I think that's a difficult claim to make against tobacco. Clearly it's not "defective", and hard to argue that it's fraudulently marketed when it has a warning on the package from the Surgeon General stating that it's probably going to kill you.
The only reason I'm so optimistic is that if memory serves, it took a good six months or so to get unsigned code to run on an XBox. If MS decides to take security seriously, cracking their DRM might not be quite as trivial as you imply.
Then again, I could be wrong:)
As someone who has never used Linux but has been intrigued (and intimidated) by the prospect, this book sounds like it would be right up my alley. Not mentioned in the review is whether the book discusses how to set up a dual-boot system, as I (and I suspect most Linux neophytes) don't want to forgo Windows straight away.
My cousin had one. It was ok, more of a novelty than anything. The game I remember best was something akin to the Atari 2600's Combat, with two people in tanks trying to shoot each other.
One could argue that it can be inferred from the 9th Amendment. However, one not even need stretch the point that far. The Supreme Court found an implicit Constitutional 'right to privacy' during Roe v. Wade.
The decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun and based on the residual right of privacy, struck down dozens of state antiabortion statutes.
Given that I doubt it was actually 1000 degrees there, I have to wonder what other parts of your post may have been a slight distortion of the truth. Why does it always have to be wild exaggeration on both sides? Whatever happened to not being a pro or anti fanboy on every subject; or rather, despite holding an opinion, being able to calmly and logically discuss the facts?
Ah, the old problem of sarcasm not coming across on the intarwebs.;) Helped considerably by the fact that your comment is held in all earnestness by a significant percent of people... hence the problem, which the RIAA solves by creating another problem.
With all the extra time, you might as well send the work to a country that is a bit closer to the US/Western EU and get the job done right the first time. While worker-friendly countries also make mistakes; there is a better chance of getting it right with well-paid, US/Western EU workers than some country that treats its own Rust Belt worse than anything you would see done to the Appalachians or steel workers.
I'm a bit befuddled by your reply, considering your sig. Without knowing the marginal cost of a move to a country with higher skilled workers would be, it is impossible to make any kind of judgement. Perhaps it is still significantly cheaper to stay in China, manufacturing problems notwithstanding. In fact, I'd wager that it is, otherwise they would already have beat a hasty retreat.
The dirty little secret of the electronics industry is that the vast majority of "replacements" that are sent out were themselves previously RMA'd and then tested and found not to have anything wrong with them -- at least, in theory. In reality, hardware can have problems that only crop up under certain circumstances; perhaps that video card one gets as a replacement was previously returned because it locked up after an hour of intense gameplay, or only during certain types of graphical rendering.
Of further concern are hard drives. That drive you sent in for an RMA might get shipped out to someone else as a replacement. One hopes that any data left on the drive was completely obliterated, but all too often it's just a quick fdisk and then it gets shipped back out. Be sure to eliminate all traces of any sensitive data on hard drives if at all possible before RMA'ing them.
The best way to ensure you don't get someone else's return as your replacement product is to ask to speak with a manager and explain your concerns. Your first shipment, in my experience, will still probably be a previously RMA'd item, but if that one fails then supervisors tend to be rather sympathetic and I've generally gotten a pristine, factory-sealed replacement after that.
You've spoken to *literally* millions? Let's say, for the sake of argument, you meant 1 million. And each conversation took 10 seconds. 10 million seconds = 166667 minutes = 2778 hours = 115 days. Assuming you spend 12 hours per day sleeping, eating, bathing and whatnot, that means you've been talking to gamers about the PS3 and Nintendo pricing schemes for the last 230 days, which seems to be longer than the prices have been known. Impressive feat!
Cell phone cameras will never be an acceptable substitute for the hobbyist or pro-sumer. Megapixels are only a small part of what makes a quality photograph. Even if a cell phone were to incorporate manual settings for shutter speed, aperture and focus, there will always be one area in which they can not match a decent camera, and that is the optics. There's just not enough room on a cell phone body to incorporate a quality lens.
Well, there's certainly *something* going on. I clearly remember in the late 90s, going into CompUSA or BestBuy and having a huge section devoted to PC games. Both of these retailers have shrunk the PC section down year-by-year, until in CompUSA it's down to the front and back of 2 very short aisles, or about 1/3 of what they (nominally a computer store) devote to console games. The situation is even worse at retailers like Wal-Mart. The PC gaming market is absolutely smaller than it was 5 years ago.
OTOH, consoles have and will continue to become more computer-like. I'm reasonably confident that the next generation will come standard with keyboard/mouse, making it a de facto gaming computer, thus bringing the argument full circule. The mod scene might suffer, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Something about this idea seems vaguely familiar...
I think that's a difficult claim to make against tobacco. Clearly it's not "defective", and hard to argue that it's fraudulently marketed when it has a warning on the package from the Surgeon General stating that it's probably going to kill you.
This argument hasn't worked so well for Big Tobacco, Phen-Fen, Vioxx, and thalidomide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point
Not saying this necessarily applies; just pointing out that just because a process may be gradual does not mean that its consequences can't be sudden.
