I don't work for paypal and don't know anyone who does.
1. I've never had a problem. 2. Been a customer "since day one" 3. I've done a few grand through paypal and while they don't have phone support, i've never had an un-answered email request.
I only deal with ebay sellers +5, i only take payments from verified paypal account holders and i keep a seperate checking account established for just linking to such accounts.
Paypal is a godsend for those who push money, goods and materials. I don't treat it like a bank, and i respect it for what is is.
Change your passwords, don't be "gullible" deal with good people.
I think you over simply todays word & document processing.
For example, we use Microsoft word with built in excell spreadsheets and ODBC queries that update charts in real time from an Oracle database as well as include visio stencils and other good stuff. This is a 40+ meg file in raw format and a lowly 1.5ghz with 512 megs of ram takes time to re-draw. We daw a huge performance increase from 1.5ghz to 2.4 Maybe "hyper threading" will help out even more.
BTW, it is about the same performance under linux using staroffice or corel office. KDE Office is even slower, so i know its not just the tools:)
For people who *WORK* using there pc, you can never have "too much" power. Its like race cars, maximizing performance for the job at hand.
Being a private pilot i get to see lots of ground from high above.
To tell you the truth, i don't see *ANY* land that ISN'T marked by humans.
Even the most dense forrests and pristine areas are loaded with new houses, barns, trucks, trailers, roads, pipes, power lines or something that we have planted there.
In a way, i'm jealous of the people who got to see the wild west and walk across america and stake out a piece of the world. Now i can't even go to a public park after dark! Sure wish there was some "free" land somewhere!!
Just because DVD's usually use a Dolby surround sound logic instead of your expensive THX logic doesn't mean DVD's will put the industry out of business.
It couldn't have been the 100million you spent on marketing that ate your profits now could it? It couldn't have been there were times i could wipe my ass with something with your name on it that maybe, just maybe if you had produced a better movie and less fluff there would be some money to share????
It couldn't possibly be the 20 million dollar fees actors charge or personal learjets used to flown you around eating up profits now could it?
It couldn't also be the fact the economy has tanked and terrorism and other threats just make it more enjoyable to stay at home with friends and family and enjoy a great movie now could it?
It couldn't be the fact it costs 50.00 bucks to see a movie with 2 tickets, soda, popcorn and parking these days that a 5.00 7 day rental i can watch as much as i want just makes more financial sense for those of us living on a more down to earth budget.. oh nooooo...
the consumers are the end of the industry.. gotta love that ignorance.
I like watching dvd's when i want and how i want, and they're already an affordable 9 bucks at alot of stores.
What i want to see is Launch.com use this for high quality VIDEOS as i'm sick of vivendi pushing the crap they want us to see and luanch.com is an awesome place to see videos of the songs we love.
I was trying to come across as how can you compare a 200.00 pc to something like the xbox that is MANY times better?
The 200.00 PC is going to play OpenGL/DirectX games at 60+ fps, it isn't going to have DVD playback (smooth) with Dolby Digital support. It isn't going to have HDTV output.
My freaking point is that a goddam xbox is way more powerfull then those 200.00 pc's and i'm not comparing apples to oranges here. I'm just saying that the Xbox is a powerfull biest, it ISN'T A PC. I'm not chopping up my box, but for "hacking sake" you can't beat the Xbox and it blows away the PS2 hands down in cost, availability, performance and useability.
So if you want a small box that can be "hacked" into a pc that can play dvds, that supports dolby digital, that has a g reat video card, that has a 8-10 gig hard drive, that has ethernet and can be "hacked into shape" then go for it..
Just don't tell me how the PS2 kit is "k-rad" and when the xbox comes up it is cheaper to buy a peeceee.. last time i checked a ps2 and the linux kit can run up to 700 bucks.. is THAT worth it? sure you don't need to mod your PS2, but you can buy a 2nd ps2, mod it, buy cdr's and run linux cheaper then buying the darn kit!
Lets see you run Halo, Project Gotham, Jet Grind Radio, Sega GT 2002, NBA2k3, NFL2k3 or ANY game that the xbox breezes through on that system.
