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User: TeraCo

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  1. Re:apology on The Truth About Last Year's Xbox 360 Recall · · Score: 1

    Woohoo. I'm still not going to metamoderate though. Time to change my sig I guess.

  2. Re:Feb. 2008 SquareTrade found a 16.4% failure rat on The Truth About Last Year's Xbox 360 Recall · · Score: 1

    Welcome to consumer electronics, where they are designed to fail just after the warranty expires. The real mistake that Microsoft made was having them fail within the warranty period. (And of course the RROD, which got enough bad press to force them to extend the warranty on that specific issue only)

  3. Re:ZERO seconds to NOT check ids... on TSA Bans Flight If You Refuse To Show ID · · Score: 1

    Yes, but if they didn't perceive they had a requirement to check ID's they wouldnt' be doing it. Now that they've decided they have to do it, they need to make it as cheap as possible.

  4. Re:It would have stopped 9/11, right? on TSA Bans Flight If You Refuse To Show ID · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not commenting on how successful or not successful it will be, I'm just saying why it's being implemented.

    As your government starts cutting funding on 'mandatory' programs, you'll see more of this sort of thing across the board.

  5. Re:It would have stopped 9/11, right? on TSA Bans Flight If You Refuse To Show ID · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This isn't even about trying to make the population more compliant, it's about saving money.

    If you assume that it takes X seconds to process a regular ID showing person, and 2-3 minutes to process a non-ID showing person and if you assume that a few thousand people each day can't show ID, it makes sense to reduce the number of people who don't show ID.

    When this doesn't significantly reduce wasted time, watch for the 'if you forgot your ID you can't fly' policy.

  6. Re:And no ability to host a zombie on Microsoft Denies Call-in 'Save XP' Petition · · Score: 1
    You forget, they can install as user (no admin rights) because it only needs access to the users home directory.

    I didn't forget, that's why the script will ask for the root password. And your average user that doesn't blink twice at UAC promotion will happily enter their password without thinking.

  7. Re:UAC in vista may be poorly implemented... on Microsoft Denies Call-in 'Save XP' Petition · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And when enough people are using linux on the desktop, you'll have 'Cardmaker sponsored by Freeze.com - LINUX EDITION', enter your root password to proceed.

  8. Re:Fire up the soldering irons... on Atari Founder Proclaims the End of Gaming Piracy · · Score: 1

    Yes, but that's an example of the current system working. If you remove the protections, who is going to volunteer to put up the cash in the hope that people might want to pay up.

    Even if your people do still want to see it in a cinema for the 'experience', there's nothing stopping cinema owners from copying it themselves and not paying for it.

  9. Re:Fire up the soldering irons... on Atari Founder Proclaims the End of Gaming Piracy · · Score: 1

    That premise works well where one person or five people or one hundred people can put in enough effort over a long enough time to complete a task.

    It doesn't work when you're talking about making the lord of the rings movie which required a lot of talented people spending a lot of money on a lot of fancy gizmos. Sure, you could have made the same movie for a fraction of the cost but you wouldn't have gotten the same quality of product.

  10. Re:Case in point on Early Review Calls New Indiana Jones Film Dreadful · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure 'comic book' was implying 'comic book', not whatever arbitary definition you're using to put your case forward.

  11. Re:Xbox 360 Hardware Still Isn't Profitable on Microsoft Says No New Xbox 360s In 2009 · · Score: 1

    You're in the vast minority there, as opposed to being in the vast majority of PC users. If nothing else, most people won't chip their xboxes because they don't want to void the warranty on a few hundred dollars worth of gear.

  12. Re:Xbox 360 Hardware Still Isn't Profitable on Microsoft Says No New Xbox 360s In 2009 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Are you retarded? Why would they dump the 'difficult and risky to chip' xbox360 market for the 'I can pirate games with 30 seconds on a search engine' vista market?

    If they abandon the console market, it will be because they're leaving the games industry all together.

