Well, the problem wasn't directly caused by Firefox. Their plugin crash protection has a timeout of 10 seconds. It waits 10 seconds for a response from the plugin. If it's not received within that timeout period, the plugin is killed. Apparently FarmVille took more than 10 seconds to load, sucking up all CPU cycles in the process, causing Firefox to think the plugin crashed and killing it. So the real problem here was a shitty implementation of FarmVille.
Well, I have no idea what are Do's and Donts with an XBox, but considering most systems RROD because of overheating, I think the spot your XBox is in is a very important factor.
My XBox is not in a closed off cabinet or something like that. It's on top of a small table so it's got no shelves or planks or other objects next or on top of it. It's always set up flat, not on it's side standing up. I clean it off with a vacuum cleaner every time I vacuum clean the living room (I don't actually open the device mind you).
Having said all that, I'm not exactly a hardcore player anymore. While there are days when I spend quite some time playing on my XBox (a few hours), it's not very common. I remember reading that there is a correlation between intensive use of the device and RROD's, so maybe it's just a matter of time before mine dies as well or maybe I simply don't use it intensively enough.
A friend of mine has an XBox 360 stuck in a very tight spot. Almost no room for airflow around the device. He barely ever touches the thing, but I'm pretty sure that if he spends a few weeks playing the device every day, he's guaranteed to get a RROD.
I've owned my XBox 360 for almost 3 years now and I've never had it fail on me or so much as even crash. I dunno what if I'm doing things right or other people are doing things wrong...
I don't understand the problem of your rant. If you want to play XBox software, then you buy an XBox. If you want to play XBox 360 software, then you buy an XBox 360. I understand that people can be a bit disappointed in the fact that the backwards compatibility of the XBox 360 isn't all that MS made it out to be, but since you already appear to have a bunch of old XBoxes lying around, I really don't see the relevance of your rant in the context of this article. MS ain't exactly hurting you with the release of the 360 S.
You're kidding right? You're wrong on so many points. First of all, if you don't update you lose access to the Shopping Channel. I also wouldn't be surprised if future first party titles carried the update as well. Also, Nintendo isn't removing any features at all. At least, not features they put in there themselves in the first place. Sony's Other OS functionality was functionality they put in there themselves, something that could arguably have been used to promote the system. It may have been a reason for people to buy the system. With these updates, Nintendo isn't removing any features they put in there themselves or which were used to promote the system. They are completely different things.
As for adding new functionality, Nintendo has been adding new functionality to the Wii from time to time as well (dare I say more than Sony has done with PS3). This update is the first anti-piracy-only Wii update that doesn't add new functionality (or fix other problems).
While I agree with your conclusions, we do have to factor in that modern day electronics are a lot more sensitive to electromagnetic disturbances than electronic devices of 70 years ago were.
The idea is not new though. I've been to a sushi restaurant in my area a couple of times where you can order unlimited sushi for a fixed price. However, if you order something that you don't eat then you have to pay it's individual price on top of the all-you-can-eat price.
I dunno, but refilling empty cartridges at the "ink station" shop around the corner cost me about a quarter of a new cartridge but worked just as well.
"HP engineers say that biogas may offer a fresh alternative energy approach for IT managers. Researchers at HP Labs presented a paper (download PDF) on using cow manure from dairy farms and cattle feedlots and other 'digested farm waste' to generate electricity..."
The problem I have with it is that my PC is littered with update services. Apple, Adobe, Google, AV software, Windows itself all have updater services running in the background. It simply takes up system resources.
Why is it a problem if a program updates itself in the background while it's running?
Aren't we discussing semantics here?
It's pretty obvious what the man means. An application with a simple user interface works much nicer than an application with a UI that's littered with ambiguously labeled buttons and hidden menus. If you have to click 4 times to get something done, an application will feel (seem/look/whatever) slow compared to when you can do that in one single click as well.
One thing I hope is that "silently updating in the background" doesn't mean there will be some sort of "Firefox updater.exe" service loaded in the background when I start up my PC. I hate it when applications do that.
lol, if you're shocked by the image of an ancient greek statue, then you might be better off never accessing the internet (or your library for that matter) ever again.
It's quite annoying. You always have to start the Steam-client to play. For some reason you cannot copy&paste passwords so you have to always type it.
This is not true. You can create direct links to your games so that you don't have to start the steam client to play. It also has the option to remember your login, which has never failed me either. You have to enter your password only once and then it simply keeps you logged in, even if you shut down your PC.
And that's exactly the problem with piracy these days. People think that restrictive DRM warrants an illegal download while the only legal solution to your problem would be to simply not play Civ V at all if you don't like the DRM.
