Talking heads who use science (junk science or good science) like *that* are the problem. Not the science itself.
We saw the same talking heads argue about tobacco the same way.
That doesn't mean there wasn't good research going on.
Today its videogames and global warming. But climatology is real science. Its hard science (meaning its hard to do) and our models are still pretty rudimentary, and they are complex systems so real predictions are hard to make. That doesn't mean useful predictions can't be made.
Same goes for the social sciences. Even physics can't reliably predict the position of pool balls after a break. Complex systems are just that: complex. Useful predictions can still be made, even if you can't say the 3 ball is going in the side, and the 7 will be in the corner... unfortunately that's what the talking heads report.
I don't need to compare Breezy with XP because I'm comparing what's available now - the two supported MS desktop OSs and a Linux offering.
That was my point you weren't. You were comparing an XP SP'zero' to the latest version of Ubuntu. If you had the latest version of XP it would have been a fairer comparison. It takes me less than half an hour to patch from a recent SP2 disc.
Comparing 'the Live CD doesn't boot' stories is an unfair comparison - there's plently of dodgy hardware that has problems with XP.
Sorry, but a brand name nvidia 8800GTS is not in the same category as 'dodgy hardware'. I agree there is lots of fringe generic crap out there, and XP has its share of problems. But that's about as mainstream as you can get. It just not the same as not being able to get XP working with some 8 year old Win98 MFP scanner/printer/fax that some company congealed.
XP (grudgingly) and Vista. XP is old, out of date, a pain to install and keep working properly, Vista is expensive, is a resource hog, and as the article said is different for difference' sake. Ubuntu is up-to-date, easy to install, easy to keep working properly and comes with a ton of applications right out of the box.
I'm drowning in your bias.
Your complaint against XP is that its 'old' and 'out of date', yet its been refreshed significantly twice and SP3 is expected to arrive soon. Provided you are working from a recent SP2 disc with USB2, common Gigabit chipsets, common SATA controllers, and other modern hardware support installation is not generally difficult at all. In other words, I call bullshit.
Your complaint against Vista is that its expensive? Really? Its cheaper than XP, unless you want Ultimate and its not like the price of XP went up recently. And ultimate? Its basically MCE which didn't even exist at retail. XP Home is about the same price as Vista Home Premium, and Vista Business so far seems cheaper than XP Pro. Compared to Ubuntu, maybe its expensive, and I'll give you that, but then so was XP before it, and 2k before that; -- hardly a flaw of 'vista'.
Your 2nd was that it was a resource hog. And that's valid. Don't put vista on older or marginal hardware. Stick with XP or Ubuntu. But on a new core 2 duo with 2GB of ram, and a fast video card, vista is perfectly snappy. Should it need that much to be snappy? No. Is linux snappier on much less hardware, yes. But if you've got the hardware, Vista runs just fine.
Your last compaint against vista is absurd: that its 'different than XP'. Well, la-di-da. Ubuntu is arbitrarily different from XP too, yet you don't complain about that. And XP is hardly the ideal we should all be striving for anyways. Personally, I -like- a number of the differences. The add remove programs is -better-, the start menu is -better-, the networking control panel/network places/etc is better although there is a learning curve from XP. The reorganization of the control panels was needless, but 'worse'? No, just different. And is Ubuntu better at control panel/gui configuration organization? Hell no. One can learn it, and get used to it, but its as arbitrary as the others, and lacks the consistency you get in windows. Display settings for example... half of them are X, half of them are in Ruby Compiz, a few more them are somewhere else with no links between them take the user from one to the next... sure it makes sense if you understand the layers and role of each layer in the linux windowing system... but its pretty messed up in terms of being logical from a non-technical end user. And don't get me started on the idiosyncracies of getting multiple monitors working 'just so'.
And ubuntu? up to date? ok. But so is Vista, and even XP can be brought up to date fairly easily. But sure Ubuntu is the best on this front.
Easy to install? Have you installed Vista? A 6 year old who'd never touched a computer before could probably make it through. Ubuntu is -great- for anything that just works, but what about stuff that doesn't. Windows pr
You are *significantly* overstating the difficulty of creating a slipstream disc.
Microsoft will also ship you replacement discs for a nominal shipping/handing fee, unless you have OEM discs, in which you should be able to get them from your OEM (and if not, its your shitty OEM, not Microsoft who is at fault.)
I agree neither is as good as what Ubuntu offers, but its not nearly as bad as you make it out to be either. And for most people a half dozen hours of automated patching up from an old disc beats waiting a week for a new one in the mail.
Seriously - this kind of convenience is one of the major benefits of using Linux.
They already know the media is worthless, and they know that anyone who wants one can get one trivially (which is why the vista upgrade won't accept a "CD in the drive" as proof), so restricting them is pointless. I think they know that, and that it won't be long before they go to digital distribution of the media.
Of course being microsoft they'll shoot themselves in the foot, make the priviledge of downloading it a paid subscription service, and set it up so that you have to be logged into MSN messenger on a genuine advantage validated PC to do it...
And -THAT- is the benefit of using linux. Its FREE! both as in liberty and as in beer.
I installed XP on a machine for my sister 3 weeks ago and it took 4 hours worth of downloading drivers and updates just to get to the stage where I could start installing apps.
Were you using a disc from circa 2002? A lot has changed since then. XP has had a lot added and fixed since then. If you are using an up to date slipstreamed XP SP2 disc, the patch process doesn't take unduly long.
(c.f. Ubuntu less than 1 hour for a fully loaded OS+apps)
Were you using a disc from circa 2002? I dare ya, grab a Ubuntu Breezy Badger disc as your starting point, install it, and then patch it up to Gutsy. See how long that takes you. I bet it would be faster, to boot from the Breezy live CD, and use it to download Gutsy in its entirety, and then install from that.
so I'm pretty sure XP is of no value to me from the 'enjoying using the computer' viewpoint unless I need to run some Windows-only software.
Because you need to install your system from scratch on a regular basis? Might I recommend some basic backup and restore software?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big advocate of Ubuntu too. I've even got my Mom using it. But these anecdotal comparisons are stacked. And for every "I installed Ubuntu in an hour while XP took 4 hours" anecdote there are a dozen, "my Ubuntu Live CD won't even boot". (I had that very problem with my 8800GTS.) And I spent HOURS with the wifi on my Mom's laptop before it would finally connect using WPA. (c.f. XP SP2, which worked out of the box and was connected to the wifi within 2 minutes.)
Both OSes have strengths and weaknesses. My Mom is on Ubuntu quite frankly, because the WinME she had was worse than death, and really, both XP and Ubuntu were good upgrade options. Ubuntu won out based on price more than anything. She was already using Firefox / OpenOffice / Gaim so for her the differences were pretty nominal.
P.d. The causation in question by definition cannot be proven
Cannot be proven using any sort of ethical or moral treatment of human beings you mean?
it's not falsifiable,
There's all kinds of stuff we can do.
We can monitor the crime rates in other countries and see if they also all display the same crime dip the same distance from when they banned leaded gas. In cases where they banned it after the us, we'll have to wait for a while.
It also suggests lab animal experiments like like monitoring aggression levels in rats, mice, and pigs when exposed to lead vs control groups that are not.
Perhaps we can look for a similar dip in violent crime 20-30 years after lead was stopped being used in cans. Compare the historical violent crime rate of the children of people/families/towns in the lead mining/refining industry vs the general population.
therefore: junk science to be put next to all the bullshit the social "sciences" try put push down our gobs. Social "Science" = State Sanctioned Opinion Manufacture.
[shrug] Social sciences, meteorology, climate study, geology, etc all naturally move forward slower and make more missteps than, say, basic chemistry or semi-conductor research due to the nature of the problem domain.
And it should be recognized by everyone that a 1 year study of a social problem can't yield the quality of results that a 1 year study of a problem in chemistry can.
Correlation does not imply causation. While the correlation may be very strong, causation cannot be assumed without ruling out many other potential contributing factors.
How many people have to post this needless gibberish over and over again? Is it some sort of karma whoring?
