WGA doesn't keep people honest, it just makes pirates use the corporate versions, while those of us that are honest, have to fight against it to use the software we paid for.
WGA like all forms of DRM is a bad thing, it punishes legitimate customers, while pirates are unaffected.
As a technical service provider, I have to say I rather like WGA -- I work for a large corporation providing end-user support, and when anyone comes in saying "I did the updates on this machine I bought from the shop down the road..." and they have a WGA prompt, it means an easy sale of several hundred dollars to sell them a legit license, with a CoA and that will actually pass validation.
How many false positives have you used to fleece 'easy business' out of people, I wonder. I apologise if I am wrong, but your company sounds like a parasite. From what you say, those people paid TWICE for an XP license, if they did get an unlicensed copy then the shop should be prosecuted and the customer should get a replacement legit copy for free (from MS I believe), but that won't help your business, will it?
I can legally and easily take my copy of Office off one machine and put onto another one.
Oh really, because when I move my copy of office, or even reinstall it on the same box, I have to phone Microsoft and defend myself to the person at the other end of the line, in order to get them to activate it.
Evil DRM ridden future will be where my Office validates and locks against my copy of XP. Maybe the argument would be between windows and OSX versions of software. I can't just buy 'office' - I buy office for OSX or office for XP.
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't XP validate against your motherboard and other hardware?
And anyway I see no difference between DRM on media & validation of your OS. To me it is exactly the same principal - annoying the legitimate consumer with validation and arbitrary restrictions, while those who do pirate, don't have these problems.
DRM is Microsoft's problem - not their fault.The fault rests solely with the music industry and their failure to recognize this media-less thing might catch one and their failure to create their own unified DRM standard from the start. You might be right with respect to movies & music - leading to the Windows Media Player DRM. However, I dont think the **AA had any influence for Windows Genuine (dis)Advantge, or Windows Activation schemes, only Microsoft themselves could have had any input into those schemes.
I think he means an astroturfer - http://catb.org/jargon/html/A/astroturfing.html, specifically definition 2. And for those who dont like to click on links, astroturfing in this sense basically means that the poster is being paid by Microsoft to appear to be 'an ordinary joe', in an attempt to create the appearance of popular low level support. Like a politcal party activist writing letters to newspapers, pretending to be the public.
I at their position would try to get a license for some Star Wars game, imagine all the people who would love to swing their wiimote as substitute for a laser sword. They could even opt to make a special edition of the controller shaped like a laser sword.
LASER SWORD? Oh dear, not knowing what a lightsaber is called. Consider your geek license revoked.
That said, yes I agree that a lightsaber game (perhaps KOTOR or Jedi Academy kinda thing), would be the best thing Nintendo can do with the Wii. Currently I dont think I can afford to buy a Wii and am happy to wait, but those adverts of Wii-sports & Zelda are really turning the screw right now and 'Star Wiis' would be just the thing to hurt my credit card.
Dont forget that even Nintendo have struggled to meet pre-orders here (at least in the UK).
Or even simpler, we the British would be spending $120 billion (which is alot more than the new nuclear weapons we are about to build, a for the UK defence budget a massive amount) on aircraft for which we have no way of fully evaluating the product. I am betting that code is full of bugs and they don't want us to know that we are in reality getting scammed.
I seriously hope that Mr Blair votes with his feet on this one. Most of his 'influence' in the special relationship is mythical, but US industry missing out on hundreds of billions of business, may be a threat with some real weight.
Also by holding the source code away from us (under the veil of National Security) they can enforce 'lock-in', ie over the life of the aircraft, we cannot choose where to go for upgrades or maintenance. Which of course means we have to spend more to get that.
Oh my god, they actually copied Sideshow Bob. Ironically that means they have violated Fox's copyright on the Simpsons.
Sue em' Digger.
