Are computer games that addictive? Or are some people just crap at parenting?
When everquest came out, I know people who dropped out of university, and others who who took letter grade hits. I know a guy who lost his job... just started calling in sick to keep playing. There are countless stories of broken relationships over that game. And extreme cases involving parental neglects and suicides.
People were playing every waking hour they had. It earned the nickname evercrack for a reason.
You can argue that these people were 'weak willed or something' if you want, but they were almost universally good students, good parents, and socially well adjusted prior to EQ. I dont "blame" EQ, or think Sony should be held responsible... but that game triggered a level of obsession/addiction in a lot of otherwise perfectly well adjusted people.
Games like EQ aside, I think a lot of us can remember irresponsibly playing games like Civilization, Masters of Orion, and Starcraft into the wee hours of the morning... 6-10 hour marathons when we'd only really meant to play for 1 or 2.
Really all they need to do is change the name to prevent confusion with 'Scrabble'. Board layout, rules and scoring aren't protected by copyright or trademarks. As long as they don't use the actual Scrabble board graphics and the exact wording of the rules they are fine.
That's not -strictly- true.
Copyright also applies to "derivative works" although what that exactly means legally is fairly vague. And the board layout and rules text of a renamed Scrabulous could quite conceivably be ruled as derivative.
A crossword game with a different board layout, different scoring, different letter distribution, and different rules, while still clearly inspired by scrabble probably isn't a derivative work.
There's an ill-defined line between derivative and non-derivative, but if I'm playing a game that looks like scrabble down the precise board layout, and plays like scrabble down to the scoring and letter distribution, and such that the rules are precisely those of scrabble, even if they use different phrasing than the official scrabble rules.....well... then, its a scrabble derivative.
Given that its long been established that translating a copy protected work to a new language like Chinese, or into a new medium (like creating a movie from a book) both qualify as derivative works, why on earth should simply changing "triple word score" to "word score x3" and making the relevant square deep orange instead of red qualify as a new original work?
Ever think there might be a causal relationship behind that complete lack of an attention span?
How do you figure?
Your going to blame short attention spans on an industry accused of putting out games so addictive they compell mothers to neglect their children in order to obsessively play the game?
Yes some of them are. And they're readily available... chess, checkers, go, backgammon, dominos, chinese checkers, playing cards, dice, x's and o's (tic-tac-toe might be a trademark), reversi, etc are all in the 'public domain'.
As for scrabble: Any patents on scrabble would have long expired. Copyrights however are probably intact. Scrabble in its current form apparently in the early 50's. Trademarks on the name Scrabble are of course current.
Hasbro is doing nothing wrong or inappropriate here. It -is- their game.
There's no reason Scrabulous couldn't be called 'CrossWords' with a different board layout, rules, and scoring system.
Yeah, ok. So not every store in the country has them, merely a lot of them. But its still a choice of evils... I'd rather use a 'rewards card' than shop at walmart, not to mention that around here at least walmarts aren't grocery stores.
Which is why organizations pushed for various 'certifications'. Then with a simple logo you can find out what it is or is not. Sure people will still 'game' the system, and whatnot but its probably the best we can do on the packaging.
The rest of the info should be available in all its gory details online.
if cow A is good to eat, then a clone of cow A should be just as good to eat.
Even if one is suckled at its mothers teat, then fed hi quality grains and allowed to graze, and the other is fed a protein and vitamin mixture via a tube while it gestates in an incubator until it reaches maturity...
I'd much rather have cloned meat than meat pumped full of growth hormones.
Well, those growth tubes are aren't cheap, so we want to maximize their utility, so we'll pump the clone full of growth hormones as well. That's a given! Grow a '6 year old' calf in 6 months!
And later on, why clone the cow, all we want are the yummy parts... so lets just clone those and grow them.
The aversion we have with cloning isn't really the idea of two animals with the same dna, its with the entire artificial environment that it conjures up. Granted 'natural' cattle can be subjected to unnatural conditions, fed their own crap or cousins, and shot up full of drugs and hormones... but at least in theory they might not be... cloning starts out un-natural, and with anything un-natural its natural to question whether there are unforseen consequences. And in this case it can seems (even though its not even close) like we're just one step away from eating vat grown meat that was never part of an 'animal' in the normal sense, or was grown off the back of a rat... or worse, that such meat being 'cloned from a cow' at some point can be sold to us without even any disclosure.
I don't object to cloned animals, per se, but I fully support consumer group efforts that want full disclosure of where our food is coming from right on the packages. What possible reason could there be for not telling us where our food comes from and how it was made. If the industry thinks they can't sell us soylent green if we know what it is, perhaps that's a good thing. And if someone wants organically grown beef birthed of a union between a cow and bull instead of artificially inseminated, and then raised on an amish farm without hormone injections, etc...well why not let them make that choise?
The Apple TV itself seems like a turd of a device. It's amazing its taken them this long to figure that requiring a user to sync an Apple TV to a PC / Mac is a stupid idea. Now they've fixed it the Apple TV is moderately usable, but it still doesn't do anything besides act as a dumb client to iTMS. It doesn't even play games, act as a PVR, DVDs or Blu ray discs.
Oh noes, my PVR must also be a turd because it doesn't let me play games either, and it won't even play DVDs, never mind blu ray discs.
Fortunately I have a DVD player for DVDs, and a Wii for games And I'm not convinced that I even want a bluray player yet. So I'm not that bent out of shape that my HD dual tuner PVR is a $600 turd that can't do any of those things.
