I had this discussion with a friend last night, he reasoned that because the router has an authentication process (even when it is unsecured) then that by definition means that his access was legal.
However, the router isn't paying for whatever service it is connected to, and in any event the owner of the router (assuming they have unintentionally left it open - as is the default configuration normally) does not know anything about this "guard at the door". The router isn't therefore isn't in a position to decide absolutely who can and can't access the network, that decision falls with the owner of the equipment/service. The closest analogy therefore would be if you left your door open at home and someone - unbeknowst to the house owner - stood outside and told people they were "free to go in and take what they like". This act would not excuse anyone who then took it upon themselves to steal from your house.
There is also a lot of sensationalism involved here. The Police don't cruise around looking for suspicious looking people in cars with laptops, there would've been some cooperation with the network owner in making this arrest (i.e. he/she made a complaint, suspected the person of "stealing internet", etc).
Furthermore I don't think it is "fair" to simply say "well it's the responsibility of the network owner to secure their equipment, if they don't it's fair game". That's never been a defence of anything in the eyes of the Law, you can't claim something as yours simply because it is unsecured.
1) Open formats aren't compatible with DRM. You have to understand that irrespective of your opinion about DRM, the BBC has to use it to protect the rights, royalties, etc of the artists and programmes it redistributes.
BBC programmes aren't free, they're available to people who have a TV licence which - as it's mandatory - should be anyone with a television set. It just seems like they're free because you (presumably) have a TV licence so aren't restricted in any other way from watching and recording their programmes.
2) It doesn't matter that DRM can be cracked. Copy-protection routines on games and applications are routinely cracked and removed, but that doesn't stop publishers continuing to use them. Why? Because these publishers have to at least try and protect their interests to appease their shareholders, etc.
The big problem with this argument is technically speaking the general licence-fee paying public should be entitled to watch the iPlayer programmes without DRM, on any platform. However, since it can't be guaranteed that they are licence payers (people from places outside of the UK could just as easily download and use it) how else are they supposed to protect their interests other than through DRM?
I started off quite annoyed watching Transformers as I couldn't rationalise cars turning into 60-foot high robots. Where did the extra material come from?
Then I realised I was watching a film about gigantic robots trying to recover an alien object and just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
As much as it's amusing to see the likes of Die Hard 4, Swordfish, etc completely trivialising the mundane efforts involved in hacking, etc you have to realise that it's just not possible to make the reality of these things entertaining.
First off I'm both a Windows and Linux user, in business and home life. I have no axe to grind one way or the other, I use each OS on its own merits.
That said I think the whole BBC/iPlayer furore has more to do with DRM than any "Windows only" agenda. As has already been remarked (and unless I'm mistaken) DRM isn't achieveable through open-source players. The BBC will have a mandate to enforce licensing restrictions on the programmes it places on its iPlayer service - they're not "free" for everyone to view, they're only intended for people who have otherwise already funded it in the first place (i.e. UK licence fee payers).
The BBC have already stated that a Mac version is coming - and you can be sure that this will implement whatever DRM methods Apple media players support.
The argument about the security (or lack thereof) of DRM implementations is academic at the end of the day. The BBC have to at least show that they have taken steps to protect their "clients" (for want of a better word) interests. If, how and when the DRM is cracked on it at least they can say they tried, and it was ultimately "Microsofts fault".
There is a difference between implementing something you know is ultimately going to be cracked anyway - like pretty much any copy protection on a game or application - and not putting any copy-protection at all in place, and this is the same.
I don't really understand how eBay can claim that auctions are legally binding before money has changed hands. Surely that's the point at which the contract becomes binding?
If I set up a website and put a button on it saying "Click here to own my TV" that wouldn't make it a contract.
This incident is interesting on many levels - could the seller refuse to sell the plane altogether? Surely since no money has (presumably) yet changed hands then the title of the plane is still with the seller, and the judge cannot surely force it to be sold to another party? Could the seller just do what a lot of people tend to do on eBay when they don't want to set a reserve price (as it increases the listing fee) but are unhappy with the winning bid: cancel the auction at the last minute with "item no longer available for sale" and relist it again a few days later ("had a change of plans", etc)..?
On the subject of IOS vs Linux I find myself extremely frustrated that my perfectly-able Cisco PIX 501 firewall was obsoleted overnight by the release of the PIX 7.0 software (which can't be installed on it).