NO matter what, were not comparing apples to apples here. That PC above doesn't play DVD's, it doesn't have Dolby Digital Sound, it doesn't have a swank video card.
Tell me where i can get a pc, the size of the xbox with DVD playback, that can play games, rip mp3's, have ethernet built in and plug into a tv.
Uptime on all of our Solaris servers is usually over a year. We wouldn't trust our Oracle Financials and Web applications to anything else.
Great Support, Great Warranties, Great Service and excellent prices for what you get. Consider a 4 cpu V880 costs 50k, but you get 8 gigs of memory and 350 gigs of diskspace and a system that is "hot upgradeable" and the cost of downtime for your business is over 1 million dollars a day. That 50 is pennies to the cost of downtime and being able to throw in more cpu's, memory or change devices WHILE STILL RUNNING (solaris 9) is worth it.
Uptime counts when your business relies on it. Linux is great and all, but i need the stability or Solaris with Veritas in combination with EMC arrays and the support contracts that go around everything.
We aren't talking about simple needs when you usually buy sun equipment in which case if your looking for low end hosting boxes and what not, they're still even a bargain considering how many customers you could loose when your systems crash or need upgrades.
"What if i sold you a mod chip for your car that gave your free gas from any gas station using stolen credit card numbers."
The mod chip for the xbox isn't specifically for running Linux. If it was, what a novel idea that would be. The mod chip is sold as a way to run pirated games, dvd's and whatnot.
That is all the mod chip does. It doesn't modify your xbox to go faster, perform better or provide an alernative/replacement cpu/bios. It changes the xbox to run illegal software.
Microsoft isn't after the linux hackers.. no where did they mention anything about linux.
If you modded your dreamcast you totally wasted your time--the thing could play ISOs out of the box.
I got my dreamcast long before the "Boot Disk" came out, and to play jap games i needed a region selectable mod chip.
If you thing Sony and Nintendo didn't have the cash to shutdown Lik-Sang, well, there's a second reason for me to think you're an idiot.
You can think whatever you want. These companies have vastly less R&D money and legal funding then Microsoft Does. Like i said in my original statements Nintendo chose an uncommon media format, and Sony chose to sell a linux kit. Neither company supports mod chipping and for all intents and purposes it always invalidates your warranty and support. That my friend, is idiotic. They didn't shutdown Lik-Sang because they realized people don't like soldering crap to their expensive consoles, and there really wasn't a big effect on piracy here. Microsoft just went after them because they're obstinate bastards who want to defeat the linux xbox hackers at all cost. Both the hackers and Microsoft are motivated by ideology--linux on Xbox is without value to hackers and without cost to Microsoft--hell, Sony even sells linux kits to encourage people to develop ps2 development skills.
It has NOTHING to do with LINUX. Absolutely NOTHING. Sony charges a few hundred bucks for there linux kit, and i'm sure if Microsoft wanted the xbox to be a pc, then they too would release something or some 3rd party developer would do the deed. Yeah, modchips sure ruined the life of PS2 and PS1... probably the most successful consoles ever.
Yeah, successfull doen't mean there the best. Ford Focus's are a top seller, but they still suck ass. Porches and Ferraris are kick ass cars and don't sell very many, but that doesn't make them less valuable then the pintos and station wagons.
Bottom line, the hardware belongs to however buys it, not whoever sells it. That's what "buying stuff" means.
Whatever, tell that to sony when you copy their dvd's, tell that to the RIAA when your trading pirated MP3's.. Just because you "CAN" doesn't mean microsoft should let it slide. You can own a gun, but they're not meant to shoot people. Do you think owning a gun means you can do anything you want with it? Does owning your dvd mean you can now sell copies of it because you can? Does owning your dvd player mean you can modify it to play other region dvd's and copied movies? no company is going to admit you have this right and they will do whatever it takes to protect there rights. If its right or wrong in your opinion it doesn't mean you can call me an idiot for having my own.
Product manufacturers are liable for there product useage to an extent. Microsoft is liable to its share holders, its developers and the consumers of its products. Why would they want to allow you to change the way there product operates when you choose to mod the thing and electricute yourself or break the thing in the process?