I mean, the effing SUMMARY got it 100% right:
"Even low levels of lead can cause brain damage, increasing the likelihood of behavioral and cognitive traits such as impulsivity, aggressiveness, and low IQ that are strongly linked with criminal behavior."
We know lead causes brain damage, and we know brain damage can lead to agressiveness, violence, etc.
"The NYTimes has a story on how the phasing out of leaded gasoline starting with the Clean Air Act in 1973 may have led to a 56% drop in violent crime in the US in the 1990s."
Key words: MAY HAVE LED TO. Its a hypothesis. Good.
They aren't asserting causation. They are noting a correlation, and using reasoning to form a hypothesis. So far so good.
An economics professor at Amherst College, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, discovered the connection and wrote a paper comparing the reduction of lead from gasoline between states (PDF) and the reduction of violent crime. She constructed a table linking crime rates in every state to childhood lead exposure in that state 20 or 30 years earlier.
Documenting the correlation. Even better, its not anecdotal. We're collecting real empirical measurable evidence.
If lead poisoning is a factor in the development of criminal behavior, then countries that didn't switch to unleaded fuel until the 1980s, like Britain and Australia, should soon see a dip in crime as the last lead-damaged children outgrow their most violent years."
A useful prediction? Can it be? Holy shit. Its the full on scientfic method in action. Observe World, Formulate Hypothesis, Test Hypothesis.
I grant that is not the best possible test of the hypothesis, because its not a closed experiment, and its not really repeatable, and a lot of unknowns can get in the way, but we take what we can get. Human-centric sciences like medicine and psychology, or sciences like astrophysics or evolution don't have the luxury of perfect experiments - we can't raise humans in isolated bubbles, nor send a selection of stars into identicale blackholes nor watch a million isolated generations of people --
All we can do in these cases is come up with hypotheses and models, make predictions based on those models to see if we can find examples / counter examples in the observable world.
Overall, its good science here. If the dip in crime occurs where they occur when they predict it, it obviously it won't prove or disprove the hypothesis but it will add significantly to the body of evidence that supports it. If it doesn't occur then we'll have to refine or discard the hypothesis. If ultimately the hypothesis is junk it'll eventually get tossed out. Science is full of wrong hypothesises, but they are the best we have at any given time... that's how it works.
So what exactly do you object to here? That you felt the need to drone about the difference between causation and correlation. It seems everybody involved already got that memo.
To me the thing is completely useless, because I must be able to dial the phone number I want without looking at the screen, I must be able to just find a button to silence the phone, to reply, to end call, whatever
Actually, most people with PDA phones (including BlackBerry/Treo/Motorola Q/iphone/etc) who want simple "blind" operation get a headset, usually bluetooth. Dialing is done by voice, and there are dead simple controls for volume, along with answer/end call. And you can even leave your device in your pocket/holster/briefcase.......oh wait...
I don't want anything but a phone
Then what the hell are you posting for?
Even if the iphone had buttons on the side for answer/hangup, volume, and tactile buttons instead of touch screen it wouldn't be a simple throwaway basic phone.
Now you think about that. I'll be honest here, if you say you're an idiot and actually have some screwed up definition of "legit" I probably won't believe you because I believe the rest of your posts were remarkably well written. I think you were probably trying to change the argument to validate what you said earlier. Don't do that.
Beleive it or not, I think you should reconsider. I think you've genuinely misunderstood my tone from the outset.
I said it wasn't a 'legit' copy. And that a transferred OEM was technically infringing.
I chose my words fairly carefully because I explicitly did not want to use the words 'legal' or 'illegal'. I deliberately used (and repeated) the word legit. As to my definition of 'legit', i meant it in the sense that it is a short form of 'legitimate'.
I agree legitimate often means according to law, but its a much broader word (e.g. one can make a legit chess move, as in a move 'in accordance with the rules of chess'), and yes I -did- mean it in the broader sense, as in legit as in 'per the rules of microsoft'.
If you check my original post, I even want so far as to put quotes around 'legit', to suggest that the word was being used somewhat euphemistically. In the same way one might write, "The waiter that 'served' us was an ass." using quotes to call into question whether or not one should even consider what the waiter did as constituting service. By quoting 'legit', I was attempting to call into question the very rules that made software 'legit', and underscoring that what made the software 'legit' (see there's those quotes again) was in fact the arbitrary blessing of microsoft.
And earlier in that post, I called an OEM transfer , again because *any* unauthorized copy can be argued to be infringing. Fortunately there is a check in place in terms of 'fair use', but that doesn't really make clear where the real limits are, because it has to be tested in a case by case basis as a defense.
I mean consider the transfer of OEM software to another machine setting aside the EULA entirely. In order to do that you need to *make a copy*. We don't have permission so right off the top its its technically infringing*.
[*Consider when the studios went after Betamax etc over VCRs, the question was really never about whether their copyright had been infringed, the question was whether or not it was fair use.]
So we've made an infringing copy. Now add the EULA to the picture, and what do we get? Nothing, we don't get explicit permission to install it, and worse, we actually get outright prohibition.
Now you've pointed out some cases where its been ruled the language in the EULA is invalid, and that's interesting, but where does that leave us? Legally we've got bupkiss as we still don't have express permission to make that copy, ruling the EULA invalid doesn't magically give us permission to make a copy. We still need permission, and we still don't have it. So its still technically infringing.**
[**Going off on a bit of a tangent, that's part of the beauty of the GPL, because it operates on that very same principle. If the GPL is not agreed to or in some way invalidated so that it cannot be enforced and ceases to be in effect, the rules revert to the default case: i.e. making a copy is violating copyright. The GPL is whats giving people permission to make the copies/redistribute in the first place. If you don't accept the GPL you lose that permission. Same goes for an EULA, except because all you want is permission to copy it to your own hard drive, if you rule the EULA invalid you still lose permission to install it.]
But suppose you intall it anyway. Then yes, you *are* making a technically infringing copy, but we've got a very reasonable application of a 'fair use' defense should they try and sue. That's hardly an ideal position even if its a near certainty that we'd prevail. At best we end up legally untouchable for making the copy, but despised by the vendor for doing it without their blessing.
So yes, it appeals to the elitist prick portion of the population. Or people who wish they made Excel in to a game.
Aw shucks. I knew there was a reason I liked it. I'm both. Not.
That said, I did like it, but after my trial elected not to play for 2 reasons:
1) The dev scandal was just unfolding, and I was utterly appalled with it. Not only that they handled it so poorly, but the revelations that they allowed devs to participate at that level at all, nevermind the cheating. GM abusing mechanics is bad in a PvE game like WoW or EQ, but in a PvP game like Eve, its absolutely unacceptable.
2) Because its truly massively multiplayer and PvE, your most valuable asset is the people you know, your reputation, and your influence. You cannot obtain this playing only a few hours here and there. You've got to play constantly to become relevant or important in the hierarchy.
In Warcraft, you can play once a week and eventually see the end game, it'll take you longer, but you'll still get there. You are competing against the game, and whever you play, you move forward. Eventually you get to the end. You aren't really competing against the other players, and the fact that other players are more powerful is largely irrelevant.
In Eve, you are competing against the other players, to defeat them or gain influence over them is really the point of the game, and those that consistently play more than you will always be ahead of you. Always.
I suppose if you are content to mine asteroids and sell minerals on some small irrelevant scale you can play Eve and have fun. But that's the equivalent of being an ore farmer in Warcraft and about as fulfilling.
It is perfectly legal to remove that activation nonsense, and perfectly legal to move the software from one machine to another. Stop suggesting otherwise.
I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm pointing out that it doesn't fucking matter if its legal, if you can't effectively do it having the right to do it is meaningless.
Removing the activation nonsense is not "trivial", and results in an OS that is brittle, which may break on any update causing it to fail genuine advantage and become unusable until re-cracked.
TiVO has nothing to do with this.
