Well, Lucas Arts put Monkey Islad 4 on the PS2, so they should be able to put Sam & Max 2 on a console. I'd buy it no matter what platform it's on. It'd be especially great if they included the origional for everyone who never got to play it.
Birds and bugs. Good point. I guess I've just learned to tune them out after years of living here. When I first moved to the midwest I had a horrible time sleeping because of them. Now I almost never notice them (with the exception of those damn circadias or whatever they're called). The only sound I was thinking you'd be able to hear was the wind hitting the trees or grain, but in Chernobyl you'd hear the wind hitting the buildings and such.
I guess your right. I guess most people have never really heard silence. What an odd thought. Next to no one has ever heard nothing.
After reading you comment and thinking about it, it reminds me of that little short story. I can't remember quite what book it's in (it's in a book of fiction).
It's about a little automated house with no one living there. It told about how it would make breakfast, and clean it up with little mechanical sweeper mice, and the house eventually burns down. The house is in a town that is empty because of a nuclear blast and the only "people" left there is a "shadow" of someone left on a wall from the nuclear blast. Interesting and sad story. The place was just as if everyone had suddenly vanished from the face of the Earth. Everything else was left.
I want to say it was in "A Brave New World" but it could have been a H2G2 book.
Reminds me of the song "Three Mile Island" by Pinkard & Bowden. It talks about how at TMI baseball field during the night games... they turn the lights down. 'Cause the home team... glows in the dark.
The site is quite facinating. In a way Chernobyl is the largest time capsule in the world. Amazing to see that you could just go into homes and offices and see EXACTLY what life was like there in 1986. If it wasn't for the plants and animals and such, things would be almost completely identicle. It would be very cool if some archiologists could get some NASA space suits or something like that (to protect them from the radiation) to go in and photograph all those places and things.
The MOST interesting thing in the article to me though was the "deafening silence" that is mentioned. The author said that many companies have investigaed doing things like 2 hour tours but the tourists complain and want to go home after 15 minutes because it's so quite it's like being deaf. I wouldn't think that it would be so bad (go to wheat feild in the middle of the US and it's silent too), but I guess it's the combination of all the buildings and normal city sights (with the exception of the fact that there are no people) and the silence that makes it so eerie and spooky.
Well, that statement shows that he doesn't know what he's talking about (at least thats what I get out of it). It's all well and good to have a powerfull system, but that doesn't mean anything as the 3DO and other systems have shown us.
It takes GAMES. The power isn't all that important. The GBA is far and away the best selling system out there right now, as the GameBoy was before it. Both are ludicrously underpowered compared to everything else on the market, but one of the major reasons they are successful is that they have great games. If there is one thing that companies (should have) learned by now, it's flashing graphics don't make good games. If the game looks half decent but plays great, it's a great game. There are plenty of games that really don't look that great that are amazing (Animal Crossing comes to mind).
It doesn't matter if he puts a one of the most powerfull comptuers in the world in every subscriber's house. If the games aren't their focus, it's doomed.
Personally I doubt we'll ever hear of this thing again, but this guy has one major edge over the competition: his product is free.
Most people don't buy their cable boxes. They rent them from the cable company as part of their bill. If the cable company adds video games to the cable box and still charges you the same ammount per month for the box, most people won't say no. That means he get in for free. If you make the games a sensible price (and GOOD, which is the most important part) he could make some money. I don't think he'll ever be a real part of the video games industry with this thing, but he could still do a decent business and make some money.
He has a chance to break into the market becuase he'll be in the home. Now if you have to pay extra money for the box (like $200 up front), or the rental fee is higher, or the games suck or cost too much, he's dead. But if he does things right, he's got a chance to do decently.
But I can't see this EVER being any real player of any kind in the industry unless his boxes are so popular that nearly every cable company is willing to use these boxes.
I disagree. I think that at the time HardOCP did a great job. And for quite a while many here on/. (and elsewhere) have thought that the phantom was just... aptly named.
That said, while I am still quite scepticle of the whole thing, I have to admit I no longer think the console is just vaporware. Between the press demo they did a few months ago for a few select members of the press (which at least had photos of the thing), to fact that they will have an 8,000 square foot booth at E3 I think this might not be vaporware. It could still fail miserably and be nothing like they've promised, but at least they seem to be doing more than saying "we have a great console, we'll prove it later" like they did for so long.
The proof is in the pudding. Nintendo's DS, the Phantom, and more are going to be shown at E3. It should be very intersting.
