Can LibreOffice on a Linux laptop topple Microsoft's Office?
No?
Why should the Chromebook be any different? Because it has a Google logo on it?
Whether we like it or not, Windows has become firmly entrenched in the corporate (and, for that matter, residential) world and not just because of one app. Office, Outlook, IE6 (yes, still!), ActiveDirectory are just a handful of the applications maintaining the Microsoft desktop monopoly. As important is Windows tremendous backwards compatibility with programs - retail or inhouse/proprietary - that cannot be easily replaced.
Microsoft has a tremendous inertia on their side. There are edge cases where users or corporations have switched to Linux/Chromebooks or even Macintosh successfully. But for most people the disadvantages of switching are too great and the advantages are too little for them to even make the attempt. Why should the Chromebook be any different?
Possibly the hypothesis connecting wing movement to aggression is not based on the/puppet's/ wing movements, but those of the living sparrows.
As in, as the/living sparrows/ became more aggressive, they displayed more wing movements.
You wouldn't to base any conclusions on the manipulated behaviors of the puppet anyway.
*Why* the living sparrows became increasingly aggressive (the the point of decapitation!) towards the puppet is unknown. Perhaps they were watching too many Romero movies.
I therefore conclude it is time for a new study: does watching violent movies increase aggressive tendencies in small birds? This is a question too important to leave unanswered.
On what planet does CISCO bear a responsibility to the 'interests of the public'?
Seriously?
CISCO's responsibility to its shareholders, pretty much* full stop.
Why? I mean, as a citizen of this country, I am expected to show some responsibility to the nation and my fellow citizens. I can't just run amuck and do as I please, raping and plundering. And not just because the law says I can't but because that's part of a social contract that helps keep civilization going.
Why should a corporation - especially in America, where it is granted pseudo-personhood - be exempt from this expectation?
I need to make a living too; I have a responsibility to my family. That doesn't mean I can go out and bilk the government out of billions.
Corporations make use of public resources - mail, roads, subsidized electricity and power, an educated workforce, protection from foreign invasion. They have as much responsibility to the country as any person.
Does their charter indicate that they need to pursue courses of action that are profitable to their shareholders? Of course. But not at a cost to the host nation that supports them. To suggest otherwise is extremely damaging to the society we live in, and it's disheartening to see such ideas even bandied about.
Mind you, it is quite possible they themselves are not doing the mailings but are instead using a remailer service. Those are notoriously unresponsive.
I worked with a company that sent out daily and weekly news alerts of all sorts. It was a high volume business and definitely not spam (the customer had to manually opt-in and often had to/pay/ for the content. Not that didn't stop some customers from still complaining that it was spam...). Although the editorial content was created in-house, the transmission of those messages was handled by an outside company.
Because this was a major source of revenue for the company, having a reliable remailer was extremely important. Just as important, they needed one that was reputable enough so the emails would not immediately get flagged as spam. During my tenure at the company, they went through three or four remailers.
And let me tell you, not/one/ of those ever responded to a complaint in less than a week and when they did finally respond, it was always to first point fingers at somebody else. I took it as high up the chain as I could, and when that gave no result often passed it on to C-level execs so they could push the issue. It still took abnormal amounts of time. If it was just one remailer that worked like that, well, okay; it would be time to find a new partner. But it seems indicative of how that business works; they just don't respond to the company that pays you.
(In fairness, after a week or four the problem/did/ usually get resolved, if it was something within their purview but it was screeching mad customers until that point and unhappy, powerless customer-service reps)
I bring this all up because maybe the same thing is happening in your case. Your "well-known provider of tools for the Systems Administration" may not actually be the ones immediately responsible for the problem. They may accept ultimate responsibility, and possibly there is quite a bit of concern about the issue, but if they are dealing with a remailer, their own pleas may be ending up in dev/nul.
That's not to say they should be let off the hook; rather, it may be that their silence has more to do with corporate inefficiencies than intentional malice.
In the past, America's greatness was a result of its vast natural resources. While those resources remain, they no longer seem so endless and are becoming increasingly hard to tap into, due to NIMBY syndrome and other factors. It is easier to look outside our own borders and take what we need from other nations, regardless of the cost in lives to the natives of those lands.
In the past, America was great because it was open to new ideas. Its not that it necessarily had more ideas than anyone else, but a less rigid class-system - supported by a vast frontier that allowed anyone daring enough to remake themselves - fostered an environment where even the wackiest ideas could be considered... and some of those ideas bore fruit. But now, rich and wealthy, the nation is becoming increasingly conservative and close-minded to anything that might jeopardize the security of that wealth.
In the past, America's manufacturing might was bolstered by a motivated workforce. The country was the factory of the world. But as cost-of-living increased, it became cheaper for all those jobs to migrate to other nations, and now whole cities once dedicated to industry lie in ruins.
In the past, America was breadbasket to the world. More than just feeding ourselves, our fruits and grains were shipped out to the starving nations of the world. Now, thanks to plummeting shipping costs, it is oft-times cheaper to grow those plants in far-off lands and ship them back into the country. Meanwhile its heartlands become increasingly less productive from decades of overproduction and over-fertilization.
In the past, America's strength was its highly-educated technicians and scientists, who created electronic marvels that changed the world. But now, these marvels have become commonplace, we sell our know-how to our erstwhile allies, and educate its own rivals. Meanwhile, its own children falter at the most basic tasks because their own education is hampered by backwards-looking fanatics.
