This isn't a problem: the government promised that SSNs would never be used as ID numbers! They even printedit on early SSN cards. So no one could use this for identity theft, right? Right? I mean, that'd mean the government broke its promise when it instituted the Social Security program. It's just like how the program could never go broke, even though it's a pay-as-you-go system. After all, there will always be more workers than retired people, even if people retire early... wait, abortion, birth control, and increased lifespan mean that there aren't enough young people to pay for retirement? So where's the money going to come from? I'm certainly not going to be paying 3-4 times what I am now in 30 years, right? That could never happen either. After all, the government always keeps it promises and plans carefully to fulfill its obligations...
HAHAHAHAH, sorry, couldn't write that with a straight face.
I'm not as impressed with that as I am with the fact that no one ha yet pointed out
data centers are using less energy that projected
. "Data centers that projected what?", you might ask, as I did. Nope, its a typo. Or an omission, since data centers certainly could project... but more likely a type.
Hmmm. I wonder if you could get around that some way. Windows 7 offers per process volume control, and I assume Linux does as well (though fuck all if I know an easy way to do it, although granted I'm still using Ubuntu 10.04. And not an updated one. I know, I know. Its complicated). Can a process control the volume for a child process? If not, it should be able to. Also, flash definitely should add support for that. Doing it in HTML5 should be trivial (the Opera function I already mention should do it already, I imagine).
Not sure if he can, but I can: here. Took about 5 secs of Google. From the article:
To play Diablo 3, you'll need a constant internet connection -- it cannot be played offline.
Amusing part: they're trying to spin this as "good" for players: "no longer will you have to worry about leveling up to 30-40, then having to restart from scratch on Battle.net! Everyone who wants to level to 30-40 and never play on battle.net: you can just go fuck yourself." Thats a paraphrase, but you get the idea. BTW, that would be people like me. No interest in online play, would love LAN/ singleplayer. It's OK: I most likely won't have to worry about either the DRM or playing online. Either through not buying the game or... well, use your imagination.
Oh yeah, and rich players can buy more power through this auction house. Next step: items that Blizzard is selling that can only be bought on the auction house. They might not do that: depends if Activision (aka Bobby Kotick) is really letting Blizzard be free to do their thing or not. Blizzard would realize that would ruin the game. Activision just sees the $$$$$$$ they could make, and screw the gamers (more).
Oh yeah, and no modding either, according to that same article.
I have always wished there was a right-click menu on tabs to mute them. Seems like your extension has to use a bit of a kludge to silence them (has to "scan" tabs to detect plugins/etc. You'd have to update it everytime something new comes along, correct? And can it really tell if it is making a sound, or only if it could make a sound?) Handling that in browser should be much easier. Off hand, does anyone know how difficult it would be to get something like this integrated into core Firefox/Chrome?
Opera does have an option to disable sound in webpages, but I'm not sure if it works on Flash or not. I don't think so.
That was my though exactly. TFA and the summary both say this works in sunlight, so I assume it has a fairly low threshold of heat to start "glowing". It seems like it might be possible to make them "glow" at room temperature. The law of thermodynamics wouldn't be violated AFAIK (the device would get colder, requiring new heat to be added... but there is plenty of that in our environment). The efficiency would be probably be... well, very, very low. Like I said, it'd be for low power devices. Essentially a regenerating battery, like a solar-powered calculator but working off heat rather than light.
Given that I am not aware of a single DRM system that hasn't been cracked, online requirement or no, I somehow doubt that the DRM is what is reducing piracy. I'm more inclined to think it's the shitty quality of their games making people not even want to pirate it. Just a thought.
Or maybe it just looks like they have reduced piracy, since the new cracks stop the game from even phoning home (they'd have to to crack it), while the old ones didn't. Just a thought.
Only a month? I've seen computers go for ~9 months w/o an internet connection still able to play steam games offline. Technically, I think you can go as long as you want, Steam just has a minor issue where it deauthenticates for some reason (incidentally, I believe you can backup the user authorization files and reload them if this happens.)
The button-sized power generator can tap energy from heat, the sun's rays, a hydrocarbon fuel, or a decaying radioisotope.
