It may be intended for piracy, but there are some of us folks who like having a menu to go to that you can just load games from, rather than messing around with disks.
I got HD Advance for the PS2 because I wanted this functionality. I could shove a hard drive in and rip all the games I played a lot to it. No more disks everywhere, just a nice menu system.
I got hacked firmware for the PSP for the same reason. Now I don't have to take a stack of UMDs when I go on a plane AND the battery life lasts longer.
If I can have this for PS3 as well I will be a happy bunny.
They are estimated to be 20 years ahead of the civilian world in when it comes to encryption research in the opinion of AC posters on slashdot.
It seems to be some sort of hero-worship of the US government that's prevalent here. I'm sure they do a lot, and we know that they find weaknesses in some stuff before others do, but I do not believe for one second that they have access to hardware types that are not even in the experimental prototype stage yet.
It's actually pretty convenient if you're on your way home and decide to pick up a six pack. You just drive through, tell 'em what you want, hand the money through the window and get the beer in return. Australia does have something of a DD problem, not sure how it compares to the US, but I can tell you they don't encourage me to drink and drive.
Whilst it can be fun in that situation, this story is why y'all Americans need to invest in public transport networks!
Kidding! But... I lived in London for most of my 20s and having ubiquitous bus and underground services did mean that there was never any risk of drunk driving, there was just no need.
A unit is 10ml of alcohol, so three units is not three beers.
A 330ml bottle of Bud at 4.7% by volume (for the sake of an example) contains 15.5ml of ethanol so it comes in at 1.5 units. 2 bottles of bud is 3 "standard" drinks.
"I really don't see how laws against driving after consuming intoxicants are bad."
The only thing I really care about is that the laws are evidence based. There should be a good reason for something being illegal and for us to punish each other for certain behaviours. If there's no evidence that a BAC of 0.03 (again, for the sake of an example) impairs driving ability, then it shouldn't be illegal to drive with a BAC of 0.03. The law does need to take into account different tolerances and different starting abilities, it's true. That's my take.
I had a little AOC UPS, a very small 2-socket home one, good for running the wireless router and my small (NSLU2) email/web server on. I'm not sure what broke the unit (so perhaps it's not exactly the same story), but when I called them all they wanted was a scan of the receipt and they sent a new one out immediately, arriving the next day. For a UPS I'd paid about 25 pounds for. Most impressed.
Oh and this might help too - an explanation of the law by the bbc. Still vague. I guess I had assumed something similar existed in Europe, but as a UK citizen my experience of the rest of europe is limited.
Perhaps it's just the UK then. The key phrase is "Fit for purpose", things must behave as something of that class of things is supposed to behave, and have a reasonable life expectancy (quality).
If the company has just decided not to do graphics cards any more and close down that part of the business, then hell no! They should be expected to honour it and if they can't repair/replace in house then contract it out or provide another manufacturer's replacement cards.
If they are actually winding up the company, have administrators in and are genuinely (almost) bankrupt and closing up shop, that's a different matter.
The reasonable lifetime of the class of product is something protected by law anyway (well, in europe). A "Lifetime Warranty" can and should be interpreted as something over and above that, a warranty or guarantee that last the lifetime of the purchaser, Much like with a zippo lighter.
Of course, yes, if the company goes tits-up then it's pretty useless.
I think you're very wrong about what it takes to be a competent programmer. I have worked for three companies now, of varying sizes. None of them used code analysis tools, splint or otherwise.
Each produced stable, enterprise (and even financial) grade software and were highly profitable. All had very talented developers.
Using automated tools could indeed be a time saver, and may be a way to drive down support and maintenance costs. After this conversation I'll likely even recommend it, but you might want to reconsider what constitutes a competent programmer. I've known some dreadful ones that automated out the wazoo and several exceptional ones that automate a lot but don't use all the tools.
Well, firstly I think it*'s assumed that bandwidth gets faster, better and cheaper. This may or may not happen and will probably vary wildly by geographic region.
Secondly, have you heard of WASTE? It hides its traffic by using multiple ports, changing bitrates and packet sizes, wrapping encrypted data in SMTP, HTTP or other protocols and generally being sneaky.
Hey, I thought about my comment and you're right - there's really no reason not to use the automated tools that are available. It is manifestly possible to produce rock solid, enterprise grade software without them, but from an efficiency perspective you're spot on.
Look, nobody says that all the bad men will go away in a magic flash but consider this - it takes a major and comparatively easy source of revenue away. Less people will get into the game because the profits are not there. Do some of the gangs switch to other crimes? Sure. But they don't have a product to sell that lots of folk want and that is tacitly supported by much of the population who don't agree with the drug laws.
Not all of them are killers, not all of them start off as killers. Take the money away and watch the cartels shrink. Not disappear, but shrink a lot.
"you stagger in to a drug shop and they say come back when you aren't high. The illegal distributor has no such restrictions."
