Just as with a credit card or current cash cards that (most) stores use, there would probably be a section of raised lettering that would carry the card's ID number. In fact, if you look at the picture closely, you can even see the numbering.
The main roblem the I see with this is how does business get done then the system is down / power is out? You wouldn't be able to access the DB that store all of the card information, and therefore wouldn't have any way of verifying if there is money on the card that somebody is using or not.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of nintendo and have never owned another console (because all my friends had them and I would use theirs).
However, some quick googling turned up this link that shows the most recent price fixing by nintendo, occurring just last year. Some more searching will uncover much more.
They have never been much for sharing, even their old games. They can still profit from them and so still want to sell everything to users.
They currently still sell even their ancient NES games as playable on the GBA through the use of the e-card reader.
Just because nintendo has a great line of games and (in my opinion) a great line of consoles, doesn't mean they are a morally correct company. They have done everything from price fixing to scamming the government. They are the MS of consoles, even while MS is in the console biz,
I leave the sides off of my computer for better air flow and less dust collection, but mainly because I'm too lazy to put in case fans.
Since my case has to sit on top of my desk, this also gives me a little more space to put stuff (inside the case, out of the way of boards / wires etc).
What do I keep in there? First is the reciever for my wireless keyboard / mouse, the syncing cradle for my handspring visor edge, and a few important papers. Those are the things that don't really move.
The fun things in there are the mountain dew beer glass, the caffeine shot glass, and usually 2 - 3 open cans of dew. All have soda / caffeine in them and are actively used.
No, nothing has spilled yet, and yes, I do have cats. 3 of them. They know that if they go near the sacred tower, they get stuff thrown at them (usually a slipper, but on occasion a t-shirt if I find that first).
On a side note: I in no way have the balls to water-cool my case, other than replacing the cold soda every 30 minutes.
Not really dead, just asleep.
Hence why I forgot the closing italics on my post below.
"at 2:00 am"
Because, you know, all the important people in the world live on the east coast of the US.
The big thing to remember here is that the survey was conducted by the card maker, not an independant source. The results may not be as reliable as most would like.
Integer / Buffer overflows in Microsoft operating systems are horribly overplayed. Many will simply use this excuse to say that Linux is better than Windows, but the arguement has really been misunderstood for a long time.
The reason these errors became popular is because of Win95. Advertised as the "most stable home computing experience yet," it had several issues with overflows, the two most glaring were buffer overflows (which is still present in Windows, but being fixed with new security updates daily from MS), and ye olde integer overflows. The more problematic of the two was the latter, as it would cause blue screens and, later, the "A fatal exception in OE has occurred [...] Now closing the program" error message.
Almost all of the integer errors were fixed from Win98SE on, and are hardly a problem anymore Since 2k/XP (no, I never bothered to waste my time testing WinME). Nowadays it takes a really horribly coded program to get one of those errors, and yet the arguement lives on.
Wow, I guess that could be considered pro-Microsoft, but I've recently aquired some spare karma. Yay! Time to have a karmacue!
Intel will release a 64 bit processor first, but 2 months later AMD will come out with a 61 bit processor that runs twice as fast. Don't ask me how, or even why speed is relevant to the computing power, but they will do it.
Then, 6 years later, China will come out with their own.
And a LS-120 disk holds as much as 88 floppies, takes up a 5.25" bay and can use regular floppies in the same drive if you want!
These might actually make a comeback if any of those legacy free motherboards ever get big enough. No more floppy drives. Yeesh. What would I ever install AOL 2.0 from?
I agree with this theory completely. I had a very depressing childhood (from ages 6 through 15) and remember very little of events that happened during that time, however any information I can recall almost instantly. The knowledge never evaded me, even though I was never coherent in school I would always absord the information.
I believe that I was able to retain the information and not the events because the events were always overshadowed by a dread of facing what had plagued me every day, whereas the information could be useful sometime later.
1) My earliest memory was from when I was 2. The story was never told to me and it is an unimportant event. I saw my granddad and ran over to hug him. My issue with memories is that I alays expand on them, take a 2-D picture from my mind and make it 3-D from a 3rd person perspective, using images of me from the time period to fill in my place. It seems pretty damn real that I can remember seeing myself run over to my grandad in the old apartment where I lived during that time (a whole 4 months, of which time there are no pictures of the inside of the apartment).