Looking at TFA, it looks like it takes heat, converts it to light in very specific frequencies, and then uses that to generate electricity. So, any source of heat whatsoever should theoretically be able to power these. We already possess thermoelectric generators, but they tend to be effective only at very specific and fairly low temperatures. Potentially, this kind of technology could replace conventional turbines in most power plants (nuclear, coal, et al. Basically, any that directly generate heat). Anyone know what kind of efficiencies these could operate at vs. steam turbines? I know turbines are fairly efficient (but large, hence this new tech), but it seems like these could (maybe) exceed those.
Also, if these things could be designed to require fairly low heat, then I imagine they could be used in basically any everyday device, generating low power from room-temperature heat. They don't seem to require the heat-differential of thermo-electric generators, so I wonder if they could supplement/ replace batteries in many daily electronic devices (pacemakers and hearing-aids come to mind, cell phones likely require way to much power). Anyone know if that kind of thing is at all practical?
Ummm, you are aware of how weak the gravitational pull of a 50mg chip would be, right? Even quite a few of them. Sure, there'd be a little pull, but I'm pretty sure Alpha Centauri would effect them more.
I was coming here to post this. A quick check on Wikpedia:
The fourth section for version 2 of the license and the seventh section of version 3 require that programs distributed as pre-compiled binaries are accompanied by a copy of the source code, a written offer to distribute the source code via the same mechanism as the pre-compiled binary, or the written offer to obtain the source code that you got when you received the pre-compiled binary under the GPL
source. So, in other words, not distributing the source with it isn't a problem necessarily, although I imagine they didn't add any written offers to provide the source, so it may be a technical violation. Since I'm sure they would distribute the source on request, and since I imagine you can get the source easily enough if you want, this really doesn't seem to be an issue at all. Except that RMS is... well, a little on the obsessive side, to say the least.
Interesting. But are they the fourth-largest seller of servers? Unlike Dell, HP, and IBM, they actually use absolutely massive amounts of servers, and they realized quite some time ago that making them themselves was cheaper than buying them from others. Can you even buy a Google server box? Data storage, certainly, but not the physical hardware.
And now with Google funding fiber projects, we might see a point in the future when you are requesting data from Google on Google-built servers over Google fiber. Makes sense for Google, and as long as they don't become an actual monopoly, doesn't seem too bad for users either. A little scary, still.
Look closer. At any points where they have actual data, the failure rate for SSDs is higher than that of HDD, except for the Google study, which I bet puts the drives under massive load or something else funky (given its massive difference from all the other HDD charts.) Only in the projections for the SSDs do the HDDs begin to curve upwards, throwing off the graph. And from what I know of flash memory, especially MLC (which most SSDs are), I'd bet that SSDs will curve upwards too. Sure, wear leveling will help, but if a cell fails with data in it, which can still happen, then that data is lost. So yeah, for any section where they have actual data, SSDs do have a higher failure rate that hard drives. Incidentally, that's a really terrible and deceptive chart.
This looks like exactly what you want. It warns that its in beta, though, so I'm not sure how well I would trust it. Seems like better than nothing.Says it does full encryption of the entire system, optionally your SD card, as well as optional firewall for your phone. Wouldn't rely on it without backups, but it should work. Also, you could look at a system that keeps passwords off your actual phone, like LastPass does. Not sure how well it works with Android, but I'd look into it.
Also, Honeycomb supposedly offers device-level encryption link), so if you can wait for that on phones, that'd work too.
Let me tell you a story about a taster of vodka. He was given, blind, and in random order, 10 shots of vodka. 9 were from a cheap bottle, 1 unfiltered and the other 8 passed through a water filter (this improves the smoothness of vodka) a respective number of times (1 once, 1 twice, etc.) The other shot was from a 60$ bottle. He was able to place each shot in precise order of smoothness by how many times it had been filtered, and the 60$ bottle shot was at the top. So, the unfiltered shot ranked a 1, the once filtered ranked 2, etc. I am by no means insisting that, between nearly identical products, the spendier is better. Well, obviously there can be psychological effects, but those will never pass a blind taste test.