Just like you stagger into the bar and they say "come back when you're not drunk", so you just go to the bootlegger around the corner...
Oh no, wait, that doesn't happen at all. (Though on the negative side, too many places will serve wasted people, or people who are obviously alcoholic, and this issue would likely persist with drugs)
And I don't see people using non-approved substances as reason enough to kill them, or consider them collateral damage in your 'war' against things you don't approve of.
Take a look at the wikipedia page about alcohol withdrawal, paying note to the part about how it changes brain chemistry and where it mentions that one of the potential side effects of withdrawal from long term chronic use is death.
I can't verify whether crime levels have dropped in portugal, but I'm going to guess that by drug related crimes he means everything from acquisitive crimes to feed habits, all the way to organised gang violence. These are at least the things I would expect to fall if there was easy access to drugs for the addicts and less profit for the criminals.
I don't want to pretend I'm some godlike C programmer, but competent coding and a simple review process catches this stuff pretty easily. And sometimes that there if(a=b) is exactly what you mean.
Can't think of any situations off hand, but I'm sure there have been some.
I've just ordered vividwireless WiMAX service over here on the west coast. No idea if it's any good yet, but a next gen wireless network sounds much cheaper and easier to roll out.
Actually I just noticed a "get your N900 here" sign on the door on the way in to Harvey Norman today too, so it looks like I was wrong about them not being available eh?
It also doesn't surprise me that much. The N900 (and I love mine) doesn't quite seem to enjoy Nokia's full attentions. They don't sell them here in australia either AFAICT, I got mine in the UK before I moved here. The software is great, there are reasonably frequent updates and it's a pretty open platform (the exception being some of the hardware drivers) BUT big N seem to be treating it as a beta or release candidate device, a conceptual leap from the non-phone enabled N700, N800 and N810 towards... something. So it hasn't had a big marketing budget and it's not on sale everywhere.
Here's hoping that whatever they come up with next, using Meego, is even better and they get behind it more.
Slashdot Mirror
It may be intended for piracy, but there are some of us folks who like having a menu to go to that you can just load games from, rather than messing around with disks.
I got HD Advance for the PS2 because I wanted this functionality. I could shove a hard drive in and rip all the games I played a lot to it. No more disks everywhere, just a nice menu system.
I got hacked firmware for the PSP for the same reason. Now I don't have to take a stack of UMDs when I go on a plane AND the battery life lasts longer.
If I can have this for PS3 as well I will be a happy bunny.
They are estimated to be 20 years ahead of the civilian world in when it comes to encryption research in the opinion of AC posters on slashdot.
It seems to be some sort of hero-worship of the US government that's prevalent here. I'm sure they do a lot, and we know that they find weaknesses in some stuff before others do, but I do not believe for one second that they have access to hardware types that are not even in the experimental prototype stage yet.
They're very popular here in Australia!
It's actually pretty convenient if you're on your way home and decide to pick up a six pack. You just drive through, tell 'em what you want, hand the money through the window and get the beer in return. Australia does have something of a DD problem, not sure how it compares to the US, but I can tell you they don't encourage me to drink and drive.
Whilst it can be fun in that situation, this story is why y'all Americans need to invest in public transport networks!
Kidding! But ... I lived in London for most of my 20s and having ubiquitous bus and underground services did mean that there was never any risk of drunk driving, there was just no need.
A unit is 10ml of alcohol, so three units is not three beers.
A 330ml bottle of Bud at 4.7% by volume (for the sake of an example) contains 15.5ml of ethanol so it comes in at 1.5 units. 2 bottles of bud is 3 "standard" drinks.
"I really don't see how laws against driving after consuming intoxicants are bad."
The only thing I really care about is that the laws are evidence based. There should be a good reason for something being illegal and for us to punish each other for certain behaviours. If there's no evidence that a BAC of 0.03 (again, for the sake of an example) impairs driving ability, then it shouldn't be illegal to drive with a BAC of 0.03. The law does need to take into account different tolerances and different starting abilities, it's true. That's my take.
Certainly people should not be driving impaired!
I had a very similar experience with AOC.
I had a little AOC UPS, a very small 2-socket home one, good for running the wireless router and my small (NSLU2) email/web server on. I'm not sure what broke the unit (so perhaps it's not exactly the same story), but when I called them all they wanted was a scan of the receipt and they sent a new one out immediately, arriving the next day. For a UPS I'd paid about 25 pounds for. Most impressed.
Oh and this might help too - an explanation of the law by the bbc. Still vague. I guess I had assumed something similar existed in Europe, but as a UK citizen my experience of the rest of europe is limited.
Explanation of parts of the sale of goods act
Perhaps it's just the UK then. The key phrase is "Fit for purpose", things must behave as something of that class of things is supposed to behave, and have a reasonable life expectancy (quality).
