Maybe, MAYBE if I ran, hmm... maybe a... hmmm... catering company, then OSS would work. All you need is some basic financial tracking (ooops... still no payroll), and something to print pretty estimates and invoices.
Or you could just run CaterEase (a Windows app) and forget about having to hack together some OSS solution. =)
i personally feel a greater level of escape when i play with other people (MMO's or even just typical multiplayer). i think it makes it a more convincing experience
I can only really speak about WoW, but Blizzard takes that to another level. Although you can play most of the game by yourself, it actually is better, and more emersive when you play with other people. The other classes are so complimentary. I'm thinking inparticular about the various buffs. Any class is more powerful with a fortitude buff. Any priest is better off with a mage around to give them some free water and an Intellect buff. Who is going to turn down a Mark of the Wild from a druid for some quick armor and stat point bonuses?
That's an interesting history that you laid out but I'm not quite sure what your point is. All of those business that you refer to in your statement... "Mainstream businesses went with IBM-compatible PCs..." had options. Before the desktop PC boom the world was running on mainframes. Those mainframes ran a variety of OSs from Unix, to VAX to what have you, but they sure as hell weren't running DOS.
The point that I'm trying to make in addition to countering your assertion that Windows succeeded because it "was an improvement over having no computer at all.", is the point that there were a lot of reasons why Windows succeeded. Yet what I quite frequently read around here is all of this drivel about the evil, monopolistic Microsoft forcing their OS on the world. Before Microsoft was the company that we all love to hate, they were just another fish in the sea. And when they were just another fish, a lot of people decided that they liked that fish. They made an OS that ran on the most mass produced hardware out there at a time when nobody else could do it.
Everything that I know about DRM I have learned from reading Slashdot and the articles that are linked to this site. Having said that, you should probably take the following with a grain of salt. Your question is, "Will Apple follow Microsoft's lead to restrictive DRM?" The emphasis on lead is mine, and from what I have read, it seems to me like the media companies are the ones pushing DRM. Let me explain...
I'll use the word Hollywood as a catch all phrase for all of the major companies involved in producing content, either audio or video. The folks in Hollywood are all bent out of shape over their profit margins and they are seeing how easy it is for people to "share" content across the Internet in orders of magnitude significantly greater than before broadband connections became commonplace. It's one thing if you make some copies of a VHS movie and give them to your friends. It's another thing entirely for you to make your copy of a movie available to anyone with an Internet connection who can download it on a 24/7/365 basis. Be real with me, and yourself for a second... if you really have a problem with DRM it's because you want the content for free. You want to "borrow" content from your friends. You want to listen to music you'd never buy in the first place, and sure you can talk about how you pirating the music gets the band exposure, but come on... you're only kidding yourself on that one. Most of the music and movies out there cost money to be made and the people who make the content want some money for their labors. And keep in mind, its not just the "artists" that need to be paid. There are studio people, recording engineers, editors, mixers, camera operators, grips, etc, etc, etc.
In order to keep the business model alive and keep people gainfully employed Hollywood turned to DRM. From what I've read, and from my understanding of things, companies like Microsoft and Sony want their products to be the center of the "home entertainment" world. They want people to use their PCs, or their PlayStations as the singular media device that does everything media related. Hollywood doesn't want people churning out content for free so they want to protect it. Therefore an alliance has been formed. On one side you have Hollywood saying, "Okay (Microsoft/Sony/et al), we will help you realize your vision of the future and let your players play our content, BUT you need to make a good faith effort to make sure that people aren't going to rob us blind." (and whether or not you agree with the actual numbers, you'd be a fool to argue that the technology isn't there to rob Hollywood blind) On the other side of the alliance are the computer manufacturers who want people to see computers as more than computers. So they said to Hollywood, "Okay, we will protect your content. Please, let the people who buy our products see/hear the content."
