Well, for a while, it sounded like the cheaper 60GB version was only going to be available for about two weeks. (Starting... now!) So it was like a brief price cut followed by the price jumping right back up again. In other words, it sounded like it wasn't really a price cut, just an attempt to dump a few old units before selling the new ones at the original price.
This will spark interest in the 60GB console, and when all the supplies are moved they will cut the price of the 80GB console to $499. I don't see why people are upset about this.
Oh please, you know exactly why people are upset about this. It's become clear you're a Sony astroturfer. You've posted in the other story on this topic and people were pretty clear why there were upset about it.
But to make it clear, it's that "cut the price of the 80GB console" part. There's no proof that's going to happen. People have been clamoring for a PS3 price cut for ages. There's clearly demand for the PS3, but not at the $600 price point. People have been wanting to see a pricecut.
So what Sony has announced is that there's a pricecut, but then they're going to sell a version that has about $20 worth of storage extra and a version that's not as backwards compatible with PS2 and PS games. (That's assuming $1/GB, which is high - it's closer to $0.75/GB.)
So, ultimately, Sony is announcing a new, worse version of the PS3 for the same price. That's why people are upset.
That assumes, of course, you're interested in playing PS2 games on the PS3. At this point in time, with the PS2 game library dwarfing the PS3 game library, it's a fair assumption that people would want to do that. You can also debate how much worse the PS2/PS emulation is, especially since the new emulation is already used to enable upscaling in the existing model.
However, this still comes off as Sony saying that they're selling a new, worse model for the same price, while trying to ditch the old model. Not completely true, but it sure sounds like it.
The article talks a little about the loud speaker vans candidates usually use to get their message out.
Those things are real?! I always thought they were a joke. (Honestly! I can only recall ever seeing them in old cartoons, like old Looney Toons from the 1950s. Which might explain the "throwback to the 1950s" line in the article.)
...
I've tried to come up with something witty to say, but I seem to have failed. Although I suppose the loudspeaker thing is slightly less annoying than the US tradition of simply drawing up the district boundaries such that the whole voting process is basically a formality wherein the incumbents are reelected... (Proud Massachusetts native, home of the Gerrymander! I live in the district directly south of the original Gerrymander!)
Re:What earthly use is "firefoxurl" anyway?!
on
Firefox Quickies
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· Score: 1
See, I would have called that a "web-based XUL application" or something like that. A XUL application loaded by a firefoxurl exploit would be at the chrome level, and have full privileges to be nasty.
I think the term "XUL application" would refer to XUL-based applications like Firefox, assuming XULRunner ever gets released. Not XUL pages loaded off the web - which do, indeed, run at the same restricted level as any other webpage.
Yeah, you had to enable them because they broke some games (apparently) and enabling them involved the most braindead, convoluted set of steps, making it almost easier not to.
Open the disc tray. This causes the PS2 to boot to the browser.
Press Triangle to open System Information. (Not the System Configuration option!)
Select PlayStation Driver, and press Triangle to open its options.
Switch Disc Speed to "Fast" and Texture Mapping to "Smooth."
Press Circle twice to return to the root menu.
Select Browser.
Select the game.
These options are not saved since they apparently could cause problems with some games, so every time you want to enable them, you have to go through this process.
Even better is the admission that they're phasing out the PS3 model with "100% backwards compatibility" to replace it with one with "88%" compatibility. (I'm not sure what that 88% figure means, but it's what the guy said in the interview. Percent of games that work? Percent of PS2 emulated? He didn't say.)
Then there's this quote:
[GamesIndustry.biz:] But you're still asking people to commit GBP 425 to a games console. Isn't there a problem with the perception that that's an awful lot of money to shell out?
It is, but surprisingly, people are paying that amount of money for it.
It's like he's just begging for people to hate Sony. I don't get it.
As the PS3/Xbox 360 fanboys love to point out, the Wii and PS3/Xbox 360 "aren't competing with each other" (I disagree, but anyway). I already have a Wii, which means that when looking at the other two consoles I'm only comparing them with each other.
So in order for me to choose a PS3 over an Xbox 360, it'd have to be worth getting. Having a worthwhile online service would be one reason to get it. Having it cost less than the Xbox 360 would also work.
