There have been studies that show that people who pirate also happen to buy the most music. It seems crazy, but really they are the people most interested in music so it's maybe not so surprising.
My guess is that the underlying reason is some sort of tax dodge. They're spending way too much for Yahoo so they can write down a loss and avoid having to pay taxes or some crazy scheme like that.
Did you fill out a form at the bank explaining that they are rent checks? Or maybe explained it to the teller when you made the deposit? Then it's not illegal. People are acting like making a big deposit (or a few smaller deposits) is going to send you right to jail, when all it does it cause a bit more hassle as the bank is forced to do due diligence.
It's not illegal to deposit a big chunk of money, you just have to fill out a form explaining how you got it. Trying to avoid the form by splitting up the deposit is what gets you in trouble, but the trouble is just "gotta fill out the form". If you can't fill it out or you lie on it then you can find yourself in real trouble.
While this workaround uses a very novel technique and had the side effect of giving the emulation community a chance to properly emulate the CD control chip, there is already a SD-Card based modchip that plugs into the CD-ROM drive slot and allows you to play games even if the optical bits fail. It works by emulating the CD-ROM hardware instead. Still, this modchip is better because you don't even have to crack the lid to install it, it simply slots into the MPEG card slot built into the console.
It would be hilarious if they called support claiming to be Jack Dorsey and got the CSR to reset the password.
The CSRs are really the weak link for so many of these hacks. All of the two factor and out of band authentication in the world can't help you if the level 1 phone support just hands your account over to anybody who can do some basic research.
Yep, manufacturers overestimated the market capacity for Tablets. In the end they're a fairly niche product, and everybody who wanted one pretty much has one at this point. They aren't useless, but they aren't compelling for most people either. You get a device that's the size of a small laptop, but less capable because it's crippled with a phone OS and no keyboard. I use mine somewhat regularly, but only for a handful of tasks:
1. Reading full color comics. The Kindle sucks for this.
2. Watching video on the go. Much better experience than the phone, but this is only for long car rides and is used to keep the kids entertained.
3. Playing games. My phone is an iPhone, so all of my Android gaming has to be done on the tablet. This is a very niche use, and it really only came about from me looking for a reason to even turn the thing on in the first place. Were it not for the Humble Bundle I don't think this would even make the list.
Web browsing and email are also possible, but the experience is decidedly worse than a laptop so I don't usually do it. Especially if I have to reply to an email.
The big advantages with phones is portability. They're always in the pocket ready to go. Tablets don't have that, yet they're stuck with the same drawbacks that phones have like touch controls and a locked down OS.
T-Mo has made big strides in upgrading their network in the past few years. Getting a chunk of prime bandwidth was a huge boost for them. I had T-Mo years ago but switched to Verizon after being without coverage too many times, but then Verizon started dicking with the bills so we switched back to T-Mo and to my surprise I rarely am without service. Most of the old deadspots are gone, although a couple do remain.
They got rid of overages. They don't charge you for your phone when you bring your own. Then added free international. Then added free SMS (Does Verizon still rape you on SMS? $20/month or $0.35/per?). Then added free calling. Then added Wifi calling. Then doubled everyone's data for free. I am absolutely not switching back to Verizon anytime in the near future.
Depends on the environment a bit too. High heat seems to kill electrolytics no matter how good they are. I see this frequently in mobos where the caps next to the GPU or underneath the shroud off of the CPU are always the first to blow. Every time I see it I say to myself "I sure am glad the manufacturer saved $0.05 per cap on this, it is definitely making my life better..."
It depends how they actually count the hours too. If it just counts time when the TV is on, but people may or may not be in the room the number is going to be greatly inflated compared to hours of TV people actively watched. I know lots of people who leave the TV on all day even as they go about their business just to have some background noise in the house. Personally I've never seen the appeal, but it's apparently comforting to people.