Now going back to the original question of "Will Apple follow Microsoft's lead..." I don't think that's the right question. I think you need to be asking whether or not Apple sees their computers as being entertainment devices. Given the strength of the iPod market, the fact that most video editing outside of the Avid takes place on Macs, and a whole slew of other factors, I think that yes, Apple does see their computers as being strongly linked with entertainment. Because of that, I strongly believe that Apple will start integrating DRM features because they will have to if they want to offer the content to their users. The Apple users might not want DRM, but they will want their content. Just look at the way Apple markets their products. They market them to the self important, image obsessed, "Look how cool my stuff is and yours isn't" market. That market is driven and defined by Hollywood in the first place. Apple the company will play ball with those people.
The situation is more or less the same with Windows: it succeeded because it represented an improvement over having no computer at all {some would say even that's debatable}.
Maybe I'm just bitter today, but I have to point out that you're a FREAKING TROLLING MORON. Buddy, there were a bunch of alternative operating systems before Windows was ever on the market. If you didn't like DOS, you could stick with your C64 or your Amiga or your Mac. If you didn't like Windows 3.1 you could have run OS/2 or *nix with X-windows. There have always been alternatives. I know it's popular to shit on Microsoft and whine about "not having a choice" but come on, step into reality. There were alternatives and those alternatives fell by the wayside... and not because "stupid Joe Average users" got conned into using Windows, but because DEVELOPERS and HARDWARE COMPANIES got on the Microsoft bandwagon.
To be technical, Remote Desktop is another form of Citrix. Microsoft licensed/stole the technology from Citrix. Gotta give credit where credit is due. =)
Turns out that my the boot sector of my disk is what failed. So, the IT guys put in a new disk and a fresh load of Windows. But, they kept the old disk in the machine as a secondary drive so I could pull my data off it. (Here's where my Window's ignorance shines through) I was baffled that I couldn't just copy stuff from the old "Program Files" folder into the new one and have it work. Instead I had to sit through countless installations of all my applications again.
I think that everyone who has used Windows has gone through a similar situation. You ran into the largest problem with the Windows architecture and the registry. Even though all of your application files were there, the OS didn't know what to do with them because the registry in the freshly loaded version of Windows didn't have all of the appropriate entries/configuration information that would tell it how to deal with the programs. Drive imaging programs like Ghost are so popular exactly because of how big of a PITA it is to reload all of the programs you use.
If windows was more "network-centric", then it wouldn't matter where data and applications lived. As long as the code is complied for your hardware and libraries (or not even libraries if it's static), that all that should matter.
I understand what you are saying. I'm sure that when you take a look back at the history of network computing, you can see the shifts from handling everything on the server, to handling it on the workstation, back to handling a lot of it on the server. There are some technologies that are available in Microsoft land like MSIs that are designed to ease the pain of application installation. However I don't really see those technologies ever competing with a true network file system like what you're used to in the Unix world.
In the Microsoft world they accomplish that using terminal services, or Citrix if you're talking about supporting a lot of remote users. You don't even need to load the application onto your workstation. You just need the terminal services client.
The reason why I found it funny is because I thought of a client of mine that is running a waste management application. The morons who wrote the app (in Fujitsu COBOL.Net of all things) are opening 25+ simultaneous connections to 200+ MB data files that get copied down to the workstation every time a report needs to be run. That app has had many problems it wasn't even funny. We dropped in a Citrix box and all of a sudden the file errors that they were having went away. Of course the vendor refuses to acknowledge that their architecture doesn't scale properly beyond five users, but whatever... the client doesn't want to pay us to rewrite the app in something that will actually work in a networked environment.
If it's such a pain in the ass to recreate, how about you use some good old early 1990s tech and Ghost your drive? As for executing compiled apps on another machine.... hahahahaaaaa!!! Ya, that's a great idea.... once there is enough bandwidth.
And to take it one step further, a lot of firms, especially financial firms in the wake of SOX are archiving their emails. So although your average user might not have a 2GB mailbox on the Exchange server, odds are there there is a huge multi-multi-gigabyte SQL database on the back-end with a record of every email transaction that has taken place.
Companies don't want to make their data and services available to each other.
