Same here, bought the console recently - to go online I had to update to 3.50. I do that, and a few days later there is a 3.55 which adds 0 new features... just canceled that upgrade. I'm seriously thinking of hacking it now, even though I have plenty of legally bought games to last me for several months - I also dislike their idea of no PSN w/o updates at all, why do they need to have any checks in place even for downloading demos?
Its very unlikely the students were unaware of what was going on, there are plenty of scams in India as well - this was surely an organized scheme with willing participants, who wanted to settle abroad and didn't care about breaking the law to do it. As an Indian, I guess our government has to make the requisite noises to show they care (hey they're politicians too!) - personally I hope these 'students' get on some watch list so they can't end up as 'naive victims' elsewhere too.
Oh and just an fyi, our foreign minister (S M Krishna) hails from Karnataka which is a neighbour of Andhra Pradesh (where all these poor innocent lambs came from). Not that I'm saying AP is full of scamsters - well it is, but that's true for most of India and the world;-)
I haven't even hacked my PS3 yet, but after upgrading to 3.50 and a few days later I got the message about 3.55 - I've stopped upgrading it. I rarely play online games anyway, and I don't appreciate Sony forcing me to upgrade each time even to download demos - what am I going to do, pirate all of them?
So far, they have Amazon to thank for me buying several games as I got them for reasonable prices. Seriously considering whether to hack the machine, I will lose nothing considering my offline playing and a hacked console can probably go online w/o constant upgrade pestering too. Of course if I do go this route, it will be quite tempting to just try new games with the full versions instead of demos, esp. since the full version is likely to have more seeded torrents available (and if I try to get a demo from PSN, I have to worry about bans & probably won't get to connect in the first place... )
You do know that the last boss doesn't lose HP unless it is staggered right? Just use Rav/Rav/Rav to get him into stagger mode, before you try to chip away at any HP:)
In general I'm a fan of FF, but XIII really disappointed me. Perhaps even more than VIII, and that's a pretty amazing feat.
Similar opinions here, I disliked VIII's monster leveling but its nothing compared to XIII. Luckily I bought it only recently when it was available for really cheap, and got enough enjoyment that I don't regret the purchase.
Some suggestions to get you thru the game (and hopefully enjoy it a bit): 1. Think of it as a tech demo for graphics & the battle system: I liked both of these, the actual ingame CG is even more impressive than the cutscenes imho (since it has to be done in realtime) 2. Skip all cutscenes with Vanille for first few chapters (say upto 8 or so), I didn't and regret that:p 3. Later on, Vanille becomes tolerable but Snow & Hope start getting extra preachy, so you might want to skip those scenes. 4. Don't bother with training or leveling up before Chapter 11 (Gran Pulse), just enjoy your tunnel ride with occasional looking around for treasure chests in obvious locations. 5. Consider having savegames before each cutscene so you can watch those again, we don't even get a cutscene menu after game completion:(.
As for 'what happened', I've read that partly it is due to the xbox space limitations - which does make sense, else not including the Japanese voices on PS3 bluray version is quite inane (but I'm sure they didn't want to highlight the space issues by differentiating it from 360 version).
It is actually a good game as a tech demo of the crystal tools engine, with a decent battle system (the paradigms are a good concept, not a big fan of crystarium though). Just don't confuse it with an actual RPG lol, let alone something of the scope of other FF titles.
You just need to make sure poor broke fat ass is accompanied by a face that looks like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise etc (or whoever is considered as a 'hot' actor, I don't pay attention to guys;) ). On this site, shouldn't that atleast get you an initial date with the Schiffer, Portman or Johannson lookalikes?:)
Considering there is a fairly good emulator available for PCs (which obviously don't have Emotion Engine chips in them), this might mean that it becomes easier to get ports of such emulators on ps3 perhaps - which would be great if we can also do postprocessing (4x AA etc.) on the PS2 games as well:)
Finland is 3.44% the size of the US and your population is 1.73% of the size of the US. It would be an embarrassment if you COULDN'T fully cover a country that tiny.
