On or alongside? Obviously nobody would go for any free service that inserts ads INTO their business documents, but I think most people aren't especially bothered by the idea of having automated advertisements sitting next to what they're doing. It's never once bothered me in Gmail, and I honestly don't even know if they're present in GDocs. Neither is Sun's product of course, but Google seems to be doing quite well by, at it's core, providing free products to people.
Something tells me that I'd find it significantly more distracting in OpenOffice, but that's probably more due to its interface being more than cluttered enough already. I'm sure part of it is that we're used to seeing ads in a browser window but nowhere else; I think the bigger issue is that giant stupid flashing banners that some people try using to monetize their freeware is hugely distracting to the point where it makes the product harder to use. OO is a respectable piece of competition for MSOffice for 99% of users, but after having been spoiled by the interface in Apple's $80 iWork08 suite, OO is never something I'd pay for given its paid competition. If they could revamp it with a clean interface and wanted to put a narrow strip of text ads at the top for unpaid users, I suppose that's an option.
It's a bad position to be in - right now, OpenOffice is just burning money, it's not easily monetized through advertising (probably ineffective, lower acceptance, too small of an audience), and it probably wouldn't stand a chance of competing as paid software. Even if it was $10 at Best Buy and still free for download (identical versions, you're paying for the CD and distribution basically), people are so tuned into "Microsoft(R) Office[TM]" as their office suite that it would just get ignored in stores.
MySQL at least seems to have a business model behind it, and one that's at least not losing money even if it's not immensely profitable (I have no idea what the numbers look like, but it can't be bringing in a ton or else they wouldn't be having these issues).
Which is what Blizzard has done for at least the best part of a decade (probably longer, but my first Blizzard game was D2 which I bought shortly after its release).
That works great for multiplayer games, but all of the antisocial types like me would have a pretty easy time going through campaign with a pirate copy if it was so desired, unless they required online connectivity even for single-player activity. And that always pisses users off - especially those on crappy connections (or those like me that want to have a little something fun to do installed on my laptop when I'm on the road but may not have consistent/reliable net access).
So while that's a perfectly viable solution for multiplayer-oriented games, it does nothing to address campaign-heavy stuff (e.g., HL series), or even games with a decent balance of both (most, I'd argue).
That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. Either you don't understand the argument, or you think that Pirate Bay somehow tracks the number of copies pirated.
TPB may not show it, but the number of finished copies is easy enough to get from most sites, not to mention the number of seeders that all trackers show.
Is it accurate? Not particularly, but bad data is (a little) better than no data. The two most active torrents for World of Goo, at posting, have a combined total of about 625 seeders, and another 60 or so leechers. The busiest torrent at MiniNova has 837 seeds, and claims just under 32,000 completed downloads (though the one that seems to be more consistent in terms of filesize with what's correct has 367 seeds and 21k downloads).
Take it for what you will. Those numbers are definitely the low end of things, but for reference, Spore shows 2500 active seeds and 300k downloads at Mininova alone. Obviously their 'superior' DRM didn't do squat, other than have people like me boycott all of their future products.
When you manage to mount a 120,000mm lens on a 1DS MkIII/5D MkII and take a photo that captures an object as it existed eleven billion years ago, please let me know.
Do they seriously think their customer base will stand for behavior like that?
Do you seriously think that it won't happen regardless? The vast majority won't know until it's too late, and that same vast majority are unlikely to look into things before the second purchase to prevent it happening again.
If they want to stop charging $60 for the game, give out the disks for free, and then componentize the gameplay modes as DLC (or rather, unlockable content on the disc), that's reasonable enough. Then I as someone who mostly sticks to single-player campaigns can spend just $15-20 on that rather than dropping $60 for a lot of content that will mostly go unused.
Of course, if they did it that way, it would be fair to us and solve most of their problems - both piracy and second-hand sales. Which guarantees that it will never happen that way.
This is very true, but a slow UI is what most people will complain about. If someone fires up handbrake, sees two passes of h264 encoding with 30min+ remaining per pass (and that's what I see on my 8-core/10GB system, so most people will be looking at 2-4x that), they'll put that down to it being a slow application. If they go to click a menu item in Handbrake and there's a perceptible delay, they'll blame the OS.
