"It's pretty funny how browzar is getting nailed for having ads mixed in with search results. "
Well.. if it's redirecting results to adverts, it's basically advertising to other sites what you're searching for. That, in and of itself, is a privacy concern.
I definitely think IE7 will significantly hurt Firefox usage. Look at it this way:
IE7 will come down automatic update. Eventually it'll come shipped with computers.
IE7 is ripping off several FireFox features (tabs, etc.), thus making FF feel more like a pain in the butt to download for the average user since the differences won't be as large.
"And of course the established music industry only signs really, really good bands to contracts."
Sarcasm noted. However, I think you should watch the American Idol auditions to get an idea of what he's referring to. If MySpace's music gig turns into a big joke because it's bombarded by crap (as it already has a reputation for in other areas...), what does the RIAA really have to worry about?
"Guess you need to learn how to keep your XP install clean. Like not installing Kaaza and stuff."
Yeesh. Going for the quick way out, eh? No Kazza or anything like it, sorry. My laptops are used mainly for web-browsing and some Photoshop work. My current laptop, for example, is up for weeks at a time. (I don't take it anywhere, so it's always on AC, never goes into standby.) It behaves just fine. Standby is unreliable and it has been on all of the latops I've encountered. If Windows is that delicate, I'm not accepting the blame. I guess you have a better laptop than I do. Whatever.
"FUD. I use sleep and hibernate on my XP laptop all the time without any issues. I reboot maybe once a month."
Not FUD. Sorry. I'm one of those peeps who has used Win2k and XP with virtually no probs. I have excellent up-times, no infections, yadda yadda yadda. However, I've yet to have an XP or 2K laptop that had a working sleep or hibernate function. Either would work after a fresh installation, but after a few months, the machine would either refuse to come out or just plain act funny when it finally did revive itself. This is across 4 laptops I've personally owned. I personally blame Registry Rot, but have never really been able to prove it. I'm glad you're not having problems, but I'm also quite envious.
"Not to mention, do this and you lose ALL your browsing history. What if you want to keep some of it?"
Use more than one browser. I have FireFox and Opera installed on my computer. Opera's my main browser, but I use FireFox also because I have two GMail accounts. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could use FF for browsing the notti notti stuff and clear the history etc, then leave Opera for my regular browsing.
"To maximize the chances that the probe's mission will be successful, the project is being run by the British Beagle 2 Mars probe team, and the operating system on the probe will be Microsoft Windows."
2000 years from now, the robot overlords will find this probe safely orbiting the Moon only to find this message:
"Microsoft(R) Windows Guidance System has an update available, would you like to download it now? [OK] [Cancel]"
What if the PS3 does end up with amazing games which push the HD limits...
What doors would 'pushing HD to the limits' open? I'd give this point more lattitude if people were falling all over themselves for HD DVD like they were for DVD when it was released.
What if the controller turns out to have game support and come off as polished...
Later you ask about the Wii controller getting old. If Sony's 'turn detection' turned out to be a big hit, why wouldn't that be an automatic boost for Nintendo? You can aim with the Nintendo controller, something the Sony controller would be very hungry for.
What if having two HD ready consoles pushes HD into the mainstream, dropping prices, and starts to matter?
What if nobody finds HD to be worth the extra cost when it doesn't make a lick of difference to the fun of the game? Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd rather they sat out one more generation and stuck with standard definition. There's so much more they can do still in the smaller space. Just watch any FX-heavy movie on DVD then compare it to what modern consoles can do.
What if they find ways to use the extended space on the format, plus the Cell processor, in ways to create games that no one else can touch?
You're thinking of Resident Evil 4, right? Okay. Good example. Capcom really pushed the boundaries of the GameCube. They went all out with the best talent they could find and it turned out to be a superstar. How many of those have we seen? Not a whole lot. What if one game comes out like this on the PS3, but the 360 gets two? You won't find many companies taking that big of risk with their games. Instead, you'll find companies making games that work with both the 360 and the PS3. The magical Cellness of the processor won't matter much there. But let's suppose a game came out that did... so what? What's the Cell going to do that's going to make such a giant leap in gaming? Seriously, I'm curious to hear a technical explanation of how this could come about. We were promised this with the Emotion Engine. What'd it get us?
"What if the wii controller turns out to not be fun after a short period, or gets old quick?"
