Theres a pretty big difference between lobbying and bribery. Lobbying isn't intrinsically bad - heck the ACLU does it as does the EFF among/. favourites. The trouble is lobbying is not very far removed from campaign donations. Industry gives politician money and then politician is very receptive to industry umbrella organization lobbying. The latter is for all intents and purposes bribery, especially given the copyright reform legislation. She has apparently been a broadcaster for the better part of her life. Can we say conflict of interest. Somebody should call them on it and accuse her of bribery - there are presumably laws against that sort of thing in Canada. The British probably left something like a public interest litigation around. And if Oda is a minister then accuse Harper of running a corrupt government. Even if it isn't successful the press is bad, and the embarrassment will force them to do something.
Longer term I think there should be a declaration on who writes an actual bill not just who sponsors it, and politicians be forced to declare conflict of interest and remove themselves from any proceedings regarding such legislation or face censure - something I'm sure their opponents will enjoy using the next election.
Of course the trouble with all this is that even if media industry looses this round, they'll just try again in a few years. So I still smile when I hear that the music industries sales are still falling despite the growth of online sales.
Wow there is a lot of anti-China rhetoric out here. Sure I hate the great firewall as much as the next/.ter but...
How is this any different than local efforts to purify the internet like segregating the dirty pics into.xxx domains, Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), DOPA, banning online gambling...
You can find out all about international efforts to purify the net here. And its already outdated.
Every politician will talk about purifying the internet, making it safe for you and your children because most people have a knee jerk reaction, and it distracts from real issues.
I think its worse than prisoners dilemma. MS, Apple and a lot of other companies want DRM. Its good for their business if they can position themselves as the content delivery middlemen of this century and indeed both MS and Apple have already taken steps in this direction. No one gives a shit about users because users doesn't really care about DRM. Ask an ITMS fan. Everyone, irrespective of OS choice, wants stuff to just work, and are pretty damned ignorant about DRM even today and will ignore it as long as it isn't very restrictive. Thus, MS and Apple will implement DRM even if the studios don't want (indeed some studios have given Apple rights to sell unencrypted tracks and yet they do not). If they are happy with their market share, then they will change the DRM making it more restrictive and then you are well and truly locked in.
I wish you and GP were right but its utopia guys. We have an economic system which demands that companies maximize profit. In that light companies will restrict user rights and try to lock customers in to their goods and services. This is true of shaving razors, cellphones, cars, camera lenses, operating systems and now media.
1: It's more of the same. How many times do you have to buy more of the same before you realise it isn't solving your problems? 2: Ubuntu. It's even free. 3: OSX was out in 2000, Vista is 6 years behind the state of the art. 4: Wired for DRM, your computer is no longer fully under your control... muses... Was it ever with Windows. 5: It costs money. See #2. 6: Massive monoculture bad juju. Perfect for virus/trojan/worm writers. Hell, even evolution produced sexuality to avoid monocultures, that's how good diversity is. 7: Retraining costs. See #2. 8: Bad for the environment. Requires another round of system purchases and junking of "old" systems.
Bill Gates: Profit!
I'm sure there are more.
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I'll give you 5 (statement of fact) and 6 (I agree) but the rest of this is wrong, unrealistic or just plain trolling (and pretty badly given your low UID)
1: Wrong. It does have new features. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windo ws_Vista . 2: Unrealistic. Retraining costs, software, utter nigthmare to get it to work on some laptops (I've tried personally). Not possible for gamers. I love linux and have used several distros, and Ubuntu is very, very good but I can't send Mark Shuttleworth the bill for the time I spent fixing things or hunting for solutions in forums. I don't really mind the time and can actually get things to work the way I wan't but a lot of people cannot. I do have a Windows XP desktop and I have had significantly fewer problems with it than my debian box in lab or my zenwalk laptop. 3: Trolling a) So? b) Vista copies several features in OS X c) I can't buy it off the shelf d) Limited games and software - also see 4) 4: Wrong - I agree the DRM is principally to ensure a monopoly in the longterm (I argued this yesterday - see comment history) but it is still exactly as invasive as the content provider requires. OS X will require the same content controls, as will any Linux player to play commercial HD content. Several Linux distros support the TPM yet I don't hear anyone yelling about it. 5: Statement of fact. A lot of things do. Like I said I cannot send Mark Shuttleworth a bill for my time. Linux is free as in speech and maybe avaialble free as in beer but the cost of drinking that beer isn't being fully factored in here. 6: I cannot disagree. C'est la vie. We can all point fingers and you can yell at people to change to OS X/some linux but they aren't going to. I prefer helping them get their windows boxes more secure. 7: I don't see how your point 7 relates to 2 at all. Are you arguing that the retraining costs are offset by the free OS? See 5. 8: Trolling. Most people are getting Vista with a new computer and are junking old systems irrespective. Also you don't have to junk it at all just because you choose to upgrade. I've a 7 year old Thinkpad that happily runs vector.