Correct. I mentioned Tivo, because its an example of the same sort of end run around your legal rights; its the same sort of 'trap'. In that case the legal side of the GPL gives you clear cut rights to modify the source while the technological side makes almost impossible to exercise that right. There is nothing legally stopping you from changing the software on your Tivo, or modifying it to run your software, except that doing so is non-trivial, and even if you managed it, you might not be able to connect to Tivo's service, making a modified Tivo effectively useless.
I could just as easily have referred to the scene in the Matrix, where neo demands his phone call, and is countered by having his mouth removed. "Tell me, Mr. Anderson... what good is a phone call... if you're unable to speak?" Your rights are effectively denied, without actually denying them.
Same here, first sale doctrine gives you clear cut rights over what you are legally allowed to do with the software, but technological measures could make it almost impossible to exercise them.
I see now that you are a coward and are simply attempting to backpedal your argument into something "technically" correct, but morally wrong.
Setting aside the pointless ad hominem, I am curious about the 'technically correct but morally wrong' as that makes no sense at all. "morally wrong"? How do you get THERE?
You have pointed out that those terms of the EULA *may* be invalid, and I've countered by pointing out that it really doesn't matter whether MS can enforce the EULA through the courts; i f MS wishes to exercise enforcement of them by implementing technical measures they are free and within their rights to do so.
If MS views your install as infringing, whether or not the law will back them up, doesn't matter. Because they can effectively stop you from using infringing copies.
Sure you can hack them (and possibly run afoul of the DMCA), and sure you can play cat-and-mouse to stay ahead of the genuine advantage program.
The fact that it is LEGAL to move your OEM copy is nearly worthless if MS makes it enough of a burden to actually exercise that right. No IT department is going to play those games: its not worth the expenditure of time. No average user is going to play those games: even if they have the free time they lack the know-how.
Now if you were trying to say that Mac's weren't "too expensive", or Mac's weren't "overpriced" that would be a different, subjective argument
Singling out Mac's as "more expensive", implies that they are "too expensive" or "overpriced".
But to say that Mac's aren't "more expensive" flies in the face of logic and reason.
Comparing a brand X $500 computer to a radically different $300 computer from brand Y, while ignoring that brand Y has an identical computer for $500 and then summing up with a statement about how brand X is more expensive than brand Y is what "flies in the face of logic and reason".
It would be like saying your family is higher income than mine because my 3 year old daughter is unemployed, while the youngest person in your family works at McDonald's. Clearly your MacD-employee has 'more income' than my 3 year old, that's "the defintion of more income". But to issue a summary statement about the relative income of the family is entirely misplaced and inappropriate.
Same thing here, you are comparing two different families, choosing two very different family members to compare and then issuing a summary statement on the whole family.
If you wanted to say "the Cheapest dell is cheaper than the cheapest Mac", I'd be with you. But saying "Macs are more expensive than Dell's" is an inappropriate and misleading summary characterisation.
Somehow, I have grown to expect this from Mac Fanboys.
I don't own a Mac. I find the lineup doesn't meet my requirements. I'd like an iMac class machine in a tower form factor with a better video card selection. I'd like a powerbook with a right mouse button built in. I like OS X but I am anything but a fanboy. Perpetually frustrated with the limited selection and customisability would be a better characterisation of my relationship with Macs.
Long before those photographs were published many US soldiers expected to be tortured if they were captured.
I agree with you entirely.
During some of the higher level Marine SERE training that was pretty well drilled into our heads.
Its scary part of military training is to provide you with the information and preparation you need. And the another part is to provide dehumanize your enemies, so you don't hesitate to pull the trigger when its time, so that you never question whether or not your fighting for the right side.
I wouldn't put it past our military to spread misinformation to its troops. Other militaries have done this.
Not that I'm saying this is misinformation; I'm sure in this case it wouldn't have been. But on some level you almost have to question what you hear because you are being told what they think you need to know to get the job done. And that is not necessarily the truth.
* Software as a Component of the Computer - Transfer. THIS
LICENSE MAY NOT BE SHARED,
TRANSFERRED TO OR USED CONCURRENTLY
ON DIFFERENT COMPUTERS. The SOFTWARE
is licensed with the HARDWARE as a single integrated
product and may only be used with the HARDWARE. If the
SOFTWARE is not accompanied by new HARDWARE, you may
not use the SOFTWARE. You may permanently transfer all
of your rights under this EULA only as part of a
permanent sale or transfer of the HARDWARE, provided
you retain no copies, if you transfer all of the SOFTWARE
(including all component parts, the media and printed
materials, any upgrades, this EULA and the Certificate
of Authenticity), and the recipient agrees to the terms
of this EULA. If the SOFTWARE is an upgrade, any
transfer must also include all prior versions of the
SOFTWARE.
You seem to be citing a case where Novell tried to **LEGALLY** prevent the resale of the software, which fundamentally misses the point.
Apologize immediately, and seek out everyone you have offered this illegal and ill-informed legal advice to and apologize to them as well.
This isn't "legal" advice. Consider it "Microsoft Licensing Policy" advice. There is no *legal* component. I am well aware Microsoft may not actually have the *legal* right to dictate that the two items remain bundled, nonetheless, that is what are in fact asserting in the EULA.
They don't need the law to enforce it. They can enforce their licensing policy simply by declining to re-activate it on the new hardware.
Consider the direction Microsoft is headed:
Sure, you go ahead and exercise your right to resell the oem software separately to someone else who will install it on new hardware. That's your right. However, the OEM SKU is half price for a reason, and one of those reasons is that we only activate it once. So who ever buys it from you is screwed because we're not activating that copy again on new hardware. Oh, and he's not allowed to crack the activation because that would be a violation of the DMCA, and besides, because its a cracked activation it will fail genuine advantage and he won't be allowed to download updates, like sp3 or directx or whatever.
The point is, they don't need to be able to 'legally' stop you from transferring the copy, they already have everything in place to effectively stop you from transferring the copy. All they have to do is start declining to re-activate OEM software on new hardware once its been activated.
Really, its the same trap the GPL finds itself in with Tivo, there you ha
Dell is an OEM, and the version of windows they provide is OEM. The only windows licenses that are transferable are those that are purchased at 'retail' (e.g. in a retail box).
Dell OEM Windows is actually worse than 'white-box' OEM because the Dell disks, contain dell branding, dell drivers, and other dell customisations) which is convenient if you are installing it on the original dell, but just get in the way if you are installing it on a new PC. White-box OEMs just use the vanilla MS OEM disks.
He was installing onto a generic "white box". He had to call MS to verify, but they didn't have any problem providing a confirmation code. He was, as far as we know, using a unique serial number, but it was an OEM version.
For the most part MS is currently fairly lenient, but per the EULA, no, you may not transfer it.
This, for example is an excerpt from the EULA for the vanilla MS OEM, from the eula.txt on the CD:
* Software as a Component of the Computer - Transfer. THIS
LICENSE MAY NOT BE SHARED,
TRANSFERRED TO OR USED CONCURRENTLY
ON DIFFERENT COMPUTERS. The SOFTWARE
is licensed with the HARDWARE as a single integrated
product and may only be used with the HARDWARE. If the
SOFTWARE is not accompanied by new HARDWARE, you may
not use the SOFTWARE. You may permanently transfer all
of your rights under this EULA only as part of a
permanent sale or transfer of the HARDWARE, provided
you retain no copies, if you transfer all of the SOFTWARE
(including all component parts, the media and printed
materials, any upgrades, this EULA and the Certificate
of Authenticity), and the recipient agrees to the terms
of this EULA. If the SOFTWARE is an upgrade, any
transfer must also include all prior versions of the
SOFTWARE.
Basically, the software is licensed to the hardware. And it may not be transferred to different hardware, ever. You are permitted to transfer the hardware to a new owner, and if you so do, the software goes with it, 'attached' to that hardware.
Technically, when you buy OEM Windows over the internet or wherever, and it doesn't *come* with a computer, per the EULA, you are not permitted to use it.
You may have noticed the phrase "For Distribution with a new PC only." on OEM software?
You may have noticed that OEMs affix a license key/certificate of authenticity sticker to the computer case? OEM windows agreements have language that requires them to do this.
