When I complain about PS2 exclusive titles, this is the answer I get back. When I give this same answer to PS2 folks, I get flamed. Nice to see the Slashdot double standard is alive and well. Too bad you're an AC or you could have modded me down.
If you think this sucks, then you fund their development and distribution costs. As long as Microsoft has the bucks, Microsoft calls the shots. This is no different than any other platform -- look at all the titles that are exclusive to PS2, with no PC version in sight. Oh, but you own a PS2, so that's OK by you, right? So buy an Xbox then and shut up already. Most gamers I know own several consoles for just this reason. Why else do you think they make these?
My refrigerator, like most, does not run 24x7. I got the 6.5 amps off the little tag with the serial number and all that other info. Go look at yours, I'll bet it's similar. And those people in the desert you cite don't go five days without sunshine, so they don't need nearly the batteries he's suggesting I should have to get me through a power outage. Remember, this was, "you should use batteries instead of a generator."
If a bank of batteries was more cost effective than a generator, that's what they'd sell down at Home Depot. But it's not, so they sell generators.
Yeah, but it was the textbook they required, so you had to buy it. None of these five alternatives would do you a damn bit of good when the Prof said, "Read pages 128-154 and do problems 3.15 through 3.24 by tomorrow."
Perhaps you missed the part about how power was out for five days. $70/kwh? For five days? My refrigerator alone draws 6.5 amps at 110 volts. You do the math.
I drive to the gas station and buy more. The power's out, but cars and trucks still work, and the local gas station has their own generator so their pumps work just fine. Do you drive an electric car? Hell, push comes to shove you can always walk to the gas station.
A) Got one. Doesn't power everything, just the basics (refrigerator, well, a few lights). With a propane cooktop and waterheater, we do OK. With hot showers and hot meals we were better off than most neighbors.
B) It's been seven years since we last lost power for more than 24 hours. These were rare, freak events. December windstorm. January freezing rain.
This is a GSM provider doing this to their customers. It's a switch to change frequencies (specifically, to add 850 MHz to the existing 1900 MHz). Apparantly phones with those features aren't available with 850 MHz.
Just switch to Cingular; you're all gonna be Cingular customers soon anyway.
You forgot the Unibomber and restrictions at the Post Office. The Unibomber has been behind bars for years, but you still cannot drop off a package at the Post Office -- you have to take it inside during normal business hours and wait in line for a human to take it from you -- as if that will stop the next Unibomber!
But you're wrong about TWA 800. It wasn't a Navy missle, it was a meteor. But they can't sue God for sending a meteor into the path of an airplane, so they had to blame Boeing.
In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set.
They won't control my TV set. I intend to vote with my wallet. Of course, I may not be able to watch broadcast TV after 2006 unless I buy an MPAA-owned digital TV, but I don't consider that a great loss.
In the late 1800's in the American west there was a boom in illegal activities (Billy the Kid, Butch and Sundance, etc.). The citizenry had enough and banded together (i.e., paid taxes) to fight back (i.e., hired police). Cyberspace is in the equivalent of the late 1800's in terms of working out who controls what. Now we, the citizenry, must decide if we want to hire the Pinkertons or establish a proper police force. Just remember, the Pinkertons were often as dirty-dealing as the crooks they were after, and the Sheriff was usually a former badguy with a badge.
I thought that was the whole point - that these little buggers were going to be embedded into everything you ever bought, for inventory and other commercial purposes. Remember the TV ad where the skanky looking dude shuffles through the store, stuffing things into his coat pockets, and when he leaves, bypassing the cashier, the guard at the door stops him and says "Excuse me, sir, you forgot your reciept." That's the dream -- they'll identify you as you walk around and you're charged for your purchases just by walking out the door. The nightmare is that if you revisit the store, they'll charge you again for the clothes you're wearing because they still have active RFIDs in them. The paranoid nightmare is that "they" will use all these RFIDs to track your every move. The government won't need to put them in your driver's license if Wallmart is going to tag your underwear (and socks, and shirts, and candy bars, and...) As for the tinfoil, you'll have to wear a tinfoil suit -- and you'd better make it now, before tinfoil comes with RFIDs!
