Most people I know who have "failed" PS2 units have bad DVD drives. These often are repaired fairly easily. I'm not great with tools, and I had never worked on one before, but I opened it up, took it apart, sprayed some compressed air in it, cleaned it out, and it worked perfectly. There are also guides online telling you how to adjust the gears if need be to tweak the laser. You can also adjust the potentiometer to increase the laser strength as well, but I didn't need to do either of those things.
When the PS2 launched, DVD drives weren't horribly common, and they were still expensive. The PS2 featured an early iteration, cheap DVD drive. That is both a great strength and weakness. It meant for many people that they had their first DVD drive for playing movies, and they got it cheap, along with a great game system at the same time. It also meant high failure rates.
For what it is worth, my PS2 still works after a cleaning. The XBox DVD drive (much later tech to boot) however does not work after cleaning. If I didn't have a mod chip and a larger HDD, my XBox would be worthless.
The NES however, was NOTORIOUS for failing to read games. How often do you have to blow in your carts, or fight with the unit to get it to work?
You do not have the right to distribute copies. Perhaps you might have missed the notice that plays before every movie explaining some basic copyright information.
Producing copies violates copyright law, however it was deemed legal to produce personal use backups. Back in the day before hard drives, all software was on tapes, and then floppies. It was fairly common to backup your software to other tapes/floppies, because they died. So thusly, you are granted the rights to produce copies along the lines of fair use.
I don't keep up on all the specifics, but I do know courts have them nailed down pretty tight. When Pete Abrams was doing the Fire and Rain storyline of his web comic, he included some brief lines from songs to enhance some of his strips. I had read that you are allowed to quote a small portion of the lyrics for fair use, and that there is line at which you cross into illegally copying copyrighted material, hence much of the legal ruckus over lyric sites. Even though he included very short lines from songs, the RIAA came down on him hard, threaten lawsuits, and he redid the strips without any lyrics.
Times New Roman provides more scientific characters than the average home user will ever need. However, it does not meet he needs of the academic crowd, hence the need for this project. And instead of sprinkling a few characters across many fonts, it makes more sense to have a dedicate font (or fonts) where you know to look specifically for scientific symbols.
In what country do you live? In places like Canada it has been ruled that file sharing isn't illegal.
In the US, we have copyright law. Producing a copy of the file, such as sharing the file, clearly breaks copyright law, and it has always been ruled this way. There are some who suggest the downloading also produces a new copy on your computer, and thusly the creation of that copy means you then violated copyright law. I don't know how often this has gone before a judge, because primarily they seem to go after people sharing files as opposed to downloading them.
She is a liar. If I recall she blamed a neighbor for leeching a wireless signal when she wasn't even using a wireless router. And personally I don't believe anyone is entitled or right for stealing products.
However, she is a kid with no money. They aren't really going to be able to collect anything, and if parents are smart, they'd look into a good bankruptcy lawyer to protect what they can. Continuing to fight the case isn't about her, because she was wrong. However, that doesn't make the RIAA right.
Did they obtain evidence legally? Did they entrap her? Have the RIAA used illegal tactics such as illegal file sharing themselves?
Someone needs to continue this fight and stop the RIAA and see the bigger picture.
After the first robbery, I'd seriously consider moving my data. If my data is still there after the second robbery, I feel stupid. If my data is still there after the third robbery, I should lose my job. If my data is still there after the fourth robbery, I need to promoted to executive management.
The entire purpose of off-site storage is disaster recovery, and prevention of major disasters like this. Why are these guys still in business?
I'm confused. You admit to piracy. You don't think people should be tried for piracy, but you don't support her?
For the record, I pirate, but I don't claim to have moral superiority in doing so. I understand it is illegal, and try to financially support products I enjoy to ensure those products will continue to be produced.
I don't subscribe to the theory that it is okay to break the law so long as there are worse criminals out there. I simply acknowledge that as an adult, I don't follow all the rules. I understand that it is wrong, I just don't care enough. The same goes for jaywalking, or speeding.