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Given 1 there are quite a few reasons to upgrade to vista (and I don't carea bout anything on the top of that page. ASLR and UAC, however annoying it is, itself make it worth it. PatchGuard, irrespective of how the antivirii companies feel is also a great idea. Should these have been there ages ago. Sure. Is linux more secure anyway. Sure. Are people going to change. Nope. Too much depends on Windows and migrating to another OS is not an option for several buisness/gamers and just plain old users. However you feel about that and how MS got their monopoly, it is simply the current situation and is not going to change.
Reckon you won't upgrade to Vista until the first service pack is released? That's looking likely to be the second half of this year, according to Microsoft's latest email blast.
The company has put out a call for "customers and partners (to) actively test and provide feedback on Windows Vista SP1 to help us prepare for its release in the second half of CY07 (calendar year 2007)."
Microsoft hasn't released details of exactly what changes will be wrought in Vista SP1, which has been assigned the codename 'Fiji' but some OS components which missed the RTM cut-off will almost certainly be rolled into the update.
One of the candidates for this better-late-than-never brigade would be the Windows PowerShell, previously Microsoft Shell -- a.NET-based command line shell with its own scripting language.
However, the Redmond clarion call declares that "regressions from Windows Vista and Windows XP, security, deployment blockers and other high impact issues as are the primary focus for the Service Pack."
So, yes, the still not-yet-released Vista has "high impact issues".
Testers will be enrolled in the Vista SP1 "Technology Adoption Program" and "must be willing to provide feedback and deploy pre-release builds into production environments."
In exchange, Microsoft promises they will have "an opportunity to influence product changes including the opportunity to work directly with product groups influencing their short term and long term goals".
Channels of communications back to the mother ship will include weekly LiveMeeting sessions, "onsite events and regular conference calls" with "24/7 production support for the Service Pack throughout the program."
There's also a clear desire to ensure that SP1 is rock sold. One of the goals for TAP testers will be to "validate the stability of Windows Vista SP1 through production deployments" says the email.
"It's important that customers deploy the Service Pack into production environments within 30 days of a milestone release. Issues will surface from the deployments as well as throughout the program as end users test its limits thought their day-to-day activities. The Windows TAP team will work with customers to identify and drive these issues."
If Vista SP1 scrapes in by December 2007 it will have been 11 months since the OS itself debuted -- the same length of time it took for Windows XP to get its first service pack. However, Microsoft is almost certainly aiming for a much earlier arrival, perhaps to overcome the reluctance among consumers and businesses alike to plunge headfirst into Vista. This is most often espoused in the conventional Windows wisdom which suggests waiting until Service Pack 1 ships.
So how do you get invited to sit at the cool kids' table with all the other TAP folk? This isn't a program for mere mortals. Microsoft suggests that interested users contact their" Technical Account Manager at Microsoft to get nominated".
The Chosen Ones will be expected to "deploy pre-release versions of Service Pack 1 into production environments at each major milestone (Beta, RC, RTM) within 30 days of the milestone release, actively provide feedback on all builds made available to them" and also "meet or exceed predetermined deployment count goals for each milestone."
I don't think the iphone announcement was badly timed. I'm not an apple fan at all. Yet I kept hitting refresh to see what was new. The buzz that surrounded the iPhone was tremendous and every time I saw a mockup the feaure list it advertised got longer. Apple almost had to announce it to keep peoples expectations reasonable. Did it distract from Apple TV - you betcha. Thats ok - there are other things out there like the AppleTV but nothing quite like the iPhone.
The best current gen smartphones (IMHO the HTC Hermes/TyTN or Cingular 8525) can do a lot of the same things but there is something to be said for the interface difference and I'm only referring to the smartphone capabilities here. Apple was right in focusing on the iPhone because it really is a unique smartphone. Yes the lack of an actual keyboard is probably going to hurt them some. The multitouch is cool with its nifty zooming and all but if I need to bang out an email I don't really wan't to be using a touchscreen. The non-user replaceable battery is going to hurt them much more. Its a phone - the rules are different. It has to work. If I have to carry an extra battery its o.k. It HAS to work. A lot of phones are locked to one carrier - doesn't really bother me. The media capabilities are nice and sure 8GB isn't much but then the 8525 doesn't even measure space in GBs. Think of it as a phone that can double as an video iPod nano and you are better off.
Yes I'd love to the see the knockoffs that we get which might have larger HDDs, keyboards and most importantly user replaceable batteries. But the point remains - they were right to focus on the iPhone because it will change the way we communicate. The product has its shortcomings but the bar has most definetly been raised and its a sign of how things will be soon. With something like that you would be crazy not to focus on it.
So you've some time to "upgrade." Yes it blows that you might have to change your hardware (in that this is even a possibility) but really if AACS isn't definitively cracked by then - and Muslix64 seems to have taken the first steps already - then you may actually have something to whine about.
Really what everyone ought to worry about is not small fry like HDCP but Palladium or Trusted Computing or whatever they are calling it these days.