Sounds like vaporware has moved from the soft relm to the hard relm. If the missing "feature" was advertized then I think there's a case for a lawsuit. Then again, I bought my PDA partly on the strength of a feature that is missing -- with no firmware upgrade available. Unless there's a class action, I'm screwed and they know it. But unless there's a fix, I'll never buy their crap again. If what this article says is true, then it's a short-term trend that will get the companies long-term problems.
Wait. You're saying that I could get one of these little buggers and stick it on someone and know exactly where they are?
More to the point, you could buy a six-pack of undies at Wallmart, shred them into itsie-bitsie pieces and put them, like lint, into dozens of pockets at the local dry cleaners. Then they will suddenly be tracking hundreds of "you". Whoever they are.
There are a thousand ways to defeat Big Brother, if you think about it. Paranoia just means you have to be careful.
Slashdot Mirror
When I complain about PS2 exclusive titles, this is the answer I get back. When I give this same answer to PS2 folks, I get flamed. Nice to see the Slashdot double standard is alive and well. Too bad you're an AC or you could have modded me down.
You've never played 16 player, 4 Xbox, split-screen Halo, have you? Talk about a kick in the pants! Well, a sniper shot in the head, actually :-)
If you think this sucks, then you fund their development and distribution costs. As long as Microsoft has the bucks, Microsoft calls the shots. This is no different than any other platform -- look at all the titles that are exclusive to PS2, with no PC version in sight. Oh, but you own a PS2, so that's OK by you, right? So buy an Xbox then and shut up already. Most gamers I know own several consoles for just this reason. Why else do you think they make these?
If a bank of batteries was more cost effective than a generator, that's what they'd sell down at Home Depot. But it's not, so they sell generators.
Sure, they wrote their own problems -- they were called "tests."
Yeah, but it was the textbook they required, so you had to buy it. None of these five alternatives would do you a damn bit of good when the Prof said, "Read pages 128-154 and do problems 3.15 through 3.24 by tomorrow."
Perhaps you missed the part about how power was out for five days. $70/kwh? For five days? My refrigerator alone draws 6.5 amps at 110 volts. You do the math.
2 cycle? What are you talking about? Those little Honda jobs? Even these are 4 cycle. This is what I have.
B) It's been seven years since we last lost power for more than 24 hours. These were rare, freak events. December windstorm. January freezing rain.
Not an academic question -- we lost power for 5 days last December and again for 4 days last January.
I used to work at AT&T Wireless. ankit is right; Pieroxy is wrong.
Just switch to Cingular; you're all gonna be Cingular customers soon anyway.
It's a varient of "fishing," which is a varient of "trolling." Or something.
"Jonnie Public"
"Johnathan Public"
"J. Q. Public"
"Johnathan Quincy Public"
You forgot the Unibomber and restrictions at the Post Office. The Unibomber has been behind bars for years, but you still cannot drop off a package at the Post Office -- you have to take it inside during normal business hours and wait in line for a human to take it from you -- as if that will stop the next Unibomber!
But you're wrong about TWA 800. It wasn't a Navy missle, it was a meteor. But they can't sue God for sending a meteor into the path of an airplane, so they had to blame Boeing.
In the late 1800's in the American west there was a boom in illegal activities (Billy the Kid, Butch and Sundance, etc.). The citizenry had enough and banded together (i.e., paid taxes) to fight back (i.e., hired police). Cyberspace is in the equivalent of the late 1800's in terms of working out who controls what. Now we, the citizenry, must decide if we want to hire the Pinkertons or establish a proper police force. Just remember, the Pinkertons were often as dirty-dealing as the crooks they were after, and the Sheriff was usually a former badguy with a badge.
Yeah, but did you try it with a new Twenty?
Remember the 80/20 Rule: 80% of statistics are made up, and the other 20% are wrong.
It's not the sensing that draws power, it's the lock activation.
Sounds like vaporware has moved from the soft relm to the hard relm. If the missing "feature" was advertized then I think there's a case for a lawsuit. Then again, I bought my PDA partly on the strength of a feature that is missing -- with no firmware upgrade available. Unless there's a class action, I'm screwed and they know it. But unless there's a fix, I'll never buy their crap again. If what this article says is true, then it's a short-term trend that will get the companies long-term problems.
There are a thousand ways to defeat Big Brother, if you think about it. Paranoia just means you have to be careful.