Cisco resolutely refuse to offer a cut-down version of the software, so small-office consumers such as myself who need proper VPN connectivity 24/7 either have to move to a PIX 515E/ASA 550x at massive expense, or "suck it".
PIX 6.x doesn't even have QoS, which is something you pretty much expect to see as a given on SOHO equipment.
The Times Online is reporting that O2 have already won the contract ("O2 has beaten its rivals to win the exclusive UK rights to offer Apple's iPhone"), BBC News is saying that it is "reported to have won the sought-after deal". So the BBC is speculating whereas The Times is claiming it to be fact. I don't know who to believe.
If you believe all the articles you read then apparently O2 have denying winning the contract, being quoted as saying "they're just stories without any truth to them". That sounds like a pretty negative statement for a company who is apprently just being hush-hush about being in such a privileged position.
O2 do not have very good 3G coverage in the UK, it seems almost a no-brainer that Vodafone would've won the contract since their infrastructure is superior. There's no EDGE in the UK, so the UK iPhone either has to be 3G, or work over GPRS... the latter doesn't bear thinking about (think Youtube vids downloaded at 3-4KBps).
The smart money is still on Vodafone to win the contract in my opinion, despite these reports, and the UK (maybe Euro) iPhone having 3G support.
Theo also seems quite sensationalist from a first glance (this is the first of his articles I've read). Emotive statements like "These processors are buggy as hell", conjecture like "We bet there are many more errata not yet announced" doesn't really lend credence to his arguments.
He may be entirely right, and his experience in CPUs, BIOS vendors and Intel, AMD, etc may mean what he is saying is accurate - but the tone doesn't really sound very professional.
Surely "getting root" on the box would require the OS to actually behave in a logical way in response to a "CPU exploit". If the OS has no visibility of a hardware-level failure isn't it more likely that remote exploitation of a CPU exploit - if it were possible - would simply cause a unrecoverable system error?
Obviously forcing a box offline would be equivalent to a DoS..
Microcode updates are applied to CPUs are done all the time via BIOS updates. The only element of this that is newsworthy is that this microcode update is applicable to Windows only (it would seem) as Microsoft are the ones providing it. Since it is not rated as a critical update (or even an automatic one) and the BIOS makers have seen fit to omit it from their own BIOS updates (despite the fact that Windows has a dominant market share), the smart money is on it patching something which is both very rare and very difficult to reproduce.
Running a CINEbench that lasts 18 seconds is not a decent test of stability. Even hobbyist overclockers ultimately aim to end up with a system that they can use day in, day out for several hours at a time.
I've got a C2D E6700 cooled with a modified freezer system (Vapochill) which cools it down to -40 or so. Despite the fact I could boot it into Windows at 4.5Ghz, it was not stable at these speeds. I have to "make do" with 4.3Ghz for daily running.
Whilst I can just about believe that 3.9Ghz would be achievable with very high-end air cooling, I don't think it's feasible with the standard Intel cooler. Intel may have made subtle changes to the silicon but at the end of the day it's still the same package with the same core technology.
I'm not sure they can play it at all. I've witnessed first hand the fallout (which is still perpetuated) when a Dev casually mentioned he enjoyed playing the Bounty Hunter class most of all in Star Wars Galaxies. Thereafter he is labelled a Jedi hater (BHs hunted Jedi for most of the game, now they can hunt everyone - but the accusation stuck) and any sort of perceived nerf to the Jedi class is attributed to him and his "anti Jedi" agenda.
Rarely does common sense or benefit of the doubt come into the mindset of avid MMO players.
It's unprofessional I guess, but MMORPGs are a strange breed. At least with regular organisations if people don't like your product they simply don't buy it in the first place, whereas with MMOs people buy the product and then spend every waking moment moaning about why it doesn't fit their exact specifications. I guess that's just a factor of how MMOs change over time, unlike regular products.
I have some sympathy for what this CCP spokesperson is saying simply because as far as MMOs go you can't please everyone all of the time, and you're lucky if you can please anyone for more than a few moments. As such it's understandable that they'd feel some abject depression over the same tinfoil conspiracy theories and complaints being brought up over and over again.
It's not as if we're talking about a government here, CCP is simply a corporation with commercial interests. It boggles the mind that people would "happily" continue to pay for a service they find displeasing (and in some cases downright mentally unhealthy).
