I've had two devices where the mini usb connector broke off in the last few months, while my N900's connector still works fine after over a year of usage. I'd blame faulty production over the connector type itself.
I did this recently, and discovered that out of the 40 odd PS3 games on my shelf, only 2 supported local multiplayer of any kind (Little big planet and blur for reference)
Came to the same conclusion a while back with my PS3 collection. Want local multiplayer? Dust off that Wii. Nintendo gets that playing together in the same room is half the fun.
I occasionally buy new PS3 games hoping for one that nails local multiplayer, but even if they do support it it's only with a passing glance. Compare that with Mario kart / Mario party / Wii sports / Wii resort / Wii party where local multiplayer _is_ the game.
It's nice for them to at least include the option for people who do want it. Games like MarioKart would have been way less fun and successful without local multiplayer.
This is the reason why people still enjoy games on the Wii. Split-screen/local multiplayer makes for a fun evening with a couple of friends (and plenty of booze).
Tried the same with the PS3 (I loved Fallout and Uncharted) but there simply aren't a whole lot of good local multiplayer games to be found. Every now and then we give Blur and Borderlands a go, but we quickly go back to Mario, Rayman and Wii Whatever. Perhaps it's just that the Wii and PS3 are both made for a different audience and I somehow balance between the two.
With AWS EC2/S3 you pay for bandwidth. Considering the amount of traffic I don't think this has anything to do with high costs (or perhaps Wikileaks racked up a huge bill due to the DDOS and couldn't pay). I would like to see a reaction from Amazon.
This shows what can happen if you host your business "in the cloud" and the cloud doesn't like your business, though this is an extreme example. As I recall they were booted from regular hosters before...
Google isn't limiting Facebook's access, Google is warning users that they're giving away their contact information. That's hardly "limiting the rights of its users" or "holding data hostage".
This is Google's API. You don't have a right unless Google gives it to you. Facebook isn't allowed to easily leach off of GMail users contactlists, boohoo. At most it will give the judge a laugh before he throws it out.
Besides, the Slashdot Freedom Fans don't give their data to Google in the first place. They also drag any "friend" who does share his contact list with Facebook out on the street and shoot them. I'd defend that as a mercy killing.
One of the reasons SSL is still not a default, even if you give out SSL certificates without cost like StartSSL does, is that you need a separate IP address for each SSL-encrypted host. This causes all kinds of problems especially for shared hosting environments that use name-based virtual hosting.
Of course there is a solution (SNI) but that doesn't work for anyone with IE on XP. So for now in order to have each non-SSL host upgrade to SSL each site would require both a SSL certificate and a unique IP address. Not that hard, but not trivial either.
Robbing the neighbors house (who don't have a dog) is easier.
Most dogs won't bite strangers, but why would you risk a barking dog when you can move on to easier targets? Sure, most dogs are easily pleased, but that means the robber has to bring those treats and risk the dog not being interested in them and bark instead. Why take the chance?
Burglars like easy pickings, otherwise they won't be in business for very long...
Now I'd like to reenter the field, but I'm finding that I know nothing about today's post-C languages, programming tools, and computing environments.
Great that you'd like to re-enter the programming community, but why do you want to?
If you're looking to be a code monkey again (as if), most jobs are for Java, C# or PHP with a bit of HTML/CSS & SQL on the side. You can pick any and make a decent buck.
If you want to simply take up programming again for the fun of it creating or contributing to an interesting pet project is more important than the language choice (with your experience you should be able to pick up any language within a couple of days/weeks anyway).
If you want to further your career you'd be better off aiming for a lead architect position, which is pretty much language-independent.
Doing so means you can DoS user-accounts with a single machine: simply attempt to log in again and again. The real user will now no longer be able to access the system.
No, blocking on IP+username makes more sense, or add a delay that exponentially increases in length based solely on the IP address (NAT notwithstanding).
Personally I like the default denyhosts-approach: Try root? You're out. 3 failed attempts? You're out. Feel free to try again next week. If you need tens of thousands of attempts you're in for quite a bit of work.
ie. they use the "open core" model like what the submitter hinted at: have an open source portion of your system but for any practical use you need to buy the 'professional edition'.
El reg had a small discussion about this a while back due to in part this blog post.
IMHO this is a business/marketing decision that will alienate open source fans. I have had to use similarly-licensed software in the past, don't think I'll actively pitch in with new features or submit bugreports for either the open or licensed version. You can make a business out of open source alone, you don't have to handicap your open source version to make your professional edition look better.
Thankfully this tactic should quickly lead to forks. For niche markets the community will need to rally in order to support the fork, but for that to happen you need a strong community, which tends not to develop around an open core product.
What is better, developing an iPhone app for 40,000 that is used by 100 people or developing a website for 4M with 10000 users?
But I agree, if government were to cut out the middlemen in website projects they would be able to get that 4M quid website for less than the cost of an iPhone app. But it's always easy to spend money that's not your own.
Except that the two plates from which Iceland has formed (American and Eurasian?) are moving away from each other instead of moving together and one overlapping the other. Besides, if this were the case the "density" would be greatest or weakest along all fault lines, which isn't the case.
