Really? Where can I pick up an iPhone 4 for under $300 retail?
Anywhere that sells one? That is the price. for the highest end one no less, the 32GB model.
I'm going to carry a phone regardless of whether I have an iPod Touch or not..
The iPhone price is with a two year contract, but since you said you are going to carry a phone regardless, that is irrelevant. Not to mention that now with the 256MB plan the iPhone is the cheapest smart phone to own - I use the device heavily and almost never cross that amount, because I'm around a lot of WiFi.
Or of course you could get a Touch and something like a MiFi and just use Skype on the Touch.
since I can now replace the iPod Touch with a Galaxy S and lose zero functionality
Only if you don't consider the potential loss of almost a hundred thousand applications a drop in functionality. I would, but then I am a practical person who likes to consider what a device can do for me instead of just supporting a handset maker because I like them.
$299 with a contract is NOT retail. It's subsidized. Retail is the specification. You won't find an iPhone 4 32GB for less than around $800 retail (and that's considering eBay retail).
How do you figure the 256MB plan makes the iPhone the cheapest smart phone to own? AT&T's prices are through the roof. My T-Mobile contract is about 30% less than any AT&T contract AND I have unlimited data (or if there's a cap, I've never reached it).
I don't consider the loss of almost 100,000 applications that are completely useless to be a great loss. 95% of the apps on the iPhone/iPod are complete junk (same goes for Android as well). So giving the total number of apps is a meaningless figure. The amount of USEFUL apps on Apple and Android are about the same.
So you claim to be a practical person who likes to consider what a device can do for you instead of just supporting a handset maker because I like them and then go on to defend Apple? I'm not sure how you reconcile that. The iPhone is demonstrably inferior in most categories to the Galaxy S, yet you support them, and support them with either false information (retail price) or meaningless statistics (total number of apps).
So I would have to pay $700 for lesser hardware, clunky UI, vendor lock in, reduced functionality if I wanted to switch (US) carriers and/or be forced into an exceptionally overpriced, limited contract for an iPhone... or pay $350 - $400 for superior hardware, modern UI, open source/no vendor lock in, unlocked for international use AND have a US phone contract that is 30% less than AT&T for the same or superior data transfer limits. Let me think which is a better deal here... I dunno, you tell me.
Cost breakdown:
Monthly recurring:
$185 / mo minimum from AT & T for similar plan $135 / mo minimum from T - Mobile for similar plan
Hardware cost, subsidized:
$199 - AT & T $149 - T - Mobile
Hardware cost, retail:
$700 - iPhone 4 $350 - Galaxy S
So $50 a month less and save $350 up front for superior hardware and UI or twice the up front cost and $50 more a month for inferior hardware and UI.
Not really a hard decision there, unless your an Apple Fanboy.
For the record, if you read my other posts in this thread, you'll see I'm not a Samsung fanboy - I think they have crap quality control and exceptionally poor handling of defect issues (then again, so does Apple). They just happened to have made the best Android based smartphone out at the moment, and it's the best by a HUGE margin, not just a little bit. It has leapfrogged every other Android phone out there and leapfrogged the iPhone 4 as well.
That doesn't have a phone, so you'll have to add the cost of a phone onto that
iPod touch + Audiovox 8610: $160 per 24 months on a prepaid carrier. iPhone 4 or Galaxy S: ten times as much. The major carriers want to sell me 450 minutes a month at minimum; I use less than a tenth of that.
Now, if you want to compare music players by themselves, I can show you a number of MP3 players that are superior to the iPod Touch for under $150
Can you recommend an MP3 player that has a repository of apps? I looked into the Archos 5, but Archos is having trouble getting Google to let it onto the Market. I've been considering buying a Nokia N900 from Dell.com and just not using the phone part.
My family plan uses more than 1500 min a month, so yeah, that's not going to work. But 10 times as much is completely false. Get a prepaid plan from T-Mobile. If you use less than 45 minutes a month, $150 will get you 36.5 months of usage. In fact, if you just purchased $100 worth of prepaid minutes, you'd have more than 2 years worth of talk time, AND you could use a Galaxy S. That would save you $300 on the iPod Touch.
So for $450 - $500 in total cost, you could have the equivalent of your iPod Touch, your Audiovox 8610 AND more talk time to use as you see fit and only have to carry one device that is faster and more refined than an iPod Touch. Factoring in the cost of the iPod Touch, the Audiovox phone and $160 on a prepaid carrier, you're at a wash at worst or ahead in money depending on how good a deal you find on the Galaxy S.
As far as recommending an MP3 player with a repository of apps, no I can't. I want my MP3 players to play music, not do other things... I have a smartphone for that.
So pretty much the point stands. The Galaxy S is superior to the iPod/iPhone in every way (except for perhaps the screen).
1. Plug into a Windows 7 64bit machine and be automatically recognized. 2. Sync with a computer without having to find a hidden 'mount' feature. 3. Be detected by and work automatically with the client software that supports it (try doing this with Kies). 4. Sync all of my playlists and pictures from iTunes (double-twist works great, but does not have good granularity for syncing photo folders). 5. Allow me to download songs over the air from iTunes and have them end up right in my media player. 6. Include a media player that allows me to access songs, videos, and podcasts from a single UI.
I think all of the above are important for your average, non-geek phone purchaser. Enough so that the iPhone is still a superior choice for most. It hurts a bit to say that too.
1. You have to install the Apple drivers to get the iPod to work on Windows. Nothing different about the Android platform. 2. By hidden, I assume you mean the big window that has a MOUNT and Don't Mount button that pops up when you plug it in? 3. I have no idea what you're talking about. 4. If I don't have an iPod, why on EARTH would I ever want to use iTunes? MediaMonkey works great. 5. There's about 5 different places you can download music from to Android devices and have them show up in your media player. No need to pay the Apple tax and have potentially DRM'd tracks. 6. Guess you shouldn't have bought an AT&T Captivate then. The Galaxy S has that, or at least for audio. I haven't tried watching video with the media player yet.
The Galaxy S is superior... I can't speak for the hobbled carrier specific versions of the phone.
GPS has been officially stated by Samsung to be fixed in Froyo update.
All I have seen is Samsung saying it's been "optimized" in Froyo... nothing about a fix. Given the fact that they would likely say it's been fixed (since they publically admit it's broken) instead of "optimized."