If you bought a coffee from a local shop every day and out of the blue they decided to change the flavour, or throw it in your face when you paid for it, would you continue to go there every day, handing over your money, for the same experience? Would you try to reason with them (whilst still paying money and still having distasteful coffee thrown in your face) despite it being obvious that nothing was going to change? Most people I'd wager would simply stop going there and go somewhere else for their coffee.
I know it's a cliché but people who feel aggrieved by CCP's actions have every right to vote with their wallet and simply stop playing the game. That is the only power a player has over the development team, and if a problem is bad enough that it causes a significant portion of the playerbase to quit then that is how change comes about. If however you decide to quit and there isn't the mass exodus that you predicted in your farewell speech, then maybe - just maybe - the skys aren't falling.
EVE Online would appear to be the perfect example of what happens if Devs appear to be *too* involved in playing the game, yet as any MMO player will attest - forums are filled with people crying about Devs not having "real-World experience of the problems class x is having". Seems like they're damned if they do, damned if they don't.
From a player perspective I can see how damaging it would be to even be seen to show bias one way or the other towards a class, guild, corp. or whatever the game terminology happens to be. From a developer perspective it must be quite frustrating not being able to enjoy the game in all its splendor (guild raiding, etc included) whilst simultaneously having to deal with legions of forum whiners moaning about how the Devs "dont know how the game works at the ground level".
And of course let's not forget that MMO communities are, without exception, always incredulous, accusatory, fickle and obstinate on the game forums. Everyone has their tinfoil hat on 24/7, expects (demands) the Earth for their $15 a month and despite having very little visibility of the organisational goals, objectives and constraints everyone purports to be "in the know", a programming expert and a visionary. It must be soul-destroying to have to deal with people with this mindset day-in, day-out. Being a Dev on a MMO must be like living life as a major politician: every word spoken about the game (especially on the forums) has to be carefully crafted so as to be totally unambigious and unemotional, since you can guarantee that the World and his dog will deconstruct and scrutinise every syllable, all the while presupposing a hidden agenda (again, tinfoil). It's no wonder Devs usually don't speak much on the forums.
(A slightly amusing anecdote: I was reading the Star Wars Galaxies forums recently as I used to play and a Dev made the heinous mistake of getting involved in an off-topic discussion about American Football teams. Naturally before long someone piped up saying "it's great that you're talking on here but shouldn't you be looking at the pressing issue of Spy DoT damage not being mitigated whilst wearing the Eye of Sauron ring? If you don't fix this I'm quitting and so is my entire family, friends & pet.". Ok I'm being facetious to prove a point, but it was still disheartening to read).
Ultimately this huge controversy, whilst ultimately of little interest to me as an outsider, has given me a fresh outlook and sympathy towards MMORPG developers.
That's a little naive though if you don't mind me saying.
For starters the accessories market that exists to cater for the iPod is there because of its popularity, not because the design automatically lends itself better than any other product. If the others had conquered the market to the same extent Apple has there would be the same amount of accessories available for their products.
Secondly, for what it is the iPod(s) could definitely be cheaper. All we're talking about really is a hard drive (or flash drive in the smaller ones) with a battery, PCB with firmware and LCD. Apple could farm them out cheaper if they so desired but since they've cornered the market they have no real need to, plus the iPod sells itself nowadays (so there is an element of hype in it).
If you bought a car and then proceeded to mod it with aftermarket parts which weren't fit for purpose and ended up crashing it would the manufacturer be expected to stipulate that "modifying this car could cause accidents"? Of course not. Since people wouldn't be banned from XBL through legitimate use of the console it's about as "black-and-white" as issues get.
It's not really that weird, it's more likely that the modding scene represents a small segment of the market. There are hundreds of thousands of X360 owners who probably don't have the first clue about how to copy X360 games, let alone what you need to buy on top (modchips, etc) to make them work.
I agree. I've never seen an installation of Oracle where a client session auto-commits. In fact quite the opposite there have been a few times when I've made a change to a table and reloaded the application only to see the old data still, and then realise I needed to "commit" the change.
How can he be "more right than me" when I haven't even mentioned any numbers or tech specs? I was pointing out the fallacy in armchair fanboys who usually don't have a clue how to develop games quoting FUD as if it's gospel.
