Yes, it is a big money saver. But do remember, it's only games that specifically mention they're region-free. Others on the site that don't mention this will not run on your 360, so remember to check before buying one.
Yes, there are several programs to crack iTunes songs, although the whole 'rarr! we are the record industry! we have lawyers' DRM bollocks could in theory cause some legal hassle. On the other hand, several programs, such as Audacity let you actually record the audio file without any extra wires or somesuch, at exactly the same quality. So you're not reverse engineering anything. And given that you have the legal right to listen to the music, where's the issue?
.. that Microsoft are now allowing companies to release buggy games and patch them via Live. Don't believe me? Microsoft's policy on X-Box 1 was that no patches were allowed. Hence, games had to be near perfect. What few minor bugs there were were hardly show stoppers. Then they relaxed their policy and with X-Box 360, there have been titles that erased your save, nuked your hi-score and more. I didn't buy a 360 so I could deal with the same kind of release-then-patch crap I got on the PC.
I'd imagine there's a few Halo fans who'd pay her to record an answering machine message for them. This kind of on-the-side voice work seems to be becoming more common - because while a character's name and image is owned by the company that created the character, they can't really copyright a person's voice. Personally, I'd pay good money to have the chick who voiced Shodan to record a message for mine.
Just wait till he starts on his next theory..
on
The Sun Had Sisters
·
· Score: 3, Funny
'Interplanetary lesbian incest and its place in the formation of our galaxy'
.. since I really don't give a monkeys about the PSP, but it's where I've had a bunch of region-free 360 games from for half the UK shelf price. Microsoft have shown no sign of legal action against them yet, but given that Play Asia also sell Sony stuff, I'm a little worried.
This isn't the first time Lik-Sang have run into trouble. They changed hands a year or two ago when they were being sued for selling mod-chips. I thought they'd at least be safe now, but no. Perhaps Sony should have funnelled the money they spent on the lawsuit into making their SoundStage software half-decent and producing an MP3 player that doesn't use their shitty ATRAC format.
.. at least, it is for me. I bought some music from iTunes a while ago, when my iPod was still working, and - oh the irony - lost it when I switched over to a Mac Mini. So what did I do? I tried to download the music in question, since I'd paid for it, right? Apparently not - once you've downloaded music on iTunes, you don't get to download it again. What a waste of money.
I mean, it and its crew sure as hell couldn't stop Flash Gordon, and it did for the Emperor Ming. I for one don't want to be writing code only to be be speared by some giant spaceship coming through my back wall.
Is a video camera built into your glasses, with a wire that goes down into your pocket to the battery and 30GB hard drive. Hey presto, inside information that can be reviewed at a later date.
Horror of DualDisc
on
An Ode To Al
·
· Score: 3, Informative
As one poster has pointed out, the disc is a DualDisc format. This is not copy protection, but a 'clever' way of having DVD and CD content on one CD. And you know what? It sucks. So much so that I ebayed my DualDisc version and bought the Australian version which, while not having the Karaeoke option of the US DVD, actually does run on a PC. Then I sold the DualDisc version on E-Bay and I sure as hell won't ever be buying a dualdisc version again. The only way I could get the DualDisc version onto my MP3 player was to make a copy of the CD, then put that copy in the computer. The disc completely failed to either play on my Apple Mac Mini or my PC, and could only be read by one particular laptop I tried. It may not be actual copy protection, but it sure as hell worked like it, well, until I found a laptop it worked on.
Time Warner Exec: Okay, it's decided. We're going to demerge with you.
AOL Exec: Really? Why do you want to demerge with us?
TW: I guess you weren't as profitable as we hoped.
AOL: Well, if I could offer you 10,000 free AOL shares would you consider not demerging?
TW: Look, it's a done deal. We're demerging. Just do it.
AOL: Really? You're sure I can't change your mind?
TW: We're demerging, dammit!
AOL: Let me put you onto my manager.
TW: Hey, wait, I just want to demerge *transfer*
AOL VP: So, sir. I gather you're thinking of demerging. Are you aware of the many benefits being merged with AOL offers.
TW: JESUS CHRIST! Just Dememerge already?