Samsung has an official firmware fix for the GPS problem on the Galaxy line of phones. The firmware is scheduled for release in September. The forthcoming Epic 4G from Sprint will be released with this updated firmware.
Haha... I have a firmware fix for the GPS, too. But I'm not releasing it for another month, either. Cause... umm. Just because I don't want to! It's not because I don't know how to fix it, honest!
Given the fact that there is nothing the Galaxy S can't do that the iPod Touch/iPhone can
I know of one thing the 32 GB third-generation iPod touch can do that the Galaxy S can't: retail for under 300 USD.
Really? Where can I pick up an iPhone 4 for under $300 retail?
Ohhh... you mean the iPod Touch. That doesn't have a phone, so you'll have to add the cost of a phone onto that, so your retail price just jumped up above $500 for the same features.
I'm going to carry a phone regardless of whether I have an iPod Touch or not... since I can now replace the iPod Touch with a Galaxy S and lose zero functionality and gain some features, comparing the cost of an iPod Touch to a Galaxy S PHONE is meaningless, you'll have to compare prices to an iPhone 4.
Now, if you want to compare music players by themselves, I can show you a number of MP3 players that are superior to the iPod Touch for under $150, thus destroying your comparison on price.
So yes, the iPod Touch costs less than a Galaxy S, but it also does less. That kind of makes sense. I mean, if you wanna compare that, lets compare a G1 with a 32GB card in it for under $200.
What matters is that Apple is finally starting to get some real competition.
I lost count of the number of times I heard that about the iPod...
Same here... but the Galaxy S phone, GPS issues not withstanding, absolutely destroy the iPhone 3 series. I haven't used an iPhone 4 series, so I can't say how it compares to that rev, but from what I understand, the only superior part on the iPhone 4 is the screen. Otherwise, the Galaxy S phones are superior in every other way.
I have an iPod Touch that I use regularly, but after using the Galaxy S for the past 3 weeks or so, every time I have to go back to the iPod it feels horrible to use. The iOS 4 UI is clunky and stiff compared to the modern Android implementations and really shows it's age. Given the fact that there is nothing the Galaxy S can't do that the iPod Touch/iPhone can, I've been considering selling the iPod, since it's now redudant and out of date.
Since the iPhone's IOS is the same as the iPod Touch for the most part, there is absolutely nothing attractive about the the iPhone anymore. Old tech, old UI, limited memory, limited capabilities. It's an inferior product and will only get more inferior as time goes on, since the iPhone 4 was just released and is already obsolete.
There is a temp fix out there. Some manual changes and it works by going thru one of Google's servers instead of Samsung's. So it is a small drawback. I'm sure they will get it fixed. Maybe it is an issue in Android 2.1 and not 2.2? But GPS isn't everything. What matters is that Apple is finally starting to get some real competition.
The fix doesn't really work. It improves it some, mainly by using network location. It doesn't do anything for the actual GPS problem, it just masks the problems with various assists. Oh, and you have to root your phone to apply those "fixes" that really aren't. Not a big deal, but most people aren't going to do that.
I had to laugh at the "Possible GPS navigation" part, since they couldn't even get the GPS to work properly on their Galaxy S line of phones. What makes them think they can make it work properly on the tablet?
The GPS problem on the Galaxy S line has been known for over a month (and acknowledged by Samsung, even) and yet there's no fix for it. I mean, it's not like it's a minor problem with the GPS... the GPS just does not work on most phones, and some even will kill your GSM connection all together periodically.
Possible GPS navigation my arse! How about making a working GPS on a phone before trying to put it on a tablet. Other phone manufacturers have been able to put working GPS units in their phones for years. One would think Samsung might have tested this out before releasing a flagship line of phones.
Yep. It's not that PC gamers are inherently more skilled than console gamers. Take the best PC gamers and the best console gamers and put them on consoles and PCs respectively, and you'll still see the PC destroy the console.
That's correct as far as it goes... but the bottom line is you can take the best console FPS player in the world and a mediocre to decent PC player will destroy the top tier console player. There simply is no competition between a game pad and a keyboard/mouse combo. Couple that with crappy graphics and console are just ass for quality gaming when it comes to FPS and 4X or RTS games.
The OP was complaining about the secretaries saving to the local drive. If they don't want them to do that, they need to take away the ability, not try to train them not to do it, because it will never happen and it's a never ending cycle. That's all I'm trying to say - change the system to fit the users, don't change the users to fit the system.
People who argue that changing passwords frequently* is a waste of time has not had to deal with the security issue of people sharing their passwords on a regular basis. On the odd occaison, the Receptionists will share passwords so they can log in on each other's computers and access each others files. As an IT team we've done our best to abstract that concept by allowing anyone to log onto any computer in the network so long as they have an account, and mapping network drives automatically based on your permissions, but suffice to say some people just don't understand that. Someone will still only save to "My Documents" or C: drive, because thats what they do at home. Anyways, if someone gets terminated, and they remember the passwords, they pose a security risk. We had this issue come up last summer where a manager knew a few people's passwords, and after being fired, was using the webmail client to snoop on emails.
I haven't been working in this side of IT for more than 2 years and I can already see the benefit of ever-changing passwords.
*I suppose that depends how frequently you are talking
I had to deal with a similar situation in the military... I came to the conclusion that users will always be users and if things like this are happening, it's a failing of the IT and/or Software Design portions of the system. If your secretaries are saving documetns to My Documents on the C: drive, you need to change the My Documents to point to the network drive. You need to basically start eliminating/changing the way the users do things that are improper... it really is ultimately a failing of IT to design the system to cater to the users. In the end, you only have to design one system that works, as opposed to training individuals forever. While it takes longer to design a system properly and less time to train an individual user, over the operational lifetime of the system, the cost:benefit ratio for the properly designed system will far, far outweigh the cost of training users (and ultimately failing).
I could actually see a lightbulb go off in the head of an Admiral during a JTF exercise one time when I explained this concept to him. Apparently, the concept of making a system that fits the users, instead of making the users fit the system is foreign to a great number of people, mostly in management and those that make budget decisions.
It's not just that we disapprove of what they do. There are public health consequences that cost us tax dollars. What you do behind closed doors often leaks out into public financing, and when it does, it is no longer just 'your business'.
The public health consequences are a direct result of the laws making it illegal. If prostitution were legalized, licensed and taxed properly, the health consequences go from a drawback to a net asset.