And don't get me started on my home theatre receiver... fucking turd only has an am/fm tuner.
An XBox 360 offers movie rentals, and happens to be a games console too for not much more.
No. An Xbox 360 offers games, and happens to offer movie rentals too. But other than gamers and xbox360 owners (who are pretty much all gamers) who else knows about xbox360 movie rentals? Has anyone ever bought an xbox to rent movies? MS is doing a dismal job of getting the word out.
but it still doesn't do anything besides act as a dumb client to iTMS
I already use VOD from my cable provider (video on demand) to rent movies, but the VOD service isn't HD. 225 for access to an HD VOD rental service? Doesn't seem -that- bad to me. Plus it can sync and stream media from my PC?
Sure an xbox can do this too...but if I don't want Halo 3 etc, or I do want it to work with my Mac then the xbox doesn't really bring any extra value.
I'd agree that AppleTV isn't revolutionary, that its just another product entering the fray. But a turd? Compared to an xbox360? Get real... xbox360 is plagued with reliability problems, and its weaker flavours force dev's to write to the lowest common denominator... ie... no hard drive.
And the PS3? The only thing its really got going for it is that its a decent bluray player. But I'm not even sure I want a bluray player, nevermind one with an identity crisis. Why does my blu ray remote look like a game controller? Oh? It plays games too? Oh? That's actually its primary function? That explains why it came with a game controller while the remote is separate... but then why did it come with 6 blu ray movies and no games?
I think Apple enjoyed being a monopoly for far too long, and they simply don't have the clout they did.
Is this the same apple that's had from 3 to 7% of the PC market for the last 10+ years? Yeah, the hubris of being an unstoppable monopoly has really addled their brains.
Apple is entering a crowded market with fairly meh devices and I don't think they're going to get very far.
The devices in the market are all also fairly meh. While Apple's products may be 'meh' on features and performance for the price, they're likely to be easy to use and stylish... and at the end of the day, that's what sent the ipod into the stratosphere and is driving their PC sales... it seems to be a strategy that works for them.
#1 - The Time Capsule. Haven't we had wireless NAS's since 802.11 became a standard? I've got a USB-2 external drive that does my backups now. This announcement does absolutely nothing for me.
Yes -WE- have, but the average joe doesn't, and even if we gave him one he wouldn't be able to get it working. Maybe, just maybe, now they'll actually make backups. Apple is known for making things painlessly easy. I wouldn't be surprised if setting up your mac to back itself up automatically is a couple checkboxes now.
That's a good thing.
iphone ipod
Yeah, nothing big there. But we all already knew the real iphone news comes with the dev kit, next month. The $20 upcharge to get the apps on the ipod touch is a slap in the face, especially coming out 2 weeks after christmas. It really should be free, or something completely nominal like $1.99.
The AppleTV/Movie Rental Service.
Alright, a couple comments... 1) Xbox has only been doing this a year. The console's been out 2, but HD movie rentals only one.
2) Xbox selection after 1 year still sounds considerably weaker than what apple's announced out of the gate.
3) xbox is a game console, first and foremost. I don't think ANYBODY bought an xbox to rent movies with. Even though it did it first, it was an add on feature that most people in the mainstream don't even know exists. When they think xbxo 360 they think Halo3, and if that doesn't interest them, they aren't going to buy an xbox 360. Microsoft hasn't effectively marketed their console as anything but a 'hardcore gamers console'. And Sony is in the same boat. Nintendo focussed just on games, and Apple is focussing just on movies... its not a bad idea.
Where is Microsofts Media Centre Edition PC that does this, without the 'Xbox360' wrapper all for ~200 bucks? If microsoft was after this audience, that is the product they'd need to be promoting.
4) appleTV is mac and pc compatible
I agree its not earth shattering, but its an interesting step forward.
#4 - The MacBook Air. It's really just a masturbation toy for the rich gadget hound -- it does nothing new besides be smaller, and it does it slower and more expensively to boot.
So your theory is that the thinnest PC in the world should also be the fastest and least expensive in order to qualify as 'something new'? Indeed, if it were, why would there be any other laptop models at all... as they'd all be bigger, slower, and more expensive. Do you hold all manufacturers to this ridiculous standard or just Apple?
The size factor will very quickly be copied by Sony/Dell/et al, so Windows fanbois can rest easy.
Maybe, maybe not. In any case Dell and Sony have nothing like this now, and would never had had the balls to bring it to market unless someone else forged the way first and proved there was a market for it. So if you buy one from Sony six months from now, you can still thank Apple for goading them into it.
Some people like saving money, and aren't so fucking sad and lazy that they can actually _gasp_ walk to the garbage/recycling can and just throw it away? Using a card you can save hundreds of dollars a year! What fools!
What on earth makes you think a 'savings card' saves you money? In what parallel universe do you live where the amount you save by using the savings card is precisely the amount the prices were raised in order to cover the cost of providing you savings. Not to mention cover the cost of the card program.
Of course, to be fair, they use all this detailed itemized purchasing data you provide them via your 'savings card' in order to improve their effectiveness at squeezing even more money out of you... so its a net gain for THEM. What? Did you think it was for you? To reward you for your loyalty? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Of course, now we're all trapped into using them because if we don't we pay the inflated prices. Every store has one, so there's no way around it.
But at least have the decency to understand how your being played.
