In Windows Granny would have to hunt the net to find the software she wants, check she has any other required software first, and all of the right version, manually install everything in the right order, reboot, and hope it all works.
What planet did you use Windows on? Here on Earth, that statement is pure FUD.
Even the very very very small number of Windows apps that actually depend on other apps to run (most of which are open source, BTW!) manage to get the installer right. Just yesterday I installed Pidgin on Windows Vista, and even though it relies on two other programs to run, I didn't end up manually installing anything in any order, and I didn't have to reboot. Non-open source Windows apps generally don't rely on other apps in the first place.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't 'VPN' in and of itself a broken concept based on the Microsoft view of networking?
Who gives a crap? The point is it didn't work.
And no, it wouldn't be better to "run a SSH pipe to and from your Ubuntu box" for two reasons: 1) He was probably using VPN to get to a service he doesn't directly control, for example, a network hosted by his employer. In this case, telling him how crappy VPN is doesn't really help solve his problem. (Which is probably something like, "I need a file off the fileshare at work.")
2) Nobody knows how to "run a SSH pipe to and from your Ubuntu box" except the kind of uber-geeks that read this site.
When I worked at a hospital, I was able to easily train non-computer-savvy officers and nurses to use VPN and Microsoft Remote Desktop to work on their data from home. I'm reasonably sure I completed this training in less time than it would have taken me to even explain what a "SSH pipe" is, or how to run Remote Desktop over it. The long and short of it is that VPN only requires a quick software install, a configuration file (which is folded into the installer 99% of the time) and a username/password. It's easy.
Hell, I consider myself pretty advanced with computers, and I've never figured out SSH.
Linux really needs to get past this attitude problem of "we don't support that because we think it's a bad/useless idea."
Once on this board I complained that one of the problems with Linux was that it didn't have universal copy-and-paste support like Windows and OS X has... my example was that you can't copy a few spreadsheet cells and paste them into a bitmap paint program in Linux, while doing that works fine in Windows and OS X.
The response was, "well, if you really need that, you can take a screenshot of the spreadsheet, then select the area you want, then paste it into the paint program." Without realizing that pasting the cells in OS X and Windows does *exactly that*, automatically. Regardless of how useless some Linux nerd thinks it is, there are ten thousand people out there that rely on it. (Hell, probably millions that rely on VPN working.) The end result is: everything should just goddamned work, period.
What the hell do you mean "the buyer had no choice?" Someone held a gun to their head and ordered them to buy a computer with Vista?
The buyer always has several choices. At the minimum: 1) Don't buy a new computer, keep your existing one. 2) Buy a Mac computer. 3) Build a computer from parts, then install your existing OS on it. etc.
Also, if you discount any choice that involved "pressure from salespeople", then pretty much every purchase ever made is "forced."
For example, I'd like to implement a P2P file system that downloads data only when accessed the first time, caching it on your disk. The idea there is a really tiny Linux installation could be created that has the whole freaking Ubuntu or Debian distro already fully installed, but the files wouldn't really be there - they'd be out on the P2P network, waiting to download when needed, rather than filling up my disk with crap I never use.
I actually saw a demo of a very similar system in a video of the Microsoft all-hands meeting. It was pretty damned slick; in addition to what you describe, all the applications were virtualized so you could have multiple versions of Office or IE running at the same time on the same computer. When you started Office, only the bare minimum code needed to open the default windows would be downloaded, then the rest of the application would stream in the background. Unfortunately, I can't remember what name Microsoft gave this whole thing and therefore I can't Google it.:)
That doesn't work when most of those lists lie about what hardware is supported.
I had a great experience with my Hauppauge WinPVR 150 card, which was "supported" by the IVTV driver in Linux-- hah! What a scam. Or the Ubuntu page which claims the OS works with Apple G4 iBooks, when in fact it doesn't support sleep mode (meaning, it's possible for Ubuntu to overheat the hardware.)
After a kernal update, I need to re-install legacy sound card drivers and revert to the old xorg.conf. It's not hard. And because I installed it on another partition, it will also break the menu.lst file. I know how to fix it.
Is this considered "normal" in the Linux world? Cripes. Whatever Linux developers released this gem lose any right they once had to complain about Windows-- at least Windows won't totally fuck with you randomly when you upgrade.
