That's true, but I would say it would be unlikely for two reasons:
1) In many states it's illegal for them to pull someone over unless they personally observe reckless/illegal behavior. This includes swerving, speeding, drinking from what looks like an alcohol container, etc.
2) The practicality of informing a police officer nearby that there is a person with prior offenses is not very viable. If they did anything like this, it would probably be for very recent offenders only, or multiple offenses, someone likely to have contraband on them. In Ohio it's already mandated that convicted DUI offenders must have a yellow license plate. They have considered other ones for pedophiles, etc. So this method would probably be prefferable, as it would not make it public that you had prior offenses.
Yes, there are some cons, but I think the benefits greatly outweigh those cons. There rarely a perfect solution for a problem, there are almost always a few negatives.
Eventually minor crime will be what they search for.
Good. If you commit a crime, you should be caught and punished. Don't want to worry about getting nabbed by one of these? Then obey the law. Pretty simple. Chances are, people who commit these simple crimes are probably not trying to hide their presence from the police anyway, so knowing where they are based on license plate would not be beneficial...they would just come to your home or place of work if they really wanted to get you. It's not like these cameras are x-ray and can detect any contraband you are carrying.
They sent you a mail notification if your name was on the list. Myself, my mother, and my brother were all on that list (Maybe it was regional?). They are offering a free year of credit monitoring, which is a nice gesture, but a nuisance, because before any of us can be approved for credit, they have to call and confirm it with us. The bad thing about this is, half the places you apply for credit (retail stores and whatnot) have overly simplstic systems that apparently aren't capable of handling exceptions, so the credit just gets denied.
As much as I agree with you now (I have personally never owned a laptop, although I have one provided by work), I think those two things are going to change.
Naturally, costs will keep lowering to the point where the difference is almost completely negligible, or even to the point where desktops are actually more expensive, due to the costs of manufacturing fewer components (Economies of Scale).
I work on laptops on a fairly regular basis, and they are becoming more upgradable than what they used to be. RAM and hard drives are of course upgradable, and the wirless cards are often miniPCI with standard antenna connectors that can be upgraded. But more and more I am beginning to see laptops with spare mini PCI slots (for bluetooth, Intel turbo memory,etc), upgradable video cards (not just the high-end Alienware's, a few mid range laptops offer this), and even extra hard drive bays.
What I think might happen is standardized form factors for laptops and that means replacable motherboards and screens (Many motherboard manufacturers now produce laptops under their own branding, and they would love to cater to enthusiasts better).
Regardless, I don't believe laptops will ever be able to get to the point of customizability of desktops. But enthusiasts like us are a big enough market segment that I believe we will always have a decent number of customizability options, desktop or laptop.
My best friend works IT at a fairly large lawfirm in Columbus, OH. They have about 150 laywers and 200 more paralegals, secretaries, and staff. Their top attorneys bill at $400 an hour broken down to 15 minutes. So one phone call for 5 minutes=$100. That doesn't include the $4 per fax page (and seeing as their fax system is paperless...well), $3 per laser printer page, $1.50 per copy, document preparation fees from the in-house print shop, lunches, paralegal man-hours, and probably a quarter every time they pass gas.
With that kind of change being thrown around, $68k comes pretty quick.
If the government changes so much that anything I am doing now is considered illegal, I will have moved to a different country because I should have the freedom to do what I do.
Aside from a few copyright infringements from the MAFIAA (much fewer than many people), I'm entirely too law-abiding for my own good. I haven't even had a traffic violation in six years. I buy all my software.
Sure, I'll admit that it's better to have privacy than not have it, but I am not going to take any great lengths to protect my privacy. I'll protect myself from ID theft and whatnot as best as possible, but if some website wants to know where I came from or wants to dig around in my cookie jar, I could care less.
Apple estimates you should get 300-400 charge cycles out of the iPhone....using the most conservative scenario possible, you charge your battery every other day 400 times...That's a little over two years (2 years, 69 days, assuming no leap year) and you are going to be needing a new battery. So for you, and the other 2% who use their iPhone this little and get lucky on the battery, you'll be fine, because your contract will be up and you can get a 2nd or 3rd gen iPhone.
However, most people will be charging it every day, and let's assume they get 350 charge cycles....that's almost a year. But since daily charges won't be full cycles, it'll be just over a year, and whaddya know, just out of warranty...unless you bought Applecare.
