"Used to closing a program when finished" is not a valid excuse. If you want to participate in file sharing, you must, well, participate in file SHARING. Unless your ISP blocks or throttles BitTorrent, there is simply no excuse. I cap my uploads to 40KB/s (nowhere near the max of my pipe, which only costs $30/month), and even then I can always leave a torrent on overnight and hit at least 1.0, if not more.
It's not a zero-sum tracker. Bonuses are offered to merely seeding on an obscure file (keeping old files accessible), there are also small bonuses for seeding a file with few leechers (for the same effect). Also, seeders gain a further bonus (as opposed to uploading while downloading). All of this added together enables the pool of "money" to grow. The system they have set up is rather ingenious, I've never felt credit-starved, nor have I ever felt that I needed to download something merely for the purpose of seeding for credit. All I do is make sure my ratio is 1.0 (or more) for everything I download, and I'm now sitting on nearly 100GB of credit.
I call BS. What I see is merely a random (and lucky) coalescence of community good will. It can occasionally happen, but for every tracker like yours there's a bajillion out there where NOBODY seeds, and I end up having to wait two days for a 500MB file. It also really depends on what type of content the tracker hosts.
I have a lot of friends who use BT, who are not as attuned to the whole concept of not being a dick and seeding. In fact I am the *only* person I know personally that actually regularly seeds. Why? Because ISPs have bandwidth caps, and people are too cheap to put some of their caps towards contributing back. I've always believed that seeding is the "rule of the game" when it comes to BitTorrent, it's the thing that makes the wheel keep spinning, but the vast majority of people on public trackers do not seem to agree.
Not to mention that the tracker I'm on encourages seeding of old files. I can grab a file that's a couple of YEARS old, not popular at all, and still get insane speeds, because there's always a few fast seeders sitting on it collecting credits.
There's a bonus credit gain applied to seeders, I'm not intimately familiar with the precise inner workings of their system, but this can provide the growth in "money" that they need.
I'm not sure about Demonoid, but my preferred tracker is also invite-only for a good reason: ratios. The tracker stays fast because people are forced to give back. The thing works on a credit system - downloading costs credits, uploading gains credits. To avoid people signing up over and over for free credits, EVERY single account that is opened needs to have credits donated from an existing member, such that credits never magically materialize out of nowhere. It's a good system - and the only tracker I've ever been on where I can always max out my pipe at all times.
I run Mac OS X too. The reason why it doesn't bug you that much is because it... actually doesn't bug you that much. The only times you'll ever be asked to sudo is when installing or patching things. There are very few times when doing my normal everyday things that I've ever been asked to sudo.
Actually, I do believe that the Xbox production costs are down far enough that MS is turning a (slight) profit on each unit. Not to mention that the attach rates for the console (games sold per console) are better than expected, which drives 3rd party support, and gives MS a healthy chunk of the pie. The Xbox division, profitable or not, is looking pretty healthy.
Hmm, thanks for the info. I would think the US avoids sugar canes since the vast majority of its land is not capable of growing it, and energy independence seems more important in the mid-term than making the air cleaner.
Here's another question... Does ethanol burn any cleaner than gasoline? It seems a bit moronic for us to be jacking up food prices throughout the world, just so we can burn yet-another-fuel. Sure, we won't run out of *this* fuel, but our oil supplies are fun from out yet. Unless this fuel is really MUCH cleaner than gasoline...
What about the other allegation the poster raised? I'm interested in knowing - not a chemical engineer myself. Is it true that ethanol is energy-negative (i.e. requires more fossil fuels to be burned than if I just put that gas in my car?). That's a pretty serious problem with the technology, and I'd much rather burn the gas in that case.
Oh, and just as a note... My friend's family did hear back from them after another month. This time they reduced their demand to $100. What a load of crock, this is basically them saying "we know we have no case, but can we pleeeeeeease have some money now?". Once again, I told them to fuck off. We have not heard from them since (it's been almost 2 years now).
