Offcourse Sony doesn't like the second hand trade. I own a PSP and recently bought two games for it. Both second hand from the dutch FreeRecordShop store. 12.50 was about all I was willing to spend for Midnight Club 3.
For that money it is a nice game. For full price (wich it still retails for) it is a piece of crap. The other Fired Up is a piece of crap at 12.50 but if I bought it at full price I would have been really upset. Now I can deal with it.
But offcourse sony ain't making any money of me. Well though shit. I bought GTA at full price and some other games and frankly only GTA was worth it.
PRODUCE GAMES THAT ARE WORTH FULL PRICE and people will pay for it. I do. Just that so few games are worth it.
If this story is true and not another piece of rumor fluffed up to be news by zonk then Sony really seems determined to dig its own grave. STOP UPSETTING PAYING CUSTOMERS!
Does america need more people with computers and intnet access? After all do we really need more idiots who fall for stupid scams?
Another post, insane one, commented about how these machines would be used for spam. Right. Well spam and scams are there for one reason only, because people fall for them.
Don't hate the spammers/scammers, hate their victims. Really if you transfer a small fortune to someone for helping them send you millions I can do nothing but laugh. Fools and their money should be seperated as soon as possible.
4 colors and 4 models if you look closely. Orange/red, Yellow/orange, blue and green. The models with orange are different in the plastic around the screen (one seems to lack speaker and leds)
Green wins by the way. Not only does it miss the hump of the blue one but it got Neko ears instead of bunny ears. Neko for the win!
This isn't for areas where people are starving. This is for areas where people have food but now need to advance to the next level. Education is the only tool to prevent people from collapsing to starvation again.
Why PC's instead of books. Because 1 internet capable pc can contain all the books in the world in their most recent version with an infinite amount of paper and pencil.
Books are expenive as hell, ask any student, and schools in poor countries often got to work with hopelessly outdated material and practice books that gotta be reused time and time again.
Cheap PC's make sense, not in starvation areas but in those countries were the basic needs have been taken care off and now education is the most pressing concern.
Because hopefully educated people will be more concerned with creating a better world and not with waging war on each other. Right?
It is like the homeless newspaper. I can just give them some money BUT that would be begging and charity. Selling and buying the newspaper is just business. I get something real for my money. The stories are usually pretty good if a bit too leftie for my taste (if you read a homeless guy whining about all those suits being locked in their daily grind I don't see why I should then give him my money afterall, he should pay me, the poor prisoner of the system).
300 dollars for a laptop ain't much especially an open one. Especially a cute one!
Also this one seems to be small. And if the stories of the handcrank are true then they are 100% perfect.
I don't need number grinding, I need something wich just bloody works. It being cute enough to attract girls is just a bonus.
Because that is exactly what it seems to mean to lots of so called left-wingers/liberals.
Or explain to me the violence against gays in amsterdam by muslims and the left/liberal refusal to do anything about except launch yet another round of studies and community talks?
I am with the blue collar workers on this one. Keep your hands of our queers muslims.
In the case of that protest mars a truly objective report should have stated something like this.
"A mix of illegal immigrant, first generation legal immigrants and 2nd to 10th generation immigrants marched today. No sign of any native americans who when asked to comment said "I wish all the immigrants went home"".
And even that would not be unbiased. Because if there was a black person there he was not an immigrant but a slave. Immigration is done by choice.
But to accuratly describe the mix of protestors is impossible without newspapers becoming a lot thicker.
So the writer has to choose what he thinks is most important about the group of protestors and that is bias.
The weather yesterday was sunny with a few spots of rain. Accurate. To me. I sat out in the sun and was inside during the rain. If someone was inside during the sun and was suprised by the short but heavy rainfall then they would have a slightly different view on its being a okay spring day. A brisk rain is only refreshing if you ain't in it.
Offcourse people tend to think of news as unbiased if it agrees with them. If you are told you are a wonderfull person then obviously that person is unbiased and totally honest even if she happens to be your mother.
On the other hand if your teacher tells you you are the dumbest piece of shit that ever crossed his path then he is obviously biased because you dropped the fingerpaint all over his new suit when you were 18 in kindergarden.
The real trick in reading news is in being able to ask yourselve. "Is this person telling me the truth or just telling me what I want to hear OR am I thinking it must be lies because I don't want it to be the truth?"
This is hard. Just look at an old controversial topic, that of smoking. Look at how people reacted, some still do, to the news that parents smoking in front of their kids are ruining the kids health. Or even worse, pregnant women smoking. Go ahead, tell a smoking preggo she is killing her unborn child. It is fact but she don't want to hear. Smokers don't want to hear. When a study then comes out that shows smoking ain't all that bad they think that is unbiased.
Perhaps they are right and we the non-smokers are just biased.
So read the articles linked and stop for a moment thinkling, "disagree with me therefore they must be wrong because else I would be wrong" and try to ask yourselve what are they claiming, what is their evidence and what is it they carefully avoid saying. Judge it with an openmind.
So far I haven't seen anyone counter the articles with facts. It all seems to be "I don't want to believe that is true so it ain't true."
Even if your right and it is untrue, you are still wrong in thinking like that.
What if a muslim gay basher is beaten up in jail by skinheads? Would you cry for him?
Lots of left-wing people seem unable to fathom the idea that some muslims might just be right wingers who just happen to be muslim rather then protestant and have a slightly darker tan.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend is an old saying and is the way a lot of the world seems to think. Sadly it is also 100% wrong.
It led to a lot america's foreign problems. India was the friend of the soviet union, wich was america's enemy, pakistan was the enemy of india therefore america now finds itself the friend of a military dictatorship and on shaky terms with the world largest democracy.