IMHO, the real reason MS implements HDCP (even though I played devils advocate and said the content producers made them in another post) is because its in their best interests. MS wants to be the middle man controlling the delivery of media to you in the 21st century. Thats the point of the Xbox 360 and the Zune and Vista's implementation of HDCP. Apple is already doing this with music and its a great business model. Once Apple has a complete monopoly, they will be able to dictate terms to the recording industry. And to you dear customer. I cringe when Apple fanboys talk about how easy it is to circumvent FairPlay by burning to CD. Sure FairPlay is not onerous now but they've updated to your detriment at least twice and you can be damn sure they will again and it won't be as "benign" as reducing the number of times you can copy a playlist. The yoke is easy and the burden light... when you first put it on. The same goes for MS. They will implement HDCP, and later even more control with the TPM. The Blockbusters and Tower Records are dead. MS and Apple are implementing content protection simply to safeguard their own business interests.
If you've survived my tin foil hat this long... eventually companies will move to replace PCs with dedicated devices that cannot run anything but the companies own software - lockdown ala Tivo. That gives them so many more "revenue streams" and much tighter control. Watch as it slowly happens with Xboxes and iPhones all the in the name of simplicity and ease of use.
Its not really tinfoil. If it was my company and my goal was to maximize profits, given that I had a monopoly, I'd do it too.
The medical imaging thing was FUD and that was clear right from the outset. The content protection has always been from the content providers. If you want HD content then they do force you to get HDCP compliant hardware or live with 480p (though supposedly not until 2011ish). Any software that wants to playback HD content from the major studios is also going to need a license and a set of keys. This was true on Windows, and on OSX and on any other bloody OS you choose.
These guys do have a doosie though (emphasis mine)
Windows Vista's content protection features were developed to carefully balance the need to provide robust protection from commercial content while still enabling great new experiences such as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray playback.
I'm not sure all the "Oh noes this is taking away my resale rights" have a point.
As distribution becomes entirely free of physical media it was going to be hard to resell your copies anyway. What did you want to do - have people that popped over to your garage sale stick a usb drive in your computer and mv the copy over??? On the one hand we want physical media to die so that we can time shift and format shift to our hearts content, and on the other hand we want to maintain resale rights. I'd say be reasonable.
Resale rights have been dying for a while. A lot of new computer games come with cd keys that get linked to online accounts ala steam. You could try to resell them, but the guy at the other end would be buying a limited copy. Try reselling your itunes downloads recently? http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5072842.html. Old record stores were my favourite way of getting old music because you couldn't waltz into Tower records and buy it. Then emusic came along and I switched.
Availability of older material won't be so much of an issue if you have distribution thats free of physical media. That itself reduced the value of your resale rights in a way. Digital distribution with watermarking will very effectively kill the resale market. This will probably lead to nasty pricing issues with older material. But the point is they were bound to die ever since I could make a copy of a CD and sell the original at a garage sale. Or borrow a dvd from blockbuster and burn a couple of thousand copies with dvd decrypter and resell them in paper envelopes. In the process though I get dirt simple format, place and time shifting.
Now digital watermarking is a much more consumer friendly approach than DRM. You get a copy, do what you like with it except distribute it and if that means you effectively can't resell it then c'est la vie. Nothing by the way prevents you from reselling it - just the risk of getting hauled to court. Sort of what you'd expect in a world where you can keep a copy and make an infinite number of resales anyway.
DRM controls you much more. You cannot format shift easily (and frequently not without loss). Worse how you could use your content were more strongly controlled. I can imagine a world where if you wanted your iTunes to play on your iPod and your mac you'd need a different a different version for both. Or one where you couldn't buy a copy and only lease one on a pay for play. If any company gets a monopoly on online content distribution this will likely happen.
Either a) You put it online - therefore **AA should go apeshit on you b) Someone stole your computer and put it online - presumably there is a police record you filed so you aren't liable c) Someone used your computer and put it online - your own damn fault IMHO d) Someone forged the watermark and knew which unique watermark matches embedding name/account (unlikely unless you have a reference file)
So really it does make it your responsibility except in case b) which you really aren't liable for. Finally if there is five seconds at the start of said clip with a name and a company logo and a detectable watermark throughout the movie, that really ought to be enough for video sharing sites like YouTube to never upload the content to begin with. They might be able to force p2p sites to do the same though that one is harder - maybe doing it at the client level and something that I can't defeat my changing the file extension.
Now for the rant...
I'm a much bigger fan of this than streaming solutions or DRM solutions because here I own my copy and can do whatever I want with it quite legally. That is why I think its doomed to fail. I think the **AA really wants to be able to limit to you to pay for play and buy again for different format because that business model gives them the most money. This by contrast is reasonable and respects consumers and is much less profitable.
A lot of the major features in Vista aren't transparent to the user - they are invisible to the user and work behind the scenes securing the system. Given the absolute monopoly of Windows, added security is not a bad thing and is itself worth the money, without a new system. The eye candy is what most people will care about and is probably the first thing long time users will turn off. IMHO, the exposes and the flip3ds, gadgets and widgets, and spaces and virtual desktops of this world are pretty but essentially worthless. I've had to use both and frankly remain most productive with a command line.
And as for your last line troll - as a longtime windows and linux user, I've enjoyed being able to buy an OS without buying a computer at the same time, as well as the ability to put that OS on whatever computer I damn well please. Seems OSX is lacking that feature. When it doesn't its worth comparing Vista and OSX. Besides, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I'm not really bothered what OSX/Gnome/Beryl had before Vista, only that I have it now on the computer I built.
