Buying an Xbox doesn't mean you get to decide how they run the Live service. Buying Diablo 2 doesn't give you the right to run your own Battle.net server.
The former is valid, the Live service is Microsoft's property. The latter is not valid, the Battle.net server (bnetd) was *not* Blizzard's property.
If someone wanted to create a "Mod-chip okay!" XBox Live service, I think that should be perfectly fine. Likewise, if someone wants to create a "Cheaters welcome!" (or "Not welcome!" depending on your view of how Blizzard handles cheaters) version of Battle.net, more power to them as far as I'm concerned.
But it doesn't always have to be about cheating or mod-chipping or piracy, maybe I want to run a gaming network where stats for all sorts of different games, including Battle.net games, all get compiled into the same rankings. Or maybe I want to modify the rules somewhat. It shouldn't be illegal. I don't care if it is or isn't under current copyright law and licensing agreements and other stupidity, it shouldn't be.
I compared both the iHP-120 and the Rio Karma myself before buying the iRiver product, and I am very very happy. Both play oggs, both are 20GB, both have great battery life, but the iRiver has more. First and foremost it uses the USB Mass Storage interface. No need for silly Java software, you just connect it to a USB-enabled computer and can transfer files natively, in Mac, Linux or Windows. That includes non-music files, too, unlike the Karma.
Secondly, no lockup issues. If a hard drive is making grinding noises and slamming it makes it work again, that sounds very much like a head crash to me. Uh. That's bad, by the way. Expect the life of that player to be low. If there really was a head crash, it probably scraped some shavings off the disk. Nevermind the fact that that part of the disk is probably ruined, you've now got little metal shavings whizzing around inside your cleanroom-environment-sealed 4200rpm+ hard disk. A head crash is eventually fatal to the drive in most cases.
Compare this to the worst complaint I've had with the iRiver, which is that the built-in microphone will record some prominent harddrive noise if you fill the in-memory buffer while recording, which makes long recordings useless for anything but personal reference. Which is generally fine. The external mic doesn't have this problem, of course.
Anyway, very happy with my iRiver. Even moreso now. Thanks!
I use a Rakgear backpack that works pretty good. It's not all that conspicuous, but it is a well-designed laptop bag I think, is fairly comfortable, etc.
if the games cant be sold in multiple platform, in near future i see lots of Marios and Pokemons and other Nintendo-produced games..
Well, thank god. I don't know if you have a GBA(SP) or not, but if you've ever played any of the games, you'd know that the only good games for it are designed for it. Being a portable adds many unique challenges. Games that fail to meet the standards are not needed or welcome. That includes all half-assed multiplatform games, which generally are so poorly done that they are not wanted on any system, much less a portable system.
Even moreso than simply getting employed, indepdendent contracting requires a robust network of contacts. It's all about networking, and not in the IT sense. Chances are very good you do not have much if anything in the way of professional contacts at the moment. That will make contracting nearly impossible.
One good way to get a good network of contacts is to get a job or two and develop your network of contacts there. Even better if you can find a job with an established contracting company. They will have the reputation neccessary to get the contracts, but you will be the person who goes out to the site, and you develop your own personal reputation in the course of the job. Those very same people you were just contracted out by your employer to may soon be your bread and butter as an independent contractor. They know you, they know your work (and presumably are happy with it), and they may be in need of additional contracting in the near future.
Regardless of where you get your job, get chummy with everyone. Networking, networking, networking. Everyone you meet will probably know of a job you can do now and then, whether they need something done, or they know a guy who knows a guy who needs something done. Remember, you're not just gaining one contact, you're gaining their whole network.
Anyway, I don't think it's feasable to become an independent contractor right out of school. When it comes to life, resigning yourself to "I know I won't make much money" is rarely good enough, because even though it sounds like it's the ultimate sacrifice, it's not. The real challenge is sucking it up and doing something you really don't want to do, if it'll put you in a better position down the road.
Nope, it's not. I have a 7/1 buisness DSL connection from a small local ISP who I am on excellent terms with. And yes, like most things in life there is a risk, though it's less of a risk here in Canada than it is in the USA.