It led to america being friends with Saddam because he was the enemy of Iran. That all worked out wonderfull didn't it?
Same with the support to Al Queda in their fight against the hated soviets. Another wonderfull case of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy as well.
If you are leftwing you are probably for gay rights. So how do you defend being pro-muslim then a religion that is very anti-gay rights? How come so many leftwingers defend right wing muslims when they would never ever defend a right wing christian?
It is not that all muslims are right wing offcourse. Far from it. In fact a lot of the real refugeee muslims came here precisly because they were left wing. but they tend to keep quiet. Just as in the west it is the right wingers that make the most noise.
But just because they are muslim doesn't mean they are not right wingers and oppose every politcial ideal of left wingers.
Hatred because of someone's religion is very bad, but so is loving someone because of his religion. Judge a person on his political believes. If they are not yours then act like it and don't led the fear of being called a racist stop you from calling them out on their ideas.
This affects everyone and of course most of us are very hypocritical about it because only the other side is a hypocrit. We never are.
Liberals claim that they are tolerant yet seem to be very intolerant of people who are intolerant. Surely tolerant means you must also be tolerant of people who are not tolerant? Or is the so called multi-culture society really a left only culture?
The people on the right are just as bad. I read some of the articles and it seems that the guy claims he never heard of terrorism before 9/11. Tell that to people who run abortion clinics in the US or those who died in the Oklahoma bombing. To say nothing of the countless people who have been lynched by right wingers. If he speaks for the right he seems to condemn muslims as terrorists while having a blind eye for right wing terrorism from his own country (against his own people, just as those "funny" muslims kill each other because that is all the know how to do)
Perhaps being hypocrits is just what you need to be to survive in this world. YOU! Yes you. Do you care that people are starving in this world? Yet here you sit wasting time and resources that could have used to create a better world. If you ever ate more food then you absolutly need to survive and be healthy then you obviously don't care about people starving from hunger. Same with letting the water run till it gets cold. People are dying in the world because of lack of fresh water and you just threw it away?
Yet who of us is not guilty of this and at the same time claims to care when they see images of people dying?
This ordinary hypcrasy is bad enough but it gets even worse when people get it into their heads that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
You see a lot of people on the so called left defend right wingers.I have had more then amusing discussion with young so called lefties (they are left wing right up until the moment they first have to pay their taxes) who seem to think that muslims are the latest hot thing. Not that different from previous generations who worshipped things like the soviet union or were all mushy over india.
Yet when you then ask these left wingers about stuff like women rights, birth control, the freedom of religion, they are almost 100% opposed to agenda of these muslim radicals they seem to be so in favor off.
It is not suprising, the so called muslims that are "the problem" are clashing with the west because they are very right wing while most of the west is amazingly left wing. The really amusing thing is that the bitter enemies of right wing muslims are right wing westerners.
The problem is perhaps the fear we got for religious/racial prosecution. The holocaust, ireland, apartheid, american segregation they are all vivid reminders of how wrong it has gone in the past.
We don't want that to ever happen again. Rightfully so.
So what to do when a group appears who is not compatible with your world views but who is also very clearly of a different religion/race and a lot of their world view are so clearly tied to their religion.
You just dug yourselve a big hole because the moment you even dare to question them in your own mind you are now different from a nazi or a KKK'er or protestant/catholic.
If you are a reasonably leftwing person and basically believe that everyone should be free in their choice of religion and sex prefference how do you deal with a religion that practices hate against homosexuals?
It is one of the problems in Holland. We used to be one of the most liberal countries in the world on this subject. Freedom of sexual prefference. Amsterdam was the gay capitol of the world.
Recently there have been several beatings of gay people. By muslims. In schools muslims are, in the big cities, becoming the majority and this has led to teachers no longer daring to teach about subjects like homosexuality or the holocaust because of violent reactions.
Yet you cannot attack muslim preachers for inciting hatred because if you
Granted the asker is an obvious MS apologist since he doesn't even get the terms right. It is Linux Apache Mysql PHP(or perl or python) and it is called the LAMP stack.
Anyway. He is right, although wrong at the same time. The widespread use of just one forum software package has indeed led to a mono-culture of sorts and a discovered hole in the package means thousands of sites are at risk.
He is however wrong in thinking this says anything about Linux Mysql Apache or even PHP. The bug is in the software written with it. It would be like blaming C (or whatever word is written in) for word virusses.
But the fact that everyone use phpBB for their forum in its default form is a perfect example of the risks of a monoculture. You gain the benefit of standard software but the moment a security risk develops everyone is at risk.
The more people use your software the more secure it has to be. It is unlikely anyone will bother to hack my own php login script. You probably will never even find it. A lock on a door somewhere in the artic just doesn't need to be as solid as that off one in london.
Especially if the lock in the artic is unique and everyone in london uses the same lock (and even the same key).
HOWEVER there is one advantage to opensource. I can easily rewrite the phpBB software to make it invulnareble to standard attacks. Good luck rewriting MS Office or anyother closed source piece of software.
Opensource is not immune to mono-culture problems. It is just easier to prevent it/fix it.
No, their hardware sucks donkeyballs and they have very poor cooling. Ordinary PC hardware is not designed for server operation but can be pushed to do so if you accept some limitations.
A regular laptop will have even worse hardware. The HD especially is a weakpoint. However for non-heavy use where either the number of reads is limited or even avoided by loading everything in memory a laptop is just a lowend pc.
It can be very usefull as long as you don't expect it to perform the same as a real server.
The build in UPS is however very handy. I worked at an ISP where for some reason the power wasn't that stable for a year or so. Didn't matter for the important stuff because they were on a UPS like system but it did mean regular power failures in the offices (I think it was because workmen kept digging up the powerlines or something).