In the past, America was a noble beacon to the world, a land of opportunity and freedom. People thronged to America's shores, bringing with them their vitality and industry and bettering their adopted country with their skills. Today, that beacon is guttering as opportunity fades due to an increasingly classist society within the nation's borders, and unilateral actions without. If people come to the country, it is only to take what they can from the nation - education, resources, technology - before returning to their homelands, which reap the benefits.
Why do American politicians and industrialists focus so much on IP law? Because, more and more, it is the only advantage the country has left! For one hundred years, America used its strengths to build up a huge war-chest of patents, copyrights and trademarks as one method to protect its interests. However, over the past few decades, other nations - China, India, Mexico, just to name a few - have stepped up to the plate and matched America in industrial output. America depends heavily on resources from other nations to keep its own faltering engine running. Its own workforce is no longer as competitive when compared to those in erstwhile "third world nations". Short-sighted politics squandered many other of its advantages. Those patents, copyrights and trademarks - once just a single weapon in its arsenal - are increasingly becoming America's/only/ strength.
Sadly, like SCO, America is becoming a patent troll (and IP troll in general), relying on draconian enforcement of ethereal "intellectual property", because it cannot otherwise compete. It will increasingly sacrifice all else - industry, Constitutional rights, political allies - in the vain hope that somehow this single weapon of IP law can be sharpened enough to cut itself out of the draconian knot of political missteps that have caused its current economic malaise.
Or, as likely, there will be no *requirement* for games to be locked to a particular account or console, but the device will support that feature. That way some companies can sell games in the traditional manner (on a resellable optical disc), lending credence to Sony's claim. However, increasingly publishers will make use of the PS4's built-in DRM system so as to lock games to particular consoles or accounts, which are then impossible to resell. The former category of games rapidly dwindles to a trickle
That way Sony won't be lying; you can play (some) used games on the consoles, if the games support it. You just won't be able to buy games with that feature anymore.
* Hey Steve! How's it going. - Terrible, Bill, terrible. Nothing's going the way we expected. I mean, we tried our best with Zune - we made it brown even! - but it's no good. Some people even liked the Zune software. * I see. What else have you tried? - Well, we replaced the toolbar in Office with - get this - a ribbon. We told everybody it would improve their workflow. * Bet that shook things up! - No, people kept buying Office. The ribbon even had fans! They wanted it extended to other apps! But then I thought... XBox! * XBox? - Yeah... we'll put ads all over the thing! There'll be a tiny button in the corner to start the game and everywhere else... ads! * Yes!!! - No! People complained, but XBox Lives subscriptions are up and game sales are through the roof! Hell, we even canned Bungie and sold more Halo games than ever! * Oh dear. - Then I'm sure you heard about Windows 8 and Metro. * Oh yes, terrific job there. And you tied it to Surface and Windows Phone too! - Yes, we're all very proud of that. And now this thing with Office 2013; we're tying it to a single computer. No reinstalls. If your motherboard craps out, well, you'll just have to buy a new license! * Surely that will work. No one will be able to ignore the message we're sending now. - I don't know, Bill. I don't know. People liked the whole Office365 subscription thing, after all. They'll probably like this too. You know and I know that Windows and the Microsoft ecosystem is an abortion and a disaster, and that we've been striving desperately to get people to leave it for greater and better things - I can't help but remember the excellent work you did with "The Road Ahead" and leaving out the Internet entirely; you'd have thought that might have clued them in that we're just hacks - but it's just not working. But look, what if I try this next: security updates only available to people who have a paid subscription. Yeah, that might do it, don't you think? * Never give up hope, Steve, never give up hope. I can't think of anyone better for this job. And here, toss a chair. It'll make you feel better.
We have our refrigerator laser, now all we need is a stasis generator, to "control the flow of tune and space through the body of the Sunship, so that the violent tossing of the chromosphere would seem a gentle rocking to those inside." And I'm sure we'll have that any day now.
I think the point the original poster was making was why a *NEW* operating system instead of just keep selling the current version. Its something Ive wondered about too. Hardware, not system software, is what attracts the consumers eye. So long as it is familiar, runs their applications and does not cause problems, most people do not pay attention to the system software. MS could likely keep selling W7 for the next ten years and, so long as it was kept up-to-date with security patches people would keep using it. MS would still make the same amount of money because the bulk of their income comes from OEMs. MS could still be raking in the dough from WXP if they wanted there is a market there. MS seems to be intentionally fragmenting their userbase.
Some time back, a major Internet player - I forget who but it might have been LinkedIn - had a breech where millions of passwords were stolen (I'm sure somebody here can fill in the details).
At first, this breach would only seem to be of concern to people who used that service; their accounts were suddenly vulnerable because their passwords were no longer secret. But this breach had even more wide-spread implications than that; suddenly the black-hats had a new and very powerful tool for cracking other systems: a real-world data-dump of live passwords. This not only improved their "dictionary" for brute-force attacks, but also allowed them to create better rules for their cracking tools on which passwords were more likely to be used, thanks to the information they gleaned from these leaks. Cracking live systems became much easier because their tools could give priority to real-life examples rather than blindly attempting every possible permutation.