2) As for the falling off the bed thing, I had bunk beds and slept on top. I had many cars, houses, planes, boats, and other pointy objects made out of legos on the floor. I had nightmares that I was falling and would awake to find myself falling from the top bunk onto the legos. Scary (and painful) as shit.
The only problem with matter - anti-matter reactions is that the entire earth only produces about.0025 grams per year (correct me if I'm wrong in the exact figure, i know it is insanely small though). This is not only nowhere near enough to power anything for an extended amount of time, but it would also be extremely ineffecient to extract this precious material from the earth.
Until a more abundant source of anti-matter is found, this will not be the Holy Grail either. Sorry.
Honestly, it seems that you didn't even take the time to read the labels that much, or you might have seen the word Embedded on there. Unless you can get your home pc to run an embedded copy of windows (which i don't even see how you would get a home pc to install it), the cd key is completely useless to you.
I work at another retailer, Staples. They also chose windows to use as their POS system. All of the terminals have windows embedded, with the cd key label on the side. An oversized IBM server sits in the office, and the entire store is networked with 10 base t.
Note that Staples is not responsible for the direct choice of OS, as their entire register systems are made / maintained by NCR.
Slashdot Mirror
Just as with a credit card or current cash cards that (most) stores use, there would probably be a section of raised lettering that would carry the card's ID number. In fact, if you look at the picture closely, you can even see the numbering.
The main roblem the I see with this is how does business get done then the system is down / power is out? You wouldn't be able to access the DB that store all of the card information, and therefore wouldn't have any way of verifying if there is money on the card that somebody is using or not.
You are correct, sir.
I guess I was just hoping that for once a disk manufacturer didn't use "gigabyte" to mean "one billion bytes".
heh.. I *so* got to it 30 seconds before you.
Pretty sad though considering I'm on a dialup that only gets 46.6Kbps...
What could possibly take up 3 gigs? C'mon, it's not the OS, they're using Linux. What else are they hiding on that drive that's using so much space?
It's good that they are looking at reusing some of the old junk that we can't effectively remove from space.
Perhaps NASA could sell off some of their old, unused satellites to get (some of) the funding the need?
I think my mom single handedly paid for all of walgreen's expenses with her peroxide buying.
It hurt. A lot.
I can hear it now:
"Tom? You there? It's dark here, and I'm scared. [pause]
Did you hear that? OMIGOSH (I'm lonely) COME HOME QUICK!!!"
Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of nintendo and have never owned another console (because all my friends had them and I would use theirs).
However, some quick googling turned up this link that shows the most recent price fixing by nintendo, occurring just last year. Some more searching will uncover much more.
They have never been much for sharing, even their old games. They can still profit from them and so still want to sell everything to users.
They currently still sell even their ancient NES games as playable on the GBA through the use of the e-card reader.
Just because nintendo has a great line of games and (in my opinion) a great line of consoles, doesn't mean they are a morally correct company. They have done everything from price fixing to scamming the government. They are the MS of consoles, even while MS is in the console biz,
I leave the sides off of my computer for better air flow and less dust collection, but mainly because I'm too lazy to put in case fans.
Since my case has to sit on top of my desk, this also gives me a little more space to put stuff (inside the case, out of the way of boards / wires etc).
What do I keep in there? First is the reciever for my wireless keyboard / mouse, the syncing cradle for my handspring visor edge, and a few important papers. Those are the things that don't really move.
The fun things in there are the mountain dew beer glass, the caffeine shot glass, and usually 2 - 3 open cans of dew. All have soda / caffeine in them and are actively used.
No, nothing has spilled yet, and yes, I do have cats. 3 of them. They know that if they go near the sacred tower, they get stuff thrown at them (usually a slipper, but on occasion a t-shirt if I find that first).
On a side note: I in no way have the balls to water-cool my case, other than replacing the cold soda every 30 minutes.
Five years ago today a brainstorming session in Palo Alto led to the adoption and promotion of the "open source" label.
And thus began the constant complaint stream against Microsoft called "Slashdot"
Not really dead, just asleep. Hence why I forgot the closing italics on my post below. "at 2:00 am" Because, you know, all the important people in the world live on the east coast of the US.
the prospect of a digital counterculture.
