The backup feature is key for me - especially given Apple's "Well you can just buy all the music again if your hard drive crashes, Sir" attitude.
Also, buying a CD is a good quality backup, because I'm guessing that a commercial audio CD pressed from a glass master is going to outlast most burned CD-R discs - cf. the periodic "most CD-Rs degrade after a couple of years" stories that surface annually on slashdot. (I've bought 100s of audio CDs since about 1986, and I think I can remember one that has failed.)
The DRM is also a pain. I bought a couple of albums on iTunes, just to see if Hymn etc worked. It did, but it was just too much hassle. I generally don't need music right now so I just click a few buttons on amazon (or whoever's) website, and the CD turns up in the post a few days later. Modern PCs rip CDs so fast now it's not a chore to rip CDs when you buy them.
And I decided years ago that mp3 was the format for me, because I would always be able to play them. Car stereos that play CDs with mps will work fine. How do I play iTMS music on my Windows Media Center PC? You probably can, but I don't want to know (because it will mean installing QT on a machine I want to be stable, for a start). I just dump my mp3s on a NAS drive, and MCE can play them, no problem. As can just about any other digital music player. (The same goes for DRM'd WMA files btw - totally not interested, for similar reasons).
I started programming when I was ten, and I did it by hand-converting Z80 assembly language to machine code and then used BASIC poke commands to write them into memory. I had to work hard to scrape a C compiler from somewhere and that was heaven.
And remember all the weird variations of BASIC? One for every machine, it seemed like. You'd get halfway through typing in some cool-looking program from a magazine listing, and go "INKEY$? What the hell is INKEY$? My computer doesn't know that!"
Kids these days, etc. We had 7167 bytes free on startup and liked it!
As I think I've said a number of times on slashdot before, I wrote a C/C++ test once for recruitment purposes. To be nice, I decided to 'give away' 3 points, and just get people feeling relaxed by making the first question "Fill in these truth tables for AND, OR, and XOR operations." I thought this was just a gift. No way anyone could flunk that and lose those points.
You don't want to know how many "C/C++ programmers" couldn't do that. It wasn't the majority of applicants, but it was worryingly larger than zero.
Finally, I refused to watch the trailer/previews/spoilers before I saw the film, so when he extended the second blade of his lightsabre, my jaw dropped.
I still remember watching that first trailer on my PC at work with about 8 people crowded round - when Maul turned on his quarterstaff, everyone around me simultaneously said "Cool!":-)
At one company, I installed the BSOD screen saver on our NT file server because it amused me.
Of course, less than an hour later I nearly had a heart attack when I looked up from a big code check-in to see our file server had 'blue-screened'.
I uninstalled it soon afterwards:-)
Aside: I seem to remember that the NT 'bouncing lines' screen saver used to halve server performance when it kicked in (genius!), so in the end I went for the boring old 'make the screen go blank' screen saver.
would it really have made the front page of Slashdot?
Oh, I liked the Metafilter one. Mainly because that's how I see a lot of 'A list' bloggers entries. Just stupid undescribed links. It reminded me a lot of the Winer.
It doesn't really hold a candle to his "I'm Somebody's Fetish" T-shirts, though.
And remember, God never burdens us with more ice cream sandwiches than we can eat.
So does this mean that the 30 and 90 day trials of Norton and McAfee products are filled with malware or they lower their security settings to entice you to buy at the end of the trial period?
I'll never trust McAfee after a friend of mine installed the trial version of their AV software.
On day 29 of the 30 day eval, it flagged a virus as being present on his PC. Suspicious, he set the clock back to the day before, and rebooted. No virus found. Restored the clock to the day before the eval ran out, and McAfee AV found the virus again.
I'm sorry, we were comparing MythTV to a 2 year old version of Windows Media Center that you can't even buy any more, so all your talk of Vista MCE is no help at all:-)
I also hear Windows XP has features that Mac OS 8 can't compete with.
Given that just about every time I've ever run some Cyberlink software, it has crashed and burned in some way, I can't say I'm surprised. WinDVD isn't much better. And they both have crap UI. Horrible, horrible software.
I know a grand total of one person who has ever owned a MD player / recorder. Pretty much everyone I know has owned CD and cassette tape equipment, however.
Out of interest, which country do you live in? I ask because MD was quite successful in Europe/Japan, but made almost no impact in the US.
Cool! Now all you have to do is sell that brilliant idea (multiplying SKUs by 5) to the sales/logistics guys who want an EFIGS disc. I'm sure that will be super easy.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks! I've read the book too! :-)
Where did I say that Le Chiffre cheated? Beating Le Chiffre is the thing you want to avoid.