Modded dreamcast that i bought from lik-sang to play imports not copies.
Turns out the boot disk later replaced the need for the mod.
And the mod chip for the PS1's do and still dent the PS1's profit margin for DEVELOPERS. I could care less how much Sony makes, that wasn't my point.
Bottom line, the hardware belongs to however buys it, not whoever sells it. That's what "buying stuff" means.
So in your opinion that means you can steal the software to, as that is the SOLE PURPOSE OF THE MOD-CHIP. They're note being sold as "to run linux" or anything other then invalidating the copy protections of the device you own.
Sony isn't hurting for money, they have plenty of slave labor help and government support they don't need to do anything.
It sure is horrble microsoft is a bad bad anti-competitive company and Sony is great. Which is worse, pay a bit more for decent product or buy the fruits of underpaid, over worked people who live in missery for there entire existance to support our need to consume.
Yeah, bad xbox. Protecting there value is a bad thing, be like sony, hire slave labor and work people to death so you can make profits in a tortuous way instead of a competitive capitalist way.
It may be 5% in the us, but Xbox is spending alot of time and money to launch in many countries over there that don't adhere to copyright laws.
If microsoft can't enforce copyright laws then they can atleast restrict the ability to bypass the included protections.
Japan Hong Kong and china arn't known for being copyright friendly and the Xbox has to deal with importation over there so any loss of revenue is more costly then what nintendo/sony faces. Nintendo chose to use an uncommon media and the playstation has a big enough us base that the percentage of modded vs unmodded isn't potentially as high.
Value adds are the features inherant to the system as designed. It just so happens that the xbox is a very "value added" system inherantly.
DVD, 5.1 Dolby Digital, Hard Disk, 4 Controllers, Ethernet, Fast Video, 64 megs of ram, HDTV support and many other XBOX features give it VALUE over other competing products and make it wanted and valued by many.
The devaluation is at the software and game level. Is Developer X going to spend 5 million making a game that can be pirated with ease because someone can goto lik-sang.com and get a modchip? NOooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Microsoft is protecting the value of the millions of units sold. Microsoft is protecting the rights of the licensees, distributors, developers and contributors of the xbox.
What is the value of hacking a system to use it for purposes of which it isn't intended or designed for and why can't microsoft legally fight to protect its intended and protected interests?
Even though i modded my dreamcast and could play pirated games, i didn't consider this a value add. For one, i couldn't read the japanese games and often times it wasn't worth the effort and for pirated games they were ripped, chunked, slow and missing features.
After my experimentation with "mod chips" it just wasn't worth it, and personally i see the value in the xbox of being a superb platform to begin with so i'm anxiously waiting to buy the excellent games that will come out.
As for liksang, i'm sure they were doing other things to get shutdown and i'm sure Sony, Sega and Nintendo have always wished they had to balls or $$$$ to do it themselves....
it was the "value add" of the modchips and ripped DC games that ended the life of that console. (and the ps2.. but sega cited the loss of software sales because of rampant piracy and loss of developers because of rampant piracy to be a big factor)
Microsoft is already expecting that the "xbox will see green" this christmas.
Considering a 1 billion dollar investment, with another 1 billion investment for the online division is already looking at profits within 1 year is simply amazing.
FUD - funny when it is on the side of MS for a change:)
Uhm, by default the xbox allows you to rip/play "mp3's" in a way (wma's in reality).
I think your blowing out of proportion your conspiracy theory as ALL consoles use DRM.
Nintendo uses rare miny DVD's, and Sony is known to change things around at will as well.
Even the Dreamcast used the "impossible to crack" GD-ROM's and that was broken.
Just turns out the Xbox seems to have an updateable firmware that can be loaded from games or something similar in which microsoft can adopt fixes/changes necessary to protect the copyrights and value of the xbox.
The Xbox is *NOT* a PC or a test bed to ruin your future PC experiences.
I tried out Null when it was released, and it does feel XP-ish, only without the horrid default color scheme of XP;)
I dunno about you, but the default XP theme is visually asthetic to use. Easy to read, easy to distinguish icons/visual alerts and "simple".