That's not exactly true. In a lot of markets there is value to giving outside vendors access to your internal data. For example, one of my clients sells their product through Home Depot and Expo Design Centers. HD and Expo are constantly calling my client for status updates. By putting that information on the web my client saves a lot of time because their people aren't tied up answering calls for information that HD reps can now get online.
No it won't. The viruses will simply take over the TCP/IP stack and say "Yep, we're fully patched and running AV, no viruses here, no sir!" to the DHCP server.
Perhaps, but it adds another layer of complexity to the equation. The checksums and return values for "fully patched" will be constantly changing so the virii will need to constantly adapt.
Another example: All dry cleaners can only offer a service that is essentially
identical to any other. Why should the consumer choose to patronize one particular
dry cleaner as opposed to another? Again, when everything else is the same,
only advertising can create the necessary (and often irrational) difference.
This one is way too easy. There are enough vagarities in the dry cleaning business to differentiate them. Often times there are numerous dry cleaners within a very short distance of someone's house. If one dry cleaner doesn't do a good job, you can go to another one. The dry cleaners compete on quality of service and also on price.
I've heard it said many times that you only really "hear" a commercial if you're actually in the market for the product being advertised. In any other case, the advertisement is just background noise in an already noisy life.
Advertisers use invasive propaganda tactics to try to make you unhappy with your life for no good reason at all, and present themselves as the only ones who can make it better, but they never make it better even if you buy their product.
Advertising is an assault. And it uses scientific methodology to become ever more effective at making you and everyone else do stupid wasteful things for irrational reasons.
I agree with what you have to say here. I cancelled my subscription to Maxim magazine a few years ago because although I subscribed to have hot chicks delivered to my door, I realized that the whole thing from cover to cover was just selling products. They were selling a lifestyle. They were selling the perception that in order to have X you should buy Y.
I noticed it, but I also spent a lot of time studying NLP and the art of persuasion. I became tuned into the various devices used by advertisers. Unfortunately not everyone has the same sort of experience. If you tell the average Joe that the advertisement for medication is placed directly after the page with an image of a hot girl dressed like a slutty nurse because it will make them more inclined to think about doctors and medicine in a favorable light, that average Joe will laugh and call you a conspiracy nut.
Unless things drastically change, the ISPs aren't going to give two shits about what you do on their network. They give you a router and make sure that you get connectivity from the router to the CO. After that, their job is pretty much done. It would be great if ISPs started holding computer users accountable for not spreading malicious code or attaching infected machines to the network, but the fact of that matter is that day might very well never come. ISPs don't want to get into the business of playing help desk for Windows users who can't connect to the network because their box has been pwnz0r3d by some six month old worm that they didn't patch against.
They also claim that CTCP has been designed for "TCP fairness" to allow CTCP and regular TCP traffic to play nicely when sharing the same link - Microsoft's data shows that CTCP doesn't induce enough loss to wreak havoc with regular TCP allowing then to both maximize their throughput.
Incase you missed Networking 101, it is beneficial from a networking point of view to have only one protocol running on a network. But hell, if you want to... you can run a bunch of protocols, and a bunch of different frame types. Go ahead and throw some SNAP Ethernet and 802.2 on there with your 802.3, then toss some AppleTalk and IPX/SPX in there just for good measure. Let the switches sort all that shit out... that's what they're there for, right? =)
What isn't addresses is how to then get updates - kind of hard without an address.
The buzzword "quarantine network" has been tossed around for at least the last six months. The theory behind the technology is that a client that fails to meet the policy requirements will be directed to a completely seperate subnet (think DMZ) where it will have access to a server that will push down the necessary patches and AV upgrades to bring the client into compliance. In otherwords, if your network is on 10.1.1.x then the quarantine network might be 10.2.1.x and any client that fails to meet the policy will get a DHCP lease for the 10.2.1.x netowrk. Of course dedicated attackers will be able to eventually circumvent the technology, but fundementally it is pretty sound. It will definitely address the problem of Joe Blow bringing in his laptop from home full of virii. It should also help mitigate the issue of "rogue" laptops that aren't members of the domain. The first time a Linux box receives a query that it doesn't know how to respond to, it will be quarantined. Of course there are probably ways around that (maybe you could configure Samba to respond to the requests?), but it will take a dedicated attacker with thorough knowledge of the network and local access to it.