Pick a region of the US which is less than 3.44% of the total size, and has more than 1.73% of the population - like say, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles etc. To paraphrase your post, isn't it an embarassment that someone can't fully cover a region that tiny?;)
Just posting to say that I completely agree with your viewpoints; you're going to get a lot of flack for this but good to see that people are modding you up as well - no points or I would've done the same.
People don't seem to get that 'mercy' is basically escaping consequences for (bad) actions; and as such should be a rare privilege of the powerful rather than a universal principle. A king can pardon a minister for treason, because there is an implied threat that any further intrigues will get him executed. For random crooks, getting easy bail or minimal sentences just encourages others with similar mentality who see the risk of getting caught as low, and the penalties if caught as being insufficient deterrent.
I am very fortunate that none of my close friends or relatives has been the victim of a serious crime (bicycle examples aside, I'm sure many have had stuff stolen). But whenever I read about people committing multiple murders and getting off with 8 years and time off for good behavior etc. (or the usual 'insanity' plea!) I am amazed that family members of the victims just accept the punishment. If I was in their shoes, I would be tempted to go kill the murderer and then just announce 'ok now I will just sit in jail for 8 years instead, and I'm well behaved too so I'll be out in 4 yrs' .
Harsh punishment IS a good deterrent; to any future would-be criminals whether they are burglars, robbers, murderers, rapists - or just bicycle thieves. It is a simple matter of risk / rewards, which these guys understand quite well - if say shoplifting meant 1 year in prison w/o parole, sure a lot of people will whine how it is 'excessive punishment' but far fewer people will take the risk to do so.
Who's going to charge them - the crooks who stashed their money in the banks, or the bank officials who were happily profiting off this activity?
Its amusing (and a bit sad) to see all these comments of outrage on stolen data being used, but very little on how this helped tax evasion / bribes / money laundering etc. be detected & prosecuted.
Some people may be like me, wanting to have a good smartphone for occasional use of its capabilities but perfectly happy not using it to the fullest extent possible. I have net access at home & at work, my commute is around 20 mins or less and I'm driving at the time... I don't have a data plan because I realistically can't justify paying $30 for it considering how little I would benefit.
A non-expiring option to pay $40 for 1gb, that I can use anytime and just shuts off (instead of a surprise $200 bill) would be really welcome for me. That way; I can actually use my phone as a gps (its Android, so the offline gps capabilities are quite lacking) and also for quick email checking if I'm expecting an important mail. Oh and I don't plan to use satellite or street views when I want to navigate using cell gps, so I still won't need large amounts of data unless the apps are just badly optimized.
The only reason I am under contract to T-Mobile right now, is because I could get the Samsung Behold 2 (crappy Android 1.6 phone) w/o a data contract. Once my term is up, I'll probably just buy a good phone for full price and go prepaid, since all the carriers only offer smartphones with compulsory data plans so they can have higher profit margins.
Well yes, and apparently most customers didn't think spending so much of their income on food was as wonderful as you do.
And precisely when did these customers make this conscious decision? Rather than blindly walking into it...
Isn't that what customers are doing, when a supermarket comes to town and they have a choice to continue spending more at the local grocer?
Every consumer with a brain has a concept of what is the "right" price to pay for something. No, if prices were hiked then anyone would end up buying less...
And you believe it's right to sell processed foods at the lowest prices to the poor so they develop bad diets & health problems, with all the associated (depending on where you live) problems with health insurance or the strain on the public-funded health services?
Some things you can 'buy less', basic foodstuffs don't really fall into that category unless times get really desperate. If they don't have a choice, do you seriously expect people to buy less milk & bread to show how they are getting gouged and don't like it? The point the GP was making is that these supermarkets offer a welcome choice where earlier there was none, and the way customers switch to them in droves shows they are welcomed by atleast some segment of the market.
Also don't see the jump from more availability & diverse selection -> developing bad diets & health problems. Yes they also sell unhealthy food, but it is one more component in offering choices. Also, it is more unlikely they're trying to pass off stocks that are expired or past the sell-by date etc. as the PR dangers would far outweigh any small savings. And hey, they also have cheaper generics so the family won't go broke paying for their medicines:).