The whole experience has been bitterly disappointing, like sitting around on a waiting list for months to get my new super exotic sports car, only to discover they neglected to install three of the pistons, and the transmission doesn't shift into reverse. It's really beautiful, but it doesn't run worth a damn, and it's basically useless.
Well, Nokia clearly stated that Maemo was a work-in-progress (step 4 out of 5), I expected the N900's APIs to be the running target that they are (although the device itself is superb, anything but useless).
N900/Maemo is a dream for us freedom-loving hippies but if you expected to make a living from it you're a few years and a few million sales early. Changes don't happen overnight and Nokia has decided very recently to go in the QT/MeeGo direction, let's see how that works out first.
I'm glad that there is some proper competition in the Linux smartphone market, Google doesn't need to own my phone too.
If you are using a mac mini for only streaming video/music you'll be much cheaper off (~1/5th) with a media streamer. Plug in HDMI and the network and you're done.
But then again, if you have a 5TB NAS at home you probably don't mind a bit of overkill.
Now, if places properly set up their lights, I'd *really* appreciate it. Constant speed is so much easier on your car (and it's fuel efficiency), than constant starts and stops.
Hear hear.
They placed a new exit ramp nearby my house with ditto traffic lights and actually got it right. With no other cars waiting I can cruise off the ramp and take a right or left turn without having to wait (or even brake) due to them placing multiple loops. Drive over them on the ramp and the appropriate traffic light flips to green, lovely.
But I agree, there is little incentive for the state to go out of their way to make existing intersections as efficient as possible. Nobody but you minds when you're waiting 5 minutes at 2am for a traffic light on an empty intersection.
Give me a lightweight, user friendly, hackable system with a browser, a terminal, and an SSH client, and I'll be a happy customer. And I know it can be done.
You mean a N900?
Funny how your post starts with not needing a file manager but ends with requiring a terminal.
Exactly, especially the models and textures are a long time coming. Current "FLOSS" MMORPG's have a different (restrictive) license on the media, never has there been a significant FLOSS-compatible 3D artwork repository.
Time to grab the media torrent and dust off that old game engine!
What you suggest is like Paul McCartney outsourcing a new Beatles album.
A better metaphor would be Paul recording a new Beatles album in a studio owned by a third party, which is acceptable.
I'm finding that some businesses do accept their core data being in the hands of someone else. However you have to make it very clear that they "own" their data, that you accept full responsibility, ensure service, security, disaster-recovery and that you give them the option to keep their data locally against additional costs. After that it's a "simple" pro/con choice.
However, if you go with a generic business cloud service you as a business deserve what you are getting yourself into.
Slashdot Mirror
I've had two devices where the mini usb connector broke off in the last few months, while my N900's connector still works fine after over a year of usage. I'd blame faulty production over the connector type itself.
Came to the same conclusion a while back with my PS3 collection. Want local multiplayer? Dust off that Wii. Nintendo gets that playing together in the same room is half the fun.
I occasionally buy new PS3 games hoping for one that nails local multiplayer, but even if they do support it it's only with a passing glance. Compare that with Mario kart / Mario party / Wii sports / Wii resort / Wii party where local multiplayer _is_ the game.
This is the reason why people still enjoy games on the Wii. Split-screen/local multiplayer makes for a fun evening with a couple of friends (and plenty of booze).
Tried the same with the PS3 (I loved Fallout and Uncharted) but there simply aren't a whole lot of good local multiplayer games to be found. Every now and then we give Blur and Borderlands a go, but we quickly go back to Mario, Rayman and Wii Whatever. Perhaps it's just that the Wii and PS3 are both made for a different audience and I somehow balance between the two.
And for all gamers who enjoy co-op: http://www.co-optimus.com/
Slashdot /-/ any other tech discussion site
Seriously, it's a miracle Slashdot is still going strong as it is given numerous issues and their 1996-esk Perl implementation.
Futurama-references aside, if someone came up with such a pile of code in 2010 they should have their PC taken from them.
With AWS EC2/S3 you pay for bandwidth. Considering the amount of traffic I don't think this has anything to do with high costs (or perhaps Wikileaks racked up a huge bill due to the DDOS and couldn't pay). I would like to see a reaction from Amazon.
This shows what can happen if you host your business "in the cloud" and the cloud doesn't like your business, though this is an extreme example. As I recall they were booted from regular hosters before...
You would be allowed to give it away.
Congrats with the hack & bounty marcan! It seems that nothing is unhackable in your hands, well done!
Google isn't limiting Facebook's access, Google is warning users that they're giving away their contact information. That's hardly "limiting the rights of its users" or "holding data hostage".
This is Google's API. You don't have a right unless Google gives it to you. Facebook isn't allowed to easily leach off of GMail users contactlists, boohoo. At most it will give the judge a laugh before he throws it out.
Besides, the Slashdot Freedom Fans don't give their data to Google in the first place. They also drag any "friend" who does share his contact list with Facebook out on the street and shoot them. I'd defend that as a mercy killing.
One of the reasons SSL is still not a default, even if you give out SSL certificates without cost like StartSSL does, is that you need a separate IP address for each SSL-encrypted host. This causes all kinds of problems especially for shared hosting environments that use name-based virtual hosting.