Every time I've tried Linux, I'd had some software not work. Hell, the first time I tried Linux was way back when Corel Linux was still an option-- on the online documentation, it claimed that it supported Soundblaster 128 sound cards. Great, that's what I have! But when you install it, no sound... no matter what you do, no sound.
Next time I tried it was some version of Ubuntu to use as a MythTV computer. The IVTV driver, which supports "every" Hauppauge WinPVR 150 somehow magically doesn't support my Hauppauge WinPVR 150. Screw it, I went back to Windows and used EyeTV.
Last time I tried Ubuntu a few months ago on my iBook. It failed to sleep the hardware when the lid was closed (a dangerous mistake), and of course wifi didn't work. And the only way to get wifi to work was to have a computer with working wifi first. Nice Catch-22 there, Ubuntu.
Since Ubuntu is widely believed to be the best Linux distro, I can only conclude that Linux is crap. I'd also like to point out a theme here: Linux software makers, stop blatantly lying to your users about what hardware is supported! Don't tell me iBooks are supported if you don't sleep. Don't tell me you work with SoundBlaster 128 cards if you don't! Stop telling me IVTV can be used with all Hauppauge cards when it can't! I'm sick of being lied to.
Personally I like being able to open up a spare window when playing WOW without crashing or locking up or bluscreening like the other people in my guold on windows when they try the same thing.
Just FYI, that is DEFINITELY not normal behavior for WOW on Windows (XP/Vista) or OS X. I'd say you're spouting bullshit, but I suppose it's possible that your guildmates have screwed up their OS install in some way to cause that.
As a resident of Washington State, I object to the use of "Washington" to refer to the Federal Government, since they virtually always drop the necessary "D.C." at the end.
I'm ok with the practice, as long as it doesn't increase the confusion of the reader.
Nice paranoid rant about Microsoft, but it doesn't answer the parent's question.
What makes you, or anybody, think that Microsoft was stifling Bungie's creativity? Was there an interview with someone at Bungie? Or, more likely, did the grandparent simply pull it out of thin air?
Makes sense. The Arbiter had thrown off the shackles of the Prophet's religion, and has come to see that the Chief is just a man (albeit a genetically modified, cybernetically enhanced man) and not some religious demon. I liked the Arbiter's faith in the Chief, for example at the end when he says something along the lines of "If only it was that easy", like he said when you first meet up with him in the first level, referring to the seeming inability for anything to kill the Chief. The world assumes the Chief is dead, but the Arbiter respects him enough that he won't believe the Chief is dead until he can see the cold, dead body himself.
I just thought it sounded cool in Arbiter's voice.;)
It's not against "Halo" persay, it's against "popular things." This is Slashdot, remember... anything that everybody uses/likes (Windows, CDs, movies) is just total crap designed to placate the "sheeple." You can't be a proper Slashdot hipster and like Halo at the same time, it just doesn't work.
Anyway, I agree with you. The cut-scenes in Halo 2 were simply amazing, IMO. (I love Arbiter, he kind of reminded me of Speaker from Niven's Ringworld series.) And the ending was the kind of thing that psychs you up, makes you get up out of your chair and cheer at the TV. I was a bit disappointed at Halo 3, which I don't think captured that same feeling as Halo 2, but it's still worth the hype, IMO. And I was disappointed that Arbiter stopped calling Master Chief "demon" in Halo 3... but oh well.
I think they're already pretty committed to releasing the Halo RTS on Xbox and PC... at least I got more than a couple ads about it in my Halo 3 box. (Then again, I got also got ads for Starcraft: Ghost in my WOW box, so I guess there are salt grains there.)
I'm pretty sure they're working on a non-Halo and probably non-Marathon title as well. (Myth 4? Oni 2? Or something new? Who knows.)
Stranger things have happened than Halo 3 on Wii. The major problem is that the Wii hardware is way too wimpy to run the engine-- they can back-port it to the Halo 1 engine, maybe.;)
no different games, they're barely even allowed to produce story-driven single player content.
Have you even played the single-player story in the Halo series? I know more than a couple people who bought Halo 3 to specifically see how the story ends, and have no interest in multiplayer at all.
the Marathon series (which was intended to tie in to Halo), the Myth series, even Pathways into Darkness was more original than Halo 3.