No idea on a flash demo, I guess one way would be to setup an android emulator & run Swype on an image - but that sounds like way too much work to just check it out.Simpler to look up swype related videos on youtube if ur curious how it works:)
> in case the rest of my money either got frozen temporarily (e.g. while the FDIC or other government or law enforcement agency takes over the bank and does an investigation), or disappears forever.
You would also need to lose all access to credit cards; else that should be a viable option while you wait out the month or so it might take - FDIC should try to distribute funds asap as there will be many others who haven't really made good alternate arrangements, and it would be political suicide for senators to not do anything about it. Even if credit cards are all gone (say due to identity theft etc.); there is the option of borrowing from helpful relatives & friends to tide over the short term money issues.
If I had 100k at home; I would possibly faint just hearing a fire alarm in the building;)
I'm talking about cultural/economic centers of Europe. There's a concept of 'Center' which has nothing to do with physical location (other than it be somewhere in Europe and a very popular place, as in: a nexus).
So they're trying to confuse people by saying its Terminus when really, it should be Trantor we're looking for?
I'm cynical about journalists as well, but note that (based on reading the summary) this law doesn't affect accredited journos; but rather bloggers, random freelancers etc. who might be more likely to break actual stories.
So future muggers will switch their stocking masks for ninja outfits; and escape in the confusion while would-be ninja vigilantes are busy beating up each other?
Final Fantasy VIII suffered from the same problem, if you try to level up your party in the first few areas all the weakling monsters nearby suddenly start learning advanced attacks. Really lowers motivation to roam around and explore, since rushing to the end and finishing off the final boss would probably be as easy or difficult for a low level party, so training them to be mighty supermen is pretty much pointless.
I'm sure open ended exploration can be quite enjoyable, but what I dislike about Oblivion's design is that iirc the level up bonuses to attributes are randomized, and of course there are specific ways to level a character to open up / max out most of the skills & attributes etc. I can accept random enemy encounters (Final Fantasy series for e.g.), random treasure in chests... but when an *rpg* game, where you build characters, throws virtual dice to help determine stats that can get really frustrating if I just want to focus on building up the party properly. I actually prefer the simpler format of Diablo, Fate etc. where every level up you get a fixed number of points to distribute among stats, no need to wonder if I should try replaying a level due to OCD about getting the best stat roll:)
Replying late, but wanted to thank you for the heads up.
I know that AM2+ boards can run AM3 chips; but mine is an old Biostar K8M80-AM2... which according to their site doesn't support any of the newer chips:(. Luckily the MSI 785GM-E51 that will replace it already has an update for x6 chips, though I will probably stick with the 555 (no need for 6 cores).
Many AMD motherboards with 710, 750, or 850 SB (south bridge) support unlocking of cores in BIOS - the feature is called as ACC (advanced clock calibration). In fact, right now I am sitting on an X2 555 trying to decide whether to keep it (and have to spend more on DDR3 as well) or return to store; with the potential to unlock it into an X4 955.
However, from some accounts AMD was trying to convince motherboard mfrs. to stop offering ACC in newer boards; so the fact that its working on 890 SB now is the actual news (if the article is correct). Not really surprising though, now that users are getting spoilt into having easy ways to potentially unlock cores it would've been pretty hard to stop that and make competing mobos more attractive:-)
The banking system is hardly an example of free market failure - when the first few cracks started appearing, if govts had just let the worst offenders die (or atleast nationalized them, wiping out all shares) then others would've learnt a lesson from it; but as things stand they're just a model for how to receive bailouts. And the reason they even dug themselves into such a deep hole, is because they've been helped before with all the influence they wield in administrative policy.
I'm not trying to argue for or against libertarianism, but I've seen banks used as a counter example a few times; and really wonder if it is even relevant to free markets.
It's called "situational awareness" and as a gamer I find its the only true thing that distinguishes "hardcore" players from "casual" players.