AOL VP: Okay, sir, just let me put you through to our demerging department.
*click*
TW: Hello? Hello? Fuckers! They hung up on me!
.. is that it actually lets you decide how much memory is used for cacheing. Firefox, on the other hand, has no such limit and I've seen its memory usage go sky-high, both in Windows XP and OSX.
One show at least has disappeared from Youtube if you type in its name. You get nothing other than small clips. Until, that is, you type in the initials that make up the shows name. And, hey presto, there are a bunch of episodes there - nearly the whole series in fact.
As a UK resident, importing consoles has never been something I've been concerned about. Not least because we can get stung for import duty - which is going to be a hell of a lot on a console, especially when you add custom charges on. My concern is more that success in this area will lead to restrictions on importing software. What I have found more useful is the ability to import games from other places. Play-Asia, for example lets you get certain region-unlocked X-Box 360 games for less than half the price of buying in the the UK. And there are some games that are severely delayed as well. Advance Wars for the GBA, for example, only hit the UK 6 months after its US release. The same thing applies to DVDs - many titles are available in the US well before the UK.
Why should these companies realistically care anyway? It's not like consumers are buying those crappy knock-offs of consoles you could get during the days of the SNES. And as for safety reasons? What the hell? How would Sony be liable? Most hardware I've bought contains pages and pages of legalese saying where it's intend for use in, what voltage it takes etc. The fact is, this is all about control. Companies are scared of not having 100% control over where customers get their products from. If they really want to regain control, they should try not only equalizing prices, but actually ensuring there's a simultaneous release of their products across the world. Releasing the PS3 in March in the UK certainly doesn't help things.
As for Sony's comments that the PS3 'will not play European Blu-Ray movies or DVDs', I wouldn't buy a PS3 or a X-Box 360 for playing HD DVDs. Certainly, neither's HD facility will be region-free. And there are myriad titles that never get released in a certain region. Unless you only have an interest in watching mainstream blockbusters, a region-free player is a must. And the PS2's DVD performance was laughable. Not because it was poor quality, but because when you tried to watch any film in RGB mode, it green tinted the picture. Apparently this was some kind of copy protection measure. Yes, even though DVDs have macrovision. Who's to say the PS3 won't have some daft similar limitation.
I bought myself a Mac Mini G4 for about £250 and upgraded it to 1GB of memory - it seemed like a bargain as it came with a 3 year warranty as well. As it turns out, the warranty was a mistake on the listing, but the company honoured it, and I've been using it for about 6 months solid so far. I have my PC also hooked up, with a KVM switch letting me switch between the two. So far the Mac Mini has been used for everything, the internet and so forth. It's not used for games, but I have a 360 for that anyway.
Thing is, the small footprint of the Mini is appealing, and now that it can run Windows XP I thought about upgrading to an Intel Mac Mini some time in the future. So I did some price checking, and to get the spec of Mac Mini I want, 1.8Ghz intel, 1GB memory, 120GB HD, DVDRW and so forth, it'll cost me about 700 quid from Apple's site. Plus I'd have to add at least 60 quid to get a Windows XP licence, My local store, on the other hand, has a small footprint HP PC for £400 that comes with that same spec - actually, a 200GB hard disk in fact. So what it boils down to is that I'd have to pay 360 quid extra just to run OSX.
Granted, my Mac Mini is still working fine, and I'm not upgrading just yet, but the cost is a major consideration and right now it's not making financial sense to get a Mac Mini. Certainly, if someone could get a proper release of OSX - not the warez Developers Edition running on a PC, I'd go for that.
AMD PR Rep: The chips have four cores. Look, right across the board, four, four, four and...
Tech Columnist: Oh, I see. And most chips go up to two?
AMD PR Rep:: Exactly.
Tech Columnist: Does that mean it's more powerful? Is it more powerful?
AMD PR Rep:: Well, it's two more powerful , isn't it? It's not two. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing games with two. You're on two here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on two on your PC. Where can you go from there? Where?
Tech Columnist: I don't know.
AMD PR Rep:: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Tech Columnist: Put it up to four.