Is either bit of blame entirely fair or correctly placed? Nope. But that won't stop 99% of computer users.
Can't be too surprised about that - most people are much more concerned about the apparent UI responsiveness than whether they'll shave a few seconds off of a video encode. And given that most people see Vista as very slow and unresponsive, Microsoft would do well to change that perception unless they want to be known for the TWO biggest software disasters in the 21st century.
I'll second that. The problem is that we did the first part of that (laying down the infrastructure on the government's, and thusly the taxpayer's dime) without the second (allowing providers to lease the lines as customers sign up). Which is to say that we got close, but forgot that model doesn't work when there's a single provider which then buys out exclusive service providing rights over those government-laid lines.
If Verizon wants to lay down fiber and then have exclusive control over said fiber, fine. But I just find it remarkable how we've managed to fail so completely at not granting monopolies over the infrastructure that we paid for.
I envision something like a modernized equivalent of the old telephone switchboards - tons of patch panels in a (state/city/town-owned) room that go out to local homes, and each ISP in the area gets a switch in the room. When a customer signs up with an ISP, they get a patch cable going from their house to the ISP's switch. If they change ISPs, just move the patch cable to a different switch. The city leases these lines out to the ISPs at, say $5/mo, which then comes out of your monthly bill to the ISP (NOT tacked on top like the bullshit that the cell companies do - that should be illegal) to help pay back the costs that went into laying down the lines in the first place. After the costs have been repaid, then the monthly lease cost goes away (or way down to just match the cost of keeping this giant switching closet running) - the lines will NEVER be sold to an ISP, just leased at-cost.
Of course I'm not a networking expert so tweak that accordingly, but you get the general idea. Seems very fair to the consumers/taxpayers (hate using either term talking about normal people, but they certainly apply here), reasonably fair to the ISPs (they might not be able to extort to their current levels, but they'll absolutely turn a profit), and it stops private companies from having absolute control over the infrastructure running to your house. I'm definitely no fan of government running things, but this seems like an appropriate use of them IF IMPLEMENTED CORRECTLY.
You could... you know... not vote for either of them. My ballot had two third-party candidates listed in the presidential race, plus a write-in spot. I've seen pictures of other ballots that had at least half a dozen third-party candidates listed, plus the same write-in spot.
The problem isn't the lack of options, but all of the media telling us that there ARE only two choices. I'd bet just about anything that if, for example, Bob Barr (libertarian candidate) would have taken a fairly significant chunk of the votes had he been given equal airtime and if there wasn't the general perception that only two parties exist. Probably double-digits in the popular vote in one election cycle, and then becoming a legitimate contender in the second when people are aware that other options exist.
The two-party system is caused by the same sources perpetuating the stagnant economy - the plethora of 24-hour news organizations. Most people believe what they hear on TV*, so as long as they continue to be told that we're entering the second great depression or that there are two and only two candidates exist, people will spend or vote accordingly.
*which is the real problem, of course. But good luck solving laziness.
a) As someone who's counted votes at a small location before, no. Easier, maybe, but you can't be sure that things are counted properly unless you have no more than about 100 total ballots. You'll certainly be able to get close enough that there's a clear winner though. But mistakes get very easy to make very quickly, especially with an activity as repetitive as sorting paper.
b) Small polling locations rule out malice how? Not only would it be trivially easy to swap sides of a few ballots, but it would be just as easy to attribute it to carelessness in the event that it was discovered. Especially when there are a bunch of senior citizens counting alongside you
I'd trust the reliability of the Scantron-style ballots long before something hand-counted. Touchscreens - only if there's a paper trail (preferably one that's easily read by both machines and humans, which is easy enough).
Writing safe-to-use software for electronic machines isn't overly complicated, given sufficient oversight both in terms of accountability and physical security around the machines that will run it.
