and it runs linux, i have it hacked to connect to my nas via usb>ethernet adapter and it reads nfs/samba shares quite well
Fine... but it's slow and it fails to play every format out there. Wow, so you have a brain damaged version of XBMC that can't do 1/2 of what XBMC can. Neat.
What are you talking about? Rights are something that it is harder to take away than to add. How many more freedoms do we have now that Obama is president? Zero. How many freedoms have been taken away? Lets see here... Obama wants to eliminate economic freedom of choice in the health care plan (I should have the right to choose my health care plan, be it an expensive plan, or I also have the right to have no health care), eliminate various freedoms when traveling, and now this and other stories which seek to eliminate freedom of expression.
So... I'm curious as to why you feel you will be unable to purchase an expensive insurance plan with a national health care plan? Do you think that all the insurance providers will magically dry up and go *poof*? It's ignorant idiots like you that got our country into the position it's in now in the first place. People who are incapable of thinking independently and using critical thinking being allowed to vote. It's people EXACTLY like you that need to have all of their governing rights stripped away. You are not fit to vote. You are not fit to have a decision in the guidance of this country because you simply do not have the mental capacity for it. This demonstrates that fact in an ample manner... somehow, in your little addled mind, adding a service to the people of this country (one which you apparently don't need) takes away your ability to get what you want. Never mind the lack of logic that this train of thought contains.
Try thinking a little before you throw out your knee jerk reactions. There may be plenty of reasons to oppose universal health care, but "I won't have the ability to choose my health plan." is the most idiotic I have ever heard.
Replace the silly little WD TV Live media player with a mITX system that's about the same size. Install Linux and XBMC and be done with it. You'll have the best possible media player on the planet, as much storage space in any configuration you want and the ability to expand everything when the time comes. No hassle, you'll have constant online backups available and you'll have a killer always-on media center.
Irregardless of that website, "irregardless" most certainly is a word.
And you would be wrong.
Even disregarding the fact that it's not a word, the simple fact that the "ir" prefix negates the "regardless" should indicate to you that the word you think you're using isn't really a word at all. But then again, that's expecting intelligence and critical thinking from someone using "irregardless" in the first place, so I suppose that is kind of stupid in and of itself.
No, most people use it because they think they sound smart when they use a big word. The problem is, it's not a word and thus they just sound like an idiot to the very people they are trying to impress when they say or write irregardless.
Does the author seriously believe that Facebook isn't running some sort of PHP compiling/caching service, like APC or something similar?
It would be ridiculous for them NOT to be running something like that, which eliminates much of the advantage C++ would enjoy through being pre-compiled. While there still may be a reduction if Facebook were magically changed to precompiled C++ code, the reduction would be fairly minimal. In addition to that, you'd need to factor in the debugging and coding/compiling times, which would exceed the PHP times by an order of magnitude at least.
I thought one idea of games was to escape various aspects of the real world, by pretending to be somebody we aren't (like a would-be ruler of the world)?. Why do we want to be dragged as ourselves into the game enviornment????
You can still do that. Just because there might be an environment out there that is more of an extension of the real world than what we have now doesn't mean we have to jettison what we have now. I think it would be pretty cool if handled properly and expanded a great deal. Unfortunately, I don't think it can be handled properly, nor do I think it will be an accurate representation of people online, since I'm sure someone will find a way to game the system and/or report false information, making it pretty much meaningless.
Someday maybe, but not anytime soon. I suspect the patent will run out long before it becomes truly feasible... although with all the extensions on patents, then perhaps not.
Why do people continue to describe spells as AoE spells? AoE describes the area that the spell effects, not the spell itself. The spell is an AE spell. It always has been. The idiots that use AoE to describe the spell are simply wrong, plain and simple.
The spell is an AREA EFFECT spell. Saying an "Area Of Effect" spell is nonsense. An AE spell has an AoE. It's impossible to have an AoE spell.
This also applies to munitions, since that's a prior source of the term AE and AoE, predating computer gaming by just a little.
This guy denied access to the owners of that network. Just because there isn't a law to fit the crime doesn't mean he is innocent of wrong doing. Hell, it's not a stretch to say that for a time, before they recovered it, he had stolen the entire network from them.