I did just this when my 18 month old Toshiba Satellite Pro 3000 partially died making it useless for its primary purpose because the LCD backlight failed. I had only just replaced the battery because that had died and the case was made from a brittle plastic that left it prone to cracks and chipping. Basically, Toshiba isn't getting any more of my money
Mine had almost the exact same problems, except the CD-RW died as well. Yours lasted longer than mine, mine self destructed a few weeks after the 1 year warranty expired. The backlight failure was the last straw.
does this include the long term where energy usage and population continue to increase?
No. If humans can't figure out their current rate of growth is unsustainable, then there isn't much hope for us, is there? We'll run out of space, we'll run out of food, we'll run out of power, we'll run out of fresh water, we'll run out of oxygen. Besides, all developed nations that I know of are either very close to, or have fallen below the rate of self-sustaining childbirth. They are all growing only because of immigration. The population boom is coming from developing and undeveloped countries. As those countries mature, their birth rates will likely also decline. I do not believe the growth will continue indefinitely.
Besides, what do you propose? Wishing there was more fossil fuels? I mean, I'm okay with fission, but on a planetary scale it isn't as feasable as it sounds. There's only so much easily obtainable uranium before we start to run into the same problems as fossil fuels. There are a host of other problems with fission too, and it's only a feasable option where you have a large body of water. With the exception of fission, every other power source we have available to us is a product of solar energy. It seems like it would make sense to cut out the middlemen and find a way to harness it.
The problem is that given where most of the excess energy comes from (coal, natural gas) it actually is more efficient in a net-energy sense to build a powerplant within a few miles of the coal mine/gas gathering system, and ship the electricity via transmission lines than it is to truck the coal or LNG to a powerplant all the way Southern California.
You're probably thinking that natural gas, at least, can be piped there with little transmission losses, and no trucks involved. Well, perhaps. But even if you built a pipeline (don't expect to use existing pipelines, they're already quite full with the natural gas that isn't going to be used for electrical generation) it's going to be very expensive up front, and it's not even guaranteed that you'd be able to pay that back with savings before the natural gas supplies collapse, or at least shrink to the point where they're using all their production capacity to fill non-electrical-generation demands. And unlike oil, where recovery factors are 20-30% at best, modern gas well recovery is currently around 95%. When we 'run out' of natural gas, it'll be because we're *really* out.
Fun!
Nope, solar, wind, and hydroelectric power is definitely the way to go if you're thinking long term.
There's a big difference between what the computer draws from a native-voltage, DC source like a battery and what it draws from mains 115VAC power. Also, I think the guy was talking about desktop computers, rather than a heavily power-optimized laptop.
We can do anything we put our minds to. Unfortunately, most of our minds seem to be busy being terrified by terrorism, so depending on how long it takes for people to realize they need to get on with their lives, it may be a long time away. If we focused on it the way people did with the moon landings, we could probably see a working space elevator in 10 years. Especially if the whole world was involved, not just the US. (Yes, I realize that brings problems of it's own, see: ISS, but imagine where the ISS would be right now if it had been a US-only venture. Empty, even less complete, and mothballed until the shuttles start flying again. Doh!)
This thing is only going a fraction of the required speed.
I think that most of us realize that this is merely a baby step. But it is still a step. Actually, it's two. "Step one: brainstorming" and "step two: proof of concept". We've got lots of ideas. The first has demonstrated proof of concept and won the prize, but it's likely that other teams still intend to show off their proof of concept as well. From there, we'll have quite a few innovative ideas which we can start developing and combining into something a bit more useful.
Unfortunately, I think the only way to really open up space is going to involve a space elevator. That's a long way off though. With some development, this will help to make some of those things marginally feasable in the meantime.
Every morning on my way to work I see cylers who pook along in the middle of the lane, (hey if you can't keep up with the traffic you need to be over to the side)
I'm sorry, but that's just not true. What part of 'sharing' the road do you not understand? Sharing does not mean 'I get the garbage part of the road you don't want to use'. Construction, left turners, and pedestrian crosswalks slow you down too, and that's not their fault, it's just how the rules of the road work. Suck it up, you're the one with the problem, not them.
Having owned something is different from using something. I don't suppose you have ever purchased a computer component of some sort and been disappointed with it?
And you think the middle east is more stable now that the U.S. has a puppet state right in the middle of it?