There were three games in the Marathon series, over about the same timespan the three Halo games came out. Surely Halo 3 is not *that* original, but neither was Marathon 3. In fact, Halo 3 is a lot more innovative over previous Halo games than Marathon 3 was over previous Marathon games... not only does Halo 3 have a vastly modified and improved engine (that Marathon 3 didn't have), but it has additional gameplay elements, like deployable items.
I was angry with Bungie when, just a few months before Halo was to be released as a Mac exclusive,
Halo was never intended to be a Mac exclusive. It was intended to be released first for Mac, then ported to Windows shortly afterward.
Bungie has had its creativity stifled for quite some time now and they've finally realized it.
Do you have any basis for saying this? Or is it just the normal Slashdot "I made something up then presented it as fact?" I've never heard anything about stifled creativity from any Bungie employees or anybody else in the industry.
Come to think of it, is there a single fact in your entire post?
Same with cars in the US. I have a '65 Chevy S-10 with no seatbelts, and immune to emissions checks.
Personally, I'd be glad to ride the (potentially unsafe) Apollo launch system up to the moon instead of waiting for NASA to spend 15 years coming up with a new system. The problem is that when it's a high profile thing like that, nobody will let you... the public has decided that NASA isn't allowed to take that risk. The shuttle, which in all probability is much safer than Apollo, has had thousands of modifications needed in the last few years because of perceived safety issues. The 1970s level of safety it was built to meet is no longer sufficient for NASA or the public.
Of course that's only part of the issue. The other part is, "if we're just going up with Apollo tech, why bother? We already did that." Covered by other posters in this thread.
No you can't, for the same reason you can't build a car from 1969, a stroller from 1969 or a power plant from 1969. Our priorities are so different now that virtually no product made in 1969 would pass all the various safety and regulatory hurdles required now. The car wouldn't pass modern emissions or safety regulations, not by a long shot.
Having a GUI will eliminate a lot of potential errors. For instance, if you typo "param" as "parm" it won't cause your program to barf all over itself next time it starts up. In a GUI editor, that's already filled in for you. Even RegEdit, which is pretty basic, sanity-checks that the value you enter for a float data type is actually a float and not a word. Editing text files directly doesn't offer that.
The "dismal failure of Vista" only exists among Slashdotters and big corporations. And the corporations will come around after a couple of service packs. (Big corps didn't use Windows 2000 right away, either.)
We may not all be awed by the glow of a full moon, a fiery meteor blazing through the sky, or just watching the twinkling of a million stars but we shouldn't take away the opportunity for all of us and future generations from seeing what many of us feel is the most amazing and spectacular thing imaginable: our universe.
Yes, but the entire point of my post is:
YOU CAN!
Look, I'm sorry that you live in New York and have to drive a long way to see the Milky Way. That's just one of those things you have to cope with when you choose where to live, I guess. But even if you do live in New York, you still have the option to go somewhere and see the Milky Way. Hell, if anything, making it a rare event makes it more meaningful.
I guess I just don't get the big deal. On my list of "problems that we should fix", this one is way towards the bottom.
Re:I've never got the point of wireless synching..
on
ZOMG New Zunes
·
· Score: 1
Yes, and when you buy a MP3 player with wireless capability, a representative from Microsoft actually comes to your house, holds a gun to your head, and forces you to sync it wirelessly!
Cripes, if you don't like the feature, don't use it. Why is that so hard for people on Slashdot to get?
From my understanding (I very briefly worked at Microsoft Games), while MS has the capability of banning Xboxes they only use this capability for Xboxes they know have been modded. Otherwise, they only ban the specific user-- otherwise you might buy a used Xbox from Gamestop that's banned from Xbox Live without you knowing it (or having any way to find it out), and that's basically class action-fuel.
Feel free to prove me wrong if you have better information. This is just stuff I've gleaned.
Slashdot Mirror
In Windows Granny would have to hunt the net to find the software she wants, check she has any other required software first, and all of the right version, manually install everything in the right order, reboot, and hope it all works.
What planet did you use Windows on? Here on Earth, that statement is pure FUD.
Even the very very very small number of Windows apps that actually depend on other apps to run (most of which are open source, BTW!) manage to get the installer right. Just yesterday I installed Pidgin on Windows Vista, and even though it relies on two other programs to run, I didn't end up manually installing anything in any order, and I didn't have to reboot. Non-open source Windows apps generally don't rely on other apps in the first place.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't 'VPN' in and of itself a broken concept based on the Microsoft view of networking?
