The AC did say he has a PS3 and if your HDTV supports 1080p then playing a Blu-ray movie on a PS3 via HDMI will display at 1080p with 7.1 sound. I don't use the HDMI sound to my TV since even though it has good speakers since the sound is nothing compared to my PS3 optical out to my 7.1 amplifier.
While it may be said that many PS3 games are 720p with only a few being 1080p most sound is 7.1 and that on a 7.1 amplifier is fantastic.
Really, one simple plug from the sending device to the display device. I fail to see how that is not simple.
Ubiquity, Well I give it points here. It really was the first popular spec to finally include video and audio on one cable.
Agree there.
Affordable. Not a chance. Ridiculous prices for cables and accessories.
You aren't serious are you? If you tell me you only buy only from Monster then there is no hope for you. I can get HDMI to HDMI and DIV to HDMI for around AU$8.00 and that is in Australia. Get Googling!
Wireless HDMI would rock.
Your listening to too much hype. Wireless sounds good except you would have to a) Buy all new devices that communicated via wireless (expensive) or b) Buy wireless HDMI adaptors (also expensive and not available) and even then you could you would still be stuck with HDMI cable interconnects.
Oh wait. The wireless HDMI spec is already here. Can anyone say Wireless USB 3.
USB 3 has been defined I have yet to see a single USB 3 device although I don't think it will take too long. Wireless - I thought that was what Gigabit Ethernet was for.
The reason I always found when griping that my plasma couldn't send audio, or even output SPDIF, was that it was a DRM restriction imposed on the manufacturers. No clue if that was true, and what might have changed.
My two year old Sharp HDTV has an audio out however that audio is just stereo not surround sound. If I play a Blu-ray movie then I use my PS3 to send optical out to my 7.1 channel amplifier and video via my HDMI cable. I do turn off the stereo speakers on my TV though since the sound actually conflicts with my amplifier's. In fact I am not aware of any surround sound HDTV's although some do have good speakers but compared to a reasonable amplifier there is no contest.
The Audio Return thing will allow your display to send audio to your receiver, instead of using a second audio (e.g. optical or coaxial) cable. Why that wasn't there from the beginning is beyond me, since the connection was already bidirectional (to negotiate DRM).
In principle yes but why would you want return audio via HDMI to your receiver? Consider this you have one HDMI cable and you send data from your receiver to your HDTV, but where are you sending your HDMI feed from.? The answer to this is a another device which has a HDMI output to your amplifier which I would assume in turn allows switching of the HDMI feed to your TV. You could even have an Xbox360 and/or PS3 both connected to your amplifier (three way switching). Wouldn't it be much more logical to have your amplifier split off your audio out (this is done now) instead of waiting for HDM audio to be returned from your display device which as far as I know to date no amplifier on the market does.
HDCP can support DRM but as far as I am aware no one has forced that. The simplest way of stopping High Def copying is to not have recorders that can take HD input either by Component or HDMI in. Take a look at any HDD recorder and while you do have Component out and HDMI out you don't have Component in or HDMI in. Of course it is possible that some manufacturer may make one but they may find that they are hit with so much litigation that it is not worth their while. You can still copy to standard definition but copying high definition is much more harder although not impossible.
I want DVI back. I wont buy a TV with out DVI. HDMI is easy to get. DRM makes HDMI that works much more expensive. I repeat, i want DVI back.
You know you can get a DVI to HDMI cable for a few dollars. My son uses one which came with his Acer 24in 1080p (1920x1080) HDMI monitor (about AU$230 a year ago). Blu-ray movies played from his Blu-ray burner/player (about AU$240 a year ago) look really nice and he does not have DRM issues.
If you brought up HDMI cables costing too much then I would have said you are an idiot to buy from Monster. Even today they are still the same exorbitant price they were a two years ago. I purchased an two extra HDMI cable for my AV amplifier about a two years ago for about AU$19 each, now I can get them for AU$5 and DIV to HDMI costs about the same.
Note AU$1 equal approx US$0.80 (today) and was approximately that two years ago.
er, because a 42 inch computer flat panel will cost far more than a 1080p LCD of the same size??
Why? They're the exact same, except a computer flat panel has simpler electronics (doesn't need a tuner).