You'd think someone who was trying to pass themselves off as authoritative on a subject (i.e. an actual PS3 developer) would at least get the basic facts right, like - I dunno - the actual console name.
There also really isn't a vast amount of textures to deal with in Oblivion, many of the regions (especially the underground regions) look very similar. Oblivion masks this well by it's expansive and diverse storylines, it's a great game simply because there's just so many characters to interact with, things that change depending on your actions, etc. All of that is easy to squeeze onto a DVD.
GTA4 on the other hand is apparently going to include an accurate model of New York (with Rockstars own brand of humour where appropriate). I can quite imagine that amount of texture data exceeding the capacity of a DVD.
I have nothing against capitalism as a rule, and I'm not naive enough to believe in some twee fantasy World where life-saving medications are free for everyone all around the World. That said, setting a price point on what is an ESSENTIAL medication of $1.59 per pill when the same company already sells the same product to another country at $0.65 per pill is disgusting. Merck are (or were) essentially holding the Brazilian peoples lives to ransom.
If Merck can afford to sell the product to Thailand for $0.65 and still make a profit (clearly as an Indian company can sell it for $0.45 and turn a profit themselves) then there is no reason whatsoever other than pure capitalistic greed why they could not have given the same offer to the Brazilian government. Don't forget we're not talking about the variable domain costs of marketing and staffing, the government is the customer - how the Brazilian government then choose to distribute/market the treatment is their decision and at their cost.
There are a great many products around the World that are sold for different prices to different regions, but in practically all cases you can permit the corporations involved some latitude simply because the products they're selling are luxury or otherwise non-essential. Gouging a customer with a 300%+ markup on a life-saving drug when you know the customer/market HAS to have it is disgusting.
Let's not forget that the research dollars that went into developing this particular drug came from U.S citizens.
I don't think this is a sign of "erosion of respect in American patents", this is after all the first time the Brazilian government has even invoked the power of "eminent domain".
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I had this discussion with a friend last night, he reasoned that because the router has an authentication process (even when it is unsecured) then that by definition means that his access was legal.
However, the router isn't paying for whatever service it is connected to, and in any event the owner of the router (assuming they have unintentionally left it open - as is the default configuration normally) does not know anything about this "guard at the door". The router isn't therefore isn't in a position to decide absolutely who can and can't access the network, that decision falls with the owner of the equipment/service. The closest analogy therefore would be if you left your door open at home and someone - unbeknowst to the house owner - stood outside and told people they were "free to go in and take what they like". This act would not excuse anyone who then took it upon themselves to steal from your house.
There is also a lot of sensationalism involved here. The Police don't cruise around looking for suspicious looking people in cars with laptops, there would've been some cooperation with the network owner in making this arrest (i.e. he/she made a complaint, suspected the person of "stealing internet", etc).
Furthermore I don't think it is "fair" to simply say "well it's the responsibility of the network owner to secure their equipment, if they don't it's fair game". That's never been a defence of anything in the eyes of the Law, you can't claim something as yours simply because it is unsecured.
1) Open formats aren't compatible with DRM. You have to understand that irrespective of your opinion about DRM, the BBC has to use it to protect the rights, royalties, etc of the artists and programmes it redistributes.
BBC programmes aren't free, they're available to people who have a TV licence which - as it's mandatory - should be anyone with a television set. It just seems like they're free because you (presumably) have a TV licence so aren't restricted in any other way from watching and recording their programmes.
2) It doesn't matter that DRM can be cracked. Copy-protection routines on games and applications are routinely cracked and removed, but that doesn't stop publishers continuing to use them. Why? Because these publishers have to at least try and protect their interests to appease their shareholders, etc.
The big problem with this argument is technically speaking the general licence-fee paying public should be entitled to watch the iPlayer programmes without DRM, on any platform. However, since it can't be guaranteed that they are licence payers (people from places outside of the UK could just as easily download and use it) how else are they supposed to protect their interests other than through DRM?
I started off quite annoyed watching Transformers as I couldn't rationalise cars turning into 60-foot high robots. Where did the extra material come from?
Then I realised I was watching a film about gigantic robots trying to recover an alien object and just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
As much as it's amusing to see the likes of Die Hard 4, Swordfish, etc completely trivialising the mundane efforts involved in hacking, etc you have to realise that it's just not possible to make the reality of these things entertaining.
