That argument would be fine except for one minor detail: this is not a patch to make the XBox better at playing games.
You're right about one thing, though. Auto-patching is a good thing, when it fixes a problem that keeps the machine from doing what it was supposed to do. While I generally dislike the fact that most of the games industry now has the "release it now, fix it later" attitude, it seems to be much better to have a game fix itself than to require the user to do something to fix it, on a console. That's one of the big things people like about consoles - the game just works, you don't have to screw with it to make it work. There aren't a whole lot of modern PC games for which that can be said. And if some game requires some fix be done to the XBox OS/etc for it to work properly, then great, Microsoft should have the ability to make that happen automatically.
But that, to me, isn't really the issue here. Microsoft isn't fixing a bug that will keep a game from working properly. Microsoft isn't fixing a bug that will allow a user to cheat in online play (although, if someone can tell me how having Linux installed on an XBox will facilitate cheating in an online game, I'd be curious to hear how) Microsoft isn't even fixing a bug that allows users to play pirated games (afaik, although I could be wrong). All this bug does is let someone use their hardware for a slightly different purpose than intended, to experiment with it. True, not everyone wants that. You clearly don't have the desire to do that, and that's fine. No one was planning on forcing you to install Linux on your XBox. But is it so wrong for the option to be there?
This technique has been available for a long time, and fairly well known among emulator users. In fact, a great number of controllers can be converted to work with the PC, everything from the Turbo Grafx, to the Genesis, to every pre-Gamecube Nintendo controller (not sure about Gamecube, maybe there's even a way to do that by now). In fact, I posted links to how to accomplish the exact same thing in a slashdot discussion back in March
That being said, this certain is a nice page the guy has put up, and the pictures of the work in progress are nice. For those of you who use Linux and went to his page, don't fear: this controller mod will also work with Linux, using the gamecon driver.
No, for that information you'll have to turn to intro to The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide. For those of you who don't own this essential book, I'll reprint the relevant bit below:
How to Leave the Planet
1. Phone NASA. Their phone number is (713) 483-3111. Explain that it's very important that you get away as soon as possible.
2. If they do not cooperate, phone any friend you may have in the White House -- (202) 456-1414 -- to have a word on your behalf with the with the guys at NASA.
3. If you don't have any friends at the White House, phone the Kremlin (ask the overseas operator for 0107-095-295-9051). They don't have any friends there either (at least, none to speak of), but they do seem to have a little influence, so you may as well try.
4. If that fails, phone the Pope for guidance. His telephone number is 011-39-6-6982, and I gather his switchboard is infallible.
5. If all these attempts fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that it's vitally important you get away before your phone bill arrives.
According to the article...
on
Hacking By Subpoena
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Actually, from my reading of the article, it appears that the ISP is not being sued in this case, merely the person who issued the subpoenas. First off, a judge never ordered the ISP to hand over the emails. Apparently, in certain situations, individuals can issue subpoenas without asking the judge, and that appears to be what happened in this case. When the ISP received that subpoena, they were required by law to provide the emails, and did so. When the company whose emails were subpoenaed found out, that's when someone was sued...but it wasn't the ISP who was sued, but the person who issued the subpoenas in the first place.
(Of course, I'm not a lawyer either, so it's entirely possible that my reading of the article is completely wrong. I'm sure someone will post to enlighten me if that is the case)
If fair use only covers giving copies to a friend, how is this determined? It's unlikely that a random person on Kazaa downloading from you counts as a friend, but what about other ways of sharing? For instance, what if there was a filesharing program that allowed you to require someone be on your "friend list" before they would be allowed to download from you? If someone asks to be my friend, and then I put them on my friend list, can I now legally say they are my friend?
Secondly, you mention that digital copies are another reason that Kazaa and others are illegal. Can a computer be used to create an analog copy? If, for instance, I have a wire running from my sound card's line out into its line in, and record the input, is that now an analog copy? There may be some loss of quality, but it doesn't seem like it would be much. I know that the unencoding and reencoding of mp3 files would lead to less quality, but what if the files were stored in FLAC or some other lossless codec instead?
If so, it seems someone simply needs to design a P2P program that does the two things mentioned above, and it would then be completely legal to use. After all, it's only being used to give analog copies of songs to friends. Clearly, none of the current P2P programs fit the bill, but if the lawsuits keep coming, one might soon be made that does...