Take your word smithing and semantics and stick 'em where the sun don't shine. What he did was wrong for it, and he needs to be punished.
What do you mean "Just because there isn't a law to fit the crime doesn't mean he is innocent of wrong doing." That's exactly what it means. If there's no law to fit his "crime," then by definition there is no crime committed. Perhaps he's guilty of being an asshat, but doesn't mean he's criminally liable according to your definition.
It's quite a stretch to say he had stolen the entire network. In fact, it's absolutely false. They could have done a hard admin reset on the routers and affected systems and been back in complete control of them. They chose not to, for various legitimate reasons, but the network remained in the possession of the legitimate owners.
You complain about word smithing and semantics yet that's exactly what you are doing. What he did may be wrong, but the question as to whether any laws were broken is far from a given. To punish him for breaking no laws would be absurd and your assertion that he should is equally absurd.
Don't forget that Canada will prohibit a US citizen from entering if they have a DUI on their record as well. Hosers.
Not just a DUI, any criminal record... even if it was 20 years ago and when you were a minor. No I'm not joking. My brother got denied entry into Canada at one point for that exact reason. He made the mistake of answering yes to "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" question. Of course, he should have answered no since it was a MIP charge from the early 90's.
Since quite a few are asking, I figured I'd provide the pertinent sections of TFAs.
According to an update in the Boing Boing article, Watts got out of the car to ask what was happening -- presumably because his car and/or person was being searched. When the officers refused to answer and told him to get back in the car, he asked the question again. At which point he was attacked, his property was seized, and he was asked to waive his Miranda rights.
Sounds like the unfortunate combination of a pissed off officer and a less-that-sympathetic citizen compounded by detectives/officers who get pissed when prisoners refuse to talk. I can empathize with both parties (first and second, not third -- right to remain silent means right to remain silent,) but -- assuming the accuracy of Watts' story -- the assault charge is probably trumped up. Convincing a judge of that is a whole different story.
It probably shouldn't be too hard to convince a judge of this since, as far as I know, all border patrol stations are video taped. I would assume they'd also have audio in there... First thing I'd be doing, if I were truly innocent, is requesting the video for the time in question.
That's exactly my impression. Crossing from US to Canada was fine, crossing back very strongly reminded me of crossing from Poland to East Germany in mid 80's.
Hmm... couple summers ago I had the exact opposite experience. Going to Canada was a nightmare. The Candadian border patrol were complete assholes and/or a giant pack of morons. Coming back the US border patrol were nice, courteous and friendly. The Canadian side reminded me of a bunch of TSA idiots standing around wondering what to do about a suitcase. Lots of interaction with the Canadian side, not so much with the US side... just kind of cruised on through.
There certainly won't be a market until the prices of the readers come down. $300? You gotta be crazy. Even at $50 they would in any case likely never entice me completely away from the real thing.
You clearly don't travel a lot, especially internationally.
EBook readers are frigging great. I have one... while I'm totally unhappy with the quality over all of *EVERY* e-book reader out there, the benefit outweighs the problems, if only marginally. The fact is, I have a very limited amount of space to carry my things. On 8 - 14 hour flights, I can easily go through a 700 page book if not two. There is no way I can carry around 4 700 page books, at a minimum, on each flight along with all my other gear. MY EBook reader has 120 books on it and it fits in my photo gear bag, which is a mandatory carry on for me. My photobag might... MIGHT fight 1 700 page book when it's fully loaded. If I'm halfway through that book and board a 14 hour flight, I'd be screwed. With the ebook reader, I know I have a bucket load of additional reading material to keep me from getting arrested by the air marshals for beating up idiotic passengers.
It could also lessen the life of the computer. A computer that is shutdown at night would likely last longer than one crunching numbers every night.
This is completely false and has been proven with reams of empirical data. Keeping a computer running 24/7 give a longer useful lifetime than shutting a computer down every night. It's a lot easier on the machine to keep it running and warm with a constant feed of power than it is to subject it to cold starts and sudden jolts of electricity... all of which drastically shorten the lifespan of many parts inside the computer.
