In New Zealand, all goods sold to consumers (ie, not businesses) must be fit to last for a reasonable period of time, regardless of what the manufacturer's warranty says. This guarantee is provided by law as the NZ Consumer Guarantee Act
In practice, this means that if I buy, for example, a DVD player with a one year warranty on it, and it dies after 18 months, which is not a reasonable length of life for a DVD player, then the retailer I purchased it from is responsible for replacing or fixing it, and within a reasonable time frame as well.
In fact, although a number of retailers here offer to sell extended warranties with their more expensive products, most of the cover you receive with those warrantys are already afforded to consumers under the Act.
In this case, it would be trivial for the guy to return it in NZ, and the retailer wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they tried to claim it wasn't their responsibility or that the warranty had expired.
I, and many other people I know, feel morally correct in playing ripped versions of the game to try it out, but as soon as we decide to keep playing it, out comes the wallet and the publisher gets their money, because I firmly believe that if they go to the trouble of making something I find worthwhile, they should be rewarded for that.
The reason I'll play pirated copies first is because I don't want to pay money for something that I won't enjoy playing, and there are a lot of games out there that fall into that category.
The publishers counter this argument by producing demos, so that people can get a feel for the game and not have to pirate it to try it out, and this has worked well for me a number of times. If everyone produced demos that substantially reproduced the gaming experience, but were limited in some manner, I doubt I would ever install a ripped copy again.
This is the result of the "you can't get fired by buying xxxxx" mentality, and the droids that design these cars figure they're not going to get fired by teaming up with Microsoft, but as we all know, Microsoft is the king of the software world.
Despite the media attention Microsoft has been getting lately regarding security (or lack thereof) concerns, most end users still don't understand what all the fuss is about, because let's face it - that's a problem for the computer techs to worry about.
The general public don't even understand who or what Microsoft is. They just click here to go to "mail", which is 99% of the time, Outlook Express, but they don't know that. It's just their mail. Then they click on the attachment and it opens in the word processor, which is of course Word, but again, they don't know that.
In fact, they don't know, by name, any of the software they use on their computer. They don't know which company made it, and neither do they care.
Sometimes they hear about these 'linux' people, and they regard them as akin to someone who builds a hotrod from scratch - it's certainly not something that they would be doing themselves.
Some of these people work for the auto industry. They use computers, but as an end-user, not as a technician or programmer. They have managers, who use the corporate email program, which is of course Outlook, but they don't know what it's called.
Some of the high ranking managers have PDAs that they use to check their email and show off with in board meetings. They run Windows CE, and once again, they have no idea of that fact.
At this point, does it surprise anyone that knowing what they do about the computer industy, that these companies choose to work with microsoft to get integrated computers installed in their cars ?
Microsoft has always targeted the CEO/CIO types the most strongly, because you only need to put the work in to convince a few of those types to use your products and you'll get thousands or more licenses sold. And guess what, it's those same people who are the ones deciding who to partner with for integrated car computers.
However, can you actually name anyone that did have a problem with Janet's tit popping out ? The only 'people' I can name are the mass media. Seems to me that once again this is a case of CNN telling everyone what to think, and for some reason nobody seems to notice or mind.
Yes.. the fruit is in fact called a kiwifruit, not a kiwi, in this country (NZ). For a short time it was even called a zespri in an desperate attempt by exporters to get some more dollars by using the letter z in a product name.
And to make things every more confusing, it used to be called a chinese gooseberry, until they found it grew better here in NZ than it did in China.
heh.. I almost suggested that as a possible comparison in my original question, but hit submit too quickly, and as everyone knows, you can't fix it up after hitting submit:)
And the pronounciation ? Can as in Canadian, and uck as in "puck", or as in "ook" ?
I obviously don't live in your part of the world.. what's a Canuck ? m-w.com says it means someone who is canadian, especially french canadian, but I assume there must be some difference or implication between the meanings of canuck and canadian that requires the use of a different word ?
Okay, I see what you're saying.. your momemtum continues, and the plane effectively brakes in the direction it was travelling, so you get lifted off the floor.. just as if you were travelling upwards in an express elevator and it stopped really suddenly.