You cant blame a tool for its improper use.. or the tool maker..
Unless its tobacco.
Actually, I think that the problem with tobacco is not what happens with improper use (I refuse to make any jokes regarding improper uses of cigars...), but the fact that using it properly will eventually result in the death of most of it's users.
Re:I remember that...
on
Masters of Doom
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The first thought that comes to my mind is probably not the easiest solution, and I must admit I haven't tried it before, so I don't know for sure that it'll work, but it might be worth trying...
Install Bochs, and install a version of DOS onto that (I wonder if FreeDOS will work?) This will insure that the game is running on the OS it was really designed for (particularly if you use an old copy of MS-DOS rather than FreeDOS), and it will keep the game from trying to run too fast, since the emulation overhead will slow it down a bit. I think Bochs also includes a way to forcibly slow the CPU down even further if necessary.
Anyone have any experience trying this setup? I'm curious as to how well it would work...
Personally I doubt that very much. For one thing, if people are going to use this to pirate games, then they're going to need a DVD burner. Those are still fairly expensive, and lets face it: if someone is too cheap to spend $40 on a PS2 game, then what are the chances they're gonna spend $200 for a dvd-r drive?
Will some people use this to pirate games? Yes. Will we see people selling pirated games over the internet? Maybe. Will the problem make even a noticable dent in PS2 game profits? I doubt it.
Remember, modchips for the PS2 have existed for a while, and PS2 game sales are still going strong. Most people don't want to go through the hassle involved in getting a pirated copy of a game, and therefore, this is unlikely to be much of a problem for Sony.
For a while, it was popular for trolls to post extremely long strings of characters with no spaces in the middle. Most browsers see this, and think "Gee, I need to widen the page so that we can get this whole line in there". This widening, though, makes it rather a pain in the ass to read anything else on the comments page.
So Slashcode now inserts spaces into long lines, so that the browser will be able to move part of the word onto the next line if necessary.
At least, that's as far as I understand it. If I'm wrong, then I hope someone corrects me.
I'm pretty sure you're right on that. I remember reading an article when Half-life first came out saying that after they got the rights to use the Quake 1 engine, they basically rewrote the entire engine in C++. Granted, it's been a while since I read this, so it's entirely possible that I'm mistaken.
As unofficial head of all the alien conspiracy theorists in America, I must say, I have read the documents, believe everything in them, and admit I was wrong. I fully retract my belief that aliens have contacted Earth and come to Roswell, and will never question the government again.
I urge all of my fellow conspiracy theorists to do the same. There are no conspiracies. These documents prove it. Pack up your bags and go home, folks, there's nothing to see here.
There, Mr. W, I believe I've done my part, so if you could just send the check we discussed earlier to my house, that'd be great...
God, it have worse grammar and spelling than Slashdot...
Looking back on this, I think part of the reason it's moderated funny is because even while making fun of someone else's lack of grammar, I myself can't put together 3 sentences without throwing in some obvious grammar mistakes. Fortunately, this is Slashdot, so I fit right in!
Have you read the rest of the story? I'm sure the reason she didn't respond was because she wouldn't be able to put together a cohesive story that's longer than about 10 sentences. God, it have worse grammar and spelling than Slashdot...
Well, to throw in a reply that doesn't rely on obscene language to get a point across.
Well, first off, that's a really annoying policy you have at your job. Simply sniffing out dirty words and using that as the basis for whether or not someone should be looking at a site makes very little sense. However, it's their computer, their connection, their resources, so gotta follow their rules.
Second: Try viewing comments at a score level of +4 or +5. Yes, you'll miss some very interesting ones. However, ones that get modded up that high rarely have to rely on four letter words to make a point, so you're likely to be somewhat safe there
Yes, they dealers can buy the stuff in bulk, and then turn around and sell it on ebay...
Until GW catches them.
Then, that dealer will no longer be able to buy in bulk at wholesale prices from GW. If the dealer were to pay retail price for the stuff and then turn around and sell it on ebay, they'd realize a much, much lower profit margin. So while this isn't going to stop some individual who is simply tired of the things from selling his/her collection on eBay, it will put a stop to dealers having part of their business come from selling over eBay.