And let's face it. Suing someone priting facts about you that don't look good more than a year after they were posted (and when you still haven't shown any real proof to anyone yet) just doesn't look good for your company.
So everyone will know, I'm 21 years old an I currently attend college in the US. I live in a house, so space isn't a problem; and I've always LOVED computers.
Frankly I can see this. In the last two or three years I've taken to using my laptop for EVERYTHING and basically never touching my desktops. I'm even thinking of selling them. If I didn't need the portability of my laptop, I would almost certainly buy one of these "all in one" computers. I've really come to like the simplicity and size savings that a laptop or very small desktop provides.
I've come to realize that I don't neede all those seperate parts. I don't really play games too much, but when I do my laptop has enough power despite it's age. So a all in one desktop (which would be even more powerful) would be fine. I don't need 12 drive bays. I don't need 3 CD drives (although it can be nice;). My laptop has everything I need, and when it doesn't (rare) I just plug it in (like a DVD burner). It's got a nice little monitor, keyboard, etc. Frankly the small space my laptop takes up compared to my desktop setup (which is large even at just a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and tower) is significant. One of the reasons for large cases in the past was expandability. You couldn't attach 5 more drives to a normal PC without putting them inside (ignore SCSI, it was never on normal people's desktops (with the exception of Macs)). If you needed a modem/soundcard/etc you had to put it in the computer (let's ignore external modems). But these days almost EVERYTHING can be had externally. Thanks to USB2 and FireWire, all the storage you'll ever need is can be external to your PC. Thanks to these things you can also attach mice, keyboards, soundcards, webcams, modems, tv-tuners, network interfaces, and more all without having to go inside a computer.
As computers are becomming more and more powerful, far past what most users need, I think users will start to realize this and go for other things like size and convience. I think this is the large reason why laptops are becomming such a large section of the computer market (the other being that they no longer cost $3k for a decent model). They now do basically everything most people need. The other big development is that LCDs are now more reasonable so it's possible to have a computer take up very little desk space (where just 5 years ago, you'd need a big 'ol monitor for a PC of any size).
I really don't need a physically big computer and nearly no one else does (ignoring business, server, etc and only talking about individuals). I have looked quite seriously at the eMac and iMac and if I knew of an similar product from a PC company that I like and trust I would seriously consider it if I were to buy a new computer (and didn't require it to be a laptop). I have seriously considered building myself a Shuttle mini PC (which I have done for some friends). Those things are about ideal as computers go for me (still upgradeable, but small).
A laptop/notebook/or small all-in-one is the future for most users, although they probably don't know it. A big computer used to be kind of impressive. Now it's a small computer that's impressive and for most people there is next to no tradeoff in choosing the smaller one.
And let's not forget the idea of the "livingroom PC" which could soon be a reality. My biggest gripe with this concept, the quality of the monitor (the TV), is address by HDTV. A nice HDTV would make a fine monitor, and since a small computer can do everything I could ever need it to these days. There are rumors that this is what MS wants to do with the X-Box2 and what Sony wants to do with the PS3 and frankly I can see it in the not so distant future.
Does anyone have a REAL reason for needing a big tower/desktop these days (again, for a personal computer. Not a business computer, not if you do rendering in your home or webserving there, just a normal computer)?
As to your first point, yes ham radio would work once the power was out (and BPL was off as it would be), but if you force people to go out to the middle of nowhere to practice, THEY WON'T. Besides which, one of the great points of BPL is that it runs over powerlines so it can be run sold to houses out in the middle of no where, because they're on the power grid. So you couldn't go out into the country unless you decide to trek a few miles into the middle of farmers fields where you won't be near a power line.
Yes, something will replace ham radio if it dies, but that doesn't make it OK to kill ham radio. If humans die, a new dominate speciese will probably appear after a few million years, does that mean we should kill all humans? After all, only a few species want/depend on humans. For many others, humans are "in the way" of their "progress". Same logic, just a rediculous example.
Also, how are riding 3-wheeled ATVs and riding 4-wheeled ATVs mutually exclusive? Nationwide deployment of BPL threatens to kill ham radio, but your friends can still ride a 3-wheeled ATV.
Ham radio does more than just FEMA stuff. Hams help with parades, marathons, races, triathalons, storm chasing, teaching electronic and radio theory to new people, providing a new and interesting way to communicate, all sorts of research, etc. Ham radio fosters good will with other countries. You can talk to other countries, meet interesting people, etc. In some remote areas (like in some island chains) ham radio can be a major source of interisland communication.