Especially when you move into LCD monitors and laptops. I have yet to see a linux desktop (downloading 8.0 to see if it helps) that without TONS i mean TONS of engineering and time spent on it look visually "asthetic" and not blocky or chunky on an LCD or Laptop monitor.
I run multiple LCD displays, si'm fanaticle about how my expensive equipment works.
ofcourse, everyone has there own opinion, but i thought i'd rebute the generalization that "xp sucks"
Yeah, MS Flight Sim is difficult, but a great product. Heck even the navy now OFFICIALLY uses MS Flight sim 2002 for the first 60 HOURS of training on any new pilot.
Don't forget about Flight Gear Flight simulator, if your workingo n such an advance project, why not use something with a nice dynamics system, 100% available source code and a great support community to boot.
http://flightgear.totalpilot.com for a fast mirror or ftp://ftp.totalpilot.com/pub/fgfs
Microsoft doesn't "OWN" the simulation industry, programs such as Fly! do great over seas and there are much more basic flight packages being used for advanced IFR traning where scenery and fluff isn't required since your plowing through low visibility IMC conditions anyhow.
i can't wait to see if CFS3 or MSFS 2004 makes it to the xbox. A yoke/rudder setup and xbox would be a beautifull way to play the game. Most pilots prefer stick and rudder and having the xboxlive network to be ale to fly and interact in a huge atc controlled environment would be a dream come true!
For one, there is a plethora of application that requrie an application certification before you can use them in a "supported" environment. An infamous application coming to mind is Oracle Applications 11i.
Mozilla isn't going to do the dirty work, so like every other version of netscape, they have a better chance of competing with Microsoft, especially with Oracle's anti MS beliefs to begin with.
Netscape "dummies" up the process so end users can plug and play, alot better then mozilla does, and netscape offers more bells and whistles that a normal windows user probably will use and enjoy.
I personally liked the fact that they're serving up the release quickly, (took all but 10 seconds to install over ds3) have been great on following up with fixes, and face it, without netscape there wouldn't have been a mozilla!
Tell me about it! I lost my hotmail account because someone who didn't like me running my website claimed i was distributing illegal copies of software.
Now i'm not upset, who needs spammail err hotmail, but the fact was this user said i was violating a law, a coorporation made that final and kicked out my hotmail/passport accounts.
All i was doing was offering flight simulator addons for download, but it turns out that there is a lucrative "pay as you play" market for high speed access to these files.
Apparently, my free high speed access pissed off these people so they claimed i was infringing on copyrights since there was no way i would do it for free.
oh well, just thought i'd rant about how corporate decisions can be final with no way to dispute them and if the RIAA wins, thats exactly where will we will be even to a higher degree.
Nah really, i don't see this happening any time soon. If these "laid off" support crews do anything, they will just learn computers.
We aren't ridding society of these jobs, just morphing them into different areas. We will need graphics artists, developers, computer technicians and people who can script, do voices and come up with the "soul" of these CGI shows/movies.
Times are changing, not dissapearing!
Re:You guys are missing the point
on
Penguin Airlines
·
· Score: 2
The aircraft may go for an asking price of 850k, but the other 150k will got to the insurance company for risk/liability suites.
I love the thought myself, but right now my "jet" is a "Compair 7" with a turbo-prop. I can carry 6 people at 250mph at a cost of about 100 grand after 2 years of building hehe.
AeroComp itself is working on a Jet as well. http://www.aerocompinc.com/airplanes/CA-Jet/
The experimental restrictions prohibit commercial use of such aircraft, but atleast it will help accelerate development/r&d of such aircraft to ultimately lower the TCO of Certified jets.
Slashdot Mirror
Paypal is now owned by Ebay.
Ebay wants to keep people happy.
I could care less about AbiWord tipjar. Other places with 1000x the amount of funds abiword ever saw do just fine.
I'm sure Trillians tip jar was larger then abiword's by 100 fold, yet they didn't have problems!
I don't work for paypal and don't know anyone who does.