You are right, you would think that because a monitor does not have an HD or even an SD tuner it would be cheaper, unfortunately computer flat panels over a certain size (30in) are very much more expensive than the equivalent 1080p HDTV. This is in my opinion an annoyance but when you consider that if you decided to have a DVD/Blu-ray and HDD recorder you only need a monitor and for many years I have never used the inbuilt tuner in the HDTV or even SDTV finding a tuner pointless because of the way I set-up my entertainment system. The think is it is incredibly simple to set-up a system like this and the very idea of having the extra features of HDMI 1.4 is IMHO pointless.
All it was was an infinity symbol spinning while Duke randomly spouted phrases like "Come Get Some!" "It's time to kick ass and chew Bubblegum and I'm all out of Bubblegum" and "Who want some Wang" (The last one slipped in by accident. Really.)
The wait is over, here is someone who has played and reviewed the game . You only need the latest XPSWii7000 console with built in holo deck to play it and it's only $10 per level.
Even without a large install base, Linux continues to be a force in the market.
I don't think the Microsoft's management or even marketing people listen to Slashdot however I am quite sure that many technical people who work for Microsoft do and this would trickle down/up (depends on your perspective) to the people who make policy.
There is one OS that all people in Microsoft are acutely aware off and that is Linux and anything that Linux can do that can easily show up Microsoft's own OS then their policy makers take notice.
At least someone realized that it was an epicly bad idea before the thing was released into the real world.
Even Microsoft can't be that stupid to believe that most people would accept a three process limit. Granted that some would because they don't know any better but anyone with a even half a brain would start to realise that BSD and Linux distributions will run just about anything they want (games for windows aside) whether it be a netbook or even a full blown PC and there is no extra cost to do this.
At the moment the only counter to Linux Microsoft has is Games for Windows, Office/Exchange integration and plenty of FUD.
Ever heard of partisan warfare defeating a regular army in a regular battlefield?
No but I have heard that partisan warfare rarely if ever fights on a regular battle field but they can cause so much disruption that the enemy eventually is forced to admit defeat.
Redhat does not normally manage systems it provides support and updates to those people who manage the systems that run Redhat operating systems and their products. IBM and other companies like HP and EDS (now part of HP) provide resources to manage systems but normally don't provide Redhat updates or Redhat support.although some of their sites do actually mirror Redhat updates and other Linux/BSD distributions which can be quite useful and convenient for those people actually doing the maintenance.
Training is the single expense that will probably be higher with an open source system - but that is a ONE TIME expense, which is more than offset by the money saved (ie, not sent to Redmond)
Most clerical people use a word processor, email client and web browser. They may also use a spreadsheet or presentation software. Open Source software does this now and you don't have to use a Linux distribution to run them.
Using a Linux distribution a user will use one of three graphical session managers, these being gnome, KDE and possibly Xfce although this is debatable. There are others but most distributions have an option of installing the first two by default. Once you pick a session manager you can customise to what you want if required or are told to use. Now you can use Open Source software which will be compatible with the same Open Source software running under MS Windows.
I can just about hear the Microsoft apologists stating that the average business or even Joe public won't be able to send their data to the appropriate government department. They are spot on with this however I can just imagine the following scenario:
Business man: "What! your department can't read my Microsoft "doc" file (OO actually can do this but for the sake of comedy say it couldn't ) and I will have to send it again in ODF or even PDF, well let me tell you were to stick it."
NZ Tax Office: "No problems sir we are so sorry you don't use international standards, but since we cannot read your documents we will have to audit your records going back over seven years. Oh what's that sir your ODF document is in the mail, well I guess the audit is off. Thank you so much sir and have a nice day."
There's something, anyway, but it might not be much. It's up to the individual agencies.
You are right, however Government agencies quickly develop a sixth sense with regard to which way government policy is blowing. It is a "courageous" IT department that insists on continuing with the same spending when that department's budget is reduced and while nothing has been said about cost cutting you can be positive that the NZ Government is going to reduce all Government spending. like it or not Departments are going to have to make do with less money and when this happens you are going to see Open Source source being fully adopted by all even if the workers find the transition difficult.
When I stated "Open Source software" being adopted I mean packages like Open Office which supports ISO standards. I don't mean that Linux is going to appear on all desktops immediately although Linux on the desktop may start to take off, but in the interim most likely MS XP and possibly MS Vista (for those departments that have migrated) will be the OS that is used since I am quite sure that all Government departments still have valid licenses which Microsoft will have to provide patches for. The Government may mandate that a new laptop or desktop will have some Linux distribution but that has not been confirmed one way or the other.
Thank god the "bio-oil" craze didn't take off, where they tried to fuel cars with canola seed oil. The whole car smelled like you dumped week old McDonald fries in the trunk.