Of course, then there's the whole "games" factor, which really limits my desire for either console. But in any case, the PS3 needs online more than the Wii does, which gets points for new and interesting methods of gameplay.
MGS2 had a "heartbeat sensor". Very useful. Strength of the beat varied with distance.
Another example of something that, while enhanced by rumble, doesn't actually need it. It could have been done by a beating light on the screen. (As I recall, the PC version of Rainbow Six did something like that with their heartbeat sensor.)
It was also one of the few games where one was made acutely aware that the R and L buttons on the PS2 had more than two states...
Not to mention the Square button. Press lightly to aim, hard to fire...
First, Metal Gear Solid's release date in North America was October 1998, a month prior to Ocarina of Time.
Although I would argue that in both cases the rumble really did nothing for the gameplay. MGS used it as a gimmick. The controller shook when you were discovered, which definitely added something to the experience, but really did nothing gameplay wise. It also shook when using the sniper rifle unless you took the Diazapan. I think it also shook when you were hit. In every other case, it was used for various cutscene gimmicks (like Psycho Mantis "moving" the controller). So overall it added additional cues about certain events, but it was never essential to gameplay.
In Ocarina of Time, as you mention, it was used to locate "secret areas" but as I recall those were all essentially bombable holes that contained Rupees and nothing truly useful. In any case, it could easily have been done by a hot/cold gauge on the screen or by a pulsing light or something. It was essentially an excuse to make you buy the controller accessory, nothing really useful.
In any case, it was most useful in Ocarina of Time with the fishing minigame since it added another cue that a fish was hooked. But in any case, it wasn't necessary for gameplay.
In both games, it added something to the experience, but in both cases, it wasn't necessary.
Presumably the PS3 was always capable of sending rumble commands to the controllers (after all, the original PlayStation didn't ship with rumble-capable controllers and the DualShock was added to it later). So people who already own a PS3 will just have to buy new controllers. If I owned a PS3 I'd be ticked off, but it's not like I'd have to run out and buy a new PS3.
Then again, I always suspected that Sony would do something like this and was planning on waiting until after rumble support was readded before buying a PS3. Oh, and waiting until HDTVs came down to reasonable prices. And the PS3 was $300 or less. And it had games worth buying. And an online service worth using.
Will they upgrade already released games to include support through a patch?
That's not really a Sony thing as much as an individual game developer thing. My guess is no, but who knows. Maybe some of the games already supported it?
Not that it affects me, I'm a Wii owner myself.
Me too!:) Although that's one more thing done on the check list of things that Sony needs to do before I'm willing to buy a PS3 - although the $300 price tag was probably the more important one.
wow, in Supreme Commander you can now zoom in and out all the way, what innovation! This will change the world of RTS forever!
I think this demonstrates another problem with attempting to innovate - people notice the small changes and miss the big picture. The zoom feature in Supreme Commander actually allows quite a bit of new things in the game that can't be done without it.
One of the most obvious is unit scale - there are some units in the game that would literally take up multiple screens if you weren't allowed to zoom out. Some weapons have an area of effect that would be multiple screens. Without the zoom, these wouldn't be practical.
It makes moving around the map somewhat easier, in that you can zoom out and then zoom back in without having to do the edge-pan thing.
But the biggest change, and the reason the zoom was created in the first place, is that it attempts to move the focus off individual skirmishes and onto large-scale strategy. The zoom is referred to as the "strategic zoom" by the game, and it's called that because it's intended to emphasis large-scale strategy instead of small-scale tactics. In theory, you should never have to micromanage a skirmish - just point your army at the other army and they'll engage intelligently. (In reality, pathfinding is disappointingly retarded and the fast units zoom away from the slow units, allowing them to get shredded before their support arrives.)
The zoom in and of itself isn't amazingly innovative (RTS games have supported a limited zoom for ages, and when zoomed all the way out, you're essentially looking at a mini-map), but some of the stuff done because of the zoom is new. As a game progresses, the scale becomes larger and the zoom becomes more important.
To really understand how the zoom changes the game, you need to try and play another RTS after playing Supreme Commander. The zoom really does change how you play and not having it is more annoying than you might think.