Not necessary that hardcore players are better at this, just varies depending on whether they bother about team play at all. I play Anarchy Online, there are plenty of people who will run in getting too much aggro from mobs, run away when boss is almost down because they got hit a couple of times etc. I consider myself a casual player, but its incredibly easy to have appreciative team mates just by assisting the healer and generally not being completely clueless;)
we have succeeded in taking a big stack of music, movies, books and software and transforming it from a thing of value into a thing with no value
Who are you referring to? The kind of pricing schemes used for even low quality crap, that people earlier were forced to buy just to try it out is atleast partially responsible for the rise in piracy. Music: How many albums have only 1 or 2 good songs to lure people into buying them, and rest is just fillers? In every iTunes thread people point out the advantages of only getting the good tracks and not shelling out on a per-album basis. Software: Before easier access to online reviews, more demos & trialware became widespread - there were tons of useless applications or games being sold at exorbitant cost, just hoping to fool enough people to turn a big profit. Anyone can specifically name companies that consistently release good products... that is because the vast majority *don't*. I play games on PC, and far too many new games are unplayable without applying the first few patches. Books: Don't really know of any specific books that have been hugely pirated, but it is much harder to do with something that most people like to read in physical form. The few books I've read online, downloading plain text files, were usually not available in my local library (in Mumbai, India) nor were they at the local booksellers at the time. I have bought plenty of books, esp. because they are often locally reprinted (legal copies btw) and hence not sold for some ridiculous prices due to $-Re. exchange rate etc. Movies: Not exactly an avid moviegoer, but imho majority of them are crappy and no wonder that piracy or even quick reviews on first day theater release is affecting their sales too much.
Even some places in Western Europe have decided to turn a blind eye towards certain types of piracy.
Everyone will try to turn a blind eye to piracy where it doesn't affect local industries, unless there is significant pressure by trade partners etc. If most movies & software are made in US and sold too expensively, other regions benefit from not cracking down on piracy in their region.
The "try before buying" idea is a joke. If I download a movie, watch it and delete it, why would I buy it?
If you only wanted to watch it once, why wouldn't you rent it? And I hope you weren't thinking of software as well in your example - demos or trial versions are a godsend to avoid costly mistakes.
Moving to an environment where entertainment is "user created" for free should be very frightening to governments as it means a huge reduction in tax revenues.
This is the real problem, tax rates always go up and never down even when a large economy base should afford good chance for better efficiency.
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Same here, bought the console recently - to go online I had to update to 3.50. I do that, and a few days later there is a 3.55 which adds 0 new features ... just canceled that upgrade. I'm seriously thinking of hacking it now, even though I have plenty of legally bought games to last me for several months - I also dislike their idea of no PSN w/o updates at all, why do they need to have any checks in place even for downloading demos?
Its very unlikely the students were unaware of what was going on, there are plenty of scams in India as well - this was surely an organized scheme with willing participants, who wanted to settle abroad and didn't care about breaking the law to do it. As an Indian, I guess our government has to make the requisite noises to show they care (hey they're politicians too!) - personally I hope these 'students' get on some watch list so they can't end up as 'naive victims' elsewhere too.
Oh and just an fyi, our foreign minister (S M Krishna) hails from Karnataka which is a neighbour of Andhra Pradesh (where all these poor innocent lambs came from). Not that I'm saying AP is full of scamsters - well it is, but that's true for most of India and the world ;-)
I haven't even hacked my PS3 yet, but after upgrading to 3.50 and a few days later I got the message about 3.55 - I've stopped upgrading it. I rarely play online games anyway, and I don't appreciate Sony forcing me to upgrade each time even to download demos - what am I going to do, pirate all of them?
So far, they have Amazon to thank for me buying several games as I got them for reasonable prices. Seriously considering whether to hack the machine, I will lose nothing considering my offline playing and a hacked console can probably go online w/o constant upgrade pestering too. Of course if I do go this route, it will be quite tempting to just try new games with the full versions instead of demos, esp. since the full version is likely to have more seeded torrents available (and if I try to get a demo from PSN, I have to worry about bans & probably won't get to connect in the first place ... )
You do know that the last boss doesn't lose HP unless it is staggered right? Just use Rav/Rav/Rav to get him into stagger mode, before you try to chip away at any HP :)
In general I'm a fan of FF, but XIII really disappointed me. Perhaps even more than VIII, and that's a pretty amazing feat.
Similar opinions here, I disliked VIII's monster leveling but its nothing compared to XIII. Luckily I bought it only recently when it was available for really cheap, and got enough enjoyment that I don't regret the purchase.