You are joking right, bio diesel is much more viable than alcohol. Actually diesel bio or fossil is cheaper and more economic to produce than petrol even with ethanol added. When you look at haulage trucks you normally see diesel and if the price of diesel goes up then haulage costs go up and so does the cost of living. Why would haulage use diesel? Well there are numerous reasons and the best are it's cheaper to run and the engine is very very reliable.
I run a diesel car and I get better fuel economy and produce less green house gases than the equivalent petrol engine. Smell? what smell, noise? what noise. Surprisingly even though the power of my engine is much lower than it's petrol equivalent it torque is so much higher that I have to be careful not to spin my wheels when I take off and this usually surprises many people when I out accelerate them by 3 to 4 car lengths in a 60 kph (35 mph) zone (no I don't exceed this although the pissed of driver does just to overtake me) without really trying. Of course a direct shift gear box does help.
Actually car companies are very different to companies who normally sell electronic equipment or white goods. Sure if you want a particular feature that is not supported well that is too bad you either don't buy it or get an adaptor if possible and I know the PS3 is very adaptable. It is not as if the PS3 hides things from you.
In the case of a car I don't see any cars actually rated for ethanol mixes although to be fair I live in Australia but I also know what is sold on the world market and I have not seen any cars sold that can take an ethanol mix. On the other hand many manufacturers of diesels do state that their car can take or not take a bio-diesel blend. I have a VW Passat diesel and it expressly states on the fuel inlet no bio-diesel which is annoying since other diesels do allow a blend or even neat bio-diesel. Still I knew this when I purchased the car.
Some years ago (late 1990's early 2000) we had an ethanol scandal where some companies were using ethanol blends without telling the buyer which resulted in some cars failing. Since no cars at the time were certified for ethanol the car manufactures voided the warranties telling the driver to take up the problem with the service station owner. The government stepped in and mandated that all fuel companies have to specify what is in their fuel. Needless to say there are many drivers who refuse to use E10 fuel. I do know of some people who have used E10 and they switched back to standard fuel on their next fill up because they did not like the performance drop (their words) and increased fuel usage which completely negated the 3 cents per litre difference.
Red Hat's legal team reports in a blog - because the Swiss agency asserted there was no sufficient alternative to Microsoft products.'"
The Swiss agency is correct, when they looked in the Microsoft web site they could not find a single software product that was certified to work on any Linux distribution although to be fair the people that did the searching would have found Microsoft products that were certified for the Mac but we all know that Mac's are more expensive, after all Microsoft told us so. Of course the agency didn't mention that the persons doing the looking owned Labrador seeing eye dogs and wore blackened glasses.:)
I just checked my Fedora 10 updates and can't find 5.2 (I already have 5.1). Still unless you are using OpenSSH in environments where there is a possibility of someone exploiting the SSH flaw you should be fairly safe especially if your machine is in your home.
# OpenSSH prior to version 5.2 is vulnerable to the protocol weakness described in CPNI-957037 "Plaintext Recovery Attack Against SSH". However, based on the limited information available it appears that this described attack is infeasible in most circumstances. For more information please refer to the cbc.adv advisory and the OpenSSH 5.2 release notes.
# Portable OpenSSH 5.1 and newer are not vulnerable to the X11UseLocalhost=no hijacking attack on HP/UX (and possibly other systems) described in the OpenSSH 5.1 release notes.
# OpenSSH 5.0 and newer are not vulnerable to the X11 hijacking attack described in CVE-2008-1483 and the OpenSSH 5.0 release notes.
Not exactly that helpfull however when I check my machine:
$ rpm -q openssh
openssh-5.1p1-3.fc10.x86_64
"California's violent video game law properly seeks to protect children from the imaginary harmful effects of excessively violent, interactive video games."
FTFY
Anyway all the people in California who want a so called inappropriate game will drive to the next state and purchase the game anyway. What are they going to do have strip searches at the border and xray all game imports from say Netflix or even monitor all downloadable game content. If they do this it is time to polish up your boots, practice the "goose step" and watch out for that man with the "Charlie Chaplin" moustache.:)
They can't confiscate them if the child (or, more likely, teenager) saves up their allowance and goes and buys it themselves?
If you live in a country where 18 is classified as adult then R18 rating games (if your country has this rating) are restricted to adults that can show proof of age if asked. Most countries that have this normally make it illegal to sell R18 games or media to minors. In Australia were I live it illegal to sell alcohol, tobacco, knives (no this is not a typo) or even any form of gambling content to a minor (I wonder if our politicians have heard of the name "two up" which you can play with two coins). What is stupid, we don't have an R18 rating for games that have adult content with R15+ being the highest rating so all games need to have an R15 rating or less. So much for protecting our minors.