And as for this 'shopping list' thing, think about it. Most people only write down -basic- lists... one of my wifes looks like this:
rainbow chocolate chips baking soda hot mustard shampoo light bulb for den dinner with the smiths (salmon?) kids birthday pop fruit & veggies etc [ed. note... yeah... it actually says etc]
So this 'list' is a few items not to forget, and then she wing's the rest of it in the store. She's not going to enter it into a computer and then follow it in the store. Its far too vague.
But think about the people who -would-. Those people that carefully figure out their lists and know exactly what to buy. They probably know where each item is, and might even sort the list according to the store layout. Its probably already a spreadhsheet. They get to the store and move from item to item efficiently... but they don't impulse buy.
So thats who this system is targeting... get these list freaks to 'use the computer', and then the store can inject ads right into the shopping list as she moves through it, make personalized suggestions based on what else is on the list.
Think about they must figure they can make their investment back within a couple years or they wouldn't be trying it. And given the abuse shopping carts take, these are either very rugged, or they're anticipating a lot of repairs...
Then replace the mothers. You can get a decent router for $25.
1) Seriously. If having your LAN ip not ever change is really an issue, just set up your PC with a static ip outside the DHCP range. No need for most people to buy a whole new router.
2) You -can- get a decent router for $25.00 and I've done it. But usually to get something decent that's brand name and not have to wait for a clearance sale anything 'decent' usually runs 40-50 bucks.
Your big box'o'routers is evidently mostly newer than mine.
Mine, for the most part, haven't seen firmware updates available since 2005. Some as far back as 2002. Those older revision Linksys BEFSR41's are all most people really need for a dial-up to ADSL upgrade.
I believe that the previous poster was asking precisely how they are different, which you haven't really answered. You just re-state that they are different.
Actually he answered quite clearly but I'll re-state it again:
When you are selling a used ford, you are selling a used ford. The car itself. You aren't selling pictures of a used Ford. You are using pictures of the Ford to represent the actual Ford you are selling.
Bottom line, you aren't creating a NEW PRODUCT USING FORD TRADEMARKS without permission.
A club calender is a new product, containing ford trademarks.
That is a very important and significant difference. That said, I'm not sure to what extent that is protected... you -certainly- cannot create a calendar of ford cars using fords marks such that it might be confusing who actually made the product. Similarly putting a ford logo or photo of a ford car on a mug would be a violation.
You -can- put a pic of your own car on your own mug, a 'fair use' so to speak. But selling the mugs wholesale would be a violation.
Frankly I think Ford is in the right here. Although they don't have to be dicks about it, and could probably find a solution. At the end of the day they aren't really worried about some mustang car club selling a calendar... they are VERY worried about weaking their trademarks.
Has the car club pursued the matter far enough to find out what Ford would charge to authorized a limited run of calendars for members of the club? It might not be outrageous at all. Remember, Ford is obligated to require any use of its trademarks be authorized, but its not obligated to be a dick about it and charge a ridiculous sum.
As long as the marks are licensed, they can show vigilant and vigourous protection of the marks in future lawsuits with user/users they really do object to and the integrity of the marks is preserved.
Configure your DHCP server (your router in this case) to always give the same IP to the machines that you run server software on. It's trivial, really.
Not trivial if your router doesn't support that feature. And I've worked with dozens of routers from SMC, Linksys, Dlink, etc that don't support it.
1) OEM is responsible for distribution and support. You buy a retail box, and you can call Microsoft for help. You buy a Dell... you call dell. (And if you bought sn OEM at newegg... call newegg for support.) Not that OEM support is worth anything, but its still a phone call MS doesn't have to try to answer.
2) With OEM editions MS tries hard to bind the OS to the physical unit to effectively strip you of your right to resell or transfer the software. They 'require' that you put the sticker on the case, and the language in the EULA is more restrictive, etc. In any case its often more a PITA to exercise your rights with OEM Windows. When you pay retail, they don't get in your way nearly as much over stuff like this. No stickers. No fuss.
3) Its been rumored, and im not sure if ever confirmed, that windows activation is less forgiving of OEM versions than retail. (in that OEM versions will require you to call microsoft for a manual activation in circumstances that the retail go through on automatic. (e.g. after a few transfers or hardware changes.) This being predicated on the logic that an OEM version doesn't get transferred, so it doesn't need as much leniency. If this is true, its not a big deal, but again, makes retail a little neater to deal with.
----
I typically buy my Windows at Retail, in the upgrade edition, as its about as cheap as the OEM, without any of the OEM hassles. (And I have enough copies to qualify for upgrades.) And the upgrade edition typically just required the previous media. Not a big deal considering it knocked half the price off.
For vista... what a Pain. The upgrade requires you actually install the previous edition then upgrade. (Makes sense from a certain point of view, given that iso's are trivial to obtain.) But its beyond stupid in practice. If my HD dies, I shouldn't have to install XP, before installing Vista.
What happens in 2020... I buy a new PC and decide to transfer Windows 9 on it...and put Ubuntu Zippy Zebra on the old one, and I've been upgrading windows all along so now I have to install windows 8 on it first for the v9 installer to run... but to do that I have to install windows 7, and to do that I have to install windows Vista, and to that I have to install XP? Good luck installing XP on a new PC in 2020... will there even be XP drivers for the ultra-hddvd-bluray-3.0 drive I'll be installing with on the BIOS-free EFI-2-superZ.22/q based motherboard using an intel octo 4 hyper III-2 cpu?
With Vista, at least there is a workaround, but its clearly an oversight on microsofts part. And I don't think it'll be their next time round.