A better way to handle the whole problem is to put machines into a quarantined VLAN and then dynamically change their port's VLAN after authorization has been established via any number of criteria.
You might want to take a look at what Cisco is up to. They are the company that is really driving the whole quarantine network ideal and making it a reality.
I've never been to Tokyo but I did have a blast in London and if the cost of living wasn't so freaking high I'd love to live there one day. But actually it's looking like my commute will be from Long Beach, CA to Los Angeles, CA via one train and one bus each way.
What are the implications of using something like this on a regular basis? It's pretty well documented that people experience eye strain from staying focused at a fixed focal depth for too long (ie. when looking at a monitor). I've had my own vision deteriorate pretty significantly since I have started using computers despite genetics to the opposite (ie. my mom and dad both have great vision and they are in their late 50s). I shudder to think about the implications of remaining focused at a depth of less than inch from the eye for extended periods of time.
I can see how this would be a great way to bridge the gap between PC and Console games. The game that I'd really like to see the light of day is Shadowrun Online. A game like that has enough variation in character archtypes and abilities that you could easily break it out across multiple platforms. Although characters like mages and shamans might require a pretty keyboard intensive interface, some of the more simple characters likes street samurai's and physical adepts could be controlled with a gamepad interface and probably not need more than 4-6 buttons. A gamepad with a joystick would be a great boon to anyone who wanted to play a rigger, or anyone else who is involved with vehicles.
Another game that I am looking forward to that is already in development is APB by Webzen games. They are using the Unreal 3 engine and claim to be developing for the Xbox and PC. It is advertised as being a GTA like game, and as much as people might poo-poo GTA, everyone I know who has been into games since the days of Gunship and F15 Strike Eagle (RIP Microprose) has been wanting a massive online version of a game like GTA. It is the kind of game that we grew up dreaming about, and it is finally coming close to reality a good 20+ years later.
Some help with versioning?
on
VLC 0.8.6 Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
VLC media player 0.8.5, we bring you version 0.8.6 with many bugfixes, as well as a couple of new features we think you will truly enjoy.
For bug fixes I could see a 0.0.1 increase but don't new additions and features generally come with a 0.1.0 increment at least? Maybe the devs are too scared of developing a true 1.0 version? =)
I've been with Verizon for six years at this point and their service is some of the best in Los Angeles. I have noticed that their quality of service has gotten WORSE in the last couple of years tho. I swear that before they did those stupid, "Can you hear me now..?" commercials, their network was excellent. Starting a few months after those commercials, I found myself having to ask my friends, "Can you hear me now?" because the signal kept cutting in and out. It's almost like they came out with those commercials to condition their customers to expect that crap.
Slashdot Mirror
Or you could just run CaterEase (a Windows app) and forget about having to hack together some OSS solution. =)
Thanks for the lesson. One of the main reasons I visit /. is to learn new things.
I can only really speak about WoW, but Blizzard takes that to another level. Although you can play most of the game by yourself, it actually is better, and more emersive when you play with other people. The other classes are so complimentary. I'm thinking inparticular about the various buffs. Any class is more powerful with a fortitude buff. Any priest is better off with a mage around to give them some free water and an Intellect buff. Who is going to turn down a Mark of the Wild from a druid for some quick armor and stat point bonuses?
They have this thing called a "load balancer" that they want to sell you.
The point that I'm trying to make in addition to countering your assertion that Windows succeeded because it "was an improvement over having no computer at all.", is the point that there were a lot of reasons why Windows succeeded. Yet what I quite frequently read around here is all of this drivel about the evil, monopolistic Microsoft forcing their OS on the world. Before Microsoft was the company that we all love to hate, they were just another fish in the sea. And when they were just another fish, a lot of people decided that they liked that fish. They made an OS that ran on the most mass produced hardware out there at a time when nobody else could do it.