1. I've never had a problem.
2. Been a customer "since day one"
3. I've done a few grand through paypal and while they don't have phone support, i've never had an un-answered email request.
I only deal with ebay sellers +5, i only take payments from verified paypal account holders and i keep a seperate checking account established for just linking to such accounts.
Paypal is a godsend for those who push money, goods and materials. I don't treat it like a bank, and i respect it for what is is.
Change your passwords, don't be "gullible" deal with good people.
Common sense people.
I think you over simply todays word & document processing.
:)
For example, we use Microsoft word with built in excell spreadsheets and ODBC queries that update charts in real time from an Oracle database as well as include visio stencils and other good stuff. This is a 40+ meg file in raw format and a lowly 1.5ghz with 512 megs of ram takes time to re-draw. We daw a huge performance increase from 1.5ghz to 2.4 Maybe "hyper threading" will help out even more.
BTW, it is about the same performance under linux using staroffice or corel office. KDE Office is even slower, so i know its not just the tools
For people who *WORK* using there pc, you can never have "too much" power. Its like race cars, maximizing performance for the job at hand.
Being a private pilot i get to see lots of ground from high above.
To tell you the truth, i don't see *ANY* land that ISN'T marked by humans.
Even the most dense forrests and pristine areas are loaded with new houses, barns, trucks, trailers, roads, pipes, power lines or something that we have planted there.
In a way, i'm jealous of the people who got to see the wild west and walk across america and stake out a piece of the world. Now i can't even go to a public park after dark! Sure wish there was some "free" land somewhere!!
waaa waaa waaa, cry a little harder Mr Lucas.
Just because DVD's usually use a Dolby surround sound logic instead of your expensive THX logic doesn't mean DVD's will put the industry out of business.
It couldn't have been the 100million you spent on marketing that ate your profits now could it? It couldn't have been there were times i could wipe my ass with something with your name on it that maybe, just maybe if you had produced a better movie and less fluff there would be some money to share????
It couldn't possibly be the 20 million dollar fees actors charge or personal learjets used to flown you around eating up profits now could it?
It couldn't also be the fact the economy has tanked and terrorism and other threats just make it more enjoyable to stay at home with friends and family and enjoy a great movie now could it?
It couldn't be the fact it costs 50.00 bucks to see a movie with 2 tickets, soda, popcorn and parking these days that a 5.00 7 day rental i can watch as much as i want just makes more financial sense for those of us living on a more down to earth budget.. oh nooooo...
the consumers are the end of the industry.. gotta love that ignorance.
http://toolbar.google.com/dc/faq_dc.html
:)
Install the google-bar and you to can use spare CPU cycles!
I like watching dvd's when i want and how i want, and they're already an affordable 9 bucks at alot of stores.
What i want to see is Launch.com use this for high quality VIDEOS as i'm sick of vivendi pushing the crap they want us to see and luanch.com is an awesome place to see videos of the songs we love.
You missed my point entirely.
:)
I was trying to come across as how can you compare a 200.00 pc to something like the xbox that is MANY times better?
The 200.00 PC is going to play OpenGL/DirectX games at 60+ fps, it isn't going to have DVD playback (smooth) with Dolby Digital support. It isn't going to have HDTV output.
My freaking point is that a goddam xbox is way more powerfull then those 200.00 pc's and i'm not comparing apples to oranges here. I'm just saying that the Xbox is a powerfull biest, it ISN'T A PC. I'm not chopping up my box, but for "hacking sake" you can't beat the Xbox and it blows away the PS2 hands down in cost, availability, performance and useability.
So if you want a small box that can be "hacked" into a pc that can play dvds, that supports dolby digital, that has a g reat video card, that has a 8-10 gig hard drive, that has ethernet and can be "hacked into shape" then go for it..
Just don't tell me how the PS2 kit is "k-rad" and when the xbox comes up it is cheaper to buy a peeceee.. last time i checked a ps2 and the linux kit can run up to 700 bucks.. is THAT worth it? sure you don't need to mod your PS2, but you can buy a 2nd ps2, mod it, buy cdr's and run linux cheaper then buying the darn kit!
oh well. i'm done.. no one understands
Lets see you run Halo, Project Gotham, Jet Grind Radio, Sega GT 2002, NBA2k3, NFL2k3 or ANY game that the xbox breezes through on that system.