Really it's no different than iPods...I worked at CompUSA for 18 months about a year ago and our Apple-employed and trained rep used the battery replacement as the primary selling point for Applecare. It worked well, you just get the constomer convinced that their battery was going to die regardless and they would scarf it up...it was much easier to sell $60 Applecare on a $200 iPod mini than it was to sell our $30 replacement plan on a $400 camera. That was when the battery replacement was $99 and not $59...don't forget Apple had to lower it after they caught some heat from some consumer agency somewhere.
Basically they want a way to almost guarantee milking extra cash out of the customer (oh, don't forget the not including a AC plug...which they actually did include with the iPhone, suprisingly...but the first iPod had one too...). Either through battery replacments, Applecare, or buying a replacement device, they're probably going to get you. iTunes sales and accessory royalties aren't enough apparently, they feel the need to stoop to even less ethical means. And now you know why I don't care for Apple any more than Microsoft.
Re:This is my single biggest push to free software
on
Vista is Watching You
·
· Score: 1
It's been a little while since I checked Wine, but performance was very game-specific. The most popular titles had been optimized for very little performance hit, but as a whole many titles suffered quite a bit. I know they were working on some changes that may have helped since then...I may have to check it out again.
And for Macs, I was referring to games that are available as both Mac and PC titles without any 3rd party software, and using Bootcamp to switch between Windows and OSX...the benchmarks I had seen usually showed about a 20% performance hit. I wasn't aware of CrossOver...I don't really care for Apple any more than I do MS, so I don't keep up with all their stuff.
Re:This is my single biggest push to free software
on
Vista is Watching You
·
· Score: 1
F.E.A.R., BF2142, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Prey, etc. Very few FPSs are actually ported from a console to Windows...there are several cross-releases, but few that were initially designed only for consoles. Halo is the biggest exception here, however it was actually initially going to be a PC game (untill MS bought out Bungie) and when it came out, it was designed so much for a console that it was generally considered a pretty dull FPS title on the PC.
What you do have is a lot of PC FPSs getting ported to consoles..FEAR, Half-Life, BF2 (that was more of a redesign so it could actually run on the PS2).
But I'm not going to disagree that consoles can do FPSs...if the game is designed for it, it does very well. But the mouse and keyboard interface is definately better for FPSs than a gamepad (although some people get very good with a pad).
Re:This is my single biggest push to free software
on
Vista is Watching You
·
· Score: 1
Spectacular...I just looked this up...I knew about the Falling Leaf/Alky Libs stuff (which reeked of vaporware)...but this is available now...gonna crack Shadowrun tonight and enjoy the FPS boost. Link: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40 538
Re:This is my single biggest push to free software
on
Vista is Watching You
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The problem is the console gaming experience is very different and generally considered quite inferior by those who prefer PC games. This is due to numerous reasons, but mostly:
1) Multiplayer games and game modes (consoles are finally starting to catch up) 2) Modability and expandability of the titles 3) Better graphics (if you're willing to plunk down the cash for the hardware) 4) Unique and indie titles
Now most PC games can be played on Linux through a DirectX emulator, however there is almost always a performance hit, and often it's as bad as half your framerate going down the drain...the games are just heavily optimized for Windows (most Mac games are the same way...~20% performance hit on the same machine if you use OSX instead of bootcamping into Windows).
What's become worse is that MS is now requiring Vista for some games...games that don't even require the newer DirectX 10...I've had to make my gaming PC dual-boot into Vista now just for Shadowrun. Halo 2 'requires' Vista as well...and it has awful Xbox 1 graphics...it sure as hell doesn't need Vista to run properly. And what's worse is Vista will make most games suffer 10%+ performance hits as well (hence the dual booting).
Bottom line...serious PC Gamers are stuck with Windows.
I'd rather see people search for several queries of their choosing from the same four engines and be delivered result pages free from branding and see which results they preferred. It'd be much more useful.
The original Enterprise was a CONSTITUTION class, not Constellation...the known canon Constellation class ships are:
USS Constellation (NCC-1974) USS Hathaway (NCC-2593) USS Stargazer (NCC-2893) (Picard's ship prior to Enterprise-D) USS Victory (NCC-9754) and the unnamed NCC-7100
The only one I hate worse than blog is iPod...not necessarily just the iPod itself though...but all the inaccurately named iProducts that came after it. The i was originally for internet, and iPod was the first major step down a slippery slope of many non-internet i-thingies. Although now it's arguably a term for any personal device, the i meaning simply 'I'.