Add to the fact that even if a CPU had a certain number of "hours" in a pool that it could be used before it failed - the number would be so big as to be rendered completely irrelevant by the fact that the computer would be so obsolete and useless by the time the CPU failed that it would have been long discarded anyway. Even if you lessen a CPU with a 15 year lifespan by 30% by keeping it running, do you really think you're going to be using a 10.5 year old computer? In this day and age it's possible but highly unlikely.
For everyone of you, there's 100 modders who were just using their modded xbox to play pirated games.
I don't care about pirates, or modders, but what REALLY got me about them was they were the only ones who could cheat while playing on Live. This made my experience playing CoD4 worse, because some jerk had a modded xbox and hacked game that let him use a pistol that could fire 10x faster than normal (among other cheats).
I paid for my Xbox, my Live service, and my games. I want a fair experience on Xbox Live, and if that means you can't play your modded xbox, I'm sorry, but too bad so sad. You knew what you were getting when you bought the damn thing.
Lord, I can never take people like you seriously, sadly. It's people like you that muddy the whole issue we are dealing with here with your ill informed and completely false information you continually propagate.
There is no possible way a modded console allowed someone to cheat in your game. A modded console only allows you to play copied games - the games on the disc must ABSOLUTELY be identical to the original or it won't run. If you got owned it was because you suck, not because someone was playing with cheats.
While I sympathise with your situation, I think it's a little unrealistic to expect Microsft to investigate 600,000 cases on a case-by-case basis. You, ignoring whatever your motives were, modified your console and broke their ToS. I expect people could claim they modded their console to play a pirated version of a game they already own, when the original was somehow damaged.
It's not like Xbox360s are expensive by the way, they are cheap as hell second hand now, probably no more than twice the price of the DVD drive you purchased, and no, that won't be 'more money for them'.
I don't think it's unrealistic at all, since they aren't going to be investigating all 600k cases. They are investigating those that are contested. If they want to ban people for no good reason (and in my case, it literally is for no good reason), they should provide some means to contest the ban. They don't.
But again, I'm not pissed about being banned from Live - I never used it anyway and in retrospect that $50 a year I spent on it was completely wasted - I'm a little miffed I can't get more songs for RB2 and the fact that the songs I did purchase through the Marketplace were no longer accessible on the console... Nowhere in their TOS does it mention that they will steal my songs that I paid for by having a modified console.
Seems like a perfectly valid reason to me for Microsoft to ban you from xbox live. They did say no unauthorized modifications.
One could argue that it's not a modification. It's a simple parts replacement, but none the less I doubt that argument would stand up so your point is valid.
Problem is, most people are not like you, they will just buy a new xbox. So the fact you didn't buy a new one causes very little difference to Microsoft's profit margins.
Indeed, that may be the case and your point is valid... but only IF there was a recourse to contest the ban. Since there is not, your argument does not apply - Microsoft has lost and is losing a continual revenue stream, it does affect their bottom line. I can't get my console unbanned by any means according to MS, therefore there is no possible way for them to get any more money out of me.
They were smart enough to keep people's xbox accounts still subscribed and paying. Either way, you're not the standard, you're the exception, most people would just buy a new xbox. Just checkout the various forums where people rage on about getting banned, few of them change consoles, but many of them buy a new xbox again.
I agree, I may not be the standard, however, again... they have unilaterally cut off paying customers with no recourse to contest the issue. This is just a stupid move, plain and simple. It does nothing but hurt their bottom line ultimately/in the long run. The short term might see more console sales, but it was my impression that consoles themselves are sold nearly at cost or at a loss.
My console was banned for being modded. The thing is, it was modded because the DVD drive died and I replaced it... the only way I could do this "legitimately" was to buy a whole new console, since MS claimed it was no longer under warranty. I wasn't about to spend $250 or whatever it was at the time (this was a couple years ago) to buy a whole new console when I could buy a new drive online for less than $60.