They ought to go the OSX route, lower the price of full retail... (almost NOBODY buys that anyway on windows), and get rid of the 'upgrade editions'.
They did NOT argue that someone ripping a copy of the CD to the computer was unauthorized - it was the placement of a copy in the share folder for Kazaa.
NO. They DID say ripping a copy to the computer was unauthorized.
HOWEVER the LAWSUIT was because he'd put those files into his Kazaa shared folder.
I.e. he wasn't on trial for ripping a CD. But they did say they were unauthorized, nonetheless.
The best solution is to take tracks from multiple sources, and 'average them together' to dilute the watermarks at worst making it impossible to reliably identify the mark, and at best possible to outright detect and completely remove them.
Not that I think watermarked files are really a problem for a law abiding person. ipods get stolen hourly, and its well known that botnets infect thousands upon thousands of PCs. Even if the seller could identify who originally bought a track, the odds of being able to successfully prosecute that person is virtually nil, unless there was considerable OTHER evidence that that individual was systematically sharing tracks.
But stop bitching because Uncle Jim Bob in Iowa is being underpriced by some peasant in Bolivia -- the Bolivian has just as much right as Jim Bob to eke an existence from the soil.
Uncle Jim Bob in Iowa wouldn't be as undercut by some peasant in Bolivia if we didn't have minimum wages, bans on child labor, and so forth.
An economic 'comparative advantage' makes sense when say the soil/climate in Bolivia is suited to corn and the soil/climate in America is suited to grain, that's a 'natural advantage'. And they'll be more productive growing corn, and be able to do it cheaper. That's a case where subsidies to grow corn here are bad.
But in this case the economic advantages the Bolivian enjoys are artificial ecomomic and legal artifacts. If Bolivia became the 51st state, and laws and practices here applied there, would there still be a 'comparative advantage' to production in Bolivia? Or would the Bolivian be forced to massively raise his prices in order to cover his taxes, employer obligations, labour costs, etc?
The rationale for many subsidies isn't merely as a counterweight to foreign competitive advantage, its a recognition that foreign competitive advantage is the result of artificial legal/economic factors in the first place. So why shouldn't that be counterweighted by even more artificial economic factors?
If you are going to get rid of the subsidies, then you should also get rid of the reason we need them in the first place. Let us use illegal mexican immigrant children paid 30 cents a day, housed in shanty towns they'll construct themselves from what they can find in our garbage...
And then Uncle Jim Bob can compete with the Bolvian farmer... or at least is a lot closer. Uncle Jim Bob still has to deal with first world taxes on his property, and pay first world prices for his food etc... but we can all hope the bolivian's start getting uppity and start wanting a higher life expectancy, education for their kids, to eat meat on a regular basis, and so on, and start raising their prices to cover these 'luxuries'.
I can only hope that one day the rest of the world enjoys the same standard of life we do. Then all this outsourcing bullshit will finally stop. Free Trade agreements go a long ways towards making it happen... trouble is... they won't actually rise to our standards, we'll average out in the middle. And its a weighted average. And they outweigh us. So for us to acheive the same standard of living, we'd take a huge fall, while they'll enjoy a slight bump. And nobody -here- really wants that. Which is why we have all this artificial protectionism, while still claiming we want free trade.
What we corporations "really want" is to break down foreign protections from our corporations, while we don't give up squat here. Go figure. And no wonder we're percieved as exploiting them. We are.
Wow, your like the 10th person to say that. But you know what, its pretty trivial to work around that.
After you get 'your' serial number receipt, you get N other receipts for other candidates selected randomly from other voters that voted for those candidates. Then you can't -prove- squat to anyone but yourself.
If someone tries to bully you, you've got N+1 receipts for four different candidates. Only you know which one is yours, and you can't prove it. Similarly nobody would give you money for your vote, again, because there is no way to prove which receipt is your vote.
All the receipts represent real votes, only one represents your vote, you know which one is yours, and can verify that its valid and counted correctly, but you have no way to prove it to anyone else.
So its still a secret ballot. At least until they can scan your brain and find out which serial is yours... and if they can do that they'll just check who you voted for directly.
Like, every one company on the list seems to be pirating MS products (Office, Windows) and Adobe products (probably Photoshop and Dreamweaver).
Dreamweaver? More likely Acrobat and Photoshop, neither of which are probably even needed. They usually just need some way to edit images and create pdf files. Basic PDF creation is free if you know where to look, and photoshop is monster overkill for the basic cropping/resizing, blurring a license plate, and redeye reduction that is all many of these companies use it for.
Alternatively, if I have a serial number, you can force me to check it in your presence. If my check comes back Jim Schmoe, I lose my kneecaps and become a lifelong proponent of secret ballots.
So check someone elses number. I'd even have elections provide you with someone elses serial number that comes back as who ever you 'need' if you want it.
There is the conception that getting a serial number to verify your vote somehow is a link between you and the number. Its not, I'll give your serial number for your vote when you vote, and as many other serial numbers for previous votes as you like. Or if yours was the first vote, stick around for an hour or so, and then get a stack of serial numbers. Pick whichever you want/need when someone wants to know.
Slashdot Mirror
Are computer games that addictive? Or are some people just crap at parenting?
When everquest came out, I know people who dropped out of university, and others who who took letter grade hits. I know a guy who lost his job... just started calling in sick to keep playing. There are countless stories of broken relationships over that game. And extreme cases involving parental neglects and suicides.