When you skydive, you get freefall while you're falling towards the ground, until you pull the rip cord. How is doing it in an aeroplane different that it means you only get it when levelling off ?
Has anyone actually read the article (yeah I know, this is slashdot)..
It's just that they have a rather odd diagram on there showing when the freefall periods occur. It doesn't look right to me.
It shows you get "zero g" (freefall) from the point where the aircraft starts to level off from a climb, until it starts to tip over... surely the freefall would occur from when it started to tip over until it started to pull up ?
It took about a year for the PC version of GTA:VC to appear after the initial PS2 release.. there's no reason to beleive things will be different for GTA:SA
Mr Howard employed a loophole in his government's own anti-spam laws which does not penalise political parties, the government, charities and religious organisations for sending mass emails..... the exemption in the law was not intended to sanction en masse spamming.
"They were saying that it was just there as a safety margin in case one of these groups inadvertently got caught by it," he said.
That's a very good point that should have been modded up further, although I think I see the slight difference microsoft are proposing here.
What you're saying (if I read that right), is that microsoft's idea is no different from a disk driver that has OS level access to the disk and can write to it, ie, an app has to ask another process (in this case the OS disk driver) to do some work (write to the disk).
Microsoft's patent adds in that the privilleged process checks a lookup table of some description to see if the requesting process is allowed to make that request.
It seems to me that windows will maintain some table that lists known apps and the things they are expected to do, and if you want to write an app that uses one of these calls, you will need to register your app with microsoft so it can be added to the able.
I assume that this will become Bill's attempt to prevent a buffer overflow from being able to make something like notepad send bulk emails, or a compromised outlook from doing something it isn't supposed to do.
I think you hit the nail on the head there - that a lot of apps are indeed poorly written.
At the university I work at, we have what seems like an infinite number of poorly written apps that "need" to be installed, and some of the just plain won't run, or worse, mostly run (ie, nearly everything works except for the one important function that the tutor is trying to demonstrate to the class today), and it immediately becomes our fault and problem to make it work. Now we can't very easily go rewritting those damn apps to make them work properly, so we end up having to grant rights where we really don't want to just to make stuff work.
I spent a couple of hours searching for a downloadable ISO of that microsoft update before giving up and ordered it (free) from their website.
About 2 weeks later, it turned up in the mail, and since I happened to be reinstalling windows on a laptop, I shoved it in and had a look at what was on the CD.
To my complete lack of surprise, every single update that you can install from the CD has a clickable link that it encourages you to click on to get 'more information' from the internet. There are also a couple of other places where it wants you to be connected to the internet.
I grew up with an old 88 key XT keyboard. It had no separate arrow or home/end/ins/del/pgup/pgdn keys. That was what the numlock key was for. You turned ir on, and you got numbers on the numeric keypad. You turned it off, and you got the arrows and other navigation keys that you can still see printed on 10[12345] key keyboards today. I got pretty good with them, and it was years after I got my first 101 key keyboard before I started to use the separate arrow keys in preference to the numeric keypad. When playing games that require up/down/left/right control, I still prefer the numeric keypad, because I can get four fingers (okay, one finger is actually a thumb) onto the four keys at once. Try that with the new arrow key layout.
I mention this because the question of where the One True Location for the control key is, and lots of people seem to think it is easier to hit when located half way up the left side of the keyboard where the caps lock key is.
I disagree. To use it there, you have to use your little finger (pinkie for american readers), which limits the reach of your hand to somewhere around R,F and V. In contrast, if the control key is located at the bottom left and right of the keyboard, I can easily press it with the palm of either hand, leaving my fingers free to press any other alphanumeric key.
I guess if you use a real finger to press ctrl, then that would realy slow you down, but there are other parts of your extremeties, besides your fingertips, that can be used for data input.
I press left shift with the bent over end-section of my little/pinkie finger, for example (the finger is pulled in like it would if you make a fist with your hand. This position allows me access to all the keys up to T/H/N with my left hand, and the 'fist' position means I don't hit ctrl at the same time.
127.0.0.0 has a/8 mask, so covers anything starting with 127.
From the same RFC3330 referred to a couple of messages ago:
"127.0.0.0/8 - This block is assigned for use as the Internet host
loopback address. A datagram sent by a higher level protocol to an
address anywhere within this block should loop back inside the host.