So no, your reasoning is completely flawed. There may be other reasons to outlaw prostitution (though I can't think of a legitimate one), but health concerns are not it.
I second that reocmmendation -- I have not found a better tool than lightroom. You'll have to remember to either select the auto-write option or remember to manually sync, and quite oddly it won't let you add geotags -- it'll read them and even gives you nifty Google maps links, but it won't let you edit them; everything else you can, and the sorting and tagging features are superb. Of course it's also a brilliant editor, and not too cheap, but it's one software package I, as an avid amateur photographer, felt was worth every penny.
Lightroom has a few critical problems that make it exceptionally problematic with the workflow. For one thing, it's noise reduction algorithm is atrocious. You really need a dedicated NR system in place, like Noise Ninja or such. The one in Lightroom is literally probably the worst one I've used. DxO Optics is fairly decent and features a large database of lenses for correction. Bibble 5 is nice and integrates directly with Noise Ninja, which is awesome - however Bibble 5 is also buggy and crashes a lot - it also has LOTS of trouble dealing with large projects. If Bibble 5 supported DNG and was less buggy it would be the best program out there.
Anyway, you need to do a bit more looking around - Lightroom 3 may address some of the issues with Lightroom 2.x series, but the 2.x series has too many flaws to be the one and only workflow program you use, sadly.
Wow... do you guys arguing about crossing the "event horizon" of a black hole even understand the basics of it?
With a large enough singularity at it's heart, you wouldn't even realize you had crossed over the Schwarzchild radius - there would be no specific difference from one moment to the next, besides the increase in gravitational pull increasing at the same rate it's been increasing as you approach the singularity from outside the radius (inverse square). The Schwarzchild radius is just a mathematical boundary, it's not a physical boundary.
If you crossed the radius on an tangential orbit, you could conceivably orbit the singularity within the radius for millions or billions of years, living out your life aboard your vessel in your personal reference frame for as many years as you live, watching the universe speed past you at an apparent accelerated temporal rate until the ultimate heat death of the universe consumes you, your vessel and your local singularity as well. There's nothing special physically about the event horizon of a black hole, besides the fact that it cuts off two way communication with the outside universe. Beyond that, it has no effect on anything else. It just so happens that many of the Shwarzchild radius limits of singularities are so small that crossing them puts you into a proximity of the singularity that is lethal. That is purely coincidental though.
Your Foscam example sounds like and/or should be superceded by the Trendnet TV-IP110. It's $50 bucks for the wired version and $70 for the wireless version, I believe it runs linux, you can remove the IR filter from the lens and get wicked awesome low light performance (at the expense of proper color balance), has all the features you mentioned, etc... I looked into getting these cameras in bulk from the Chinese manufacturer, but for anything less than 500 pc, the Microcenter price of $70 for the wireless version is less than the bulk price direct from China. Removing the plastic shell, you can probably shoehorn the board into quite a few discrete places. It's a pretty good camera for $50/$70.
Thankfully most of the motherboards I've purchased in the past few years allow me to load BIOS updates from USB storage. I think that was one of the last major uses for a floppy.
But shocklingly, I've purchased a couple motherboards in the past 6 months that still require a floppy. I was like WTF and had to dig around in a box for a floppy drive. Who the hell still requires a floppy in this day and age? I don't recall what manufacturer it was but I can tell you I'll not be buying another motherboard that requires a floppy to update the BIOS. Thankfully I had a spare box of HD floppies in my drawer, but come on... really? 2010, brand new MB and I had to find a floppy?
Because there are two or three manufacturers of 3.5" floppy disks - there aren't any more manufacturers entering the market, so it is a slow decline. You can still buy 3.25" disk drives as a option for a new PC (+$10) just in case.
It's strange to think that back in the 1990's, we used to think 1.44 Megabytes of storage was extremely generous.
No we didn't. I remember as early as 1988 thinking that 1.44 MB floppies did not have near enough storage since downloading some of the new games, like Space Ace, took up 6 floppies and it took forever at 2400 baud. I also remember thinking that I hoped I had enough floppies to store it that wern't bad... because at least 20% of the HD floppies in a box always turned out to have some defect.
So no, 1.44MB floppies in the 90's were anything but "generous" when it came to storage.
I'm a little suspicious; how much of an expert can you be writing 100 books on a variety of subjects.
Reminds me of a tech instructor I had who proudly informed the class he teaches oracle classes, mysql classes, sql server classes, cisco classes, juniper classes,.net development classes, php, etc..... Yeah he couldn't answer any basic questions that strayed from the text book in front of us.
Haha no kidding. I had an instructor once that taught the A+ certification class as well as bunch of other computer classes, but when I asked a question about Big Endian vs Little Endian in regards to one of the test questions on significant bits, he had no idea what I was talking about and had never even heard of Endian-ness. It was at that point I discounted just about every authoritative thing he tried to say in class.
Not the PS3. Funny enough, every console since the PS2 has been hacked for homebrew first, then for piracy. Are you saying this is an irrelevant coincidence?
As a point of fact in this context, yes that is what I am saying. Again, I ask, why re-invent the wheel? If the tools and know how are already there, it seems kind of illogical to throw that all away and start from scratch.
I feel that you may be mixing up facts here and your statements seem to be leaning towards a belief that only one side can have good and bad hackers. Just because there are good hackers in Homebrew does not mean there are no good hackers in Pro-pirate. Just because there are poor pro-pirate hackers does not mean homebrew has no poor hackers.
My assertion that the Wii pro-pirate hackers suck at it is demonstrably true. As I said, just go look at their actions, code, and consequences of their actions. I can only extrapolate from available information.
Well... by this logic then we can say Homebrew hackers suck at it as well, since I can produce for you lots of actions, code and consequences of poorly programmed homebrew as well.
Given that every console since the PS2 has been hacked for homebrew first and then for piracy, and that I have clearly ascertained that the Wii pirates are idiots, my conclusion is that piracy advocates tend to not be nearly as good at hacking as homebrew advocates.
"Not as good as X" and "Everyone Y Sucks!" are two entirely different positions. As a group, I would say your statement above is true, but that is very different from saying all pro-piracy advocates are crappy hackers.