I just checked. On my system, FirefoxURL is completely stand-alone - it's does one thing, and one thing only, and that's this security hole. It does nothing else. It's not referred to by HTTP or HTTPS (both are currently set to open with Internet Explorer). In fact, it's not referred to by anything at all.
This is with a Firefox 2.0.0.4 install - never upgraded, a straight 2.0.0.4 install. If it's supposed to set Firefox to open with HTTP or HTTPS URLs, Firefox screwed it up, because it doesn't.
Re:What earthly use is "firefoxurl" anyway?!
on
Firefox Quickies
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Except that's still retarded, since it's by definition a remotely executable code exploit. URLs don't have to be loaded by users, and in some cases, can even be loaded without any user interaction. (<meta http-equiv="Refresh"> comes to mind, although I haven't gotten the exploit to work on my system yet).
XUL applications have access to basically everything on the system. You know how you can launch files from the Firefox's Downloads window? There's nothing that prevents a skeleton XUL application from downloading a EXE and then launching it with no user interaction. The dialog that Firefox displays when launching executables is handled by the download dialog, there's nothing that requires it be displayed. (I've written an extension that launched a Windows Control Panel applet before, trust me that there's nothing really preventing XUL applications from being nasty.)
So I'm still left wondering, what was this intended for, and who thought it was a good idea?
What earthly use is "firefoxurl" anyway?!
on
Firefox Quickies
·
· Score: 2, Informative
After reading about "firefoxurl" and what it does, I only have one simple question: what on earth were they thinking when they implemented it? What's it supposed to be useful for?
As far as I can tell, the only use it could possibly have is creating desktop URLs that always open in Firefox, however there's no reason why they would have to create a URL handler to do that. Otherwise, it's completely worthless and, as discovered, a security risk, to boot.
For added fun, attempting to use a "firefoxurl" URL while Firefox is already running creates an infinite loop. (It just keeps on asking you to allow an "external application" to launch. It doesn't even seem to actually work. I get the same results when launching it directly from IE through the address bar.)
Why was this implemented? What was it supposed to do?
And, for bonus points, is it possible to write a firefoxurl that, when opened in IE, would unregister the firefoxurl handler?
[List of evil things Sony has done] [List of evil things Microsoft has done]
Gee - I wonder if this might be why I currently own a Wii, and not a PS3 or an Xbox 360[1]. Of course, Nintendo has been evil in the past, but they seem to have moved beyond that after having it blow up in their face.
It's not this is a war between only the Xbox 360 and the PS3 - there is another console to consider.
[1] Actually, it's not. The Wii has the games I'm interested in, and neither the Xbox 360 and PS3 do. But in any case...
To the best of my knowledge, the highest resolution "satellite" photos that Google provides aren't actually satellite photos, they're airplane fly-overs. I expect (but don't know how to prove) that this is the case for this photo, too: it was taken from an airplane.
If true, that mean China would have known about the flight (they're not exactly secret, as they have to coordinate with air traffic control), and therefore either made a mistake in allowing the sub to be photographed, or more likely, simply didn't care. Some weapons are most effective by allowing your enemies to know they exist, rather than actually using them.
It's worth mentioning that the plan is mostly Mitt Romney's idea. He, as a Republican, pushed it through an entirely Democrat-controlled legislature. However, since he left to run for president, a Democrat governor won, so who knows where things will move now.
If you listen to Mitt Romney talk about it, the plan sounds like a typical Libertarian "free market solves all" rant - if you left out the "no government regulation" part.
The rational is basically: "Given that: It costs the state more to treat the uninsured, the Free Market is always better than government control, and not everyone has insurance; we should therefore require all citizens to have health insurance."
It's also important to note that this isn't the first time Massachusetts has done something like this. In Massachusetts, a vehicle registration doubles as proof of insurance. Canceling your car insurance invalidates your vehicle registration: you have to turn in your plates.
This system has worked out about as well as you'd expect. (Unreasonably high prices, then Massachusetts laws regulating prices, then most insurance companies leaving since they can no longer afford/are no longer willing to work under the regulations imposed.)