Last time I checked, all coutercultures were mandated by the RIAA. Perhaps this is the real reason they are so uppity about computers?
The big thing to remember here is that the survey was conducted by the card maker, not an independant source. The results may not be as reliable as most would like.
Integer / Buffer overflows in Microsoft operating systems are horribly overplayed. Many will simply use this excuse to say that Linux is better than Windows, but the arguement has really been misunderstood for a long time.
The reason these errors became popular is because of Win95. Advertised as the "most stable home computing experience yet," it had several issues with overflows, the two most glaring were buffer overflows (which is still present in Windows, but being fixed with new security updates daily from MS), and ye olde integer overflows. The more problematic of the two was the latter, as it would cause blue screens and, later, the "A fatal exception in OE has occurred [...] Now closing the program" error message.
Almost all of the integer errors were fixed from Win98SE on, and are hardly a problem anymore Since 2k/XP (no, I never bothered to waste my time testing WinME). Nowadays it takes a really horribly coded program to get one of those errors, and yet the arguement lives on.
Wow, I guess that could be considered pro-Microsoft, but I've recently aquired some spare karma. Yay! Time to have a karmacue!
Intel will release a 64 bit processor first, but 2 months later AMD will come out with a 61 bit processor that runs twice as fast. Don't ask me how, or even why speed is relevant to the computing power, but they will do it.
Then, 6 years later, China will come out with their own.
Now what I would like to see is a way to compost or recycle all those computer monitors we've been forced to post about 3 times.
Yeah. That was bad. I think timothy posted it, then Taco posted it, then forgot he postged it and posted it again.
Sounds to me like it's full of hot air.
I guess I masked my sarcasm to good.
Personally I've been using CDs and Sparq disks for the last 5 years.
The only time I use floppies anymore is when I'm at work.
And a LS-120 disk holds as much as 88 floppies, takes up a 5.25" bay and can use regular floppies in the same drive if you want!
These might actually make a comeback if any of those legacy free motherboards ever get big enough. No more floppy drives. Yeesh. What would I ever install AOL 2.0 from?
I agree with this theory completely. I had a very depressing childhood (from ages 6 through 15) and remember very little of events that happened during that time, however any information I can recall almost instantly. The knowledge never evaded me, even though I was never coherent in school I would always absord the information. I believe that I was able to retain the information and not the events because the events were always overshadowed by a dread of facing what had plagued me every day, whereas the information could be useful sometime later.
1) My earliest memory was from when I was 2. The story was never told to me and it is an unimportant event. I saw my granddad and ran over to hug him. My issue with memories is that I alays expand on them, take a 2-D picture from my mind and make it 3-D from a 3rd person perspective, using images of me from the time period to fill in my place. It seems pretty damn real that I can remember seeing myself run over to my grandad in the old apartment where I lived during that time (a whole 4 months, of which time there are no pictures of the inside of the apartment). 2) As for the falling off the bed thing, I had bunk beds and slept on top. I had many cars, houses, planes, boats, and other pointy objects made out of legos on the floor. I had nightmares that I was falling and would awake to find myself falling from the top bunk onto the legos. Scary (and painful) as shit.
The only problem with matter - anti-matter reactions is that the entire earth only produces about .0025 grams per year (correct me if I'm wrong in the exact figure, i know it is insanely small though). This is not only nowhere near enough to power anything for an extended amount of time, but it would also be extremely ineffecient to extract this precious material from the earth.
Until a more abundant source of anti-matter is found, this will not be the Holy Grail either. Sorry.
wow.. i just noticed how mean i was in that post... sorry. as for the clarification, no problem. i try to deliver the best information i have.
Honestly, it seems that you didn't even take the time to read the labels that much, or you might have seen the word Embedded on there. Unless you can get your home pc to run an embedded copy of windows (which i don't even see how you would get a home pc to install it), the cd key is completely useless to you.
I work at another retailer, Staples. They also chose windows to use as their POS system. All of the terminals have windows embedded, with the cd key label on the side. An oversized IBM server sits in the office, and the entire store is networked with 10 base t.
Note that Staples is not responsible for the direct choice of OS, as their entire register systems are made / maintained by NCR.
-tomac