NO matter what, were not comparing apples to apples here. That PC above doesn't play DVD's, it doesn't have Dolby Digital Sound, it doesn't have a swank video card.
Tell me where i can get a pc, the size of the xbox with DVD playback, that can play games, rip mp3's, have ethernet built in and plug into a tv.
Wrong or right, civil or criminal, this was an "Organized Crime Ring".
While its intents and purposes wasn't directly for the re-sale of pirated software, it was an organized crime ring transporting STOLEN GOODS.
This isn't someone copying a CD and violating the COPYRIGHTS of the software, this is basically "druge dealing" with the drug being the software.
This isn't corporations having more rights, this is corproations, small business and small developers protecting THEIR OWN RIGHTS!
Uptime on all of our Solaris servers is usually over a year. We wouldn't trust our Oracle Financials and Web applications to anything else.
Great Support, Great Warranties, Great Service and excellent prices for what you get. Consider a 4 cpu V880 costs 50k, but you get 8 gigs of memory and 350 gigs of diskspace and a system that is "hot upgradeable" and the cost of downtime for your business is over 1 million dollars a day. That 50 is pennies to the cost of downtime and being able to throw in more cpu's, memory or change devices WHILE STILL RUNNING (solaris 9) is worth it.
Uptime counts when your business relies on it. Linux is great and all, but i need the stability or Solaris with Veritas in combination with EMC arrays and the support contracts that go around everything.
We aren't talking about simple needs when you usually buy sun equipment in which case if your looking for low end hosting boxes and what not, they're still even a bargain considering how many customers you could loose when your systems crash or need upgrades.
It is more like saying.
"What if i sold you a mod chip for your car that gave your free gas from any gas station using stolen credit card numbers."
The mod chip for the xbox isn't specifically for running Linux. If it was, what a novel idea that would be. The mod chip is sold as a way to run pirated games, dvd's and whatnot.
That is all the mod chip does. It doesn't modify your xbox to go faster, perform better or provide an alernative/replacement cpu/bios. It changes the xbox to run illegal software.
Microsoft isn't after the linux hackers.. no where did they mention anything about linux.
I got my dreamcast long before the "Boot Disk" came out, and to play jap games i needed a region selectable mod chip.
If you thing Sony and Nintendo didn't have the cash to shutdown Lik-Sang, well, there's a second reason for me to think you're an idiot.
You can think whatever you want. These companies have vastly less R&D money and legal funding then Microsoft Does. Like i said in my original statements Nintendo chose an uncommon media format, and Sony chose to sell a linux kit. Neither company supports mod chipping and for all intents and purposes it always invalidates your warranty and support. That my friend, is idiotic.
They didn't shutdown Lik-Sang because they realized people don't like soldering crap to their expensive consoles, and there really wasn't a big effect on piracy here. Microsoft just went after them because they're obstinate bastards who want to defeat the linux xbox hackers at all cost. Both the hackers and Microsoft are motivated by ideology--linux on Xbox is without value to hackers and without cost to Microsoft--hell, Sony even sells linux kits to encourage people to develop ps2 development skills.
It has NOTHING to do with LINUX. Absolutely NOTHING. Sony charges a few hundred bucks for there linux kit, and i'm sure if Microsoft wanted the xbox to be a pc, then they too would release something or some 3rd party developer would do the deed.
Yeah, modchips sure ruined the life of PS2 and PS1
Yeah, successfull doen't mean there the best. Ford Focus's are a top seller, but they still suck ass. Porches and Ferraris are kick ass cars and don't sell very many, but that doesn't make them less valuable then the pintos and station wagons.
Bottom line, the hardware belongs to however buys it, not whoever sells it. That's what "buying stuff" means.