Yep, same here. Agreed to do the University of Michigan testing, and I don't get a Discussion2 checkbox. Since the University of Michigan Testing system basically made Slashdot unreadable thanks to how slow it ran, I have to leave it disabled.
Yes, it is the "mystery app." The "mystery app" was caused by the application icons being slid down one slot in a brief section of an iPhone ad. Well, they've updated the iPhone website and the new iPhone graphic shows all twelve application icons. They are, in order:
Text, Calendar, Photos, Contacts
YouTube, Stocks, Maps, Weather
Clock, Calculator, Notes, Settings
YouTube is the app that's been added. It's the "mystery app" that was missing from before.
The problem is you can't cancel projects. I know I've got a few projects on SourceForge that I never intend to do anything with. One of them even has some code.
In any case, I've long since lost both the password for that SourceForge account and no longer have access to the email address I used to create it, so those projects will remain forever, clogging up SourceForge despite the fact that they're long dead.
I don't think SourceForge should just delete dead projects, but it would be nice if they'd move them into a "SourceForge Archive" or something after a project fails to see any activity or downloads for, say, a year. Leave them accessible, but stop returning them in searches unless a "search archives" option is set.
You are aware that the OP (the person who was in the situation requiring the letter) was in an apartment, right? (He mentioned requiring a notarized letter from his landlord.)
In any case, not all apartments allow dishes. The one I'm in most certainly does not, and there's no way I could install it even with the FCC rules someone previously mentioned, as I have no area to place the dish that's under "my complete control" and even if I did, it wouldn't make line-of-sight with a satellite anyway due to the trees that surround the apartment.
As for competition, the only competition in my area is RCN and the areas where Verizon offers FiOS (which does not include where I live). As previously mentioned, I can't use satellite since I can't install a dish.
And while not paying for cable TV is certainly an option, not having Internet access is not an option for me and probably quite a few other people on Slashdot. I need broadband Internet access for work.
I would have told them "Thank you for informing me that you do not want my business. I will now be spending $x with your competitor, who is willing to not treat me badly for something someone I don't even know has done." *click*
And, in the majority of the US, the response would have been quite simple:
"What competitor? There's a competitor? You mean satellite? Wait, you live in an apartment, right? Good luck getting that dish approved by your landlord."
Even shadows! How the heck can I work without shadows behind my windows?! Impossible.
That's why you need to upgrade to Vista. It adds shadows behind the windows (at least, if you're using the full Aero experience or whatever it's called). Or you can use Compiz/Beryl under Linux, they both support window shadows.
I don't have a real point here, just that apparently shadows are in fact so important that every other OS had to add them just as soon as possible. And, let's be honest, they are useful - just not exactly required.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, for a while, it sounded like the cheaper 60GB version was only going to be available for about two weeks. (Starting... now!) So it was like a brief price cut followed by the price jumping right back up again. In other words, it sounded like it wasn't really a price cut, just an attempt to dump a few old units before selling the new ones at the original price.
Oh please, you know exactly why people are upset about this. It's become clear you're a Sony astroturfer. You've posted in the other story on this topic and people were pretty clear why there were upset about it.
But to make it clear, it's that "cut the price of the 80GB console" part. There's no proof that's going to happen. People have been clamoring for a PS3 price cut for ages. There's clearly demand for the PS3, but not at the $600 price point. People have been wanting to see a pricecut.
So what Sony has announced is that there's a pricecut, but then they're going to sell a version that has about $20 worth of storage extra and a version that's not as backwards compatible with PS2 and PS games. (That's assuming $1/GB, which is high - it's closer to $0.75/GB.)
So, ultimately, Sony is announcing a new, worse version of the PS3 for the same price. That's why people are upset.
That assumes, of course, you're interested in playing PS2 games on the PS3. At this point in time, with the PS2 game library dwarfing the PS3 game library, it's a fair assumption that people would want to do that. You can also debate how much worse the PS2/PS emulation is, especially since the new emulation is already used to enable upscaling in the existing model.
However, this still comes off as Sony saying that they're selling a new, worse model for the same price, while trying to ditch the old model. Not completely true, but it sure sounds like it.
