Furthermore, there is an extremely easy way for eBay to stamp on this kind of thing - create a wholesale list category, and set a bunch of (enforced) guidelines for posting there, such as no graphics, no product names in the title and so on. Let's see how long the scam would last then.
Of course that would assume eBay want to shut the scam down. That they don't do any of these things suggests they're happy to let people get conned as long as they get their rake.
If you bid on this and didn't read the sodding auction then it's your OWN DAMN FAULT! This in no way counts as fraud.
The adverts are deliberately misleading because there ARE people who won't realise what they're bidding on until it's too late. It's a scam by any reasonable meaning of the word. Whether its "legal" or not is irrelevant.
You are accusing the Pope of writing this document based on "a voice in his head." How do you know that he didn't write this document as the result of consulting with world leaders and economic scholars?
If not for the voice in his head, what reason at all has anyone to pay the slightest attention to him? And if this voice in his head is in doubt, then what is left? There are plenty people smarter and more informed than him on virtually every subject you care to mention.
Or maybe you don't know...you just felt like writing a baseless accusation against someone? Don't you think it's a little bit hypocritical for you to smear all religious people for making stuff up, and then write a post based entirely on some convoluted theory you thought up without evidence?
Religious people do make stuff up. Starting with the supernatural beings they claim as fact. You ask for evidence but I doubt any religious leader could show any evidence that their god exists, let alone that this god speaks to them personally.
And don't you think it's unfair to criticize the Pope for the contents of a document which YOU HAVEN'T EVEN READ, since it hasn't even been published yet?
I criticize the pope for being in ANY position to make any kind of pronouncement that people listen to. He claims to speak for a deity yet there is no evidence that this deity exists, or that this deity speaks through the pope, or that in doing so the pope is therefore authoritative in anything he says. Given that, what reason should anybody let alone any government care what this pope person thinks?
The Pope can tell us these things because like all religious leaders he believes he has a direct line with his deity. Ordinarily someone who hears voices in their head would be confined to the nearest funny farm, but when it comes to religion, we're supposed to listen to and respect the opinions of these people. Hear voices? Crazy. Hear the voice of God? The president is on line two.
Not only that but these leaders (who claim to hear these voices) are in a position to assert their views to complex questions which they haven't the slightest expertise in and without regard to people who disagree. And these irrational decisions contribute to human suffering by making blanket decisions about what we should or should not do. It's a shame that even the most progressive and secular of governments feels the need to consult church leaders about anything. If someone wants to believe that the space fairy is talking to them, then fine, but don't expect or demand that anyone else should care or be bound by those beliefs.
I think eBay is quite happy to put up with some crime on their network. After all, if you're defrauded they still make money. If you're sold counterfeit stuff they still make money. I expect they don't even care if some people dispute purchases since the refunds come out of frozen accounts that they keep the balance from.
Just search for "wholesale list" to see one very obvious and recurring scam that runs on eBay every day. Crime is so rife in categories (e.g. memory cards) that they should put prepend warnings and advice to every single auction advising customers how to look for forgeries. Vigilant customers would prevent the scammers from getting good ratings and ultimately from being profitable. Do eBay do this? No.
These a couple of examples. eBay is in a position to squash all kinds of scams but if they're doing anything it sure as hell isn't enough.
I don't like streaming because I see no reason that I should need two machines in order to provide what should be capable through one. Streaming is a geek solution, not a general purpose solution.
Instead I see something akin to the XBox Media Center project. The PS3 hardware is well defined apart from USB devices so it should be possible to optimize the performance and indeed the code (6 free SPUs are there to be commanded), to make a superb no-brain media center for the PS3. It could local content (MP3, AAC, OGG, H264, MP3, MPG-2 etc.), streaming content, TV tuners, TV listings, web browers, weather and more out of the box. It could also support the PS3's SIXAXIS, remote and other Bluetooth devices. All of this without any user configuration at all. It could even default to DHCP to spare the user configuring the network connectivity. The goal at every stage would be simplicity. Naturally it could offer advanced configuration features, and even allow an expert to add modules (e.g. MAME) but the default should be simple and ready to run out of the box.