Agreed. I simply don't have the time to finish a 60 hour game anymore. I'd rather have a good and intense 5 hour game than a long, stretched out 60 hour game. However, I'd also like to see games get slightly cheaper. I think episodic gaming is one way of achieving this. I think I'd sooner buy a game in 4 parts that are 5 hours long each than one big game of 20 hours because I know I won't invest the time to finish it. By the time I'm halfway through a 20 hour game, there's two other games that caught my attention.
Exactly. The whole exercise part of the Wii is questionable at best. Even Miyamoto himself said that it's very unlikely that Wii Fit would actually improve someone's health, but that it's a starting point, a catalyst if you will, to put people on the right track.
And after the man has revalidated, does he have to turn the Wii back in? No, in fact, I think he'll be picking up a copy of Super Mario Bros and Mario Kart and "exercise" that way instead.
Also, in the case of "free" software, don't they mean that the source code is free, yet the full, compiled product has to be paid for?
That's also something that can't be done with music or movies. You can't give away movie sets, cameras or unmixed multi-track recordings for free.
An alien will be found in the Nevada desert near some sort of cinder cone which turns out to be a crashed space ship. He'll say "I'm sorry, but there is bad news". Then aliens will drop a piece of neutronium and a piece of antineutronium in the Earth's core, which will eventually destroy the earth. In the meantime, other aliens will collect people through the use of mind control and mechanic spiders so they can leave earth right before it's destruction in a spaceship, stuffed with DNA sample of all life on Earth. These people will continue to live on a terraformed Mars.
Really, I read all about it!
Most people would probably not know how to rip their latest Disney DVD's to a format the iPad can play.
People buy DVD systems because it's as easy as just popping the disc in there and pushing the play button.
That, or The Escapist could've simply looked into the matter, discover the banner causing problems and remove it from their rotation (or contact the banner vendor they get it from) and everybody would say "the Escapist are awesome for actually listening to their visitors".
I think the reasoning of the ISP's is not that Google is causing their pipes to get clogged up, but that Google is succesful with their services because the ISP's are providing their customers with bandwidth. If they didn't provide the bandwidth, Google wouldn't even exist.
Personally I think this reasoning is flawed, as the entire Internet is one big network of individual parties that all live off of and because of each other, like a big symbiontic collection of entities.
If this were ruled against Google, then one could interpret that as any website would need to pay ISPs because they all depend on the existence and services of ISPs.
Slashdot Mirror
You have two coins that equal 30 cents, and one of them isn't a nickel
Well, the problem wasn't directly caused by Firefox. Their plugin crash protection has a timeout of 10 seconds. It waits 10 seconds for a response from the plugin. If it's not received within that timeout period, the plugin is killed. Apparently FarmVille took more than 10 seconds to load, sucking up all CPU cycles in the process, causing Firefox to think the plugin crashed and killing it. So the real problem here was a shitty implementation of FarmVille.
Well, I have no idea what are Do's and Donts with an XBox, but considering most systems RROD because of overheating, I think the spot your XBox is in is a very important factor.
My XBox is not in a closed off cabinet or something like that. It's on top of a small table so it's got no shelves or planks or other objects next or on top of it. It's always set up flat, not on it's side standing up. I clean it off with a vacuum cleaner every time I vacuum clean the living room (I don't actually open the device mind you).
Having said all that, I'm not exactly a hardcore player anymore. While there are days when I spend quite some time playing on my XBox (a few hours), it's not very common. I remember reading that there is a correlation between intensive use of the device and RROD's, so maybe it's just a matter of time before mine dies as well or maybe I simply don't use it intensively enough.
A friend of mine has an XBox 360 stuck in a very tight spot. Almost no room for airflow around the device. He barely ever touches the thing, but I'm pretty sure that if he spends a few weeks playing the device every day, he's guaranteed to get a RROD.
I understand all that, but yet again, your rant has nothing to do with the release of the 360 S.
I've owned my XBox 360 for almost 3 years now and I've never had it fail on me or so much as even crash. I dunno what if I'm doing things right or other people are doing things wrong...
I don't understand the problem of your rant. If you want to play XBox software, then you buy an XBox. If you want to play XBox 360 software, then you buy an XBox 360. I understand that people can be a bit disappointed in the fact that the backwards compatibility of the XBox 360 isn't all that MS made it out to be, but since you already appear to have a bunch of old XBoxes lying around, I really don't see the relevance of your rant in the context of this article. MS ain't exactly hurting you with the release of the 360 S.
You're kidding right? You're wrong on so many points. First of all, if you don't update you lose access to the Shopping Channel. I also wouldn't be surprised if future first party titles carried the update as well. Also, Nintendo isn't removing any features at all. At least, not features they put in there themselves in the first place. Sony's Other OS functionality was functionality they put in there themselves, something that could arguably have been used to promote the system. It may have been a reason for people to buy the system. With these updates, Nintendo isn't removing any features they put in there themselves or which were used to promote the system. They are completely different things.