Who gives a crap? The point is it didn't work.
And no, it wouldn't be better to "run a SSH pipe to and from your Ubuntu box" for two reasons:
1) He was probably using VPN to get to a service he doesn't directly control, for example, a network hosted by his employer. In this case, telling him how crappy VPN is doesn't really help solve his problem. (Which is probably something like, "I need a file off the fileshare at work.")
2) Nobody knows how to "run a SSH pipe to and from your Ubuntu box" except the kind of uber-geeks that read this site.
When I worked at a hospital, I was able to easily train non-computer-savvy officers and nurses to use VPN and Microsoft Remote Desktop to work on their data from home. I'm reasonably sure I completed this training in less time than it would have taken me to even explain what a "SSH pipe" is, or how to run Remote Desktop over it. The long and short of it is that VPN only requires a quick software install, a configuration file (which is folded into the installer 99% of the time) and a username/password. It's easy.
Hell, I consider myself pretty advanced with computers, and I've never figured out SSH.
Linux really needs to get past this attitude problem of "we don't support that because we think it's a bad/useless idea."
Once on this board I complained that one of the problems with Linux was that it didn't have universal copy-and-paste support like Windows and OS X has... my example was that you can't copy a few spreadsheet cells and paste them into a bitmap paint program in Linux, while doing that works fine in Windows and OS X.
The response was, "well, if you really need that, you can take a screenshot of the spreadsheet, then select the area you want, then paste it into the paint program." Without realizing that pasting the cells in OS X and Windows does *exactly that*, automatically. Regardless of how useless some Linux nerd thinks it is, there are ten thousand people out there that rely on it. (Hell, probably millions that rely on VPN working.) The end result is: everything should just goddamned work, period.
What the hell do you mean "the buyer had no choice?" Someone held a gun to their head and ordered them to buy a computer with Vista?
The buyer always has several choices. At the minimum:
1) Don't buy a new computer, keep your existing one.
2) Buy a Mac computer.
3) Build a computer from parts, then install your existing OS on it.
etc.
Also, if you discount any choice that involved "pressure from salespeople", then pretty much every purchase ever made is "forced."
For example, I'd like to implement a P2P file system that downloads data only when accessed the first time, caching it on your disk. The idea there is a really tiny Linux installation could be created that has the whole freaking Ubuntu or Debian distro already fully installed, but the files wouldn't really be there - they'd be out on the P2P network, waiting to download when needed, rather than filling up my disk with crap I never use.
:)
I actually saw a demo of a very similar system in a video of the Microsoft all-hands meeting. It was pretty damned slick; in addition to what you describe, all the applications were virtualized so you could have multiple versions of Office or IE running at the same time on the same computer. When you started Office, only the bare minimum code needed to open the default windows would be downloaded, then the rest of the application would stream in the background. Unfortunately, I can't remember what name Microsoft gave this whole thing and therefore I can't Google it.
That doesn't work when most of those lists lie about what hardware is supported.
I had a great experience with my Hauppauge WinPVR 150 card, which was "supported" by the IVTV driver in Linux-- hah! What a scam. Or the Ubuntu page which claims the OS works with Apple G4 iBooks, when in fact it doesn't support sleep mode (meaning, it's possible for Ubuntu to overheat the hardware.)
After a kernal update, I need to re-install legacy sound card drivers and revert to the old xorg.conf. It's not hard. And because I installed it on another partition, it will also break the menu.lst file. I know how to fix it.
Is this considered "normal" in the Linux world? Cripes. Whatever Linux developers released this gem lose any right they once had to complain about Windows-- at least Windows won't totally fuck with you randomly when you upgrade.
Every time I've tried Linux, I'd had some software not work. Hell, the first time I tried Linux was way back when Corel Linux was still an option-- on the online documentation, it claimed that it supported Soundblaster 128 sound cards. Great, that's what I have! But when you install it, no sound... no matter what you do, no sound.
Next time I tried it was some version of Ubuntu to use as a MythTV computer. The IVTV driver, which supports "every" Hauppauge WinPVR 150 somehow magically doesn't support my Hauppauge WinPVR 150. Screw it, I went back to Windows and used EyeTV.