Read your own summaries Zonk
on
The Wii Hits the UK
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
The difference being that Zonk isn't paid to have anything to do with soccer players (as far as I know)
No, but he *is* paid to read (and therefore edit) his own summaries. From the summary - (with the important text highlighted for the benefit of those who cant make it through an entire paragraph)
Gamespot is reporting on the Wii's launch in Britain [CC]. As with the U.S. launch, things seem to have gone quite smoothly. Celebrities and very long lines of gamers marked the occasion, with one store giving out pizza, merchandise, and champaign to their customers. From the article: "At Nintendo's official event in HMV on Oxford Street, celebrities Ian Wright, Nell McAndrew, Pat Cash, and Ricky Hatton turned up to play Wii Sports. Cash and McAndrew played Wii Tennis, with Cash winning two games to zero. Wright and Hatton sparred at Wii Boxing, with the ex-footballer winning the virtual game against the boxer. Heba Elgamal, who had been camping outside the store in an alley for two days, was first in line for a console at the HMV store, and it was presented to him by Ian Wright. Elgamal bought The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with his purchase, and Wright asked him if Zelda was a fighting game--which didn't go down well with the crowd. " Errr... who is Ian Wright? And how has he never heard of Zelda?
Only one sentence after he was named, there's your answer. That wasn't too hard was it?
A similar thought struck me when I saw this article - Does America need to be a dominant force in science?
I am not sure it does, much the same as (bad analogy coming up) Nintendo doesn't need to be the dominant force in gaming, it just needs to keep selling stuff. It isn't USian culture I know, but you dont have to be number 1 at everything. You can just be. Keep advancing yes, but there might not be a need to be advancing at the head of the pack.
How about we answer, "why?" before messing around with things. Dont you see, we must rid ourselves of those damned commie apples, openly messing with our vital bodily fluids.
That figure definitely doesn't include never receiving your luggage.
I went on holiday from London to Egypt, after waiting for every bag to be collected, my luggage was still not present, however there was a bag with my luggage tag present (it really wasn't mine). I got the Sharm El-Sheik airport worker to write an incident report and telex London to find out where my bag actually was. The next day (after I had hastily tried to get some clothes) I was phoned by the holiday reps to come back to Sharm airport because they thought that they had my bag. After having to bribe my way into the departure lounge I found that Gatwick airport reckoned (but did not actually know) that it was a replacement bag. It wasn't, only four months later did my insurance company pay out, they had tried to demand that I provide an itemised account of the claims, including receipts which being mostly clothes and books I didn't have. This was of course added to the annoyance of arriving at my hotel for relaxing beach holiday with no change of clothes and only two short books.
Fortunately, I found that Sharm has diving schools and turned what could be a horribly boring week into a great holiday. But yes it was aggravating.
The Korean Court ruled that a patent issued in 1997 to Professor Lee Keung-Hae at Hankuk Aviation University covered any technology that switches user input mode between Korean and English.
Any technology.?The patent doesn't even have to be specific. That is another example of why the patent system with respect of software is broken.
I swear the MPAA (as well as the RIAA) has to be on some pretty hard core drugs. Either that or they certainly live in a completely different reality than 95% of the rest of the world. If there are any majority of judges that would ever even consider this to be in any way just or fair then I have lost all my faith in the American Way.:(Considering this is obviously a satirical article. You have restored our faith in the American intellect.
How many people have to confirm this in comments and classifications before everyone realises this is comedy.
It annoys me that these were the 10 women (Paris Hilton, et al) they chose. It must be really insulting, when they leave out so many serious 'girl geeks' that actually did have a positive impact on the world.
They took charge (without violence) to ensure that democracy would prevail
So lets get this straight. To ensure that democracy prevails, one must remove it? That sounds like the logic behind the current war for freedom. "To protect it, we must eliminate it"
And on another note, how many monarchs would be stupid enough not to will a military coup, when it has already happened and they are in control of your protection and the media.
And the most of the people agreed. (Obviously not those who supported the alleged election-thief)
Oh really? Most of the voting minority then
I would have thought that the only way to work out what most of the people want, is to have some sort of poll, an election perhaps, which they did have and the majority voted for him.
