There's a long list of what defines a legal F1 car and what makes it illegal, and what the car and team can or cannot do and when.
The rules may seem arbitrary and some may even seem silly.
But fact is: 1) There is no such thing as "Unlimited" there must always be rules, otherwise at the extreme nukes would be involved. No rules = no competition and no fun. 2) With the advances of technology the lists will get longer and longer.
For example while nerve conduction is fast (for myelinated nerves), it's not that fast - 30-100 metres per second. Assuming a 1 meter distance to travel that's 30 to 10 milliseconds gone. 30 milliseconds[1] is a long time in some games. So imagine if someone could artifically cut that time down to near zero by using advanced brain implants as controllers. So would this be legal or illegal? Some paraplegics might be competing using those implants. Maybe in the future with such implants the paraplegics would be better at computer games than "normals", since some would be able to practice nearly all day - the toilet and feeding is already kind of solved, they just need better beds to prevent bed sores.
So you might have to put them in a different category, much like the Paralympics.
That said there are stupid rules, for example the LPGA has mandated that golfers be able to speak English. You can play excellent golf without being even able to speak.
The guardians of the rules have to be very careful, otherwise people might just decide to play elsewhere, or play some other game.
[1] BTW some martial artists can physically react in 180 milliseconds which is pretty quick considering they have to see, understand, decide, and then actually strike the actual target.
If I see a reallocated sector, I start thinking about replacing the drive, even if I can't get a warranty for it (the manufacturer will probably say it's still fine by their standards etc).
The trouble for Thailand is the democracy thing isn't working so well, and as for the monarchy let's just say it's going to be hard for the Crown Prince to do better than the king.
So, long live the king and may he continue to have wisdom and strength to guide his country.
I'm sure one of his ideas is to set up a political system and country which can do fine in his absence, but much of Thailand isn't cooperating;).
He's probably trying his hardest not to step in for this current mess.
"I sincerely doubt it, this will clearly be more justification for the rest of Thailand to revolt against the Monarchy. "
Revolt against the monarchy? Uh this is Thailand we're talking about. Far far less than 1% will revolt against the King. This is not a revolt against the monarchy, this is a revolt against the government.
All Thai governments claim to support the king, otherwise they'd never get power or stay in power.
The king could probably stop the protests by just telling everyone to go home, and the king could probably kick the current government too just by disapproving of them. But so far it seems he hasn't showed his hand yet.
In short, it's a good movie with some audience participation?
Most FPSes are like that though.
In Crysis - I've found you can't jump on to certain rocks (invisible barrier) just to take a different way, and some doors open and close "just because".
I can understand why choice is limited in some cases - it keeps the amount of content required to be created from growing exponentially. But in the other cases I find it annoying.
Say someone sets up a genuine and easy to use no bullshit donation site for you to donate to the bioshock team, how much would you really pay for it? A$0? A$5? A$10? What would be a fair cut for the people running the site? 5%?
My brother had a pirate copy of GTA3 before, and he liked it so much that he wanted to buy it, but he couldn't get an original copy - nobody sold it, he even went to a neighbouring country. I think it was banned in both countries - but naturally the "unauthorized distributors" didn't bother about the ban:).
Sometimes it's just so hard to give people money and skip all the crap;).
Maybe someone should set up a "plain no nonsense" donation site where most of the money can go to various game development teams (including artists etc), and not pay the people involved in the DRM and other bullshit.
Then people who paid the distributors in Bangkok or wherever 2 dollars, can _EASILY_ pay the dev team the rest if they think it's a great game, without having to put up with the DRM crap (and possibly screw up their computer).
I've suggested to the GNU bunch something like that (so that if you feel like just donating to some registered OSS dev, they handle the details of getting the money to that person and take a small cut for the trouble). But so far I don't think it's possible.
Paypal doesn't work in my country (and I've heard lots of complaints about it).
When I was a child I was automatically a member of my parents club, but when I reached a certain age, I was given a choice - be part of the club and pay the fees, or leave. I chose to leave. I can still enter the club as a guest, but I do not have the privileges of a member.
If you don't want to pay the costs of membership, maybe you should leave the club.
The fees, rules (written and unwritten) etc go about into making the club what it is.
It is very similar for countries. There are countries where there aren't income taxes. Things in those countries are quite different.
If you reject the US government so much, keep in mind that it is an elected government, and the voters don't appear to be interested in significant change.
You want to live amongst those voters, you have to pay the costs. Their country, their rules. Not their rules? They reelected Bush, clearly enough approved.
Maybe you're right and it's not unethical to not pay the costs. I suppose it could be like hanging around with a chain smoking friend and putting a gas mask on:).