What if too many shoot-em-ups come out on the PS3 with the awkward analog controls, thus making people wish they were playing with the Wii controller instead? Okay, that's not so much of a rebuttal. It is, however, a situation I have difficulty seeing barring some technical hinderance of the Wii controller we do not know about. The fact is, we like our pointing devices. Ask any PC gamer about that. If game companies get stupid with it, then yes, it could happen. Fortunately, they're motivated NOT to be stupid by it. Look at the DS. Lots of skepticism about the touch screen controls on it, now look where it is.
What if the general, non slashdot reading, mom and pop public thinks the wii is a joke, and doesn't go after it?
Wouldn't this problem be even worse for Sony or Microsoft? When I read this question, I imagined showing my grandmother Wario Ware on the GameCube, then on the Wii. I think she'd actually try the Wii version. Anecdotal, I know, but since these questions are academic anyway... hehe.
What if the 360 allowed open source to run on it? (this ones scary, XNA seems to be close)
Hahaha. Sorry, I don't see this happening, especially while 360s are being sold at a loss. However, if you were to ask "What if XBLA took off...?", I'd have to stop and think about it. One of the things Nintendo is pushing for is development of smaller $5'ish games that you can download to the console. I don't know much about XBLA, but I've heard rumblings that would indicate it's going that way as well. Assuming I'm not full of bullshit info here, I'd see Microsoft's suc
"Morons. Guess they didn't learn from the Star Wars debacle. Never, ever, ever fool around with the originals."
Erm, that's a toughie. When Lucas 'fooled around' with Star Wars, he didn't just update the effects, he changed the story. (Han Shoots First!) It's not clear if these guys are going to do that or just give it a cosmetic touch-up. If it's the latter, what's the BFD? They're making it a little nicer for broadcast on HDTV, OH NOES!
(For the record, though, I can understand testiness over messing with the music... I'm not touchin that one.)
"When will you realize that Penny Arcade just isn't funny?"
If you click the link, you'll see it's not a cartoon but a comment made by one of the peeps at Penny Arcade. So, you're right, Penny Arcade isn't funny when it's not presenting a joke.
"Star Wars mostly ignores science. Star Trek actively butchers it at every opportunity."
I'm having trouble spotting the difference, here. The Millineum Falcon can travel from planet to planet without FTL drive, but Star Trek is the real bastard for having scientific proof that phasers could be fired at warp speed.
'Wrong. You can deauthorize all computers at once easily through iTunes."
Question: Can this be done from another computer, or does it have to happen from the one that it was auth'd on? My gf's used up 3 of her authorizations due to hardware failure, etc.
Of course, that being said, people like me are a *tiny* minority. The masses are as dumb as ever and will continue to buy whatever cable companies throw at them. They just don't have the market that they could have if they actually tried to have content that appealed to people with an IQ of over 80.
They should have mandatory Pon-Farr, too!
Re:Old media tries to understand, fails.
on
Bob Saget 2.0
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"YouTube is nothing like America's Home Videos. What a stupid analogy."
Nothing's a strong word. People have a clip they think is funny. They submit it. An audience watches it. The same part of us that finds AFV interesting is the same part that wants us to sift through the YouTube vids and find something funny.
You can find plenty of differences between AFV and YouTube, but to say they have nothing in common is absurd.
When something bad happens people reflect on it and try to figure out if there was something they could have done to stop it. The goal of this line of thought is to prevent a tragedy from happening a second time. I'll give you an example: After Columbine happened, a kid in grade school picked up on of his chicken fingers at lunch, pointed it at his teacher, and said "Bang! Bang!" The kid was immediately suspended, investigated, yadda yadda yadda. This seems awfully absurd, right? Well, it was. I'm not arguing that it wasn't. The problem is the imagined worst case scenario. Say the kid did this, and later he brought a gun to school. The teacher would have looked back and said "Oh my... I could have stopped this!" The teacher may have thought he/she saw a warning sign and did what that person thought was right. He/she didn't want to take a chance on something worse happening.
Now we live in the post 9-11 world. Worse, there was the recent arrest of a number of individuals who were alledgedly planning to use items (such as iPods) to blow up planes. If by some oddball quirk of fate, this iPod actually was an attempt at terrorism, and it had succeded, there would have been awful questions like "Why did we allow him to take an iPod into the lav?"
These events are sad, but I'm not sure why they're not better understood. The terrorist attacks worked. We're terrorized. We don't want to die. We don't want others to die. Now we're being overly vigilant. It sucks. What can we do?
Slashdot Mirror
"It's pretty funny how browzar is getting nailed for having ads mixed in with search results. "
Well.. if it's redirecting results to adverts, it's basically advertising to other sites what you're searching for. That, in and of itself, is a privacy concern.