Anyway I put the ISP job to good use in the form of running my own FTP server. Hey, when you got a fat pipe you need to share it right? It is what I tell my gf anyway:P
It ran of an old laptop hidden in my cupboard (note, do not store chocolate in drawer above a laptop running 24/7) and it just ran regardless of power interruptions. Our workfloor test server was not so lucky and because it was badly adminned it never automatically recovered after a powerfailure.
So I developer on a laptop against my server laptop with power down all around me. Kinda cool although I now realize I was the only one working while everyone else was goofing around.
So yes, laptops can be used to overcome power outages. HOWEVER for what reason? In my case the network was on its own UPS. Will your laptop be as lucky?
No point in running a server when there is no network to serve right?
On the other hand if you can get a cheap UPS to power your network then the batteries of a laptop can last a long time especially if you add all the batteries you can by replacing the cd. Mine lasted through a 8 hour power outage once. The screen being off makes a huge difference.
Just remember heat and HD performance. Then again, I did have the old HD from that computer in my normal server (with adapter) running for years afterwards. I think HD reliability is severly underestimated.
Go for it. Just don't post your server on slashdot.
Even MS itself has admitted that it can't be done. Even its own software forces you to run as admin. Office is the most wellknown example.
There have been a number of stories about it in the last few years even interviews with MS people in wich this was adressed.
Basically, it can be done but not easily and not without a lot of hassle. MS knows this and is supposed to be working very hard on this. Vista is supposed to cure it all.
So for now it seems you are condemned to run with higher privileges then necessary.
Well unless you are willing to just set up your machine right and then not mess with it as a user. You know like it is being done if offices around the world?
No, a regular user can't install many software packages because they need admin. So? Yes this is different from unix systems but is it all that bad?
The entire point of virusses and trojans and userlevels is overrated anyway.
I run as admin on my gaming box all the time because as far as I know games need admin and never been infected in all the years of windows. It just takes a bit of common sense. No this doesn't mean avoid P2P. I never had a dud file via P2P. I don't understand how people manage it. Fake movies? The only fake movie I downloaded was Doom, they took my action movie and turned it into an aliens wannabe.
Guess I am just to smart to fall for trojans and virusses eh?
Then again, I don't get much spam either. Nobody likes me:( The I love you virus totally skipped me.
Wait a minute, this low end PS3 is getting slammed for not having HDMI but none of the other consoles have it either? WTF?
Anyway, this is anti-piracy crap and the problem with anti-piracy is that it only hurts the non-pirates. It has already been shown that the next generation copy-protections for movies can be broken. There are some mighty clever people out there who get a thrill out of doing this and not all of them live in countries that could give a shit if some hollywood studio claimes it looses billions.
Back to silly console business. The Wii is not HD and that is defended because not enough people will have HD tv's for this console generations lifespan. The low end PS3 does not have HD and is slammed for not being future proof?
This is one reason I stopped reading game reviews, because I started to notice that reviewers never heard of consistency. They would slam game A for being X and then slam game B for not being X.
Is the computer industry that immature that we can't at least attempt to judge all things equally?
Either HDMI is important or it isn't. Make up your mind. No I don't get the low end PS3 move either. Yes I am familiar with the way fastfood places offer small medium and large so that the medium looks like the better deal. However the PS3 ain't being pushed as a McD coke. At its price it is supposed to be a fine cuisine served at a top restaurant. One way to tell a good restaurant from a fast food place is the lack of supersizing.
Oh well, lets continue the endless console debate. Were we slam the console we don't like for not having the features the console we like doesn't have either.
Yeah could be. It is just that when you hold them against each other they seem awfully close (DS Lite and PSP) except the DS is shorter, and a lot lighter.
But you also added the volme and then the DS really looses doesn't it.
I just find it funny then that the PSP got slammed for size and the DS did not. Hinged or not it shows you how prejudiced people can be.
Here is another shocker, the Wii is cheap at 249 estimated price point.
Oh really? Put a PC together of similar hardware, account for bulk discount and reduction for not being configurable to user specification and check again. Still such a good deal? Remember, Nintedo doesn't make its living selling consoles while say a laptop maker does.
A while back you had the whole PSP vs DS debate and the PSP was being slammed for being so big. But owning a DS Lite (dark blue from HK) the thing is only a few centimeters shorter then the PSP (width and depth being the same). Wich must mean the DS is the same size if not actually larger then the PSP. Especially considering the DS Lite can't fit GBA catridges all the way. They stick out a full centimeter.
So how fucking big is the original DS anyway? And why did everybody claim the PSP was to large?
Talk about game price. I only have handhelds and I noticed that nintendo has a long history of releasing old games for full price on their handheld.
Oh yeah gameplay is alright but really does a Advance Wars Dual Strike deserve the same price point as an Oblivion?
I think that that is the real Nintendo success. That consumers so far are not objecting to paying full price for games for handheld games that have cost a fraction of the development costs.
With DS sales so high I can't help but feal DS developers are cleaning up.
I buy most of my games secondhand. 44.95 vs 12.50 makes a huge difference.
So very nice that the Wii will cost 249 or whatever. What I want to know is the price of games. That is the real kicker.
As for the whole idea of downloadable old games. Are they going to be priced the same as the handheld ports?
And since when does Nintendo have a reputation for being cheap? Just check out the hardware vs price cost of the new tiny GBA and a PSP. The PSP at the moment is only twice as expensive but surely it got two times the hardware inside?
Saying that nintendo consoles are cheap is like saying lada's are cheaper then volvo's. Well duh.