They made me buy every damned game even that turd blood omen 2, and then they just stop with defiance. Finish the bloody series so I can kill the elder god and be happy.
And I second Wing Commander (many thanks to the poster who pointed me towards wing commander saga) and Duke Nukem. Actually it would also be nice to have a shadow warrior sequel - that game was funny as hell.
Apple *could* charge you nothing and give you new functionality - they just have to go through a mountain of paper work to do it. By charging you they are saving money by not doing said mountain and making money of you. They could have charged you a cent or something I guess they want some beer money. Rotten Apple.
You don't get it it do you. You aren't fighting a company here. You are really fighting your own government. Fine say this bill dies - in two years another one will show up. Defeat that one and theres another going to follow. All they have to do is win once. Its a losing battle. Yes I'm fully aware of the risks of losing a general purpose home computer, indeed I think its hopeless and it will happen and the only people who will have them will be those who can actually make their own - and that will probably be illegal too. Yes I recognize that its the regulation of my bloody life at stake. And I argue that trying to work within the confines of the regulatory body is of no use at all because the electorate lost control over it a long time ago. Might as well fight it being called a criminal or a pirate.
You know what. I'm sick of these attempts to regulate the internet. Just call me a criminal but I'll hapilly circumvent drm on files I download or dvds I own, and happily fire up a shoutcast server and you can take your obligatory drm and FOAD. There will be zilch you can do about it.
Maybe the army should use Google Earth to pinpoint vulnerable targets within their bases... and make them, oh I don't know, not vulnerable. Or better yet walk around you bases and figure out whats vulnerable in real time! I mean if Google Earth has data thats more than a year old and terrorists have used it to pinpoint vulnerable targets then doesn't that mean that the targets have been vulnerable for more than a year.
That most people live their daily lives blissfully ignorant of the dangers of nuclear weapons is entirely irrelevant. I don't think most people have a sense of scale for what a nuclear weapon can do. Therefore, the risk of a nuclear war is meaningless to them. Worse, I've heard and met some people who believe it won't be any worse than a conventional war, and are quite happy saying nuke Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and while you are at it, N. Korea. Sure most people ignore risks and only react after something happens. The trouble with a doomsday scale nuclear war is there isn't an after. Perhaps if you kept that in mind it wouldn't lose so much of its impact.
I followed some of the links in TFA, and for the most part have come to the conclusion that the article is spreading a bit of FUD.
There isn't all that much stuff here - pictures of bad driving, and not picking up your dogs poop sure, but a lot of them are "look at her wearing sweatpants in a dance floor", and "she didn't even try to understand baseball and is an elitist Ivy league bitch", stupid or misspelt signs, people who cut in line. Whatever. Its happened to all of us, and we've all done it occasionally and you let it slip. Virtually no one is actually identified.
The article makes it seem like there is a new generation of social vigilantes watching for your every misstep. In reality its just a bunch of whiny bitches with a camera and an internet connection. Theres no "return to shame as a check on social behavior" here.
That says nothing about the potential for things to go that way. I doubt that will happen - I think most people are reasonable and have better things to do with their time. IMHO, social conformity is more of an issue in some Asian societies, but not really here. So I think you are safe wearing your sweatpants to the dance club (she got past the bouncers... ) and most of the time all that will happen is people will laugh at you and forget.
"From what I've seen (of the movie) and what my husband has expressed to me, if (the movie) is going to take the approach of 'bad America, bad America,' I don't think it should be shown at all," Gayle Hardison said. "If you're going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don't think the video should be shown." Let me translate. "LA, LA, LA, I'm not listening! LA, LA, LA."
School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view." The kooks have won. This movie cannot be shown because clearly there is no credible, legitimate opposing view at all, so none can be presented. This constant need to provide an opposing viewpoint as a counter balance is idiotic. Science is not a democracy. If a model does not fit the data then the model is wrong. A 14,000 year old earth does not fit the data without a massive fudge factor called divine intervention. It is wrong. If you insist on it because its in your bible then you force me to say your bible is wrong. The theory that human activity is not affecting the environment does not fit the data, unless you choose to be like Gayle Hardison and ignore it. As for Gayle, the good ole US of A has 5% of the worlds population and produces 25% of the worlds greenhouse gases. You can ignore it all but the remaining 95% of the world is quite happy to point fingers.
I also do not know what condoms in school have to do with global warming and why those two ideas need to be expressed in the same sentence.
I studied through high school in India and came to the U.S. for college. I remember my CS classes. Our teacher was a dinosaur. He knew about pascal and some basic but he was taught by idiots and consequently his code never got beyond the Hello World level. We were supposed to be learning C++. He did mean well though and freely admitted being ignorant which helped immensely because we were forced to learn by ourselves. I count myself as being very lucky. Several teachers would have shoved what they learned by rote knew down our throats. The quality of software you get back reflects this education, and the price you pay for it. You want good software from India go hire a bunch of IIT and BITS grads and have them do it. You will pay though. Or alternatively, wait a decade or so. Software outsourcing is (paid for!) real world practical training for the next generation of teachers and thats something thats been sorely lacking.