Whatever, tell that to sony when you copy their dvd's, tell that to the RIAA when your trading pirated MP3's.. Just because you "CAN" doesn't mean microsoft should let it slide. You can own a gun, but they're not meant to shoot people. Do you think owning a gun means you can do anything you want with it? Does owning your dvd mean you can now sell copies of it because you can? Does owning your dvd player mean you can modify it to play other region dvd's and copied movies? no company is going to admit you have this right and they will do whatever it takes to protect there rights. If its right or wrong in your opinion it doesn't mean you can call me an idiot for having my own.
Product manufacturers are liable for there product useage to an extent. Microsoft is liable to its share holders, its developers and the consumers of its products. Why would they want to allow you to change the way there product operates when you choose to mod the thing and electricute yourself or break the thing in the process?
Modded dreamcast that i bought from lik-sang to play imports not copies.
Turns out the boot disk later replaced the need for the mod.
And the mod chip for the PS1's do and still dent the PS1's profit margin for DEVELOPERS. I could care less how much Sony makes, that wasn't my point.
Bottom line, the hardware belongs to however buys it, not whoever sells it. That's what "buying stuff" means.
So in your opinion that means you can steal the software to, as that is the SOLE PURPOSE OF THE MOD-CHIP. They're note being sold as "to run linux" or anything other then invalidating the copy protections of the device you own.
Sony isn't hurting for money, they have plenty of slave labor help and government support they don't need to do anything.
It sure is horrble microsoft is a bad bad anti-competitive company and Sony is great. Which is worse, pay a bit more for decent product or buy the fruits of underpaid, over worked people who live in missery for there entire existance to support our need to consume.
Yeah, bad xbox. Protecting there value is a bad thing, be like sony, hire slave labor and work people to death so you can make profits in a tortuous way instead of a competitive capitalist way.
It may be 5% in the us, but Xbox is spending alot of time and money to launch in many countries over there that don't adhere to copyright laws.
If microsoft can't enforce copyright laws then they can atleast restrict the ability to bypass the included protections.
Japan Hong Kong and china arn't known for being copyright friendly and the Xbox has to deal with importation over there so any loss of revenue is more costly then what nintendo/sony faces. Nintendo chose to use an uncommon media and the playstation has a big enough us base that the percentage of modded vs unmodded isn't potentially as high.
Mod chips are not "Value adds".
Value adds are the features inherant to the system as designed. It just so happens that the xbox is a very "value added" system inherantly.
DVD, 5.1 Dolby Digital, Hard Disk, 4 Controllers, Ethernet, Fast Video, 64 megs of ram, HDTV support and many other XBOX features give it VALUE over other competing products and make it wanted and valued by many.
The devaluation is at the software and game level. Is Developer X going to spend 5 million making a game that can be pirated with ease because someone can goto lik-sang.com and get a modchip? NOooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Microsoft is protecting the value of the millions of units sold. Microsoft is protecting the rights of the licensees, distributors, developers and contributors of the xbox.
What is the value of hacking a system to use it for purposes of which it isn't intended or designed for and why can't microsoft legally fight to protect its intended and protected interests?
Even though i modded my dreamcast and could play pirated games, i didn't consider this a value add. For one, i couldn't read the japanese games and often times it wasn't worth the effort and for pirated games they were ripped, chunked, slow and missing features.
After my experimentation with "mod chips" it just wasn't worth it, and personally i see the value in the xbox of being a superb platform to begin with so i'm anxiously waiting to buy the excellent games that will come out.
As for liksang, i'm sure they were doing other things to get shutdown and i'm sure Sony, Sega and Nintendo have always wished they had to balls or $$$$ to do it themselves....
it was the "value add" of the modchips and ripped DC games that ended the life of that console. (and the ps2.. but sega cited the loss of software sales because of rampant piracy and loss of developers because of rampant piracy to be a big factor)
Microsoft is already expecting that the "xbox will see green" this christmas.
:)
Considering a 1 billion dollar investment, with another 1 billion investment for the online division is already looking at profits within 1 year is simply amazing.
FUD - funny when it is on the side of MS for a change
Uhm, by default the xbox allows you to rip/play "mp3's" in a way (wma's in reality).
I think your blowing out of proportion your conspiracy theory as ALL consoles use DRM.