I'm talking about operation. Things like not checking return values, not performing sanity checks on input, blindly overwriting system software in an unsafe sequence, not using APIs correctly, trusting network data without checks (and I'm not talking about potential network attacks, I'm talking about stuff like assuming a download completes successfully and attempting to install downloaded system software without checking that fact), ignoring whether your patches were applied correctly, etc. are all par for the course on the Wii piracy scene, and are the reason why hundreds of people have had their Wiis bricked by the popular piracy tools, as opposed to zero bricked by the popular homebrew tools. Piracy tools also have an unhealthy dose of typical code bugs (memory leaks, buffer overflows, etc.), especially for the ones that are used to modify system software and therefore should be thoroughly tested.
Ah, now we have a legitimate talking point. By this particular definition, your argument carries more weight. However, I would counter with the fact that piracy is, generally by it's very definition, a dangerous "occupation." I would not expect the piracy aspect of consoles to be as safe, sane or elegant as other forms of programming. Piracy, like it's sea going legacy, is a dirty business... expecting it to be clean or judging piracy against the standards of the Navy is a bit like comparing apples to oranges.
Maybe we just disagree on what is due diligence for a programmer, especially when hacking an embedded platform like the Wii with a huge potential for permanent brickage (the Wii has no recovery mode, you know).
Again, I ask you why should the pro-piracy advocates care? The very nature would seem to suggest that caring whether or not it bricks some idiots console is somewhat redundant in this case.
You make homebrew software because you want to make homebrew software - so the act of making it is a labor of love in and of itself. A pirate wants to pirate games - how that happens is secondary. The primary goal is a free game, if you can use a crow bar to get that game, why use a gold plated screw driver?
You fall into the trap a lot of programmers fall into (and I've done it myself) - you want to make a Cadillac when a Kia will do.
Hacking consoles is harder and piracy has been severely commoditized. The same people aren't doing the same things any more.
I agree with you here and it disappoints me greatly as well.
I was going to quote parts of your post, but it's really pointless answering them line by line. So...
It sounds like you are just a bitter developer that had some of his stuff stolen, to me. Again, I will repeat (which maybe you didn't see the other post), you are deluding yourself if you think that the piracy would not have happened without the Homebrew. Just because the Homebrew people got there first, somehow the pro-pirate hackers are crappy and unable to do the job. History would beg to differ with you. Every console from the dawn of consoles has been hacked/pirated - why do you think the Wii would somehow be different?
Is your point of contention the fact that the pro-pirate crowd took what was already available and made it usable instead of re-inventing the wheel? I mean, that's just ludicrous.
You want to do something on the console, you make it happen. In your case, apparently, you wanted to write some homebrew tools, you made it happen. In the case of the pro-piracy crowd, they wanted to pirate games - they made it happen.
Again, your assertation that the pro-pirate hackers are not good hackers is false. There may be some crappy hackers in that crowd, but there are some good ones as well. Just like there are some incredibly crappy homebrew hackers as well as really good ones. If your sole criteria for a crappy hacker is the visual aspect of their code, as opposed to whether or not it works, then perhaps I would concede your point, but I don't think many people would agree with you in terms of the definition of a crappy hacker.
If you had followed the console hacking scene at all from the bad old days, you'd see how silly your argument is. I have followed the scene since the Atari 2600 days, and the first real pro-piracy hack that amazed me was the NES hacks. They were some of the coolest hacks I had ever seen at the time and it's what got me really interested in hardware to begin with. It's just insulting to hear someone say pro-piracy hackers are crappy, simply because they hold a philosophical viewpoint you do not.
You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.
I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda, and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit that ultimately did not require hardware modification.
It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.
I should weigh my own confidence against and authority that is demonstrably incorrect? How so? You have no idea what my authority is, nor do I care to advertise the fact. In fact, my authority is immaterial since you can verify my claims against countless sites around the web.
My objection to a) is the claim that somehow the pro-piracy people are crappy hackers. It is, as I've said, demonstrably false. If you believe otherwise, please provide a definition of a "good" hacker.
The claims about b) are refuted by your own quote - piracy and homebrew leverage each others works, so by Marcan claiming that piracy piggybacks on homebrew, and there is no return in the other direction, his statements are again, demonstrably false.
It's funny, because it's fairly clear that neither yourself nor Marcan were around in the days of NES or Atari 2600 piracy. Since the days of the first consoles, the pirates have _always_ been clever and impressive in defeating the obstacles in front of them to pirate the games. I remember being amazed at the NES and SMS piracy contraptions that were available and the sheer engineering that had to go into them. It's one of the things that got me interested in hardware hacking as opposed to working purely with software.
Make absolutely no mistake - if homebrew didn't exist, the pirates would still have found a way to exploit the consoles. Just because the homebrew may have made the way easier/faster does not mean it wouldn't have happened. Otherwise - why would there have been console piracy before homebrew was even a consideration on a console? I mean... if pirates are such poor hackers, there's no way they could have figured out how to pirate every game console ever made.
Read my later post in the replies. I'm talking about softmod piracy. Drive hacks are completely different and are popular because manufacturers neglected drive security while strengthening their software security. The PS3 indeed has decent drive security, which is why it's withstood drive hacks. What I'm saying is that the reason it's withstood software-based piracy is because of Other OS.
Softmod piracy on the Wii piggybacked on homebrew. Recently, 360 soft-piracy (incl. downloadable content, etc.) has taken off or so I'm told, also piggybacking on homebrew. PSP piracy relies exclusively on homebrew, because the media is fully custom and the reader is integrated and you can't reasonably replace/emulate it on a portable. My point still stands; pro-softmod-piracy people (i.e. not modchip companies or drive firmware hackers in the case of the 360) are a) rarely good hackers, and b) piggybacking on homebrew.
If you were talking about soft mod piracy, then why did you not say soft mod piracy? My guess is that you wern't and the back peddle is to save your point.
However, it's really immaterial in this context anyway, since your point is still invalid when speaking of soft mod piracy.
To say that the soft-mod pirate developers are not good hackers is just complete and utter garbage. Some of the amazing things they have come up with to make the Wii do things it was never intended to do are exceptionally impressive. As for piggybacking on homebrew, you can easily reverse that and say that homebrew has piggybacked on piracy as well. It's a shared relationship, whether intended or not, whether desired or not. Both sides take from the other side - to say it's all one sided is, again, complete garbage. So your point, even in the context of soft-mod piracy is completely wrong.
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Really? Where can I pick up an iPhone 4 for under $300 retail?
Anywhere that sells one? That is the price. for the highest end one no less, the 32GB model.