The case of the cigarettes I mentioned offers an example. The Camels are not pure tobacco: numerous other chemicals are added to make them cheaper, so that the producer doesn't need to buy as much actual tobacco. The Shermans are, of course, pure 100% natural tobacco. Or your example of cars: the Toyota may be better, despite being cheaper. But it certainly is nowhere near as good as, say, a Lamborghini. For the uneducated (I am aware how snobbish that sounds), they will typically say that expensive=better automatically. This is not always true, as you say. But the more expensive can be made better than the cheaper. Sometimes the maker will rely on his name or the perception of difference to sell at a higher price. But usually, for an open market in an educated area, pricier=better. Not always, but generally. I.e. if you buy a $20 "iPod", you can expect crap. If you buy a $300 iPod equivalent, chances are it will be better. This is also why I said that learning is key. Most audiophiles can't really hear the quality they pretend to, and simply enjoy it more because they spent more on it. (In fact, this is a valid psychological reaction that really does increase enjoyment, so don't downplay it). But some really can hear good-quality sound. These rarely spend nearly as much as the "audiophiles" do, because they actually can tell that $1000 speakers are about the same as, say $400 ones. But no $100 speaker can match those $400 ones. (prices for illustration only, not meant to reflect actual real-world prices).
So you definitely have a valid point. But if you want real quality, expect to pay extra. And a little more extra because so few people can actually tell real quality.
Ummm, I think you need to look up clean room design, which is supposedly what Dalvik is. New developments can be worked into Dalvik through that process, while definitely keeping Dalvik as "not Java". It's Java in pretty much the same way an AMD processor is an Intel processor. They do the same thing, pretty much, they just do it completely different ways (or at least ways that aren't based on each other). Result: Oracle is being evil, Google not so much.
There is an age old adage. "You get what you pay for." It has been true for, well, thousands of years, and it is still true today. Yeah, most people are fine with the iPod Nano with stock earbuds listening to 128kbps CBR MP3s. Quite often, that person is a 15 year-old girl listening to Justin Beiber or Lady Gaga... but I digress.
Now, that is all well and good for them, if thats what they want. It isn't what I want, at least not normally. I want 320kbps VBR MP3 at a minimum, preferably FLAC, and over good headphones. Part of this is the fact that I am a musician: I've played classical violin for about 17 years now. I know what good sound is like. I'm certainly no audiophile: I care about the quality of the sound, but more about the quality of the music. I happen to have a lossless vinyl rip of a few songs, and the difference between that and your standard 256kpbs MP3 of the same song is... amazing. But I don't need the high quality to listen to it. I can listen to a low-quality audio stream just fine. I just prefer the higher quality, and am willing to pay a bit (but not much) for it. Most people don't even know or realize how much of a difference there is, and many of those either can't tell or don't appreciate it. This isn't snobbery: it's just fact gained from experience of music. Not just listening to it, but playing it.
So yeah, most people drink wine to catch a buzz. So do I (2-buck Chuck FTW!). But, if you know what you're looking for, and you actually have some taste acquired by experience in the field, then you really can pick out genuinely better wine, not just more expensive. And you will appreciate it more.
One field that even surprised me how quality can make a difference was cigarettes. Everyone knows good cigars are expensive, but before I started smoking in college I didn't even know there was such a thing as a high-quality cigarette. But there is, and they taste and smell much better than the cheap packs you find in gas stations. Comparison: ~5$ pack of Camels, vs ~9$ pack of Nat Shermans. The Shermans are leagues better. Would most people, even smokers, know this or care? No. Smokers prefer one brand over another, but its pretty rare to find one that actually cares about quality and class. I do, and so do many other people. Again, not snobbery. The expensive ones genuinely taste better. (smell a hell of alot better to.)
Aw, common, its' to hard to always remember all the rules of written language. English sure has it's exceptions which we just have to put up with. Me and you might find it annoying, but you're point is not relevant sense we all know what the summary means. Addressing just this minor point to the summary writer might be a bit insensitive to he.
Video game movies, more likely. Space Invaders the movie, and Asteroids the movie are both being made. Will they be any good? No.
On the other hand, there are still plenty of comic book movies. Man of Steel even looks kinda promising (Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder doing Superman). Ok, it looks very promising. So, no, the bubble isn't over yet.
And, like all DPI technology, can be gotten around by implementing something that should be standard on all Internet sites anyways: HTTPS. Completely bypasses DPI, AFAIK, unless they also have the tech to perform MITM attacks. Which they might, but probably don't. And that would add large overhead to their systems, so its unlikely to be implemented. Also, from the wikipedia article (correct link here) you can just use another port. So its not exactly hard to get around, but it is likely to block casual users.
Judging for most of Google's pages, they're more likely to ask "static pages? What're those and who still uses them?"