People were playing every waking hour they had. It earned the nickname evercrack for a reason.
You can argue that these people were 'weak willed or something' if you want, but they were almost universally good students, good parents, and socially well adjusted prior to EQ. I dont "blame" EQ, or think Sony should be held responsible... but that game triggered a level of obsession/addiction in a lot of otherwise perfectly well adjusted people.
Games like EQ aside, I think a lot of us can remember irresponsibly playing games like Civilization, Masters of Orion, and Starcraft into the wee hours of the morning... 6-10 hour marathons when we'd only really meant to play for 1 or 2.
Really all they need to do is change the name to prevent confusion with 'Scrabble'. Board layout, rules and scoring aren't protected by copyright or trademarks. As long as they don't use the actual Scrabble board graphics and the exact wording of the rules they are fine.
..well... then, its a scrabble derivative.
That's not -strictly- true.
Copyright also applies to "derivative works" although what that exactly means legally is fairly vague. And the board layout and rules text of a renamed Scrabulous could quite conceivably be ruled as derivative.
A crossword game with a different board layout, different scoring, different letter distribution, and different rules, while still clearly inspired by scrabble probably isn't a derivative work.
There's an ill-defined line between derivative and non-derivative, but if I'm playing a game that looks like scrabble down the precise board layout, and plays like scrabble down to the scoring and letter distribution, and such that the rules are precisely those of scrabble, even if they use different phrasing than the official scrabble rules...
Given that its long been established that translating a copy protected work to a new language like Chinese, or into a new medium (like creating a movie from a book) both qualify as derivative works, why on earth should simply changing "triple word score" to "word score x3" and making the relevant square deep orange instead of red qualify as a new original work?
Ever think there might be a causal relationship behind that complete lack of an attention span?
How do you figure?
Your going to blame short attention spans on an industry accused of putting out games so addictive they compell mothers to neglect their children in order to obsessively play the game?
I'm sure some of them are pretty old?
Yes some of them are. And they're readily available... chess, checkers, go, backgammon, dominos, chinese checkers, playing cards, dice, x's and o's (tic-tac-toe might be a trademark), reversi, etc are all in the 'public domain'.
As for scrabble:
Any patents on scrabble would have long expired.
Copyrights however are probably intact. Scrabble in its current form apparently in the early 50's.
Trademarks on the name Scrabble are of course current.
Hasbro is doing nothing wrong or inappropriate here. It -is- their game.
There's no reason Scrabulous couldn't be called 'CrossWords' with a different board layout, rules, and scoring system.
Yeah, ok. So not every store in the country has them, merely a lot of them. But its still a choice of evils... I'd rather use a 'rewards card' than shop at walmart, not to mention that around here at least walmarts aren't grocery stores.
Which is why organizations pushed for various 'certifications'. Then with a simple logo you can find out what it is or is not. Sure people will still 'game' the system, and whatnot but its probably the best we can do on the packaging.
The rest of the info should be available in all its gory details online.
if cow A is good to eat, then a clone of cow A should be just as good to eat.
Even if one is suckled at its mothers teat, then fed hi quality grains and allowed to graze, and the other is fed a protein and vitamin mixture via a tube while it gestates in an incubator until it reaches maturity...
I'd much rather have cloned meat than meat pumped full of growth hormones.
Well, those growth tubes are aren't cheap, so we want to maximize their utility, so we'll pump the clone full of growth hormones as well. That's a given! Grow a '6 year old' calf in 6 months!
And later on, why clone the cow, all we want are the yummy parts... so lets just clone those and grow them.
The aversion we have with cloning isn't really the idea of two animals with the same dna, its with the entire artificial environment that it conjures up. Granted 'natural' cattle can be subjected to unnatural conditions, fed their own crap or cousins, and shot up full of drugs and hormones... but at least in theory they might not be... cloning starts out un-natural, and with anything un-natural its natural to question whether there are unforseen consequences. And in this case it can seems (even though its not even close) like we're just one step away from eating vat grown meat that was never part of an 'animal' in the normal sense, or was grown off the back of a rat... or worse, that such meat being 'cloned from a cow' at some point can be sold to us without even any disclosure.
I don't object to cloned animals, per se, but I fully support consumer group efforts that want full disclosure of where our food is coming from right on the packages. What possible reason could there be for not telling us where our food comes from and how it was made. If the industry thinks they can't sell us soylent green if we know what it is, perhaps that's a good thing. And if someone wants organically grown beef birthed of a union between a cow and bull instead of artificially inseminated, and then raised on an amish farm without hormone injections, etc...well why not let them make that choise?
The Apple TV itself seems like a turd of a device. It's amazing its taken them this long to figure that requiring a user to sync an Apple TV to a PC / Mac is a stupid idea. Now they've fixed it the Apple TV is moderately usable, but it still doesn't do anything besides act as a dumb client to iTMS. It doesn't even play games, act as a PVR, DVDs or Blu ray discs.
Oh noes, my PVR must also be a turd because it doesn't let me play games either, and it won't even play DVDs, never mind blu ray discs.
Fortunately I have a DVD player for DVDs, and a Wii for games And I'm not convinced that I even want a bluray player yet. So I'm not that bent out of shape that my HD dual tuner PVR is a $600 turd that can't do any of those things.
And don't get me started on my home theatre receiver... fucking turd only has an am/fm tuner.
An XBox 360 offers movie rentals, and happens to be a games console too for not much more.