I really wish I could file a complaint somewhere against these people. They are nothing but the lowest form of scum on Earth, as bad as any racketeering mafioso out there. IMHO sending letters like these should be grounds for a very quick disbar.
Oh, and FYI, they threatened to pursue CRIMINAL charges (since nothing of value was actually stolen). This would've been laughable, since there's no evidence she stole anything, and even if convicted her record would've been expunged in only a couple of years. Nice threat, jackasses.
This is stupid. How did Google trespass? Did they at any point drive on any private roads? Doubtful. Did they sneak onto private property to take pictures? Really unlikely. So what did they do? Take pictures of things visible from a public road? Just because you live in a swanky, quiet area doesn't mean you can expect any more privacy than if you were living next to a busy street.
A friend of mine had a kid sister who got in with some bad friends, and was involved in some apparent shop lifting shenanigans at the local mall. She never stole anything, but her friends did, and this was made pretty clear with store management, so nothing ever came of it.
A few months later they get a letter from a law firm in Tennessee (they live in Canada), threatening to sue unless they turned over $500. My friend's family was quite intimidated, and was even ready to fork over the cash until I wrote them a letter for them in response. I basically told them to fuck off, and that if they wanted to pursue charges we would see them in court.
The knew full well that there isn't a lick of evidence that my friend's sister ever stole anything, they also know that there's no fricking way they're going to go through all the trouble of getting a local (Canadian) law firm to sue. It was all one big scare tactic.
Features and price, admittedly, but price is the biggest thing.
I'd have to disagree. While this was certainly the direction Dell took, not all manufacturers have done the same. Consumers are still looking for features, just not in the form of megahertz and megabytes. These are so similar between machines nowadays that consumers simply tune this information out. What matters now are "premium" features - Apple's magnetic power cord, thinness, weight, battery life, Sony's color customization, and Lenovo's durability technology, for examples.
Dell simply failed to differentiate their product in a market full of cheap imitators, and this is why they suffer. Many people are willing to pay a premium for a premium product, but Dell has almost entirely not touched that segment of the market. With the new XPS laptops they're starting to approach it, but I fear this new round of cost cutting will compromise that. IMHO going higher-end is the only way for Dell to survive.
If my time at an auto parts factory (a failing one) has taught me anything, it's that for every penny you shave off your cost, some Asian company will shave off two. They can afford to eat gruel and triple-bunk their beds, you cannot.
Eliminating RFID tags won't solve your problem either. If an extremist wanted to assassinate/kidnap someone, they could EASILY obtain photographs of him/her and do very much the same thing. It's not as if tailing someone home is a recent invention. With sites like Facebook and MySpace it's easier than ever before. In fact, photographs/stalking is lower tech and probably much easier than carrying around an RFID tag reader and randomly scanning people hoping you find your target.
Nonsense, if I pay the movie theater, does the conveyed performance belong to me? Heck no. The fact that money was exchanged does *not* imply employment.
Actually, I was (and still am) generally a NDP supporter, which begs the question of why I voted for the Conservatives in the last election.
In short, I felt that government (regardless of party) was like an ill-mannered child. The only way for a lesson to sink in was to remove their privileges. The Martin government was knee-deep in corruption, and I absolutely do not buy the hogwash that the advertisement scandal didn't go all the way to the highest levels of government. Many peons sacrificed their careers to shield their Liberal masters up above, and I didn't think it was fair to vote for the party again, even if they do represent most of my political and social views. To do so would be akin to supporting corruption.
Maybe it's just me, but I want a government that is clean, more so than I want one that represents all of my interests. I'd rather live in a neo-con paradise with integrity, than a left wing utopia without.
Not to mention the fact that it did turn out for the better, IMHO. A minority government of any leaning is IMHO better than a majority government for any party. Radical bills are curbed, and only bills that have common ground with multiple parties stand, as it should be.
Do me a favour by shutting the fuck up about telling me what to do with *my rights*. Mr. high and mighty about his politics thinks I shouldn't vote because the means by which I arrive at my choice for candidates does not coincide with his.