Nintendo uses rare miny DVD's, and Sony is known to change things around at will as well.
Even the Dreamcast used the "impossible to crack" GD-ROM's and that was broken.
Just turns out the Xbox seems to have an updateable firmware that can be loaded from games or something similar in which microsoft can adopt fixes/changes necessary to protect the copyrights and value of the xbox.
The Xbox is *NOT* a PC or a test bed to ruin your future PC experiences.
I dunno about you, but the default XP theme is visually asthetic to use. Easy to read, easy to distinguish icons/visual alerts and "simple".
Especially when you move into LCD monitors and laptops. I have yet to see a linux desktop (downloading 8.0 to see if it helps) that without TONS i mean TONS of engineering and time spent on it look visually "asthetic" and not blocky or chunky on an LCD or Laptop monitor.
I run multiple LCD displays, si'm fanaticle about how my expensive equipment works.
ofcourse, everyone has there own opinion, but i thought i'd rebute the generalization that "xp sucks"
Yeah, MS Flight Sim is difficult, but a great product. Heck even the navy now OFFICIALLY uses MS Flight sim 2002 for the first 60 HOURS of training on any new pilot.
Don't forget about Flight Gear Flight simulator, if your workingo n such an advance project, why not use something with a nice dynamics system, 100% available source code and a great support community to boot.
http://flightgear.totalpilot.com for a fast mirror or ftp://ftp.totalpilot.com/pub/fgfs
Microsoft doesn't "OWN" the simulation industry, programs such as Fly! do great over seas and there are much more basic flight packages being used for advanced IFR traning where scenery and fluff isn't required since your plowing through low visibility IMC conditions anyhow.
i can't wait to see if CFS3 or MSFS 2004 makes it to the xbox. A yoke/rudder setup and xbox would be a beautifull way to play the game. Most pilots prefer stick and rudder and having the xboxlive network to be ale to fly and interact in a huge atc controlled environment would be a dream come true!
For one, there is a plethora of application that requrie an application certification before you can use them in a "supported" environment. An infamous application coming to mind is Oracle Applications 11i.
Mozilla isn't going to do the dirty work, so like every other version of netscape, they have a better chance of competing with Microsoft, especially with Oracle's anti MS beliefs to begin with.
Netscape "dummies" up the process so end users can plug and play, alot better then mozilla does, and netscape offers more bells and whistles that a normal windows user probably will use and enjoy.
I personally liked the fact that they're serving up the release quickly, (took all but 10 seconds to install over ds3) have been great on following up with fixes, and face it, without netscape there wouldn't have been a mozilla!
Tell me about it! I lost my hotmail account because someone who didn't like me running my website claimed i was distributing illegal copies of software.
Now i'm not upset, who needs spammail err hotmail, but the fact was this user said i was violating a law, a coorporation made that final and kicked out my hotmail/passport accounts.
All i was doing was offering flight simulator addons for download, but it turns out that there is a lucrative "pay as you play" market for high speed access to these files.
Apparently, my free high speed access pissed off these people so they claimed i was infringing on copyrights since there was no way i would do it for free.
oh well, just thought i'd rant about how corporate decisions can be final with no way to dispute them and if the RIAA wins, thats exactly where will we will be even to a higher degree.
patoooey
:)
Nah really, i don't see this happening any time soon. If these "laid off" support crews do anything, they will just learn computers.
We aren't ridding society of these jobs, just morphing them into different areas. We will need graphics artists, developers, computer technicians and people who can script, do voices and come up with the "soul" of these CGI shows/movies.
Times are changing, not dissapearing!
The aircraft may go for an asking price of 850k, but the other 150k will got to the insurance company for risk/liability suites.
I love the thought myself, but right now my "jet" is a "Compair 7" with a turbo-prop. I can carry 6 people at 250mph at a cost of about 100 grand after 2 years of building hehe.
AeroComp itself is working on a Jet as well. http://www.aerocompinc.com/airplanes/CA-Jet/
The experimental restrictions prohibit commercial use of such aircraft, but atleast it will help accelerate development/r&d of such aircraft to ultimately lower the TCO of Certified jets.