So I had a modded console... I played exactly 2 games that entire time, Rock Band and Rock Band 2. The original of Rock Band worked perfectly and when Rock Band 2 came out, I purchased it... well the original had trouble playing in the console, so I used a burned copy, which ironically played fine. During that time, I purchased nearly 100 songs for RB and RB2 and maintained a Live Gold subscription. My gamer profile confirms that I haven't played any other games than RB and RB2 since I replaced the drive.
So my console is banned. I will cancel my Live Gold account ($50+ a year or something) and I will no longer be able to purchase songs for RB2 or future RB games that come out. So by banning me, they've lost a continual revenue stream that has exceeded the purchase price of a console. Sure, they already have my money for the RB2 songs I bought, but they aren't able to get more, even if I wanted to pay them money.
What kind of stupid idea is this? Unilaterally cut off your customers who pay you money regularly and prevent them from being able to pay you any more money. Wow. What a brilliant business move.
Doesn't matter. Google's name has already achieved the marketer's dream: a generic name/verb. Which means it's in the same league as Coke, Kleenex and Xerox. Their name has become so big and so common it's replaced the real term. No one get's a soda, they get a coke, even when that 'coke' is a Pepsi. When was the last time anyone asked for a tissue instead of a Kleenex? And when you want something copied, you 'xerox' it. No one I know under the age of 40 searches for anything one the web, they 'google' it.
So it doesn't matter what this guy pays, Google is simply too big to be replaced at this stage in the game. If Microsoft is smart, they'll work to make Bing number 2. If not, instead of becoming the search engine equivalent of Pepsi, they'll become the next Royal Crown Cola.
While I understand your basic premise, your examples are far from true. I know of no one who orders a "coke" when they want a soda or "pop." Ordering a "Coke" as a generic term is mostly regional and it's a small region. You're likely from Chicago or somewhere in the NE part of the US if you think ordering a "Coke" for any soda is normal.
"Xeroxing" something? Seriously? Who says that? I remember that term being used a lot 25+ years ago but I've not heard Xerox in that context in decades, and that's in every region... though again I don't spend a lot of time in the NE part of the US, so maybe that's still prevalent there, but no where else that I've seen.
Kleenex is about the only solid example you've used. Band-aids would have been another good example.
However, that said, it's not a marketers dream to have their product turned into a verb. It becomes exceptionally hard to keep your trademark once that happens and THAT is the last think a marketer wants. It's more of a nightmare when that happens.
Are there any affordable High DPI monitors? Back in the day you used to be able to find 17" 1600x1200 crts, which were wonderful. My laptop is running at 1400x1050 @ 10", which is also very enjoyable. Are there any flat panel desktop displays out there with the same density? I'd love a 19-22" display running at 2560x1600.
I thought I would be pleased with the pixel density of my 1920x1200 15" screen, but I'm not overly pleased with it actually. This surprised me... I use 2560x1600 displays at home at 30" and I figured a smaller screen with a decent resolution would make for a pleasant experience, but I've found that it just makes everything smaller and gives me a bit more screen real estate, but overall I almost prefer a lower resolution screen, since moving everything around on a 15" screen at that resolution just seems tedious for some reason.
I'm just sharing my first hand experience, since like you, I figured a higher density pixel monitor would be totally cool and worthwhile... come to find out it's not nearly as cool as I figured it would be sadly.
Did Microsoft really think this through? The people who mod Xboxes are their best customers. They are the enthusiasts who care enough to learn more about the console.
99.9% of them are people who want to play free games, or cheat on games. People who cheat on games ruin the experience for everybody else. Most modded Xboxes were modded by some guy at a games store, anyway, and that guy charged for it, it's not like these guys went through the effort of modding it themselves... they just paid some goon so they could steal games.
The remaining 0.1%, yes, actually just wants to write software for it. Slashdot pretends this group is the larger percentage, but Slashdot is wrong about a good many things.
Nobody mods a 360 to cheat on XBL games. The games are digitally signed and can not be altered. Modding the boxes does not allow you to cheat.
Slashdot Mirror
you are an idiot
i have the first gen wdtv here
and it runs linux, i have it hacked to connect to my nas via usb>ethernet adapter and it reads nfs/samba shares quite well
Fine... but it's slow and it fails to play every format out there. Wow, so you have a brain damaged version of XBMC that can't do 1/2 of what XBMC can. Neat.