As for adding new functionality, Nintendo has been adding new functionality to the Wii from time to time as well (dare I say more than Sony has done with PS3). This update is the first anti-piracy-only Wii update that doesn't add new functionality (or fix other problems).
While I agree with your conclusions, we do have to factor in that modern day electronics are a lot more sensitive to electromagnetic disturbances than electronic devices of 70 years ago were.
The idea is not new though. I've been to a sushi restaurant in my area a couple of times where you can order unlimited sushi for a fixed price. However, if you order something that you don't eat then you have to pay it's individual price on top of the all-you-can-eat price.
If I'm using the search term "child porn" on Google, does that mean I'm looking for child porn or sites about child porn?
Sorry to be pendantic, but it's JavaScript we're talking about here, not Java. Both are quite different things.
I dunno, but refilling empty cartridges at the "ink station" shop around the corner cost me about a quarter of a new cartridge but worked just as well.
"HP engineers say that biogas may offer a fresh alternative energy approach for IT managers. Researchers at HP Labs presented a paper (download PDF) on using cow manure from dairy farms and cattle feedlots and other 'digested farm waste' to generate electricity..."
Not really so fresh after all then...
The problem I have with it is that my PC is littered with update services. Apple, Adobe, Google, AV software, Windows itself all have updater services running in the background. It simply takes up system resources.
Why is it a problem if a program updates itself in the background while it's running?
Aren't we discussing semantics here?
It's pretty obvious what the man means. An application with a simple user interface works much nicer than an application with a UI that's littered with ambiguously labeled buttons and hidden menus. If you have to click 4 times to get something done, an application will feel (seem/look/whatever) slow compared to when you can do that in one single click as well.
One thing I hope is that "silently updating in the background" doesn't mean there will be some sort of "Firefox updater.exe" service loaded in the background when I start up my PC. I hate it when applications do that.
lol, if you're shocked by the image of an ancient greek statue, then you might be better off never accessing the internet (or your library for that matter) ever again.
Now mark me flamebait, I don't mind.
It's quite annoying. You always have to start the Steam-client to play. For some reason you cannot copy&paste passwords so you have to always type it.
This is not true. You can create direct links to your games so that you don't have to start the steam client to play. It also has the option to remember your login, which has never failed me either. You have to enter your password only once and then it simply keeps you logged in, even if you shut down your PC.
And that's exactly the problem with piracy these days. People think that restrictive DRM warrants an illegal download while the only legal solution to your problem would be to simply not play Civ V at all if you don't like the DRM.
Agreed. I simply don't have the time to finish a 60 hour game anymore. I'd rather have a good and intense 5 hour game than a long, stretched out 60 hour game. However, I'd also like to see games get slightly cheaper. I think episodic gaming is one way of achieving this. I think I'd sooner buy a game in 4 parts that are 5 hours long each than one big game of 20 hours because I know I won't invest the time to finish it. By the time I'm halfway through a 20 hour game, there's two other games that caught my attention.
Exactly. The whole exercise part of the Wii is questionable at best. Even Miyamoto himself said that it's very unlikely that Wii Fit would actually improve someone's health, but that it's a starting point, a catalyst if you will, to put people on the right track. And after the man has revalidated, does he have to turn the Wii back in? No, in fact, I think he'll be picking up a copy of Super Mario Bros and Mario Kart and "exercise" that way instead.
Also, in the case of "free" software, don't they mean that the source code is free, yet the full, compiled product has to be paid for? That's also something that can't be done with music or movies. You can't give away movie sets, cameras or unmixed multi-track recordings for free.
An alien will be found in the Nevada desert near some sort of cinder cone which turns out to be a crashed space ship. He'll say "I'm sorry, but there is bad news". Then aliens will drop a piece of neutronium and a piece of antineutronium in the Earth's core, which will eventually destroy the earth. In the meantime, other aliens will collect people through the use of mind control and mechanic spiders so they can leave earth right before it's destruction in a spaceship, stuffed with DNA sample of all life on Earth. These people will continue to live on a terraformed Mars. Really, I read all about it!
Most people would probably not know how to rip their latest Disney DVD's to a format the iPad can play.
People buy DVD systems because it's as easy as just popping the disc in there and pushing the play button.
That, or The Escapist could've simply looked into the matter, discover the banner causing problems and remove it from their rotation (or contact the banner vendor they get it from) and everybody would say "the Escapist are awesome for actually listening to their visitors".
Quite a contrast there, eh?
I think the reasoning of the ISP's is not that Google is causing their pipes to get clogged up, but that Google is succesful with their services because the ISP's are providing their customers with bandwidth. If they didn't provide the bandwidth, Google wouldn't even exist.
Personally I think this reasoning is flawed, as the entire Internet is one big network of individual parties that all live off of and because of each other, like a big symbiontic collection of entities.
If this were ruled against Google, then one could interpret that as any website would need to pay ISPs because they all depend on the existence and services of ISPs.