My son who is now 25 imported the R18 "Grand Theft Auto 4" from the UK (he actually saved money doing this) because the Australian one had to be modified to get an R15 rating. The problem is he cannot sell or trade the game (not that he would anyway) since it has in the eyes of the law illegal content.
You're bigger than they are, and you can kick their ass anytime you feel like it! End of discussion.
That may work when they are fairly young (a good thump can save allot of pointless arguments) but it doesn't when they get older especially when you have 14 year olds bigger than you. When that happens you better start talking to them.
The most likely explanation is that this is simply being pushed for a political agenda. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows you can't actually stop kids from playing violent games without putting a tracking collar on the little fuckers.
I could not agree more but if you do have a video game machine (PC or console) at some stage you are going to get the kid playing games. It really is up to the parents to control what their child plays keeping in mind that the more control you exercise the greater the chance the child will find a way to play the game you don't want them to play. I find it is best to show an interest in what the child likes or is getting pear pressure to like and if necessary hire the game and sit with them as they play it.
Discussion without the "Oh this is terrible" can actually help make the child give up the game as not appropriate or just plain boring, although it may be possible that the game is not "the spawn of Satan" as some do gooders would have you believe. Some violent games can be quite interesting especially when you as the player has to deal with concepts of morality. A discussion between parent and child on topics like this can actually bring them much closer and can lead to a better understanding of life in general. Of course it could go terribly wrong (it would happen anyway) but then the fault for this is normally the parents.
I live in Australia and we don't have an R18+ for adult games due to one person in south Australia so any game that under normal circumstances would be R18 (example. Grand Theft Auto 4) has to be modified to an R15+ game. I have heard this man speak on the subject and he is a very good speaker as I would expect a politician to be and his reasons are very well argued until you listen allot more closely, then you realise he has what I would call a "holyier than thou" attitude by continuously brings up phrases like " We have to keep young adults from inappropriate material" and "We need to stop child pornography".
It must be noted that adult age in Australia is 18 when you can drink, vote and if you commit a serious offence you can go to prison. Under 18 you are classified as a "minor", so what the hell is a "young adult" and what has "child pornography" got to do with having a R18+ rating for adult content in games? Anyway inappropriate content in games or pictures such as child pornography is a crime anyway and I am quite sure that is the case in many countries.
To show how stupid and out of touch some of our politicians are a bill was passed recently putting a increased tax on "alco-pops" (alcoholic soft drinks) because (their words) "Young adults (WTF) and even minors (it is illegal to sell tobacco or alcohol to minors) will purchase a more drinkable form of alcohol which will lead to abuse". All this tax did was dramatically reduce the purchase of "alco-pops" but increased the amount of spirits purchased. In some ways this was a good thing for the people who stopped buying "alco-pops" since when you buy a bottle of spirits and mix it yourself you actually save a considerable amount of money. Our newspapers and media had a field day on this.
Personally I rarely find any game based on a movie or TV show is any good. Still some people do and that is ok with me after all it is their money.
Depending on the game (I like action/adventure and RPG's) what I consider value for money is when an action game that I like has over 10 plus hours game play and an RPG that I like has over 20 plus hours game play. Of course the longer the game or if the game has excellent re-playability the better the value for the money. While I can't really speak for fighters I would assume value for money is re-playability, multi player and possibly on-line downloadable content and players. As for FPS or sport games it would be rather in-appropriate on me commenting although I am quite sure those who like them could speak volumes.
another game release that people need to acquire "illegally" if they purchased it in a box
My son purchased Crysis and then found he could not install the game so he went on-line and pirated it. Normally my son is quite happy to buy software but when things like this happen you sort of wonder why bother to purchase.
In all fairness at least the company concerned with making the Terminator game has offered to replace it and I doubt if you try to pirate the faulty game it will work. Still you never know because I have had legitimately purchased games before that I had to get so called illegal cracks and patches for the game to work properly.
IMHO console games normally have little if any problems than PC games although one or two sometimes get through, however they are normally replaced when the customers complain. On the other hand time PC games normally do get fixed eventually but whether it is a Console or PC it is still annoying.
Slashdot Mirror
But are you getting 1080 or scaled-down 720?