Just mentioned this on here earlier today, but Kodak has a new line of multifunctions....$10 black $15 for the 5-color cartridge. Definately the cheapest in the long run (black is supposed to last ~300 pages of text).
Kodak has a line of full-size inkjet printers. They charge a bit more for the printer ($150 for a pretty standard multifunction with 6 colors), but the cartridge costs are MUCH cheaper. $10 for black that is supposed to last ~300 pages of full text, and $15 for a 5-color cartridge. Or you can buy them together for $22.
Maybe Microsoft could do it? Wouldn't this be where Media Center pulls its data from too? Kind of important for the product. And then maybe out of the goodness of their heart they'll make the listings openly available (I know, unlikely).
It's not like they'd sell very many extra copies of Home Premium Vista by keeping it closed...so maybe earn some brownie points with the OSS community, and not to mention having some degree of power by having quite a few people rely on your service. (I know you like power Microsoft, so hook us up:-)
Now you've accused me of being a conservative/republican (which is not only a liar, but a stupid liar).
My original point was that said these issues have been discussed at length without any help from Michael Moore. There still hasn't been anything constructive done about any of them due to a number of reasons, and no one political party is at fault (I really hate the party system and wish there was a way to abolish it, personally...it creates too much political fanboism among the people and lots of shady dealings among the politicians).
Who can explain why Bush had his thumb up his ass for 20 minutes? (Answer: Someone who will never explain it publicly) Honestly does it really matter anymore? He's finally getting out of office in 18 months so I really don't care...the damage has been done, there are better things to worry about...like the healthcare system. And that's such an ugly cluster**** it's not even funny. The best way to handle that if you feel so strongly is to vote for the candidates that have a platform of healthcare reform closest to your own views.
Since it'd probably be a no-no for non-UK retailers to ship copies there, I bet it wouldn't be hard to buy the game off eBay if they really want it. That would help Rockstar (assuming they aren't duplicated copies, naturally).
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That's true, but I would say it would be unlikely for two reasons:
1) In many states it's illegal for them to pull someone over unless they personally observe reckless/illegal behavior. This includes swerving, speeding, drinking from what looks like an alcohol container, etc.
2) The practicality of informing a police officer nearby that there is a person with prior offenses is not very viable. If they did anything like this, it would probably be for very recent offenders only, or multiple offenses, someone likely to have contraband on them. In Ohio it's already mandated that convicted DUI offenders must have a yellow license plate. They have considered other ones for pedophiles, etc. So this method would probably be prefferable, as it would not make it public that you had prior offenses.
Yes, there are some cons, but I think the benefits greatly outweigh those cons. There rarely a perfect solution for a problem, there are almost always a few negatives.
Good. If you commit a crime, you should be caught and punished. Don't want to worry about getting nabbed by one of these? Then obey the law. Pretty simple. Chances are, people who commit these simple crimes are probably not trying to hide their presence from the police anyway, so knowing where they are based on license plate would not be beneficial...they would just come to your home or place of work if they really wanted to get you. It's not like these cameras are x-ray and can detect any contraband you are carrying.
Hmm...at least Taft waited for his second term for his scandals...
They sent you a mail notification if your name was on the list. Myself, my mother, and my brother were all on that list (Maybe it was regional?). They are offering a free year of credit monitoring, which is a nice gesture, but a nuisance, because before any of us can be approved for credit, they have to call and confirm it with us. The bad thing about this is, half the places you apply for credit (retail stores and whatnot) have overly simplstic systems that apparently aren't capable of handling exceptions, so the credit just gets denied.
As much as I agree with you now (I have personally never owned a laptop, although I have one provided by work), I think those two things are going to change.
Naturally, costs will keep lowering to the point where the difference is almost completely negligible, or even to the point where desktops are actually more expensive, due to the costs of manufacturing fewer components (Economies of Scale).
I work on laptops on a fairly regular basis, and they are becoming more upgradable than what they used to be. RAM and hard drives are of course upgradable, and the wirless cards are often miniPCI with standard antenna connectors that can be upgraded. But more and more I am beginning to see laptops with spare mini PCI slots (for bluetooth, Intel turbo memory,etc), upgradable video cards (not just the high-end Alienware's, a few mid range laptops offer this), and even extra hard drive bays.