I'll use the word Hollywood as a catch all phrase for all of the major companies involved in producing content, either audio or video. The folks in Hollywood are all bent out of shape over their profit margins and they are seeing how easy it is for people to "share" content across the Internet in orders of magnitude significantly greater than before broadband connections became commonplace. It's one thing if you make some copies of a VHS movie and give them to your friends. It's another thing entirely for you to make your copy of a movie available to anyone with an Internet connection who can download it on a 24/7/365 basis. Be real with me, and yourself for a second... if you really have a problem with DRM it's because you want the content for free. You want to "borrow" content from your friends. You want to listen to music you'd never buy in the first place, and sure you can talk about how you pirating the music gets the band exposure, but come on... you're only kidding yourself on that one. Most of the music and movies out there cost money to be made and the people who make the content want some money for their labors. And keep in mind, its not just the "artists" that need to be paid. There are studio people, recording engineers, editors, mixers, camera operators, grips, etc, etc, etc.
In order to keep the business model alive and keep people gainfully employed Hollywood turned to DRM. From what I've read, and from my understanding of things, companies like Microsoft and Sony want their products to be the center of the "home entertainment" world. They want people to use their PCs, or their PlayStations as the singular media device that does everything media related. Hollywood doesn't want people churning out content for free so they want to protect it. Therefore an alliance has been formed. On one side you have Hollywood saying, "Okay (Microsoft/Sony/et al), we will help you realize your vision of the future and let your players play our content, BUT you need to make a good faith effort to make sure that people aren't going to rob us blind." (and whether or not you agree with the actual numbers, you'd be a fool to argue that the technology isn't there to rob Hollywood blind) On the other side of the alliance are the computer manufacturers who want people to see computers as more than computers. So they said to Hollywood, "Okay, we will protect your content. Please, let the people who buy our products see/hear the content."
Now going back to the original question of "Will Apple follow Microsoft's lead..." I don't think that's the right question. I think you need to be asking whether or not Apple sees their computers as being entertainment devices. Given the strength of the iPod market, the fact that most video editing outside of the Avid takes place on Macs, and a whole slew of other factors, I think that yes, Apple does see their computers as being strongly linked with entertainment. Because of that, I strongly believe that Apple will start integrating DRM features because they will have to if they want to offer the content to their users. The Apple users might not want DRM, but they will want their content. Just look at the way Apple markets their products. They market them to the self important, image obsessed, "Look how cool my stuff is and yours isn't" market. That market is driven and defined by Hollywood in the first place. Apple the company will play ball with those people.
Maybe I'm just bitter today, but I have to point out that you're a FREAKING TROLLING MORON. Buddy, there were a bunch of alternative operating systems before Windows was ever on the market. If you didn't like DOS, you could stick with your C64 or your Amiga or your Mac. If you didn't like Windows 3.1 you could have run OS/2 or *nix with X-windows. There have always been alternatives. I know it's popular to shit on Microsoft and whine about "not having a choice" but come on, step into reality. There were alternatives and those alternatives fell by the wayside... and not because "stupid Joe Average users" got conned into using Windows, but because DEVELOPERS and HARDWARE COMPANIES got on the Microsoft bandwagon.
To be technical, Remote Desktop is another form of Citrix. Microsoft licensed/stole the technology from Citrix. Gotta give credit where credit is due. =)
Turns out that my the boot sector of my disk is what failed. So, the IT guys put in a new disk and a fresh load of Windows. But, they kept the old disk in the machine as a secondary drive so I could pull my data off it. (Here's where my Window's ignorance shines through) I was baffled that I couldn't just copy stuff from the old "Program Files" folder into the new one and have it work. Instead I had to sit through countless installations of all my applications again.