  13. Re:Message to people who gripe about interfaces on Microsoft Reaches Out To Blender · · Score: 1

    Granted, but stop() certainly isn't a standard terminating function. I wouldn't expect stop() to automatically terminate anymore than I'd expect whoa_nelly() to automatically terminate.

  14. Re:W3C on NYTimes.com Hand-Codes HTML & CSS · · Score: 1

    What makes your dictionary more right than his? Is MW the official internet dictionary?

  15. Re:PC gaming is dying on Why Aren't More Linux Users Gamers? · · Score: 1

    You're right, but for the wrong reasons. PC gaming -is- dying, and the primary driver is piracy. When the exact same game sells 10 times as many copies on XBOX as XP, companies are forced to make the tough (or laughably easy) decision to code for XBOX instead.

    After all, the very same code which makes it ridiculously easy for them to cross port between the two makes it ridiculously easy to become an 'xbox only' shop and that means extra cash in hand.

    PC gaming will migrate to linux in the future, in the form of hobbyists and niche companies. Given that hobbyists and niche companies bring us new ideas, I don't think it will be as bad as people think.

  16. Re:where's the advantage? on Library of Congress's $3M Deal With Microsoft · · Score: 1

    It's true, that's why all of those other countries which offer health cover have massive unemployment???

  17. Re:Coming soon... on Gates Foundation Vs. Openness In Research · · Score: 1

    The foundation is 'non-profit' and doesn't actually funnel money back to Billy.

  18. Re:Coming soon... on Gates Foundation Vs. Openness In Research · · Score: 1

    When I have to purchase weekly vaccine updates from Micropharm, I'll be worried. BillG isn't actually part of Big Pharm yet.

  19. Re:fail on Australian Government Considers Copying UK Copyright Law Ideas · · Score: 1

    The fact that you have to submit a declaration under penalty of perjury, blah blah blah. You've probably seen the pro forma.

  20. Re:fail on Australian Government Considers Copying UK Copyright Law Ideas · · Score: 4, Informative

    Encryption has nothing to do with this. This is about the RIAA monitoring the torrent servers that you're using, noting your IP address and what you're downloading and sending a note to your ISP asking them to tell you to knock it off.

    On the third warning, they'll disconnect you.

  21. Re:What about a countersuit? on Prince, Village People to Sue The Pirate Bay · · Score: 1

    In this context I would suspect that 'system' means the greater bittorrent network (coordinated by the PB server) rather than 'system' as in physical computer hardware.

  22. Re:the general rule... on How to Convince Non-IT Friends that Privacy Matters? · · Score: 2, Informative
    And more than likely, the lender will laugh them off the phone. Why would they voluntarily take a smaller payment?

    An interest only loan will make them -more- money, not less. Perhaps the financial problem was caused by 'financiers' who subscribe to the BVis school of economics.

  23. Re:Look for more Microsoft money behind on SCO Goes Private With $100 Million Backing · · Score: 1

    That doesn't make him trustworthy though.

    Gosh, the mafia are much more trustworthy than Islamic Fundamentalists, they'll be fine moving into our neighbourhood.

  24. Re:Rural broadband? on Valve Takes on Piracy With Free, Pre-Packaged Game Publishing Tools · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure why you think I'd care about that.

    Sure, DD sucks for people living in the country. But as a kid I lived in the country, and we went without a lot of other things that were much more important than broadband, such as a hospital within an hours drive. People who live in the country tend to be pragmatic and will most likely download a gigabyte of game over a dialup connection if there they want to play it and there is no other option available.

  25. Re:Am I strange? on Valve Takes on Piracy With Free, Pre-Packaged Game Publishing Tools · · Score: 1
    I'm a luddite because I'd rather spend 20 minutes driving to the store, buying a cd, going home installing and playing it instead of waiting 20 hours for multiple GB of data to download because the only "high" speed connection I get is about 2 times faster than 56k or Valves servers get hammered and the connection gets disconnected, etc.

    Yes, that's pretty much what I'm saying. You might have noticed that your local EB doesn't have quite as many shelves dedicated to PC gaming as it used to. This is only going to get worse, and game devs are going to be forced to use some online distribution method.