No. An Xbox 360 offers games, and happens to offer movie rentals too. But other than gamers and xbox360 owners (who are pretty much all gamers) who else knows about xbox360 movie rentals? Has anyone ever bought an xbox to rent movies? MS is doing a dismal job of getting the word out.
but it still doesn't do anything besides act as a dumb client to iTMS
I already use VOD from my cable provider (video on demand) to rent movies, but the VOD service isn't HD. 225 for access to an HD VOD rental service? Doesn't seem -that- bad to me. Plus it can sync and stream media from my PC?
Sure an xbox can do this too...but if I don't want Halo 3 etc, or I do want it to work with my Mac then the xbox doesn't really bring any extra value.
I'd agree that AppleTV isn't revolutionary, that its just another product entering the fray. But a turd? Compared to an xbox360? Get real... xbox360 is plagued with reliability problems, and its weaker flavours force dev's to write to the lowest common denominator... ie... no hard drive.
And the PS3? The only thing its really got going for it is that its a decent bluray player. But I'm not even sure I want a bluray player, nevermind one with an identity crisis. Why does my blu ray remote look like a game controller? Oh? It plays games too? Oh? That's actually its primary function? That explains why it came with a game controller while the remote is separate... but then why did it come with 6 blu ray movies and no games?
I think Apple enjoyed being a monopoly for far too long, and they simply don't have the clout they did.
Is this the same apple that's had from 3 to 7% of the PC market for the last 10+ years? Yeah, the hubris of being an unstoppable monopoly has really addled their brains.
Apple is entering a crowded market with fairly meh devices and I don't think they're going to get very far.
The devices in the market are all also fairly meh. While Apple's products may be 'meh' on features and performance for the price, they're likely to be easy to use and stylish... and at the end of the day, that's what sent the ipod into the stratosphere and is driving their PC sales... it seems to be a strategy that works for them.
#1 - The Time Capsule. Haven't we had wireless NAS's since 802.11 became a standard? I've got a USB-2 external drive that does my backups now. This announcement does absolutely nothing for me.
Yes -WE- have, but the average joe doesn't, and even if we gave him one he wouldn't be able to get it working. Maybe, just maybe, now they'll actually make backups. Apple is known for making things painlessly easy. I wouldn't be surprised if setting up your mac to back itself up automatically is a couple checkboxes now.
That's a good thing.
iphone ipod
Yeah, nothing big there. But we all already knew the real iphone news comes with the dev kit, next month. The $20 upcharge to get the apps on the ipod touch is a slap in the face, especially coming out 2 weeks after christmas. It really should be free, or something completely nominal like $1.99.
The AppleTV/Movie Rental Service.
Alright, a couple comments...
1) Xbox has only been doing this a year. The console's been out 2, but HD movie rentals only one.
2) Xbox selection after 1 year still sounds considerably weaker than what apple's announced out of the gate.
3) xbox is a game console, first and foremost. I don't think ANYBODY bought an xbox to rent movies with. Even though it did it first, it was an add on feature that most people in the mainstream don't even know exists. When they think xbxo 360 they think Halo3, and if that doesn't interest them, they aren't going to buy an xbox 360. Microsoft hasn't effectively marketed their console as anything but a 'hardcore gamers console'. And Sony is in the same boat. Nintendo focussed just on games, and Apple is focussing just on movies... its not a bad idea.
Where is Microsofts Media Centre Edition PC that does this, without the 'Xbox360' wrapper all for ~200 bucks? If microsoft was after this audience, that is the product they'd need to be promoting.
4) appleTV is mac and pc compatible
I agree its not earth shattering, but its an interesting step forward.
#4 - The MacBook Air. It's really just a masturbation toy for the rich gadget hound -- it does nothing new besides be smaller, and it does it slower and more expensively to boot.
So your theory is that the thinnest PC in the world should also be the fastest and least expensive in order to qualify as 'something new'? Indeed, if it were, why would there be any other laptop models at all... as they'd all be bigger, slower, and more expensive. Do you hold all manufacturers to this ridiculous standard or just Apple?
The size factor will very quickly be copied by Sony/Dell/et al, so Windows fanbois can rest easy.
Maybe, maybe not. In any case Dell and Sony have nothing like this now, and would never had had the balls to bring it to market unless someone else forged the way first and proved there was a market for it. So if you buy one from Sony six months from now, you can still thank Apple for goading them into it.
Resident Evil 1 was actually good.
Resident Evil 2 and 3, Tomb Raider: cradle of life, and silent hill all entirely watchable.
And although I'm not a fan and haven't watched them, they made like 10 pokemon movies... so they must have been at least somewhat successful.
Some people like saving money, and aren't so fucking sad and lazy that they can actually _gasp_ walk to the garbage/recycling can and just throw it away? Using a card you can save hundreds of dollars a year! What fools!
... yeah... it actually says etc]
What on earth makes you think a 'savings card' saves you money? In what parallel universe do you live where the amount you save by using the savings card is precisely the amount the prices were raised in order to cover the cost of providing you savings. Not to mention cover the cost of the card program.
Of course, to be fair, they use all this detailed itemized purchasing data you provide them via your 'savings card' in order to improve their effectiveness at squeezing even more money out of you... so its a net gain for THEM. What? Did you think it was for you? To reward you for your loyalty? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Of course, now we're all trapped into using them because if we don't we pay the inflated prices. Every store has one, so there's no way around it.
But at least have the decency to understand how your being played.