The same thing that has been happening around Israel will happen around Iraq, only it'll be much worse. If you think Bush is bringing stability to the middle east, you need to learn a little more about the history of the region. No one who has any knowledge of the situation (I'm talking about diplomats, middle-eastern studies professors, etc.) thinks that this is going to help.
If you can connect "planes crashing into WTC" to "Saddam Hussein's Iraq" without lying or drawing upon lies invented by others, then I'll give you a cookie. Until then, your argument does not serve as justification for taking over and occupying a soverign nation. Sorry.
Ever met anyone who uses one? Nope, me neither, and I hang out with a lot of professional modelling/sports/commercial photographers. It's by all accounts a horrible camera. It cannot do long exposures, it cannot do moderate or high ISO sensitivies, the images are badly softened, it's built about as ergonomically as a brick, and the battery life sucks. Of course, I've never owned one, that's all just hearsay from people who have.
The 14n is like a poster-child for all of Kodak's cameras. Too little too late.
They don't. Not in any meaningful way. They produce a few middle-of-the-road point and shoot cameras that don't even really compete on features or price with the rest of the market. The only thing they've got going for them is their name. Much like Minolta, they were busy putzing around and not even really paying attention to their film business while other people were busy jumping on the digital bandwagon. They could've either gone digital, or consolidated the film market after everyone else refocused on digital. They missed not one big opportunity, but two. Now they've got a big game of catch-up to play which they likely won't succeed at.
As far as digital goes, Pentax and a few others have the low-end market pretty well covered, Sony and Canon have near-complete domination of the high-end point and shoots, and Canon and Nikon have complete domination of the digital SLRs. Where will Kodak find a niche?
Canon is quickly establishing themselves as the king of digital photography, with a very strong showing in film cameras to boot.
an application whose primary use is to allow people with pirated versions of Blizzard games to play them online = good guys.
That's it's primary use? Gee, I didn't see that anywhere in the documentation. So, do you run your email through hotmail? After all, I've been told that the primary use of running your own mail server is to receive pirated software through attachments.
Innocent until proven guilty, okay? If I wanted to create my own Neverwinter Nights server that didn't use AD&D 3rd Edition rules (something that I do actually want to do, but don't have the time for) should I really be legally barred from doing that because I may use it for piracy?
It usually takes longer for this unscientific, unfounded idiocy to pop up on a wind turbine story, but here you are. Congratulations. People like you make it clear you have never seen a wind turbine, have no concept of environmental conservation, and are just parroting anti-wind lies invented by people vehemently opposed to reducing dependence on oil.
BIG, SLOW MOVING BLADES DO NOT CHOP THINGS UP. PERIOD. The danger posed is extremely minimal. It's theoretically possible for a bird to run into one of the slim, slow-moving blades, and that would likely cause injury, just as if they had run into one of our fancy new all-glass-exterior skyscrapers. But more birds are killed every minute by deforestation and destruction of wetlands, than will be killed by this thing in its entire working lifetime.
DTS encoders aren't junk. DTS is "Digital Theater System". It's for surround sound. You've probably heard of it before. There's a DTS decoder in most DVD players and surround sound systems, almost all DVDs contain DTS soundtracks. It's a digital format, and therefore non-lossy, which I would think would appeal to an audiophile, but then these are the same people who slobber over vacuum tube amps, so who really knows...
A DTS encoder, like the one on my nVIDIA nForce2 motherboard (true audiophile equipment there, I know.:P) is merely a chip that produces DTS data which can be read by a DTS decoder. For me, this serves a practical purpose in that I can tell games to output to EAX or whatever, and it all comes out as DTS, which then goes right into my cheapass home theater speakers. This way, I do not have to bother switching them back and forth between analog and DTS on my speakers.
In general, I do agree with you about audiophile marketing being retarded. For example, we have people like these ignorance extortionists ready to bring us some gold-plated, electromagnetically shielded optical cables to ensure there is no subtle loss in quality of our digital signal.
Slashdot Mirror
Buying an Xbox doesn't mean you get to decide how they run the Live service. Buying Diablo 2 doesn't give you the right to run your own Battle.net server.
The former is valid, the Live service is Microsoft's property. The latter is not valid, the Battle.net server (bnetd) was *not* Blizzard's property.