There are also some theories that state that Mars lost it's atmosphere from the numerous impacts it has sustained throughout the years. Afterall, being right in the neighborhood of the asteroid belt may lead to problems for future colonists.
So, on top of all that stuff, remember to pack some kind of asteroid early detection system, and a missile defence system to shoot the asteroids down, before getting on the shuttle to head off to Mars.
For those among us who would rather do it themselves, there's no reason to buy the EMS USB2 adapter listed above, as long as the machine you're using has a parallel port. For the cost of a few small parts at Radio Shack (or any other similar store) you can build your own with the easy instructions listed here. And trust me, it's incredibly easy to do.
Note: the link for the driver listed on that page is out of date. If you are planning on using this with Win9x, you can get the driver from here. For Linux, the gamecon kernel module is all you need. For Windows 2000/XP/etc, you're on your own...I'm almost certain drivers for it exist, but I have no idea where, or how well they work. Anyone else have any information about this?
Speaking of nvidia, has anyone been able to download the latest Win9x drivers from there? (Yes, I know, I'm the devil for using Windows, etc)
I've been trying to upgrade to the latest drivers, but it seems that all of their download sites have gone on spring break or something. I'm not having problems connecting to any other site, and this happens no matter what browser I'm using (Moz 1.1, 1.3, IE 6) Anyone else experiencing a similar problem?
Seriously, I've never seen this except on +5 comments. Feel free to moderate me down into oblivion.
Well, usually only two kind of comments feel the need to add that message. There's the ones which are really good but against popular opinion, hence the author thinks they will be modded down, and states that he doesn't care.
The other type of comment that gets added to are the really terrible ones. These are the ones that really didn't need any further reason to be modded down. Of course, you probably don't see these ones since they get modded below the level you browse at, more than likely. Hence, you only see it on the really insightful (yet often anti popular opinion) posts, which wind up getting modded up for their insight.
Hope that cleared things up for you. Of course, this is massively offtopic, so feel free to moderate me down into oblivion...
I've gone through one event with my PS2 that quite amazed me. It was the end of the semester, so I've got everything packed up to move out of my dorm. I have my PS2 sitting on my bed until I get around to putting it in my car. I also have my window open, because I'm in Texas, and I'm on the third floor of a building without terribly good airconditioning. My bed, by the way, is right next to the window. Then, I leave to go get some dinner.
While I'm at dinner, it starts lightly raining. I hardly pay any attention to this fact, since my umbrella had already been packed into my car. It starts raining a little harder, then harder, and by the time I get back to my dorm, there's a full fledged thunderstorm raging. The parking lot of my campus hasn't got very good drainage, so on the way back I'm walking through like 3 or 4 inches of water at some parts. Just as I get up to my dorm building, I begin wondering if I ever closed the window...and then I think about all the stuff under the window...
Although it's clearly too late to do anything now, I bolt up the stairs and to my dorm, with the sinking realization of what I'm going to find behind the door. I walk in, my bed is soaked, and the PS2 is dripping wet. I take it over to the sink, and turn it on the side, and water just pours out of the thing. I was sure I no longer had a working PS2.
However, I wait several days with the thing turned on it's side to get all the water out, then I plugged it in and turned it on, expecting nothing at all to happen. Lo and behold, the thing works beautifully. You'd never know it had been so exposed to the elements.
This same PS2, just a few months before, I had taken a good 5 foot drop down to the (non-carpetted) floor, and kept on working fine...I don't know what it's going to take to destroy this thing (should the day ever come that I want to)
However, the funniest part about this story is, I have a friend who owns a PS2 and takes excellent care of it. Keeps it in a place where there's very little dust, keeps it on a flat surface which isn't carpetted so the fans can work adequately, etc. Yet his won't even read CDs anymore, and he's had to send it in to Sony to let them take a month to replace the dvd-rom drive so he can play Contra, as well as some PS1 games. Clearly, during the year between the first batch of PS2's being released and the time I purchased mine, Sony learned how to make things indestructable.
Granted, I don't buy too much stuff online, but when I do, most of the online retailers I buy from either don't send a confirmation email, or will have a page saying "You will receive an email from xxx@yyy.com confirming your order", or some similar message.
However, it must be that quite a few online retailers don't follow this practice. Perhaps when you encounter a website that does that, it would be best to email the webmaster warning them that messages sent like that might wind up getting marked as spam if they don't warn their users that they will receive an email like that. Most online retailers would hate to drive away customers, so it only makes sense for them to do whatever is possible to make the shopping experience as painless as possible.