"I think you meant to say "IE7 is ripping off several FireFox features (tabs, etc.) that FireFox ripped off from Opera"
/sarcasm
*sigh*
Yeah, that's the debate I want people to think of when I describe myself as an Opera fanboy.
"And of course the established music industry only signs really, really good bands to contracts."
Sarcasm noted. However, I think you should watch the American Idol auditions to get an idea of what he's referring to. If MySpace's music gig turns into a big joke because it's bombarded by crap (as it already has a reputation for in other areas...), what does the RIAA really have to worry about?
"Guess you need to learn how to keep your XP install clean. Like not installing Kaaza and stuff."
Yeesh. Going for the quick way out, eh? No Kazza or anything like it, sorry. My laptops are used mainly for web-browsing and some Photoshop work. My current laptop, for example, is up for weeks at a time. (I don't take it anywhere, so it's always on AC, never goes into standby.) It behaves just fine. Standby is unreliable and it has been on all of the latops I've encountered. If Windows is that delicate, I'm not accepting the blame. I guess you have a better laptop than I do. Whatever.
"...in other news today, doctors tried to demote any penis that is not at least 7 inches long to 'dwarf penis' status."
The first guy to rally against that would have to be mighty brave...
I think it sounds more like a stupid forum-fueled debate than an argument tying up all the software architects.
"FUD. I use sleep and hibernate on my XP laptop all the time without any issues. I reboot maybe once a month."
Not FUD. Sorry. I'm one of those peeps who has used Win2k and XP with virtually no probs. I have excellent up-times, no infections, yadda yadda yadda. However, I've yet to have an XP or 2K laptop that had a working sleep or hibernate function. Either would work after a fresh installation, but after a few months, the machine would either refuse to come out or just plain act funny when it finally did revive itself. This is across 4 laptops I've personally owned. I personally blame Registry Rot, but have never really been able to prove it. I'm glad you're not having problems, but I'm also quite envious.
"Not to mention, do this and you lose ALL your browsing history. What if you want to keep some of it?"
Use more than one browser. I have FireFox and Opera installed on my computer. Opera's my main browser, but I use FireFox also because I have two GMail accounts. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could use FF for browsing the notti notti stuff and clear the history etc, then leave Opera for my regular browsing.
"To maximize the chances that the probe's mission will be successful, the project is being run by the British Beagle 2 Mars probe team, and the operating system on the probe will be Microsoft Windows."
2000 years from now, the robot overlords will find this probe safely orbiting the Moon only to find this message:
"Microsoft(R) Windows Guidance System has an update available, would you like to download it now? [OK] [Cancel]"
"Oh i get it. Stegosaurus..."
Took me a minute to find this on IMDB. It's spelled "Stego-sore-ass".
What doors would 'pushing HD to the limits' open? I'd give this point more lattitude if people were falling all over themselves for HD DVD like they were for DVD when it was released.
Later you ask about the Wii controller getting old. If Sony's 'turn detection' turned out to be a big hit, why wouldn't that be an automatic boost for Nintendo? You can aim with the Nintendo controller, something the Sony controller would be very hungry for.
What if nobody finds HD to be worth the extra cost when it doesn't make a lick of difference to the fun of the game? Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd rather they sat out one more generation and stuck with standard definition. There's so much more they can do still in the smaller space. Just watch any FX-heavy movie on DVD then compare it to what modern consoles can do.
You're thinking of Resident Evil 4, right? Okay. Good example. Capcom really pushed the boundaries of the GameCube. They went all out with the best talent they could find and it turned out to be a superstar. How many of those have we seen? Not a whole lot. What if one game comes out like this on the PS3, but the 360 gets two? You won't find many companies taking that big of risk with their games. Instead, you'll find companies making games that work with both the 360 and the PS3. The magical Cellness of the processor won't matter much there. But let's suppose a game came out that did... so what? What's the Cell going to do that's going to make such a giant leap in gaming? Seriously, I'm curious to hear a technical explanation of how this could come about. We were promised this with the Emotion Engine. What'd it get us?
"What if the wii controller turns out to not be fun after a short period, or gets old quick?"
What if too many shoot-em-ups come out on the PS3 with the awkward analog controls, thus making people wish they were playing with the Wii controller instead? Okay, that's not so much of a rebuttal. It is, however, a situation I have difficulty seeing barring some technical hinderance of the Wii controller we do not know about. The fact is, we like our pointing devices. Ask any PC gamer about that. If game companies get stupid with it, then yes, it could happen. Fortunately, they're motivated NOT to be stupid by it. Look at the DS. Lots of skepticism about the touch screen controls on it, now look where it is.