It's just a custom XSLT wrapped around the iTunes Store's XML output, rendered by Webkit with an iTunes user-agent. I can't remember whether the XSLT is provided by iTunes or specified in the Store's XML (been a while since I've screwed around with that kind of stuff via spoofed user-agents, etc).
No, it's not technically Safari, but it's definitely using the same rendering engine. Just like every other html/xml-based window in OS X.
Well, if you use the logo and don't provide MP3 files to your customer, I'm pretty sure you've just gone and opened yourself up to a false advertising lawsuit.
Doesn't address piracy issues, but then again I don't tend to associate piracy issues with retail stores or well-known online sellers like Amazon.
Ogg is Open and Free As In Speech, but it's compatible with almost nothing. Yes, devices could be MADE compatible with it with no licensing costs, but good luck convincing Apple, who alone controls over two thirds of the mp3 player market with the iPod. I doubt the Zune supports ogg right now either, though I'm sure many of the less-popular players that are trying to nail as many features as possible in the hopes of taking a couple of Apple's customers support the format.
That's not knocking ogg - it's hardly the format's fault. But I don't think there's a portable player in existence that doesn't support mp3, and that's what consumers care about. And from that standpoint, mp3 is as close to 100% compatible as any format ever will be.
Ogg is fantastic for some things (game audio comes to mind, with zero licensing costs), but portable media player compatibility is unfortunately not one of them. Likewise for FLAC.
You're not the first to think of it by any means, though you may be the first to think it's practical. Given the surface area of a netbook (not much), I don't think that even a 100% efficient panel covering the entire lid would provide enough power, let alone the 20-25% that most panels provide these days. Combined with the fact that netbooks are (usually) designed to be cheap... it's a ways off.
How often is your laptop lid exposed to sunlight anyways? I think my MBP has for twenty minutes or so over the last couple years when I left it by a window by accident, but if it's not in the house then it's in a carrying bag. While I don't get out as much as I should, I doubt my usage patterns are too atypical as far as location goes.
We would probably be better off trying to build a tiny steam-powered generator into the heatsink area and try to reclaim some of that wasted energy.
It would be if you were cut off after the cap. According to TFS, you'll be charged $1/GB after hitting the limit. So they're charging you to get infected, not blocking the files that would do it. Double-dose of douchebaggery.
Even if they did, tin snips still aren't very effective at getting open blister packs safely unless you're wearing heavy work gloves, in my experience. You'll still end up with a sharp edge whipping around, even if you're not ripping it open with your hands (which is undoubtably unsafe).
The fact that we have to have this discussion at all just goes to show the level of insanity that went into blister packs.
Frustration-free packaging can't come soon enough. I hope Amazon works out a deal with CD and DVD distributers too. They're not blister pack-dangerous, but still a major pain in the ass.
I've paid for tools specifically for opening blister packs, and the net result is only that I do less damage to myself rather than none at all. Short of wearing work gloves and safety glasses and then taking an angle grinder to the packaging, I can't think of a better way.
It won't stop 19/20 robberies, it will just cause the thieves to hit the house next door 19/20 times. Which is a good or a bad thing, depending on whether you're friends with the neighbor.
Well yeah, but most people looking to save a hundred bucks won't figure that out. 99% of people will never do the math on the total cost of ownership involved in any sort of contractual agreement, and I'm sure plenty are actually incapable of it. I've seen several people sign up for a new AmEx card at Costco without even glancing at the terms and rates on the back just so they could get a free case of bottled water (a $4 value, maybe). So many people are thrilled by the idea of these zero-down mortgages and fail to realize that they'll end up paying 5x the cost of the house in interest and that they won't own ANY of the house for a decade because they've put 100% of their payments towards the interest alone.
And you seriously expect these same people to realize that even a free-with-contract laptop costs 3x as much once you add in the data rates as buying it outright? You've got to be kidding.
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On or alongside? Obviously nobody would go for any free service that inserts ads INTO their business documents, but I think most people aren't especially bothered by the idea of having automated advertisements sitting next to what they're doing. It's never once bothered me in Gmail, and I honestly don't even know if they're present in GDocs. Neither is Sun's product of course, but Google seems to be doing quite well by, at it's core, providing free products to people.