DVR hours should count much more since they presumably represent someone sitting down and selecting a show to watch. But even then I've seen plenty of cases where the TV is left on while someone reads Facebook or plays a game or does some paperwork.
How is Apple going to charge a tax on every peripheral manufacturer if they simply switch to a different open standard? How would they implement DRM on a 2.5mm jack? This solution solves only part of the problem for Apple.
Sometimes I wonder if Job's last decree was "make it thinner", and Apple has not been willing to change it out of respect for Jobs. They've clearly gone past the point where thinner is better, but they just can't think of something better to do instead.
The thing I hate about Optical disks isn't the disk itself, it's that optical disc readers in computers are by far the least reliable piece of hardware on the box. They're just crap. Even $1 case fans are more reliable! I would buy reliable brand name drives to avoid this problem, but there really aren't any left. The entire market has finished the race to the bottom. The only good thing is that I almost never use them anymore, so it's not a big problem when they suddenly can't read discs anymore.
Apple is notorious for this. They ditched floppy drives back when most hardware still shipped drivers on floppies. They switched to USB before most vendors were ready. Then they more or less abandoned optical drives when the world was awash in disks. Sometimes it seems like if someone like Apple doesn't come along and force the issue the industry will happily sit on old technology for well past its use by date.
Maybe you could force it to use h.264 by uninstalling Flash?
I only leave Flash installed on IE, and only fire up IE when I run across that rare website where there is no option than to enable Flash. Websites like that are exceedingly rare these days. It's usually just internal corporate crap that is only happy with IE anyway.
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Wouldn't it be easier to remove the microphone? Granted, this is tricky on a laptop, but for desktops it's fairly straightforward.
True. If you want criminals to avoid any chance of being caught while moving their loot around a Libertarian state is nearly ideal.
There have been studies that show that people who pirate also happen to buy the most music. It seems crazy, but really they are the people most interested in music so it's maybe not so surprising.
My guess is that the underlying reason is some sort of tax dodge. They're spending way too much for Yahoo so they can write down a loss and avoid having to pay taxes or some crazy scheme like that.
Ultra-Pasteurization caramelizes the sugars in the milk and throws off the taste.
Did you fill out a form at the bank explaining that they are rent checks? Or maybe explained it to the teller when you made the deposit? Then it's not illegal. People are acting like making a big deposit (or a few smaller deposits) is going to send you right to jail, when all it does it cause a bit more hassle as the bank is forced to do due diligence.
It's not illegal to deposit a big chunk of money, you just have to fill out a form explaining how you got it. Trying to avoid the form by splitting up the deposit is what gets you in trouble, but the trouble is just "gotta fill out the form". If you can't fill it out or you lie on it then you can find yourself in real trouble.
I'm guessing many of those bases don't allow cell phones on the premises, which if you think about it is also a pretty big tell.
While this workaround uses a very novel technique and had the side effect of giving the emulation community a chance to properly emulate the CD control chip, there is already a SD-Card based modchip that plugs into the CD-ROM drive slot and allows you to play games even if the optical bits fail. It works by emulating the CD-ROM hardware instead. Still, this modchip is better because you don't even have to crack the lid to install it, it simply slots into the MPEG card slot built into the console.
It would be hilarious if they called support claiming to be Jack Dorsey and got the CSR to reset the password.
The CSRs are really the weak link for so many of these hacks. All of the two factor and out of band authentication in the world can't help you if the level 1 phone support just hands your account over to anybody who can do some basic research.
Yep, manufacturers overestimated the market capacity for Tablets. In the end they're a fairly niche product, and everybody who wanted one pretty much has one at this point. They aren't useless, but they aren't compelling for most people either. You get a device that's the size of a small laptop, but less capable because it's crippled with a phone OS and no keyboard. I use mine somewhat regularly, but only for a handful of tasks:
1. Reading full color comics. The Kindle sucks for this.
2. Watching video on the go. Much better experience than the phone, but this is only for long car rides and is used to keep the kids entertained.