Now, the situation with the UAE biometric database is not exactly the same, but a lesson should be learned from the password-breeches of the past few years: the value of the information in those databases is more than simply access to whatever locks they control. It can be used - and will be used - in unexpected ways. I can't say I'm smart enough to guess what those ways are (if I was, I probably wouldn't be posting on slashdot), and whatever new technologies are developed with that information are not necessarily evil. But because it is tied so closely to the identity of real people, that information can be very powerful and very dangerous.
Not only should there be safeguards to ensure this information is only collected by responsible parties, but there need to be protections on this information so it does not get released into the wild. Because you can bet that its not only the (supposedly) white-hats interested in this sort of stuff. WE should not be blindly accepting of biometrics (or indeed, any centralization of vital information on people) simply because of the convenience it adds to our lives; there is probably a cost in the long run.
After all, you shouldn't be buying somebody's USED goods. How does that help the poor corporations? They don't see dime one from that transaction. No, you need to buy a NEW widget instead. That way the corporations get some of their hard-earned investment back. What's good for corporations is good for the country. The old device needs to be tossed away into some hole in the ground.
That's the American Way. Why do all those Ebayers and flea-marketers hate America, that's the real question!
They seem to be making claims to XBox games they don't publish as well, e.g.,
Copyright claim #3 SpecOps The Line (XBox360)
Published by 2K Games, developed by Yaegar Development,
Risen 2 Dark Waters (XBOX360)
Published by Deep Silver, developed by Piranha Bytes
Mass Effect 3
Published by EA Games, developed by Bioware
Max Payne 3
Published by Rockstar/Take Two developed by Rockstar
Other games mentioned are Rock Band, Brave, Ice Age 4 Continental Drift, Dead Island Game Of The Year Edition, Men In Black Alien Crisis, Just Dance Greatest Hits, Game of Thrones, Inversion, Dirt Showdown
None of these are Microsoft Games. Microsoft does not develop or publish these games. They *are* playable on a system Microsoft develops - the XBox360 - and possibly even uses to distribute the product through their XBox Live marketplace. Nonetheless, that gives them no right to claim they have authorization to send these DMCA notices, anymore than GameStop has that right. The publisher or developer needs to send the notice, not the distributor.
So just because your software runs on a Microsoft platform, they can claim copyright on it? Extend and embrace indeed!
I stopped watching TV not because of the commercial breaks but because they started putting the advertising in the shows itself. Product placement these days is terrible; it increasingly affects the story and definitely changes the pacing (can't do without that pointless five second pan around the promoted automobile, after all). Of course, they started using product placement because (aside from being greedy fucks) regular advertising stopped being so effective. And you know why that happened?
Because advertising is fucking everywhere! Why should I sit still for a block of adverts when I see the same promotions plaster in my newspapers, my magazines, on billboards on the highway and buildings, on the radio, on the internet, with free promo hand-outs on the street, on buses, cabs and even trucks, on the 'web, in my video-games, in the movie theater, on my DVDs, in my email and that's not to mention all those cross-promotions on on products I've already purchased (there was an advert printed on the wrapper of my fast-food hamburger the other day... and not for the company that sold me the hamburger!).
So I start tuning out the adverts; I stop watching them. And what's Madison Avenue's solution? MORE advertising. I am *past* saturation as far as commercials have gone. I am actively working against seeing them now. You want me to become interested in your products? Stop shoving them in my face every three seconds!
Seriously, years ago I could actually take an active interest in advertising. Hell, like everybody I looked forward to the Super Bowl commercials but even regular adverts sometimes attracted my attention. Not every commercial, of course, but I wasn't so averse to seeing them. Sometimes I even learned about a product that might interest me. Now, I feel like throwing up when I even notice an advert.
And now the advertisers are moaning about how DNT might hurt their precious industry. Well, cry me a river. You're like overzealous lumberjacks who clear-cut an entire forest in a year and then are wondering how you can possibly survive without any trees. And DNT is salting the fucking ground so nothing new can grow. You want sympathy from me? You're the ones who poisoned your own enviroment!
Fuck all of you advertisers; I hope you all go out of business, every one. I'm using Adblock, no-script, cookie and tracking bug blockers; I rip DVDs as soon as I get them so I don't have to see your shitty trailers, I zero-out the logo-movies in my games; don't come moaning to me about how advertising is "necessary" and we couldn't have all these wonderful things without the all-might marketing dollar to pay for it. I remember a time when there weren't ads on anything and you know, it was pretty damn good.
Wait, your argument is that since teens can go to jail for showing each other naked pictures of themselves, the solution is to keylog? Because I can see the inevitable conclusion of that: YOU go to jail because -thanks to this keylogging software- now *you* have naked pictures of minors on *your* computer. Yes, even if it is your own kid.
Heck, even the mere presence of the keylogging software might be used against you; isn't that a "hacking" tool? Its close enough for most people. I can certainly see wiretapping laws used against you if the keylogger is used to monitor communications between your kid and others. Likely your own kid won't take you to court, but what if the parents of his or her friends learn what you are doing?
This keylogging solution is wrong in every respect; it won't solve the problem and it opens up a whole host of new issues. Just because the sheriff of some podunk town in 'Jersey suggests it doesn't make it a good idea.
1) You pay $40/month for an unlimited 10Mbps connection, but can only get 10Mbps at 2-4am in the morning. Other times, because of high network usage, you get an unstable connection that goes 3-5Mbps, or even slower during peak times.