Something tells me that I'd find it significantly more distracting in OpenOffice, but that's probably more due to its interface being more than cluttered enough already. I'm sure part of it is that we're used to seeing ads in a browser window but nowhere else; I think the bigger issue is that giant stupid flashing banners that some people try using to monetize their freeware is hugely distracting to the point where it makes the product harder to use. OO is a respectable piece of competition for MSOffice for 99% of users, but after having been spoiled by the interface in Apple's $80 iWork08 suite, OO is never something I'd pay for given its paid competition. If they could revamp it with a clean interface and wanted to put a narrow strip of text ads at the top for unpaid users, I suppose that's an option.
It's a bad position to be in - right now, OpenOffice is just burning money, it's not easily monetized through advertising (probably ineffective, lower acceptance, too small of an audience), and it probably wouldn't stand a chance of competing as paid software. Even if it was $10 at Best Buy and still free for download (identical versions, you're paying for the CD and distribution basically), people are so tuned into "Microsoft(R) Office[TM]" as their office suite that it would just get ignored in stores.
MySQL at least seems to have a business model behind it, and one that's at least not losing money even if it's not immensely profitable (I have no idea what the numbers look like, but it can't be bringing in a ton or else they wouldn't be having these issues).
Which is what Blizzard has done for at least the best part of a decade (probably longer, but my first Blizzard game was D2 which I bought shortly after its release).
That works great for multiplayer games, but all of the antisocial types like me would have a pretty easy time going through campaign with a pirate copy if it was so desired, unless they required online connectivity even for single-player activity. And that always pisses users off - especially those on crappy connections (or those like me that want to have a little something fun to do installed on my laptop when I'm on the road but may not have consistent/reliable net access).
So while that's a perfectly viable solution for multiplayer-oriented games, it does nothing to address campaign-heavy stuff (e.g., HL series), or even games with a decent balance of both (most, I'd argue).
That doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. Either you don't understand the argument, or you think that Pirate Bay somehow tracks the number of copies pirated.
TPB may not show it, but the number of finished copies is easy enough to get from most sites, not to mention the number of seeders that all trackers show.
Is it accurate? Not particularly, but bad data is (a little) better than no data. The two most active torrents for World of Goo, at posting, have a combined total of about 625 seeders, and another 60 or so leechers. The busiest torrent at MiniNova has 837 seeds, and claims just under 32,000 completed downloads (though the one that seems to be more consistent in terms of filesize with what's correct has 367 seeds and 21k downloads).
Take it for what you will. Those numbers are definitely the low end of things, but for reference, Spore shows 2500 active seeds and 300k downloads at Mininova alone. Obviously their 'superior' DRM didn't do squat, other than have people like me boycott all of their future products.
Where's my "-1, Epic Fail!" moderation option when I need it?
If it were obvious enough to not be granted a patent, then all of the patents getting trolled wouldn't have been granted either.
So nice thought, but very unlikely.
And linking to youtube videos of dolphins.
Well, at least it's not goatse or a rickroll.
Points for creativity, but you'll spend them all entering into the WTF Awards contest.
When you manage to mount a 120,000mm lens on a 1DS MkIII/5D MkII and take a photo that captures an object as it existed eleven billion years ago, please let me know.
Do you seriously think that it won't happen regardless? The vast majority won't know until it's too late, and that same vast majority are unlikely to look into things before the second purchase to prevent it happening again.
If they want to stop charging $60 for the game, give out the disks for free, and then componentize the gameplay modes as DLC (or rather, unlockable content on the disc), that's reasonable enough. Then I as someone who mostly sticks to single-player campaigns can spend just $15-20 on that rather than dropping $60 for a lot of content that will mostly go unused.
Of course, if they did it that way, it would be fair to us and solve most of their problems - both piracy and second-hand sales. Which guarantees that it will never happen that way.
This is very true, but a slow UI is what most people will complain about. If someone fires up handbrake, sees two passes of h264 encoding with 30min+ remaining per pass (and that's what I see on my 8-core/10GB system, so most people will be looking at 2-4x that), they'll put that down to it being a slow application. If they go to click a menu item in Handbrake and there's a perceptible delay, they'll blame the OS.