3. Playing games. My phone is an iPhone, so all of my Android gaming has to be done on the tablet. This is a very niche use, and it really only came about from me looking for a reason to even turn the thing on in the first place. Were it not for the Humble Bundle I don't think this would even make the list.
Web browsing and email are also possible, but the experience is decidedly worse than a laptop so I don't usually do it. Especially if I have to reply to an email.
The big advantages with phones is portability. They're always in the pocket ready to go. Tablets don't have that, yet they're stuck with the same drawbacks that phones have like touch controls and a locked down OS.
T-Mo has made big strides in upgrading their network in the past few years. Getting a chunk of prime bandwidth was a huge boost for them. I had T-Mo years ago but switched to Verizon after being without coverage too many times, but then Verizon started dicking with the bills so we switched back to T-Mo and to my surprise I rarely am without service. Most of the old deadspots are gone, although a couple do remain.
They got rid of overages. They don't charge you for your phone when you bring your own. Then added free international. Then added free SMS (Does Verizon still rape you on SMS? $20/month or $0.35/per?). Then added free calling. Then added Wifi calling. Then doubled everyone's data for free. I am absolutely not switching back to Verizon anytime in the near future.
Aren't most Atom chips IA32? While this is technically "embedded systems", in practice you generally run a full Linux distro on it.
Depends on the environment a bit too. High heat seems to kill electrolytics no matter how good they are. I see this frequently in mobos where the caps next to the GPU or underneath the shroud off of the CPU are always the first to blow. Every time I see it I say to myself "I sure am glad the manufacturer saved $0.05 per cap on this, it is definitely making my life better..."
Are we going to also come down on Activision for also copying bits of real weapons?
On the other hand, it's pretty hard for me to work up the energy to defend a derivative grey/brown shooter in 2016.
It depends how they actually count the hours too. If it just counts time when the TV is on, but people may or may not be in the room the number is going to be greatly inflated compared to hours of TV people actively watched. I know lots of people who leave the TV on all day even as they go about their business just to have some background noise in the house. Personally I've never seen the appeal, but it's apparently comforting to people.
DVR hours should count much more since they presumably represent someone sitting down and selecting a show to watch. But even then I've seen plenty of cases where the TV is left on while someone reads Facebook or plays a game or does some paperwork.
How is Apple going to charge a tax on every peripheral manufacturer if they simply switch to a different open standard? How would they implement DRM on a 2.5mm jack? This solution solves only part of the problem for Apple.
Sometimes I wonder if Job's last decree was "make it thinner", and Apple has not been willing to change it out of respect for Jobs. They've clearly gone past the point where thinner is better, but they just can't think of something better to do instead.
Did they previously make Hard Drives or something?
The thing I hate about Optical disks isn't the disk itself, it's that optical disc readers in computers are by far the least reliable piece of hardware on the box. They're just crap. Even $1 case fans are more reliable! I would buy reliable brand name drives to avoid this problem, but there really aren't any left. The entire market has finished the race to the bottom. The only good thing is that I almost never use them anymore, so it's not a big problem when they suddenly can't read discs anymore.
Apple is notorious for this. They ditched floppy drives back when most hardware still shipped drivers on floppies. They switched to USB before most vendors were ready. Then they more or less abandoned optical drives when the world was awash in disks. Sometimes it seems like if someone like Apple doesn't come along and force the issue the industry will happily sit on old technology for well past its use by date.
Maybe you could force it to use h.264 by uninstalling Flash?
I only leave Flash installed on IE, and only fire up IE when I run across that rare website where there is no option than to enable Flash. Websites like that are exceedingly rare these days. It's usually just internal corporate crap that is only happy with IE anyway.
But this way when a library has a security vulnerability you will never be rid of it.
There is very little intersection between medical doctors and people who call young women "chicks".
Apple didn't give up iMessage data, which is what this is the equivalent of. That's why the police wanted to break into the phone in the first place.