Last time I tried Ubuntu a few months ago on my iBook. It failed to sleep the hardware when the lid was closed (a dangerous mistake), and of course wifi didn't work. And the only way to get wifi to work was to have a computer with working wifi first. Nice Catch-22 there, Ubuntu.
Since Ubuntu is widely believed to be the best Linux distro, I can only conclude that Linux is crap. I'd also like to point out a theme here: Linux software makers, stop blatantly lying to your users about what hardware is supported! Don't tell me iBooks are supported if you don't sleep. Don't tell me you work with SoundBlaster 128 cards if you don't! Stop telling me IVTV can be used with all Hauppauge cards when it can't! I'm sick of being lied to.
Personally I like being able to open up a spare window when playing WOW without crashing or locking up or bluscreening like the other people in my guold on windows when they try the same thing.
Just FYI, that is DEFINITELY not normal behavior for WOW on Windows (XP/Vista) or OS X. I'd say you're spouting bullshit, but I suppose it's possible that your guildmates have screwed up their OS install in some way to cause that.
As a resident of Washington State, I object to the use of "Washington" to refer to the Federal Government, since they virtually always drop the necessary "D.C." at the end.
I'm ok with the practice, as long as it doesn't increase the confusion of the reader.
Nice paranoid rant about Microsoft, but it doesn't answer the parent's question.
What makes you, or anybody, think that Microsoft was stifling Bungie's creativity? Was there an interview with someone at Bungie? Or, more likely, did the grandparent simply pull it out of thin air?
Makes sense. The Arbiter had thrown off the shackles of the Prophet's religion, and has come to see that the Chief is just a man (albeit a genetically modified, cybernetically enhanced man) and not some religious demon. I liked the Arbiter's faith in the Chief, for example at the end when he says something along the lines of "If only it was that easy", like he said when you first meet up with him in the first level, referring to the seeming inability for anything to kill the Chief. The world assumes the Chief is dead, but the Arbiter respects him enough that he won't believe the Chief is dead until he can see the cold, dead body himself.
;)
I just thought it sounded cool in Arbiter's voice.
It's not against "Halo" persay, it's against "popular things." This is Slashdot, remember... anything that everybody uses/likes (Windows, CDs, movies) is just total crap designed to placate the "sheeple." You can't be a proper Slashdot hipster and like Halo at the same time, it just doesn't work.
Anyway, I agree with you. The cut-scenes in Halo 2 were simply amazing, IMO. (I love Arbiter, he kind of reminded me of Speaker from Niven's Ringworld series.) And the ending was the kind of thing that psychs you up, makes you get up out of your chair and cheer at the TV. I was a bit disappointed at Halo 3, which I don't think captured that same feeling as Halo 2, but it's still worth the hype, IMO. And I was disappointed that Arbiter stopped calling Master Chief "demon" in Halo 3... but oh well.
It's been out for almost 4 years. What was stopping you from buying it legally before?
http://www.amazon.com/Macsoft-Halo-Mac/dp/B00006IQTH/ref=sr_1_12/002-9659279-2452860?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1191606663&sr=8-12
Of course, now it's so old that it's pretty much out of stock/discontinued everywhere.
I think they're already pretty committed to releasing the Halo RTS on Xbox and PC... at least I got more than a couple ads about it in my Halo 3 box. (Then again, I got also got ads for Starcraft: Ghost in my WOW box, so I guess there are salt grains there.)
I'm pretty sure they're working on a non-Halo and probably non-Marathon title as well. (Myth 4? Oni 2? Or something new? Who knows.)
Microsoft is letting Rare port Viva Pinata to Nintendo consoles. Confirmed on Nintendo DS, rumored for Wii: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163164
;)
Stranger things have happened than Halo 3 on Wii. The major problem is that the Wii hardware is way too wimpy to run the engine-- they can back-port it to the Halo 1 engine, maybe.
Ever since Bungie was purchased by Microsoft, they've done nothing but produce Halo for the XBox. No PC ports,
You can buy Halo and Halo 2 for PC right now:
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=645137
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=646888
no different games, they're barely even allowed to produce story-driven single player content.