What I think might happen is standardized form factors for laptops and that means replacable motherboards and screens (Many motherboard manufacturers now produce laptops under their own branding, and they would love to cater to enthusiasts better).
Regardless, I don't believe laptops will ever be able to get to the point of customizability of desktops. But enthusiasts like us are a big enough market segment that I believe we will always have a decent number of customizability options, desktop or laptop.
My best friend works IT at a fairly large lawfirm in Columbus, OH. They have about 150 laywers and 200 more paralegals, secretaries, and staff. Their top attorneys bill at $400 an hour broken down to 15 minutes. So one phone call for 5 minutes=$100. That doesn't include the $4 per fax page (and seeing as their fax system is paperless...well), $3 per laser printer page, $1.50 per copy, document preparation fees from the in-house print shop, lunches, paralegal man-hours, and probably a quarter every time they pass gas.
With that kind of change being thrown around, $68k comes pretty quick.
If the government changes so much that anything I am doing now is considered illegal, I will have moved to a different country because I should have the freedom to do what I do. Aside from a few copyright infringements from the MAFIAA (much fewer than many people), I'm entirely too law-abiding for my own good. I haven't even had a traffic violation in six years. I buy all my software. Sure, I'll admit that it's better to have privacy than not have it, but I am not going to take any great lengths to protect my privacy. I'll protect myself from ID theft and whatnot as best as possible, but if some website wants to know where I came from or wants to dig around in my cookie jar, I could care less.
...they think enough people will have Blu-Ray players to even bother to try?
Especially when you figure in *AA legal fees and settlements.
I think THEY just got a bandwidth test...
Apple estimates you should get 300-400 charge cycles out of the iPhone....using the most conservative scenario possible, you charge your battery every other day 400 times...That's a little over two years (2 years, 69 days, assuming no leap year) and you are going to be needing a new battery. So for you, and the other 2% who use their iPhone this little and get lucky on the battery, you'll be fine, because your contract will be up and you can get a 2nd or 3rd gen iPhone.
However, most people will be charging it every day, and let's assume they get 350 charge cycles....that's almost a year. But since daily charges won't be full cycles, it'll be just over a year, and whaddya know, just out of warranty...unless you bought Applecare.
Really it's no different than iPods...I worked at CompUSA for 18 months about a year ago and our Apple-employed and trained rep used the battery replacement as the primary selling point for Applecare. It worked well, you just get the constomer convinced that their battery was going to die regardless and they would scarf it up...it was much easier to sell $60 Applecare on a $200 iPod mini than it was to sell our $30 replacement plan on a $400 camera. That was when the battery replacement was $99 and not $59...don't forget Apple had to lower it after they caught some heat from some consumer agency somewhere.
Basically they want a way to almost guarantee milking extra cash out of the customer (oh, don't forget the not including a AC plug...which they actually did include with the iPhone, suprisingly...but the first iPod had one too...). Either through battery replacments, Applecare, or buying a replacement device, they're probably going to get you. iTunes sales and accessory royalties aren't enough apparently, they feel the need to stoop to even less ethical means. And now you know why I don't care for Apple any more than Microsoft.
It's been a little while since I checked Wine, but performance was very game-specific. The most popular titles had been optimized for very little performance hit, but as a whole many titles suffered quite a bit. I know they were working on some changes that may have helped since then...I may have to check it out again.
And for Macs, I was referring to games that are available as both Mac and PC titles without any 3rd party software, and using Bootcamp to switch between Windows and OSX...the benchmarks I had seen usually showed about a 20% performance hit. I wasn't aware of CrossOver...I don't really care for Apple any more than I do MS, so I don't keep up with all their stuff.
F.E.A.R., BF2142, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Prey, etc. Very few FPSs are actually ported from a console to Windows...there are several cross-releases, but few that were initially designed only for consoles. Halo is the biggest exception here, however it was actually initially going to be a PC game (untill MS bought out Bungie) and when it came out, it was designed so much for a console that it was generally considered a pretty dull FPS title on the PC.
What you do have is a lot of PC FPSs getting ported to consoles..FEAR, Half-Life, BF2 (that was more of a redesign so it could actually run on the PS2).