I recently discovered that Google actually has a subdomain for their static content (static.google.com, I believe), since they use so little of it. Somehow, I think Google is probably expecting most pages to be non-static.
Ah. Ummm, a strongly worded letter? Barring that, is it possible to sideload the app? I don't think any such PMP blocks that, the problem would be finding the.apk file. Also, its generally possible to get the marketplace working on such devices (this website lists instructions for Archos products, specifically). It really is a shame that Google doesn't work harder to make it work on all such devices, but I guess thats more the manufacturers problem.
The Android Marketplace has certain technical requirements that device makers need to meet to use the Marketplace which is here (PDF warning). IDK if any PMP meets those requirements, although I know as of 2.1 Google doesn't have telephony as a requirement, so they certainly could. Not sure why why the Archos doesn't have the Marketplace, but I bet not meeting the requirements is it. There are, however, alternate marketplaces you can install, many free, so I don't see it as an issue personally.
Proof of concept = cool. Proof of concept that appears to be using UserAgent to decide whether to work or not = !cool.
Its one thing to test for a certain feature that is required, and a whole nother thing to test for a browser, which seems (from what I can tell of their JS, I'm not a JS expert by any means) to be what they are doing.
At this point, it almost looks as if Sony's security team isn't just incompetent. That's pretty obvious. By this point, I'm almost wondering if some of them weren't/ aren't deliberately sabotaging Sony's security (well, those who actually know enough to do sabotage, which is looking like the minority at this point.) No patches/ firewall on their servers? Not using random numbers in the signature on firmware for the PS3 (thus revealing the master private key. Including that for Bluray.)? This? These aren't just huge, gaping flaws. Flaws require effort to exploit. These are just... not security. At all. Its like having theft insurance on a car, then leaving that car unlocked in a bad neighborhood. After removing the locks. Then putting a sign on it that says "plz dont steal." Then wanting the insurance money to cover the car after it gets stolen. Its simply not going to happen, at least if the court is anywhere near competent (or unless there is some weird clause in the contract).
Sony should be forced to pay, and probably have some punitive costs added as well, so that they learn to hire competent security designers. And pay them well. This whole episode is simply mind-boggling. Didn't know a company could be this incompetent and still exist.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't a problem: the government promised that SSNs would never be used as ID numbers! They even printed it on early SSN cards. So no one could use this for identity theft, right? Right? I mean, that'd mean the government broke its promise when it instituted the Social Security program. It's just like how the program could never go broke, even though it's a pay-as-you-go system. After all, there will always be more workers than retired people, even if people retire early... wait, abortion, birth control, and increased lifespan mean that there aren't enough young people to pay for retirement? So where's the money going to come from? I'm certainly not going to be paying 3-4 times what I am now in 30 years, right? That could never happen either. After all, the government always keeps it promises and plans carefully to fulfill its obligations...
HAHAHAHAH, sorry, couldn't write that with a straight face.
data centers are using less energy that projected
. "Data centers that projected what?", you might ask, as I did. Nope, its a typo. Or an omission, since data centers certainly could project... but more likely a type.
Hmmm. I wonder if you could get around that some way. Windows 7 offers per process volume control, and I assume Linux does as well (though fuck all if I know an easy way to do it, although granted I'm still using Ubuntu 10.04. And not an updated one. I know, I know. Its complicated). Can a process control the volume for a child process? If not, it should be able to. Also, flash definitely should add support for that. Doing it in HTML5 should be trivial (the Opera function I already mention should do it already, I imagine).
Not sure if he can, but I can: here. Took about 5 secs of Google. From the article:
To play Diablo 3, you'll need a constant internet connection -- it cannot be played offline.
Amusing part: they're trying to spin this as "good" for players: "no longer will you have to worry about leveling up to 30-40, then having to restart from scratch on Battle.net! Everyone who wants to level to 30-40 and never play on battle.net: you can just go fuck yourself." Thats a paraphrase, but you get the idea. BTW, that would be people like me. No interest in online play, would love LAN/ singleplayer. It's OK: I most likely won't have to worry about either the DRM or playing online. Either through not buying the game or... well, use your imagination.
Oh yeah, and rich players can buy more power through this auction house. Next step: items that Blizzard is selling that can only be bought on the auction house. They might not do that: depends if Activision (aka Bobby Kotick) is really letting Blizzard be free to do their thing or not. Blizzard would realize that would ruin the game. Activision just sees the $$$$$$$ they could make, and screw the gamers (more).