What are you talking about? Rights are something that it is harder to take away than to add. How many more freedoms do we have now that Obama is president? Zero. How many freedoms have been taken away? Lets see here... Obama wants to eliminate economic freedom of choice in the health care plan (I should have the right to choose my health care plan, be it an expensive plan, or I also have the right to have no health care), eliminate various freedoms when traveling, and now this and other stories which seek to eliminate freedom of expression.
So... I'm curious as to why you feel you will be unable to purchase an expensive insurance plan with a national health care plan? Do you think that all the insurance providers will magically dry up and go *poof*? It's ignorant idiots like you that got our country into the position it's in now in the first place. People who are incapable of thinking independently and using critical thinking being allowed to vote. It's people EXACTLY like you that need to have all of their governing rights stripped away. You are not fit to vote. You are not fit to have a decision in the guidance of this country because you simply do not have the mental capacity for it. This demonstrates that fact in an ample manner... somehow, in your little addled mind, adding a service to the people of this country (one which you apparently don't need) takes away your ability to get what you want. Never mind the lack of logic that this train of thought contains.
Try thinking a little before you throw out your knee jerk reactions. There may be plenty of reasons to oppose universal health care, but "I won't have the ability to choose my health plan." is the most idiotic I have ever heard.
Replace the silly little WD TV Live media player with a mITX system that's about the same size. Install Linux and XBMC and be done with it. You'll have the best possible media player on the planet, as much storage space in any configuration you want and the ability to expand everything when the time comes. No hassle, you'll have constant online backups available and you'll have a killer always-on media center.
Irregardless of that website, "irregardless" most certainly is a word.
And you would be wrong.
Even disregarding the fact that it's not a word, the simple fact that the "ir" prefix negates the "regardless" should indicate to you that the word you think you're using isn't really a word at all. But then again, that's expecting intelligence and critical thinking from someone using "irregardless" in the first place, so I suppose that is kind of stupid in and of itself.
No, most people use it because they think they sound smart when they use a big word. The problem is, it's not a word and thus they just sound like an idiot to the very people they are trying to impress when they say or write irregardless.
Does the author seriously believe that Facebook isn't running some sort of PHP compiling/caching service, like APC or something similar?
It would be ridiculous for them NOT to be running something like that, which eliminates much of the advantage C++ would enjoy through being pre-compiled. While there still may be a reduction if Facebook were magically changed to precompiled C++ code, the reduction would be fairly minimal. In addition to that, you'd need to factor in the debugging and coding/compiling times, which would exceed the PHP times by an order of magnitude at least.
I thought one idea of games was to escape various aspects of the real world, by pretending to be somebody we aren't (like a would-be ruler of the world)?.
Why do we want to be dragged as ourselves into the game enviornment????
You can still do that. Just because there might be an environment out there that is more of an extension of the real world than what we have now doesn't mean we have to jettison what we have now. I think it would be pretty cool if handled properly and expanded a great deal. Unfortunately, I don't think it can be handled properly, nor do I think it will be an accurate representation of people online, since I'm sure someone will find a way to game the system and/or report false information, making it pretty much meaningless.
Someday maybe, but not anytime soon. I suspect the patent will run out long before it becomes truly feasible... although with all the extensions on patents, then perhaps not.
Did you manage to think that up all by yourself, or did you have help?
Congrats if you finally were able to form a coherent thought on your own!
Why do people continue to describe spells as AoE spells? AoE describes the area that the spell effects, not the spell itself. The spell is an AE spell. It always has been. The idiots that use AoE to describe the spell are simply wrong, plain and simple.
The spell is an AREA EFFECT spell. Saying an "Area Of Effect" spell is nonsense. An AE spell has an AoE. It's impossible to have an AoE spell.
This also applies to munitions, since that's a prior source of the term AE and AoE, predating computer gaming by just a little.
This guy denied access to the owners of that network. Just because there isn't a law to fit the crime doesn't mean he is innocent of wrong doing. Hell, it's not a stretch to say that for a time, before they recovered it, he had stolen the entire network from them.