I'm going to carry a phone regardless of whether I have an iPod Touch or not..
The iPhone price is with a two year contract, but since you said you are going to carry a phone regardless, that is irrelevant. Not to mention that now with the 256MB plan the iPhone is the cheapest smart phone to own - I use the device heavily and almost never cross that amount, because I'm around a lot of WiFi.
Or of course you could get a Touch and something like a MiFi and just use Skype on the Touch.
since I can now replace the iPod Touch with a Galaxy S and lose zero functionality
Only if you don't consider the potential loss of almost a hundred thousand applications a drop in functionality. I would, but then I am a practical person who likes to consider what a device can do for me instead of just supporting a handset maker because I like them.
$299 with a contract is NOT retail. It's subsidized. Retail is the specification. You won't find an iPhone 4 32GB for less than around $800 retail (and that's considering eBay retail).
How do you figure the 256MB plan makes the iPhone the cheapest smart phone to own? AT&T's prices are through the roof. My T-Mobile contract is about 30% less than any AT&T contract AND I have unlimited data (or if there's a cap, I've never reached it).
I don't consider the loss of almost 100,000 applications that are completely useless to be a great loss. 95% of the apps on the iPhone/iPod are complete junk (same goes for Android as well). So giving the total number of apps is a meaningless figure. The amount of USEFUL apps on Apple and Android are about the same.
So you claim to be a practical person who likes to consider what a device can do for you instead of just supporting a handset maker because I like them and then go on to defend Apple? I'm not sure how you reconcile that. The iPhone is demonstrably inferior in most categories to the Galaxy S, yet you support them, and support them with either false information (retail price) or meaningless statistics (total number of apps).
So I would have to pay $700 for lesser hardware, clunky UI, vendor lock in, reduced functionality if I wanted to switch (US) carriers and/or be forced into an exceptionally overpriced, limited contract for an iPhone... or pay $350 - $400 for superior hardware, modern UI, open source/no vendor lock in, unlocked for international use AND have a US phone contract that is 30% less than AT&T for the same or superior data transfer limits. Let me think which is a better deal here... I dunno, you tell me.
Cost breakdown:
Monthly recurring:
$185 / mo minimum from AT & T for similar plan
$135 / mo minimum from T - Mobile for similar plan
Hardware cost, subsidized:
$199 - AT & T
$149 - T - Mobile
Hardware cost, retail:
$700 - iPhone 4
$350 - Galaxy S
So $50 a month less and save $350 up front for superior hardware and UI or twice the up front cost and $50 more a month for inferior hardware and UI.
Not really a hard decision there, unless your an Apple Fanboy.
For the record, if you read my other posts in this thread, you'll see I'm not a Samsung fanboy - I think they have crap quality control and exceptionally poor handling of defect issues (then again, so does Apple). They just happened to have made the best Android based smartphone out at the moment, and it's the best by a HUGE margin, not just a little bit. It has leapfrogged every other Android phone out there and leapfrogged the iPhone 4 as well.
That doesn't have a phone, so you'll have to add the cost of a phone onto that
iPod touch + Audiovox 8610: $160 per 24 months on a prepaid carrier. iPhone 4 or Galaxy S: ten times as much. The major carriers want to sell me 450 minutes a month at minimum; I use less than a tenth of that.
Now, if you want to compare music players by themselves, I can show you a number of MP3 players that are superior to the iPod Touch for under $150
Can you recommend an MP3 player that has a repository of apps? I looked into the Archos 5, but Archos is having trouble getting Google to let it onto the Market. I've been considering buying a Nokia N900 from Dell.com and just not using the phone part.
My family plan uses more than 1500 min a month, so yeah, that's not going to work. But 10 times as much is completely false. Get a prepaid plan from T-Mobile. If you use less than 45 minutes a month, $150 will get you 36.5 months of usage. In fact, if you just purchased $100 worth of prepaid minutes, you'd have more than 2 years worth of talk time, AND you could use a Galaxy S. That would save you $300 on the iPod Touch.
So for $450 - $500 in total cost, you could have the equivalent of your iPod Touch, your Audiovox 8610 AND more talk time to use as you see fit and only have to carry one device that is faster and more refined than an iPod Touch. Factoring in the cost of the iPod Touch, the Audiovox phone and $160 on a prepaid carrier, you're at a wash at worst or ahead in money depending on how good a deal you find on the Galaxy S.
As far as recommending an MP3 player with a repository of apps, no I can't. I want my MP3 players to play music, not do other things... I have a smartphone for that.
So pretty much the point stands. The Galaxy S is superior to the iPod/iPhone in every way (except for perhaps the screen).
1. Plug into a Windows 7 64bit machine and be automatically recognized.
2. Sync with a computer without having to find a hidden 'mount' feature.
3. Be detected by and work automatically with the client software that supports it (try doing this with Kies).
4. Sync all of my playlists and pictures from iTunes (double-twist works great, but does not have good granularity for syncing photo folders).
5. Allow me to download songs over the air from iTunes and have them end up right in my media player.
6. Include a media player that allows me to access songs, videos, and podcasts from a single UI.
I think all of the above are important for your average, non-geek phone purchaser. Enough so that the iPhone is still a superior choice for most. It hurts a bit to say that too.
1. You have to install the Apple drivers to get the iPod to work on Windows. Nothing different about the Android platform.
2. By hidden, I assume you mean the big window that has a MOUNT and Don't Mount button that pops up when you plug it in?
3. I have no idea what you're talking about.
4. If I don't have an iPod, why on EARTH would I ever want to use iTunes? MediaMonkey works great.
5. There's about 5 different places you can download music from to Android devices and have them show up in your media player. No need to pay the Apple tax and have potentially DRM'd tracks.
6. Guess you shouldn't have bought an AT&T Captivate then. The Galaxy S has that, or at least for audio. I haven't tried watching video with the media player yet.
The Galaxy S is superior... I can't speak for the hobbled carrier specific versions of the phone.
You're not following XDA closely enough.
GPS has been officially stated by Samsung to be fixed in Froyo update.
All I have seen is Samsung saying it's been "optimized" in Froyo... nothing about a fix. Given the fact that they would likely say it's been fixed (since they publically admit it's broken) instead of "optimized."
Samsung has an official firmware fix for the GPS problem on the Galaxy line of phones. The firmware is scheduled for release in September. The forthcoming Epic 4G from Sprint will be released with this updated firmware.