The Matrix Revolutions is the closest thing I've seen to reality, with Trinity using nmap to show open ports on a power station network she wanted to hack, and I'm sure that was lost on 99% of the audience who saw the film.
First off I'm both a Windows and Linux user, in business and home life. I have no axe to grind one way or the other, I use each OS on its own merits.
That said I think the whole BBC/iPlayer furore has more to do with DRM than any "Windows only" agenda. As has already been remarked (and unless I'm mistaken) DRM isn't achieveable through open-source players. The BBC will have a mandate to enforce licensing restrictions on the programmes it places on its iPlayer service - they're not "free" for everyone to view, they're only intended for people who have otherwise already funded it in the first place (i.e. UK licence fee payers).
The BBC have already stated that a Mac version is coming - and you can be sure that this will implement whatever DRM methods Apple media players support.
The argument about the security (or lack thereof) of DRM implementations is academic at the end of the day. The BBC have to at least show that they have taken steps to protect their "clients" (for want of a better word) interests. If, how and when the DRM is cracked on it at least they can say they tried, and it was ultimately "Microsofts fault".
There is a difference between implementing something you know is ultimately going to be cracked anyway - like pretty much any copy protection on a game or application - and not putting any copy-protection at all in place, and this is the same.
I don't really understand how eBay can claim that auctions are legally binding before money has changed hands. Surely that's the point at which the contract becomes binding?
If I set up a website and put a button on it saying "Click here to own my TV" that wouldn't make it a contract.
This incident is interesting on many levels - could the seller refuse to sell the plane altogether? Surely since no money has (presumably) yet changed hands then the title of the plane is still with the seller, and the judge cannot surely force it to be sold to another party? Could the seller just do what a lot of people tend to do on eBay when they don't want to set a reserve price (as it increases the listing fee) but are unhappy with the winning bid: cancel the auction at the last minute with "item no longer available for sale" and relist it again a few days later ("had a change of plans", etc)..?
On the subject of IOS vs Linux I find myself extremely frustrated that my perfectly-able Cisco PIX 501 firewall was obsoleted overnight by the release of the PIX 7.0 software (which can't be installed on it).
Cisco resolutely refuse to offer a cut-down version of the software, so small-office consumers such as myself who need proper VPN connectivity 24/7 either have to move to a PIX 515E/ASA 550x at massive expense, or "suck it".
PIX 6.x doesn't even have QoS, which is something you pretty much expect to see as a given on SOHO equipment.
Thanks for the heads-up regarding EDGE, I didn't realise Orange offered it. :)
The Times Online is reporting that O2 have already won the contract ("O2 has beaten its rivals to win the exclusive UK rights to offer Apple's iPhone"), BBC News is saying that it is "reported to have won the sought-after deal". So the BBC is speculating whereas The Times is claiming it to be fact. I don't know who to believe.
If you believe all the articles you read then apparently O2 have denying winning the contract, being quoted as saying "they're just stories without any truth to them". That sounds like a pretty negative statement for a company who is apprently just being hush-hush about being in such a privileged position.
O2 do not have very good 3G coverage in the UK, it seems almost a no-brainer that Vodafone would've won the contract since their infrastructure is superior. There's no EDGE in the UK, so the UK iPhone either has to be 3G, or work over GPRS... the latter doesn't bear thinking about (think Youtube vids downloaded at 3-4KBps).
The smart money is still on Vodafone to win the contract in my opinion, despite these reports, and the UK (maybe Euro) iPhone having 3G support.
Theo also seems quite sensationalist from a first glance (this is the first of his articles I've read). Emotive statements like "These processors are buggy as hell", conjecture like "We bet there are many more errata not yet announced" doesn't really lend credence to his arguments.
He may be entirely right, and his experience in CPUs, BIOS vendors and Intel, AMD, etc may mean what he is saying is accurate - but the tone doesn't really sound very professional.
Surely "getting root" on the box would require the OS to actually behave in a logical way in response to a "CPU exploit". If the OS has no visibility of a hardware-level failure isn't it more likely that remote exploitation of a CPU exploit - if it were possible - would simply cause a unrecoverable system error?
Obviously forcing a box offline would be equivalent to a DoS..