The AC did say he has a PS3 and if your HDTV supports 1080p then playing a Blu-ray movie on a PS3 via HDMI will display at 1080p with 7.1 sound. I don't use the HDMI sound to my TV since even though it has good speakers since the sound is nothing compared to my PS3 optical out to my 7.1 amplifier.
While it may be said that many PS3 games are 720p with only a few being 1080p most sound is 7.1 and that on a 7.1 amplifier is fantastic.
HDMI is not simple.
Really, one simple plug from the sending device to the display device. I fail to see how that is not simple.
Ubiquity, Well I give it points here. It really was the first popular spec to finally include video and audio on one cable.
Agree there.
Affordable. Not a chance. Ridiculous prices for cables and accessories.
You aren't serious are you? If you tell me you only buy only from Monster then there is no hope for you. I can get HDMI to HDMI and DIV to HDMI for around AU$8.00 and that is in Australia. Get Googling!
Wireless HDMI would rock.
Your listening to too much hype. Wireless sounds good except you would have to a) Buy all new devices that communicated via wireless (expensive) or b) Buy wireless HDMI adaptors (also expensive and not available) and even then you could you would still be stuck with HDMI cable interconnects.
Oh wait. The wireless HDMI spec is already here. Can anyone say Wireless USB 3.
USB 3 has been defined I have yet to see a single USB 3 device although I don't think it will take too long. Wireless - I thought that was what Gigabit Ethernet was for.
The reason I always found when griping that my plasma couldn't send audio, or even output SPDIF, was that it was a DRM restriction imposed on the manufacturers. No clue if that was true, and what might have changed.
My two year old Sharp HDTV has an audio out however that audio is just stereo not surround sound. If I play a Blu-ray movie then I use my PS3 to send optical out to my 7.1 channel amplifier and video via my HDMI cable. I do turn off the stereo speakers on my TV though since the sound actually conflicts with my amplifier's. In fact I am not aware of any surround sound HDTV's although some do have good speakers but compared to a reasonable amplifier there is no contest.
The Audio Return thing will allow your display to send audio to your receiver, instead of using a second audio (e.g. optical or coaxial) cable. Why that wasn't there from the beginning is beyond me, since the connection was already bidirectional (to negotiate DRM).
In principle yes but why would you want return audio via HDMI to your receiver? Consider this you have one HDMI cable and you send data from your receiver to your HDTV, but where are you sending your HDMI feed from.? The answer to this is a another device which has a HDMI output to your amplifier which I would assume in turn allows switching of the HDMI feed to your TV. You could even have an Xbox360 and/or PS3 both connected to your amplifier (three way switching). Wouldn't it be much more logical to have your amplifier split off your audio out (this is done now) instead of waiting for HDM audio to be returned from your display device which as far as I know to date no amplifier on the market does.
HDCP can support DRM but as far as I am aware no one has forced that. The simplest way of stopping High Def copying is to not have recorders that can take HD input either by Component or HDMI in. Take a look at any HDD recorder and while you do have Component out and HDMI out you don't have Component in or HDMI in. Of course it is possible that some manufacturer may make one but they may find that they are hit with so much litigation that it is not worth their while. You can still copy to standard definition but copying high definition is much more harder although not impossible.
I want DVI back. I wont buy a TV with out DVI. HDMI is easy to get. DRM makes HDMI that works much more expensive. I repeat, i want DVI back.
You know you can get a DVI to HDMI cable for a few dollars. My son uses one which came with his Acer 24in 1080p (1920x1080) HDMI monitor (about AU$230 a year ago). Blu-ray movies played from his Blu-ray burner/player (about AU$240 a year ago) look really nice and he does not have DRM issues.
If you brought up HDMI cables costing too much then I would have said you are an idiot to buy from Monster. Even today they are still the same exorbitant price they were a two years ago. I purchased an two extra HDMI cable for my AV amplifier about a two years ago for about AU$19 each, now I can get them for AU$5 and DIV to HDMI costs about the same.
Note AU$1 equal approx US$0.80 (today) and was approximately that two years ago.
er, because a 42 inch computer flat panel will cost far more than a 1080p LCD of the same size?? Why? They're the exact same, except a computer flat panel has simpler electronics (doesn't need a tuner).
You are right, you would think that because a monitor does not have an HD or even an SD tuner it would be cheaper, unfortunately computer flat panels over a certain size (30in) are very much more expensive than the equivalent 1080p HDTV. This is in my opinion an annoyance but when you consider that if you decided to have a DVD/Blu-ray and HDD recorder you only need a monitor and for many years I have never used the inbuilt tuner in the HDTV or even SDTV finding a tuner pointless because of the way I set-up my entertainment system. The think is it is incredibly simple to set-up a system like this and the very idea of having the extra features of HDMI 1.4 is IMHO pointless.