Is either bit of blame entirely fair or correctly placed? Nope. But that won't stop 99% of computer users.
Can't be too surprised about that - most people are much more concerned about the apparent UI responsiveness than whether they'll shave a few seconds off of a video encode. And given that most people see Vista as very slow and unresponsive, Microsoft would do well to change that perception unless they want to be known for the TWO biggest software disasters in the 21st century.
I'll second that. The problem is that we did the first part of that (laying down the infrastructure on the government's, and thusly the taxpayer's dime) without the second (allowing providers to lease the lines as customers sign up). Which is to say that we got close, but forgot that model doesn't work when there's a single provider which then buys out exclusive service providing rights over those government-laid lines.
If Verizon wants to lay down fiber and then have exclusive control over said fiber, fine. But I just find it remarkable how we've managed to fail so completely at not granting monopolies over the infrastructure that we paid for.
I envision something like a modernized equivalent of the old telephone switchboards - tons of patch panels in a (state/city/town-owned) room that go out to local homes, and each ISP in the area gets a switch in the room. When a customer signs up with an ISP, they get a patch cable going from their house to the ISP's switch. If they change ISPs, just move the patch cable to a different switch. The city leases these lines out to the ISPs at, say $5/mo, which then comes out of your monthly bill to the ISP (NOT tacked on top like the bullshit that the cell companies do - that should be illegal) to help pay back the costs that went into laying down the lines in the first place. After the costs have been repaid, then the monthly lease cost goes away (or way down to just match the cost of keeping this giant switching closet running) - the lines will NEVER be sold to an ISP, just leased at-cost.
Of course I'm not a networking expert so tweak that accordingly, but you get the general idea. Seems very fair to the consumers/taxpayers (hate using either term talking about normal people, but they certainly apply here), reasonably fair to the ISPs (they might not be able to extort to their current levels, but they'll absolutely turn a profit), and it stops private companies from having absolute control over the infrastructure running to your house. I'm definitely no fan of government running things, but this seems like an appropriate use of them IF IMPLEMENTED CORRECTLY.
You could... you know... not vote for either of them. My ballot had two third-party candidates listed in the presidential race, plus a write-in spot. I've seen pictures of other ballots that had at least half a dozen third-party candidates listed, plus the same write-in spot.
The problem isn't the lack of options, but all of the media telling us that there ARE only two choices. I'd bet just about anything that if, for example, Bob Barr (libertarian candidate) would have taken a fairly significant chunk of the votes had he been given equal airtime and if there wasn't the general perception that only two parties exist. Probably double-digits in the popular vote in one election cycle, and then becoming a legitimate contender in the second when people are aware that other options exist.
The two-party system is caused by the same sources perpetuating the stagnant economy - the plethora of 24-hour news organizations. Most people believe what they hear on TV*, so as long as they continue to be told that we're entering the second great depression or that there are two and only two candidates exist, people will spend or vote accordingly.
*which is the real problem, of course. But good luck solving laziness.
a) As someone who's counted votes at a small location before, no. Easier, maybe, but you can't be sure that things are counted properly unless you have no more than about 100 total ballots. You'll certainly be able to get close enough that there's a clear winner though. But mistakes get very easy to make very quickly, especially with an activity as repetitive as sorting paper.
b) Small polling locations rule out malice how? Not only would it be trivially easy to swap sides of a few ballots, but it would be just as easy to attribute it to carelessness in the event that it was discovered. Especially when there are a bunch of senior citizens counting alongside you
I'd trust the reliability of the Scantron-style ballots long before something hand-counted. Touchscreens - only if there's a paper trail (preferably one that's easily read by both machines and humans, which is easy enough).
Writing safe-to-use software for electronic machines isn't overly complicated, given sufficient oversight both in terms of accountability and physical security around the machines that will run it.