A flying car is called an aeroplane. The reason that we're not all flying around in aircraft is because they're horribly expensive to run and maintain, require a great deal of training to fly, a convenient runway to take off and land at, a mode of transport that takes you to / from the runway. A helicopter might spare the runway but then it can't just land anywhere either.
A flying car alleviates the need for a runway and additional transportation. But I really don't see it alleviating the others. Such a car would be horribly expensive and obscenely fuel inefficient. At least planes and helicopter uses momentum and surfaces to provide lift. A flying car would have to provide it all via thrusters. The car even has to be overpowered just to lift its own engines and fuel! Then you've got safety considerations - you can't brake in one of these things. Instead you have to throw the thrusters in reverse (while still providing lift) and hope you stop in time. It would be like driving on an ice rink only with gravity, large obstacles and certain death to deal with. That's even without getting in to the general practicality of the things - are they very convenient if they can barely lift 2 people into the air? What effect does wind, temperature and weather have on these things. etc.
I really don't see how they can overcome these things in any foreseeable timeframe.
It's pretty clear now that Vista should not have even been released until Q1 of 2008.
Why not? Vista is a remarkably pleasant desktop to use. It certainly has bugs but so far I'm encountered nothing I'd call a showstopper. The Aero Interface is definitely the high point of Vista. The lowpoint is probably UAC which is a pain and quite intolerable for me so I've disabled it. If someone asked if I wanted to go back to XP I'd say no way. It works for me. Having said that if you have XP I see no compelling reason to upgrade.
It's fairly likely that once the 60Gb is history that a "barebones" 80Gb model will replace it at the same price or possibly lower closer to Christmas. I'd expect they'll also revamp the "bundle" too in some way, e.g. throw Heavenly Sword or Lair into it to make it more up to date.
I thought virtualization was an pretty obvious workaround to the GPL3. To be honest they should have put language into the licence to prevent using virtualization to circumvent the DRM clauses
The PS3 can run Linux but so far it's been regular Linux distributions. MythTV sounds like a natural fit for a device which has practically everything in place to be a kickass multimedia console. It would be cool to see a MythTV dist for the PS3 that boots straight into the UI and also works with any plugged in USB devices like TV tuners.
What an utterly pointless and futile act. They should have auctioned the light sabre off and donated the proceeds to something that promotes or furthers science in some way.
Impress has one feature which made it invaluable to me recently - export to PDF. I had to scanned some legal documents and send them to someone. Since I don't have Adobe Acrobat to compose the pages, I was at a loss how to do it. I had the pages as.png images but it was huge pain to use Write and I gave up trying. But then I found I could add them as as slides to a blank Impress presentation and then reorder them. Once they were in the proper order I just exported them as PDF. Easy peasy.
I'm not going to defend Sony for producing DRM software, but I will say that no one is forcing a producer to use it. There are lots of copy protection systems out there so nothing was forcing 2K to use that particular one. Or to lock it down in an unacceptable way.
I think a far more sensible way for a games maker to encourage legitimate purchases is through value-add. Map packs, updates etc. If a PC owner has to register a serial nr to play they game I don't see why they couldn't do this.
I doubt an SUV would be a tight ride. Irish roads are not especially narrow in general and have to accommodate coaches, trucks etc. But it's just really quite pointless to be driving an SUV unless you absolutely have to since the taxes and fuel costs make it prohibitive and rather pointless. It's not even obvious to me why SUVs are popular in the US. They're not more spacious or safer than other vehicles so it's a puzzle why people would choose them over conventional vehicles. Perhaps they're perceived as safer even though they're very easy to tip over.
There I was thinking it's 2K's fault for choosing the copy protection system and setting retarded restrictions on it. But apparantly it's Sony! Perhaps Sony do produce SecuROM, but nobody forces a publisher to use it, or configure it with the most draconian settings. You can blame 2K for that. Doubly stupid is that SecuROM is enabled even in the Steam version! What the hell are 2K thinking? Steam already enforces game use so why shove another scheme on top and royally piss off customers who chose to buy the game.