This is ordinarily implemented using only 127.0.0.1/32 for loopback,
but no addresses within this block should ever appear on any network
anywhere [RFC1700, page 5]."
In my experience, I've found that 10/100 hubs (and they're hard to find because they only existed for a very short time) are designed with two separate buses, with a switch connecting them together
Everything that talks to it at 10mb is in one collision domain, and everything that talks at 100mb is in another. The switch in between sorts out what happens when a 10mb device wants to talk to a 100mb device.
Remember that a switch provides a separate collision domain for each port, whereas a hub has only one for all ports, or in this case, one for 10mb and one for 100mb.
For completeness, both a switch and a hub provide a single broadcast domain
Slashdot Mirror
In practice, this means that if I buy, for example, a DVD player with a one year warranty on it, and it dies after 18 months, which is not a reasonable length of life for a DVD player, then the retailer I purchased it from is responsible for replacing or fixing it, and within a reasonable time frame as well.
In fact, although a number of retailers here offer to sell extended warranties with their more expensive products, most of the cover you receive with those warrantys are already afforded to consumers under the Act.
In this case, it would be trivial for the guy to return it in NZ, and the retailer wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they tried to claim it wasn't their responsibility or that the warranty had expired.
I, and many other people I know, feel morally correct in playing ripped versions of the game to try it out, but as soon as we decide to keep playing it, out comes the wallet and the publisher gets their money, because I firmly believe that if they go to the trouble of making something I find worthwhile, they should be rewarded for that.
The reason I'll play pirated copies first is because I don't want to pay money for something that I won't enjoy playing, and there are a lot of games out there that fall into that category.
The publishers counter this argument by producing demos, so that people can get a feel for the game and not have to pirate it to try it out, and this has worked well for me a number of times. If everyone produced demos that substantially reproduced the gaming experience, but were limited in some manner, I doubt I would ever install a ripped copy again.
Despite the media attention Microsoft has been getting lately regarding security (or lack thereof) concerns, most end users still don't understand what all the fuss is about, because let's face it - that's a problem for the computer techs to worry about.
The general public don't even understand who or what Microsoft is. They just click here to go to "mail", which is 99% of the time, Outlook Express, but they don't know that. It's just their mail. Then they click on the attachment and it opens in the word processor, which is of course Word, but again, they don't know that.
In fact, they don't know, by name, any of the software they use on their computer. They don't know which company made it, and neither do they care.
Sometimes they hear about these 'linux' people, and they regard them as akin to someone who builds a hotrod from scratch - it's certainly not something that they would be doing themselves.
Some of these people work for the auto industry. They use computers, but as an end-user, not as a technician or programmer. They have managers, who use the corporate email program, which is of course Outlook, but they don't know what it's called.
Some of the high ranking managers have PDAs that they use to check their email and show off with in board meetings. They run Windows CE, and once again, they have no idea of that fact.
At this point, does it surprise anyone that knowing what they do about the computer industy, that these companies choose to work with microsoft to get integrated computers installed in their cars ?
Microsoft has always targeted the CEO/CIO types the most strongly, because you only need to put the work in to convince a few of those types to use your products and you'll get thousands or more licenses sold. And guess what, it's those same people who are the ones deciding who to partner with for integrated car computers.
Ctrl-I, media, select image, save-as
However, can you actually name anyone that did have a problem with Janet's tit popping out ? The only 'people' I can name are the mass media. Seems to me that once again this is a case of CNN telling everyone what to think, and for some reason nobody seems to notice or mind.
And to make things every more confusing, it used to be called a chinese gooseberry, until they found it grew better here in NZ than it did in China.
And the pronounciation ? Can as in Canadian, and uck as in "puck", or as in "ook" ?
I obviously don't live in your part of the world.. what's a Canuck ? m-w.com says it means someone who is canadian, especially french canadian, but I assume there must be some difference or implication between the meanings of canuck and canadian that requires the use of a different word ?
Okay, I see what you're saying.. your momemtum continues, and the plane effectively brakes in the direction it was travelling, so you get lifted off the floor.. just as if you were travelling upwards in an express elevator and it stopped really suddenly.
