool-)
Nintendo's strategy, with the exception of the poorly-received GameCube, has been to change. This is nothing new, they are, in fact, returning to their roots just as everyone is screaming at them for not sticking with them.
As already pointed out, Mario, Zelda and Metroid games continue to be produced, and new games are being created constantly as well. (Brain Age comes to mind as a recent success in innovation that doesn't require odd hardware.)
The GameCube was so poorly-received because it tried to do the same thing as other consoles, but with much, much less power. It was like the Jr Olympics... Cute and mildly entertaining, but hardly as exciting as the real thing. The Wii returns to Nintendo's roots and offers gimmicky controllers (Robby the Robot? The Power Glove?) to enhance the gaming experience, instead of relying on flashy graphics.
I own all 3 current gen systems, and while I don't really have a 'favorite', the PS3 is my least favorite. So far, it's done nothing (game-wise) that the 360 hasn't. Maybe Little Big Planet and Echochrome will change that... They're the only thing in the near future that has my attention. And maybe more classic games will help me like it better, as well. They've got Jet Moto (definitely one of may all-time racing games) but they don't have anything else I want, yet. Persona would be awesome. I recently started playing it again, and it's about what I remembered... Poor interface, but has plot and some thought into the combat/contact system.
Of the remaining 2, the Wii is my favorite for light-hearted games, and the 360 for serious games. That's not saying much for the consoles themselves, though, as those kind of games just naturally gravitate that way.
That was my initial thought as well, but then I came up with the answer: del.icio.us is -much- better at bookmarks than the browsers are. So why not drop that dead weight and just use it? (Or another bookmark service.) Everything it doesn't need to load into memory helps, on lesser systems.
Actually, I think we decided it was a bad idea when we figured out that running an OS, then an window manager, then an application, then an (web)OS, then a (web)window manager, then the intended (web)application is horribly inefficient, and not one bit easier to program for. In fact, it's rather constricting.
I think people are seeing how easy GUI is to do in HTML/XHTML and trying to take advantage of that, but in doing so are making it more complicated. It would be a lot smarter to make an add-on for an existing GUI system (QT or GTK or whatever, it doesn't really matter) and making it easy to program for in that way. I'm a KDE person, but I'd want it on GTK for the open-source-y-ness of it, rather than built on the proprietary QT. (Yes, it's 'free' under some circumstances... But not all. I'll take my 'freedom' with fewer strings, please.)
Because I type s and it drops down a list of all the sites that start with s (disregarded the www., if it was used). I believe it prioritizes the list according to frequency of use, as well. If it's a site that I frequently view a certain sets of pages, I can just arrow down until I get to the one I want. (This works well for GameFaqs, as I often visit the same few boards over and over for a month or so, then change to other games over time.)
It's rather like the frequently used bit of the Windows Start menu, but with a longer memory. (And thus more useful.)
I use the firefox shorts (google and dict are quite common for me) when I want to search for things, as well. The dropdown history doesn't store those, and I've found that to be both a blessing and a hindrance at different times.
I suspect he means the history that shows when you start typing in the address bar. While I find that immensely useful, I could see how it would be annoying on a system not fast enough to do it well.
But yeah, he's trolling... The Flash comment proved that. There's nothing wrong with Flash itself, only how people use it. He then goes on to prove that at least 1 person did it well by his own standards, but he refuses to look at any other Flash. If we were talking about humans, this would commonly be called 'prejudice' and people would be up in arms. It's still prejudice (but without the human connotation), but this is Slashdot and tech-prejudice is expected here. (Call that flamebait if you want, but the lines here are clearly drawn and accepted.)
As for 'Firefox Lite'... My immediate thought was 'who the fsck would want a browser without bookmarks/favorites?' But then I remembered Del.icio.us and how much better it does the bookmarks, and that I never actually use them on my browser now, except for a single bar below my address bar. And that could be done away with using a good homepage. (Maybe modeled after Opera's Speed Dial.)
Yes, because depriving someone else of their pet is exactly the same thing as copying data off the internet.
Maybe if I somehow managed to clone their puppy, without for even a second depriving them of theirs, that might be a valid analogy. You'd still have to get over the legal ramifications of cloning, though, while making a backup copy of a CD is specifically allowed by the law. (Yes, I -did- make a backup copy by downloading it. The law does not specify how I should make that copy.)