If someone wanted to create a "Mod-chip okay!" XBox Live service, I think that should be perfectly fine. Likewise, if someone wants to create a "Cheaters welcome!" (or "Not welcome!" depending on your view of how Blizzard handles cheaters) version of Battle.net, more power to them as far as I'm concerned.
But it doesn't always have to be about cheating or mod-chipping or piracy, maybe I want to run a gaming network where stats for all sorts of different games, including Battle.net games, all get compiled into the same rankings. Or maybe I want to modify the rules somewhat. It shouldn't be illegal. I don't care if it is or isn't under current copyright law and licensing agreements and other stupidity, it shouldn't be.
I compared both the iHP-120 and the Rio Karma myself before buying the iRiver product, and I am very very happy. Both play oggs, both are 20GB, both have great battery life, but the iRiver has more. First and foremost it uses the USB Mass Storage interface. No need for silly Java software, you just connect it to a USB-enabled computer and can transfer files natively, in Mac, Linux or Windows. That includes non-music files, too, unlike the Karma.
Secondly, no lockup issues. If a hard drive is making grinding noises and slamming it makes it work again, that sounds very much like a head crash to me. Uh. That's bad, by the way. Expect the life of that player to be low. If there really was a head crash, it probably scraped some shavings off the disk. Nevermind the fact that that part of the disk is probably ruined, you've now got little metal shavings whizzing around inside your cleanroom-environment-sealed 4200rpm+ hard disk. A head crash is eventually fatal to the drive in most cases.
Compare this to the worst complaint I've had with the iRiver, which is that the built-in microphone will record some prominent harddrive noise if you fill the in-memory buffer while recording, which makes long recordings useless for anything but personal reference. Which is generally fine. The external mic doesn't have this problem, of course.
Anyway, very happy with my iRiver. Even moreso now. Thanks!
I use a Rakgear backpack that works pretty good. It's not all that conspicuous, but it is a well-designed laptop bag I think, is fairly comfortable, etc.
if the games cant be sold in multiple platform, in near future i see lots of Marios and Pokemons and other Nintendo-produced games..
Well, thank god. I don't know if you have a GBA(SP) or not, but if you've ever played any of the games, you'd know that the only good games for it are designed for it. Being a portable adds many unique challenges. Games that fail to meet the standards are not needed or welcome. That includes all half-assed multiplatform games, which generally are so poorly done that they are not wanted on any system, much less a portable system.
Even moreso than simply getting employed, indepdendent contracting requires a robust network of contacts. It's all about networking, and not in the IT sense. Chances are very good you do not have much if anything in the way of professional contacts at the moment. That will make contracting nearly impossible.
One good way to get a good network of contacts is to get a job or two and develop your network of contacts there. Even better if you can find a job with an established contracting company. They will have the reputation neccessary to get the contracts, but you will be the person who goes out to the site, and you develop your own personal reputation in the course of the job. Those very same people you were just contracted out by your employer to may soon be your bread and butter as an independent contractor. They know you, they know your work (and presumably are happy with it), and they may be in need of additional contracting in the near future.
Regardless of where you get your job, get chummy with everyone. Networking, networking, networking. Everyone you meet will probably know of a job you can do now and then, whether they need something done, or they know a guy who knows a guy who needs something done. Remember, you're not just gaining one contact, you're gaining their whole network.
Anyway, I don't think it's feasable to become an independent contractor right out of school. When it comes to life, resigning yourself to "I know I won't make much money" is rarely good enough, because even though it sounds like it's the ultimate sacrifice, it's not. The real challenge is sucking it up and doing something you really don't want to do, if it'll put you in a better position down the road.
Nope, it's not. I have a 7/1 buisness DSL connection from a small local ISP who I am on excellent terms with. And yes, like most things in life there is a risk, though it's less of a risk here in Canada than it is in the USA.
There are two sides to every coin. My WAP is open. Intentionally. All I have to say is: please don't make it illegal for other people to use it.
I did just this when my 18 month old Toshiba Satellite Pro 3000 partially died making it useless for its primary purpose because the LCD backlight failed. I had only just replaced the battery because that had died and the case was made from a brittle plastic that left it prone to cracks and chipping. Basically, Toshiba isn't getting any more of my money
Mine had almost the exact same problems, except the CD-RW died as well. Yours lasted longer than mine, mine self destructed a few weeks after the 1 year warranty expired. The backlight failure was the last straw.