This is not a comment on their value as a gaming machine but price alone ain't everything. Nintendo has to be cheap because absolutly nobody would buy one at a higher price. The Wii has to be cheap. The PS3 can afford to be expensive (or so Sony hopes at least). Put another way, would you buy a Wii at 360 prices? No, didn't think so.
The grandma that worked with the first computers out there. Who thinks vi is just for kids that can't hack ed. As for vim well, she is a grandma and she loves all her grandchilderen even the "special" ones.
The simple fact is that computers ain't new anymore. Think of it like this would you dare suggest that a young adult of today is a better car operator then someone who has managed a jeep all the way through WW2?
Reminds me of a family trip ages ago to england with the ferry. Cousin was being all protective and telling grandpa that it was perfectly safe and all. Neatly forgetting that grandpa had actually been on convoys in WW2. A channel ferry crossing wasn't exactly going to be a trill ride was it now?
Long before you had Windows, long before DOS secretaties have had to deal with computers and type letters on systems their bosses couldn't figure out.
In many ways we are unlearning some of these lessons. Just as kids of today don't have the programming exposure that kids who grew up with home computers like the C64 had, kids today are no longer learning how to deal with programs that don't hold you hand all the way.
I seen kids stumped by older versions of windows because they only know XP and lack any kind of skill in just being able to figure things out.
So be carefull when you question your grandma's capabilities. You might find you don't compare very well.
Oh and a final note. Stupid grandma's have stupid grandchilderen. Now I ask you again, what kind of grandma do you got?
I find the entire discussion as to wich console will win a bit amusing. Price is the funniest since it seems to never have had an effect before.
But what is even more amazing is how unbalanced fanboys can be.
For totally nuts check this out. A lot of 360 owners slam Sony for not having the cool controls of the Wii. Hello? Doesn't the 360 have zero innovation in its controller? So you slam Sony for adding only 1 small feature vs Nintendo redesign while being the proud owner of a console that has that same old controller that been used for the last decade?
Pot calling kettle black?
I seen a lot of complaining about 360 not being fully backwards compatible. Both the PS3 and Wii promise to be different so how come MS ain't slammed for that?
It seems that a lot of people got something against Sony. Perhaps it is just a David vs Goliath syndrome, we love to see the big guy taken down a notch and perhaps it has to do with the root kit (then again if you run windows surely you gotten used to be rooted by now)
However fanboys vendetta's do not make accurate sale predictions.
So far as I can see the consoles all got their weaknesses.
The Wii is simplest, it is underpowered. How long can it last in the years consoles are supposed to stay current. It is not just about CPU, it is the only one to lack a HD (People who buy the lesser version of a console like the 360 core are like people who buy Celerons, not worth talking about) and that means it can't do games that require data storage. I am curious where the Wii is supposed to store all those downloadable old games.
Will it matter? We will know in 2010 when the next-next generations consoles will start to be talked about.
The 360 weakness is that it is the most boring of the three. Not the supposed power beast that is the PS3 and not as innovative as the Wii. It is just x-box version 2. Games look pretty but not earth shattering and not really all that different from what came before. To me the console seems to have lost a lot of its luster and even the fanboys are now just talking about actual upcoming games rather then having wetdreams about what might happen.
The PS3 weakness to me seems that the Cell just doesn't deliver its hyped power. There are some nice demos out but they all seem to be cutscenes. Even if they are rendered live this mean little. When you know where the camera is going to be you can optomize a lot. Actual gameplay footage is rare and what is out there just doesn't tell me "supercomputer in your living room". With so many cores why am I not seeing thousand unit air battles?
In short the real weakness of the PS3 is that it might just not be able to actually produce any games that are richer then the 360 or even worse, the Wii. Rich for me means AI, Physics, unit count, size of area etc etc. NOT resolution.
Not that any of the console companies are likely to care but I predict that PC gamers will once again look at consoles and go, "nice game kid". Pat the player on the head and go play a real game.
Or put another way. Console fanboys eat my keyboard!
Your TCP setup requires all software to be signed before it is allowed to be installed.
Well there can be two ways to implement this. Put a rigid control on this by for instance the OS owner, MS in this case, and voila, you just gave Bill Gates a hardon.
Cause now you won't be able to run anything not approved off by MS. Yipee!
On the other handle it like you get certificates for the web in a free open manner and the only barrier to getting malware signed is a few bucks. The cost is trivial especially if you consider most malware is commercial in nature.
So other your PC comes under total control OR all you do is add a small cost burden to everyone developing software. Unimportant for big companies and criminals BUT not for non-commercial developers. Even worse then first you now handed control over to anyone with money.
And all this to achieve what? That the user can't install software that he wants to install. Cause that is the simple problem. The user wants to install this piece of crap. It could already be easily achieved with current tech. It ain't that hard to even lockdown a windows box and stop the user from installing software.
But the, windows, user wants to be able to install all those nifty toys he sees on the net. 99% of the time it goes fine, there really are free screensavers and free smileys out there. Some people even reported that there are some really free pictures of naked women on the net that are not spyware in disguise but I think that might be just a myth.
So TCP could work but at the cost of loosing the control over what you install OR if it can be avoided you have the exact same system as now.
This isn't a problem of the OS, anything that requires user interaction to activate is a problem located firmly between the keyboard and the chair.
The history of the browser war is slightly like this. MS pushed MSN, the world didn't take MSN and choose another browser. MS realized it might not control the net, it pushed IE through rapid development and with the luck that Netscape botched a release they gained massive marketshare and then stopped content to have the majority and no longer willing to continue to innovate.
Cue IE not supporting standards and the continued lack of such things as PNG support.
Until opensource arrives on the scene and sets MS ass on fire. Some optomist think that IE7 will finally see MS coming back into action so web design can move out of the 1990's.
