Notepad is heavily used as an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) by a lot of people. It’s not exactly a good development environment but it is nonetheless. I would actually argue Notepad is used primarily by programmers, and that casual Windows Notepad users are in the extreme minority. The whole reason it’s so heavily used is because unlike WordPad or Word, it doesn’t include formatting data, which can fuck up computer code.
Notepad++ for example is literally built to be more like an actual IDE and supports color-schemes and indentations for numerous computer programming languages.
Microsoft isn’t entirely stupid (just mostly), and in knowing this, they’re pushing to put their programming Copilot where they think it needs to be: Inside IDEs, which to them includes Notepad.
Notepad++ may very well be widely used as an IDE. Notepad isn’t. Other than the name they have nothing do do with each other. It’s just a plain text editor with absolutely no features. Maybe some people use it to write code but unless you can’t use anything else, even a web browser, why would you.
Notepad is used by anyone who wants to see what is actually in a text file.
It’s used a lot for stuff where data is transferred in a text format. Comma separated files etc. are still widely used for transferring data flawlessly without having to convert types or mapping a document standard or whatever method that could potentially fuck up or just take more time. It’s simple and it works.
F.i if you open a file in excel or word, change one character and then save, you can bet that the entire file is fucked up afterwards, because those programs don’t show the data directly. The moment you open it, it might very well be fucked up just from that. If you transfer a file by some kind of JSON format, which is all the rage currently you’ll have to map it from both ends, and it also begs the question: Why are we doing running all this code just to transfer one byte?
The beauty of text files is that it’s (almost) raw data. (Only “almost” because there are still different localization standards that can fuck up even a text file.)
Notepad covers that. Of course we could use other apps for viewing data, but most of the time, it actually is text and not hexidemal codes or whatever you can save in bytes.
Programming wise, the only thing I use notepad for is making DOS batch files. Again, because it’s raw text and should be created and read as such. No parsing, no compiling. Just text. I’ll also use it for storing data for programs, because it’s easy and raw.
For actual programs, it’d be better to get Notepad++ or MS visual studio code, which at least will highlight commands and collapse functions etc. And still, these also aren’t actually IDEs, because they don’t compile the code (unless you get those add-ins).
We could also use those for text files as well, but it’s overkill. I don’t really want to open an app to view data. Notepad is small and quick and not bloated with features, which is ideal for whenever I only want to see what’s in the file.
The original MS Paint was similar for pictures. They fucked that up real good. Its been…14 years and I haven’t really gotten over how bad it is. It used to be pixel perfect and logical, but now you can’t even save a file with transparency, but hey here’s s brush with stroke width and blur that’ll make sure you can’t edit a single pixel. Way to go Microsoft.
If they do the same to Notepad, I’ll have to resign my job, because it’s not going to work like that.
Screw the movie theatres anyway… Here in Australia, there are two big ones (Hoyts and Village), and both screw patrons by doing things like charging patrons extra money for booking online.
In fact, they ruined every joke in the simpsons movie for me (except one) by allowing ads to use clips from the movie. By 45mins of ads, every joke was ruined.
I really wish the big theatres here would f off, and get replaced entirely by small ones. I don’t pay for 40mins of sh***y coca cola ads.
I no longer go at all. It’s not a good experience, and its not even a good place to take a date
I could maybe get the fee if it was a small place just passing on the presumed credit card charge that goes with ordering online IF they provided a discount for paying cash. A lot of small shops around here do that because the extra 3% or so paid to a bank makes it that much harder to keep prices anywhere near the Walmarts and such.
I wouldn’t be against that if it were the case, but ordering by phone they didn’t charge the fee for using a card. It was only the next month when doing by computer. It was a small local chain, but a website user fee to refill is next level BS. Still our only choice when insurance discount cover medication and you have to pay someone to mix it in house to afford it.
I'm saying they are probably being charged some portion of website sales specifically by the vendor of the web service provider. Which realistically makes sense, because regular online retail already almost always takes a percentage and there are significantly stronger regulatory requirements around anything medical.
Yeah I doubt it’s much of that considering their crappy home brewed website without any type of real portal system. you literally have to email them a picture of your old bottle to get a refill. It’s almost a WordPress website. Almost. I disagree that it makes sense. That’s called overhead and should be figured into their operating costs. Otherwise I would expect customers that come in physically to do business to be charged a brick and mortar fee since I don’t utilize that “feature”. If it were my pharmacy I’d fire them like they deserve, but it’s my partner’s choice.
If only there was a technology that allowed theaters to play movies in an analogue manner that they were in 100% control of. That would be cool. Why hasn’t that ever been invented?
Somebody’s collecting all those old projectors and celluloid and that person is going to be the coolest person in whatever city they are in depending on the celluloid they also collect.
In fact — in Portland — a big assed projector would go over huge even today.
I think people are sick to death of the magic of digital streaming.
Yes — but local projectionists maintain the ability to restore the ability to present the films.