Agreed. I had high hopes for the Conservatives, hoping they would represent a sane alternate to the spend-spend-spend Liberals. A party that represents sane social policies, at the same time advocating fiscal responsibility.
Sadly, there doesn't seem to be room for fiscal conservatives anymore... I can't have the fiscal responsibility without the crazy religious fanaticism, or the endless kowtowing to the elite.
Look up the WWDC presentation on YouTube. Steve Jobs *clearly* says that Carbon would be a transitional API to Cocoa. Honestly, supporting it for 7+ years is enough I think.
While I wouldn't be so hasty to jump on the conservative hate-wagon, I have to agree that Mr. Jim Prentice is a gigantic waste of governmental space. The man has proven time and time again that he serves only the interests of big business, and in his tenure in office hasn't done a single thing for us consumers. If this was my country I'd have the man tried for treason - he's failing to represent not only his constituents, but ALL constituents in Canada.
When the US gets up in arms about the atrocities in Tibet, it's almost a bit sad to think about the state of things at home. Torture? Yep, we've got that. Treatment of prisoners violating international standards for human rights? Yep, that too. Waging unilateral, illegal wars? Yep...
Not quite as bad as China, but it seems China's human rights record is improving over time, whereas we're going right the other way.
10.3 -> 10.4 is not a point release, despite what the version number may imply. For example, 10.4 to 10.5 is along the scale of XP to Vista. There are certainly some UI differences, some more extreme than others.
Memory is perhaps the second cheapest commodity on a modern day PC after disk space.
Perhaps, but keep in mind that the browser is the not the sole consumer of memory on the computer. I have generally... my calendar app, email app, iTunes, some IDE, some text editor, my torrent client, and a few terminal windows open... When I'm hardcore working I'll also have Photoshop and maybe a 3D modeling app open also.
In that case the last thing I want is my browser chewing up 1.5GB of RAM (FF2 has done that, without even me doing that much).
If I had 16GB of memory maybe I'll stop worrying about it, but even at 4GB I would still be very concerned if a single app took up over a gig. I have 2GB in this machine, and when Firefox chews up 500MB by itself it becomes a very real problem. Keep in mind also that more and more people are using laptops as exclusive machines - these are mostly not upgradeable RAM-wise, so minimizing RAM usage is key to legacy support - the expectation that the user can pop more sticks in disappears.
Well, I just downloaded beta 5, and given it a whirl for a few minutes.
Speed and general responsiveness: Massively improved! Page loading is noticeably faster, generally feels snappier, but that might be sensory bias. I did notice, though, that large config panels (particularly in Preferences) are dog slow on first load. This may be a first-run thing, so maybe it will disappear.
Startup was a bit slow, but that may also be due to the fact that it was starting for the very first time.
The UI: Looks awesome. I have to say that it is VERY true to the Mac way of doing things (at least on Leopard). Heck, the main toolbar looks more Mac than Safari:)
Tabs are also easier to deal with than Safari. When you open a lot of tabs (like I do) Safari stacks the extra ones in a menu. Firefox allows you to scroll to the tab you want. Nice. But this has been around since FF2, so nothing new there.
I like the preferences panel now. Despite the load time it is definitely more true to the Mac way of doing things. The layout stil seems a BIT sloppy, but I'm enjoying it.
Overall verdict from a random insignificant Mac user: thumbs up. Some minor graphical bugs to fix (the search bar icon has a non-transparent background, for example). But overall a big step forward from FF2.
I'm a Mac user, but I haven't tried FF3 at all (WebKit for me right now). What kind of Mac bugs have you found? I want to know if these would be show-stoppers for me. And also, specifically why doesn't FF3 act like a Mac app?
Bias is unavoidable. As long as there are other people studying to prove different theories, we'll be fine. Our main trouble would be if everyone unites behind a single theory, then we don't get anywhere unless completely incontrovertible evidence is (accidentally) discovered disproving it.
