Nope, you are confused. The original warranty on the XBox 360 was 90 days... that's it, 3 months. Very recently (back in the middle of December) MS extended all warranties out to 1 year. A notable quote from the C-NET story:
Just in time for last-minute holiday shoppers, Microsoft has extended the Xbox 360's warranty from 90 days to one year, bringing it in line with the warranty lengths of rival game consoles from Sony and Nintendo.
Mine started failing about three days before they extended the warranty, at the five month mark (which at the time was still two months out of warranty). I was able to baby it along for a couple of days then it locked up hard (red ring of death). Let it sit for a few days and then read that they had extended the warranties so I called in, got my re-furb in about 1 week.
deprecation means an API change, not a feature shutdown
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya
2 : to express disapproval of
3 a : PLAY DOWN : make little of b : BELITTLE, DISPARAGE
(Note, definition 1 obviously doesn't apply to this situation). Deprecation it's self doesn't have anything to do with an API change. When a feature/API is deprecated all it means is that they don't want you using it anymore. Yes, this typically occurs when an API changes and they've replaced it with something better, but there's nothing to say that's the only time that things get deprecated. I think Google used the word in perfect context here if they are expressing disapproval of using their entire SOAP API.
Wake me up when a seventeen year old boy isn't into porn.
Although I do agree with you on the locked down computer. It may also be a case of who's son it is, my gut feeling is a Microsoft co-president may have taught his son a little bit about what to do and not to do on a computer, but that's just a guess.
I still can't get my 13 year old daughter to stop downloading crap ("but my friend sent me this link and said it was really cool") even after telling her 'this is why your computer is so slow' for the 50th time ("but said it was safe in the IM I got from her"). No amount of 'teaching' seems to help, lock down is really the only thing left to do. There's a reason she has her own computer, so as to not afflict ours with her download everything mentality.
I will say that it's just plain lunacy to think that with all the violence in the game that a little pixelated sex should have a huge impact on the rating.
No, not the case at all. I've got a Logitech combo (can't remember the model) and both keyboard and mouse use seperate channels so there's no conflict there.
Does anyone know for sure if the rumor is true that Blizzard is going to be adding to the free month you got for purchasing the game cause of the down time and problems they have had?
Yes, it is, it's been posted as a sticky on the forums at www.worldofwarcraft.net, however they havn't stated exactly how much free time they are giving or exactly how they are determining who is elligable for that free time. The quote directly from them:
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and are dedicated to providing World of Warcraft players with the best play experience possible. Therefore we'll be adding a small trial-period extension for players who created accounts before or during the downtime. In the days ahead, we'll provide additional details on how the trial-period extension will be determined. As always, we appreciate your continued patience and support; we're still monitoring the servers very closely and making adjustments as needed in order to ensure that World of Warcraft continues to run smoothly for everyone playing.
I honestly think they should do something like this with WoW, only maybe on a per-server basis. As it is now they have PvP, PvE, and RP servers.
They could easily tag a few of them as 'Hardcore' servers (to use Blizzard terminology from Diablo II) and introduce Perma-death into the game. I'd keep a character on those servers, just for the fun of it.
Because of this, if Han still did shoot first, the movie would have been rated R for "graphic violence and adult content" (murder).
The flaw in this is that there is nothing that states "This movie MUST get a R rating because such and such conditions were met". The MPAA has a board that watched the movie and determines what they think the rating should be. That's how movies like Clerks (which origionally got an NC-17 rating) was able to get dropped down to an R rating with absoutly no cuts to the movie, Kevin Smith actually talked them into dropping the rating without having to make cuts for that reason.
Besides the other flaws in your logic which others have pointed out already, the 'Greedo shoots first' change was not made because of any ratings issues.
You know what though, there was one deleted scene that was never put on the DVD and I've always wondered why (potential safty hazard?). It used to be avaliable on their webiste and I'd love to find a copy of it again. Did you ever wonder how they got on the roof with their skates on?