Have you even played the single-player story in the Halo series? I know more than a couple people who bought Halo 3 to specifically see how the story ends, and have no interest in multiplayer at all.
the Marathon series (which was intended to tie in to Halo), the Myth series, even Pathways into Darkness was more original than Halo 3.
There were three games in the Marathon series, over about the same timespan the three Halo games came out. Surely Halo 3 is not *that* original, but neither was Marathon 3. In fact, Halo 3 is a lot more innovative over previous Halo games than Marathon 3 was over previous Marathon games... not only does Halo 3 have a vastly modified and improved engine (that Marathon 3 didn't have), but it has additional gameplay elements, like deployable items.
I was angry with Bungie when, just a few months before Halo was to be released as a Mac exclusive,
Halo was never intended to be a Mac exclusive. It was intended to be released first for Mac, then ported to Windows shortly afterward.
Bungie has had its creativity stifled for quite some time now and they've finally realized it.
Do you have any basis for saying this? Or is it just the normal Slashdot "I made something up then presented it as fact?" I've never heard anything about stifled creativity from any Bungie employees or anybody else in the industry.
Come to think of it, is there a single fact in your entire post?
Same with cars in the US. I have a '65 Chevy S-10 with no seatbelts, and immune to emissions checks.
Personally, I'd be glad to ride the (potentially unsafe) Apollo launch system up to the moon instead of waiting for NASA to spend 15 years coming up with a new system. The problem is that when it's a high profile thing like that, nobody will let you... the public has decided that NASA isn't allowed to take that risk. The shuttle, which in all probability is much safer than Apollo, has had thousands of modifications needed in the last few years because of perceived safety issues. The 1970s level of safety it was built to meet is no longer sufficient for NASA or the public.
Of course that's only part of the issue. The other part is, "if we're just going up with Apollo tech, why bother? We already did that." Covered by other posters in this thread.
No you can't, for the same reason you can't build a car from 1969, a stroller from 1969 or a power plant from 1969. Our priorities are so different now that virtually no product made in 1969 would pass all the various safety and regulatory hurdles required now. The car wouldn't pass modern emissions or safety regulations, not by a long shot.
Having a GUI will eliminate a lot of potential errors. For instance, if you typo "param" as "parm" it won't cause your program to barf all over itself next time it starts up. In a GUI editor, that's already filled in for you. Even RegEdit, which is pretty basic, sanity-checks that the value you enter for a float data type is actually a float and not a word. Editing text files directly doesn't offer that.
If Windows is so much easier to administer than Linux, why does it need Remote Assistance?
If Linux is so much easier to administer than Windows, then why does it need SSH and/or VNC?
The "dismal failure of Vista" only exists among Slashdotters and big corporations. And the corporations will come around after a couple of service packs. (Big corps didn't use Windows 2000 right away, either.)
How is that any different than Linux, with the exception that with Linux, I wouldn't have to leave my house to go fix her computer?
;)
Why do you have to with Windows?
Remote Assistance has been on every computer since, what, 2001? It sounds like your Mom need to find someone more knowledgeable about computers.
We may not all be awed by the glow of a full moon, a fiery meteor blazing through the sky, or just watching the twinkling of a million stars but we shouldn't take away the opportunity for all of us and future generations from seeing what many of us feel is the most amazing and spectacular thing imaginable: our universe.
Yes, but the entire point of my post is:
YOU CAN!
Look, I'm sorry that you live in New York and have to drive a long way to see the Milky Way. That's just one of those things you have to cope with when you choose where to live, I guess. But even if you do live in New York, you still have the option to go somewhere and see the Milky Way. Hell, if anything, making it a rare event makes it more meaningful.
I guess I just don't get the big deal. On my list of "problems that we should fix", this one is way towards the bottom.
Yes, and when you buy a MP3 player with wireless capability, a representative from Microsoft actually comes to your house, holds a gun to your head, and forces you to sync it wirelessly!
Cripes, if you don't like the feature, don't use it. Why is that so hard for people on Slashdot to get?
From my understanding (I very briefly worked at Microsoft Games), while MS has the capability of banning Xboxes they only use this capability for Xboxes they know have been modded. Otherwise, they only ban the specific user-- otherwise you might buy a used Xbox from Gamestop that's banned from Xbox Live without you knowing it (or having any way to find it out), and that's basically class action-fuel.
Feel free to prove me wrong if you have better information. This is just stuff I've gleaned.