Advice to UK citizens from the government
Of course it's all a bit vague, which means that the consumer sometimes wins and sometimes gets screwed.
That depends.
If the company has just decided not to do graphics cards any more and close down that part of the business, then hell no! They should be expected to honour it and if they can't repair/replace in house then contract it out or provide another manufacturer's replacement cards.
If they are actually winding up the company, have administrators in and are genuinely (almost) bankrupt and closing up shop, that's a different matter.
Sorry what?
The reasonable lifetime of the class of product is something protected by law anyway (well, in europe). A "Lifetime Warranty" can and should be interpreted as something over and above that, a warranty or guarantee that last the lifetime of the purchaser, Much like with a zippo lighter.
Of course, yes, if the company goes tits-up then it's pretty useless.
But...
I think you're very wrong about what it takes to be a competent programmer. I have worked for three companies now, of varying sizes. None of them used code analysis tools, splint or otherwise.
Each produced stable, enterprise (and even financial) grade software and were highly profitable. All had very talented developers.
Using automated tools could indeed be a time saver, and may be a way to drive down support and maintenance costs. After this conversation I'll likely even recommend it, but you might want to reconsider what constitutes a competent programmer. I've known some dreadful ones that automated out the wazoo and several exceptional ones that automate a lot but don't use all the tools.
Well, firstly I think it*'s assumed that bandwidth gets faster, better and cheaper. This may or may not happen and will probably vary wildly by geographic region.
Secondly, have you heard of WASTE? It hides its traffic by using multiple ports, changing bitrates and packet sizes, wrapping encrypted data in SMTP, HTTP or other protocols and generally being sneaky.
Seems like a cool strategy to me!
Please don't read it, it's reallty not a very good book.
Hey, I thought about my comment and you're right - there's really no reason not to use the automated tools that are available. It is manifestly possible to produce rock solid, enterprise grade software without them, but from an efficiency perspective you're spot on.
Look, nobody says that all the bad men will go away in a magic flash but consider this - it takes a major and comparatively easy source of revenue away. Less people will get into the game because the profits are not there. Do some of the gangs switch to other crimes? Sure. But they don't have a product to sell that lots of folk want and that is tacitly supported by much of the population who don't agree with the drug laws.
Not all of them are killers, not all of them start off as killers. Take the money away and watch the cartels shrink. Not disappear, but shrink a lot.
"you stagger in to a drug shop and they say come back when you aren't high. The illegal distributor has no such restrictions."
Just like you stagger into the bar and they say "come back when you're not drunk", so you just go to the bootlegger around the corner...
Oh no, wait, that doesn't happen at all. (Though on the negative side, too many places will serve wasted people, or people who are obviously alcoholic, and this issue would likely persist with drugs)
And I don't see people using non-approved substances as reason enough to kill them, or consider them collateral damage in your 'war' against things you don't approve of.
Alcohol? Not medically addictive?
Take a look at the wikipedia page about alcohol withdrawal, paying note to the part about how it changes brain chemistry and where it mentions that one of the potential side effects of withdrawal from long term chronic use is death.
Not medically addictive my arse.
I can't verify whether crime levels have dropped in portugal, but I'm going to guess that by drug related crimes he means everything from acquisitive crimes to feed habits, all the way to organised gang violence. These are at least the things I would expect to fall if there was easy access to drugs for the addicts and less profit for the criminals.
That's a bit of a strong statement.
I don't want to pretend I'm some godlike C programmer, but competent coding and a simple review process catches this stuff pretty easily. And sometimes that there if(a=b) is exactly what you mean.
Can't think of any situations off hand, but I'm sure there have been some.
Is wired even the way to go anyway?
I've just ordered vividwireless WiMAX service over here on the west coast. No idea if it's any good yet, but a next gen wireless network sounds much cheaper and easier to roll out.
Actually I just noticed a "get your N900 here" sign on the door on the way in to Harvey Norman today too, so it looks like I was wrong about them not being available eh?
Look up the toshiba ac100, amazon.co.uk have it, amazon US probably do too. Of course it out of stock :)
That sucks.
It also doesn't surprise me that much. The N900 (and I love mine) doesn't quite seem to enjoy Nokia's full attentions. They don't sell them here in australia either AFAICT, I got mine in the UK before I moved here. The software is great, there are reasonably frequent updates and it's a pretty open platform (the exception being some of the hardware drivers) BUT big N seem to be treating it as a beta or release candidate device, a conceptual leap from the non-phone enabled N700, N800 and N810 towards ... something. So it hasn't had a big marketing budget and it's not on sale everywhere.
Here's hoping that whatever they come up with next, using Meego, is even better and they get behind it more.
"Because you can't control the close substitutes that are being sold either."
N900.
FOSS phone with nokia reliability, root access and software available from debian-like repositories with a nice GUI. WIN.
(OK, it's not as slim or pretty as an iPhone, but it rocks in terms or functionality)