I think DRM in PC software is ultimately self-defeating. The more anal it gets, the more likely people will hold out for the cracked version. After all, why should people pay money and get punished for it when they can have the unencumbered version for free? Software companies would do better to support their legitimate customers by providing patches and new features for free after release.
The less retarded tax would be on the electricity. Just like they tax the fuel more than the cars.
Right... so you can't tell the difference between some 80 year old heating their house to survive the winter as opposed to some disposable income guy playing with his new dual SLI rig.
While you could hike the unit price of electric to discourage its use, you're unable to distinguish between some old age pensioner heating their house versus some guy who's playing UT3 20 hours a day on their Alienware rig. It therefore seems more transparent to put the tax on the item when its purchased rather than hike the underlying unit price.
I got my PS3 at the EU launch and I really haven't had problems finding things to do with it. PS3 retail games might have been slow coming but there are some decent titles to play and the drought is basically over. Aside from that it can play PS2 titles, PSN titles (Super Stardust HD is awesome), DVDs, Blu Ray, ripped movies etc. so I've used it for that as well as Linux. Most mornings my 2 year old kid wants to see a DVD so I've ripped a pile for him to pick from. I can see that if someone only used it for PS3 titles they're going to get bored but there is plenty of stuff to be doing otherwise to justify its existence.
I don't think it will generate a huge amount of interest here in the UK. We don't have any HD channels on Freeview, and won't be getting any, either, if Sky get their way with Ofcom.
If it's only doing standard def, then there are standalone boxes for that price with included hard drives bigger than the one in the PS3.
I think the UK will get HD as the analogue stations are turned off. Sky is not in a strong position to complain about this. Besides, even an SD twin tuner costs something like £150. If you have a PS3 or are thinking of one, you might think that a (let's say) £70 widget for the PS3 that turns it into an upscaling PVR with future proofing is actually a good deal. Especially when the PS3 is also a music / video player as well as a kickass games console.
All jesting aside (yes the 360 does many functions too), does anyone else wonder if the console makers have strayed to far from the core purposes of the consoles themselves - to provide gaming entertainment?
Do you have any evidence that suggests consoles are less capable at playing games from providing these other features? Personally I think the fact that the PS3 is a audio / picture / movie / DVD / blu ray player, a web browser in addition to being a kickass consoles is a wonderful thing. It's acknowledgement that that box sitting plugged into your TV can be doing other stuff when it's not playing games. That isn't a bad thing, especially considering the price of it.
Even the Wii with its diminished capabilities still offers picture & movie clip playback and web browsing amongst its channels.
Europe has a lot of terrestrial digital channels via DVB-T. This add-on for the PS3 is essentially a twin tuner that receives DVB-T and allows you to record and watch shows as well as getting listings. Not only that but it appears Sony are future proofing it by allowing it to receive H264 HD channels when they start to appear making it doubly appealing. I think this device will generate a lot of interest for the PS3 in Germany, France and the UK.
The one concern I have is how this plugs into the PS3. I assume the receiver plugs into a USB port, but does it require one port or two? Is one port sufficient for the data? I know PC USB tuners manage on one, but how will it cope with twin tuners and H264? Additionally the PS3 has USB ports on it's front side which might make this thing look a little kludgy when its plugged in.
Still, it's a welcome addition and about bloody time. Consoles are more than capable of acting as multi-media centres (not dumb streaming slaves to PCs), so it's nice to see Sony treating the PS3 like one.
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Of course that would assume eBay want to shut the scam down. That they don't do any of these things suggests they're happy to let people get conned as long as they get their rake.
The adverts are deliberately misleading because there ARE people who won't realise what they're bidding on until it's too late. It's a scam by any reasonable meaning of the word. Whether its "legal" or not is irrelevant.
If not for the voice in his head, what reason at all has anyone to pay the slightest attention to him? And if this voice in his head is in doubt, then what is left? There are plenty people smarter and more informed than him on virtually every subject you care to mention.
Or maybe you don't know...you just felt like writing a baseless accusation against someone? Don't you think it's a little bit hypocritical for you to smear all religious people for making stuff up, and then write a post based entirely on some convoluted theory you thought up without evidence?