So will Vista's defender be the same? MS going full tilt to get marketshare then when it has it let the product rot as long as it is unopposed?
Remember MS didn't give shit about IE being insecure as hell until people started seeking out alternatives. So once Vista's anti spyware/firewall software has killed the competition will MS this time be motivated to keep its software uptodate?
MS is the textbook example of why monopolies are bad (lack of innovation). Will windows users again fall for it. Offcourse. They are windows users. A donkey may not trip on the same stone twice but the average windows user would loose an intelligence contest against the dumbest of donkeys. After it fell down a ravine. And had its brains picked out by hungry vultures.
Oh well, maybe this time things will be different.
On the one hand I like most people think that medical technology is pretty advanced and that the days of voodoo are long over. Rational science rules the day.
Except that the medical scientist been wrong before. Refusing to identify diseases. Denying links. There was a time not so long ago when your doctor told you smoking was healthy. These doctors have not been rounded up and shot for being a disgrace to science so what is to say doctors of today are any more right?
Anyone remember how long it took before aids was accepted as disease? What about the whole gulf war syndrome.
On the other hand in this case why is there no evidence? Chronic pain is hard to photograph or collect in a bag but surely the black tar sweat and colored fibers can be collected and analyzed?
Yet there doesn't seem to be any.
I don't trust doctors blindly but a disease with such obvious physical sympthoms and no physical evidence sounds fishy to me.
But I find it slightly appaling that so many on Slashdot have a blind trust in doctors.
Slashdot Mirror
Offcourse Sony doesn't like the second hand trade. I own a PSP and recently bought two games for it. Both second hand from the dutch FreeRecordShop store. 12.50 was about all I was willing to spend for Midnight Club 3.
For that money it is a nice game. For full price (wich it still retails for) it is a piece of crap. The other Fired Up is a piece of crap at 12.50 but if I bought it at full price I would have been really upset. Now I can deal with it.
But offcourse sony ain't making any money of me. Well though shit. I bought GTA at full price and some other games and frankly only GTA was worth it.
PRODUCE GAMES THAT ARE WORTH FULL PRICE and people will pay for it. I do. Just that so few games are worth it.
If this story is true and not another piece of rumor fluffed up to be news by zonk then Sony really seems determined to dig its own grave. STOP UPSETTING PAYING CUSTOMERS!
Geez.
Another post, insane one, commented about how these machines would be used for spam. Right. Well spam and scams are there for one reason only, because people fall for them.
Don't hate the spammers/scammers, hate their victims. Really if you transfer a small fortune to someone for helping them send you millions I can do nothing but laugh. Fools and their money should be seperated as soon as possible.
Green wins by the way. Not only does it miss the hump of the blue one but it got Neko ears instead of bunny ears. Neko for the win!
This isn't for areas where people are starving. This is for areas where people have food but now need to advance to the next level. Education is the only tool to prevent people from collapsing to starvation again.
Why PC's instead of books. Because 1 internet capable pc can contain all the books in the world in their most recent version with an infinite amount of paper and pencil.
Books are expenive as hell, ask any student, and schools in poor countries often got to work with hopelessly outdated material and practice books that gotta be reused time and time again.
Cheap PC's make sense, not in starvation areas but in those countries were the basic needs have been taken care off and now education is the most pressing concern.
Because hopefully educated people will be more concerned with creating a better world and not with waging war on each other. Right?
300 dollars for a laptop ain't much especially an open one. Especially a cute one!
Also this one seems to be small. And if the stories of the handcrank are true then they are 100% perfect.
I don't need number grinding, I need something wich just bloody works. It being cute enough to attract girls is just a bonus.
Or explain to me the violence against gays in amsterdam by muslims and the left/liberal refusal to do anything about except launch yet another round of studies and community talks?
I am with the blue collar workers on this one. Keep your hands of our queers muslims.
Dutch policy seems to be to cover everything up and hope it goes away.
We hoped WW2 would pass us by too. That worked well.
"A mix of illegal immigrant, first generation legal immigrants and 2nd to 10th generation immigrants marched today. No sign of any native americans who when asked to comment said "I wish all the immigrants went home"".
And even that would not be unbiased. Because if there was a black person there he was not an immigrant but a slave. Immigration is done by choice.
But to accuratly describe the mix of protestors is impossible without newspapers becoming a lot thicker.
So the writer has to choose what he thinks is most important about the group of protestors and that is bias.
The weather yesterday was sunny with a few spots of rain. Accurate. To me. I sat out in the sun and was inside during the rain. If someone was inside during the sun and was suprised by the short but heavy rainfall then they would have a slightly different view on its being a okay spring day. A brisk rain is only refreshing if you ain't in it.
Offcourse people tend to think of news as unbiased if it agrees with them. If you are told you are a wonderfull person then obviously that person is unbiased and totally honest even if she happens to be your mother.
On the other hand if your teacher tells you you are the dumbest piece of shit that ever crossed his path then he is obviously biased because you dropped the fingerpaint all over his new suit when you were 18 in kindergarden.
The real trick in reading news is in being able to ask yourselve. "Is this person telling me the truth or just telling me what I want to hear OR am I thinking it must be lies because I don't want it to be the truth?"
This is hard. Just look at an old controversial topic, that of smoking. Look at how people reacted, some still do, to the news that parents smoking in front of their kids are ruining the kids health. Or even worse, pregnant women smoking. Go ahead, tell a smoking preggo she is killing her unborn child. It is fact but she don't want to hear. Smokers don't want to hear. When a study then comes out that shows smoking ain't all that bad they think that is unbiased.
Perhaps they are right and we the non-smokers are just biased.