I thought I read in the article that the study was funded by the US Department of Energy. Since which is a public research project funded by the US government at a state university kept under a $25 key? I thought the usual stipulation of government grants for research at universities like this, that the results be made freely available to the public. That's why we're paying for them.
Where this some small corporation I might be tempted to scream hoax or fraud when you made a broad claim, try to dissuade people from investigating it, and then charging for details. However I don't know what to think of a university pulling such a stunt.
I'm glad that this person is not thinking solely of themselves, but of further cases down the line. They are fighting on principle against the RIAA to help other people out.
I wonder if people can donate to their legal fund?
I didn't contend Google is perfect or without flaw.
I contend that we get a bevy of articles that continue to claim Google is evil, they are the new evil empire, they are the new Microsoft, and they fail to back up these claims.
Google may be growing past their ability to provide great service to their customers, but that doesn't make them Microsoft. The supposed "great point" you bring up has absolutely nothing to do with a comparison to Microsoft. The question is, "Is Google the next Microsoft", and I say resoundingly no. Unless an article actually demonstrates that Google is exuding Microsoft's most identifiable traits, then don't waste my time with these articles. I was wrong to even post in this article, though I generally try to respond to most people who respond directly to me. In the future, I will avoid such articles. The other poster was correct, in that so long as these articles generate tons of responses/page views/ad impressions, Slashdot will likely keep posting them.
Lastly, you start your post suggesting that comment preferences are a good thing, yet contradict your point. You mark at at -5, and then come back and read me regardless. What's the point? I have ACs at -5 and just don't read them, period. I have no clue who are you are, or how I've ticked you off, but if you don't want to read my posts, then don't. It really doesn't bother me.
Most people include a boilerplate, catch-all clause to cover their butts.
Have you actually seen people who have had accounts terminated for speaking poorly of Google?
Conversely, Microsoft disallows you to use terms like Linux anywhere in your XBox Live profile. Microsoft is acting on such a strategy, where as you are suggesting Google could in theory do so, while they haven't.
Google could abuse their position, as could many companies. How many companies depend on MySQL today? What if they abused that position? We don't talk about such possibilities, because it is highly unlikely. The company has established a track record that warrants trust.
Microsoft's early history involved blackmailing, buying out competitors, destroying standards, etc. Microsoft started in very seedy roots. Ask Steve Jobs off the record about Bill Gates some time. Google does not have such a past, nor leadership who use such tactics.
From day 1, they practiced a different model. Be open, don't harass your customers with big, annoying ads everwhere, provide superior alternatives, offer your stuff for free, etc. They have a company motto of "Don't Be Evil". Many of the things that have given Google an advantage, they offer up freely to everyone else.
They have opened the designs and standards on their server and power supplies. They contribute their optimizations back to the MySQL devs. They pay people to develop FOSS. Where is there any evidence that Google is going to start trapping people into their platform and abusing them, especially when Google is often in support of open, cross-platform standards?
Google could have released their own fork of Firefox, and locked people in. Instead they contribute code and money to Firefox. They could have released their own Linux distro, and locked people in. Instead they contribute code to BSD, OpenSolaris, Linux and all kinds of open apps via Summer of Code.
You can force parallels in places if you want. Someone made various parallels between Orson Scott Card's character Ender in Ender's Game with Hitler, and made what seemed to be a convincing arguement based on a number of coincidences that the characters were the same, save for the real biggy. Hitler believed in genocide, and Ender unwittingly committed a genocide and felt guilty for the rest of his life. Sometimes we see these coincidences and overlook the important parts.
In all the areas that really matter, Google is vastly different from Microsoft, and that is why I don't put stock in these comparisons.
Inputting 100 RSS feeds can still probably be done in an hour or two.
Migrating an OS means backup in files, download the new OS, format, partition, install the OS, configure the OS, install software, restore backups, etc.
Not only is it considerably more complex, it isn't something you can do in an hour or so.
Changing an OS means a full learning curve. A portal is a portal. There is zero learning curve.
Furthermore, each OS is different. No OS fully and completely provides what another OS does, so switching an OS often means making compromises, and changing the routine, and changing apps. However any portal can take in any RSS feed manually. You don't have to compromise, or lose what you already have. Your original point is that Google is evil for forcing you to be locked into their product, when there isn't anything you're locked into.