Then again someone still had to pay for the gas mask;).
But I do see governments as a monopoly of force as well, I've seen them that way for years. But I prefer to use the word violence instead of force.
All governments whether good or bad MUST maintain a tight monopoly on violence. I see nothing wrong with governments doing that.
Any government that doesn't will risk someone else taking over and establishing a new government (typically a dictatorship - for most revolutions involving force/violence the "most violent" person rises to the top).
When Saddam was in power, you rarely had random mobs going about killing people. The only mobs allowed to go around killing people were Saddam's. And that is why Saddam stayed in power for so long (same goes for other long lasting dictatorships). Now the USA is having difficulty maintaining a monopoly in Iraq - the mobs have grown a bit too big to easily put out. Don't get me wrong, I have never supported Saddam or thought he was doing good.
Yes state violence is terrible. But random chaotic violence is often worse - you do not want to live in a place where everyone is a cop, judge and executioner all in one. You never know what the rules are for staying alive or keeping your property.
If your country is a democracy, lucky for you - if you do not like your government, you can vote and lobby for a change (and possibly even be a candidate). If the election results aren't what you want, and the resulting policies so _unbearable_, prepare to move. Otherwise, stick around and keep working for nonviolent change.
If you are in the USA, well so far the people seem to be fine with the two parties, things haven't got bad enough for significant votes to go to some other party. It's not a wasted vote - if some other party got 20% of the votes, the two parties will notice. As it is, fact is the people have spoken and 99% either want twiddledee or twiddledum. Either that or the elections were badly diebolded;).
The zapper approach is different, but the methods used to detect the resulting "shrinkage" would be the same.
And to me it's a waste for an owner to spend $$$ to specifically detect zappers (e.g. zapper scanning software). Stick to "money going in is not in line with goods going out" and stuff like that.
A company I worked for installed cameras to monitor toll booths in a highway (for security and other reasons;) ). The system paid for itself in 3 months from the increased takings. Maybe the toll operators were lazy and said everything was a car rather than charge trucks more (which is what they are supposed to do), but it's clear they stopped/cut down on that sort of stuff.
I assume you're probably in some democratic country.
So ethically it's wrong - assuming the majority of the voters keep voting in politicians who keep that tax system AND the system actually does significant good (as you admit it does some good in some countries at least, maybe in your country things might not be going as well, but it's a poor reason to get rid of it ).
If you're in some form of democracy and you think the government isn't doing a good job, vote to change it, write to your representative or even stand as a candidate yourself.
Taxes do pay for a lot of things, if you don't like the government or country and don't want to pay taxes to it, you can usually also move out, if the voting stuff doesn't work to your liking.
In the cases where you can't move out, you're usually so screwed that taxes are low on the list of worries (way below extrajudiciary killings for example).
I see libertarians getting so worked up about big government, the problem is not big government, the problem is corrupt and/or incompetent government. A small corrupt government can screw you just as well as a big one - they just let their friends/partners do what the big corrupt gov would do. If you think the US Gov military is bad, imagine if it wasn't a huge government controlled entity and instead it was a huge "Blackwater Halliburton" sort of company. You think it's hard to vote a hated party out? Good luck voting a company out. You need 51%, by the time you get 51% you might be corrupt enough to be part of the problem yourself.
"Yes, but the point the parent was making is that an unscrupulous EMPLOYEE could install a zapper to steal from the owner; it works both ways."
But why would they bother? An unscrupulous employee could steal from the owner in so many far _EASIER_ ways it isn't funny. And it's about as hard for the owner to detect those methods as detecting the use of the zapper.
Examples: Does the owner really know how many lobsters the chef actually has to use a week for the lobster bisque? How much caviar normally? One serving for the diner, one for the chef, one for the kitchen...
A supermarket checkout employee could easily undercharge a friend. Friend comes with 3 _popular_ items, but only pays for 1. Sure at the end of the day during stock take you know it's missing, but unless you have store cameras are pointed at your employees and you can countercheck them with the daily records, it's going to be hard. Note to owners if you can do that then the tax people might be able to look at your videos too;).
Most employees won't steal from owners under normal circumstances, but most conform, and if there is a culture of stealing in the place, they may go along with "everyone", or not report it if they detect it.
Thing is maybe the owner is fine with the kitchen having a celebration once in a while - so it isn't stealing - even if they have a bottle of champagne on a particularly good night - after all if the money is flowing in, most owners won't care - "things are working real fine". But if the wrong culture sets in...
Centos is a way for Red Hat to compete against Ubuntu, suse etc.
Centos = "Use RHEL for free and get used to it". There is significant difference in the way Redhat Linux works and Ubuntu works.