How would you like it if ATVs were banned from being used and sold because of their environmental impact? Why make the environment suffer for your little hobby. You could still ride bikes, you could switch to that. Quit holding back environmental progress by clining to some pointless hobby that doesn't even serve the community (like ham radio does)?
Don't drag down my hobby just because you don't care, please.
PS: All of this is ignoring that fact that my ham radio frequencies are protected BY LAW and that the power companys CAN NOT interfer with them. We're not just some group saying "don't kill our hobby", our hobby is legally protected.
Why oh why didn't I think of that word. I spent five minutes saying "kallery" in my head and I couldn't think of any words like it (other than gallery, which is obviously it's base). All the time it WAS a word. Ug.
Personally I don't think it's so bad, but I think it should be changed to things like "K-Illistrator". Why? Let's see what these names sound like if you tried to pronounce them...
Koffice - A cough you get at the office?
Killustrator - Shows you how to kill trators?
Kougar - Another name for KMountainLion?
Kroupware - For when you need to collaborate when you have a bad cough. Especially if it's that Koffice you cought (see above).
Kallery - No idea. I can't think of a pun. It must be a bad name:)
KTetris - No puns here either.
The camera IS firewire. It has USB to download still images and little video clips taken onto the memory card while in camera mode (like most digital cameras do). To get digital video you use FireWire. My mom has a Sony cam that works this way and it works just fine.
As for the 4-pin FireWire port, it saves a hell of alot of space. My mom's little digital video camera is TINY, and there would be no place to put the 6 pin port without making the camera physically bigger. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Now the 4 pin port on my Dell laptop, THAT I hate. Why not make it 6 so it's powered? So I don't have to have power for HDs I plug into it, etc? WHY MAKE ME BUY OBSUCRE CABLES FOR WHAT SHOULD BE THE STANDARD 6 PIN PORT??? Dumb Dell. My laptop has MORE than enough room to put a BUNCH of 6 pin ports around the laptop, but they just put a tiny little 4 pin one on.
Back on topic, I don't know what's going on but there seems to be alot of Sony bashing in this thread from people who haven't look at things. There IS A FIREWIRE PORT ON THE CAMERA, I think the guy is just using it wrong. Sony is a good company, why don't you trust that they knew what they were doing and put firewire on it?
Don't forget there is more to a processor than speed. The G5s are fast, but they are low power/heat processors compared to the volcanos that Intel is turning out now. AMD is doing pretty good, but the G5 is still fewer watts of heat (who wants major fans in their consoles?) and remember that AMD was the ORIGIONAL partner for the X-Box but it was later changeed IIRC.
And no one ever got fired for choosing Big Blue. If the X-Box 2 were to really take off, Intel could supply the CPUs for it. But they decided to switch, so could AMD keep up? If they put a Hammer in it (which they probably would have) they might but they might not (and AMD currently wants a premium for Hammers). But IBM is IBM. I'd be more than willing to bet that IBM could keep up.
And there are the processor features. The P4 line has SSE2. The G5 are 64 bit with Altivec, the Hammers are 64 bit with SSE2 and 3DNow! and such. I can understand the choice to switch from Intel. And when you're switching from Intel, the G5 and IBM do look VERY attractive.
PS: Plus the part of me that wants a Mac hopes the X-Box 2 is a big success and helps drive the cost of G5 chips down so Macs will be less expensive (or at least have even FASTER chips for the same price). The X-Box 2 could end up a significant portion of the G5 chips sold.
Well, as far as compatability goes, I think they've decided against it. Between switching from x86 to PPC and nVidia to ATI, plus the rumors of going hard-driveless, I think we can kiss it goodbye.
So will that matter? It SAVED the PS2 early on, but who knows if it will be needed for the X-Box 2. I would REALLY love it to have the compatability (which they could still do through emulation, I suppose) but if they don't have it they could really shoot themselves in the foot. Videogamers have had that abaility for years on the GameBoy, and the PS2 has it now. This could be a real big deal, depending on what they decide. It's not like the X-Box has a huge library of major titles though (the PS1 did), so it might not be worth the effort.