Now, of course, the automated "please reply to get added to my whitelist" message will still be sent, but it will be ignored by the retailer; and one of the posters above mentioned that the system he had set up that worked like that retained unrequested emails for 7 days, so the user could go into his spam folder, fish out the legitimate one from the retailer (whose address he now knows), and complete the transaction.
This is a suboptimal solution, because it still requires the user actually check his spam folder. A better solution might be to integrate the mail program with the browser, and let the browser tell the mail program that it has just purchased something from Amazon.com, and to expect an email from them. This, however, opens up it's own can of worms, such as how the browser knows the difference between a legitimate retailer who needs to send them email, and Joe Spammer's Geocities Page o' Spam...maybe retailers would have to get themselves a certificate of authenticity? Just brainstorming here...
This really is a good idea. Of course, some people might not realize they were entering an area like this (if people can't be bothered to read the signs/etc that tell them to turn off their phone in a movie, they surely can't be expected to read the sign informing them that they won't receive their calls automatically)
Perhaps the micro cell could be set up to send a SMS message every time a new phone enters that cell, informing them of the policy, and telling them to inform the front desk if they have special circumstances which require calls go directly to them.
This way, the place has less liability for people missing calls, because if they knew of the possibility of getting a call in the first place, they would notice receiving the SMS message.
Ooh, I like the idea, but here's a better idea for the icon. Have you ever seen the LAN Party shirt at Thinkgeek? Get a sign with that picture on it, and put it up on the door to the server room.
Re:random fact: neanderthal pronunciation
on
We Are Not Related
·
· Score: 1
Time to see if I remember any of my German classes correctly. If something I post in here is wrong, please feel free to correct me (and knowing/., I'm sure someone will)
This is because the "thal" in Neanderthal comes from the German word "thal", meaning valley. German does not pronounce a "th" sound like English does, so the th becomes kind of an aspirated t.
So where did the name Neanderthal come from? Glad you asked! Back in the, um, past (I obviously didn't pay too much attention in German class), a German named Neumann owned a valley of some sort. He and some friends decided to try their hand at a little archaeology, which was quite popular at the time. Lo and behold, they find this weird looking skeleton. To come up with a name for the creature, Herr Neumann took his last name, converted it into Latin (Neu mann (German) = New man (English) = Neo+ander (Latin, I think)), and tacked on the word for valley at the end, so the name is a hybrid of Latin and German, Neanderthal
Slashdot Mirror
That argument would be fine except for one minor detail: this is not a patch to make the XBox better at playing games.
You're right about one thing, though. Auto-patching is a good thing, when it fixes a problem that keeps the machine from doing what it was supposed to do. While I generally dislike the fact that most of the games industry now has the "release it now, fix it later" attitude, it seems to be much better to have a game fix itself than to require the user to do something to fix it, on a console. That's one of the big things people like about consoles - the game just works, you don't have to screw with it to make it work. There aren't a whole lot of modern PC games for which that can be said. And if some game requires some fix be done to the XBox OS/etc for it to work properly, then great, Microsoft should have the ability to make that happen automatically.
But that, to me, isn't really the issue here. Microsoft isn't fixing a bug that will keep a game from working properly. Microsoft isn't fixing a bug that will allow a user to cheat in online play (although, if someone can tell me how having Linux installed on an XBox will facilitate cheating in an online game, I'd be curious to hear how) Microsoft isn't even fixing a bug that allows users to play pirated games (afaik, although I could be wrong). All this bug does is let someone use their hardware for a slightly different purpose than intended, to experiment with it. True, not everyone wants that. You clearly don't have the desire to do that, and that's fine. No one was planning on forcing you to install Linux on your XBox. But is it so wrong for the option to be there?
This technique has been available for a long time, and fairly well known among emulator users. In fact, a great number of controllers can be converted to work with the PC, everything from the Turbo Grafx, to the Genesis, to every pre-Gamecube Nintendo controller (not sure about Gamecube, maybe there's even a way to do that by now). In fact, I posted links to how to accomplish the exact same thing in a slashdot discussion back in March
That being said, this certain is a nice page the guy has put up, and the pictures of the work in progress are nice. For those of you who use Linux and went to his page, don't fear: this controller mod will also work with Linux, using the gamecon driver.