2) You pay $40/month for a 10Mbps connection with a 100GB limit. Most of the time, your connection speed is around 10Mbps, but you just need to watch how much you download. There is a tool provided for you by the ISP to check your usage, updated daily.
And, more likely,
3) You pay $40/month for a 10Mbps connection with a 100GB limit but can only get 10Mbps at 2-4am in the morning. Other times, because of high network usage, you get an unstable connection that goes 3-5Mbps, or even slower during peak times.
Do you really think that companies still won't oversell their bandwidth just because they also assign you a bandwidth cap? 'Cause that's what I'm seeing in my neck of the woods; I get a bandwidth cap and still see my speed drop precipitously during periods of heavy traffic (complaints to the provider result in the usual "we promise speeds 'up to' the specified speed, with no guarantee you will always get that bandwidth" cop-out).
No, better to limit how much the providers can screw you. They are still going to stick us with bandwidth caps, they are still going to oversell their bandwidth; I'd rather they not nickle and dime me for actual usage in addition.
(I originally wrote this article for the PC Gaming Alliance article posted this morning... but since it's relevant to this discussion too I think I'll just copy and paste it again into this thread;-)
People keep harping about how useless DRM is against preventing piracy. And this is undeniably true; at best it might slow down people from copying games, but often not even that. So why, everyone wonders, do companies still insist on wasting resources, losing money, programmers, even loyal customers on a boondoggle that has been proven to be ineffective?
Because DRM is no longer only about stopping piracy. It has oh-so-many other advantages.
1) It kills second-hand sales.
2) It enables forced obsolescence (kill the registration servers and you can't play the game anymore)
3) It ensures a one-title, one machine policy. Own a lap-top AND a desktop? You can't play the game on both.
4) Online activation requires a user to be online and transmit data to the publisher. You can use this to collect valuable demographic info (also, since the customer has to be online anyway, you might as well push advertisements down his way to earn even more cash!)
5) It slowly pushes users to become more accepting of service-based licenses (e.g., subscription gaming) instead of single-sales.
6) It reassures investors that the publisher is protecting their property.
That it might have some minimal effect on slowing illegal copying of games is just an added bonus at this point. It's less a way of preventing piracy at this point as it is of maximizing the publisher's income. Don't expect it to go away anytime soon, no matter how much the customers hate it.
6. Can't add mods or enhancements to a game. Counterstrike would never have existed in a world where everyone plays on OnLive
7. You can only play games OnLive allows. Indie games like Minecraft? You won't find them. AO-rated games? Might tarnish OnLive's reputation so they are gone too.
8. Competition to OnLive (because if it takes off, there will be competition) will fragment the player-base. You play Quake on OnLivebut your friend has Quake on the competetion, LiveOn. Sorry, no deathmatch for you two.
9. Can't re-sell your games. It's a service, not a sale, so if you bought a stinker you lose your money forever.
10. Online-advertising becomes easier for developers. Now Lord British wants you to go on a quest of find 5 Bottles of Pepsi.
There seems to be an increasing emphasis by schools on "catching cheaters". This seems to be missing the point.
We send our kids to school not so they can pass tests. I honestly do not care if my kid gets an "A" or an "F" on the test; I care that he actually learns the material. Tests are a tool that educators can use to help them determine if a child is learning the material but passing grades shouldn't be the goal. If students are cheating on tests then you need to look at the reason why. Is the material being presented in a way that is too hard for the child to understand? Is it not being presented in a way that interests the student? If a student is intererested, he will learn. If he learns, then he has no need to cheat.
Stop spending money on anti-cheating technologies. Spend money on improving the methods of education.
Blu-Ray is cracked? The masterkey is available to all? There is no technical restriction on doing what I want with the contents of a blu-ray disk now? Great!
*NOW* I will buy a Blu-Ray drive and blu-ray content. Because those very restrictions that were supposed to protect the content-producers investment were the same things that were keeping me from cracking open my wallet and handing them my money.
When will companies learn: DRM doesn't work and it annoys your real customers. It costs you more money than it can possibly save. Treat us like criminals and we will either act to your expectations or avoid your products entirely.
Of course, now comes the hard part: trying to find any blu-ray content *worth* buying.
It sounds less like Orwell's "1984" and more like the Gilleadan theocracy of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale".
"There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.
I suppose not having to worry about these "bad things" has its appeal to some, but I happen to like the ability to define what I think is bad rather than depending on some outside source doing my thinking for me. You know, don't just go with the flow but "think different" and all.
Well AFAIK The Dragon Age engine is based on the same engine used for KOTOR and many other Bioware games, just updated for the modern era.
Actually, it doesn't.
Mass Effect uses the Eclipse engine. This is considered a wholly new engine (although it doubtlessly shares some code from earlier projects, just because it is the same development house and performs similar functions).
Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 and Jade Empire used the Odyssey engine. This in turn was based on the Aurora engine, first used in the Neverwinter Nights games (as well as a number of third-party titles).
Prior to that, of course, Bioware used the venerable Infinity engine, which powered Planescape Torment, the Baldur's Gate and the Icewind Dale games.
Slashdot Mirror
Can LibreOffice on a Linux laptop topple Microsoft's Office?
No?
Why should the Chromebook be any different? Because it has a Google logo on it?