They want to be careful - they might end up playing Le Chiffre. That doesn't end well. Chairs with the bottom cut out and all that.
The backup feature is key for me - especially given Apple's "Well you can just buy all the music again if your hard drive crashes, Sir" attitude.
Also, buying a CD is a good quality backup, because I'm guessing that a commercial audio CD pressed from a glass master is going to outlast most burned CD-R discs - cf. the periodic "most CD-Rs degrade after a couple of years" stories that surface annually on slashdot. (I've bought 100s of audio CDs since about 1986, and I think I can remember one that has failed.)
The DRM is also a pain. I bought a couple of albums on iTunes, just to see if Hymn etc worked. It did, but it was just too much hassle. I generally don't need music right now so I just click a few buttons on amazon (or whoever's) website, and the CD turns up in the post a few days later. Modern PCs rip CDs so fast now it's not a chore to rip CDs when you buy them.
And I decided years ago that mp3 was the format for me, because I would always be able to play them. Car stereos that play CDs with mps will work fine. How do I play iTMS music on my Windows Media Center PC? You probably can, but I don't want to know (because it will mean installing QT on a machine I want to be stable, for a start). I just dump my mp3s on a NAS drive, and MCE can play them, no problem. As can just about any other digital music player. (The same goes for DRM'd WMA files btw - totally not interested, for similar reasons).
And remember all the weird variations of BASIC? One for every machine, it seemed like. You'd get halfway through typing in some cool-looking program from a magazine listing, and go "INKEY$? What the hell is INKEY$? My computer doesn't know that!"
Kids these days, etc. We had 7167 bytes free on startup and liked it!
This riddle thing is rubbish. I didn't even win a prize.
The singular of anecdotes is not datum.
Ha!
As I think I've said a number of times on slashdot before, I wrote a C/C++ test once for recruitment purposes. To be nice, I decided to 'give away' 3 points, and just get people feeling relaxed by making the first question "Fill in these truth tables for AND, OR, and XOR operations." I thought this was just a gift. No way anyone could flunk that and lose those points.
You don't want to know how many "C/C++ programmers" couldn't do that. It wasn't the majority of applicants, but it was worryingly larger than zero.
An irrational number is one that cannot be represented as one whole number divided by another.
Do I win?
I still remember watching that first trailer on my PC at work with about 8 people crowded round - when Maul turned on his quarterstaff, everyone around me simultaneously said "Cool!" :-)
No. Please feel free to get on with the rest of your life.
If you lived in the UK, you'd know that you'd rarely want to record anything on ITV anyway.
At one company, I installed the BSOD screen saver on our NT file server because it amused me.
Of course, less than an hour later I nearly had a heart attack when I looked up from a big code check-in to see our file server had 'blue-screened'.
I uninstalled it soon afterwards :-)
Aside: I seem to remember that the NT 'bouncing lines' screen saver used to halve server performance when it kicked in (genius!), so in the end I went for the boring old 'make the screen go blank' screen saver.
Plus, that creepy robot would be right at the front.
Can you post an entry on your blog about what happens when the Secret Service turn up? I've always wondered.
(I don't think Old Man Murray told the truth in their report.)
I presume you're not talking about 'Enterprise'.
Never mind. I still can't believe people are sad enough to call their computer a 'rig'. Jeez.
Oh, I don't know. Seems quite informative to me. Just perhaps not the information they meant to impart :-).
Oh, I liked the Metafilter one. Mainly because that's how I see a lot of 'A list' bloggers entries. Just stupid undescribed links. It reminded me a lot of the Winer.
And remember, God never burdens us with more ice cream sandwiches than we can eat.
Something like that.
I'll never trust McAfee after a friend of mine installed the trial version of their AV software.
On day 29 of the 30 day eval, it flagged a virus as being present on his PC. Suspicious, he set the clock back to the day before, and rebooted. No virus found. Restored the clock to the day before the eval ran out, and McAfee AV found the virus again.
Not exactly trustworthy behaviour.
I'm sorry, we were comparing MythTV to a 2 year old version of Windows Media Center that you can't even buy any more, so all your talk of Vista MCE is no help at all :-)
I also hear Windows XP has features that Mac OS 8 can't compete with.
Given that just about every time I've ever run some Cyberlink software, it has crashed and burned in some way, I can't say I'm surprised. WinDVD isn't much better. And they both have crap UI. Horrible, horrible software.
So, point number 1:
Is it just me, or is that not quite true?
Out of interest, which country do you live in? I ask because MD was quite successful in Europe/Japan, but made almost no impact in the US.
Cool! Now all you have to do is sell that brilliant idea (multiplying SKUs by 5) to the sales/logistics guys who want an EFIGS disc. I'm sure that will be super easy.