Of course there is a solution (SNI) but that doesn't work for anyone with IE on XP. So for now in order to have each non-SSL host upgrade to SSL each site would require both a SSL certificate and a unique IP address. Not that hard, but not trivial either.
Robbing the neighbors house (who don't have a dog) is easier.
Most dogs won't bite strangers, but why would you risk a barking dog when you can move on to easier targets? Sure, most dogs are easily pleased, but that means the robber has to bring those treats and risk the dog not being interested in them and bark instead. Why take the chance?
Burglars like easy pickings, otherwise they won't be in business for very long...
Thanks, that site is worth an instant bookmark from any dog owner. Lots of useful advice.
Great that you'd like to re-enter the programming community, but why do you want to?
If you're looking to be a code monkey again (as if), most jobs are for Java, C# or PHP with a bit of HTML/CSS & SQL on the side. You can pick any and make a decent buck.
If you want to simply take up programming again for the fun of it creating or contributing to an interesting pet project is more important than the language choice (with your experience you should be able to pick up any language within a couple of days/weeks anyway).
If you want to further your career you'd be better off aiming for a lead architect position, which is pretty much language-independent.
Doing so means you can DoS user-accounts with a single machine: simply attempt to log in again and again. The real user will now no longer be able to access the system.
No, blocking on IP+username makes more sense, or add a delay that exponentially increases in length based solely on the IP address (NAT notwithstanding).
Personally I like the default denyhosts-approach: Try root? You're out. 3 failed attempts? You're out. Feel free to try again next week. If you need tens of thousands of attempts you're in for quite a bit of work.
ie. they use the "open core" model like what the submitter hinted at: have an open source portion of your system but for any practical use you need to buy the 'professional edition'.
El reg had a small discussion about this a while back due to in part this blog post.
IMHO this is a business/marketing decision that will alienate open source fans. I have had to use similarly-licensed software in the past, don't think I'll actively pitch in with new features or submit bugreports for either the open or licensed version. You can make a business out of open source alone, you don't have to handicap your open source version to make your professional edition look better.
Thankfully this tactic should quickly lead to forks. For niche markets the community will need to rally in order to support the fork, but for that to happen you need a strong community, which tends not to develop around an open core product.
Ads on websites?
*hugs N900 with adblock plus*
And everyone with time on their hands this weekend can reimplement Roy's Java code that got him into this mess.
Do note that the EU patent office does and has allowed pure software patents, their legal status is dubious though.
What is better, developing an iPhone app for 40,000 that is used by 100 people or developing a website for 4M with 10000 users?
But I agree, if government were to cut out the middlemen in website projects they would be able to get that 4M quid website for less than the cost of an iPhone app. But it's always easy to spend money that's not your own.
Except that the two plates from which Iceland has formed (American and Eurasian?) are moving away from each other instead of moving together and one overlapping the other. Besides, if this were the case the "density" would be greatest or weakest along all fault lines, which isn't the case.
Well, Nokia clearly stated that Maemo was a work-in-progress (step 4 out of 5), I expected the N900's APIs to be the running target that they are (although the device itself is superb, anything but useless).
N900/Maemo is a dream for us freedom-loving hippies but if you expected to make a living from it you're a few years and a few million sales early. Changes don't happen overnight and Nokia has decided very recently to go in the QT/MeeGo direction, let's see how that works out first.
I'm glad that there is some proper competition in the Linux smartphone market, Google doesn't need to own my phone too.
If you are using a mac mini for only streaming video/music you'll be much cheaper off (~1/5th) with a media streamer. Plug in HDMI and the network and you're done.
But then again, if you have a 5TB NAS at home you probably don't mind a bit of overkill.
Hear hear.
They placed a new exit ramp nearby my house with ditto traffic lights and actually got it right. With no other cars waiting I can cruise off the ramp and take a right or left turn without having to wait (or even brake) due to them placing multiple loops. Drive over them on the ramp and the appropriate traffic light flips to green, lovely.
But I agree, there is little incentive for the state to go out of their way to make existing intersections as efficient as possible. Nobody but you minds when you're waiting 5 minutes at 2am for a traffic light on an empty intersection.
I dunno, cheat codes are a double-edged sword. Ever since I used iddqd my dreams have been boring. Even the chainsaw gets old.
You mean a N900?
Funny how your post starts with not needing a file manager but ends with requiring a terminal.
Exactly, especially the models and textures are a long time coming. Current "FLOSS" MMORPG's have a different (restrictive) license on the media, never has there been a significant FLOSS-compatible 3D artwork repository.
Time to grab the media torrent and dust off that old game engine!
A better metaphor would be Paul recording a new Beatles album in a studio owned by a third party, which is acceptable.
I'm finding that some businesses do accept their core data being in the hands of someone else. However you have to make it very clear that they "own" their data, that you accept full responsibility, ensure service, security, disaster-recovery and that you give them the option to keep their data locally against additional costs. After that it's a "simple" pro/con choice.
However, if you go with a generic business cloud service you as a business deserve what you are getting yourself into.