As for the call center jobs... well you could complain about Indians who can't speak English (or American as the case is) but frankly the communication barrier has very little to do with accents or language. I know guys from here that can understand Indian accents easier than they can understand people from central Illinois and Texas. You guys try to imitate Apu frequently enough. Rather, the headache with support people is because they have crappy scripts to read from. Support would suck even if it wasn't outsourced unless you have someone on the other end of the line who actually knows the product he is trying to support. That costs companies money and companies that value their profits more than their customers know they can get away with crap service. Ideally they'd love to not bother with support at all.
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Theres a pretty big difference between lobbying and bribery. Lobbying isn't intrinsically bad - heck the ACLU does it as does the EFF among /. favourites. The trouble is lobbying is not very far removed from campaign donations. Industry gives politician money and then politician is very receptive to industry umbrella organization lobbying. The latter is for all intents and purposes bribery, especially given the copyright reform legislation. She has apparently been a broadcaster for the better part of her life. Can we say conflict of interest. Somebody should call them on it and accuse her of bribery - there are presumably laws against that sort of thing in Canada. The British probably left something like a public interest litigation around. And if Oda is a minister then accuse Harper of running a corrupt government. Even if it isn't successful the press is bad, and the embarrassment will force them to do something.
Longer term I think there should be a declaration on who writes an actual bill not just who sponsors it, and politicians be forced to declare conflict of interest and remove themselves from any proceedings regarding such legislation or face censure - something I'm sure their opponents will enjoy using the next election.
Of course the trouble with all this is that even if media industry looses this round, they'll just try again in a few years. So I still smile when I hear that the music industries sales are still falling despite the growth of online sales.
Wow there is a lot of anti-China rhetoric out here. Sure I hate the great firewall as much as the next /.ter but...
.xxx domains, Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), DOPA, banning online gambling...
How is this any different than local efforts to purify the internet like segregating the dirty pics into
You can find out all about international efforts to purify the net here. And its already outdated.
Every politician will talk about purifying the internet, making it safe for you and your children because most people have a knee jerk reaction, and it distracts from real issues.
I think its worse than prisoners dilemma. MS, Apple and a lot of other companies want DRM. Its good for their business if they can position themselves as the content delivery middlemen of this century and indeed both MS and Apple have already taken steps in this direction. No one gives a shit about users because users doesn't really care about DRM. Ask an ITMS fan. Everyone, irrespective of OS choice, wants stuff to just work, and are pretty damned ignorant about DRM even today and will ignore it as long as it isn't very restrictive. Thus, MS and Apple will implement DRM even if the studios don't want (indeed some studios have given Apple rights to sell unencrypted tracks and yet they do not). If they are happy with their market share, then they will change the DRM making it more restrictive and then you are well and truly locked in.
I wish you and GP were right but its utopia guys. We have an economic system which demands that companies maximize profit. In that light companies will restrict user rights and try to lock customers in to their goods and services. This is true of shaving razors, cellphones, cars, camera lenses, operating systems and now media.
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I'll give you 5 (statement of fact) and 6 (I agree) but the rest of this is wrong, unrealistic or just plain trolling (and pretty badly given your low UID)
1: Wrong. It does have new features. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Wind
2: Unrealistic. Retraining costs, software, utter nigthmare to get it to work on some laptops (I've tried personally). Not possible for gamers. I love linux and have used several distros, and Ubuntu is very, very good but I can't send Mark Shuttleworth the bill for the time I spent fixing things or hunting for solutions in forums. I don't really mind the time and can actually get things to work the way I wan't but a lot of people cannot. I do have a Windows XP desktop and I have had significantly fewer problems with it than my debian box in lab or my zenwalk laptop.
3: Trolling a) So? b) Vista copies several features in OS X c) I can't buy it off the shelf d) Limited games and software - also see 4)
4: Wrong - I agree the DRM is principally to ensure a monopoly in the longterm (I argued this yesterday - see comment history) but it is still exactly as invasive as the content provider requires. OS X will require the same content controls, as will any Linux player to play commercial HD content. Several Linux distros support the TPM yet I don't hear anyone yelling about it.
5: Statement of fact. A lot of things do. Like I said I cannot send Mark Shuttleworth a bill for my time. Linux is free as in speech and maybe avaialble free as in beer but the cost of drinking that beer isn't being fully factored in here.
6: I cannot disagree. C'est la vie. We can all point fingers and you can yell at people to change to OS X/some linux but they aren't going to. I prefer helping them get their windows boxes more secure.
7: I don't see how your point 7 relates to 2 at all. Are you arguing that the retraining costs are offset by the free OS? See 5.
8: Trolling. Most people are getting Vista with a new computer and are junking old systems irrespective. Also you don't have to junk it at all just because you choose to upgrade. I've a 7 year old Thinkpad that happily runs vector.
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Given 1 there are quite a few reasons to upgrade to vista (and I don't carea bout anything on the top of that page. ASLR and UAC, however annoying it is, itself make it worth it. PatchGuard, irrespective of how the antivirii companies feel is also a great idea. Should these have been there ages ago. Sure. Is linux more secure anyway. Sure. Are people going to change. Nope. Too much depends on Windows and migrating to another OS is not an option for several buisness/gamers and just plain old users. However you feel about that and how MS got their monopoly, it is simply the current situation and is not going to change.