And as for this 'shopping list' thing, think about it. Most people only write down -basic- lists... one of my wifes looks like this:
rainbow chocolate chips
baking soda
hot mustard
shampoo
light bulb for den
dinner with the smiths (salmon?)
kids birthday
pop
fruit & veggies
etc [ed. note
So this 'list' is a few items not to forget, and then she wing's the rest of it in the store. She's not going to enter it into a computer and then follow it in the store. Its far too vague.
But think about the people who -would-. Those people that carefully figure out their lists and know exactly what to buy. They probably know where each item is, and might even sort the list according to the store layout. Its probably already a spreadhsheet. They get to the store and move from item to item efficiently... but they don't impulse buy.
So thats who this system is targeting... get these list freaks to 'use the computer', and then the store can inject ads right into the shopping list as she moves through it, make personalized suggestions based on what else is on the list.
Think about they must figure they can make their investment back within a couple years or they wouldn't be trying it. And given the abuse shopping carts take, these are either very rugged, or they're anticipating a lot of repairs...
Heh, women's behavior resemble perl scripts already.
The key difference being the perl scripts made sense to somebody, at least once, for a little while...
Then replace the mothers. You can get a decent router for $25.
1) Seriously. If having your LAN ip not ever change is really an issue, just set up your PC with a static ip outside the DHCP range. No need for most people to buy a whole new router.
2) You -can- get a decent router for $25.00 and I've done it. But usually to get something decent that's brand name and not have to wait for a clearance sale anything 'decent' usually runs 40-50 bucks.
I was referring to the workaround that lets you install un upgrade edition of Vista, without installing XP first. That was clearly an oversight.
Your big box'o'routers is evidently mostly newer than mine.
Mine, for the most part, haven't seen firmware updates available since 2005. Some as far back as 2002. Those older revision Linksys BEFSR41's are all most people really need for a dial-up to ADSL upgrade.
I believe that the previous poster was asking precisely how they are different, which you haven't really answered. You just re-state that they are different.
Actually he answered quite clearly but I'll re-state it again:
When you are selling a used ford, you are selling a used ford. The car itself. You aren't selling pictures of a used Ford. You are using pictures of the Ford to represent the actual Ford you are selling.
Bottom line, you aren't creating a NEW PRODUCT USING FORD TRADEMARKS without permission.
A club calender is a new product, containing ford trademarks.
That is a very important and significant difference. That said, I'm not sure to what extent that is protected... you -certainly- cannot create a calendar of ford cars using fords marks such that it might be confusing who actually made the product. Similarly putting a ford logo or photo of a ford car on a mug would be a violation.
You -can- put a pic of your own car on your own mug, a 'fair use' so to speak. But selling the mugs wholesale would be a violation.
Frankly I think Ford is in the right here. Although they don't have to be dicks about it, and could probably find a solution. At the end of the day they aren't really worried about some mustang car club selling a calendar... they are VERY worried about weaking their trademarks.
Has the car club pursued the matter far enough to find out what Ford would charge to authorized a limited run of calendars for members of the club? It might not be outrageous at all. Remember, Ford is obligated to require any use of its trademarks be authorized, but its not obligated to be a dick about it and charge a ridiculous sum.
As long as the marks are licensed, they can show vigilant and vigourous protection of the marks in future lawsuits with user/users they really do object to and the integrity of the marks is preserved.
Configure your DHCP server (your router in this case) to always give the same IP to the machines that you run server software on. It's trivial, really.
Not trivial if your router doesn't support that feature. And I've worked with dozens of routers from SMC, Linksys, Dlink, etc that don't support it.
'OEM' is cheaper because:
1) OEM is responsible for distribution and support. You buy a retail box, and you can call Microsoft for help. You buy a Dell... you call dell. (And if you bought sn OEM at newegg... call newegg for support.) Not that OEM support is worth anything, but its still a phone call MS doesn't have to try to answer.
2) With OEM editions MS tries hard to bind the OS to the physical unit to effectively strip you of your right to resell or transfer the software. They 'require' that you put the sticker on the case, and the language in the EULA is more restrictive, etc. In any case its often more a PITA to exercise your rights with OEM Windows. When you pay retail, they don't get in your way nearly as much over stuff like this. No stickers. No fuss.
3) Its been rumored, and im not sure if ever confirmed, that windows activation is less forgiving of OEM versions than retail. (in that OEM versions will require you to call microsoft for a manual activation in circumstances that the retail go through on automatic. (e.g. after a few transfers or hardware changes.) This being predicated on the logic that an OEM version doesn't get transferred, so it doesn't need as much leniency. If this is true, its not a big deal, but again, makes retail a little neater to deal with.
----
I typically buy my Windows at Retail, in the upgrade edition, as its about as cheap as the OEM, without any of the OEM hassles. (And I have enough copies to qualify for upgrades.) And the upgrade edition typically just required the previous media. Not a big deal considering it knocked half the price off.
For vista... what a Pain. The upgrade requires you actually install the previous edition then upgrade. (Makes sense from a certain point of view, given that iso's are trivial to obtain.) But its beyond stupid in practice. If my HD dies, I shouldn't have to install XP, before installing Vista.
What happens in 2020... I buy a new PC and decide to transfer Windows 9 on it...and put Ubuntu Zippy Zebra on the old one, and I've been upgrading windows all along so now I have to install windows 8 on it first for the v9 installer to run... but to do that I have to install windows 7, and to do that I have to install windows Vista, and to that I have to install XP? Good luck installing XP on a new PC in 2020... will there even be XP drivers for the ultra-hddvd-bluray-3.0 drive I'll be installing with on the BIOS-free EFI-2-superZ.22/q based motherboard using an intel octo 4 hyper III-2 cpu?