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"Used to closing a program when finished" is not a valid excuse. If you want to participate in file sharing, you must, well, participate in file SHARING. Unless your ISP blocks or throttles BitTorrent, there is simply no excuse. I cap my uploads to 40KB/s (nowhere near the max of my pipe, which only costs $30/month), and even then I can always leave a torrent on overnight and hit at least 1.0, if not more.
It's not a zero-sum tracker. Bonuses are offered to merely seeding on an obscure file (keeping old files accessible), there are also small bonuses for seeding a file with few leechers (for the same effect). Also, seeders gain a further bonus (as opposed to uploading while downloading). All of this added together enables the pool of "money" to grow. The system they have set up is rather ingenious, I've never felt credit-starved, nor have I ever felt that I needed to download something merely for the purpose of seeding for credit. All I do is make sure my ratio is 1.0 (or more) for everything I download, and I'm now sitting on nearly 100GB of credit.
I call BS. What I see is merely a random (and lucky) coalescence of community good will. It can occasionally happen, but for every tracker like yours there's a bajillion out there where NOBODY seeds, and I end up having to wait two days for a 500MB file. It also really depends on what type of content the tracker hosts.
I have a lot of friends who use BT, who are not as attuned to the whole concept of not being a dick and seeding. In fact I am the *only* person I know personally that actually regularly seeds. Why? Because ISPs have bandwidth caps, and people are too cheap to put some of their caps towards contributing back. I've always believed that seeding is the "rule of the game" when it comes to BitTorrent, it's the thing that makes the wheel keep spinning, but the vast majority of people on public trackers do not seem to agree.
Not to mention that the tracker I'm on encourages seeding of old files. I can grab a file that's a couple of YEARS old, not popular at all, and still get insane speeds, because there's always a few fast seeders sitting on it collecting credits.
There's a bonus credit gain applied to seeders, I'm not intimately familiar with the precise inner workings of their system, but this can provide the growth in "money" that they need.
I'm not sure about Demonoid, but my preferred tracker is also invite-only for a good reason: ratios. The tracker stays fast because people are forced to give back. The thing works on a credit system - downloading costs credits, uploading gains credits. To avoid people signing up over and over for free credits, EVERY single account that is opened needs to have credits donated from an existing member, such that credits never magically materialize out of nowhere. It's a good system - and the only tracker I've ever been on where I can always max out my pipe at all times.
I run Mac OS X too. The reason why it doesn't bug you that much is because it... actually doesn't bug you that much. The only times you'll ever be asked to sudo is when installing or patching things. There are very few times when doing my normal everyday things that I've ever been asked to sudo.
Actually, I do believe that the Xbox production costs are down far enough that MS is turning a (slight) profit on each unit. Not to mention that the attach rates for the console (games sold per console) are better than expected, which drives 3rd party support, and gives MS a healthy chunk of the pie. The Xbox division, profitable or not, is looking pretty healthy.
Hmm, thanks for the info. I would think the US avoids sugar canes since the vast majority of its land is not capable of growing it, and energy independence seems more important in the mid-term than making the air cleaner.
Here's another question... Does ethanol burn any cleaner than gasoline? It seems a bit moronic for us to be jacking up food prices throughout the world, just so we can burn yet-another-fuel. Sure, we won't run out of *this* fuel, but our oil supplies are fun from out yet. Unless this fuel is really MUCH cleaner than gasoline...
What about the other allegation the poster raised? I'm interested in knowing - not a chemical engineer myself. Is it true that ethanol is energy-negative (i.e. requires more fossil fuels to be burned than if I just put that gas in my car?). That's a pretty serious problem with the technology, and I'd much rather burn the gas in that case.
Oh, and just as a note... My friend's family did hear back from them after another month. This time they reduced their demand to $100. What a load of crock, this is basically them saying "we know we have no case, but can we pleeeeeeease have some money now?". Once again, I told them to fuck off. We have not heard from them since (it's been almost 2 years now).