So read the articles linked and stop for a moment thinkling, "disagree with me therefore they must be wrong because else I would be wrong" and try to ask yourselve what are they claiming, what is their evidence and what is it they carefully avoid saying. Judge it with an openmind.
So far I haven't seen anyone counter the articles with facts. It all seems to be "I don't want to believe that is true so it ain't true."
Even if your right and it is untrue, you are still wrong in thinking like that.
What if a muslim gay basher is beaten up in jail by skinheads? Would you cry for him?
Lots of left-wing people seem unable to fathom the idea that some muslims might just be right wingers who just happen to be muslim rather then protestant and have a slightly darker tan.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend is an old saying and is the way a lot of the world seems to think. Sadly it is also 100% wrong.
It led to a lot america's foreign problems. India was the friend of the soviet union, wich was america's enemy, pakistan was the enemy of india therefore america now finds itself the friend of a military dictatorship and on shaky terms with the world largest democracy.
It led to america being friends with Saddam because he was the enemy of Iran. That all worked out wonderfull didn't it?
Same with the support to Al Queda in their fight against the hated soviets. Another wonderfull case of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy as well.
If you are leftwing you are probably for gay rights. So how do you defend being pro-muslim then a religion that is very anti-gay rights? How come so many leftwingers defend right wing muslims when they would never ever defend a right wing christian?
It is not that all muslims are right wing offcourse. Far from it. In fact a lot of the real refugeee muslims came here precisly because they were left wing. but they tend to keep quiet. Just as in the west it is the right wingers that make the most noise.
But just because they are muslim doesn't mean they are not right wingers and oppose every politcial ideal of left wingers.
Hatred because of someone's religion is very bad, but so is loving someone because of his religion. Judge a person on his political believes. If they are not yours then act like it and don't led the fear of being called a racist stop you from calling them out on their ideas.
This affects everyone and of course most of us are very hypocritical about it because only the other side is a hypocrit. We never are.
Liberals claim that they are tolerant yet seem to be very intolerant of people who are intolerant. Surely tolerant means you must also be tolerant of people who are not tolerant? Or is the so called multi-culture society really a left only culture?
The people on the right are just as bad. I read some of the articles and it seems that the guy claims he never heard of terrorism before 9/11. Tell that to people who run abortion clinics in the US or those who died in the Oklahoma bombing. To say nothing of the countless people who have been lynched by right wingers. If he speaks for the right he seems to condemn muslims as terrorists while having a blind eye for right wing terrorism from his own country (against his own people, just as those "funny" muslims kill each other because that is all the know how to do)
Perhaps being hypocrits is just what you need to be to survive in this world. YOU! Yes you. Do you care that people are starving in this world? Yet here you sit wasting time and resources that could have used to create a better world. If you ever ate more food then you absolutly need to survive and be healthy then you obviously don't care about people starving from hunger. Same with letting the water run till it gets cold. People are dying in the world because of lack of fresh water and you just threw it away?
Yet who of us is not guilty of this and at the same time claims to care when they see images of people dying?
This ordinary hypcrasy is bad enough but it gets even worse when people get it into their heads that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
You see a lot of people on the so called left defend right wingers.I have had more then amusing discussion with young so called lefties (they are left wing right up until the moment they first have to pay their taxes) who seem to think that muslims are the latest hot thing. Not that different from previous generations who worshipped things like the soviet union or were all mushy over india.
Yet when you then ask these left wingers about stuff like women rights, birth control, the freedom of religion, they are almost 100% opposed to agenda of these muslim radicals they seem to be so in favor off.
It is not suprising, the so called muslims that are "the problem" are clashing with the west because they are very right wing while most of the west is amazingly left wing. The really amusing thing is that the bitter enemies of right wing muslims are right wing westerners.
The problem is perhaps the fear we got for religious/racial prosecution. The holocaust, ireland, apartheid, american segregation they are all vivid reminders of how wrong it has gone in the past.
We don't want that to ever happen again. Rightfully so.
So what to do when a group appears who is not compatible with your world views but who is also very clearly of a different religion/race and a lot of their world view are so clearly tied to their religion.
You just dug yourselve a big hole because the moment you even dare to question them in your own mind you are now different from a nazi or a KKK'er or protestant/catholic.
If you are a reasonably leftwing person and basically believe that everyone should be free in their choice of religion and sex prefference how do you deal with a religion that practices hate against homosexuals?
It is one of the problems in Holland. We used to be one of the most liberal countries in the world on this subject. Freedom of sexual prefference. Amsterdam was the gay capitol of the world.
Recently there have been several beatings of gay people. By muslims. In schools muslims are, in the big cities, becoming the majority and this has led to teachers no longer daring to teach about subjects like homosexuality or the holocaust because of violent reactions.
Yet you cannot attack muslim preachers for inciting hatred because if you
Do that and a goddess will appear to grant your every wish. Or untangle your fingers.
Anyway. He is right, although wrong at the same time. The widespread use of just one forum software package has indeed led to a mono-culture of sorts and a discovered hole in the package means thousands of sites are at risk.
He is however wrong in thinking this says anything about Linux Mysql Apache or even PHP. The bug is in the software written with it. It would be like blaming C (or whatever word is written in) for word virusses.
But the fact that everyone use phpBB for their forum in its default form is a perfect example of the risks of a monoculture. You gain the benefit of standard software but the moment a security risk develops everyone is at risk.
The more people use your software the more secure it has to be. It is unlikely anyone will bother to hack my own php login script. You probably will never even find it. A lock on a door somewhere in the artic just doesn't need to be as solid as that off one in london.
Especially if the lock in the artic is unique and everyone in london uses the same lock (and even the same key).