Those things are real?! I always thought they were a joke. (Honestly! I can only recall ever seeing them in old cartoons, like old Looney Toons from the 1950s. Which might explain the "throwback to the 1950s" line in the article.)
...
I've tried to come up with something witty to say, but I seem to have failed. Although I suppose the loudspeaker thing is slightly less annoying than the US tradition of simply drawing up the district boundaries such that the whole voting process is basically a formality wherein the incumbents are reelected... (Proud Massachusetts native, home of the Gerrymander! I live in the district directly south of the original Gerrymander!)
See, I would have called that a "web-based XUL application" or something like that. A XUL application loaded by a firefoxurl exploit would be at the chrome level, and have full privileges to be nasty.
I think the term "XUL application" would refer to XUL-based applications like Firefox, assuming XULRunner ever gets released. Not XUL pages loaded off the web - which do, indeed, run at the same restricted level as any other webpage.
Yeah, you had to enable them because they broke some games (apparently) and enabling them involved the most braindead, convoluted set of steps, making it almost easier not to.
These options are not saved since they apparently could cause problems with some games, so every time you want to enable them, you have to go through this process.
Ordering a spare laptop battery? (It had to be said.)
Even better is the admission that they're phasing out the PS3 model with "100% backwards compatibility" to replace it with one with "88%" compatibility. (I'm not sure what that 88% figure means, but it's what the guy said in the interview. Percent of games that work? Percent of PS2 emulated? He didn't say.)
Then there's this quote:
[GamesIndustry.biz:] But you're still asking people to commit GBP 425 to a games console. Isn't there a problem with the perception that that's an awful lot of money to shell out?
It is, but surprisingly, people are paying that amount of money for it.
It's like he's just begging for people to hate Sony. I don't get it.
As the PS3/Xbox 360 fanboys love to point out, the Wii and PS3/Xbox 360 "aren't competing with each other" (I disagree, but anyway). I already have a Wii, which means that when looking at the other two consoles I'm only comparing them with each other.
So in order for me to choose a PS3 over an Xbox 360, it'd have to be worth getting. Having a worthwhile online service would be one reason to get it. Having it cost less than the Xbox 360 would also work.
Of course, then there's the whole "games" factor, which really limits my desire for either console. But in any case, the PS3 needs online more than the Wii does, which gets points for new and interesting methods of gameplay.
Another example of something that, while enhanced by rumble, doesn't actually need it. It could have been done by a beating light on the screen. (As I recall, the PC version of Rainbow Six did something like that with their heartbeat sensor.)
It was also one of the few games where one was made acutely aware that the R and L buttons on the PS2 had more than two states...Not to mention the Square button. Press lightly to aim, hard to fire...
"Freeze!"
RAT-AT-AT-AT-AT! Alert!
"DAMNIT!"
First, Metal Gear Solid's release date in North America was October 1998, a month prior to Ocarina of Time.
Although I would argue that in both cases the rumble really did nothing for the gameplay. MGS used it as a gimmick. The controller shook when you were discovered, which definitely added something to the experience, but really did nothing gameplay wise. It also shook when using the sniper rifle unless you took the Diazapan. I think it also shook when you were hit. In every other case, it was used for various cutscene gimmicks (like Psycho Mantis "moving" the controller). So overall it added additional cues about certain events, but it was never essential to gameplay.
In Ocarina of Time, as you mention, it was used to locate "secret areas" but as I recall those were all essentially bombable holes that contained Rupees and nothing truly useful. In any case, it could easily have been done by a hot/cold gauge on the screen or by a pulsing light or something. It was essentially an excuse to make you buy the controller accessory, nothing really useful.
In any case, it was most useful in Ocarina of Time with the fishing minigame since it added another cue that a fish was hooked. But in any case, it wasn't necessary for gameplay.
In both games, it added something to the experience, but in both cases, it wasn't necessary.
Presumably the PS3 was always capable of sending rumble commands to the controllers (after all, the original PlayStation didn't ship with rumble-capable controllers and the DualShock was added to it later). So people who already own a PS3 will just have to buy new controllers. If I owned a PS3 I'd be ticked off, but it's not like I'd have to run out and buy a new PS3.