I really wish I could file a complaint somewhere against these people. They are nothing but the lowest form of scum on Earth, as bad as any racketeering mafioso out there. IMHO sending letters like these should be grounds for a very quick disbar.
Oh, and FYI, they threatened to pursue CRIMINAL charges (since nothing of value was actually stolen). This would've been laughable, since there's no evidence she stole anything, and even if convicted her record would've been expunged in only a couple of years. Nice threat, jackasses.
This is stupid. How did Google trespass? Did they at any point drive on any private roads? Doubtful. Did they sneak onto private property to take pictures? Really unlikely. So what did they do? Take pictures of things visible from a public road? Just because you live in a swanky, quiet area doesn't mean you can expect any more privacy than if you were living next to a busy street.
A friend of mine had a kid sister who got in with some bad friends, and was involved in some apparent shop lifting shenanigans at the local mall. She never stole anything, but her friends did, and this was made pretty clear with store management, so nothing ever came of it.
A few months later they get a letter from a law firm in Tennessee (they live in Canada), threatening to sue unless they turned over $500. My friend's family was quite intimidated, and was even ready to fork over the cash until I wrote them a letter for them in response. I basically told them to fuck off, and that if they wanted to pursue charges we would see them in court.
The knew full well that there isn't a lick of evidence that my friend's sister ever stole anything, they also know that there's no fricking way they're going to go through all the trouble of getting a local (Canadian) law firm to sue. It was all one big scare tactic.
And people wonder why lawyers are so hated.
I'd have to disagree. While this was certainly the direction Dell took, not all manufacturers have done the same. Consumers are still looking for features, just not in the form of megahertz and megabytes. These are so similar between machines nowadays that consumers simply tune this information out. What matters now are "premium" features - Apple's magnetic power cord, thinness, weight, battery life, Sony's color customization, and Lenovo's durability technology, for examples.
Dell simply failed to differentiate their product in a market full of cheap imitators, and this is why they suffer. Many people are willing to pay a premium for a premium product, but Dell has almost entirely not touched that segment of the market. With the new XPS laptops they're starting to approach it, but I fear this new round of cost cutting will compromise that. IMHO going higher-end is the only way for Dell to survive.
If my time at an auto parts factory (a failing one) has taught me anything, it's that for every penny you shave off your cost, some Asian company will shave off two. They can afford to eat gruel and triple-bunk their beds, you cannot.
Eliminating RFID tags won't solve your problem either. If an extremist wanted to assassinate/kidnap someone, they could EASILY obtain photographs of him/her and do very much the same thing. It's not as if tailing someone home is a recent invention. With sites like Facebook and MySpace it's easier than ever before. In fact, photographs/stalking is lower tech and probably much easier than carrying around an RFID tag reader and randomly scanning people hoping you find your target.
Nonsense, if I pay the movie theater, does the conveyed performance belong to me? Heck no. The fact that money was exchanged does *not* imply employment.
Actually, I was (and still am) generally a NDP supporter, which begs the question of why I voted for the Conservatives in the last election.
In short, I felt that government (regardless of party) was like an ill-mannered child. The only way for a lesson to sink in was to remove their privileges. The Martin government was knee-deep in corruption, and I absolutely do not buy the hogwash that the advertisement scandal didn't go all the way to the highest levels of government. Many peons sacrificed their careers to shield their Liberal masters up above, and I didn't think it was fair to vote for the party again, even if they do represent most of my political and social views. To do so would be akin to supporting corruption.
Maybe it's just me, but I want a government that is clean, more so than I want one that represents all of my interests. I'd rather live in a neo-con paradise with integrity, than a left wing utopia without.
Not to mention the fact that it did turn out for the better, IMHO. A minority government of any leaning is IMHO better than a majority government for any party. Radical bills are curbed, and only bills that have common ground with multiple parties stand, as it should be.
Do me a favour by shutting the fuck up about telling me what to do with *my rights*. Mr. high and mighty about his politics thinks I shouldn't vote because the means by which I arrive at my choice for candidates does not coincide with his.