Reckon you won't upgrade to Vista until the first service pack is released? That's looking likely to be the second half of this year, according to Microsoft's latest email blast.
.NET-based command line shell with its own scripting language.
The company has put out a call for "customers and partners (to) actively test and provide feedback on Windows Vista SP1 to help us prepare for its release in the second half of CY07 (calendar year 2007)."
Microsoft hasn't released details of exactly what changes will be wrought in Vista SP1, which has been assigned the codename 'Fiji' but some OS components which missed the RTM cut-off will almost certainly be rolled into the update.
One of the candidates for this better-late-than-never brigade would be the Windows PowerShell, previously Microsoft Shell -- a
However, the Redmond clarion call declares that "regressions from Windows Vista and Windows XP, security, deployment blockers and other high impact issues as are the primary focus for the Service Pack."
So, yes, the still not-yet-released Vista has "high impact issues".
Testers will be enrolled in the Vista SP1 "Technology Adoption Program" and "must be willing to provide feedback and deploy pre-release builds into production environments."
In exchange, Microsoft promises they will have "an opportunity to influence product changes including the opportunity to work directly with product groups influencing their short term and long term goals".
Channels of communications back to the mother ship will include weekly LiveMeeting sessions, "onsite events and regular conference calls" with "24/7 production support for the Service Pack throughout the program."
There's also a clear desire to ensure that SP1 is rock sold. One of the goals for TAP testers will be to "validate the stability of Windows Vista SP1 through production deployments" says the email.
"It's important that customers deploy the Service Pack into production environments within 30 days of a milestone release. Issues will surface from the deployments as well as throughout the program as end users test its limits thought their day-to-day activities. The Windows TAP team will work with customers to identify and drive these issues."
If Vista SP1 scrapes in by December 2007 it will have been 11 months since the OS itself debuted -- the same length of time it took for Windows XP to get its first service pack. However, Microsoft is almost certainly aiming for a much earlier arrival, perhaps to overcome the reluctance among consumers and businesses alike to plunge headfirst into Vista. This is most often espoused in the conventional Windows wisdom which suggests waiting until Service Pack 1 ships.
So how do you get invited to sit at the cool kids' table with all the other TAP folk? This isn't a program for mere mortals. Microsoft suggests that interested users contact their" Technical Account Manager at Microsoft to get nominated".
The Chosen Ones will be expected to "deploy pre-release versions of Service Pack 1 into production environments at each major milestone (Beta, RC, RTM) within 30 days of the milestone release, actively provide feedback on all builds made available to them" and also "meet or exceed predetermined deployment count goals for each milestone."
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
Slashdot has also added NoFollow to this article.
I don't think the iphone announcement was badly timed. I'm not an apple fan at all. Yet I kept hitting refresh to see what was new. The buzz that surrounded the iPhone was tremendous and every time I saw a mockup the feaure list it advertised got longer. Apple almost had to announce it to keep peoples expectations reasonable. Did it distract from Apple TV - you betcha. Thats ok - there are other things out there like the AppleTV but nothing quite like the iPhone.
The best current gen smartphones (IMHO the HTC Hermes/TyTN or Cingular 8525) can do a lot of the same things but there is something to be said for the interface difference and I'm only referring to the smartphone capabilities here. Apple was right in focusing on the iPhone because it really is a unique smartphone. Yes the lack of an actual keyboard is probably going to hurt them some. The multitouch is cool with its nifty zooming and all but if I need to bang out an email I don't really wan't to be using a touchscreen. The non-user replaceable battery is going to hurt them much more. Its a phone - the rules are different. It has to work. If I have to carry an extra battery its o.k. It HAS to work. A lot of phones are locked to one carrier - doesn't really bother me. The media capabilities are nice and sure 8GB isn't much but then the 8525 doesn't even measure space in GBs. Think of it as a phone that can double as an video iPod nano and you are better off.
Yes I'd love to the see the knockoffs that we get which might have larger HDDs, keyboards and most importantly user replaceable batteries. But the point remains - they were right to focus on the iPhone because it will change the way we communicate. The product has its shortcomings but the bar has most definetly been raised and its a sign of how things will be soon. With something like that you would be crazy not to focus on it.
Actually I don't believe anyone is planning on using the ICT until 2011 or so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_Constraint_Toke n
So you've some time to "upgrade." Yes it blows that you might have to change your hardware (in that this is even a possibility) but really if AACS isn't definitively cracked by then - and Muslix64 seems to have taken the first steps already - then you may actually have something to whine about.
Really what everyone ought to worry about is not small fry like HDCP but Palladium or Trusted Computing or whatever they are calling it these days.
IMHO, the real reason MS implements HDCP (even though I played devils advocate and said the content producers made them in another post) is because its in their best interests. MS wants to be the middle man controlling the delivery of media to you in the 21st century. Thats the point of the Xbox 360 and the Zune and Vista's implementation of HDCP. Apple is already doing this with music and its a great business model. Once Apple has a complete monopoly, they will be able to dictate terms to the recording industry. And to you dear customer. I cringe when Apple fanboys talk about how easy it is to circumvent FairPlay by burning to CD. Sure FairPlay is not onerous now but they've updated to your detriment at least twice and you can be damn sure they will again and it won't be as "benign" as reducing the number of times you can copy a playlist. The yoke is easy and the burden light... when you first put it on. The same goes for MS. They will implement HDCP, and later even more control with the TPM. The Blockbusters and Tower Records are dead. MS and Apple are implementing content protection simply to safeguard their own business interests.
