Posted 06/30/2009 at 10:24:43pm

The full list to patch one of my WinXP sp1 PC's (from a fresh re-install) is 4-5 Gigabytes. I think I'd be really ticked off, if I paid $120 for 7, then it took them 12-18 months to roll out enough patches to make it work as it should have at launch--the way they seem to have done with Vista. I haven't really tried Vista, or looked much at 7... Since I'm not buying now, I guess we'll see if I EVER see a compelling reason to buy a MS OS without a new PC, again.

Posted 06/05/2009 at 05:04:25pm

Of course, it took a Judge asking them the question, in a legal proceeding, to get a direct answer. (* sonsa$%#^$s!! *)

Posted 05/29/2009 at 01:03:41pm

I doubt anyone here is a Fan of DRM --but at the same time how many of us have violated copyright 4 times or more, for one product? I never liked even games that only run with the disc in the drive ---I had a $200 drive burn out, playing that type of games. We all know that plenty of games actually do run better, if you alter them to run from hard disk. This IS a breach of copyright --one I'd call "reasonable use," as long as the original disc is not sold, given away, or installed on someone else's machine. I don't think anyone is able to actually track this kind of use, relative to out-and-out copying for resale. The publishers seem to throw it all in the same category ---probably because they'd like to sell us all a license that's only good for 12 months, for the same $50-60. EVERY copy from a Torrent, is a Violation, to them. You'd think they'd be feeling better about console title sales... I've got Perfect Dark Zero [an xbox 360 launch title]. If they really believe console games are pirated less, why haven't they fixed the near-broken elements of games like this?? (I know, my example's just 1 publisher.) I think it would take an incredible amount of analysis of statistics --mostly numbers that NO ONE has-- to even tell the relative copyright violations for sale or re-sale versus "violations" by people owning a valid license and looking to tweak/improve the performance on their own machine. The torrents have statistics, but what about companies in the far East or maybe third world countries, who just do whatever to reproduce the game and sell their new disc(s) for $15??? They are trying to compare apples, oranges, and tomatoes ---calling it all "edible fruit produced," when they don't know if everyone calls a tomato a fruit and not all of them are edible. I have no idea why anybody thinks they've got all the info on this. It would take a boat load of Statisticians to figure out, even if they are willing to use estimates... but we're meant to believe Copyright Attorneys have the answers??

Posted 05/27/2009 at 12:52:56pm

I'd rather see excellent path-finding, smart AI (so npcs don't have to use "cheats"), and innovative use of multiplayer, than photo-realism. I guess of all of these, the AI will be the very last we get... I'd probably be willing to go back to Legend of Zelda 1 style graphics for a game that had those other features.

Posted 03/29/2009 at 12:01:57pm

I have to agree with Tom, as well...

I live in a "rural" area. All of my stations come from 70 miles or so away, except for one --which is 120 degrees in another direction, but only 50 miles.

My digital decoder has a signal strength scale, that goes from 0 to 100. I've gotten in the habit of looking at the strength of signal, when there's a problem and during commercials.

Above 30 is supposed to be a good signal. But I still get skipping or freezing video/audio at 80-90, when someone with a CB radio drives by. (like my neighbor's 17 year-old... if you can imagine how often that is).

I also lose 60 points or more, when it rains ---which kinda defeats the purpose of the two new Weather channels. It basically means no digital stations, until it stops raining.

It seems like digital is missing some kind of "error correction" or something --to me. I don't know if these signals are short on power, redundancy, or what... I guess this shouldn't be a surprise, since my box has the most poorly designed remote control I've seen that has more than 3 buttons.

It seems pretty sad that I have to either hope that the signal will be better, when they start using VHF bandwidth again, or go cable/dish.