HOWEVER there is one advantage to opensource. I can easily rewrite the phpBB software to make it invulnareble to standard attacks. Good luck rewriting MS Office or anyother closed source piece of software.
Opensource is not immune to mono-culture problems. It is just easier to prevent it/fix it.
is .tv a country of the glow tube?
How about .info?
Sorry just because the most common domains use 3 letters doesn't mean it is a convention.
Granted I don't get mobi either. First thought it was about motherboards. .go perhaps?
Ah fuck it, dns is for kids anyway, real men surf by IP.
I never said I believed it. But that is what is claimed. Surely MS won't think it can pull the same crap again?
A regular laptop will have even worse hardware. The HD especially is a weakpoint. However for non-heavy use where either the number of reads is limited or even avoided by loading everything in memory a laptop is just a lowend pc.
It can be very usefull as long as you don't expect it to perform the same as a real server.
The build in UPS is however very handy. I worked at an ISP where for some reason the power wasn't that stable for a year or so. Didn't matter for the important stuff because they were on a UPS like system but it did mean regular power failures in the offices (I think it was because workmen kept digging up the powerlines or something).
Anyway I put the ISP job to good use in the form of running my own FTP server. Hey, when you got a fat pipe you need to share it right? It is what I tell my gf anyway :P
It ran of an old laptop hidden in my cupboard (note, do not store chocolate in drawer above a laptop running 24/7) and it just ran regardless of power interruptions. Our workfloor test server was not so lucky and because it was badly adminned it never automatically recovered after a powerfailure.
So I developer on a laptop against my server laptop with power down all around me. Kinda cool although I now realize I was the only one working while everyone else was goofing around.
So yes, laptops can be used to overcome power outages. HOWEVER for what reason? In my case the network was on its own UPS. Will your laptop be as lucky?
No point in running a server when there is no network to serve right?
On the other hand if you can get a cheap UPS to power your network then the batteries of a laptop can last a long time especially if you add all the batteries you can by replacing the cd. Mine lasted through a 8 hour power outage once. The screen being off makes a huge difference.
Just remember heat and HD performance. Then again, I did have the old HD from that computer in my normal server (with adapter) running for years afterwards. I think HD reliability is severly underestimated.
Go for it. Just don't post your server on slashdot.
There have been a number of stories about it in the last few years even interviews with MS people in wich this was adressed.
Basically, it can be done but not easily and not without a lot of hassle. MS knows this and is supposed to be working very hard on this. Vista is supposed to cure it all.
So for now it seems you are condemned to run with higher privileges then necessary.
Well unless you are willing to just set up your machine right and then not mess with it as a user. You know like it is being done if offices around the world?
No, a regular user can't install many software packages because they need admin. So? Yes this is different from unix systems but is it all that bad?
The entire point of virusses and trojans and userlevels is overrated anyway.
I run as admin on my gaming box all the time because as far as I know games need admin and never been infected in all the years of windows. It just takes a bit of common sense. No this doesn't mean avoid P2P. I never had a dud file via P2P. I don't understand how people manage it. Fake movies? The only fake movie I downloaded was Doom, they took my action movie and turned it into an aliens wannabe.
Guess I am just to smart to fall for trojans and virusses eh?
Then again, I don't get much spam either. Nobody likes me :( The I love you virus totally skipped me.
Somebody spam me? Please!
Anyway, this is anti-piracy crap and the problem with anti-piracy is that it only hurts the non-pirates. It has already been shown that the next generation copy-protections for movies can be broken. There are some mighty clever people out there who get a thrill out of doing this and not all of them live in countries that could give a shit if some hollywood studio claimes it looses billions.
Back to silly console business. The Wii is not HD and that is defended because not enough people will have HD tv's for this console generations lifespan. The low end PS3 does not have HD and is slammed for not being future proof?
This is one reason I stopped reading game reviews, because I started to notice that reviewers never heard of consistency. They would slam game A for being X and then slam game B for not being X.
Is the computer industry that immature that we can't at least attempt to judge all things equally?
Either HDMI is important or it isn't. Make up your mind. No I don't get the low end PS3 move either. Yes I am familiar with the way fastfood places offer small medium and large so that the medium looks like the better deal. However the PS3 ain't being pushed as a McD coke. At its price it is supposed to be a fine cuisine served at a top restaurant. One way to tell a good restaurant from a fast food place is the lack of supersizing.
Oh well, lets continue the endless console debate. Were we slam the console we don't like for not having the features the console we like doesn't have either.
But you also added the volme and then the DS really looses doesn't it.
I just find it funny then that the PSP got slammed for size and the DS did not. Hinged or not it shows you how prejudiced people can be.
Here is another shocker, the Wii is cheap at 249 estimated price point.
Oh really? Put a PC together of similar hardware, account for bulk discount and reduction for not being configurable to user specification and check again. Still such a good deal? Remember, Nintedo doesn't make its living selling consoles while say a laptop maker does.
So how fucking big is the original DS anyway? And why did everybody claim the PSP was to large?
Heavy yes, large not when compared to the DS.
Oh yeah gameplay is alright but really does a Advance Wars Dual Strike deserve the same price point as an Oblivion?
I think that that is the real Nintendo success. That consumers so far are not objecting to paying full price for games for handheld games that have cost a fraction of the development costs.
With DS sales so high I can't help but feal DS developers are cleaning up.
I buy most of my games secondhand. 44.95 vs 12.50 makes a huge difference.
So very nice that the Wii will cost 249 or whatever. What I want to know is the price of games. That is the real kicker.
As for the whole idea of downloadable old games. Are they going to be priced the same as the handheld ports?
And since when does Nintendo have a reputation for being cheap? Just check out the hardware vs price cost of the new tiny GBA and a PSP. The PSP at the moment is only twice as expensive but surely it got two times the hardware inside?