Toshiba Satellite 3000 H200
does this include the long term where energy usage and population continue to increase?
No. If humans can't figure out their current rate of growth is unsustainable, then there isn't much hope for us, is there? We'll run out of space, we'll run out of food, we'll run out of power, we'll run out of fresh water, we'll run out of oxygen. Besides, all developed nations that I know of are either very close to, or have fallen below the rate of self-sustaining childbirth. They are all growing only because of immigration. The population boom is coming from developing and undeveloped countries. As those countries mature, their birth rates will likely also decline. I do not believe the growth will continue indefinitely.
Besides, what do you propose? Wishing there was more fossil fuels? I mean, I'm okay with fission, but on a planetary scale it isn't as feasable as it sounds. There's only so much easily obtainable uranium before we start to run into the same problems as fossil fuels. There are a host of other problems with fission too, and it's only a feasable option where you have a large body of water. With the exception of fission, every other power source we have available to us is a product of solar energy. It seems like it would make sense to cut out the middlemen and find a way to harness it.
The problem is that given where most of the excess energy comes from (coal, natural gas) it actually is more efficient in a net-energy sense to build a powerplant within a few miles of the coal mine/gas gathering system, and ship the electricity via transmission lines than it is to truck the coal or LNG to a powerplant all the way Southern California.
You're probably thinking that natural gas, at least, can be piped there with little transmission losses, and no trucks involved. Well, perhaps. But even if you built a pipeline (don't expect to use existing pipelines, they're already quite full with the natural gas that isn't going to be used for electrical generation) it's going to be very expensive up front, and it's not even guaranteed that you'd be able to pay that back with savings before the natural gas supplies collapse, or at least shrink to the point where they're using all their production capacity to fill non-electrical-generation demands. And unlike oil, where recovery factors are 20-30% at best, modern gas well recovery is currently around 95%. When we 'run out' of natural gas, it'll be because we're *really* out.
Fun!
Nope, solar, wind, and hydroelectric power is definitely the way to go if you're thinking long term.
There's a big difference between what the computer draws from a native-voltage, DC source like a battery and what it draws from mains 115VAC power. Also, I think the guy was talking about desktop computers, rather than a heavily power-optimized laptop.
We can do anything we put our minds to. Unfortunately, most of our minds seem to be busy being terrified by terrorism, so depending on how long it takes for people to realize they need to get on with their lives, it may be a long time away. If we focused on it the way people did with the moon landings, we could probably see a working space elevator in 10 years. Especially if the whole world was involved, not just the US. (Yes, I realize that brings problems of it's own, see: ISS, but imagine where the ISS would be right now if it had been a US-only venture. Empty, even less complete, and mothballed until the shuttles start flying again. Doh!)
This thing is only going a fraction of the required speed.
I think that most of us realize that this is merely a baby step. But it is still a step. Actually, it's two. "Step one: brainstorming" and "step two: proof of concept". We've got lots of ideas. The first has demonstrated proof of concept and won the prize, but it's likely that other teams still intend to show off their proof of concept as well. From there, we'll have quite a few innovative ideas which we can start developing and combining into something a bit more useful.
Unfortunately, I think the only way to really open up space is going to involve a space elevator. That's a long way off though. With some development, this will help to make some of those things marginally feasable in the meantime.
Every morning on my way to work I see cylers who pook along in the middle of the lane, (hey if you can't keep up with the traffic you need to be over to the side)
I'm sorry, but that's just not true. What part of 'sharing' the road do you not understand? Sharing does not mean 'I get the garbage part of the road you don't want to use'. Construction, left turners, and pedestrian crosswalks slow you down too, and that's not their fault, it's just how the rules of the road work. Suck it up, you're the one with the problem, not them.
Having owned something is different from using something. I don't suppose you have ever purchased a computer component of some sort and been disappointed with it?
And you think the middle east is more stable now that the U.S. has a puppet state right in the middle of it?