However, lets say you do video editing in Final Cut Pro on an Apple, and someone tries to force you to migrate to Linux. Where is your Final Cut Pro on Linux? Migrating your OS for most people is quite the hassle, and often can completely fail to replicate what you have that already works.
There are multiple definitions of a monopoly, so I was trying to cover both bases. There are natural monopolies, which aren't "monopolies" in regards to anti-trust laws. I think most people see the word monopoly in the evil, illegal sense. Microsoft is a monopoly in the illegal, anti-trust sense because they violate anti-trust laws and act in an anti-competitive manner. However, the base definition of the word outside legal circles doesn't care about legality.
How many generic "Is Google Evil?" articles are we going to get on Slashdot? I've yet to see one that produces anything newsworthy. They all just make general suggestions that Google is the new evil empire. Not only are these articles devoid of any meat and flawed, they are dupes. Please don't repeat them.
Hotmail - try moving your email. You can easily forward your Gmail, and now they are opening up POP and IMAP support, which in turn is freeing you from the ads and web-based service, while still providing you the mail for free.
iGoogle - you suggest migrating an OS is easier that a portal? There are tons of portal pages, and they all support rss feeds. Now you're just trolling. Migrating an OS is no easy task. Changing your home page takes all of 30 seconds.
AdSense - There are alternatives to put ads on your page. Google doesn't even dominate the web advertising market.
Calender - Doesn't Google Calendar use the iCal standard, and can't it easily be imported into other programs?
You are either trolling, or have no clue what you're talking about.
Most large companies diversify. That doesn't make you a monopoly, nor does the size of a company make you a monopoly.
A monopoly means you completely own a set market.
Microsoft isn't a monopoly because they have so many divisions of their business. They are a monopoly because their OS completely dominates the market, and because they practice illegal tactics to ensure it does.
Google doesn't even dominate the search or advertising markets.
The moment Google tries to destroy free standards, destroy competition, and break the law regularly at will, let me know.
Until then, can we please stop with all this hyperbole and nonsense about how Google is evil?
Last I checked, MSN and Yahoo both volunteered private data to both US and Chinese governments, and Google was the only company to stand up to both, yet the media kept insisting that Google was the evil party for eventually caving into Chinese law. Google gives money to the Summer of Code project, volunteers tons of code, and also doesn't have a monopoly in their market.
Google hasn't thrown chairs, hasn't threatened to destroy anyone, and doesn't have leaked evidence like the Halloween documents, proving their evil.
Some people are obsessed with smaller units, and will replace their existing PS2's with the smaller unit. This isn't aimed solely at people who haven't purchased a console yet. Many people with older PS2's may have experienced DVD drive failures, and a cheap, smaller replacement may appeal to them, especially since the cheaper PS3 lost backwards compatibility.
When I was in Europe, smaller appliances were all the rage.
I'm sure glad my Nebraska tax dollars are being spent wisely. Clearly, with the huge financial crisis the state is in, it is a priority that we research the sanity of people trolling across two different mediums.
Actually I think they have made great open-ended worlds great for exploring, but perhaps have fallen short on making great single-player experiences. The most common complaint from Morrowind and Oblivion critics is that the game felt like a MMO. I always thought it was the next logical step, and arguably the most profitable.
The question is, if they develop an MMO, are they hiring all new guys to do it, or are some of the experienced TES devs working on it? Does this mean no TES:V?
Interplay specifically sold the rights to make direct sequels to Fallout 2, but retained the rights to make a Fallout MMO. Interplay was using that as a chip to try and financially stay afloat by selling the idea to investors, trying to get someone to support them making the MMO. So last I heard, Bethesda does not have the rights to a Fallout MMO.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people I know who have "failed" PS2 units have bad DVD drives. These often are repaired fairly easily. I'm not great with tools, and I had never worked on one before, but I opened it up, took it apart, sprayed some compressed air in it, cleaned it out, and it worked perfectly. There are also guides online telling you how to adjust the gears if need be to tweak the laser. You can also adjust the potentiometer to increase the laser strength as well, but I didn't need to do either of those things.