Whether we like it or not, Windows has become firmly entrenched in the corporate (and, for that matter, residential) world and not just because of one app. Office, Outlook, IE6 (yes, still!), ActiveDirectory are just a handful of the applications maintaining the Microsoft desktop monopoly. As important is Windows tremendous backwards compatibility with programs - retail or inhouse/proprietary - that cannot be easily replaced.
Microsoft has a tremendous inertia on their side. There are edge cases where users or corporations have switched to Linux/Chromebooks or even Macintosh successfully. But for most people the disadvantages of switching are too great and the advantages are too little for them to even make the attempt. Why should the Chromebook be any different?
Possibly the hypothesis connecting wing movement to aggression is not based on the /puppet's/ wing movements, but those of the living sparrows.
As in, as the /living sparrows/ became more aggressive, they displayed more wing movements.
You wouldn't to base any conclusions on the manipulated behaviors of the puppet anyway.
*Why* the living sparrows became increasingly aggressive (the the point of decapitation!) towards the puppet is unknown. Perhaps they were watching too many Romero movies.
I therefore conclude it is time for a new study: does watching violent movies increase aggressive tendencies in small birds? This is a question too important to leave unanswered.
On what planet does CISCO bear a responsibility to the 'interests of the public'?
Seriously?
CISCO's responsibility to its shareholders, pretty much* full stop.
Why? I mean, as a citizen of this country, I am expected to show some responsibility to the nation and my fellow citizens. I can't just run amuck and do as I please, raping and plundering. And not just because the law says I can't but because that's part of a social contract that helps keep civilization going.
Why should a corporation - especially in America, where it is granted pseudo-personhood - be exempt from this expectation?
I need to make a living too; I have a responsibility to my family. That doesn't mean I can go out and bilk the government out of billions.
Corporations make use of public resources - mail, roads, subsidized electricity and power, an educated workforce, protection from foreign invasion. They have as much responsibility to the country as any person.
Does their charter indicate that they need to pursue courses of action that are profitable to their shareholders? Of course. But not at a cost to the host nation that supports them. To suggest otherwise is extremely damaging to the society we live in, and it's disheartening to see such ideas even bandied about.
Mind you, it is quite possible they themselves are not doing the mailings but are instead using a remailer service. Those are notoriously unresponsive.
I worked with a company that sent out daily and weekly news alerts of all sorts. It was a high volume business and definitely not spam (the customer had to manually opt-in and often had to /pay/ for the content. Not that didn't stop some customers from still complaining that it was spam...). Although the editorial content was created in-house, the transmission of those messages was handled by an outside company.
Because this was a major source of revenue for the company, having a reliable remailer was extremely important. Just as important, they needed one that was reputable enough so the emails would not immediately get flagged as spam. During my tenure at the company, they went through three or four remailers.
And let me tell you, not /one/ of those ever responded to a complaint in less than a week and when they did finally respond, it was always to first point fingers at somebody else. I took it as high up the chain as I could, and when that gave no result often passed it on to C-level execs so they could push the issue. It still took abnormal amounts of time. If it was just one remailer that worked like that, well, okay; it would be time to find a new partner. But it seems indicative of how that business works; they just don't respond to the company that pays you.
(In fairness, after a week or four the problem /did/ usually get resolved, if it was something within their purview but it was screeching mad customers until that point and unhappy, powerless customer-service reps)
I bring this all up because maybe the same thing is happening in your case. Your "well-known provider of tools for the Systems Administration" may not actually be the ones immediately responsible for the problem. They may accept ultimate responsibility, and possibly there is quite a bit of concern about the issue, but if they are dealing with a remailer, their own pleas may be ending up in dev/nul.
That's not to say they should be let off the hook; rather, it may be that their silence has more to do with corporate inefficiencies than intentional malice.
In the past, America's greatness was a result of its vast natural resources. While those resources remain, they no longer seem so endless and are becoming increasingly hard to tap into, due to NIMBY syndrome and other factors. It is easier to look outside our own borders and take what we need from other nations, regardless of the cost in lives to the natives of those lands.
In the past, America was great because it was open to new ideas. Its not that it necessarily had more ideas than anyone else, but a less rigid class-system - supported by a vast frontier that allowed anyone daring enough to remake themselves - fostered an environment where even the wackiest ideas could be considered... and some of those ideas bore fruit. But now, rich and wealthy, the nation is becoming increasingly conservative and close-minded to anything that might jeopardize the security of that wealth.
In the past, America's manufacturing might was bolstered by a motivated workforce. The country was the factory of the world. But as cost-of-living increased, it became cheaper for all those jobs to migrate to other nations, and now whole cities once dedicated to industry lie in ruins.
In the past, America was breadbasket to the world. More than just feeding ourselves, our fruits and grains were shipped out to the starving nations of the world. Now, thanks to plummeting shipping costs, it is oft-times cheaper to grow those plants in far-off lands and ship them back into the country. Meanwhile its heartlands become increasingly less productive from decades of overproduction and over-fertilization.
In the past, America's strength was its highly-educated technicians and scientists, who created electronic marvels that changed the world. But now, these marvels have become commonplace, we sell our know-how to our erstwhile allies, and educate its own rivals. Meanwhile, its own children falter at the most basic tasks because their own education is hampered by backwards-looking fanatics.