If one day you want Oracle, SAP, Expensive Software that's only certified to run on RHEL, the cost of RHEL is nothing.
For my own home server I've switched from opensuse to ubuntu because I've got tired of waiting for yast software management (it's really really really slow) and waiting for suse to fix it.
But I'm not sure how Ubuntu will do if you're trying to install a few hundred RAID+LVM boxes with a particular config + software bundle over the network. Seems to be "uncharted territory".
Y'know I was thinking maybe things would be be better if more police spied on each other and reported each other for transgressions, rather than citizens doing the same thing:).
Their business is selling hardware (for now anyway).
If they open source the drivers, there's a chance that they can cut costs - there's a significant chance someone _else_ (redhat, suse, ubuntu, etc) might end up doing the work of keeping the drivers for the _old_ hardware working with the various Linux kernels out there.
Then their in-house coders can do the presumably more "interesting" stuff like write drivers for the newer hardware (esp pre-release hardware - in the initial stages you might end up having to change specs, after release you can send it to the open source bunch).
Slashdot Mirror
It'll be like F1 racing (or already is like it).
There's a long list of what defines a legal F1 car and what makes it illegal, and what the car and team can or cannot do and when.
The rules may seem arbitrary and some may even seem silly.
But fact is:
1) There is no such thing as "Unlimited" there must always be rules, otherwise at the extreme nukes would be involved. No rules = no competition and no fun.
2) With the advances of technology the lists will get longer and longer.
For example while nerve conduction is fast (for myelinated nerves), it's not that fast - 30-100 metres per second. Assuming a 1 meter distance to travel that's 30 to 10 milliseconds gone. 30 milliseconds[1] is a long time in some games. So imagine if someone could artifically cut that time down to near zero by using advanced brain implants as controllers. So would this be legal or illegal? Some paraplegics might be competing using those implants. Maybe in the future with such implants the paraplegics would be better at computer games than "normals", since some would be able to practice nearly all day - the toilet and feeding is already kind of solved, they just need better beds to prevent bed sores.
So you might have to put them in a different category, much like the Paralympics.
That said there are stupid rules, for example the LPGA has mandated that golfers be able to speak English. You can play excellent golf without being even able to speak.
The guardians of the rules have to be very careful, otherwise people might just decide to play elsewhere, or play some other game.
[1] BTW some martial artists can physically react in 180 milliseconds which is pretty quick considering they have to see, understand, decide, and then actually strike the actual target.
It would be strange if people started sending lots of laptops to your Sony repair shop that had nothing wrong with them.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qGb8rF9AY
Maybe I got the wrong impression, but the game sounds boring to me.
And the graphics don't look that realistic.
I strongly doubt they allocate that much space (as you claim) for spare sectors.
From what I see it's a small percentage - maybe at most thousands of spare sectors for hundreds of million sectors.
Just a google for complaints shows that people are already in serious trouble when their drive starts using hundreds of spare sectors.
Thus I think my current policy is safer.
As for SCSI vs SATA there is evidence that the failure rates are not significantly different (at least for recent drives):
http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.html
http://www.usenix.org/events/fast07/tech/schroeder/schroeder_html/index.html
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=disaster_recovery&articleId=9025380&taxonomyId=151&intsrc=kc_feat
It'll be interesting if you have evidence that says otherwise.
It does depend on which court.
I believe in UK style courts, the judge could rule it an unreasonable contract and thus not binding.
Still, it's best to avoid getting to that stage where possible.
If I see a reallocated sector, I start thinking about replacing the drive, even if I can't get a warranty for it (the manufacturer will probably say it's still fine by their standards etc).
Do those laws apply if say the microprocessors are fabbed in Germany/Israel/Ireland, assembled/packaged in Malaysia, and then exported to China?
How about if the microprocessors are assembled/packaged in China itself?
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/manufacturing/manufacturing_qa.htm
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51__104_543~117787,00.html
The trouble for Thailand is the democracy thing isn't working so well, and as for the monarchy let's just say it's going to be hard for the Crown Prince to do better than the king.
;).
So, long live the king and may he continue to have wisdom and strength to guide his country.
I'm sure one of his ideas is to set up a political system and country which can do fine in his absence, but much of Thailand isn't cooperating
He's probably trying his hardest not to step in for this current mess.
We already know it stinks like shit, we don't need to know whether it tastes like shit ;).
"I sincerely doubt it, this will clearly be more justification for the rest of Thailand to revolt against the Monarchy. "
Revolt against the monarchy? Uh this is Thailand we're talking about. Far far less than 1% will revolt against the King. This is not a revolt against the monarchy, this is a revolt against the government.