I remember watching them climb the ladder in their skates one time (they put the skates on in the store and then go up on the roof). If is "hip" enough to know where to get or have a copy of this deleted scene a link to it would be greatly appreciated. (I know it existed, I've seen it, just can't find it now)
Even though it's been said... if you actually read you'll see the following:
The BlueSniper "rifle," created by John Hering and colleagues at Flexilis as a proof-of-concept device, resembles a rifle. It has a vision scope and a yagi antenna with a cable that runs to a Bluetooth-enabled laptop or PDA in a backpack. Aiming the rifle from an 11th-floor window of the Aladdin hotel at a taxi stand across the street in Las Vegas, Hering and colleagues were able to collect phone books from 300 Bluetooth devices. They bested that distance and broke a record this week by attacking a Nokia 3610i phone 1.1 miles away and grabbing the phone book and text messages."
Now why someone thought it necessary to call it a 'sniper rifle' when they submitted the article is beyond me since it's at the very least misleading.
This isn't true in most areas, infact I've only ever seen this work in California. Most areas if you do not have phone service active to the house you do not have a dial tone, period. No calls of any sort can be made. Now, on the other hand, Pacific Bell kept a dial tone to my house all the time, and yes, you could call 800 numbers and 911.
Just to test this theory, my current phone line (which has no service currently) has no dial tone at all. That's with Verizon.
OMG! I can't believe someone else noticed this... The first time I was watching the movie I had turned my head to talk to someone and wasn't watching the screen, heard those lashing and could have sworn someone put The Downward Sprial on.
That's funny... my hosting company does the exact same thing to me when I don't pay them... they return my service to me promptly after getting their money. Should I sue them for extortion?
Now I don't agree that this guy deserved any of that money but by your definition of extortion, every service provider known to man practices it. You don't pay, you don't get service, plain and simple.
Main Entry:
extort
Pronunciation: ik-'stort
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Latin extortus, past participle of extorquEre to wrench out, extort, from ex- + torquEre to twist -- more at TORTURE
: to obtain from a person by force, intimidation, or undue or illegal power : WRING; also : to gain especially by ingenuity or compelling argument
He didn't force them, or intimidate them, he simply stopped providing a service that they did not pay for. I do agree that the ammount requested was completely ludacris however, and some of his tactics may have made this extortion but it was more than the simple 'Taking something away from someone'.
Okay, while I admit that killing 22,000 birds seems bad, the article clearly points out the following...
'including hundreds of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, kestrels and other raptors(.)'
I can only assume that the other 21,000 birds were more common birds that nobody is probably going to miss (tree huggin hippies excluded of course:-)). I still see this as extremely environmentally friendly compared to burning/processing fossil fuel. 'Clean' power with a few dead birds or
'dirty' power with even more substantial environmental issues, seems like a open and shut case to me.
Then again, I'm all for survival of the fittest, the birds should have learned by now not to fly into the blades.
The system is also smart enough to estimate your reflexes well enough that once you stop fast-forwarding, it backs up just enough that you don't wind up skipping part of your show or seeing the tail end of an ad.
My only gripe with this one is... I wish this was configurable... some of us have faster reflexes than the TiVo thinks and I always end up jumping too far back when I stop the fast forward. Thank the gods for the 30 second skip remote hack:-)
Is it more like a VCR system where you have to fast forward and then curse when you went too far, and then it uses scene changes to go back?
Funny you mention VCRs here... I never understood why this was such a big deal with DVRs now since VCRs have been able to do the same type of automated commercial skipping for years. Back in 1994 I purchased an RCA VCR that was top of the line back then, and had one of the best features I had ever seen for the time. After you recorded a tape it would ask if you wanted to 'Mark Commercials', it would then proceed to go through the entire tape and 'Mark' where the commercials began and ended (it did this with amazing accuracy for the time, I never missed more than 5 seconds of a TV show while it was skipping a commercial).
Now, if you had marked the tape it happily fast-forwarded through every commercial that had been recorded without any intervention from the user. Nobody sued RCA for this feature (and by doing searchs it seems that RCA VCRs may still have a feature similar but I can not say for sure as I haven't even used a VCR in years). Maybe because there was still a 'fast-forward' required (just automated) and it wasn't an instant jump like a DVR can perform.
Anyway, it seems as if VCRs have been able to detect commercials for the past 9 years by using what the manual demed 'detecting typical commercial patterns', that the same type of technology could only have been improved on and implemented in the new DVRs. Of course, don't try to watch the VHS tape of Braveheart in that RCA VCR, it thought the whole thing was a commercial and fast forwarded it (good thing the feature can be turned off).