As for some of the other decisions they have made, I'm not suprised. Intel was dumped both because they didn't have a 64 bit CPU (which doing all the stuff in games could be handy) and I'm guessing because of the heat problems (which have only gotten worse, and would make for one LOUD console). As for nVidia, many people believe that they lost the lead in the 3D race with this last generation (although new rumors over the next GeForce look amazing!), and if you combine that with when they asked for more money publicly and had a little tiff with MS over that, I'm not suprised that they're gone.
All and all, it should be very interesting to see this next generation. Between the X-Box 2, the PS3 (will it run PS1/2 games? What's up with cell?), and the Game Cube's successor (should also be interesting) we should be in for some interesting developments (not to say anything about Nintendo's DS, the GBA's eventual successor, the PSP, and the persistant rumors of MS looking at portables). Video game fans, get ready for some cool stuff!
Well, it can be simple to fix those flaws. First of all it could randomly turn the lights on and off (or always turn light 1 on and check, then 2, etc.) so that EVERY light would come on at some point during EVERY check of a key. This way you couldn't tell which ones were input or output based on your idea.
Second, since each of the six spots would require a photo emitter and a photo reciever, you could make it so each element has it's own fiberoptic cable. This would let 1 connect to 2, two connect to 3, etc. But when your turn 3 on, it would only show up at four, not four and two because of the cable.
Third, you could use bicolor LEDs and have different fiberoptic cables in they key have filter for different colors of light so that when the green lights were on it would be a totally different pattern from when the red lights were on. By knowing the key, you know all possible combinations. Then you could randomly use combinations of red and green lights to check the key. This way it would take a few cycles to figure out the key.
Fourth, you could just put filters in each cable so that the cable that goes from 1 to 2 blocks 50% of the light, the one from 3 to 4 blocks 75%, but the one from 5 to 6 block no light. That would add many many more permutations to the lock's key.
And of course, if you could stuff 7 receptors in, things get MUCH harder. 8 would make it much MUCH harder, etc.
Basically, I think this lock could be very secure. And of course if they guy trying to pick the lock doesn't KNOW that it's an optical lock and is just trying to push the little tumbers (which should still be there, both as an added layer and to trick people) he'll never break it. If an idiot with a lock pick just comes up to your store, he'll never pick the lock because he's expecting it to be mechanical. Untill the locks become common, that would be a HUGE chunk of the security of the lock right there.
There was an amazing video that FiringSquad posted a link to a few months ago (just before Christmas?) in either the news or the siteseeing section. It was a video of some guy beating Mario 3 in perfect time (the fastest possible time, basically, I think it was about a half an hour?). It was very cool, but it was revealed a week or two later that the video was made by a guy with an emulator (already known) who would back up the game state a few frames whenever he made a mistake. It must of taken the guy FOREVER to do it. Still it was amazing to watch. He used shortcuts of course (like warp whistles) but it was still quite a sight. Find the link if you're interested.
The iPod most definatly has some DRM compared to some of my friend's flash players. For many of them you put music onto the player by just copying files onto the memory card and it doesn't even have to be in the player. If they want they can stick that in another computer and copy those files right off.
The iPod is designed (IIRC) so that once you upload music to it, you can NEVER GET IT OFF. I know you can delete it, but I mean you can't copy those music files back off the iPod. There are many ways around this (some of them very simple) but it's still a form of DRM. That said, it limits people's iPod usability like putting a piece of tape on someone's ankle prevents them from walking. It doesn't effec the device's use for 99% of people.
What you mentioned was one way around it, but I think on the Mac you actually can't get around it (not without 3rd party programs or something like that. Thank goodness for Windows security holes?).
That's why the article suggests a dual license with the GPL. That would mean that either MS would have to buy a license that would allow them to modify the language at will (which Sun can just refuse to sell), or they would have to do it to the GPL version and they would have to release the changes to the community which would keep it from being Windows only. If you add in all the stuff that MS has to say against the GPL, they would either have to eat some serious dirt/crow/hat or they would have to not touch the language.
Also, there is the fact that if they do that they can't call it Java, because Sun owns that name (credit for this point goes to a sibling comment).
If that's what Intel did, we'd all be happy. With the exception of a little "Ha ha, they were right" we'd all be happy for the most part.
Instead we got the NEW IA32E ARCHITECTURE (read: the one AMD has been selling for a year+) that WE DEVELOPED TO HELP CONSUMERS (read: "borrowed" from AMD because they are killing us). NOWHERE in everything Intel said or did mentioned that it was x86-64 or developed by AMD. You had to wade through the low level techincal documentation to find that out. They are basically taking all credit for what AMD has done so they don't look like they lost a battle (which they DID). If they had any honor, they would have done things MUCH differently.