When corporations are in charge of everything, humanity is a powerless minion holding its icky tiny gruel filled bowl and whining, “please, sir, May I have some more.”
Alamo Drafthouse plays strange ads… a lot of times they are movie reels from ages ago that follow the theme of the movie or it’s a voice mail from an angry guest about how they got kicked out from the theater. Usually this: youtu.be/1L3eeC2lJZs?si=Z4i3cHrZ-twfVD_S or weird shit like this youtu.be/Ze5kyR3ogso?si=jTRIC-q6bcOjNHvC
While I completely agree with you based on the data, DRM is absolutely sold to publishers on the pretense that it combats piracy, at least with keeping paying customers from engaging with media in ways the publishers don’t like (such as lending content or selling that content used in a secondary market).
And yes, the more draconian their restrictions, the more they drive people to resources that provide cracked or DRM-free content. That said, Sony is notorious for going to extreme lengths to severely limit use of their content outside narrow consumption, often with obligatory ad-viewing, driving people to either piracy, or avoiding Sony content at all.
At one point, I might have been interested in playing Horizon Zero Dawn and went from buying it, to getting a refund to thinking about pirating it to eventually deciding I cannot be bothered. But then I steer clear of most AAA game companies, now.
I mean unfortunately denuvo has been pretty effective lately. It’s not uncrackable but not a lot of effort is being put into it other than when Empress feels like it.
I worked as a projectionist in 2009 when the cinema got its first digital projector in order to be able to show Avatar in 3D. At the start of the movie no one actually knew if it would work. Due to the movie being encrypted - with every cinema in Germany waiting eagerly for the password - No cinema was able to play the movie. But everywhere cinemas were packed with people. Because of fuckups somewhere in this incredibly stupid system the movie was delayed about half an hour (IIRC) nationwide. With no-one knowing if it would eventually work - especially nice for the people working at the cinema having to deal with angry audience members.
At the same time the 2D 35mm film-version we also had started without any problems (it was massive and pretty dicey to carry it around).
Is there any reasonable level of IP protection/DRM which may be employed by movie studios?
Should all films have simultaneous worldwide cross-platform releases, never theater only? If not, it seems some kind of defenses on the high-quality digital files for theaters would be a rare case where DRM seems somewhat justifiable… assuming it’s robust (beyond mergers/closures of the provider), and consumers never have to think about it.
Would love to hear arguments both for and against any protection schemes for any film ever.
Re: reasonable levels - You can have fail safe or fail secure. Those are two mutually exclusive options. Locking people out of content, whether it be consumers or a partner organization (like a theater) is the price of security (fail secure).
There is no condition where mild DRM is valuable to anyone. For consumers it constitutes a hurdle to use of content they have purchased without hindering non-purchased copies from being reproduced and distributed. No DRM allows the latter; unbreakable DRM ensures the former will be substantially affected at some point.
So broadcast TV currently broadcasts on ATSC 1.0. You get an antenna and a box or TV that has a digital tuner and you’re good. Industry is pushing for ATSC 3.0, which allows for DRM. So even though they are broadcasting on the public airwaves, they can decide you can’t watch. It sets up the local broadcasters to be the new cable with ever increasing prices AND play king maker on devices by choosing which can and cannot produce tuners. In my area, 5 channels have ATSC 3.0, and 1 of them turned on DRM. Meaning I can’t watch it because HDHomeRun devices aren’t approved, likely because it has the ability to record. Luckily, that channel still broadcasts in ATSC 1.0, so I can still watch it for now. 3.0 isn’t a fully adopted yet, but that can change in the future (2027?).
So at some point, it’ll be impossible to get emergency broadcast alerts without a subscription to something, right? Like who’s gonna turn on a TV or radio that they can’t use in anticipation of some emergency they can’t predict?
I’m sorry, but I think that’s a little far fetched.
Are you really suggesting that we run the risk of being too disconnected to receive emergency messages?! In an age where everyone has a smartphone on their person at all times, as well as at least a dozen internet-connected devices in their homes, offices, classrooms etc?!
You would’ve had a point maybe 20 years ago, but technology has changed a bit since then.
Yeah this was nonsense. Like it is mandated to have a TV always on to receive such emergency broadcasts. Same thing can happen to someone not having or not using a TV
It’s not, because the statement is much more accurate in the case of internet-connected devices, and for emergency messages it’s enough to have someone around you who has one (e.g. a neighbour). I guess it would be really hard to find someone - in the areas where this change is made - who doesn’t have access to such a device in that sense, maybe even impossible.
It’s really more like assuming everyone breathes air because most people do.
Remember that time when they’ve added rootkits to over 20 millions of audio cd’s? You’ve guessed it, the installation was automatic, hidden and their software had vulnerabilities.
One of the programs would install and “phone home” with reports on the user’s private listening habits, even if the user refused its end-user license agreement (EULA), while the other was not mentioned in the EULA at all. Both programs contained code from several pieces of copylefted free software in an apparent infringement of copyright.
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