This is not as a 'convenience' so that your installation key is handy when you need to reinstall windows; this is LITERALLY to bind that licnese to the physical PC.
Retail editions of windows do not have these stupid stickers.
So far MS has been very lax on actually enforcing these terms or outright blocking transfers, but the terms are there, and sooner or later, whether its with Vista, or Windows 7, or some 'critical' patch... they will roll out some technology that enforces it.
You will probably find most pirated copies of Windows users also have valid OEM licenses, they just choose to use the retail or MSDN or VLK edition. This will have little impact on the Windows market. It is when Windows is not TAXED on OEM hardware you will see an impact.
No. Not by a long shot.
You will find that MANY pirated copies of windows (at least in the western hemisphere) are 'justified' in terms of I pirated XP because my last computer had OEM XP, it died, and the system restore disk wouldn't work on my new PC. Technically that is an infringing copy, as OEM versions are non-transferable to new units.
You will also find boatloads of people with XP Pro that 'upgraded' from their XP Home, and wouldn't pay the ridiculous retail upgrade price from one to the other. You'll also find people with an infringing copy of XP Home or Pro installed because the PC originally came with 98, 2000 or god forbid, ME.
I'd say its true that most of boxes out there are backed by a legit windows license, but most are not the version/edition that they are licensed for.
Yeah, there's people that have OEM Pro and installed VLK or MSDN edition to avoid activation hassles. (I myself was on an infringing VLK edition for a while, because my 'legit' was an original retail upgrade, while the VLK was a full version SP2... so it was FAR less hassle (no disk flipping, no activation, and hours of patches avoided.) When genuine advantage came out and got in my face and I got tired of hacking around it I reverted to the legit copy. Wasted half a day. (I couldn't just change the key because it rejected my legit original upgrade key.)
But in my experience that's a distinct minority, most people with XP Pro VLK/MSDN didn't actually have a legit version of XP Pro. They had a legit version of Windows XP Home, or an older version of windows... but not XP Pro.
Apple makes gold rings. Dell makes gold rings and silver rings. If Dell's gold rings and Apple's gold rings are the same price, then Apple is not 'more expensive' than Dell.
Its true that gold rings are more expensive than silver. And its true that a lot of people buy silver because they can't afford gold. But its misleading to say that Apple is more expensive than Dell when you are comparing Apple's gold to Dell's silver.
If you can afford Dell's gold, you can afford Apple's. They are pretty much the same price. If all you can afford is silver, its not that *Macs* are "more expensive" its that GOLD is "more expensive". And you aren't in the market for gold, period, regardless of whether its Apple's gold or Dell's gold.
WoW came along and ran over them like a mac truck over a 90 year old grandma. raph koster... standing in the corner shaking his fist.. at... large MMO companies.. that.. don't... 'get it'...
Would you say the same thing about the creators of Resident Evil?
Let me put this into perspective for you, in consoles (including handhelds), 7 of the top ten sellers of all time contain either the word "Mario" or "Pokemon". (The least of these titles has sold over 15 million copies.) Combined, they sold some 200 million units.
I guess anyone working on a "Bioshock" is out of touch, with stupid ideas, and should be shunned. Clearly anyone making those games just doesn't get what people want.
I think we can all see the fallacy in that kind of thinking...
Same goes for Warcraft vs other MMOGs. Eve, though I despise the developers and refuse to pay them a cent is a brilliant mmorpg that will NEVER acheive the same popularity as Warcraft. And even Everquest I, before the expansion dogpile was also a brilliant mmorpg in spite of its warts that could also never acheive the popularity of WoW. Both games are hard to succeed in. Both games require teamwork in a way that Warcraft simply doesn't approach. And both games punished mistakes and carelessness harshly. Sure Warcraft has a raid-game end-game to cater to the 'hard core' but most people don't go there, and really, to really suceed in Warcrafts raid game you just have to be -there-, you don't have to be -good-.
All I know is that I can buy a $300 machine, I don't care if it doesn't have all the features a Mac has, which BTW I might not need, and install Linux on it and have all I need -- the cheapest Mac I can find comes with double the price.
There are companies out there that will sell a $100 'embedded PC' with an x86 400MHz cpu, vga output, ps2/usb ports, 10/100 networking, and even 2.1 sound. It will even run linux just fine; you can surf the web, do email.
So apparently your "$300 PC" is some sort of overpriced premium unit that only a sucker would buy? With its 2GHz celeron and 5.1 sound, and premium intel "extreme" graphics chip. Slow down big spender!
A few minutes ago you implied it was good value, but I all I know is that its 3x the price. I don't care if it doesn't have all the features yours does, which BTW I might not need. I install linux on it and I have all I need. How can you convince me that a $300 Dell isn't some sort of premium expensive product?
The point is the Mac, when compared to an EQUIVALENT PC is not really more expensive. If you are going to insist on comparing the Mac to a PC that can't do half the stuff sure, its 'more expensive' but that doesn't make Mac's more expensive than PCs.
By that logic, $300PCs are over priced because I can buy an embedded unit for $100 that does everything I need. And someone out there, will say THAT's over priced because all they "need" is to do multiplacation and it turns out a notepad and a calculator does everything they need for a fraction of the price.
So are dell $300 PCs overpriced premium deluxe units because some twit decided to compare it to a pocket calculator?
Max level in a week yes, but it's designed to take weeks/months for them to actually beat the end game content, usually by forcing them to gather together in groups of 25-50 and repeat the same element over and over again until the group collectively has enough keys or loot ("power ups") to proceed to the next stage.
Everquest expansions routinely took months to out and out beat, and most players -never- got see most of the end game content.
Question: How much money did it take to get the band's publicity to the level they enjoy now?
Good point. The labels promotion certainly helped them get where they are.
is it entirely likely that they are using the publicity someone else (the labels) paid for to generate sales for this album?
Interesting. And if true, a perfectly reasonable assertion. If the labels have paid to promote the NEW album repayment of that should be factored in. But did they?
Have the labels done a lot of promotion of *this* album or is Radiohead just riding off all the publicity/fame/fanbase the labels helped them get off of *previous* albums?
Clearly, the fame / fanbase / publicity Radiohead has enjoyed to get where it is today are immensely valuable to the band and its members, but who owns that? And is it rational to have to "pay" it back? I mean, what if radiohead disbanded and the members formed new indie bands? could the label still argue that because the fans followed the artists to their new bands that the label is owed money for any success the new bands enjoy because at least some of that success is attributable to the publicity the labels generated for Radiohead back when they were Radiohead?
Seems a little nuts to me. Because if you support that, then how long before Harrison Ford has to send back a cut of everything he does over to Lucas and/or 20th Century Fox for 'making him famous' in Star Wars, and thus contributing to his current success.
I am not an American so I am definitely not an expert on this subject
I am not an American either, but that's neither here nor there. I've met born and raised American's who don't know this stuff.
I was just pointing out that the summary and article say "District of Columbia" not Washington D.C. and I thought there was a difference between the two. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
"Washington D.C." properly written as "Washington, D.C." (see the comma I added?) refers to the city of Washington in the District of Columbia. While "District of Columbia" would refer to the entire district, not just the city of Washington within it. So, technically, yes, they are different.
In actual practice, there really isn't any difference between them and the terms can be used pretty much interchangeably.
Can you also let me know which state Washington D.C. is in if D.C. isn't a state.
D.C. isn't a state, and it is not in a state. It is a separate federal district, governed directly by Congress (although most actual governing is left to the city government and its mayor).
Fun Fact: The District of Columbia, because it is not a state, has no voting representation in the federal government. It does elect a single congressman (actually a congresswoman at the moment. congress-person? congress-critter?) who can participate in debates etc, but may not vote. It has no senate representation at all.
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Talking heads who use science (junk science or good science) like *that* are the problem. Not the science itself.
We saw the same talking heads argue about tobacco the same way.
That doesn't mean there wasn't good research going on.
Today its videogames and global warming. But climatology is real science. Its hard science (meaning its hard to do) and our models are still pretty rudimentary, and they are complex systems so real predictions are hard to make. That doesn't mean useful predictions can't be made.