The same thing that has been happening around Israel will happen around Iraq, only it'll be much worse. If you think Bush is bringing stability to the middle east, you need to learn a little more about the history of the region. No one who has any knowledge of the situation (I'm talking about diplomats, middle-eastern studies professors, etc.) thinks that this is going to help.
If you can connect "planes crashing into WTC" to "Saddam Hussein's Iraq" without lying or drawing upon lies invented by others, then I'll give you a cookie. Until then, your argument does not serve as justification for taking over and occupying a soverign nation. Sorry.
Ever met anyone who uses one? Nope, me neither, and I hang out with a lot of professional modelling/sports/commercial photographers. It's by all accounts a horrible camera. It cannot do long exposures, it cannot do moderate or high ISO sensitivies, the images are badly softened, it's built about as ergonomically as a brick, and the battery life sucks. Of course, I've never owned one, that's all just hearsay from people who have.
The 14n is like a poster-child for all of Kodak's cameras. Too little too late.
you act like they don't sell digital cameras...
They don't. Not in any meaningful way. They produce a few middle-of-the-road point and shoot cameras that don't even really compete on features or price with the rest of the market. The only thing they've got going for them is their name. Much like Minolta, they were busy putzing around and not even really paying attention to their film business while other people were busy jumping on the digital bandwagon. They could've either gone digital, or consolidated the film market after everyone else refocused on digital. They missed not one big opportunity, but two. Now they've got a big game of catch-up to play which they likely won't succeed at.
As far as digital goes, Pentax and a few others have the low-end market pretty well covered, Sony and Canon have near-complete domination of the high-end point and shoots, and Canon and Nikon have complete domination of the digital SLRs. Where will Kodak find a niche?
Canon is quickly establishing themselves as the king of digital photography, with a very strong showing in film cameras to boot.
an application whose primary use is to allow people with pirated versions of Blizzard games to play them online = good guys.
That's it's primary use? Gee, I didn't see that anywhere in the documentation. So, do you run your email through hotmail? After all, I've been told that the primary use of running your own mail server is to receive pirated software through attachments.
Innocent until proven guilty, okay? If I wanted to create my own Neverwinter Nights server that didn't use AD&D 3rd Edition rules (something that I do actually want to do, but don't have the time for) should I really be legally barred from doing that because I may use it for piracy?
Haha, they're great. Always a source for a good laugh. Especially when some salesdrone tries to insist that you should get one.
Sorry, *you* try again.
It usually takes longer for this unscientific, unfounded idiocy to pop up on a wind turbine story, but here you are. Congratulations. People like you make it clear you have never seen a wind turbine, have no concept of environmental conservation, and are just parroting anti-wind lies invented by people vehemently opposed to reducing dependence on oil.
BIG, SLOW MOVING BLADES DO NOT CHOP THINGS UP. PERIOD. The danger posed is extremely minimal. It's theoretically possible for a bird to run into one of the slim, slow-moving blades, and that would likely cause injury, just as if they had run into one of our fancy new all-glass-exterior skyscrapers. But more birds are killed every minute by deforestation and destruction of wetlands, than will be killed by this thing in its entire working lifetime.
"DTS encoders" and other such junk
:P) is merely a chip that produces DTS data which can be read by a DTS decoder. For me, this serves a practical purpose in that I can tell games to output to EAX or whatever, and it all comes out as DTS, which then goes right into my cheapass home theater speakers. This way, I do not have to bother switching them back and forth between analog and DTS on my speakers.
DTS encoders aren't junk. DTS is "Digital Theater System". It's for surround sound. You've probably heard of it before. There's a DTS decoder in most DVD players and surround sound systems, almost all DVDs contain DTS soundtracks. It's a digital format, and therefore non-lossy, which I would think would appeal to an audiophile, but then these are the same people who slobber over vacuum tube amps, so who really knows...
A DTS encoder, like the one on my nVIDIA nForce2 motherboard (true audiophile equipment there, I know.
In general, I do agree with you about audiophile marketing being retarded. For example, we have people like these ignorance extortionists ready to bring us some gold-plated, electromagnetically shielded optical cables to ensure there is no subtle loss in quality of our digital signal.
Microsoft isn't a failing Roman empire; they aren't going away or even shrinking.
The precursors for the collapse of the Roman empire started coming long before it started shrinking.