You seem to have confused downloading with uploading. Who said ANYTHING about sharing the file with others? There's plenty of ways to download without uploading.
But that's immaterial, anyhow, as you have NO idea if the other person is doing it legally or not. I don't stop everyone I see on the street and verify that they are not an escaped criminal before I let them continue down the sidewalk, right? Even if that's not my duty, a police officer doesn't do that, either. Just because someone COULD be doing something illegal doesn't mean you should give a shit.
So tell me again why I shouldn't use the internet to replace that $50 game CD I lost? As a perfect example, I lost my Persona disc for PSX. On EBay, that disc goes for anywhere from $50 to $100. I think I only paid $40 originally, and I don't think I should have to pay that much to replace it. The company won't replace it, as the game is out of print. I'll be damned if I'll just suck it up and accept the loss. That's one of my favorite games of all time.
"80% of VC-funded software firms don't claim patents within four years of being funded."
That's a great statistic, but doesn't really -mean- anything. WHY didn't they claim a patent? Ideals? Lack of anything to patent? Lack of money? (Yes, they were funded, but that doesn't mean they had extra.) Did they get beaten to the patent?
I think it's worth noting that the subbers actually take it a step further. They not only stop subbing, but they usually remove the previously-subbed content from their servers as well. You can still get the previous files on the P2P networks, but the group doesn't condone the distribution at that point.
I'm a huge anime fan, and I -never- would have been if it weren't for fan-subbing. Spending $100/season on some series just wasn't possible, and watching the horribly mangled english dubs is painful at best.
Now that I've got money, I find myself buying the discs and books for series that I loved, such as Scryed and Read Or Die.
It took quite a while for their tactic to pay off, but allowing fansubbing has brought them a lot of money from me that they would not have had, and there's more to come. If they started shutting these groups down today, there's still a few series I'd probably buy, but I'd get -no- exposure to new series, and have no reason to buy them. (I generally don't take chances on video/audio purchases as I've been burned too many times in the past.)
That works great right up until you are sitting in jail.
At any rate, 'moral' and 'ethical' vary from culture to culture and religion to religion. He obviously has no problem whatsoever taking someone's IP without paying, but I don't see it as the 'victimless' crime he does.
I'm not claiming to be a saint, even by my own ethical/moral code. But I'm not rationalizing my actions instead of admitting my faults.
Hey! I've got over 10,000 XBox Gamer Points and I'm proud of it! Err, wait...
Yeah, we -do- seem to need meaningless numbers to validate our existance. It's wired into who we are. I'm about the most non-competitive person I know, and I still feel the need to 'win' from time to time.
But that really has nothing to do with these ratings, does it? These are for personal edification, they are to measure the success of shows/games so that networks know what is popular and what is not. IF the system worked right, maybe we wouldn't be stuck with so many idiotic shows. It's a big 'maybe', though, as most people that watch a lot of TV watch it whether there's anything good on or not. I can't stand to have my time wasted like that, so my DVR and I are on a first-name basis now. This is a particularly sucky time of the year, apparently... There's only a couple shows running that I care about at all, and they both started up recently, I think. (Eureka and the lastest Doctor Who, and I haven't figured out exactly when DW started on Scifi, and how it managed to get past me.)
My object is not to prove the submitter correct (they aren't, under any stretch of the imagination) but to show this reply as woefully narrow in vision.
Yes, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the possibility that the monkey might hit the letter A a thousand times in a row. (The statement used in the post you replied to was 'Actually, a random number generator isn't really random unless it is possible for it to generate the number 42 a thousand times in a row...') In a -truly random- sequence, it's possible.
Monkeys aren't really random, though. They use at least a small bit of logic, and lose that true randomness.
I'm not denying how correct you are for what you stated, it just has absolutely nothing to do with the post you replied to.
Good points. I'm an evolutionist, and I find it sad that you are unlikely to be modded up on this. (Against the group-think and all that.)
When I read the article, the first thing I thought was 'I thought we could all agree on this?' That's the 1 big (important) thing the ID and Evo people agree on: We came from a single source.
Of course, I still haven't ruled out that possibility that evolution is controlled by God. It kind of muddies things a bit.
"am not making or denying any profit to any organization"
Except Microsoft. I guess they don't count because they are 'evil'.
"It is wrong and invasive, therefore the issue is moot."
Right, 2 wrongs always make a right.