Same goes for the social sciences. Even physics can't reliably predict the position of pool balls after a break. Complex systems are just that: complex. Useful predictions can still be made, even if you can't say the 3 ball is going in the side, and the 7 will be in the corner... unfortunately that's what the talking heads report.
I don't need to compare Breezy with XP because I'm comparing what's available now - the two supported MS desktop OSs and a Linux offering.
That was my point you weren't. You were comparing an XP SP'zero' to the latest version of Ubuntu. If you had the latest version of XP it would have been a fairer comparison. It takes me less than half an hour to patch from a recent SP2 disc.
Comparing 'the Live CD doesn't boot' stories is an unfair comparison - there's plently of dodgy hardware that has problems with XP.
Sorry, but a brand name nvidia 8800GTS is not in the same category as 'dodgy hardware'. I agree there is lots of fringe generic crap out there, and XP has its share of problems. But that's about as mainstream as you can get. It just not the same as not being able to get XP working with some 8 year old Win98 MFP scanner/printer/fax that some company congealed.
XP (grudgingly) and Vista. XP is old, out of date, a pain to install and keep working properly, Vista is expensive, is a resource hog, and as the article said is different for difference' sake. Ubuntu is up-to-date, easy to install, easy to keep working properly and comes with a ton of applications right out of the box.
I'm drowning in your bias.
Your complaint against XP is that its 'old' and 'out of date', yet its been refreshed significantly twice and SP3 is expected to arrive soon. Provided you are working from a recent SP2 disc with USB2, common Gigabit chipsets, common SATA controllers, and other modern hardware support installation is not generally difficult at all. In other words, I call bullshit.
Your complaint against Vista is that its expensive? Really? Its cheaper than XP, unless you want Ultimate and its not like the price of XP went up recently. And ultimate? Its basically MCE which didn't even exist at retail. XP Home is about the same price as Vista Home Premium, and Vista Business so far seems cheaper than XP Pro. Compared to Ubuntu, maybe its expensive, and I'll give you that, but then so was XP before it, and 2k before that; -- hardly a flaw of 'vista'.
Your 2nd was that it was a resource hog. And that's valid. Don't put vista on older or marginal hardware. Stick with XP or Ubuntu. But on a new core 2 duo with 2GB of ram, and a fast video card, vista is perfectly snappy. Should it need that much to be snappy? No. Is linux snappier on much less hardware, yes. But if you've got the hardware, Vista runs just fine.
Your last compaint against vista is absurd: that its 'different than XP'. Well, la-di-da. Ubuntu is arbitrarily different from XP too, yet you don't complain about that. And XP is hardly the ideal we should all be striving for anyways. Personally, I -like- a number of the differences. The add remove programs is -better-, the start menu is -better-, the networking control panel/network places/etc is better although there is a learning curve from XP. The reorganization of the control panels was needless, but 'worse'? No, just different. And is Ubuntu better at control panel/gui configuration organization? Hell no. One can learn it, and get used to it, but its as arbitrary as the others, and lacks the consistency you get in windows. Display settings for example... half of them are X, half of them are in Ruby Compiz, a few more them are somewhere else with no links between them take the user from one to the next... sure it makes sense if you understand the layers and role of each layer in the linux windowing system... but its pretty messed up in terms of being logical from a non-technical end user. And don't get me started on the idiosyncracies of getting multiple monitors working 'just so'.
And ubuntu? up to date? ok. But so is Vista, and even XP can be brought up to date fairly easily. But sure Ubuntu is the best on this front.
Easy to install? Have you installed Vista? A 6 year old who'd never touched a computer before could probably make it through. Ubuntu is -great- for anything that just works, but what about stuff that doesn't. Windows pr
You are *significantly* overstating the difficulty of creating a slipstream disc.
Microsoft will also ship you replacement discs for a nominal shipping/handing fee, unless you have OEM discs, in which you should be able to get them from your OEM (and if not, its your shitty OEM, not Microsoft who is at fault.)
I agree neither is as good as what Ubuntu offers, but its not nearly as bad as you make it out to be either. And for most people a half dozen hours of automated patching up from an old disc beats waiting a week for a new one in the mail.
Seriously - this kind of convenience is one of the major benefits of using Linux.
They already know the media is worthless, and they know that anyone who wants one can get one trivially (which is why the vista upgrade won't accept a "CD in the drive" as proof), so restricting them is pointless. I think they know that, and that it won't be long before they go to digital distribution of the media.
Of course being microsoft they'll shoot themselves in the foot, make the priviledge of downloading it a paid subscription service, and set it up so that you have to be logged into MSN messenger on a genuine advantage validated PC to do it...
And -THAT- is the benefit of using linux. Its FREE! both as in liberty and as in beer.
I installed XP on a machine for my sister 3 weeks ago and it took 4 hours worth of downloading drivers and updates just to get to the stage where I could start installing apps.
Were you using a disc from circa 2002? A lot has changed since then. XP has had a lot added and fixed since then. If you are using an up to date slipstreamed XP SP2 disc, the patch process doesn't take unduly long.
(c.f. Ubuntu less than 1 hour for a fully loaded OS+apps)
Were you using a disc from circa 2002? I dare ya, grab a Ubuntu Breezy Badger disc as your starting point, install it, and then patch it up to Gutsy. See how long that takes you. I bet it would be faster, to boot from the Breezy live CD, and use it to download Gutsy in its entirety, and then install from that.
so I'm pretty sure XP is of no value to me from the 'enjoying using the computer' viewpoint unless I need to run some Windows-only software.
Because you need to install your system from scratch on a regular basis? Might I recommend some basic backup and restore software?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big advocate of Ubuntu too. I've even got my Mom using it. But these anecdotal comparisons are stacked. And for every "I installed Ubuntu in an hour while XP took 4 hours" anecdote there are a dozen, "my Ubuntu Live CD won't even boot". (I had that very problem with my 8800GTS.) And I spent HOURS with the wifi on my Mom's laptop before it would finally connect using WPA. (c.f. XP SP2, which worked out of the box and was connected to the wifi within 2 minutes.)
Both OSes have strengths and weaknesses. My Mom is on Ubuntu quite frankly, because the WinME she had was worse than death, and really, both XP and Ubuntu were good upgrade options. Ubuntu won out based on price more than anything. She was already using Firefox / OpenOffice / Gaim so for her the differences were pretty nominal.
P.d. The causation in question by definition cannot be proven
Cannot be proven using any sort of ethical or moral treatment of human beings you mean?
it's not falsifiable,
There's all kinds of stuff we can do.
We can monitor the crime rates in other countries and see if they also all display the same crime dip the same distance from when they banned leaded gas. In cases where they banned it after the us, we'll have to wait for a while.
It also suggests lab animal experiments like like monitoring aggression levels in rats, mice, and pigs when exposed to lead vs control groups that are not.
Perhaps we can look for a similar dip in violent crime 20-30 years after lead was stopped being used in cans. Compare the historical violent crime rate of the children of people/families/towns in the lead mining/refining industry vs the general population.
therefore: junk science to be put next to all the bullshit the social "sciences" try put push down our gobs. Social "Science" = State Sanctioned Opinion Manufacture.
[shrug] Social sciences, meteorology, climate study, geology, etc all naturally move forward slower and make more missteps than, say, basic chemistry or semi-conductor research due to the nature of the problem domain.
And it should be recognized by everyone that a 1 year study of a social problem can't yield the quality of results that a 1 year study of a problem in chemistry can.
But that doesn't make it junk science.
But they really want a ZunePhone
"But he really wants ZunePhone"
There fixed it for you. But that raises another question:
If he gets hit by a bus does he still count as a demographic?
Re:Yet again it bears repeating...
Correlation does not imply causation. While the correlation may be very strong, causation cannot be assumed without ruling out many other potential contributing factors.
How many people have to post this needless gibberish over and over again? Is it some sort of karma whoring?