Religious people do make stuff up. Starting with the supernatural beings they claim as fact. You ask for evidence but I doubt any religious leader could show any evidence that their god exists, let alone that this god speaks to them personally.
And don't you think it's unfair to criticize the Pope for the contents of a document which YOU HAVEN'T EVEN READ, since it hasn't even been published yet?
I criticize the pope for being in ANY position to make any kind of pronouncement that people listen to. He claims to speak for a deity yet there is no evidence that this deity exists, or that this deity speaks through the pope, or that in doing so the pope is therefore authoritative in anything he says. Given that, what reason should anybody let alone any government care what this pope person thinks?
Not only that but these leaders (who claim to hear these voices) are in a position to assert their views to complex questions which they haven't the slightest expertise in and without regard to people who disagree. And these irrational decisions contribute to human suffering by making blanket decisions about what we should or should not do. It's a shame that even the most progressive and secular of governments feels the need to consult church leaders about anything. If someone wants to believe that the space fairy is talking to them, then fine, but don't expect or demand that anyone else should care or be bound by those beliefs.
Just search for "wholesale list" to see one very obvious and recurring scam that runs on eBay every day. Crime is so rife in categories (e.g. memory cards) that they should put prepend warnings and advice to every single auction advising customers how to look for forgeries. Vigilant customers would prevent the scammers from getting good ratings and ultimately from being profitable. Do eBay do this? No.
These a couple of examples. eBay is in a position to squash all kinds of scams but if they're doing anything it sure as hell isn't enough.
Instead I see something akin to the XBox Media Center project. The PS3 hardware is well defined apart from USB devices so it should be possible to optimize the performance and indeed the code (6 free SPUs are there to be commanded), to make a superb no-brain media center for the PS3. It could local content (MP3, AAC, OGG, H264, MP3, MPG-2 etc.), streaming content, TV tuners, TV listings, web browers, weather and more out of the box. It could also support the PS3's SIXAXIS, remote and other Bluetooth devices. All of this without any user configuration at all. It could even default to DHCP to spare the user configuring the network connectivity. The goal at every stage would be simplicity. Naturally it could offer advanced configuration features, and even allow an expert to add modules (e.g. MAME) but the default should be simple and ready to run out of the box.
I expect the design is very well suited to clustering. The PPUs handle all the data dispatching & balancing with the SPUs left to do the leg work.
A flying car alleviates the need for a runway and additional transportation. But I really don't see it alleviating the others. Such a car would be horribly expensive and obscenely fuel inefficient. At least planes and helicopter uses momentum and surfaces to provide lift. A flying car would have to provide it all via thrusters. The car even has to be overpowered just to lift its own engines and fuel! Then you've got safety considerations - you can't brake in one of these things. Instead you have to throw the thrusters in reverse (while still providing lift) and hope you stop in time. It would be like driving on an ice rink only with gravity, large obstacles and certain death to deal with. That's even without getting in to the general practicality of the things - are they very convenient if they can barely lift 2 people into the air? What effect does wind, temperature and weather have on these things. etc.
I really don't see how they can overcome these things in any foreseeable timeframe.
Why not? Vista is a remarkably pleasant desktop to use. It certainly has bugs but so far I'm encountered nothing I'd call a showstopper. The Aero Interface is definitely the high point of Vista. The lowpoint is probably UAC which is a pain and quite intolerable for me so I've disabled it. If someone asked if I wanted to go back to XP I'd say no way. It works for me. Having said that if you have XP I see no compelling reason to upgrade.
It's fairly likely that once the 60Gb is history that a "barebones" 80Gb model will replace it at the same price or possibly lower closer to Christmas. I'd expect they'll also revamp the "bundle" too in some way, e.g. throw Heavenly Sword or Lair into it to make it more up to date.
I thought virtualization was an pretty obvious workaround to the GPL3. To be honest they should have put language into the licence to prevent using virtualization to circumvent the DRM clauses
I've installed VideoLan on a PS3 and the framerate is acceptable.