Take your word smithing and semantics and stick 'em where the sun don't shine. What he did was wrong for it, and he needs to be punished.
What do you mean "Just because there isn't a law to fit the crime doesn't mean he is innocent of wrong doing." That's exactly what it means. If there's no law to fit his "crime," then by definition there is no crime committed. Perhaps he's guilty of being an asshat, but doesn't mean he's criminally liable according to your definition.
It's quite a stretch to say he had stolen the entire network. In fact, it's absolutely false. They could have done a hard admin reset on the routers and affected systems and been back in complete control of them. They chose not to, for various legitimate reasons, but the network remained in the possession of the legitimate owners.
You complain about word smithing and semantics yet that's exactly what you are doing. What he did may be wrong, but the question as to whether any laws were broken is far from a given. To punish him for breaking no laws would be absurd and your assertion that he should is equally absurd.
Don't forget that Canada will prohibit a US citizen from entering if they have a DUI on their record as well. Hosers.
Not just a DUI, any criminal record... even if it was 20 years ago and when you were a minor. No I'm not joking. My brother got denied entry into Canada at one point for that exact reason. He made the mistake of answering yes to "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" question. Of course, he should have answered no since it was a MIP charge from the early 90's.
Since quite a few are asking, I figured I'd provide the pertinent sections of TFAs.
According to an update in the Boing Boing article, Watts got out of the car to ask what was happening -- presumably because his car and/or person was being searched. When the officers refused to answer and told him to get back in the car, he asked the question again. At which point he was attacked, his property was seized, and he was asked to waive his Miranda rights.
Sounds like the unfortunate combination of a pissed off officer and a less-that-sympathetic citizen compounded by detectives/officers who get pissed when prisoners refuse to talk. I can empathize with both parties (first and second, not third -- right to remain silent means right to remain silent,) but -- assuming the accuracy of Watts' story -- the assault charge is probably trumped up. Convincing a judge of that is a whole different story.
It probably shouldn't be too hard to convince a judge of this since, as far as I know, all border patrol stations are video taped. I would assume they'd also have audio in there... First thing I'd be doing, if I were truly innocent, is requesting the video for the time in question.
That's exactly my impression. Crossing from US to Canada was fine, crossing back very strongly reminded me of crossing from Poland to East Germany in mid 80's.
Hmm... couple summers ago I had the exact opposite experience. Going to Canada was a nightmare. The Candadian border patrol were complete assholes and/or a giant pack of morons. Coming back the US border patrol were nice, courteous and friendly. The Canadian side reminded me of a bunch of TSA idiots standing around wondering what to do about a suitcase. Lots of interaction with the Canadian side, not so much with the US side... just kind of cruised on through.
There certainly won't be a market until the prices of the readers come down. $300? You gotta be crazy. Even at $50 they would in any case likely never entice me completely away from the real thing.
You clearly don't travel a lot, especially internationally.
EBook readers are frigging great. I have one... while I'm totally unhappy with the quality over all of *EVERY* e-book reader out there, the benefit outweighs the problems, if only marginally. The fact is, I have a very limited amount of space to carry my things. On 8 - 14 hour flights, I can easily go through a 700 page book if not two. There is no way I can carry around 4 700 page books, at a minimum, on each flight along with all my other gear. MY EBook reader has 120 books on it and it fits in my photo gear bag, which is a mandatory carry on for me. My photobag might... MIGHT fight 1 700 page book when it's fully loaded. If I'm halfway through that book and board a 14 hour flight, I'd be screwed. With the ebook reader, I know I have a bucket load of additional reading material to keep me from getting arrested by the air marshals for beating up idiotic passengers.
SETI can use your graphics card as well...
The GP didn't say anything about Seti, they said when the CPU goes to 100%. Nothing mentioned about the GPU.
It could also lessen the life of the computer. A computer that is shutdown at night would likely last longer than one crunching numbers every night.
This is completely false and has been proven with reams of empirical data. Keeping a computer running 24/7 give a longer useful lifetime than shutting a computer down every night. It's a lot easier on the machine to keep it running and warm with a constant feed of power than it is to subject it to cold starts and sudden jolts of electricity... all of which drastically shorten the lifespan of many parts inside the computer.