Microcode updates are applied to CPUs are done all the time via BIOS updates. The only element of this that is newsworthy is that this microcode update is applicable to Windows only (it would seem) as Microsoft are the ones providing it. Since it is not rated as a critical update (or even an automatic one) and the BIOS makers have seen fit to omit it from their own BIOS updates (despite the fact that Windows has a dominant market share), the smart money is on it patching something which is both very rare and very difficult to reproduce.
Running a CINEbench that lasts 18 seconds is not a decent test of stability. Even hobbyist overclockers ultimately aim to end up with a system that they can use day in, day out for several hours at a time.
I've got a C2D E6700 cooled with a modified freezer system (Vapochill) which cools it down to -40 or so. Despite the fact I could boot it into Windows at 4.5Ghz, it was not stable at these speeds. I have to "make do" with 4.3Ghz for daily running.
Whilst I can just about believe that 3.9Ghz would be achievable with very high-end air cooling, I don't think it's feasible with the standard Intel cooler. Intel may have made subtle changes to the silicon but at the end of the day it's still the same package with the same core technology.
I'm not sure they can play it at all. I've witnessed first hand the fallout (which is still perpetuated) when a Dev casually mentioned he enjoyed playing the Bounty Hunter class most of all in Star Wars Galaxies. Thereafter he is labelled a Jedi hater (BHs hunted Jedi for most of the game, now they can hunt everyone - but the accusation stuck) and any sort of perceived nerf to the Jedi class is attributed to him and his "anti Jedi" agenda.
Rarely does common sense or benefit of the doubt come into the mindset of avid MMO players.
It's unprofessional I guess, but MMORPGs are a strange breed. At least with regular organisations if people don't like your product they simply don't buy it in the first place, whereas with MMOs people buy the product and then spend every waking moment moaning about why it doesn't fit their exact specifications. I guess that's just a factor of how MMOs change over time, unlike regular products.
I have some sympathy for what this CCP spokesperson is saying simply because as far as MMOs go you can't please everyone all of the time, and you're lucky if you can please anyone for more than a few moments. As such it's understandable that they'd feel some abject depression over the same tinfoil conspiracy theories and complaints being brought up over and over again.
He's got a point though.
It's not as if we're talking about a government here, CCP is simply a corporation with commercial interests. It boggles the mind that people would "happily" continue to pay for a service they find displeasing (and in some cases downright mentally unhealthy).
If you bought a coffee from a local shop every day and out of the blue they decided to change the flavour, or throw it in your face when you paid for it, would you continue to go there every day, handing over your money, for the same experience? Would you try to reason with them (whilst still paying money and still having distasteful coffee thrown in your face) despite it being obvious that nothing was going to change? Most people I'd wager would simply stop going there and go somewhere else for their coffee.
I know it's a cliché but people who feel aggrieved by CCP's actions have every right to vote with their wallet and simply stop playing the game. That is the only power a player has over the development team, and if a problem is bad enough that it causes a significant portion of the playerbase to quit then that is how change comes about. If however you decide to quit and there isn't the mass exodus that you predicted in your farewell speech, then maybe - just maybe - the skys aren't falling.
EVE Online would appear to be the perfect example of what happens if Devs appear to be *too* involved in playing the game, yet as any MMO player will attest - forums are filled with people crying about Devs not having "real-World experience of the problems class x is having". Seems like they're damned if they do, damned if they don't.
From a player perspective I can see how damaging it would be to even be seen to show bias one way or the other towards a class, guild, corp. or whatever the game terminology happens to be. From a developer perspective it must be quite frustrating not being able to enjoy the game in all its splendor (guild raiding, etc included) whilst simultaneously having to deal with legions of forum whiners moaning about how the Devs "dont know how the game works at the ground level".
And of course let's not forget that MMO communities are, without exception, always incredulous, accusatory, fickle and obstinate on the game forums. Everyone has their tinfoil hat on 24/7, expects (demands) the Earth for their $15 a month and despite having very little visibility of the organisational goals, objectives and constraints everyone purports to be "in the know", a programming expert and a visionary. It must be soul-destroying to have to deal with people with this mindset day-in, day-out. Being a Dev on a MMO must be like living life as a major politician: every word spoken about the game (especially on the forums) has to be carefully crafted so as to be totally unambigious and unemotional, since you can guarantee that the World and his dog will deconstruct and scrutinise every syllable, all the while presupposing a hidden agenda (again, tinfoil). It's no wonder Devs usually don't speak much on the forums.