Actually, from my reading of the article, it appears that the ISP is not being sued in this case, merely the person who issued the subpoenas. First off, a judge never ordered the ISP to hand over the emails. Apparently, in certain situations, individuals can issue subpoenas without asking the judge, and that appears to be what happened in this case. When the ISP received that subpoena, they were required by law to provide the emails, and did so. When the company whose emails were subpoenaed found out, that's when someone was sued...but it wasn't the ISP who was sued, but the person who issued the subpoenas in the first place.
(Of course, I'm not a lawyer either, so it's entirely possible that my reading of the article is completely wrong. I'm sure someone will post to enlighten me if that is the case)
If fair use only covers giving copies to a friend, how is this determined? It's unlikely that a random person on Kazaa downloading from you counts as a friend, but what about other ways of sharing? For instance, what if there was a filesharing program that allowed you to require someone be on your "friend list" before they would be allowed to download from you? If someone asks to be my friend, and then I put them on my friend list, can I now legally say they are my friend?
Secondly, you mention that digital copies are another reason that Kazaa and others are illegal. Can a computer be used to create an analog copy? If, for instance, I have a wire running from my sound card's line out into its line in, and record the input, is that now an analog copy? There may be some loss of quality, but it doesn't seem like it would be much. I know that the unencoding and reencoding of mp3 files would lead to less quality, but what if the files were stored in FLAC or some other lossless codec instead?
If so, it seems someone simply needs to design a P2P program that does the two things mentioned above, and it would then be completely legal to use. After all, it's only being used to give analog copies of songs to friends. Clearly, none of the current P2P programs fit the bill, but if the lawsuits keep coming, one might soon be made that does...
You cant blame a tool for its improper use.. or the tool maker..
Unless its tobacco.
Actually, I think that the problem with tobacco is not what happens with improper use (I refuse to make any jokes regarding improper uses of cigars...), but the fact that using it properly will eventually result in the death of most of it's users.
The first thought that comes to my mind is probably not the easiest solution, and I must admit I haven't tried it before, so I don't know for sure that it'll work, but it might be worth trying...
Install Bochs, and install a version of DOS onto that (I wonder if FreeDOS will work?) This will insure that the game is running on the OS it was really designed for (particularly if you use an old copy of MS-DOS rather than FreeDOS), and it will keep the game from trying to run too fast, since the emulation overhead will slow it down a bit. I think Bochs also includes a way to forcibly slow the CPU down even further if necessary.
Anyone have any experience trying this setup? I'm curious as to how well it would work...
Personally I doubt that very much. For one thing, if people are going to use this to pirate games, then they're going to need a DVD burner. Those are still fairly expensive, and lets face it: if someone is too cheap to spend $40 on a PS2 game, then what are the chances they're gonna spend $200 for a dvd-r drive?
Will some people use this to pirate games? Yes. Will we see people selling pirated games over the internet? Maybe. Will the problem make even a noticable dent in PS2 game profits? I doubt it.
Remember, modchips for the PS2 have existed for a while, and PS2 game sales are still going strong. Most people don't want to go through the hassle involved in getting a pirated copy of a game, and therefore, this is unlikely to be much of a problem for Sony.
For a while, it was popular for trolls to post extremely long strings of characters with no spaces in the middle. Most browsers see this, and think "Gee, I need to widen the page so that we can get this whole line in there". This widening, though, makes it rather a pain in the ass to read anything else on the comments page.
So Slashcode now inserts spaces into long lines, so that the browser will be able to move part of the word onto the next line if necessary.
At least, that's as far as I understand it. If I'm wrong, then I hope someone corrects me.
I'm pretty sure you're right on that. I remember reading an article when Half-life first came out saying that after they got the rights to use the Quake 1 engine, they basically rewrote the entire engine in C++. Granted, it's been a while since I read this, so it's entirely possible that I'm mistaken.
As unofficial head of all the alien conspiracy theorists in America, I must say, I have read the documents, believe everything in them, and admit I was wrong. I fully retract my belief that aliens have contacted Earth and come to Roswell, and will never question the government again.
I urge all of my fellow conspiracy theorists to do the same. There are no conspiracies. These documents prove it. Pack up your bags and go home, folks, there's nothing to see here.