No... I understand fully... but not 200,000 lights. What ever happend to a tasteful candle (light) in the window, or a nice row of lights around the outside of the house. My point is there is by far a difference between tasteful decortaion and just utter nonsense. Taking anything to extremes is usually a very bad thing. I never said anything about "lighting displays", I specifically asked about ones that think they need to use 200,000 plus lights. I do agree that it can be a very beautiful ritual and I love to look at a very tastefully decorated house as much as the next person, this just asults the senses and the extremes that it's been taken to seem to have little to do with Christmas anymore. How many times have you seen neighbors get into pissing contests to see who can out do the other at Christmas lights, that's when I start to fail to see the point.
I agree... What exactly does 200,000 lights have to do with "Christmas" anyway. Call me a grinch, scrooge, (troll, which I know I'm sure I'm getting here), whatever. I fail to see how this type of display really has much to do with the spirit of Christmas.
And besides, sure this guys display may be nice to look at, as long as you're not the guy that has to live next door to him. Most of us will just look at it and go "Is that really necessary?" Do people really like looking at the house Christmas threw up on?
By looking at the site it appears as if they would be doing it non-stop. The following is from their list of objectives:
# Complete night in the air during the first 36 hour solar flight in June 2007;
# First flight tests of the second prototype from end 2007;
# Solar flights lasting several days from start of 2009.
With a 36 hour solar flight in June 2007 and then a several day flight in 2009 (plus all of the other information actually on the site) it would seem like a safe assumption that they are trying to make it a non-stop flight.
And they once again apper to have changed the message, this time with more information about the avaliability of the fix:
Important message from Belkin:
In response to a recent Usenet group posting stating that Belkin spams its customers through its routers, Belkin Corporation apologizes for the concern this has caused and is taking action to address the issue. To allay customers' worries, Belkin will offer a firmware upgrade that will be available via download from its website (www.belkin.com) on November 17, 2003. This upgrade will rid the redirect completely so that no additional browser windows will appear during the router's installation process. Questions can be directed to our dedicated networking customer support line at 877-736-5771 or e-mailed to kannynmc@belkin.com.
November 17th... I'm sure they have a lot of testing to do to make sure this firmware update works properly however should it really take 6 days to remove this one 'feature' since they say they already have a way to disable it (or 'opt-out')?
Slashdot Mirror
I think what you're looking for is a YT-1300 vs. a Firefly. I think I'm a little ashamed that I know that.
(Note, definition 1 obviously doesn't apply to this situation). Deprecation it's self doesn't have anything to do with an API change. When a feature/API is deprecated all it means is that they don't want you using it anymore. Yes, this typically occurs when an API changes and they've replaced it with something better, but there's nothing to say that's the only time that things get deprecated. I think Google used the word in perfect context here if they are expressing disapproval of using their entire SOAP API.
Wake me up when a seventeen year old boy isn't into porn.
Although I do agree with you on the locked down computer. It may also be a case of who's son it is, my gut feeling is a Microsoft co-president may have taught his son a little bit about what to do and not to do on a computer, but that's just a guess.
I still can't get my 13 year old daughter to stop downloading crap ("but my friend sent me this link and said it was really cool") even after telling her 'this is why your computer is so slow' for the 50th time ("but said it was safe in the IM I got from her"). No amount of 'teaching' seems to help, lock down is really the only thing left to do. There's a reason she has her own computer, so as to not afflict ours with her download everything mentality.
Heck, why crack it, just uninstall it (if it's really as easy as that KB article makes it sound).
No, it's actually still possible on all of them one way or another:
n _Andreas/Appendices/Game_Mods
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_Sa
I will say that it's just plain lunacy to think that with all the violence in the game that a little pixelated sex should have a huge impact on the rating.
No, not the case at all. I've got a Logitech combo (can't remember the model) and both keyboard and mouse use seperate channels so there's no conflict there.
I honestly think they should do something like this with WoW, only maybe on a per-server basis. As it is now they have PvP, PvE, and RP servers.
They could easily tag a few of them as 'Hardcore' servers (to use Blizzard terminology from Diablo II) and introduce Perma-death into the game. I'd keep a character on those servers, just for the fun of it.
Because of this, if Han still did shoot first, the movie would have been rated R for "graphic violence and adult content" (murder). The flaw in this is that there is nothing that states "This movie MUST get a R rating because such and such conditions were met". The MPAA has a board that watched the movie and determines what they think the rating should be. That's how movies like Clerks (which origionally got an NC-17 rating) was able to get dropped down to an R rating with absoutly no cuts to the movie, Kevin Smith actually talked them into dropping the rating without having to make cuts for that reason. Besides the other flaws in your logic which others have pointed out already, the 'Greedo shoots first' change was not made because of any ratings issues.