That's why the Klingon Empire will no longer buy Intel chips for their ships computers.
I wouldn't think that that would fix it. The way the sniffer in the article would work it would still get your card number. I think the only real way to fix this would be to move to smart cards because you would need MUCH more physical access to the machine to install something to monitor the smart card access than to simply read a magstripe.
Now if you used the RFID to prevent access, and not reading that could work. That way even if you got the mag stripe data from someone's card and put it on a blank card, you still couldn't withdraw cash from the ATM without the RFID tag being near. That would work great for credit cards and such too.
Withdrawling from a teller is quite safe, but now most banks charge you extra for that becuase it requires them to hire actual people.
Yeah. Well if you're going to withdraw from an ATM I would trust one at a bank (especially inside a bank, but at the bank's drivethrough) more than I would one at a 7-11, in a drive through kiosk in a parking lot, or one at any other little store.
As for swipe ATMs, my major worry (as a bank operator) would be that I would expect that they would be more prone to mechanical failure (from ease of dust building up, people spilling coffee, etc) than an insert ATM. And your point about holding the card is well taken. Those ATMs usually abort everything if you don't do anything for a certain amount of time, but that's still an opening for someone to get my cash.
The hack done (and those you usually hear about) work by modifying a machine where you have to insert your card. Does anyone know of the machines where you just swipe your card yourself are safe from this kind of tampering? I would think it would be VERY hard to add a skimmer without it being noticed unless you had enough physical access to the machine to take the cover off, make another little hole where the card swipes by and position the magnetic reading head in there, etc.
Still, very interesting to see. I'm quite suprised at the digital camera half of it. Of course something like using fingerprints or some other kind of biometric would make things much harder for the thief.
OK, I am the one who DEFINES what spam is for me, hence everything I say is spam is, and everything I say isn' isn't. I'm 100% accurate by the fact that as the person who defines what spam is for me, I know exactly what spam is.
Would someone like to explain how a program (even if it's right 99.something% of the time) is more accurate than me (100%)?
Slashdot Mirror
Please, everyone. Write Lucas Arts.
I guess your right. I guess most people have never really heard silence. What an odd thought. Next to no one has ever heard nothing.
It's about a little automated house with no one living there. It told about how it would make breakfast, and clean it up with little mechanical sweeper mice, and the house eventually burns down. The house is in a town that is empty because of a nuclear blast and the only "people" left there is a "shadow" of someone left on a wall from the nuclear blast. Interesting and sad story. The place was just as if everyone had suddenly vanished from the face of the Earth. Everything else was left.
I want to say it was in "A Brave New World" but it could have been a H2G2 book.
Reminds me of the song "Three Mile Island" by Pinkard & Bowden. It talks about how at TMI baseball field during the night games... they turn the lights down. 'Cause the home team... glows in the dark.
The MOST interesting thing in the article to me though was the "deafening silence" that is mentioned. The author said that many companies have investigaed doing things like 2 hour tours but the tourists complain and want to go home after 15 minutes because it's so quite it's like being deaf. I wouldn't think that it would be so bad (go to wheat feild in the middle of the US and it's silent too), but I guess it's the combination of all the buildings and normal city sights (with the exception of the fact that there are no people) and the silence that makes it so eerie and spooky.
I bet it's spooky as hell there.
It takes GAMES. The power isn't all that important. The GBA is far and away the best selling system out there right now, as the GameBoy was before it. Both are ludicrously underpowered compared to everything else on the market, but one of the major reasons they are successful is that they have great games. If there is one thing that companies (should have) learned by now, it's flashing graphics don't make good games. If the game looks half decent but plays great, it's a great game. There are plenty of games that really don't look that great that are amazing (Animal Crossing comes to mind).
It doesn't matter if he puts a one of the most powerfull comptuers in the world in every subscriber's house. If the games aren't their focus, it's doomed.
Most people don't buy their cable boxes. They rent them from the cable company as part of their bill. If the cable company adds video games to the cable box and still charges you the same ammount per month for the box, most people won't say no. That means he get in for free. If you make the games a sensible price (and GOOD, which is the most important part) he could make some money. I don't think he'll ever be a real part of the video games industry with this thing, but he could still do a decent business and make some money.
He has a chance to break into the market becuase he'll be in the home. Now if you have to pay extra money for the box (like $200 up front), or the rental fee is higher, or the games suck or cost too much, he's dead. But if he does things right, he's got a chance to do decently.