AMD PR Rep:: Eleven. Exactly. Two better.
Tech Columnist: Why don't you just have two and make them a little more powerful?
AMD PR Rep:: [pause] These have four cores.
The Spoiled Whore 3D Playset. Actually, I wouldn't say it's like Paris Hilton really, more like P.T. Barnum or that guy who sold deeds to land on the moon. You pay money for something that has no real actual worth.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it is a big money saver. But do remember, it's only games that specifically mention they're region-free. Others on the site that don't mention this will not run on your 360, so remember to check before buying one.
Yes, there are several programs to crack iTunes songs, although the whole 'rarr! we are the record industry! we have lawyers' DRM bollocks could in theory cause some legal hassle. On the other hand, several programs, such as Audacity let you actually record the audio file without any extra wires or somesuch, at exactly the same quality. So you're not reverse engineering anything. And given that you have the legal right to listen to the music, where's the issue?
.. that Microsoft are now allowing companies to release buggy games and patch them via Live. Don't believe me? Microsoft's policy on X-Box 1 was that no patches were allowed. Hence, games had to be near perfect. What few minor bugs there were were hardly show stoppers. Then they relaxed their policy and with X-Box 360, there have been titles that erased your save, nuked your hi-score and more. I didn't buy a 360 so I could deal with the same kind of release-then-patch crap I got on the PC.
Hey, I figure it'd discourage any telemarketers. Failing that, the Dr Weird 'unleash the telephone spiders' message is my next choice.
I'd imagine there's a few Halo fans who'd pay her to record an answering machine message for them. This kind of on-the-side voice work seems to be becoming more common - because while a character's name and image is owned by the company that created the character, they can't really copyright a person's voice. Personally, I'd pay good money to have the chick who voiced Shodan to record a message for mine.
'Interplanetary lesbian incest and its place in the formation of our galaxy'
This isn't the first time Lik-Sang have run into trouble. They changed hands a year or two ago when they were being sued for selling mod-chips. I thought they'd at least be safe now, but no. Perhaps Sony should have funnelled the money they spent on the lawsuit into making their SoundStage software half-decent and producing an MP3 player that doesn't use their shitty ATRAC format.
Man, I love buzzword bingo.
.. at least, it is for me. I bought some music from iTunes a while ago, when my iPod was still working, and - oh the irony - lost it when I switched over to a Mac Mini. So what did I do? I tried to download the music in question, since I'd paid for it, right? Apparently not - once you've downloaded music on iTunes, you don't get to download it again. What a waste of money.
I mean, it and its crew sure as hell couldn't stop Flash Gordon, and it did for the Emperor Ming. I for one don't want to be writing code only to be be speared by some giant spaceship coming through my back wall.
.. which is certain websites requiring IE to work.
Is a video camera built into your glasses, with a wire that goes down into your pocket to the battery and 30GB hard drive. Hey presto, inside information that can be reviewed at a later date.
As one poster has pointed out, the disc is a DualDisc format. This is not copy protection, but a 'clever' way of having DVD and CD content on one CD. And you know what? It sucks. So much so that I ebayed my DualDisc version and bought the Australian version which, while not having the Karaeoke option of the US DVD, actually does run on a PC. Then I sold the DualDisc version on E-Bay and I sure as hell won't ever be buying a dualdisc version again. The only way I could get the DualDisc version onto my MP3 player was to make a copy of the CD, then put that copy in the computer. The disc completely failed to either play on my Apple Mac Mini or my PC, and could only be read by one particular laptop I tried. It may not be actual copy protection, but it sure as hell worked like it, well, until I found a laptop it worked on.
Time Warner Exec: Okay, it's decided. We're going to demerge with you.
AOL Exec: Really? Why do you want to demerge with us?
TW: I guess you weren't as profitable as we hoped.
AOL: Well, if I could offer you 10,000 free AOL shares would you consider not demerging?
TW: Look, it's a done deal. We're demerging. Just do it.
AOL: Really? You're sure I can't change your mind?
TW: We're demerging, dammit!
AOL: Let me put you onto my manager.