When the PS2 launched, DVD drives weren't horribly common, and they were still expensive. The PS2 featured an early iteration, cheap DVD drive. That is both a great strength and weakness. It meant for many people that they had their first DVD drive for playing movies, and they got it cheap, along with a great game system at the same time. It also meant high failure rates.
For what it is worth, my PS2 still works after a cleaning. The XBox DVD drive (much later tech to boot) however does not work after cleaning. If I didn't have a mod chip and a larger HDD, my XBox would be worthless.
The NES however, was NOTORIOUS for failing to read games. How often do you have to blow in your carts, or fight with the unit to get it to work?
You do not have the right to distribute copies. Perhaps you might have missed the notice that plays before every movie explaining some basic copyright information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
Producing copies violates copyright law, however it was deemed legal to produce personal use backups. Back in the day before hard drives, all software was on tapes, and then floppies. It was fairly common to backup your software to other tapes/floppies, because they died. So thusly, you are granted the rights to produce copies along the lines of fair use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
I don't keep up on all the specifics, but I do know courts have them nailed down pretty tight. When Pete Abrams was doing the Fire and Rain storyline of his web comic, he included some brief lines from songs to enhance some of his strips. I had read that you are allowed to quote a small portion of the lyrics for fair use, and that there is line at which you cross into illegally copying copyrighted material, hence much of the legal ruckus over lyric sites. Even though he included very short lines from songs, the RIAA came down on him hard, threaten lawsuits, and he redid the strips without any lyrics.
Times New Roman provides more scientific characters than the average home user will ever need. However, it does not meet he needs of the academic crowd, hence the need for this project. And instead of sprinkling a few characters across many fonts, it makes more sense to have a dedicate font (or fonts) where you know to look specifically for scientific symbols.
In what country do you live? In places like Canada it has been ruled that file sharing isn't illegal.
In the US, we have copyright law. Producing a copy of the file, such as sharing the file, clearly breaks copyright law, and it has always been ruled this way. There are some who suggest the downloading also produces a new copy on your computer, and thusly the creation of that copy means you then violated copyright law. I don't know how often this has gone before a judge, because primarily they seem to go after people sharing files as opposed to downloading them.
She is a liar. If I recall she blamed a neighbor for leeching a wireless signal when she wasn't even using a wireless router. And personally I don't believe anyone is entitled or right for stealing products.
However, she is a kid with no money. They aren't really going to be able to collect anything, and if parents are smart, they'd look into a good bankruptcy lawyer to protect what they can. Continuing to fight the case isn't about her, because she was wrong. However, that doesn't make the RIAA right.
Did they obtain evidence legally? Did they entrap her? Have the RIAA used illegal tactics such as illegal file sharing themselves?
Someone needs to continue this fight and stop the RIAA and see the bigger picture.
After the first robbery, I'd seriously consider moving my data. If my data is still there after the second robbery, I feel stupid. If my data is still there after the third robbery, I should lose my job. If my data is still there after the fourth robbery, I need to promoted to executive management.
The entire purpose of off-site storage is disaster recovery, and prevention of major disasters like this. Why are these guys still in business?
I can't get to the actual article from work, because the site is blocked. Thanks.
Any pirate interested in an insurance fund to cya should seriously consider sending over a few bucks. This could be a very important precedent.
I'm confused. You admit to piracy. You don't think people should be tried for piracy, but you don't support her?
For the record, I pirate, but I don't claim to have moral superiority in doing so. I understand it is illegal, and try to financially support products I enjoy to ensure those products will continue to be produced.
I don't subscribe to the theory that it is okay to break the law so long as there are worse criminals out there. I simply acknowledge that as an adult, I don't follow all the rules. I understand that it is wrong, I just don't care enough. The same goes for jaywalking, or speeding.
I thought I read in the article that the study was funded by the US Department of Energy. Since which is a public research project funded by the US government at a state university kept under a $25 key? I thought the usual stipulation of government grants for research at universities like this, that the results be made freely available to the public. That's why we're paying for them.