But I'm not going to disagree that consoles can do FPSs...if the game is designed for it, it does very well. But the mouse and keyboard interface is definately better for FPSs than a gamepad (although some people get very good with a pad).
Spectacular...I just looked this up...I knew about the Falling Leaf/Alky Libs stuff (which reeked of vaporware)...but this is available now...gonna crack Shadowrun tonight and enjoy the FPS boost. Link: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40 538
The problem is the console gaming experience is very different and generally considered quite inferior by those who prefer PC games. This is due to numerous reasons, but mostly:
1) Multiplayer games and game modes (consoles are finally starting to catch up)
2) Modability and expandability of the titles
3) Better graphics (if you're willing to plunk down the cash for the hardware)
4) Unique and indie titles
Now most PC games can be played on Linux through a DirectX emulator, however there is almost always a performance hit, and often it's as bad as half your framerate going down the drain...the games are just heavily optimized for Windows (most Mac games are the same way...~20% performance hit on the same machine if you use OSX instead of bootcamping into Windows).
What's become worse is that MS is now requiring Vista for some games...games that don't even require the newer DirectX 10...I've had to make my gaming PC dual-boot into Vista now just for Shadowrun. Halo 2 'requires' Vista as well...and it has awful Xbox 1 graphics...it sure as hell doesn't need Vista to run properly. And what's worse is Vista will make most games suffer 10%+ performance hits as well (hence the dual booting).
Bottom line...serious PC Gamers are stuck with Windows.
Flood the server room with vegetable oil.
I'd rather see people search for several queries of their choosing from the same four engines and be delivered result pages free from branding and see which results they preferred. It'd be much more useful.
The original Enterprise was a CONSTITUTION class, not Constellation...the known canon Constellation class ships are:
s s
USS Constellation (NCC-1974)
USS Hathaway (NCC-2593)
USS Stargazer (NCC-2893) (Picard's ship prior to Enterprise-D)
USS Victory (NCC-9754)
and the unnamed NCC-7100
Reference: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Constellation_cla
You bet I'll change it...I'll make damn sure my site is completely incompatible with that thing :-)
The only one I hate worse than blog is iPod...not necessarily just the iPod itself though...but all the inaccurately named iProducts that came after it. The i was originally for internet, and iPod was the first major step down a slippery slope of many non-internet i-thingies. Although now it's arguably a term for any personal device, the i meaning simply 'I'.
Just mentioned this on here earlier today, but Kodak has a new line of multifunctions....$10 black $15 for the 5-color cartridge. Definately the cheapest in the long run (black is supposed to last ~300 pages of text).
Kodak has a line of full-size inkjet printers. They charge a bit more for the printer ($150 for a pretty standard multifunction with 6 colors), but the cartridge costs are MUCH cheaper. $10 for black that is supposed to last ~300 pages of full text, and $15 for a 5-color cartridge. Or you can buy them together for $22.
Maybe Microsoft could do it? Wouldn't this be where Media Center pulls its data from too? Kind of important for the product. And then maybe out of the goodness of their heart they'll make the listings openly available (I know, unlikely).
:-)
It's not like they'd sell very many extra copies of Home Premium Vista by keeping it closed...so maybe earn some brownie points with the OSS community, and not to mention having some degree of power by having quite a few people rely on your service. (I know you like power Microsoft, so hook us up
Now you've accused me of being a conservative/republican (which is not only a liar, but a stupid liar).
My original point was that said these issues have been discussed at length without any help from Michael Moore. There still hasn't been anything constructive done about any of them due to a number of reasons, and no one political party is at fault (I really hate the party system and wish there was a way to abolish it, personally...it creates too much political fanboism among the people and lots of shady dealings among the politicians).
Who can explain why Bush had his thumb up his ass for 20 minutes? (Answer: Someone who will never explain it publicly) Honestly does it really matter anymore? He's finally getting out of office in 18 months so I really don't care...the damage has been done, there are better things to worry about...like the healthcare system. And that's such an ugly cluster**** it's not even funny. The best way to handle that if you feel so strongly is to vote for the candidates that have a platform of healthcare reform closest to your own views.
Since it'd probably be a no-no for non-UK retailers to ship copies there, I bet it wouldn't be hard to buy the game off eBay if they really want it. That would help Rockstar (assuming they aren't duplicated copies, naturally).