TW: Hey, wait, I just want to demerge *transfer*
AOL VP: So, sir. I gather you're thinking of demerging. Are you aware of the many benefits being merged with AOL offers.
TW: JESUS CHRIST! Just Dememerge already?
AOL VP: Okay, sir, just let me put you through to our demerging department.
*click*
TW: Hello? Hello? Fuckers! They hung up on me!
.. is that it actually lets you decide how much memory is used for cacheing. Firefox, on the other hand, has no such limit and I've seen its memory usage go sky-high, both in Windows XP and OSX.
There was Microsoft anti-virus software with early versions of MS Dos, software which got scrapped when Windows 98 et al hit the scene.
.. when you outsource your operations to McDonalds.
'Hey, how come there's no 'call space elevator' button at this end of the space station?'
One show at least has disappeared from Youtube if you type in its name. You get nothing other than small clips. Until, that is, you type in the initials that make up the shows name. And, hey presto, there are a bunch of episodes there - nearly the whole series in fact.
So do any of the iMacs have the ability to act as a monitor for a PC/X-Box 360 at all?
Why should these companies realistically care anyway? It's not like consumers are buying those crappy knock-offs of consoles you could get during the days of the SNES. And as for safety reasons? What the hell? How would Sony be liable? Most hardware I've bought contains pages and pages of legalese saying where it's intend for use in, what voltage it takes etc. The fact is, this is all about control. Companies are scared of not having 100% control over where customers get their products from. If they really want to regain control, they should try not only equalizing prices, but actually ensuring there's a simultaneous release of their products across the world. Releasing the PS3 in March in the UK certainly doesn't help things.
As for Sony's comments that the PS3 'will not play European Blu-Ray movies or DVDs', I wouldn't buy a PS3 or a X-Box 360 for playing HD DVDs. Certainly, neither's HD facility will be region-free. And there are myriad titles that never get released in a certain region. Unless you only have an interest in watching mainstream blockbusters, a region-free player is a must. And the PS2's DVD performance was laughable. Not because it was poor quality, but because when you tried to watch any film in RGB mode, it green tinted the picture. Apparently this was some kind of copy protection measure. Yes, even though DVDs have macrovision. Who's to say the PS3 won't have some daft similar limitation.
Thing is, the small footprint of the Mini is appealing, and now that it can run Windows XP I thought about upgrading to an Intel Mac Mini some time in the future. So I did some price checking, and to get the spec of Mac Mini I want, 1.8Ghz intel, 1GB memory, 120GB HD, DVDRW and so forth, it'll cost me about 700 quid from Apple's site. Plus I'd have to add at least 60 quid to get a Windows XP licence, My local store, on the other hand, has a small footprint HP PC for £400 that comes with that same spec - actually, a 200GB hard disk in fact. So what it boils down to is that I'd have to pay 360 quid extra just to run OSX.
Granted, my Mac Mini is still working fine, and I'm not upgrading just yet, but the cost is a major consideration and right now it's not making financial sense to get a Mac Mini. Certainly, if someone could get a proper release of OSX - not the warez Developers Edition running on a PC, I'd go for that.
At AMD HQ
AMD PR Rep: The chips have four cores. Look, right across the board, four, four, four and...
Tech Columnist: Oh, I see. And most chips go up to two?
AMD PR Rep:: Exactly.
Tech Columnist: Does that mean it's more powerful? Is it more powerful?
AMD PR Rep:: Well, it's two more powerful , isn't it? It's not two. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing games with two. You're on two here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on two on your PC. Where can you go from there? Where?
Tech Columnist: I don't know.
AMD PR Rep:: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Tech Columnist: Put it up to four.
AMD PR Rep:: Eleven. Exactly. Two better.
Tech Columnist: Why don't you just have two and make them a little more powerful?
AMD PR Rep:: [pause] These have four cores.
.. me seeing 'international call' on my caller ID and answering with the throaty noise that dead chick from The Grudge makes.
The Spoiled Whore 3D Playset. Actually, I wouldn't say it's like Paris Hilton really, more like P.T. Barnum or that guy who sold deeds to land on the moon. You pay money for something that has no real actual worth.