Then again, I always suspected that Sony would do something like this and was planning on waiting until after rumble support was readded before buying a PS3. Oh, and waiting until HDTVs came down to reasonable prices. And the PS3 was $300 or less. And it had games worth buying. And an online service worth using.
Will they upgrade already released games to include support through a patch?That's not really a Sony thing as much as an individual game developer thing. My guess is no, but who knows. Maybe some of the games already supported it?
Not that it affects me, I'm a Wii owner myself.Me too! :) Although that's one more thing done on the check list of things that Sony needs to do before I'm willing to buy a PS3 - although the $300 price tag was probably the more important one.
I think this demonstrates another problem with attempting to innovate - people notice the small changes and miss the big picture. The zoom feature in Supreme Commander actually allows quite a bit of new things in the game that can't be done without it.
One of the most obvious is unit scale - there are some units in the game that would literally take up multiple screens if you weren't allowed to zoom out. Some weapons have an area of effect that would be multiple screens. Without the zoom, these wouldn't be practical.
It makes moving around the map somewhat easier, in that you can zoom out and then zoom back in without having to do the edge-pan thing.
But the biggest change, and the reason the zoom was created in the first place, is that it attempts to move the focus off individual skirmishes and onto large-scale strategy. The zoom is referred to as the "strategic zoom" by the game, and it's called that because it's intended to emphasis large-scale strategy instead of small-scale tactics. In theory, you should never have to micromanage a skirmish - just point your army at the other army and they'll engage intelligently. (In reality, pathfinding is disappointingly retarded and the fast units zoom away from the slow units, allowing them to get shredded before their support arrives.)
The zoom in and of itself isn't amazingly innovative (RTS games have supported a limited zoom for ages, and when zoomed all the way out, you're essentially looking at a mini-map), but some of the stuff done because of the zoom is new. As a game progresses, the scale becomes larger and the zoom becomes more important.
To really understand how the zoom changes the game, you need to try and play another RTS after playing Supreme Commander. The zoom really does change how you play and not having it is more annoying than you might think.
I just checked. On my system, FirefoxURL is completely stand-alone - it's does one thing, and one thing only, and that's this security hole. It does nothing else. It's not referred to by HTTP or HTTPS (both are currently set to open with Internet Explorer). In fact, it's not referred to by anything at all.
This is with a Firefox 2.0.0.4 install - never upgraded, a straight 2.0.0.4 install. If it's supposed to set Firefox to open with HTTP or HTTPS URLs, Firefox screwed it up, because it doesn't.
Except that's still retarded, since it's by definition a remotely executable code exploit. URLs don't have to be loaded by users, and in some cases, can even be loaded without any user interaction. (<meta http-equiv="Refresh"> comes to mind, although I haven't gotten the exploit to work on my system yet).
XUL applications have access to basically everything on the system. You know how you can launch files from the Firefox's Downloads window? There's nothing that prevents a skeleton XUL application from downloading a EXE and then launching it with no user interaction. The dialog that Firefox displays when launching executables is handled by the download dialog, there's nothing that requires it be displayed. (I've written an extension that launched a Windows Control Panel applet before, trust me that there's nothing really preventing XUL applications from being nasty.)
So I'm still left wondering, what was this intended for, and who thought it was a good idea?
After reading about "firefoxurl" and what it does, I only have one simple question: what on earth were they thinking when they implemented it? What's it supposed to be useful for?
As far as I can tell, the only use it could possibly have is creating desktop URLs that always open in Firefox, however there's no reason why they would have to create a URL handler to do that. Otherwise, it's completely worthless and, as discovered, a security risk, to boot.
For added fun, attempting to use a "firefoxurl" URL while Firefox is already running creates an infinite loop. (It just keeps on asking you to allow an "external application" to launch. It doesn't even seem to actually work. I get the same results when launching it directly from IE through the address bar.)
Why was this implemented? What was it supposed to do?
And, for bonus points, is it possible to write a firefoxurl that, when opened in IE, would unregister the firefoxurl handler?
Gee - I wonder if this might be why I currently own a Wii, and not a PS3 or an Xbox 360[1]. Of course, Nintendo has been evil in the past, but they seem to have moved beyond that after having it blow up in their face.