Everyone respects the King a lot in Thailand (some to the point of worship) see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhumibol_Adulyadej
The government != the monarchy.
All Thai governments claim to support the king, otherwise they'd never get power or stay in power.
The king could probably stop the protests by just telling everyone to go home, and the king could probably kick the current government too just by disapproving of them. But so far it seems he hasn't showed his hand yet.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_May_(1992)#Royal_intervention
From what I hear you're far more likely to have your computer messed up by SecureRom than by a 3rd party patch.
;). And don't get me started on Sony.
If you stick to getting the patches from reliable sources, I doubt you'll have trouble.
Even original software makers have shipped viruses and malware.
Heck in many peoples opinion- Dell, HP preload malware onto their computers
So far I think the pirates have provided a far safer and better experience than the Big Corps.
Seems to me most of the game crackers are doing it more for reputation than money. Whereas the Big Corps usually have different priorities.
I think a more important distinction is the effective range.
:).
e.g. from how far away can they blow my brains out.
In short, it's a good movie with some audience participation?
Most FPSes are like that though.
In Crysis - I've found you can't jump on to certain rocks (invisible barrier) just to take a different way, and some doors open and close "just because".
I can understand why choice is limited in some cases - it keeps the amount of content required to be created from growing exponentially. But in the other cases I find it annoying.
Say someone sets up a genuine and easy to use no bullshit donation site for you to donate to the bioshock team, how much would you really pay for it? A$0? A$5? A$10? What would be a fair cut for the people running the site? 5%?
:).
;).
My brother had a pirate copy of GTA3 before, and he liked it so much that he wanted to buy it, but he couldn't get an original copy - nobody sold it, he even went to a neighbouring country. I think it was banned in both countries - but naturally the "unauthorized distributors" didn't bother about the ban
Sometimes it's just so hard to give people money and skip all the crap
Maybe someone should set up a "plain no nonsense" donation site where most of the money can go to various game development teams (including artists etc), and not pay the people involved in the DRM and other bullshit.
Then people who paid the distributors in Bangkok or wherever 2 dollars, can _EASILY_ pay the dev team the rest if they think it's a great game, without having to put up with the DRM crap (and possibly screw up their computer).
I've suggested to the GNU bunch something like that (so that if you feel like just donating to some registered OSS dev, they handle the details of getting the money to that person and take a small cut for the trouble). But so far I don't think it's possible.
Paypal doesn't work in my country (and I've heard lots of complaints about it).
You're seeing it from the taxpayer's point of view.
The money does go to someone y'know.
When I was a child I was automatically a member of my parents club, but when I reached a certain age, I was given a choice - be part of the club and pay the fees, or leave. I chose to leave. I can still enter the club as a guest, but I do not have the privileges of a member.
:).
;).
If you don't want to pay the costs of membership, maybe you should leave the club.
The fees, rules (written and unwritten) etc go about into making the club what it is.
It is very similar for countries. There are countries where there aren't income taxes. Things in those countries are quite different.
If you reject the US government so much, keep in mind that it is an elected government, and the voters don't appear to be interested in significant change.
You want to live amongst those voters, you have to pay the costs. Their country, their rules. Not their rules? They reelected Bush, clearly enough approved.
Maybe you're right and it's not unethical to not pay the costs. I suppose it could be like hanging around with a chain smoking friend and putting a gas mask on
Then again someone still had to pay for the gas mask
But I do see governments as a monopoly of force as well, I've seen them that way for years. But I prefer to use the word violence instead of force.
;).
All governments whether good or bad MUST maintain a tight monopoly on violence. I see nothing wrong with governments doing that.
Any government that doesn't will risk someone else taking over and establishing a new government (typically a dictatorship - for most revolutions involving force/violence the "most violent" person rises to the top).
When Saddam was in power, you rarely had random mobs going about killing people. The only mobs allowed to go around killing people were Saddam's. And that is why Saddam stayed in power for so long (same goes for other long lasting dictatorships). Now the USA is having difficulty maintaining a monopoly in Iraq - the mobs have grown a bit too big to easily put out. Don't get me wrong, I have never supported Saddam or thought he was doing good.
Yes state violence is terrible. But random chaotic violence is often worse - you do not want to live in a place where everyone is a cop, judge and executioner all in one. You never know what the rules are for staying alive or keeping your property.
If your country is a democracy, lucky for you - if you do not like your government, you can vote and lobby for a change (and possibly even be a candidate). If the election results aren't what you want, and the resulting policies so _unbearable_, prepare to move. Otherwise, stick around and keep working for nonviolent change.