With Vista, at least there is a workaround, but its clearly an oversight on microsofts part. And I don't think it'll be their next time round.
They ought to go the OSX route, lower the price of full retail... (almost NOBODY buys that anyway on windows), and get rid of the 'upgrade editions'.
They did NOT argue that someone ripping a copy of the CD to the computer was unauthorized - it was the placement of a copy in the share folder for Kazaa.
NO. They DID say ripping a copy to the computer was unauthorized.
HOWEVER the LAWSUIT was because he'd put those files into his Kazaa shared folder.
I.e. he wasn't on trial for ripping a CD. But they did say they were unauthorized, nonetheless.
The best solution is to take tracks from multiple sources, and 'average them together' to dilute the watermarks at worst making it impossible to reliably identify the mark, and at best possible to outright detect and completely remove them.
Not that I think watermarked files are really a problem for a law abiding person. ipods get stolen hourly, and its well known that botnets infect thousands upon thousands of PCs. Even if the seller could identify who originally bought a track, the odds of being able to successfully prosecute that person is virtually nil, unless there was considerable OTHER evidence that that individual was systematically sharing tracks.
But stop bitching because Uncle Jim Bob in Iowa is being underpriced by some peasant in Bolivia -- the Bolivian has just as much right as Jim Bob to eke an existence from the soil.
Uncle Jim Bob in Iowa wouldn't be as undercut by some peasant in Bolivia if we didn't have minimum wages, bans on child labor, and so forth.
An economic 'comparative advantage' makes sense when say the soil/climate in Bolivia is suited to corn and the soil/climate in America is suited to grain, that's a 'natural advantage'. And they'll be more productive growing corn, and be able to do it cheaper. That's a case where subsidies to grow corn here are bad.
But in this case the economic advantages the Bolivian enjoys are artificial ecomomic and legal artifacts. If Bolivia became the 51st state, and laws and practices here applied there, would there still be a 'comparative advantage' to production in Bolivia? Or would the Bolivian be forced to massively raise his prices in order to cover his taxes, employer obligations, labour costs, etc?
The rationale for many subsidies isn't merely as a counterweight to foreign competitive advantage, its a recognition that foreign competitive advantage is the result of artificial legal/economic factors in the first place. So why shouldn't that be counterweighted by even more artificial economic factors?
If you are going to get rid of the subsidies, then you should also get rid of the reason we need them in the first place. Let us use illegal mexican immigrant children paid 30 cents a day, housed in shanty towns they'll construct themselves from what they can find in our garbage...
And then Uncle Jim Bob can compete with the Bolvian farmer... or at least is a lot closer. Uncle Jim Bob still has to deal with first world taxes on his property, and pay first world prices for his food etc... but we can all hope the bolivian's start getting uppity and start wanting a higher life expectancy, education for their kids, to eat meat on a regular basis, and so on, and start raising their prices to cover these 'luxuries'.
I can only hope that one day the rest of the world enjoys the same standard of life we do. Then all this outsourcing bullshit will finally stop. Free Trade agreements go a long ways towards making it happen... trouble is... they won't actually rise to our standards, we'll average out in the middle. And its a weighted average. And they outweigh us. So for us to acheive the same standard of living, we'd take a huge fall, while they'll enjoy a slight bump. And nobody -here- really wants that. Which is why we have all this artificial protectionism, while still claiming we want free trade.
What we corporations "really want" is to break down foreign protections from our corporations, while we don't give up squat here. Go figure. And no wonder we're percieved as exploiting them. We are.
Wow, your like the 10th person to say that. But you know what, its pretty trivial to work around that.
After you get 'your' serial number receipt, you get N other receipts for other candidates selected randomly from other voters that voted for those candidates. Then you can't -prove- squat to anyone but yourself.
If someone tries to bully you, you've got N+1 receipts for four different candidates. Only you know which one is yours, and you can't prove it. Similarly nobody would give you money for your vote, again, because there is no way to prove which receipt is your vote.
All the receipts represent real votes, only one represents your vote, you know which one is yours, and can verify that its valid and counted correctly, but you have no way to prove it to anyone else.
So its still a secret ballot. At least until they can scan your brain and find out which serial is yours... and if they can do that they'll just check who you voted for directly.
Like, every one company on the list seems to be pirating MS products (Office, Windows) and Adobe products (probably Photoshop and Dreamweaver).
Dreamweaver? More likely Acrobat and Photoshop, neither of which are probably even needed. They usually just need some way to edit images and create pdf files. Basic PDF creation is free if you know where to look, and photoshop is monster overkill for the basic cropping/resizing, blurring a license plate, and redeye reduction that is all many of these companies use it for.
Count the ballots in the box against the number of serial numbers issued?
Alternatively, if I have a serial number, you can force me to check it in your presence. If my check comes back Jim Schmoe, I lose my kneecaps and become a lifelong proponent of secret ballots.
So check someone elses number. I'd even have elections provide you with someone elses serial number that comes back as who ever you 'need' if you want it.
There is the conception that getting a serial number to verify your vote somehow is a link between you and the number. Its not, I'll give your serial number for your vote when you vote, and as many other serial numbers for previous votes as you like. Or if yours was the first vote, stick around for an hour or so, and then get a stack of serial numbers. Pick whichever you want/need when someone wants to know.