Some suggestions to get you thru the game (and hopefully enjoy it a bit): :p :(.
1. Think of it as a tech demo for graphics & the battle system: I liked both of these, the actual ingame CG is even more impressive than the cutscenes imho (since it has to be done in realtime)
2. Skip all cutscenes with Vanille for first few chapters (say upto 8 or so), I didn't and regret that
3. Later on, Vanille becomes tolerable but Snow & Hope start getting extra preachy, so you might want to skip those scenes.
4. Don't bother with training or leveling up before Chapter 11 (Gran Pulse), just enjoy your tunnel ride with occasional looking around for treasure chests in obvious locations.
5. Consider having savegames before each cutscene so you can watch those again, we don't even get a cutscene menu after game completion
As for 'what happened', I've read that partly it is due to the xbox space limitations - which does make sense, else not including the Japanese voices on PS3 bluray version is quite inane (but I'm sure they didn't want to highlight the space issues by differentiating it from 360 version).
It is actually a good game as a tech demo of the crystal tools engine, with a decent battle system (the paradigms are a good concept, not a big fan of crystarium though). Just don't confuse it with an actual RPG lol, let alone something of the scope of other FF titles.
You just need to make sure poor broke fat ass is accompanied by a face that looks like Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise etc (or whoever is considered as a 'hot' actor, I don't pay attention to guys ;) ). On this site, shouldn't that atleast get you an initial date with the Schiffer, Portman or Johannson lookalikes? :)
Considering there is a fairly good emulator available for PCs (which obviously don't have Emotion Engine chips in them), this might mean that it becomes easier to get ports of such emulators on ps3 perhaps - which would be great if we can also do postprocessing (4x AA etc.) on the PS2 games as well :)
Finland is 3.44% the size of the US and your population is 1.73% of the size of the US. It would be an embarrassment if you COULDN'T fully cover a country that tiny.
Pick a region of the US which is less than 3.44% of the total size, and has more than 1.73% of the population - like say, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles etc. To paraphrase your post, isn't it an embarassment that someone can't fully cover a region that tiny? ;)
Just posting to say that I completely agree with your viewpoints; you're going to get a lot of flack for this but good to see that people are modding you up as well - no points or I would've done the same.
People don't seem to get that 'mercy' is basically escaping consequences for (bad) actions; and as such should be a rare privilege of the powerful rather than a universal principle. A king can pardon a minister for treason, because there is an implied threat that any further intrigues will get him executed. For random crooks, getting easy bail or minimal sentences just encourages others with similar mentality who see the risk of getting caught as low, and the penalties if caught as being insufficient deterrent.
I am very fortunate that none of my close friends or relatives has been the victim of a serious crime (bicycle examples aside, I'm sure many have had stuff stolen). But whenever I read about people committing multiple murders and getting off with 8 years and time off for good behavior etc. (or the usual 'insanity' plea!) I am amazed that family members of the victims just accept the punishment. If I was in their shoes, I would be tempted to go kill the murderer and then just announce 'ok now I will just sit in jail for 8 years instead, and I'm well behaved too so I'll be out in 4 yrs' .
Harsh punishment IS a good deterrent; to any future would-be criminals whether they are burglars, robbers, murderers, rapists - or just bicycle thieves. It is a simple matter of risk / rewards, which these guys understand quite well - if say shoplifting meant 1 year in prison w/o parole, sure a lot of people will whine how it is 'excessive punishment' but far fewer people will take the risk to do so.
Who's going to charge them - the crooks who stashed their money in the banks, or the bank officials who were happily profiting off this activity?
Its amusing (and a bit sad) to see all these comments of outrage on stolen data being used, but very little on how this helped tax evasion / bribes / money laundering etc. be detected & prosecuted.
Some people may be like me, wanting to have a good smartphone for occasional use of its capabilities but perfectly happy not using it to the fullest extent possible. I have net access at home & at work, my commute is around 20 mins or less and I'm driving at the time ... I don't have a data plan because I realistically can't justify paying $30 for it considering how little I would benefit.