Oh yeah, and no modding either, according to that same article.
I have always wished there was a right-click menu on tabs to mute them. Seems like your extension has to use a bit of a kludge to silence them (has to "scan" tabs to detect plugins/etc. You'd have to update it everytime something new comes along, correct? And can it really tell if it is making a sound, or only if it could make a sound?) Handling that in browser should be much easier. Off hand, does anyone know how difficult it would be to get something like this integrated into core Firefox/Chrome?
Opera does have an option to disable sound in webpages, but I'm not sure if it works on Flash or not. I don't think so.
That was my though exactly. TFA and the summary both say this works in sunlight, so I assume it has a fairly low threshold of heat to start "glowing". It seems like it might be possible to make them "glow" at room temperature. The law of thermodynamics wouldn't be violated AFAIK (the device would get colder, requiring new heat to be added... but there is plenty of that in our environment). The efficiency would be probably be... well, very, very low. Like I said, it'd be for low power devices. Essentially a regenerating battery, like a solar-powered calculator but working off heat rather than light.
Given that I am not aware of a single DRM system that hasn't been cracked, online requirement or no, I somehow doubt that the DRM is what is reducing piracy. I'm more inclined to think it's the shitty quality of their games making people not even want to pirate it. Just a thought.
Or maybe it just looks like they have reduced piracy, since the new cracks stop the game from even phoning home (they'd have to to crack it), while the old ones didn't. Just a thought.
Only a month? I've seen computers go for ~9 months w/o an internet connection still able to play steam games offline. Technically, I think you can go as long as you want, Steam just has a minor issue where it deauthenticates for some reason (incidentally, I believe you can backup the user authorization files and reload them if this happens.)
The button-sized power generator can tap energy from heat, the sun's rays, a hydrocarbon fuel, or a decaying radioisotope.
Looking at TFA, it looks like it takes heat, converts it to light in very specific frequencies, and then uses that to generate electricity. So, any source of heat whatsoever should theoretically be able to power these. We already possess thermoelectric generators, but they tend to be effective only at very specific and fairly low temperatures. Potentially, this kind of technology could replace conventional turbines in most power plants (nuclear, coal, et al. Basically, any that directly generate heat). Anyone know what kind of efficiencies these could operate at vs. steam turbines? I know turbines are fairly efficient (but large, hence this new tech), but it seems like these could (maybe) exceed those.
Also, if these things could be designed to require fairly low heat, then I imagine they could be used in basically any everyday device, generating low power from room-temperature heat. They don't seem to require the heat-differential of thermo-electric generators, so I wonder if they could supplement/ replace batteries in many daily electronic devices (pacemakers and hearing-aids come to mind, cell phones likely require way to much power). Anyone know if that kind of thing is at all practical?
Ummm, you are aware of how weak the gravitational pull of a 50mg chip would be, right? Even quite a few of them. Sure, there'd be a little pull, but I'm pretty sure Alpha Centauri would effect them more.
I was coming here to post this. A quick check on Wikpedia:
The fourth section for version 2 of the license and the seventh section of version 3 require that programs distributed as pre-compiled binaries are accompanied by a copy of the source code, a written offer to distribute the source code via the same mechanism as the pre-compiled binary, or the written offer to obtain the source code that you got when you received the pre-compiled binary under the GPL
source. So, in other words, not distributing the source with it isn't a problem necessarily, although I imagine they didn't add any written offers to provide the source, so it may be a technical violation. Since I'm sure they would distribute the source on request, and since I imagine you can get the source easily enough if you want, this really doesn't seem to be an issue at all. Except that RMS is... well, a little on the obsessive side, to say the least.
Interesting. But are they the fourth-largest seller of servers? Unlike Dell, HP, and IBM, they actually use absolutely massive amounts of servers, and they realized quite some time ago that making them themselves was cheaper than buying them from others. Can you even buy a Google server box? Data storage, certainly, but not the physical hardware.
And now with Google funding fiber projects, we might see a point in the future when you are requesting data from Google on Google-built servers over Google fiber. Makes sense for Google, and as long as they don't become an actual monopoly, doesn't seem too bad for users either. A little scary, still.