If the military wanted democracy so much and had misgivings about the process, then they could have run the election (or run another one) just as easily as they took over the country. Countries where the military are able to coup will never have a stable government, because there will be times when the public (or a section of) are angry with those in power who may be corrupt or worse, but we get round this with checks & balances, separation of powers and some patience that these processes may not happen overnight. In Thailand the military just bypassed all that and took over. Only the 18th coup in 74 years.Saying you will return power to the people is not the same as actually giving power back to the people. I wonder how many military dictators take power saying that they will give it to the people and then dont.
1. I have a legit copy of Windows XP, but I dont think it is OEM 2. I have the same box that I originally installed XP on. Although all of the actual bits that make up the PC have been replaced at least once. --- Sort of a "Same broom, several different handles, several different heads" kinda thing. I really dont think I have violated their license, as it had no connection to a specific PC and I only ever have had it installed on one PC, despite that PC changing.
I could easily buy a new PC and then install that copy onto the new box, as long a I wiped the old one I haven't pirated XP, but that would be counted as a pirated copy using the "PC brought with no copy of XP" argument.
Statistics used by any arm of the government should not be produced by those who have a vested interest in a particular result of that report. Statistics are lies when they aren't based on facts.
Slashdot Mirror
Watch this - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118655/ and all should become clear.
WGA like all forms of DRM is a bad thing, it punishes legitimate customers, while pirates are unaffected.
How many false positives have you used to fleece 'easy business' out of people, I wonder. I apologise if I am wrong, but your company sounds like a parasite. From what you say, those people paid TWICE for an XP license, if they did get an unlicensed copy then the shop should be prosecuted and the customer should get a replacement legit copy for free (from MS I believe), but that won't help your business, will it?
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't XP validate against your motherboard and other hardware?
And anyway I see no difference between DRM on media & validation of your OS. To me it is exactly the same principal - annoying the legitimate consumer with validation and arbitrary restrictions, while those who do pirate, don't have these problems.
I think he means an astroturfer - http://catb.org/jargon/html/A/astroturfing.html, specifically definition 2.
And for those who dont like to click on links, astroturfing in this sense basically means that the poster is being paid by Microsoft to appear to be 'an ordinary joe', in an attempt to create the appearance of popular low level support.
Like a politcal party activist writing letters to newspapers, pretending to be the public.
If you were commenting in your second (or third or fourth) language, then I apologize, you're a clearly more qualified geek than me.
That said, yes I agree that a lightsaber game (perhaps KOTOR or Jedi Academy kinda thing), would be the best thing Nintendo can do with the Wii. Currently I dont think I can afford to buy a Wii and am happy to wait, but those adverts of Wii-sports & Zelda are really turning the screw right now and 'Star Wiis' would be just the thing to hurt my credit card.
Dont forget that even Nintendo have struggled to meet pre-orders here (at least in the UK).
Or even simpler, we the British would be spending $120 billion (which is alot more than the new nuclear weapons we are about to build, a for the UK defence budget a massive amount) on aircraft for which we have no way of fully evaluating the product. I am betting that code is full of bugs and they don't want us to know that we are in reality getting scammed.
I seriously hope that Mr Blair votes with his feet on this one. Most of his 'influence' in the special relationship is mythical, but US industry missing out on hundreds of billions of business, may be a threat with some real weight.
Also by holding the source code away from us (under the veil of National Security) they can enforce 'lock-in', ie over the life of the aircraft, we cannot choose where to go for upgrades or maintenance. Which of course means we have to spend more to get that.
Oh my god, they actually copied Sideshow Bob. Ironically that means they have violated Fox's copyright on the Simpsons.
Sue em' Digger.
No, but he *is* paid to read (and therefore edit) his own summaries.
From the summary - (with the important text highlighted for the benefit of those who cant make it through an entire paragraph)
Only one sentence after he was named, there's your answer. That wasn't too hard was it?
A similar thought struck me when I saw this article -
Does America need to be a dominant force in science?
I am not sure it does, much the same as (bad analogy coming up) Nintendo doesn't need to be the dominant force in gaming, it just needs to keep selling stuff.
It isn't USian culture I know, but you dont have to be number 1 at everything. You can just be. Keep advancing yes, but there might not be a need to be advancing at the head of the pack.