The only reason I'm so optimistic is that if memory serves, it took a good six months or so to get unsigned code to run on an XBox. If MS decides to take security seriously, cracking their DRM might not be quite as trivial as you imply. Then again, I could be wrong :)
I'm an optimist by nature, so I'll say it'll take hackers 3 months to crack the kernel DRM.
As someone who has never used Linux but has been intrigued (and intimidated) by the prospect, this book sounds like it would be right up my alley. Not mentioned in the review is whether the book discusses how to set up a dual-boot system, as I (and I suspect most Linux neophytes) don't want to forgo Windows straight away.
My cousin had one. It was ok, more of a novelty than anything. The game I remember best was something akin to the Atari 2600's Combat, with two people in tanks trying to shoot each other.
One could argue that it can be inferred from the 9th Amendment. However, one not even need stretch the point that far. The Supreme Court found an implicit Constitutional 'right to privacy' during Roe v. Wade.
The decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun and based on the residual right of privacy, struck down dozens of state antiabortion statutes.
The ja.zz system over at Shacknews is nice and seems exactly what you're looking for -- a system that supports multiple fast-moving topics.
There's also a more extensible clone of it used over at Stoofoo (may be NWS).
Given that I doubt it was actually 1000 degrees there, I have to wonder what other parts of your post may have been a slight distortion of the truth. Why does it always have to be wild exaggeration on both sides? Whatever happened to not being a pro or anti fanboy on every subject; or rather, despite holding an opinion, being able to calmly and logically discuss the facts?
Ah, the old problem of sarcasm not coming across on the intarwebs. ;) Helped considerably by the fact that your comment is held in all earnestness by a significant percent of people ... hence the problem, which the RIAA solves by creating another problem.
Your comment is the exact reason DRM exists.
With all the extra time, you might as well send the work to a country that is a bit closer to the US/Western EU and get the job done right the first time. While worker-friendly countries also make mistakes; there is a better chance of getting it right with well-paid, US/Western EU workers than some country that treats its own Rust Belt worse than anything you would see done to the Appalachians or steel workers.
I'm a bit befuddled by your reply, considering your sig. Without knowing the marginal cost of a move to a country with higher skilled workers would be, it is impossible to make any kind of judgement. Perhaps it is still significantly cheaper to stay in China, manufacturing problems notwithstanding. In fact, I'd wager that it is, otherwise they would already have beat a hasty retreat.
The dirty little secret of the electronics industry is that the vast majority of "replacements" that are sent out were themselves previously RMA'd and then tested and found not to have anything wrong with them -- at least, in theory. In reality, hardware can have problems that only crop up under certain circumstances; perhaps that video card one gets as a replacement was previously returned because it locked up after an hour of intense gameplay, or only during certain types of graphical rendering.
Of further concern are hard drives. That drive you sent in for an RMA might get shipped out to someone else as a replacement. One hopes that any data left on the drive was completely obliterated, but all too often it's just a quick fdisk and then it gets shipped back out. Be sure to eliminate all traces of any sensitive data on hard drives if at all possible before RMA'ing them.
The best way to ensure you don't get someone else's return as your replacement product is to ask to speak with a manager and explain your concerns. Your first shipment, in my experience, will still probably be a previously RMA'd item, but if that one fails then supervisors tend to be rather sympathetic and I've generally gotten a pristine, factory-sealed replacement after that.
Unfortunate analogy, considering that Bohr's atom is not what an atom really looks like.
Good list. I'd add The Seven Cities of Gold, GI Joe (awesome multiplayer game), and Realms of Impossibility.
If they can get the rights to emulate Atari 2600 games and enable online multiplayer for Warlords, the Wii would easily be my favoritest console ever.
Wow, your company must be making even more money than google if they're that inefficiently run. I'd like to invest -- what's the name of your company?
You've spoken to *literally* millions? Let's say, for the sake of argument, you meant 1 million. And each conversation took 10 seconds. 10 million seconds = 166667 minutes = 2778 hours = 115 days. Assuming you spend 12 hours per day sleeping, eating, bathing and whatnot, that means you've been talking to gamers about the PS3 and Nintendo pricing schemes for the last 230 days, which seems to be longer than the prices have been known. Impressive feat!
Cell phone cameras will never be an acceptable substitute for the hobbyist or pro-sumer. Megapixels are only a small part of what makes a quality photograph. Even if a cell phone were to incorporate manual settings for shutter speed, aperture and focus, there will always be one area in which they can not match a decent camera, and that is the optics. There's just not enough room on a cell phone body to incorporate a quality lens.
You left off the greatest outrage-inducing one of all:
Military uses them first on animals.
Well, there's certainly *something* going on. I clearly remember in the late 90s, going into CompUSA or BestBuy and having a huge section devoted to PC games. Both of these retailers have shrunk the PC section down year-by-year, until in CompUSA it's down to the front and back of 2 very short aisles, or about 1/3 of what they (nominally a computer store) devote to console games. The situation is even worse at retailers like Wal-Mart. The PC gaming market is absolutely smaller than it was 5 years ago. OTOH, consoles have and will continue to become more computer-like. I'm reasonably confident that the next generation will come standard with keyboard/mouse, making it a de facto gaming computer, thus bringing the argument full circule. The mod scene might suffer, though.
So, Solitaire and Minesweeper then?
Hehehe. Next time I get mod points, coming back to mod you up :)