If you've survived my tin foil hat this long... eventually companies will move to replace PCs with dedicated devices that cannot run anything but the companies own software - lockdown ala Tivo. That gives them so many more "revenue streams" and much tighter control. Watch as it slowly happens with Xboxes and iPhones all the in the name of simplicity and ease of use.
Its not really tinfoil. If it was my company and my goal was to maximize profits, given that I had a monopoly, I'd do it too.
These guys do have a doosie though (emphasis mine)
I'm not sure all the "Oh noes this is taking away my resale rights" have a point.
As distribution becomes entirely free of physical media it was going to be hard to resell your copies anyway. What did you want to do - have people that popped over to your garage sale stick a usb drive in your computer and mv the copy over??? On the one hand we want physical media to die so that we can time shift and format shift to our hearts content, and on the other hand we want to maintain resale rights. I'd say be reasonable.
Resale rights have been dying for a while. A lot of new computer games come with cd keys that get linked to online accounts ala steam. You could try to resell them, but the guy at the other end would be buying a limited copy. Try reselling your itunes downloads recently? http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5072842.html. Old record stores were my favourite way of getting old music because you couldn't waltz into Tower records and buy it. Then emusic came along and I switched.
Availability of older material won't be so much of an issue if you have distribution thats free of physical media. That itself reduced the value of your resale rights in a way. Digital distribution with watermarking will very effectively kill the resale market. This will probably lead to nasty pricing issues with older material. But the point is they were bound to die ever since I could make a copy of a CD and sell the original at a garage sale. Or borrow a dvd from blockbuster and burn a couple of thousand copies with dvd decrypter and resell them in paper envelopes. In the process though I get dirt simple format, place and time shifting.
Now digital watermarking is a much more consumer friendly approach than DRM. You get a copy, do what you like with it except distribute it and if that means you effectively can't resell it then c'est la vie. Nothing by the way prevents you from reselling it - just the risk of getting hauled to court. Sort of what you'd expect in a world where you can keep a copy and make an infinite number of resales anyway.
DRM controls you much more. You cannot format shift easily (and frequently not without loss). Worse how you could use your content were more strongly controlled. I can imagine a world where if you wanted your iTunes to play on your iPod and your mac you'd need a different a different version for both. Or one where you couldn't buy a copy and only lease one on a pay for play. If any company gets a monopoly on online content distribution this will likely happen.
How is it going to get online -
Either
a) You put it online - therefore **AA should go apeshit on you
b) Someone stole your computer and put it online - presumably there is a police record you filed so you aren't liable
c) Someone used your computer and put it online - your own damn fault IMHO
d) Someone forged the watermark and knew which unique watermark matches embedding name/account (unlikely unless you have a reference file)
So really it does make it your responsibility except in case b) which you really aren't liable for. Finally if there is five seconds at the start of said clip with a name and a company logo and a detectable watermark throughout the movie, that really ought to be enough for video sharing sites like YouTube to never upload the content to begin with. They might be able to force p2p sites to do the same though that one is harder - maybe doing it at the client level and something that I can't defeat my changing the file extension.
Now for the rant...
I'm a much bigger fan of this than streaming solutions or DRM solutions because here I own my copy and can do whatever I want with it quite legally. That is why I think its doomed to fail. I think the **AA really wants to be able to limit to you to pay for play and buy again for different format because that business model gives them the most money. This by contrast is reasonable and respects consumers and is much less profitable.
Like so much hot air from politicians...
;-)
And we come full circle
A lot of the major features in Vista aren't transparent to the user - they are invisible to the user and work behind the scenes securing the system. Given the absolute monopoly of Windows, added security is not a bad thing and is itself worth the money, without a new system. The eye candy is what most people will care about and is probably the first thing long time users will turn off. IMHO, the exposes and the flip3ds, gadgets and widgets, and spaces and virtual desktops of this world are pretty but essentially worthless. I've had to use both and frankly remain most productive with a command line.
And as for your last line troll - as a longtime windows and linux user, I've enjoyed being able to buy an OS without buying a computer at the same time, as well as the ability to put that OS on whatever computer I damn well please. Seems OSX is lacking that feature. When it doesn't its worth comparing Vista and OSX. Besides, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I'm not really bothered what OSX/Gnome/Beryl had before Vista, only that I have it now on the computer I built.
You don't kill him - just give him a good whacking, so that he can live to fight in a sequel which never happened.
They made me buy every damned game even that turd blood omen 2, and then they just stop with defiance. Finish the bloody series so I can kill the elder god and be happy.
And I second Wing Commander (many thanks to the poster who pointed me towards wing commander saga) and Duke Nukem. Actually it would also be nice to have a shadow warrior sequel - that game was funny as hell.