Yeah, the patch for Madden 2006 was Madden 2007, the next patch will be only around a year later.
But the rise of "the rise of spam" articles all over the web.
We seem to have at least a couple a week.
Dont you see, we must rid ourselves of those damned commie apples, openly messing with our vital bodily fluids.
Once we have done that, then we must get rid of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripps_Pink Pinko ones too.
That figure definitely doesn't include never receiving your luggage.
I went on holiday from London to Egypt, after waiting for every bag to be collected, my luggage was still not present, however there was a bag with my luggage tag present (it really wasn't mine). I got the Sharm El-Sheik airport worker to write an incident report and telex London to find out where my bag actually was. The next day (after I had hastily tried to get some clothes) I was phoned by the holiday reps to come back to Sharm airport because they thought that they had my bag. After having to bribe my way into the departure lounge I found that Gatwick airport reckoned (but did not actually know) that it was a replacement bag. It wasn't, only four months later did my insurance company pay out, they had tried to demand that I provide an itemised account of the claims, including receipts which being mostly clothes and books I didn't have. This was of course added to the annoyance of arriving at my hotel for relaxing beach holiday with no change of clothes and only two short books.
Fortunately, I found that Sharm has diving schools and turned what could be a horribly boring week into a great holiday. But yes it was aggravating.
Any technology.?The patent doesn't even have to be specific. That is another example of why the patent system with respect of software is broken.
I swear the MPAA (as well as the RIAA) has to be on some pretty hard core drugs. Either that or they certainly live in a completely different reality than 95% of the rest of the world. If there are any majority of judges that would ever even consider this to be in any way just or fair then I have lost all my faith in the American Way. :(Considering this is obviously a satirical article. You have restored our faith in the American intellect.
How many people have to confirm this in comments and classifications before everyone realises this is comedy.
various life extension technologies. Method 1 - denial -
"He's not dead he's just sleeping!"
Or another obvious choice Florence Nightingale - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_nightingale after all she did invent the pie chart while nursing.
It annoys me that these were the 10 women (Paris Hilton, et al) they chose. It must be really insulting, when they leave out so many serious 'girl geeks' that actually did have a positive impact on the world.
Thank god I have only £30 in my Nationwide account.
Yeah, I know it was oversimpilfication, it just wasn't as good a joke as I thought so early in the day.
That sounds like the logic behind the current war for freedom. "To protect it, we must eliminate it"
And on another note, how many monarchs would be stupid enough not to will a military coup, when it has already happened and they are in control of your protection and the media.
Oh really? Most of the voting minority then
I would have thought that the only way to work out what most of the people want, is to have some sort of poll, an election perhaps, which they did have and the majority voted for him.
If the military wanted democracy so much and had misgivings about the process, then they could have run the election (or run another one) just as easily as they took over the country. Countries where the military are able to coup will never have a stable government, because there will be times when the public (or a section of) are angry with those in power who may be corrupt or worse, but we get round this with checks & balances, separation of powers and some patience that these processes may not happen overnight. In Thailand the military just bypassed all that and took over. Only the 18th coup in 74 years.Saying you will return power to the people is not the same as actually giving power back to the people. I wonder how many military dictators take power saying that they will give it to the people and then dont.
A country that doesn't like open government, doesn't like open sourced software.
They did have democracy, but the military 'closed' that.
It couldn't possibly be too much info ON wrongdoing,
no, no, silly idea.
1. I have a legit copy of Windows XP, but I dont think it is OEM
2. I have the same box that I originally installed XP on. Although all of the actual bits that make up the PC have been replaced at least once. --- Sort of a "Same broom, several different handles, several different heads" kinda thing.
I really dont think I have violated their license, as it had no connection to a specific PC and I only ever have had it installed on one PC, despite that PC changing.
I could easily buy a new PC and then install that copy onto the new box, as long a I wiped the old one I haven't pirated XP, but that would be counted as a pirated copy using the "PC brought with no copy of XP" argument.
Statistics used by any arm of the government should not be produced by those who have a vested interest in a particular result of that report. Statistics are lies when they aren't based on facts.