There, Mr. W, I believe I've done my part, so if you could just send the check we discussed earlier to my house, that'd be great...
God, it have worse grammar and spelling than Slashdot...
Looking back on this, I think part of the reason it's moderated funny is because even while making fun of someone else's lack of grammar, I myself can't put together 3 sentences without throwing in some obvious grammar mistakes. Fortunately, this is Slashdot, so I fit right in!
Have you read the rest of the story? I'm sure the reason she didn't respond was because she wouldn't be able to put together a cohesive story that's longer than about 10 sentences. God, it have worse grammar and spelling than Slashdot...
Well, to throw in a reply that doesn't rely on obscene language to get a point across.
Well, first off, that's a really annoying policy you have at your job. Simply sniffing out dirty words and using that as the basis for whether or not someone should be looking at a site makes very little sense. However, it's their computer, their connection, their resources, so gotta follow their rules.
Second: Try viewing comments at a score level of +4 or +5. Yes, you'll miss some very interesting ones. However, ones that get modded up that high rarely have to rely on four letter words to make a point, so you're likely to be somewhat safe there
Yes, they dealers can buy the stuff in bulk, and then turn around and sell it on ebay...
Until GW catches them.
Then, that dealer will no longer be able to buy in bulk at wholesale prices from GW. If the dealer were to pay retail price for the stuff and then turn around and sell it on ebay, they'd realize a much, much lower profit margin. So while this isn't going to stop some individual who is simply tired of the things from selling his/her collection on eBay, it will put a stop to dealers having part of their business come from selling over eBay.
I suspect the "shock and awe" phase will begin soon, when AOL's machines begin bursting into flames.
That, or when they get the bandwidth bill.
There are also some theories that state that Mars lost it's atmosphere from the numerous impacts it has sustained throughout the years. Afterall, being right in the neighborhood of the asteroid belt may lead to problems for future colonists.
So, on top of all that stuff, remember to pack some kind of asteroid early detection system, and a missile defence system to shoot the asteroids down, before getting on the shuttle to head off to Mars.
For those among us who would rather do it themselves, there's no reason to buy the EMS USB2 adapter listed above, as long as the machine you're using has a parallel port. For the cost of a few small parts at Radio Shack (or any other similar store) you can build your own with the easy instructions listed here. And trust me, it's incredibly easy to do.
Note: the link for the driver listed on that page is out of date. If you are planning on using this with Win9x, you can get the driver from here. For Linux, the gamecon kernel module is all you need. For Windows 2000/XP/etc, you're on your own...I'm almost certain drivers for it exist, but I have no idea where, or how well they work. Anyone else have any information about this?
Speaking of nvidia, has anyone been able to download the latest Win9x drivers from there? (Yes, I know, I'm the devil for using Windows, etc)
I've been trying to upgrade to the latest drivers, but it seems that all of their download sites have gone on spring break or something. I'm not having problems connecting to any other site, and this happens no matter what browser I'm using (Moz 1.1, 1.3, IE 6) Anyone else experiencing a similar problem?
feel free to moderate me down into oblivion
Seriously, I've never seen this except on +5 comments. Feel free to moderate me down into oblivion.
Well, usually only two kind of comments feel the need to add that message. There's the ones which are really good but against popular opinion, hence the author thinks they will be modded down, and states that he doesn't care.
The other type of comment that gets added to are the really terrible ones. These are the ones that really didn't need any further reason to be modded down. Of course, you probably don't see these ones since they get modded below the level you browse at, more than likely. Hence, you only see it on the really insightful (yet often anti popular opinion) posts, which wind up getting modded up for their insight.
Hope that cleared things up for you. Of course, this is massively offtopic, so feel free to moderate me down into oblivion...
I've gone through one event with my PS2 that quite amazed me. It was the end of the semester, so I've got everything packed up to move out of my dorm. I have my PS2 sitting on my bed until I get around to putting it in my car. I also have my window open, because I'm in Texas, and I'm on the third floor of a building without terribly good airconditioning. My bed, by the way, is right next to the window. Then, I leave to go get some dinner.