Waiting for Duke Nukem Forever Forever.
All it was was an infinity symbol spinning while Duke randomly spouted phrases like "Come Get Some!" "It's time to kick ass and chew Bubblegum and I'm all out of Bubblegum" and "Who want some Wang" (The last one slipped in by accident. Really.)
The wait is over, here is someone who has played and reviewed the game . You only need the latest XPSWii7000 console with built in holo deck to play it and it's only $10 per level.
Even without a large install base, Linux continues to be a force in the market.
I don't think the Microsoft's management or even marketing people listen to Slashdot however I am quite sure that many technical people who work for Microsoft do and this would trickle down/up (depends on your perspective) to the people who make policy.
There is one OS that all people in Microsoft are acutely aware off and that is Linux and anything that Linux can do that can easily show up Microsoft's own OS then their policy makers take notice.
At least someone realized that it was an epicly bad idea before the thing was released into the real world.
Even Microsoft can't be that stupid to believe that most people would accept a three process limit. Granted that some would because they don't know any better but anyone with a even half a brain would start to realise that BSD and Linux distributions will run just about anything they want (games for windows aside) whether it be a netbook or even a full blown PC and there is no extra cost to do this.
At the moment the only counter to Linux Microsoft has is Games for Windows, Office/Exchange integration and plenty of FUD.
Ever heard of partisan warfare defeating a regular army in a regular battlefield?
No but I have heard that partisan warfare rarely if ever fights on a regular battle field but they can cause so much disruption that the enemy eventually is forced to admit defeat.
Redhat does not normally manage systems it provides support and updates to those people who manage the systems that run Redhat operating systems and their products. IBM and other companies like HP and EDS (now part of HP) provide resources to manage systems but normally don't provide Redhat updates or Redhat support.although some of their sites do actually mirror Redhat updates and other Linux/BSD distributions which can be quite useful and convenient for those people actually doing the maintenance.
Training is the single expense that will probably be higher with an open source system - but that is a ONE TIME expense, which is more than offset by the money saved (ie, not sent to Redmond)
Most clerical people use a word processor, email client and web browser. They may also use a spreadsheet or presentation software. Open Source software does this now and you don't have to use a Linux distribution to run them.
Using a Linux distribution a user will use one of three graphical session managers, these being gnome, KDE and possibly Xfce although this is debatable. There are others but most distributions have an option of installing the first two by default. Once you pick a session manager you can customise to what you want if required or are told to use. Now you can use Open Source software which will be compatible with the same Open Source software running under MS Windows.
I can just about hear the Microsoft apologists stating that the average business or even Joe public won't be able to send their data to the appropriate government department. They are spot on with this however I can just imagine the following scenario:
Business man: "What! your department can't read my Microsoft "doc" file (OO actually can do this but for the sake of comedy say it couldn't ) and I will have to send it again in ODF or even PDF, well let me tell you were to stick it."
NZ Tax Office: "No problems sir we are so sorry you don't use international standards, but since we cannot read your documents we will have to audit your records going back over seven years. Oh what's that sir your ODF document is in the mail, well I guess the audit is off. Thank you so much sir and have a nice day."
There's something, anyway, but it might not be much. It's up to the individual agencies.
You are right, however Government agencies quickly develop a sixth sense with regard to which way government policy is blowing. It is a "courageous" IT department that insists on continuing with the same spending when that department's budget is reduced and while nothing has been said about cost cutting you can be positive that the NZ Government is going to reduce all Government spending. like it or not Departments are going to have to make do with less money and when this happens you are going to see Open Source source being fully adopted by all even if the workers find the transition difficult.
When I stated "Open Source software" being adopted I mean packages like Open Office which supports ISO standards. I don't mean that Linux is going to appear on all desktops immediately although Linux on the desktop may start to take off, but in the interim most likely MS XP and possibly MS Vista (for those departments that have migrated) will be the OS that is used since I am quite sure that all Government departments still have valid licenses which Microsoft will have to provide patches for. The Government may mandate that a new laptop or desktop will have some Linux distribution but that has not been confirmed one way or the other.
Thank god the "bio-oil" craze didn't take off, where they tried to fuel cars with canola seed oil. The whole car smelled like you dumped week old McDonald fries in the trunk.