Engadget Story
Haha... I have a firmware fix for the GPS, too. But I'm not releasing it for another month, either. Cause... umm. Just because I don't want to! It's not because I don't know how to fix it, honest!
Given the fact that there is nothing the Galaxy S can't do that the iPod Touch/iPhone can
I know of one thing the 32 GB third-generation iPod touch can do that the Galaxy S can't: retail for under 300 USD.
Really? Where can I pick up an iPhone 4 for under $300 retail?
Ohhh... you mean the iPod Touch. That doesn't have a phone, so you'll have to add the cost of a phone onto that, so your retail price just jumped up above $500 for the same features.
I'm going to carry a phone regardless of whether I have an iPod Touch or not... since I can now replace the iPod Touch with a Galaxy S and lose zero functionality and gain some features, comparing the cost of an iPod Touch to a Galaxy S PHONE is meaningless, you'll have to compare prices to an iPhone 4.
Now, if you want to compare music players by themselves, I can show you a number of MP3 players that are superior to the iPod Touch for under $150, thus destroying your comparison on price.
So yes, the iPod Touch costs less than a Galaxy S, but it also does less. That kind of makes sense. I mean, if you wanna compare that, lets compare a G1 with a 32GB card in it for under $200.
Where has it been confirmed it's a software problem?
I've not seen any confirmation of this on XDA or Cyanogen... and of course you can't trust anything coming out of Samsung.
What matters is that Apple is finally starting to get some real competition.
I lost count of the number of times I heard that about the iPod...
Same here... but the Galaxy S phone, GPS issues not withstanding, absolutely destroy the iPhone 3 series. I haven't used an iPhone 4 series, so I can't say how it compares to that rev, but from what I understand, the only superior part on the iPhone 4 is the screen. Otherwise, the Galaxy S phones are superior in every other way.
I have an iPod Touch that I use regularly, but after using the Galaxy S for the past 3 weeks or so, every time I have to go back to the iPod it feels horrible to use. The iOS 4 UI is clunky and stiff compared to the modern Android implementations and really shows it's age. Given the fact that there is nothing the Galaxy S can't do that the iPod Touch/iPhone can, I've been considering selling the iPod, since it's now redudant and out of date.
Since the iPhone's IOS is the same as the iPod Touch for the most part, there is absolutely nothing attractive about the the iPhone anymore. Old tech, old UI, limited memory, limited capabilities. It's an inferior product and will only get more inferior as time goes on, since the iPhone 4 was just released and is already obsolete.
There is a temp fix out there. Some manual changes and it works by going thru one of Google's servers instead of Samsung's. So it is a small drawback. I'm sure they will get it fixed. Maybe it is an issue in Android 2.1 and not 2.2? But GPS isn't everything. What matters is that Apple is finally starting to get some real competition.
The fix doesn't really work. It improves it some, mainly by using network location. It doesn't do anything for the actual GPS problem, it just masks the problems with various assists. Oh, and you have to root your phone to apply those "fixes" that really aren't. Not a big deal, but most people aren't going to do that.
It's a Linux system presented in all stores across the planet, on prime shelf space.
Just like the thousands of other Linux systems presented in stores across the planet on prime shelf space?
I had to laugh at the "Possible GPS navigation" part, since they couldn't even get the GPS to work properly on their Galaxy S line of phones. What makes them think they can make it work properly on the tablet?
The GPS problem on the Galaxy S line has been known for over a month (and acknowledged by Samsung, even) and yet there's no fix for it. I mean, it's not like it's a minor problem with the GPS... the GPS just does not work on most phones, and some even will kill your GSM connection all together periodically.
Possible GPS navigation my arse! How about making a working GPS on a phone before trying to put it on a tablet. Other phone manufacturers have been able to put working GPS units in their phones for years. One would think Samsung might have tested this out before releasing a flagship line of phones.
Yep. It's not that PC gamers are inherently more skilled than console gamers. Take the best PC gamers and the best console gamers and put them on consoles and PCs respectively, and you'll still see the PC destroy the console.
That's correct as far as it goes... but the bottom line is you can take the best console FPS player in the world and a mediocre to decent PC player will destroy the top tier console player. There simply is no competition between a game pad and a keyboard/mouse combo. Couple that with crappy graphics and console are just ass for quality gaming when it comes to FPS and 4X or RTS games.
The OP was complaining about the secretaries saving to the local drive. If they don't want them to do that, they need to take away the ability, not try to train them not to do it, because it will never happen and it's a never ending cycle. That's all I'm trying to say - change the system to fit the users, don't change the users to fit the system.
People who argue that changing passwords frequently* is a waste of time has not had to deal with the security issue of people sharing their passwords on a regular basis. On the odd occaison, the Receptionists will share passwords so they can log in on each other's computers and access each others files. As an IT team we've done our best to abstract that concept by allowing anyone to log onto any computer in the network so long as they have an account, and mapping network drives automatically based on your permissions, but suffice to say some people just don't understand that. Someone will still only save to "My Documents" or C: drive, because thats what they do at home. Anyways, if someone gets terminated, and they remember the passwords, they pose a security risk. We had this issue come up last summer where a manager knew a few people's passwords, and after being fired, was using the webmail client to snoop on emails.
I haven't been working in this side of IT for more than 2 years and I can already see the benefit of ever-changing passwords.
*I suppose that depends how frequently you are talking
I had to deal with a similar situation in the military... I came to the conclusion that users will always be users and if things like this are happening, it's a failing of the IT and/or Software Design portions of the system. If your secretaries are saving documetns to My Documents on the C: drive, you need to change the My Documents to point to the network drive. You need to basically start eliminating/changing the way the users do things that are improper... it really is ultimately a failing of IT to design the system to cater to the users. In the end, you only have to design one system that works, as opposed to training individuals forever. While it takes longer to design a system properly and less time to train an individual user, over the operational lifetime of the system, the cost:benefit ratio for the properly designed system will far, far outweigh the cost of training users (and ultimately failing).
I could actually see a lightbulb go off in the head of an Admiral during a JTF exercise one time when I explained this concept to him. Apparently, the concept of making a system that fits the users, instead of making the users fit the system is foreign to a great number of people, mostly in management and those that make budget decisions.
It's not just that we disapprove of what they do. There are public health consequences that cost us tax dollars. What you do behind closed doors often leaks out into public financing, and when it does, it is no longer just 'your business'.