If you are in the USA, well so far the people seem to be fine with the two parties, things haven't got bad enough for significant votes to go to some other party. It's not a wasted vote - if some other party got 20% of the votes, the two parties will notice. As it is, fact is the people have spoken and 99% either want twiddledee or twiddledum. Either that or the elections were badly diebolded
The zapper approach is different, but the methods used to detect the resulting "shrinkage" would be the same.
;) ). The system paid for itself in 3 months from the increased takings. Maybe the toll operators were lazy and said everything was a car rather than charge trucks more (which is what they are supposed to do), but it's clear they stopped/cut down on that sort of stuff.
And to me it's a waste for an owner to spend $$$ to specifically detect zappers (e.g. zapper scanning software). Stick to "money going in is not in line with goods going out" and stuff like that.
A company I worked for installed cameras to monitor toll booths in a highway (for security and other reasons
I assume you're probably in some democratic country.
So ethically it's wrong - assuming the majority of the voters keep voting in politicians who keep that tax system AND the system actually does significant good (as you admit it does some good in some countries at least, maybe in your country things might not be going as well, but it's a poor reason to get rid of it ).
If you're in some form of democracy and you think the government isn't doing a good job, vote to change it, write to your representative or even stand as a candidate yourself.
Taxes do pay for a lot of things, if you don't like the government or country and don't want to pay taxes to it, you can usually also move out, if the voting stuff doesn't work to your liking.
In the cases where you can't move out, you're usually so screwed that taxes are low on the list of worries (way below extrajudiciary killings for example).
I see libertarians getting so worked up about big government, the problem is not big government, the problem is corrupt and/or incompetent government. A small corrupt government can screw you just as well as a big one - they just let their friends/partners do what the big corrupt gov would do. If you think the US Gov military is bad, imagine if it wasn't a huge government controlled entity and instead it was a huge "Blackwater Halliburton" sort of company. You think it's hard to vote a hated party out? Good luck voting a company out. You need 51%, by the time you get 51% you might be corrupt enough to be part of the problem yourself.
"Yes, but the point the parent was making is that an unscrupulous EMPLOYEE could install a zapper to steal from the owner; it works both ways."
;).
But why would they bother? An unscrupulous employee could steal from the owner in so many far _EASIER_ ways it isn't funny. And it's about as hard for the owner to detect those methods as detecting the use of the zapper.
Examples:
Does the owner really know how many lobsters the chef actually has to use a week for the lobster bisque? How much caviar normally? One serving for the diner, one for the chef, one for the kitchen...
A supermarket checkout employee could easily undercharge a friend. Friend comes with 3 _popular_ items, but only pays for 1. Sure at the end of the day during stock take you know it's missing, but unless you have store cameras are pointed at your employees and you can countercheck them with the daily records, it's going to be hard. Note to owners if you can do that then the tax people might be able to look at your videos too
Most employees won't steal from owners under normal circumstances, but most conform, and if there is a culture of stealing in the place, they may go along with "everyone", or not report it if they detect it.
Thing is maybe the owner is fine with the kitchen having a celebration once in a while - so it isn't stealing - even if they have a bottle of champagne on a particularly good night - after all if the money is flowing in, most owners won't care - "things are working real fine". But if the wrong culture sets in...
Centos is a way for Red Hat to compete against Ubuntu, suse etc.
Centos = "Use RHEL for free and get used to it". There is significant difference in the way Redhat Linux works and Ubuntu works.
If one day you want Oracle, SAP, Expensive Software that's only certified to run on RHEL, the cost of RHEL is nothing.
For my own home server I've switched from opensuse to ubuntu because I've got tired of waiting for yast software management (it's really really really slow) and waiting for suse to fix it.
But I'm not sure how Ubuntu will do if you're trying to install a few hundred RAID+LVM boxes with a particular config + software bundle over the network. Seems to be "uncharted territory".
Y'know I was thinking maybe things would be be better if more police spied on each other and reported each other for transgressions, rather than citizens doing the same thing :).
Hey same here in my country (Malaysia), the cops are busy fleecing the misbehaving "sheep" rather than catching the wolves.
I suppose the wolves bite back a lot more.
But hey, I was just hoping the cops would catch a few more wolves...
Their business is selling hardware (for now anyway).
If they open source the drivers, there's a chance that they can cut costs - there's a significant chance someone _else_ (redhat, suse, ubuntu, etc) might end up doing the work of keeping the drivers for the _old_ hardware working with the various Linux kernels out there.
Then their in-house coders can do the presumably more "interesting" stuff like write drivers for the newer hardware (esp pre-release hardware - in the initial stages you might end up having to change specs, after release you can send it to the open source bunch).