Add to the fact that even if a CPU had a certain number of "hours" in a pool that it could be used before it failed - the number would be so big as to be rendered completely irrelevant by the fact that the computer would be so obsolete and useless by the time the CPU failed that it would have been long discarded anyway. Even if you lessen a CPU with a 15 year lifespan by 30% by keeping it running, do you really think you're going to be using a 10.5 year old computer? In this day and age it's possible but highly unlikely.
What CPU could you possibly be using that it's consuming 270 watts? Do you have a 24" HSF combo to cool that, too?
For everyone of you, there's 100 modders who were just using their modded xbox to play pirated games.
I don't care about pirates, or modders, but what REALLY got me about them was they were the only ones who could cheat while playing on Live. This made my experience playing CoD4 worse, because some jerk had a modded xbox and hacked game that let him use a pistol that could fire 10x faster than normal (among other cheats).
I paid for my Xbox, my Live service, and my games. I want a fair experience on Xbox Live, and if that means you can't play your modded xbox, I'm sorry, but too bad so sad. You knew what you were getting when you bought the damn thing.
Lord, I can never take people like you seriously, sadly. It's people like you that muddy the whole issue we are dealing with here with your ill informed and completely false information you continually propagate.
There is no possible way a modded console allowed someone to cheat in your game. A modded console only allows you to play copied games - the games on the disc must ABSOLUTELY be identical to the original or it won't run. If you got owned it was because you suck, not because someone was playing with cheats.
While I sympathise with your situation, I think it's a little unrealistic to expect Microsft to investigate 600,000 cases on a case-by-case basis. You, ignoring whatever your motives were, modified your console and broke their ToS. I expect people could claim they modded their console to play a pirated version of a game they already own, when the original was somehow damaged.
It's not like Xbox360s are expensive by the way, they are cheap as hell second hand now, probably no more than twice the price of the DVD drive you purchased, and no, that won't be 'more money for them'.
I don't think it's unrealistic at all, since they aren't going to be investigating all 600k cases. They are investigating those that are contested. If they want to ban people for no good reason (and in my case, it literally is for no good reason), they should provide some means to contest the ban. They don't.
But again, I'm not pissed about being banned from Live - I never used it anyway and in retrospect that $50 a year I spent on it was completely wasted - I'm a little miffed I can't get more songs for RB2 and the fact that the songs I did purchase through the Marketplace were no longer accessible on the console... Nowhere in their TOS does it mention that they will steal my songs that I paid for by having a modified console.
Seems like a perfectly valid reason to me for Microsoft to ban you from xbox live. They did say no unauthorized modifications.
One could argue that it's not a modification. It's a simple parts replacement, but none the less I doubt that argument would stand up so your point is valid.
Problem is, most people are not like you, they will just buy a new xbox. So the fact you didn't buy a new one causes very little difference to Microsoft's profit margins.
Indeed, that may be the case and your point is valid ... but only IF there was a recourse to contest the ban. Since there is not, your argument does not apply - Microsoft has lost and is losing a continual revenue stream, it does affect their bottom line. I can't get my console unbanned by any means according to MS, therefore there is no possible way for them to get any more money out of me.
They were smart enough to keep people's xbox accounts still subscribed and paying. Either way, you're not the standard, you're the exception, most people would just buy a new xbox. Just checkout the various forums where people rage on about getting banned, few of them change consoles, but many of them buy a new xbox again.
I agree, I may not be the standard, however, again... they have unilaterally cut off paying customers with no recourse to contest the issue. This is just a stupid move, plain and simple. It does nothing but hurt their bottom line ultimately/in the long run. The short term might see more console sales, but it was my impression that consoles themselves are sold nearly at cost or at a loss.
My console was banned for being modded. The thing is, it was modded because the DVD drive died and I replaced it... the only way I could do this "legitimately" was to buy a whole new console, since MS claimed it was no longer under warranty. I wasn't about to spend $250 or whatever it was at the time (this was a couple years ago) to buy a whole new console when I could buy a new drive online for less than $60.