Agreed. I had high hopes for the Conservatives, hoping they would represent a sane alternate to the spend-spend-spend Liberals. A party that represents sane social policies, at the same time advocating fiscal responsibility.
Sadly, there doesn't seem to be room for fiscal conservatives anymore... I can't have the fiscal responsibility without the crazy religious fanaticism, or the endless kowtowing to the elite.
Look up the WWDC presentation on YouTube. Steve Jobs *clearly* says that Carbon would be a transitional API to Cocoa. Honestly, supporting it for 7+ years is enough I think.
While I wouldn't be so hasty to jump on the conservative hate-wagon, I have to agree that Mr. Jim Prentice is a gigantic waste of governmental space. The man has proven time and time again that he serves only the interests of big business, and in his tenure in office hasn't done a single thing for us consumers. If this was my country I'd have the man tried for treason - he's failing to represent not only his constituents, but ALL constituents in Canada.
Sadly, I have to agree.
When the US gets up in arms about the atrocities in Tibet, it's almost a bit sad to think about the state of things at home. Torture? Yep, we've got that. Treatment of prisoners violating international standards for human rights? Yep, that too. Waging unilateral, illegal wars? Yep...
Not quite as bad as China, but it seems China's human rights record is improving over time, whereas we're going right the other way.
10.3 -> 10.4 is not a point release, despite what the version number may imply. For example, 10.4 to 10.5 is along the scale of XP to Vista. There are certainly some UI differences, some more extreme than others.
Perhaps, but keep in mind that the browser is the not the sole consumer of memory on the computer. I have generally... my calendar app, email app, iTunes, some IDE, some text editor, my torrent client, and a few terminal windows open... When I'm hardcore working I'll also have Photoshop and maybe a 3D modeling app open also.
In that case the last thing I want is my browser chewing up 1.5GB of RAM (FF2 has done that, without even me doing that much).
If I had 16GB of memory maybe I'll stop worrying about it, but even at 4GB I would still be very concerned if a single app took up over a gig. I have 2GB in this machine, and when Firefox chews up 500MB by itself it becomes a very real problem. Keep in mind also that more and more people are using laptops as exclusive machines - these are mostly not upgradeable RAM-wise, so minimizing RAM usage is key to legacy support - the expectation that the user can pop more sticks in disappears.
Well, I just downloaded beta 5, and given it a whirl for a few minutes.
Speed and general responsiveness: Massively improved! Page loading is noticeably faster, generally feels snappier, but that might be sensory bias. I did notice, though, that large config panels (particularly in Preferences) are dog slow on first load. This may be a first-run thing, so maybe it will disappear.
Startup was a bit slow, but that may also be due to the fact that it was starting for the very first time.
The UI: Looks awesome. I have to say that it is VERY true to the Mac way of doing things (at least on Leopard). Heck, the main toolbar looks more Mac than Safari :)
Tabs are also easier to deal with than Safari. When you open a lot of tabs (like I do) Safari stacks the extra ones in a menu. Firefox allows you to scroll to the tab you want. Nice. But this has been around since FF2, so nothing new there.
I like the preferences panel now. Despite the load time it is definitely more true to the Mac way of doing things. The layout stil seems a BIT sloppy, but I'm enjoying it.
Overall verdict from a random insignificant Mac user: thumbs up. Some minor graphical bugs to fix (the search bar icon has a non-transparent background, for example). But overall a big step forward from FF2.
I'm a Mac user, but I haven't tried FF3 at all (WebKit for me right now). What kind of Mac bugs have you found? I want to know if these would be show-stoppers for me. And also, specifically why doesn't FF3 act like a Mac app?
Bias is unavoidable. As long as there are other people studying to prove different theories, we'll be fine. Our main trouble would be if everyone unites behind a single theory, then we don't get anywhere unless completely incontrovertible evidence is (accidentally) discovered disproving it.