A non-expiring option to pay $40 for 1gb, that I can use anytime and just shuts off (instead of a surprise $200 bill) would be really welcome for me. That way; I can actually use my phone as a gps (its Android, so the offline gps capabilities are quite lacking) and also for quick email checking if I'm expecting an important mail. Oh and I don't plan to use satellite or street views when I want to navigate using cell gps, so I still won't need large amounts of data unless the apps are just badly optimized.
The only reason I am under contract to T-Mobile right now, is because I could get the Samsung Behold 2 (crappy Android 1.6 phone) w/o a data contract. Once my term is up, I'll probably just buy a good phone for full price and go prepaid, since all the carriers only offer smartphones with compulsory data plans so they can have higher profit margins.
Well yes, and apparently most customers didn't think spending so much of their income on food was as wonderful as you do.
And precisely when did these customers make this conscious decision? Rather than blindly walking into it...
Isn't that what customers are doing, when a supermarket comes to town and they have a choice to continue spending more at the local grocer?
Every consumer with a brain has a concept of what is the "right" price to pay for something. No, if prices were hiked then anyone would end up buying less...
And you believe it's right to sell processed foods at the lowest prices to the poor so they develop bad diets & health problems, with all the associated (depending on where you live) problems with health insurance or the strain on the public-funded health services?
Some things you can 'buy less', basic foodstuffs don't really fall into that category unless times get really desperate. If they don't have a choice, do you seriously expect people to buy less milk & bread to show how they are getting gouged and don't like it? The point the GP was making is that these supermarkets offer a welcome choice where earlier there was none, and the way customers switch to them in droves shows they are welcomed by atleast some segment of the market.
Also don't see the jump from more availability & diverse selection -> developing bad diets & health problems. Yes they also sell unhealthy food, but it is one more component in offering choices. Also, it is more unlikely they're trying to pass off stocks that are expired or past the sell-by date etc. as the PR dangers would far outweigh any small savings. And hey, they also have cheaper generics so the family won't go broke paying for their medicines :).
No idea on a flash demo, I guess one way would be to setup an android emulator & run Swype on an image - but that sounds like way too much work to just check it out.Simpler to look up swype related videos on youtube if ur curious how it works :)
> in case the rest of my money either got frozen temporarily (e.g. while the FDIC or other government or law enforcement agency takes over the bank and does an investigation), or disappears forever.
You would also need to lose all access to credit cards; else that should be a viable option while you wait out the month or so it might take - FDIC should try to distribute funds asap as there will be many others who haven't really made good alternate arrangements, and it would be political suicide for senators to not do anything about it. Even if credit cards are all gone (say due to identity theft etc.); there is the option of borrowing from helpful relatives & friends to tide over the short term money issues.
If I had 100k at home; I would possibly faint just hearing a fire alarm in the building ;)
I'm talking about cultural/economic centers of Europe. There's a concept of 'Center' which has nothing to do with physical location (other than it be somewhere in Europe and a very popular place, as in: a nexus).
So they're trying to confuse people by saying its Terminus when really, it should be Trantor we're looking for?
I'm cynical about journalists as well, but note that (based on reading the summary) this law doesn't affect accredited journos; but rather bloggers, random freelancers etc. who might be more likely to break actual stories.
So future muggers will switch their stocking masks for ninja outfits; and escape in the confusion while would-be ninja vigilantes are busy beating up each other?
Final Fantasy VIII suffered from the same problem, if you try to level up your party in the first few areas all the weakling monsters nearby suddenly start learning advanced attacks. Really lowers motivation to roam around and explore, since rushing to the end and finishing off the final boss would probably be as easy or difficult for a low level party, so training them to be mighty supermen is pretty much pointless.
I'm sure open ended exploration can be quite enjoyable, but what I dislike about Oblivion's design is that iirc the level up bonuses to attributes are randomized, and of course there are specific ways to level a character to open up / max out most of the skills & attributes etc. I can accept random enemy encounters (Final Fantasy series for e.g.), random treasure in chests ... but when an *rpg* game, where you build characters, throws virtual dice to help determine stats that can get really frustrating if I just want to focus on building up the party properly. I actually prefer the simpler format of Diablo, Fate etc. where every level up you get a fixed number of points to distribute among stats, no need to wonder if I should try replaying a level due to OCD about getting the best stat roll :)
Replying late, but wanted to thank you for the heads up.