In the past, America was a noble beacon to the world, a land of opportunity and freedom. People thronged to America's shores, bringing with them their vitality and industry and bettering their adopted country with their skills. Today, that beacon is guttering as opportunity fades due to an increasingly classist society within the nation's borders, and unilateral actions without. If people come to the country, it is only to take what they can from the nation - education, resources, technology - before returning to their homelands, which reap the benefits.
Why do American politicians and industrialists focus so much on IP law? Because, more and more, it is the only advantage the country has left! For one hundred years, America used its strengths to build up a huge war-chest of patents, copyrights and trademarks as one method to protect its interests. However, over the past few decades, other nations - China, India, Mexico, just to name a few - have stepped up to the plate and matched America in industrial output. America depends heavily on resources from other nations to keep its own faltering engine running. Its own workforce is no longer as competitive when compared to those in erstwhile "third world nations". Short-sighted politics squandered many other of its advantages. Those patents, copyrights and trademarks - once just a single weapon in its arsenal - are increasingly becoming America's /only/ strength.
Sadly, like SCO, America is becoming a patent troll (and IP troll in general), relying on draconian enforcement of ethereal "intellectual property", because it cannot otherwise compete. It will increasingly sacrifice all else - industry, Constitutional rights, political allies - in the vain hope that somehow this single weapon of IP law can be sharpened enough to cut itself out of the draconian knot of political missteps that have caused its current economic malaise.
Or, as likely, there will be no *requirement* for games to be locked to a particular account or console, but the device will support that feature. That way some companies can sell games in the traditional manner (on a resellable optical disc), lending credence to Sony's claim. However, increasingly publishers will make use of the PS4's built-in DRM system so as to lock games to particular consoles or accounts, which are then impossible to resell. The former category of games rapidly dwindles to a trickle
That way Sony won't be lying; you can play (some) used games on the consoles, if the games support it. You just won't be able to buy games with that feature anymore.
* Hey Steve! How's it going.
- Terrible, Bill, terrible. Nothing's going the way we expected. I mean, we tried our best with Zune - we made it brown even! - but it's no good. Some people even liked the Zune software.
* I see. What else have you tried?
- Well, we replaced the toolbar in Office with - get this - a ribbon. We told everybody it would improve their workflow.
* Bet that shook things up!
- No, people kept buying Office. The ribbon even had fans! They wanted it extended to other apps! But then I thought... XBox!
* XBox?
- Yeah... we'll put ads all over the thing! There'll be a tiny button in the corner to start the game and everywhere else... ads!
* Yes!!!
- No! People complained, but XBox Lives subscriptions are up and game sales are through the roof! Hell, we even canned Bungie and sold more Halo games than ever!
* Oh dear.
- Then I'm sure you heard about Windows 8 and Metro.
* Oh yes, terrific job there. And you tied it to Surface and Windows Phone too!
- Yes, we're all very proud of that. And now this thing with Office 2013; we're tying it to a single computer. No reinstalls. If your motherboard craps out, well, you'll just have to buy a new license!
* Surely that will work. No one will be able to ignore the message we're sending now.
- I don't know, Bill. I don't know. People liked the whole Office365 subscription thing, after all. They'll probably like this too. You know and I know that Windows and the Microsoft ecosystem is an abortion and a disaster, and that we've been striving desperately to get people to leave it for greater and better things - I can't help but remember the excellent work you did with "The Road Ahead" and leaving out the Internet entirely; you'd have thought that might have clued them in that we're just hacks - but it's just not working. But look, what if I try this next: security updates only available to people who have a paid subscription. Yeah, that might do it, don't you think?
* Never give up hope, Steve, never give up hope. I can't think of anyone better for this job. And here, toss a chair. It'll make you feel better.
We have our refrigerator laser, now all we need is a stasis generator, to "control the flow of tune and space through the body of the Sunship, so that the violent tossing of the chromosphere would seem a gentle rocking to those inside." And I'm sure we'll have that any day now.
Yup.
Any.
Day.
Now.
I was thinking Earth Company, or its ASTEX subsidiary...
Shut yo' mouth!
I think the point the original poster was making was why a *NEW* operating system instead of just keep selling the current version. Its something Ive wondered about too. Hardware, not system software, is what attracts the consumers eye. So long as it is familiar, runs their applications and does not cause problems, most people do not pay attention to the system software. MS could likely keep selling W7 for the next ten years and, so long as it was kept up-to-date with security patches people would keep using it. MS would still make the same amount of money because the bulk of their income comes from OEMs. MS could still be raking in the dough from WXP if they wanted there is a market there. MS seems to be intentionally fragmenting their userbase.
Some time back, a major Internet player - I forget who but it might have been LinkedIn - had a breech where millions of passwords were stolen (I'm sure somebody here can fill in the details).
At first, this breach would only seem to be of concern to people who used that service; their accounts were suddenly vulnerable because their passwords were no longer secret. But this breach had even more wide-spread implications than that; suddenly the black-hats had a new and very powerful tool for cracking other systems: a real-world data-dump of live passwords. This not only improved their "dictionary" for brute-force attacks, but also allowed them to create better rules for their cracking tools on which passwords were more likely to be used, thanks to the information they gleaned from these leaks. Cracking live systems became much easier because their tools could give priority to real-life examples rather than blindly attempting every possible permutation.