"How many feds know a thing about Linux anyway?"
This matters because... ?
In the end, it doesn't matter whether you think it's 'right' or 'wrong', it's illegal and you take a risk by using the codecs in this fashion. I happen to think it's stupid as well, but it's still the law.
Has it ever actually stopped anyone from using them? There's probably someone, somewhere that's paranoid of the government and thinks it's a trap, so yeah... Maybe.
Don't try to rationalize that this activity is not illegal just because it's not immoral or unethical in your eyes (or anyone else's). The 2 are completely unrelated.
verb (used with object) 20. to let loose; free from bonds or restraint. 21. to release, as from constraint, obligation, or penalty.
Over-generalising isn't going to help them remember. It'll only confuse them more when they encounter a less common usage, and think they've got it backwards again.
Maybe he didn't get the joke (I didn't realize they often releast percentages that are wholly inaccurate... Maybe because I don't find it funny), but you definitely did not get HIS joke.
Because you are missing the other half of the conversation. Someone -asked- them about it, and they responded. By only printing the response, it looks like a press release, instead of the simple answer to the question.
How do I know this? A game news site's story. I can't find the one right now, since we just had a ton of pointless 'news' stories about E3, 95% of which were duplicates, even on the same site.
Slashdot Mirror
No joke, right? I forget the exact vulnerability that recently made me install NoScript, but there's been enough cross-site scripting, ajax, and stored-password exploits recently to make anyone paranoid.
"synchronous requests freeze the browser on Firefox." - Indeed. I've heard (but not checked for myself) that javascript runs in the same thread as the UI stuff, and that includes AJAX. It's horribly short-sighted of them.
"So, performance-wise, there most definitely is something wrong with Flash." - I haven't done the tests, and wouldn't disagree anyhow... But Flash isn't for programmers, it's for designers. If there were a way to do all that stuff in straight HTML, then Flash would never have had a reason to exist or get popular. The Canvas stuff can apparently do a lot of it now, but it STILL doesn't do well at tying graphics, audio and interaction together well, from what I've seen. (And it doesn't work on IE, either.) It's not about a single application, it's about enabling non-programmers to use it.
Yeah, it's neat idea, but some of the specifics are ... ugly. The fingers don't sense the flex, you have to press a button between finger and thumb... I think the sensor is still in the Wiimote, instead of on the back of the hand, which makes the thing on the back on the hand purely for show and would possibly be in the way of the sensor.
;) They can an A for effort, though.
And it's ugly as hell.
Holy crap. I feel like... I've been lied to for years. lol I thought the Power Glove was straight up Nintendo. (I think they encouraged that, what with it being in that 'The Wizard' movie that was about Super Mario Bros 3.) Doesn't make it any less of an accessory, though. I'm looking forward to the day they (or Mattel!) make one for the Wii and put Super Glove Ball on the VC. (Or remake it... -drool-)
Thx for the head's up.
Nintendo's strategy, with the exception of the poorly-received GameCube, has been to change. This is nothing new, they are, in fact, returning to their roots just as everyone is screaming at them for not sticking with them.
As already pointed out, Mario, Zelda and Metroid games continue to be produced, and new games are being created constantly as well. (Brain Age comes to mind as a recent success in innovation that doesn't require odd hardware.)
The GameCube was so poorly-received because it tried to do the same thing as other consoles, but with much, much less power. It was like the Jr Olympics... Cute and mildly entertaining, but hardly as exciting as the real thing. The Wii returns to Nintendo's roots and offers gimmicky controllers (Robby the Robot? The Power Glove?) to enhance the gaming experience, instead of relying on flashy graphics.
I own all 3 current gen systems, and while I don't really have a 'favorite', the PS3 is my least favorite. So far, it's done nothing (game-wise) that the 360 hasn't. Maybe Little Big Planet and Echochrome will change that... They're the only thing in the near future that has my attention. And maybe more classic games will help me like it better, as well. They've got Jet Moto (definitely one of may all-time racing games) but they don't have anything else I want, yet. Persona would be awesome. I recently started playing it again, and it's about what I remembered... Poor interface, but has plot and some thought into the combat/contact system.
Of the remaining 2, the Wii is my favorite for light-hearted games, and the 360 for serious games. That's not saying much for the consoles themselves, though, as those kind of games just naturally gravitate that way.