I can't say I much like the idea that the whole thing was just a Corporate Play for a quick revenue boost for these companies. [and by extension, the broadcasters too --who will in turn, have statistics of "new subscriptions" from this year, as an extra bargaining point with the distributors]

Posted 02/23/2009 at 03:03:40pm

MS completely skipped the 6-24 month period, where they say stupid things like "this error is in the extreme minority, probably due to the individuals' abusive use..." ** Maybe they danced clockwise around the beheaded, live chicken ---when it was supposed to be counter-clockwise? ** I'm sorry. I just can't stop laughing... :D

Posted 02/20/2009 at 05:03:25pm

Didn't China already announce they were going to dev their own OS? You'd think they'd get together on this type of thing, but I guess China & Cuba aren't famous for getting along with anyone (much less each other). I expect Cuba's going to have a lot more trouble with this, because they have to reward people smart enough to code/program ---enough that they don't just take their education somewhere that rewards it better. Maybe "no go" is the motto for their computer personel program? :D

Posted 01/24/2009 at 07:21:44pm

 I do think "Vista Capable" should mean the buyer can should be able to choose the upgraded software ver. on that same hardware.  They had no problem breaking the OS into 3 different types --for more $$, they shouldn't have had any problem coming up with a couple more different labels.

I don't have Vista ---the first member of my family to get it is still doing a periodic System Restore (as recommended by the OEM's tech support) to recover from lock-ups & crashes.

At one point, I seem to recall reading around MPC somewhere that 75% of Vista crashes & lock-ups had been attributed to drivers from either nVidia or Creative.

That's what the the lawsuit would be about --to me-- if I were part of the class action.  They allowed the OEMs to slap these labels on anything, without any idea if/when drivers would be ready & working. 

 I'm sure it happens with every new OS release, but it was worse this time, and MS was doing the OEMs a favor pushing losing support for older parts.  It's an OEM problem, as much as MicroSoft's

20/20 hind-sight, they should have not issued those labels at all, had more stringent standards for them, or spent the money from that AD campaign getting people's computers working as they were advertised/purchased to work.

I really hate the "Madison Avenue" approach ["the Matadors" & "Mohave"], as a "fix."

Posted 01/13/2009 at 11:41:05am

Ironically, simple flaming, laced with swear words would probably not have had any reaction, just because everyone would ignore it.  (Maybe the site wouldn't allow that.)

There is a very basic reason why Doctors really need malpractice insurance.  They're as human as the rest of us, and even if they only err 0.01% of the time, that's still a human being they've done that to.   

Beyond that, any Doctor's real problem is that there can be 50 or 100 people who feel they've had poor care --when they really haven't-- for every real mistake.

It's not legal to slander someone. 

I've never looked at Yelp, but it seems to me anyone should be free to say "I feel Dr. _____ gave me poor or sub-standard care for my sore _____."---assuming they've actually been to that Doctor for treatment.

I'm not a doctor, or related to any doctors in any way (that I know of).  I do classify chiropracters, acupunturists, and psychologists at the "fortune-teller" end of the spectrum as far as credibility, though.

That quote from the attorney is hilarious!

Posted 01/11/2009 at 07:29:24pm

If they're throwing documentation away, it sounds like they place no value on the paperwork, and the patent(s) by extension.

I'm sure I don't have nearly enough facts, but DRAM seems to have been sort of standard for a long time.  Have they really been holding this patent for 10-15 years, and we've only been hearing about legal action that last 5 or so??

I know around 1990, Texas Instruments was suing a lot of these same companies over patent violations.  I don't know how that came out ---can you really own a patent for an entire category of microchip??

It's doesn't have the same dollar value, I guess, but I'm wondering how these companies ended up selling products that Rambus thinks violated their patent(s).  If it's like Intel's 64-bit Pentium, without the Intel/AMD no lawsuit agreement, I think they should make these companies pay. 

At the same time, I hate the number of Tech Companies that made good products and are no longer with us, because lawsuits like this broke them.  (Like 3dfx and Aureal...)  You never really know, if the lawsuits were justified, or the lawyers' fees just broke the bank.

I hate that if you own a patent, you may have to have people working for you who do nothing but check competetitors' products for violations. 

I hate that you have to basically give a law firm seats on your Board of Directors to keep them around to handle this kind of lawsuits.

Can a Judge or a group of lawyers really understand enough about how these high tech components work to decide if there's a violation??