I think that everyone who has used Windows has gone through a similar situation. You ran into the largest problem with the Windows architecture and the registry. Even though all of your application files were there, the OS didn't know what to do with them because the registry in the freshly loaded version of Windows didn't have all of the appropriate entries/configuration information that would tell it how to deal with the programs. Drive imaging programs like Ghost are so popular exactly because of how big of a PITA it is to reload all of the programs you use.
If windows was more "network-centric", then it wouldn't matter where data and applications lived. As long as the code is complied for your hardware and libraries (or not even libraries if it's static), that all that should matter.
I understand what you are saying. I'm sure that when you take a look back at the history of network computing, you can see the shifts from handling everything on the server, to handling it on the workstation, back to handling a lot of it on the server. There are some technologies that are available in Microsoft land like MSIs that are designed to ease the pain of application installation. However I don't really see those technologies ever competing with a true network file system like what you're used to in the Unix world.
The reason why I found it funny is because I thought of a client of mine that is running a waste management application. The morons who wrote the app (in Fujitsu COBOL .Net of all things) are opening 25+ simultaneous connections to 200+ MB data files that get copied down to the workstation every time a report needs to be run. That app has had many problems it wasn't even funny. We dropped in a Citrix box and all of a sudden the file errors that they were having went away. Of course the vendor refuses to acknowledge that their architecture doesn't scale properly beyond five users, but whatever... the client doesn't want to pay us to rewrite the app in something that will actually work in a networked environment.
If it's such a pain in the ass to recreate, how about you use some good old early 1990s tech and Ghost your drive? As for executing compiled apps on another machine.... hahahahaaaaa!!! Ya, that's a great idea.... once there is enough bandwidth.
And to take it one step further, a lot of firms, especially financial firms in the wake of SOX are archiving their emails. So although your average user might not have a 2GB mailbox on the Exchange server, odds are there there is a huge multi-multi-gigabyte SQL database on the back-end with a record of every email transaction that has taken place.
That's not exactly true. In a lot of markets there is value to giving outside vendors access to your internal data. For example, one of my clients sells their product through Home Depot and Expo Design Centers. HD and Expo are constantly calling my client for status updates. By putting that information on the web my client saves a lot of time because their people aren't tied up answering calls for information that HD reps can now get online.
Perhaps, but it adds another layer of complexity to the equation. The checksums and return values for "fully patched" will be constantly changing so the virii will need to constantly adapt.
This one is way too easy. There are enough vagarities in the dry cleaning business to differentiate them. Often times there are numerous dry cleaners within a very short distance of someone's house. If one dry cleaner doesn't do a good job, you can go to another one. The dry cleaners compete on quality of service and also on price.
I've heard it said many times that you only really "hear" a commercial if you're actually in the market for the product being advertised. In any other case, the advertisement is just background noise in an already noisy life.
I agree with what you have to say here. I cancelled my subscription to Maxim magazine a few years ago because although I subscribed to have hot chicks delivered to my door, I realized that the whole thing from cover to cover was just selling products. They were selling a lifestyle. They were selling the perception that in order to have X you should buy Y.
I noticed it, but I also spent a lot of time studying NLP and the art of persuasion. I became tuned into the various devices used by advertisers. Unfortunately not everyone has the same sort of experience. If you tell the average Joe that the advertisement for medication is placed directly after the page with an image of a hot girl dressed like a slutty nurse because it will make them more inclined to think about doctors and medicine in a favorable light, that average Joe will laugh and call you a conspiracy nut.
Unless things drastically change, the ISPs aren't going to give two shits about what you do on their network. They give you a router and make sure that you get connectivity from the router to the CO. After that, their job is pretty much done. It would be great if ISPs started holding computer users accountable for not spreading malicious code or attaching infected machines to the network, but the fact of that matter is that day might very well never come. ISPs don't want to get into the business of playing help desk for Windows users who can't connect to the network because their box has been pwnz0r3d by some six month old worm that they didn't patch against.
Corrected, and don't make that mistake again. You don't want a network admin going anywhere near IOS.