Now, the situation with the UAE biometric database is not exactly the same, but a lesson should be learned from the password-breeches of the past few years: the value of the information in those databases is more than simply access to whatever locks they control. It can be used - and will be used - in unexpected ways. I can't say I'm smart enough to guess what those ways are (if I was, I probably wouldn't be posting on slashdot), and whatever new technologies are developed with that information are not necessarily evil. But because it is tied so closely to the identity of real people, that information can be very powerful and very dangerous.
Not only should there be safeguards to ensure this information is only collected by responsible parties, but there need to be protections on this information so it does not get released into the wild. Because you can bet that its not only the (supposedly) white-hats interested in this sort of stuff. WE should not be blindly accepting of biometrics (or indeed, any centralization of vital information on people) simply because of the convenience it adds to our lives; there is probably a cost in the long run.
It's a win for big corporations too.
After all, you shouldn't be buying somebody's USED goods. How does that help the poor corporations? They don't see dime one from that transaction. No, you need to buy a NEW widget instead. That way the corporations get some of their hard-earned investment back. What's good for corporations is good for the country. The old device needs to be tossed away into some hole in the ground.
That's the American Way. Why do all those Ebayers and flea-marketers hate America, that's the real question!
They seem to be making claims to XBox games they don't publish as well, e.g.,
Copyright claim #3 SpecOps The Line (XBox360)
Published by 2K Games, developed by Yaegar Development,
Risen 2 Dark Waters (XBOX360)
Published by Deep Silver, developed by Piranha Bytes
Mass Effect 3
Published by EA Games, developed by Bioware
Max Payne 3
Published by Rockstar/Take Two developed by Rockstar
Other games mentioned are Rock Band, Brave, Ice Age 4 Continental Drift, Dead Island Game Of The Year Edition, Men In Black Alien Crisis, Just Dance Greatest Hits, Game of Thrones, Inversion, Dirt Showdown
None of these are Microsoft Games. Microsoft does not develop or publish these games. They *are* playable on a system Microsoft develops - the XBox360 - and possibly even uses to distribute the product through their XBox Live marketplace. Nonetheless, that gives them no right to claim they have authorization to send these DMCA notices, anymore than GameStop has that right. The publisher or developer needs to send the notice, not the distributor.
So just because your software runs on a Microsoft platform, they can claim copyright on it? Extend and embrace indeed!
I stopped watching TV not because of the commercial breaks but because they started putting the advertising in the shows itself. Product placement these days is terrible; it increasingly affects the story and definitely changes the pacing (can't do without that pointless five second pan around the promoted automobile, after all). Of course, they started using product placement because (aside from being greedy fucks) regular advertising stopped being so effective. And you know why that happened?
Because advertising is fucking everywhere! Why should I sit still for a block of adverts when I see the same promotions plaster in my newspapers, my magazines, on billboards on the highway and buildings, on the radio, on the internet, with free promo hand-outs on the street, on buses, cabs and even trucks, on the 'web, in my video-games, in the movie theater, on my DVDs, in my email and that's not to mention all those cross-promotions on on products I've already purchased (there was an advert printed on the wrapper of my fast-food hamburger the other day... and not for the company that sold me the hamburger!).
So I start tuning out the adverts; I stop watching them. And what's Madison Avenue's solution? MORE advertising. I am *past* saturation as far as commercials have gone. I am actively working against seeing them now. You want me to become interested in your products? Stop shoving them in my face every three seconds!
Seriously, years ago I could actually take an active interest in advertising. Hell, like everybody I looked forward to the Super Bowl commercials but even regular adverts sometimes attracted my attention. Not every commercial, of course, but I wasn't so averse to seeing them. Sometimes I even learned about a product that might interest me. Now, I feel like throwing up when I even notice an advert.
And now the advertisers are moaning about how DNT might hurt their precious industry. Well, cry me a river. You're like overzealous lumberjacks who clear-cut an entire forest in a year and then are wondering how you can possibly survive without any trees. And DNT is salting the fucking ground so nothing new can grow. You want sympathy from me? You're the ones who poisoned your own enviroment!
Fuck all of you advertisers; I hope you all go out of business, every one. I'm using Adblock, no-script, cookie and tracking bug blockers; I rip DVDs as soon as I get them so I don't have to see your shitty trailers, I zero-out the logo-movies in my games; don't come moaning to me about how advertising is "necessary" and we couldn't have all these wonderful things without the all-might marketing dollar to pay for it. I remember a time when there weren't ads on anything and you know, it was pretty damn good.
Even worse, *not* breathing is *also* punishable by death.
What's a guy to do?
Wait, your argument is that since teens can go to jail for showing each other naked pictures of themselves, the solution is to keylog? Because I can see the inevitable conclusion of that: YOU go to jail because -thanks to this keylogging software- now *you* have naked pictures of minors on *your* computer. Yes, even if it is your own kid.
Heck, even the mere presence of the keylogging software might be used against you; isn't that a "hacking" tool? Its close enough for most people. I can certainly see wiretapping laws used against you if the keylogger is used to monitor communications between your kid and others. Likely your own kid won't take you to court, but what if the parents of his or her friends learn what you are doing?
This keylogging solution is wrong in every respect; it won't solve the problem and it opens up a whole host of new issues. Just because the sheriff of some podunk town in 'Jersey suggests it doesn't make it a good idea.
1) You pay $40/month for an unlimited 10Mbps connection, but can only get 10Mbps at 2-4am in the morning. Other times, because of high network usage, you get an unstable connection that goes 3-5Mbps, or even slower during peak times.