When you skydive, you get freefall while you're falling towards the ground, until you pull the rip cord. How is doing it in an aeroplane different that it means you only get it when levelling off ?
It's just that they have a rather odd diagram on there showing when the freefall periods occur. It doesn't look right to me.
It shows you get "zero g" (freefall) from the point where the aircraft starts to level off from a climb, until it starts to tip over... surely the freefall would occur from when it started to tip over until it started to pull up ?
They don't call it the Vomit Comet for nothing.. I'ld imagine that a clean-up was quite a regular occurance, without a porno being required at all.
It took about a year for the PC version of GTA:VC to appear after the initial PS2 release.. there's no reason to beleive things will be different for GTA:SA
Mr Howard employed a loophole in his government's own anti-spam laws which does not penalise political parties, the government, charities and religious organisations for sending mass emails ..... the exemption in the law was not intended to sanction en masse spamming.
"They were saying that it was just there as a safety margin in case one of these groups inadvertently got caught by it," he said.
"It wasn't meant to be a green light."
<reloads>
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh that's better.
thanks man.. you saved my eyes from torture
What you're saying (if I read that right), is that microsoft's idea is no different from a disk driver that has OS level access to the disk and can write to it, ie, an app has to ask another process (in this case the OS disk driver) to do some work (write to the disk).
Microsoft's patent adds in that the privilleged process checks a lookup table of some description to see if the requesting process is allowed to make that request.
It seems to me that windows will maintain some table that lists known apps and the things they are expected to do, and if you want to write an app that uses one of these calls, you will need to register your app with microsoft so it can be added to the able.
I assume that this will become Bill's attempt to prevent a buffer overflow from being able to make something like notepad send bulk emails, or a compromised outlook from doing something it isn't supposed to do.
At the university I work at, we have what seems like an infinite number of poorly written apps that "need" to be installed, and some of the just plain won't run, or worse, mostly run (ie, nearly everything works except for the one important function that the tutor is trying to demonstrate to the class today), and it immediately becomes our fault and problem to make it work. Now we can't very easily go rewritting those damn apps to make them work properly, so we end up having to grant rights where we really don't want to just to make stuff work.
http://asdf.com/asdfemail.html
This is the same Spock who would calculate time remaining until [disaster] to the sub second, right ?
About 2 weeks later, it turned up in the mail, and since I happened to be reinstalling windows on a laptop, I shoved it in and had a look at what was on the CD.
To my complete lack of surprise, every single update that you can install from the CD has a clickable link that it encourages you to click on to get 'more information' from the internet. There are also a couple of other places where it wants you to be connected to the internet.
Microsoft just doesn't get it.
Shields up, Mr Sulu !
I mention this because the question of where the One True Location for the control key is, and lots of people seem to think it is easier to hit when located half way up the left side of the keyboard where the caps lock key is.
I disagree. To use it there, you have to use your little finger (pinkie for american readers), which limits the reach of your hand to somewhere around R,F and V. In contrast, if the control key is located at the bottom left and right of the keyboard, I can easily press it with the palm of either hand, leaving my fingers free to press any other alphanumeric key.
I guess if you use a real finger to press ctrl, then that would realy slow you down, but there are other parts of your extremeties, besides your fingertips, that can be used for data input.
I press left shift with the bent over end-section of my little/pinkie finger, for example (the finger is pulled in like it would if you make a fist with your hand. This position allows me access to all the keys up to T/H/N with my left hand, and the 'fist' position means I don't hit ctrl at the same time.
From the same RFC3330 referred to a couple of messages ago:
"127.0.0.0/8 - This block is assigned for use as the Internet host loopback address. A datagram sent by a higher level protocol to an address anywhere within this block should loop back inside the host. This is ordinarily implemented using only 127.0.0.1/32 for loopback, but no addresses within this block should ever appear on any network anywhere [RFC1700, page 5]."
Everything that talks to it at 10mb is in one collision domain, and everything that talks at 100mb is in another. The switch in between sorts out what happens when a 10mb device wants to talk to a 100mb device.
Remember that a switch provides a separate collision domain for each port, whereas a hub has only one for all ports, or in this case, one for 10mb and one for 100mb.
For completeness, both a switch and a hub provide a single broadcast domain