The public health consequences are a direct result of the laws making it illegal. If prostitution were legalized, licensed and taxed properly, the health consequences go from a drawback to a net asset.
So no, your reasoning is completely flawed. There may be other reasons to outlaw prostitution (though I can't think of a legitimate one), but health concerns are not it.
I second that reocmmendation -- I have not found a better tool than lightroom. You'll have to remember to either select the auto-write option or remember to manually sync, and quite oddly it won't let you add geotags -- it'll read them and even gives you nifty Google maps links, but it won't let you edit them; everything else you can, and the sorting and tagging features are superb. Of course it's also a brilliant editor, and not too cheap, but it's one software package I, as an avid amateur photographer, felt was worth every penny.
Lightroom has a few critical problems that make it exceptionally problematic with the workflow. For one thing, it's noise reduction algorithm is atrocious. You really need a dedicated NR system in place, like Noise Ninja or such. The one in Lightroom is literally probably the worst one I've used. DxO Optics is fairly decent and features a large database of lenses for correction. Bibble 5 is nice and integrates directly with Noise Ninja, which is awesome - however Bibble 5 is also buggy and crashes a lot - it also has LOTS of trouble dealing with large projects. If Bibble 5 supported DNG and was less buggy it would be the best program out there.
Anyway, you need to do a bit more looking around - Lightroom 3 may address some of the issues with Lightroom 2.x series, but the 2.x series has too many flaws to be the one and only workflow program you use, sadly.
Wow... do you guys arguing about crossing the "event horizon" of a black hole even understand the basics of it?
With a large enough singularity at it's heart, you wouldn't even realize you had crossed over the Schwarzchild radius - there would be no specific difference from one moment to the next, besides the increase in gravitational pull increasing at the same rate it's been increasing as you approach the singularity from outside the radius (inverse square). The Schwarzchild radius is just a mathematical boundary, it's not a physical boundary.
If you crossed the radius on an tangential orbit, you could conceivably orbit the singularity within the radius for millions or billions of years, living out your life aboard your vessel in your personal reference frame for as many years as you live, watching the universe speed past you at an apparent accelerated temporal rate until the ultimate heat death of the universe consumes you, your vessel and your local singularity as well. There's nothing special physically about the event horizon of a black hole, besides the fact that it cuts off two way communication with the outside universe. Beyond that, it has no effect on anything else. It just so happens that many of the Shwarzchild radius limits of singularities are so small that crossing them puts you into a proximity of the singularity that is lethal. That is purely coincidental though.
Your Foscam example sounds like and/or should be superceded by the Trendnet TV-IP110. It's $50 bucks for the wired version and $70 for the wireless version, I believe it runs linux, you can remove the IR filter from the lens and get wicked awesome low light performance (at the expense of proper color balance), has all the features you mentioned, etc... I looked into getting these cameras in bulk from the Chinese manufacturer, but for anything less than 500 pc, the Microcenter price of $70 for the wireless version is less than the bulk price direct from China. Removing the plastic shell, you can probably shoehorn the board into quite a few discrete places. It's a pretty good camera for $50/$70.
Thankfully most of the motherboards I've purchased in the past few years allow me to load BIOS updates from USB storage. I think that was one of the last major uses for a floppy.
But shocklingly, I've purchased a couple motherboards in the past 6 months that still require a floppy. I was like WTF and had to dig around in a box for a floppy drive. Who the hell still requires a floppy in this day and age? I don't recall what manufacturer it was but I can tell you I'll not be buying another motherboard that requires a floppy to update the BIOS. Thankfully I had a spare box of HD floppies in my drawer, but come on... really? 2010, brand new MB and I had to find a floppy?
Because there are two or three manufacturers of 3.5" floppy disks - there aren't any more manufacturers entering the market, so it is a slow decline. You can still buy 3.25" disk drives as a option for a new PC (+$10) just in case.
It's strange to think that back in the 1990's, we used to think 1.44 Megabytes of storage was extremely generous.
No we didn't. I remember as early as 1988 thinking that 1.44 MB floppies did not have near enough storage since downloading some of the new games, like Space Ace, took up 6 floppies and it took forever at 2400 baud. I also remember thinking that I hoped I had enough floppies to store it that wern't bad... because at least 20% of the HD floppies in a box always turned out to have some defect.
So no, 1.44MB floppies in the 90's were anything but "generous" when it came to storage.
I'm a little suspicious; how much of an expert can you be writing 100 books on a variety of subjects.
Reminds me of a tech instructor I had who proudly informed the class he teaches oracle classes, mysql classes, sql server classes, cisco classes, juniper classes, .net development classes, php, etc..... Yeah he couldn't answer any basic questions that strayed from the text book in front of us.
Haha no kidding. I had an instructor once that taught the A+ certification class as well as bunch of other computer classes, but when I asked a question about Big Endian vs Little Endian in regards to one of the test questions on significant bits, he had no idea what I was talking about and had never even heard of Endian-ness. It was at that point I discounted just about every authoritative thing he tried to say in class.
Not the PS3. Funny enough, every console since the PS2 has been hacked for homebrew first, then for piracy. Are you saying this is an irrelevant coincidence?
As a point of fact in this context, yes that is what I am saying. Again, I ask, why re-invent the wheel? If the tools and know how are already there, it seems kind of illogical to throw that all away and start from scratch.
I feel that you may be mixing up facts here and your statements seem to be leaning towards a belief that only one side can have good and bad hackers. Just because there are good hackers in Homebrew does not mean there are no good hackers in Pro-pirate. Just because there are poor pro-pirate hackers does not mean homebrew has no poor hackers.
My assertion that the Wii pro-pirate hackers suck at it is demonstrably true. As I said, just go look at their actions, code, and consequences of their actions. I can only extrapolate from available information.
Well... by this logic then we can say Homebrew hackers suck at it as well, since I can produce for you lots of actions, code and consequences of poorly programmed homebrew as well.
Given that every console since the PS2 has been hacked for homebrew first and then for piracy, and that I have clearly ascertained that the Wii pirates are idiots, my conclusion is that piracy advocates tend to not be nearly as good at hacking as homebrew advocates.
"Not as good as X" and "Everyone Y Sucks!" are two entirely different positions. As a group, I would say your statement above is true, but that is very different from saying all pro-piracy advocates are crappy hackers.