Apple *could* charge you nothing and give you new functionality - they just have to go through a mountain of paper work to do it. By charging you they are saving money by not doing said mountain and making money of you. They could have charged you a cent or something I guess they want some beer money. Rotten Apple.
You don't get it it do you. You aren't fighting a company here. You are really fighting your own government. Fine say this bill dies - in two years another one will show up. Defeat that one and theres another going to follow. All they have to do is win once. Its a losing battle. Yes I'm fully aware of the risks of losing a general purpose home computer, indeed I think its hopeless and it will happen and the only people who will have them will be those who can actually make their own - and that will probably be illegal too. Yes I recognize that its the regulation of my bloody life at stake. And I argue that trying to work within the confines of the regulatory body is of no use at all because the electorate lost control over it a long time ago. Might as well fight it being called a criminal or a pirate.
You know what. I'm sick of these attempts to regulate the internet. Just call me a criminal but I'll hapilly circumvent drm on files I download or dvds I own, and happily fire up a shoutcast server and you can take your obligatory drm and FOAD. There will be zilch you can do about it.
Maybe the army should use Google Earth to pinpoint vulnerable targets within their bases... and make them, oh I don't know, not vulnerable. Or better yet walk around you bases and figure out whats vulnerable in real time! I mean if Google Earth has data thats more than a year old and terrorists have used it to pinpoint vulnerable targets then doesn't that mean that the targets have been vulnerable for more than a year.
That most people live their daily lives blissfully ignorant of the dangers of nuclear weapons is entirely irrelevant. I don't think most people have a sense of scale for what a nuclear weapon can do. Therefore, the risk of a nuclear war is meaningless to them. Worse, I've heard and met some people who believe it won't be any worse than a conventional war, and are quite happy saying nuke Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and while you are at it, N. Korea. Sure most people ignore risks and only react after something happens. The trouble with a doomsday scale nuclear war is there isn't an after. Perhaps if you kept that in mind it wouldn't lose so much of its impact.
I followed some of the links in TFA, and for the most part have come to the conclusion that the article is spreading a bit of FUD.
There isn't all that much stuff here - pictures of bad driving, and not picking up your dogs poop sure, but a lot of them are "look at her wearing sweatpants in a dance floor", and "she didn't even try to understand baseball and is an elitist Ivy league bitch", stupid or misspelt signs, people who cut in line. Whatever. Its happened to all of us, and we've all done it occasionally and you let it slip. Virtually no one is actually identified.
The article makes it seem like there is a new generation of social vigilantes watching for your every misstep. In reality its just a bunch of whiny bitches with a camera and an internet connection. Theres no "return to shame as a check on social behavior" here.
That says nothing about the potential for things to go that way. I doubt that will happen - I think most people are reasonable and have better things to do with their time. IMHO, social conformity is more of an issue in some Asian societies, but not really here. So I think you are safe wearing your sweatpants to the dance club (she got past the bouncers... ) and most of the time all that will happen is people will laugh at you and forget.
Frosty is quite the activist.
This guy has beaten every troll on slashdot by redefining Frosty piss.
"LA, LA, LA, I'm not listening! LA, LA, LA." School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view." The kooks have won. This movie cannot be shown because clearly there is no credible, legitimate opposing view at all, so none can be presented. This constant need to provide an opposing viewpoint as a counter balance is idiotic. Science is not a democracy. If a model does not fit the data then the model is wrong. A 14,000 year old earth does not fit the data without a massive fudge factor called divine intervention. It is wrong. If you insist on it because its in your bible then you force me to say your bible is wrong. The theory that human activity is not affecting the environment does not fit the data, unless you choose to be like Gayle Hardison and ignore it. As for Gayle, the good ole US of A has 5% of the worlds population and produces 25% of the worlds greenhouse gases. You can ignore it all but the remaining 95% of the world is quite happy to point fingers.
I also do not know what condoms in school have to do with global warming and why those two ideas need to be expressed in the same sentence.
Ahh, complaints about software outsourcing...
I studied through high school in India and came to the U.S. for college. I remember my CS classes. Our teacher was a dinosaur. He knew about pascal and some basic but he was taught by idiots and consequently his code never got beyond the Hello World level. We were supposed to be learning C++. He did mean well though and freely admitted being ignorant which helped immensely because we were forced to learn by ourselves. I count myself as being very lucky. Several teachers would have shoved what they learned by rote knew down our throats. The quality of software you get back reflects this education, and the price you pay for it. You want good software from India go hire a bunch of IIT and BITS grads and have them do it. You will pay though. Or alternatively, wait a decade or so. Software outsourcing is (paid for!) real world practical training for the next generation of teachers and thats something thats been sorely lacking.
As for the call center jobs... well you could complain about Indians who can't speak English (or American as the case is) but frankly the communication barrier has very little to do with accents or language. I know guys from here that can understand Indian accents easier than they can understand people from central Illinois and Texas. You guys try to imitate Apu frequently enough. Rather, the headache with support people is because they have crappy scripts to read from. Support would suck even if it wasn't outsourced unless you have someone on the other end of the line who actually knows the product he is trying to support. That costs companies money and companies that value their profits more than their customers know they can get away with crap service. Ideally they'd love to not bother with support at all.
soylent green is people?