I mean, the effing SUMMARY got it 100% right:
"Even low levels of lead can cause brain damage, increasing the likelihood of behavioral and cognitive traits such as impulsivity, aggressiveness, and low IQ that are strongly linked with criminal behavior."
We know lead causes brain damage, and we know brain damage can lead to agressiveness, violence, etc.
"The NYTimes has a story on how the phasing out of leaded gasoline starting with the Clean Air Act in 1973 may have led to a 56% drop in violent crime in the US in the 1990s."
Key words: MAY HAVE LED TO. Its a hypothesis. Good.
They aren't asserting causation. They are noting a correlation, and using reasoning to form a hypothesis. So far so good.
An economics professor at Amherst College, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, discovered the connection and wrote a paper comparing the reduction of lead from gasoline between states (PDF) and the reduction of violent crime. She constructed a table linking crime rates in every state to childhood lead exposure in that state 20 or 30 years earlier.
Documenting the correlation. Even better, its not anecdotal. We're collecting real empirical measurable evidence.
If lead poisoning is a factor in the development of criminal behavior, then countries that didn't switch to unleaded fuel until the 1980s, like Britain and Australia, should soon see a dip in crime as the last lead-damaged children outgrow their most violent years."
A useful prediction? Can it be? Holy shit. Its the full on scientfic method in action. Observe World, Formulate Hypothesis, Test Hypothesis.
I grant that is not the best possible test of the hypothesis, because its not a closed experiment, and its not really repeatable, and a lot of unknowns can get in the way, but we take what we can get. Human-centric sciences like medicine and psychology, or sciences like astrophysics or evolution don't have the luxury of perfect experiments - we can't raise humans in isolated bubbles, nor send a selection of stars into identicale blackholes nor watch a million isolated generations of people --
All we can do in these cases is come up with hypotheses and models, make predictions based on those models to see if we can find examples / counter examples in the observable world.
Overall, its good science here. If the dip in crime occurs where they occur when they predict it, it obviously it won't prove or disprove the hypothesis but it will add significantly to the body of evidence that supports it. If it doesn't occur then we'll have to refine or discard the hypothesis. If ultimately the hypothesis is junk it'll eventually get tossed out. Science is full of wrong hypothesises, but they are the best we have at any given time... that's how it works.
So what exactly do you object to here? That you felt the need to drone about the difference between causation and correlation. It seems everybody involved already got that memo.
To me the thing is completely useless, because I must be able to dial the phone number I want without looking at the screen, I must be able to just find a button to silence the phone, to reply, to end call, whatever
...oh wait...
Actually, most people with PDA phones (including BlackBerry/Treo/Motorola Q/iphone/etc) who want simple "blind" operation get a headset, usually bluetooth. Dialing is done by voice, and there are dead simple controls for volume, along with answer/end call. And you can even leave your device in your pocket/holster/briefcase....
I don't want anything but a phone
Then what the hell are you posting for?
Even if the iphone had buttons on the side for answer/hangup, volume, and tactile buttons instead of touch screen it wouldn't be a simple throwaway basic phone.
I thought Myspace itself was just one big game called avoid the sex offender. It's a realtime strategy game
The only winning move is not to play.
Now you think about that. I'll be honest here, if you say you're an idiot and actually have some screwed up definition of "legit" I probably won't believe you because I believe the rest of your posts were remarkably well written. I think you were probably trying to change the argument to validate what you said earlier. Don't do that.
Beleive it or not, I think you should reconsider. I think you've genuinely misunderstood my tone from the outset.
I said it wasn't a 'legit' copy. And that a transferred OEM was technically infringing.
I chose my words fairly carefully because I explicitly did not want to use the words 'legal' or 'illegal'. I deliberately used (and repeated) the word legit. As to my definition of 'legit', i meant it in the sense that it is a short form of 'legitimate'.
I agree legitimate often means according to law, but its a much broader word (e.g. one can make a legit chess move, as in a move 'in accordance with the rules of chess'), and yes I -did- mean it in the broader sense, as in legit as in 'per the rules of microsoft'.
If you check my original post, I even want so far as to put quotes around 'legit', to suggest that the word was being used somewhat euphemistically. In the same way one might write, "The waiter that 'served' us was an ass." using quotes to call into question whether or not one should even consider what the waiter did as constituting service. By quoting 'legit', I was attempting to call into question the very rules that made software 'legit', and underscoring that what made the software 'legit' (see there's those quotes again) was in fact the arbitrary blessing of microsoft.
And earlier in that post, I called an OEM transfer , again because *any* unauthorized copy can be argued to be infringing. Fortunately there is a check in place in terms of 'fair use', but that doesn't really make clear where the real limits are, because it has to be tested in a case by case basis as a defense.
I mean consider the transfer of OEM software to another machine setting aside the EULA entirely. In order to do that you need to *make a copy*. We don't have permission so right off the top its its technically infringing*.
[*Consider when the studios went after Betamax etc over VCRs, the question was really never about whether their copyright had been infringed, the question was whether or not it was fair use.]
So we've made an infringing copy. Now add the EULA to the picture, and what do we get? Nothing, we don't get explicit permission to install it, and worse, we actually get outright prohibition.
Now you've pointed out some cases where its been ruled the language in the EULA is invalid, and that's interesting, but where does that leave us? Legally we've got bupkiss as we still don't have express permission to make that copy, ruling the EULA invalid doesn't magically give us permission to make a copy. We still need permission, and we still don't have it. So its still technically infringing.**
[**Going off on a bit of a tangent, that's part of the beauty of the GPL, because it operates on that very same principle. If the GPL is not agreed to or in some way invalidated so that it cannot be enforced and ceases to be in effect, the rules revert to the default case: i.e. making a copy is violating copyright. The GPL is whats giving people permission to make the copies/redistribute in the first place. If you don't accept the GPL you lose that permission. Same goes for an EULA, except because all you want is permission to copy it to your own hard drive, if you rule the EULA invalid you still lose permission to install it.]
But suppose you intall it anyway. Then yes, you *are* making a technically infringing copy, but we've got a very reasonable application of a 'fair use' defense should they try and sue. That's hardly an ideal position even if its a near certainty that we'd prevail. At best we end up legally untouchable for making the copy, but despised by the vendor for doing it without their blessing.
Meanwhile,
So yes, it appeals to the elitist prick portion of the population. Or people who wish they made Excel in to a game.
Aw shucks. I knew there was a reason I liked it. I'm both. Not.
That said, I did like it, but after my trial elected not to play for 2 reasons:
1) The dev scandal was just unfolding, and I was utterly appalled with it. Not only that they handled it so poorly, but the revelations that they allowed devs to participate at that level at all, nevermind the cheating. GM abusing mechanics is bad in a PvE game like WoW or EQ, but in a PvP game like Eve, its absolutely unacceptable.
2) Because its truly massively multiplayer and PvE, your most valuable asset is the people you know, your reputation, and your influence. You cannot obtain this playing only a few hours here and there. You've got to play constantly to become relevant or important in the hierarchy.
In Warcraft, you can play once a week and eventually see the end game, it'll take you longer, but you'll still get there. You are competing against the game, and whever you play, you move forward. Eventually you get to the end. You aren't really competing against the other players, and the fact that other players are more powerful is largely irrelevant.
In Eve, you are competing against the other players, to defeat them or gain influence over them is really the point of the game, and those that consistently play more than you will always be ahead of you. Always.
I suppose if you are content to mine asteroids and sell minerals on some small irrelevant scale you can play Eve and have fun. But that's the equivalent of being an ore farmer in Warcraft and about as fulfilling.
It is perfectly legal to remove that activation nonsense, and perfectly legal to move the software from one machine to another. Stop suggesting otherwise.
I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm pointing out that it doesn't fucking matter if its legal, if you can't effectively do it having the right to do it is meaningless.
Removing the activation nonsense is not "trivial", and results in an OS that is brittle, which may break on any update causing it to fail genuine advantage and become unusable until re-cracked.
TiVO has nothing to do with this.