2) You pay $40/month for a 10Mbps connection with a 100GB limit. Most of the time, your connection speed is around 10Mbps, but you just need to watch how much you download. There is a tool provided for you by the ISP to check your usage, updated daily.
And, more likely,
3) You pay $40/month for a 10Mbps connection with a 100GB limit but can only get 10Mbps at 2-4am in the morning. Other times, because of high network usage, you get an unstable connection that goes 3-5Mbps, or even slower during peak times.
Do you really think that companies still won't oversell their bandwidth just because they also assign you a bandwidth cap? 'Cause that's what I'm seeing in my neck of the woods; I get a bandwidth cap and still see my speed drop precipitously during periods of heavy traffic (complaints to the provider result in the usual "we promise speeds 'up to' the specified speed, with no guarantee you will always get that bandwidth" cop-out).
No, better to limit how much the providers can screw you. They are still going to stick us with bandwidth caps, they are still going to oversell their bandwidth; I'd rather they not nickle and dime me for actual usage in addition.
(I originally wrote this article for the PC Gaming Alliance article posted this morning... but since it's relevant to this discussion too I think I'll just copy and paste it again into this thread ;-)
People keep harping about how useless DRM is against preventing piracy. And this is undeniably true; at best it might slow down people from copying games, but often not even that. So why, everyone wonders, do companies still insist on wasting resources, losing money, programmers, even loyal customers on a boondoggle that has been proven to be ineffective?
Because DRM is no longer only about stopping piracy. It has oh-so-many other advantages.
1) It kills second-hand sales.
2) It enables forced obsolescence (kill the registration servers and you can't play the game anymore)
3) It ensures a one-title, one machine policy. Own a lap-top AND a desktop? You can't play the game on both.
4) Online activation requires a user to be online and transmit data to the publisher. You can use this to collect valuable demographic info (also, since the customer has to be online anyway, you might as well push advertisements down his way to earn even more cash!)
5) It slowly pushes users to become more accepting of service-based licenses (e.g., subscription gaming) instead of single-sales.
6) It reassures investors that the publisher is protecting their property.
That it might have some minimal effect on slowing illegal copying of games is just an added bonus at this point. It's less a way of preventing piracy at this point as it is of maximizing the publisher's income. Don't expect it to go away anytime soon, no matter how much the customers hate it.
6. Can't add mods or enhancements to a game. Counterstrike would never have existed in a world where everyone plays on OnLive
7. You can only play games OnLive allows. Indie games like Minecraft? You won't find them. AO-rated games? Might tarnish OnLive's reputation so they are gone too.
8. Competition to OnLive (because if it takes off, there will be competition) will fragment the player-base. You play Quake on OnLivebut your friend has Quake on the competetion, LiveOn. Sorry, no deathmatch for you two.
9. Can't re-sell your games. It's a service, not a sale, so if you bought a stinker you lose your money forever.
10. Online-advertising becomes easier for developers. Now Lord British wants you to go on a quest of find 5 Bottles of Pepsi.
Basically,
There seems to be an increasing emphasis by schools on "catching cheaters". This seems to be missing the point.
We send our kids to school not so they can pass tests. I honestly do not care if my kid gets an "A" or an "F" on the test; I care that he actually learns the material. Tests are a tool that educators can use to help them determine if a child is learning the material but passing grades shouldn't be the goal. If students are cheating on tests then you need to look at the reason why. Is the material being presented in a way that is too hard for the child to understand? Is it not being presented in a way that interests the student? If a student is intererested, he will learn. If he learns, then he has no need to cheat.
Stop spending money on anti-cheating technologies. Spend money on improving the methods of education.
Can anyone think of a buyer, without invoking Snow Crash?
Slashdot.
C'mon everybody; chip in $5.00 Let's be the first Internet website with its own aircraft carrier.
Watch out, Digg!
Blu-Ray is cracked? The masterkey is available to all? There is no technical restriction on doing what I want with the contents of a blu-ray disk now? Great!
*NOW* I will buy a Blu-Ray drive and blu-ray content. Because those very restrictions that were supposed to protect the content-producers investment were the same things that were keeping me from cracking open my wallet and handing them my money.
When will companies learn: DRM doesn't work and it annoys your real customers. It costs you more money than it can possibly save. Treat us like criminals and we will either act to your expectations or avoid your products entirely.
Of course, now comes the hard part: trying to find any blu-ray content *worth* buying.
It sounds less like Orwell's "1984" and more like the Gilleadan theocracy of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale".
"There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.
I suppose not having to worry about these "bad things" has its appeal to some, but I happen to like the ability to define what I think is bad rather than depending on some outside source doing my thinking for me. You know, don't just go with the flow but "think different" and all.
Well AFAIK The Dragon Age engine is based on the same engine used for KOTOR and many other Bioware games, just updated for the modern era.
Actually, it doesn't.
Mass Effect uses the Eclipse engine. This is considered a wholly new engine (although it doubtlessly shares some code from earlier projects, just because it is the same development house and performs similar functions).
Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 and Jade Empire used the Odyssey engine. This in turn was based on the Aurora engine, first used in the Neverwinter Nights games (as well as a number of third-party titles).
Prior to that, of course, Bioware used the venerable Infinity engine, which powered Planescape Torment, the Baldur's Gate and the Icewind Dale games.