I know that AM2+ boards can run AM3 chips; but mine is an old Biostar K8M80-AM2 ... which according to their site doesn't support any of the newer chips :(. Luckily the MSI 785GM-E51 that will replace it already has an update for x6 chips, though I will probably stick with the 555 (no need for 6 cores).
Many AMD motherboards with 710, 750, or 850 SB (south bridge) support unlocking of cores in BIOS - the feature is called as ACC (advanced clock calibration). In fact, right now I am sitting on an X2 555 trying to decide whether to keep it (and have to spend more on DDR3 as well) or return to store; with the potential to unlock it into an X4 955.
However, from some accounts AMD was trying to convince motherboard mfrs. to stop offering ACC in newer boards; so the fact that its working on 890 SB now is the actual news (if the article is correct). Not really surprising though, now that users are getting spoilt into having easy ways to potentially unlock cores it would've been pretty hard to stop that and make competing mobos more attractive :-)
The banking system is hardly an example of free market failure - when the first few cracks started appearing, if govts had just let the worst offenders die (or atleast nationalized them, wiping out all shares) then others would've learnt a lesson from it; but as things stand they're just a model for how to receive bailouts. And the reason they even dug themselves into such a deep hole, is because they've been helped before with all the influence they wield in administrative policy.
I'm not trying to argue for or against libertarianism, but I've seen banks used as a counter example a few times; and really wonder if it is even relevant to free markets.
It's called "situational awareness" and as a gamer I find its the only true thing that distinguishes "hardcore" players from "casual" players.
Not necessary that hardcore players are better at this, just varies depending on whether they bother about team play at all. I play Anarchy Online, there are plenty of people who will run in getting too much aggro from mobs, run away when boss is almost down because they got hit a couple of times etc. I consider myself a casual player, but its incredibly easy to have appreciative team mates just by assisting the healer and generally not being completely clueless ;)
we have succeeded in taking a big stack of music, movies, books and software and transforming it from a thing of value into a thing with no value
Who are you referring to? The kind of pricing schemes used for even low quality crap, that people earlier were forced to buy just to try it out is atleast partially responsible for the rise in piracy. ... that is because the vast majority *don't*. I play games on PC, and far too many new games are unplayable without applying the first few patches.
Music: How many albums have only 1 or 2 good songs to lure people into buying them, and rest is just fillers? In every iTunes thread people point out the advantages of only getting the good tracks and not shelling out on a per-album basis.
Software: Before easier access to online reviews, more demos & trialware became widespread - there were tons of useless applications or games being sold at exorbitant cost, just hoping to fool enough people to turn a big profit. Anyone can specifically name companies that consistently release good products
Books: Don't really know of any specific books that have been hugely pirated, but it is much harder to do with something that most people like to read in physical form.
The few books I've read online, downloading plain text files, were usually not available in my local library (in Mumbai, India) nor were they at the local booksellers at the time. I have bought plenty of books, esp. because they are often locally reprinted (legal copies btw) and hence not sold for some ridiculous prices due to $-Re. exchange rate etc.
Movies: Not exactly an avid moviegoer, but imho majority of them are crappy and no wonder that piracy or even quick reviews on first day theater release is affecting their sales too much.
Even some places in Western Europe have decided to turn a blind eye towards certain types of piracy.
Everyone will try to turn a blind eye to piracy where it doesn't affect local industries, unless there is significant pressure by trade partners etc. If most movies & software are made in US and sold too expensively, other regions benefit from not cracking down on piracy in their region.
The "try before buying" idea is a joke. If I download a movie, watch it and delete it, why would I buy it?
If you only wanted to watch it once, why wouldn't you rent it?
And I hope you weren't thinking of software as well in your example - demos or trial versions are a godsend to avoid costly mistakes.
Moving to an environment where entertainment is "user created" for free should be very frightening to governments as it means a huge reduction in tax revenues.
This is the real problem, tax rates always go up and never down even when a large economy base should afford good chance for better efficiency.