Correct. I mentioned Tivo, because its an example of the same sort of end run around your legal rights; its the same sort of 'trap'. In that case the legal side of the GPL gives you clear cut rights to modify the source while the technological side makes almost impossible to exercise that right. There is nothing legally stopping you from changing the software on your Tivo, or modifying it to run your software, except that doing so is non-trivial, and even if you managed it, you might not be able to connect to Tivo's service, making a modified Tivo effectively useless.
I could just as easily have referred to the scene in the Matrix, where neo demands his phone call, and is countered by having his mouth removed. "Tell me, Mr. Anderson... what good is a phone call... if you're unable to speak?" Your rights are effectively denied, without actually denying them.
Same here, first sale doctrine gives you clear cut rights over what you are legally allowed to do with the software, but technological measures could make it almost impossible to exercise them.
I see now that you are a coward and are simply attempting to backpedal your argument into something "technically" correct, but morally wrong.
Setting aside the pointless ad hominem, I am curious about the 'technically correct but morally wrong' as that makes no sense at all. "morally wrong"? How do you get THERE?
You have pointed out that those terms of the EULA *may* be invalid, and I've countered by pointing out that it really doesn't matter whether MS can enforce the EULA through the courts; i f MS wishes to exercise enforcement of them by implementing technical measures they are free and within their rights to do so.
If MS views your install as infringing, whether or not the law will back them up, doesn't matter. Because they can effectively stop you from using infringing copies.
Sure you can hack them (and possibly run afoul of the DMCA), and sure you can play cat-and-mouse to stay ahead of the genuine advantage program.
The fact that it is LEGAL to move your OEM copy is nearly worthless if MS makes it enough of a burden to actually exercise that right. No IT department is going to play those games: its not worth the expenditure of time. No average user is going to play those games: even if they have the free time they lack the know-how.
Now if you were trying to say that Mac's weren't "too expensive", or Mac's weren't "overpriced" that would be a different, subjective argument
Singling out Mac's as "more expensive", implies that they are "too expensive" or "overpriced".
But to say that Mac's aren't "more expensive" flies in the face of logic and reason.
Comparing a brand X $500 computer to a radically different $300 computer from brand Y, while ignoring that brand Y has an identical computer for $500 and then summing up with a statement about how brand X is more expensive than brand Y is what "flies in the face of logic and reason".
It would be like saying your family is higher income than mine because my 3 year old daughter is unemployed, while the youngest person in your family works at McDonald's. Clearly your MacD-employee has 'more income' than my 3 year old, that's "the defintion of more income". But to issue a summary statement about the relative income of the family is entirely misplaced and inappropriate.
Same thing here, you are comparing two different families, choosing two very different family members to compare and then issuing a summary statement on the whole family.
If you wanted to say "the Cheapest dell is cheaper than the cheapest Mac", I'd be with you. But saying "Macs are more expensive than Dell's" is an inappropriate and misleading summary characterisation.
Somehow, I have grown to expect this from Mac Fanboys.
I don't own a Mac. I find the lineup doesn't meet my requirements.
I'd like an iMac class machine in a tower form factor with a better video card selection. I'd like a powerbook with a right mouse button built in. I like OS X but I am anything but a fanboy. Perpetually frustrated with the limited selection and customisability would be a better characterisation of my relationship with Macs.
Long before those photographs were published many US soldiers expected to be tortured if they were captured.
I agree with you entirely.
During some of the higher level Marine SERE training that was pretty well drilled into our heads.
Its scary part of military training is to provide you with the information and preparation you need. And the another part is to provide dehumanize your enemies, so you don't hesitate to pull the trigger when its time, so that you never question whether or not your fighting for the right side.
I wouldn't put it past our military to spread misinformation to its troops. Other militaries have done this.
Not that I'm saying this is misinformation; I'm sure in this case it wouldn't have been. But on some level you almost have to question what you hear because you are being told what they think you need to know to get the job done. And that is not necessarily the truth.
From the EULA for Windows XP OEM:
* Software as a Component of the Computer - Transfer. THIS
LICENSE MAY NOT BE SHARED,
TRANSFERRED TO OR USED CONCURRENTLY
ON DIFFERENT COMPUTERS. The SOFTWARE
is licensed with the HARDWARE as a single integrated
product and may only be used with the HARDWARE. If the
SOFTWARE is not accompanied by new HARDWARE, you may
not use the SOFTWARE. You may permanently transfer all
of your rights under this EULA only as part of a
permanent sale or transfer of the HARDWARE, provided
you retain no copies, if you transfer all of the SOFTWARE
(including all component parts, the media and printed
materials, any upgrades, this EULA and the Certificate
of Authenticity), and the recipient agrees to the terms
of this EULA. If the SOFTWARE is an upgrade, any
transfer must also include all prior versions of the
SOFTWARE.
You seem to be citing a case where Novell tried to **LEGALLY** prevent the resale of the software, which fundamentally misses the point.
Apologize immediately, and seek out everyone you have offered this illegal and ill-informed legal advice to and apologize to them as well.
This isn't "legal" advice. Consider it "Microsoft Licensing Policy" advice. There is no *legal* component. I am well aware Microsoft may not actually have the *legal* right to dictate that the two items remain bundled, nonetheless, that is what are in fact asserting in the EULA.
They don't need the law to enforce it. They can enforce their licensing policy simply by declining to re-activate it on the new hardware.
Consider the direction Microsoft is headed:
Sure, you go ahead and exercise your right to resell the oem software separately to someone else who will install it on new hardware. That's your right. However, the OEM SKU is half price for a reason, and one of those reasons is that we only activate it once. So who ever buys it from you is screwed because we're not activating that copy again on new hardware. Oh, and he's not allowed to crack the activation because that would be a violation of the DMCA, and besides, because its a cracked activation it will fail genuine advantage and he won't be allowed to download updates, like sp3 or directx or whatever.
The point is, they don't need to be able to 'legally' stop you from transferring the copy, they already have everything in place to effectively stop you from transferring the copy. All they have to do is start declining to re-activate OEM software on new hardware once its been activated.
Really, its the same trap the GPL finds itself in with Tivo, there you ha
Well....good reason to buy Dell.
Dell is an OEM, and the version of windows they provide is OEM. The only windows licenses that are transferable are those that are purchased at 'retail' (e.g. in a retail box).
Dell OEM Windows is actually worse than 'white-box' OEM because the Dell disks, contain dell branding, dell drivers, and other dell customisations) which is convenient if you are installing it on the original dell, but just get in the way if you are installing it on a new PC. White-box OEMs just use the vanilla MS OEM disks.
He was installing onto a generic "white box". He had to call MS to verify, but they didn't have any problem providing a confirmation code. He was, as far as we know, using a unique serial number, but it was an OEM version.
For the most part MS is currently fairly lenient, but per the EULA, no, you may not transfer it.
This, for example is an excerpt from the EULA for the vanilla MS OEM, from the eula.txt on the CD:
* Software as a Component of the Computer - Transfer. THIS
LICENSE MAY NOT BE SHARED,
TRANSFERRED TO OR USED CONCURRENTLY
ON DIFFERENT COMPUTERS. The SOFTWARE
is licensed with the HARDWARE as a single integrated
product and may only be used with the HARDWARE. If the
SOFTWARE is not accompanied by new HARDWARE, you may
not use the SOFTWARE. You may permanently transfer all
of your rights under this EULA only as part of a
permanent sale or transfer of the HARDWARE, provided
you retain no copies, if you transfer all of the SOFTWARE
(including all component parts, the media and printed
materials, any upgrades, this EULA and the Certificate
of Authenticity), and the recipient agrees to the terms
of this EULA. If the SOFTWARE is an upgrade, any
transfer must also include all prior versions of the
SOFTWARE.
Basically, the software is licensed to the hardware. And it may not be transferred to different hardware, ever. You are permitted to transfer the hardware to a new owner, and if you so do, the software goes with it, 'attached' to that hardware.
Technically, when you buy OEM Windows over the internet or wherever, and it doesn't *come* with a computer, per the EULA, you are not permitted to use it.
You may have noticed the phrase "For Distribution with a new PC only." on OEM software?