(A slightly amusing anecdote: I was reading the Star Wars Galaxies forums recently as I used to play and a Dev made the heinous mistake of getting involved in an off-topic discussion about American Football teams. Naturally before long someone piped up saying "it's great that you're talking on here but shouldn't you be looking at the pressing issue of Spy DoT damage not being mitigated whilst wearing the Eye of Sauron ring? If you don't fix this I'm quitting and so is my entire family, friends & pet.". Ok I'm being facetious to prove a point, but it was still disheartening to read).
Ultimately this huge controversy, whilst ultimately of little interest to me as an outsider, has given me a fresh outlook and sympathy towards MMORPG developers.
That's a little naive though if you don't mind me saying.
For starters the accessories market that exists to cater for the iPod is there because of its popularity, not because the design automatically lends itself better than any other product. If the others had conquered the market to the same extent Apple has there would be the same amount of accessories available for their products.
Secondly, for what it is the iPod(s) could definitely be cheaper. All we're talking about really is a hard drive (or flash drive in the smaller ones) with a battery, PCB with firmware and LCD. Apple could farm them out cheaper if they so desired but since they've cornered the market they have no real need to, plus the iPod sells itself nowadays (so there is an element of hype in it).
It is as black-and-white as that.
If you bought a car and then proceeded to mod it with aftermarket parts which weren't fit for purpose and ended up crashing it would the manufacturer be expected to stipulate that "modifying this car could cause accidents"? Of course not. Since people wouldn't be banned from XBL through legitimate use of the console it's about as "black-and-white" as issues get.
It's not really that weird, it's more likely that the modding scene represents a small segment of the market. There are hundreds of thousands of X360 owners who probably don't have the first clue about how to copy X360 games, let alone what you need to buy on top (modchips, etc) to make them work.
I agree. I've never seen an installation of Oracle where a client session auto-commits. In fact quite the opposite there have been a few times when I've made a change to a table and reloaded the application only to see the old data still, and then realise I needed to "commit" the change.
How can he be "more right than me" when I haven't even mentioned any numbers or tech specs? I was pointing out the fallacy in armchair fanboys who usually don't have a clue how to develop games quoting FUD as if it's gospel.
"128K of RAM or something". Clearly you're pretty well versed on PS3 development then, or do you just get all your info from xbox-scene.org?
You'd think someone who was trying to pass themselves off as authoritative on a subject (i.e. an actual PS3 developer) would at least get the basic facts right, like - I dunno - the actual console name.
There also really isn't a vast amount of textures to deal with in Oblivion, many of the regions (especially the underground regions) look very similar. Oblivion masks this well by it's expansive and diverse storylines, it's a great game simply because there's just so many characters to interact with, things that change depending on your actions, etc. All of that is easy to squeeze onto a DVD.
GTA4 on the other hand is apparently going to include an accurate model of New York (with Rockstars own brand of humour where appropriate). I can quite imagine that amount of texture data exceeding the capacity of a DVD.
I have nothing against capitalism as a rule, and I'm not naive enough to believe in some twee fantasy World where life-saving medications are free for everyone all around the World. That said, setting a price point on what is an ESSENTIAL medication of $1.59 per pill when the same company already sells the same product to another country at $0.65 per pill is disgusting. Merck are (or were) essentially holding the Brazilian peoples lives to ransom.
If Merck can afford to sell the product to Thailand for $0.65 and still make a profit (clearly as an Indian company can sell it for $0.45 and turn a profit themselves) then there is no reason whatsoever other than pure capitalistic greed why they could not have given the same offer to the Brazilian government. Don't forget we're not talking about the variable domain costs of marketing and staffing, the government is the customer - how the Brazilian government then choose to distribute/market the treatment is their decision and at their cost.
There are a great many products around the World that are sold for different prices to different regions, but in practically all cases you can permit the corporations involved some latitude simply because the products they're selling are luxury or otherwise non-essential. Gouging a customer with a 300%+ markup on a life-saving drug when you know the customer/market HAS to have it is disgusting.
Let's not forget that the research dollars that went into developing this particular drug came from U.S citizens.
I don't think this is a sign of "erosion of respect in American patents", this is after all the first time the Brazilian government has even invoked the power of "eminent domain".