You are joking right, bio diesel is much more viable than alcohol. Actually diesel bio or fossil is cheaper and more economic to produce than petrol even with ethanol added. When you look at haulage trucks you normally see diesel and if the price of diesel goes up then haulage costs go up and so does the cost of living. Why would haulage use diesel? Well there are numerous reasons and the best are it's cheaper to run and the engine is very very reliable.
I run a diesel car and I get better fuel economy and produce less green house gases than the equivalent petrol engine. Smell? what smell, noise? what noise. Surprisingly even though the power of my engine is much lower than it's petrol equivalent it torque is so much higher that I have to be careful not to spin my wheels when I take off and this usually surprises many people when I out accelerate them by 3 to 4 car lengths in a 60 kph (35 mph) zone (no I don't exceed this although the pissed of driver does just to overtake me) without really trying. Of course a direct shift gear box does help.
Actually car companies are very different to companies who normally sell electronic equipment or white goods. Sure if you want a particular feature that is not supported well that is too bad you either don't buy it or get an adaptor if possible and I know the PS3 is very adaptable. It is not as if the PS3 hides things from you.
In the case of a car I don't see any cars actually rated for ethanol mixes although to be fair I live in Australia but I also know what is sold on the world market and I have not seen any cars sold that can take an ethanol mix. On the other hand many manufacturers of diesels do state that their car can take or not take a bio-diesel blend. I have a VW Passat diesel and it expressly states on the fuel inlet no bio-diesel which is annoying since other diesels do allow a blend or even neat bio-diesel. Still I knew this when I purchased the car.
Some years ago (late 1990's early 2000) we had an ethanol scandal where some companies were using ethanol blends without telling the buyer which resulted in some cars failing. Since no cars at the time were certified for ethanol the car manufactures voided the warranties telling the driver to take up the problem with the service station owner. The government stepped in and mandated that all fuel companies have to specify what is in their fuel. Needless to say there are many drivers who refuse to use E10 fuel. I do know of some people who have used E10 and they switched back to standard fuel on their next fill up because they did not like the performance drop (their words) and increased fuel usage which completely negated the 3 cents per litre difference.
Red Hat's legal team reports in a blog - because the Swiss agency asserted there was no sufficient alternative to Microsoft products.'"
The Swiss agency is correct, when they looked in the Microsoft web site they could not find a single software product that was certified to work on any Linux distribution although to be fair the people that did the searching would have found Microsoft products that were certified for the Mac but we all know that Mac's are more expensive, after all Microsoft told us so. Of course the agency didn't mention that the persons doing the looking owned Labrador seeing eye dogs and wore blackened glasses. :)
I just checked my Fedora 10 updates and can't find 5.2 (I already have 5.1). Still unless you are using OpenSSH in environments where there is a possibility of someone exploiting the SSH flaw you should be fairly safe especially if your machine is in your home.
I think it is all below 5.2 according to http://openssh.com/security.html.
From the url:
# OpenSSH prior to version 5.2 is vulnerable to the protocol weakness described in CPNI-957037 "Plaintext Recovery Attack Against SSH". However, based on the limited information available it appears that this described attack is infeasible in most circumstances. For more information please refer to the cbc.adv advisory and the OpenSSH 5.2 release notes.
# Portable OpenSSH 5.1 and newer are not vulnerable to the X11UseLocalhost=no hijacking attack on HP/UX (and possibly other systems) described in the OpenSSH 5.1 release notes.
# OpenSSH 5.0 and newer are not vulnerable to the X11 hijacking attack described in CVE-2008-1483 and the OpenSSH 5.0 release notes.
Not exactly that helpfull however when I check my machine:
$ rpm -q openssh
openssh-5.1p1-3.fc10.x86_64
So I should be ok - err maybe.
"California's violent video game law properly seeks to protect children from the imaginary harmful effects of excessively violent, interactive video games."
FTFY
Anyway all the people in California who want a so called inappropriate game will drive to the next state and purchase the game anyway. What are they going to do have strip searches at the border and xray all game imports from say Netflix or even monitor all downloadable game content. If they do this it is time to polish up your boots, practice the "goose step" and watch out for that man with the "Charlie Chaplin" moustache. :)
They can't confiscate them if the child (or, more likely, teenager) saves up their allowance and goes and buys it themselves?