You may have noticed that OEMs affix a license key/certificate of authenticity sticker to the computer case? OEM windows agreements have language that requires them to do this.
This is not as a 'convenience' so that your installation key is handy when you need to reinstall windows; this is LITERALLY to bind that licnese to the physical PC.
Retail editions of windows do not have these stupid stickers.
So far MS has been very lax on actually enforcing these terms or outright blocking transfers, but the terms are there, and sooner or later, whether its with Vista, or Windows 7, or some 'critical' patch... they will roll out some technology that enforces it.
You will probably find most pirated copies of Windows users also have valid OEM licenses, they just choose to use the retail or MSDN or VLK edition. This will have little impact on the Windows market. It is when Windows is not TAXED on OEM hardware you will see an impact.
No. Not by a long shot.
You will find that MANY pirated copies of windows (at least in the western hemisphere) are 'justified' in terms of I pirated XP because my last computer had OEM XP, it died, and the system restore disk wouldn't work on my new PC. Technically that is an infringing copy, as OEM versions are non-transferable to new units.
You will also find boatloads of people with XP Pro that 'upgraded' from their XP Home, and wouldn't pay the ridiculous retail upgrade price from one to the other. You'll also find people with an infringing copy of XP Home or Pro installed because the PC originally came with 98, 2000 or god forbid, ME.
I'd say its true that most of boxes out there are backed by a legit windows license, but most are not the version/edition that they are licensed for.
Yeah, there's people that have OEM Pro and installed VLK or MSDN edition to avoid activation hassles. (I myself was on an infringing VLK edition for a while, because my 'legit' was an original retail upgrade, while the VLK was a full version SP2... so it was FAR less hassle (no disk flipping, no activation, and hours of patches avoided.) When genuine advantage came out and got in my face and I got tired of hacking around it I reverted to the legit copy. Wasted half a day. (I couldn't just change the key because it rejected my legit original upgrade key.)
But in my experience that's a distinct minority, most people with XP Pro VLK/MSDN didn't actually have a legit version of XP Pro. They had a legit version of Windows XP Home, or an older version of windows... but not XP Pro.
Bottom line, I have $300, can I buy a new Mac?
No. But that doesn't make Mac's more expensive.
Apple makes gold rings. Dell makes gold rings and silver rings. If Dell's gold rings and Apple's gold rings are the same price, then Apple is not 'more expensive' than Dell.
Its true that gold rings are more expensive than silver. And its true that a lot of people buy silver because they can't afford gold. But its misleading to say that Apple is more expensive than Dell when you are comparing Apple's gold to Dell's silver.
If you can afford Dell's gold, you can afford Apple's. They are pretty much the same price. If all you can afford is silver, its not that *Macs* are "more expensive" its that GOLD is "more expensive". And you aren't in the market for gold, period, regardless of whether its Apple's gold or Dell's gold.
WoW came along and ran over them like a mac truck over a 90 year old grandma. ... 'get it'...
raph koster... standing in the corner shaking his fist.. at... large MMO companies.. that.. don't
Would you say the same thing about the creators of Resident Evil?
Let me put this into perspective for you, in consoles (including handhelds), 7 of the top ten sellers of all time contain either the word "Mario" or "Pokemon". (The least of these titles has sold over 15 million copies.) Combined, they sold some 200 million units.
I guess anyone working on a "Bioshock" is out of touch, with stupid ideas, and should be shunned. Clearly anyone making those games just doesn't get what people want.
I think we can all see the fallacy in that kind of thinking...
Same goes for Warcraft vs other MMOGs. Eve, though I despise the developers and refuse to pay them a cent is a brilliant mmorpg that will NEVER acheive the same popularity as Warcraft. And even Everquest I, before the expansion dogpile was also a brilliant mmorpg in spite of its warts that could also never acheive the popularity of WoW. Both games are hard to succeed in. Both games require teamwork in a way that Warcraft simply doesn't approach. And both games punished mistakes and carelessness harshly. Sure Warcraft has a raid-game end-game to cater to the 'hard core' but most people don't go there, and really, to really suceed in Warcrafts raid game you just have to be -there-, you don't have to be -good-.
Its the same hardware whether you run mac, linux or windows. The same machines.
And those same machines are priced very nearly the same.
All I know is that I can buy a $300 machine, I don't care if it doesn't have all the features a Mac has, which BTW I might not need, and install Linux on it and have all I need -- the cheapest Mac I can find comes with double the price.
There are companies out there that will sell a $100 'embedded PC' with an x86 400MHz cpu, vga output, ps2/usb ports, 10/100 networking, and even 2.1 sound. It will even run linux just fine; you can surf the web, do email.
So apparently your "$300 PC" is some sort of overpriced premium unit that only a sucker would buy? With its 2GHz celeron and 5.1 sound, and premium intel "extreme" graphics chip. Slow down big spender!
A few minutes ago you implied it was good value, but I all I know is that its 3x the price. I don't care if it doesn't have all the features yours does, which BTW I might not need. I install linux on it and I have all I need. How can you convince me that a $300 Dell isn't some sort of premium expensive product?
The point is the Mac, when compared to an EQUIVALENT PC is not really more expensive. If you are going to insist on comparing the Mac to a PC that can't do half the stuff sure, its 'more expensive' but that doesn't make Mac's more expensive than PCs.
By that logic, $300PCs are over priced because I can buy an embedded unit for $100 that does everything I need. And someone out there, will say THAT's over priced because all they "need" is to do multiplacation and it turns out a notepad and a calculator does everything they need for a fraction of the price.
So are dell $300 PCs overpriced premium deluxe units because some twit decided to compare it to a pocket calculator?
Max level in a week yes, but it's designed to take weeks/months for them to actually beat the end game content, usually by forcing them to gather together in groups of 25-50 and repeat the same element over and over again until the group collectively has enough keys or loot ("power ups") to proceed to the next stage.
Everquest expansions routinely took months to out and out beat, and most players -never- got see most of the end game content.
Question: How much money did it take to get the band's publicity to the level they enjoy now?
Good point. The labels promotion certainly helped them get where they are.
is it entirely likely that they are using the publicity someone else (the labels) paid for to generate sales for this album?
Interesting. And if true, a perfectly reasonable assertion. If the labels have paid to promote the NEW album repayment of that should be factored in. But did they?
Have the labels done a lot of promotion of *this* album or is Radiohead just riding off all the publicity/fame/fanbase the labels helped them get off of *previous* albums?
Clearly, the fame / fanbase / publicity Radiohead has enjoyed to get where it is today are immensely valuable to the band and its members, but who owns that? And is it rational to have to "pay" it back? I mean, what if radiohead disbanded and the members formed new indie bands? could the label still argue that because the fans followed the artists to their new bands that the label is owed money for any success the new bands enjoy because at least some of that success is attributable to the publicity the labels generated for Radiohead back when they were Radiohead?
Seems a little nuts to me. Because if you support that, then how long before Harrison Ford has to send back a cut of everything he does over to Lucas and/or 20th Century Fox for 'making him famous' in Star Wars, and thus contributing to his current success.
I am not an American so I am definitely not an expert on this subject
I am not an American either, but that's neither here nor there. I've met born and raised American's who don't know this stuff.
I was just pointing out that the summary and article say "District of Columbia" not Washington D.C. and I thought there was a difference between the two. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
"Washington D.C." properly written as "Washington, D.C." (see the comma I added?) refers to the city of Washington in the District of Columbia. While "District of Columbia" would refer to the entire district, not just the city of Washington within it. So, technically, yes, they are different.
In actual practice, there really isn't any difference between them and the terms can be used pretty much interchangeably.
Can you also let me know which state Washington D.C. is in if D.C. isn't a state.
D.C. isn't a state, and it is not in a state. It is a separate federal district, governed directly by Congress (although most actual governing is left to the city government and its mayor).
Fun Fact: The District of Columbia, because it is not a state, has no voting representation in the federal government. It does elect a single congressman (actually a congresswoman at the moment. congress-person? congress-critter?) who can participate in debates etc, but may not vote. It has no senate representation at all.