While I'm at dinner, it starts lightly raining. I hardly pay any attention to this fact, since my umbrella had already been packed into my car. It starts raining a little harder, then harder, and by the time I get back to my dorm, there's a full fledged thunderstorm raging. The parking lot of my campus hasn't got very good drainage, so on the way back I'm walking through like 3 or 4 inches of water at some parts. Just as I get up to my dorm building, I begin wondering if I ever closed the window...and then I think about all the stuff under the window...
Although it's clearly too late to do anything now, I bolt up the stairs and to my dorm, with the sinking realization of what I'm going to find behind the door. I walk in, my bed is soaked, and the PS2 is dripping wet. I take it over to the sink, and turn it on the side, and water just pours out of the thing. I was sure I no longer had a working PS2.
However, I wait several days with the thing turned on it's side to get all the water out, then I plugged it in and turned it on, expecting nothing at all to happen. Lo and behold, the thing works beautifully. You'd never know it had been so exposed to the elements.
This same PS2, just a few months before, I had taken a good 5 foot drop down to the (non-carpetted) floor, and kept on working fine...I don't know what it's going to take to destroy this thing (should the day ever come that I want to)
However, the funniest part about this story is, I have a friend who owns a PS2 and takes excellent care of it. Keeps it in a place where there's very little dust, keeps it on a flat surface which isn't carpetted so the fans can work adequately, etc. Yet his won't even read CDs anymore, and he's had to send it in to Sony to let them take a month to replace the dvd-rom drive so he can play Contra, as well as some PS1 games. Clearly, during the year between the first batch of PS2's being released and the time I purchased mine, Sony learned how to make things indestructable.
Granted, I don't buy too much stuff online, but when I do, most of the online retailers I buy from either don't send a confirmation email, or will have a page saying "You will receive an email from xxx@yyy.com confirming your order", or some similar message.
However, it must be that quite a few online retailers don't follow this practice. Perhaps when you encounter a website that does that, it would be best to email the webmaster warning them that messages sent like that might wind up getting marked as spam if they don't warn their users that they will receive an email like that. Most online retailers would hate to drive away customers, so it only makes sense for them to do whatever is possible to make the shopping experience as painless as possible.
Now, of course, the automated "please reply to get added to my whitelist" message will still be sent, but it will be ignored by the retailer; and one of the posters above mentioned that the system he had set up that worked like that retained unrequested emails for 7 days, so the user could go into his spam folder, fish out the legitimate one from the retailer (whose address he now knows), and complete the transaction.
This is a suboptimal solution, because it still requires the user actually check his spam folder. A better solution might be to integrate the mail program with the browser, and let the browser tell the mail program that it has just purchased something from Amazon.com, and to expect an email from them. This, however, opens up it's own can of worms, such as how the browser knows the difference between a legitimate retailer who needs to send them email, and Joe Spammer's Geocities Page o' Spam...maybe retailers would have to get themselves a certificate of authenticity? Just brainstorming here...
This really is a good idea. Of course, some people might not realize they were entering an area like this (if people can't be bothered to read the signs/etc that tell them to turn off their phone in a movie, they surely can't be expected to read the sign informing them that they won't receive their calls automatically)
Perhaps the micro cell could be set up to send a SMS message every time a new phone enters that cell, informing them of the policy, and telling them to inform the front desk if they have special circumstances which require calls go directly to them.
This way, the place has less liability for people missing calls, because if they knew of the possibility of getting a call in the first place, they would notice receiving the SMS message.
Ooh, I like the idea, but here's a better idea for the icon. Have you ever seen the LAN Party shirt at Thinkgeek? Get a sign with that picture on it, and put it up on the door to the server room.
Time to see if I remember any of my German classes correctly. If something I post in here is wrong, please feel free to correct me (and knowing /., I'm sure someone will)
This is because the "thal" in Neanderthal comes from the German word "thal", meaning valley. German does not pronounce a "th" sound like English does, so the th becomes kind of an aspirated t.
So where did the name Neanderthal come from? Glad you asked! Back in the, um, past (I obviously didn't pay too much attention in German class), a German named Neumann owned a valley of some sort. He and some friends decided to try their hand at a little archaeology, which was quite popular at the time. Lo and behold, they find this weird looking skeleton. To come up with a name for the creature, Herr Neumann took his last name, converted it into Latin (Neu mann (German) = New man (English) = Neo+ander (Latin, I think)), and tacked on the word for valley at the end, so the name is a hybrid of Latin and German, Neanderthal