Look closer. At any points where they have actual data, the failure rate for SSDs is higher than that of HDD, except for the Google study, which I bet puts the drives under massive load or something else funky (given its massive difference from all the other HDD charts.) Only in the projections for the SSDs do the HDDs begin to curve upwards, throwing off the graph. And from what I know of flash memory, especially MLC (which most SSDs are), I'd bet that SSDs will curve upwards too. Sure, wear leveling will help, but if a cell fails with data in it, which can still happen, then that data is lost. So yeah, for any section where they have actual data, SSDs do have a higher failure rate that hard drives. Incidentally, that's a really terrible and deceptive chart.
This looks like exactly what you want. It warns that its in beta, though, so I'm not sure how well I would trust it. Seems like better than nothing.Says it does full encryption of the entire system, optionally your SD card, as well as optional firewall for your phone. Wouldn't rely on it without backups, but it should work. Also, you could look at a system that keeps passwords off your actual phone, like LastPass does. Not sure how well it works with Android, but I'd look into it.
Also, Honeycomb supposedly offers device-level encryption link), so if you can wait for that on phones, that'd work too.
Let me tell you a story about a taster of vodka. He was given, blind, and in random order, 10 shots of vodka. 9 were from a cheap bottle, 1 unfiltered and the other 8 passed through a water filter (this improves the smoothness of vodka) a respective number of times (1 once, 1 twice, etc.) The other shot was from a 60$ bottle. He was able to place each shot in precise order of smoothness by how many times it had been filtered, and the 60$ bottle shot was at the top. So, the unfiltered shot ranked a 1, the once filtered ranked 2, etc. I am by no means insisting that, between nearly identical products, the spendier is better. Well, obviously there can be psychological effects, but those will never pass a blind taste test.
The case of the cigarettes I mentioned offers an example. The Camels are not pure tobacco: numerous other chemicals are added to make them cheaper, so that the producer doesn't need to buy as much actual tobacco. The Shermans are, of course, pure 100% natural tobacco. Or your example of cars: the Toyota may be better, despite being cheaper. But it certainly is nowhere near as good as, say, a Lamborghini. For the uneducated (I am aware how snobbish that sounds), they will typically say that expensive=better automatically. This is not always true, as you say. But the more expensive can be made better than the cheaper. Sometimes the maker will rely on his name or the perception of difference to sell at a higher price. But usually, for an open market in an educated area, pricier=better. Not always, but generally. I.e. if you buy a $20 "iPod", you can expect crap. If you buy a $300 iPod equivalent, chances are it will be better. This is also why I said that learning is key. Most audiophiles can't really hear the quality they pretend to, and simply enjoy it more because they spent more on it. (In fact, this is a valid psychological reaction that really does increase enjoyment, so don't downplay it). But some really can hear good-quality sound. These rarely spend nearly as much as the "audiophiles" do, because they actually can tell that $1000 speakers are about the same as, say $400 ones. But no $100 speaker can match those $400 ones. (prices for illustration only, not meant to reflect actual real-world prices).
So you definitely have a valid point. But if you want real quality, expect to pay extra. And a little more extra because so few people can actually tell real quality.
Ummm, I think you need to look up clean room design, which is supposedly what Dalvik is. New developments can be worked into Dalvik through that process, while definitely keeping Dalvik as "not Java". It's Java in pretty much the same way an AMD processor is an Intel processor. They do the same thing, pretty much, they just do it completely different ways (or at least ways that aren't based on each other). Result: Oracle is being evil, Google not so much.
There is an age old adage. "You get what you pay for." It has been true for, well, thousands of years, and it is still true today. Yeah, most people are fine with the iPod Nano with stock earbuds listening to 128kbps CBR MP3s. Quite often, that person is a 15 year-old girl listening to Justin Beiber or Lady Gaga... but I digress.
Now, that is all well and good for them, if thats what they want. It isn't what I want, at least not normally. I want 320kbps VBR MP3 at a minimum, preferably FLAC, and over good headphones. Part of this is the fact that I am a musician: I've played classical violin for about 17 years now. I know what good sound is like. I'm certainly no audiophile: I care about the quality of the sound, but more about the quality of the music. I happen to have a lossless vinyl rip of a few songs, and the difference between that and your standard 256kpbs MP3 of the same song is... amazing. But I don't need the high quality to listen to it. I can listen to a low-quality audio stream just fine. I just prefer the higher quality, and am willing to pay a bit (but not much) for it. Most people don't even know or realize how much of a difference there is, and many of those either can't tell or don't appreciate it. This isn't snobbery: it's just fact gained from experience of music. Not just listening to it, but playing it.