So I had a modded console... I played exactly 2 games that entire time, Rock Band and Rock Band 2. The original of Rock Band worked perfectly and when Rock Band 2 came out, I purchased it... well the original had trouble playing in the console, so I used a burned copy, which ironically played fine. During that time, I purchased nearly 100 songs for RB and RB2 and maintained a Live Gold subscription. My gamer profile confirms that I haven't played any other games than RB and RB2 since I replaced the drive.
So my console is banned. I will cancel my Live Gold account ($50+ a year or something) and I will no longer be able to purchase songs for RB2 or future RB games that come out. So by banning me, they've lost a continual revenue stream that has exceeded the purchase price of a console. Sure, they already have my money for the RB2 songs I bought, but they aren't able to get more, even if I wanted to pay them money.
What kind of stupid idea is this? Unilaterally cut off your customers who pay you money regularly and prevent them from being able to pay you any more money. Wow. What a brilliant business move.
If your question is serious, the serious answer is about $500,000.
That's about how much you have to pay to get to that "level" of information.
Doesn't matter. Google's name has already achieved the marketer's dream: a generic name/verb. Which means it's in the same league as Coke, Kleenex and Xerox. Their name has become so big and so common it's replaced the real term. No one get's a soda, they get a coke, even when that 'coke' is a Pepsi. When was the last time anyone asked for a tissue instead of a Kleenex? And when you want something copied, you 'xerox' it. No one I know under the age of 40 searches for anything one the web, they 'google' it.
So it doesn't matter what this guy pays, Google is simply too big to be replaced at this stage in the game. If Microsoft is smart, they'll work to make Bing number 2. If not, instead of becoming the search engine equivalent of Pepsi, they'll become the next Royal Crown Cola.
While I understand your basic premise, your examples are far from true. I know of no one who orders a "coke" when they want a soda or "pop." Ordering a "Coke" as a generic term is mostly regional and it's a small region. You're likely from Chicago or somewhere in the NE part of the US if you think ordering a "Coke" for any soda is normal.
"Xeroxing" something? Seriously? Who says that? I remember that term being used a lot 25+ years ago but I've not heard Xerox in that context in decades, and that's in every region... though again I don't spend a lot of time in the NE part of the US, so maybe that's still prevalent there, but no where else that I've seen.
Kleenex is about the only solid example you've used. Band-aids would have been another good example.
However, that said, it's not a marketers dream to have their product turned into a verb. It becomes exceptionally hard to keep your trademark once that happens and THAT is the last think a marketer wants. It's more of a nightmare when that happens.
Are there any affordable High DPI monitors? Back in the day you used to be able to find 17" 1600x1200 crts, which were wonderful. My laptop is running at 1400x1050 @ 10", which is also very enjoyable. Are there any flat panel desktop displays out there with the same density? I'd love a 19-22" display running at 2560x1600.
I thought I would be pleased with the pixel density of my 1920x1200 15" screen, but I'm not overly pleased with it actually. This surprised me... I use 2560x1600 displays at home at 30" and I figured a smaller screen with a decent resolution would make for a pleasant experience, but I've found that it just makes everything smaller and gives me a bit more screen real estate, but overall I almost prefer a lower resolution screen, since moving everything around on a 15" screen at that resolution just seems tedious for some reason.
I'm just sharing my first hand experience, since like you, I figured a higher density pixel monitor would be totally cool and worthwhile... come to find out it's not nearly as cool as I figured it would be sadly.
Did Microsoft really think this through? The people who mod Xboxes are their best customers. They are the enthusiasts who care enough to learn more about the console.
99.9% of them are people who want to play free games, or cheat on games. People who cheat on games ruin the experience for everybody else. Most modded Xboxes were modded by some guy at a games store, anyway, and that guy charged for it, it's not like these guys went through the effort of modding it themselves... they just paid some goon so they could steal games.
The remaining 0.1%, yes, actually just wants to write software for it. Slashdot pretends this group is the larger percentage, but Slashdot is wrong about a good many things.
Nobody mods a 360 to cheat on XBL games. The games are digitally signed and can not be altered. Modding the boxes does not allow you to cheat.