Saying that nintendo consoles are cheap is like saying lada's are cheaper then volvo's. Well duh.
This is not a comment on their value as a gaming machine but price alone ain't everything. Nintendo has to be cheap because absolutly nobody would buy one at a higher price. The Wii has to be cheap. The PS3 can afford to be expensive (or so Sony hopes at least). Put another way, would you buy a Wii at 360 prices? No, didn't think so.
The simple fact is that computers ain't new anymore. Think of it like this would you dare suggest that a young adult of today is a better car operator then someone who has managed a jeep all the way through WW2?
Reminds me of a family trip ages ago to england with the ferry. Cousin was being all protective and telling grandpa that it was perfectly safe and all. Neatly forgetting that grandpa had actually been on convoys in WW2. A channel ferry crossing wasn't exactly going to be a trill ride was it now?
Long before you had Windows, long before DOS secretaties have had to deal with computers and type letters on systems their bosses couldn't figure out.
In many ways we are unlearning some of these lessons. Just as kids of today don't have the programming exposure that kids who grew up with home computers like the C64 had, kids today are no longer learning how to deal with programs that don't hold you hand all the way.
I seen kids stumped by older versions of windows because they only know XP and lack any kind of skill in just being able to figure things out.
So be carefull when you question your grandma's capabilities. You might find you don't compare very well.
Oh and a final note. Stupid grandma's have stupid grandchilderen. Now I ask you again, what kind of grandma do you got?
But what is even more amazing is how unbalanced fanboys can be.
For totally nuts check this out. A lot of 360 owners slam Sony for not having the cool controls of the Wii. Hello? Doesn't the 360 have zero innovation in its controller? So you slam Sony for adding only 1 small feature vs Nintendo redesign while being the proud owner of a console that has that same old controller that been used for the last decade?
Pot calling kettle black?
I seen a lot of complaining about 360 not being fully backwards compatible. Both the PS3 and Wii promise to be different so how come MS ain't slammed for that?
It seems that a lot of people got something against Sony. Perhaps it is just a David vs Goliath syndrome, we love to see the big guy taken down a notch and perhaps it has to do with the root kit (then again if you run windows surely you gotten used to be rooted by now)
However fanboys vendetta's do not make accurate sale predictions.
So far as I can see the consoles all got their weaknesses.
Will it matter? We will know in 2010 when the next-next generations consoles will start to be talked about.
In short the real weakness of the PS3 is that it might just not be able to actually produce any games that are richer then the 360 or even worse, the Wii. Rich for me means AI, Physics, unit count, size of area etc etc. NOT resolution.
Not that any of the console companies are likely to care but I predict that PC gamers will once again look at consoles and go, "nice game kid". Pat the player on the head and go play a real game.
Or put another way. Console fanboys eat my keyboard!
Well there can be two ways to implement this. Put a rigid control on this by for instance the OS owner, MS in this case, and voila, you just gave Bill Gates a hardon.
Cause now you won't be able to run anything not approved off by MS. Yipee!
On the other handle it like you get certificates for the web in a free open manner and the only barrier to getting malware signed is a few bucks. The cost is trivial especially if you consider most malware is commercial in nature.
So other your PC comes under total control OR all you do is add a small cost burden to everyone developing software. Unimportant for big companies and criminals BUT not for non-commercial developers. Even worse then first you now handed control over to anyone with money.
And all this to achieve what? That the user can't install software that he wants to install. Cause that is the simple problem. The user wants to install this piece of crap. It could already be easily achieved with current tech. It ain't that hard to even lockdown a windows box and stop the user from installing software.
But the, windows, user wants to be able to install all those nifty toys he sees on the net. 99% of the time it goes fine, there really are free screensavers and free smileys out there. Some people even reported that there are some really free pictures of naked women on the net that are not spyware in disguise but I think that might be just a myth.
So TCP could work but at the cost of loosing the control over what you install OR if it can be avoided you have the exact same system as now.
This isn't a problem of the OS, anything that requires user interaction to activate is a problem located firmly between the keyboard and the chair.
Cue IE not supporting standards and the continued lack of such things as PNG support.
Until opensource arrives on the scene and sets MS ass on fire. Some optomist think that IE7 will finally see MS coming back into action so web design can move out of the 1990's.
So will Vista's defender be the same? MS going full tilt to get marketshare then when it has it let the product rot as long as it is unopposed?
Remember MS didn't give shit about IE being insecure as hell until people started seeking out alternatives. So once Vista's anti spyware/firewall software has killed the competition will MS this time be motivated to keep its software uptodate?
MS is the textbook example of why monopolies are bad (lack of innovation). Will windows users again fall for it. Offcourse. They are windows users. A donkey may not trip on the same stone twice but the average windows user would loose an intelligence contest against the dumbest of donkeys. After it fell down a ravine. And had its brains picked out by hungry vultures.
Oh well, maybe this time things will be different.
Except that the medical scientist been wrong before. Refusing to identify diseases. Denying links. There was a time not so long ago when your doctor told you smoking was healthy. These doctors have not been rounded up and shot for being a disgrace to science so what is to say doctors of today are any more right?
Anyone remember how long it took before aids was accepted as disease? What about the whole gulf war syndrome.
On the other hand in this case why is there no evidence? Chronic pain is hard to photograph or collect in a bag but surely the black tar sweat and colored fibers can be collected and analyzed?
Yet there doesn't seem to be any.
I don't trust doctors blindly but a disease with such obvious physical sympthoms and no physical evidence sounds fishy to me.
But I find it slightly appaling that so many on Slashdot have a blind trust in doctors.