So yeah, most people drink wine to catch a buzz. So do I (2-buck Chuck FTW!). But, if you know what you're looking for, and you actually have some taste acquired by experience in the field, then you really can pick out genuinely better wine, not just more expensive. And you will appreciate it more.
One field that even surprised me how quality can make a difference was cigarettes. Everyone knows good cigars are expensive, but before I started smoking in college I didn't even know there was such a thing as a high-quality cigarette. But there is, and they taste and smell much better than the cheap packs you find in gas stations. Comparison: ~5$ pack of Camels, vs ~9$ pack of Nat Shermans. The Shermans are leagues better. Would most people, even smokers, know this or care? No. Smokers prefer one brand over another, but its pretty rare to find one that actually cares about quality and class. I do, and so do many other people. Again, not snobbery. The expensive ones genuinely taste better. (smell a hell of alot better to.)
Aw, common, its' to hard to always remember all the rules of written language. English sure has it's exceptions which we just have to put up with. Me and you might find it annoying, but you're point is not relevant sense we all know what the summary means. Addressing just this minor point to the summary writer might be a bit insensitive to he.
Video game movies, more likely. Space Invaders the movie, and Asteroids the movie are both being made. Will they be any good? No.
On the other hand, there are still plenty of comic book movies. Man of Steel even looks kinda promising (Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder doing Superman). Ok, it looks very promising. So, no, the bubble isn't over yet.
And, like all DPI technology, can be gotten around by implementing something that should be standard on all Internet sites anyways: HTTPS. Completely bypasses DPI, AFAIK, unless they also have the tech to perform MITM attacks. Which they might, but probably don't. And that would add large overhead to their systems, so its unlikely to be implemented. Also, from the wikipedia article (correct link here) you can just use another port. So its not exactly hard to get around, but it is likely to block casual users.
Judging for most of Google's pages, they're more likely to ask "static pages? What're those and who still uses them?"
I recently discovered that Google actually has a subdomain for their static content (static.google.com, I believe), since they use so little of it. Somehow, I think Google is probably expecting most pages to be non-static.
Ah. Ummm, a strongly worded letter? Barring that, is it possible to sideload the app? I don't think any such PMP blocks that, the problem would be finding the .apk file. Also, its generally possible to get the marketplace working on such devices (this website lists instructions for Archos products, specifically). It really is a shame that Google doesn't work harder to make it work on all such devices, but I guess thats more the manufacturers problem.
The Android Marketplace has certain technical requirements that device makers need to meet to use the Marketplace which is here (PDF warning). IDK if any PMP meets those requirements, although I know as of 2.1 Google doesn't have telephony as a requirement, so they certainly could. Not sure why why the Archos doesn't have the Marketplace, but I bet not meeting the requirements is it. There are, however, alternate marketplaces you can install, many free, so I don't see it as an issue personally.
Proof of concept = cool. Proof of concept that appears to be using UserAgent to decide whether to work or not = !cool.
Its one thing to test for a certain feature that is required, and a whole nother thing to test for a browser, which seems (from what I can tell of their JS, I'm not a JS expert by any means) to be what they are doing.
At this point, it almost looks as if Sony's security team isn't just incompetent. That's pretty obvious. By this point, I'm almost wondering if some of them weren't/ aren't deliberately sabotaging Sony's security (well, those who actually know enough to do sabotage, which is looking like the minority at this point.) No patches/ firewall on their servers? Not using random numbers in the signature on firmware for the PS3 (thus revealing the master private key. Including that for Bluray.)? This? These aren't just huge, gaping flaws. Flaws require effort to exploit. These are just... not security. At all. Its like having theft insurance on a car, then leaving that car unlocked in a bad neighborhood. After removing the locks. Then putting a sign on it that says "plz dont steal." Then wanting the insurance money to cover the car after it gets stolen. Its simply not going to happen, at least if the court is anywhere near competent (or unless there is some weird clause in the contract).
Sony should be forced to pay, and probably have some punitive costs added as well, so that they learn to hire competent security designers. And pay them well. This whole episode is simply mind-boggling. Didn't know a company could be this incompetent and still exist.