I'm talking about operation. Things like not checking return values, not performing sanity checks on input, blindly overwriting system software in an unsafe sequence, not using APIs correctly, trusting network data without checks (and I'm not talking about potential network attacks, I'm talking about stuff like assuming a download completes successfully and attempting to install downloaded system software without checking that fact), ignoring whether your patches were applied correctly, etc. are all par for the course on the Wii piracy scene, and are the reason why hundreds of people have had their Wiis bricked by the popular piracy tools, as opposed to zero bricked by the popular homebrew tools. Piracy tools also have an unhealthy dose of typical code bugs (memory leaks, buffer overflows, etc.), especially for the ones that are used to modify system software and therefore should be thoroughly tested.
Ah, now we have a legitimate talking point. By this particular definition, your argument carries more weight. However, I would counter with the fact that piracy is, generally by it's very definition, a dangerous "occupation." I would not expect the piracy aspect of consoles to be as safe, sane or elegant as other forms of programming. Piracy, like it's sea going legacy, is a dirty business... expecting it to be clean or judging piracy against the standards of the Navy is a bit like comparing apples to oranges.
Maybe we just disagree on what is due diligence for a programmer, especially when hacking an embedded platform like the Wii with a huge potential for permanent brickage (the Wii has no recovery mode, you know).
Again, I ask you why should the pro-piracy advocates care? The very nature would seem to suggest that caring whether or not it bricks some idiots console is somewhat redundant in this case.
You make homebrew software because you want to make homebrew software - so the act of making it is a labor of love in and of itself. A pirate wants to pirate games - how that happens is secondary. The primary goal is a free game, if you can use a crow bar to get that game, why use a gold plated screw driver?
You fall into the trap a lot of programmers fall into (and I've done it myself) - you want to make a Cadillac when a Kia will do.
Hacking consoles is harder and piracy has been severely commoditized. The same people aren't doing the same things any more.
I agree with you here and it disappoints me greatly as well.
I was going to quote parts of your post, but it's really pointless answering them line by line. So...
It sounds like you are just a bitter developer that had some of his stuff stolen, to me. Again, I will repeat (which maybe you didn't see the other post), you are deluding yourself if you think that the piracy would not have happened without the Homebrew. Just because the Homebrew people got there first, somehow the pro-pirate hackers are crappy and unable to do the job. History would beg to differ with you. Every console from the dawn of consoles has been hacked/pirated - why do you think the Wii would somehow be different?
Is your point of contention the fact that the pro-pirate crowd took what was already available and made it usable instead of re-inventing the wheel? I mean, that's just ludicrous.
You want to do something on the console, you make it happen. In your case, apparently, you wanted to write some homebrew tools, you made it happen. In the case of the pro-piracy crowd, they wanted to pirate games - they made it happen.
Again, your assertation that the pro-pirate hackers are not good hackers is false. There may be some crappy hackers in that crowd, but there are some good ones as well. Just like there are some incredibly crappy homebrew hackers as well as really good ones. If your sole criteria for a crappy hacker is the visual aspect of their code, as opposed to whether or not it works, then perhaps I would concede your point, but I don't think many people would agree with you in terms of the definition of a crappy hacker.
If you had followed the console hacking scene at all from the bad old days, you'd see how silly your argument is. I have followed the scene since the Atari 2600 days, and the first real pro-piracy hack that amazed me was the NES hacks. They were some of the coolest hacks I had ever seen at the time and it's what got me really interested in hardware to begin with. It's just insulting to hear someone say pro-piracy hackers are crappy, simply because they hold a philosophical viewpoint you do not.
You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.
I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that ... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda, and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit that ultimately did not require hardware modification.
It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.
I should weigh my own confidence against and authority that is demonstrably incorrect? How so? You have no idea what my authority is, nor do I care to advertise the fact. In fact, my authority is immaterial since you can verify my claims against countless sites around the web.
My objection to a) is the claim that somehow the pro-piracy people are crappy hackers. It is, as I've said, demonstrably false. If you believe otherwise, please provide a definition of a "good" hacker.
The claims about b) are refuted by your own quote - piracy and homebrew leverage each others works, so by Marcan claiming that piracy piggybacks on homebrew, and there is no return in the other direction, his statements are again, demonstrably false.
It's funny, because it's fairly clear that neither yourself nor Marcan were around in the days of NES or Atari 2600 piracy. Since the days of the first consoles, the pirates have _always_ been clever and impressive in defeating the obstacles in front of them to pirate the games. I remember being amazed at the NES and SMS piracy contraptions that were available and the sheer engineering that had to go into them. It's one of the things that got me interested in hardware hacking as opposed to working purely with software.
Make absolutely no mistake - if homebrew didn't exist, the pirates would still have found a way to exploit the consoles. Just because the homebrew may have made the way easier/faster does not mean it wouldn't have happened. Otherwise - why would there have been console piracy before homebrew was even a consideration on a console? I mean... if pirates are such poor hackers, there's no way they could have figured out how to pirate every game console ever made.
Read my later post in the replies. I'm talking about softmod piracy. Drive hacks are completely different and are popular because manufacturers neglected drive security while strengthening their software security. The PS3 indeed has decent drive security, which is why it's withstood drive hacks. What I'm saying is that the reason it's withstood software-based piracy is because of Other OS.
Softmod piracy on the Wii piggybacked on homebrew. Recently, 360 soft-piracy (incl. downloadable content, etc.) has taken off or so I'm told, also piggybacking on homebrew. PSP piracy relies exclusively on homebrew, because the media is fully custom and the reader is integrated and you can't reasonably replace/emulate it on a portable. My point still stands; pro-softmod-piracy people (i.e. not modchip companies or drive firmware hackers in the case of the 360) are a) rarely good hackers, and b) piggybacking on homebrew.
If you were talking about soft mod piracy, then why did you not say soft mod piracy? My guess is that you wern't and the back peddle is to save your point.
However, it's really immaterial in this context anyway, since your point is still invalid when speaking of soft mod piracy.
To say that the soft-mod pirate developers are not good hackers is just complete and utter garbage. Some of the amazing things they have come up with to make the Wii do things it was never intended to do are exceptionally impressive. As for piggybacking on homebrew, you can easily reverse that and say that homebrew has piggybacked on piracy as well. It's a shared relationship, whether intended or not, whether desired or not. Both sides take from the other side - to say it's all one sided is, again, complete garbage. So your point, even in the context of soft-mod piracy is completely wrong.