But I can't see this EVER being any real player of any kind in the industry unless his boxes are so popular that nearly every cable company is willing to use these boxes.
That said, while I am still quite scepticle of the whole thing, I have to admit I no longer think the console is just vaporware. Between the press demo they did a few months ago for a few select members of the press (which at least had photos of the thing), to fact that they will have an 8,000 square foot booth at E3 I think this might not be vaporware. It could still fail miserably and be nothing like they've promised, but at least they seem to be doing more than saying "we have a great console, we'll prove it later" like they did for so long.
The proof is in the pudding. Nintendo's DS, the Phantom, and more are going to be shown at E3. It should be very intersting.
And let's face it. Suing someone priting facts about you that don't look good more than a year after they were posted (and when you still haven't shown any real proof to anyone yet) just doesn't look good for your company.
Frankly I can see this. In the last two or three years I've taken to using my laptop for EVERYTHING and basically never touching my desktops. I'm even thinking of selling them. If I didn't need the portability of my laptop, I would almost certainly buy one of these "all in one" computers. I've really come to like the simplicity and size savings that a laptop or very small desktop provides.
I've come to realize that I don't neede all those seperate parts. I don't really play games too much, but when I do my laptop has enough power despite it's age. So a all in one desktop (which would be even more powerful) would be fine. I don't need 12 drive bays. I don't need 3 CD drives (although it can be nice ;). My laptop has everything I need, and when it doesn't (rare) I just plug it in (like a DVD burner). It's got a nice little monitor, keyboard, etc. Frankly the small space my laptop takes up compared to my desktop setup (which is large even at just a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and tower) is significant. One of the reasons for large cases in the past was expandability. You couldn't attach 5 more drives to a normal PC without putting them inside (ignore SCSI, it was never on normal people's desktops (with the exception of Macs)). If you needed a modem/soundcard/etc you had to put it in the computer (let's ignore external modems). But these days almost EVERYTHING can be had externally. Thanks to USB2 and FireWire, all the storage you'll ever need is can be external to your PC. Thanks to these things you can also attach mice, keyboards, soundcards, webcams, modems, tv-tuners, network interfaces, and more all without having to go inside a computer.
As computers are becomming more and more powerful, far past what most users need, I think users will start to realize this and go for other things like size and convience. I think this is the large reason why laptops are becomming such a large section of the computer market (the other being that they no longer cost $3k for a decent model). They now do basically everything most people need. The other big development is that LCDs are now more reasonable so it's possible to have a computer take up very little desk space (where just 5 years ago, you'd need a big 'ol monitor for a PC of any size).
I really don't need a physically big computer and nearly no one else does (ignoring business, server, etc and only talking about individuals). I have looked quite seriously at the eMac and iMac and if I knew of an similar product from a PC company that I like and trust I would seriously consider it if I were to buy a new computer (and didn't require it to be a laptop). I have seriously considered building myself a Shuttle mini PC (which I have done for some friends). Those things are about ideal as computers go for me (still upgradeable, but small).
A laptop/notebook/or small all-in-one is the future for most users, although they probably don't know it. A big computer used to be kind of impressive. Now it's a small computer that's impressive and for most people there is next to no tradeoff in choosing the smaller one.
And let's not forget the idea of the "livingroom PC" which could soon be a reality. My biggest gripe with this concept, the quality of the monitor (the TV), is address by HDTV. A nice HDTV would make a fine monitor, and since a small computer can do everything I could ever need it to these days. There are rumors that this is what MS wants to do with the X-Box2 and what Sony wants to do with the PS3 and frankly I can see it in the not so distant future.
Does anyone have a REAL reason for needing a big tower/desktop these days (again, for a personal computer. Not a business computer, not if you do rendering in your home or webserving there, just a normal computer)?
As to your first point, yes ham radio would work once the power was out (and BPL was off as it would be), but if you force people to go out to the middle of nowhere to practice, THEY WON'T. Besides which, one of the great points of BPL is that it runs over powerlines so it can be run sold to houses out in the middle of no where, because they're on the power grid. So you couldn't go out into the country unless you decide to trek a few miles into the middle of farmers fields where you won't be near a power line.
Yes, something will replace ham radio if it dies, but that doesn't make it OK to kill ham radio. If humans die, a new dominate speciese will probably appear after a few million years, does that mean we should kill all humans? After all, only a few species want/depend on humans. For many others, humans are "in the way" of their "progress". Same logic, just a rediculous example.