Wouldn't this problem be even worse for Sony or Microsoft? When I read this question, I imagined showing my grandmother Wario Ware on the GameCube, then on the Wii. I think she'd actually try the Wii version. Anecdotal, I know, but since these questions are academic anyway... hehe.
Hahaha. Sorry, I don't see this happening, especially while 360s are being sold at a loss. However, if you were to ask "What if XBLA took off...?", I'd have to stop and think about it. One of the things Nintendo is pushing for is development of smaller $5'ish games that you can download to the console. I don't know much about XBLA, but I've heard rumblings that would indicate it's going that way as well. Assuming I'm not full of bullshit info here, I'd see Microsoft's suc
"Morons. Guess they didn't learn from the Star Wars debacle. Never, ever, ever fool around with the originals."
Erm, that's a toughie. When Lucas 'fooled around' with Star Wars, he didn't just update the effects, he changed the story. (Han Shoots First!) It's not clear if these guys are going to do that or just give it a cosmetic touch-up. If it's the latter, what's the BFD? They're making it a little nicer for broadcast on HDTV, OH NOES!
(For the record, though, I can understand testiness over messing with the music... I'm not touchin that one.)
"When will you realize that Penny Arcade just isn't funny?"
If you click the link, you'll see it's not a cartoon but a comment made by one of the peeps at Penny Arcade. So, you're right, Penny Arcade isn't funny when it's not presenting a joke.
Cheers. :)
I just hope that's the right problem I'm trying to solve. Heheh.
I meant NOT having scientific proof that phasers could be fired... blah I shoulda hit preview. Sorry.
"Star Wars mostly ignores science. Star Trek actively butchers it at every opportunity."
I'm having trouble spotting the difference, here. The Millineum Falcon can travel from planet to planet without FTL drive, but Star Trek is the real bastard for having scientific proof that phasers could be fired at warp speed.
"That's that shitty TV show my dad used to watch."
I dare you to name a show you like to watch.
'Wrong. You can deauthorize all computers at once easily through iTunes."
Question: Can this be done from another computer, or does it have to happen from the one that it was auth'd on? My gf's used up 3 of her authorizations due to hardware failure, etc.
"If these guys say they aren't intelligent enough to edit an entry in wikipedia, why should we trust them to run a ferry?"
You'd trust a barber who didn't know how to cut & paste to cut you're hair, right?
They should have mandatory Pon-Farr, too!
"YouTube is nothing like America's Home Videos. What a stupid analogy."
Nothing's a strong word. People have a clip they think is funny. They submit it. An audience watches it. The same part of us that finds AFV interesting is the same part that wants us to sift through the YouTube vids and find something funny.
You can find plenty of differences between AFV and YouTube, but to say they have nothing in common is absurd.
When something bad happens people reflect on it and try to figure out if there was something they could have done to stop it. The goal of this line of thought is to prevent a tragedy from happening a second time. I'll give you an example: After Columbine happened, a kid in grade school picked up on of his chicken fingers at lunch, pointed it at his teacher, and said "Bang! Bang!" The kid was immediately suspended, investigated, yadda yadda yadda. This seems awfully absurd, right? Well, it was. I'm not arguing that it wasn't. The problem is the imagined worst case scenario. Say the kid did this, and later he brought a gun to school. The teacher would have looked back and said "Oh my... I could have stopped this!" The teacher may have thought he/she saw a warning sign and did what that person thought was right. He/she didn't want to take a chance on something worse happening.
Now we live in the post 9-11 world. Worse, there was the recent arrest of a number of individuals who were alledgedly planning to use items (such as iPods) to blow up planes. If by some oddball quirk of fate, this iPod actually was an attempt at terrorism, and it had succeded, there would have been awful questions like "Why did we allow him to take an iPod into the lav?"
These events are sad, but I'm not sure why they're not better understood. The terrorist attacks worked. We're terrorized. We don't want to die. We don't want others to die. Now we're being overly vigilant. It sucks. What can we do?
"Oh yes dear me, because information never changes and people should not EVAR be required to use their brains after their youthful indoctrination."
Speaking of using brains after youthful indoctrination, you should read past that line.
"Honestly, why must the goal of Linux be to beat Microsoft?"
To convince the proprietary vendors that it's in their best interests to release the source of their drivers.