It's not this is a war between only the Xbox 360 and the PS3 - there is another console to consider.
[1] Actually, it's not. The Wii has the games I'm interested in, and neither the Xbox 360 and PS3 do. But in any case...
To the best of my knowledge, the highest resolution "satellite" photos that Google provides aren't actually satellite photos, they're airplane fly-overs. I expect (but don't know how to prove) that this is the case for this photo, too: it was taken from an airplane.
If true, that mean China would have known about the flight (they're not exactly secret, as they have to coordinate with air traffic control), and therefore either made a mistake in allowing the sub to be photographed, or more likely, simply didn't care. Some weapons are most effective by allowing your enemies to know they exist, rather than actually using them.
It's worth mentioning that the plan is mostly Mitt Romney's idea. He, as a Republican, pushed it through an entirely Democrat-controlled legislature. However, since he left to run for president, a Democrat governor won, so who knows where things will move now.
If you listen to Mitt Romney talk about it, the plan sounds like a typical Libertarian "free market solves all" rant - if you left out the "no government regulation" part.
The rational is basically: "Given that: It costs the state more to treat the uninsured, the Free Market is always better than government control, and not everyone has insurance; we should therefore require all citizens to have health insurance."
It's also important to note that this isn't the first time Massachusetts has done something like this. In Massachusetts, a vehicle registration doubles as proof of insurance. Canceling your car insurance invalidates your vehicle registration: you have to turn in your plates.
This system has worked out about as well as you'd expect. (Unreasonably high prices, then Massachusetts laws regulating prices, then most insurance companies leaving since they can no longer afford/are no longer willing to work under the regulations imposed.)
Yep, same here. Agreed to do the University of Michigan testing, and I don't get a Discussion2 checkbox. Since the University of Michigan Testing system basically made Slashdot unreadable thanks to how slow it ran, I have to leave it disabled.
Yes, it is the "mystery app." The "mystery app" was caused by the application icons being slid down one slot in a brief section of an iPhone ad. Well, they've updated the iPhone website and the new iPhone graphic shows all twelve application icons. They are, in order:
YouTube is the app that's been added. It's the "mystery app" that was missing from before.
The problem is you can't cancel projects. I know I've got a few projects on SourceForge that I never intend to do anything with. One of them even has some code.
In any case, I've long since lost both the password for that SourceForge account and no longer have access to the email address I used to create it, so those projects will remain forever, clogging up SourceForge despite the fact that they're long dead.
I don't think SourceForge should just delete dead projects, but it would be nice if they'd move them into a "SourceForge Archive" or something after a project fails to see any activity or downloads for, say, a year. Leave them accessible, but stop returning them in searches unless a "search archives" option is set.
What patio? Trust me, the way the apartment I live in is set up, there's no place any tenant can install a dish.
It's not - low-latency Internet access is important, and satellite really doesn't offer anything useful in that regard.
You are aware that the OP (the person who was in the situation requiring the letter) was in an apartment, right? (He mentioned requiring a notarized letter from his landlord.)
In any case, not all apartments allow dishes. The one I'm in most certainly does not, and there's no way I could install it even with the FCC rules someone previously mentioned, as I have no area to place the dish that's under "my complete control" and even if I did, it wouldn't make line-of-sight with a satellite anyway due to the trees that surround the apartment.
As for competition, the only competition in my area is RCN and the areas where Verizon offers FiOS (which does not include where I live). As previously mentioned, I can't use satellite since I can't install a dish.
And while not paying for cable TV is certainly an option, not having Internet access is not an option for me and probably quite a few other people on Slashdot. I need broadband Internet access for work.
And, in the majority of the US, the response would have been quite simple:
"What competitor? There's a competitor? You mean satellite? Wait, you live in an apartment, right? Good luck getting that dish approved by your landlord."
That's why you need to upgrade to Vista. It adds shadows behind the windows (at least, if you're using the full Aero experience or whatever it's called). Or you can use Compiz/Beryl under Linux, they both support window shadows.
I don't have a real point here, just that apparently shadows are in fact so important that every other OS had to add them just as soon as possible. And, let's be honest, they are useful - just not exactly required.