If you live in a country where 18 is classified as adult then R18 rating games (if your country has this rating) are restricted to adults that can show proof of age if asked. Most countries that have this normally make it illegal to sell R18 games or media to minors. In Australia were I live it illegal to sell alcohol, tobacco, knives (no this is not a typo) or even any form of gambling content to a minor (I wonder if our politicians have heard of the name "two up" which you can play with two coins). What is stupid, we don't have an R18 rating for games that have adult content with R15+ being the highest rating so all games need to have an R15 rating or less. So much for protecting our minors.
My son who is now 25 imported the R18 "Grand Theft Auto 4" from the UK (he actually saved money doing this) because the Australian one had to be modified to get an R15 rating. The problem is he cannot sell or trade the game (not that he would anyway) since it has in the eyes of the law illegal content.
You're bigger than they are, and you can kick their ass anytime you feel like it! End of discussion.
That may work when they are fairly young (a good thump can save allot of pointless arguments) but it doesn't when they get older especially when you have 14 year olds bigger than you. When that happens you better start talking to them.
The most likely explanation is that this is simply being pushed for a political agenda. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows you can't actually stop kids from playing violent games without putting a tracking collar on the little fuckers.
I could not agree more but if you do have a video game machine (PC or console) at some stage you are going to get the kid playing games. It really is up to the parents to control what their child plays keeping in mind that the more control you exercise the greater the chance the child will find a way to play the game you don't want them to play. I find it is best to show an interest in what the child likes or is getting pear pressure to like and if necessary hire the game and sit with them as they play it.
Discussion without the "Oh this is terrible" can actually help make the child give up the game as not appropriate or just plain boring, although it may be possible that the game is not "the spawn of Satan" as some do gooders would have you believe. Some violent games can be quite interesting especially when you as the player has to deal with concepts of morality. A discussion between parent and child on topics like this can actually bring them much closer and can lead to a better understanding of life in general. Of course it could go terribly wrong (it would happen anyway) but then the fault for this is normally the parents.
I live in Australia and we don't have an R18+ for adult games due to one person in south Australia so any game that under normal circumstances would be R18 (example. Grand Theft Auto 4) has to be modified to an R15+ game. I have heard this man speak on the subject and he is a very good speaker as I would expect a politician to be and his reasons are very well argued until you listen allot more closely, then you realise he has what I would call a "holyier than thou" attitude by continuously brings up phrases like " We have to keep young adults from inappropriate material" and "We need to stop child pornography".
It must be noted that adult age in Australia is 18 when you can drink, vote and if you commit a serious offence you can go to prison. Under 18 you are classified as a "minor", so what the hell is a "young adult" and what has "child pornography" got to do with having a R18+ rating for adult content in games? Anyway inappropriate content in games or pictures such as child pornography is a crime anyway and I am quite sure that is the case in many countries.
To show how stupid and out of touch some of our politicians are a bill was passed recently putting a increased tax on "alco-pops" (alcoholic soft drinks) because (their words) "Young adults (WTF) and even minors (it is illegal to sell tobacco or alcohol to minors) will purchase a more drinkable form of alcohol which will lead to abuse". All this tax did was dramatically reduce the purchase of "alco-pops" but increased the amount of spirits purchased. In some ways this was a good thing for the people who stopped buying "alco-pops" since when you buy a bottle of spirits and mix it yourself you actually save a considerable amount of money. Our newspapers and media had a field day on this.
Personally I rarely find any game based on a movie or TV show is any good. Still some people do and that is ok with me after all it is their money.
Depending on the game (I like action/adventure and RPG's) what I consider value for money is when an action game that I like has over 10 plus hours game play and an RPG that I like has over 20 plus hours game play. Of course the longer the game or if the game has excellent re-playability the better the value for the money. While I can't really speak for fighters I would assume value for money is re-playability, multi player and possibly on-line downloadable content and players. As for FPS or sport games it would be rather in-appropriate on me commenting although I am quite sure those who like them could speak volumes.
another game release that people need to acquire "illegally" if they purchased it in a box
My son purchased Crysis and then found he could not install the game so he went on-line and pirated it. Normally my son is quite happy to buy software but when things like this happen you sort of wonder why bother to purchase.
In all fairness at least the company concerned with making the Terminator game has offered to replace it and I doubt if you try to pirate the faulty game it will work. Still you never know because I have had legitimately purchased games before that I had to get so called illegal cracks and patches for the game to work properly.
IMHO console games normally have little if any problems than PC games although one or two sometimes get through, however they are normally replaced when the customers complain. On the other hand time PC games normally do get fixed eventually but whether it is a Console or PC it is still annoying.