It's just a custom XSLT wrapped around the iTunes Store's XML output, rendered by Webkit with an iTunes user-agent. I can't remember whether the XSLT is provided by iTunes or specified in the Store's XML (been a while since I've screwed around with that kind of stuff via spoofed user-agents, etc).
No, it's not technically Safari, but it's definitely using the same rendering engine. Just like every other html/xml-based window in OS X.
Well, if you use the logo and don't provide MP3 files to your customer, I'm pretty sure you've just gone and opened yourself up to a false advertising lawsuit.
Doesn't address piracy issues, but then again I don't tend to associate piracy issues with retail stores or well-known online sellers like Amazon.
Ogg is Open and Free As In Speech, but it's compatible with almost nothing. Yes, devices could be MADE compatible with it with no licensing costs, but good luck convincing Apple, who alone controls over two thirds of the mp3 player market with the iPod. I doubt the Zune supports ogg right now either, though I'm sure many of the less-popular players that are trying to nail as many features as possible in the hopes of taking a couple of Apple's customers support the format.
That's not knocking ogg - it's hardly the format's fault. But I don't think there's a portable player in existence that doesn't support mp3, and that's what consumers care about. And from that standpoint, mp3 is as close to 100% compatible as any format ever will be.
Ogg is fantastic for some things (game audio comes to mind, with zero licensing costs), but portable media player compatibility is unfortunately not one of them. Likewise for FLAC.
You're not the first to think of it by any means, though you may be the first to think it's practical. Given the surface area of a netbook (not much), I don't think that even a 100% efficient panel covering the entire lid would provide enough power, let alone the 20-25% that most panels provide these days. Combined with the fact that netbooks are (usually) designed to be cheap... it's a ways off.
How often is your laptop lid exposed to sunlight anyways? I think my MBP has for twenty minutes or so over the last couple years when I left it by a window by accident, but if it's not in the house then it's in a carrying bag. While I don't get out as much as I should, I doubt my usage patterns are too atypical as far as location goes.
We would probably be better off trying to build a tiny steam-powered generator into the heatsink area and try to reclaim some of that wasted energy.
It would be if you were cut off after the cap. According to TFS, you'll be charged $1/GB after hitting the limit. So they're charging you to get infected, not blocking the files that would do it. Double-dose of douchebaggery.
If he has a knife sharp enough to accidentally cut through 2 gauge wire, we should probably let him keep his geek card.
Even if they did, tin snips still aren't very effective at getting open blister packs safely unless you're wearing heavy work gloves, in my experience. You'll still end up with a sharp edge whipping around, even if you're not ripping it open with your hands (which is undoubtably unsafe).
The fact that we have to have this discussion at all just goes to show the level of insanity that went into blister packs.
Frustration-free packaging can't come soon enough. I hope Amazon works out a deal with CD and DVD distributers too. They're not blister pack-dangerous, but still a major pain in the ass.
I've paid for tools specifically for opening blister packs, and the net result is only that I do less damage to myself rather than none at all. Short of wearing work gloves and safety glasses and then taking an angle grinder to the packaging, I can't think of a better way.
It won't stop 19/20 robberies, it will just cause the thieves to hit the house next door 19/20 times. Which is a good or a bad thing, depending on whether you're friends with the neighbor.
Can't be too tricky, given that Thinkgeek sells a contraption that sends you messages over Twitter if your plant is over/under-watered.
Well yeah, but most people looking to save a hundred bucks won't figure that out. 99% of people will never do the math on the total cost of ownership involved in any sort of contractual agreement, and I'm sure plenty are actually incapable of it. I've seen several people sign up for a new AmEx card at Costco without even glancing at the terms and rates on the back just so they could get a free case of bottled water (a $4 value, maybe). So many people are thrilled by the idea of these zero-down mortgages and fail to realize that they'll end up paying 5x the cost of the house in interest and that they won't own ANY of the house for a decade because they've put 100% of their payments towards the interest alone.
And you seriously expect these same people to realize that even a free-with-contract laptop costs 3x as much once you add in the data rates as buying it outright? You've got to be kidding.
What if Asus was able to sell factory-direct and avoid three or four points of profit markups?