Where this some small corporation I might be tempted to scream hoax or fraud when you made a broad claim, try to dissuade people from investigating it, and then charging for details. However I don't know what to think of a university pulling such a stunt.
I'm glad that this person is not thinking solely of themselves, but of further cases down the line. They are fighting on principle against the RIAA to help other people out.
I wonder if people can donate to their legal fund?
How valid is their conclusion? Is there an expert here on Slashdot that can offer some insight, because this does sound like a huge discovery.
Or Myspace, given that Myspace has more hits than Yahoo or Google. Myspace is the #1 website on the planet, sadly.
I didn't contend Google is perfect or without flaw.
I contend that we get a bevy of articles that continue to claim Google is evil, they are the new evil empire, they are the new Microsoft, and they fail to back up these claims.
Google may be growing past their ability to provide great service to their customers, but that doesn't make them Microsoft. The supposed "great point" you bring up has absolutely nothing to do with a comparison to Microsoft. The question is, "Is Google the next Microsoft", and I say resoundingly no. Unless an article actually demonstrates that Google is exuding Microsoft's most identifiable traits, then don't waste my time with these articles. I was wrong to even post in this article, though I generally try to respond to most people who respond directly to me. In the future, I will avoid such articles. The other poster was correct, in that so long as these articles generate tons of responses/page views/ad impressions, Slashdot will likely keep posting them.
Lastly, you start your post suggesting that comment preferences are a good thing, yet contradict your point. You mark at at -5, and then come back and read me regardless. What's the point? I have ACs at -5 and just don't read them, period. I have no clue who are you are, or how I've ticked you off, but if you don't want to read my posts, then don't. It really doesn't bother me.
Most people include a boilerplate, catch-all clause to cover their butts.
Have you actually seen people who have had accounts terminated for speaking poorly of Google?
Conversely, Microsoft disallows you to use terms like Linux anywhere in your XBox Live profile. Microsoft is acting on such a strategy, where as you are suggesting Google could in theory do so, while they haven't.
Google could abuse their position, as could many companies. How many companies depend on MySQL today? What if they abused that position? We don't talk about such possibilities, because it is highly unlikely. The company has established a track record that warrants trust.
Microsoft's early history involved blackmailing, buying out competitors, destroying standards, etc. Microsoft started in very seedy roots. Ask Steve Jobs off the record about Bill Gates some time. Google does not have such a past, nor leadership who use such tactics.
From day 1, they practiced a different model. Be open, don't harass your customers with big, annoying ads everwhere, provide superior alternatives, offer your stuff for free, etc. They have a company motto of "Don't Be Evil". Many of the things that have given Google an advantage, they offer up freely to everyone else.
They have opened the designs and standards on their server and power supplies. They contribute their optimizations back to the MySQL devs. They pay people to develop FOSS. Where is there any evidence that Google is going to start trapping people into their platform and abusing them, especially when Google is often in support of open, cross-platform standards?
Google could have released their own fork of Firefox, and locked people in. Instead they contribute code and money to Firefox. They could have released their own Linux distro, and locked people in. Instead they contribute code to BSD, OpenSolaris, Linux and all kinds of open apps via Summer of Code.
You can force parallels in places if you want. Someone made various parallels between Orson Scott Card's character Ender in Ender's Game with Hitler, and made what seemed to be a convincing arguement based on a number of coincidences that the characters were the same, save for the real biggy. Hitler believed in genocide, and Ender unwittingly committed a genocide and felt guilty for the rest of his life. Sometimes we see these coincidences and overlook the important parts.
In all the areas that really matter, Google is vastly different from Microsoft, and that is why I don't put stock in these comparisons.
Inputting 100 RSS feeds can still probably be done in an hour or two.
Migrating an OS means backup in files, download the new OS, format, partition, install the OS, configure the OS, install software, restore backups, etc.
Not only is it considerably more complex, it isn't something you can do in an hour or so.
Changing an OS means a full learning curve. A portal is a portal. There is zero learning curve.