Also, how are riding 3-wheeled ATVs and riding 4-wheeled ATVs mutually exclusive? Nationwide deployment of BPL threatens to kill ham radio, but your friends can still ride a 3-wheeled ATV.
Ham radio does more than just FEMA stuff. Hams help with parades, marathons, races, triathalons, storm chasing, teaching electronic and radio theory to new people, providing a new and interesting way to communicate, all sorts of research, etc. Ham radio fosters good will with other countries. You can talk to other countries, meet interesting people, etc. In some remote areas (like in some island chains) ham radio can be a major source of interisland communication.
How would you like it if ATVs were banned from being used and sold because of their environmental impact? Why make the environment suffer for your little hobby. You could still ride bikes, you could switch to that. Quit holding back environmental progress by clining to some pointless hobby that doesn't even serve the community (like ham radio does)?
Don't drag down my hobby just because you don't care, please.
PS: All of this is ignoring that fact that my ham radio frequencies are protected BY LAW and that the power companys CAN NOT interfer with them. We're not just some group saying "don't kill our hobby", our hobby is legally protected.
Why oh why didn't I think of that word. I spent five minutes saying "kallery" in my head and I couldn't think of any words like it (other than gallery, which is obviously it's base). All the time it WAS a word. Ug.
Koffice - A cough you get at the office? :)
Killustrator - Shows you how to kill trators?
Kougar - Another name for KMountainLion?
Kroupware - For when you need to collaborate when you have a bad cough. Especially if it's that Koffice you cought (see above).
Kallery - No idea. I can't think of a pun. It must be a bad name
KTetris - No puns here either.
-- A KDE user (and lover) with Karma to burn
As for the 4-pin FireWire port, it saves a hell of alot of space. My mom's little digital video camera is TINY, and there would be no place to put the 6 pin port without making the camera physically bigger. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Now the 4 pin port on my Dell laptop, THAT I hate. Why not make it 6 so it's powered? So I don't have to have power for HDs I plug into it, etc? WHY MAKE ME BUY OBSUCRE CABLES FOR WHAT SHOULD BE THE STANDARD 6 PIN PORT??? Dumb Dell. My laptop has MORE than enough room to put a BUNCH of 6 pin ports around the laptop, but they just put a tiny little 4 pin one on.
Back on topic, I don't know what's going on but there seems to be alot of Sony bashing in this thread from people who haven't look at things. There IS A FIREWIRE PORT ON THE CAMERA, I think the guy is just using it wrong. Sony is a good company, why don't you trust that they knew what they were doing and put firewire on it?
And no one ever got fired for choosing Big Blue. If the X-Box 2 were to really take off, Intel could supply the CPUs for it. But they decided to switch, so could AMD keep up? If they put a Hammer in it (which they probably would have) they might but they might not (and AMD currently wants a premium for Hammers). But IBM is IBM. I'd be more than willing to bet that IBM could keep up.
And there are the processor features. The P4 line has SSE2. The G5 are 64 bit with Altivec, the Hammers are 64 bit with SSE2 and 3DNow! and such. I can understand the choice to switch from Intel. And when you're switching from Intel, the G5 and IBM do look VERY attractive.
PS: Plus the part of me that wants a Mac hopes the X-Box 2 is a big success and helps drive the cost of G5 chips down so Macs will be less expensive (or at least have even FASTER chips for the same price). The X-Box 2 could end up a significant portion of the G5 chips sold.
So will that matter? It SAVED the PS2 early on, but who knows if it will be needed for the X-Box 2. I would REALLY love it to have the compatability (which they could still do through emulation, I suppose) but if they don't have it they could really shoot themselves in the foot. Videogamers have had that abaility for years on the GameBoy, and the PS2 has it now. This could be a real big deal, depending on what they decide. It's not like the X-Box has a huge library of major titles though (the PS1 did), so it might not be worth the effort.
As for some of the other decisions they have made, I'm not suprised. Intel was dumped both because they didn't have a 64 bit CPU (which doing all the stuff in games could be handy) and I'm guessing because of the heat problems (which have only gotten worse, and would make for one LOUD console). As for nVidia, many people believe that they lost the lead in the 3D race with this last generation (although new rumors over the next GeForce look amazing!), and if you combine that with when they asked for more money publicly and had a little tiff with MS over that, I'm not suprised that they're gone.