That was my initial thought as well, but then I came up with the answer: del.icio.us is -much- better at bookmarks than the browsers are. So why not drop that dead weight and just use it? (Or another bookmark service.) Everything it doesn't need to load into memory helps, on lesser systems.
Actually, I think we decided it was a bad idea when we figured out that running an OS, then an window manager, then an application, then an (web)OS, then a (web)window manager, then the intended (web)application is horribly inefficient, and not one bit easier to program for. In fact, it's rather constricting.
I think people are seeing how easy GUI is to do in HTML/XHTML and trying to take advantage of that, but in doing so are making it more complicated. It would be a lot smarter to make an add-on for an existing GUI system (QT or GTK or whatever, it doesn't really matter) and making it easy to program for in that way. I'm a KDE person, but I'd want it on GTK for the open-source-y-ness of it, rather than built on the proprietary QT. (Yes, it's 'free' under some circumstances... But not all. I'll take my 'freedom' with fewer strings, please.)
Because I type s and it drops down a list of all the sites that start with s (disregarded the www., if it was used). I believe it prioritizes the list according to frequency of use, as well. If it's a site that I frequently view a certain sets of pages, I can just arrow down until I get to the one I want. (This works well for GameFaqs, as I often visit the same few boards over and over for a month or so, then change to other games over time.)
It's rather like the frequently used bit of the Windows Start menu, but with a longer memory. (And thus more useful.)
I use the firefox shorts (google and dict are quite common for me) when I want to search for things, as well. The dropdown history doesn't store those, and I've found that to be both a blessing and a hindrance at different times.
I suspect he means the history that shows when you start typing in the address bar. While I find that immensely useful, I could see how it would be annoying on a system not fast enough to do it well.
But yeah, he's trolling... The Flash comment proved that. There's nothing wrong with Flash itself, only how people use it. He then goes on to prove that at least 1 person did it well by his own standards, but he refuses to look at any other Flash. If we were talking about humans, this would commonly be called 'prejudice' and people would be up in arms. It's still prejudice (but without the human connotation), but this is Slashdot and tech-prejudice is expected here. (Call that flamebait if you want, but the lines here are clearly drawn and accepted.)
As for 'Firefox Lite'... My immediate thought was 'who the fsck would want a browser without bookmarks/favorites?' But then I remembered Del.icio.us and how much better it does the bookmarks, and that I never actually use them on my browser now, except for a single bar below my address bar. And that could be done away with using a good homepage. (Maybe modeled after Opera's Speed Dial.)
Yes, because depriving someone else of their pet is exactly the same thing as copying data off the internet.
Maybe if I somehow managed to clone their puppy, without for even a second depriving them of theirs, that might be a valid analogy. You'd still have to get over the legal ramifications of cloning, though, while making a backup copy of a CD is specifically allowed by the law. (Yes, I -did- make a backup copy by downloading it. The law does not specify how I should make that copy.)
You seem to have confused downloading with uploading. Who said ANYTHING about sharing the file with others? There's plenty of ways to download without uploading.
But that's immaterial, anyhow, as you have NO idea if the other person is doing it legally or not. I don't stop everyone I see on the street and verify that they are not an escaped criminal before I let them continue down the sidewalk, right? Even if that's not my duty, a police officer doesn't do that, either. Just because someone COULD be doing something illegal doesn't mean you should give a shit.
So tell me again why I shouldn't use the internet to replace that $50 game CD I lost? As a perfect example, I lost my Persona disc for PSX. On EBay, that disc goes for anywhere from $50 to $100. I think I only paid $40 originally, and I don't think I should have to pay that much to replace it. The company won't replace it, as the game is out of print. I'll be damned if I'll just suck it up and accept the loss. That's one of my favorite games of all time.
"80% of VC-funded software firms don't claim patents within four years of being funded."
That's a great statistic, but doesn't really -mean- anything. WHY didn't they claim a patent? Ideals? Lack of anything to patent? Lack of money? (Yes, they were funded, but that doesn't mean they had extra.) Did they get beaten to the patent?
I think it's worth noting that the subbers actually take it a step further. They not only stop subbing, but they usually remove the previously-subbed content from their servers as well. You can still get the previous files on the P2P networks, but the group doesn't condone the distribution at that point.
I'm a huge anime fan, and I -never- would have been if it weren't for fan-subbing. Spending $100/season on some series just wasn't possible, and watching the horribly mangled english dubs is painful at best.