The PS3 can run Linux but so far it's been regular Linux distributions. MythTV sounds like a natural fit for a device which has practically everything in place to be a kickass multimedia console. It would be cool to see a MythTV dist for the PS3 that boots straight into the UI and also works with any plugged in USB devices like TV tuners.
What an utterly pointless and futile act. They should have auctioned the light sabre off and donated the proceeds to something that promotes or furthers science in some way.
Impress has one feature which made it invaluable to me recently - export to PDF. I had to scanned some legal documents and send them to someone. Since I don't have Adobe Acrobat to compose the pages, I was at a loss how to do it. I had the pages as .png images but it was huge pain to use Write and I gave up trying. But then I found I could add them as as slides to a blank Impress presentation and then reorder them. Once they were in the proper order I just exported them as PDF. Easy peasy.
I think a far more sensible way for a games maker to encourage legitimate purchases is through value-add. Map packs, updates etc. If a PC owner has to register a serial nr to play they game I don't see why they couldn't do this.
I doubt an SUV would be a tight ride. Irish roads are not especially narrow in general and have to accommodate coaches, trucks etc. But it's just really quite pointless to be driving an SUV unless you absolutely have to since the taxes and fuel costs make it prohibitive and rather pointless. It's not even obvious to me why SUVs are popular in the US. They're not more spacious or safer than other vehicles so it's a puzzle why people would choose them over conventional vehicles. Perhaps they're perceived as safer even though they're very easy to tip over.
I think DRM in PC software is ultimately self-defeating. The more anal it gets, the more likely people will hold out for the cracked version. After all, why should people pay money and get punished for it when they can have the unencumbered version for free? Software companies would do better to support their legitimate customers by providing patches and new features for free after release.
Right... so you can't tell the difference between some 80 year old heating their house to survive the winter as opposed to some disposable income guy playing with his new dual SLI rig.
That sounds more retarded, not less.
Yes I use it all of the time. Why shouldn't I?
While you could hike the unit price of electric to discourage its use, you're unable to distinguish between some old age pensioner heating their house versus some guy who's playing UT3 20 hours a day on their Alienware rig. It therefore seems more transparent to put the tax on the item when its purchased rather than hike the underlying unit price.
I got my PS3 at the EU launch and I really haven't had problems finding things to do with it. PS3 retail games might have been slow coming but there are some decent titles to play and the drought is basically over. Aside from that it can play PS2 titles, PSN titles (Super Stardust HD is awesome), DVDs, Blu Ray, ripped movies etc. so I've used it for that as well as Linux. Most mornings my 2 year old kid wants to see a DVD so I've ripped a pile for him to pick from. I can see that if someone only used it for PS3 titles they're going to get bored but there is plenty of stuff to be doing otherwise to justify its existence.
I think the UK will get HD as the analogue stations are turned off. Sky is not in a strong position to complain about this. Besides, even an SD twin tuner costs something like £150. If you have a PS3 or are thinking of one, you might think that a (let's say) £70 widget for the PS3 that turns it into an upscaling PVR with future proofing is actually a good deal. Especially when the PS3 is also a music / video player as well as a kickass games console.
Do you have any evidence that suggests consoles are less capable at playing games from providing these other features? Personally I think the fact that the PS3 is a audio / picture / movie / DVD / blu ray player, a web browser in addition to being a kickass consoles is a wonderful thing. It's acknowledgement that that box sitting plugged into your TV can be doing other stuff when it's not playing games. That isn't a bad thing, especially considering the price of it.
Even the Wii with its diminished capabilities still offers picture & movie clip playback and web browsing amongst its channels.
The one concern I have is how this plugs into the PS3. I assume the receiver plugs into a USB port, but does it require one port or two? Is one port sufficient for the data? I know PC USB tuners manage on one, but how will it cope with twin tuners and H264? Additionally the PS3 has USB ports on it's front side which might make this thing look a little kludgy when its plugged in.
Still, it's a welcome addition and about bloody time. Consoles are more than capable of acting as multi-media centres (not dumb streaming slaves to PCs), so it's nice to see Sony treating the PS3 like one.