All and all, it should be very interesting to see this next generation. Between the X-Box 2, the PS3 (will it run PS1/2 games? What's up with cell?), and the Game Cube's successor (should also be interesting) we should be in for some interesting developments (not to say anything about Nintendo's DS, the GBA's eventual successor, the PSP, and the persistant rumors of MS looking at portables). Video game fans, get ready for some cool stuff!
Second, since each of the six spots would require a photo emitter and a photo reciever, you could make it so each element has it's own fiberoptic cable. This would let 1 connect to 2, two connect to 3, etc. But when your turn 3 on, it would only show up at four, not four and two because of the cable.
Third, you could use bicolor LEDs and have different fiberoptic cables in they key have filter for different colors of light so that when the green lights were on it would be a totally different pattern from when the red lights were on. By knowing the key, you know all possible combinations. Then you could randomly use combinations of red and green lights to check the key. This way it would take a few cycles to figure out the key.
Fourth, you could just put filters in each cable so that the cable that goes from 1 to 2 blocks 50% of the light, the one from 3 to 4 blocks 75%, but the one from 5 to 6 block no light. That would add many many more permutations to the lock's key.
And of course, if you could stuff 7 receptors in, things get MUCH harder. 8 would make it much MUCH harder, etc.
Basically, I think this lock could be very secure. And of course if they guy trying to pick the lock doesn't KNOW that it's an optical lock and is just trying to push the little tumbers (which should still be there, both as an added layer and to trick people) he'll never break it. If an idiot with a lock pick just comes up to your store, he'll never pick the lock because he's expecting it to be mechanical. Untill the locks become common, that would be a HUGE chunk of the security of the lock right there.
You're probably right, it was FAST. I wonder where I got the half hour number from? Thanks for that info though.
There was an amazing video that FiringSquad posted a link to a few months ago (just before Christmas?) in either the news or the siteseeing section. It was a video of some guy beating Mario 3 in perfect time (the fastest possible time, basically, I think it was about a half an hour?). It was very cool, but it was revealed a week or two later that the video was made by a guy with an emulator (already known) who would back up the game state a few frames whenever he made a mistake. It must of taken the guy FOREVER to do it. Still it was amazing to watch. He used shortcuts of course (like warp whistles) but it was still quite a sight. Find the link if you're interested.
The iPod is designed (IIRC) so that once you upload music to it, you can NEVER GET IT OFF. I know you can delete it, but I mean you can't copy those music files back off the iPod. There are many ways around this (some of them very simple) but it's still a form of DRM. That said, it limits people's iPod usability like putting a piece of tape on someone's ankle prevents them from walking. It doesn't effec the device's use for 99% of people.
What you mentioned was one way around it, but I think on the Mac you actually can't get around it (not without 3rd party programs or something like that. Thank goodness for Windows security holes?).
Also, there is the fact that if they do that they can't call it Java, because Sun owns that name (credit for this point goes to a sibling comment).
Instead we got the NEW IA32E ARCHITECTURE (read: the one AMD has been selling for a year+) that WE DEVELOPED TO HELP CONSUMERS (read: "borrowed" from AMD because they are killing us). NOWHERE in everything Intel said or did mentioned that it was x86-64 or developed by AMD. You had to wade through the low level techincal documentation to find that out. They are basically taking all credit for what AMD has done so they don't look like they lost a battle (which they DID). If they had any honor, they would have done things MUCH differently.
That's why the Klingon Empire will no longer buy Intel chips for their ships computers.
Now if you used the RFID to prevent access, and not reading that could work. That way even if you got the mag stripe data from someone's card and put it on a blank card, you still couldn't withdraw cash from the ATM without the RFID tag being near. That would work great for credit cards and such too.
Withdrawling from a teller is quite safe, but now most banks charge you extra for that becuase it requires them to hire actual people.
As for swipe ATMs, my major worry (as a bank operator) would be that I would expect that they would be more prone to mechanical failure (from ease of dust building up, people spilling coffee, etc) than an insert ATM. And your point about holding the card is well taken. Those ATMs usually abort everything if you don't do anything for a certain amount of time, but that's still an opening for someone to get my cash.
Still, very interesting to see. I'm quite suprised at the digital camera half of it. Of course something like using fingerprints or some other kind of biometric would make things much harder for the thief.
Would someone like to explain how a program (even if it's right 99.something% of the time) is more accurate than me (100%)?