They also claim that CTCP has been designed for "TCP fairness" to allow CTCP and regular TCP traffic to play nicely when sharing the same link - Microsoft's data shows that CTCP doesn't induce enough loss to wreak havoc with regular TCP allowing then to both maximize their throughput.
Incase you missed Networking 101, it is beneficial from a networking point of view to have only one protocol running on a network. But hell, if you want to... you can run a bunch of protocols, and a bunch of different frame types. Go ahead and throw some SNAP Ethernet and 802.2 on there with your 802.3, then toss some AppleTalk and IPX/SPX in there just for good measure. Let the switches sort all that shit out... that's what they're there for, right? =)
The buzzword "quarantine network" has been tossed around for at least the last six months. The theory behind the technology is that a client that fails to meet the policy requirements will be directed to a completely seperate subnet (think DMZ) where it will have access to a server that will push down the necessary patches and AV upgrades to bring the client into compliance. In otherwords, if your network is on 10.1.1.x then the quarantine network might be 10.2.1.x and any client that fails to meet the policy will get a DHCP lease for the 10.2.1.x netowrk. Of course dedicated attackers will be able to eventually circumvent the technology, but fundementally it is pretty sound. It will definitely address the problem of Joe Blow bringing in his laptop from home full of virii. It should also help mitigate the issue of "rogue" laptops that aren't members of the domain. The first time a Linux box receives a query that it doesn't know how to respond to, it will be quarantined. Of course there are probably ways around that (maybe you could configure Samba to respond to the requests?), but it will take a dedicated attacker with thorough knowledge of the network and local access to it.
A better way to handle the whole problem is to put machines into a quarantined VLAN and then dynamically change their port's VLAN after authorization has been established via any number of criteria.
You might want to take a look at what Cisco is up to. They are the company that is really driving the whole quarantine network ideal and making it a reality.
I've never been to Tokyo but I did have a blast in London and if the cost of living wasn't so freaking high I'd love to live there one day. But actually it's looking like my commute will be from Long Beach, CA to Los Angeles, CA via one train and one bus each way.
What are the implications of using something like this on a regular basis? It's pretty well documented that people experience eye strain from staying focused at a fixed focal depth for too long (ie. when looking at a monitor). I've had my own vision deteriorate pretty significantly since I have started using computers despite genetics to the opposite (ie. my mom and dad both have great vision and they are in their late 50s). I shudder to think about the implications of remaining focused at a depth of less than inch from the eye for extended periods of time.
I can afford a car and I'm looking forward to getting a job where I can take mass transit to work.
I can see how this would be a great way to bridge the gap between PC and Console games. The game that I'd really like to see the light of day is Shadowrun Online. A game like that has enough variation in character archtypes and abilities that you could easily break it out across multiple platforms. Although characters like mages and shamans might require a pretty keyboard intensive interface, some of the more simple characters likes street samurai's and physical adepts could be controlled with a gamepad interface and probably not need more than 4-6 buttons. A gamepad with a joystick would be a great boon to anyone who wanted to play a rigger, or anyone else who is involved with vehicles. Another game that I am looking forward to that is already in development is APB by Webzen games. They are using the Unreal 3 engine and claim to be developing for the Xbox and PC. It is advertised as being a GTA like game, and as much as people might poo-poo GTA, everyone I know who has been into games since the days of Gunship and F15 Strike Eagle (RIP Microprose) has been wanting a massive online version of a game like GTA. It is the kind of game that we grew up dreaming about, and it is finally coming close to reality a good 20+ years later.
For bug fixes I could see a 0.0.1 increase but don't new additions and features generally come with a 0.1.0 increment at least? Maybe the devs are too scared of developing a true 1.0 version? =)
I've been with Verizon for six years at this point and their service is some of the best in Los Angeles. I have noticed that their quality of service has gotten WORSE in the last couple of years tho. I swear that before they did those stupid, "Can you hear me now..?" commercials, their network was excellent. Starting a few months after those commercials, I found myself having to ask my friends, "Can you hear me now?" because the signal kept cutting in and out. It's almost like they came out with those commercials to condition their customers to expect that crap.