Now that I've got money, I find myself buying the discs and books for series that I loved, such as Scryed and Read Or Die.
It took quite a while for their tactic to pay off, but allowing fansubbing has brought them a lot of money from me that they would not have had, and there's more to come. If they started shutting these groups down today, there's still a few series I'd probably buy, but I'd get -no- exposure to new series, and have no reason to buy them. (I generally don't take chances on video/audio purchases as I've been burned too many times in the past.)
That works great right up until you are sitting in jail.
At any rate, 'moral' and 'ethical' vary from culture to culture and religion to religion. He obviously has no problem whatsoever taking someone's IP without paying, but I don't see it as the 'victimless' crime he does.
I'm not claiming to be a saint, even by my own ethical/moral code. But I'm not rationalizing my actions instead of admitting my faults.
Hey! I've got over 10,000 XBox Gamer Points and I'm proud of it! Err, wait...
Yeah, we -do- seem to need meaningless numbers to validate our existance. It's wired into who we are. I'm about the most non-competitive person I know, and I still feel the need to 'win' from time to time.
But that really has nothing to do with these ratings, does it? These are for personal edification, they are to measure the success of shows/games so that networks know what is popular and what is not. IF the system worked right, maybe we wouldn't be stuck with so many idiotic shows. It's a big 'maybe', though, as most people that watch a lot of TV watch it whether there's anything good on or not. I can't stand to have my time wasted like that, so my DVR and I are on a first-name basis now. This is a particularly sucky time of the year, apparently... There's only a couple shows running that I care about at all, and they both started up recently, I think. (Eureka and the lastest Doctor Who, and I haven't figured out exactly when DW started on Scifi, and how it managed to get past me.)
Grammar Nazis make no distinction. ;)
My object is not to prove the submitter correct (they aren't, under any stretch of the imagination) but to show this reply as woefully narrow in vision.
Yes, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the possibility that the monkey might hit the letter A a thousand times in a row. (The statement used in the post you replied to was 'Actually, a random number generator isn't really random unless it is possible for it to generate the number 42 a thousand times in a row...') In a -truly random- sequence, it's possible.
Monkeys aren't really random, though. They use at least a small bit of logic, and lose that true randomness.
I'm not denying how correct you are for what you stated, it just has absolutely nothing to do with the post you replied to.
Good points. I'm an evolutionist, and I find it sad that you are unlikely to be modded up on this. (Against the group-think and all that.)
When I read the article, the first thing I thought was 'I thought we could all agree on this?' That's the 1 big (important) thing the ID and Evo people agree on: We came from a single source.
Of course, I still haven't ruled out that possibility that evolution is controlled by God. It kind of muddies things a bit.
"I am not gaining anything out of it"
Then why are you doing it?
"am not making or denying any profit to any organization"
Except Microsoft. I guess they don't count because they are 'evil'.
"It is wrong and invasive, therefore the issue is moot."
Right, 2 wrongs always make a right.
"How many feds know a thing about Linux anyway?"
This matters because... ?
In the end, it doesn't matter whether you think it's 'right' or 'wrong', it's illegal and you take a risk by using the codecs in this fashion. I happen to think it's stupid as well, but it's still the law.
Has it ever actually stopped anyone from using them? There's probably someone, somewhere that's paranoid of the government and thinks it's a trap, so yeah... Maybe.
Don't try to rationalize that this activity is not illegal just because it's not immoral or unethical in your eyes (or anyone else's). The 2 are completely unrelated.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/loose
A small sample:
Over-generalising isn't going to help them remember. It'll only confuse them more when they encounter a less common usage, and think they've got it backwards again.
Nono, I think they mean to say that Firefox doesn't fight dirty and throw dirt (loose ground) at the opponents.
I felt compelled to sign up. Not because I needed truly random numbers, but because the captcha was a challenge to my geek-hood.
Maybe he didn't get the joke (I didn't realize they often releast percentages that are wholly inaccurate... Maybe because I don't find it funny), but you definitely did not get HIS joke.
Because you are missing the other half of the conversation. Someone -asked- them about it, and they responded. By only printing the response, it looks like a press release, instead of the simple answer to the question.
How do I know this? A game news site's story. I can't find the one right now, since we just had a ton of pointless 'news' stories about E3, 95% of which were duplicates, even on the same site.