Furthermore, each OS is different. No OS fully and completely provides what another OS does, so switching an OS often means making compromises, and changing the routine, and changing apps. However any portal can take in any RSS feed manually. You don't have to compromise, or lose what you already have. Your original point is that Google is evil for forcing you to be locked into their product, when there isn't anything you're locked into.
However, lets say you do video editing in Final Cut Pro on an Apple, and someone tries to force you to migrate to Linux. Where is your Final Cut Pro on Linux? Migrating your OS for most people is quite the hassle, and often can completely fail to replicate what you have that already works.
There are multiple definitions of a monopoly, so I was trying to cover both bases. There are natural monopolies, which aren't "monopolies" in regards to anti-trust laws. I think most people see the word monopoly in the evil, illegal sense. Microsoft is a monopoly in the illegal, anti-trust sense because they violate anti-trust laws and act in an anti-competitive manner. However, the base definition of the word outside legal circles doesn't care about legality.
How many generic "Is Google Evil?" articles are we going to get on Slashdot? I've yet to see one that produces anything newsworthy. They all just make general suggestions that Google is the new evil empire. Not only are these articles devoid of any meat and flawed, they are dupes. Please don't repeat them.
Hotmail - try moving your email. You can easily forward your Gmail, and now they are opening up POP and IMAP support, which in turn is freeing you from the ads and web-based service, while still providing you the mail for free.
iGoogle - you suggest migrating an OS is easier that a portal? There are tons of portal pages, and they all support rss feeds. Now you're just trolling. Migrating an OS is no easy task. Changing your home page takes all of 30 seconds.
AdSense - There are alternatives to put ads on your page. Google doesn't even dominate the web advertising market.
Calender - Doesn't Google Calendar use the iCal standard, and can't it easily be imported into other programs?
You are either trolling, or have no clue what you're talking about.
Most large companies diversify. That doesn't make you a monopoly, nor does the size of a company make you a monopoly.
A monopoly means you completely own a set market.
Microsoft isn't a monopoly because they have so many divisions of their business. They are a monopoly because their OS completely dominates the market, and because they practice illegal tactics to ensure it does.
Google doesn't even dominate the search or advertising markets.
The moment Google tries to destroy free standards, destroy competition, and break the law regularly at will, let me know.
Until then, can we please stop with all this hyperbole and nonsense about how Google is evil?
Last I checked, MSN and Yahoo both volunteered private data to both US and Chinese governments, and Google was the only company to stand up to both, yet the media kept insisting that Google was the evil party for eventually caving into Chinese law. Google gives money to the Summer of Code project, volunteers tons of code, and also doesn't have a monopoly in their market.
Google hasn't thrown chairs, hasn't threatened to destroy anyone, and doesn't have leaked evidence like the Halloween documents, proving their evil.
Where exactly are the comparisons valid?
No development cost? No support cost? No overhead from Redmond?
I love your accounting.
Some people are obsessed with smaller units, and will replace their existing PS2's with the smaller unit. This isn't aimed solely at people who haven't purchased a console yet. Many people with older PS2's may have experienced DVD drive failures, and a cheap, smaller replacement may appeal to them, especially since the cheaper PS3 lost backwards compatibility.
When I was in Europe, smaller appliances were all the rage.
I'm sure glad my Nebraska tax dollars are being spent wisely. Clearly, with the huge financial crisis the state is in, it is a priority that we research the sanity of people trolling across two different mediums.
Actually I think they have made great open-ended worlds great for exploring, but perhaps have fallen short on making great single-player experiences. The most common complaint from Morrowind and Oblivion critics is that the game felt like a MMO. I always thought it was the next logical step, and arguably the most profitable.
The question is, if they develop an MMO, are they hiring all new guys to do it, or are some of the experienced TES devs working on it? Does this mean no TES:V?
Interplay specifically sold the rights to make direct sequels to Fallout 2, but retained the rights to make a Fallout MMO. Interplay was using that as a chip to try and financially stay afloat by selling the idea to investors, trying to get someone to support them making the MMO. So last I heard, Bethesda does not have the rights to a Fallout MMO.
You should check your facts.