Huzzah!!
You know what though, there was one deleted scene that was never put on the DVD and I've always wondered why (potential safty hazard?). It used to be avaliable on their webiste and I'd love to find a copy of it again. Did you ever wonder how they got on the roof with their skates on? I remember watching them climb the ladder in their skates one time (they put the skates on in the store and then go up on the roof). If is "hip" enough to know where to get or have a copy of this deleted scene a link to it would be greatly appreciated. (I know it existed, I've seen it, just can't find it now)
This isn't true in most areas, infact I've only ever seen this work in California. Most areas if you do not have phone service active to the house you do not have a dial tone, period. No calls of any sort can be made. Now, on the other hand, Pacific Bell kept a dial tone to my house all the time, and yes, you could call 800 numbers and 911.
Just to test this theory, my current phone line (which has no service currently) has no dial tone at all. That's with Verizon.
OMG! I can't believe someone else noticed this... The first time I was watching the movie I had turned my head to talk to someone and wasn't watching the screen, heard those lashing and could have sworn someone put The Downward Sprial on.
That's funny... my hosting company does the exact same thing to me when I don't pay them... they return my service to me promptly after getting their money. Should I sue them for extortion?
Now I don't agree that this guy deserved any of that money but by your definition of extortion, every service provider known to man practices it. You don't pay, you don't get service, plain and simple.
He didn't force them, or intimidate them, he simply stopped providing a service that they did not pay for. I do agree that the ammount requested was completely ludacris however, and some of his tactics may have made this extortion but it was more than the simple 'Taking something away from someone'.
I can only assume that the other 21,000 birds were more common birds that nobody is probably going to miss (tree huggin hippies excluded of course
Then again, I'm all for survival of the fittest, the birds should have learned by now not to fly into the blades.
Funny you mention VCRs here... I never understood why this was such a big deal with DVRs now since VCRs have been able to do the same type of automated commercial skipping for years. Back in 1994 I purchased an RCA VCR that was top of the line back then, and had one of the best features I had ever seen for the time. After you recorded a tape it would ask if you wanted to 'Mark Commercials', it would then proceed to go through the entire tape and 'Mark' where the commercials began and ended (it did this with amazing accuracy for the time, I never missed more than 5 seconds of a TV show while it was skipping a commercial).
Now, if you had marked the tape it happily fast-forwarded through every commercial that had been recorded without any intervention from the user. Nobody sued RCA for this feature (and by doing searchs it seems that RCA VCRs may still have a feature similar but I can not say for sure as I haven't even used a VCR in years). Maybe because there was still a 'fast-forward' required (just automated) and it wasn't an instant jump like a DVR can perform.
Anyway, it seems as if VCRs have been able to detect commercials for the past 9 years by using what the manual demed 'detecting typical commercial patterns', that the same type of technology could only have been improved on and implemented in the new DVRs. Of course, don't try to watch the VHS tape of Braveheart in that RCA VCR, it thought the whole thing was a commercial and fast forwarded it (good thing the feature can be turned off).
No... I understand fully... but not 200,000 lights. What ever happend to a tasteful candle (light) in the window, or a nice row of lights around the outside of the house. My point is there is by far a difference between tasteful decortaion and just utter nonsense. Taking anything to extremes is usually a very bad thing. I never said anything about "lighting displays", I specifically asked about ones that think they need to use 200,000 plus lights. I do agree that it can be a very beautiful ritual and I love to look at a very tastefully decorated house as much as the next person, this just asults the senses and the extremes that it's been taken to seem to have little to do with Christmas anymore. How many times have you seen neighbors get into pissing contests to see who can out do the other at Christmas lights, that's when I start to fail to see the point.
I agree... What exactly does 200,000 lights have to do with "Christmas" anyway. Call me a grinch, scrooge, (troll, which I know I'm sure I'm getting here), whatever. I fail to see how this type of display really has much to do with the spirit of Christmas.
And besides, sure this guys display may be nice to look at, as long as you're not the guy that has to live next door to him. Most of us will just look at it and go "Is that really necessary?" Do people really like looking at the house Christmas threw up on?